56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



MODEEN MEDIEVALISM 



By Dr. FRANK T. CARLTON 



ALBION COLLEGE 



HISTOEY moves in a spiral, not in a circle. History does not 

 accommodatingly repeat itself; but it does pass through cycles 

 in which new eras contain social elements and forces which approxi- 

 mate those of periods belonging to earlier cycles. The new is merely 

 the old garbed in more modern attire. The United States is to-day 

 entering upon an epoch in its history which will be marked, in the 

 economic field, by many resemblances to the medieval period. The 

 fundamental economic problems of medievalism clustered around just 

 and fair prices and wages. At present the important and difficult eco- 

 nomic problems relate to " reasonable rates," " fair prices " and " living 

 wages." In the twentieth century when these old medieval questions 

 clothed in a strange and youthful garb, appear in an industrial and 

 nominally democratic country and age, the crux of the difficulty is 

 found in the absence of a standard by means of which to measure fair 

 prices, reasonable rates and living wages. The old and rigid status of 

 the feudal regime has disappeared in a large measure under the pres- 

 sure of the doctrines of free competition and of non-interference. 

 Mobility, rather than fixity, is characteristic of to-day. 



The nineteenth century was a unique and transitional era ; it consti- 

 tuted the dark ages of economic history. During that eventful period, 

 it was assumed that prices, rates and wages were fixed by the ceaseless 

 action of free and untrameled competition. But, to-day, the existence 

 of numerous rate and arbitration commissions is a concrete and unmis- 

 takable warning that free competition does not act at the present 

 moment as our theorists of the past have dogmatically argued that it 

 did. Day by day the competitive field is being gradually narrowed. 

 A strip is securely fenced in on this side; and another portion en- 

 croached upon at an entirely different point. At the present moment 

 great and important fields of industrial activity are clearly seen to be 

 outside the competitive sphere. It must, however, be recognized that 

 competition in the halcyon days of the laissez faire doctrine was not 

 really free. It was modified and regulated by such legal conventions 

 as private property, inheritance, laws in regard to contract, custom 

 and a variety of other obstructions. The game of economic competi- 

 tion among human beings has always been played according to certain 

 rules. But these rules change. Custom is broken down, on one hand, 

 while monopoly encroaches upon the competitive field, on the other side. 



The thinking public correctly recognizes that railway and street 

 railway fares, gas, electric light, water, telephone and telegraph rates 

 are not fixed by a competitive process. Insistent demand is made for 

 fair and reasonable rates in this class of semi-public service. The labor 



