Outlook for Social Organization 129 



The same principle that we condemn elsewhere 

 as " absentee landlordism " rules rampant under 

 our unrestrained capitalism throughout the 

 whole field of our vast industrial properties. 

 The plain fact is that the properties of society 

 are desperately battled for as " investments " by 

 men whose one aim is to make them furnish 

 the greatest possible revenue, and in the result- 

 ing scramble social values and public welfare 

 are forgotten. Though it is true that we can- 

 not change our institutions quickly, yet there 

 can be no moral health while conscience slum- 

 beringly concurs in the standards of the mar- 

 ket and is deceived by Mammon wearing the 

 livery of Christ. The Great War is in a large 

 measure the result of the accumulated greed 

 of the Christian nations clashing in their pro- 

 fessed desire to "serve" the undeveloped 

 peoples by trade and investment. We cherish 

 the delusion that we in America are different 

 in organization and motive, though as a matter 

 of fact we stand as the most conspicuous 

 example of laissez-faire commercialism. The 

 reckoning for our worship of money lies ahead, 

 in the form of urgent domestic and foreign 

 problems. Only in sober realization of facts, 

 and in the willingness to move in the direc- 



