56 LHE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
MODERN MEDIEVALISM 
By Dr. FRANK T, CARLTON 
ALBION COLLEGH 
ISTORY 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 régime 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 
