Fordham University - Maroon Yearbook (New York, NY)

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Unemployment: A Peril of the Masses Commencement Speech T has been said, and we are prone to gloat upon the phrase, that we are living in an age of progress. But have we asked ourselves what this word “progress” means? Does it mean advance in civilization? If it does, somehow or other I can not seem to forget that over there across the Atlantic, eleven of the greatest nations of the world are locked in a death-struggle. Or does it mean improvement in social conditions? Do you know that the very problem we are discussing this evening, that cancer which is eating its way right into the heart of our social system and threatens its very existence, was more successfully dealt with in the far-away Middle Ages which we modems are apt to deride, than at any other time before or since? Among the ancients, constant warfare used up all the men; there were no unemployed. Rome fed them, and perished amid the ruins of her paternalism. But in the centuries that followed the long arm of the Church, through the agency, of the guilds and monasteries, kept the poor from want, and it was not until the searing brightness of the Renaissance and the all-devouring flame of the Reformation swept away the so-called darkness of Medievalism, that unemployment once more became a problem—a problem which no state has solved. For the sake of convenience, we may divide the vast army of our unemployed into three general classes: those who are physically unable to work; those who arc unwilling to work; and those who are unable to get work. The first class, those who are physically unable to work, give us but little trouble', for the great majority of the individuals composing it are cared for at home, the other members of the family contributing to their support; and it is only when the family finds itself unequal to the burden thus imposed upon it that any obligation devolves upon the state. The second class presents a real problem: what are we going to do with all those unfortunates the only reason for whose unemployment is that they will not work ? Obviously the state cannot be

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502 The Fordham Monthly the American people were the first to separate political government from ecclesiasticism. In the words of a great American statesman, Thomas F. Bayard: “Religious liberty is the chief corner-stone of the American system of government, and provisions for its security are imbedded in the written charter and interwoven in the moral fabric of our laws. Anything that tends to invade a right so essential and sacred must be carefully guarded against, and I am satisfied that my countrymen, ever mindful of the sufferings and sacrifices necessary to obtain it, will never consent to its impairment for any reason or under any pretext whatever 7 The experience of our nation shows that neither Church or State are benefitted by being united. They both flourish best in an atmosphere of absolute freedom. The bigot is still amongst us, ready to fan the flame of prejudice. But his task becomes increasingly difficult with the passing years. For toleration is always advancing. Lecky has expressed it thus: “In one age the persecutor burnt the heretic; in another he crushed him with penal laws; in a third he withheld from him places of emolument; in a fourth he subjected him to the excommunication of society. Each stage of advancing toleration makes a stage in the decline of the spirit of dogmatism and of the increase of the spirit of truth.77 It is our duty to remain true to the ideal that actuated the founders of the Republic,—the ideal of religious freedom. The right to choose his religion is sacred to everyone He that would deny that right is an enemy to true religion and to true democracy. John Francis Curran, 715.

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504 The Fordham Monthly expected to support them, for that would be taxing industry to put a premium on idleness. It is equally obvious that something must be done, for it is the voluntary vagrant who swells the ranks of the criminal class and populates our jails and prisons. What then are we to do? The only practical remedy is to go behind the actual condition and remove the causes that produce it What are the causes? First in our catalogue, we have heredity. While it must ever remain a fundamental principle in our study that neither heredity nor any other circumstance can ever become a determining cause in the formation of a man's character, yet it must be admitted that mentally and morally, as well as physically, the child is affected by the disposition of the parents. Probably, in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred, not heredity strictly so-called but early association and training, or rather lack of training, is what produces the effect. The child of shiftless, work-avoiding parents is seldom found to possess an overpowering desire for hard manual labor. In this connection, there are two other causes that we might mention: one, the fact that the parents of the poorer class, sometimes through necessity, often through negligence, allow too great a degree of liberty to their young; the other, that owing in some cases to the inability of the older members of the family to earn a living wage, and in others to the greed of father or older brothers, small children are forced to work inhuman hours at tasks Nfar beyond their strength. Too much freedom means opportunity to make bad companions and worse habits, to learn the ways of the yegg-man and the drug fiend, and all too often results in the luckless youth's becoming one of those pests of our cities, the man with no visible means of support. On the other hand, too much work at an early age means the blunting of all the higher instincts in a man, the paralysis of ambition, and usually ends in a sort of dull, unreasoning opposition to all work, so strong as to be almost physically incapacitating. Another element that enters into the formation of this class is the fact -that a not inconsiderable number of unskilled laborers find it infinitely more easy to drift along with the current, eating when they can beg a meal, sleeping when they can find a place to sleep, than to work twelve or fourteen or sixteen hours a day and receive in return but the merest of pittances. These are the most important of the causes with which we have to deal. How are we going to do it? First of all, we must inspire in the parent—as far as that is possible—a sense of responsibility