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MOOSEHEART MAGAZINE
Conversations With Six Hundred Thousand
Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction—Which Will You Have?
appear to be losing ground. This result is not due so much, to the, government prosecutions and severe sentences against both classes of disturbers, as to the highly unfavorable impression made on working men by the tendency of such ones to grasp by violence, revolution and civil war, the
■ ■	doubtful Bolshevist privileges of
absolute government and massacre. Nothing can be clearer than that ifthe real working men of the country act together, they can secure the better conditions of labor and of a share in the government to which they are entitled, by peaceful yet effective means.
Over seas there has been plenty of real destruction. While the United States, in' spite of the stress of war, remains a well ordered, federal republic, the empires; of Europe and Asia are tumbling. Plenty of destruction in Russia and Germany and Austria and Turkey—those Humpty-Dumptys can never be set up again.
Conservatism even in England is breaking away in the face of the assertion by the working man c>f the right to take part, not only in the government but in the management of industries. Europe has suffered a frightful destruction of human life.and also a colossal wastage of the accumulated; wealth of the continent; a bringing down; of the productive power of man. Germany alone is six million short of the births that ought to have come during the four years of war.
Reconstruction
Europe is getting ready for a better Europe, it is parting with governments and grandees and industrial methods which were out grown long before the war came. Nobody can take away the land under the feet of the people nor the creative power of the' population that survives the war. The road before the European people is long and steep. They need the sympathy of America; they, will be glad of American capital if they can get it; they will take a lesson from our book of civil government. The United States is helping to reconstruct the rest of the world by standing out in the Congress at Paris for solid principles of self government, nationality and peace which, if they can be carried out, will in the end make Europe grateful׳׳for the war which, burned1 up the rubbish and left the people free to care for themselves.
We Americans however are most interested in our own reconstruction. Se we ought to be, for unless we take good care of ourselves we cannot expect other nations to take. better care of us. These are tremendous times and require new wisdom, new energy and a new spirit of accord. Some enthusiastic people see the salvation of the world in internationalism, that is, a frame of mind in which Americans shall be as much interested in the welfare, progress and happiness of a Swiss, a Jugo-Slav or a Syrian as in that of a brother American. That is a difficult doctrine and leads to troubles about “nationalities” and “self determinations” which cannot be treated in a paragraph.
The underlying idea however, will work, does work, and must work, in what we might call “intranationalism”. The principal that will go farthest in a genuine reconstruction of the United States is to recognize all American citizens as fellow workers and friends. If employes and employed can get away from the idea that the advantage of the one side means a corresponding disadvantage for the other side. If they can look upon themselves as human beings, studying from different^ points of view exactly the'same problem, there is a prospect of settling the prodigious question of capital and labor so that it will stay put. So with the shipper and the railroad, with the farmer and the consumer; with the capitalist and the tax-gatherer. They are fellow passengers in the good ship United States, and they must come to an understanding so that neither party shall undertake to rock the boat.
In this great work a special duty rests upon the fraternal orders who combine within their memberships men of all classes and many pursuits. The splendid system of Chambers of Commerce which now extends through the country makes it possible to secure good-natured discussions of many great questions. The fraternities have the advantage of personal touch and the sense of Brotherhood. It is their job to set human nature at work among their own powerful groups which express so much: of the good temper and the manly directness of American life. None has so high an opportunity as the Loyal Order of Moose, with its wide geographical distribution, its immense membership and its pledges of Purity in Private character, of Aid to the weak and of Progress in public duty.
By PROFESSOR ALBERT BUSHNELL HART,
Harvard University-Mooseheart Governor
This is the second of a series of

Conversations” by Dr. Hart, upon of National and International Importance. The third vvill in an early issue,	. ׳.	,.
is on the George Washington! The business and labor systems of the country have changed more in the last fifty-seven months than in the last fifty-seven years. The experienced railroad shipper treasures his freight bills of five years ago as antique curiosities which can never be replaced. We do not know our good old national government when we meet it on the street, any more than we would recognize the hotel or theatre check or laundry bill of 1914, if by some happy chance it should be presented to us now.
Whatever the destruction of prices and privileges, there is no sign of wreck in our American government, whether national, state or city. We all take the cheerful view that the country has had the tremendous excitement of a war and is entirely willing to pay the piper. We get better acquainted with our government every time a tax collector or assessor appears; and the nation shows no terror at the vast powers of the Federal government. As for taxes our point of view is that of the small boy who was brought face to face at Sunday School with the terrible tale of the sufferings of the wicked in the future life. “Oh! I couldn’t stand that!” said the youngster, “But you would have to stand it!” replied the Sunday School teacher, “Oh well, if I could stand it, I shouldn’t mind!” As for their .government, the American people have about as much fear of usurpation and autocracy as a gang of base ball fans have for. the umpire; after all, they pay for the performance, and they allow that they will have their way in the end.
In business there is a destruction the extent of which we do not yet thoroughly understand. The government management of enormous lines of business in few hands seems to have let loose the spirit of combination which was checked by the anti-trust acts from 1890 to 1913. Small manufacturers, small dealers, small store keepers, find it harder to meet the competition from the big corporations, department stores and mail order houses. On the other hand, organized labor is in the strongest position that it has ever known; a position partly due to the unstinting loyalty and sacrifice of working men in the Great War, which gave an inalienable right to be considered ׳and trusted. In addition, the labor unions in the great zones of production and transportation which were taken over or controlled by the government during the war, such as coal mining, railroading,shipping,telegraphs and telephones have gone far to place beyond dispute the right of government employees to combine and, under some circumstances, to strike.
The other extremity, the counter organizations, direct action men, have been compelled to come out in the open with their pernicious doctrines; and
COME TO SEE AND YOU WILL REMAIN TO PRAY; COME TO WORK AND YOU WILL GO BACK TO PERFORM; COME AS A SEEKER AFTER KNOWLEDGE AND YOU WILL GO BACK TO IMPART IT; COME AS A DEVOTED MEMBER AND YOU WILL GO FORTH A CRUSADER.
From Convention Fo reword by Supreme Dictator Ciras. A. A. McGee.
matters
appear
THEN the Civil War ended in 1865, after thé fighting was all over and the country was looking forward to a long period of peace, it was discovered that the hardest task still remained. Fighting the war, maintaining a. federal government, putting an end to the long quarrel over slavery and seceession—all that was simple in comparison with setting the Ship of State back on even keel.
When the war was ended, neither North nor South could go back where they were four years earlier. Too much water had passed through the mill while the attention of both sides was fixed upon the fighting׳.
Therefore, a second period of disturbance came on, which was called Reconstruction, on the theory that it would not take long ! to restore things where they were “before the war”. People ex-Ipected again to . act under the 1same parties, to carry on their bitsiness in the same methods, and to treat the great questions of labor and capital and transportation, and . the relative place of the farmer and the store, keeper and the workingman, as though nothing had happened. This pleasant automatic period of Reconstruction lasted twice as long as the war ; and at the end the country was farther away from the conditions and point of view of 1861 than they were when the storm of wax-ceased in 1865.
The Old Construction
At the present moment the American people are going through the same kind of experience, with the one blessed difference that whether in War or Reconstruction there is no North and South, no. East and West—just one fedex-al republic, one country, one flag—in triumph it shall wave! The svstem of political and social life which was going-on smoothly in 1914 satisfied the American people reasonably well. Wages were steady, the necessaries of life low in price, travel was cheap, five cent movies abundant. The country was so attractive as to draw millions of immigrants, savings were piled up, every state was getting richer from year to year. Notwithstanding plenty of friction, though millions of people felt that they did not get the whole of what was rightfully coming to them, the LTnited States was in general well satisfied with itself. The Construction of that period seemed solid and, enduring.
That is what a vast number of people, including many hard headed Moose, would like to see x-e-stored in 19.19. Business used to be so nicely adjusted; everything fitted together like the parts of an automobile. . There was banking capital enough, backed up by the then newly organized Fedex-al Reserve bankiixg system. There was labox-enough for. mqst industries and even fox- the farmers. The labor unions had grown powerful and the railroad men were bracing themselves for the drive which was to be successful in 1916. The Socialist Party, which is a kind of barometer of the discontent. at. the, bottom of the community, cast 800,'000 votes in the presidential election of 1912 and only' 400,0.00 in 1916.
Social ox-ganization was also in an agi-eeable condition. Never so many churches, never such enthusiasm for fraternities, never so maixy school children, never so many Fords sold, never so many conventions and congresses and societies and reforms. Who could find any fault with a countx-y in which so large a part of the population seemed above want and positive suffex-ing and the percentage of success was so high? It is true, none the less, aixd everyone who reads these lines must know it, that five years ago the countx-y was already beginning to feel that it had outgrown its clothes; the old social suit was both too small and too worn to last much longer׳. The trusts wex-e still powerful, the labor unions still unsatisfied The schools were turning out millions of graduates who did not seem to be fitted fox- the vacant jobs. Above all, there were many clear indications that the rest of the wox-ld was approaching a smashup which could not fail to disturb the nice big American Heaven that we hoped we had.
Destruction
Things move fast in the world nowadays. If a senatorial angel׳were to come back for an OldHome Week in Washington he would hardly know the Capital, for à different kind of national government is living there. Once George Washington lived in the President’s house; now the President’s house