Social reform

“ Further, at this moment when many methods of social reform offer themselves, it seems to me that all would be wise to remember that the only test of progress is in the development of character. Institutions, societies, laws, count for nothing unless they tend to make people stronger to choose the good and refuse the evil. Redistribution of wealth would be of little service if in the process many became dishonest. A revolution would be no progress which put one selfish class in the place of another. ”

“ We did great things together when we saved the Republic from the peril of Cæsarism, when we emancipated civil society from the wrecks of theocracy; but now, this grand task accomplished, now that the hour is come for all of us to give, if not all our effort, at least our principal effort, to that which we term, one and all, the social reform, it is necessary, after the socialists have stated their doctrine and their method, that you should tell us how it is that you conceive the social evolution. ”

“ All definite and dogmatic schemes of social reform prove upon challenge to need adjustment and modification, to fit the actual workings of a society already infinitely complex. It is as the sentiment which for want of a better word we call socialistic works along with that broad and candid study of fact which we call scientific, and toward an ideal in which the material is but an instrument of the spiritual,—that there is solid promise of advance. ”

“ In fact, we are living in an era of small reforms of which little good and but little harm can be predicated. Can it not be made the eve of an era of reforms really great and far-reaching? If, as was indicated above, there is a general and profound realization of the threatening evils, is it not possible to evolve an agreement with regard to the irreducible minimum of social reform? ”

“ We shall have, of course, to enlarge our family and social life, not in the petty spirit of present day Social Reform, hammering at small details and belittling our immediate past, but with a larger idea and more generous impulses. ”

“ It is that of mere stewardship and the regulation indispensable to society.
The Social Forces Ready for Our Methods.
Now that our theory of social reform is fully substantiated by fact, our methods shown to be in harmony with popular sentiment, our idea of democratic government clearly defined, and our final aim political justice, there remains some consideration of early possible practical steps in line with these principles and of the probable trend of events afterward. ”

“ Social reform will soon be the all-absorbing interest as the modern realization of the claims of human nature and the growing power of the people, will not tolerate many of the present conditions of industrial life. ”

“ You can't find your way to social reform through the forces that have made social reform necessary.
The fundamental part of such a program is that the trusts shall be recognized as a permanent part of our economic order, and that the government shall try to make trusts the ministers, the instruments, through which the life of this country shall be justly and happily developed on its industrial side. Now, everything that touches our lives sooner or later goes back to the industries which sustain our lives. ”

“ One not unfrequently hears food-thrift decried by ardent social reformers for the reasons I have indicated above. More careful consideration would have enabled them to see that no true reforms can be really incompatible or antagonistic. The well-being of a nation, which is the aim and object of the schemes of all wise reformers. cannot be effected by the single operation of any one remedy, but will be the outcome of the harmonious working of all. Each reform contributes in its own sphere to the realisation of the whole, and, in its own way, is absolutely indispensable. ”

“ We hear nowadays much about Social Reform, which, being interpreted, means, I suppose, the removal of certain conditions in and around society which stand in the way of man’s progress towards perfection.
Every human being, surely, ought to be able to make a free choice for good or evil. It is, no doubt, possible for each of us to choose the higher or the lower life ‘in that state of life in which it has pleased God to call us’ ”

“ A sameness of circumstances might not mean social reform (indeed, personally, I doubt if anything but love for God will mean social reform) , but reform is necessary, and with that we all agree. ‘Effort is bootless, toil is fruitless’; with that we do not agree—our very presence here denies it. There only remains then that organised effort should be directed towards reform, noticing, by the way, that, having swept the room, we do not leave the broom about! ”

“ EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION.
A social reform can very well be in accord with the interests of the ruling class. It may for the moment leave their social domination untouched, or, under certain circumstances, can even strengthen it. ”

“ It is this third factor alone which need be seriously considered to-day, when we ask ourselves how far the material upon which social reform is working, that is, the masses of the people, may be ready to accept the change. ”

“ This then was the mental attitude with which I approached my duties as a reporter on the staff of a London daily newspaper of old standing and good progressive traditions. And my notion was that in every line written for publication, the end of social reform should be served, directly or indirectly. My [51] idea of attaining social reformation was that the people must be taught, urged, spurred into extracting further gifts from the State; that the public must be shown how to make their lives easier by getting the State to do more for them. ”

“ It was the commencement of a public movement upon the subject of social reform, which will flow on, wider, deeper, stronger, until it has proved in deeds the practicability of societies organized, from their central principle of faith to the minutest detail of industry and pleasure, according to the order of love. ”

“ Social philosophers of certain schools today would have us believe that the consummation of social philosophy will be reached when we shall have formulated the physics of group reactions in past and present human associations. The majority of contemporary social "reformers" act as though society would at last have its foundations on the rock, if it would adopt this or that expedient—civil service reform; equalized taxation; the referendum; profit-sharing; government ownership ”

“ We believe, however, that in the deliberate choice of plain living by an influential portion of society there lies a greater potency of social reform than in all the schemes of socialistic reconstruction. ”

“ If, therefore, in order to control the colored vote, the employer, or whoever he may be, is first obliged to concede to the freedman the great point of his own rights as a man and a free laborer, the great social reform is completed, the most difficult problem is solved, and all other questions it will be comparatively easy to settle. ”

“ Social reform is a matter of cooperation, and if it be of a novel kind, requires an infinite deal of converting to bring the efficient majority to believe in it and support it. Without their agreement and support it is impossible. ”

“ By a method different from that employed in either case or group work, though with the same end in view, social reform seeks to improve conditions in the mass, chiefly through social propaganda and social legislation. ”

“ Great questions affecting the welfare of the community, and for the solution of which the ablest heads are requisite, are coming into discussion, and are to be settled for the benefit, we trust, of all concerned. Reform in capital and labor, temperance, woman's social and political condition, popular education, powers of corporations, international communication,—these and the new issues which their settlement will effect, must interest and occupy the active forces of the country to plant the republic, upon stable foundations. ”

“ It also helps us to understand how limited was the victory which the Political Reform Party obtained over the Social Reform Party and that the view that social reform need not precede political reform is a view which may stand only when by social reform is meant the reform of the family. ”

“ It can most correctly be stated by saying that the employers themselves, who already organized business, began to organize social reform. It was more picturesquely expressed by a cynical aristocrat in Parliament who said, "We are all Socialists now." ”

“ Hence it was that so many plans for general reform produced so little definite result, except on the one hand setting before the then rising generation a higher standard of social responsibility which was destined deeply to tinge the after conduct and social activities of that generation, and on the other hand much social experimenting upon a small scale which stored up information and experience for the future. ”

“ It is not the mere perfecting of a reform already in motion, a detail of some established plan, but it is an epochal movement—the emancipation of a class, the redemption of half the world, and a conforming reorganization of all social, political, and industrial interests and institutions. ”

“ The social question is rising for solution, and, though for a moment it is forgotten, it will sweep to the front and put aside as cobwebs the ‘deep’ concerns of leaders and teachers. The danger is lest it be settled by passion and not by reason, lest, that is, reforms be hurriedly undertaken in answer to some cry, and without consideration of facts, their weight, their causes, and their relation. ”

“ Advanced and radical reformers of the new type all over the world, those who put forward a general plan of reform and wish to go to the common roots of our social evils, demand, first of all, reorganization. ”

“ All other political questions were at once found to be merged in this, and the people availed themselves of the first opportunity to decree a sweeping reform, destined to harmonize their social and political organization with the advanced state of their moral and intellectual enlightenment. ”

“ But if we act on the principle of deferring all less important reforms until all the more important ones are accomplished, we shall be in danger of not reforming at all. Any reform that is well-timed and possible is important; for the complication of social relations makes all reforms of weight in their wider significance. ”

“ But applied sociology is not social reform; “it does not itself apply sociological principles, it seeks only to show how they may be applied.” It lays down principles as guides to social action. The carrying of these principles into social and political practice is social reform. ”

“ Between the two lay the conquest of political power by a new class, and in this lies the essential difference between revolution and reform. Measures which seek to adjust the juridical and political superstructure of society, to changed economic conditions, are reforms if they proceed from the class which is the political and economic ruler of society. ”

“ Reform, so called, is becoming confessedly more potent than its antagonist. The admission is reluctantly forced from pallid lips that revolutions—political, social and religious—constitute the programme of the coming age. ”

“ Hope is felt that some of the great reforms of the day, in which all thoughtful individuals take a special interest, will prove fundamental in their curative effects, and heal this gravest of our diseases. Thus free access to land, co-operation and abolition of interest, total abstinence, universal suffrage, emigration, arbitration, State-socialism, etc., are all amongst the popular panaceas of the present day, each important reform or theory being chiefly relied on by its special advocates, to change all social relations and eradicate any serious social disorder. ”

“ In the absence of more practical plans of relief than those I have mentioned, it is not to be wondered that the supporters of thorough social reform boldly assert that nothing short of direct legislative action can materially benefit the condition of our English poor. ”

“ It gives them a special aversion to political and social experiments, for it requires as the first essential of any project of reform that it shall issue naturally and easily out of—or at least be harmonious with—the historical conditions of the time and place to which it is to be applied. ”

“ His early love of simplicity hardened into a rigid opposition not only to the materialistic modern industrial system but to all change—the Reform Bill, the reform of education, and in general all progressive political and social movements. ”

“ The question of Social Reform has been very fully discussed in the public papers during the last few months, and one of the writers on this subject has happily explained it as meaning "securing for the slum-dwellers good air, good housing, good food, good clothes, and good education." ”

“ Oppressed nationalities depend for effectual help on the widely spread growth of sympathy with freedom; the poor will have starvation wages till the rich learn what justice requires; and religion will fail to be a power till men are honest enough to ask themselves in what they do really believe. Methods of reform are valuable just in so far as they tend to increase sympathy, justice, honesty, reverence, and all the virtues of high character. ”