Isn't it about time we had an "Old Home Week" for ideas? For the past few years our thoughts, quite naturally and rightly, have been abroad, and we have been grappling with world problems because they were more vital to us than the problems of our every day lives. But a time has come when we can safely come back to our individual interests.

Just now I am inclined to sympathize with the plain citizen who recently found himself obliged to spend an evening with a number of high-thinking friends who were having an improving conversation about world affairs. While the high talk was in progress the plain man was examining his rough and toil-gnarled hands, and he took advantage of a lull in the conversation to ask:

"Can any of you fellows give me a real and sure cure for warts?"

It was a dreadful anticlimax, but it expressed a feeling of weariness with great things that is becoming very common. We are in need of a mental rest. As Bill Nye phrased it, we are in danger of "spraining our thinkers" by grappling with things that are beyond our grasp. Every morning the papers have articles about such subjects as "A League of Nations to enforce World Peace," and so on, and so on. In order to deal with such things intelligently we must think for the planet. A country or an empire is no longer big enough for us. Every scheme for the good of humanity is a world scheme, and the world must be organized to fit it. No wonder the plain man loses his grip on it all and begins to think about his warts.

The curse of the present time is organization. Our civilization has woven about itself a web of organizations that will destroy it as certainly as the poisoned shirt of Nessus destroyed Hercules. It is organization that makes Business Success possible, and it is under the exactions of Business Success that the whole world is writhing. Much, if not all, of the present-day unrest can be traced back to organized greed—either to the greed of capitalists or the greed of classes. By organizing they get power, and when they get power they abuse it to gratify their own selfishness. The trouble is not due to the principle of organization, but to the fact that we have allowed organization to degenerate into conspiracy. And conspiracy would not be possible without secrecy. If every organization formed under the protection of that one big organization, the Government, of which we are all a part, were subjected to a publicity as pitiless as the Day of Judgment, we would have no cases of three hundred and ten per cent and over. And I can see no sound reason why the workings of business and the operations of capital generally should not be subject to the closest public scrutiny. The Government is forced to do business in public, under the constant criticism of a hostile Opposition, and yet it manages to get along. Even kings and presidents live in the white light that beats upon a throne, and every act that affects the welfare of citizens is open to examination. But the Kings of Industry and all the operations of Big Business must be shrouded in darkness and mystery. Nonsense! Honest business can bear the light of day just as well as honest government. Our Captains of Industry all claim to be serving the public. That is the excuse for the privileges they demand. Then why not let us see how they are serving it? Is it that they are too modest? I am afraid their modesty is much like that of Artemus Ward's noble Red Man who stole a blanket and a bottle of whiskey and then rushed whooping to the wilderness to conceal his emotion. Our Kings of Big Business are very anxious to conceal their emotion—and other things. It is true that they do a great service in building up our countries; but the difficulty is that they want the title to all the buildings in their own names.

It doesn't seem to be quite right to be talking about organizations and big organizers this way. I know that a great many people will be offended because they are quite sure they will never get to heaven unless they are organized and belong to exactly the right organization. Nevertheless and notwithstanding, I repeat the assertion that organization is the curse of our time—though it should be a blessing. All organization that is secret in its operations is a menace to the welfare of the people and should have the light turned in on it. It is in secrecy that abnormal profits are piled up. If a cheese factory can be run with the fullest publicity and yet make a decent success, I fail to see why a cloth factory or shoe factory should not be run on the same basis. We are allowing ourselves to be bluffed by the leaders of Big Business and we should be ashamed of ourselves. Few of the men we are cringing before have any real ability. They employ it. All they have is a ruthless greed, and as ninety per cent fail it is probable that most of the ten per cent who succeed owe their success to luck. Turn in the light on the whole lot! We can then do honor to those who are conducting a fair business and rendering service for the rewards they are taking—and we can attend to the others. Implacable publicity would probably do more to correct the high cost of living than anything else. And no organization should be allowed to exist without the fullest publicity regarding all its actions.

Before the outbreak of the war, Judge Brandeis, of the United States Superior Court, wrote a paper about "The Curse of Bigness," which I would like to re-read just now if I could only remember who borrowed it from me. It is rather amusing to remember that he was dealing with trifling little matters such as the Standard Oil Company, railroad mergers, industrial corporations, trusts, and such things. Compared with the schemes that are in the air to-day they were like nursery games. Yet he argued with much logic that when organizations get beyond a certain size they become inefficient and wasteful. Instead of serving the purpose for which they were organized they stifle progress and development. Big organizations do not encourage new ideas as little ones do. Being beyond competition, they become sluggish and reactionary. I cannot help wondering if we shall not have the same difficulty with the big schemes that are being promoted just now. After all they will have to be run by human beings, and there is a limit to human powers. Judge Brandeis showed that business schemes could become too big for even the colossal business brain of J. Pierpont Morgan, and it is just possible that there may be schemes of statecraft too big for the brains of Lloyd George and Mr. Wilson and the others who are grappling with them. And the trouble is that we are all grappling with them and overlooking the fact that the biggest achievement possible to democracy is to give every individual freedom to direct his own affairs. At the present time people have altogether too many ideas about fixing up the world, and too few ideas about the homely tasks of ordinary citizenship. Let us call in our far-reaching thoughts and see what we can find to do right at home. If all of us would do that, the need for world-shaping schemes would probably disappear.

I am afraid there is another check on big schemes that is being overlooked. Even before the war Captains of Industry were finding it hard to get men for their higher command. Only the other day I read an article which bemoaned the lack of men capable of filling five thousand and ten thousand dollar a year jobs. It was asserted that jobs of this kind are going begging because men of the right capacity cannot be found. There are too many men who are fitted for ordinary routine jobs, but only now and then is it possible to find men fitted for big executive jobs. When the work of reconstruction is undertaken in earnest, it will probably be found that the dearth of the right kind of men is greater than ever. The war called for just this kind of men and they have been destroyed by the thousand. Even those who had it in them to do great executive work, and were not fated to lay down their lives in the cause of humanity, have had their energies turned into other channels, and it is possible that many of them will not be able to resume work where they left off. The best brains of the rising generation have been diverted by the war, and the supply of competent executives is likely to prove smaller than ever, just at the time when schemes are developing that will require them more than ever. It is easy enough to find dreamers who can think out schemes for the benefit of humanity, but it is very hard to find men with the necessary executive ability to put them into force. It is quite possible that we must give up some of our finest dreams for the lack of the right kind of men to carry them out. Humanity's losses in material wealth and man-power may be estimated, but its loss in mental and spiritual force is beyond computation. In the meantime the big ideas are being pushed forward, but we must not be too much disappointed if we are forced to return to a "day of little things"—which we are told is not to be despised.

Organizations, no doubt, have their value, but when overdone their effect is more than questionable. At the present time individual initiative, which is probably the greatest force for good in our civilization, is being benumbed and stifled by the mad passion for organization. In the matter of food production we constantly get news about this and that great organization that is arranging to investigate and take action, and the ordinary man gets an entirely wrong idea into his head. He thinks that with all the Government committees and commissions and public-spirited organizations at work, it is entirely needless for him to undertake the little he might be able to do by his own efforts. This is a serious misconception; many great movements are started that are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." While organized effort, properly directed, will undoubtedly accomplish great things, individual initiative has been the foundation of practically every success our country has known. This tendency to flock together into organizations whenever there is anything to be done is not an entirely healthful sign. Some recent experiences have led me to mourn the disappearance of an effective though somewhat undesirable type of citizen known in the past. In trying to define the kind of man I am thinking of, I remember a report of a scene in the police court in New York some years ago. A lawyer was examining the badly battered plaintiff.

"What did the defendant say to you on that occasion?"

"He said he would knock my head off."

"And what else?"

"He said he would mop the floor with me."

"And what else?"

"Er—also he done it."

There would be a great deal of progress in this world if it could be said after the plans suggested by each man—"also he done it." The trouble just now is that we all organize and nobody gets his head knocked off and the floor doesn't get mopped up.