Recent Political Developments: Progress or Change?1

It used to be said by a certain learned professor opposed to departure from old and familiar paths, “Gentlemen, all progress is change, but not all change is progress.”In every department of human affairs, in every quarter of the civilized world, the contrast between conditions in the late eighties and the present time is amazing—not conditions only but the difference in attitudes, in beliefs, in human relations. We may well ask ourselves, Whither? Certainly it is incumbent upon us to consider the character of these changes—whether they are making for progress—and what steps we are taking or can take to meet them. I ask you to consider with me two aspects of this question, one affecting industrial and the other international relations. In each case the proposals heretofore offered to meet the situation appear to fall into one of two categories, the first mechanistic, the second educative; the first, an attempt to meet a new situation by introducing new devices of control; the second by a process of education to modify or change men's attitude and belief.