But we have made only a beginning in this. Our ethics is only a vague outline, not a matured system, and in the details of social contact—as between employer and workman, rich and poor, Negro and white, and so on—there is such a lack of accepted standards that men have little to go by but their crude impulses. All this must be worked out, in as much patience and good will as possible, before we can expect to have peace. Where there is no very radical conflict of essential principles, ill feeling may commonly be alleviated by face-to-face discussion, since the more we come to understand one another the more we get below superficial unlikeness and find essential community. Between fairly reasonable and honest men it is always wholesome to “have it out,” and many careful studies of labor troubles agree regarding the large part played by misunderstandings and suspicion that have no cause except lack of opportunity for explanation. “The rioting would not have taken place,” says a student of certain mining disorders, “had not the ignorance and suspicion of the Hungarians been supplemented by the ignorance and suspicion of the employers; and the perseverance of this mutual attitude may yet create another riot.”[133] There is a strong temptation for those in authority, especially if they are overworked, or conscious of being a little weak or unready in conference, to fence themselves with formality and the type-written letter. But a man of real fitness in any administrative capacity must have stomach for open and face-to-face dealing with men. And a democratic system sooner or later brings to pass face-to-face discussion of all vital questions, because the people will be satisfied with no other. An appearance of shirking it will arouse even more distrust and hostility than the open avowal of selfish motives; and accordingly it is more and more the practice of aggressive interests to seek to justify themselves by at least the appearance of frank appeal to popular judgment. FOOTNOTES: [131] The Spirit of Laws, book v, chap. 3. [132] Leaves of Grass, 71. [133] Spahr, America’s Working People, 128. _PART V_ INSTITUTIONS CHAPTER XXVIII INSTITUTIONS AND THE INDIVIDUAL THE NATURE OF INSTITUTIONS—HEREDITARY AND SOCIAL FACTORS—THE CHILD AND THE WORLD—SOCIETY AND PERSONALITY—PERSONALITY VERSUS THE INSTITUTION—THE INSTITUTION AS A BASIS OF PERSONALITY—THE MORAL ASPECT—CHOICE VERSUS MECHANISM—PERSONALITY THE LIFE OF INSTITUTIONS—INSTITUTIONS BECOMING FREER IN STRUCTURE.