The new freedom : $b a call for the emancipation of the generous energies of a peopleWilson, Woodrow
History
The new freedom : $b a call for the emancipation of the generous energies of a people
Wilson, Woodrow
United States -- Politics and government -- 1913-1921; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
We used to think in the old-fashioned days when life was very simple that
all that government had to do was to put on a policeman's uniform, and
say, "Now don't anybody hurt anybody else." We used to say that the ideal
of government was for every man to be left alone and not interfered with,
except when he interfered with somebody else; and that the best government
was the government that did as little governing as possible. That was the
idea that obtained in Jefferson's time. But we are coming now to realize
that life is so complicated that we are not dealing with the old
conditions, and that the law has to step in and create new conditions
under which we may live, the conditions which will make it tolerable for
us to live.
Let me illustrate what I mean: It used to be true in our cities that every
family occupied a separate house of its own, that every family had its own
little premises, that every family was separated in its life from every
other family. That is no longer the case in our great cities. Families
live in tenements, they live in flats, they live on floors; they are piled
layer upon layer in the great tenement houses of our crowded districts,
and not only are they piled layer upon layer, but they are associated room
by room, so that there is in every room, sometimes, in our congested
districts, a separate family. In some foreign countries they have made
much more progress than we in handling these things. In the city of
Glasgow, for example (Glasgow is one of the model cities of the world),
they have made up their minds that the entries and the hallways of great
tenements are public streets. Therefore, the policeman goes up the
stairway, and patrols the corridors; the lighting department of the city
sees to it that the halls are abundantly lighted. The city does not
deceive itself into supposing that that great building is a unit from
which the police are to keep out and the civic authority to be excluded,
but it says: "These are public highways, and light is needed in them, and
control by the authority of the city."
I liken that to our great modern industrial enterprises. A corporation is
very like a large tenement house; it isn't the premises of a single
commercial family; it is just as much a public affair as a tenement house
is a network of public highways.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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