Jane Addams
American social reformer and founder of Hull House (1860 to 1935); Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1931; author of Democracy and Social Ethics.
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What they believe
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Newer, active ideals of peace, if made truly operative, would probably in the end do away with war as a natural process
The following pages present the claims of the newer, more aggressive ideals of peace, as over against the older dovelike ideal. These newer ideals are active and dynamic, and it is believed that if their forces were made really operative upon society, they would, in the end, quite as a natural process, do away with war.
gutenberg.orgSaid c. 1906This on korrents
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Pursuing only personal morality fails an age that demands social morality
To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation.
gutenberg.orgSaid c. 1902This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 36 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
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Newer, active ideals of peace, if made truly operative, would probably in the end do away with war as a natural process
The following pages present the claims of the newer, more aggressive ideals of peace, as over against the older dovelike ideal. These newer ideals are active and dynamic, and it is believed that if their forces were made really operative upon society, they would, in the end, quite as a natural process, do away with war.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Securing peace by preparing for war is a cumbersome, roundabout and extravagant theory
Certainly no theory could be devised which is more cumbersome, more roundabout, more extravagant, than the reductio ad absurdum of the peace-secured-by-the-preparation-for-war theory.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
The quarrelsome city mob, made cosmopolitan by its neighbours, may be what saves us from war
It is possible that we shall be saved from warfare by the “fighting rabble” itself, by the “quarrelsome mob” turned into kindly citizens of the world through the pressure of a cosmopolitan neighborhood.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
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A cosmopolitan patriotism, grown large enough, may overcome nationalism and let us give up war
There arises the hope that when this newer patriotism becomes large enough, it will overcome arbitrary boundaries and soak up the notion of nationalism. We may then give up war, because we shall find it as difficult to make war upon a nation at the other side of the globe as upon our next-door neighbor.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
People care less each day for the heroism of war and admire more that of labour and nurture
We care less each day for the heroism connected with warfare and destruction, and constantly admire more that which pertains to labor and the nourishing of human life.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Much of the maladministration of American cities may trace to survivals of military codes in their founding
They depended upon penalties, coercion, compulsion, remnants of military codes, to hold the community together; and it may be possible to trace much of the maladministration of our cities to these survivals, to the fact that our early democracy was a moral romanticism, rather than a well-grounded belief in social capacity and in the efficiency of the popular will.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Formal patriotism teaching wrongly assumes immigrants' experience and traditions have no value
We also assume in our formal attempts to teach patriotism to him and to his children, that experience and traditions have no value, and that a new sentiment must be put into aliens by some external process.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
The government itself should have won the devotion immigrants gave to the labour union
This devotion, this comradeship, and this fine esprit de corps should have been won by the Government itself from these newly arrived, scared, and untrained citizens.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Sane social development requires subordinating class interests and meeting the nation's diverse peoples
Unless we subordinate class interests and class feeling to a broader conception of social progress, unless we take pains to come in contact with the surging and diverse peoples who make up the nation, we cannot hope to attain a sane social development.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
The costs of industrial change should be shared, not left to the displaced workers alone
In all fairness, these difficulties should be distributed and should not be allowed to fall completely upon the group of working-people whose labor is displaced as a result of the changes and who are obliged to learn anew their method of work and mode of life.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Class divisions are most dangerous when one side thinks the other cannot be reached by reason and fair dealing
Class and group divisions with their divergent moralities become most dangerous when their members believe that the inferior group or class cannot be appealed to by reason and fair dealing, but must be treated upon a lower plane.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Putting young people to work prematurely may be a loss to industry itself, destroying their free labour quality
We may gradually discover that in the interests of this industrial society of ours it becomes a distinct loss to put large numbers of producers prematurely at work, not only because the community inevitably loses their mature working power, but also because their “free labor quality,” which is so valuable, is permanently destroyed.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Sacrificing the spirit of youth to materialism may imperil civilization by reducing it to mechanism
We may at last discover that we are imperiling our civilization at the moment of its marked materialism, by wantonly sacrificing to that materialism the eternal spirit of youth, the power of variation, which alone is able to prevent it from degenerating into a mere mechanism.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Bearing arms as the test of a voter seems no longer fitted to the modern city
But rival cities have long since ceased to settle their claims by force of arms, and we shall have to admit, I think, that this early test of the elector is no longer fitted to the modern city, whatever may be true, in the last analysis, of the basis for the Federal Government.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Women will share civic responsibility because defining the citizen as a soldier has become obsolete
She will bear her share of civic responsibility because she is essential to the normal development of the city of the future, and because the definition of the loyal citizen as one who is ready to shed his blood for his country, has become inadequate and obsolete.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Social justice could advance far faster if primitive methods and weapons were abolished for good
We have come to realize that the great task of pushing forward social justice could be enormously accelerated if primitive methods as well as primitive weapons were once for all abolished.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Old virtues bequeathed by war must not be kept once they become a social deterrent
The task that is really before us is first to see to it, that the old virtues bequeathed by war are not retained after they have become a social deterrent and that social progress is not checked by a certain contempt for human nature which is but the inherited result of conquest.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
The military idea, content with order and discipline, undervalues human life
It is the military idea, resting content as it does with the passive results of order and discipline, which confesses a totally inadequate conception of the value and power of human life.
Newer Ideals of Peace (1906) Said c. 1906
Pursuing only personal morality fails an age that demands social morality
To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
A standard of social ethics is reached by mixing with everyone, not in seclusion
We are learning that a standard of social ethics is not attained by travelling a sequestered byway, but by mixing on the thronged and common road where all must turn out for one another, and at least see the size of one another's burdens.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Much of the world's hardness comes from failing to imagine other people's experiences
We have learned as common knowledge that much of the insensibility and hardness of the world is due to the lack of imagination which prevents a realization of the experiences of other people.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
The cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy
No attempt is made to reach a conclusion, nor to offer advice beyond the assumption that the cure for the ills of Democracy is more Democracy, but the quite unlooked-for result of the studies would seem to indicate that while the strain and perplexity of the situation is felt most keenly by the educated and self-conscious members of the community, the tentative and actual attempts at adjustment are largely coming through those who are simpler and less analytical.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Organized charity is not too scientific but not scientific enough
We sometimes say that our charity is too scientific, but we would doubtless be much more correct in our estimate if we said that it is not scientific enough.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Charity attends to what a man ought to be rather than what he is or may become
But in our charitable efforts we think much more of what a man ought to be than of what he is or of what he may become; and we ruthlessly force our conventions and standards upon him, with a sternness which we would consider stupid indeed did an educator use it in forcing his mature intellectual convictions upon an undeveloped mind.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Charity's most serious harm is replacing neighbourly love with dependence on the society
The most serious effect upon the poor comes when dependence upon the charitable society is substituted for the natural outgoing of human love and sympathy, which, happily, we all possess in some degree.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Perhaps the family claim and the social claim must now be adjusted so neither loses
But just as we have learned to adjust the personal and family claims, and to find an orderly development impossible without recognition of both, so perhaps we are called upon now to make a second adjustment between the family and the social claim, in which neither shall lose and both be ennobled.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Suspicion of women's public work will last until parents also recognize the social claim
The failure to recognize the social claim as legitimate causes the trouble; the suspicion constantly remains that woman's public efforts are merely selfish and captious, and are not directed to the general good. This suspicion will never be dissipated until parents, as well as daughters, feel the democratic impulse and recognize the social claim.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Families keep domestic servants mainly from a mistaken belief it guards family sanctity
The domestic employee is retained in the household largely because her "mistress" fatuously believes that she is thus maintaining the sanctity of family life.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Doing too many good deeds may cost one the power to see good in others
To perform too many good deeds may be to lose the power of recognizing good in others; to be too absorbed in carrying out a personal plan of improvement may be to fail to catch the great moral lesson which our times offer.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Reforms with the consent of those affected progress; ambitious plans without it tend to fail
The most unambitious reform, recognizing the necessity for this consent, makes for slow but sane and strenuous progress, while the most ambitious of social plans and experiments, ignoring this, is prone to failure.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
People are tempted to assume the respectable, authoritative side is also the righteous one
It is always a temptation to assume that the side which has respectability, authority, and superior intelligence, has therefore righteousness as well, especially when the same side presents concrete results of individual effort as over against the less tangible results of associated effort.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Schools stressing only reading and writing undervalue children's ordinary experience
We are impatient with the schools which lay all stress on reading and writing, suspecting them to rest upon the assumption that the ordinary experience of life is worth little, and that all knowledge and interest must be brought to the children through the medium of books.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Feeding a machine without knowing its purpose deadens a worker's intellectual and moral life
Feeding a machine with a material of which he has no knowledge, producing a product, totally unrelated to the rest of his life, without in the least knowing what becomes of it, or its connection with the community, is, of course, unquestionably deadening to his intellectual and moral life.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Unless all men and classes contribute to a good, we cannot be sure it is worth having
We have learned to say that the good must be extended to all of society before it can be held secure by any one person or any one class; but we have not yet learned to add to that statement, that unless all men and all classes contribute to a good, we cannot even be sure that it is worth having.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
A corrupt but democratic politician may be on a more ethical line than the expert-minded reformer
Would it be dangerous to conclude that the corrupt politician himself, because he is democratic in method, is on a more ethical line of social development than the reformer, who believes that the people must be made over by "good citizens" and governed by "experts"? The former at least are engaged in that great moral effort of getting the mass to express itself, and of adding this mass energy and wisdom to the community as a whole.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
Voters' individual needs are public needs, legitimately met only when met for all
It is only necessary to make it clear to the voter that his individual needs are common needs, that is, public needs, and that they can only be legitimately supplied for him when they are supplied for all.
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) Said c. 1902
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