--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Ward, J. H. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 2 number: 10 published: 1899-08 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Ward, J. H., "The Tide of Life: A Plea for Mormon Civilization," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 10 (August 1899): 775–778.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera210unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera210unse start_page: 775 end_page: 778 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera210unse publication_year: 1899 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Tide of Life: A Plea for Mormon Civilization TIDE OF LIFE. A PLEA FOR MORMON CIVILIZATION. BY J. H. WARD. The closing years of the century are full of unrest. Some imaginative minds like Bellamy dream of a golden age to come, and contrast that with the present. Many philanthropists note and bewail the evils of the times; but comparatively few note the causes that have produced those evils. Among the many marvels of the nineteenth century, none is greater than the unprecedented growth of our urban population. Thus the city of New York, which was founded in 1614, only increased to thirty-three thousand during the first hundred and sev- enty-five years of its existence; but during the decade between 1880 and 1890, it increased more than eight hundred and fifty-nine thousand, or more than two hundred and eight times as fast. The growth of other cities of the West has been still more remarkable. In the last ten years Chicago has more than doubled its population, while the number of inhabitants in several hundred townships of Illinois have remained stationary or have actually decreased. At the beginning of this century only three per cent of our population dwelt in cities. Now our cities contain over thirty per cent of our population, and if this rate [of increase continues, they will, by 1920, contain the majority of our country's inhabitants. This remarkable growth of cities is not confined to America. London is probably two thousand years old; yet four- 776 IMPROVEMENT ERA. fifths of its growth has been added during this century. Odessa is a thousand years old, but nineteen-twentieths of its population has been gained during the past fifty years. Berlin is growing faster than New York, and Rome has more than doubled its popu- lation in the last twenty years- The sudden expansion of the city marks a profound change in civilization, the results of which will grow more and more obvious; and nowhere will this change be more significant than in our own country, where the cities of the twentieth century may be decisive of our national destiny. With nations as with individuals, there should be a parity of growth, a harmony of development. The child that develops physically and not mentally, becomes an idiot. If he develops mentally and physically, but not morally, he becomes a criminal. How has it been with us as a nation? At the beginning of this century the whole taxable property was less than a thousand million dollars. In twenty years it had doubled; in forty years it had increased eight fold, and by 1890 we had increased our wealth to forty-nine thousand million dollars— a thousand million dollars more than the entire wealth of Great Britain. The wealth of the old world is the accumulation of centuries; but ninety-four per cent of our wealth has been created or accumulated during the past fifty years, and we are now increasing at the rate of seven million dollars per day. During the past century each succeeding generation has handed down to its successor at least four times as much wealth as it received from the preceding one. Have we increased in mental and moral force in proportion to our wealth? Are we as a nation becoming morally strong as we are materially great? History has taught no lesson with more emphasis than this, that with nations as with individuals, power when linked with ignorance and vice is dangerous. Man is the most perfect animal in the world. It was the highest physical organism that received the double crown of intellectual and spir- itual life.But it is quite possible to develop the lower faculties at the expense of the higher. The splendid physique of the prize- fighter does not imply a corresponding intellectual and moral development, but quite the contrary. As an animal, he is admira- ble; as a man, he is a monster. It is a vital question whether the materialism of the nineteenth century is to blossom into something THE TIPE OF LIFE. Ill higher in the twentieth, or whether our marvelous material civil- ization will prove to be at the expense of intellectual and spiritual growth. Without an adequate moral development to control the physical, and utilize it for ends above itself, the material becomes sensuous, then sensual; and sensuality means decay and death. The history of the ancient civilizations are sad illustrations of this truth. They perished because their moral and spiritual strength was not equal to the material forces they had developed. Is it true that the new conditions of society which the new — — century will bring nay more, are already upon us demands a new order of civilization? We are fast becoming a nation of cities, and under the present conditions of society, these cities will be — a menace to themselves nay more, a menace to the nation. What will the harvest be? is one of the questions that stirs the minds of our profoundest thinkers. Unpalatable as it may be to many, the question will arise, "Is Mormonism to supply the wanting elements to this new order of civilization?" This thought will be forced upon us more palpably on a careful consideration of the subject. Some philanthropists think that the congestion of the city migh be relieved and the miseries of the slums alleviated by removing families to unoccupied lands, and many are under the impression that if the multitude could be returned to the soil, our most perplexing social problem would be solved. But all such fail If a hun- to appreciate the profound significance of the question. dred thousand families could be transferred from the slums of the cities to unoccupied lands in the vicinity, and trained to be suc- cessful gardeners or farmers (which is very doubtful) it would scarcely mitigate poverty in the least degree or relieve the pressure of population upon the cities. These hundred thousand farmers or gardeners could only succeed by producing cheaper and better products than as yet had been delivered, in one word, by getting the market; and as the public would eat no more, simply to accom- modate them, they could get the market only by driving a hundred thousand other gardeners or farmers out of it, who, being forced off the land would be obliged to turn their attention to mechanical 778 IMPROVEMENT ERA. labor of some kind, and, as American society is at presenfconsti- tuted, would gravitate to the cities. Another conclusion to which we are forced is that all attempts to retard the movement of population from country to city by making farming more profitable through scientific methods will prove worse than futile. Scientific farming succeeds because a given amount of effort, when more intelligently directed, produces greater results. To illustrate: in 1840 it required ten men to reap and bind ten acres of wheat in one day. By the introduction of the old-fashioned McCormick reaper five men could accomplish an equal amount of work in the same time. Thus science had robbed five men of the opportunity to labor. By a further improve- ment in mechanical appliance in the form of a Woods self-binder the opportunity to labor is denied to three more. Two men now accomplish a similar amount of work to that which required ten men fifty years ago. The only places where anything like an ideal state of society where the farm and the factory, the garden and the exists is workshop stand in close proximity to each other. In the little town of Lehi, Utah, the boys who go to school in winter may spend their vacation in hoeing and thinning the sugar beets; and the men who reap the harvest in July can manufacture the beets into sugar in the months of December and January. Where hunger is unknown and no one seeks in vain for employment. Many other similar examples in our State might be mentioned. In most Mor- mon settlements, the first great struggle has been for existence. Wherever that point in their history has been reached their tend- ency has been toward an ideal civilization. So far as material progress is concerned, Mormonism would make this a land of well- organized towns and settlements, a land of homes, a land where workers, and workers only, would be respected, and where every one shall receive the just recompense of his toil.