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Disquisition by Scripps, E.W., Force and fraud, May 7, 1909

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Title	Disquisition by Scripps, E.W., Force and fraud, May 7, 1909
Collection	E. W. Scripps Papers, 1868-1926
Creator/Author	Scripps, E. W. (Edward Willis), 1854-1926
Date Original	1909-05-07
Subject-People	Veblen, Thorstein, 1857-1929
Subject-LCSH	Fraud Social problems Human behavior
Is Part Of	E. W. Scripps Papers, Series 4, Box 01, Vol 02 E. W. Scripps' Writings 1909, Book 2
Collection finding aid	http://www.library.ohiou.edu/archives/mss/mss117.html
Call Number	mss117/ser4/box01/book02/154-163
Original Format-AAT	Essays
Publisher	Ohio University Libraries. Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections
Type	Text
Format [IMT]	Application/pdf
Physical dimensions	10 p.; 11 x 8.5
Identifier	ser4_box01_vol02_154-163_force_fraud.pdf
Donor	Scripps, Charles E. (Charles Edward), 1920-
Rights Information	In the public domain. Unpublished works are under copyright for the life of the author + 70 years
Citation	E.W. Scripps Papers, Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections, Ohio University Libraries
Transcript	Ohio University Libraries, E.W. Scripps Papers, MSS 117, Series 4, http://media.library.ohiou.edu/scripps ~. J May 7 f 1909. I l FORCE AND FRAUD - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - Whenever one man hears another express opinions similar to his own the party of the first part is pretty sure to consider the pa.rty of the second part a wise man. This feeling of admiration and respect'.-is even aroused when words are lightly spoken and the subject spoken of is cammon-place, and even when the opinion expressed is wellnigh uni ve rsal. But when the hearer is himself a man of either exceptional intelligence, or possessed of peouliarly advanced views, his delight at hearing another give expression to the same views is increased an hundred fold, and his respect for and admiration of his colle~e in opinion is unbounded. This explains why I am so great an admirer of Professor Thor-stein Veblen. I know nothing more of the man t s personality than the fa.ct that he was a. professor at Chicago University and tha.t latterly he has been a professor at Palo Alto. He certainly is not a man who has made much noise in the world. My reading covers a la~e field of scientific su~jects. '. lnlether Veblen is a professor of sociology or somefonm of economics I know not; that he has found publishers for two remarkable books would. - indica.te that he has a high standing. I have read two of his a.rticles in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and my first attention was di-... , rected to him some yea.rs ago by a brief review in a j oumal of similar standing. But I do not recall ever having seen his name elsewhere mentioned in the hundreds and perhaps thousands of books and maga.zine. ar-ticles that I have read. In none of the daily papers, nor in the high-class weekly journals have I ever seen any reference to Veblen. lore.s.! Fraud--2. For some reason he seems to be almo~ completely ign&red. The names of scores of other li.erary college professors are fgmiliar I to me and to the public, made so by the public prints'. Yet, of ell the publicists, great and BJllall, in this country and in Europe, it seems to me there is not one superior and few equals to Veblen, in brillianoy of intellect, in great perception and in lucidity, and in plea.sing and agreeableness of literary style. That whi<3h makes this situation is the more remarkable since Veblen is giving expression to so many views that are extremely sensational in character---views that the cynical critics of the press would delight to exploit and controvert by ridicule and argument. To my mind Veblen is a. modern Machiavelli; but he is as far advanced over the old Machiavelli as is the modem science of astronomy above and beyond the astrology of the days of Maclri.avelli J or immediately preceding those days. It has been many days since I have had Machiavelli's "Pri:noe" but from what I can remember of that book it would seem that Veblen's mind has traveled along the same line with Machiavelli only farther along in it. I remember that when I read hchiavelli I s Prince I could not feel that intense sense of loa.thing or repugnance toward the man and his ideas which it was conmonly supposed that every good and virtuous man should feel. I felt that Machiavelli was telling the truth to his "Prince" and that he was not teaching lmnorals, but that he was calling hie attention to real facts concerning human Rature. He was not telling his ·irinoe" any lies about the world and man; he was not telling him how to rule an ideal l1on-e:ristentl bod.y of human beings J or impressing upon him the duty o. f oreatimg..n i.J 1fI !apnlf ideal. t d' t C0nm.ll11 ty by pre en· lDg 0 play the role of an id.eal ruler of an ideal people. t.55..F ORC..E -&.;;.. F;;R;.;A;=U---D--3. Thorstein Veblen has studied and largely discovered manj his mind, his character, his motives, his institutions, his individuality, and his social habits. He has placed man and man's society under a sort of mental microscope, and studied his subjects as unfa.ili~y, and perhaps with less bias of mind than the biological investigator has, ,- with his actual microscope in his laboratory, studied material life organiams. In his writings Veblen tells us what he sees and shows great freedom, perhaps too much freedom, in making his deductions. :But in this matter he has not, perhaps, been any more free than the ordinary investigator. Of course no religionist could for an instant tolerate any of Veblen's deductions, and for this reason, perhaps, no religionist could consent to the existence even of the facts as Veblen has presented them. No man who can see things as Veblen sees them can at the same ttme be possessed of the convictions of those who believe revealed religion of any sort. (I suppose all real scientists are in the same oondition. ) In the various of my disquisitions- I have more or less indefinitely hinted at, or crudely stated, my own idea, but without regard to , any sentimentalities, that the two fundamental J necessary virtues of 8- human being were those two characteristics Whioh were denounced as the worst of all vices, namely the use of physical force for purposes of oppression. and of craft or cunning for the purposes of deceil'ing and cheating. The publio expre-ssion of this doctrine might, and probably would, bring upon me the condemnation and hatred of sooiety. If any person interested in me should attempt to defend me at all it would be by pleading insanity 7 and it would not be difficult either to este..b-lish such a defence, since none but an insane man would dare to give expression to such views to the comnonality of people. 15F Force & Fraud--4. ~ ~ too III Veblen himself finda it necessary all through his writings to keep explaining again and again to the reader that his use of wOl"ds and of te:nlls do not indicate anything invidious or depreciatory. He keeps trying to make his reader believe that the author is only unfortunate in that the human language, as it at present exists, doee not contain the right words to fully and clearly express his meaning. I believe that one-half of the text of one of his books, "The Theory of the Leisure Class" is taken up with this protest against the possibility of hi s books being read and interpreted according to the vulgar and cormUOIl meaning of words. Veblen certa.inly is determined to do all in his power to avoid the fateful reputation of his great Florentine predecessor. Perhaps it is because he has so consistently and thoroughly blunted the point of all of his are:,'Uments that the sensational journalists h6,ve been warded off from him. Still Veblen !mOvie well enough that the few, the intellectual and hence the sympathetic t readers of his books will not fail to see all of his points, and will not fail to brush away the thick veil of words which he has hung over his creation in order that vulgar minds shall not be able to perceive all that the author has revealed. Here is a. good enough place to state an idea of my own, and that is that modern science is greatly hindered by its lack of esoteric conditions. Scientific investigators and writers in modern times a.re oompelled to use vulgar langu.ages, and are compelled to resort to print, so that all they report of their discoveries and all that they relate in the way of deductions is not oP~y liable to but almost certa. in to come under the eye of the vulgar, not only the uninformed but the great mass of the misinformed public; men and women who only know ··one definition for a word and who are only capable of making false deetions by reason of the great mass of false, often religious, ideas :i5ti Force! Frau.Q..--5. that have been impressed upon them,---falae deductions from words, phrases, sentencea and whole books. While writing for the learned and the illumined the scientific writer must ever be on hi s guard against the ignorant fury of the mob. He is fearful, and rightfully fearful, both of being misunderstood.and of beifl..g understood by the great popular masses, who are led and controlled by chiefa-.. poli tical, religious and industrial,.. --whose greatest self-interest lies in keeping the mass of the people not only in ignorance J but mi sinfor-mad, and believing things the reverse of truth. Perhaps it would be impossible for any profound student of and thia~er on scientific subjects to express all he knows on one of these subjects, a..."d to m.ake deductions from same, either in speech or in writing, and be able to maintain a position as college or university professor, or even be tolerated as a member of 8.J.'1Y society or as a citizen of any state. But still these scientific men are gradually d±scovering previously unknmm facts, a.'1d are gradually insinuating into the public mind the knowV3dge of the same together ·"li th consistent deductions to be dravm from thel'll. Veblen' B theory that force and fraud are the two greatest of human virtues is; perhaps; not so novel as is the fact that he has dared even to insinuate the idea in writing. I do not recall that he has succinctly and definitely made the statement that force and fraud were virtues; to the extent, however, that he ha.s even insinuated this idea. he has been careful and politic, in that he has also insinuated that these characteristics are mainly those of the veri few of the weal thy and ruling clasa---the very small class of demo 0 racy in all its forms and in all parts of the world. As a matter of fa.ct I believe that the moral disposition, the desire, or in a way the willingness, to commit acts of rapine and chi-:t5R For~~~ Frau~--6. canery is no greater in one class of men than in another, and. that these cha.racteristics a.re only detested by the coneonality of mankind because they do not possess suffioient of either fraud or cunning to the~elyes become members of the weal thy and ruling class. I more than suspect that Veblen has identically the same views as my own, and tha.t the only reason for his being less candid than I is that he writes for publication and speaks before audiences while I am content to bury my thoughts out of sight and out of reach. It is ea.sy enough not only for the common mind to realize as virtues force and fraud, and even for the most biased religious fa.na.tic to take the same view, and in considering man as a. savage when he lives in a condition little better than that of the beasts and when all of his fellow-men. are in the same condition of lack of social organization. The savage man's warfare was first ~ain8t the sav~e beasts of the r_eld 8...'I1d the forest; his existence depended upon both his ability to procure food by killing other animals and by preventing him-self being made the food of these other animals. Some of these animals are so small a.s to be no match for the man, in power, so that man has to but la.y his ha.nd. upon them in order to devour them. But nearly all such animl a are man' s superior in land locomotion, and the others es.. cape to the air, where man cannot go, and into the water, where man cannot Ii va. Hence man's only chance to la.y hands on these animal s is to resort to Cunning. There us other larger animallB, good for food, but too huge in bulk and too great in aecular strength to be captured and slaughtered by bodily assault, the man must therefore resort to cunning traps and other device~. There are other larger animals, sa.vage carnivora, which delight t.o feast on man's flesh, against which man's force is inadequa.te as protection, so he must again depend upon his CUrlningand his craft.. 15~' Forc-e. '-&- F-ra-:u-d--7. This savage man has also to encounter other savage men; he. must defend his body against these other savage men, who may be canni... bale or who may only desire to rob him of his booty of the chase. : !here a.re times when this man would die of starvation himself were he not a.ble by force to overcome and by fraud to cheat other savage men of their lives and of their booty of the chase. It would seem that all men would agree with Veblen and myself , that there have been, perha.ps for 99/l00ths of the whole term of existence of humanity on earth, t~es when force and fraud were, if not virtues as virtues are defined by the vulgar and modem, at least characteristics absolutely necessary for human existence. Bight here let me ask is it any more a vice for a man to decoy a fish on to his hook, with a tempting bait, and to decoy a. partridge into a net, than it is for the same man to obtain food that i. necessary for him by deceiving some other man? Biologists teach us and our own COllmon sense indicates to us that mankind is a species of animal'" that he is a part of the animal kingdom, and that he is governed by all the laws of that kingdom. Jlan as he exists today is the heir to all the ~es, and whether he be virtuous or not he is the image of his ancestors in mind and body I in all his eharacteristics , and his ancestors have been nine hundred and ninety. nine savages, at least, to one civilized man. He is by right, and mst be , the heir to all the instincts of all his progeni t'ors; he can not be otherwise. He can only live and reaet to the same stimuli a.s his ancient forefathers lived and reacted to. Man is a predatory animal. He is gregarious now and has been for ages, but before he wa.s gregarious he was solitary, and for perhaps Ji.. hundred times longer was he a solitary animal than he has been a. gre-ous one. It wa.s in solitariness tha.t man acquired all of his PhY-160 , -Force- -.&.-,. F;;r;:a..u:=d --8. 'sical attributes and. perhaps even the brain and nerve cells that he is possessed of today. Man is carnivorous, naturally he must be canni-beJ. istic. All of man was fonned before society J but long ages of social experienoe have developed in him the social instinct to a certain extent. But it will require millions of generations yet to come for the old and original individual instinct to be entirely and completely subordinated to the social instinot. Not to so great an extent today as formerly are oppressive force and fraud human virtues. The social institutions make ' it pos-sible for man to live without robbery or chea.ting. But present condi-tions will not penuit the passive and non-resisting to rise to positions of personal freedom and of great material possessions, nor once having either of these things to retain them. A. whole comrmmity of such passive, non-resisting men would not be permitted to exist, either by savage beasts or by less peaoeable men. Even a nation, numerically very great and very weal thy in a material way, could not exist on earth toda.y exoept by resort to force and fraud. Poor old China is being compelled to adopt western mili-tary methods in these days, in order to defend herself from the depredations of great Christian nations composed of men in whom civilization is a. thousand years in advance of that of China. There are men,and rAanY of them,in this and other civilized countries who believe that the time has come when international peace is possible. Perhaps there is a larger number of men who believe, or think they believe, that the oppressive use of force and fraud by in-di vidual sis wrong. But the men who believe in this latter principle a.re not men of profound lea.rning or thoug.l}t, nor do they in their own minds place the same definitions on the words force and fraud as do. earned and profound men.; these men regard as fraudulent only those 1_61. ;F;;;...o;:;;.;r;:..c:::;.e.:;.. -&F _r a... ur_d --9. acts and schruues which are specifically mentioned and prohibited by statute law, by religious rule and conventions. When they cry out against the use of fraud and force they only mean to denounce that use of force which they had no need to use, and that use of fraud which law and convention denounces. Yet fraud and deceit, in nu.merous ways, is practised by every father and mother in dealing with their children, by every husband and wife in dealing with his or her spouse) by everJ citizen and voter» and by every democratically elected or monarchially appointed officer.. ~ite lies are told in the family, in the society and in the pulpit. Even the landscape gardener who, with a few trees and shrubs, succeeds in creating the impression on the beholder in the middle of an acre of land that he is in the midst of a forest or a mountain wilderness is a fraud before he is an artist. No self"respecting lady; who is a credit to her family and to her society, is free from the virtuous ~uty of making her personal appearance more naturally beautiful in form. than it really is. As for business (Prof. Veblen's work on "The Theory of Modern Business, Ii full and illuminating as it is, will tea.ch no business man any new tricks in hia own business; it is only rem.arkably interesting because of the unexpected revelations it makes to one business man concen~ ing the practices of another,) there is only one word to describe it fully and completely and that is "fraud. It The whole practice and method of business is that of one man I at least, trying to cheat the other. I thilik that this statement would appear verJ trite to everj business man, and I also think that no really good business man could ever be induced, under any circurastancea, to admit to any other human being that he believes this statement to be anything leas than a'l1 out- ~1 rageoua slander. If, by chance, some other luan than myself should make this statement in the public print he would find it very easy to prove his thesis when the idea should be applied to any business transaction that takes place between two men. NowJ as I myself come to the point where I dare to formally express my convictiona,-~~facts that I will not say that I have discovered but that I will say I have confinned, and know then to be facts,... -··what deduction shall I make from them in order to govern my life and in order that I ahould give the very best possible assistance, in the way of training, to the men of my family and to the men who are my associates in business? Some time I may take up this subject. Dictated by E. W. Scripps Miramar! California. May 7, 909.

Title	Page 1
Collection finding aid	http://www.library.ohiou.edu/archives/mss/mss117.html
Transcript	Ohio University Libraries, E.W. Scripps Papers, MSS 117, Series 4, http://media.library.ohiou.edu/scripps ~. J May 7 f 1909. I l FORCE AND FRAUD - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - Whenever one man hears another express opinions similar to his own the party of the first part is pretty sure to consider the pa.rty of the second part a wise man. This feeling of admiration and respect'.-is even aroused when words are lightly spoken and the subject spoken of is cammon-place, and even when the opinion expressed is wellnigh uni ve rsal. But when the hearer is himself a man of either exceptional intelligence, or possessed of peouliarly advanced views, his delight at hearing another give expression to the same views is increased an hundred fold, and his respect for and admiration of his colle~e in opinion is unbounded. This explains why I am so great an admirer of Professor Thor-stein Veblen. I know nothing more of the man t s personality than the fa.ct that he was a. professor at Chicago University and tha.t latterly he has been a professor at Palo Alto. He certainly is not a man who has made much noise in the world. My reading covers a la~e field of scientific su~jects. '. lnlether Veblen is a professor of sociology or somefonm of economics I know not; that he has found publishers for two remarkable books would. - indica.te that he has a high standing. I have read two of his a.rticles in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and my first attention was di-... , rected to him some yea.rs ago by a brief review in a j oumal of similar standing. But I do not recall ever having seen his name elsewhere mentioned in the hundreds and perhaps thousands of books and maga.zine. ar-ticles that I have read. In none of the daily papers, nor in the high-class weekly journals have I ever seen any reference to Veblen.

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Disquisition by Scripps, E.W., Force and fraud, May 7, 1909

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Disquisition by Scripps, E.W., Force and fraud, May 7, 1909

Disquisition by Scripps, E.W., Force and fraud, May 7, 1909

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