y of
the revolution. If people learned only through first hand experience,
these propaganda machines would be failures. In practice, they are
highly successful.

Social disaster is not the only path to social knowledge. It is not
necessary for a generation to suffer from typhus or to be ruined by war
in order to be convinced that these dread diseases are menaces. The
desire to prevent famine is felt by millions who have never come any
nearer to it than the stories in the papers. Society learns, indirectly,
through education--slowly of course, but none the less surely.

The average man is convinced of the desirability of trying to avoid
disease, hunger and the other ills that effect him personally and
immediately. He is not yet convinced of the efficacy of a similar
attitude toward war, revolution and other disasters which inevitably
destroy some portion of society, and which, in the end will prove as
preventable as disease and famine. Social disaster seems more inevitable
because it strikes more people at one time, while individual disaster
has been more carefully studied, is better understood and is more
localized.

Grave dangers menace present-day society. Economic breakdown, war and
social dissolution with their terrible scourges--pestilence and
famine--have already overtaken millions. It is plain that some new
course of social action must be planned; that some social experiment
must be inaugurated that will ward off the impending disasters.

Social experiments should be made, as chemical and electrical
experiments are made, after all of the available facts have been
carefully considered and digested. The results of such wisely planned
experiments in the social field may be just as dramatic as the results
of similarly planned experiments in the field of natural science.

Never in the history of social change has there been an intelligent
direction of social processes. Many men in many ages have had ideals and
aspirations, coupled, in some cases, with a limited knowledge of social
practice, but social changes have come upon mankind for the most part,
as a meteor comes upon the earth's atmosphere--unexpected and
unheralded, startling those who have seen it by the suddenness of its
appearance. Nor has there been any attempt on the part of the ruling
powers to instill a different point of view with regard to these
matters. On the contrary, there has been a determined effort to convince
men that social changes were