ruit-trees--the product of generations of labor--have
been swept away. The valley is filled with debris. As the water recedes,
the wreckage must first be picked up, then the whole population must
fall to with a will and rebuild the community--put up houses, re-plant
trees, re-make gardens, repair roads.

The social revolution has not swept everything away, but it has modified
the form of social institutions, and some of them, such as the old time
farm home, the individual workshop and the agricultural village have
been obliterated in many localities. How shall the new society be
rebuilt? Only as the old was built--by the expenditure of human effort
and under the guidance of the best wisdom that the community can muster.

There are a number of points of view from which the present-day economic
chaos may be regarded. The humanitarian feels pity for the suffering and
hardship imposed upon multitudes of the world's population. The
conservative laments the alterations which are being made in the
established order. The liberal regrets that the changes are occurring so
rapidly that construction cannot keep pace with destruction. The radical
sees, in these fundamental changes, the dawn of his millennium. The
scientist and the engineer upon whose shoulders will rest the burden of
rebuilding the new society, tighten their belts and turn to the
mightiest task that men have ever faced.

The economic muddle in which the world now finds itself is one of many
transition periods in the history of civilization,--a phase of the great
revolution. Like any period of chaos, it is the seed-ground of the new
order--the demolition which precedes construction.

Some day men may be wise enough and sufficiently well organized and
equipped to demolish and construct at the same time. As yet no such
stage has been reached. During the intervals of chaos which separate two
periods of forward movement (the dark ages of the world, as they are
sometimes called) the masses agonize and suffer, groping blindly and
crying out for guidance. Such is the period in which the world now finds
itself.

Out of this chaos, men must bring order; and to do this they must
discover the foundations upon which the new order can be successfully
built. This is the work of the engineers, the constructors of the new
society.[3]

10. _The Basis of World Reconstruction_

Asiatics, Europeans, Africans, Americans, Australians--all people who
follow the movement of eve