"The world is bound to take notice of this."
Will Fear Loss of Liberty.
I asked Prof. Giddings to go beyond economics and to consider the war's
probable results in their broader sociological aspects.
"If what I have predicted happens," he replied, "the democratic elements
of society in all nations will become apprehensive of the loss of
liberty.
"They will fear that in the interests of efficiency the perfected social
order will impose minute and unwelcome regulations upon individual life
and effort, and that a degree of coercive control will be established
which will end by making individuals mere cogs in the machine,
diminishing their importance, curtailing their usefulness and initiative
far more than is done by the great industrial corporations against which
the working classes already are protesting so loudly.
"And not only the working people but a large proportion of all other
classes will develop these fears, especially in those nations which,
during the last century, have built up popular sovereignty and
democratic freedom, as the terms are understood in England and America.
"We shall hear the argument that the loss of individual initiative and
personal self-reliance is too great a price to pay even for supreme
efficiency and the maximum production of material comforts.
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