Social justice, says Monsignor Ryan, is the fundamental issue of the day, and means in so far as government is concerned the “protection of all natural rights and the promotion of the welfare of the people as a whole.” This issue has, he feels, been sponsored by the Roosevelt administration. To adopt the point of view that the traditional principles of American government are being violated is, he says, frequently to insist upon the legitimacy of laissez-faire, an attitude repudiated by the moral conscience.—The Editors. 

The ethical aspect of any practise or policy is more pertinent and more fundamental than the economic or the political aspect. A great part of the current comment on the policies of the New Deal, whether it be favorable or unfavorable, is fundamentally ethical. These judgments may not often be phrased in ethical terms, indeed; nevertheless much of the strength and appeal is due to the ideas of right which are fundamental to and implicit in them. Despite the predominant concern of our age with the material things, our most cherished and vital opinions and judgments are still determined mainly by our perceptions of right and wrong. Consciously or unconsciously the first-and the last-question that we ask about an action, a policy or an institution takes this form: Is it right? 

Let us consider first the general policy which our national government is endeavoring to carry out in the recovery measures. After that we shall take up the particular policies. The general policy is regulation of industry for the benefit of the weaker classes and for the common good. Evidently this objective is morally right, for it expresses the main purpose of government. The object and justification of political government is the protection of all natural rights and the promotion of the welfare of the people as a whole, as composed of various classes, as families and in due measure as individuals. This is social justice. Among the reasons given in the preamble to the Constitution of the United States for the formation of that instrument is “to promote the general welfare.” In all probability the men who wrote this phrase did not think of the general welfare as a mere abstraction or as identical with the welfare of a mere majority of the citizens, much less with the welfare of some dominant minority. A dominant minority, whether of wealth, of birth, or of fortuitous education, is always prone to regard its welfare and privileges as tantamount to the general welfare. 

The purpose of government finds specifically ethical expression in the American Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men which derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” If all men are created equal, that is, morally equal, equal as persons, they have equal rights to the protection and solicitude of the government. “Inalienable rights” mean natural rights, individual rights, rights which are not derived from the state, rights which the state cannot take away and may not ignore. These, says the Declaration of Independence, are the primary object of government. 

They are also the primary object of the general policy which is followed by the present national administration in the regulation of industry. The Congress has adopted and the administration is enforcing certain regulatory measures which are intended to protect the natural rights of the weaker industrial classes. More than forty-three years ago Pope Leo XIII in his great encyclical “On the Condition of the Working Classes” laid down these propositions: 

When there is question of defending the rights of individuals, the poor and badly-off have a claim to especial consideration. The richer class have many ways of shielding themselves, and stand less in need of help from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back upon, and must chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State. And it is for this reason that wage earners, since they mostly belong to that class, should be specially cared for and protected by the government. 

These are the “forgotten men” whom President Roosevelt some two years ago recalled to our minds, declaring they should become the primary concern of his administration. 

It is contended that this policy violates the traditional principles of American government and ignores the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the United States. One is tempted to reply: “So much the worse for our traditional principles and the Bill of Rights.” Such a reply, however, would be neither fair nor accurate. The traditional principles of American government to which appeal is made by certain critics of our current policies are the principles of laissez-faire, of non-intervention by government in industry, of individual liberty for the strong to oppress the weak, of economic liberty for the powerful to violate the natural rights of the workers under the guise of “free” contracts. Let us frankly admit that these principles, old as they are and traditional as they are, were never ethically right, that they were immoral from the beginning. Nevertheless these principles and the practical policies based upon them did not inflict very much injury upon the weaker economic classes in the conditions that obtained in the United States one hundred and fifty or one hundred years ago. In a society which was dominantly agricultural, in which urban industries were small and owned by individuals rather than by corporations, and in which there was an abundance of free land, very little government regulation was necessary. The strong were unable to oppress the weak for any considerable length of time through the medium of “free” contracts. The weak enjoyed a considerable measure of actual opportunity and could find alternative ways of making a living. To a considerable degree the weaker classes were able to protect themselves. Today the great majority of ordinary Americans live in cities as wage earners; industries are managed by powerful corporations; there is no more free land; theoretical opportunity is no longer actual; the vast majority of wage earners must remain wage earners all their lives. If they are to come into actual enjoyment of their natural rights to a fair share of the bounty of the earth and a decent livelihood from our immense natural and artificial resources, they must have the protection of the government through the regulation of industrial contracts, processes, conditions and relations. 

These are the reasons why the traditional principles and policies of unlimited competition, unlimited individual freedom and non-intervention by government must be abandoned. These are the reasons why the federal government must step in and exercise powers that it has never exercised in the past. 

Dishonest critics have occasionally asserted and more frequently insinuated that some parts of the recovery legislation ignore and set at naught the Bill of Rights. Probably some of these reactionary fault-finders would not recognize the Bill of Rights if they met it on the street. Probably some of them do not know what it is or where it is to be found. The Bill of Rights is a term which is generally applied to the first ten amendments to the Constitution and sometimes extended to take in the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments. The first ten specify the rights which safeguard the inhabitants of the United States from arbitrary action by the federal government; the thirteenth and fourteenth protect the individual against certain interferences with his liberty by the states. All these guaranties are properly denominated civil rights. Most of them are also natural rights, which would inhere in the individual even if they were not guaranteed by the Constitution. Hence the assertion that they are disregarded or endangered by our current policies raises a question which is fundamentally ethical. 

But the assertion is false. Not one of these amendments to the Constitution, not one of these guaranties that make up the Bill of Rights, is ignored or endangered by any provision of the recovery legislation. In fact, the only guaranties that are ever specifically brought forward by the unfriendly critics of our current policies are those found in the fifth and fourteenth amendments. These forbid, respectively, the Congress and the states to deprive anyone of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Some of the reactionary critics contend that the “due process” clauses are violated by the minimum wage and the maximum hour provisions of the NRA codes. These provisions, it is asserted, deprive both employer and employee, more particularly the former, of their constitutional liberties. Undoubtedly these regulations do deprive the citizen of some liberty; they do restrict his freedom of contract. So do the laws against murder and theft deprive the citizen of some liberty; so do the laws against extortion and graft restrict the citizen’s freedom of contract. 

Whether the minimum wage and maximum hours provision or any other provision in the codes of fair practise deprives the citizen of liberty “without due process of law” is a question of constitutional construction. Until this question has been answered by the Supreme Court no person has either legal warrant or a moral right to assert that the “due process” clauses or any other clause of the Constitution prohibit any part of the recovery legislation. In the final stage of construction the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is. Therefore when any man or any newspaper recklessly, or even solemnly, declares that the recovery legislation is violating the Constitution I have a right to reply: “I deny your interpretation of the Constitution, for I do not recognize your competence as interpreter. I prefer to await the authoritative verdict of the Supreme Court.” 

Coming to particulars, the principal policies of the administration may be summarized as follows: They regulate wages and hours and guarantee the right of labor to organize; they prohibit unfair competition, monopolistic practises and extortionate prices; they provide fair prices to the farmer through the processors’ tax and they withdraw surplus acres from cultivation; they make available public funds and credit to provide a living for the unemployed through direct relief and public works, and they contemplate obtaining the money to pay for these expenditures from high taxes upon incomes, inheritances and excess profits; finally, they regulate the issuing of securities and the transactions on the stock exchange. 

Every one of these policies is ethically right. Every wage earner has a natural right to at least so much of the national product as is necessary to enable him to live decently. To protect and enforce this right is a primary duty of the State. If industry is unable to provide employment for all workers because millions of men have been displaced by machines and because the masters of industry have been too stupid and too greedy to make the industrial system function adequately, it is the duty of the State to provide employment for the unemployed by shortening the hours of labor. If despotic employers have prevented their employees from forming unions through coercion, company unions or any other unjust or dishonest means, it is the duty of the State to protect the worker against this invasion of his natural rights. If business men strive to overreach one another by indirection, deception, extortion and other oppressive practises, the State is under moral obligation to restrain them, to show them that not all “free” contracts are fair contracts. If prices are imposed upon the consumer which are not necessary to defray the reasonable and fair expenses of production, it is the duty of the State to suppress this extortion, for the benefit of the weak and the advancement of the common good. If men, women and children are deprived of a livelihood through the defective operation of the industrial system, it becomes the duty of the State to provide for their wants and to assess the costs thereof upon the community, specifically upon those who are able to pay taxes and in proportion to their ability to pay. In our economic society the fairest ethical measure and the most accurate economic measure of ability to pay are found in progressive taxes upon incomes, inheritances and excess profits. If the farmers are unable to get decent prices for that portion of their product which the American people desire to consume, the government may rightfully compel the consumer to pay these decent prices through the processors’ tax or through some other fair and effective device. If the amount of land under cultivation is so great that under free competition and unlimited opportunity to overproduce, the natural movements of the market deprive millions of farmers of a decent livelihood, it is the duty of the state to prevent this disastrous overproduction. If the sellers of securities practise fraud upon the investor and inflate capitalization to the detriment of the community, and if the managers of the stock exchange permit and perpetrate wholesale dishonesty and gambling, surely the repression of these evils becomes the bounden duty of the State. 

To be sure, some of these evils might be removed through cooperative action by the people themselves without the intervention of the government. That would be preferable to State action because it is always more conducive to human dignity and human development when men do things for themselves instead of having things done for them by others, even by the political community. But cooperative enterprise and the cooperative spirit have not yet made sufficient progress in American life to deal adequately with any of the distressing situations that I have been summarizing. Therefore, the alternatives are effective action by the government or a return to the evils which we knew eighteen months ago and which it would be politically unwise, economically stupid and ethically wrong to bring back. In this very grave and very critical situation it was not only the right, but the duty, of the federal government to intervene by adequate legislation. The province of State action was stated by Pope Leo XIII in terms that are at once comprehensive and incontestible. Here is his formula: 

Whenever the general interest of any particular class suffers or is threatened with injury which can in no other way be met or prevented, it is the duty of the public authority to intervene. 

No intelligent person can honestly deny that this was the situation in the United States in March, 1933. Not only the general welfare but the very existence of important social classes was jeopardized by evils which could have been removed neither by the voluntary action of the citizens nor by the automatic processes of industry. The intervention undertaken by the government in March, 1933, and expanded by additional governmental measures since that time, is still necessary and imperative. To abandon any substantial part of the recovery legislation until it has been given an adequate trial would be economically disastrous and ethically wrong. 

Let us sum up the ethical judgments to be passed upon our current policies. The general policy of greatly enlarged governmental regulation and assistance is constitutionally justifiable and morally right. The particular policies are on the whole ethically sound; they are morally right; they deserve the active support of all Americans who have an intelligent perception of the economic and political implications of the moral law, and who possess at the same time the moral courage and the moral earnestness to follow the right as they see the right. Never before in our history have the policies of the federal government embodied so much legislation and administration that is of a highly ethical order. Never before in our history have government policies been so deliberately, formally and consciously based upon conceptions and convictions of moral right and social justice.