LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIFT OF . M. C. A. OF U. C. Accession 1.QJL8.Q.2 cl (Political Econ. II., 95, 96.) The trick of ignoring or belittling the virtue of saving is well illustrated in " Progress and Poverty." The author says, " It is not a doing it is simply a not doing." Elsewhere he SCC. 5.] NECESSITY OF SAVING. 17 seeks cover under a " glittering generalitj 1 "," and gives it as his opinion "that the social organism secretes, as it were, the necessary amount of capital just as the human organism in a healthy condition secretes the requisite fat." This, of course, denies all credit to members of society for the providence and self-denial of saving they simply act like the unconscious glands in the healthy organism ! Society secretes the opportune invention and the necessary industrial skill just as it secretes capital ; but to insist that it does so as the glands secrete fat, is, we fear, to give a sample of the fatty degeneration of eco- nomical logic. It explains nothing, and is but begging the reader not to think. All who deny interest to capital depreciate the merit of sav- ing. The entire difficulty concerning Bastiat's example so often referred to, arises from putting the matter of saving out of sight. If James works while William indulges in idleness, or if he saves what William spends in gratifications, and thus has a plane to lend William, he certainty is entitled to the plank for its use. If James works and saves while William dawdles and spends, and thereby secures an industrial advan- tage, surely James is entitled to its fruits, and not William. But the claim that W T illiam is entitled to the use of the plane, merely making it good at the end of the year, without any compensation to James for his industry and saving, is iden- tical with the logic of over-sympathetic reformers who would have the idle and worthless share industrial advantages along with those who have practised the necessary self-denial to secure them. If such doctrines could be put in practice, they would discourage saving, cripple enterprise, and ruin business ; for there would be no plane for William to borrow, with or without interest. It is true that the power which accumula- tion gives deepens inequality, making the rich richer, and this is no doubt the animus of the war on rent, interest, and prof- its ; but inequality with general plenty is a far less evil than would be equality with general poverty and one or the other we must have. What reformers most need is to get the 18 SAVING AND MANAGEMENT. [Chap. II. notion of possible perfection out of their heads, and learn to be satisfied with the possible in human nature. 6. THE CLAIMS OF ENTERPRISE AND MANAGEMENT. Certain agitators are fond of taking this view of the case : Labor creates all the wealth of the world, and is therefore entitled to all. This is true in a sense, but not in the sense intended. The labor referred to is for the most part that which is done by employe's working under direction in a mill, which the} 7 did not build. If there were no mill and no master-mind to direct, these workingmen would be idle or working to little purpose. All wealth is not due to labor in this sense. As we have just seen, unless somebody saved a part of the creations of labor from waste and consumption, there would be no basis on which labor could successfully operate, and we should have an order of industry like that which existed before the days of invention and accumulation. It is far less plausible now than it would have been then to claim that labor is entitled to all that is produced. But there is another reason, and an insurmountable one, why labor in this sense is not entitled to all it produces. I refer to the undertaking and management of business, the risk of enterprise, the direction of labor, the exchange of products, without which labor would amount to very little. Not only is the capital invested in the plant entitled to interest, but the enterprise which builds up the business for the employment of labor is equally entitled to reward. The efficiency of industry in production depends very much on the advantages which capital supplies, and on the skill with which it is set to work and directed. To ignore this skill and responsibiltty, as so many reformers do, is to leave out one of the most important elements of the problem ; and any pretended solution with this element omitted can only be false and misleading. The employer must take responsibility, must run risks, must be wide awake, and calculate for chang- ing conditions, while the laborer may have to do only routine duty almost without thinking from day to day; shall the Sec. 7.] FREEDOM AND EQUALITY. 19 working mind receive nothing and the physical automaton all ? It is indeed sad that human beings must become au- tomatons a fatality, however, which is bound up with the necessities of modern industry, and for which nobody is to blame ; but to put the power of moving the whole machinery of civilization into the hands of these automatons would be in the outcome sadder still. Under such mal-adjustment, it would turn out that the machinery of civilization would very soon not move at all. It is to the interest of workingmen that they appreciate fully the value of capital to themselves ; and it is equally to their interest to understand that without wise direction their labor would have little return. We see how many enterprises employing laborers fail for want of proper management, wasting capital, wasting labor, and disappointing all concerned, the working people not less than others. With- out a reward in the form of profits for the establishment and conducting of industries, the necessary enterprise to give employment to labor would not be forthcoming, and laborers would soon be tramps and beggars. It does no good to the cause of labor to preach that physical labor produces all and is therefore entitled to all. 7. FREEDOM AND EQUALITY. The great power which wealth gives to rule and oppress is just ground for constant watch, fulness ; but it is no just ground for the indiscriminate abuse of successful business men. It should be some mitigation of the sin of being rich, in the eyes of eager levelers, that nearly all of our rich men, or their fathers, began with little or noth- ing, and, also, that even large estates are liable in time to dissipate. We know that all who have to work do not con- sume all they get. Many save, and this saving disposition is apt to pass by descent from one generation to another, making such families eventually rich, thus carrying them over to the enemy. This obvious and simple consideration shows with what subtilty the inevitable working of things mocks the cheap logic so commonly applied to this subject. " Many employers of labor, in some parts of England more than half, have risen 20 SAVING AND MANAGEMENT. [Chap. II. from the ranks of labor." (Marshall quoted by F. A. Walker.) In this country the proportion is still larger. If those who rail had conformed to the business requirements of getting and saving, they would have less occasion for dissatisfaction. As long as competition is the order of society, every one must depend on himself for success, and not expect to be taken care of like a child. The whole world is open to him in a race free to all. It is true that all do not and cannot have an even start ; but, if it is wealth that is wanted, the success of many a penniless boy shows what enterprise, industry, and econ- omy may do. And, under competition as the organized order of business, his whining at the fate of unsuccessful competition is really puerile, and not well fitted to awaken sympatlr^. It is the freedom of getting and saving, vouchsafed to all alike on the basis of economic law, that affords the opportunity to become rich ; granting the system, millionaires will spring up. How then is the inequality to be prevented ? By some form of interference ? But who shall interfere ? Is there any authority that may be trusted with the duty of limiting this freedom of getting and saving ? In the nature of things there is none. But millionaires on the one hand practically means beggars on the other. The opportunity to acquire wealth, or to earn only a happy competence, is equally the opportunity to remain, or to become, a beggar. Human nature being what it is, it appears to be one of the fatalities of existence that pauperism as the bane of civilization, and wealth as its basis, shall both be dependent on the same condition the freedom to accumulate, or not to accumulate. There is absolute and ineradicable conflict between personal freedom and equality of condition. If there be equality in freedom, there cannot be equality of condition ; and, if there is to be equality of condition, it can only be brought about and maintained by extinguishing equality of freedom. But the very conception of equality of condition involves practical absurdities which rule it out of the category of possible things. The gulf between personal freedom and personal equality, in Sec. 7.] FREEDOM AND EQUALITY. 21 any practical sense of the twain, can neither be filled up nor bridged over, and they can only find place side by side in harmony and rapport, in the brains of dreamy world-menders. Yon Scheel's dreams, that liberty shall be supplemented with equalit}^ can never be fulfilled. And, while inequality of condition must necessarily obtain, it is not, alas, the wisest and best that usually rise to the top! What, then, is the remed}'' for the evils of inequality of condition? There is none; unless, indeed, it be advisable to limit industrial freedom and stop industrial improvement, and possible to prevent the hereditary descent of the improvident and shift- less habit of mind. The experiment of starting people on an equality in property and opportunity has been tried more than once. Sparta had comparative equality in the beginning ; but the rigid laws of the State and the spirit of equality they were meant to sustain were not sufficient to maintain this status among the citizens, and no State ever had more trouble arising from inequality of wealth than Sparta. Brassey states that a like experiment was tried in the Argentine Republic: "Large numbers of colonists were sent out from all parts of Europe. To each was allotted an equal area of land; for each a house was built, a well dug, and seeds and implements provided. Nature gave to each an equal portion of sunshine and of rain ; and) at the end of a short term of years, you find some in penury, many struggling to maintain a bare subsistence ; a few, but only a few, had prospered." (Work and Wages, 291.) Now, what would have been the result of maintaining equality by force? Simply, the general poverty of all. The natural reward of merit will make inequality of condition; what kind of a system would it be, that under the pretext of main- taining equality, refused such reward ? And what would be its result but poverty everywhere and in all ways ? The effect of maintaining equality would not be to lift up the lower at all, but to keep down those who would rise ; and the whole would remain below the average economical level of 22 SAVING AND MANAGEMENT. [Chap. II. ordinary society. It would be " une e^galite par voie d'abaisse- ment." And this would be true even if equality were main- tained by the despotic rule which communism invokes. No people can develop into civilization without the guaranty to individuals of freedom to accumulate wealth. 8. POSSIBILITY OF SAVING BY THE POOR. There are two leading causes in existence for the inequality of classes. First, the unequal ability, natural and acquired, of individuals to profit by opportunity; and this includes the enterprise of those who win and the delinquencies of those who fail. Secondly, special privileges and monopolies secured by legal enactment for the benefit of the few. This obstruction to equality need not exist if the people were sufficiently intel- ligent and public-spirited to remove it. The first named cause of inequality could only be done away with by the destruction of freedom and individuality. But, whatever the causes of inequality, it would not be so bad for the "poor man," if he but turned his present poor opportunities to the best account. There is this not to be lost sight of, that, except in cases of misfortune in some of its forms, the provident and indus- trious laborer is able, under most conditions, to provide very fairly for his wants, and with a small family, to provide an increasing fund for the security of the future. This is cer- tainly the case in our own country, and, to a considerable extent, even in the old countries. I am well aware of the hard lot of many poor workers who are not the authors of their own misery not directly so. But I am just as well aware that in most instances the hard lot is due to intemperance, to idleness, to waste, to mistakes of management, to over-large families, and the deadly competition of laborers. It is not always high rent, interest, and profits that do the mischief. It is a fact, which is only too significant, that, while the outlay of English and American laborers for hurtful indulgences is enormous, it is greatest when times are flush, employment certain, and wages good. (Conflict in Nature and Life. Sec. 202.) Sec. 8.~\ SAVING BY THE POOR. 23 The waste of strikes has meaning in this connection. Mil- lions which had been saved up from hard earnings have been disbursed in keeping up strikes which ended in failure. The waste of time and the demoralization of habits in connection with strikes are a still greater loss. Yet, in spite of these drawbacks, the deposits of laboring men in savings banks aggregate a very large sum, being over a billion dollars in Europe, and about twice as much in the United States. To this must be added the savings in old stockings and otherwise for small holdings of land in parts of Europe and for little homes in this country. Wages in France are only about one third as much as they are in the United States, while the necessaries of life cost more, but even on this pittance, French laborers usually manage to make small savings, and are far more contented and less turbulent than many who fare better. (U. S. Consul's Report on Labor, 1879.) But it is not so much what laborers save as what they waste, that tells on this point. The laborers of England spend every year in drink and tobacco twice as much as the entire sum of their savings in postal and other banks. The industrious, prudent, saving, and well-managing do better their circumstances almost everywhere in spite of the legalized injustice which the}' have not the intelligence and concert of action to correct. But reformers are apt to be impatient with the reflection that the moderate success possi- ble should be thus dependent on self-denial. It is true they have grounds for such impatience, yet they are too much infected with the prevailing epidemic of self-seeking which recognizes nothing as really desirable but what comes easy and goes easy. Yet, by this very self-control through which triumph in the struggle is secured, shall such as win event- ually come into their rightful place, reaping the reward of the faithful, though often onerous, performance of duty. 24 MONOPOLY. \Chap. III. CHAPTER, III. MONOPOLY. 9. LAND MONOPOLY. The war on monopoly is a holy war ; but men who acquire large property through "unprotected" commercial and manufacturing enterprise are not necessarily monopolists. Their acquisitions cannot be limited to any specified sum without inflicting a fatal wound, not only on economic prosperit}^ but on industrial freedom. Very differ- ent things, however, are " protected " investments, law-created monopolies, and monopoly of the soil. The man who owns a township is necessarily a monopolist. He is keeping from others what it is their natural right to have ; and it would seem that there ought to be some way to prevent it. He usually adopts the tenantry system, which is bad for the soil and unjust to the tenants. It is an injury to the community at large, and the community should have the right to order it otherwise. Herbert Spencer, in his Social Statics, arraigns individual ownership of the soil. He maintains that it is a violation of equity and detrimental to the best interests of society. He would have the nation or community control the soil, and lease it to the people. He insists that this " is con- sistent with the highest civilization ; and that, however diffi- cult it may be to embocty that theory in fact, Equity sternly commands it to be done." But the trouble with many an economical question is, that Equity appears to require what it is not practicable to do. Dr. Woolsey regards Spencer's scheme as impracticable. (Political Science, Vol. I., 66, 67.) And Eoscher says of like schemes that " we need only glance at those kingdoms . in which something analogous is to be found, especially the despotisms of the East, to divine that Sec. #.] LAND MONOPOLY. 25 such a system does not suffice to insure the real productive- ness of a nation's economy." (P. E. I. 267.) He gives examples. The difficulties attending the disposition of the soil make up a case which very clearly illustrates the difference between perfection in theory and the utter failure of perfection in practice. Such are the conditions and limitations necessarily connected with occupancy of the soil, that justice of appor- tionment cannot be secured by lease ; and such are these diffi- culties, that justice cannot be secured under any system of apportionment. All that can be done is to approximate justice by adopting the system which under any given conditions would be attended in practice with the greatest balance of good. Limited individual ownership, left to adjust itself as best it might, Mr. Spencer has not discussed. This is by no means theoretically perfect, but it would probably involve less injustice than any other system under competitive individual- ism. So far as it has been approximated unintentionally by moderate holdings, it evidently encourages improvement and careful husbandry, is best for the tillers of the soil, and best for society. There would be economical as well as political difficulties in the way of effecting a change so desirable as this, but, if it is the best system practicable, it should be made the end and aim of intelligent and determined agitation until it is embodied in forms of law for the extinction of land monopoly through the limitation of individual ownership in the soil. One of the difficulties in the way of a change like this con- fronts us in the form of improved agricultural machinery. Only a few years ago, an outlay of two hundred dollars would supply the cultivator of one hundred acres with all the tools he needed ; now it takes at least five times as much. Then a young man beginning life without capital could soon struggle into the ownership of a little farm with all the going means of cultivating it to the best advantage ; now, owing to the increased expense, the struggle is much harder, and only the few who are shrewd and strong can achieve success within any 26 MONOPOLY. [Chap. III. brief period of life. This extensive use of farm machinery implies farms so large that they are out of the reach of the masses. Is it, then, that the improvement of agricultural implements goes to strengthen the tendency toward land monopoly, the acquisition of the good on one hand promoting evil on the other, and dividing the agricultural people into owners, tenants and hirelings ? Not necessarily, it is to be hoped. Still some compromise must be accepted, when har- mony and perfection are not to be had. State socialists would have agricultural business consolidated to be managed by a central bureau ; but this, if feasible, would have very serious drawbacks. Others contend that these difficulties point to a fraternal association of interests; and this would be an effectual way out of this conflict of tendency, if it were practicable ; but it is to be feared that, owing to the current energy of individualism in character and of antagonism in mind, associative attempts ever so earnestly made will only be successful in an expectional way for a long time to come, if not forever. The solution of the problem is to be looked for rather in dissociation ; that is, in the further division of labor by the differentiation of new agricultural industries. This is already taking place. Threshing is now a distinct business from general farming, and the thresher is not necessarily a farmer. This is also partially true of harvesting, the owner of a mower or reaper cutting the grass or grain of several farmers. In parts of Europe the same yoke of oxen does the work for a number of small farms. The difficulties are not so easily over- come as in the case of threshing, and success is, and may remain, only partial. Whatever the rule by which we adjust the occupancy of the soil, we are compelled to experience the difficulty of transforming the ideal into the real, and of secur- ing even a fair degree of harmony and justice. J. S. Mill was an earnest advocate of the system of small farms, if not too small, not as a finality necessarily, but as a desirable form of adjustment. The system may not have all the merits he attributes to it ; but, however that may be, a strong confirma- Sec. 10J] EXAGGERATING LAND MONOPOLY. 27 tion of his views has recently been afforded in the readiness with which the French paid their enormous war indemnity to Prussia, being enabled to do so mainly in consequence of the thrift of their peasant population. 10. EXAGGERATING LAND MONOPOLY. Since the writing of the preceding paragraphs, the subject of land monopoly has been discussed in " Progress and Poverty " by Henry George. The attempt is there made, not for the first time, to prove that labor in all departments of industry is robbed, almost or quite solely on account of the ownership of land. It is only too true that the present latitude of land ownership goes a long way in this direction, but that it is the only cause of such robbery, may well be questioned. Land monopoly is a bad form of monopoly, but it is far from being the only form. It is taught, however, that this lies at the base of all monopoly, so that, if this were put an end to, economical robbery would cease from the earth. Something like this I have heard for the third of a century past, and I have been all that time trying to see wherein the truth of it lay, without success. In times long past land monopoly was no doubt predominantly effective to enslave ; but, since the diversification of industries and the multiplication of conflicting interests, the situation is mate- rially changed. In some parts of the world at the present day, land monopoly is an economical iniquity which is incom- patible with the prosperity of the people. It is on the increase in this country, mainly in its speculative form, threatening to inflict injustice on a larger scale than is possible elsewhere ; but it is very far indeed from being the only aggressive form of monopoly. If land monopoly in its various phases were manacled and its claws and teeth removed, there would still be hideous monsters of like character threatening to prey upon the people. There are forms of legalized robbery which do not derive their vitality from land monopoly, and they are constantly becoming more deeply entangled in the web of modern affairs, and more generally mischievous in their action on human interests. Mr. George's scheme would give these 28 MONOPOLY. [Chap. III. monopolies still greater advantages by relieving them of the burthen of taxation. Only the man who cultivates the soil is to pay taxes, and his taxes are measured by the rent of the land. But this theorist has a short way with all monopolies ; he would incorporate them into the functions of the general government. Land may be monopolized ; let the Government own it. Telegraphs are monopolies ; let the Government control them. The express business is a monopoly; let the Government manage it. Railroads are monopolies; let the Government run them. Banks of issue are law-created mon- opolies ; let the Government do the banking. Gas-making is a monopoly ; let the Government provide the gas. But the author only names land, railroads, and telegraphs. Would paternalism to this extent be desirable ? Certainly not, if the author's view of the downward tendency of political life in this country and elsewhere be true and it is true. If our Government is drifting into degeneracy with the comparatively small amount of patronage it now has, what would it become when that patronage should be doubled or quadrupled by taking charge of all kinds of business which may become monopolies ? Our author does not pursue this subject, only to say that we must incorporate these possible monopolies in one grand paternal system, because such is the drift of the age. The tendency is toward centralization and the assump- tion of power; therefore, we must avail ourselves of this tendency successfully to combat the evils of monopoly. He forgets that, by such a course, we might fail in the extirpation of these evils, and at the same time build up a power of despot- ism with the unchecked possibilities of corruption, injustice, and spoliation greater by far than we now suffer. He forgets that this very centralization is itself one of the evils of a culminating civilization to be watched and wrestled with as much even as land monopoly. History teaches us to beware of this tendency in the political sphere, and weigh thoroughly at every step its claim of new fields for the exercise of power, rather than to encourage it by voluntary concessions till it is Sec. 10.~\ EXAGGERATING LAND MONOPOLY. 29 completely be3'ond control and ready to crown its Caesar. And yet it is not at all certain that, if this additional power is not assumed by the Government, it will not be exercised, neverthe- less, and by an agency under government protection and not responsible to the people. I certainly do not make pretension to the wisdom necessary to point out the proper thing to do in a dilemma so weighted with consequence as this. We should do well perhaps to aim at the " middle way." One thing I am quite sure of : if the Government would not lend its power to monopolists in their raids on the people's land and substance, monopoly would be a far less evil than it is. One of the first things to do is to let fall the government arm which sustains monopoly in the doing of wrong ; and, if this cannot be done on account of the political incompetence of the people and the political adroitness of monopolist, we may be perfectly sure that the evils would not be cured if power were put into the hands of government functionaries to lease the land and run the railroads. The people will be bitten anywa} T , unless they know how to protect themselves. If rent under the present system monopolizes invention and all the advantages of industrial improvement, as Mr. George endeavors to show on theoretical grounds, then will the State under his scheme get what the land-owners now get that is, everything, according to the theory, and we shall have a huge communistic organization, the State, taking from the people all surplus above a stingy living, and then giving it back to them in benefits on the theory' of equity of distribution. This would develop state functions into a marvellous promi- nence. But the facts do not afford any basis for this grand system of equitable distribution through state patronage. " The confiscation of rent " would completely fail to bring into the public treasury all the spoils of monopoly. So far as rent is the robber, it should be dealt with directl} 7 , and its power for mischief eliminated, if possible, by the limitation of land ownership. Even this would not much abate the high price for the use of city lots. All is not land-rent that sometimes 30 MONOPOLY. [Chap. III. goes by the name. City rent is largely the price paid for commercial and manufacturing opportunity, and localities for such use would command enormous rents, though they were bare rock and not land at all. This could hardly be called land-rent in any fair sense of the term. 11. RENT NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL MONOPOLY. Accord- ing to the theory of Henry George, rent is invading the domains of interest and wages, the landlord swallowing up both capitalist and laborer. He says : " Three parties divide the products the laborer, the capitalist, and the land-owner. If, with an increase of products, the capitalist gets no more and the laborer gets no more, it is a necessary inference that the land- owner gets the whole gain. And the facts agree with the inference" (199). But is it true that the landlord's gains are increasing and the capitalist's gains not increasing ? It is not true even when rents are going up and interest coming down, because the capitalist's basis for gain may enlarge, while the landlord's cannot. Dollars multiply, but not acres. The assumption fails in theory as well as in fact. In this countay and in most of the civilized world, the landlord and the capitalist may change places, and they do change places. Instances are not uncommon in which the land-owner thinks he can do better to sell his land and invest in something else ; and, as soon as he meets a capitalist who wants land, he becomes a capitalist, and the capitalist becomes a land-owner. It is quite possible that both may have gained by the ex- change ; but, if this theory be true, one of them committed a ridiculous business blunder to surrender his grip on monopoty. Let us imagine that the rents of land pay five per cent, on the capital invested, while other forms of investment pay only three per cent. The thing is absurd ; but, supposing it to exist, what would take place ? There would be a rush of capital for the purchase of land, and the price would rise till the money invested in it would bring no greater per cent, than money invested in anything else. Rents m&y remain precisely the same, yet the price of land may rise through the greater Sec. 11.] RENT NOT RESPONSIBLE. 31 abundance of capital and the decline of interest. But, even when lands rise in price, the owner as a landlord gains nothing, unless rents rise ; his advantages simply remain equal with the advantages of other owners of capital. This statement, of course, has reference to the situation of the landlord and not to that of the speculator in new lands a very different person. And it must be added that, while land is rising in price under the stimulus of increased capital and the decline of interest, all forms of production are becoming more abundant, to the advantage of the rent-payer and laborer, as well as others. It is impossible to corner the advantages of any kind of business for the benefit of any particular class among competent business men for any long period, except by legal despotism which prevents free competition ; and even then it is difficult, as, in some way or other, the wrong thus inflicted is liable to be avenged in ultimate results. Everj^- body knows that capital invested in land, under freedom for transfer, makes no more than capital invested in other forms of propert} 7 . In fact, it does not make quite as much ; for, though investment in land cannot be so readily turned into cash as most others, yet, being considered the safest of all investments, it may afford to do with less returns than a shrewd and enterprising business man would get out of the same principal otherwise invested. This is true even where there is no prospective increment of land value. This is conclusive against the new theory as it concerns the landlord and the capitalist. They are simply both capitalists on the same economical level ; and the idea of the land-owner eating up the money-lender is preposterous. There is far more danger of the money-lender devouring the land owner ; and this is what most frequently happens, as in India, Ireland, our own western States, everywhere. Further, the theor} r not only assumes that land-owners are a fixed caste with a monopoly which they will not give up, but it assumes that they have some way of swallowing up their gains without benefit to any body else. Yet, just so far as 32 MONOPOLY. [Chap. III. they do not consume their rents, the surplus must flow over into other channels for the benefit of society in general. The redundant capital derived from rent must go largely into commerce, manufacturing, or other industries, thus contribut- ing to the greater general abundance of consumable products, and helping all classes. Hence, if it were true, which it is not, that the land-owner is laying all other classes under tribute, he is compelled, by the nature of business, to make a part of it useful even to the wage-earning class, in the shape of surplus seeking profit; for profit it cannot usually get without the employment of labor. There has been an immense increase in the wealth of the world within the last twenty-five years : has all this gone into the hands of landlords ? Do the men who have become rich within that time owe their wealth to the exuberant bounty of their rent rolls ? A very small propor- tion of them, indeed. Thrifty merchants, bankers, railroaders, manufacturers greatly outnumber the thrifty landlords ; and right here the Georgian theory is buried under an avalanche of facts. While it follows from the freedom of investment that the land-owner has not necessarily an advantage over the ship- owner or the money-lender, it still remains to determine the relation of rent to land, and of interest and wages to capital. All this has been done well enough by the leading authors on Political Economy ; but Henry George has controverted their views to make place for his own theory. According to his view, interest and wages " depend on the margin of cultivation, falling as it falls, and rising as it rises." Now, rent depends on the margin of cultivation, rising as it falls, and falling as it rises. Rent, interest, and wages then, on this theory, all depend in one way or other on the margin of cultivation; that is, what can be earned cultivating land, which is just too poor to pajr rent, determines interest and wages as well as rent. Now, if this were so, we should expect the same stability in wages and interest that we find in rent. But there is no such stability. Interest sometimes changes from Sec. 11.] RENT NOT RESPONSIBLE. 33 day to day, and wages change greatly from year to year, while rent may change very little. These changes are not all in one direction at all ; they are fluctuations which show that interest and wages are not governed by a cause so stable as that which governs rent, but must, on the contrary, depend on some cause which the theory does not recognize. The facts, however, do accord with the prevailing view that wages, for example, in any given condition of the natural resources, depend on the capital bidding for labor and the laborers bidding for wages. If there is truth in the preceding paragraphs, " the confisca- tion of rent " would not cure the evil of wages ; for, whatever may be the tendency of rent, it is not the only power that works the mischief, and the landlord not the only ogre that devours workingmen. It is true that the laboring class does not receive its full share' of the gains to production through the improvement of machinery ; but this is due in part to causes over which the land-owner has no control. But, admitting that rent is responsible for all the wrong, how is the matter to be mended by turning the State into a monster landlord, and all the cultivators of the soil into tenants ? It is difficult to see how this form of landlordism would be better than any other. " Oh, the Government would refund the surplus to the people in benefits." Ay, and so would the landlord just so far as he makes his money useful in business. " But the landlord wastes a large percentage on his own pleasures." Yes, and something equivalent would be done by your government col- lectors. And, then, it is doubtful if the benefits conferred on the people by refunding the surplus, whether in cash, or in doing for the people what they ought to be allowed to do for themselves, would really prove to be benefits. The rent-tax on agricultural labor would absolutely forbid any addition to its profits over what is now current, and, consequently, there would be no leaven of advantage from this source to spread over into other industries and im- prove the condition of workingmen. The rent would be a 34 MONOPOLY. [Chap. HI. greater sum than the present taxes on land, tenements, and tools ; and, as farming now pays only under good manage- ment, and some seasons and series of seasons does not pay at all, it is not to be supposed that, under the proposed condi- tions, the cultivation of the soil would draw very powerfully from other industries, or by its advantages lead to the eleva- tion of labor in general. The Government might be a more generous landlord than the average of personal landlords ; but even that much could not be counted on, since the agricultural class as the sole payer of enormous taxes would then be game for all classes, and alas, when certain classes get the taste of another, they only too surely betray the instincts of ravenous beasts ! And I fear that the phenomenal success in book form of Mr. George's scheme has been due in part to the too great prevalence in our times of financial cannibalism. Millions in the civilized world are now their own landlords, owning only what they can themselves cleverly cultivate, known as peasants, yeomen, or farmers ; steady, self-sustain- ing, and independent ; as noble a class, taken all in all, as the world has yet had. All these would be swept away by the confiscation of rent in the name of justice, for the common good of themselves and of mankind. This scheme would destroy the individual possession of land in moderation as well as its possession in excess; and the stimulus given to industry and management by limited independent land-owner- ship would be lost. The champions of the scheme are not found among the yeomanry. The conversion of proprietary farmers into tenants might appear to be injurious and unjust to this class only, yet would it prove in the end to be damag- ing to all classes, lowering the moral and financial level of society in general. 12. PROGRESS OP LAND MONOPOLY. The case is not so simple as this theory assumes ; and the hard lot of the wage- earning class is not to be bettered by a preposterous scheme for "the confiscation of rent." It is not moderate ownership of the soil for actual use that is doing the mischief; it is the Sec. 11. \ RENT NOT RESPONSIBLE. 35 ownership for speculation, usually of large tracts, and holding for higher prices so as to reap the benefits arising from the toil of honest small owners, that needs especially to be dealt with in this county, and it is high time the matter were taken in hand. For whether, as heretofore, territory equal to whole States shall hereafter be given to syndicates, the mischief of what has been done must continue to multiply under the con- ditions of an advancing civilization. Furthermore, this may be the worst, but it is not the total. The monopoly of large farms is rapidly on the increase in this country. It is true, we occasionally hear of the failure of large farming in the West, and see large farms advertised for sale in all parts of the country. It is true, also, that the census of 1880 reports a decrease in the average size of farms from 153 to 134 acres, being a diminution of 12.4 per cant, during the previous decade. The same census reports the number of farms less than fifty acres at 1,175,464, while in 1870 it was 1,321,117, being a decrease of 11 per cent. ; almost the only States showing a gain in the number of small farms during the decade, being Southern States, with a large colored population. During the same period the total land in farms increased 31 per cent., or from 408,000,000 acres to 536,000,000. In order, therefore, to maintain the status of 1870, the number of small farms should have increased 31 per cent.; instead, they fell off 11 per cent, consequently, the relative loss in small farms was 42 per cent. That is, to maintain the proportion of 1870, instead of 1,175,464 small farms in 1880, there should have been 1,735,585. This shows that for some reason small farms are going out of fashion. Not so, however, with very large ones. During the decade places of five hundred acres and over increased in number from 19,593 to 104,550, being a gain of 433.5 per cent. Then how is it the average size of farms was reduced during the decade ? It must be due to a vast increase in the number of farms of fifty acres and less than one hundred and thirty-four acres. But farms of fifty acres and less than one hundred increased from 754,221 to 1,032,910, 3 36 MONOPOLY. [Chap. III. being 37 per cent., which is only 6 per cent, more than the total increase (31 per cent.) of land in farms. The census lumps together all farms of one hundred acres, and less than five hundred, and they increased from 565,054 to 1,695,983, being 201 per cent. Now, since the number of farms of less than fifty acres has fallen 42 per cent, below the increase of the total land in farms, and since the percentage of increase of farms of fifty acres and less than one hundred is only a little above that of the total land in farms, while farms of five hundred acres and over have increased 433.5 per cent., then must the increase have been very great of farms only a little over one hundred acres, in order to reduce the average size 12.4 per cent, during the decade. So far as this is concerned, it is progress in the right direction, for farms of only a little more than one hundred acres cannot be regarded as over- large in these times of "extensive" agriculture. But the de- crease in small farms, showing that fewer of the laboring classes are providing themselves with homes on the soil, is not progress at all, but the reverse. Beyond this, land monopoly may be increasing in a direction not shown by the census tables. Twenty farms with a tenant on each would count twenty farms in the census report, though one man owned them all. I believe in the legal limitation of land-ownership ; but I am fully aware of its difficulties. It would interfere with a freeman's privilege to buy what he pleases ; and, if it left latitude sufficient to enable a provident father to provide homes for his children as opportunity offered, the latitude thus given would be liable to abuse by others. It could hardly avoid in practice something of the inquisitorial ; and thus, in getting rid of one evil, we should fall as usual on some other evil. But the great difficulty lies in the way of organizing an attempt for the purpose of bringing it about at all. Its general balance of good to the people would doubt- less be great, but we fear the people do not act of their own motion to push their own interests in the principles of equity ; and there is no strong class directty interested in doing away Sec. 13.} THE LABORER'S WAY. 37 with land monopoty, to organize opposition thereto, and arouse the people to a working sense of their proper good in this regard. Indeed, the direct interest of strong classes lies in precisely the contrary direction ; and it is much to be feared that the economical good of a direct interest in the soil will never be realized as fully as we should wish by the waiting, working many. 13. THE LABORER'S WAY OUT OF BONDAGE. Since it will not avail the laborer to ignore the blessings and brood over the evils which flow from the concentration of wealth ; nor yet to fight his employer for greater pay than is determined by the law of supply and demand, taking no thought of assuming the cares of business for himself ; in what direction, then, is he to look for help ? In a general way, to his own intelligence and self-restraint and self-direction. Still this is one of the questions which no wisdom extant is able satisfactorily to answer. No doubt individuals and classes should have less to do with blaming others for their own misfortunes. As the elementary factor of better things to come, each should especially rely upon himself as the savior of himself and household. To do this, he must use such means of grace as lie within his reach, and not grasp so frantically after the unattainable. At least, this one condition appears to be necessary, that laboring men shall not become too numerous for the work to be done ; else, competition must reduce their wages with- out hope of remedy. Laboring men must acquire the in- telligence to see this, and the prudence to act on it. They must be able to prick the bubbles of vague theorists. It is their interest that the capital which provides the basis for their employment shall increase more rapidly than the laboring population. Laborers now frequently act as if they thought it their interest to destroy property and prevent its accumulation. In a certain sense the immediate interests of laborers and employers are antagonistic, but not in the sense that crippling the employer will strengthen the laborer. The capital which 38 MONOPOLY. [Chap. III. employs labor cannot be prosperous, and labor not profit by it. And there must be a certain amount of effort properly directed to secure this good. There is no hope for laborers unless they exercise sufficient industry to earn more than they consume, and sufficient self-denial to save whenever they have a surplus. But both these things are irksome and repugnant. If laborers allow their numbers to increase as rapidly as their means of living, they cannot rise in an economical sense, and may by and by find themselves worse off than ever. The persistent energy which earns costs painful effort ; and the self-denial which abstains from gratifications and saves also costs painful effort ; but these forms of the disagreeable are absolute conditions without which the workingmen of the world cannot hope for security and independence. Here is the price of the goods fixed by an immutable law of things a high price to be sure, but it must be paid or the goods will not be delivered. But something more is needed than mere earning and saving. Laboring men must cultivate a brotherly sympathy with one another, and learn to act in concert with intelligence and prudence ; not to cripple and destroy capital ; not to waste their own savings and time, and corrupt their own habits ; but to strengthen all the means whereon they must depend for success in lifting themselves to a higher plane in life. Strikes are not to be wholly condemned. They may have to be sometimes resorted to to secure justice ; but strikes which are the outcome of a blind, unreasoning class prejudice, injure society, injure employers, and most of all injure those who make them. If laborers could achieve the mastery of social and industrial complications, and assume the direction of large commercial and industrial interests, they would be sovereign to command the right of way to independence and plenty. Could laborers become their own employers and maintain this position, so far would there no longer be two distinct classes, one of capitalists and employers, and the other of laborers and employes, and the antagonism between Sec. 13.] THE LABORER'S WAY. 39 them would end by the extinction of the classes themselves. But this implies that the laborers shall become capitalists and managers ; and this implies moral steadiness and moderate- sized families, industry, saving, and business tact on the part of workingmen. As long as employers and employe's are different sets of people, there will be conflict of interests ; and, unless human nature changes, there is no getting rid of the evils which flow from this source. Something is hoped for from the enlarged benevolence of our common nature, but we are not to count greatly on this while employers are competitors with each other, the aim of their enterprise being, not the moral elevation of anybody, but profits in solid cash for themselves. And, on general principles, we are not to look expectantly for the permanent betterment of adults who become the passive wards of self-appointed guardians in affairs of business. Suppose, however, that by some kind of miracle for there really seems to be no other way the proletarian classes throughout civilization could so realize the necessary conditions of their comfort and independence as to labor effectually to this end, what steps would they take ? First, individually and collectively, they would practice sobriety, industry, economy, and patiently study the situation ; then, in an organized capacity, they would exercise such prudence in management as to command fair wages and secure the greatest economy in living. With what result ? An immense accumu- lation of capital belonging to workingmen. (See Sec. 7.) And what would be the effect of this ? To destroy the monopoly of capital in the hands of the comparatively few. The capital of workingmen, whether in savings institutions or directly invested in productive enterprise, would deprive the present money-owning class of its great power over the industrial and political destinies of people and nations. The " money kings" would be shorn of power, because their capital would be in less demand than at present ; interest would be reduced ; there would be less motive with less power for vast individual 40 SCHEMES FOR INDUSTRIAL REFORM. [Chap. IV. accumulations, and the tendency would be irresistible toward equalization in the wealth of all the members of societj^. Repression and violence will not dethrone these money kings ; their subjects must emancipate themselves by establishing every man his own throne. The}' must become, if in ever so small a way, capitalists and managers. It must be obvious, that, apart from the difficulties of managing great productive enterprises and apart from the fatal limitations of human nature, the great working classes absolutely hold their own destin}^ in their own hands. Thus it is true, as Rae observes, that "this independence is a thing which workingmen must in the main win for themselves, and day after day, by labor, by providence, by association ;" and it is also true, as he further observes, that " it is nevertheless an important point to remember, with Brentano, that it forms an essential part of an ideal which societ}r has alread} r acknowledged to be legitimate, and which it is therefore bound to second every effort to realize." (Con. Rev., Feb. 1881.) But after all, are we not virtually asking that a miracle shall be wrought ? CHAPTER IV. SCHEMES FOR INDUSTRIAL REFORM. 14. ASSOCIATION. Many are sanguine of great results from association, both in production and consumption. It is not possible for all who have given the subject careful attention, fully to share in that feeling. The anticipated result does not seem to have a sufficient warrant in the natural play of all the human faculties, as shown to us by the experience of all times. The friends of association complain of the difficulty working- Sec. 14.} ASSOCIATION. 41 men have in living up to a principle. Kingsley attributed the failure of Christian Socialism to the want of fitness in workingmen ; in other words, the system did not take sufficient account of human nature as it is. And Holyoake finds so many with the " fire of the savage state " in them still, that they ignore the fraternal and " prefer to work on war terms." This will certainly be a trouble for a long time to come. Nor is individualistic economy due to the "fire of the savage state," as Mr. Holyoake appears to think. Savages live in communal gentes, a very brotherly sort of arrangement, and there is no provision in their status for the " fire " of individ- ualism. This is a development which only begins to assume form a good deal further on. Association is perfectly legitimate, and, if made general, it would cure many of the evils which afflict the laborer ; but is it practicable ? English laborers and their friends have been working at association for two generations, and have made considerable progress ; but, when one reads of the English strikes, the violence of maddened men, and the suffering of poor laborers from loss of employment, he realizes how much still remains to be done. The English, more than an} T other people, be it said to their credit, have profited by cooperative effort. But wherefore ? Why have not the laborers in the United States, so largely of English stock, shown a similar aptitude for com- bination in self-defense ? The answer is easy enough ; in slang phrase, they "don't have to." Hardly a cooperative store can be maintained in America even for a few years, with all the prestige of the grange movement to back it, though its advantages are conceded by all its patrons. In England such institutions exist on a grand scale, with tenacity of life and purpose, on foundations apparently well assured. And, pos- sibly through the influence of example, " rich and titled people in England " have adopted the cooperative plan of supply, and saved money by their Civil Service and Army and Navy associative stores." (Barnard.) 42 SCHEMES FOR INDUSTRIAL REFORM. [Chap. IV. And not only has combination been successful for saving in consumption, but, to a moderate extent, for self-employment and independence in production as well. But why all this in Eng- land and not, except to a very moderate degree, in the United States ? Owing to a sparse population, the abundance of the raw materials of industry, and the ease of migration, labor in this country is not so fully as in England the " slave of capital ;" indeed, very often capital is rather subject to the dictates of labor. Laborers, however, might accomplish still more for themselves by cooperation ; but they feel so little need of it that the thought of it hardly occurs to them. In England combination had become a matter of life or death, and was originally resorted to as a means of deliverance from the " infamous truck system." The laborer had to do, and has still to do, something to beat back the gaunt spectres of pov- erty and destitution, and, in default of keeping down the numbers of his family, he is compelled to economize or suffer. He organizes with his fellows for protection against the en- croachments of rivals for the common means of life. It is actual war of a civil sort. He really feels that he is repelling an invasion. But for the threatening attitude of a selfish power, these industrial armies would not start into existence. But still their success, even for distribution, is only local and exceptional. 15. THE BUSINESS GENIUS. What stands in the way of fraternal cooperation in business affairs is, perhaps, the tower- ing genius, if not, indeed, the tyranny of genius, for business, which some men possess, with the free field which now exists for its exercise. This genius cannot be bought, cannot be hampered wrth rules to do the bidding of others ; it wants an absolutely free field; it prefers to assume the responsibility for itself, and do its own work in its own irresistible way. And it is precisely the unrestrained play of this genius, that is most effectually adding to the world's industry and wealth. Now, if this be a good, and if association be a good, then we have this paradox that what stands in the way of the one Sec. 16.] RESTRAINT UNDER COOPERATION, 43 good is doing most in behalf of the other. The leaders who come to the front in the management of cooperative concerns are very apt to be persons who are totally unfitted for the work in hand, and their mismanagement brings ruin to the undertaking. In such matters, it is very easy for goodness to outstrip wisdom and bring about practical failure. Fussy people, too, would be liable to have more say in the business in common than others with sound industrial heads. It is hardly to be expected that the leaders of cooperation working for others at small pay can compete with the great " captains of industry " working for themselves with chances for the whole prize ; hence, a great difficulty with which coOpera- tive production has to contend. If corporators could find managers equally competent with the great managers who win under competition, they could of course establish and main- tain the conditions of success. Such managers must however be willing to make a gift of their skill and diligence to the laborers, many of whom would give little credit. If the manager were allowed something more than the laborers, whatever his pay fell short of the compensation of equal talent doing for itself in the great field of competition would be a gift to others, a daily, monthly, yearly gift to the end of life. Who is the man, without the ordering of a new creation ? 16. PERSONAL RESTRAINT UNDER COOPERATION. There are two varieties of industrial reformers whose methods are quite unlike. The one wants state help and state direction ; the other eschews anything of the kind, and inculcates self- reliance. Still it is not quite clear, that the latter, in adopting the devices of cooperation, would not virtually end where the other proposes to begin ; in a species of paternalism with the evils which necessarily inhere in any scheme of managing people's business for them. Cooperation cannot hold together without a sufficient bond. Members of the industrial fraternity must work hand to hand and in harmony, or the end they propose will not be attained. The same precisely is true of the family, from which light by 44 SCHEMES FOR INDUSTRIAL REFORM. [Chap. IV. analogy may be had. There are forces constantly at work to rupture the family bond, but it is maintained by forces still stronger ; and these preserve its general integrity from age to age. The larger cooperative family will be the theatre of action for similar conflicting forces, the one class to sunder, the other to hold together. The domestic family is a stable compound of few elements held together by powerful affinities ; the cooperative family is an unstable compound of many in- gredients of weak mutual affinity, and liable on any small disturbance to fall into simpler forms. There is conflict between individuality and association to some extent, and the former will not bear certain degrees of the latter without rebellion. This is no doubt a reason why association for distribution prospers much more than association for production. The latter cannot take place without certain restraints on individual action which are repugnant to habits of independence, and cooperative effort is abandoned. It is this that discourages the abettors of associative enterprise, so that the more judicious of them even doubt whether it will ever be more than an exceptional phenomenon of industrial life. 17. INCREASING DIFFICULTIES OF COOPERATION. Not only is association for mutual aid in the industries becoming every day more needful, but every day is it becoming more difficult to organize. The larger industries are eating up the smaller ones ; and all the time is business growing more complicated, and being done in grander fashion. Larger capital is con- stantly needed to start business and carry it on. Every day are laborers becoming more dependent on capital to establish the mills and shops for their employment. Hence the difficulty laborers who desire to cooperate must find in commanding the necessary capital to establish business for themselves. It would be almost impossible for them to overcome this diffi- cult} r without a far higher average of character than they now possess, even if no troubled spirits should elsewhere rise to disturb the harmony of cooperation. But concert of action as Sec. 17.] DIFFICULTIES OF COOPERATION. 45 well as capital is difficult to secure. Nor is capital with mere concert of action sufficient ; nothing less than high organiza- tion will do. And this high organization becomes complicated with difficulties heretofore unknown. It is no longer easy to estimate the demand for products, and failure here may result in disaster. And, then, when disaster comes, it extends further and goes deeper under the large industries of the present than under the small ones of the past. It aifects greater numbers, and renders them for the time more helpless and dependent. Hence something vastly greater is needed for success than merety good intentions ; it requires wise heads. Elsewhere attention has been called to the manner in which the exigencies of battle lead to combination, which, in turn, develops fellow feeling, and leads eventually to the formation of States. (Conflict, Sees. 98-100.) The combinations thus resulting may be so close that invidual competition has little place in them, and custom comes to exercise a sort of iron rule ; and this is true of all the earlier institutions of mankind. But, with further progress, and with peace and security for life and work well assured in great States with fairly equitable laws, the traditionary customs relax, the individual acquires a clistinctiveness unknown before, and competition comes into vogue. This is progress. In more primitive times the close combination of groups was necessa^ to repel invasion. The modern attempt at industrial association is resorted to in self- defense of a different kind ; and, since, like the other, it systematically represses certain forms of individuality, it is exposed to the suspicion that it is, in this respect at least, on the line of retrogression and not on that of progression. If it be true that social combination and fraternal sympathy have grown out of the general pugnacity and aggressiveness of the human temper as their primary source, and if, now, industrial combination shall do away with industrial antagonism and establish social harmony instead, then will it have come to pass that the child has slain its parent. The order would be this : Sympathy has grown out of antagonism, and having become 46 SCHEMES FOR INDUSTRIAL REFORM. [Chap. IV. strong enough and sufficiently organized, it then does away with antagonism. But we may rest assured that, whatever form society may take, antagonism will not down j whatever the attempt at repression, it must reappear, in the very nature of things, in some shape or other ; if not in individual competi- tion and strife, why, then, it is to be feared, in corporate despotism and repression. Yet, in spite of all the difficulties herein named, apparently insurmountable though they be, I must indulge the agreeable faith that the requisite intelligence and moral steadiness will be forthcoming on the part of the people, and that cooperation for distribution will greatly extend, and cooperation for pro- duction acquire a foothold it has not yet secured. Since it is only by becoming capitalists, cooperators, organizers, managers, that laboring men can expect to secure occupation independent of the caprice of masters, it seems but reasonable to suppose that the necessary repression of individualistic instincts under industrial combination would be quite bearable as the less of two evils. While now the way is open, it is true, for enter- prising laborers to rise, the great masses, nevertheless, remain on the same dead level, and are constantly subject to orders, with a very small field, indeed, for freedom of choice. The additional restraint which cooperation might, in some respects, impose, one would think could be readily borne for the sake of becoming in some sense self-employed. It is theoretically probable that personal liberty in a changed form may have greater range under even productive cooperation, than it has under the prevalent system. But I am perfectly aware that, in order to transform all this from theory into fact, a general lifting-up of the proletarian character is indispensable ; and how this is to be brought about, all things considered, I confess I am not able to see. It requires character to take the initia- tive in the movement and carry it on ; but it is not the ten- dency of proletarian habits to develop such character ; then, whence is it to come ? But in the midst of our perplexity we are compelled to face the fact that unless there is some way of Sec. 18.] SHARING PROFITS. 47 escape from the conflict of interests between rich and poor, between employers and employed, the future is full of danger. Not only does the fate of workingmen depend largely on find- ing such relief, but the very fate of free institutions depends upon it. With our great and growing proletarian masses, dependent on great aggregations of capital (not their own) for employment, they are at the mercy of those who will take advantage, on business principles, of their power to oppress. What is to become of democratic institutions with these masses numerically preponderant in society, and dependent on moneyed men and the masters of industry, not only for the way the}' shall live, but even for the way they shall vote ? 18. SHARING PROFITS. But the possibilities are still not exhausted. If associative effort may not be fully successful, it may be partially so, perhaps, and still retain the advantages of competent management. One thing is quite certain : if laborers would approve themselves worthy, they would fare better at the hands of most emphtyers. By steadiness in industry and prudence in general behavior, they would com- mand where they are now only able to contend. There is little hope that all laborers will evince this form of justice to themselves and their cause. In some instances, benevolent employers have voluntarily allowed a dividend to their men in addition to wages. This, however, can only take place when business is good and profits steady and satisfactory ; in hard times, when profits are very small, or there are none, or busi- ness is conducted with a loss, nothing of the kind is possible. The scheme is also one which would work best in those kinds of industry, which require much labor and little capital. But there are other conditions necessary to guaranty its continu- ance when considerately begun. If employe's should show a practical appreciation of the advantages thus had, by giving greater attention to business and by saving a part of their earnings, employers would be greatly encouraged, and a better understanding would doubtless become established between the two classes. But, if employe's took little more interest 48 SCHEMES FOR INDUSTRIAL REFORM. [Chap. IV. than before, and were only the more wasteful and irregular in their habits, it is not likely that employers would continue to place in their hands the greater means for corrupt ends. Not only would the employers lose by such an operation, but the laborers would likewise lose by it in the end, since there would be less saved in general for carrying on business, and, conse- quently, less call at less renumeration for laborers. Precisely this fault of workingmen has defeated, and we fear will continue to defeat this practical form of good intentions. It is true that laborers usually take more interest and work better when allowed a share of profits. The device establishes a system of espionage among them which conduces to this result, but which is not without its evil side in the jealousy and discontent it engenders. In some instances, at least, the plan seems to have brought more prosperity than its recipients could bear, and, striking for more pay, the}' lost the dividend, and fell back into the old situation. Those who should rationally take an active interest in the business in hand, would thereby help themselves even more than their employers, and become constantly more independent and manly. But such win even without this advantage. They become foremen and partners, and, as such, employers, and remain no longer mere laborers. They are then rapidly going over to the enemy. Concerning the division of profits with workingmen, an observing employer recently made this re- mark : " Those who have brains enough to appreciate such an arrangement, soon work to the top, and become foremen, or start for themselves. The rest are not worth bothering about." (New Jersey Industrial Statistics.) Harsh as this seems to be, I fear there is more truth in it, in an economical sense, than in some whole volumes. The facts go to show, that, whatever the opportunity, there is a large body of people in society who are bound not to improve the occasion. And thus we meet at every turn, the fact that the laborer's ill-fate is largely the result of his own mismanagement. One may note that in the successful attempts at sharing Sec. 19.] COMMUNISM. 49 profits with laborers in productive enterprises, there is always a fatherly spirit at the head ; and that, when this spirit passes away, the enterprise is almost sure to fail ; facts which go to show that the scheme is practically sustained by a superior moral force in opposition to the natural tendency of the eco- nomical forces. 19. COMMUNISM. There is a modern school of communists with a remedy in hand for all the evils of society. The State is to take charge of human happiness. The State will furnish the money and employ the men, and none shall be out of work, and all shall have plenty. State communism is held to be the necessary means of peace, justice, equality, and good-will among men. This movement has, of course, grown out of the inequality and injustice, which at present exist in society. But it will have no palliations, no half-way measures, nothing in fact that is now practical, only a total revolution which is to bring perfection. It has to be confessed there is an obvious drift of the eco- nomical tendencies in the direction of communism. One form of this has been already noticed in the increased use of farm machinery. If this should find its most fitting place on large tracts under the same management, it would seem to point to some kind of joint ownership of the soil. The tendency of great manufacturing establishments to swallow up the little ones, is also called up as a witness to this movement. It is no longer the individual artisan, or the master with a few ap- prentices and journeymen ; it is the grand entrepreneur with thousands of operatives human automatons at his com- mand. Other industries have sprung up which, in their very nature, are of vast proportions, and must be conducted on an immense scale with great bodies of men subject to one manage- ment. Such are our railroads, express lines, telegraphs, tele- phones. There are forms of business not necessarily con- ducted on the great scale, which yet organize for concert of action. Thus, our national banks are prepared for vigorous measures, when their interest dictates, and they are able by 50 SCHEMES FOR INDUSTRIAL REFORM. [Chap. IV. concert of action to disregard a national law and defy Congress and the people. And thus, in one way or another, business is assuming mammoth proportions, and concentrating its power j and, when this power is great and outside the government, it may have more to do with giving character to the laws than the people themselves have. We fear that this is precisely the situation at the present time in this country. Powers out- side the Government are very largely governing the people through direct and indirect means which affect the people's interests and well-being. This is done through the concentra- tion of industrial, social, and political forces, and obviously suggests that these forces be incorporated into the State and formally placed under the control of the people. Thus are the tendencies of modern society largely drifting toward a great paternal State, such as constitutes the ideal of this school of communists. And, there is acknowledged good in the communistic scheme. The occasions for crimes against property and most crimes against persons would be diminished. Courts of law would have less to do than at present. There would be no broken contracts, no quarrels about wills, and no common carriers to inflict injustice. " And if an end were put to all these things, society evidently would return to a state of things in which lawyers, judges, and voluminous statutes would not be necessa^. How far this simplification of life would be an indirect disadvantage by cutting off some of those causes on which the spice, variety, and spirit of life depend, I will not stop to inquire ; but the direct good in several respects would be apparent." Such is the opinion of Dr. Woolsey, whose safe conservatism cannot be called in question. But, would all this good be worth the price ? Hardly ; unless communism, by its own inherent force, should become an inevitable thing, when it would fall within the province of duty " to make the most of it." But the good which Dr. Woolsey speaks of, could only be had, as he well understands, by the sacrifice of other good that which pertains to individ- Sec. 20,] SUPPRESSION OF COMPETITION. 51 ual freedom. Certain forms of related good exclude each other ; and, when we get the one form, we must necessarily do without the other. The case under consideration exem- plifies this law. Communism means despotism. Its ablest friends admit this. For the individual of manly aspirations to do the best he is capable of, he must have freedom to work on his own plans with the least possible interference. But under communism he would be the merest tool of the State to do its bidding as the slave does the bidding of his master ; and soon he would learn to submit to the despotic will, and move like an automaton. There would be equality, it is true, but it would be the equality of sameness and tameness, marching to the same drum-beat, with rations and the other good things of life doled out from a general commissariat under orders from headquarters. The very spirit of the S3 r stem would be deadly to originality and the free-play of genius. There could be no development above the common plane. The stagnation would be as hopeless as that of China. The people, having their busi- ness planned for them and allotted them on routine, would come in time to illustrate the degeneracy of parasitism. The animal parasite, as soon as it becomes attached, suffers from disuse the atrophy of organs which were once active and useful, and it becomes a degraded creature. Is this, indeed, the fate in store for mankind ? 20. CHARACTER UNDER SUPPRESSION OF COMPETITION. Let us suppose that there is a day coming when man will be truly a rational and fraternal creature, and not, as now, a creature of imperious emotions which organize themselves into questionable institutions tainted with misery ; then, we may legitimately suppose, that fraternal cooperation in wisest ways and in sweetest concord will prevail the wide world over. But even this, we fear would have its surprise of imperfect results. Enterprise is now kept alive and the executive energies kept active b} r universal competition and emulation in the advancement of individual interests. Very largely under free competition, the strongest men come to the front 52 SCHEMES FOB INDUSTRIAL REFORM. [Chap. IV. and take control. This has been accompanied with its neces- sary evils, but, more than anything else, it has contributed to the growth and development of the human mind and human institutions. (Conflict, Sec. 166.) With these motives no longer stimulated, it is hardly to be expected that there would be equal exertion and equal manifestation of power. Personal enterprise for individual ends no longer existing, councils would determine for the individual his sphere of action. There is no means of determining the amount of psychological loss which this would entail. And we must agree with Fitzjames Stephen that whatever brings loss of power is a questionable gain, whatever else it may be. Any approach to close industrial organization deprives the in- dividual will of its wonted stimulus, and, for this reason, it appears to be incompatible with the progressive improvement of mankind. Except under the pressure of interest involving a choice of evils, or under the spell of superstition, the principle of consolidated interests is invariably condemned as unnatural under existing conditions, and cast out by the irresistible assertion of individualism. The individuality which has been formed in the absence of arbitrary control, objects to the crushing process which supple- ments the natural resistances to the free play of the will, with those which are framed on purpose to contract the sphere of its action. This is the serious moral objection to the indus- tries which now shape the character of operatives to a uniform pattern, and make of them a homogeneous class below the level of mediocrity. This foreshadows the type to which the great body of human beings would be reduced under the leaden sway of communism. The leading condition of human improvement has been in all times free play for the individual activities. If with the suppression of such freedom for action, other means be devised for the education, discipline, and development of the indi- vidual, the character thus molded must in time become very different from that which has taken form under conditions of Sec. %1.~\ DISINTEGRATION ANARCHISM. 53 competition and antagonism. The stimulus to individual development derived from the conflict of interests cannot be had, of course, without such conflict ; and, if, through com- munistic organization, there is an abatement of this conflict, individuality with all its present wealth of accessories must suffer modification, and may decline. The tendency would be toward equilibrium, moderating the extremes, and reducing the contrasts. The hills of human emotion would be leveled down and the valleys filled up, till the surface would be much more even than at present, and the picturesque diversity of to-day would be superseded by the beautiful monotony of this good time coming. Mediocrity and monotony would reign everywhere and over all. 21. DISINTEGRATION ANARCHISM. But we have another resource. If combination will not serve our purpose, surely disintegration may ; if not one extreme, why then, of course, the other ; the middle way is not in favor. The State is to be annulled in the economical sphere, and, indeed, in all spheres, and universal liberty installed. This assumes that all the abuses are supported by law, and that, once the State is done away with, the abuses must cease and the right every- where prevail. Such is the school of Liberty, of Anarchism, of Nihilism. We fear it takes in only half of human nature and ignores the other half. Possibly, if Anarchists had the fashioning of the human constitution to suit their philosophy, it might be practical ; but this has been true of a great many fine theories ever since the days of Plato's Republic. If this school could establish in society its characteristic doctrine of release from conventional and legal restraint, very soon would that society by its own spontaneous action reestablish, in the name of order, the same safeguards which had been removed in the name of liberty. Call such reaction despotism, if you will ; it is the despotism that is in human nature, the des- potism which is necessary to counteract license and lawless- ness. It has its abuses every needful thing has but society, man in the aggregate, prefers the State with all its 54 SCHEMES FOR INDUSTRIAL REFORM. [Chap. IV. evils in order to escape still greater evils. What is wanted is not to annihilate the State, but to improve it, if possible ; for the State mankind will have. The despotism so much complained of has not always been forced upon the people, as is always assumed. The people will have it so ; and " what are you going to do about it ? " Caesar started out in political life as a demagogue pure and simple. He labored to win the applause of the populace, and he won it. It would not have been thought necessary to murder him, if the hero-worshipers, the great majority, had not been on his side. If the people had been against him, he would have been powerless for mischief, and might have been dealt with in the interest of liberty like any other man. It was just so with Napoleon. If the French people had not been frenzied in their devotion to the very man who had trampled their liberties under foot, there would have been no need of a military combination against him. As it was, it was only the old despotism crushing out the new ; and the people, as soldiers, fought cheerfully on both sides. 22. ANARCHISM PRACTICALLY ILLUSTRATED. Getting rid of the State and society with their regulations has hardly the virtue which the Anarchists claim for it. It was pretty well illustrated on Pitcairn's Island, where nine English sailors, six Tahitian men and fifteen Tahitian women were the sole occupants. Here there was no State ; and no antiquated form of society had come down to the inhabitants with its irrational and despotic rules. There was every opportunity for an anarchist paradise. It turned out to be an anarchist hell. Feuds broke out and continued till only four English sailors survived of the original fifteen men, and only ten of the original fifteen women. Surely now they will get along nicely. Not at all. Anarchy again broke out, and ended only when there were no two men left to continue the killing ended with one survivor, Adams. The younger in this settlement were now considerable in number, and Adams was truly a patriarch, having earned his right and title as many a one Sec. 22.] ANARCHISM ILLUSTRATED. 55 before him had done when rival claims were left to be decided in a free fight, unchecked by the despotism of state-inter- ference against which modern Anarchists declaim. But I should probabty be told that all the trouble with these Pitcairn Islanders resulted, not from liberty, but from the violation of Iibert3 r . Ay, and that is the very reason the dream of the Anarchists can never be realized. It would always be so in different ways and in different degrees. If these islanders could have formed a little State with a depart- ment of justice for the settlement of disputes and the punish- ment of violence, the result would have been very different. But the State could have done good only through coercion, and the Anarchists will have none of that. If there had been two such settlements on the island each would have been, clan-like, more peaceable within from outside pressure, be- cause, clan-like, they would have fought with each other. But alas, such peace within the clan would have been the incipient form of state-organization, to the utter dismay of Anarchism ! Even if the Anarchists could form a society to their own liking, freed from what they call the despotic interference of law and custom, they would very soon perceive a certain want of balance for which they had not made provision. Freedom without this balance runs into license and the clashing of personal interests, and these bring about anarchy indeed. In precisely like manner, the necessary regulative power in human society, if left to itself, runs into despotism with all the evil which this entails. The best form of society is that in which freedom on the one hand restrains authority from passing into despotism, and in which authority on the other restrains freedom from passing into license. To talk of society being just and orderly under one of these terms with- out the other, would be no wiser than to talk of a man stand- ing upright with one half or other of the opposing muscles paralyzed, or of a man being moral with impotence of the faculties which restrain the impulses and passions. Practically, 56 SCHEMES FOR INDUSTRIAL REFORM. [Chap. IV. Anarchism is wider the mark than its antithesis, Communism. It is totally lacking the necessary balance to stand alone, while Communism leans on despotism which is very well able to stand by itself, having stout legs and a stiff backbone. 23. ONE-SIDED VIEWS OF LIBERTY. The following view is one which we think the radical friends of liberty take : " Permit the individual to learn from his own experience. It is true, he cannot do the smallest thing with results affecting himself only ; it tells upon others in one way or another. But let him learn by his blunders to regulate his own conduct : we want no conventional repression, no state-interference, to rob people of their liberty to be as good as they can be." Right here lurks the fallacy. Individuals would not learn of themselves, any more than the Pitcairn Islanders, to do what is best for themselves as members of society. They are apt to regard immediate and personal interests so exclusively as constantly to come in conflict with the rights and interests of others ; and they find their proper place in society only by the resistance with which they meet from society. This resistance is necessary for the protection of members of society ; and thus it turns out that individuals, in their joint capacity as constituents of the same social and political body, will to make society and the State very much as they are. Conventionalities and laws often outlast their time and may be stupid and become oppressive ; but the principle of their necessity is not thereby weakened. Mankind living in such masses as civiliza- tion presumes can no more get rid of society and the State to install the perfect freedom of the individual than they can get rid of gravity to facilitate locomotion ; and most of the endeavor in this direction is wasted energy. Such agitation may, indeed, have a certain use ; but, when it takes the practical form known as Nihilism, it is only to be deplored. The violence of despotism can never be righted by the violence of Nihilism. In parts of Europe, the people are even yet only emerging from a sort of semi-barbarism. Some of them have leaped certain stages of civilized development, and undertaken Sec. 23. ~\ ONE-SIDED VIEWS OF LIBERTY. 57 prematurely to do away with abuses in government which necessarily belong to this undeveloped stage of society. Hence they have mistaken the means, and their work is misplaced. The very thing- they are committing murder to forward would not be fitted to the people on whom they would impose it. As long as society is in a condition by habit and ignorance to make the Czar possible, it is of no use to murder him, for there will always be another to take his place. If these outre" patriots had a fitting substitute for Czarism, with some probability of establishing it even by a long and blood}' war, there might be ample justification for their work ; but they have nothing of the kind prepared, and their effort is but a revival of barbarism in which every set undertakes by reprisal and bloodshed to avenge its own wrongs. The sub- jects of the Czar must first discover that construction is even more important than destruction, before they can expect the freedom which belongs only to the higher stages of rationality in conduct. Until then, the attempts of Nihilists by murderous expedients to rid Russia of her tyrant, but serve to bring into strong relief the incongruity and anachronism of the struggle. It is like " trying to found the kingdom of heaven with the furies of hell." Whenever it comes to secret and systematic violence, we have despotism at its legitimate work, whatever its pretensions ; and a Nihilist, if he had power, would be no more to be trusted than the Czar himself. Precise^ the like is true of many other agitators. When Mitchell, the fervid Irish patriot, came to this country after the fiasco of '48, and bought a plantation and stocked it with slaves, he illustrated an incongruity of temper that is not uncommon. This agitation against state-authority, instead of against its abuses, appears to be wholly destitute of the historic sense. When one traces the evolution of early social and political institutions, in the researches, for example, of Lubbock, Tylor, Maine, Spencer, Morgan, and sees therein how man has slowly and painfully worked out his destiny in distant parts of the world in ways so nearly alike everywhere, it 58 THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW WAY. [Chap. V. seems amazing that any should regard conventionality and the State as arbitrary structures to be knocked down at will. Anarchists seem not to have mastered the conception that " the human mind, specifically the same in all individuals in all the tribes and nations of mankind, and limited in the range of its powers, works, and must work, in the same uniform channels, and within narrow limits of variation." (Morgan, Ancient Society, 255.) And further on in histoiy, and under our own eyes, man appears to be far more the creature of fatality than of rationalit} T , driven in masses by the tyranny of emotions which will have their own characteristic way. In previous sections, I have noticed the doctrine of the confiscation of rent, not that I regarded it as apparently strong in itself and worthy of attack, but simply because of the great run it has had. In like manner, I have noticed Anarchism, not on account of any inherent strength there may seem to be in it, but simply because there are among its champions some brainy people, of whom one would naturalty expect better things. The one doctrine gets its importance from the apparent number of its proselytes ; the other, from the intellectual respectability of its advocates. But it is ver} r possible for error to become popular, and it is not at all un- common for a generous nature with brilliant intellect to be carried away with one-sided views. CHAPTER V. THE STRAIGHT AND NARKOW WAY. 24. THE PROPOSED SCHEMES INEFFECTUAL. We have passed under brief review the leading devices for the further- ance of human interests and the lifting up of the oppressed and lowly. None of them can accomplish what their partisans Sec. 24.] PROPOSED SCHEMES INEFFECTUAL. 59 expect of them ; or, if they do accomplish it, they will bring evils in their train, scarcely, if any, less than those they have done away with. This course has been pursued as that which best affords an antidote to current platitudes concerning labor and capital, in which the questions involved are regarded as simple in character and easy of solution. As a specimen of this free and easy method of dealing with complicated and perplexing problems, it may be stated that the president of a league of so-called Nationals once said in open speech, that the wrongs of labor must be redressed, by peaceable means if possible, but if not by such means, why, then by an appeal to arms. This was said by a very honest, earnest, and peaceable man. In his mind, it was very easy to tell precisely how to adjust the relations of labor and capital ; in his mind, the difficulty lay wholly in the want of willingness on the part of successful money-getters to do the right thing. He saw little or no intrinsic difficulty in the problem, regarding the trouble as not of the head, but altogether of the heart. What is the grand remedy he was proposing ? Wonderful to tell, it was to break up the money power by the creation of a large volume of " absolute money ;" that is, printed paper without promise to pay, but based by a flourish of rhetoric on " all the wealth and resources of the country." It was to make money plenty and cheap, and interest low ! It was thoroughly be- lieved that, because the State by a decree could make fiat money current, this would be the creation of so much wealth. If, for example, the two billions of national debt were paid off in absolute money, the State would have created two billions of wealth ; and, by some process assumed, but never explained, the workingmen would get the benefit of it. This was, of course, an infatuation, which proved to be contagious, and infected minds which never should have succumbed. This example shows what many others show, that what lies at the bottom of delusions and fanaticism is the total blindness to the practical difficulties which beset most of the great problems of life. 4 60 THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW WAY. [Chap. V. Another example of a little different character may not be out of place. A Reformer believes in the " voluntary princi- ple " and the overthrow of the State with every form of author- ity and coercion. A correspondent of his thinks the doctrine a promising one, but he sees practical difficulties which for the present he cannot set aside. The Reformer, however, has no such difficulties, and says of his correspondent, "He should not hesitate, however, to adopt a principle indisputably true simply because certain difficulties seem to stand in the way of its application in special directions. Let him inquire first if the voluntary principle be true ; and if he finds that it is, then let him advocate it through thick and thin, and apply it where he can, trusting to human ingenuity to provide for its univer- sal application eventually." The assumption here is that it is a simple matter to determine a philosophy of life which is absolutely true, and that it is to be determined without regard to practical considerations. It thus becomes an affair of meta- physical theory-building which finds its materials among the entities of the brain without regard to the complications of the external world. The method is faulty, and the reasoning has wrong data at the bottom of it. It assumes that the universe, of which man is a part, is essentially built up on principles of harmony ^ love, freedom. A deeper insight into the situation would show that force, conflict, coercion are ineradi- cable, and that any theory of life which ignores them is one- sided and false. According to Voltaire, philosophy is the remedy for fanat- ical one-sidedness ; but that depends altogether on what kind of philosophy it is ; fanatical reformers are all philosophers in their several ways. Adam Smith put it better, when he affirmed that science is the proper remedy. We may add, that the remedy lies in the wider diffusion of the methods of thinking which science cultivates and inculcates. When this comes about, philosophy will be so tempered with a just sense of means to ends as to direct human endeavor without all this wild waste of energy. Sec. 25.] THE ONLY SURE WAY. 61 25. THE SLOW WAY THE ONLY SURE WAY. Now, I am painfully conscious that the treatment of subjects in this and the preceding chapters, is not calculated to inspire laborers and philanthropists with buo3 r ancy of expectation. I should meet any reflection of this kind against the statement, with the queries, Is it not in the main true ? Can the condition of laborers be bettered in spite of themselves ? What encourage- ment for others to assist them, unless they evince a proper sense of the situation by sobriety, prudence, industry, econ- omy ? Will they fare just as well without the self-restraint which limits the number of dependants as with such restraint ? Are not the difficulties of cooperation for production such that it is quite impossible to make it generally successful ? Would not the communistic management of industries by the State be fraught with greater evils than those which are at present in existence ? And would not the abrogation of the State with all authority and coercion still leave the feeble and patient more than ever the prey of the strong and selfish ? It is true we recommend a slow and painful process for the improvement of the workingman's condition ; and the recom- mendation is not liked for the very qualities which render it truthful and valuable. All nature, all history, bring about their great results in this slow but persistent way ; and, if the masses of mankind are to be elevated at all, it must take place on the principles of this law. As long as they expect im- provement by sudden leaps, by some great revolution, by some optimistic energy of mysterious operation, by some measure of force which will lift them up and sustain them there almost in spite of themselves, they indulge in mere dreams which can never be realized. Then what avails it to recommend a method of improvement which is so little likely to be adopted ? There is nothing else in the line of practical things to do. If it be true that the working masses can rise only by practicing the virtues which secure success, that is the doctrine to teach ; and, if it were the prevailing opinion of society and inculcated wherever it would do most good, far 62 THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW WAY. [Chap. V. greater numbers would be influenced by it than at present, and we should have less clamor and more good work. Many are even now successfully climbing who began at the lower round of the ladder. They are not carried away by Utopian or romantic methods of banishing hardships ; but in prosy fash- ion they adapt means to ends and persist. It is this that wins ; and whoever adopts this method proves himself worthy of reward and is almost sure to find it. But, after all we may be able to do by well-considered and judicious methods to advance the laborer, the great drawback is, that there is not a great deal that can be done. And this is so, mainly because of the conflicting couples which so often come in our way. While there seems to be more need of doing something to allay the growing discontent, it is becom- ing constantly more difficult to do anything. It is a "fact that a certain material or economic independence has become more necessary for the working man, and less possible. It is more necessary, because, with the sanction of modern opinion, he has awoke to a new sense of personal dignity, and it is less possible in consequence of circumstances already mentioned, attendant upon the development of modern industry. It is not as Lord Macaulay maintained, that the evils of man's life are the same now as formerly, and that nothing has changed but the intelligence which has become conscious of them. The new time has brought new evils and less right or disposition to submit to them." (John Bae, Con. Bev., Feb., 1881.) As already mentioned (Sec. 12), the great difficulty now is that most labor is carried on on the large scale requiring large capital for the plant and vast numbers of working people organized in a complex body, and not as former^, when the industry and saving of an artisan would give him inde- pendence and consequence as an individual member of society. For the present, capital may be increasing more rapidly than the number of those whom it employs. The demand for labor- ers is generally quite up to the supply. This encourages the Sec. 26.] CLINICAL STUDY OP THE SUBJECT. 63 rapid multiplication of the class ; and the relative, as well as the absolute, number of those who work under masters threat- ens to be greater than ever before in the history of the world. We believe that there is no way to elevate and strengthen this great mass of people, except by their own cooperation on the austere, it may be forbidding, line of endeavor which is marked out by the best economists ; that is, I repeat, by industry, economy, and concert of action prudently directed. And what is the prospect that this will be done ? What indeed are we to hope for when the great masses of workingmen allow them- selves to be voted in the interest of the very monopolies against which they organize their strikes ? There can be no rehabilitation for artisans and workingmen till they sufficiently understand the nature of the problems which concern them- selves, so that they shall not be hoodwinked by employers at all times, and made fools of by demagogues and the party press at every great election. If the laborers were not so easily duped, employers could not so generally dictate wages, and the privileged classes would not so completely own and control the great parties of the countoy. But how are these great masses of laborers and voters to acquire the necessary intelligence to act together with wisdom and efficiency? I must confess that I cannot answer this question. They now fall into the hands either of demagogues who serve the strong, or of fanatics who serve nobody, and it is painful to be com- pelled to acknowledge that there seems to be no way out of the dilemma. 26. A CLINICAL STUDY OF THE SUBJECT. As these pages are being revised (Aug. 6, 1883), this subject may be studied as an object lesson in the Telegraphers' strike now pending. There is hardly a more intelligent body of employe's than the Telegraphers' Brotherhood, and yet they think only of bring- ing pressure to bear on the employer in order to extort shorter hours and higher wages. The Brotherhood can command ten thousand operators to quit work and they quit ; but it never seems to have occurred to it to provide for self-employment. 64 THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW WAY. [Chap. V. This is the trouble : the situation of emplo3 r er and employ^ is accepted as final, and nothing else is thought of. If these telegraphers had been saving for the last ten years, they might have ordered the building of new lines for themselves to oper- ate, and then have gone quietly to work, as self-employed farmers and artisans do, without any war with their employers. When telegraph systems pay a good percentage on stock which is more than two-thirds water, it should be very easy for the owning telegraphers to make lines pay a large profit on the actual cost. It is true there is now talk of a merchants and telegraphers' telegraph system ; and able business men are sanguine that it will be built, however the present strike may end. Suppose it is built and that most of the telegraphers take stock with power to sell at will ; what will be the course of events ? It is safe to say that the number of stockholders will gradually decrease. That is, the small holders will undergo absorption by the large holders. In ten years, probably very few of the operators would own any stock ; quite a few might add con- siderably to their investments ; but the enterprising merchants or some professional stock-gambler would hold most of it, and the old situation of employer and employe" would be in vogue as distinctively and fatally as ever. The Merchants' Union fared worse than this. It was built as a competing line, and at once absorbed by the "Western Union. Such is usually the fate of competing lines, whether of telegraphs or railroads ; and we are hardly to expect a different result simply because workingmen may own some of the stock. They may be picked off one or a few at a time till they lose control of the line, if they ever had it, and then there would be no trouble with such as still hold stock. Joint-stock companies are very apt to become " die Hauptnester der Schwindelei," as Koscher says, and it is well known what a short way they sometimes have with the small stockholders. But this new scheme proposes to do away with these dangers by the condition that memberships shall not be transferable. Sec. 26] CLINICAL STUDY OF THE SUBJECT. 65 Once a member always a member, and the money invested is to remain to the credit of the person who invested it as long as he lives. This would prevent absorption into few hands ; but it presumes self-denial, saving, purpose, and are these within range of a reasonable expectation ? Among some of the most intelligent employes in the world, there is a spirit of the coterie established by themselves which does not permit the unmarried artisan to save anything from his wages. The law of the set demands that he shall spend all he gets on the pleasures of himself and friends ; else he loses favor and is set upon as an unworthy member of the fraternity. And yet the labor reformer is liable to reserve all his sympathy for work- ingmen, and all his execrations for employers as the only authors of workingmen's calamities. A little less of this blind sympathy, and a great deal more teaching of the reality to show that by the remissness of laboringmen as well as by the grasp- ing of employers are the inequalities of condition largely brought about and sustained, is what the situation requires. Without this, or something equivalent leading to a general reform of workingmen's habits, they cannot expect to improve the workingman's condition and shorten up the immense range of inequality now in existence, and every day becoming greater. Now, while the few who are strong are making use of the many who are weak for selfish ends, there is never-ending con- flict between them. There is nothing better calculated than the crude and extreme measures of radical agitators to offend and estrange, if not to alarm, the conservative elements of society ; nor is there anything better calculated than the cool pursuit of selfish ends by unjust means in an overbearing spirit, to drive honest but not far-seeing agitators into the fury of social rebellion. The man who is worth millions wants more, and the more he has, the more unscrupulous the means he uses to acquire more. Certain influential classes control the politics of every country ; and, through this control, the legis- lation takes shape in the interest of those classes. There is 66 THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW WAY. [Chap. V. no intelligent direction of the masses of the people to prevent this ; but by and by, the hand may prove too heavy ; and then what ? Discontent among the toilers breaking out into open violence, and at last, a general uprising of the masses mad- dened with the wrongs of heavy years, crippling and defacing civilization, it may be everywhere. Lawlessness, anarchy, destruction, would reign for the time in place of the unjust rule which had been overthrown. But the people themselves could not endure anarchy very long ; it would be put down by a strong hand, and order would be restored ; under what regime ? Under that of Caesar. Let desperate agitators on the one hand, and defiant aristocrats on the other, beware ! They are both " playing chess with an unseen hand," and both are playing a reckless game which must be retrieved by more comprehensive views of the situation, or both will surely be beaten, and the unseen hand will win. The feeling only too common that the masses are not worth caring for because they do not care for themselves, has no justification. We cannot break the ties which bind us to the masses ; and these are no longer patient of burdens whose weight they feel, but whose cause they may not see. They are showing at times a decided inclination to take their own case into their own hands in summary fashion. They have senti- mental friends, too, who will give them sympathy and aid, whether the course pursued be wise or unwise, right or wrong. In all this, with the best of intentions, bad work may be done. Wherefore, we owe a duty to ourselves in relation to them ; and that duty is to educate ourselves and them into enlight- ened views of the economical situation. PART SECOND. FINANCIAL QUESTION^VBJR^ CHAPTER VI. MONEY. 27. SPECIAL INTEREST OF THE MONEYED CLASS. With the progress of general intelligence the people ought to give more attention to public finance than they have hitherto given. No doubt the prevailing views of financial statesman- ship have been derived, in large measure, from the practical experience of men whose profession it is to do with money as an end rather than as a means. The changes which have been made in the money of the world in recent times, have in this way grown out of the interests of this class rather than out of the interests of all classes. Changes have been made for its convenience, and to facilitate its acquisition of wealth and power. Nothing could be more natural than this, man being what he is. The possession of wealth gives power ; especially that form of wealth which is ever ready for use, and which may contribute through use to make dependents of nations themselves. The financial class in society, like every other powerful class since the world began, endeavors to have the laws made to its own liking, and, in our own times certainly, it is not apt to fail in accomplishing this end. 28. INJUSTICE OF CHANGING THE VALUE OF MONEY. If the money measure of values ever changes and it does such changes affect different interests of society in diverse ways. The change which favors the creditor, injures the debtor, and 68 MONEY. [Chap. VI. vice versa. The change which favors those with fixed incomes is sure to injure the class with contingent incomes, and vice versa. The change which favors money-owners b} 7 adding to their wealth and power to purchase, injures other property owners by reducing the money value of their property and products. These are common places of finance and need no illustration ; yet demagogues and other minions of the moneyed class go about the land teaching the people with success that all interests are precisely alike, and that what prospers one, prospers all. It is true that there is a sense in which the interests of all are the same, but it is just as true that there are many phases of class interests which are directly antago- nistic. The least reflection shows that the standard, measure, or denominator of values, cannot be increased or reduced with- out disturbing the relations of wealth, adding to some and taking from others. This is one of the worst forms of injust- ice robbing one class for the benefit of another ; and yet I am aware how innocent a matter this seems to some writers on the subject. It is regarded as a trivial thing to worst the small propert3 r -holder for the benefit of money-gambling and fixed incomes by increasing the legal measure of values, if only a fair degree of general prosperity is maintained for the time being. It is statesmanship, because those who already have the advantage and control public sentiment, are on the winning side ! An influential journal affirms that " the civil- ized world would probably be enormously benefited if it were possible to settle a balance of a million dollars by the pay- ment of ten gold eagles, and it is a dim and growing percep- tion of this which causes the present drift towards the dear and scarce metal." And yet this same writer is too intelligent not to know that precisely the same ease of settling balances would be Secured by having gold and silver certificates circu- late instead of the metals themselves, when a balance of a million dollars could be paid with ten gold or silver certificates instead of ten gold eagles. Such a statement as the above would be crude, indeed, if it were not that the aim is to for- Sec, 29J] EXCLUSIVE GOLD. 69 ward the movement of dear money for the further enrichment of the money class. It has become almost the fashion to re- gard with indifference the injustice of taking from one class and giving to another. A scientific writer in an influential journal coolly states that fluctuations in the value of money are not seriously deleterious to society, as they do not dimin- ish property, but only cause it to change hands ! Another writer equally distinguished thinks that the fluctuation of money value " is almost a matter of indifference," and that "it is only a question of carrying a little more metal or a little less in your pocket ! " The support thus given to robbery should excite the indignation of every just man. 29. EXCLUSIVE GOLD. For some time past the exclusive gold standard has been coming steadily into use ; and there is danger that it will become still more general. This great change in the world's denominator of values has been brought about for the following reasons, mainly : First, to counteract or more than counteract the effect of any possible increase in the amount of the precious metals ; secondty, to counteract the increasing money function of credit ; thirdly, to further the convenience and profit of those whose business it is to handle money, the bankers and money-lenders ; fourthly, to augment the wealth of this class by a quiet and apparently innocent measure which may escape the attention of those who are most deeply injured by it ; fifthly, to augment the power of the money class both by the increase of its wealth and the additional control which the mono-metallic basis gives over the finances of nations. The absolute gain to money-owners and credit-owners by a descent from bi-metallism to mono-metal- lism is immense, and covertly and cheaply secured. When silver was demonetized in this country in 1873, the press and the stump gave so little sign of it that political campaigns on financial issues were hotly contested before constituencies utterty ignorant of the fact of demonetization. And after remonetization, an organ of the banking interest hoped that the "silver craze" would soon die out sufficiently to allow 70 MONET. [Chap. VI. Congress to "drop the coinage of silver, quietly and unos- tentatiously." The advocates of exclusive gold have an abhorrence of infla- tion, and yet, as bankers, none are more ready on occasion to inflate than they. If the Government should inflate, it would be a calamity ; when the banks inflate, it is done to meet the wants of trade, and is a blessing. Whether it is right or wrong depends on who does the inflating. But, is bank infla- tion so innocent ? When a speculative mania is breaking out } the banks finding ready borrowers, increase their circulation, and thus stimulate by inflation the very pursuit of bubbles which would be too eager even without such stimulation. So far as the general interests of the people are concerned, bankers are as irresponsible a class as could be authorized by Govern- ment to change the volume of the currency. When the crisis comes and it always does come their refusal to accommo- date concurs with their previous readiness to accommodate, to make more critical the condition, and to aggravate the distress of people in general, and especially of such as are embarrassed. Banks claim to be public benefactors, but they contract and expand on business principles to promote their own interests purely, and not to promote the interests of the public. Such elasticity could well be dispensed with. And the more con- tracted the basis of credit and currency has become, as under exclusive gold, the more readily do these alternations of speculation and panic take place, and the more surely as well as more frequently may the holders of credits pounce upon their victims by foreclosure and cast them down from compe- tence to penury. Gold is constant^ coming more in demand for consumption in the arts, while within the last few years its production has greatly fallen off. The effect has been to make gold dearer ; and this effect has been increased by adding to the money function of gold through the demonetization of silver. To force gold upon the civilized world as the sole denominator of values, while it is growing comparatively scarcer and dearer, Sec. 29.] EXCLUSIVE GOLD. 71 would be to commit an act of fraud and cruelty so general in its effects as scarcely to be paralleled in history. Uniformity of standard is what the interests of the honest working people require. It is a demonstrated law of financial science that the bi-metallic standard is more uniform than the mono-metallic, the fluctuations in the one metal offsetting the fluctuations in the other. Then, while the metallic stand- ard is maintained, the bi-metallic is more " honest " than the mono-metallic. It is true that if the production of these metals should exceed the quantity necessary to meet the increasing demands of business and make good consumption and loss, they would decline in value. But the mining of the precious metals is a fluctuating business, and it is unwarranted assumption to count on an excess of production as the basis for monetary legislation. If, however, there should be from any cause a decline in money-value, this would be a far less evil than the forcible increase of such value by the demone- tization of one of the mone3 r metals. It may be that the " composite standard," such as Jevons, Newcombe, and Walker have recently discussed, to be determined by the aggregate prices of leading commodities, would be better than any other for time contracts. But such is the force of habit and the instinct of gambling, that this measure of honesty and justice is not at all likely to be adopted. In default of such standard, the representation of gold and silver (assayed and stamped) by certificates for convenience as legal tender money, would afford the most uniform and honest measure of values. This done, there would be no need of banks of issue, or of govern- ment notes, for money. A people or nation has plenty of money when it produces a great deal for which it finds ready sale in the world's market. Well managed industry and free commerce are sure to bring thrift, making both products and money plenty. The use of money is to facilitate the exchange of products. Money heeds demand ; it goes where it finds most to do , it goes where it may buy most. Money is drawn most to that country which, 72 MONEY. [Chap. VI. by its rich resources, plentiful capital, and skilled industry, has most products to sell. Money goes to the country in which it nia}^ buy to the best advantage. A nation with small capital, inefficient labor, few products, and little commerce, can draw to itself but a small part of the general stock of money which circulates in the business world. Such a nation may issue mountains of paper money as legal tender, and not add one dollar to its wealth or one ripple of movement to its business. When it had failed, by the legitimate means of industry, pro- duction, and commerce, to draw to itself a fair share of the world's money, such issue of paper would but serve to empha- size its poverty, and would create neither business at home nor commerce abroad. For let it not be forgotten that credit is not wealth ; it does not add one iota to capital. Credit in all its forms is but the formal anticipation of wealth to come, of wealth yet to be created by labor properly directed. Simply this and nothing more is shown by Macleod's labored argument to prove that credit is wealth. The initial terms of the entire economical series in which wealth plays a part are natural resources, industry and good business management. These lie at the base of all business prosperity ; and paper fanaticism, whether of banks or fiatists, cannot reverse the order. It is to be noted as a significant fact, that our banking inter- est generally is opposed to the retention of silver as part of the money of the world ; while it assumes that bank paper is absolutely indispensable. The less silver there is, the more room for the special product of banks, on which profits accrue to a privileged class ; also, the less silver, the more existing credits are worth. If silver and gold and gold and silver certificates were legal tender the world over, every bank of issue might be swept out of existence, and industry and com- merce would profit by the change. Legitimate banking busi- ness would still be carried on without monopoly, and for the good of all business interests. Banks of issue were not in- vented for the good of the public ; they were invented in the interest of bankers and a speculating rather than a trading class ; Sec. 29.] EXCLUSIVE GOLD. 73 and all legitimate business could very well dispense with them. In the 17th century, the " bank money " of the commercial cities of Central Europe represented metal of full weight, " dollar for dollar." It was the " honest mone} 7 " of the period and bore a premium over the light-weight metal in general circulation. The bank of England is allowed the issue of about seventy-five millions of paper money based on secu- rities ; all above this amount must have as its basis in the vaults of the bank a metal value, pound for pound. The other banks of London are not allowed to issue paper as money. The power to feed speculative manias by inflation, and to stimulate by easy credit the recklessness of adventure, is a power which no government should ever exercise, and still less delegate to " soulless corporations." And yet this is precisety what the manufacture of paper money ad libitum, whether by government direct or by banking institutions, is sure to do. The artifical stimulation of credits begets extravagance, ex- travagance reacts into panics, and panics bring about a violent contraction of credits. In consequence, the people suffer, many who are innocent become victims, and only the financial ogres grow fat. It appears to be a fact of commercial history, that panics supervene upon the over-extension of credit, and are largety a disease of the paper-money system. No doubt we should still have our commercial fluctuations, owing to the complications of modern business ; but, if the money of the world consisted of gold and silver and gold and silver certif- icates, supplemented with such special forms of credit as com- mercial necessities readily extemporize (such as bills of ex- change, checks, drafts, promissory notes, book accounts, etc.) values would be much more uniform than they are, since there would then be less opportunity than at present to inflate or contract at will, and the small property owners and the indus- trial classes generally would fare far better than they now do. But while the issue of paper money is profitable to bankers, its abandonment is no more to be expected than, under existing 74 MONEY. [Chap. VI. social and political conditions, is to be expected the disband- ing of standing armies, just taxation, the abatement of the vanities, or the election of the best men to office. 30. DIFFICULTIES OF GENERAL FINANCIAL EDUCATION. In this, as in so many other things, there are serious obstacles to contend with. Even where " the people govern themselves," as the cant goes, it is not easy for them to see what really con- stitutes their own interests as distinct from the interests of the more powerful and aggressive classes. The subject is so com- plicated, the action of the financial forces are often so indirect and obscure, and the sources of information so fully under the control of the special moneyed interests, that the mass of the people may be completely misled. Almost any specious soph- ism can be fixed in the people's minds. Take, for example, the doctrine which is taught in brilliant speeches and careful magazine articles (by Elaine, McCulloch, and others), that our banking s} T stem is in no sense a monopoly. Yet a little unbiased reflection should show to every ordinary mind that, however free the system purports to be, only capitalists can avail themselves of its privileges. No such privileges can be created by law for the poor, but they can be and are created for those who already have money. The issue of paper money is a tremendous power, which does not exist independent of legislation. It is created by law for the benefit of the few who least need government aid ; it is a law-created monopoly. It is true that moneyless people are debarred by economical limitations from many privileges, which moneyed people have ; but, when the State adds to the number of such privileges, it is guilty of class legislation, and exaggerates the disparity of condition which, without State aid, is only too surely brought about by the operation of economical laws. Another example of specious sophistry for the duping of the people, already referred to, is, that the interests of all classes are the same, and that what prospers one class, neces- sarily prospers all classes. Still another is the broad, grinning sophism, that, where wages are high, high protection is neces- Sec. 80. ~\ DIFFICULTIES OF FINANCIAL EDUCATION. 75 sary to keep labor properly employed, and that, where the natural resources are abundant and cheap, high protection is necessary to secure their development. I need name no more ; politics is full of them, and they are all efficient to mislead. The press is now the greatest moral power of the civilized world, and class interests largely control the press. Whoever has the selection and coloring of the news and the dictation of the comments thereon, has the public sentiment largely under his hand. How easy for a great class whose wealth con- sists of moneys, credits, and annuities, to create a sentiment in favor of their class interests, through the press and otherwise ! For this reason the bi-metallic standard is under ban in London circles, and there is no known power able to relieve it. It is to be feared that many of the great newspapers in this country, by means of garbled and colored news and heavy editorials bought and paid for by direct and indirect means, habitually do more to further the interests of some great corporation, than properly to direct the people in the pursuit of their interests. It is hardly understood in newspaper circles, that it is the business of the press to enlighten the people in a disinterested way, and thus to become their trusty guides. The newspaper which attempted this could hardly live ; and, the more ably it discharged this duty, the more determined would be the effort to bring it into disrepute. It is said that the Evening Post was once almost ruined as a punishment for its opposition to Wall Street. It is the business of the press, too generally, to advocate special in- terests rather than just measures, to support party rather than the right. One great metropolitan journal charges another with being owned and run in the interest of a great cor- poration ; the latter retorts that any stockgambler can buy up the former at two-fifty a line. Both are very interesting news- papers, and the common reader does not know but that, in this matter, both tell the truth. Even in matters in which the people have no very direct voice, there seems to be object enough still to deceive them. 76 MONEY. \Chap. VI. Who that has read some of our great newspapers for the last few years would believe that, without miraculous interference, the construction of De Lesseps' Panama canal could be continued ? Some of our great railroads fear the canal ; wherefore the news about its construction must be withheld or sent to the people with color and falsehood in every word. ,So much patriotism all about the Monroe Doctrine as has been so frantically displayed within the last few years comes in large part from the covert fountains of corporate interest. Why are so many of our newspapers demure and whist in the presence of corporate aggression, which is assuming such threatening attitudes on all hands ? The charm may be in a little stock or a little aristocratic association. With an ad- vertisement in one's paper, or railroad pass in one's pocket, it would be impolite, if not treacherous, " to squeal." Very largely the moneyed interests, in one way or another, rule the press and support the stump, the press and the stump make public sentiment, and public sentiment carries the elections. It may be replied, however, that the defeat of the people's interests under such circumstances is not irretrievable, and that, if the people would only inform themselves and do their duty, the right would win. But this "if" gives away he case. When the ground is cut from under a popular cause, and the motives to action laid asleep or misdirected by persistent and authoritative distortion of the case in the general sources of information, how are the people to judge truly and act wisely ? When the motive is thus paratyzed or set in the wrong direction, there can be no right action. Then, the blind force of partisan passion is taken advantage of to misdirect the masses into false issues, while they are being quietty and indirectly, but none the less effectually, wronged. If the issue be direct between monopoly and the popular interest, money is poured out in the purchase of winning eloquence, imposing rhetoric, specious sophistry, the display of banners and mottoes, the siren voice of music, and the thunder of cannon, till dazed citizens go to the polls in Sec. 31.] INTELLIGENCE AT FAULT. 77 droves to vote as their masters dictate. While a combination of class interests controls the people's political education, there is no great difficulty in getting them to vote against their own interests. If the indirect means fail, there is still left the direct means. There are always purchasable votes, and, if needful, the money interests stand ready with the solid cash to buy them. This is becoming so common, that the cause of the people has no assurance of success in its struggle with unscrupulous interests. The great difficulty, however, is, to get a people's cause into politics at all. The two great parties struggling for success find it necessary to bid against each other for the support of the moneyed classes. It takes money to win elections ; but the great parties look to the people, not for money, but for votes. Hence, they adapt their policies to monopoly interests and thus secure the mone} 7 with which to dupe the people and purchase the venal. In all so-called free countries, something like this is .inevitable in the present state of enlightenment, and it is so because of the fatalities of an inexorable law which rests securely in the infirmities of human nature. " This intellectual consequence is intensified by the fact that all Governments and not least those known at the present day as the freest and, on the whole, the soundest are habitually made the arena of purely ambitious contention, of selfish aspiration, and even of corrupt conspiracies against the public well-being." (Prof. Sheldon Amos.) 31. INTELLIGENCE AT FAULT. Intelligence seems to afford little guaranty against the special hoodwinking of the people ; and we see not how it is to afford any, unless it first protects the mind against the blinding influence of party spirit. How much intelligence this would require, it is perilous to say, since even members of the Supreme Court, in a matter of gravest concern to the people, have shown such partisan prejudice as may well cause us to despair. Almost everywhere we may find people making apparent^ intelligent opposition to the growth of monopoly in this country ; yet, in the course 78 MONEY. [Chap. VI of political campaigns, they will move heaven and earth to secure the election of their party candidates, some of whom have spent years of their public lives in the service of monopoly. Indeed, it is barely possible that the general spread of intelligence and of newspaper literature is inten- sifying this mischief. With less intelligence and less reading among the people, the newspaper would not be the great power it is, to be subsidized in behalf of special interests. No close observer but must have at times felt that there is such a thing as the people's being just sufficiently intelligent to be thoroughly humbugged. In the South, secession began in the most intelligent circles and was gradually insinuated into those which were less intelligent. It is true, that in Jackson's time a great monopoly was most righteously overthrown, which claimed to have all the intelligence and decency on its side, but the overthrow could not have been effected but for hero-worship, which offset the partisan machinations of the bank. No party now dare take ground against banks of issue with the hope of winning a national election. The appeal from it to the people of " intelligence and high moral ideas," would be irresistible. It may be thought by some that I have exaggerated the difficulties of the financial education of the people. But who that has impartially studied the course of " demonetization " here and in Europe within the last few years, does not believe that, if it were the interest of the fixed-income and money- owning classes, silver would be reinstated, and the bi-metallic standard soon prevail everywhere ? Silver has been degraded by demonetization and other methods, practical and literary, till many appear to feel that there is something intrinsically dishonest in the very metal itself. But, if the owners of credits ordained it, silver would soon pick up in its moral and intel- lectual qualities, and become perfectly scientific and honest. The science of the subject would then be clearly on the side of silver. Silver certificates would not then be the bad thing they are now reputed to be (1883), nor would high-toned finan- Sec. 82.~\ FINANCIAL ENLIGHTENMENT. 79 ciers from the President of the United States down be so solicitous to have them extinguished in the interest of honest (bank) money. The moneyed classes are organized to act in concert, and, with the press, largely the pulpit, demagogues, attorneys, high officials, and the lobby at their command, their will is for the most part readily put into forms of law and executed to the letter. And, if there chance to be laws in the way, so strong is this financial element in the country that it may set these laws at defiance. The banking interest has left nothing undone to bring the silver dollar into discredit. The banks have refused to recognize it as money. Their power is not over-estimated by a friendly organ which said (1880) : "The time is near when the banks will feel themselves compelled to act strongly. Meanwhile a very good thing has been done ; the machinery is now furnished by which, in any emergency, the financial corporations of the East can act together at a single day's notice, with such power that no act of Congress can resist their decisions." Who could learn from the bank organs that most of the dollars which have been coined are represented in circulation by silver certificates ? They speak of the hoarded coin as if it were completely dead for the time as money ; and yet they appear to be in mortal dread, lest these same dead dollars shall come forth from their retreat, drive gold out of circulation, establish themselves as the money of account, and work dire disaster. It is a ve^ proper thing for bank notes to circulate in place of gold, even if, by their excessive quantity, they diminish the value of money ; but it would be a very wrong thing for silver certificates so to circulate with an equivalent effect on monej"' value and prices. I am not at all defending the continued coinage of silver dollars. There is no need of the actual dollars for circulation, and their continued coinage only makes occasion for the anti-silver interest to exert itself in opposition to the bi-metallic cause. 32. FINANCIAL ENLIGHTENMENT. But we need not wholly despair. Such methods of financial education as may be made available, may gradually enlighten the people on financial 80 MONEY. [Chap. VI. matters, till they are able to see something more than what interested parties are so ready to show them. The Walkers and others in this country, and quite a number of able men abroad are doing well to show the wrong involved in the single gold standard ; but, before their teaching can bear fruit, there is danger that we shall have the single gold- standard and bank paper only, thus placing the relative value of property largely under the control of the great banking and mone} T ed powers, and enabling them, by the cooperation of panics, gradually to bring about the extinction of the great middle class, and, so far as this goes, lodge the Government securely in the hands of the few. We may rally before this comes about in this country ; but the means of misleading are still far more ample than the means of properly directing, and the outlook is not encouraging. The only organized opposition we now have (1880) is a faction (the Greenback) which is quite right in many of its criticisms on the mismanagement of our financial affairs, but fatally in error concerning the remedy. It will never mend matters to set up one scheme of robbery against another. Will the time ever come when we shall not be com- pelled to choose between rapacious schemers on the one hand and impracticable fanatics on the other ? It may be laid down as a rule of very general application, that, when a strong class desires a privilege, it will get it ; if law is necessary to warrant the exercise of the privilege, the law will be made. As long as banks want to exercise the tremendous power of making money for the people, no oppo- sition is likely to be effectual. Not only are there bank partisans among the proprietors, or on the staff, of almost every news- paper, but they are in every city and village. They own bank stock, they have a bank of their own or want one, they aspire to the social level of bankers, or they are dependent on bank accommodations. They are influential people, looked up to in regard to money matters, and they will hear nothing against banking privileges of any kind, without vigorous protest. Consequently, in any fight about banks, banks are very liable Sec. 83.} CONFLICT OF CLASSES HISTORICAL. 81 to be the victors. But' possibly there is another agency at work which will eventually do away with banks of issue. This may come about as the result of a business revolution neces- sitated by the progress of a wealthy civilization. It is a significant fact, that the joint-stock banks of London which issue no money, divide larger profits than the bank of London which does issue money. (F. A. "Walker.) It is also a fact bearing in this direction, that banks are coming to depend more on their deposits for profits than on their own paper issues. (Roscher.) Large savings and large deposits with the modern facilities for rapid circulation, may render the issue of bank paper money so palpably redundant that it will fall into disuse by the operation of natural causes. 33. THE ECONOMICAL CONFLICT OF CLASSES HISTORICAL. The unequal distribution of wealth and the injustice so apt to accompany it, have never yet been avoided by any device of man. Sparta instituted iron money, thinking thereby to escape the curse of covetousness and its attendant evils, without suc- ceeding ; and Sparta was torn by factions which divided on the proposition for a redistribution of property. King Agis was destroyed for opposing the interests of the wealthy Spar- tans. Cleomenes was successful in a movement for the redi- vision of lands, only by acquiring power in a foreign war and putting the ephori to death. Then he set the example by giving up his own lands for distribution. He also restored the rigid Spartan discipline, which, however, did not prevent Antigonus from taking Sparta for the first time in history. The Gracchi suffered death in Rome for taking the side of the landless, as had Spurius Cassius, two hundred years earlier, for attempting like measures. These old " reformers " may have been neither wise nor just perhaps least of all, concilia- tory ; but none the less does their example teach that it is dangerous to oppose the obvious interests of the rich, and that those who do so are almost sure to suffer ignominy and defeat. History is no doubt colored to the disadvantage of those who thought they were struggling for the good of the people. If, 82 MONEY. [Chap. VI. in those warlike times, wealth was so potent, still more so is it now. In forecasting the political future, a great deal is expected from the tendency in the governments of Europe toward a liberal extension of political rights. The like took place in ancient Rome by the enfranchisement of the plebeian class, but this did not prevent the gradual drifting of power into the hands of the few. There is no good cause for exultation as long as people are carried by their weaknesses from one form of subserviency to another. It is true, that, in the older Governments, veneration for the old forms of aristocracy is fading away, and the priesthood and the nobility are losing their power over other classes ; but there is a new form of aristocracy coming in, that of the new men who control great masses of corporate wealth which dazes the multitude as surely as any of the old aristocracies ever did, and is as able and willing to draw from the substance of the people. The modern business aristocrat figures in a practical way in the very midst of the most imposing business activities of the age, where all are concerned, and where all see and admire and there lurks the danger. It is due only to the open greed and shameless grasping of these Juggernauts of wealth, that the people can be prevented, if at all, from lying down that the car wheels may pass over their necks. Indeed, that is substantially what the people do when they vote at the dicta- tion of corporate monopoly. It is no palliation of the clashing of class interests, that our classes are not hereditary. Many who rise from a so-called lower into a higher class, are the worst tyrants in it : selfish, cruel, contemptuous, and unjust. The freedom to rise should stop the complaints of the individual, but it does not mit- igate the injustice which millions suffer at the hands of new masters. 34. PEOPLE'S MEASURES NOT IN POLITICS. A late writer on " Strong Government " (Atlantic, Feb., 1880) has the follow- ing : " As for our new aristocracy of wealth, it inspires no Sec. 84-] PEOPLE'S MEASURES NOT IN POLITICS. 83 personal respect, and seldom succeeds in obtaining important public trusts. The great majority of the voting population will always be composed of men of small means or no means, and the national Government will be their servant, and not the tool of great capitalist corporations. Universal suffrage may work much mischief before universal education leavens it with judgment, but it will not enslave itself. No tyrant will be raised upon its shoulders. The strong government toward which we are steadily tending, we may feel assured, will be a 1 government of the people, by the people and for the people.'" This is a passage of remarkable innocence, and appears to have been written by a political theorist who had no knowledge of actual politics. While, indeed, the people do the voting, they unfortunately vote too much in herds, with little concep- tion of the real issues. The great parties not daring to offend powerful interests always place the issues on false grounds, or on measures of comparatively little value to the people ; and little matter which party carries the election, the lobby gets the measures enacted which the classes already powerful have most at heart. It is the old feat of the juggler to divert attention, and then play his trick. I write early in the cam- paign of 1880. The various issues in relation to finance in which the people should be most concerned, are quite ruled out, as between the two great parties, except in their super- ficial and more obvious aspects. There is little concerning them in the platforms, and there will be less in the party papers and speeches. We will illustrate by a single example : There is nothing in either platform about an income tax, and nothing will be said of it during the canvass. It will not do to threaten men of large incomes with the justice of this tax ; it would be impolitic and offensive to do so, and would defeat the party that did it. Yet it is taught by economists of the highest authorit} 7 , that there is no tax so just as this. Amasa Walker says : " Of all modes of taxation this is the most just and equitable. Every one can afford to pay according to his income, and ought to do so. There is no other perfect standard 84 MONEY. [Chap. VI. of taxation ; none other which does not inflict more or less hardship and injustice." (Science of Wealth, 322.) I know of no economist from Adam Smith down to the last magazine writer on the subject whose teachings are not in accordance with this. Moralists take the same ground. Julius H. Seelye, President of Amherst College, and Laurens P. Hickok, both Doctors of Laws and Doctors of Divinity, are authority for the doctrine, that " The easiest, simplest, and, on the whole, the most equitable taxation, is that which is proportioned to the person's income on whom it is laid." (Moral Science, 1880, p. 162.) The income tax has strong support in economical principles. It is an obvious tendency of the economical forces to add to the strong in proportion to their strength. The natural abilitj^ to acquire is thus constantly reinforced by its acquisitions as well as by its increase of skill. Successful property getting is not always due to skill ; it is sometimes due to luck. A man moves at the right time without knowing it, and wins, while another no less shrewd may move at the wrong time and lose. What the one wins becomes the basis of power for the future, while the other's loss can only be repaired by another venture ; and in such matters time is an important factor. An unscru- pulous man will use means for acquisition which a strictly honorable man would not use ; and, in consequence, he will get on faster. " Honesty is the best policy " in the long run for the average man ; but to imagine that a business genius would get on as fast to be strictly honorable as to be unscrupulous, would be a mistake. A strictly honorable man would not put millions of water into stocks as a basis for exacting enormous profits ; but the Goulds and Vanderbilts will do just that thing, and in consequence they acquire millions which properly belong to other people. If these considerations be allowed, they would justify not only an income tax, but a graduated income tax as an offset to the economical tendency of accumulation to increase in geometrical progression. If, then, the income tax is the most just of all taxes, why is Sec. 34.] PEOPLE'S MEASURES NOT IN POLITICS. 85 it not in the fiscal policy of all Christian and enlightened nations ? Especially ought it to be found in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And yet the people who manufacture public sentiment through the journals, open the barrels during campaigns, and control legislation through the lobbies, will not permit it. England and France have income taxes ; this country has not. Of course, there must be pretexts for not imposing such a tax. First, it would tax enterprise and discourage business, this most just of all taxes ! Secondly, it would be inquisitorial. But why inquisitorial ? Because so many people would be too shrewd properly to state their incomes ; and to use the means of find- ing out would be inquisitorial, and would wound the sensibili- ties of high-toned citizens. Hence, it will not do to have such a tax. It was at one time impolite, if not inquisitorial, in America, to present the bills of a bank at its counter for redemption. It was calculated to injure business ! It would be impolite and inquisitorial now to lev} 7 and collect the most just of all taxes. It would damage business ! Why are these fashions of opinion established among the reputedly freest people on earth ? Simply because it is the class interest of the ruling few who control public opinion. A late writer in a popular magazine, after candidly acknowl- edging the justice of the income tax, follows at once with the statement, that it is impracticable because it soon falls wholly on a few people who live in the cities. And yet it is a plain fact, that the incomes of people who live outside of cities are the most easily ascertained without inquisitorial methods. So urgent is the need of following the fashion of decrying the practicability of this just tax, that the difficulty was here placed on a false basis by an able, and, no doubt, honest writer. Are we really to settle down in the conviction, that Americans are so sensitive and withal such scoundrels that an income tax is impracticable ? I persist in pressing this point in order to bring out the difficulty of securing justice and right in the political sphere, 86 NOTE TO SEC. 34. [Chap. VI. NOTE TO SEC. 34 : F. A. Walker, Political Economy, 1883, takes a different view from his father's of the income tax. He says, p. 443 : " Here are two men of equal natural powers. One is active, energetic, industrious j he toils early and late and realizes a considerable revenue, on a portion of which the State lays its hand. The other lets his natural powers run to waste ; trifles with life, lounges, hunts, fishes, gambles, and is content with a bare and mean subsistence. Was his duty to contribute to the support of the State less dear or less in degree than that of the other ? If not, how has his idleness, shiftlessness, worthlessness forfeited the State's right to a contribution from him in proportion to his abilities? " This will not do at all. To assume that two men have equal natural powers, who behave as these two men do, is absurd. The very reason the one behaves badly is because he lacks the character which the other has, is weak in some fibre where the other is strong. Suppose a philanthropic gentleman keeps up a garden pro bono publico, and charges fifty per cent, for all the products taken away by beneficiaries. This fifty per cent, enables him to keep up the garden ; now, would the lazy, shiftless fellow who takes only ten dollars worth of products be under as much obligation to him as the pushing, industrious man who takes one hundred dollars worth ? On the contrary, I am quite inclined to think, that, if a political economist kept such a garden, he would find that justice required a graduated tax, even increasing the percentage to those who were most successful in securing the benefits. But I am only contending that those who use the opportunities which the State protects should pay for them according to the benefits they derive in the accumulation of wealth and the power which wealth gives. This, however, under present arrangements, is just what they do not do. Why ? Well, those who get the greatest benefits from government in the form of wealth, are those who virtually run the govern- ment, and they run it in their own interest. Sec. 34.] NOTE TO SEC. 30. 87 NOTE TO SEC. 30: In the Nation (March 1., 1883), is an editorial article on "The Novel of To-day." It states that we have no reform novels because there are no abuses suitable for treatment in the novel, that, in fact, there are very few abuses remaining, and that such as require correction, can be very readily reached through the newspapers : "Fifty years ago the press was itself much more closely connected with the class which was interested in the perpetuation of abuse than it is now. It kept silent or threw cold water upon reform schemes. Now it is the reformer's regular means of agitation, and he must be a very feeble agitator who cannot get a hearing through it. It furnishes to reformers a more immediate and certain vehicle than the novel." Some exceptions might be taken to this statement. The journals, for the most part, which profess to be devoted to reform work, are of limited circulation, and have little influence. The}' are not backed with sufficient capi- tal to buy the news and diversify the interest of their contents, and they are, consequently, lacking in the chief elements of popularity as newspapers. Besides this they are apt to be wild on certain questions, and steady-minded people get tired reading them, and drop them ; so that a judicious appeal for reform made through them, is not likely to reach the best class of readers. A journal to do most for the right direction of public sentiment, must be known as a great newspaper ; and its editorial staff must be on the side of the people, working steadily for the people's interests. We probably have such journals doing the best that seems practicable ;- but it is to be feared, that great journals are generally on the people's side and against monopoly only so far as the conditions of their own pecuniary prosperity permit them to be. Editors of great news- papers must not persuade themselves that they are people's men because they are willing to admit an occassional article (in solid type in an obscure part of the paper), in favor of doing away with high-class abuses. "What is out of hamion}^ with the general tone of the paper, receiving no editorial support, has little weight, indeed. But, the fact is, that even such an 88 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. article, if ever so ably written, would not find its way into the columns of many of our great journals. These have already in their regular employ all the writing talent they want. Mr. Charles T. Congdon was, perhaps, not out of the way, when he said (North Am. Review, Jan., 1883) : " It cannot be denied that too many newspapers, particularly those printed near the great centres of business, are now no more than the instruments of the self-seeking, the ambitious, the lovers of pelf, and the lovers of power." Mr. Congdon, however, is hopeful that the day is coming when journalism in the interest of the people will be successful. It is a good sign that monopolists cannot always make their journalsitic ventures pay. Since the section to which this note relates was written, the New York World has passed out of the hands of a great monopolist. CHAPTER VII. PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. 35. THE LESSON OF PROTECTION. Another instance which goes to show that people's measures do not get into politics, is that of a high tariff for the so-called protection of home industry. It is true, that the platforms of the two great parties differ on this (1880) ; but they are prudentty vague, and are only intended for local use during the campaign, if used at all. All economists of recognized authority pronounce against high tariffs as a wrong against the great mass of the people, and yet they are a part of our fiscal legislation. Why so ? Interested manufacturers use the press, the "worker" in politics, and the lobby to secure such legislation as suits their particular interests ; and, to this end, they make, as well as seize, their opportunities. When the great parties are quite Sec. So."] LESSON OF PROTECTION. 89 equally divided, neither of them dare offend influential elements in society ; and, if one of these parties is greatly the stronger, these special interests put themselves in position to work its machinery. The people are quite powerless, since, under the machinery of "politics," they are voted rather than voting. That the ballot in their hands is a safe and sure protection of their interests, is a conceit which has little foundation in fact. It may serve excellently well, except when it is the interest of certain selfish and powerful classes to carry their own special measures. How were the non-slaveholding masses of the South made mad for a war in behalf of slaveholder's interests ? And how are the masses of the North kept voting for the special interests of the moneyed classes ? Banks of issue, high tariffs, credit-strengthening acts to increase the value of securities in the hands of the few, bounties and subsidies out of the people's money, and land grants of millions of acres for the enrichment of syndicates ; all these are supposed to have been endorsed by a majority of the people. The great agricultural classes, who suffer themselves to be taxed above all others for the building up of monopolist interest, only too characteristically justify the contempt for the " bucolic intellect," expressed by monopolist journals in their criticisms on the granger movement against certain outlandish abuses of corporate privileges. Agriculturists and artisans justify such contempt when they shout themselves hoarse over the result of an election which themselves have helped to win for the very monopolies they pretend to execrate. It is a rule of history established under the play of parties in our government, that the party in power cannot be ousted, except when the campaign happens during "hard times," unless such party is divided by a quarrel of its own. If the times are good in spite of the blunders, or worse than blunders of the party in power, it gets the credit ; if they are bad for no wrong-doing of the party, it is blamed, and a majority of the people want to try a change. An American writer in the Fortnightly Review (Feb., 1882) states that a slight British 90 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. duty on American wheat and cotton "would do more in one year to advance Free Trade thought in America than all the publications of the Cobden Club for a century." This is prob- ably true but what a commentary on the intelligence of the steadiest-going class in America, that its political convictions on a vital question are most effectually influenced by a prac- tical thrust at its pockets ! A " high tariff for protection " is too complicated in its oper- ations, and too covert in its results to be readily understood by those who are most injured by it. Many quite intelligent people who reap none of the advantages of this form of class legislation, are candidly of the opinion, that there are two sides to the question, and that the protection side is a little the stronger. And some very prominent anti-monopolists believe heartily in a monopoly tax for the benefit of manu- facturers as a wise and patriotic thing. Nothing so blinds as interest, and, however just and good the man, if he is thriving by means of protection, he will think well of it ; what is good for him, he will regard as good for everybody. Peter Cooper may be named as an example. If, by means of protection, he had been kept poor and all his employe's made rich, he would not have been so decided a protectionist in his old age. His recommendation of Dudley's reply to Mongredien is suggestive. Dudley's statement is morally and logically no higher than a ver} r poor stump speech for partisan and protective ends ; and, although ostensibly addressed to Mongredien, every word of it was written for the edification of American farmers ; and, like so many efforts of the kind, it betrays a settled contempt for the intellectual level of the "bucolic" classes. For ex- ample, the argument lays stress on the fact that there are duties on farm products twenty cents a bushel on wheat, fifteen cents on barley, rye, and potatoes, ten cents on oats and corn, four cents per pound on butter, etc., etc. Now, as we grow these products as cheap as an} T other people, or cheaper, and almost always have them for export, every intelligent per- son knows that these nominal duties are only a sop thrown to Sec. 35.} LESSON OF PROTECTION. 91 farmers ; and to assume, as Dudley does, that they really pro- tect the farming interest, is a reflection on the intelligence of farmers ; and yet I am almost afraid, that, for want of a little careful thinking on the subject, farmers may be influenced by just such assumptions. Two or three days after the preceding paragraph was writ- ten, I attended a farmer's picnic, at which the Governor of the State, other political magnates, and nearly ten thousand people were present. One of the incidents of the day was the distribution among the people of a pamphlet entitled, " A Few Facts showing how Protection protects the Farmer. By J. R. Dodge, M. A., Statistician of the Department of Agriculture. Published by the Association of American Economists." The pamphlet is of a little higher order than the Dudley pamphlet, but it equally takes for granted the stupidity of farmers. The Dudley production assumes that England is a free-trade coun- try, and then goes on with the attempt to prove that she is in a miserable decline ; the Dodge pamphlet assumes that England is a prosperous country, and then goes on with an attempt to prove that she is not a free-trade but a protective country, and that her prosperity is due to protection. Now, if any farmer is not convinced by the Dudley argument, and still holds out against the Dodge argument, he must be in a fearful state of mind ; for the two pamphlets flatly contradict each other, and both are conscientiously laboring for the maintenance of a high protective tariff. It is nowhere stated categorically by Mr. Dodge, that, with- out protection, we should have no manufactures, but this is the master assumption of his argument. The " facts " simply show that the value of land, labor, and productions is greater where industry is diversified and population dense. A com- parison is made between Pennsylvania and Virginia, between Ohio and Kentucky, and between New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey on the one hand, and North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi on the other. The assumption is broad, that the higher prices of land, land 92 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. products, and farm labor in these Northern States are due solely to protection ! Now, one finds it difficult to understand how protection, if it acts equitably, is the cause of this differ- ence, since Mississippi is just as much "protected" as New Jersey. That Pennsylvania has manufacturing and mining operations on a large scale and Virginia not, must be due to some other cause than the stimulating effect of tariff laws on industry, for both States have always had the same tariff laws. Nobody denies that diversified industry and a dense popula- tion will make land production and farm labor more profitable ; and the " bucolic intellect" is able to perceive this without the assistance of the diagrams in this pamphlet ; it is the assump- tion that wants proving. We want it proved, that a high pro- tective tariff is the cause of mining and manufacturing indus- tries. Some troublesome people think that, if our high tariff has been the cause of Massachusetts having $303,000,000 invested in manufacturing, while (1880) South Carolina has only $11,000,000, there must be something wrong in the opera- tion of such a tariff. Perhaps, if Mr. Dodge would look a little further into this subject, he would find some other cause for the contrasts he points out between agricultural States and States of mixed industry. It is possible that his facts prove too much for his purpose. A high tariff simply taxes the agricultural interests for the benefit of capital invested in manufacturing, and, for this reason, it bears against the pros- perity of the more distinctively agricultural States. But what I am insisting on here is, that the assumption that the manu- facturing industries in this country are due to high tariffs, is greatly in need of proof. There is a very pretty example illustrating this point which Mr. Dodge, as a scientific exponent of protection, would do well to study. It is that afforded by the colonies of Victoria and New South Wales. Victoria has a protective tariff while New South Wales has not ; but, in spite of this, the manufacturing industry is more flourishing in New South Wales than in Victoria, and both are new countries where, it is Sec. 35.~] LESSON OP PROTECTION. 93 said, there must be a tariff to foster manufactures. Victoria is just as well situated for manufacturing as her rival, except that coal may cost a few cents per ton more ; but she has the advantage of a somewhat denser population. Now, as it is the avowed purpose of protection to establish manufacturing industries by artificial stimulation, Victoria should now be doing the manufacturing, not only for herself, but for New South Wales ; but the free trade country is ahead. And not only this ; ship-building has declined one-half in ten years under protection in Victoria, but has almost doubled in the same time under free trade in New South Wales. A similar example teaching the same thing may be found nearer home, though further off in time. It is that of our own colonies while still subject to Great Britain. They had not only no protection, but the}'' were forbidden by the mother county to engage in manufacturing ; but in spite of these things, manufacturing industries did spring up and develop with decided vigor. " Hundreds of manufactories were estab- lished in the several colonies." They supplied the home demand, not only in times of peace, but throughout the long war for independence. The colonies even exported their man- ufactured products to foreign countries. The idea that a new country with cheap fuel, water power, and an energetic people will not establish manufactures without protection is a fash- ionable stupidity which is contradicted by history. In the face of facts, " the protection of infant industries " is a fetish we are solemnly asked to conjure with. There is still another fact of value in this connection, and that relates to our recent home experience. From 1850 to 1860, under a revenue tariff, our manufacturing capital and products increased one hundred per cent. ; from 1860 to 1870, under a protective tariff, manufacturing capital and products increased only one hundred per cent. ; from 1870 to 1880, after this protective tariff had time to work out its legitimate con- sequences, manufacturing capital and products increased but twenty-five per cent. 94 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. Vll. Such hard facts ought so to shatter the protection theory that even the masses could see the wreck. But Mr. Podge dodged these facts precisely as if they had no bearing on the case. An example of Mr. Dodge's fairness in reasoning is shown in his comparison of the reward of agricultural labor in Penn- sylvania and Alabama, which assumes that the colored laborer in Alabama working under a southern sun with the old, slug- gish slave habits still clinging to him, may be fairly weighed against the stalwart white laborer of Pennsylvania ! This sort of rottenness only in worse degree, taints the whole produc- tion ; yet, I ask in all sadness, what percentage of farmers living in one of the most intelligent districts of America, will of themselves clearly detect the assumptions and fallacies of this pamphlet, prepared by a government officer for the en- lightenment nay, for the misleading of the people? 36. TARIFF ABSURDITIES. At the present time (Aug., 1883), there is a quarrel going on concerning the responsibility for the late reduction in the tariff on wool. It seems now, that the prosperity of wool-growers in this young, rich country of ours depends on the kind of legislation they get from Congress, and, consequently, it is necessary that this industry shall have a lobby at Washington at the proper time to do the proper work. But at the last session of Congress, the wool lobby was outwitted by the wool-manufacturing lobby ; hence the trouble. Of course, wool could not be grown without protec- tion nothing can be, when protection is the fashion. Now, if wool is protected, the manufacturer has to pay higher prices for his material, for the object of protection is to enable the farmer to get more for his wool. Then, since it is not so easy to make profits manufacturing with an exceptionably high cost for material, the wool tariff stands in the way of profits on wool-manufacturing. But, even if there were no wool-tariff, and wool were cheap, it could not be manufactured without protection, because nothing can be done without especially no manufacturing can be done without " protection against foreign Sec. S6.~\ TARIFF ABSURDITIES. 95 pauper labor." When wool, however, is high in consequence of the wool-tariff, why, then the manufacturer of wool has so clear a right to double protection, that no one would dare to dispute it ; and no doubt Congress so thought in putting off wool with a light tax and giving the manufacturers of wool a heavy tax. The beauty of this case is, that it illustrates a great principle which runs all through the system of protec- tion; to wit, that protecting one interest makes it doubly necessary to protect another interest. The assumption which lurks under all this as undetected fallacy, is that these mut- ually antagonistic taxes, which the people must pay, are neces- sary to the prosperity of the people. This dispute about the wool-tariff directly concerns a very small percentage of the people of the United States. Not two per cent, of the people, counting operatives, dependents and all, would profit, on the protection theory, by duties on wool and woolen goods. But, what would be the effect on the other nine- ty-eight per cent., the wool consumers ? A little loss to every one, of course ; because the consumers must pay the taxes which constitute the protection ; not taxes to the government, but taxes to the growers and manufacturers of wool. The con- sumers are the shorn lambs, and they submit quietly to the operation, and witness with equanimity the war of words about the failure of skill in the lobby to get them shorn closer. One would suppose that the wool-growers of Ohio on their dear lands would want protection against the western wool- growers on the cheap, rich lands of Texas, New Mexico, and California, but the} r do not seem to think of this. The}'' are afraid of Australia on the other side of the globe ! They depend for protection against home competitors, on mixed husbandry, a proper selection of breeds, skillful management, and the near market. Why should not this suffice to protect them against any competitors on the face of the earth ? If it is not sufficient for their protection, it is because their farms have become too valuable for sheep husbandry, and because farmers are taxed for the protection of a hundred other inter- 96 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. ests a fact showing the double acting, self-defeating nature of the whole system of protection. In another matter, one would suppose that the "bucolic intellect " might be able to detect the iniquity of protection. No set are more clamorous for protection than our great lumbermen, and none would be more enraged at the betrayal of justice and patriotism, if the protective tax should be removed. But what is this particular tax doing? It is hastening the destruction of our greatest American forests, not to keep lumber cheap, but to meet the demand under a tax which keeps lumber dear. With Canadian competition shut out, rings can keep up prices ; and who pays for the protec- tion ? Every man that builds a house or barn, and our farmers and artisans must contribute of their hard earnings for the further enrichment of syndicates who monopolize the pine regions of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Thus is the government made the instrumentality of a few men to ac- complish their personal ends, to the detriment of our forests and at the cost of all lumber consumers. And this is done in the holy name of protection. Remove the protective tariff, let in Canada lumber free, and our forests would disappear less rapidly, building would be done all over the country at less cost, and our lumbermen, if capable and careful, would get rich fast enough on legitimate business principles without a law to force tithes from the general public for the benefit of a special class. And yet our grangers, many of whom are not wanting in the conceit of wisdom, and all of whom are opposed to monopoly, let all this pass as if there was nothing wrong in it. Most of them, indeed, like good patriots, continue their fealty to the party of protection and vote the party ticket without protest. Some of the absurdities of protection arising from contradic- tion ought to arrest the attention even of little observing people. Thus, wages are high in the United States because there is naturally a profitable demand for labor, and we are told that we must have protection because wages are high. In TARIFF ABSURDITIES. 97 England, wages are higher than in France, Germany, or Rus- sia, and yet England sells her manufactured goods cheaper than these countries can, and they must have protection to keep out English goods. Thus, protection is a sort of medicine for the economical patient, which acts on contrary principles. Where wages are high, the laborer must be protected, and where wages are low, still there must be protection. With us, the trick is to have protection because wages are high. Now, wages are high because labor is profitable ; and, if labor is profitable, is not that precisely what laborers want ? Then why impose taxes to increase their expenses for living ? " Oh, to protect labor ! " Not a bit of it ; that is a false pretense : it is to take money surreptitiously from the man}" and put it into the pockets of the few. In a letter to H. J. Redfield, the well-meaning Peter Cooper committed an Irish bull as follows : " I uphold on the very ground that you oppose a protective tariff its bearing on the great body of consumers, especially the poorer classes, for the reason that nothing can be purchased cheap of foreigners that must be purchased at the cost of leaving our own laborers unem- ployed, and our own raw materials unused.' 11 This is good enough as an abstract proposition ; its absurdity comes out in the assumption that it applies to a country of high wages, such as ours is held to be by all protectionists. Such a proposition has simply no meaning in a country of high wages, where the very fact of opportunity for work on cheap and abundant resources makes it possible, under natural conditions, for every one desiring work to get it at good pay. It is the old, old assumption, that nothing will go right unless it is made go right ; therefore, even here, where our own good raw material is plenty and cheap, and there, is a natural opening for an abundance of work at high reward, we must provide work by artificial stimulation, or forsooth, our laborers will be unem- ployed ! That is the proposition fairly and substantially. One of the last things the good Peter wrote was a reiteration of this absurdity, as if, after years of reflection, he regarded it 98 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. an apt statement of a sound economical maxim applicable to American industry ; and I have no doubt thousands of as sincere anti-monopolists as himself have read it believing it to be economical Gospel. If people of fair intelligence cannot penetrate a bull like this, and are so liable to mistake what is absurd for something profound, what are we to expect of the masses who do most of the voting ? It is a prevailing notion that high wages make the prices of products high. They do so, however, only on condition that everything else is equal ; but this is never to be counted on. " Pauper labor " may be, indeed, always is, far less efficient than well-paid labor. Then, if this cheap labor is applied with the disadvantage of poor machinery and expensive power, the products may cost much more than similar products made by well-paid labor using cheap power and the best machinery. This might be illustrated by numerous facts. The money price of labor in the several countries of Europe affords no indication of the cost of products ; and generally, it may be laid down as a rule that the country in which wages are highest, if untramineled by protective taxes and monopoly charges, makes the cheapest goods, and is best able to compete in the markets of the world. Thus, England with compara- tively high wages and without protection, can undersell France, Germany, Russia with all their advantages of cheap labor and " home protection." In cotton mills American labor is thirty- three per cent, more efficient than English labor ; consequently, the trifle more paid to American than to English operatives, has nothing to do with the inability of our cotton manu- facturers to compete with the English in the sale of cotton goods. What does bring about this inability, however, are high protective taxes on much that enters into the mill and plant, together with monopoly in the mining and transpor- tation of coal. Think of our rich soil and accessible mines for the production of cheap materials ; think of the inventive genius of our people and their efficiency in labor ; think of American competency to manage complicated affairs ; think Sec. 37.] EFFECTS OF PROTECTION BY TAXATION. 99 lastly of our rapid accumulation of capital, and still insist that we are in our industrial bab} T hood and must be protected ! Rather think of all these advantages, and then insist, on the plain basis of common-sense, that, if American industry were relieved of the burdens of protection and monopoly, it would in twenty-five years beat England in the markets of the world as England now beats the rest of Europe. Will American statesmanship be equal to the occasion, and cut the claws of monopoly ? 37. DEPRESSING EFFECTS OF PROTECTION BY TAXATION. Let us state on this point what we believe to be demonstrable truth in economics. A people that has large profits and high wages does not need protection, because it is already just as flourishing as it is possible to be. Tariffs to start and sustain other industries mean that the natural and flourishing indus- tries shall have burdens imposed on them for the support of the industries that require help ; and this cannot be done without rendering industry in general a little less profitable. Under protection the net average of real wages and profits cannot be so high as they would be without protection. A people cannot be made more prosperous by means of compul- sory taxes on one class for the benefit of another class. Protec- tion, in taking from one class and giving to another, disturbs the natural distribution of wealth, and the friction of the change thus effected depresses the general level of prosperit} T . By the division of labor is labor made more effective, but it is the avowed purpose of protection to narrow the field for the divi- sion of labor, restricting it to nations instead of leaving it to the world, and thus cut off a part of its benefits. Of course, a country may be prosperous with protection, but it is so because of its natural resources, its perfected machinery, its skilled labor ; but it would be more uniformly prosperous without protection. Without protection, new industries would naturally come into existence when the economical conditions afford a just warrant for their equal prosperity with industries already in existence. 100 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. I believe this to be a fair statement, in few words, of a great economic truth ; but what proportion of our voting population are in a frame of mind to appreciate this truth ? and what amount and what kind of education would be required to put them in the way of appreciating it ? These, I think, are not captious, but perfectly relevant questions which require an answer. In one of the Ohio congressional districts, the Democratic candidate, a man of national reputation, made his canvass on the anti-protection issue in the campaign of 1882. This district is mainly agricultural, but he fell behind his party majority more than two thousand, and was elected in a Democratic dis- trict only because of the general Democratic boom of that campaign. And now, I will turn prophet, in a general sort of way. While the country is fairly prosperous under a high tariff, if the opposition party take its stand against such a tariff, it will be sure to be beaten in a national election ; but if the mills are shutting down and the people suffering from " hard times " under a high tariff, then the adoption by the opposition of an anti-protection plank well followed up in an aggressive cam- paign, would be likely to lead to success ; and this seems to be the nearest opening through which such form of monopoly may be driven out. For while the country is prosperous under protection, protection gets the credit, and a battle against it under such circumstances is almost sure to be a losing one. The monsters of monopoly can only be slain by striking them at low tide ; and then the killing is difficult ; and when dead, there must be constant vigilance to prevent resuscitation. So great are the natural resources of our country, that it is difficult, even by vicious legislation, to prevent their beneficial influence on business in general. Such is the elasticity, that it is difficult to overcome it ; and this very fact gives monopoly in this country a very great advantage. In its manifold forms, it may covertly prey upon the people, and they not know it ; it may voraciously prey upon them, and they be not wholly Sec. 37.~\ EFFECTS OF PROTECTION BY TAXATION. 101 consumed. Nevertheless they suffer. Under protection our merchant marine has disappeared from the seas. Ships could not be built out of "protected" iron, except at a loss. Yet home industry must be encouraged by shutting out foreign manufactures; and now, when it is found that we need a foreign market for our own goods, it is impossible to secure it, because our protection, by increasing the cost of material and machinery, places our manufacturers at a disadvantage, while it forbids, by its inherent selfishness, the reciprocity which encourages one nation to buy of another. Under the freedom of our inter-state commerce, production may be carried on where it is most advantageous to produce ; if inter-state com- merce were hampered by " protection," this could not be done, and both commerce and production would suffer from the put- ting up of inter-state bars, and the States that put them up highest would be the worst off. The people who do the work of the world should have the most advantageous circumstances under which to do it; but this is precisely what protection forbids by thwarting the natural conditions of the world's division of labor. And yet is a high tariff, forsooth, a " high- wages tariff; " and so it is patriotically recommended to la- borers. How easy to ignore the fact, that, under such a tariff and partly caused by it, our country has recently passed through one of the worst periods of commercial and industrial depres- sions it has ever known, with bankruptcy epidemic, mills and shops closed, and workmen thrown out of employment. A high- wages tariff, indeed ! it was for years a no-wages tariff. And not a little did this high tariff contribute to bring about this result by forcing the industries into unnatural proportions under the system of taxing some industries for the benefit of others, and by disregarding, under such forced conditions, the proper relation of supply and demand ; and thus for five long years, 1873-1878, under a " high wages tariff," thousands of laborers were forced to tramp the streets without work and without wages. Under the segis of high protection were " our own good raw materials unused and our laborers unemployed." 102 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. During this period, foreign immigration was checked, and some of our foreign laborers returned to the old country. It is a fact well established, that, in England, under a low tariff, wages are higher than they were formerly under a high tariff. One would suppose that, if there were anything especially insulting to American intelligence, it would be to tax the people in such a way as to drive American shipping out of existence, and then propose again to tax them for the restoration of that shipping by means of subsidies. And yet the people appear to manifest no particular sensitiveness in the matter ; they are patient of burthens, if the hand is only concealed that imposes them. It is to be feared, that it is impossible to overthrow high class legislation till it has worked out still further its legitimate results of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Before this goes into the hands of the printer, there appear (Dec. 1883) unmistakable symptoms of trouble in the man- ufacturing business of the country. Iron mills, paper mills, glass works are stopping, and even the lumber business is said to be in distress. Protection did not prevent such results in 73, and it does not prevent them in '83. The call for la- borers under the stimulus of protection brings great masses of foreigners to the country, and then leaves them without work, when, from habit and expectation, they are most in want of it. Very naturally, there is reaction from too much demand for labor to too little, and pauperism is greatty increased. It is a doubtful gain to this country, the great masses of foreigners who have thus been enticed to it. We have a horror of importing "the products of pauper labor,'' but, none at all, of importing the " paupers " themselves and keeping them paupers. With none of this regulation, our industries would be in a healthier condition to-day than they are, and fewer of our working people would be suffering from forced idleness. High protection in this country for the last twenty years has had much to do with increasing our pauper population. If the present depression in business and forced idleness of laboring people should con- Sec. 38.] ANTI-MONOPOLY AGITATION. 103 tinue for some time, the occasion would no doubt be an auspicious one to agitate for a reasonable reduction of tariff duties, and it should not be allowed to pass unimproved. 38. ANTI-MONOPOLY AGITATION. Since most of this chapter was written, the Anti-Monopoly League has sprung into existence. On first seeing mention of it in the papers, two thoughts occurred to me. I could not altogether realize that it was set on foot by wholly disinterested persons who proposed to do honest, hard work for the general good. We really have no great apostles of principles to organize the people and lead them to the overthrow of great political wrongs. Instead, we have class interests struggling for the advantage, and demagogues trimming for votes. The honest men who are really on the side of the people usually lie still till the campaign opens, and then their views, however just, are lost on biased minds, and some catch-cry started by demagogues will dupe the masses into the support of privi- leged interests. And it seems to be a part of the irony bound up in the fate of things, that the people who espouse the right for its own sake are apt to be tainted with fanaticism, without comprehensiveness in thinking, or prudence in action, and spoiling whatever they touch. The Anti-Monopoly League appears to be mainly supported by the mercantile class. Its active members are, no doubt, working for their own immediate interest as well as for that of their customers. But let there be no misconstruction of this statement. The cause of anti-monopoly is a righteous one : and, since the people appear to be incapable of organiz- ing efficient opposition to the systems of robbery which are made successful under class legislation, and since there are no great apostles of the right for its own sake to do it, we should accept the next best thing, and rejoice that even a class interest is made available to organize opposition to wrong. There is no great moneyed class whose interests are so nearly allied with the people's interests as those of the great merchant class. As the people prosper, merchants prosper, and very much by 104 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. the same means, economical production, cheap transporta- tion, freedom of exchange, and large consumption. Naturally, commerce is no monopoly ; it is open to all comers ; in it, competition is unlimited ; it is commensurate with civiliza- tion, and is itself the greatest of civil izers. It is fitting that the merchant class should be opposed to high duties and mo- nopoly charges for transportation, which cripple commerce and reduce the ability of their customers to pay for commodities. But the Anti-Monopoty League, it appears, only aims at the railroad iniquities : such as stock- watering to make a pretext for dividends sometimes as high as twenty-five per cent on the actual investment, and such as discriminating among shippers and localities, favoring the strong and overtaxing the weak, and thus building up subsidiary monopolies and increasing the disparity between fortunes by a most arbitrary and unjust redistribution of wealth. Now, as just as this work proposed by the Anti-Monopoly League is, there are great and influential journals of both the great parties in this country, which have never expressed a kind or respectful word for it, but have, on the contrar}^ treated it with affected contempt and contumely. Their editors know best why they pursue this course ; but I refer to it here as an illustration of what I have alreadj 7 said concerning the influence of a great portion of the press to misdirect the people in regard to their public duty. The other reflection above referred to, is, that, if the Anti- Monopoly League should prove to be unexceptionably honest, good, and wise, there would still be the danger of its being at once overburthened with the officious interest of facile dema- gogues, who would compromise it, and, by their readiness to "sell out," greatly damage or destroy its usefulness. At this writing (Feb., 1882,) there are unmistakable signs of this very danger ; still, it is to be hoped that the earnest people who have undertaken this work will pursue it till it bears fruit. This is, however, but just written, when the newspapers tell that Congressman Robinson (N. Y.) has introduced a bill for the construction of a great railroad from the Atlantic to the Sec, 38J] ANTI-MONOPOLY AGITATION. 105 Pacific. It is to be an anti-monopoly railroad. Well known anti-monopolists are to control it in the common interest, and they are to have every alternate section of the public lands for fifty miles on each side ! This would be curing the disease on homeopathic principles by allopathic doses ; and one* cannot but hope that such is not anti-monopol3 T at the fountain head. Later : Nothing came of this project j and it is to be hoped that it was not encouraged by the prominent anti-monopolists whose names were used. The League and its organ "Justice" have since done excellent work in calling attention to the iniquities of sacrificing the people's land to the greed of syndi- cates. Their map showing the enormous extent to which this robbery of the people has already been carried, should be in every intelligent voter's hands, that practical justice may profit by its revelations. The organ of the League has also done well to call attention to the fact, that in all questions of title be- tween individuals and syndicates, or between the public and the syndicates, the latter are almost sure to carry their point. They may have forfeited their land grants by failing to comply with the terms on which the grants were made, but still they get and are likely to get the land all the same. They have their attorneys, the shrewdest men in the profession, to labor with those in authority at Washington, while the people's cause goes by default ; and the high officials who are sworn to serve the people are found serving the powerful S3 r ndicates. This is no overwrought statement ; it is a sad fact of which there is abundant proof. But, while the Anti-Monopoty League is doing good work in this and other equally meritorious ways, for which it deserves great credit, I must think it has suffered somewhat from draw- backs which should not pass unnoticed. The organ of the League has almost become an organ of the protection monop- oly. Dudley's plea for protection already noticed was published as a supplement at the request of an ancient manufacturer, who believed its arguments to be unanswerable. That was well enough and not at all to be condemned ; but it has put 106 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. Dudley's plea into pamphlet form, and advertises it as " Peter Cooper's last Donation to the Science of Government ! " This looks very like a surreptitious attempt to get this special plea into the hands of unsuspecting people, and push it into a field of effective work, not on its own merits, but on those of the much respected philanthropist. Now, if the editors of a newspaper believe in any form of protection, they have a right to their faith, and the right to preach it, but, if they preach it as anti-monopolists, their course will appear inconsistent to many, and suggest that they are pushing a monopoly under cover of anti-monopoly. The great weight of brain among English-speaking economists rests in the scale against tariff protection regarding it as a means of injustice and monopoly. The prominent protectionists in this country are interested in certain manufactures, belong to manu- facturing districts, or are demagogues bidding for the support of wealthy manufacturers. A professed anti-monopolist, there- fore, who betrays his sympathy with these classes, so far dam- ages the cause of anti-monopoly. An anti-monopolist may fight few or man}'' forms of monopoly that is entirely his affair. He is so far consistent, and nobody can find fault with him ; but, if he is nursing a pet monopoly of his own while he opposes other people's monopolies, he will not greatly alarm monopolists in general. This trouble showed itself at the Chicago Conference (July 4, 1883); and it vividly sug- gests for our instruction the difficulties which class interests are going to put in the way of consistent anti-monopoly. The interest of a great party is one of the most formidable obstructions with which a genuine political reform has to con- tend. This is well shown by the course of a number of our ablest Republican journals on the tariff question. When there is no party excitement, they are against protection : but, as soon as the party convention is held and a high-tariff plank put into the platform and candidates to suit nominated, these journals have nothing more to say about the impolicy of protection, and the subject rests till some time after the Sec. 39.~\ BUSINESS AND POLITICAL CENTRALIZATION. 107 election. It becomes so important to elect high-tariff can- didates on a high- tariff platform, that anti-high-tariff editors must labor might and main to bring about this result. The mighty editors in the party organization are very much like clay in the potter's hands ; and reform turns out to be a secondary sort of thing, the possession of the offices and the vital needs of the newspapers being first. And thus reform lags even by the treachery of friends ; and, hereafter, when these journals oppose protection, their say will have lost weight with readers, and have no practical influence on the issue at the ballot-box, the very place where influence is needed. 39. BUSINESS AND POLITICAL CENTRALIZATION. There is another difficulty, more fundamental and formidable, with which anti-monopolists have to contend ; and this I have an especially clear right to present, as it so well illustrates that form of antagonism which is so apt to meet us in the affairs of life. It is the tendency of political government to cen- tralize, and eventually to run into imperialism, and such is unfortunately at present our own political tendency. But, in addition to this, a business power has developed in the most recent times, which also tends to centralization. The rail- roads of this country employ more men than the Government empk^s, including the army and navy, and this enormous corporate patronage is gradually passing into a few hands, and rivaling the Government itself. Indeed, even at this early period, it almost commands the government. State legislatures have been known to do the bidding of railroad magnates ; and the great corporate powers have their agents in Congress and in the lobbies to further corporate interests at the expense of general interests. Even some of the courts, it is believed, decide at corporate dictation. And it appears that members of the higher courts, and one member at least of the Supreme Court, have been placed on the bench at the solicita- tion of this new power. Great corporations make no secret of their endeavors to control the elections in their own interests- 6 108 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. By their own testimony, they are Democrats with Democrats, and Republicans with Republicans, and at all times they have money for friendly men. Everywhere is the corrupt hand at work to taint the fountains of legislation and justice. There is an adequate motive for this. These corporations, like the Government, levy taxes on the people and collect them. Formerly governments made money out of monopoly ; now they delegate this power to S} T ndicates. The railroad, telegraph, and express lines make their own tariffs, and, in doing so, they are governed by no consideration whatever but self-interest. They profess to be governed by no other con- sideration. If a line can be made in this way to pay twenty- five per cent, the stock is watered, and the twenty-five per cent is forthcoming from the people. There is no use in any- body's rebelling; the command of the corporation is as imperious as that of the State, for the State with its bayonets stands behind it. The State has created this power, but has now so lost control of it that individuals have no remedy. If there is dissatisfaction, the corporate official says, If you don't like our terms, don't ship by our line ; you may build another railroad. This power is the creation of the State ; but, within its own province, it has become greater than the State through the control which it exercises over the opinions of the people and the action of parties ; and it turns out that, practically, the people as a body have no remedy. The Government com- pels citizens to surrender the right of way to corporations for the assumed public good ; and then these corporations claim that the railroads are their private property, to be used, not for the public good, but, like any private property, for all they can get out of it. Their principle is to take all that the traffic will bear ; and demagogues called " Christian statesmen " declaim this robbers' principle from the stump with applause. So long as such claims go unchallenged they tend to effect the virtual enslavement of the people. We go to the past to learn from political precedent ; but there is nothing like this in past history for our instruction. Sec. 89.] BUSINESS AND POLITICAL CENTRALIZATION. 109 Optimistic philosophers pretend that our free institutions have nothing to fear ; and yet here is a danger which political in- stitutions never before had to contend with. Formerly the sword was power, and the man who held it was to be feared ; now, money is power, and the money magnate proves to be mightier than the people. In eveiy contest between Jay Gould and the people, Jay Gould is the victor. But there is an alternative ; the State may assume the ownership and control of the railroads, express lines, tel- egraphs, etc. We will allow that the corporate magnates will graciously permit this step to be taken. It would add to the already too great patronage of the Government. Here is the contradiction : While huge monopolies are destroying the equal privileges of the people and threatening their liberties, the only remedy appears to come through interference by a power which already misgoverns too much. The remedy proposed for the evil is to change it into a different form which does not materially weaken it nor radically change the respon- sibility for it. This scheme would only take the power out of the hands of great monopolists and experts, and put it into the hands of blundering office holders who are apt, in addition to their want of skill, to have more concern for their own than for the people's interests. But we are told that " the people can turn them out if they mismanage." Oh yes, and put others in who will fall under the same temptation, and manage no better. We are reminded how competent the people are to kick a party out of power, at times, as for example, in New York last Fall. This was, indeed, brilliant ; but can any one tell how much more of a people's man Cleveland is than Cor- nell was ? The fact is, that victory was a monopoly victory, and the only question is whether the monopolists knew it at the time. They probably did. And generally, when the gov- ernment of a city is changed by the popular vote, there is nothing gained, and at the next election the old party is restored to power. What shall be done with the great power which the corpora- 110 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. tions wield is a grave question with grave difficulties. Hardly ever before has there been such opportunity for statesmanship in the adjustment of equilibrium among conflicting elements for the greatest possible good of society ; let us hope that it will meet the emergency with a reasonable measure of competency. Whatever adjustment may be made, we may still be sure there will remain to disturb the result a residue of unbalanced action quite beyond the control of philosophers, philanthropists, and statesmen. 40. CONDITIONS OF FINANCIAL REMEDIES. Class interests are happily conflicting, and, from their squabbles, some good should fall out to the people. It so happened in ancient and in medieval times. We have an example of it at Runnymede when the Great Charter was secured, and another when com- merce and the cities overturned feudalism. Still, so far as financial matters are concerned, we are not to expect too much from the differences among the privileged and aristocratic classes, so well do they hold together for the sake of a com- mon interest. In the old quarrels in Rome between the people and the aristocrac} T , the rich plebeians fraternized perfectly with the patricians, and wealth and blood made common cause. The people were common plunder. The progress of history brings no great change in such things. Take, for a present example, the money of commerce, still an unsettled question. As we have previously shown (Sec. 21), the interest of the fixed-income class and of credit-owners is opposed to that of the great manufacturing and other property-owning classes ; since dear money, becoming constantly dearer by the elimination of silver, depreciates the manufacturer's property and cuts down contingent dividends. But, as manufacturers want high tariffs for monopoly, they make no serious opposi- tion to the gold interest, so that both ends may be favored the high tariff and the high denominator of values, both of which are adverse to the best interests of the people. The commercial class wants free ships, free commerce, and cheap transportation, and thus it antagonizes the high-tariff interest Sec. 40.] CONDITIONS OF FINANCIAL REMEDIES. Ill and the monopoly in transportation ; but, with outstanding credits of its own, it is friendly enough to the dear-standard interest of the professional credit-owners. And, thus, the capitalist classes with the instinct of a common purpose, very largely drop their differences, and unite on legislative policies which discriminate against general interests with the result of destruction to the legal equality of opportunity and the fair- ness of competition ; and still, the people are common plunder. No high class really means to plunder or to harm the people; it only means to do the best thing for itself. As little is it the intention to help anybody but self. The silver interest does not act from patriotic and philanthropic motives, though its success might be generally beneficial. The gold interest does not act from malevolent motives, though its suc- cess might crush debtors and damage the people in general. The commercial interest, when it opposes restrictions on com- merce, has not for its ulterior object the good of the people, though its success might so result ; it is simply laboring to establish conditions favorable to itself. So, when the manu- facturing interest seeks to impose shackles on commerce, it does not mean to harm anybody; on the contrary, no class talks more unctiously of patriotic duty and the good of the workingman, so natural is it to see the industrial landscape in the color of the business glasses we look through. These unobjectionable motives prompt the action of the strong clas- ses, but none the less are the people common plunder. But since the high-class interests do not always harmonize in action, the quarrels which spring up between them afford to real statesmen the opportunit}*- to secure some small crumbs for the people. Examples : When the silver interest, cooper- ting with the bias of tradition, resists the total demonetization of silver, the people may well rejoice ; it is the duty of level- headed men, while encouraging the movement, to moderate its fervor, and give it practical direction. And when the commer- cial class organizes opposition to manufacturing and transpor- 112 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. tation monopolies, it would be well for honest men to cooperate with it in behalf of the general public. There is really no power, but that of the people, to oppose land monopoly, the manufacture of a fluctuating currency by corporations, and other similar and sometimes smaller abuses which take from the many and give to the few ; and here the men of the people must do the best they can without high-class help. And, in such instances, the true friends of the people have to fight both front and flank, the monopoly interests in front, and the well-meant foolishness of fanaticism on the flank. And further, even when a high class organizes for reform, it will bear watch- ing. This is clearly the case in regard to revenue reform. Under protective duties, consumers not only pay the tax according to their consumption, but they pay bounties besides to the enterprising parties who conduct the manufacturing. Under a tariff for revenue, the tax will still be paid by con- sumers; and, if the duties are laid on the common necessaries of life not produced in this country, a family of moderate means will be made to pay as much revenue as a wealthy family, and discrimination will still exist in favor of the wealthy classes. Tariff reformers generally are probably not more anxious than protectionists to have the taxes apportioned among the people according to their ability to pay. And while any tariff for revenue would be more just than a high protective tariff, it ma3 T , nevertheless, be so adjusted as to compel the people still to suffer under the grinding operation of class interests. A class interest finds three different fields in which to work for its own ends, while most of the people are struggling only in one field that of getting a living for themselves. First, it attends the caucus and convention, with mone}^, to control the nominations ; then it goes into the campaign, with money, to control the election ; and finally, it enters the lobby, still with money, to control the action of the lucky people who got the nominations and were elected. What chance have the general interests of the people under such circumstances ? Rich Sec. 40, ,] CONDITIONS OP FINANCIAL REMEDIES. 113 corporations want immense tracts of the public lands, and they get them. They want the legal right to take people's land for a " private " road with the privilege of charging the rates that will bring in the most money, and the right is granted to be held ever afterward as sacred. They want the legal authority to issue paper money which the country would be better without, and it is granted on patriotic principles. A monopoty of some industry is wanted, and it is secured by taxing the people for its support, and this is done in the name of loyalty and patriotism and called "protection." When corporations habitually run over the people, they get into litigation, and then they want judges who will decide in their favor, and too often the judges are forthcoming. Certain great cor- porations succeed pretty well, not only in getting the laws made to order, but, also interpreted to order. What is the people's recourse against such machinations at their cost ? Where shall we place the fulcrum for the support of the lever which is to upset all this nefarious business ? A very good thing would be greater wisdom among the people and the application of science to financial affairs. But such use of science could only be partial at best, and not possible at all under popular forms of government till the people become sufficiently intelligent to see that a reasonable measure of justice can only come through the administrative temper, which the methods of science require. In this way only can the sway of special and corporate interests be put down, and an equal chance secured for all. And yet, it is a painful feature of the case, that reasons exist why it is to be feared that the masses of the people cannot attain to the high degree of intelligence and organized power which this reform requires. In default of the masses of the people rising to an appreciation of the higher administrative temper in politics, there seems to be no way of approximating equality of oppor- tunity, but by means of an enlightened despotism ; and there is not the least warrant, in history or in human nature, for believing that there is any fitting repository among mankind 114 PROTECTION AND MONOPOLY. [Chap. VII. for a trust at once so delicate in its balances and so liable to be abused. In the absence of the judicial frame of mind in the great bod} r of voters, two extremes play constantly against each other. Class legislation and the thwarting by law of equal opportunity give rise to communistic and other extreme agitation, and again such agitation is used by monopolists as a shield in every battle the} r wage. One extreme excites and incites the other, and class oppression always has the initative and always the advantage. The greenback agitation was a godsend. Its fiatism, scouting the idea of intrinsic value in money as a survival of barbarism, and threatening to pay off the whole national debt in a single edition of green- backs, was a dogma so wild as to react in favor of the injustice it opposed. It was the fruit of vague thinking, of enthusiasm without wisdom ; and being wanting both in the matter of soundness and in the usual flash accessories of political success, it fell short as a great reformatory boom. This was the opportunity of the gold organs. They solemnly assumed that all financial agitation opposed to their peculiar interest was of like flimsy character, and they ridiculed the sensible indiscriminately with the senseless. The " silver craze " was stigmatized as equally idiotic with the " fiat money craze." And thus the falsity of one extreme strengthens the injustice of the other. And because communism sometimes damages a just measure by its advocacy, monopolists repel every opposi- tion to their class privileges as " communistic ;" every claim for a popular right against their greed is stigmatized as "communism." When endeavor is made to thwart the robbing operations of a big railroad or telegraph system, of a big oil monopoly or banking institution, the alarm cry of communism is vociferated with vigor, and demagogues and journals of the great parties, paid lawyers, and even religious journals, join in the general cry. Here is clearly shown a place for science, common-sense, judicial temper ; and the momentous question returns : Will Sec. THE PLANKS. 115 the people ever command them ? If not wholly, it is to be hoped the} r may in part. Meantime, it is our duty to struggle, and good men will ever struggle to this end, that the wrong shall be arrested in its course, and, if possible, that the right shall be made to take the place of the wrong. CHAPTER VIII. A PEOPLE'S PLATFORM. 41. THE PLANKS. We may see how wide of the mark are the teachings of political optimists, that the intelligence and interest of the people are a perpetual guaranty that the laws shall be made and administered for the people's welfare. Here are some of the principles of a real people's party : First plank : " No class legislation." This is general and sounds well ; it would do for any party. It is precisely the thing for the monopolist classes ; it is just and true, and there- fore makes an excellent shibboleth under which to push class legislation. Nobody objects. Adopted. Second plank : " The full legal tender of both gold and sil- ver with gold and silver certificates for convenience." This would provoke the most determined opposition, and financial science would be invoked for aid. The moneyed classes would contend that this measure would drive gold out of circulation, and make cheap silver the mone}^ of account to the great detriment of the widows and orphans who are barely sup- ported on a fixed income. The inhumanity of the measure would be thrust into the front to take the fire from the other side. What these benevolent people want is that gold alone shall be the money of account, so that money 116 A PEOPLE'S PLATFORM. [Chap. VIII. shall have the greatest possible purchasing power for the benefit of the poor and needy who live on their little annuities. In a very able journal which is cool on every other subject, but frantic on the "silver question," I find, since writing the above, the following: "Every day's delay brings us nearer the possible catastrophe of a change of monetary standards, or a conflict of standards, or some other tripping stone, which will probably suffice, when it is reached, to plunge all business into confusion and the industrial classes into dire distress." It is then recommended that "the commercial classes every- where" do business on the gold basis by "stamping, printing, or writing the word ' gold ' on every price of paper they exe- cute." We are then informed that the New York and Boston banks have already taken this precaution by resolution, and that all the other banks will do so, and get out of the rain before there is any great shower. Why is there not some recommendation to the poor industrial classes who cannot dictate the kind of paper they shall execute? The recom- mendation is to those who are strong enough to exact gold when gold is scarce and hard to get, an operation which would be very likely to throw many of "the industrial classes into dire distress." The recommendation is well calculated to ful- fill the prediction. Such are too often the methods of class interests ; if they cannot get their measures into law, they will evade the law, and get the advantage anyway. If silver could be wholly done away^ with as money, then the money which remained would be worth immensely more than it now is, and the prices of property and products would fall about one half. The effect of the plank equal legal tender would be to advance the bullion price of silver and lower the value of gold, bringing them so closely together at the current ratio, that, under ordina^ circumstances, they would circulate side by side. But, even if silver should, under exceptional circumstances, become the money of account, the friends of the people might very justly and truthfully main- tain that it would be a smaller evil than the adoption now Sec. 4.1 ] TIIE PLANKS. 117 threatened of exclusive gold for the whole civilized world. Within the last ten years gold has been increased in value and silver depreciated in value mainly through the demonetization of silver, bringing about the present great d/sparity in their bullion value. This is the opportunity of mono-metallists. They constantly refer to this result of their own work as a reason why silver is only fit to be used as subsidiary coin. The decline of silver value is the bugbear ; it never once comes into view that the apparent decline of silver is but the other side of the fact that gold value has increased. One of the difficulties of this question is that what other nations do affects us. This is the only real argument left to those who want dear money and bank paper ; but good use is made of it. It is dwelt upon and so exaggerated for the purpose of alarm that careful and well-meaning people, not especially informed on the subject, are not in a frame of mind impartially to con- sider it. It would not be difficult to make it appear that the weight of intellect, wealth, and respectability was against this plank, and with such a feeling "in the air," plank No. 2 could scarcely be carried. The progress of mono-metallism indicates that it is backed by a power which cannot be successfully resisted. [Since this statement was made, Mr. Hugh McCul- loch, the great American banker, and Mr. H. R. Grenfell, Governor of the bank of England, have both declared for the bi-metallic standard, and thereby given great concern to their financial friends. When distinguished bankers declare for bi-metallism, we may be pretty sure that they have been men- tally coerced against professional interest by the higher con- siderations which the scientific aspects of the question suggest. Still later (Dec. 1883), General Grant and a number of other influential gentlemen have issued a prospectus for an Interna- tional Bi-Metallic Monetary Association. We must not, how- ever, count too confidently on such indications. A consum- mation which depends on the consent of English credit owners to let go their grip on mono-metallism, is doubtless a long way off, as mono-metallists very well understand ; hence, the theory 118 A PEOPLE'S PLATFORM. [Chap. VIII. so persisted in that nothing can be done till everybody is ready. On this convenient theory, one or two great nations may force all the rest into mono-metallism j and there is danger that we shall become the victims of this theory.] Third plank : " The continued payment of our interest-bear- ing debt until it is extinguished." The banking class does not want all the national debt paid, as it affords a good field for investment and serves as a foundation for the national banking system. Owners of the public funds generally do not con- template with pleasure the rapid narrowing of this field for easy and secure investment. The protection interest wants even higher protective taxes than we now have and, con- sequently, more revenue than we well know what to do with, unless we keep paying off the public debt. It is rather dif- ficult to escape the payment of the debt, although the pro- tectionist party in a great protectionist State has endorsed the philanthropic policy of distributing the surplus revenue among the several States. But, notwithstanding the opposition of certain class interests, this plank would probably stand in a fair canvass before the people. Fourth plank : " $146,000,000 of the hoarded metal in the treasury, or its certificates, to be used in replacing the circula- tion of an equal sum of greenbacks, the remaining greenbacks to be retained as money with full legal tender properties." Under such an arrangement our greenbacks to the amount of $200,000,000 would correspond in some measure to the $75,000,000 bank of England paper based on securities, and, being receivable for government dues, they would be at par at all times, and would make a stable and safe part of our cur- rency. But, of coursej the policy would be an innovation, and, though it would not change the volume of the currency, the banks would see mischief in it, the fiatists would be dis- appointed with it, the people could be easily made a little afraid of it, and the plank would add something to the general " weakness " of the platform. Fifth plank : " The gradual extinction of the power to issue Sec. 41.] THE PLANKS. 119 bank paper, except on a coin or bullion basis, dollar for dollar ; and an amendment to the Constitution to prevent the exercise of this power under State or national authorit}'." The entire banking interest of the country would use all the well-known appliances of political campaigning to persuade voters that this plank would be revolutionary and fatal to the business interests of the country. They would represent it as the ex- tinction of banking itself, in the face of the fact that all legit- imate banking could and would still be done on gold and silver and gold and silver certificates. The banks of Great Britain are not allowed to add to the amount of paper money, except as it is based, dollar for dollar, on coin or bullion in their vaults. There could be no objection to this, if guarded from abuse ; but Americans and a great many others in the world, are bound to make money out of nothing ; and, while bankers ridicule fiat money, they insist on the precious privilege of maintaining the prosperity of the country by issuing paper, a considerable percentage of which represents nothing. But the people have got used to it, the change proposed would be represented to them as full of danger, and they would abandon the new party on this issue alone. Sixth plank : "A moderate income tax." The object of this plank is to get money from those who are most benefited by government protection, and best able to pay the expenses of such protection. But the most prosperous business men have not been in the habit of paying according to their ability and their advantages, and they spot this plank. Every man of them will work might and main to defeat the new party. They will not pay their fair share of taxes, but they will pay liber- ally to defeat the fairest form of taxation which it is possible to devise. Seventh plank : " The gradual abolition of indirect taxation, to be made final by a constitutional amendment." Indirect taxation no doubt orignated in the need which rulers some- times felt to fool the people by getting money from them without their knowing it. It continues very well to answer the 120 A PEOPLE'S PLATFORM. [Chap. VIII. purposes of so-called statesmen who like to be liberal with the people's money. And I am not sure but the people themselves like the plan. Barnum has said that the people like to be humbugged, and certainly our politicians act on this principle, and it serves them well. If consumers could know every time they pay their money for goods at the store how large a per- centage of it is tax money, they would not take it so patiently as they now do. Besides this, without indirect taxation, there could be no high tariff to rob one portion of the people for the benefit of another portion, and present beneficiaries, com- paratively few in number, but generally rich and able to dam- age planks, would set their faces and forces against this one. Our experience during the campaign just closed (Nov., 1880) shows how easy it would be to crush the party on its seventh plank by the simple cry of " free trade and low wages." Eighth plank : " The free citizens of the freest country in the world to be permitted to buy ships wherever they can buy them cheapest." This would be such a home thrust at the very principle of patriotism itself, that it could not be tolerated for a moment. It would not be possible to make an American ship, except by American workmen out of American stuff. We can make American citizens out of foreign-born people, but the idea of an American vessel fit to carry the American flag, forbids that there shall be anything foreign about it. We must respect American ideas as well as protect American interests. Eighth plank condemned. Ninth plank : " The legal superintendence of railroads, ex- press, and telegraph operations so far as to prevent stock- watering, unjust discrimination between shippers and localities, and undue charges for services." This plank might not be altogether practical, but, as moderate as it is, it would abundantly offend the great corporations, and they would have it thoroughly and frantically denounced as an impudent inter- ference with the rights of property and as the entering wedge of communism itself. They might, however, forego the denunciation of this plank, provided they could so manipulate Sec. 42.] CHARACTERISTICS OP A SUCCESSFUL PARTY. 121 the convention as to secure the nomination of monopoly candi- dates. All they would care for would be the practical defeat of the proposed reform. But, while the plank would provoke the opposition of monopolists, it would not secure the support of those extreme anti-monopolists who want the State to own and operate the railroad, express, and telegraph lines ; and, between the two, it would be little likely to succeed. But there is no need of any more planks. Nine would be more than enough to sink the new party utterly. In a sense, the people do not want a people's party ; and, if one were born, they would strangle it in its infancy. A party which should so frame its body of principles as most to favor equal opportunity and fair play among all classes of citizens, would never get the following of a corporal's guard, and its very name would soon be a by-word and a reproach. Should there be enough of it to challenge notice, it would be execrated from the press, the stump, and the street corners till its simple- minded supporters would almost want to hide among rocks and caves to escape the contempt and maledictions of the people themselves. The political work of nations is not done in any such way, and politicians do not make such platforms as that we have just had under notice. Only those measures which have a due regard to the infirmities and weaknesses of that mass of prejudice and passion called the people can get themselves into that kind of potency which makes histoiy. 42. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A SUCCESSFUL PARTY. There are certain forces which form a great party and secure its success. One of these and it is the most im- portant is that it shall be depended on to favor certain powerful interests and influential classes. If it flatter sectional prejudices by teaching how much better we are than those folks over 3 r onder, it makes a good score. Sectional feeling is an old weakness of human nature, and masses of men appear to fraternize as readily as ever on any issue which appeals to it. If to this, it is possible to add an appeal to a national prejudice, the party is absolutely invincible. Men huddle 122 A PEOPLE'S PLATFORM. [Chap. VIII. together for mutual protection under the impulse of a primitive instinct. If a party can persuade the people that they are threatened with some form of aggression, such for example, as the " cheap production of pauper labor," and presents itself as the champion of " protection," it has an advantage which it is very difficult to overcome. And then some diplomatic muddle which is skillfully managed to make the people feel that some nation wants to wrong us, affords a powerful boost for the statesman, faction, or party that assumes the championship of " our side." Such things require no reasoning only vigorous asseveration ; and I doubt if it is possible to discuss questions involving national prejudice before the people with any certainty of a fair hearing and unbiased consideration. Simple, confident assertion which finds an easy passage to the feelings is far more potent than the reasoning which appeals to the intellect. The straightforward, naked truth alone will not do ; it must be seasoned with delusion. And only too often that succeeds best which is to the very bottom delusion itself. As a matter of fact, it is safe to affirm that a scientific and just declaration of financial principles would be far less apt, on its own merits, to rally the masses, than would be some form of financial clap-trap. It was not the unsoundness of the greenback doctrines of finance that defeated them ; it was the powerful opposition of great class interests with doctrines equally unsound and unjust in the long run, that prevented the greenback boom from sweeping the country at one time as a ps3 r chological epidemic. As an additional characteristic of the successful party, it may be noted that it must be prudently vague, rolling off its declaration of principles in sounding words and glittering generalities. The end to be sought must be stated as if it were the means of bringing it about. Thus : The tariff to be so adjusted as to bring revenue and protect industry, but not to foster monopoly ! An indispensable condition of success for a party is that it shall be like average respectability, a safe and non-offending negative, and not rich in principles. The Sec. 4^.] CHARACTERISTICS OF A SUCCESSFUL PARTY. 123 most brilliant campaign of American political history was made on a nomination which appealed to the "generous confidence of the people," putting forth no declaration of principles at all. It won on the merits, positive and negative, of hard times and hard cider. A great party must form the body of its principles, so far as it has any, with reference to availability. It is well under- stood that availability has greatly to do with the selection of men ; not less has it to do with the selection of measures. Yet no great party can be a true people's party, and for this reason, that it is so easy to mislead the people by the false light of electioneering, that it becomes the policy of the party to court the alliance of those powerful classes who are able to set glares on every hill-top to decoy the unwary. There is no fear of organized opposition from the masses of the people of their own motion, for they have enough original work to do attending to their own private affairs, and, practically, they are but rank and file to be led into battles which are not fought for them. The opposition of the great moneyed classes is feared ; and hence, very naturally, the interests of such classes acting, each in its own direction, come to shape the policy of all great parties, as the resultant of diverse forces. Hence the difficulty which great parties sometimes have to find differences enough between them to make a pretext for their real work of scrambling for the offices. A young " statesman " soon discovers that the open, honest advocacy of really just measures would render him unpopular and drive him from public life. The people are not always just to their benefactors, because they do not always clearly discern who their benefactors are. For this reason, honest service in behalf of the people is not at all certain to meet its proper reward. Hence, our young " statesman " allies himself with those intelligent and powerful class interests which are more apt to reward service and which control the means of creating public sentiment. It is only in this direction, that he can be sure of a substantial reputation and steady political 124 A PEOPLE'S PLATFORM. [Chap. VIII. preferment. It does not matter if by birth and education he belongs to the great body of the people ; there is shoddy in politics as well as in social life. The politician must study the drift of the strong interests and adapt himself. If such drift requires the sacrifice of weaker classes, he must adapt him- self none the less. For his ends success and power it is far better to go along with the deceived many than to be right with the discerning few. No high-toned character with deep convictions can be a successful politician ; he only can be who has no such convictions. A fairly honest man in politics must often find himself compelled to act on policy when he would prefer to act on principle. It is a common observation that the best men are kept out of politics. Thus it is shown, both by the character of parties and politicians, that interest is too strong for equity. This is not always true of individuals, but it is always true of parties and classes. A class or party con- founds interest with patriotism ; it always gets what it can, and keeps all it gets ; and, if it defers to the rights of others, it is onty to get more. 43. POLITICAL WRONG MUST BE RESISTED. If it be said that the view of politics herein taken is unreasonably despond- ent, and that science and education will eventually remedy the evils, three considerations may be stated in reply. First, when people act in masses, their educational drill appears to afford no protection against the contagion of partisan mad- ness. The most intelligent communities appear to be most easily organized in the interest of false issues. This is shown by the entire history and animus of the " bloody shirt " agita- tion. The virus took effect most readily in the most intelligent neighborhoods, because it was most fatally conveyed thither by the printed page. Secondly, the graduates of our colleges, who have been taught the science of political economy, go straightway into practical life teaching the very opposite of what they have learned at college. Political economy not only teaches but proves the folly and injustice of so-called protec- tion ; yet learned politicians preach "protection" as something Sec. 4$-] POLITICAL WRONG MUST BE RESISTED. 125 almost divine, and simply because they have become inspired under the " dripping sanctuaries " of a class interest. Nothing is more instructive in this respect than the fact, that the Democrats as well as the Republicans in Pennsylvania are the partisans of a high tariff for protection, showing, as it does, how supposed interest overrides science and excludes justice from the field of practical politics. We should probably see the same thing in New York, but for the interest of the great commercial class of that State in resisting monopoly taxes. Thirdly, and this bears on general destiny as well as on politics the great modern industrial development, necessitat- ing the existence of a great proletariat class which multiplies more rapidly than most others, cuts under such advantages as there might be in high education, by cutting down the mental level of the communit}" in general. With this mass of human impulse to deal with, affording a rich field for the insincere and self-seeking, we must not be very sanguine of political purification. And this adverse element is only yet in the beginning of its power, with a long career before it. Then, what seems to be best for earnest men to do in political affairs, is to agitate in judicious ways for the right, and usually to ally themselves in a practical wa}^, not with what is really good, which is here impossible, but with what appears to be best in the promise it gives of practical good. Only in this way can they make themselves felt. To abstain entirely from practical politics because of its imperfections, is to become a political nullity. We must accept the incongrui- ties which are rooted deep in life. The following from Prof. Jevons has deep meaning : " It is futile to attempt to uphold, in regard to social legislation, any theory of eternal fixed principles or abstract rights. The whole matter becomes a complex calculus of good and evil. All is a question of probability and degree." The choice lies not between evils exactly, bat between mixtures of good and evil ; and that which is better in practice than its alternative is worth striv- ing for j and this is sometimes in one party and sometimes in 126 A PEOPLE'S PLATFORM. [Chap. VIII. the other. A long lease of power will spoil the best party that ever was. Among the various means of bringing intelligence and right intention to bear on politics, perhaps there is none better than that which has been adopted by the Anti-Monopoly League. This is not a party ; it is an organization outside of parties, whose aim is to act on parties. It may make mistakes, as it did last fall in New York ; but not always will the treachery of a Cleveland be the answer to honest support by the friends of the people. If such an organization can be maintained with the moral power to influence a considerable vote, it will do much to put the great parties on their good behavior ; and in this way wrong may be counteracted and the right greatly promoted. It is true that the views herein stated are derived from American politics of the current times ; and, for this reason, it may be thought they do not afford a sufficient guide to the forecasting of any considerable period of the future. But much the same thing is taught by the politics of other coun- tries. The lament is general, that civilization is becoming materialized into a sort of self-indulgent seeking for gratifica- tions wherein the virtues which come of self-denial have no place. Everywhere is it only too certainly shown that " vicious politics are ever vigilant, while public virtue is only aroused by a blow in the face." (John A. Kasson.) There is decline in French politics, and complaint is made of the introduction of American methods, in consequence of which, only inferior men can succeed as politicians. Kenan thinks that the revenge of France for past defeat " is likely to be rather of that insidious kind which saps the enemy's robust self-denial by the spectacle of ease and luxury, and gradually draws down its neighbors to a self-indulgent impotence like its own." (Given by Myers.) In England, W. R. Greg quotes Mr. Lowe as saying that his party only held its own in the House by "a lavish expenditure of public money, by a studious deference to all powerful interests, by a dextrous use of com- Sec. 48. \ POLITICAL WRONG MUST BE RESISTED. 127 mittees and commissions to stave off troublesome subjects, by a copious use of permissive legislation." Gladstone says : " The evils of our parliamentary system I regard as great and growing The longer I live, the less do I see in the public institutions of any country even a tendency to approxi- mate to an ideal standard." " Turning to our own, amid all our vanity, and all our real improvements, I see in some very important respects a sad tendency to decline. ... I agree with Mr. Lowe that we are in danger of engendering both a geron- tocracy and a ploutocracy The two circumstances which strike me most forcibly and most painfully are 1. The rapid and constant advance of the money power ; 2. The reduction almost to zero of the chances of entrance into Parliament for men who have nothing to rely upon but their talents and their character." He goes on to say that the place of the able and trustworthy has "been taken mainly by men who have been recommended to their constituents by the possession of money," precisely the tendency more and more in America. A suc- cessful politician in a recent college address told the ambitious young men in attendance, that if poor they should not think of entering into politics, as that is a sphere in which only those who have money can succeed. And, then, if we look back almost twenty centuries to Rome and more than twenty centuries to Greece, and find rank dema- gogism running riot in both and making history in its own fashion, and then note that the use of money and the party machine is far more depended on of late than statesmanship and just principles for party success, we may fairly infer that the political millennium is not near at hand, and that it is not even possible under any known behavior of the political forces. And, when we reflect that society is becoming constantly more complicated, with an equal complication of its conflicting interests, we may realize to the full the increasing difficulty of securing justice in public administration. All that can be done by the most faithful political endeavor, is to avoid the greater injustice, and secure as much of the good as clashing interests 128 A PEOPLE'S PLATFORM. [Chap. VIII. and the infirmities of human nature will permit. To this end, it is absolutely necessary that this endeavor shall be made. Let the course of class legislation be opposed at every step, and arrested at every possible point. Catastrophes in the physical world are retarded by opposing forces till they can no longer be kept back. In like manner, fatalities in the human sphere may be stayed by voluntary resistance. If in the con- dition of a hard-pressed army, we may make at least a tem- porary stand, for the sake of securing a safer retreat. It is this opposition to wrong, effecting its retardation, even when in a great measure it is inevitable, that makes life as good as it is, and makes it worth living. 44. TRADITION AND HABIT. It may be thought that I have pounded on some of the subjects in this and preceding chap- ters in true "reformer" style. It is true that the necessities of brevity have ruled out qualifications, but I believe that the leading statements are only too true. My chief aim has been to bring into as strong relief as the case would admit of, the political difficulties in the way of the people's interests. I am very well aware that pettish complaining of monopoly and wrong very often without sufficient foundation is rather pleasing than otherwise to monopolists, and helps to bring the just criticism of monopoly and wrong into discredit. I may have erred in this direction, but, being conscious of the danger, I have endeavored to avoid it. I have not, however, on this account left unspoken the word which the occasion seemed to require. There is a reserve of fact in detail to fall back upon if necessary, which, I believe, renders the positions herein taken perfectly secure. I am liable to error as to what may be really a people's measure in certain instances ; but a miss like that on my part does not in the least invalidate the lesson to be drawn from the preceding considerations. I have been conscious, furthermore, that the financial doc- trines of this statement may be characterized as ideal or theoret- ical rather than practical. But I have not forgotten the forces of tradition and habit. These are elements which politicans Sec. 44.] TRADITION AND HABIT. 129 and statesmen must take account of, or their measures will fail. This is precisely one of the reasons why justice is not likely to be secured to the people. Class legislation has already the sanction of too many precedents and is becoming intrenched in the habits of the people, who bear with equanim- ity what they become used to. Hence, a party with a fair and rational declaration of principles would stand no chance at all. It would be scouted as a party of doctrinaires or " dam literary fellers." This is what I set out to illustrate. The bank monopoly of making paper money is secured against successful attack, because, through habit, the people suppose we should not have money enough to do business with, if the banks were not allowed to make it. They do not think of the modern devices of credit, which render needless the handling of money in most business transactions, nor of the principle that, by the condition of our industries and commerce, we draw the money of the world to us, or drive it from us. And, then, again, reforms which have to be authorized by the people are not apt to be adopted at all, if they are such as should be brought about gradually. Our tariff should be modified in a gradual way to remove the conditions of a long standing disease ; and bank paper not issued on an equal amount of coin should be gradually reduced. This is rarely the popular way of doing things. Experts might do this fairly; but it is in the hands of demagogues, and they would not act till compelled to by an avalanche of public opinion, when action would be liable to be sudden and ostentatious. Notice may be served on me by the critical reader, that the positions I have taken are inconsistent with each other. " If the rich man is the stay of civilization, then why object to his getting as rich as possible, even by class legislation ? " Much depends on the way people get rich. If, by the exercise of one's natural powers under free and fair competition in which no disabilities are imposed by law or fraud upon others, then it is right and desirable to become rich, and society will be the gainer ; but, if by means of special opportunities created by 130 A PEOPLE'S PLATFORM. [Chap. VIIL law, for which others are taxed and from which they are by law, or fraud, or necessit} 7 , excluded, then is it a great wrong. Even if some good should result from such accumulation of capital, the end would not justify the iniquity of the means. Unfair taxation, bounties for the few, and burdens for the many, opportunity created by law for moneyed men, monop- oly in its protected forms, insidious and open, all these legalized iniquities subvert the conditions of free and fair com- petition, and help make certain classes, " hewers of wood and drawers of water " to other classes, and thereby contribute to defeat the higher ends of civilization. 45. POPULAR DISCERNMENT OF PUBLIC QUESTIONS. Pos- sibly there are some who may be kind enough to read these pages, and who have been in the habit of hearing encomiums on popular intelligence, who will feel that I have greatly underrated the people's ability to understand public ques- tions. When a demagogue wants to deceive a popular audi- ence by making "the worse appear the better part," he usually begins with an elaborate recognition of the intelligence which so thoroughly protects his hearers from the tricks of decep- tion. It is astonishing to see how readily such clap-trap accomplishes its purpose. Men in the mass will swallow coarse flattery, which, if oifered to any one of them, would be resented as an insult to his intelligence. And such precisely it is when oifered to him as one of man}-. Demagogues betray their contempt for the people both by the flattery they offer them and by the tricks of logic with which the}'- deceive them. I should be glad if I had underrated the popular intelligence in regard to financial measures, but I fear that I have not. The Hon. David A. Wells, a careful thinker and high authority, says : " In fact, it is probably no exaggeration to assert that there are to-da} r in the United States more persons competent to discuss the nature and structure of the Sanscrit language than the philosophy, incidence, and ultimate influence of taxa- tion ; " and he goes on to prove it (North American Review, Dec., 1881). Sec. 45.] POPULAR DISCERNMENT OF PUBLIC QUESTIONS. 131 If I have overrated the popular fondness for political delu- sions, I am not the only one who has done so. The following is from an American philosophical work by Lester F. Ward, A. M. (Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II., 605) : " Thus a very large proportion of the revenue of the United States, at present much more than half of it, is raised in such a way that the man who has no property at all pays about the same as the millionaire. It may be asked, How does this illustrate the issue ? In this way : This state of things could not exist if everybody understood just what its effect is. It is the ignor- ance of constituencies of the real effect of { revenue tariff' that makes it a national possibility. Government is compelled to take advantage of this ignorance and collect its revenues, not in the manner that will least burden the people, but in the manner that will be least objectionable to the people. For, to substitute direct taxation, upon either property or incomes, for the present impost revenue, would raise a storm of opposition throughout the land, and the worst victims of the existing system would be found flocking to the polls to hurl the authors of their deliverance from power. The intelligence of the men of property and large incomes would certainly persuade the ignorant mass that the change was an outrage on common rights, and inveigle them into aiding in its defeat, while the man of small property or income would rather pay a hundred dollars a year more for the necessaries of life than ten dollars in direct taxation. This, however, is of course due to his ignorance of the real effect, since no one would knowingly prefer a greater to a smaller loss." PART THIRD. MISCELLANEOUS REFORMS. CHAPTER IX. QUESTIONS OF PRACTICAL EVERY-DAY ECONOMICS. 46. THREE METHODS OP ECONOMICAL SUCCESS. There are three distinct methods of getting on in the world. One is the fair and square use of means at hand in free competition. Buying where products are cheap and selling at good prices where there is demand will make a merchant rich by and by, and his wealth is legitimately obtained. He not only helps himself, but he helps others. In buying where goods are plenty, he helps the producer; in selling where goods are scarce, he helps the consumer. Growing a product which is scarce and much wanted is of the same character. In like manner, the manufacturing of an article which supplies a want is a useful thing to do, and may reward with wealth the enterprise which discovers the want and adopts the means of supplying it. Such methods of acquiring wealth are not only legitimate but commendable. Another of the methods referred to is getting on in the world by means of a monopoly advantage secured by law. When, in order to make a manufacturer rich, his neighbors are forbidden to buy a certain article elsewhere, and compelled, if they use it at all, to pay him a premium, it forces the indus- trial activities out of their natural channels to the detriment of consumers. So far as the protective law is an advantage to Sec. 46-} THREE METHODS OF ECONOMICAL SUCCESS. 133 the manufacturer, it enables him to sell his products to his customers at his own prices. One of its iniquities is that it enables the manufacturers of certain articles to combine against their customers. The rings thus formed are often able, not only to sell their products at their own figures, but to buy their raw materials at bottom prices determined without com- petition among buyers, and thus to secure a wide margin of profit for themselves. If competition with them is attempted, they break it down by underselling for a time, thus compel- ling the new comer to quit or to come into the ring. There is no hesitation about pooling interests in this way : it is done on "business principles," and the public why, "damn the public ! " Under high protection, " the people of the United States have been subjected to a burden of at least $556,000,000 every year for the past twenty years, making an aggregate of over eleven billions of dollars, not one dollar of which went into the National Treasury. Since the war began, we have paid more by incidental taxation to protect our < infant industries/ than it cost to put down the rebellion, and pay all the claims, bonded debt, interest, and damages, incident thereto." (W. M. Springer, M. C., North American Review, June, 1883.) Thanks to the devices of protective regulation, the consumers of Amer- ican goods have paid liberally to help our manufacturers get on in the world. The banker's special privilege, secured by legal enactment to make profits out of the issue of paper money on the banking principle, belongs to this class of monopolies. When bankers are able to declare a dividend of ten per cent, in consequence of this privilege, while farmers must put up with four to six per cent, on lands, loans, and deposits, there is manifest in- justice. Of course, if bankers can make double the profits farmers make, by their professional skill alone without the aid of legalized monopoly, that is their economical right, and I have not one word to say against it ; it is the law-created power destroying the natural conditions of competition that is objectionable, and that should be swept away. Railroads can 134 PRACTICAL E VERY-DAY ECONOMICS. [Chap. IX. only be built under charters from the State and by the exer- cise of eminent domain against freeholders. But a railroad is by its nature a monopoly. If a shipper or traveler is dissatis- fied with its terms, he must submit nevertheless, the bargain is made bj r only one side. He cannot assert his independence by building another road, as the friends of " doing business on business principles " sometimes recommend with an irony they do not seem to perceive. By the very nature of his business, the railroad magnate has the means of taxing the community quite at his own pleasure ; and, if he uses this power to its utmost, and that is precisely what he aims to do in taking " all the traffic will bear," he may tithe the people as effectually as ever political or priestly despot did, and it is very difficult to stay his rapacious hand. This explains in part how certain big railroaders have recently increased their fortunes at the rate of about five millions a year ; and how every year they become more audacious in their methods, and pass further and further beyond the reach of legal restraint. The wrecking of joint stock companies is one of the methods of getting on rapidly in the world. Every body is at first solicited to subscribe stock, and liberal people of small means do not hesitate ; they take all the stock they can to encourage public improvement. But before the work is completed a railroad say the original fund is exhausted or embezzled, and the road is mortgaged for money to complete it. It was never the intention to pay this mortgage. The small stock- holders would like to see it paid, but they are powerless. By and by the road is sold to pay the debt, and the leading stock- holders who are managing the concern buy it in. The small stockholders have by this process lost all they invested in the enterprise. It has gone into the pockets of the large stock- holders through a legal process of robbery. This sort of busi- ness is done by gentlemen who regard themselves, and who are regarded by the public, as perfectly honorable. It has been a favorite method with successful business men, showing that joint-stock companies are something more than " Haupt- Sec. 47. .] UNFAIR USE OP THE ECONOMICAL FORCES. 135 nester der Schwindelei." In thus dishonoring business meth- ods, they are nests of modern robbery under legal forms ; and if the honest people are to be sovereign over their own in- terests, they must find some way of putting an end to such methods. The third and last form of the economical methods involves very great difficulties. It may be stated as the unjust use of legitimate means. The forces employed are the current eco- nomical forces not created by the State. These forces may be used in such ways as to work out wrong. This peculiarity of economics is as perplexing as anything with which mankind have to deal. It beats philosophy and defies regulation. In connection with this and really its basis, is the econom- ical law that free competition occasions a growing disparity of economical power, the strong becoming stronger, and the weak liable to become weaker. Every acquisition gives additional power to acquire more, while every loss, however accidental and unavoidable, detracts from the power to acquire. Francis A. Walker observes : " The tendency of purely economical forces, therefore, is to widen the differencies existing in the constitution of industrial society, and to subject every person or class, who may from any cause be put at disadvantage, to a constantly increasing burden." The fortune of the successful getter may increase in almost geometrical progression, but the man without capital plods from day to day with little increase of economical power. This tendency of the economical forces to work disparity of condition is the stumbling block of economists, and no suffi- cient guaranty against it has been suggested. Only commun- ism, armed with power to crush out all individuality, could afford exemption from its dangers. 47. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE UNFAIR USE OF THE ECONOM- ICAL FORCES. While inequality may be a result of the economical forces fairly used, these forces may be unfairly taken advantage of to get on in the world, in consequence of 136 PRACTICAL EVERY-DAY ECONOMICS. [Chap. IX. which the wrong tendency deepens and its evils multiply. The great merchant Stewart probably illustrated this abuse of economical method. To undersell competitors till they are beaten, and then put up the price of the goods, is to establish monopoly. All monopoly is not the creation of law. " Gath " has said that Stewart might have crushed out all the peanut stands in his neighborhood in this way, if he had thought it worth while. It is simply the power of great capital against the less power of smaller capital. As a shipper, the writer once took part- in the " express war " between the " United States " and the " Merchants' Union." The latter was put in operation to do away with express monopoly by establishing rival lines on the same roads ; but the United States was the older and stronger company, and it carried goods at less than cost till the Merchants' Union was compelled to give up the fight ; and then rates went up to the old monopoly figures. Not only so, but I have known this line since that time to increase its tariff when there was a crop of fruit to ship, and then reduce it when the season was over. This was, of course, caching into men's pockets, and was robbery, but a very safe kind of robber}^ ; it was robbery without its heroism, and incomparably more despicable than that of a highwayman. This is taking advantage of the " economical forces " with a vengeance. The like may be done without the warrant of a special monopoly law ; and yet it is true that the law stands back of the operation, and enables the monopoly power to collect its bills however unjust. At the same time, it is to be noted, that this collection of bills is a part of legitimate business, and it is this very legitimacy that is taken ad- vantage of by unscrupulous wealth to cany out its schemes of accumulation and aggrandizement. The Standard Oil Company had an economical and legal right to make as good terms as it could with the railroads for transportation, but it thereby crushed out competition, set a monopoly price on oil, and levied tribute on millions of con- sumers. So, a sugar refiner of California, by means of special Sec. 47.] UNFAIR USE OF THE ECONOMICAL FORCES. 137 transportation rates, could maintain a monopoly and take money unjustly from hundreds of thousands of sugar con- sumers, who were thus cut off from all supply but his. Wronged consumers had no ground for legal action against the refiner, who was very shrewdly attending to his private business in a business way ; and, if the railroad violated a statute by discriminating in favor of a shipper, who of all these fleeced consumers would see to it that the penalty was enforced ? Not one of them and no combination of them ; for what is everybody's business is nobody's business, and the corporate criminal escapes. And ever the question recurs, is there a remedy for these distortions and abuses of economical method ? None has been applied even in the most enlightened civilization of history. It is held that a man ma}^ do what he wills with his own, buy and sell what and where he pleases, and that this is a sacred right which must he respected. He may invest in such a way as to injure others, and there is no legal redress. Example : A prosperous manufacturer who is protected takes a fancy to invest his surplus in land in some rural district. He buys out one after another and puts in tenants where he puts out owners, with what result to the neighborhood ? Just the result which for the present he wants damage to the moral tone of society, a lessened interest in the neighborhood, and depreciation of landed property. This enables him to buy more and to buy cheaper ; and there is no legal obstruction to his doing this, for he is but using legiti- mate economical forces. When he has bought up half the territory, the independent owners left are almost as much at his mercy as his own tenants. While he has a perfect legal right to invest his money in such a way as to injure others, there may be a question about his moral right to do so. But, unfortunately, there is no effective way of enforcing a moral statute against him. He is quite out of reach of the moral forces, and those who are wronged have no redress of any kind. A man may use his wealth for evil as well as for good on strictly economical principles ; and, if he only becomes rich 138 PRACTICAL EVERY-DAY ECONOMICS. [Chap. IX. enough, he is a very honorable man and much respected for his power. Now, here are two principles which are irreconcilable. One is that we have no moral right to invest or to manage business in such way as to injure others, however much it may increase our own wealth (by the phrase " to injure others," no refer- ence is had to results growing out of fair competition) ; the other is that we have an economical right to invest wherever we can make the most money. When the " lamented Garfield" was stumping Ohio to secure the legislature that was to make him United States Senator, he met a citizen who stated to him that he did not think any man had a right to use his wealth to the injury of others. Garfield replied simply : "There would be no freedom else." This is, of course, the monopoly view which has become so established by law, precedent, and habit, that it will be very difficult to dislodge it in the interest of higher principles. I quote (North American Review, January, 1883), from an excellent article by Isaac L. Rice on liberty and legal restraint : " A person has no more right to use his property for the purpose of encroaching on others, than he has to commit a nuisance by means of it. And just as he is restrained from the latter in the very interests of private property, so he may be in the former case. In fact, the encroachment of monopolies, such as railway corporations, on the rights of others, are nothing else than purprestures, nuisances, by encroachment on public rights, and their restraint is absolutely necessary to liberty. For we must remember that liberty is not characterized by absence of restraint, that, indeed, restraint is its very life and being ; but by absence of oppression." This presents the people's side ; and there has long been a movement in this direction, but also, a counter-movement under new forces in the opposite direction. The question concerns matters of such fine balances among the social and political forces, that great care will be needed, in getting rid of despotic aggression on one hand, not to run into despotic restraint on the other. Sec. 47.] UNFAIR USE OF THE ECONOMICAL FORCES. 139 Besides this, it is very difficult, if not impossible, in many instances, to reach with the proper correctives the abuses which are perpetrated in the name of economic law. When railroads, under the exigencies of competition with one another or with water transit, carry cheaply from termi- nal points, they may requite themselves by charging more at way stations, simply as a matter of business. Competing lines may be a godsend to the termini j but intermediate points cannot have the advantages of competition, and, when they are made to pay for the advantages which competition brings to others, the violation of equity is a flagrant one ; and, at the same time, it is one which is difficult to deal with, and the more difficult, perhaps, because it so obviousty grows out of the natural operation of economical forces. So, when dis- crimination is made between shippers at the same point, and one is made to pay more because another pays less, it is diffi- cult to reach the case with a corrective, since catching always comes before hanging, and whatever the publicity, evasion in such things is always possible. On account of the great complexity in railroad affairs, they are difficult at any time to regulate, and difficult at all times to right when they go wrong. Consolidation of lines, pooling of earnings, rivalry between the great lines which connect the granaries of the West with the cities of the East, some being shorter, others costing less, and still others having more way traffic, all present complica- tions which only an expert can fully understand, and experts are railroad men working in the interest of railroads. Hence the difficulty reformers experience of understanding the sub- ject with sufficient clearness to suggest a proper remedy. In this view, Judge Reagan's bill to equalize rates according to distance is perhaps more suggestive of burlesque than of wisdom. Take the simple matter of stockwatering : this, it is claimed, is only marking up the price of the goods, a right ev.ery merchant has. This looks plausible, and it has its weight, although it overlooks the vast difference between a merchant marking up his goods under free competition, and a 140 PRACTICAL EVERY-DAY ECONOMICS. [Chap. IX. railroad watering its stock under the privileges of a charter and eminent domain without competition. But there is still a question : if a road is prevented by law from taking more than eight per cent, profits, what is to be done by law with roads which earn less or very much less than eight per cent. ? The fact in regard to this very matter is, that the inevitable operation of the economical forces is such as to forbid the attainment of exact justice. Under state ownership, or under communistic control, there would no doubt be more than enough of stupid management to offset all that would be gained in the interest of equity. The operator who corners an article of food with success fleeces both the producer and consumer, but he violates no law of economics ; on the contrary, the principles of economics are the very tools he works with. It is difficult to reach a thing so open and above board as stock gambling, with cor- rective law, and still more difficult to reach questionable prac- tices which are more covert in their nature. There appears to be no thorough remedy that would not be worse than the disease. 48. EDUCATION AS A KEMEDY FOR ECONOMIC ABUSE. There is, however, a safe, if not very efficient remedy, which is recommended by some economists, and that is the enlight- enment and strengthening of the higher elements of character. This would, of course, affect a certain percentage of business men ; but a certain percentage are already too honorable to try to get rich by cornering produce or gambling in stocks. Then the question is, will any force of education at command so affect all that none will take undue advantage of the eco- nomical laws to get fortunes in a day ? I believe it is sug- gested by some that the best way of dealing with business gambling is to let it cure itself by the natural outcome of its own iniquity. But this never cured other forms of gambling, or they would have disappeared long ago. I fear, that as long as one in ten thousand succeeds in the long run at any kind of gambling, it will never cure itself and the business will Sec. 48.] BEMEDY FOR ECONOMIC ABUSE. 141 continue ; and, while the proper education must do good as far as it goes, the trouble is it is not possible for it to go far enough to root out the propensitj^ on which gambling depends. Let us try the virtues of education in a different direction. A manufacturer, for example, may greatly desire to pay his laborers more wages to pay as much for eight hours as is usually paid for ten. But how can he? If he alone adopts this liberal policy, his competitors in the same business, who pay the usual wages, will have the advantage of cheaper pro- duction, and may undersell him in the market. In some occu- pations they may even drive him out of business, when his workingmen will be at the mercy of those who " do business on business principles." Education can hardly be the de- sired remedy unless it may affect whole classes, a result which wayward individualism is pretty sure to set at naught. There is a principle in human nature which governs in all such things : it is to use all the power one has to get all one can. This is illustrated by the following in railroad manage- ment : In August, 1882, wheat was carried from Chicago to New York at 15 cents per hundred, a paying rate. "A short European harvest created an extraordinary supply. The carrying capacity of all roads leading to the seaboard was taxed to the utmost. The rates were gradualty raised from fifteen cents in August to forty cents in November. The rate was raised simply because the condition of the market war- ranted it, and the product could bear it." (Report by Commit- tee of New York Legislature.) This is what is meant by taking "all that the traffic will bear." Such was the situation that the railroads could step in between the farmer and his market, and beat him out of twenty-five cents per hundred pounds of wheat, and that was "business " legitimate busi- ness, it is claimed. It would not do to let the farmers have the advantage of the high price of wheat in Europe ; that was a bonanza for the railroad kings. Why, they ask, lt Is not that what every man does get all he can out of his business ? " Ay, certainty ; but there's a difference. We do not object, 142 PRACTICAL EVERY-DAY ECONOMICS. [Chap. IX. where competition is presumably free; but, when railroads with charters, eminent domain, monopoly, power of discrimi- nation, take all they can get, they are simply committing robbery. There is nothing fair or equitable about it, as in the other case under free competition. The charters may forbid exorbitant charges ; but that is only a little harmless rhetoric. Why is not the law enforced in a case like the above ? It is because the power to enforce it is sapped by the very power against which it should be enforced. The great lawyers are retained, vacancies on the bench are filled with these lawyers at the instance of the great corporate powers ; until there is even danger of a tacit conspiracy of "honorable men" to " vindicate the rights of property " and " sit down " on " com- munism" by robbing the people. But how is this going to be helped by the higher moral education of business men ? I fear it cannot be helped in that way at all, and for this reason : all business men cannot be brought up to the high moral standard by any sort of education ; and, just as unscrupulous men come to the top in politics, so do the unscrupulous in business push themselves into control where the possibilities for plunder are greatest. They have always done it, and, while there is opportunity, they always will do it. 49. A REMEDY MAY BE SELF-DEFEATING. The disallow- ance of interest and profits is often held up to us by triumph- ant discoverers as a universal antidote to the evils of inequality. Possibly the claim is good ; without interest and profits there would be more equality the equality of universal poverty. "Without the stimulant which interest and profit afford, indus- try would plod and enterprise would flag. There are some minds engaged on economical problems, that appear to be destitute of the economical sense. They imagine human masses acting without the motives which always impel such masses into action. So they propose to get a millennium by doing away with the economical forces. They are bound to have an economical machine that shall work without friction, wear, breaks, or stoppages. But, since inequality with squalor Sec. 50.] THE ABUSES OF ECONOMIC LAW. 143 at one extreme and greed at the other is now the penalty under economic law for the general abundance, culture, and civiliza- tion we enjo3 r , I fear that any measures which should rid us of the penalty would rid us equally of the conditions needful to civilization ; just as an abatement of the sun's heat would reduce the discord of the elements, and at the same time re- duce the fruitfulness of the seasons and imperil the life of the race on the planet. I quote from the economist Cairnes, who believed that the action of the current economical laws fails to satisfy the requirements of moral justice : " If our present system of industty is to be justified, it must, according to my view, find its justification in quite another order of ideas than those of abstract right or natural law namely, in the considerations of practical utility ; and more specifically in the fact that it secures for the most of mankind a greater amount of material and moral well-being, and provides more effectually for their progress in civilization, than any other plan that has been yet, or apparently can be, devised." That is to say, any scheme which aims at abstract justice and natural right would drag in its train new evils worse than any we now have, while the best system practicable necessarily involves imperfection and in- justice. 50. DEALING WITH THE ABUSES OF ECONOMIC LAW. But whence come these economical forces which are so despotic and exacting as to defeat moral justice in the affairs of men ? They have come through development in society and have their roots deep in human nature ; and the mistake of theorists is in supposing that the forces can be modified at will, while human nature remains the same. Human nature changes, but its inertia and intractability are not easily overcome, and it changes slowly. We must not look for a much more rapid rate of change in the economical forces. And, since we have to accept human nature and the economical forces which have grown out of it, we shall have to make our reckoning of human action on these data. I accept the inequalities of con- 144 PBACTICAL E VERY-DAY ECONOMICS. [Chap. IX. dition which grow out of the legitimate use of the econom- ical forces as simply a social necessity of the economical com- plex under which all must act. I object, however, to the use of arbitrary enactments to establish monopoly for the benefit of the few to the detriment of the many, and I object equally to the abuse (without the protection of special enactment) of the economical forces by shrewd, strong, and unscrupulous men to direct the play of these forces into their own hands to the detriment of others. And, if this cannot be prevented, as in the case of land monopoly, but by limitations secured by supplementary law, then is such law, if possible of execution, the remedy to apply. "We cannot help inequality under free competition ; but we may do something to prevent the exag- geration of inequality under the exercise of privilege ; and, to do this, we must defeat those measures legal and voluntary, which, by the abuse of economical power, thwart the condi- tions of free and fair competition. Since the economical forces acting under the conditions of nature and human nature rapidly and inevitably multiply and aggravate the evils of inequality, there is no need of giving assistance to this process by law or trickery ; therefore, all the political and business machinery now set up and running to hamper free competition and make the rich richer, should be swept away. But, as I have sufficiently indicated, the obstacles in the way of doing this are to be found in the limitations of the economical forces, the antagonism of class-interests, and the inertia of human nature ; and, while we can point this out beyond question, it is quite impossible definitely to name the means by which reform is to be brought about. The line of endeavor for the remedy of these evils is mah%, for the present, simply to enlighten the people in the nature and abuses of those great interests, and, so far as possible, to organize the wronged classes for resist- ance against the growth and aggression of monopoly of all kinds. It is especially to be desired that labor in this direc- tion should be expended on the great rural classes, who are now the greatest sufferers by monopoly, grain corners, protect- Sec. 51.~\ RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 145 ive tariffs, railroad robber}', etc. And jet some of these very people, now so defrauded on all hands, are the partisans of monopoly and thoroughly duped by its sophistries. They are fierce for "protection," and they justif}^ railroad extortion by the tu quoque argument ; that is, }*ou make all you can out of 3'our business according to its opportunities, and that is just what the railroads are doing and what they have a perfect right to do. These people are honest ; they simpty do not understand what they are talking about. It never occurs to them that the act of making all one can b} r a business in free competition has a self-corrective element in it, which does not apply when a monopoly makes all it can out of its opportu- nities, because here there is no competition at all, and no self- correction. Anything so plain as this should require no illus- tration. The subjects of a despotic ruler do the best they can with their opportunities, but that does not justify their op- pressor in putting on the screws to the utmost, just because he can. Both make the most of their chances, but one has a great deal of power and the others very little, as is the case with a great monopolist and the producers he more than tithes. Whether it be a railroad king or some other autocrat, the cor- rection can come only from outside resistance. Only l>y resistance can the abuses of power be prevented, whatever may be the form of the power. If the great body of our agricultural people who constitute the steadiest elements in American society, could but understand the situation and bring legal methods to bear in time, the growing power of privilege and monopoly might be subordinated to justice and the general welfare, before it provokes the fury of physical resistance. Trul}-, as the Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby maintains, the aggressive monopolists are really our " dangerous classes ; " and it behooves those who really " respect the rights of prop- erty" and desire the peace of society, to find some means of restraining those classes, before it is too late. 51. RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. Whenever we touch a question of economical reform, we are reminded 146 PRACTICAL E VERY-DAY ECONOMICS. [Chap. IX. that we " must respect the rights of property." This is one of the stock admonitions of the aristocratic classes, and it serves its purpose well. "At the sound of it, the people are struck with alarm ; every one feels that the foundations of the whole social fabric are about to be undermined and his individual all swallowed up in the general ruin." A lumberman who had become rich under protection, and who was at the time figur- ing as chairman of the Republican central committee of his county, once said : " There is getting to be too much property in this country to let everybody vote ; only those are fit to vote who can be depended on to respect the rights of property." Last Winter when Governor Cleveland vetoed the Five Cent Fare bill, he pretended to be actuated by a respect for the rights of property. But who had shown disrespect for the rights of property, the Elevated Railroads or the New York Legislature ? Let us know just what constitutes such dis- respect. The cost of these roads is about $18,000,000, while the stock is $43,000,000 ; consequently, there are $25,000,000 of water called property which the Governor uses the power of his office to secure dividends on. The twenty-five millions is assumed to be property by the manipulators of the concern, who wish to get as much as possible out of the public, and Grover Cleveland, the anti-monopoly Governor of New York, does not hesitate to give them assistance. We may suppose that, as a presidential aspirant, he had to estimate two antago- nistic forces, the one to be found in the great corporations, the other in the mass of the people. It is not improbable, that, like most young aspirants to political honors, he put these two constituencies into the balance and then threw himself into the arms of that which he deemed most able and willing to reward " friendly men." Still there may be grounds for the feeling, that Cleveland by that veto really protected the rights of property ; that is, that the elevated railroads could be very well made to pay dividends on $43,000,000, and that, therefore, they were worth that much. But, if so, what has made them worth so much Sec. 51.] RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OP PROPERTY. 147 more than they cost ? Simply privileges guaranteed by the State ; privileges which no private citizen has. The State stands by the charter it granted and the ten-cent fare it authorized, and this precisely is what added $25,000,000 to the value of the roads. The State created $25,000,000 of property and put it into the pockets of the stockholders ; and Governor Cleveland has so much respect for the rights of this property that he vetoed the bill, almost unanimously passed by the legislature, cutting down the fare one half. That is the way to respect the rights of property ; and now it is possible, but we hope not, that Governor Cleveland's chances are good for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1884. But my monopoly friend assures me that the legislature cannot go back on its contracts ; that, if it has once authorized a ten-cent fare, it has no power to reduce it. Indeed ! Then a corrupt legislature may bind all future legislatures to an act of robbery. It is no great affair to buy up a legislature now- a-days, and, when this is done and a system of robbing the people thereby established, why, then the people have no remedy, the "contract" must stand, "property must be re- spected," the definition of franchises can neither be revoked nor modified, and the people have their hands tied by the acts of men whose votes may be bought for the solid cash. At this rate and on this principle, the people of this free land will be- come even more than at present the victims of a system of legalized extortion. Such are the doctrines, and such virtually the open teachings of the most " conservative " and " respect- able " classes in American society. And it is just such devo- tion to the doctrine of greed, here and everywhere, that is doing more than all else put together to weaken respect for the rights of property. It is true, that the courts have decided in favor of the people, holding that one legislature cannot bind another in such things ; that, consequently, the single act of a legislature, corrupt or incorrupt, cannot perpetuate injustice. But Gov. 148 PRACTICAL EVERY-DAY ECONOMICS. [Chap. IX. Cleveland has not recognized these decisions ; and it is no difficult matter when the bench is "packed" to reverse such decisions and confirm the monopoly advantages of the few. It is not at all certain, that the systematic robbery of the people by corporations will not yet be completely legalized in all the departments of our Government. It will be, unless the people wake up, look sharply, and act efficiently. When a company gets power from the State to do public work, its business is not private business and its property not private property in the true economic sense. New con- ditions are created by the exercise of the power, and business men in general calculate accordingly, adapting their business to the new conditions, and any act of the company which takes advantage of such calculation and the dependence growing out of them, to disappoint by failure of service, or to overcharge for service, is wrong. Some of our economical teachers still pretend that the exercise of such power is but the legitimate control of private property, as if the extortions of a privileged monopoly were but the legitimate exercise, under competition, of economical powers guaranteed by civil and civilized government to all men. Monopoly organs used to argue for the right of corporations to manage their own business and fix rates to suit themselves, but the decision of the courts having gone against them, and the question having become, in the intellectual field, a wholly one-sided one, those organs are now more in the habit of putting on a hurt air and declaiming against the invasion of the rights of property. This method may be used with greater impunity than the logical. I do not believe that the rights of property are in the least danger, except by and through the remorseless greed of those from whose lips the cry of danger is oftenest heard. Let gains not be ill-gotten, and then will gains be perfectly safe. Not the weak threaten the rights of property with danger, but the strong. Still, isolated weakness ma} r be driven by outrage into maddened union, when it may become an uncontrollable mass of violence. I repeat, it is the rapacious, Sec. 51.~\ BESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY. 149 gambling millionaires who are every day of their lives violating the sacred rights of propert} T by the abuse of privilege, that are by example and outrage putting property and the rights of property in jeopardy. The distinction between legitimate and illegitimate acquisition ; between the use and the abuse of the economical forces ; between competition in freedom and the crushing of competition under monopoly ; between getting property by honest industry and management and getting it through lobbies and the corruption of members in Congress and the State Legislatures ; all these distinctions should be brought clearty before the people for their education in the line of a duty they owe to themselves, than which there is at present no duty more urgent. NOTE TO SEC. 51 : Judge T. M. Cooley of Michigan, a high authority, says (North Am. Review, Sept., 1883) : " If the State may grant irrepealable and unchangeable franchises of all sorts, we may find, after a few }'ears of foolish and corrupt rule, that it has bartered away a large part of its abilit}* to be useful to the people, and that, instead of existing for the equal and common good of all, it has built up privileged classes, to whom the functions of the government have been granted or pledged. It would be easy to imagine a state of things that might become intolerable." "A railroad charter, therefore, which authorizes the company to establish such rates for the conveyance of persons and property as it shall from time to time determine by its by-laws, confers a power subject to the higher authority of the State to regulate the rates itself if the circumstances shall seem to demand its interposition." In speaking of industrial functions which are necessary monopo- lies, Mill says (Political Economy, II., 584) : " But in many analogous cases which it is best to resign to voluntary agenc} 7 ", the community needs some other security for the fit perform- ance of the service than the interest of the managers ; and it is the part of government, either to subject the business to reasonable conditions for the general advantage, or to retain such power over it, that the profits of the monopoly may at least 150 SOME POINTS IN EDUCATION. [Chap. X. be obtained for the public. This applies to the case of a road, a canal, or a railway. These are always, in a great degree, practical monopolies ; and a government which concedes such monopoly unreservedly to a private company, does much the same thing as if it allowed an individual or an association to levy any tax they chose, for their own benefit, on all the malt produced in the country, or on all the cotton imported into it. To make the concession for a limited time is generally justifi- able, on the principle which justifies patents for inventions : but the State should either reserve to itself a reversionary property in such public works, or should retain, and freel3 T exercise, the right of fixing a maximum of fares and charges, and, from time to time, varying that maximum." Many authorities of like tenor might be given. If these views be sound and they are, if the masses of the people are not to be virtual slaves what then are we to think of the sacredness of the rights of property which is accumulated by the favored few working monopoly advantages to their utmost ? CHAPTER X. SOME POINTS IN EDUCATION. 52. SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION FOR FARMERS. For years past a movement has been on foot to bring up the standard of education among farmers, in order to increase their practical efficiency and give them more weight in society. They are to have a college education. To this end large donations of the public lands were made to the several States ; and, though more than twenty years have elapsed since this was done, still the higher education of farmers is not in a flourishing con- Sec. 52. .] SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION FOR FARMERS. 151 dition. A great many colleges have been started, and a number of them are well attended, attended too by farmers' sons ; but it somehow turns out that few of them graduate as farmers. They prefer to become lawyers, doctors, civil engineers, etc. It is all wrong, vigorous protest is made, and it is held that somebody must be to blame in some way for mismanagement. Earnest attempts are made to bring about reform, so that the colleges for farmers shall turn out an abundance of graduates as farmers. But this most desirable end can hardly be brought about except by changing the nature of boys or the nature of farming. The generous youth who spends four or five j'ears in getting a college education, desires to engage in some business which will afford a justification of his large expenditure in prepara- tion. He desires to enter the lists with his peers where he will have full use for his culture, with opportunities for a wider influence than is possible in the most intelligent dis- charge of his duties as a farmer. Even a civil engineer has a fitting field to bring into full play the qualifications derived from his course of stud} r . The like even to a greater extent is true of the clergyman, the doctor, the lawyer. How is it with the college-bred farmer ? Placed in isolation on his farm with his uncultured neighbors and hired men for constant associates, he is in no fitting field for the use either of his aesthetic or scientific attainments, and he would be a rare bird, indeed, if he did not become lonesome and dissatisfied. He may direct the care of his stock and the management of his fields like a very oracle of science; but, unless his farm is extensive enough to organize the labor with a foreman at its head, he must himself be with his men and work with them, or his scientific direction of business will afford him a poor return for the cost of his education. But will your college- bred man relish ten or twelve hours a day at the humdrum labor of a farm, without the exchange of one thought with companions on the high themes he learned to love at college ? Nay, nay ; this idea of educating farmers who are to stick to 152 SOME POINTS IN EDUCATION. [Chap. X. the farm all their lives is an amiable dream, like many an- other, which, in the very nature of things, cannot be realized. It brings out the absurdity of the case to insist that all the farmers and farm laborers shall be college-bred ! For why should one farm in ten or in a hundred have all the direct advantages of college drill ? To place the educated farmer on an equal footing with the educated members of the professions, he should have a great many farms under his management, with a competent foreman on each to see that his plans and directions are properly carried out ; then would the field of his labor afford some justification of the magnitude of his attainments. It is not economical to direct heavy ordnance against small game. The 3 r oung men who are sent to our colleges to qualify themselves for scientific farming usually have better instincts of the situation than those who send them. An esprit de corps, at once insidious and powerful, forms among them, with tendencies in altogether a different direction from that of farming, and the boys very naturally refuse to qualify for such an isolated, lonesome, and contracted sphere as that of simply managing a farm. On hearing this statement of the case, a friend called to mind an illustration with which he had just met in the far West. The father had plenty of land for his two boys to occupy as farmers, but one of them preferred to learn tel- egraphy, and the other to qualify for practicing medicine. Only in our dreams can we get rid of human nature ; in our waking hours, fight it as we may, human nature, strong in its weaknesses, will assert itself and bring us down to the solid ground of fact. " What, then ! would you do away with the agricultural course in our industrial colleges ? " Certainly not. We need agricul- tural teachers all over the country to instruct the people in the sciences relating to agriculture, and to set them observing and thinking for the attainment of the best practical methods. No doubt the success already achieved by certain agricultural colleges, as that of Michigan, in the exceptionally large num- Sec. 0%.] SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION FOR FARMERS. 153 her of their agricultural graduates, is due to this demand for teachers. The boys have graduated, not to go on to farms, but to teach the farm sciences in other schools, in farm jour- nals, and in classes made up from the farming public. This much is not only practical, but supplies a need, and is com- mendable. While a real farmer is the better for a scientific knowledge of ways and means, still learned men may not make the best farmers. Farming is a very practical sort of business, and science has no value for a farmer, unless he give it the proper hard-fisted application. Successful farming is best attested by a good, healthy balance on the credit side of the farmer's ledger for a long series of years ; and the industrious, observ- ing, reading, practical-thinking man is most apt to make the good farmer and be satisfied with his vocation. His tastes have not been so diversified by culture, but he finds a fair degree of satisfaction in his environment, and he is not tor- tured with cravings which are incompatible with his situation in life. He finds his intellectual peers on the neighboring farms and even among his hired-men, and he is not afraid of long hours and hard work. Not being encumbered with cul- tured tastes which can find no adequate satisfaction on the farm, he throws his whole soul into his business, and wins. Taking a long series of years into account, jour college-bred farmer will rarely be able to compete with him. An unedu- cated Scotch-Irishman came to this country when twenty years of age, and, after working three or four years as a farm hand, married, and rented a poor farm, mostly slate land, among the Allegheny hills. He kept a hired-girl and a hired-man, and at the expiration of eleven years, with five children, he had money in his pocket to go West with. There he bought a farm of rich soil and was more successful than before. In both neighborhoods he was noted as a " good farmer." Yet, he knew no more about chemistry or any other of the farm sciences than did his own fat horses and sleek cattle. But he knew by practical experience the value of clover, manure, 154 SOME POINTS IN EDUCTAION. [Chap. X. rotation, and thorough plowing, as well as the importance of doing work at the right time. His sons came to know more about chemistry, botany, physiology, and all that, but they were not as good farmers as their father. They did not give farming their undivided attention, and that tells the story. The father would have been a little better farmer, no doubt, if he had known something of the science of farming ; but, if, instead of his practical drill as a farm hand, he had taken a course at college between twenty and twenty-five years of age, he would probably have had little taste for farming at all. Most that is needful in the way of knowledge for a practical farmer, may be gained from observation, experiment, the read- ing of a very few books and our best agricultural journals, with occasional attendance at fairs, lectures, and farmer's insti- tutes. To this end a good common-school education is neces- sary ; but the working, practical farmer has no use for a col- lege education. If he had it, it would be in his way, and he would soon be at something else either with or without farm- ing, in which case the farming would be almost certain to be somewhat neglected. That kind of education which gives weight and compels respect in society is not extraneous to the business of life, as a college education would be to farmers, but, on the contrary, it is the identical business education of the classes to which it pertains the professional classes. Lawyers are by far the most weighty in affairs of government, and they are so precisely because their professional education qualifies them for such position. Clergymen are the most influential in social affairs because of their peculiar qualifica- tions and opportunities. From the farming class have been derived the epithets for stupidity and dullness ; as, "bucolic," "boor," "rustic," "clodhopper," "country Jake," etc., and no doubt fairly enough ; but the fault is not with those who till the soil, but in the very nature of their occupation. By per- sistent struggle under intelligent direction, the cultivators of the soil may rise to a much higher place in society than they have ever held, but this can come about only by using such Sec. 53.} HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN. 155 means as best meet the difficulties of the situation ; and col- lege training is not one of these. Nothing perhaps is so well calculated to affect this end as the organization of farmers' societies for the mutual exchange of ideas on all subjects which concern farmers. State, district, and county fairs and farmers' institutes have a social as well as practical educa- tional influence ; and, in connection with these, the granger movement is one of considerable promise. It is educational in various ways ; it not only enables farmers to assist one another in the improvement of their methods of farming, but it whets their intelligence through the mutual exchange of thought and the conflict of opinions. This should enable them grad- ually to become conscious of their latent social and political power with a view to making themselves felt in society and government ; but they have a good way yet to go before they refuse positively to be switched about in the tails of the great political parties. If wisely persisted in, the grange institution is a far mightier instrumentality to give weight to the farmer- class than are agricultural colleges. To a certain extent, the two may work together for great good ; only we must be on our guard not to look for ^impossible things from the college education of farmers. Whatever may be the inevitable drawbacks of the farmer's calling, there is one thing in which he has sweet revenge. He and his compeers on the farms of the land may not make the history of the day ; but those who do make it pretty much all spring from the farmer class. It is this calling above all others that provides the groundwork of body and brain for that discipline which qualifies for the duties of public life ; and, if farmers do not make history, their sons do. 53. THE HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN. There has been a good deal on this subject of late from the wise heads of the day. It is pretty generally agreed that there ought to be some kind of higher education for women, though there is a great difference of opinion as to what the kind should be. I am not so sure, however, but it is possible to overdo this 8 156 SOME POINTS IN EDUCATION. [Chap. X. , straining after a higher education for women. I am not sure, indeed, but it is possible that too many people, male and female, may become over-weighted with the higher education. It may be forced on a great many who cannot well take it in, and many who can may have no adequate use for it, when they get it. When the fashion commands it, every young lady must pound her piano, though her ear be almost tuneless. There is use for only a few players on the piano ; and only the very few ever learn, however many try, and the many could be better employed employed at something useful or artistic which they can learn to do. Just so far as education is an irritant rather than a correct- ive of human weaknesses, it has not great value. Vanity and refined sensualism are the great weaknesses of all high civil- izations, and it should be the aim of education, above all things, to temper and abate these ; but, so far as we have tried the higher education for woman, it seems only to bring out the dominant weakness of her nature, and, instead of cultivating a republican and Christian simplicity of character, it inflames the passion for display. The great need of edu- cation is to strengthen practical common-sense ; and, if science better than anything else assists this end, by all means let us have science. What the farmer really wants is discipline in the application of means to ends ; he wants thorough-going common-sense. That precisely is woman's need. If we want people to farm, we must not educate them too highly ; and, if we want women to keep house and become mothers with a deep interest in their families, we must not weight them with too much school education. Their best qualifications are common industry and common -sense. They should be able to discern the relation of means to ends, and to choose between the ends which are worthy and those which are trivial. This requires that they shall understand the tyranny of emotion over opinion, character, and life, and that they shall so hold the emotions subject to judgment as properly to regulate the conduct of self and the training of children. I am not afraid Sec. 53.] HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN. 157 of the highest education. Be sure, only a comparatively few people will ever get that ; and those who do get it, will pretty generally find out what to do with it. It is this higher edu- cation that may prove to be disappointing. Let us look into this matter a little. There is a very close parallel between the education of farmers [preceding section] and the education of women. The farmer has a special field to work in, and, to work effectu- ally, he requires special qualifications. Woman's field is still more a special one, since, if the race continue to exist, she must perform the functions of maternity. Whatever else woman may aspire to or be, she must be mother ; and as such, her duties, if properly discharged, must absorb well-nigh all the energies of her being. We may assume that efficient motherhood requires some special qualifications, and that these require a special education. But right here the doctors differ. According to one school, the higher education of women should be cosmopolitan ; that is, such as to fit them to be citizens of the world. Members of this school claim to be the special champions of woman, and they want the same edu- cation for women as for men. According to another school, in which the doctrine is emphatically taught that woman's sphere is the home, the higher education should be special and practical ; that is, such as best to qualify woman for the discharge of home duties. Now, so far as this dispute is concerned, T believe that both are right and both wrong ; right, as usual, in what they affirm, but wrong in what they den} r . Women are not all molded to the same mental pattern by a long way, and, the higher our modern civilization rises, the greater will be the divergence from uniformity ; and all women should not be pressed into the same educational molds. There are women who aspire to competition with men in the world's great work, and who have the requisite body and brain to achieve success, if permitted access to the proper means of discipline. Then, what good reason to forbid them such access ? If they want to go to 158 SOME POINTS IN EDUCATION. [Chap. X. men's colleges and pursue men's courses of study, they should be allowed to do so. This will not destroy the family, nor endanger civilization ; for only an exceptional class of women will ever choose this field of work. The great mass of women will still be domestic and social in their nature and aspirations. Then, the education for women in general should be such as properly to qualify for domestic and social duties. But there is very little provision yet for any such education. The culture of 3'oung ladies is conducted very much as if the actual duties of life and home require little or no educational drill, but may be fulfilled by a sort of divine instinct with which the schools have nothing to do. It is made the business of the schools to cultivate the aesthetic side of woftan's nature to enable her to adorn society. All this is very fine, but, apparently, it does not suspect the danger, that, so far as we qualify woman to shine in society and stimulate her vanity to that end, we disqualify her for the discharge of the plain and unpretentious duties of home. This aesthetic culture is well in its place, but, carried too far, it may destroy that very sym- metry of character which aesthetics require. Too much that is fashionable in woman's education excites her personal vanities and inflames her nerves till nothing satisfies but a perpetual round of pleasure, which unfits for home-life and so taxes the home-resources that little is left for the requirements of wife and mother. Hence, the growing aversion to the cares of motherhood. If I were to select one thing as the central curse of our growing civilization, I would select this ; and it is only aggravated by such " higher education" as disqualifies domestic women for the discharge of domestic duties. But how about the higher education which, looking to woman's special sphere of duty, aims to fit her for the dis- charge of that duty by a course of scientific instruction ? I do not say that sending a woman to college four or five years to qualify her to give to society four or five well-trained children would be " loading a cannon to shoot a fly," for that number of well-trained children would be a great rarity in Sec. 53.} HIGHER EDCUATION FOR WOMEN. 159 societ} 7 , and they might be valuable ; but I do say that the theory of the transaction is a monstrosity. A woman who could learn to fitly fill her sphere in five years at college, could learn it there or somewhere else in less time, for the principal thing, both as the subjective and objective element of such education, is, I repeat, common sense. And further, the more you educate women, the fewer children will they have, trained or untrained ; and, unless the quality of the youthful training make amends for the short number, the scheme would not be a success. And, in order properly to weigh this matter, we must not forget that, while the highly qualified mothers are having their fewer children, the non-qualified mothers are making society swarm with their abundance of children. The higher education would in this way defeat itself ; so we are driven to the alternative of giving the higher education to all women, which is simply impossible. Then, it is absurd to talk of a college education of any kind to fit a woman for her home duties. There is another point to be noted here. The chances are against the son of the college-bred woman taking a high place in the world's great work. With brain enough, there is liable to be a lack of vitality ; and, once he is intellectually prepared for usefulness, there are a few flashes of brilliance, and then the light goes out. On the contrary, the boy whose mother has had mainly the education of practical industry and domestic experience in the middle walks of life, is more apt to become a lasting force in society. The brain may discipline more slowly, but it goes on steadily, and what it gets it keeps, and by and by it flashes into a blazing light for men to walk by. Nearly all the great leaders of the world owe their existence and largely their greatness to mothers with the substantial virtues of common industry and common-sense. This tremendous pressure of education, to which it is sought now-a-days to subject woman, will not fortify the elements of her motherhood ; nay, it is calculated to subvert them. Let me not be misunderstood : some women are fully qualified by 160 SOME POINTS IN EDUCATION. [Chap. X. natural constitution to bear this great pressure of education, and, if it be their desire, they should be afforded the oppor- tunity. And the qualifications thereby obtained will have their proper field of usefulness, but that field is not the round of domestic duties. As we have stated, the farmer should have several farms to manage as a fitting field for the accom- plishments acquired by a college course ; in like manner, to justify a woman in spending several years at college in master- ing the science which relates to woman's life, she should in some way be able to make her accomplishments tell on many families. There should be colleges to give women just such education as this, not to fit them for wives, mothers, and housekeepers, but to fit them as teachers of wives, mothers, and housekeepers. As the teachers of farmers should be masters of science which pertain to farming, so should the teachers of women be masters of the sciences which pertain to the duties of wife and mother. In both instances must science be the fountain from which education draws. But a farmer cannot learn his duties best at college, nor can a woman hers. The farmer learns his duties best on the farm, and the woman learns hers best in the household. As a supplement to a good common-school education, one or two years' instruction at school in the science of farming ought to "be sufficient for a boy who is bright enough to profit at all by such education ; and one or two years' instruction in the sciences relating to domestic life should qualify an apt girl quite well to under- stand the nature and importance of cleanliness, ventilation, hygiene, the physiology of health, the chemistry of cooking, &c., and last, but not least, the value of simplicity, self-con- trol, and economy, and the folly of extravagance, affectation, and vanity. Courses of lectures for women by trained women in connection with courses of home reading would be efficient means to these ends, as well as regular attendance at school. And there is nothing about all this that is difficult or imprac- ticable, and nothing in the way of its adoption, but the inertia of the human mind itself, which is difficult to overcome for Sec. 54.] THE WOMAN QUESTION. 161 want of leverage. Water cannot run higher than its source, nor can a man lift himself by his boots. But as it regards effort for the higher education for women, there is a line along which it may be turned to useful account, and which has been indicated, as we hope, in the preceding paragraphs, and along this line should endeavor be made, if it is not to be " labor in vain." CHAPTER XL THE WOMAN AND DIVORCE QUESTIONS. 54. THE WOMAN QUESTION. Woman suffrage is another of the current issues in which there is great need of balancing considerations. The movement is based on a sense of the wrongs of woman, and has reason on its side, no doubt, if that were the method of righting the wrongs. This, however, is a position which is impulsively jumped at rather than de- liberately taken. . The entire Republican North jumped in the same taken-for-granted manner on the platform of negro suf- frage. With the ballot in their hands, it was believed that the colored people would be able to protect themselves ; now, how- ever, the original abettors of this policy seem to regard it as a complete failure, since they report those newly installed sover- eigns, even when in the majority, to be the worst abused people on earth. [Written during the reign of the " bloody shirt."] Working-men in a distinct party would fail equally under the lead of self-seeking demagogues. Would women with the suffrage do any better ? They are so predominantly emotional that they would become the pre} r of plausible women and de- signing men. They would judge measures by their ostensible purpose, rather than by their adaptation to the ends proposed. 162 THE WOMAN AND DIVORCE QUESTIONS. [Chap. XL They would profit little by the teachings of history in regard to the futility of intermeddling legislation. With such leaders as would then come to the front, we should have an avalanche of measures for the securing of noble ends. Very little would be allowed to regulate itself. The political canon of laissez- faire would go out of fashion. Personal conscience would be put in jeopardy by officious meddling and semi-official espion- age. Repressive legislation would be resorted to to promote temperance and other morality. No one would get credit for honesty of purpose who stood in the way of the prevailing current. Legal force would be summoned to strengthen all the virtues. The purely secular methods would be tabooed as falling below the accepted standard. We should have a kind of priestly reaction, under which the secular mind, after its long struggle for emancipation, would be made to suffer for its reputed want of high ethical aims. We should pass rapidly into a sort of moral despotism under the sway of cant and mediocrity, and be dominated by it until the movement, having exhausted itself and failed in fulfilling its promises, suffered reaction to pass eventually into the opposite extreme. But, with what effect on woman herself? If it is desirable that she shall become more like man, wh} T , then with good effect. But is that really desirable ? There is something about this woman question which is, perhaps, not well understood. To say that motherhood is the one especial function of womanhood, to which weight should be attached, is to incur the displeasure of certain agitators who appear to have in view what they believe to be a higher mission for woman. They may, indeed, recognize the full value of her peculiar function, but they appear to think that it is best sub- served by making women through education and vocation more like men. They are here on very dubious ground. We must go by the facts so far as they are known. In order for women to be the best of mothers, it does not appear to be necessary that they shall become adepts in the masculine spheres of activity. On the contrary, just so far as they become like Sec. 54.] THE WOMAN QUESTION. 163 men, they appear to become unfitted for motherhood. The best mothers the world has ever had, judging by the children they gave to the world, were not regarded as companions by their husbands, and were not even allowed to see their hus- band's friends when these were brought to their homes. They never attended school, never appeared in public, did not witness the drama or the games, had none of the advantages of that manifold education which proved to be so valuable to the other sex. It was their duty, as daughters, wives, mothers, to remain at home and superintend household affairs. Their entire education was received in the home circle in the practice of home duties. And yet the sons of those mothers formed a galaxy of genius which, all things considered, has never been equaled, and never may be. They built up an original civiliza- tion whose greatest monuments will never pass away. Their work is the pride and glory of our race. I refer, of course, to the Greeks in the days of their greatness. Is man, indeed, the noblest work of woman, as Mrs. Gage once suggested to Governor S. P. Chase ? Then were these modest, secluded Grecian women the greatest artificers of the ages. But all this changed. Marriage became unfashionable, women were sought for other than the domestic virtues ; in response to the requirements, they became more like men, prolificacy fell off, foreign blood crept in, and the great race came to an end. Almost precisely the same lesson is taught by Roman history. Now, what it behooves us to know, is whether modern history is or is not illustrating the like sequences in the relation of events. I am not sure that woman-suffragists have given this matter sufficient attention. But the suffrage feature of the woman question involves difficulties and contradictions, which it is not possible to push aside. Some women desire the suffrage and should have it ; but how enfranchise them without enfranchising all ? Unmar- ried women who pay taxes, it would seem, should have a voice in the Government which those taxes help to support and which determines the form of protection for the property taxed. 164 THE WOMAN AND DIVORCE QUESTIONS. [Chap. XL But, if unmarried women with taxable property are enfran- chised, why not enfranchise all unmarried women ? This prop- osition might seem to be very absurd ; the popular instincts rebel against it, and not without reason, perhaps. There are unmarried women without property who desire the franchise, and who are capable of its intelligent exercise (which is not true of all the men who vote). Is it perfectly just to withhold it from them ? But how discriminate between such and the great body of unmarried ladies who would regard the franchise as an encumbrance, and who would reject the offer of it with disdain ? And then, in regard to the great body of married women, the gift of the suffrage would appear to be both a superfluity and an inconsistency. The married woman has given up her own name and taken that of another person. She has surrendered herself and her interests to him for pro- tection. This is marriage as we know it and accept it, and the erection of the married woman into an independent political unit is an absurdity, and can only be done in contravention of the spirit of marriage. Marriage presumes the twain to be made one, with interests inseparable. Their chief concern, as married people, is to care properly for their family. Here there is no divergence of interests requiring that the parents shall be separate and independent political factors. All their property interests, as affected by the law-making power, is very fairly represented by the one vote of this twain made one. The universal enfranchisement of women would very seriously impair the sanctions of monogamic marriage. Woman suf- frage and marriage are not compatible things. This is no doubt very generally felt rather than seen ; and it is probably at the bottom of a good deal of the opposition to the woman's rights movement. The study of the more primitive forms of society has shown that in certain stages of political development, woman is a more important factor of society and has more power than under later and more advanced political conditions. Inherit- ance follows in the female line, the children take the name of Sec. 54.} THE WOMAN QUESTION. 165 the mother's family, and the women have the power even of nominating and of deposing the chiefs. Rev. Ashur Wright thus testifies concerning the Senecas : " The women were the great power among the clans, as everywhere else. They did not hesitate, when occasion required, to 'knock off the horns,' as it was technically called, from the head of a chief, and send him back to the ranks of the warriors. The original nomina- tion of the chiefs also always rested with them." (Morgan's Ancient Society, 455.) This is believed to have been a pre- vailing condition of things ; but in the social stages to which it belongs, marriage is not strict, and the identification of fathers not possible. When marriage becomes exclusive, woman no longer gives her name to her children, and she is shorn of her political power. As she becomes more pure accord- ing to the standards of marriage, she loses her political conse- quence. Here appears the fact that for woman strict marriage and the exercise of public functions are not compatible things. Having passed through certain stages of the social and political career, woman comes once more to seek political power and a wider range for her activities ; while, at the same time, marriage, especially marriage with issue, tends to become less fashionable, its obligations less binding, and its conventional- ities less rigid. This is simply the teaching of all history, even that of our own times. The earnest struggle for a larger field for woman's energies seems to be fairly and urgently demanded by the very conditions which are now rapidly taking form ; but this implies more individuality, and greater freedom from the restrictions imposed by the traditions and conventionalities of marriage. Even if woman does not acquire the franchise, she is in the way, nevertheless, of se- curing a much larger share of the world's diversified work to do ; but a change so necessary as this appears to be under the industrial conditions which are coming about, cannot take place without cost. If it is a good, it cannot be had without paying its price as usual, and society may yet come to regard that price as very high, indeed. 166 THE WOMAN AND DIVORCE QUESTIONS. [Chap. XL I have only hinted at some points not so commonly mooted in this suffrage agitation. My purpose has been only to suggest that, if the agitators who are so sanguine of good, could carry their ends, they would probably be greatly dis- appointed in the results. This everlasting conflict, these drawbacks which intervene, these surprises which startle, should put us on our guard, and keep enthusiasm tempered with proper restraint. 55. THE DIVORCE QUESTION. It would do away with the fanaticism of reform which feeds on the unhappiness in marriage, to know, that such evils are to a very great extent ineradicable, that at best they can only be changed in form and made lighter to bear, and that even then marriage must have its penalty of loss in some correlative form. It is un- wise zeal to proceed with a total disregard of the fact that marriage in whatever form it cr} T stallizes among any people is essentially an inquilibrium of moral, social, and physical forces acting in opposition an equilibrium which cannot be dis- turbed without discordance. The monogamic adjustment has not found place without painful experience. It no doubt came to be adopted under the incipient conditions of civilization, because it was attended with less pain than any other practi- cal expedient. It has been reinforced by long habit, and is so deeply rooted in the minds of the people, that any attempt to disturb it excites terror and provokes unmeasured hostility. It is the growth of the sentimental view of the natural and proper sanction of marriage, that is most surely bringing embarrassment to the institution. The number of applications for divorce is no very incorrect measure of the prevalence of this sentimentalism. The great increase of divorce cases in our courts within the last forty years indicates in a large measure the energy of such views to affect the equilibrium of the forces which constitute marriage. Among certain classes religion antagonizes this tendency of modern life, and divorce is not thought of as a method of relief. This is true of Roman Catholics, who regard marriage as among Sec. 55.1 THE DI VORCE QUESTION. 167 things divine. But even this does not prevent very lax views and practices in relation to marriage in some Roman Catholic countries ; so it becomes a legitimate question whether con- siderable freedom of divorce would not improve sexual moral- ity. In no affair of life more than in this does the attempt to accomplish too much defeat its own purpose. When not antagonized by religious conviction, it is to be observed that the view of marriage which makes love and sympathy its only true sanctions, is quite commensurate with the degree of intelligence among the people. Aside from the stringency of law and the force of religious conviction, the drift toward divorce is gathering strength with the progress of general education. Many regard this as very alarming; others welcome it as the means of perfecting marriage. It simply indicates the growth of discontent with the growth of culture in this as perhaps in every other sphere of human life. With intelligence and freedom from bias, the difficulties of marriage not only increase, but come into greater prominence. They arrest consciousness with greater self-assertion and dis- turb the equanimities of life with greater force. With the aesthetic feeling that the practical relations of marriage should be beautiful and full of joy, there is necessarily devised an avenue of escape, when these conditions are not fulfilled. The only relief, therefore, from the increasing consciousness of discord in marriage, is in realizing that such discord is but part of that which reigns everywhere, and that it is wisest, while palliating the suffering which cannot be wholly avoided, to bear with resignation whatever of discomfort the inevitable brings. This must be the antidote to the growing mania for divorce. But such considerations, unless they come in the form, and with the sanctions of religion, cannot be expected to have great practical efficacy. Stoicism did not save the integrity of marriage under the Empire, and philosophy cannot save it from the ravages of divorce and the infidelities of self-seeking under the disturbing influences of modern civilization. 1G8 THE WOMAN AND DIVORCE QUESTIONS. [Chap. XL Under the old civilizations marriage became relaxed, and degeneracy supervened ; our civilization is bringing about con- ditions more unfavorable to the permanency of monogamic marriage than any hitherto known. The modern industries are largely dividing society into two classes, employers and the employed, and we have not to the same extent as in times past, a class of independent artisans who establish households and constitute important units in society. Now, the mechan- ical laborers are becoming dependent on employers, so that, in becoming a wife, a woman does not place herself under the protection of a husband who is master of an independent busi- ness. The husband is himself dependent, while the woman is not so dependent on marriage for a living as under the old conditions. She can now herself find an employer, and as a clerk or operative, she is just as independent as the man she marries. Her industrial interest may be distinct from his, a condition of things which could not formerly exist. The woman had then to ally herself with a man for a living and a home, and, in the universal struggle for a competence, this very need and dependence of woman, no doubt, greatly con- tributed to give to marriage the form in which we find it in our civilization. But under the modern industrial regime which to some extent renders a woman industrially independ- ent of a husband, there is, no doubt, a tendency to weaken the forces which impel to marriage and secure its permanenc3\ Another condition which acts in the same direction is the un- certainty attending our large and complex industries, in con- sequence of which employe's are often compelled to shift from place to place in order to find work. This would take place with the least friction by maintaining the greatest possible mobility among the labor units, and this mobility would be best secured by keeping these units as individualistic as pos- sible. Owing to these exigencies of modern industrial life, it has been seriously suggested that marriage should assume a form "corresponding to the confarreafio of the Romans," the contract to " be dissolved on the simple request of either of Sec. 55. ,] THE DIVORCE QUESTION. 169 the parties," so as to facilitate adjustment to the fluctuating demands for labor. But this suggestion simply brings into prominence the contradiction between rigid marriage and the modern industries, but does little to remove that contradiction, since it takes inadequate account of the human heart and of the permanent interest of father and mother in the household they have established. While woman's industrial independence of the household evidently bears against the perfect bond of marriage as hereto- fore existing, it does not prevent early and fruitful marriage, as experience shows. Our operative populations are the most prolific. Unrestrained reproduction is stimulated by sufficient wages and employment both for women and children. But the prolificacy is not incompatible with the tendency of modern conditions to weaken the family ties, as attested among our manufacturing and mining populations, on which the bond sits more lightly than formerly where not reinforced by the sanc- tions of religion. The one thing possible and important to be done is the very gradual adjustment of marriage to the changing conditions of society and the growth of intelligence and sensibility ; and this adjustment will necessarily have its good and its bad side. It appears to be at present taking place through the gradual liberalization of the laws of divorce, as the only possible method of effecting this end. But this readily opens the door to abuses, as practical men readily perceive. Greater facility of divorce might give relief from the cruelty, incon- venience, or despotism of indissoluble marriage, to inaugurate the cruelty of marriage lightly entered into and lightly aban- doned. Nothing illustrates better the general principle of antagonism in the practical affairs of life. In our late war, army surgeons showed a practical instinct of this principle, when, in the interest of patriotism, they kept sick soldiers in camp under bad hygienic conditions, rat than send them home for certain recovery. Surely the strengt of our army would have been greater to furlough the sick 170 THE WOMAN AND DIVORCE QUESTIONS. [Chap. XL have them soon return in health, rather than linger in camp hospitals, and perhaps die ! It is a fine theory, but not prac- tical. Here was a weakness of human nature to deal with, and it required the heroic method. With great facility for sick leave, half the army would soon have been on the sick, largely home -sick, list, and the other half demoralized. It is only by a rigid hand, sometimes apparently cruel and unjust, that officers and surgeons hold an army together such is human nature. In a great many exigencies of life, as in surgery, a little cruelty is the kindliest thing possible. But, while this illustrates and suggests, it is by no means parallel with the case of divorce. The strongest bonds of marriage are not legal, but natural and necessary ; and, whatever the liberty of divorce, these natural bonds would in most instances assert their binding force and maintain the integrity of the relation. But for all this, there is a limit beyond which freedom of separation cannot go, without carrying in its train a greater accession of evil than of good. Whether the liberalization of the marriage laws and cus- toms be a desirable change or not, come, it no doubt will, under the action of forces which cannot be stayed. Under the ancient civilizations marriage lost its rigidity, the relation became weakened by irregularities, and it was through this state of things and by the causes which led to it, that the Greek and Roman races declined. The continued possession of wealth undermines the sturdiness of a people and weakens its capacity for heroic achievement. With luxurious indul- gence it loses its force of will and power of self-denial, and no longer bears with willingness the cares and responsibilities of marriage. But given the sensitiveness which illy brooks suf- fering, and given the intelligence which contrives devices for the avoidance of pain, and the liberalization of marriage fol- lows as a means to good and a balance of good it no doubt secures. Some form of pain there must be. The "reformer" sees only the evil which exists, and the " fogy " only that which is threatened. Whatever changes are brought about in the Sec. 56 ] MISTAKEN METHODS. 171 interest of adaptation, we may be quite sure that they will take place slowly and under resistance, and not by any sudden outburst of revolution. Marriage may be somewhat different in the future from what is has been in the past. In some respects it may be better, but we doubt if anything will ever* excel the family institution of the good old times, when women with natural waists, good nerves, and sound health thought less of rights and more of duties, and knew of no greater sphere of useful- ness than that of the family ; when they looked on marriage as a part of destiny, and the rearing of eight or ten children as one of the divine appointments of marriage. There was something to the family then ; the hearts of the parents were full, and there was an interest which grew with the years. There was no feverish desire to gad abroad for entertainment ; there was a little world of sympathy-, interest, and love at home. These families of the olden time were not perfect nothing is but they had strong points. The artisan or the farmer at the head was somebody among his fellows ; and, with his matronly help-mate and a house full of bouncing boys and girls, he was a patriarch with a fullness of life now totally unknown in the dwarfed, sickly, sentimental family of our day. The conditions of life are at fault and make the difference. The old times and the old families are passing away, and once gone, it is to be feared that the like will never return. CHAPTER XII. THE TEMPEEANCE QUESTION. 56. MISTAKEN METHODS. Temperance reform has come to mean total abstinence ; and it appears to have made no con- siderable progress. It is true that drunkards are occasional!} 7 " reformed some would reform anyway but, if credit be 172 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap. XII. given for all of them, the efficiency of the reform cannot be set very high while so many are still falling into habits of drunkenness. It may be that while the reformers are pushing their works on one side, they are weakening the defenses on the other. Any temperance reform which is not preventive rather than curative, harclty deserves the name of reform. And, if the methods of the agitators are indirectly applying a stim- ulus to alcoholic excess, it is time that wiser methods be adopted. The temperance agitation appears somewhat to err in the exclusive direction of hostility toward the makers and venders, and the exclusive direction of sympathy toward the intem- perate. This proceeds apparently on the warrant of scientific principles. The inebriate is held not to be responsible in the presence of temptation, since his shortcomings are the effects of a diseased will. Therefore, he is not to blame for getting drunk, and is purely an object of pity and sympathy. This seems, indeed, to be very good and very just ; but possibly it is helping to create the very disease of will which it aims to cure. Let us follow this sympathy a little way in its practical results. During temperance revivals, a class of weak-willed people who have given way to appetite, become the exclusive objects of public attention. If they sign the pledge and evince zeal in the cause, they become the heroes of the hour. They literally float in feminine sympathy and praise, while the strong-willed and manly youths drop entirely out of sight. The reclaimed are petted and cajoled as wronged people who have been "more sinned against than sinning." In this there is a premium paid on weakness. There is no premium now on the sustained manliness of a whole life ; indeed, such manli- ness is felt to be a little below par. Zealous converts indulge the egotistic trick of exaggerating their former degradation, the better to point the moral with a striking contrast. If there is such glory in abandoning drunkenness, there is danger that drunkenness may come to be instinctively regarded by minds of a certain cast as the necessary condition of this burst of Sec. 56.] MISTAKEN METHODS. 173 glory which follows reformation. This is the more likely to be the case because all righteous indignation is reserved for the benefit of manufacturers and dealers, and they are made the scape goats for the inebriate's degraded life. The rejoicing is a pean of victory which the reclaimed, by the aid of his tem- perance friends, has achieved over those miscreants, "the makers and venders," who purposed his ruin. Everything possible should be done to strengthen the motives to self-control ; but this is not the way to do it it is the way not to do it. If the weak-willed are taught that they are the finest kind of fellows but not fairly to be held accountable, they are not encouraged to summon energy of will and prove themselves men. On the contrary, this very relief from accountability, theoretically insisted on as the main spoke in the wheel of reform, affords license to appetite, and progress is made very naturally downward. Furthermore, if the drunkard is led to regard his reform as possible only by joining a society and getting others to help him govern himself, there is a certain pride of self-respect which is never his to enjoy, and he never can rise above a cer- tain plane of moral mediocrity. Still, if this were the only thing possible, we should have to accept it. But is it ? Would it not be better to use all possible means to enforce the teach- ing of self-control? Sympathy for the fallen is a righteous and proper thing, but its ostentatious formulization as a prin- ciple may but weaken the moral forces and do more to make drunkards than to save them. The loss of the feeling of self- responsibility must be fatal ; and, instead of using means to sap it, we should use means to fortify it, else we ourselves be- come largely responsible for the moral negatives which unbal- ance societ} 7 ". Here again is our principle avouched, that, in giving strength on one side, there is danger of producing weakness on the other. It is a great mistake to suppose, because temperance reformers are in earnest, that, therefore, temperance effort proceeding from earnest hearts must be successful. The fact 174 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap. X1L shows that it is not. Saloons seem to flourish just as well as anywhere in the shadows of the temples of prohibition. It is even a fact, that " sometimes men with the best intentions do the greatest evil in society." Earnestness is, of course, a means of success in all cases of the action of mind on mind, but God prospers only such efforts as are adapted in the nature of things to the end proposed. Miracles are not wrought now-a-days. Temperance measures must be adapted to the constitution of human nature, else they will fail, even though the earnest and pious rally to their support day and night with prayers innumerable. But many of the most officious in this work are not actuated by the most exalted motives. They are fond of coercion, like to be busy with the affairs of other people, and make an ostentatious display of their own righteousness. The thin shell which covers all this is readily pierced through by ordinary penetration, and the temperance movement is thus crippled in the house of its friends. 57. CERTAIN ELEMENTS OF GENUINE TEMPERANCE REFORM. The Indo-Germanic races have been in the habit of using stimulants since the dawn of history ; indeed, all peoples have at all times used stimulants in some form or other. And, if in our race the craving for alcoholic stimulants could be suppressed, it would appear in a new form and would be as liable as before to excesses. The Turks are forbidden wine ; the greater slaves are they to opium and tobacco ; and the people have suffered deterioration till they have become almost a political nullity in the world. If alcohol were annihilated, the craving would seize upon some other stimulant which would in the end prove to be equally fatal. " With very few exceptions, every one who goes to perdition by the Alcohol route would reach that destination by some other highway, if the Alcohol line were not running." (McElroy.) A mental force or an appetite cannot be extinguished any more than a physical force. The form of it may be changed, but it still exists. If we suppress it in one direction, it reappears in SeC. 57.] ELEMENTS OF GENUINE TEMPERANCE REFORM. 175 another. We may divert it from one channel into another, but there is always danger of a return. With a moral vacuum we cannot have equilibrium any more than with a physical vacuum. Total abstinence and temperance are very different things. The remedy so much sought lies not in suppression, but in moderation. By getting temperance reform too stilted, we put it out of reach of such as need it most. We over- elevate the elevated to an extreme of doubtful virtue, rather than lift up the lowly. It is easy for those who do not need saving, who never would fall, to exemplify the extreme of abstinence, even when it may be to their physical injury to do so. The very strata of society most in need of assistance, lie, for the most part, below the reach of our puritanical grappling hooks, and the erring are only caught now and then tempo- rarily, usually soon to drop down lower than ever. After sentimentalism and bigotry have spent themselves in vain for a generation longer, perhaps the secular school may adopt a more practical and efficient method of dealing with the bad habit of unrestrained drinking. The lighter drinks may be substituted for the stronger ; but this can only be done by setting the fashion. Fashion is the form under which appro- bativeness and vanity find expression, and it is the prevailing factor in giving direction to conduct in society. Fashion is quite able to override common-sense, as we may every day see, but, when made to act in conjunction with it, it is an agenc} r which is not to be despised in directing the world's action. Fashion rules in the matter of drink very much as in that of dress. In European countries, where the lighter alcoholic beverages are in fashion, and the "habit of treating" not in fashion, there is little drunkenness. In America and in other countries, where treating to distilled liquors is in fashion, drunkenness prevails. There are no exceptions to these facts. In France, the ravages of the phylloxera by cutting off the supply of wine, have led to greater consumption of spirits made from grain and beets, with the usual result of more drunkenness. Climate has Ijttle to do with this ; it is fashion 176 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap. XII. that rules, originally determined, no doubt, by the form of alcoholic stimulant nearest at hand and most easily obtained. Generally speaking, in Europe, the southern countries con- sume the lighter drinks ; but in the United States, the strong drinks are in vogue throughout, and almost exclusively so in the South. This shows that the fashion of light or strong drinks is not directly an affair of climate. Distilled liquors are extensively made in the South, and this has contributed to the fashion of drinking them. In the warm climate of the South there has been little demand for malt and fermented drinks it has not been the fashion ; and yet no doubt, if the custom of using them were brought about, their hygienic superiority over distilled liquors would be found greater in the South than in the North. Since this was written, Moderation Societies have been organized, I learn, in several of our cities. They do not make total abstinence a condition of membership, though a total abstinent may be a member. They permit the use of stim- ulants, but exact moderation. They aim to put under ban the American fashion of " treating ;" and this is perhaps the most efficient step yet taken toward weakening the basis of in- temperance. In all its parts, this organization appears to be a wise movement in the right direction, and mainly as a means of shaping the fashion. But it is not to be expected that such a movement will be as zealously supported as that which affords a better field for the cheap virtues, cant and self- righteousness. The impulse to do as others do is so strong in some natures as almost to rob them of self-responsibility. Young men think nothing of getting drunk when it is the fashion for young men to do so. Each one is reinforced in what he does by the example of the many. A great deal depends on the kind of notions we imbibe along with comrades in a social capacity. The idea thus placed in authority may be the demon that kills, or the angel that saves. If people are taught on " temperance " authority that, if they drink at all, they are Sec. 57.} ELEMENTS OF GENUINE TEMPERANCE REFORM. 177 certain to drink too much, a large percentage of them will verify the doctrine by drinking to excess, especially when this same teaching relieves them of personal responsibility for so doing. And there are very few, indeed, who never drink at all, whatever the teaching. It should be taught that manhood is mightier than " king alcohol," and that self-government is necessary to the dignity of manhood. It should be inculcated on a physiological basis that the young and healthy have really no need of alcoholic stimulation, and should not use it habitually, and never to excess. If it were the common social sentiment that moderation is the manly thing, and not difficult to observe, the habit of a rational self-restraint would be formed in almost all, and drunkenness would not be the fashion it now is. The statistics of drunkenness and crime show that the habit of drinking to excess is formed very early in life. It usually begins at about fifteen years of age, and is confirmed, on the average, at twenty-five. (The Jukes. Dugdale 87-94.) This is a very significant fact, showing how important it is that youths should be influenced by proper teaching, proper ideas, proper example, and proper fashions. The mischief is quite commonly done before the youth has reached his majority ; and this calls attention to the great responsibility of parents. The fanatical method leads parents to guard against the approach of temp- tation, lest the dire monster seize their sons and make them his victims. The result is, when these sons go out into the world, not having contracted habits of resistance and self-control at home, they are more liable to yield to the temptation which is almost sure to beset them. If certain physical energies have never been exerted, they are necessarily feeble and inefficient ; it is just so with the mental energies, like that, for example, exerted in resisting certain forms of temptation. It is far easier to acquire the habit of resistance under parental guid-. ance and by parental aid, in the earlier years of life when habits are most easily fixed, than later in life without such direction and aid. And it must be remembered that between 178 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap. XII. such direction and aid on the one hand and puritanical repres- sion on the other, there is a world-wide difference, the one leading to steadiness, the other to outbursts of volcanic im- pulse. Hence, the severity of repression at home is almost sure to be followed by the license of excess abroad. While temptation is still so prevalent, parents do an unwise thing to teach that when met with, it is something quite irre- sistible. It is a fatal error, I fear, to invest alcohol with ani- mistic properties, and teach that it is stronger than the human will. This is weakness preaching itself; and it takes posses- sion of those precisely who are most exposed by their natural weaknesses. It is astonishing to see how public teachers who have made this subject a life-study walk over pitfalls without the least suspicion of danger. For example, the State, for not suppressing the liquor traffic, is held to be responsible for the murder which a drunken man commits ; and its guilt is believed to be all the more conclusively established, because the parents of the unfortunate man are rigid prohibitionists, and their son never learned to drink at home! They never suspect that, possibly, the extreme of puritanical repression at home, by a general law of things as well as of human nature, may have helped that weak son into the opposite extreme. " Temperance literature" is full of such examples, and they are sadly instructive. Young men would run into bad habits far less if it were not for the perversion and failure of home discipline. The father has his views and the mother hers ; there is discordance in their methods and between them discipline is a total failure. Their sons go out into the world, like ships at sea without compass or rudder, and are driven about by every gust of passion, and the tippling bar is not the only one against which they are dashed. But, said a prohibitionist, " we must get rid of these infamous saloons. Why only last evening I saw a young man behaving most outrageously for a person of his bringing up." "Why bless your soul, good man," it was replied, " the boy has had no bringing up at all, and the sud- Sec. 58.} CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO CAUSES. 179 denly acquired wealth of his parents has only helped make a fool of him." Would it not be well to try to reach this evil at its source ? This might be done by the improvement of home discipline. Are we indeed to understand that those clergymen who are so zealous in trying to dam up one of the streams of bitter water which flows from the perversions of home, thereby virtually acknowledge their moral inability to correct those perversions ? When they exhort us to use the power that executes law in the last resort the bayonet, in. short to force mankind into morality, do they not abandon the primitive Christian methods of making people better ? If we must resort to legislation which abridges liberty to put people in the way of doing right, it may be a question whether we should not have a bureau of morality to relieve clergymen and educators of their moral responsibilities, and hand over the guardianship of the people's morals to lawyers and magistrates. 58. CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO CAUSES. A large per- centage of drunkards are from the first, or very early, afflicted with some constitutional derangement ; and, if they had not found whiskey to help them along the road to ruin, they would have found some other form of indulgence. There is no ques- tion that disease very generally precedes drunkenness and leads to it. Dr. Parrish has brought out this feature of the case very fully, showing that it is strongly supported by authority and fact. A great many diseases which he names are complicated with drunkenness, and must be regarded as ante- cedent and causal. He says: "As drinking is the outcome of physical states, so also social conditions contribute their share towards the same result. Bad food, unventilated dwellings, low companions ; whatever contributes to lower the tone of bodily vigor, tends also to drunkenness." (Alcoholic Inebriety, 34.) Mr. Dugdale, who has studied this subject deeply, observes : " This fuller investigation tends to show that cer- tain diseases and mental disorders precede the appetite for stimulants, and that the true cause of their use is the ante- cedent hereditary or induced physical exhaustion ; the remedy, 9 180 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap. XII. healthy, well-balanced constitutions." (The Jukes, 44.) He goes on to state that vitality is necessary to morality, and that the question is a physiological, and not a sentimental or meta- physical one. And yet the temperance agitators go on to instruct us as if the sole cause of drunkenness was moderate drinking, and as if excessive drinking was almost the sole cause of crime, totally ignoring the fact that quite generally some constitutional defect is the initial source of both drunk- enness and crime. We must look to science and not to senti- mentalism for a correct understanding of this subject. Many, indeed, are the causes which impel to drink. One of the principal is the fearful pressure of the vanities of modern life. The expenditure of energy which is made in the struggle to excel, taxes many a man beyond his powers, and, if he has done his best and then failed to reach the mark and find ap- proval, he may resort to drink to drown the pain of disap- pointment ; and then " moderate drinking " truly enough be- comes the first step on the road to ruin. Does the richly attired lady on the platform think of this, when her brilliancy of dress far more than her brilliance of eloquence and logic excites envy in the audience below ? She is there with the complacent approval of her own conscience to oppose, it may be, "the latest marshaling of the forces against the home," not suspect- ing that she is exhibiting on her own person one of those very forces. We must take poor human nature as it is ; and alas, rum is not the only destroyer ! When there is more temper- ance in fashion and dress, there will be more in gin and tobacco. Not men alone dissipate ; righteousness itself may become a dissipation ! And the weapon of reform is a two-edged sword ! Does it never occur to any philanthropist to organize a National Woman's Anti-Extravagance Association ? Its work, if successful, would be one of the great landmarks of history. Its results would be radical and far-reaching, and do more, perhaps, than any one thing to arrest the debauching tendencies which have crept into our civilization. It would be a godsend to woman herself in many ways, and would do much to block SeC. 59.} CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO REMEDIES. 181 up the road along which men travel to drunkenness and crime. But, as obvious as it is that this mad struggle for an income to gratify our vanities our passion for fine dress, fine fur- niture, fine equipage exhausts its millions (to a certain extent morally as well as physically), driving many for relief to the fatal cup, still there is little hope for reform along this line of endeavor. The removal of the cause could not be discussed, nor even named, without offense. It would not do to cross the desires of fine people who see only innocence in the web of their luxurious lives, though the very warp and woof of it be scarlet with sin. One of the causes of drunkenness is to be found in those habits of life which are undermining the physical constitution of mothers. Too much indoor life and too little exercise in the fresh air and bright sunshine, too much novel reading, too much social dissipation, and late hours too frequently repeated, abominable fashions in dress preventing free development and distorting the natural form, these are unfitting women to be the mothers of a moral and vigorous race. I might quote high authorities on these points ; but I am not quoting authorities now. I am appealing to the common-sense of ever}- intelligent observer, and with no fear that I shall not be sustained. With healthy parents, especially with healthy mothers, the evil of drunkenness would be far less than it is. It is the morbid craving associated with defect of constitution felt early in life, that most surely leads its victims to the cup. When consti- tutional vigor is inherited and maintained, there is no such morbid craving, and moral means easily avail to keep men steady. 59. CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO REMEDIES. The suc- cess of prohibition is still in dispute by men who ardently desire the abatement of excess and the general prevalence of temperance. Any attempt to dam up a stream without dry- ing up its sources, only results in greater disaster when the obstructions are torn away. It is perhaps safe to predict that the evil of intemperance can never be done away with by legal 182 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap, XII. repression. The method is a reaction against the best results of the age-long struggle to secure greater freedom of choice for the individual. Prohibition is a political movement back- ward toward the absolutism from which the most enlightened nations have escaped; it is a movement toward the com- munistic coercion of private opinion and the regulation of private affairs. The justice as well as the wisdom of the policy is called in question, because it inflicts deprivation on those who retain self-control, as if the}' were weak of will* and on the brink of ruin. It is not complimentary to be classed in such a category, and most people do not take it kindly to be treated like moral machines which are bound to go wrong, unless state-interference compel them to go right. The re- pressive method is advocated by classes in society whose bias of interest and education unfits them for any just appreciation of the real basis on which morality rests. They seem to regard it as having no other foundation than dogmatic or legal command. Some form of arbitrary force is looked to, to right all social wrongs. But it can never seem right to cut off a certain course of action from persons of the greatest moral self-control, just because certain other persons comparative!} 7 few in number and mostly diseased, are liable, with the admit- ted freedom, to abuse it. It hardly seems just to impose sacrifices on the higher in deference to the weaknesses of the lower. To put straight-jackets on the responsible for the especial benefit of the irresponsible is really to make an asylum of the State, and outrage the natural instinct of justice and morality. Still, the right-doers cannot, under any general arrangement, wholly escape suffering from the misdeeds of the wrong-doers. This is one of the practical instances which requires the balancing of considerations. People will choose according to education and temperament. Most who would adopt legal compulsion, deny that the right of moderate use is a right which any really moral person is bound to respect. And, even if the weight of intelligent medical authority were not against them, so completely unsettled is the Sec. 59.} CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO REMEDIES. 183 question, that an attempt to legislate on their particular assumption, would be instinct with the spirit of absolutism and reaction, and at best a questionable proceeding. It is nar- rowness and bigotry, precisely, that assume the monopoly of right thinking, and dare, base repression on their own logical infallibility. If the human will depends on the balancing of opposing motives and impulses, as it certainly does, all the more politic is it to hold the offender to a strict accountability, as one of the conditions necessary to determine his will in the right direction. To this end, the police should be as rigid as a law of nature. So long as habitual inebriates run at large, they should be dealt with as sane people in possession of a normal will. When adjudged to be the victims of a mania, they should be taken care of as other insane people. There is a palpable inconsistency in adjudging an individual irresponsible, and at the same time permitting him to run at large. Such a one is not innocent and harmless ; he is dangerous to some extent to others, but still more to himself, and is rapidly work- ing out his own ruin. And in thus doing certain injury to himself, he is not doing it wholly at his own cost. If a man is not a responsible being, he should have a guardian to look after him, and that guardian should be held responsible. If asylums were provided for those who use their freedom for debauchery, it would have a wonderful effect in toning up the weak wills. Rather than be subjected to systematic super- intendence, there are very many now a burden and a shame to themselves and others, who would ver} T certainly find a surpris- ing vigor in their own voluntary energies. They but languish under mistaken sympath}?" and condolence, who would sum- mon energies worthy of manhood, if they were liable to be dealt with as the irresponsible beings they are so charitably assumed to be. Inebriate asylums no doubt fill a place which nothing else can, and the field of their usefulness should be greatly en- larged. They have had in charge those mostly who voluntarily 184 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap. XII. resorted to them for relief; and they have been fairly successful. There may be relapses from cures effected in these asylums as from cures effected of any disease, moral or physical, under any system of treatment. That does not prove them to be inefficient. Dr. Parrish says : "That inebriate asylums can improve in their methods if they would realize their highest ideal, is admitted, but it is asserted, without fear of contradic- tion, that, new and imperfect as they are said to be, they have accomplished larger and more practical results with this class of subjects than any system within the knowledge of the age." Our view of asylums as a will-tonic is confirmed b}* Dr. Parrish, who declares it proved " that asylums are a con- stant rebuke and warning to the people, 1 ' thus exercising " a deterrent influence in favor of temperance." The fact that disease or some form of constitutional disturb- ance usually precedes drunkenness, does not interpose fatalism to relieve the wrong-doer of responsibility. " The principle of rewards and punishments is recognized as a governing prin- ciple in the conduct of lunatic asylums." (Parrish.) Still more should it be recognized in the treatment of inebriates. The drunken and insane are only a little more obviously machines driven by imperious impulse, than are the sober and sane. Whether the case is one which has grown out of tippling, hereditary taint, or predisposing disease, whether the delin- quent is running at large or taken care of in an asylum, there must be habitual appeal to moral motives as part of the dis- cipline leading to right conduct. 60. AUTHORITIES. Sir James Paget believes that the moderate use of alcoholic drinks is useful ; and he observes that the nations that so use them are the most energetic, and enjoy most. Dr. Francis Edmund Anstie says : " I desire to be understood that my opinion, based upon the most recent physiological researches, is, that alcohol in moderate quantities is an exceedingly useful article of daily food, at any rate for large classes of the community." The following from Dr. David Hack Tuke, of high authority Sec. 60.] AUTHORITIES. 185 as an alienist, brings out a practical incongruity for which there is no remedy but the general diffusion of more com- prehensive views than now prevail. " I do not deny that there are instances of persons whose mental condition is benefited by the use of a diet into which some form of alcohol enters, especially the light wines and beer. The misfortune is that the very people who are likely to be thus benefited are often to be found among those who, from noble motives, abstain from wine. Thus it comes to pass that the folly and wickedness of intemperance involves a double evil. Intemperance not only injures those who yield to this vice, but it leads many, by natural reaction and indignant recoil, arising out of the knowl- edge of such abuse, to deprive themselves of a beverage, or even a medicine, which might act in their case beneficially, in gently stimulating the functions of the brain, and lessening the tendency to nervous irritabilit}' and languor. Those who suffer from the want of a moderate stimulant, and fall into a depres- sion which might have been warded off by its use, are, I main- tain, the victims of intemperance, and their discomfort or actual insanity lies at the door of the drunkard." It lies at the door of narrow and bigoted teetotalism ; and one form of intemperance should not be made the scapegoat for another. Mr. M. Gr. Mulhall, an industrious and careful statistical writer, says : " With regard to drink, it was asserted by Lord Shaftesbury that 60 per cent, of the insanity of the United Kingdom arose from it, and all the advocates of temperance have ridden this horse to death. Nevertheless, good wine is at times most useful to check insanity, as when the wretched Victims of Pellagra are sent to hospital, exhausted from poor- ness of diet. Indeed, wherever wine is cheap and abundant, we see little of lunacy or idiocy. No one ever yet went mad from wine, an}'' more than from eating cabbage, although the ancients thought cabbage an incentive to madness. It is when nations discard the use of wine for stronger stimulants that insanity spreads devastation among the masses. Of this we 186 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap. XII. have a sad proof in the case of France, where wine was the sole drink of the people for centuries without any bad results, until the introduction of absinthe in recent years, with the fol- lowing lamentable consequences." The figures given show that insanity ascribed to drink has kept pace with the increasing consumption of distilled spirits. Sir Charles Graham in Contemporary Review says : " I care not to discuss the extreme views and dogmatic assertions of the advocates of total abstinence, since they are all equally outside of discussion." Monotonous labor, anxiety, social re- sort, impure drinks, he names as causes of intemperance, but, as the greatest cause of all, standing up to drink. His leading remedy for drunkenness is to make comfortable places of resort where people may use the milder drinks, eat lightly, and con- verse with friends. Dr. T. Lander Brunton, as we believe, truthfully observes : " For all such, alcohol is of little use so long as they are young and strong. They may possibly take it occasionally as a luxury, but if they eat well and sleep well, they will, as a rule, do more work, mentally or bodily, and be better without it. It is in those who are past middle age, and whose strength is declining with advancing years, in those who are debilitated by unfavorable external circumstances, or in those who are prostrated by disease, that alcohol most clearly exerts a beneficial action, and, when properly used, it becomes as powerful for good as it is for evil when abused." " If the rule to take alcohol only with meals be made and adhered to, there is much less danger of falling into habits of intoxica- tion. It is of course possible to take too much alcohol with meals, but it' is the practice of taking nips now and again that is most likely to lead to excess." " If the taste for it is not acquired before middle age, there is little risk of acquiring it afterward ; and so long as a man is healthy eating well and sleeping well, he does not need alcohol, and as a rule is better without it." 61. " TEMPERANCE " LOGIC. There are physicians who in- sist on total abstinence at all times and under all circum- SeC. 61.] TEMPERANCE LOGIC. 187 stances. But we find extremists on every question of life, and they are generally not the safest guides. One of the methods of proof that alcohol is bad even in small quantities, is to show its effects in large quantities. If five glasses of whiskey make a man drunk, therefore, one half glass makes him one- tenth drunk. In other words, if much alcohol is injurious to health, morals, and manhood, a little is injurious in the same way, only to a less degree. The value of this reasoning con- sists in the assumption that there is no difference between the effects of a large and a small quantity of anything except in degree : if five of A be injurious, therefore, one-half of A would be one-tenth as injurious. To show the fallacy of this logic you reply : If five pounds of beef daily, or five pounds of sugar, cloy the stomach and cloud the brain, therefore, one- half pound of either would cloy the stomach and cloud the brain one-tenth as much. " Oh that's sophistry," exclaims the teetotaler, " there's a difference between whiskey and beef or sugar !" That is, he abandons his own logic without being able to see that he does so ; and it is not worth while to try to reason with him any further. I find the following in a scientific journal : " Does alcohol impart strength ? Does it benefit the exhausted system ? If a worn-out horse drops on the highway, we can rouse it by sticking a knife into its ribs, but, after staggering ahead for a couple of minutes, it will drop again, and the second deliqumm will be worse than the first by just as much as the brutal stimulus has still further exhausted the little remaining strength. In the same way precisely alcohol rallies the exhausted energies of the human body. The prostrate vitality rises against the foe, and labors with restless energy till the poison is expelled. Then comes the reaction, and, before the patient can recover, his organism has to do double work. Nature has to overcome both the original cause of the disease and the effect of the stimulant. Alcohol has no remedial value." It would puzzle any philosopher to explain how a sane observer with a medical education could make such a 188 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap. XII. statement ; for, it appears to be, indeed, little more than an inane rattle of words. Another illustration of " temperance " logic is to be found in the claim that drunkenness is almost the sole cause of crime, filling our penitentiaries with its victims. Let us hear what those have to say who are best qualified to speak on this subject : " The Hon. Richard Vaux, of Philadelphia, dis- tinguished as a penologist of rare powers, and opportunities for observation," says : " It is now forty years since I have been an Inspector of the Eastern State Penitentiary in this city, and I have no hesitation in saying that intemperance the use of intoxicants habitually, or to excess is not a crime-cause. I think it can be said, that about one-half of those convicted of crime are total abstainers. Of the four hundred and thirty-three prisoners received into our peni- tentiary, but twenty-six were intemperate. Mr. Cassiday, our warden, who has been in the service of this prison for twenty years, gives his experience in support of these views of crime- cause. I know it is a sort of fashion to talk about our prisons filled with the victims of intemperance, but the tfgures do not support the general and sweeping assertion." According to General Gr. Mott, late keeper of the New Jersey State Prison at Trenton : " The majority of criminals who fill our Peniten- tiary are primarily of a criminal mind, born so, and brought up to prey on the general community ; but they are not habitual drunkards, nor do they associate with that class. Not so them- selves, because, to be an expert, they must keep their heads cool, and their wits about them ; and their associates must do the same, as they know there is no dependence on a drunken man." Similar testimony is given by Dr. Arnold, of Baltimore, and by Mr. John C. Salter, Warden of the State Penitentiary at Chester, Illinois. The latter says : " I am more and more convinced that the causes of crime go away back in the history of the criminal, even outside of his own life, coming down from generation to generation, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children. Lack of home influence, throwing Sec. 61.'] TEMPERANCE LOGIC. 189 boys and girls of tender age upon the charity of the world ; lack of the discipline of education, the haste to get rich, and the false standard of greatness, are causes that have done much toward filling our jails and penitentiaries." It is believed that the intemperate use of alcoholic drinks has much more to do with filling the common jails, lock-ups, and houses of correction, than with filling the penitentiaries. But then, as a cause of the lighter offences, it is liable to be overrated, because, though associated with such offences, it is not always their cause, as in the case of vagrancy. In making up the statistics, not persons are counted but cases, so that the same person by frequent commitments is made to count for a great many cases, and the "temperance" argument is thereby strengthened. I have quoted from Dr. Parrish's authorities, I now quote from himself : "An expert was some time since employed to search the records of crime in a neighboring State, with the view of ascertaining, from official sources, the number of persons convicted of murder during the past hundred years, with the causes, penalties, &c. After a careful and pains-taking exami- nation of court and prison records, it was reported, that less than three per centum of such crimes could be traced to the use of intoxicating liquors. Upon this disclosure being made, it was repeated to a prominent temperance advocate of the same State, who confirmed its accuracy, by saying that he had caused a similar investigation to be made, with the same result, but added that he hesitated to make it public, because it would deprive advocates of temperance of a cogent argu- ment in behalf of the cause. Pursuing the same line of in- quiry from time to time, it fell in my way to ask a very worthy chaplain of a Penitentiary, how many of the several hundreds of convicts under his care could connect their crimes with the use of intoxicating drinks. His reply was that from direct personal knowledge of the history of each prisoner, he believed they were all guilty of vices, such as gambling, profanity, falsi- fying, tobacco chewing, smoking to excess, lewdness, etc. ; 190 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap. XIL but to which of these vices their particular crime was to be attributed he could not tell, but that it would be about as easy and fair to trace it to one as to another ; and he added, ' Those whose crimes are the direct result of intemperance are very few, I do not know of one.' " It has been affirmed again and again that nature is not so depraved as to make alcohol ; that only degenerate man does so. Yet there is alcohol in small quantities in the soil we cultivate, in rain water, in the water of the seas and rivers, and in the atmosphere we breathe (Tissandier, Popular Science Monthly, June, 1881). Nothing happens more naturally than the production of alcohol by fermentation. If the views herein stated are not greatly in error, there is a moral to be drawn from the usual advocacy of " temperance," which it may not be without use to state. It is that the rea- soning which is conducted too exclusively according to what is assumed to be the moral requirements of the case, is pretty certain to beg at every turn, and thus constantly to multiply its errors. The reasoning which "proves" that a little is necessarily injurious because a great deal is, that there is no distinction between use and abuse, that stimulation in debility is necessarily followed by depression, that the making of alcohol is a sign of depravity, that the " cup " of which the disciples drank contained unfermented must, that the human creature is a machine which is certain to go wrong under con- tact with alcohol, etc., I say that reasoning of this character betrays such a total lack of the logical faculty as quite to justify us in coupling it with the inefficiency of the repressive total abstinence movement, and in attributing the practical failure of the one to the logical weakness of the other. The intemperate use of intoxicating drinks is one of the great evils of the world, and the innocent are often made to suffer along with the guilty. Much of the evil is due to wrong education and bad fashions ; and these the directive agencies in society should do something to control, not by statutory force, but by the force of enlightened public opinion. The Sec. 62.] A DOUBLE CLINICAL STUDY. 191 great requirement of the case is that the evil shall be properly understood scientifically understood in order that it may be dealt with honestly and wisely. To build up a foundation of false philosophy and false fact on which to base reform, will not help the cause, nor in any way advance the interests of morality. 62. A DOUBLE CLINICAL STUDY. Since the preceding pages were written, there has been some opportunity to study two of the subjects in the Ohio campaign (1883) for the " Second Amendment." The purpose of this amendment was to stop the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors as bev- erages. It received an immense vote. If about ten per cent, of those who voted against it, had voted for it, it would have passed. A large portion of the clergymen and women went into the canvass with unmeasured zeal, and were demonstrative and aggressive in their work ; while on the opposite side, little was done beyond the circulation of documents. At many polling places the women were out in force on election day, not to vote, but to influence voters. They had tea and lunch set, and bouquets for all that would vote the second amend- ment. A voter was thus accosted : " Come, have dinner with us anyway, even if you don't vote right." He ate dinner at home, however, and on his return, one of the ladies said, " If you will vote for the amendment, I will just cover your coat with bouquets." Another who was asked to have dinner, replied, " Not for all } T our lunch and bouquets and a thousand dollars beside." " Why you are very crank," replied one of the ladies, ''but just wear this bouquet anyhow." " I will wear anything a woman puts on me to wear." And she pinned a bouquet to his coat, and it went round with him proclaiming a falsehood, for he did not vote for the second amendment. This is one of the most influential citizens that voted there that day, and none sees more quickly than he the sequences of an action, but in this case he allowed his gallantry to get away with him. And right here lurks the evil. After the election, it was remarked to a moderate prohibitionist that 192 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap. X II. " the time might come when those ladies would be ashamed of their work that day." " Oh, no," he emphatically replied, "they will never be ashamed of doing good." They were there to influence voters to buy votes with smiles, and tea, and sweetmeats, and bouquets. They appealed for votes to the appetites and gallantry of men. "Was this not corrupting the suffrage ? Men without smiles and bouquets have to pay the cash for votes when they buy them; women may buy them with smiles and bouquets. Of course, they thought they were doing good ; but, so thinks the Jesuit when acting on the maxim that the " end sanctifies the means." I have not learned what percentage of polling places in Ohio were favored with the presence of women. It is to be inferred that all the temperance people in the State did not approve of this form of demonstration, else it would have been more general than it was. It may be inferred, further- more, that all the temperance women living in precincts where this demonstration was made, were not in favor of it. Never- theless, I may be justified in referring to this political demon- stration, since it goes some way to confirm what has been said in section 53 of this volume, by the light it throws on the claim that, with the suffrage in her hands, woman would purify politics. After the election, some of the temperance organs fancied that the supreme court would have to set aside the count by throwing out all the tickets containing both yes and no, and thereby declare the amendment carried. A very active prohib- itionist was exulting over this prospect, when he was asked this question : " If prohibition is declared legal in this State, with a majority of the people opposed to it, do you believe it can be earned into effect ?" "Why certainly, just as well as the law against horse-stealing." He could see no difference in the ease of execution between a law which ever} T body is in favor of and another which only a minority of the people sanction. And what was noticeable among the prohibition people was their perfect willingness to bring about the con- Sec. 62.] A DOUBLE CLINICAL STUDY. 193 tingency of enforcing a minority law in a country which formally recognizes majority government as fundamental. Our enthusiastic gentleman was further questioned : " You are a lover of justice and would willingly wrong no man. Grape growing has been an honorable business since the beginning of history. Thousands of good citizens are engaged in this business in Northern Ohio. The carrying out of the second amendment would deprive many of them of their present means of living, and the property of most of them would be depreciated one-half. Would it be right thus virtually to de- stroy the property of industrious, well-meaning people, without compensation ? " " Why certainly," he replied, " they would have no more reason to complain than the merchant across the street if this merchant (in whose store he was) should draw away some of his trade." This is a very good specimen of "temperance logic." To suffer from inefficiency under com- petition is affirmed to be the same as to suffer from the re- morseless action of a law backed by State bayonets. It was stated to another "temperance man," that even a majority of the people have no moral right to depreciate the property of good citizens by legal enactments, and that if we must be afflicted with Eastern despotism, it would be better to have a Sultan or Czar, and take it in the regular way." He replied, " The majority may do anything ; if you have slaves, it has the right to set them free." "And yet," it was replied, " States which have set slaves free by civil act in time of peace, thought it worth while to compensate owners ; but the prohibi- tionists of Ohio, who are so moral they will not permit their neighbors to make and use alcoholic beverages, do not think of compensation for damages under a law of their own making, which must depreciate certain kinds of property in the State hundreds of thousands of dollars. You appear to regard the voluntary decree of a majority as an " act of God," though it may affect the fortunes of individuals as disastrously as a catastrophe of nature. Maddened men who sometimes take it into their heads to destroy property without compensation are 194 THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION. [Chap. XII. considered to belong to the dangerous classes ; and their acts are branded as immoral. A mob indulges in the wholesale depreciation of property without intending compensation ; but, would it be setting a high moral example for the State to do virtually the same thing, whatever the pretext ?" Our prohibi- tionist then went on to explain that it was not prohibition exactly, that he believed in, but stringent regulation, though he voted for the amendment. The moral violence necessary to prohibit can only be justi- fied on the grounds that the sacrifice of property in this way is necessary to prevent the greater sacrifice of property in a different way. This would be a good theory, if the facts warranted it. But this is disputed, and is precisely what is in great need of proof. In the case of a great fire, there is no difference of opinion as to the advisability of blowing up a block to save the city ; but in this temperance affair, it is the emotional people and not the trained minds that want to try the effect of violent measures. It is but justice to say that, while some of the more fanati- cal prohibitionists exulted in the prospect of destroying the industries concerned in alcoholic production, many, perhaps, many thousands voted for the amendment without representing to themselves the details of its operation. They were swept down by a psychological epidemic ; and when, after the elec- tion, it was stated to them that many honest people would have been poverty-stricken if the measure had carried, they actually contended that it was not the purpose of the amend- ment to affect the manufacture of wine and the other lighter drinks ! Sec. 63.] THEOLOGICAL REFORM. 195 CHAPTER XIII. VARIOUS QUESTIONS. 63. THEOLOGICAL REFORM. This is best effected by teach- ing what is found, after the most careful investigation, to be truth, no matter how it affects religious opinions. This truth may conflict with the dogmas, but, if so, so much the worse for the dogmas. There is no need of a direct onslaught upon errors of superstition ; the truth will do its own work in its own quiet and irresistible way, and too much solicitude for quick results may only retard. There will necessarily be resistance from the other side. The findings of science which are in conflict with dogma cannot be put in possession without a battle first. The fighting, then, which must be done, even by those who desire the overthrow or modification of dogma, should be done in defense of particular forms of truth rather than against particular forms of error. Such defense but makes opportunity for the wider extension of the dreaded truths to do their work the more effectually. As long as dogmas give pleasure to their votaries, any direct attack upon them, if not itself a wrong, is mostly labor lost. If we give pain to " believers," whatever their cast of faith, they are sure to think us bad, and this result can have no good reaction on themselves. We may not be able to escape their condem- nation, if we are loyal to our convictions and declare our faith, but there is no warrant in that for a direct assault on their most cherished opinions. To destroy their dogmas, if it were possible, would be to create a vacuum, which nature, and, above all, human nature, abhors. The balance in the human mind seeks to perpetuate itself, and, if the dogma is taken away, it must be replaced by something else. This should indicate the proper course to be pursued. L'et us counterbuild, and, when it is perceived that the new structure is more fitting 196 VARIOUS QUESTIONS. [Chap. XIII. than the old, the old will be deserted, just as it has already been in case of various forms of superstition. The dogmas have been inherited from generation to generation. They have not been accepted through reason, but have been imbibed through feeling, and in this way have become a constituent part of the mental fabric. Their arbitrary removal would be equivalent to tearing away a part of the soul itself. So far from yielding to ostentatious logical assault, the dogmas in- stinctively double the guard about them for self-preservation, and the garrison within assumes at once a bristling attitude of hostility. And yet dogmas which have flourished for ages, have finally passed away. Wherefore ? The world outgrew them ; times changed, and they were out of place. A new order of thought and feeling, pregnant with earnest conviction, arose and grew and pushed them aside. It is an example of one species crowding out another. As the feudal system was not overthrown by direct assault, but was rendered obsolete by the advance of peaceable forces ; as the notions of witchcraft and possession were crowded out by the vigorous growth of rationality ; as dogmas which assumed the earth to be the centre of the universe, and the universe itself a creation by fiat and only six thousand years old, have yielded to scientific methods ; so are many of the dogmas likely to yield to a growing body of thought, which, gradually strengthening itself within a bulwark of proof and devotion, becomes more power- ful than the old, and is at length master of the situation. The God-idea is the centre around which clusters all relig- ion. This has alwa} T s been so, it is so now, and it will be so in the future. Mankind have believed time immemorial in gods, whom they have sought to influence in shaping individ- ual fortune and general destiny. Let self-styled atheists attack it as they may, they never can eradicate the essential elements of this faith, and such attempts to create a moral vacuum necessarily fail. The human mind does not take to negations. It would be more fruitful of results to trace the historical continuity of this God-idea, to the discerning, if Sec. 64-] CRIME AND POVERTY. 197 possible, of the manner in which it has changed in the past, and is now changing, as the means of determining the form it will assume in the future. If it is shown that, while the idea is changing, it is gaining in rationality under the agencies of moral and intellectual development, the case is very different from what it is under the apprehension that the process of change is one of hopeless decay and ultimate destruction. People will abandon the old which is becoming incongruous, for the new which is in harmony with knowledge, when the alternative of vacuity would prevent the dropping of an ele- ment of faith however antiquated. There must be something on which to rest. The human mind will not permit its idols to be taken away without receiving in return what is quite sufficient on principles of mental habit to maintain its integ- rity. It is not the truth or the untruth of the things believed that determines faith; mankind have alwa} r s held more to fiction, in faith, than to reality, and have always found more gratification in believing according to emotional dictation than in scrutinizing the foundations of faith. Men have wrought their beliefs out of their own experience and their wants ; and the habits of a faith once established always resist the change which is necessitated by social and intellectual development. But such change is to some extent compulsory and inevitable, and it is, no doubt, taking place slowly in the direction of con- formity to the order of nature. This tendency may be legiti- mately encouraged, not, as we insist, so much by attacking the traditions, as by presenting and defending what is better adapted to the modified conditions of culture and life. 64. CRIME AND POVERTY. These, as we have abundantly seen, are shortcomings quite unavoidable under personal free- dom and free competition in the struggle of life. They might, no doubt, be quite fully avoided by establishing the despotic control of societ} r which communism presumes ; but the cure would doubtless be a greater evil than the disease cured. Education is also looked to to do away with crime and poverty. We have elsewhere indicated to some extent wherein education 198 VARIOUS QUESTIONS. [Chap. XIII. is liable to fail in accomplishing this end. (Conflict, sections 201-203.) Others think that all that is needed to put an end to poverty and crime is "prohibition." No doubt, prohibition, if strictly executed, would accomplish something in this direction, but at a considerable price ; for, while sumptuary laws are a reaction against the tendency of enlightened gov- ernment toward non-interference with the industries and personal habits of citizens, it would fail to remove the causes growing out of mal-organization, disease, and exhaustion, which paralyze the moral sensibilities, and lead to morbid cravings and the commission of crime. Prohibitionists take no account of the price ; and the case is not at all so simple as they make out by looking at only a part of one side. There is a double question here, whether the people will pay the price, and, also, whether they ought to pay it. Crime and poverty we have, and in all probability shall have for all time to come, unless communistic despotism shall some day put all mankind on the same dead level a con- summation never likely to be. Crime should not be dealt with too leniently, for this would be to encourage it ; nor too harshly j for that would be to set an uncivilized example to all people. Too much harshness would outrage benevolence ; too much lenity would outrage justice and defeat the purpose of dealing with criminals, neither reforming the offender, nor protecting society. In this as in most things, the right is the mean between the extremes. It is much the same with pauperism as with crime. Wise men have clearly perceived the difficulty of providing for the poor, without thereby encouraging pov- erty itself. The energy of self-support in many is so weak that it readily relaxes at the prospect of being cared for by others. Some are indeed flattered and made happy by the public sympathy which contributes to their support. If the promptings of benevolence are allowed solely to direct that sure and ample provision be made for want, want is certain greatly to increase. It has been observed that eleemosynary provisions which should have been unexceptionable in their Sec. 64.] CRIME AND POVERTY. 199 results (the^ were so unexceptionable in goodness of inten- tion), only paid a premium on poverty, and made it worse than before. Reforming poverty, like reforming intemperance and crime, should do something to prevent as well as to cure j but, if by its good nature, it usually opens wider rather than closes the door to actual want, it has little to recommend it but the charity of its intentions. All this is, no doubt, very commonplace; but not generally yet has been learned the lesson it teaches, and it has been repeated here further to illustrate the difficulty of dealing with such things, owing to the general fatality that evil lurks so commonly in what has the seeming only of good. Owing to improvement in machinery, the constant changing of industries, and the fluctuations of commerce, worthy laborers are liable to be thrown out of employment, and to suffer in consequence ; but most of the very poor, taking their ancestry into account, owe their indigence to weaknesses or blunders for which none else are responsible. Having made a series of missteps, whether by incompetencies, carelessness, or perversity, they are thrown by competition to the foot of the ladder. They may be good, indeed, very good ; but, if a man at some elevation makes a misstep, providence does not suspend him in mid air, however, good. He goes to the bot- tom, as do those in society who fail of solid ground to stand on. It is a pity we cannot assume in such discussions that the Government is alwaj^s fair, protecting the poor equally with the rich, and never making privileges by law for those who are already strong ; but alas, we cannot so assume ! The very first thing that ought to be done for the relief of the strug- gling poor, is to repeal all monopoly acts, and so regulate the exercise of privilege as to establish the conditions of free and fair competition for all. This done there would be far less arbitrar}^ subordination of one class to another, the causes of poverty and crime would be in a sense natural rather than legal, individual responsibility would be more fully and justly established, and the burthen of both crime and poverty would 200 VARIOUS QUESTIONS. [Chap. XIII. be less for the community to bear, and their virulence less for society to deal with. But, under any circumstances involving free competition and personal libert} r , there will be both the unfortunate and worthy poor and the improvident and vicious poor, and it is not possible in all instances practically to dis- tinguish between them. Our .humane impulses direct toward an end proper to aim at ; but, when it is assumed that it belongs wholly to them to eradicate all pains and penalties, the constitution of nature is ignored, and the attempt is made to do what the laws of being will not permit to be done ; and, unless this attempt is directed by a deliberate and far- seeing wisdom, it becomes entangled in a maze of unforeseen results, and ends with making things worse than they were before. But not always are those who foresee results in a position to direct events. The result of the English poor laws was foreseen and predicted, as the fact afterward verified ; but the laws had to run their course for all that. They made it legal and, therefore, in a sense, honorable, for the poor to claim relief ; and this opened an easy way to dependence on others for support. Such is the aversion of human nature to making exertion and assuming responsibility which may be avoided, that it becomes a simple and inevitable step for persons of easy temperament, if encouraged in idleness, to descend from a position of self-support to that of dependence. The French appear to have succeeded better than the English. While they have made quite ample provision for the poor, thej T have not recognized the legal right of any to demand relief, and consequently such as are near the line of dependence struggle harder and longer to keep above it. 65. CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. This promises fairty enough to secure a balance of good ; but it evidently has its short- comings and drawbacks ; and, as usual, its friends see only the promise of gain, and its enemies the obstacles in its way. Precisely where it would be most useful, it cannot be applied to the great offices of the Government. It is here that acts of misdoing are most wide-spread and far-reaching for evil. Sec. 65.] CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 201 A Secretary of State, of the Treasury, or of the Interior, has far more need of being a qualified person, than any clerk in his department. But the great offices will always be filled bj r politicians, one of the worst classes to look to for the proper material, as politicians are apt to administer their trusts for the public good, only so far as this method best secures the objects of their personal ambition. The diplomatic splurges made (early in Garfield's administration) by a sensational use of the Monroe doctrine, ver} r well illustrate this point. But, if there is no help for this form of the evil, that is no reason why it should not be corrected as far as possible in its lower forms. No doubt the awarding of place to the lower officials for business qualifications rather than for partisan services would be a change for the better. The work of the civil service would no doubt be better done. But at the same time it would conspire with the general tendency of industrial dif- ferentiation and the division of labor, to establish a class in society whose members would contract in body and mind to the level of their life's work, and they and their children after them would be fit for little else. But this may be in the line of destiny, and not to be resisted. As it is now, however, there must be some degree of preparation, in thought at least, to turn to other work, this being rendered necessary by the liability not to get office as well as by the liability to lose it once it is had. The security of tenure in a monotonous posi- tion like that of a clerkship, is apt to generate a habitually low rate of speed in the execution of work. This, I think, may be noticed now in the Departments at Washington, where clerks holding their places from year to year under security of tenure through influence, make a marvellously small quantity of easy work earn their salaries. We can't get away from human nature. In one regard there will probably be disappointment. One of the principal reasons urged for the reform is that it would largely take the bad animus out of partisan excitement. It might have a slight influence in this direction ; but even that 202 VARIOUS QUESTIONS. [Chap. XIH. much is doubtful. Money would be used as freely as ever, if not more freely, and corruption would reach as far and as fatally. It would be likely to cost more than at present to get elected, because there would be fewer voluntary "workers." The workers would have to be paid ; but they would get in their "work" as thoroughly and unscrupulously for money in hand as for the uncertainties of a prospective office. This would probably also bring a less generous and more mercenary class into active politics than is there now ; and, while the President would be greatly relieved of the solicitation for office which secretly flatters and openly annoys, congressmen would be greatly shorn of their personal consequence. Yet people would be just as anxious to be President and congress- men as ever. England has a civil service system not depend- ent on patronage ; but it costs more than ever to get elected to Parliament. In the general election of 1880, the cost of votes in some boroughs was over five dollars a piece. A can- didate came off well who secured his election at an outlay of ten thousand dollars. Some it cost more than twentj'-five thousand. One candidate paid out over sixty-three thousand dollars. (Fortnight^, April, 1881.) And yet members of Parliament not only have no patronage, but receive no salary. Besides they have to render an account of election expenses, and this accountability, not yet exacted in the United States, should have some effect in checking corruption. But, accord- ing to the testimony of Gladstone and others, corruption prevails to a fearful extent ; and we are compelled to acknowl- edge that the seat of the disease lies deep in human nature, and that the remedy which will reach it has not yet been discovered. In mechanics every working power involves the operation of two antagonistic forces, in which one perpetually resists, yet at the same time perpetually yields to, the other, and the machine goes. The perpetual motion would be a power working with- out such resistance. So, in politics, all practical measures involve a certain amount of friction or resistance to be over- Sec. 66.] CENTRALIZATION VS. LOCALIZATION. 203 come; a perpetual motion in politics would be a measure operating without friction or resistance. But there is no per- petual motion in politics any more than in physics. Civil service reform is very far from being such a measure ; and the most to be expected is that it may result in a balance of good. So strong is at present the tendency for considerations of mere self and pelf to enter into and control the politics of most of the great nations, that, unless effectual resistance is made, the situation will grow worse and worse, and may pass beyond the reach of peaceable measures. Something should by all means be done to arrest this mercenary tendency, and set the public service on a higher plane. The general will is, no doubt, good to advance this reform ; it is the innumerable little wills with immediate objects in view "axes to grind" that interpose the difficulties. To set these aside will require the wisdom of genuine statesmanship ; will it be forthcoming ? CHAPTER XIV. ISSUES OF THE NEAK FUTUKE. 66. CENTRALIZATION VERSUS LOCALIZATION. Never has there been greater need for reform in the civil service than there is now. This would be the case even if the service were not more corrupt than in times past. The affairs of the general Government are increasing from year to year, not only in amount, but largely in kind. The functions of the Govern- ment are developing as well as growing. Here we find the old, old struggle between local powers and centralized powers. (Conflict, Sees. 101, 104, 107, 109.) It is well that the former regard with watchful jealousy the aggressive attitude of the 10 204 ISSUES OF THE NEAR FUTURE. [Chap. XIV. latter. But fate, we fear, is on the side of centralization. Modern civilization is more compact by its peculiarities of constitution than were the civilizations of former times. Its multiplied facilities for transportation, locomotion, and inter- communication so bind the parts together as greatly to obscure the lines of local divisions. Lines of business interests pay no regard to local boundaries. They cross counties and States in every direction, forming a complex over which no one local authority can exercise territorial jurisdiction. No State in our federation can run its post-offices, its banks, its railroads, its express lines, its telegraphs ; nor can it exercise over them any effective legislative control. Hence, the growing need for regulation of this kind points to an enlargement of the sphere of duties to which the general Government must give its attention. This is one of the problems which will have to be worked out under practical statesmanship in the near future. It is a peculiarity of human nature that those in power never feel themselves burthened with responsibility, but are constantly craving more. Hence, the party in power is the party of practical centralization, whatever its professions. Jefferson and his political friends were extremists as States' rights men, and jealous of centralized power ; but when placed at the head of the Government, they did not hesitate to act on expediency, even though it strained prerogative at the expense of their political philosophy. To the success of Jefferson in his contest with Burr for the presidency, we probably owe the great historical fact that our States now constitute a nation. For the last twenty years or more, both by the personnel of constituents and by its authoritative relation to the general tendencies of the period, has the Republican party been at the head of the movement toward centralization. In this it has been consistent, for Republicans more than Democrats believe in the virtues of legal coercion. The Democratic party has aimed its opposition especially at the centralizing feature of Republican policy ; but it is quite safe to predict that if the Democratic party should come into power and hold the reins Sec. 66.~\ CENTRALIZATION VS. LOCALIZATION. 205 of government for a few presidential terms, centralization will go on as rapidly as if Democrats were in the opposition and fighting against centralization. There would be a repetition of the example of Jefferson. It makes a wonderful difference in the way a party shall regard a political function whether itself or another is exercising it. The exercise of power is sweet ; and since the social and industrial tendencies of our times lead toward centralization, there is the greater need of resistance to the grasping in this direction of the party in power. Still, we think the indications are plain enough that there will be a legitimate enlargement of functions of the general Government. A new department has been organized at Washington under the pressure of need, and others will be added natural \y and inevitably in the course of our political evolution. This is owing in large part to great increase in the industrial and commercial forces necessarily of a public nature and requiring superintendence in the interests of the people. So far as the general Government may not direct them, great corporations must and will. As this work is done for the public, the Government has to do it, or to authorize its doing. In case of delegating this power to others, it would be remiss in its duties as a Government of the people, if it did not exercise a regulative control in the interests of the people. It will not do to arm a S} r ndicate with a charter of special privileges, and then leave it to tax and rob the people at will. If the Government does not run the railroads, express lines, and telegraphs, it must see that they are not run as institutions for robbing the public. (Sec. 51 and note.) Modern inventions on which the utilities of modern civilization depend, belong to the whole people, and the Government of the people should see to it, that the benefits thus to be derived, are not monopo- lized by a few scheming men. This is common-place, or ought to be, and yet, it is assumed by the apologists of monopoly that the people who are benefited by a railroad are under such obligations to the owners of it, that they have no right to 206 ISSUES OP THE NEAR FUTURE. [Chap. XIV. complain, whatever the extortion practiced upon them. The management, it is held, is entitled to all it can get out of the business of the road, and then the people are better off than with no road at all! This theory becomes so obviously outrageous in practice, that extreme views by a natural sequence are coming into favor. It is maintained by many that all business of a public nature should be assumed by the general Government. (Sees. 10, 39.) If the railroads and other public trusts offend by extortion, it is held that the general Government should take control of them and manage them in the interest of justice. It is a pretty theory; the discordance it involves would come out in practice. A scheme for the Government of a vast territor} T like ours to assume (in the present state of public enlightenment) the ownership and management of all our railroad systems, strikes one as some- thing audacious and dangerous. It is doubtful if it will meet with much favor in the near future. But such is the aggres- sive character of our great railroad monopolies, that the Government must assert its rights of control, and do all that statesmanship can devise to prevent the abuses of unrestrained corporate power. The difficulties will probably be reduced to their minimum somewhere between the extremes of non- control without possession and exclusive control with posses- sion. The Government will not own the roads and manage them, but it will apply correctives as far as possible to unjust management. 67. EACH CASE ON ITS OWN MERITS. The multiplicity of details now calling for attention is such as to require a diver- sity of treatment on the basis of expediencj^, and no narrow rigid rule applies. This is apparent in the difference between railroads and telegraphs. The objects and methods of the latter are so nearly related to the objects and methods of the postal service as to suggest that the two systems should be united under one general management. It is a shame that the people are dependent by the grace of their Government, for telegraphic accommodation, on a company that has in- Sec. 67.] EACH CASE ON ITS OWN MERITS. 207 creased the nominal value of its stock from $25,000,000 to $80,000,000, in order to make the profits of the business appear moderate. The advantages of this great modern facility for the dispatch of news should not be divided between the people on one hand, and a powerful syndicate on the other, but should be divided equitably among the people. Plutocracy is usurping altogether more than it has any right to. In a matter not more complicated than this, the people ought to be able, in the exercise of their public functions, to provide for themselves such facilities as the telegraph affords. Mail facilities are now afforded at cost, and telegraph facilities should be. It is a practical question of much interest to devise the methods by which this is to be brought about in a territory so vast as ours where a monopoly is already in possession of numerous facilities for the retention of its power. In regard to the currency, the Government should so place it on a secure and orderly basis that syndicates could manip- ulate it as little as possible in their own class interests. (Sees. 28, 29.) For this reason no set of men who may anytime act in concert for their own ends against the public, should be allowed at their own discretion to add to or take from the amount of paper in circulation. A fixed amount of govern- ment paper with gold and silver and gold and silver certifi- cates, the Government as well as syndicates being thus de- prived of a capricious power over the currency, would do all the work of a circulating medium, and do it more honestly and satisfactorily than is now done. (Sec. 41, 2nd and 5th planks.) The land belongs to the people, and should never be allowed to pass into the hands of aristocrats and monopolists. (Sees. 10-12.) There is a movement on foot to prevent it from pass- ing in monopoly quantities into the hands of foreigners. Why allow it to pass in such quantities into the hands of anybody, native any more than foreign ? No more land should be given on any pretext to syndicates as a means of taxing the people who want homes in the far West. No man should be allowed to secure at the low government prices vast tracts of territory to 208 ISSUES OF THE NEAR FUTURE. [Chap. XIV. be held on speculation ; for, while this is permitted, the home- stead privileges provided for by the homestead law, are in a large measure frustrated. No man should be allowed to add farm after farm to his possessions, filling the country with tenants, when otherwise it would be occupied by owners. (Sees. 12, 47.) Let him find some other use for his money ; and never fear, a farm will not lie idle for want of an owner because some land-grabber does not pounce upon it. This land question is one which should be seen to at once ; but precisely because there are so man} 7 interested in free homes on the soil, is nobod}^ likely to push the reform. If it were the select few who were to be benefited and benefited largely, we should very soon have earnest agitation to put an end to land mo- nopoly such is the paradox. The vigorous agitator for what is euphoniously called " pro- tection " shows what may be done under the stimulus of a class interest by which only the few are to be benefited. (Sees. 35-39.) But as other class-interests antagonize this, especially the great commercial interest which is most favored by the absence of restriction and is in accord with the general inter- ests of the people, we have reason to hope that by and by the protection monopoly will be greatly abated. (Sec. 40.) Co- operating to this end is the rapid payment of the national debt, which can hardly be arrested. No doubt the desire is strong on the part of certain classes to have payment stopped, and retain at least one billion of the debt as an excuse for im- port duties, as a basis for bank issues, and as a means of safe investment for parasites in society. Those who invest their money in active business and live on its proceeds constitute a healthy part of the social organism, but those who invest in the public debt and live on their coupons, are more than most others in a state of social parasitism. Better that the people practice the economy necessary to pay the debt to the last farthing than to keep any part of it standing as a pool of finan- cial inertia. It is better for people generally to pay their debts and save interest. So far as it concerns the application of this (Sec. 7.] EACH CASE ON ITS OWN MERITS. 209 principle to our national debt, the American people seem to be fairly awake, and one feels like thanking God that, on this public question at least, their "heads are level." And, as no state of mind can stand unrelated, it is to be hoped that this one will help to a public consciousness of the fallac} 7 of pro- tection. There is nothing the people should watch more carefully than the methods of taxation. Here is the possibility of great wrong which may be so covertly done that the people are not aware of it. The government revenue should be collected from those most able to pay ; but only too often those most able to pay are also able to shift the burthen of taxation from themselves to the weaker classes in society. Prof. Amos ob- serves that, in a popular government, " the highly organized, educated, and leizurely (because wealthy) classes will always tend to become supreme and to override all other classes in the community. It is, then, in such circumstances the most indisputable province of government to effect a counterpoise to these influences, and to secure an equable distribution of all kinds of burdens, so that the actual amount of sacrifice to the support of the State be, not only quantitatively but, really proportioned to the means of each." (Science of Politics, 404.) Tariff duties tax labor and consumption, and are unjust ; in- come taxes fall on property and profits and are the most just of all taxes. (Sees. 34, 41.) Let us see how our country com- pares with some others in these two forms of taxation. Great Britain raises from custom duties 22 per cent., France 12 per cent., Germany 32 per cent., the Netherlands 5 per cent., the United States 55 per cent., of their entire revenues, respective- ly. Great Britain derives from income taxes 12 per cent., France (all direct taxes included) 17 per cent., the Nether- lands 24 per cent, of their entire revenues, respectively, while the United States has no income tax at all. This comparison goes some way to show that our country is plutocracy-ridden beyond most ; but we are so young and vigorous, and withal so thoughtless, that we are not conscious of the burthen we 210 ISSUES OF THE NEAR FUTURE. [Chap. XIV. are carrying ; while, at the same time, we are so proud of the fact that our country is one in which the people govern them- selves that we boast of it like good patriots on all occasions ! How far into the near future will this farce be played ? The temperance question is now put forward with great per- sistency, and there is much agitation to come, before an adjust- ment of conflicting views will be made. (Sees. 56-61.) On the exigencies of this question we are led to regard the people as belonging to two classes, one of which is weak and suc- cumbs to alcohol, the other strong enough to maintain its uprightness. Alcohol is regarded by its enemies as a thing of strong character ; possibly then, its power for evil Is but the opposite pole of its power for good. It kills, but it may also save. The agitators assume that the evil to the weak (a small percentage of the people) is the only thing to be kept in view, and that this renders it morally compulsory on society to crush the rights of the prudent and strong (a large percentage of the people) who desire the freedom of use. Temperate people must not be allowed wine if one of their neighbors gets drunk. It is amazing that leaders in society should take such a view, even if it were possible to carry it into practice, which it is not. It is so much like a boy's short way with what he does not like. After much agitation and futile endeavor, the question will probably find a settlement in the way so many contested questions have to be settled, namely, by taking inter- mediate ground as the best thing practicable. It will not be the despotism and injustice of "prohibition;" it will not be the unrestrained liberty of " free whiskey ; " it will be State control, with reasonable measures for the prevention of abuse. 68. To LET ALONE OR NOT LET ALONE. Akin to the antagonistic principles of local self-government and centrali- zation are two other antagonistic principles, laissez-faire and State-interference. On this basis we have two well-defined schools of political action, the one would let alone, the other would interfere. Mr. Herbert Spencer is an able exponent of the former, and Mr. Lester F. Ward of the latter. As usual Sec. 68. ~\ TO LET ALONE OE NOT LET ALONE. 211 in such matters the practical truth lies between the two sides, and embraces a part of both. Usually, extreme views which offset each other are subjective and theoretical and not fitted to the exigencies of practical life. This whole business is but the balancing of antithetic tendencies ; and no adjustment that can be made will be fully artistic or altogether perfect. What- ever the plan adopted, it will bring evil in its train. One extreme would be accompanied with its peculiar forms of evil ; the other extreme with different forms ; and usually the mini- mum of evil and the maximum of good would appear at some point between the extremes, varying perhaps with variations in the complex of conditions affecting the case. While, in the course of development, the functions of government have be- come more diversified and apparently more officious, there is evidently another sense in which the drift of our civilization has been in the direction of laissez-faire. Despotic interference by authority has been gradually relaxed. This was a reaction against the intermeddling and despotism of high-class legisla- tion or personal government, when a few men of power made no scruple of ruling the rest. Laissez-faire is but one principle, however, a principle which has peculiar conditions ; under other conditions, its precise opposite may be the fitting prin- ciple to guide in practice. Laissez-faire is in itself always desirable, and it should be promoted so far as growing evils under it will permit ; but such evils may become quite intoler- able, when it becomes the duty of the people to use the instru- mentalities of their Government for the correction of evil, but not for the building up of good which the people in their voluntar} r capacity should provide for themselves. More than this cannot be safely attempted because of the ease with which power is abused, and because the State is not wise enough to undertake more, since, whenever it has done so, it erred. The extreme view which would place all the great businesses of civilization in the hands of the State, even to the direction of commerce and the nationalization and leasing of the lands, aims to transform the State into a paternal institution not far 212 ISSUES OF THE NEAR FUTURE. [Chap. XIV. removed from that which is contemplated by communists, thus opening a wide field for despotism and corruption. Of these two antagonistic views, that of laissez-faire is at the present time losing ground because of evolutionar} 7 tendencies, which neither political power nor social philosophy can resist ; the Government must assume a larger sphere of duties, and laissez-faire must so far stand aside. But personal freedom is itself interested in certain features of this apparently ad- verse movement. Without restrictions imposed by Govern- ment, the strong are apt to take advantage of the weak, and may use even freedom of competition to effect the virtual enslavement of such as are not able to resist. Most landlords would not pay tenants for even indispensable improvements, if the}' were not compelled to pay ; great corporations would not make recompense for lives lost through their neglect of management, if they were not compelled to do so. Prof. Sheldon Amos (Science of Politics, 204) says : " The rich al- ways and everywhere possess opportunities of exercising an amount of direct and indirect, honest and corrupt, influence throughout the county, which, in their aggregate, form one of the most obdurate of the forces which Government has to bring under efficient control in the interests of all." Every- where and at all times, according to Prof. I. L. Rice, " Civil liberty is the result of the restraint exercised by the sovereign people on the more powerful individuals and classes of the community, preventing them from availing themselves of the excess of their power to the detriment of the other classes." (North Am. Rev., Jan., 1883.) Thus is limitation necessary to liberty, provided the limiting be done justly in the interest of the people. Prof. W. G. Sumner, who criticises the doctrine of the latter quotation, goes on a little later, to repeat substantially the same thing. He says : " The plutocrats are simply trying to do what the generals, nobles, and priests have done in the past get the power of the State into their hands, so as to bend the rights of others to their own advantage; and what we need to do is to recog- Sec. 68J] TO LET ALONE OR NOT LET ALONE. 213 nize the fact that we are face to face with the same old foes the vices and passions of human nature." "The new foes must be met, as the old ones were met by institutions and guarantees. The problem of civil liberty is constantly re- newed. Solved once, it reappears in a new form. The old constitutional guarantees were all aimed against king and nobles. New ones must be invented to hold the power of wealth to that responsibility without which no power what- ever is consistent with liberty." (What Classes owe to Each Other, 108-110.) Constitutional guarantees, indeed ! What would Magna Charta have amounted to, if it had not been well followed up by the same power that originally wrested it from the King, until it was more than thirty times confirmed ? Unless the people are able to look wisely after their political machinery, their constitutional guarantees are simpty a name without the fact; and thus, we are landed back on Prof. Rice's definition of an indispensable condition of civil liberty. That condition is the exercise of legal restraint on the strong who are grasping for power, not as fellow men among the people, but as would-be masters of the people*. It is the abnegation of laissez-faire toward aggressors in order to compel them to observe laissez-faire toward others. It is State-inter- ference to clear the field for a fairer exercise of civil liberty by all. For the same reason that laissez-faire is losing ground the opposite doctrine is gaining ground ; but, all the greater reason why it should be carefully watched that it may not advance any further than the exigencies of the situation make absolutely necessary. This battle between State-interference and laissez-faire is now upon us ; it will be waged through all the near future ; and it affords a large field for the strategic genius of political captaincy. If syndicates and the great corporations were not selfish and over-grasping, there would be less need for the Govern- ment to extend its functions, and this question of centralization and interference, if it existed at all, would assume an entirely 214 ISSUES OF THE NEAR FUTURE. [Chap. XIV. different form. But the increasing compactness of the elements of civilization, together with the temptations to abuse of power on the part of the few in possession of corporate privileges, forces the Government to assume new duties in behalf of popular good. This seems to be but the rightful counter-movement to the exercise of an irresponsible power lately sprung upon us ; and the problems it offers for solution are confined to no particular part of the civilized world. The Marquis of Blanford writes : " The great problem which our children will have to solve and consider, both in Europe and America, will be the increasing concentration of capital and credit in the hands of individuals, or in the power of large financial rings whose organized systems of plunder are already in the United States attracting the attention of the educated, and the hatred of the poor investor who objects to having his investments and stocks turned into a gambling fund which the big operator knocks about as he pleases." (Fortnightly, July, 1883.) The danger from concentrated wealth is not imaginary, existing only in the brains of alarmists. Bankers once ruled Venice and Genoa as veritable tyrants. It is not at all clear that the great railroad monopolies, now controlling nearly six thousand millions of property" of a peculiarly commanding and aggressive character, may not come to rule in this country with a directness they are not yet able to assume. It is the tendency of both concentrated wealth and its opposite, communism, to run into despotism. This struggle between the power of rings for robbery and the power of the people for self-protection is one to which no man of humane sympathies, with a sense of justice, can afford to be indifferent ; and the great prerequisite of the case is that the people shall under- stand the nature of the struggle in order properly to discharge the duties the}*" owe to themselves. 69. MUST ADAPT OUR PHILOSOPHY TO FACT. There is apparent contradiction here, for which it is necessary to find a solvent, if we are clearly to understand one of the most Sec. 69J\ MUST ADAPT OUR PHILOSOPHY TO FACT. 215 important political problems which must come up for the consideration of practical men. In the political phenomena of the last few hundred years, we find two apparently con- tradictory tendencies : one toward the assumption of new duties by the Government, the other toward the policy of keeping hands off. Now, it seems to me that we should shape our philosophy so as to explain the concurrence of these con- tradictory tendencies, rather than use it to support either one at the expense of the other. These tendencies have taken form in a manner which must be regarded as perfectly natural under the circumstances. That is, while man brought them about, he did not design them with any definite consciousness of their consequences. Man brought about the division of labor, but he never once foresaw the industrial, moral, and social consequences of such division. Precisely so in regard to the conditions which have affected the acts of government. Man constructed the steam engine and the galvanic battery without intending the industrial and social revolutions the} 7 have brought about. Now, if the conditions thus established without intentional concert of action, by a sort of fatality in progress, have imposed new duties on the Government, this has come about, in a sense, naturally and inevitably, and it is the business of our philosophy to recognize the fact. We cannot legitimately fall back on our philosophy, reformer-like, to condemn the fact ; and if there is incongruity between the two, it must be due, since history is not at fault, to the narrowness and inadequacy of our philosophy. Personal power issuing decrees to subjects has been the pre- vailing type of government since the dawn of history. This was the fashion under feudalism as much as under the despot- isms of the East. The local personal government of feudalism declined, and nationalization began. With the decline of feudalism and the increase of nationalism, there was no essen- tial change in the idea that the masses of the people must be thoroughly looked after, and directed by laws- and decrees to do the right thing even in what concerned their own private 216 ISSUES OP THE NEAR FUTURE. [Ckdp. XIV. interests. The intermeddling of feudalism was only trans- ferred from one authority to another, and the power now in charge had a larger territory, more people, and greater details to look after. Commerce, agriculture, manufacturing were regulated in detail by government rules, and this was thought to be an indispensable function of government. It was simply the continued prevalence of an old, old idea. By and by a change came. With new conditions and fur- ther intellectual light, some of this intermeddling and direct- ing came to be regarded as unnecessary and injurious. The liberal agitated for reform, and gradually the Governments withdrew their meddlesome hands, and left the people more and more to manage their private affairs in their own way. The confiscation or destruction of a product, for example, no longer followed, as the penalty for not manufacturing it out of a particular stuff in a specified way. Ever}^ relaxation of this kind was a triumph of laissez-faire. In the state of the indus- tries in those times, this was perfectly practical. The indus- tries were more isolated and individualistic than they now are. The carriers of produce and merchandise, for example, were competitors, and rates of carriage might very well be left to adjust themselves under competition. In such a case laissez- faire is the doctrine to go by. Now, however, on modern thoroughfares, transportation is, by its nature, a monopoly which may discriminate and extort at will, building up one individual or company and crushing another as by the hand of an irresponsible tyrant. Unless the State interferes there is nothing to restrain, except considerations of self-interest, and experience has shown that these are insufficient for the pro- tection of the public. Hence, a new emergency for the exer- cise of political functions. Again, the mammoth manufacturing establishments of mod- ern civilization afford a similar field for State-interference. Humane employers might protect operatives with a proper regard to sanitary influences on age, sex, and condition, but they are under the pressure of competition, and all employers See. 69.~\ MUST ADAPT OUR PHILOSOPHY TO FACT. 217 are not humane. Immediate interest is all-powerful, and it seems to be but the rightful duty of the State to see that the temptations of business shall not lead to the wilful sacrifice of the health and lives of operatives. Another instance may be given. Owing to our present means of rapid transit and the general use made of it, an epidemic among men or beasts may spread from one end of the earth to the other with a celerity wholly unknown in former times. Hence the need of precau- tionary measures which only the Government can take effect- ually. If the State is to continue to be the instrument of pro- tection for the people, it must assume larger responsibilities as civilization advances. With the progress of laissez-faire, the individual gained largely in personal liberty : does, therefore, the present tend- ency of the State to multiply functions, imply danger to per- sonal liberty ? Not necessarily. The* manner in which per- sonal liberty shall be affected depends altogether on the dis- crimination of the State. If it should make a sumptuary law, dividing the people into classes and prescribing what each class should eat, drink, and wear, it would interfere offensively with personal liberty. Or, if it should place a restriction on commerce, so that the home manufacturers of an article may limit its production, and thus enhance its price to consumers, this would be class legislation, incompatible with the just free- dom of the people. But, a law to prevent owners from send- ing rotten hulks out to sea to go down in the first storm with crew and passengers, is no invasion of personal rights, but a necessary precaution for the safety of citizens. Or, if the Government restricts the operations of a railroad magnate who is taxing his customers for the increase of his fortune five mil- lions per annum, it is simply protecting the rights of the people, and personal liberty gains by its action. "What we have to see to with especial care, is to limit the State to the action necessary successfully to antagonize the injustice of grasping and powerful classes ; for, we must keep well in mind that the very power which must be delegated for the protec- 218 ISSUES OF THE NEAR FUTURE. [Chap. XIV. tion of the many, may be perverted to selfish ends by the few who are intrusted with its exercise. 70. BETTER Do THE EASIER WORK FIRST. An important wing of the general political struggle at hand is that which concerns the interests of the great masses of the working people. These have already in the field champions innumera- ble who all agree quite well in regard to the wrongs, but who diverge wonderfully in their views regarding the means neces- sary to right the wrongs. This peculiarity is characteristic everywhere of the social reformatory movement. As observed by Marr and endorsed by Rae, agitators unite only on nega- tions : " When you present detailed plans you excite contro- versies and sow divisions." (W. Marr.) "You supply them with a negation of engrossing interest, you preoccupy their minds with a negative programme which keeps them united, and so you prevent them from raising the fatal question What next? which they never discuss without breaking up into rival sects and factions, fraternal often in nothing but their hatred." (John Rae.) There is general agreement that the working people suffer, and suffer in part from wrongs inflicted upon them by others ; but a collection of the plans for their relief would afford a singular medley of incongrui- ties. We have already passed some of these under hasty review (chap. IV.) ; we refer to the matter here to repeat a single point which seems to deserve especial attention. Most of the plans which find any favor among the working people, are those which assume great positive efficacy, and in- voke the aid of the State for reconstructive legislation to effect a redistribution of wealth. The reform is to be brought about b}' law, by some form of compulsion. There is a feel- ing that if the great businesses of civilization which add so much to the wealth of individuals, corporations, and rings, could be done by the State, all this excess of wealth still forthcoming would then be shared in some equitable way by all the people. If this could be brought about, it would be a marvelous achievement ; the very thought of it is herculean. Sec. 70.~\ BETTER DO THE EASIER WORK FIRST. 219 But before we, the people, undertake a job like that in our State capacity, would it not be better for us to try our 'prentice hand, by way of clearance, at a little preliminary work of simpler and easier character ? Before we undertake to make the State the regulator of industrial enterprise and the paternal distributor of the good things of life, had we not better clear away the unjust legislation by which the State now helps to make the rich richer and the poor poorer ? The easier work : Gradually to relieve industry of the bur- then now imposed under the pretext of protection ; to strike down the system of taxation which bears most heavily on the middle and lower classes ; gradually to limit the power of banks to issue paper money until it shall be extinguished ; as soon as possible to limit the amount of land which any one man or company may own ; immediately to restrict the power of taxing the people now exercised by railroad, tele- graph, and express companies ; and as necessary to all this, to elect fair and square men to office instead of trimmers and demagogues who for a bribe will sacrifice the weak to the greed of the strong. The more difficult work: The scientific management of commerce by government officials ; the performance of the necessary banking business by the Government ; State owner- ship and leasing of the land ; the like political ownership and control of railroad, express, and telegraph lines, and of all other businesses which may, without governmental super- vision, degenerate into monopoly and extortion; and lastly, the election of saints to office who will not abuse any of these powers. Now, if the people cannot accomplish the first of these series, they cannot accomplish the second. If the champions of the people cannot so instruct and so organize them as to direct their numerical force successfully against the privileges of the few which all Governments have created, how are they to enable the people to effect the still greater work of radical reconstruction ? Here is an alternative concerning the work 220 ISSUES OP THE NEAR FUTURE. to be done, which, I think, should arrest the attention of reformers. For one, I should certainly prefer to work for the clearing away of obstructive class legislation, so as to leave the people on an equal footing before the law to manage their own individual affairs in their own self- elected way. Prof. Sumner truly says : "The greatest re- forms which could now be accomplished would consist in undoing the work of statesmen in the past, and the greatest difficulty in the way of reform is to find out how to undo their work without injury to what is natural and sound." (Social Classes, 118.) What the Governments even now do to an alarming extent, is to assist and protect the strong. This is what the lobbies work for, and what they succeed in bringing about. If government was by the people and for the people, it would clear away the iniquities of class legislation, and pro- tect the weak against the machinations of the strong. If this could be brought about and tried for awhile, I am of the opin- ion that there would be nothing to fear from the violence of anarchism or socialism. For want of the regimen on which it subsists, threatening agitation would go into a decline. And I am so thoroughly convinced that it will require the exertion of every possible energy to accomplish the simpler work, if indeed, it can be accomplished at all, that I regard it as little less than practical madness to attempt what is greatly more radical and difficult. 71. ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ECONOMICS. Before we are able to clear away obstructive class legislation, and avail our- selves of the equal freedom which should then exist, we require the steady action of educational forces with this end in view. The education we now have does not appear to meet the requirements. While only too many of our educated men allow themselves to become the tools of plotting combinations for the perversion of justice in the conditions under which business must be done, the great body of the people appear to be incapable of self-protection. Hardty can the people be made to understand the situation so as to act upon it intel- Sec. 71.~\ ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ECONOMICS. 221 ligently and efficiently, unless the proper kind of instruction looking directty to this end, shall be given to some extent even in our common schools. I must despair of any great change for the better in the condition of the masses until they learn in youth something of the elementa^ principles which concern production and consumption, getting and keeping. These are in part simple, and yet present to the consciousness of only the few. How simple and plain is the connection of facts, that capital can be acquired by the people only by indus- try and saving, and that without capital labor cannot be advantageously applied. Boys and girls capable of learning arithmetic and grammar could learn this. Youths should be impressed with the importance, as well as trained in the habits, of industry and saving, as a part of their moral education. What antagonizes these virtues should be pointed to as a danger to be shunned. It should be shown how unrestrained vanity begets rivalry in dissipation, leads to extravagant con- sumption, prevents saving, and is not creditable. This might be enforced by the fact that ostentation not only debases its votaries, but in turn often drives the family money-getter to despair, and into crooked ways for the wherewithal to meet the insatiable demand of the conventional vanities. If such teaching could be made to bear fruit, laborers would not feel themselves flattered, as if they were doing a grand thing, to pay "big prices for family supplies. (Holyoake). We should not have to witness the vain, suicidal stupidity of playing off as- good-as-the-rich -folks. There is no salvation for the laborer on that plane ; he must go higher, and not ape the follies of the "upper ten." With regard to improving the condition of those in need, I cannot quite agree with Victor Hugo that " la premiere des ameliorations, c'est de leur donner l'espe"rance." Encouragement is a good thing, but it should be rationally grounded in fact, and this can be the case only when the situation is properly understood by those who are to profit by the ameliorations. When not so grounded, hope is but mockery ; and the time has come when offers of consolation 222 ISSUES OP THE NEAR FUTURE. [Chap. XIV. will not make amends for the want of improvement. If the churches had less of inert dogma and more of practical living science in their teachings, they would do more than they now do for the salvation of the masses. What these masses most need is instruction in the necessary conditions of an independent, moral, manly life; and this instruction should come primarily from the schools and the churches. As an incentive to better economical habits of the working people, there should be places of safe deposit for surplus earn- ings. So much scoundrelism and mismanagement have been brought to light, with painful results, in our savings institu- tions, that careful people are afraid of them, a'nd thus is lost an important condition of saving. What the Government can do in this direction, I shall not pretend to define. England has postal savings banks ; perhaps we might have ; but, I am inclined to think that what our Government should do, would be, by some form of general regulation, to secure the sound- ness of savings institutions, and thus without trenching on the limits of private business, afford sufficient protection to the people's interests. Nothing better than this exemplifies the impotence of the laissez-faire doctrine. Government should by all means interfere, not so much to encourage by positve enact- ment as to protect by judicious regulation better business habits among the masses. If the people could be so educated on those subjects that they would first sweep away obstructive and corrupt legis- lation, and then manage their private affairs more in accord- ance with the economical conditions of thrift, there would be no need of laws to prevent anybody from becoming too rich by a legitimate use of the economical forces. Under free and fair competition, some would still become rich, and others would remain or become poor ; but there is nothing perfect in the universe, and we must not expect perfection in the affairs of men. Be sure th,at the excess of accumulation which may fall into the hands of individuals, will largely flow over into the channels of industry, and be of advantage to the people in SeC. 72.} NEED FOR INDUSTRY AND SAVING. 223 general. (Sec. 3.) All this surplus is not necessarily taken from the people who perform the manual labor j and if it were, it could not be kept from them. (Sees. 5, 6.) It must go to the improvement of the physical basis of civilization to maintain the conditions of prosperous industry, and thus it helps all who make reasonable effort to help themselves. 72. CONTINUOUS NEED FOR INDUSTRY AND SAVING. The modern improvements in labor-assisting machinery has wrought a great revolution in the play of the industrial forces, and the end is not yet. When by the assistance of mechanical contriv- ances, one hand can now do the work of a hundred in times past, there is necessarily great gain in the amount of wealth produced for human use. What the power of machinery thus brings is quite clear gain, for the working hand is kept as busy as it ever was. (Conflict, Sees. 182, 183.) Under the industrial regime now prevailing there has been an enormous increase of wealth within the present generation. This is shown by a gen- eral average leveling up of the economical condition of the people as well as by the great increase in the fortunes of individuals. This advance in wealth has been general, but especially notable in the United States where the natural conditions are exceptionally favorable for such a result. Think of all the destruction of property during our war, of the immense sums paid on the national debt since the war, of the vast fortunes which have sprung into existence, as if under the magic of Aladdin's lamp, of the general progress in improvement and in the physical well-being of the people ! We can hardly realize it all. Capital has increased more rapidly than the demand for it, as shown by the decline in interest. Capital is outstripping population as shown by the census tables, and this process is likely to continue under the debt-paying policy now in favor. The national debt is paid only by the creation of so much capital, and by the time it is all paid, there is reason to expect an immense fund for investment in active business. Interest will probably be as low then as it can get, varying from two to eight per cent., according to the condi- 224 ISSUES OF THE NEAR FUTURE. [Chap. XIV. tions which must always affect interest. It may be thought that with all this abundance, of wealth, there will be no need that poor people shall tax their energies for a little contribution to the general stock of capital. But, it will be just as urgent then as it is now to preach the gospel of saving, and just as needful to save as a condition of personal independence, unless indeed, some system is then in vogue which is incompatible with the responsibilities of individualism. Capital is a transi- tory thing, and there must be constant saving to keep it up, whether the system in vogue be individualism, collectivism, or communism. There are certain great gulfs into which the constant accumulations fall. There is, first, the augmentation of wealth in the various forms known as fixtures, plants, im- provements, and then the constant outlay necessary to keep these in a condition of usefulness. There is now, secondly, and there may still be, a vast increase in consumption in which all share, or in which all may share who are fairly prudent in their habits of life. There is, thirdly, a constant waste going on which cannot be made good except by renewal. If all industry ceased for only a year or two, the wealth of the world would be in comparative ruin, arid mankind in a state of des- titution. Most of the wealth at any one time in existence, as Mill shows, is the product of the twelve months immediately preceding. With all our past accumulations, there is still a pressing demand for industry and saving ; and this is precisely what may be truthfully said at any time in the future. While the increase of capital in the future will not relieve any from the obligations of industry and economy as the condition of thrift, it should bring to the masses a standard of more gener- ous living, with a wider margin for saving. How far the masses will avail themselves of this advantage depends on themselves ; and for this reason it is of first importance that they shall be brought to understand what the conditions of thrift are, and under what limitations they are available. 73. THE FATAL ENCHANTMENT. Whether all partake in its blessings or not, wealth we shall have, and with it, alas, the Sec. 7#.] THE FATAL ENCHANTMENT. 225 shadows of wealth ! (Sec. 4.) If only the very wealthy suc- cumbed to the vanities, and made life a dissipation to their injury, there would not be so much to deplore. But the evil example goes down into the middle ranks. (Conflict, Sec. 203.) The "lower" ape the costl} r frivolities of the "higher," and go only too often beyond their means, to sink lower still. By this agency mainly, under the charms and temptations of a luxurious civilization, do the middle classes become weakened and finally extinct, leaving only the rich and the poor. (Con- flict, Sec. 209.) " 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay." Wealth, imitation, and the vanities conspire as with the deceit and fascination of sirens to destroy their votaries by means of the very pleasures they afford. Their victims are whole classes and then whole peoples rather than individuals ; and ages may be required to bring about the fatal consumma- tion. Only through enlightenment and education, if at all, can this blasting influence be counteracted by establishing a higher standard of merit and a nobler aim for ambition. The spell is upon all the leading classes of society ; and its fatality is in this, that its victims are almost totally unconscious of their condition, and will not believe that there is anything the matter. The delirium is so common, and the virus causing it so rife, that eve^ one of a social turn is bound to have it, and only the iron-clad escape. If there is a faint consciousness that it is not altogether healthy, there is no effort made to throw it off, because the worst stages of it may not come on for generations. An immediate penalty for the broken laws of psychological health might stop transgression, but a remote one which we may never personally suffer is not so efficacious. (Conflict, Sec. 178.) The immediate and prevailing impulse is too strong for the solemn warnings of philosophy and religion. We shall do only too little to break the malign spell by which the prevailing vanities hold their votaries to the 226 ISSUES OP THE NEAR FUTURE. [Chap. XIV. open road of physical and moral degeneracy ; and this master form of the civilized vices (Conflict, Sec. 204) will most surely go over to the near future. 74. THE GREAT OBSTACLE TO EDUCATION. I have spoken of an elementary education in economics for youth, especially the youth among working people; but, I have not done so without a perfect consciousness of its difficulties. In the first place, there must be a general feeling of the great need in this direction to give efficacy to the movement ; and then, in the second place, there must be competent teachers who may be able so to instruct that the better principles shall become part of the moral constitution as the basis of better habits in life. Complicated with these is another difficulty which always rises here in formidable proportions, defying all our devices for its removal. I refer to the superior prolificacy of inferior people. (Conflict, Chap. XXXII.) The relative prolificacy of classes may be quite correctly summed up as follows : 1. The poorest and most hopeless in society breed with least voluntary restraint, and though many die young, marriages are early, and the class multiplies rapidty. 2. In a new country with abun- dant opportunity for establishing the household, the people marry young, and have large families. 3. In older countries where there is less opportunity for expansion, and families which are well-to-do have acquired a feeling of pride respect- ing the station necessary for them to maintain in society, mar- riage is put off till later in life, fewer children are born, and the families remain small. 4. Among the "upper classes" under high civilization, with high living, and much pleasure to enjoy every day in society, women avoid the encumbrance of children, and the natural multiplication of the class is very limited. In this country the "poor whites," immigrants, and colored people, to be found mostly in the cities, the South, and the newer States, are most prolific. Our railroads and newspapers carry the seeds of high civilization so promptly into the new settlements of the North and West that prolificacy is not kept Sec. 74-1 THE GREAT OBSTACLE TO EDUCATION. 227 up as it was by our ancestors for generations in succession. A considerable percentage of our immigrant population belong to the beaten classes of the old world, and their great prolifi- cacy helps our own inefficient classes to swell the industrial ranks which have least tact in dealing with the opportunities of life. Thus, owing to the more rapid multiplication of the more inefficient strains of our people, is the need of education constantly becoming greater, and its attainment constantly becoming more difficult. This is a peculiar feature of modern life, sprung upon us by our great machine industries, and becoming constantly more aggravated by the increasing strength of its original cause. We may all agree as to the great need there is that all classes shall see precisely what the situation is in order to adapt themselves to its require- ments. We may agree that to this end the general diffusion of knowledge is indispensable ; but when the predominating prolificacy of the least teachable strains of people is making it constantly more difficult to advance the interests of education among the classes most in need, what are we to do ? Here we stand in presence of one of the most difficult, and at the same time, one of the most pressing questions of the near future. Mr. Lester F. Ward, in his work on Dynamic Sociology, recognizes this difficulty in the following words : " The highly effective artificial appliances of science and inventive art are only made the means of more rapidly and thoroughly peopling the earth. The great advances made by literary and educational agencies are overslaughed by fresh additions to the illiterate classes of the population. The real progress of the world, which is immense, is being perpetually diluted by quantitative incre- ments, leaving the apparent condition of society unchanged. As the world is now constituted, it requires constant renewals of the progressive impulses to maintain the stationary con- dition. Let science for a moment withdraw its daily reenforce- ments, let popular education be relaxed for a single year, and the complicated machinery of civilization must come to a stop and social degeneracy set in. The prevalent overweening faith 11 228 ISSUES OF THE NEAR FUTURE, [Chap. XIV in the necessary stability of the social system is unfounded. Renewed efforts at every moment, and the constant creation of new propelling agencies are all that sustain it." (Vol. II., 210, 211.) This is the forcible statement of a forbidding fact which we are compelled to face. Elsewhere, Mr. Ward sa3 7 s that, " What society needs is restriction of population, especial- ly among the classes and at the points where it now increases most rapidly." (Vol. II., 466.) What is the measure he pro- poses ? Visionary and inefficient, we fear, a sort of stirpi- culture made operative by attractive legislation. Direct legis- lation certainly cannot deal with a case like this; and we cannot understand how educational means are to deal with it, since it is the very adverse power which constantly sets the agencies of education at naught. I have no confidence that this great enemy of progress will be very soon conquered by any kind of opposing force. Still, we shall be compelled to fight him on the best known strategic principles, and by suc- cessive attacks along the whole line, by storming parties, by mining, by flank operations, we may at last stop his inroads into new territory, and thus somewhat weaken his power for psychological devastation in civilized society. I would speak less in metaphor and more definitely if I could. One of the indirect methods of this warfare against .degeneracy is to keep the soil out of the hands of monopolists and not encumber it with all manner of taxation. This is necessa^ that the better classes of the poor may escape from the demoralized masses to the open country where the influence of the environment may graduall} r strengthen character and better the type. 75. CONCLUSION. At all times, the reformer must remem- ber how easy it is in bringing about a good, to give rise in the process to an unforeseen evil. Thus, in this very connection, we have an example that should be suggestive. Freedom for industry and labor-saving invention for cheap products are good things, and yet, they have thrown upon modern society this great mass of proletarian impulse which involves the con- tingencies of evil, and must be dealt with. Sec. 75.~] CONCLUSION. 229 No a priori rule, however deep-laid in philosophy, can be relied on as a perfect guide in the treatment of public evils. Every case has its own peculiarities and difficulties, and these must be kept in view in order properly to determine what the details of treatment shall be. What the Government may undertake or not undertake must be determined on the merits of the case itself. Mill well says, "that the admitted functions of government embrace a much wider field than can easily be included within the ringfence of any restrictive definition, and that it is hardly possible to find any ground of justification common to them all, except the comprehensive one of general expediency ; nor to limit the interference of government by any universal rule, save the simple and vague one that it should never be admitted but when the case of expediency is strong." (Political Econ. II., 392.) We believe that the philosophy which leads to the recogni- tion of the Middle Way as best for practical direction in the affairs of life (Conflict, sees. 240, 243), is that which is and will be confirmed by all the lessons of experience whatever conditions may come about ; and that, just so far as the ex- tremes of laissez-faire on the one hand or of State-interference on the other, may on any pretext be forced into predominance, the expected good will be thwarted by the intrusion of unex- pected evils, from which there will be no escape but by a reac- tion toward the other extreme. Better, then, wisel}" to seek and loyally to follow the Middle Way. CONFLICT IN NATURE AND LIFE: A Study of Antagonism in the Constitution of Things, for the Elucidation of the problem of G-ood and Evil, and the Reconcil- iation of Optimism and Pessimism. New York : D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 1, 3 and 5 Bond Street, pp. 488. $2.00. CONTENTS. PART FIRST : The Subject in History and Literature. CHAP. I. Ancient Conceptions of Antagonism and of the Evils of Life. CHAP. II. Modern Views of Physical and Moral Discord. CHAP. III. Pes- simism. CHAP. IV. Optimism Perfection and the Golden Ages. CHAP. V. The Problem Stated. PART SECOND: Considerations from Science. CHAP. VI. Existence. CHAP. VII. The Unit of Physical Existence. CHAP. VIII. The Primary Forces. CHAP. IX. Chemistry and Physics. CHAP. X. Conflict in the Biological Forces. CHAP. XL Antagonism in the Sphere of Mind. CHAP. XII. Conflict as a Factor in Morals. PART THIRD : Historical Brevities Illustrating Conflict. CHAP. XIII. General History. CHAP. XIV. Grecian History. CHAP. XV. Roman History The Republic. CHAP. XVI. Roman History The Empire. CHAP. XVII. Early English History. CHAP. XVIIL The Feudal System. CHAP. XIX. The Christian System under Conflict with Other Systems. CHAP. XX. Papal Supremacy. CHAP. XXI. The Great Modern Conflict. PART FOURTH. CHAP. XXII. Antagonism as a Factor of Evolution. PART FIFTH : Evil in Relation to the Necessary Conditions of Life. CHAP. XXIII. Paradoxes of Feeling in Relation to Function. CHAP. XXIV. Man's Environment Geological Conditions. CHAP. XXV. Man's Environ- ment Atmospheric and Oceanic Currents. CHAP. XXVI. Man's Environ- mentLimitations of the Habitable Area. CHAP. XXVII. Man's Environ- mentEconomical Difficulties of Limitation. CHAP. XXVIII. The Future of Physical Environment. CHAP. XXIX. Origin and Conflict of Natural Laws. PART SIZTH : The Outlook Social and Moral. CHAP. XXX. Sanitary Conditions. CHAP. XXXI. Prospects of the Com- mon Working People. CHAP. XXXII. Influence of the Relative Prolificacy of Classes on Society. CHAP. XXXIII. The Marriage Relation. CHAP. XXXIV. The Religious Consolations. CHAP. XXXV. Pleasure and Pain Inseparable. CHAP. XXXVI. Uses in General, Summary and Conclusion. REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OF "CONFLICT" EXTRACTS. Boston Daily Advertiser: The strength of his book is in the abun- dance of illustrative matter which he has brought to the support of his thesis, and in the large view of the world which he has been obliged to take in order to do it. The author favors meliorism, and his book has a healthy tone, in so far as it presents the dual position in which the active forces of life stand toward one another. The argument is in- structive rather than conclusive, and is supported by liberal extracts from nearly all the modern writers on science, society, and religion. There is a certain enlightenment to be gained from these pages which no student of modern society will care to miss. Boston Journal: Bears traces of original research, patient study, and concentrated thought. Boston Courier: It is very clearly, though sometimes a little crude- ly written, and while evidently not the work of a professional philos- opher or writer, it shows the result of very wide reading and generally of intelligent thinking. The careful reader will often differ with the author and detect gaps in his reasoning. And the chief value of the work will be found in its rich and varied suggestiveness, its blazing the line along a hundred pathways of thought in which reflective minds are beginning to grope their way. Boston Saturday Evening Gazette: The author withholds his name, but he is evidently a student and a thinker, thoroughly acquainted with his subject, and thoroughly in earnest in expounding it * * * The multiplicity of subjects treated is confusing, and the conclusions he rushes to emphasize are lost in the crossing and recrossing threads of his arguments. He has crushed his legions under the weight of their shields, and the result of the battle is lost in the elaboration of its details. These faults, however, are due to a well-stocked and discip- lined mind that has much to say and brief space to say it in, and not- withstanding its faults, the volume will prove interesting. Boston Evening Transcript: " Conflict in Nature and Life" is one of those ponderous books, with extensive subtitles, from which at first glance a reviewer is apt to turn away with an impression of "great cry and little wool," and concerning which he feels that economy of eyesight must be made paramount to conscientions perusal. Turning the leaves, however, reveals signs of power, and he soon finds himself reading with an intentness that makes him realize that he is commun- ing with a learned, serious, and influential writer. There is an even dignity and almost majesty of style, an impartiality, simplicity, and fine temper in the book, which takes his sympathy captive and arouses his reasoning capacity. To this succeeds a puzzled interest over the anonymity of authorship, which ends in a vigorous resolve to find out who is responsible for the production of a work so strong and thought- ful. There are not probably a half-dozen men in the United States cap- able of giving us a book of equal erudition and sound philosophical structure. The temptation to guess is irresistible, and the mind runs over the list of college presidents and learned professors, only to decide that not one of them is equal to the task. Springfield Republican, Mass.: While the book proceeds from first to last upon data wholly outside of supernatural religion, it is not wanting in coincidences and indirect confirmations of Christianity. REVIEWERS' OPINIONS or "CONFLICT" EXTRACTS. Morning Journal and Courier, New Haven, Conn.: The book is an able and profound study of a great subject. Popular Science Monthly, N. Y.: It will appear from what we have said, that this work on conflict is offered as a contribution to the phi- losophy of life, or as deepening the foundations of such a philosophy. The claims in this direction are brought out in a general way in the final chapter. Its conclusions are broadly practical. The philosophy of conflict inculcates moderate expectations. Avoiding the extremes of optimism and pessimism, of conservatism and radicalism, it aims to do work only where work will be effectual work that will make things better, and work which prevents them from becoming worse. JSclectic Magazine, N. Y.: From this imperfect synopsis of a very thoughtful and ambitious book, it will be seen that the author does not content himself with studying the subject from an abstract and ideal stand-point. His aim is to make the conclusions and suggestions use- ful in practical ethics, and the sincerity of his aim is evident in every line. We do not agree with some of his conclusions, but his thought is stimulating. He disclaims in his preface any claim to originality as a philosophical thinker : but certainly no one will deny him the right which he does claim that of being a judicially-minded student of his subject, who is fully acquainted with the thoughts of the best minds of the world on the same topic, and who adds to them many a word worth reading and pondering. The Nation, N. Y.: The author's mind moves with smoothness and decency through the wide field of popular science, often construct- ing a perfect mosaic of well chosen quotations. The grouping of his impressions and facts must have been an admirable discipline for him, but it seems to us in several ways a good illustration of what philos- ophy is not, or at least should not be. The Herald, N. Y.: It is a very ambitious book. But the author writes modestly, is not at all given to undue or arrogant assumption, and probably he would be the first to admit that his finished work, which has evidently been the labor of years, is neither so original nor so complete a success as at one time he hoped it would be * * * We do not think the book will work a revolution in either religion or philos- ophy, but we commend it as a learned treatise, as an able and interest- ing study on a most difficult subject. The author makes a mistake in concealing his name. The World, N. Y.: The author of this volume carefully withholds his name, though why a rectifyer of these venerable antagonisms of the ages should be ashamed to be known in connection with his stu- pendous industry, we are wholly unable to guess. A careful perusal of the book must convince the intelligent reader that he has here to deal with the most specious form of pessimism and abject materialism mas- querading under an assumption of scientific authority. And it is interesting to observe what kind of an exhibit nescience makes when it loads itself with the plunder of antagonistic physicists and staggers into the realm of philosophy. One may well be pardoned for making the attempt to "elucidate" the old mysteries of the origin of evil and the source of life. But an "elucidation " that bears upon its face the marks of dishonesty and ends in confusion and futility must fail to excite anything but wonder at the strange mental organization which can take delight in so balancing the world's opinions that the result is an equilibrium of negations. 3 REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OP " CONFLICT " EXTRACTS. The Observer, N. Y.: Its crudeness is something marvellous. It abounds in citations, which indeed are so many as to make the volume resemble the emptyings of a common-place book. Its author has read a good deal, but his insight and logical power approach zero. Daily Graphic, N. .F.: This is an anonymous work which treats many important questions in a very intelligent manner * * * With these as the cardinal principles of his system he passes in rapid review all of the vital questions of the hour, such as we have pointed out above. And of no one of them does he not say something that is worth remembering. The Churchman, N. Y.: It will be seen that the author takes the reader over a wide range and discusses the most important truths. He writes with ability and candor, and while a good deal of what he says does not accord with our reason, he still commands our respect. The Jewish Advocate, N. Y.: A candid spirit of inquiry prevades the book. The Examiner, N. F.: Whatever be the judgment on the author's success, no fair-minded reader can fail to regard the book as one of very great ability and value as to its material, evidently accumulated through many years of laborious and careful study ; as to the skill with which the materials are organized by the central principle ; as to the clearness of style and statement, which leaves no possible opportunity for mistaking the author's meaning * * * As a contribution to the dis- cussion of a difficult question the book is of great permanent value. It is a thesaurus of facts. The discussion is candid and fair * * * As for us, we continue to believe in a kingdom of Christ, which is bring- ing men one by one, and so is gradually bringing society, out of moral evil into the good. Evening Telegram, N. I 7 ".: Though this book treats of none but profound and important subjects, it is written with singular lucidity, the statements being as clear as the extremely complicated nature of the themes will allow * * * We think it will be acknowledged by every intelligent reader that though the author has not " explained" the problem, in the sense of entirely depriving it of mystery, he has yet "elucidated" it, in the sense of making it less unintelligible than it is generally thought to be * * * Few readers, not blessed with exhaust- less animal spirits, can rise from the perusal of this work with feel- ings of joyfulness and abundant hope. A serene resignation and a sober cheerfulness are the lessons it inculcates. It is a product of unusual power, evincing profound knowledge and a wonderful bal- ance of judgment. The School Journal, N. Y.: The subject is treated in its widest re- lations, and in a judicial spirit that we admire ; but we do not agree with the author's conclusions. Good Literature, N. F.: There are two classes of authors one thinks, the other guesses. Our author manifestly belongs to the former class, for his whole book bears the mark of the constant beating of the brain-hammer. The Christian Union, N. Y.: "Conflict in Nature and Life" is a semi-religious work covering one of the most interesting fields of thought and observation. REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OF "CONFLICT" EXTRACTS. Brooklyn Union, N. Y.: The discussion is remarkable for its scope and fullness, and for its pertinence to most of the difficult problems which are occupying the attention of the more intelligent classes. The nature of the subject, as well as the disposition of the writer, has led to a fair, sober, and judicious method of investigation as it implies the presentation of opposing facts, principles, and arguments. Albany Argus, J\T. Y.: In a very frank and charming preface the anonymous author of this volume says: "Between the critic who should pronounce the book true but not new, and the other who should think it new, but singular and fanciful, it would be preferable to believe the former more nearly correct." We hold to neither of these criticisms, but think the book both true and new, and remarkably interesting as well. Many of the ideas of the author have been expressed before (they would not be true, else), but the principle of the work, in the entirety is original in treatment, and the theories of the writer are more thoroughly developed than his modesty would lead us to expect. Syracuse Herald, N. Y.: The author finds the origin of evil in an inevitable and necessary antagonism in the constitution of things. He brings history and science to bear upon the elaboration of his theory, which he discusses with much learning and great force of reasoning in all its various connections with nature and life. Whatever may be thought of the views put forth in it, the book itself cannot be regarded as other than a most profound treatise on a very difficult subject. Post-Express, Rochester, N. Y.\ The anonymous author of this bulky though rigidly condensed volume, has made a contribution to our philosophical literature of far too great importance to be dis posed of in a passing notice * * * Books so original, so carefully thought out and so moderate are rare in our contemporary literature. Sunday Morning Express, Buffalo, N. Y. : Our author is prodigious- ly learned * * * ; but calm judgment forces upon us the conviction that he scarcely knows what he means himself ; and that if the whole 488 pages were boiled down there would not be found nourishment enough in them to support a mouse. Pittsburgh Telegraph: Each chapter is arranged in sections, and each section is a brief summary, complete in itself. We must again ex- claim with Domine Sampson, " Prodigious ! " but with sincere apprecia- tion of the study and careful thought, which were required to get this knowledge into such small compass and such readable form. The book is a good library condensed into clear sections, and is as full of interest as it is of "meat" * * * We would like to know the name of the author of this remarkably well written book. He has not merely read and arranged a vast number of topics, but he has thought upon them thorougly and well. His modest preface of itself shows the hand of no ordinary man. Philadelphia Evening J^ews: "Conflict in nature and Life" is an elaborate and carefully thought out essay by an anonymous author on human life in connection with the order of nature. The teacher and student of ethics will find it of interest and use, particularly as it furnishes further and deeper investigations into the subject of the moral law and of good and evil than are found in the few text books on ethics. K REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OF "CONFLICT" EXTRACTS. Philadelphia Times : In his hatred of what he calls the desponding view of life, the author is quite unfair to Christianity when he says : "The New Testament view of the natural life of man is a thoroughly pessimistic one. It is declared that if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. The kingdom of God and the king- dom of this world are set over against each other as opposite in charac- ter," and much else to the same effect, all showing that the writer has a very limited and incorrect notion of such scriptural passages, and, perhaps, showing still further that he has not the insight or power requisite to deal with the great problem of life in its moral and spirit- ual aspects at all. The American, Philadelphia: The book is to a great extent a catena made up from the writings of the great masters of the modern agnostic school, with comments, criticisms, explanations, and modifications by the author. His treatment of these selections is mostly intelligent, always clear, and sometimes clever, but is never very profound. There are in the book many good thoughts and happy suggestions ; and for a person "who knows how to read an unsafe book" the reading of this may prove not unprofitable. We believe, moreover, that our author's theory of morals and religion, poor and unsatisfactory as it is, is the very best that can be made up from data afforded by the five senses, with no help ab extra. Baltimore Day: As proving that he is industrious, that he has for years gathered up everything in ancient and modern literature which would bear upon the subject of good and evil, and watched every change and movement in the physical world which would illustrate the doctrine, then the book may be considered a success ; but as help- ing in the slightest toward the elucidation of the problem it must be set down as a failure. Baltimore 8un:R\s premises, however, are larger than his proofs, and he comes to his subject with disjointed fragments leading to no strictly logical and practical ends. Such an inconsequent mind, so far itself from any "universal harmony" and "attainable perfection," is not the one to see the harmony and adaptability of the workings of antagonism in nature and in man. The News and Courier, Charleston, S. C. : Taken altogether the book will interest the reader, but we cannot say that we regard it as an important contribution to social science. Cincinnati Commercial Gazette: The treatment of the subject is calm and full, and the style exceedingly attractive. Daily State Journal, Columbus, Ohio: While the ordinary reader will find much to disagree with, he cannot but admire the pains-taking labor which is manifest on every page. Detroit Free Press: His work is a "study" not a dogmatic declar- ation. Yet it is able and interesting. Indianapolis Journal: A. work that will attract the attention of the philosophical, not that its ideas are new, but that the author has put into a system what has largely hitherto been fragmentary * * * It may be that the author is a pessimist, but even though he be, he has succeeded in writing a book that will attract readers everywhere. Saturday Herald, Indianapolis: A book that by its worth must attract the attention of thoughtful people. REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OF "CONFLICT" EXTRACTS. Sunday Sentinel, Milwaukee: If the theories of the author are not for the most part original, his manner of presenting them certainly has some claim to be, and the scraps of information and citations from a multitude of sources do credit to his industry. But after all, he does not solve the "problem of good and evil," and his reconciliation of optimism and pessimism the reader will soon find to be all on the side of the optimist, while the pessimist gets all the gain. Chicago Dial (JOHN BASCOM) : The author falls into some of the easily besetting sins of the empirical philosophy. He does not care- fully discriminate between a figurative and exact use of words. A large share of that which he terms conflict in nature is not conflict in any literal sense. Opposing forces that unite in a desirable result are not conflicting forces otherwise than figuratively. Chicago Tribune: The author has evidently read and reflected much on his theme. How many readers and disciples he will have remains to be seen. Chicago Evening Journal; There is much erudition to be discovered in this volume and quite a vast assortment of interesting scientific facts, statements of old and new philosophical problems and many curious attempts at sounding the unknown depths. Chicago Times; This view [on the marriage relation] will be found, on examination, to be double-edged, and to "cut both ways," but the reader must be referred to the book itself for one of the broadest and most comprehensive views of marriage and the family to be found in modern literature * * * The temptation to make further citation is strong, but this notice has already grown to unreasonable proportions. And yet it can scarcely be necessary to apologize, for the work, whoever the author may be, is one of the most thoughtful, compre- hensive and suggestive of the many which of late years have treated of the vexed questions which come within its scope. Everyone who would understand the trend of modern thought should read it. San Francisco Evening Bulletin; It justifies the title. For in it a patient thinker has worked his way through an extensive course of human opinion and speculation. He has worked in an orderly method, for the arrangement of topics is thoroughly thought out. San Francisco Sunday Chr on icle : These later opinions by cele- brated men he has added as quotations to bring out more strongly his own assertions, and the result is a very readable book, as it steers clear of both optimism and pessimism, preserving a middle ground, which, if not very cheering to the student of human nature, is very near to the truth. He demonstrates that conflict is essential in life and is inevitable in the nature of things; and that the idea of human per- fection must be as illusory as that of unmixed happiness in some Utopia. These ideas he develops with extraordinary skill and with a wealth of illustration which is as remarkable as his clearness of state- ment and his logical arrangement of facts and deductions * * * Wkat he has to say on the condition of the working people, the marriage relation, religious consolations, and the inseparable character of pleas- ure and pain is well worth reading, for it is full of suggestion. BODY AND WILL : BEING AN ESSAY CON- CERNING WILL IN ITS METAPHYSICAL, PHYSIOLOGICAL, AND PATHOLOGICAL AS- PECTS. BY HENRY MAUDSLEY, M. D. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. " Dr. Mandsley's powers of logic have never been more keenly exercised than in 4 Body and Will,' his latest volume. He takes the ultra-materialistic view of the human mind, and regards will as the result of definite material causes, so that, were synthetical science a little further advanced, it would be possible, hav- ing given physical conditions, to declare the inevitable result. The skill and erudition displayed in ' Body and Will ' are only equaled by the keenness of its criticisms upon what, from the writer's point of view, are empirical dogmas. No fairer or more able exposition of the latest scientific teaching upon the subject of man as a free agent is to be found than in this volume." Boston Courier. " A methodical essay on the will, considered in its metaphysical as well as its physiological and pathological relations. Yet even where the metaphysical as- pect of the subject is examined, the author writes as a student of physical sci- ence, not as a metaphysician, and eschews the technical language of speculative philosophy, because, as he says, its terms convey to him no clear and definite ideas. Dr. Maudsley's point of view and method may be exemplified by seeing how he deals with the equation of free-will and necessity, which has taxed for ages the ingenuity of theologians. A part of the work which will be read with special curiosity by social reformers is that devoted to the investigation of the pathology of the will." New York Sun. " An exhaustive argument in behalf of what may be called the physical or scientific theory of will as opposed to the metaphysical or teleological. " Chicago Inter- Ocean. "One of the most important contributions from English thinkers yet made to this fascinating field of scientific inquiry." Philadelphia Item. " Dr. Maudsley avowedly avoids the ' barren heights of speculation for the plains on which men move and have their being,' and the result is the most valu- able and practically useful work that has appeared within recent years." Boston Gazette. " The problem chosen by the author is among the most entertaining in the field of speculative thought. The manner and style are fresh and vigorous, and the conclusions, in the main, are in accord with those of the philosophical school most popular in this country." Albany (N. Y.) Evening Journal. " The chapters which consider the possible disintegration and decline of will- power in the human race, by a reversal of the solar conditions which have evolved it, will be eagerly read by those who enjoy enlightened speculation upon so large and difficult a topic." Boston Transcript. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. A LIBRARY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT STANDARD WORKS ON EVOLUTION. Origin of Species foy Means of Natural Selection, or the Preser- vation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. By CHARLES DAR- WIN, LL. D., F. R. S. New and revised edition, with Additions. 12rao. Cloth, $2.00. "Personally and practically exercised in zoology, in minute anatomy, in geology, a student of geographical distribution, not in maps and in mu- seums, but by long voyages and laborious collection ; having largely ad- vanced each of these branches of science, and having spent many years in gathering and sifting materials for his present work ; the store of accurately- registered facts upon which the author of the ' Origin of Species ' is able to draw at will is prodigious." Professor T. H. Huxtey. II. Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. By CHARLES DARWIN, LL. D., F. R. S. With Illustrations. Revised edi- tion. 2 vols., 12mo. Cloth, $5.00. "We shall learn something of the laws of inheritance, of the effects of crossing different breeds, and on that sterility which often supervenes when organic beings are removed from their natural conditions ot life, and like- wise when they are too closely interbred." From the Introduction. III. Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. By CHARLES DARWIN, LL. D., F. R. S. With many Illustrations. A new edition. 12mo. Cloth, $3.00. " In these volumes Mr. Darwin has brought forward all the facts and arguments which science has to offer in favor of the doctrine that man has arisen by gradual development from the lowest point of animal life. Aside from the logical purpose which Mr. Darwin had in view, his work is an original and fascinating contribution to the most interesting portion of nat- ural history." IV. On the Origin Of Species ; or, The Causes of the Phenomena of Or- ganic Nature. By Professor T. H. HUXLEY, F. R. S. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. " Those who disencumber Darwinism of its difficulties, simplify its state- ments, relieve it of technicalities, and bring it so distinctly within the hori- zon of ordinary apprehension that persons of common sense may judge for themselves, perform an invaluable service. Such is the character of the present volume." From the Preface to the American edition. V. Darwinian a. Essays and Reviews pertaining to Darwinism. By ASA GRAY, Fisher Professor of Natural History (Botany) in Harvard Uni- versity. 12mo, Cloth, $2.00. " Although Professor Gray is widely known in the world of science for his botanical researches, but few are aware that he is a pronounced and un- A STANDARD EVOLUTION LIBRARY. flinching Darwinian. His contributions to the discussion are varied and valuable, and as collected in the present volume they will be seen to estab- lish a claim upon the thinking world, which will be extensively felt and cordially acknowledged. These papers not only illustrate the "history of the controversy, and the progress of the discussion^ but they form perhaps the fullest and most trustworthy exposition of what is to be properly under- stood by ' Darwinism ' that is to be found in our language. To all those timid souls who are worried about the progress of science, and the danger that it will subvert the foundations of their faith, we recommend the dis- passionate perusal of this volume." The Popular Science Monthly. VI. Heredity : A Psychological Study of its Phenomena, Laws, Causes, and Consequences. From the French of TH. RIBOT. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. " Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants : it is for the species what personal identity is lor the individual. The physiological side ofthis subject has been diligently studied, but not so its psychological side. We propose to supply this deficiency in the present work." From the Introduction. VII. Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences. By FRANCIS GALTON, F. R. S., etc. New and revised edition, with an American Preface.' 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. " The following pages embody the result of the first vigorous and me- thodical effort to treat the question in the true scientific spirit, and place it upon the proper inductive basis. Mr. Galton proves, by overwhelming evidence, that genius, talent, or whatever we term great mental capacity, follows the law of organic transmission runs in families, and is an affair or blood and breed ; and that a sphere of phenomena hitherto deemed capri- cious and defiant of rule is, nevertheless, within the operation of ascertain- able law." From the American Preface. VIII. The Evolution Of Man. A Popular Exposition of the Principal Points of Human Ontogeny and Phytogeny. From the German of ERNST HAECKEL, Professor in the University of Jena. With numer- ous Illustrations. 2 vols., 12mo. Cloth, $6.00. " In this excellent translation of Professor Haeckel's work, the English reader has access to the latest doctrines of the Continental school of evolu- tion, in its application to the history of man." IX. The History of Creation ; or, the Development of the Earth and its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes. A Popular Exposition of the Doctrine of Evolution in General, and of that of Darwin, Goe- the, and Lamarck in Particular. By ERNST HAECKEL, Professor in the University of Jena. The translation revised by Professor E. RAY LANKESTER. Illustrated with Lithographic Plates. 2 vols., 12mo. Cloth, $5.00. " The book has been translated into several languages. I hope that it may also find sympathy in the fatherland of Darwin, the more so since it contains special morphological evidence in favor of many of the most impor- tant doctrines with which this greatest naturalist of our century has enriched aeience." From the Preface. A STANDARD EVOLUTION LIBRARY. x. Religion and Science. A Series of Sunday Lectures on the Rlationo of Natural and Revealed Religion, or the Truths revealed in Nature and Scripture. By JOSEPH LE CONTE, LL. D. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. XI. Prehistoric Times, as illustrated by Ancient Remains and the Manners and Cnstoms of Modern Savages. By Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart. Illustrated. Entirely new revised edition. 8va Cloth, $5.00. The book ranks among the noblest works of the interesting and impor- tant class to which it belongs. As a resume of our present knowledge of prehistoric man, it leaves nothing to be desired. It is not only a good laook of reference, but the best on the subject. XII. Winners in Life's Race ; or, The Great Backboned Family. By ARA- BELLA B. BUCKLEY, author of "The Fairy-Land of Science" and " Life and her Children." With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, gilt side and back, $1.50. XIII. Physics and Politics ; or, Thoughts on the Application of the Prin- ciples of " Natural Selection " and " Inheritance " to Political Society By WALTER BAGEHOT. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. XIV. The Theory of Descent and Darwinism. By Professor OSCAR SCHMIDT. With 26 Woodcuts. 12mo. $1.50. u The facts upon which the Darwinian theory is based are presented in an effective manner, conclusions are ably defended, and the question is treated in more compact and available style than in any other work on the same topic that has yet appeared. It is a valuable addition to the ' Interna- tional Scientific Series.' " Boston Post. XV. Outline of the Evolution Philosophy. By Dr. M. E. GAZELLES. Translated from the French, by the Rev. 0. B. FROTHINGHAM ; with an Appendix, by E. L. YOUMANS, M. D. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. " This unpretentious little work will, no doubt, be used by thousands to whom the publications of Mr. Herbert Spencer are inaccessible and those of Auguste Comte repellent, by reason of their prolixity and vagueness. In a short space Dr. Cazelles has managed to compress the whole outline and scope of Mr. Spencer's system, witn his views of the doctrine of progress and law of evolution, and a clear view of the principles of positivism." Nature (London}. XVI. Principles of Geology ; or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants, considered as illustrative of Geology. By Sir CHARLES LYELL, Bart. Illustrated with Maps, Plates, and Woodcuts. A new and entirely revised edition. 2 vols. Royal Svo. Cloth, $8.00. The " Principles of Geology" may be looked upon with pride, not only as a representative of English science, but as without a rival of its kind anywhere. Growing in fullness and accuracy with the growth of experi- A STANDARD EVOLUTION LIBRARY. ence and observation in every region of the world, the work has incorporated with itself each established discovery, and has been modified by every hy- pothesis of value which has been brought to bear upon, or been evolved from, the most recent body of facts. XVII. Elements of Geology. A Text-Book for Colleges and for the General Header. By JOSEPH La CONTE, LL. D., Professor of Geology and Natural History in the University of California. Kevised and en- larged edition. 12mo. With upward of 900 Illustrations. Cloth, $4.00. XVIII. Animal Life, as affected by the Natural Conditions of Exist- ence. By KARL SEMPER, Professor of the University of Wiirzburg. With Maps and 100 Woodcuts. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. XIX. Crayfish : An Introduction to the Study of Zoology. By Professor T. H. HUXLEY, F. R. S. With 82 Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75. XX. 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APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. CONDUCTED BYE. L AND W. J. YOUMANS. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY was established a dozen years ago to bring before the general public the results of scientific thought on many large and important questions which could find no expression in the cur- rent periodicals. Scientific inquiry was penetrating many new fields, ex- tending important knowledge, and profoundly affecting opinion upon numberless questions of speculative and practical interest. It was the policy of this magazine at the outset, and has been constantly adhered to since, to obtain the ablest statements from the most distinguished sci- entific men of all countries in their bearing upon the higher problems of investigation. 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Those, therefore, who desire to know what is going on in the world of thought in these stirring times, when new knowledge is rapidly extending, and old errors are giving way, will find that they can keep informed only by subscribing for THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. TERMS : $5.00 per annum, or 50 cents a number ; cloth covers for the rolumes, 50 cents each. The volumes begin with May and November of each year, and sub- scriptions may begin at any time. A club of five will be supplied for $20.00 per annum. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. THE ORGANS OF SPEECH, And their Application in the Formation of Articulate Sounds, By GEORG HERMANN VON MEYER, Professor of Anatomy at the University of Zfirich, With numerous Illustrations. ... 12mo, cloth, $1.75. " At once philosophical and practical, suitable as a text-book in a medical col- lege or for reading at home. Persons engaged in philological studies, and all professional musicians, will find it full of extremely useful facts and suggestions." New York Journal qf Commerce. " This volume comprises the author's researches into the anatomy of the vo- cal organs, with special reference to the point of view and needs of the philolo- gist and the trainer of the voice. It seeks to explain the origin of articulate sounds, and to outline a system in which all elements of all languages may be co-ordinated in their proper place. The work has obviously a special value for students in the science of the transmutations of language, for etymologists, elo- cutionists, and musicians." New York Home Journal. " The author perceives in the sounds made by animals meanings analogous to words, and in support of this is the fact that in the legends of all nations an im- portant part is played by wise men who understand the language of the brute creation. With patient thoroughness Professor von Meyer describes minutely the vocal apparatus, and the sounds produced by the complex combinations of its simple parts." Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. "It is surprising to note what different sounds, and shades of tone and mean- ing, can be produced by volition in the use of the human organs of speech." Hartford Daily Times. "The book presents a happy combination of the Teutonic thoroughness of treatment with the method and lucidity of statement which especially distinguish French scientists. The author's expositions are remarkable for their clearness and avoidance of technicalities ; while their meaning is rendered more apparent by the use of numerous diagrams." Edinburgh Scotsman. " The work is a thorough and exhaustive one." Boston Commonwealth. " The author's plan has been to give a sketch of all possible articulate sounds, and to trace upon that basis their relations and capacity for combination." Philadelphia North American. " A treatise of remarkable interest." Boston Transcript, " Ought to be welcomed for the varied, new, and original interpretations con- tained in the book." Harrisburg Telegraph. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 6 Boiid Street. MAN BEFORE METALS. By N. JOLY, Professor at the Science Faculty of Toulouse. With 148 Illustrations. .... 12mo, cloth, $1.75. CONTENTS. PART I. THE ANTIQUITY OF THE HITMAN RACE : I. The Pre- historic Ages ; IE. The Work of Boucher de Perthes ; III. The Bone Caves: IV. The Peat Mosses and the Kitchen Middens ; V. The Lake Dwellings and the Nuraghi; VI. Burial Places; VII. Prehistoric Man in America; VIII. Man of the Tertiary Epoch; IX. The Great Antiquity of Man. PART II. PRIMITIVE CIVILIZATION : I. Domestic Life ; II. Industry ; III. Agriculture ; IV. Naviga- tion and Commerce ; V. The Fine Arts ; VI. Language and Writing ; VII. Re- ligion ; VIII. The Portrait of Quaternary Man. " The discussion of man's origin and early history, by Professor De Quatre- fages, formed one of the most useful volumes in the ' International Scientific Se- ries,' and the same collection is now further enriched by a popular treatise on paleontology by M. N. Joly. Professor in the University of Toulouse. The title of the book, ' Man before Metals,' indicates the limitation? of the writer's theme. His object is to bring together the numerous proofs, collected by modern research, of the great age of the human race, and to show us what man was, in respect of customs, industries, and moral or religious ideas, before the use of metals was known to him." New York Sun. " Professor Joly's ' Man before Metals ' is a good elementary hand-book on primitive humanity. The author gives somewhat in detail the various proofs with regard to the antiquity of man, including chapters on prehistoric man in America, and man of the Tertiary epoch. The second part of the book deals with primitive civilization, with chapters on the development of domestic life, indus- try, agriculture, navigation and commerce, the fine arts, language and writing, and religious ideas. Professor Joly pictures man during the Quaternary age as living in caves, subsisting largely on raw flesh, although fire had long been known, armed with stone hunting implements, and clothed in skins which were sewed together by means of the bone needle. The indications of camrbalism and hu- man sacrifice Professor Joly regards as 'overwhelming.' But in spite of these barbarous customs Quaternary man resemhled his descendants of to-day ' in all essential points.' ' He was man in all senses of the word anatomically, intel- lectually, and morally.' " Boston Daily Evening Traveller. " An interesting, not to say fascinating, volume." New York Churchman. " M. Joly's book sums up the discoveries of modern science bearing on the primeval history of man, on the antiquity of the human race, and on the circum- stances attending its slow and partial ascent to the modern level of civilization. It also presents with brevity but thoroughness the generally accepted theories relating to the habits and environment of primitive man. Its usefulness and in- terest are much increased by numerous and excellent illustrations." Philadel- phia North American. " This is a book worth owning." New York Christian Advocate. " It is a book ot value for study or for readers generally, and the many impor- tant discoveries of comparatively recent date give it special interest to American scholars, who have made so many of them." New Haven Daily Palladium. " Professor Joly does not even attempt to guess at the age of prehistoric man. Many times ten thousand years is probably as near as reasonable conjecture can come to it. The chapters are on general notions of the structure of the earth, the splintered rocks of Abbeville, the bone-caves, the Danish peat-mosses, the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, various modes of sepulture, prehistoric man in America, man of the Tertiary epoch, the great antiquity of man, the origin of the rise of fire, the making of stone implements, primitive agriculture, navigation, arts of design in caves, the origin of speech, religious ideas of primitive man, 04Jd the portrait of Quaternary man." Cincinnati Commercial- Gazette. New York : D. APFLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS, By SHELDON AMOS, M. A., Author of " The Science of Law," etc. 12MO. - CLOTH, $1.75. CONTENTS: Chapter I. Nature and Limits of the Science of Politics ; H. Political Terms; III. Political Reasoning; IV. The Geographical Area of Mod- ern Politics ; V. The Primary Elements of Political Life and Action ; VI. Con- stitutions; VII. Local Government; VIII. The Government of Dependencies; IX. Foreign Relations; X. The Province of Government; XI. Revolutions in States ; XII. Right and Wrong in Politics. " It is an able and exhaustive treatise, within a reasonable compass. Some of its conclusions will be disputed, although sterling common sense is a char- acteristic of the book. To the political student and the practical statesman it ought to be of great value." New York Herald. *' The author traces the subject from Plato and Aristotle in Greece, and Cicero in Rome, to the modern schools in the English field, not slighting the teachings of the American Revolution or the lessons of the French Revolution of 1793. Forms of government, political terms, the relation of law written and unwritten to the subject, a codification from Justinian to Napoleon in France and Field in America, are treated as parts of the subject in hand. Necessarily the subjects of executive and legislative authority, police, liquor, and land laws are con- sidered, and the question ever growing in importance in all countries, the rela- tions of corporations to the State." New York Observer. "The preface is dated at Alexandria, and the author says in it that a two years' journey round the world in the course of which he visited the chief centers of political life, ancient and modern, in Europe, America, Australasia, Polynesia, and North Africa not only helped him with illustrations, but was of no small use to him in stimulating thought. Mr. Amos treats his subject broad- ly, and with the air of having studied it exhaustively. The work will be of real assistance to the student of political economy, and even to the reader who wishes to extend his general knowledge of politics without a regular course of reading." Boston Transcript. "The work is one of the most valuable of its series, discussing its subject in all its phases as illustrated in the world's history. The chapters on Constitu- tions, on Foreign Relations, on the Province of Government, and on Right and Wrong in Politics, are particularly able and thoughtful. In that on Revolu- tions in States, the unreasonableness of the attempted revolution of the South- ern States in this country is disposed of in a few incisive sentences." Boston Gazette. For sale by att booksellers ; or sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street DISEASES OF MEMORY: AN ESSAY IN THE POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY. By TH. RIBOT, Author of "Heredity," etc. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY WILLIAM HUNTINGTON SMITH. 12mo. Cloth, $1.80. "Not merely to scientific, but to all thinking men, this volume will prove intensely interesting." ./Yew York Observer. "M. Ribot has bestowed the most painstaking attention upon his theme, and numerous examples of the conditions considered greatly increase the value and interest of the volume." Philadelphia North American. " ' Memory, 1 says M. Ribot, ' is a general function of the nervous system. It is based upon the faculty possessed by the nervous elements of conserving a received modification and of forming associations.' And again : l Memory is a biological fact. A rich and extensive memory is not a collection of impressions, but an accumulation of dynamical associations, very stable and very responsive to proper stimuli. . . . The brain is like a laboratory full of movement where thousands of operations are going on all at once. Unconscious cerebration, not being subject to restrictions of time, operating, so to speak, only in space, may act in several directions at the same moment. Consciousness is the narrow gate through which a very small part of all this work is able to reach us.' M. Ribot thus reduces diseases of memory to law, and his treatise is of extraordinary interest." Philadelphia Press. "The general deductions reached by M. Ribot from the data here collected are summed up in the formulation of a law of regression, based upon the phy Bio- logical principle that ' degeneration first affects what has been most recently formed/ and upon the psychological principle that * the complex disappears before the simple because it has not been repeated so often in experience.' According to this law of regression, the loss of recollection in cases of general dissolution of the memory follows an invariable path, proceeding from recent events to ideas in general, then to feelings, and lastly to acts. In the best- known cases of partial dissolution or aphasia, forgetfulness follows the same course, beginning with proper names, passing to common nouns, then to ad- jectives and verbs, then to interjections, and lastly to gestures. M. Ribot sub- mits that the exactitude of his laws of regression is verified in those rare cases where progressive dissolution of the memory is followed by recovery, recollec- tions being observed to return in an inverse order to that in which they dia- appeared. 1 New York Sun. "To the general reader the work is made entertaining by many illustrations connected with such names as Linnaeus, Newton, Sir Walter Scott, Horace Ver- net, Gustave Dore", and many others." Harrisburg Telegraph. "The whole subject is presented with a Frenchman's vivacity of style." Providence Journal. "It is not too much to say that in no single work have so many curious oises been brought together and interpreted in a scientific manner." Boston Evening Traveller. " Specially interesting to the general reader." -Chicago Interior. For sale by all booksellers; or sent by mail, post-paid, an receipt of prio*. New York: D. APPLETON CO., 1, 3, & 6 Bond Street. ANTS, BEES, AND WASPS. A Record of Observations on the Habits of the Social Hymenoptera. By Sir JOHN LTJBBOCK, Bart., M. P., F, E. S., etc., Author of " Origin of Civilization, and the Primitive Condition of Man," etc., etc. WITH COLORED PLATES. 12MO. Cloth, $2.00. " This volume contains the record of various experiments made with ants, bees, and wasps during the last ten years, with a view to test their mental condition and powers of sense. The principal point in which Sir John's mode of experiment differs from those of Huber, Forel, McCook, and others, is that he has carefully watched and marked particular insects, and has had their nests under observation for long periods one of his ants 1 nests having been under constant inspection ever since 1874. His observations are made principally upon ants because they show more power and flexi- bility of mind; and the value of his studies is that they belong to the department of original research." " We have no hesitation in saying that the author has presented us with the most valuable series of observations on a special subject that has ever been produced, charm- ingly written, full of logical deductions, and, when we consider his multitudinous en- gagements, a remarkable illustration of economy of time. As a contribution to insect psychology, it will be long before this book finds a parallel." London Athenaeum. " These studies, when handled by such a master as Sir John Lubbock, rise far above the ordinary dry treatment of such topics. The work is an effort made to discover what are the general, not the special, laws which govern communties of insects com- posed of inhabitants as numerous as the human beings living in London and Peking, and who labor together in the utmost harmony for the common good. That there are re- markable analogies between societies of ants and human beings no one can doubt. If, according to Mr. Grote, ' positive morality under some form or other has existed in every society of which the world has ever had experience,' the present volume is an effort to show whether this passage be correct or not" New York Times. " In this work the reader will find the record of a series of experiments and obser- vations more thorough and ingenious than those instituted by any of the accomplished author's predecessors. ... Sir John has been a close observer of the habits of ants for many years, generally having from thirty to forty communities under his notice, and not only watching each of these in its carefully isolated glass house, but, by the use of paint-marks, following the fortunes of individuals. . . . One notable result of this sys- tem has been the correcting of previous theories as to the age to which ants attain : in- stead of living merely a year, as the popular belief has been, some of Sir John's queens and workers are thriving after being under observation since 1874 and 1875." Nw York World. " Sir John Lubbock's book on ' Ants, Bees, and Wasps ' is mainly devoted to the crawlers, and not the fliers, though he has some observations upon honey-bees and more interesting ones upon the unpopular wasp, which he fondly deems to be capable of gratitude. Darwin made a strong caso for the monkeys, but Imbbock may yet make us out to be, as Irishmen say, ' The sons of our ants.' For he begins his enter- taining book thus: 'The anthropoid apes no doubt approach nearer to man in bodily structure than do any other animals, but, when we consider the habits of ants, their large communities and elaborate habitations, their roadways, their possession of do- mestic animals, and, even in some cases, of slaves, it must be admitted that they havo a fair claim to rank next to man in the scale of intelligence.' "Sprinofleld Republican. For sale by all booksellers or sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. BTew York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 8, & 5 Bond Street. THE BRAIN AND ITS FUNCTIONS, By J. LTIYS, Physician to the Hospice de la Salpetri6re. With Illustrations. 12mo, cloth. Price, $1.5O. " No living physiologist is better entitled to speak with authority upon the structure wxl functions of the brain than Dr. Luys. His studies on the anatomy of the nervous system are acknowledged to be the fullest and most systematic ever undertaken. 1 " St. James's Gazette. "Dr. Luys, at the head of the great French Insane Asylum, is one of the most eminent and successful investigators of cerebral science now living 1 ; and he has given unquestionably the clearest and most interesting brief account yet made of the struct- ure and operations of the brain." Popular Science Monthly. u It is not too much to say that M. Luys has gone further than any other investi- gator Into this great field of study, and only those who are at least dimly aware of the vast changes going on in the realm of psychology can appreciate the importance of his revelations. Particularly interesting and valuable are the chapters dealing with the genesis and evolution of memory, the development of automatic activity, and the de- velopment of the notion of personality. 11 Boston Evening Traveller. Thanks to his method of cutting the brain into thin sections, hardening them with his physiology is still more so. He has reached conclusions which will be of high im- portance in the treatment of mental diseases and derangements." Boston Courier. " M. Luys is one of the most indefatigable of explorers. The first part of the volume is devoted to the anatomy of the brain ; the second part is purely physiological, and naturally shades into the domain of psychology. The author says : ' I have endeavored to show that the most complex acts of psycho-intellectual activity are all definitely resolvable, by the analysis of nervous activity, into regular processes ; that they obey regular laws of evolution ; that, like all their organic fellows, they are capable of being interrupted or disturbed in their manifestations by dislocations occurring in the essen- tial structure of the organic substratum which supports them ; and that, in a word, there is from this time fbrth a true physiology of the brain, as legitimately established, as legitimately constituted, as that of the heart, lungs, and muscular system.'" Philadelphia Press. " For years the brain has formed the subject of Dr. Luys's public lectures at the great asylum over which he presides. He has paid particular attention to these as yet Ettle explored regions, the nervous centers, making, for that purpose, regularly strati- fied seetions of the cerebral tissue, and faithfully reproducing them by means of pho- tography. In this way he has been able to throw fresh light on the intricate structure of the nerve-cell and the organization of its protoplasm. Having thus examined the elementary properties of the nervous system, he has proceeded to show how it operates in producing the phenomena of cerebral physiology, and, carrying the data of contem- porary physiology into the domain of speculative psychology, he has endeavored to show that the most complex acts of psycho-intellectual activity are all definitely re- solvable into regular processes and obey regular laws of evolution." Montreal Gazette. For sale by all booksellers; or sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 5O CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. OST 20 1S- 1UH R 1944 OU'^ UBRARY [j SE SEP 3 .1 J959 ~ lft) .^ ~ tfrv* REC'D 1 MHY27 I RR-1PM LD 21-100m-7,'33 YB 06832