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 (^>LgU<AX^f
 
 ETHICS OF 
 DEMOCRACY 
 
 A Series of Optimistic Essays 
 
 on the Natural Laws of 
 
 Human Society 
 
 By 
 LOUIS F. POST 
 
 MOODY PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 35 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK 
 
 1601 UNITY BUILDING, CHICAGO
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1903, 
 BY Louis F. POST.
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 HENRY GEORGE 
 
 PRECEPTOR AND FRIEND 
 
 a Philosopher who profoundly explored the princi- 
 ples of social life for very love of mankind, a Po- 
 litical Economist who scientifically traced eco- 
 nomic laws to their roots in the moral law, 
 a popular Leader who quailed before no 
 moral wrong, a devoted Champion 
 whose faith was grounded in 
 moral right, a constructive 
 Statesman who saw in the 
 ethics of democracy the 
 natural laws of 
 human progress. 
 
 iii
 
 Association in equality is the law of progress. 
 Association frees mental power for expenditure in 
 improvement, and equality, or justice, or freedom 
 for the terms here signify the same thing, the recog- 
 nition of the moral law prevents the dissipation of 
 this power in fruitless struggles. Here is the law 
 of progress, which will explain all diversities, all 
 advances, all halts, and retrogressions. HENRY 
 GEORGE, in "Progress and Poverty," Ch. III. of 
 Book X. 
 
 The law of human progress, what is it but the 
 moral law? Just as social adjustments promote jus- 
 tice, just as they acknowledge the equality of right 
 between man and man, just as they insure to each 
 the perfect liberty which is bounded only by the 
 equal liberty of every other, must civilization ad- 
 vance. Just as they fail in this, must advancing 
 civilization come to a halt and recede. "Progress 
 and Poverty," same chapter. 
 
 IV
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 DEDICATION iii 
 
 INTRODUCTION DEMOCRACY ix 
 
 PART ONE THE DEMOCRATIC OPTIMIST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. Spurious Optimism 5 
 
 CHAPTER II. Affirmative Negations and Negative Affir- 
 mations 9 
 
 CHAPTER III. Optimistic Pessimism 13 
 
 CHAPTER IV. Destruction for Construction 16 
 
 PART Two INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. The College Graduate 23 
 
 CHAPTER II. Success 26 
 
 CHAPTER III. Respecting the Respectable 41 
 
 PART THREE BUSINESS LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. Honesty the Best Policy 49 
 
 CHAPTER II. Justice or Sacrifice 56 
 
 CHAPTER III. Service for Service 67 
 
 CHAPTER IV. Great Fortunes 79 
 
 PART FOUR ECONOMIC TENDENCIES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. Department Stores 87 
 
 CHAPTER II. General Business Concentration ... 95 
 
 CHAPTER III. The Rage for Trusts 100 
 
 CHAPTER IV. The Trend of the Trust 109 
 
 CHAPTER V. The Trust as a Natural Evolution . . . 114 
 
 CHAPTER VI. The Trust and Socialism 123 
 
 CHAPTER VII The Trust and the Single Tax .... 131 
 
 v
 
 vi 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART FIVE POLITICO-ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I. Political Econorriy a Science of Tendencies 147 
 
 CHAPTER II. Free Competition 158 
 
 CHAPTER III The Laborer and his Hire 177 
 
 CHAPTER IV. The Wages System 185 
 
 CHAPTER V. Our Foreign Trade 197 
 
 CHAPTER VI. An Economic Exploration and Survey . . 218 
 
 CHAPTER VII. Social Evolution 249 
 
 PART Six DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. Self -Government 259 
 
 CHAPTER II. Universal Suffrage 269 
 
 CHAPTER III. Crime and Criminals 275 
 
 CHAPTER IV Public Debts 282 
 
 CHAPTER V. Trial by Jury 287 
 
 CHAPTER VI. Imperialism 299 
 
 PART SEVEN PATRIOTISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. What is Patriotism? 319 
 
 CHAPTER II. Patriotic Ideals 331 
 
 CHAPTER III. Trampling upon Patriotic Ideals .... 336 
 
 CHAPTER IV. Partisanship 345 
 
 CHAPTER V. Patriotic Celebrations 349 
 
 CONCLUSION THE GREAT ORDER OF THINGS 355 
 
 INDEX . . xxiv
 
 INTRODUCTION
 
 "Fear, Craft and Avarice 
 Cannot rear a State. 
 
 EMERSON. 
 
 It is certain that democracy annoys one part of the community, 
 and that aristocracy oppresses another part. 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE'S "Democracy in America." 
 
 'There never was separate heart-beat in all the races of men. 
 
 JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. 
 
 Wherever man oppresses man 
 
 Beneath Thy liberal sun, 
 O God ! be there Thine arm made bare, 
 
 Thy righteous will be done. 
 
 JOHN HAY. 
 
 vm
 
 INTRODUCTION DEMOCRACY 
 
 "\ X 7 HEN you are a-going to talk about democracy," 
 
 V V said an observant Negro speaker in a political 
 campaign in Texas, "you want to name the brand." It 
 was a significant remark, and its importance is by no 
 means limited to the exigencies of political campaign- 
 ing in Texas. Democracy is everywhere a word of 
 varied meaning. Some of its meanings, too, are as 
 illegitimate as the Negro campaigner must have sus- 
 pected. 
 
 Its verbal parentage is legitimately traced, of course, 
 to two Greek words which signify respectively "the peo- 
 ple" and "government." In the strict etymological sense, 
 therefore, democracy means government by all the people 
 governed. It stands out, in that sense, with contra- 
 distinctive emphasis against monarchy, which is gov- 
 ernment by one ; against anarchy, which is government by 
 none ; and against aristocracy, which is government by a 
 privileged few. 
 
 But the term has acquired numerous colloquial mean- 
 ings, some of which retain hardly a family resemblance 
 to its etymology. The particular concept, "government," 
 often fades out of the word quite completely, while the 
 broad general concept, "all the people," shrinks to a mere 
 class significance. Democracy comes thus to be an allu- 
 sion to the common life of the so-called "lower classes." 
 
 Of this species there are many varieties, and all are ac- 
 cepted by the multifarious grades of society as genuine 
 democracy, though with different connotations in dif-
 
 x INTRODUCTION 
 
 fercnt social grades. In some grades the word stimulates ; 
 for there it is the shibboleth of the sturdy common people. 
 Other classes are sickened by it; to them it connotes 
 nauseous vulgarity. 
 
 One of the varieties of this species of democracy is 
 distinguished for its concern with personal manners. Men 
 are frequently called democratic merely because their 
 manners are boorish, without the slightest reference to 
 their convictions regarding either government or the peo- 
 ple. Confirmed aristocrats, for instance, are described as 
 democratic, because they occasionally knock about in their 
 shirt sleeves as "hail-fellow-well-met," with temporarily 
 agreeable groups of their social "inferiors." So the 
 men they knock about with are accounted democrats, 
 though for no other reason than that they are poor or 
 uncouth or both. In this derivative sense, democracy is 
 an illegitimate word. 
 
 No man is genuinely democratic merely because he as- 
 sociates upon terms of good fellowship with persons 
 whom he regards as inferior not even if he likes it. 
 Neither are these associates of his democratic merely 
 because they belong to an "inferior" social class. Fur- 
 thermore, it is not genuine democracy to pattern after 
 classes commonly accounted inferior, by imitating their 
 modes of dress or other habits of life. Such affectations 
 are in themselves no more democratic than is the life 
 of those classes in itself. Democracy raises no question of 
 clas^ life, class habits, class manners, or class dress. Shirt 
 sleeves do not make a democrat, nor does a dress suit 
 make an aristocrat. 
 
 But let no one infer that democracy has nothing to do 
 with personal behavior. Genuine manners, the manners 
 that come from good feeling rather than from mere train-
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 ing, those especially that spring from a living faith in the 
 essential equality of men such manners are democratic 
 in the truest possible sense. 
 
 In that sense of the word, all true gentlemen are demo- 
 crats and all true democrats are gentlemen. The man 
 of sterling democratic manners recoils from the patron- 
 izing spirit. Whatever he does for others is done simply 
 as one of them not as a benevolent boss but as a brother 
 or neighbor ; and whatever he receives from others he re- 
 ceives in the same respectful spirit of fraternal equality. 
 He recoils, moreover, from trespassing upon the rights 
 of any fellow man, as instinctively as he would resent 
 a trespass upon his own rights. 
 
 His perception of rights may indeed be distorted. 
 Familiar customs, class associations, misleading modes 
 of thought, sham patriotism, may have produced in his 
 mind fantastic effects. Inordinate cultivation of love 
 for his own country, for instance, may have enveloped 
 his thought in a provincialism that makes other countries 
 seem more or less uncivilized. Or, he may have grown up 
 in a slave community where he has learned to think of 
 the rights of slaves as differing greatly from the rights 
 of free men. He may, again, belong to a "superior" race 
 group which inculcates the doctrine of inferior rights for 
 men of "inferior" races. If a scion of aristocracy, he may 
 have come to look upon the rights of the common people 
 as subordinate to those of his own class. If a rich par- 
 venu, he may differentiate between the rights of the rich 
 and those of the poor. If a baffled poor man, he may in- 
 vest the poor with rights that he would deny to the rich. 
 There is nothing so subtly difficult as emancipating 
 one's mind from the influence of one's habitual environ- 
 ment.
 
 xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 But let his perception of rights be never so strangely 
 distorted, the democratic gentleman respects in others 
 of all classes, all the rights that he perceives them to 
 possess. Nor is that the whole of it. In this fraternal 
 disposition of his there lies the germ of that perfect 
 democracy which is expressed by the Golden Rule. It 
 gradually pierces the crust of such class prejudices as he 
 may have, and in good time blossoms out into unreserved 
 recognition of natural rights universally equal. Genuine 
 democracy of this personal species flourishes in all coun- 
 tries, among all classes, with all races, and in every 
 condition of life. 
 
 As that species of democracy spreads and strengthens, 
 it develops the governmental type, with which the present 
 volume is most directly concerned. The word preserves 
 in the latter use the full etymological sense of govern- 
 ment by all the people governed, this type of democracy 
 being the democracy of the American Declaration of 
 Independence, which inculcates as a self-evident truth 
 the principle that governments derive their just powers 
 from the consent of the governed. But here also the 
 word has connotations that break the confines of its ety- 
 mology. It involves not only the idea of government by 
 all the people governed, which implies an equal voice in 
 the common counsels, but likewise the idea of government 
 in recognition of and harmony with the principle of equal 
 natural rights in all other respects. Even government 
 by all is not democratic, when it makes discriminations 
 as to persons or classes with reference to natural rights. 
 On this point, too, the meaning of democracy is illumined 
 by the Declaration of Independence. Not merely does 
 government derive its just powers from the consent of 
 the governed, as that American magna charta asserts;
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 but, as it also asserts, government can derive no powers 
 that are unjust, even from the governed themselves. For 
 governments, says this venerated document, are instituted 
 for the sole purpose of securing natural rights. The same 
 idea was expressed by Madison when advocating, in 
 conjunction with Hamilton and Jay, the adoption of the 
 Federal Constitution. In the 51st number of the Fed- 
 eralist, Madison wrote: "Justice is the end of govern- 
 ment. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, 
 and ever will be pursued, until it be obtained, or until 
 liberty be lost in the pursuit." 
 
 Sometimes those sentiments are ascribed, with an air 
 of their being thus finally disposed of, to an "obsolete 
 political philosophy of the eighteenth century." With 
 materialistic scholars and cunning "grafters" this off- 
 hand disposal of the subject has become, indeed, quite 
 the fashion. But a moral law does not lose its virtues 
 because the philosophy that emphasizes it is pronounced 
 obsolete ; and the moral law of equal human rights cannot 
 be so easily set aside. 
 
 As was written a score of years ago, by the teacher* 
 to whom these essays are dedicated: "There are those 
 who, when it suits their purpose, say that there are no 
 natural rights, but that all rights spring from the grant 
 of the sovereign political power. It were waste of time 
 to argue with such persons. There are some facts so ob- 
 vious as to be beyond the necessity of argument. And 
 one of these facts, attested by universal consciousness, is 
 that there are rights as between man and man which 
 existed before the formation of government, and which 
 continue to exist in spite of the abuse of government; 
 that there is a higher law than any human law to wit, 
 
 * " Social Problems" by HENRY GEORGE. Ch. X.
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 the law of the Creator, impressed upon and revealed 
 through nature, which is before and above human laws, 
 and upon conformity to which all human laws must 
 depend for their validity." 
 
 He who denies that conclusion may be an aristocrat 
 or a monarchist, a socialist or an anarchist, an "annointed 
 of the Lord" or a hooligan in the street, but, whether 
 rich or poor, whether high born or low born, whether 
 wise or simple, pious or profane, whatever his religious, 
 economic or political professions or labels, such a man 
 is not a democrat. The democratic idea as applied to gov- 
 ernment demands that equality of fundamental rights be 
 recognized as a natural endowment to be protected as 
 a public duty. 
 
 Such is the spirit of this volume. Its democracy is 
 generic, not partisan. If at times it leans towards the 
 Democratic party of American politics, that is only as 
 the Democratic party is democratic. In so far as the 
 Republican party is democratic, its sympathies are with 
 that party also. The fact must not be forgotten that 
 there is a strain of democracy in the history of both 
 parties. Both sprang into being from a democratic im- 
 pulse. Each has represented historic democratic move- 
 ments. Even the democratic name would have been 
 appropriated by the younger party but for its pre-appro- 
 priation by the older. That these two parties are branches 
 of the same democratic trunk their history fully attests. 
 
 Half a century before the present Republican party 
 was organized, Jefferson and his followers had called 
 their party Republican. They were democrats, but 
 "democrat" was as objectionable then as "anarchist" is 
 now. For that reason the word served excellently as one 
 of those verbal bludgeons which respectable mobs like
 
 INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 to hurl at those who do not agree with them. Such blud- 
 geons bruise worse than brickbats, curiously enough, and 
 it is safer to throw them. It is much easier, moreover, 
 than argument, and far more effective with the mob- 
 both the upper mob and the lower. So the Federalists 
 sneered at the original Republicans as "democrats," and 
 the offensive epithet stuck. As usual with offensive epi- 
 thets that stick to good movements, it came later on to 
 be adopted with honor as a substitute for the official 
 name. Consequently, when the slave power had wrung 
 most of the democracy out of the Democratic party, and 
 a new democracy arose in the middle of the century, 
 this new democracy could not appropriate the democratic 
 name. It was already the cherished political trade-mark 
 of what had degenerated into an amazingly undemocratic 
 Democratic party. As the new democracy was thus pre- 
 vented from adopting its most appropriate name, it did 
 the next best thing. Having revived Jefferson's princi- 
 ples, it resurrected his party name and called itself Re- 
 publican. 
 
 This democratic party of Lincoln, with the resurrected 
 name of the old democratic party of Jefferson, made an 
 enviable democratic record, somewhat mottled to be sure, 
 and there are still within it sterling democratic ele- 
 ments. But, as with its predecessor of the anti-slavery 
 period, its democratic elements have long been without 
 influence in the leadership. Very much as the power of 
 wealth rooted in a slavery system once absorbed the 
 Democratic party and silenced the democracy within it, so 
 has the power of even greater and more arrogant wealth, 
 rooted in a complex system of special privilege and 
 fostered by an industrial era of high tension, absorbed its 
 Republican successor and silenced the democracy within
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 that. With this silencing of the democracy of the Re- 
 publican party, however, the democracy of the Demo- 
 cratic party has slowly revived. The democrats of the 
 American electorate are consequently separated by party 
 lines. In the Republican party are the democratic Re- 
 publicans whose democracy has been silenced by party 
 authority; in the Democratic party are the democratic 
 Democrats who struggle hopefully against a greedy and 
 cunning bi-partisan plutocracy for party control. 
 
 It is to these democratic Democrats and democratic 
 Republicans that the following reflections upon demo- 
 cratic ethics are addressed. One of the chapters appeared 
 originally in the "Arena," of Boston and New York ; an- 
 other in "What's the Use," of East Aurora, N. Y. ; a third 
 in a Labor Day paper of Canada, and a fourth in the 
 "Mirror," of St. Louis. To those publications cordial 
 acknowledgments for permission to revise and repub- 
 lish are hereby made. The other chapters were published 
 originally as editorials in "The Public," of Chicago. 
 They comprise the permanent parts of nearly all the prin- 
 cipal editorials in elucidation of this general subject 
 which the writer, as editor of "The Public," contributed 
 to that periodical during the first five years of its publi- 
 cation. Arranged now in logical sequence and partly re- 
 written, the collection as a whole offers an optimistic 
 presentation of the democratic theory of human society. 
 
 There are places in which these essays will doubtless 
 seem to be dogmatic. If they are so, it is only in form of 
 expression and not in spirit. But even in the form of 
 expression there is really no dogmatism, although the 
 contrary inference may very well be drawn from their 
 positive style. This positiveness, indeed, is intentional, 
 and there is a reason for it. He who has something
 
 INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 affirmative to say, or thinks he has, ought to say it posi- 
 tively if he says it at all. Fumbling is inexcusable in 
 printer's ink ; while positiveness has at least the one rec- 
 ommendation of implying that the author has given his 
 own best thought to his work and believes in what he 
 writes. 
 
 But readers need not believe because the author does. 
 The function of positive writing is not to coerce readers ; 
 it is to arouse their interest, stimulate their thought, and 
 encourage them to develop their intelligence. The in- 
 dolent reader may fall into the temptation of raising the 
 easy objection to positive styles of writing that they are 
 dogmatic ; but let him be assured that it will benefit him 
 more to try to find out for himself why the "dogmatism" 
 isn't true. It is equally desirable, of course, if he inclines 
 to assent too readily, to find out for himself why it is 
 true. 
 
 A more important objection to the essays than that 
 they are dogmatic, may float to the top in indolent and 
 thoughtless minds, or be thrown upon the surface of such 
 minds by trusted leaders who love darkness rather than 
 light, the objection, namely, that they are "pessimistic." 
 
 To that objection the essays themselves furnish a full 
 answer. The sum and substance of their "pessimism" is 
 simply this, that they condemn what is evil. They apply 
 to human society the principle of the Jewish prophet, that 
 great principle of moral order which determines the in- 
 variable sequence of human progress the law that men 
 must cease to do evil before they can learn to do well. If 
 this be pessimism, let the most be made of it. But it is 
 not pessimism. On the contrary, it is the fundamental 
 law of all sane optimism. 
 
 One more possible criticism may properly be antici-
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 pated. The essays are open to the objection of being 
 "academic," because they deal so much with familiar 
 facts and elementary principles and so little with obscure 
 details. A book on ethics should need no apology for 
 that. But quite apart from this reply, it may be urged 
 that there is peculiar necessity, in these days of which 
 Mr. Gradgrind must have had encouraging dreams, for 
 repeatedly harking back to what is elementary and ought 
 to be familiar. 
 
 It is illustrated by the old lawyers' story of a young 
 practitioner who was arguing elementary principles of 
 law very elaborately before an appellate court. "You 
 may assume," interrupted one of the judges, with a shade 
 of dignified impatience, "that the Court knows a little 
 law." Quite good naturedly the lawyer retorted: "I 
 made that assumption in the court below, your Honor, 
 and that is the reason I have had to appeal." 
 
 Nothing is so badly needed in our day, for the solution 
 of social, industrial and political problems, as academic 
 discussion. There has been altogether too much un- 
 questioned devotion of late years to inductive nebulosity. 
 Undigested and indigestible statistics, miscellaneous facts 
 without unifying theories, "scientific" fancies without 
 logical substance, have been allowed too much liberty in 
 crowding out deductive processes. So customary has it 
 become to ignore general principles and distort logical 
 analysis, that ability to reason with precision about ab- 
 stract subjects of common interest and facts of common 
 knowledge, is an unusual accomplishment. The syllo- 
 gistic method, which demands exactness of thought, has 
 been largely displaced by loose analogical habits and 
 speculative inferences from "facts and figures." 
 
 Nor is that intellectual degeneracy confined to the
 
 INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 "vulgar herd." Even sociological specialists are in the 
 habit, which Emerson condemned, of classifying things 
 by their accidental appearances instead of by their rela- 
 tions of cause and effect. These experts have abandoned 
 themselves so completely to the minute study of multi- 
 tudes of minor and segregated facts relating to social life, 
 that they lose sight altogether of the few great facts and 
 their natural relations, and superciliously ignore the domi- 
 nating principles that fairly thrust themselves into the 
 mind when these relations are considered. Through over- 
 training in particularization they seem to have lost the 
 power of generalization, thereby confirming the theory 
 that Macaulay advanced when, in his essay on History, 
 he wrote: "The talent of deciding on the circumstances 
 of a particular case is often possessed in the highest per- 
 fection by persons destitute of the power of generaliza- 
 tion. . . . Indeed, the species of discipline by which 
 this dexterity is acquired tends to contract the mind and 
 to render it incapable of abstract reasoning." What the 
 older lawyers alluded to when they used to speak con- 
 temptuously of "case lawyers" is what many modern 
 students of social philosophy have come to be. The "case 
 lawyer" ignored general principles and flourished upon 
 heterogeneous precedents; the modern social student, 
 also ignoring general principles, thrives upon heteroge- 
 neous instances. There is necessity, therefore, for em- 
 phasizing the elementary natural principles of social life, 
 those laws of human intercourse that need only to be 
 understood to be accepted; and that is what in this 
 volume is attempted. 
 
 The opening chapters deal with the ethics of democracy 
 in their bearing upon expectations of human progress. 
 The difference is here considered between spurious and
 
 XX 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 genuine optimism between that vulgar optimism which 
 is after all nothing but reckless indifference to social 
 wrong-doing or wicked love for it, and the wholesome 
 and effective kind of optimism which abhors and con- 
 demns what is wrong and inculcates what is right. With 
 this difference distinguished, the way is clear for an ex- 
 posure of some of the pitfalls that yawn for young men 
 as they step over the threshold of youth and advance 
 along the pathway of serious social life. These are not 
 the pitfalls of personal immorality of which young men 
 are properly but abundantly warned by other writers. 
 They are pitfalls regarding which it is held in high 
 places to be pessimistic to give warning. As a rule, such 
 pitfalls are scrupulously and often artistically hidden 
 from the sight of young men by the affectionate folly of 
 their experienced elders. It is regarded as only a fraud 
 of the pious order to assure them that there are no dan- 
 gers of that kind. So young men fall into these hidden 
 and decorated pitfalls, in shoals fall into them helplessly 
 without knowing that they exist. They are even pushed 
 in, to make a causeway over which a few of their privi- 
 leged fellows may pass on to ignoble success. Demo- 
 cratic ethics demand that this pious fraud be exposed, 
 to the end that young men may appreciate the dangers 
 that characterize our undemocratic social life, and may 
 strive for a realization of the democratic principles under 
 which no man's failure is necessary for any man's suc- 
 cess. 
 
 Out of this application of democratic ethics to indi- 
 vidual life there naturally develops a consideration of 
 democracy in business life. That in turn brings forward 
 for examination a variety of economic tendencies and 
 their governing politico-economic principles, through
 
 INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 which the democratic ideal lights the way. With the 
 economics of social life grasped, the problems of demo- 
 cratic government are easier to solve; and out of their 
 solution there rises a conception of patriotism the thrill 
 of which no man can know until he understands that 
 the world is his country and all its inhabitants are his 
 fellow citizens. 
 
 The concluding chapter expresses what the preceding 
 ones suggest, the truth that in the moral as in the material 
 universe there is a great order, a great harmony, con- 
 formity to which leads mankind upward and onward. 
 
 Out of that harmony the ethics of democracy are 
 evolved. Along with its development the victories of 
 democracy are won. And what nobly practical ethics! 
 What soul-stirring victories ! 
 
 Consider the ethical touchstone of democracy the 
 principle of the brotherhood of man. As true to absolute 
 morals as the needle to the pole, its use with intelligent 
 sincerity precludes all ethical error. There is no social 
 problem so intricate, no labyrinth of political affairs so 
 confusing, that its ethical difficulties cannot be overcome 
 by submission in good faith to that great moral principle. 
 "Foremost and grandest amid the teachings of Christ," 
 said Mazzini, "were these two inseparable truths 'There 
 is but one God ; all men are the sons of God.' " That is 
 no pious platitude. It is a recognition of the fundamen- 
 tal law of social life. And Lowell explained its applica- 
 tion when he wrote: "He's true to God who's true to 
 man." 
 
 Behold, too, democracy's splendid victories! What is 
 the history of social progress but a story of successive 
 struggles in which larger and larger opportunities for all 
 have been wrested from more and more subtle modes of
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 privilege for the few? What is it but a story of succes- 
 sive achievements for freedom over tyranny, on higher 
 and higher planes? What is it but a story of successive 
 triumphs for the rights of men over the might of mas- 
 ters? 
 
 Nor has that, story ended. The struggle is still on. 
 "Freedom is re-created year by year, in hearts wide open 
 on the Godward side." Now as ever it is as easy to be 
 democratic heroes 
 
 " . . . . as to sit the idle slaves, 
 Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves." 
 
 Even here and now "Ormuzd still fights with Ahriman 
 the Prince of Light with the Powers of Darkness"; and 
 "he who will hear, to him the clarions of the battle call." 
 The warfare of democracy against privilege in the most 
 subtle forms it has yet disclosed, has but just begun. Yet 
 we may confidently believe, with the optimism of the 
 true democrat, that this modern battle for the ethics of 
 democracy will end, as all those that have preceded it in 
 the history of the race have ended, in a victory for rights 
 over privileges. 
 
 Imperial power and economic monopoly may prosper 
 for a time, but only democracy is strong to the end. For 
 democracy is an expression of righteousness, and right- 
 eousness alone can ultimately prevail. When righteous- 
 ness does prevail, then will there be universal peace ; not 
 the ghastly peace of the tomb, but the loving peace of 
 brotherly justice. And with that peace will come pros- 
 perity ; not the prosperity of a Dives with its crumbs for 
 a Lazarus, but abundant prosperity for Lazarus and 
 Dives both on the just condition that the one quit beg- 
 ging and the other plundering, and that both go to
 
 INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 work. This is the era of natural law and social order 
 which it is the function of democracy to usher in. This 
 is what the social life will be when righteousness and 
 peace shall have kissed, and the ethics of democracy are 
 the acknowledged ethics of the race.
 
 PART ONE 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC OPTIMIST
 
 Cease to do evil; learn to do well. 
 
 ISAIAH, Ch. i., vs. 16-17. 
 
 What youth-hope for spirit when striving is old? 
 What warmth-hope for heart with a hearthstone a-cold? 
 What joy-hope for birth while a birth-right is sold? 
 
 E. J. SALISBURY, in The Public, February 3, 1900. 
 
 See how the passing age toils on its way 
 Down Time's long thoroughfare. Erect by day, 
 In painful show of pride, by night it creeps 
 Toward Babylon along the sombre steeps 
 That bound Oblivion. Huge, weary, old, 
 The passing, dying age, grown rich, grows cold. 
 
 But once this age was lithe, once strong and young, 
 Once leaped its heart, once rang the song it sung, 
 Once Freedom was its queen, and from her throne 
 Men heard the wonder-words : "Ye are your own 1" 
 Then eager Hope looked forth to halcyon days 
 Of earth all beautiful and life all praise. 
 
 But now the watchers stand, and now they peer, 
 And those of fainter heart grow sick with fear 
 To see the old, weak age draw near the line 
 Where reckoning History waits to whisper: "Mine!" 
 But down from other heights a gladder cry, 
 Swift -winged of joy "A dawning age!" sweeps by. 
 
 And Hope shall find an endless halcyon day, 
 And Freedom, crowned again, shall reign for aye, 
 While Music sings the mother-song of earth 
 To men made men again, where highest worth 
 Leads on to Love; when once again is blown 
 The clarion-call of Truth : "Ye are your own !" 
 
 E. J. SALISBURY, in The Public, December 2, 1899. 
 3
 
 For though the laws of Justice seem to sleep, 
 They never sleep ; but like the ocean's flood 
 
 They creep up to the water mark of God, 
 And when they ebb there is but silent slime. 
 
 C. E. S. WOOD, in The Public, April 26, 1902. 
 
 "They have turned earth upside down," 
 
 Says the foe; 
 "They have come to bring our town 
 
 Wreck and woe." 
 To this never-ending cry 
 Boldly here we make reply: 
 Yea and no. 
 
 Upside down the world has lain 
 
 Many a year; 
 We to turn it back again 
 
 Now appear. 
 
 Will ye, nill ye, we will do 
 What at last no man shall rue; 
 
 Have no fear. 
 
 STEPHEN T. BYINGTON.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SPURIOUS OPTIMISM 
 
 THERE is no allusion here to the schools of philoso- 
 phy known respectively as "optimistic" and "pessi- 
 mistic." The reference is altogether to those colloquial 
 habits of speech which stigmatize fault-finders indiscrimi- 
 nately as pessimists, and commend mere applause-makers 
 as optimists. While pessimism as a philosophy has been 
 correctly characterized as a species of atheism, that char- 
 acterization is certainly not true of all fault-finding ; and 
 when fault-finding is called pessimism and then indis- 
 criminately denounced as atheism, which is quite a usual 
 thing, the characterization is so unjust as to warrant the 
 retort in kind that the optimism which consists in ap- 
 plause-making is devil worship. Indeed, what but devil 
 worship can it be to make applause for wrong-doing? 
 
 Optimism, as too commonly understood and boastfully 
 inculcated, is a spurious thing. So far from being a liv- 
 ing protest against atheism, as genuine optimism is, it is 
 nothing better than a manifestation of mental and spirit- 
 ual indolence. "Things have always come out right, and 
 they always will!" laughs the spurious optimist. And 
 then he turns his back upon the task his Lord proffers 
 him. He thinks of God as a miracle-worker, who makes 
 the world progress as He originally created it, by omnipo- 
 tent fiat, and wants no human co-operation but only 
 human applause. 
 
 Of this type of optimist was the lazy farmer who said, 
 one beautiful spring day, while standing upon his front
 
 6 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 stoop and looking out over a fallow field : If God wants a 
 crop of corn in that field, He will grow one ; if He doesn't, 
 He won't ; whatever is to be will be, and where's the use 
 of my tearing up the smooth hard ground with a plow? 
 Nay, I have faith in the goodness of God. I will go to 
 the circus and enjoy myself, while He makes a corn crop 
 for me if He wants me to have one." 
 
 It did not occur to this happy-go-lucky optimist that 
 God is rational and works in human affairs through 
 human channels and by means of human implements. 
 He did not realize that although God gives the increase, 
 some Paul must plant and some Apollos water. Instead 
 of resting his faith upon a rational God, as he in his 
 pagan ignorance supposed, he was resting it upon an 
 irrational and impossible miracle-working fetich. But 
 our lazy farmer truly types the spurious optimist in 
 whose philosophy of life everything is for the best 
 and will come out all right in the end. This species of 
 optimist seems to imagine that God in His goodness will 
 bring the increase, no matter whether a Paul plants and 
 an Apollos waters or not. Too lazy mentally to think, 
 too lazy spiritually to desire to act, they hail content- 
 ment as a virtue, and denounce as a pessimist whoever 
 disturbs their indolent serenity. 
 
 Think for a moment of the attitude of these spurious 
 optimists. It is not for them to consider indications of 
 social stagnation or decadence, nor to work for social 
 improvement. Leave all that to God ! To doubt the cer- 
 tainty of progress is to doubt Him. Are we as a nation 
 breaking away from our democratic moorings and drift- 
 ing as the republic of Rome did, into a whirlpool of 
 imperialism? "Never fear! God will take care of us. 
 Don't blaspheme Him by urging that the prow of the
 
 SPURIOUS OPTIMISM 7 
 
 ship of state be turned in another direction. He will do 
 that Himself if it is for the best. Let us enjoy the 
 exciting voyage. Don't be a pessimist!" Are our insti- 
 tutions making classes of very rich and very poor, of 
 luxurious idlers and impoverished workers ? "Impossible. 
 God is too good to allow that, and He is too wise and 
 powerful to need advice or help from us. Let us laugh 
 at these idle fears and enjoy the unparalleled progress 
 we are making. Don't be a pessimist!" 
 
 That is not genuine optimism. It is only the pathetic 
 optimism of the child in a boat, gliding swifter and swifter 
 down Niagara River on toward the brink of the thun- 
 dering cataract, that claps its hands in baby glee at the 
 flowers along the banks as they rush by, until the boat 
 topples on the very edge of the abyss. It is too late then 
 for genuine optimism. 
 
 Optimists of that spurious sort, who are really the most 
 dangerous of pessimists, never tire of cheerfully assuring 
 everybody that "the world moves onward and upward in 
 spite of grumblers and fault-finders." They seldom re- 
 flect that it is those they call grumblers and fault-finders, 
 the people who "rail," as they would put it, at community 
 evils the anti-monarchy Sam Adamses and Patrick 
 Henrys, the anti-slavery Garrisons and Beechers, the anti- 
 monopoly agitators of our own time who compel the 
 world to move onward and upward. Yet evils must be 
 rejected if progress is to be made. No community any 
 more than an individual soul ever learned to do well 
 without first ceasing to do evil. It is contrary to the 
 natural order. "Cease to do evil ; learn to do well," ex- 
 presses the universal sequence of human progress. And 
 as no imperfect individual would ever cease to do evil if 
 the grumblings and fault-findings of his conscience did
 
 8 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 not spur him to it, so no community evils would ever be 
 put aside if it were not for the grumblers and fault-finders 
 who disturb the social calm by demanding that society 
 cease to do evil in order that it may learn to do well. 
 
 What happy-go-lucky optimists have ever contributed 
 to the onward and upward movement of the world? 
 None. They seem to suppose that the world moves on 
 and up, not in consequence of impulses from so-called 
 "pessimists" who agonize for it, dying daily upon ten 
 thousand crosses for the remission of its sins, but through 
 some divinely miraculous influence if they belong to a 
 church, or some atheistically evolutionary process if their 
 affiliations are "scientific."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 S~\ PTIMISM of the happy-go-lucky sort has but one 
 V^/ test to distinguish good from bad. It clings to 
 the affirmative ; it abhors the negative. "I believe," said 
 the optimistic sponsor for one of the many new religious 
 movements, while explaining that his movement aimed to 
 promote the affirmative instead of the negative principle 
 of life "I believe," he said, "that by laying stress on 
 the affirmative, the world will be improved"; and then 
 he added, by way of exhortation : "The heart lays stress 
 on the affirmative when it loves, and on the negative when 
 it hates." 
 
 In its essence, that is good doctrine. But your spuri- 
 ous optimist makes its truth his falsehood. For he 
 ignores the spirit of the doctrine, which makes for life, 
 and clings to its letter, which kills. His error is not in 
 the principle he proclaims. The principle is true. It is in 
 his application of the principle. For he handily settles 
 the question of which of two opposing things is affirm- 
 ative, by adopting the one that happens, though by the 
 merest accident, to be affirmative in form. The tempta- 
 tion must be great to such a man to strike from the deca- 
 logue all the prohibitory commandments as pessimistic 
 negations. 
 
 In substance, affirmation is indeed life and negation 
 death. We should therefore prefer the affirmative to the 
 negative that which is engendered by love to that which
 
 io ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 is engendered by hate. But before doing so, let us be 
 sure that the subject of our choice is substance regardless 
 of form and not form regardless of substance. Affirma- 
 tive negations, which are affirmative in form but negate 
 the substance, must be distinguished from negative affir- 
 mations, which are negative in form but affirm the sub- 
 stance. 
 
 An impressive example of the negative affirmation is to 
 be found in the political history of the United States. 
 The Republican party at its birth was in form a party 
 of negation. It held but two leading doctrines, and both 
 were what at a more recent time would have been slang- 
 ily called "antics" "anti-slavery" and "anti-polygamy." 
 Yet, essentially, the Republican party was not a party of 
 negation. Though it held the negative side of the issues 
 of that day, it was nevertheless then the party of life and 
 progress. Its negation of the false was equivalent to an 
 affirmation of the true. Anti-slavery and anti-polygamy, 
 though in form negative, were in substance affirmative. 
 Anti-wrong is always pro-right 
 
 A very common example of word juggling for the 
 purpose of giving negations the appearance of affirma- 
 tions, and thereby misleading spurious optimists, may 
 often be observed in the proceedings of deliberative 
 bodies. It is a common trick of parliamentary tactics. 
 Whenever the tricky tactician's side of a question hap- 
 pens to be in negative form, he moves an amendment 
 which embodies essentially the same proposition in affirm- 
 ative form. For illustration: It is moved that ten 
 dollars be appropriated to such-and-such a purpose. If 
 this presents a proposition to which the tactician is op- 
 posed, he moves an amendment to the effect that the 
 purpose named be excluded from all appropriations. He
 
 AFFIRMATIVE NEGATIONS n 
 
 does this because he knows that the spurious opti- 
 mists, and they usually hold the balance of power in 
 assemblies, will vote "aye" as naturally as leaves wither 
 in the Fall. So, with an inexperienced opposition, to- 
 gether with an unfair or unsophisticated chairman, he 
 may succeed in this design, and win on an "aye" vote 
 the identical point that he would lose on a "nay" vote. 
 A little intelligent reflection upon this common parlia- 
 mentary trick should suggest to spurious optimists that 
 more wholesome affirmation may be concealed in negative 
 forms than they had suspected. 
 
 By some such word juggling all the opposition to 
 falsity and evil that has given life to the world could be 
 condemned as pessimistic negation. Error could always 
 be transformed into truth if mere verbal affirmation were 
 truth. Suppose one should assert that there is a personal 
 devil superior to God; or that the earth is larger than 
 the sun ; or that dogs are men ; or that theft is right- 
 eous. Would denial be negation ? Obviously not. What 
 here purport to be affirmations are such only in form. 
 They affirm falsehood, not truth, and are therefore nega- 
 tions of substance. To deny them is, consequently, not 
 negation. In spite of its negative form, it is in substance 
 affirmation. 
 
 This is true of the whole brood of negations in affirma- 
 tive form that embryonic tyranny has hatched for the 
 deception and undoing of mankind. Whenever power 
 goes wrong, the evil it does assumes affirmative forms. 
 The forms of righteousness in such cases must conse- 
 quently of necessity be negative. Before condemning any 
 negation, then, which consists in opposing public policies, 
 it is of transcendent importance that those policies, even 
 though affirmative in form, be thoroughly dissected to
 
 ia ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 see if they may not nevertheless be negative in sub- 
 stance. 
 
 Opposition to wrong things is not negation but affirma- 
 tion. It is not pessimism but optimism.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 OPTIMISTIC PESSIMISM 
 
 WHILE much that passes for optimism is not so in 
 fact, while it is,- as already suggested, a mani- 
 festation of mental and spiritual indolence, indulged 
 in by good-natured people who find it easier to trust in 
 God lazily and praise His name vociferously than to help 
 Him industriously, so, on the other hand, there is much 
 genuine optimism in what passes for pessimism. There 
 are times when the best expression of Godward opti- 
 mism is an aggressive "pessimism" vitalized with a keen 
 sense of outraged justice. 
 
 The man who, though hopeless of the triumph of jus- 
 tice over injustice, of right over wrong, yet fights for jus- 
 tice, dies for justice if need be, lives or pleads or suffers 
 for justice, even scolds for justice's sake if he can do 
 nothing better that man, though he deny God with his 
 lips, cherishes Him in his heart. He may profess to be 
 hopeless, but his life testifies to his faith. At the worst he 
 is an inverted hypocrite, and that is vastly better than an 
 inverted saint In comparison with pessimists of this 
 kind, the happy-go-lucky lotus-eating optimists are sorry 
 creatures, though they be in the majority a thousand to 
 one. 
 
 To warn an erring people that they must mend their 
 ways or perish is not atheistic pessimism. It is God- 
 ward optimism at its best but hardest and most thank- 
 less work. Doubtless the spurious optimists of Nine-
 
 14 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 veh thought Jonah an atheistic pessimist when he dole- 
 fully foretold the destruction of their proud and prosper- 
 ous city. But Jonah was certainly not an atheist, and his 
 pessimism was their salvation. Noah, too, was a pessi- 
 mist; and if his pessimism did not save the happy-go- 
 lucky optimists of his day, who thought the deluge 
 "wasn't going to be much of a shower," it was because 
 they refused to heed his prophecies of disaster. In our 
 time, as in Noah's and Jonah's, God sends his warning 
 messages through so-called pessimists. "If ye keep on 
 denying in your lives this truth and that," say they, as 
 Jonah said to the Ninevites, "ye are doomed ! Unless ye 
 mend your ways, ye shall surely perish !" That has been 
 the cry of the pessimism that in reality is optimism, all 
 down the ages. It is the cry that has made the world 
 advance. 
 
 For the world has advanced, and it does advance, not 
 only in victories over external nature, but also along the 
 lines of moral righteousness. Though there are fluctua- 
 tions, now up and now down, now forward and now 
 backward, the trend is ever upward and onward. He 
 would be blind who could not see it. But every one 
 does see it, and because that is so it is the jolly stock in 
 trade of happy-go-lucky optimists. None of their kind 
 ever helps to make or maintain this trend, unless by acci- 
 dent and after the worst of the work is over. They do 
 not give warning like Jonah, nor are they disposed to 
 mend their ways like the Ninevites. Their principal 
 function seems always to have been to sing about ac- 
 complished progress while good naturedly obstructing 
 further progress. 
 
 The lesson these spurious optimists need to learn is 
 that a jolly state of mind is not necessarily optimism. If
 
 OPTIMISTIC PESSIMISM 15 
 
 it were, the mother weeping over the dead body of her 
 first born would be a pessimist, while the heartless fool 
 laughing at the funeral would be an optimist A gloomy 
 outlook is not necessarily inconsistent with optimism, 
 although it does make useless demands upon the vital 
 energies ; nor is a smiling face necessarily inconsistent with 
 pessimism of the deadliest type. Whether one is a true 
 optimist or a true pessimist depends less upon such super- 
 ficial things than upon the direction of his life. To live 
 towards the development of righteousness is to be an 
 optimist; to live indifferent to righteousness no matter 
 whether sadly indifferent or cheerfully so is to be a 
 pessimist. 
 
 The selfish man is no optimist, however contented and 
 happy and cheerful and hopeful and churchly he may 
 be. The happier he is in his selfishness and the more 
 hopeful about it, the less right has he to rank as an opti- 
 mist. Nor is the unselfish man with a gloomy outlook a 
 pessimist. No one can be inwardly hopeless of ultimate 
 righteous adjustments who gives the first place in his 
 life to a just though unpopular cause. 
 
 It is by striving to uproot injustice and reverse its de- 
 structive social tendency, that men prove their optimism 
 and godly faith. Tried by that test, the blindest atheists 
 and deadest pessimists of any day and generation are to 
 be found among the most pious and cheerful "optimists." 
 True optimists, on the contrary, may often be found 
 verbally denying God and hopelessly declaring that all is 
 vanity and vexation. They wear outwardly the gloomy 
 mask of atheistic pessimism, but all within is devotion 
 and faith.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 DESTRUCTION FOR CONSTRUCTION 
 
 E constructive, not destructive." This is another 
 familiar slogan of the spurious optimist some- 
 thing like his plea for "affirmation, not negation." And, 
 as with that, this idea of construction in preference 
 to destruction does express a vital truth ; for it is not 
 destruction but construction, towards which all useful 
 effort is directed. Yet the idea may be, and commonly 
 is, so stupidly apprehended as to turn the words into a 
 sirens' song. 
 
 In properly rejecting destructiveness as an end, we are 
 in danger of improperly rejecting it as a means to an 
 end. There are kinds of destruction which are first steps 
 toward solid construction. Before we can construct the 
 good, we must destroy the bad it is to replace. False 
 knowledge must be unlearned before true knowledge can 
 be acquired. Bad morals must be weeded out before 
 good morals can be cultivated. We must cease to do evil 
 before we can learn to do well. Iconoclasm is an essen- 
 tial prerequisite to lasting progress. With reference, for 
 instance, to false religions, atheism may well be the begin- 
 ning of true religious experience. When a man who has 
 blindly followed pagan leaders in religion is restored 
 to spiritual sight, he is apt at first to think himself an 
 agnostic, a materialist, an atheist. Spiritual truth dazzles 
 him, after his long belief in spiritual falsities ; and, like 
 the blind man whom Jesus restored to sight at Bethsaida, 
 
 16
 
 CONSTRUCTION 17 
 
 he sees men as trees walking sees spiritual truths dis- 
 torted and thinks them mystical hallucinations. But 
 may not this period of undiscriminating skepticism be 
 as a passage from paganistic piety to genuine religion? 
 May it not be only a phase of the process of ceasing to 
 do evil in order to learn to do well ? a necessary part of 
 that task of destroying the false which must always pre- 
 cede any solid construction of the true ? It is folly to de- 
 nounce destructiveness indiscriminately and to urge a 
 "constructive policy," when the site for good construction 
 is occupied by "shacks." Before the good structure can 
 rise, the "shacks" must be torn down. 
 
 Foundations are the primary concern in all construc- 
 tion. This is self-evident, and would hardly need to be 
 mentioned but for the spurious optimists who are so 
 prone to ignore it. The man who built his house upon 
 the sand was probably one of them. He wanted to be 
 constructive without being destructive. But the destruc- 
 tive pessimist who hewed away at the rock until he had 
 destroyed enough of it to make him a foundation there, 
 proved in the end, when the rains descended and the 
 winds blew and the floods came, to have been the more 
 constructive optimist of the two. 
 
 The principle here illustrated with reference to individ- 
 ual character applies also to the social edifice. Mankind 
 cannot build new social structures without tearing down 
 old ones. They cannot adopt the exclusively constructive 
 plan of the county commissioners in a State that need not 
 be named, who "resolved, first, that we build a new court 
 house; resolved, second, that we build the new court 
 house out of the materials of the old one ; and, resolved, 
 third, that we use the old court house until the new one 
 is finished." It is no less true of mankind than of indi-
 
 i8 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 vidual men, that we must destroy before we can construct, 
 that we must tear down before we can build up, that we 
 must put aside evil before we can learn to do well. 
 
 But evil cannot be put aside, either by individuals or 
 society, until it has been faced, recognized, acknowledged 
 and intelligently condemned. Disinclination to do this is 
 temptation. The individual doesn't like to face his own 
 wickedness and call it by its right name. He is tempted 
 not to. Public opinion doesn't like to acknowledge social 
 wickedness and call that by its right name. It is tempted 
 not to. But of all temptations this is the one that both 
 individuals and society need most to resist. Neither the 
 individual nor society can progress without putting aside 
 evil, and evil cannot be put aside until it is acknowledged. 
 But resistance to the temptation to deny or ignore or 
 boast of it, to the temptation to feel that as individuals 
 we ourselves are good (no matter how wicked our neigh- 
 bors may be) and that society as a whole is at its best 
 resistance to this temptation may easily be mistaken for 
 destructive pessimism. Call it so if you will, but make 
 no mistake about its tremendous import, nevertheless, in 
 the divine economy. In the individual conscience the de- 
 structive pessimist that awakens and stimulates a convic- 
 tion of individual sin is remorse. In the social con- 
 science analogous awakenings and stimulation are caused 
 by so-called pessimists, by the men who "find fault" with 
 and "rail" at and fight against the social evils that exist, 
 without seeming to offer anything in their place, and 
 who sometimes bring exalted defenders of those evils to 
 the bar of the social conscience with an ominous, "Thou 
 art the man!" 
 
 Out of the pessimism which faces, recognizes, ac- 
 knowledges and condemns existing political, industrial
 
 CONSTRUCTION 19 
 
 and social evils, springs the optimism which is genuine, 
 that optimism which actually makes for human prog- 
 ress, instead of the spurious and frivolous kind which 
 does nothing but applaud and does that ex post facto. 
 Society, even like the individual, must repent in order to 
 be saved. Social repentance is too often mistaken by 
 the unrepentant for atheistic pessimism; but if it may 
 be called pessimism at all, it is the pessimism of the opti- 
 mist. In reality it is not pessimism. It is a quality of 
 genuine optimism without which there could be no 
 progress. So long as any vestige of tyranny remains in 
 human government, social repentance must be a funda- 
 mental principle in the ethics of democracy. Without 
 realizing the necessity for acknowledging, condemning 
 and destroying social institutions that are morally wrong, 
 no one can be a democratic optimist.
 
 PART TWO 
 
 INDIVIDUAL LIFE
 
 They pass, a mighty army 
 
 From every race and age 
 The just, who toiled for justice 
 
 And asked no other wage. 
 
 And though the people's laurels 
 
 About my brow I bind 
 I know they sought a city 
 
 That I shall never find. 
 
 They climbed the large, steep pathway, 
 
 By saints and heroes trod, 
 To the home of the ideal, 
 
 And to the mount of God. 
 
 MAY KENDALL, in New Age, London. 
 
 For those who see Truth and would follow her ; for those who 
 recognize Justice and would stand for her, success is not the only 
 thing. Success ! Why, Falsehood has often that to give ; and 
 Injustice often has that to give. Must not Truth and Justice have 
 something to give that is their own by proper right theirs in 
 essence, and not by accident? That they have, and that here and 
 now, every one who has felt their exaltation knows. 
 
 HENRY GEORGE, in "Progress and Poverty."
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE 
 
 WHOEVER lives in the future while he is young, 
 cheerily building castles in Spain, is likely as he 
 grows old to live in the past and wander sadly among 
 the tombs. One had better live always in the present, 
 troubled neither by day dreams of opportunities yet to 
 be grasped nor by morbid memories of opportunities 
 missed. 
 
 But living in the present is a very different thing from 
 wallowing in it. To live in the present does not mean 
 that the future may be left to look out for itself, nor that 
 the dead past may be cynically told to bury its own dead. 
 No one should become so completely absorbed in to-day 
 as to remember nothing of yesterday and care nothing for 
 to-morrow. The past is a present gone ; it is to be cher- 
 ished for its lessons. The future is a present to come; it 
 is to be guarded for its fruitions. But while we turn to 
 the past as a faithful monitor and look to the future with 
 rational hope, it is upon the present that our lives should 
 at all times concentrate. Young men just embarking 
 upon the choppy sea of practical affairs, will find this ad- 
 monition of peculiar value, especially those young men 
 of whom the American college graduate is a type. 
 
 The average college graduate, with all his advantages 
 in some respects, is pathetically unfortunate in one par- 
 ticular. He is allowed to imagine worse yet, he is con- 
 firmed in the wretched delusion that the world is his oys- 
 
 23
 
 24 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 ter if he but elect to open it. To him the future is what 
 Santa Claus is to the child, except that children are unde- 
 ceived in good time. Even while the Santa Claus de- 
 lusion lasts, they are on the one hand entertained by it 
 and on the other unharmed. Not so with the college 
 graduate. His Santa Claus delusion is not a source of 
 innocent amusement ; it is the cause of years of unwhole- 
 some excitement and feverish hope. And no one unde- 
 ceives him. Until disappointment has succeeded disap- 
 pointment and deadening failure has at last crowned his 
 middle life with thorns, he struggles blindly and painfully 
 on, confident that the non-existent Santa Claus of his un- 
 der-graduate days will yet fill his stockings. This is un- 
 fair to young men. Those who know the world owe it to 
 them not to kindle false hopes. They owe it to them to 
 tell the truth. No young man of good mettle would be 
 discouraged by knowing the truth, and many might be 
 saved by it from disaster. 
 
 When the graduate closes his college career, it is with 
 the expectation, fostered by his elders throughout his 
 youth, that although he may have a hard struggle in the 
 world, he will surely conquer a place for himself if he 
 has taken due advantage of what his college has offered 
 him and shall lead an honorable and industrious life. He 
 may see wrecks of past college commencements scattered 
 all along the shores of business and professional life ; but 
 he has been told that these are attributable to individual 
 defects, and with his narrow experience and implicit 
 confidence in his seniors, he believes it. Student of eco- 
 nomics though he may have been, the idea that economic 
 conditions prevail which make what is called success 
 impossible for the mass of men as ambitious and capable 
 as himself never enters his mind. Yet the chances
 
 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE 25 
 
 are very many to one that he will be sorely disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 If disappointments of this kind were in the nature of 
 things if, for example, failure in life were like death in 
 battle, an experience that must come inevitably to a cer- 
 tain proportion, and may as likely come to one as to 
 another, regardless of personal merits or defects it 
 might be unwholesome pessimism to look forward to 
 possible failure. The child-like optimism of most new- 
 fledged graduates would then be something to encourage. 
 Better for each of them in that case that he take his own 
 success for granted and be inspired by the thought, than 
 that he risk losing heart in expectation of failure. 
 
 But these disappointments are not in the nature of 
 things. They are abnormal. Due to social conditions 
 which are traceable to man-made customs and laws at 
 variance with the laws of nature, they may be and ought 
 to be avoided. For that reason, the sooner college gradu- 
 ates learn to forecast the sickening failures that lie in the 
 path of most of their number, the better for them and 
 for all the rest of the world. While they are yet in their 
 strength, they should be stimulated to turn their atten- 
 tion to the causes of almost universal failure in a world 
 in which there ought to be almost universal success.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SUCCESS 
 
 FAR am I from suggesting that even under prevailing 
 industrial conditions the greatest success cannot be 
 achieved by every one. There is a kind of success which, 
 though commonly accounted failure, is success at its 
 highest. The door to this is wide open to everybody, but 
 few there be who wish to enter in thereat. Many of the 
 "wrecks" which lie strewn along the shores of business 
 and professional life are monuments to such success, a suc- 
 cess which no triumph in business can equal. While all of 
 these "wrecks" are significant of a state of society that is 
 a withering rebuke to our professions of Christianity, 
 many of them testify to glorious victories over tempta- 
 tions to achieve a success that would be ignoble. 
 
 Were this a sermon on success, it would pointedly dis- 
 tinguish the different kinds. It would show how success 
 may consist on the one hand in building up character with 
 reference to moral principle, or, on the other, in gaining 
 more or less of the whole world and losing your own 
 soul. And it would urge the lesson of the high moun- 
 tain in the Holy Land, where the most successful Person- 
 ality in all history signalized what a modern business man 
 would have called his lack of business sense, with the 
 thrilling exclamation : "Get thee behind me, Satan !" But 
 this is not to be a sermon at any rate, not that kind of 
 sermon. It is to be an unreserved inquiry into the pos- 
 sibilities of achieving the species of success which happy- 
 
 26
 
 SUCCESS 27 
 
 go-lucky optimists admire, the kind of success whose 
 treasures are subject to the ravages of moths and thieves 
 and corruption. 
 
 Success of this kind also may, indeed, be achieved 
 under prevailing industrial conditions. Though the way 
 to it is not open to everybody, even its highest places are 
 open to some in almost every generation. What your 
 spurious optimists often say is true, that there is "always 
 plenty of room at the top." There will probably never 
 come a time under the most disordered industrial con- 
 ditions when twenty thousand dollar men will not be 
 demanded in excess of the supply. The characteristic 
 evil of these conditions is not that there is scant room at 
 the top, but that there is no room at the bottom, where 
 in the nature of things room ought to be abundant. But 
 roomy as it is at the top, those who get there must strain 
 and strive to climb up on the shoulders of their fellows, 
 with little regard for themselves and none whatever for 
 the rights of others beyond what the law enforces and 
 public opinion exacts. He who intends to secure even a 
 moderate measure of success, as success goes, must be 
 prepared to do so at the expense of the rights of his 
 brethren and his own bodily health and moral integrity. 
 
 Let no one shrink at this assertion nor resent it. Every 
 successful man, and every one who has intelligently 
 observed the successful career of others, knows that it 
 is only at the cost of racked nerves and either a racked 
 or deadened conscience, that success is in these times 
 secured. Would a man be successful in manufactures 
 or commerce, he must plot and plan by day and by night 
 to obtain privileges or advantages enabling him to 
 exact tribute out of the sweat of his fellow men. Would 
 he succeed at the bar, he must devote himself much less
 
 28 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 to the goddess of Justice than to the grasping interests 
 of monopolist clients. Even in the ministry, he must lay 
 the perfect ashlar of Gospel truth in a bed of soft 
 cushions lest its squared corners bruise wealthy parish- 
 ioners, or he will find himself a straggler from the 
 ranks of successful clergymen. Let him go into any of 
 the vocations, from petty retail merchant to great manu- 
 facturer, from bootblack to policeman, and he will learn 
 to regard the measure of success he might reasonably 
 look for, as something which he can get and keep only 
 as others as meritorious, though maybe not so rapacious 
 as himself, are headed off. 
 
 In these days of great social unrest, caused by the grow- 
 ing pressure upon the masses of men of poverty and fear 
 of poverty, those of us who sympathize with the restless 
 and are counted, if indeed we do not count ourselves, 
 among them, are frequently assured not only that excep- 
 tionally adaptable persons may, but that all persons can, 
 become rich if they try. It is the same Santa Claus story 
 which projects the optimistic college graduate out into the 
 swales and swamps of the business world after a will-o'- 
 the-wisp. 
 
 Curiously enough this theory of life is not peculiar 
 to the rich, nor even to those who have not laid aside 
 their hopes of becoming rich. It is extremely popular 
 even among the thriftless and shiftless poor. With amus- 
 ing confidence men badly clothed and poorly fed, old men, 
 too, to whom the world is no longer an inviting oyster, 
 will often contend like a lawyer for his fee, that anybody 
 can get rich if he tries and has a little luck. They 
 would have you believe that bad luck alone accounts for 
 their own hapless condition. 
 
 And the thrifty poor, those who have worked and
 
 SUCCESS 29 
 
 pinched all their lives but are passing their age in penury, 
 those pathetic human creatures who are, as Cowper 
 writes, 
 
 " Letting down buckets into empty wells, 
 And growing old with drawing nothing up," 
 
 they do not even admit luck as a factor, but are firmly 
 convinced that getting rich is only a matter of working 
 hard enough and intelligently enough and of saving 
 enough. If they themselves are poor, with all their in- 
 dustry and thrift, why, "It's God's will !" 
 
 Then there are the industrious and thrifty who do 
 get somewhat ahead. They are the small self-made men 
 whom we have all met. Because they have a tuppenny 
 share in some subtle scheme for making the many support 
 the few, they imagine that they are superior creatures. 
 In fact, they are but the willing retainers and stool 
 pigeons of a privileged caste, feeding upon the leavings 
 of their idle and thriftless but wealthy and unidentified 
 masters. Of course they believe that anybody can suc- 
 ceed, for haven't they succeeded ? 
 
 And this much, indeed, is doubtless true, that anybody 
 who tries to get rich, and does the right things at the 
 right times, will succeed measurably, at least. But 
 that is no more true of business than of crime. Is it re- 
 torted, then, that the contention that any one can get rich 
 who tries is not an argument in promotion of crime? 
 The retort would not be true. This contention is, indeed, 
 not intended to encourage conventional larceny, but it is 
 intended to encourage processes that have all the moral 
 elements of larceny. 
 
 Larceny does not consist merely in violating larceny
 
 30 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 laws. Though there were no larceny laws, stealing would 
 be none the less a moral crime. To steal is to appropriate 
 another's just property against his will; and in the eye 
 of the moral law the manner in which it is done makes 
 no difference. Some men do it by stealth ; when detected 
 they are imprisoned. Some do it by violence, using club 
 or pistol or sandbag to enforce their nefarious demands ; 
 they, too, are imprisoned when they are caught. Others 
 do it by procuring the enactment of statutes authorizing 
 wholesale depredation, or preventing the enactment of 
 statutes abolishing predatory institutions. These are 
 often rewarded with large loot and a place among "our 
 best citizens." Some of them ascend to the judgment 
 seat and sit in the chair of the law-giver. But it is 
 larceny all the same. Legal and social distinctions there 
 are, but there is no room for moral distinction. Morally 
 it is all stealing. 
 
 When it is said that any one can get rich if he tries, 
 does it mean that opportunities for adding to the world's 
 wealth are abundant and that by utilizing them any one 
 can become rich to the extent of his usefulness ? Or does 
 it mean that without adding to the world's wealth he 
 can if he tries secure to himself a share of what others 
 add to it? There is the test. If it is said to mean the 
 former, it isn't true. If the latter, it isn't honest. Neither 
 is the latter true ; for though some may prosper by mere 
 appropriation all cannot. What the prosperous gain their 
 victims must lose. 
 
 The prime condition of success now most generally 
 approved is somewhat different from that which prevailed 
 two or three generations ago. In their youth men now of 
 middle age were assiduously taught that their success 
 would depend upon their piety. This idea was inculcated
 
 SUCCESS 31 
 
 in the church, in the home, in the school ; and in debating 
 societies lean arguments were fattened with it. It was the 
 lesson of the marble-back story-books in Sunday-school 
 libraries, and the burden of all other respectable vehicles 
 of advice to the young. In the pietized imagination of 
 that day the good boy was destined, if he escaped an early 
 and joyous death, to become a rich and exemplary man. 
 
 Usually the illustrative examples were mythical. Yet 
 living ones were not wanting. The theory did suffer seri- 
 ous strain when the millionaire Girard was mentioned; 
 but all "infidels" had not committed themselves, as he 
 had, to hostility to churches in their wills ; and even John 
 Jacob Astor could be referred to, though with some re- 
 serve, as a poor and pious boy grown wealthy. Spectacu- 
 lar success, however, was not common then. The types 
 were the little rich men of the neighborhood. With but 
 few exceptions they were conspicuously pious; they had 
 in almost all instances been poor boys ; and as uniformly 
 as circumstances would permit, their success was attrib- 
 uted to their piety from youth up. Incidental advantages 
 were often known to have contributed, but these fortu- 
 itous circumstances were not considered important 
 enough to count. 
 
 When the piety of that period is analyzed, its nature 
 seems to have been not unfairly exemplified by the little 
 Negro of the wharves, who pushed and shoved and tram- 
 pled upon his smaller companions to get the pennies a 
 stranger threw over a ship's side in order to see the dusky 
 youngsters scramble for them. After he had filled his 
 pockets with the coin, of which he had strenuously pre- 
 vented the others from getting a share, this ebony monop- 
 olist in embryo refused to entertain the stranger by danc- 
 ing, even for good pay, because he had joined the church !
 
 32 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Piety consisted, that is, chiefly in getting into church and 
 keeping out of jail. Given those two conditions, and few 
 questions were asked. So the pious were supposed to suc- 
 ceed, and the successful were supposed to be pious. 
 
 Not many sensible people to-day would attribute suc- 
 cess to piety. Too many pious men have failed. Too 
 many pious men are hopelessly poor. Too many of the 
 unpious have been crowned with success. Even pro- 
 fessional pietists no longer recommend piety for business 
 reasons. Almost universally it is now understood that 
 genuine piety is a positive bar to success ; and as for the 
 other kind, however valuable hypocrisy may once have 
 been as a commercial asset, it is valuable no longer. 
 While ambitious business men are as careful as ever to 
 keep out of jail, they are not so careful to get into church. 
 Piety as a specific for success has been superseded by 
 industry. The successful are now assumed to have been 
 industrious, and the industrious are assured of success. 
 
 This notion is adopted and fondled and propagated not 
 only by those who are ambitious to gain as much of the 
 world as possible though they lose their own souls, but it 
 is also approved and applauded and assiduously im- 
 pressed upon the minds of youth by professional teachers 
 of moral and spiritual philosophies. It is the latter day 
 substitute for piety. But will it work any better? That 
 is the question. 
 
 The best expression, perhaps, of this modern theory of 
 success was "The Message to Garcia," a tract that once 
 evoked very general applause. One railroad magnate, 
 who had himself been successful, distributed copies broad- 
 cast among his unsuccessful subordinates to teach them 
 how to rise. The tract told of a young military officer 
 who early in the war with Spain was given a message by
 
 SUCCESS 33 
 
 the war department to carry to the Cuban General, 
 Garcia. The difficulties in the way of the messenger 
 seemed insurmountable. But he made no protest and 
 asked no questions. He had been told to carry a message 
 to Garcia, and he did it. The tract might have gained in 
 force if its author could have written a sequel describ- 
 ing the consequent success of the plucky young officer 
 his promotion, say, to the grade of brigadier-general. But 
 that reward did not go to the officer who carried the 
 message to Garcia ; it was reserved for the one who per- 
 petrated a forgery upon Aguinaldo. Despite this sug- 
 gestive anti-climax, however, the story of the message to 
 Garcia was widely accepted as a true exposition of the 
 secret of business success. When you are" told by your 
 superiors to do something, don't hesitate, don't question, 
 but do it; and business success is yours. That was the 
 moral. 
 
 President McKinley spoke to the same effect at a 
 colored school in Louisiana, during his continental tour 
 in 1901. He told his youthful Negro hearers that if they 
 would get an education, build up a good character, and 
 be unfalteringly industrious, they would have "success 
 anywhere and everywhere," and that this was true of 
 blacks and whites alike. A survival of the pietistic theory 
 was introduced there, in the allusion to building up a 
 good character. There was also a reference to another 
 theory of success, which once had general vogue but is 
 now almost monopolized by ambitious schoolboys and 
 college students the theory that book education opens 
 the way. But Mr. McKinley, like the author of "The 
 Message to Garcia," laid his emphasis upon "unfaltering 
 industry." 
 
 Most impressive, however, of all the teachers along
 
 34 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 this line has been Mr. Charles M. Schwab, the man who 
 from an impoverished boyhood was reported to have 
 risen by Garcia message-carrying methods to a salaried 
 position of a million dollars a year. His stupendous suc- 
 cess was regarded as a guaranty of his competency to ad- 
 vise. In an address to the graduates of a technical school 
 in New York, Mr. Schwab summed up the now dominant 
 philosophy of success in one pregnant sentence. "Every- 
 body," said he, "is expected to do his duty ; but the boy 
 who does his duty, and a little more than his duty, is the 
 boy who is going to succeed in this world." 
 
 The theory of success thus indicated resembles that 
 which it has displaced. It requires an excess of the neces- 
 sary virtue. This being granted, it is true. Just as the 
 idea was true that the good boy would succeed, provided 
 a large proportion of boys were not good, so is it true 
 that the industrious boy may succeed, provided a large 
 proportion of boys are not industrious. The industry 
 must always be excessive or it doesn't count for success. 
 In other words, this much belauded secret of success is 
 effective only so long as most people don't act upon it. 
 
 If all were industrious equally, none could succeed. 
 There would be a dead level. But all are not and cannot 
 be equally industrious. Consequently if all try to suc- 
 ceed by exceptional industry, the great mass will come 
 into a condition of virtual servitude to those of excep- 
 tional powers a servitude that would be all the more 
 profitable to the successful ones on account of the high 
 standard of industry the universal struggle for success 
 would establish. 
 
 If, for illustration, the clerk who willingly works nine 
 hours when the rule is eight, thereby gains promotion, 
 and if all in the office are ambitious, the rivalry for sue-
 
 SUCCESS 35 
 
 cess will result, if the employer also is ambitious, in ex- 
 tending the working day to nine hours. After that the 
 clerk who would distinguish himself must work ten 
 hours. And when in the course of time a new rivalry 
 shall have raised office hours to this standard, willingness 
 to work eleven hours will be the test of industrial worth. 
 Nor would the rivalry end here. If all were striving for 
 success, it would not end until the standard of office hours 
 had been raised so high as to abolish general leisure, and 
 a few men of exceptional endurance and abilities had 
 become masters of the rest. 
 
 Returning from this illustration to the more general 
 considerations which it roughly explains, if all workers 
 were to do more than their duty in some degree, only 
 the exceptional ones who did it in greater degree could 
 win; and if all rose to that standard, the winners would 
 be those who raised the standard still higher. Should 
 the process go on, none could succeed finally but those 
 who so far overleaped the limits of their duty as to go 
 the full length of human endurance ; and then, even if all 
 were endowed with equal endurance, success could no 
 longer depend upon excessive industry. None could 
 excel when all had reached the limit. 
 
 The time would never come, of course, when all 
 workers would reach the highest standard of human en- 
 durance. Some would be physically too weak and others 
 morally too sane. There would be some point at which 
 the great mass would give up in despair ;* and when that 
 
 *An illustration from the actual experience of a well-known 
 man was furnished by Lincoln Steffens in McClure's Magazine 
 for August, 1903. Mr. Steffens was accounting for the success 
 of Jacob A. Riis as a newspaper reporter when he worked for an 
 afternoon newspaper. "Beaten at first," Mr. Steffens writes, "Riis
 
 36 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 point had been reached the social problem would be just 
 where it is now, just where it would have remained if no 
 universal desire to succeed by excessive industry had ta- 
 ken possession of the people. Then, as now, only the few 
 could succeed. The difference would be that with the 
 rest the strain for a bare living would be more tense, 
 while the successful few would have to be stronger than 
 ever and more insanely ambitious. Those who fell below 
 the advanced standard would still be crowded to the wall, 
 still be denounced as indolent, still be robbed of the lion's 
 share of what they did produce; those who rose above 
 the new standard would still thrive upon the unrequited 
 toil of their brethren. 
 
 That industry is a virtue is profoundly true. It is one, 
 moreover, which is too much neglected by all classes. 
 The work of even laborious toilers is drudgery rather 
 than industry, and a vast amount of upper class labor is 
 hardly more useful or honest than "the process known 
 as four of a kind." Whoever, therefore, writes anything 
 or says anything calculated to stimulate wholesome in- 
 dustry renders a public service. But he who stimulates 
 it by raising hopes of business success as the reward of 
 industry hopes which in the great majority of cases 
 must turn to ashes commits a social crime. 
 
 It is not true, as is often asserted, that the success of 
 our rich men is attributable to doing more than their 
 duty. While excessive devotion to their employers' in- 
 terests may have given to their successful business career 
 
 soon was beating his rival reporters. They went to work at noon, 
 he came down at eleven; they came at eleven, he at eight; they 
 came at eight, Riis was soon covering the town from the time 
 the morning papers went to press at 2 : 30 o'clock in the morning, 
 and to that 'crazy' extreme the others would not follow."
 
 SUCCESS 37 
 
 its original impulse, other factors have entered in to pro- 
 duce the successful result. Good or bad may these factors 
 have been ; just or unjust ; sordid or not ; mean or manly 
 but they, and not alone fidelity to an employer's inter- 
 ests, not alone excessive devotion to duty, not alone 
 extraordinary industry, have turned the scale for success 
 or failure. 
 
 Many factors are necessary to success, and most im- 
 portant of all at the present time is some advantage 
 whereby the industry of the unsuccessful may be forced 
 to contribute to the success of those who succeed. Not 
 until a man can live in fabulous luxury upon the labors 
 of others is he accounted successful. For that reason 
 alone industry is no guaranty of success in life. The in- 
 dustrious as a class cannot succeed so long as success 
 consists in the possession by the successful of power to 
 levy tribute upon the industry of the unsuccessful. To 
 say otherwise is to make a contradiction in terms. 
 
 By natural law, success does depend upon industry; 
 and the degree and intelligence of the industry does nat- 
 urally determine the measure of the success. This would 
 be true, also, in actual experience, if industry were identi- 
 fied exclusively with rendering service. Then success 
 would not be merely a prize for the extraordinary feats 
 of a few, and something almost as difficult to keep as to 
 get. It would be the reward of all, and to each according 
 to the measure of his usefulness. Each would get his own 
 earnings. But industry is not exclusively identified with 
 rendering service. It may be devoted in a slave country 
 to acquiring slaves ; and there the successful man would 
 be he who had acquired enough slaves to relieve him of 
 all necessity for working. In more civilized communities 
 it may be devoted to acquiring financial interests that are
 
 38 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 nourished by veiled systems of slavery. The principle is 
 the same; it is only the method that differs. And just 
 as it would be cruel mockery in a slave country to tell 
 slaves that excessive industry would assure them busi- 
 ness success, when in fact not they but their masters 
 would profit by their greater activity, so is it in the 
 country of higher civilization indeed, it is even more 
 cruel there, because more deceptive to teach young men 
 that success depends upon industry. It would be only 
 the truth to teach that it depends upon monopoly. 
 
 Does not every intelligent man know, and will not 
 every genuinely honest man admit, that the industrial 
 power of the present time centers in monopoly? True 
 enough, monopoly may be acquired through extraordi- 
 nary industry, so long as the standards of work leave 
 a margin for extraordinary labor feats; but it is the 
 monopoly, all the same, and not industry, that finally 
 makes success. 
 
 Monopoly is a process of levying tribute upon the in- 
 dustrious for the benefit of monopoly beneficiaries. When 
 it exists, increased industry among non-monopolists can- 
 not benefit them as a class. Some of their number may 
 for a time by superior energy climb out of their class 
 and become monopolists; but as soon as intensified in- 
 dustry becomes general all its profits go to fatten the 
 monopoly class and not to enrich the industrious class. 
 
 Incentives to general industry are therefore popular 
 with monopolists and their agents and organs of opinion, 
 and with their dupes. If the people of this country could 
 be induced to work harder in the hope that all may 
 thereby win success, the value of monopolies would rise. 
 But industry in general would be no better paid; and 
 the industrious who did not push their activities above
 
 SUCCESS 39 
 
 the level of the new standards would win no prizes. The 
 frequently repeated advice which agents and beneficiaries 
 of monopoly interests give to young men, that extra- 
 ordinary industry is the key to success, is suggestive of 
 the method of making the mule turn the mill by hanging 
 a bundle of hay where it continually dangles before his 
 nose but always eludes his reach. 
 
 Yet there is hope in this theory of business success. It 
 does something in pushing aside the old idea that busi- 
 ness success is the reward of piety. It will do more 
 presently in demonstrating its own deceptiveness. Not 
 more than two or three generations are likely to be 
 fooled by it. After a little experience, the people may 
 be trusted to recognize that under existing conditions 
 success does not depend upon industry, as a rule of gen- 
 eral application. Yet the true logic of the rule will lose 
 none of its force. The conviction will still remain that 
 industry, even though not the measure of success, cer- 
 tainly ought to be. 
 
 Let the people once look at the matter in that way, 
 and the solution of the social problem will be at hand. 
 They cannot long look upon it so without being put upon 
 inquiry. They cannot feel that industry ought to be the 
 measure of success, yet realize that it is not, without 
 searching earnestly for the cause of this conflict between 
 what ought to be and what is. And if they once set about 
 searching for the cause, they will ultimately find it in the 
 institution of monopoly an institution so obtrusive, so 
 bold, so comprehensively explanatory, as to make them 
 wonder why they never thought of it before. When the 
 theory that industry is the true measure of success once 
 receives full and candid consideration, the doom of mo- 
 nopoly will have sounded. For then it will be seen that
 
 40 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 with equal natural opportunities secured to all, with 
 justice established and monopoly abolished, the opti- 
 mistic dream of the college graduate would come true: 
 that without nerve strain or conscience strain all could 
 succeed who tried to, and only those would fail who de- 
 served to fail. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, this theory, as now exploited, is 
 vicious and dangerous. It is dangerous because it will 
 bitterly disappoint most of the young men who adopt it; 
 and in their blind anger they may, if occasion occurs, 
 neither weigh the wisdom nor count the cost of violence. 
 Nothing could be better to produce reckless revolution- 
 aires. It is vicious because it gives the youth of the coun- 
 try a fundamentally false idea of life. Though embody- 
 ing a substantial truth, the truth that success is the natural 
 reward of industry, this false theory of success decep- 
 tively inculcates the idea that existing social conditions 
 actually permit the rewards of industry to find their natu- 
 ral objects. It conceals the monopolistic influences which 
 now disturb the natural distribution of the proceeds of in- 
 dustry, and by doing that it falsifies the very truth it em- 
 bodies, thus realizing Tennyson's thought that "a lie 
 which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 RESPECTING THE RESPECTABLE 
 
 LOSELY associated with the half truth we have just 
 considered, is the pernicious notion that respectable 
 things should be respected. It is pernicious not because 
 respectable things never deserve respect, for they often 
 do ; but because the standard is false. It takes no account 
 of worthiness, no account of truth. 
 
 Of all rules of human conduct this is one of the easiest 
 to obey. Young men and women need not be advised, as 
 they so often are, to regulate their lives by it. Most 
 of them do so spontaneously. Men of all conditions and 
 vocations intuitively respect the respectable. The day 
 laborer shrinks from the contempt of his neighbors, and 
 guards his conduct from the scorn of his superiors ; wish- 
 ing to be respected himself, he respects the respectable. 
 Business men are solicitous for the good opinion of the 
 community in which they live ; if from no higher motive 
 than to promote their own business success, they, too, 
 respect the things that are respectable. The lawyer re- 
 coils from unprofessional conduct which might bring him 
 into disgrace, and the criminal conceals his crimes from 
 the public as much from dread of contumely as from 
 fear of imprisonment. Both respect what is respectable. 
 Clergymen conform to the same rule. They seldom ven- 
 ture to preach what might disturb the standards of 
 respectability to which they are accustomed. Even de- 
 voted reformers, prophets of new truths, are not wholly 
 
 41
 
 42 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 free from temptations to respect the things that are 
 respectable. Nor can they be blamed. Physical martyr- 
 dom could hardly add to the bitterness of that martyrdom 
 of mind which sensitive men and women undergo in 
 testifying to truths not yet generally respected. 
 
 This tendency to respect the respectable is not wholly 
 selfish. It derives a strong impulse from the desire to 
 live righteously a beneficent influence which loses its 
 way under the treacherous guidance of the idea that what- 
 ever is respectable must be right. But whether prompted 
 by that impulse, or only by self-seeking, the tendency is 
 dangerous and the precept pernicious. A precept which 
 teaches us to respect the respectable, makes respectability 
 the test of truth, reputation the test of character, clothing 
 the test of the man. All these standards are false. 
 Though outer form often indicates inner substance, form 
 is not substance. It frequently differs from it so radically 
 as to have suggested the significant simile of "a whited 
 sepulchre full of dead men's bones." 
 
 This discord between moral substance and respectable 
 form is almost invariable with reference to the more vital 
 matters of human concern. Probably no elemental moral 
 truth ever has or ever will come into the world in re- 
 spectable garb. When such a truth becomes clothed on 
 with respectability, its essential character is almost cer- 
 tain to have decayed within the folds of its outer gar- 
 ments, which have taken their shape from its original 
 form but are now all hollow within. To make a point of 
 respecting the respectable is to prefer non-essentials to 
 essentials and to ignore eternal truths. No one who 
 makes it the rule of his life can keep his heart "wide open 
 on the Godward side." 
 
 When He whose incarnation is celebrated at Christmas
 
 RESPECTING THE RESPECTABLE 43 
 
 time came into this world of ours, the Living Truth in 
 human shape, men of that generation who respected the 
 respectable had no respect for Him. Of humble birth; 
 as a babe, cradled in a manger; in infancy, hunted for 
 slaughter; in youth, confounding the learned; in man- 
 hood, working at a mechanical trade ; during His mature 
 life associating with outcasts ; regarded by the pious as a 
 blasphemer ; and dying the ignominious death of a convict 
 throughout His whole career, Jesus of Nazareth ex- 
 hibited none of the qualities of contemporaneous respecta- 
 bility. Even to-day the respect of the respectable is paid, 
 not to Him, but only to his image. So every new mani- 
 festation of truth is humbly born; it, also, is cradled in 
 some manger; it, too, is hunted down in infancy; in its 
 youth it, likewise, confounds the learned who respect the 
 things that are respectable; it is nurtured by the lonely 
 and the outcast ; it has its crucifixion and its resurrection ; 
 and at last its images become respectable, and are wor- 
 shipped by those who respect the respectable. That has 
 been the history of all elemental truths economic, moral, 
 and religious, as well as political. 
 
 " O Truth ! O Freedom ! how are ye still born 
 In the rude stable, in the manger nursed !" 
 
 Need it be so any longer? May we not reasonably 
 hope that the time is near at hand when mankind will 
 resist the temptation to respect and to inculcate respect for 
 things that are merely respectable, and in place of this 
 image-worship learn to respect and to teach respect for 
 the things that are true ?
 
 PART THREE 
 
 BUSINESS LIFE
 
 Strange is the game the world doth play 
 Rouge et Noir, with the counters gold! 
 
 Red with blood and black with sin; 
 
 Few and fewer are they that win 
 As the ages pass untold. 
 
 CHARLOTTE PERKINS STETSON. 
 
 When John on Patmos looked into the New 
 
 Jerusalem, he saw a wondrous thing; 
 
 The streets of that fair city were all paved 
 
 With that which earth most dear and precious holds 
 
 With purest gold, o'er which the happy feet 
 
 Of all the habiters of Heaven went up 
 
 And down. So might not this declare for us 
 
 The proper place of gold in that Society 
 
 Whose frame to-day we strive with so much toil 
 
 To shape according to our Vision's plan? 
 
 A place of use, in truth, on which to build 
 
 And act; only for use, to walk upon, 
 
 To smooth the way to worship and to work? 
 
 But we, in earth's old manner, straight 
 
 Reverse this use and fight God's good intent. 
 
 Instead of making pavements of our gold, 
 
 We beat it out and hammer it into 
 
 A dome, and raise it up into a sky 
 
 Above our heads. And then, because we can 
 
 No more behold the stars, nor can the sun 
 
 Shine through ; because earth's furious furnace-heat, 
 
 Reflected, burns to dust our heart's sweet flowers; 
 
 Because our lives begin to pale and faint 
 
 Within the twilight we ourselves have made, 
 
 We bitterly complain to heaven, and cry 
 
 That no kind Providence has planned the world. 
 
 ORVILLE E. WATSON.
 
 Peace between Capital and Labor, is that all that you ask? 
 Is peace, then, the only thing needful? 
 There was peace enough in Southern slavery. 
 There is a peace of life and another peace of death. 
 It is well to rise above violence. 
 It is well to rise superior to anger. 
 
 But if peace means final acquiescence in wrong if your aim 
 is less than justice and peace, forever one then your peace 
 
 is a crime. 
 
 ERNEST CROSBY, in The Whim. 
 
 What shall I do to be just? 
 
 What shall I do for the gain 
 Of the world for its sadness? 
 
 Teach me, O Seers that I trust ! 
 Chart me the difficult main 
 
 Leading out of my sorrow and madness; 
 Preach me the purging of pain. 
 
 Shall I wrench from my finger the ring 
 
 To cast to the tramp at my door? 
 Shall I tear off each luminous thing 
 
 To drop in the palm of the poor? 
 What shall I do to be just? 
 
 Teach me, O Ye in the light, 
 Whom the poor and the rich alike trust ; 
 
 My heart is aflame to be right. 
 
 HAMLIN GARLAND. 
 
 48
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HONESTY THE BEST POLICY 
 
 OTRICT observance of moral principle is the natural 
 O condition of business success. It would be indis- 
 pensable if industrial life were normal. Immorality in 
 business would then be as fatal to business success as im- 
 morality in society is to social standing. Even as tilings 
 are, with industrial life thoroughly demoralized by ab- 
 normal institutions and discriminating laws, moral prin- 
 ciple in business conduct is essential to business pros- 
 perity in general, and to individuals it is not without 
 its advantages. There is profound truth in the maxim, 
 "Honesty is the best policy." So vital is it that even 
 thieves are obliged to recognize it among themselves. In 
 normal conditions, with the currents of social and in- 
 dustrial life undisturbed by laws creating industrial privi- 
 leges and unfairly distributing industrial power, this 
 thrifty maxim would be universally and absolutely true. 
 But if the morality of honesty were to be determined 
 only by that empirical test, a great deal might be said in 
 defense of theft. It is, indeed, doubtful if the right or 
 wrong of honesty would be settled yet, were the issue de- 
 pendent upon the question of better or best, to be de- 
 termined experimentally. We should have great empiri- 
 cists asserting, as they do of slavery, tariff protection, 
 land monopoly and the like, that theft is right or wrong 
 according to time, place and circumstances. The human 
 mind is incapable of grasping, measuring, comparing, 
 
 49
 
 50 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 and drawing correct moral inferences from the infinite 
 complexity of facts and interests that would be involved. 
 The field of experiment is too wide, the period of investi- 
 gation required is too long, the facts are too numerous 
 and complex and too often obscure, the interests are ap- 
 parently too diverse, the causes and effects are too subtle, 
 to admit of the solution experimentally of even the sim- 
 plest moral problem. 
 
 To persons who believe in an omniscient and beneficent 
 Providence it makes no difference whether conduct is 
 guided by moral principle or by really sound policy. 
 Since moral principle is to such persons only another 
 phrasing for divine adjustment, and as all who believe 
 that God is infinite in beneficence and perfect in wisdom 
 must of necessity believe also that whatever is in har- 
 mony with eternal moral principle will prove to be experi- 
 mentally the best policy, there can be to them no practi- 
 cal choice between eternal moral principle and wise ex- 
 pediency as guides to social adjustment. The one guide 
 as well as the other would, in their estimation, lead to the 
 same goal. But these persons let us call them "theists" 
 for short nevertheless prefer moral principle to wise ex- 
 pediency as the moral standard, for they recognize the im- 
 possibility of distinguishing, merely by means of experi- 
 mental tests, between right and wrong in the sphere of 
 morals. They, therefore, cling to those broad moral prin- 
 ciples which, so far at least as has been discovered, are 
 perceived intuitively, as the eye perceives material ob- 
 jects. These once apprehended, the rest is a simple logi- 
 cal process of which any sane mind is capable. Intui- 
 tively grasping, for instance, that great moral axiom upon 
 which the legal right of self-defense is securely founded, 
 the axiom that every man has, as against the aggressions
 
 HONESTY THE BEST POLICY 51 
 
 of every other man and of all other men combined, the 
 right to himself grasping that axiom, the theist has pos- 
 session of the key to all moral problems involving human 
 rights and duties. 
 
 I call him a "theist." But that is only for convenient 
 distinction. There are those who thus approach moral 
 questions from fundamental moral principle intuitively 
 perceived, who would disclaim being theists. They are, 
 however, properly enough classified as such, even though 
 they deny a divine personality, for they acknowledge 
 moral truth as absolute. That is the essence of theism, 
 and it distinguishes them from atheists. 
 
 The atheist is not best described as one who denies 
 the existence of a personal God. Many a fervent wor- 
 shipper of God as a personal being, is an atheist never- 
 theless. Atheism consists essentially in the denial of abso- 
 lute moral principle in the assertion that there is no such 
 thing as an axiom of moral right, but that moral questions 
 are to be determined by considerations of expediency as- 
 certained by experiment. 
 
 Thus defined, atheism has, indeed, but a slight hold 
 upon moral teachers when they concern themselves with 
 private or personal conduct. The business man who 
 should put sand into his sugar or water into his stock or 
 forgery into his commercial paper, and defend himself 
 upon grounds of expediency, would have to hunt far and 
 long for a teacher of moral philosophy who would listen 
 patiently to his empirical justification. Of any personal 
 delinquency like that, the teacher of moral philosophy 
 would promptly say : "I don't believe it is truly expedi- 
 ent, either for you yourself or for the rest of the com- 
 munity ; but you need not put yourself to the trouble of 
 trying to prove it, for I regard your act as simple rob-
 
 52 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 bery as a mere mask under cover of which you de- 
 prive another, without his free consent, of what by moral 
 right belongs to him and not to you." That is what any 
 teacher of moral philosophy would say of a case of indi- 
 vidual turpitude. And he would be likely to say the same 
 of a proposition to abolish some social institution, upon 
 the probable perpetuity of which men had invested money. 
 You might argue till the crack of doom the expediency 
 of abolishing such an institution, and the manifest inex- 
 pediency either of perpetuating it or of buying out its 
 beneficiaries, without so much as securing his attention. 
 His one reply would be : "Moral principle demands that 
 society perpetuate the institution or compensate those 
 who lose from its abolition." But asked about the moral 
 right of society to maintain institutions which enable some 
 men to prosper upon the fleecings of others slavery, or 
 tariff protection, or land monopoly, for instance many 
 a modern expert in moral philosophy would promptly 
 fly the moral track. He would then tell you that there 
 is no such thing as moral right in social matters, except 
 as public expediency may be so regarded ! 
 
 This theory of social morals, so convenient a buttress 
 for the indefensible legal fiction of "vested rights" 
 which are either rights whether "vested" or not, or being 
 wrongs gain no righteousness from being "vested" has 
 been thrown up by that wave of "scientific" atheism 
 which gathered volume some years ago in the universities 
 of Germany, and now, when it is said to be subsiding in 
 the place of its origin, floods the universities of England 
 and America and finds an outlet through our public 
 schools. It came too late for the anti-slavery agitation. 
 Apologists for slavery, therefore, were forced to meet 
 the slave issue upon the basis of the moral principle of
 
 HONESTY THE BEST POLICY 53 
 
 human rights. This they did sometimes upon the hypothe- 
 sis that "niggers are not humans," and sometimes by the 
 logic of tar and feathers. They had not yet learned 
 from high "scientific" authority to defend their "peculiar 
 institution" in respectable moral disorder, with the athe- 
 istic theory that there is no such thing as right except 
 as we learn from experience what is better or best. 
 
 Little, however, as these "scientists" suspect it, to set 
 up better or best as a moral test is virtually to acknowl- 
 edge what they regard as an opposing principle, the 
 principle of absolute right. It is to imply that there are 
 standards of right toward which we ought to advance, 
 even though we can advance only experimentally, as we 
 do toward absolute right in physics. But the empirical 
 cult in morals make no such actual acknowledgment. 
 They insist not merely that experiment is the only road 
 toward right, but that its results from time to time are 
 at once the only right we know and the only right there 
 is. In other words, that by experiment we are not feel- 
 ing our way toward moral righteousness but are creat- 
 ing it. 
 
 They profess inability to apprehend absolute right. 
 That is their misfortune. Though absolute right is im- 
 possible of comprehension, it is not even difficult of 
 apprehension. We all apprehend it in some degree when 
 we respect another's title, in any given circumstances, to 
 be done by as we under similar circumstances would our- 
 selves be done by. Whoever resists temptations to steal, 
 not from fear of disgrace or imprisonment or other super- 
 ficial penalty, but because stealing is unjust that person 
 has an apprehension of absolute moral right. 
 
 Were one required to define absolute moral right, he 
 might describe it as harmonious adjustment upon
 
 54 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 the moral as distinguished from the physical plane of life. 
 These two planes are distinct with reference to princi- 
 ples of right, each having its own peculiar adjustment or 
 harmony. We can have an apprehension of perfect physi- 
 cal righteousness. The possibility or idea of physical per- 
 fection must exist or it could not be approached. Man is 
 not a creator ; he is an imitator. He does not design ; he 
 discovers. But he imitates or discovers imperfectly. 
 Though he conceives of physical exactitude, physical har- 
 mony, physical righteousness, or whatever be the name he 
 adopts for his recognition of the absolutely right on the 
 physical plane, he can experimentally only approximate 
 to it. And so it is on the moral plane. We conceive of 
 moral harmony, moral exactitude, moral righteousness, 
 though we cannot realize the ideal experimentally. 
 
 This is illustrated in the maxim already mentioned 
 "Honesty is the best policy." The latter part of the maxim 
 has to do with expediency, with a lower range of har- 
 mony; but the first part carries us into the realms of 
 absolute righteousness. In its broadest signification, hon- 
 esty is moral exactitude, moral perfection, moral right- 
 eousness. It is a standard which we cannot realize but to 
 which we can approximate. And the lesson of the maxim 
 is that the nearer we approximate to this harmony of 
 moral righteousness, the nearer also shall we approximate 
 to the lower harmony of physical prosperity. 
 
 It is a splendid maxim of idealism. It reverses the 
 notion of the empirical moralist, that whatever is experi- 
 mentally best is morally right, and implies that what- 
 ever is morally right will prove to be experimentally 
 best. 
 
 To appreciate the great significance of the maxim, let 
 it be turned upside down, as the experimentalists are try-
 
 HONESTY THE BEST POLICY 55 
 
 ing to do with moral philosophy. Suppose that instead of 
 saying, "Honesty is the best policy," we should say, "The 
 best policy is honest." What kind of morality would that 
 inculcate?
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 JUSTICE OR SACRIFICE 
 
 EVERY moral relationship is subject to one or the 
 other of two great elementary principles justice 
 and sacrifice. There is no exception. In so far, then, as 
 business is not unethical, it must conform either to the 
 natural law of justice, or to what is called the spiritual 
 law of sacrifice. To the extent that it is conducted in 
 disregard or defiance of both, it is without ethical basis. 
 
 Sacrifice consists in giving without reference to get- 
 ting. That it has a legitimate place in human affairs is 
 not to be questioned. It certainly has a legitimate place 
 when social conditions are disordered. Some must then 
 sacrifice, that order may be restored. History is full of 
 noble instances. Nor can it be said that sacrifice is with- 
 out its place in orderly conditions, for giving without 
 reference to getting is one of the characteristics of family 
 life. But the question often recurs whether it ought not 
 also to be characteristic of business life. 
 
 There is cause for that question. Though wealth is 
 abundant, and wealth-producing power emulates Om- 
 nipotence, degrading poverty and the more degrading 
 fear of poverty are distinguishing characteristics of civ- 
 ilized life. Instead of lifting all to better conditions of 
 opportunity, man's triumphs over the forces of nature 
 enormously enrich a few at the expense of the rest. 
 They have done little to increase the comforts of the toil- 
 ing masses even absolutely, but much to diminish their 
 comforts relatively; and industrial liberty they have 
 
 56
 
 JUSTICE OR SACRIFICE 57 
 
 almost destroyed. The gulf between riches and pov- 
 erty has not been filled in ; it has been widened and deep- 
 ened and made more a hell than ever. So dreadful is 
 the poverty of our time felt to be, that it has inspired all 
 of us with fear of it, with a fear so terrifying that many 
 more good people than would like to acknowledge their 
 weakness look upon the exchange of one's immortal soul 
 for a fortune as very like a bargain. Such unwholesome 
 circumstances make men ask of one another with grow- 
 ing eagerness : "Am I not my brother's keeper ?" 
 
 Three answers to the question may be heard. 
 
 There is the answer of Cain as the slayer of his brother. 
 It comes from those strenuous mortals who, denying 
 that their brother has rights, acknowledge no duties to- 
 ward him. They answer promptly and sharply: "No! 
 I am not my brother's keeper. Let him prove his right 
 to survive by surviving. The law of the universe is 
 neither sacrifice nor justice; it is power." 
 
 Another answer is in spirit like the first; but instead 
 of being strenuous it is hypocritical. It comes from pro- 
 fessional philanthropists and their parasites, and from 
 statesmen who seek conquest in the name of humanity; 
 men who, while denying that their brother has rights 
 which they are morally bound to respect, profess an obli- 
 gation of charitable duty toward him. In oily phrase 
 they answer: "Yes; I am my brother's keeper. It is 
 my pious duty, a burden from which I must not shrink, 
 to do him good and regulate his life." 
 
 The third answer, like the second, is affirmative. But 
 it is not hypocritical, nor is it inspired by sentiments of 
 conventional philanthropy. It comes from devoted men 
 and women. Seeing and often sharing the impoverished 
 condition of multitudes of willing workers in a society
 
 58 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 where wealth abounds and may be multiplied indefinitely, 
 and attributing this impoverishment to industrial compe- 
 tition, they conceive of sacrifice for the brother as an 
 ever present and normal duty, and forecast an industrial 
 regime from which "unbrotherly competition" shall have 
 been excluded. 
 
 The social ideal of this class may be expressed in 
 the familiar though much abused formula : "From each 
 according to his ability, to each according to his needs." 
 But this familiar formula is not to be interpreted in the 
 familiar woodeny way. To each according to his needs 
 does not necessarily mean to each according to his selfish 
 desires. It may just as well mean, to each according to 
 what is necessary for his greatest usefulness. And in 
 some form of phrase or other, such is the interpretation 
 which most if not all believers in the formula give to it. 
 The essential idea is not selfish getting but unselfish giv- 
 ing, not greed but sacrifice. 
 
 But that ideal does not bear examination any better 
 than its opposite. Sacrifice is as far out of equilibrium in 
 one direction as greed is in the other. Not sacrifice, 
 but justice, is the law. This is a natural law a law of 
 human nature. It is one phase of the general law which 
 governs all human activity, namely, the law that men seek 
 to satisfy their desires, be they good or bad, in the easiest 
 known way. That general law is the only rule whereby 
 industrial equilibrium can be produced and maintained, 
 so long as the element of self-interest in measurable de- 
 gree persists in the world ; and competition, if left natu- 
 rally free, and not made jug-handled by legislative 
 schemes for resisting it, would maintain this equilibrium. 
 Competition is truly, as some one has expressed it, "God's 
 law of cooperation in a selfish world."
 
 JUSTICE OR SACRIFICE 59 
 
 With competition free, everyone in normal mental and 
 physical health who produced in proportion to his ability 
 would share in proportion to his needs. For when we 
 consider the principle of the inter-changeability of labor, 
 no healthy man's necessities can exceed his ability to pro- 
 duce. His desires may, but not his needs. 
 
 Useless and luxurious people often say they were born 
 to be served, and under a self-sacrificing regime there 
 would be no way of telling whether they might not be 
 right. The queen bee is useful in the hive ; why not they 
 possibly in society? But free competition would furnish 
 an infallible test. If that prevailed, they would be served 
 in the degree that they rendered acceptable service, 
 neither more nor less. 
 
 To reflect at all upon the principle of the inter-change- 
 ability of labor is to see that the relationship of abilities 
 to needs is held in equilibrium by free competition. While, 
 for illustration, a hatmaker might not be able to satisfy 
 his legitimate needs as to shoes with his skill in shoemak- 
 ing, he would be able to do so with his skill as a hat- 
 maker, provided exchange were unrestricted. So a phil- 
 osopher, a preacher, an actor or a teacher might fall 
 very far short of satisfying his common needs, if he had 
 to make the needed things themselves; but if he were 
 really useful to his brethren in his own vocation, he 
 would have no difficulty in satisfying those needs by 
 exchanging his labor for theirs. His income of service 
 would be in proportion to his expenditure of ability, and 
 that is the industrial equilibrium. It is interference with 
 competition, not competition itself, that unbalances in- 
 dustry and thereby brings about social conditions which 
 give plausibility to the theory that we ought to work for 
 one another regardless of a return of work.
 
 60 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 That theory is fundamentally unsound. "He who will 
 not work neither shall he eat." This correlative of the 
 golden rule, which commands not sacrifice but recipro- 
 cality, is good gospel. And whether we become our 
 brother's keeper upon the philosophical principle of 
 giving without getting, or become so in the patronizing 
 spirit of conventional philanthropy, we lead on to the 
 same goal. By making ourselves our brother's keeper in 
 the sense of relieving him of his individual responsibili- 
 ties, we pursue a course that must inevitably eventuate 
 in our invading his individual liberties. He who adopts 
 a policy of perennial sacrifice for his brother man, of 
 sacrifice as a normal social principle in contradistinction 
 to sacrifice in emergencies, has but taken the first step in 
 that policy of repugnant philanthropy which begins with 
 doing our brethren good and culminates in tyrannically 
 regulating their lives. 
 
 Sacrifice is not brotherhood. There are circumstances 
 in which it is neighborly. There are emergencies when 
 it is noble. Even conventional philanthropy has noble 
 aspects. Not so, however, with sacrifice as a universal 
 rule. At its best it implies a benevolently inverted con- 
 ception of the laws of social life ; at its worst it is a form 
 of unmixed selfishness. The principle of sacrifice is not a 
 principle of brotherhood. Self-love sacrifices; brother- 
 hood is just. 
 
 The story of Cain, to which advocates of sacrifice recur, 
 proclaiming as its moral that we are our brother's keeper 
 even that old story, coming down to us from the child- 
 hood of the race, coincides with the golden rule of the 
 Nazarene in identifying brotherhood with reciprocality, 
 with justice, with correlated rights and duties, and not 
 with officious or sacrificial care-taking.
 
 JUSTICE OR SACRIFICE 61 
 
 We need not approach the story of Cain in supersti- 
 tious or pious mood. Wholly apart from the reverence 
 that imputes a sacred character to everything between the 
 lids of the Bible, this story is worthy of serious thought. 
 As with so many of the old stories and so few of the 
 new, it contains a share of elementary truth. This is 
 the truth to which we have alluded as of especial value 
 in this era of agitation against social maladjustments. 
 The truth it embodies is the very reverse of that which it 
 is often lightly supposed to teach. The truth it does 
 teach is that man is not his brother's keeper. 
 
 Disappointed at the cold reception of his offering to 
 the Lord, and envious to the point of deadly hatred of 
 the affectionate reception of his brother Abel's, Cain 
 murdered his brother. The Lord knew he had done this 
 murder. Cain knew that the Lord knew it, and knew, 
 too, that there was no defense. By murdering Abel he 
 had invaded one of Abel's natural rights his right to 
 live. It was no question of neglected charity, which his 
 brother could not righteously demand ; it was no question 
 of withheld philanthropy, to which his brother had no 
 moral claim; it was no question of refusing to sacrifice 
 himself or part of himself for another to whom the sacri- 
 fice would have been a gift. It was a plain case of wrong- 
 ing his brother in respect of a right which his brother 
 could morally assert. His delinquency had reference to 
 no fanciful conception of duties divorced from rights. He 
 had violated his duty- because and only because he had 
 assailed another's right. 
 
 Conscious of the wickedness of his crime, Cain resorted 
 to tactics which have ever since been common with his 
 kind. He made a false appeal to a true principle. 
 
 'Am I my brother's keeper?" he asked triumphantly,
 
 62 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 when interrogated with the question which implied and 
 which he knew to imply the Lord's knowledge of his 
 crime. "Am I my brother's keeper?" The question 
 called for a negative. None other could have been given 
 by a God of justice, who is no respecter of persons. Cain 
 was not his brother's keeper. Had he been his brother's 
 keeper he must have been his brother's master. The 
 terms are interchangeable. So at bottom are the 
 ideas for which they stand. God makes no man the 
 keeper of other men. Individual freedom is as plainly a 
 divine command as is walking with the feet or eating 
 with the mouth. 
 
 The law to which Cain appealed would have been his 
 perfect defense to any accusation but injustice. But to 
 that accusation it was not a defense. Though charged 
 with no duties as the keeper of his brother, he was 
 charged, as are all men, with the duty of respecting his 
 brother's rights. It was because he had disregarded that 
 duty that Cain was driven forth with the mark upon his 
 brow. 
 
 Such is the lesson which the Cain and Abel story has 
 for the lords and masters and philanthropists and re- 
 formers of all lands. "Am I my brother's keeper ?" No ! 
 With emphasis, No ! Not more than Cain was of Abel is 
 any man his brother's keeper. But as upon Cain respect- 
 ing Abel, so upon every man respecting every other, is 
 laid the duty of conserving his brother's rights. There is 
 no normal duty of charity, no normal duty of sacrifice, no 
 normal duty of regulating a brother's life, no normal duty 
 of serving him without expectation of fair service in re- 
 turn, no normal duty of any kind toward any man except 
 as a correlative of some absolute right of his. Our 
 brother has a right to live; therefore it is our duty not
 
 JUSTICE OR SACRIFICE 63 
 
 to kill him. He has a right to labor and accumulate the 
 products of his labor as private property ; therefore, it is 
 our duty to let him labor and not to steal from him. 
 And when these and kindred rights are subject to the 
 power of organized society, as they are now, it is our duty 
 as best we can so to use our influence as to prevent any 
 injustice through the operation of social institutions and 
 laws, which it would be our duty to avoid as individuals. 
 
 The true gospel of social regeneration is this : "I am 
 not my brother's keeper ; but I am bound to respect and 
 conserve my brother's rights." That is the gospel that 
 will regenerate. No other will. It is the gospel of jus- 
 tice, and justice is the predominant law of brotherhood, 
 the core of every sound system of business life. 
 
 By justice is meant the adjustment that morally bal- 
 ances. Applied to business affairs, it means giving and 
 taking upon equal terms taking as well as giving. It 
 is "quid pro quo" ; and for every "quid" there must be a 
 quo," or justice fails the moral balance is disturbed. 
 Reduced to its final terms, justice in business means ser- 
 vice in exchange for equal service. The business man 
 must render full service for the service he receives, and 
 he must demand full service for the service he renders. 
 He would be obviously unjust, were he to get without 
 giving; he would also be unjust, were he to give without 
 getting. Justice in business is the exchange of equiva- 
 lents. It is economic equilibrium. 
 
 Though it were conceded that sacrifice is more exalted 
 than justice, nevertheless justice comes first in the natural 
 order. Before any one can give he must own what he 
 gives. It must be his as against all the rest of the world. 
 No one can give what is not his own. He cannot sacri- 
 fice food or raiment or shelter unless he first earns it and
 
 64 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 owns it. He must be able justly to say of it, "This is 
 mine." If sacrifice be, then, the fruitage and foliage of 
 spiritual growth, yet justice is its root its necessary 
 beginning. Social ethics can no more rest upon sacrifice 
 than upon beggary. Social ethics must rest upon justice. 
 
 For that reason justice and not sacrifice must govern 
 in business. For business is at the root of social affairs. 
 Man lives not for business but by business. Business 
 furnishes him the material things he requires to use, to 
 keep, or to give away. Having earned these things in 
 business, he is free to grow in spiritual grace by sacrific- 
 ing them. But unless he first earns in business what 
 he sacrifices for the good of his soul or the benefit of 
 his brother, the sacrifice may prove to be a curse to both 
 rather than a blessing to either. 
 
 Justice, then, is the particular moral principle in which 
 business ethics are founded. Every ethical business rule 
 which is not rooted in justice is false. And by justice, let 
 it be remembered, is meant moral equilibrium moral 
 harmony. It implies both giving and getting. The busi- 
 ness that does not give an equivalent in service for the 
 service it gets, is a plundering business ; the business that 
 does not get an equivalent in service for the service it 
 gives, is a plundered business. One is unjust as well as 
 the other, and in the natural course of things either will 
 produce disaster. The law of justice is as immutable as 
 the law of gravitation. Even men who seem for a time to 
 flourish upon injustice in business, sooner or later fall 
 victims, in some way, to the very industrial disorder it 
 creates. 
 
 This is clearly enough seen in connection with the 
 cruder forms of injustice. Few grocers would expect 
 in these days to prosper by "sanding" their sugar.
 
 JUSTICE OR SACRIFICE 65 
 
 Shrewd commercial travelers hesitate now to overstock 
 their confiding customers with goods. The more primi- 
 tive methods of injustice in business, have become well 
 nigh obsolete. It is in subtle ways that injustice now 
 dominates business affairs. 
 
 Though business men do not "sand their sugar," they 
 do seek and secure privileges under the law which enable 
 them to exact in trade more service than they give. This 
 is the same as "sanding sugar" both morally and in its 
 inevitably destructive effect upon business. The one, like 
 the other, involves getting without giving on one side, 
 and giving without getting on the other. 
 
 It would appear, then, that business ethics have a wider 
 range than the counting room. So they have. Duties of 
 citizenship are involved. Since legal privileges are de- 
 rived from legislatures, every business man is under an 
 ethical obligation to throw his influence into politics for 
 the protection of business from the blighting effects of 
 legislative favors. It is as much an affair of business to 
 prevent legalizing privilege as to prevent "sanding sugar," 
 and far more important. 
 
 Business ethics, whatever form the specific rules may 
 assume, demand of business men whether manufactur- 
 ers, storekeepers, farmers, workingmen, or what not 
 among the men who help make the world's living 
 that they exert all their power and influence to secure a 
 reign of justice in the whole wide realm of business. 
 Upon that rock business can be firmly established. Every- 
 where else is quicksand. There are no disorders in busi- 
 ness, no mysterious disturbances in business, no booms 
 with their succeeding depressions, no strikes and lock- 
 outs, no undeserved failures there is nothing of which 
 business men complain, that is not traceable to business
 
 66 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 methods at variance with elementary justice. The only 
 remedy is conformity to justice. When business men 
 shall fully and practically recognize the principle that 
 business cannot be honest, and therefore cannot as a 
 whole continue to prosper, so long as legalized privileges 
 enable some men to get out of business more service than 
 they put in, thereby forcing others to put in more than 
 they get out, then and not before will business methods 
 be correct and business life be wholesome.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SERVICE FOR SERVICE 
 
 SO accustomed have men become to the association of 
 elegant leisure with civilization that they realize only 
 with considerable mental effort that civilization depends 
 neither upon leisure nor a leisure class, but altogether 
 upon interchange of work. Service for service is the 
 condition of civilized life. It is this that gives us com- 
 fortable shelter and clothing, that keeps us supplied with 
 food, that furnishes us with all our implements, and that 
 enables us to accumulate knowledge and diversify skill. 
 
 Should we altogether cease serving one another, civil- 
 ization would quickly collapse. Though men may live 
 without serving, it is only through some degree of inter- 
 change of service that they can live civilized lives. The 
 less intense and just this interchange, the lower the grade 
 of civilization ; the more perfect the interchange, both in 
 its economic and its moral qualities, the higher the civil- 
 ization it will generate and maintain. Service for service 
 in other words, wholesome business is the central law 
 of social development. 
 
 In the civilized state with which we of this generation 
 are acquainted, most exchanges of service take the form 
 of exchanges of substantial objects which have been 
 shaped by human art by work. Some exchanges are, 
 indeed, of work itself. Barbers, physicians, teachers, 
 some classes of household servants, actors, lawyers, and 
 so on, do not shape substantial objects and trade them; 
 
 67
 
 68 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 they render direct personal service. But most exchanges 
 of service take the form of exchanges of artificial objects. 
 
 Exchanges of these objects, however, depend upon 
 the principle of service for service. The objects are con- 
 gealed or crystallized service. A familiar type is bread. 
 By no immediate service alone could anyone furnish us 
 with bread. The field must first be plowed and seeded, the 
 mill must first be made and managed, and the flour must 
 be baked in an oven that must first be built. When bread 
 comes to the table, therefore, it is an embodiment of all 
 the different kinds of service which have brought it there ; 
 from that of the farmer to that of the baker, from that 
 of the miner and machinist to that of the transporter. 
 And as with bread, so with all artificial things in the way 
 of food, clothing, shelter, luxuries, and the artificial mate- 
 rials and machinery for producing them. They are 
 products of labor, and in exchanging them we are essen- 
 tially exchanging service for service, work for work. 
 
 Hardly less evanescent, nevertheless, are these things 
 than direct personal service. Some kinds of artificial ob- 
 jects thus embodying service are quickly consumed, and 
 even those that are lasting last but a little while a month 
 or two, a year or two, or possibly a generation or two. 
 Though we often speak of saving, such things cannot be 
 saved. The civilization of to-day rests not upon the 
 saved-up products of earlier generations, but upon inter- 
 changes of service in this generation, and to a great de- 
 gree in this year, or month, or week, or day. 
 
 It is often explained that the idle rich are living upon 
 the accumulated savings of their ancestors. They live 
 upon nothing of the kind. Imagine a rich young man 
 as breakfasting upon toast which his great-great-grand- 
 mother had made, and eggs that his great-great-grand-
 
 SERVICE FOR SERVICE 69 
 
 father had saved up! So far from his doing that, the 
 toast and eggs he eats are those which some of his own 
 fellow inhabitants of this planet have caused to come to 
 him at this very time. Some of his brethren have ren- 
 dered him a service by working for him, and if he renders 
 in exchange no equivalent service for others with his own 
 work, then, somewhere, sometime, in the complex circles 
 of exchange, some one has to that extent given service 
 for which he has not received service. 
 
 Service cannot be saved. Even when congealed in 
 consumable things, it can be saved for only a little while. 
 Society as a whole lives almost literally from hand to 
 mouth. The work that is done to-day serves the wants 
 of to-day. We cannot save it for future generations. 
 
 But individuals can and do save obligations to work. 
 And this is what is really meant by saving wealth. Nor 
 is such saving necessarily incompatible with the principle 
 of service for service. If a farmer, for example, works 
 a day for his neighbor in corn-planting time, with an un- 
 derstanding that the neighbor is to help him in harvest, 
 he will in effect have saved a day's service from corn- 
 planting time till harvest time. Or if a farmer delivers 
 100 bushels of grain to the storekeeper upon an agree- 
 ment that he shall have its equivalent in dry goods upon 
 demand, and he does not demand them for a year, he 
 will in effect have saved the dry goods. Suppose, how- 
 ever, that instead of giving the farmer credit for his 
 wheat the storekeeper pays him money for it, and that 
 the farmer does not spend that money until the next year ; 
 then the farmer will in effect have saved the things he 
 ultimately buys. But the storekeeper, instead of giving 
 either credit or money, may give the farmer his note pay- 
 able in a year, and by mutual agreement this note may
 
 70 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 be renewed from year to year, until the farmer dies, leav- 
 ing it to his son; and after successive renewals it may 
 come to his grandson, to whom finally it is paid with 
 money and the money used to hire a cook to toast bread 
 and boil eggs. The principle will be the same. The serv- 
 ice or goods so procured will in effect have been saved 
 up through those three generations, though in fact the 
 cook was not born until after the wheat for which the 
 note was given had been consumed, nor the eggs laid 
 until the day before they were served. In all these in- 
 stances there is an exchange of service for service. 
 
 The fact that the service in one direction was rendered 
 long before the service in the other, makes no difference. 
 So long as all the processes of the transaction are volun- 
 tary on the part of all parties concerned, it is immaterial 
 whether or not the interchange is concurrent. The essen- 
 tial thing is that when a service is rendered it shall be in 
 exchange for an equivalent service, whether the equiva- 
 lent service be rendered concurrently, or has been ren- 
 dered in the past, or is to be rendered in the future. This 
 is what constitutes service for service. 
 
 If all obligations to serve represented service rendered 
 or to be rendered, there would be no volcanic rumblings 
 in the development of civilization. No one could then 
 complain of unmerited poverty, nor would any be un- 
 deservedly rich. For if each rendered service only as he 
 received or had received or was to receive an equivalent 
 in service, suffering from poverty would imply voluntary 
 idleness, and the possession of great wealth would imply 
 great industry and usefulness. It is an indisputable truth, 
 however, that most of the obligations to serve which con- 
 stitute the so-called wealth of the leisure classes represent 
 neither service rendered nor to be rendered by the posses- 
 sors, but only power acquired.
 
 SERVICE FOR SERVICE 71 
 
 To illustrate this side of the matter, let us suppose a 
 ten-dollar bill extorted by a highwayman from a work- 
 ingman whose wages it is. The workingman had ren- 
 dered service, and this bill was his certificate of title to 
 receive service in return. But now he loses the power to 
 demand that service. The robber has acquired it. So the 
 workingman will have rendered ten dollars' worth of 
 service without getting any service, and the robber will 
 have gained ten dollars' worth of service without render- 
 ing any. 
 
 In that case the workingman is plundered in defiance 
 of law. But there would be no essential difference if the 
 law justified the act. There are instances in which the 
 law does justify precisely such acts. The institution of 
 slavery is one. A master's title to his slave is an obliga- 
 tion upon the slave to serve. He must serve as his mas- 
 ter orders. The law compels him to. Yet he never has 
 received and never is to receive equivalent service in 
 return. As with the robbed workingman, the slave must 
 render service without getting service, while his master 
 gets service without rendering any. The principle of 
 service for service is ignored. It is the same, though the 
 process is more subtle, when private monopolies are 
 carved out of public functions. When, for instance, the 
 streets of a city are turned over to private corporations 
 for street car purposes, and the corporations charge for 
 fares more than could be exacted for the same service 
 in competitive conditions, the excess is upon a footing 
 precisely with the ten dollars extorted from the work- 
 ingman in defiance of law, and with the labor extorted 
 from the slave pursuant to law. To the extent of that 
 excess the passengers are forced to render service with- 
 out getting service, and the corporations get service with- 
 out rendering any.
 
 7 a ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 The most universal method, however, as it is the funda- 
 mental one, of getting service without giving service, 
 through the enforcement of legal obligations to serve, 
 is that of land monopoly. This method operates to effect 
 the result in two ways : First, by extorting private com- 
 pensation for the enjoyment of a common right ; secondly, 
 by abnormally lessening opportunities to use land, and 
 thereby abnormally reducing the price of service. 
 
 All incomes from land not from its use, but from the 
 mere power of forbidding its use are unearned. That 
 is, they consist of services rendered by others for which 
 no service is rendered in return. For no man can render 
 his fellow man a service by "allowing" him to use land, 
 any more than he can render him a service by "allowing" 
 him to breathe. There is no service in either case unless 
 it has been preceded by a commensurate injury. If an 
 enemy grabs my throat and chokes me, he may indeed do 
 me a service by then "allowing" me to breathe. But if 
 he had in the first place respected my natural right to 
 breathe, there would have been no need for his permis- 
 sion. To call such permission a service is to wrench lan- 
 guage and trifle with thought. The same remark is true 
 of the "service" of allowing men to use land, to which all 
 men's rights are equal if there is such a thing as morality 
 in the universe. It is only by previously divesting men 
 of their natural right to land that they can ever be made 
 to feel that permission to use land is a service. The 
 principle of service for service demands that service by 
 work shall be repaid with service by work. Nothing else 
 satisfies it. Consequently rent exactions for private bene- 
 fit as compensation for permission to use land are hostile 
 to this principle. They enable the beneficiaries to that 
 extent to get service without giving any, and therefore
 
 SERVICE FOR SERVICE 73 
 
 compel others to give service to the same extent without 
 getting any. 
 
 The system of land monopoly which thus enables land 
 monopolists to get service without giving service, produces 
 the secondary effect noted above the effect, that is, of ab- 
 normally lessening opportunities to use land, and there- 
 by abnormally reducing the price of service. This effect 
 is infinitely more subtle and vastly more oppressive than 
 the first, which consists merely in extorting private com- 
 pensation for a common right ; but upon a little reflection 
 it will be apprehended. Through occasional phenomenal 
 rises of some land in rent-yielding qualities, whereby 
 some families have become very rich acquiring thereby 
 great power to exact service without rendering any a 
 craze for buying land and holding it for a rise has be- 
 come chronic, in consequence of which the whole earth, 
 though but slightly used, is almost completely monopo- 
 lized. One result of this is to set the service-rendering 
 elements of society into deadly competition with one an- 
 other for opportunities to use the earth in rendering serv- 
 ice. For use of the earth is necessary in all occupations. 
 A city storekeeper, for example, requires more land for 
 his business than a country farmer does for his meas- 
 uring the land by value. The inevitable effect of that 
 competition has been to reduce the value of service, as 
 compared with the value of opportunities to render serv- 
 ice, until those who render it must invariably give more 
 service than they receive. So the principle of service for 
 service in society is turned topsy-turvy. 
 
 The two kinds of obligation to serve which I have 
 thus attempted to distinguish those that represent serv- 
 ice and those that extort it are commonly confused by 
 the habit of speaking of all interchange or rendering of
 
 74 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 service in terms of money. It is by money, that is, that 
 we measure service, whether we measure it for purposes 
 of exchange or for purposes of extortion. If we hire a 
 man to work for us, or buy a consignment of goods, we 
 fix the value in terms of dollars. We do the same if we 
 buy a lot of land to hold for a rise or buy a slave to do 
 our work. Yet in the one case the expression in dollars 
 means that we are arranging to exchange service for 
 service ; whereas in the other it means that we are arrang- 
 ing to exchange a power of extorting service. The moral 
 nature of the transactions is confused by the commercial 
 terms in which both are expressed. 
 
 There arises, therefore, a feeling that money itself is 
 in some sense an unholy thing. In some churches, for 
 instance, collections are not taken up because the jingle 
 of money in church is felt to be offensive. And in many 
 churches where collections are taken, they are regarded 
 as unavoidable evils; a sense of incongruity is often felt 
 and sometimes expressed. Yet there should be no such 
 feeling regarding money that has been earned by serv- 
 ice. To drop such money into the contribution box of 
 any society is to say: "I have done this much work 
 for this cause and here is the certificate." But so much 
 of the money that goes into contribution boxes represents 
 not service for the cause, but extortion for the cause, that 
 it is little wonder a sense of incongruity between money 
 boxes and church worship is felt and expressed both 
 within and without the churches. 
 
 Such is the kind of money that people would get were 
 their wishes granted when they wish to be rich. To wish 
 to be rich is to wish to be able to get service without 
 giving service. It is therefore the most selfish possible 
 wish. Yet it is often made in what purports to be a phil-
 
 SERVICE FOR SERVICE 75 
 
 anthropic spirit. We sometimes wish we might be rich 
 so that we could lighten the burdens of the poor. But 
 why not wish that the poor might be rich so that they 
 could lighten their own burdens ? Zangwill's Jew under- 
 stood this thing to a nicety. After praying the Lord to 
 give him $100,000, upon his promise to distribute $50,000 
 of it among the poor, he added: "But, Lord, if you 
 can't trust me, then give me $50,000, and distribute the 
 other $50,000 among the poor yourself." It all comes 
 back to the original proposition that obligations to serve 
 are essentially of two kinds : those which certify to ex- 
 change of service, and those which certify to a legal 
 power of extorting service. This distinction must always 
 be kept clear. 
 
 Of the justice of the former species of obligation there 
 can be no question. When men freely contract for an 
 exchange of service, whether in the form of direct per- 
 sonal service or of substantial products of labor, or partly 
 in one and partly in the other, the obligation of him who 
 gets service to return its equivalent is a moral obligation. 
 But the obligation which represents power to extort serv- 
 ice without certifying to the rendering of service is im- 
 moral and must be condemned. If one gets without 
 working, others must work without getting; and that is 
 something which no school of ethics can frankly ap- 
 prove. It is essentially robbery. 
 
 The Bible also condemns it. That venerable volume 
 commands us not to steal. It admonishes us, further- 
 more, to do to others as we would have them do to us, 
 and to love our neighbors as ourselves neither more nor 
 less, but the same. And in it we are distinctly told that 
 he who will not work shall not eat, a text which is fre- 
 quently enough quoted against parasitical tramps but
 
 76 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 seldom against parasitical millionaires. In fact the Bible 
 is replete with condemnations of extortion of service. 
 In this way only are its otherwise incomprehensible con- 
 demnations of the rich to be explained. For the rich, in 
 the opprobrious sense, are not those who have much in 
 the way of obligations requiring others to serve in ex- 
 change for service rendered, but those who have anything 
 in the way of obligations to serve which do not represent 
 service rendered. 
 
 As Henry George says:* "Is there not a natural 
 or normal line of the possession or enjoyment of serv- 
 ice? Clearly there is. It is that of equality between 
 giving and receiving. . . . He who can command more 
 service than he need render, is rich. He is poor, who 
 can command less service than he does render or is 
 willing to render; for in our civilization of to-day we 
 must take note of the monstrous fact that men willing to 
 work cannot always find opportunity to work. The one 
 has more than he ought to have; the other has less. 
 Rich and poor are thus correlatives of each other; the 
 existence of a class of rich involving the existence of 
 a class of poor, and the reverse ; and abnormal luxury 
 on the one side and abnormal want on the other have 
 a relation of necessary sequence. To put this relation 
 into terms of morals, the rich are the robbers, since 
 they are at least sharers in the proceeds of robbery; 
 and the poor are the robbed. This is the reason, I take 
 it, why Christ, who was not really a man of such reck- 
 less speech as some Christians deem him to have been, 
 always expressed sympathy with the poor and repug- 
 nance of the rich. In his philosophy it was better even 
 to be robbed than to rob. In the kingdom of right-doing 
 
 * "Science of Political Economy," Book II, Ch. XIX.
 
 SERVICE FOR SERVICE 77 
 
 which he preached, rich and poor would be impossible, 
 because rich and poor in the true sense are the results of 
 wrong-doing. . . . Injustice cannot live where justice 
 rules, and even if the man himself might get through, 
 his riches his power of compelling service without ren- 
 dering service must of necessity be left behind. If 
 there can be no poor in the kingdom of heaven, clearly 
 there can be no rich! And so it is utterly impossible in 
 this, or in any other conceivable world, to abolish unjust 
 poverty, without at the same time abolishing unjust pos- 
 sessions. This is a hard word to the softly amiable phil- 
 anthropists who, to speak metaphorically, would like to 
 get on the good side of God without angering the devil. 
 But it is a true word nevertheless." 
 
 Verily it is a true word. If the extortion of service is to 
 be abolished and the world left free to exchange service 
 for service, then those obligations to serve which repre- 
 sent naked legal power and not service rendered, must be 
 unconditionally abolished. To pay their beneficiaries for 
 their loss of extorting power would be merely to substi- 
 tute one form of extortion for another. Whoever is rich 
 because he possesses legal power to compel the rendering 
 of service without rendering or having rendered therefor 
 an equivalent service, must in justice lose that power. 
 So long as he retains it the natural law of service for 
 service cannot operate. It is only by his losing his power 
 to extort service that others can be restored to their right 
 to exchange service. 
 
 And this restoration is necessary, not only in fairness 
 to the wronged, but for the general good. As Ruskin 
 said in his lecture on "Work," "the first necessity of so- 
 cial life is the clearness of the national conscience in en- 
 forcing the law that he should keep who has justly
 
 7 8 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 earned" ; a law, he added, and as George more fully ex- 
 plains, which "is the proper distinction between rich 
 and poor."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 GREAT FORTUNES 
 
 NO very great fortune is just. This remark does not 
 refer to tainted fortunes alone. It refers also to 
 those that are morally clean, so far as any act of the pos- 
 sessor is concerned. The allusion is to the character of 
 the fortune, not to the character of its possessor. Specif- 
 ically it is an allusion to the fact, and fact it is, that no 
 great fortune can be accumulated or perpetuated by any 
 man without his thereby contributing, however uninten- 
 tionally or unconsciously, to the continuous impoverish- 
 ment of other men. For great fortunes consist chiefly of 
 the market value of legal powers of extortion. 
 
 These fortunes certainly do not consist of money. 
 When men speak of great accumulations of money, 
 they speak in metaphor. Neither do such fortunes con- 
 sist of existing wealth. By wealth is literally meant 
 things drawn forth from natural sources by labor that 
 is to say, things of which the substance is natural, the 
 shape or location or both being artificial. Of that class 
 are clothing, buildings, food, ornaments, and all the great 
 variety of objects which human art produces for 
 the satisfaction of human desires. Those things, actually 
 existent, go in only comparatively slight degree to make 
 up great fortunes. When, therefore, men speak of great 
 accumulations of wealth, they also speak in metaphor. 
 What they mean is accumulations, not of existent wealth 
 produced in the past, but of legal power to command 
 
 79
 
 8o ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 possession of wealth as others bring it into existence in 
 the present and future. 
 
 Deprive the richest man of all his fortune except his 
 actual tangible wealth, his existing labor products, and 
 by comparison he would have but little left. Nor would 
 he have that little long, if he were wholly divested of 
 his powers of exacting labor from others without expend- 
 ing his own labor in exchange. His accumulated labor 
 products would soon go back to external nature whence 
 they came. Great fortunes consist then for the most 
 part, not of the completed products of past labor, nor 
 of money, but of legal powers to exact tribute from pres- 
 ent and future labor. 
 
 These powers may, indeed, be entirely honest and just. 
 This is shown in the preceding chapter, but a further 
 word here will be pardoned, even if it seem to be a repe- 
 tition. If, for example, in exchange for work done by 
 him to-day, a man receives evidence of authority to exact 
 an equivalent in work at any time in the future, his ex- 
 action of that equivalent at his own pleasure will be 
 honest and just. Such is the nature of a transaction in 
 which money is paid for work. The money is evidence 
 of just authority to exact future work. It would be the 
 same in principle if for present work a promissory note, 
 or bond, or other personal obligation to do work in the 
 future were given. In all such instances the transaction 
 is at bottom an exchange of present work for future 
 work. If great fortunes could be made up of powers 
 over future labor like these, then great fortunes could be 
 honest and just. 
 
 In fact, however, great fortunes consist chiefly of pow- 
 ers of a very different kind over future labor. The Lon- 
 don Spectator once furnished an instance when it con-
 
 GREAT FORTUNES 81 
 
 demned the process, "well known in America, of 'freez- 
 ing out.' " It gingerly hinted at still another such power, 
 the primary one of all, when it insisted that it is possible 
 for some people to have more of anything without others 
 having less "except land." By means of such powers 
 over future labor the wealth-producing persons in human 
 society are forced to part with portions of their wealth, 
 as they produce it, to non-producing persons. They are 
 compelled to give up not merely of what they have pro- 
 duced in the past, but also of what they produce now; 
 and they are forced to look forward to a continuing pay- 
 ment of tribute upon all that they shall produce. 
 
 Analyzed to the last, these powers are nothing but 
 powers of taxation for private purposes. Whatever any 
 one gets by foresight, ingenuity, skill, industry, patience, 
 determination, or any other quality so applied as not to 
 add to the aggregate wealth or to increase in some way 
 the aggregate comfort, he gets at the expense of others. 
 It is a private tax. What he gains they must lose. 
 And although he be individually honest, the laws, cus- 
 toms or institutions that enable him to thrive in leisure 
 upon their earnings, are predatory and therefore in 
 morals criminal. 
 
 Granted that anybody can get rich if he tries. Granted 
 that nothing is needed but foresight, ingenuity, skill, in- 
 dustry, patience and determination. Granted that every- 
 body possesses or can develop those qualities to the nec- 
 essary extent. Granted that opportunities are abundant 
 for turning them to account. Granted, in a word, that 
 what he asserts who insists that getting rich is only a 
 matter of the will, is true. Grant it all, and still a ques- 
 tion remains which impeaches the righteousness of every 
 great fortune and throws a doubt upon the deservedness
 
 82 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 of poverty even in extreme cases like those of the tramp. 
 It is the crucial question by which our religion, our 
 morals, our civilization, are to be tried. It is the test 
 question of our social system, and these are its terms: 
 Can anybody get rich, under existing industrial condi- 
 tions, without thereby helping to make others poor? 
 
 There is but one answer and that is, No ! 
 
 The great fortune that rests chiefly upon powers of tax- 
 ation for private purposes, cannot be honest or just or fair 
 in any other than a bare legal or conventional sense. The 
 annual unearned income of wealth which it brings to its 
 possessor must necessarily involve a correspondingly un- 
 requited outgo to wealth producers. Since this Croesus 
 does not earn the wealth he annually exacts from current 
 production, but takes it by virtue of legal powers that are 
 in their nature powers of private taxation, his gain can be 
 balanced off only against others' loss. It is absolutely 
 true, therefore, that as he has so much, others must have 
 less. It is even worse. Not only do the others have less 
 in comparison with what he has, but they have less in 
 comparison with what they actually earn. 
 
 This is not to say that the possessors of fortunes so 
 founded are themselves dishonest or unjust. If they 
 conform to the conventional moralities of money getting, 
 they cannot be charged with personal dishonesty. 
 The dishonesty in such cases is social, not individual. 
 Against them the indictment that lies is not that they 
 are despoiling their brethren, but that they do not use 
 their influence to put an end to the industrial disorder 
 which does despoil their brethren. 
 
 It may be true enough that great millionaires are 
 strictly honest in all their personal transactions. At any 
 rate that may be cheerfully conceded. But upon exam-
 
 GREAT FORTUNES 83 
 
 ination it will be found that their fortunes consist of 
 some great taxing power. Such a fortune has no moral 
 basis, even if acquired by what may be called fair means 
 and what by custom really is fair means. Though the 
 beneficiaries of these unearned incomes be exonerated 
 from moral responsibility for taking them, since there 
 is no individual way of determining the true ownership, 
 they are not excusable for buttressing the system of ex- 
 tortion which creates unearned incomes, nor even for 
 being indifferent to efforts to reform it. Neither can they 
 shelter themselves from moral responsibility by managing 
 their unearned incomes for benevolent purposes, while 
 ignoring the momentous moral fact that the incomes are 
 unearned. 
 
 Logically false and morally unsound certainly as a 
 social theory is the conclusion that conventionally fair 
 accumulations of fortunes do not involve direct moral re- 
 sponsibility, but that the uses to which such accumulations 
 are put do. Let society recognize the moral necessity of 
 abolishing powers of private taxation, to the end that all 
 fortunes may consist of the possessor's earnings in place 
 of his powers of levying tribute upon current industry, 
 and we need not concern ourselves with the uses to 
 which men put their fortunes, provided they are not 
 criminal uses. This is their business and not ours. In 
 social as in individual ethics, the question of just acquisi- 
 tion precedes all questions of expenditure, benevolent or 
 otherwise.
 
 PART FOUR 
 ECONOMIC TENDENCIES
 
 A great change is going on all over the civilized world similar 
 to that infeudation which, in Europe, during the rise of the 
 feudal system, converted free proprietors into vassals, and 
 brought all society into subordination to a hierarchy of wealth 
 and privilege. Whether the new aristocracy is hereditary or not 
 makes little difference. Chance alone may determine who will 
 get the few prizes of a lottery. But it is not the less certain that 
 the vast majority of all who take part in it must draw blanks. 
 The forces of the new era have not yet had time to make status 
 hereditary, but we may clearly see that when the industrial 
 organization compels a thousand workmen to take service under 
 one master, the proportion of masters to men will be but as one 
 to a thousand, though the one may come from the ranks of the 
 thousand. "Master" ! We don't like the word. It is not Ameri- 
 can! But what is the use of objecting to the word when we have 
 the thing? 
 
 HENRY GEORGE, in "Social Problems" Ch. V. 
 
 86
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DEPARTMENT STORES 
 
 WHEN men specialize their work, each making only 
 part of the things he needs, exchange is absolutely 
 necessary. If one man, who wants food, clothing and 
 shelter, devote himself wholly to food-making, depend- 
 ing upon others for his clothing and shelter, the only 
 way in which he can obtain clothing and shelter is by 
 offering his surplus food in exchange for them. Inas- 
 much, then, as in civilized countries all work is special- 
 ized, each man making only one indeed, only a small 
 part of one of the many things he wants exchange is 
 necessarily a universal phenomenon of civilized life. We 
 all live through trading. But the natural conditions of 
 trading do not permit each maker of one thing or part 
 of one thing to trade his product directly with the makers 
 of the products he desires. This is prevented by a great 
 variety of obstructions. Not least effective among them 
 is the impossibility of any one man's having a sufficiently 
 extensive personal acquaintance. Various devices are 
 therefore invented to facilitate trading, and chief among 
 them is storekeeping. 
 
 The storekeeper makes a business of collecting at one 
 point in a neighborhood all the different kinds of things, 
 wherever in the world they may be made, that are ordi- 
 narily required by the people of that neighborhood. He 
 collects these things at that point, in the quantities and 
 at the seasons that best enable him to accommodate local 
 wants ; and he trades them upon demand for the limited 
 
 87
 
 88 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 variety of things which the people of that neighborhood 
 make. He may take money instead of truck from his 
 customers, leaving them to get the money by selling their 
 truck elsewhere. This is the more usual method now, 
 though truck stores still survive. But that makes no 
 difference. The essence of the matter is this, that the 
 world-wide system of storekeeping enables the makers of 
 particular things or parts of particular things anywhere 
 to trade them everywhere for the things they want. It 
 is a system, that is to say, which binds the whole civilized 
 world together in a commercial relationship. 
 
 In the evolution of storekeeping there have grown up 
 two kinds of stores, the wholesale and the retail. Of each 
 there are numerous grades, some of which assume dis- 
 tinctive names, but these two are the grand divisions. 
 Wholesale storekeeping consists in collecting and storing 
 for the accommodation of retailers, while retail storekeep- 
 ing consists in collecting and storing for the accommoda- 
 tion of consumers. 
 
 The compensation of storekeepers is estimated in what 
 are called "profits." When a storekeeper has collected 
 goods in his store for the accommodation of those who 
 buy of him, he charges for the goods a higher price than 
 he has paid. The difference is his "profit." But out of 
 that "profit" he must pay all the expenses of his business, 
 including compensation or wages for his own work. 
 "Profit," therefore, is not a distinctive term. 
 
 For the present purpose it is unnecessary to consider 
 wholesale stores particularly, but we shall find it helpful 
 to illustrate crudely the principle that determines the dis- 
 tribution of retail stores over a country. 
 
 If we imagine a small community at some distance 
 from a trade center, a community without a store, we
 
 DEPARTMENT STORES 89 
 
 shall have no difficulty in understanding how the peo- 
 ple there would do their trading. To some extent ped- 
 dlers might serve them. But they would often be obliged 
 to go to the distant trade center for the purpose of sell- 
 ing products and buying supplies; for the purpose, that 
 is, of trading the few kinds of things which they make 
 and others want, for the many kinds of things which the 
 rest of the world makes and they want. 
 
 This journey, if infrequent, might be an excuse for a 
 holiday. But if local needs made its frequent repetition 
 necessary, it would become part of the regular duty of 
 each family; and so, instead of being a welcome excuse 
 for a holiday, would be work. And not only would it be 
 work, and irksome work, but it would interfere with 
 other work. 
 
 At that point, the natural desire for economy sug- 
 gesting some improvement, it is easy to imagine that the 
 different families might hire some one to make it his 
 especial duty to "go to town" as a truckman for all the 
 rest, delivering what they sent and buying what they 
 ordered, they paying him wages. That has not been an 
 unusual arrangement in such circumstances. 
 
 This arrangement could not continue long without 
 the truckman's discovering, if he were bright, that 
 by laying in a stock of staple articles, he might satisfy 
 the requirements of his employers and yet economize his 
 own labor; and he would consequently see the wisdom 
 of proposing a modification of his arrangement. Instead 
 of often driving back and forth to the distant town, carry- 
 ing goods either way for wages as a hired man, he would 
 offer to open a local store, where he would buy local 
 products outright, and also keep on hand at all times a 
 stock of goods from which his neighbors could satisfy
 
 90 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 their wants. If he did this, he would be serving his 
 neighbors in his capacity of independent storekeeper, 
 precisely as he had served them before in his capacity of 
 hired truckman. But they would now be better served, 
 and he would get his pay no longer in wages but through 
 the "profits" of buying in a cheaper and selling in a 
 dearer market. 
 
 It is to be understood that the foregoing example does 
 not illustrate literally the origin of local stores, but that 
 it is intended to concentrate attention upon the fact that 
 the local storekeeper saves his neighbors the necessity of 
 going or sending to a distant place to trade. Essentially 
 he is their servant. They buy of him because it is more 
 economical and satisfactory to allow him his "profit" 
 than to do for themselves or through hired truckmen the 
 work which he does for them. 
 
 It is for their accommodation, therefore, and not pri- 
 marily for his own profit, that his store is patronized. 
 Consequently, if another storekeeper undertakes to ac- 
 commodate them just as well, and they buy of him, the 
 first storekeeper can offer no reasonable objection. His 
 neighbors are not under any obligation to allow him a 
 better income for doing their storekeeping than some 
 one else is willing to do it for. 
 
 The same principle applies when an enterprising store 
 in the distant city offers to receive orders by mail and to 
 deliver goods daily at lower prices than the local store- 
 keeper demands. What objection can he urge to that, 
 even if it drives him out of the storekeeping business? 
 None. His store is a local convenience, nothing more; 
 and when a greater local convenience supersedes it, it 
 has no longer any reason for being. 
 
 With the understanding, then, that a storekeeper, in
 
 DEPARTMENT STORES 91 
 
 his capacity of storekeeper, is only a servant to his neigh- 
 bors, and that when for any reason his service costs them 
 more than equally good or better service can be had for, 
 it is no longer a service but a burden with that under- 
 standing clear, let us advance from a consideration of the 
 principle of storekeeping in general to the business of 
 storekeeping in and about the region of department 
 stores, and from imaginary to actual conditions. 
 
 In American cities and their suburbs a vast number of 
 retail stores have sprung up and flourished. The particu- 
 lar circumstances of their origin are immaterial. They 
 came because their projectors believed that the people in 
 their respective localities needed them, and they flour- 
 ished because they enabled those people to satisfy their 
 store wants economically more economically than in any 
 other way. 
 
 But now appear the department stores. These keep in 
 stock or store all kinds of goods, from testaments to play- 
 ing cards, from soda water to whisky, from a paper of 
 pins to a bicycle, a piano or a set of furniture. Almost 
 anything you want you can get here, in any quantity, and 
 at prices which are not only lower than ordinary retail 
 prices, but lower than ordinary retailers themselves can 
 buy the same goods for from the manufacturers. Inevit- 
 ably, therefore, the department store must be prejudicial 
 to the business of all ordinary retailers, and destructive 
 to the business of many. 
 
 So it is not remarkable, in times when business clamors 
 for Congressional and other legislative protection, that 
 small retailers should put forth pleas for protection by 
 legislation from the encroachments of department stores. 
 But is legislative protection really possible? Reflection 
 should satisfy any one that it is not.
 
 92 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 It is not department stores but retail buyers that close 
 small stores. What the department stores do is to offer 
 goods at low prices, and buyers do the rest. If depart- 
 ment stores are really, all things considered, more econom- 
 ical and otherwise satisfactory than small retail stores, 
 the people will keep on buying at them ; and no law that 
 either is or ought to be constitutional can stop it. If 
 they are really economical it would be as futile to attempt 
 to legislate against department stores in the interest of 
 small stores, as to legislate against railroads in the inter- 
 est of canal boats or stage lines, against electric cars in 
 the interest of hack drivers, against steamships in the 
 interest of sailing vessels, or against labor-saving ma- 
 chinery in the interest of trades unions. The economical 
 instinct is too potent a force for any restrictive legislation 
 long to resist. 
 
 On the other hand, if department stores are in fact 
 not more economical than small stores, no legislation is 
 necessary. They may last a little while as a fad; but 
 unless they really do economical service for consumers, 
 consumers will soon forsake them. 
 
 The question is wholly one of economy ; wholly a ques- 
 tion of saving labor. It is another form of the question 
 of labor-saving machinery. What small storekeepers 
 complain of is the same thing in essence that printers 
 complained of when the type-setting machine displaced 
 so many of their number. The cry of pain which the 
 small storekeeper emits merely shows that the labor prob- 
 lem is pinching him for a solution, and that the problem 
 is by no means so funny nor its solution so simple as he 
 thought when it only pinched "workingmen." Being a 
 question of economy, this department store question must 
 be settled, like all other phases of the labor question, not
 
 DEPARTMENT STORES 93 
 
 by legislative restrictions upon the economical instinct 
 of any men, but by giving to that instinct in general un- 
 obstructed play. 
 
 Not alone is it true that legislation cannot suppress de- 
 partment stores if they are a genuine advance in the 
 direction of economy ; it is also true that legislation ought 
 not to be used for that purpose even if it would be effec- 
 tive. Such legislation would be in essence legislation 
 against buyers, to prevent their economizing. That is a 
 purpose for which legislation cannot be rightfully used. 
 It would be legislation for the purpose of forcing the 
 community to support men in a business which has ceased 
 to be serviceable. That, also, is a purpose for which leg- 
 islation cannot be rightfully used. No man, no class, 
 has the moral right to invoke the law-making power to 
 maintain a business which the people if left to themselves 
 would refuse to support. The law-making power that 
 responds to such a call prostitutes its functions. 
 
 Would we, then, see men thrown out of all employ- 
 ment by the encroachments of economizing improve- 
 ments? By no means. We should labor and plead, on 
 the contrary, for a complete emancipation of the natural 
 opportunities for employment, so that no one could possi- 
 bly be idle against his own will. 
 
 There is no limit to the work that men want done. 
 No machinery can restrict it, no possible extension of the 
 department store system can lower the demand. The 
 cheaper we get things, the more things we want and the 
 more work we therefore require. Natural demand for 
 work is always in excess of the supply. But in exist- 
 ing industrial conditions natural demand is not free to 
 express itself. Effective demand, therefore, is in those 
 conditions always less than the supply.
 
 94 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 If natural demand were free to express itself, new 
 machines would mean more demand for workers instead 
 of less, and department stores would put greater life into 
 trade instead of stagnating it. But the demand for work- 
 ers is held in check by monopoly of opportunities for 
 work monopoly created and maintained by statute law 
 in hostility to natural law. 
 
 While this exists, every new labor-saving machine 
 threatens the livelihood of great masses of workingmen ; 
 and every extension of economies in trade, by means of 
 department stores or other forms of concentration, be- 
 comes a growing menace to the business of small store- 
 keepers. But if legalized monopoly were abolished, all 
 economizing processes would be blessings alike to con- 
 sumers and producers, to buyers and sellers. 
 
 The department store problem, like the labor problem, 
 is at bottom only a phase of the general problem of legal- 
 ized monopoly. It is to be solved not by further protec- 
 tive legislation, but by legislation destructive of the leg- 
 islation upon which monopoly in general rests. When 
 that truth once takes possession of men who feel the 
 pinch of industrial conditions, and of those who sympa- 
 thize with them, a new light will dawn. Then competi- 
 tion will be recognized as cooperation, and be fostered 
 until it is wholly free; then everything that saves labor 
 will be welcomed by every one who lives by laboring.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 GENERAL BUSINESS CONCENTRATION 
 
 THE most significant tendency of modern business, 
 not only in storekeeping but in nearly every other 
 sphere of industry, is production on a large scale busi- 
 ness "concentration," or "organization" as it is com- 
 monly called. Opinions as to the beneficence of this 
 tendency doubtless depend greatly upon the point of 
 view. The head of a large and flourishing establishment 
 would naturally look upon it very differently from the 
 small producer whose field of industry has been invaded 
 and his living possibly taken from him by large concerns. 
 But there must be some test by which to determine, re- 
 gardless of personal interests, whether or not concentra- 
 tion is socially injurious; and the rational test would 
 seem to be one that makes the question hinge upon the 
 character of the impulse back of the concentration. 
 
 When the object and effect of changes from produc- 
 tion on a small scale to production on a large scale are 
 economy, the new method requiring less labor than the 
 old, then the tendency is normal and therefore calculated 
 to be beneficial. Concentration for that reason and with 
 that effect is but a form of labor-saving invention. It 
 produces more or better things with no more labor than 
 before, or the same things with less. What the steam car 
 is to the ox cart, production on a large scale is to pro- 
 duction on a small scale. The factory is an example. 
 Advance in manufactures, from the production in little 
 
 95
 
 96 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 shops of half a century and more ago to the wholesale 
 production in great modern establishments, has been be- 
 cause the latter method is cheaper because, that is to 
 say, it yields better results with less labor. The change 
 is natural, and if in practice it has hardly been altogether 
 beneficent, this is not due to the change from a small to a 
 large scale of production, not to concentration so-called, 
 but to industrial maladjustments which prevent the bene- 
 fits of the improvement from being fairly shared. 
 
 But a very different impulse may cause business 
 concentration. When it is adopted not as a cheapener 
 of production, but as a method of killing competition, 
 then the tendency it expresses is abnormal and unwhole- 
 some. Of concentration from this impulse, the trust is 
 the great example. Trusts have for their object and ef- 
 fect, not the object and effect of labor-saving inventions 
 not the multiplication of products, not the lessening of 
 the labor of production, not the cheapening of prices, 
 but the curtailing of production for the purpose of forc- 
 ing prices up and wages down. 
 
 Prices of trust products have indeed been known to go 
 down, but that has always been in spite of the trust and 
 not because of the trust. It has been because the trust 
 was too weak for its purpose. No trust has ever yet 
 lowered prices except in response to competition or in 
 fear of it, a force which it is the principal aim and object 
 of trusts to destroy. Though trusts wear the garb of 
 economical concentration, and so mislead both those who 
 oppose and those who favor them into confusing them 
 with natural concentration, as if the two were identical, 
 trusts are no more the same as natural concentration than 
 the wolf wearing Red Ridinghood's cloak was Red Rid- 
 inghood herself.
 
 BUSINESS CONCENTRATION 97 
 
 This distinction between natural concentration for in- 
 creasing production, and trust concentration for dimin- 
 ishing it, should be borne in mind when industrial ques- 
 tions that relate to production on a large scale are consid- 
 ered. If the change from a comparatively small to a 
 comparatively large scale of production be arbitrary, if 
 it be a mere combination of individual establishments to 
 stop competition between them and to prevent competi- 
 tion from other sources if, in a word, it be a trust 
 then the change is unnatural and oppressive. But if the 
 change be a genuine labor saver, something which instead 
 of lessening production increases it, instead of weaken- 
 ing competition intensifies it, then the change is natural 
 and the result will be beneficial. 
 
 Put to this test, such concentrated mercantile enter- 
 prizes as department stores would appear to be beneficial. 
 Their object and effect is not to increase prices but to 
 lower them, not to lessen production but to augment it, 
 not to prevent competition but to intensify it, not to ob- 
 struct the consumer but to accommodate him. Like the 
 great factory, therefore, they are an example of the nor- 
 mal and beneficent tendency toward production on a 
 large scale an instance of legitimate concentration. 
 And as the factory has displaced the small shops or 
 changed their character, so the department store will in 
 great measure, if not wholly, as related improvements 
 come in, displace or change the character of small stores. 
 Should this seem hard upon the small storekeeper, it is 
 not more so than the railroad was upon the stage driver, 
 or the linotype machine upon the old compositor. Even 
 if the change could be prevented, the prevention would 
 be unjust. Though it might appear to benefit small 
 storekeepers, it would actually injure consumers. But,
 
 9 8 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 being a natural development, the change cannot be pre- 
 vented. It is a condition which, like rain and sunshine, 
 must be taken as it comes. And but for industrial mal- 
 adjustments which obstruct the diffusion of its benefits, 
 no one, not even the displaced storekeepers themselves, 
 would for one moment desire its prevention. 
 
 As to bonanza farming, there is reason to doubt that 
 it is in fact a labor saver, though it is said to have driven 
 out the farmers of New England, and to threaten small 
 farming even in the West. The argument as to New 
 England rests upon an asserted decline in farm values, 
 but that does not support the argument. While it is true 
 that some farms in New England have fallen greatly in 
 value, it by no means follows that this has been caused 
 by the competition of bonanza farms. It is more likely 
 to have been caused by the shifting of the uses of land 
 in New England, a view which is confirmed by the fact 
 that while some land values in New England have fallen, 
 land values there in general have enormously increased. 
 The region has been going through a transformation, 
 from farming to more advanced industrial uses. It may 
 be that this change has been brought about by Western 
 farming. If so, however, that is because the greater fer- 
 tility of the West has been made available by railroads, 
 and not because there are bonanza farms there. 
 
 If in the West small farming is in danger from the 
 bonanza farm, the fact has yet to be shown. It may be 
 in danger from discriminations by railroads ; but farmers 
 are not wanting who assert that in the absence of special 
 railroad privileges, bonanza farming cannot compete 
 with farming upon a small scale. Assuming, neverthe- 
 less, that production on a large scale is as normal in agri- 
 culture as in manufactures and merchandizing, the time
 
 BUSINESS CONCENTRATIQN 99 
 
 must come, upon that assumption, when small farming 
 will give way to bonanza farming, just as small shops 
 have given way to large factories, and as small stores 
 are giving way to department stores. If bonanza farm- 
 ing can produce the same results as small farming, with 
 less labor, or better results with the same labor if, that 
 is, it is truly more economical then bonanza farming is 
 destined to be the farming of the future. And it will, in 
 that case, be beneficent, even to the small farmers, unless 
 industrial maladjustments interfere with the normal dis- 
 tribution of its benefits. 
 
 What makes the prospect of production on a large 
 scale so ominous, and it is ominous indeed, is the thought, 
 expressed or felt, that the change implies in its culmina- 
 tion a state of society in which the few will be masters 
 and the many serfs. We think of large factories as being 
 under the mastership of manufacturing "barons," whose 
 employes are slaves without the ordinary slave guaran- 
 tees of support. Department stores associate themselves 
 in imagination with merchant "princes" attended by hosts 
 of cringing clerks. And it would be difficult to conceive 
 of bonanza farms without bonanza "farmers" and their 
 gangs of dependent "hands." Such, too, will most assur- 
 edly be the outcome if we allow maladjustments to per- 
 petuate themselves, and to extend into the era of produc- 
 tion on the largest scale.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE RAGE FOR TRUSTS 
 
 THE economic advantages of legitimate concentra- 
 tion in business have created a rage for concentra- 
 tion, regardless of whether it may be legitimate or not. 
 For several years, consequently, the air has been laden 
 with schemes for consolidating business competitors. 
 The old business maxim, sound and wholesome, that 
 "competition is the life of trade," has been discarded in 
 industrial circles, for the theory, for which no maxim 
 has yet gained currency, that consolidation is the condi- 
 tion of success. This theory is the vital principle of 
 trusts. 
 
 The latest mode of trust organization is a vast im- 
 provement upon earlier ones. Competitors no longer en- 
 ter into trust agreements in restraint of competition. 
 That primitive mode proved to be altogether incompe- 
 tent. The trust agreements were evaded and sometimes 
 openly violated; and, as they fell under the ban of the 
 law, there was no redress in the courts. What competi- 
 tors aiming to organize a trust do now, is to form a legal 
 corporation in which all proprietors become stockhold- 
 ers, paying for their stock with their respective business 
 plants. Establishments that formerly competed for busi- 
 ness thus become part of one great concern under the 
 management and control of one board of directors. If 
 the former owners continue to operate their plants they 
 do so no longer as owners, but as corporation employes.
 
 THE RAGE FOR TRUSTS 101 
 
 It is the corporation, too, that determines as to each plant 
 whether it shall be operated at all. 
 
 Or, the same end may be attained by an improved 
 mode which has become more common. A managing 
 corporation is formed which acquires the ownership of a 
 majority of the stock of each of the corporations to be 
 combined. The latter then go on, nominally as inde- 
 pendent concerns under the nominal management of their 
 respective boards of directors, but really as constituent 
 or subordinate companies under the control of the 
 blanket company. 
 
 There is no opportunity, therefore, as there was under 
 the primitive mode of making trusts, for any party to the 
 trust to evade his obligations to his confederates. The 
 business is wholly in the hands of a central corporation, 
 which has the legal attributes of a natural person; and 
 the trust, instead of being under the ban of the law, oper- 
 ates under its sanction. 
 
 An effect, and one of the objects, of these combina- 
 tions, is to dispense with many employes and cut down 
 the wages of most of the others. Journeymen mechanics 
 and unskilled laborers may escape. Whether they do or 
 not, depends upon whether the trust reduces its produc- 
 tion. If it does not, these employes remain ; if it does, they 
 suffer with the rest. Whether mechanics and laborers are 
 affected or not, such employes as salesmen, bookkeepers, 
 foremen, clerks and the like are sure to be hurt. When 
 many establishments are consolidated, even though as 
 many mechanics and laborers be required as before, they 
 can be governed by fewer foremen, and the output can 
 be disposed of and accounted for by fewer salesmen, 
 bookkeepers and clerks. The organization of a trust, 
 therefore, involves the discharges, more or fewer, of
 
 this class of employes; and that in turn involves the re- 
 duction of the wages of those who remain. This has 
 been one of the notable facts in connection with the trust 
 craze. The general public may not be aware of it, but 
 foremen, clerks, bookkeepers and salesmen are pain- 
 fully so. 
 
 Another object and effect of trusts is the destruction 
 of competitors who are left out of the combination. 
 Since the motive for combining is to kill competition, out- 
 siders must be crushed or the combination fails of its 
 purpose. Many methods of accomplishing this are re- 
 sorted to. It may be done by selling certain lines of 
 goods for a time at less than cost. The trust can stand 
 that longer than its small competitors, and when they 
 are out of the way can recoup by charging higher 
 prices than ever. Even while a price war is in progress, 
 the trust may charge excessively for goods that are not 
 in the field of competition, while selling below cost those 
 that are in that field. But whatever the method, the ob- 
 ject is to crowd out all competition and secure the whole 
 field for the trust. 
 
 Competitive business men are sharply admonished of 
 this by diminishing custom and decreasing profits. Some 
 even of the best of them begin to look forward to retiring 
 from business into high-grade clerkships; and a vast 
 number are contemplating the possibility, if they them- 
 selves fail to get into a trust, of competing with lower 
 grades of clerks for their already precarious places. 
 
 Whether or not the trust has come to stay, is an open 
 question. Trust magnates have no doubt of it. The 
 ordinary business man fears it. Social agitators proclaim 
 it. And only here and there is doubt expressed. Never- 
 theless it may well be that the making of many trusts is
 
 THE RAGE FOR TRUSTS 103 
 
 only an evanescent craze, and that the trusts are mere 
 bubbles which must soon burst. 
 
 But any intelligent conclusion as to that point must 
 rest upon an understanding of the differences in trusts, 
 which we have already noted. There are trusts and 
 trusts. It cannot, therefore, be predicated of the trust 
 generally that it must either succeed or collapse. Some 
 kinds of trusts may succeed if well managed, while 
 others, no matter how well managed, may be predestined 
 to inevitable collapse. Some analysis, then, of trusts as 
 they confront us is necessary. 
 
 As already suggested, we can conceive of a trust hav- 
 ing for its sole object and effect economy in production. 
 Consolidation of business plants might lessen the cost of 
 supplying goods to consumers. It might do this in part 
 by reducing the number of managers, clerks, bookkeep- 
 ers, and so on, necessary to supply a given demand ; and 
 in part through those innumerable other economies 
 which, in favorable conditions, flow from operations upon 
 a large scale. That kind of trust would be analogous to 
 labor-saving inventions. Indeed, it would be a labor- 
 saving invention itself. Familiar examples are offered 
 by the department store, by farming on a large scale, by 
 manufacturing combinations, by any business consolida- 
 tion, however vast, which is neither directly nor indi- 
 rectly buttressed by legal privileges. 
 
 Such a trust would, in the absence of legal privileges, 
 be compelled, by fears of engendering competition if 
 not by competition itself, to give to consumers the bene- 
 fit of its economies. And though this trust would dis- 
 place employes and independent employers, just as labor- 
 saving machines do, just as all economies must, there 
 would be nothing to deplore in that, if opportunities to
 
 io 4 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 work for others or to do independent business in other 
 and related lines were inviting and insistent. The dis- 
 placement would then be a simple and easily adopted 
 change of occupation ; not exile from the whole industrial 
 field. 
 
 Trusts of that character are not essentially bad. On 
 the contrary, like labor-saving machines, they are essen- 
 tially good. If they operate prejudicially in actual prac- 
 tice, it is not because they are injurious in themselves, 
 but because they exist in conditions which operate, in 
 greater or less degree, to bar out from other employ- 
 ments the workers and business men whom they displace. 
 
 Moreover, these trusts cannot carry organization to 
 the point of perpetually monopolizing a business. The 
 notion that they can and do, proceeds from the mistaken 
 supposition that business combination is progressively 
 economical without limit; which in turn proceeds from 
 the fact that business combination is economical up to a 
 certain point. In truth the economies of organization are 
 limited. As soon as organization reaches the point of 
 highest economy in a given case it becomes progressively 
 uneconomical. To overcome this tendency, business 
 combinations must combine monopoly interests as dis- 
 tinguished from competitive interests. Good-will serves 
 to a degree; trade-marks, a species of good-will, also 
 serve; the buying habits of the public can be monopo- 
 lized by these means even for inferior goods for a time 
 and to a degree. But no permanent trust can be founded 
 upon those personal advantages. Permanent trusts re- 
 quire primary monopolies monopolies that are created 
 by law and control the necessary conditions of profitable 
 production, transportation and trade. 
 
 Of primary monopolies, patent privileges are compara-
 
 THE RAGE FOR TRUSTS 105 
 
 lively weak and count for little, because their power is 
 temporary. The tariff and other taxation on production 
 and trade serve only to limit the field of competition, and, 
 although powerful, are not supreme. This may also be 
 true of highway privileges when segregated ; of terminal 
 point monopolies considered individually; of particular 
 monopolies of sources of original supply; of particular 
 monopolies of superior trading sites, and of other monop- 
 olies of location, each considered by itself. But some of 
 these privileges are of gigantic power, and when all are 
 combined they are irresistible. Trusts which rest upon 
 or are buttressed by any of those privileges are essentially 
 bad and dangerous. 
 
 The harmful power of a railroad trust is the owner- 
 ship of great public highways and terminal points which 
 it brings under a single control. That is true, also, of 
 street car combinations, of telephone and telegraph mo- 
 nopolies, of gas and electric light and power trusts ; in a 
 word, of all consolidations of those business interests that 
 spring out of the law instead of being evolved by indi- 
 vidual initiative and regulated by unobstructed competi- 
 tion. 
 
 Mining trusts are in the same category. They are 
 essentially oppressive because they consolidate titles to 
 mining opportunities, and thereby enable the trusts to 
 dictate to all industries that depend upon the mineral 
 deposits of the globe. And as with mining trusts, so with 
 all other trusts which, so to speak, have their feet upon 
 the ground. 
 
 Closely akin to highway and landed trusts are the 
 trusts that bring under common ownership important 
 patent rights. By virtue of these parchments those trusts 
 arbitrarily and effectually prohibit the unprivileged, as
 
 io6 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 a distinguished patent law writer puts it, "from using 
 some of the laws of God," just as railroad trusts by fran- 
 chises, and mining trusts by deeds, arbitrarily and effec- 
 tually prohibit the unprivileged from using some of God's 
 common wealth. 
 
 All these trusts, though differing in power, are in 
 character one. They are grounded in legal privilege. 
 
 Subordinate to the privileged trusts, are trusts of still 
 another class. These have the characteristics externally 
 of those of the first class described above those which 
 we have likened to labor-saving machines. They appear 
 to have the benefit of no monopoly whatever, but to be 
 simple unprivileged business combinations. In fact, 
 however, they derive legal privileges at second-hand and 
 secretly from trusts that are founded in privilege. Of 
 this type was the Standard Oil trust at its inception. 
 Under secret arrangements with railroads, which en- 
 joyed highway privileges, the Standard Oil trust secured 
 rates of transportation so much lower than its competi- 
 tors were required by the same railroads to pay, that it 
 thereby drove its competitors to the wall. Subsequently 
 it acquired highway privileges of its own. Other trusts 
 that flourish now, doubtless also depend for their power 
 upon discriminative freight rates. 
 
 To one or the other of the three classes of trusts men- 
 tioned above, all the trusts now organized, or in process 
 or expectation or possibility of being organized, may be 
 assigned. And according to the class into which a trust 
 falls, will the probabilities of its success or collapse be 
 determined. 
 
 The weakest of all the trusts are those of the first 
 class trusts which possess no legal privileges. If capital- 
 ized at the true value of their plants, and conducted
 
 THE RAGE FOR TRUSTS 107 
 
 merely with a view to economy and not to keeping prices 
 above the competitive level, they may succeed. But 
 which of those trusts is so organized and so conducted? 
 It is safe to say, none. In capitalizing, each plant is in- 
 ventoried at double its value or more; and the consoli- 
 dated business is conducted with a view to paying good 
 dividends on the stock so watered. 
 
 The trust which does this, without the aid of some 
 kind of monopoly land, highway, patent, or the like 
 can no more succeed in business than a boy can succeed 
 in lifting himself by his boot straps. All such trusts are 
 fated from their inception to perish. Some have per- 
 ished already. 
 
 It is probably true, however, that most trusts of the 
 general character last described, are not of that character 
 strictly. Very likely most of them are buttressed either 
 with some special privilege of their own, or with con- 
 tractual interests in the special privileges of other com- 
 binations. In that event their success depends upon the 
 power of the monopoly they so enjoy to which extent 
 they are in the category of trusts of the second class de- 
 scribed above, those grounded in legal privilege. As 
 the latter rise or fall, so may the former. 
 
 Trusts grounded in legal privilege may be expected to 
 succeed or collapse according as their legal privileges 
 do or do not enable them to control the original sources 
 of supply of the goods they handle. Unless they acquire 
 control of these, it is only a matter of time when another 
 trust will. And if another trust does, it will either absorb 
 the first one or crush it. 
 
 Steel manufacturing trusts might for a time control 
 the steel market. But let another trust secure the ore 
 mines, and the steel trusts would be at its mercy. Manu-
 
 io8 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 facturing combinations, however complete, however 
 wealthy, even though buttressed with patents and in com- 
 bination with railroads, can retain their power only 
 while the owners of the natural sources of their supply 
 are not combined. 
 
 It is a sine qua non to success that a trust have its feet 
 upon the earth. This has been discovered by the great 
 trusts. The steel trust goes back to the land, and makes 
 ore mines part of its property. The coal-transporting 
 trust of the anthracite region is careful to secure not 
 only highways, but coal mines. The trust that does not 
 follow their example is doomed. 
 
 To analyze this subject is to conclude that the rage for 
 forming trusts will eventually react and produce a stupen- 
 dous crash. Trusts with much watered stock and without 
 much monopoly power, will go first to their fate. They 
 will be followed by the monopoly trusts that fail to secure 
 fundamental monopolies. In the end no trusts will be 
 left to rule in the economic field save those which have 
 their feet upon the ground. The trust question leads di- 
 rectly to the land question.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE TREND OF THE TRUST 
 
 IN the preceding chapter trusts are classified in three 
 categories : trusts without legal privileges, trusts that 
 own legal privileges, and trusts that own no legal priv- 
 ileges directly but sublet such privileges from trusts that 
 do own them. Trusts without legal privileges are de- 
 scribed as weakest of all, and as fated from their inception 
 to perish; those that sublet legal privileges, as likely to 
 rise and fall in subordination to the legally privileged 
 trusts on which they are dependent; and those that own 
 legal privileges, as doomed unless they establish them- 
 selves firmly upon such legal privileges as are fundamental 
 the conclusion being that "in the end no trusts will 
 be left to rule in the economic field save those which have 
 their feet upon the ground." Proceeding from this con- 
 clusion, let us first ask ourselves to what extent business 
 can be thus securely monopolized by trusts. 
 
 The control of trusts by trusts in other words, the 
 merging of many trusts into one trust, much as many 
 kinds of business have been merged each into its appro- 
 priate trust is clearly among the possibilities of trust 
 development. Such a tendency has already become act- 
 ually manifest. 
 
 Two competing railroad systems, for instance, each 
 made up of what were originally independent roads, are 
 in essence if not in name, two independent trusts. In 
 time one of these systems falls under the control of the 
 
 109
 
 no ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 same interests that control the other. They might be 
 operated as independent properties, preserving the form 
 while destroying the substance of competitive operation, 
 but for a Supreme Court decision against "pooling," 
 which may make it necessary, or at least expedient, to 
 abandon even the form of competitive operation. If so, 
 one would be operated avowedly as a branch of the other. 
 In either event the two systems would be but one sys- 
 tem ; the two trusts would be consolidated. 
 
 Nor need we look to railroading alone for such ex- 
 amples. Telegraphy, telephoning, electric power and 
 light supply, gas works, and the like, are all tending to 
 consolidation. First there are franchises to different cor- 
 porations in a community; then comes consolidation of 
 franchises, until one corporation essentially a trust 
 owns them all. And that stage is followed by a consoli- 
 dation of these interests in different communities under 
 a central control a central trust 
 
 As to trusts generally the "industrials," as their stock 
 is called in the "street'* their evolution is similar. Com- 
 peting establishments in a given line of business, consoli- 
 date and form a trust. Their object, which may be in 
 part to secure economy in production, is in other and 
 perhaps greater part to stop competition. Except as 
 these combinations are buttressed with great legal priv- 
 ileges, they are, as already indicated, in danger from the 
 constant pressure of competition, actual or potential, 
 which tends to produce disintegration. For competition 
 is a vital social principle. Its operation may be ob- 
 structed by minor monopolies, but its force cannot be 
 quite neutralized by anything short of perfect and com- 
 plete monopoly. Consequently, until a trust or a series 
 of trusts secures complete control of all the natural re-
 
 TREND OF THE TRUST in 
 
 sources which its operations require, it feels the force of 
 competitive influences. When one line of business, there- 
 fore, consolidates into one trust, and other more or less 
 related lines consolidate into other trusts, these various 
 trusts are by the same impulse that prompted them to 
 form original trusts, prompted to form a trust of trusts. 
 They thus consolidate under one control not only all the 
 establishments in each line of business, but all the trusts 
 in the different related lines of business, including the 
 trusts that own the natural sources of supply. 
 
 This would make that trust of trusts invincible within 
 its own sphere. Its feet would be upon the ground. Yet 
 it might still be embarrassed by its dependence upon 
 others for subsidiary products. In that case it would 
 come into collision with the trust of trusts that had its 
 feet upon the ground as to those products. Then a strug- 
 gle would ensue, the result of which would be consolida- 
 tion of these trusts of trusts. 
 
 Suppose, for illustration (and the illustration is by no 
 means strained), that the steel manufacturing business 
 were by processes of consolidation brought under the 
 control of a trust which dominated the business, merely 
 as a steel business, from beginning to end owning 
 everything from finished product back to ore mines. 
 That trust of trusts would have its feet upon the ground. 
 But it must use coal ; and here, let us say, is a trust of 
 trusts which dominates the coal business, from delivery 
 at your cellar door back to the mines from which coal 
 is dug. That trust, too, has its feet upon the ground. 
 In such a case the interests of these two trusts would col- 
 lide, and out of the collision the steel trust and the coal 
 trust would emerge as one. 
 
 That illustrates the trend of trusts. Following them
 
 H2 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 from their beginnings, we find a tendency first to the 
 consolidation of businesses of the same kind into trusts 
 for those kinds of business respectively ; then to the con- 
 solidation of trusts in kindred lines; then to the consoli- 
 dation of those trusts as they come into collision with one 
 another; and so on, each trust gaining power over its 
 rivals as it secures a broader and firmer foothold upon the 
 ground. 
 
 Unhindered by fundamental reform, the organization 
 of trusts and their absorption into trusts of trusts would 
 eventuate in the ownership of all business by some 
 gigantic trust, which would get its power as Antaeus got 
 his, by keeping in touch with the earth. Owning the 
 earth, it would own men ; and owning men, it would own 
 all that they produce, from the simplest food to the most 
 marvelous machinery. The middle class would disap- 
 pear, and only two classes would remain beneficiaries of 
 the trusts and their favorites on the one hand, and im- 
 poverished and dependent hirelings and beggars for 
 work on the other. 
 
 To this triumph of the trust, socialists look forward 
 with satisfaction. They see in it the opportunity of the 
 people to take possession not only of the earth but of the 
 artificial instruments of production also, by dethroning 
 the few trusts or the single trust that may acquire this 
 vast ownership. They are satisfied because in this trend 
 they discover signs of the evolution of common owner- 
 ship of the mechanism of production and distribution. 
 But in the trust phenomena there is little real cause for 
 satisfaction. As the evolution of the trust proceeds, trust 
 employes become in greater and greater degree mere 
 voting machines, registering at the polls not their own 
 convictions, but their employers' commands. This condi-
 
 TREND OF THE TRUST 113 
 
 tion, only worse, would be universal should the develop- 
 ment of trusts proceed even approximately to the point 
 indicated above as possible. And when the time came to 
 dethrone the trusts, the trusts themselves through arm- 
 ies of dependent voters and not the convictions or the 
 interests of the people, would decide the issue. It might 
 be that the trusts would decide in favor of their own de- 
 thronement. But if they did, they themselves would fix 
 the terms; and we may rest assured that the dethrone- 
 ment would be but nominal. All land and all machinery 
 might by their consent be turned over to a government ; 
 but it would be at a price which the trusts would dictate, 
 and to a government which they would continue to con- 
 trol. 
 
 It is not by waiting until trusts own everything and 
 then taking it from them, neither by trusting to their 
 destroying their own power by overproduction, that the 
 industrial question must be met. If the evils of the trust 
 are to be overcome and its dangers avoided, the people 
 must possess themselves in time of the strategic point to- 
 ward which the trust is advancing. Since the trust can- 
 not survive without, Antaeus-like, getting its feet upon the 
 ground, it is to be destroyed only as Antaeus was, by 
 keeping it entirely off the ground.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE TRUST AS A NATURAL EVOLUTION 
 
 THE term "trust" comes from the original method of 
 trust organization. The owners of stock in differ- 
 ent corporations intending to consolidate would deposit it 
 with the trustees, whom they invested with absolute 
 power over it, subject to the reservations of the trust 
 agreement. In that manner competing corporations con- 
 centrated in these trustees complete control over their 
 business, and the consolidation was consequently called a 
 trust. But this method of making industrial combinations 
 proved by experience to be crude and open to time- 
 honored legal objections, and from time to time improve- 
 ments were adopted until the trust in its original form 
 disappeared. 
 
 In a narrow verbal sense, therefore, it is correct to say 
 that trusts no longer exist. It is correct, that is, in the 
 same sense in which the punster is correct who tells you 
 that "a door is not a door when it is a jar" for it is 
 simply a play upon words. But only in that sense, for the 
 name and the trusts themselves have persisted, though 
 the method of which the name was originally descriptive 
 has long since given place to methods more effective. 
 Trusts are more numerous and powerful than ever, but 
 they are no longer in the hands of trustees. They are 
 formed now, as described in a previous chapter, by the 
 sale of competing corporations, or a majority of their 
 stock, to new corporations organized especially for the 
 
 114
 
 TRUST EVOLUTION 115 
 
 purpose of buying their interests, consolidating their 
 power, and managing their affairs. 
 
 That was the method adopted by the gigantic steel 
 trust. A syndicate was organized, with which the stock 
 of all the steel corporations of the country was deposited ; 
 and at the proper time this stock was turned over in 
 exchange at certain ratios for the stock of the United 
 States Steel Corporation, which had been organized for 
 that purpose under the laws of New Jersey. Thus the 
 United States Steel Corporation, though nominally noth- 
 ing but a chartered company, like thousands upon thou- 
 sands of others that have been spawned by incorporation 
 laws, became in fact an enormous trust, monopolizing the 
 steel industry of America and reaching out for the monop- 
 oly of that of the world. 
 
 This stupendous consolidation profoundly stirred pub- 
 lic feeling. Where is all this concentration of power to 
 end? was a question which if not upon every tongue was 
 making almost every heart throb with anxiety. All our 
 people were not like the complacent college professor of 
 economics who, while realizing that the steel trust would 
 have "very great power," regarded it as an evil only in 
 case it should use "this power to raise prices to the con- 
 sumer." There were those who had read history thought- 
 fully enough to dread unbridled power in itself. 
 
 The same professor spoke of these great combinations 
 as "a natural evolution of the modern industrial system." 
 That seemed to him not only a sufficient reply to all objec- 
 tions, but a complete justification of the trust as a good 
 thing. Yet he would hardly have looked upon typhoid 
 fever as a good thing, even if some medical professor 
 had commended it as good because it was "a natural evo- 
 lution of a method of drainage." He would have formed
 
 u6 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 his own conclusions as to the goodness of typhoid fever, 
 and if they were unfavorable would have suggested that 
 the medical professor devise something in the way of im- 
 proving drainage, so that typhoid fever might alter its 
 "natural evolution." 
 
 When a method of drainage produces typhoid fever, 
 this does not prove that the fever is good ; it proves that 
 the drainage is bad. So with trusts. If they are 
 a natural evolution from the modern industrial system, 
 so much the worse for the modern industrial system, not 
 so much the better for trusts. Every tree brings forth 
 fruit after its own kind, and by its fruit we know it. If 
 the gigantic steel trust, with the unparalleled power it 
 confers upon two or three men over the industries and 
 even, the lives of great masses of the people, is a natural 
 product of the modern industrial system, then it is time 
 to overhaul that system and learn what is wrong with it. 
 
 But the idea that trusts are good or at any rate tend in 
 the direction of good because they are a natural evolu- 
 tion from historical conditions, is not confined to political 
 economy professors. There is no lack of other well mean- 
 ing people wanting better things to come, who also em- 
 brace it. 
 
 Socialists of the historical school are in that category. 
 They take the current of history for granted as good. 
 Either that, or they assume the impossible that good is 
 a natural evolution from evil. For they believe that 
 history exhibits a process of evolution which, having 
 reached the present deplorable era, is about to pass into 
 what would be a worse, the era of trusts, if it were not 
 that the natural evolution from the trust era is to be an era 
 of equality and good will. 
 
 If persons who believe in this way meant that trust
 
 TRUST EVOLUTION 117 
 
 phenomena would stir up public sentiment to a realiza- 
 tion of the social disease that has produced them, and 
 impel it to seek the root cause and apply radical remedies, 
 their position would be intelligible. But they have no 
 such meaning-. They mean that out of these diseased 
 social conditions, and by a continuation of the same 
 natural process of evolution that has been at work through 
 the ages, there will evolve healthy social conditions. 
 
 Since that is the reason they welcome trusts, it is not 
 just to say, as is sometimes hinted, that they welcome 
 them from motives similar to those which led the quack 
 doctor to produce fits in his chicken pox patients because 
 he was death on fits and didn't know much about chicken 
 pox although their programme does suggest it. They 
 look expectantly and hopefully for the concentration of 
 all business in a few great trusts because they are confi- 
 dent that this condition will generate one in which the 
 people as a whole, in an organized capacity, will acquire 
 and administer all business for the common good. This 
 programme truly is, upon the surface, somewhat like 
 turning chicken pox into fits and then curing the fits; 
 but that is really not a true interpretation of their reason 
 for exalting trusts as a natural development toward better 
 things. They seem to believe that all through history the 
 human race has been a sick man (not from disregard of 
 fundamental laws of social health, but of necessity in the 
 nature of things evolutionary), who from one disease to 
 another has finally got a chicken pox, which, in due 
 course, is producing fits, and that the fits will in turn 
 produce good health. It is not an encouraging pro- 
 gramme. 
 
 Besides the philosophical absurdity of expecting a 
 natural evolution of good from evil, the generation of
 
 n8 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 health by disease, there is to be considered the common- 
 place fact heretofore alluded to, that the masterful minds 
 which are able to dominate private trusts would have no 
 difficulty in dominating government trusts, even under 
 popular government ; yea, more triumphantly under popu- 
 lar government. The invitation to cure the trust evil by 
 encouraging the development of trusts with the expecta- 
 tion of their being taken over ultimately by some form of 
 popular government, is an invitation to join in completing 
 the destruction, instead of achieving the restoration, of 
 popular liberty. 
 
 Unfortunately, the drift of discussion regarding the 
 trust evil has seemed to favor this policy. That result is 
 immensely contributed to by slovenliness in analyzing the 
 trust problem. It has been assumed too carelessly that 
 mere combinations make monopoly. Hence attention has 
 been centered upon the problem of checking combinations, 
 and been thereby diverted from the vital point, which is 
 the nature of the thing combined. The idea to be grasped 
 and clung to is the fact that it is not trusts that make 
 monopoly, but monopoly that makes trusts. The evil 
 springs from no normal condition, but altogether from 
 abnormal adjustments. It does not depend upon mere 
 combination; it depends upon the character of the inter- 
 ests that are combined. A combination of fishermen, for 
 instance, could not, merely as fishermen, make a fishing 
 trust. They have no monopoly. Their only advantage 
 would be their fishing skill, and equal skill could soon be 
 acquired by others. Even with the advantages of such 
 special privileges as dockage rights and transportation 
 opportunities, it has been found impossible to make an 
 invincible fishing trust. An attempt to form a camera 
 trust has failed, although there are patents to buttress
 
 TRUST EVOLUTION 119 
 
 such a combination. The great wall paper trust was one* 
 supposed to be an example of the power of mere combi- 
 nation, but it was compelled by outside competition to 
 dissolve. Instances of this kind might be multiplied and 
 in the future doubtless will be. The latest is the ship- 
 ping trust, which, having but little fundamental monopoly 
 power, has begun to totter. The cigar trust is in the 
 same general category. What gives power to the cigar 
 trust is similar to what gave power for a time to the 
 wall paper trust its trademarks ; and it, too, is destined 
 to collapse. So long as individuals or corporations pos- 
 sess only such interests as are freely open to competition, 
 they can exercise no oppressive power. To hold the field 
 to themselves, in such circumstances, they must render 
 and continue to render superior service to all comers. 
 
 If, while doing that, a combination seems to injure some 
 people by displacing employes or competing houses, the 
 injury is not attributable to the combination. For if men 
 are displaced in a business because they are not needed, 
 and so suffer for lack of employment, their suffering is 
 due, not to their displacement, but to the fact that oppor- 
 tunities for employment in occupations in which they 
 really are needed are closed or narrowed by restrictive 
 laws. 
 
 With such combinations, moreover, there is a limit of 
 efficiency which any thoughtful student of the problem 
 must infer, and which the business community is begin- 
 ning to detect. I have already adverted to it. Up to a 
 certain point there is economy in combination. It saves 
 expense in many ways. But that point reached, the sav- 
 ing becomes less and less progressively as the combination 
 expands, until further combination ceases to be economi- 
 cal and becomes positively wasteful and unprofitable.
 
 120 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 In some degree all combinations are subject to this 
 limitation, because all are to some extent combinations of 
 interests that are open to competition. But to the degree 
 that the combination is of monopoly interests, to that 
 degree the limitation is lifted. A combination of nothing 
 but monopoly interests, controlling the sources of sup- 
 ply and the channels of delivery for imperative demands, 
 would have no limit and would be invincible. The evil 
 power of trusts depends, consequently, upon the extent 
 to which the interests they consolidate are monopoly 
 interests. Though a combination of fishermen could not 
 monopolize the fish trade, a combination of fishing ground 
 monopolists with dock monopolists and railroad monop- 
 olists, could monopolize it. 
 
 The correctness of this analysis is confirmed by the 
 history of the Standard Oil trust. By railroad privileges 
 at first and afterwards by a pipe line from the oil regions 
 to the sea, this trust has dictated terms to oil consumers at 
 one end and to oil producers at the other. It is further 
 confirmed by the story of the all-absorbing steel trust. 
 Not merely to manufacture steel on a large and economi- 
 cal scale is this combination formed. That is only inci- 
 dental. It is a function which might be relegated to 
 others without weakening the trust. The real purpose 
 is to combine the patent monopolies in steel production, 
 with monopolies of the natural sources of steel supply. 
 And by means of another great combination that of the 
 railroads, to be controlled ultimately by the same little 
 coterie that controls the steel trust monopoly of trans- 
 portation also is to be secured. It is not combination for 
 production that is sought, primarily; but combination of 
 productive opportunities. These trusts are not organized 
 to do things, but to "do folks."
 
 TRUST EVOLUTION 121 
 
 Make a simple test analysis and you prove it. Imagine 
 the withdrawal from the two great combinations, the steel 
 trust and the railroad pool, of every monopoly, and what 
 would become of those combinations? Suppose the iron 
 mines were outside the pool. Suppose the coal mines 
 were out. Suppose there were no patents to be com- 
 bined. Suppose the railroad rights of way belonged to 
 hostile interests, free to rack-rent the transportation com- 
 panies. Yet, let these two great combinations own every- 
 thing else. What power would they have? 
 
 Or, to put the same idea in another way, suppose the 
 ore mines, the coal mines, the railroad rights of way, and 
 the patents, all belonged to one trust; while the steel 
 works, the railroad equipment, the machinery at the 
 mines, and everything else of a competitive nature be- 
 longing to these two great combinations, were owned by 
 another trust. What would be their relative power? 
 Would not the latter trust be as a pigmy to a giant? 
 
 Again: Suppose that ownership of the coal and the 
 iron mines were so adjusted that they could not be monop- 
 olized profitably by anybody. Suppose the same thing 
 were so far true of railroad rights of way that every- 
 body's transportation facilities were on a level. And sup- 
 pose the steel-making patents had expired. Who, then, 
 would care a picayune whether the steel and railroad 
 interests combined or not? Nobody. It would in that 
 case be clear to everyone that these combinations would 
 have to render the best possible service to the public or be 
 driven out by combinations that would. 
 
 All this is evident upon a little reflection. And when 
 perceived it almost makes one impatient with the divers 
 cuticular remedies that are proposed for the constitu- 
 tional disease that evolves the trust.
 
 122 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Every injurious trust is built upon some monopoly 
 upon one that is conferred by the government directly, 
 or upon one that is acquired from a direct beneficiary 
 of government. Scores upon scores of little monopolies, 
 and some big ones, rest upon the sub-letting of special 
 privileges by railroad monopolists. Take away these 
 monopolies, and trusts will take themselves away. Monop- 
 olies of ore mines, of salt mines, of railroad rights of 
 way, of territorial privileges, and so on, fortified by tariffs 
 which protect American monopolies from the competition 
 of foreign monopolies such are the things, and such 
 alone, that make trusts possible. It is not true that the 
 trust evil is a normal industrial evolution, in any other 
 sense than it is true that typhoid fever is a normal sani- 
 tary evolution. Typhoid fever is not a product of whole- 
 some conditions ; it is a product of diseased conditions. It 
 is a physical evolution from physical disorder. And so 
 with the trust evil. A natural evolution this certainly 
 is, but not a natural evolution from wholesome industrial 
 conditions. It is a natural evolution from diseased 
 industrial conditions a social evolution from social dis- 
 order. And this industrial disease, this social disorder, 
 is monopoly privileges created and fostered by law. What 
 the germ is to typhoid fever, monopoly is to trusts.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TRUST AND SOCIALISM 
 
 HE who thinks of the socialist political parties, of 
 socialist speeches, of socialist literature, or of all 
 these combined, as socialism, has but a dim perception of 
 some of the most important phenomena in the history 
 of his own time. Though socialist organizations, speeches 
 and literature have to do with socialism, they are no more 
 socialism than maps are geography, or mile posts the 
 highway. The most influential school of socialists regards 
 socialism as a social evolution, and that conception of 
 the subject is being impressively confirmed by events. It 
 can be best understood, not through socialist literature, 
 for there is no gospel of socialism and its literature is 
 a bewildering maze of confusions and contradictions, but 
 through the modern phenomenon of trusts, studied in the 
 light of the theory of historical evolution. 
 
 Not that the trust is a socialist ideal. Far from it. In 
 all socialism there is a democratic aspiration, and trusts 
 are not democratic. Yet they are believed by socialists 
 to secrete democratic germs, which will eventually develop 
 out of the autocratic trust an industrial democracy, some- 
 what as political democracy has been developed out of 
 feudalism and monarchy. 
 
 However this may prove to be, doubtless the economic, 
 as distinguished from the ethical, principles of socialism, 
 are already in process of more or less imperfect exem- 
 plification by the trusts, the most perfect of which in 
 
 123
 
 124 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 that respect is the United States Steel Corporation, men- 
 tioned in the fifth chapter of this Part. This trust owns 
 not only the natural sources of production upon which 
 it depends, but also all the related artificial machin- 
 ery of production and distribution. It is a gigantic 
 socialistic embryo. So at least it distinctly appears 
 to be from a vivid pen sketch by Mr. Ray Stan- 
 nard Baker,* a sketch which is valuable as a social- 
 istic study because, besides being vivid, it is evidently 
 a true account, as far as it goes, of the business methods 
 of the steel trust. 
 
 Mr. Baker describes the organization of the steel trust 
 as "a republican form of government, not unlike that of 
 the United States, with a president; a cabinet, or execu- 
 tive committee, which is likewise a supreme court, hav- 
 ing practically all the power of the board of directors; 
 a treasury department, or finance committee; a legal 
 department (the general counsel) ; and a congress (board 
 of directors), elected to office by individual voters or 
 stockholders." 
 
 The government of the trust, besides being republican 
 in form, is federal in principle ; for, writes Mr. Baker, "it 
 is a general though erroneous impression that when the 
 steel corporation was organized all of the ten absorbed 
 companies lost their identity, being merged in a single 
 huge concern managed from New York City. But the 
 United States Steel Corporation is rather a federation of 
 independent companies, a combination of combinations, 
 each with its own distinct government, officers, sphere of 
 influence, and particular products. The Carnegie Steel 
 Company, for instance, is still independent of the 
 Federal Steel Company, and yet both are a part 
 
 *McClure's Magazitte for November, 1901.
 
 THE TRUST AND SOCIALISM 125 
 
 of the United States Steel Corporation in the same way 
 that Pennsylvania and Illinois, while separate States, each 
 with its own government, are part of the United States." 
 
 But this government is primarily industrial, as dis- 
 tinguished from political. Its purpose is the production 
 and distribution of steel commodities, from the ore and 
 the coal in the mine, through all the 'processes of manu- 
 facture and transportation, to the finished and delivered 
 article. In this particular it differs from the Socialist 
 Commonwealth only in the fact that its field of operations 
 is limited to the steel industry, whereas the Socialist Com- 
 monwealth would be expected to monopolize even more 
 completely and to operate even more perfectly, all branches 
 of industry. 
 
 Still in analogy to the theory of the American govern- 
 ment, the steel trust distinguishes between common func- 
 tions and those pertaining to the constituent companies 
 respectively : 
 
 "While each subsidiary company retains the entire man- 
 agement of its own manufacturing plants, it has been the 
 policy of the new corporation to combine in great general 
 departments those factories of production common to all 
 the companies. For instance, most of the subsidiary com- 
 panies owned their own iron mines, their own coke ovens, 
 and controlled their own ships on the lakes, and each 
 had a department to care for these interests. Now the 
 ore and transportation interests are gathered in one great 
 department." 
 
 The economy effected by this concentration of common 
 interests into one central department is thus described: 
 
 "The coke interests, the export department, the foreign 
 offices in London, and certain branches of the sales de- 
 partments, are each grouped under a single head. By this
 
 126 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 method a single agency distributes iron ore, coal and coke, 
 between the various plants as needed, avoiding cross ship- 
 ments, and supplying plants always from the nearest 
 sources, thereby saving freight charges. Much of the 
 economy of production depends on the efficacy of distribu- 
 tion. Formerly serious delays resulted from the inability 
 to obtain vessel tonnage at the right time, or to load the 
 ships with the right kind of ore when wanted, for many 
 companies, while owning plenty of one kind of ore, were 
 compelled to purchase other kinds to make the proper 
 mixtures. Under the new system, however, the splendid 
 fleet of 115 vessels on the Great Lakes is all under the 
 control of one man, . . . and the ore-distributing 
 system is all under another chief. The ships can thus 
 be directed by telegraph to the ore-docks in Minnesota, 
 Michigan or Wisconsin, where each immediately secures 
 a full load and carries it to the dock or mill where that 
 particular kind of ore is most needed. . . . Coke and 
 coal are distributed much in the same manner by a central 
 department." 
 
 Such centralization is confined, however, as already 
 indicated, to operations of common concern. With refer- 
 ence to functions pertaining to the constituent companies 
 individually, the impulse of competition (more definitely, 
 perhaps, emulation) is encouraged. Mr. Carnegie had 
 already made this a feature of his company, before the 
 federation. He encouraged "friendly rivalries between 
 his plants, spurring them on with rewards, and by firing 
 the pride of accomplishment he succeeded surprisingly in 
 adding to the efficiency of his force." Following Mr. 
 Carnegie's example, the steel trust, while in absolute con- 
 trol, and consequently able to insure harmony through its 
 central authority, has, nevertheless, so adjusted the rela-
 
 THE TRUST AND SOCIALISM 127 
 
 tionships of the constituent companies that "one com- 
 pany buys of or sells to another, as formerly, and the bar- 
 gains are driven just as shrewdly as ever, each president 
 being keenly ambitious to make a good showing for his 
 company. The disputes which naturally arise are settled 
 by the executive committee, sitting as a sort of supreme 
 court." 
 
 As to products which vary with the producing company, 
 wide latitude is allowed, each company being permitted to 
 drive the best bargain it can in the open market. But 
 "in cases where several companies produce the same thing 
 steel rails, for instance they agree on a price and 
 appoint the same agents throughout the country." 
 
 Not only are economies secured by this system of pro- 
 duction and distribution, but every department of the 
 trust, says Mr. Baker, "runs smoothly, noiselessly." 
 
 In this great trust, then, we have an example, only 
 partly developed economically and not at all ethically, but 
 faithful and favorable as far as it goes, of socialism in the 
 concrete. 
 
 To perfect this system economically, with reference to 
 socialist ideals, what is needed is that the trust should 
 encompass all great industries instead of only about two- 
 thirds of only one, and manage them in substantially the 
 same way. To perfect it ethically, with reference to 
 socialism, what is needed is the democratization of the 
 trust, so that all who work in it, the day laborer at the 
 bottom as well as the great captain of industry at the 
 top, shall participate equally in its government and share 
 equally in the value of its products. 
 
 Whether that is practicable is too complex a question 
 for present discussion. One industry might be managed 
 upon this plan with economic success, even though the
 
 128 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 plan might break down if applied to all industries. So 
 the plan might work under a plutocratic system, the board 
 of directors being chosen by the majority of shares, when 
 it would not work under a democratic system, the 
 board being chosen by a majority of the workers. 
 The steel trust illustrates the character but does not 
 demonstrate the practicability of the Socialist Common- 
 wealth. It may be doubted, too, whether, when the trusts 
 had monopolized business, the employes would be able to 
 democratize trusts. The power that perfects the trust is a 
 power which no workmen, other than the specially skilled, 
 can hope to cope with by organization. 
 
 Yet there is scant room for question that socialism is 
 the goal toward which the trust tends. Those socialists 
 are right who see in the trust phenomena their predicted 
 socialist evolution. If socialism comes at all, it must 
 come in one of two ways: either by the absorption of 
 industries by government, or by the absorption of govern- 
 ment by industrial agencies. Both tendencies are at 
 work. Government is reaching out, not through the influ- 
 ence of socialist parties, however, but under the pressure 
 of grasping private interests, and in the form of protective 
 tariffs, subsidies, and the like, for the regulation of func- 
 tions which are distinctly individual. Concurrently, 
 trusts are reaching out for the control of government. 
 
 It is impossible to read Mr. Baker's lucid account of 
 the steel trust without seeing in that organization the pos- 
 sibilities and prophecy of an overmastering governmental 
 machine. If there were no opposing tendency, it could 
 be predicted with almost absolute certainty that the trust 
 would at no distant day evolve into an autocratic, pluto- 
 cratic, all-embracing and paternal socialistic state. 
 Whether this state would in turn evolve democratic
 
 THE TRUST AND SOCIALISM 129 
 
 socialism, conceding the possibility of such an ideal, 
 would not be so easy to foresee; but that the evolution 
 will reach the point of paternalism, if unobstructed, is as 
 certain as any human prophecy can be. 
 
 Fortunately, however, this tendency is obstructed. The 
 sentiment of opposition to the extension of government 
 into the sphere of private industry is not dead. During 
 these years of advancing monopoly and imperialism it has 
 been sleeping; but now it is awaking, as it always has 
 and always will whenever autocratic tendencies gather 
 momentum and begin to disclose their true character. 
 And this same opposition to the absorption by gov- 
 ernment of individual functions is also an obstacle to the 
 absorption of government by trusts. The tendency of 
 trusts to develop a socialistic state cannot persist, because 
 the only thing that perpetuates their power is monopoly 
 of natural opportunities for production. The steel 
 trust, for instance, is cohesive and powerful, not because 
 of its commercial economies, but because directly and 
 indirectly it monopolizes ore beds, coal mines and trans- 
 portation terminals. Abolish these monopolies, and the 
 steel trust would be as impotent as a monarch without 
 the power of taxation. 
 
 This very simple but potent truth is gaining recogni- 
 tion. Public thought is being influenced by it more and 
 more. It is crystallizing a popular opposition to the 
 development of the trust idea, and consequently to social- 
 ism. It is the key to the economic problem, to the labor 
 problem, to the political problem in a word, to the 
 social problem. And it is destined to define the issue 
 over which another great struggle for liberty will be 
 made; namely, whether we shall on the one side per- 
 petuate monopolies of natural sites and resources, and so
 
 i 3 o ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 foster trusts and promote socialism ; or shall, on the other, 
 check those monopolies, and thereby advance and 
 strengthen the cause of individual liberty.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE TRUST AND THE SINGLE TAX 
 
 A VERY simple illustration of the trust may be im- 
 agined by considering the hack service at almost 
 any commodious railway station, whether in city or coun- 
 try. I select a particular one for the sake of being definite. 
 Hackettstown is a New Jersey station on the Delaware, 
 Lacka wanna & Western Railway, where the station yard is 
 large enough to accommodate many more hacks than are 
 needed. Several hacks carry passengers between this sta- 
 tion yard and any desired place in the town at the uni- 
 form charge of a dime. Were more exacted, competition 
 would be stimulated. Realizing this possibility, the hack 
 owners conform voluntarily to what is locally regarded as 
 a fair toll. The business, therefore, is regulated by com- 
 petition if not actual, yet potential. 
 
 Consolidation of these interests might effect economies. 
 If so, the consolidation would be beneficial to all con- 
 cerned. Patrons would get better service and pay lower 
 fares; and if displaced employes were hurt by it, their 
 misfortune would be due, not to the labor-saving con- 
 solidation of Hackettstown hack interests, but, as is the 
 case with the introduction of labor-saving machines, to 
 fundamental legal obstructions to business in general. 
 The consolidation would be nothing but a union of inter- 
 ests in hacks and horses, a kind of property too easily 
 produced in abundant quantities to be monopolized. Such 
 unions are not in themselves harmful. If they were, all
 
 132 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 economizing devices would be harmful, and, following 
 Tolstoy, we should have to return to primitive methods 
 of production. 
 
 But note the effect were the railroad company to con- 
 fer upon those hack owners exclusive rights to enter the 
 station yard with hacks. As the station building is so 
 situated with reference to the public highway that com- 
 peting hackmen could not satisfy the needs of passengers 
 without access to the yard, the privileged hack owners 
 would control the business as a monopoly. Though they 
 still competed with one another, they would be shielded 
 from the competition of outsiders. What if they consoli- 
 date now? How radical the difference! The consoli- 
 dated interests would be more than interests in hacks and 
 horses. They would comprise exclusive rights of entry 
 into the station yard. And therein would lie the evil 
 power of this local hack trust. Freed from all fear of 
 competition, it could make a standard of service to suit 
 itself, and regulate fares upon the basis of extorting "all 
 the traffic would bear." 
 
 This illustration is so far typical of business in general 
 as to indicate the point at which the evil of the trust 
 comes in to bedevil modern industry. That point is not 
 where competitive businesses combine ; it is where compet- 
 ing monopolies come into the combination. When really 
 powerful trusts are analyzed, their power is found to rest 
 in some form of monopoly in some species of privilege. 
 Somewhere in every evil trust, though not always obvious, 
 there is a consolidation of exclusive interests analogous to 
 the station yard monopoly of our illustration. 
 
 Mr. Charles M. Schwab recognized this when in his 
 testimony before the Industrial Commission he affirmed 
 that the steel trust, of which he was manager, absolutely
 
 TRUST AND SINGLE TAX 133 
 
 controls 80 per cent, of the iron ore deposits of this coun- 
 try, and all the best coking-coal lands known. 
 
 Specifically, the monopoly interests upon the consolida- 
 tion of which trusts are erected are numerous and vari- 
 ous. They consist of such monopolies as railroad rights 
 of way, pipe-line rights of way, patented inventions, 
 water privileges, street franchises, mining rights, terminal 
 sites, and so on into a long catalogue. But most of them 
 may be properly classified as monopolies of land. Min- 
 ing rights are obviously land rights. Railroad and pipe- 
 line rights of way, terminal sites, and the like, are evi- 
 dently so. 
 
 To make land monopoly the mother of trusts, however, 
 it is not necessary to trace directly to land monopoly 
 every special privilege that may not obviously spring from 
 that source. The important consideration is that all 
 monopolies which do not spring from, are necessarily 
 subordinate to, monopolies of land. A monopoly of iron 
 mines, for instance, confers control over the iron industry 
 in all its ramifications, including all its minor monopolies. 
 That control may be limited by a monopoly of rights of 
 way, and especially of necessary terminal points for the 
 shipment or delivery of products of the iron industry. 
 But this makes no difference to the argument, for both 
 monopolies are monopolies of land. And, if these two 
 land monopolies be united in one trust, that trust is 
 unconquerable, except by a trust that monopolizes still 
 more important natural sources of supply or still more 
 commanding terminal sites. 
 
 In yet another, a more subtle and therefore more effect- 
 ive way, evil trusts are fostered by land monopoly. This 
 is through general speculation in land. In the hope of 
 profiting by increase in land prices, every one who can
 
 134 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 afford to invest buys land where he thinks it may rise 
 in value. Most of the land so bought is either not used 
 at all or only partly used. It cannot be easily obtained for 
 use, because it is held upon speculation at excessive prices. 
 In consequence of this difficulty, the industrial classes are 
 forced into a glutted labor market, like cattle into a cor- 
 ral. As all processes of industry depend upon land, work- 
 ers of every grade are huddled together begging for 
 some kind of job. Those that are not actually in the 
 corral are in mortal fear of getting into it. In these 
 circumstances, the industrial classes are an easy prey to 
 whoever has a job to give them. To escape the corral, 
 they accept any terms they can get. They cannot con- 
 tract in freedom, for they must buy a chance to live. The 
 question with them is not one of more or less income, but 
 of life or death. Thus the monopoly power that trusts 
 acquire from ownership of land is multiplied by the rela- 
 tive weakness of their landless victims. "The destruction 
 of the poor is their poverty." And their poverty, as well 
 as the original power of the trusts, is rooted in, springs 
 from, and is strengthened by land monopoly. 
 
 This monopoly not only strengthens the trusts by weak- 
 ening the contracting power of their workmen ; it is also 
 the fundamental cause of the suffering which all classes 
 that eat their bread in the sweat of their own faces are 
 forced to endure from what seems to them the "ravages" 
 of labor-saving machinery and other economizing devices. 
 The only radical remedy, therefore, not only for the evil 
 of the trust but also for the evil effects of what ought to 
 be an unmixed and universal good, namely, labor-saving 
 methods, is the abolition of land monopoly. 
 
 This is the comprehensive, because the radical or root 
 remedy, for industrial maladjustment, which Henry
 
 TRUST AND SINGLE TAX 135 
 
 George proposed to apply by what has come to be known 
 by the name of "the single tax." It was his idea to con- 
 tinue, in lieu of all other taxes, the tax we already impose 
 upon the value of land namely, that part of the real 
 estate tax which is measured by the value of sites as dis- 
 tinguished from the value of improvements. To put his 
 proposition in another form, he would abolish all taxes 
 except the one which is measured solely by land values, 
 trusting to the resulting increase in the rate of that single 
 tax to transfer from land monopolists to the public treas- 
 ury the annual ground rent, potential as well as actual, 
 of all kinds of land mines and city lots as well as agri- 
 cultural land each allotment paying in proportion to its 
 value as mere land, irrespective of the value of its im- 
 provements. By this means land monopoly would be 
 abolished. It would be abolished in the only way in which 
 land monopoly can be abolished without reviving it in 
 new forms by turning the state into a monster landlord 
 of unlimited and virtually irresponsible power. For, 
 while it would effectually abolish the monopoly of land, 
 the single tax would preserve private possession under 
 individual occupancy. 
 
 If this principle, the principle of the single tax, were 
 fully applied, land monopoly would evidently be impossi- 
 ble. Vacant city lots would not be held long for higher 
 prices, if the owner had to pay as heavy a tax as the 
 owner of improved lots having an equal land value. 
 Farming land could not be kept out of use by the thrift- 
 less or the greedy, nor by land-grant railroads, if the 
 unimproved were taxed as much as the improved, the 
 locations being of equal value. The coal and ore mines 
 of the country could not be monopolized and closed 
 against mining, if coal land were taxed well up to its
 
 136 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 market value whether worked or not. In every direction 
 this tax would put fines upon land monopolists, thereby 
 discouraging land monopoly and opening to general us 
 all the natural opportunities which are now closed by 
 owners who expect to reap a harvest of higher prices in 
 the future. 
 
 And while abolishing land monopoly, on the one 
 hand, the single tax would, on the other, abolish all fines 
 upon production, thereby releasing the great body of 
 labor from the corral into which it has been driven, and 
 causing work to bid for men instead of compelling men 
 to bid for work. 
 
 Different kinds of cases might require different modes 
 of applying the single tax principle. With reference to 
 transportation, when right of way and mode of operation 
 were inseparable, and even with reference to some kinds 
 of mines, as gold or silver mines, it might be necessary, in 
 order to destroy land monopoly as to them, to place them 
 directly under public management. Where that was true, 
 special modes of applying the single tax principle might 
 be adopted. But in all probability little more would be 
 found necessary in actual experience than the fiscal 
 method of application proposed by Henry George, which, 
 like the single tax principle itself, is also known as "the 
 single tax." At all events this method would be efficient 
 in most cases and with the most vital elements of the 
 problem. 
 
 But the question recurs in more concrete form. "How," 
 it is often asked, "could the single tax benefit the small 
 storekeeper, the small manufacturer, the small farmer, 
 and the dependent wage-worker?" Since large farmers, 
 with the advantage of improved and valuable machinery, 
 can produce at lower cost than the small farmer, could
 
 TRUST AND SINGLE TAX 137 
 
 they not drive him out of business ? In like manner, could 
 not the department store with its vast capital drive out 
 of business the small storekeeper, and the large factory 
 the small manufacturer ? How could the single tax offset 
 these great advantages of the capitalist farmers' machin- 
 ery over the small farmers' rude methods, and those of the 
 large store and factory over the small one ? And with all 
 these small employers out of the way, why couldn't the 
 large ones make their own terms with wage workers ? 
 
 This question assumes, to begin with, that it is desirable 
 to perpetuate small modes of production, like small farm- 
 ing, small manufacturing, and small storekeeping, in 
 behalf of producers on a small scale. That is not neces- 
 sarily so. In every department of industry in which pro- 
 duction can be carried on with greater economy of labor 
 on a large scale than on a small scale, it is desirable that 
 production on the small scale should give way. Whether 
 or not the single tax would permit department stores, 
 mammoth factories, and bonanza farming to put an end 
 to small storekeeping, small manufacturing, and small 
 farming, is therefore beside the question. The real ques- 
 tion is whether the single tax would secure to those who 
 now keep small stores, manage small factories, do small 
 farming, and those who work for hire, their just share 
 in the benefits of the change. 
 
 Henry George had no expectation of interfering by the 
 single tax with normal concentration in production. On 
 the contrary, he expected the single tax to encourage 
 it. But he expected also that the single tax would open 
 the way to all who so desired, to be equal partners in 
 production equal, that is to say, in proportion to their 
 contributions of labor. He expected, in other words, that 
 the single tax would bring about in the field of production
 
 ij8 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 on a large scale, a system of voluntary co6peration; or, 
 to use his own language in "Progress and Poverty, ' that 
 under the single tax "we should reach the ideal of the 
 socialist, but not through governmental repression." 
 
 This ideal would be reached through the radical change 
 in the distribution of wealth which the single tax would 
 effect. The system, being of general application, would 
 automatically distribute products in two funds. The first 
 fund would consist of the distinguishable earnings of 
 individuals ; the second, of the rent or value or premiums 
 for exceptional natural and communal opportunities for 
 production. Among individual workers, the first fund 
 would be divided in proportion to their usefulness; the 
 other fund would go to the community as a whole. The 
 natural law or social force by which this equitable dis- 
 tribution would be made, is free competition, which, like 
 air pressure, so long as it exerts itself not in one direction 
 but in all, produces equilibrium. 
 
 To those who understand the true nature of free com- 
 petition, and do not confound it with the monopolistic 
 phenomena of the present day, which superficial writers 
 mistakenly allude to as "competition," it is perfectly clear 
 how the result outlined above would come to pass under 
 the single tax. But there are those who fail to grasp the 
 idea, and I venture a suggestion. 
 
 When it is asked, How would the small farmer, the 
 small manufacturer, the small storekeeper and the wage- 
 worker fare under the single tax, with the big factory, the 
 bonanza farm and the department store ruling the roost? 
 might it not be more pertinent to ask, How the depart- 
 ment store, the great factory, and the bonanza farmer 
 would fare, if they could get no one to work for them? 
 Think a moment of the effect the single tax would have
 
 TRUST AND SINGLE TAX 139 
 
 upon the labor market. Everyone who monopolized land 
 that other people wanted to use, would have to pay a tax 
 upon it so nearly approximating its annual value that he 
 could never hope to recoup the tax unless he used the 
 land to its full capacity. He would therefore so use it 
 himself, or would relinquish it to some one else. But land 
 cannot be used on any but a primitive scale without the 
 employment of men. Men must be employed, no matter 
 how much machinery there may be. Machinery will 
 not work itself. Consequently, everybody who owned 
 land would either have to hire enough men to work it to 
 the full, or give it up to somebody who would. In either 
 case the effect upon the labor market would be the same, 
 namely, a brisk demand for labor in all departments and 
 of all grades, a demand that would constantly exceed the 
 supply. Jobs would be hunting for men, instead of men 
 hunting for jobs. The inevitable effect of that would be 
 the disbandment of the army of the unemployed, increase 
 of wages, and the consequent independence of workmen. 
 Workmen, though hired, would then have to be treated 
 as industrial equals. They could no longer be treated as 
 serfs. If they objected to their treatment by one em- 
 ployer, they could easily find others; and if they ob- 
 jected to being hired by any employer, they could them- 
 selves become cooperative producers on a large scale, 
 hiring one another. 
 
 The way, therefore, in which the single tax would 
 relieve small producers and dependent wage-workers 
 would be by causing favorable conditions in two respects. 
 First, by so increasing the effective demand for labor as 
 to keep it always in excess of the supply ; and, second, by 
 clearing the way for successful voluntary cooperative 
 organizations among producers.
 
 140 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 The one thing to bear in mind with reference to the 
 single tax principle is that it contemplates the abolition 
 of land monopoly and the consequent freeing of industry 
 from all monopoly shackles and trammels. It would ac- 
 complish this by making competition free. Competition 
 being the antithesis of monopoly, to abolish one is to 
 establish the other. To make competition free, therefore, 
 is to apply the natural remedy to the ills that flow from 
 monopoly. Now, all the ills which seem to come from 
 normal production on a large scale are caused by the same 
 monopolistic circumstances that make the evil trust possi- 
 ble. To get rid of them, we must adopt the same remedy 
 that is required for the trust. Free competition must be 
 established. 
 
 Whoever will consider what free competition means, 
 will realize the beneficently progressive character of 
 the effects that would be produced by the introduction of 
 a principle like that of the single tax, which is simply an 
 effective method of unshackling competition. With com- 
 petition freed and monopoly abolished no one could fail 
 to secure his equitable share in the benefits of social 
 growth. To all such the new modes of production which 
 were more prolific and required less labor, would be wel- 
 comed as a boon. It is the operation of the principle of 
 monopoly, not of free competition, that makes them now 
 a menace. If the great factory, the department store, 
 capitalistic farming, or any other normal species of large 
 production is a menace to any industrial class, it is not be- 
 cause such method is in itself bad, but because the 
 injured class is divested of its competing power. 
 Restore that power by abolishing monopoly through mak- 
 ing competition free, and special difficulties of adjustment 
 which now seem insuperable obstacles, would prove to be
 
 TRUST AND SINGLE TAX 141 
 
 the merest shadows in the path. What labor of all grades 
 needs is not to be helped but to be freed. Being freed, it 
 would help itself. It can be freed only by abolishing the 
 monopoly of land, for land is the native element of 
 labor. 
 
 By means of the single tax principle the abolition of 
 land monopoly can be fully accomplished. By means of 
 the single tax method it can be far advanced. Under this 
 simple land reform, sound in economics and unassailable 
 in morals, no one could hold any kind of land out of use 
 without suffering serious and continual loss. Land would 
 have to be used, and be well used, or be abandoned. There 
 would be no profit in mere ownership. That goal being 
 reached indeed, long before it had been fully reached 
 trade having meanwhile and by the same method been 
 freed by the abolition of commercial and industrial taxes, 
 and of highway obstacles, the benefits of economic im- 
 provement would be generally diffused and the evil spirit 
 of the trust would be exorcised. With the annual value 
 of special landed advantages applied to common use and 
 no longer retained by private owners ; with taxes on in- 
 dustry thus made unnecessary, and consequently abol- 
 ished; with highways freed from special privilege; with 
 unused land everywhere made freely accessible, and the 
 barriers of the industrial corral thus broken down ; with 
 demand for productive work thereby made to exceed sup- 
 ply, and through the free interplay of all the economic 
 forces of consumption and production perpetually to 
 maintain that excess, with these demonstrable effects of 
 the single tax realized, there would be no more possibility 
 of subjugating labor and monopolizing business with pa- 
 per agreements, than of holding back the waters of Ni- 
 agara with a paper dam.
 
 PART FIVE 
 
 POLITICO-ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES
 
 The basic principle of Economics, of the art of ordering the 
 social relations of mankind, may then be summed up in the one 
 word Justice. 
 
 LEWIS H. BERENS, in "Toward the Light" 
 
 Are there no slaves to-day? While we sit here at play, 
 Have we no brothers in adversity? 
 
 None sorry nor oppressed, who without hope or rest 
 Must toil and have no pleasure in their toil? 
 
 These are your slaves and mine. Where is the right divine 
 Of idlers to encumber God's good soil? 
 
 There is no man alive, however he may strive, 
 Allowed to own the work of his own hands. 
 Landlords and water lords at all the roads and fords, 
 Taking their toll, imposing their commands. 
 
 BLISS CARMAN. 
 
 I 
 
 Not ermine clad, nor clothed in state, 
 Their title deeds not yet made plain; 
 
 But waking early, toiling late, 
 The heirs of all the earth remain. 
 
 Some day, by laws as fixed and fair 
 As guide the planets in their sweep, 
 
 The children of each outcast heir 
 The harvest fruits of time shall reap. 
 
 Some day without a trumpet's call, 
 
 This news shall o'er the earth be blown: 
 The heritage comes back to all ; 
 The myriad monarchs take their own. 
 
 THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. 
 144
 
 Grimly the same spirit looks into the law of Property, and 
 accuses men of driving a trade in the great boundless Providence 
 which had given the air, the water, and the land to men to use 
 and not to fence in and monopolize. ("The Times.") I cannot 
 occupy the bleakest crag of the White Hills or the Allegheny 
 Range, but some man or corporation steps up to me to show me 
 that it is his. ("The Conservative.") Touch any wood, or field, 
 or house lot on your peril ; but you may come and work in ours 
 for us, and we will give you a piece of bread. ("The Conserv- 
 ative.") Of course, whilst another man has no land, my title to 
 mine, your title to yours, is at once vitiated. ("Man the Re- 
 former.") 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 Properly speaking, the land belongs to these two : To the 
 Almighty God; and to all his Children of Men that have ever 
 worked well on it, or that shall ever work well on it. No gener- 
 ation of men can or could, with never such solemnity and effort, 
 sell Land on any other principle : it is not the property of any 
 generation. 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE, in "Past and Present," Book III, Chapter 
 VIII. 
 
 To any plain understanding the right of property is very simple. 
 It is the right of man to possess, enjoy, and transfer, the sub- 
 stance and use of whatever he has himself created. This title 
 is good against the world; and it is the sole and only title by 
 which a valid right of absolute private property can possibly 
 vest. But no man can plead any such title to a right of property 
 in the substance of the soil. 
 
 JAMES FINTAN LALOR, in "The Irish Felon," July 8, 1848. 
 
 It is easy to persuade the masses that the good things of this 
 world are unjustly divided especially when it happens to be the 
 
 exact truth. 
 
 FROUDE'S "Caesar."
 
 To affirm that a man can rightfully claim exclusive owner- 
 ship in his own labor when embodied in material things, is to 
 deny that any one can rightfully claim exclusive ownership in 
 land. ("Progress and Poverty," Book VII, Ch. I.) So far from 
 the recognition of private property in land being necessary to the 
 proper use of land, the contrary is the case. Treating land as 
 private property stands in the way of its proper use. Were land 
 treated as public property it would be used and improved as soon 
 as there was need for its use or improvement, but being treated 
 as private property, the individual owner is permitted to prevent 
 others from using or improving what he cannot or will not use 
 or improve himself. (Same, Book VIII, Ch. I.) We should 
 satisfy the law of justice, we should meet all economic require- 
 ments, by at one stroke abolishing all private titles, declaring all 
 land public property, and letting it out to the highest bidders 
 in lots to suit, under such conditions as would sacredly guard 
 
 the private right to improvements But such a 
 
 plan, though perfectly feasible, does not seem to me the best. 
 Or rather I propose to accomplish the same thing in a simpler, 
 easier, and quieter way, than that of formally confiscating all the 
 land and formally letting it out to the highest bidders. .... 
 We already take some rent in taxation. We have only to make 
 some changes in our modes of taxation to take it all. What I, 
 therefore, propose .... is to appropriate rent by taxation. 
 
 Now, inasmuch as the taxation of rent, or land values, 
 
 must necessarily be increased just as we abolish other taxes, we 
 may put the proposition into practical form by proposing TO 
 
 ABOLISH ALL TAXATION SAVE THAT UPON LAND VALUES. (Same, 
 
 Book VIII, Ch. II.) 
 
 HENRY GEORGE. 
 
 Hither, ye blind, from your futile banding! 
 
 Know the rights and the rights are won. 
 Wrong shall die with the understanding, 
 
 One truth clear, and the work is done. 
 Nature is higher than Progress or Knowledge 
 
 Whose need is ninety enslaved for ten. 
 My word shall stand against mart and college : 
 
 The planet belongs to its living men ! 
 
 "Liberty," by JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. 
 U.6,
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY A SCIENCE OF TEND- 
 ENCIES 
 
 TO the billowy sea of economic phenomena there is a 
 mean level, analogous to that of the terrestrial ocean, 
 The mean level of the ocean is what its level would be 
 if there were no tides nor waves. It is the level at which 
 the tides equilibrate, and toward which wave crests fall 
 and wave hollows rise. This common level to which all 
 undulations tend, affords a stable basis for calculation. 
 No one would think of objecting to it because the waves 
 throw up higher crests and hollow out lower depressions. 
 Nor would anyone for that reason discredit generaliza- 
 tions that depend upon it. No one, for instance, would 
 set up the fact that some ocean waves rise higher than the 
 Hudson river, to discredit the conclusion that the Hudson 
 river must empty into the ocean because its mean level 
 is higher than the ocean's. Yet, with reference to political 
 economy, in which the mean level of the ocean has its 
 perfect analogue, just such objections are gravely raised. 
 Political economy, which is simply the social economy 
 of mankind as distinguished from the personal economy 
 of individual men, is a science of tendencies. So under- 
 stood, it is an exact science. Just as the mean level of 
 the ocean may be exactly ascertained, though the waves 
 rise and fall in a way to defy calculation, so the mean 
 level of economic undulations may be exactly determined, 
 notwithstanding the number, variety, uncertainty and 
 
 147
 
 148 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 complexity of individual transactions. But there are 
 students of economic science who ignore this, and reject 
 sound economic generalizations, even such as would ap- 
 pear to the untutored to be axiomatic, for no better 
 reason than that they are contradicted by some transitory 
 economic phenomenon. It is as if the greater height of a 
 particular wave, or the deeper depression between two 
 waves, were cited to show that the mean level of the 
 ocean is a mere assumption which facts disprove. 
 
 A familiar example of this species of perversity is the 
 denial by some economists that cost of production de- 
 termines the value of products. Particular products are 
 instanced, the value of which is conceded or shown to be 
 very much above or below the cost of their production, 
 and also of their reproduction. This seems to invalidate 
 the generalization, but it does nothing of the kind. Such 
 instances, like the waves of the ocean, are only undula- 
 tions. At the mean level of economic phenomena, the 
 axiomatic truth still holds good, that cost of production 
 determines the value of products. Trade being unob- 
 structed, no kind of production can be carried on long 
 with the value of products either above or below their 
 cost. If their value remained below cost, their produc- 
 tion would cease for lack of remuneration; if it staid 
 above cost, competition would set in and draw off pur- 
 chasers. Whatever the undulations in value may at any 
 time happen to be, the cost of products does in general de- 
 termine the value of products. 
 
 Another example of the disposition to discredit sound 
 general principles in political economy by reference to 
 particular economic undulations, is connected with the 
 incidence of taxes. When levied upon a product of cur- 
 rent labor, taxes are found to enhance the price of the
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY 149 
 
 product, thus shifting the burden of the taxation from 
 the maker or seller of the taxed product to its last buyer 
 or consumer. The general principle consequently inferred 
 is that taxes on labor products are borne by consumers. 
 But this generalization is often denied because there are 
 instances in conflict with it; as for example, that stamp 
 taxes on proprietary medicines are not always added to 
 the price. Yet that denial is only an instance of disputing 
 the mean level by measuring the altitude of a wave crest. 
 A one-cent stamp tax upon a dollar bottle of medicine 
 might not be added to the price. But this proves nothing 
 except that in that instance the tax is too small to produce 
 its normal effect. A dollar stamp tax upon a dollar bottle 
 of medicine would certainly express itself in the price. 
 So would a tax very much less than a dollar. And if the 
 proprietary medicine happened to be subject to keen com- 
 petition, even so small a tax as one cent would be shifted 
 to the final buyer. 
 
 Any tax upon products, however light it may be, has a 
 tendency to increase their price, just as any pressure upon 
 a wall has a tendency to topple it over. Whether the 
 tendency produces its natural effect must depend in the 
 one case, as in the other, upon such circumstances as its 
 own persistence and the resistance it meets. When a tax 
 is high enough on products to leave the producers no 
 remuneration for their work, the price must go up or 
 production must cease. Men will not produce for nothing. 
 Though some taxes on some products may not for some 
 time be shifted to consumers through higher prices, it 
 is nevertheless absolutely true that at the mean level of 
 economic phenomena, taxes on current production are 
 shifted from producers to consumers, just as in the specific 
 instances of telegraph tolls and express charges, during
 
 150 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 the war with Spain, the one-cent internal revenue stamp 
 tax was shifted from the corporations to the persons who 
 sent messages and shipped packages. 
 
 Still another sound generalization, probably the most 
 important in the whole range of political economy, is often 
 disputed with no better reason that that it is contra- 
 dicted by some undulation or other upon the restless sur- 
 face of economic phenomena. It is the simple but ex- 
 ceedingly luminous truth that demand for consumption 
 determines the direction in which labor will be expended 
 in production. If, for illustration, consumers increase the 
 demand for bread and lessen the demand for beef, pro- 
 ducers will quickly respond by diverting some of their 
 energies from beef-making to bread-making. Especially 
 impressive illustrations of this great economic truth are 
 observable when some fashionable product, such as hoop- 
 skirts once were, goes out of fashion. The expenditure 
 of labor in the direction of producing that article ceases 
 at once. Cessation of demand causes cessation of pro- 
 duction. On the other hand, when a new product comes 
 into general use, as the bicycle or the automobile, labor 
 turns in the direction of producing it in quantity and 
 quality to meet the demand of consumers. These in- 
 stances exemplify in a marked way the principle that 
 demand for consumption determines the direction of labor 
 in production. The same principle operates when the 
 change is not so marked. Any variation in demand for 
 consumption tends to cause a corresponding variation of 
 the direction in which labor is expended in production. 
 
 But this almost obtrusive principle is often denied or 
 ignored, because in some industries the producer has had 
 to create a demand for his products. From that fact it 
 is argued that, in those cases at any rate, the direction of
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY 151 
 
 production has determined the demand for consumption, 
 and the principle been thus reversed. 
 
 Such cases do not rise to the dignity even of exceptions 
 to a general rule. Though the producer does solicit con- 
 sumers, his production is on the whole only in response 
 to demand, even though he has himself stimulated the 
 demand into activity. It was many years after some 
 bicycle manufacturers began to whip up demands for the 
 "wheel" that a great demand set in ; but it is evident that 
 upon the mean level of economic phenomena it is demand 
 for bicycles that turns labor to their production or away 
 from it, 'and not their production that makes consumers 
 demand them, nor a decline in production that causes de- 
 mand to fall off. 
 
 It is similar with the accumulation of goods in stores 
 in advance of the actual demand for them. Though this 
 seems like an instance of production causing demand, it 
 is in fact a splendid instance of demand causing pro- 
 duction. The fact that particular goods are produced in 
 advance of particular demand is immaterial. That is 
 only an undulation on the surface of economic phenomena. 
 They are produced in reliance upon a demand which 
 experience has proved to be constant. Particular goods 
 in great quantity and variety are continually produced to 
 Chicago in advance of the particular demands of Chicago 
 consumers. But this is not because production determines 
 demand. It is because Chicago is known to be a center 
 to which consumers come to satisfy their demands. It 
 is demand for goods at Chicago that brings goods there ; 
 not their being there that makes the demand. Goods 
 are never produced in great quantity and variety to 
 prairie hamlets in expectation of creating a demand for 
 them there. Since the usual demand at hamlets is for
 
 152 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 a few goods of meager variety, only a few simple goods 
 are produced to the hamlet. It is the character of the 
 constant demand for consumption that determines the 
 production, on the one hand, of great storehouses of 
 goods to a Chicago, and on the other of small supplies to 
 cross-roads stores. 
 
 That demand for consumption determines the direc- 
 tion in which labor will be expended in production is an 
 indisputable truth. Any instance which apparently con- 
 tradicts it is either no contradiction at all, or is analogous 
 to a rolling wave that rises above or sinks below the 
 mean level of the ocean. 
 
 The absorption of the pecuniary benefits of material 
 progress by land values, is yet another mean level prin- 
 ciple of political economy to which undulatory economists 
 object When and where land is monopolized, the pecun- 
 iary benefits of local progress must add to local land 
 values; and ultimately local land values will altogether 
 measure these benefits as compared with the benefits other 
 localities have to offer. Instances of the truth of this 
 principle are abundant, but no experimental demonstra- 
 tion is really needed. Any celestial visitor who had never 
 heard of political economy, of land, of land values, or of 
 material progress, but whose logical machinery was in- 
 tact, could reason it out. Given a community in which all 
 the land is monopolized, so that no one can enjoy any of 
 the benefits of living or working there without the con- 
 sent of some local landowner, obtainable only at a price 
 in competition, and it is inevitable that any advantages 
 which that community has to offer will be charged for 
 by the landowners in higher rents and higher selling 
 prices for land, and that ultimately this charge will come 
 to equal the pecuniary advantages of living or working in
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY 153 
 
 that community. This principle is so evidently universal 
 that it must apply not only to a little community but to 
 the whole world. Yet it also is a principle which has 
 been discredited in some minds by some economic undula- 
 tion or other. 
 
 Such economic phenomena as the fall of farm land 
 values in old England and New England are frequently 
 but quite mistakenly referred to as having completely 
 done away with the principle. While it may be true that 
 these values have fallen as compared with what they 
 were a few years ago, it is not true that they have fallen 
 as compared with what they were 300 years ago. We 
 therefore mistake a fluctuation for a tendency, an undula- 
 tion for the mean level, if we assume that these tem- 
 porary depressions of value in recent years are in con- 
 tradiction of the general principle that land values absorb 
 the pecuniary benefits of progress. 
 
 Moreover, and this is the more important consideration, 
 though some land values have fallen in some places, other 
 land values have risen in other places. Before the Eng- 
 lish and New England farm-land values declined, Dakota 
 and Manitoba farm-land values were at zero. These have 
 risen as the others have fallen, and manifestly in greater 
 degree. Likewise, as farm-land values have fallen or 
 remained stationary, town values and mine values have 
 risen enormously. The test of the principle is not whether 
 land values for certain purposes or in certain places have 
 risen or fallen. That test would determine nothing but 
 undulations. The real question is whether land values 
 have risen or fallen on the whole. That is where the 
 mean level lies. In fact land values as a whole have 
 risen wonderfully within the past fifty years. There is 
 but little land now in all the civilized world which is not
 
 154 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 worth as much as it was half a century ago; and there is 
 much that has multiplied in value a hundred, a thousand, 
 or ten thousand fold. 
 
 Even if land values have not yet absorbed all the 
 pecuniary benefits of civilization, their tendency to do so 
 is manifest; and in so far as they fall short of it, the 
 explanation lies plainly in the fact that the monopoliza- 
 tion of the earth is not yet complete. 
 
 One very remarkable respect in which economists ig- 
 nore the mean level of political economy, while they con- 
 centrate attention upon undulations, remains to be consid- 
 ered. It is, however, more interesting than important ; in 
 which respect it differs from the other instances. I refer 
 to their caviling over what is called "unearned increment." 
 
 The term may not be felicitous, but it roughly describes 
 increase in land values. Since land values, unlike most 
 other values, tend to increase with advancing civilization, 
 the increase is referred to as an "increment" ; and as they 
 are not earned, wherein also they differ from other values, 
 the increment is called "unearned." Hence, "unearned in- 
 crement." It would be futile now, and is altogether need- 
 less, to quarrel with the infelicity of this term. For all 
 practical purposes it is good enough ; and it has the ad- 
 vantage of directing attention to the fact that owners 
 of land get a value which they do not earn. The injustice 
 of that is instinctively recognized, and has suggested the 
 propriety of taking the "unearned increment" of land for 
 common use, upon the theory that "unearned" values 
 are rightly common property. 
 
 So effective is this suggestion, that special pleaders 
 for land-monopoly are exceedingly cautious about making 
 frontal attacks upon it. Preferring flank movements, 
 they admit that land does take on an "unearned incre-
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY 155 
 
 ment of value; but they assert that this is unimportant 
 because other things besides land do the same. And 
 from that they argue that the "unearned increment" of 
 land cannot fairly be made a common fund unless all 
 other "unearned increments" are similarly treated. Sup- 
 posing that to be impossible or unjust, they snap their 
 fingers triumphantly and shout, "Check!" or maybe, 
 "Check mate!" Here is a charming example of undula- 
 tory economics. 
 
 One class of illustrations on which these special plead- 
 ers dwell, comprises such unique things as rare coins and 
 old books and pictures. But the increasing value of such 
 objects has no more relation to political economy than 
 your grandmother's portrait has to household economy 
 or her wedding slippers to the shoe trade. 
 
 Another favorite illustration is the diamond found in 
 the street. The finder does not labor; for, though there 
 is exertion in his stooping to pick up the diamond, it is 
 wholly disproportionate to the value of the stone. This 
 illustration is quite pointless. There is no "increment" 
 of value, none whatever, to a lost diamond which has 
 been found. Its value is no more after the finding than 
 before the losing. Such value as the finder acquires is 
 only that which the loser lost. The finder truly comes 
 into possession of value without earning it; but the loser 
 owns that value, and if he claims it the law will justly 
 restore it to him. 
 
 A far better illustration of the same point was furnished 
 some years ago by a newspaper report of a Western law- 
 suit. On a certain Western farm, according to this 
 report, an aerolite dropped one night and sunk into the 
 ground. A wayfarer who had seen it fall, dug up the 
 aerolite and sold it to a college for $250. His labor was
 
 156 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 so slight, in comparison with that price, that it may be 
 disregarded for the purposes of this illustration. The 
 wayfarer, therefore, would appear to have been the owner 
 of $250 of "unearned increment" to aerolite. But not so. 
 Before the payment the owner of the farm where the 
 aerolite had fallen put in an appearance, claiming the 
 money; and the courts decided that it belonged to him 
 and not to the wayfarer. They reasoned, quite correctly, 
 that the aerolite became part of the land as soon as it 
 fell. So this $250, instead of being an "unearned in- 
 crement" to aerolite, was an "unearned increment" to 
 land. It is so with nearly all "unearned increments." 
 At the mean level of economic phenomena they attach to 
 land. 
 
 As with the Western aerolite so would it be with dia- 
 monds found where nature had left them. If you find a 
 diamond in its natural state on a landowner's premises, 
 the value of the diamond is his and not yours. It is an 
 "unearned increment," not to diamond, but to land. If 
 you found it upon public land, it would be yours; and 
 as to that particular stone, you might seem in that case to 
 have acquired an "unearned increment." But this would 
 be in seeming only. At most it would be an economic 
 undulation. That the value of a diamond so found is 
 essentially an "unearned increment" to land may be seen 
 if we suppose, what would naturally be the case, that it 
 is not a stray stone you have found, but a diamond 
 deposit. Should you have found this on private land, 
 the land would rise in value as knowledge of the discovery 
 spread, until all the "unearned increment" to those dia- 
 monds had attached to the land where they lay. The 
 same thing, with a difference only as to beneficiaries, 
 would occur if your "find" were upon public land. You,
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY 157 
 
 or some one else, would hasten to acquire private title to 
 the site of the diamond deposit, and through the land 
 monopoly thus created would as landlord appropriate 
 all the "unearned increment," thereby making it an 
 "unearned increment" to land. The history of Kimberley 
 tells that story eloquently. 
 
 Analyze the "unearned increments" to other things 
 than land, and almost all of them prove at last to be 
 "unearned increments" to land. All instances to the 
 contrary (such as the finding of a stray diamond without 
 an owner, or the increase in value of relics and rarities), 
 which the most laborious student can discover or the most 
 imaginative controversialist invent, will prove upon in- 
 vestigation to be to the mean level of economic phenom- 
 ena what rolling waves are to the mean level of the ocean 
 mere transitory undulations. 
 
 Very much of the deferential quarreling among econ- 
 omists might cease were the fact more clearly recog- 
 nized that economic phenomena have a mean level toward 
 which all undulations tend ; if it were better understood, 
 that is, that political economy is a science of tendencies. 
 In a way, this is recognized. But the recognition is quite 
 perfunctory. It is, indeed, only verbal, as a glance 
 through almost any book on the subject will show. Mod- 
 ern text-books in political economy are given over largely 
 to erecting sectional views of economic undulations. And 
 this is not so much for the purpose of coming at the mean 
 level in that needlessly difficult way, as to show that there 
 is no mean level at all, but only a vast confusion of toss- 
 ing waves and tumbling billows.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FREE COMPETITION 
 
 THAT free competition has had its day and is destroy- 
 ing itself, is regarded as one of the established facts, 
 not only by superficial observers of economic phenomena, 
 but also by the "scientific" cult in economics. Why a notion 
 so manifestly erroneous should be regarded as scientific, 
 is itself a problem. It may possibly be explained by the 
 abuse in economics of what is known as the "scientific" 
 method. Economic "scientists" are so deeply absorbed in 
 the contemplation of multitudinous and multifarious minor 
 data that they often give but scant attention to familiar 
 and simple major data. They cannot see the forest for 
 the trees, nor the city for the houses. They overlook the 
 mean level of economic tendencies in their statistical 
 studies of economic undulations. In their perspiring 
 effort to accomplish a monstrous and impossible task in 
 synthesis, they neglect logical analysis altogether. Over- 
 training seems to have undone them. It is known to 
 have that effect upon the body ; why not upon the mind ? 
 
 But whatever the explanation of this "scientific" ab- 
 surdity may be, the proposition that competition has had 
 its day and is destroying itself is false in both its branches. 
 It is false in its assumption that there has been, in fact, 
 an era of free competition within historic times; and it 
 is false in its theory that competition destroys competition. 
 
 What everybody means by free competition is free 
 bargaining. This is not to say that the term is never 
 
 158
 
 FREE COMPETITION 159 
 
 used to include more than that idea. Unhappily it 
 is so used altogether too often. But as it always does 
 include that idea, it cannot comprehend another and dis- 
 cordant idea without carrying a double meaning. Anyone 
 has a right, of course, to use words with double meanings ; 
 but persons who do so are necessarily ruled off the forum 
 of sane and serious discussion. No degree of liberty in 
 the choice of words, nor any extent or antiquity of verbal 
 usage, will justify in scientific discussion or investigation 
 the ascription of discordant meanings to a distinctive 
 term. Inasmuch, then, as free competition always does 
 comprehend the idea of free bargaining, and cannot, 
 therefore, be legitimately used for economic inquiry as 
 including any idea inconsistent with that one, we are fully 
 warranted in saying that free bargaining is synonymous 
 with free competition. 
 
 Divested thus of the conflicting and confusing meanings 
 of loose usage, competition is instantly recognized as 
 the name of a principle of social or industrial life which 
 has never been given full play. Though it has approx- 
 imated freedom at times on the frontiers of civilization, 
 and within the narrow boundaries of those primitive com- 
 munities has worked well both in economics and morals, 
 there is no record that the civilized world, considered as 
 one community, or even any nation so considered, has 
 ever had an opportunity to test it. 
 
 For monopoly in some form has always character- 
 ized historic civilizations; and when and where there 
 is monopoly, and to the degree that there is monop- 
 oly, then and there and to that degree competition, or free 
 bargaining, is impossible. Where slavery is, competition 
 is restricted ; the slave cannot make free bargains. Where 
 private corporations control the highways of commerce,
 
 160 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 competition is restricted; producers and consumers can- 
 not make their reciprocal trades without paying tribute, 
 and tribute is inconsistent with free bargaining. Where 
 protective tariffs prevail, free bargaining is prevented, 
 not only obviously but also with deliberate intent. Where 
 revenue tariffs and taxes are imposed upon producers and 
 consumers, as such, free bargaining is obstructed. Where 
 mines, and oil wells, and salt deposits, and forests, and 
 rights of highway, and terminal points, and farming 
 places conveniently located, and city building-lots, and 
 water power, and all the innumerable provisions which 
 Nature has made for human use where these are monop- 
 olized, free bargaining is nothing but a free farce. There 
 cannot be free bargaining when either of the bargainers 
 in a trade has a legal or institutional advantage, or stag- 
 gers under a legal or institutional disadvantage. 
 
 It is true that in modern times monopolies themselves 
 are subjects of free competition between monopolists. 
 We have "free trade," so-called, even in that great- 
 est and most fundamental monopoly, the monopoly 
 of the earth. But this does not alter the question. If 
 monopolies obstruct competition, they will obstruct it 
 none the less for being made subjects of competitive 
 purchase and sale. Though this may operate to shift the 
 monopolists, the monopolies still hold sway; they still 
 abridge free bargaining, still interfere with free com- 
 petition, on the part of all whose transactions come with- 
 in the influence of their tribute-exacting power. What 
 of it, if all are free to bargain for an interest in a railroad 
 right of way or terminal privilege ? What of it, if anyone 
 may have a place upon the earth if he can get it by bar- 
 gaining? To argue that this is free competition, that this 
 is free bargaining, is like saying that there is no slavery
 
 FREE COMPETITION 161 
 
 where slaves have the right to buy their freedom at the 
 market price. Freedom to trade one's own labor for a right 
 which in common justice belongs to him without labor 
 as the right to breathe, the right to be free, the right to 
 work, the right to go to market, the right to a place upon 
 the earth, the right to share in the benefits of common 
 development is not free bargaining. 
 
 And when in the history of our civilization have 
 the obstructions to competition noted above when have 
 some or all of those monopolies, with their complex 
 variations, not been in vogue ? One of them, the monop- 
 oly of the earth, has attended the development and 
 strengthened with the advances of civilization from the 
 earliest times. Yet economic "scientists" teach that free 
 competition has had its day ! 
 
 Not only have we never had an era of free competi- 
 tion, but such limited competition as we have had or have 
 now is not being destroyed by itself. That it is being 
 destroyed is quite evident ; but competition is not destroy- 
 ing it. What is destroying it is the natural antagonist of 
 competition monopoly. 
 
 As already indicated, our civilization is impregnated 
 with institutional monopoly. Though its outward form 
 is competition, and though more or less freedom of com- 
 petition has vitalized it, the seeds of the monopoly disease 
 have always been in its system. Under the influence of 
 miraculous progress in the production of wealth, this 
 disease has rapidly gained headway, and as it has ad- 
 vanced the influence of competition has naturally receded. 
 Only by ignoring the fact of institutional monopoly is it 
 possible to infer with even an approximation to scientific 
 precision that competition is destroying itself. To con- 
 sider the fact of monopoly, but to regard it as the natural
 
 162 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 (or must we say "scientific") outcome of competition, is 
 a little like regarding weeds in the corn row as the 
 "scientific" product of seed corn in the hill. Whenever 
 of two conflicting forces and that is what competition 
 and monopoly are one comes under the sway of the 
 other, it is not usually considered scientific to conclude 
 that it has destroyed itself and produced the other. The 
 usual, not to say necessary, conclusion is that the one 
 force has for some reason been overcome by the other. 
 Yet economic "science" encourages the notion not that 
 monopoly is overcoming competition, but that competi- 
 tion is overcoming itself and creating monopoly ! 
 
 Briefly stated with reference to current problems, the 
 misleading theory of such "scientists" is that free com- 
 petition has had a trial in which it has destroyed itself and 
 produced monopoly in the form of trusts. And this ab- 
 surd misconception has taken root in popular thought. 
 The industrial pressure which is forcing masses of the 
 people deeper into a condition of helpless dependence, 
 where squalid poverty and carking fear of poverty in 
 the midst of luxury make life bitter and unwholesome, 
 has tremendously stimulated economic discussion among 
 the masses of the people. The most pronounced char- 
 acteristic of this discussion, however, is its confusion. In 
 that respect it may be fairly compared with the confusion 
 of tongues at Babel. Such variety of opinion prevails 
 among different schools of social reformers that effective 
 concert of action is hopeless. The luxurious and domi- 
 neering beneficiaries of the existing industrial regime 
 might safely say to these reformers: "When you agree 
 among yourselves upon what to do, we promise sub- 
 mission to your decision." There would be no decision 
 to submit to, because there is no community of opinion.
 
 FREE COMPETITION 163 
 
 Yet the reason for the confusion may be traced to 
 disputes about the single economic principle or, may 
 be, it is only a misunderstanding of the significance of the 
 single economic term competition. Whenever there are 
 grounds for supposing that a dispute, instead of turning 
 upon the substance of an idea, turns upon the significance 
 of a word, it is best, if possible, at the outset at any rate, 
 to avoid using the ambiguous word. That many disputes 
 do turn upon mere words is matter of common observa- 
 tion. It is inevitable that they should do so. For words 
 connote or suggest, quite as distinctly as they denote or 
 specify. Indeed, the ideas that words connote are often 
 more vivid than those they denote. Though you define 
 your term never so nicely, yet if it be a common word 
 with different connotations in different localities or to 
 different minds, mental confusion and consequent disputes 
 cannot easily be avoided by precise definition. This is 
 especially true with minds untrained in precise thinking. 
 It is true also with those that are trained to loose thinking. 
 
 Illustrations are abundant. For example: The term 
 "provincial" has the same primary meaning wherever 
 English is spoken. Yet the ideas which it connotes to the 
 British Columbian are in one respect opposite to those 
 which it connotes to the Londoner or the Bostonian. As 
 the inhabitant of the Province of British Columbia has 
 learned to contrast his municipalities with his Province, 
 somewhat as we contrast our States with our nation, 
 "provincial" is to him a term of large significance, like 
 our term "national." When he wishes to dignify an 
 industrial enterprise or a political measure, he describes 
 its character as "provincial," thereby intending to suggest 
 that it is vastly more important than if it were an enter- 
 prise or measure of merely local concern. But to the
 
 164 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Londoner or Bostonian, "provincial" suggests a contrast 
 of what is local with what is metropolitan. To the latter, 
 therefore, the term connotes ideas of pettiness or inferi- 
 ority, while to the British Columbian it connotes ideas of 
 greatness or superiority. How easy it might be, then, for 
 a Londoner or a Bostonian to fall into interminable dis- 
 pute with a British Columbian over some question of 
 "provincialism" regarding which they were really in 
 agreement. It would be almost unavoidable even if they 
 began with a precise definition of the term "provincial." 
 For notwithstanding their agreement as to the denotation 
 of the term, its conflicting connotations to which they 
 were respectively habituated would constantly obtrude 
 to promote misunderstanding between them. 
 
 Another illustration of the difficulty of avoiding con- 
 fusion of thought by separating the ideas that a word 
 connotes from those which it specifically denotes is af- 
 forded by the subject here under consideration. Most 
 if not all the disputes among social reformers over the 
 justice or injustice, the wisdom or folly, the righteous- 
 ness or wickedness, the benefits or injury that are due to 
 competition, rest upon conflicting impressions as to the 
 significance of the term. In economic thought, when 
 precise, "competition" is a term which denotes individ- 
 ual freedom in industrial affairs free bargaining, as 
 we have already defined it. It excludes all idea of arbi- 
 trary industrial control of any person by others. But 
 through colloquial and other loose usage, the term has 
 come to connote ideas the very reverse of this. For that 
 reason a discussion of the law of competition which 
 begins with a definition of the word, is in danger, notwith- 
 standing precision in defining, of being misunderstood 
 by persons to whom the word habitually connotes ideas
 
 FREE COMPETITION 165 
 
 at variance with the definition. Since, therefore, the 
 use of the term "competition" may turn attention away 
 from the essential idea under consideration, and produce 
 needless conflict of opinion, we should seek other forms 
 of expression until we can bring clearly within the ap- 
 prehension the substance of the idea involved. The idea 
 is the thing, not the word. In what follows let us aim 
 to conform to this principle. 
 
 Economic adjustment always must offer for adoption 
 two, and only two, possible forms the monopolistic, and 
 the cooperative. Monopoly implies compulsion, and is the 
 opposite of cooperation. It does, indeed, resemble co- 
 operation, for it is a form of united industrial effort. But 
 slave systems resemble cooperation in that sense. All 
 production is through union of industrial effort ; but com- 
 pulsory union is a radically different thing from voluntary 
 union. What distinguishes monopoly from cooperation, 
 and puts them at opposite poles, is the compulsory char- 
 acter of the one and the voluntary character of the other. 
 
 Monopoly is a form of economic adjustment which is 
 to be avoided whenever and wherever possible. For com- 
 pulsion is abhorrent to democratic principles. To em- 
 power any man to compel others to serve or to put them 
 at a disadvantage in contracting to serve, is to establish 
 the principle of slavery. Monopoly is, indeed, a species 
 of human slavery. Nor would it be any the less slavery 
 if government instead of individuals or corporations were 
 the master. 
 
 With the development of industry, some kinds of ser- 
 vice become naturally monopolistic. The water supply 
 of a city is an illustration. Cities cannot be supplied 
 with water except through monopolistic methods. In all 
 such instances there is no choice between monopoly and
 
 i66 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 no monopoly; the choice is only between monopolists. 
 And when that is the case there can be no reasonable 
 question that as between the public or community as a 
 whole, and private individuals or corporations, the public 
 is the preferable monopolist. But so long as an occupa- 
 tion is not necessarily and essentially monopolistic, the 
 minds of free men will justly revolt at the thought of 
 turning it into a monopoly under either private or public 
 control. 
 
 To cooperation, then, as distinguished from monopoly, 
 the democratic mind must turn for industrial develop- 
 ment and industrial justice, barring only those exceptional 
 occupations which are necessarily or in the nature of 
 things monopolies. 
 
 But cooperation must mean something different from 
 what is usually understood by socialism. That is en- 
 forced cooperation, and therefore monopoly under an- 
 other name. It is infected with compulsion, which is the 
 distinguishing characteristic of monopoly. True enough, 
 socialists insist that there would be no compulsion in the 
 Socialist Commonwealth. But that is their inference. 
 Others as competent to judge as they, infer that there 
 would be compulsion. 
 
 Cooperation must also comprehend more than is im- 
 plied by the organizers of profit-sharing societies and 
 schemes, who have of late years appropriated the word. 
 It must be taken to signify that world-wide combination 
 of effort in supplying human wants which is effected by 
 the voluntary interchanges of labor. 
 
 But in the interest of justice, how are these world-wide 
 interchanges of labor to be regulated ? Who shall work ? 
 How much shall the workers do? What shall they do? 
 For whom shall they do it? How much shall they re- 
 ceive? And who shall decide?
 
 FREE COMPETITION 167 
 
 Under a monopolistic regime those questions would be 
 decided more or less arbitrarily for every one by superior 
 authority by trusts, if the regime were one of private 
 and corporate monopoly ; by governments, if the monopoly 
 were public or socialistic. But in both there would be 
 arbitrary compulsion, which is to be avoided if possible. 
 
 Cooperation avoids it cooperation, that is, in the 
 fullest and broadest sense of the term, and as distin- 
 guished from monopoly by making every man free to 
 decide the questions for himself. Under a regime of 
 cooperation each would work if he wished; each would 
 work as much or as little as he wished and receive in 
 proportion ; each would work at what he preferred ; and 
 each would work for whom he chose, subject only to that 
 person's corresponding right of choice. By what method 
 cooperation would effect this result is the next point of 
 inquiry. 
 
 No patent device for social reform is here set up. We 
 are simply investigating, and trying to adjust social condi- 
 tions to the operation of natural law. The natural law of 
 social adjustments must be sought for in the laws of hu- 
 man nature. Seeking there, Henry George asserted the 
 following as fundamental: "Men seek to satisfy their 
 desires with the least exertion." This is a law which, as 
 he explained, "is no more affected by the selfishness or 
 unselfishness of our desires than is the law of gravita- 
 tion." Let a man's desires be what they may, selfish or 
 unselfish, in endeavoring to satisfy them he will seek 
 the line of least resistance. It is this law, this universally 
 recognized fact, and not an assumed principle of human 
 selfishness, that regulates industry in free cooperation. 
 
 Monopoly, whether private or governmental, obstructs 
 the line of least resistance and thereby forces men to
 
 i68 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 seek the satisfaction of their desires, selfish and unselfish, 
 with greater instead of least exertion. But all this 
 would be changed by abolishing monopoly in every 
 vocation in which it is not a necessary condition, and 
 private monopoly altogether. Unnecessary obstructions 
 along the line of least economic resistance would be there- 
 by removed, and each man would acquire full economic 
 freedom to satisfy his own desires in the way that seemed 
 easiest to him. The only restraint upon this natural im- 
 pulse of his would be the equal economic freedom of 
 everyone else. And that would be restraint enough. He 
 would then cooperate with his fellows, from time to 
 time or all the time as he pleased, upon terms mutually 
 desirable, and only upon such terms. Neither trusts nor 
 governments would be his master. Selfishly or unselfish- 
 ly, it matters not which, except to his own character, he 
 would be master of himself. 
 
 But a cooperative regime in which everyone is master 
 of himself must be a regime of free bargaining, of free 
 competition. Not only does free competition alone make 
 such cooperation possible, but so long as it exists com- 
 petition will persist. Self-mastership and free competi- 
 tion are inseparable. To weaken or abolish either is to 
 weaken or abolish the other. Monopoly implies mastery 
 by some of others, be the monopoly private or govern- 
 mental. Free competition implies individual freedom. It 
 is only under free competition that all men can be at liberty 
 to satisfy their desires, selfish or unselfish, with what ap- 
 pears to them under all the circumstances to be the least 
 exertion. 
 
 In the absence of legal restraint, competition exists 
 as an expression of the Georgian law quoted above 
 the law that men seek to satisfy their desires, selfish or un-
 
 FREE COMPETITION 169 
 
 selfish, with the least exertion. But there are, as this 
 law implies, two kinds of competition. They may be 
 distinguished as "altruistic" and "egoistic." 
 
 If men were all unselfish, each seeking primarily the 
 comfort of his neighbor, we might have "altruistic" com- 
 petition, in which every one would compete for opportuni- 
 ties to give the most service for the least service in return. 
 And if they were all free, the conflict between them would 
 produce an equilibrium, not at the least return nor at the 
 greatest expenditure of service, but at the point of fair ex- 
 change. For, traders to whom much service was offered 
 in return for little, being as altruistic as the others, would 
 generously refuse to take so much for so little, and a "hig- 
 gling" would ensue until the just equilibrium had been 
 established. So long as all were sincerely altruistic this 
 would be the result of their dealings. It would make 
 no difference for how much less than it was worth any 
 man insisted upon rendering service. Since all would 
 with equal strenuousness oppose receiving service ex- 
 cept for its full value or more, the competition "al- 
 trusistic" competition would produce an equilibrium at 
 the point of equality of benefit. 
 
 But "altruistic" competition could thrive only in com- 
 munities where all were altruists. If there were an ele- 
 ment of selfishness in the community, it would hopelessly 
 disturb the equilibrium. Imagine the effect in physical 
 affairs of atmospheric pressure at 15 pounds to the inch 
 in some directions, and less than 15 in others, and you 
 get some conception of what the economic effect of 
 "altruistic" competition would be in a community where 
 all were not altruists. There would be no equilibrium 
 of exchange. When altruists offered to render service 
 for less than it was worth, non-altruists would do no
 
 170 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 higgling, but would clinch the bargain at once. The final 
 result in that community, if altruistic competition contin- 
 ued, would be a division into classes of altruistic poor and 
 selfish rich. The altruistic class would render most of the 
 service, and the other class would get most of the benefit. 
 The nearest approach to altruistic competition of which 
 we have any record prevails at the present time not in 
 spirit but in practice. Though the great working masses 
 may be no more altruistic in spirit than the classes their 
 labor enriches, they nevertheless exchange their labor 
 upon altruistic terms, rendering more service than they 
 receive in return. 
 
 "Egoistic" competition, on the other hand, when oper- 
 ating in like free conditions, maintains the just equi- 
 librium of exchange everywhere in communities that are 
 all unselfish, in those that are all selfish, and in those that 
 are mixed. Under a regime of "egoistic" competition no 
 one would offer his service for less than he believed it 
 to be worth, and many would ask more. This would 
 generate a conflict, not of each to give much for little, as 
 in "altruistic" competition, but of each to give little for 
 much. But if all were free the result of this competition 
 would be exactly like that of "altruistic" competition. 
 The competitive pressure being equal on all sides, it also 
 would produce an equilibrium at the point of fair ex- 
 change. 
 
 In the result, however, this difference would appear: 
 Whereas selfish traders could disturb the equilibrium of 
 "altruistic" competition, they could not disturb that of 
 "egoistic" competition. The persistent equal pressure of 
 self-interest in all directions would force them to make 
 fair bargains. The better it is understood, the clearer it 
 will be seen that "egoistic" competition is a natural law
 
 FREE COMPETITION 171 
 
 for compelling the selfish to be fair and the unrighteous 
 to be just. 
 
 And it rests upon an immutable principle, namely, that 
 every man must live his life from within outward. No 
 one can live from others to himself. He must live from 
 himself to others. Selfhood is the base line of all social 
 triangulation. The principle finds its highest expression 
 in the golden rule: "Whatsoever ye would that others 
 should do to you, do ye even so to them." This is a 
 law of justice, not of altruism. It would be impossible to 
 give it altruistic expression. The law of justice demands, 
 what, in economics, laws of human nature enforce, that 
 each shall look out upon all his brethren as from the center 
 of a circle. He knows his own sensations ; he cannot know 
 theirs. To be just, therefore, he must do to them as he 
 would have them do to him. It is the only way. And 
 when men engage in interchanging their labor or its 
 products for mutual satisfaction, each must fall back upon 
 his own sensations in laboring as the test of the reward 
 he will demand from others. There is no other test. Then 
 by the pressure of his offers and demands in an open 
 and free market where all are equal, upon the offers and 
 demands of his fellows, a just ratio of labor exchange is 
 established. That pressure is competition, "egoistic" 
 competition, which is the economic expression of the 
 spiritual law phrased in the golden rule. 
 
 Even if this were less desirable than "altruistic" com- 
 petition, the latter could be advocated only as an admoni- 
 tion to the individual and not as a social reform. For 
 altruism enforced by law, if such a thing were possible, 
 would be only less odious and no whit less menacing than 
 monopoly enforced by law. Though it is every man's 
 right, and may be every man's religious duty, to love his
 
 172 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 neighbor better than himself, it is no man's right, either 
 as voter, legislator or czar, to compel another to do so. 
 
 The function of the law is to secure to all equal rights 
 to satisfy their desires with the least exertion. Whatever 
 is necessary for this purpose it is the right and duty of 
 government to undertake. Beyond that, government 
 cannot go without menacing liberty. So long as in- 
 dividuals satisfy their desires justly, without trespassing 
 upon the rights of others, it is for them not for gov- 
 ernment to decide whether their desires shall be sel- 
 fish or unselfish. Though altruism as a principle of 
 individual conduct may rank highest in the list of human 
 virtues, as a social reform to be enforced by law it is 
 impossible of accomplishment, impertinent in design, 
 invasive in conception and reactionary in tendency. 
 
 Let us secure to all men not to some, but to all 
 freedom to satisfy their desires, selfish or unselfish, with 
 the least exertion (which can be done only by freeing 
 competition from monopoly), and we may safely let each 
 man be as generous or as niggardly as he pleases. 
 
 When the real nature of competition is considered, it 
 is difficult to understand why any thoughtful man should 
 ever have doubted its usefulness. But thoughtful men 
 have done so, and the reason is not very far to seek. In 
 the first place, teachers of political economy have per- 
 sistently taught that competition and selfishness selfish- 
 ness in the sense of greed are synonymous, and that 
 competition is an animal-like struggle for existence. Noth- 
 ing could be farther from the truth. As we have already 
 seen, selfishness may or may not be the motive in com- 
 petition. Whether it be or not, in any given case, is im- 
 material to this inquiry. The part that competition plays
 
 FREE COMPETITION 173 
 
 in society is not as a minister to greed, but as a minister 
 of justice in exchange. 
 
 As Henry George truly said in his posthumous book: 
 "There is no measure of value among men save competi- 
 tion or the higgling of the market." It is only by this 
 means that workers can measure the value of their work 
 so as to exchange it among themselves fairly and justly. 
 Each understands and can appraise the irksomeness of the 
 labor he himself does, better than he can understand or 
 appraise that of the person with whom he contemplates an 
 exchange. It is natural, therefore, that he should endeavor 
 to adjust his trades from the view-point of the irksomeness 
 of his own labor, rather than from that of the irksomeness 
 of another's labor. Yet each is checked from appraising 
 his own labor exorbitantly, by others who would compete 
 if he demanded a larger return than that for which they 
 were willing to endure the same degree of irksomeness. 
 And if all are free, with equal access to natural and social 
 opportunities, this competition could produce but one 
 effect an equilibrium of exchange at a point at which 
 neither party to the trade gets more or gives less than 
 is just. While it is true that parties to trades may be 
 actuated by selfish motives in their competition, it is 
 equally true that they may be actuated by unselfish 
 motives. And be their motives good or bad, the net result 
 of their competition, if they compete in freedom, is a just 
 equilibrium of value. It is justice, not greed, to which 
 free competition really ministers. 
 
 But under existing arrangements competition is not 
 free. This is a second reason why some thoughtful men 
 have been misled into supposing that competition is 
 neither useful nor right. Monopoly having intervened, 
 all competition is affected by it; so that what we are
 
 i 7 4 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 accustomed to regard as competition is not free competi- 
 tion at all, but at the best is only jug-handling competi- 
 tion. 
 
 When an importer who has been forced to pay customs 
 duties in order to maintain protected monopolies, offers 
 his goods for sale in competition with one who has smug- 
 gled his goods into the country, the competition is one- 
 sided. When a farmer, who has paid to a railroad mo- 
 nopoly in freight rates all the traffic will bear, offers his 
 produce in competition with a favored shipper who is 
 allowed rebates, the competition is one-sided. When 
 landless workingmen, who must get work or starve, offer 
 their services in competition with one another in a labor 
 market which has been glutted by monopolization of work- 
 ing opportunities when they offer their services in these 
 circumstances to men who control more or less of the 
 monopolized opportunities, the competition is one-sided. 
 If, instead of the condition which these illustrations sug- 
 gest, we had a condition in which there were no tariff 
 duties to be paid by some and evaded by others ; in which 
 highway rights were equal, and no private monopolist 
 could deal out highway favors ; in which all land not 
 in use were everywhere open to its appropriate use with- 
 out blackmail ; in which, in short, every exchange were 
 essentially an exchange of labor if that were the indus- 
 trial regime under which we live, then the usefulness, the 
 beneficence, the indispensability of competition would be 
 as obvious as the usefulness, the beneficence, and the in- 
 dispensability of gravitation. 
 
 And it is altogether a begging of the question to say 
 that the present jug-handled regime is a natural and inev- 
 itable outgrowth of the competitive idea. As well argue 
 that a one-legged man owes his misfortune to the fact
 
 FREE COMPETITION 175 
 
 that men have legs. If men didn't have legs, we should 
 have no one-legged men. So, if it were not for compe- 
 tition, we should have no jug-handled competition. But 
 one-legged men owe their misfortune to interference with 
 legs, not to the leg idea. Likewise we owe jug-handled 
 competition to interference with competition, and not to 
 the competitive idea. It is monopoly, not its antithesis, 
 that distorts, disarranges and demoralizes our industrial 
 system. 
 
 A third reason has contributed to the error. This rea- 
 son springs out of the mediation of money in trading 
 transactions, coupled with the custom of trading monop- 
 olies indiscriminately with other things. As money is 
 exchangeable for anything in the market, the establish- 
 ment of monopolies enables monopolists to get money 
 without laboring. The real character of competition in 
 trading exchange of labor for labor is thus completely 
 hidden from common observation, and also from a 
 good deal of observation that is not common. Trade 
 comes to be in appearance an exchange of something 
 for money; and competition to be a struggle between 
 those who haven't money, to get money from those 
 who have it. The whole social organism is turned upside 
 down and inside out. But it is the abolition of monoply, 
 not of its opposite, competition, that would correct this. 
 If monopoly were abolished, we should soon distinctly 
 see, in spite of the obscurity which the use of money 
 introduces, that trade consists essentially in exchanges of 
 labor for labor, and that competition is the natural and 
 only just regulator of values in these exchanges. For if 
 monopoly were abolished, none could get products of 
 labor except by laboring, and each would get these prod-
 
 176 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 ucts in proportion to the usefulness of his labor. Money 
 would then represent labor, and nothing but labor. 
 
 The true work before us, then, the work that will 
 count both in the doing and in the fruition, is to abolish 
 monopoly and restore freedom to competition. Where 
 monopoly is inevitable, as in water supplies for cities and 
 the like, the service that is subject to it must be assumed 
 by the public, to the end that in other vocations compe- 
 tition may be freed ; private monopoly in anything tends 
 to destroy competition in all things. Freedom of com- 
 petition must be the aim in every movement. The other 
 direction leads to monopoly. To these two the choice is 
 confined. There is no middle ground. Instead of trying 
 to guard men in their economic relations with a legal net- 
 work, let us set men free free to labor as they will, free 
 to trade where they will, and free to dispose of what they 
 earn as suits them best so that each can guard himself 
 in his own economic relations. 
 
 If that is desirable and really is it not the only thing 
 worth fighting for? then we must achieve it by making 
 competition free. Free competition, and that alone, can 
 secure economic freedom. Without it we have monopoly. 
 And an economic state organized upon monopoly princi- 
 ples would be intolerable, whether governed by a trust 
 magnate, a political boss, a trades union leader, a majority 
 of the people, or even the most amiable altruist who ever 
 loved his fellow men.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE LABORER AND HIS HIRE 
 
 ALONG with the notion that competition is selfish, 
 goes the feeling that there is something wrong 
 about taking pay for rendering service. This feeling is 
 quite general with reference to altruistic work. It is very 
 common, for instance, to suppose that there is something 
 sordid about preaching for pay. The allusion, though 
 usually to preachers of conventional religion, is directed 
 at all' apostles of vital truth. In its more general form 
 this condemnation of preachers of truth who exact pay 
 for preaching, rests upon the theory that the truth should 
 be free, and that he who charges for preaching it thereby 
 discredits both himself and his cause. Is it, then, the 
 duty of preachers of truth to preach without pay ? 
 
 In making this inquiry, the difference between preach- 
 ing truth and making truth known, must be distinguished. 
 It is one thing to conceal truth as occasion for imparting 
 it occurs, and quite a different thing to devote persistent 
 labor to its exposition and propagation. 
 
 A blacksmith, for instance, who had awakened to a 
 consciousness of some moral or economic or religious 
 truth, the acceptance of which would augment the happi- 
 ness of mankind, might be censurable if he refused to 
 make it known. In fact there would be no danger of 
 his refusing. The impulses of his nature would make 
 him proclaim it. His neighbors would need no thumb- 
 screws to force him to deliver his message, though they 
 
 177
 
 1 78 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 might at times wish for a lockjaw to make him hold his 
 peace. As with the blacksmith, so with men of all voca- 
 tions. We may at once concede that it is the duty of 
 everyone freely to make known the truths that come to 
 him; and, for the sake at least of directness of inquiry, 
 that it is a duty which if neglected entitles others to com- 
 plain of the breach. In a word, we may agree that the 
 revelation of truth without money or price is a universal 
 duty ; at the same time protesting, however, that the point 
 is unimportant, since human nature is so constituted that 
 this duty is self-executing. 
 
 But it does not follow that he who sees a truth must 
 quit his regular vocation, or even trench upon its demands, 
 to devote himself to teaching and preaching without pay. 
 He is under no obligation, for the breach of which others 
 may justly complain, even to surrender his leisure hours 
 to this work. That he may make such work his play, re- 
 fusing remuneration, is too obviously true to call for more 
 than passing mention. It is also true that he may be 
 under a spiritual obligation to the great Revealer of all 
 truth, who has intrusted him with a message to the world, 
 to drop his nets and become an unpaid fisher of men. But, 
 clearly, if he has any duty to work without pay for the 
 propagation of his truth, it is not a duty in any such 
 sense as involves a corresponding right on the part of 
 his fellow men to complain if he refuses to do the work 
 or if he exacts pay for doing it. And that is the deter- 
 mining point. When we criticize preachers for exacting 
 pay for preaching, we imply not that they are false to 
 their direct personal obligations to God (for this is none 
 of our business), but that they are false to their obliga- 
 tions to us. 
 
 It will hardly be insisted that any such obligation really
 
 THE LABORER AND HIS HIRE 179 
 
 exists, and we may pass on to other considerations. By 
 dint of a little probing we shall find that no one really 
 expects preachers of truth to devote themselves to their 
 cause literally without pay. It would be absurd to expect 
 this, whether as a matter of duty or otherwise. Even 
 preachers of truth must have food and clothing and shel- 
 ter. And if the truths they proclaim are to gain listening 
 audiences, preachers must live as well as their auditors are 
 accustomed to live. The question is not whether they 
 shall preach for pay. It will be acknowledged that they 
 must have pay. The real question is whether they shall 
 exact pay for their work, as other men do for theirs, or 
 shall subsist precariously upon the proceeds of miscellane- 
 ous beggary that is, upon what is given them as charity 
 for their support, as distinguished from what is paid to 
 them as hire for their work. 
 
 The right of preachers to adopt the beggary plan, no 
 one is at liberty to dispute. One may express doubts of 
 its effectiveness in this age, may refuse to drop pennies 
 into the outstretched hat, or may hold aloof from all that 
 pertains to it. But preachers are at liberty to do it if 
 they wish to. Only as it is commended as something 
 which all of us ought as preachers to adopt or as sup- 
 porters of preachers to approve, has anybody the right 
 to protest. When it is so commended, then there is occa- 
 sion for an exercise on the part of some of the rest of us 
 of that self-executing duty which consists in proclaim- 
 ing truth freely. We must strenuously insist that no 
 one is bound to preach without pay. 
 
 For all regular work, adequate pay should be regularly 
 exacted. This is a natural social law which cannot be 
 systematically violated without disturbing the social equi- 
 librium. Systematic violation by means of force, produces
 
 i8o ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 slavery ; systematic violation by means of generosity, pro- 
 duces beggary. Either impoverishes the worker and 
 pampers the idler, thereby doing an injury to both. 
 
 There is no difference, in the economics of it, between 
 the preacher's vocation and other useful employments. 
 If it were a duty of preachers to work without regular and 
 adequate pay, then it would be a duty of choirs to sing 
 and of organists to play without regular and adequate pay. 
 It would also, in that case, be the duty of the sexton to 
 care for the church without regular and adequate pay. 
 And, going back of these examples, it would be the duty 
 of religious masons and carpenters to build churches, of 
 religious lumbermen and quarrymen and miners to fur- 
 nish materials, and of religious transporters to carry them 
 all without definite or adequate pay. For these workers 
 are in those connections but coadjutors of the preachers 
 in the labor of propagating such truths as churches have 
 to offer. 
 
 Precisely so with preachers of other than ecclesiastical 
 truths. When they devote themselves to the exposition 
 and dissemination of such truths, they become, literally 
 in the economic sense, laborers in that field. They are 
 workingmen as truly as a blacksmith is ; and the problem 
 of their livelihood is precisely the problem of his : to get 
 an equivalent for what they give, and to give an equiva- 
 lent for what they get. The fact that blacksmiths em- 
 body one variety of truth in horseshoes, while preachers 
 embody other varieties in sermons, or essays, or books, 
 or lectures, or speeches, or poems, or pictures, or songs, 
 makes no economic difference. The laborer who devotes 
 himself to writing useful books or essays or poems, to 
 delivering useful sermons, lectures or speeches, to paint- 
 ing useful pictures, or to making harmonious music, is as
 
 THE LABORER AND HIS HIRE 181 
 
 worthy of his hire as are the laborers who manufacture 
 the paper and ink and type of which books are con- 
 structed, the buildings in which lectures and speeches are 
 delivered, the canvas and pigments that make paintings 
 possible, or the instruments from which the musician 
 evolves his harmonies. All this work is cooperative, and 
 one of the cooperators can no more justly or wisely be 
 relegated to mendicancy than the others. 
 
 There is a difference, to be sure, between exacting pay 
 for work, and working for the purpose of exacting pay. 
 The preacher or writer, including teachers of all kinds 
 and including, for that matter, the workers in every 
 field who works merely for the sake of pay, is not a true 
 workman. He lives for himself alone, and for the lower 
 part of himself at that. Useful work is, as the adjective 
 implies, work which on the whole is done not only for the 
 sake of the worker but also for the sake of others. But 
 this question of being a worker merely for the pay, brings 
 up only the individual motive, and, therefore, concerns 
 only the individual. Another has no right to judge him. 
 The motives of his actions may raise an issue between 
 himself and his Creator ; they raise none between himself 
 and his fellow men. 
 
 The strong feeling against exaction of pay for preach- 
 ing truth, which prevails among the more ethereal agi- 
 tators for social regeneration, may well proceed from 
 the disordered conditions that legalized monopolies en- 
 gender. From confusing exaction of pay for privileges 
 with exaction of pay for work, to advocating the total 
 abnegation of pay, is an easy transition of thought. The 
 abolition of pay for preaching naturally stands out promi- 
 nently in this programme of communism. But all exac- 
 tions of pay are regarded by the communist as sordid,
 
 182 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 unbrotherly, and spiritually degrading; and consistently 
 so, for if it is sordid to exact pay for any kind of regu- 
 lar service, it is sordid to exact pay for any other kind. 
 
 Whether or not the idea that exacting pay for service 
 is unbrotherly really results from considering social con- 
 ditions without discriminating between the effects of 
 monopoly and those of competition, it certainly is no re- 
 sult of any balanced inquiry into the nature of things. 
 
 Reflect a moment upon it : 
 
 Exchange of work is the law of social existence This 
 is a proposition which no one will dispute. 
 
 If exchange becomes unbalanced, so that some get 
 more than they earn while others are forced to earn more 
 than they get, society falls into disorder. Neither is that 
 proposition open to controversy. 
 
 The social problem, therefore, is how to secure a prac- 
 tical equilibrium of exchange at which the work that each 
 does for others shall be approximately equal in useful- 
 ness to the work that others do for him. 
 
 Obviously, that equilibrium cannot be approached by 
 means of slavery. Slavery takes forcibly from workers 
 for the benefit of idlers. Neither can it be approached by 
 creating legal privilege, which is essentially a form of 
 slavery a subtle form, but slavery none the less. 
 
 Can it, then, be approached by some voluntary mode 
 of working regularly and mutually for one another with- 
 out exacting regular and fair exchanges ? Possibly. Who- 
 ever denies this assumes a power of fore-knowledge which 
 no human mind possesses. A world is conceivable where 
 each would work faithfully to help fill up a common store- 
 house, drawing from the storehouse only what he needs. 
 In such a world, though some would get more than 
 they earned and others earn more than they got, each
 
 THE LABORER AND HIS HIRE 183 
 
 would act voluntarily and none could complain. But if it 
 is an unwarranted assumption of fore-knowledge to deny 
 such a possibility, it is still more unwarranted to assert 
 it. So far as human experience throws any light upon 
 the question, a fair adjustment of work under such com- 
 munistic conditions is possible only in societies where 
 each is bound to all by religious inspiration and obliga- 
 tion. A single bull in that china shop would raise havoc 
 with the adjustment. 
 
 It is consequently reasonable to infer that the com- 
 munistic method of distribution will not secure an approx- 
 imately equitable adjustment of work-exchange, in society 
 at large, unless each member of society comes under the 
 influence of the religious impulse of the impulse, that is, 
 which obliges him to love his neighbor equally with him- 
 self. There is a possibility, of course, that this condition, 
 too, would result from communism. But at the present 
 stage of development, he who denies it has the better of 
 the issue, upon the circumstantial evidence. 
 
 Now, when we consider the effectiveness in maintain- 
 ing a just equilibrium of distribution, which the exaction 
 of pay for work produces to the extent that its operation 
 is undisturbed by legalized monopoly, we may fairly ask 
 an explanation, a more rational one than has yet been 
 put forth, of the necessity, in the interest of equity and 
 brotherhood, of trying to adopt a method which cannot 
 operate justly unless all whose interests it involves become 
 just. To work without exacting pay is to refer the 
 question of equity in distribution to only one of the par- 
 ties concerned. What equitable necessity is there for 
 that? None at all. The principle of exacting pay for 
 work is incalculably better. For this principle refers the 
 question of equity in each case to the mutual agreement of
 
 1 84 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 both parties concerned. It refers it to the two persons 
 who are necessary to any exchange, and who are the 
 only persons capable of judging its equities. They must 
 agree or there is no trade. If, therefore, the trade would 
 be beneficial to both, they will agree. And if they are 
 economically equal, they will agree equitably. 
 
 To the fair operation of that principle of exchange only 
 one thing is necessary. It is the abolition of monopoly, 
 the abolition of every privilege created by law which 
 directly or indirectly gives to one party to a trade an 
 advantage over the other. 
 
 To urge communistic ideals regarding obligations to 
 work without exacting pay, instead of urging the aboli- 
 tion of monopoly, is therefore very like dreaming away 
 the hours when active and sane agitation is imperatively 
 needed, as if they were the listless hours of that drowsy 
 place where it is always afternoon. Whatever ideal of 
 social reform may be ultimately realized, the first rational 
 movement must be the clearing away of obstructions to 
 the exchange of work upon the basis of exacting pay. 
 Though the time may come when each will put into a 
 common store-house according to his abilities and with- 
 draw from it according to his needs, he being himself the 
 judge of both, the time that now is demands that each 
 shall put into the store-house the equivalent of what he 
 takes out.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE WAGES SYSTEM 
 
 IN any general classification of economic phenomena, 
 the returns which one exacts and receives for his work 
 would be considered as his wages, no matter whether he 
 exacts and receives them by making and selling things, 
 or by hiring out to an employer. Even the things he 
 makes himself and consumes himself go into the category 
 of wages. In other words, wages are the returns for 
 work. But there is a narrow use of the term, in vogue 
 especially with business men, but common also with 
 socialists, which restricts its meaning to the stipends that 
 mechanics and unskilled laborers receive of employ- 
 ers. Clerks do not get "wages" ; they get "salaries." Em- 
 ployers do not get "wages" ; they get "profits." Profes- 
 sional men do not get "wages"; they get "fees." But 
 ordinary laborers who hire out to an employer, they get 
 "wages." 
 
 This looseness of nomenclature has been encouraged 
 by the mystification theories of political economy that 
 have been running their course through American uni- 
 versities, like the whooping cough or the measles through 
 a district school. The most prominent characteristics of 
 these mighty triflings with the human reason are infinite 
 detail and slovenly classification. They are often so 
 absurd in those respects as far and away to outdo old 
 Polonius in his analysis of the drama into "tragedy, 
 comedy, history, pastoral, pastorical-comical, historical- 
 
 185
 
 1 86 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical- 
 pastoral, scene individable or poem unlimited." 
 
 This lack-method method of university "economics" 
 tends to give "scientific" sanction to the notion that the 
 phenomenon of employer and hired men, the hired men 
 who get "wages" as distinguished from those who get 
 "salaries," "fees," etc., is different from the general 
 phenomena of the exchange of services in trade. The 
 supposed difference is usually distinguished by referring 
 to that phenomenon as "the wages system." 
 
 The plutocrat stubbornly clings to "the wages system" 
 as something good, while the socialist wishes to abolish 
 it as an unmitigated evil. Both see it, however, in the 
 same way. They see it as Talmage and Ingersoll saw 
 religion, upside down; and like Talmage and Ingersoll 
 with inverted religion, one likes it and the other doesn't. 
 According to this economic concept, labor is a commodity. 
 It is bought and sold in the markets; and its price, like 
 the prices of other commodities, rises and falls with the 
 fluctuations of demand and supply the demand that 
 affects labor price being demand of employers for wage 
 workers, and the supply being the supply of men willing 
 to be hired. 
 
 To the socialist "the wages system" is a system of 
 slavery, the wage worker being forced by it to sell him- 
 self from period to period, for life, in a market glutted 
 with wage workers. To the captain of industry it is a 
 convenient system he would not call it slavery, for he 
 doesn't like the word of making "capital and labor 
 friends, not enemies," by bringing them into "voluntary" 
 cooperation, like that of the lamb and the lion when the 
 lamb is within. To both it appears to be a normal devel- 
 opment of competitive industry, and in this view the
 
 THE WAGES SYSTEM 187 
 
 "economic" cult of the universities "scientifically" con- 
 curs. 
 
 That the industrial relations of employers and em- 
 ployed are now regulated oppressively is true. That this 
 system is a system of slavery is equally so. The labor 
 market of the present time is a veritable slave mart. 
 Labor, in the existing industrial regime, is nothing but 
 a commodity. The man himself is sold. Nor is this 
 shocking condition modified by the fact that he is sold 
 by himself. It is all the more shocking that men should 
 be forced by circumstances to beg some one to buy them. 
 Under this "wages system," let it be noted also, the 
 buyer contracts none of the personal obligations of the 
 slave master. He pays the wage-slave the cost of his 
 poor "keep," and there his responsibility ends. 
 
 But it is one thing to recognize the "wages system" as 
 an industrial phenomenon of the existing order of things 
 (the existing disorder is a better phrase), and quite an- 
 other to conclude that it is a system in the sense of being 
 a normal regulation of the industrial relations of employer 
 and employed in a competitive social order. Normally 
 the "wages system" as it exists is utterly foreign to the 
 principle of free competition. It is not a product of nor- 
 mal competition; it is a social disease developed from 
 strangulated competition. 
 
 All this may be readily perceived upon a common- 
 sense investigation. It is obscure only to minds that 
 are over-stored with detail and over-tutored in "scien- 
 tific" methods of economic classification. Clearness of 
 analysis, not profundity of learning nor wealth of statis- 
 tical information, is the requisite for an examination into 
 the subject. By that method of examination it may be 
 plainly seen that the "wages system," as we experience
 
 1 88 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 it now, is a painfully distorted image of what would 
 under free competition be one of the beneficial phenomena 
 of trade. 
 
 For understanding the nature of the "wages system," 
 industrial history does not furnish the best material. 
 Of the usefulness of -industrial history as a side light 
 there need be no question. But it is from a consideration 
 of the laws of human nature as we perceive them in oper- 
 ation in ourselves and in our neighbors, that the truest 
 explanation of the "wages system" is to be had. We 
 do know in a general way how men in general will act 
 under given circumstances of a general kind. We do not 
 know in a particular way what particular men will do 
 under given circumstances of a particular kind. History 
 cannot tell us; neither can statistics. The crudest gen- 
 eralizations from human nature as to the probabilities of 
 human conduct in given circumstances are much more 
 likely to be true than the most expert generalizations from 
 historical or statistical data. 
 
 We know, for example, or we can know if we reason 
 about the familiar characteristics of human nature, what 
 men in general would do as to accepting or rejecting 
 wages, provided they were living in the fullest freedom 
 that the laws of external nature permit. Let us, then, as- 
 sume for the starting point of an inquiry into the wages 
 system that men are living in such freedom. In other 
 words, let us imagine not as romancers imagine plots 
 and incidents, but as mathematicians imagine axioms 
 what the wages system would be in healthy industrial con- 
 ditions. In that way alone can we safely determine 
 whether the wages system is essentially a plundering de- 
 vice, or a normal manifestation of industrial life, naturally 
 beneficent but perverted by industrial disease.
 
 THE WAGES SYSTEM 189 
 
 In the fullest conceivable freedom men would have 
 to work. Natural laws do not permit them to live with- 
 out eating, and unless they work they cannot eat. This is 
 manifestly true of men in the sense of mankind, or as a 
 whole. Individual men may eat without working; but 
 if they do, it is only because other men work without a 
 full equivalent. And other men will not ordinarily do 
 that, unless coerced. In the absence of coercion, then, 
 every man must work in order to live. 
 
 It is instinctive with men, however, to do the least work' 
 for the greatest result. They naturally seek the best 
 living in the easiest way. That is the incentive to labor- 
 saving invention. But for this human instinct none of 
 the devices for the lessening of human effort and the 
 enhanced production of human satisfactions would be 
 utilized. One of the devices for this purpose, in fact the 
 all inclusive device, since every other springs from it, 
 is trade. 
 
 No individual could with his own direct labor supply 
 his own wants. He could neither feed himself, nor 
 clothe himself, nor house himself in a civilized way, if he 
 were obliged to make all his own food and clothing and 
 shelter. But by acquiring skill in making one kind of 
 commodity he may by means of trade swap the particular 
 commodities that he makes, for those that he wants. 
 When he does this in freedom, the things that each 
 receives in the trade are as truly his earnings, economi- 
 cally and morally, as if he had made them himself. 
 
 Here, then, is a system which springs up naturally, not 
 merely as a historical evolution, but as a spontaneous ex- 
 pression of human powers of production acting under 
 the impulse of human desires to get the most with the 
 least effort. Industrial history records the process of
 
 i 9 o ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 development with more or less accuracy, but the nature of 
 the phenomenon may be better understood by logical 
 analysis than from historical data. This system is natural 
 industrial cooperation generated and maintained by trade. 
 Every trade is a private contract between two individ- 
 uals, and the myriads of such trades, interdependent like 
 the links of chain armor, produce, when made in free- 
 dom, a perfection of cooperation to which no premedi- 
 tated cooperative scheme could approximate. 
 
 If we suppose that trade would naturally first be 
 manifest in bartering labor products the actual order 
 of development is neither known historically nor really 
 important philosophically we can understand that fluc- 
 tuations in demand for particular products would require 
 every producer to be a business man in the sense of 
 keeping himself well informed regarding the multifari- 
 ous variations of demand and supply. But this would 
 divert his energy from direct production. He could not 
 acquire business skill except at the expense of skill in 
 his primary calling; and that being uneconomical, the 
 instinct we have already described that instinct which 
 impels men to satisfy their desires with the least exertion 
 would lead some producers to cultivate business skill 
 at the expense of skill of other kinds, and to contribute 
 to the sum of cooperative energies by relieving pro- 
 ducers of the necessity of watching for trading oppor- 
 tunities. Men in this new occupation would buy and sell 
 as middlemen. They would be in a sense speculators in 
 labor products, buying when and where demand was 
 low and selling when and where it was higher. The ser- 
 vice they would render would be to save the expendi- 
 ture by original producers of their energies in the pro- 
 cesses of trading. And this would be a genuine service;
 
 THE WAGES SYSTEM 191 
 
 else original producers, being free from coercion, would 
 have nothing to do with the middleman. They would 
 themselves superintend the processes of trading, if, all 
 things considered, they could do so advantageously. And 
 if middlemen made excessive profits, other producers, 
 being free from coercion, would compete until the in- 
 comes of middlemen had been reduced to the level of 
 incomes for original production requiring equal skill and 
 effort. 
 
 So much is obvious. To understand human nature in 
 its more general manifestations is to perceive that in 
 the circumstances supposed men would act in the manner 
 indicated. If an industrial history were to describe any 
 considerable community of free men as having in such 
 circumstances habitually acted essentially otherwise, we 
 should all unhesitatingly say, So much the worse for 
 that industrial history. Every sane man would promptly 
 reject such a history as manifestly a romance, and rest 
 his conclusions upon his conviction that human nature, 
 like mathematical axioms, is the same everywhere and 
 at all times. 
 
 We are now prepared to see how a legitimate wages 
 system, the genuine and useful system of which the one 
 we are familiar with is the distorted image, may develop. 
 
 As production, facilitated by trade, divides and sub- 
 divides and consequently becomes more complex, men 
 find it profitable to devote their labor to the making of 
 only parts of commodities. To borrow an illustration 
 from modern industry, one man does nothing but make 
 shoe soles. If all were free, this would not be done unless 
 those who did it found it advantageous to themselves. 
 Coercion, it must be understood, is excluded from con- 
 sideration at present.
 
 i 9 2 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Or, we may refer to such industries as house build- 
 ing or ship building. No individual would be able alone 
 to build a house or a ship. He must cooperate with 
 others. With some, those who work with him upon the 
 house or the ship itself, he cooperates directly and con- 
 sciously; but with by far the larger number he coope- 
 rates indirectly and unconsciously through trade. Sup- 
 pose that a dozen house builders wish to build each of 
 them a house. Since they cannot themselves do all the 
 work that is involved in house building, they must trade 
 the products of their labor, through the intricate net- 
 work of commerce, with all the thousands of unknown 
 laborers in a multiplicity of occupations who cooperate 
 with them. If the house builders have no accumulated 
 products, or credit acquired in the form of money or 
 otherwise for products they have previously produced, 
 then, either to middlemen, or directly to the producers 
 of material, they must "mortgage," to use a colloquialism, 
 a share in the houses they are about to build ; and, having 
 built these houses, they will own the houses in propor- 
 tion to their several contributions of labor, subject to the 
 shares of the producers of the materials. This would be 
 natural cooperation in house building. But it would be 
 exceedingly complex cooperation were it not for the mid- 
 dlemen who accumulate, by buying from the thousands 
 of miscellaneous producers, the materials and tools which 
 the immediate builders must have. 
 Even with these middlemen as labor-savers, for such 
 they are, the dozen builders might not find their part- 
 nership method the most satisfactory. One might want 
 a house, and therefore be willing to join the other 
 eleven in building twelve houses, each to take one 
 for his work. But if the others did not want houses,
 
 THE WAGES SYSTEM 193 
 
 except to trade them for something else, they would hesi- 
 tate about going into the enterprise unless they were 
 assured of trading opportunities. At this point the em- 
 ployer, as we call him in the distorted "wages system" 
 of our time, wouJd step in to correlate all the house- 
 producing forces and thereby promote the erection and 
 distribution of those twelve houses. 
 
 He would buy the houses in advance of their erec- 
 tion. That is, he would say to the dozen house-builders : 
 "Gentlemen, I will marshal the material for the pro- 
 jected houses, and will pay you so much apiece for them 
 as compensation for your work after it is done; or I 
 will pay you so much weekly as you proceed with the 
 work. If I pay you at the end of the job, I shall pay you 
 more than if I pay you from week to week as the work 
 goes on. Let us agree together." The builders, being' 
 free to accept or reject these terms, and under no fear 
 of poverty if they decline, will decide, considering similar 
 offers from other middlemen, whether to accept the offer ; 
 and, if they do accept, whether or not to take the higher 
 pay for the houses when finished or the lower pay in 
 weekly wages. They will do in the matter what seems 
 most profitable to themselves. 
 
 Suppose they take the weekly wages, preferring its 
 benefits and certainties to the greater benefits but lesser 
 certainty and longer delay of payment at the end of the 
 job. Then we have the wages system. But what is it 
 other than a fair and mutually beneficial mode of coope- 
 ration ? 
 
 These builders do not sell themselves. They discount 
 the value of their future work for the sake of an imme- 
 diate trade of what they make for what they want. At 
 the end the houses will have been produced by coopera-
 
 i 9 4 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 tion, by a fair partnership arrangement, as truly as if it 
 had been a partnership in form. The only difference 
 is that one of the partners buys up the interest of the 
 others in advance, in a free contract which is as beneficial 
 to them as to him. Though he gets something which 
 they by trading the houses themselves might get, yet he 
 does work in effecting the trades, which but for him they 
 would have to drop house building to attend to. In other 
 words, he earns what he gets, and they lose nothing that 
 they earn. 
 
 Reduced to the last analysis, this wages system is a sys- 
 tem under which employer and employes are free coope- 
 rators, all sharing in the final result, namely, those things 
 for which the product is traded. The employer's share 
 is compensation for his work in effecting the trades that 
 marshal the materials, for his work in superintending the 
 production, and for his work in trading the product; 
 while the shares of the employes are compensation for 
 their work in putting the materials together, without 
 being troubled either to marshal the materials or to trade 
 the final product. 
 
 And these shares must be mutually satisfactory, for in 
 free conditions neither party to the hiring contract need 
 allow the other to oppress him. Competition bearing not 
 in only one direction, but, like the pressure of the air, 
 bearing with equal force in all directions, maintains an 
 equilibrium of compensation for every worker at the 
 point of his earnings. The wages system, then, in free 
 conditions, is a mode of cooperation which adjusts itself 
 to the satisfaction of all the cooperators by their mutual 
 consent. 
 
 Under that natural wages system hired laborers are not 
 commodities. They remain partners or cooperators in
 
 THE WAGES SYSTEM 195 
 
 production, discounting their demands, upon satisfactory 
 terms, in return for exemption from certain kinds of 
 necessary labor. But the fairness and usefulness of this 
 system depend upon the freedom of its environment. 
 
 In coercive conditions this natural and most useful 
 mode of dividing labor and distributing its proceeds is 
 degraded into a distorted image of the true wages sys- 
 tem. Socialists denounce this image, this spurious "wages 
 system," as a species of slavery. And they are right. 
 When social institutions perpetuate obstructions to trade 
 and foster the monopoly of natural opportunities for 
 labor, so that workmen sell their labor in a glutted mar- 
 ket because they cannot utilize it otherwise, then the 
 relation of employer and employe ceases to be a rela- 
 tionship of free cooperators and becomes in greater or 
 less degree a relationship of master and slave. It is 
 evident, however, that the seat of the injustice is not the 
 wages system. It is the effect upon the wages system 
 of unfree conditions. 
 
 By promoting the monopoly of natural opportunities 
 for production and trade the soil and the mine, factory 
 and store sites, rights of way for transportation, and the 
 various other facilities which nature provides for labor, 
 and which are more or less included in those enumerated 
 and by taxing labor in every direction in which it turns 
 for purposes of production, we have generated in place 
 of free competition a jug-handled competition, a compe- 
 tition that is all one-sided. Employers and employes do 
 not contract upon even ground. The employer offers his 
 own terms, and the employe must either accept or starve. 
 Natural opportunities being closed by private monopoly, 
 and production and trade being checked by taxation 
 upon enterprise and thrift, the supply of labor tends con-
 
 196 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 stantly to outrun the effective demand for labor, and so 
 to maintain a glutted "labor market." Competition in 
 these circumstances is like air pressure in only one direc- 
 tion. Laborers are subject to the pressure of competition 
 on their side, but are not protected in equal degree by the 
 pressure of competition on the other. The equilibrium is 
 thereby disturbed, and the wages system becomes dis- 
 torted in consequence into the shape that incenses the 
 socialist and pleases the captain of industry. 
 
 Labor has no proper quarrel with the natural wages 
 system which a discriminating examination into the sub- 
 ject discovers. That system is one of the useful adjust- 
 ments of cooperative production. To make war upon it 
 is to distract attention and to divert reformatory energy 
 from the real evil that turns this useful adjustment into 
 an engine of oppression. We cannot destroy the wages 
 system without making men over again, or putting them 
 into governmental strait jackets. We can, if we will, 
 destroy the monopolies which so disturb the competitive 
 equilibrium as to reduce laborers to the condition of de- 
 pendent and desperate hunters for work, and to make 
 freedom of contract between employer and employe a dis- 
 mal mockery. With monopolies destroyed, freedom of 
 contract would be restored and the "wages system" would 
 no longer be oppressive.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 OUR FOREIGN TRADE 
 
 F7OREIGN markets are commonly supposed to be 
 1 commercial necessities. More or less intelligently it 
 is assumed that without that outlet domestic markets 
 would be glutted, to the ruin of home business and the 
 impoverishment of home labor through over-production. 
 Why they should be so popular as an outlet is not clear. 
 The ill effects of over-production, if there are any, might 
 be avoided as effectually by burning our surplus or 
 dumping it into the ocean as by thrusting it upon alien 
 peoples. Probably, however, the preference comes from 
 a vague feeling that foreign markets, while absorbing 
 our surplus wealth, yield some sort of return. Be that 
 as it may, a notion that over-production at home can be 
 prevented only by opening markets abroad, has in one 
 way and another long influenced the foreign policies of 
 commercial nations. 
 
 It explains the "open door" policy in China, which 
 England has made peculiarly her own: she asserts the 
 right of sending her surplus goods to China upon the same 
 terms as to entry which the most favored nation enjoys. It 
 is the meaning, paradoxical as that may seem, of opposi- 
 tion to the "open door" : the object of the nations that op- 
 pose the policy is a monopoly of Chinese markets for their 
 own surplus goods. It throws light upon the commercial 
 aspects of the colonial policy of this country: upon the 
 theory that exports follow the flag, our colonies are 
 expected to absorb our surplus. 
 
 197
 
 198 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 In none of these instances does the question of buy- 
 ing in foreign markets cut any figure. No nation appears 
 to want to buy. All want to sell. Emphasis is placed 
 altogether not upon opportunities for getting goods, but 
 upon opportunities for getting rid of them. So dominant 
 is that theory of commerce that in common speech, and to 
 an astonishing degree in common thought, exporting is 
 classed as the only profitable part of international trade. 
 No nation strives to import ; all strive to export. 
 
 A little unbiased consideration will show this notion to 
 be absurd. No country can get rich by merely sending 
 things away without either return or expectation of re- 
 turn. As a permanent condition, excessive importing and 
 not excessive exporting the getting of wealth and not 
 the getting rid of wealth would be the profitable experi- 
 ence. If we are never to pay for our excessive imports, 
 then the more we have of them the richer we shall be. 
 Isn't that obvious ? On the other hand, if we are never to 
 be paid for our excessive exports, then the greater they 
 are the poorer we shall become. Isn't that also obvious ? 
 
 Profitable trading really consists neither in exporting 
 alone nor in importing alone, but in both exporting and 
 importing. As Henry George explains in the chapter 
 on "Exports and Imports" of his famous and wonderfully 
 lucid book on "Protection or Free Trade," exports and 
 imports, "so far as they are induced by trade, are correla- 
 tive," each being "the cause and complement of the 
 other" ; and "so far from its being the mark of a profitable 
 commerce that the value of a nation's exports exceeds her 
 imports, the reverse of this is true." 
 
 But contrary to George's rational view, it is the com- 
 mon belief, as already noted a belief generated by the 
 assumption that a country must get rid of its surplus or
 
 OUR FOREIGN TRADE 199 
 
 suffer the "impoverishment of over-production" that 
 every energy of a nation should be directed toward ob- 
 structing importation and accelerating exportation. Im- 
 porting is mistakenly regarded as augmenting the sup- 
 ply of commodities at home, where there is already a sur- 
 plus, and consequently as tending to frustrate the prime 
 object of exportation; whereas exporting in and of itself 
 is curiously supposed to increase the national wealth. 
 
 Statistics of excessive exports, therefore, are commonly 
 taken not merely by uneducated and inexperienced 
 dupes, but also by professional and business men as con- 
 clusive proof of national prosperity. For instance, one of 
 the leading newspapers of the middle West may be quoted 
 as saying in all editorial seriousness that as "the nation 
 is now able to export a large proportion of its manu- 
 factures," it is "thus annually increasing the total wealth 
 of the people by many millions of dollars." The same 
 queer inversion of ideas appeared not long ago in one of 
 the national political platforms, which congratulated the 
 country upon having increased its excess of exports 
 enormously not its exports but its excess of exports. The 
 people were actually asked to believe that the country 
 had prospered vastly more than ever before, because it 
 had in a brief period rolled up an immensely greater ex- 
 cess in value of goods sent away over goods received back 
 than it had rolled up during all its previous history. 
 
 So transparently absurd is this conception of profit in 
 foreign trade that its advocates explain that they do not 
 mean that excessive exports are not paid for, but only 
 that they are not paid for in merchandise. What they 
 urge is that excessive exports of merchandise are paid 
 for with gold and silver. Even the late President McKin- 
 ley made this explanation. In a speech at Mount Horeb,
 
 200 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Wisconsin, October 16, 1899,* he definitely asserted of the 
 enormous merchandise balance of exports then accumu- 
 lated : "We send more of our goods abroad and buy less 
 abroad than formerly, and the balance of trade is, there- 
 fore, in our favor, and comes to us in pure gold." But 
 this explanation is completely discredited by treasury 
 statistics. According to the official treasury statistics, f the 
 total excess of American merchandise exports from the 
 foundation of the government to June 30, 1900, was 
 $2,046,588,012. And instead of having been paid for in 
 gold and silver by excessive imports of those metals, that 
 excess of merchandise exports appears by the same sta- 
 tisticsf to have been increased during the same period by 
 $1,461,597,093 of excessive exports of gold and silver, 
 making the total excess of exports to June 30, 1900, run 
 up to $3,508,185,105. During the subsequent three years, 
 as shown by the monthly Treasury sheet of imports and 
 exports for June, 1903, this total of excessive exports was 
 increased by $1,537,363,442 excess of merchandise, and 
 instead of being reduced by any excessive imports of gold 
 and silver it was actually augmented by excessive exports 
 of those metals by the amount of $53,270,817. Of gold 
 alone the same reports indicate that we have sent out of 
 the country much more than we have got back. Tabu- 
 lating the Treasury figures, we get the following result: 
 
 September 30, 1790, to June 30, 1900 : 
 
 Excess of merchandise exports $2,046,588,012 
 
 Excess of gold and silver exports 1,461,597,093 
 
 June 30, 1900, to June 30, 1903 : 
 
 Excess of merchandise exports $1,537,363,442 
 
 Excess of gold and silver exports 53,270,817 
 
 Total excess of exports of all kinds merchan- 
 dise, gold and silver from the foundation of 
 the government to June 30, 1903 $5,098,819,364 
 
 * Reported by the Chicago Tribune of October 17, 1899. 
 t Monthly Summary for June, 1900, pages 3424, 3425. 
 j Same Summary, same pages.
 
 OUR FOREIGN TRADE 201 
 
 It is quite impossible to discover in those official figures 
 the slightest indication of any payment which this country 
 has received for the enormous aggregate of excessive ex- 
 ports it has rolled up since 1790 and is still augmenting. 
 They certainly have not been paid for with silver and 
 gold. On the contrary, not only have we sent out of the 
 country more merchandise than we have got back, but we 
 have also sent out more silver and gold than we have got 
 back. 
 
 The false idea that exports are paid for with gold, 
 would have no standing in common thought if the 
 mechanism of foreign trading were better apprehended. 
 Neither would the common mind be so easily confused 
 with arguments for restricting imports, for encouraging 
 exports, for protecting home markets, or for "invading" 
 foreign markets. 
 
 Foreign trade, like domestic trade, is a complex process 
 of swapping. It consists, not in selling alone, any more 
 than in buying alone, but in both selling and buying. To 
 illustrate, let us consider a supposititious but essentially 
 truthful example of wheat exportation. 
 
 Richard Roe, a grain merchant of Duluth, has by 
 domestic trading acquired control of a quantity of Ameri- 
 can wheat, in the purchase of which he has drawn checks 
 upon a Duluth bank, and delivered them to the different 
 persons who have sold wheat to him. 
 
 Negotiations result in a contract with a firm of grain 
 dealers in Hamburg, wherein they agree to buy and he 
 agrees to sell one ship load of wheat at a stipulated 
 price. Under this contract Mr. Roe is to charter vessels 
 to carry the wheat through the lakes and canals to Mon- 
 treal, where an ocean vessel, chartered by the Hamburg 
 grain dealers, is to receive and carry it to Hamburg. Mr.
 
 Roe is to be at liberty to draw upon the Hamburg- grain 
 dealers for the contract price of the wheat, as soon as it 
 shall have been received by the ocean vessel at Montreal. 
 
 While Mr. Roe is negotiating for lake vessels, let us 
 turn momentarily aside to inquire how he has redeemed 
 his checks at the Duluth bank. A customer of the bank, in 
 good standing, he has explained to its officers his inten- 
 tion of buying wheat for shipment, and solicited credit at 
 the bank to facilitate his operations. Upon the faith of 
 his own financial responsibility, or of bonds or other 
 valuable paper, or warehouse receipts for wheat, which he 
 deposits as security with the bank from time to time, or 
 of all these together, the bank grants Mr. Roe's request 
 and makes him a loan. The amount of the loan is not 
 paid to Mr. Roe in gold nor in any other money form. 
 It is credited by the bank to his account, subject to draft 
 by his checks. And as his checks, paid out for wheat, 
 come into this bank from other banks, they are charged 
 against his credit. Little money and no gold has been 
 used by Mr. Roe in purchasing his wheat, his payments 
 having been made in checks ; and if all his checks were 
 followed up through the hands of the different persons 
 and banks into which they came before reaching the 
 Duluth bank, it would be found that the Duluth bank had 
 used little or no gold or other money either. The whole 
 business has been carried on by means of notes, drafts, 
 checks and other commercial paper, which in the last 
 analysis are nothing but instructions to bank bookkeepers 
 for the shifting of debits and credits upon bank ledgers. 
 And just as the business has been done thus far, not 
 with the use of gold, but by means of bookkeeping, so, 
 as we shall see, it will be continued and completed. 
 
 We may now follow Mr. Roe's proceedings in ship-
 
 OUR FOREIGN TRADE 203 
 
 ping his wheat for export to Hamburg and obtaining pay- 
 ment under his contract. Upon loading the wheat upon 
 vessels at Duluth, Mr. Roe insures it with a marine 
 insurance company, the company thereby becoming re- 
 sponsible for the safe arrival of the cargo at Hamburg, 
 provided it is properly carried, transshipped, etc. Be- 
 sides insuring the cargo, he obtains from the masters 
 of the vessels at Duluth bills of lading certifying to the 
 receipt of the wheat on board and contracting to deliver 
 it to the ocean vessel at Montreal. Having done this, 
 he is in position to arrange for collecting payment for 
 the cargo from his Hamburg consignees, which he does 
 through a bank. 
 
 It may be that Mr. Roe's Duluth bank does not engage 
 in foreign business. But that gives him no concern, for 
 he is in good credit or if he is not, his Duluth bank 
 can put him in that position with some bank in Chicago 
 which does business all over the world. To the Chicago 
 bank, therefore, he goes with his bills of lading, his insur- 
 ance policies, and his contract with the Hamburg grain 
 dealers, and asks that bank, upon the security of these 
 documents, to honor his draft upon the Hamburg grain 
 dealers for the contract price of the wheat. The Chicago 
 bank examines into the transaction, and satisfying itself 
 that Mr. Roe will be entitled under the contract to pay- 
 ment for the wheat as soon as it is transshipped at 
 Montreal, agrees to accommodate him. He thereupon 
 draws against the Hamburg grain dealers in favor of the 
 Chicago bank for the sum of money stipulated in the 
 contract as the price of the wheat. That is, he makes a 
 written order to the grain dealers, commanding them to 
 pay that sum to the Chicago bank or its order. Mr. Roe 
 also conveys to the Chicago bank, by other documents,
 
 204 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 all his interest in the transaction, so that the bank now 
 owns the bills of lading, insurance policies, contracts, 
 etc. In consideration thereof it discounts Mr. Roe's 
 draft upon the Hamburg grain dealers, giving to him a 
 check or gold or other money, as he requires. 
 
 Mr. Roe will take a check. He wouldn't travel to 
 Duluth with a bag of gold, when the only object of carry- 
 ing it could be accomplished so much more easily and 
 safely by means of the check. Taking a check, then, 
 from the Chicago bank, he turns it over to the Duluth 
 bank, and thereupon receives credit there, by way of offset 
 to the obligations he incurred when he originally bought 
 the wheat. If those obligations were only for the wheat 
 now disposed of, he will have a surplus credit, which will 
 be his profit on the transaction. 
 
 Even if Mr. Roe had been given gold by the Chicago 
 bank, and had carried it to Duluth, that would have made 
 no difference as far as the point under consideration is 
 concerned the point that American exports are not paid 
 for with European gold. For the gold paid him by the 
 Chicago bank would not have been European gold; it 
 would have been American gold. 
 
 Thus far, then, no European gold has been received 
 for the wheat. And as Mr. Roe and all from whom he 
 has bought are settled with and paid, no European gold 
 will ever come to any of them on account of that wheat 
 deal. 
 
 Should European gold come to anybody in this country 
 on that account, it must come to the Chicago bank, or 
 to some one claiming under it. Let us, then, follow the 
 further operations of that bank in the matter. 
 
 Having possession of Mr. Roe's insurance policies, his 
 contract, his bills of lading and his draft upon the Ham-
 
 OUR FOREIGN TRADE 205 
 
 burg grain dealers, the Chicago bank forwards those doc- 
 uments or such of them as are necessary, together with 
 appropriate instructions, to its correspondent in Montreal, 
 who thereupon obtains from the master of the ocean ves- 
 sel, upon the transshipment of the wheat at that port, 
 the final bill of lading which gives financial vitality to 
 Mr. Roe's draft upon the Hamburg grain dealers. The 
 draft and that final bill of lading are then forwarded to 
 the Chicago bank's correspondent at Hamburg, who 
 secures an acceptance or formal acknowledgment of the 
 validity of the draft by the grain dealers. There is, con- 
 sequently, now in the Hamburg money market a valid 
 order for a shipment of gold from Hamburg to the 
 United States gold to the value, let us say for conveni- 
 ence of illustration, of $50,000. But no one in Hamburg 
 will really ship that gold to America. 
 
 As the transaction now stands, so far as the individuals 
 concerned in it are affected, the firm of Hamburg grain 
 dealers owes $50,000 to the Hamburg bank with which 
 the Chicago bank corresponds, and the Hamburg bank 
 owes that sum to the Chicago bank. 
 
 The Hamburg grain dealers will settle their indebted- 
 ness by paying the amount of it to the Hamburg bank. 
 They will probably enable themselves to do this by bor- 
 rowing bank credit precisely as Mr. Roe did at Duluth, 
 and so make the matter one of bank bookkeeping, instead 
 of a money transaction. But if they should pay the whole 
 or any part in gold, let it be observed that the gold would 
 not thereby get out of Hamburg. They would merely 
 pay Hamburg gold to a Hamburg bank, just as the 
 Chicago bank might have paid Chicago gold to Mr. Roe. 
 No gold has yet come into the United States, and none 
 has yet even left Hamburg in consequence of the wheat
 
 2o6 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 export transaction we are considering. The transaction 
 has simply been reduced to a $50,000 indebtedness from a 
 Hamburg bank to a Chicago bank. 
 
 But how can that indebtedness be discharged without 
 a shipment of $50,000 worth of gold from Europe to 
 America ? The answer is simple. It can be done by fur- 
 ther bookkeeping. Not only is that the way in which the 
 indebtedness can be discharged, but that is the way in 
 which it is most likely to be discharged, and the way in 
 which by far the largest proportion of indebtedness of 
 that kind always is discharged in actual practice. The 
 method will appear as we proceed. 
 
 While Mr. Roe was purchasing American wheat for 
 export to Europe, men in Europe, or Asia, or Africa, or 
 South America, were purchasing foreign products for 
 export to the United States. Their methods were much 
 the same as Mr. Roe's. Or, if they used more coin 
 and fewer checks than he did, it was used in the countries 
 where the purchases were made. No shipment of gold to 
 the United States was involved. And in disposing of 
 their products thus acquired, these foreign Richard Roes 
 followed very much the course of Richard Roe of Duluth, 
 with his wheat. They especially imitated him in acquir- 
 ing the contract right to draw upon their American con- 
 signees; and, having done so, in transferring that right 
 to a bank. 
 
 In this way, let us suppose for the sake of simple illus- 
 tration, one or more drafts amounting to $50,000 have 
 come into the hands of a St. Louis bank from a bank in 
 Geneva, its Geneva correspondent drafts drawn against 
 merchants in St. Louis for goods shipped to them from 
 Switzerland, as Mr. Roe's goods were shipped from 
 Duluth to Hamburg.
 
 OUR FOREIGN TRADE 207 
 
 The St. Louis bank collects this sum from the St. Louis 
 merchants who owe it. They doubtless pay in checks; 
 but even if they paid in gold it would be American gold. 
 No foreign gold can be regarded as having yet reached 
 our shores in connection with any of these supposititious 
 transactions. Having collected the amount of the Geneva 
 drafts from the St. Louis merchants, the St. Louis bank 
 owes its Geneva correspondent $50,000. This equals the 
 amount which, as we have already seen, the Hamburg 
 bank owes the Chicago bank; and being equal, the two 
 debts cancel each other. No gold passes. The discharge 
 of each debt becomes a mere matter of bank bookkeeping. 
 
 This international bank bookkeeping is very similar 
 to that between the banks of any city through their clear- 
 ing house. In principle it is identical. The European 
 clearing house, so to speak, is London; the American 
 clearing house, in the same sense, is New York. An 
 indebtedness d'je from any bank in Europe to any bank in 
 America is likely to be settled through New York bankers. 
 So an indebtedness due from any bank in America to any 
 bank in Europe is likely to be settled through London 
 bankers. These cities are the two points to which trade 
 balances tend to flow for settlement. That is what gives 
 them the character of clearing houses. 
 
 If, then, we suppose that the Geneva bank owed nothing 
 to the St. Louis bank, to offset the latter's indebtedness, 
 the St. Louis bank in question would send, directly or in- 
 directly, to some New York bank for a draft for $50,000 
 upon London. And if the Hamburg bank owed nothing 
 to the Chicago bank, it would send, directly or indirectly, 
 to some London bank for a draft for $50,000 upon New 
 York. The motive would in each case be that drafts could 
 be bought for less than it would cost to ship gold across 
 the ocean.
 
 ao8 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Having received their respective drafts, the St. Louis 
 bank would mail its London drafts to its correspondent in 
 Geneva, and the Hamburg bank would mail its New York 
 draft to the Chicago bank. They in turn would transmit 
 their drafts through banks to the respective London 
 and New York bankers upon whom the drafts had been 
 drawn, and with money or bank credit would be paid 
 their dues. 
 
 This would end Mr. Roe's wheat transaction with refer- 
 ence to the Chicago and Hamburg banks, as completely 
 as it had been ended already with reference to Mr. Roe 
 himself. It would also as completely end the matter of 
 the St. Louis consignment of Swiss goods with reference 
 to the St. Louis and the Geneva banks. The settlement 
 would now lie between two London banks and two New 
 York banks. And, still, let it be noted, no gold has 
 crossed the ocean either way. 
 
 The two New York and the two London banks, with 
 whom the final settlement rests, are affected in the matter 
 in this wise : The Wall Street Bank of New York, which, 
 let us say, has sold the London draft mentioned above, 
 did so because the Strand Bank, against which it drew, 
 owed it at least $50,000. The transaction is the same in 
 principle as when a bank depositor pays out a check 
 against his bank account. On the other hand, the Thread- 
 needle Bank, of London, which has sold the New York 
 draft, did so because the Broadway Bank, against which 
 it drew, owed it at least $50,000. This transaction, also, 
 is the same in principle as that of a check drawn by a 
 bank depositor against his account. 
 
 When the London draft finally reaches the Strand 
 Bank, in London, it is there charged in the ledger against 
 the account of the Wall Street Bank, of New York. Like-
 
 OUR FOREIGN TRADE 209 
 
 wise, when the New York draft finally reaches the Broad- 
 way Bank, in New York, it is there charged in the ledger 
 against the account of the Threadneedle Bank, of Lon- 
 don. And that ends the whole matter, so far as Europe 
 and the United States are concerned. European banks 
 may yet have accounts to settle among themselves, and 
 American banks among themselves; but neither country 
 has anything more to do with the other regarding Richard 
 Roe's shipment of wheat from Duluth. All the inter- 
 national accounts have been balanced off in bank ledgers ; 
 and the wheat has been paid for with Swiss merchandise, 
 and not with European gold. 
 
 It is in that way that by far the largest proportion of 
 all goods exported from this country are paid for. Gold 
 plays an infinitesimally small part in the phenomena of 
 foreign trade. 
 
 The American Treasury statistics show, as noted above, 
 that the excess of merchandise exported from this coun- 
 try from the foundation of the government to June 30, 
 1903, was $3,583,951,454. This is called a "favorable 
 balance," because it is assumed that it has been or will 
 be paid off with foreign gold. But not a penny of it 
 has been so paid. On the contrary, during the same 
 period our excess of exports of gold and silver amounted 
 to $1,514,867,910. Thus foreigners have received from 
 us, since the foundation of the government, in gold, sil- 
 ver and merchandise, $5,098,819,364, for which, so far 
 as the statistics show, they have never paid us anything. 
 
 It appears, then, that the supposititious trading transac- 
 tions used here to exemplify the process of foreign com- 
 merce, vary from the actual facts of our foreign trade 
 in this, that the supposititious transactions exactly balance 
 each other, whereas in our actual trading transactions we
 
 210 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 appear to have sent away, in 114 years, in gold and silver 
 as well as merchandise, thousands of millions more than 
 we have ever received back or can ever expect to receive 
 back. How can that difference bring comfort to the 
 "favorable balance of trade" theorist? Who would take 
 him seriously if he insisted that the wealth of the country 
 has been augmented by that enormous excess of outgo ? 
 
 The transactions supposed in our illustration assume a 
 normal and healthy condition of foreign trade. For in 
 the normal and healthy condition, exports are offset by 
 imports. Gold never crosses the ocean, in normal condi- 
 tions, except for use as a commodity, like iron or copper. 
 When it crosses merely for the purpose of paying bal- 
 ances the condition of trade is unwholesome. 
 
 But gold does frequently cross the ocean for the pur- 
 pose of paying balances, sometimes one way and some- 
 times the other. This happens when drafts cost more 
 than it would cost to ship an equal value in gold, a con- 
 dition which is determined by what is known as the "price 
 of exchange" on London. 
 
 When drafts on London can be bought in New York 
 for the bullion value of English sovereigns say $4.86 to 
 the 1 then exchange may be said to be normal. Debts 
 and credits between New York and London are thereby 
 indicated to be about equal. If the price remained at 
 that point, no gold would pass either way, except as 
 merchandise in response to demand for use in the arts. 
 Exports and imports of merchandise would then mutu- 
 ally offset each other, as in our illustration, where Roe's 
 wheat is exactly paid for by the Swiss merchandise. 
 
 But when drafts on London are so scarce in New York 
 that they cost more than $4.86 per 1, that means that 
 American claims against Europe are growing less than
 
 211 
 
 European claims against America, and if the price rises 
 say to $4.88, gold begins to flow from America to 
 Europe in payment of American obligations. The reason 
 is that this high price for exchange is dearer than the 
 expense of gold shipments. 
 
 Conversely, when drafts on London are so plentiful 
 in New York that they can be bought for less than $4.86 
 per 1, that means that American claims against Europe 
 are growing larger than European claims against Amer- 
 ica. If the price falls say to $4.83^4, gold begins to flow 
 from Europe to America in payment of European obliga- 
 tions. The reason is that at this low price for exchange 
 it is more profitable to incur the expense of importing 
 gold than to bear the heavy discount on drafts. 
 
 Thus the ebb and flow of gold is regulated by the rise 
 and fall of London exchange in the New York money 
 market, a rise approximately to $4.88 per 1 producing 
 a flow of gold from New York, and a fall approximately 
 to $4.83^4 producing a flow to New York. Exchange 
 vibrates between these two points, seldom if ever rising 
 above $4.88 or falling below $4.83^. 
 
 Foreign trade, therefore, comes nearer to the ideal 
 the nearer it approaches the condition of our illustration, 
 in which Roe's wheat was exactly paid for with Swiss 
 goods. Like all other trade, it is mere barter, plain 
 swapping, in which bank bookkeeping and not gold coin 
 plays the important part ; and to give more than we get 
 is obviously to lose in the swap. 
 
 But this country has given, according to its Treasury 
 statistics, enormously more than it has got. Nor has 
 it been paid for the excess with either gold or silver : both 
 metals are considered in the excess. Neither has the 
 excess of exports gone to pay for former imports: all
 
 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 imports also are considered in the computation of the 
 excess. It could not have been invested, either, in foreign 
 stocks, bonds, or land: the flow of such investments is 
 on the whole from Europe to this country, not from 
 this country to Europe.* It cannot be subject to sight 
 draft : sight drafts have ruled so high as to preclude that 
 inference. And it has not been invested in bankers' short 
 loans to any considerable amount.f Virtually the whole 
 sum appears to have been as complete a loss as if the 
 wealth it expresses had been chucked upon a bonfire or 
 tossed into the sea. But how can it have been lost? 
 
 Let us consider. If it were possible to secure exact 
 statistics of exports and imports, and trade were in reality 
 what the term implies, untrammeled swapping, we should 
 find imports exceeding exports in value in every coun- 
 try. The excess in each country would represent that 
 country's profit. Thus: An English product worth $75 
 in London, let us say, but $100 in New York, would 
 "swap even" for an American product worth $75 in New 
 York but $100 in London. Each country would gain 
 $25 by the swap. And it would be found that each had 
 
 * See editorial in Chicago Record-Herald of August 31, 1903, 
 commenting upon a magazine paper by W. H. Allen. The Rec- 
 ord-Herald says that Mr. Allen "has made up a table of the sales 
 and purchases of shares by foreigners on the New York Stock Ex- 
 change as reported weekly in the New York Times and New York 
 Evening Post, and he finds that for the four years, 1898-1901, the 
 net excess of purchases over sales was 3,797,000 shares, while in 
 1902 alone did the sales exceed the purchases, and then by only 
 427,000 shares. The net showing for the five years is, therefore, 
 that purchases were in the lead by 3,370,000 shares. As to direct 
 sales and purchases outside the Stock Exchange, Mr. Allen finds, 
 though by less exact methods, a similar tendency." 
 
 t In the same editorial the Chicago Record-Herald describes 
 Mr. Allen as presenting facts to show "that instead of our lend- 
 ing money abroad we have been most of the time heavy borrow- 
 ers, and from this he infers further that we cannot have had 
 funds idle for permanent investments in foreign countries on any 
 large scale."
 
 OUR FOREIGN TRADE 213 
 
 an excess of imports to that amount. This excess would 
 represent the value of the greater desirability of the 
 article of each country in the markets of the other. That 
 illustrates the ideal condition, from which all reasoning 
 on the subject must proceed. That is the equilibrium of 
 foreign trading. 
 
 Suppose, now, that the statistics showed that whereas 
 Great Britain maintains a steady excess of imports (which 
 is the fact), implying that her foreign trade is profitable, 
 the United States exhibits a steady excess of exports 
 (which also is the fact), implying that her foreign trade 
 is unprofitable, what explanation should we make ? Why 
 not turn to Great Britain and ask how it is that she flour- 
 ishes upon excessive imports? The answer might help 
 us to understand what becomes of our exports. 
 
 Why is it, then, that Great Britain has a towering 
 import balance? Commercial profits do not wholly ac- 
 count for it ; for commercial profits are mutual, and Great 
 Britain's profits are one-sided. Is it not because wealth 
 from other countries is sent to Great Britain to pay divi- 
 dends on the stock, interest on the bonds, and rent for 
 the land of those countries which are owned in Great 
 Britain ? Is it not for the same reason, to put the matter 
 in another form, that ancient Rome grew rich upon the 
 excessive imports from her tributary provinces? or that 
 a modern village prospers upon the excessive imports of 
 the produce of neighboring farms, in payment of rents 
 to retired farmers ? Is it not because receivers of foreign 
 tribute live in Great Britain, while the payers of this 
 tribute live in other countries? That is the unavoidable 
 conclusion. Upon their foreign holdings British capital- 
 ists receive dividends, interest, and rent in a perennial 
 stream of imports, in exchange for which no wealth leaves
 
 2i 4 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Great Britain. Those imports are profits upon past 
 transactions, and to that extent it is with the British 
 all import and no export. Of course, their excessive im- 
 ports tend to make the country not poor, but rich. They 
 add to the aggregate of British wealth. 
 
 But do not ignore the other side of the story. This 
 stream of excessive imports into Great Britain is a stream 
 of excessive exports out of other countries. And as its 
 flow into Great Britain tends to enrich that country by 
 giving it wealth without taking wealth from it, so its flow 
 out of the other countries must tend to impoverish them 
 by taking wealth away without bringing wealth back. If 
 Great Britain is enriched by excessive imports, the other 
 countries cannot be enriched by their corresponding ex- 
 cessive exports, and our own country is no exception. 
 
 We are now prepared to understand the true meaning 
 of our enormous excess of exports. To the extent that 
 they really are excessive they represent tribute to the 
 capitalists of other countries. But the excess is not all 
 genuine. In some degree it is produced by defective 
 statistics. Undervaluations to escape tariff duties make 
 the value of our imports appear less than it is. On the 
 other hand, the invoicing by American exporters of their 
 shipments at list prices when in fact those prices are 
 heavily discounted, makes the value of our exports appear 
 to be greater than it is. These overvaluations of exports 
 are largely made by protected trusts, which invoice their 
 exports at the prices charged to American consumers, but 
 actually sell them at lower prices to foreign consumers. 
 By this contraction of import values and expansion of 
 export values, the excess of exports is inflated, though 
 to what extent it is impossible to estimate. It is certain, 
 however, that the actual excess of exports is nevertheless 
 very large.
 
 OUR FOREIGN TRADE 215 
 
 In some degree, also, our excessive exports are ac- 
 counted for by ocean freights. Since foreigners do most 
 of the ocean carrying both ways, they earn most of the 
 freight upon both imports and exports; and as they are 
 foreigners living abroad, the excess must be paid for in 
 exports. By their service as carriers they really add to 
 the value of our imports ; but as freights do not figure In 
 the statistics of imports, which are valued at their cost 
 abroad, this country does not appear by the statistics, 
 though the fact is otherwise, to get any additional wealth 
 in exchange for exports for freight payments. By this 
 means also our statistical excess of exports is inflated. 
 
 Then there are the expenses of American tourists 
 abroad. Though this expenditure pleases the tourists, 
 or they would not make it, it drains the country of its 
 aggregate wealth. Such exportations do not directly nor 
 indirectly augment American wealth, any more than an 
 excursion from a country village to a city augments the 
 wealth of the village, or the visit of a farmer's family to 
 a circus augments the wealth on his farm. It is the 
 country to which the tourists' wealth is taken that is en- 
 riched, not the one from which it goes. 
 
 So, too, with remittances from foreigners in this coun- 
 try to their friends at home. These gifts afford pleasure, 
 no doubt, to the remitters ; but there is less wealth in this 
 country by the amount of the gifts. Both countries can- 
 not be commercially enriched by the same gift, and as 
 the receiving country unquestionably is enriched by it, 
 the remitting country must be correspondingly impov- 
 erished. 
 
 But although exports for freights, and gifts, and tour- 
 ists' expenses do take wealth out of the country in ex- 
 change for which no tangible wealth comes back (unless
 
 216 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 we consider as to freights that they are offset by the 
 value they add to the imports over and above what the 
 statistics of imports show), yet none of these items can 
 be regarded strictly as tribute. 
 
 There are items, however, that enter into our excessive 
 exports which are distinctly tribute and nothing else. 
 
 Perhaps all dividends on stock and all interest on bonds 
 exported to foreign stock and bondholders ought not to 
 be so considered. Although these items take wealth out 
 of the country without bringing any back, it may be 
 urged with plausibility as to some of them that they rep- 
 resent earnings of previously invested capital. But it 
 should not be forgotten that our exports since the founda- 
 tion of the government have been so vastly greater than 
 our imports for the same period as to challenge that argu- 
 ment at the threshold. We appear, by the statistics, not 
 to have received any great amount of capital at any time 
 in excess of our current exports. Such capital as for- 
 eigners have let us have must have been for the most 
 part what we ourselves produced for their benefit capi- 
 tal that never went out of the country. 
 
 But the plea that some of our apparently unpaid-for 
 exports are made up of earnings of foreign capital has 
 no possible application to items of interest on government 
 bonds. Neither does it apply to interest on most State 
 and municipal bonds ; nor to a large percentage of divi- 
 dends declared by railroad, mining, and other monopoly 
 corporations; nor yet to so much of real estate rents 
 as are paid for the use of land as distinguished from the 
 use of its improvements. Interest on government bonds is 
 not interest produced by the investment ; it is a tax levied 
 by the law-making power to reward lenders of capital 
 burned up in powder long ago. We may honorably owe
 
 OUR FOREIGN TRADE 217 
 
 it, but its payment does not in any sense represent an 
 increase in the wealth of our people earned by the capital 
 invested. It is not produced by the capital. Much of the 
 interest on State and municipal bonds is also a mere 
 tax. The same thing is essentially true of all that part 
 of the dividends of monopoly-owning corporations which 
 constitutes exactions under their monopoly franchises 
 as distinguished from the earnings of their plants. And 
 the rent of land as distinguished from the rent of its 
 improvements is in the same category. All the wealth 
 that goes abroad for such payments is tribute. 
 
 Most distinctly so is the rent of land. A Lord Scully, 
 for instance, buys large stretches of farming territory in 
 this country for a few dollars an acre. The payment for 
 it is either an offset against previous exports or is an 
 actual import into this country. But after a few years his 
 tenants in this country pay more in rent for that land 
 every year than the absentee landlord gave for the fee. 
 That point being reached, American exports on that ac- 
 count become a continuing and constantly increasing 
 drain. Nothing comes back for them. They are as 
 truly tribute as are Irish rents to English landlords. In- 
 deed, they are the same thing. It is of such payments that 
 our swelling export balance is largely composed.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION AND SURVEY 
 
 TO know how a loaf of bread is made and distributed 
 is to know more of political economy than all the text 
 books and all the statistics can teach. That was Emer- 
 son's idea, and Emerson was right. But his idea does 
 not imply that one must know all the chemical and me- 
 chanical processes. They are manifold and complex, 
 and it would be impossible for one head, large or small, 
 to hold so much. Even if there were a human brain of 
 this extraordinary capacity, it would very likely be inca- 
 pable of intelligently using the knowledge it held. For- 
 tunately, therefore, what is necessary is not comprehen- 
 sive knowledge of technical processes, which is impossible, 
 but intelligent apprehension of familiar economic phe- 
 nomena, which is not difficult. 
 
 THE ECONOMIC MYSTERIES. 
 
 A child who knows how to get candy can be inducted 
 into the economic mysteries. Isn't candy got at the store 
 with pennies? So is bread. A child can understand 
 that. But the same is true of everything else with which 
 the human family satisfy their material wants. Whether 
 their wants be of the stomach for food, of the body for 
 clothing and shelter, of the taste for superior qualities 
 of food and clothing and shelter, or of any of the desires 
 for any other of the infinite variety of material things, 
 those wants are all satisfied by buying objects as candy 
 
 218
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 219 
 
 and bread are bought by buying them, so to speak, at 
 the store with pennies. In civilized society every material 
 desire can be satisfied as it arises, simply by giving money 
 for the things that satisfy it. 
 
 But why is that true ? Why do pennies so easily fetch 
 us candy or bread or other good things ? They wouldn't 
 if we were not living in civilized society. On a desert 
 island no amount of money could procure a satisfaction 
 for even the least of human desires. It cannot be, then, 
 that money is the final explanation of economic processes. 
 It is evidently only a superficial expression of something 
 more fundamentally characteristic of civilized life. 
 
 What that thing is should appear upon a moment's 
 reflection. If money will procure satisfaction for any 
 want, in civilized society where trade is a universal phe- 
 nomenon, and only for a few in savage society where 
 there is but little trade, and none at all on a desert island 
 where there is no trade, then money must be merely a 
 trade token. It must be something, that is, which passes 
 current among civilized people not because anyone wants 
 it for itself, but because it will buy other things things 
 that are wanted for themselves. And isn't this a fact 
 which every thoughtful man knows ? It is not money but 
 trade that enables the child to buy candy, and his mother 
 to buy bread, or his father to buy a house. If the child's 
 penny could not serve the storekeeper in trade when he 
 goes to buy what he wants for himself, he would not 
 take it in trade when he offers to sell candy to the child. 
 He does not want it except to trade it again. It is simply 
 a token whereby he swaps what he sells for it for what 
 he buys with it. And this fact about the penny is true of 
 all money. The economic phenomenon, therefore, which 
 is more fundamental than money, without which money
 
 220 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 would be of no use and the object of no one's desire, is 
 trade. 
 
 Of course we know that trade consists in swapping 
 things. But why is anything swapped for another thing? 
 Why are things traded? You cannot trade the free air. 
 You cannot trade the waters of the Great Lakes. There 
 are kinds of things, certainly, which cannot be traded. 
 Yet there are other kinds of things in great abundance 
 and bewildering variety which not only can be traded, 
 but are in continual process of trade. Why? What is 
 it that distinguishes the tradable from the untradable? 
 
 Isn't it obviously value? Things having no value are 
 not tradable, but things having value are tradable. 
 
 As value is commonly expressed in terms of money, it 
 being customary to say of a valuable thing that it is 
 worth so many pennies or so many dollars, it might seem 
 that we had now got back again to money. But that is 
 not the fact. Though value is expressed in terms of 
 money, it does not depend upon money. Things would 
 have value all the same even if there were no money 
 to express their values. Money bears much the same 
 relation to value that the alphabet bears to language or 
 to thought. It furnishes convenient symbols for ex- 
 pression, but is not the thing expressed. 
 
 Value is the expression of a comparison. As exempli- 
 fied in trade it is the name of the ratio at which trad- 
 able things are exchanged. If, for illustration, one loaf 
 of bread exchanges for five sticks of candy, the ratio of 
 bread to candy is as one to five. It follows that if you 
 give one penny for your stick of candy you must give 
 five for your bread ; or, expressing these values in terms 
 of money, that bread loaves are worth five pennies and 
 candy sticks are worth one penny. Yet it is value itself,
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 221 
 
 and not its capability of expression in terms of money, 
 that makes things tradable. The immediate cause of 
 trade is value. 
 
 It cannot be, however, that value is the final explana- 
 tion of economic processes. There must be something 
 still more fundamental. To say that value is the economic 
 base, is almost as superficial as to say that money is. 
 Value is not economically self-existent. It in turn must 
 have an economic cause. 
 
 The cause of value is serviceability, in the restricted 
 sense of capability of serving a human purpose. Unless 
 an object is capable of ministering to some human de- 
 sire, unless, that is, it possesses the quality of serviceabil- 
 ity, it cannot exhibit the phenomenon of value. Value rests 
 upon serviceability. But upon serviceability plus some- 
 thing else. For the air is incalculably serviceable, the 
 waters of the Great Lakes and of the oceans are im- 
 mensely so, the sunlight is indispensably so ; yet none of 
 these has value. It will be observed, however, that while 
 they are serviceable they are not difficult to get. . They are 
 not scarce. On the other hand, serviceable objects which 
 are difficult to get, serviceable objects which are scarce, 
 invariably exhibit value. The cause of value, then, is 
 serviceability in a condition of scarcity. Inasmuch, how- 
 ever, as it is not scarcity but serviceability that causes 
 normal desire for anything, serviceability and not scarcity 
 is the active or inciting cause of value. 
 
 True, however, as this obviously is, we have not yet 
 reached the end of our economic exploration. For 
 serviceability, though the inciting cause of value, is itself 
 an effect of anterior causes. If bread were not valuable 
 it wouldn't be tradable. If it were not serviceable it 
 wouldn't have value. But if it didn't exist it couldn't be
 
 222 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 serviceable. So its serviceability, its value, and its trad- 
 ability, all depend in turn upon its existence. This seems 
 rather obtrusively obvious, but the most obvious facts 
 are sometimes ignored. 
 
 Now, bread does not exist naturally. It is an artificial 
 object. And that is true of the great mass of tradable 
 objects. They are artificial. Some tradable objects, it 
 is true, are not artificial; but these are tradable for a 
 secondary reason because they are capable of securing 
 in some way service from articles that are artificial. It 
 is the serviceability that is embodied or is capable of 
 being embodied in artificial objects, that makes anything 
 tradable. We find, therefore, that beneath all the eco- 
 nomic phenomena we have thus far explored beneath 
 money, trade, value and serviceability; beneath all these, 
 in the sense of being their cause are the artificial objects 
 which possess the quality of serviceability, to which value 
 therefore attaches in conditions of scarcity, which are 
 consequently tradable, and which may for that reason be 
 bought with money. 
 
 What technical name we give to such objects is of no 
 moment, provided we always use the same name to 
 designate those objects, and use it for nothing else. Then 
 why not distinguish them as "wealth," which is a good 
 old economic term ? Using the term strictly in that sense, 
 we are able to say that all the economic levels thus far 
 explored rest upon wealth. 
 
 But the end is not yet, for wealth is not self-existent. 
 Consisting of artificial objects it cannot be. As the 
 term "artificial" implies, such objects are produced 
 (which means drawn forth) by human art. If man 
 didn't exist, they would not appear. If man didn't 
 labor, they would not come forth. Without human exer-
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 223 
 
 tion of brain and brawn, there would be no wealth. 
 Wealth, therefore, is properly called a labor product. So 
 we trace all economic processes back to human labor. 
 
 Every material thing is brought to us by human labor 
 our own labor or some one else's ; and if at any stage 
 in the process labor were to stop, our desires would 
 forthwith begin to go unsatisfied. At first we should 
 have to stint ourselves, perhaps, only a little; but soon 
 a little more, and then more, until almost every want 
 would plead in vain for even the least satisfaction. The 
 whole process of production and distribution is a process 
 of labor. The raw materials are produced by labor; the 
 tools and machinery, simple and complex, little and big, 
 are made and repaired and re-made by labor; the trans- 
 portation facilities are constructed and operated by labor ; 
 the factories and store buildings are erected and utilized 
 by labor. 
 
 In the loaf of bread there are the labor of the farmer 
 who raises and harvests grain, and of the miller who 
 grinds it; of the mechanics who make the tools and 
 machinery for both farmer and miller, and of those who 
 make the tools and machinery for these mechanics ; of the 
 miner who unearths the metals and the woodmen who 
 cut the lumber ; and then again of those who make miners' 
 and lumbermen's tools ; of the labor that builds railroads 
 and the labor that operates them; of the labor of the 
 baker and that which equips bakeries ; of the labor of 
 the banker and the banker's clerks in giving mobility to 
 capital, and of that which constructs and cares for their 
 buildings, as well as that which through other complex- 
 ities of trade furnishes them with stationery and with 
 business furniture ; and so on to the labor that slices the 
 loaf at last and that which produces the knife with which
 
 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 it is sliced. From beginning to end it is all a labor pro- 
 cess. Nor is it the labor of the past that keeps the process 
 going ; it is the labor of the present. 
 
 The wealth we buy with money, then, for the satisfac- 
 tion of our desires, is in the last analysis the product of 
 current human labor. 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL FACTORS. 
 
 We have now reached a final explanation. Beginning 
 with the economic phenomenon next at hand, and there- 
 fore most familiar, that of buying satisfactions with 
 money, we have proceeded, step by step, to the consid- 
 eration of related phenomena more remote. Thus we 
 have accounted for money by trade, for trade by value, 
 for value by serviceability, for serviceability by artificial 
 objects, and for artificial objects by human labor. It is 
 as if in making a subterranean exploration, we had first 
 laid off the surface soil and then cut through the layers 
 of different material, one after another, down to rock 
 bottom. And human labor is the rock bottom of economic 
 research. It supports all the super-incumbent layers 
 artificial objects, serviceability, value, trade and money. 
 
 Unlike the other economic phenomena through which 
 we have picked our way, labor is economically self-ex- 
 istent. It has no anterior cause on the economic plane. 
 For labor is a technical term descriptive of the human 
 family producing satisfactions for human desires. And 
 while that phenomenon is indeed an effect (as what short 
 of Omnipotence is not?), yet its cause lies beyond the 
 field of economic inquiry. It is not an effect of anterior 
 economic causes. On the economic plane it is itself the 
 cause of all effects. 
 
 Nevertheless, labor cannot create. It cannot make
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 125 
 
 something out of nothing. It cannot say, "Let there be 
 bread!" and there is bread. So far from creating, labor 
 has only the power to produce. That is, it can draw 
 forth artificial objects by so adapting the matter and 
 forces which nature supplies as to fit them for serving 
 human purposes. It can change the shape and place of 
 natural things. 
 
 For instance, it can produce coal by changing its shape 
 from the mass in the vein to broken pieces in the mining 
 chamber; it can still further produce it by changing its 
 place from the bottom of the mine to the mouth ; it can 
 produce it further yet by changing its place from the 
 mouth of the mine to the coal bin, and finally to the 
 stove or grate of the distant consumer. Or, it can pro- 
 duce houses by changing the forms of trees, rock, sand, 
 clay and ore, and assembling them at one point and in 
 one form or shape from many distant points and different 
 shapes. 
 
 But labor can produce nothing without natural resources. 
 Tools it does not need. For labor, considered as a coop- 
 erative whole, makes all its own tools. They are artificial 
 objects wealth. But it does need raw materials and 
 working places upon the earth. To use the inclusive 
 economic term, it does need "land." Land is the one thing, 
 the only thing, that labor must have and cannot make. 
 Land is the sole condition of all the economic processes 
 that labor generates. For mining, it must have access to 
 mining land ; for farming, to agricultural land ; for urban 
 building, to urban land sites; for railroading, to rights 
 of way over land ; for sailing, to docks ; and so on. Labor 
 without land, even if life were possible, would be utterly 
 powerless to generate the economic processes. On the 
 other hand, land without labor is unproductive of arti-
 
 226 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 ficial satisfactions. It only furnishes the natural store- 
 house and workshop for labor, leaving labor to do the 
 rest. Though labor generates the economic processes, it 
 must have access to land to do so. And land it cannot 
 produce. Land is not an artificial object, but a natural 
 one. But with access to land, labor produces in abund- 
 ance all those artificial objects having value, which we 
 have called "wealth." 
 
 Labor is fundamental and land is fundamental. They 
 are the prime factors of all economic processes ; labor 
 being the initial or active force and land the responsive 
 or passive condition. Thus labor produces wealth from 
 land, and land yields wealth to labor. 
 
 Land, Labor and Wealth, then, are the three subjects 
 of first importance in all economic problems. Land 
 passively yields matter, space and force to the knowl- 
 edge and skill of man. The active application of that 
 knowledge and skill to those passive elements is Labor; 
 and its product the natural matter and energy so shaped 
 and adjusted as to satisfy the desires that stirred the 
 laborer to activity is Wealth. From this starting point 
 the steps we have taken may be retraced, and the way 
 be more minutely surveyed. Back to money and its 
 functions, through all the mazes of serviceability, value 
 and trade, it is now possible to go with a certainty born 
 of confidence in familiarity with the route. We have 
 discovered the most fundamental of economic princi- 
 ples, and in their light problems otherwise perplexing 
 may be easily and correctly solved. 
 
 LAND. 
 
 Let us begin this survey with a somewhat more ex- 
 tended examination into the economic characteristics of
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 227 
 
 Land, which, as we have seen, is the sole condition of 
 the economic processes that Labor at any time generates 
 or maintains. 
 
 Land is the natural storehouse from which man draws 
 all his supplies, and the one foundation upon which he 
 rests all his structures. It includes everything except 
 the human family, and such objects as the human family 
 have altered in condition so as to adapt them to human 
 desires. Not only the soil, but the water, the atmosphere, 
 the sunlight, building sites, railway sites, mineral deposits, 
 forests, and even the birds of the air, the fishes of the 
 sea, and the wild animals that roam the earth, are included 
 in this economic category. 
 
 It may seem absurd to designate animals and water 
 and air and sunlight as "land," a term habitually asso- 
 ciated with the soil and used in contradistinction to air 
 and water. But we are not now considering physics or 
 natural history. The subject of our inquiry is the eco- 
 nomic relations of the human family to its environment. 
 We must distinguish things, therefore, by their economic 
 peculiarities. 
 
 For that purpose some term having no colloquial 
 connotations might be much better than "land" ; some 
 word meaning, for example, "material environment" or 
 "earth chance." But one word will do as well as an- 
 other if we are careful to think of it in the sense in which 
 we agree to use it. So in economic matters we may 
 speak of "land" without limiting our meaning to what 
 the farmer means when he speaks of plowing "land," or 
 the sailor when upon sighting a shore line he announces 
 the fact with a "land, ho!" or the ocean traveler when 
 he puts his foot upon the dock and tells you he has 
 "landed." We use it as a technical term to distinguish
 
 528 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 sharply from all other things the natural environment 
 of the human family. As all must agree, man has a 
 natural environment without which he could not work, 
 could not produce satisfactions, could not live at all an 
 environment which is to his life of wonderful variety 
 what bodies of water are to the simple life of fish and 
 the upper air to that of birds. This environment includes 
 every natural thing that man needs, ranging from air for 
 breathing to all the matter and all the forces of nature, 
 including animal life, which he may alter in condition 
 so as to adapt it to the satisfaction of any of his desires. 
 For convenient reference to that environment, some 
 simple technical term is needed, and the one with which 
 political economists have long been familiar is Land. 
 
 This, as already explained, is the sole passive or re- 
 sponsive condition of economic processes. No economic 
 process is possible without it. It always has been, is now, 
 and, though human achievement accomplish untold 
 wonders, always must be, one of the two indispensable 
 factors of producing satisfactions for human desires. 
 Any other conclusion is unthinkable. 
 
 LABOR. 
 
 Without Labor, however, Land would yield no arti- 
 ficial thing. Labor is the other indispensable factor. As 
 Land is the passive economic condition, so Labor is the 
 initial economic force. It is Labor applied to and oper- 
 ating upon and in conjunction with Land that causes 
 every other economic process. Or, to put the same 
 thought in another form, it is by means of the energies 
 of man, mental and physical, applied to and operating 
 upon and in conjunction with the material energies of 
 his natural environment, that all artificial satisfactions
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 229 
 
 of human desires are produced. For Labor, like Land, is 
 a technical term of political economy, and as such must be 
 understood more comprehensively than in common speech. 
 It designates human energies, mental and physical, in 
 so far at least as they are devoted to economic processes. 
 So it comprehends all serviceable work of mind or 
 muscle, with skill or without, as hired man or "boss"; 
 and whether on farms or in factories, out upon the sea 
 or down in the mine, up in the high stories of sky- 
 scrapers or away from civilization in the depths of prime- 
 val forests, in the hospital or the pulpit, at the bar or 
 the easel or the teacher's desk, in store or warehouse 
 or railroad train or street car or public office. All 
 service is Labor, whether it be a service rendered directly, 
 like that of the barber who shaves you, or one rend- 
 ered indirectly, like that of the mechanic who impresses 
 his energy upon matter, thereby producing exchangeable 
 objects. Wherever or however human energy responds 
 to the cravings of human desire, the expenditure of that 
 energy for that purpose is Labor. 
 
 WEALTH. 
 
 When this application of the energies of man to his 
 natural environment produces substantial results, those 
 results are distinguished by the technical term Wealth. 
 
 Wealth is drawn from external nature by man, who, 
 by changing natural materials in form or place or both, 
 produces such artificial objects as tend to satisfy human 
 desire. In technical phrase : from Land, Labor produces 
 Wealth. To call in the aid of metaphor: as father to 
 mother and children to parents, so is Labor to Land and 
 Wealth to both. 
 
 Among the distinguishing characteristics of Wealth is
 
 230 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 its tendency to revert. Not only does it consist of arti- 
 ficial objects produced by man from his natural environ- 
 ment, but with use or lapse of time it loses its artificial 
 quality and passes back again into the great reservoir 
 of matter and force whence it came. A loaf of bread 
 is Wealth. So were the flour of which it was made, 
 the wheat from which the flour was ground, and all 
 the artificial implements which were utilized to bring 
 the grain to fruition, to grind the flour, to bake the 
 bread, and to transport grain, flour and implements 
 in the form of a loaf of bread to the consumer. In 
 raising the grain, agricultural implements were sub- 
 jected to a "wear and tear" which returned them in de- 
 gree to the natural reservoirs of supply; while the seed, 
 produced by previous effort, was wholly returned. In 
 grinding the flour, milling implements were returned in 
 degree by their "wear and tear"; and so with baking 
 implements and transporting agencies. At last the bread 
 itself is eaten or wasted. In either case it also returns 
 to the natural sources. 
 
 What is thus true of bread and its artificial constitu- 
 ents is true of all other artificial objects. Sooner or later, 
 and with most of them much sooner than later, all arti- 
 ficial objects revert to their original economic condition 
 as part of the natural environment of man. 
 
 In technical phrase, therefore, not only is all Wealth 
 produced by Labor from Land, but in natural course 
 it all tends to pass back into Land. This is the never 
 varying result of economic processes. 
 
 SERVICEABILITY. 
 
 But why do men produce by Labor from Land artificial 
 objects, or Wealth, if those objects inevitably go back
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 231 
 
 to Land again? Simply, as we have already casually 
 observed, because the consumption of those objects, 
 which is one of the ways in which they revert, satisfies 
 human desire. 
 
 Consuming bread satisfies a desire for food; wearing 
 out clothing satisfies desires for covering and ornament; 
 occupying houses, driving horses and carriages, carrying 
 a watch, wearing a jewel, and so on, satisfy other desires. 
 Men systematically produce these things because con- 
 suming them gives satisfaction. 
 
 It is not because the labor of producing them is itself 
 a pleasure. On the contrary, men instinctively shrink 
 from systematic labor for its own sake. Under natural 
 law in this connection a law of human nature men 
 instinctively seek the satisfaction of their desires in the 
 easiest way. Their object is to get the most and the 
 best with the least effort. This is the natural law that 
 inflicts upon us predatory crime when it is perverted, 
 but blesses us with labor-saving invention when it oper- 
 ates normally. 
 
 Translated into economic terms, that law, the most 
 fundamental of all the laws of political economy, would 
 read: "In producing Wealth from Land, Labor seeks the 
 easiest way the line of least resistance." 
 
 Since production is irksome and Labor instinctively 
 seeks the line of least resistance, the things it produces 
 must either have, or seem to have, the power of giving 
 some kind of satisfaction, else it will not produce them. 
 That is to say, Wealth must possess the quality of 
 Serviceability. It must be capable of serving some pur- 
 pose, of ministering to some desire, whether good or 
 bad, doubtful or indifferent. Wealth adapted to serve 
 normal human wants, giving no one pain in order to
 
 232 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 give others pleasure, may be distinguished as useful, that 
 is, as possessing the quality of utility. Bread would come 
 in this category. But Wealth adapted to serve the pur- 
 pose of giving pleasure or satisfaction to one by giving 
 pain or causing loss to another (such as instruments of 
 torture), is lacking in the quality of utility. Neverthe- 
 less it may be accounted as serviceable, in the restricted 
 sense of the term. It serves to satisfy a desire. 
 
 Serviceability as a quality of Wealth is exhibited in 
 two general aspects. An artificial object may be service- 
 able either in satisfying desire directly, or as a tool or 
 material in aiding to produce such objects. A loaf of 
 bread upon the table satisfies a desire directly ; it appeases 
 hunger. But wheat, flour, agricultural implements, mills, 
 cars, wagons, ovens, warehouses, etc., the various artifi- 
 cial materials and artificial implements whereby the loaf 
 of bread is produced to the table of the consumer, these do 
 not satisfy desire directly. They are artificial means 
 whereby objects that do satisfy it directly may be realized. 
 
 These two kinds of Serviceability give distinctive char- 
 acter to the articles of Wealth to which they respectively 
 attach. For the articles of Wealth which have the kind 
 of Serviceability that satisfies desire directly, are fin- 
 ished; whereas those that do so indirectly, something 
 being yet necessary to be done to give them final Service- 
 ability, are unfinished. Bread in the possession of the 
 consumer is finished. But wheat, flour, ovens, cars, and 
 the other materials and mechanism for making bread and 
 delivering it to the consumer, and also the bread in the 
 store, are in the other category. Something remains yet 
 to be done by Labor before they have the final kind of 
 Serviceability. To the degree, therefore, that they are 
 used in or are devoted to satisfying the desire for bread, 
 mediately, they are unfinished bread.
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 233 
 
 With reference to its economic Serviceability, then, 
 there are two kinds of Wealth, namely, Finished and Un- 
 finished. This distinction is important, as we shall see 
 when we get back to Trade ; for in Trade it is unfinished 
 wealth that constitutes capital. 
 
 VALUE, 
 
 Value as well as Serviceability attaches to Wealth. 
 Since artificial objects, or Wealth, have Serviceability 
 are capable, that is, of satisfying desire they have pos- 
 sibilities of Value. But they do not for that reason alone 
 actually exhibit Value. They must be scarce as well as 
 serviceable. 
 
 If artificial objects could be produced by simple fiat, 
 they would have as much Serviceability as if produced 
 laboriously; but they would have no Value, because they 
 would never be scarce. But why wouldn't they be scarce ? 
 Because their acquisition in abundance by everybody 
 would be irksome to nobody. Inasmuch, then, as man is 
 not endowed with magical power ; as he cannot say, "Let 
 there be bread !" and there is bread ; as, on the contrary, 
 every artificial object is produced only at the expense 
 of human exertion, often severe, and always irksome if 
 frequently repeated this being the commonplace fact, 
 artificial objects are always scarce except as irksome 
 labor modifies their scarcity. 
 
 Their possibilities of Value are realized or made mani- 
 fest through scarcity; but nothing, however scarce, can 
 have Value unless it possesses the quality of Service- 
 ability. It may have no utility, and still have Value. It 
 may be incapable, that is, of serving any useful purpose, 
 and yet be valuable. But it must have Serviceability of 
 some kind. It must be capable of serving some purpose,
 
 234 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 or it will be valueless. Value cannot rest upon nor coex- 
 ist with non-Serviceability. This does not mean that 
 Serviceability and Value are the same thing. They are 
 different things. Nor does it mean that the measure of 
 one is the measure of the other. A given degree of Ser- 
 viceability has different degrees of Value according to 
 circumstances. What is meant is that Serviceability is the 
 immediate active cause, the immediate generating force, 
 of Value; that no object can under any circumstances 
 have any Value unless it is or seems to be capable of serv- 
 ing some purpose. 
 
 Scarcity being necessary to make manifest the Value 
 that resides potentially in Serviceability, all the elements 
 of the Value of Wealth spring from Labor. It is a re- 
 sultant of two Labor forces the dynamic of productive 
 power, and the inertia of irksomeness. Productive power 
 can generate Serviceability; irksomeness restrains pro- 
 ductive power; the equilibrium is indicated by Value. 
 The application of Labor artificially invests objects with 
 Serviceability, and the irksomeness of Labor invests their 
 Serviceability with Value. 
 
 Even to Robinson Crusoe, alone upon his island, this 
 phenomenon of Value was present, though he might not 
 have recognized it by name. He certainly would have 
 valued more those of his artificial possessions that would 
 have cost him great exertion to replace, than those that 
 would have cost him less. The point is admirably made 
 by Henry George.* Referring to Crusoe, he writes that 
 the essential idea of Value "would be brought out in 
 Crusoe's mind by any question of getting or saving one of 
 two or more things. Of several things to him equally 
 useful, which he might find in the wreck of his ship, or 
 
 * "Science of Political Economy," page 248.
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 235 
 
 on the shore line under conditions which would enable 
 him to secure but one ; or of several equally useful to him, 
 which were threatened by a deluge of rain or an incursion 
 of savages, it is evident that he would 'set the most store' 
 by that which would represent to him the greatest effort 
 to replace. Thus, in a tropical island his valuation of a 
 quantity of flour, which he could replace only by culti- 
 vating, gathering and pounding the grain, would be 
 much greater than of an equal quantity of bananas, which 
 he might replace at the cost of plucking and carrying 
 them ; but on a more northern island this estimate of rela- 
 tive value might be reversed. And so all things whicE to 
 get or retain would require of him toil, would come to 
 assume in his mind a relation of value distinct from and 
 independent of their usefulness, a relation based on the 
 greater or less degree of exertion that their possession 
 would enable him to avoid in the gratification of his de- 
 sires. ... In the last analysis, value is but an expres- 
 sion of exertion avoided." 
 
 The last sentence of that quotation furnishes probably 
 the most exact explanation of Value to be found anywhere 
 in the books: "an expression of exertion avoided" an 
 expression, that is, of Labor saved. It throws a bright 
 light upon the whole subject of economic Value, whether 
 of artificial or other objects, making it perfectly clear 
 why some things are more valuable than others, and why 
 the degrees of difference are so numerous and extreme. 
 It is not the Labor saved-up or stored in a serviceable ob- 
 ject, but the Labor to be saved or avoided by possession 
 of the serviceable object, that gives it Value ; and degrees 
 of Value are regulated by the degrees of Labor to be 
 saved by possession of the objects, respectively, to which 
 Value attaches.
 
 236 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Primarily, the objects to which Value attaches are arti- 
 ficial those objects distinguished as Wealth. This is 
 because such objects are primarily non-existent. They 
 come into being only through Labor, which must be ex- 
 erted to modify the natural scarcity ; and since that exer- 
 tion is irksome, its results are valuable in the degree that 
 they will serve to save the possessor further exertion. 
 
 But secondarily, Value attaches also to natural objects 
 those distinguished as Land. It does so only second- 
 arily, because primarily Land is not non-existent. On the 
 contrary, primarily it is superabundant. But when some 
 parts of it yield easier returns to Labor than other parts, 
 those parts are capable relatively of saving Labor in the 
 production of Wealth. Consequently, if such Land is 
 made scarce by monopolization it becomes valuable; and 
 the degree of its value is in accordance with the degree 
 of Labor it is capable of saving its possessor. 
 
 TRADE. 
 
 Such being the nature of Value, nothing but a pecu- 
 liarity of Labor not yet considered, is necessary to cause 
 Trade. This peculiarity is best known as Division of 
 Labor, though the better term is Cooperation. It results 
 from the law of human nature already mentioned, that 
 men try to satisfy their desires in the easiest known way. 
 
 Evidently a larger general result, a greater volume of 
 Wealth, can be produced with less Labor if some men 
 work regularly at one or some parts of one thing, and 
 others at other things or some of their parts, than if each 
 man works at everything. If, for instance, armies of 
 workmen devote their time and energies to preparing 
 leather, separate groups doing over and over some partic- 
 ular act in the process from raising the cattle to tan-
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 237 
 
 ning hides; if other armies, also divided into specialized 
 groups, turn the leather into shoes ; if still others do the 
 transporting and others the storekeeping, while others 
 divide up into groups to make and maintain the ma- 
 chinery, and so on, more and better shoes will be made and 
 brought to consumers than if each of these men were to 
 devote the same energy to all the processes of making and 
 delivering shoes. This is true of all artificial objects. It 
 is, therefore, economical to make and deliver Wealth by 
 the process which should be known as Cooperation, but 
 is known as Division of Labor. 
 
 This process may be observed in two aspects. Some- 
 times men literally divide their efforts, to produce results 
 which would otherwise waste time and energy. Thus, 
 two men having two errands each to do, two to the east- 
 ward a mile and two to the westward a mile, will do 
 them more easily and quickly if one attends to both in one 
 direction and the other to both in the opposite direction, 
 than if each does one errand in each direction. By di- 
 viding their efforts, they economize time and energy. 
 The other aspect of Division of Labor is exhibited when 
 men join their efforts to produce results which none of 
 them could accomplish alone. Thus our two men could 
 build two houses, each of which would be better than 
 either man could build alone. So Division of Labor 
 means not only division, but also union, of labor ; which is 
 in itself a good reason for preferring the term Coopera- 
 tion. 
 
 Now the things so done would, as we have seen, have 
 Serviceability. Otherwise, they would not be done cer- 
 tainly not systematically or regularly, which is of the es- 
 sence of political economy. These two houses, for exam- 
 ple, would serve to live in ; and if bread were the object of
 
 two of those errands and meat of the other two, the meat 
 and bread would serve for food. 
 
 Having Serviceability, under circumstances which 
 would enable their possession to save necessary Labor in 
 order to satisfy desire (which implies Scarcity), they 
 would also have Value. The Value of the houses would 
 be greater than that of the lumber, etc., which would be 
 greater than that of the timber, etc., because each in its 
 order would be a labor-saver. So of the bread and meat. 
 After being brought to the central point where they 
 were desired, else the errands would not have been done 
 they would have more Value than before the errands, 
 because they would save the Labor of bringing that much 
 bread and meat to that point to satisfy the desire which 
 caused the errands to be undertaken. 
 
 We now have a grasp of the conditions of Trade. 
 
 To recur for illustration to the examples : When those 
 houses are finished, their possession will save equal Labor. 
 Consequently they have equal Value, and the two men 
 will exchange their respective undivided interests equally. 
 Each will swap his undivided interest in the house he 
 gives, for the other's undivided interest in the house he 
 gets. So each comes to own, as the result of his own 
 labor, a whole house, which neither is capable of building 
 by himself. 
 
 Likewise with the errands. When they are done, the 
 two men have at the central point, where they are wanted, 
 two loaves of bread fetched a mile in one direction, 
 and two pieces of meat fetched a mile in another. As 
 the possession of either loaf will save further Labor in 
 equal degree, they have equal Value. Similarly of the 
 pieces of meat. But how much Labor would each loaf of 
 bread save over and above its cost at the mile-away bak-
 
 ery ? Obviously not more than a two-mile walk. Precisely 
 so with the pieces of meat. Consequently, as a rule, no 
 one would give more for either than the equivalent of a 
 two-mile walk. Therefore, the man who fetched the bread 
 would trade even, his extra loaf for the other's extra 
 piece of meat, and vice versa, provided each had cost the 
 same at the point from which it was carried. If either 
 had cost more at that point, the men would adjust this 
 difference and then trade even. 
 
 Now, it is the same in principle whether two men do 
 each other's errands and swap the results, thus securing 
 bread and meat with economy of Labor ; or whether two 
 men help build each other's houses and swap their Labor 
 interests therein, thus securing better houses than either 
 can build by himself ; or whether millions upon millions of 
 men help get one another's bread and meat, help build one 
 another's houses, help make one another's clothes, help 
 furnish one another's luxuries in a word, contribute to 
 the making and delivery of every variety of artificial 
 objects, by cooperatively dividing and uniting Labor, 
 and then swap their respective interests. The principle 
 is identical. 
 
 It is by means of this Division of Labor that the social 
 body economizes Labor in the production of Wealth, and 
 by means of this swapping that the Wealth which Labor 
 draws forth is distributed. The whole process of making 
 and swapping is Cooperation, or Division of Labor and 
 Trade. Whoever gets any species of Wealth in free 
 exchange for his Labor has in effect produced the thing 
 he gets. It is the same in principle as if he had made it 
 himself; for, exchanges being voluntary and in free 
 conditions, what one gives is as a rule the equivalent in 
 Value of what he gets.
 
 240 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that in our day the individual 
 cannot rightfully own any kind of Wealth because no in- 
 dividual now completely produces any kind. When the 
 Value of what he contributes in Trade to the volume of 
 Wealth in one form is equivalent to the Value of what he 
 draws in Trade from the volume of Wealth in another 
 form, it cannot be fairly said that he has no moral or eco- 
 nomic title to what he draws out. 
 
 As we have already found, there are two kinds of 
 Serviceability mediate and final, a flouring mill being 
 typical of the one and a loaf of bread in the larder of the 
 other. We have distinguished these as Finished Wealth 
 and Unfinished Wealth. It is only in conditions of Trade 
 that this difference becomes important. For it is only 
 in those conditions that these two different kinds of 
 Wealth fall into different ownerships. 
 
 In Trade, however, Unfinished Wealth, that is Wealth 
 having distinctively mediate or indirect Serviceability as 
 distinguished from final, the Serviceability of the mill in 
 contradistinction to that of the loaf of bread, becomes 
 a distinctive class of property and is therefore subject 
 to different ownerships. Whereas Robinson Crusoe, 
 of Selkirk's firm island in the sea, was only one indi- 
 vidual and owned 'in common," so to speak, all his 
 Wealth, unfinished as well as finished, tools as well as 
 final satisfactions, the Robinson Crusoe of Galileo's float- 
 ing island in space, is composed of millions of individ- 
 uals, some of whom own one kind of unfinished Wealth, 
 some other kinds, and some others still, and all own, in 
 greater or less degree, at least now and then, a supply of 
 finished Wealth. When Unfinished Wealth is thus differ- 
 entiated by Trade into a distinctive class of property it 
 is known as capital Wealth for short, Capital.
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 241 
 
 Other things are often called Capital. But it is tech- 
 nically wrong and logically misleading to call them by 
 that name if we give the name to Unfinished Wealth. 
 Money, for instance, is not Capital. The fact that it will 
 trade for Capital does not make it such, any more than 
 the fact that a new pair of shoes will trade for a five- 
 dollar greenback makes them money. Though money 
 may represent Capital it is itself something else. Neither 
 is a building site Capital, nor a mineral deposit, nor any 
 other natural object. Natural objects are distinguished 
 as Land. In a slave country slaves might be called 
 Capital, but they are not Capital. Slaves are working- 
 men. They are therefore distinguished as Labor. Cap- 
 ital is the distinctive term for that form of Wealth (which 
 means artificial objects adapted to satisfy human desires) 
 that has mediate or indirect as distinguished from final 
 Serviceability. It is Wealth which is not yet in the hands 
 of the consumer Wealth which is, therefore, in the eco- 
 nomic sense, unfinished. 
 
 Out of this segregation of Capital Wealth from Final 
 Wealth, arise all problems with reference to interest, or 
 the so-called earnings of Capital. These problems are 
 too much involved in confusions of Capital with things 
 that are not Capital, to admit of examination in this gen- 
 eral survey of first principles. It will be enough here to 
 say that inasmuch as Capital is a class of Wealth, and all 
 classes of Wealth are produced by Labor, the earnings of 
 Capital, if such there be, must be earnings of Labor. 
 They therefore belong, in fairness, to whoever has either 
 made the earning-Capital with his own Labor or acquired 
 the ownership of it in free exchange, Value for Value, 
 for what he has made with his own labor. Interest on 
 Capital is but a form of Wages for Labor.
 
 242 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 This brings us to a consideration of the earnings of 
 Labor in conditions of Trade, for which Wages is the 
 technical term. But as "wages" means colloquially only 
 the hire of certain classes of subordinate workmen, 
 another caution is necessary. Since Labor comprehends 
 all human effort, whether of brain or muscle, in produc- 
 ing satisfactions for human desires, and not merely hired 
 labor, so the compensation for Labor comprehends more 
 than the pay of hired laborers. That proportion of the 
 whole volume of Wealth that flows to Labor as its share 
 is what is meant by the technical term Wages. 
 
 If Labor were the only factor in the production of 
 Wealth, that is, if human exertion could create artificial 
 objects out of nothing, needing neither raw materials nor 
 standing room nor natural environment of any kind, then 
 all the Wealth created would go to laborers as Wages in 
 return for their expenditure of effort in producing it. In 
 other words, Wealth and Wages would then coincide. 
 The non-laborer could take nothing except by theft or as 
 a voluntary gift from his toiling brethren. 
 
 But Labor cannot create Wealth. It can only produce 
 or draw forth Wealth from external nature from Land. 
 It must go to Land alike for materials and implements 
 and final product for capital Wealth, as well as final 
 Wealth, and to Land also for a working place. 
 
 Yet, so long as there is no scarcity of the best quality of 
 requisite Land, it is the same with reference to compensa- 
 tion as if no Land were needed. For one place being as 
 good as another, and every place offering opportunity in 
 excess of the need, there would be no premiums for place, 
 and the entire product would go to Labor as Wages. 
 Wealth and Wages would still coincide. 
 
 But with the monopolization and consequent scarcity of
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 243 
 
 superior places, there enters the possibility of diverting 
 some proportion of Wealth, or premiums for place, to 
 another category than Wages. This proportion is classi- 
 fied apart from the rest because it represents an economic 
 difference a saving of Labor which the better but scarce 
 sites offer over the abundant but poorer ones. The term 
 for that class or category is Rent, which means, of 
 course, not merely what tenants pay to landlords for real 
 estate, but comprehensively what can be exacted for 
 Land as distinguished from real estate what can be 
 exacted for superior places. It is in this manner 
 that Land acquires Value, the Rent of Land and 
 the Value of Land being only different manifestations 
 of the same economic fact. Land Value is simply the 
 capitalization of Land Rent. 
 
 Rent attaches to Land as Wages attach to Labor. Con- 
 sequently, the laborer on a specially desirable and scarce 
 site may differentiate his Rent from his Wages by trans- 
 ferring his Land, or he may have it differentiated 
 against his will by expropriation. 
 
 When this differentiation is made we have that most 
 fundamental phenomenon of Trade, the distribution of 
 artificial objects or Wealth in two categories: Wages, 
 which is all the Wealth that remains after what is due to 
 the advantages of exceptional and scarce places has been 
 deducted; and Rent, which is the proportion of Wealth 
 that is due to the advantages of those places. This pri- 
 mary division is regulated by competition for Land. 
 
 A secondary division, also regulated by competition, 
 divides Rent among land owners in proportion to the 
 value of their land holdings, respectively, and the Wages 
 fund among workers in proportion to the value of their 
 services respectively.
 
 144 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 As Labor becomes more and more productive of 
 Wealth, exceptionally desirable Land becomes relatively 
 more and more scarce ; consequently the Rent fund tends 
 to increase side by side with the Wages fund. This makes 
 it highly desirable to own such Land. For one may thus 
 satisfy his wants with least exertion, or with no exertion 
 at all ; a patent fact which generates a tendency to monop- 
 olize Land in advance of general need for it, with the 
 expectation or hope that it may come to command excep- 
 tional advantages for Labor that a city may spring up 
 near it or on it, or a mine be discovered under its surface, 
 or a farming population grow thick in the region. But 
 this tendency has the effect of abnormally lessening the 
 general market supply of Land, and thereby, so to speak, 
 of inflating or "watering" Rent. 
 
 Now, Rent proper represents a normal advantage. It 
 does not press upon the Wages fund, but equalizes Wages 
 up to the standard of Labor done without peculiar ad- 
 vantages of place. Laborers thereby get equal returns for 
 equal work, regardless of location. 
 
 But the "water" in Rent does make a pressure upon 
 Wages. It can be traded for Wealth only at the expense 
 of the Wages fund. This is the condition when most of 
 the Land having superior Serviceability is monopolized. 
 Rent, expanded by "water," presses more and more upon 
 the Wages fund until that fund is so compressed that 
 Labor refuses to continue production for the abnormally 
 reduced compensation. Then the "water" bag collapses. 
 When this happens we call it industrial depression; and 
 we call the readjusting process "hard times." 
 
 Taxation may play an effective part in the economic 
 pressure of "watered" Rent upon Wages. If trading 
 transactions are taxed, the Wages fund will be dimin-
 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 245 
 
 ished, and Labor thereby weakened so as to be able all 
 the less to resist the pressure of "watered" Rent the 
 political moral of which would seem to be that trading 
 ought to be exempt from taxation. If the owning of 
 Land having Value (which is the equivalent of rent- 
 yielding power) is taxed, the Rent fund will be dimin- 
 ished, thereby weakening the force of its pressure upon 
 Wages the political moral of which would seem to be 
 that such Land-owning ought to be taxed. 
 
 Either Trade or Land monopoly may be obstructed by 
 taxation to a far greater extent than the amount of the 
 tax. This may happen if trading is so heavily taxed that 
 it is checked, or land monopolizing so heavily taxed as to 
 be discouraged. In comparing these differing effects of 
 taxation it might be wise to observe that trading serves 
 mankind best when it is not obstructed, and that land 
 monopoly does not serve mankind at all. 
 
 As Labor can use Land effectively without owning it 
 or hiring it, doubtless the ideal adjustment of land tenure 
 would be one under which men would refuse to take 
 title save for occupancy and use. This can be best se- 
 cured by taxing Rent into the common purse, which, by 
 removing temptations to forestall Land, would at once let 
 out the "water" and keep it out. There would thus be 
 left no other motive for seeking title than desire to use. 
 
 It would be ideal also in this, that it would leave to 
 Labor in the Wages fund for competitive distribution, 
 the earnings of individual effort, while taking for Labor 
 in the Rent fund, for public or common use, the undis- 
 tributable earnings of social effort as an indivisible whole. 
 Wealth would then coincide with the sum of two kinds 
 of earnings Wages, or the distributable mass of indi- 
 vidual earnings ; and Rent, or the undistributable mass of
 
 246 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 social earnings. The nearer this distribution is realized, 
 the nearer do we approach the economic ideal. 
 
 MONEY. 
 
 Coming now back again to the surface where our ex- 
 ploration began, we are again confronted with the phe- 
 nomenon of Money. 
 
 In the concrete, Money is a token of Trade. For a 
 metal disc called a cent we get a stick of candy, and the 
 storekeeper passes the disc on to others in exchange for 
 whatever he wants maybe two sticks of candy, to be 
 sold again at a profit. We may do the same thing in 
 larger transactions with a silver dime, or quarter, or half, 
 or dollar, or with gold coins or paper money. All these 
 are tokens of trade, which close transactions and leave no 
 obligation of debt behind. 
 
 But comparatively little of the world's trading is done 
 by the actual passing of such tokens. Checks and drafts, 
 which are orders upon bookkeepers directing them to 
 shift credits upon their ledgers, are used for the most 
 part. Yet money terms are retained, checks and drafts 
 being drawn and all commercial books being kept in the 
 language of Money. 
 
 It is characteristic of Trade that the terminology 
 of Serviceability, as pounds and ounces, or feet and 
 inches, or quarts and pints, is translated into the termi- 
 nology of Value, as francs and centimes, or pounds, shill- 
 ings and pence, or marks and pfennigs, or dollars and 
 cents. Consequently, confusion of thought often arises. 
 It is said, for instance, that some man is worth a million 
 dollars, and the imagination pictures him as possessing 
 that much Money. But he has nothing like it. What is 
 really meant is that he has property the Value of which 
 is equal to a million dollars of Money.
 
 ; - ..-;. : 
 3 MOM --> 
 
 
 . 
 
 .,
 
 DIAGRAM O,AN ECONOMIC EXP 
 
 SURFACE LINE OF ECONOMIC 
 
 A TRADE TOKEN 
 
 EXCHANGE OF 
 VALUABLE THINGS 
 
 V 
 
 SERVICEABILITY 
 IN SCARCITY 
 
 v 
 
 CAPABILITY OF 
 SERVING HUMAN DESIRE 
 
 V 
 
 MONEY 
 
 TRADE 
 
 VALUE 
 
 SERVICEABILITY 
 
 WEALTH 
 
 PRIME F/> 
 
 LABOR 
 
 -PI 
 
 p
 
 PROCESSES 
 
 CONFUSIONS OF 
 MONEY TERMS 
 
 DIVISION OF LABOR 
 OR COOPERATION 
 
 - | CAPITAL -?>-[ INTEREST 
 
 1. PRODUCTIVENESS OF LABOR 
 
 ULTANT OF- 
 
 2.IRKSOMENESb OF LABOR 
 
 v / 
 
 v 
 
 THE ECONOMIC 
 CHARACTERISTIC 
 OF WEALTH 
 
 PRODUCT 
 
 A 
 
 OR5 
 
 c _ 
 
 LAND 
 
 PASSIVE CONDITION OF ALL 
 ECONOMIC PROCESSES.
 

 
 AN ECONOMIC EXPLORATION 247 
 
 This use of money terms for measuring property is a 
 prolific cause of crooked thinking regarding economic 
 relationships. It confuses just and unjust property in a 
 bewildering muddle. When we say that two men, are 
 each worth ten thousand dollars, we think of their prop- 
 erty rights as identical. Yet the property rights of the 
 one might be utterly indefensible, while those of the 
 other might be wholly unobjectionable. Could we exam- 
 ine their inventories we might find that the one owns 
 thousands of dollars' worth of slaves (who are in justice 
 entitled to own themselves) ; thousands of dollars' worth 
 of private taxing power (which is a privilege of extor- 
 tion) ; and thousands of dollars' worth of land (which is 
 a common inheritance) ; while the entire fortune of the 
 other might consist of buildings, machinery and the like 
 (which are justly his if he has made them himself or has 
 swapped his labor for them, directly or indirectly, to their 
 makers). These fundamental moral and economic dis- 
 tinctions are covered up by the use of money terms for 
 indiscriminately measuring Serviceability in Trade. 
 
 For that reason it is necessary to examine, as we have 
 done, into the nature of Trade, where the language of 
 Money prevails ; to probe Value, which makes Trade pos- 
 sible; to consider Serviceability, from which Value pro- 
 ceeds ; and to analyze Wealth, which embodies Service- 
 ability. Having done that, we find that Wealth, from 
 which spring all these phenomena Serviceability, Value, 
 Trade and Money is the product of Labor applied to 
 Land. A diagram of the route and ramifications of this 
 economic exploration and survey is given in connection 
 with this chapter for the purpose of refreshing the mem- 
 ory and aiding the understanding of the reader.
 
 248 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 PROPERTY RIGHTS. 
 
 We are able now clearly to see that the justice of any 
 property right, though its Value be expressed in terms of 
 Money regardless of its economic character, depends at 
 last upon its relations to Labor and Land. These things 
 lie back of all kinds of "vested rights." 
 
 And they determine infallibly whether any of those 
 rights are just or unjust. For there are two ways, and, 
 broadly speaking, only two, whereby man enslaves his 
 fellow man. He may do so by acquiring "vested rights" 
 in Labor, which enable him to compel workingmen to 
 work for him. This is called chattel slavery. Or he may 
 do so by acquiring "vested rights" in Land, which enable 
 him to deny life to workingmen unless they work for 
 him. This is called land monopoly. In the one case the 
 slavery is active; in the other it is passive. 
 
 In either there may be great varieties of form. Own- 
 ership of Labor does not consist alone in title deeds to 
 slaves. Any taxing power for private profit is of the 
 same nature. It compels men to give up part of their 
 earnings for nothing. Neither does ownership of Land 
 consist alone in the title deeds to particular parcels of 
 earth laid off by metes and bounds. All public fran- 
 chises, as street car privileges, railroad rights of way, 
 dock privileges, and the like, are in their nature the same. 
 The essence of slavery, active or passive, is in every one 
 of them. 
 
 "Slavery," someone has said, "is the sum of all sin." 
 He only put into other phrase the sentiment of Paul: 
 "The love of money is the root of all evil." To love 
 money, and not the earning of it, is to love slavery. And 
 that is the sum and substance of all economic problems 
 and of all civic morality.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 
 
 FEW things in human history are more obvious than 
 the effect upon social institutions in general of 
 changes in economic conditions. Restricted economic sys- 
 tems have always been prejudicial to the business, the 
 politics, the art, the morals and even the religions of the 
 societies that have tolerated them ; while advances in eco- 
 nomic freedom have everywhere been followed by im- 
 provement in all other spheres of social aspiration and 
 effort. 
 
 This obvious historical truth could hardly be more 
 impressively portrayed than in these eloquent words: 
 
 "Only in broken gleams and partial light has the sun 
 of Liberty yet beamed among men, but all progress hath 
 she called forth. Liberty came to a race of slaves crouch- 
 ing under Egyptian whips, and led them forth from the 
 House of Bondage. She hardened them in the desert 
 and made of them a race of conquerors. The free spirit 
 of the Mosaic law took their thinkers up to heights where 
 they beheld the unity of God, and inspired their poets 
 with strains that yet phrase the highest exaltations of 
 thought. Liberty dawned on the Phoenician coast, and 
 ships passed the Pillars of Hercules to plow the un- 
 known sea. She shed a partial light on Greece, and 
 marble grew to shapes of ideal beauty, words became the 
 instruments of subtlest thought, and against the scanty 
 militia of free cities the countless hosts of the Great King 
 broke like surges against a rock. She cast her beams pn 
 
 249
 
 250 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 the four-acre farms of Italian husbandmen, and born of 
 her strength a power came forth that conquered the world. 
 They glinted from shields of German warriors, and 
 Augustus wept his legions. Out of the night that fol- 
 lowed her eclipse, her slanting rays fell again on free 
 cities, and a lost learning revived, modern civilization 
 began, a new world was unveiled; and as Liberty grew, 
 so grew art, wealth, power, knowledge, and refinement. 
 In the history of every nation we may read the same 
 truth."* 
 
 So manifest is this order of social phenomena whereby 
 social improvement follows advances in economic free- 
 dom, and not only with reference to past times but also 
 in our own day, that social progress seems to be gene- 
 rated by economic modes ; and from that inference mate- 
 rialistic evolutionists draw far-reaching conclusions. Eco- 
 nomics becomes to them a sort of social protoplasm, out 
 of which the higher institutions and even the ideals of 
 society are progressively evolved. 
 
 The plausibility of this theory is greatly enhanced by 
 the undeniable fact that institutions of higher degree are 
 affected in character and direction by existing economic 
 conditions. The economic struggle taints our politics 
 with corruption, rests our morals on the shifting sands of 
 utilitarianism, degrades our art to the commonplace or 
 the sensational, and turns the high ideals of our religion 
 into empty metaphors behind which lurks a loathsome 
 dollar worship. 
 
 All this is because existing economic conditions force 
 everybody into an all-absorbing devotion to the problem 
 of securing a living. The higher qualities of human 
 nature have consequently but little opportunity to develop 
 
 * "Progress and Poverty," Book X, Ch. V.
 
 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 251 
 
 freely. It by no means follows, however, that economic 
 systems naturally determine the character and direction of 
 those qualities. Nothing more is proved than that eco- 
 nomic systems which force men to become absorbed in 
 the problem of securing a living, hold the higher qualities 
 of human nature down to their own low levels. 
 
 We may still infer, then, when changes in economic 
 systems are followed by improvement on the higher planes 
 of social life, that this result is due to another cause than 
 materialistic evolution. So far from being limited to the 
 theory that improved conditions on the higher planes are 
 generated by economic change, we may fairly conclude 
 that those conditions are attributable to the fact that 
 the economic change has freed the higher qualities of 
 men from the thraldom of bread winning. Instead of 
 affording proof of materialistic evolution, such changes 
 are instances of spiritual emancipation. 
 
 It is true, of course, that men must eat and drink and 
 be clad before they can think effectively about art or 
 morals, politics or religion, or in any other manner 
 give free play to their higher faculties. They must, 
 moreover, not only have all the bodily comforts that food 
 and drink and clothing symbolize, but must also be rea- 
 sonably assured of always having them, before their 
 thoughts can soar very far above economic levels. 
 
 So long as economic necessities are forced into the 
 foreground, higher impulses will be driven into the back- 
 ground. While the mind is worried with economic 
 thoughts, moral and spiritual thoughts will be clouded. 
 Any economic system, therefore, which perpetually stim- 
 ulates a universal and obtrusive fear of want, must give 
 direction and character to every other social institution. 
 It does this, however, not by processes of generation or
 
 252 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 materialistic evolution, but by holding the higher func- 
 tions of the mind in check. 
 
 Emancipate the higher human qualities by banishing 
 want and fear of want, and social development will no 
 longer be determined by economic adjustments. The 
 higher human faculties, freed from the enthrallment of 
 bodily needs, will rise toward their source which is not 
 material, but spiritual. 
 
 The theory that all social movement is generated and 
 determined by economic adjustments, assumes that an 
 effect can be greater than its original cause. It attributes 
 the origin of the higher characteristics and possibilities of 
 social life to the lower. And this extraordinary method 
 of accounting for moral and spiritual qualities in man, is, 
 heaven save the mark, sometimes called "scientific." It 
 would be as scientific to assume that water naturally rises 
 above its source, or that machinery naturally gives out 
 more power than has been put into it. 
 
 Economic systems cannot be the original cause of 
 institutions that rise above the economic. If morality, for 
 instance, is evolved from economic conditions, an equal 
 moral force must have been first involved into economic 
 conditions. So, also, with art, politics, religion and all 
 the rest. Nothing superior to economics can be got out 
 of economics without having first been injected into eco- 
 nomics. But that implies what materialistic evolutionists 
 deny a first cause or force, a force which descends from 
 highest spirituality to lowest materiality and then returns. 
 It is a force that in this respect may be likened to rays of 
 sunlight which upon striking the face of a mirror are re- 
 flected back. The mirror does not generate the light it 
 projects. Neither does the material generate the spiritual. 
 
 The manifestations of this force through the higher
 
 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 253 
 
 faculties of the human min4 and heart may, indeed, be 
 checked by obstructions along the lower levels through 
 which it rises. But in no other sense can it be truly 
 said to be directed or determined by those levels. They 
 support and may be made to check it; but they have no 
 vitality of their own to give. Remove the obstructions, 
 and the higher faculties are no more determined by the 
 lower functions than the volume of water in a reservoir 
 is determined by the shape of the pipe through which it 
 is received from its source in the mountain lake. 
 
 Given an economic condition from which the fear of 
 want had been banished, and the higher functions of so- 
 ciety would be determined, not by economic modes, but 
 by moral ideals unobstructed and unpolluted by sordid 
 anxieties and hopes and fears. 
 
 Nor need we think of such an economic condition as 
 fanciful. On the contrary, it is entirely natural in the 
 social state. It would be a reality to-day, under the ex- 
 isting economic system, but for immoral political inter- 
 ferences with the natural distribution of wealth. The 
 possibilities of satisfying the material wants of mankind 
 are practically unlimited. If all men who are willing 
 to work for their living were allowed to work, and each 
 who works were free to demand effectively the share 
 which his work adds to current production, there would 
 be neither want nor fear of want, but more than enough 
 for all. But by setting up and perpetuating the institu- 
 tion of private ownership of the habitable globe, we have 
 empowered a comparatively few to regulate by their own 
 all-powerful interests the amount and character of work 
 to be done and the shares into which the result shall be 
 distributed. We have thereby perpetuated the problem 
 of want and the fear of want.
 
 254 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 What keeps this problem alive is not our economic 
 system in itself, but one of our political institutions re- 
 acting upon our economic system, and an immoral insti- 
 tution at that. To be more specific, it is not competition, 
 the essence of our economic system, that keeps the 
 problem alive; it is land monopoly, which obstructs 
 competition and makes it lop-sided. Abolish land monop- 
 oly, and the want problem would banish itself. Abolish 
 land monopoly, and our economic system, freed from ob- 
 struction, would emancipate the higher human faculties. 
 
 So long as these are held in subjection to economic 
 systems, whether the systems be selfishly plutocratic or 
 fraternally socialistic, just so long will their activities 
 be directed and determined by the debasing spirit of utili- 
 tarianism. But immediately upon their release their 
 activities would come under the influence of moral ideals, 
 derived, without sordid pollution or distortion, from the 
 original moral force of the universe. This is the only 
 social evolution which, being sound in natural principle, 
 is wholesome in all its processes.
 
 PART VI 
 
 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT
 
 Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall 
 not perish from the earth. 
 
 Speech at Gettysburg; by ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down 
 as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till 
 they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the 
 fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till 
 
 he had learnt to swim. 
 
 "Essay on Milton" by MACAULAY. 
 
 I will have never a noble, 
 
 No lineage counted great; 
 Fishers and choppers and ploughmen 
 
 Shall constitute a state. 
 "Boston Hymn," by RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 So long as a single one amongst your brothers has no vote to 
 represent him in the development of the national life, so long 
 as there is one left to vegetate in ignorance where others are edu- 
 cated, so long as a single man, able and willing to work, lan- 
 guishes in poverty through want of work to do, you have no 
 country in the sense in which country ought to exist the country 
 of all and for all. 
 
 "On the Duties of Man" by MAZZINI. 
 
 256
 
 I charge thee, Love, set not my aim too low ; 
 
 If through the cycling ages I have been 
 
 A partner in thy ignorance and sin, 
 So through the centuries that ebb and flow 
 I must, with thee, God's secrets seek to know. 
 
 Whate'er the conflict, I will help to win 
 
 Our conquest over foes without within 
 And where thou goest, beloved, I will go. 
 
 Set no dividing line between the twain 
 Whose aim and end are manifestly one; 
 
 Whate'er my loss, it cannot be thy gain 
 Wedded the light and heat that make Life's sun. 
 
 Not thine the glory and not mine the shame. 
 
 We build the world together in one Name. 
 
 'The New Eve to the Old Adam," by ANNIE L. MUZZEY, in 
 Harper's Magazine. 
 
 O blood of the people! changeless tide, through century, creed 
 
 and race! 
 Still one as the sweet salt sea is one, though tempered by sun and 
 
 place ; 
 The same in the ocean currents, and the same in the sheltered 
 
 seas; 
 
 Forever the fountain of common hopes and kindly sympathies; 
 Indian and Negro, Saxon and Celt, Teuton and Latin and Gaul- 
 Mere surface shadow and sunshine; while the sounding unifies all! 
 One love, one hope, one duty theirs ! No matter the time or ken, 
 There never was separate heart-beat in all the races of men ! 
 
 (But alien is one of class, not race he has drawn the line for 
 
 himself; 
 His roots drink life from inhuman soil, from garbage of pomp 
 
 and pelf ; 
 His heart beats not with the common beat, he has changed his 
 
 life-stream's hue; 
 He deems his flesh to be finer flesh, he boasts that his blood is 
 
 blue: 
 
 257
 
 Patrician, aristocrat, tory whatever his age or name, 
 To the people's rights and liberties, a traitor ever the same. 
 The natural crowd is a mob to him, their prayer a vulgar rhyme; 
 The freeman's speech is sedition, and the patriot's deed a crime. 
 Wherever the race, the law, the land, whatever the time, or 
 
 throne, 
 The tory is always a traitor to every class but his own. 
 
 Thank God for a land where pride is clipped, where arrogance 
 
 stalks apart; 
 Where law and song and loathing of wrong are words of the 
 
 common heart; 
 Where the masses honor straightforward strength, and know, 
 
 when veins are bled, 
 That the bluest blood is putrid blood that the people's blood is 
 
 red. 
 
 "Crispus Attacks," by JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. 
 
 Patricians and plebeians, aristocrats and democrats, have alike 
 stained their hands with blood in the working out of the problem 
 of politics. But impartial history declares also that the crimes of 
 the popular party have in all ages been the lighter in degree, 
 while in themselves they have more to excuse them; and if the 
 violent acts of revolutionists have been held up more conspicu- 
 ously for condemnation, it has been only because the fate of 
 noblemen and gentlemen has been more impressive to the imagin- 
 ation than the fate of the peasant or the artisan. 
 
 FROUDE'S "Caesar," Ch. VIII. 
 
 358
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 WHEN the American colonies had determined to 
 secede from Great Britain, and, as they expressed 
 it, "to assume among the nations of the earth the separate 
 and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of 
 Nature's God" entitled them, they formally stated the 
 causes that impelled them to the separation; and in 
 justification of their revolutionary purpose, they pro- 
 claimed certain principles which they held to be self- 
 evident truths. The document in which they did this is 
 known to every American school boy as the Declaration 
 of Independence. 
 
 In so far as that document states the causes that im- 
 pelled the colonies to throw off a foreign yoke, it is to 
 us of this generation only a historical monument. How- 
 ever oppressive, however arrogant, however tyranni- 
 cal the policy of George III may have been towards 
 the British colonies in America, that policy is to this 
 generation of Americans of no vital concern. It belongs 
 with the dead and buried past. But in so far as the 
 Declaration of Independence enunciates what its signers 
 characterized as self-evident truths, it is more than a 
 mere landmark of history. In that respect it is the pole 
 star of our national career, the chart by which our ship 
 of state must steer or be pounded on the rocks, the 
 breath of national life which God breathed into the nos- 
 trils of our republic. Those truths are indeed self- 
 evident, and they are as vital now as ever. Incontestable
 
 a6o ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 inferences from the all-embracing principle of the uni- 
 versal Fatherhood of God and the consequent brotherhood 
 of man, and therefore denied only by avowed or virtual 
 atheists, they make the Declaration of Independence im- 
 mortal, and place this nation, to the degree that it faith- 
 fully holds to them, in the van of human progress. 
 
 First among the self-evident truths which the founders 
 of our nation thus proclaimed is the equality of all men. 
 This is the tap root of democracy. It always has been 
 and always must be. It is the antithesis of the doctrine of 
 the "divine right of kings." Not that all are created 
 equal in size, or strength, or intellect, or will. That is 
 not the implication. But that all are endowed equally by 
 their Creator, as the Declaration of Independence goes 
 on to explain, "with certain unalienable rights," among 
 which "are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 
 It is equality of natural rights, therefore, and not uni- 
 formity of personal characteristics, with which all men 
 are held by democracy to be endowed. 
 
 Proceeding from this primary truth, the Declaration 
 of Independence next proclaims the rightful origin and 
 scope of government. By what right do we place any 
 part of man's conduct under governmental control? 
 and whence comes authority to govern? The answer of 
 the Declaration of Independence is plain. Government 
 is for the protection of the rights to life, liberty and 
 the pursuit of happiness, already asserted; and it origi- 
 nates with the people themselves. "To secure these 
 rights," says the Declaration, "governments are instituted 
 among men, deriving their just powers from the con- 
 sent of the governed." Just powers of government, then, 
 are derived from the consent of the governed; govern- 
 mental powers not so derived are unjust. This funda-
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT 261 
 
 mental proposition is also an indispensable corollary of 
 the primary principle that "all men are created equal"; 
 for if all are created equal, none can have been born to 
 govern the rest. 
 
 Self-government is the only natural government. It 
 is the only kind of government that all were intended for. 
 This is well enough proved by the fact that no one has 
 ever come into the world with a divine commission, not a 
 legible one at any rate, to govern others. All claims of 
 natural right to govern others without their consent have 
 rested upon might instead of right, and have turned out 
 in the end to be only claims to misgovern. 
 
 The autocratic plea that some peoples are unfit for self- 
 government was riddled by Macaulay when he said: 
 "There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired 
 freedom produces; and that cure is freedom. When 
 a prisoner first leaves his cell he cannot bear the light of 
 day; he is unable to discriminate colors or recognize 
 faces. But the remedy is not to remand him into his 
 dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. 
 The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and be- 
 wilder nations which have become half blind in the house 
 of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be 
 able to bear it." 
 
 The democratic doctrine of self-government is the life- 
 giving principle of the American polity. Not only is it 
 proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence, but it is 
 woven into our national history. True, we have not been 
 strictly faithful to it. Manhood suffrage did not begin 
 with the Declaration of Independence, and woman suf- 
 frage has not begun yet except in some of our more pro- 
 gressive States. These faults, however, like the contin- 
 ued recognition of the slave trade, the persistent protection
 
 262 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 of chattel slavery for three-quarters of a century, and the 
 perpetuation, of land monopoly even to this day, are to 
 be accounted for rather as short-comings than as evidence 
 of national hostility to national ideals. They were not 
 deliberately adopted in defiance of the Declaration of 
 Independence; they merely survived the regime which 
 it abolished, and lapped over into the better one which it 
 instituted. Inconsistencies of that sort are but as the 
 wriggling of the snake's tail after the snake is killed.* 
 
 Fundamentally, government is of two kinds govern- 
 ment by all the governed, and government by superior 
 force. And government by force is not government by 
 right. The plausibility of the theory that power to govern 
 implies right to govern, may be conceded. But the theory 
 is plausible only; it is really without validity. Nothing 
 could be more repugnant to moral principle than this idea 
 that might makes right. Though might and right may 
 often coincide, yet might is no more right than weakness 
 is, which also often coincides with right. Might never 
 coincides with right except by accident. Mere force can- 
 not possibly give a moral right to govern. We must, 
 therefore, either exclude government wholly from the 
 domain of morals, or else conclude that it rests funda- 
 mentally not upon force but upon the consent and partici- 
 pation of the governed. 
 
 This conclusion is in accord with the natural law of 
 morals. For harmonious moral adjustment in the social 
 sphere implies equilibrium of rights and duties. The 
 duty of every one not to steal or murder, springs from 
 and is balanced by the right of everyone else not to be 
 murdered or stolen from. In these respects the rights of 
 each correlate with corresponding duties of the others. 
 And so with all other rights and their correlative duties, 
 
 * Same subject further considered in Part VII, Chapter II, 
 "Patriotic Ideals."
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT 263 
 
 among which is the right of each to be free within the 
 limitations of like freedom to all limitations which are 
 defined by the corresponding duty of all to respect the 
 freedom of each. As to rights and duties, therefore, all 
 persons are naturally equal. And where all are naturally 
 equal, none can coerce by force as matter of natural right. 
 
 In this view of the moral law, government by supe- 
 rior force has no warrant. Such government as may 
 exist at all by natural right, must be government in which 
 the governed participate. 
 
 The same conclusion follows from the more definite 
 premise that rights to life and liberty are natural. No 
 moral philosophy worthy the name would deny the 
 natural quality of these rights. Nor does any political 
 philosophy which defends government at all deny that 
 its primary function is to protect them. Yet government 
 by all is the only kind of government that essentially 
 recognizes the natural right of all to life and liberty. 
 
 There is no intention here to ignore the atheistic objec- 
 tion to the idea of natural rights. Many learned men deny 
 natural moral law. They contend that questions of right- 
 eousness are questions of expediency ; and that in nature, 
 including human nature, there is no such thing as a right 
 to be claimed or a duty to be performed. They profess to 
 recognize no absolute moral standards, holding only that 
 to be right which from experience appears to them to 
 be wise. Such men are atheists. Though they preach 
 from pulpits or teach in the class rooms of pious uni- 
 versities, they are atheists nevertheless. To deny the 
 eternal sway of invariable moral law is to deny God. 
 It is impossible, consistently with sincere recognition of 
 a Supreme Ruler of the moral as well as material uni- 
 verse, to regard problems of right and wrong as mere
 
 264 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 questions of expediency. Though moral laws may be 
 discovered by experience, it is not out of experience 
 that they take their rise, nor do they vary with its varia- 
 tions. Just as the physical laws of gravitation existed 
 and operated with unvarying constancy during all the 
 time before Newton's experiments, so the moral law 
 must have existed before it was discovered by experi- 
 ence or formulated by philosophy. It must be coeval 
 with that personification of infinite justice which men 
 call God, and be as immutable. It was as truly a viola- 
 tion of moral law to steal before Moses promulgated the 
 eighth commandment as after some social experimenter 
 discovered that honesty is the best policy. 
 
 But it is not to atheists, either of the pious or the im- 
 pious sort, that these considerations regarding self-gov- 
 erment are addressed. Those of them who do not believe 
 in natural rights at all, are in no mental condition to 
 reflect upon an argument for natural principles of gov- 
 ernment. Let us revert, then, to the main point. Which 
 kind of government is natural government by the gov- 
 erned, or government by superior force? 
 
 Under an absolute monarchy, when life or liberty is at 
 stake the only appeal is to the individual generosity of 
 the monarch. His beneficent acts are not dictated by any 
 recognition of another's right; they are prompted solely 
 by his own grace. If he recognizes rights and duties at 
 all, it is only as rights and duties between master and 
 slave are recognized the monarch has rights and the 
 subject owes duties. The great fundamental natural 
 rights to life and liberty are not guaranteed, either in 
 fact or theory, by absolute monarchy. The conception is 
 wholly foreign to that system. Absolute monarchies, 
 therefore, are not natural.
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT 265 
 
 Of oligarchies the same thing is true. Though oli- 
 garchies, like monarchies, might give security to life and 
 liberty, it would be as matter of grace and not in recog- 
 nition of a natural right. 
 
 No less comprehensive a system than government by all 
 can secure those rights as natural rights. That is the 
 only system which essentially recognizes them as natural, 
 and under which every person is armed with the best 
 weapon of peace yet known for protecting them. Where 
 all are accorded an equal voice in government as matter 
 of right, no one is likely in practice to be denied equal con- 
 sideration with reference to his life or his liberty; and 
 no one can be denied it consistently with the principles of 
 such a government. 
 
 The question of self-government would be very much 
 simplified, if a clear distinction were drawn with refer- 
 ence to the legitimate functions of government. No form 
 of government has any right to coerce an individual re- 
 garding his individual concerns. Coercion of individ- 
 uals in individual concerns is an invasion, an aggression; 
 and it does not cease to be such because the invader and 
 aggressor is a government instead of another individual 
 or a mob. This is as true of government by all as of 
 government by one. 
 
 The first consideration in this connection is the self- 
 evident proposition that in human society there are 
 two classes of rights those pertaining to the indi- 
 vidual, and those pertaining to the community. Of 
 course these rights have their corresponding duties. 
 Duties and rights are reciprocal. There can be no right 
 without a correlative duty, nor any duty without a cor- 
 relative right. In human society, therefore, there are 
 rights and duties which attach to the individual as an
 
 266 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 individual, and other rights and duties which attach to 
 him as a member of the community. For convenience 
 these rights and duties may be distinguished, the one 
 class as "individual" and the other as "communal." 
 
 Individual rights and duties are to be considered as if 
 there were no community. They inhere and are com- 
 plete in the individual. Every man has, for instance, a 
 right to live. It is a right, to be sure, that he may for- 
 feit. If he threatens another's equal right to live, the 
 other may in self-defense deprive him of his own right; 
 and what the threatened individual may rightfully do, 
 other individuals, or the community as a whole, may 
 assist him in doing. Hence one individual may forfeit 
 his own right to live by menacing the equal right to life 
 of any other. But primarily, he has a right to live. 
 And as a corollary of that right it is the duty of all 
 others to let him live, as it is his duty to let them live. 
 This right is not subject to the will of a majority of the 
 community. It would be as despotic for a majority in 
 a republic arbitrarily to vote away the life of a fellow, 
 as for one person upon a throne to decree the death of a 
 subject. Majorities may vote away lives, as monarchs 
 decree them away; but in either case the act is one of 
 brute force and not of right. Over the lives of individ- 
 uals not forfeited by their aggressions upon the rights of 
 others, the community, whether through the force of 
 unlimited monarchy or of popular majorities, has no just 
 jurisdiction. The right to live is an individual right. It is 
 a right that belongs to the individual as such. He, and of 
 all men he alone, has the right to dispose of it. The only 
 just limitation upon any man's right to life is that he 
 shall respect the right to life of every other. And as 
 with the right to life, so with the right to all other things
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT 267 
 
 relating to individuals in their individual capacity. As 
 every man has the right to life, subject only to the equal 
 right to life of all other men, so has every man the right 
 to live his own life in his own way, subject only to the 
 equal right of all other men to live their own lives in their 
 own way. His liberty in this respect is bounded justly 
 only by his duty to allow equal liberty to everyone else. 
 This class of rights is individual, not communal. And 
 self-government as to individual rights can only mean 
 the government of each by himself, free from all med- 
 dling interference whether malevolent or benevolent. 
 
 But the other class of rights, those which attach to in- 
 dividuals as members of communities, are not so absolute. 
 As to them there can be no individual disposition. 
 They attach not to each person individually, but to all 
 persons jointly or in common. These common or com- 
 munal rights relate to the preservation of the public 
 peace, the regulation of highways and of land tenures 
 generally, and the administration of the common income. 
 They are communal, as distinguished from individual, 
 rights. It is the community as a whole, and not each in- 
 dividual, that has the right, for example, to determine the 
 locality or character of a highway, the terms from time to 
 time of land tenure, and the expenditure of the common 
 income. The individual, therefore, has not the same right 
 of determination as to such matters that he has as to 
 rights that are exclusively individual. His rights here are 
 merged in the rights of his fellows, so as to create a new 
 right that of the community as a whole. The commu- 
 nity must act as to this right in its corporate capacity. 
 
 But how can the community so act ? Shall it require a 
 unanimous vote? Shall it submit to the will of a few 
 who assume to be better qualified or more deeply inter-
 
 268 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 ested than the rest? Or shall it listen to all who offer 
 advice, and act in obedience to the will of the majority? 
 Those are the three choices, and the last alone commends 
 itself. To require a unanimous vote, would be to place 
 communal judgment under the veto of any single individ- 
 ual who chose to exercise it. To submit to the will of a few, 
 would deprive all the rest of a voice in common affairs. 
 But by giving a voice to all and acting upon the decision 
 of the majority, the nearest practicable approach is made 
 to securing the judgment of the community as a whole. 
 It is here majorities have their proper place. By means 
 of majorities, communal as distinguished from individ- 
 ual rights are decided. Self-government as to communal 
 rights, therefore, requires that all be heard and that the 
 majority determine. 
 
 Summarizing the foregoing analysis, we find that self- 
 government implies that as to individual rights each 
 individual shall govern himself in his own way, free from 
 all governmental interference, upon the sole condition 
 that he respect the equal rights of other individuals ; and 
 that as to communal rights, each individual shall have 
 a voice, and the majority vote shall be taken as the cor- 
 porate expression.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE 
 
 GOVERNMENT by all the governed, commonly 
 designated self-government, can be administered 
 only by universal suffrage. All the people do not 
 govern unless all have a potential voice in the 
 government. Universal suffrage may indeed fail 
 to secure government by all, but there is no 
 such thing as government by all without it. The 
 question, then, of whether or not suffrage is a natural 
 right is determined by the question of whether govern- 
 ment by all or government by superior force is the natural 
 kind of government. 
 
 It may well be objected that a majority under uni- 
 versal suffrage is in no wise different from an oligarchy 
 under restricted suffrage, for it is true that majorities 
 are often autocratic. But this is chargeable to defective 
 methods. In essential principle, and to a very high 
 degree in actual practice, majorities are radically differ- 
 ent from oligarchies. 
 
 Majorities proceed upon the principle that rights to 
 life and liberty are natural and equal ; oligarchies proceed 
 upon the theory that these rights are neither equal nor 
 natural, but are gifts from superiors. In actual prac- 
 tice an oligarchy, which is a stable class placed over 
 other classes, is unresponsive to their demands ; whereas 
 a majority, a shifting quantity in only one class but that a 
 class which embraces the whole community, is affected 
 by all. With these distinctions clear, all rational objec- 
 
 269
 
 270 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 tions to government by majority are removed, if we 
 conceive of government as confined to its legitimate func- 
 tions. When government is conceived of as possessing 
 power to regulate private concerns, government by ma- 
 jority is as intolerable as any other species of tyranny. 
 But when it is conceived of merely as the agent for pro- 
 tecting natural rights and administering common prop- 
 erty, government by majority commends itself as fair 
 and natural. It is the only method of securing in common 
 concerns common action in accordance with common 
 agreement. 
 
 The same distinction also makes the naturalness of the 
 right of suffrage self-evident. To ihave a voice in the 
 management of the organization which is charged with 
 the protection of everyone's life and liberty and the ad- 
 ministration of everyone's interest in common property, 
 is a natural right if anything can be. 
 
 Objections to universal suffrage as a right, which rest 
 upon the absurdity of extending the suffrage to minors, 
 to convicted criminals and to the insane, assuming that 
 universal suffrage logically demands that extension, are 
 the veriest pettifogging. 
 
 There is a period in everyone's life when he is con- 
 cededly incompetent to participate in government. This 
 is indubitably true of an infant in arms. Later there 
 comes a period when, if of sane mind, he is competent. 
 This is certainly true of the man or woman of 30. But 
 as no general rule can be formulated for determining 
 as to each person when he crosses the line between the 
 incompetency of childhood and the competency of man- 
 hood, it is customary to fix an age period of general ap- 
 plication arbitrarily. If the period fixed be reasonable, it 
 involves in no rational sense a denial of the suffrage.
 
 UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE 271 
 
 A similar principle applies to the insane. Men who 
 are adjudged incompetent from insanity to manage their 
 own affairs, may be denied the suffrage without the 
 slightest prejudice to the principle of suffrage as a natural 
 right. And as to convicts, the same principle that justi- 
 fies the denial to them of life or liberty consistently with 
 the theory of natural rights to life and liberty, may deny 
 them the suffrage without raising any question of incon- 
 sistency with reference to the suffrage as a natural right. 
 
 In other words, to withhold the suffrage from persons 
 incapable of performing ordinary obligations is not in- 
 consistent with the principle that suffrage is a natural 
 right. Liberty is a natural right. But consistently with 
 that right children are held in tutelage. Consistently 
 with that right any one who is "non compos" is restrained. 
 Consistently with that right again convicts are impris- 
 oned. To argue that the suffrage is not a natural right 
 because it is properly withheld from immature individ- 
 uals, from individuals adjudged "non compotes," and 
 from criminal convicts, is to argue that liberty itself is not 
 a natural right. And if liberty be not a natural right, 
 then the only basis for natural right is superior force, 
 which is a moral absurdity.* 
 
 Self-government has been defined as not a right at all 
 but a capacity; and the right to exercise a capacity, as 
 depending on the possession of it. That is a queer in- 
 version. Without enjoyment of the right, the capacity 
 can never be acquired. It is experience in governing 
 himself that gives strength of character to the individual ; 
 it is the experience of their members participating in 
 public affairs that gives strength of character to com- 
 
 * Same subject further considered in Part VII, Chapter IT, 
 "Patriotic Ideals" and Chapter III, "Trampling Upon Patriotic 
 Ideals."
 
 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 munities. Even if that were not so, the anti-suffrage con- 
 tention falsely assumes that some people can govern 
 other people and some communities other communities 
 better than the others can govern themselves. If this 
 were true, it would lead straight to universal monarchy. 
 For there must, in that case, be at any given time some 
 man who can govern all the rest better than they can 
 govern themselves ; and in accordance with the contention 
 he ought to be enthroned. At any rate, that contention 
 is the essential principle of monarchism, which derives 
 all its force from the theory that the masses cannot govern 
 themselves, but must be governed, both with reference to 
 their individual and their communal rights, by others. 
 
 Though we admitted this principle, we should still 
 have to ask how the governing nations or classes are to 
 be selected. If they were selected by the governed, that 
 would be government by consent of the governed. But 
 they never are so selected. They select themselves. And 
 they do so selfishly. No nation or class has ever forced 
 its dominion upon another for the good of the latter, and 
 none ever will. The desire for mastership is the most 
 evil of all passions ; and however it may mask its designs 
 in philanthropic pretensions, the nation or class that 
 seeks to govern others does so for its own aggrandize- 
 ment. "It is not for my breakfast that you invite me 
 down," said the goat in the fable to the wolf who had 
 urged him to descend to the foot of the cliff where rich 
 grass would give him a better breakfast, "but for your 
 own." 
 
 The mob that blows up a factory with dynamite is not 
 to be let alone, it is objected ; as if the right of its mem- 
 bers to self-government demanded that it should be let 
 alone. The objection is not pertinent. In such a case the
 
 UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE 273 
 
 mob is restrained because it is denying the right of self- 
 government to others. If the mob could harm no one but 
 its own members, and not disturb or jeopardize the 
 public peace, there would be no right of interference 
 on the part of the community. Again, the hypothesis of 
 government of physicians and keepers in a lunatic asylum 
 by the insane inmates, is gravely advanced as an illustra- 
 tion of the unsoundness of government by majorities. 
 This is on a par with the familiar and oft-answered ob- 
 jection to universal suffrage, that infants in arms would 
 under that doctrine have the right to vote. To make ex- 
 ceptional conditions like these the basis for an argument 
 against self-government and universal suffrage is to ex- 
 pose the weakness of the cause in behalf of which it is 
 made. 
 
 No such plea would be offered by any candid man who 
 had analyzed the principle of self-government by universal 
 suffrage before attacking it. Let it be clearly understood 
 that the principle of self-government has a twofold appli- 
 cation in its relation to the individual, and in its relation 
 to the community ; that in its relation to the individual, it 
 implies that his freedom shall be limited only by the equal 
 freedom of everyone else; that in its relation to the com- 
 munity, it implies that each ordinary person of maturity 
 shall have an equal voice with every other in affecting 
 the majority which determines the current management 
 of affairs that are common to all let these simple and 
 self-commendatory propositions be apprehended, and all 
 the frivolous talk about voting in lunatic asylums, about 
 voting by babies, about majority government not being 
 self-government, will sound as puerile as in fact it is. 
 And as to the common assertion that the end of all 
 good government is self-government, that will sound as
 
 *74 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 empty as the same sentiment applied to an individual, 
 thus : "The end of all good conduct is self-conduct." As 
 the individual's conduct cannot be good unless it is self- 
 controlled, neither can government be good unless it is 
 self-government. Despotism may preserve the peace, but 
 despotism cannot make men peaceable. Self-government 
 by universal suffrage, and this alone, can do that. It may 
 not do it at once, for character is not made in a day. But 
 it is the only kind of government that can do it ultimately.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CRIME AND CRIMINALS 
 
 WHAT to do with the criminal classes is an ever- 
 recurring problem of democracy. It is usually 
 treated as if these classes were composed of brutes, and 
 it were supplementary to the problem of what to do 
 with hawks, or rats, or foxes, or wolves or other beasts 
 and birds of prey that pester mankind. At best it is 
 treated as if the members of the criminal classes were a 
 different kind of creature from ourselves, having not 
 only a different environment, but different heredity and 
 radically different moral impulses. 
 
 Until that attitude is changed for one more consid- 
 erate, the problem will not be solved. All the whipping- 
 posts that can be erected, all the novel methods of legal- 
 ized homicide that can be invented, all the perfunctory 
 red-tape kindness that professional penal reformers can 
 devise, all the learning of "scientific" penology, will not 
 in the least degree advance the solution of the criminal 
 problem until the criminal classes are sincerely and in- 
 telligently considered as men like other men. 
 
 The first point for consideration along that line is 
 motive. In itself criminal motive is nobody's concern 
 but the criminal's. It does, indeed, go deeper than crim- 
 inal action. It is, indeed, the essence of crime. When 
 fostered it does build up criminal character. But criminal 
 motive in itself injures no one but him in whom it ex- 
 ists. It is distinctly an individual affair, an evil to be 
 reformed by the individual in response to his own choice 
 
 275
 
 276 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 and in his own way. Organized society has no function 
 regarding it. 
 
 For the reformation of motives, we may teach and 
 preach and admonish; but we must do so as individuals 
 to individuals. We have no right to put men's motives 
 into moral strait- jackets by force. And we could not 
 if we would. The individual mind and the individual 
 conscience are things which cannot be controlled by ex- 
 ternal force either for good or for evil. The great 
 Architect of the universe, personification of all wisdom 
 and all good, appreciates the importance of intellectual 
 and moral freedom, even if the best and wisest among 
 us will not. He has made it impossible for men by force 
 to regulate the motives of other men. 
 
 Criminal motive not embodied in action harmful to 
 others, raises a spiritual question alone. There is no 
 social problem, no question for the penologist, no right 
 in organized society to resort to force, until criminal 
 motive translates itself into criminal conduct. 
 
 Nor is this a special plea for the criminal classes. 
 It is simply a recognition of a universal right. Criminal 
 motives are not confined to the criminal classes. They 
 exist in greater or less degree in all classes and in all 
 individuals. The best among us is not wholly free from 
 crime, in so far as motive constitutes crime. For what 
 is criminal motive at bottom but selfish desire ? Whoever 
 wishes for what in justice belongs to another, whoever 
 aspires to dominion over others, even "for their own 
 good," whoever prizes privileges for himself above the 
 rights of others all such harbor criminal motives. And 
 it makes no difference whether their selfish desires are 
 confined within legal limitations or not. A wrong is 
 none the less a wrong for having legal sanction. We
 
 CRIME AND CRIMINALS 277 
 
 may change its name by law, but we cannot thereby 
 change its character. It is still essentially a crime, and 
 the desire for its advantages is still a criminal motive. 
 In criminal motive, then, the race is at one with itself. 
 Within that realm there are no distinctly criminal classes, 
 for all classes are criminal. 
 
 But when criminal motive does translate itself into 
 harmful action, then a criminal class is distinguishable 
 and the power of organized society is challenged. 
 
 Social order not disorder, but order; both the degree 
 of order that now exists and all possibilities of attain- 
 ing to higher degrees depends upon social peace. There 
 must be peace that orderliness may develop unto perfec- 
 tion. And peace there cannot be so long as criminal 
 motives generate criminal actions, unless society, with 
 the superior power of general organization, maintains 
 peace by protecting individuals from aggression. 
 
 Now there is a universally recognized class with which 
 aggression is habitual. It is the class that includes pick- 
 pockets, highwaymen, confidence men, forgers, and in- 
 cidentally murderers a predatory class. With that class 
 criminal motive embodied in criminal action constitutes 
 an aggression upon individual rights and consequently 
 an infraction of the social peace. It thereby raises up 
 a plain social duty. The duty of society is clear enough 
 to prevent such depredations as far as possible, and if 
 necessary for that purpose to punish depredators when 
 detected. It is at least clear that men of that kind should 
 be forcibly restrained. 
 
 Thus far the most conservative reader will doubtless 
 agree. If he finds any fault it will probably be that 
 this is not severe enough. For the class referred to is 
 what is commonly distinguished as the criminal class,
 
 278 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 and that is a class with which your conservative, espe- 
 cially if he is a churchman of the pious variety, has lit- 
 tle patience. He may be humane, and have theories 
 about reforming this criminal class. Possibly he may 
 be addicted to the reformatory theory of an enforced 
 hygienic diet. Or he may prefer forcible kindness. If 
 old-fashioned he may have confidence in religious tracts ; 
 if new-fashioned he may come out strong on heredity, 
 and favor physical dismemberment or at least prohibition 
 of marriages among criminals. But he is more likely to 
 indulge the conviction that the only reformed criminals 
 are dead criminals. 
 
 Over the question of severity in the treatment of the 
 criminal class, it is not necessary here to raise any issue 
 with conservatives. On the contrary, we may go as far 
 as they in demanding that crime be prevented ; and as far 
 as they can justify their demands on principles of pre- 
 vention, in also demanding the punishment of criminals. 
 If it could be demonstrated that the death penalty is a 
 necessary and effective deterrent, and not more injurious 
 to those who inflict than to those who suffer it, even the 
 death penalty for the restraint of criminals might be stub- 
 bornly insisted upon. It is of vital importance to society 
 that society repress crime. 
 
 But we must not look for criminals in the so-called 
 criminal classes alone. Nor yet among those only whose 
 crimes are denounced by the criminal law. All crimes are 
 not enumerated in the criminal law ; neither are the worst 
 crimes enumerated there, for the worst crimes of modern 
 society are legally sanctioned by society itself. And while 
 we may not characterize beneficiaries of these crimes as 
 criminal in any conventional sense, no one can deny that 
 most of them are criminal essentially. For with most of
 
 CRIME AND CRIMINALS 279 
 
 them not only among the rich, but also among the com- 
 paratively poor a wrongful motive (desire to appropri- 
 ate what of right belongs to others) and a wrongful action 
 (use of influence to perpetuate the sanctioning by society 
 of such appropriations) do coincide, and in that coinci- 
 dence is the perfection of crime. 
 
 Those are the criminals who are chiefly responsible 
 for the existence of a so-called criminal class. They set 
 a pernicious example of getting incomes without doing 
 useful work. If such as they may do this with the sanc- 
 tion of a criminal law the sanctions of which they con- 
 trol, why may not persons less advantageously situated 
 do it in defiance of that law ? This inquiry may not play 
 a conscious part in the development of the ethics of the 
 disreputable criminal class; but if one of their ethical 
 experts should lay it before a moralist of the respectable 
 criminal class, what plausible answer could he make 
 without begging the question? We must remember, too, 
 in this connection, that conscious influences for evil are 
 never the most potent. It is the unconscious influence of 
 an evil example, the influence that is not recognized and 
 could not be explained if it were, that has possibilities of 
 incalculable harm. Such influences are the familiar phe- 
 nomena of legalized theft, which manifest themselves in 
 the great unearned fortunes that distinguish the age in 
 which we live. 
 
 Nor is it by pernicious example alone that the reputable 
 criminal class produces and fosters the disreputable. It 
 does it also and chiefly by forcing abnormal individual 
 development into a mould of disorderly social develop- 
 ment. 
 
 What, for illustration, could contribute more effectively 
 to the creation and propagation of a disreputable criminal
 
 2 8o ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 class than a law denying to everyoody except a few and 
 their assigns the right to live? Since only these few 
 and their favorites, and purchasers from them of life 
 rights, could live without committing legal depredations, 
 a class would inevitably grow up which would prey upon 
 all other classes. Even though they might buy the right 
 to live, and buy it cheap, yet it is conceivable that under 
 the influence of environment and heredity, if you in- 
 sist upon it the members of this predatory class would 
 prefer a precarious but strenuous life of disreputable 
 crime to a reputable existence at the price of legalized 
 blackmail. The old "free traders," who would now be 
 known as "smugglers," were examples of this disposition 
 to become lawless criminals rather than submit to the 
 exactions of lawful criminals. 
 
 But it is not necessary to imagine an institution which 
 makes of the natural right to live a legal privilege. The 
 right to live necessitates the right to a place on thte 
 earth to live upon, and the right to live the social life 
 necessitates the right to live on the earth at places where 
 social opportunities cluster. To deny the latter right 
 is to deny social life; to deny the former is to deny 
 life altogether. Yet the law denies both. Except to 
 a favored few and their assigns, the right to a place 
 upon the earth is denied. Babies are born by the hun- 
 dreds of thousands every year, who have no legal right 
 upon this planet. It is true that they may buy a right 
 from babies whose ancestors were successful in the game 
 of grab. But they must buy it by supporting in greater 
 or less degree those other babies with their labor, as 
 both classes grow up. It is true, too, that they may 
 buy some places for very little. But if they would buy 
 where social opportunities cluster they must pay dear.
 
 CRIME AND CRIMINALS 281 
 
 Some of these piaces are so rich in social opportunities 
 that even a few square feet could not be bought with 
 all the earnings of a day laborer accumulated since the 
 birth of his Elder Brother. But whether the price be 
 high or low, it is a price for the right to live for the 
 bare right to live if low; for the right to live the social 
 life if high. In either case it is legalized crime, whereby 
 some of the people are forced either to support others 
 in idleness by reputable labor or to prey as a criminal 
 class upon the community. 
 
 While that phase of the problem of dealing with the 
 criminal classes remains unnoticed by criminologists, the 
 possibility that those "scientists" will solve the problem 
 is hopeless.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 PUBLIC DEBTS 
 
 IF the statistics of all the public debts of this country 
 were available, the amount would be appalling. In 
 this great aggregate the national debt is as a drop in 
 the bucket. In addition to that there are State debts, 
 county debts, city debts, school district debts, and town- 
 ship debts, which make an unbearable aggregate. They 
 are a growing first lien upon the industry and property 
 of the country, and sooner or later, if they keep on grow- 
 ing, there will come a time when they must be repudiated. 
 Now repudiation is associated with the idea of dis- 
 honesty, and this raises a question which demands calm 
 consideration. 
 
 To identify repudiation absolutely with dishonesty, two 
 wide chasms in thought must be bridged. It must be 
 assumed, in the first place, that government has the 
 moral right to bind future generations by contract; and, 
 in the second, that all contracts are morally inviolable. 
 If the government has not the right to bind future 
 generations by contract, then future generations have 
 the moral right, when they come upon the stage of action, 
 to repudiate ancient government contracts which as- 
 sume to bind them; and if all contracts are not morally 
 inviolable, then, even though government might morally 
 bind future generations by contract, it could not do so 
 by all kinds of contracts, and illegitimate government 
 contracts might be repudiated without dishonesty. It 
 is incumbent, therefore, upon those who undertake to 
 
 282
 
 PUBLIC DEBTS 283 
 
 argue that the principle of repudiation is dishonest, to 
 prove, first, that government can morally bind future 
 generations by contract; and, second, that repudiation 
 of contracts is necessarily dishonest. But so far from 
 being able to prove both these propositions, they can 
 prove neither. 
 
 Government cannot morally bind future generations. 
 To concede its right to do so would contravene the root 
 principle of self-government. This principle that it is 
 the right of every people to govern themselves, has for 
 a corollary the principle that it is the right of every 
 generation to govern itself. In principle, it is as in- 
 tolerable that dead and gone generations should govern 
 living generations, as that one nation should govern an- 
 other. In degree it is worse. Government by genera- 
 tions that have passed away is that most oppressive of 
 all tyrannies the tyranny of "the dead hand." 
 
 To no function of government is this observation so 
 pertinent as to taxation. It is by means of taxation that 
 peoples are most effectually enslaved. Whoever con- 
 trols the purse strings of a nation governs the nation. 
 To a keen appreciation of that truth by the pioneers 
 of English freedom we are indebted for the familiar 
 constitutional principle that revenue bills must originate 
 in the popular branch of the legislature. It was early 
 seen that if the people would govern themselves, they 
 must tax themselves. 
 
 And it is the taxing function that is operated when 
 one generation assumes to bind future generations by 
 contract. The right of government to deal with funds 
 in its own hands, funds and other property which be- 
 long to it, is not denied. Neither is it denied that 
 government may make contracts to be fully executed,
 
 284 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 performed, completed and done with within such rea- 
 sonable time in the future as to make it clear that they 
 do not constitute evasive attempts to govern future gen- 
 erations. What is denied is that government has the 
 right to give morally binding force to contracts requiring 
 future generations to submit to taxation, either in char- 
 acter or amount, without their own consent. To assume 
 to give force to such contracts is in its essence a legisla- 
 tive, not a contractual act; and it is a clear principle, 
 not only of political philosophy but of jurisprudence, 
 that any exercise of legislative functions is at all times, 
 so far as relates to its future operations, subject to 
 repudiation. 
 
 This alone is sufficient to dispose of the notion that 
 repudiation is necessarily dishonest. But even if the 
 point that government cannot contract away the rights 
 of future generations were waived, and it were assumed 
 that government has that right, the second point would 
 still remain: contracts, though authoritatively made, are 
 not necessarily inviolable. 
 
 While it is true that repudiation of public contracts 
 may be dishonest, it is not true that it is necessarily so. 
 Whether the repudiation of a contract be dishonest or 
 not, depends not upon the fact of a contract, but upon 
 its character. There are such things as unconscionable 
 contracts ; and repudiation of unconscionable contracts 
 is not dishonest; it is rather their enforcement that is 
 dishonest. 
 
 We here touch upon a principle which is aptly illus- 
 trated in the legal history of private contracts. At one 
 time it was held by the courts that private contracts 
 must be performed according to their terms. A leading 
 case had to do with one of those practical jokes in
 
 PUBLIC DEBTS 285 
 
 geometrical progression with which we still astonish 
 our children. To get his horse shod a farmer had con- 
 tracted with a blacksmith to pay one barley corn for 
 the first nail, two for the second, four for the third, 
 and so on, each succeeding nail to be paid for with 
 twice as much barley as the one before it. Notwith- 
 standing the enormous amount of barley which the 
 blacksmith claimed under his contract, the court de- 
 cided, as anti-repudiationists now contend, that a con- 
 tract is binding no matter how it affects the parties to 
 it, and gave a ruinous judgment against the farmer 
 accordingly. The principle of that decision was fol- 
 lowed by the courts for a long time, but at length a 
 more enlightened and honest view prevailed. It was 
 seen that grossly oppressive contracts are unconscionable, 
 and as matter of good morals, as well as sound policy, 
 the courts stopped enforcing them. No one now would 
 think of stigmatizing repudiation of such private con- 
 tracts as dishonest. The principle applies as well to con- 
 tracts by government. If they are unconscionable, hon- 
 esty demands not that they be enforced, but that they be 
 repudiated. 
 
 What would constitute an unconscionable public con- 
 tract must depend, of course, as in the case of private 
 contracts, upon the circumstances not merely the cir- 
 cumstances in which the contract originates, but also the 
 circumstances in which it operates. Though it be made 
 in good faith, yet if it operate unconscionably it is a fit 
 subject for repudiation. 
 
 Without undertaking to enumerate the kinds of public 
 contracts that ought thus in honesty to be repudiated, two 
 may be suggested by way of illustration. Public debts 
 that extend over generation after generation, sucking
 
 a86 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 taxes in the name of interest from people born long 
 after the principal has been expended for purposes that 
 do not concern them, clearly belong in the category of 
 repudiable public contracts. The second example is fran- 
 chise privileges. Franchises created by a dead and buried 
 generation, by whose favor and upon whose authority the 
 beneficiaries levy tribute upon people who had no voice 
 in creating the franchises or in fixing their duration, may 
 be repudiated without dishonesty. It is dishonest not to 
 repudiate them. 
 
 Repudiation is a sacred right of the people. It is 
 a right which must not be dishonestly exercised, to be 
 sure; but likewise it is a right which must not be dis- 
 honestly neglected. Whoever couples this right with 
 breach of public faith, as if the terms were interchange- 
 able, gives aid and comfort to the worst class of enemies 
 the people ever had. So does he who invokes it friv- 
 olously. The right of repudiation is a reserved right 
 which the people should learn to respect ; and one which, 
 that it may command respect, should never be identified 
 in speech with what is immoral, or be invoked for the 
 redress of trivial or doubtful grievances. As the "queen's 
 arm" of the old frontiersman hung upon its pegs above 
 the hearth, never taken down for wanton attack but 
 always ready and effective for defense, so should the 
 reserved right of repudiation be cherished. It is the 
 old "queen's arm" of a free people who are menaced 
 on all sides by aggressive and merciless legalized mo- 
 nopolies. If it be not cherished, the freedom of posterity 
 will be bargained away, and the nation's destinies will 
 fall under the sway of a "dead hand."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 TRIAL BY JURY 
 
 ONCE upon a time a boy was kidnaped in an Amer- 
 ican city by unknown men. They blindfolded him, 
 put him in a carriage which they drove many miles now 
 in one direction and now in another to confuse him, 
 imprisoned him in a house subsequently discovered to 
 be in the suburbs of his own city, and finally extorted 
 from his father, a very wealthy man, a large sum of 
 money under anonymous threats of burning out the boy's 
 eyes with acids. After submitting to the extortion and 
 thereby releasing his son, the father offered a rich re- 
 ward for the conviction of the dastardly criminals. 
 
 Stimulated by that reward the police produced a man, 
 let us call him John Doe, whom they charged with the 
 crime. John Doe was identified by the boy as one of 
 his kidnapers the identification being made, however, 
 by recognition of the prisoner's voice, for the boy had 
 not seen either captor. In due time the case was tried. 
 What influenced the jury in arriving at its verdict no 
 outsider is competent to say. Its members are reported 
 to have suspected detectives of manufacturing a case 
 to get the reward. However that may have been, pre- 
 sumably they weighed all the facts before them and de- 
 cided conscientiously. At any rate no substantial charge 
 of incapacity or corruption was made against the jury. 
 It returned a verdict of "not guilty." 
 
 Now, in accordance with the Anglo-Saxon idea of 
 trial by jury, that verdict made a complete legal deter- 
 
 287
 
 288 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 mination of the matter. In the eye of the law the prisoner 
 was innocent; and whether in fact he was innocent or 
 guilty, the judge had no other duty to perform than 
 to order his discharge. 
 
 If, in doing that, the judge took occasion to reflect 
 upon the wisdom of the verdict, he offended against 
 judicial decorum quite as much as a juror would have 
 done had he, during the progress of the trial, openly 
 criticised a ruling of the judge upon a question of law. 
 But the judge in this kidnaping case, unmindful of the 
 proprieties of the place and the occasion, forgetting that 
 a judge alone is not the court, but that the jury also is 
 part of it, and that he may by disorderly conduct or 
 language be guilty of contempt none the less because 
 there is no one to punish him when he fails to hold him- 
 self in restraint this judge, officiously and in manifest 
 contempt of court, addressed the following language to 
 the jury, an integral part of the court, which, within its 
 sphere of action, namely, authority to adjudge the facts 
 in the case, was his judicial superior and entitled to his 
 respect : 
 
 "If John Doe had made his own choice of a jury he 
 could not have selected twelve men who could have 
 served him more faithfully. If the State had made the 
 selection, I know of no men it could have named who 
 could have been less careful of its interests. The jury 
 is discharged without the compliments of the court, and 
 the prisoner is likewise released, as to this trial, I pre- 
 sume to continue the criminal practice in which you have 
 failed to check him. I do not know what motive actu- 
 ated you in reaching this decision, but I hope none of 
 you will ever again appear in this jury box." 
 
 That insult to the jury was worse than contempt of
 
 TRIAL BY JURY 289 
 
 court. It was worse than a breach of judicial decorum. 
 It was a crime against democratic government. For 
 it was calculated, by intimidating jurors, to undermine 
 the independence of juries and destroy the integrity of 
 the system of jury trial. And the worst of it all is that 
 this instance is only one among many that indicate a 
 disposition on the part of some judges to reduce trial 
 by jury to an empty form with only a curious historical 
 meaning. 
 
 This disposition, or rather, this tendency, for it has 
 really come to that, is so dangerous to individual liberty 
 as to demand some serious elementary consideration of 
 the subject of jury trial. 
 
 In their Anglo-Saxon origin juries were composed of 
 witnesses. They testified under oath to the innocence 
 or guilt of the person accused, whom they personally 
 knew and of whose alleged offense they had either personal 
 or hearsay and inferential knowledge. The idea was 
 that a man's guilt should be adjudged by his neighbors, 
 who might be presumed to know all about him. And 
 so by their testimony, formulated into a verdict, they 
 acquitted or convicted. 
 
 But in the course of time this idea of the jury was 
 reversed in its formal aspects. Instead of empanelling 
 jurors who know most about a case, we now select those 
 that know least. This is so, at any rate, in cities. In 
 the country juries are still made up of men familiar with 
 the general setting of the cases they try. That differ- 
 ence would naturally exist, because jurors are still drawn 
 from the vicinity, from the neighborhood, and in cities 
 "the neighborhood" may be an unknown country to its 
 own inhabitants, whereas in the country, "neighborhood" 
 still has a meaning. But the theory that jurors should
 
 290 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 be familiar with their cases and render verdicts upon 
 their own knowledge of the facts was long ago dis- 
 placed by the theory now prevailing that juries should 
 decide cases, not upon the basis of their own knowledge, 
 but in accordance with their judgment of the testimony 
 of witnesses who appear before them. 
 
 In measuring the value of trial by jury it is custom- 
 ary to glance down the line of this historical evolution 
 and draw conclusions solely from that source. But, like 
 all sociological conclusions resting upon the historical 
 basis alone, these are quite unsatisfactory. Students who 
 adopt them assume too readily that historical evolution 
 is righteous evolution. When, therefore, they observe 
 that the jury has passed from the stage of witnesses 
 to familiar facts, on to the stage of judges of unfamiliar 
 facts, and observe a growing general tendency toward 
 expertism, they incline to the conclusion that in the 
 progress of historical evolution, the jury must, and be- 
 cause it must therefore it ought to, give way to judicial 
 experts. 
 
 But this is not the true function of history. As the 
 man who from being a moderate drinker had become a 
 drunkard would be a fool to conclude that he must, and 
 therefore ought to, go on with his historical evolution to 
 delirium tremens and a drunkard's grave, so society 
 would be guilty of the greatest folly to infer that it must, 
 and therefore ought to, keep on in a certain direction 
 merely because that direction is historical. The true 
 function of history is not to confirm us in evil courses; 
 it is to warn us away from them. Though experience 
 (and that is all that history is) be a good teacher, it is 
 not necessarily either a good or an inevitable master. 
 Society is, indeed, an organism. By the action and re-
 
 TRIAL BY JURY 291 
 
 action of individual minds, from greatest to least, a 
 distinct social force is generated. But this force was not 
 set in motion years ago in one direction irrevocably. It 
 is not fatalistic. The historic impulses are always sub- 
 ject to the influence of present perceptions of moral 
 right and wrong. And these, if rationally applied, may 
 divert or even reverse the course of history, instead of 
 promoting further evolution along the old pathway. 
 
 With the question of jury trial, then, the real point 
 is not whether it is historically evolving into a system 
 of trial by judicial experts, but whether the people 
 should allow it to so evolve that is, whether they should 
 regard trial by experts as right, whether they should 
 regard it as tending to increase or diminish individual 
 liberty. 
 
 This making of individual liberty the test of moral- 
 ity, is done advisedly. Who can conceive of any test 
 of moral right and wrong more fundamental than that 
 of the relations of man to man? Immorality as between 
 man and man consists in the imposition of one man's 
 will upon another. Conversely, morality consists in prac- 
 tical recognition of the complete liberty of each, limited 
 only by the equal liberty of all. Assuming this liberty 
 to be the desideratum, what relation to it does the exist- 
 ing system of jury trial bear the system, that is to say, 
 which makes the jury the judge in criminal cases? 
 
 In his treatise on the American Constitution, Judge 
 Story described trial by jury in criminal cases * as 
 "essential to political and civil liberty." Similar quota- 
 tions from men whose names Americans ought to honor 
 might be made. But the opinion of any man, however 
 wise and good, is after all only an opinion. It is en- 
 
 *Book III, Chapter XXXVIII.
 
 292 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 titled to no weight as authority. It does not decide. 
 Such opinions, however, are entitled to profound respect 
 and candid consideration. It is by weighing them in an 
 earnest search for essential truth, rather than by sur- 
 rendering mind and conscience to the demands of his- 
 torical evolution, that civilization has been promoted. 
 
 One of the most thoughtful of these opinions is that 
 of Alexis de Tocqueville, the earliest foreign observer of 
 American institutions. His opinion derives added value 
 from the fact that as a Frenchman his observations of the 
 jury system were uninfluenced by favorable prejudice. 
 He came to a consideration of the subject much as a 
 philosophical historian approaches the consideration of 
 an obsolete institution. Anglo-Saxons might claim too 
 much for this palladium of their liberties. A French- 
 man of the early part of the century could regard it 
 with unbiased mind. And that is what De Tocqueville 
 seems to have done. 
 
 He considered the jury system only with reference 
 to its political, and not to its judicial, influences, since 
 his general subject was not the judicial but the political 
 aspects of American life. And this makes his observa- 
 tions still more important, for it is as a political institu- 
 tion that the jury system now demands attention in con- 
 sequence of the tendency of judges to usurp its func- 
 tions. 
 
 De Tocqueville said :* 
 
 "To look upon the jury as a mere judicial institution, 
 is to confine our attention to a very narrow view of it; 
 for, however great its influence may be upon the decisions 
 of the law-courts, that influence is very subordinate 
 to the powerful effects which it produces on the destinies 
 
 * "Democracy in America" Vol. II, Chapter IV.
 
 TRIAL BY JURY 293 
 
 of the community at large. The jury is above all a 
 political institution, and it must be regarded in this light 
 in order to be duly appreciated. 
 
 "By the jury, I mean a certain number of citizens 
 chosen indiscriminately, and invested with a temporary 
 right of judging. Trial by jury, as applied to the re- 
 pression of crime, appears to me to introduce an emi- 
 nently republican element into the government, upon the 
 following grounds: 
 
 "The institution of the jury may be aristocratic or 
 democratic, according to the class of society from which 
 the jurors are selected; but it always preserves its repub- 
 lican character, inasmuch as it places the real direction 
 of society in the hands of the governed, or of a portion 
 of the governed, instead of leaving it under the authority 
 of the government. Force is never more than a transient 
 element of success; and after force comes the notion of 
 right. A government which should only be able to crush 
 its enemies upon a field of battle, would very soon be 
 destroyed. The true sanction of political laws is to be 
 found in penal legislation, and if that sanction be want- 
 ing, the law will sooner or later lose its cogency. He 
 who punishes infractions of the law, is therefore the real 
 master of society. Now, the institution of the jury raises 
 the people itself, or at least a class of citizens, to the 
 bench of judicial authority. The institution of the jury 
 consequently invests the people, or that class of citizens, 
 with the direction of society. 
 
 "In England the jury is returned from the aristocratic 
 portion of the nation; the aristocracy makes the laws, 
 applies the laws, and punishes all infractions of the laws ; 
 everything is established upon a consistent footing, and 
 England may with truth be said to constitute an aristo-
 
 294 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 cratic republic. In the United States the same system 
 is applied to the whole people. Every American citizen 
 is qualified to be an elector, a juror, and is eligible to 
 office. The system of the jury, as it is understood in 
 America, appears to me to be as direct and as extreme 
 a consequence of the sovereignty of the people as uni- 
 versal suffrage. These institutions are two instruments 
 of equal power, which contribute to the supremacy of 
 the majority. All the sovereigns who have chosen to 
 govern by their own authority, and to direct society in- 
 stead of obeying its direction, have destroyed or enfeebled 
 the institution of the jury. The monarchs of the House 
 of Tudor sent to prison jurors who refused to convict, 
 and Napoleon caused them to be returned by his agents. 
 . . . The jury is pre-eminently a political institution; 
 it must be regarded as one form of the sovereignty of 
 the people: when that sovereignty is repudiated, it must 
 be rejected; or it must be adapted to the laws by which 
 that sovereignty is established. The jury is that portion 
 of the nation to which the execution of the laws is en- 
 trusted, as the Houses of Parliament constitute that part 
 of the nation which makes the laws ; and in order that 
 society may be governed with consistency and uniformity, 
 the list of citizens qualified to serve on juries must in- 
 crease and diminish with the list of electors." 
 
 These comments of the great Frenchman might be 
 very much expanded, but nothing could be added to 
 them. The whole argument for the jury system as a 
 political force is there. And it admits of no possible 
 refutation which does not proceed from a denial of the 
 right and wisdom of government by the people. 
 
 Those who oppose the system of jury trial would have 
 accused persons tried by judges, by experts in the law, who
 
 TRIAL BY JURY 295 
 
 are skilled in unraveling tangled evidence. And this is 
 what such conduct as that of the judge quoted above tends 
 to. It is the tendency of all the rebuking of jurymen which 
 certain types of judges indulge in, from the judge who of- 
 ficiously probes the general opinions of jurors at the be- 
 ginning of the term, and dismisses them, sometimes inso- 
 lently, if he doesn't like their point of view, to those who, 
 like the judge already quoted, chastise the juries that ac- 
 quit prisoners whom the judge would have convicted. 
 Whatever may be the purpose, the manifest effect is to in- 
 timidate jurors, thereby making them responsive to sig- 
 nificant words and shoulder shrugs from the bench, and 
 constituting the judge a thirteenth juror, with the in- 
 dependence, the intelligence and the conscience of the 
 other twelve wrapped in the folds of his silken gown. 
 The tendency of this reprehensible course of action is to 
 reduce the jury system to a barren formality, and for 
 juries drawn from the people to substitute an autocratic 
 bench of experts. 
 
 There is about the idea of trial by experts something 
 extremely plausible. It is suggestive of getting a shoe- 
 maker to make your shoes, a watchmaker to mend your 
 timepiece, or a farmer to raise your grain. Why not 
 a judge to try your criminals? 
 
 But the analogy doesn't hold. Men learned in the 
 law and skillful in twisting and turning through the 
 mazes of legal principles and conflicting testimony are 
 no more expert than laymen at drawing common-sense 
 conclusions. A New York judge who was short of a 
 jury panel, once drew a panel from the bystanders, all 
 lawyers all experts. This was by common consent, of 
 course, the lawyers acquiescing for the sensation of the 
 thing. But that jury disagreed! Decisions of questions
 
 296 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 of fact by judges, even when there is only one judge and 
 consequently no disagreement, are no more satisfactory 
 than verdicts by juries. On the whole they may be said 
 to be less so And as to medical experts, is not the com- 
 munity justly tired of their jarring opinions? The 
 truth is that there is something unbalancing about the 
 minuteness of expert knowledge when brought into com- 
 mon or general relationships. 
 
 So far as the judicial function is concerned, no better 
 way of deciding questions of fact has been discovered 
 than that of trial by jury. Under this system the expert 
 is put in his proper place. If a mechanical question is 
 involved, experts inform the jury as to the mechanical 
 technicalities necessary for it to know. If a chemical 
 question, chemists perform that office. So with the whole 
 range of technical knowledge, including the law of the 
 case, about which the jury is advised by the legal experts 
 on the bench. When thus informed and in possession 
 of the facts in the case, the chances are vastly greater 
 that a jury of twelve intelligent men will marshal those 
 facts in a common-sense way and reach a just conclusion 
 than that any of the experts would. 
 
 Juries are sometimes corrupt and they sometimes make 
 mistakes. But the innocent prisoner has better guaran- 
 tees of acquittal at the hands of a jury, than at the hands 
 of a judge expert in the work of "railroading" criminals ; 
 and the guilty man has but little better chance of escape. 
 Though juries do make mistakes in deciding questions 
 of fact, it is hardly conceivable that they make as many 
 as it appears from the law reports that judges make in 
 deciding questions of law ; and though they be occa- 
 sionally corrupt, neither are judges always immaculate. 
 There are few lawyers of large experience who will not
 
 TRIAL BY JURY 297 
 
 concede that as a rule, even when juries seem to be mis- 
 taken, they get at substantial justice. 
 
 But the judicial function of juries is not the important 
 one. As De Tocqueville says, the jury's function as a 
 judge in particular cases is subordinate to its function 
 as a political institution. In the nature of things in 
 criminal cases, if the jury decides at all, it must decide 
 both fact and law. Legal experts may advise, but the 
 jury must decide. So long, therefore, as the independ- 
 ence of the jury can be preserved, individual liberty can- 
 not be quite destroyed. All other free institutions might 
 go, even the suffrage might be restricted to the very rich 
 or the highly educated, yet, if the penal law were ad- 
 ministered by independent juries drawn from the body 
 of the people, the grosser forms of tyranny would still 
 be held in check. 
 
 That explains the tendency to minimize the function of 
 juries. With the jury system out of the way or become 
 a mere form, and experts invested with power to punish 
 infractions of the law, our government would go on 
 developing into a government by experts until it had 
 reached the inevitable climax, government by a single 
 expert born to his place and specially educated to his 
 function the government of a czar. 
 
 Whoever will stop this tendency will be a benefactor. 
 Some exceptionally courageous juror may yet volunteer 
 for that duty. If, when a judge in some other case 
 berates the jury after the manner of the judge in the 
 kidnaping case, a member of the jury will rebuke him, 
 that juror will have performed a most valuable public 
 service. It should not be done pertly, nor lightly, nor 
 rashly ; but in self-respectful manner, seriously, earnestly, 
 decisively, and with confidence in his rights as a juror
 
 298 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 and consciousness of his imperative duty as a citizen of 
 
 asserting those rights. 
 
 Such a protest might call out an apology from the 
 bench, for doubtless many judges offend in this way 
 thoughtlessly, and that apology would not be without 
 beneficial influence. At the worst, the protest could only 
 provoke proceedings for contempt of court, and in those 
 proceedings the juror's contempt in protesting against 
 judicial outrage would be a minor issue in comparison 
 with the judge's contempt in disturbing the course of 
 justice in his court by intimidating jurors. 
 
 Unless jurors do assert themselves by insisting upon 
 a due recognition from the bench of their rights and 
 dignity, the process of reducing juries to a place in which 
 they will perfunctorily record the decisions of judges 
 will go on apace; and judges, having usurped the func- 
 tions of juries, will become the real masters of society.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IMPERIALISM 
 
 WHEN Rome passed from republic to empire the 
 name of king had the detested significance in the 
 Roman mind that both king and emperor have now in 
 the American. Frankly to have proposed a king would 
 have been as fatal to Roman imperialism then, as frankly 
 to propose an emperor would be to American imperial- 
 ism now. To thrice refuse the kingly crown, whether 
 sincerely or not, was the best of Roman politics. Yet the 
 Roman republic was strangled by the Roman empire, and 
 there was no king. The title of "imperator," which the 
 Caesars adopted, was but a common expression of repub- 
 lican authority, as innocent in Roman thought as "man- 
 ager" is in American thought. 
 
 Nor could any one at that time have told where and 
 when the republic ended and the empire began. The 
 transition was effected by a series of departures from 
 old standards and old ideals, each of which commended 
 itself to superficial observation as being in the interest 
 of the republic. No imperial policy was deliberately 
 proposed. Probably none was dreamed of even by the 
 Roman imperialists themselves. But more or less un- 
 consciously they 'turned the current of events toward 
 imperialism. We know how the current of a great river 
 in the bottoms may be turned by small cuttings into the 
 bank at a bend. The analogy holds true to Roman 
 history. In times of stress masterful ambitions prevailed 
 in the settlement of temporary issues, until at last an 
 
 299
 
 300 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 imperial current had broken through the republican banks 
 at a bend and torn out a channel for itself. There was 
 no conscious setting up of an empire to take the place 
 of the republic, but the empire came. 
 
 It is always so. When a people are about to pass 
 from freedom to tyranny, nobody shouts from the house- 
 tops: "Hurrah, boys! Let's change our freedom for 
 tyranny!" Probably nobody desires the change, and 
 only a few suspect the tendency. What happens is 
 this: Things that really make for tyranny, but which 
 are supposed to be desirable in themselves, are done re- 
 gardless of what they may lead on to ; and one step fol- 
 lowing another the time comes when succeeding genera- 
 tions are awakened by sore experience to the fact that 
 the freedom their fathers had is gone. "The greatest 
 changes," says James Bryce, "are often those introduced 
 with the least notion of their consequence, and the most 
 fatal those which encounter least resistance." 
 
 The history of republics furnishes a never-failing ad- 
 monition to us that our republic may pass into empire 
 without exciting alarm by any of those outward indica- 
 tions with which securely established empires advertise 
 their power. The price of liberty is now, as it always 
 has been and always must be, eternal vigilance. 
 
 The essential characteristic of empire, in the objection- 
 able sense of the term, is absolutism. Whether or not ab- 
 solute power be administered benevolently, makes no dif- 
 ference. The evil is in the power itself ; not in the nature 
 or manner of its administration. Benevolent absolutism is, 
 indeed, the most fruitful seed of tyranny. Let absolutism 
 begin malignantly, and a people accustomed to free- 
 dom recognize it for what it is, and rising up in their 
 might put it down. But let it begin benevolently, and
 
 IMPERIALISM 301 
 
 by the time the people see and feel the tyranny which is 
 as natural to every species of absolutism as poison to 
 a poison vine, they are powerless to resist its aggressions. 
 The little finger of a small standing army is then stronger 
 than the loins of the unorganized masses. 
 
 Neither is it important whether absolute power be 
 centered in one man or in several. An empire ruled by 
 an emperor, a Caesar, a king, a boss, a czar, a sultan, 
 or whatever other title he may adopt, is not more intol- 
 erable than one ruled by an oligarchy. The true dis- 
 tinction, the only test distinction, turns not upon the 
 number of despots or their benevolence, but upon the 
 question of self-government or superimposed govern- 
 ment. Whatever may be the titles of its administrators, 
 the government that is at all times responsible to the 
 people governed is a free government, while the govern- 
 ment that governs without responsibility to the governed 
 is imperial. 
 
 What made Rome a terrible empire was, at first, not 
 despotism at home. So far as the heavy hand of tyran- 
 nical government concerned him, the Roman citizen was 
 long as free under the empire as under the republic. 
 As between citizens, there was under the empire a strict 
 observance of justice, and for the protection of Roman 
 citizens abroad the whole power of the empire was on 
 call. But there was utter contempt for the rights of 
 other peoples. 
 
 Long before she was known as an empire, while repub- 
 lican forms were unaltered and the republican spirit 
 still seemed vital, Rome had set out to be a world power. 
 In this ambition for universal dominion she succeeded; 
 and as her sway extended she established colonies. They 
 were of two sorts, "senatorial" and "imperatorial." The
 
 302 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 latter were governed absolutely from Rome, being col- 
 onies in which the "inferior" and subjugated peoples 
 would have been dominant but for the armies of the 
 empire that were quartered upon them; and though the 
 former were self-governing to a degree, that was because, 
 through Roman immigration and other influences, they 
 had become submissive to the mistress whose decrees went 
 forth from the banks of the Tiber. Superimposing her 
 imperial government upon all, Rome held no relation 
 of responsibility whatever to the governed in her colonies. 
 From that moment, says Froude,* the days of her own 
 self-government were numbered ; and he points this moral 
 for all time : "If there be one lesson," he writes, f "which 
 history clearly teaches, it is this, that free nations cannot 
 govern subject provinces. If they are unable or unwilling 
 to admit their dependencies to share their own constitu- 
 tion, the constitution itself will fall in pieces from mere 
 incompetence for its duties." 
 
 England has in modern times followed the ancient 
 Roman example. Like Rome, she protects her citizens 
 abroad with the ferocity of a she-bear defending her lit- 
 ter of cubs. But "inferior" peoples have no rights, as 
 peoples, that she feels bound to respect. Again like 
 Rome, she aspires to rule the world. In this she has 
 been more successful than any other modern nation. 
 Around the globe her drums alone beat a continuous 
 reveille. And in imitation of Rome she has subjugated 
 "inferior" peoples and attached them to her empire as 
 colonies. Where the "inferior" peoples are in the as- 
 cendant her colonies are "crown" colonies, which cor- 
 respond to the "imperatorial" colonies of Rome; but as 
 
 * FROUDE'S "Caesar," Ch. XIII. 
 J-FROUDE'S "Caesar," Ch. I.
 
 IMPERIALISM 303 
 
 the superior Anglo-Saxon immigrant secures dominion 
 over the natives, privileges of self-government are ex- 
 tended and the colonies rise to the dignity of what Rome 
 knew as colonies of the "senatorial" class. 
 
 Some of these have been granted a certain power of 
 self-government which precludes England from holding 
 them to her empire by arbitrary ties. Their loyalty to 
 the mother country is no longer secured by imperial 
 power emanating from Westminster; it is an imperial 
 sentiment fostered within the colonies themselves within 
 the nations rather, for in all but name and international 
 recognition the combined Provinces of the Canadian Do- 
 minion and the federated States of the Australian Com- 
 monwealth are independent units in the category of 
 Anglo-Saxon sovereignties. They are essentially less 
 the colonial dependencies of England than her military 
 allies. 
 
 And it might almost be said that our own federal 
 republic is becoming part of this allied group. It is at 
 any rate following England's lead. Once a collection of 
 British colonies, it made a successful struggle for inde- 
 pendence, but after more than a century of bitterness 
 toward Great Britain it has latterly been falling into line 
 with her for an epoch of Anglo-Saxon empire. 
 
 That is the outward form that American imperialism 
 assumes. With an international "understanding between 
 statesmen," as a distinguished British cabinet minister 
 approvingly phrased it, the American republic has been 
 projected upon the same career of colonial empire that 
 Great Britain copied from Rome. Receding from her 
 traditional policy of government by consent, she is follow- 
 ing the British lead and developing systems of colonial 
 government without responsibility to the governed.
 
 304 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Looking backward, we can identify the beginning of 
 this career of colonial imperialism with the American 
 naval victory in Manila Bay. That event generated a 
 dangerous ambition, the first published indication of 
 which was authorized by the close personal friend and 
 political confidant of President McKinley, only a few 
 days after the Manila Bay battle. He said :* 
 
 "The President realizes, as we all realize, that the prob- 
 lem presented by the capture of the Philippines is the most 
 important and most serious that confronts the admin- 
 istration and the country. To say what we will do is 
 impossible at this time, but this much has been deter- 
 mined upon. We will take possession of the islands first, 
 and discuss the disposition of them afterwards. Some 
 sentimentalists seem imbued with the idea that we are 
 going to give the islands back to Spain. It seems there 
 is no probability of that. To retain them will, as the 
 English newspapers have pointed out, necessitate a 
 departure from the traditions of our government. Of 
 course such a step is not to be taken hastily. In cursory 
 talk among Republican leaders I find that there seems 
 to be very little opposition, except on the idea that some 
 day our system of Statehood might be extended to these 
 outlying territories. I think nobody has any idea of 
 doing that. When the time comes our policy will be 
 made clear, to the effect that Statehood is to be restricted 
 to the present limits of our nation, and is not to be 
 extended to territory separated from the country, even 
 when it is so close as Cuba. All these details can be 
 settled when the time comes. It seems to me, and must 
 be clear to everybody, that the United States are entering 
 
 interview with Senator Marcus A. Hanna, published in the 
 Washington correspondence of the Manchester (England) Guar- 
 dian of Wednesday, May 11, 1898.
 
 IMPERIALISM 305 
 
 upon one of the most important crises of their exist- 
 ence." 
 
 In the light of subsequent events those words indicate 
 either that imperial plans had already been roughly for- 
 mulated, or that their author was a remarkable prophet. 
 For this republic, following the example of Rome and 
 Great Britain, has ever since been superimposing gov- 
 ernment upon "inferior" peoples; ostensibly for their 
 own good, incidentally it may be for ours; but clearly 
 against their will. This is the essence of empire, and 
 its significance has been recognized and welcomed in high 
 scholastic as well as political and commercial quarters. 
 A famous American college professor and author* has 
 coupled the hostile ideas of republic and empire, and 
 declared them harmonious. Had he written in Lin- 
 coln's day he would probably have foreseen none of the 
 dangers Lincoln feared from a nation half free and half 
 slave, for he has no fear for a nation half republic and 
 half empire. In fact, he regards imperialism for America 
 as inevitable, and opposition to it as "probably as futile 
 as opposition to the trade wind or the storm." It is not 
 with concern that he says this. He puts it forward as a 
 reason for falling into line. His philosophy, in other 
 words, is simply an elaboration of the fatalistic epigram 
 that "Destiny determines duty." Believing it to be the 
 destiny of our country to become a republic and an em- 
 pire, he regards it as our duty to promote imperial policies. 
 
 This idea that destiny determines duty is not only 
 fatalistic, it is atheistic. That is not to say that those who 
 adopt it are atheists by intention or profession. They 
 may attend church services with the regularity of deacons, 
 
 *Franklin H. Giddings, in "Democracy and Empire." Mac- 
 millan.
 
 306 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 or adore pietistic fetishes with the devotion of pagans. 
 They may even be profoundly religious in personal life. 
 But their social philosophy is nevertheless the philosophy 
 of atheism. The hypothesis which makes destiny the 
 standard of duty assumes that precisely such blind forces 
 as wind and storm hold sovereign sway in social life. It 
 entirely ignores the moral forces which are as capable 
 of checking or diverting evil tendencies in society, as in- 
 tellectual forces are of avoiding the dangers of the storm 
 and making the wind an agency of service instead of 
 destruction. 
 
 That there is a tendency to evil in the social world is 
 true. Consequently there may be a tendency to imperi- 
 alism. But that evil tendencies in society cannot be 
 resisted or diverted by moral agencies and influences is 
 not true. All evil tendencies in society are results of the 
 influence upon it of evil choices made by individuals ; 
 and they may be diverted or subdued by the counteract- 
 ing influence of righteous choices by individuals. It is 
 thus within the power of every one to affect in some 
 degree the trend of social development. According as he 
 decides for or against the right, whenever his community 
 comes to judgment upon a moral issue, so does he help 
 to make its future. These decisions are the determining 
 factors of history. 
 
 It is not a "good God, bad devil" world, this in which 
 we live. There is no duality of person or force good 
 and bad in eternal conflict. Neither is there a solitary 
 beneficent person or force that instigates evil in order to 
 produce good. This great conflict between good and 
 evil in which we are floundering, is an unavoidable prod- 
 uct of the individual faculty of choosing between good and 
 evil between the moral affirmative and the moral nega-
 
 IMPERIALISM 307 
 
 tive, between moral harmony and moral discord with 
 which man is endowed, and without which he could not 
 be man. Out of that struggle so produced comes the 
 great social force or tendency in social life which we rec- 
 ognize as evil and personify as the devil. Its develop- 
 ment may be readily observed by following in thought 
 the story of a human life. 
 
 Men at birth are wholly selfish. They care for nothing 
 but self-gratification. With advancing maturity, this 
 absorbing self-love gives way in greater or less degree 
 to what in appearance if not in fact is love for others. 
 The grown man, unlike the suckling babe or the toddling 
 child, considers in some measure the comfort of his 
 fellows even at the cost of discomfort to himself. He 
 may do so merely because experience has taught him the 
 wisdom, as matter of pure selfishness, of taking others 
 into account ; or he may do it because the inspiration of 
 love has touched his heart and opened his understanding 
 to a realization of the beneficent law of moral righteous- 
 ness, which is so superbly phrased in the golden rule. 
 But whichever may be his motive, selfishness will not be 
 wholly expelled from his nature. In the one case it 
 will not be even modified. Whoever is altruistic merely 
 because experience or observation has taught him that 
 it pays, is essentially as selfish as an Ishmaelite. In the 
 other case, selfishness remains in degree. No man ever 
 becomes so completely at one with justice, so perfectly 
 in harmony with moral law, as to escape a daily battle 
 between his righteous purposes and his selfish inclina- 
 tions. There are, therefore, innumerable individual 
 decisions against social righteousness. 
 
 In consequence of these individual decisions, there is 
 an evil force in the social world. It consists in the spon-
 
 3 o8 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 taneous cooperation of individual selfishnesses. This is 
 the force that makes for imperialism in all its forms. It 
 is the force that supports aristocracy, plutocracy, oligar- 
 chies, monopolies and boss-ships. It is the force that 
 maintains militarism and monopolies, and every other 
 mode of selfish mastery by man over man. It is the 
 force that once degraded Rome from republic to empire 
 and brought on the Dark Ages, and that threatens now 
 to make history repeat itself with the American republic 
 in the place of the Roman. And this is the force which 
 fatalists regard as inevitable and irresistible. 
 
 It is, indeed, inevitable. But it is not irresistible. In 
 so far as individual men, in their social or public rela- 
 tions, choose the right for its own sake, evil social forces 
 are resisted. When those forces prevail, it is because the 
 social conscience is weak. Slavery cannot live a minute 
 in a community where the dominant sentiment is truly 
 vitalized by the spirit of human liberty. Imperialism 
 could not raise its head if public opinion were inspired by 
 the golden rule. Militarism would be an abhorrent 
 spectre if the common conscience held human life sacred. 
 Against devotion to the right because it is right, evil 
 tendencies in society are impotent. And so tremendous 
 is the expansive power of this righteous force that even 
 a little of it accomplishes mighty things. The righteous- 
 ness of only ten righteous men would have saved 
 Gomorrah from destruction. 
 
 In contrast with the fatalistic philosophy of atheism, 
 and its deadly maxim that "destiny determines duty," 
 how infinitely exalted are the Christian standards of jus- 
 tice and their democratic corollaries. Tried by those 
 tests, all imperialistic policies must be put aside. 
 
 By every principle of Christian government, it is a
 
 IMPERIALISM 309 
 
 wicked assumption for any nation or any race to claim 
 to have a commission to superimpose its authority upon 
 "inferiors," for the regulation of their domestic affairs. 
 This assumption derives all the plausibility it has from 
 the fact that the self-styled "superior" peoples have supe- 
 rior force, and from nothing else. We are able to super- 
 impose our authority upon "inferior" peoples, not because 
 we are superior in any of the things that go to make men 
 morally better or socially more useful, but solely because 
 we are superior in the manipulation of coercive agencies. 
 We are better than they "because we can lick *em," as a 
 rough and ready imperialist has put it. Reduced to its 
 last analysis, then, the pretense that superior peoples have 
 the moral right to superimpose their authority upon infe- 
 rior peoples is a mere euphemism for the brutal proposi- 
 tion that the stronger have the moral right to subjugate 
 the weaker. 
 
 That proposition is no truer of peoples than of indi- 
 viduals. If "superior" peoples have the right to govern 
 "inferior" peoples, then it must be that "superior" indi- 
 viduals have the right to govern "inferior" individuals. 
 And in the one case as in the other, the ultimate test of 
 superiority must be superiority of physical power. 
 Imperialists are entitled to full credit for consistency on 
 this point. They do maintain, with more or less caution 
 according to circumstances and their own disposition to 
 be discreet, that the "inferior" members of a community 
 should be governed by the "superior." This is what 
 imperialism logically leads to. We cannot build up a 
 system of imperialism for "inferior" peoples in colonies 
 abroad, without sooner or later allowing our traditions 
 of equal rights to be pulled down at home. 
 
 This notion that the "better" classes should govern, will
 
 3 io ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 not bear the slightest investigation. "Governmept by 
 the best" has a seductive sound, but there is no substance 
 to the conception. There is no way of picking out the 
 best. 
 
 Education is not a test. Some of the best educated 
 men are the most accomplished knaves, and others are 
 the most consummate fools. 
 
 Property is no test. All have heard Franklin's story 
 of the man who, having been allowed to vote at one 
 election because he owned a jackass equal in value to the 
 property qualification, but being denied the right at the 
 next election because his "property qualification" had 
 meanwhile died, innocently asked which had really voted 
 the first time, himself or the jackass. This old-time anec- 
 dote unmasks the absurdity of property qualifications. 
 
 There might be a society, to be sure, in which property 
 qualifications would afford a reasonable test of special fit- 
 ness to participate in government. If everybody's wealth 
 were the measure of his usefulness if, that is, he could 
 accumulate only in proportion to what he earned his 
 wealth would be some sort of index to the degree of his 
 intelligence, sanity, civic loyalty, thrift, and so on. But 
 we have no such society. The amount of a man's wealth 
 to-day is as a rule an index only to his degree of cupidity, 
 and to his shrewdness in playing in a predatory game. 
 
 Similar objections apply to every other test. To deter- 
 mine who shall administer government, only two effective 
 ways can be conceived. One is to leave the decision to 
 the governed; the other is to resort to force. "Govern- 
 ment by the best," as distinguished from government by 
 the governed, is nothing when examined but a discreetly 
 phrased synonym for government by the strongest. It 
 is the same idea with reference to local government as is
 
 IMPERIALISM 311 
 
 imperialism with reference to colonial government. And 
 to a realization of this idea the American people will 
 surely come if they allow the current of imperialistic 
 tendencies to get beyond their control. 
 
 Any discussion of imperialistic tendencies would be 
 incomplete without some reference to the influence in 
 promoting them of the belief that by this means civiliza- 
 tion is spread over the world. That the feeling that 
 imperialism, conquest, subjugation, or by whatever term 
 one may choose to distinguish the policy of government 
 of "inferior" by "superior" peoples, does extend civiliza- 
 tion contributes largely to its acceptance, we may be well 
 assured. Nor need we doubt that in this feeling there is 
 the germ of a true concept of progress. Then why op- 
 pose imperialism? Why not encourage the extension 
 of superior civilization, even by means of conquest and 
 slaughter ? 
 
 If for no other reason, for the simple one that all the 
 possible benefits of imperialism in this and every other 
 respect can be secured in greater degree without it. The 
 great promoter of true civilization is not military con- 
 quest, nor conquest of any other kind by means of force. 
 The great promoter of civilization is trade. Not the 
 trade that is said to follow the flag. Not the trade that 
 consists in exporting without importing. Not any kind 
 of strangulated trade. But free trade. 
 
 Left to itself, in obedience to a natural law as obvious 
 and persistent as it is beneficent, trade penetrates from 
 every center into every nook and corner and cranny of 
 the inhabited globe. As it extends, it carries with it a 
 knowledge of the best customs and the best ideals, as 
 well as the best goods, that the world has to offer the 
 world. And with knowledge of what is best, comes vol-
 
 312 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 untary selection of the best. Thus the best in all things 
 conquers peacefully, when trade is free to stimulate peace- 
 ful intercourse and exchange. 
 
 But this natural and peaceful and serviceable conquest 
 of inferiors by superiors is artfully checked. With 
 deceptive phrases about protecting trade, trade is ob- 
 structed. Nor are the "inferior" peoples the great sinners 
 in this particular. They always give the warmest wel- 
 come to foreigners until they find that foreigners are bent 
 upon plunder. China, for instance, did not shut herself 
 in commercially for commercial reasons. It was because 
 the civilized barbarian began to lord it over her. We 
 must turn for the worst attacks upon freedom of trade, to 
 the statutes of civilized countries, including our own. 
 The extent to which the spread of civilization is prevented 
 by the deliberate policies for checking trade, can only be 
 conjectured. But it is certain that if conquest, subjuga- 
 tion, imperialism, contribute at all to the spread of civili- 
 zation, they do so only in so far as they break down the 
 barriers to trade that our barbarous protection policies 
 set up. 
 
 Let us drop our policy of obstructing trade, let us make 
 bargaining as free as breathing, let us hold out this policy 
 as an example of civilized ideals let us do these things, 
 and long before imperialism could slaughter enough 
 crown colony natives to make the survivors tract- 
 able, peaceful trade would carry what is best in our civ- 
 ilization to the uttermost parts of the earth ; and, what 
 might prove to be of more moment, would bring to us 
 what is best in civilizations that we in our ignorant pride 
 hold in contempt as "inferior." 
 
 By this means, too, we should make alliances for peace 
 instead of alliances for war.
 
 IMPERIALISM 313 
 
 There have been dreams of annexing Canada to the 
 United States. But Canada could be more firmly annexed 
 by free trade than by political bonds. It is not the polit- 
 ical federation of our States that benefits them as units in 
 the American Union; it is the free trade which that 
 Union maintains between them. Abolish our domestic 
 trade freedom, and there would be chaos here though 
 the political union were preserved. Abolish the political 
 union but preserve the trade freedom, and we should 
 hardly be conscious of the change. Free trade between 
 the States is the real substance of the American Union. 
 This is the alliance that makes the States one. 
 
 It is the kind of alliance that would unite us to Canada, 
 to Australia, to New Zealand, to Great Britain, to Asia, to 
 Africa, to all the civilized and all the uncivilized peoples of 
 the world, in bonds of perpetual friendship and mutual 
 service. It would not require political annexation. It 
 would not require subjugation. It would not require 
 even treaties. Nothing is necessary but to abolish the 
 trade barriers which we ourselves have erected and main- 
 tain. If we abolished ours, other nations could not long 
 maintain theirs. 
 
 It is highly significant that this normal method of ex- 
 tending civilization, this Christian kind of alliance, finds 
 no favor with imperialists. The more ardent they are for 
 extending trade at the point of the sword, the more deter- 
 mined are they to obstruct trade by protection statutes. 
 Though they are solicitous for military alliances, they 
 are fearful of trade friendships. When we were pleading 
 in this country for free trade and friendship with Eng- 
 land, they urged us to hate the English. But when 
 England offered us a barbaric imperial alliance for the 
 subjugation of "inferior" races, these same false guides
 
 314 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 were enthusiastic in their praises of the masterful char- 
 acter and the glorious future of Anglo-Saxon dominion. 
 And to give moral color to the infamy, they discoursed 
 upon the duty of loving England and joining with her in 
 "extending civilization." 
 
 If it is civilization that we wish to spread, if the 
 progress of the world is our object, we have only to 
 become universal free traders instead of imperialistic free 
 booters. Here is the choice. Free trade, with the olive 
 branch of peace and the horn of general plenty ; or imperi- 
 alism, with the destructive implements and the demoral- 
 izing influences of war. 
 
 Which shall it be?
 
 PART VII 
 
 PATRI OTI SM
 
 Patriotism having become one of our topics, Johnson suddenly 
 uttered in a strong, determined tone, an apothegm at which many 
 will start: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." But 
 let it be considered that he did not mean a real and genuine love 
 of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in 
 all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest. 
 
 * BOSWELL'S "Johnson" 
 
 Our country is the world our countrymen are all mankind. 
 
 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
 
 Would we tread in the paths of tyranny, 
 
 Nor reckon the tyrant's cost? 
 Who taketh another's liberty, 
 
 His freedom is also lost. 
 Would we win as the strong have ever won? 
 
 Make ready to pay the debt. 
 For the God who reigned over Babylon 
 
 Is the God who is reigning yet. 
 
 The laws 01 right are eternal laws, 
 
 The judgments of truth are true. 
 My greed-blind masters, I bid you pause 
 
 And look on the work you do. 
 You bind with shackles your fellow man; 
 
 Your hands with his blood are wet. 
 And the God who reigned over Babylon 
 
 Is the God who is reigning yet. 
 
 J. A. EDGERTOX, in "Democratic Magazine." 
 3*7
 
 Though your word shall run with power, and your arm reach 
 
 over seas, 
 Yet the questing bolt shall find you if you keep not faith with 
 
 these ; 
 
 Lest you be at one with Egypt, lest you lie as Rome lies now 
 In the potter's field of empires, mint and cumin, keep the vow. 
 Keep the truth your fathers made, 
 Lest your children grow afraid, 
 Lest you hear the captives' mothers weeping sore 
 There is little worth beside 
 They are dead because they lied, 
 And the young men's feet are at the door. 
 
 MARY AUSTIN, in "Land of Sunshine," for February, 1900. 
 
 Toll for the death of Empire! Through the gloom, 
 Deep and vibrating, speaks the solemn bell 
 
 The last dread warning of the coming doom : 
 His body to the dust ; his deeds to hell ! 
 
 Toll for the death of Empire ! Lift the head ; 
 Take off the crown of tyranny and fear; 
 And let no man do honor at the bier. 
 Ring for the reign of Freedom. 
 
 Empire's dead! 
 BERTRAND SHADWELL, in The Public, for March 29, 1902.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WHAT IS PATRIOTISM ? 
 
 TO say that patriotism is love of country begs the 
 question, for love of country must itself be ex- 
 plained. It cannot mean love of a country's soil, of its 
 trees and hills and rocks and rills. If that were its mean- 
 ing a large proportion of the inhabitants of every nation 
 would be without love of country, for most of them have 
 none to love. Not a rood of old mother earth belongs to 
 them, nor can they use any of it without paying toll to 
 some more fortunate patriot. Love of country, to be truly 
 such, must be nothing less than love of one's neighbors 
 within a nation's boundaries. 
 
 But love of neighbors means more than a sentimental 
 affection for what one may call his own as his wife, 
 his family, his friends, his house, his horse, his cattle. 
 Love of one's neighbors within the boundaries of his 
 nation love, that is, of one's countrymen if it be love 
 of them in very truth, must consist in devotion to those 
 ideals and institutions of the country which guarantee 
 equal rights to all its inhabitants. 
 
 If that be patriotism, however, then is there a larger 
 patriotism, a patriotism which embraces the world and is 
 the political expression of the golden rule. In the pur- 
 view of this larger patriotism it is treason to make war 
 save for the preservation of natural rights. It is treason 
 as well as criminal aggression to pursue a policy of forc- 
 ible annexation. For he who truly loves his neighbors 
 within his own country, who loves them to the extent of 
 
 319
 
 320 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 cherishing their rights equally with his own, cannot draw 
 the line at his own country. He must abhor any inva- 
 sion by his countrymen of the country of others, which he 
 would repel if his own were the country invaded. 
 
 This larger patriotism is the antithesis of that spirit of 
 imperialism which, appealing to spurious patriotism, con- 
 demns all opposition as treason. Imperialism would sub- 
 jugate "inferior" peoples on pretense of elevating them; 
 the larger patriotism would encourage all peoples to 
 elevate themselves. Imperialism is the national phari- 
 see, who thanks God that he is better than other men. 
 The larger patriotism is the national apostle, spreading by 
 practice as well as precept the civilizing principle of Him 
 who rebuked the Pharisee, and taught men that principle 
 of love which is justice and that rule of righteousness 
 which directs each to do to others as he would have others 
 do to him. 
 
 The sentiment which expresses itself in the maxim, 
 "My country, right or wrong," is spurious patriotism. 
 It is nothing but self love somewhat diluted. Note the 
 logical gradations: "My country, right or wrong; my 
 State, right or wrong; my county, right or wrong; my 
 town or city, right or wrong; my ward, right or wrong; 
 my voting precinct, right or wrong; my family, right 
 or wrong ; myself, right or wrong. Me !" 
 
 This sentiment has been for nearly a century a fa- 
 vorite with the ambitious who mask their selfish pur- 
 poses behind pretenses of patriotism. It originated quite 
 innocently with an American naval commander, Com- 
 modore Decatur. Upon returning from his historic ex- 
 pedition to the Mediterranean, he was everywhere the 
 recipient of public honors ; and among the banquets tend- 
 ered him was one at Norfolk, the home city of his wife,
 
 WHAT IS PATRIOTISM? 321 
 
 which came off in April, 1816. When, in accordance with 
 the custom of the time, he was called upon for a toast on 
 that occasion, Decatur responded with this sentiment: 
 "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, 
 may she always be in the right ; but our country, right or 
 wrong." 
 
 Considering its source, the sentiment was a good one. 
 For Decatur spoke as a naval officer pledged to obey ; not 
 as a citizen invested with a right and charged with a duty 
 to decide. It was as if he had exclaimed : "I hope my 
 country in her foreign quarrels will always be in the 
 right ; but be she right or be she wrong, I as an officer of 
 her navy have no choice but to execute her commands." 
 
 If a serious-minded constable were to say : "I hope I 
 may never be required to execute an unjust warrant; but 
 just or unjust I shall execute it," he would express with 
 reference to one grade of public service precisely what 
 Decatur expressed, and doubtless intended to express, 
 with reference to another. Decatur could not have meant 
 that as a citizen he would vote either to make or to prose- 
 cute a war that he knew to be unrighteous. Such a senti- 
 ment would have implied that he had the instincts of a 
 buccaneer ; and this is negatived by the other words of his 
 toast, in which he prayed that in her intercourse with for- 
 eign nations his country might always be in the right. 
 Clearly he could have meant no more than that as a mil- 
 itary servant of his country he would obey the lawfully 
 expressed commands of her people. 
 
 But the occasion of Decatur's utterance was what 
 would now be recognized as a jingo banquet. Wine 
 flowed and glory glistened. Here was one of the toasts : 
 "The Mediterranean ! The sea not more of Greek and 
 Roman than of American glory." This was another:
 
 322 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 "The Crescent ! Our stars have dimmed its lustre." And 
 here was a third: "National Glory! A gem above all 
 price, and worthy of every hazard to sustain its splendor." 
 
 It would not be remarkable if in those circumstances 
 and to that glory-intoxicated party of banqueters, Deca- 
 tur's conception of his duty as a naval officer seemed like 
 a revelation of one of the duties of American citizenship. 
 Such at any rate must have been their understanding of 
 it, for they gave that coloring to his words. And so, for 
 nearly a century, Decatur's fair fame has been tarnished 
 by this low notion, attributed to him, of an American 
 citizen's duty. Ever since his famous toast, no matter 
 how mean or wicked the stand the agents of their country 
 have taken, voters have been adjured in the name of pa- 
 triotism and even of religion, not only by party politicians 
 but also by so-called preachers of righteousness, to vote 
 for their country's side of every controversy, be it right 
 or wrong. 
 
 The voter who follows this advice turns away from the 
 highest duty that an American citizen can be called upon 
 to discharge the duty of keeping his country, as far 
 as his influence and vote may go, in the path of right- 
 eousness. For in America, in theory at least, the voters 
 are king. Officials are only their servants. 
 
 What should we think of an absolute king, who after his 
 ministers had without his authority adopted an unright- 
 eous policy, should confirm that policy knowing it to be 
 unrighteous and opposing it in his heart because it was 
 unrighteous, but confirming it upon the plea that he must 
 sustain his country, right or wrong? What should we 
 think of the king's chaplain if he advised the king to con- 
 firm that policy, arguing that the king must stand by his 
 country, right or wrong? Yet American citizens, Amer-
 
 WHAT IS PATRIOTISM? 323 
 
 ican voters, are advised to imitate the absolute king we 
 have imagined, whenever they are urged to use their 
 influence and vote in support of their country's policy, 
 right or wrong. 
 
 It is one thing to advise a constable to execute a war- 
 rant, just or unjust; he is an agent whose business it is 
 to obey agents that are placed above him. As constable 
 he has no other responsibility. So it is one thing to ad- 
 vise a military or naval officer to fight when his superiors 
 order him to, be the cause right or wrong; he, like the 
 constable, is an agent whose business it is to obey agents 
 above him. As military or naval officer he has no other 
 responsibility. But it is a very different thing to advise 
 citizens to vote for their country's cause, be that cause 
 right or wrong. The responsibility of the voter cannot be 
 so lightly evaded. There is no one to shift it to. Voters 
 are charged with the duty of seeing to it that their coun- 
 try's cause is never wrong. And for this purpose they, 
 and not their agents or officers, are the court of final 
 appeal. 
 
 Even at its best, loyalty to country, as distinguished 
 from loyalty to right, is a despicable sentiment. It is 
 often ludicrously so. An instance may be found in a 
 letter from Madagascar, once published in the London 
 Spectator. The letter-writer was all unconscious of any 
 satire upon loyalty. He had nothing in mind but the ignor- 
 ance of the French soldier he quoted. This soldier, a 
 corporal to whom loyalty was evidently the first law of 
 love, had told the letter-writer quite innocently that he 
 "thought it disloyal and altogether wrong in Christ, when 
 he had been born a Jew, to turn Christian." 
 
 But what is called loyalty to country means something 
 even lower than the words imply. Boiled down to its
 
 324 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 dregs, this loyalist doctrine, "Our country, right or 
 wrong" not as Decatur meant it, but as it is commonly 
 understood is not loyalty to country at all; it is loyalty 
 to office holders. 
 
 Now it is not to be denied that there is virtue in a 
 certain loyalty to office holders. But this virtuous loyalty 
 is analogous to that which is due from clients to lawyers. 
 When you have decided that you have just cause for 
 litigation, you must loyally trust your lawyer to manage 
 the technical details. But you cannot escape moral re- 
 sponsibility for making unjust claims and bracing them 
 up with perjured testimony, on any such plea as that a 
 client must be loyal to his lawyer right or wrong. The 
 legal technicalities of your case are one thing; as to them 
 you must trust your lawyer, be he right or wrong. The 
 essential justice of your cause is another thing; as to 
 that you must instruct your lawyer, and instruct him 
 right. 
 
 So with the relation of voters to office-holders. As to 
 methods, voters should be loyal to all office holders who 
 are not reasonably suspected of infidelity to their trust. 
 But as to ultimate objects, especially if they involve 
 issues of right and wrong, it is not only the right but the 
 duty of voters to command. The loyalty to an office- 
 holder which supports his policy right or wrong, so far 
 from being patriotism is moral treason. 
 
 This is the species of loyalty, however, with which the 
 world is most familiar. It is from it that the impious 
 doctrine of "divine right" drew all its strength. In our 
 own country, at the very beginning, the tories or "loyal- 
 ists," as they called themselves were loyal only to the 
 king. It was their constant cry that the king must be 
 supported, right or wrong. Three-fourths of a century
 
 WHAT IS PATRIOTISM? 325 
 
 later, the same sort of loyalty manifested itself in con- 
 nection with the Mexican war, and James Russell Lowell 
 caught it up and laughed at it in these well-remembered 
 verses : 
 
 The side of our country must oilers be took, 
 
 An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is our country. 
 An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book 
 Puts the debit to him, an' to us the per*contry; 
 An' John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. 
 
 In later times we have heard with the old persistency 
 the same old plea to the voters of the nation to be loyal 
 to the country, right or wrong. And when we have probed 
 the matter nor has much probing been necessary we 
 have found that we were being urged to be loyal not to 
 the country, right or wrong, but to some of President 
 Folk's successors, right or wrong. 
 
 Spurious patriotism is most dangerous, however, when 
 the object of its adoration is the country's flag. There are 
 patriotic pagans as there are religious pagans. The re- 
 ligious pagan banishes God from his religion and substi- 
 tutes ugly idols. The patriotic pagan banishes principle 
 from his patriotism and substitutes brilliant bunting. 
 
 This tendency to represent principles by symbols began 
 with the race, and will doubtless persist while the race 
 lasts. It is not only natural, it is also useful. Realities 
 which might otherwise be to mortal knowledge mere ab- 
 stractions, are thereby made visible and tangible. 
 
 Symbolism, however, is not the truest mode of giving 
 material form to abstract principles. That is supplied by 
 nature herself. All that we see or feel in nature sun- 
 shine, air, water, trees, animals; all that art applied to
 
 326 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 nature produces for the further or better gratification of 
 our desires clothing, houses, food, machinery, books, 
 pictures, statuary; all tfhat we do in satisfaction of natu- 
 ral impulses eating, working, playing, sleeping, bathing 
 are material expressions of principles ; of principles 
 that we may call moral, mental, abstract or spiritual, as 
 suits us best. What we call them is of little moment. The 
 vital thing is that they themselves are eternal verities. 
 
 They are verities, too, that project themselves into the 
 realm of matter in the material forms to which we have 
 referred. Without them, these forms could no more 
 exist than could reflections in the mirror without objects 
 to be reflected. No mere accidental analogies are these 
 forms. They express or manifest different phases of 
 eternal truth, much as fruit expresses or manifests the 
 vital forces of the tree that bears it. And as the invisible 
 and intangible forces of the tree become manifest and 
 distinguishable to us in its fruit, so does invisible and in- 
 tangible truth become manifest, distinguishable, appre- 
 hensible, in the phenomena of material nature which ft 
 projects. It is because these phenomena are expressions 
 of principles, because they correspond naturally and nec- 
 essarily with the respective truths they interpret, that 
 they offer the truest mode of making abstract principles 
 visible and tangible. 
 
 Nevertheless, artificial and arbitrary symbolism does 
 serve a great purpose in likewise giving material ex- 
 pression to abstract principles. The spiritual significance 
 of natural phenomena is not obvious to all. There is a 
 logical philosophy there which requires maturity of mind 
 as well as openness of heart for its appreciation ; and when 
 that is lacking, arbitrary symbolism may become a substi- 
 tute for natural phenomena as an interpreter of what lies
 
 WHAT IS PATRIOTISM? 327 
 
 beyond. Arbitrary symbolism may, therefore, and in fact 
 it does, serve the useful purpose of stimulating many 
 minds to a recognition of the reality of abstract truth. It 
 is thus in some sort a primer of spiritual knowledge. 
 
 The fraternity of Free Masons offers examples of 
 the inculcation of moral principles by means of arbi- 
 trary symbolism. Between immortality and the sprig of 
 acacia, between uprightness of human conduct and the 
 mason's plumb, between morality and the mason's square, 
 between the principle of human equality and the mason's 
 level, there is no natural relation. The one does not pro- 
 duce the other. This is arbitrary symbolism and nothing 
 else. Yet by means of such symbols, principles that might 
 otherwise seem to be without form and void, are taught, 
 perceived and felt. 
 
 Similarly with religious worship, though in a broader 
 spiritual field. To inculcate principles, arbitrary symbols 
 are adopted. Images, called idols, have been set up to 
 represent deity, the Unknown being thereby brought as 
 it were within the range of human vision and the pos- 
 sibilities of human touch. Thus God becomes real to the 
 simplest apprehension. In like manner forms and cere- 
 monies are established that vital principles may become 
 similarly visible and tangible. Worshipers kneel in token 
 of spiritual humility. They hold a cross aloft to sym- 
 boHze spiritual redemption. They join in the sacrament 
 of the Lord's supper that symbol of participation in 
 spiritual good things, which is typified naturally by nat- 
 tural eating and drinking. They adopt the symbol of 
 baptism in token of that cleansing of the spirit by divine 
 truth which is naturally represented by bathing with 
 water for the cleansing of the body. Church worship, 
 even the simplest in form, is replete with arbitrary sym- 
 bolism.
 
 328 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 And so is it in the sphere of patriotism, where the great 
 symbol is the flag. A mere piece of colored bunting, a 
 nation's flag is nevertheless the visible and tangible rep- 
 resentation of national ideals. It is national principles, 
 national traditions, national honor, national aspirations, 
 materialized. What religious rites are to the true wor- 
 shiper, such is the flag to the true patriot. It is the 
 symbol to his eye of political principles that appeal to his 
 understanding and enchain his affections. 
 
 Rational uses of symbolism need no defense. So long 
 as the symbol retains its proper place as a symbol, its 
 usefulness as an implement of religious, moral and patri- 
 otic thought and instruction will hardly be disputed. 
 While the Free Mason finds in the level a crude repre- 
 sentation of God's law of equality, which he adopts as his 
 own, he is worshiping God. So with the savage who is 
 reminded by the rude idol before which he bows, of an 
 Intelligence and Beneficence that he cannot comprehend 
 and cannot otherwise even concentrate his thoughts upon. 
 He is a worshiper as truly as if he were intelligent enough 
 to dispense with symbols. It is the same with Christian 
 churchmen. Their worship, however formal, however 
 conventional, however symbolic in its ceremonies, is true 
 worship so long as the forms and ceremonies and symbols 
 are to them but convenient representations of spiritual 
 truths that can be realized in the material world only by 
 means of natural correspondences of natural symbols. In 
 a similar category, if not the same, is the patriot who re- 
 veres the flag of his country because it symbolizes what to 
 him is sacred in the principles for which the government 
 of his country stands. 
 
 But, when the symbol takes the place of the principle 
 symbolized, when principles are ignored and their symbols
 
 WHAT IS PATRIOTISM? 329 
 
 are revered for themselves alone, then symbols become 
 the detestable objects of mere fetish worship. What the 
 savage is who makes his idol his god, precisely that is 
 the Free Mason who prates about the square and the level 
 regardless of moral obligations and the principle of 
 equal rights; precisely that is the churchman who clings 
 to forms and ceremonies regardless of the spiritual prin- 
 ciples they are designed to symbolize ; precisely that is the 
 man who cheers the flag of his country regardless of 
 the cause in which it waves. They are fetish worshipers 
 all. 
 
 And the worst of fetish worship is not merely that it 
 is personally degrading. The worst of it is that it en- 
 ables designing men to marshal fetish-worshiping people 
 against the very truths their fetish originally symbolized. 
 Thus hypocrites in the church have been able to turn tem- 
 ples of God into dens of thieves amid the hosannas of the 
 faithful ; and traitors to the commonwealth have won ap- 
 plause while digging up its foundations and pulling down 
 its ideals. The fetish of a fetish-worshiping people once 
 secured, all the power of its superstitious worshipers is 
 secured also. 
 
 Popular liberties never have been and never will be 
 destroyed by the power of usurpers. They are destroyed 
 by the free consent of the people themselves. When a 
 free people turn from the principles of liberty to worship 
 its lifeless symbols, they are in condition to become easy 
 dupes of the first bold leader who has the shrewdness to 
 conjure them with those symbols. No free people can 
 lose their liberties while they are jealous of liberty. But 
 the liberties of the freest people are in danger when they 
 set up symbols of liberty as fetishes, worshiping the sym- 
 bol instead of the principle it represents.
 
 330 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 This, then, is the difference between true patriotism 
 and spurious patriotism. Whereas the spurious patriot 
 worships the flag of his country and is loyal to her offi- 
 cials right or wrong, the true patriot honors his country's 
 flag as the symbol of her ideals, and regards her officials 
 as servants who are entitled to loyalty and respect al- 
 ways when they are right but never when they are wrong. 
 The soldier may fight for country, though his country be 
 wrong, yet be a patriot ; but the citizen who votes to put 
 his country in the wrong or keep it there, is a traitor. 
 
 The highest and purest patriotism was expressed by 
 Lowell when he wrote : 
 
 I loved my country so as only they 
 
 Who love a mother fit to die for may. 
 
 I loved her old renown, her stainless fame; 
 
 What better proof than that I loathed her shame ?
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PATRIOTIC IDEALS 
 
 THE American flag symbolizes a great political prin- 
 ciple, a great moral principle, a great religious princi- 
 ple. It is the symbol of noble ideals, toward the reali- 
 zation of which we have been growing for a century 
 and more, and which are summed up comprehensively in 
 the first clause of the Declaration of Independence in 
 these memorable words: 
 
 "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 
 are created equal, that they are endowed by their Cre- 
 ator with certain unalienable rights, that among these 
 are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 
 
 As explained in a previous chapter, this does not mean 
 that men are created equally tall, or muscular, or moral, 
 or intellectual, or civilized. That interpretation of the 
 words is either childish or malevolent. What is meant 
 is that however men may differ in height, in muscular 
 strength, in intellectual vigor, or in other physicial or 
 mental endowments, they are created with equal rights. 
 To deny that they are so created, is to deny the Father- 
 hood of God ; for if God be the Father of all men, then 
 all men are brothers. 
 
 But rights have correlative duties. Consequently, the 
 assertion that men have equal rights, implies that they 
 owe duties to correspond. It is in fact the equivalent 
 of the assertion that each owes a duty to respect equality 
 of rights in all. The same principle is expressed by the 
 golden rule: "All things whatsoever ye would that men 
 
 331
 
 332 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 should do to you, do ye even so to them." There could 
 be no more unequivocal statement of the principle. 
 
 This principle is of universal application. It admits 
 of no exceptions. White men and black, male and female, 
 rich and poor, ignorant and educated, civilized and un- 
 civilized, whatever be their religion or their race, all have 
 equal rights which each is in duty bound to respect. No 
 man in his relations with other men, can have greater 
 natural rights or owe lesser duties, than the lowliest Has 
 not God, the giver of all rights and the arbiter of all 
 duties, declared that He is no respecter of persons ? 
 
 First among the great fundamental rights with which 
 all are equally endowed and which each is bound to 
 respect, is the right to life. Men may forfeit it by con- 
 duct prejudicial to the life of others; but except as so 
 forfeited, the right to life is equal. 
 
 So of the right to liberty. This, too, may be for- 
 feited; but except as forfeited by conduct prejudicial 
 to life or liberty, the right to liberty is equal. 
 
 So also all are equally endowed with the right to 
 pursue happiness, a right of which, like the others, no 
 one can justly be divested except for conduct in violation 
 of his duty to respect the equal right of all. 
 
 To these rights life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- 
 piness there is no other limitation in natural justice 
 than the corresponding duty so to respect them as to 
 secure and maintain their equality. 
 
 Supplementary to the fundamental proposition of the 
 Declaration of Independence, that immortal charter of 
 liberty further asserts that the inalienable rights of man- 
 kind already named are secured by governments "deriv- 
 ing their just powers from the consent of the governed." 
 This clause is supplementary because it only elaborates
 
 PATRIOTIC IDEALS 333 
 
 the first clause, which embodies the whole principle. 
 And the proposition that "all men are created equal" 
 with equal rights includes not only the right to "life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of happiness," not only the prin- 
 ciple that governments derive their "just powers from 
 the consent of the governed," but also that right by means 
 of which alone the governed can peaceably give their 
 consent to the government the right to the ballot. 
 
 Upon the foregoing principles all democratic govern- 
 ment is founded. The government that does not rest 
 upon them is not only not democratic, but is not a just 
 government at all. It is but a species of arbitrary force. 
 Such government, by whatever fine names it may describe 
 itself to indicate that it maintains stability and preserves 
 order, is in truth but organized lawlessness. 
 
 And acceptance of these principles must be more than 
 verbal. Fully accepted, they preclude the recognition 
 by government of chattel slavery. No man can own 
 another without violating his duty to respect the equal 
 right of all to liberty; and no government can enforce 
 such ownership without renouncing one of its primary 
 functions, that of securing liberty to all. Nor is con- 
 demnation of chattel slavery enough. There are other 
 modes, more subtle but not less oppressive, of denying 
 equality of rights. Chief among these is land monopoly. 
 Where that flourishes equal rights to life, liberty and the 
 pursuit of happiness, are inevitably overthrown. 
 
 Since in justice those rights are equal, there must 
 in justice be equal rights to land. Without land man 
 cannot sustain life. It is to him as water to the fish 
 or air to the bird his natural environment. And if to 
 get land whereby to support life, any man is compelled to 
 give his labor or the products of his labor to another,
 
 334 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 to that extent his liberty is denied him and his right 
 to pursue happiness is obstructed. Enforced toil with- 
 out pay is the essence of slavery, and permission to use 
 land can be no pay for toil; he who gives it parts with 
 nothing that any man ever earned, and he who gets it 
 acquires nothing that nature would not freely offer him 
 but for the interference of land monopolists. It is the 
 duty of government, then, to secure to all equal rights 
 to land. 
 
 That the laws and institutions of the United States 
 have not always been and are not now completely con- 
 sistent with these ideals, is true. 
 
 When the ideals were proclaimed, the African slave 
 trade was a recognized occupation; and it continued for 
 more than thirty years under the sanction of our funda- 
 mental law. Slavery itself was protected by our funda- 
 mental law for three-quarters of a century. Here were 
 plain denials of liberty. 
 
 In many States the right of men to vote unless they had 
 property was long legally denied; while in all the States 
 the right of women to vote was denied until recently, and 
 in most it is still denied. Here we find another bald 
 inconsistency. Equality of rights under the law implies, 
 and government only by consent of the governed vir- 
 tually specifies, the ballot as a right. To deny the ballot 
 to any person is to deny him the power of even protest- 
 ing against the manner in which he is governed. The 
 right of consultation is inseparable from the right of self- 
 government; and no right of consultation can be enjoyed 
 by a ballotless man. Even the lives of members of a 
 ballotless class are dependent upon the good will of their 
 political superiors. 
 
 These violations of the right to life, liberty and self-
 
 PATRIOTIC IDEALS 335 
 
 government were indeed inconsistent with American 
 ideals. But they were not denials of those ideals. The 
 inconsistencies were in vogue when the ideals were pro- 
 claimed. The ideals have survived; most of the incon- 
 sistencies have been repudiated. 
 
 The slave trade was taken out of the category of legiti- 
 mate occupations and denounced as piracy. Slavery was 
 abolished, its re-establishment forbidden, and the former 
 slave armed with the ballot. The ballot has been ex- 
 tended in most of the States to all men and in some to 
 all women. The history of slavery and of ballot restric- 
 tion therefore go to prove, not deliberate disloyalty to 
 our national ideals, but advances toward them. 
 
 Equal rights, then, before the law ; equal rights to life 
 and liberty and the pursuit of happiness; equal citizen- 
 ship, with no "subjects," wherever the flag floats and its 
 authority is asserted ; and no toleration of governmental 
 powers not derived from the consent of the governed 
 these are the American ideals; these are the basis of 
 American patriotism; these are the principles our flag 
 symbolizes.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 TRAMPLING UPON PATRIOTIC IDEALS 
 
 THERE come times in the history of nations when 
 events compel them to bring their actions to the 
 test of first principles. At such times the truly patriotic 
 citizen is forced into a searching and momentous com- 
 parison of national ideals with immediate national pur- 
 poses and policies. Upon the decisions at these crises 
 measurably depends the fate of the nation whether it 
 shall rise farther toward its ideals, or sink away from 
 them. Nor can the decisions be evaded. For better or 
 worse, for good or evil, for growth or decay, for ad- 
 vance or retreat, in harmony with national ideals or in 
 defiance of them, the decisions must be made. 
 
 Similar critical moments come also in the lives of indi- 
 viduals. There are times when they, too, brought face to 
 face with some conflict between their momentary desires 
 and their moral ideals, are forced to choose. These are 
 the best periods of a good man's life. Well may such a 
 one exclaim : "Thank God for sin !" Resisting tempta- 
 tion, he comes out of the struggle better and stronger. 
 He is then nearer to his ideals, though not abreast of 
 them. 
 
 No man is as good as his ideals, if he has ideals. 
 Still, it is not to be inferred that all men are hypocrites. 
 Given moral ideals, a man is to be judged not by the 
 closeness with which he commonly lives up to them, but 
 by the willingness with which he makes them his stand- 
 ard in times of temptation. If he then squares his pur- 
 
 336
 
 TRAMPLING UPON IDEALS 337 
 
 pose with his ideals, he grows toward his ideals; if he 
 modifies his ideals to suit his purpose, he grows away 
 from them. 
 
 To illustrate, let us imagine a born thief, who comes 
 to accept as one of his moral ideals the eighth com- 
 mandment. He now believes it wrong to steal, he tries 
 not to steal, and on the whole he virtuously refrains from 
 stealing. But now and again he awakes to a realization 
 of the fact that acts which he had not before understood 
 to be larcenous are larcenous. His decisions when 
 tempted to repeat these acts will determine whether he 
 is growing toward his ideal or away from it whether 
 he is becoming less of a thief or more of one. If, hold- 
 ing to the ideal, he struggles against the temptation, then 
 he gains in moral strength and invites further moral 
 enlightenment. But if, giving way to the temptation, he 
 modifies his ideal calls the eighth commandment a glit- 
 tering generality, construes it in the light of the lar- 
 cenous precedents he himself has made, and interprets 
 out of it its moral force then it were better for him 
 never to have had an ideal. 
 
 As with an individual in this respect, so with a nation. 
 When events bring its purposes into open collision with 
 its moral ideals, and the necessity is admitted of alter- 
 ing the one or modifying the other, the decision of that 
 nation determines the direction in which it is going. 
 If it decides for its ideals, it is advancing; if it decides 
 against them, it is receding. 
 
 Whether the nation has always been true to its moral 
 ideals, is at such a time of minor importance. Whether 
 it is even now true to them in many of its customs is, 
 in connection with the crisis before it, of no importance 
 at all. The vital question that confronts it is, Whether
 
 338 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 the new policy it is urged to adopt, the new customs it 
 is asked to establish, the new national habits it is advised 
 to form, are in harmony with its ideals. If they are not, 
 then their adoption would be not merely inconsistent; 
 it would be equivalent to a deliberate repudiation. 
 
 To illustrate with a recent great temptation of our own 
 country: We have been passing through an experience 
 in which we are obliged repeatedly to ask ourselves as a 
 nation, not whether we shall struggle to throw off some 
 ancient custom which is inconsistent with our ideals, not 
 whether we shall make a further advance toward our 
 ideals; but whether we shall adopt a new policy which 
 denies, and is on all hands admitted to deny, those 
 ideals flatly and affirmatively, positively and aggressively. 
 We are asking ourselves whether we shall flout our ideals, 
 and shall consciously and deliberately recede from them. 
 
 To make conquests and establish over the people we 
 conquer a government which they do not voluntarily ac- 
 cept, and in the management of which they are to have 
 no voice, a government that is under no constitutional 
 obligations to protect their lives and liberties, but which 
 according to those who advocate it could dispose of all 
 their rights in its discretion, would be to deny the funda- 
 mental right of self-government in a new relationship. 
 Thus we should not merely remain inconsistent with our 
 ideals ; we should be turning our backs upon them. This 
 is perfectly well understood by the advocates of imperial 
 colonialism, and they brazenly urge us to turn our backs 
 upon those ideals, arguing that the ideals are illusory. 
 
 Their arguments for this new departure are most plaus- 
 ible, perhaps, when directed against the ballot as an in- 
 herent right. Men of common sense are not misled very 
 readily by the pettifogger's plea of precedent. To them
 
 TRAMPLING UPON IDEALS 339 
 
 it is no argument against the right of all to the ballot, 
 that in practice the ballot has been extensively withheld. 
 As well argue against the right to life and to liberty be- 
 cause those rights have been withheld. That we have not 
 realized our ideals is easily seen to foe no sane reason 
 for abandoning them. Because only some classes have 
 in fact been allowed to vote, is clearly a weak excuse 
 for denying the soundness of the American ideal that all 
 are entitled to vote. To allow precedents thus to over- 
 rule principles, would be to make fetishes of precedents; 
 or to use them as bushels to put candles under, instead 
 of lights to illumine the pathway. 
 
 But regardless of precedent, there are apparently in- 
 herent objections to the universal suffrage which is nec- 
 essarily involved in the idea of self-government and is 
 therefore negatived as a right by the policy of colonialism. 
 Some of these objections have been considered in other 
 connections in previous chapters, but they recur. It is 
 asked : Who shall vote ? What shall determine a man's 
 right to vote ? What about children, idiots, lunatics, con- 
 victs, Indians, Negroes? Children are too young; idiots 
 and lunatics are incapables ; convicts are social enemies ; 
 Indians are savages ; Negroes, if permitted in the South 
 to "express their wish through the ballot and to have 
 it counted," to quote one objector, "would ruin the 
 country." Are all these entitled to vote? If not, they 
 are governed without their consent, and then what be- 
 comes of the American ideal? Such is the drift of the 
 questions. 
 
 With children there is a debatable line. No one can 
 say exactly when they mature. Each individual differs. 
 But every normal person does mature at some time 
 between his first day in the world and his thirtieth
 
 340 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 year; and if the voting age be fixed reasonably, none 
 but a logic-chopper could persistently object that depriva- 
 tion of the voting right prior to that age is essentially 
 inconsistent with our national ideals. 
 
 As to idiots and lunatics, they are in abnormal states. 
 Disease makes them incapable of performing any social 
 function; and as consultation regarding government is 
 a social function, it is their disease and not a legal dis- 
 crimination as to social rights, that really excludes them 
 from voting. Idiots and lunatics, like children during 
 immaturity, are naturally not through legal discrimina- 
 tion, but naturally under guardianship. So long as 
 their social rights are secured them upon their emerging 
 naturally from that state, their equality of rights is not 
 denied. 
 
 Convicts fall into a different class. By preying upon 
 society they forfeit social rights. To outlaw a man for 
 his crime, is not to deprive him of equal rights under the 
 law. It is punishing him for depriving others of those 
 rights. 
 
 As to Indians, if we regard them as savages, it will 
 hardly be claimed that resistance to their aggressions 
 amounts to governing them. A people may certainly 
 defend themselves against savages without being seri- 
 ously charged with attempting to govern without the 
 consent of the governed. But the truth is that the Indian 
 question was made by "civilized" whites, and not by 
 "savage" Indians. Our race has wantonly insisted upon 
 governing the Indian without his consent. And in so far 
 as we have done this, what success have we had ? Would 
 either he or we be worse off if we had invested him with 
 the suffrage, or left him alone to govern himself? 
 
 And then the Negro. We are told that if he had his
 
 TRAMPLING UPON IDEALS 341 
 
 ballot counted in the South he would ruin the country. 
 What is meant by the country? White men, of course. 
 Whether he would really ruin the white men of the 
 South if he voted upon an equality with them, no one has 
 any means of knowing. The experiment has not been 
 fairly tried. But we do know as matter of history that 
 the white men of the South, with all power in their hands, 
 ruined the Negro kept him a slave, which is about as 
 near ruin as a live man can be driven to. Shall we, there- 
 fore, infer that the white men of the South are unfit to be 
 trusted with the ballot? By no means. Yet upon the 
 facts it is a more legitimate inference than the other. 
 
 Sweep away these hypercritical objections to the ballot 
 right, and no plausible objections remain. When mature 
 men and women are denied the ballot they are not only 
 denied a fundamental right, but are prevented from per- 
 forming a fundamental duty that of advising and parti- 
 cipating in government. All adverse arguments lead 
 logically to monarchy, and if adopted as sound in principle 
 will lead there practically. Not a single argument that has 
 ever been put forward against voting by the poor, by the 
 "unintelligent," by "inferior races," by women, by any so- 
 cial class, but is a legitimate corollary of the argument 
 for "divine right." Grant the premises of those who argue 
 for a restricted suffrage, and the prerogatives of the 
 Czar of Russia become as unassailable logically as they 
 are legally. 
 
 This is true not alone of the right of voting among 
 ourselves, but also of the principle of government by 
 consent of the governed in that broader sense in which 
 we use the words when we refer to the policy of imperial 
 colonialism. We cannot impose our government upon 
 alien peoples against their will, without lining up our
 
 342 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 government alongside of the autocratic powers of the 
 earth. It is only by assuming some fanciful divine right 
 in derogation of their obvious natural rights that we 
 can make them our "subjects." 
 
 Nor is it any answer to say that the alien peoples are 
 incapable of self-government. No one is capable of self- 
 government, in the eyes of those who wish to govern 
 him. What is our warrant for declaring a people incapa- 
 ble of self-government? Any people are far better able 
 to govern themselves than are any other people to govern 
 them. Super-imposed government may exterminate a 
 people; it cannot elevate them. 
 
 One of the greatest as well as most delightful of 
 American writers, who in the guise of a humorist has 
 given us much sound philosophy, satirizes the assumption 
 of superior ability to govern, and then moralizes in this 
 admirable way :* 
 
 "There is a phrase which has grown so common in 
 the world's mouth that it has come to seem to have sense 
 and meaning the sense and meaning implied when it is 
 used; that is the phrase which refers to this or that or 
 the other nation as possibly being 'capable of self-govern- 
 ment' ; and the implied sense of it is, that there has been 
 a nation somewhere, sometime or other, which wasn't 
 capable of it wasn't as able to govern itself as some self- 
 appointed specialists were or would be to govern it. The 
 master-minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in 
 affluent multitude from the mass of the nation, and from 
 the mass of the nation only not from its privileged 
 classes ; and so, no matter what the nation's intellectual 
 grade was, whether high or low, the bulk of its ability 
 was in the long ranks of its nameless and its poor, and so 
 
 * "A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur," published in 1889.
 
 TRAMPLING UPON IDEALS 343 
 
 it never saw the day that it had not the material in 
 abundance whereby to govern itself. Which is to assert 
 an always self-proven fact: that even the best governed 
 and most free and most enlightened monarchy is still 
 behind the best condition attainable by its people; and 
 that the same is true of kindred governments of lower 
 grades, all the way down to the lowest." 
 
 Neither is it an answer to the objection to American 
 imperial colonialism to cite American precedents in its 
 favor. As already suggested, they prove nothing at the 
 worst but that we have been at times indifferent to our 
 ideals. The best use of bad precedents is to show, by 
 those we have set aside, how far we have advanced 
 toward our ideals. 
 
 It is not now with our country a question of indiffer- 
 ently allowing old national customs or laws to resist ad- 
 vances toward national ideals, nor even of clinging stub- 
 bornly to those antiquated customs and laws. We are pro- 
 ceeding with knowledge, with deliberation, with intention, 
 to set up a new policy which is confessedly hostile; and 
 in doing so we seek justification not in an attempt to ele- 
 vate the policy to the level of the ideals, but in an attempt 
 to pull down the ideals to the level of the policy. 
 
 Although it is true that heretofore we have permitted 
 government by consent of only some of the governed, 
 while asserting the broad principle of government by con- 
 sent of all the governed, we are now amending the prin- 
 ciple itself, and establishing government by consent of 
 some of the governed as the American polity. This is 
 also the Russian polity. 
 
 We cannot make that decision under existing circum- 
 stances without trampling upon our national ideals; and 
 with a nation, as with an individual, it were better that
 
 344 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 it have no ideals than that having them it should delib- 
 erately cast them aside. Let us in this crisis but choose 
 to substitute the Russian ideal of government for the 
 American, and we shall not be long in descending to the 
 Russian mode. It is not only the liberties of our "sub- 
 jects" that are at stake; the liberties of our citizens also 
 hang in the balance. 
 
 But if we decide for our ideals instead of against them, 
 if at this long-drawn-out crisis we determine to be true to 
 the principle of self-government, we may then be grate- 
 ful for the temptation which will have made it possible 
 for us to become stronger in our love of liberty and to 
 draw closer to our national ideals. For we may be sure 
 that just as truly as by disregarding the liberties of others 
 we imperil our own, we shall by recognizing theirs make 
 ours more secure and perfect.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 PARTISANSHIP 
 
 THERE is a certain habit of mind which regards 
 partisanship as unpatriotic. It is a very common 
 habit, too. So common is it that most people like to be 
 considered as non-partisan. There are so few who do 
 not instinctively resent imputations of partisanship, that 
 excellent arguments may generally be discredited, espe- 
 cially with the cultured mob, by the simple trick of 
 cleverly denouncing as partisans those who make them. 
 Non-partisanship is supposed to be judicial and patriotic. 
 
 Yet most of us are partisans. All people who think 
 upon a subject at all, along with a good many who never 
 think, take sides. There is nothing about this fact to 
 deplore. Partisanship is by no means necessarily unpa- 
 triotic. The important consideration is not that a man 
 is a partisan, but how he comes to be partisan. 
 
 There are two kinds of partisans. One kind take 
 sides according to the opinions they form. This is legi- 
 timate partisanship. The other kind form opinions 
 according to the sides they take. This kind of partisan- 
 ship is reprehensible. 
 
 When a man is a Methodist merely because his mother 
 was, or a Republican merely because his father was, he is 
 a partisan in the reprehensible sense. He then forms 
 his opinions according to the side he takes. The same 
 thing is true of all religious sectarians who cling to a 
 church, and of all political partisans who swear by a 
 party, merely because they happen to have been born in it. 
 
 345
 
 346 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 It is true also of that species of patriotism already re- 
 ferred to, that patriotism which expresses itself in the 
 phrase, "My country, right or wrong." Could there 
 be a lower plane of partisanship? To take the side of 
 one's own country, not only in battle but in argument, 
 not only in military service but in Congress and at the 
 polls, regardless of whether it is right or not, merely 
 because it happens to be one's own country, is surely 
 partisanship of the worst possible kind. 
 
 The thoughtless man may be a partisan for his country 
 right or wrong, and yet be a safe neighbor; but he who 
 is not thoughtless, he who takes that ground intelligently, 
 is a man to beware of. If in any national emergency he 
 would be for his country right or wrong, he is not un- 
 likely in a personal emergency to be for himself right or 
 wrong. As one's country is only one's larger self, it 
 should be the highest aspiration of patriotism to condemn 
 his country wrong, at least as heartily as he praises his 
 country right. 
 
 It is to be feared, however, that most patriotism is of 
 the reprehensibly partisan order. How many patriotic 
 Englishmen knew or cared whether England was right 
 or wrong in the Boer war? How many patriotic Ameri- 
 cans knew or cared whether the United States were right 
 in trying to subjugate peoples in the Orient? It was 
 enough to most of them to know that their country was 
 fighting. Whether it was for liberty or for conquest, for 
 defense or aggression, for plunder or power or peace, was 
 in their view of less than secondary consideration. The 
 one fact that the country is their country gives color to 
 their opinions on every question involved. All such 
 partisans form their opinions according to the side they 
 take, instead of taking sides according to the opinions
 
 PARTISANSHIP 347 
 
 they form. They belong to the order of partisanship 
 which cannot be too often nor too unsparingly condemned. 
 
 But not every Englishman who applauded the annexa- 
 tion of the Transvaal, nor every American who approved 
 the subjugation of the Filipinos, was a partisan of that 
 order. There were those in both countries who were with 
 their country not merely because it was theirs, but be- 
 cause they believed it to be right. Their partisanship was 
 entitled to respect because it was the legitimate offspring 
 and not the illegitimate progenitor of their opinions. 
 They did not form their opinions according to the side 
 they took ; they took sides according to the opinions they 
 formed. 
 
 This is the universal test of partisanship. Whether 
 in affairs of patriotism, of church, of party politics, or 
 anything else worth thinking about and acting for, the 
 man who takes his opinions from his coterie be that 
 coterie as small as a prayer meeting or as large as an 
 empire is a worthless partisan. He is worse than worth- 
 less. In political parties he generates dry rot, in churches 
 he is the nidus for infidelity, in the nation he degrades 
 patriotism to the cant of hypocrites and the flag to a 
 fetish. He is a partisan, but his partisanship is not legiti- 
 mate. The partisanship that gives life to all it touches, 
 and makes for intellectual and moral growth, is that 
 which results from opinions independently formed, cour- 
 ageously declared and strenuously propagated. 
 
 Of partisanship of this kind no man need be ashamed. 
 It is not a badge of servitude. It is a test of devotion to 
 principle. The principle may be wrong. But according 
 to his understanding it is right. There can be no devo- 
 tion without partisanship. Neutrality, which is only an- 
 other name for non-partisanship, may be observed by the
 
 348 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 indifferent. To the devoted it is impossible. In the 
 great conflict of mental and moral forces no one can be 
 neutral. He must take sides or get out of the fight. And 
 if he takes sides under the inspiration of his brain cells 
 instead of his birth marks, he can afford to smile at the 
 wheezy complaints of innocuous non-partisans.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 
 
 | T is a gratifying fact that neither of the great Ameri- 
 1 can holidays Independence Day and Memorial Day 
 though both are connected with war, is in commemora- 
 tion of the victories of war. One celebrates our national 
 recognition of the democratic ideals toward which the 
 face of the nation was turned from the start. The other 
 is a day of affectionate remembrance of the nation's dead. 
 
 This is signficant of the American spirit. We have 
 celebrated victories in the midst of wars, and at the close 
 of wars we have glorified our triumphs ; but all attempts 
 to perpetuate that species of celebration in this country 
 have failed. It is not in keeping with the American 
 character as a whole to take pleasure in memories of war, 
 nor is it consistent with the American disposition to gloat 
 systematically over conquered enemies. 
 
 Those there are among us, to be sure, who would stim- 
 ulate morbid cravings for excitement by involving the 
 nation in unnecessary wars. They would utilize the in- 
 tervals of peace partly with preparations for wars to 
 come and partly with celebrations of victories achieved. 
 But these are not typical Americans. Though they put 
 themselves so much in evidence when war is upon us 
 as to seem to be typical, yet after strutting their brief strut 
 they pass off the stage into oblivion, and the grand com- 
 memorations of battle and victory they had planned for 
 future generations are heard of no more. The American 
 people are not a victory-worshiping people. 
 
 349
 
 350 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 In that there is hope. It is a subject for noble national 
 pride. The nation that celebrates battle victories is a 
 brutal nation. Not that war is under all circumstances 
 to be avoided. Wars are sometimes necessary conditions 
 of national righteousness. So long as there is national 
 injustice, so long will the possibility of righteous war 
 persist. Injustice is worse than war, and some forms of 
 injustice can be righted only by war. But even the most 
 righteous war comes not as a welcome opportunity for 
 displays of martial prowess; it comes as a solemn na- 
 tional duty. Its victories, therefore, no less than its de- 
 feats, are solemn events. They are not occasions for 
 rejoicing. Nothing which involves desolation and death 
 can be made an occasion for sane rejoicing, however 
 beneficial to mankind the after results may be. We may 
 gladly and with great rejoicing cherish the righteous 
 effects; but to celebrate the carnage of victorious battle 
 is to sink to the level of savages. Few things more 
 repugnant to good taste and good morals could well be 
 conceived than national celebrations of national victories 
 in war. 
 
 It is with peculiar satisfaction, then, that Americans 
 whose patriotism is intelligent and mature may always 
 contemplate the approach of the two great national holi- 
 days of their country. Though Memorial Day lacks 
 that inspiration for the future which belongs to the 
 character of Independence Day, and though it offers 
 temptations to excursions among the tombs of dead 
 issues with our backs turned upon living principles, never- 
 theless it celebrates no carnage, glorifies no victory, per- 
 petuates no hatreds. Alike upon the graves of victor and 
 vanquished, of friend and of foe, affection scatters me- 
 morial flowers. The day is consecrated to peace, though
 
 PATRIOTIC CELEBRATIONS 351 
 
 it be the peace of death, and not to the destruction and 
 desolation of victorious war. While not the better of our 
 two national holidays, Memorial Day is in no wise incon- 
 sistent with that genuine American spirit to which even 
 the most righteous war is tolerable only as a terrible 
 duty. 
 
 But Independence Day is better. It is consecrated not 
 only to peace, but also to the ideals that make peace pos- 
 sible. Its inspiring appeal is to the righteous theory upon 
 which our nation is founded; and however crudely, even 
 barbarously, we may celebrate its annual return, we can 
 never quite escape its sacred lesson. The gist of that 
 lesson is, not that we once became an independent na- 
 tion, but that in becoming one we laid its foundation in 
 the immutable principle of equal human rights. The 
 "glittering generalities" of our Declaration of Independ- 
 ence are the glorious ideals of our republic, which we 
 celebrate on its natal day. 
 
 That we do not advance farther and faster in the 
 direction of those ideals, is what sometimes disheartens 
 the democratic optimist who believes in their truth and 
 has faith in their ultimate triumph.
 
 CONCLUSION
 
 Before the monstrous wrong he sits him down 
 
 One man against a stone-walled citadel of sin. 
 
 For centuries those walls have been a-building; 
 
 Smooth porphyry, they slope and coldly glass 
 
 The flying storm and wheeling sun. No chink, 
 
 No crevice, lets the thinnest arrow in. 
 
 He fights alone, and from the cloudy ramparts 
 
 A thousand evil faces gibe and jeer him. 
 
 Let him lie down and die; what is the right, 
 
 And where is justice in a world like this? 
 
 But by and by earth shakes herself, impatient, 
 
 And down, in one great roar of ruin, crash 
 
 Watch-tower and citadel and battlements. 
 
 When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier 
 
 Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly stars. 
 
 "The Reformer" by E. R. SILL. 
 
 354
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 THE GREAT ORDER OF THINGS 
 
 WE live in a time when Deborah's allegorical allusion 
 to the rout of Sisera is big with meaning. Even as 
 "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera," so do 
 the eternal forces of moral righteousness, circling ma- 
 jestically on in their appointed orbits, fight against the 
 sordid utilitarianism that holds the moral sense of our 
 generation in captivity. The victory of right over seem- 
 ing might is thus assured. At all times when "the stars 
 in their courses fight against Sisera," his chariots How- 
 ever numerous and his hosts however mighty, are pre- 
 destined to utter destruction. 
 
 There is a great order of things. As to this all doubt 
 has vanished with reference to the material universe. 
 Fighting with "the stars in their courses," the physical 
 sciences have upon their distinctive plane of human expe- 
 rience routed the Siserian hosts. The powers that came 
 of a bigoted rejection of rational truth promoted by a 
 priestly utilitarianism in the disguise of religious faith, 
 those old forces generated by a union of superstitious 
 credulity and irrational incredulity, have here yielded to 
 an enlightened recognition of the dominance of natural 
 law. 
 
 We know now that the material universe, from largest 
 to least, is a universe of law invariable law. Except in 
 obedience thereto, no man whether greatest of inventors 
 or humblest of mechanics would any longer think of 
 pursuing his vocation. He perceives that disobedience 
 
 355
 
 356 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 would but waste his labor and cripple his powers. He 
 realizes that it is as he conforms and only as he con- 
 forms to natural laws, that his undertakings in the utili- 
 zation of matter can succeed. He knows that unless 
 he harmonizes his efforts with "the stars in their courses," 
 all he attempts, promising though it may seem at first to 
 be, must utterly fail. In the sphere of material things, 
 disobedience to natural law is fully seen to be as a process 
 self-destructive and as a result impossible. 
 
 The law of gravitation, for instance, always holds sway. 
 It can be neither frustrated nor disturbed. Whether we 
 work with it and build ourselves a house, or defy it and 
 dash our. bodies to pulp at the foot of a precipice, it is the 
 same law working irresistibly in the same way. It serves 
 the just and the unjust, the righteous and the unrighteous, 
 those who seek its aid for construction and those who 
 seek it for destruction. All these it serves alike, accord- 
 ing to their several purposes. If they would build for 
 themselves, they have but to go rightly about it and the 
 law of gravitation helps them. If they would destroy 
 themselves, it permits them to do so. But its constant 
 lesson is the invariableness of its processes, the wasteful 
 futility of opposition, the splendid possibilities of con- 
 formity. "The stars in their courses" fight against every 
 Sisera who defies this or any other law of the material 
 universe. 
 
 So is it, also, in the moral universe. There, too, the 
 great order of things holds resistless sway. Its laws, 
 analogous to the courses of planets and suns, no human 
 power can overcome nor any antagonism disturb. More 
 than that. Not only is the moral universe, equally with 
 the material, a universe of invariable law, but its laws 
 are sovereign over those of matter. This must be so,
 
 CONCLUSION 357 
 
 for matter is merely a medium for the expression of moral 
 purpose. Except as it is subservient to that end, its ex- 
 istence is inexplicable upon the hypothesis of universal 
 design. 
 
 As certainly as physical law dominates matter does 
 moral law dominate the physical. Though conformity to 
 the laws of matter alone will enable us, for illustration, to 
 forge a knife of keenest blade, the uses of the knife 
 without which it has no reason for existing and would 
 not be made fall within the jurisdiction of moral law. 
 We may use it to carve things that minister to human 
 needs or the human sense of beauty, thus serving our 
 brethren and moulding our own characters more and 
 more in the divine likeness, while conquering the stub- 
 bornness of external nature; or we may make it an im- 
 plement for torture and murder. In the one case we ad- 
 vance in moral righteousness by conformity to the moral 
 law. "The stars in their courses" fight with us. In the 
 other case, we defy the moral law. But we cannot over- 
 come it, for "the stars in their courses" fight against us. 
 Though the torture be inflicted and the murder done, the 
 unrighteous purpose they were intended to serve will in 
 the outcome inevitably fail. The stars in their immuta- 
 ble courses fight always and everywhere against Sisera. 
 
 Unrighteous we may be in thought and deed, but we 
 can no more establish anywhere in the universe the sover- 
 eign sway of moral unrighteousness, of moral lawless- 
 ness, of moral disorder, than we could establish a sway of 
 material lawlessness upon the plane of physics. The ene- 
 mies of Sisera, though captive for a time, cannot fail 
 if their cause is allied to "the stars in their courses." Be 
 their cause what it may, whether material or moral, that 
 of an inventor like the unknown discoverer of fire or
 
 358 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 the forgotten maker of the first wheelbarrow, of a perse- 
 cuted and disheartened explorer like Columbus, of pa- 
 triots on the scaffold or of saints upon the rack, of the 
 philosopher with his deadly potion of hemlock or the 
 Nazarene carpenter upon the cross whatever the cause, 
 it always has conquered and always must conquer, in so 
 far as it is in harmony with the great order of things. 
 
 That this universal truth escapes general recognition, is 
 evident from the manifest tendency to subordinate what 
 is morally right to what seems to be practically more ex- 
 pedient, to displace loyalty to moral principles with slav- 
 ery to material utilities in a comprehensive phrase, to 
 elevate utilitarianism above idealism. 
 
 That this is the marked tendency of the time, no one 
 who observes can doubt. It may be seen not alone in the 
 counting-house, where utilitarianism has a proper and 
 useful abode, but in places where moral ideals should 
 rule. Great statesmen care much for commercial ad- 
 vantages and little or nothing for moral checks and 
 balances. School teachers inculcate love of commercial 
 success at the expense of moral aspiration. From the 
 chairs of political economy in our colleges, the subject 
 of correlative rights and duties in the body politic is 
 marked "taboo," while professor and text writer go far 
 afield in search of plausible excuses and confusing argu- 
 ments in behalf of privileged classes. Even the pulpit 
 has come in many instances to justify Swinburne's bitter 
 rebuke when he wrote of "a Christian church that spits 
 on Christ." 
 
 As for "the man in the street," he makes little pretense 
 of being anything but a sordid utilitarian. He may tell 
 you of the wisdom of honesty, but not of its righteousness. 
 He extols honesty merely because it is wise, merely be-
 
 CONCLUSION 359 
 
 cause it is expedient, merely because it is the best policy, 
 merely because it pays. How is it possible to avoid the 
 feeling that notwithstanding all his preachments about 
 the common kind of honesty that pays, his conduct re- 
 garding the finer kinds that do not seem to pay might but 
 rarely bear inspection ? 
 
 In every class of society, from top to bottom, and ap- 
 parently with almost every person in each class, the old 
 appeal to rights and duties seems to have lost its potency. 
 We are accounted dreamers and fools if we urge the 
 righteousness of any cause as a reason for adopting it. 
 The uppermost question everywhere is whether the cause 
 will pay. If it apparently will, then if it is also morally 
 right so much the better; but if it apparently will 
 not, then the fact that it is morally right cuts no figure. 
 This accounts for the popularity of statistics. So in- 
 sanely sordid have we become that in dealing with statis- 
 tics we not only always ignore the moral factor but 
 frequently the mathematical one also. Statistics that show 
 "pay dirt" are pretty apt to "go," no matter how repug- 
 nant they may be both to common sense and the plain 
 principles of morality. 
 
 As a rule, however, the utilitarianism of the day fully 
 recognizes the dominance of natural law in the material 
 universe in which it seeks to make mankind captive. It 
 realizes the necessity of conforming to the great order of 
 things in, its physical aspects. What it ignores, is the 
 predominance of moral law. "Ignores" is hardly the 
 word. Its attitude toward the moral law is one of defi- 
 ance. 
 
 But this is only a passing phase. It is the swing of the 
 pendulum back from the crude perceptions of moral 
 righteousness in the social world which prevailed during
 
 360 ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 the latter part of the eighteenth century and the first 
 half of the nineteenth a swing which, though backward 
 in one sense is forward in another, for it touches a higher 
 conception of utilitarianism than that which preceded the 
 idealism it has displaced. The return swing is sure to 
 come. Then society will have a better appreciation of 
 correlative rights and duties, a clearer perception of the 
 moral law, and a wider and truer vision of its relation- 
 ships than have ever come to any but the seers who have 
 gone up into the mountain tops with God. 
 
 If utilitarianism has any sway it is not because it is 
 sordid but because with all its sordidness it represents 
 what to idealism is as body to soul. Idealism can ex- 
 press itself in this material world only through utilitari- 
 anism. If at one time the ideal seems predominant and 
 at another the material, it is because our conceptions of 
 both are advancing through action and reaction. 
 
 That which we have likened to a swinging pendulum is 
 as the ebb and flow of battle. Now one side seems to 
 have the victory and now the other. But in this battle, 
 whatever is true and good in both sides will conquer. 
 For there is good and truth in both utilitarianism and 
 idealism, and for the good and truth in each "the stars in 
 their courses" fight against Sisera. Whatever is imperfect, 
 inadequate, narrow, indefinite, and one-sided in our per- 
 ceptions of the ideal, is improved, expanded, broadened, 
 defined and rounded out with every succeeding reaction 
 from utilitarian epochs; while whatever is sordid in our 
 utilitarian practice and precept is in turn sloughed off by 
 better and better ideals. 
 
 In this great struggle which leads on toward general 
 recognition of the dominion of the highest ideals of 
 morality over the truest utilities of physical existence,
 
 CONCLUSION 361 
 
 toward the same recognition by man of the moral law 
 that he has already given to physical law, toward the 
 adaptation of material righteousness to moral righteous- 
 ness, toward the natural adjustment of human relation- 
 ships both individual and social in this battle for free- 
 dom from defective ideals and a sordid utilitarianism, 
 many there be that fight with Sisera. But they cannot 
 alter the predominant law. "The stars in their courses" 
 fight against them. They are doomed to defeat by those 
 who, few in number though they be, attach themselves 
 to the causes that harmonize with the great order of 
 things.
 
 Truth hath a snowy wing will mount to heaven 
 
 A crystal eye she hath to fathom hell. 
 Man cannot stay her, and her sacred leaven 
 
 Shall work until all things on earth be well. 
 Then in the radiance from the eyes of Truth 
 
 The world will shine ; things will no longer seem, 
 But naked stand in neither spite nor ruth, 
 
 And straightened be the tangle of our dream. 
 
 C. E. S. WOOD, in the "Boston Pilot" of April 15, 1902. 
 
 363
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ABEL 61 
 
 ABILITY 58, 184 
 
 ABSOLUTE moral right 52 
 
 ACADEMIC discussion xviii 
 
 ACTION, criminal 277 
 
 AFFIRMATIONS, 9; verbal.. 11 
 
 AGUINALDO 33 
 
 ALLEN, W. H., on foreign 
 
 trade 212 
 
 ALLIANCES for peace or 
 
 war 312 
 
 ALTRUISTIC competition... 169 
 ANALYSIS, economic, 185; 
 
 of the drama 185 
 
 ANTAEUS 112 
 
 APOLLOS 6 
 
 APPLAUSE, ex post facto. . 19 
 
 "ARENA" xvi 
 
 "ARTHUR'S COURT," "A 
 
 Yankee at King." 342 
 
 ASTOR, John Jacob 31 
 
 ATHEISM 5, 51, 263 
 
 ATHEISTIC pessimism 13 
 
 AUSTIN, Mary 318 
 
 AUSTRALIA 313 
 
 AUSTRALIAN Common- 
 
 wealth 303 
 
 BAKER, Ray Stannard . 124, 128 
 
 BALANCE of trade 209 
 
 BARONS, manufacturing. . . 99 
 
 BEGGARY 64, 179 
 
 BERENS, Lewis H 144 
 
 BIBLE, the 75 
 
 BOER war.. . 346 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BONANZA farming 98, 99 
 
 BOSWELL 317 
 
 BROTHERHOOD 60, 331 
 
 "BROTHER'S keeper," "Am 
 I my" 57, 60 
 
 BUSINESS, life, xx, 45 ; im- 
 morality, 49; ethics, 65; 
 concentration .. .95, 100, 117 
 
 CAESAR, Julius 301 
 
 CAIN 57, 60 
 
 CANADIAN Dominion.. 303, 313 
 
 CAPITAL 216, 240 
 
 CARLYLE, Thomas 145 
 
 CARMAN, Bliss 144 
 
 CARNEGIE, Andrew 126 
 
 CASTE 29 
 
 CELEBRATIONS, patriotic... 349 
 
 CHICKEN pox 117 
 
 CHRIST 76 
 
 CHRISTIANS 76 
 
 CHRISTMAS 42 
 
 CIVILIZATION, 67; and trade 311 
 
 CLASSES 309 
 
 CLEMENS, Samuel M 342 
 
 COLLEGE, graduates, 23 ; 
 
 commencements 24 
 
 COLONIALISM 343 
 
 COMMONWEALTH, the So- 
 cialist 128 
 
 COMMUNAL rights 265 
 
 COMMUNISM 181,183,184 
 
 COMMUNITY and govern- 
 ment 273 
 
 COMPENSATION .. ... 88 
 
 365
 
 3 66 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 COMPETITION, 58, 59, 94, 
 100, 110, 140, 158, 174, 
 176, 186, 194, 254; altru- 
 istic, 169 ; egoistic 169 
 
 CONCENTRATION of busi- 
 ness 95, 97, 100, 119 
 
 CONSCIENCE, social, 18; in- 
 dividual 18 
 
 CONSTITUTION, American., xiii 
 
 CONSTRUCTION 16 
 
 CONSUMPTION of products. 150 
 CONTRACTS, 196, 284; un- 
 conscionable 285 
 
 COOPERATION, 58, 165, 186, 
 192, 237, 239 ; and wages, 196 
 
 CORPORATIONS 114 
 
 CORRESPONDENCES, natural. 326 
 
 COUNTRY, love of 320, 330 
 
 CRIME, and business, 29; 
 and criminals, 
 
 275, 277, 278, 279 
 
 CROSBY, Ernest 47 
 
 CROWN colonies 302 
 
 CRUSOE, Robinson 234,240 
 
 CUTICULAR remedies 121 
 
 CZAR of Russia 341 
 
 DAKOTA land values 153 
 
 DANCING 31 
 
 "DARK Ages," the 308 
 
 "DEAD hand," the 286 
 
 DEBORAH 355 
 
 DEBTS, public, 282; repudi- 
 ation of 282 
 
 DECATUR, Commodore 320 
 
 DECLARATION of Independ- 
 ence xii, 259, 331 
 
 DEDICATION iii 
 
 DEMAND 150, 152 
 
 DEMOCRACY, vii, xvi ; demo- 
 cratic xvi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 DEMOCRATIC government, 
 
 xiv, 255 
 
 DEMOCRATIC party xiv 
 
 DEMOCRATS, democratic... xvi 
 
 DEPARTMENT stores 87, 91 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis, 
 
 viii, 292, 297 
 
 DESTINY and Duty 305 
 
 DESTRUCTION for construc- 
 tion 16 
 
 DEVIL, the 11, 307 
 
 DEViL-worship 5 
 
 DEVOTION 15 
 
 DIAGRAM, an economic. . . . 247 
 DISCUSSION, academic. . . .xviii 
 DISEASED industrial condi- 
 tions 122 
 
 DISHONESTY 82 
 
 DISTRIBUTION of products. 183 
 
 DIVES xxii 
 
 DIVIDENDS 216 
 
 DIVINE adjustments 49 
 
 DIVISION of labor 237 
 
 DOCKS 118 
 
 DOGMATISM xvi 
 
 DRAFTS, commercial 210 
 
 DRAMA, analysis of the 185 
 
 DUTIES and rights 262, 331 
 
 DUTY, doing more than. 34, 36 
 
 ECONOMIC, tendencies, 85 ; 
 forces, 141 ; "science," 
 162 ; text-books, 157 ; 
 Georgian law of, 168; 
 exploration and survey, 
 218 ; mysteries, 218 ; fac- 
 tors, 224; diagram, 247; 
 experts 291, 294 
 
 ECONOMY, in combination, 
 119; political 147 
 
 EDGERTON, J. A 317
 
 INDEX 
 
 367 
 
 PAGE 
 
 EDUCATION 310 
 
 EGOISTIC competition....'.. 169 
 ELEMENTARY principles. . .xviii 
 EMERSON, Ralph Waldo, 
 
 viii, 145, 218, 256 
 EMPIRE, characteristics of, 
 
 300 ; Anglo-Saxon 303 
 
 EMPIRICISM 53 
 
 EMPLOYER and employed, 
 
 187, 195 
 EMPLOYMENT, scarcity of.. 93 
 
 EMPTY wells 29 
 
 ENGLAND, land values in. . 153 
 
 ENGLISH landlords 217 
 
 EQUALITY, association in. . iv 
 
 ERROR 11 
 
 ETHICS of democracy xx 
 
 EVIL, 11, 18, 117, 306; po- 
 litical 18 
 
 EVOLUTION, 114, 115, 116, 
 122, 249, 252; of good 
 from evil, 117; of store- 
 keeping 88, 89 
 
 EXCHANGE, of work, 67, 
 182 ; foreign, 210, 211, 214, 
 
 216; par of 210 
 
 EXPORTS and imports, 
 
 198, 199, 200, 201, 209 
 EXTORTION 71, 77, 79 
 
 FAILURES 25 
 
 FAITH 15 
 
 FALSITY 11, 22 
 
 FARM "hands" 99 
 
 FARMING, bonanza, 98, 99; 
 
 small, 98; Western 98 
 
 FATHERHOOD of God 331 
 
 FAULT-FINDING 18 
 
 FEES as wages 185 
 
 FILIPINOS 347 
 
 FISHING trust 118 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FLAGS, symbolism of. .328, 335 
 
 FOREIGN trade 197, 201, 212 
 
 FORM, regardless of sub- 
 stance, 10 ; negative 10 
 
 FORTUNES, great 79 
 
 FOURTH of July 349 
 
 FRANCHISES, monopoly 217 
 
 FREE MASONS 327 
 
 FREE trade ...160, 198 
 
 FREIGHTS in foreign trade. 215 
 FROUDE, James Anthony, 
 
 145, 258 X 302 
 FUTURE, living in the 23 
 
 GARCIA, Gen., 33 ; the mes- 
 sage to 33 
 
 GARLAND, Hamlin 47 
 
 GARRISON, Wm. Lloyd 313 
 
 GENTLEMEN and democ- 
 racy xi 
 
 GEORGE, Henry, Hi, iv, xiii, 
 22, 76, 86, 134, 136, 137, 
 
 146, 173, 198, 234 259 
 
 GEORGIAN law of econo- 
 mics 168 
 
 GIDDINGS, Franklin H 305 
 
 GIRARD, Stephen 31 
 
 GOD, Fatherhood of, 331; a 
 
 rational being, 6 ; will of, 29 
 GOLD, as a commodity, 210 ; 
 
 ebb and flow of 211 
 
 GOLDEN rule, the 60, 332 
 
 GOMORRAH 308 
 
 GOOD, evolution of, 117; or 
 
 evil, choice of 306 
 
 GOOD will, business 104 
 
 GOVERNMENT, object of, 
 xiii ; democratic, xiv, 
 xxi, 255 ; tyranny in, 19 ; 
 self, 259; natural, 261; 
 by the governed, 262,
 
 3 68 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 264; by superior force, 
 262, 264; and the indi- 
 vidual, 273; and the 
 community, 273 ; by the 
 strongest, 310; and 
 
 trusts 113 
 
 GRADUATE, the college 23 
 
 GRAIN shipment illustra- 
 tion 201 
 
 GRAVITATION, law of 356 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN, excess of 
 imports 213 
 
 "HANDS," farm 99 
 
 HANNA, Marcus A 304 
 
 HARMONY, natural, xxi ; 
 
 moral 54 
 
 HAY, John viii 
 
 HIGGINSON, Thomas Went- 
 
 worth 144 
 
 HIRE, laborer and his 177 
 
 HISTORY, industrial, 188, 
 
 191; function of 290 
 
 HONESTY the best policy. . 49 
 HUMAN nature, laws of, 
 
 171, 188 
 
 HYPOCRITE, an inverted... 13 
 
 IDEALISM 54, 360 
 
 IDEALS, patriotic, 331, 336; 
 and purpose, 337; grow- 
 ing toward 337 
 
 IDLE rich 68 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS of foreign 
 
 trade 201 
 
 IMAGE worship 42, 43 
 
 IMMORALITY, business 49 
 
 "IMPERATOR," Roman 299 
 
 IMPERIAL colonization 343 
 
 IMPERIALISM xxii, 299 
 
 IMPORTS, excessive 198,213 
 
 PAGB 
 INCREMENT, unearned, 
 
 154, 156, 157 
 
 INDEPENDENCE Day 349 
 
 INDEPENDENCE, Declaration 
 
 of xxi, 259, 331 
 
 INDIVIDUAL, life, 21 ; liberty, 
 130; conscience, 18 ; 
 
 rights 265 
 
 INDUSTRY, as the condition 
 of success, 32, 34, 35, 37; 
 a virtue, 36; captains of. 186 
 INDUSTRIAL, field, 104 ; mal- 
 adjustments, 99, 134; sys- 
 tem, 115 ; conditions dis- 
 eased, 122; history... 188, 191 
 
 "INDUSTRIALS," the 110 
 
 INGERSOLL, Robert G 186 
 
 INJUSTICE 22 
 
 INSTITUTIONS, social 19 
 
 INTRODUCTION vii, ix 
 
 INVERTED, saint, 13 ; hypo- 
 crite, 13 ; religion 186 
 
 INVOLUTION 252 
 
 IRISH, rents 217 
 
 ISAIAH 2 
 
 JEFFERSON, Thomas xv 
 
 JESUS, at Bethsaida, 16; of 
 
 Nazareth 43 
 
 JOHNSON, Dr. Samuel 317 
 
 JONAH 14 
 
 JUG-HANDLED regime 174 
 
 JURY, trial by, 287; rights 
 of, 288 ; judicial contempt 
 of, 288; origin of, 289; 
 
 neglected duty of 298 
 
 JUSTICE, 22; or sacrifice, 
 56; meaning of, 63; law 
 of 171 
 
 KENDALL, May 22
 
 INDEX 
 
 369 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LABOR, 223 ; question, 92 ; 
 problem, 94; in a corral, 
 134 ; division of, 237, 239 ; 
 union of, 237; demand 
 
 and supply 27 
 
 LABORER and his hire 177 
 
 LABOR - saving machinery, 
 92; invention, 103, 226, 228 
 
 LALOR, James Fintan 145 
 
 LAND, 113, 225, 226, 227; 
 incomes from, 72; mo- 
 nopoly of, 73, 134, 135, 
 136, 254; and trust ques- 
 tion, 108; values of, 134, 
 152; rent of, 217; equal 
 rights to, 333; disparity 
 of ownership of, 80; in 
 New England, 98; in 
 
 Manitoba 153 
 
 "LAND OF SUNSHINE" 318 
 
 LARCENY 29 
 
 LAZARUS xxii 
 
 LEG-IDEA, the 175 
 
 LEGISLATION against de- 
 partment stores 91 
 
 LEISURE and civilization.. . 67 
 LIBERTY, individual, 130 ; 
 
 potency of 249 
 
 LIFE, business, 45 ; ele- 
 mentary principles of 
 social, xix ; individual, 
 21; story of a human... 307 
 
 LINCOLN, Abraham xv, 256 
 
 LIVING TRUTH, the 43 
 
 LOWELL, James Russell, 
 
 xxi, xxii, 325, 330 
 LUCK 28 
 
 MACAULAY, Thomas Bab- 
 ington xix, 256, 261 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MACHINERY, 113 ; labor- 
 saving, 92 ; and the single 
 
 tax 139 
 
 MAJORITIES 269 
 
 MALADJUSTMENTS, indus- 
 trial 99, 134 
 
 MAN, brotherhood of xx 
 
 "MANCHESTER GUARDIAN," 
 
 the 304 
 
 MANILA BAY, battle of. ... 304 
 MANITOBA, land value in. . 153 
 MANNERS, democracy and. x 
 MANUFACTURING barons... 99 
 
 MARKETS, foreign 197 
 
 MASTERS, and serfs, 99; 
 
 and men 86 
 
 MATERIAL and spiritual . . . 252 
 
 MAZZINI xxi, 256 
 
 MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE 124 
 
 McKiNLEY, Wm 33, 199 
 
 MEAN-LEVEL, of the ocean, 
 147; of political econ- 
 omy 148, 154 
 
 MEMORIAL Day 349 
 
 MEN, self-made, 29; and 
 
 masters 86 
 
 MERCHANT princes 99 
 
 MIDDLEMEN 192 
 
 MILLIONAIRES 82 
 
 MINES, ore, 107; trusts 105 
 
 ' r MiRROR/' the St. Louis. . . xvi 
 
 MONARCHY, absolute 264 
 
 MONEY, 74, 219, 241, 246; 
 and great fortunes, 79; 
 mediation of, 175 ; as the 
 
 root of all evil 248 
 
 MONOPOLY, 159 ; as the con- 
 dition of business suc- 
 cess, 38; nature of, 38; 
 primary, 104 ; the basis of
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 trusts, 122; institutional, 
 161 ; adjustments of, 165 ; 
 of natural opportunities, 
 195; franchises, 217; of 
 
 land 254 
 
 MORAL, principle, 50, 52; 
 right, 52, 53 ; harmony, 
 54; law, the, 356; right- 
 eousness 54 
 
 MOTIVE, criminal 275 
 
 MUZZEY, Annie L 257 
 
 MYSTERIES, economic 218 
 
 NATURAL, conditions of 
 success, 49 ; opportuni- 
 ties, 195; resources, 225; 
 
 law 356 
 
 NAZARENE Carpenter, the. 358 
 NEEDS, to each according 
 to his, 58; and abilities.. 184 
 
 NEGATION, affirmative 9 
 
 "NEW AGE/' London 22 
 
 NEW ENGLAND, 98; land 
 
 values in 153 
 
 NEW JERSEY trust laws 115 
 
 NEW ZEALAND 313 
 
 NINEVEH 14 
 
 NINEVITES, the 14 
 
 NOAH 14 
 
 NOMENCLATURE, looseness 
 of 185 
 
 OBLIGATIONS, saving of 69 
 
 OLIGARCHIES 265 
 
 OPEN-DOOR to China, the. . . 197 
 OPTIMISM, xvii, 12; spuri- 
 ous, xix, 5, 14; genuine, 
 xix, 19 ; Godward, 13 ; of 
 
 college graduates 24 
 
 OPTIMIST, the democratic, 
 1; the happy-go-lucky. 14, 27 
 
 PAGE 
 
 OPTIMISTIC pessimism 13 
 
 ORDER of things, the great, 
 
 xxi, 355 
 O'REILLY, John Boyle, 
 
 viii, 146, 257, 258 
 
 OVERPRODUCTION 199 
 
 OVERVALUATIONS of ex- 
 ports 214 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY tactics 10 
 PARTISANSHIP, 345 ; two 
 
 kinds of, 345; test of... 347 
 
 PAST, living in the 23 
 
 PATENTS 104, 105 
 
 PATRIOTIC, ideals, 331, 336; 
 
 celebrations 349 
 
 PATRIOTISM, xxi, 315 ; what 
 
 is, 319; the larger 320 
 
 PAUL 6 
 
 PAY, for preaching, 177, 
 
 181; for work, 179, 183; 
 
 working for sake of 181 
 
 PEACE, xxii, xxiii; alli- 
 ances for 312 
 
 PEDDLERS 89 
 
 PENNIES, in trade 219 
 
 PESSIMISM, xviii, 7, 12; 
 
 optimistic, 13; atheistic.. 13 
 PHILOSOPHY, 18th century, 
 
 xiii ; of the schools 5 
 
 PHYSICAL, law, 355; right- 
 eousness 54 
 
 PIETY as the condition of 
 
 success 30 
 
 PITFALLS for youth xx 
 
 POLICY, honesty the best.49, 54 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY, 147 ; 
 
 Georgian law of, 168 ; 
 
 mystification theories of, 185 
 "POLITICAL ECONOMY," 
 
 "SCIENCE OF".. . 234
 
 INDEX 
 
 37 1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 POLITICO-ECONOMIC princi- 
 
 ciples 143 
 
 POLYGAMY, anti-, 10 
 
 POOR, the thrifty, 28; dis- 
 tinguishing those who 
 
 are, 76 ; and rich 78, 82 
 
 POVERTY 57, 82 
 
 POWER, evil of absolute . . . 300 
 
 PREACHERS of truth 179 
 
 PREACHING, truth, 177; for 
 
 pay 177 
 
 PRECEDENTS and principles. 339 
 PRESENT, living in the, 23; 
 
 wallowing in the 23 
 
 PRICES 96 
 
 PRINCES, merchant 99 
 
 PRINCIPLES, elementary, 
 xviii ; politico - economic, 
 
 143 ; precedents and 339 
 
 PRODUCTION, large scale, 95, 
 98, 137; small scale, 95, 
 137 ; and distribution, 
 112; individual, 240; and 
 creation, 242 ; direction 
 
 of labor in 156 
 
 PROFITS, 88 ; as wages 185 
 
 PROGRESS, law of iv 
 
 "PROGRESS AND POVERTY," 
 
 22, 250, 138 
 
 PROPERTY, rights of, 248; 
 qualifications for voting. 310 
 
 PROSPERITY xxii 
 
 PROTECTION 91 
 
 "PROVINCIAL," meanings of, 163 
 PUBLIC, buying habits of 
 the, 104; debts of the, 
 282; contracts of the, 
 
 284, 285 
 "'PUBLIC," "The".xvi, 2, 3, 318 
 
 QUARRELING, deferential ... 157 
 
 PAGE 
 
 QUEEN bee, the 59 
 
 RAILROAD, trusts, 105 ; 
 
 terminal points 105 
 
 RARITIES, value of 155 
 
 REAL ESTATE, rents 216 
 
 REGENERATION, gospel of. . . 63 
 
 RELIGION, inverted 186 
 
 RELIGIOUS experience, athe- 
 ism as an 16 
 
 REMEDIES, cuticular, 121 ; 
 for industrial maladjust- 
 ments 134 
 
 RENT, 243; of real estate, 
 216 ; of land, 217 ; "water" 
 
 in 244 
 
 REPENTANCE, social 19 
 
 REPUBLICAN, origin of 
 party name, xiv; history 
 of the party, 10; demo- 
 cratic xvi 
 
 RESISTANCE, line of least. . . 167 
 RESPECT, for the respect- 
 able, 41 ; for the true 43 
 
 RICH, the idle, 68 ; wishing 
 to be, 74; distinguishing 
 those who are, 76; and 
 
 poor 78, 82 
 
 RICHES 57 
 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS, xxiii ; phy- 
 sical, 54 ; moral 54 
 
 RIGHTS, vested, 52 ; of prop- 
 erty, 248 ; and duties, 
 262, 331; two classes of, 
 265 ; individual, 265 ; 
 communal, 265 ; repudia- 
 tion a sacred right, 286; 
 
 fundamental 332 
 
 Rns, Jacob A 35 
 
 ROE, Richard 201
 
 37* 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ROMAN, republic, 299; em- 
 pire, 299; imperialism... 299 
 ROME as a world power. . . 301 
 RUSKIN, John 77 
 
 SACRIFICE, or justice, 56; 
 
 defined 56 
 
 SAINT, an inverted 13 
 
 SALARIES, as wages 185 
 
 SALISBURY, E. J 2 
 
 SANDING sugar 51 
 
 SANTA CLAUS 24, 28 
 
 SATAN 26 
 
 SAVED-UP, wealth, 68; ser- 
 vice i 69 
 
 SCARCITY 222, 238 
 
 SCHOOLS, philosophy of the 5 
 SCHWAB, Charles M....34, 131 
 "SCIENTIFIC," authority, 
 
 53; cult in economics 158 
 
 SCULLY, Lord 217 
 
 SELF - GOVERNMENT, 259, 
 
 268 ; as a "capacity," 271 ; 
 
 and peace 274 
 
 SELF-LOVE sacrifices 60 
 
 SEPULCHRES, whited 42 
 
 SERFS and masters 99 
 
 SERVICE, for service, 67; 
 
 pay for 177 
 
 SERVICEABILITY, 22, 230, 237, 238 
 
 SHADWELL, Bertrand 318 
 
 SHIPPING trust 119 
 
 SILL, Edward Rowland.... 354 
 "SiN," "thank God for"... 336 
 SINGLE TAX, and trusts, 
 
 131; defined, 135; and 
 
 storekeepers, 136, 138 ; 
 
 and farmers, 136, 138; 
 
 and wage workers, 137, 
 
 138 ; and machinery, 139 ; 
 
 principle so named, 140; 
 
 method so named 141 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SIRENS' song 16 
 
 SISERA 355 
 
 SLAVE trade 261, 335 
 
 SLAVERY, 37, 241, 335 ; anti-, 
 
 10 ; sum of sin 248 
 
 SOCIAL, structures, 17 ; 
 problem, 39, 86 ; disorder, 
 122; evolution, 249; life, 
 
 principles of xix 
 
 SOCIALISM, 116 ; and trusts, 
 112, 123 ; eonomic prin- 
 ciples of, 123; ethical 
 principles of, 123 ; pa- 
 ternal, 128 ; democratic, 
 128; and wages system, 
 
 186, 195 
 
 SOCIALIST Commonwealth. 128 
 "SPECTATOR," London... 80, 323 
 
 SPIRITUAL and material 252 
 
 SPURIOUS optimism. .. .xix, 5 
 
 STANDARD Oil trust 106, 120 
 
 STANDARDS, false 42 
 
 STATES, free trade between 
 
 the 313 
 
 STATISTICS, Treasury 209 
 
 STEALING, a moral crime. . 30 
 STEEL, trust, 107, 115, 124, 
 
 125 ; manufacturing Ill 
 
 STEFFENS, Lincoln 35 
 
 STETSON, Charlotte Per- 
 kins 46 
 
 STOCK, watering of 51 
 
 STOREKEEPING, 87 ; depart- 
 ment, 87 ; truck, 88 ; evo- 
 lution of, 88, 89; whole- 
 sale, 88; retail, 88; com- 
 pensation for, 88; legis- 
 lation against depart- 
 ment 91 
 
 STORY, Judge Joseph 291
 
 INDEX 
 
 373 
 
 . PAGE 
 
 STORY, of young lawyer, 
 xviii; of Negro stump 
 speaker in Texas, iii; of 
 lazy farmer, 5; of Negro 
 boy monopolist, 31; of 
 new court house, 17; of 
 Zangwill's Jew 75 
 
 SUBORDINATE trusts 106 
 
 SUBSTANCE, regardless of 
 form 10 
 
 SUCCESS, 22, 26 ; cost of, 27 ; 
 prime condition of, 30; 
 by piety, 31; by industry, 
 32, 34, 35; natural condi- 
 tion of, 37, 49 ; monopoly 
 as the condition of 38 
 
 SUFFRAGE, manhood, 261 ; 
 universal, 269, 339; as a 
 right, 270, 337; objec- 
 tions to, 270, 339; re- 
 stricted 341 
 
 SUGAR, sanding 51 
 
 SWAPPING 220 
 
 SWINBURNE, Algernon 
 Charles 358 
 
 SYLLOGISTIC method of rea- 
 soning xviii 
 
 SYMBOLISM 326 
 
 TALMADGE, Rev. T. De 
 
 Witt 186 
 
 TARIFF, and trusts, 105; 
 
 duties 214 
 
 TAX, the Single 131 
 
 TEMPTATION, social 18 
 
 TENDENCIES, economic, 85; 
 
 a science of 147 
 
 TENNYSON'S "half-truth". . 40 
 
 TEXT-BOOKS, economic 157 
 
 THEFT, defense of 49 
 
 THINGS, the great order of. 355 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis de, 
 
 viii, 292, 297 
 
 TOURISTS' expenses 215 
 
 TRADE, 87, 219, 236, 238; 
 competition the life of, 
 100; as a labor-saver, 
 189; origin of, 189; na- 
 ture of, 190 ; obstructions 
 to, 195; foreign, 197, 201; 
 statistics of, 200; domes- 
 tic, 201; the promoter of 
 civilization, 311; or war, 
 
 which? 314 
 
 TRADEMARKS 104 
 
 TRAMPLING upon patriotic 
 
 ideals 336 
 
 TREASURY statistics 200, 209 
 
 TREES walking 16 
 
 TRIAL by jury 287 
 
 TRIBUNE, the Chicago 200 
 
 TRUCK stores 88 
 
 TRUE, respect for the 43 
 
 TRUSTS, 50, 51, 96 ; the rage 
 for, 100; the vital princi- 
 ple of, 100; agreements 
 for, 100; mode of organ- 
 izing, 101 ; object and ef- 
 fect of, 101, 102; perma- 
 nency of, 102, 103 ; point 
 of highest economy of, 
 104; and the tariff, 105; 
 railroad, 105 ; mining, 
 105 ; subordinate, 106 ; 
 the weakest, 106 ; ground- 
 ed in legal privilege, 107; 
 and the land question, 
 
 108, 121; the trend of 
 the, 109 ; trusts of trusts, 
 
 109, 112; with their feet 
 on the ground, 111; as a
 
 374 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PACE 
 
 natural evolution, 114 ; 
 and government, 113 ; 
 origin of, 114; New Jer- 
 sey trust law, 115; fish- 
 ing, 118, 120; transporta- 
 tion, 118 ; wall - paper, 
 119; monopoly the basis 
 of, 122; and socialism, 
 123; and the single tax, 
 131; an illustration of. . . 131 
 TRUTH, 11, 22; preaching, 
 
 177 ; apostles of 177 
 
 TYPHOID fever 115, 122 
 
 TYRANNY, embryonic 11 
 
 UNDERVALUATIONS of im- 
 ports 214 
 
 UNEARNED increment, 
 
 154, 156, 157 
 UNEMPLOYED, the army of 
 
 the 139 
 
 UNFINISHED wealth 240 
 
 UNIVERSAL suffrage 269 
 
 UTILITARIANISM 358 
 
 VALUE, 220, 233; of land, 
 
 134 ; of rarities 155 
 
 VERBAL affirmation 11 
 
 VESTED rights 52 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VICTORIES of democracy. . . xxi 
 VOCATION, the preacher's.. 180 
 VOTERS, dependent on 
 trusts, 113; responsibility 
 of 322 
 
 WAGES, 242, effect of trusts 
 on, 101, 102; defined, 
 185; system, the, 185, 
 187, 191, 194, 196; as 
 
 profits 185 
 
 WALL-PAPER trust 119 
 
 WAR, 312; or trade, which? 314 
 
 "WATERING" stock 51 
 
 WATSON, Orville E 46 
 
 WEALTH, 222, 226, 229; 
 saved-up, 68; unfinished, 
 240; capital, 241; final... 241 
 
 "WHAT'S THE USE?" xvii 
 
 "WHIM," "THE" 47 
 
 WOOD, C. E. S 3, 363 
 
 WORDS, connotations of 163 
 
 WORK, specialization of, 
 87; pay for, 179; ex- 
 change of, 182; a natural 
 
 condition 189 
 
 WORKERS, demand for 94 
 
 WORSHIP, fetish 329 
 
 YOUTH, pitfalls for xx
 
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