CLASS INTERESTS: 
 
 THEIR K.LLVi^N> TO EA


 
 4
 
 CLASS INTERESTS: 
 
 THEIR RELATIONS TO EACH OTHER AND 
 TO GOVERNMENT. 
 
 A STUDY OF WRONGS AND REMEDIES TO 
 
 ASCERTAIN WHAT THE PEOPLE 
 
 SHOULD DO FOR THEMSELVES. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 'CONFLICT IN NATURE AND LIFE," "REFORMS: THEIR DIFFICULTIES 
 AND POSSIBILITIES." 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET. 
 
 1886.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1336, 
 BT D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 If I had written on these subjects a dozen years ago, the 
 statement would have been different from this. It would then 
 have been made in the spirit of those economical doctrines which 
 affirm the sufficiency of competition to enable all who deserve, 
 to win. But economical conditions are constantly changing ; 
 and one may change views with further study. The forces are 
 daity multiplying which relegate competition to the back 
 ground, and give the victory to combination. The character of 
 the struggle is not what it once was mainly a struggle be- 
 tween individuals ; it is now largely a struggle between the 
 organized few and the unorganized many, in which the former 
 get advantages and often push them to the utmost. I have no 
 apology to make for sympathy with the weaker who are 
 pushed to the wall in an unequal struggle, even if that sympa- 
 th} r be suspected of necessary association with bias. I have 
 endeavored to keep the bias, if any, in strict logical subordi- 
 nation. 
 
 Some may think that my statement, if it reach the people, 
 will cause them to feel unnecessary discontent. I know there 
 are some who would keep employe's in ignorance, just as slave- 
 holders would keep their slaves in ignorance, and for a similar 
 reason. Let us hope there are not many such. The supposi- 
 tion that the masses of the people can be kept wholly in igno- 
 rance of abuses from which they suffer, is altogether gratuitous. 
 
 2055042
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 Be sure that even the lowliest have access to various sources 
 
 of knowledge respecting the unfriendly conditions that affect 
 
 them. They are far more likely to be correct here, too, than 
 
 in devising measures for their own relief. It is on this point that 
 
 I have been especially concerned to make such suggestions as 
 
 will bear the closest scrutiny, those suggestions being the 
 
 ., proper sequel to the facts that show the prevalent disregard of 
 
 1 equity in class relations. It is not the diffusion of light, but 
 
 the persistent attempt to hide it, that will make the trouble. 
 
 So far as I have ventured to suggest remedies, I have aimed 
 not to lose sight of the intractabilities of human nature ; and 
 I am gratified to find that the conclusions to which I have 
 come by independent study of the subjects, are in accord with 
 wide-spread movements of thought and action in this country 
 and in Europe. I refer in particular to the amplification of 
 governmental functions and to the discipline in youth of work- 
 people in the duties they owe first of all to themselves. 
 
 The problems under discussion in this little volume, I be- 
 lieve to be the gravest and most urgent of any that now 
 demand attention. I have contributed my little toward their 
 solution, and all I ask for it is candid consideration. 
 
 Washington, D. C., November, 1885.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 THE ATM l 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ABSOLUTE ECONOMICS. 
 
 1. Equalisation of Profits: Two reasons why profits do not 
 
 equalize 4 
 
 2. Cost and Prices: T. E. Cliffe Leslie's view tax on raw 
 
 produce 4 
 
 3. Wages and Prices: Ricardo takes no account of fluctu- 
 
 ating and modifying conditions G 
 
 4. Principles of Taxation : D. A. Wells apparent confusion of 
 
 statement 7 
 
 5. Relative Shares of Labor and Capital in Production : E. Atkin- 
 
 son contradictions Thorold Rogers and Hallam on 
 condition of laborers influence of the new continents 
 on labor the mischief of these absolute ideas . . 8 
 
 6. Ifhmiliar with the Absolute : E. 11. G. Clark the higher law 
 
 of property 12 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CLASS BIAS. 
 
 7. Biases in General: The nature of bias partisan, local, 
 
 aristocratic biases of the House and Senate ... 14 
 
 8. Class Laws : The Statute of Laborers and other devices to 
 
 regulate laborers taxation in France under the old 
 regime 17 
 
 9. Monopoly Biases: The East India Company Adam Smith 
 
 - on this bias J. S. Mill on demoralization by the aristo- 
 cratic bias 19 
 
 10. Illustrations of the Bankers' Bias: The United States bank- 
 
 White and Coe's dogma that bank paper is not credit 
 money self-regulation of bank issues .... 21 
 
 11. Tfie Mask of Credit-Strengthening: Morton's and Mori-ill's 
 
 views nature of the measure a class and sectional 
 
 interest . 24 
 
 12. The Naval Superstition : Absurdities of our navigation laws. 27 
 
 13. Belief for Big Debtors: 28
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION. PAGE. 
 
 14. Benefit of Bias for the Few: Giving away lands Secretary 
 
 Teller's haste the House and Senate on regulating rail- 
 roads great caution 29 
 
 15. Aristocracy in the Senate: John Adams and McMaster on 
 
 the Senate making rich men Senators .... 32 
 
 16. Biases of Economical Teac/ters : Thorold Rogers on the bias 
 
 of economists J. R. McCulloch on taxation Atkinson's 
 
 suggestions Sumner on bi-metallism practical effects. 33 
 
 17. The Impotent Bias : Wrong notions of the masses . . 38 
 
 18. Improvement in Biases : Examples . . . . . . 38 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 19. The Evil of General Indifference: Permits unjust taxation . 39 
 
 20. The Diffusion of Taxes: Tax falling on consumption (Wells) 
 
 a tax on rent not shifted (Ricardo) repercussion of 
 income tax railroad taxes taxing wages shifting 
 requires effort and time Wells illustrates F. A. Walker 
 on diffusion editor Economist, J. Chamberlain, E. J. 
 James 40 
 
 21. The Chief Maxim of Taxation: Smith's canon Wells' rule- 
 
 no method perfect 45 
 
 22. The Ease of Collection : The strong resist most favoring the 
 
 rich (McCulloch) Wells on exemption .... 47 
 
 23. Overtaxing the Rich: Oppressing the rich (Ford) the rich 
 
 are the strong in this straggle 51 
 
 24. Equality of Sacrifice for State Support: Wagner's view sum- 
 
 mary of this doctrine practical difficulties of this 
 scheme education a condition of the higher justice . 53 
 
 25. Diversity in Taxation: The latest word simple rales for 
 
 taxation 57 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MONEY. 
 
 26. Present and Ultimate Results: Reaction of great wealth on 
 
 family slavery, large estates currency contraction 
 
 not above taking such advantages 60 
 
 27. Influence of Changeable Values in Money: General effects of 
 
 changeability conditions which affect the value of 
 money effects of dearer money how appreciation 
 affects business effects of contraction or expansion- 
 duty of government to guarantee unifomiity ... 62
 
 CONTENTS. VII 
 
 SECTION PAGE. 
 
 28. The Honest Dollar: Gold rising in value (Robertson, West- 
 
 grath, Grenfell) ostentatious claims of honesty . . 68 
 
 29. An Economical Bull: Prices rising on a fearful contraction. 71 
 
 30. The Chronic Fear of a Premium on Gold: Predictions against 
 
 silver not fulfilled why gold does not hide gold with a 
 small premium not lost as money 72 
 
 31. Natural Selection and Monometallism : Two kinds of natural 
 
 selection a strong class interest determines the present 
 tack of "natural selection" in money 75 
 
 32. Who should make the Paper Money : Elasticity of bank paper 
 
 (Sumner, Walker) silver certificates stopping silver 
 coinage cheap fiat money the composite standard 
 bi-metallism practically best 78 
 
 33. Monometallism a Covert Sectional Interest : How it is so criti- 
 
 cism 82 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 MOXOPOLY ADVANTAGES. 
 
 34. Control of the Soil: The people losing their lands monopoly 
 
 of large tracts difficulties of forfeiture new legislation 
 required 83 
 
 35. Inherent Monopoly: The necessary limits to extortion insuffi- 
 
 cient 
 
 36. Personal Discrimination: Rebates Standard Oil milkmen 
 
 special rates the rule examples Spreckels' sugar 
 monopoly 88 
 
 37. Local Discrimination ; Charging more for short than long 
 
 haul cases a case for experts 90 
 
 38. Views of Representative Men : Abstracts and extracts from 
 
 congressmen, senators, President Arthur, Republican 
 Convention, C. F. Adams why there is no national 
 legislation 92 
 
 39. Excuses for Inaction: The good railroads do who has made 
 
 the sacrifice helping weak industries the Phelps 
 splurge cheap freights publicity of abuses useful the 
 fear of doing harm 95 
 
 40. Some other Monopolies and "Parasites:" Express, telegraph, 
 
 and gas companies a New York gas combination par- 
 asites on railroads, Senator Sherman .... 99 
 
 41. Monopolies without State Francliiscs : President Go wan's list 
 
 still others combination not possible in all industries- 
 double advantage of combination dead rent competi- 
 tion and free contract at fault how rings manage 
 precedents for State regulation of monopoly rings . . 101
 
 VIII CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GOVERNMENTAL INTEKFEUENCE. 
 
 42. Letting Thing* take their Natural Course: Human interfer- 
 
 encewrong-doers and resistance thereto all action 
 takes place under resistance new elements in the con- 
 test the two opposing elements in society " natural " 
 in different senses 107 
 
 43. Force as an Element in Righting Wrong: Rise of our own 
 
 government voluntary organization and power to main- 
 tain unity of action business aggression uses the State 
 Spencer's argument for popular suffrage . . . ill 
 
 44. Only through Vie State can the People redress their Grievances: 
 
 Voluntary association no match for the State worked by 
 unscrupulous men preaching that all is well . . .114 
 
 45. Work of Correction the Government should do: Three kinds of 
 
 such work 116 
 
 46. Evolution in Government: The organism as illustrating evo- 
 
 lutiona vision of 1861 derivation of government and 
 removal of outgrown regulations one kind of restriction 
 required while another has been removed integration 
 and centralization not splitting up the old, but differ- 
 entiating the new 117 
 
 47. The Tyranny of Voluntary Combinations: Misinterpretation 
 
 of certain historical movements signs that compulsion 
 does not abate rings doing what Spencer charges gov- 
 ernment with doing control properly a government 
 function 122 
 
 48. Limit* to Interference : Local self-government and a sphere 
 
 for the individual to be maintained . . . .125 
 
 49. The Modern Change in the Structure of Society: Business 
 
 combinations combinations to get rid of competition 
 combination must go on and submit to governmental con- 
 trol illustrated by railroad systems . . . . 127 
 
 50. h Governmental Control Practicable? Control by States has 
 
 had some success regulating institutions with State 
 franchises control of voluntary combinations without 
 charters tariff laws favor monopoly rings positive 
 work the State should do examples ... 131 
 
 81. Does Neglect of the Poor favor Improvement in the Race? 
 Handicapping superiorities Spencer on survival of the 
 fittest in society general facts regarding prolificacy 
 among classes Mr. Spencer's assumptions he omits the 
 chief cause of burdens on the worthy laws of survival
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 among animals different from such laws among men 
 the lowly not to be neglected but to be elevated selec- 
 tion among men directly affects societies and institutions 
 rather than individuals importance of the lower ele- 
 ments in society 135 
 
 52. Are the Beaten in Life icorth Caring for? Great inequality 
 
 undesirable (Rogers) Spencer insists on moral likeness 
 of all grades in society suffering in one class affects all 
 classes 143 
 
 53. The Tyranny of Majorities : Personal freedom may increase 
 
 as governmental functions extend need of a regulating 
 head in a complicated system confounding unlike things 
 negative coercion examples of legitimate restraint- 
 innovations usually established by almost unanimous 
 consent banded minorities more dangerous than majori- 
 ties nations and States will not all deal the same way 
 with the problem of regulation obstruction by the con- 
 trol selfish interests exercise over government Note to 
 Sec. 51 144 
 
 CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 THE RADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 54. Equity in the Distribution of Wealth : Successful industry no 
 
 proof of equitable distribution improvement in condi- 
 tion of middle and lower classes no proof of equitable 
 distribution recent conditions that help the many in 
 spite of injustice better living not unmixed good under 
 present conditions laborer's condition not improving in 
 this country concentration of wealth in England lower 
 and middle classes not getting full benefit of new indus- 
 trial forces 149 
 
 55. The means of Remedying Class Injustice : Whatever deals with 
 
 wrong must have the power of coercion the two kinds 
 of superstition about government the remedy for 
 wrong must come ultimately through the government 
 better people better government proper teaching must 
 be the initiative for the improvement of constituencies 
 its difficulties class bias of teachers bias better re- 
 warded than candor no hope but in truthful teaching 
 honest purpose often neutralized by vaguery must 
 agitate 156 
 
 56. Needof Primary Education in Economics: The many should 
 
 be educated in the simple principles of every-day econo-
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION. PAGE 
 
 mics class fashions educating youth to a better per- 
 spective in life the work that took the Guinard prize- 
 saving success of the scheme 160 
 
 57. Summary of M. Laurent's Work: Eow the habit of saving is 
 established defense and explanation of the method- 
 report of the awarding committee this method con- 
 trasted with the absolute methods of the reformers- 
 educating youth into habits of thrift should go along 
 with the removal of monopoly abuses .... 163 
 
 68. The Initiative in this Country : Expenditure among American 
 
 laborers the poor must learn to make most of present 
 opportunity the agencies to look to for help draw- 
 backs in the present chaos of economics . . . 167 
 
 69. Minding One's Business in the Iligher Sense : Discipline needed 
 
 as an individual and as a social being the egoist n 
 higher order of powers required to discharge one's social 
 duties Note to Sections 57 and 58 . , , .169
 
 CLASS INTERESTS. 
 
 THE AIM. 
 
 It is not expected that an advocate shall be judicial. It is ! 
 his business to make the most of his case. If he represents a 
 special interest, it is expected that he shall manifest the bias 
 of his interest, and yield fully to its inspiration in giving tone 
 and direction to his effort. It is otherwise if one aims to do 
 work in the general interests of society. He must note the 
 biases, and as far as possible free his own mind from them ; he 
 must locate and measure them in the world about him, and deal 
 with them as the sternest realities. No man, perhaps, can wholly 
 avoid being swayed this way or that, to some extent, by the 
 tenor of his sympathies. He may, for example, feel too much 
 for the hard fate of the great proletarian masses, or he may 
 sympathize too much with those who forget the many in their 
 devotion to the interests of the few. In applying this to my- 
 self as the author of " Reforms," I said, may be I have been 
 mistaken in the facts ; perhaps there is another line of facts 
 and considerations which my bias has not permitted me to see. 
 It is so easy to become the victim of an unconscious prejudice, I 
 perhaps I am such a victim. At any rate it will do no harm 
 to go over some of this ground again. Possibly the rings and 
 syndicates of every kind are actuated by the best of motives 
 and are working out their natural destiny according to some 
 inevitable law ; may be they are public benefactors, in all ways 
 doing precisely what ought to be done for the public good ;
 
 2 CLASS INTERESTS. 
 
 wherefore it would be base ingratitude to threaten them with 
 governmental supervision. Perhaps the drift of currency- 
 changes toward gold monometallism is going in the best 
 possible direction precisely because it is the only way it 
 can go, fulfilling destin} r under the law of natural selec- 
 tion. Taxation as it is may be wise and fair, and if the 
 strong are able to avoid what is apparently their just share, 
 even this may make amends for apparent wrong, since b} 7 
 such means they have more to invest for the benefit of so- 
 ciety in general. Here are three great subjects corporate 
 and ring monopoly, the currency question, and taxation. These 
 comprehended so large a field that I was sure, I should have 
 enough to do to look them over somewhat carefulty, and 
 condense the results of my studies into a very small volume 
 the hardest part of the work, perhaps, being the condensing. 
 
 The following chapters as the result of this study may be 
 regarded as a sequel to u Reforms." Each series of statements is 
 independent of the other, however, covering different ground ; 
 but as there is something in each to reinforce the other, they 
 are together stronger than either alone. The aim of " Re- 
 forms " was more particularly to call attention to the limita- 
 tions of almost every effort for the improvement of societ}*; 
 the aim in the following chapters is to show the great need of 
 reform in certain directions, and to point out as definitely as 
 the situation at present seems to warrant, how such reform is 
 to be effected. The cases which especially need looking into 
 are those in which there is a conflict of class interests, with a 
 small but powerful class on one side, and the great body of the 
 people on the other. If the writer is not greatly mistaken there 
 are some conditions of long standing, which might be greatly 
 improved, while there are new conditions coming into existence 
 with concurrent evils which must be dealt with in the interests 
 of equit)'. It is of the first importance to see as clearly as 
 possible the line along which endeavor should be made to ef- 
 fect the desired results ; and the writer hopes that some of the 
 suggestions herein made, will not be wholly without use.
 
 CLASS INTERESTS. 3 
 
 In the course of this stud}*, he discovered what named it- 
 self to his mind as absolute economics. Examples of it may 
 be found in many of our works on political economj-. A few 
 of them may be passed under brief notice for their value in the 
 way of suggestion. 
 
 NOTE. "The People." I use the word "people" both in the title 
 and text. I take it to be a word of distinctive meaning not liable to be 
 misunderstood, and I would not refer here to its use, but for a criticism 
 that I find in Prof. Sumner's book on "Social Classes." That author 
 maintains that it is wrong to speak of "the people" acting through 
 legislation upon a class, because this implies that there is "somebody 
 who must, of course, be differentiated from the sovereign people." 
 And he adds: "Whenever 'people' is used in this sense for anything 
 less than the total population, man, woman, child, and baby, and 
 whenever the great dogmas which contain the word ' people ' are con- 
 strued under the limited definition of 'people' there is always fallacy" 
 (p. 30). Let us see about that: The "people," protect themselves by 
 legal appliances against classes in society, known as horse-thieves, 
 burglars, etc. Are not these fellows as burglars and thieves differentiat- 
 ed from the sovereign people ? The " people " have a right to protect 
 themselves against high tariff taxes; and while the beneficiaries of such 
 taxes are citizens, yet as beneficiaries, they are most distinctly differ- 
 entiated from the great body of the sovereign people, as Prof. Sumner 
 himself substantially teaches. Yes, the people have a right to protect 
 themselves against the conspiracies of corporations and rings that flank 
 competition and build themselves up at the expense of others; and while 
 extortionists may be powerful citizens, they are at the same time as 
 fully differentiated from the masses of honest people, as are those who 
 ride off horses and break into houses. Prof. Sumner's fallacy consists 
 in confounding individuals as citizens with individuals as manipulators 
 of monopoly interests. In one capacity a man may constitute a part of 
 the sovereign people, and in another capacity he may be an enemy of 
 that sovereign people. It should riot be necessary to illustrate a matter 
 so plain as this. 
 
 2
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 ABSOLUTE ECONOMICS. 
 
 1. EQUALIZATION OP PROFITS. One of these absolute prin- 
 ciples is that which assumes the tendency of profits in all de- 
 partments of business to find the same level. There is truth in 
 this, but it must not be taken too exclusively. If there were 
 constant tendencies along all lines toward the same level, 
 they would eventually reach the same level, and if they 
 stopped there, there would be no difference in profits. But 
 the fact is they do not stop. They keep on to rise above or 
 sink below. Let us illustrate : There is an opening for some 
 new business which invites capital. The taste, or even only 
 the scent, of large profits is almost sure to breed an epidemic 
 with the delusion of sudden wealth from investment in that 
 particular business, till it is fairly overdone, and hot com- 
 petition by and by sinks profits below the general level. There 
 is no intelligent concert of action, only the rush of a blind 
 impulse, and hence the utter failure properly to estimate re- 
 sults. 
 
 There is another reason why profits are never on the same 
 level, the power of those engaged in certain kinds of busi- 
 ness to limit production and thereby to keep up prices. Not 
 in all kinds of business can this be done, and the consequence 
 is a great disparity in profits. A great deal of manufacturing 
 is thus done under the control of exclusive rings ; while farm- 
 ers and the great masses of people are not able to combine for 
 the monopoly control of their products. 
 
 2. COST AND PRICE. Akin to this is the idea that "the 
 cost of production is the grand regulator of price the centre 
 of all those transitory and evanescent oscillations on the one
 
 SeC. #.] COST AND PRICE. 5 
 
 side and the other." (J. R McCulloch). Something like this is 
 to be found in most works on political economy. So prev- 
 alent, indeed, is this view that most persons who think in any 
 way of the subject, take it for granted that the cost of produc- 
 tion or what is assumed to be its equivalent, the amount 
 of labor bestowed on production, determines the market price. 
 Most, indeed, may recognize the relation of supply and demand 
 as an element in price, but they are quite apt to underestimate 
 it. As all farmers, at the present time, fully realize to their 
 sorrow, the cost of growing wheat has little to do with its 
 price. The price is determined directly by the relations of 
 supply and demand. The cost of production is a remote and 
 slow-acting element in the problem ; the relation of supply and 
 demand is an immediate and quick-acting element, and the 
 dealers have far more to do with fixing prices than the pro- 
 ducers. 
 
 That clear headed economist, the late J. E. Cliffe Leslie, said 
 that this doctrine " assumes not only free competition, but full 
 information. It assumes that every man in business, or about 
 to enter it, knows the cost at which everything is produced, 
 the mode of its production, the profit or loss of producing it, 
 the improvements impending, and the manner in which the 
 market will be affected by fluctuations in trade, credit and spec- 
 ulation." In another article in the same work (Lalor's Cyclo- 
 pedia of Political Science), the same writer observes : " The 
 best general formula for the conditions determining value is, in 
 short, demand and supply. Cost of production, even within 
 the same country, can act on value only by roughly adjusting 
 the supply to the demand, and its action is uncertain and 
 irregular." 
 
 An error akin to that of cost of production governing prices, 
 is, that a tax on raw produce causes its price to rise. It may 
 sometimes have this effect, but not always the case is alto- 
 gether, a conditional one. Inasmuch as the cost of production 
 does not determine prices that is, when the cost of production 
 is greater, the price of the product is not necessarily greater,
 
 6 ABSOLUTE ECONOMICS. [Chap. I. 
 
 since the price is governed mainly by supply and demand ; it 
 follows, that if the additional cost of production is due to a 
 tax, the price does not necessarily rise in response to such ad- 
 ditional cost. The producer may have to pay the tax and re- 
 main without the power to shift a single cent of it to the con- 
 sumer or anybody else. There is danger lurking in some of 
 these absolute propositions. 
 
 3. WAGES AND PRICES. Ricardo has affected a precision in 
 economics which the subject hardly admits of. His statements 
 read like a series of algebraic formulae. Some of his proposi- 
 tions arc maintained without regard to qualifying conditions, 
 much as if an astronomer should undertake to determine the 
 course of a planet without taking account of the disturbing 
 influence of other planets. In no field covered by science are 
 the forces in action more affected by relativity than in that of 
 economics. One of Ricardo's absolute propositions is that a rise 
 in wages docs not add to the price of products, but reduces 
 profits. In this he controverts Adam Smith and others, and 
 turns the proposition over and over with paternal fondness. 
 All that is in it, is that it may be sometimes true. The case 
 is a conditional and not an absolute one. 
 
 In most questions of political economy, the elements are so 
 numerous and changeable as effectually to rule out most abso- 
 lute propositions. Ricardo docs not discuss the converse prop- 
 osition, that a fall in wages would cause, not a fall in prices, 
 but a rise in profits. He could not discuss this proposition, 
 because one of his absolute assumptions is that wages arc at a 
 minimum and cannot fall. He maintains that taxes on wages 
 t will necessarily be paid by the employer. He says, morcver, 
 "that profits depend on high or low wages, wages on the price 
 of necessaries, and the price of necessaries chiefly on the price 
 of food." Now, if wages could fall, everything else equal, goods 
 could be produced that much lower, and the competition of 
 producers in the market would reduce prices (Ford) ; so that 
 the fall of wages would lead to a fall in prices. Then, if wages 
 should rise, everything else equal, the demand of laborers for
 
 SeC. 4-~\ PRINCIPLES OP TAXATION. 7 
 
 products would increase, and this increase of demand would 
 lead to a rise in the prices of products. Here are conditions 
 and modifying circumstances which Bicardo has wholly over- 
 looked. And so difficult is this subject that my own state- 
 ments are far simpler than the case will warrant ; but it is im- 
 possible in so brief a statement, to give definite expression to 
 all the dependent and fluctuating elements of the problem. 
 
 4. PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. Hon. B. A. Wells lays down 
 the following on taxation : " Equality of taxation consists in 
 the uniform assessment of the same articles or class of prop- 
 erty that is subject to taxation. Taxes under such a sj-stem 
 equate and diffuse themselves ; aad- if levied with certainty 
 and uniformity upon tangible property and fixed signs of 
 propert}*, they will, by a diffusion and repercussion, reach and 
 burden all visible property, an$ also all so-called invisible and 
 intangible property, with unerring certainty and equality. All 
 taxation ultimately and necessarily falls on consumption ; and 
 the burden of every man, under any equitable system of taxa- 
 tion, and which no effort will enable him to avoid, will be in 
 the exact proportion, or ratio, which his aggregate consumption 
 maintains to the aggregate consumption of the taxing district, 
 or community of which he is a member." Now, this is abso- 
 lute enough to satisfy any man looking for perfection in the 
 announcement of a doctrine of taxation, or a doctrine of any- 
 thing else. But does Mr. Wells himself really believe in it ? 
 There is reason to doubt it ; or if he does believe in it, there is 
 apparent mental confusion and want of consistency. One of his 
 canons of taxation is : "Protection is the correlative of taxation ; 
 or, taxes, under any government claiming to be free, are the 
 compensation which property pays the State for its protection." 
 Now, if "all taxation ultimately and necessarily falls on consump- 
 tion," how can it be that taxes are the compensation which 
 property pays for protection ? Property and consumption are 
 very* different things. But this is not all. According to an- 
 other of Mr. Wells' canons, "Every* citizen should pay taxes, not 
 in proportion to his ability to give, but according to what he,
 
 8 ABSOLUTE ECONOMICS. [.Chap. I. 
 
 ought to give, and what he ought to give can only be measured 
 by the benefit he is to derive ; or, as Adam Smith expressed 
 it, in proportion to the revenue which he enjoys under the 
 protection of the State." Here again, the " enjoyment of rev- 
 enue " and " consumption " arc very different things, as different 
 as the whole is from a part, since there may be a great deal of 
 enjoyment from revenue which is not consumed at all. Then, 
 if taxes are necessarily paid in proportion to consumption, 
 that settles it, and these canons are so much verbiage without 
 meaning. It is not the intention to discuss taxation here. No 
 reasons are given for not believing in Mr. Wells' absolute 
 doctrine of taxation ; his canons having been quoted to show 
 that he hardly believes in it himself. 
 
 5. RELATIVE SHARES OP LABOR AND CAPITAL IN PRODUC- 
 TION. Another example in this line is to be found in happy 
 association with Bastiat's economical harmonies. It is stated 
 in this way : " In proportion to the increase of capital, the 
 absolute share (of the products) falling to capital is augmented, 
 but the relative share is diminished, while the share of the 
 laborer is increased both absolutely and relativel}-." (Bastiat.) 
 This view is held by a number of economists of optimistic 
 tastes ; but we will take up the last expounder a very dog- 
 matic expounder of the doctrine, and see how consistently ho 
 sticks to it According to Mr. Ed. Atkinson, this result of 
 constant gain to the laborer is brought about by means of im- 
 proved machinery. And so absolute is this result that, with 
 the improvement of machinery and the progress of civiliza- 
 tion, the laborer must necessarily enjoy a continous improve- 
 ment of condition. " Wages, therefore, arc apparently deferred 
 to profits ; but on the other hand, wages constitute all that 
 there is left, and under the inexorable law of competition of 
 capital, the profits of capital are constant!} 7 tending to a mini- 
 mum, while the rate and purchasing power of wages arc both 
 constantly tending to a maximum." Having got this absolute 
 principle fixed in his mind, Mr. Atkinson can well afford to'be 
 contemptuous toward "the common ruck of so-called labor
 
 Sec. 5J] LABOR AND CAPITAL IN PRODUCTION. 9 
 
 reformers who infest the lobbies, &c." A literary attorney 
 of corporations charging labor reformers with infesting the 
 lobbies is good ! But does Mr. Atkinson really believe in his 
 own doctrine of the necessary thrift of labor ? Not a bit of it. 
 He savs : "If the propositions in this treatise can be sustained 
 to wit: that wages are a constantly increasing remainder 
 over after lessening rates of profit have been set aside from 
 an increasing product, it follows that the ability of a very pro- 
 ductive country to find a market for its excess, especially of 
 farm products, is a most important factor in determining the 
 price of the whole product, and therefore in determining the 
 general or average rate of wages and profits which can be re- 
 covered from the sale of the whole." "We must exchange 
 our excess for tea, coffee, sugar, hides, wool, and the like, and 
 in the process of this exchange, the price of all our crops is 
 determined by what this excess will bring ; the remainder over 
 from the sales establishes the standard of farm wages, ~by, or 
 in, comparison with which, all other wages are in the main 
 determined. Hence, the average rate of domestic wages rests, 
 in a very great degree, under our present conditions, on 
 our finding a foreign market for the excess of our products 
 of agriculture ; if this market is limited or reduced, the pur- 
 chasing power of our farmers, numbering one half of our pop- 
 ulation, is reduced, and this reacts on the demand for domestic 
 manufactures." 
 
 Now, while the conditions here stated are true, their logical 
 value stands in direct opposition to the absolute character 
 of the main proposition. The main proposition that wages go 
 up while profits go down, is unconditional. It is stated as a 
 law of economical progress for our guidance in the interpreta- 
 tion of economic phenomena. But if a foreign or other market, 
 especially for farm products, is necessary to the integrity of 
 the law, then is it a law which holds good only under certain 
 conditions. With no market at all, or a poor one, wages might 
 go down, instead of up, and with a good market they might 
 rise ; therefore the proposition that wages necessarily go up
 
 10 ABSOLUTE ECONOMICS. [.Chap. I. 
 
 according to a law of things, is not true. The absolute air 
 which Carey, Bastiat, Perry, Atkinson give this proposition, 
 is delusive. Mr. Atkinson explains the high wages in America 
 by referring them to " the possession of more ample and va- 
 ried natural resources," together with good machinery and 
 skill in its use, improved methods of intercommunication, gen- 
 eral education, and light taxation ; and he affirms that ' 'in the 
 last analysis the rate of wages rests wholly on character and 
 capacity." In the name of common consistency 1 how many 
 conditions does he impose upon his unconditional principle? 
 While looking at one part of his subject, he has lost sight of 
 the other. After he has labored all through his essay to prove 
 that wages necessarily increase as profits decrease from the 
 competition of capital and the efficiency of machinery, he now 
 tells us that wages depend on ample and varied natural 
 resources, on good roads, good markets, light taxation, general 
 education, and in the last analysis wholly on the character and 
 capacit}* of the workingman himself. I repeat, the conditions 
 here made arc true, but the cardinal proposition so heroically 
 maintained is not true. 
 
 While the condition of laboring men may have improved 
 within the present century as machinery cheapened products 
 and rich new countries invited immigrants, it docs not follow 
 that their condition will go on improving under the necessary 
 operation of an} T fundamental law. We should be careful 
 about basing absolute prophecies on the little segment of the 
 circle we see. We are " but insects oi an hour," and it is pre- 
 posterous for us, as well as for the insect, to invoke a limited 
 experience with narrow interpretation to divine the laws of all 
 time to come ; and especially is this preposterous in the do- 
 main of economics. The career of the laboring class for the 
 last four hundred j-ears has not been a constantly ascend- 
 ing one. Prof. Thorold Rogers in " Six Centuries of Work 
 and Wages," speaking of English workingmcn in the 15th 
 century, says : "All the necessaries of life in ordinary years, 
 when there was no dearth, were abundant and cheap, and even
 
 SeC. 5.] LABOE AND CAPITAL IN PRODUCTION. 11 
 
 in dear years, the margin of wages, or profits, over the bare 
 wants of life was considerable enough to fill up the void, even 
 though the laborer had to subsist for a time on cheaper food 
 than wheaten bread. Meat was plentiful ; poultry found every- 
 where; eggs cheapest of all. The poorest and meanest man 
 had no absolute and insurmountable impediment put on his 
 career, if he would seize his opportunity and make use of it." 
 Of laborers in Lancashire, England, he says : " What a hus- 
 bandman earned with fifteen weeks' work, and an artisan with 
 ten weeks' work in 1495, a whole year's labor would not supply 
 artisan or laborer with in the year 1725." And again : " I have 
 stated more than once that the 15th century and the first 
 quarter of the 16th were the golden age of the English laborer, 
 if we are to interpret the wages which he earned by the cost 
 of the necessaries of life. At no time were wages, relatively 
 speaking, so high, and at no time was food so cheap ;" and 
 laborers worked but eight hours daily. A hundred j-ears ago 
 Hallam stated " that however the laborer has derived benefit 
 from the cheapness of manufactured commodities, and from 
 many inventions of common utility, he is much inferior in 
 ability, to support a family, to his ancestors three or four cen- 
 turies ago." He states the facts and figures which led him to 
 this conclusion. (Middle Ages, Chap. IX, Part II.) The ad- 
 vance of civilization in the 18th century was far ahead of that 
 in the 15th century, and jet the laborer was worse off than 
 during the earlier period. Where were the benignant harmon- 
 ies of Bastiat's economic theories in those days ? There is no 
 absolute law guaranteeing the continuous progress of any class 
 in society. Such progress is forever conditional, and with a 
 change of conditions for the worse, a reaction may set in 
 which no available force can resist. 
 
 According to the Atkinsonian oracle, it is the competition 
 of capital setting up improved machinery that is constantly 
 improving the workingman's condition. Competition of capi- 
 tal ! Is that the only form of competition having potency 
 here ? How about the competition of laborers ? and what are
 
 12 ABSOLUTE ECONOMICS. [Chap. I. 
 
 the conditions which moderate or intensify this competition ? 
 Mr. Atkinson does not appear to know anything about this 
 side of the shield, although he is pretending to tell us all 
 about it. 
 
 The chief element which has moderated the competition 
 of laborers and given the workingman's world its buoyancy 
 during the present century, is to be found in the varied, rich, 
 and almost boundless resources of the new continents east and 
 west, which have constantly drawn off the surplus of working- 
 men from the populous centres of Europe. Let the newer parts 
 of these continents be now sunk into the sea, the catastrophe 
 would unsettle some of the absolute dogmas of political econ- 
 omy. In a market overstocked with laborers, ignorant, hungry, 
 prolific from desperation, bitterly competing for something to 
 do, what would there be to stiffen wages and cheer the life of 
 the wage-earner ? Laborers would be the veriest slaves, and 
 the "pessimistic, abhorrent and atheistic dogma" of Malthus 
 would be confirmed. Let us not be duped by the smiling fet- 
 iches conjured up from the domain of absolute economics ! 
 
 This is not a mere exercise in economical dialectics. The 
 attempt to create the impression that, by virtue of a deep law, 
 the working men of the world are necessarily on the winning 
 side, is to excuse the encroachment of organized greed, if not 
 indeed to screen the methods of rascality itself. It goes far 
 to encourage measures which are sapping the very foundations 
 on which the prosperity of the work-people must rest. It 
 justifies the infliction of taxes in disregard of relative ability 
 to pay. It justifies political inaction while corporate power by 
 combination escapes competition, and taxes the people at will. 
 It justifies the squandering of the public lands on corporations 
 and sj-ndicates, when they should be scrupulously preserved 
 for homes for the people. What matter, if by a law of things 
 the ratio of products to the share of labor is found to become 
 relatively, absolutel}', and eternally greater anyhow ! 
 
 6. FAMILIAR WITH THE ABSOLUTE. Absolute economics is 
 invoked by reformers as well as by anti-reformers. Mr. Henry
 
 Sec, 6.] FAMILIAR WITH THE ABSOLUTE. 13 
 
 George's scheme admits of no qualifications or conditions ; it 
 is absolute. Rent is the cause of all evil, and the confiscation 
 of rent will remove it all. The remedy is sovereign and ab- 
 solute (Progress and Poverty, p. 364). "Absolute " the word 
 is apter than I knew, for now comes an apostle of the Georgian 
 gospel who speaks with authority from the Absolute. (Man's 
 Birthright. By Edward H. G. Clark). Through the avenues 
 opened by Kant and Hegel, this writer has become quite 
 familiar with the Absolute, and now that he delivers a new 
 and final revelation in economics from the Ultimate Source 
 of all knowledge, we ought to accept it with humility and 
 thankfulness. It is true that some of us have been studying 
 the subject of political economy for a quarter of a century, 
 Mr. Clark for only four years ; but this should make no differ- 
 ence when it comes to the final word from the Absolute. Mr. 
 Clark says : " I wish to impress upon the mind of the reader 
 with all the emphasis possible to human language, that what I 
 have termed the principle of ownership, or the higher law 
 of property, does not rest for its validity on any man's judg- 
 ment, advocacy, or opposition. It is not a waif of theory. It 
 is a fixture of the Absolute imbedded in the constitution of the 
 universe. In other words, it is one of the structural relations 
 between mind and matter, and so is just as actual as mind and 
 matter themselves, or as time and space. But in the evolution 
 of our world, this great fundamental law, like all other basic 
 laws of the cosmos, has come clearly to human view only 
 through a form of individual consciousness specially fitted to 
 find it. The time for it has arrived, and [discovered by David 
 Reeves Smith], it is here." 
 
 This " higher law of property " is that all mankind (the con- 
 scious) conjointly own the earth and all the wealth therein (the 
 unconscious). All men are the rightful owners, but all are 
 not in possession ; then how are they to come to their own ? 
 By means of an ad-valorem tax of two per cent per annum 
 on all assets. Every period of fifty years this tax would 
 of course bring into the treasury a sum equal to the entire
 
 14 CLASS BIAS. [Chap. II. 
 
 wealth of the world. Fifty years is taken as the life-time of 
 one generation ; and the aggregate of taxes for this period, be- 
 ing the equivalent of all the wealth of the world, is to be the 
 the property of one generation which thus receives what it is 
 entitled to by the higher law of property. This is its birth- 
 right ; but how is it to realize its possession of all this wealth ? 
 Not by redistribution to individuals, but by redistribution " in 
 common public benefits." 
 
 It may work well enough to go to the Absolute for a fun- 
 damental principle, but when it comes to practice under it, we 
 have to get along without the Absolute ; and then the trouble 
 begins. One might raise a question about the results of dis- 
 tribution under the play of apparently ineradicable human 
 foibles, but there is an air of such absolute confidence, that 
 critics are virtually warned off the premises. I infer from the 
 reading of Mr. Clark's interesting little book, that even 
 good things in economics may be damaged by forgetting that 
 they belong to the domain of the relative and are separated by 
 an impassable gulf from all metaphysical notions about the 
 Absolute. 
 
 The subject of absolute economics will receive incidental 
 illustration in some of the chapters which follow. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 CLASS BIAS. 
 
 7. BIASES IN GENERAL. In the course of this study I have 
 become more than ever impressed with the power of what may 
 be called the bias of aristocracy to direct both legislation and 
 administration. Every class in society, every coterie, every 
 set, high or low, rich or poor, has its peculiar bias like an 
 atmosphere through which it looks at outward objects. Some 
 objects it thus sees magnified or distorted, or belittled, and
 
 SeC. 7.] BIASES IN GENERAL. 15 
 
 some it cannot see at all. " What we see depends on what we 
 are;" or rather, what we see depends on what we want to see. 
 The covert bias which infests almost every mind, pushing aside 
 what is offensive to interests, tastes, or wishes, is a powerful 
 factor in determining what we shall see, or not see. Most 
 have this bias, and most are unconscious that they are ever 
 influenced by it. 
 
 Biases take form largely under the molding influence of in- 
 terests, or supposed interests. It has been well said that 
 gravitation itself would be called in question, if the interests 
 of a set were to be subserved thereby. It is not necessary 
 that all who are affected by the particular bias shall have an 
 equal share, or any share at all, in the real or supposed inter- 
 ests out of which the bias grows. The few may fill the social at- 
 mosphere about them with their own feelings, so that their asso- 
 ciates come into full emotional sympathy with them. Feeling 
 is contagious, and the few who feel intensely may infect a 
 great many. And some who do not feel may imitate, and 
 hence all the ambitious classes are infested with snobbery. 
 In a sense mankind are rational ; not so rational, however, but 
 the intellect is largely the servant of the feelings. An interest 
 finds its way into the feelings ; these feelings spread by con- 
 tagion until an entire group becomes affected therewith, when 
 mutual sympathy confirms the common sentiment, and not a 
 doubt remains of its justness. The bias which coincides with 
 the interests of a class, or sect, is far more powerful than a 
 merely individual bias, because it becomes strengthened by 
 sympath} r , and reenforced by mutual statement and affirma- 
 tion, till there is no place for a doubt or a question. It may 
 thus become even a passion, and mold itself into ideals as 
 delusive as lovers' dreams. The bias of partisans may thus 
 at times become heated into passion, and prove itself equal to 
 any outrage on truth. The bias of class, with more quiet, 
 may be equally determined, and may carry its purposes by 
 means no less unscrupulous. An isolated individual bias of 
 this power would be called insanity.
 
 16 CLASS BIAS. [Chap. II 
 
 When any matter comes up which is related to interest or 
 bias, the feelings, not the intellect, usually determine what 
 form the judgment shall take. One may readily see this when 
 watching the proceedings of the House or Senate at Washing- 
 ton. Questions will take the partisan form when it certainly 
 requires fine discernment to discover in what the grounds for 
 partisan division consist. So intellectually obscure at times is 
 the cause of such division that one suspects it as gregarious 
 rather than intellectual, and that the many are directed by the 
 nod of a leader. This seemed to be the case when representa- 
 tives filibustered against Carlisle's three per cent funding bill, 
 and permitted it to pass only when they had ascertained the 
 probability of a veto, although within the next three months 
 Secretary Windom was refunding at three per cent without au- 
 thority of law. Far-seeing filibusters ! 
 
 Equally ready is the Senate to divide on party lines. We 
 might perhaps readily enough understand why a bill to divide 
 a territory and admit part of it into the Union as a State, 
 might be a party question; but one can not always tell why a 
 mere motion to adjourn should be so regarded. A land for- 
 feiture bill ought not to divide the wise Senate on party lines, 
 yet, December 9, 1884, Mr. Slater's motion to take up a bill 
 of this kind was lost on a party vote, except that Mr. Van 
 Wyck voted with the Democrats. 
 
 There arc, too, interests of a local character with their cor- 
 responding biases, which ma}* be seen cropping out at any 
 time, especially in the House. Congress is made up of lawyers 
 and of persons not lawyers, all of whom have constituents to 
 please, and who are expected to act as the attorneys and ad- 
 vocates of the local and class interests of their clients. We 
 frequentlj* see attempts to further certain local measures, not 
 only by direct advocacy, but by trading for help, or by oppos- 
 ing some rival claim on the aggregate of appropriations. Dur- 
 ing the last session of Congress (1884-85), the Rivers and 
 Harbors bill was attacked as unduly favoring the South, al- 
 though more than two-thirds of the committee which framed
 
 Sec. #.] CLASS LAWS. 17 
 
 the bill, were from the North. Certain districts, cities, and 
 railways are interested in the east and west movement of com- 
 merce; hence the difficulties and expense of improving the 
 Mississippi river were dwelt upon with emphasis. Members 
 living west of Chicago, though earnest in support of Reagan's 
 Interstate Commerce bill, had doubts whether it was advisable 
 to forbid charging more for a short than a long haul. Were it 
 not that the matter is complicated by railroad affiliations, one 
 might guess pretty well the general localit}- of a member by 
 his attitude toward the Hennepin Canal. 
 
 Another form of interest with its appropriate bias an in- 
 sidious and reprehensible form, of which the great public has 
 far too little consciousness is that which actuates members 
 to favor strong men in society, who are seeking to secure cer- 
 tain business privileges, which the many or the weak cannot 
 have. All these forms of interest and bias revolve around self 
 as the centre. The legislator or the administrative officer 
 grants favors for favors in return. If it be a general constitu- 
 ency that is made happy, a reelection may be secured. If it 
 be seme great corporate power that is favored, the favor of 
 political preferment, achieved by secret and devious methods, 
 may be expected in return. 
 
 Then, while we are wondering at the infinite diversity of 
 opinion which is called forth from congressmen and senators 
 by certain proposed measures, we shall miss the interpretation 
 greatly if we attribute it to the exercise of a purely judicial 
 temper. It is the work of attorneys, and not of judges ; and 
 there is a bias of some kind in almost every opinion given and 
 argument made. 
 
 8. CLASS LAWS. In all law-making since civilization be- 
 gan, class legislation has been a prominent feature, class leg- 
 islation always intended to be in the interest of the strong 
 class or classes that made the laws. This is but human nature, 
 however ; " give men power and they will use it." Law- 
 makers with the class bias, of which they may be quite un- 
 conscious, would think it a waste of power not to make the 
 a
 
 18 CLASS BIAS. [Chap. 11. 
 
 laws to suit themselves. Emploj-crs and not laborers made the 
 laws for the regulation of laborers in England ; and, while 
 professing to have the good of the laborers at heart, they im- 
 posed restrictions which, had they been efficacious, would have 
 made the working people slaves. After the great plague 
 wages rose, and in 1351 the Statute of Laborers was enacted 
 to compel people to work at the old prices. This form of ar- 
 bitrary interference was kept up for centuries. When one law 
 failed, another was tried. Laborers were not allowed to move 
 from one place to another without an official permit, on pain 
 of being put in the stocks. They were not allowed to change 
 their occupation, and children must pursue the calling of their 
 parents. It was decided not only what hired laborers should 
 receive, but what food they should eat and what clothes they 
 should wear. Such laws not only hampered the workingman, 
 but harmed his employers ; but none the less was the instinct 
 prompting such enactments that of promoting the class inter- 
 ests of those who made the laws; and what refused to be regu- 
 lated had its revenges on the regulators. This lesson, which 
 should have been plain from the first, was not learned so as 
 to have results till the present century. Even yet it does not 
 bear full fruits, and the old bias has a good deal of vitalit}- in 
 it Landlords in England are still preferred creditors and can 
 take the property of their tenants till their claims are satisfied; 
 and they think this right. Acts to secure tenants for improve- 
 ments they have made become void by provisions which enable 
 the landlord to evade the act ; and he thinks it right that he 
 should evade it. Tenants are beaten by renting to them at 
 higher rates in consequence of improvements they have made. 
 The strong classes still rule in many ways. 
 
 Previous to the Revolution in France, the weight of taxes 
 was thrown upon the poorer classes. Taxation was direct, 
 and the nobility and clergy were exempt, while the peasants 
 like mules patient of their burdens were loaded down. Of 
 course, the working people had no sensibilities which the aris- 
 tocrats were bound to respect, and the laws were in general
 
 Sec. 9J] MONOPOLY BIASES. 19 
 
 made to suit the people of fine sensibilities ; all of which 
 was done without the least consciousness that it was not in 
 accordance with the divine order of things. 
 
 9. MONOPOLY BIASES. Wherever monopolies exist, there 
 are influences constantly at work to create and maintain a 
 bias in their favor. This was well exemplified in the case 
 of the East India company. It was a desirable monopoly, 
 those who enjoyed its privileges became rich, they influenced 
 public sentiment, and became members of Parliament ; and it 
 required a struggle of a hundred years to overthrow the 
 monopoly and give enterprise at large equal opportunity in 
 the trade of India. The more profitable and unjust a monop- 
 oly is, the deeper it fixes prejudice, and the more danger there 
 is in attacking it. This was illustrated by the slavery bias in 
 the United States. It is everywhere and always true. Those 
 who opposed the aggressions of the rich on land belonging to 
 the Roman people were called agrarians, and their lives paid 
 the penaltjr of their courage in a just cause. It was so in 
 Sparta. The strong do not allow their usurped privileges to 
 be assailed without making such resistance as the spirit of the 
 times permits. "What Adam Smith states of the case in Eng- 
 land has been almost true of this country. He saj-s : " The 
 member of Parliament who supports every proposal for 
 strengthening monopoly is sure to acquire great reputation for 
 understanding trade, but also great popularity and influence 
 with an order of men whose numbers and wealth render them 
 of great importance. If he opposes them, on the contrary, 
 and still more, if he have authority enough to be able to 
 thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the 
 highest rank, nor the greatest public services can protect him 
 from the most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal 
 insults, nor sometimes from real danger arising from the influ- 
 ence of furious and disappointed monopolists." 
 
 There has always been a coalition of the strongest classes in 
 society, in which wealth and blood have constituted the bond, 
 and at the same time, the means of operating upon and secur-
 
 20 CLASS BIAS. [Chap. II. 
 
 ing the subserviency of other classes. And it is perhaps one 
 of the lessons of history that the privileges of class have never 
 been secured and maintained without accompanying forms of 
 moral contamination. That friend of the people, J. S. Mill, 
 observes : " I thought the predominance of the aristocratic 
 classes, the noble and the rich, in the English constitution, an 
 evil worth any struggle to get rid of; not on account of taxes or 
 any such comparatively small inconvenience, but as the great 
 demoralizing agency in the country. Demoralizing first, because 
 it made the conduct of the government an example of gross 
 public immorality through the predominance of private over 
 public interests in the State, and the abuse of the power of leg- 
 islation for the advantage of classes. Secondly, and in a still 
 greater degree, because the respect of the multitude always at- 
 taching itself principally to that which, in the existing state 
 of society, is the chief passport to power; and under English 
 institutions, riches, hereditary or acquired, being the most ex- 
 clusive source of political importance ; riches and the signs 
 of riches were almost the only things really respected, and the 
 life of the people was mainl}' devoted to the pursuit of them." 
 Mill's very first essay was written to combat the current op- 
 pinion that the rich were superior to the poor in moral quali- 
 ties. But essay- writing is feeble compared with the ostenta- 
 tions and devices of aristocracy to create public sentiment. The 
 tinsel of aristocratic life is flared in the face of the people, and 
 it proves to be too much for poor human nature. The rich 
 and high-born have always assumed the air of moral superior- 
 ity, and the poor have been judged as if they all stood on the 
 same level, and that level the lowest. Never have the ruling 
 castes hesitated in their self-righteousness, Turk and Persian 
 like, to break the dishes from which others have eaten. There 
 is always danger that the set in power will come to regard 
 itself as in some way endowed with the right to privileges 
 in which others should have no share. This comes from the 
 habit of regarding all things from self as the centre, in the 
 same narrow and egotistic way, in which mankind formerly
 
 Sec. 10.] ILLUSTRATIONS OP THE BANKERS' BIAS. 21 
 
 regarded the entire universe as made for their sole benefit. 
 It is not a grace of the uppermost in society to put themselves 
 in others' places, and humanize themselves with a fellow feel- 
 ing for all. But there is this for encouragment, that these 
 biases grow less as the world grows older ; and even essays arc 
 not without use. 
 
 10. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BANKERS' BIAS. Human nature 
 does not get away from itself, and the equivalent of what we 
 find in the old world is to be looked for in the new. The his- 
 tory of the United States Bank ver}- well illustrates the bias- 
 ing influence in society of a great corporation struggling to 
 maintain its privileges. It assumed to have on its side all the 
 morality, intelligence, and respectability in the country. It 
 could afford from its lofty position to speak contemptuously 
 of the President of the United States. So completely did it 
 command the press and inspire its iterations and reiterations, 
 that even the discerning Do Tocqueville, when in this countr}', 
 was duped by the prevailing lingo. The influence of the Bank 
 gave tone, not only to the periodical literature of the day, but 
 largely to the proceedings of Congress itself. It was a re- 
 spectable thing to be on the side of the Bank, and too ( generally 
 was it true, as John Randolph once said, that a man might as 
 well preach Christianity at Constantinople as to preach against 
 banks in Congress. In 1832 the U. S. Bank was declared to 
 be in a sound condition and worthy to administer the govern- 
 ment interest therein, because a large number of congressmen 
 were stockholders, debtors and attorneys of the Bank and 
 loyally stood by it. It expended hundreds of thousands of 
 dollars in the struggle for continued existence, and its final 
 overthrow was due more to its corrupt practices and to an un- 
 usual combination of circumstances, than to any organized 
 movement in the interest of right government that is to be 
 looked for in the ordinary course of history. 
 
 A remarkable specimen of a class bias is given by Mr. 
 Horace White, and the banker, Mr. Coe, in an article on Money 
 and its Substitutes in Lalor's Cyclopaedia of Political Science
 
 22 CLASS BIAS. {.Chap. II. 
 
 It is therein taught that, while greenbacks are credit money, 
 bank paper is not credit money. Bank notes are " tickets " for 
 the circulation of property, while greenbacks represent no such 
 property. The statement is made as the pope would declare 
 a dogma as final. It is asserted in various waj-s that bank 
 notes always represent property in circulation, while greenbacks 
 never do. Yet we all know that whenever greenbacks change 
 hands, articles of property also change hands, the one balanc- 
 ing the other. It is not as Mr. Coe says, as if one should draw 
 a bill on Liverpool and send no corresponding property. The 
 property alwa}*s accompanies the greenback. The man who 
 had the greenback now gets the property, and the man that 
 had the property now walks off with the greenback, and this 
 " ticket " is perfectly good in his hands for property again 
 whenever he wishes to make the exchange, just as good as a 
 bank note, and it performs precisely the same function. 
 
 But I may be told that the greenbacks were originally credit 
 money. Indeed ! The bank notes are given to the banks 
 the purest credit money conceivable. The banks give nothing 
 whatever in exchange for them. The government onby holds 
 the bonds; it does not own them or it might burn them, it 
 only holds the bonds, the banks own them and get interest on 
 them, besides having ninety per cent of their value additional 
 in bank notes which the government has given them to be theirs 
 out and out for twenty years, These notes, when they get into 
 circulation, represent property precisely as greenbacks do, but 
 in no other way. If greenbacks are credit money, bank notes 
 are credit money, and nobody except one with a bankers' bias 
 could ever think of them as anything else. Now, while the 
 banker gets interest on his bonds and interest on his "tickets," 
 affording him a clear profit on business of eight to ten per 
 cent per annum, he finds a rich soil for bias to grow in. Most 
 investors without special privileges get only half as much 
 profit, and they are certainly excusable if they do not, like 
 docile catechumens, accept this bankers' dogma. Its promul- 
 gators may have been as sincere as the apostles of any dogma,
 
 Sec. 10.~\ ILLUSTRATIONS OP THE BANKERS' BIAS. 23 
 
 but this does not prevent it, when incorporated into a valuable 
 book of reference, from poisoning the sources of knowledge, 
 and vitiating public opinion on this subject. Although it has 
 been asserted again and again that there is no profit to banks 
 in issuing paper mono}', yet does the banking interest show 
 itself jealous of all forms of paper money but its own, while 
 it clings with tenacity to the privilege of making the people's 
 paper money for the people's good. It is the amiable bias 
 of parents to see virtues in their children others can not see, 
 and bankers are not to be blamed for the banker's dogmatism 
 of bias ; but such dogmatism is no part of political and econom- 
 ical science. 
 
 Akin to this is the pretty theory about the issues of banks 
 regulating themselves. " When trade is brisk, the notes, 
 if issued according to the banking principle, will be plentiful ; 
 when trade is slack, they will find their way home for redemp- 
 tion. This is as it should be." (Coe and White.) That is, 
 bank issues are self-regulating. Yet these same economists 
 teach us that if the government issues notes in answer to a 
 speculative demand for paper money, it creates a disease of 
 the currency which craves more paper money; that is, what- 
 ever may be the amount the government issues, it is ab- 
 sorbed in higher prices for all things, and the demand for 
 more paper becomes even greater than before. Is it not 
 singular that an addition of bank paper under brisk trade 
 does not inflate prices and become absorbed therein, while an 
 addition of government paper would so inflate prices and be- 
 come absorbed therein ? There is no such difference, how- 
 ever ; it is when trade is slack that the difference comes in. 
 The people who are then short clamor for more money, and the 
 government would not be likely, under such circumstances, to 
 contract its circulation. When banks furnish the paper mone}-, 
 and business men who are embarrassed under dull trade ask 
 for help, help is very cautiously afforded. Whether depreciated 
 or at par, the two kinds of paper money act precisely alike on 
 business, and there is no self-regulation about either. Both
 
 24 CLASS BIAS. Chap. II. 
 
 have to be regulated, and banks always regulate to suit tlieir 
 own class interests, and preach to suit their own class bias. 
 
 11. THE MASK OP CREDIT-STRENGTHENING. Perhaps noth- 
 ing better illustrates the power of a bias to get itself made 
 into law, than that which took form as the Credit-Strengthen- 
 ing Act of 18G9. There had been five or six different acts 
 authorizing the issue of bonds, and only one of them provided 
 that the bonds should be paid in gold, that authorizing the 
 issue of the i%o 8 - All the others were issued substantially 
 under a contract, the terms of which were plainly defined in 
 existing law. There were three acts for the issue of U. S. 
 notes, and these acts were all explicit in providing that the 
 notes should be " lawful money and a legal tender in payment 
 of all debts, public and private, within the United States, except 
 duties on imports and interest " as specified. These U. S. notes 
 carry on their face this notice to all who use them : " This 
 note is receivable at par in all parts of the United States, in 
 payment of all taxes and excises and all other dues to the 
 United States, except duties on imports, and also for all sala- 
 ries or other debts and demands owing by the United States to 
 individuals, corporations, and associations within the United 
 States, except interest on the public debt." 
 
 When the Credit-Strengthening Act was under consideration 
 in the Senate, Mr. Morton declared that the laws creating the 
 greenbacks (U. S. Notes) "is a part of the contract under 
 which all these bonds were subsequently sold," and that 
 " broader, more comprehensive and explicit declarations of the 
 law-making power," he believed he had never read. Mr. 
 Morrill replied patronizingly, assuring the Senate that the Sen- 
 ator from Indiana, able as he was, could not revive an interest 
 in the matter discussed, and that no measure had met with a 
 warmer welcome from the people than this Credit-Strengthen- 
 ing Act. All amendments offered to place government credit- 
 ors on the same footing with other creditors were promptly 
 voted down, and the bill passed by a large majority. Only 
 thirteen Senators voted against it : Bayard, Carpenter, Cas-
 
 Sec. H.~] THE MASK OF CREDIT-STRENGTHENING. 25 
 
 serty, Cole, Davis, Morton, Osborn, Rice, Ross, Spencer, Stock- 
 ton, Thurman, and Vickars. Forty -two voted for it, ten were 
 absent. In the House, it had passed, yeas 98, nays 47, not 
 voting 49. Beck, B. F. Butler, Holman, Knott, Kerr voted 
 nay; Garfield and Schenck were among the yeas. 
 
 This bill was passed under the pretext of strengthening the 
 credit of the government. The preamble was a mask under 
 which a retroactive act was passed to make a discrimination 
 in favor of government creditors and against the tax-payers 
 of the country. It was very patriotic to strengthen the credit 
 of the government ; and to vote against anything of this char- 
 acter, was, of course, not quite the loyal thing to do. But 
 the government had good credit already ; all it had to do to 
 maintain its credit was to pay its debts according to contract. 
 As the law stood, all the bonds but the io/ 40 8 were payable 
 in the currency in which all other creditors were paid. Of 
 course, when resumption should take place, the bonds would 
 be paid in coin or its equivalent ; but so would all other debts. 
 But if resumption should not take place, there was no sound 
 reason why bondholders should fare better than other creditors 
 at the expense of the tax-payers. They had bought the bonds 
 without any guaranty that payment would be made in gold. 
 "But they expected payment to be so made." Did they? 
 Then, that illustrates the bias of an interest ready to use its 
 opportunities to consummate a job. They paid their money 
 precisely as the purchasers of all other property did, subject 
 to the contingencies of the future, and there was no reason or 
 justice in special legislation for the benefit of bondholders. 
 
 Because the bonds were not yet due, and because after re- 
 sumption they would be payable in gold anywa}', it was held 
 that, therefore, this measure while very useful was practically 
 inert and perfectly innocent. If the act was not intended to 
 give additional value to the bonds, it is difficult to see in what 
 its strengthening efficacy consisted. But even on the assump- 
 tion that it was a purely theoretical measure, it must be set 
 down as a movement to humor the plutocratic bias. Congress
 
 26 CLASS BIAS. \Chap. II. 
 
 is not apt to insist tenaciously on " barren idealities ;" the 
 measure was meant to make sure of substantial benefits under 
 the pressure of an interested class. The bill had passed the 
 previous session, but President Johnson had refused to sign 
 it, and now it was one of the very first measures attended to 
 under the called session. No doubt the ex-President's opposi- 
 tion had strengthened the scheme with partisans. Mr. Upton 
 informs us that those who opposed the war opposed this act. 
 The people of whose cordial welcome Mr. Morrill spoke, were 
 pretty busy attending to their own affairs, and knew only too 
 little of what was going on in Congress. It was eas}- to mis- 
 take the very warm interest of the few for the approval of the 
 many. 
 
 Now, what proportion of the people in this country were 
 directly interested in such a piece of legislation ? The number 
 of bondholders at that time is not known, but a few years 
 later it was 71,587, besides 1527 banks, insurance, trust, and 
 express companies. Leaving out the companies and counting 
 a family of five persons to each individual bondholder, there 
 would be less than one-tenth of the people of the United States 
 favored by this act. Of course, there were individuals and 
 families interested in the bonds held by banks and the other 
 companies ; but it was the large holders and not the needy 
 small ones, from whom the solicitation came, and in whose 
 interest the law was made. 
 
 This was a sectional as well as a class measure. There were 
 about 17,000 individual bondholders in Massachusetts, 15,000 
 in New York, and 10,000 in Pennsylvania, while there were but 
 58 in Georgia and 283 in the great State of Iowa. Taking 
 into account the banks and companies, the discrimination 
 against the West and South would be shown to be still greater. 
 
 But wh} r resort at all to a measure guaranteeing legality to 
 the greatest possible weight of the public debt ? Already the 
 bondholders had been the gainers and the taxpayers had been 
 the losers. These bonds had been paid for in the legal tender 
 of the da}-. Some of them had been bought when the current
 
 SeC. 12.~\ THE NAVAL SUPERSTITION. 27 
 
 dollar was worth but fifty cents in gold, and the government 
 had purchased army supplies with the proceeds at more than 
 double prices. Were the requirements of statesmanship indeed 
 so urgent, that Congress should now make these bonds sure 
 of payment in gold, whether other creditors got such payment 
 or not ? The expenses of the war had been made a third 
 greater on the legal tender basis than they would have been 
 on the gold basis ; that is, the figures indicating the debt were 
 already a billion more than the gold basis would have war- 
 ranted. Every year these figures were indicating a greater 
 relative value under the appreciation of the legal tender 
 notes ; and if some of the bonds should fall due with the cur- 
 rency a few points below gold, still the bondholders would 
 have the best of the bargain and the taxpaj-ers the worst 
 of it. The law was in its very spirit a flagrant violation 
 of equity. The only excuse for it is that it passed at a time 
 when the beneficiaries of government were luxuriating beyond 
 precedent, and the people were too much absorbed with their 
 own prosperity to take note of the covert methods of plunder 
 in vogue. If Congress had labored to protect the people 
 against plutocratic aggression, it would hardly have been ap- 
 preciated by the people ; but laboring as it did to help on 
 magnificent jobs, it pleased those who were able to make 
 public opinion, and it got great credit for patriotism and 
 statesmanship. It is easy to move in the direction of strong 
 biases, and public bodies move easiest toward appreciation 
 and reward. 
 
 12. THE NAVAL SUPERSTITION. "We are the only people 
 in the world forbidden by legal enactments to buy foreign-built 
 ships. The least part of an American vessel owned by a for- 
 eigner so taints the whole that it loses its American privileges. 
 If an American resides in a foreign country for his health, the 
 vessel of which he owns a part, loses its rights to protection 
 under the American flag. No registry can be had for an 
 American vessel except on oath that no foreigner has any 
 interest in it. Provision is made by law that no foreigner
 
 28 CLASS BIAS. \Chap. II. 
 
 shall command an American vessel, or be an officer of any 
 kind on it. " No foreign-built vessel, or vessel in part owned 
 by a subject of a foreign power, can enter a port of the United 
 States, and then go to another domestic port with any cargo, 
 or with any part of her original cargo that has been once un- 
 laden, without having previously voyaged to and touched at 
 some other port of some foreign country, under penalty of con- 
 fiscation." No vessel that has been once sold to a foreigner 
 can ever become an American ship again. If an American 
 vessel undergoes repairs in a foreign county, it must pay duty 
 on the same when it returns to the United States. Foreign 
 vessels in our ports, having to replace broken machinery, must 
 pay duties on the same. If an American buys a foreign 
 wreck and puts repairs on it to a value less than three-fourths 
 its whole value, he cannot get an American registry on his 
 vessel. American vessels engaged in foreign trade (except in 
 the fisheries) must pa}' a tonnage tax of thirty cents per ton. 
 All vessels from a foreign country must carry their freight to 
 a port of entry (even if in doing so it is necessary to pass the 
 port of delivery), and there unlade, when the goods must be 
 reshipped by coasting vessel or rail to the place of destination. 
 (Condensed from D. A. Wells in Cyclopaedia of Political 
 Science.) 
 
 No wonder the American merchant marine has almost 
 passed out of existence ! One of the most absurd of biases is 
 that which has its base and origin in superstition ; perhaps it 
 was some such bias that dictated our navigation laws, or it 
 may have been, indeed, one of that nondescript sort which is 
 frequently met with among the very positive people in asy- 
 lums. But whatever may be the kind, one can not listen to a 
 debate in Congress on naval affairs, without becoming convinced 
 that the primitive bias is still pretty strong in "survival." 
 
 13. BELIEF FOR Bio DEBTORS. The aristocratic bias is 
 perhaps exemplified in the aim of our bankrupt laws. These 
 afford relief to the big debtors. A man who has been so en- 
 terprising as to get in debt to his neighbors several thousand
 
 Sec. 14-~\ BENEFIT OP BIAS FOR THE FEW. 29 
 
 dollars above his assets, may get relief ; but the honest dealer 
 who has managed to get in debt only 199 dollars (or some 
 such sum), must support his family on his small resources, and 
 pay his debts to the last penny, or stand condemned as a cheat 
 in society. The enterprising debtor who has recklessly sunk 
 his thousands and procured release under a benignant law 
 from the claims of creditors, may commence again, and with 
 a privilege from obliging legislators to tax the people, he may 
 become a millionaire. As a millionaire he commands, while the 
 small debtor is still wrestling honestly and earnestly with 
 fate. Such are the caprices of bias ; and they are so common 
 that we hardly stop to think of them. 
 
 14. BENEFIT OF BIAS FOR THE FEW. There is a peculiar 
 force in society which passes by the many to favor the few. 
 One of these forces is direct in its bearing on legislation. Is 
 a certain act of legislation in the interest of " everj-bod}'," 
 there is little interest in it by anybody. The interest is too 
 much diffused, and there is but little effort made to promote 
 it. Is it in the interest of the few, there is vigorous agitation, 
 if this is necessary, to bring it about. Yery often, indeed, it 
 is secured most readily and surely by the use of " influence " 
 in the lobby, with as little agitation before the people as pos- 
 sible. The known desire of a few distinguished business men of 
 wealth is usually far more powerful with legislative bodies and 
 executive officers than the known desire of poor and unknown 
 people. The pressure that our Congress and administration 
 at Washington most feel, is not the pressure of a popular 
 sentiment which may be contemptuously regarded as a tem- 
 porary gust of "popular clamor;" it is the pressure that a few 
 strong men bring to bear that tells most efficientl}'. A good 
 many ex-members of Congress and shrewd attorneys haunt the 
 lobbies in the immediate interest of a wealthy few. Besides 
 considerations of a more weighty and tangible kind which 
 somehow or other make themselves felt, there is a bias in the 
 air which prepossesses the judgment of public men in favor 
 of the efficient agencies in society. Witness the immense land
 
 30 CLASS BIAS. [Chap. II. 
 
 grants made to enterprising corporations, mostly for a remote 
 and problematical consideration. It had become the fashion, 
 and Congress played at the game, often with millions of the 
 people's acres at a single deal. At this writing, American and 
 foreign syndicates are given title to vast tracts of land in our 
 western country to the exclusion of families needing homes ; 
 and yet, while titled non-resident landlords arc encouraged 
 to monopolize American lands, we would not let a foreigner 
 command an American vessel, nor permit an American vessel 
 once sold away ever again to sail under the American flag. 
 Our ships are so much holier than our soil. All this is clue 
 to the caprices of bias ; neither common sense nor equity 
 is responsible for such absurdities in the domain of legis- 
 lation. 
 
 The late Secretary of the Interior, during the last days 
 of his incumbency, made strenuous efforts by an additional 
 force of clerks and continuing work on Sundaj% to make out 
 patents to the New Orleans and Pacific Railroad for lands 
 which had originally been granted to the " Backbone " Road, 
 but never earned. Gould and Huntington were the beneficiaries 
 in chief; does any one suppose that the Secretary would have 
 shown equal expedition in making out patents to actual set- 
 tlers, even if thej T had numbered thousands and their claim had 
 been as good as that which was officially recognized ? Would 
 he not have been quite willing to trust their claims to the next 
 administration and to Congress, before which measures respect- 
 ing this grant were then pending ? lie was swift to secure to 
 financial freebooters their questionable claim, and the more 
 ready, perhaps, because it was questionable, though the act 
 involved detriment to actual settlers. A technically established, 
 though doubtful, claim is recognized, and on this techni- 
 cality honest settlers are deprived of their homes, when further 
 delay, giving more time for a slow and reluctant Congress to 
 act, might have secured the settlers, if the bonanza had been 
 less for corporate enterprises. But the Secretary followed his 
 bias, and biases capable of results usually incline toward the
 
 Sec. 14.~] BENEFIT OF BIAS FOR THE FEW. 31 
 
 greatest social force as the plummet inclines toward the 
 mountain. 
 
 For the last ten years Congress has been wrestling with the 
 problem of railway regulation. Perhaps not five per cent 
 of our national legislators would dare to say that there is not 
 great need of doing something, or that regulation is not prac- 
 ticable. The opinions expressed in Congress are almost 
 unanimous that there are railroad abuses which should and 
 might be largely corrected b} r judicious legislation ; and yet 
 Congress has worked at this problem for ten years, and is ap- 
 parently no nearer its solution than it was when it began. 
 There seems to be an obscure and occult power at work to 
 thwart the good intentions of Congress in this field of en- 
 deavor. You can not see this power any more than you can 
 see the wind ; but you can see the wreck of Congressmen's 
 good intentions strown about. The House passed an Inter- 
 state Commerce bill some years ago, and last winter passed 
 another, and the Senate passed a bill. The House and Senate 
 bills are thoroughly at variance in their methods, and the}* 
 answered one purpose well, that of not doing anything. The 
 discussions on the subject were certainty able, showing pene- 
 tration and a wide range of knowledge on the subject ; and 
 yet one of the last things the Senate did (at the short session) 
 was to appoint a commission of five Senators to investigate 
 the railroad question and report early at the next regular 
 session. They apparently have so much information on the 
 subject now, that they do not know what to do with it, and 
 the more they get, the more undecided they may become, and 
 still continue to waste the years in fruitless discussion. There 
 is sometimes a peculiar interest fixing one's attention while 
 listening to the debates on this and other questions in the 
 Senate. There is impressive solemnity in the manner of Sen- 
 ators when they refer to the danger of infringing some consti- 
 tutional principle, or of adopting some provision with a pos- 
 sible incidental evil in its practical operation, just as if it were 
 possible to deal with a case as complicated as this without an
 
 32 CLASS BIAS. [.Chap. II. 
 
 occasional lapse which had not been clearly foreseen. One 
 would think, in view of their careful conservatism, that a law 
 once made could neither be repealed nor amended, and that its 
 unforeseen evils would have to be borne forever, just as if all 
 acts in new legislative fields are not necessarily tentative. 
 But these great legislators have not always shown themselves 
 so fearful of moving. Very promptly, indeed, have they voted 
 away the people's lands, and very reluctant are they to declare 
 forfeitures, however manifest the delinquency. These cautious 
 conservatives will view with absolute composure the exercise 
 of corporate privileges to tax the people in unjust ways, but 
 they are disturbed at the thought of establishing a legal con- 
 trol over such privileges. This is due to a bias, and the bias 
 is due to some potent energy, which lies back of it. Under 
 this, as under most powerful biases, the few dance, and the 
 many pay the music. 
 
 15. ARISTOCRACY IN THE SENATE. If I were alone in the 
 view that there are aristocratic classes in society with their 
 characteristic and telling biases, I might hesitate to present it ; 
 but I am not alone. Whoever would understand the working 
 of political institutions must take account of such biases. In 
 a defense of the Constitution of the United States Senate, 
 John Adams said : " The rich, the well-born, and the able will 
 acquire an influence among the people that will soon be too 
 much for simple honesty and plain sense in a house of repre 
 sentatives ;" and he thought the chief of this class should be 
 put in the Senate, where they would be able to do less harm 
 than in the House. And McMaster, from whose history I 
 quote, observes, "The statement undoubted!}' contained much 
 truth." Whether this influence is made less dangerous to the 
 general interests of the people by being put by itself in the 
 Senate, may be a question. It is to be feared that it is abler 
 to carry its aims there, than it could possibly be in the House 
 of Representatives. Then, it must be remembered that the 
 Senate is not a sufficiently numerous body to hold all of this 
 class at the present time, and that there are always many such
 
 SeC. 16.~] BIASES OF ECONOMICAL TEACHERS. 33 
 
 in the House who are bidding for the favor of the strong in 
 order to increase their chances for membership in the Senate ; 
 and between the two the aristocratic biases have things pretty 
 much their own way. Formerly, the U. S. Senate was regarded 
 as conservative in the best sense; now it is coming to be 
 regarded more and more as the bulwark of plutocratic bias. 
 More and more are very wealthy men or their attornej-s secur- 
 ing seats in the Senate, and in some instances by means that 
 are suspect. Money by its direct and indirect power secures 
 senatorial honors for its possessors. On the llth of March, 
 1885, I was sitting in the Senate gallery beside an intelligent 
 gentleman from California, who pointed out to me, the new 
 senator from that State, Mr. Leland Stanford, and explained 
 that he was the richest man in the Senate, being worth about 
 forty millions. " I believe he has had something to do with 
 railroads," I remarked. " Oh yes," he replied, proceeding to 
 state the Senator's standing as a railroad magnate. " Was not 
 that," I inquired, "some objection to his being sent to the 
 Senate ? or didn't that question enter into the canvass ? " "It 
 was a question in the canvass," he replied, " and thoroughly 
 considered, for California, you know, is the greatest anti- 
 monopoly State in the Union. The people looked at the mat- 
 ter in this light : If we send Stanford and put him on his 
 honor in so doing, it will be much better than to send some 
 one else, for whoever we send will be Stanford's man, and 
 will do Stanford's work more objectionably than he would 
 dare to do it himself. Don't you see it would be just so ? " I 
 did see ; and I thought it very wise of the people of California 
 to behave, in this prudent way, like^the man that had his head 
 in the lion's mouth. John Adams did see deeply into the 
 possibilities of the case. 
 
 16. BIASES OF ECONOMICAL TEACHERS. Not legislators and 
 executive officers alone have the aristocratic bias ; the teachers 
 of political economy are not wholly free from it. No doubt the 
 charge is frequently made when not true, and then, however 
 true it may be, it does not apply to all political economists.
 
 34 CLASS BIAS. [.Chap. II. 
 
 There is not perfect agreement among them by any means ; 
 and this is not to be expected, human nature being what it is. 
 Political economy has to do with questions in which class 
 interests are diverse, and owing to the conflicting emotions 
 which these interests call up, and the biases which they gen- 
 erate, it is not to be expected that political economy will soon 
 be free from the taint of bias. Doubtless there is great pro- 
 gress to be made in this direction. Prof. Rogers, in his Six 
 Centuries of Work and Wages, says : " Writers have been 
 habituated to estimate wealth as a general does military force, 
 and are more concerned with its concentration than they are 
 with the details of its partition. It is not surprising that this 
 should be the case. Most writers on political economy have 
 been persons in opulent, or, at least, in easy circumstances. 
 They have witnessed, with profound or interested satisfaction, 
 the growth of wealth in the classes to which they belong, or 
 with which they have been familiar or intimate. In their eyes 
 the poverty of industry has been a puzzle, a nuisance, a prob- 
 lem, a social crime. They have every sympathy with the 
 man who wins and saves, no matter how ; but they are not 
 very considerate for the man who works. Ricardo, an acute 
 stockbroker, went so far as to sa} r that there should be no taxa- 
 tion of savings, so profound was his interest in the process of 
 accumulation by individuals. It was strange that he did not 
 see that the only fund which can be taxed, is what the individ- 
 ual may save." 
 
 J. R. McCulloch, who wrote at greater length on taxation 
 than Ricardo did, is a still better sample of the plutocratic 
 bias. Having endorsed Smith's canons of taxation, and 
 declared that " all the subjects of a State should contribute 
 according to their respective abilities," he then proceeds in an 
 elaborate way to show that such principles have no bearing on 
 the question. He condemns taxes on either income or prop- 
 erty, and advocates the rating of taxes according to consump- 
 tion. He argues that a little more cost on living is a good 
 and not a bad thing for working people, as it acts as a stimulus
 
 SeC. 16.] BIASES OF ECONOMICAL TEACHERS. 35 
 
 to greater industry and economy. He contends earnestly 
 against making the rich pay more than their fair share of 
 taxes ; and in this he unconsciously betrays his bias, for the 
 rich have alwaj'S got off with paying less than their fair propor- 
 tion. But, on the other hand, this teacher not only advocates 
 but justifies a scheme of taxation, which takes more than their 
 proportion from those who are not rich. While maintaining 
 that taxes on the poor stimulates them to greater exertion, he 
 thinks it of very little importance whether the rich pay their 
 full share or not, because what they are thus enabled to save, 
 helps business and affords to laborers additional means of con- 
 sumption. But he regards it as quite immaterial whether even 
 this compensation accrues to the laborers, since the stingy 
 consumption of miserly rich people is likely to react into prod- 
 igal consumption by those who inherit their estates. McCul- 
 loch is one of the best examples of that class of writers, who 
 in their views of wealth, " are more concerned with its con- 
 centration than they are with the details of its partition." 
 (Sec. 22.) 
 
 A late example in this line has already been referred to. 
 Mr. Atkinson brings to his work so much bias and passion as 
 to be altogether unconscious of the most obvious inconsist- 
 encies (Sec. 5). Our silver is really dangerous, and our coinage 
 of it would be paralleled by buj-ing two millions per month of 
 wool to keep up the wool industry. Our greenbacks above the 
 gold in the treasury for their redemption, have not the first 
 attribute of good money, and yet bank issues are just the 
 thing, because they expand and contract to suit business. 
 Bakers and butchers add more to the cost of provisions than 
 railroads do, therefore we should first regulate bakers and 
 butchers by statute before we undertake to meddle with rail- 
 road management. But if we must have railroad regulation, 
 let it be by a "board of friendly arbitration," a just and 
 impartial arbitration not being precisely what the bias requires, 
 or it would have been so " nominated in the bond." 
 
 Another example may be given, and that confined to a single
 
 36 CLASS BIAS. [Chap. II. 
 
 chapter, and the first one, in Prof. Sumner's new book of 
 Collected Essays. Those who have read Prof. Sumner, know 
 that he is great on science, and stands by the approved body 
 of economical science to defend it against all unscientific 
 attacks. I will indicate in the order they occur in the essay, 
 some of the points, which betray the author's prepossessions. 
 (1) The demonetization of silver in Germany was not an 
 arbitrary act, but its remonetization in the United States was 
 an arbitrary act. (2) In the list of onsets to the loss of cur- 
 rency by the demonetization of silver in Germany and the 
 Scandinavian States, he includes the entire gold product since 
 1873, about $120,000,000 per annum ; yet he knows that a 
 very large proportion of this gold has been used up in the arts 
 and manufactures. (3) It is a bad thing to transfer property 
 from one class to another by making money cheaper ; but it is 
 not a bad thing at all to transfer it by making money dearer. 
 This bias comes out in strong relief, and takes us back to the 
 times when the author stated that it was as a wage-earner 
 (working on a fixed salary), that he opposed the remonetiza- 
 tion of silver. (4) Wherever the class interest of creditors is 
 touched, this writer is effusive in his sympathy with them, and 
 in this essay he repeats the marvelous statement that they 
 constitute a small, weak, scattered, unorganized, and unknown 
 class that never attracts attention (pp. 20, 28, 29, 32). Only 
 think of this ! One finds not the least indication of sympathy 
 with the debtor class ; but he declares that bi-metallism is a 
 project for " uniting the debtor class of all civilized nations in 
 a ' corner ' on the falling metal." (5) Throughout his treat- 
 ment of the silver question, the increasing disparity between 
 the bullion values of gold and silver is spoken of as due 
 solely to " the fall of silver." This bias forbids the least sug- 
 gestion of a possibility that this disparity may be due in part 
 to the rise in gold. (6) He thinks that Bismark was making 
 fun of his American interviewers when he expressed the 
 opinion that German} 7 had erred in adopting gold monometal- 
 lism. Whenever the fact goes against this writer, he draws on
 
 Sec. 16.~\ BIASES OP ECONOMICAL TEACHERS. 37 
 
 his imagination and falls back on dogmatism, and he commits 
 these offenses against the scientific method with surprising 
 naivete". 
 
 While these biased teachings grow out of controlling inter- 
 ests in society, they in turn reenforce those interests by form- 
 ing public sentiment and giving direction to the law-making 
 and law-executing powers. In this way franchises are bestow- 
 ed, which operate as wealth accumulators for the persons who 
 have managed so well as to secure them. And then there is 
 the power which capital itself possesses in virtue of econom- 
 ical forces to accumulate, affording to its possessor, often a 
 mere child of fortune, a great advantage over others. Add to 
 this the power of combination which gets rid of competition, 
 and which is becoming the rule in all businesses that are 
 managed by comparatively small groups of persons. Now, 
 when we add to these forces the bias of orthodox teachings in 
 economics, we must not be surprised if there is injustice in 
 the distribution of wealth. The course of such distribution 
 rests on a bias which regards it as perfectly correct and by no 
 means to be interfered with. Men whose interests are unfavor- 
 ably affected by the covert methods of distribution, are yet 
 loyal to the plutocratic biases, because the}- have unconsciously 
 imbibed them from certain powerful influences in societj'. It 
 is a phenomenon of the times that people belonging to the 
 same set in society, and having an instinct of what their 
 immediate interests require, reonforce one another in the bias 
 of the coterie, till they come to feel that their view of the 
 situation is necessarily right, and that whatever conflicts with 
 it is necessarity wrong and altogether unworthy of respect. 
 This powerful virus is not inert; others are infected and it 
 spreads. Take "American protection " for an example. We 
 think there are very many intelligent people with hearts aright, 
 who have not reflected sufficiently on the influences affecting 
 their own minds in relation to class interests to realize why 
 their sympathies incline to one view rather than to another. 
 Manly sympathies indeed they have, but these are often mis-
 
 38 CLASS BIAS. \_Chap. II 
 
 directed from perversion of judgment under the influence of 
 bias. And when a prevailing bias has operated quite ex- 
 clusively on the mind, there is no experience to profit by con- 
 trast and comparison in the correction of Opinion. 
 
 17. THE IMPOTENT BIAS. I am perfectly aware that there 
 is a bias among our workingmen which is usually in conflict 
 with the bias of their employers, and as crooked as any of the 
 biases. Thus, while some employers grow rabid at the name 
 of a workingmen's union, as if Satan were in it, some who are 
 in such unions speak of the relations of labor and capital with 
 a good deal of misplaced feeling and with very little common 
 sense. I have not aimed to bring into relief this bias of the 
 masses, because it is usually without result, having little 
 power to get itself made into law, or by any established 
 means to direct the forces of societ}-. And because it has not 
 such power and is withal crude in its methods, it is quite 
 generally thought to be bad, while the biases of the strong 
 pass current as good. We have ver}* little of this working- 
 men's bias in the departments of the government. And while 
 the aristocratic bias has swaj- so generall}-, we must expect 
 men to act under it without the least consciousness of bias. 
 Hence the need of doing something to awaken in the popular 
 mind a clearer sense of this master bias in favor of the power- 
 ful who are seeking and securing the means, by franchises and 
 combinations, of levying tribute on the masses, and making 
 deeper and wider the inequalities of life. 
 
 18. IMPROVEMENT IN BIASES. Illustrations of this high- 
 toned bias were more extreme and striking in times past than 
 they are now. It carried things with a higher hand ; to-day it 
 is more insidious and indirect. In feudal times power was 
 exercised as if all sensibilities belonged to those who had the 
 power ; and in some ways the lower classes passed for little 
 more than beasts of the field. A nobleman having made him- 
 self weary in the chase might place his feet on the abdomen of 
 a prostrate serf, who must encourage the circulation in his mas- 
 ter's precious legs by rubbing them with his hands. In times
 
 Sec. 19.] THE EVIL OP GENERAL INDIFFERENCE. 39 
 
 much nearer ours, a pious puritan in authority could arrange with 
 a slave importer for a likely wench; and a devout Methodist could 
 declare that he never enjoj r ed more of the grace of God than 
 on his last two voyages in the slave trade. The bias that it is our 
 own precious set that has all the sensibilities, has full illustra- 
 tion in histor}'. De Tocqueville observes that Madame de 
 S6" vigne" " had no clear notion of suffering in any one who was 
 not a person of quality." She described the violent treatment 
 of the poor and spoke of their sufferings precisely as if she 
 regarded them quite destitute of human sensibilities. This 
 bias was prevalent, and it was in consequence of it that when 
 a man of rank died, it was thought everybody ought to mourn, 
 and that when a poor peasant died, it was a matter of no 
 moment to anybody. There is much of all this in our own 
 times, but there has been great improvement, and there is 
 room for a great deal more. 
 
 CHAPTER III. . 
 TAXATION. 
 
 19. THE EVIL OF GENERAL INDIFFERENCE. The business 
 of taxation is a very complicated one, and it properly takes 
 into account a greater number of considerations than are 
 apparent at a casual glance. Human nature has to be dealt with, 
 and human nature is very refractory. Louis XIV. thought the 
 best method of taxation was that which plucked the feathers 
 with the least remonstrance from the goose. The powers that 
 levy taxes have not always been so honest as the great king, 
 but pretty much all of them have acted largely on his maxim. 
 "When the people pay taxes without knowing it, and look upon 
 the exchequer as filled by a sort of magic, it becomes com- 
 paratively easy to tax them heavily. This is one of the rea- 
 sons why indirect taxation is so highly in favor. Perhaps 
 only about one per cent of taxpayers in the most intelligent
 
 40 TAXATION. lOhap. III. 
 
 population on earth have reflected, when they buy goods, that 
 they are paying taxes in their store bills. This indifference 
 leads to carelessness in two respects : The taxing power need 
 not be so particular about the amount of taxes levied, and 
 may levy liberally; they need not be so particular about the 
 fairness with which taxes fall on tho different classes of society, 
 and consequently they are apt to make the levy so as to pro- 
 voke the least remonstrance from the shrewder people who 
 have the most property to bo taxed. The masses of taxpayers 
 will not make any noise, for they are so busy with their own 
 personal finances as really not to know how they are taxed. 
 There is need for more light among the people on this subject. 
 
 20. THE DIFFUSION OF TAXES. A principle which serves 
 to cover up a multitude of sins in taxation is that of the 
 diffusion of taxes. Political economists are divided on this 
 subject. Some speak of the diffusion or repercussion of taxes, 
 as if taxation were a simple mill which will grind out just 
 such a result, if you only get it to going. It has come to be a 
 part of this doctrine, making it exceeding!}' simple and abso- 
 lute that all taxes fall on consumption. David A. Wells says : 
 " Proportional taxes on all things of any given class will be 
 diffused and equalized on all other property. All taxation 
 ultimately and necessarily falls on consumption," &c. . 
 
 Now, if this principle be absolutely true as stated, that all 
 taxation ultimately and necessarily falls on consumption, then 
 it does not matter in what way taxes are levied, for every 
 man, woman, and child will pay the taxes according to what 
 the}' consume, and they cannot help themselves. Having 
 reached this acme of absolute economics, we may rest content 
 under the fiat of an economical law that cannot be set aside. 
 But this is not in accordance with the instinct of those who 
 actually pay their money down for taxes. They have the bias 
 universally that if they are directly taxed and have to pay, the 
 burden rests with them, and they are not able to shift it upon 
 others. How are taxes on land rent to be shifted ? Rent has 
 no effect on the prices of products, and a tax on rent will not
 
 THE DIFFUSION OF TAXES. 41 
 
 affect the prices of products, wherefore farmers who rent can- 
 not pay more for the use of the land than before the tax was 
 levied. The tax comes out of the landlord, and he cannot 
 shift it. Ricardo observes, and I think justly : "A tax on 
 rent would affect rent only, and could not be shifted to any 
 class of consumers." Not believing in absolute economics, we 
 admit that there might be exceptions to this rule under con- 
 ditions which need not be specified, but the rule it is none the 
 less. 
 
 In like manner a tax on land is a tax on the capital in- 
 vested in land, and the owner who manages his own cultiva- 
 tion cannot recoup himself by selling his products at higher 
 prices, or by getting his hired men to do with less wages (Sec. 
 3). Take the income tax. All persons having large incomes 
 or fixed incomes, oppose this tax under the conviction that it 
 is paid by income and not diffused. I can understand that if a 
 moderate percentage of income were taken for revenue, the 
 payers thereof would reduce their personal expenditure to a 
 corresponding degree, or else they would have that much less 
 for investment in business. These alternatives would take 
 place according to the tastes of taxpa} r ers ; and some would 
 have even more than before for business purposes, on Mc- 
 Culloch's principle, that it makes a man more industrious and 
 economical to have to pay a good stiff price for commodities. 
 Some would have as much as before, some less, for invest- 
 ment, and if on the whole there should be less in consequence 
 of the tax, I can see how the laborer would so far suffer from 
 a weaker demand for his services ; but in no way could the 
 masses of poorer people be made to pay the tax. Income 
 would pay the tax, and very little would ever return by way 
 of repercussion. 
 
 Put the case in another form : Suppose the property of our 
 great railroads were exempt from taxation, would that induce 
 them to carry goods for the public that much cheaper, thus 
 helping others to pay their taxes? "Would the exemption 
 of a million dollars to railroads be transferred by any hook or
 
 42 TAXATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 crook to the pockets of other taxpayers? "We could not 
 count on it. By various devices the great railroads reduce 
 competition between themselves, and if exempted from a tax 
 they had been paying, they would no doubt pocket most or 
 all of the saving in the form of increased profits. They took all 
 the traffic would bear before exemption; they would take 
 precisely the same afterward, and no other class in society 
 would receive anything but the incidental advantage which 
 accrues from all great accumulations. 
 
 Take another instance : that of taxing wages. Smith and 
 Rlcardo maintain that a tax on wages will fall on employers, 
 and that, consequently, laboring men cannot be made to con- 
 tribute to revenue. But this assumes that laborers require all 
 their wages to live, and that if they pay taxes, there must be 
 an addition to their wages equal to the taxes. This, however, 
 is not always the case, and if laborers were taxed, what they 
 now pay into savings banks would partly or wholly go into 
 the exchequer, and laborers would be that much worse off. 
 There would be little or no diffusing. Are wages any higher 
 for the excise on tobacco and liquors ? Laboring men con- 
 sume them largely ; are they able to shift the tax to their 
 employers or to anybody else? Wherever laborers are not 
 already down to the living point under the " brazen law," they 
 pay the taxes that are levied on them, and they are still able 
 to live and work. This is true even if the taxes be laid on the 
 necessaries of life. If they barely lived before the levy, the 
 tax would be shifted to the employers in necessarily increased 
 wages ; if they had more than what was merely necessary to 
 live on, the taxes would come out of that surplus. Such 
 things are conditional, not absolute. The poorer classes in 
 society have the least power to shift the burthen of taxation 
 to other classes. The rich no doubt have this power to a cer- 
 tain extent, for the simple reason that in all class conflicts 
 they are the strongest, and can take advantages not within the 
 reach of the poor. It is hardly possible for even great cor- 
 porations, so to avail themselves of the shifting process as to
 
 Sec. 20."] THE DIFFUSION OF TAXES. 43 
 
 make others pay their taxes, but it is evident that they have 
 more power to do so than business men without combination 
 or privileges. But if great corporations were successful in shift- 
 ing taxes, the case would not illustrate diffusion in the usual 
 sense. Diffusion is the shifting of taxes by an economical law 
 under free competition, whereas the corporations could reap the 
 benefits of diffusion only by getting rid of competition, so as 
 arbitrarily to fix rates and prices. 
 
 Now, since organized capital which largely gets rid of com- 
 petition, is far more likely than other agencies in society to 
 make the general public bear the burthen of its taxes, hence 
 there is need of great care on the part of government to avoid 
 adding to the disadvantages under which the weaker already 
 labor. But in any case the shifting of taxes requires an effort, 
 that effort meets with resistance, and requires time to effect its 
 object, wherefore the doctrine of diffusion is at fault in imply- 
 ing a mobility of the social forces acting under free competi- 
 tion, which does not exist 
 
 Mr. Wells illustrates in this way : "A dealer in imported 
 goods keeps on hand a stock of accumulated taxes imports, 
 excises, State, city, and local taxes ; the farmer charges taxes 
 in the price of his products ; the laborer in his wages ; the 
 clergyman in his salary ; the lender in the interest he receives ; 
 the lawj-er in his fees ; and the manufacturer in his goods." 
 This is true mainly as an illustration of the fact that the 
 strong have some power to make other people pay taxes for 
 them. And in this respect, however true of the others named, 
 it is not true of the laborer and the farmer. As already stated, 
 it is not true that the laborer recovers in additional wages what 
 he pays out in taxes. It is not true that the farmer charges his 
 taxes in the price of his wheat. The higher his taxes, the 
 more wheat he must sow, and the more surely is he compelled 
 to sell it in season to make ends meet. The more the farmer 
 is taxed, the more the consumer is benefited by an abundance 
 of products, and the greater slave the farmer is, and he cannot 
 help himself. His farm is the home of his family; it is a
 
 44 TAXATION. {.Chap. III. 
 
 fixed possession, and he must make it pay as best he can, and 
 this he does not by neglect, but by turning his acres to the 
 greatest possible advantage. He cannot whisk round from his 
 business to some other ; nor indeed can other business men do 
 so with the facility which the theory assumes. If mobility and 
 competition were not impeded as they are, then, indeed, would 
 Smith's view be correct, that " no tax can ever reduce for any 
 considerable length of time the rate of profit in any particular 
 trade, which must always keep its level with other trades in 
 the neighborhood." But this is a theoretical view of the case 
 a specimen of absolute economics, which, if the neighbor, 
 hood is somewhat extensive, is never true in practice (Sec. 2). 
 
 Prof. F. A. Walker in his work on Political Economy says : 
 " This which may be called the diffusion theory of taxation, 
 rests upon the assumption of perfect competition. It is true to 
 the full extent, only under conditions which secure the com- 
 plete mobilitj 7 of all economical agents. As far as any portion 
 of the community are impeded in their resort to the best 
 market by ignorance, poverty, fear, superstition, misappre- 
 hension, inertia, just so far is it possible that the burden 
 of taxation may rest where it first falls. It requires, as Prof. 
 Kogers has said, an effort on the part of the person who is 
 assessed to shift the burden on to the shoulders of others. Not 
 only is that effort made with varying degrees of case or diffi- 
 culty; but the resistance offered may be of any degree of 
 effectiveness : powerful, intelligent, tenacious, or weak, igno- 
 rant, spasmodic. The result of the struggle thus provoked will 
 depend on the relative strength of the two parties ; and as the 
 two parties are never precisely the same in the case of two 
 taxes, or two forms of the same tax, it must make a difference 
 upon what subjects duties are laid, what is the severity of the 
 imposition, and at what stage of production or exchange the 
 contribution is exacted." 
 
 In the London Economist of February 21, 1885, there is a 
 discussion between the editor and Mr. J. Chamberlain on 
 the relative incidence of taxation on the rich and poor in
 
 Sec. 21. ] THE CHIEF MAXIM OF TAXATION. 45 
 
 England, wherein both disputants take for granted that taxes 
 are not shifted from one class to another ; that, for example, 
 the income tax stays where it is put, and that the poor pay 
 the tax on the articles they consume. Mr. E. J. James (Art. 
 Science of Finance in Cyclopaedia of Political Science) thinks 
 that altogether too much has been made of the diffusion theory 
 of taxes. He calls it an optimistic theory which assumes that 
 ill-placed taxes will diffuse justly. He admits the shifting 
 process, but says it may aggravate injustice, and cannot be de- 
 pended on rightly to distribute the burden of taxation. He 
 says : " In any case it is exceedingly difficult to determine 
 what the effect of this shifting process has been, and we have, 
 therefore, no security that a harmful and unequal system 
 of taxation will distribute itself justly by any process of shift- 
 ing and re-shifting. It is necessary, therefore, to make our 
 system of taxation, from the first, consistent with the princi- 
 ples of economy and justice." 
 
 21. THE CHIEF MAXIM OF TAXATION. If unjust or partial 
 taxes do not diffuse justly and equally, the proper levying of 
 taxes is not so easy as some would have us believe. What, 
 then, is the correct rule of assessment ? Adam Smith taught 
 that taxes should be paid according to ability to pay ; that is, 
 according to the revenue enjoyed under the protection of the 
 State. Mr. James thinks this maxim begs the question and is 
 withal contradictor}'. The shrewdest minds had passed this 
 canon under review for almost a century, and found it, as I 
 believe it to be, fairly consistent. The word " enjoy " is used 
 in the sense of receive, as the illustration in the next sentence 
 clearly shows ; and as a rule it is true that citizens are able to 
 pay taxes according to the income or revenue they receive. 
 To raise all the public revenues from citizens according to 
 income, would, in some instances, no doubt, work injustice. 
 A man might have most of his property in articles of luxury 
 which he enjoys, having at the same time only a moderate 
 income. Another, with little capital, might have a large 
 income, owing to high qualifications for some particular busi-
 
 46 TAXATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 ness, in which case his estate in the earl}' part of his career 
 would consist wholly in his business qualifications. In the 
 former instance, it would seem that income is too small, in the 
 latter too large, to be used as the measure of the taxes each 
 should pay. The man of business genius, however, soon has 
 accumulations at command, and he could hardly complain of 
 injustice when taxes are proportional to income, were it not 
 for the precarious tenure his family holds in his genius as a 
 business factor, the source of income being liable to be cut off 
 at any time by sickness or death. In the other case, the tax- 
 pa}-cr has his accumulations already, and is enjoying them 
 under the protection of the State. His taxes should be pro- 
 portioned to his resources of enjoyment rather than to income. 
 But these are only exceptions ; and no definite rule can be laid 
 down that has not its exceptions. 
 
 Mr. Wells regards Smith's maxim as vague, as well as con- 
 tradictory, and he quotes Montesquieu as nearer the mark, who 
 sa3'S, "that the public revenue ought not to be measured by the 
 people's ability to give, but by what they ought to give." This 
 has no reference to the apportioning of taxes among individual 
 citizens. It refers to the aggregate of taxes which the State 
 may take from the whole people, and it throws no light what- 
 ever on what Mr. Wells is discussing. But from another 
 writer is added, " What they ought to give, can, of course, be 
 only measured by the benefit the}' arc to derive ; " reference 
 still being to the aggregate and not to apportionment. If 
 Smith's maxim is vague, what shall we call this ? Smith's 
 proposition is definite ; it is that benefit is in proportion to 
 income, and that, consequently, income measures the obligation 
 to pay taxes. On Mr. Well's theory, taxation should be 
 according to the benefit derived, but there is nothing given, 
 definite or indefinite, by which to measure the benefit. Smith's 
 rule has exceptions ; Well's rule avoids exceptions by being so 
 vague as to be without definite meaning for practical purposes. 
 What guide would such a rule afford to legislators ? That the 
 public revenue ought to be measured by what the people ought
 
 SeC. ##.] THE EASE OF COLLECTION. 47 
 
 to give, every law-maker already knows. The further qualifi- 
 cation that taxpayers ought to give according to benefits 
 received, still leaves the subject in obscurity, for the difficulty 
 from the first was to measure the benefits in order to know 
 how to make assessments. The problem is, how shall benefits 
 be measured ? and once measured, how shall the taxes be 
 adjusted to them ? In levying taxes, we have to be definite, 
 no matter what the theory; and whatever the wisdom and 
 honesty called into requisition, there will no doubt be, as 
 exceptions, some instances of injustice and hardship. The 
 difficulties of taxation illustrate the principle, elsewhere insisted 
 on, that evil lurks in the wisest administration of affairs. As 
 McCulloch observes, " It may be stated of taxes as of poems : 
 '"Whoe'er expects a faultless tax to see, 
 Expects what neither is, nor was, nor e'er shall be.' " 
 But this affords no excuse for carelessness or dishonesty in 
 framing tax laws ; it does afford, however, a reason why this 
 subject should be studied far more than it is by legislators and 
 the people. The very power of taxation with its intricacies as 
 an economical force, proves it to be a dangerous tool for the 
 ignorant, careless, or unscrupulous to handle. 
 
 22. THE EASE OF COLLECTION. According to another rule 
 for taxation, that tax is best which is most easily assessed and 
 collected. This is by no means consistent with the first rule, 
 that the best tax is that which takes from each according to 
 the revenue he enjoys under the protection of the State. The 
 higher form of justice appears to be that which apportions 
 the burdens of the State (the cost of administering the conjoint 
 estate) according to the protection afforded to individuals in 
 their control of property within the State (that is, according to 
 their respective interests in the estate); but if this kind of tax 
 is too difficult of assessment and collection, we have to resort 
 to some other principle in which the element of justice is not 
 a primary one. "We must yield to the refractor}' character of 
 human nature ; and my thesis is sustained that it is impossi- 
 ble to avoid all evil in the administration of affairs. It would
 
 48 TAXATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 not, therefore, be expected of me to deny the difficulty. I fully 
 appreciate it, but I fear it has been used somewhat to favor 
 the strong and oppress the weak in the collection of public 
 revenues. It is not a long step from the maxim that the tax 
 most easily levied and collected is the best, to that which 
 assumes that the best tax is the one which meets with the least 
 active resistance from taxpaj r ers. It is to be feared that this 
 modification of the maxim is the form it takes in practice. 
 The masses do not resist ; they submit, with a growl, perhaps, 
 but an ineffectual growl, which is charitably credited to the 
 nature of the animal. The masses are unorganized, they can- 
 not act in concert by their own direction, they cannot help 
 themselves. It is very different with the wealthy taxpa3'ers. 
 Here every individual is a power of himself. Not only so, but 
 he is on the lookout for all possible advantages, and when the 
 taxes do not suit him, he makes opposition that is felt by the 
 taxing power. When a few such individuals combine, as they 
 are sure to do, the}' have vast resources at command to carry 
 their ends. Their influence in the caucus, in the convention, 
 in the party papers, on the stump, is an influence, however 
 well the source of it may be hidden, that is not to be trifled 
 with. A public sentiment is thus fashioned which legislators 
 must not disregard. The tax that is made difficult to assess 
 and collect, by strong opposition becomes the objectionable 
 tax, wherefore no careful statesman will insist on it, and a 
 little more is put upon the classes that do not resist. Hence, 
 we come, in the end, to the old king's theory that the best sys- 
 tem is that which secures the largest quantity of feathers, with 
 the least remonstrance, from the goose. 
 
 But this is not justice, and we do not like to settle down in 
 the conviction that there is nothing practically better than 
 this, and yet it is to be feared that even in this enlightened 
 day, as well as in the olden time, it largely determines the 
 methods of taxation. McCulloch, whose influence is still felt, 
 actually says that " the distinguishing characteristic of the best 
 tax, is not that it is most nearly proportioned to the means of
 
 
 Sec. #.] THE EASE OP COLLECTION. 49 
 
 individuals, but that it is easily assessed and collected, and is, 
 at the same time, most conducive, all things considered, to the 
 public interests." That is, the tax which meets with least 
 resistance from the strong classes in society, and is, therefore, 
 most easily assessed and collected, is the best tax ; and since 
 the taxing power is subject to this fatal limitation, taxes 
 should be so assessed and collected as to be as conducive as 
 possible, under said limitation, to the public interests. Under 
 the composition of forces in society, this seems to be the par- 
 ticular direction which the moving body has taken. But, with 
 more enlightenment of the great body of the people who are 
 taxed, there would be a change in the relative strength of the 
 influencing forces, and the moving body affected would take a 
 different direction. 
 
 According to some of our authoritative economical philoso- 
 phy, there is no occasion, either in policy or justice, to attempt 
 relief to an} r class in society, however feeble, in distributing 
 the burdens of taxation. McCulloch argues that a little addi- 
 tional burden imposed on the masses of the poorer people 
 stimulates them to greater industry and economy; but that an 
 additional burden imposed on the successful men of business 
 is discouraging, and depresses business. That is, the fact of 
 additional burdens has precisely opposite effects, according as 
 it touches the rich or the poor, benefiting the poor and society, 
 but injuring the rich and society. He then goes so far as to 
 state, as a theoretical truth, that if any are favored in taxation, 
 it should be the enterprising people who are making the 
 money, or whose progenitors acquired wealth, because "riches 
 are, in ninety-nine out of every hundred instances, the result 
 of superior industry, enterprise and frugality; of the exercise, 
 in short, of the peculiar virtues which all wise governments 
 endeavor to diffuse and encourage." But McCulloch's 
 great reason for taxing commodities, even necessaries, thus 
 weighting the economically weak as heavily as the economi- 
 cally strong, is that there is really nothing else possible to do. 
 Any attempt to levy and collect taxes on property or income
 
 50 TAXATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 must necessarily fail, therefore, taxes on expenditure are simply 
 inevitable like storms and earthquakes. Evils may, indeed, 
 attend ; but that the poor will have to struggle and stint a 
 little more is not one of them. The great result of such a 
 system of taxation is that it increases the aggregate of wealth 
 by adding to the accumulations of those who are already 
 wealthy. Now, while it is evident that taxes cannot be made 
 entirely equitable, it does not follow that there is any reason 
 in this for making them about as unjust as possible. The idea 
 that the rich man who escapes taxation may add indirectly by 
 his accumulations to the success of industry and thereby con- 
 done the apparent wrong, would justify all that class of legis- 
 lation which discriminates in favor of " financial freebooters," 
 such as some of our suddenly made millionaires are generally 
 held to be. On such a principle we might go on and reestablish 
 the kind of taxation France had before the Revolution. It 
 would justify the legal building-up of monopolies at the ex- 
 pense of the great mass of producers and consumers. A levy 
 of taxes which takes as great a sum from a poor as from a 
 rich family is the extension of a legal privilege to the rich 
 family, and helps to cast down the poor still lower in the social 
 scale. Protest indeed against the government meddling with 
 the " natural distribution of wealth," as an answer to a claim 
 for the needy, whenever a claim is made for the needy! 
 And }*et, some of these very same people who are so 
 fearful of disturbing the natural course of things, approve 
 of laws which make it more difficult for those who have 
 not, to get, but which help those who already have, to get 
 more. It is true that our type of this class of economists, Mc- 
 Culloch, in speaking of taxes which bear heavity on the poor, 
 says, " they should be resorted to with much caution, and be 
 confined within reasonable limits "; and j-et we can hardly see 
 how the precaution is to have any practical use, when he 
 insists that taxes on commodities and necessaries are the best, 
 that a tax on property is worse than a tax on income, and that 
 England's income tax should be forthwith repealed, resting as
 
 Sec. #$.] OVERTAXING THE RICH. 51 
 
 it does on the "most unsound and dangerous principles," and its 
 existence being " the greatest blot on our economical policy." 
 
 We find something like this in still later teachers. In treat- 
 ing of the income tax, Mr. Wells insists on the injustice of any 
 exemption at all. He contends that those at the bottom of the 
 scale should scorn to accept of exemptions, just as if there 
 were perfect fairness of competition in the prevailing econom- 
 ical conditions, and as if the present distribution of wealth 
 were gocl-ordained and right-sustained. What a pity those at 
 the top of the scale had not such a fine sense of honor as to 
 scorn profitable franchises which levy contributions on the 
 many for the benefit of the few ! But would not an exemption 
 of, say $500 out of all incomes, secure compensation to those 
 with taxable income, by a sort of diffusion on Mr. Wells' 
 principles ? If it helped a person of small means to rise above 
 the line of exemption, he would then help to pa}- the taxes. 
 If, without exemption, he had been pressed below tne line 
 of self-support, the taxpa}*ers would have to help him live, 
 and would thus lose as much as they would gain by the little 
 tax squeezed out of him. But, any way, it is hardly for Mr. 
 Wells to press such a point, for if, as he formulates it (Sec. 4), 
 all taxes fall on consumption in the end, why object to the 
 exemption of the poor man's income, since he would pay his 
 share of taxes according to consumption, whether his paltry 
 income were taxed or not ? 
 
 23. OVERTAXING THE RICH. The solicitude shown by cer- 
 tain able economists and influential politicians lest the rich be 
 taxed too much, takes it for granted that the present distribu- 
 tion of wealth involves some economical disability, active or 
 latent, of the moneyed classes. It regards large individual 
 possessions as falling below rather than rising above what 
 they should be under a fair distribution. It assumes that 
 great wealth is to be found only where it stands the emphatic 
 and unimpeachable reward of honest business enterprise. But 
 is this so ? I will say nothing of the economical advantage 
 which a large capital necessarily gives. I will say nothing
 
 52 TAXATION. [Cliap. 111. 
 
 of the abuse of economical power which this possession of 
 wealth puts into the hands of unscrupulous men. I have only 
 in view the influence of class legislation on the distribution 
 of wealth. Since the beginning of government, the laws have 
 been made by the strong in the interest of the strong. Thcy 
 have placed franchises in the hands of the few and built up 
 monopolies whereby the inequalties of distribution have been 
 made greater than before. Tax laws have been made to shield 
 the rich and well-born, while they imposed additional burdens 
 on the masses of the unresisting people. And even when the 
 tax laws have not been in the most objectionable form, the 
 strong have been able, by means of various devices not within 
 the reach of the commonalty, to break through the statutes, 
 and escape the paj-mcnt of just taxes. And yet some of our 
 economists are concerned lest the rich be taxed too much. 
 McCulloch appears to have been in mortal dread of such a 
 result. Mr. Worthington C. Ford, in an article in Lalor's 
 Cyclopaedia, after having spoken highly of the income tax on 
 theoretical grounds, goes on to sa}* that " in a country with 
 democratic institutions there is danger that the income tax, 
 when levied as in England at the present time, may be used 
 "by the poorer classes]as a means of oppressing the richer classes 
 on whom the tax falls, and this tendency has been noted in 
 England by Prof. Faucett, and in this [country by Mr. D. A. 
 Wells." 
 
 We admit the strength of this <; tendency " in theory, but 
 nowhere else. It might get into practice if the masses did 
 their own voting, but unfortunately they are voted by the 
 political bosses. Possibly the bias of demagogy or that of 
 over-s3 T mpathy with the poor may sometimes go too far in one 
 direction as the aristocratic bias goes in the other. A tax or 
 the remission of a tax which promises to relieve or flatter the 
 masses may sometimes be authorized, as when the duty was 
 taken from tea and coffee in this country, a measure which 
 served the double purpose of pleasing " protectionists " as well 
 as housekeepers. One of the pretexts for taxing foreign ar-
 
 SeC. 24.~] EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE FOR STATE SUPPORT. 53 
 
 tides which compete with our own is that such taxes help 
 labor, and so please the laboring people who are usually too 
 ill informed to detect the fallacy. None the less are protecting 
 taxes monopoly taxes adverse to the general interests. So that 
 even when demagog}* or popular sympathy attempts to benefit 
 the many by discrimination in taxes, it is pretty sure to fail, 
 while the opposite bias is very much more likel}- to compass 
 its ends. England taxes tea, coffee, and other commodities which 
 the people use ; but, on the other hand, she taxes incomes ; 
 for, though McCulloch was so fierce to have this tax repealed, 
 Sir Robert Peel and others thought differently, and the tax 
 has been retained, be it said to the credit of England's states- 
 manship. Prof. Perry states that " the English have found 
 their income tax to be for more than thirty years the most 
 uniform, unfailing, expansive, and responsive to control of all 
 their fiscal expedients." (Political Economy, 587.) In the 
 United States, commodities and manufactured articles which 
 the people use are largely taxed, and smaller properties are 
 frequently made to pay double tax ; while we have no income 
 tax at all, and the opposition to it in some quarters appears to 
 be almost malignant. Certainly, if there is a " tendency" to 
 oppress the rich with burdens of taxation here and in England, 
 it has made little mark in a practical way. It is in all proba- 
 bility true, however, that the inequalities of fortune assisted by 
 acts of government and business combinations together with 
 the plutocratic bias which insinuates itself into economical 
 teachings and molds public sentiment, have led to counter- 
 agitation, and even to the adoption of extreme views in the 
 contrary direction. Possibly this may threaten to " oppress 
 the rich," but it has not yet done so. 
 
 24. EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE FOR STATE SUPPORT. This 
 doctrine discards the idea that the State does a certain ser- 
 vice for the citizens to which they should respond according to 
 means or benefits. So to respond would, in a general way, 
 justify a simple income tax ; but the advocates of equality 
 of sacrifice for State support go further and demand a progres-
 
 54 TAXATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 sive or graduated income tax. They take the view that the 
 burden of taxation is a sacrifice which it is the duty of all to 
 bear for the general welfare of the whole, and that '' equality 
 of taxation is to be established by so adjusting the taxes that 
 they will require an equal sacrifice of all. This is to be ac- 
 complished by a system of progressive taxation, i. e., one in 
 which the rate increases with the income. For it is evident 
 that the day laborer who barely earns enough to sustain his 
 family, we will say $400 a year, must make a greater sacrifice 
 to pay three per cent tax, than a capitalist whose income is 
 $10,000 a year ; i. e. that $12 is more for the former than $800 
 for the latter." (E. J. James after Adolph Wagner, Cyclope- 
 dia of Political Science.) 
 
 This view of taxation has the support of thinking men, and 
 there is so much in its favor as a theory, that it has made some 
 progress as an element of political agitation. In our own 
 country it has made its way into the platforms of party 
 organizations which aim to promote the interests of the many 
 against the privileges of the few. That the doctrine is abhor- 
 rent to the old school and to that popular sentiment which 
 has been engendered under the dictation of controlling inter- 
 ests, is not surprising. What threatens with justice, if it be 
 only theoretical justice, or what threatens only a change, is 
 sometimes very repugnant to parties that may be affected 
 thereby. What unsettles a political habit, even in the interest 
 of the right, may seem to certain interests and biases as 
 really dangerous. Let us see what there is in this theory of 
 taxation that threatens to " oppress the rich." 
 
 The system may be summarized in this way : Society is a 
 common good to be maintained at a certain expense. The 
 enjoyments of individuals in the several classes of society- 
 may not be proportional to the property or income of each 
 under the protection of the State. In some cases, at least, the 
 poor man, or man of moderate wealth, with his family, may 
 enjoy life as thoroughly as the rich man with his family ; and 
 so far as this takes place under protection by the State, it is
 
 SeC. 24.1 EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE FOR STATE SUPPORT. 55 
 
 hardly possible for the man of moderate means to afford to the 
 State a proper return in money for its services to him. Then, 
 it becomes necessary to find some other theory of taxation for 
 the support of the State. As wealth is not the measure of 
 enjoyment, and since people in the different strata of society 
 find not very unequal measures of enjoyment under the pro- 
 tection of the State, then the theory assumes that all ought to 
 contribute to the support of the State in such way that one 
 shall not be made to feel the burden of taxation more than 
 another. The rich man would really feel the burden less at a 
 large percentage of his income than the poor man would feel 
 it at a small percentage of his. The rich man would have no 
 grounds for complaint, for while his chances for the conditions 
 of a full, rounded life under State protection, are even better 
 than those of the poor man, he makes no more sacrifice under 
 progressive taxation for State support than the poor man does. 
 All this is plausible enough ; but on the other hand, we 
 have to take into account the resistance which the rich would 
 be able to make to any such an arrangement. Suppose, how- 
 ever, that the resistance can be overcome, and the taxes prop- 
 erly collected, there is still the objection that the general 
 aggregate of savings would then be less than before. The 
 people who may be relieved under this scheme of taxation, 
 would have more to use, and they would use more on the 
 comforts and enjoj-ments of life. This would be a proper 
 thing, if it could be maintained. But could it be maintained ? 
 There would be a smaller surplus for new enterprises, and 
 business would not be so brisk ; there would be a comparative 
 falling off in the aggregate of production, and by and by the 
 very people who had profited at first by the change, might find 
 themselves no better off than under the existing system. Tak- 
 ing people as they are, something like this would probably 
 come about. It is true, there might be an unexpected good in 
 any arrangement which should give to a large portion of the 
 people greater power of consumption. We might not then hear 
 of " over-production " so often as we now do. Production and
 
 56 TAXATION. {.Chap. III. 
 
 consumption might sustain a more uniform equality with each 
 other than when the increase of capital is so great, and the 
 sum at command of consumers so small as at present. But 
 we fear that the relief afforded by a S3*stem of progressive 
 taxation, admitting it to be just, would have no great results 
 in this direction, even temporarily. This brings us square up 
 to the question. Would any system establishing greater justice 
 in the administration of affairs and in the distribution of 
 wealth, afford any considerable permanent relief ? 
 
 Since we know so little in complicated affairs of the neces- 
 sary means to ends, we should aim as a rule to establish justice 
 as fully as possible, and let the results take care of themselves. 
 One of the first things necessary to the elevation of the masses 
 is that they shall feel a greater security in life than is their lot 
 now. To stint and starve during seasons of business depres- 
 sion, or even to have to fall back on the little reserves in sav- 
 ings banks, is not the kind of experience that fosters the better 
 elements of human nature. Still, without some appreciation 
 of the more just conditions, there could be little permanent 
 good in the results. The beneficiaries (of justice we are 
 speaking) must not devour and trample under foot like cattle 
 and swine. They must understand something of the principles 
 of thrift, and adopt them into their lives. The}' must save 
 for themselves, and help to strengthen, each in his small wa} r , 
 the reserves of capital. If the masses are for the most part 
 vessels that do not hold, and the good things entrusted to them 
 fall through and perish, these good things are wasted. "\Vhat 
 would be the practical use then of greater justice in taxation or 
 anything else ? There would still be the moral leaven of the 
 principle, and just so far as there is intelligence to profit by any 
 equitable readjustment, that readjustment will prove to be use- 
 ful. Then intelligence and the character which is pretty sure to 
 rise with intelligence are the master conditions, without which 
 all the schemes for the betterment of the masses must fail. 
 Socialism, communism, nihilism, progressive taxation, the con- 
 fiscation of rent, the tax proportioned to the death rate, and all
 
 SeC. 25.] DIVERSITY IN TAXATION. 57 
 
 such schemes are but dreams, whatever else they may be, just 
 so far as they lose sight of the need of concurrent education. 
 There must be a cultivation of the taste, or the fruit that is 
 offered may turn to bitterness in the eating. There is a little 
 leaven of the needed culture already, but there is urgent need 
 that this be greatly stimulated and extended. "We are not to 
 be over-sanguine here of great results ; but the first thing to be 
 done is to get definite ideas of what the need really is. Until 
 there is a better general understanding of this subject, the 
 best cannot be had, and we must endeavor to secure simply 
 the best within reach, and this is to be had, no doubt, by keep- 
 ing near to the beaten track, and making such modifications as 
 appear to be safe and practicable. 
 
 I have made this statement on taxation, not so much to com- 
 plain of inequalities or to suggest remedies, as to call atten- 
 tion to the fundamental fact, that the bias which sustains pre- 
 vailing inequalities of taxation, and is the outgrowth of power- 
 ful interests, can exist as a controlling agency in government, 
 only because of the great heedlessness and indifference among 
 the people toward taxation in particular and economical sub- 
 jects in general. 
 
 25. DIVERSITY IN TAXATION. In order to get the last 
 word on economical subjects before revising these pages, I 
 procured several works quite recently from the press. One of 
 these designed for grammar schools explicitly teaches the dif- 
 fusion theory of taxes, apparently to deter workingmen of the 
 cities from voting too liberally for expenditure. The authors 
 might better have shown what is nowhere shown in this ele- 
 mentary book, that profitless and extravagant expenditure 
 actually in the end detracts from the power of giving employ- 
 ment to labor. One of the volumes, a citizens' manual, states 
 that the best tax is one that taxes land alone. Another, like 
 Mr. Henry George, wants land to pay all the taxes. This class 
 of writers, of course, assume the certainty of diffusion, or of 
 something equivalent in the interaction of the economical 
 forces, unless, indeed, they are willing to help on the extinc-
 
 68 TAXATION. [Chap. III. 
 
 lion of the middle class of yeomen. Another writer follows 
 Mr. George iu general views, but he has a different panacea 
 a tax of two per cent per annum on all assets. One of our 
 authors affirms with oracular confidence that it is discouraging 
 to tax accumulations, but he is equally confident that such a 
 tax (on assets) is just what is wanted to secure justice and 
 make business prosperous. It is so easy to see what one 
 wants to see ; and then when the doctors so confidently con- 
 tradict one another, we must be allowed a margin of scepti- 
 cism, when they enter the field of prophecy and tell us what 
 wonderful things will happen on the adoption of this plan or 
 that. Those radical reformers who want a great revenue to 
 expend for the good of the people, wholly ignore the conserv- 
 ative view that a great revenue is dangerous, and that when 
 the expenditure of the surplus is going on, human nature is 
 such that multiplied abuses creep in to debauch government 
 and people. There is so much reason for this view of the 
 case, we have a right to expect some effort to be made to set 
 it aside. This is especially incumbent on the author of Man's 
 Birthright, since the difficulty affects the very heart of his 
 scheme. 
 
 Owing to the refractory elements in the problem of taxation 
 and to the unequal intelligence and power of different classes 
 in society, no simple form of taxation would have equitable 
 results. To raise all revenue b}* taxes on income, on consump- 
 tion, on property, or on land alone, might not have so good a 
 result as taxation on all of them. I am aware how bungling 
 and crude this view must seem to those who have perfect 
 S3 T stems to recommend. There is no good reason why income 
 should not be taxed at all ; the practical difficulties usually 
 urged being that the rich would resist, and that gentlemanly 
 scoundrels would evade such a tax. Without care it might 
 also duplicate, and in cases in which the wealthy man's property 
 consists largely of articles of luxury which he enjoys, he 
 would escape his proper share of taxes, unless some other 
 element than income were included in the levy. Any exemp-
 
 SeC. 25.~\ DIVERSITY IN TAXATION. 59 
 
 tion made should be taken from all incomes. In the taxation 
 of property, duplication should be avoided. The present 
 method of taxing an article of property, and then the notes for 
 which it is mortgaged, is crude and often cruelly unjust. The 
 man who aspires to provide a home for himself and family on 
 the soil, and goes in debt for a part of it, ought surely to 
 have exemption on his indebtedness. To tax him on what he 
 owes is one of the worst forms of tax on enterprise, and every 
 season of " hard times " thousands of such lose their homes by 
 foreclosure. Unfortunately this kind of enterprise is not that 
 kind which is most favored by the taxing powers. It is the 
 grasping, greedy enterprise that gets the admiration and sym- 
 pathy that tell in the shape of exemptions. The poor man 
 may be taxed on land he owes for ; but the rich man who is 
 transforming independent ownership into subservient tenancy 
 is not subjected to this injustice. He may give the necessary 
 attention to assessment, and manipulate for under-valuation. 
 Instead of this, however, he should be made to pay a progres- 
 sive tax on all his lands above a homestead, as a most just 
 measure for the protection of society against the threatening 
 growth of landlordism. And justice commands that the 
 transfer of large estates to heirs should be taxed. 
 
 A tax on raw products and then another tax on the articles 
 made of them, to increase the prices of home productions, are 
 double and contradictory taxes, intended mainly to benefit 
 certain classes at the common expense. They are essentiallj- a 
 product of class legislation, and, but for a wide-spread delusion 
 that has been fostered by special interests, such taxes would 
 not long be endured. The taxing of luxuries, such as tobacco, 
 liquors, and tinsels of vanity, is no doubt proper economically 
 and ethically. In taxing expenditure, one would suppose that 
 a discrimination should be made in favor of the necessaries of 
 life. Luxurious consumption can afford to pay rather than 
 necessary consumption. In all cases moderate taxation is 
 more available than excessive taxation. If the poor are over- 
 taxed, the source of the fund is dried up ; if the rich are
 
 60 MONET. [Chap. IV. 
 
 over-taxed, they leave nothing undone to elude its payment. 
 Hence, taxes on income, on luxuries, on whatever is taxed, 
 should be moderate ; and diversity in taxation makes modera- 
 tion possible. 
 
 I am perfectly conscious of the feeling with which the dif- 
 fusion theorists would regard most I have said on the sub- 
 ject of taxation. But while believing that, under some cir- 
 cumstances, taxes may be shifted, I greatly prefer, as a guide, 
 the instincts of long-headed, practical men to the absolute 
 economics of doctrinaires. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 MONEY. 
 
 26. PRESENT AND ULTIMATE RESULTS. Wrong taxation is 
 sufficiently insidious in its action to effect an unjust distribu- 
 tion of wealth ; even more insidious to the same end are the 
 manipulations of money in the interest of powerful classes. 
 Here, as elsewhere, class interests appear ; and here, as else- 
 where, the battle is usually to the strong. Former!}*, it was 
 governments that manipulated the currency to get a financial 
 advantage in no way so easily obtained as by indirection. The 
 currency manipulators in the interest of class have still largely 
 to depend on the government for privileges and protection. 
 
 There is almost alwaj-s a great difference between an im- 
 mediate and a remote interest. An immediate good may turn 
 out to be a remote evil ; an apparent immediate evil may be 
 necessary to a remote and general good. Without the restraint 
 of impulses, which is often attended with temporary pain, far 
 greater pain would ensue. For want of making the distinc- 
 tion between an immediate, temporary, and class advantage, 
 on the one hand, and a more remote, permanent, and general
 
 SeC. 26.] PRESENT AND ULTIMATE RESULTS. 61 
 
 advantage, on the other, there is a great deal of mental con- 
 fusion on social and economical subjects. It is the interest 
 of society that money shall be as nearly as possible unchange- 
 able in value ; but it is the immediate interest of creditors 
 that money shall increase in value, and the like interest 
 of debtors that it should decrease in value. Do not tell me 
 that mankind are above the influence of such interests ! On 
 the contrary, these are the very interests that usually govern the 
 actions of men, when unrestrained by a superior force. What 
 can a man do with more than a million dollars to make him- 
 self and family happy and comfortable in life ? It is the real 
 interest of himself and family that his possessions shall not 
 rise above a million (the reader will see that we are liberal) ; 
 and yet, when he gets a million, he becomes far more desperate 
 to accumulate more than when he had only a hundred thousand. 
 It becomes now the exercise of a tremendous power, the 
 pleasure of which he will not forego. He can adopt no surer 
 way of destroying his famity- in the end than by piling up 
 millions ; but it is his immediate and personal interest, as he 
 feels and sees, to get as much as he can, and cling as tena- 
 ciously as possible to all he gets. The more he leaves behind, 
 the worse and surer the luxurious debauch of his children ; but 
 he wants the name and consequence of great wealth, and what 
 cares he for the third or fourth generation of vanity-puffed, 
 pleasure-exhausted descendants who shall degenerate into 
 mental and physical sterility, and in whose early death his 
 very name will be blotted out from among the living ! 
 
 Combinations of men, as well as individuals, are liable to 
 pursue immediate interests, regardless of remote consequences. 
 Our ancestors did this when they brought slaves from Africa. 
 They deemed it a present boon to secure laborers in this wa}-; 
 but slavery reacted upon the masters in many ways for evil, 
 and accumulated a mass of political discords which could only 
 be quelled in suffering and blood. It may seem very fine 
 now to allow home and foreign S3*ndicates to get possession 
 of immense tracts of American lands, but this mistaken policy
 
 62 MONEY. [Chap. IV. 
 
 will eventually react against the highest interests of the people 
 to their sorrow. What may seem to be a present good may 
 turn out to be a future curse, whether individuals, combinations 
 of individuals, or nations be the wrong-doers. I do not believe 
 that it is to the permanent and general interests of any nation 
 or section, to force the business of the civilized world down 
 to monometallism on a diminishing aggregate of gold, but the 
 London Economist is quoted as saying : " Nearty every nation 
 on the face of the earth is indebted to us, and the result 
 of an appreciation of gold is that we obtain a larger quantity 
 of their commodities in settlement of our claims." A former 
 governor of the Bank of England thinks it is not to be ex- 
 pected that England as a creditor nation will throw away the 
 advantage of measuring values by a metal that is constantly 
 growing scarcer and dearer. That the ruling classes in Eng- 
 land arc not above selfish considerations of this character is 
 shown by the persistence of their opposition to international 
 bi-metallism. 
 
 There is no selfish conflict of interests in regard to ultimate 
 and permanent results ; it is in the exclusive and present 
 interests of classes that there is conflict everywhere. 
 
 27. INFLUENCE OP CHANGEABLE VALUES IN MONET. This 
 conflict of interests in regard to money involves a number 
 of considerations which it is worth our while to pass briefly 
 under review. The most important of these considerations has 
 reference to the value of money. It matters little, however, 
 what may be the absolute quantity or absolute value of money, 
 but it does matter a great deal whether that value shall be 
 constant or fluctuating. Honesty requires that it shall be as 
 constant as possible ; dishonesty requires that it shall change. 
 Financial sharpers find their account in the fluctuation of the 
 standard which determines business values. Creditors are 
 made richer without wisdom or effort on their part by the 
 constant appreciation in the value of money; debtors have 
 the like advantage from the depreciation of the money unit. 
 The process of appreciation or depreciation is an insidious
 
 Sec. #?.] INFLUENCE OP CHANGEABLE VALUES IN MONET. 63 
 
 element in business, which affects an unjust redistribution 
 of wealth by stealing from one class and giving to another. 
 
 Such considerations bear on the issue between monomet- 
 allism and bi-metallism. If the change which is going on 
 from bi-metallism to monometallism is giving greater value to 
 money, why then, it is taking spoil from debtors and putting 
 it into the possession of creditors. If the continued use 
 of both gold and silver as money should make money cheaper, 
 then would the advantage be on the side of debtors. Owing to 
 the great productiveness of gold and silver mines some years 
 ago, the value of these metals declined, and this suggested to 
 the mone3 T -owing classes that their interests required that one 
 of the metals should be discarded for money purposes. Then 
 began a movement which has achieved a good deal in this 
 direction, and which, though conditions have greatly changed, 
 is still pushed with desperate determination. 
 
 But the aggregate sum of the mone}' metals is not the only 
 element that determines their value. Not alone did the pro- 
 ductiveness of the mines lead to the cheapening of money; 
 a movement which contributed to the same result, was the 
 constantly increasing devices of credit. These enabled men 
 to dispense with certain uses of mone}', thereby rendering it 
 of less value than it would otherwise have been. Increasing 
 facilities for transit, and the more rapid circulation of money, 
 have had the same effect as an increase in the quantity of 
 money. For these reasons a highly civilized community 
 requires less money in proportion to its business transactions 
 than does a less civilized country. But as an offset to the 
 increasing devices of credit and rapidity of circulation under 
 high civilization, there is a constant increase in the number 
 and volume of business transactions, owing to the increase of 
 population and a corresponding increase in consumption. If 
 the devices of credit reduce the demand for money, the greater 
 diversity and amount of business increase the demand. We 
 cannot, of course, definitely weigh one of these terms against 
 the other to ascertain which is the greater factor in the prob-
 
 64 MONET. [Chap. IV. 
 
 lem ; and if we could, there would be constant disturbance in 
 the result, owing to the fact that, while the devices of credit 
 admit of perhaps little further improvement, the increase of 
 business is still rapidly going on. In view of these considera- 
 tions, it is probable that as much money if not more is now 
 required for business transactions as ever before. If this be 
 so, then the success of the monometallic movement would rob 
 certain classes in community for the benefit of other classes. 
 Monometallism, in discarding one of the metals except as sub- 
 sidiary coin, is steadily increasing the value of money to the 
 advantage of credit-and-money -owners, and to the disadvantage 
 of others. The mines are adding nothing at present to the 
 stock of gold for money purposes. Its consumption, as well 
 as that of silver, in the arts and manufactures, is very great 
 and rapidly increasing. It is now three times as great as it 
 was twenty years ago, four times as great as it was thirty 
 years ago. On the other hand, the production of gold is 
 steadily falling off. From 1856 to 1860, the annual production 
 of gold was 137 millions; in 1879, 107 millions; in 1883, 94 
 millions. It is estimated that the annual consumption of gold 
 in the arts has already caught up with the annual production. 
 While the annual production of the mines is steadily falling off, 
 the annual consumption in the arts is steadily increasing ; so 
 it is to be expected that in a short time, taking the last twenty 
 years as our guide, the consumption of gold will be greater 
 every year than its production. This, together with the wear 
 and loss of coin, will draw upon the present stock of monej*- 
 gold, and draw upon it largely; and yet, in the face of these 
 facts, known to all who have given the subject study, we have 
 classes in community who want gold alone to be the measure 
 or denominator of values. 
 
 If this movement were to be carried out, how would it oper- 
 ate on the interests of the various classes in society ? In the 
 first place, it would increase the relative wealth of certain 
 classes, and diminish the relative wealth of other classes, with 
 no corresponding merit in the one class, or demerit in the
 
 SeC. 27.] INFLUENCE OF CHANGEABLE VALUES IN MONEY. 65 
 
 other. All whose property consists in credits and moneys, all 
 whose incomes are fixed annuities and government salaries, 
 and salaries not readily adjusted to the changed conditions, 
 all these would gain directly by the general adoption of gold 
 monometallism. What they gain others would lose. All 
 prices would fall, all property would be bought and sold at 
 lower figures ; and all who own such property, all producers, 
 would have to do with less than before. All indebtedness 
 would be increased. Enterprising business men who had 
 borrowed a part of the capital they used, would be crippled. 
 The farmer still having payments to make on his home, would 
 be weighted. The same number of dollars having in all cases 
 to be paid, and those dollars having increased in value, the 
 debtor would have to pay more ; and the creditor would 
 receive more value than he loaned or sold. And yet we have 
 classes in society that are laboring in season and out of season 
 to establish monometallism. 
 
 But this form of the insidious and unjust redistribution of 
 wealth is not all we have to look out for. Our monometallists 
 are quite concerned for the poor laboring men. They say, if 
 we get too much silver and we are always right on the eve 
 of getting too much prices will go up, and wages will not buy 
 as much, greatly to the disadvantage of laborers. Usualty, 
 however, pretty soon after prices go up, wages rise, and laborers 
 are quite sure to have all the work they can do. A good deal of 
 unnecessary alarm is shown about the high prices work-people 
 may have to pay. One would suppose that a little of this 
 alarm might be reserved for the contingency of loss of employ- 
 ment and lower wages under the crushing operation of con- 
 stant^ increasing scarcity and dearness of the gold dollar. 
 But this is precisely the side of the shield that our Argus-eyed 
 monometallists never see. 
 
 Under advancing monometallism, if the movement cannot be 
 arrested, money must become constantly dearer and prices con- 
 stantly lower ; with what results ? With a steady discourage- 
 ment to business. When prices are falling, business is always
 
 66 MONEY. \Chap. IV. 
 
 dull. Bayers hold off, and the competition of unsuccessful 
 sellers sinks prices even lower than would be indicated by the 
 reduced volume of money. As purchases made on falling 
 prices are always small and consumption economical, production 
 has necessarily to be limited, and there is a constantly diminish- 
 ing demand for labor. Workingmen are thrown out of employ- 
 ment, or have to work on reduced time or reduced wages, so 
 that, even on falling'prices, laborers are worse off than they were 
 before. Under progressive gold monometallism, with the les- 
 sening supply of gold all consumed in the arts, with the wastage 
 and loss in coin going steadily on, and the stock on hand abso- 
 lutely diminishing, this depression of business is not merely a 
 temporary thing ; it must continue from j-ear to year with the 
 effect of casting down the great middle class relatively lower 
 and lower, and sinking employe's to the borders of beggary 
 and slavery. Monometallists never discuss these permanent 
 features of their system ; they merely refer in a partial way to 
 what can only be immediate and temporary results, relying, 
 like advocates, on the safe mental inertia of those they mean 
 to influence. I do not believe that monometallism in its 
 ultimate and permanent effects would really benefit even the 
 classes that are pushing it with such zeal. I do not believe 
 that it is the interest of any class, however exalted in wealth, 
 that the society of which they necessarily form a part, shall 
 consist mainly of millions who are struggling for a bare living. 
 I do not believe it is the interest of the " higher classes " that 
 there shall be a great unoccupied gap between them and the 
 "lower classes." I fear the increasing dearness of the gold 
 dollar, because one of its obvious effects as a practical meas- 
 ure, is to hasten the tendencies of all high civilizations to 
 multiply the needy classes at the expense of the great middle 
 classes, and, so far as this goes, to deprive society of its best 
 and steadiest elements. 
 
 Over against the extreme of contractionists, there is the 
 other extreme of expansionists. These maintain that the 
 more money a nation has, the more prosperous it will be. This
 
 Sec. 27.] INFLUENCE OP CHANGEABLE VALUES IN MONEY. 67 
 
 is an error. It is not the quantity of money to do business j 
 with that makes business prosperous or otherwise. The world / 
 could do business on one-tenth of the money it has ; if it had 
 ten times as much as it has, business facilities would be no 
 better than they now are. It is not the absolute value of 
 money that tells on business ; it is changing to a less quantity 
 or to a greater that depresses or stimulates business. A great 
 contraction of the currency with a corresponding fall in prices 
 depresses business greatly ; a slight contraction long-continued 
 acts as a chronic agency of depression, and tells most heavily 
 on the weakest members of societ}', preventing improvement 
 in their condition, or making it even worse. On the other 
 hand, a sudden expansion or depreciation which sends up 
 prices, stimulates speculation. A slight increase of money 
 long-continued has a moderately stimulating effect on business. 
 Of course, these currency changes never act alone, but always 
 with other factors which may act either with them or against 
 them. The influences affecting business are very complicated, 
 being largely psychological ; and, no doubt, whether money 
 become steadily dearer or cheaper, we shall continue to have 
 fluctuations in business, contraction, however, making them 
 worse and more frequent. Nevertheless, the effects of con- 
 tinuous contraction or expansion (appreciation or depreciation) 
 are essentially as here stated. 
 
 If there is any change in the volume of the world's money 
 in relation to business, a slight increase seems to be the most 
 desirable. It is true that it favors debtors and borrowers ; but 
 borrowers, as some economists have noted, are usually enter- 
 prising people who do most for the expansion and diversifica- 
 tion of civilized industries, or who have taken some risk to 
 establish homes for themselves and families, and, if any should 
 be favored, it would seem to be such. But perhaps the best 
 condition is that of uniformity ; that is, an increase of money 
 keeping even pace with the need for money in the transactions 
 of business. While such uniformity cannot be maintained in 
 a matter so far beyond definite control, it does not therefore
 
 68 MONEY. [Chap. IV. 
 
 follow that it should not be kept in view as a condition to be 
 approximated as nearly as possible. This is one of the duties 
 of government, and one which it should never delegate to a 
 selfish and irresponsible class. When Mr. J. Barr Robertson, 
 a correspondent of the London Economist, replying to its 
 editor, called attention to the evidence that within the last 
 seven years, gold had increased in purchasing power while 
 silver had not depreciated in such power within that time, the 
 editor of the Economist coolly answered that it is not a func- 
 tion of government to maintain uniformity in the standard 
 that measures prices, but only to guarantee the weight and 
 fineness of its coinage. This was dodging the issue he was 
 bound not to look at the other side of the shield. Govern- 
 ments have the regulation of the currencj', and England has 
 helped make money dearer by discarding silver and selfishly 
 refusing to take a single step toward its remonetization. 
 
 28. THE HONEST DOLLAR. We have heard a great deal 
 about "honest money," an "honest dollar," from those who 
 want dear money and the privilege of issuing bank paper. 
 They always assume that the gold dollar is the honest dollar, 
 and if any other dollar passes for less, or has less bullion 
 value in it, it is the " dishonest dollar." The question is never 
 entertainted whether the dear dollar has gained in value ; it is 
 always assumed that the cheaper dollar has lost in value. 
 Some professed bi-metallists, like Senator Sherman, for ex- 
 ample, continually harp on the " fall of silver." Some who are 
 bound to look only at this side of the shield, affect great con- 
 tempt for those who see the other side, and are liable indig- 
 nantl}' to exclaim, "There is positively no limit to human 
 stupidity and credulity in matters relating to finance." None 
 so sure as those who see under the concentrated light of self- 
 interest ! 
 
 Now, what is the fact in regard to the relative value of the 
 gold and silver dollars for the last eight years ? The produc- 
 tion of gold has steadily fallen off, its consumption in the 
 arts has steadily increased, its function as money has been
 
 Sec. 28. ,] THE HONEST DOLLAR. 69 
 
 weighted by the demonetization of silver, and prices have 
 steadily declined ; these facts conspire to show that the value 
 of the gold dollar has increased. How much, it would be diffi- 
 cult to say. I will quote J. Barr Robertson, in the Economist, 
 February 23d, 1884: "Mr. Goschen's select Committee, all 
 of them gold standard men, produced a large volume, in which 
 they satisfied themselves that they had shown the causes of 
 the " depreciation of silver," but the Indian Government im- 
 mediately produced incontrovertible evidence to prove that 
 silver had not depreciated in purchasing power, and last spring 
 Mr. Goschen gave a long and able address at the Institute 
 of Bankers, to show what the bi-metallists had abundantly 
 shown for the previous seven years, namety, that the disturb- 
 ance in the gold price of silver was chiefly due to the apprecia- 
 tion of gold ; so that Mr. Goschen, by no means a very cour- 
 ageous investigator, has come over to the bi-metallic view, that 
 the monetary troubles of the past ten years have been mainly 
 caused by the rise in the purchasing power of gold, while 
 silver has remained comparatively stationary in purchasing 
 power, and has therefore been during that time far more com- 
 pletely a standard of value than gold." Later, Dr. Giffen, the 
 statistician, has come to the support of the same view. 
 
 The prevailing opinion is that silver has depreciated because 
 it has been demonetized ; but this very act of demonetization 
 of silver has caused a greater demand for gold and raised its 
 value. Mr. W. "Westgrath says, in the Economist, "As gold 
 has been (in the United States especially) so largely substituted 
 for paper as well as for silver, I agree with your correspondent 
 (Robertson) that the result has been decidedly more an ap- 
 preciation of gold than a depreciation of silver, and that the 
 effects upon our trade, and, I may add, upon the incidence of 
 our public debt, have thus far been very serious indeed." In 
 speaking of the efforts to get silver out of the way, Mr. H. R. 
 Grenfell, ex-Governor of the Bank of England, says : " By 
 these processes the States of England, Germany, and France 
 have created an artificial demand for gold, which has upset all
 
 70 MONEY. [Chap. IV. 
 
 prices, enhanced the property of all creditors, and diminished 
 the means of all debtors." (The Economist, March 1st, 1884.) 
 Now, what is there to show that, since 1877, the divergence 
 in the bullion values of gold and silver has been wholly due 
 or mainly due to the depreciation of silver ? I am somewhat 
 conversant with current references to this subject, and I know 
 of nothing except the eternal reiteration, " the fall of silver," 
 " the dishonest silver dollar," and " the danger of getting down 
 to the debased silver standard." 
 
 If the bullion in the silver dollar will buy as much now as 
 it would in 1877 T 1880, while the gold dollar will buy more, 
 which is the more honest dollar ? Or, even if silver has de- 
 preciated as much as gold has appreciated to make the differ- 
 ence that has taken place between them within the last few 
 years, and the silver dollar is, therefore, dishonest, is not the 
 gold dollar equally dishonest ? Herein appears the assump- 
 tion of those who are shouting so lustily about the dishonest 
 dollar. The trouble with this business is that the creditor class, 
 the mone}' owners, and the fixed- income class, are the people 
 whose views are mostly voiced in our great journals, and it is 
 the bias of these classes to regard the dear dollar constantly 
 growing dearer, as the truly honest dollar, simply because it is 
 growing heavier in their pockets. A few years ago an eastern 
 journal had a heavy editorial to prove how much more honest 
 the people are in the East than in the West, in this country. 
 We cannot justly censure classes for seeing to their own inter- 
 ests ; they have done so from the beginning, but none the less 
 is it the duty of the great body of the people whose real 
 interests are thus threatened, to organize for the encourage- 
 ment of a higher sort of " honesty " than that which has been 
 so fulsome of late in its own praise. I have no doubt that 
 there are editors South and West as well as East who reiterate 
 the catch phrases of the monometallists without having given 
 any careful attention to the real points at issue. Gold appears 
 to be fixed in value and central in importance, as the earth 
 appears to be fixed in the centre of the heavens ; and, giving
 
 SeC. 9.~] AN ECONOMICAL BULL. 71 
 
 the matter no careful thought, they are altogether sincere in 
 assuming that the gold standard is uniform and silver fluctuat- 
 ing ; and they join in the chorus, " the dishonest silver dollar !" 
 With them it is as if the earth stood still and the heavens 
 moved. 
 
 29. AN ECONOMICAL BULL. Extremists are apt to be con- 
 fident and dogmatic. Fiatists often show contempt for the 
 idea that money should have intrinsic value. The monomet- 
 allists have little patience with people who have the " silver 
 craze." The one set appears to be rather blind, the other 
 biased and bigoted. The fiatists will not give us any particu- 
 lar trouble, probably; the goldites may. With all their as- 
 sumption of infallible knowledge of the subject, the single 
 standard people sometimes venture too much. For the last 
 seven or eight years, they have been making use of an econom- 
 ical bull whose absurdity ought fully to offset the weight of 
 their oracular method of putting things. They have vigorously 
 asserted that the continued coinage of silver would soon cause 
 a premium on gold and drive it out of circulation. The New 
 York Chamber of Commerce has been greatly exercised on 
 this subject. The monometallist journals have been reiterat- 
 ing from week to week the same lugubrious vaticination. 
 When certain congressmen requested President-elect Cleveland 
 not to commit himself on the silver question in his inaugural 
 address, he forthwith did commit himself in advance in an 
 open letter to these same congressmen, and repeated this 
 economical bull in the orthodox and approved form. Speaking 
 of the results of continued coinage, he said : " Gold would be 
 withdrawn to its hoarding places, and an unprecedented con- 
 traction in the actual volume of our currency would speedily 
 take place. Saddest of all, in every workshop, mill, factory, 
 store, and on every railroad and farm, the wages of labor, 
 already depressed, would suffer still further depression by a 
 scaling down of the purchasing power of every so-called dollar 
 paid into the hand of toil." This is earnest and pathetic. 
 Here are clearly delineated the two horns of what I have called
 
 72 MONET. [Chap. IV. 
 
 an economical bull. But it is really worse than this ; it is a 
 veritable " Irish bull." It asserts, first, that there will be a 
 great contraction of the currency, and that, secondly, upon 
 this contraction will follow an inflation of prices on fixed 
 wages. Now, I have read a great many authors on political 
 economy, and I do not recollect of one that regards rising 
 prices of commodities as a phenomenon which follows a great 
 contraction in the volume of the currenc}'. They all teach, and 
 all experience proves that, so far as the volume of the currency 
 affects prices, its contraction always lowers them. If the great 
 contraction takes place which the Chambers of Commerce and 
 the gold-stricken editors and statesmen warn us of, rest as- 
 sured that prices will go down and not up. Money is like any- 
 thing else that is limited in quantity, its value increases with 
 the demand for it. When there is great contraction of the 
 currency and the annual addition by coinage and paper limited, 
 ever}' dollar has more to do than before, and ever}' dollar rises 
 in value with a corresponding fall in the prices of commodities. 
 If there are any elementary principles in economics which all 
 authorities on the subject accept, this is among them. But 
 here are great American financiers taking it for granted that 
 prices would inflate on a fearful contraction in the volume 
 of our currency! I might rest the matter here, but a few ad- 
 ditional considerations may not be out of place. 
 
 30. THE CHRONIC FEAR OP A PREMIUM ON GOLD. In the 
 first place, the forebodings of the silver aversionists that silver 
 coinage would soon drive gold out of circulation and out of the 
 country, have not been justified by the result. Gold does not 
 seem to have partaken of the antipathy of its particular friends 
 toward silver. So far from being repelled by it, it seems to 
 have felt itself really invited to come to our shores by millions 
 upon millions to keep our silver dollars compan}*, and never 
 did plebeian and aristocrat mix better together. But still do 
 the lugubrious prophets keep up the cry of alarm. Nothing 
 will do but an immediate suspension of the coinage of silver. 
 There is no premium yet on gold, indeed j and this is so be-
 
 Sec. 30.~\ THE CHRONIC FEAR OP A PREMIUM ON GOLD. 73 
 
 cause the currency managers cannot afford to maintain a pre- 
 mium. The great banks of the country have done what they 
 could to disparage silver. They have openly violated the law 
 which forbids discrimination against silver in clearing house 
 transactions ; and yet they have not been able to discredit it 
 with the people. Gold has been exchanged for silver certificates 
 to an amount almost equal to half our entire silver coinage. 
 No progress has yet been made in lowering the currency -ualue 
 of silver, and unless the present management of the treasury 
 department by a banker with a bankers' bias should cooperate 
 more effectively with the bank movement against silver to 
 discredit it and coerce Congress, than even past management 
 has done, there is, perhaps, little immediate danger of the 
 dreaded premium on gold. Our silver coinage may go on at 
 its present rate to the very eve of the 20th century, before our 
 supply of silver currency will be proportionally greater than 
 that which France keeps constantly in circulation. Wherefore, 
 then, this chronic state of alarm ? 
 
 But suppose there should be a premium on gold within the 
 next twelve months, would there be the great contraction we 
 hear so much of ? And what would be the effect on prices ? 
 The premium could not be maintained for a day except by a 
 miracle in finance which will not be wrought. The enemies 
 of silver say that as soon as the premium on gold appears, 
 prices will rise. But such a rise of prices means either a 
 great abundance of money and speculative operations, or money 
 that is dishonored by the government that issues it, or a gen- 
 eral scarcity of commodities. The last condition named is an 
 impossible one. Our greenbacks are not increasing in quantity 
 and our silver money which is increasing is receivable for all 
 public dues. Silver has thus a very wide and enlarging field 
 for use, affording employment for hundreds of millions of it. 
 But our supposition is that under these circumstances a 
 premium can be maintained on gold, and that it will "seek its 
 hiding places." One gold organ states oracularly that one per 
 cent premium on gold will send it out of circulation. Then,
 
 74 MONET. [Chap. IV. 
 
 of course, there \vould be contraction to the entire amount 
 of gold in the country, say $600,000,000. If gold thus becomes 
 as complete!}' dead to business transactions as if it -were put 
 back into the mines it came from, then is there contraction by 
 this much, prices will fall, and the friends of gold will be 
 abundantly gratified with cheap living for the poor laboring 
 people ! Under so great a contraction, money would be scarce, 
 prices low, consumers economical, the exportation of commod- 
 ities would increase, and the money of the world would begin 
 to flow toward us. But how could this be with the country 
 full of hoarded gold ? It is absurd. No sooner had all the 
 gold been hidden under such circumstances, than the increased 
 demand for money would call it from its hiding places shorn 
 of its premium ; and that's precisely the reason why there is 
 no premium on gold and why gold doesn't hide as affirmed. 
 And whenever a writer asserts that there may be a slight pre- 
 mium on gold which will cause it all to become dead to the 
 country as money, thereby causing a great contraction of the 
 currency which will derange all business operations, he is 
 guilty of a financial absurdity, even if he does not add that 
 prices (of everything except labor) will inflate to the dis- 
 advantage of the sons of toil ! 
 
 True, with the continued coinage of silver and no cottpera- 
 tion with us on a bi-metallic basis by other nations, the time 
 would come when there would be a premium on gold. But 
 this would not cause any fearful contraction of the currency. 
 The premium could be maintained only when other forms 
 of money are plentiful ; and then, with the premium on gold, 
 there might be rising prices. But would this derange and 
 prostrate business ? Some rise in prices might not be a bad 
 thing. They have been going down for some fifteen years 
 past, because gold which measures them has been going up ; 
 and if they should move somewhat in the contrary direction, 
 it would be only in the interest of business and greatly to the 
 advantage of fair dealing between man and man. But why 
 would not a small premium on gold cause contraction and fall
 
 Sec. 31."] NATURAL SELECTION AND MONOMETALLISM. 75 
 
 of prices ? Because a small or nearly stationary premium of 
 gold does not deprive it of its functions as money. It may 
 still pass from hand to hand and do the work of money. 
 It is only hoarded and lost to business as money when the 
 premium is rising rapidly enough to make it profitable to lay 
 away as an investment. In some form, gold must be gaining 
 in value at a certain percentage per annum to warrant its with- 
 drawal from use as money, and even then it may be used to 
 buy property and pay debts with, the premium being added. 
 It is true that under such circumstances the tendency would 
 be for gold to flow from us, but there would be none of that 
 suddenness we hear so much of. Even now, indeed at any 
 time, gold circulates very little among the masses of business 
 men. It is nearly all in the Treasury and the banks. 
 Silver and silver certificates circulate a great deal more 
 than gold, although the gold organs uniformly assure us that 
 gold does circulate, and that silver will not circulate. The 
 manifestations of alarm on this subject are altogether too de- 
 monstrative. When the premium on gold really appears with 
 the prospect of permanence, then surely it will be time enough, 
 even on the gold basis doctrine, to cease adding to the volume 
 of silver monc}*. Surely this would tie us down sufficiently 
 near to the gold standard on diminishing gold and falling 
 prices ; and this ought to be enough in all conscience to satisfy 
 the greed of the creditor class. 
 
 31. NATURAL SELECTION AND MONOMETALLISM. Every one 
 who has given this subject attention and has not a class interest 
 to subserve, must admit that the permanent and continual con- 
 traction which general gold monometallism necessitates, would 
 be unjust and calamitous to the last degree. Still, the commercial 
 world has appeared to be drifting steadily into gold monomet- 
 allism. An authoritative writer assures us that this takes 
 place on the principle of " natural selection." There are two 
 kinds of natural selection ; the one comes by the prevalence 
 of might ; the other by the prevalence of fitness. In some 
 cases the two kinds coalesce, but not in all. The survivors
 
 76 MONEY. [Chap. IV. 
 
 may be the meanest and unfittest possible, as when a cowardly 
 soldier survives by deserting his brave comrades. This kind 
 of survival is too common in the human sphere. I know very 
 well that in the wild woods the big bulls and the like have 
 things pretty much their own way, and by selfish aggression 
 subordinate the smaller and feebler competitors, whereby suc- 
 cessive generations of these animals maintain, or may be in- 
 crease, their vigor. These big fellows are also the fittest. But 
 is this the regime under which it is the fatalit}' of civilized 
 man to live, the regime of brute force ? Much, indeed, like 
 this, is to be found in history. By natural selection under the 
 play of physical and mental conflict, the strong and selfish 
 have had things their own way, and directed government to 
 the furtherance of their own class aims. But these have not 
 always maintained their ground. A new principle came into 
 vogue to dispute the supremac}' of brute force, and to secure 
 some degree of freedom for the people in theory at least. 
 Natural selection is becoming modified within the human 
 domain toward rational and equitable selection, and is bring- 
 ing about, under great difficulties, a very different state of 
 things from that which formerly prevailed. Nay not some- 
 thing like this be possible in the financial field ? A few strong 
 classes, and the stronger because limited in numbers, devoted 
 to financial legerdemain, now control, to a very great degree, 
 the financial affairs of the world ; and they control them in 
 their own interests, whatever may be the effect on other inter- 
 ests. Thus comes about gold monometallism, characterized by 
 Mr. Horace White in Lalor's Cyclopaedia of Political Science, 
 as a movement in accordance with and secured by the great 
 law of natural selection. Natural Selection unhappy maiden ! 
 At first defamed, now insulted ! 
 
 If the people understood this subject better, and once organ- 
 ized for the maintenance of as great uniformity as possible in 
 the denominator of values, natural selection would take a very 
 different tack. There is no reason whatever but the immediate 
 selfish interest of a class why gold alone should become the
 
 Sec. 81.] NATURAL SELECTION AND MONOMETALLISM. 77 
 
 money of account for the whole commercial world, or even for 
 the leading commercial nations. Gold would not demonetize 
 silver, if it had not powerful class interests behind it, pushing 
 with all their might to get silver and its representative paper 
 into the background. The banking interest is perhaps the 
 most powerful in this country, that is engaged in this work. 
 It has the means at hand, as much as any class, through 
 official reports and press comments, to mold the public senti- 
 ment to its liking ; and mcst bankers are gold monometallists, 
 with, however, some honorable exceptions, and these among 
 the higher order of bankers. The immediate interests of bank- 
 ers as owners of money and credits, are promoted by having 
 money rising in value j hence, the demonetization of silver 
 would directly favor these interests. Again, there is still a 
 profit, and in country places a large profit, in the issue of paper 
 money for circulation ; and the less silver and fewer silver 
 certificates there are in the way, the larger their issues may be 
 and the greater their profits. Hence, their opposition to silver 
 and, especially, to silver certificates. The government (the 
 people) now gets the profit on furnishing this money; but 
 there is a greedy class that wants this profit, and hence the 
 clamor. It is even pretended that the silver coinage is carried 
 on by the government at the loss of every dollar that is not in 
 circulation, and yet those people who so claim are opposed to 
 payments in silver, and are even willing to exchange gold by 
 the million for silver tokens, rather than that the government 
 should pay out its silver to public creditors. By an illu- 
 sion easy to explain, the hoarded silver in the treasury is a 
 dead loss, while the hoarded gold is something like a clear 
 gain ! 
 
 Again, the narrower the metallic basis on which the paper 
 circulation rests, and the more exclusively that circulation is 
 under the control of a comparatively small class, the greater 
 power has that class over the volume and value of the currency 
 for the gambling advantages which grow out of currency fluc- 
 tuations. Hence the opposition of a great and influential class
 
 78 MONEY. [Chap. IV. 
 
 to silver, silver certificates, and United States notes as part 
 of the circulating medium of the country. 
 
 32. WHO SHOULD MAKE THE PAPER MONEY. The making 
 and regulating of the paper money of the country is a very 
 great power, a power which the government should never 
 delegate to corporations. Banks issue paper money and regu- 
 late such issue, not for the public good, but to get the largest 
 possible profits. We hear a great deal in the literature of 
 banking about the elasticity of bank money, how it automatic- 
 ally accommodates itself to the wants of trade. When much 
 money is wanted, much is to be had, and when it is not 
 wanted, the circulation contracts. Ay, a very fine theory never 
 yet reduced to practice. Banks are very free to expand circu- 
 lation precisely when they should not during a speculative 
 mania, but very careful to contract precisely when the public 
 is in most need of their help in times of depression. A large 
 amount of credit always precedes periods of business distress. 
 The corporate power of making credit money aggravates the 
 disease of over-credit at a time when there is need of an anti- 
 dote ; and then, when the crisis comes, the banks withhold 
 their aid from the very people who are most in need of it. 
 They first encourage overtrading to make profit for themselves, 
 and then when the panic strikes they withhold acccomodations 
 to save themselves ; and thus they make the condition worse 
 by helping business men to get into trouble, and then refusing 
 to help them out of it. (Sec. 10.) 
 
 We should have commercial crises without banks of issue. 
 Banks that do not issue paper money, and all money-lenders 
 arc, no doubt, free to accommodate in periods of general confi- 
 dence, and very careful about accomodating under a general 
 want of confidence : and to pretend that banks of issue are 
 institutions which favor general interests under such circum- 
 stances, is to act under a bias that will not bear the light. 
 Prof. Sumner, whose authority is good for such a fact, states, 
 in his "American Currency " that, in 1818, under the auspices 
 of the United States Bank and its branches, there was a golden
 
 SeC. 82.~] WHO SHOULD MAKE THE PAPER MONEY. 79 
 
 age of business. But the Jbanks had overissued and had to 
 contract. The United States Bank contracted $6,000,000 in 
 one 3*ear, and when it had succeeded in saving itself " it had 
 ruined the community" (pp. 77-79). According to Amasa 
 Walker, Science of Wealth, (pp. 158, 160, 167, 168, 208, 293), 
 banks extend credits when safe and stimulate speculation ; 
 when panic comes, the}' annihilate a part of the currency just 
 when it is most needed. Banks, like all creditors, must secure 
 their own safety under the perils of credit, and they arc not 
 the beneficient institutions special pleaders would have us 
 think. I have no fault to find with banks and money-lenders; 
 there are laws which govern the conditions of profit and safety, 
 and these laws it is their right and duty to observe. It is the 
 power of making paper-money that is objectionable . The 
 day is about past when there is need for the exercise of any 
 such power. I believe it is a duty which the people owe to 
 themselves, to put an end to this power, as a function of self- 
 seeking corporations, whose interests are not by any means at 
 one with the general interests of the people. 
 
 There is no use at present, perhaps, for more silver dollars 
 than we have, but there is use for more silver certificates, and 
 a considerable proportion of these should be of the denomina- 
 tions of one, two, and five dollars. In this way many millions 
 of silver might be very readily got into circulation. The peo- 
 ple are not afraid of a silver certificate that will buy as much 
 as a gold piece of the same denomination. It is to be hoped 
 that nothing will be done to hinder the utilization of silver as 
 money. If there is a better way than the present system of 
 coinage, let it be adopted. It is not possible for gold to act 
 alone as the denominator of values throughout the civilized 
 world without an arbitrar}- redistribution of wealth among 
 classes, that cannot be consummated without fatal conse- 
 quences. Let the gold monometallists restrain their greed, 
 and take heed in time ! 
 
 Some who have fought the "silver craze" most violently, 
 wish the issue of silver money stopped with the avowed inten-
 
 80 MONET. [Chap. IV. 
 
 tion of reducing still further the bullion value of silver, in 
 order to compel European nations to cooperate with us 
 for the reestablishment of bi-metallism. It is difficult to be- 
 lieve in the sincerity of this recommendation. Its aim, it is to 
 be feared, is really to bring about as great a divergence as 
 possible between the values of silver and gold, so as to get the 
 former out of the wa} T altogether. Stop the further use of sil- 
 ver as money or as the basis of money, and silver bullion will 
 decline (apparently) in relative value still more, and the greater 
 its apparent decline, the more triumphantly will its enemies 
 point to the "dishonest" American dollar as something it 
 would be meritorious to put wholly out of the way. 
 
 However, hardly any of us know in advance what the result 
 would be of stopping the coinage of silver. As there is able 
 advocacy of bi-metallism in England, and recent indications 
 that Germany is growing tired of gold monometallism, possibly 
 the further contraction of the world's money would have a 
 beneficial effect in opening the eyes of many who are not yet 
 convinced. Very often the good is to be had only through the 
 increased pressure of suffering. It is to the continued depres- 
 sing defects of appreciating gold and falling prices we are to 
 look for relief by reaction, rather than to the mere fall of the 
 bullion value of silver. A few more " turns of the screws," 
 however, may lead to excited agitation which cannot always be 
 wisely directed in this country, and instead of getting rid of 
 silver, we may be precipitated into free coinage and the United 
 States become a silver standard country. Monometallists, like 
 the late slaveholders, in grasping after too much may lose 
 what they have ; such are sometimes the revenges of fate. 
 
 The heroic fiatist is ready to ask, why, if I do not believe in 
 dear money, I do not advocate a credit currency which may be 
 expanded according to need. We have credit money our 
 greenbacks, and very good money it is, and all the better, no 
 doubt, because the quantity cannot at present be increased. 
 As it stands, what is above the gold in store for its redemp- 
 tion, corresponds to the $75,000,000 credit money issued by
 
 Sec. 32] WHO SHOULD MAKE THE PAPER MONEY. 81 
 
 the Bank of England, and proved by faithful service to be safe 
 and useful currency. The danger lies in the temptation to in- 
 crease the quantity of such money without sufficient warrant. 
 If the popular judgment could always be relied on to resist 
 the undue temptation, we might trust the power; but unfortun- 
 ately this is a difficult subject, and only experts understand it, 
 if indeed any do. Besides, a great many conditions interact 
 to determine what amount of money is needed, while the con- 
 ditions are constantly fluctuating, rendering it still more diffi- 
 cult to estimate their value at any particular time. Ricardo's 
 plan for a National Bank is essentially that of a fiat money 
 institution ; and he thought that the power of issuing paper 
 monej' might safely be invested in a commission. But all this 
 is too difficult and remote as a practical thing, and we must 
 choose what is apparently the best within reach. For contracts 
 of long standing, the composite standard of values, whereby the 
 worth of credits is determined by a comparison of the market 
 prices of commodities, would no doubt afford the fairest pos- 
 sible measure of the fluctuating value of credits ; and it is pro- 
 nounced b} T competent persons to be perfectly feasible. On 
 this plan, the debtor would pay the exact amount he borrowed. 
 An arrangement of this sort would still " the battle of the 
 standards." But owing to the force of habit, the indifference 
 about justice of this kind, and the disposition to maintain 
 opportunities for the shrewd, there is no movement made, in a 
 manner so simple and direct, to secure justice between debtor 
 and creditor. 
 
 The best practical thing, then, appears to be to stick to the 
 old money metals, gold and silver, as the substantial basis 
 of all currencj*. It has been demonstrated by economists, and 
 admitted by some inonometallists, that the bi-metallic standard 
 is more uniform than any monometallic standard can be. This 
 is true, because the fluctuations in one of the metals com- 
 pensates to some extent the fluctuations in the other metal. 
 The use of certificates does away with the objection to the bulk 
 and weight of the cheaper metal ; and there is no reason what-
 
 82 MONEY. [Chap. IV. 
 
 ever, but in the cannibal greed of remorseless class interests, 
 why both metals should not be honored, and equally retained 
 as conjointly the denominator of values. 
 
 I have taken it for granted that gold and silver at a stated 
 ratio agreed on by the great commercial nations will circulate 
 side by side. I regard this as one of the demonstrated princi- 
 ples of economic science. Even without such general agree- 
 ment, France and the United States have maintained an im- 
 mense quantity of silver as money, although it has been 
 overvalued. With a general agreement on ratio among the 
 nations, free coinage would be practicable, and no premium 
 could arise on the under-valued metal. Under such an agree- 
 ment, whero would the undervalued metal go to get a premium 
 on itself ? It is clear, it could get no premium, and without 
 any it would circulate as freely as the overvalued metal. 
 Money is not merchandise, and, in some respects, the laws 
 which govern the circulation and values of the two, are very 
 different. 
 
 33. MONOMETALLISM A COVERT SECTIONAL INTEREST. In 
 conclusion, I may observe that the creditor interest of this 
 country is not only a class interest, but is quite distinctly a 
 sectional interest. Bankers with large capital, rnonej'-lenders 
 and other credit-owners, and men living on fixed salaries, are 
 chiefly to be found in certain cities and States. While they 
 are not anywhere the most numerous part of the population, 
 they are by far the most influential part. They have time and 
 means to give to the furtherance of their own peculiar inter- 
 ests, and this they do by influencing nominations, elections, 
 the course of legislation, and the execution of the laws. 
 Hence, the great newspapers in these sections, and the legis- 
 lators and executive officers thereof, quite generally favor the 
 interests and privileges of these strong classes, wherefore the 
 molding of opinion becomes to a certain extent a sectional 
 matter, and we have witnessed the phenomena of newspapers 
 in one section censuring the tendencies of public opinion in 
 another section. This attempt to force us down to the ex-
 
 See. &.] CONTROL OF THE SOIL. 83 
 
 elusive gold basis will be found to be strongest in those sec- 
 tions in which the creditor class is most weighty. But the 
 people of those sections should none the less resist this tend- 
 ency, for they, as well as the people who live on the broad 
 fields of the South and "West, will be victimized in the end by 
 a remorseless contraction, if gold monometallism prevail. 
 
 "Are you not," asks one who is perfectly satisfied with the 
 mill as it runs, "are you not fomenting class and sectional 
 jealousies ? " Fomenting jealousies ! If I have said what is 
 not true, it is easy to kill it by showing that it is false. If I 
 have told the truth, it is precisely what all should know. A 
 truth is never put out of the way by a disingenuous fling at 
 its tendencies. It is the ignorant and contumacious resistance 
 to change and correction that invites disaster to fall with the 
 unlooked-for suddenness of an avenging bolt. One of the best 
 things Herbert Spencer said when in this country, was that 
 our people are too apt tamely to accept the situation without 
 criticism or complaint. A little criticism as searching as it 
 can be made is not to be deprecated. If it involves errors, 
 there is an antidote counter-criticism. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. 
 
 34. CONTROL OF THE SOIL. One of the most difficult prob- 
 lems society has to deal with relates to the control of the soil. 
 A diversity of methods have been adopted by mankind at 
 various times and in various places, and all proved to be prac- 
 tical after a fashion. No general law has been discovered 
 whereby the claims of individuals to the soil may be deter- 
 mined. That with which we are practically familiar, exclusive 
 title and freedom of purchase and sale, is looked upon by
 
 84 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. {.Chap. V. 
 
 many as embodying within itself a high economical principle, 
 and fitted to bring about the best practical results. Possibly 
 this is so, but it is attended with very serious evils. Perfect 
 freedom in the acquisition of exclusive title to lands may be, 
 indeed, a very high order of freedom, which must be sustained 
 at all hazards ; its drawback, however, is that, in its results, it 
 is quite largely destructive of freedom. Small owners are 
 readily absorbed under the aggressive energy of large owners, 
 and the tenant cannot be as manly a man, nor as good a citizen, 
 as if he were an independent owner. The increase in number 
 and size of large possessions in land cuts off by so much the 
 opportunities for independent ownership, and thereby promotes 
 a sort of modified slavery. But I need not attempt to depict 
 the horrors of land monopoly; this has been done again and 
 again, and we we may see for ourselves some of them existing 
 at present in other and older nations. The evil is gradually 
 gaining ground in this country, and is assisted by public 
 opinion and national legislation. The great landlord is a big 
 man here as well as in Europe, and, while great landed estates 
 afford safe investments and a condition of personal con- 
 sequence, our great landlords are likely to multiply in number. 
 About two hundred million acres have been given away to 
 railroads an area equal to eight or ten large States. The 
 good side of this liberality is to be seen in the improvements 
 which have followed the donations, and which but for the 
 donations would not have been made. But this good, like 
 many another, has been largely neutralized by attempting to 
 get too much of it, and much land was given away that has 
 brought no return. 
 
 If all the land given to States and companies for railroad 
 purposes should be eventually sold to actual settlers, so far 
 good. But there are bad elements in this procedure. Every 
 settler is made to pa}* for all the good which has accrued from 
 accessibility to the land he buys of the railroad, but he gets 
 nothing for the value he adds by his own improvements to the 
 lands still belonging to the corporation. Every improvement
 
 SeC. 34.] CONTROL OP THE SOIL. 85 
 
 he makes adds to this value, thus enabling the monopoly to 
 reap, without conpensation, from the toil of others. There is 
 nothing reciprocal or just about it. The grant by alternate 
 sections is a device by which the corporations reap benefit from 
 the occupation and improvement of the public lands as well as 
 of those which have passed from themselves to actual settlers. 
 If all these lands had been reserved for actual settlement, 
 these forms of injustice could not have arisen. If the railroad 
 companies, or some of them, should retain a part of their 
 lands, placing them under corporate control with a numerous 
 tenantry, we should have a condition of things not at all 
 pleasant to contemplate. But this is actually coming about 
 in a little different form. At the present time foreign individ- 
 uals and syndicates own more than twenty million acres of 
 American lands in large tracts. Besides this, about ten mill- 
 ion acres are held in large tracts by Americans, individuals 
 and syndicates. Thirty million acres in all, equivalent to a 
 large State ! Most of this has been secured by transfer of 
 title from the railroad companies to the foreign and American 
 monopolists, who will manage them solely for a return of 
 profit on their investments. If they hold these lauds on 
 speculation, there is wrong ; if they cover them with tenants, 
 there is evil. It is bad enough when American syndicates 
 control vast tracts to the exclusion of independent settlers ; 
 but it is still worse when those in control owe allegiance to 
 foreign States in which landlordism is one of the prevalent 
 forms of aristocracy. 
 
 These large holdings arc altogether incompatible with the 
 interests of small proprietors ; and I am told that whenever 
 these with prior claims have been induced to unite their inter- 
 ests with the syndicates, they have suffered, as small stock- 
 holders usually suffer from a mysterious spiriting away of 
 fair dividends. Those great owners who keep herds, also 
 maintain a herd of dependants who have little home life, no 
 permanent interest in the neighborhood, ready for any advent- 
 ure, not good citizens. Probably much of these lands, being
 
 86 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. [Chap. V. 
 
 adapted to stockgrowing, is best managed in large tracts, but 
 even this is denied. If, however, this be true, it is no reason 
 why a government of the people should permit the people's 
 lands to pass into the control of foreign syndicates, or any 
 other syndicates. It is not true, however, that all these lands 
 belong to the grazing regions. They are located in West 
 Virginia, in Wisconsin, in Mississippi, in Arkansas, and in 
 Florida, as well as in Kansas, Colorado, Texas and New 
 Mexico. (Countr} T Gentleman, August 13, 1885 ; and Congres- 
 sional Record, March 10, 1885). Whatever this monopoly may 
 be in the grazing regions, it is, in the agricultural regions, a 
 violation of the just rights of the people, and an unmitigated 
 evil. It has not even the advantage of present good ; it is a 
 menace to prosperity from first to last. This is an instance in 
 which the introduction of foreign capital into this country is a 
 curse without palliation. There is here a conflict of interests 
 between classes, a conflict which will deepen with the years, 
 and in regard to which, the shallow statesmanship that sees 
 only the present should not be allowed to dictate a policy of 
 inaction. 
 
 There is present wrong to be met growing out of former 
 land grants. In many instances these have been forfeited by 
 non-compliance with the conditions on which the grants were 
 made ; and then, as our experience proves, it is almost impos- 
 sible to secure a formal declaration of forfeiture for the 
 restoration of the lands to the public domain. If a railroad 
 corporation, for example, is not able or not willing to build its 
 road, it is, nevertheless, both able and willing to operate on 
 Congress for the defeat of any scheme that looks to forfeiture. 
 There are men in Congress who become indignant at the men- 
 tion of forfeiting title to such lands. They look upon it as a 
 part of systematic persecution against corporations ; and while 
 they want to promote intelligence and morality by a draft on 
 the Treasury for national education, and by enforcing total ab- 
 stinence at the point of the bayonet, they are perfectly willing 
 that the public lands shall go into the hands of delinquent
 
 Sec. 35J] INHERENT MONOPOLY. 87 
 
 monopolists, and thus pass out of reach of the masses when 
 made sufficiently intelligent and temperate to desire homes of 
 their own. 
 
 Another wrong which has been practiced in connection with 
 these grants, is that of shifting the location of the road, so as 
 to reach new sections while clinging to the old. The adminis- 
 tration of the Interior Department, however, gives excellent 
 promise of greater vigilance than heretofore in thwarting the 
 various forms of sharp practice against the people's interests 
 in the public domain. Let us pray that the officials who have 
 these duties in charge will not become weary in well doing ! 
 
 But there is need of something more than honest adminis- 
 tration; other legislation is required. The grazing lands of 
 the West present altogether different conditions from that with 
 which legislation had to deal in the agricultural sections of the 
 United States. Cultivation is impossible, stock-raising only is 
 available, and individual settlers must be able to secure many 
 times as much land for personal independence, as would be 
 sufficient on an agricultural soil. An individual ranchman of 
 moderate means has no security now ; when a great stock com- 
 pany has invested him on all sides, he is compelled to sur- 
 render. The little cattle men are sure to be eaten by the big 
 ones ; and for want of proper laws to be administered for their 
 protection, the unpretentious individual enterprises are crushed 
 under the relentless hands of lords and syndicates. So far as 
 our land laws are concerned, our government is, in regard to 
 all this grazing territory, a government for aggressive monop- 
 olies, home and foreign, and not for the average individual 
 citizen. 
 
 35. INHERENT MONOPOLY. Every railroad is within itself, 
 to some extent, a monopoly. It is not like a river on which 
 carriers may launch their boats and compete with one another. 
 It owns the road and runs the cars, and there is no competi- 
 tion except what is made by waterwaj's and by other roads. 
 There may be competition at the termini and at certain inter- 
 mediate points, but hardly in any case can there be competition
 
 88 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. [Chap. V. 
 
 at all points ; and wherever there is not competition there is 
 monopoly. But even a monopolistic power has certain neces- 
 sary limitations. Charges which are too grossly exorbitant 
 would, in the case of a railroad, exasperate the people along 
 the line, endanger the railroad, and suggest the building of a 
 competing line. Another limit is that charges must not be so 
 high as to weight too heavily the different kinds of business 
 along the road ; for this would depress business here and 
 stimulate it elsewhere, and other lines of transportation would 
 gain, while the extortionate one would lose. But, in spite of 
 those limitations, there are monopoly and excessive charges. 
 While such charges cannot be maintained throughout the 
 entire line including the termini and way stations, they may be 
 maintained at some of the intermediate points at most of 
 them, perhaps. Extortion is practiced on individuals and 
 places, but usually not on all individuals and places alike. 
 The railroad management may, out of pure wantonness or 
 malice, crush out individuals and villages b}* putting up rates 
 against them. It may build up favored individuals or places 
 by giving them preferential rates. Both these forms of busi- 
 ness iniquity have been largely practiced, secretly for the most 
 part, though a good deal of this kind of management has been 
 brought to light. 
 
 36. PERSONAL DISCRIMINATION. Discrimination in favor 
 of particular business houses has largely taken the form of 
 rebates. It was by means of rebates that the Standard Oil 
 Company was able to break down all opposition and become one 
 of the greatest and worst of monopolies. It was shown that 
 $10,000,000 was, in this way, paid back to this company in 
 sixteen months. The rate to the seaboard was twenty-five 
 cents a barrel, when, at the rate charged for like goods, it 
 should have been one dollar and twenty-five cents per barrel. 
 All the trunk lines were in the contract, and the deficit in profits 
 thus caused had to be made good by higher charges on other 
 freight. The New York Central charged forty-five cents per 
 can of milk weighing ninety pounds, for an average distance
 
 Sec. 36.~\ PERSONAL DISCRIMINATION. 89 
 
 of sixty-five miles. This was forty times as much as the 
 freight on an equal weight of Standard oil for an equal dis- 
 tance, and was equivalent to ten dollars per barrel of 330 Ibs. 
 for 400 miles. The milk men were not as good at bargaining 
 with the railroad as the oil men were ; and they got a reduc- 
 tion of rates only through the action of the railroad commis- 
 sion. 
 
 The Standard Oil monopoly was managed by a combination 
 of railroad men and oil refiners, and was able to break down 
 all competition and amass its millions at the cost of every 
 household in which a kerosene lamp was used. It was a suc- 
 cessful conspiracy against the general interests of the public 
 for the pecuniary benefit of a few individuals, some of whom, 
 not content with the power and consequence which great 
 wealth gives, have entered another field, to bestow political 
 power and honors upon favorites. 
 
 The like preferential rates have been given to coal and grain 
 dealers, enabling them to take possession of the market and 
 destroy competition. Several notable houses have been built 
 up in this way. At one time, the New York Central had over 
 " six thousand different contracts, varying in the most arbitrary 
 manner from the published schedule for the carriage of local 
 freight" (Sterne). More than half the business between New 
 York and points on the New York Central has in this way 
 been carried on at less than the published rates. These 
 special rates were governed by no rule of business or equity, 
 but by favortism and caprice pure and simple. Jesse Hoyt & 
 Co. and David Dows & Co., of New York, grain firms, had a 
 monopoly of the market in the Winter of 1877 by means of 
 reduced rates from the West. Shoelkop & Mathews, millers 
 of Niagara Falls, had special rates on the New York Central, 
 and were thus enabled to beat competitors. Even the shorter 
 distance from Rochester to New York did not protect the 
 mills at Rochester, and the consumers did not get the advan- 
 tage which the less cost of carriage from the nearer city should 
 have afforded. Freight from Cincinnati to New York had been
 
 90 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. [Chap. V. 
 
 fifteen cents per hundred, and dealers bad made their calcula- 
 tions and given their orders on this basis, when suddenly 
 freights were raised by a power as inexorable as that of an 
 earthquake, to thirty and one-half cents per hundred. This 
 took the profits, and goods already ordered had to lay dead in 
 the warehouses. A member of the New York board of trade 
 could not secure an abatement of the extortion, although, at 
 the same time, favorites who had been notified of the coming 
 change, were still shipping under special contract at the old 
 rates. 
 
 By charging twice as much for carrying sugar from the East 
 to the West as from the West to the East, the railroads have 
 built up the sugar monopoly of Sir Claus Spreckles of San 
 Francisco. The discrimination thus made protected the sugar 
 trade of one man with the Sandwich Islands, and enabled him 
 to amass an immense fortune at the expense of his customers, 
 and to secure a title from king Kalakaua. Is this the free- 
 dom of competition and fairness in dealing which results, 
 when the railroad management is let alone ? 
 
 Preferential rates may be given to personal favorites or to 
 large shippers to secure all their business, and this enables the 
 favored shippers to undersell others and drive them out of 
 business. Large dealers in this way destroy the smaller dealers, 
 and get rid of competition. Thus railroad mismanagement has 
 built up business monopolies by discrimination, such as only 
 a lawless and conscienceless monopoly could make. It is the 
 case of a big monopoly breeding little ones ; and these smaller 
 ones sometimes grow to be very large ones, as in the case 
 of the Standard Oil Company and the Spreckles Sugar House. 
 
 37. LOCAL DISCRIMINATION. The following are samples 
 of discriminations against places, the figures in each case 
 relating to the same line. Charges are greater from St. Louis 
 to Palestine, Texas, than to Galveston, two hundred miles 
 further ; greater also from Buffalo to New York than from 
 Chicago to New York. Freight on a barrel of flour from St. 
 Louis to Baltimore is 88 cents, but from Carlyle, a station forty-
 
 Sec. 57.] LOCAL DISCRIMINATION. 91 
 
 seven miles nearer Baltimore, one dollar ; from Rochester to 
 New York, 30 cents per barrel, but from Milwaukee to New 
 York, three times the distance, 20 cents per barrel. From 
 Memphis to New Orleans, freight per bale of cotton, one dollar; 
 but for two-thirds this distance, from "Winona to New Orleans, 
 three dollars and twenty-five cents per bale. From New York 
 to Atlanta, one dollar per hundred, but from New York to 
 New Orleans, several hundred miles further, 70 cents per 
 hundred. Four hundred dollars is charged per car for hard- 
 ware from Chicago to Lincoln Station, Oregon, but only two 
 hundred dollars from Chicago to Portland, one hundred miles 
 further. From Chicago to Virginia City, $800 per car, but 
 only $300 to San Francisco, 600 miles further. From Council 
 Bluffs to Chicago, 500 miles, freight per bushel corn, eight 
 cents ; from Des Moines, half the distance, eleven cents. When 
 corn was 15 cents per bushel at Central City, Nebraska, it cost 
 18 cents per bushel to get it to Chicago ; and when selling for 
 still less at Wichita, Kansas, it cost 27 cents per bushel to 
 deliver it in Chicago. Freight on coal from the mines to York 
 one dollar and fifty cents per ton more than to Baltimore, 60 
 miles further. During 1878 and 1879, coal sold to the con- 
 sumer in New York at about three dollars and twenty -five cents 
 per short ton. The coal roads formed a pool, and prices were 
 raised to about six dollars per ton to the consumer. A legis- 
 lative investigation proved that $3.25 to $3.50 per ton was a 
 fair price to the consumer in New York ; and yet there are 
 journalistic and other authorities who inform us that the best 
 thing we can do is just to let the railroads alone. When rail- 
 road men take on airs about the complication of their affairs, 
 which only experts like themselves can understand and 
 manage, they might be called on to explain a case like the 
 following : Mr. W. W. Mack, of Rochester, instead of shipping 
 his edge tools direct, sent them first to New York, whence they 
 passed back by way of Rochester to Cincinnati and St. Louis, 
 at a saving in the one case of 14 cents per hundred, and in the 
 other of 18 cents per hundred. In this case the railroad
 
 92 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. [Chap. V. 
 
 managers illustrated the deep mysteries of railroading by 
 carrying freight 700 miles for 14 to 18 cents per hundred less 
 than nothing. 
 
 38. VIEWS OF REPRESENTATIVE MEN. Mr. Clardy of Mis- 
 souri, a member of the House Committee on Commerce, be- 
 lieved the committee to be " of one mind as to the existence 
 of facts authorizing if not demanding legislative action for the 
 protection of the people from the growing exactions of railroad 
 companies." Mr. Oscar Turner, in a speech in the House, 
 December 10, 1884, having stated the evils of railroad mis- 
 management to be charging unreasonable rates, discriminating 
 between individuals and between communities, destroying 
 competition by pooling, conceding unjust privileges to favorites, 
 and discriminating by a system of rebates and drawbacks, 
 affirmed that " These are the evils said to exist, and that 
 affect the country, and no member on this floor has had the 
 hardihood to den} r that these evils do exist and need a 
 remcd}" at the hands of Congress." Mr. Long, of Massachu- 
 setts, speaking of complaints of unjust discriminations by 
 special rebates and drawbacks, building up and breaking down 
 at the caprice, interest, or malice of railroad companies, added : 
 "And, Mr. Speaker, these complaints have in too many cases 
 been well founded. Grossest injustice has been done. Certain 
 shippers have had undue preferences. Certain others have 
 suffered loss by unjust discriminations. Certain places have 
 withered in their local prosperity from unequal rates, and 
 certain others have been favored and stimulated by special in- 
 dulgences. This evil, so far as it is involved in interstate 
 commerce, we are in duty bound to meet." Messrs. Warner 
 (Ohio), Findlay (Maryland), Senator Cullom (Illinois), and 
 others, regard unjust discriminations by railroads the chief 
 abuse of their power as public carriers, and that which most 
 needs regulation. Even so marked an apologist for railroad 
 management as Mr. Horr (Michigan) recognizes " the inequali- 
 ties and unjust discriminations of the carrying trade." Senator 
 Sherman (Ohio) said, "That Congress ought to legislate upon
 
 Sec. 38."] VIEWS OP REPRESENTATIVE MEN. 93 
 
 this subject is manifest to everybody." Senator Harrison 
 (Indiana) said : " Mr. President, I do not stop to prove the 
 existence of these evils. They are confessed of all fair men. I 
 do not stop to prove, for proof is not needed, that the railroad 
 companies by these discriminations between individuals and 
 between localities, and by the unrestrained exercise of the 
 power to establish rates, have assumed and do now exercise a 
 most dangerous and unwarranted control over the commerce 
 of the country." Even Senator Brown (Georgia), great rail- 
 roader that he is, and biased to the last degree by his railroad 
 interests, admits, nevertheless, that there are abuses in railroad 
 management which should be corrected by legislation : " But 
 it is said there are abuses in the railroad system which cannot 
 be justified. That is doubtless so ; abuses will creep into 
 every great system where great interests are at stake, and it is 
 the duty of wise legislators, as far as it lies in their power, to 
 correct such abuses." 
 
 President Arthur, in his message, December 4, 1883, recog- 
 nized the existence of evils in railroad management which 
 State laws could not reach, and stated that Congress should 
 go to the extent of its constitutional authority to " protect the 
 people at large in their interstate traffic against acts of in- 
 justice which the State governments are powerless to prevent." 
 In June following, the National Republican Convention at 
 Chicago put this into its platform : " The principle of the 
 public regulation of railroad corporations is a wise and salu- 
 tary one for the protection of all classes of people, and we 
 favor legislation that shall prevent unjust discrimination and 
 excessive charges for transportation, and that shall prove to 
 the people and to the railways alike the fair and equal pro- 
 tection of the law." 
 
 I will conclude these extracts with one from Mr. Charles 
 Francis Adams, than whom there is no higher authority on 
 the subject. In an address before the House Committee on 
 Commerce, speaking of railroad abuses, he said : " I will not 
 stop to dwell upon them or to denounce them. It is not
 
 94 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. [Chap. V. 
 
 necessary to do so, for I hold them to be proven and their 
 existence notorious. The record is full of evidence on the 
 subject. We all know that discriminations in railroad treat- 
 ment and charges do exist between individuals and between 
 places. We all know that railroad tariffs fluctuate wildly, not 
 only in different years, but in different seasons of the same 
 year. We know that certain large business firms the levia- 
 thans of modern trade can and do dictate their own terms 
 between rival corporations, while the small concern must 
 accept the best terms it can get. It is beyond dispute that 
 business is carried hither and thither to this point, away 
 from that point, and through the other point not because it 
 would naturally go to, away from, or through those points, but 
 because rates are made on an artificial basis and to serve 
 ulterior ends. In regard to these things I consider the existing 
 system nearly as bad as any system can be. Studying its 
 operations as I have long and patiently, I am- ready to repeat 
 now what I have repeatedly said before, that the most sur- 
 prising thing about it to me is that the business community 
 sustains itself under such conditions. The first principles 
 of law governing common carriers are habitually violated. 
 Special contracts, covering long periods of time, are made 
 every day with heavy shippers, under which the common 
 carrier, whose first duty is to serve all equally, gives to certain 
 parties a practical control of the markets. There is thus 
 neither equality nor system, law nor equity, in the matter 
 of railroad charges. A complete change in this respect is a 
 condition precedent to any just and equitable system of rail- 
 road transportation." 
 
 We have given very few facts of the many that might be 
 given to prove abuses in railroad management. We have 
 quoted very few opinions of senators, and congressmen, and 
 others, that might be quoted on the urgent need of regulating 
 interstate commerce by national legislation. The evidence is 
 overwhelming ; then, why has nothing been done^? The great 
 reason is, because there is a power in this country fully deter-
 
 Sec. 89.] EXCUSES FOR INACTION. 95 
 
 mined that nothing shall be done. This power employs the best 
 legal talent of the country, and gets as many members with the 
 railroad bias into the Senate and House as possible. The 
 lawyers labor with the committees, and the " friendly " mem- 
 bers labor with Congress ; wherefore it appears that this is not 
 wholly a " government of the people, by the people, and for 
 the people." 
 
 39. EXCUSES FOR INACTION. "While admitting that there 
 is need of regulation, some congressmen express themselves 
 as feeling very tender toward the railroads on account of their 
 great usefulness to the people. This is the far-fetched reason 
 of a bias to quiet the desire for action against railroad 
 abuses. The railroads are not personal beings whose short- 
 comings should be overlooked, because they have contributed 
 so much to the general prosperity of the country. Most who 
 now manage the railroads, and those most guilty of indefen- 
 sible methods, are people who have paid out little money and 
 made small personal sacrifice to build up railroads. A very 
 large percentage of the money which has actually been paid 
 out for the construction of railroads has been totally lost to 
 those who advanced it, and they are now out of the railroad 
 business. Many of the present owners of railroads have 
 secured them by the process of wrecking have bought them 
 up under foreclosure on the best of terms. The gentlemen 
 who have bought and now manage, are in no particular need 
 of sympathy. They have acquired fortunes from railroads, 
 and have not, as it is assumed, laid out fortunes on them. 
 Senator Brown, in his speech alread}^ quoted from, gave a list of 
 bankrupt roads in Georgia, in which the original stockholders 
 lost everything ; and he explained it as a result of popular 
 clamor for cheap freights. Only think of popular clamor for- 
 cing cheap rates and bankrupting railroads ! Further on in the 
 same speech, he explained that the weaker roads were beaten 
 by deadly competition and then absorbed by the stronger com- 
 panies. The people who are now managing the roads, are not 
 managing them for the public good they are not remarkable
 
 96 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. [.Chap. V. 
 
 for altruism ; the public good is a mere incident, and the man- 
 agers are scheming for their own profits solely. As, in many 
 instances, they now hold and control what other people have 
 lost, it is a precious bit of pretense to bespeak sj-mpathy for 
 present management on account of the good railroads arc doing, 
 and of the losses early investors have suffered. 
 
 Some congressmen wish large liberties reserved for the rail- 
 roads to build up struggling industries. A case was used for 
 illustration, in which freight was earned at a loss to encour- 
 age the exportation of staves ! It was thought, too, that 
 poor or out-of-the-way mines should be favored on rates, so 
 they might be worked with profit 1 A portion of the American 
 mind has become so thoroughly imbued with the bias of 
 " protection," that, not only the government, but all-powerful 
 railroads are invoked to help unprofitable industries at the 
 expense of others. The trouble with the unrestrained power 
 of railroads to discriminate is that it is more apt to be used 
 for selfish than benevolent ends, and the strong get the help 
 rather than the weak. 
 
 A member of Congress largely interested in railroads stood 
 in his place, and predicted that the Reagan method of dealing 
 with railroads would be inoperative, because the}* would 
 ostentatiously break through its provisions. They would 
 obstruct it in the courts, and, if necessary, would issue a 
 sovereign decree that every engine should remain in its round- 
 house, and traffic and travel cease, till the power of this nation 
 should be so humbled, that the author of the bill would be glad 
 to ask a suspension of the rules to move for the repeal of his 
 own law. And thus would the corporations triumph over the 
 people according to the " principles of nature ! " This was of 
 course mere bombast, but bombast not without meaning, and 
 apparently of great interest to fellow-members who crowded 
 about the speaker to hear the precious words as they fell from 
 his lips. Here was betrayed the contempt of a railroad man for 
 the power of law when pitted against the power of railroads. 
 There was no attempt to conceal the bias that regards the
 
 Sec. 39.] EXCUSES FOE INACTION. 97 
 
 country at large as inferior and secondary to corporate power ; 
 and, while it was not pretended that there are no abuses to 
 correct, it was openly proclaimed that their perpetrators are 
 too powerfully entrenched in the inevitable order of things to 
 be successfully dealt with by any agency of the government. 
 
 It is hardly ever mentioned in Congress, but it has currency 
 elsewhere, that the railroads already carry freight so cheaply, 
 that it is best not to meddle with them. Because the baker 
 adds more to the price of bread than the railroad does, we had 
 better first regulate the bakers, and then, if the powerful rail- 
 road magnates will permit us, we may try our hand at regula- 
 ting the railroads. It is true that when railroads have had to 
 compete with one another and with waterways at terminal 
 points, as, for example, from Chicago to New York, freights 
 are low ; but it is not true that freights are always or even gen- 
 erally fair and reasonable, where railroads have their own 
 way. They take what the traffic will bear. It is true that 
 transportation by rail is becoming constantly cheaper. This 
 has taken place through improved facilities and greater econo- 
 mies in the means of transportation. It is due to the greater 
 unity of method, and the larger amount of business done. 
 The public should receive benefit from such improvements, 
 and the reduction of rates affords no excuse for the tolerance 
 of abuses. 
 
 The ventilation of railroad abuses has done something to 
 correct them ; and the legal regulation attempted in twenty- 
 four States of the Union has very materially improved the 
 moral behavior of railroads as common carriers. As mistaken 
 in details as no doubt much of the so-called granger legislation 
 was, it helped largely, as Mr. Charles Francis Adams has 
 stated, to bring railroad managers to a sense of their amenabil- 
 ity to control in the interests of justice by a power greater 
 than theirs. But the States can do nothing for interstate 
 commerce ; and this the general government is in duty bound 
 to regulate and protect. It is true that butchers and bakers 
 are oftentimes thrifty men ; but under competition there is less
 
 98 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. [Chap, V. 
 
 danger of extortion than under monopoly, and there is never 
 occasion for regulation under honest competition. The village 
 butcher is a despot only when he is intrenched in monopol}-. 
 It is notorious that several of our railroaders have increased 
 their worldly possessions one, two, three, four, or five millions 
 a year, while bakers and butchers have done nothing of the 
 sort, their power of taxation being altogether too limited ; 
 whence it is suggested plainly enough that railroaders have 
 opportunities which bakers and butchers have not. This 
 Atkinsonian method of diverting attention from the real ques- 
 tion, is, indeed, trivial enough ; and yet is its author greatly 
 commended as an authority in economical literature by the 
 powerful interests he so loyally serves. 
 
 One of the ways which senators and congressmen have of 
 making themselves feel complacent over their inaction, is the 
 affectation of conservatism. Nearly all want to do something, 
 but it is so easy to make mistakes and do more harm than 
 good, that it is in the very nature of wisdom herself that their 
 labors shall have no result. It is true that it is ver}' easy in a 
 complicated practical matter like this to do more harm than 
 good ; and it is positively certain that no good in such a 
 matter can be done without some seed of evil being ready to 
 germinate therein, so that if nothing is done till it is certain 
 to be wholly good, there will never be anything done, and the 
 present evils will be allowed to gather strength with the 3*ears 
 till the}' can be weakened and broken only under the violent 
 hand of revolution. Suppose there are some errors in a law 
 so urgently demanded ; they are not irrevocable, and emenda- 
 tion and repeal are always within easy reach. Such a measure 
 must necessarily be largely tentative at first. Wisdom comes 
 to mankind through honest endeavor with its mistakes, rather 
 than through the owl-like solemnities of unbroken meditation 
 with no practical test for its errors. If all the members of the 
 House had been so exacting as to require something like per- 
 fection, the Reagan bill would not have passed ; for probably 
 one-third of those who voted for it believed that it attempted
 
 Sec. 40.~\ OTHER MONOPOLIES AND "PARASITES." 99 
 
 too much, and that some of its provisions to say nothing of 
 the extraneous matter that was thrust in were not the best 
 possible. Man}- voted for it who would have preferred a com- 
 mission, with less rigidity of detail. I am free to say that, 
 while I am in entire sympathy with this view of the subject, I 
 certainly commend gentlemen for yielding their preferences so 
 far as to vote for the Reagan bill as the best thing it was pos- 
 sible to get. And, if senators, instead of working at a hope- 
 less bill of their own, had gone at once to perfecting the 
 House bill in accordance with more conservative ideas, a law 
 might have been enacted at that session for the regulation of 
 interstate commerce. But to disregard the House bill after 
 it had passed, and go on working at the Senate bill, as was 
 done, was simply to defeat present legislation on the subject, 
 and senators very well knew this, and none better than those 
 who compelled the Senate to take this course. This phenom- 
 enon the country was called to witness after a struggle in 
 Congress of ten years' duration for an abatement of railroad 
 abuses. Let the reader decide what, under such circum- 
 stances, the people owe to themselves. 
 
 40. SOME OTHER MONOPOLIES AND " PARASITES." What 
 is true of railroad management is true in a general way of 
 management by express, telegraph, and gas companies. They 
 are monopolies for the most part with power to tax the people 
 far more than what would be a fair compensation for their 
 services. In many cases their stock has been largely watered 
 and enormous profits have been made, and, like railroads, they 
 all resist control. "Where there is competition between ex- 
 press lines at their termini and on parallel roads, shippers 
 have far better chances for fair dealing than where there is no 
 competition. Telegraph lines get rid of competition by absorb- 
 ing the new lines ; and the people are everywhere compelled 
 to pay more for the transmission of messages than they ought 
 to pay. There should be regulation, or the government should 
 own and operate its own telegraph lines in the interest of the 
 great body of the people. What is so well done in Europe 
 10
 
 100 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. {.Chap. V. 
 
 through government ownership and control, will probably be 
 done here by and by. Telephone companies are monopolies 
 by the nature of their business, and they, too, are likely to use 
 their power for extortionate gains. 
 
 When rival gas companies are formed, it is said that gas is 
 apt to be higher rather than lower than before. There is more 
 capital now in the business, and capital must have its profits, 
 if not under competition, why then under combination. There 
 is possibly no waj' to protect gas consumers but by the legal 
 supervision of rates ; and yet it is almost impossible to bring 
 this about. A bill with this object in view was defeated in 
 the New York legislature last spring defeated through cor- 
 ruption by the power of a class interest. And thus the people 
 do not govern in States any more than in the nation. 
 
 The gas combination of New York city, in 1879, well illus- 
 trates the power of one man or a few men with franchises in 
 their hands, to extort from the many. Under competition gas 
 had been selling at about $1.00, when the pool was arranged 
 to sell at $2.00 ; but one stockholder in control of one of the 
 companies insisted on putting up the price to $2.25. He carried 
 his point and with it secured for the pool out of the gas con- 
 sumers of the city one-half million dollars per annum. In 
 England, whose people we pity for their want of political 
 freedom, there is State regulation with satisfactory results, 
 and gas consumers are protected against extortion ; in this 
 country of spread-eagle liberty, a small but powerful class dic- 
 tates what the law shall be or shall not be. 
 
 They tell us railroads earn less than three per cent. Gravely 
 they tell this without qualification, and expect us to accept it 
 as final. But this is earned on water as well as on cash capital, 
 with nearly five per cent besides to pay on indebtedness. 
 Poor's figures show a profit of about nine per cent on actual 
 cost. This is thrift beyond the average ; but if this were all, 
 we might congratulate railroaders on their good management, 
 and stand it. But this is not all. Besides the enormous sal- 
 aries railroad officers pay themselves, their roads are made to
 
 SeC. 41^} MONOPOLIES WITHOUT STATE FRANCHISES. 101 
 
 support a number of parasites that take blood, such as express 
 companies, fast freight lines, palace car companies, elevator 
 companies, stock yard companies. Senator Sherman said in 
 the Senate, February 3, 1885 : " Within the twenty years 
 since the railroads have formed their connecting lines, they 
 have been eaten to death by parasites. Every railroad has 
 had its little inner ring, and all sorts of cunning schemes 
 and devices have been made and entered into not only to cheat 
 the people, but to cheat their own stockholders. I doubt if 
 there is a single railroad in our country that has not in it and 
 about it, composed of its officers, some of these parasites 
 which prevent proper dividends from being paid to stockhold- 
 ers." Contracts are made with these inside organizations so as 
 to make their business more profitable than that of the rail- 
 road itself. The officers of the road stand in with these com- 
 panies and share profits, thus pushing the interests of a ring 
 in opposition to the interests of the road they manage ; and 
 thus it has turned out that while the road was becoming bank- 
 rupt, its managers were becoming prosperous, and both stock- 
 holders and people were cheated. Competition regulates such 
 matters, does it ? 
 
 41. MONOPOLIES WITHOUT STATE FRANCHISES. All intel- 
 ligent and fair-minded men admit that a business transacted 
 for the public under franchises from the State, should be kept 
 well in hand by the State, in order that its privileges may not 
 be abused and the public wronged. But I wish to call atten- 
 tion here to kinds of business which do not come within this 
 categor}-. Men may do business of a public character without 
 any franchises from the State. They may use their own 
 private capital, and by purelj' business combinations effectually 
 fleece the people for personal gain. There can be no remedy 
 by competition when competition is circumvented. There 
 are, perhaps, at the present time, almost one hundred in- 
 dustries in the United States in this condition. They are 
 controlled by rings to destroy competition, limit production, 
 and compel the public to pay monopoly prices.
 
 102 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. [Chap. V. 
 
 President Gowan of the Reading railroad said in 1875 be- 
 fore a committee of the Penns}-lvania Legislature : " Every 
 pound of rope we buy for our vessels and for our mines is 
 bought at a price fixed by a committee of the rope manufac- 
 turers of the United States. Every keg of nails, every paper 
 of tacks, all serews, and wrenches, and hinges, the boiler 
 plates of our locomotives, are never bought except at the 
 prices fixed by the representatives of the mills that manu- 
 facture them. Iron beams for our houses or your bridges can 
 be had only at the prices agreed upon by a combination of 
 those who produce them. Fire brick, gas pipe, terra cotta 
 pipe for drainage, ever}- keg of powder we buy to blast coal, 
 are purchased under the same arrangement Ever}' pane of 
 window glass in this house was bought at a scale of prices 
 established exactly in the same manner. White lead, galvan- 
 ized sheet iron, hose, and belting, and files are bought and sold 
 at a rate determined in the same way." 
 
 Lumbermen limit production and fix prices, and the rules 
 are good as far away as Dakota and Manitoba. On the Pacific 
 slope, the lumber trade is managed in the same way, and the 
 retailers are bound by stringent regulations. Stockbuyers at 
 Chicago combine to make their own prices. Vanderbilt, Sloan 
 and Company dictate the price of coal, limiting the supply 
 when necessary by stopping work in the mines. The Western 
 Anthracite Coal Association, which is controlled entirely by 
 the large railroads and mine-owners of Pennsylvania, de- 
 termines the price of coal for the West. On occasion of a 
 coal strike in 1871, private miners conceded the strikers' terms; 
 but the railroads put up freights on them to keep them out of 
 the market, and coal doubled in price. In the fall of 1884, rail- 
 road accommodations were refused to the Hocking Yalle}* coal 
 men who paid the laborers their price and kept on mining. 
 There are combinations to regulate the production and prices 
 of coke, anthracite and bituminous coal. The match combi- 
 nation broke down all competition by the aid of the tariff and 
 the railroads. Manufacturers of wall paper, of wrapping paper,
 
 Sec. 4L1 MONOPOLIES WITHOUT STATE FRANCHISES. 103 
 
 and of paper for script, books, and newspapers, all have asso- 
 ciations to regulate production and prices. With the same 
 objects in view there is a National Burial Case Association. 
 The quinine manufacturers of the world have tried to keep up 
 the price of quinine. Even patent medicines are subject to 
 combination and espionage. Stamped tinware is a monopoly. 
 The barbed wire manufacturers buy their material without 
 competition among themselves, and sell at their own prices. 
 While I write, the agents of seventy companies manufacturing 
 barbed wire, meet at Chicago, arrange a pool, and put up 
 prices 15 cents per 100 pounds. Dairymen have tried the 
 virtues of combination, and spilled their milk rather than 
 break prices. There are whiskey and beer combinations, and 
 a school book pool. The ice men and fish dealers of cities, 
 millers in the West, and quarrymen generally combine with 
 more or less success to maintain prices. The same is true 
 of the manufacturers of sewer pipe, lamps, potter} T , glassware, 
 shot, sugar, candy, starch, preserved fruits, glucose, silks, bun. 
 ting, rubber goods, salt, lime, even chairs, vapor stoves, har- 
 vesting machines, type, wire cloth, brass tubing and other 
 brass manufactures. (North American Review, June, 1884.) 
 
 There are so many kinds of business named here that it might 
 seem that combination were general, combination neutral- 
 izing combination without harm to an}'body. But it is not so. 
 Look over a list of occupations with the numbers employed 
 therein, and see. Forty- four out of every hundred people in the 
 United States cultivate the soil, and they cannot concert to 
 limit production and fix prices. Their prices are fixed for 
 them when they sell, and as consumers of certain goods they 
 must pay the prices set by a secret and arbitrary^management. 
 As producers they compete with one another, as consumers 
 they must submit in many things to the dictation of business 
 combinations, and thus they are beaten between mutual com- 
 petition and antagonistic combination. There are millions 
 of others in various occupations as helpless as the farmers. 
 In the occupations named as having combined to limit produc-
 
 104 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. [Chap. V. 
 
 tion and make prices, it would be a great mistake to suppose 
 that all who work in them are benefited by the combination ; 
 the benefit accrues simply to the few who manage ; and by the 
 very power which combination gives, these few take tribute 
 from their working men by reduced wages, as well as from 
 their customers by increased prices. Combination is a double- 
 headed monster, which we are sure would be less offensive in 
 behavior if it were tamed. 
 
 There are economists who endorse the action of these rings 
 as legitimate. At any rate, there are economical philosophers 
 who pretend to believe that the law of competition is adequate 
 for the regulation of all businesses and industries. The rings 
 simply employ the economical forces according to opportunity 
 to push their own interests, and " that is what ever}' body docs, 
 or ought to do." This was done in former times when two 
 men met on the road, and the stronger took the other's purse. 
 
 I have no doubt that limiting production, if done with 
 judgment under proper motives, would be a good thing as a 
 means of avoiding our constantly recurring disturbances in 
 the relations of supply and demand. But this is not the way 
 in which the limiting is done. It is done in the interest of 
 greed. It is done to keep up prices and secure large profits 
 without regard to the interests of either laborers or con- 
 sumers. How is it that the steel industry in this country 
 could afford to pay a single establishment, the Vulcan Steel 
 Mill of St. Louis, $400,000 to stand idle ? How is it that the 
 Waverly Sandstone ring can afford to pay quarries thousands 
 of dollars in one instance I learn of, $4,500 annually to do 
 nothing ? How could American salt manufacturers afford to 
 pay a large annual dead rent for the salt works along the 
 Kenawha to get rid of competition and limit production ? 
 How could the Standard Oil Company afford to buy up com- 
 petitors and dismantle their works? In these instances and 
 others of like character, the enterprising gentlemen could well 
 afford to destroy property, limit business, and throw laborers 
 out of employment, because this course enabled them to con-
 
 Sec. 4-7.] MONOPOLY WITHOUT FRANCHISES. 105 
 
 trol the wages of their workmen as well as to limit production 
 and maintain high prices. They would not pay out their 
 thousands to stop works, if they could not thereby get those 
 thousands back with good profits on the same. At whose 
 expense, however, are they so flush ? At the expense of con- 
 sumers. The consumers, not the operators, furnish the means 
 with which to buy up mills, works, quarries, &c., and stop 
 production therein. This additional tax is paid by the people 
 to minister to the greed of the scheming few. And yet, some 
 economists tell us that all this is properly self-regulating on 
 the deep-lying principle of open competition and free con- 
 tract. Competition is first destro} T ed and then prices are fixed 
 by secret boards with an absolute power, in the exercise of 
 which there is no recognition of mutual contract. Senator 
 Bayard once made a slip of the tongue in the Senate about the 
 freedom of contract between railroads and shippers, and the 
 chastisement inflicted on him therefor by Senator Vance was 
 calculated to excite one's commiseration for the suffering 
 senator. Gentlemen get so in the habit of prating about com- 
 petition and free contract that they give their words no care- 
 ful thought, and they deceive themselves, and by their author- 
 ity, in this case really so worthless, they mislead others. The 
 consumer at large has no more chance on the principle of free 
 contract against the exactions of a manufacturing ring, than 
 the common shipper has on the same principle against the 
 exactions of a railroad ring. The cardinal principles of polit- 
 ical economy are first outraged and beaten, and then appeal is 
 made for justification of the act to the principles of political 
 economy. A pretty circle is this to chase round in ! 
 
 The usual proceeding is for a few of the stronger to form a 
 combination, and then undersell till the weaker are compelled 
 to quit business, sell out, or come into the ring. If opposition 
 starts on principles of competition, it is beaten in like man- 
 ner, and absorbed and driven from the field. This has been 
 done many times. The big and strong overpower and sub- 
 ordinate the small and weak. This is done by the law that
 
 106 MONOPOLY ADVANTAGES. [Chap. V. 
 
 rules among beasts in the forests, except that among men there 
 is greater power of combination than among beasts ; but the 
 result is the same, the crushing out of the weaker and less 
 fortunate. It is only a new form of the law of might, and 
 under it there is no recognition of a moral law among men 
 other than prevails among brutes. It is Darwinism miscon- 
 strued and misplaced. While in one field monopoly by the 
 strong results in good to the race, in the other field it not only 
 crushes competitors but weakens others b}* abstracting from 
 their economical strength. Those rings formed and combina- 
 tions made to destroy competition and the freedom of contract, 
 are conspiracies against the public forms of misdoing for 
 which there should be some remedy. Orthodoxy in econo- 
 mics may lift its hands in holy horror at the idea of inter- 
 fering with the business methods of business men. But we 
 are happily not without precedent for such interferences. In 
 an opinion delivered by Chief Justice "Waite in the case of 
 Moore vs. Illinois, he names a number of occupations which 
 have long been subjugated to legal regulation in England and 
 in the United States, such as those of ferrymen, common car- 
 riers, hackmen, bakers, millers, wharfingers, inn-keepers, &c., 
 and he believes that such regulation is not a violation of any 
 fundamental principle for the protection of private property. 
 
 The State of Illinois regulated elevator charges, and the act 
 has been confirmed by the United States court. The Chicago 
 elevators had no franchises and were built with private capital? 
 and common justice as well as common good has been sub- 
 served by regulating their charges. Such charges are now 
 reasonable at Chicago, while at Buffalo and New York, where 
 not regulated by the State, they are exorbitant, being under 
 railroad control and intended to weaken rivalry by increasing 
 the cost of water transportation from the "West to the seaboard. 
 Elevators work for the public, and when they combine to get 
 rid of competition and unduly tax commerce, they should be 
 subject to public control. Every manufacturing establishment 
 works for the public, and when it enters a ring to destro}' com-
 
 Sec. J$.~\ LETTING THINGS TAKE THEIR NATURAL COURSE. 107 
 
 petition and extort undue prices from consumers, it should be 
 subjected to some kind of discipline in the interest of com- 
 mon justice and the public good. It may be a question what 
 this control should be and how far it is practicable. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. 
 
 42. LETTING THINGS TAKE THEIR NATURAL COURSE. There 
 has been a good deal said from time to time about " letting 
 things take their natural course," " letting the problem work 
 itself out naturally." I can understand this, when it has refer- 
 ence to things "in a state of nature." But what do we mean 
 by things in a state of nature ? "We mean that man is not 
 meddling with them ; that they are outside of his sphere 
 of action, and in consequence, whatever happens, happens 
 naturally. But as soon as man interferes, the character of the 
 action is changed. The domesticated grains, grasses, fruits, 
 animals have not taken a natural course of development : they 
 have all been modified by human agenc} r . How then are 
 things which come wholly within the human sphere to be 
 regarded as taking a natural course ? Man is all the time 
 consciously managing them, and their course is not natural at 
 all. It is true that man moves and acts in accordance with 
 the laws of his being, but he is all the time pretending to 
 reason about what he shall do, and is constantly adopting this 
 course, or that as seems to him best. When man modifies the 
 development of a plant or animal, he does so in accordance 
 with the laws of its being, consciously taking advantage of the 
 same, to accomplish the end in view. Then, what is it for 
 things within the sphere of human action, to take their natural 
 course ?
 
 108 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. {.Chap. VL 
 
 In the preceding chapter we have seen how business rings 
 manage to break down competition, secure monopoly, and 
 build themselves up at the expense of their costumers. Is this 
 a part of the natural course we are to let things take ? If any 
 thing is natural in the human sphere, this is, since it takes 
 place by the tyranny of power without regard to the require- 
 ments of equity. It is the triumph of the unscrupulous and 
 strong over those who are economical!}' weaker, but who may 
 be morally better. On this principle the distribution of the 
 soil of the conquered by the victorious chief among his follow- 
 ers is in the natural course of things. The success of the 
 robber, the pirate, and slave catcher belongs to the same cate- 
 gory; for here it is the triumph of the unscrupulous and strong 
 over those who are physically too weak to resist them. All 
 of them triumph by the same law the law of might the law 
 that prevails in the woods among the beasts. It makes no 
 difference as to the principle, that one set uses horns, teeth, 
 and claws, another set the club or blunderbuss, and the other 
 business chicanery and aggressive combination, to accomplish 
 their ends. In all cases it is the abuse of power by which one 
 individual or class oppresses others, and if the one is to pursue 
 its natural course, the other should have been permitted to do 
 so on the same logic to the same end. But robbers, and 
 pirates, and slavemongers were not permitted to take their 
 natural course ; they were resisted one way or another. Why? 
 For the protection of those they wronged. Why not interfere 
 to prevent the taxation of the. manj r by rings and companies for 
 the benefit of the few whereby fortunes of a hundred million 
 arc accumulated in a few years ? " But," I am told, " the 
 cases are not parallel. You must resist the organization of 
 rings and companies by counter-organization ; 3*ou must trans- 
 form monopoly into competition by voluntary and not by legal 
 means. The field is open and the race free to all." The trouble 
 with this theory is, that the monopoly grows stronger and 
 stronger in the very act of putting down one competitor after 
 another till none can resist. It is as if the bandit had many
 
 SeC. 4%.] LETTING THINGS TAKE THEIR NATURAL COURSE. 109 
 
 times met and overcome voluntary opposition and so enlarged 
 and knit together his gang as to defy the efforts of any volun- 
 tary force. If the gang had grown powerful beating and driv- 
 ing off volunteers, it would be folly to leave the chances of its 
 extermination to mere volunteers. Nothing will do now but 
 the regulars, even at the risk of not letting things take their 
 natural course. Laissez Faire replies : " It would be an unjust 
 abridgement of liberty to interfere with the methods of busi- 
 ness men." The English government did not take this view 
 of the case, however, when it suppressed the slave trade and 
 slavery; and Mr. Herbert Spencer says, that by these acts the 
 area of liberty was extended (Man vs. State, p. 4). Cer- 
 tainty it was ; but it was not done by letting things take their 
 natural course. It was done by cutting off a part of the field 
 which had hitherto been open to business enterprise. Inter- 
 ference with the business was held to be justifiable, because 
 the business had come to be regarded as wrong. Now, why 
 might not the tyranny of monopoly rings be broken in the in- 
 terest of justice, as the tyranny of the slave trade was broken 
 in the interest of freedom ? 
 
 "What is the natural course of things ? Nothing takes place 
 except under resistance. The strongest forces prevail. This 
 is true in the human sphere, whether the force is exercised by 
 an individual, a voluntary association of individuals, or by the 
 State. If then we may speak of anything in the human 
 sphere as natural, it will not do to single out the action of the 
 State as an exception. The State is an essential part of human 
 economy, and is as natural as any other part. 
 
 Far down in the human scale, it is brute force that prevails ; 
 the strong subordinate the weak. Further on new faculties 
 more and more human and humane in character come into 
 play, and these take a part in the direction of events. There 
 are conscious reflection and sympathy, and they sometimes 
 prove to be too strong for short-sighted and selfish impulses, 
 whether these direct the old-time buccaneers or the modern 
 "financial freebooters." If resistance to wrong made under
 
 110 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 legal forms by the sanction of an intelligent constituency 
 should be successful, and the masses of the people gain 
 thereby, would that be an infringement of the natural order ? 
 It would only be throwing one more contestant into the 
 arena of general conflict, and I do not see how this would 
 make the play of the forces any more unnatural than it was 
 before. 
 
 All along the course of histor}', we find the conflict of two 
 opposing elements in society, the one to oppress, the other to 
 escape oppression. This constitutes a very large part of real 
 histor}', and it seems to be about as natural as anything in 
 human society can be. What has been the method adopted 
 to secure immunity from oppression ? That of resistance 
 always resistance. There was no other waj*. What forms 
 have been adopted to secure the results of successful resist- 
 ance ? Constitutional forms always ; restrictions acknowl- 
 edged and powers granted being incorporated into the funda- 
 mental law of the realm as a restraint on the powerful and a 
 protection to the weak. The concessions went on the records, 
 and their integrity was guaranteed by the sword as the instru- 
 ment of executive power in last resort. The compacts thus 
 made were often violated, but they were as often restored by 
 renewed effort, till at last they stood secure. This has been 
 the order substantially from Magna Charta down to the last 
 amendment of our own constitution, in every successful strug- 
 gle of freedom and right with despotism and wrong. The 
 point to be noticed here is that, however spontaneous the 
 uprising against current oppression, it never left the conces- 
 sions wrung from oppressors to be secured by ever-recurring 
 spontaneity of effort. On the contrary, the points won have 
 been made a part of the political system ; and I must confess 
 that I am not able to see why the operation of the political 
 system thus constructed, is not as much in the natural course 
 of things as the abuses which led to its adoption. Now, if 
 any constituency is sufficiently intelligent to direct legislative 
 interference with business monopolies which wrong the people,
 
 Sec. 43.] FORCE AS AN ELEMENT IN RIGHTING WRONG. Ill 
 
 is not such interference in the natural course of things as well 
 as the business methods of the rings and combinations of self- 
 seeking men who use their power to overcome competition and 
 tax the people at will ? If it is not, so much the worse for 
 "the natural course of things" as a guide in social and polit- 
 ical methods. 
 
 In a sense, whatever is, is natural. All events are locked up 
 in the complicated net-work of causation, and the}' take the 
 order they do, precisely because they must. In this sense, all 
 things are natural. The abuse that springs up is natural, and 
 the effort to put it down is natural. If the government is 
 resorted to for correction, that, too, is a part of the natural. 
 But this is not the sense in which the word is used in these 
 discussions. The friends of laissez faire use it apparently as 
 the opposite of governmental. Governmental action is not 
 natural ; all or most other action is natural. We believe that 
 an}- such use of the word is based on an inadequate view of 
 what is or is not natural, and leads only to confusion. We 
 can go no further with them on this line till they explain their 
 use of this word. 
 
 43. FORCE AS AN ELEMENT IN THE RIGHTING OF WRONG. 
 One might infer from Mr. Spencer's late work, "The Man 
 versus the State," that government should be confined to a very 
 limited range of duties, because it is intrinsically despotic, 
 having been derived from militancy, whose spirit it still 
 retains. This view of the case is more likely to be suggested 
 by the experience of Europe in government than by that of 
 the United States. The succession of power from a great 
 conqueror to the present time, suggests that political power is 
 essentially arbitrary, however much it may be tempered by 
 the influences of modern life. But the history of the forma- 
 tion of our own government should dispel this illusion. In 
 the times when our government had its origin there was a 
 complete break in the direct connection with the political forms 
 of the past. The old succession was completely snapped 
 asunder, and no part of the old political hierarchy came over
 
 112 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 into the new order. The rise and formation of our govern- 
 ment was the result of as spontaneous an uprising, of as 
 voluntary a cooperation, as ever has been witnessed in the 
 course of human history. Our government had its rise in the 
 committees of correspondence, first in Massachusetts and 
 afterward in other colonies, committees which ante-dated the 
 complete break from the mother country. This movement 
 which first took the form of committees, next advanced into 
 the maturer form of colonial assemblies, and still later into 
 that of the Congress which directed the war of Independence. 
 Not a particle of this power was derived from the British 
 throne, the original source of supreme power in the colonies. 
 It was derived from the spontaneous action and free will of the 
 people, who had undertaken to manage for themselves. And 
 then, after the war, when Congress lost its command over the 
 States, and there was no general government to deal even with 
 the Algerian pirates on our coast, how came about the estab- 
 lishment of such a government ? By the voluntary coopera- 
 tion of the several States. This government was not derived 
 from an}' ancient military dispotism ; it sprung out of the 
 exigencies of the times, and was as purely unforced as any 
 such thing can be. Of course, the men of the times could 
 not get rid of their habits and traditions, they could not will 
 out of existence the evils and annoj-ances of anarch}-. These 
 evils and annoyances were far worse to bear than the evils 
 which are inherent in political government, and one or the 
 other they must have. Of their own free will as free as will 
 generally is they chose the latter, and made a government 
 according to their best thought, adapting it as well as they 
 could to meet the wants of men situated as they were. But 
 they could not make a government without incorporating into 
 it the element of force ; and unless man is transformed into 
 something different from what he is, and placed in some world 
 outside this universe as we know it, there can be no govern- 
 ment without force. 
 
 Voluntary association, indeed, to overcome wrong and guard
 
 Sec. 48.~\ FORCE AS AN ELEMENT IN RIGHTING WRONG. 113 
 
 the right ! A non-resistant association may do to take the 
 initiative ; but associations are efficient in final action only 
 so far as they have power to enforce their decrees. They 
 have not the bayonet, it is true, to compel obedience, but they 
 have sometimes means at their disposal which necessarily 
 partake of the nature of force, since they may coerce by 
 social and moral instrumentalities as truly as if they had the 
 bayonet. For want of the power of coercion, many of our 
 voluntary combinations for protection against wrong prove to 
 be totally inadequate to the end in view. Labor organizations, 
 when aiming to secure compliance with a reasonable demand 
 or the redress of a grievance sometimes fail for want of ex- 
 ecutive unanimity. Voluntary association must embody the 
 elements of executive power, or it will be overcome by a 
 power greater than its own. What could the farmers of 
 Kansas and Nebraska do b}- voluntary combination to get 
 reasonable freight rates on corn from way stations to Chicago ? 
 "What could the managers of the granger movement have done 
 to discipline the lawless railroads, if they had confined them- 
 selves to voluntary associations looking to this end ? The}' 
 would have been laughed to scorn. Why ? Because they 
 would have lacked the power of coercion. Justice with her 
 scales but without her sword would be as impotent as a figure 
 of speech to secure the right between man and man. It was 
 when the grangers made themselves felt through the strong 
 arm of the State, that the railroad managers learned a lesson 
 which they could learn in no other way. 
 
 Now, in regard to the various abuses to which attention has 
 been called in the preceding chapter, are the people to depend 
 wholly on voluntary association for correction and redress ? 
 How are the consumers of salt, kerosene oil, and a hundred 
 other articles on which rings have made corners, to get the 
 benefits of competition ? Let any one (or many) refuse to pay 
 an exorbitant bill fixed by a ring of manufacturers, and he 
 would very soon find he had to deal, not only with the power 
 of the ring, but with the power of the State itself. Every bill
 
 114 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 is collected under the authority of the State, and thus it comes 
 out that the power of inflicting abuses and wrongs on the 
 many by the few under the innocent name of " business," is 
 not so purely a voluntary thing divorced from State power as 
 it might seem. And if manufacturing rings and common 
 carriers act under the power of the State to carry their ends, 
 why may not their customers whom they tax, consistently 
 appeal to the State for protection ? 
 
 Mr. Spencer has thrown light on this subject. In making 
 his argument for popular enfranchisement (Social Statics, pp. 
 221, 222,) he shows how easy it is for the few to combine to 
 effect their objects, but how difficult it is for the manj r to do so. 
 He says : "Their mass is too great, too incongruous, too scattered 
 for effective combination." The Spencerian argument is that 
 the masses cannot make themselves felt through voluntary com- 
 bination ; therefore, they should have the franchise in order to 
 make themselves felt through the government. This is their 
 only hope, however difficult it may be to make the govern- 
 ment the general instrumentality of justice to all classes. 
 The people must learn to redress their own grievances, and 
 for this purpose they must use some organization at hand 
 with sufficient executive power to compel obedience. This is 
 to be found in the State onty. In this country, as we have 
 seen, the people founded the State, why should they not use 
 it for their protection against selfish combinations, which, by 
 indirect means, arc taking from the people the unjust toll of 
 greed? 
 
 44. ONLY THROUGH THE STATE CAN THE PEOPLE REDRESS 
 THEIR GRIEVANCES. I am well aware of the difficulties to be 
 encountered in securing equity by the voice of the people even 
 in a republican government. The people at large can hardly 
 be made to understand so well what their interests are, and to 
 labor for them so effcctivel}*, as certain classes are made to 
 understand and work for class interests. This has always been 
 the trouble and it is the trouble now. But, on the other hand, 
 I am just as well aware that this is the only road on which
 
 Sec. 44-} REDRESS FOR GRIEVANCES, 115 
 
 approximate equity is to be secured. If the people arc not 
 able to use the instrumentalities of the government for 
 redress, they are certainly not able to create other instrumen- 
 talities and use them effectively for this purpose. If the 
 people cannot, by concert of action, arrest plutocratic aggres- 
 sion through the strong machinery of government, they cannot 
 arrest it through the feebler machinery of extemporaneous 
 device. I know very well that the governmental machinery 
 is a good deal out of order and in need of renovation and 
 righting up to put it in good working condition. "Ay, and for 
 that very reason," retorts Laissez Faire, "you- cannot use it for 
 the ends you have in view." But what has demoralized it ? 
 Very largety, the very class interests whose extreme self-seek- 
 ing we ask to abate. The successes of unscrupulous greed have 
 tainted the whole social body, till the government itself has 
 come to be regarded very largely as useful mainly in the op- 
 portunity it affords for "jobs." Now, to work for the correction 
 of plutocratic abuses by means of feeble outside-machinery, 
 while the plutocrats are working the strong government ma- 
 chinery to maintain and further their aggressions, is to waste 
 energy, and nothing effectual will be done to restrain the 
 granting of privileges and the building up of monopolies. If 
 the people cannot so correct the action of the governmental 
 machinery as to make it efficient for their aims, they cannot by 
 any voluntary means effectually counteract the selfish and cor- 
 rupt use of the State machinery by strong and unscrupulous 
 men. I repeat, if we are forbidden to resort to the government 
 for redress and correction, no redress or correction is to be 
 had. Perhaps total impotency of the great body of the people 
 in presence of a few strong classes is the grim fact. I do not 
 say it is not, but surely it ought not to be ; and, as yet, we do 
 not positively know what may or may not be done to reform 
 the action of government and make it subservient to the gen- 
 eral interests of the people. The need has not been sufficient! j r 
 felt, and, in consequence, but little has been done on this line. 
 There is at least sufficient uncertainty in the matter to make
 
 116 GOVEENMANTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 it au open and unsettled question, and, while this is the case, 
 endeavor should be made along the line on which there is most 
 promise of success. 
 
 I am painfully aware that there are economists high in 
 authority who preach that all is well ; when every intelligent 
 and unbiased person knows that all is not well. Some of these 
 economists when compelled to recognize the existence of busi- 
 ness wrongs, say, "just let them alone, and self-acting econom- 
 ical principles will right them. " They pointed lately to the 
 fall in stocks, and exclaimed, " see how the water is wrung out 
 of them without any State interference ! " Ah, yes, at last. But 
 what had the water done meantime under the highly philo- 
 sophical principle of non-interference ? It had served as a 
 basis for high local charges for freights, messages, and the like, 
 thus securing good dividends by fleecing the public, so that, 
 notwithstanding its water, the stocks maintained in flush 
 times a good reputation on the market, and widows and or- 
 phans (the same widows and orphans that arc used by these 
 economists as buffers on the silver question) and widows and 
 orphans invested their funds in these stocks, and now that the 
 water is wrung out, the hearts of the widows and orphans arc 
 wrung, too, but the wily manipulators have none the less 
 made their millions. Ah, yes, economical principles may of 
 themselves right the wrongs, and in so doing inflict more wrong 
 than ever. Has justice nothing better in store for us than this ? 
 
 45. WORK OP CORRECTION THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO. 
 To ask that the government should use its power to correct 
 wrong, is not to ask that it shall do for the people what they 
 can better do for themselves. What is wanted is that the 
 government shall do what voluntary effort without the means 
 which the State affords, cannot do. First of all, the govern- 
 ment should be made to correct the abuse which in times past 
 it has, under the manipulation of unscrupulous men, helped to 
 bring about, such as the extortions and discriminations of rail- 
 roads, telegraphs, and other monopolies operating under fran- 
 chises from the State. Secondly, it should be made to do
 
 Sec. 4$ ] EVOLUTION IN GOVERNMENT. 117 
 
 what is feasibla to protect the masses of the people against the 
 greed of business concerns which take advantage of " business 
 principles " under the technical protection of the laws, to build 
 up fortunes for the few out of the hard earnings of the million. 
 And lastly, the government should do, for the general good, 
 certain things, not of a negative but of a positive character, 
 which do not come fairly within the scope of private enterprise. 
 And, in saying this, I must disclaim an}' sympathy with the 
 view of those extremists who wish to supersede private enter- 
 prise with the public management of business in general. 
 There are kinds of business which are especially adapted to 
 individual management, as for example, the cultivation of a 
 farm, the management of a shop, all productive business, buy 
 ing and selling commodities. The government should, of course, 
 undertake to do none of these ; it should simply protect. But, 
 on the other hand, there arc kinds of business which cannot 
 safely be entrusted to unrestrained individual management. 
 These kinds of business are public or semi-public in character. 
 They directty affect the community in a large wa}*, and the 
 community should have some voice in them. They should 
 cither be done by public agencies, or be done under the super- 
 vision of such agencies. I am very well aware that in all this 
 we have but to choose between S3'stems, each of which has its 
 peculiar evils. But under the changed conditions of modern 
 development, the system of a greater extension of govermental 
 duties with the evils inherent therein, may be far better than 
 the system of non-interference with the evils it necessarily 
 involves. 
 
 4G. EVOLUTION IN GOVERNMENT. Laissez Faire says : " You 
 will greatly increase the functions of government with beau- 
 rocracy and centralization to correspond." Very well, but is 
 this not made necessary by the very conditions of a high civil- 
 ization ? And is not this movement essentially that of devel- 
 opment ? What is the course development takes ? Witness 
 it in the living organism : the differentiation of parts unlike 
 each other and performing a diversity of functions under the
 
 118 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Ckap.VL 
 
 control of the central nervous system. The more the parts in- 
 crease and the greater the diversity of functions they perform, 
 the more dependent each part is on the others, and this inter- 
 dependence renders integration, or the coordination of all into 
 one, a necessity. History shows that this principle is illus- 
 traded by the development of government as well as by the 
 development of the living organism. Among primitive peoples 
 government has little diversity of parts corresponding to little 
 diversity of functions ; but as society advances, the parts, 
 organs, or institutions increase in number to perform the in- 
 creasing number of functions which arise, until what was at 
 first very simple becomes at length very complex. That is, it 
 pursues the usual course of development. It is the close 
 relation, the intimate inter-dependence of the multiplied inter- 
 ests and functions of the highly civilized society that renders 
 central supervision and direction absolutely necessary. Every 
 advancing civilized government on the face of the earth is to- 
 day illustrating the truth of this view. Government must 
 assume the supervision or the direction of certain functions, 
 because, under individual management they are perverted to 
 wrongful ends. And, besides, symmetry of relation can only 
 be maintained by unity of direction. 
 
 I have a very distinct recollection of the source whence I 
 derived this view of evolution in government. In April, 1857, 
 appeared, in the Westminster Review, a momentous essay 
 on " Progress : its Law and Cause." This essay was followed 
 by another, in the Edinburgh Review I think on the " Social 
 Organism." About the same time, I read Guyot's " Earth and 
 Man," Guizot's " History of Civilization," and Comte's " Posi- 
 tive Philosophy"; and these with the two review articles 
 created for me an intellectual epoch. The interest I felt at the 
 time in the system of thought they combined to establish, was 
 soon after greatly intensified by the events which threatened 
 to destroy the American Union. I looked over the historical 
 ground for myself in the light of the principles Mr. Spencer 
 had so ably brought into view, and I said, this Union will
 
 SeC. 46.] EVOLUTION IN GOVEKNMENT. 119 
 
 stand. It comprises a diversity of mutually dependent inter- 
 ests bound together by ready facilities of intercommunication 
 and unity of control, and it cannot be easily rent asunder. And 
 this little picture came to mind : Jefferson Davis and his con- 
 freres in their little boat of secession rowing confidently but 
 unconsciously against the tide of historj', till the tide swept 
 them down. And often within the last few years this old vi- 
 sion of 'Gl has been called to mind by the extreme efforts of 
 the laissez-faire school of economists. There is scarcely any- 
 thing of a practical character to encourage the extreme advo- 
 cates of non-interference, but the hearty cheers with which they 
 hail the literary efforts of one another. The swallowing up 
 of the smaller industries by the larger ; the coalescence of the 
 different branches of the same business into one subject to one 
 head, thus subordinating competition to monopoly; the super- 
 vision by government of general interests pertaining to educa- 
 tion, health, and the protection of the feeble against injustice ; 
 the assumption by every progressive government of new duties 
 made necessary by the new modern conditions ; all these and 
 the like constitute the current tide of history, and the little 
 boat of Laissez-Faire will not be able to stem it, and the tide 
 will not be stayed. I am compelled to take this view of the 
 matter from what I understand to be evolution itself. How 
 Mr. Spencer, who has wrought out this law so thoroughly, 
 could also write certain passages in " The Man versus the 
 State," I cannot clearly comprehend. Sometimes an early im- 
 pression becomes so fixed and absolute in the mind as to defy 
 relation, and is afterwards reproduced in spite of broader views 
 meantime taken, which are incompatible with it. 
 
 Government has been derived from a sort of family arrange- 
 ment among little groups of mankind, in which the acts of one 
 member very directly affected the interests of all other mem- 
 bers. This was the situation under feudalism, and, in conse- 
 quence of this close relation between the members of society, 
 there was a great deal of regulation by custom and law, the 
 stronger and superior using their authority to direct the social
 
 120 OOVERNMANTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 and individual proceedings of their dependents. Of course, 
 the powerful abused their privileges more or less as usual, and 
 imposed rules for their own selfish purposes. When these 
 isolated feudal communities became integrated into larger 
 organizations, the habits of life heretofore prevailing were not 
 laid aside at once, and still there was a great deal of regula- 
 ting done by the sovereign authority. The industries of the 
 people, how they should do this or that, what they should cat 
 and wear, what games the}' might or might not play, how they 
 should buy and sell, what should be exported or not, what 
 laborers might or might not do ; it was supposed that nothing 
 would go right unless it was regulated by the central author- 
 ity. With the accumulation of experience and the increase of 
 intelligence, it became a question whether some of this regula- 
 ting could not very well be dispensed with. So much regula- 
 tion sat awkwardly upon the times and became uncomfortable, 
 because it was the survival of conditions which had been out- 
 grown. For many generations this gave character to a polit- 
 ical movement with conservatives on one side and innovators 
 on the other, the latter constantly gaining ground by the suc- 
 cess of their efforts to get rid of some old restriction on social 
 life, industry, and commerce. Freedom so expanded that a 
 man might cultivate his own acres in his own waj', and a 
 laborer might go where he could get the highest wages and do 
 the best for himself and family. But there were so many of 
 these ancient restrictions, and it required so much time and 
 effort to remove them under the slow change of conditions, 
 that some writers appear to have formed the idea that this is 
 a movement which is to continue till political government 
 shall become only a shadow of its former self, to be used only 
 in a negative sort of way for the protection of individuals and 
 classes in carrying out their own schemes in their own ways, 
 according to the measure of their powers and opportunities. 
 This implies that political government is not subject, under 
 the general development of society, to the law of evolution. 
 It implies that it is subject to attrition and decay. We think
 
 SeC. 46-] EVOLUTION IN GOVERNMENT. 121 
 
 this a mistaken view. It overlooks the development of higher 
 organs and functions, while those which served the organism 
 in earlier stages assume the rudimentary condition, or undergo 
 absorption and removal. 
 
 At the very time that the nations were getting rid of State 
 interference in one direction, they were developing conditions 
 which called for State interference in a different direction. 
 The isolation of peoples and communities was disappearing 
 before the improved means of intercommunication which 
 brought them more closely together. The isolation of classes 
 and interests was also disappearing under the division of labor 
 and the exchange of products, thus making classes and com- 
 munities dependent on one another in what concerned the 
 means of living. This mutual dependence was binding the 
 several classes and communities together more intimately than 
 ever before over the large areas of territory now constituting 
 kingdoms. There was integration and consolidation in a much 
 higher form of the social and political organism, than had }'et 
 taken place in the course of histor} 7 , corresponding with like 
 phenomena in the higher types of the organic world. And, as 
 in the organic world, the complex dependence of organs and 
 functions requires central control as the condition of a harmo- 
 niously working unity, so the like central control for the same 
 end is required in the political organism, the nation. This is 
 the reason why, in spite of the protests of Laissez Faire, the 
 governments have been constantly assuming new functions, 
 and complicating their systems of administration. This be- 
 comes necessary to meet the exigencies of the case and pre- 
 vent undue encroachments upon the weak by the powerful in 
 the midst of so great a diversity of interests, among which, by 
 their nature, there is more or less ineradicable conflict. 
 
 The multiplication of functions which has taken place in 
 political government within the last 200 years, is not simply 
 the result of splitting up the old functions without change of 
 character. The process has been one of differentiation, the 
 new functions made necessary by the new conditions diverging
 
 122 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap.VL 
 
 in character from the old. Among these new functions may 
 be named : Providing for general education ; protecting women 
 and children from torture and death in certain kinds of manu- 
 facturing establishments : providing penalties for the adultera- 
 tion of food ; stamping out the contagious diseases of animals ; 
 protecting animals from cruel treatment ; looking after the 
 sanitary conditions of human habitations with a view to their 
 improvement ; studying up new industries and testing their 
 value ; protecting the weaker party to a contract against over- 
 reaching by the stronger party, and not as formerly helping the 
 stronger party to still greater advantage ; regulating monopoly, 
 not in the interest of government officials as in times past, but 
 in the interest of the people. Some of this obtains in little 
 more than theory, and much of it is imperfectly done ; but the 
 fact that the governments of the civilized world arc more and 
 more undertaking to do such work in answer to an efficient 
 demand, shows that it is in the line of a general tendency 
 that it is in "the natural course of things," if you please. 
 All these special functions mutually inter-related could belong 
 only to a high order of organism under unity of control. 
 Hence more distinctly marked political centralization. 
 
 47. THE TYRANNY OP VOLUNTARY COMBINATIONS. Mr. 
 Spencer believes that the Liberals have changed front by con- 
 founding two very unlike things. At first they did good by 
 repealing restrictive legislation ; but, forgetting by and by that 
 the good done was the result of repeal, they referred it to 
 direct legislation, and were hence led to the enactment of 
 restrictive legislation for the good they expected it to do, thus 
 reversing their early method. Is it not, however, Mr. Spencer 
 that makes the mistake in supposing, because government had 
 done good by repealing old meddlesome legislation which 
 never had any use, or had lost its usefulness, that this process 
 is to go on without limit till government shall be reduced to a 
 very simple organism ? Is it not discernible in the very his- 
 tory which records the abrogation of restrictive laws, that con- 
 ditions are arising which require the assumption of new duties
 
 Sec. 47.~\ THE TYRANNY OP VOLUNTARY COMBINATIONS. 123 
 
 by the government to meet the new requirements of society ? 
 To assume that getting rid of wrongful interference with the 
 freedom of industry, indicates continued release from restrict- 
 ive laws, till there is little for the government to do, is, to my 
 mind, something like the mistake those make who assume that, 
 because the condition of workingmen has improved during the 
 last two centuries, it will, by some occult and absolute law, go 
 on improving without limit or reaction. (Sec. 5.) 
 
 I suspect that the basis of Mr. Spencer's error, if error it be, 
 is to be found in his radical assumption that mankind under 
 industrialism will outgrow the need of compulsion. I fear 
 compulsion is so intimately bound up with the human con- 
 stitution in its relations to society, as to be quite ineradicable. 
 Human associations and organizations of various kinds arc 
 making little progress as yet in the art of getting along with- 
 out compulsion, as Mr. Spencer concedes, and they are likely 
 to go slow in this direction for a long time, as Mr. Spencer 
 admits, so that the amiable view he takes of the matter can be 
 realized, if at all, only in the far-off future. It concerns us 
 mainly as a theory with little relation to the present, and we 
 have hardly the means at hand to settle it even as a theory. 
 
 While it has to be admitted that compulsion is an element 
 in every organization, I apprehend Mr. Spencer magnifies the 
 compulsion which is inherent in political organization. In 
 order to give an adequate conception of the tyranny of polit- 
 ical government, he shows how tyrannical even voluntary or- 
 ganizations may be (Man vs. State, 4). But on pages 109 and 
 110 of the same work, we find the following : " Being carried 
 on by voluntary cooperation instead of by compulsory coopera- 
 tion, industrial life as we now know it, habituates men to in- 
 dependent activities, leads them to enfore their own claims 
 while respecting the claims of others, strengthening the con- 
 sciousness of personal rights, and prompts them to resist 
 excesses of governmental control." An error of fact is this, 
 we fear, except that these cooperative bodies do resist govern- 
 mental control, and naturally enough, since they are success- 
 12
 
 124 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 fully taking the tyranny of control into their own hands. The 
 very worst tyrannies we have to contend with in the interest 
 of general justice and freedom are the tyrannies of cooperative 
 bodies. The management of most of the industries is consoli- 
 dating more and more by a voluntary tendency which adapts 
 business to the exigency of the times. It is not only consoli- 
 dating, but concentrating in the hands of the few, and this pro- 
 cess will probably go on further than we are now able to sec. 
 These few hands assume to act for the corporators, and they 
 wield a tremendous power. Do the}' simply " enforce their 
 own claims while respecting the claims of others"? Let their 
 acts tell. They enforce their claims with a rigid hand, and 
 with personal motives grasp all that is to be had. Why 
 should they not resist governmental control ? They arc intoxi- 
 cated with power, and no tyranny ever yet submitted with 
 grace to orderly regulation. 
 
 As I understand Mr. Spencer, he regards the t}-ranny of 
 modern governments to consist mainly in taxation for un- 
 necessary and wrongful purposes, thus making the struggle 
 of life greater for the better sort of people. This is precisely 
 the evil more and more brought upon the better classes in 
 society by voluntary rings that pay works to lie idle and tax 
 the people for dead rent. (Sec. 41.) "Whatever reduces supply 
 to defeat competition and keep prices from falling with the 
 improvement of machinery, taxes honest people for the benefit 
 of those who are not honest. It is true that these voluntary 
 combinations have power to execute their devices under pro- 
 tection afforded by the State, but this docs not explain away 
 the inherent despotism of these combinations. Their thirst 
 for power to execute their plans is so great that some of them 
 ask that the State shall give them legal authorit}-, with penal- 
 ties attached, to compel obedience from all the cooperating 
 members. In railroad pools the treachery of members, in 
 secretly violating the agreements, thwarts the aims of the pool- 
 ing arrangement, and Messrs. Fink and Adams want the Stuto 
 to endow railroad combinations with State power; but they and
 
 SeC. 4$.~\ LIMITS TO INTERFERENCE. 125 
 
 most of the great managers deprecate interference. They 
 want business to take its " natural course " and work out its 
 beneficent purposes, wielding State power, it is true, but in no 
 way to be controlled by the State. The love of power does 
 not abate with the progress of civilization. It may find less 
 harsh and more indirect ways for its exercise, thus shifting its 
 methods, but it is substantially as arbitrary in character as 
 ever. 
 
 To an extent which is already threatening, these voluntary 
 combinations are self-seeking, aggressive, irresponsible. They 
 subordinate whatever they can to their interests, and sub- 
 stantially recognize no principle but success, crush whom it 
 may; hence the need of regulation by a power that represents 
 the people. De Tocqueville thought that manufacturers were 
 the greatest offenders in this direction, and most needed regula- 
 tion. If he had written a few decades later, he would have 
 found actual evolution in the powers and devices of unjust 
 gain, and would have been compelled still further to check his 
 philosophical inclination toward the doctrine of letting-alone. 
 
 Although governments have been and still are largely used 
 to make the strong stronger in the conflicts of life, the theory 
 of government is that it shall protect those in need of protec- 
 tion by securing justice to all. Formerly individuals and fam- 
 ilies undertook to avenge their own wrongs, but government 
 has universally taken in hand the settlement of open disputes, 
 thereby affording protection to the weak through the adminis- 
 tration of justice and, corrupt as this often is, it is preferable 
 to the old methods with its bitter feuds. The exercise of force 
 is necessary to better method ; and yet it may be a far more 
 benignant exercise of force than that which is used by rings 
 and syndicates for selfish ends ; far more benignant and just 
 because held to be responsible. It is here especially there 
 arises an admonition to the people not to neglect the duty they 
 owe to themselves. 
 
 48. LIMITS TO INTERFERENCE. Now, since there is no polit- 
 ical movement without its accompanying drawbacks, its per-
 
 126 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 versions, abuses, dangers, therefore should the extension of the 
 political functions into new fields, with the centralization which 
 this process necessarily involves, be made only in reponse to 
 the obvious needs growing out of new conditions. Such ex- 
 tension of political functions can take place only under resist- 
 ance, and the resistance is to be welcomed for its office of pre- 
 venting too great precipitation and the consequent evil that 
 belongs to whatever is premature. Attempts might be made 
 to thrust the national arm into spheres of action where there is 
 no legitimate demand for it. It has no right to meddle 
 with private business properly such. It has no right to dis- 
 place local self-government. "What concerns local questions 
 can best be determined under local conditions, and any at- 
 tempt on the part of the central government to manage local 
 affairs is downright despotism. But in our country, for exam- 
 ple, there arc interstate forces which defy State laws, and such 
 must be dealt with by the general government. The functions 
 of the individual State (in our system) may also extend into 
 new fields, covering operations which are comprised within the 
 jurisdiction of the State. It may have its own S3 T stcm of 
 echools, its game laws ; it may regulate its insurance compa- 
 nies, its local canals, roads, railroads, warehouses ; it may 
 protect its women and children as laborers, and generally use 
 such oversight as may be necessary to prevent strong indi- 
 viduals and classes from indulging in unjust aggression toward 
 weaker individuals and classes. Whatever ma} r thus be done 
 efficiently by the local government, whether of city, township, 
 county, or State, should be done by it, each being regarded 
 as so far a complete political organization within itself. But 
 outside of this and beyond, there are aggressive forces in so- 
 ciety which only the nation can properly supervise. The ty- 
 ranny of long hours of labor in the great industries is really 
 one of these ; the length of the labor day should be uniform 
 to the greatest possible extent. It should even be interna- 
 tional, the conditions of protection requiring general concert 
 of action by taking away the economical advantage from the
 
 Sec. 49."] MODERN CHANGE IN SOCIETY. 127 
 
 selfishness, greed, and cruelty of long hours. Marriage laws 
 should be uniform throughout the civilized world. Lines of 
 railroad which extend from State to State, long lines of tele- 
 graph, express lines, all of which have the power of extortion 
 and discrimination, cannot be regulated to the standard of fair 
 dealing, except by the power of the general government. 
 
 49. THE MODERN CHANGE IN THE STRUCTURE OP SOCIETY. 
 A hundred j-ears ago when liberal men were agitating to get 
 rid of hampering laws which had come down from other 
 times, there were none of those powerful combinations of man- 
 agement which aspire to divide the empire of business among 
 themselves. There were indeed guilds of artisans and mer- 
 chants that sought to get rid of competition, but owing to the 
 want of facilities for ready communication, their operations 
 were mainly local and could not assume the imperial form of 
 some of our modern combinations. There were no great 
 industries employing man}- thousands of laborers, and subject 
 to the control, without competition, of a few autocratic mana- 
 gers who recognized no aim but profit, no guide but self- 
 interest. There were no great combinations of trunk lines 
 commanding the great internal commerce of the country with 
 the authority of a Caesar, and making their least word felt at 
 every hearthstone in the land. A craft guild had for its object 
 the advantage of those who formed the fraternity, and it might, 
 b}- reducing the number of apprentices and the hours of labor, 
 limit production and keep up prices, but the rules having this 
 object in view, must be submitted to the town authorities for 
 approval ; and this approval was held to be grounded on the 
 principle that the general good, and not the gain of the special 
 craft, was the aim to be kept in view (ClifFe Leslie). The 
 whole structure of society has changed within the last century 
 or two, and what was fitting in times past may be very far from 
 fitting now ; a fact, of which, it is to be feared, our extremists 
 of the laissez-faire school have not made sufficient note. 
 
 Instead of a head workman, with a few journeymen and 
 apprentices, we have now huge manufactories, any one of
 
 128 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chdp.VI. 
 
 which, with its facile machinery and its thousands of opera- 
 tives, will do as much work in a day, as one of the little shops 
 of old would do in a life-time. Business becomes in this way 
 more and more concentrated, more and more under the law of 
 combination, less and less under the law of competition. Has 
 Laissez Faire duly made a note of this ? It is far easier now 
 than formerly for combination to get rid of competition. 
 Under the influence of the habits and traditions, as well as 
 under the influence of corporation fees, some of our great 
 lawyers assume that all this business is conducted as if it were 
 subject to fair competition, and that it is private in character 
 as if it had nothing directly to do with the public ; and they 
 say the State must not meddle with this private capital and 
 private business. But none the less are we face to face with 
 the fact that elevator rings, Standard Oil rings, coal rings, 
 quarrymen's rings, and a hundred others arc daily drawing 
 from the substance of the people in violation of the principles 
 of common justice. Has the State no right or power to reach 
 out its arm for the protection of those who suffer from such 
 wrongs ? 
 
 "When railroads first came into use, it was supposed that 
 competition would regulate traffic on them as on waterways. 
 But this was soon discovered to be a mistake, and the aphor- 
 ism of George Stephcnson proved to be true that, "where 
 combination is possible, competition is excluded." To some 
 extent railroad management has been able to baffle competi- 
 tion. Some of our reformers appear to be determined that 
 railroads shall compete. They hope to effect this object by 
 means of restrictive legislation ; but, in attempting to do this, 
 arc they not trying to row their little boat against the tide of 
 histon-, as the ultra friends of laissez faire are doing ? Does 
 not such an attempt ignore one of the most imposing move- 
 ments of modern society ? It is in the concurrent action of 
 the industrial forces to absorb the smaller industries and busi- 
 nesses into larger ones, each being subject to management by a 
 single head. This movement is not confined to railroads alone ;
 
 SeC. 49.] MODERN CHANGE IN SOCIETY. 129 
 
 it is general. If railroads are to be forbidden the power of 
 combination in order to maintain competition, then ought the 
 same regulation to apply to all industries. To forbid combina- 
 tion, and to force competition on all, would be meddling, 
 indeed. It would be to reverse the present tendency of things 
 and thwart the course of modern evolution. 
 
 There is great economy in combination, and to forbid it 
 would be an arbitauy interposition of power to prevent econo- 
 my in business methods. It would be carrying out the unnat- 
 ural decree that action shall not take place in the direction of 
 least resistance, even when such action may accrue to the ben- 
 efit of all. Never mind: the tendencies of modern civiliza- 
 tion will go on whether extremists at the one end dictate that 
 the government must interfere to stop a fundamental and 
 wide-reaching movement, which proceeds from the very con- 
 ditions under which the industrial and business forces must 
 act combination ; or the extremists at the other end declare 
 that government shall not only permit these forces to com- 
 bine, but shall protect them in whatever course they take, 
 ignoring the possibilities of abuse. What, it seems to me, is 
 clearty pointed out by a review of the modern situation, is that 
 combination must be allowed to proceed, even if it put a 
 quietus on competition in many ways, and that the great body 
 of the people on their part must combine to act through their 
 government for the regulation of these great businesses and 
 combinations in the interest of justice and the common good. 
 Not every great business requires supervision. Much depends 
 on the nature of the business, and still more on the nature of 
 its managers. Some managers are noblemen by constitution, 
 who do business on higher principles than those of selfishness 
 and greed. There should be no supervision where there is 
 no need of it ; but where there is need, there should be a 
 responsible tribunal ready to do as best it may what justice 
 requires to be done. 
 
 Let us take the case of railroads. The government has even 
 commanded that continuous lines under different managements
 
 130 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFEEENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 shall unite into one line under a joint management, so as to 
 facilitate shipping ; and, when such lines voluntarity combine, 
 greatly to the increase of such facilities and the economj 7 of 
 carrying on their business, surely they should be permitted to 
 do so. This amalgamation or consolidation of roads is an 
 economical movement, which corresponds with the course 
 taken by other industries, and there is no reason why it should 
 be made an exception by restrictive legislation. Pooling in its 
 different forms probably belongs to the same category with 
 consolidation. But, when roads consolidate and pool, the} 7 
 have great power to commit abuses, and they have not hes- 
 itated to use that power. Sixteen years ago Mr. Charles F. 
 Adams declared that "Vanderbilt, embodying the autocratic 
 power of Caesarism, introduced into corporate life the Erie 
 ring, representing the combination of a corporation and the 
 hired proletariat of a great city. The system of corpo- 
 rate life, as applied to industrial development, is yet in its 
 infancy. It always tends to development, always to consolida- 
 tion. It is ever grasping new powers, or insidiously exercising 
 covert influences. Even now the system threatens the general 
 government." Much more in this vein might be quoted from 
 Mr. Adams, but we have not space, and there is really no 
 need. Mr. Chittenden's testimony before the congressional 
 committee depicted the organization and power of the great 
 railroad federation over which Mr. Fink presides. This federa- 
 tion embraces more than foriy roads, and its head, responsible 
 to no tribunal representing the people, "to-day exercises a 
 power for good or evil over the commerce and products of this 
 country greater, not only than that of any of his contempo- 
 raries, but greater than any man ever before exercised in this 
 country." 
 
 If, as Mr. Adams said, this great power threatened the 
 government years ago, what is to be thought of it now, when 
 it has assumed much greater proportions, and is still growing ? 
 The confederated railroads under a single control employ 
 several hundred thousand men, and are capable of much con-
 
 SCO. 50.1 IS GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL PRACTICABLE ? 131 
 
 cert of action for a common end. They are gifted with an 
 omnipresence in business over an immense territory. Before 
 a product can pass from the producer to the consumer, this 
 confederation of carriers must have its toll. It thus becomes 
 a partner in every business, and may even, and often docs, 
 play the part of a dictator. It has grown to be an empire of 
 business within the political empire ; and, not content with 
 sticking to business, it has entered the political field with 
 corporate motives, corrupting legislators to do the work it 
 wants done, and not to do what it does not want done. It has 
 sent its attorneys and officers into both houses of Congress, 
 seated favorite judges to secure friendly verdicts, and suborned 
 others to pervert justice. It is a powerful factor exercising a 
 deeply corrupting influence on the political agencies of this 
 country. Mr. Adams truly says, " The public corruption is the 
 foundation on which corporations depend for their political 
 power"; and he goes on to describe the process. Mr. Adams 
 may have changed his mind since he became a great railroad 
 president, but that docs not invalidate the truths he spoke as 
 a railroad commissioner. 
 
 Is it safe to let this power go on without national effort in 
 the direction of control ? It does not let alone ; it meddles 
 with everything that touches its interests. It goes into the 
 political primaries, into the conventions of both parties, into 
 the campaigns, into the lobbies of legislatures and of Con- 
 gress ; its hand is felt everywhere. Is this growing, meddle- 
 some, autocratic power to be let alone ? Laissez faire presumes 
 free and fair competition ; this power is struggling with some 
 degree of success to strangle competition, and it thereby for- 
 feits its claims to protection under the broad doctrine of 
 laissez faire. 
 
 50. Is GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL PRACTICABLE ? There is 
 a question as to the ability of the government to afford protec- 
 tion against the abuses of business combinations. These com- 
 binations may defy the government and render its acts 
 nugatory, as Congressman Phelps declared in his place last
 
 132 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 winter. But this was hardly more than a threat a remain- 
 ing vestige of the old arrogance, which shows the will rather 
 than the power. Arrogance comes of irresponsible and un- 
 checked power, and contemptuous arrogance was abundantly 
 manifested by railroad magnates when the State legislatures 
 first undertook to deal with them a dozen j-ears ago. Some of 
 the railroads have already so far submitted to State control as 
 to afford a warrant that they are not too strong to be dealt with 
 by the national government. It is to be expected that errors will 
 be made in first attempts, and that repeal and amendment will 
 be necessary to correct and strengthen the work. The great 
 need will be for earnestness and honesty in those who 
 undertake the task, and these are hardly to be had while there 
 are so much ignorance and apathy on the part of the people in 
 general concerning the new problems which arc springing up 
 under the modern conditions, and urgently requiring to be 
 dealt with by all in the interest of all. In this view of the 
 case, the teachings of laissez faire have no application. The 
 people must first be instructed in the methods by which fair 
 competition is circumvented and the aggression of the few 
 against the many made possible and successful ; and secondly, 
 in the means by which the monopolies so established are to 
 be restrained in their taxing power over the earnings of the 
 people. 
 
 With regard to the duty the people owe themselves to see 
 that their government protects them against the power of 
 those institutions it has called into existence by the granting 
 of franchises, it may be said that there is now a pretty gen- 
 eral concensus of intelligent opinion, that there is sufficient 
 encouragement as to the practical nature of the work to war- 
 rant the government in undertaking to do it. "With regard to 
 the governmental control of voluntary combinations which 
 without charters use private capital in such a way as to 
 establish a business tyranny that overcomes competition, limits 
 production or service, and sets its own prices on services 
 rendered or articles produced, there is not the same unanimity
 
 Sec. 50J] IS GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL PRACTICABLE ? 133 
 
 of opinion. There is no doubt a general feeling arising from 
 precedent that there should be no State control when the en- 
 terprise is carried on with private capital and without special 
 powers from the State. But when these enterprises assume 
 industrial functions which belong to civilized life, they directly 
 affect the interests of the people at large, and the people can- 
 not afford to be indifferent to the way in which these industrial 
 functions are performed. If the managers are able to shape 
 their business into a monopoly by arbitrarily crushing com- 
 petition, they obtain an absolute power over markets which 
 should be free, and it becomes the duty of government, under 
 such circumstances, to protect its people. As long as com- 
 petition remains, no matter how many rings are in the busi- 
 ness, the State is in duty bound to let alone. Free and fair 
 competition will of itself usually take care of the interests 
 of all. "When such competition is overthrown and monopoly 
 established by the chicanery of an exclusive ring, there is 
 palpable aggression on the rights of others, an aggression 
 which defies the accepted principles of political economy 
 and outrages the better instincts of civilized life. And 
 are we to be eternally told that all this is legitimate and 
 not to be meddled with ? The government is bound by 
 the alleged purpose of its institution and existence, to interpose 
 resistance. The machinery already exists for doing this. "When 
 a State crushes out a little ring of boatmen on the Erie canal, 
 formed to avoid competition ; and when another State regu- 
 lates elevator charges in the city of Chicago, there is precedent 
 for interference. If it is a violation of common law to exclude 
 competition by combination and extort from the people, it 
 should be dealt with by law. And when it is only a little 
 ring and that, perhaps, not exclusive as in the case of the 
 boatmen when it is only a little ring that is subjected to 
 discipline, the thing seems to be easy and natural enough ; but 
 when the big, exclusive rings are threatened with justice, there 
 is great outcry, and philosophy and political economy are sum- 
 moned in protest against the contemplated outrage to business
 
 134 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [CAflj). VI. 
 
 freedom. Yet it is these very rings that are committing out- 
 rages on business freedom ; and it is for this very reason that 
 it is incumbent on government as the supreme power pledged 
 to the protection of all in the interest of equity, to deal with 
 them. 
 
 Very largely these rings are now able to maintain them- 
 selves under the narrowing of the field of competition by our 
 tariff laws. No doubt a good ma,ny of them would dissolve, 
 if deprived of the protection which a high tariff affords. But 
 it is quite possible that many of them would continue to 
 operate as before, being protected by the nature of their busi- 
 ness. An elevator ring, for example, is not affected directly 
 by tariff laws. With no rival quarries of Waverly sandstone 
 in Canada, the Waverl}* sandstone ring needs no " protection " 
 to enable it to maintain its monopoly. Even with the free- 
 dom of competition which the repeal of high tariff duties 
 would restore, there would still be a field for the governmental 
 supervision of monopoly rings. 
 
 With regard to the third class of cases those adapted to 
 governmental rather than to voluntary management there is 
 likely to be much diversity of opinion as to what cases really 
 belong to this category, There should be a thorough investi- 
 gation previous to action, since ever}' case must stand or fall 
 on its own merits. There are some enterprises considered as 
 worthy which would hardly be carried out at all, if left to 
 voluntary agencies. This is true of most improvements re- 
 quired by civilization and usually made by the State. It may 
 be true, also, of enterprises that are generally regarded as 
 falling properly within the province of voluntary endeavor. 
 As an example we may name the building of the Washington 
 monument. This was undertaken by a voluntary association 
 which proved to be unable to complete the work. Mr. Cor- 
 coran acknowledged this at the dedication services, and in the 
 name of the Association, he thanked Congress for taking hold 
 of the enterprise and completing it. The question here is not 
 whether this particular work was a desirable one ; the question
 
 Sec. 51.1 NEGLECT OP THE POOR, 135 
 
 is whether the people wished it to be done. Perhaps ninety 
 per-cent of the people of the United States would have ex- 
 pressed themselves as favorable to the enterprise, and yet they 
 would not contribute, though perfectly willing to be taxed, for 
 the purpose. This shows how much more efficient than any 
 voluntary association the State may be in executing the pub- 
 lic will. 
 
 The improvement of roads for general travel and traffic may 
 be taken as a type of work of public concern which public 
 authority only is competent to do. To the same category be- 
 long the protection of society against the lawless, provision 
 for the care of the insane, blind, mute, and such unfortunates 
 as have not friends to care for them suitably; also, provision 
 for common school education, and especially for the practical 
 education of those classes whose members are most likely to 
 become discordant elements in society and a burden to the 
 public. Such need for education points to the encouragement 
 of industry and frugality by proper teaching and the establish- 
 ment of people's banks for the security of savings. The care 
 for the needy should by no means be left to private enterprise 
 without concert of action, and sure to encourage in many ways 
 the very evil it is trying to remedy. This tax on society 
 should be equitably borne by all, and the work of relief should 
 be systematically done on the best ascertained rules for accom- 
 plishing the most good with the least evil. It does not set 
 aside the expediency of this course, that instances may be 
 given in which the government meaning well has done more 
 harm than good. The same argument would apply with 
 greater force against private charity. 
 
 51. DOES NEGLECT OP THE POOR FAVOR IMPROVEMENT IN 
 THE RACE ? Perhaps this question is legitimate, since we are 
 referred by high authoritj T to the law of natural selection as 
 if it were or should be operative in society. If the feeble and 
 unfit were cherished and preserved by an overruling power, in a 
 state of nature, the transmission of enfeebled qualities thus 
 made possible would deteriorate the race. This is the law 
 
 13
 
 136 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 of the air, the woods, and the waters where might, cunning, 
 and luck have full swa} T . This law has also prevailed largely 
 among men, and done a great deal to make human history 
 (as well as natural history) what it is. It appears that some 
 of our teachers wish to see this law of the woods in full force 
 among mankind. Hear one of them : " Nature has no system 
 for handicapping superiorities. On the contrary, she gives 
 them full operation. The State in establishing justice does not 
 aim to correct nature in this, but to leave her laws undis- 
 turbed " (Sumner's Collected Essays, 100). This is what the 
 bully at school thinks when he is treating his fellows to some 
 practical experience of his own superiorities. After a few 
 applications of the birch, however, he may discover there is a 
 higher power than his own that is able to inflict penalties for 
 mistaken manifestations of his personal transcendencies. If 
 of a reflective turn of mind, he may begin to realize that it is 
 a function of equity at times to handicap superiorities. The 
 highwayman does not believe in handicapping superiorities 
 when he demands the traveller's purse. It is the law of the 
 woods where the weak become the prey of the strong. The 
 Standard Oil Company lived up to the same law when it beat 
 oil consumers out of $100,000,000. in a few years. There is 
 not a ring of "financial freebooters" with its grip of greed on 
 the people but believes in full range for its business superior- 
 ities, however much its victims suffer financial wrong. Mr. 
 Sumner's pronunciamento might be expressed more tersely 
 thus : " Every fellow for himself, and the devil take the hind- 
 most." [I retain this saying, which was in manuscript several 
 weeks before I saw Dr. I^man Abbott's article in the Century, 
 " Danger Ahead," in which the phrase is used for precisely the 
 same purpose I have used it. Another oft-quoted passage is 
 used to characterize these teachings by the Nation reviewer of 
 Sumner's Collected Essays : " The good old rule, the simple 
 plan, That they should take who have the power, And they 
 should keep who can." ] 
 
 I regret to have to quote Mr. Spencer in this connection.
 
 SeC. SI."] NEGLECT OP THE POOR. 137 
 
 He maintains that the rule of sympathy which holds in the 
 family is altogether out of place in the State. Here the law 
 of selection under the struggle for existence should obtain in 
 order that the fittest shall prevail for the good of society. Ho 
 thinks this so obvious that an apology is needed for naming it. 
 He saj-s : "Arid yet, strange to say, now that this truth is 
 recognized by most cultivated people now that the beneficent 
 working of the survival of the fittest has been so impressed on 
 them that, much more than people in past times, they might 
 be expected to hesitate before neutralizing its action now 
 more than ever before in the history of the world are they 
 doing all they can to further survival of the unfittest (Man vs. 
 State, 69). 
 
 I cannot make out just what this passage means. It seems 
 to have in view a state of things that cannot exist in civil- 
 ization. Efforts will be made to prevent people, however 
 worthless, from starving to death and from dying in crowds 
 amidst filth and disease. The law of the woods cannot be en- 
 forced here, and if it could, it would prove fatal to civilization. 
 In taking measures for the survival of the unfittest, the fittest 
 may be actually taking measures for their own preservation. 
 If the passage has reference to the operation of the economical 
 laws, then is there in it an assumption that is greatly in need 
 of proof. The assumption is : Under unchecked conflict and 
 strife in the woods, the fittest survive and multiply, making 
 the race viable and vigorous ; therefore, the same results must 
 follow in society under the struggle to get on in the world, and 
 " those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong which 
 leave so many in ' shallows and in miseries ' " (Social Statics, 
 323), arc to be regarded as means of improving the condition 
 of society under the working of this natural law. The assump- 
 tion is that those who are too weak to maintain their ground 
 in society, naturally go to the wall and are eliminated, as the 
 brutes are that prove to be too weak to maintain their ground 
 in a state of nature. Is this the case, however ? Is it the law 
 of population that the economically strong in society multiply
 
 138 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [C%O/X VI. 
 
 faster than the economically weak ? Is not the reverse true ? 
 The very strongest in an economical sense those who fill the 
 highest places in society do very little toward multiplying 
 and filling the earth with a vigorous and prosperous race. 
 Such families are liable to become sterile and run out. Then 
 take the great well-to-do middle classes ; are they remarkable 
 for prolificacy? . They might, indeed, raise very large families 
 with a fair degree of comfort, but generally they do not ; and 
 it is noticeable that generally in this class, the size of the fam- 
 ily bears no proportion, unless it be an inverse proportion, to 
 the means of supporting a family. Why this want of prolificacy 
 among the well-to-do ? They have a position in society which 
 they want to maintain, and they can do this better with small 
 than with large families. But, whatever may be the cause, 
 we know that, in this country at least, the fairly well-to-do are 
 not prolific as a rule and are constantly becoming less so. 
 How is it with the lowest strata of all ? Go to the negro huts 
 in the South and to the habitations of poor whites everywhere 
 to see broods of children. " The poor man for babies," says 
 the proverb. Why so ? People who feel themselves reduced 
 to the verge of want become reckless in the most important 
 concerns of life, they marry earty and breed without stint. It 
 is these that arc filling up the earth, so that Mr. Spencer's 
 main prop to the doctrine that it should be in society as it is 
 in the woods, falls to the ground. This assumption runs 
 through Mr. Spencer's entire treatment of the subject. He 
 opposes taxing the taxable for charitable purposes because it 
 makes the struggle of life harder for the worthy to bear, and 
 weakens their power to multiply, while it adds, as it is in- 
 tended to add, to such power among the " good for nothings." 
 He wants such return to the labor of the worthy man " as will 
 enable him to thrive and rear offspring in proportion to the 
 superiorities which make him valuable to himself and others 
 (Man vs. State, p. 66); and he asks, "Will any one contend 
 that no mischief will result if the lowly endowed are enabled 
 to thrive and multiply as much as, or more than, the highly
 
 SeC. 51.] NEGLECT OF THE POOR. 139 
 
 endowed ?" It is the highly endowed, as Mr. Spencer has 
 elsewhere shown us (Biology, Vol. II, 403-411) that do not 
 greatly multiply. 
 
 Mr. Spencer's treatment of this subject involves several 
 assumptions : 1. If special care is not taken to preserve the 
 good-for-nothings, they will not multiply. 2. Government is an 
 arbitrary and not a natural institution. 3. Whatever comes 
 about by the action of the social forces independent of the 
 government is in the order of nature : Whence it follows 
 that society is right enough in the conduct of its forces if the 
 government will only let it alone. That form of interference 
 against which Mr. Spencer's complaint seems mainly to lie, is 
 that which aims at some kind of good work b}* direct legisla- 
 tion. Now, we know very well that governments may do a 
 great deal of harm by injudicious laws of this class ; but we 
 fear it may also do a great deal of harm by using direct leg- 
 islation to make the aggressively strong stronger still. This 
 has been the leading form of governmental wrong-doing in all 
 times past, and there is still a great deal of it. This is seen 
 in the granting of franchises which may be made by unscrupu- 
 lous men to deepen the inequalities of life. And again, we fear 
 that selfish and strong men may do by voluntary association 
 what animals cannot do : they may take an economical advant- 
 age which the many have not the power by voluntary associa- 
 tion to resist, thus illustrating those " shoulderings aside of the 
 weak by the strong which leave so many ' in shallows and in 
 miseries ' " to become reckless in marriage and in multiplying. 
 These are the perversions and abuses of power that make the 
 struggle of life harder for the worthy to bear ; but it did not 
 appear to come within the range of Mr. Spencer's treatment of 
 the subject even to mention them. 
 
 A study of the methods of these business combinations 
 with and without formal franchises, would bring out at once 
 the difference between men and animals in regard to the course 
 of natural selection. Mr. Spencer protests against taking 
 the law of sympathy in the family as the law for guidance.
 
 140 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Ckap. VI. 
 
 in statesmanship ; we protest against taking the law of natural 
 selection among animals as the law for guidance in dealing 
 with human society. Among animals the phenomenon is 
 limited to the struggle between individuals almost wholly, and 
 the survival of the victor is almost sure to be the survival of the 
 fittest. Among men the morally obnoxious, those having least 
 sympathy and sense of justice, may combine against the more 
 sympathetic and generous to prey upon them like vampires. 
 The survival of the victors in such cases, when viewed by high- 
 er principles, is the survival of the unfittest ; and, if they mul- 
 tiply as Mr. Spencer's logic assumes, they would fill the earth 
 with moral degeneracy. Fortunately, however, their natural in- 
 crease is quite limited, and by a happy principle of compensa- 
 tion, the evil done is avenged by the extermination of such. 
 
 To neglect the weak and deteriorated elements in society, 
 would result in reckless multiplication and further deteriora- 
 tion in the general tone of society. It is the multiplication of 
 the worst that prevents general education from making any 
 considerable progress. The only hope is in improving the con- 
 ditions of life among the lowly classes, and encouraging them 
 to help themselves. Neglect will not have this effect. Only 
 their realization of the fact that those more powerful than 
 themselves feel an interest in them and are earnestly and 
 cheerfully devising measures to enable them to meet by their 
 own endeavors under just conditions the hardships of life, 
 only when they realize this will they lay aside the feelings of 
 jealousy, animosity, and desperation now stirred in them by 
 aristocratic contempt, and acquire that sense of personal worth 
 which is necessary to growth in the manly elements of char- 
 acter. It seems to be a superficial view of the subject that 
 supposes a virtue in natural selection where nothing is natural, 
 and where the greatest accessions to human freedom have been 
 achieved for the many by binding the self-selected few in the 
 chains of law. 
 
 It is true, the doctrine of selection has a certain bearing on 
 the movements of society. All the social forces are acting
 
 SeC. 51] NEGLECT OP THE POOR. 141 
 
 under resistance ; and, when the contest is between legal and 
 personal government, the survival of the fittest appears to be 
 establishing more and more the legal control of those agents 
 in society that are most given to the abuse of their privileges. 
 History shows that in the struggle for existence there has been 
 some weeding out of unfit institutions ; but the doctrine of 
 natural selection has no application, among men as among 
 animals, to the work of weeding out the unfittest as individ- 
 uals. I had supposed that it was the general opinion among 
 scientific men, that, since the devising brain and supple hand 
 came into use, natural selection had little or nothing to do 
 with the further evolution of the man as an individual, but 
 only as a part of society. The devices of a genius were for the 
 good of his kindred as well as of himself, and the extension 
 of such devices to others was only limited by the measure of 
 ability to understand and adopt them. The strong arms of 
 the sj-mpathetic protected their fellows as well as themselves ; 
 and thus it was that evolution affected society as a whole, and 
 not the individual, except as he constituted a part of that 
 society. The peoples strongest in survival have been those 
 who were able to combine isolated individual powers into one 
 for the good of the whole ; and such combinations require not 
 only individual intellect, but common sj-nipathy and the 
 restraint of present impulse. And thus it is that the principle 
 of selection among mankind has directly acted upon institutions 
 and aggregates of people, rather than on isolated individuals. 
 In society, our "lower classes" are indispensable to the 
 existence of the " higher classes." The working classes, weak 
 as they are in some ways, are yet strong in other ways ; and 
 the fabric of society would be frail, indeed, were it not for the 
 strength they bring to it. If this view be correct, it would 
 appear to be the duty of society to care for them above all 
 things to be just to them in the higher sense of justice, that 
 they maj' become stronger in their own behalf, and by their 
 ver3 r independence afford additional strength and safety to the 
 general structure of society.
 
 142 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 52. ARE THE BEATEN IN LIFE WORTH CARING FOR ? In 
 looking at the relation of classes as revealed in history, in 
 witnessing what their relations are now, and in seeing the 
 light in which the so-called higher classes for the most part 
 regard the lower, one is almost led to inquire whether it has 
 not been in the order of things for the greater numbers of 
 mankind to be in many ways subordinate to a smaller number. 
 It is true that the masses are not now chattel slaves, nor do 
 they appear to be quite as much as formerly " food for powder," 
 still they are under conditions "cribbed, cabined, and con- 
 fined," creators of wealth that is not theirs, of comforts and 
 luxuries they cannot have, of conditions the}- cannot enjoy. 
 And, since their deprivations can be traced apparently in a 
 large measure to their own remissness and mismanagement, 
 there appears to be room for the question whether they are 
 worthy of the solicitude which sympathetic people feel for 
 them. Perhaps the cynic who lets the world take its course 
 without the least effort or apparent wish to change it, enjoj'ing 
 the defeats equally with the victories in life, may be about 
 right after all. Perhaps the fine classes of society could not 
 exist at all, if they had not a substratum of coarseness and 
 vulgarity to rest on. Now, while it is probable that there 
 always will be classes in society, it hardty seems necessary that 
 there shall always be the same inequality in the means of 
 enjoying life. While, at one extreme, there is too much for 
 comfort, at the other extreme there is not enough. Long hours 
 of hard labor with uncertainty of employment make life so 
 meagre and wretched for the many that only beings of coarse 
 and simple tastes can endure it. Between these and the cult- 
 ured there is a great gap which prevents an exchange of the 
 sympathy and good offices of a common humanity. By this 
 the higher are deprived of an experience that is needful to 
 make up a greater fulness of life than the)* now have. And 
 so far as the poor lose the power of self-support, they become 
 something more than a social vacuity without power to bless ; 
 they become a positive burden on the well-to-do, and bring
 
 Sec. 52.~] ARE THE BEATEN IN LIFE WORTH CARING FOR ? 143 
 
 upon the whole social body a painful experience. The higher 
 cannot divorce themselves from the lower; and hence it 
 becomes the interest of every class, however independent it 
 may feel, that all classes shall have such conditions of life as 
 are necessary to the greatest practical fulness of manhood and 
 womanhood. It is for this reason that the preying of the strong 
 upon the weak, whether in the physical or economical sphere, 
 is as short-sighted and suicidal as any gratification of a pre- 
 sent impulse which ends in suffering the penalty of a violated 
 law. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer discusses this subject with clear insight 
 and a noble spirit in his work on Social Statics. At the close 
 of a convincing statement, in which he maintains that, as all 
 the classes in society mutually affect one another, their moral 
 status must be very much alike, he says : "Thus the alleged 
 homogeneity of national character is abundantly exemplified. 
 And so long as the assimilating influences productive of it 
 continue to work, it is folly to suppose any one grade of a 
 community can be morally different from the rest. In which- 
 ever rank you see corruption, be assured it equally pervades 
 all ranks be assured it is the symptom of a bad social 
 diathesis. "Whilst the virus of depravity exists in one part of 
 the body politic, no other part can remain healthy" (p. 232). 
 It is in accordance with this principle that American society 
 has become " materialized " from top to bottom. The facilities 
 for " making money " have brought about a general furor of 
 acquisition, and the mushroom millionaire is the beau ideal 
 of the youthful American. His name is in all the newspapers, 
 and we envy him his gains when we condemn his methods. 
 These plutocratic tendencies exercise a debauching influence 
 at both ends of the social scale, and the middle is far from 
 being exempt from it. With such a spirit pervading all the 
 leading forces of society, it is easy enough to forget the 
 beaten, and feel that, whatever may become of them, the 
 superior grades of society will suffer no harm. But, on Mr. 
 Spencer's showing of the moral homogeneity of society, this
 
 144 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 is a mistake, and all must suffer together. Then, there is 
 reason enough, why all possible measures should be taken to 
 prevent the impoverishment and degradation of the "lower 
 strata " in society. This hardly indicates a policy of laissez 
 faire under which the strong shoulder aside the weak and 
 leave them struggling with adversity in the face of bad 
 example, and damaging the tone of the entire society. Have 
 not just men something to do here in regard to the course 
 governmental action shall take ? 
 
 53. THE TYRANNY OP MAJORITIES. Those extremists who 
 would eviscerate government and prepare it for survival as a 
 safe and inoffensive cadavre, appear to be quite unnecessarily 
 alarmed about tyranny in the assumption by the State of new 
 functions. When government was much more simple than now, 
 its despotism was even greater. A government's assumption of 
 new functions is not necessarily an infringement on the sphere 
 of individual action. On the contrary the sphere of individual 
 action may enlarge while the functions of the government are 
 extending into new fields. Not only this, but such extension of 
 governmental supervision may become absolutely necessary to 
 prevent the multiplication of undue interferences with personal 
 rights by the "bullies" of finance. The further civilization 
 advances, the more intimate and closely related do human 
 relations become, and hence the necessity of a strong and 
 thoroughly organized head for the adjustment of relations 
 among the diversified factors of society. To illustrate : Our 
 railroad system has established new conditions, to which all 
 legitimate business must conform itself on the presumption 
 that railroad management will be uniform and fair. But when 
 contracts arc given favorite shippers at 15 cents per hundred 
 from Cincinnati to New York, and then freights suddenly 
 raised on all other shippers to 31 cents per hundred, thus 
 weighting the latter with shackles which prevent the fulfilling 
 of their contracts ; or, again, when the pool suddenly raises 
 freight, as in 1882, 50 per cent from New York to Chicago, or, 
 as in 1880, 200 per cent from Chicago to New York; there is
 
 Sec. 53. ] THE TYRANNY OP MAJORITIES. 145 
 
 in such railroad management a violation of justice and u 
 restriction of individual liberty. If the government can pre- 
 vent such arbitrary business management, it will at the same 
 time prevent the violation of justice and the restriction of 
 business freedom which results from such violation. When- 
 ever one party asserts so much freedom as to interfere with 
 the equal rights of others, he should be summoned before the 
 proper tribunal to be dealt with in the interests of common 
 justice. And, if civilized government has no such tribunal, it 
 is at fault, and should establish one. Such exercise of gov- 
 ernmental power becomes necessary to individual freedom, and 
 is not, as Laissez Faire assumes, an abridgement of it. I am 
 conscious that this is but common place, but I reassert it to 
 say that we have the high authority of Herbert Spencer for 
 this view of the case. 
 
 There is one point on which the opposite extremists quite 
 agree. Those who would reduce the government almost to a 
 nullity are apt to lump together all acts of governmental in- 
 terference and put them under ban in common. Thus, in a 
 recent review in a high-toned journal, of Mr. Spencer's work, 
 " The Man versus the State," the granger action against rail- 
 road extortion and discrimination in the West is named along 
 with sumptuary prohibition, as if both were equally and in like 
 manner violations of personal liberty. In the same waj-, those 
 who look with a superstitious reverence to the State as the 
 source of "the chief good" and the corrector of all evil, lump 
 together all forms of governmental interference, and assume 
 that if any one form is salutary, all the other forms must be. 
 That is, if it is right for the State to prevent the adulteration 
 of food, it is equally right to forbid to all the use of alcoholic 
 beverages and stop their manufacture by destroying without 
 compensation industries which have been honorable (as wine- 
 making) since the beginning of civilization, and which have all 
 along been carried on under the protection of the State. The 
 confounding of unlike things in the first case given comes from 
 the plutocratic bias ; in the other case, it comes from the vague
 
 146 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 thinking which accompanies an overwrought condition of the 
 sympathies. 
 
 Now, we do not believe that, under governmental action on 
 such matters, this confounding of things so unlike is going to 
 occur to a very large extent, or to be kept up long at a time 
 in any direction. Such action can take place only under re- 
 sistance, and, when it takes a wrong course, it will fail 
 of execution like " prohibition," or be repealed like the laws 
 providing secondary punishments for capital crimes. But the 
 fact that the principle of interference is liable to be misunder- 
 stood and misapplied, is no proof that it is not valid, no reason 
 why it should not be acted on. Every correct principle of action 
 is liable to abuse. Mr. Spencer admits of such restrictions on 
 the individual as are "needful for preventing him from directly 
 or indirectly aggressing on his fellows needful, that is, for 
 maintaining the liberties of his fellows against his invasions 
 of them : restraints which are, therefore, to be distinguished 
 as negatively coercive, not positively coercive" (Man vs. State, 
 16). This would warrant the governmental regulation of rail- 
 roads and rings when they establish monopoly by breaking 
 down competition. But it is difficult to understand what ob- 
 jectionable restriction on the individual would be imposed, for 
 example, by a system of national education. There must be 
 rules and restraints even in voluntary systems of education. It 
 is difficult to undertand whose liberty would be offensively 
 abridged by protecting women and children against long hours 
 and unhealthy conditions in manufactories. The tyranny of 
 the employer and of the husband and father might be abated 
 in the interest of common humanity, that is all. If the State 
 should take telegraphy out of the hands of a " financial free- 
 booter " who has secured good dividends on stock two-thirds 
 water, and should furnish the people with telegraphing facil- 
 ities at cost, a burden would be lifted from he entire public, 
 and business freedom would have wider range under better 
 business conditions. Nobody would be hurt by such measures 
 of governmental interference or management, except the ex-
 
 Sec. 53, .] THE TYRANNY OP MAJORITIES. 147 
 
 tortionist, and he has no more right to exemption from the 
 correcting hand of government than the robber or the slave 
 monger. 
 
 Most of the cases in which the government assumes to act 
 for the general good, are not such as are determined by mere 
 majorities. They are usually undertaken by a sort of common 
 consent, not even provoking criticism from the party out of 
 power. Our own Interior Department with its numerous rami- 
 fications, of recent institution, is a case in point. At any rate, 
 the assumption of a new regulative agency, if not by unani- 
 mous consent, is usual!}- by thousands against hundreds; 
 and we have Mr. Spencer's authority for giving preference to 
 the thousands rather than to the hundreds (Social Statics, 221). 
 The battle has alwa}*s been fought before there is an attempt 
 to put the innovation into a practical form. The great diffi- 
 cult}-, in this country at least, is in getting regulative instru- 
 mentalities established, even after the desire has become al- 
 most unanimous to have them established. This is very plainly 
 suggested by the speeches of congressmen on regulating rail- 
 road management. And the government will never assume the 
 ownership and control of telegraph lines till there is at least 
 ten in favor of it to one against it that one being a doctri- 
 naire or an interested stockholder. This alarm about the ty- 
 ranny of majorities has little more than a theoretical founda- 
 tion ; it is the tyranny of the banded minorities that is stealth- 
 ily deepening the inequalities of life and preparing trouble 
 for the future. 
 
 It is not at all likely that the difficulties of this problem 
 will everywhere be dealt with in the same manner. In the 
 smaller nationalities of Europe there is a greater drift than in 
 this country to State ownership and management. This is 
 seen in their dealing with railroads and telegraphs. (Cyclopae- 
 dia of Political Science, Art. Railways by Simon Sterne. Also, 
 C. F. Adams' work on Railroad Problems.) In this very much 
 larger country of ours, this tendency will doubtless not be so 
 
 strong. The mind hesitates in view of the tremendous exec- 
 14
 
 148 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. [Chap. VI. 
 
 utive machinery necessary to manage the business of our great 
 lines of commerce, travel, and intelligence. Some of these ma}' 
 be taken in hand by the government. The telegraph system 
 probably ought to be ; but, generally, it may be expected that 
 the government will establish only supervision, allowing the 
 management to remain in charge of the companies. Wherever 
 monopoly is established, the State must interpose. It is 
 probable that, under the tendencies toward large establish- 
 ments under one head, we shall have a body of exclusive in- 
 dustries regulated by the States and general government, so as 
 to prevent as far as possible the abuse of power on the part 
 of corporations, combinations, syndicates, and rings. 
 
 The great difficulty in this matter is to be found in the 
 power which selfish interests are acquiring over the govern- 
 ment, in order to thwart the attempts made to inaugurate a 
 people's policy. The banking, railway, and high tariff powers 
 are especially strong in Congress, and some of them are always 
 strong in the administrative departments at Washington. It 
 is difficult, indeed, under the present outlook, to conceive 
 what may be the remedy for the perversion of method in pop- 
 ular government. I would be glad to feel assured that there 
 is an efficacious remedy; and I would cheerfully do the little 
 I may be able to do, to strengthen the tendencies which bear 
 against the prevalence of class rule. The plain statement of 
 the case is that the people do not properly share in the benig- 
 nities of the government, because of their own ignorance and 
 apathy in presence of aggressive agencies which they ought to 
 resist. Certain classes secure government favors and the people 
 are made to pay for them without knowing it. 1 do not like to 
 settle down in the conviction that this is always to be so. 
 
 In studying the relation of the stronger to the weaker classes 
 in society and the relation of reproduction to social condition, 
 together with the means whereby certain classes have acquired 
 and now maintain their supremacy, we may find perhaps an 
 indication of the line along which endeavor must be made in 
 order to secure the best results for society in general.
 
 Sec. 54-~\ EQUITY IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 149 
 
 NOTE TO SEC. 51. There are two leading conditions especially favor- 
 able to the natural increase of human heings. One of these conditions 
 is to be found in new countries. A living is here easily secured, and 
 the standing of members in society easy to maintain, because aristoc- 
 racy has not yet made its appearance. Under such circumstances there 
 is no stint on multiplication, marriage takes place early in life and 
 families are uniformly large. There is room inviting population, and 
 the supply is forthcoming. This condition of prolificacy is recognized 
 by Montesquieu, Adam Smith, J. R. McCulloch, and many others; and 
 Mr. Spencer may have been thinking of it when he wrote his chapter 
 on " The Sins of Legislators." 
 
 The other condition referred to is that which we find usually in man- 
 ufacturing districts and among the less ambitious classes everywhere. 
 Here also marriages are early and families large. That this is true, a 
 little observation will convince anyone. Roscher says that "nothing 
 leads men so much into contracting reckless marriages as the total 
 absence of any prospect of amelioration of their condition in the fu- 
 ture." And again: " Every class multiplies the more rapidly the less, 
 according to its notions, is required to establish a family." Joseph 
 Gamier observes: "Over-population is generally produced by misery, 
 the essential characteristic of which is improvidence, which leads to 
 premature marriages." According to Thornton, "Misery, the inevit- 
 able effect and symptom of over-population, seems to be likewise its 
 principal promoter." And he thinks it will "be found that wher- 
 ever population has received an undue influence, the people have been 
 first rendered reckless by privation." This condition of rapid increase 
 in population could hardly have been present to Mr. Spencer's con- 
 sciousness when he wrote his chapter on " The Sins of Legislators." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE RADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 54. EQUITY IN THE DISTRIBUTION OP WEALTH. Says my 
 critic : " General results are against you ; see the general 
 prosperity everywhere never was the world so well off; why 
 all this complaint ? If corporations, syndicates, rings, com- 
 binations, were getting more than their share, and getting it 
 out of the masses of the people, we should not have such gen- 
 eral prosperity; jou must be mistaken." Let us look over 
 this matter in a general way, and see. The results you speak
 
 150 HE EADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. [.Chap. VII. 
 
 of by no means set aside the positive proofs of economic ad- 
 vantage unjustly pressed by the strong to the detriment of the 
 weak. Conditions may be such are such, indeed, that the 
 public can stand a great deal of bleeding without depletion. 
 A robust man, well nourished and saving of his strength, may 
 suffer blood-letting year after j'ear, and still remain a robust 
 man ; in like manner those among the masses who are indus- 
 trious, well-managing and economical, may stand the habitual 
 loss of substance by covert extortion, and still prosper. But 
 let the man who has lost blood become in some way overtaxed 
 by exertion under exposure, and he may suddenly succumb ; 
 it is just so with those who are bled in business. Every 
 period of commercial depression sends thousands down the 
 social scale who would not have gone down but for the con- 
 stant bleeding they are compelled to endure. 
 
 I am well aware that statisticians Giffen, Mulhall, Laugh- 
 lin, have produced the solid figures to show that there is a 
 general levelling up in the economic scale ; that the well-to-do 
 classes are not only gaining in relative numbers, but are be- 
 coming constantly better off, while the lower classes are rising 
 under conditions of general improvement. Let us admit that 
 there is no neglected factor in these statistical showings, and 
 that all classes are improving in opportunity and condition ; 
 then the query occurs, are the lower classes gaining as much 
 as they should gain under the increased facilities of modern 
 life for the production of wealth ? 
 
 In some industries one man will produce as much now as 
 one hundred could fifty years ago, and generally, there has 
 been an immense multiplication of human power over the 
 forces of nature. Have the masses received their full benefit 
 of this increase of industrial power ? They drink more tea 
 and coffee, eat more meat, and are better housed, and their 
 wages are higher, we are told. But have these wages gained 
 at all in proportion to the increased facilities of production and 
 advantages which some other classes receive therefrom ? If so, 
 why have millionaires sprung up, in later times, almost like
 
 Sec. 54.~\ EQUITY IN THE DISTRIBUTION OP WEALTH. 151 
 
 mushrooms, in a night ? millionaires commanding hundreds 
 of millions, while it requires whole columns of fine statistics 
 to prove that the laboring classes have gained anything? 
 Even if the statistics show that there has been improvement 
 in the condition of the working masses, they do not show 
 enough ; they should show that this improvement in wages, 
 living, &c., has kept pace with the facilities for the production 
 of wealth. 
 
 While the statisticians are at it, let them look a little further 
 in this field. The virgin lands millions of acres of fresh soil 
 with all its stores of native fertility, in America and Australia, 
 have been contributing to the general wealth of the civilized 
 world for the last half century as they never did before. This 
 advantage must be added to that of improved machinery for 
 manufacturing and transportation. These statisticians tell us 
 that wages have greatly increased in Great Britain during the 
 last half century; but would the} 7 have so increased if there 
 had been no new countries to draw off the surplus popula- 
 tion ? If there had been no migration, all these millions would 
 have remained competing for work in the old county-; and 
 every economist not blinded by some optimistic haze knows 
 that under such competition, wages would be far lower, and 
 the laboring classes far worse off, than they are. Then the 
 rise in wages has been due, not only to improvement in ma- 
 chinery and the cheapening of products, but to the emigration 
 of surplus population and the development of resources in the 
 new countries. Emigration has not only relieved the tensity 
 of competition for wages, but it has helped develop the new 
 countries, and so helped the laborers who remained at home 
 to cheaper living, thus contributing doubly to increase their 
 wages. Machinery may not improve as much in the near 
 future as it has improved in the near past ; the better parts 
 of the new countries are rapidly filling up, and, when full, no 
 more surplus from a population increasing as rapidly as ever, 
 can be drawn off ; what will be the condition of the laborer 
 then ? If life is a struggle with him now, what will it be
 
 152 THE RADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. [Chap. VII. 
 
 then ? They tell us that the laborer's condition is not only 
 better now, but that it will continue to improve. This does not 
 follow necessarily from the fact of recent improvements ; the 
 status of the laborer sometimes goes backward, as it did from 
 the 16th century till late in the 18th century (Sec. 5). 
 
 There is some question about the real character of those 
 benefits which laboring people have received. Under existing 
 conditions, the higher order of living which the masses may 
 enjoy has its drawbacks, which appear very conspicuously 
 ever}' season of commercial depression, when these people by 
 the hundreds of thousands arc out of employment and out 
 of bread. Then it is that their higher living becomes a source 
 of suffering and discontent. With higher living there needs 
 to be steady employment; but, with the increasing!}* large estab- 
 lishments of modern industrial life, the employment of labor- 
 ers is becoming constantly more uncertain. Because of higher 
 living the stores are sooner exhausted when there is no fund 
 with which to replenish them, and the contrast of want with 
 plent} r is more keenly felt It is in this country that this 
 phase of the situation is developing itself most fully. Besides 
 the absorption of smaller into larger industrial establishments, 
 which, as a cause of uncertainty in the demand for labor, can- 
 not be changed, there are two other causes of uncertainly. 
 These two are especially active in bringing about the condi- 
 tions of forced idleness to thousands of people who would be 
 glad to work. The first of these causes is general ; it is the 
 constantly increasing purchasing power of the unit of value 
 under the continued operation of gold monometallism. I have 
 elsewhere stated how this depresses business and bears with 
 severity on the most dependent classes (Sec. 27). The other 
 cause relates especially to this countr}- : it is our high " pro- 
 tective tariff." Protection has the effect of stimulating certain 
 kinds of business for a time. This makes a demand for labor- 
 ers, and it is partly due to this stimulus that the influx of for- 
 eigners into this country has been so great during the last 
 twenty years. Many of these have been induced to come here
 
 Sec. 54-~] EQUITY IN THE DISTRIBUTION OP WEALTH. 153 
 
 to supplant striking operatives, and were promised good wages 
 without reduction, which promises have not been kept, because, 
 probably, they could not be; and now, at this very writing 
 (July, 1885), thousands of such are out of work and in want. 
 The reaction will first make itself painfully felt in this country, 
 because the very thing which relieves the old countries and 
 helps the wage-earning classes there, is at the present time 
 weighting us, and causing a decline in wages here. 
 
 Mr. Carroll D. "Wright, one of our ablest statisticians, pre- 
 sents the figures to show that from 1860 to 1881 wages had 
 declined, as compared with the prices of commodities. He 
 says (Princeton Keview, July 1882): '-From 1860 to 1878 there 
 was an average increase of wages of 24.4 percent; of prices 
 [cost of living], of 14.9 per cent. From 1878 to December, 
 1881, there was an average increase in wages of G.9 per cent, 
 and in prices of 21 per cent ; and covering the whole period 
 of 21 years, there was an average increase in wages of 31.2 
 per cent, and in prices of 41.3 per cent. That is, between 
 1860 and 1881, the workingman has suffered a reduction of 10 
 per cent in the purchasing power of his wages, and this be- 
 tween a dead level year and one of general prosperity." If 
 the laborer was worse off in 1881, a prosperous year, than in 
 1860, what are we to think of his condition now, in 1885, 
 when so many cannot get work at all, and so many others only 
 part of the time at greatly reduced wages ? Does this look as 
 if the laboring classes were getting their full share of benefit 
 from the improvement of machinery and the development of 
 new countries ? 
 
 I shall not attempt any analysis of Dr. Giffen's figures. The 
 wages laborers may get per day or per week is becoming less 
 and less an indication of what laborers really earn per year. 
 There are so many stoppages to let the demand for products 
 catch up with the supply, that an operative never knows what 
 hour his pay will stop. That laborers are putting more into 
 savings institutions than formerly, is largely due to the facil- 
 ities for safe deposit of surplus earnings which have been pro-
 
 154 THE RADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. [Chap. VII. 
 
 vided in European countries, and to the stimulus to saving 
 afforded by a special education having this particular object in 
 view. Again, Dr. Giffen's own figures show that in England 
 the very wealthy are increasing in numbers far more rapidly 
 than the well-to do. Those whose incomes are from $2000 to 
 $3000, increased less than 250 per cent in thirty-seven years 
 from 1843 to 1880, while those whose incomes are from $50,- 
 000 to $250,000, increased in the same time nearly 400 per 
 cent, and those with incomes above $250,000 increased 850 
 per cent. This eminent statistician thinks this a small matter, 
 however, because those with large incomes are so few ! He 
 forgets that they make up for their lack of numbers in the 
 bulk of wealth they control. In 1880, there were 785 persons 
 with incomes from $50,000 to $250,000, indicating a capital 
 ranging from one million to five millions each ; while there 
 were 68 persons with incomes of more than $250,000, indica- 
 ting a capital of more than $5,000,000 each. The 853 persons 
 having more than $50,000 income received one-eighth of the 
 taxable income of all Great Britain with a population of 
 thirty-seven millions. Another fact to be noted is that these 
 large incomes include little or nothing comparatively for sala- 
 ries, these being included in the smaller incomes ; whence it 
 follows that even these figures do not fully show the rapid 
 concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. They show 
 a good deal, however, and Dr. Giffen's plutocratic bias cannot 
 conceal the fact which his figures so plainly reveal. [I learn 
 that Mr. "Wallace and others have examined Dr. Giffen's tables 
 and fully exploded his inferences. I have not seen these crit- 
 icisms ; they appear to have been much less extensively circu- 
 lated than the original essay.] 
 
 In this country we have no income tax, and, I believe, no 
 statistics which enable us to determine the tendencies toward 
 the concentration of wealth. It can hardly be less than it is 
 in England ; it is probably greater, owing to the greater suc- 
 cess with which the government has been manipulated for the 
 benefit of privileged interests. The statistics show a large in-
 
 SeC. 54'~\ EQUITY IN THE DISTRIBUTION OP WEALTH. 155 
 
 crease in the number of large farms and a falling off in the 
 number of small farms. This tendency, which is even greater 
 than the defective statistics show (Reforms, Sec. 12), is one of 
 the significant indications of the times, which tells us something 
 about the drift of acquisition. There is not a figure or fact to 
 show that the lower and middle classes are receiving their fair 
 share of the advantages afforded by the new industrial forces. 
 The entire drift of the facts and figures goes to show that 
 they are not receiving what is justly their due according to 
 the work they perform. There are no facts and figures to 
 offset those which relate to the monopoty advantages of cor- 
 porations and rings in securing a part of the earnings of those 
 who are unable to combine for self-protection. No doubt the 
 rich would gain in property much more rapidly than the 
 merely well-to-do, even without governmental aid ; but, when 
 the government by class legislation directly and indirectly 
 favors monopoly interests, it aids and abets the concentration 
 of wealth into the hands of the few. It is not difficult to see 
 the operation of these tendencies ; but, in this 3'oung country, 
 there is still so much of the vigor of economical youth that 
 the people do not feel it greatly when they are bled, but bled 
 they are none the less. Any sapping operation going on so 
 steadily as this will tell in time, and tell fatally. 
 
 I agree with those economists who hold that condition of 
 society to be best in which there are none very rich and as 
 few as possible very poor. With the least contrast in condi- 
 tion there might be less wealth, but there would be more con- 
 tentment and well-being. " A country is infinitely safer, infi- 
 nitel} 7 stronger, infinitely more capable of genuine progress, in 
 which the many are in comfort and content, than that is in 
 which much wealth is accumulated, but the process of dis- 
 tribution is artificial!}' hindered " (Rogers). But a state of 
 society in which there is equitable distribution depends on 
 conditions which do not now exist, and it is not to be ex- 
 pected. It can only be approximated by a gradual change in 
 the education of the great masses of the people ; and this edu-
 
 156 THE RADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. [Chap. VII. 
 
 cation must be had before the people can discharge fully the 
 duty they owe to themselves. 
 
 55. THE MEANS OP REMEDYING CLASS INJUSTICE. Now, if 
 the masses are falling short in the advantages which civilization 
 affords, with the inevitable prospect of falling short still more 
 as civilization progresses and the new countries come to have 
 less and less room for surplus population, the simple, practical 
 explanation of it is that they are worsted in the struggle with 
 the stronger classes. And, if less wealth falls to the lot of the 
 many than should do so in equity, then is there more wealth 
 falling into the hands of the stronger few than is justly theirs. 
 What comes in violation of equity cannot in all ways thrive 
 any more than what comes in violation of the personal liberty 
 of human beings. The strong financial classes use combina- 
 tion in legal and voluntary forms to carry their ends. They 
 arc intelligent and comparatively few, and can readily com- 
 bine, while the masses are less intelligent and so numerous 
 and diverse that they cannot combine for successful resistance. 
 But suppose they could so establish voluntary organization as 
 to deal efficiently with organized and aggressive interests, they 
 could only do so by virtue of the very power which govern- 
 ment exercises. When we have effective organization, by 
 whatever name called, to deal with tyrann} r and wrong, we 
 have government. Take, for example, the committees of pub- 
 lic safety which have been established from time to time, for 
 dealing with certain evils, either in the absence of efficient 
 government, or in case the actual government has fallen into 
 corrupt hands. Boards of trade make their laws and execute 
 them ; and all this is government. 
 
 There are different kinds of superstition about government : 
 One kind regards it as a kind of omnipotence that is capable 
 of doing away with all evil and securing all good. The other 
 kind regards government as essentially a despotic power ever 
 threatening the freedom and substance of the people. Accord- 
 ing to this kind of superstition, State beaurocracy is essen- 
 tially antagonistic to the people ; and, as it is organized, ita
 
 Sec. 55.] THE MEANS OP REMEDYING CLASS INJUSTICE. 157 
 
 encroachments on right cannot be resisted, and, therefore, the 
 remedy for this growing evil is to do away with beaurocracy, 
 and shrink up the government into as small a compass as pos- 
 sible. There may be some plausibility in this extreme view. 
 Government officials, like other high-toned classes, are apt to 
 cohere under the class bias, as if thc} r were superior and 
 entitled to privileges which the common herd of mankind 
 should not have. But so far as this state of things exists, it 
 must be regarded as an incidental and not as an essential ele- 
 ment of government. It exists now to a certain extent, be- 
 cause it has a secure basis in the ignorance and apathy of the 
 people in general. "With more intelligence and interest among 
 the people, the official classes would be made to feel a greater 
 responsibility to the reputed source of power the people. 
 Intelligent criticism among an intelligent people who do the 
 voting, would be a terror which no presuming official could 
 withstand. The despotism of government which the adherents 
 of laissezfaire so fear, has its basis solely in the ease with 
 which the masses are gulled. Then what is to be done ? 
 
 If the government must exercise an increasingly greater 
 control over business and industrial combinations, as we be- 
 lieve it must, it should become as trustworthy an instru- 
 mentality as possible ; and its trustworthiness can only be 
 assured by an intelligent demand that such shall be its char- 
 acter. Like people, like government. "We may be pretty sure 
 that, if the government is venal and corrupt, the masses of the 
 constituency have never proved themselves capable of appre- 
 ciating any better government. As long as they hurrah for 
 demagogues, heed the teachings of impracticable fanatics, 
 clothe scheming plutocrats with power, and lick the hand that 
 lays the burdens on them, they will never have their proper 
 weight in government, and, in the ordinary " course of nature," 
 ought not to have. It is true that the stronger sort must 
 suffer to some extent along with the weaker sort, for this can- 
 not be helped, and it should have this use to the stronger that 
 it goad them on to do whatever is possible to elevate the tone
 
 158 THE RADICAL WRONO AND ITS REMEDY. [Chap. VIL 
 
 of the general constituency for their own relief as well as for 
 the general relief. How is this to be done ? By teaching 
 practical truth and acting on it. Every class interest at the 
 present time endeavors to inculcate its own class bias. It 
 does so because it looks only to immediate results, never 
 dreaming of remote and perhaps fatal reactions. A class 
 never sees be}*ond its own nose. There is too little truly can- 
 did teaching of the many. I know very well how difficult it is 
 to abate the evil of doctrines, comments, and pretended news 
 that mislead. Our school education does not do it. Some of 
 the worst deceived people of the day on social and economical 
 questions, are " educated men," professional men, business 
 men, who read certain ably conducted journals, and fall into the 
 habit of letting these journals furnish them, not only with the 
 subject and materials of thought, but with the thinking itself. 
 These journals are directed by a class bias which is imperious 
 in the suppression and distortion of facts ; and those who are 
 so trustful as to " pin their faith " to them, may be as ignorant 
 of the real economical and social status in the civilized world 
 as if the}' lived in Africa. What seems to them knowledge is 
 a phantom that misleads. No, that is not the kind of educa- 
 tion that is needed. Some of the best educated on certain 
 lines are the worst deceived on other lines. It would be no 
 trouble to give illustrations of this discouraging fact, or to 
 quote from discerning writers who have clearly seen it and 
 honestly stated it. 
 
 How is an evil of this magnitude to be remedied ? How 
 are the teachings of the press to which the people look for 
 information to become unbiased, honest, and trustworthy ? By 
 a more intelligent appreciation of honest journalism by readers. 
 But how is this intelligent appreciation to be had, when the 
 readers so largely depend on the very thing to be reformed, for 
 their intelligence ? No doubt hundreds of journalists who 
 speak only in general terms, or not at all, of the unjust 
 aggressions of strong interests, would be glad to expose these 
 wrongs in detail, if they dared. But, with journalists as with 

 
 Sec. 55.~\ THE MEANS OP REMEDYING CLASS INJUSTICE. 159 
 
 other business men, success is the one indispensable thing, and 
 they cannot afford to do what puts it in jeopardy. These 
 aggressive interests scent danger from afar, and whoever 
 offends them with a fair statement of the case is pretty sure to 
 suffer at their hands. They have even the power through the 
 press and from the platform to turn the masses of people 
 against the people's own best friends by making them believe, 
 by the mere force of daily and weekly reiteration, that black is 
 white and white black. How are the people to learn what their 
 duty is, when largely, on one side, are powerful journals 
 devoted to class interests, and on the other struggling journals 
 teaching much that is wild and impracticable ? After all, the 
 only hope is in honest teaching by competent teachers. The 
 more overt and offensively aggressive conspiracies against the 
 public interests become, the easier and safer it is to expose 
 them, the more liable they are to be exposed, and the more 
 efficient is the exposure. Possibly this is coming to be the 
 situation. One fact of the kind thoroughly proved opens the 
 way for the proof of an additional fact of like character, and 
 as the evidence accumulates the situation arrests more atten- 
 tion, and by and by demands action. There are teachers who 
 will take some risk, under the commendable impulse of sym- 
 pathy and sincere love of truth, to put the weak many on their 
 guard against wrongs done by the strong few. 
 
 The drawback here is that most, whose criticisms are really 
 true and valuable, fail in the suggestion of remedies, and thus 
 largely neutralize their own good work. Thus, in a paper at 
 hand, which espouses the cause of the many and makes 
 honest endeavor to resist the aggressions of the few, I read : 
 " Two things are absolutely necessary to our prosperity : 
 Abundance of money and liberal protection to our industries. 
 Both abounded during the war and enabled us to pay three 
 billion of war expenses, make good the devastation of the war 
 and double our wealth in thirteen years." And so on to the end. 
 While such inconsequential stuff as this is welcomed into our 
 people's journals, the entrenched monopolies have little to fear. 
 15
 
 160 THE RADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. [Chap. VII. 
 
 Self-stultification must neutralize the effort to dislodge them. 
 And all this, only too common, shows the great need of more 
 light for honest minds. 
 
 It is to be hoped that, notwithstanding its discouraging 
 features, constant agitation will effect the elimination of error 
 in certain directions, and bring out fair and practical results 
 by and by. Nothing of this kind can be effected at once for 
 want of leverage. A little advance in the teaching may meet 
 with a corresponding advance in appreciation among those 
 whom the teaching is intended to benefit ; and, in turn, this 
 additional appreciation may encourage a further step on the 
 road of manly outspokenness, till by and by the demand for 
 action can no longer be resisted. We are probably near this 
 stage in the matter of regulating monopolies in interstate 
 commerce. We are probably still a long way off from the reg- 
 ulation of other monopoly combinations which are equally 
 liable to lapses of wrong doing, but which are borne with still 
 as if the}- were dispensations of Providence. 
 
 One of the great difficulties in this country is that when the 
 people really demand the adoption of a measure of public 
 policy, their wishes may be thwarted by obstructions to honest 
 legislation. The public will finds its way into statutory law far 
 more readity in England than in this country, owing to the 
 better adaptation of parliamentary methods to honest ends. 
 But this reform in legislative method, so much needed in this 
 country, is hardly one that is to be brought about by popular 
 agitation, and I leave it to be pushed by those who understand 
 it a great deal better than I do. (See " Defective and Corrupt 
 Legislation," by Simon Sterne.) 
 
 56. NEED OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN ECONOMICS. There 
 are some changes for the better which will come about in gov- 
 ernmental affairs only through an imperious demand from the 
 people. The more I have given attention to this subject, the 
 more I have become convinced that little can be done to 
 recover the government from plutocratic manipulation until 
 correct ideas of the economical and political situation can be
 
 SeC. 56.~\ NEED OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN ECONOMICS. 161 
 
 got into the heads of the people at large. And this education, 
 to be of most avail, must come home to their practical, every- 
 day life. As long as they think that general good depends on 
 the success of some great party, or that somebody else is to 
 blame for their own shortcomings, no great change for the bet- 
 ter is to be expected. 
 
 The masses of the people must first of all learn the relations 
 of capital to labor. They must learn that without capital em- 
 ployment cannot be given to labor. Their general ignorance 
 of this principle is shown whenever they seek to destroy the 
 property of offending persons. It is the fault of narrow- 
 mindedness to take a personal view of things. If employes 
 are not getting on well, they imagine it is because somebody 
 else is not doing just what is right. There may be some 
 ground for this view, but, with a better knowledge of princi- 
 ples, they would see something to improve in their own man- 
 agement of affairs. A class or a party always justifies its own 
 action ; and an appeal to some class weakness always flatters 
 the class. In this respect it is with a class much as it is with 
 a party. The party is always right, and whatever conflicts 
 with it is always wrong. A little dispassionate self-examin- 
 ation by classes would be commendable in a high degree, but 
 this is a super-human virtue that is hardly to be expected on 
 earth. 
 
 There are class fashions which are powerful factors in deter- 
 mining the action of classes. The fashion, of course, comes 
 about, like all fashions, as a sort of emanation from the class 
 mind. It is a consensus of the feelings and judgments of 
 those who compose the class. If, for example, it is the fashion 
 among laborers to save out a pittance for the present family 
 needs, and spend the rest in whiskey and tobacco, the young 
 members of the class will fall into the fashion generally, and 
 keep it up. The action of salaried gentlemen is too apt to be 
 determined in the same way. I have heard a clerk boast that 
 in the twelve years he had had a clerkship in one of the de- 
 partments, he had not saved a cent ; and when he said so he
 
 162 THE RADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. [Chap. VII. 
 
 had no assurance of retaining his position. He said of a fel- 
 low clerk, "He has saved twenty -two hundred dollars, but he 
 hasn't had the good time I have had I tell you, he hasn't." 
 He meant it to be understood that his course was the meritori- 
 ous one, and enough of his comrades thought like him, to 
 make it the fashion. If such young gentlemen had any clear 
 perspective of life, they would entertain different views from 
 this of what is creditable for 3*oung gentlemen to do. The 
 fashion they follow grows out of their own narrowness and 
 vanity ; and that narrowness indicates a defective education. 
 
 The usual school branches do not meet the want In addi- 
 tion to these there must be a special economical education, so 
 combining theory and practice as to fix correct principles of 
 action in the habits of youth. I had become so fully im- 
 pressed with the importance of teaching youth some of the 
 elementary principles of economical science as a necessaiy 
 means of ameliorating the condition of the struggling classes 
 (Reforms, Sec. 71), that I had tried to ascertain what would 
 be the proper points to be elucidated in a primer of economics 
 to be used in schools. I had distinctly made out that saving 
 should be the principal theme, and that certain principles in 
 economics should have claim to consideration in proportion to 
 their value in bringing into clear view the importance of sav- 
 ing. But I found that something like this had already been 
 done, and in a far more practical way than I contemplated. 
 
 Dr. Guinard, of Belgium, made provision in his will for a 
 premium on the best treatise or the best invention for the 
 improvement of the working classes. In 1872 the prize was 
 awarded by a jury of five competent persons chosen by the 
 king of Belgium, to M. F. Laurent, professor of civil law in 
 the University of Ghent, for his treatise entitled " Conference 
 sur 1'Epargne." The author had tried his system six years, 
 and it had the advantage of successful experience. The plan 
 aims to establish in children the habit of saving by means of 
 suitable instruction and the use of penny banks in the schools. 
 An hour is given each week to instruction in the methods of
 
 Sec. 57.~\ SUMMARY OP M. LAURENT'S WORK. 163 
 
 thrift. When the school deposits amount to a certain sum, 
 they are transferred to larger savings banks, and interest is then 
 allowed. Parents catch their children's zeal, and undertake to 
 lay by savings for themselves another illustration of the power 
 of a fashion. The interest which accrues, and is set to their 
 credit, gives them a new idea of thrift, and encourages addi- 
 tional saving. The system has had a good effect morally and 
 economically on the working classes. It has extended from 
 Ghent to hundreds of other towns in Belgium, France, Austria, 
 Hungary, Italy, Great Britain and other countries. As early 
 as 1879, these school banks had been introduced into 83 out 
 of the 8G departments in France. Deposits by the poor have 
 greatly increased. In certain European countries with a pop- 
 ulation of 210,000,000, there were, in 1879, fourteen million 
 depositors with an aggregate to their credit of $1,800,000,000. 
 (Lalor's Cyclopedia, Art. Hist. Savings Banks by J. P. Town- 
 send.) 
 
 57. SUMMARY OP M. LAURENT'S WORK. I was curious to 
 know more of the character of Monsieur F. Laurent's brochure, 
 which received the Guinard prize for its success in elevating 
 the condition of the working people. A copy came late to 
 hand. It is not at all a synopsis of economical principles ; it 
 is simply a statement of the merits and advantages of saving, 
 and its purpose is to enlist the interest of teachers. The 
 author went from school to school, and even from pupil to 
 pupil, to urge the advantages of learning to save in youth. 
 Oral instructions are given, simply to enable the children to 
 form an intelligent conception of the advantages of saving. 
 The children get their centimes from parents and friends, as I 
 infer ; and this money, which is usually spent for trifles and 
 transient gratifications, is deposited in the school banks. When 
 the deposit of any one amounts to a franc, it is drawn out and 
 deposited in a larger bank, where it draws interest. The safety 
 of these banks is guaranteed by the State. When repayment 
 is made, the money is usually expended for something neces- 
 sary or useful, such as clothing for the depositor or for younger
 
 164 THE RADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. [Ckap.VIL 
 
 members of the family. It is claimed that this affords to the 
 children a high order of moral discipline. They first deny 
 themselves the enjoyment of dainties which their centimes 
 would buy, but which would do them no good, and might do 
 them harm ; and then the expenditure of the money for things 
 useful would afford gratification of a higher order than that 
 of munching candy selfishly and alone. Dainties are not to be 
 denied to children by any means, but they should be procured 
 by the mother according to her means, to be enjoyed at the 
 family table. 
 
 Almost the poorest may save a little if they will, as this 
 experiment has shown. That they never save is owing largely 
 to vicious indulgences. The author speaks of two kinds of sav- 
 ing. The one kind degenerates into hoarding, as with misers, 
 and is a vice ; the other is kept under the control of common 
 sense, and is a virtue. He calls attention to the danger of 
 humoring children in their craving for all kinds of selfish 
 indulgences. Spoiled children are like those people who spend 
 their lives seeking gratification in a continual round of pleas- 
 ure which never satisfies. Vanity is to be controlled, not 
 stimulated, since, like idleness, it is a mother of vices. He 
 condemns the habit of smoking among boys, and the too great 
 devotion of girls to the toilette. He calls attention to the 
 danger of temptation to girls at a later age, if their vanity 
 has been stimulated while children by too much attention to 
 finery in dress. 
 
 The reform is placed on high moral ground. M. Laurent 
 insists on the value of culture even to the lowly ; and for the 
 purposes of culture there must be wealth to provide schools, 
 books, and museums. Then, it is the duty of all to save and 
 help build up what is useful. He says that the natural wants 
 of men are limited and the means of satisfying them within 
 the reach of all ; whereas those wants which grow out of 
 vanity, passion, and perverted appetite, are insatiable. 
 
 M. Laurent believes that the moral and intellectual dis- 
 cipline derived from the habit of saving and the instruction
 
 Sec. 57. ~\ SUMMARY OF M. LAURENT'S WORK. 165 
 
 accompanying it, would go far to disabuse the minds of work- 
 ing people of the notion so prevalent among them that their 
 condition is to be improved only by revolutionizing the present 
 order of societ}*. 
 
 The award of the prize is accompanied with a report by the 
 awarding committee. In this it is affirmed that there is no 
 use in attempting to improve the condition of the lower classes 
 till they learn to avoid waste and acquire the habit of saving. 
 This habit must be formed early in life, must begin at school. 
 The principle to be understood and observed is that of making 
 a present sacrifice for a future good. The rule of waiving an 
 immediate pleasure for a future one that is higher, exemplifies 
 a great principle in morals, and is strengthened for the guid- 
 ance of conduct, by forming the habit of saving in youth ; 
 and this habit is best fixed by convincing children of its value 
 by precept and practice, thus making it the fashion, and found- 
 ing it in mutual s} T mpathy and support. 
 
 How different is all this from those absolute methods which 
 most reformers advocate for the uplifting of the masses ! 
 Here it is pressed that the masses must first be prepared to 
 appreciate the real conditions of life before they can profit by 
 economical advantages. They must learn to do for themselves, 
 before they can appreciate what others may be willing to do 
 for them. To put means into wasteful hands is to throw them 
 awaj', and hence the need of establishing in youth the habits 
 of frugality. When workingmen fully learn the importance of 
 industry and saving, and act upon it, their treatment by their 
 employers will be different from what it is now. When a share 
 in the profits of their own labor is rightly appreciated by 
 laborers, they will have no difficulty in securing it. Not until 
 they understand the value of capital, will they be able to profit 
 to any considerable extent by cooperative effort of any kind. 
 When employe's learn to take a thoughtful view of life, great 
 corporations (railroad companies) will not find it necessary in 
 pursuance of self-interest, to coerce them into systematic 
 saving for insurance against the casualties of life ; of their
 
 166 THE RADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. [Chap. VII. 
 
 own accord will workingmen then cooperate, by saving, more 
 than at present, for mutual helpfulness in time of need. 
 Whenever workingmen, as a body, care properly for them- 
 selves, their government will be prudently advised to protect 
 them against monopoly combinations, and will do for all by 
 positive enactment what it does not now do, lest more harm 
 than good result. An earnest demand by an intelligent con- 
 stituency will be equivalent to a command which the function- 
 aries of government will not feel at liberty to disregard. 
 
 On the other hand, most of our reformers have a short way 
 with social and economical problems, and propose to work 
 miracles for the good of mankind without all this slow, tire- 
 some process of education. There is nothing to do but to 
 confiscate rent, or to levy a tax of two per cent on all assets, 
 or to make an abundance of money so that all may get some, 
 or to loan citizens money out of the public treasury at one 
 per cent per annum, or to undertake work at the public 
 expense and transform labor into dead capital on purpose to 
 employ the idle, or to recognize improvident laborers as part- 
 ners and share profits with them, or to do some other un- 
 conditional and absurd thing. Now, what good would any of 
 these measures do for people whose education and habits are 
 such that they cannot or will not manage for themselves with 
 prudence and economy ? The absurdity of these propositions 
 comes out in taking no account of human character as it is. 
 If laborers spend, largely in foil}*, all they get an}*how, what 
 encouragement for an employer to divide with them ? What 
 good would it do for the government to loan at one per cent to 
 a thriftless person who would never paj*, and, with the secu- 
 rity forfeited, would soon be worse off than ever? What 
 would be the benefit of an inflated currenc}* and booming 
 times, when the extravagance thus engendered would, under 
 the collapse, most fatally affect the working classes ? But 
 there is no need of illustrating in detail. These absolute 
 views are captivating, because the}* propose to relieve the suf- 
 fering classes of all the unpleasant discipline necessary to
 
 Sec. 58.] THE INITIATIVE IN THIS COUNTRY. ] 67 
 
 success. But the desired end will not be attained in this way; 
 this is precisely the way not to attain it, and the propositions 
 show a profound ignorance of the fundamental conditions of 
 success. If the masses ever rise, they must rise in large 
 measure by their own endeavors endeavors which involve 
 self-discipline and self-denial. 
 
 There is nothing in this view inconsistent with that which 
 insists on the regulation of competition-crushing rings and 
 corporations. Such regulation is rightly urged in the interest 
 of equity. Equity first of all, even if there should be a little 
 less of the fitful rush and whir of business. But the ver}* 
 fact that, possibl}-, under equity, there might be less accumu- 
 lation of capital than when equity is violated, shows the great 
 need under right conditions, of educating the masses to thrift. 
 The two movements should go along together. The people 
 should learn the principles and acquire the habits of thrift, 
 and the} r should receive under equity what is their due to 
 enable them more fully and happily to save ; and, by this road 
 and this onl}-, can the general tone of society be elevated. 
 
 58. THE INITIATIVE IN THIS COUNTRY. In this country 
 there has not been the same pressure of need as in Europe, 
 and consequently less has been done to afford to j-outh of the 
 poorer classes a better perspective of life. There is no system- 
 atic teaching on this line adapted to the needs of the young, 
 and little provision has been made for the safe-keeping of de- 
 posits. Owing to this neglect, persons of small means are 
 more apt to fall into wasteful habits, than to proportion their 
 expenditures to their means with a view to possible savings. 
 Even our foreigners who have been trained to frugalitj' in the 
 school of necessity, often fall into the practice so common 
 among the work-people here, of consuming all as they go. Of 
 course, spendthrift habit is not universal ; there are those in 
 this county who save, but the number of such is immensely 
 less than it might be. And it is to be feared that the very 
 condition, until recently prevailing, which enables them to 
 save more largely than elsewhere, is mainly the reason why
 
 168 THE RADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. [Chap. VII. 
 
 savings are not greater. It is high time that something be 
 done to improve this condition of things, for we may rest 
 assured that the causes are at work which will reduce the 
 wage-earner in this country to a level with wage-earners in the 
 old countries. Something may be done to remove some of 
 these causes, and to retard the action of others, but the pro- 
 cess of levelling down will still go on, making it necessary for 
 the masses to learn so much of the situation as to enable them 
 to take their own interests into their own keeping. 
 
 First of all, the most is to be made of present opportunity 
 by industry, frugality, and saving, to strengthen the weaker 
 elements in society. This much, with sufficient intelligence, 
 might be done without even governmental action for the re- 
 moval of current abuses ; and, until the people at large acquire 
 sufficient knowledge of the situation to do something like this, 
 they never can bring a proper weight to bear on the course of 
 public affairs. Those who preach that the government must 
 do this or that for the good of the masses, while neglecting to 
 name what the masses should do for themselves, arc preaching 
 in vain. The toiling many must be assisted, but they can 
 never rise unless they come to see the need of exerting them- 
 selves in the only way in which the feat of rising becomes 
 possible. And for this the training must begin in early life 
 and in home affairs. If there be anything done on this line, 
 the beginnings will no doubt be small, originating with the 
 well-meaning few who think the masses worth caring for, and 
 who, seeing the means to the end, make an earnest effort to 
 adopt them. 
 
 There are certain agencies to which we may look for work in 
 this direction : the instructors in our schools, those who teach 
 through the press, and those who speak to the people from the 
 platform and the pulpit. These ma}- do much and no doubt 
 will do much ; but, as usual, there are drawbacks. It has not 
 yet been made the duty of teachers in the schools to qualify 
 themselves to give instruction of this kind. The press is too 
 much under the influence of class interests. The educational
 
 Sec. 59.~] MINDING ONE'S BUSINESS. 169 
 
 discipline of those who occup}' the platform and the pulpit 
 has not very well qualified them to give instruction on eco- 
 nomical subjects. Their opinions are almost wholly second- 
 hand, and, if they undertook to do something useful in the 
 economical field, they would be almost sure to mislead. 
 
 With regard to elementary economics in the schools, it is 
 probably impossible in the present unsettled state of econom- 
 ical theories to produce anything that would be generally satis- 
 factoty. It will hardly do to put decaying dogmas into prim- 
 ers for the use of schools. The system of economical doctrines 
 taught by the " Manchester school," will probably have to un- 
 dergo some eliminations and modifications to bring it up to 
 the times. In the face of the new and vigorous economical 
 schools which have sprung up in German}', England, and this 
 country, it can hardly be regarded as wise to teach youth the 
 disputed tenets as if they were settled principles of political 
 economy. We must wait awhile before there can be a satis- 
 factory epitome of "elements." But this does not mean that 
 nothing shall be done. There are certain simple principles of 
 economics on which all are agreed (except visionaries and 
 fanatics), and some of these principles are the very ones peo- 
 ple stand in most need of for guidance in life ; such, for exam- 
 ple, as the economical importance of saving and the value of 
 capital to the industries. This may be put into our primers 
 and taught in our common schools. If something like this 
 were done, and the effort properly encouraged by the press, the 
 platform, and the pulpit, a very great change for the better 
 might gradually be brought about. 
 
 59. MINDING ONE'S BUSINESS IN THE HIGHER SENSE. Man 
 is something more than the isolated individual the extreme 
 views of laissez faire assume him to be. He is a social being 
 with social duties. It is equall}* an extreme view that over- 
 looks man as an individual. It is certainly well for everyone 
 to attend to his own immediate business and become as inde- 
 pendent an individual as possible. This is needful drill 
 every individual ought to have just such discipline for his own
 
 170 THE RADICAL WRONQ AND ITS REMEDY. [Chap. VII. 
 
 good and for the general good. But this does not serve the 
 general good full}-. While the individual needs to be disci- 
 plined to make him as self-contained as possible, he needs dis- 
 cipline as a social being to enable him to act in concert with 
 his fellows for the general good. Without this general good 
 individual good is necessarily defective. This last named 
 kind of discipline is a good deal more difficult than the other. 
 It requires more self-restraint, more comprehensive views, 
 deeper insight. But whatever may be its requirements, no one 
 can neglect it, who wishes to round out his own culture, his 
 own life. 
 
 Much of the spirit of our times and teachings is calculated 
 to stimulate egoism rather than altruism. The shrewd young 
 man looks out upon societ} 7 and has no trouble in catching its 
 prevailing spirit. He says : " I see ; life is a grab game, and 
 the best grabber is regarded as the biggest man. All round 
 me I see the big and the little, more little, however, than big ; 
 and the big ones are eating up the little ones and growing big- 
 ger. Now, if I know myself, I don't propose to be one of the 
 small fish. If eating is going on, I prefer not to be eaten. I 
 shall look out for myself." 
 
 This, as I said, is very well as far as it goes, but there is 
 need for exertion in a somewhat different wa}-. By the time 
 our j'oung man gets to be fifty years of age, he has accumu- 
 lated a good deal more than he needs for comfortable living, 
 and he is now more anxious to accumulate than ever. He 
 says to his own soul : " Sec all this ; it is what comes of 
 minding one's own business." Now, he has no thought of any- 
 thing but minding his own business in this way ; but what is 
 he but an egoist ? He thinks too ill of the whole riffraff of 
 human beings below the line of plutocratic respectabilit}-, to 
 take a step out of his ^^ay to give one of them a bit of bread. 
 He could not entertain the idea that aggressive rings and 
 monopolies with class legislation had helped to keep man}' of 
 these poor people down in the shadows of life. " Why," he 
 says, " they did not keep me down." Of course, he will do
 
 Sec. 59J] MINDING ONE'S BUSINESS. 171 
 
 nothing to help curb monopoly and promote fairness of com- 
 petition, for even if he is not in a ring or two of his own, he 
 hobnobs with ringsters and has a fellow-feeling with them. 
 They are a thrifty lot, and with a full measure of mutual sym- 
 pathy they reinforce one another in the methods they practice 
 in common. Now, if it be true that all the grades of society 
 are bound together in relations which compel the higher to 
 feel the weight of the lower (Sec. 52), then is such a man as 
 this a practical pessimist, who has failed in his duties to him- 
 self and to his fellows. He lacks the manly consciousness of 
 cooperative endeavor with his fellows to prevent the crushing 
 of the lowly and enable them by conscious effort of their own 
 to win for themselves prizes of a little greater value in life. 
 
 It requires a higher order of powers to cooperate with one's 
 fellows, whether in voluntary association or in the discharge of 
 political duties, in order to promote equity among men and ad- 
 vance the general interests of society, than it requires merely 
 to seize the chances of self-aggrandizement. To mind one's 
 business in the higher sense is to exercise these higher powers ; 
 and the generous youth should be instructed that he does not 
 truly discharge his duties to himself "when he neglects the 
 duties he owes to society in general. It is precisely when all 
 are intent on self-seeking that conspiracies are formed against 
 general interests, and the people are made to suffer. With a 
 more generous ambition among the few and a better under- 
 standing of the situation among the many, we ma} r hope for 
 more efficient action in the interest of justice to all classes in 
 society. 
 
 NOTE TO SECS. 57 and 58. One of the jury that adjudged the Guinard 
 prize to M. Laurent's work was Emile de Laveleye, the well-known 
 Belgian economist. 1 append the translation of three brief passages 
 from the report of the jury, and one from the essay itself: 
 
 "This work, entitled Conference sur V Epargne, contains but a few 
 
 pages; but the idea which it develops is so just, so full of promise for 
 
 the future, and where it has been applied, especially in Ghent, it has 
 
 afforded such remarkable results, that it appeared to combine all the 
 
 1C
 
 172 THE KADICAL WRONG AND ITS REMEDY. [Chap. VII. 
 
 important conditions necessary to command the suffrages of the jury." 
 (p. III). 
 
 "It is in vain that we advance money to the workingman, or make 
 him a present of tools to work with, as certain reformers propose ; 
 these presents, like the legacies received by spendthrifts, are soon lost. 
 It is above all things necessary to impart to working people the spirit of 
 order, of foresight, and of good management, by which alone can the 
 capital received, whether as loan or gift, be preserved and increased. 
 The Co-operative societies which have been successful are those that 
 have formed their capital by means of heroic deductions for saving 
 from daily income; those to which the government of 1848 made ad- 
 vances very soon failed." (p. V.) 
 
 " But they tell us this (saving) will dry up the affections of children, 
 stifle their generous impulses, and teach them to be stingy. These 
 objections are refuted by the facts. To save is to conquer an appetite 
 and to resist the desire of immediate enjoyment for a remote advan- 
 tage which the mind alone can perceive. It is a triumph over passion, 
 over egoism; and, whoever is in the habit of controlling his passions and 
 appetites and living under the direction of his intellect, is more ready 
 to make sacrifice for others than one who is in the habit of seeking the 
 gratification of his own whims." (p. VIII.) 
 
 "But instead of demanding like the socialists the abolition of prop- 
 erty, I say to workingmen: It depends on yourselves whether you 
 become owners of property. Do not seek for happiness in the destruc- 
 tion of the social order, because you will be the first to suffer in tlio 
 general ruin. Your happiness depends on yourselves. Learn to save, 
 for this is, at the same time, to learn to moderate your desires, and to 
 govern your passions. Saving is the sure means of ameliorating your 
 condition physically, intellectually, and morally." (pp. 4, 5.)
 
 CONFLICT IN NATURE AND LIFE: 
 
 Study of A ntagonism in the Constitution of Things, for the 
 
 Elucidation of the Problem of Good and Evil, and the 
 
 Reconciliation of Optimism and Pessimism. 
 
 New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 Pages 488. S2.00. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 PART FIRST: THE SUBJECT IN HISTORY AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Chapter I. Ancient Conceptions of Antagonism and of the Evils of Life. 
 
 Chapter II. Modern Views of Physical and Moral Discord. Chapter 
 
 III. Pessimism. Chapter IV. Optimism : Perfection and the Golden 
 Ages. Chapter V. The Problem Stated. 
 
 PART SECOND: CONSIDERATIONS FROM SCIENCE. 
 
 Chapter VI. Existence. Chapter VII. The Unit of Physical Existence. 
 Chapter VIII. The Primary Forces. Chapter IX. Chemistry and 
 Physics. Chapter X. Conflict in the Biological Forces. Chapter XI. 
 Antagonism in the Sphere of Mind. Chapter XII. Conflict as a Factor 
 in Morals. 
 
 PART THIRD: HISTORICAL BREVITIES ILLUSTRATING CONFLICT. 
 
 Chapter XIII. General History. Chapter XIV. Grecian History. 
 Chapter XV. Roman History: The Republic. Chapter XVI. Roman 
 History: The Empire. Chapter XVII. Early English History. Chap- 
 ter XVIII. The Feudal System. Chapter XIX. The Christian System 
 under Conflict with other Systems. Chapter XX. Papal Supremacy. 
 Chapter XXI. The Great Modem Conflict. 
 
 PART FOURTH. 
 
 Chapter XXII. Antagonism as a Factor of Evolution. 
 
 PAKT FIFTH: EVIL IN RELATION TO THE NECESSARY CONDITIONS OF LIFE. 
 Chapter XXIII. Paradoxes of Feeling in Relation to Function. Chap- 
 ter XXIV. Man's Environment: Geological Conditions. Chapter XXV. 
 Man's Environment: Atmospheric and Oceanic Currents. Chapter 
 XXVI. Man's Environment : Limitations of the Habitable Area. Chap- 
 ter XXVII. Man's Environment : Economical Difficulties of Limitation. 
 Chapter XXVIII. The Future of Physical Environment. Chapter 
 XXIX. Origin and Conflict of Natural Laws. 
 
 PART SIXTH: THE ODTLOOK, SOCIAL AND MORAL. 
 
 Chapter XXX. Sanitary Conditions. Chapter XXXI. Prospects of the 
 Common Working People. Chapter XXXII. Influence of the Relative 
 Prolificacy of Classes on Society. Chapter XXXIII. The Marriage Rela- 
 tion. Chapter XXXIV. The Religious Consolations. Chapter XXXV. 
 Pleasure and Pain inseparable. Chapter XXXVI. Uses in General, 
 Summary, and Conclusion.
 
 REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OP "CONFLICT" EXTRACTS. 
 
 Boston Daily Advertiser: The strength of his book is in the abun- 
 dance of illustrative matter which he lias brought to the support of his 
 thesis, and in the large view of the world which he has been obliged to 
 take in order to do it. The author favors meliorism, and his book has 
 a healthy tone, in so far as it presents the dual position in which the 
 active forces of life stand toward one another. The argument is in- 
 structive rather than conclusive, and is supported by liberal extracts 
 from nearly all the modern writers on science, society, and religion. 
 There is a certain enlightenment to be gained from these pages which 
 no student of modern society will care to miss. 
 
 Boston Journal: Bears traces of original research, patient study, 
 and concentrated thought. 
 
 Boston Courier: It is very clearly, though sometimes a little crude- 
 ly written, and while evidently not the work of a professional philos- 
 opher or writer, it shows the result of very wide reading and generally 
 of intelligent thinking. The careful reader will often differ with the 
 author and detect gaps in his reasoning. And the chief value of the 
 work will be found in its rich and varied suggestiveness, its blazing 
 the line along a hundred pathways of thought in which retlective 
 minds are beginning to grope their way. 
 
 Boston Saturday Evening Gazette: The author withholds his name, 
 but he is evidently a student and a thinker, thoroughly acquainted 
 with his subject, and thoroughly in earnest in expounding it * * * The 
 multiplicity of subjects treated is confusing, and the conclusions lie 
 rushes to emphasize are lost in the crossing and recrossing threads of 
 his arguments. lie has crashed his legions under the weight of their 
 shields, and the result of the battle is lost in the elaboration of its 
 details. These faults, however, are due to a well-stocked and discip- 
 lined mind that has much to say and brief space to say it in, and not- 
 withstanding its faults, the volume will prove interesting. 
 
 Boston Evening Transcript: "Conflict in Nature and Life" is one 
 of those ponderous books, with extensive subtitles, from which at first 
 glance a reviewer is apt to turn away with an impression of "great 
 ciy and little wool," and concerning which he feels that economy of 
 eyesight must be made paramount to conscientious perusal. Turning 
 the. leaves, however, reveals signs of power, and he soon finds himself 
 reading with an intentness that makes him realize that he is commun- 
 ing with a learned, serious, and influential writer. There is an even 
 dignity and almost majesty of style, an impartiality, simplicity, and 
 fine temper in the book, which takes his sympathy captive and arouses 
 his reasoning capacity. To this succeeds a puzzled interest over the 
 anonymity of authorship, which ends in a vigorous resolve to find out 
 who is responsible for the production of a work so strong and thought- 
 ful. There are not probably a half-dozen men in the United States cap- 
 able of giving us a book of equal erudition and sound philosophical 
 structure. The temptation to guess is irresistible, and the mind runs 
 over the list of college presidents and learned professors, only to 
 decide that not one of them is equal to the task. 
 
 Sprinafield Republican, Ma**.: While the book proceeds from first 
 to last upon data wholly outside of supernatural religion, it is not 
 wanting in coincidences and indirect confirmations of Christianity.
 
 2 
 
 REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OF "CONFLICT" EXTRACTS. 
 
 Morning Journal and, Courier, New Haven, Conn. : The book is an 
 able and profound study of a great subject. 
 
 Popular Science Monthly, N. Y.: It will appear from what we have 
 said, that this work on conflict is offered as a contribution to the phi- 
 losophy of life, or as deepening the foundations of such a philosophy. 
 The claims in this direction are brought out in a general way in the 
 final chapter. Its conclusions are broadly practical. The philosophy 
 of conflict inculcates moderate expectations. Avoiding the extremes 
 of optimism and pessimism, of conservatism and radicalism, it aims to 
 do work only where work will be effectual work that will make 
 things better, and work which prevents them from becoming worse. 
 
 Eclectic Magazine, N. Y.: From this imperfect synopsis of a very 
 thoughtful and ambitious book, it will be seen that the author does not 
 content himself with studying the subject from an abstract and ideal 
 stand-point. His aim is to make the conclusions and suggestions use- 
 ful in practical ethics, and the sincerity of his aim is evident in every 
 line. We do not agree with some of his conclusions, but his thought is 
 stimulating. He disclaims in his preface any claim to originality as a 
 philosophical thinker but certainly no one will deny him the right 
 which he does claim that of being a judicially-minded student of his 
 subject, who is fully acquainted with the thoughts of the best minds 
 of the world on the same topic, and who adds to them many a word 
 worth reading and pondering, 
 
 The Nation, N. Y.: The author's mind moves with smoothness 
 and decency through the wide field of popular science, often construct- 
 ing a perfect mosaic of well chosen quotations. The grouping of his 
 impressions and facts must have been an admirable discipline for him, 
 but it seems to us in several ways a good illustration of what philos- 
 ophy is not, or at least should not be. 
 
 The Herald, N. Y.: It is a very ambitious book. But the author 
 writes modestly, is not at all given to undue or arrogant assumption, 
 and probably he would be the first to admit that his finished work, 
 which has evidently been the labor of years, is neither so original nor 
 so complete a success as at one time he hoped it would be * * * We do 
 not think the book will work a revolution in either religion or philos- 
 ophy, but we commend it as a learned treatise, as an able and interest- 
 ing study on a most difficult subject. The author makes a mistake in 
 concealing his name. 
 
 The World, N. Y.: The author of this volume carefully withholds 
 his name, though why a rectifyer of these venerable antagonisms of 
 the ages should be ashamed to be known in connection with his stu- 
 pendous industry, we are wholly unable to guess. A careful perusal of 
 the book must convince the intelligent reader that he has here to deal 
 with the most specious form of pessimism and abject materialism mas- 
 querading under an assumption of scientific authority. And it is 
 interesting to observe what kind of an exhibit nescience makes when 
 it loads itself with the plunder of antagonistic physicists and staggers 
 into the realm of philosophy. One may well be pardoned for making 
 the attempt to "elucidate" the old mysteries of the origin of evil and 
 the source of life. But an "elucidation " that bears upon its face the 
 marks of dishonesty and ends in confusion and futility must fail to 
 excite anything but wonder at the strange mental organization which 
 can take delight in so balancing the world's opinions that the result is 
 an equilibrium of negations.
 
 3 
 
 REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OP " CONFLICT " EXTRACTS. 
 
 The Observer, N. Y.: its crudcness is something marvellous. It 
 abounds in citations, which indeed are so many as to make the volume 
 resemble the emptyings of a common-place book. Its author has read 
 a good deal, but his insight and logical power approach zero. 
 
 Daily Graphic, JV. Y.: This is an anonymous work which treats 
 many important questions in a very intelligent manner * * * With 
 these as the cardinal principles of his system he passes in rapid review 
 all of the vital questions of the hour, such as we have pointed out 
 above. And of no one of them does he not say something that is worth 
 remembering. 
 
 The Churchman, N. Y.: It will be seen that the author takes the 
 reader over a wide range and discusses the most important truths. 
 He writes with ability and candor, and while a good deal of what 
 he says does not accord with our reason, he still commands our 
 respect. 
 
 The Jewuh Advocate, JV". Y.: A candid spirit of inquiry prevades 
 the book. 
 
 The Examiner, 2f. Y.: Whatever be the judgment on the author's 
 success, no fair-minded reader can fail to regard the book as one of 
 very great ability and value as to its material, evidently accumulated 
 through many years of laborious and careful study ; as to the skill with 
 which the materials are organized by the central principle ; as to the. 
 clearness of style and statement, which leaves no possible opportunity 
 for mistaking the author's meaning * * * As a contribution to the dis- 
 cussion of a dilticult question the book is of great permanent value. 
 It is a thesaurus of facts. The discussion is candid and fair * * * As 
 for us, we continue to believe in a kingdom of Christ, which is bring- 
 ing men one by one, and so is gradually bringing society, out of moral 
 evil into the good. 
 
 Evening Telegram, N. Y.: Though this book treats of none but 
 profound and important subjects, it is written with singular lucidity, 
 the statements being as clear as the extremely complicated nature of 
 the themes will allow * * * We think it will be acknowledged by every 
 intelligent reader that though the author lias not "explained" the 
 problem, in the sense of entirely depriving it of mystery, he has yet 
 "elucidated" it, in the sense of making it less unintelligible than it is 
 generally thought to be * * * Few readers, not blessed with exhaust- 
 less animal spirits, can rise from the perusal of this work with feel- 
 ings of joyfulness and abundant hope. A serene resignation and a 
 sober cheerfulness are the lessons it inculcates. It is a product of 
 unusual power, evincing profound knowledge and a wonderful bal- 
 ance of judgment. 
 
 The School Journal, N. Y.: The subject is treated in its widest re- 
 lations, and in a judicial spirit that we admire; but we do not agree 
 with the author's conclusions. 
 
 Good Literature, N. I".: There are two classes of authors one thinks, 
 the other guesses. Our author manifestly belongs to the former class, 
 for his whole book bears the mark of the constant beating of the 
 brain-hammer. 
 
 The Christian Union, N. Y.:" Conflict in Nature and Life" is a 
 semi-religious work covering one of the most interesting fields of 
 thought and observation.
 
 4 
 
 REVIEWERS' OPINIONS or "CONFLICT" EXTRACTS. 
 
 Brooklyn Union, N. Y.: The discussion is remarkable for its scope 
 and fullness, and for its pertinence to most of the difficult problems 
 which are occupying the attention of the more intelligent classes. The 
 nature of the subject, as well as the disposition of the writer, has led 
 to a fair, sober, and judicious method of investigation as it implies the 
 presentation of opposing facts, principles, and arguments. 
 
 Albany Argus, JV". Y.: In a very frank and charming preface the 
 anonymous author of this volume says: "Between the critic who should 
 pronounce the book true but not new, and the other who should think 
 it new, but singular and fanciful, it would be preferable to believe the 
 former more nearly correct." We hold to neither of these criticisms, 
 but think the book both true and new, and remarkably interesting as 
 well. Many of the ideas of the author have been expressed before 
 (they would not be true, else), but the principle of the work, in 
 the entirety is original in treatment, and the theories of the writer 
 are more thoroughly developed than his modesty would lead us to 
 expect. 
 
 Syracuse Herald, .ZV. Y.: The author finds the origin of evil in an 
 inevitable and necessary antagonism in the constitution of tilings. He 
 brings history and science to bear upon the elaboration of his theory, 
 which he discusses with much learning and great force of reasoning 
 in all its varioxis connections with nature and life. Whatever may 
 be thought of the views put forth in it, the book itself cannot be 
 regarded as other than a most profound treatise on a very difficult 
 subject. 
 
 Post-Express, Rochester, N. Y.: The anonymous author of this 
 bulky though rigidly condensed volume, has made a contribution to 
 our philosophical literature of far too great importance to be dis- 
 posed of in a passing notice * * * Books so original, so carefully 
 thought out and so moderate are rare in our contemporary literature. 
 
 Sunday Morning Express, Buffalo, N, Y.: Our author is prodigious- 
 ly learned * * * ; but calm judgment forces upon us the conviction that 
 lie scarcely knows what he means himself ; and that if the whole 488 
 pages were boiled down there would not be found nourishment enough 
 in them to support a mouse. 
 
 Pittsburgh Telegraph: Each chapter is arranged in sections, and 
 each section is a brief summary, complete in itself. We must again ex- 
 claim with Domine Sampson, " Prodigious ! " but with sincere apprecia- 
 tion of the study and careful thought, which were required to get this 
 knowledge into such small compass and such readable form. The 
 book is a good library condensed into clear sections, and is as full of 
 interest as it is of "meat" * * * We would like to know the name of 
 the author of tliis remarkably well written book. He has not merely 
 read and arranged a vast number of topics, but he has thought upon 
 them thorougly and well. His modest preface of itself shows the hand 
 of no ordinary man. 
 
 Philadelphia Evening News : "Conflict in nature and Life" is an 
 elaborate and carefully thought out essay by an anonymous author 
 on human life in connection with the order of nature. The teacher 
 and student of ethics will find it of interest and use, particularly 
 as it furnishes further and deeper investigations into the subject of 
 the moral law and of good and evil than are found in the few text 
 books on ethics.
 
 REFORMS: 
 
 THEIR DIFFICULTIES AND POSSIBILITIES. 
 
 By the author of " Conflict in Nature and Life." 
 New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, h 5 Bond Street. 
 
 Pages 320. 81.0O. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 PART FIRST: THE LAEOR QUESTION. 
 
 Chapter I. Wages. Chapter II. Saving and Management. Chapter III. 
 Monopoly. Chapter IV. Schemes for Industrial Reform. Chapter V. 
 The Straight and Narrow Way. 
 
 PART SECOND: FINANCIAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 Chapter VI. Money. Chapter VII. Protection and Monopoly. Chapter 
 VIII. A People's Platform. 
 
 PART THIRD: MISCELLANEOUS REFORMS. 
 
 Chapter IX. Questions of Practical Every-day Economics. Chapter X. 
 Some Points in Education. Chapter XI. The Woman and Divorce 
 Questions. Chapter XII. The Temperance Question. Chapter XIII. 
 Various Reforms. Chapter XIV. Issues of the Near Future. 
 
 The above work was announced daring the Presidential cam- 
 paign of 1884. As it deals with live political issues, and contains 
 passages offensive to the partisan biases, while it calls attention to 
 the derelictions of duty on the part of some newspapers, it was not 
 to be expected that the book would meet with a very warm wel- 
 come from the press. No donbt there were some silences duo to 
 these causes ; but there are only two or three of the notices, so far 
 as seen, that could bo suspected cf partisan bias, the general char- 
 acter of the notices and reviews being creditable to the press as 
 well as favorable to the book. The following are extracts from 
 some of them :
 
 REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OF "REFORMS" EXTRACTS. 
 
 Daily Eastern Argus, Portland, Me. .-All these topics are discussed 
 with a candor, strength, and directness of method that cannot fail to 
 win respect, even when it does not convince. But' in the main it will 
 have to he conceded his reasoning runs on the line of truth, and while 
 it does not encourage optimism, it does encourage men in the assurance 
 that with the exercise of their best faculties, prudence, and persever- 
 ance, they will accomplish quite satisfactory results, and answer toler- 
 ably well the end of their being ; in other words, that they must work 
 out their own salvation and are quite competent to do it. The book is 
 one that no one interested in the questions discussed should omit to 
 read. 
 
 The Boston Index : This offers one of the most original and profound 
 solutions of the great problems of life, mind, and society that has been 
 attempted ; and, in its discussion, the author, in his two books, has 
 embodied a vast amount of thought and erudition as the result of wide 
 and close study. * * * If this principle of the reciprocal action of 
 counter-tending forces, which the author applies to so wide a range of 
 matters, of the highest interest, is the true one, its importance in their 
 discussion can not be overestimated ; but there is always room for 
 diverse interpretations when a principle, so broad and universal in its 
 sweep is applied to particular cases of its infinitely complex ramifica- 
 tions. 
 
 The Literary World: The anonymous author of "Reforms" is w r ell 
 informed and sensible, judicious and judicial, discussing the various 
 problems now before economists with clearness and candor, and with- 
 out heat or prejudice, making a book that is suggestive to the reader's 
 own thinking and reasoning, rather than dogmatic and argumentative. 
 
 The Boston Journal: The author discusses the labor questions, 
 financial questions, education, divorce, &c., in a pessimistic and some- 
 times cynical manner. 
 
 The Home Journal, Boston : Although the name of the author is not 
 given, it is evident that the work is from no ordinary mind, and that 
 the subjects treated have been most thoroughly and conscientiously 
 studied. 13y this we do not mean to say that the writer has in every 
 instance arrived at a correct or logical conclusion ; but to our mind 
 these cases, where evidently prejudice of education has biased him, 
 are the exceptions to the rule of logical soundness. 
 
 Boston Commonwealth : The statement is clear and popular. 
 
 Boston Evening Transcript : It deserves to be widely read, both by 
 the laborer and his employer. It is calculated to stimulate thought, 
 and one, cannot doubt that its writer will prize most such readers as 
 find in its pages views the correctness of which they stand ready to 
 challenge. The keynote to all its dogmatism is moderation. The 
 method of reform recommended is by the way of Aristotle's golden 
 mean. 
 
 Boston Evening Gazette: Shows a thorough mastery of his subject, 
 and almost bewilders by the mass of information and of ideas he 
 brings to bear upon the theme. It covers a very wide field, and is a 
 book to be studied and digested by all who take an interest in the 
 leading practical questions of the time. 
 
 Atlantic Monthly: The writer is a man of conservative habits of 
 thought, who recognizes the value of institutions, which have been the
 
 _2 
 
 REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OP " REFORMS " EXTRACTS. 
 
 slow growth of generations, while at the same time he is ready to 
 acknowledge the defects which weaken them. He occupies a middle 
 ground, and endeavors in the various questions of labor, finance, and 
 society to point the way both to preserve and correct. Such writers 
 are rarely heeded, but this one is worth attention. 
 Springfield Republican. Mass.: A book by some unknown author of 
 
 remarkable ability and erudition as might, be expected when it is 
 upplementary to a former work, "Conilict in 
 Nature and Life." *' * * The book is stimulating, suggestive, and tan- 
 
 announced as being supplementary 
 
 talizing. The author seems to have almost attained to the Buddhistic 
 Nirvana, the quietus of a patient and peaceful indifference. Never- 
 theless he sets us thinking in a broad and comprehensive way about a 
 wide range of practical topics. 
 
 The Providence Keening Pre**, II. I. .-One of the most noteworthy 
 philosophical works that appeared last year was an anonymous book 
 entitled, "Conflict in Nature and Life." * * * The work on "Reforms" 
 is in one sense a sequel and supplement of the former treatise, and is 
 yet an independent work. * * * It is an able and interesting discussion 
 and ought to be read by every reformer. 
 
 The Popular Science Monthly: But our experience with reforms and 
 reformers those who make it a business and a profession is not such 
 as to convince us that further knowledge on the philosophy of this 
 important subject is superfluous. For this reason we welcome the 
 present book as a timely and valuable contribution to the question of 
 the difficulties and possibilities of reformatory effort. The author 
 brings out a view of the subject that needed to be elaborated. It is a 
 great subject, and his treatment of it is neither exhaustive nor fault- 
 less ; but it is sufficiently full, cogent, and instructive to be of great 
 public service. 
 
 The Eclectic Magazine : Such questions (as are discussed in the 
 volume) are vastly complicated, and an author, at best, is able only to 
 elucidate them by getting at the elemental facts and principles of them 
 without entering into any study of their widespread application. 13ut 
 in doing this in a simple, honest, and unpretending fashion lie does a 
 good work. There is much that is stimulating in the book. The 
 author has a knack of getting at the very core of the subject in a few 
 plain words, and seeing what is essential and what non-essential and 
 merely accidental. * * * We heartily commend this little book to tlie 
 thoughtful reader as one charged with stimulating and valuable 
 suggestion. 
 
 The Nation : They (the author's "opinions") are delivered in a tone 
 of easy and complacent superiority, which may be accounted for by the 
 fact that those who are thoroughly versed in the subjects brought up in 
 this treatise are apt to shun such discussion as the writer indulges in. 
 There seems to be little that is erratic in the views that are expressed, 
 and upon the whole we should suppose that the intellectual operations 
 of the ordinary citizen, who gets his ideas from conversation and from 
 the newspaper, might be very fairly represented in these monologues. 
 
 Journal of Commerce, JV. Y.: The author of this book should have 
 put his name on the title page. It is very creditable to him. He only- 
 still more provokes curiosity by announcing that he is also the author 
 of "Conflict in Nature and Life" a work much read and admired. 
 The writer differs from most persons who treat of reforms in this iui-
 
 3 
 
 REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OP " REFORMS " EXTRACTS. 
 
 portant respect : he understands the weak points of reform movements 
 and the imperfect, often very defective, nature of reformers as a class. 
 No man can be a purely impartial critic as between conservatism and 
 radicalism. But we here have an observer who is honest and well 
 meaning and has as few prejudices as fall to human lot. In a spirit of 
 justice he considers the labor question, protection and monopoly, 
 woman suffrage, divorce, liquor prohibition and various other subjects 
 which are actively discussed at the present time. His tone is admir- 
 able. Neither the capitalist nor the day laborer, the protected manu- 
 facturer nor the tax-ridden consumer, the Maine law man nor the 
 advocate of the freest license, can quarrel with this calm thinker and 
 courteous adviser, while all may derive benefit from Ins pages. 
 
 The Examiner, N. Y.: The anonymous author of this book is a man 
 of accuteness of mind, soundness of judgment, and skill in the art of 
 putting things. Whoever reads those chapters will find much with 
 which lie will disagree, but nothing that will not arouse his interest 
 and stimulate his thought. * * * The topics discussed are those on 
 which every man who thinks at all has thought much, and ought to 
 think more. It is as a help and a provoker to hard thinking, the book 
 will be found most valuable. 
 
 The Herald, N. Y.: This is a very unsatisfactory work. It is 
 scrappy and loosely put together. The words "at this writing" appear 
 frequently, with dates running from 1880-1883, thus indicating the 
 manner of production. Had the author confined himself to one or two 
 reforms, his book would have gained in weight and utility. As it is 
 there is some meat in it, but it is overlaid with fat. What of good 
 is in it is smothered in the array of platitudes which serve to pad 
 it out and tire the reader. The writer has a multiplicity of views that 
 is rather confusing. 
 
 The Churchman, JV. Y.: In this case the business of bringing down 
 the exalted states of the Reform-worshippers to the level of practical 
 good sense, is very thoroughly and successfully done. The partisan of 
 a particular reform is like the votary of a patent medicine, he sees in 
 his specific the one cure of all the evil in the world. It is worth while 
 when a really able writer will take up the thankless task of exposing 
 the crude fallacies and inconclusive theories of the Reformer. We 
 may not agree with all the points in this volume, but it is well worth 
 the reading, and even the study, which shall help one to understand 
 at least the two sides of the questions of the day. 
 
 The Christian at Work, N. Y. .-The whole subject is presented from 
 an entirely new point of view from which it has not been the habit 
 heretofore to contemplate the perplexing problems of life. Even 
 those who may find themselves dissenting from the views of the author 
 will yet find in the freshness and novelty of his suggestions much to 
 interest them and awaken thought. 
 
 New York Daily Graphic : The chief defect of the book is a rare one 
 its bewildering superabundance of food for question and thought. 
 
 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, N. Y. .-The eleventh and twelfth chapters of 
 the Third Part, the former treating of the Woman and Divorce Ques- 
 tions and the latter of the Temperance Question, seem to us the most 
 valuable portion of the whole work, on account of the facts stated and 
 the lucidity with which inferences are drawn to them.
 
 4 
 REVIEWERS' OPINIONS OF "REFORMS" EXTRACTS. 
 
 Albany Sunday Prex, N. Y. : To those who have read the first work 
 of this Modest writer, and are as much amazed at its wisdom and 
 scholarship as perplexed l>y their inability to discover the authorship, 
 the volume in question will be gratefully received. It can be said to 
 be a courageous and intelligent commentary upon the reform measures 
 oJ the day, without the adoption of the absurdities that usually hamper 
 the reformer. If its lessons could be learned by every citizen and 
 thoroughly understood, there would be little delay in effecting the 
 reforms of which it treats, but which it modestly disclaims to indicate 
 a means of accomplishing. It is clear, concise, logical, and convincing 
 in every conclusion, and its analysis of methods is wonderfully effective 
 and successful. 
 
 Syracuse Daily Herald, N. Y. .-The presentation of the subject from 
 this point of view is novel, but the chief merit of a discussion thus 
 based upon the principles of antagonism lies in its suggestiveness and 
 its appeal for a more careful and judicious treatment than is usually 
 given to the great practical questions of the day. 
 
 Daily Union and Advertiner, Rochester, N. Y.: It will be seen that 
 his discussions take a wide range. He brings to them much surface 
 intelligence, without very profound philosophy, but guided by instincts 
 generally correct. * * * On the whole the book is timely, and one 
 which would-be economists and reformers may read with interest and 
 profit. 
 
 Sunday Morning Expres*, Buffalo, N. Y. : The author of this book 
 has given us here a great deal better work than was exhibited in his 
 earlier volume, of which we said, in a former notice that, "if his 
 whole 488 pages were boiled down, there would not be found nourish- 
 ment enough in them to support a mouse." In the present work with- 
 out any such parade of learning as marked the first, he writes like a 
 thoroughly practical and sensible man. * * * We commend especially 
 to one class of fanatics whose mistaken zeal and absolute pigneaded"- 
 ness appear to be in direct proportion to the goodness of their cause, 
 chap. XII, on the Temperance Question, in which, as it seems to us, 
 there is a "power" of good sense packed away. * * * Wo trust that this 
 thoroughly nealthy volume will be widely read and carefully pondered. 
 
 Commercial Gazette, Cincinnati: These free trade propagandists, 
 whose acquaintance with British dinners and British gold is probably 
 not exaggerated, are extremely sly in getting in their work. Here we 
 catch one inoculating the public while pretending to write about 
 reform. 
 
 Chicago Tribune : As a whole, the work is suggestive rather than 
 profound. It deserves a careful reading. 
 
 The Standard, Chicago : It is a thoughtful, earnest suggestive treat- 
 ment of what is now eminently a "live question." 
 
 Inter Ocean, Chicago: This is a small volume of 220 pages, but it dis- 
 cusses concisely and more to the point the question of reform than any 
 volume, even those more pretentious in size, that we have perused. 
 First, the author has studied his subject from every stand-point, and by 
 scholarly methods discusses every phase of the question without a 
 prejudice or any seeming hobby in sight. Communists and capitalists 
 will doubtless both find fault with the reasonings and the conclusions, 
 but they will find the positions taken difficult to assail. The author 
 has arranged his subject with great care.