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Title: The Forgotten Man, and Other Essays

Author: William Graham Sumner

Editor: Albert Galloway Keller

Release date: June 25, 2021 [eBook #65693]

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)


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[Illustration:

  _William Graham Sumner_
  [1907]]


THE FORGOTTEN MAN AND OTHER ESSAYS

by

WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER

Edited by Albert Galloway Keller


[Illustration]






New Haven
Yale University Press
London: Humphrey Milford
Oxford University Press
MDCCCCXVIII

Copyright, 1919,
by Yale University Press




PREFACE


With the present collection the publication of Sumner’s Essays comes to
an end. The original project of publishers and editor contemplated but
a single volume--“War and Other Essays”--and they accordingly equipped
that volume with a bibliography which was as complete as they then
could make it. But when, later on, other materials came to be known
about, and especially after the discovery of a number of unpublished
manuscripts, the encouraging reception accorded to the first venture
led us to publish a second, and then a third collection: “Earth Hunger
and Other Essays” and “The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays.” It was
during the preparation of the latter of these, now some five years ago,
that the late Professor Callender deplored to the editor the omission
of certain of Sumner’s essays in political economy--in particular those
dealing with free trade and sound money. And the reviewers of preceding
collections had reminded us, rightly enough, that there should be a
fuller bibliography and also an index covering all the essays.

In this last volume we have striven to meet these several suggestions
and criticisms. And it is now the purpose of the publishers to form
of these singly issued volumes a set of four, numbered in the order
of their issue. Since the series could not have been planned as such
at the outset, this purpose is in the nature of an after-thought;
and there is therefore no general organization or systematic
classification by volumes. In so far as classification is possible,
under the circumstances, it is made by way of the index. This and the
bibliography are the work of Dr. M. R. Davie; and are but a part of the
service he has performed in the interest of an intellectual master whom
he could know only through the printed word and the medium of another
man.

Sumner’s dominant interest in political economy, as revealed in his
teaching and writing, issued in a doughty advocacy of “free trade and
hard money,” and involved the relentless exposure of protectionism
and of schemes of currency-debasement. As conveying his estimate of
protectionism, it is only fitting that his little book on “The -Ism
which teaches that Waste makes Wealth” should be recalled from an
obscurity that it does not deserve; it is typical of the author’s most
vigorous period and witnesses to the acerbity of a former issue that
may recur. In default of a single, comprehensive companion-piece in the
field of finance, and one making as interesting reading, it has been
necessary to confine selection to several rather brief articles, most
of them dating from the campaign of 1896. In the choice of all economic
essays I have been guided by the advice of my colleague, Professor F.
R. Fairchild, a fellow-student under Sumner and a fellow-admirer of his
character and career. Professor S. L. Mims also has been generous in
his aid. I do not need to thank either of these men, for what they did
was a labor of gratitude and love.

The title essay will be found at the end of the volume. It is the
once-famous lecture on “The Forgotten Man,” and is here printed for
the first time. When “War and Other Essays” was being prepared, we
had no knowledge of the existence of this manuscript lecture; and, in
order to bring into what we supposed was to be a one-volume collection
this character-creation of Sumner’s, one often alluded to in modern
writings, we reprinted two chapters from “What Social Classes Owe to
Each Other.” It has been found impracticable in later reprintings of
Vol. I to replace those chapters with the more complete essay; and we
have therefore decided to reproduce the latter, despite the certain
degree of repetition involved, rather than leave it out of the series.
In view of the fact that Sumner has been more widely known, perhaps, as
the creator and advocate of the “Forgotten Man,” than as the author of
any other of his works, we entitle this volume “The Forgotten Man and
Other Essays.”

Several essays not of an economic order have been included because they
have come to my knowledge within the last few years and have seemed to
me to call for preservation. It is almost impossible to fix the dates
of such manuscript essays, for I have not been able in all cases to
secure information from persons who might be able to identify times and
occasions. And there remain a good number of articles and manuscripts,
published or unpublished, which can receive no more than mention, with
a word of characterization, in the bibliography.

Some mention ought to be made here of a large body of hand-written
manuscript left by Sumner and representing the work of several
years--1899 to 1905 or thereabouts--upon a systematic treatise on “The
Science of Society.” Printed as it was left, partially and unevenly
completed and with many small and some wide hiatuses, this manuscript
would make several substantial volumes. It is a monument of industry,
involving, as it did, the collection over many years of thousands of
notes and memoranda, and the extraction from the same, by a sort of
_tour de force_, of generalizations intended to be set forth, with the
support of copious evidence, in the form of a survey of the evolution
and life of human society. These manuscripts, as left, represent no
more than a preliminary survey of a wide field, together with more
elaborately worked out chartings of sections of that field. The
author planned to re-write the whole in the light of “Folkways.” The
continuation, modification, and completion of this enterprise, in
something approaching the form contemplated by its author, must needs
be, if at all possible, a long task.

As one surveys, through these volumes of essays, the various phases
of scholarly and literary activity of their author, and then recalls
the teaching, both extensive and intensive, done by him with such
unremitting devotion to what he regarded as his first duty--and when
one thinks, yet again, of his labors in connection with college
and university administration, with the Connecticut State Board of
Education, and in other lines--it is hard to understand where one man
got the time, with all his ability and energy, to accomplish all this.
In the presence of evidence of such incessant and unswerving industry,
scarcely interrupted by the ill-health that overtook Sumner at about
the age of fifty, an ordinary person feels a sense of oppression and of
bewilderment, and is almost willing to subscribe to the old, hopeless
tradition that “there were giants in those days.”

In the preparation of this set of books the editor has been constantly
sustained and encouraged by the interest and sympathy of the woman who
stood by the author’s side through life, and to whom anything that had
to do with the preservation of his memory was thereby just, perfect,
and altogether praiseworthy. The completion of this editorial task
would be the more satisfying if she were still among us to receive the
final offering.

                                                  A. G. KELLER.

  WEST BOOTHBAY HARBOR, ME.,
      September 1, 1918.




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE
  PREFACE                                                              3

  PROTECTIONISM, THE -ISM WHICH TEACHES THAT WASTE MAKES
      WEALTH (1885)                                                    9

  TARIFF REFORM (1888)                                               115

  WHAT IS FREE TRADE? (1886)                                         123

  PROTECTIONISM TWENTY YEARS AFTER (1906)                            131

  PROSPERITY STRANGLED BY GOLD (1896)                                141

  CAUSE AND CURE OF HARD TIMES (1896)                                149

  THE FREE-COINAGE SCHEME IS IMPRACTICABLE AT EVERY POINT
      (1896)                                                         157

  THE DELUSION OF THE DEBTORS (1896)                                 165

  THE CRIME OF 1873 (1896)                                           173

  A CONCURRENT CIRCULATION OF GOLD AND SILVER (1878)                 183

  THE INFLUENCE OF COMMERCIAL CRISES ON OPINIONS ABOUT ECONOMIC
      DOCTRINES (1879)                                               213

  THE PHILOSOPHY OF STRIKES (1883)                                   239

  STRIKES AND THE INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION (1887)                     249

  TRUSTS AND TRADES-UNIONS (1888)                                    257

  AN OLD “TRUST” (1889)                                              265

  SHALL AMERICANS OWN SHIPS? (1881)                                  273

  POLITICS IN AMERICA, 1776–1876 (1876)                              285

  THE ADMINISTRATION OF ANDREW JACKSON (1880)                        337

  THE COMMERCIAL CRISIS OF 1837 (1877 OR 1878)                       371

  THE SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY (1882)                                    401

  INTEGRITY IN EDUCATION                                             409

  DISCIPLINE                                                         423

  THE COÖPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH                                       441

  THE FORGOTTEN MAN (1883)                                           465

  BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                       499

  INDEX                                                              521




PROTECTIONISM

THE -ISM WHICH TEACHES THAT WASTE MAKES WEALTH

[1885]


PREFACE

During the last fifteen years we have had two great questions to
discuss: the restoration of the currency and civil-service reform.
Neither of these questions has yet reached a satisfactory solution,
but both are on the way toward such a result. The next great effort to
strip off the evils entailed on us by the Civil War will consist in the
repeal of those taxes which one man was enabled to levy on another,
under cover of the taxes which the government had to lay to carry on
the war. I have taken my share in the discussion of the first two
questions, and I expect to take my share in the discussion of the third.

I have written this book as a contribution to a popular agitation.
I have not troubled myself to keep or to throw off scientific or
professional dignity. I have tried to make my point as directly and
effectively as I could for the readers whom I address, _viz._, the
intelligent voters of all degrees of general culture, who need to
have it explained to them what protectionism is and how it works. I
have therefore pushed the controversy just as hard as I could, and
have used plain language, just as I have always done before in what I
have written on this subject. I must therefore forego the hope that
I have given any more pleasure now than formerly to the advocates of
protectionism.

Protectionism seems to me to deserve only contempt and scorn, satire
and ridicule. It is such an arrant piece of economic quackery, and it
masquerades under such an affectation of learning and philosophy, that
it ought to be treated as other quackeries are treated. Still, out of
deference to its strength in the traditions and lack of information of
many people, I have here undertaken a patient and serious exposition of
it. Satire and derision remain reserved for the dogmatic protectionists
and the sentimental protectionists; the Philistine protectionists and
those who hold the key of all knowledge; the protectionists of stupid
good faith and those who know their dogma is a humbug and are therefore
irritated at the exposure of it; the protectionists by birth and
those by adoption; the protectionists for hire and those by election;
the protectionists by party platform and those by pet newspaper;
the protectionists by “invincible ignorance” and those by vows and
ordination; the protectionists who run colleges and those who want to
burn colleges down; the protectionists by investment and those who sin
against light; the hopeless ones who really believe in British gold and
dread the Cobden Club, and the dishonest ones who storm about those
things without believing in them; those who may not be answered when
they come into debate, because they are “great” men, or because they
are “old” men, or because they have stock in certain newspapers, or are
trustees of certain colleges. All these have honored me personally,
in this controversy, with more or less of their particular attention.
I confess that it has cost me something to leave their cases out of
account, but to deal with them would have been a work of entertainment,
not of utility.

Protectionism arouses my moral indignation. It is a subtle, cruel, and
unjust invasion of one man’s rights by another. It is done by force
of law. It is at the same time a social abuse, an economic blunder,
and a political evil. The moral indignation which it causes is the
motive which draws me away from the scientific pursuits which form my
real occupation, and forces me to take part in a popular agitation.
The doctrine of a “call” applies in such a case, and every man is
bound to take just so great a share as falls in his way. That is why I
have given more time than I could afford to popular lectures on this
subject, and it is why I have now put the substance of those lectures
into this book.

                                                  W. G. S.


CHAPTER I

DEFINITIONS: STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION TO BE INVESTIGATED

(_A_) THE SYSTEM OF WHICH PROTECTION IS A SURVIVAL.

1. The statesmen of the eighteenth century supposed that their business
was the art of national prosperity. Their procedure was to form ideals
of political greatness and civil prosperity on the one hand, and to
evolve out of their own consciousness grand dogmas of human happiness
and social welfare on the other hand. Then they tried to devise
specific means for connecting these two notions with each other. Their
ideals of political greatness contained, as predominant elements, a
brilliant court, a refined and elegant aristocracy, well-developed fine
arts and _belles lettres_, a powerful army and navy, and a peaceful,
obedient, and hard-working peasantry and artisan class to pay the taxes
and support the other part of the political structure. In this ideal
the lower ranks paid upward, and the upper ranks blessed downward, and
all were happy together. The great political and social dogmas of the
period were exotic and incongruous. They were borrowed or accepted from
the classical authorities. Of course the dogmas were chiefly held and
taught by the philosophers, but, as the century ran its course, they
penetrated the statesman class. The statesman who had had no purpose
save to serve the “grandeur” of the king, or to perpetuate a dynasty,
gave way to statesmen who had strong national feeling and national
ideals, and who eagerly sought means to realize their ideals. Having as
yet no definite notion, based on facts of observation and experience,
of what a human society or a nation is, and no adequate knowledge
of the nature and operation of social forces, they were driven to
empirical processes which they could not test, or measure, or verify.
They piled device upon device and failure upon failure. When one
device failed of its intended purpose and produced an unforeseen evil,
they invented a new device to prevent the new evil. The new device
again failed to prevent, and became a cause of a new harm, and so on
indefinitely.

2. Among their devices for industrial prosperity were (1) export taxes
on raw materials, to make raw materials abundant and cheap at home; (2)
bounties on the export of finished products, to make the exports large;
(3) taxes on imported commodities to make the imports small, and thus,
with No. 2, to make the “balance of trade” favorable, and to secure
an importation of specie; (4) taxes or prohibition on the export of
machinery, so as not to let foreigners have the advantage of domestic
inventions; (5) prohibition on the emigration of skilled laborers,
lest they should carry to foreign rivals knowledge of domestic arts;
(6) monopolies to encourage enterprise; (7) navigation laws to foster
ship-building or the carrying trade, and to provide sailors for the
navy; (8) a colonial system to bring about by political force the very
trade which the other devices had destroyed by economic interference;
(9) laws for fixing wages and prices to repress the struggle of the
non-capitalist class to save themselves in the social press; (10)
poor-laws to lessen the struggle by another outlet; (11) extravagant
criminal laws to try to suppress another development of this struggle
by terror; and so on, and so on.


(_B_) OLD AND NEW CONCEPTIONS OF THE STATE.

3. Here we have a complete illustration of one mode of looking at human
society, or at a state. Such society is, on this view, an artificial
or mechanical product. It is an object to be molded, made, produced
by contrivance. Like every product which is brought out by working up
to an ideal instead of working out from antecedent truth and fact,
the product here is haphazard, grotesque, false. Like every other
product which is brought out by working on lines fixed by _a priori_
assumptions, it is a satire on human foresight and on what we call
common sense. Such a state is like a house of cards, built up anxiously
one upon another, ready to fall at a breath, to be credited at most
with naïve hope and silly confidence; or, it is like the long and
tedious contrivance of a mischievous schoolboy, for an end which has
been entirely misappreciated and was thought desirable when it should
have been thought a folly; or, it is like the museum of an alchemist,
filled with specimens of his failures, monuments of mistaken industry
and testimony of an erroneous method; or, it is like the clumsy product
of an untrained inventor, who, instead of asking: “what means have
I, and to what will they serve?” asks: “what do I wish that I could
accomplish?” and seeks to win steps by putting in more levers and cogs,
increasing friction and putting the solution ever farther off.

4. Of course such a notion of a state is at war with the conception
of a state as a seat of original forces which must be reckoned with
all the time; as an organism whose life will go on anyhow, perverted,
distorted, diseased, vitiated as it may be by obstructions or
coercions; as a seat of life in which nothing is ever lost, but every
antecedent combines with every other and has its share in the immediate
resultant, and again in the next resultant, and so on indefinitely;
as the domain of activities so great that they should appall any
one who dares to interfere with them; of instincts so delicate and
self-preservative that it should be only infinite delight to the wisest
man to see them come into play, and his sufficient glory to give them a
little intelligent assistance. If a state well performed its functions
of providing peace, order, and security, as _conditions_ under which
the people could live and work, it would be the proudest proof of its
triumphant success that it had nothing to do--that all went so smoothly
that it had only to look on and was never called to interfere; just
as it is the test of a good business man that his business runs on
smoothly and prosperously while he is not harassed or hurried. The
people who think that it is proof of enterprise to meddle and “fuss”
may believe that a good state will constantly interfere and regulate,
and they may regard the other type of state as “non-government.” The
state can do a great deal more than to discharge police functions. If
it will _follow_ custom, and the growth of social structure to provide
for new social needs, it can powerfully aid the production of structure
by laying down lines of common action, where nothing is needed but
_some_ common action on conventional lines; or, it can systematize a
number of arrangements which are not at their maximum utility for want
of concord; or, it can give sanction to new rights which are constantly
created by new relations under new social organizations, and so on.

5. The latter idea of the state has only begun to win way. All history
and sociology bear witness to its comparative truth, at least when
compared with the former. Under the new conception of the state, of
course liberty means breaking off the fetters and trammels which the
“wisdom” of the past has forged, and _laissez-faire_, or “let alone,”
becomes a cardinal maxim of statesmanship, because it means: “Cease
the empirical process. Institute the scientific process. Let the state
come back to normal health and activity, so that you can study it,
learn something about it from an observation of its phenomena, and
then regulate your action in regard to it by intelligent knowledge.”
Statesmen suited to this latter type of state have not yet come forward
in any great number. The new radical statesmen show no disposition to
let their neighbors alone. They think that they have come into power
just because they know what their neighbors need to have done to them.
Statesmen of the old type, who told people that they knew how to make
everybody happy, and that they were going to do it, were always far
better paid than any of the new type ever will be, and their failures
never cost them public confidence either. We have got tired of kings,
priests, nobles and soldiers, not because they failed to make us all
happy, but because our _a priori_ dogmas have changed fashion. We have
put the administration of the state in the hands of lawyers, editors,
_littérateurs_, and professional politicians, and they are by no means
disposed to abdicate the functions of their predecessors, or to abandon
the practice of the art of national prosperity. The chief difference is
that, whereas the old statesmen used to temper the practice of their
art with care for the interests of the kings and aristocracies which
put them in power, the new statesmen feel bound to serve those sections
of the population which have put them where they are.

6. Some of the old devices above enumerated (§ 2) are, however, out
of date, or are becoming obsolete.[1] Number 3, taxes on imports for
other than fiscal purposes, is not among this number. Just now such
taxes seem to be coming back into fashion, or to be enjoying a certain
revival. It is a sign of the deficiency of our sociology as compared
with our other sciences that such a phenomenon could be presented in
the last quarter of the nineteenth century, as a certain revival of
faith in the efficiency of taxes on imports as a device for producing
national prosperity. There is not a single one of the eleven devices
mentioned above, including taxes on the exportation of machinery and
prohibitions on emigration, which is not quite as rational and sound as
taxes on imports.

I now propose to analyze and criticize protectionism.


(_C_) DEFINITION OF PROTECTIONISM--DEFINITION OF “THEORY.”

7. By protection_ism_ I mean the doctrine of protective taxes as
a device to be employed in the art of national prosperity. The
protectionists are fond of representing themselves as “practical”
and the free traders as “theorists.” “Theory” is indeed one of the
most abused words in the language, and the scientists are partly
to blame for it. They have allowed the word to come into use, even
among themselves, for _a conjectural explanation_, or _a speculative
conjecture_, or _a working hypothesis_, or _a project which has not
yet been tested by experiment_, or _a plausible and harmless theorem
about transcendental relations_, or _about the way in which men will
act under certain motives_. The newspapers seem often to use the word
“theoretical” as if they meant by it imaginary or fictitious. I use the
word “theory,” however, not in distinction from fact, but, in what I
understand to be the correct scientific use of the word, to denote _a
rational description of a group of coördinated facts in their sequence
and relations_. A theory may, for a special purpose, describe only
certain features of facts and disregard others. Hence “in practice,”
where facts present themselves in all their complexity, he who has
carelessly neglected the limits of his theory may be astonished at
phenomena which present themselves; but his astonishment will be due to
a blunder on his part, and will not be an imputation on the theory.

8. Now free trade is not a theory in any sense of the word. _It is
only a mode of liberty_; one form of the assault (and therefore
negative) which the expanding intelligence of the present is making on
the trammels which it has inherited from the past. Inside the United
States, absolute free trade exists over a continent. No one thinks
of it or realizes it. No one “feels” it. We feel only constraint
and oppression. If we get liberty we reflect on it only so long as
the memory of constraint endures. I have again and again seen the
astonishment with which people realized the fact when presented to them
that they have been living under free trade all their lives and never
thought of it. When the whole world shall obtain and enjoy free trade
there will be nothing more to be said about it; it will disappear from
discussion and reflection; it will disappear from the text-books on
political economy as the chapters on slavery are disappearing; it will
be as strange for men to think that they might _not_ have free trade as
it would be now for an American to think that he might not travel in
this country without a passport, or that there ever was a chance that
the soil of our western states might be slave soil and not free soil.
It would be as reasonable to apply the word “theory” to the protestant
reformation, or to law reform, or to anti-slavery, or to the separation
of church and state, or to popular rights, or to any other campaign in
the great struggle which we call liberty and progress, as to apply it
to free trade. The pro-slavery men formerly did apply it to abolition,
and with excellent reason, if the use of it which I have criticized
ever was correct; for it required great power of realizing in
imagination the results of social change, and great power to follow and
trust abstract reasoning, for any man bred under slavery to realize, in
advance of experiment, the social and economic gain to be won--_most
of all for the whites_--by emancipation. It now requires great power
of “theoretical conception” for people who have no experience of the
separation of church and state to realize its benefits and justice.
Similar observations would hold true of all similar reforms. Free trade
is a revolt, a conflict, a reform, a reaction and recuperation of the
body politic, just as free conscience, free worship, free speech, free
press, and free soil have been. It is in no sense a theory.

9. Protectionism is not a theory in the correct sense of the term, but
it comes under some of the popular and incorrect uses of the word. It
is purely dogmatic and _a priori_. It is desired to attain a certain
object--wealth and national prosperity. Protective taxes are proposed
as a means. It must be assumed that there is some connection between
protective taxes and national prosperity, some relation of cause and
effect, some sequence of expended energy and realized product, between
protective taxes and national wealth. If then by theory we mean a
speculative conjecture as to occult relations which have not been and
cannot be traced in experience, protection would be a capital example.
Another and parallel example was furnished by astrology, which assumed
a causal relation between the movements of the planets and the fate
of men, and built up quite an art of soothsaying on this assumption.
Another example, paralleling protectionism in another feature, was
alchemy, which, accepting as unquestionable the notion that we want
to transmute lead into gold if we can, assumed that there was a
philosopher’s stone, and set to work to find it through centuries of
repetition of the method of “trial and failure.”

10. _Protectionism, then, is an_ ISM; that is, it is a doctrine
or system of doctrine which offers no demonstration, and rests
upon no facts, but appeals to faith on grounds of its _a priori_
reasonableness, or the plausibility with which it can be set forth.
Of course, if a man should say: “I am in favor of protective taxes
because they bring gain to me. That is all I care to know about them,
and I shall get them retained as long as I can”--there is no trouble
in understanding him, and there is no use in arguing with him. So far
as he is concerned, the only thing to do is to find his victims and
explain the matter to them. The only thing which can be discussed is
the doctrine of national wealth by protective taxes. This doctrine
has the forms of an economic theory. It vies with the doctrine of
labor and capital as a part of the science of production. Its avowed
purpose is impersonal and disinterested--the same, in fact, as that
of political economy. It is not, like free trade, a mere negative
position against an inherited system, to which one is led by a study of
political economy. It is a species of political economy, and aims at
the throne of the science itself. If it is true, it is not a corollary,
but a postulate, on which, and by which, all political economy must be
constructed.

11. But then, lo! if the dogma which constitutes
protectionism--_national wealth can be produced by protective taxes
and cannot be produced without them_--is enunciated, instead of going
on to a science of political economy based upon it, the science falls
dead on the spot. What can be said about production, population, land,
money, exchange, labor and all the rest? What can the economist learn
or do? What function is there for the university or school? There is
nothing to do but to go over to the art of legislation, and get the
legislator to put on the taxes. The only questions which can arise are
as to the number, variety, size, and proportion of the taxes. As to
these questions the economist can offer no light. He has no method of
investigating them. He can deduce no principles, lay down no laws in
regard to them. The legislator must go on in the dark and experiment.
If his taxes do not produce the required result, if there turn out to
be “snakes” in the tariff which he has adopted, he has to change it. If
the result still fails, change it again. Protectionism bars the science
of political economy with a dogma, and the only process of the art
of statesmanship to which it leads is eternal trial and failure--the
process of the alchemist and of the inventor of perpetual motion.


(_D_) DEFINITION OF FREE TRADE AND OF A PROTECTIVE DUTY.

12. What then is a protective tax? In order to join issue as directly
as possible, I will quote the definitions given by a leading
protectionist journal,[2] of both free trade and protection. “The term
‘free trade,’ although much discussed, is seldom rightly defined.
It does not mean the abolition of custom houses. Nor does it mean
the substitution of direct for indirect taxation, as a few American
disciples of the school have supposed. It means such an adjustment
of taxes on imports as will cause no diversion of capital, from any
channel into which it would otherwise flow, into any channel opened
or favored by the legislation which enacts the customs. A country
may collect its entire revenue by duties on imports, and yet be an
entirely free trade country, so long as it does not lay those duties
in such a way as to lead any one to undertake any employment, or make
any investment he would avoid in the absence of such duties: thus, the
customs duties levied by England--with a very few exceptions--are not
inconsistent with her profession of being a country which believes
in free trade. They either are duties on articles not produced in
England, or they are exactly equivalent to the excise duties levied
on the same articles if made at home. They do not lead any one to put
his money into the home production of an article, because they do not
discriminate in favor of the home producer.”

13. “A protective duty, on the other hand, has for its object to effect
the diversion of a part of the capital and labor of the people out of
the channels in which it would run otherwise, into channels favored or
created by law.”

I know of no definitions of these two things which have ever been made
by anybody which are more correct than these. I accept them and join
issue on them.


(_E_) PROTECTIONISM RAISES A PURELY DOMESTIC CONTROVERSY.

14. It will be noticed that this definition of a protective duty
says nothing about foreigners or about imports. According to
this definition, a protective duty is a device for effecting a
transformation in our own industry. If a tax is levied at the port
of entry on a foreign commodity which is actually imported, the tax
is paid to the treasury and produces revenue. A protective tax is
one which is laid to act as a bar to importation, in order to keep a
foreign commodity out. It does not act protectively unless it does act
as a bar, and is not a tax on imports but an obstruction to imports.
Hence a protective duty is a wall to inclose the domestic producer and
consumer, and to prevent the latter from having access to any other
source of supply for his needs, in exchange for his products, than
that one which the domestic producer controls. The purpose and plan of
the device is to enable the domestic producer to levy on the domestic
consumer the taxes which the government has set up as a barrier,
but has not collected at the port of entry. Under this device the
government says: “I do not want the revenue, but I will lay the tax so
that you, the selected and favored producer, may collect it.” “I do not
need to tax the consumer for myself, but I will hold him for you while
you tax him.”


(_F_) “A PROTECTIVE DUTY IS NOT A TAX.”

15. There are some who say that “a tariff is not a tax,” or as one of
them said before a Congressional Committee: “We do not like to call it
so!” That certainly is the most humorous of all the funny things in
the tariff controversy. If a tariff is not a tax, what is it? In what
category does it belong? No protectionist has ever yet told. They seem
to think of it as a thing by itself, a Power, a Force, a sort of Mumbo
Jumbo whose special function it is to produce national prosperity. They
do not appear to have analyzed it, or given themselves an account of
it, sufficiently to know what kind of a thing it is or how it acts. Any
one who says that it is not a tax must suppose that it costs nothing,
that it produces an effect without an expenditure of energy. They do
seem to think that if Congress will say: “Let a tax of ---- per cent
be laid on article A,” and if none is imported, and therefore no tax
is paid at the custom house, national industry will be benefited and
wealth secured, and that there will be no cost or outgo. If that is so,
then the tariff is magic. We have found the philosopher’s stone. Our
congressmen wave a magic wand over the country and say: “Not otherwise
provided for, one hundred and fifty per cent,” and, presto! there we
have wealth. Again they say: “Fifty cents a yard and fifty per cent
_ad valorem_”; and there we have prosperity! If we should build a wall
along the coast to keep foreigners and their goods out, it would cost
something. If we maintained a navy to blockade our own coast for the
same purpose, it would cost something. Yet it is imagined that if we
do the same by a tax it costs nothing.

16. This is the fundamental fallacy of protection to which the analysis
will bring us back again and again. Scientifically stated, it is that
_protectionism sins against the conservation of energy_. More simply
stated, it is that _the protectionist either never sees or does not
tell the other side of the account, the cost, the outlay for the gains
which he alleges from protection, and that when these are examined and
weighed they are sure vastly to exceed the gains, if the gains were
real_, even taking no account of the harm to national growth which is
done by restriction and interference.

17. There are only three ways in which a man can part with his product,
and different kinds of taxes fall under different modes of alienating
one’s goods. First, he may exchange his product for the product of
others. Then he parts with his property voluntarily, and for an
equivalent. Taxes which are paid for peace, order, and security, fall
under this head. Secondly, he may give his product away. Then he parts
with it voluntarily without an equivalent. Taxes which are voluntarily
paid for schools, libraries, parks, etc., fall under this head.
Thirdly, he may be robbed of it. Then he parts with it involuntarily
and without an equivalent. Taxes which are protective fall under this
head. The analysis is exhaustive, and there is no other place for them.
Protective taxes are those which a man pays to his neighbor to hire
him (the neighbor) to carry on his own business. The first man gets
no equivalent (§ 108). Hence any one who says that a tariff is not a
tax would have to put it in some such category as tribute, plunder, or
robbery. In order, then, that we may not give any occasion for even an
unjust charge of using hard words, let us go back and call it a tax.

18. In any case it is plain that _we have before us the case of two
Americans_. The protectionists who try to discuss the subject always
go off to talk English politics and history, or Ireland, or India,
or Turkey. I shall not follow them. I shall discuss the case between
two Americans, which is the only case there is. Whether Englishmen
like our tariff or not is of no consequence. As a matter of fact,
Englishmen seem to have come to the opinion that if Americans will take
their own home market as their share, and will keep out of the world’s
market, they (the Englishmen) will agree to the arrangement; but it is
immaterial whether they agree, or are angry. The only question for us
is: What kind of an arrangement is it for one American to tax another
American? How does it work? Who gains by it? How does it affect our
national prosperity? These and these only are the questions which I
intend to discuss.

19. I shall adopt _two different lines of investigation_. First,
I shall examine protectionism on its own claims and pretensions,
taking its doctrines and claims for true, and following them out to
see whether they will produce the promised results; and secondly, I
shall attack protectionism adversely, and controversially. If any
one proposes a device for the public good, he is entitled to candid
and patient attention, but he is also under obligation to show
how he expects his scheme to work, what forces it will bring into
play, how it will use them, etc. The joint stock principle, credit
institutions, coöperation, and all similar devices must be analyzed
and the explanation of their advantage, if they offer any, must be
sought in the principles which they embody, the forces they employ,
the suitableness of their apparatus. We ought not to put faith in any
device (_e.g._, bi-metalism, socialism) unless the proposers offer an
explanation of it which will bear rigid and pitiless examination; for,
if it is a sound device, such examination will only produce more and
more thorough conviction of its merits. I shall therefore first take
up protectionism just as it is offered, and test it, as any candid
inquirer might do, to see whether, as it is presented by its advocates,
it has any claims to confidence.


CHAPTER II

PROTECTIONISM EXAMINED ON ITS OWN GROUNDS

20. It is the peculiar irony in all empirical devices in social science
that they not only fail of the effect expected of them, but that
they produce the exact opposite. Paper money is expected to help the
non-capitalist and the debtor and to make business brisk. It ruins the
non-capitalists and the debtors, and reduces industry and commerce
to a standstill. Socialistic devices are expected to bring about
equality and universal happiness. They produce despotism, favoritism,
inequality, and universal misery. The devices are, in their operation,
true to themselves. They act just as an unprejudiced examination of
them should have led any one to expect that they would act, or just as
a limited experience has shown that they must act. If protectionism
is only another case of the same kind, an examination of it on its
own grounds must bring out the fact that it will issue in crippling
industry, diminishing capital, and lowering the average of comfort. Let
us see.


(_A_) ASSUMPTIONS IN PROTECTIONISM.

21. Obviously the doctrine includes two assumptions. The first is,
that if we are left to ourselves, each to choose, under liberty, his
line of industrial effort, and to use his labor and capital, under
the circumstances of the country, as best he can, we shall fail of
our highest prosperity. Secondly, that, if Congress will only tax us
(properly) we can be led up to higher prosperity. Hence it is at once
evident that free trade and protection here are not on a level. No free
trader will affirm that he has a device for making the country rich, or
saving it from hard times, any more than a respectable physician will
tell us that he can give us specifics and preventives to keep us well.
On the contrary, so long as men live they will do foolish things, and
they will have to bear the penalty; but if they are free, they will
commit only the follies which are their own, and they will bear the
penalties only of those. The protectionist begins with the premise that
we shall make mistakes, and that is why he, who knows how to make us go
right, proposes to take us in hand. He is like the doctor who can give
us just the pill we need to “cleanse our blood” and “ward off chills.”
_Hence either prosperity in a free-trade country, or distress in a
protectionist country, is fatal to protectionism_, while distress in
a free-trade country, or prosperity in a protectionist country proves
nothing against free trade. Hence the fallacy of all Mr. R. P. Porter’s
letters is obvious. (§§ 52, 92, 102, 154.)

22. The device by which we are to be made better than ourselves is to
select some of ourselves, who certainly are not the best business men
among ourselves, to go to Washington, and there turn around and tax
ourselves blindly, or, if not blindly, craftily and selfishly. Surely
this would be the triumph of stupidity and ignorance over intelligent
knowledge, enterprise and energy. The motive which would control each
of us, if we were free, would be the hope of the greatest gain. We
should have to put industry, prudence, economy, and enterprise into
our business. If we failed, it would be through error. How is the
congressional interference to act? How is it to meet and correct our
error? It can appeal to no other motive than desire for profit, and can
only offer us a profit where there was none before, if we will turn out
of the industry which we have selected, into one which we do not know.
It offers a greater profit there only by means of what it takes from
somebody else and somewhere else. Or, is congressional interference to
correct the errors of John, James and William, and to make the idle,
industrious, and the extravagant prudent? Any one who believes it must
believe that the welfare of mankind is not dependent on the reason and
conscience of the interested persons themselves, but on the caprices of
blundering ignorance, embodied in a selected few, or on the trickery of
lobbyists, acting impersonally and at a distance.


(_B_) NECESSARY CONDITIONS OF SUCCESSFUL PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION.

23. Suppose, however, that it were true that Congress had the power
(by some exercise of the taxing function) to influence favorably the
industrial development of the country: is it not true that men of sense
would demand to be satisfied on three points, as follows?

24. (_a_) If Congress can do this thing, and is going to try it,
_ought it not, in order to succeed, to have a distinct idea of what
it is aiming at and proposes to do_? Who would have confidence in any
man who should set out on an enterprise and who did not satisfy this
condition? Has Congress ever satisfied it? Never. They have never had
any plan or purpose in their tariff legislation. Congress has simply
laid itself open to be acted upon by the interested parties, and the
product of its tariff legislation has been simply the resultant of
the struggles of the interested cliques with each other, and of the
log-rolling combinations which they have been forced to make among
themselves. In 1882 Congress did pay some deference, real or pretended,
to the plain fact that it was bound, if it exercised this mighty
power and responsibility, to bring some intelligence to bear on it,
and it appointed a Tariff Commission which spent several months in
collecting evidence. This Commission was composed, with one exception,
of protectionists. It recommended a reduction of twenty-five per cent
in the tariff, and said: “Early in its deliberations the Commission
became convinced that a substantial reduction of tariff duties is
demanded, not by a mere indiscriminate popular clamor, but by the best
conservative opinion of the country.” “Excessive duties are positively
injurious to the interests which they are supposed to benefit. They
encourage the investment of capital in manufacturing enterprises by
rash and unskilled speculators, to be followed by disaster to the
adventurers and their employees, and a plethora of commodities which
deranges the operations of skilled and prudent enterprise.” (§ 111.)
This report was entirely thrown aside, and Congress, ignoring it
entirely, began again in exactly the old way. The Act of 1883 was not
even framed by or in Congress. It was carried out into the dark, into a
conference committee,[3] where new and gross abuses were put into the
bill under cover of a pretended revision and reduction. When a tariff
bill is before Congress, the first draft starts with a certain rate on
a certain article, say twenty per cent. It is raised by amendment to
fifty, the article is taken into a combination and the rate put up to
eighty per cent; the bill is sent to the other house, and the rate on
this article cut down again to forty per cent; on conference between
the two houses the rate is fixed at sixty per cent. He who believes in
the protectionist doctrine must, if he looks on at that proceeding,
believe that the prosperity of the country is being kicked around the
floor of Congress, at the mercy of the chances which are at last to
determine with what per cent of tax these articles will come out. And
what is it that determines with what tax any given article will come
out? Any intelligent knowledge of industry? Not a word of it. Nothing
in the case of a given tax on a given article, but just this: “Who is
behind it?” The history of tariff legislation by the Congress of the
United States throws a light upon the protective doctrine which is
partly grotesque and partly revolting.

25. (_b_) If Congress can exert the supposed beneficent influence on
industry, _ought not Congress to understand the force which it proposes
to use_? Ought it not to have some rules of protective legislation so
as to know in what cases, within what limits, under what conditions,
the device can be effectively used? Would that not be a reasonable
demand to make of any man who should propose a device for any purpose?
Congress has never had any knowledge of the way in which the taxes
which it passed were to do this beneficent work. It has never had,
and has never seemed to think that it needed to get, any knowledge of
the mode of operation of protective taxes. It passes taxes, as big as
the conflicting interests will allow, and goes home, satisfied that
it has saved the country. What a pity that philosophers, economists,
sages, and moralists should have spent so much time in elucidating the
conditions and laws of human prosperity! Taxes can do it all.

26. (_c_) If Congress can do what is affirmed and is going to try
it, is it not the part of common sense to demand that _some tests
be applied to the experiment after a few years to see whether it is
really doing as was expected_? In the campaign of 1880 it was said
that if Hancock was elected we should have free trade, wages would
fall, factories would be closed, etc. Hancock was not elected, we did
not get any reform of the tariff, and yet in 1884 wages were falling,
factories were closed, and all the other direful consequences which
were threatened had come to pass. _Bradstreet’s_ made investigations in
the winter of 1884–1885 which showed that 316,000 workmen, thirteen per
cent of the number employed in manufacturing in 1880, were out of work,
17,550 on strike, and that wages had fallen since 1882 from ten to
forty per cent, especially in the leading lines of manufacturing which
are protected. What did these calamities all prove then? If we had had
any revision of the tariff, should we not have had these things alleged
again and again as results of it? Did they not, then, in the actual
case, prove the folly of protection? Oh, no! that would be attacking
the sacred dogma, and the sacred dogma is a matter of faith, so that,
as it never had any foundation in fact or evidence, it has just as much
after the experiment has failed as before the experiment was made.

27. If, now, it were possible to devise a scheme of legislation which
should, according to protectionist ideas, be just the right jacket of
taxation to fit this country to-day, _how long would it fit_? Not a
week. Here are certain millions of people on three and a half million
square miles of land. Every day new lines of communication are opened,
new discoveries made, new inventions produced, new processes applied,
and the consequence is that the industrial system is in constant
flux and change. How, if a correct system of protective taxes was a
practicable thing at any given moment, could Congress keep up with
the changes and readaptations which would be required? The notion is
preposterous, and it is a monstrous thing, even on the protectionist
hypothesis, that we are living under a protective system which was set
up in 1864. The weekly tariff decisions by the treasury department may
be regarded as the constant attempts that are required to fit that
old system to present circumstances, and, as it is not possible that
new fabrics, new compounds, and new processes should find a place in
schedules which were made twenty years before they were invented, those
decisions carry with them the fate of scores of new industries which
figure in no census, and are taken into account by no congressman.
Therefore, even if we believed that the protective doctrine was sound
and that some protective system was beneficial, and that the one which
we have was the right one when it was made, we should be driven to the
conclusion that one which is twenty years old is sure to be injurious
to-day.

28. There is nothing then in the legislative machinery by which the
tariff is to be made which is calculated to win the confidence of a
man of sense, but everything to the contrary; and the experiments
of such legislation which have been made have produced nothing but
warnings against the device. Instead of offering any reasonable ground
for belief that our errors will be corrected and our productive powers
increased, an examination of the tariff as a piece of legislation
offers to us nothing but a burden, which must cripple any economic
power which we have.


(_C_) EXAMINATION OF THE MEANS PROPOSED, _viz._, TAXES.

29. Every tax is a burden, and in the nature of the case can be
nothing else. In mathematical language, every tax is a quantity
affected by a minus sign. If it gets peace and security, that is, if
it represses crime and injustice and prevents discord, which would be
economically destructive, then it is a smaller minus quantity than
the one which would otherwise be there, and that is the gain by good
government. Hence, like every other outlay which we make, taxes must
be controlled by the law of economy--to get the best and most possible
for the least expenditure. Instead of regarding public expenditure
carelessly, we should watch it jealously. Instead of looking at
taxation as conceivably a good, and certainly not an ill, we should
regard every tax as on the defensive, and every cent of tax as needing
justification. If the statesman exacts any more than is necessary to
pay for good government economically administered, he is incompetent,
and fails in his duty. I have been studying political economy almost
exclusively for the last fifteen years, and when I look back over
that period and ask myself what is the most marked effect which I
can perceive on my own opinion, or on my standpoint, as to social
questions, I find that it is this: I am convinced that nobody yet
understands the multiplied and complicated effects which are produced
by taxation. I am under the most profound impression of the mischief
which is done by taxation, reaching, as it does, to every dinner-table
and to every fireside. _The effects of taxation vary with every change
in the industrial system and the industrial status_, and they are so
complicated that it is impossible to follow, analyze, and systematize
them; but out of the study of the subject there arises this firm
conviction: taxation is crippling, shortening, reducing all the time,
over and over again.

30. Suppose that a man has an income of one thousand dollars, of which
he has been saving one hundred dollars per annum with no tax. Now a tax
of ten dollars is demanded of him, no matter what kind of a tax or how
laid. Is he to get the tax out of the nine hundred dollars expenditure
or out of the one hundred dollars savings? If the former, then he must
cut down his diet, or his clothing, or his house accommodation, that
is, lower his standard of comfort. If the latter, then he must lessen
his accumulation of capital, that is, his provision for the future.
Either way his welfare is reduced and cannot be otherwise affected,
and, through the general effect, the welfare of the community is
reduced by the tax. Of course it is immaterial that he may not know the
facts. The effects are the same. In this view of the matter it is plain
what mischief is done by taxes which are laid to buy parks, libraries,
and all sorts of grand things. The tax-layer is not providing public
order. He is spending other people’s earnings for them. He is deciding
that his neighbor shall have less clothes and more library or park.
But when we come to protective taxes the abuse is monstrous. The
legislator who has in his hands this power of taxation uses it to
say that one citizen shall have less clothes in order that he may
contribute to the profits of another citizen’s private business.

31. Hence if we look at the nature of taxation, and if we are examining
protectionism from its own standpoint, under the assumption that it is
true, instead of finding any confirmation of its assumptions, in the
nature of the means which it proposes to use, we find the contrary.
Granting that people make mistakes and fail of the highest prosperity
which they might win when they act freely, we see plainly that more
taxes cannot help to lift them up or to correct their errors; on the
contrary, _all taxation, beyond what is necessary for an economical
administration of good government, is either luxurious or wasteful_,
and if such taxation could tend to wealth, waste would make wealth.


(_D_) EXAMINATION OF THE PLAN OF MUTUAL TAXATION.

32. Suppose then that the industries and sections all begin to tax each
other as we see that they do under protection. Is it not plain that
the taxing operation can do nothing but _transfer_ products, never by
any possibility create them? The object of the protective taxes is to
“effect the diversion of a part of the capital and labor of the country
from the channels in which it would run otherwise.” To do this it must
find a fulcrum or point of reaction, or it can exert no force for the
effect it desires. The fulcrum is furnished by those who pay the tax.
Take a case. Pennsylvania taxes New England on every ton of iron and
coal used in its industries. Ohio taxes New England on all the wool
obtained from that state for its industries.[4] New England taxes
Ohio and Pennsylvania on all the cottons and woolens which it sells to
them. What is the net final result? It is mathematically certain that
the only result can be that (1) New England gets back just all she paid
(in which case the system is nil, save for the expense of the process
and the limitation it imposes on the industry of all), or, (2) that New
England does not get back as much as she paid (in which case she is
tributary to the others), or, (3) that she gets back more than she paid
(in which case she levies tribute on them). Yet, on the protectionist
notion, this system extended to all sections, and embracing all
industries, is the means of producing national prosperity. When it
is all done, what does it amount to except that _all Americans must
support all Americans_? How can they do it better than for each to
support himself to the best of his ability? Then, however, all the
assumptions of protectionism must be abandoned as false.

33. In 1676 King Charles II granted to his natural son, the Duke of
Richmond, a tax of a shilling a chaldron on all the coal which was
exported from the Tyne. We regard such a grant as a shocking abuse
of the taxing power. It is, however, a very interesting case because
the mine owner and the tax owner were two separate persons, and the
tax can be examined in all its separate iniquity. If, as I suppose
was the case, the Tyne Valley possessed such superior facilities for
producing coal that it had a qualified monopoly, the tax fell on the
coal mine owner (landlord); that is, the king transferred to his son
part of the property which belonged to the Tyne coal owners. In that
view the case may come home to some of our protectionists as it would
not if the tax had fallen on the consumers. If Congress had pensioned
General Grant by giving him seventy-five cents a ton on all the coal
mined in the Lehigh Valley, what protests we should have heard from
the owners of coal lands in that district! If the king’s son, however,
had owned the coal mines, and worked them himself, and if the king had
said: “I will authorize you to raise the price of your coal a shilling
a chaldron, and, to enable you to do it, I will myself tax all coal
but yours a shilling a chaldron,” then the device would have been
modern and enlightened and American. We have done just that on emery,
copper, and nickel. Then the tax comes out of the consumer. Then it is
not, according to the protectionist, harmful, but the key to national
prosperity, the thing which corrects the errors of our incompetent
self-will, and leads us up to better organization of our industry than
we, in our unguided stupidity, could have made.


(_E_) EXAMINATION OF THE PROPOSAL TO “CREATE AN INDUSTRY.”

34. The protectionist says, however, that he is going to create
an industry. Let us examine this notion also from his standpoint,
assuming the truth of his doctrine, and see if we can find anything to
deserve confidence. A protective tax, according to the protectionist’s
definition (§ 13), “has for its object to effect the diversion of a
part of the labor and capital of the people ... into channels favored
or created by law.” If we follow out this proposal, we shall see what
those channels are, and shall see whether they are such as to make us
believe that protective taxes can increase wealth.

35. _What is an industry?_ Some people will answer: It is an enterprise
which gives employment. Protectionists seem to hold this view,
and they claim that they “give work” to laborers when they make an
industry. On that notion we live to work; we do not work to live. But
we do not want work. We have too much work. We want a living; and work
is the inevitable but disagreeable price we must pay. Hence we want
as much living at as little price as possible. We shall see that the
protectionist does “make work” in the sense of lessening the living
and increasing the price. But if we want a living we want capital.
If an industry is to pay wages, it must be backed up by capital.
Therefore protective taxes, if they were to increase the means of
living, would need to increase capital. How can taxes increase capital?
Protective taxes only take from A to give to B. Therefore, if B by
this arrangement can extend his industry and “give more employment,”
A’s power to do the same is diminished in at least an equal degree.
Therefore, even on that erroneous definition of an industry, there is
no hope for the protectionist.

36. _An industry is an organization of labor and capital for satisfying
some need of the community._ It is not an end in itself. It is not a
good thing to have in itself. It is not a toy or an ornament. If we
could satisfy our needs without it we should be better off, not worse
off. How, then, can we create industries?

37. If any one will find, in the soil of a district, some new power to
supply human needs, he can endow that district with a new industry. If
he will invent a mode of treating some natural deposit, ore or clay,
for instance, so as to provide a tool or utensil which is cheaper and
more convenient than what is in use, he can create an industry. If he
will find out some new and better way to raise cattle or vegetables,
which is, perhaps, favored by the climate, he can do the same. If he
invents some new treatment of wool, or cotton, or silk, or leather, or
makes a new combination which produces a more convenient or attractive
fabric, he may do the same. The telephone is a new industry. What
measures the gain of it? Is it the “employment” of certain persons in
and about telephone offices? The gain is in the satisfaction of the
need of communication between people at less cost of time and labor. It
is useless to multiply instances. It can be seen what it is to “create
an industry.” It takes brains and energy to do it. How can taxes do it?

38. Suppose that we create an industry even in this sense--_What is the
gain of it?_ The people of Connecticut are now earning their living by
employing their labor and capital in certain parts of the industrial
organization. They have changed their “industries” a great many times.
If it should be found that they had a new and better chance hitherto
undeveloped, they might all go into it. To do that they must abandon
what they are now doing. They would not change unless gains to be made
in the new industry were greater. Hence the gain is the _difference_
only between the profits of the old and the profits of the new. The
protectionists, however, when they talk about “creating an industry,”
seem to suppose that the total profit of the industry (and some of
them seem to think that the total expenditure of capital) measures
their good work. In any case, then, even of a true and legitimate
increase of industrial power and opportunity, the only gain would be a
margin. But, by our definition, “a protective duty has for its object
to effect the diversion of a part of the capital and labor of the
people out of the channels in which it would otherwise run.” Plainly
this device involves coercion. People would need no coercion to go
into a new industry which had a natural origin in new industrial power
or opportunity. No coercion is necessary to make men buy dollars at
ninety-eight cents apiece. The case for coercion is when it is desired
to make them buy dollars at one hundred and one cents apiece. Here
the statesman with his taxing power is needed, and can do something.
What? He can say: “If you will buy a dollar at one hundred and one
cents, I can and will tax John over there two cents for your benefit;
one to make up your loss and the other to give you a profit.” Hence,
_on the protectionist’s own doctrine_, his device is not needed, and
cannot come into use, when a new industry is created in the true and
only reasonable sense of the words, but _only when and because he
is determined to drive the labor and capital of the country into a
disadvantageous and wasteful employment_.

39. Still further, it is obvious that the protectionist, instead of
“creating a new industry,” has _simply taken one industry and set it
as a parasite to live upon another_. Industry is its own reward. A
man is not to be paid a premium by his neighbors for earning his own
living. A factory, an insane asylum, a school, a church, a poorhouse,
and a prison cannot be put in the same economic category. We know that
the community must be taxed to support insane asylums, poorhouses, and
jails. When we come upon such institutions we see them with regret.
They are wasting capital. We know that the industrious people all
about, who are laboring and producing, must part with a portion of
their earnings to supply the waste and loss of these institutions.
Hence _the bigger they are the sadder they are_.

40. As for the schools and churches, we know that society must pay for
and keep up its own conservative institutions. They cost capital and
do not pay back capital directly, although they do indirectly, and in
the course of time, in ways which we could trace out and verify if that
were our subject. Here, then, we have a second class of institutions.

41. But the factories and farms and foundries are the productive
institutions which must provide the support of these consuming
institutions. If the factories, etc., put themselves on a line with
the poorhouses, or even with the schools, what is to support them and
all the rest too? They have nothing behind them. If in any measure or
way they turn into burdens and objects of care and protection, they
can plainly do it only by part of them turning upon the other part,
and this latter part will have to bear the burden of all the consuming
institutions, _including the consuming industries_. For a protected
factory is not a producing industry. _It is a consuming industry!_ If a
factory is (as the protectionist alleges) a triumph of the tariff, that
is, if it would not be but for the tariff (and otherwise he has nothing
to do with it), then it is not producing; it is consuming. It is a
burden to be borne. _The bigger it is the sadder it is._

42. If a protectionist shows me a woolen mill and challenges me to
deny that it is a great and valuable industry, I ask him whether it is
due to the tariff. If he says “no,” then I will assume that it is an
independent and profitable establishment, but in that case it is out of
this discussion as much as a farm or a doctor’s practice. If he says
“yes,” then I answer that the mill is not an industry at all. We pay
sixty per cent tax on cloth _simply in order that that mill may be_.
It is not an institution for getting us cloth, for if we went into the
market with the same products which we take there now and if there
were no woolen mill, we should get all the cloth we want. The mill is
simply _an institution for making cloth cost per yard sixty per cent
more of our products than it otherwise would_. That is the one and only
function which the mill has added, by its existence, to the situation.
I have called such a factory a “nuisance.” The word has been objected
to. The word is of no consequence. He who, when he goes into a debate,
begins to whine and cry as soon as the blows get sharp, should learn
to keep out. What I meant was this: A nuisance is something which by
its existence and presence in society works loss and damage to the
society--works against the general interest, not for it. A factory
which gets in the way and hinders us from attaining the comforts which
we are all trying to get--which makes harder the terms of acquisition
when we are all the time struggling by our arts and sciences to make
those terms easier--is a harmful thing, and noxious to the common
interest.

43. Hence, once more, starting from the protectionist’s hypothesis, and
assuming his own doctrine, we find that he cannot create an industry.
He only fixes one industry as a parasite upon another, and just as
certainly as he has intervened in the matter at all, just so certainly
has he forced labor and capital into less favorable employment than
they would have sought if he had let them alone. When we ask which
“channels” those are which are to be “favored or created by law,”
we find that they are, by the hypothesis, and by the whole logic of
the protectionist system, _the industries which do not pay_. The
protectionists propose to make the country rich by laws which shall
favor or create these industries, but these industries can only waste
capital, so that if they are the source of wealth, _waste is the source
of wealth_. Hence the protectionist’s assumption that by his system
he could correct our errors and lead us to greater prosperity than we
would have obtained under liberty, has failed again, and we find that
he wastes what power we do possess.


(_F_) EXAMINATION OF THE PROPOSAL TO DEVELOP OUR NATURAL RESOURCES.

44. “But,” says the protectionist, “do you mean to say that, if we have
an iron deposit in our soil, it is not wise for us to open and work
it?” “You mean, no doubt,” I reply, “open and work it _under protective
help and stimulus_; for, if there is an iron deposit, the United States
does not own it. Some man owns it. If he wants to open and work it,
we have nothing to do but wish him God-speed.” “Very well,” he says,
“understand it that he needs protection.” Let us examine this case,
then, and still we will do it assuming the truth of the protectionist
doctrine. Let us see where we shall come out.

The man who has discovered iron (on the protectionist doctrine), when
there is no tax, does not collect tools and laborers and go to work. He
goes to Washington. He visits the statesman, and a dialogue takes place.

Iron man.--“Mr. Statesman, I have found an iron deposit on my farm.”

Statesman.--“Have you, indeed? That is good news. Our country is richer
by one new natural resource than we have supposed.”

Iron man.--“Yes, and I now want to begin mining iron.”

Statesman.--“Very well, go on. We shall be glad to hear that you are
prospering and getting rich.”

Iron man.--“Yes, of course. But I am now earning my living by tilling
the surface of the ground, and I am afraid that I cannot make as much
at mining as at farming.”

Statesman.--“That is indeed another matter. Look into that carefully
and do not leave a better industry for a worse.”

Iron man.--“But I want to mine that iron. It does not seem right to
leave it in the ground when we are importing iron all the time, but
I cannot see as good profits in it at the present price for imported
iron as I am making out of what I raise on the surface. I thought that
perhaps you would put a tax on all the imported iron so that I could
get more for mine. Then I could see my way to give up farming and go to
mining.”

Statesman.--“You do not think what you ask. That would be authorizing
you to tax your neighbors, and would be throwing on them the risk of
working your mine, which you are afraid to take yourself.”

Iron man (aside).--“I have not talked the right dialect to this man.
I must begin all over again. (Aloud.) Mr. Statesman, the natural
resources of this continent ought to be developed. American industry
must be protected. The American laborer must not be forced to compete
with the pauper labor of Europe.”

Statesman.--“Now I understand you. Now you talk business. Why did you
not say so before? How much tax do you want?”

The next time that a buyer of pig iron goes to market to get some, he
finds that it costs thirty bushels of wheat per ton instead of twenty.

“What has happened to pig iron?” says he.

“Oh! haven’t you heard?” is the reply. “A new mine has been found down
in Pennsylvania. We have got a new ‘natural resource.’”

“I haven’t got a new ‘natural resource,’” says he. “It is as bad for me
as if the grasshoppers had eaten up one-third of my crop.”

45. That is just exactly the significance of a new resource on the
protectionist doctrine. We had the misfortune to find emery here.
At once a tax was put on it which made it cost more wheat, cotton,
tobacco, petroleum, or personal services per pound than ever before. A
new calamity befell us when we found the richest copper mines in the
world in our territory. From that time on it cost us five (now four)
cents a pound more than before. By another catastrophe we found a
nickel mine--thirty cents (now fifteen) a pound tax! Up to this time we
have had all the tin that we wanted above ground, because beneficent
nature has refrained from putting any underground in our territory. In
the metal schedule, where the metals which we unfortunately possess are
taxed from forty to sixty per cent, tin alone is free. Every little
while a report is started that tin has been found. Hitherto these
reports have happily all proved false. It is now said that tin has been
found in West Virginia and Dakotah. We have reason devoutly to hope
that this may prove false, for, if it should prove true, no doubt the
next thing will be forty per cent tax on tin. The mine-owners say that
they want to exploit the mine. They do not. They want to make the mine
an excuse to exploit the taxpayers.

46. Therefore, when the protectionist asks whether we ought not by
protective taxes to force the development of our own iron mines, the
answer is that, on his own doctrine, he has developed a new philosophy,
hitherto unknown, by which “natural resources” become national
calamities, and the more a country is endowed by nature the worse off
it is. Of course, if the wise philosophy is not simply to use, with
energy and prudence, all the natural opportunities which we possess,
but to seek “channels favored or created by law,” then this view of
natural resources is perfectly consistent with that philosophy, for it
is simply saying over again that _waste is the key of wealth_.


(_G_) EXAMINATION OF THE PROPOSAL TO RAISE WAGES.

47. “But,” he says again, “we want to raise wages and favor the poor
working man.” “Do you mean to say,” I reply, “that protective taxes
raise wages--that that is their regular and constant effect?” “Yes,”
he replies, “that is just what they do, and that is why we favor them.
We are the poor man’s friends. You free-traders want to reduce him to
the level of the pauper laborers of Europe.” “But here, in the evidence
offered at the last tariff discussion in Congress, the employers all
said that they wanted the taxes to protect them _because_ they had to
pay such high wages.” “Well, so they do.” “Well then, if they get the
taxes raised to help them out when they have high wages to pay, how
are the taxes going to help them any unless the taxes _lower_ wages?
But you just said that taxes raise wages. Therefore, if the employer
gets the taxes raised, he will no sooner get home from Washington than
he will find that the very taxes which he has just secured have raised
wages. Then he must go back to Washington to get the taxes raised to
offset that advance, and when he gets home again he will find that he
has only raised wages more, and so on forever. You are trying to teach
the man to raise himself by his boot straps. Two of your propositions
brought together eat each other.”

48. We will, however, pursue the protectionist doctrine of wages a
little further. It is totally false that protective taxes raise wages.
As I will show further on (§ 91 and following), protective taxes lower
wages. Now, however, I am assuming the protectionist’s own premises and
doctrines all the time. He says that his system raises wages. Let us
go to see some of the wages class and get some evidence on this point.
We will take three wage-workers, a boot man, a hat man, and a cloth
man. First we ask the boot man, “Do you win anything by this tariff?”
“Yes,” he says, “I understand that I do.” “How?” “Well, the way they
explain it to me is that when anybody wants boots he goes to my boss,
pays him more on account of the tax, and my boss gives me part of it.”
“All right! Then your comrades here, the hat man and the cloth man, pay
this tax in which you share?” “Yes, I suppose so. I never thought of
that before. I supposed that rich people paid the taxes, but I suppose
that when they buy boots they must do it too.” “And when you want a
hat you go and pay the tax on hats, part of which (as you explain
the system) goes to your friend the hat man; and when you want cloth
you pay the tax which goes to benefit your friend the cloth man?” “I
suppose that it must be so.” We go, then, to see the hat man and have
the same conversation with him, and we go to see the cloth man and
have the same conversation with him. Each of them then gets two taxes
and pays two taxes. Three men illustrate the whole case. If we should
take a thousand men in a thousand industries we should find that each
paid nine hundred and ninety-nine taxes, and each got nine hundred and
ninety-nine taxes, if the system worked as it is said to work. What is
the upshot of the whole? Either they all come out even on their taxes
paid and received, or _some of the wage receivers are winning something
out of other wage receivers to the net detriment of the whole class_.
If each man is creditor for nine hundred and ninety-nine taxes, and
each debtor for nine hundred and ninety-nine taxes, and if the system
is “universal and equal,” we can save trouble by each drawing nine
hundred and ninety-nine orders on the creditors to pay to themselves
their own taxes, and we can set up a clearing house to wipe off all the
accounts. Then we come down to this as the net result of the system
when it is “universal and equal,” that _each man as a consumer pays
taxes to himself as a producer_. That is what is to make us all rich.
We can accomplish it just as well and far more easily, when we get up
in the morning, by transferring our cash from one pocket to the other.

49. One point, however, and the most important of all, remains to be
noticed. How about the thousandth tax? How is it when the boot man
wants boots, and the hat man hats, and the cloth man cloth? He has to
go to the store on the street and buy of his own boss, at the market
price (tax on), the very things which he made himself in the shop. He
then pays the tax to his own employer, and the employer, according to
the doctrine, “shares” it with him. Where is the offset to that part
which the employer keeps? There is none. The wages class, even on the
protectionist explanation, may give or take from each other, but to
their own employers they give and take not. At election time the boss
calls them in and tells them that they must vote for protection or he
must shut up the shop, and that they ought to vote for protection,
because it makes their wages high. If, then, they believe in the
system, just as it is taught to them, they must believe that it causes
him to pay them big wages, out of which they pay back to him big taxes,
out of which he pays them a fraction back again, and that, but for this
arrangement, the business could not go on at all. A little reflection
shows that this just brings up the question for a wage-earner: _How
much can I afford to pay my boss for hiring me?_ or, again, which is
just the same thing in other words: _What is the net reduction of my
wages, below the market rate under freedom, which results from this
system?_ (See § 65.)

50. Let it not be forgotten that this result is reached by accepting
protectionism and reasoning forward from its doctrines and according
to its principles. In truth, the employees get no share in any taxes
which the boss gets out of them and others (see § 91 ff. for the truth
about wages). Of course, when this or any other subject is thoroughly
analyzed, it makes no difference where we begin or what line we follow,
we shall always reach the same result if the result is correct. If
we accept the protectionist’s own explanation of the way in which
protection raises wages we find that it proves that protection lowers
wages.


(_H_) EXAMINATION OF THE PROPOSAL TO PREVENT COMPETITION BY FOREIGN
PAUPER LABOR.

51. The protectionist says that he does not want the American laborer
to compete with the foreign “pauper laborer” (see § 99). He assumes,
that if the foreign laborer is a woolen operative, the only American
who may have to compete with him is a woolen operative here. His
device for saving our operatives from the assumed competition is to
tax the American cotton or wheat grower on the cloth he wears, to make
up and offset to the woolen operative the disadvantage under which he
labors. If then, the case were true as the protectionist states it,
and if his remedy were correct, he would, when he had finished his
operation, simply have allowed the American woolen operative to escape,
by transferring to the American cotton or wheat grower the evil results
of competition with “foreign pauper labor.”


(_I_) EXAMINATION OF THE PROPOSAL TO RAISE THE STANDARD OF PUBLIC
COMFORT.

52. But the protectionist reiterates that he wants to make our
people well off, and to diffuse general prosperity, and he says that
his system does this. He says that the country has prospered under
protection and on account of it. He brings from the census the figures
for increased wealth of the country, and, to speak of no minor errors,
draws an inference that we have prospered _more than we should have
done under free trade_, which is what he has to prove, without noticing
that the second term of the comparison is absent and unattainable. In
the same manner I once heard a man argue from statistics, who showed by
the _small_ loss of a city by fire that its fire department cost too
much. I asked him if he had any statistics of the fires which we should
have had but for the fire department (see § 102).

53. The people of the United States have inherited an untouched
continent. The now living generation is practicing bonanza farming
on prairie soil which has never borne a crop. The population is only
fifteen to the square mile. The population of England and Wales is four
hundred and forty-six to the square mile; that of the British Islands
two hundred and ninety; that of Belgium four hundred and eighty-one;
of France one hundred and eighty; of Germany two hundred and sixteen.
Bateman[5] estimates that in the better part of England or Wales a
peasant proprietor would need from four and a half to six acres, and,
in the worse part, from nine to forty-five acres on which to support “a
healthy family.” The soil of England and Wales, equally divided between
the families there, would give only seven acres apiece. The land of the
United States, equally divided between the families there, would give
two hundred and fifteen acres apiece. These old nations give us the
other term of the comparison by which we measure our prosperity. They
have a dense population on a soil which has been used for thousands of
years; we have an extremely sparse population on a virgin soil. We have
an excellent climate, mountains full of coal and ore, natural highways
on the rivers and lakes, and a coast indented with sounds, bays, and
some of the best harbors in the world. We have also a population
of good national character, especially as regards the economic and
industrial virtues. The sciences and arts are highly cultivated among
us, and our institutions are the best for the development of economic
strength. As compared with old nations we are prosperous. Now comes the
protectionist statesman and says: “The things which you have enumerated
are not the causes of our comparative prosperity. Those things are all
vain. Our prosperity is not due to them. I made it with my taxes.”

54. (_a_) In the first place the fact is that we surpass most in
prosperity those nations which are most like us in their tax systems,
and those compared with whom our prosperity is least remarkable
are those which have by free trade offset as much as possible the
disadvantage of age and dense population. Since, then, we find greatest
difference in prosperity with least difference in tax, and least
difference in prosperity with greatest difference in tax, we cannot
regard tax as a cause of prosperity, but as an obstacle to prosperity
which must have been overcome by some stronger cause. That such is the
case lies plainly on the face of the facts. The prosperity which we
enjoy is the prosperity which God and nature have given us _minus what
the legislator has taken from it_.

55. (_b_) We prospered with slavery just as we have prospered with
protection. The argument that the former was a cause would be just as
strong as the argument that the lattes is a cause.

56. (_c_) The protectionists take to themselves as a credit all the
advance in the arts of the last twenty-five years, because they have
not entirely offset it and destroyed it.

57. (_d_) The protectionists claim that they have increased our wealth.
All the wealth that is produced must be produced by labor and capital
applied to land. The people have wrought and produced. The tax gatherer
has only subtracted something. Whether he used what he took well or
ill, he subtracted. He could not do anything else. Therefore, whatever
wealth we see about us, and whatever wealth appears in the census is
what the people have produced, _less_ what the tax gatherer has taken
out of it.

58. (_e_) If the members of Congress can establish for themselves some
ideal of the grade of comfort which the average American citizen ought
to enjoy, and then just get it for him, they have used their power
hitherto in a very beggarly manner. For, although the average status
of our people is high when compared with that of other people on the
globe, nevertheless, when compared with any standard of ideal comfort,
it leaves much to be desired. If Congress has the power supposed, they
surely ought not to measure the exercise of it by only making us better
off than Europeans.

59. (_f_) During the late presidential campaign the protectionist
orators assured the people that they meant to make everybody well off,
that they wished our people to be prosperous, contented, etc. I wish
so too. I wish that all my readers may be millionaires. I freely and
sincerely confer on them all the bounty of my good wishes. They will
not find a cent more in their pockets on that account. The congressmen
have no power to bless my readers which I have not, save one; that is,
the power to tax them.

60. (_g_) If the congressmen are determined to elevate the comfort
of the population by taxing the population, then every new ship load
of immigrants must be regarded as a new body of persons whom we must
“elevate” by the taxes we have to pay. It is said that an Irishman
affirmed that a dollar in America would not buy more than a shilling
in Ireland. He was asked why then he did not stay in Ireland. He
replied that it was because he could not get the shilling there. That
is a good story, only it stops just where it ought to begin. The next
question is: How does he get the dollar when he comes to America? The
protectionist wants us to suppose that he gets it by grace of the
tariff. If so he gets it out of those who were here before he came. But
plainly no such thing is true. He gets it by earning it, and he adds
two dollars to the wealth of the country while earning it. The only
thing the tariff does in regard to it is to lower the purchasing power
of the dollar, if it is spent for products of manufacture, to seventy
cents.

61. Here, again, then, we find that protective taxes, if they do
just what the protectionist says that they will do, produce the very
opposite effects from those which he says they will produce. They
lessen wealth, reduce prosperity, diminish average comfort, and lower
the standard of living. (See § 30.)


CHAPTER III

PROTECTIONISM EXAMINED ADVERSELY

62. I have so far examined protectionism as a philosophy of national
wealth, assuming and accepting its own doctrines, and following them
out, to see if they will issue as is claimed. We have found that they
do not, but that protectionism, on its own doctrines, issues in the
impoverishment of the nation and in failure to do anything which it
claims to do. On the contrary, an examination in detail of its means,
methods, purposes, and plans shows that it must produce waste and loss,
so that _if it were true, we should have to believe that waste and loss
are means of wealth_. Now I turn about to attack it in face, on an open
issue, for if any project which is advocated proves, upon free and fair
examination, to be based on errors of fact and doctrine, it becomes a
danger and an evil to be exposed and combated, and truth of fact and
doctrine must be set against it.


  1. _PROTECTIONISM INCLUDES AND NECESSARILY CARRIES WITH IT
       HOSTILITY TO TRADE OR, AT LEAST, SUSPICION AGAINST TRADE_


(_A_) RULES FOR KNOWING WHEN IT IS SAFE TO TRADE.

63. Every protectionist is forced to regard trade as a mischievous or
at least doubtful thing. Protectionists have even tried to formulate
rules for determining when trade is beneficial and when harmful.

64. It has been said that we ought to trade only on meridians of
longitude, not on parallels of latitude.

65. It has been affirmed that we cannot safely trade unless we have
taxes to exactly offset the lower wages of foreign countries. But it is
plain that if the case stands so that an American employer says: “I am
at a disadvantage compared with my foreign competitor, because he pays
less wages than I”--then, by the same token, the American laborer will
say: “I am at an advantage, compared with my foreign comrade, for I get
better wages than he.” If the law interferes with the state of things
so that the employer is enabled to say: “I am now at less disadvantage
in competition with my foreign rival, because I do not now have to pay
as much more wages than he as formerly”--then, by the same token, the
American laborer must say: “I am not now as much better off than my
foreign comrade as formerly, for I do not now gain as much more than
he as I did--there is not now as much advantage in emigrating to this
country as formerly.” Therefore, whenever the taxes just offset the
difference in wages, _they just take away from the American laborer
all his superiority over the foreigner_, and take away all reason
for caring to come to this country. So much for the laborer. But the
employer, if he has arrested immigration, has cut off one source of the
supply of labor, tending to raise wages, and is at war with himself
again (§ 47).

66. It has been said that two nations cannot trade _if the rate of
interest in the two differs by two per cent_. The rate of interest in
the Atlantic States and in the Mississippi Valley has always differed
by two per cent, yet they have traded together under absolute free
trade, and the Mississippi Valley has had to begin a wilderness and
grow up to the highest standard of civilization in spite of that state
of things.

67. It has been said that we ought to _trade only with inferior
nations_. The United States does not trade with any other nation, save
when it buys territory. A in the United States trades with B in some
foreign country. If I want caoutchouc I want to trade with a savage
in the forests of South America. If I want mahogany I want to trade
with a man in Honduras. If I want sugar I want to trade with a man in
Cuba. If I want tea I want to trade with a man in China. If I want silk
or champagne I want to trade with a man in France. If I want a razor
I want to trade with a man in England. I want to trade with the man
who has the thing which I want of the best quality and at the lowest
rate of exchange for my products. What is the definition or test of an
“inferior nation,” and what has that got to do with trade any more than
the race, language, color, or religion of the man who has the goods?

68. If trade was an object of suspicion and dread, then indeed we
ought to have _rules for distinguishing safe and beneficial trade_
from mischievous trade, but these attempts to define and discriminate
only expose the folly of the suspicion. We find that the primitive
men who dwelt in caves in the glacial epoch carried on trade. The
earliest savages made footpaths through the forests by which to traffic
and trade, winning thereby mutual advantages. They found that they
could supply more wants with less effort by trade, which gave them a
share in the natural advantages and acquired skill of others. They
trained beasts of burden, improved roads, invented wagons and boats,
all in order to extend and facilitate trade. They were foolish enough
to think that they were gaining by it, _and did not know that they
needed a protective tariff to keep them from ruining themselves_. Or,
why does not some protectionist sociologist tell us at what stage
of civilization trade ceases to be advantageous and begins to need
restraint and regulation?


(_B_) ECONOMIC UNITS NOT NATIONAL UNITS.

69. The protectionists say that their system advances civilization
inside a state and makes it great, but the facts are all against them
(see § 136ff). It was by trade that civilization was extended over
the earth. It was through the contact of trade that the more civilized
nations transmitted to others the alphabet, weights and measures,
knowledge of astronomy, divisions of time, tools and weapons, coined
money, systems of numeration, treatment of metals, skins, and wool, and
all the other achievements of knowledge and invention which constitute
the bases of our civilization. On the other hand, the nations which
shut themselves up and developed an independent and self-contained
civilization (China and Japan) present us the types of arrested
civilization and stereotyped social status. It is the penalty of
isolation and of withdrawal from the giving and taking which properly
bind the whole human race together, that even such intelligent and
highly endowed people as the Chinese should find their high activity
arrested at narrow limitations on every side. They invent coin, but
never get beyond a cast copper coin. They invent gunpowder, but cannot
make a gun. They invent movable types, but only the most rudimentary
book. They discover the mariner’s compass, but never pass the infancy
of ship-building.

70. The fact is, then, that _trade has been the handmaid of
civilization_. It has traversed national boundaries, and has gradually,
with improvement in the arts of transportation, drawn the human race
into closer relations and more harmonious interests. The contact of
trade slowly saps old national prejudice and religious or race hatreds.
The jealousies which were perpetuated by distance and ignorance cannot
stand before contact and knowledge. To stop trade is to arrest this
beneficent work, to separate mankind into sections and factions, and to
favor discord, jealousy, and war.

71. Such is the action of protectionism. The protectionists make much
of their pretended “nationalism,” and they try to reason out some
kind of relationship between the scope of economic forces and the
boundaries of existing nations. The argumentation is fatally broken
at its first step. They do not show what they might show, _viz._,
that the scope of economic forces on any given stage of the arts does
form economic units. An English county was such a unit a century ago.
I doubt if anything less than the whole earth could be considered
so to-day, when the wool of Australia, the hides of South America,
the cotton of Alabama, the wheat of Manitoba, and the meat of Texas
meet the laborers in Manchester and Sheffield, and would meet the
laborers in Lowell and Paterson, if the barriers were out of the way.
But what the national protectionist would need to show would be that
the economic unit coincides with the political unit. He would have to
affirm that Maine and Texas are in one economic unit, but that Maine
and New Brunswick are not; or that Massachusetts and Minnesota are in
one economic unit, but that Massachusetts and Manitoba are not. Every
existing state is a product of historic accidents. Mr. Jefferson set
out to buy the city of New Orleans. He awoke one morning to find that
he had bought the western half of the Mississippi Valley. Since that
turned out so, the protectionists think that Missouri and Illinois
prosper by trading in perfect freedom.[6] If it had not turned out
so, it would have been very mischievous for them to trade in perfect
freedom. Nova Scotia did not join the revolt of our thirteen colonies.
Hence it is thought ruinous to let coal and potatoes come in freely
from Nova Scotia. If she had revolted with us, it would have been for
the benefit of everybody in this union to trade with her as freely
as we now trade with Maine. We tried to conquer Canada in 1812–1813
and failed. Consequently the Canadians now put taxes on our coal and
petroleum and wheat, and we put taxes on their lumber, which our coal
and petroleum industries need. We did annex Texas, at the cost of war,
in 1845. Consequently we trade with Texas now under absolute freedom,
but, if we trade with Mexico, it must be only very carefully and under
stringent limitations. Is this wisdom, or is it all pure folly and
wrongheadedness, by which men who boast of their intelligence throw
away their own chances?[7]

72. _Trade is a beneficent thing._ It does not need any regulation or
restraint. There is no point at which it begins to be dangerous. It is
mutually beneficent. If it ceases to be so, it ceases entirely, because
he who no longer gains by it will no longer carry it on. (See § 125.)


2. _PROTECTIONISM IS AT WAR WITH IMPROVEMENT._

73. The cities of Japan are built of very combustible material, and
when a fire begins it is rarely arrested until the city is destroyed.
It was suggested that a steam fire-engine would there reach its
maximum of utility. One was imported and proved very useful on
several occasions. Thereupon the carpenters got up a petition to
the government to send the fire-engine away, because it ruined their
business.

74. The instance is grotesque and exaggerated, but it is strictly true
to the principle of protectionism. The southern counties of England,
a century ago, protested against the opening of the great northern
turnpike, because that would bring the products of the northern
counties to the London market, of which the southern counties had
had a monopoly. After the St. Gothard tunnel was opened the people
of southern Germany petitioned the Government to lay higher taxes on
Italian products to offset the cheapness which the tunnel had produced.
In 1837 the first two steamers which ever made commercial voyages
across the Atlantic arrived at the same time. A grand celebration was
held in New York. The foolish people rejoiced as if a new blessing had
been won. Man had won a new triumph over nature. What was the gain of
it? It was that he could satisfy his needs with less labor than before;
or, in plain language, get things cheaper. But in 1842 a Home Industry
Convention was held in New York, at which it was alleged as the prime
reason why more taxes were needed, that this steam transportation
had made things cheap here.[8] Taxes were needed to neutralize the
improvement.


(_A_) TAXES TO OFFSET CHEAPENED TRANSPORTATION.

75. For the last twenty-five years, to go no farther back, we have
multiplied inventions to facilitate transportation. Ocean cables,
improved marine engines, and screw steamers, have been only improved
means of supplying the wants of people on two continents more
abundantly with the products each of the other. The scientific
journals and the daily papers boast of every step in this development
as a thing to be proud of and rejoice in, but in the meantime the
legislators on both sides of the water are hard at work to neutralize
it by taxation. We, in the United States, have multiplied monstrous
taxes on all the things which others make and which we want, to prevent
them from being brought to us. The statesmen of the European continent
are laying taxes on our meat and wheat, lest they be brought to their
people. The arts are bringing us together; the taxes are needed to
keep us apart. In France, for instance, the agriculturist complains
of American competition--not “pauper labor,” but gratuitous soil and
sunlight. He does not want the French artisan to have the benefit of
our prairie soil. The government yields to him and lays a tax on our
meat and wheat. This raises the price of bread in Paris, where the
reconstruction of the city has collected a large artisan population.
The government then finds itself driven to fix the price of bread
in Paris, to keep it down. But the reconstruction of the city was
accomplished by contracting a great debt, which means heavy taxes.
These taxes drive the population out into the suburbs. At least one
voice has been raised by an owner of city property that a tax ought to
be laid on suburban residents to drive them back to the city,[9] and
not let them escape the efforts of the city landlord to throw his taxes
on them. Then, again, France has been subsidizing ships, and when the
question of renewing the subsidy came up, it was argued that the ships
subsidized at the expense of the French taxpayer had lowered freight on
wheat and made wheat cheap; that is, as somebody justly replied, had
wrought the very mischief against which the increased tax had just been
demanded on wheat. Therefore the taxpayer had been taxed first to make
wheat cheap, and then again to make it dear.

76. Tax A to favor B. If A complains, tax C to make it up to A. If
C complains, tax B to favor C. If any of them still complain, begin
all over again. Tax them as long as anybody complains, or anybody
wants anything. This is the statesmanship of the last quarter of the
nineteenth century.

77. Bismarck, too, is going into the business. He has to rule a people
who live on a poor soil and have to bear a crushing military system.
The consequence is that the population is declining. Emigration exceeds
the natural increase. Bismarck’s cure for it is to lay protective taxes
against American pork and wheat and rye. This will protect the German
agriculturist. If it lowers still more the comfort of the buyers of
food, and drives more of them out of the country, then he will go and
buy or fight for colonies at the expense of the German agriculturists
whom he has just “protected,” although the surplus population of
Germany has been taking itself away for thirty years without asking
help or giving trouble. What can Germany gain by diverting her
emigrants to her own colony unless she means to bring the able-bodied
men back to fight her battles? If she means that, the emigrants will
not go to her colony.

78. France is also reviving the old colonial policy with discriminating
favors and compensatory restraints. She already owns a possession
in Algeria, which is the best example of a colony for the sake of a
colony. It has been asserted in the French Chambers that each French
family now in Algeria has cost the Government (_i.e._, the French
taxpayer) 25,000 francs.[10] The longing of these countries for
“colonies” is like the longing of a negro dandy for a cane or a tall
hat so as to be like the white gentlemen.


(_B_) SUGAR BOUNTIES.

79. The worst case of all, however, is sugar. The protectionists long
boasted of beet-root sugar as a triumph of their system. It is now
an industry in which an immense amount of capital is invested on the
Continent, but cheap transportation for cane sugar, and improvements
in the treatment of the latter, are constantly threatening it. Mention
is made in _Bradstreet’s_ for June 28, 1885, of a very important
improvement in the treatment of cane which has just been invented
at Berlin. Germany has an excise tax on beet-root sugar, but allows
a drawback on it when exported which is greater than the tax. This
acts as a bounty paid by the German taxpayer on the exportation.
Consequently, beet-root sugar has appeared even in our market. The
chief market for it, however, is England. The consequence is that the
sugar, which is nine cents a pound in Germany, and seven cents a pound
here, is five cents a pound in England, and that the annual consumption
of sugar per head in the three countries[11] is as follows: England,
sixty-seven and a half pounds; United States, fifty-one pounds;
Germany, twelve pounds. I sometimes find it difficult to make people
understand the difference between wanting an “industry” and wanting
goods, but this case ought to make that distinction clear. Obviously
_the Germans have the industry and the Englishmen have the sugar_.

80. No sooner, however, does Germany get her export bounty in good
working order than the Austrian sugar refiners besiege their government
to know whether Germany is to have the monopoly of giving sugar to the
Englishmen.[12] They get a bounty and compete for that privilege. Then
the French refiners say that they cannot compete, and must be enabled
to compete in giving sugar to the Englishmen. I believe that their case
is under favorable consideration.

80_a._ I have found it harder (as is usually the case) to get recorded
information about the trade and industry of our own country than about
those of foreign nations. However, we too, although we do not raise
beet-sugar, have our share in this bounty folly, as may be seen by
the following statement, which comes to hand just in time to serve my
purpose.[13] “The export of refined sugar [from the United States]
is entirely confined to hard sugars, or, to be more explicit, loaf,
crushed, and granulated. This is because the drawback upon this class
of sugar is so large that refiners are enabled to sell them at less
than cost. The highest collectable duty upon sugar testing as high as
99° is but 2.36, but the drawback upon granulated testing the same, and
in the case of crushed and loaf less, is 2.82 less 1 per cent. This
is exactly 43 cents per one hundred pounds more than the government
receives in duty. But it rarely happens that raw sugar is imported
testing 99°, and never for refining purposes. The following table gives
the rates of duty upon the average grades used in refining:

                               Degrees    Duty
  Fair refining testing          89       1.96
  Fair refining testing          90       2.00
  Centrifugal testing            96       2.28
  Beet-sugar testing             88       1.92

It will be clearly seen from the above figures that with a net drawback
upon hard sugar of 2.79 our refiners are able to sell to foreigners,
through the assistance of our Treasury, sugar at less than cost.
Taking, for instance, the net price of centrifugal testing only 97° and
the net price less drawback of granulated:

  Centrifugal raw sugar testing 97°    6.00
  Less duty                            2.28
    Net                                -----    3.72
  Granulated refined testing 99°       6.37½
  Less drawback                        2.71
    Net                                -----    3.66½
                                                --------
                                                   6½

Nothing could demonstrate the absurdity of the present rate of drawback
more clearly than the above. A refiner pays 6½ cents per hundred
more for raw sugar testing 2° less saccharine than he sells refined
for. Not, however, to the American consumers, but to foreigners.
After paying the expenses necessary to refining by the assistance
of a drawback, which clearly amounts to a subsidy of about 50 cents
a hundred pounds, our large sugar monopolists are assisted by the
government to increase the cost of sugar to American consumers. One
firm controls almost the entire trade of the east; at all events it is
safe to say that the trade of the entire country is controlled by three
firms, and the Treasury assists this monopoly in sustaining prices
against the interest of the country at large. Up to date the exports of
refined sugar have amounted to 83,340 tons, which, taken at 50 cents
a hundred, has cost the treasury over $830,000. All this may not have
gone into the pockets of the refiners, as the ship owners have obtained
a share, but the fact remains that the Treasury is the loser by this
amount. Besides this bounty presses hard upon the consumers. They not
only have to pay the tax, but during the late rise they were compelled
to pay more for their sugar than they otherwise would have done had not
the export demand caused by selling sugar to foreigners at less than
cost, the Treasury paying the difference, increased prices. While an
American consumer is charged 6½ cents for granulated, foreign buyers,
through the liberality of our government, can buy it under 3¾ cents.
Certainly it is time that the Secretary of the Treasury asked the
sugar commission to commence a comprehensive and impartial inquiry.”

81. Of course the story would not be complete if the English refiners
did not besiege their government for a tax to keep out this maleficent
gift of foreign taxpayers. This, say they, is not free trade. This is
protection turned the other way around. We might hold our own on an
equal footing, but we cannot contend against a subsidized industry. A
superficial thinker might say that this protest was conclusive. The
English government set on foot an investigation, not of the sugar
refining, but of _those other interests which were in danger of being
forgotten_. There was a tariff investigation which was worth something
and was worthy of an enlightened government. It was found that the
consumers of sugar had gained more than all the wages paid in sugar
refining. But, on the side of the producers, it was found that 6,000
persons are employed and 45,000 tons of sugar are used annually in
the neighborhood of London in manufacturing jam and confectionery. In
Scotland there are eighty establishments, employing over 4,000 people
and using 35,000 tons of sugar per annum in similar industries. In the
whole United Kingdom, in those industries, 100,000 tons of sugar are
used and 12,000 people are employed, three times as many as in sugar
refining. Within twenty years the confectionery trade of Scotland has
quadrupled and the preserving trade--jam and marmalade--has practically
been originated. In addition, refined sugar is a raw material in
biscuit making and the manufacture of mineral waters, and 50,000 tons
are used in brewing and distilling. Hence the _Economist_ argues (and
this view seems to have controlled the decision): “It may be that the
gain which we at present realize from the bounties may not be enduring,
as it is impossible to believe that foreign nations will go on taxing
themselves to the extent of several millions a year in order to supply
us and others with sugar at less than its fair price, but that is no
reason for refusing to avail ourselves of their liberality so long as
it does last.”[14] (See § 83, note.)

82. One point in this case ought not to be lost sight of. If the
English government had yielded to the sugar refiners without looking
further, all these little industries which are mentioned, and which
in their aggregate are so important, would have been crushed out. Ten
years later they would have been forgotten. It is from such an example
that one must learn to form a judgment as to _the effect of our tariff
in crushing out industries_ which are now lost and gone, and cannot
even be recalled for purposes of controversy, but which would spring
into existence again if the repeal of the taxes should give them a
chance.

83. On our side the water efforts have been made to get us into the
sugar struggle by the proposed commercial treaties with Spain and
England, which would in effect have extended our protective tariff
around Cuban and English West Indian sugar.[15] The sugar consumers of
the United States were to pay to the Cuban planters the twenty-five
million dollars revenue which they now pay to the treasury on Cuban
sugar, on condition that the Cubans should bring back part of it and
spend it among our manufacturers. It was a new extension of the plan of
taxing some of us for the benefit of others of us. Let it be noticed,
too, that when it suited their purpose, the protectionists were ready
to sacrifice the sugar industry of Louisiana without the least concern.
We have been trying for twenty-five years to secure the home market
and keep everybody else out of it. _As soon as we get it firmly shut,
so that nobody else can get in, we find that it is a question of life
and death with us to get out ourselves._ The next device is to tax
Americans in order to go and buy a piece of the foreign market. At the
last session of Congress Senator Cameron proposed to allow a drawback
on raw materials used in exported products. On that plan the American
manufacturer would have two costs of production, one when he was
working for the home market, and another much lower one when working
for the foreign market. As it is now, the exports of manufactured
products, of which so much boasting is heard, are for the most part
articles sold abroad lower than here so as not to break down the home
monopoly market. The proposed plan would raise that to a system, and we
should be giving more presents to foreigners.

84. To return to sugar, our treaty with the Sandwich Islands has
produced anomalous and mischievous results on the Pacific coast. In the
southern Pacific New Zealand is just going into the plan of bounties
and protection on sugar.[16] It would not, therefore, be very bold to
predict a worldwide catastrophe in the sugar industry within five years.

85. Now what is it all for? What is it all about? Napoleon Bonaparte
began it in a despotic whim, when he determined to force the production
of beet-root sugar to show that he did not care for the supremacy of
England at sea which cut him off from the sugar islands. In order not
to lose the capital engaged in the industry, protection was continued.
But this led to putting more capital into it and further need of
protection. The problem has tormented financiers for seventy-five
years. There are two natural products, of which the cane is far
richer in sugar. But the processes of the beet-sugar industry have
been improved, until recently, far more rapidly than those of the
cane industry. Then the refining is a separate interest. If, then,
a country has cane-sugar colonies which it wants to protect against
other colonies, and a beet-sugar industry which it wants to protect
against neighbors who produce beet-sugar, and refiners to be protected
against foreign refiners, and if the relations of its own colonial
cane-sugar producers to its own domestic beet-sugar producers must
be kept satisfactorily adjusted, in spite of changes in processes,
transportation, and taxation, and if it wants to get a revenue from
sugar, and to use the colonial trade to develop its shipping, and if
it has two or three commercial treaties in which sugar is an important
item, the statesman of that country has a task like that of a juggler
riding several horses and keeping several balls in motion. Sugar is the
commodity on which the effects of a world-embracing commerce, produced
by modern inventions, are most apparent, and it is the commodity
through which all the old protectionist anti-commercial doctrines will
be brought to the most decisive test.


(_C_) FORCED FOREIGN RELATIONS TO REGULATE IMPROVEMENT WHICH CAN NO
LONGER BE DEFEATED.

86. If we turn back once more to our own case, we note the rise in
1883–1884 of the policy of commercial treaties and of a “vigorous
foreign policy.” For years a “national policy” for us has meant
“securing the home market.” The perfection of this policy has led to
isolation and ostentatious withdrawal from cosmopolitan interests.
I may say that I do not write out of any sympathy with vague
humanitarianism or cosmopolitan sentiments. It seems to me that local
groupings have great natural strength and obvious utility so long as
they are subdivisions of a higher organization of the human race, or so
long as they are formed freely and their relations to each other are
developed naturally. But now suddenly rises a clap-trap demand for a
“national policy,” which means that we shall force our way out of our
tax-created isolation by diplomacy or war. The effort, however, is to
be restrained carefully and arbitrarily to the western hemisphere, and
we have anxiously disavowed any part or lot in the regulation of the
Congo, although we shall certainly some day desire to take our share in
the trade of that district. Our statesmen, however, if they are going
to let us have any foreign trade, cannot bear to let us go and take it
where we shall make most by it. They must draw _a priori_ lines for
it. They have taxed us in order to shut us up at home. This has killed
the carrying trade, for, if we decided not to trade, what could the
shippers find to do? Next ship-building perished, for if there was no
carrying trade why build ships, especially when the taxes to protect
manufactures were crushing ships and commerce? (§ 101.) Next the navy
declined, for with no commerce to protect at sea, we need no navy. Next
we lost the interest which we took thirty years ago in a canal across
the isthmus, because we have now, under the no-trade policy, no use for
it. Next diplomacy became a sinecure, for we have no foreign relations.

87. Now comes the “national policy,” not because it is needed, but
as an artificial and inflated piece of political bombast. We are to
galvanize our diplomacy by contracting commercial treaties and meddling
in foreign quarrels. No doubt this will speedily make a navy necessary.
In fact our proposed “American policy” is only an old, cast-off,
eighteenth-century, John Bull policy, which has forced England to keep
up a big army, a big navy, heavy debt, heavy taxes, and a constant
succession of little wars. Hence we shall be taxed some more to pay
for a navy. Then it is proposed to tax us some more to pay for canals
through which the navy can go. Then we are to be taxed some more to
subsidize merchant ships to go through the canal. Then we are to be
taxed some more to subsidize voyages, _i.e._, the carrying trade. Then
we are to be taxed some more to provide the ships with cargoes (§ 83).

88. All this time, the whole West Indian, Mexican, and Central and
South American trade is ours if we will only stand out of the way and
let it come. It is ours by all geographical and commercial advantage,
and would have been ours since 1825 if we had but taken down the
barriers. Instead of that we propose to tax ourselves some more to
lift it over the barriers. Take the taxes off goods, let exchange go
on, and the carrying trade comes as a consequence. If we have goods to
carry, we shall build or buy ships in which to carry them. If we have
merchant ships, we shall need and shall keep up a suitable navy. If
we need canals, we shall build them, as, in fact, private capital is
now building one and taking the risk of it. If we need diplomacy we
shall learn and practice diplomacy of the democratic, peaceful, and
commercial type.

89. Thus, under the philosophy of protectionism, the very same thing,
if it comes to us freely by the extension of commerce and the march of
improvement, is regarded with terror, while, if we can first bar it
out, and then only let a little of it in at great cost and pains, it
is a thing worth fighting for. Such is the fallacy of all commercial
treaties. The crucial criticism on all the debates at Washington in
1884–1885 was: _Have these debaters made up their minds to any standard
by which to measure what you get and what you give under a commercial
treaty?_ It was plain that they had not. A generation of protectionism
has taken away the knowledge of what trade is (§§ 125, 139), and whence
its benefits arise, and has created a suspicion of trade (§§ 63 ff.).
Hence when our public men came to compare what we should get and what
we should give, they set about measuring this by things which were
entirely foreign to it. Scarcely two of them agreed as to the standards
by which to measure it. Some thought that it was the number of people
in one country compared with the number in the other. Others thought
that it was the amount sold to as compared with the amount bought from
the country in question. Others thought that it was the amount of
revenue to be sacrificed by us as compared with the amount which would
be sacrificed by the other party. If any one will try to establish a
standard by which to measure the gain by such a treaty to one party or
the other, he will be led to see the fallacy of the whole procedure.
The greatest gain to both would be if the trade were perfectly free.
If it is obstructed more or less, that is a harm to be corrected as
far and as soon as possible. If then either party lowers its own
taxes, that is a gain and a movement toward the desirable state of
things. No state needs anybody’s permission to lower its own taxes, and
entanglements which would impair its fiscal independence would be a new
harm.[17]

90. Protectionism, therefore, is at war with improvement. It is only
useful to annul and offset the effects of those very improvements of
which we boast. In time, the improvements win power so great that
protectionism cannot withstand them. _Then it turns about and tries
to control and regulate them at great expense by diplomacy or war._
The greater and more worldwide these improvements are, the more
numerous are the efforts in different parts of the world to revive or
extend protection. No doubt there is loss and inconvenience in the
changes which improvement brings about. A notable case is the loss
and inconvenience of a laborer where a machine is first introduced to
supplant him. Patient endurance and hope, in the confidence that he
will in the end be better off, has long been preached to him. It is
true that he will be better off; but why not apply the same doctrine in
connection with the other inconveniences of improvement, where it is
equally true?


3. _PROTECTION LOWERS WAGES_.

91. On a pure wages system, that is, where there is a class who have
no capital and no land, wages are determined by supply and demand of
labor. The demand for labor is measured by the capital in hand to pay
for it just as the demand for anything else is measured by the supply
of goods offered in exchange for it. In Cobden’s language: “When two
men are after one boss, wages are low; when two bosses are after one
man, wages are high.”


(_A_) NO TRUE WAGES CLASS IN THE UNITED STATES.

92. The United States, however, have never yet been on a pure wages
system because there is no class which has no land or cannot get any.
In fact, the cheapening of transportation which is going on is making
the land of this continent, Australia, and Africa available for the
laborers of Europe, and is breaking down the wages system there. This
is the real reason for the rise of the proletariat and the expansion of
democracy which are generally attributed to metaphysical, sentimental,
or political causes. A man who has no capital and no land cannot live
from day to day except by getting a share in the capital of others in
return for services rendered. In an old society or dense population,
such a class comes into existence. It has no reserves; no other
chances; no other resource. In a new country no such class exists. The
land is to be had for going to it. On the stage of agriculture which is
there existing very little capital and very little division of labor
are necessary. Hence he who has only unskilled manual strength can get
at and use the land, and he can get out of it an abundant supply of the
rude primary comforts of existence for himself and his family. If it
is made so cheap and easy to get from the old centers of population to
the new land that the lowest class of laborers can save enough to pay
the passage, then the effect will reach the labor market of the old
countries also. Such is now the fact.

93. The weakness of a true wages class is in the fact that they have
no other chance. Obviously, however, _a man is well off in this world
in proportion to the chances which he can command_. The advantage of
education is that it multiplies a man’s chances. _Our_ noncapitalists
have another chance on the land, and the chance is near and easy to
grasp and use. It is not necessary that all or any number should
use it. Every one who uses it leaves more room behind, lessens the
supply and competition of labor, and helps his class as a class. The
other chance which the laborer possesses is also a _good_ one, and
consequently sets the minimum of unskilled wages high. Here we have the
reason for high wages in a new country.

94. The relation of things was distinctly visible in the early colonial
days. Winthrop tells how the General Court in Massachusetts Bay tried
to fix the wages of artisans by law. It is obvious that artisans were
in great demand to build houses, and that they would not work at their
trades unless the wages would buy as good or better living than the
farmers could get out of the ground, for these artisans could go and
take up land and be farmers too. The only effect of the law was that
the artisans “went West” to the valley of the Connecticut, and the law
became a dead letter. The same equilibration between the gains from the
new land and the wages of artisans and laborers has been kept up ever
since.

95. In 1884 an attempt was made to unite the Eastern and Western Iron
Associations for common effort in behalf of higher wages. The union
could not be formed because the Eastern and Western Associations _never
had had the same rate of wages_. The latter, being farther west, where
the supply of labor is smaller and the land nearer, have obtained
higher wages. It may be well to anticipate a little right here in
order to point out that this difference in wages has not prevented the
growth of the industry in the West, and has not made competition in
a common market impossible.[18] The fact is of the first importance
to controvert the current assumption of the protectionists. They
say that an industry cannot be carried on in one place if the wages
there are higher than must be paid by somebody in the same industry
in another place. This proposition has no foundation in fact at all.
Farm laborers in Iowa get three times the wages of farm laborers in
England. The products of the former pay 5,000 miles transportation, and
then drive out the products of the latter. Wages are only one element,
and often they are far from being the most important element, in the
economy of production. _The wages which are paid to the men who make an
article have nothing to do with the price or value of that article._
This proposition, I know, has a startling effect on the people who
hold to the monkish notions of political economy, but it is only a
special case of the theorem that “_Labor which is past has no effect on
value_,” which is the true cornerstone of any sound political economy.
Wages are determined by the supply and demand of labor. Value is
determined by the supply and demand of the commodity. These two things
have no connection. Wages are one element in the capitalist’s outlay
for production. If the total outlay in one line of production, when
compared with the return obtained in that line, is not as advantageous
as the total outlay in another line when compared with the return
available in the second line, then the capital is withdrawn from the
first line and put into the second; but the rate of wages in either
case or any case is the market rate, determined by the supply and
demand of labor, for that is what the employers must pay if they want
the men, whether they are making any profits or not.

96. The facts and economic principles just stated above show plainly
why wages are high, and put in strong light the assertion of the
protectionists that their device makes wages high (§ 47), that is,
higher than they would be otherwise, or higher here than they are in
Europe. Wages are not arbitrary. They cannot be shifted up and down at
anybody’s whim. They are controlled by ultimate causes. If not, then
what has made them fall during the last eighteen months, ten to forty
per cent, most in the most protected industries (§ 26)? Why are they
highest in the least protected and the unprotected industries, _e.g._,
the building trades? Hod-carriers recently struck in New York for three
dollars for nine hours’ work. Where did the tariff touch their case?
_Why does not the tariff prevent the fall in wages?_ It is all there,
and now is the time for it to come into operation, if it can keep wages
up. Now it is needed. When wages were high in the market, and it was
not needed, it claimed the credit. Now when they fall and it is needed,
it is powerless.

97. Wages are capital. If I promise to pay wages I must find capital
somewhere with which to fulfill my contract. If the tariff makes me
pay more than I otherwise would, where does the surplus come from?
Disregarding money as only an intermediate term, a man’s wages are
his means of subsistence--food, clothing, house rent, fuel, lights,
furniture, etc. If the tariff system makes him get more of these for
ten hours’ work in a shop than he would get without tariff, _where does
the “more” come from_? Nothing but labor and capital can produce food,
clothing, etc. Either the tax must make these out of nothing, or it can
only get them by taking them from those who have made them, that is by
subtracting them from the wages of somebody else. Taking all the wages
class into account, then the tax cannot possibly increase, but is sure
by waste and loss to decrease wages.


(_B_) HOW TAXES DO ACT ON WAGES.

98. If taxes are to raise wages they must be laid not on goods but on
men. Let the goods be abundant and the men scarce. Then the average
wages will be high, for the supply of labor will be small and the
demand great. If we tax goods and not men, the supply of labor will be
great, the demand will be limited, and the wages will be low. Here
we see why employers of labor want a tariff. For it is an obvious
inconsistency and a most grotesque satire that the same men should tell
the workmen at home that the tariff makes wages high, and should go to
Washington and tell Congress that they want a tariff because the wages
are too high. We have found that the high wages of American laborers
have independent causes and guarantees, outside of legislation. They
are provided and maintained by the economic circumstances of the
country. This is against the interest of those who want to hire the
laborers. No device can serve their interest unless it lowers wages.
From the standpoint of an employer the fortunate circumstances of the
laborer become an obstacle to be overcome (§ 65). The laborer is too
well off. Nothing can do any good which does not make him less well
off. The competition which troubles the employer is not the “pauper
labor” of Europe.

99. “Pauper labor” had a meaning in the first half of this century,
in England, when the overseers of the poor turned over the younger
portion of the occupants of the poorhouses to the owners of the new
cotton factories, under contracts to teach them the trade and pay them
a pittance. Of course the arrangement had shocking evils connected
with it, but it was a transition arrangement. The “pauper laborers’”
children, after a generation, became independent laborers; the system
expired of itself, and “pauper laborer” is now a senseless jingle.

100. The competition which the employers fear _is the competition of
those industries in America which can pay the high wages and which keep
the wages high because they do pay them_. These draw the laborer away.
These offer him another chance. If he had no other way of earning more
than he is earning, it would be idle for him to demand more. The reason
why he demands more and gets it is because he knows where he can get
it, if he cannot get it where he is. If, then, he is to be brought
down, the only way to do it is _to destroy, or lessen the value of, his
other chance_. This is just what the tariff does.

101. The taxes which are laid for protection must come out of somebody.
As I have shown (§§ 32 ff.) the protected interests give and take
from each other, but, if they as a group win anything, they must
win from another group, and that other group must be the industries
which are not and cannot be protected. In England these were formerly
manufactures and they were taxed, under the corn laws, for the benefit
of agriculture. In the United States, of course, the case must be
complementary and opposite. We tax agriculture and commerce to benefit
manufactures. Commerce, _i.e._, the ship-building and carrying trade,
has been crushed out of existence by the burden (§ 86). But the burden
thus thrown on agriculture and commerce lowers the gains of those
industries, lessens the attractiveness of them to the laborer, lessens
the value of the laborer’s other chance, lessens the competition of
other American industries with manufacturing, and so, by taking away
from the blessing which God and nature have given to the American
laborer, enable the man who wants to hire his services to get them at a
lower rate. The effect of taxes is just the same as such a percentage
taken from the fertility of the soil, the excellence of the climate,
the power of tools, or the industrious habits of the people. Hence it
reduces the average comfort and welfare of the population, and with
that average comfort it carries down the wages of such persons as work
for wages.


(_C_) PERILS OF STATISTICS, ESPECIALLY OF WAGES.

102. Any student of statistics will be sure to have far less trust in
statistics than the uninitiated entertain. The bookkeepers have taught
us that figures will not lie, but that they will tell very queer
stories. Statistics will not lie, but they will play wonderful tricks
with a man who does not understand their dialect. The unsophisticated
reader finds it difficult, when a column of statistics is offered to
him, to resist the impression that they must prove _something_. The
fact is that a column of statistics hardly ever proves anything. It
is a popular opinion that anybody can use or understand statistics.
The fact is that a special and high grade of skill is required to
appreciate the effect of the collateral circumstances under which
the statistics were obtained, to appreciate the limits of their
application, and to interpret their significance. The statistics which
are used to prove national prosperity are an illustration of this, for
they are used as absolute measures when it is plain that they have no
use except for a comparison. Sometimes the other term of the comparison
is not to be found and it is always ignored (§ 52).

103. A congressional committee in the winter of 1883–1884, dealing with
the tariff, took up the census and proceeded to reckon up the wages in
steel production by adding all the wages from the iron mine up. Then
they took bar iron and added all the wages from the bottom up again, in
order to find the importance of the wages element in that, and so on
with every stage of iron industry. They were going to add in the same
wages six or eight times over.

104. The statistics of comparative wages which are published are of
no value at all.[19] It is not known how, or by whom, or from what
selected cases, they were collected. It is not known how wide, or how
long, or how thorough was the record from which they were taken. The
facts about various classifications of labor in the division of labor,
and about the rate at which machinery is run, or about the allowances
of one kind and another which vary from mill to mill and town to town
are rarely specified at all. Protected employers are eager to tell
the wages they pay per day or week, which are of no importance. The
only statistics which would be of any use for the comparison which
is attempted would be such as show the proportion of wages to total
cost per unit. Even this comparison would not have the force which is
attributed to the other. Hence the statistics offered are worthless
or positively misleading. In the nature of the case such statistics
are extremely hard to get. If application is made to the employers,
the inquiry concerns their private business. They have no interest
in answering. They cannot answer without either spending great labor
on their books (if the inquiry covers a period), or surrendering
their books to some one else, if they allow him to do the labor. If
inquiry is made of the men, it becomes long and tedious and full of
uncertainties. Do United States Consuls take the trouble involved
in such an inquiry? Have they the training necessary to conduct it
successfully?

105. The fact is generally established and is not disputed that wages
are higher here than in Europe. The difference is greatest on the
lowest grade of labor--manual labor, unskilled labor. The difference is
less on higher grades of labor. For what the English call “engineers,”
men who possess personal dexterity and creative power, the difference
is the other way, if we compare the United States and England. The
returns of immigration reflect these differences exactly (§ 122, note).
The great body of the immigrants consists of farmers and laborers.
The “skilled laborers” are comparatively a small class, and, if the
claims of the individuals to be what they call themselves were tested
by English or German trade standards, the number would be very small
indeed. Engineers emigrate from Germany to England. Men of that class
rarely come to this country, or, if they come, they come under special
contracts, or soon return. Each country, spite of all taxes and other
devices, gets the class of men for which its industrial condition
offers the best chances. The only thing the tariff does in the matter
is to take from those who have an advantage here a part of that
advantage.


4. _PROTECTIONISM IS SOCIALISM_

106. Simply to give protectionism a bad name would be to accomplish
very little. When I say that protectionism is socialism I mean to
classify it and bring it not only under the proper heading but into
relation with its true affinities. _Socialism is any device or doctrine
whose aim is to save individuals from any of the difficulties or
hardships of the struggle for existence and the competition of life by
the intervention of “the State.”_ Inasmuch as “the State” never is or
can be anything but some other people, socialism is a device for making
some people fight the struggle for existence for others. The devices
always have a doctrine behind them which aims to show why this _ought_
to be done.

107. The protected interests demand that they be saved from the trouble
and annoyance of business competition, and that they be assured profits
in their undertakings, by “the State,” that is, at the expense of their
fellow-citizens. If this is not socialism, then there is no such thing.
If employers may demand that “the State” shall guarantee them profits,
why may not the employees demand that “the State” shall guarantee them
wages? If we are taxed to provide profits, why should we not be taxed
for public workshops, for insurance to laborers, or for any other
devices which will give wages and save the laborer from the annoyances
of life and the risks and hardships of the struggle for existence? The
“we” who are to pay changes all the time, and the turn of the protected
employer to pay will surely come before long. The plan of all living
on each other is capable of great expansion. It is, as yet, far from
being perfected or carried out completely. The protectionists are only
educating those who are as yet on the “paying” side of it, but who will
certainly use political power to put themselves also on the “receiving”
side of it. The argument that “the State” must do something for me
because my business does not pay, is a very far-reaching argument. If
it is good for pig iron and woolens, it is good for all the things to
which the socialists apply it.


CHAPTER IV

SUNDRY FALLACIES OF PROTECTIONISM

108. I can now dispose rapidly of a series of current fallacies
put forward by the protectionists. They generally are fanciful or
far-fetched attempts to show some equivalent which the taxpayer gets
for his taxes.


(_A_) THAT INFANT INDUSTRIES CAN BE NOURISHED UP TO INDEPENDENCE AND
THAT THEY THEN BECOME PRODUCTIVE.

109. I know of no case where this hope has been realized, although
we have been trying the experiment for nearly a century. The weakest
infants to-day are those whom Alexander Hamilton set out to protect in
1791. As soon as the infants begin to get any strength (if they ever do
get any) the protective system forces them to bear the burden of other
infants, and so on forever. The system superinduces hydrocephalus on
the infants, and instead of ever growing to maturity, the longer they
live, the bigger babies they are. It is the system which makes them so,
and on its own plan it can never rationally be expected to have any
other effect. (See further, under the next fallacy, §§ 111 ff.)

110. Mill[20] makes a statement of a case, as within the bounds of
conceivability, where there might be an advantage for a young country
to protect an infant industry. He is often quoted without regard to
the limitation of his statement, as if he had affirmed the general
expediency of protection in new countries and for infant industries.
It amounts to a misquotation to quote him without regard to the
limitations which he specified. The statement which he did make is
mathematically demonstrable.[21] The doctrine so developed is very
familiar in private enterprise. A business enterprise may be started
which for some years will return no profits or will occasion losses,
but which is expected later to recoup all these. _What are the limits
within which such an enterprise can succeed?_ It must either call for
sinking capital only for a short period (like building a railroad or
planting an orange grove), or it must promise enormous gains after it
is started (like a patented novelty). The higher the rate of interest,
as in any new country, the more stringent and narrow these conditions
are. Mill said that it was conceivable that a case of an industry might
occur in which this same calculation might be applied to a protective
tax. If, then, anybody says that he can offer an industry which meets
the conditions, let it be examined to see if it does so. If protection
is never applied until such a case is offered, it will never be applied
at all. A thing which is mathematically conceivable is one which is
not absurd; but a thing which is practically possible is quite another
thing. For myself, I strenuously dissent from Mill’s doctrine even as
he limits it. In the first place the state cannot by taxes work out
an industrial enterprise of a character such that it, as any one can
see, _demands the most intense and careful oversight by persons whose
capital is at stake in it_, and, in the second place, the state would
bear the loss, while it lasted, but private interests would take the
gain after it began.


(_B_) THAT PROTECTIVE TAXES DO NOT RAISE PRICES BUT LOWER PRICES.

111. To this it is obvious to reply: what good can they then do
toward the end proposed? Still it is true that, under circumstances,
protective taxes do lower prices. The protectionist takes an infant
industry in hand and proposes to rear it by putting on taxes to ward
off competition, and by giving it more profits than the world’s market
price would give. This raises the price. But the consumer then raises
a complaint. The protectionist turns to him and promises that by and
by there will be “overproduction,” and prices will fall. This arrives
in due time, for every protected industry is organized as a more or
less limited monopoly, and a monopoly which has overproduced its
market, _at the price which it wants_, is the weakest industry possible
(§ 24). The consumer now wins, but a wail from the cradle calls the
protectionist back to the infant industry, which is in convulsions from
“overproduction.” Some of the infants die. This gives a new chance to
the others. They combine for more effective monopoly, put the prices
up again by limiting production, and go on until “overproduction”
produces a new collapse. This is another reason why infants never win
vitality. The net result is that the market is in constant alternations
of stringency and laxity, and nothing at all is gained.

112. Whenever we talk of prices _it should be noticed that our
statements involve money_--the rate at which goods exchange for money.
If then we want to raise prices, we must _restrict the supply_ of
goods, so that on the doctrine of money also we shall come to the same
result as before, that protective taxes lessen production and diminish
wealth.

113. The problem of managing any monopoly is to dose the market with
just the quantity which it will take at the price which the monopolist
wants to get. In a qualified monopoly, that is, one which is shared
by a number of persons, the difficulty is to get agreement about the
management. They may not have any communication with each other and may
compete. If so they will overdose the market and the price will fall.
Then they meet, to establish communication; form an “association,” to
get harmonious action, and agree to divide the production among them
and limit and regulate it, to prevent the former mistake and restore
prices (§ 24).


(_C_) THAT WE SHOULD BE A PURELY AGRICULTURAL NATION UNDER FREE TRADE.

114. A purely agricultural nation covering a territory as large as that
of the United States is inconceivable. The distribution of industries
now _inside_ the United States is a complete proof that no such thing
would come to pass, for we have absolute free trade inside, and
manufactures are growing up in the agricultural states just as fast
as circumstances favor, and just as fast as they can be profitably
carried on. Under free trade there would be a subdivision of cotton,
woolen, iron and other industries, and we should both export and
import different varieties and qualities of these goods. The southern
states are now manufacturing coarse cottons in competition with New
England. The western states manufacture coarse woolens, certain grades
of leather and iron goods, etc., in competition with the East. Here
we see the exact kind of differentiation which would take place under
free trade, and we can see the mischief of the tariff, whether on the
one hand it strikes a whole category with the same brutal ignorance,
or tries, by cunning sub-classification, to head off every effort to
save itself which the trade makes.[22] If, however, it was conceivable
that we should become a purely agricultural nation, the only legitimate
inference would be that our whole population could be better supported
in that way than in any other. If there was a greater profit in
something else some of them would go into it.


(_D_) THAT COMMUNITIES WHICH MANUFACTURE ARE MORE PROSPEROUS THAN THOSE
WHICH ARE AGRICULTURAL.

115. This is as true as if it should be said that all tall men are
healthy. It would be answered that some are and some are not; that
tallness and health have no connection. Some manufacturing communities
are prosperous and some not. The self-contradiction of protectionism
appears in one of its boldest forms in this fallacy. We are told that
manufactures are a special blessing. The protectionist says that he
is going to give us some. Instead of that he makes new demands on us,
lays a new burden on us, gives us nothing but more taxes. He promises
us an income and increases our expenditure; promises an asset and gives
a liability; promises a gift and creates a debt; promises a blessing
and gives a burden. The very thing which he boasts of as a great
and beneficial advantage gives us nothing, but takes from us more.
Prosperity is no more connected with one form of industry than another.
If it were so, some of mankind would have, by nature, a permanently
better chance than others, and no one could emigrate to a new, that is
agricultural country, without injuring his interests. The world is not
made so.


(_E_) THAT IT IS AN OBJECT TO DIVERSIFY INDUSTRY, AND THAT NATIONS
WHICH HAVE VARIOUS INDUSTRIES ARE STRONGER THAN OTHERS WHICH HAVE NOT
VARIOUS INDUSTRIES.

116. It is not an object to diversify industry, but to multiply and
diversify our satisfactions, comforts, and enjoyments. If we can do
this by unifying our industry, in greater measure than by diversifying
it, then we should do, and we will do, the former. It is not a question
to be decided _a priori_, but depends upon economic circumstances. If
a country has a supremacy in some one industry it will have only one.
California and Australia had only one industry until the gold mines
declined in productiveness, that is, until their supreme advantage
over other countries was diminished: they began to diversify when
they began to be less well off. The oil region of Pennsylvania has a
chance of three industries, the old farming industry, coal, and oil. It
will have only one industry so long as oil gives chances superior to
those enjoyed by any other similar district. When it loses its unique
advantage by nature it will diversify. The “strongest” nation is the
one which brings products into the world’s market which are of high
demand, but which cost it little toil and sacrifice to get; for it will
then have command of all the good things which men can get on earth at
little effort to itself. Whether the products which it offers are one
or numerous is immaterial. All the tariff has to do with it is that
when the American comes into the world’s market with wheat, cotton,
tobacco, and petroleum, all objects of high demand by mankind and
little cost to him, it forces him to forego a part of his due advantage
(§§ 125, 134).


(_F_) THAT MANUFACTURES GIVE VALUE TO LAND.

117. This doctrine issued from the Agricultural Bureau. It has been
thought a grand development of the protectionist argument. It is a
simple logical fallacy based on some misconstrued statistics. The
value of land depends on supply and demand. The demand for land is
population. Hence where the population is dense the value of land is
great. Manufactures can be carried on only where there is a supply of
labor, that is, where the population is dense. Hence high value of land
and manufacturing industry are common results of dense population. The
statistician of the Agricultural Bureau connected them with each other
as cause and effect, and the New York _Tribune_ said that it was the
grandest contribution to political economy since “the fingers of Horace
Greeley stiffened in death”; which was true.

118. If manufactures spring up spontaneously out of original
strength, and by independent development, of course they “add value
to land,” that is to say, the district has new industrial power and
every interest in it is benefited; but if the manufactures have to
be protected, paid for, and supported, they do not do any good as
manufactures but only as a device for drawing capital from elsewhere,
as tribute. In this way, protective taxes do alter the comparative
value of land in different districts. This effect can be seen under
some astonishing phases in Connecticut and other manufacturing
states. The farmers are taxed to hire some people to go and live
in manufacturing villages and carry on manufacturing there. This
displacement of population, brought about at the expense of the rural
population, diminishes the value of agricultural land and raises that
of city land right here within the same state. The hillside population
is being impoverished, and the hillside farms are being abandoned on
account of the tribute levied on them to swell the value of mill sites
and adjoining land in the manufacturing towns (§§ 120, 137).


(_G_) THAT THE FARMER, IF HE PAYS TAXES TO BRING INTO EXISTENCE A
FACTORY, WHICH WOULD NOT OTHERWISE EXIST, WILL WIN MORE THAN THE TAXES
BY SELLING FARM PRODUCE TO THE ARTISANS.

119. This is an arithmetical fallacy. It proposes to get three pints
out of a quart. The farmer is out for the tax and the farm produce and
he can not get back more than the tax because, if the factory owes its
existence to the protective taxes, it cannot make any profit outside of
the taxes. The proposition to the farmer is that he shall pay taxes to
another man who will bring part of the tax back to buy produce with it.
This is to make the farmer rich. The man who owned stock in a railroad
and who rode on it, paying his fare, in the hope of swelling his own
dividends, was wise compared with a farmer who believes that protection
can be a source of gain to him.

120. Since, as I have shown (§ 101), protective taxes act like a
reduction in the fertility of the soil, they lower the “margin of
cultivation,” and raise rent. They do not, however, raise it in
favor of the agricultural land owner, for, by the displacement just
described, they take away from him to give to the town land owner. Of
course, I do not believe that the protective taxes have really lowered
the margin of cultivation in this country, for they have not been able
to offset the greater richness of the newest land, and the advance in
the arts. What protection costs us comes out of the exuberant bounty of
nature to us. Still I know of very few who could not stand it to be a
great deal better off than they are, and the New England farmer is the
one who has the least chance, and the fewest advantages, with which to
endure protection.


(_H_) THAT FARMERS GAIN BY PROTECTION, BECAUSE IT DRAWS SO MANY
LABORERS OUT OF COMPETITION WITH THEM.

121. Since the farmers pay the taxes by which this operation is
supposed to be produced, a simple question is raised, _viz._, how
much can one afford to pay to buy off competition in his business? He
cannot afford to pay anything unless he has a monopoly which he wants
to consolidate. Our farmers are completely open to competition on every
side. The immigration of farmers every three or four years exceeds all
the workers in all the protected trades. Hence the farmers, if they
take the view which is recommended to them, instead of gaining any
ground, are face to face with a task which gets bigger and bigger the
longer they work at it. If one man should support another in order to
get rid of the latter’s competition as a producer, that would be the
case where the taxpayer supports soldiers, idle pensioners, paupers,
etc. A protected manufacturer, however, by the hypothesis, is not
simply supported in idleness, but he is carrying on a business the
losses of which must be paid by those who buy off his competition in
their own production. On the other hand, when farmers come to market,
they are in free competition with several other sources of supply.
Hence, if they did any good to agricultural industry by hiring the
artisans to go out of competition with them, they would have to share
the gain with all their competitors the world over while paying all the
expense of it themselves.

122. The movement of men over the earth and the movement of goods
over the earth are complementary operations. Passports to stop the
men and taxes to stop the goods would be equally legitimate. Since it
is, once for all, a fact that some parts of the earth have advantages
for one thing and other parts for other things, men avail themselves
of the local advantages either by moving themselves to the places, or
by trading what they produce where they are for what others produce
in the other places. The passenger trains and the freight trains are
set in motion by the same ultimate economic fact. Our exports are
all bulky and require more tonnage than our imports. On the westward
trip, consequently, bunks are erected and men are brought in space
where cotton, wheat, etc., were taken out. The tariff, by so much as
it lessens the import of goods, leaves room which the ship owners
are eager to fill with immigrants. To do this they lower the rates.
Hence the tariff is a premium on immigration. The protectionists have
claimed that the tariff does favor immigration. But nine-tenths of the
immigrants are laborers, domestic servants, and farmers.[23] Probably
more than one-third of the total number, including women, find their
way to the land. As we have seen, the tariff also lowers the profits
of agriculture, which discourages immigration and the movement to the
land. Therefore, if the farmer believes what the protectionist tells
him, he must understand that the taxes he pays bring in more people,
and raise the value of land by settling it, and that they also bring
more competition, which the farmer must buy off by lowering the profits
of his own (the farming) industry. Then, too, so far as the immigrants
are artisans, the premium on immigration is a tax paid to increase the
supply of labor, that is, to lower wages, although the protectionists
say that the tariff raises wages. Hence we see that when a tax is laid,
in our modern complicated society, instead of being a simple and easy
means or method to be employed for a specific purpose, its action and
reaction on transportation, land, wages, etc., will produce erratic,
contradictory, and confused effects, which cannot be predicted or
analyzed thoroughly, and the protectionist, when he pleads three or
four arguments for his system, is alleging three or four features of
it which, if properly analyzed and brought together, are found to be
mutually destructive, and cumulative only as to the mischief they do
(see §§ 29, 101).


(_I_) THAT OUR INDUSTRIES WOULD PERISH WITHOUT PROTECTION.

123. Those who say this think only of manufacturing establishments as
“industries.” They also talk of “our” industries. They mean those we
support by the taxes we pay; not those from which we get dividends. No
industry will ever be given up except in order to take up a better one,
and if, under free trade, any of our industries should perish, it would
only be because the removal of restrictions enabled some other industry
to offer so much better rewards that labor and capital would seek the
latter. It is plain that, if a man does not know of any better way to
earn his living than the one in which he is, he must remain in that, or
move to some other place. If any one can suppose that the population
of the United States could be forced, by free trade, to move away, he
must suppose that this country cannot support its population, and that
we made a mistake in coming here. This argument is especially full of
force if the articles to be produced are coal, iron, wool, copper,
timber, or any other primary products of the soil. For, if it is said
that we cannot raise these products of the soil in competition with
some other part of the earth’s surface, all it proves is that we have
come to the wrong spot to seek them. If, however, the soil can support
the population under an arrangement by which certain industries support
themselves, and those which do not pay besides, then it is plain that
the former are really supporting the whole population--part directly
and part indirectly, through a circuitous and wasteful organization.
Hence the same strong and independent industries could certainly still
better support the whole population, if they supported it directly.

124. I have been asked whether we should have had any steel works in
this country, if we had had no protection. I reply that I do not know;
neither does anybody else, but it is certain that we should have had a
great deal more steel, if we had had no protection.

125. “But,” it is said, “we should import everything.” Should we import
everything and give nothing? If so, foreigners would make us presents
and support us. Should we give equal value in exchange? If so, there
would be just as much “industry” and a great deal less “work” in that
way of getting things than in making them ourselves. The moment that
ceased to be true we should make and not buy. Suppose that a district,
A, has two million inhabitants, one million of whom produce a million
bushels of wheat, and one million produce a million hundredweight of
iron; and suppose that a bushel of wheat exchanges for a hundredweight
of iron. Now, by improved transportation and emigration, suppose that
a new wheat country, B, is opened, and that its people bring wheat to
the first district, offering two bushels for a hundredweight of iron.
Plainly they must offer more than one bushel for one hundredweight,
or it is useless for them to come. Now the people of A, by putting
all their labor and capital in iron production, produce two million
hundredweight. They keep one million hundredweight, and exchange one
million hundredweight of iron for two million bushels of wheat. The
destruction of their wheat industry is a sign of a change in industry
(unifying and not diversifying) by which they have gained a million
bushels of wheat. Such is the gain of all trade. If the gain did not
exist, trade would not be a feature of civilization.


(_J_) THAT IT WOULD BE WISE TO CALL INTO EXISTENCE VARIOUS INDUSTRIES,
EVEN AT AN EXPENSE, IF WE COULD THUS OFFER EMPLOYMENT TO ALL KINDS OF
ARTISANS, ETC., WHO MIGHT COME TO US.

126. This would be only maintaining public workshops at the expense
of the taxpayers, and would be open to all the objections which are
conclusive against public workshops. The expense would be prodigious,
and the return little or nothing. This argument shows less sense of
comparative cost and gain than any other which is ever proposed.


(_K_) THAT WE WANT TO BE COMPLETE IN OURSELVES AND SUFFICIENT TO
OURSELVES, AND INDEPENDENT, AS A NATION, WHICH STATE OF THINGS WILL BE
PRODUCED BY PROTECTION.

127. I will only refer to what I have already said about China and
Japan (§ 69) as types of what this plan produces. If a number of
families from among us should be shipwrecked on an island, their
greatest woe would be that they could not trade with the rest of the
world. They might live there “self-contained” and “independent,”
fulfilling the ideal of happiness which this proposition offers, but
they would look about them to see a surfeit of things which, as they
know, their friends at home would like to have, and they would think
of all the old comforts which they used to have, and which they could
not produce on their island. They might be contented to live on there
and make it their home, if they could exchange the former things for
the latter. If now a ship should chance that way and discover them and
should open communication and trade between them and their old home, a
protectionist philosopher would say to them: “You are making a great
mistake. You ought to make everything for yourselves. The wise thing to
do would be to isolate yourselves again by taxes as soon as possible.”
We sent some sages to the Japanese to induct them into the ways of
civilization, who, as a matter of fact, did tell them that the first
step in civilization was to adopt a protective tariff and shut up again
by taxes the very ports which they had just opened.


(_L_) THAT PROTECTIVE TAXES ARE NECESSARY TO PREVENT A FOREIGN MONOPOLY
FROM GETTING CONTROL OF OUR MARKET.

128. It is said that English manufacturers once combined to lower
prices in order to kill out American manufactures, and that they then
put up their prices to monopoly rates. If they did this, why did not
their other customers send to the United States and buy the goods here
in the first instance, and why did not the Americans go and buy the
goods of the Englishmen’s other customers in the second instance? If
the Englishmen put down their prices for their whole market in the
first instance, why did they not incur a great loss? and, if they
raised it for their whole market in the second instance, why did they
not yield the entire market to their competitors? The Englishmen are
said to be wonderfully shrewd, and are here credited with the most
stupid and incredible folly.

129. The protective system puts us certainly in the hands of a home
monopoly for fear of the impossible chance that we may fall into the
hands of a foreign monopoly. Before the war we made no first quality
thread. We got it at four cents a spool (retail) of an English
monopoly. Under the tariff we were saved from this by being put into
the hands of a home monopoly which charged five cents a spool. In the
meantime the foreign monopoly lowered thread to three cents a spool
(retail) for the Canadians, who were at its mercy. Lest we should have
to buy nickel of a foreign monopolist, Congress forced us to buy it of
the owner of the only mine in the United States, and added thirty cents
a pound to any price the foreigner might ask.


(_M_) THAT FREE TRADE IS GOOD IN THEORY BUT IMPOSSIBLE IN PRACTICE;
THAT IT WOULD BE A GOOD THING IF ALL NATIONS WOULD HAVE IT.

130. That a thing can be true in theory and false in practice is
the most utter absurdity that human language can express. For, if a
thing is true in practice (protectionism, for instance) the theory
of its truth can be found, and that theory will be true. But it was
admitted that free trade is true in theory. Hence two things which
are contradictory would both be true at the same time about the same
thing. The fact is, that _protectionism is totally impracticable_. It
does not work as it is expected to work; it does not produce any of the
results which were promised from it; it is never properly and finally
established to the satisfaction of its own votaries. They cannot let
it alone. They always want to “correct inequalities,” or revise it one
way or another. It was they who got up the Tariff Commission of 1882.
Their system is not capable of construction so as to furnish a normal
and regular status for industry. One of them said that the tariff would
be all right if it could only be made stable; another said that it
ought to be revised every two years. One said that it ought to include
everything; another said that it would be good “if it was only laid on
the right things.”

131. If all nations had free trade, no one of them would have any
special gain from it, just as, if all men were honest, honesty would
have no commercial value. Some say that a man cannot afford to be
honest unless everybody is honest. The truth is that, if there was one
honest man among a lot of cheats, his character and reputation would
reach their maximum value. So the nation which has free trade when the
others do not have it gains the most by comparison with them. It gains
while they impoverish themselves. If all had free trade all would be
better off, but then no one would profit from it more than others. If
this were not true, if the man who first sees the truth and first acts
wisely did not get a special premium for it, the whole moral order of
the universe would have to be altered, for no reform or improvement
could be tried until unanimous consent was obtained. If a man or a
nation does right, the rewards of doing right are obtained. They are
not as great as could be obtained if all did right, but they are
greater than those enjoy who still do wrong.


(_N_) THAT TRADE IS WAR, SO THAT FREE TRADE METHODS ARE UNFIT FOR IT,
AND THAT PROTECTIVE TAXES ARE SUITED TO IT.

132. It is evidently meant by this that trade involves a struggle
or contest of competition. It might, however, as well be said that
practicing law is war, because it is contentious; or that practicing
medicine is war, because doctors are jealous rivals of each other. The
protectionists do, however, always seem to think of trade as commercial
war. One of them was reported to have said in a speech, in the late
campaign, that nations would not fight any more with guns but with
taxes. The nations are to boycott each other. One would think that
the experience our Southerners made of that notion in the Civil War,
upon which they entered in the faith that “cotton is king,” would
have sufficed to banish forever that antique piece of imbecility, a
commercial war. If trade is war, all the tariff can do about it is
to make A fight B’s battles, although A has his own battles to fight
besides.


(_O_) THAT PROTECTION BRINGS INTO EMPLOYMENT LABOR AND CAPITAL WHICH
WOULD OTHERWISE BE IDLE.

133. If there is any labor or capital which is idle, that fact is a
symptom of industrial disease; especially is this true in the United
States. If a laborer is idle he is in danger of starving to death. If
capital is idle it is producing nothing to its owner, who depends on
it, and is suffering loss. Therefore, if labor or capital is idle,
some antecedent error or folly must have produced a stoppage in the
industrial organization. The cure is, not to lay some more taxes,
but to find the error and correct it. If then things are in their
normal and healthy condition, the labor and capital of the country are
employed as far as possible under the existing organization. We are
constantly trying to improve our exchange and credit systems so as
to keep all our capital all the time employed. Such improvements are
important and valuable, but to make them cost more thought and skillful
labor than to invent machines. Hence Congress cannot do that work by
discharging a volley of taxes at selected articles, and leaving those
taxes to find out the proper points to affect, and to exert the proper
influence. It takes intelligent and hard-working men to do it. The
faith that anything else can do it is superstition.


(_P_) THAT A YOUNG NATION NEEDS PROTECTION AND WILL SUFFER SOME
DISADVANTAGE IN FREE EXCHANGE WITH AN OLD ONE.

134. The younger a nation is the more important trade is to it (cf. §§
127 ff.). The younger a nation is the more it wins by trade, for it
offers food and raw materials which are objects of greatest necessity
to old nations. The things England buys of us are far more essential
to her than what she buys of France or Germany. The strong party in an
exchange is not the rich party, or the old party, but the one who is
favored by supply and demand--the one who brings to the exchange the
thing which is more rare and more eagerly wanted.[24] If a poor woman
went into Stewart’s store to buy a yard of calico, she did not have to
pay more because Stewart was rich. She paid less because he used his
capital to serve her better and at less price than anybody else could.
England takes 60 per cent of all our exports. We sell, first, wheat and
provisions, prime articles of food; second, cotton, the most important
raw material now used by mankind; third, tobacco, the most universal
luxury and the one for which there is the intensest demand; fourth,
petroleum, the lighting material in most universal use. These are
things which are rare and of high demand. We are, therefore, strong in
the market. Protection only robs us of part of our advantage (§ 116).


(_Q_) THAT WE NEED PROTECTION TO GET READY FOR WAR.

135. We have no army, or navy, or fortifications worth mentioning. We
are wasting more by protective taxes in a year than would be necessary
to build a first-class navy and fortify our whole seacoast. It is said
that, in some way, the taxes get us ready for war, and yet in fact
we are not ready for war. It is plain that this argument is only a
pretense put forward to try to cover the real motives of protection. If
we prefer to go without army, navy, and fortifications, as we now do,
then the best way to get ready for war, consistently with that policy,
is _to get as rich as we can_. Then we can count on buying anything in
the world which anybody else has got and which we need. Protection,
then, which lessens our wealth, is only diminishing our power for war.


(_R_) THAT PROTECTIONISM PRODUCES SOME GREAT MORAL ADVANTAGES.

136. It is a very suspicious thing when a man who sets out to discuss
an economic question shifts over on the “moral” ground. Not because
economics and morals have nothing to do with each other. On the
contrary, they meet at a common boundary line, and, when both are
sound, straight and consistent lines run from one into the other.
Capital is the first requisite of all human effort for goods of any
kind, and the increase of capital is therefore the expansion of
_chances_ that intellectual, moral, and spiritual good may be won. The
moral question is: How will the chances be used? If, then, the economic
analysis shows that protective taxes lessen capital, it follows that
those taxes lessen the regular chances for all higher good.

137. It is argued that hardship disciplines a man and is good for him;
hence, that the free traders, who want people to do what is easiest,
would corrupt them, and that protectionists, by “making work,” bring in
salutary discipline for the people. This is the effect upon those who
pay the taxes. The counter-operation on the beneficiaries of the system
I have never seen developed. Bastiat said that the model at which the
protectionist was aiming was Sisyphus, who was condemned in Hades to
roll a stone to the top of a hill, from which, as soon as he got it
there, it rolled down again to the bottom. Then he rolled it up again,
and so on to all eternity. Here then was infinity of effort, zero of
result; the ultimate type to which the protectionist system would come.
Somebody pitied Sisyphus, to whom he replied: “Thou fool! I enjoy
everlasting hope!” If Sisyphus could extract moral consolation from his
case, I am not prepared to deny but that a New England farmer, ground
between the upper millstone of free competition, in his production,
with the Mississippi Valley, and the nether millstone of protective
taxes on all his consumption, may derive some moral consolation from
his case. There are a great many people who are apparently ready
to inflict salutary chastisement on the American citizen for his
welfare--and their own advantage.

138. The protectionist doctrine is that _if my earnings are taken from
me and given to my neighbor, and he spends them on himself, there will
be important moral gains to the community which will be lost if I keep
my own earnings, and spend them on myself_. The facts of experience are
all to the contrary. When a man keeps his own earnings he is frugal,
temperate, prudent, and honest. When he gets and lives on another man’s
earnings, he is extravagant, wasteful, luxurious, idle, and covetous.
The effects on the community in either case correspond.

139. The truth is that protectionism demoralizes and miseducates a
people (§§ 89, 153, 155). It deprives them of individual self-reliance
and energy, and teaches them to seek crafty and unjust advantages. It
breaks down the skill of great merchants and captains of industry,
and develops the skill of lobbyists. It gives faith in monopoly,
combinations, jobbery, and restriction, instead of giving faith in
energy, free enterprise, public purity, and freedom. Illustrations of
this occur all the time. Objection has been made to the introduction
of machines to stop the smoke nuisance because they would interfere in
the competition of anthracite and bituminous coal. People have resisted
the execution of ordinances against gambling houses because said houses
“make trade” for their neighbors. The theater men recently made an
attempt to get regulations adopted against skating rinks--purely on
moral grounds. The industries of the country all run to the form of
combinations.[25] Our wisdom is developed, not in the great art of
production, but in the tactics of managing a combination, and while we
sustain all the causes and all the great principles of this system of
business we denounce “monopoly” and “corporations.”


  (_S_) THAT A “WORKER MAY GAIN MORE BY HAVING HIS INDUSTRY PROTECTED
    THAN HE WILL LOSE BY HAVING TO PAY DEARLY FOR WHAT HE CONSUMES.
    A SYSTEM WHICH RAISES PRICES ALL ROUND--LIKE THAT IN THE UNITED
    STATES AT PRESENT--IS OPPRESSIVE TO CONSUMERS, BUT IS MOST
    DISADVANTAGEOUS TO THOSE WHO CONSUME WITHOUT PRODUCING ANYTHING,
    AND DOES LITTLE, IF ANY, INJURY TO THOSE WHO PRODUCE MORE THAN THEY
    CONSUME.”

140. This is an English contribution to the subject dropped in passing
by a writer on economic history.[26] It is a noteworthy fact that the
“historical economists” and others who deride political economy as a
science do not desist from it, but at once set to work to make very
bad political economy of the “abstract” or “deductive” sort. The
passage quoted involves three or four fallacies already noticed, and an
assumption of the truth of protectionism as a philosophy. As we have
abundantly established, “workers” gain nothing by protection in their
production (§ 48). Also, “a system which raises prices all around” must
either lessen the demand and requirement for money, _i.e._, restrict
business and the supply of goods (§ 112), or it must increase the
amount of money. In the former case it could not but injure “workers”;
in the latter case we should find ourselves dealing with a greenback
fallacy. But passing by that, who are they who consume more than they
produce? I can think only of (1) princes, pensioners, sinecurists,
protected persons, and paupers, who draw support from taxes, and (2)
swindlers, confidence men, and others who live by their wits on the
produce of others. Those under (1), if they receive fixed money grants
or subsidies, find an advance in price most disadvantageous. So the
protected, of course, as consumers of others’ products, when they
spend what they have received by protection, suffer. Who are they who
produce more than they consume? I can think only of (1) taxpayers,
and (2) victims of fraud and of those economic errors which give one
man’s earnings to another’s use. Rise in price is just as advantageous
to this class as it was disadvantageous to the other, on the same
hypothesis, _viz_., if they pay fixed money taxes to the parasites, and
can sell their products for more money. Evidently the writer did not
understand correctly what his two classes consisted of, and he put the
protected “workers” in the wrong one. If in industry a person should
produce more than he consumes, he could give it away, or it would decay
on his hands. If he should consume more than he produced, he would run
in debt and become bankrupt.[27] Protection has nothing to do with
that.


  (_T_) THAT “A DUTY MAY AT ONCE PROTECT THE NATIVE MANUFACTURER
    ADEQUATELY, AND RECOUP THE COUNTRY FOR THE EXPENSE OF PROTECTING
    HIM.”

141. This is Professor Sidgwick’s doctrine.[28] It has given great
comfort to our protectionists because it is put forward by an
Englishman and a Cambridge professor. It is offered under the “art”
of political economy. It is a new thing; an _a priori_ art. The “may”
in it deprives it of the character of a doctrine or dogma such as our
less cultivated protectionists give us--“Protective taxes come out of
the foreigner”--but it is not a maxim of art. It has the air of a very
astute contrivance (see § 3), and is therefore very captivating to many
people, and it is very difficult to dissect and to expose in a simple
and popular way. It has therefore given great trouble and done great
mischief. It is, however, a complete error. It is not possible in any
way or in any degree to use duties so as to make the foreigner pay for
protection.

142. Professor Sidgwick states the hypothetical instance which he
sets up to prove by illustration that there “may” be such a case, as
follows: “Suppose that a five per cent duty is imposed on foreign
silks, and that, in consequence, after a certain interval, half the
silks consumed are the product of native industry, and that the price
of the whole has risen 2½ per cent. It is obvious that, under these
circumstances, the other half, which comes from abroad, yields the
state five per cent, while the tax levied from the consumers on the
whole is only 2½ per cent; so that the nation, in the aggregate, is at
this time losing nothing by protection, except the cost of collecting
the tax, while a loss equivalent to the whole tax falls on the foreign
producer.”

143. It is necessary, in the first place, to complete the hypothesis
which is included in this case. Let us assume that the consumption of
silk, when all was imported, was 100 yards and that the price was $1
per yard. Then the following points are taken for granted, although not
stated in the case as it is put: (1) That the state needs $5 revenue;
(2) that it has determined to get this out of _the consumers of silk_;
(3) that the advance in price does not diminish the consumption; (4)
that the tax forces a reduction of price for the silk in the whole
outside market; (5) that the “_silk_” in question is the same thing
after the tax is laid as before. Of these assumptions, 3, 4, and 5 are
totally inadmissible, but, if they be admitted in the first instance,
and if the doctrine of the case which is put be deduced, it is this:
If the part imported multiplied by the tax is equal to the total
consumption multiplied by the advance in price, the consumers can
pay the latter in protection, for it is equal to the former, and the
former, which is paid to the government by the foreigner, is what the
consumers of silk must otherwise have paid.

144. Obviously this deduction is arithmetically incorrect, even on
the hypothesis. In the first place, the government has not obtained
$5 revenue which it needed, but $2.50 (5 cents on 50 yards). In the
second place, the foreigner sells at $1.02½ (net 97½) the silk which
he used to sell for $1. He therefore gets back from the consumers 2½
cents per yard on 50 yards, or $1.25 out of the $2.50 which he has paid
to the government. Also, the domestic silk to compete must be equal
to the dollar imported silk which now sells for $1.02½. Hence, the
consumers really pay in protection only 2½ cents on 50 yards, _i.e._
$1.25. This case, then, is, that the foreigner pays $1.25 revenue,
and the consumers pay $1.25 revenue and $1.25 protection. Hence the
result is not at all what is asserted, and there is no such operation
of the contrivance as was expected. But the government needs $2.50
more revenue, the operation of its tax having been interfered with by
protection. As there is no equivalence or compensation in the case as
it already stands, it is evident that the effect of any further tax,
instead of bringing about equivalence or compensation, will be to
depart from such a result still further.

145. It is, however, impossible to admit assumptions 3, 4, and 5 above,
or to deal with any economic problem by any arithmetical process. The
result above reached is totally incorrect and only serves to clear the
ground for a correct analysis. The producer may have to bear part of a
tax, if he is under the tax jurisdiction, or if he has a monopoly. If
he has no monopoly, and is not under the tax jurisdiction, and works
for the world’s market, he cannot lower his price in order to assume
part of the tax. What he does is that he differentiates his commodity.
This is the fact in the art of production which is established by
abundant experience. It is the explanation of the constant complaint,
under the protective system, of “fraud” and of the constant demand for
subclassification in the tariff schedules. The protected product never
is, at least at first, as good in quality as the imported article which
it aims to supersede. Hence the foreigner, if he desires to retain the
protected market, can prepare a special quality for that market. The
“silk” after the tax is laid is not the same silk as before. It nets to
the foreign producer 97½ cents, and pays him business profits at that
price. Therefore when he sells it at $1.02½ he gets back the whole tax
from the consumers. The domestic silk sold at $1.02½ is no better than
might have been obtained for 97½ cents. Hence the consumers are paying
a tax for protection which is full and equal to the revenue rate. The
fact that the price has fallen to $1.02½, and is not $1.05, evidently
proves that instead of disproving it, as many believe.

146. Thus this case falls to pieces. It gains a momentary plausibility
from the erroneous assumptions which are implicit in it. The foreign
producer may suffer a narrowing of his market and a reduction of his
aggregate profits, but there is no way to make him tributary (unless he
has a monopoly) either to the treasury or the protected interests of
the taxing country.[29] If it was true in general, or in any limited
number of cases, that a country which lays protective taxes can make
foreigners pay those taxes, then England, which has had no protective
taxes since (say) 1850, and has been surrounded by countries which have
had more or less protective taxes, must have been paying tribute to
them all this time and must have been steadily impoverished accordingly.


Chapter V

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

147. I have now examined protectionism impartially on its own grounds,
assuming them to be true, and adversely from ground taken against it,
and have reviewed a series of the commonest arguments put forward in
its favor. If now we return, with all the light we have obtained, to
test the assumptions which we found in protectionism, that the people
would not organize their industry wisely under liberty, and that
protective taxes are the correct device for bringing about a better
organization, we find that those two assumptions are totally false
and have no semblance of claim upon our confidence. At every step
the dogmas of protectionism, its claims, its apparatus, have proved
fallacious, absurd, and impracticable. We can now group together some
general criticisms of protectionism which our investigation suggests.

148. We have taken the protectionist’s own definition of a protective
duty, and have found that such a duty, instead of increasing national
wealth, must, at every step, and by every incident of its operation,
waste labor and capital, lower the efficiency of the national industry,
weaken the country in trade, and consequently lower the standard
of comfort of the whole population. We have found that protected
industries, according to the statement of the protectionists, do not
produce, but consume. If then these industries are _the_ ones which
make us rich, _consumption is production and destruction produces_.
The object of a protective duty is “to effect the diversion of a part
of the capital and labor of the people out of the channels in which it
would run otherwise, into channels favored or created by law” (§ 13).
We have seen that the channels _into_ which the labor and capital of
the people are to be diverted are offered by _the industries which do
not pay_. Hence protectionism is found to mean that national prosperity
is to be produced by forcing labor and capital into employments where
the capital cannot be reproduced with the same increase which could be
won by it elsewhere. If that is so, then capital in those employments
will be wasted, and the final outcome of our investigation, which must
be made the primary maxim of the art of national prosperity under
protectionism, is that _Waste makes Wealth_. Such is its outcome when
regarded as an economic philosophy.

149. As regards the social and jural relations which are established
between citizen and citizen, protectionism is proved by a half-dozen
independent analyses of it to be simply a device for forcing us to levy
tribute on each other. If the law brings a cent to A it must have taken
it from B, or else it must have produced it out of nothing, that is,
it must be magic. Every soul pays protective taxes. If, then, anybody
gets anything from them, he needs to remember what they cost him, and
_he should insist on casting up both sides of the account_. If anybody
gets nothing from them, then _he pays the taxes and gets no equivalent_.

150. During the anti-corn-law campaign in England, a writer in the
_Westminster Review_ illustrated protectionism by the story of the
monkeys in a cage, each of whom received for his dinner a piece of
bread. Each monkey dropped his own piece of bread and grabbed his
neighbor’s. The consequence was that soon the floor of the cage was
strewn with fragments, and each monkey had to make the best dinner he
could from these. It is a good and fair illustration. I saw a story
recently in a protectionist newspaper about the peasants in the Soudan.
Each owns pigeons, and at evening, when the pigeons come home, each
tries to entice as many of his neighbors’ pigeons as he can into his
own pigeon house. “All of them do the same thing, and therefore each
gets caught in his turn. They know this perfectly well, but no Egyptian
fellah could resist the temptation of cheating his neighbor.” They
ought to _tax_ each other’s pigeons all around. Then they would put
themselves at once on the level of free and enlightened Americans.
The protectionist assures me that it is for the good of the community
and for my good that he should tax me. I reply that, in his language,
“these are fine theories,” but that whether it is good for the
community or not, and whether it is good for me or not, that he should
tax me, I can see that it is for his good that he should tax me. Then
he says: “Now you are abusive.”

151. _If protectionism is anything else than mutual tribute, then it is
magic._ The whole philosophy of it comes down to questions like this:
How much can I afford to pay a man for hiring me? How much can I afford
to pay a man for trading with me? How much can I afford to pay a man
to cease to compete with me in my production? How much can I afford to
pay a man to go and compete with those who supply me my consumption?
It is only _an expensive way to get what we could get for nothing if
it was worth having_ (§ 89). It is admitted that one man cannot lift
himself by his boot straps. Suppose that a thousand men stand in a
ring and each takes hold of the other’s boot straps reciprocally and
they all lift, can the whole group lift itself as a group? That is
what protection comes to just as soon as we have drawn out into light
the other side, the _cost side_ of it. Whatever we win on one side, we
must pay for by at least equal cost on another. The losses will all be
distributed as net pure injury to the community. The harm of protection
lies here. It is not measured by the tax. _It is measured by the total
crippling of the national industry._ We might as well say that it would
be a good thing to put snags in the rivers, to fell trees across the
roads, to dull all our tools, as to say that unnecessary taxation could
work a blessing. Men have argued that to destroy machines was to do
a beneficial thing, and I have recently read an article in a Boston
paper, quoting a Massachusetts man who thinks that what we need is
another war in the United States. Such men may believe that protective
taxes work a blessing, but to those who will see the truth, it is plain
that, when the whole effect of the protective system is distributed, it
benefits nobody. It is a dead weight and loss upon everybody, and those
who think that they win by it would be far better off in a community
where no such system existed, but where each man earned what he could
and kept what he earned.

152. There is a school of political science in this country in whose
deed of foundation it is provided that the professors shall teach how
“by suitable tariff legislation, a nation may keep its productive
industry alive, cheapen the cost of commodities, and oblige foreigners
to sell to it at low prices, while contributing largely toward
defraying the expenses of the government.”[30] Is not that a fine
thing? Those professors ought to likewise provide us a panacea, the
philosopher’s stone, a formula for squaring the circle, and all the
other desiderata of universal happiness. It would be only a trifle for
them. The only fear is that they may write the secret which they are to
teach in books, and that other nations to whom we are “foreigners,” may
learn it. Then while Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans work for us at
low prices and pay our taxes, we shall be forced to work for them at
low prices and pay their taxes, and the old somber misery will settle
down upon the world again the same as ever.

153. Some years ago we were told that protection was necessary because
we had a big debt to pay. Well, we have paid the debt until we have
reduced it from $78.25 per head to $28.41 per head. We, the people,
have also raised our credit until the annual debt charge has been
reduced from $4.29 per head to 95 cents per head. Now it is necessary
to keep up the debt in order to keep up the taxes, and protectionism
is now most efficient in forcing wasteful and corrupting expenditures
to get rid of revenue, lest a surplus should furnish an argument for
reducing taxation. This is right on the doctrine that waste makes
wealth.

154. They tell us that protection has produced prosperity, and when we
ask them to account for hard times in spite of the tariff, they say
that hard times are caused by the free traders who will not keep still.
Therefore _the prosperity produced by protection is so precarious that
it can be overthrown by only talking about free trade_. They denounce
_laissez-faire_, or “let alone,” but the only question is _when_ to
let alone, _when_ to keep still. They do not let the tariff alone if
they want to revise it to suit them, or want to make it “equitable.”
When they get it “equitable” they will let it alone, but that insures
agitation, and makes sure that they will cause it, for an indefinite
time to come. On the other hand the victims of the tariff will not keep
still. Their time to “let alone” is when it is repealed. If the tariff
did not hurt somebody somewhere it would not do any good to anybody
anywhere, and the victims will resist.[31] Mr. Lincoln used to tell a
story about hearing a noise in the next room. He looked in and found
Bob and Tad scuffling. “What is the matter, boys?” said he. “It is
Tad,” replied Bob, “who is trying to get my knife.” “Oh, let him have
it, Bob,” said Mr. Lincoln, “just to keep him quiet.” “No!” said Bob,
“it is my knife and I need it to keep me quiet.” Mr. Lincoln used the
story to prove that there is no foundation for peace save truth and
justice. Now, in this case, _the man whose earnings are being taken
from him needs them to keep him quiet_. Our fathers fought for free
soil, and if we are worthy to be their sons we shall fight for free
trade, which is the necessary complement of free soil. If a man goes to
Kansas to-day and raises corn on “free soil,” how does he get the good
of it, unless he can exchange that corn for any product of the earth
that he chooses on the best terms that the arts and commerce of to-day
can give him?

155. The history of civil liberty is made up of campaigns against
abuses of taxation. Protectionism is the great modern abuse of
taxation; the abuse of taxation which is adapted to a republican
form of government. _Protectionism is now corrupting our political
institutions just as slavery used to do_, _viz._, it allies itself
with every other abuse which comes up. Most recently it has allied
itself with the silver coinage, and it is now responsible, in a
great measure, for that calamity. The silver coinage law would have
been repealed three years ago if the silver mining interest had not
served notice on the protectionists that that was their share of
protection, and the price of their coöperation. The silver coinage is
the chief cause of the “hard times” of the last two or three years. In
a well-ordered state it is the function of government to repress every
selfish interest which arises and endeavors to encroach upon the rights
of others. The state thus maintains justice. Under protectionism _the
government gives a license to certain interests to go out and encroach
on others_. It is an iniquity as to the victims of it, a delusion as to
its supposed beneficiaries, and a waste of the public wealth. There is
only one reasonable question now to be raised about it, and that is:
How can we most easily get rid of it?




TARIFF REFORM[32]


A year and a half ago a gentleman who had just been reëlected, by
Republicans, to the Senate of the United States, made a five-minute
speech acknowledging the honor. In respect to public affairs he uttered
but one opinion: that the people of the United States were confronted
by a most serious problem, _viz._, how to reduce taxation. On the face
of it, this was a most extraordinary statement, and the chronicler or
historian might well take note of it as a new event in the life of
the human race. Statesmen and historians are familiar enough with the
difficulty of raising more revenue, and laying more taxes, but the
solemn and calamitous position of a nation which is forced to reduce
its taxes, and finds itself confronted by industrial disaster if it
does it, is something new. Students of political economy are familiar
with the question: What harm to industry may be done by levying taxes
on it? But the problem of how to avert the economic disaster which may
follow taking them off is new. Of course the state of mind revealed
by the formulation of the above problem is the result of a long habit
of regarding taxation as an industrial force, or, at least, as an
effective condition of industrial success.

There is, however, a problem; in regard to that fact all concur. It is
also a rare problem, one for which the only precedent is to be found
in our own history, and when the case occurred before, it proved to be
fraught with calamity. We are confronted by the dangers of a surplus
revenue, and no proposal to do away with the surplus in extravagant
expenditures can stand before the common sense of the people.

If the taxes are collecting more than the public necessities require,
then the simple and obvious, and, in fact, the only solution, is not
to collect the taxes; let the people keep their own products and do
what they please with them. If we do not make a problem there will not
be any; if we simply do in the most straightforward manner what the
common sense of the situation demands, there will be no difficulty; the
consequences will all take care of themselves, and all the imaginary
calamities will fail to appear. If, however, we must have a grand
scheme of national prosperity established in advance, then the case is
different.

During the war a notion grew up here that, through some new
dispensation of fate, it was possible for the American people to make
war and prosper by it. After the war the notion grew up that the paper
money was a condition of success and that we should be ruined if we
resumed specie payments. Now we are met by the doctrine that we cannot
repeal the taxes which were laid during the war, partly in order to
carry it on, because our national prosperity is bound up in them. These
notions, in fact, are all consistent, and all hang together; they all
belong to a philosophy that men prosper by discord and war, not by
peace and harmony. According to that philosophy we touched unawares
the springs of prosperity when we engaged in a civil war, incurred an
immense debt, and laid crushing taxes. Now, therefore, when we ask
that the taxes which are no longer necessary may be taken off, the men
who have fallen under the dominion of these fallacies tell us that
it cannot be done; that our prosperity would be undermined by it.
They have been assuring us for years past that the protective system
was sure to produce a solid and stable prosperity; now, by their own
statement, it has produced a state of things so weak and unstable that
it must be maintained by heavy taxes. The industrial prosperity of the
United States proves to be as burdensome to it as the armaments of the
European nations are to them.

The notion seems to be that protective taxes, laid on imports, are
the particular kind of taxes which make national prosperity, and
which therefore ought not to be touched. It is proposed that internal
taxes shall be reduced. If local taxes on real estate, etc., are
reduced, every one rejoices; that is supposed to be a clear and simple
gain. I have known the same man to exert himself very actively to
scrutinize local expenditures, and reduce local taxes, and to boil
with rage against free traders who want to reduce protective taxes.
However, there is probably no tax of any kind whatsoever which does
not interfere with the conditions of supply and demand, or industrial
competition, in such a way as to give “protection” to somebody at
the expense of somebody else. There are persons who are now enjoying
great advantages in their business from the whisky and tobacco taxes
which they would lose if those taxes were repealed. This is one of
the incidental mischiefs of all taxation and one of the reasons for
insisting that taxation shall be as slight as possible, and, to that
end, that government functions shall be limited as much as possible.

We are, therefore, face to face with the question whether we are able
to reduce our own taxes, and whether we are free to do so. We may
fairly ask: if not, why not? It is plain that this is a question of
domestic policy and of our own interest altogether. All the attempts
to prejudice it by talking about “England” are impertinent, and all
allegations that those of us who want to reduce our own taxes are
trying “to give away our market,” etc., belong to the worst abuses of
political discussion. What is true is that we have built up a vast
combination of vested interests, which in a few cases have, and in
nearly all cases think they have, an interest in maintaining the
taxes. These are among ourselves; what they gain, they gain from us; it
is with them that we have to contend. They have thus far carried on the
fight by all the methods dear to vested interests; they have put forth
plausible fallacies, sought alliances, procured delays, appealed to
prejudices.

Behind these selfish and sordid interests, however, there is the strong
and sincere prejudice which still prevails among the civilized nations
of to-day, and which is dividing them into hostile parties, carrying
on tariff wars with each other. I call it “protectionism,” because it
is not a policy, but a philosophy of national welfare. In the United
States it takes the form of various fallacies about the home markets,
diversification of industry, wages, etc. As these are all questions
of political economy, and as all who talk on the subject at all are
talking political economy of some sort or other, it seems that a great
work of education is to be done here on the field of economic doctrine.
Hitherto the attempt of the politicians has been not to perform this
work of education but to thrust it aside.

As soon as the issue is formed, however, and the protectionists are
forced to formulate their doctrine, as a doctrine, its absurdity
becomes apparent. It is not capable of statement. If we are to have
temporary protection, in order to start infant industries, then it will
become imperatively necessary, so soon as public attention is occupied
by the subject, to say how, and how far, and how long, the system is to
be kept up, and the public will demand to know how it is getting on,
and at what rate it is approaching its goal. For this reason those who
have any logical directness of thinking, have already advanced to a
more intense position; they advocate protectionism as a permanent and
universal economic philosophy. In that form it flies in the face of
common sense and civilization; in some of the latest forms which it has
taken on in the hands of some professors of political economy, it is a
kind of economic mysticism.

If, however, the United States could be cut off from all the rest of
the world as regards trade and industry, then at least it should be
plain that whatever material prosperity they could gain would be just
what they, with their energy, enterprise, and capital, are able to
extract from such soil and climate as nature has given to us here. What
would be the difference if, then, there were no tax barriers? Certainly
none whatever. The wealth which the American people get they must
produce by applying their labor and capital to the natural advantages
which they possess. With foreign trade open to them, they will not make
use of it unless they find an advantage in it; that is, unless American
labor and capital can attain more wealth through exchange than without
it. The task of American producers will still be to attain the greatest
possible wealth by expending their labor and capital on American soil,
either directly, or with an intermediate step of exchange. Wages are
only a part of the product of the country; if then, trade increased
the amount of commodities at the disposition of the people, it would
increase the amount of each share in the distribution. This is the
simplest common sense of the matter, stripped of all technicalities,
and to this the whole discussion must again and again return.

If now we begin to reduce and abolish the taxes which were laid during
the war, we shall simply begin to free the American people from a clog
on their energies and a waste of their industrial strength. Every step
in this direction is an emancipation under which we may be sure that
the national energy which is set free will spring up with the quickest
response. The guarantee of this is in the character of the people, and
in the natural advantages which they possess. Whatever chances we have,
we have in the nature of the case; the tariff could not give us any; it
could only divert in one way or another those which nature has given
us. This diversion or perversion has now entered into the experience
and education of our generation. We have no idea of the welfare we
should enjoy if we were only free to use the chances which are within
our reach, and a great many of us have spun out a kind of political
economy to prove that the cords which bind us are the tools by which we
work.




WHAT IS FREE TRADE?[33]


There never would have been any such thing to fight for as free
speech, free press, free worship, or free soil, if nobody had ever
put restraints on men in those matters. We never should have heard of
free trade, if no restrictions had ever been put on trade. If there
had been any restrictions on the intercourse between the states of
this Union, we should have heard of ceaseless agitation to get those
restrictions removed. Since there are no restrictions allowed under
the Constitution, we do not realize the fact that we are enjoying
the blessings of complete liberty, where, if wise counsels had not
prevailed at a critical moment, we should now have had a great mass of
traditional and deep-rooted interferences to encounter.

Our intercourse with foreign nations, however, has been interfered
with, because it is a fact that, by such interference, some of us can
win advantages over others. The power of Congress to levy taxes is
employed to lay duties on imports, not in order to secure a revenue
from imports, but to prevent imports--in which case, of course, no
revenue will be obtained. The effect which is aimed at, and which is
attained by this device, is that the American consumer, when he wants
to satisfy his needs, has to go to an American producer of the thing
he wants, and has to give to him a price for the product which is
greater than that which some foreigner would have charged. The object
of this device, as stated on the best protectionist authority, is: “To
effect the diversion of a part of the labor and capital of the people
out of the channels in which it would run otherwise, into channels
favored or created by law.” This description is strictly correct, and
from it the reader will see that protection has nothing to do with any
foreigner whatever. It is purely a question of domestic policy. It
is only a question whether we shall, by taxing each other, drive the
industry of this country into an arbitrary and artificial development,
or whether we shall allow one another to employ each his capital and
labor in his own way. Note that there is for us all the same labor,
capital, soil, national character, climate, etc.,--that is, that all
the conditions of production remain unaltered. The only change which is
operated is a wrenching of labor and capital out of the lines on which
they would act under the impulse of individual enterprise, energy,
and interest, and their impulsion in another direction selected by
the legislator. Plainly, all the import duty can do is to close the
door, shutting the foreigner out and the Americans in. Then, when an
American needs iron, coal, copper, woolens, cottons, or anything else
in the shape of manufactured commodities, the operation begins. He has
to buy in a market which is either wholly or partially monopolized.
The whole object of shutting him in is to take advantage of this
situation to make him give more of his products for a given amount of
the protected articles, than he need have given for the same things
in the world’s market. Under this system a part of our product is
diverted from the satisfaction of our needs, and is spent to hire some
of our fellow-citizens to go out of an employment which would pay
under the world’s competition, into one which will not pay under the
world’s competition. We, therefore, do with less clothes, furniture,
tools, crockery, glassware, bed and table linen, books, etc., and the
satisfaction we have for this sacrifice is knowing that some of our
neighbors are carrying on business which according to their statement
does not pay, and that we are paying their losses and hiring them to
keep on.

Free trade is a revolt against this device. It is not a revolt against
import duties or indirect taxes as a means of raising revenue. It has
nothing to say about that, one way or the other. It begins to protest
and agitate just as soon as any tax begins to act protectively,
and it denounces any tax which one citizen levies on another. The
protectionists have a long string of notions and doctrines which they
put forward to try to prove that their device is not a contrivance by
which they can make their fellow-citizens contribute to their support,
but is a device for increasing the national wealth and power. These
allegations must be examined by economists, or other persons who are
properly trained to test their correctness, in fact and logic. It
is enough here to say, over a responsible signature, that no such
allegation has ever been made which would bear examination. On the
contrary, all such assertions have the character of apologies or
special pleas to divert attention from the one plain fact that the
advocates of a protective tariff have a direct pecuniary interest
in it, and that they have secured it, and now maintain it, for that
reason and no other. The rest is all afterthought and excuse. If any
gain could possibly come to the country through the gains of the
beneficiaries of the tariff, obviously the country must incur at least
an equal loss through the losses of that part of the people who pay
what the protected win. If a country could win anything that way, it
would be like a man lifting himself by his boot straps.

The protectionists, in advocating their system, always spend a
great deal of effort and eloquence on appeals to patriotism, and to
international jealousies. These are all entirely aside from the point.
The protective system is a domestic system, for domestic purposes,
and it is sought by domestic means. The one who pays, and the one who
gets, are both Americans. The victim and the beneficiary are amongst
ourselves. It is just as unpatriotic to oppress one American as it
is patriotic to favor another. If we make one American pay taxes to
another American, it will neither vex nor please any foreign nation.

The protectionists speak of trade with the contempt of feudal nobles,
but on examination it appears that they have something to sell, and
that they mean to denounce trade with their rivals. They denounce
cheapness, and it appears that they do so because they want to sell
dear. When they buy, they buy as cheaply as they can. They say that
they want to raise wages, but they never pay anything but the lowest
market rate. They denounce selfishness, while pursuing a scheme for
their own selfish aggrandizement, and they bewail the dominion of
self-interest over men who want to enjoy their own earnings, and object
to surrendering the same to them. They attribute to government, or to
“the state,” the power and right to decide what industrial enterprises
each of us shall subscribe to support.

Free trade means antagonism to this whole policy and theory at every
point. The free trader regards it as all false, meretricious, and
delusive. He considers it an invasion of private rights. In the best
case, if all that the protectionist claims were true, he would be
taking it upon himself to decide how his neighbor should spend his
earnings, and--more than that--that his neighbor shall spend his
earnings for the advantage of the men who make the decision. This is
plainly immoral and corrupting; nothing could be more so. The free
trader also denies that the government either can, or ought to regulate
the way in which a man shall employ his earnings. He sees that the
government is nothing but a clique of the parties in interest. It is
a few men who have control of the civic organization. If they were
called upon to regulate business, they would need a wisdom which
they have not. They do not do this. They only turn the “channels” to
the advantage of themselves and their friends. This corrupts the
institutions of government and continues under our system all the old
abuses by which the men who could get control of the governmental
machinery have used it to aggrandize themselves at the expense of
others. The free trader holds that the people will employ their labor
and capital to the best advantage when each man employs his own in his
own way, according to the maxim that “A fool is wiser in his own house
than a sage in another man’s house”;--how much more, then, shall he be
wiser than a politician? And he holds, further, that by the nature of
the case, if any governmental coercion is necessary to drive industry
in a direction in which it would not otherwise go, such coercion must
be mischievous.

The free trader further holds that protection is all a mistake
and delusion to those who think that they win by it, in that it
lessens their self-reliance and energy and exposes their business to
vicissitudes which, not being incident to a natural order of things,
cannot be foreseen and guarded against by business skill; also that it
throws the business into a condition in which it is exposed to a series
of heats and chills, and finally, unless a new stimulus is applied,
reduced to a state of dull decay. They therefore hold that even the
protected would be far better off without it.




PROTECTIONISM TWENTY YEARS AFTER[34]


I think it must be now nearly twenty years since I have made a
free-trade speech or been able to take share in a free-trade dinner.

When I was invited here this evening I thought I would try to come
for the pleasure of hearing the gentlemen, especially the members of
Congress, who were announced to speak here. I have been so out of
health that it has been impossible for me to sit up evenings or to
attempt public speaking in the evenings, but things are going a little
better and I will make an attempt to say a little--not very much, as
the hour is now late.

Thirty-five or forty years ago I became a free trader for two great
reasons, as far as I can now remember.

One was because, as a student of political economy, my whole mind
revolted against the notion of magic that is involved in the notion of
a protective tariff. That is, there are facts that are accounted for
by protectionism through assertions that are either plainly untrue or
are entirely irrational. The other reason was because it seemed to me
that the protective tariff system nourished erroneous ideas of success
in business and produced immoral results in the minds and hopes of the
people.

I cannot say that I have got any more light on the matter within the
last twenty years; it looks to me still as if the great objections
to protectionism were these two. No man who enjoys the benefit of a
protective tariff, as he believes, can ever tell whether he gets back
anything for the taxes which he pays or not. He never has any analysis
of the operation and never knows whether or not he really recovers from
the action of the tariff what he pays in.

I say now the taxes which he pays, because--let us not make any
mistake about this--the matter we are talking about is one entirely
of Americans and between Americans. If the protective tariff operates
so as to perform what is attributed to it, it prevents things from
being imported into this country. That may be a disadvantage to the
foreigner, it may disappoint him in his hopes, but we may leave him
out of account. Then the increase of the cost of these commodities for
the American consumer at home is the source from which the American
protected manufacturer must obtain his benefit, if he ever obtains any.
Therefore he has to pay also taxes to the other protected industries on
account of the operation of the system. Therefore he is both paying and
receiving, but whether or not he gets back the part that he hoped to
receive is a question which he never can sift and never can know.

I should myself suppose that possibly the Pennsylvanian on his coal and
iron might stand a good chance of winning something. The operation is
direct and simple in that case, and coal and iron are to-day the very
first conditions of industry. They must be obtained as raw material,
because they enter into everything, and it is possible that under those
circumstances the game might be sufficiently direct so that its effect
could be felt and perceived. But the Connecticut manufacturer has to
pay taxes on coal and iron and copper and the other metals, and he has
to pay also the taxes on wool and the other raw materials, and then
comes the question whether he ever gets it back again or not. He never
knows; he cannot know; he cannot feel it and he cannot possibly know
whether the operation of the system is to bring him back a return for
his outlay or not.

We hear a great deal about a rightly adjusted tariff. It is a constant
ideal that is presented, whenever the tariff subject comes up again for
discussion in Congress, that it ought to be rightly adjusted, and when
it is, it is going to perform its beneficial operation.

How can a tariff ever be rightly adjusted unless the industry will
stand still? The taxes stand still for years without change. The
industries never stand still. There are new inventions in machinery,
there are new raw materials brought into use, there are new processes
developed, and all that changes the character of the industry. These
inventions and improvements and processes are all ignored by the
protective system. It contains no allowance for them at all. But our
people are full of enterprise, they are fond of improvements, they like
novelties, and they adopt changes. The consequence is that the industry
changes, and then again the decisions that are made by somebody or
other as to the doubtful questions in the interpretation of the law
are also constantly changing, and then by and by we find a lot of
people who want the tariff changed. They say it needs to be adapted
to the time, it is out of date, it has fallen behind, it does not fit
the requirements of the moment, and they would like to have a tariff
revision; but they are told then that they ought to keep still and
not make a disturbance which will bring up a discussion of the entire
tariff system, and that they ought to allow it to go on for the sake of
the “system.”

What is the system then? The system means that the import duties that
we have in this country have raised the prices of all commodities
in our market, I may say thirty or forty per cent on a very low
calculation. Is not that a very extraordinary thing when you stand off
and try to realize it for a minute--that we have raised the prices in
the United States thirty or forty per cent--perhaps more nearly fifty
per cent--above the level of the prices for the same commodities in
the other civilized countries of our grade; and that we believe that we
have done a grand and noble thing by raising these prices, putting the
whole level of life in this country on an artificial plane that much
above the level of the world’s market? In fact, if you should listen
to a protectionist he would make you believe that this continent would
not be habitable if it was not for the protective tariff that is here
working this operation all the time on the American market.

I am of the opinion--I am not very confident about it--but it looks to
me as if it were true that a protective tariff wears out in a little
while--I mean, so far as its expected beneficial effect is concerned.
Its effects are distributed, they are taken up and they are allowed
for all around the market until the expected benefit to the protected
people is lost and there remains nothing but the dead weight of the
system itself as an interference with the industries. There is then
a call for a new tariff in order to get another impulse or another
fillip, as I have heard it called, to give things a new impulse, to
start them on again.

That has been the history of our tariff now for one hundred years, that
it has been restarted, reinvigorated from time to time in order to give
a new impulse. Then in the very nature of the case, therefore, it seems
to me that a new impulse is constantly required.

As I said at the outset, the tariff system seems to me to teach us to
believe that a man needs a “pull” of some kind or other to make any
industry a success. It is an idea that there must always be a provision
of easy profit in connection with the industry that shall demand no
labor or no expenditure of capital to get it. That is the pure doctrine
of graft. The tariff teaches us to look for a fee or a gratuity or a
rake-off which will be a pure and net profit. People are told that
tariff taxes are a rightful gift to the beneficiary. Those who do not
get that gain seek another one of the same kind somewhere, and when
they do that they have recourse to graft.

It is a shameful fact that this notion of graft, and this word, should
have come to us, as it has within the last four or five years, and
should have extended so far and become so familiar to us in connection
with a great many of the operations of business. It is customary,
as we have known for a long time, in some nations, for instance in
Russia, China, and Turkey; and with us it has seemed to spread and
win acceptance and currency in a most astonishing manner. I cannot
believe but what the tariff system has educated us in this direction
and prepared us to tolerate and accept the development of this idea. It
also seems to me that now, after one hundred years of this system, the
tariff is no longer properly an economic question. It is a practical
political question. The politics and the business are interwoven in
it inextricably. There is no economic discussion possible of the
propositions that are made, economic in form, in connection with the
tariff system. There is only a war of partial views and of superficial
inferences.

Our American protectionism has grown out of the peculiar circumstances
of this country. It is an old idea that has come down to us from
Europe, and, indeed, from the Middle Ages in Europe, and here it found
a chance for a new and very remarkable development. There were new
conditions here, and the chances were so big and grand that, as a
matter of fact, the protective system has never done more than exact a
certain tribute from us on these chances. It has never really touched
us in an acute and sensible way, and in spite of it we have enjoyed
marvelous prosperity which is due really to the circumstances of
advantage and favor which we have enjoyed here.

In the year 1892 we got an issue on this matter and went to the
electorate with it, with the result that we all know. But the mandate
of the people was neglected and disobeyed by the government and the
purpose that the people showed at that time was defied.

We have also had opportunity to notice the great power of the protected
interests in Congress. The fact is that we are being governed at the
present time by a combination of these protected interests which
have got control of the machinery of government, and have control of
the personnel of the government to such an extent that it is almost
impossible, practically, to make any breach in this system at all. That
is because the political combinations have been so thoroughly wrought
out and so ingeniously developed that they look at present as if they
were impregnable.

I look around to see if I can find some encouragement. I thought that
it was something of an encouragement when Mr. Dalzell made this speech
in Congress that Mr. Williams has referred to, in which he poured
such scorn on the idea of “incidental protection.” I have never said
anything so severe about any protectionist idea as that which he said
about incidental protection. But suppose that the people of 1850, the
middle of the nineteenth century, could come to life again, the old
protectionists of that time. What would they think to hear a man speak
with scorn of incidental protection? It was what they believed in; it
was the whole business to them. When an old protectionist like Mr.
Dalzell can turn around and pour scorn upon incidental protection I
feel as if we never could tell what they might throw overboard next
time, in some paroxysm of some kind or other, of fear or hope or
something else, and we might get a chance that we have not been able to
get in the past.

Then, as has been well said by other gentlemen to-night, there has
been within the last year or two a very great revolt in the public
mind against graft and political and business corruption. How far will
this go? We do not know, but it is, at any rate, an opening in the
public mind that is full of chances. It may go very far; it may have
very great effects; it is certainly something to be noticed and taken
advantage of.

Then, again, there are new conflicts of interests arising. We have
become very great people in the world’s commerce, with a billion
dollars’ worth of exports and imports in a year, and we are so
interwoven with the whole world that it will not be possible for us
to go on with our old policy of discouraging commerce and rejecting
it, and trying to stop it, and paying no attention at all to the
remonstrances of our neighbors. In future we shall be obliged to
pay some attention to these remonstrances. They are just, they are
reasonable, and they will command our attention; and then we shall
have to make concessions to them. In other words, we cannot any longer
afford to reject and neglect these remonstrances.

It may be, therefore, that in the time that is now before us we shall
have better chances for a practical war upon this system than we have
had hitherto. As long, however, as I can remember, and as long as I
have had any share in it, we have got along without any encouragement
in it at all. We have done what we could without that. We got so we
did not expect it. We knew that we should be neglected and treated as
persons whose opinions in these matters were not of any importance or
worthy of any attention, and so we went on and kept up our arguments,
as we considered them, to the best of our ability and without very much
result.

Now, it may be that we are on the eve of a different time, when the
circumstances will be more favorable, more hopeful, more full of
opportunities, and I certainly, for my part, most profoundly hope that
that is so.

I have noticed with some discouragement the efforts that Mr. Williams
has made on the floor of Congress to get some modifications of the
tariff made, or some argument even opened up there that might give
the matter activity and life in the legislative domain. They did not
seem any more encouraging than what we used to see in the old times.
But it is certainly in the nature of things that the difficulties and
absurdities of this system must come out in practice more and more
distinctly as we go on, and the need for reform will therefore force
itself in the shape of a play of interests that will bring new and
counteracting forces into operation to which we may look for help in
the overthrow of the system.




PROSPERITY STRANGLED BY GOLD[35]


Some of the silver fallacies were stated by Mr. St. John, in his
address before the silver convention, with such precision that his
speech offers a favorable opportunity for dealing with them.

He says that “it is amongst the first principles in finance that the
value of each dollar, expressed in prices, depends upon the total
number of dollars in circulation.” There is no such principle of
finance as the one here formulated. The “quantity doctrine” of currency
is gravely abused by all bimetallists, from the least to the greatest,
and it is at best open to great doubt. When the dollars in question
are dollars of some money of account which can circulate beyond the
territory of the State in which it is issued, the quantity doctrine
cannot be true within that territory. It may be noted, in passing, that
this is the reason why no scheme of the silver people for manipulating
prices in the United States can possibly succeed. Silver and gold will
be exported and imported until their values conform throughout the
world, and prices fixed in one or the other of them will conform to the
world’s prices, after all the trouble and waste and loss of translating
them two or three times over have been endured.

The quantity doctrine, however, means that the value of the currency
is a question of supply and demand, and everybody knows that to double
or halve the supply does not halve or double the value, or have any
other effect which is simple and direct. If it did have such effect
speculation would not be what it is.

Mr. St. John goes on to argue that our population increases two
millions every year, on account of which we need more dollars; that
the production of gold does not furnish enough to meet this need, and
that, therefore, prices fall. This argumentation is very simple and
very glib. Prosperity and adversity are put into a syllogism of three
lines. But, if we can avert the fall in prices and adversity by coining
silver, it must be by adding the silver to the gold which we now have.
“High” and “low” prices are only relative terms. They mean higher and
lower than at another time or place; higher and lower than we have been
used to. If misery depends on ten-cent corn we are advised to cut the
cents in two and we shall get twenty-cent corn and prosperity. Corn
will not be altered in value in gold, or outside of the United States,
and, as all other things will be marked up at the same time and in
the same way, its value in other things will not be altered by this
operation. When we get used to twenty-cent corn it will seem just as
low and just as “hard for the debtor” as ten-cent corn is now. Then
we can divide by ten and get two-dollar corn, by adding free coinage
of copper. When we get used to that we shall be no better satisfied
with it. We can then make paper dollars and coin them without limit.
Million-dollar corn will then become as bitter a subject for complaint
as ten-cent corn is now. The fact that people are discontented is no
argument for anything.

The fact that prices are low is made the subject of social complaint
and of political agitation in the United States. Prices have undergone
a wave since 1850. They arose until about 1872. They have fallen
again. They are lower than they were at the top of the wave all the
world over. This fact, the explanation of which would furnish a very
complicated task for trained statisticians and economists, is made a
topic of easy interpretation and solution in political conventions and
popular harangues, and it is proposed to adopt violent and portentous
measures upon the basis of the flippant notions which are current about
it. But what difference does it make whether the “plane” of prices is
high or low? If corn is at forty cents a bushel and calico at twenty
cents a yard, a bushel buys two yards. If corn is at ten cents a bushel
and calico at five cents a yard, a bushel will buy two yards. So of
everything else. If, then, there has been a _general_ fall, and that
is the alleged grievance, neither farmers nor any other one class has
suffered by it.

It is undoubtedly true that a period of advancing prices stimulates
energy and enterprise. It does so even when, if all the facts were well
known, it might be found that capital was really being consumed in
successive periods of production. Falling prices discourage enterprise,
although, if all facts were known to the bottom, it might be found that
capital was being accumulated in successive periods of production.

It is also true that a depreciation of the money of account, _while it
is going on_, stimulates exports and restrains imports.

But who can tell how we are to make prices always go up, unless by
constant and unlimited inflation? Who can tell how we are to avoid
fluctuations in prices or eliminate the element of contingency, risk,
foresight, and speculation?

It is also true that, although high prices and low prices are
immaterial at any one time, the change from one to the other, from
one period of time to another, affects the burden of outstanding time
contracts. Men make contracts for dollars, not for dollar’s-worths.
Selling long or short is one thing; lending is another. Borrowers and
lenders never guarantee each other the purchasing power of dollars at a
future time. If the contracts were thus complicated they would become
impossible. Between 1850 and 1872 the debtors made no complaint and
the creditors never thought of getting up an agitation to have debts
scaled up. The debtors now are demanding that they be allowed to play
heads I win, tails you lose, and Mr. St. John and others tell us that
they have the votes to carry it; as if that made any difference in the
forum of discussion.

Increase in population does not prove an increased need of money. It
may prove the contrary. If the population becomes more dense over a
given area, a higher organization may make less money necessary. If
railroads and other means of communication are extended, money is
economized. If banks and other credit institutions are multiplied,
and if credit operations are facilitated by public security, good
administration of law, etc., less money is needed. If these changes are
going on at the same time that population is increasing (and such is
undoubtedly the case in the United States), who can tell whether the
net result is to make more or less currency necessary? Nobody; and all
assertions about the matter are wild and irresponsible.

If it was true that an increase of two millions in the population
called for more dollars, how does anybody know whether the current
gold production is adequate to meet the new requirement or not? The
assertion is arithmetical. It says that two quantities are not equal to
each other. The first quantity is the increase in the currency called
for by two million more people. How much more is needed? Nobody knows,
and there is no way to find out. The silver men have put figures for
it from time to time, but the figures rested on nothing and were mere
bald assertions. The second quantity is the amount of new gold annually
available for coinage in the United States. How much is this? Nobody
knows, because if an attempt is made to define what is meant it is
found that there is no idea in the words. The people of the United
States buy and coin just as much gold as they want at any time. Hence
two things are said to be unequal to each other, when nobody knows how
big either one of them is. It may be added that it makes no difference
how big either one of them is. How much additional tin is needed
annually for the increase of our population? Do the mines produce it?
Nobody knows or asks. The mines produce, and the people buy, what they
want. The case is the same as to gold.

We find, then, that Mr. St. John begins with a doctrine which is
untenable; then he asserts a relation between population and the need
of money which does not exist; then he assumes that this need is
greater than the amount of new gold produced, although neither he nor
anybody else knows how big either one of these quantities is. This is
the argumentation by which he aims to show that prices are reduced and
misery produced by the single gold standard. It is the argumentation
which is current among the silver people. Not a step of it will bear
examination. The inference that we must restore the free coinage of
silver, to escape this strangulation of prosperity, falls to the
ground.




CAUSE AND CURE OF HARD TIMES[36]


It is an essential part of the case of the silver men that the country
is having “hard times.” The bolters from the Republican convention say,
in their manifesto: “Discontent and distress prevail to an extent never
before known in the history of the country.” This is an historical
assertion. It is distinctly untrue. There is no such discontent and
distress as there was in 1819, or in 1840, or in 1875, to say nothing
of other periods. The writers did not know the facts of the history,
and they made use of what is nowadays a mere figure of speech. People
who want to say that a social phenomenon is big, and who do not know
what has been before, say that it is unparalleled in history.

There has been an advancing paralysis of enterprise and arrest of
credit ever since the Sherman act of 1890 was passed. The bolters say
that “No reason can be found for such an unhappy condition of things
save in a vicious monetary system.” The reason for it has been that the
cumulative effect of the silver legislation was steadily advancing to a
crisis. The efforts by which the effects of that legislation had been
put off were no longer effective, and it was evident that the country
was on the verge of a cataclysm in which the standard of value would be
changed. What man can fail to see the effect of such a fear on credit
and enterprise? And with such a fear in the market, how idle it is to
try to represent the trouble as caused by the fact that the existing
standard was of gold, or of silver, or of anything else! Men will make
contracts and go on with business by the use of any medium, the terms
of which can be defined, understood, and maintained until the contract
is solved, but uncertainty as to the terms, or danger of change in
them, makes credit and enterprise impossible. In the whole history of
finance no crisis can be found which was so utterly unnecessary, and so
distinctly caused by the measures of policy which had gone before it,
as that of 1893.

So much being admitted as to “hard times,” it remains true, however,
that by far the greatest part of the current declamation about hard
times is false. Prosperity and adversity of society are not capable of
exact verification. At all times some people, classes, industries, are
less prosperous than others. The fashion has grown up among politicians
and stump orators of using assertions about prosperity and distress
as arguments for their purpose, and parties come before the public
with prosperity policies. They have programs for “making the country
prosperous.” If this country, with its population, its resources, and
its chances, is not prosperous by the intelligence, industry, and
thrift of its population, does any sane man suppose that politicians
and stump orators have any devices at their control for making it so?
The orators of the present day see prosperity where they need to see
it for the purposes of their argument. They say that all gold-standard
countries in Europe are in distress. Mr. St. John says that Mexico is
prosperous. As to Canada, we have seen no statement. According to some
discussions which are current, the bicycle rivals the gold standard
as a calamity-producer. As the bicycle has certainly gravely affected
the distribution of expenditure and the accumulation of capital, its
efficiency as a crisis-maker, in its degree, whatever that may be, can
be rationally discerned, but nobody has ever been able to show any
rational grounds of belief that the gold standard is a crisis-maker.

A crisis will also be produced whenever capital has been invested
on a large scale in any unproductive investment, whereby it is not
reproduced, but is lost. The enterprises are always made the basis of
engagements and contracts. When the enterprises fail, the engagements
cannot be met; other engagements based on these also fail, and so on
through the whole industrial organization. Such crises are inevitable
in a new country. Enterprises run in fashions. At any one time great
groups of producers tend to one line of industry. That industry is
sure to be overdone and to come to a crisis. In a free country, where
every man is at liberty to direct his enterprise as he sees fit, what
is the sense, when it turns out that he has made a mistake, of trying
to throw the losses on other people? No one would propose it as to an
individual or a number, but when there is a great interest it makes
itself a political power and produces a platform for the same purpose,
generally with inflated principles of humanity, justice, democracy, and
Americanism as wind-attachments to make it float.

Mr. St. John says that the farmers are spending ten dollars an acre to
get eight or nine dollars an acre. What farmer in the United States can
tell how many dollars he spends on an acre? What is the sense of these
pretendedly accurate figures? But, if they had sense, what would be the
gain of cutting the dollars in two? If the farmer spent twenty silver
dollars on an acre and got back sixteen or eighteen, how would he be
benefited? The dollars of outlay are of the same kind as the dollars
of return in any case. If it is true that the return does not equal
the outlay, it must be on account of some facts of production, and it
requires but a moment’s reflection to see that changing the currency in
which outlay and income are reckoned cannot change the relation between
the two.

A dispassionate view of facts will go to prove that the world is
reasonably and ordinarily prosperous at the present time, except
where particular classes and industries are affected by special
circumstances, as some classes and industries are being affected
at all times. The land-owners of western Europe are in distress
on account of the competition of new land, with cheapened means of
transportation, but now we are told that the holders of the other side
of the competition, the land-owners of the new soil, are victims of
distress. It must be, then, that too much labor and capital are being
expended on the soil the world over, and that, too, in spite of all the
protective tariffs drawing people to the textile and metal industries.
Our silver men say that this is not the correct inference. They say
that the people on the new land suffer because the prices are set in
coins of gold and the debits and credits are kept in terms of those
coins. The prices are fixed in the world’s market in gold. They will be
so fixed, whatever we may do with our coinage laws. If the proceeds, in
being brought home, are converted into silver value, a new opportunity
for brokerage and exchange gambling will be given to the hated bankers
and brokers of Wall Street. That is the only difference which will
be produced. It would be far more sensible to say that distress is
produced by doing the business on the English system of weights and
measures, in bushels and pecks, and that prosperity would be produced
by doing it on the metric system, in litres and hectolitres, for that
charge would at least be harmless. Our distress could all be dispelled
in a week by an act of Congress making all contracts, beyond political
peradventure, that which they are in law and fact, gold contracts.

There is, however, another cause of hard times for some people which
is far more important in our present case than any other. That is the
case of the boom which has collapsed. We hear a great deal about “Wall
Street gambling.” The gambling in Wall Street is insignificant compared
with the gambling in land, buildings, town sites, and crops which goes
on all over the country, and which is participated in chiefly by the
men who declaim about Wall Street. For three hundred years our history
has been marked by the alternations of “prosperity” and “distress”
which are produced by the booms and their collapses. When the collapse
comes the people who are left long of goods and land always make a
great outcry and start a political agitation. Their favorite device
always is to try to inflate the currency and raise prices again until
they can unload.

It is a very popular thing to tell men that they have a grievance. That
most of them find it hard to earn as much money as they need to spend
goes without saying. Now comes the wily orator and tells them that this
is somebody’s fault. In old times, if a man was sick, it was always
assumed that somebody had bewitched him. The witch was to be sought.
The medicine-man had to name somebody, and then woe to the one who was
named. Our medicine-men say that it is the gold-bugs, Wall Street,
England, who are to blame for hard times. Whether there is any rational
proof of connection is as immaterial as it always was in witchcraft. It
is a case of pain and passion. The “gold standard” has done it! There
is something to hate and denounce. All would be well if silver could
be coined at four hundred and twelve and a half grains to the dollar.
But the assumption is that while the farmers would sell their products
for twice as many “dollars” as now, in silver, all the prices of things
which they want to buy would remain at the same number of dollars
and cents as now, in gold; that is, it is believed that wheat would
be at, say, one dollar and fifty cents per bushel in silver, instead
of seventy-five cents in gold, but that cloth would remain at fifty
cents a yard in silver, if it is now fifty cents a yard in gold. When
this assumption is brought out into clear words, every one knows that
such can never be the result. The proposed cure is like a witch cure.
It lacks rational basis, and cannot command the confidence of men of
sense. If the times were ever so bad, such a cure could only make them
worse.




THE FREE-COINAGE SCHEME IS IMPRACTICABLE AT EVERY POINT[37]


THE PROGRAM.

In two former articles I have discussed some points which are presented
by the advocates of the free coinage of silver, on the assumption
that their project was feasible and their conception of its operation
correct. They have laid out a program; free coinage, silver standard,
great demand for silver, rise of prices, rise in the value of silver,
cancellation of debts, prosperity. They now admit that this program
would involve a panic, but it would come out, they say, at the desired
result in two or three years. They denounce the gold standard as having
caused hard times, but they plan a program with a panic as an incident
on the way to a silver standard as if it was a trifle.

_There is not a step in this program which could or would be carried
out as planned._


FREE SILVER MEANS FIAT PAPER MONEY.

The amount of circulating cash of all kinds in the hands of the
people at the present time is about nine hundred millions. If the
dollar was reduced to half its present value, and if allowance was
made for reserves, two thousand million silver dollars would be
the specie requirement of the country. We already have nearly five
hundred millions of such dollars. Hence the country could not use at
the utmost, if the new silver dollar was worth not more than half
the present gold dollar, and if the total circulation consisted of
silver without any paper, but three times as many more silver dollars
as we have now. But every one knows that such a state of the currency
never would exist. We should have paper “based on silver”; that is to
say, the silver inflation never will be carried out. It will turn to
paper inflation at the first step. Who can believe that, if the silver
standard was adopted, silver would be bought and piled up dollar for
dollar against the paper, and that the paper would be issued only as
fast as the silver could be coined? In fact, silver would no doubt be
dropped and forgotten, and we should have plain and straightforward
fiat money of paper. Such ought to be faced as the only real sense
and probable outcome of the present agitation for the free coinage of
silver.


LIMIT OF THE AMOUNT OF SILVER WHICH COULD BE ABSORBED.

Let us, however, proceed upon the assumption that the plan proposed is
sincere, and that the attempt would be made to carry it out in good
faith. The circulation in the hands of the people would be paper, for
they would become sick of silver and revolt against it. There would
then be two thousand million dollars in paper afloat, each “dollar”
being of silver and worth half a present gold one. We have now five
hundred million silver dollars. At the utmost not more than another
five hundred millions of silver could be absorbed into the system. That
would give reserves of fifty per cent of the total currency, and that
is the maximum of the demand for silver which could be created if the
United States went over to the silver standard. The supply would come
from all over the earth. Mr. St. John is sure that none would come from
Europe, because legal tender silver there is at a higher ratio than
sixteen to one. Not a nation in Europe which is now under the yoke of
silver would hesitate a moment to demonetize it and send it here if we
opened our mints to it at sixteen to one. He also assures us that none
would come here from the East because the course of silver has always
been from West to East. The course of silver has turned from East to
West more than once when there was a profit on bringing it back, and
that is the only condition necessary to bring it back again. Japan
would adopt a gold currency the moment that the United States adopted a
silver one.


IT IS IMPOSSIBLE INDEFINITELY TO INCREASE THE CIRCULATION.

The power of our currency to absorb silver is not unlimited. People
seem to believe that they can go on and increase the monetary
circulation indefinitely. This is possible with paper, which has no
commodity value and cannot be exported, always understanding that the
paper will depreciate as issued, but it is not possible with any money
which has commodity value. When silver has been put into circulation
here to such an amount that all the fictitious value given to it by the
coinage law has been eliminated--that is to say, when so many silver
dollars, or paper bearing the obligation of silver dollars, have been
issued as will equal in value the present circulation--then there
will be no profit in sending silver here from elsewhere, and no more
profit in minting silver here than in sending it elsewhere. As we have
seen, there is no reason to estimate the amount of silver which would
be absorbed in this operation at more than five hundred millions. The
miners are making all this agitation for the sake of that share which
they could get in furnishing this sum. That share would really not
exceed the silver they had on hand when the law was put in force.


ANTAGONISTIC INTERESTS OF MINERS AND POPULISTS.

What share, then, would the silver-miners get in the results of the
enterprise? They could get none unless the new silver was bought only
of them, and only bought gradually as they produced it, and bought
at a rising price as the demand of debtors acted upon it. Not one of
these conditions would be fulfilled. The debtors and the silver-miners
really have antagonistic interests at every point. It has been proposed
that only American silver should be accepted at the mint. That plan is
impracticable in any case, but, when the Populists had their victory
in hand, does anybody suppose that they would wait eight or ten years
for the realization of their hopes while the mines were producing new
silver, being certain that that delay would cause all they hoped for to
slip through their fingers? I repeat: The interests of the two factions
are all antagonistic to each other, and one of them is destined
inevitably to be the dupe of the other. That destiny is reserved for
the miners who, besides, are paying all the expenses.

Already, so far as the campaign has proceeded, this antagonism has
begun to manifest itself. Mr. Bryan says that his plan will make silver
worth one dollar and twenty-nine cents per ounce fine. He thus takes
his position with the miners’ faction. Thereupon the organs of the
repudiators’ faction have begun to remonstrate. That is not at all what
they are fighting for. They do not want their scheme to raise silver
at all. But if it does not, the miners gain nothing. If it does, then
again the repudiators take to paper money and the miners win nothing.

The mechanical difficulty of recoining the silver with the necessary
rapidity could probably be overcome. There are machine-shops enough
to do it if there was a party in power which had that reckless
determination to execute its will which these people show. We may,
therefore, go on to consider the rise of prices.


THE RISE OF PRICES.

The rise in prices would regularly occur only as the new silver or
paper was put out, but as the consequences would all be discounted it
would be sudden and rapid. It would not, however, affect all things
at the same time or to an equal degree. It is here that one of the
first disappointments would occur. It is not possible to put up prices
when and as one would like to do it, even when the rise is due to
inflation. The effect cannot all be distributed at once. An advance
in price reacts on business relations, that is, on the industrial
organization. Many people and many interests find that they cannot
push against others until long after they have been pushed against
themselves. The wages class and the farmers are the ones who are most
clearly in this position, at least as far as the latter do not produce
articles for export. It must be plain that in such a convulsion of the
market everybody will try to save himself at the expense of others. Who
will succeed? Those certainly who spend their lives in the market and
already possess the control of its machinery; not those whose time is
occupied in the details of production.


WHERE THE EXPECTED GAINS WOULD GO.

It is said that the farmer would sell his grain and cotton, as now, for
gold; that he would exchange the gold for silver; would get the silver
coined and would pay his debts with it. Would any individual farmer do
this? Would any one man go through the steps of this operation?--see
the buyer of his products, handle the gold and silver, go to the
mint? Certainly not. All these operations would go on through the
commercial and financial machinery. They would be executed by different
individuals, in the way of business, through the organization, and
every one of them would be lost to view. Every operation would have to
be paid for. Every operation would give a new chance for more middlemen
and more charges. Would, then, the gains of this grand scheme go to the
farmer? Not at all. They would go to the “brokers and speculators of
Wall Street.” They would be lost in commissions and charges. The type
of operator whom the Populist seems to think of when he talks about
“Wall Street sharks,” exists, although his importance in Wall Street is
not as great as that of the political farmer in agriculture; but this
type of man does not care what the currency legislation is, except that
he would like to have a great deal of it, and to have it very mixed.
Whatever it is, when it is made and he sees what it is, he will proceed
to operate upon it.


PLAYING INTO THE HANDS OF THE MONEY SHARKS.

We hear fierce denunciations of what is called the “money power.”
It is spoken of as mighty, demoniacal, dangerous, and schemes are
proposed for mastering it which are futile and ridiculous, if it is
what it is said to be. Every one of these schemes only opens chances
for money-jobbers and financial wreckers to operate upon brokerages and
differences while making legitimate finance hazardous and expensive,
thereby adding to the cost of commercial operations. The parasites on
the industrial system flourish whenever the system is complicated.
Confusion, disorder, irregularity, uncertainty are the conditions of
their growth. The surest means to kill them is to make the currency
absolutely simple and absolutely sound. Is it not childish for simple,
honest people to set up a currency system which is full of subtleties
and mysteries, and then to suppose that they, and not the men of craft
and guile, will get the profits of it?




THE DELUSION OF THE DEBTORS[38]


Fifty years ago a political agitation was started for the annexation
of Texas. As the enterprise appeared like a barefaced piece of
land-grabbing, it was necessary to invent some historical, political,
and moral theories which would give it another color. One such theory
was that Texas had properly belonged to us, but that it was given away
by Monroe and Adams in 1819. Therefore the project was presented as one
for the _re_-annexation of Texas.


THE RE-MONETIZATION OF SILVER.

An attempt is now made to impugn the coinage act of 1873 under various
points of view, in order to lay a foundation for the claim that it
is only sought now to re-monetize silver. Not a single imputation on
the act of 1873 has ever been presented which will stand examination,
but, if that were not so, that act was like any other act of Congress
which has become the law of the land, and under which we have all been
obliged to live for twenty-five years. We cannot go back and undo the
law and live the twenty-five years over again. All the mistakes and
follies of the past are gone into the past for all classes and all
persons amongst us. The men of the past must be assumed to have acted
according to their light, and we who inherit the consequences of what
they did must make the best of both the good and ill of it, as the case
may be, or as we think it is. If now we make a new coinage law it must
stand on its own merits, and on the responsibility of the men who make
it, now and for the future. All references back to 1873 are idle and
irrelevant.

The plain fact, therefore, to be faced without any disguise, is that
we are invited to debase the coinage and lower the standard of value,
_now_ and for the future, as a free act of political choice, to be
deliberately adopted in a time of profound peace, and that this is
to be done with the intention and hope that it will perpetrate a
bankruptcy at fifty cents on the dollar for all existing debtors. Can
this project be executed? It cannot. The scheme and plan of it for a
nation of seventy million people is silly and wicked at the same time,
and is both, beyond the power of words to express. The projectors of
it deal with the economic phenomena of a great nation as if they were
talking about a game at cards, and they plan to do this with prices
and that with debts, this with exports and that with banks, as if they
were planning a program for building a barn. If we try to realize the
operation proposed we shall see how childish and absurd it is.

We must distinguish between three classes of debtors: great financial
institutions, small mortgagors, and partners in collapsed booms.


FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS AS DEBTORS.

The great financial institutions are intermediaries between debtors and
creditors. They have received capital from some people and lent it to
others. They have to recover it and pay it back. If they only recover
it at fifty cents on the dollar, they can only repay it in the same
way. What this would mean is that the creditors of those institutions
would be paid “dollars,” but that when they tried to re-invest them
they would find that prices had risen to a greater or less degree in
those dollars for the things which they wanted to buy. To this the
Populists answer, triumphantly, that now the debtors find that the
prices of their products have fallen, so that when they try to sell
them they cannot get enough to pay their debts; but the debtors are
those who made contracts and undertook enterprises five, ten, fifteen,
or twenty years ago, expecting to make gains which they certainly would
have kept. As things have turned out they have not made the gains, and
their plan is to escape the loss by throwing it on some one else. The
institutions in question, however, are bound to protect the interests
of either body of their clients, borrowers or depositors, when either
is unjustly threatened, and they are by no means destitute of means to
do it. A law to forbid specific coin contracts is but one step in the
desperate policy of prostituting law and corrupting the administration
of justice, which would be necessary in the attempt to force through
the plan under discussion. It would fail at last, because the advocates
of it would find that, as the popular saying is, it would “fly up and
hit them in the face.” It is not possible to throw society and all its
most important institutions into confusion without ruining all the
interests of everybody, and at last everybody but the tramp or pauper
has to ask himself whether it will pay. As for the institutions, many
of them would be ruined in the operation. It is not possible for them
simply to collect and repay in the debased dollars. The operation would
produce snarls and knots at every turn. Lawsuits would multiply on all
sides, and would so entangle the affairs of the institution as to ruin
it. The proof of this is presented by the difficulties of liquidation
in any case, even when there is no question of currency revolution,
and when general affairs are in a normal condition, unless there is
time and security for all the operations. In this case the demands on
the institution would be precipitated at once, so far as the form of
contract would allow.


SMALL MORTGAGORS.

The small mortgagors are either wages-men or farmers. As to the
wages-men, their wages would undoubtedly go up in time as prices went
up, but in the paralysis of industry which would be the first distinct
effect of the plan, as soon as it was known that the experiment was
to be made, immense numbers of wages-men would be thrown out of
employment, and all wages would fall on account of this condition of
the labor market. Later, when things began to adjust themselves to the
new basis, wages would be low with prices high, both in silver. Advance
of wages would come, but it would have to be won through strikes and
a prolonged industrial war. In the state of things supposed it would
be every man for himself. The wages class would be weakest of all
under the circumstances, as they are in every case of “hard times.”
How would mortgagors of this class traverse such a time and keep up
their interest? As to the principal, which is to be halved, it cannot
be halved unless it is paid, and the mortgagor has nothing to pay it
with except the _surplus_ which he can save from his wages over the
cost of living. The project promises woe and ruin to the wages class,
with industrial war and class hatred as moral consequences of the most
far-reaching importance.


FARMER-MORTGAGORS.

The farmers expect to double the price of their products, and so get
silver to pay off their mortgages. It has been shown elsewhere[39] how
illusory this expectation is as regards prices. Prices would rise,
indeed, in silver, but irregularly and unequally. They would rise for
all things which a farmer buys as well as for all that he sells. If, as
the silver theorists generally say, all prices were to rise uniformly,
the farmer would gain but little. For the only means he would win
toward paying off his mortgage would be the _surplus_ of his income
over his outgo, and this he could only apply year by year as he won it.
If, then, the whole scheme could be made to work smoothly provided the
victims of it would submit to it without resistance, does this afford
any probability of realizing the great hopes which are built upon the
scheme?


SOCIAL WAR THE CONSEQUENCE.

But victims would not submit without resistance, and once more we come
to the result that no effect can be expected from this undertaking
but social war, and a convulsion of the entire social system, whose
consequences defy analysis or prediction. If a man says that he “does
not see” what great difference going over to the silver standard will
make, it must be that he is little trained to understand the workings
of the industrial system in which he lives and on which he depends. It
is a monstrous thing that a free, self-governing people should join a
political battle, in this year of grace 1896, over the question whether
to debase their coinage or not.


THE EXPLODED BOOMS.

The third class of debtors is by far the most important in this
matter--those who are caught in exploded booms. The peaceful and honest
mortgagors of farms and homesteads are not the ones who have gotten up
this political agitation. The jobbers, speculators, and boom-promoters
have been one of the curses of this country from the earliest colonial
days. They are men of the “hustling” type, jobbing in politics with
one hand and in land or town lots with the other. It is they who, at
the worst periods of financial trouble in our history, have always
appeared in the lobby, eager for “relief,” declaiming about the
“people,” the “money power,” the “banks,” “England,” etc. They have
always favored schemes for fraudulent banks, or paper money, or state
subsidies, or other plans by which they could unload on the state or
on their creditors. Just now it is silver, because silver has fallen
within twenty-five years so much that it is what is called “cheap
money.” This type of men have always used a dialect, part of which is
quoted above, which is so well marked that it suffices to identify
them. The history of financial distress in this country is full of it.
No scheme which has ever been devised by them has ever made a collapsed
boom go up again. With very few exceptions, they have, on account of
such expedients, only floundered deeper in the mire. The exceptions
have been those who have succeeded in making the state provide them
with capital, although by no means all of these have been hard-headed
enough to use it to “get out.” Generally they believe in themselves and
their schemes, and use new capital only to plunge in again still deeper.

It is men of this class and the silver-miners who have brought the
present trouble upon us, who have invented and preached the notions
about the crime of ’73, the hard times, the magical influence of
silver, and all the rest. It is they who have filled and engineered
conventions. They will gain no more now than in any former crisis, but
they insist on involving us all in turmoil, risk, and ruin by their
schemes to save themselves.




THE CRIME OF 1873[40]


LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE ACT OF 1873.

It is alleged that the law of 1873 was enacted surreptitiously. Mr.
Bryan is quoted as having said that the free-coinage men only ask for
a restoration of “that system that we had until it was stricken down
in the dark without discussion.” Within the last ten years the facts
of the legislative history of that law have been published over and
over again. They are to be found in the report of the Comptroller of
the Currency for 1876, page 170; in “Macpherson’s Political Manual”
for 1890, page 157, and in “Sound Currency,” Vol. III, No. 13. The
bill was before Congress three years, was explained and debated again
and again. The fact that the silver dollar was dropped was expressly
pointed out. It is not now justifiable for any man who claims to be
honest and responsible to assert that it was passed “in the dark and
without discussion.” The fact is that nobody cared about it. It is
noteworthy that the act is not in “Macpherson’s Manual” for 1874. It
was not thought to be of any importance. It was not until after the
panic of 1873 that attention began to be given to the currency. To
that, I who write can testify, since I tried in vain, before that time,
to excite any interest in the subject. I was once in the gallery of
the House of Representatives when a question of coinage was before
the House. I counted those members who, as far as I could judge, were
paying any attention. There were six. What is it necessary to do in
such a case in order to prevent the claim, twenty-five years later,
when countless interests have vested under the law, that the law is
open to “reversal” because it was passed “in the dark”?


WAS IT PASSED SURREPTITIOUSLY?

How can a law be passed through Congress surreptitiously? We have
indeed heard of bills being “smuggled through” in the confusion
attending the last hours of the session, or as an amendment, or under a
misleading title. There are the rules of order, however, by which all
legislation is enacted. All laws which get through the mill are equally
valid. There never has been and never can be any distinction drawn
between them according to their legislative history. In the present
case there was not the slightest manœuvre or trick, nor is there even
room to trump up an allegation of the kind.


THAT THE PEOPLE DID NOT KNOW OF IT.

It is said that “the people” did not know what was being done. How
do they ever know what is being done? There is all the machinery of
publicity, and it is all at work. If people do not heed (and of course
in nearly all cases they do not), whose fault is it? Who is responsible
to go to the ten million voters individually and make sure that they
heed, lest twenty-five years later somebody may say that the fact that
they did not heed lays down a justification for a new project which
certainly is “a crime” in the new sense which is given to that word
here?


MOTIVE OF THE LAW.

The act of 1873 did not affect any rights or interests. It took away an
option which had existed since 1834, but had never been used, and, for
ten years before this act was passed, had sunk entirely out of sight
under paper-money inflation. Secretary Boutwell, when he first brought
the matter to the attention of Congress in 1870, explained the proposed
legislation as a codification of existing coinage laws. Later it took
the shape of a complete simplification of existing law, history, and
fact, in order to put the coinage on the simplest and best system as a
basis for resumption. As we had then no coin, we had a free hand to put
the system on the best basis, there being no vested rights or interests
to be disturbed. That this was a wise and sound course to pursue under
the circumstances is unquestionable. Three years later, by the rise
in greenbacks and the fall in silver, it came about that four hundred
twelve and one-half grains of silver, nine-tenths fine, was worth a
little less than a greenback dollar. The old option would, therefore,
if still existent, have been an advantage to debtors. Complaint and
clamor for the restoration of the option then began, but to give such
an option, after the market had changed, would be playing with loaded
dice. The European countries which still retained the option abolished
it as soon as silver began to fall, and we, if we had retained it open
until that time, ought to have done the same.


ALTERNATE RUIN TO DEBTORS AND CREDITORS.

The inflation of the Civil War had a direful effect upon all creditors
on contracts outstanding in 1862. The resumption of specie payments
had a similar effect on debtors under contracts made between 1868 and
1878. Greenbackism and silver debasement were produced by resistance to
this operation. The debtors of to-day are not those of that period. The
debts of that period are paid off. The pain and strain have been borne.
The credit of the United States has been established, the currency
restored, and the whole business of the country for seventeen years
has been completely established on the gold dollar as the dollar of
account for all transactions whatsoever. The population of the country
is now two and a half times what it was in the war time, and its wealth
is probably a much greater multiple. The debts now outstanding have,
with unimportant exceptions, been contracted since the resumption of
specie payments. What is now proposed is to enter upon a new period of
these alternations of wrong and injustice, first to creditors, then to
debtors, and so on, and to do this in a time of peace, not from any
political necessity, but on the ground of some economic interpretations
of the facts of the market, which are incapable of verification and
proof, when they are not obviously erroneous and partisan. The effect
of the various compromises with silver is that the currency is once
more intricate and complicated, excessive and confused, so that few
can understand it, and it offers all sorts of chances for perverse and
mischievous interpretations.


DEMONETIZATION REMOVED NO MONEY FROM USE.

The law of 1873 never threw a dollar of silver or other currency out
of circulation. We hear it asserted that “demonetization” destroyed
half the people’s money. People say this who know nothing of the facts,
but infer that demonetization must mean that some silver dollars which
were money had that character taken from them. No one of the other
demonetizations, which took place in Europe at about the same time,
diminished the money in use. The result of changes in 1873–1874 was
that the amount of silver coin in use in Europe was greatly increased,
and has remained so since.

The resumption of specie payments after 1873 by a number of nations
which had issued paper money in the previous period, and the alternate
expenditure and re-collection of war-hoards of gold, had far greater
importance than the demonetizations.

There has been no diminution of the world’s coined money within
fifty years, but a steady and rapid increase of it. There have been
fluctuations in the production of gold and silver such as belong to the
production of all metals and are inevitable.


THE ALLEGED SCRAMBLE FOR GOLD.

There has been no “scramble for gold.” Those who do not put any
obstacle in the way of gold get more of it than they want. The Bank of
England has had lately the largest stock of gold that it ever had, and
complaints have begun to be heard of a glut. The gold-production in the
last five years is the greatest ever known and there is no fear of any
lack of it, whatever may be the sense in which any one chooses to speak
of a “lack.” There is not and has not been any “scarcity of gold.”
There is no such thing conceivable, except where paper has been issued
in excess, so that it is hard to keep enough gold to redeem it with.


PROOF THAT THERE HAS BEEN NO SCARCITY OF GOLD.

There is one proof that there has been no scarcity of money for
twenty-five years past which has not indeed passed unnoticed, but
which has not received the attention which it deserves; that is the
rate of interest. The rate of interest is normally due to the supply
and demand of loanable capital, and has nothing to do with money. The
value of money is registered by prices, not by the rate of interest.
But whenever there is a special demand for money of account--that
is, for the solvent of debts--the rate of interest on capital passes
over into a rate for the solvent of debts. Banks lend capital in its
most universal form, _i.e._, the currency or money of account, or
bank credits. If credit fails, as in a time of crisis and panic,
actual cash in the money of account is wanted. This now is loaned,
under a rate, by the same persons and institutions who formerly loaned
capital, and the one phenomenon passes into the other without any line
of demarcation. The transition, however, never takes place except in
time of crisis, and therefore at a _high_ rate. From this it follows
certainly that never when the market rate is _low_ can it be a rate
for the solvent of debts. Now, ever since 1873, with the exception of
periods of special stringency in 1884, 1890, and 1893, we have had
very low rates of interest; the rate for call loans (which in this
connection are the most important) has been about two per cent. This is
a demonstration that the country has not been suffering from a crisis
on account of a lack of currency for the normal needs of business.
Proofs could be presented, on the other hand, that the currency for the
last six years has been constantly in excess, excepting in 1893, when
the credit of the currency failed for a time.


HOW TO GET POOR AND RICH AT THE SAME TIME.

Mr. St. John tries his hand at the relation between prices and
interest in connection with our subject. He says: “If the dollar can
be cheapened by increasing the number of dollars, so that each dollar
will buy less wheat, the increasing price of wheat will increase the
demand for dollars to invest in its production.” Evidently he fails to
distinguish between the rise in price of wheat from one gold dollar
to two gold dollars per bushel, and the rise in wheat from one gold
dollar to two fifty-cent silver dollars per bushel. The former would
undoubtedly stimulate production. The latter would do so also, among
farmers who shared Mr. St. John’s confusion on this matter. There would
be many of them. They would imagine that they were getting rich by
raising wheat to sell at two silver dollars, or five, ten, fifteen,
or twenty paper dollars, as depreciation went on. Hence, as he says,
they would pay a banker eight, ten, twelve, or fifteen per cent, in
the depreciated dollars, in order to get “money,” as he calls it, with
which to raise wheat. Mr. St. John thinks that this would mean that
farmer and banker were both magnificently prosperous. It would mean
that the real value which came in was steadily growing less than that
which went out, so that the capital was being consumed. Hence the high
rates of inflation times, and the disaster which follows when the
truth is realized. They told a story in Revolutionary times of a man
who invested his capital in a hogshead of rum which he sold out at
an enormous advance--in Continental paper; but when he went to buy a
new supply, all his “money” would only buy a barrel. This he retailed
out at another enormous advance--in Continental--but when he went to
buy more he had only enough money to buy a gallon. If he had borrowed
his first capital he might have paid twenty per cent for it--in
Continental--but the banker would hardly have made a good affair.


MONOPOLY OF THE MONEY.

We hear it asserted that the gold standard gives the owners of gold
power to appropriate the money and make it scarce, and that they have
used this power. Why, then, under silver or paper, may not the holders
of silver or paper do the same? That the holders of gold have not done
it has been shown above. But nobody can do it with any kind of value
money. There are no “holders of gold.” He who holds gold wins no gains
on it. The bankers who are supposed to hold it, if peace and security
reign, put it all out at loan in order to get gain on it. When peace
and security do not reign it is not safe to put it out, and borrowers,
fearing to engage in new enterprises, do not present a demand for
it. Furthermore, the greatest gains can then be won by holding money
ready to buy property when the crash comes. That is what those who
own surpluses are doing now. Hence there are no “holders of gold”
until monetary threats and dangers call them into existence. Silver
legislation has made a great many. The law of 1873 never made any.

There is not, therefore, a fact or deduction about the law of 1873, or
the history of the market since, which the silver men have put forward,
which will stand examination.




A CONCURRENT CIRCULATION OF GOLD AND SILVER

[1878]


It seems as if the United States were destined to be the arena for
testing experimentally every fallacy in regard to money which has
ever been propounded. A few years ago only a very few people here
had ever heard of the “double standard” or knew what it meant. In
1873 we became simply and distinctly a “gold country” in law, as we
had been for forty years in fact. Immediately after that date silver
began to fall in value relatively to gold, so that, if we had been on
the “double standard,” and had not been deterred by considerations
of honor, morality, and public credit, which considerations kept the
double-standard countries from taking that course, we could have paid
our debts in silver at an advantage. Forthwith all those persons
who had before been racking their brains to devise some scheme for
resumption without pain or sacrifice, turned their attention to silver,
and began to devise plans for getting back to the position which, as
they thought, we had unwisely abandoned. The consequence has been that,
for the last year, the country has produced numberless editorials,
essays, lectures, and speeches, full of the most crude sophistry, and
the most astonishing errors as to all the elementary doctrines of
coinage and money. The favorite object of all these schemes is to find
some means of increasing the amount of money at the disposal of the
world, or of this nation, so as to raise prices and make it easier to
pay debts. These schemes have taken their point of departure in the
speculations of some European economists. In Europe the propositions
of the economists in question have never passed beyond the realm of
speculation and theoretical discussion amongst professional economists.
They have been regarded by some as probably sound, and capable of
being made the basis of advantageous legislation. By others, superior
in number and authority, they have been regarded as unsound. Inasmuch
as they involve an international coinage union between all civilized
countries and could be put to the experiment only on a scale involving
immeasurable risks, the overwhelming judgment has been that they were
out of the question. Here, however, our amateurs and empirics are in
hot haste to make the experiments, without any coinage convention, or
with the coöperation of only a few and the less important nations, that
is to say under circumstances which even the most extreme bimetallists
condemn as ruinous.

It must be observed then that there lies back of all this popular
discussion a scientific and technical question of great delicacy. I
might even say that it is a speculative question, or a question in
speculative economics, for we have no experience of an international
coinage union, or of a concurrent circulation, of the metals. We have
to imagine the state of things proposed and reason _a priori_ as to
what must be the result. There is a postulate to all these schemes
which has never been expressed and never been discussed, but which
is assumed to be true. It has two different forms: (1) A concurrent
circulation of gold and silver may be established in any country: (2)
A concurrent circulation of gold and silver may be established by a
coinage union of all civilized nations. These postulates, or we may
say this postulate, for the latter includes the former, I have now to
bring in question. If the science of money teaches that there cannot be
a concurrent circulation of the metals, then the schemes which I have
referred to are all condemned. The question, moreover, has won such
an immediate and practical significance in the country that it is no
longer a subject for academical discussion amongst economists, about
whom opinions may differ without importance.

The Senate of the United States has just passed a bill containing the
following provision:

“Sec. 2. That immediately after the passage of this act the President
shall invite the governments of the countries composing the Latin
Union, so called, and of such other European nations as he may deem
advisable, to join the United States in a conference to adopt a
common ratio between gold and silver for the purpose of establishing
internationally the use of bimetallic money and securing a fixity of
the relative value between those metals; such conference to be held at
such a place in Europe or in the United States at such a time within
six months as may be mutually agreed upon by the executives of the
governments joining in the same. Whenever the governments so invited,
or any three of them, shall have signified their willingness to unite
in the same, the President shall, by and with the advice and consent
of the Senate, appoint three commissioners who shall attend such
conference on behalf of the United States, and shall report the doings
thereof to the President, who shall transmit the same to Congress.”

The conception which governed this legislation is plain enough. It
proposes to secure a concurrent circulation of the two metals at a
fixed ratio by an international agreement. The proposition is to put
the experiment at work when only three nations besides ourselves
consent and in the meantime to remonetize silver here at sixteen to
one when the market ratio is seventeen and one-half to one. This
adds to the absurdity of the bill, but has no bearing on my present
controversy. I challenge the postulate which is assumed, which has
never been discussed, much less proved, that a concurrent circulation
is possible if an international union can be made. Anybody who concedes
this concedes, as I view it, the fundamental and controlling error in
the silver craze. If this premise is conceded, there can be no further
controversy on the arena of science. It remains only to try to overcome
practical difficulties. Such is the issue I raise with those who, under
any reservations whatsoever, concede that a concurrent circulation is
possible. In a body of scientific gentlemen I need only refer to the
mischief done in science by assuming the truth of postulates without
examination, and I need make no apology for bringing forward with all
possible force and vigor a controversy on a point so essential. It is
my duty to say that I may be in error, and I have the misfortune to
differ here with gentlemen from whom I dissent seldom and unwillingly,
but it will not be denied that, while there is controversy on a
point so essential, and at a moment when practical measures of high
importance to every person in this country are proposed, based on
certain views of the matter, I am right in promoting discussion. I wish
to be understood as paying full respect to everybody, but I address
myself, without compliments, to the question in hand. I shall be
satisfied if I make it appear that I have some strong grounds for the
position I take in a long, careful, and mature study of this question
in all its bearings.

It will economize time and space, if, before entering on my subject,
I try to clear up two points: (1) what is an economic force or an
economic law, and how ought we to go about the study of economic
phenomena? (2) What is a legal tender?

(1) What should be our conception of an economic force or an economic
law, and how ought we to study economic phenomena? Some people seem to
think that economic phenomena constitute a domain of arbitrary and
artificial action. They think that social phenomena of every kind are
subject to chance or to control. They see no sequence between incidents
of this kind. They have no conception of social forces. They think
economic laws are only formulae established by grouping a certain
number of facts together, like a rule in grammar, and they are prepared
for a list of exceptions to follow. This conception, in its grosser
forms, is now banished from the science, but it still has strong hold
on popular opinion. It also still colors a great many scientific
discussions, those, namely, who seek to carry forward the science by
following out the complicated cases produced by the combined action of
economic forces in our modern industrial life, and describing them in
detail. In my opinion such efforts are all mistaken.

I regard economic forces as simply parallel to physical forces, arising
just as spontaneously and naturally, following a sequence of cause and
effect just as inevitably as physical forces--neither more nor less.
The perturbations and complications which present themselves in social
phenomena are strictly analogous to those which appear in physical
phenomena. The social order is, to my mind, the product of social
forces tending always towards an equilibrium at some ideal point,
which point is continually changing under the ever-changing amount or
velocity of the forces or under their new combinations. Consequently,
I do not believe that the advance of economic science depends upon
fuller and more minute description of complicated social phenomena
as they present themselves in experience, but on a stricter analysis
of them in order to get a closer and clearer knowledge of the laws
by which the forces producing them operate. If this can be attained,
all the complications which arise from their combined action will be
easily solved. Of course we have peculiar difficulties to contend with,
inasmuch as we cannot constitute experiments, and it is necessary
to rely largely upon historical cases which present now one and now
another force or set of forces in peculiar prominence. The facts which
show the difficulty of the task, however, have nothing to do with its
nature.

According to this view of the matter there is no more reason to be
satisfied with generalities in economics than in physics. Some writers
on economic subjects, who pride themselves upon scientific reluctance,
remind me of Mr. Brooks, in “Middlemarch.” They believe in things up
to a certain point, and are always afraid of going too far. They would
be careful about the multiplication table, and not bear down too hard
on the rule of three. They do not discriminate between care in the
application of rules, and confidence in scientific results; or between
harshness in personal relations and firm convictions in science. The
more we come to understand economic science the more clear it is that
we are dealing with only another presentation of matter and force,
that is to say, with quantity and law, so that we have mathematical
relations, and have every encouragement to severity and exactitude in
our methods. When, therefore, it is said that the economists do not
pay sufficient heed to the power of legislation, that is no stopping
place for the argument any more than it would be in physics to say
that sufficient heed was not paid to friction. The question would then
arise: What is the force of legislation? Let us study it, just as we
would go on to study friction in mechanics. When it is loosely said
(as if that dismissed the subject) that men have passions and emotions
and do not act by rule, the objection is not pertinent at all. It is
connected with another wide and common, but very erroneous notion,
that economic laws involve some stress of obligation on men to do or
abstain from doing certain things. I suppose this notion arises from
the classification of political economy amongst the moral sciences.
Economic laws only declare relations of cause and effect which will
follow, if set in motion. Whether a man sets the sequence in motion at
all or not, and if he does so, whether he does it from passion or habit
or upon reflection, is immaterial. Such is the case, as I understand
it, with all sciences. They simply instruct men as to the laws of this
world in which we live that they may know what to expect if they take
one course or another, or they instruct men so that they may understand
the relations of phenomena of forces beyond our control so that we may
foresee and guard ourselves against harm. It follows from all this
that I demand and aim at just as close thinking in political economy
as in any other science. I think we must try to get as firm hold of
principles and fundamental laws as we can, and that, especially in the
face of speculative propositions, we ought to cling to and trust the
firmly established laws of the science.

(2) As to legal tender, it seems to me that the public mind has been
sadly confused under the régime of paper money. Money is any commodity
which is set apart by common consent to serve as a medium of exchange.
If it is a commodity, it will exchange by the laws of value, and will
therefore serve to measure value. It must therefore be a commodity, an
object of desire requiring onerous exertion to get it. In theory, it
may be any commodity. The question as to what commodity is a question
of convenience--that one which will answer the purpose best. Through a
long period of experiments we have come to use gold or silver, simply
because we found them the best. Convenience here gave rise to custom,
and money of gold or silver owes its existence to custom entirely, and
not to law at all. Law has only in very few instances even selected
that one of the two metals which should be used. Even that has come
about through custom. Law, therefore, here as elsewhere where it has
been beneficent and not arbitrary, has followed custom, recognized it,
ratified it, and given it sanctions. (1) A legal tender law, therefore,
where customary money is used, simply declares that the parties to a
contract shall not vex each other by arbitrarily departing from the
custom. The creditor shall not demand, and the debtor shall not offer,
out of spite or malice, anything but the customary money of the nation.
Such a legal tender law has no significance whatever. No one thinks of
it or speaks of it or takes it into account, unless he be one of those
whose idle malice it prevents.

(2) A legal tender law is used where a subsidiary token currency is
employed as a part of the system, to prevent debtors from using it in
payment, and to prevent the system from bringing about a depreciation
of the money. In this case it is part of the device for using a token
currency, and is open to no objection. It would check the debtor when
he meant to perpetrate a wrong. It would not enable him to do one.

(3) A legal tender law has been used very often, however, to give
forced circulation to a depreciated currency of little or no value
as a commodity. In that case the legal tender act enables the debtor
to discharge his obligations with less commodities than he and the
creditor understood and expected when the contract was made. If the
creditor appeals to the courts, they are obliged to rule that the
debtor has discharged his obligation, when he has not, and they give
the creditor no relief. Hence it appears that a legal tender act giving
forced circulation to depreciated currency amounts simply to this: it
withdraws the protection of the courts from one party to a contract,
and leaves him at the mercy of the other party to the extent of the
depreciation of the currency. Obviously no other act of legislation
more completely reverses the whole proper object of legislation,
or more thoroughly subverts civil order. The English passed two or
three acts of this nature, although they were not specifically
acts for making banknotes legal tender, during the bank suspension
at the beginning of this century. It would have been interesting to
see what English courts would have made of an act which reversed the
whole spirit of English law by diminishing the rights of one party
under a contract, and which made the courts an instrument for his
oppression instead of an institution to provide a remedy, but no
case came up. The twelve judges on appeal overturned the sentence of
a man convicted of buying and selling gold at a premium. Some few
persons demanded and obtained gold payments throughout the suspension
but the paper circulation was really sustained by public opinion and
consent, it being believed that the bank suspension was necessary.
This form of legal tender, therefore, is totally different from that
first described. I call it, for the sake of discrimination, a forced
circulation. When a legal tender act giving forced circulation to
a depreciated currency is first passed, if it applies to existing
contracts it transfers a percentage of all capital engaged in credit
operations from the creditor to the debtor. In its subsequent action it
subjects either party to the fluctuations which may occur in the forced
circulation, robbing first one and then another. Hence the debtor
interest is that the depreciation once begun shall go on steadily,
because any recovery would rob debtors as creditors were robbed in the
first place.

Having disposed of these two points I now take up the question I
proposed at the outset: Is a concurrent circulation of gold and silver
possible under an international coinage union?

Here we have to make a radical distinction between two different
propositions for an international coinage union. The first is that
of M. Wolowski. He pointed to the comparatively small fluctuations
of the precious metals and to the effect which France had exerted
by the double standard, and inferred that if all civilized nations
would join France in her system they might arrest the fall of either
metal before it became important. If the coinage union fixed upon a
ratio of one to fifteen and one-half, then, if silver fell all would
use silver, which would arrest its fall. If gold should fall, all
would use gold. As the metal in use would always be the one which was
cheaper than the legal ratio, the other would be above it, if I may so
express it. Hence neither would be permanently demonetized, because
neither could fall so low as to go out of use. Only one would be used
at a time but the other would be within reach, and if either should
rise relatively to commodities, debtors would not suffer but might
even be benefited by being enabled to turn to the falling metal. This
system would require of the law nothing except to prescribe that the
mint should coin either metal indifferently which people might bring,
silver coins being made fifteen and one-half times as heavy as gold
coins of the same denomination, both being of the same fineness. This
is Wolowski’s plan, and these are the advantages he expected from
it. He thought that it would hold the alternative open between the
two metals. He feared that silver, if universally demonetized, would
fall so low as to go out of use entirely for money. He thought that
France and, later, the Latin Union ought not to bear alone the cost
of keeping up the value of silver. He thought the debtor ought not to
be oppressed by being forced to rely on one metal alone which might
rise relatively to commodities. He did not propose to give the debtor
the use of the whole mass of both metals at the same time. Indeed that
arrangement would defeat Wolowski’s purpose, for if the whole mass of
both metals could be brought into use at once prices would rise. Those
who are indebted now would win, but when prices and credit had adjusted
themselves to the bimetallic money the effect would be exhausted. Debts
contracted after that would be relatively just as heavy to pay as they
are now, and if the precious metals taken together rose relatively
to commodities, debtors would have no recourse to anything else. Now
this chance of recourse, when the standard of value rose, was just
what Wolowski wanted. His language is very guarded and scientific. He
never went further than to say that his scheme would restrain and limit
the fluctuations of the metals--how far he did not know and did not
pretend to say. He thought the fluctuations would be so narrow that the
transition from one metal to the other would be a relief to debtors
without any appreciable injustice to creditors. All this is very clear
and very sensible. On theory it is open to no radical objection. The
discussion of it turns upon considerations of practicability and
expediency. It is much to be wished that this plan should be called
by its proper name: the alternative standard, or, better still, the
alternate standard. It counts among its adherents a number of strong
men, and many others have signified assent to it on theoretical grounds.

The term “bimetallism” ought to be restricted to another theory of
which Cernuschi is the advocate, which has for its purpose to unite
the two metals at once in the circulation and give debtors the whole
mass of both metals as a means of payment. Cernuschi believes that
the international coinage union could arrest the fluctuations of the
metals entirely; or that there is some narrow limit of fluctuation
within which both would remain in use, and that the coinage union
could hold the value-fluctuations of the metals within these limits.
The American schemes are numerous and so crude that it is difficult
to analyze or classify them. They are also of many different grades.
They all, however, seem to have this in common, that they want to
secure to the debtor the use of both metals at once, and that they
aim at a concurrent circulation. They must, therefore, be classed
under bimetallism. These schemes all involve not simply what Wolowski
said--that legislation and union could limit the fluctuations--but the
proposers know how much it would limit them, and they can control the
results. This view has very few adherents in Europe. It has not been
discussed there save by one or two writers. It is passed by in silence
for reasons which I shall soon show.

The opinion has been expressed that these two propositions differ only
in degree. From this opinion I must express my earnest dissent. It is
the very cardinal point of my present argument. Wolowski’s alternate
standard seems to me to rest upon the belief that legislation of
the kind proposed would restrict the fluctuations in value of the
metals. It affirms that legislation would have a certain tendency.
Any plan for a concurrent circulation giving debtors the use of
the whole mass of both metals pretends to say how far the tendency
would go and what its results would be. To my mind the difference
between those two propositions is that between a scientific and an
unscientific proposition. We have a parallel case before us. Some
say re-monetization would cause an advance in silver. Others say
re-monetization would make a four hundred and twelve and one-half grain
silver dollar equal in value to a gold one. Are those two propositions
the same save in degree? It seems to me that only a very superficial
consideration of them could so declare. Obviously they differ in
quality more than in degree. The former of these propositions is not
false in principle; the question in regard to it must be decided by
circumstances. The second is false and erroneous from beginning to end,
and would be false even if temporarily and by force of circumstances
the silver dollar should become equal to the gold dollar, because it
rests, like the old doctrine that nature abhors a vacuum, upon false
views of all the forces involved. Just so with regard to a concurrent
circulation or bimetallism as compared with the alternate standard.
The latter predicts tendencies to arise from the play of certain
forces. Those tendencies are the true effect of those forces. The
question may be raised whether the means proposed would bring those
forces into action, whether they would be as great as is expected,
whether they would be counteracted by others, but there is no error as
to the nature and operation of economic forces. Bimetallism predicts
results, not tendencies. It assumes to measure the consequences and
say what will result as a permanent state of things. It therefore
involves the doctrine that legislation can control natural forces for
definite results. If legislation cannot so control natural forces,
then we cannot secure a concurrent circulation, giving the debtor the
use of the whole mass of both metals with which to pay his debts. At
a time like this, when the silver craze seems to be asserting itself
as a mania, by sweeping away some who ought to be most staunch in
their adherence to economic laws and most clear in their perception of
economic truths, I may be pardoned for insisting most strenuously upon
this distinction and upon its importance. Many of the American writers
have been betrayed into error by not having examined these two plans
and discriminated between them with sufficient care. It is very common
to see arguments based upon the alternate standard and inferences drawn
as to bimetallism which are entirely fallacious because they cross the
gulf between the two theories without recognizing it. Bimetallism is so
plainly opposed to fundamental doctrines of political economy that few
European economists have felt called upon to discuss it. Here the case
is different, and the more ground it wins, and the more danger there is
that it will affect legislation, the more urgent is the necessity to
resist every form of it.

Now my proposition is that a concurrent circulation, that is a
permanent union of the two metals in the coinage, so that the debtor
can use both or either, is impossible. Permanent stability of the
metals in the coinage, whether with or without an international
coinage union, is just as impossible in economics as perpetual motion
is in physics. Against perpetual motion the physicist sets a broad
and complete negation, because action and reaction are equal. He
does not care what the principle may be on which any one may try to
construct perpetual motion. If any one brings to him a perpetual
motion perhaps he will spend time to examine and analyze it and show
how it contravenes the great law of motion. I claim that a concurrent
circulation is impossible on any scheme or under any circumstances
because it contravenes the law of value. Value fluctuates under supply
and demand at a limit fixed by what Cairnes calls cost of production,
or Jevons calls the final increment of utility, or Walras calls
scarcity, all of which on analysis will be found to be the same thing.
Bimetallism affirms that, under legislation, although supply and demand
may vary, value shall not. In order to test this let us next examine
the influence of legislation on value.

The cases in which legislation acts on value are all cases of monopoly.
Such is the case with token money; such is the case with irredeemable
paper. As with every other monopoly, the successful manipulation of
these monopolies consists in controlling supply, to fit the supply to
the demand at the price which the monopolist wants to get. The history
of every monopoly shows the great difficulty, I might say, in the
long run, the impossibility, of doing this. The bimetallists propose
not to act on the supply, and so create a monopoly, but to act upon
the demand. This is a new exercise of legislation, different from any
yet tried, and not guaranteed by any experience. Now to act upon the
demand is, in the phrase of the stock brokers, to make a corner, that
is to buy all that is offered at a price. Stock gamblers do this so
as to sell out again at an advance to those who are forced to buy. If
there are none who are forced to buy, then those who bought above the
market have lost their capital. The propositions of the advocates of
the alternate standard and of bimetallism are alike in proposing that
all civilized nations shall combine to make a corner on the falling
metal. Whether that is a worthy undertaking or not I will not stop to
inquire. It is evident that the nations of the coinage union would
have no one on whom to unload after they had bought, and that there
would be an inevitable loss and waste of capital in the transaction.
This, however, is not all. A corner is effective or not according to
its scope. It must embrace the whole object to be raised in price, and
above all it must act upon a limited amount which is not fed from any
new source of supply. A corner on the precious metals is not to be
made effective even by a combination of all civilized nations. In my
opinion there is a grand fallacy in the notion that a coinage union
would do what France did, only on a larger scale. Wolowski saw France,
lying between Germany, a silver nation, and England, a gold nation,
carry out the compensatory operation, and he inferred that all nations
could agree to do the same, more widely, more easily, and with wider
distribution of the loss. It seems to me that there was an action and
reaction here between members of the group of nations which one can
easily understand, but that if all nations joined in the system, the
alternation would not work at all for want of a point of reaction.
If all nations agreed to join the corner on the falling metal, they
could not all bring their new demand to bear on the new supply at the
same time. As the mines are limited and local, a new supply would
touch the market only at one point. Hence the coinage union implies
no aggregation of force at all. Make the union embrace the whole
world, and the effect is just the same as if there were none at all,
the matter standing simply on the natural laws for the distribution
of the precious metals. Control of demand by a corner or of supply by
a monopoly acts more efficiently the smaller and closer the market
is, and, conversely, the larger and wider the transaction, the less
the efficiency. Furthermore, a corner to succeed must make sure that
there is no source of supply, and that it has to deal only with an
amount which can be computed. The gold corner on Black Friday, 1869,
was ruined when the Secretary of the Treasury ordered sales of gold. A
monopoly in like manner, must be able to count on steady and uniform
demand. The coal combination failed when the hard times suddenly
contracted the demand for coal. Hence the movement towards a wider
market, embracing a larger quantity, is always a movement towards less,
and not towards greater control by artificial expedients.

Applying these observations to the matter before us, I have to say
(1) that I consider the inference that a coinage union would do what
France did under the double standard, only more surely and efficiently,
quite mistaken; (2) as to the alternate standard, I do not believe
that the alternation would work on a worldwide scale at all. I regard
its operation in France as fully accounted for by the relations of the
three countries, England, France, and Germany; (3) as to bimetallism,
the coinage union, instead of gaining more stringent control to
counteract and nullify the effect of changes in supply of either metal,
would have less effect in that direction the larger it was.

Having thus examined the nature of artificial interferences with value,
and their limitations, I return to my proposition that to establish a
concurrent circulation is just as impossible as to square the circle
or to invent perpetual motion. No doubt it is difficult, perhaps
impossible, to make a demonstration of a negative proposition like
this. The burden of proof lies upon those who bring forward attempts to
solve the problem, and I can justly be held only to examine and refute
such attempts. No proof has ever been offered by any of the persons
in question. No one of them has attempted as much of an analysis of
the effect of artificial expedients on value as the one I have just
offered. No one of them has attempted to analyze the operation of the
proposed coinage union, to show how or why they expect it to act as
they say. They pass over this assumption as lightly as our popular
advocates of silver assume that re-monetization would put an end to
the hard times. They content themselves with analogies, or with loose
and general guesses that such and such things would result from a
coinage union. We all know what dangers lurk in the argument from
analogy. The further you follow it the further you are from the point.
An analogy has no proper use save to set in clearer light an opinion
or a proposition which must rest for its merits on an appropriate
demonstration. Thus the attempt has been made to illustrate the power
of governments to control the fluctuations of the metals by the analogy
of a man driving two horses. It is said that this is “controlling
natural forces for definite results,” and it is asked, “if one man in
his sphere can do this, why may not the collective might of the nation
do this in its sphere?” My answer is that it is in the sphere of man to
tame horses, but it is not in the sphere of nations to control value,
and therefore the analogy is radically false. I cannot be held to argue
both sides of the question. I am not bound to put all the cases of the
adversaries into proper shape for discussion and then to refute them.
I plant myself squarely upon the fundamental principles of the science
of which I am a student and deny that any concurrent circulation is
possible except under temporary and accidental circumstances, because
it involves the proposition that legislation can control value to
bring about desired results. A concurrent circulation must mean one
which is concurrent, and if it is to offer debtors the whole mass of
both metals to pay their debts with, it must be permanent. If both
metals should be used for a time until prices and contracts were
adjusted to them, and then one should rise so much as to go out of use,
the consequences would be disastrous to debtors beyond anything now
apprehended.

I proceed then to criticize the notions of a concurrent circulation,
as to their common features. The error with them all is that they try
to corner commodities the supply of which is beyond their control or
knowledge. That is a fatal error in any corner, as I have already
shown. If it were proposed that each nation should have a certain
amount of circulation, composed of the two metals in equal parts, and
then that the circulation should be closed, then the corner might work
and there would be some sense in it. Suppose that a nation had two
hundred millions of fixed circulation, half gold and half silver, and
that this sum was not in excess of its requirement for money. Then I do
not see how either half of the coinage should fall relatively to the
other; but if silver did fall, every dollar of silver which was sought
would involve the relinquishment of a dollar in gold and this exchange
would act on equal and limited amounts of each metal. It would then
depress one metal and raise the other to an exactly equal degree. The
balance might, in that case, be retained. The hypothesis of a closed
circulation is, however, preposterous. No one thinks of it.

The plan of a concurrent circulation with a free mint strikes, upon
close examination, at every step, against difficulties of that sort
which warn a scientific man that he is dealing with an empirical and
impossible delusion. How is it to be brought about? The movement
towards a bimetallic circulation would never begin unless the ratio
of the coinage was the market ratio. It would not go on unless the
mint ratio followed every fluctuation of the market. It would not be
accomplished unless the mint ratio at last was that of the market. It
would not remain unless the market ratio remained fixed. But the mint
ratio cannot be changed from time to time. If it were, the result would
be inextricable confusion in the coins, driving us back to the use of
scales and weights with which to treat the coins as bullion.

If we pass over this difficulty, and suppose, for the sake of argument,
that the system had been brought into activity, the reasons why it
could not stand present themselves in numbers. They all come back to
this, that the supply is beyond our knowledge and control. If the
supply of either metal increased, it would overthrow the legal rating
at the point at which it was put into the market, and would destroy the
equality there. Its effects would spread according to the amount of the
new supply and the length of time it continued. The bimetallists seem
to forget that an increased demand counteracts an increased supply only
by absorbing it under a price fluctuation. The same error is familiar
in the plans for perpetual motion. Speculations to that end often
overlook the fact that we cannot employ a force in mechanics without
providing an escapement which is always exhausting the force at our
disposal. So the bimetallists seem to think of their enhanced demand
as acting on value without an actual action and reaction which consist
in absorbing supply under a price fluctuation. The new metal would
therefore pass into the circulation and would destroy the equilibrium
of the metals in the coinage. If this new addition were only a
mathematical increment it would suffice to establish the principle for
which I contend and to overthrow the bimetallic theory, for if I see
that any force has a certain effect I must infer that the same force
increased or continued would go on to greater effects; and if the
final effect is not reached it is because the force is not sufficient,
not because there is an act of the legislature in the way. If then,
silver entered the circulation, gold would leave it and be exported, if
the exchanges allowed of any export, or would be hoarded and melted.
The silver-producing countries would therefore gravitate towards a
silver circulation only, and other countries towards a gold circulation.

Here another assumption of the bimetallists is involved. They assume
that the metal to be exported would be the one which falls. Thus, if
all nations had a bimetallic circulation, and if the supply of silver
in the United States increased, it would be necessary that this silver
should be proportionately distributed among all the nations in order
to keep up the bimetallic system. No bimetallist has ever faced this
question. They assume that Americans would pay their foreign debts
with silver in that case, and they rely on the international legal
tender law to secure this. This is one of the fallacies of legal tender
referred to at the outset. Rates of exchange and prices would at once
vary to counteract any such operation, just as they always counteract
the injustice of a forced circulation and throw it back on those who
try to perpetrate it. It may suffice to put the case this way. If we
had both metals circulating together so that a merchant obtained both
in substantially equal proportions, and if silver should fall ever
so little in our markets, owing to increased production, and if a
foreigner were selling his products here, intending to carry home his
returns in metal, which metal would he retain to carry away? Obviously
that one which at the time and prospectively had the higher value.
Rates of exchange and prices would adjust themselves so as to bring
about the same result through the mechanism of finance. This is one
of the most subtle questions involved in the general issue, but it is
vital to the bimetallic theory.

Some writers have satisfied themselves with general opinions--guesses,
I am obliged to call them--that if the fluctuations were kept within
certain limits the concurrent circulation would stand. They probably
rely on an element analogous to friction which unquestionably acts
in economy and finance. This element consists of habit, prejudice,
passion, dislike of trouble. It acts with great force in retail
trade, and in individual cases, and in small transactions. Its force
diminishes as we go upwards towards the largest transactions, where
the smallest percentages give very appreciable sums. It seems to me
that the bimetallic system reduces this friction to a minimum. If a
man has to spend a dollar he does not go to a broker to buy a trade
dollar with a greenback dollar, and save a cent or two, but if he has
both a gold dollar and a silver dollar in his pocket (and, under the
bimetallic system, the chances are that when he has two dollars he
will have one of each), it needs only the lightest shade of difference
in value to determine him which to give and which to hold. A bank of
issue, holding equal amounts of the two metals with which to redeem its
notes, would find an appreciable profit in giving one and holding the
other, and it would require nothing but a word of command to the proper
officer, involving no risk at all. Hence I say this friction would be
reduced to its minimum under the bimetallic system. It is astonishing
what light margins of profit suffice to produce financial movements
nowadays; and the tendency is to make the movements turn on smaller and
smaller margins. Five in the thousand above par carries gold out of
this country. Four in the thousand carries it from England to France.
When the French suspended specie payments a depreciation of two in the
thousand on the paper sufficed to throw gold out of circulation. A
variation in the ratio of metals from 15.5:1 to 15.6:1 is a variation
of six and one-half in the thousand. I do not see how small a variation
must be in order to justify any one in saying that a bimetallic
circulation could exist in spite of it. Therefore it seems to me that
the more accurately the bimetallic system was established the more
delicate and more easily overthrown it would be, while if it was not
accurately established it would not come about at all. I submit that
such a result is one of the notes of an absurdity in any science.

An analogy has been suggested in illustration and support of the
bimetallic theory that two vessels of water connected by a tube
tend to preserve a level. I have already indicated my suspicion of
all analogies, but I will alter this one to make it fit my idea of
bimetallism. Suppose two vessels capable of expansion and contraction
to a considerable degree, under the operation of forces which act
entirely independently of each other, so that the variations in
shape and capacity of each may have all conceivable relations to the
corresponding variations of the other. Suppose further that each is fed
by a stream of water, each stream being variable in its flow and the
variations of each having all possible relations to the variations of
the other. The fluctuations in capacity may represent fluctuations of
demand, and the fluctuations of inflow, fluctuations of supply. Would
the water in the two vessels stand at the same level except temporarily
and accidentally, even though the two vessels were connected by a tube?
The analogy of the connecting tube could not be admitted even then,
because it brings into play the natural law of the equilibrium of
fluids, to which the legal tie between the metals is not analogous. If
we desire to make the analogy approximately just, in this respect, we
may suppose that each vessel has an outlet and that a man is stationed
to open the outlet of the vessel in which the water is at the higher
point so as to try to keep them both at a level. It is evident that his
utmost vigilance would be unavailing to secure the object proposed. I
do not borrow the analogy or adopt it. I only show how inadequate it
is, in the form proposed.

There is another group of propositions which have many advocates
amongst us, of which something ought to be said--propositions of those
who want to use silver as a legal tender at its value, under some
scheme or other. Some want a public declaration, by appointed persons,
from time to time, of the market value. Any such plan would throw on
the officers in question a responsibility which would be onerous in the
extreme, so much so that no one could or would discharge it; and it
would introduce a mischievous element of speculation into the payment
of all debts. It is, besides, open to the objections which may be
adduced against the other plan, which is to have either coins or bars
of silver, assayed and stamped, legal tender for debts at the market
quotation. Here we need to remember the definition of legal tender
given at the outset. If these silver coins and bars are convenient for
the purpose they will come into use by custom and consent at their
value. If they really pass at their market value, there will be no
advantage to the debtor. One who has silver and wants to pay a debt
can do so at its value by selling the silver. In this sense every man
who produces wheat, cotton, iron, or personal services, pays his debts
with them at their value. One who produced something else than silver
would have no object in selling it for silver, to pay his debt with at
the value of silver. He would have the trouble of another transaction,
he would have to buy silver at its selling price, and the creditor to
whom he paid it would have to sell it for money at the broker’s buying
price, with no advantage to either, but only to the broker. If silver
passes at its value, legal tender has no force for it; if it is to have
forced circulation in some way, it will help the debtor, as all forced
circulation does, by enabling him to keep part of what he borrowed. If
then these schemes really mean that silver shall pass at its value,
they are of no use. It does so now. If they mean that silver shall be
enabled to pay debts in some other way than iron, wheat, cotton, etc.,
then we know what we are dealing with. There is just as much reason why
the government should pay for elevators and issue certificates of the
amount and quality of grain, which should be legal tender, as there is
why it should assay and stamp silver for that purpose, and issue notes
for it. These cases only serve to bring out the distinction between
money and merchandise, and to show that the perfection of money does
not lie in the direction of a multiple legal tender, but of a single
standard, as sharp and definite as possible. Such a standard has the
same advantages in exchange as the most accurate measures of length and
weight have in surveying or in chemistry, and it is turning backward
the progress of monetary science to introduce fluctuations and doubt
into the standard of value, just as it would be to cultivate inaccuracy
in weights and measures.

Here I am forced to notice another hasty and mischievous analogy. Some
devices for composite measures of length have been adopted to avoid
contraction and expansion, and it is urged that bimetallic money is
a step in the same direction. I by no means assert that science can
do nothing to reach a better standard of value than gold is. What
progress in that direction may lie in the future no one can tell, and
he would be rash who should ever presume to deny that progress can be
made; but when any proposition is presented it will have to show what
composite measures of length show, _viz._, that its action is founded
on natural laws. Heat and cold act oppositely on the components of
the composite measures of length, or the arrangement is such that the
action of the natural forces neutralizes. No such scientific principle
underlies bimetallic money. The forces determining the value of gold
and silver act independently of each other and are not subject to
common influences. They are complex, moreover, and their effects are
not uniform in their different degrees. Therefore this analogy also
fails.

The opinion that a concurrent circulation is not possible has led
several of the leading nations of Europe (and, at the time of writing
such is still the system of the United States) to adopt the plan of a
permanently false rating of gold and silver, so as to use silver as a
subsidiary coinage. Silver is permanently overrated, so that it obtains
currency above its bullion value. If the civilized nations want to use
silver for money, so that the total amount of metallic money in the
Western world shall be greater than the amount of gold, and if they
are not satisfied with the use of it as subsidiary, then there is only
one way left, and that is for some nations to use gold and some to use
silver. This was the solution of the bimetallic difficulty which China
was forced to adopt a thousand years ago. Some provinces used iron and
some copper. The question then arises as to who will take silver. This
brings me to the last point of which I have to speak.

I have discussed my subject as if gold and silver stood on the same
level of desirability for money, and as if there were no choice of
convenience between them. Such is not the case in fact. It will be
observed that gold and silver never have been used together. Gold has
generally been subsidiary, being employed for large transactions. With
the advance of prices and the increase in variety of commodities,
as well as in the magnitude of transactions, nations have passed
from copper money to silver and from silver to gold. This advance is
dictated by convenience. Silver is no longer as convenient a money for
civilized industrial and commercial nations as gold. We therefore see
them gradually abandoning silver, and we saw the Latin Union set up a
bar against silver so soon as the operation of the double legal tender
threatened to take away gold and give it silver. Whether this movement
from silver to gold can be accomplished without financial convulsions
I am not prepared to say, especially in view of the extent to which
the nations have depreciated gold by paper issues, but I regard the
movement as one which must inevitably go forward. The nations which
step into the movement first will lose least on the silver they have
to sell. The nations which use silver until the last will lose most
upon it, because they will find no one to take it off their hands. If
we now abandon the gold standard and buy the cast-off silver of the
nations which have been using it and are now anxious to get rid of
it, we voluntarily subject ourselves to that loss, which we are in no
respect called upon to share. The Dutch at New York kept up the use
of wampum longer than the English in New England. When the Yankees
were trying to get rid of it, they carried it to New York, adding some
which they manufactured for the purpose, and they carried the goods
of the Dutchmen away. The latter then found that they held a currency
which they could only get rid of at great loss and delay to the Indians
north and west of them. The Yankees thus early earned a reputation
for smartness. The measure now proposed is a complete parallel, only
that now this nation proposes to take the rôle of the Dutch. We shall
have to give our capital for silver, and after we have suffered from
years of experience with a tool of exchange inferior to that which
our neighbors are using, we shall have to get rid of it and buy the
best. Then we shall incur the loss--to all those who have anything--of
the difference between the capital we gave and that which we can get
for the silver. The dreams of getting silver and keeping gold too,
so as to have a concurrent circulation, are all vain. At the rating
proposed there is no difference of opinion on this point amongst any
persons at all qualified to give an opinion. The real significance of
the propositions before the country is to make us one of the nations
to take silver in the distribution I have described. The notion of
a coinage union is impracticable. It would be easier to get up an
international union to do away with war. England is perfectly satisfied
with her money. She appreciates the peril of monetary experiments
and will make none. Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Holland
have just changed from silver to gold, and will not enter on any new
changes for a long period, if ever. The coinage union is therefore out
of the question. The issue before us is simply whether we, being a
gold nation, will, under these circumstances, abandon gold and take up
silver. No doubt the nations which want gold would be very glad to have
us do it. We should render them a great service; we should, however, do
ourselves great harm, as much so as if we should buy a lot of cast-off
machinery from them. They are waiting to see whether we are ignorant
and foolish enough to put ourselves in this position; and when they
have seen, we shall hear no more of the coinage union.

I have now presented the views to which my study of this question
has led me. It will be perceived that I direct my attack against
the postulate of all the bimetallic theories. I have carefully
discriminated between the alternate standard and bimetallism. I have
said little about the former. It is very much a matter of opinion
whether it would work or not. I do not believe that it would, under
a coinage union, but I should not feel forced to take strong ground
against any one who held the contrary opinion. My subject has been
a concurrent circulation of gold and silver, and I have tried to
controvert the notion that any such thing is possible, with or without
a coinage union, because that notion contradicts the first great law
of economic science. If that notion is true, then there is no science
of political economy at all; there are no laws to be found out, a
professional economist has nothing to teach, and he might better try
to find some useful occupation. If that notion is true, we have no
ground on which to criticize the Congressmen who are trying to pass the
silver bill. We cannot predict any consequences or draw any inferences
from past experience. If legislation can control value for definite
results, then the whole matter is purely empirical. In that case, the
Congressional experiment may turn out well for all the grounds we have
to assert the contrary; its success would only be questionable, not
impossible; if it failed it would not be because its supporters had
attempted the impossible, but because they had not used sufficient
means. They could go on to try the experiment again and again in other
forms and with other means, and they would indeed be doing right to
proceed with their experiments, like the old alchemists, in the hope
of hitting it at last. No economist would have any ground upon which
to step in and define the limits of the possible, or to prescribe
the conditions of success, or to set forth the methods which must be
pursued--if he could not appeal with confidence to the laws of his
science as something to which legislature as well as individuals must
bend. Therefore one who holds the views I have expressed in regard to
economic forces, laws, and phenomena is compelled, as well by his faith
in his science as by the public interests now at stake in the question,
to maintain that a concurrent circulation of gold and silver, either
with or without a coinage union, is impossible.




THE INFLUENCE OF COMMERCIAL CRISES ON OPINIONS ABOUT ECONOMIC DOCTRINES

[1879]


Any one who follows the current literature about economic subjects
will perceive that it is so full of contradictions as to create a
doubt whether there are any economic laws, or whether, if there are
any, we know anything about them. No body of men ever succeeded in
molding the opinions of others by wrangling with each other, and that
is the present attitude in which the economists present themselves
before the public. Like other people who engage in wrangling, the
economists have also allowed their method to degenerate from argument
to abuse, contempt, and sneering disparagement of each other. The
more superficial and self-sufficient the opinions and behavior of the
disputants, the more absolutely they abandon sober arguments and devote
themselves to the method I have described. As I have little taste for
this kind of discussion and believe that it only degrades the science
of which I am a student, I have taken no part in it. In answer to your
invitation, now, what I propose to do is to call your attention to some
features of the economic situation of civilized nations at the present
time with a view to establish two points:

1. To explain the vacillation and feebleness of opinions about economic
doctrine which mark the present time, and

2. To show the necessity, just at this time, of calm and sober
apprehension of sound doctrine in political economy.

At the outset let me ask you to notice the effects which have been
produced during the last century by the developments of science and
of the industrial arts. Formerly, industry was pursued on a small
scale, with little or no organization. Markets were limited to small
districts, and commerce was confined to raw materials and colonial
products. Producer and consumer met face to face. The conditions of
the market were open to personal inspection. The relations of supply
and demand were matters of personal experience. Production was carried
on for orders only in many branches of industry, so that supply
and demand were fitted to one another, as we may say, physically.
Disproportionate production was, therefore, prevented and the necessity
of redistributing productive effort was made plain by the most direct
personal experience. Under such a state of things, much time must
elapse between the formation of a wish and its realization.

Within a century very many and various forces have been at work to
produce an entire change in this system of industry. The invention
of the steam engine and of the machines used in the textile fabrics
produced the factory system, with a high organization of industry,
concentrated at certain centers. The opening of canals and the
improvement of highways made possible the commerce by which the
products were distributed. The cheapening of printing and the
multiplication of means of advertising widened the market by
concentrating the demand which was widely dispersed in place, until
now the market is the civilized world. The applications of steam power
to roads and ships only extended further the same development, and the
telegraph has only cheapened and accelerated the means of communicating
information to the same end.

What have been the effects on industry?

1. The whole industry and commerce of the world have been built up into
a great system in which organization has become essential and in which
it has been carried forward and is being carried forward every day to
new developments. Industry has been growing more and more impersonal
as far as the parties to it are concerned. Our wants are satisfied
instantaneously and regularly by the coöperation of thousands of people
all over the world whom we have never seen or heard of; and we earn
our living daily by contributing to satisfy the wants of thousands
scattered all over the world, of whom we know nothing personally. In
the place of actual contact and acquaintance with the persons who are
parties to the transactions, we now depend upon the regularity, under
the conditions of earthly life, of human wants and human efforts. The
system of industry is built upon the constancy of certain conditions of
human existence, upon the certainty of the economic forces which thence
arise, and upon the fact that those forces act with perfect regularity
under changeless laws. If we but reflect a moment, we shall see that
modern industry and commerce could not go on for a day if we were not
dealing here with forces and laws which may properly be called natural
because they come into action when the conditions are fulfilled,
because the conditions cannot but exist if there is a society of human
beings collected anywhere on earth, and because, when the forces come
into action, they work themselves out, according to their laws, without
possible escape from their effects. We can divert the forces from one
course to another; we can change their form; we can make them expend
themselves upon one person or interest instead of upon another. We do
this all the time, by bad legislation, by prejudice, habit, fashion,
erroneous notions of equity, happiness, the highest good, and so on;
but we never destroy an economic force any more than we destroy a
physical force.

2. Of course it follows that success in the production of wealth under
this modern system depends primarily on the correctness with which
men learn the character of economic forces and of the laws under
which those forces act. This is the field of the science of political
economy, and it is the reason why it is a science. It investigates
the laws of forces which are natural, not arbitrary, artificial, or
conventional. Some communities have developed a great hatred for
persons who held different religious opinions from themselves. Such a
feeling would be a great social force, but it would be arbitrary and
artificial. Many communities have held that all labor, not mental, was
slavish and degrading. This notion, too, was conventional, but it was
a great social force where it existed. Such notions, either past or
present, are worth studying for historical interest and instruction,
but they do not afford the basis for a science whose object is to find
out what is true in regard to the relations of man to the world in
which he lives. The study of them throws a valuable sidelight on the
true relations of human life, just as the study of error always throws
a sidelight upon the truth, but they have no similarity to the law
that men want the maximum of satisfaction for the minimum of effort,
or to the law of the diminishing return from land, or to the law of
population, or to the law of supply and demand. Nothing can be gained,
therefore, by mixing up history and science, valuable as one is to the
other. If men try to carry on any operation without an intelligent
theory of the forces with which they are dealing, they inevitably
become the victims of the operation, not its masters. Hence they always
do try to form some theory of the forces in question and to plan the
means to the end accordingly. The forces of nature go on and are true
only to themselves. They never swerve out of pity for innocent error
or well-intentioned mistakes. This is as true of economic forces as of
any others. What is meant by a good or a bad investment, except that
one is based on a correct judgment of forces and the other on incorrect
judgment? How would sagacity, care, good judgment, and prudence meet
their reward if the economic forces swerved out of pity for error? We
know that there is no such thing in the order of nature.

I repeat, then, that the modern industrial and commercial system,
dealing as it does with vast movements which no one mind can follow
or compass in their ramifications and which are kept in harmony by
natural laws, demands steadily advancing, clear, and precise knowledge
of economic laws; that this knowledge must banish prejudices and
traditions; that it must conquer baseless enthusiasms and whimsical
hopes. If it does not accomplish this, we can expect but one
result--that men will chase all sorts of phantoms and impossible hopes;
that they will waste their efforts upon schemes which can only bring
loss; and that some will run one way and some another until society
loses all coherence, all unanimity of judgment as to what is to be
sought and how to attain to it. The destruction of capital is only the
least of the evils to be apprehended in such a case. I do not believe
that we begin to appreciate one effect of the new civilization of
the nineteenth century, _viz._, that the civilized world of to-day
is a unit, that it must move as a whole, that with the means we have
devised of a common consent in regard to the ends of human life and
the means of attaining them has come also the _necessity_ that we
should move onward in civilization by a common consent. The barriers of
race, religion, language, and nationality are melting away under the
operation of the same forces which have to such an extent annihilated
the obstacles of distance and time. Civilization is constantly becoming
more uniform. The conquests of some become at once the possession of
all. It follows that our scientific knowledge of the laws which govern
the life of men in society must keep pace with this development or we
shall find our social tasks grow faster than our knowledge of social
science, and our society will break to pieces under the burden. How,
then, is this scientific knowledge to grow? Certainly not without
controversy, but certainly also not without coherent, steady, and
persistent effort, proceeding on the lines already cut, breaking new
ground when possible, correcting old errors when necessary.

3. It is another feature of the modern industrial system that, like
every high organization, it requires men of suitable ability and
skill at its head. The qualities which are required for a great
banker, merchant, or manufacturer are as rare as any other great
gifts among men, and the qualities demanded, or the degree in which
they are demanded, are increasing every day with the expansion of the
modern industrial system. The qualities required are those of the
practical man, properly so called: sagacity, good judgment, prudence,
boldness, and energy. The training, both scientific and practical,
which is required for a great master of industry is wide and various.
The great movements of industry, like all other great movements,
present subordinate phenomena which are apparently opposed to, or
inconsistent with their great tendencies and their general character.
These phenomena, being smaller in scope, more directly subject to
observation and therefore apparently more distinct and positive, are
well calculated to mislead the judgment, either of the practical
man or of the scientific student. In nothing, therefore, does the
well-trained man distinguish himself from the ill-trained man more than
in the balance of judgment by which he puts phenomena in their true
relative position and refuses to be led astray by what is incidental
or subsidiary. If, now, the question is asked, whether we have
produced a class of highly trained men, competent to organize labor,
transportation, commerce, and banking, on the scale required by the
modern system, as rapidly as the need for them has increased, I believe
no one will answer in the affirmative.

4. Another observation to which we are led upon noticing the character
of the modern industrial system is that any errors or follies committed
in one portion of it will produce effects which will ramify through
the whole system. We have here an industrial organism, not a mere
mechanical combination, and any disturbance in one part of it will
derange or vitiate, more or less, the whole. The phenomena which here
appear belong to what has been called fructifying causation. One
economic error produces fruits which combine with those of another
economic error, and the product of the two is not their sum, nor even
their simple product, but the evil may be raised to a very high power
by the combination. If a number of errors fall together the mischief
is increased accordingly. Currency and tariff errors constantly react
upon each other, and multiply and develop each other in this way.
Furthermore, the errors of one nation will be felt in other nations
through the relations of commerce and credit which are now so close.
There is no limit to the interest which civilized nations have in
each other’s economic and political wisdom, for they all bear the
consequences of each other’s follies. Hence when we have to deal with
that form of economic disease which we call a commercial crisis, we
may trace its origin to special errors in one country and in another,
and may trace out the actions and reactions by which the effects have
been communicated from one to another until shared by all; but no
philosophy of a great commercial crisis is adequate nowadays unless it
embraces in its scope the whole civilized world. A commercial crisis
is a disturbance in the harmonious operation of the parts of the
industrial organism. During economic health, the system moves smoothly
and harmoniously, expanding continually, and its health and vigor
are denoted by its growth, that is, by the accumulation of capital,
which stimulates in its turn the hope, energy, and enterprise of
men. Industrial disease is produced by disproportionate production,
a wrong distribution of labor, erroneous judgment in enterprise, or
miscalculations of force. These all have the same effect, _viz._, to
waste and destroy capital. Such causes disturb, in a greater or less
degree, the harmonious working of the system, which depends upon the
regular and exact fulfillment of the expectations which have been
based on coöperative effort throughout the whole industrial body. The
disturbance may be slight and temporary, or it may be very serious.
In the latter case it will be necessary to arrest the movement of the
whole system and to proceed to a general liquidation, before starting
again. Such was the case from 1837 to 1842, and such has been the case
for the last five years. It is needless to add that this arrest and
liquidation cannot be accomplished without distress and loss to great
numbers of innocent persons, and great positive loss of capital, to say
nothing of what might have been won during the same period but must be
foregone.

The financial organization is the medium by which the various parts of
the industrial and commercial organism are held in harmony. It is by
the financial organization that capital is collected and distributed,
that the friction of exchanges is reduced to a minimum, and that time
is economized, through credit, between production and consumption.
The financial system furnishes three indicators--prices, the rate
of discount, and the foreign exchanges--through which we may read
the operation of economic forces now that their magnitude makes it
impossible to inspect them directly. Hence the great mischief of
usury laws which tamper with the rate of discount, and of fluctuating
currencies which falsify prices and the foreign exchanges. They destroy
the value of the indicators, and have the same effect as tampering with
the scales of a chemist or the steam-gauge of a locomotive.

In the matter of prices we have another difficulty to contend with,
which is inevitable in the nature of things. We must choose some
commodity to be the denominator of value. We can find no commodity
which is not itself subject to fluctuation in its ratio of exchange
with other things. Great crises have been caused in past times by
fluctuations in the value of the commodities chosen as money, and such
an element is, no doubt, at hand in the present crisis, although it had
nothing to do with bringing it about. It follows that any improvement
in the world’s money is worth any sacrifice which it can possibly cost,
if it tends to secure a more simple, exact, and unchanging standard of
value.

The next point of which I wish to speak is easily introduced by the
last remark; that point is the cost of all improvement. The human
race has made no step whatever in civilization which has not been won
by pain and distress. It wins no steps now without paying for them
in sacrifices. To notice only things which are directly pertinent to
our present purpose: every service which we win from nature displaces
the acquired skill of the men who formerly performed the service;
every such step is a gain to the race, but it imposes on some men the
necessity of finding new means of livelihood, and if those men are
advanced in life, this necessity may be harsh in the extreme. Every new
machine, although it saves labor, and because it saves labor, serves
the human race, yet destroys a vested interest of some laborers in the
work which it performs. It imposes on them the necessity of turning to
a new occupation, and this is hardly ever possible without a period of
distress. It very probably throws them down from the rank of skilled to
that of unskilled labor. Every new machine also destroys capital. It
makes useless the half-worn-out machines which it supersedes. So canals
caused capital which was invested in turnpikes and state coaches to
depreciate, and so railroads have caused the capital invested in canals
and other forms to depreciate. I see no exception to the rule that the
progress won by the race is always won at the expense of some group of
its members.

Any one who will look back upon the last twenty-five years cannot
fail to notice that the changes, advances, and improvements have been
numerous and various. We are accustomed to congratulate each other
upon them. There can be no doubt that they must and will contribute
to the welfare of the human race beyond what any one can now possibly
foresee or measure. I am firmly convinced, for my opinion, that the
conditions of wealth and civilization for the next quarter of a century
are provided for in excess of any previous period of history, and that
nothing but human folly can prevent a period of prosperity which we,
even now, should regard as fabulous. We can throw it away if we are
too timid, if we become frightened at the rate of our own speed, or if
we mistake the phenomena of a new era for the approach of calamity,
or if the nations turn back to mediæval darkness and isolation, or if
we elevate the follies and ignorances of the past into elements of
economic truth, or if, instead of pursuing liberty with full faith and
hope, the civilized world becomes the arena of a great war of classes
in which all civilization must be destroyed. But, such follies apart,
the conditions of prosperity are all provided.

We must notice, however, that these innovations have fallen with great
rapidity upon a vast range of industries, that they have accumulated
their effects, that they have suddenly altered the currents of trade
and the methods of industry, and that we have hardly learned to
accommodate ourselves to one new set of circumstances before a newer
change or modification has been imposed. Some inventions, of which the
Bessemer steel is the most remarkable example, have revolutionized
industries. Some new channels of commerce have been opened which have
changed the character and methods of very important branches of
commerce. We have also seen a movement of several nations to secure a
gold currency, which movement fell in with a large if not extraordinary
production of silver and altered the comparative demand and supply of
the two metals at the same time. This movement had nothing arbitrary
about it, but proceeded from sound motives and reasons in the interest
of the nations which took this step. There is here no ground for
condemnation or approval. Such action by sovereign nations is taken
under liberty and responsibility to themselves alone, and if it is
taken on a sufficiently large scale to form an event of importance to
the civilized world, it must be regarded as a step in civilization.
It can only be criticized by history. For the present, it is to be
accepted and interpreted only as an indication that there are reasons
and motives of self-interest which can lead a large part of the
civilized world to this step at this time.

The last twenty-five years have also included political events which
have had great effects on industry. Our Civil War caused an immense
destruction of capital and left a large territory with millions of
inhabitants almost entirely ruined in its industry, and with its labor
system exposed to the necessity of an entire re-formation. Part of the
expenditures and losses of the war were postponed and distributed by
means of the paper currency which, instead of imposing industry and
economy to restore the losses and waste, created the foolish belief
that we could make war and get rich by it. The patriotic willingness
of the nation to be taxed was abused to impose taxes for protection,
not for revenue, so that the industry of the country was distorted and
forced into unnatural development. The collapse of 1873, followed by
a fall in prices and a general liquidation, was due to the fact that
every one knew in his heart that the state of things which had existed
for some years before was hollow and fictitious. Confidence failed
because every one knew that there were no real grounds for confidence.
The Franco-Prussian war had, also, while it lasted, produced a period
of false and feverish prosperity in England. It was succeeded by great
political changes in Germany which, together with the war indemnity,
led to a sudden and unfounded expansion of speculation, amounting to
a mania. Germany undoubtedly stands face to face with a new political
and industrial future, but she has postponed it by a headlong effort to
realize it at once. In France, too, the war was followed by a hasty,
and, as we are told, unwise extension of permanent capital, planned
to meet the extraordinary demand of an empty market. In England the
prosperity of 1870–1872 has been followed as usual by developments of
unsound credit, bad banking, and needless investments in worthless
securities.

Here then we have, in a brief and inadequate statement, circumstances
in all these great industrial nations peculiar to each, yet certainly
sufficient to account for a period of reaction and distress. We have
also before us great features of change in the world’s industry and
commerce which must ultimately produce immeasurable advantages,
but which may well, operating with local causes, produce temporary
difficulty; and we have to notice also that the local causes react
through the commercial and credit relations of nations to distribute
the evil.

It is not surprising, under such a state of things, that some people
should lose their heads and begin to doubt the economic doctrines
which have been most thoroughly established. It belongs to the
symptoms of disease to lose confidence in the laws of health and to
have recourse to quack remedies. I have already observed that certain
phenomena appear in every great social movement which are calculated
to deceive by apparent inconsistency or divergence. Hence we have seen
the economists, instead of holding together and sustaining, at the
time when it was most needed, both the scientific authority and the
positive truth of their doctrines, break up and run hither and thither,
some of them running away altogether. Many of them seem to be terrified
to find that distress and misery still remain on earth and promise to
remain as long as the vices of human nature remain. Many of them are
frightened at liberty, especially under the form of competition, which
they elevate into a bugbear. They think that it bears harshly on the
weak. They do not perceive that here “the strong” and “the weak” are
terms which admit of no definition unless they are made equivalent to
the industrious and the idle, the frugal and the extravagant. They
do not perceive, furthermore, that if we do not like the survival of
the fittest, we have only one possible alternative, and that is the
survival of the unfittest. The former is the law of civilization; the
latter is the law of anti-civilization. We have our choice between the
two, or we can go on, as in the past, vacillating between the two,
but a third plan--the socialist desideratum--a plan for nourishing
the unfittest and yet advancing in civilization, no man will ever
find. Some of the crude notions, however, which have been put forward
surpass what might reasonably have been expected. These have attached
themselves to branches of the subject which it is worth while to notice.

1. As the change in the relative value of the precious metals is by
far the most difficult and most important of the features of this
period, it is quite what we might have expected that the ill-trained
and dilettante writers should have pounced upon it as their special
prey. The dabblers in philology never attempt anything less than the
problem of the origin of language. Every teacher knows that he has to
guard his most enthusiastic pupils against precipitate attempts to
solve the most abstruse difficulties of the science. The change in the
value of the precious metals which is going on will no doubt figure in
history as one of the most important events in the economic history of
this century. It will undoubtedly cost much inconvenience and loss to
those who are in the way of it, or who get in the way of it. It will,
when the currency changes connected with it are accomplished, prove a
great gain to the whole commercial world. The nations which make the
change do so because it is important for their interests to do it.
Now, suppose that it were possible for those who are frightened at the
immediate and temporary inconveniences, to arrest the movement--the
only consequence would be that they would arrest and delay the
inevitable march of improvement in the industrial system.

2. The second field, which is an especial favorite with the class of
writers which I have described, is that of prognostications as to what
developments of the economic system lie in the future. Probably every
one has notions about this and every one who has to conduct business or
make investments is forced to form judgments about it. There is hardly
a field of economic speculation, however, which is more barren.

3. The third field into which these writers venture by preference is
that of remedies for existing troubles. The popular tide of medicine is
always therapeutics, and the less one knows of anatomy and physiology
the more sure he is to address himself exclusively to this department,
and to rely upon empirical remedies. The same procedure is followed
in social science, and it is accompanied by the same contempt for
scientific doctrine and knowledge and remedies. To bring out the points
which here seem to me important, it will be necessary to go back for a
moment to some facts which I have already described.

One of the chief characteristics of the great improvements in
industry, which have been described, is that they bring about new
distributions of population. If machinery displaces laborers engaged
in manufactures, these laborers are driven to small shopkeeping, if
they have a little capital; or to agricultural labor, if they have no
capital. Improvements in commerce will destroy a local industry and
force the laborers to find a new industry or to change their abode.
When forces of this character coöperate on a grand scale, they may
and do produce very important redistributions of population. In like
manner legislation may, as tariff legislation does, draw population to
certain places, and its repeal may force them to unwelcome change. We
may state the fact in this way: let us suppose that, in 1850, out of
every hundred laborers in the population, the economical distribution
was such that fifty should be engaged in agriculture, thirty in
manufacturing, and the other twenty in other pursuits. That is to
say that, with the machinery and appliances then available, thirty
manufacturing laborers could use the raw materials and food produced
by fifty agricultural laborers so as to occupy all to the highest
advantage. Now suppose that, by improvements in the arts, twenty men
could, in 1880, use to the best advantage the raw materials and food
produced by sixty in agriculture. It is evident that a redistribution
would be necessary by which ten should be turned from manufacturing to
land. That such a change has been produced within the last thirty years
and that it has reached a point at which is setting in the counter
movement to the former tendency from the land to the cities and towns,
seems to me certain. There are even indications of great changes going
on in the matter of distribution which will correct the loss and waste
involved in the old methods of distribution long before any of the
fancy plans for correcting them can be realized, and which are setting
free both labor and capital in that department. Now if we can economize
labor and capital in manufacturing, transportation, and distribution,
and turn this labor and capital back upon the soil, we must vastly
increase wealth, for that movement would enlarge the stream of wealth
from its very source.

Right here, however, we need to make two observations.

1. The modern industrial system which I have described, with its high
organization and fine division of labor, has one great drawback. The
men, or groups of men, are dissevered from one another, their interests
are often antagonistic, and the changes which occur take the form of
conflicts of interest. I mean this: if a shoemaker worked alone, using
a small capital of his own in tools and stock, and working for orders,
he would have directly before him the facts of the market. He would
find out without effort or reflection when “trade fell off,” when there
was risk of not replacing his capital, when the course of fashion or
competition called upon him to find other occupation, and so on. When a
journeyman shoemaker works for wages, he pays no heed to these things.
The employer, feeling them, has no recourse but to lower wages. It is
by this measure that, under the higher organization, the need of new
energy, or of a change of industry, or of a change of place is brought
home to the workman. To him, however, it seems an arbitrary and cruel
act of the master. Hence follow trade wars and strikes as an especial
phenomenon of the modern system. It is just because it is a system,
or more properly still, an organism, that the readjustments which are
necessary from time to time in order to keep its parts in harmonious
activity, and to keep it in harmony with physical surroundings, are
brought about through this play of the parts on each other.

2. A general movement of labor and capital towards land, throughout the
civilized world, means a great migration towards the new countries.
This does not by any means imply the abandonment or decay of older
countries, as some have seemed to believe. On the contrary, it means
new prosperity for them. When I read that the United States are about
to feed the world, not only with wheat and provisions, but with meat
also, that they are to furnish coal and iron to mankind, that they
are to displace all the older countries as exporters of manufactures,
that they are to furnish the world’s supply of the precious metals,
and I know not what all besides, I am forced to ask what is the rest
of the world going to do for us? What are they to give us besides
tea, coffee, and sugar? Not ships, for we will not take them and are
ambitious to carry away all our products ourselves. Certainly this is
the most remarkable absurdity into which we have been led by forgetting
that trade is an exchange. Neither can any one well expect that all
mankind are to come and live here. The conditions of a large migration
do, however, seem to exist. A migration of population is still a very
unpopular idea in all the older states. The prejudice against it is
apparent amongst Liberals and Tories, economists and sentimentalists.
There is, however, a condition which is always suppressed in stating
the social problem as it presents itself in hard times. That problem,
as stated, is: “How are the population to find means of support?” and
the suppressed condition is: “if they insist on staying and seeking
support where they are and in pursuits to which they are accustomed.”
The hardships of change are not for one moment to be denied, but
nothing is gained by sitting down to whine about them. The sentimental
reasons for clinging to one’s birthplace may be allowed full weight,
but they cannot be allowed to counterbalance important advantages. I do
not see that any but land owners are interested to hold population in
certain places, unless possibly we add governing classes and those who
want military power. When I read declamations about nationality and the
importance of national divisions to political economy (observe that I
do not say to political science), I never can find any sense in them,
and I am very sure that the writers never put any sense into them.

We may now return to consider the remedies proposed for hard times. We
shall see that although they are quack remedies, and although they set
at defiance all the economic doctrines which have been so laboriously
established during the last century, they are fitted to meet the
difficulty as it presents itself to land owners, governments, military
powers, socialists, and sentimentalists. The tendency is towards an
industrial system controlled by a natural coöperation far grander than
anybody has ever planned, towards a community of interest and welfare
far more beneficent than any universal republic or fraternity of labor
which the Internationalists hope for, and towards a free and peaceful
rivalry amongst nations in the arts of civilization. It is necessary to
stop this tendency. What are the means proposed?

1. The first is to put a limit to civil liberty. By civil liberty (for
I feel at once the need of defining this much-abused word) I mean the
status which is created for an individual by those institutions which
guarantee him the use of his own powers for his own development. For
three or four centuries now, the civilized world has been struggling
towards the realization of this civil liberty. Progress towards it has
been hindered by the notion that liberty was some vague abstraction,
or an emancipation from some of the hard conditions of human life,
from which men never can be emancipated while they live on this earth.
Civil liberty has also been confused with political activity or share
in civil government. Political activity itself, however, is only a
means to an end, and is valuable because it is necessary to secure to
the individual free exercise of his powers to produce and exchange
according to his own choice and his own conception of happiness, and
to secure him also that the products of his labor shall be applied
to his satisfaction and not to that of any others. When we come to
understand civil liberty for what it is, we shall probably go forward
to realize it more completely. It will then appear that it begins and
ends with freedom of production, freedom of exchange, and security of
property. It will then appear also that governments depart from their
prime and essential function when they undertake to transfer property
instead of securing it, and it may then be understood that legal tender
laws, and protective tariffs as amongst the last and most ingenious
devices for transferring one man’s product to another man’s use, are
gross violations of civil liberty. At present the attempt is being
made to decry liberty, to magnify the blunders and errors of men in
the pursuit of happiness into facts which should be made the basis of
generalizations about the functions of government, and to present the
phenomena of the commercial crisis as reasons for putting industry once
more in leading strings. It is only a new foe with an old face. Those
who have held the leading strings of industry in time past have always
taken rich pay for their services, and they will do it again.

2. The second form of remedy proposed is quite consistent with the
last. It consists in rehabilitating the old and decaying superstition
of government. It is called the state, and all kinds of poetical and
fanciful attributes are ascribed to it. It is presented, of course,
as a superior power, able and ready to get us out of trouble. If
an individual is in trouble, he has to help himself or secure the
help of friends as best he can, but if a group of persons are in
trouble together, they constitute a party, a power, and begin to make
themselves felt in the state. The state has no means of helping them
except by enabling them to throw the risks and losses of their business
upon other people who already have the burdens and losses of their
own business to bear, but who are less well organized. The “state”
assumes to judge what is for the public interest and imposes taxes or
interferes with contracts to force individuals to the course which
will realize what it has set before itself. When, however, all the fine
phrases are stripped away, it appears that the state is only a group
of men with human interests, passions, and desires, or, worse yet,
the state is, as somebody has said, only an obscure clerk hidden in
some corner of a governmental bureau. In either case the assumption of
superhuman wisdom and virtue is proved false. The state is only a part
of the organization of society in and for itself. That organization
secures certain interests and provides for certain functions which are
important but which would otherwise be neglected. The task of society,
however, has always been and is yet, to secure this organization,
and yet to prevent the man in whose hands public power must at last
be lodged from using it to plunder the governed--that is, to destroy
liberty. This is what despots, oligarchs, aristocrats, and democrats
always have done, and the latest development is only a new form of the
old abuse. The abuses have always been perpetrated in the name of the
public interest. It was for the public interest to support the throne
and the altar. It was for the public interest to sustain privileged
classes, to maintain an established church, standing armies, and the
passport and police system. Now, it is for the public interest to have
certain industries carried on, and the holders of the state power
apportion their favor without rule or reason, without responsibility,
and without any return service. In the end, therefore, the high
function of the state to regulate the industrial organization in the
public interest is simply that the governing group interferes to make
some people give the products of their labor to other people to use
and enjoy. Every one sees the evils of the state meddling with his
own business and thinks that he ought to be let alone in it, but he
sees great public interests which would be served if the state would
interfere to make other people do what he wants to have them do.

Now if these two measures could be carried out--if liberty
could be brought into misapprehension and contempt, and if the
state-superstition could be saved from the decay to which it is doomed,
the movements of population and the changes in industry, commerce, and
finance, could be arrested. The condemnation of all such projects is,
once and for all, that they would arrest the march of civilization. The
joy and the fears which have been aroused on one side and on the other
by the reactionary propositions which have been made during the last
five years are both greatly exaggerated. Such reactionary propositions
are in the nature of things at such a time. It must be expected
that the pressure of distress and disappointed hopes will produce
passionate reaction and senseless outcries. From such phenomena to
actual practical measures is a long step. Every step towards practical
realization of any reactionary measures will encounter new and
multiplying obstacles. A war of tariffs at this time would so fly in
the face of all the tendencies of commerce and industry that it would
only hasten the downfall of all tariffs. Purely retaliatory tariffs are
a case of what the children call “cutting off your nose to spite your
face.” Some follies have become physically impossible for great nations
nowadays. Germany has been afflicted: first, by too eager hopes,
second, by the great calamity of too many and too pedantic doctors,
third, by a declining revenue, and fourth, by socialistic agitation
amongst the new electors. It appears that she is about to abandon the
free-trade policy although she does not embrace protection with much
vigor. The project already comes in conflict with numerous and various
difficulties which had not been foreseen, and, in its execution,
it must meet with many more. The result remains to be studied.
France finds that the expiration of each treaty of commerce produces
consequences upon her industry which are unendurable, and while the
task of adjusting rival and contending interests so as to create a
new system drags along, she is compelled to ward off, by temporary
arrangements, the revival of the general tariff which the treaties had
superseded. In the meantime her economists, who are the most sober and
the best trained in the world, are opening a vigorous campaign on the
general issue. If England should think of reviving protection, she
would not know what to protect. If she wanted to retaliate, she could
only tax raw materials and food. The proposition, as soon as it is
reduced to practical form, has no footing. As for ourselves we know
that our present protective system never could have been fastened upon
us if it had not been concealed under the war legislation, and if its
effects had not been confused with those of the war. It could not last
now if the public mind could be freed from its absorption in sectional
politics, so that it would be at liberty to turn to this subject.

In conclusion, let me refer again to another important subject on
which I have touched in this paper--what we call the silver question.
It would, no doubt, be in the power of civilized nations to take
some steps which would alleviate the inconveniences connected with
the transition of several important nations from a silver to a gold
currency. For one nation, which has no share in the trouble at all,
to come forward out of “magnanimity” or any other motive to save
the world from the troubles incident to this step, is quixotic and
ridiculous. It might properly leave those who are in the trouble to
deal with it amongst themselves. Either they or all might, however, do
much to modify the effects of the change. The effort to bring about an
international union to establish a bimetallic currency at a fixed ratio
is quite another thing. It will stand in the history of our time as
the most singular folly which has gained any important adherence. As a
practical measure the international union is simply impossible. As a
scientific proposition, bimetallism is as absurd as perpetual motion.
It proposes to establish perpetual rest in the fluctuations of value of
two commodities, to do which it must extinguish the economic forces of
supply and demand of those commodities upon which value depends. The
movement of the great commercial nations towards a single gold currency
is the most important event in the monetary history of our time, and
one which nothing can possibly arrest. It produces temporary distress,
and the means of alleviating that distress are a proper subject of
consideration; but the advantages which will be obtained for all time
to come immeasurably surpass the present loss and inconvenience.

I return, then, to the propositions with which I set out. Feebleness
and vacillation in regard to economic doctrine are natural to a period
of commercial crisis, on account of the distress, uncertainty, and
disorder which then prevail in industry and trade; but that is just
the time also when a tenacious grasp of scientific principles is of
the highest importance. The human race must go forward to meet and
conquer its problems and difficulties as they arise, to bear the
penalties of its follies, and to pay the price of its acquisitions. To
shrink from this is simply to go back and to abandon civilization. The
path forward, as far as any human foresight can now reach, lies in a
better understanding and a better realization of liberty, under which
individuals and societies can work out their destiny, subject only to
the incorruptible laws of nature.




THE PHILOSOPHY OF STRIKES[41]


The progress in material comfort which has been made during the last
hundred years has not produced content. Quite the contrary: the men
of to-day are not nearly so contented with life on earth as their
ancestors were. This observation is easily explainable by familiar
facts in human nature. If satisfaction does not reach to the pitch of
satiety, it does not produce content, but discontent; it is therefore
a stimulus to more effort, and is essential to growth. If, however,
we confine our study of the observation which we have made to its
sociological aspects, we perceive that all which we call “progress”
is limited by the counter-movements which it creates, and we also see
the true meaning of the phenomena which have led some to the crude and
silly absurdity that progress makes us worse off. Progress certainly
does not make people happier, unless their mental and moral growth
corresponds to the greater command of material comfort which they win.
All that we call progress is a simple enlargement of chances, and the
question of personal happiness is a question of how the chances will
be used. It follows that if men do not grow in their knowledge of life
and in their intelligent judgment of the rules of right living as
rapidly as they gain control over physical resources, they will not win
happiness at all. They will simply accumulate chances which they do not
know how to use.

The observation which has just been made about individual happiness has
also a public or social aspect which is important. It is essential that
the political institutions, the social code, and the accepted notions
which constitute public opinion should develop in equal measure with
the increase of power over nature. The penalty of failure to maintain
due proportion between the popular philosophy of life and the increase
of material comfort will be social convulsions, which will arrest
civilization and will subject the human race to such a reaction toward
barbarism as that which followed the fall of the Roman Empire. It is
easy to see that at the present moment our popular philosophy of life
is all in confusion. The old codes are breaking down; new ones are not
yet made; and even amongst people of standing, to whom we must look to
establish the body of public opinion, we hear the most contradictory
and heterogeneous doctrines about life and society.

The growth of the United States has done a great deal to break up the
traditional codes and creeds which had been adopted in Europe. The
civilized world being divided into two parts, one old and densely
populated and the other new and thinly populated, social phenomena have
been produced which, although completely covered by the same laws of
social force, have appeared to be contradictory. The effect has been
to disturb and break up the faith of philosophers and students in the
laws, and to engender numberless fallacies amongst those who are not
careful students. The popular judgment especially has been disordered
and misled. The new country has offered such chances as no generation
of men has ever had before. It has not, however, enabled any man to
live without work, or to keep capital without thrift and prudence;
it has not enabled a man to “rise in the world” from a position of
ignorance and poverty, and at the same time to marry early, spend
freely, and bring up a large family of children.

The men of this generation, therefore, without distinction of class,
and with only individual exceptions, suffer from the discontent of an
appetite excited by a taste of luxury, but held far below satiety. The
power to appreciate a remote future good, in comparison with a present
one, is a distinguishing mark of highly civilized men, but if it is
not combined with powers of persevering industry and self-denial, it
degenerates into mere day-dreaming and the diseases of an overheated
imagination. If any number of persons are of this character, we
have morbid discontent and romantic ambition as social traits. Our
literature, especially our fiction, bears witness to the existence
of classes who are corrupted by these diseases of character. We find
classes of persons who are whining and fault-finding, and who use the
organs of public discussion and deliberation in order to put forth
childish complaints and impossible demands, while they philosophize
about life like the _Arabian Nights_. Of course this whole tone of
thought and mode of behavior is as far as possible from the sturdy
manliness which meets the problems of life and wins victories as much
by what it endures as by what it conquers.

Our American life, by its ease, exerts another demoralizing effect
on a great many of us. Hundreds of our young people grow up without
any real discipline; life is made easy for them, and their tastes and
wishes are consulted too much; they grow to maturity with the notion
that they ought to find the world only pleasant and easy. Every one
knows this type of young person, who wants to find an occupation which
he would “like,” and who discusses the drawbacks of difficulty or
disagreeableness in anything which offers. The point here referred
to is, of course, entirely different from another and still more
lamentable fact, that is, the terrible inefficiency and incapability
of a great many of the people who are complaining and begging. If any
one wants a copyist, he will be more saddened than annoyed by the
overwhelming applications for the position. The advertisements which
are to be found in the newspapers of widest circulation, offering
a genteel occupation to be carried on at home, not requiring any
previous training, by which two or three dollars a day may be earned,
are a proof of the existence of a class to which they appeal. How many
thousand people in the United States want just that kind of employment!
What a beautiful world this would be if there were any such employment!

Then, again, our social ambition is often silly and mischievous. Our
young people despise the occupations which involve physical effort or
dirt, and they struggle “up” (as we have agreed to call it) into all
the nondescript and irregular employments which are clean and genteel.
Our orators and poets talk about the “dignity of labor,” and neither
they nor we believe in it. Leisure, not labor, is dignified. Nearly
all of us, however, have to sacrifice our dignity, and labor, and it
would be to the purpose if, instead of declamation about dignity, we
should learn to respect, in ourselves and each other, work which is
good of its kind, no matter what the kind is. To spoil a good shoemaker
in order to make a bad parson is surely not going “up”; and a man who
digs well is by all sound criteria superior to the man who writes ill.
Everybody who talks to American schoolboys thinks that he does them
and his country service if he reminds them that each one of them has
a chance to be President of the United States, and our literature is
all the time stimulating the same kind of senseless social ambition,
instead of inculcating the code and the standards which should be
adopted by orderly, sober, and useful citizens.

The consequences of the observations which have now been grouped
together are familiar to us all. Population tends from the country
to the city. Mechanical and technical occupations are abandoned,
and those occupations which are easy and genteel are overcrowded.
Of course the persons in question must be allowed to take their
own choice, and seek their own happiness in their own way, but it
is inevitable that thousands of them should be disappointed and
suffer. If the young men abandon farms and trades to become clerks
and bookkeepers, the consequence will be that the remuneration of the
crowded occupations will fall, and that of the neglected occupations
will rise; if the young women refuse to do housework, and go into
shops, stores, telegraph offices and schools, the wages of the crowded
occupations will fall, while those of domestic servants advance. If
women in seeking occupation try to gain admission to some business like
telegraphing, in competition with men, they will bid under the men.
Similar effects would be produced if a leisure class in an old country
should be compelled by some social convulsion to support themselves.
They would run down the compensation for labor in the few occupations
which they could enter.

Now the question is raised whether there is any remedy for the low
wages of the crowded occupations, and the question answers itself:
there is no remedy except not to continue the causes of the evil. To
strike, that is, to say that the workers will not work in their chosen
line, yet that they will not leave it for some other line, is simply
suicide. Neither can any amount of declamation, nor even of law-making,
force a man who owns a business to submit the control of it to a man
who does not own it. The telegraphers have an occupation which requires
training and skill, but it is one which is very attractive in many
respects to those who seek manual occupation; it is also an occupation
which is very suitable, at least in many of its branches, for women.
The occupation is therefore capable of a limited monopoly. The demand
that women should be paid equally with men is, on the face of it,
just, but its real effect would be to keep women out of the business.
It was often said during the telegraphers’ strike that the demand
of the strikers was just, because their wages were less than those
of artisans. The argument has no force at all. The only question was
whether the current wages for telegraphing were sufficient to bring
out an adequate supply of telegraphers. If the growing boys prefer to
be artisans, the wages of telegraphers will rise. If, even at present
rates, boys and girls continue to prefer telegraphing to handicraft or
housework, the wages of telegraphers will fall. Could, then, a strike
advance at a blow the wages of all who are now telegraphers? There was
only one reason to hope so, and that was that the monopoly of the trade
might prove stringent enough and the public inconvenience great enough
to force a concession--which would, however, have been speedily lost
again by an increased supply of telegraphers.

Now let us ask what the state of the case would be if it was really
possible for the telegraphers to make a successful strike. They
have a very close monopoly; six years ago they nearly arrested the
transportation of the country for a fortnight; but they were unable to
effect their object. More recently the freight-handlers struck against
the competition of a new influx of foreign unskilled laborers, and
in vain. The printers might make a combination, and try to force an
advance in wages by arresting the publication of all the newspapers on
a given day, but there are so many persons who could set type, in case
of need, that such an attempt would be quite hopeless. In any branch of
ordinary handicraft there would be no possibility of creating a working
monopoly or of producing a great public calamity by a strike. If we go
on to other occupations we see that bookkeepers, clerks, and salesmen
could not as a body combine and strike; much less could teachers do
so; still less could household servants do so. Finally, farmers and
other independent workers could not do it at all. In short, a striker
is a man who says: “I mean to get my living by doing this thing and
no other thing as my share of the social effort, and I do not mean to
do this thing except on such and such terms.” He therefore proposes to
make a contract with his fellow-men and to dictate the terms of it. Any
man who can do this must be in a very exceptional situation; he must
have a monopoly of the service in question, and it must be one of which
his fellow-men have great need. If, then, the telegraphers could have
succeeded in advancing their wages fifteen per cent simply because they
had agreed to ask for the advance, they must have been far better off
than any of the rest of their fellowmen.

Our fathers taught us the old maxim: Cut your coat according to your
cloth; but the popular discussions of social questions seem to be
leading up to a new maxim: Demand your cloth according to your coat.
The fathers thought that a man in this world must do the best he
could with the means he had, and that good training and education
consisted in developing skill, sagacity, and thrift to use resources
economically; the new doctrine seems to be that if a man has been
born into this world he should make up his mind what he needs here,
formulate his demands, and present them to “society” or to the “state.”
He wants congenial and easy occupation, and good pay for it. He does
not want to be hampered by any limitations such as come from a world
in which wool grows, but not coats; in which iron ore is found, but
not weapons and tools; in which the ground will produce wheat, but
only after hard labor and self-denial; in which we cannot eat our
cake and keep it; in which two and two make only four. He wants to be
guaranteed a “market,” so as not to suffer from “overproduction.” In
private life and in personal relations we already estimate this way of
looking at things at its true value, but as soon as we are called upon
to deal with a general question, or a phenomenon of industry in which
a number of persons are interested, we adopt an entirely conventional
and unsound mode of discussion. The sound gospel of industry, prudence,
painstaking, and thrift is, of course, unpopular; we all long to be
emancipated from worry, anxiety, disappointment, and the whole train
of cares which fall upon us as we work our way through the world. Can
we really gain anything in that struggle by organizing for a battle
with each other? This is the practical question. Is there any ground
whatever for believing that we shall come to anything, by pursuing
this line of effort, which will be of any benefit to anybody? If a
man is dissatisfied with his position, let him strive to better it in
one way or another by such chances as he can find or make, and let
him inculcate in his children good habits and sound notions, so that
they may live wisely and not expose themselves to hardship by error or
folly; but every experiment only makes it more clear that for men to
band together in order to carry on an industrial war, instead of being
a remedy for disappointment in the ratio of satisfaction to effort, is
only a way of courting new calamity.




STRIKES AND THE INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION[42]


Anyone who has read with attention the current discussion of labor
topics must have noticed that writers start from assumptions, in regard
to the doctrine of wages, which are as divergent as notions on the same
subject-matter well can be. It appears, therefore, that we must have
a dogma of wages, that we cannot reason correctly about the policy or
the rights of the wages system until we have such a dogma, and that, in
the meantime, it is not strange that confusion and absurdity should be
the chief marks of discussion carried on before this prime condition is
fulfilled.

Some writers assume that wages can be raised if the prices of products
be raised, and that no particular difficulty would be experienced
in raising prices; others assume that wages could be raised if the
employers would be satisfied with smaller profits for themselves;
still others assume that wages could be raised or lowered according
as the cost of living rises or falls. These are common and popular
assumptions, and have nothing to do with the controversies of
professional economists about the doctrine of wages. The latter are a
disgrace to the science, and have the especial evil at this time that
the science cannot respond to the chief demand now made upon it.

If the employer could simply add any increase of wages to his prices,
and so recoup himself at the expense of the consumer, no employer would
hold out long against a strike. Why should he? Why should he undertake
loss, worry, and war, for the sake of the consumers behind him? If
an employer need only submit to a positive and measurable curtailment
of his profits, in order to avoid a strike and secure peace, it is
probable that he would in almost every case submit to it. But if the
employees should demand five per cent advance, and the employer should
grant it, adding so much to his prices, they would naturally and most
properly immediately demand another five per cent, to be charged to
the consumers in the same way. There would be no other course for men
of common sense to pursue. They would repeat this process until at
some point or other they found themselves arrested by some resistance
which they could not overcome. Similarly, if wages could be increased
at the expense of the employer’s gains, the employer who yielded one
increase would have to yield another, until at some point he decided to
refuse and resist. In either case, where and what would the limit be?
Whenever the point was reached at which some unconquerable resistance
was encountered, the task of the economist would begin.

There is no rule whatever for determining the share which any one ought
to get out of the distribution of products through the industrial
organization, except that he should get all that the market will
give him in return for what he has put into it. Whenever, therefore,
the limit is reached, the task of the economist is to find out the
conditions by which this limit is determined.

Now it is the character of the modern industrial system that it becomes
more and more impersonal and automatic under the play of social forces
which act with natural necessity; the system could not exist if they
did not so act, for it is constructed in reliance upon their action
according to ascertainable laws. The condition of all social actions
and reactions is therefore set in the nature of the forces which we
have learned to know on other fields of scientific investigation, and
which are different here only inasmuch as they act in a different field
and on different material. The relations of parties, therefore, in the
industrial organism is such as the nature of the case permits. The case
may permit of a variety of relations, thus providing some range of
choice.

A person who comes into the market, therefore, with something to sell,
cannot raise the price of it because he wants to do so, or because
his “cost of production” has been raised. He has already pushed the
market to the utmost, and raised the price as high as supply and demand
would allow, so as to win as large profits as he could. How, then,
can he raise it further, just because his own circumstances make it
desirable for him so to do? If the market stands so that he can raise
his price, he will do it, whether his cost of production has increased
or not. Neither can an employer reduce his own profits at will; he will
immediately perceive that he is going out of business, and distributing
his capital in presents.

The difficulty with a strike, therefore, is, that it is an attempt to
move the whole industrial organization, in which all the parts are
interdependent and intersupporting. It is not, indeed, impossible to
do this, although it is very difficult. The organization has a great
deal of elasticity in its parts--an aggressive organ can win something
at the expense of others. Everything displaces everything else;
but if force enough is brought to bear, a general displacement and
readjustment may be brought about. An organ which has been suffering
from the aggression of others may right itself. It is only by the
collision of social pressure, constantly maintained, that the life of
the organism is kept up, and its forces are developed to their full
effect.

Strikes are not necessarily connected with violence to either persons
or property. Violence is provided for by the criminal law. Taking
strikes by themselves, therefore, it may be believed that they are not
great evils; they are costly, but they test the market. Supply and
demand does not mean that the social forces will operate of themselves;
the law, as laid down, assumes that every party will struggle to the
utmost for its interests--if it does not do so, it will lose its
interests. Buyers and sellers, borrowers and lenders, landlords and
tenants, employers and employees, and all other parties to contracts,
must be expected to develop their interests fully in the competition
and struggle of life. It is for the health of the industrial
organization that they should do so. The other social interests are in
the constant habit of testing the market, in order to get all they can
out of it. A strike, rationally begun and rationally conducted, only
does the same thing for the wage-earning interest.

The facts stare us plainly in the face, if we will only look at them,
that the wages of the employees and the price of the products have
nothing to do with each other; that the wages have nothing to do with
the profits of the employer; that they have nothing to do with the
cost of living or with the prosperity of the business. They are really
governed by the supply and demand of labor, as every strike shows us,
and by nothing else.

Turning to the moral relations of the subject, we are constantly
exhorted to do something to improve the relations of employer and
employee. I submit that the relation in life which has the least bad
feeling or personal bitterness in it is the pure business relation, the
relation of contract, because it is a relation of bargain and consent
and equivalence. Where is there so much dissension and bitterness as
in family matters, where people try to act by sentiment and affection?
The way to improve the relation of employer and employee is not to get
sentiment into it, but to get sentiment out of it. We are told that
classes are becoming more separated, and that the poor are learning to
hate the rich, although there was a time when no class hatreds existed.
I have sought diligently in history for the time when no class hatreds
existed between rich and poor. I cannot find any such period, and I
make bold to say that no one can point to it.




TRUSTS AND TRADES-UNIONS[43]


I have attempted to show, in foregoing essays,[44] what an immense rôle
is played by monopoly throughout the whole social life of mankind in
all its stages. There would not be any struggle for existence if it
were not true that the supply in nature of the things necessary for
human existence is niggardly. The struggle for existence consists in
a contest against the constraints by which human life is surrounded;
the process by which men have won something in that contest, in the
course of time, has consisted in playing off one of nature’s monopolies
against another--the process, namely, which we call “employing natural
agents.” On its social and political side, the advance has consisted in
securing for the individual a chance in some degree to control his own
destiny; not to be at the sport of natural and social forces, but to
bring his own energy to bear to enlarge his own conditions of enjoyment
and survival.

At every stage of history, however, the natural monopolies have formed
the basis of social and political monopolies. The possession of those
powers which, under the circumstances, were most efficient for the
acquisition of what men want has always given superiority and dominion
in human society, whether those powers were physical force, beauty,
learning, virtue, capital, or anything else. Where does any one find
ground to believe that the fact will ever be different, and that those
who have the powers which are most potent in the society in which they
live will use those powers, not to get the things which all men want
for themselves, but to get those same things for other people?

The fashion has always been in the past for those who possessed the
essential powers to take control of the state and realize their
monopoly in that way. If plutocracy should now prevail it would be
simply a repetition of that experience. The only device which has
ever given promise of wider and more humane organization of the state
is constitutional liberty, which compels, by the intervention of
institutions created to serve this purpose, the ruling class, whoever
they were, to respect the recognized and defined rights of all the rest.

Now, democracy having sapped and dissolved all the inherited forms
of social organization and reduced the social body to atoms, it is
most interesting to observe the inevitable recurrence of all the old
tendencies, in new forms fitted to the times. Some of us thought
that liberty was won forever, and that the race was nevermore to be
disturbed by its old problems, but it is already apparent that, when a
society is resolved into its constituent atoms, the question under what
forces, and upon what nuclei, it will crystallize into new forms, has
acquired an importance never known before.

Just now public attention is all absorbed by the new name “trust”
applied to one of these phenomena. I can see nothing new in a trust as
compared with the rings, pools, etc., with which we have been familiar
during this generation, except the guarantee which the trust secures to
all the members of the same that no one inside of it shall play traitor
to the rest. The greatest difficulty with modern combinations has been
that there have been no sanctions by which the members could be bound,
and that the profits of the insider who turned against his comrades
have always been an irresistible temptation. In the mediæval guilds,
which were “trusts” of the most solid construction, the sanctions were
of the sternest kind--religious, political, and social--and yet they
never succeeded in their purpose. In modern times, as is well known to
all who are acquainted with the attempts which have been made, inside
of various branches of industry, to arrange agreements which have not
been large enough or public enough to get into the newspapers the
difficulty of enforcing loyalty against those who felt strong enough
to beat the rest if they should go alone, or against those who saw a
chance to sell out on the rest, or against those who were in desperate
straits for cash, has been the constant stumbling-block. Fifty years
ago, in the last days of the United States Bank, Nicholas Biddle
organized a cotton trust, to try to control the cotton market of the
world. It was a complete failure. In general, combinations of this
character are in constant dilemma: they must always grow bigger and
bigger, in order to encompass a sufficient area to constitute a unit;
but the bigger they grow, the less is their internal cohesion. The
exception to this must be noted in a moment.

The great expansion of the market by modern inventions in
transportation has broken up all the former local and petty monopolies,
and is rapidly making of the industry and commerce of mankind a
whole which cannot be divided by geographical lines. The conditions
of competition in such a system are no doubt onerous to the last
degree. The conditions that must be taken into account to win success
are numerous and complicated. The nerve-strain of comprehending and
of justly estimating the factors, and of following their constant
variations, is too great for any one to endure. Foresight must be used,
yet there are so many unknown quantities that foresight is impossible;
if the attempt is made to master all the unknown quantities, then the
task is so enormous that it cannot be accomplished. Furthermore, the
relations with other persons in the industrial system are necessarily
close. It is impossible to escape such relations, and it is impossible
to avoid a share in the consequences of the mistakes and incompetence
of the others. It must be added that, at a time when the advance in
the arts has forced the whole industry of the globe into intimate
relations which nothing can possibly cut off, legislative interferences
have produced artificial and erratic currents in the industrial
and commercial relations of all countries. The consequences are
disappointing and disastrous incidents in the history of industry. At
the same time the improvements in the communication of intelligence
have made it possible for men farthest apart in space, language, and
nationality, if they have confidence in each other’s business ability
and command of capital, to coöperate by personal agreements.

Trusts are an attempt to deal with this state of things. It is, of
course, a jest when the makers of a trust affirm that they make it for
the benefit of consumers, and it may very well be doubted whether a
trust is a feasible and beneficial device in the interest of either
party; but it is wrong to overlook the fact that the trust, in its
efforts to deal with the case, and to secure orderly and rational
development, instead of heats and chills in industry, has a real and
legitimate task on hand. It is certain that there is room for the
introduction of intelligent method into modern industry, under forms
which shall be germane to modern conditions, and it is certain that
this will never be done properly by legislation, but only by the
voluntary and intelligent coöperation of the parties interested. It
is also by no means certain that this systematization of industry,
under intelligent coöperation of the parties conducting it, would cost
consumers anything, provided always that there was no legislation to
prevent the recourse at any time to any other sources of supply which
might be available. The economies of management under intelligent
administration are a source from which gains may be made which will
cost the consumer nothing. The expenses of industrial war constitute a
big fund for dividends to which the consumer does not contribute.

It is worth while to notice, by some familiar examples, what the
motive of a trust is; it will be found a far more everyday matter
than most people suppose. A man who owns a house and lot buys the
vacant lot adjacent in order to control it. He and his neighbors buy
up all the vacant lots on the street in order to prevent undesirable
contact with anything which would deteriorate their property. They
have already fallen victims to the spirit of monopoly, and are subject
to all the denunciations heaped upon aristocrats and exclusivists.
In their case already the practical difficulty of defining the unit
to be comprehended, in order to attain the object and no more, is
apparent. Examples are furnished every day in which capital is refused
for certain enterprises because it is seen that the investment might
no sooner be made than its profits might be destroyed by another
enterprise parallel with it. The thing cannot be done at all until it
is done on a scale sufficiently large to constitute a complete unit.
We are familiar enough with the dilemma offered to us when, on the
one hand, railroads which consolidate put themselves in a position to
serve us far more efficiently, yet on the other hand, railroads which
consolidate cease to compete with each other for our benefit. Which
do we want them to do? The railroads themselves are familiar with
the experience that they are constantly forced to make extensions in
order to secure a certain territory, that is, to establish a closed
unit, and that every extension, instead of attaining a finality, only
makes further extension unavoidable. This is the class of facts in the
industrial development of our time which has produced the trusts, and
it is certain that they offer another motive than that of simple desire
to secure means of extortion.

I am not yet able to see that any trust can succeed unless it is
founded on a natural or legislative monopoly, and furthermore on a
monopoly whose product cannot be produced in an amount exceeding the
demand at the price which has been customary before the formation of
the trust; and I cannot see any chance for legislation to do any good
unless it is in the repeal of all such laws as are found to furnish a
basis for the organization of an artificial monopoly.

It cannot have escaped the attention of the reader that trades-unions
are a monopolistic organization on the side of labor entirely parallel
with the trusts on the side of capital, “a product of the same age and
of the same forces,” and an endeavor to deal with the same problem
from the standpoint of another interest. The motives of coercion,
discipline, and strict internal organization are the same in both
cases, and some of the sanctions are the same; for the pools and rings
have tried the boycott until they have proved its worthlessness. There
is a notion afloat that the modern trades-union is a descendant of
the mediæval gild. It might, with equal truth, and equal futility,
be asserted that the modern college, stock exchange, and joint stock
company, are descended from the mediæval gild. The nineteenth-century
trades-union is a nineteenth-century institution, as much or more
so than the ring, pool, corner, or trust. They are all products of
the same facts in the industrial development, and one is just as
inevitable, and, in that sense, legitimate, as the other. There are
some who, while vehemently denouncing trusts, offer us, with great
complacency and satisfaction, as a solution of the “labor question,”
the assertion that the employers and employees ought to combine or
coöperate in some way; they do not appear to see at all that if any
such thing should be brought about it would be the most gigantic
“trust” that could possibly be conceived.




AN OLD “TRUST”[45]


In the year 1579, Conrad Roth, a merchant of Augsburg, who had been
interested in the trade in spices between Lisbon and Germany, proposed
to an officer of the treasury of the Elector of Saxony a scheme for a
company to monopolize the pepper trade. The Elector was one of the most
enterprising and enlightened princes of his time, and the proposition
was really intended to be made to him as the only person who could
command the necessary capital and had, at the same time, courage and
energy to undertake the enterprise.

A company was formed of officers of the treasury, called the Thuringian
Company, and a warehouse was prepared at Leipzig. It was reckoned
that if the company could raise the price of pepper one groschen per
pound, the profits would be over 38,000 florins per annum. Roth and the
Thuringian Company were to participate in the enterprise equally, but
the Prince was to put up all the capital, and Roth was to do all the
work. The latter also owned a very valuable contract with the King of
Portugal, according to which he was, for five years, to send to India
money enough to buy up all the pepper produced, so that none could come
into Europe through Egypt and Italy. Before that time the Portuguese
officers had illegally sold some of it, so that it did get into Europe
that way; but by buying in India this was now to be stopped.

Roth proposed to divide Europe into three sections: Portugal, Spain,
and the West; Italy and the South; Germany and the North. The Saxon
company was to have the last as its share of the monopoly. It was hoped
that the gains might be forced up to a much higher figure than the one
above given, if only all pepper then in Frankfort, Venice, Nuremberg,
and Hamburg could be bought up.

No sooner was the plan formed, however, than Roth began to reach out
after extensions to it. He wanted to include the trade in other spices.
He also proposed that the Elector should provide the capital for an
exchange bank to do the exchange business between Leipzig and Lisbon.
Next he found that the existing postal arrangements were entirely
inadequate to the requirements of his business, and he proposed to the
Elector a complete plan for a postal service between Italy, Germany,
France, Spain, and Portugal. Then, having found the shipping facilities
unsatisfactory, he proposed that the Elector should enter into a
contract with the King of Denmark, by which the latter, who owned
ships, should provide a regular service between Lisbon and the Elbe.

These plans all show the grand energy of this projector, and the
Elector entered into them all. He could not carry out the postal
service without the consent of the Emperor, and this he was unable to
get. Roth and the Elector were ahead of their time; the Emperor was
not; he said that the plan proposed “something new, which had never
been in use in the time of their ancestors.” The attempt to unite
private merchants in the speculation also failed at Leipzig, and
elsewhere the attitude toward it was extremely unfriendly.

When the stock of pepper began to accumulate at Leipzig, it was found
that the article did not begin to be scarce elsewhere. Although the
advances of the Prince were already far greater than he had promised
when the plan was formed, it was found impossible to begin sales until
all the pepper on the European market elsewhere could be bought up;
and at the same time reports came that, in spite of Roth’s contract,
any one who had money could buy all the pepper he wanted in India,
and that it was coming into Europe freely through Egypt and Venice.
In the spring of 1580 the supply in the cities of Holland and Germany
was ample. It appeared that Roth could not prevent the contractors
for other parts of Europe from shipping to Germany, and the price
was falling there; instead of being at fifteen groschen, where the
speculators hoped to hold it, it was below twelve. At this point Roth’s
creditors began to put attachments on his property. All this led the
Elector to say: “We fear that there has been a great mistake in Roth’s
original and still repeated assertion that all the pepper which comes
into Europe comes through Lisbon.”

In April Roth committed suicide upon hearing of the death of the King
of Portugal. It was known that the King of Spain intended to claim the
succession, and that the Portuguese would resist; this war and the
possibility of a Spanish succession meant ruin to the speculation. The
Elector was obliged to send agents in every direction to get possession
of the assets of the company, in order to recover his funds. In the
end it appears that he escaped without very serious loss; he sold
the whole stock to a syndicate of South German merchants, at a price
which restored all his capital. After moralizing on his experience he
declared: “Inasmuch as I am now weary and sick, and am anxious to pass
the remaining time which God vouchsafes me in quiet, I have firmly
determined to have done with commerce, whether it would bring me gain
or loss.” “I have,” he says again, “strengthened my head and I will
have done with false commerce.”[46]

This enterprise was plainly an attempt to exploit a natural monopoly,
and to do it by an operation which should embrace the whole world;
it was a purely money-making scheme, unrelieved by any social or
industrial advantage. It shows how erroneous it is to suppose that
the merchants of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were inferior
in boldness to those of to-day, or superior to them in disposition
to sacrifice themselves for the public good; it would be easy to
accumulate any amount of evidence that they were, on the contrary,
entirely unscrupulous in the pursuit of gain, and that they were
bold beyond anything known to modern merchants. They might well be
so. This story shows what great risks, dangers, perplexities, and
disappointments they were subject to. The risk element was plainly
enormous, but the gains corresponded, of course, and hence we find some
of these men enormously rich; but it is plain that there was no routine
to help the man who had less natural ability. There was no regularity
in any of the contributory operations, such as shipping lines and
post-office; there were no regular and adequate banking facilities. If
by “trust” we mean a combination to exploit a monopoly, either natural
or artificial, the men of that period had made an art of that sort
of undertaking, and had a skill in it of which the moderns have no
conception.

One cannot help admiring the courage and energy of this Roth. He had
everything to contend with; he was far in advance of his age. If he had
lived in our time he would have been a great captain of industry--we
could have given him something better to do than making a corner on
pepper.

In our current social discussions there is a special kind of fallacy
which consists in quasi-historical assertions. For instance, it is said
that the power of capital is increasing and is greater than it ever has
been. This is in form an historical assertion, but those who make it
never expect to be held to an historical responsibility for it. They
throw it out with a kind of risk, because they are not very accurately
informed as to the power of capital in former times, and have not
heard that it used to act as it does now. Capitalists never had less
_irresponsible_ power than now. It is said that monopoly is growing
evil; that it never was so great. If people choose to pass laws to make
monopolies, they must, of course, take the consequences; but there
never was a time when the control of natural monopolies was so rational
as now, and there never was a time when the efforts of cliques to make
artificial monopolies could be so easily frustrated as now. It is said
that trusts embracing the whole world are a new and threatening danger,
never heard of before. It has seemed to me that, if we are to have
history, it might be well for once to see some facts which illustrate
“the good old times” as they really were. Of course nothing is thereby
proved as to the good or ill of trusts; but something is proved as to
the fallacy of that class of quasi-historical assertions which I have
described.




SHALL AMERICANS OWN SHIPS?[47]


Since the war, public attention has been drawn more or less to the
marked decline in American shipping. It has been generally assumed
and conceded that this was a matter for regret, and some discussion
has arisen as to remedies--what to do, in fact, in order to bring it
about that Americans should own ships. In these discussions, there
has generally been a confusion apparent in regard to three things
which ought to be very carefully distinguished from each other:
ship-building, the carrying trade, and foreign commerce.

1. As to ship-building--Americans began to build ships, as an industry,
within fifteen years after the settlement at Massachusetts Bay. Before
the Revolution they competed successfully as ship-builders with the
Dutch and English, and they sold ships to be used by their rivals.
Tonnage and navigation laws played an important part in the question
of separation between the colonies and England, and the same laws took
an important place in the formation of the Federal Constitution. One
generation was required for the people of this country to get over
the hard logical twist in the notion that laws which were pernicious
when laid by Great Britain were beneficial when laid by ourselves. The
vacillation which has marked the history of our laws about tonnage and
navigation is such that it does not seem possible to trace the effects
of legislation upon ship-building. In the decade 1850–1860 a very great
decline in the number of ships built, especially for ocean traffic,
began to be marked. Sails began to give way to steam, but the building
of steamships required great advantages of every kind in the production
of engines and other apparatus--that is, it required the presence,
in a highly developed state, of a number of important auxiliary and
coöperating industries. As iron was introduced into ship-building, of
course the ship-building industry became dependent upon cheap supplies
of iron as it had before been dependent on cheap supplies of wood.
No doubt these changes in the conditions of the industry itself have
been the chief cause of the decline in ship-building in this country,
and legislation has had only incidental effects. It is a plain fact
of history that the decline in ship-building began before the war and
the high tariff. Of course the effects produced by changes in the
conditions of an industry are inevitable; they are not to be avoided
by any legislation. They are annoying because they break up acquired
habits and established routine, and they involve loss in a change from
one industry to another, but legislation can never do anything but
cause that loss to fall on some other set of people instead of on those
directly interested. Within the last few years it has become certain
that steel is to be the material of ocean vessels--a new improvement
which will not tend to bring the industry back to this country. On the
whole, therefore, the decline in ship-building of the last twenty-five
years seems to indicate that somebody else than ourselves must build
the world’s ships for the present. We have, by legislative devices,
forced the production of a few ocean steamers, but these cases prove
nothing to the contrary of our inference. If this nation has a hobby
for owning some ships built in this country, and is willing to pay
enough for the gratification of that hobby, no doubt it can secure
the pleasure it seeks. A fisherman who has caught nothing sometimes
buys fish at a fancy price; he saves himself mortification and gets
a dinner, but the possession of the fish does not prove that he has
profitably employed his time or that he has had sport.

2. The carrying trade differs from ship-building as carting differs
from wagon-building. Carrying is the industry of men who own ships;
their interests are more or less hostile to those of the ship-builders.
Ship owners want to buy new ships at low prices; they want the number
of competing ships kept small; they want freights high. In all these
points the interest of the ship-builder is the opposite: the ship
owner is indifferent where he gets his ships; he only wants them cheap
and good. There is no sentiment in the matter any more than there is
in the purchase of wagons by an express company, or carriages by a
livery-stable keeper.

3. Foreign commerce is still another thing. It consists in the exchange
of the products of one country for those of another. The merchant wants
plenty of ships to carry all the goods at the lowest possible freights,
but it is of no importance to him where the ships were built, or who
owns and sails them.

A statement and definition of these three industries suffices to show
what confusion must arise in any discussion in which they are not
properly distinguished. It is plain that there are three different
questions: (1) Can the farmer build a vehicle? (2) Can he get his crop
carried to market? (3) Can he sell his crop? It is evident that a
country which needs a protective tariff on iron and steel must give up
all hopes of building ships for ocean traffic. For the country which,
by the hypothesis, needs a protective tariff on iron and steel cannot
produce those articles as cheaply as some other country. Its ships,
however, must compete upon the ocean with those of the country which
has cheap iron and steel. The former embody a larger capital than the
latter, and they must be driven from the ocean. If, then, subsidies
are given to protect the carrying trade, when prosecuted in ships
built of protected iron, the loss is transferred from the ship owners
to the people who pay taxes on shore. These taxes, however, add to the
cost of production of all things produced in the country, and thereby
lessen the power of the country to compete in foreign commerce. This
lessens the amount of goods to be carried both out and in, lowers
freights, throws ships out of use, and checks the building of ships;
and the whole series of legislative aids and encouragements must be
begun over again, with a repetition and intensification of the same
results. As long as the system lasts it works down, and the statistics
show, very naturally, that fewer and fewer ships are built in the
country, and that less and less of the carrying trade is carried on
under the national flag. In view of the three different and sometimes
adverse interests which are connected by their relation to the shipping
question, it is not strange that when the representatives of those
interests meet to try to consider that question, there should simply
be a scramble between them to see which can capture the convention.
The last convention of this sort was captured by the owners of a lot
of unsalable and unsailable old hulks, who had hit upon the brilliant
idea of getting the nation to pay them an annual bounty for the use
of their antiquated and dilapidated property. Strange to say, in a
country which is charged with being too practical and hardheaded, this
proposition received respectful attention and consideration. It is also
strange that our people should believe that taxing farmers to force the
production of iron, taxing farmers again to force the production of
ships out of protected iron, and taxing farmers again to pay subsidies
to enable protected ships to do business, is a way to make this country
rich.

So soon as the three different industries, or departments of business,
which I have described are distinguished from each other, it is
apparent that the fundamental one of the three is foreign commerce.
If we have no commerce we need no carrying, and it would be absurd to
build ships; if we have foreign commerce its magnitude determines the
amount of demand there is for freight and for ships. The circle of
taxation which I have mentioned, and which is obviously only a kind of
circuit, described from and upon the farmer as a center and fulcrum to
bear the weight of the whole, is necessarily and constantly vicious,
because it presses down on the foreign commerce, which is the proper
source of support for carrying and ship-building. On the other hand,
the emancipation of foreign commerce from all trammels of every sort
is the only means of increasing the natural, normal, and spontaneous
support of carrying and ship-building, assuming that the carrying trade
and ship-building are ends in themselves.

It is, however, no object at all for a country to have either
ship-building industry, or carrying trade, or foreign commerce; herein
lies the fundamental fallacy of all the popular and Congressional
discussions about ships and commerce. It is only important that the
whole population should be engaged in those industries which will
pay the best under the circumstances of the country. For the sake of
exposing the true doctrine about the matter, we may suppose (what is
not conceivable as a possible fact) that a country might not find
greater profit in the exportation of any part of any of its products
than in the home use of the same. If this could be true, and if it were
realized, the proof of it would be that no foreign trade would exist.
There would be no ground for regret since the people would be satisfied
and better off than as if they had a foreign trade. Carrying trade and
ship-building would not exist.

If a country had a foreign trade of any magnitude whatever, it would
not be any object for that country to do its own carrying. The figures
which show the amount paid by the people of the United States to
non-American ship owners for freight, and the figures which show the
small percentage of our foreign commerce which is carried under the
American flag, in themselves prove nothing at all. The only question
which is of importance is this: are the people of the United States
better employed now than they would be if engaged in owning and sailing
ships? If they were under no restraints or interferences, that question
also would answer itself. If Americans owned no ships and sailed no
ships, but hired the people of other countries to do their ocean
transportation for them, it would simply prove that Americans had some
better employment for their capital and labor. They would get their
transportation accomplished as cheaply as possible. That is all they
care for, and it would be as foolish for any nation to insist on doing
its own ocean transportation, devoting to this use capital and labor
which might be otherwise more profitably employed, as it would be for a
merchant to insist on doing his own carting, when some person engaged
in carting offered him a contract on more advantageous terms than those
on which he could do the work.

Furthermore, the people of a country which had little foreign commerce
might find it very advantageous to prosecute the carrying trade. In
history, the great trading nations have been those which had a small
or poor territory at home: the Dutch were the great carriers of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the foreign commerce of
their own territory was insignificant; the New Englanders of the last
century and of the first quarter of this century became the carriers
of commodities to and fro between all parts of the world, especially
between our middle and southern states and the rest of the world. They
took to the sea because their land did not furnish them with products
which could remunerate their capital and labor so well as the carrying
trade did. They won a high reputation for the merchant service, which
was in their hands, and they earned fortunes by energy, enterprise,
promptitude, and fidelity. The carrying trade is an industry like any
other; it is neither more nor less desirable in itself than any other.
In any natural and rational state of things it would be absurd to be
writing essays about it. If any one thought he could make more profit
in that business than in some other he would set about it. When the
census was taken he would be found busy at that business, would be so
reported, and that would be the end of the matter as a phenomenon of
public interest.

If a nation had foreign commerce, and some of its citizens found the
carrying trade an advantageous employment for their labor and capital
as compared with other possible industries in the country, it would
not follow that some other citizens of that country ought to engage
in ship-building. It is no object to build ships, but only to get
such ships as are wanted, in the most advantageous manner. If a man
should refuse to carry on a carting business unless he could make
his own wagons, it would be such a reflection on his good sense that
his business credit would be very low. If some Americans could buy
and sail ships so as to make profits, what is the sense of saying
that they shall not do it because some other Americans cannot build
ships at a profit? Only one answer to this question has ever been
offered by anybody, and that is the prediction that, some day, if we
go without ships long enough, we shall, by the mere process of going
without, begin to get some--a prediction for which the prophets give no
guarantee, in addition to their personal authority, save the fact that
we have fewer ships and worse ones every year.

I have said above that, if there were no restraints or interferences,
we should simply notice whether any Americans took to the carrying
trade or not, and should thence infer that they might or might not
be better employed in some other industry. It is impossible, now,
to say whether, if all restrictions were removed, the carrying
trade or ship-building would be a profitable industry in the United
States or not. Any opinion given by anybody on that point is purely
speculative. The present state of the iron and steel industries, and
of the manufacture of engines and machinery, is so artificial that
no one can judge what would be the possibilities of those industries
under an entirely different state of things. It is, however, just
because the present state of things prevents a free trial that it is
indefensible; we are working in the dark and on speculation all the
time and have none of the natural and proper tests and guarantees for
what we are doing. We are controlled by the predictions of prophets,
the notions of dogmatizers, the crude errors of superficial students
of history, the wrong-headed inferences of shallow observers, and the
selfish machinations of interested persons. We can distinguish many
forces which are at work on our ship-building and on our carrying
trade, but none of them are genuine or respectable. We are submitting
to restraints and losses, and we have no guarantee whatever that we
shall ever win any compensation. The teaching of economic science
is distinctly that we never shall win any. We are expending capital
without any measurement or adjustment of the _quid pro quo_; we are
spending without calculation, and receiving something or nothing--we
do not know which. The wrong of all this is not in the assumption that
we have not certain industries which we would have (for we cannot
tell whether that is so or not), but the wrong is in the arbitrary
interference which prevents us from having them, if any man wants to
put his capital into them, and which prevents us from obtaining the
proper facts on which to base a judgment about the state and relations
of industries in the country.

Whenever the question of ships is raised, the clamor for subsidies
and bounties is renewed, and we are told again that England has
established her commerce by subsidies. It would be well if we could
have an understanding, once for all, whether England’s example is a
good argument or not. As she has tried, at some time or other, nearly
every conceivable economic folly, and has also made experiment of
some sound economic principles, all disputants find in her history
facts to suit them, and it needs only a certain easily acquired skill
in misunderstanding things to fashion any required argument from the
economic history of England. Some of our writers and speakers seem to
be under a fascination which impels them to accept as authoritative
examples the follies of English history, and to reject its sound
lessons. In the present case, however, the matter stands somewhat
differently. England is a great manufacturing area; it imports food
and raw materials, and exports finished products; it has, therefore,
a general and public interest in maintaining communication with all
parts of the world. The analogy in our case is furnished by the
subsidized railroads in our new states, or, perhaps even better, by
the mail routes which we sustain all over our territory, from general
considerations of public advantage, although many such routes do not
pay at all. Subsidies to ships for the mere sake of having ships, or
ocean traffic, when there is no business occasion for the subsidized
lines, would have no analogy with English subsidies.

If then the question is put: Shall Americans own ships? I do not see
how any one can avoid the simple answer: Yes, if they want them.
Universally, if an American wants anything, he ought to have it if he
can get it, and if he hurts no one else by getting it. To enter on the
question whether he is going to make it or buy it, and whether he is
going to buy it of A or of B, is an impertinence. We boast a great deal
of having a free country; our orators shout themselves hoarse about
liberty and freedom. Stop one of them, however, and ask him if he means
free trade and free ships, and he will demur. No; not that; that will
not do. He is in favor of freedom for himself and his friends in those
respects in which they want liberty against other people, but he is
not in favor of freedom for other people against restraints which are
advantageous to him and his political allies. He is in favor of freedom
for those who are being oppressed--by somebody else; not for those who
are being oppressed by himself. I heard it asserted not long ago that
we have no monopolies in this country, _because_ it is a free country.
It is not a free country, because there are more artificial monopolies
in it than in any other country in the world. The popular notion that
it is free rises from the fact that there are fewer natural monopolies
in it than in any other great civilized country. It is necessary,
however, to go to Turkey or Russia to find instances of legislative and
administrative abuses to equal the existing laws and regulations of the
United States about ships, the carrying trade, and foreign commerce.
These laws have been brought to public attention again and again, but
apparently with little effect in awakening popular attention, while the
newspapers carry all over the country details about abuses in Ireland,
Russia, and South Africa. We should stop bragging about a free country
and about the enlightened power of the people in a democratic republic
to correct abuses, while laws remain which treat the buying, importing,
owning, and sailing of ships as pernicious actions, or, at least, as
doubtful and suspicious ones. I have no conception of a free man or a
free country which can be satisfied if a citizen of that country may
not own a ship, if he wants one, getting it in any legitimate manner in
which he might acquire other property; or may not sail one, if he finds
that a profitable industry suited to his taste and ability; or may not
exchange the products of his labor with that person, whoever he may be,
who offers the most advantageous terms.




POLITICS IN AMERICA, 1776–1876[48]


When the Continental Congress met in 1774, few persons in the colonies
perceived that the ties to the mother country were about to be severed,
and few, if any, were republicans in theory, or contemplated a
“revolution” in the political system. The desire for independence was
developed during 1775, and the question as to the form of government
to be adopted came up by consequence. It presented no real difficulty.
The political organization of some of the colonies was such already
that there were no signs of dependence except the arms and flag, the
form of writs, and a responsibility to the Lords of Trade which sat
very lightly upon them. Necessary changes being made in these respects,
those colonies stood as complete republics. The others conformed to
this model.

In bringing about these changes great interest was developed in
political speculations, an interest which found its first direction
from Paine’s “Common Sense,” and was sustained by diligent reading of
Burgh’s “Political Disquisitions,” and Macaulay’s “History of England.”
The same speculations continued to be favorite subjects of discussion
for twenty-five years afterwards. The journals of the time were largely
made up of long essays by writers with fanciful _noms de plume_, who
discussed no simple matters of detail, but the fundamental principles
of politics and government. The method of treatment was not historical,
unless we must except crude and erroneous generalizations on classical
history, and it seemed to be believed that the colonial history of this
country was especially unfit to furnish guidance for the subsequent
period; but the disquisitions in question pursued an _a priori_ method,
starting from the broadest and most abstract assumptions. The same
method has marked American political philosophy, so far as there has
been any such thing, ever since. It is very much easier than the method
which requires a laborious study of history.

The natural effect of the war, but still more of the doctrines in
regard to liberty taught by Paine, and of the deplorable policy of
local terrorism pursued by the Committees of Safety against Tories
and Refugees, was to produce and bring into prominence a class of
active, shallow men, who felt their new powers and privileges but not
the responsibility which ought to go with these. The old colonial
bureaucracy, which had enjoyed all the social preëminence that colonial
life permitted, was gone. Office was open to many who, before the war,
had little chance of attaining it. They sought it eagerly, expecting to
enjoy the social advantages they had formerly envied. In the northern
states a class of eager office-seekers arose who gained a great
influence, saw their arena in the states especially, and jealously
opposed the power of the Confederation. This class made hatred to
England almost a religion, and testified to their political virtues by
persecuting Tories and Refugees. They found popular grievances also
ready to their hand as a means of advancement. The mass of the people
had been impoverished by the war. The attempts at commercial war had
reacted upon the nation with great severity. The paper issues of the
Congress and the states had wrought their work to derange values,
violate contracts, inflate credit, and destroy confidence. On the
return of peace the industries which had been sustained only by war
ceased to be profitable; the reduction of prices spread general ruin
and left thousands indebted and impoverished. The consequence was
discontent and disorder. All this was heightened by the contrast with
another class which had been enriched by privateering, contracts, and
“financiering.” The soldier who returned in rags, bringing only a few
bits of scrip worth fifteen or twenty cents on the dollar, found his
family in want, and some of his neighbors, who had borne few of the
sacrifices of the war, enriched by it and now enjoying its fruits. It
seemed to this whole class that they had not yet got liberty, or that
they did not know what it was. They did not look for it to a closer
union.

This party, for it soon became a party, found an alliance in a quarter
where it would hardly have been expected, in the slave-owning planters
of the South--an alliance which has been of immense importance in our
political history. The planters, at the outbreak of the war, had been
heavily indebted to English capitalists and merchants. They now feared
that they would be compelled to pay their debts, and they saw in the
treaty-making power of the general government the source from which
this compulsion would come. They therefore opposed any union which
would strengthen and give vigor to that power. To this party were added
those who had adopted, on theoretical and philosophical grounds, the
enthusiasm for liberty which was then prevalent in both hemispheres.
It should be added to the characteristics of this party that it looked
with indifference upon foreign commerce, cared little for foreign
opinion, would have been glad to be isolated from the Old World, and
had very crude opinions as to the status and relations of European
nations.

This party naturally went on to confound liberty with equality, and
political virtue with tenacity of rights. It furthermore confounded
power with privilege, and thought that it must allow no civil power
or authority to exist if it meant really to exterminate aristocratic
privilege. It was not so clear in its conception of political duties,
and certainly failed to see that the best citizen is not the one who
is most tenacious of his political rights, but the one who is most
faithful to his political duties; that envy and jealousy are not
political virtues; and that equality can be attained only by cutting
off every social advance and setting up as the standard, not what is
highest, but what is a low average.

An opposing party gradually formed itself of men of wider information
and superior training. These men understood the institutions of Great
Britain and their contrast to those of any other country in Europe.
They understood just what the war had done for the Colonies. They did
not consider that it had altered the internal institutions inherited
from the mother country, or set the Colonies adrift upon a sea of
political speculation to try to find a political utopia. Some of them
joined for a time in the prevalent opinion that the Americans were
better and purer than the rest of mankind, but experience soon taught
them their error. Tradition and experience still had weight with
them; and in making innovations they sought development rather than
destruction and reconstruction. They were conservative by property,
education, and character.

To this party it was evident that the colonies had lost much by falling
out of the place in the family of nations which they had filled as part
of the British Empire, and they believed that a similar place must
now be won on an independent footing. They understood the necessity
of well-regulated foreign relations, of foreign commerce, and of
public credit. Their general effort was, therefore, to secure order
and peace in the internal relations of the country by establishing
liberty indeed, but liberty under law; and to secure respectability and
respect abroad by fidelity to treaties and pecuniary engagements, by a
reputation for commercial integrity, and by a development of the arts
of peace. The first requisite to all this was a more perfect union.

The two parties, therefore, formed about the issue of a revision of the
Articles of Confederation, but it was not until the absolute necessity
of the objects aimed at by the Federalists--objects which are in their
nature less directly obvious and tangible--had been demonstrated by
experience, that this revision was brought about. The Union was not
the result of a free and spontaneous effort, but was “extorted from
the grinding necessity of a reluctant people.” A political party which
resists a proposed movement by predicting calamitous results to flow
from it must abide by the verdict of history. Tried by this test, the
anti-Federalists are convicted of resisting the most salutary action
in our political history. The victory was won, not by writing critical
essays about the movement and the relations of parties, but by the
direct and energetic activity of those men of that generation who had
enjoyed the greatest advantages of education and culture.

Three evils were inherited under the new Constitution from the old
system: slavery (which the framers of the Constitution tolerated,
thinking it on the decline), paper money (which they thought they had
eradicated), and the mercantile theories of political economy. These
three evils, in their single or combined development, have given
character to the whole subsequent political history of the country. One
of them has been eliminated by a civil war. The other two confront us
as the great political issues of to-day.

The framers of the Constitution, without having any precise definition
of a republic in mind, knew well that it differed from a democracy.
No one of them was a democrat. They were, at the time of framing the
Constitution, under an especial dread of democracy, on account of the
rebellion in Massachusetts. They meant to make a Constitution in order
to establish organized or articulated liberty, giving guarantees for it
which should protect it from popular tyranny as much as from personal
despotism. Indeed, they recognized the former as a great danger, the
latter as a delusion. They therefore established a constitutional
republic. The essential feature of such a system of government (for
it is a system of government, and not a political theory) is that
political power be conferred under a temporary and defeasible tenure.
That it be conferred by popular election is not essential, although
it is convenient in many cases. This method was the one naturally
indicated by the circumstances of the United States. The system which
was established did not pretend to give direct effect to public opinion
according to its fluctuations. It rather interposed delays and checks
in order to secure deliberation, and it aimed to give expression to
public opinion only after it was matured. It sought to eliminate
prejudice and passion by prescribing beforehand methods which seemed
just in themselves, independently of conflicting interests, in order
that, when a case arose, no advantage of procedure might be offered to
either party; and it aimed to subject action to organs whose operation
should be as impersonal as it is possible for the operation of
political organs to be.

Democracy, on the other hand, has for its essential feature equality,
and it confers power on a numerical majority of equal political units.
It is not a system of government for a state with any but the narrowest
limits. On a wider field it is a theory as to the depositary of
sovereignty. It seizes upon majority rule, which is only a practical
expedient for getting a decision where something must be done and a
unanimous judgment as to what ought to be done is impossible, and it
makes this majority the depositary of sovereignty, under the name of
the sovereignty of the people. This sovereign, however, is as likely
as any despot to aggrandize itself, and to promulgate the unformulated
doctrines of the divine right of the sovereign majority to rule, the
duty of passive obedience in the minority, and that the majority can do
no wrong.

Opposition to the Federal Constitution died out in a year or two,
and no one could be found who would confess that he had resisted its
adoption. Parties divided on questions of detail and of interpretation,
and the points on which they differed were those by which the
Constitution imposed delays and restraints upon the popular will. The
administrations of Washington and Adams threw continually increasing
weight in favor of constitutional guarantees, as the history of the
French Revolution seemed to the Federalists to furnish more and more
convincing proofs of the dangers of unbridled democracy. The opposition
saw nothing in that history save the extravagant ebullitions of a
people new to freedom--saw rather examples to be imitated than dangers
to be shunned. Sympathy and gratitude came in to exercise a weighty
influence on political issues. The personal executive and the judiciary
were the chief subjects of dislike, and General Washington himself
finally incurred abuse more wanton and severe than any President since,
except the elder Adams, has endured, because the fact was recognized
that Washington’s personality was the strongest bulwark which the
system possessed at the outset.

Democracy, however, was, and still is, so deeply rooted in the
physical and economic circumstances of the United States, that the
constitutional barriers set up against it have proved feeble and vain.
Fears of monarchy have now almost ceased or are ridiculed. Monarchist
and aristocrat are now used only as epithets to put down some over-bold
critic of our political system; but in the early days of the Republic
the mass of the people believed that the supporters of the first two
administrations desired aristocracy and monarchy. In a new country,
however, with unlimited land, the substantial equality of the people
in property, culture, and social position is inevitable. Political
equality follows naturally. Democracy is given in the circumstances of
the case. The yeoman farmer is the prevailing type of the population.
It is only when the pressure of population and the development of a
more complex social organization produce actual inequality in the
circumstances of individuals, that a political aristocracy can follow
and grow upon a social aristocracy. The United States are far from
having reached any such state as yet. These facts were felt, if not
distinctly analyzed and perceived, even by those who might on theory
have preferred monarchical institutions; and, as Washington said, there
were not ten men in the country who wanted a monarchy.

The Federalists repaid their opponents with a no less exaggerated
fear of their principles and intentions, regarding them as Jacobins
and _sans culottes_, who desired to destroy whatever was good and to
produce bloodshed and anarchy. Party spirit ran to heights seldom
reached since. Partisan abuse outstripped anything since. It was
an additional misfortune that the questions at issue were delicate
questions of foreign policy and international law. It is a great evil
in a republic that parties should divide by sympathy with two foreign
nations, and it is the greatest evil possible that they should not
believe in each other’s loyalty to the existing constitution.

The deeper movement which was stirring to affect the general attitude
or standpoint from which the Constitution was viewed (a matter, of
course, of the first importance under a written constitution), and
which was changing the constitutional republic into a democratic
republic, did not escape the observation of the most sagacious men of
the earliest days. Fisher Ames wrote to Wolcott in 1800: “The fact
really is, that over and above the difficulties of sustaining a free
government, and the freer the more difficult, there is a want of
accordance between our system and the state of our public opinion. The
government is republican; opinion is essentially democratic. Either
events will raise public opinion high enough to support our government,
or public opinion will pull down the government to its own level.” The
fact was that the government could not, under the system, long remain
above the level of public opinion. The Federalists, assisted by the
prestige of Washington’s name, held it there for twelve years; but they
probably never, on any of the party issues, even with a restricted
suffrage, had a majority of the voters. Dating the rise of parties
from the time of Jay’s Treaty, they had a majority of the House of
Representatives only under the excitement of French insult in 1798.

The leading men of 1787–1788, as has been said, worked industriously
and energetically for political objects. The first decade of the
Republic had not passed by, however, before men began to estimate
the cost and sacrifices of public life and the worry of abuse and
misrepresentation, to compare this with what they could accomplish
in politics, and to abandon the contest. To the best public men
professions and other careers offered fame, fortune, honorable and
gratifying success. In public life they struggled against, and were
defeated by, noisy, active men who could not have competed with them
in any other profession. Their best efforts were misunderstood and
misrepresented. They had no reward but the consciousness of fulfilling
a high public duty. Furthermore they lacked, as a class, the tact and
sagacity which the system indispensably requires. The leaders of the
Federal party committed a political blunder of the first magnitude in
quarrelling with John Adams, whatever may have been his faults. They
thereby separated themselves from the mass of their own party, and at
a time when parties were so evenly balanced that they required harmony
for any chance of success; and they put themselves in the position
of a junto or cabal, trying to dictate to the party without guiding
its reason. Those of them who had withdrawn from, or had been thrown
out of political life by the causes above mentioned were most active
in this work of disorganization. They had abandoned that sort of task
which they had engaged in at the outset, and which, difficult as it is,
is permanently incumbent on the cultured classes of the country--to
make the culture of the nation homogeneous and uniform by imparting
and receiving, by living in and of and for the nation, contributing to
its thought and life their best stores, whatever they are. A breach
was opened there which has gone on widening ever since, and which has
been as harmful to our culture as to our politics. On the one side
it has been left to anti-culture to control all which is indigenous
and “American”; and on the other hand American culture has been like
a plant in a thin soil, given over to a sickly dilettantism and the
slavish imitation of foreign models, ill understood, copied for matters
of form, and, as often as not, imitated for their worst defects.

An actual withdrawal of the ablest men from political life, such as
we have come to deplore, began, then, at this early day. Many others
were thrown out for too great honesty and truth in running counter to
the popular notions of the day. John Adams incurred great unpopularity
for having said that the English Constitution was one of the grandest
achievements of the human race--an assertion which Callender disputed,
with great popular success, by dilating upon the corruption of the
English administration under George III, but an assertion which, in
the sense in which it was made, no well-informed man would question.
Sedgwick laid down the principle that the government might claim the
last man as a soldier and the last dollar in taxation--an abstract
proposition which is unquestionable, but which Callender disputed,
once more with great popular success, by arguing as if it were a
proposition to take the last man and the last dollar. Dexter lost a
reëlection by opposing a clause of the naturalization law, that a
foreign nobleman should renounce his titles on being naturalized. It
was opposed as idle and frivolous, and favored as if every foreign
nobleman would otherwise become by naturalization a member of
Congress. Hamilton and Knox abandoned the public service on account
of the meagerness of their salaries. Pickering, who left office
really insolvent, and with only a few hundred dollars in cash, was
pursued by charges of corruption on the ground of unclosed accounts.
Wolcott, at the end of long and faithful service, was charged with the
responsibility for a fire which broke out in his office, as if he had
sought to destroy the records of corrupt proceedings.

It is no wonder that these men abandoned public life, and that their
examples deterred others, unless they were men born to it, who could
not live out of the public arena; but it is true now, as it was then,
that men of true culture, high character, and correct training can
abandon public political effort only by the surrender of some of the
best interests of themselves and their posterity. The pursuit of
wealth, which is the natural alternative, has always absorbed far
too much of the ambition of the nation, and under such circumstances
there could be no other result than that a wealthy class should arise,
to whom wealth offers no honorable social power, in whom it awakens
no intellectual or political ambition, to whom it brings no sense of
responsibility, but for whom it means simply the ability to buy what
they want, men or measures, and to enjoy sensual luxury. A class of men
is produced which mocks at the accepted notions while it uses them, and
scorns the rest of us with a scorn which is so insulting only because
it is so just. It is based on the fact that we will not undergo the
sacrifices necessary to self-defense. This pursuit of wealth was
almost the only pursuit attractive to able men who turned their backs
on the public service in the early days. In later years professional
careers and scientific and literary pursuits have disputed to a great
and greater extent the dominion of wealth over the energies of the
nation; but politics have not yet won back their due attraction for
able and ambitious men.

The Federalists also held a defective political philosophy. They did
not see that the strength of a constitutional republic such as they
desired must be in the intelligent approval and confidence of the
citizens. Adams and Hamilton agreed in supposing that some artificial
bond must be constructed to give strength to the system. Hamilton
looked for it in the interest of the wealthy class, which he wanted
to bind up in the system--a theory which would have changed it into
a plutocracy. Adams sought the bond in ambition for social eminence,
and did not see that, where such eminence sprang only from wealth or
official rank, the very principle of human nature which he invoked
would, under the form of envy, counteract his effort.

The presidential election of 1801 having been thrown into the House of
Representatives, the Federalists added to their former blunder another
far more grave. Abandoning their claims to principle and character,
they took to political intrigue and bargaining, in the attempt to elect
Burr over Jefferson. Their exit from power might otherwise have been
honorable, and they might, as an opposition party, have made a stand
for inflexible principle and political integrity; but it was hard for
them after this to talk of those things, especially as Burr went on to
develop the character which Hamilton had warned them that he possessed.
They fell into the position of “independent voters,” throwing their
aid now with one and now with the other faction of the majority; but
history does not show that they ever forced either one or the other
to “adopt good measures,” for the obvious reason that the majority
possessed the initiative. The purchase of Louisiana seemed to them to
transfer the power of the Union to the southern and frontier states,
the seat of the political theories which they regarded as reckless
and lawless. They feared that the power of the Union would be used
to sacrifice commerce and to put in operation wild theories by which
the interests of the northern and eastern states would be imperiled,
and the inherited institutions of constitutional liberty, which they
valued as their best possessions, would be overthrown. The Embargo and
Non-intercourse Acts seemed only the fulfillment of these fears. The
recourse of a minority has always been to invoke the Constitution and
to insist upon the unconstitutionality of what they could not resist
by votes, each party in turn thereby bearing witness to the truth that
the Constitution is the real safeguard of rights and liberty. In the
last resort also the minority, if it has been local, and has seen the
majority threatening to use the tremendous power of the Confederation
to make the interests of the minority subservient to the interests
of the rest, has felt its loyalty to the Union decline. How far the
Federalists went in this direction it is difficult to say, but they
certainly went farther than they were afterwards willing to confess
or remember. They gradually faded out of view as a political power
after the second war and in the twenties “Federalist” became a term of
reproach.

The opposite party, called by themselves Republicans after 1792, took
definite form in opposition to Washington’s administration on the
question of ratifying Jay’s Treaty. They were first called Democrats in
1798, the name being opprobrious. They adopted it, however, first in
connection with the former name; and the joint appellation, Democratic
Republicans, or either separately, was used indifferently down to the
middle of this century. Jefferson was the leader of this party. He
did not write any political disquisitions or aid in the attempts which
have been mentioned to form public opinion; but his expressions in
letters and fugitive writings struck in with the tide of Democracy so
aptly and exactly that he seemed to have put into people’s mouths just
the expression for the vague notions which they had not yet themselves
been able to get into words. Jefferson, in fact, was no thinker.
He was a good specimen of the _a priori_ political philosopher. He
did not reason or deduce; he dogmatized on the widest and most rash
assumptions, which were laid down as self-evident truths. He did not
borrow from the contemporaneous French schools, for his democracy is
of a different type; but both sprang from the same germs and pursued
the same methods of speculation. Freneau, Bache, Callender, and Duane
wrought continually upon public opinion, and Jefferson entered into
the leadership of the party they created, by virtue of a certain skill
in giving watchwords and dogmatic expressions for the ideas which they
disseminated.

The dogmas which Jefferson taught, or of which he was the exponent,
were not without truth. Their fallacy consisted in embracing much
falsehood, and also in excluding the vast amount of truth which
lay outside of them. For instance, the dogma that the voice of the
people is the voice of God is not without truth, if it means that the
enlightened and mature judgment of mankind is the highest verdict on
earth as to what is true or wise. This is the truth which is sought
to be expressed in the ecclesiastical dogma of Catholicity, but the
political and the ecclesiastical dogma have the same limitation. This
verdict of mankind cannot be obtained in any formal and concrete
expression, and is absolutely unattainable on grounds of speculation
antecedent to experiment. It is in history only; or, rather, it
constitutes history. In Jefferson’s doctrine and practice it resolved
itself simply into this practical rule: the test of wisdom for the
statesman and of truth for the philosopher is popularity. When the
statesman has a difficult practical question before him as to what to
do, according to this theory he puts forward what seems to him best
as a proposition. If, then, the return wave of popular sympathy comes
back to him with promptitude and with the intensity to which he is
accustomed, he infers that he has proposed wisely, and goes forward.
If there is delay or uncertainty in the response, he draws back. The
actual operation of this theory is that, if the statesman in question
is the idol of a popular majority, the approving response is quick and
sure, because the proposition comes from him, not because the tribunal
of appeal has considered or can consider the question. If an unpopular
man endeavors to use the same test, the answer is doubtful, feeble,
hesitating, or impatient, because those to whom he appeals have not the
necessary preparation, or time, or interest to judge in the matter.
In general, the theory is popular, because it flatters men that they
can decide anything offhand, by the light of nature, or by some prompt
application of assumptions as to “natural rights,” or by applying the
test of a popular dogma or prejudice. It tramples study and thought and
culture under foot and turns their boasts to scorn. On the other hand,
it makes statesmanship impossible. Study and thought go for nothing.
There can be no authority derived from information or science or
training, and no leadership won by virtue of these. If the decision is
to come from a popular vote, why not abandon useless trouble and trust
to that alone?

Such has been the outcome in history, as will appear further on,
of the doctrines which are associated with the name of Jefferson,
although they really had their origin in the great social tendencies
of the time and in the circumstances of the American people. The love
of philosophizing about government was a feature in the life of the
second half of the eighteenth century. The method of philosophizing
on assumptions was the only one employed. The Americans, with meager
experience and high purposes, readily took refuge in abstractions.
The habit of pursuing two or three occupations at once destroyed
respect for special or technical knowledge. There seemed to be nothing
unreasonable in referring a question of jurisprudence or international
law to merchants, farmers, and mechanics, for them to give an opinion
on it as a mere incident in their regular occupations. Jefferson
himself could sit down and develop out of his own consciousness a plan
for fortifications and a navy, for a nation in imminent danger of
war, with no more misgivings, apparently, than if he was planning an
alteration on his estate.

“The further democracy was pushed, first in theory, then in practice,
the more completely was the belief in the equality of all [in rights
and privileges] converted, in the minds of the masses, into the
belief in the equal ability of all to decide political questions of
every kind. The principle of mere numbers gradually supplanted the
principle of reflection and study.” This tendency reaches its climax
in the popular doctrines that every man has a right to his opinion
and that one man’s opinion is as good as another’s. We have abundant
illustration of the might which it gives to “the phrase.”

It has been well said that “men can reason only from what they know”--a
doctrine which would reduce the amount of reasoning to be done by
anybody to a very little. The common practice is to reason from what we
do not know, which makes every man a philosopher.

Jefferson’s election was the first triumph of the tendency towards
democracy--a triumph which has never yet been reversed. The old
conservatism of the former administrations died out, and it is
important to observe that, from this time on, we have in conflict not
the same two parties as before, but only factions or subdivisions of
the one party which, under Washington and Adams, was in opposition to
the administration.

The event did not justify the fears which were entertained before
the election. Jefferson did not surrender any of the power of the
executive. He aggrandized it as neither of his predecessors would have
dared to do. He did not surrender the central power in favor of states’
rights; and his foreign policy, governed by sympathy to France and
hatred to England, was only too sharp and spirited. It seldom happens
to an opposition party, coming into power, to have the same question
proposed to it as to its predecessor, and to put its own policy to
trial. This happened to Jefferson. Jay’s Treaty was hesitatingly
signed by Washington, and it gave the country ten years of peace and
neutrality. Pinckney and Monroe’s Treaty was rejected by Jefferson, and
in six years the country was engaged in a fruitless war.

Madison’s administration revived many of the social usages which
Jefferson had ostentatiously set aside, in consistency with the general
spirit of preference, on the ground of republican simplicity, for what
is common over what is elegant and refined. The natural tendency of
the party in power to think that what is is right, and that while they
are comfortable other people ought to be so, was apparent here. It
went on so far during Madison’s first term, that the leaders thought
it necessary to break the monotony and to secure again, in some way,
the readiness and activity of political life which had prevailed under
Jefferson. They forced Madison into the war with England--a war which
brought disturbance into the finances and spread distress amongst
the people, which won some glory at sea only by vindicating the old
Federalist policy in regard to a navy, but which was marked by disaster
on land until the battle of New Orleans. At the return of peace in
Europe, England was left free to deal with the United States, and a
peace was hastily made in which the question of impressment, the only
question at issue, was left just where it had been at the beginning.

There ensued in our internal politics an “era of good feeling.” The
old parties no longer had any reason to exist. Some of the Federal
doctrines had been adopted. The navy was secure in its popularity.
The Federal financial system had been adopted by the party in power.
They had contracted a debt, laid direct taxes, and enlisted armies.
When confronted by problems of war and debt, they had found no better
way to deal with them than the ways which had been elaborated by
the older nations, and which they had blamed the Federalists for
adopting. The questions of neutrality had disappeared with the return
of peace in Europe. The fears of Jacobinism on the one hand and of
monarchy on the other were recognized as ridiculous. If, however, any
one is disposed to exaggerate the evils of party, he ought to study
the history of the era of good feeling. Political issues were gone,
but personal issues took their place. Personal factions sprang up
around each of the prominent men who might aspire to the Presidency,
and, in their struggles to advance their favorites and destroy their
rivals, they introduced into politics a shameful series of calumnies
and personal scandals. Every candidate had to defend himself from
aspersions, from attacks based upon his official or private life. The
newspapers were loaded down with controversies, letters, documents,
and evidence on these charges. The character of much of this matter
is such as to awaken disgust and ridicule. Mr. A. tells Mr. B that,
when in Washington, he was present at a dinner at the house of Mr.
C at which Mr. D said that he came on in the stage with Mr. E, who
told him that Mr. F had seen a letter from Mr. G, a supposed friend
of one candidate, to Mr. H, the friend of another candidate, making
charges against the first candidate, which he (Mr. G) felt bound
in honor to make known. Mr. B publishes his information, and then
follow long letters from all the other gentlemen, with explanations,
denials, corroborative testimony, and so on, in endless reiteration
and confusion. It was another noteworthy feature of this period, that
every public man seemed to stand ready to publish a “vindication” at
the slightest provocation, and that in these vindications a confusion
between character and reputation appears to be universal.

These faction struggles culminated in the campaign of 1824. The first
mention of General Jackson for the Presidency seems to be in a letter
from Aaron Burr to his son-in-law, Alston of South Carolina, in
1815. An effort was being made to form a party against the Virginia
oligarchy. Those who were engaged in it sought a candidate who might
be strong enough to secure success. Burr justified his reputation
as a politician by pointing out the man, but it was yet too soon.
The standard of what a Federal officer ought to be was yet too high.
The Albany Argus said of the nomination, in 1824: “He [Jackson] is
respected as a gallant soldier, but he stands in the minds of the
people of this state at an immeasurable distance from the executive
chair.” The name of Jackson was used, however, in connection with the
Presidency, by various local conventions, during 1822 and 1823; and,
although the nomination was generally met with indifference or contempt
in the North and East, it soon became apparent that he was the most
dangerous rival in the field. The nominations had hitherto been made by
caucuses of the members of Congress of either party. Until Jefferson’s
second nomination, these had been held under a decent veil of secrecy.
Since that time they had exerted more and more complete and recognized
control. Crawford was marked for the succession, although he was under
some discipline for having allowed his name to be used in the caucus of
1816 against Monroe. The opposing candidates now discovered that caucus
nominations were evil, and joined forces in a movement to put an end
to them. This movement gained popular approval on general principles.
When the caucus was called, naturally only the friends of Crawford
attended--sixty-six out of two hundred and sixteen Republican members.
The nomination probably hurt him. It was proudly said that King Caucus
was now dethroned, but never was there a greater mistake. He had only
just come of age and escaped from tutelage. He was about to enter on
his inheritance.

General Jackson obtained the greatest number of votes in the electoral
college; and when the election came into the House, a claim was loudly
put forward which had been feebly heard in 1801, that the House
ought simply to carry out the “will of the people” by electing him.
This claim distinctly raised the issue which has been described, of
democracy against the Constitution. Does the Constitution give the
election to the House in certain contingencies, or does it simply
charge it with the duty of changing a plurality vote into an election?
No one had a majority, but the House was asked really to give to a
major vote the authority which, even on the democratic theory, belongs
to a majority.

The election could not but result in the discontent of three
candidates and their adherents, but the Jackson party was by far the
most discontented and most clamorous. They proceeded to organize and
labor for the next campaign. They were shrewd, active men, who knew
well the arena and the science of the game. They offered to Adams’s
administration a ruthless and relentless opposition. There were no
great party issues; indeed, the country was going through a period
of profound peace and prosperity which offered little material
for history and little occasion for active political combat. The
administration was simple and businesslike and conducted the affairs
of the government with that smoothness and quiet success which belong
to the system in times of peace and prosperity. Mr. Adams was urged to
consolidate his party by using the patronage of the executive, and the
opinion has been expressed that, if he had done so, he could have won
his reëlection. He steadfastly refused to do this.

The truth was that a new spirit had come over the country, and that the
candidacy of Jackson was the form in which it was seeking admission
into the Federal administration. Here we meet with one of the great
difficulties in the study of American political history. The forces
which we find in action on the Federal arena have their origin in the
political struggles and personal jealousies of local politicians, now
in one state and now in another; and the doctrines which are propounded
at Washington, and come before us in their maturity, have really grown
up in the states. Rotation in office began to be practiced in New York
and Pennsylvania at the beginning of the century. The Federalists then
lost power in those states, and their political history consists of the
struggles of factions in the Republican party. Jefferson and Madison
taught Democracy in Virginia, but it never entered their heads that
the “low-down whites” were really to meddle in the formative stage of
politics. They expected that gentlemen planters would meet and agree
upon a distribution of offices, and that then the masses should have
the privilege of electing the men they proposed. The Clintons and
Livingstones in New York were Democrats, but they likewise understood
that, in practice, they were to distribute offices around their
dinner-tables.

In the meantime men like Duane were writing essays for farmers and
mechanics, which were read from one end of the Union to the other, in
which they were preaching hostility to banks and the “money power,”
hostility to the judiciary and to the introduction of the common law
of England, the election of judicial officers, rotation in office, and
all the dogmas which we generally ascribe to a much later origin. These
notions even found some practical applications, as in the political
impeachment of judges in Pennsylvania in 1804--acts which fortunately
did not become precedents. The new constitutions which were adopted
from time to time during the first quarter of this century show the
slow working of this leaven, together with the gradual adoption of
improvements far less questionable.

After 1810 began also the series of great inventions which have really
opened this continent to mankind. The steamboat was priceless to a
country which had grand rivers but scarcely any roads. In 1817 De Witt
Clinton persuaded New York to commence the Erie Canal, and before it
was finished scores of others were projected or begun. Politically and
financially the system of internal improvements has proved disastrous,
but those enterprises helped on the events which we are now pursuing,
for they assisted in opening the resources of the continent to the
reach of those who had nothing. The great mass of the population
found themselves steadily gaining in property and comfort. Their
independence and self-reliance expanded. They developed new traits of
national character, and intensified some of the old ones. They had full
confidence in their own powers, feared no difficulties, made light
of experience, were ready to deal offhand with any problems, laughed
at their own mistakes, despised science and study, overestimated the
practical man, and overesteemed material good. To such a class the
doctrines of democracy seemed axiomatic, and they ascribed to democracy
the benefits which accrued to them as the first-comers in a new
country. They generally believed that the political system created
their prosperity; and they never perceived that the very bountifulness
of the new country, the simplicity of life, and the general looseness
of the social organism, allowed their blunders to pass without the evil
results which would have followed in an older and denser community. The
same causes have produced similar results ever since.

Political machinery also underwent great development during the first
quarter of the century. In New York there was perhaps the greatest
amount of talent and skill employed in this work, and the first engine
used was the appointing power. The opposing parties were only personal
and family factions, but they rigorously used power, when they got
it, to absorb honors and places. That conception of office arose,
under which it is regarded as a favor conferred on the holder, not a
position in which work is to be done for the public service. Hence the
office-holder sat down to enjoy, instead of going to work to serve.
If some zealous man who took the latter view got into office, he soon
found that he could count upon being blamed for all that went amiss,
but would get little recognition or reward while things went well, and
that the safest policy was to do nothing. The public was the worst
paymaster and the most exacting and unjust employer in the country, and
it got the worst service. The consequence was that the early political
history of New York is little more than a story of the combinations
and quarrels of factions, annual elections, and lists of changes in
the office-holders. The Clintons and Livingstones united against Burr,
who was the center of an eager and active and ambitious coterie of
young men, who already threatened to apply democratic doctrines with
a consistency for which the aristocratic families were not prepared.
Then they began to struggle with each other until the Livingstones were
broken up. Then the “Martling men” and the Clintonians, the Madisonians
and the Clintonians, the “Bucktails” and the Clintonians, with various
subdivisions, kept up the conflict until the Constitution of 1821
altered the conditions of the fight, and Regency and Anti-regency, or
Regency and People’s Party, or Regency and Workingmen’s Party became
the party headings. The net result of all this for national politics
was the production of a class of finished “politicians,” skilled in
all the work of “organization” which in any wide democracy must be
the first consideration. Some of these gentlemen entered the national
arena in 1824. The Regency was then supporting Crawford as the regular
successor. On its own terms it could have been won for Adams, but this
arrangement was not brought about. It did not require the astuteness
of these men to see on reflection, that Jackson was the coming man.
He was in and of the rising power. He represented a newer and more
rigorous application of the Jeffersonian dogmas. His manners, tastes,
and education, had nothing cold or aristocratic about them. He had
never been trained to aim at anything high, elegant, and refined, and
had not been spoiled by contact with those who had developed the art
of life. He had, moreover, the great advantage of military glory. He
had bullied a judge, but he had won the battle of New Orleans. He had
hung a man against the verdict of a court-martial, but the man was a
British emissary. It was clear that a tide was rising which would carry
him into the Presidential chair, and it behooved other ambitious men to
cling to his skirts and be carried up with him.

It is in and around the tariff of 1828 that the conflict centers in
which these various forces were combined or neutralized to accomplish
the result. The student of our economic or political history cannot
pay too close study to that crisis. For the next fifteen years the
financial and political questions are inextricably interwoven.

The election of Jackson marks a new era in our political history. A
new order of men appeared in the Federal administration. The whole
force of local adherents of the new administration, who had worked for
it and therefore had claims upon it, streamed to Washington to get
their reward. It seems that Jackson was forced by the rapacity of this
crowd into the “reformation” of the government. The political customs
which had grown up in New York and Pennsylvania were transferred to
Washington. Mr. Marcy, in a speech in the Senate, January 24, 1832,
on Van Buren’s nomination as minister to England, boldly stated the
doctrine that to the victors belong the spoils, avowing it as a
doctrine which did not seem to him to call for any delicacy on the
part of politicians. In fact, to men who had grown up as Mr. Marcy
had, habit in this respect must have made that doctrine seem natural
and necessary to the political system. The New York politicians
had developed an entire code of political morals for all branches
and members of the political party machine. They had studied the
passions, prejudices, and whims of bodies of men. They had built up
an organization in which all the parts were adjusted to support and
help one another. The subordinate officers looked up to and sustained
the party leaders while carrying the party machinery into every nook
and corner of the state, and the party leaders in turn cared for and
protected their subordinates. Organization and discipline were insisted
upon throughout the party as the first political duty. There is
scarcely a phenomenon more interesting to the social philosopher than
to observe, under a political system remarkable for its looseness and
lack of organization, the social bond returning and vindicating itself
in the form of party tyranny, and to observe under a political system
where loyalty and allegiance to the Commonwealth are only names, how
loyalty and allegiance to party are intensified. It is one of the forms
under which the constant peril of the system presents itself, namely,
that a part may organize to use the whole for narrow and selfish ends.
The idea of the commonwealth is lost and the public arena seems only a
scrambling-ground for selfish cliques. In the especial case of the New
York factions, this was all intensified by the fact that there were
no dignified issues, no real questions of public policy at stake, but
only factions of the ins and the outs, struggling for the spoils of
office. Naturally enough, the contestants thought that to the victors
belong the spoils--otherwise the contest had no sense at all. In this
system, now, fidelity to a caucus was professed and enforced. Bolting,
or running against a regular nomination, were high crimes which were
rarely condoned. On the other hand, the leaders professed the doctrine
that a man who surrendered his claims for the good of the party, or
who stood by the party, must never be allowed to suffer for it. The
same doctrines had been accepted more or less at Washington, but in a
feeble and timid way. From this time they grew into firm recognition.
Under their operation politics became a trade. The public officer was,
of necessity, a politician, and the work by which he lived was not
service in his official duty, but political party labor. The tenure of
office was so insecure and the pay so meager, that few men of suitable
ability could be found who did not think that they could earn their
living more easily, pleasantly, and honorably in some other career.
Public service gravitated downwards to the hands of those who, under
the circumstances, were willing to take it. It presented some great
prizes in the form of collectorships, etc., the remuneration for which
was in glaring contrast with the salaries of some of the highest and
most responsible officers in the government; but, for the most part,
the public service fell into the hands of men who were exposed to the
temptation to make it pay.

After the general onslaught on the caucus, in 1824, it fell into disuse
as a means of nominating state officers, and conventions took its
place. At first sight this seemed to be a more complete fulfillment
of the democratic idea. The people were to meet and act on their own
motion. It was soon found, however, that the only change was in the
necessity for higher organization. In the thirties there was indeed a
fulfillment of the theory which seems now to have passed away; there
was a spontaneity and readiness in assembling and organizing common
action which no longer exists; there was a public interest and activity
far beyond what is now observable. One is astonished at the slight
occasion on which meetings were held, high excitement developed, and
energetic action inaugurated. The anti-Masonic movement, from 1826 to
1832, is a good instance. The “Liberty party” (Abolitionists), the
“Native Americans,” the “Anti-renters,” all bear witness to a facility
of association which certainly does not now exist. It is, however, an
indispensable prerequisite to the pure operation of the machinery of
caucus and convention. The effort to combine all good men has been
talked about from the beginning, but it has always failed on account of
the lack of a bond between them as strong as the bond of interest which
unites the factions.

During the decade from 1830 to 1840 a whole new set of machinery was
created to fit the new arrangements. This consisted in committees,
caucuses, and conventions, ramifying down finally into the wards of
great cities, and guided and handled by astute and experienced men.
Under their control the initiative of “the people” died out. The public
saw men elected whom they had never chosen, and measures adopted which
they had never desired, and themselves, in short, made the sport of a
system which cajoled and flattered while it cheated them. If a governor
had been elected by some political trickery a little more flagrant than
usual, he was very apt, in his inaugural, to draw a dark picture of the
effete monarchies of the Old World, and to congratulate the people on
the blessings they enjoyed in being able to choose their own rulers.

This period was full of new energy and turbulent life. Railroads
were just beginning to carry on the extension of production which
steamboats and canals had begun. Immigration was rapidly increasing.
The application of anthracite coal to the arts was working a revolution
in them. On every side reigned the greatest activity. Literature and
science, which before had had but a meager existence, were coming into
life. The public journals, which had formerly been organs of persons
and factions, or substitutes for books, now began to be transformed
into the modern newspaper. The difficulties and problems presented by
all this new life were indeed great, and the tasks of government, as
well to discriminate between what belonged to it and what did not, as
to do what did belong to it, were great. On the general principles
of the Democratic party of the day in regard to the province of
government, history has already passed the verdict that they were sound
and correct. On the main questions which divided the administration and
the opposition, it must pass a verdict in favor of the administration.
These issues were not indeed clear and the parties did not, as is
generally supposed, take sides upon them definitely. Free trade, so
far as it was represented by the compromise tariff, was the result
of a coalition between Clay and Calhoun against the administration,
after Calhoun’s quarrel with Jackson had led the latter to revoke the
understanding in accordance with which Calhoun retired from the contest
of 1824 and took the second place. The South was now in the position
in which the northeastern states had found themselves at the beginning
of the century. The Southerners considered that the tariff of 1828 had
subjected their interests to those of another section which held a
majority in the general government, and that the Union was being used
only as a means of so subjecting them. They seized upon the Kentucky
and Virginia resolutions of 1798, which Jefferson and Madison had
drawn when in opposition, as furnishing them a ground of resistance,
and threw into the tariff question no less a stake than civil war and
disunion. On this issue there were no parties. South Carolina stood
alone.

Banks had been political questions in the states and in the general
government from the outset. The history of Pennsylvania and New York
furnishes some great scandals under this head. From time to time,
the methods of banking employed had called down the condemnation of
the most conservative and sensible men, and had aroused some less
well-balanced of judgment to indiscriminate hostility. Jackson’s attack
on the Bank of the United States sprang from a political motive, and
he proposed instead of it a bank on the “credit and revenues of the
government”--a proposition too vague to be understood, but which
suggested a grand paper-machine, at a time when the Bank of the United
States was at its best. This attack rallied to itself at once all the
local banks; the great victory of 1832 was not a victory for hard money
so much as it was a victory of the state banks over the national bank.
The removal of the deposits was a reckless financial step, and the
crash of 1837 was its direct result.

The traditional position of the Democratic party on hard money has
another source. In 1835 a party sprang up in New York City, as a
faction of Tammany, which took the name of the “Equal Rights party,”
but which soon received the name of the “Locofoco party” from an
incident which occurred at Tammany Hall, and which is significant of
the sharpness of party tactics at the time. This party was a radical
movement inside of the administration party. It claimed, and justly
enough, that it had returned to the Jeffersonian fountain and drawn
deeper and purer waters than the Jacksonian Democrats. It demanded
equality with a new energy, and in its denunciations of monopolies
and banks went very close to the rights of property. It demanded
that all charters should be repealable, urgently favored a metallic
currency, resisted the application of English precedents in law courts
and legislatures, and desired an elective judiciary. It lasted as a
separate party only five or six years, and then was cajoled out of
existence by superior political tactics; but it was not without reason
that the name spread to the whole party, for, laying aside certain
extravagances, two or three of its chief features soon came to be
adopted by the Democrats.

On the great measures of public policy, therefore, the position of the
administration was not clear and thorough, but the tendency was in
the right direction, especially when contrasted with the policy urged
by the Whigs. In regard to internal improvements, the administration
early took up a position which the result fully justified, and in its
opposition to the distribution of the surplus revenue its position was
unassailable. In its practical administration of the government there
is less ground for satisfaction in the retrospect. Besides the general
lowering of tone which has been mentioned, there were scandals and
abuses which it is not necessary to specify. General Jackson’s first
cabinet fell to pieces suddenly, under the effect of a private scandal
and of the President’s attempt to coerce the private social tastes
of his cabinet, or rather of their wives. He held to the doctrine of
popularity, and its natural effect upon a man of his temper, without
the sobriety of training and culture, was to stimulate him to lawless
self-will. He regarded himself as the chosen representative of the
whole people, charged, as such, with peculiar duties over against
Congress. The “will of the people” here received a new extension. He
found it in himself, and what he found there he did not hesitate to
set in opposition to the will of the people as this found expression
through their constitutional organs. At the same time the practice of
“instructions” marked an extension, on another side, of the general
tendency to bring public action closer under the control of changing
majorities.

Van Buren’s election was a triumph of the caucus and convention, which
had now been reduced to scarcely less exactitude of action than the old
congressional caucus. Van Buren, however, showed more principle than
had been expected from his reputation. He had to bear all the blame
for the evil fruits resulting from the mistakes made during the last
eight years. Moving with the radical or Locofoco tendency, he attempted
to sever bank and state by the independent treasury, and in so doing
he lost the support of the “Bank Democrats.” This, together with the
natural political revulsion after a financial crisis, lost him his
re-election.

The Whig party was rich in able men, which makes it the more
astonishing that one cannot find, in their political doctrines, a sound
policy of government. The national bank may still be regarded as an
open question, and favoring the bank was not favoring inconvertible
paper money; but their policy of high tariff for protection, of
internal improvements, and of distribution of the surplus revenue,
has been calamitous so far as it has been tried. They also present
the same lack of political sagacity which we have remarked in the
Federalists, whose successors in general they were. They oscillated
between principle and expediency in such a way as to get the advantages
of neither; and they abandoned their best men for available men at just
such times as to throw away all their advantages. The campaign of 1840
presents a pitiful story. There are features in it which are almost
tragic. An opportunity for success offering, a man was chosen who had
no marks of eminence and no ability for the position. His selection
bears witness to an anxious search for a military hero. It resulted in
finding one whose glory had to be exhumed from the doubtful tradition
of a border Indian war. The campaign was marked by the introduction
of mass meetings and systematic stump-speaking, and by the erection
of “log-cabins,” which generally served as barrooms for the assembled
crowd, so that many a man who went to a drunkard’s grave twenty or
thirty years ago dated his ruin from the “hard-cider campaign.” After
the election it proved that hungry Whigs could imitate the Democrats
of 1829 in their clamor for office, and, if anything, better the
instruction. The President’s death was charged partly to worry and
fatigue. It left Mr. Tyler President, and the question then arose
what Mr. Tyler was--a question to which the convention at Harrisburg,
fatigued with the choice between Clay and Harrison, had not given much
attention. It was found that he was such that the Whig victory turned
to ashes. No bank was possible, no distribution was possible, and only
a tariff which was lame and feeble from the Whig point of view. The
cabinet resigned, leaving Mr. Webster alone at his post. In vain, like
a true statesman, he urged the Whigs to rule with Mr. Tyler, since
they had got him and could not get rid of him or get anybody else.
Like a true statesman, again, he remained at his post, in spite of
misrepresentation, until he could finish the English treaty, and it
was another feature of the story that he lost position with his party
by so doing. The system did not allow Mr. Webster the highest reward
of a statesman, to plan and mold measures so as to impress himself on
the history of his country. It allowed him only the work of reducing
to a minimum the harm which other people’s measures were likely to do.
In the circumstances of the time war with England was imminent, and
there was good reason for fear if the negotiation were to fall into
the hands of the men whom Mr. Tyler was gathering about him. The Whigs
were broken and discouraged, and as their discipline had always been
far looser than that of their adversaries, they seemed threatened with
disintegration. The other party, however, was divided by local issues
and broken into factions. Its discipline had suffered injury, and its
old leaders had lost their fire while new ones had not arisen to take
their places. The western states were growing into a size and influence
in the confederation which made it impossible for two or three of the
old states to control national politics any longer.

In this state of things the southern leaders came forward to give
impetus and direction to the national administration. They had, what
the southern politicians always had, leisure for conference. They had
also character and social position, and a code of honor which enabled
them to rely on one another without any especial bond of interest other
than the general one. They had such a bond, common and complete, in
their stake in slavery. They could count, without doubt or danger, on
support throughout their entire section. They had a fixed program also,
which was an immense advantage for entering on the control of a mass
of men under no especial impetus. They had besides their traditional
alliance with the Democrats of the North--an alliance which always was
unnatural and illogical, and which now turned to the perversion of that
party. They prepared their principles, doctrines, and constitutional
theories to fit their plans.

Difficulties with Mexico in regard to Texas had arisen during Jackson’s
administration. These difficulties seemed to be gratuitous and unjust
on the part of the United States, and they seemed to be nursed by
the same power. The diplomatic correspondence on this affair is not
pleasant reading to one who would see his country honorable and
upright, as unwilling to bully as to be bullied. Such was not the
position of the United States in this matter.

It was determined by the southern leaders to annex Texas to the United
States, and to this end they seized upon the political machinery and
proceeded to employ it.

The election of Polk is another of the points to which the student of
American politics should give careful attention. The intrigues which
surrounded it have never been more than partially laid bare, but, if
fairly studied, they give deep insight into the nature of the forces
which operate in the name of the will of the people. The slavery issue
was here introduced into American politics; and when that question was
once raised, it “could not be settled until it was settled right.” For
ten years efforts were made to keep the issue out of politics and to
prevent parties from dividing upon it. What was desired was that the
old parties should stand in name and organization, in order that they
might be used, while the actual purposes were obtained by subordinate
means. A party with an organization and discipline, and a history such
as the Democratic party had in 1844, is a valuable property. It is like
a well-trained and docile animal which will go through the appointed
tasks at the given signal. It disturbs the discipline to introduce
new watchwords and to depart from the routine, in order to use reason
instead of habit. Hence the effort is to reduce the new and important
issues to subordinate places, to carry them incidentally, while the
old commonplaces hold together the organization. It is safe to say,
however, that, in the long run, the true issues are sure to become the
actual issues, and that delay and deceit only intensify the conflict.

Upon Polk’s election the independent treasury and comparative free
trade were fixed in the policy of the government for fifteen years,
with such beneficial results as to render them the proudest traditions
of the party which adopted them.

Mr. Calhoun had abandoned the opposition during Van Buren’s
administration, and had begun to form and lead the southern movement.
His own mind moved too rapidly for his adherents, and he could not
bring them to support him up to the positions which he considered
it necessary to take; but, even as it was, the steps of the southern
program came out with a rapidity, and were of a character, to shock the
imperfectly prepared northern allies. The Democratic party of the North
was not a proslavery party. Whigs and Democrats at the North united in
frowning down Abolition excitements, and in maintaining the compromises
of the Constitution. Old-line Whigs and hunker Democrats agreed in the
conservatism which resisted the introduction of this question; but
when, in 1844, Van Buren was asked, as a test question to a candidate,
whether he would favor the annexation of Texas, the subject of slavery
in the territories was thrown into the political arena from the
southern side. It was not then a question of abolishing slavery in the
southern states, which could not have obtained discussion except in
irresponsible newspapers and on irresponsible platforms. It was not
a question of spreading slavery into the old territories, for Texas
and the Indian Territory barred the way to all which the Missouri
Compromise left open. It was now a question of taking or buying or
conquering new territory for slavery, and every one knew well that the
chief reason for the revolt of Texas was that Mexico had abolished
slavery. The South indeed claimed to have suffered aggressions and
encroachments in regard to slavery ever since the adoption of the
Constitution, and the attempt was now to be made to secure recompense.
In the form in which the proposition came up it was no slight shock
to those who had always been in alliance with the South. Party men
like Van Buren and Benton drew back. Southerners like Clay resisted.
The actual clash of arms, fraudulently brought about and speciously
misrepresented, put an end to discussion, and aroused a war fever under
the pernicious motto, “Our country, right or wrong.” If we are a free
people and govern ourselves, our country is ourselves, and we have no
guaranty of right and injustice if we throw those standards behind us
the moment we have done wrong enough to find ourselves at war. The war
ended, moreover, in an acquisition of territory, which, of course, was
popular; and it proved that this territory was rich in precious metals,
which added to the popular estimate of it. The antecedents of the war
were forgotten.

Its political results, however, were far more important. Calhoun now
came forward to ward off a long conflict in regard to slavery in these
territories, by the new doctrine that the Constitution extended to all
the national domain, and carried slavery with it--a doctrine which
his followers did not, for ten years afterwards, dare to take up and
rigorously apply, and which divided the Democratic party of the North.
The repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the enactment of the Fugitive
Slave Law were only steps in the conflict which was as yet confused,
but which was clearing itself for a crisis. The South, like every
clamorous suitor, reckless of consequences, obtained wide concessions
from an adversary who sought peace and contentment, and who saw clearly
the dangers of a struggle outside the limits of constitution and law.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Abolitionists, from their first organization, pursued an
“irreconcilable” course. They refused to vote for any slaveholder, or
for any one who would vote for a slaveholder, and refused all alliances
which involved any concession whatever. They more than once, by this
course, aided the party most hostile to them, and, in the view of the
ordinary politician, were guilty of great folly. They showed, however,
what is the power of a body which has a principle and has no ambition,
and is content to remain in a minority. Probably if the South had been
more moderate, the Abolitionists would have attracted little more
notice than a fanatical religious sect; but, as events marched on,
they came to stand as the leaders in the greatest political movement
of our history. The refusal of the Whig Convention of 1848 to adopt an
antislavery resolution, and the great acts above mentioned, together
with the popular reaction against a party which, if it had had its way,
would never have won the grand territories on the Pacific, destroyed
the Whig party. The party managers, enraged at the immense foreign
element which they saw added year by year to their adversaries, forming
a cohort, as it appeared, especially amenable to party discipline and
the dictation of party managers, took up the Native American movement,
which had had some existence ever since the great tide of immigration
set in. The effort was wrecked on the obvious economic follies
involved in it. How could a new country set hindrances against the
immigration of labor? Politically, the effect was great in confirming
the allegiance of naturalized voters, as a mass, to the Democratic
party as the party which would protect their political privileges
against malicious attacks. The formation of the Free-Soil party or
its development into the Republican party, brought the extension of
slavery into the territories, and the extension of its influence in the
administration of the government, distinctly forward as the controlling
political issue.

On this issue the Democratic party, as a political organization, made
up traditionally of the southern element which has been described,
of so much of the old northern Democratic party as had not been
repelled by the recent advances in Southern demands, and of the
large body of immigrants who regarded that party as the poor man’s
and the immigrant’s friend, fell out of the place it had occupied as
the representative of the great democratic tide which flows through
and forms our political history. This movement has been in favor of
equality. It has borne down and obliterated all the traditions and
prejudices which were inherited from the Old World. It has eliminated
from our history almost all recollection of the old Federal party,
with its ideas of social and political leadership. It has crushed out
the prestige of wealth and education in politics. It has, by narrow
tenures, and by cutting away all terms of language and ceremonial
observances tending to mark official rank, restrained the respect and
authority due to office. The Northern hatred of slavery in the later
days was due more to the feeling that it was undemocratic than to
the feeling that it was immoral. It was always an anomaly that the
Virginians should be democrats _par excellence_, and should regard the
yeomen farmers of New England as aristocrats, when, on any correct
definitions or standards, the New England States were certainly the
most democratic commonwealths in the world. Slavery was an obvious bar
to any such classification; and when slavery became a political issue,
the parties found their consistent and logical position. The rise and
victory of the Republican party was only a continuation of the same
grand movement for equality. The old disputes between Federalists and
Jeffersonians had ended in such a complete victory for the latter,
that the rising generation would have enumerated the Jeffersonian
doctrines as axioms or definitions of American institutions. Every
schoolboy could dogmatize about natural and inalienable rights, about
the conditions under which men are created, about the rights of the
majority, and about liberty. The same doctrines are so held to-day
by the mass of the people, and they are held so implicitly that
corollaries are deduced from them with a more fearless logic than is
employed upon political questions anywhere else in the world. Even
scholars and philosophers who reflect upon them and doubt them are
slow to express their dissent, so jealous and quick is the popular
judgment of an attempt upon them. The Democratic party of the fifties
was, therefore, false to its fundamental principle of equality when it
followed its alliance with the South and allowed itself to be carried
against equality for negroes. Whether there were not subtle principles
of human nature at work is a question too far-reaching to be followed
here.

With the rise of the Republican party there came new elements into
American politics. The question at stake was moral in form. It enlisted
unselfish and moral and religious motives. It reached outside the
proper domain of politics--the expedient measures to be adopted for
ends recognized as desirable--and involved justice and right in regard
to the ends. It enlisted, therefore, heroic elements: sacrifice for
moral good, and devotion to right in spite of expediency. At the
same time, the issue was clear, simple, single, and distinct. The
organization upon it was close and harmonious, not on account of party
discipline, but on account of actual concord in motive and purpose.
The American system was here seen in many respects at its best, and
it worked more nearly up to its theoretical results in the election
of Lincoln, a thoroughly representative man out of the heart of the
majority, than in any other election in our history. It is probably
the recollection and the standard of this state of things which leads
men now on the stage to believe that corruption is spreading and that
the political system is degenerating. It is one of the peculiarities
of the government of the United States, that it has little historical
continuity. If it had more, or if people had more knowledge of their
own political history, the above-mentioned opinion would find little
ground. The student of history who goes back searching for the golden
age does not find it.

All the heroic elements in the political issue of 1860 were, of course,
intensified by the war. There was the consciousness of patriotic
sacrifice in submitting to loss, bloodshed, and taxation for the
sake of an idea, for the further extension of political blessings
long enjoyed and highly esteemed. After the war, national pride and
consciousness of power expanded naturally, but the questions which
then arose were of a different order. They were properly political
questions. They concerned taxation, finance, the reconstruction of
the South, the status of the freedmen. The war fervor, or the moral
fervor of the political contest, could not remain at the former high
pitch. There followed a natural reaction. Questions which touched the
results of the war brought a quick and eager response. It would not
be in human nature that that response should not be tinged by hatred
of rebels and by the worse passions which war arouses. For war is at
best but a barbarous makeshift for deciding political questions. Let
them be never so high and pure in their moral aspects, war drags them
down into contact with the lowest and basest passions--with cruelty,
rapacity, and revenge. Moreover, it was natural that people should
want rest and quiet after the anxiety and excitement of war. Every
householder desired to enjoy in peace the political system which he
had defended and established by war; he did not care to renew the
excitement on the political arena. The questions which arose were no
longer such as could be decided by reference to a general political
dogma or a moral principle or a text of Scripture. They were such as
to perplex and baffle the wisest constitutional lawyer or the ablest
financier or the wisest statesman. The indifference and apathy which
ensued were remarkable, and they probably had still other causes. The
last twenty-five years have seen immense additions to the number and
variety of subjects which claim a share of the interest and attention
of intelligent men. Literature has taken an entirely new extension and
form. Newspapers bring daily information of the political and social
events of a half-dozen civilized countries. New sciences appeal to
the interest of the entire community. Educational, ecclesiastical,
sanitary, and economic undertakings, in which the public welfare is
involved, demand a part of the time and effort of every citizen. At
the same time trade and industry have undergone such changes in form
and method that success in them demands far closer and more exclusive
application than formerly. The social organization is becoming more
complex, the division of labor is necessarily more refined, and the
value of expert ability is rapidly rising.

It follows from all this that, while public interests are becoming
broader and weightier, the ability of the average voter to cope with
them is declining. It is no wonder that we have not the political
activity of the first half of this century. Instead of grasping at the
right to a share in deciding, we shrink from the responsibility. We are
more inclined to do here what we should do in any other affair--seek
for competently trained hands into which to commit the charge. The
frequent elections, instead of affording a pleasurable interest to
the ordinary voter, appear to be tiresome interruptions. What he
wants is good government, honorable and efficient administration,
businesslike permanence, and exactitude. He recognizes in the short
terms and continual elections, not an opportunity for him to control
the government, but an opportunity for professional hangers-on of
parties to make a living, and a continually recurring opportunity for
schemers of various grades to enter and carry out their plans when
people are too busy to watch them. The opinion seems to be gaining
ground that, for fear of power, we have eliminated both efficiency and
responsibility; that if power is united with responsibility, it will
be timid and reluctant enough; and that the voter needs only reserve
the right of supervision and interference from time to time. The later
state constitutions show a reaction from those of the first half of
the century in the length of terms of office, and in the general
tendency of the people to take guaranties against themselves or their
representatives. There seems also to be a tendency to investigate the
theory of appointments or elections to office as a means of devising
measures more satisfactory to that end. No system will ever give a
self-governing people a government which is better than they can
appreciate; but the very belief, to which we have before referred,
that the government is degenerating, is the best proof that the public
standards as to the _personnel_ and the methods of the government are
rising. It seems to be perceived that the plan of popular selection is
applicable to executive and legislative officers, but that it is not
applicable to the judiciary or to administrative officers. In the one
case, broad questions of policy control the choice; in the other case,
personal qualifications and technical training, in regard to which the
mass of voters cannot be informed and cannot judge. In some quarters,
an unfortunate effort has been made to charge the duty of making
certain appointments upon the judges, because, as a class, they retain
the greatest popular confidence and because the restraints of their
position are the weightiest. This, however, seems to be using up our
last reserves. There has been abundant criticism of political movements
and circumstances of late years. At first sight, it does not appear to
be very fruitful. People seem to pay as little heed to it as devout
Catholics do to the asserted corruptions of the Church; but other and
deeper signs point to a conservative movement, slow, as all popular
movements must be, but nevertheless real.

The political party system which had been developed previous to the
war underwent no change during the heroic period. The doctrines of
spoils and of rotation in office were indeed condemned, but it appeared
(as it must appear to any new party coming into office) that the
interests at stake were too great to be risked by leaving any part
of the administration in the hands of disaffected men, and, with
some apologies, the changes were made. It is the fate of the party in
power to draw to itself all the unprincipled men who seek to live by
politics, and to lose its principled adherents as, on one question
after another, they disapprove of its action. The moral and heroic
doctrines or sentiments of the Republican party were just the political
principles which offered the best chance to the unprincipled. A man
of corrupt character could “hate slavery” when that was the line of
popularity and success, and could be “loyal” when only loyal men could
get offices. The political machinery whose growth has been traced was
adopted by the new party as a practical necessity, and the men “inside
politics” still teach the old code wrought out by Tammany Hall and the
Albany Regency, not only as the only rules of success for the ambitious
politician, but also as the only sound theories on which the Republic
can be governed. In those quarters where hitherto the refinements
of the system have all been invented, a new and ominous development
has recently appeared in the shape of the “Boss.” He is the last and
perfect flower of the long development at which hundreds of skilful
and crafty men have labored, and into which the American people have
put by far the greatest part of their political energy. It has been
observed that the discipline or coercion which we dread for national
purposes and under constitutional forms appears with the vigor of a
military despotism in party; and that the conception of loyalty, for
which we can find no proper object in our system, is fully developed
in the party. Under this last development, also, we find leadership,
aristocratic authority of the ablest, nay, even the monarchical control
of the party king. He is a dictator out of office. He has power,
without the annoyance or restraints of office. He is the product of
a long process of natural selection. He has arisen from the ranks,
has been tried by various tests, has been trained in subordinate
positions, and has come up by steady promotions--all the processes
which, when we try to get them into the public service, we are told are
visionary and aristocratic. With the now elaborate system of committees
rising in a hierarchy from the ward to the nation, with the elaborate
system of primaries, nominating committees, caucuses, and conventions,
not one citizen in a thousand could tell the process by which a city
clerk is elected. It becomes a special trade to watch over and manage
these things, and the power which rules is not the “will of the
people,” but the address with which “slates” are made up. Organization
is the secret by which the branches of the political machinery are
manipulated, when they are not, by various devices, reduced, as in the
larger cities, to mere forms. In these cases the ring and the “Boss”
are the natural outcome. Any one who gets control of the machine can
run it to produce what he desires, with the exception, perhaps, that if
he should try to make it produce good, he might find that this involved
a reverse action of the entire mechanism, under which it would break
to pieces. These developments are as yet local, for the plunder of a
great city is a prize not to be abandoned for any temptation which the
general government can offer. In some cases they are hostile to the
power of the Federal office-holders where that is greatest and most
dangerous, so that they neutralize each other. At the same time some of
the Federal legislation in the way of “protection” and subsidies offers
high inducements and abundant opportunities for debauching the public
service. There are afforded by the system in great abundance means of
rewarding adherents, distributing largess, collecting campaign funds,
and performing favors; and it tends to bind men together in cliques up
and down through the service, on the basis of mutual assistance and
support and protection. Suppose that the ring and the “Boss” should
ever be ingrafted upon this system!

It cannot be regarded as a healthful sign that such a state of things
creates only a laugh or a groan of disgust or at best a critical essay.
It seems sometimes as if the prophecy of Calhoun had turned into
history: “When it comes to be once understood that politics is a game,
that those who are engaged in it but act a part, and that they make
this or that profession, not from honest conviction or an intent to
fulfil them, but as a means of deluding the people, and, through that
delusion, acquiring power,--when such professions are to be entirely
forgotten, the people will lose all confidence in public men. All will
be regarded as mere jugglers, the honest and patriotic as well as the
cunning and profligate, and the people will become indifferent and
passive to the grossest abuses of power, on the ground that those whom
they may elevate, under whatever pledges, instead of reforming, will
but imitate the example of those whom they have expelled.”

In the final extension of the conception of the “will of the people,”
and of the position of Congress in relation to it, Congress has come
to be timid and faltering in the face of difficult tasks. It knows how
to go when the people have spoken, and not otherwise. The politician
gets his opinions from the elections, and the legislature wants to
be pushed, even in reference to matters which demand promptitude and
energy. Statesmanship has no positive field and has greatly declined.
The number of able men who formerly gave their services to mold,
correct, and hinder legislation, and upon whom the responsibility
for leading on doubtful and difficult measures could be thrown, has
greatly decreased. The absence of “leaders” has often been noticed.
The fact seems to be that able men have observed that such statesmen
as have been described bore the brunt of the hard work, and were held
responsible for what they had done their best to hinder; that they
cherished a vain hope and ambition their whole lives long, and saw
inferior men without talent or industry preferred before them. It is a
sad thing to observe the tone adopted towards a mere member of Congress
as such. When one reflects that he is a member of the grand legislature
of the nation, it is no gratifying sign of the times that he should
be regarded without respect, that a slur upon his honor should be met
as presumptively just, and that boys should turn flippant jests upon
the office, as if it involved a dubious reputation. If the Republic
possesses the power to meet and conquer its own tasks, it cannot too
soon take measures to secure a representative body which shall respect
itself and be respected, without doubt or question, both at home and
abroad; for the times have changed and the questions have changed,
and we can no longer afford to govern ourselves by means of the small
men. The interests are now too vast and complex, and the greatest
question now impending, the currency, contains too vast possibilities
of mischief to this entire generation to be left the sport of
incompetents. The democratic Republic exults in the fact that it has,
against the expectations of its enemies, conducted a great civil war
to a successful result. A far heavier strain on democratic-republican
self-government lies in the questions now impending: can we ward
off subsidy-schemers? can we correct administrative abuses? can we
purify the machinery of elections? can we revise erroneous financial
systems and construct sound ones? The war appealed to the simplest
and commonest instincts of human nature, especially as human nature
is developed under democratic institutions. The questions before us
demand for their solution high intellectual power and training, great
moderation and self-control, and perhaps no less disposition to endure
sacrifices than did the war itself.

Such a review as has here been given of the century of American
politics must raise the question as to whether the course has been
upward or downward, and whether the experiment is a success or not. On
such questions opinions might fairly differ, and I prefer to express
upon them only an individual opinion.

The Federal political system, such as it is historically in the
intention and act of its framers, seems to me open to no objection
whatever, and to be the only one consistent with the circumstances
of the case. I have pursued here a severe and exact criticism of its
history, as the only course consistent with the task before me, and the
picture may seem dark and ungratifying. I know of no political history
which, if treated in the same unsparing way, would appear much better.
I find nothing in our history to throw doubt upon the feasibility and
practical advantage of a constitutional Republic. That system, however,
assumes and imperatively requires high intelligence, great political
sense, self-sacrificing activity, moderation, and self-control on the
part of the citizens. It is emphatically a system for sober-minded men.
It demands that manliness and breadth of view which consider all the
factors in a question, submit to no sophistry, never cling to a detail
or an objection or a side issue to the loss of the main point, and,
above all, which can measure a present advantage against a future loss,
and individual interest against the common good. These requirements
need only be mentioned to show that they are so high that it is no
wonder we should have fallen short of them in our history. The task
of history is to show us wherein and why, so that we may do better in
future.

If the above sketch of our political history has been presented with
any success, it shows the judgment which has been impressed upon my
mind by the study of it, namely, that the tenor of the Constitution
has undergone a steady remolding in history in the direction of
democracy. If a written constitution were hedged about by all the
interpretations conceivable, until it were as large as the Talmud, it
could not be protected from the historical process which makes it a
different thing to one generation from what it is to another, according
to the uses and needs of each. I have mentioned the forces which seem
to me to produce democracy here. They are material and physical, and
there is no fighting against them. It is, however, in my judgment, a
corruption of democracy to set up the dogma that all men are equally
competent to give judgment on political questions; and it is a still
worse perversion of it to adopt the practical rule that they must be
called upon to exercise this ability on all questions as the regular
process for getting those questions solved. The dogma is false, and the
practical rule is absurd. Caucus and wire-pulling and all the other
abuses are only parasites which grow upon these errors.

Reform does not seem to me to lie in restricting the suffrage or
in other arbitrary measures of a revolutionary nature. They are
impossible, if they were desirable. Experience is the only teacher
whose authority is admitted in this school, and I look to experience
to teach us all that the power of election must be used to select
competent men to deal with questions, and not to indirectly decide
the questions themselves. I expect that this experience will be very
painful, and I expect it very soon.

On the question whether we are degenerating or not, I have already
suggested my opinion that we are not degenerating. The lamentations
on that subject have never been silent. It seems to me that, taking
the whole community through, the tone is rising and the standard is
advancing, and that this is one great reason why the system seems to
be degenerating. Existing legislation nourishes and produces some
startling scandals, which have great effect on people’s minds. The
same legislation has demoralized the people, and perverted their
ideas of the functions of government even in the details of town and
ward interests. The political machinery also has been refined and
perfected until it totally defeats the popular will, and has produced
a kind of despair in regard to any effort to recover that of which
the people have been robbed; but I think that it would be a great
mistake to suppose that there are not, behind all this, quite as high
political standards and as sound a public will as ever before. An
obvious distinction must be made here between the administration of the
government, or the methods of party politics, and the general political
morale of the people. Great scandals are quickly forgotten, and there
are only too many of them throughout our history. Party methods have
certainly become worse and worse. The public service has certainly
deteriorated; but I should judge that the political will of the nation
never was purer than it is to-day. That will needs instruction and
guidance. It is instructed only slowly and by great effort, especially
through literary efforts, because it has learned distrust. It lacks
organization, and its efforts are spasmodic and clumsy. The proofs
of its existence are not very definite or specific, and any one in
expressing a judgment must be influenced by the circle with which he
is most familiar; but there are some public signs of it, which are the
best encouragement we have to-day.




THE ADMINISTRATION OF ANDREW JACKSON[49]

[1880]


You must have observed that the social sciences, including politics
and political economy, are the favorite arena of those who would like
to engage in learned discussion without overmuch trouble in the way of
preparation. I doubt not that you have also been struck by the fact
that these sciences are now the refuge of the conceited dogmatism
which has been expelled from the physical sciences. It follows that
the discussions in social science are the widest, the most vague, the
most imperative in form of statement, the most satisfactory to the
writers, the least convincing to everybody else; and that the social
sciences make very little progress. The harm does not all come from
the amateurs and volunteers who meddle in these subjects. It comes
also from false methods and want of training on the part of those of
higher pretensions. If, however, the methods which have hitherto been
pursued are correct, if any one is able without previous care or study
to strike out the solution of a difficult social problem, for which
solution, however, he can give no guarantee to anybody else, then the
social sciences are given over to endless and contemptible wrangling,
and are unworthy of the time and attention of sober men. Such, however,
is not the case. The Science of Life, which teaches us how to live
together in human society, and has more to do with our happiness here
than any other science, is not a mere structure of _a priori_ whims. It
is not a mass of guesses which the guesser tries to render plausible.
It is not a tangle of dogmas which are incapable of verification. It
is not a bundle of sentiments and enthusiasms and soft-hearted wishes
bound together either by religious or by irreligious prejudices. It is
not a heap of statistical matter without logic. Whether you regard the
social science under the form of law, politics, political economy, or
social science in its narrower application, these negatives all apply.
It is only under some application of scientific methods and scientific
tests that, in this department as in others, any results worth our
notice can be won.

Now the materials, the facts, and the phenomena of social science
are presented to us under two forms: first, as a successive series,
_viz._, in history, in which we see social forces at work and the
social evolution in progress; secondly, in statistics, in which the
contemporaneous phenomena are presented in groups.[50] Under this view
social science has promise, at least, of issuing from its present
condition and taking on a steady progress, while it also becomes
evident what history ought to be and how we ought to use it.

I have thought it necessary to preface the present lecture with this
bare suggestion of the standpoint from which I take up my subject. For
the study of politics, some questions in political economy, and some
social problems, the history of the United States has greater value
than that of any other country. All the greater is the pity that its
history is as yet unwritten, or all the greater is the humiliation
that the only attempts in that direction which are worth mentioning
have been made by foreign scholars, and are not even in the English
language. In American history also, for the study of politics and
finance, no period equals in interest the administration of Andrew
Jackson. I propose, therefore, in the limited time I can now command,
to point out to you the reasons why this period of our history is
worthy of the most attentive study. I may say here that Professor
Von Holst of Freiburg has perceived the importance and interest of
this period and published a lecture in regard to it which I regard
as thoroughly sound and correct in its standpoint and criticism. His
views coincide with those which I have been accustomed to present in my
lectures on the History of American Politics, and I have profited, for
my present purpose, by some suggestions of his.

Mr. Monroe was the last of the public men of the first generation
of the republic who succeeded to the presidential chair by virtue
of a certain standing before the public. During his administration
the old parties died out or were merged in a new party, a compromise
between the two. There followed during his second administration
what was called the “era of good feeling,” during which there were
no party divisions and no strong party feeling. This period was very
instructive, however, for any one who is disposed to see the evils
of party in an exaggerated light, for there sprang up no less than
five aspirants to the succession, whose interests were pushed by
personal arguments solely. These arguments took the form also, not of
enumerating the services of the candidate favored, but of spreading
scandals about his rivals. The newspapers were loaded down with weary
“correspondence” about “charges and countercharges” against each of the
candidates.

Mr. Crawford of Georgia obtained the nomination of the democratic
congressional caucus in 1824, but loud complaints were raised against
this method of nominating candidates. It was demanded that the people
should be free from the dominion of King Caucus, and should nominate
and elect freely. No machinery for accomplishing this was yet at hand,
and none was proposed, but the outcry which was partly justified by
the evils of the congressional caucus system and partly consisted of
phrases which were sure of great popular effect, greatly injured Mr.
Crawford. He had been Secretary of the Treasury during the financial
troubles of the years following the war, and had managed that thankless
office on the whole very well, but he had not performed the impossible.
He had not brought the finances of the country into a sound condition
while allowing the banks to do as they chose. He had not kept up the
revenue while trade was prostrated, and he had not crushed the United
States Bank while preserving the business interest of the country. He
had many enemies amongst those who, on the one side and on the other,
thought that he ought to have done each of these things. Hostility to
the Bank was not as great in 1824 as in 1820, but there was a large
party which was determined in this hostility. Mr. Crawford was also
said to be broken in health, and this came to be believed so firmly
that it has generally passed into history as one of the chief causes of
his defeat. It is so accepted by Von Holst. Mr. Crawford was disabled
from September, 1823, to September, 1824, but he lived until 1834,
spending the last years of his life as a circuit judge, and he was well
enough in 1830 to ruin John C. Calhoun’s chances of succeeding General
Jackson.

The next candidate was Mr. Adams, Secretary of State under Mr.
Monroe. He enjoyed the support of New England. There was no question
of Mr. Adams’s abilities, or of his great public services, or of his
character; but he was not popular. I do not, of course, think this at
all derogatory to him, but you observe that it is hard for a man to
despise popularity and at the same time have enough of it to be elected
to office in a democracy. Mr. Adams really liked popularity and wanted
it, and there was a continual strife within him between the aristocrat
who sought independent and isolated activity to please himself and the
politician who must please others. It is the explanation of much in
his conduct which seemed erratic and inconsistent to his contemporaries.

Mr. Clay was the candidate of the West, and Mr. Calhoun of a portion of
the South.

These men were all in prominent positions, three of them in the
Cabinet, and one speaker of the House. On the 20th of August, 1822,
the House of Representatives of Tennessee presented another candidate
in the person of General Jackson. This gentleman had been educated for
a lawyer and had been on the bench of Tennessee. He was in Congress
during the administration of Washington and voted against a clause
in the address of Congress to Washington on his retirement, in which
a hope was expressed that Washington’s example might be imitated by
his successors.[51] As a member of Congress he had been noticeable
only for violence of speech and action. At New Orleans he had won a
creditable military success at the close of a war which had brought
little glory on land. While there he came into collision with the civil
court on refusing to obey a writ of habeas corpus. Some incidents of
this event are especially characteristic of the man. He came into court
March 31, 1815, surrounded by the populace, and refused to answer
interrogatories. Then, pointing to the crowd, he said to the judge,
alluding to the previous judicial inquiry: “I was then with these brave
fellows in arms; you were not, sir!” He interrupted the judge while
he was reading his decision, saying: “Sir, state facts and confine
yourself to them, since my defence is and has been precluded; let not
censure constitute a part of this sought-for punishment.” The judge
replied: “It is with delicacy, general, that I speak of your name or
character. I consider you the savior of the country, but for your
contempt of court authority, or to that effect, you will pay a fine of
$1000.” The general drew his check for the sum and retired. The crowd
dragged his carriage to the French coffee-house, with acclamations and
waving flags. He there made a speech.[52] The fine, amounting with
interest to $2,700, was refunded by Congress in 1844.

In 1818 he had violated the territory of Florida, then a province of
Spain, with whom we were at peace. He claimed, in 1830, that he had
done this with the connivance of Mr. Monroe. During the same campaign
against the Seminoles he captured two men who were aiding the enemy and
were said to be British subjects. A court-martial condemned one of them
to death and the other to less punishment. He ordered both executed,
thus overruling the verdict on the side of severity.

The people might have been divided into two great classes according to
the opinion of Jackson which was entertained in 1822. The more sober
and intelligent considered him a violent, self-willed, ignorant, and
untrained man. They thought that he had perhaps the soldier’s virtues
and that he had done the country good service as a soldier but they
doubted if he had the first qualification of a ruler, _viz._, to know
how to obey. They thought him quarrelsome, vain, untutored in the forms
of civilized life which teach men to ignore much, to endure more, and
to reserve the stake of personal feeling and personal struggle for
the last and highest emergencies. They perceived, on the contrary,
that he never distinguished great things from small, especially where
his own pride was involved, and that he had no reserve at all about
throwing his personality into unseemly controversies, which he never
shunned but seemed to like. I have already said that these personal
criminations and recriminations were common at the time; Mr. Webster
is the only prominent public man of the time who succeeded in avoiding
newspaper controversies, and he did not altogether escape altercations
in the Senate. Public men were continually scenting attacks on their
character and setting vigorously to work to vindicate the same, not
perceiving that such vindications always derogate from the man who
makes them. This much ought to be said in excuse for General Jackson
if this fault was especially prominent in him. You may imagine how
incredible it seemed to persons who formed this estimate of Jackson
that any one could soberly propose him for the chair which had hitherto
been filled by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. The
Federalists of New England had had little affection or admiration for
the last three Presidents, but they had never been ashamed of them as
public men.

The other of the two great classes to which I have referred held a very
opposite opinion of General Jackson. To them he was a military hero and
a popular idol. They liked him better for taking Pensacola in defiance
of international law. They liked him for bearding the judge who wanted
to enforce the habeas corpus. They thought it spirited in him to hang
two Englishmen to solve a doubt. I do not mean that they reasoned much
about it, for they did not; at bottom they were actuated by an instinct
of fellowship. They recognized a man with the same range of ideas and
feelings, the same contempt for history, law, Old-World forms, and
traditions by which they themselves were actuated. His bluntness, his
rollicking, untamed manner, his hit-or-miss arguments, his respect
for the popular whim or emotion as the only control he would admit,
his plump ignorance which exceeded omniscience in its boldness,
all flattered the populace and won its favor. Here was a hero from
amongst themselves, using their methods, despising the restrictions
of the cultivated and the learned, a virtuoso in negligence and
carelessness of manner, aiming at rudeness and bluntness as things
worth cultivating, and elevating want of culture into a qualification
for greatness and a title to honor.

In order to understand the full importance of this you must look at
some facts in social and political development which had immediately
preceded. At the adoption of the Constitution property qualifications
limiting the suffrage were general, but they had been removed steadily
and gradually until by 1820 the suffrage was universal throughout
almost all the states. The Jeffersonian ideas of government and
policy had also spread steadily and rapidly and had received more
and more extended interpretation. They were fallacious and only half
true at best, that is to say, they were of the most mischievous
order of propositions possible in politics; but in popular use and
interpretation they had become worn into a kind of political cant, in
which the moiety of truth had disappeared and the residuum of falsehood
had become the highest political truth and the badge of political
orthodoxy. To use the ballot was held synonymous with freedom; the rule
of the numerical majority was made equivalent to the republic; the
“will of the people” was held paramount to the Constitution--which is
nothing more than saying that to do as you choose is superior to doing
as you have agreed. And it had become a political dogma that, if there
are only enough of you together, when you do as you have a mind to, you
are sure to do right.

I use the past sense here, but you will at once perceive that I am
describing what is still strong amongst us.

Of course there was, outside of these two classes, a large body of
persons, scattered, as to their political opinions, all the way between
the two extremes; but the second class was large and was growing very
rapidly from social and industrial causes which are yet to be specified.

During the European wars the people of the New England states made
great gains from commerce. In the middle states manufactures began
under the protection of embargo and war. In the South there was less
wealth, but the possession of land and slaves created an aristocracy
of large political influence over poorer neighbors. In New York
something of the same kind existed, two or three of the great families
struggling with one another for the political control of the state.
These were all democrats of a peculiar type well worthy of study.
They professed popular principles while they scorned the populace and
led cohorts of uneducated men whom they handled and disposed of as
they chose. After the war the commerce and industry of the country
suffered a heavy reverse from which it did not recover until 1820 or
1821; but then came the influence of steam navigation, as the first of
the great inventions, together with the factory system and some great
improvements in machinery, and the position of the artisan, in spite
of the protective policy to which the result was generally attributed
as a cause, underwent a steady and very great improvement. In 1825
the Erie Canal was opened and, together with the application of steam
to lake and river navigation, led to an unparalleled development west
of the Alleghanies. In the southwestern states the immense profits of
cotton culture led to rapid settlement and development. As early as
1816 the tide of immigration had become marked. It was interrupted
during the hard times but went on again increasing steadily. Thus you
see that the material prosperity of this country was just taking its
great start at the beginning of the twenties. The natural consequence
was that there was a great body of persons here who had been used to
straitened circumstances, but who now found themselves prosperous,
every year improving their condition. Such a state of things is of
course eminently desirable. Economists and statesmen are continually
trying to bring it about. Observe, however, some of the inevitable
social, political, and moral effects. This class expanded under the sun
of prosperity both its virtues and its vices. It became self-reliant
and independent. It feared no mishap. It took reckless risks. It
laughed at prudence. It had overcome so many difficulties that it took
no forethought for any yet to come. It loved dash and bravado and high
spirit. It admired energy and enterprise as amongst the highest human
virtues. It scorned especially theory, or philosophy, and professed
exaggerated faith in the practical man. It never estimated science
very highly until science began to lead to patent mixtures for various
purposes and to mining engineering. Then it took to business colleges
and technical schools for the dissemination of the same. Especially did
this class despise any historical or scientific doctrines which came
from the other side of the water. It was a general premise that the new
country needed new systems throughout the whole social and political
fabric, and that what was enforced by European experience was surely
inapplicable here. As against England this assumption was considered
especially strong. In the writings of some of the men who greatly
influenced public opinion from 1820 to 1830 this amounted almost to
fanaticism. “Home industry,” and “Internal Improvements,” owed much of
their success over the mind of the nation to the industrious use of
this prejudice. These subjects were not political issues until 1830.

Of course I have nothing to do with the question which to many would
seem to be here the only important one, _viz._, whether these traits
are not noble and praiseworthy and do not constitute the Americans
the first nation in the world. Those are idle questions. Political
institutions are not framed to produce noble and praiseworthy men.
If any are planned to that end they always fail. But political
institutions follow the social and industrial conditions, if the people
adapt themselves to the facts of the case. So it has been here; and,
although I have used the past tense in this description of the effects
of rapid prosperity, you observe that the features are those which
still mark our American society as a whole. I have simply to take
cognizance of these effects as facts inseparable from the conditions of
that society.

Here, then, I come to the assertion to which I desire especially to
call your attention under my present subject: that is, that General
Jackson’s personal popularity and his political influence were not
created by him at all, but were simply the results of the fact that he
exactly fitted in as a leader into the rising class of persons of small
property, low education, and crude notions of politics and finance. Of
this class he was the leader as long as he lived. You will recognize
here an illustration of the wider historical generalization, that the
prominent man and his surroundings always act and react on one another
and the old question as to which “causes” the other is idle.

Such being the circumstances in 1822, when Jackson’s name was first
mentioned in connection with the Presidency, the class of persons
whom I first described as considering this a bad joke soon discovered
their mistake. In the following year the people of Blount County,
Tennessee held a meeting at which they passed strong resolutions in his
support,[53] and it was soon evident to the aspirants at Washington
that he was the most dangerous competitor of all. Calhoun hastened to
retire into the second place, with the understanding that he was to
succeed in four years, Jackson having pronounced for one term only.
Pending the contest, in 1823, Jackson was elected United States Senator
from Tennessee. The result of the election of 1824 was that Jackson got
99 votes in the electoral college, Adams 84, Crawford 41, and Clay 37.
Clay was thus excluded from the contest in the House. His friends voted
for Adams, who got 13 states, Jackson 7, and Crawford 4. The states
which voted for Jackson were New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Indiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. This election was in
many respects important for the history of politics in the country. I
leave aside all but the relation to Jackson and the political movement
which he represented. His friends were by no means content, and they
were not quiet in their discontent. They accused Clay of carrying his
votes over to Adams by a corrupt bargain, according to which he was to
be Secretary of State in the new Cabinet. There was less ground for
this accusation than for almost any other personal calumny to be found
in our political history, but it clung to Mr. Clay as long as he lived.

The most significant feature, however, for the political movement of
the time was this: General Jackson’s supporters claimed that, as he
had a plurality of the votes of the Electoral College, it was shown to
be the will of the people that he should be President, and that the
House of Representatives ought simply to have carried out the popular
will, thus expressed, to fulfillment. You observe the full significance
of the doctrine thus affirmed. The Constitution provides that the
House shall elect a President when the Electoral College fails to give
any candidate a majority. It confers an independent choice between
the three highest candidates upon the House. Already the independent
choice which the Constitution intended to give to the Electoral College
had been abrogated by Congressional caucus nominations and pledged
elections. It was now claimed that the House should simply elevate the
plurality of the highest candidate in the College to a majority in the
House. Thus the antagonism between the permanent specification of the
Constitution and the momentary will of the people was sharply defined.
It was the antagonism between the general law and the momentary
impulse, between sober dispassionate judgment as to what is generally
wise and a special inconvenience or disappointment. I strive to put
it into everyday language because it is a phenomenon of human life
which is the same whether it is seen in the character of an individual
striving to control his wayward impulses by general principles, or in
the political history of a great democratic republic seeking to obtain
dignity, stability, and imperial majesty by binding the swaying wishes
of the hour under broad and sacred constitutional provisions. It was
the opening of that issue which is vital to this republican issue
which cleaves down through our entire political and social fabric,
the issue to which parties must ever return and about which they will
always form so long as this experiment lasts--the issue, namely, of
constitutionalism _versus_ democracy, of law _versus_ self-will; the
question whether we are a constitutional republic whose ultimate bond
is the loyalty of the individual citizen to the Constitution and the
laws or a democracy in which at any time the laws and the Constitution
may give way to what shall seem, although not constitutionally
expressed, to be the will of the people. General Jackson was from the
time of this election the exponent of the latter theory.

I do not mean to say that the issue was clearly defined at the time, or
that the parties ranged themselves upon it with logical consistency.
Any student of history knows that political parties never do that.
Still less do I mean to say that parties since that time have kept
strictly to the position on one side or the other of this issue which
their traditions would require. Political history and political
tradition have little continuity with us, and the fact has been that
the Jacksonian doctrine has permeated our whole community far too
deeply. We have had some who merely grubbed in a mole-eyed way in the
letter of the Constitution, as indeed Jackson and his fellows did, and
we have had others who were and are restive under any invocation of the
Constitution. True constitutionalism, however, the grand conception
of law, of liberty under law, of the free obedience of intelligent
citizens, is what now needs explaining and enforcing as the key to
any true solution of the great problems which, as we are told on every
side, beset the republic.

I cannot now follow the history in detail to show the movements of
parties during the next four years. Mr. Adams’s administration was
unfortunate in its attempts to settle the old misunderstanding with
England about the West India trade. It got that question into one of
those awkward corners, out of which neither party can first seek exit,
which the diplomatist ought to avoid as the worst form of diplomatic
failure. In its home policy it favored internal improvements and
protection to the most exaggerated degree. But the administration was
dignified, simple, and businesslike. It was a model in these respects
of what an administration under our system ought to be. It presented no
heroics whatever, neither achievements nor scandals, and approached,
therefore, that millenial form of society in which time passes in peace
and prosperity without anything to show that there is either government
or history.

Nevertheless this administration did not receive justice from its
contemporaries. Mr. Adams seemed always to feel a certain timidity,
which he expressed in his letter to the House of Representatives on his
election, because he had gone into office without a popular majority.
In Congress he had to deal with an opposition which was factious,
disappointed, and malignant, determined to make the worst of everything
he did and to make capital at every step for General Jackson. It
was a campaign four years long, and it was conducted by a new class
of politicians who made light of principle and gloried in finesse.
The end of the old system of family leadership in New York and the
certainty that there would never be another congressional caucus, led
to new forms of machinery for manipulating the popular power. These
were set up under loud denunciations of dynasties, aristocracies,
families, dictation, and so on. The most remarkable and most powerful
of these new organs was the Albany Regency, which shaped our political
history for the next ten or fifteen years. The intrigues of the period
culminated in the tariff act of 1828, in which Pennsylvania and
the South were brought into a strange coalition to support Jackson
and a high tariff, leaving New England out of the golden shower of
tariff-created wealth, as she held aloof from the support of the
popular idol. I regret that I cannot now stop to analyze and expose
this prime specimen of legislation in which tariff and politics were
scientifically intermingled.

As for political principles, there were none at stake and none argued
in the contest. The struggle was ruthlessly personal. A month before
the election an editorial in _Niles’s Register_ used the following
language: “We had much to do with the two great struggles of parties
from 1797 to 1804 and 1808 to 1815, and we are glad that we are not so
engaged in this, more severe and ruthless than either of the others,
and, we must say, derogatory to our country, and detrimental to its
free institutions and the rights of suffrage, with a more general
grossness of assault upon distinguished individuals than we ever before
witnessed.”

Jackson was elected by 178 votes to 83 for Adams. The criticisms which
had been made upon Adams’s administration were now all used as a basis
for representing the entire government as needing reform. This reform
took the form of removing all persons in office and replacing them by
friends of the new President. Up to this time the tenure of office
in the public service had been during efficiency or good behavior,
although instances of removals for political reasons had not been
wanting and there had been many changes when Jefferson went into
office. I will only say in passing that the complaints of inefficiency
in office and of corruption during Jackson’s administration steadily
and justly increased. According to a report by Secretary Ewing, in
1841, there were lost, to the government between 1829 and 1841, over
two millions and a half of dollars by defalcations of public officials.
The Cabinet selected by Jackson at the outset consisted of obscure
men remarkable only for their loyalty to the person of the President.
It may be said in general of the new appointments to inferior offices
that they constituted a deterioration of the public service. Two
doctrines were now affirmed as democratic principles which, if they
should be accepted as such, would be the condemnation of democracy to
all sober-minded men. The first was that of rotation in office, which,
if it is a democratic principle, raises inefficiency and venality to
permanent features of the public service. You will observe that its
effect has been, as a matter of history, to make thousands of people
believe despairingly that these things are inseparable from the public
service and that elections only determine which set shall enjoy the
opportunity. The other doctrine or democratic principle was that to the
victors belong the spoils. This was distinctly enunciated by William
L. Marcy on the floor of the Senate. He said that he did not hesitate
to avow the principle as a principle. By this principle corruption in
the public service is made a matter of course. I think that these two
“principles” are rotten, and by virtue of their own intrinsic baseness.
If any one is inclined to despair of the republic now, he ought to
remember that there was a time when men shamelessly professed these
doctrines as principles. I doubt if any one would be bold enough to do
it to-day.

Whether General Jackson went into office intending to make war on
the United States Bank, is a question which has never yet found a
solution, but the drift of the evidence is for the negative. During
the summer of 1829 some of the New Hampshire politicians of the new
school endeavored to obtain the removal of Mr. Jeremiah Mason from the
Presidency of the Portsmouth Branch of the United States Bank. They
brought no charge whatever against him save that he was a friend of Mr.
Webster, and they urged that some friend of the administration might
make the Branch useful in its service. The Secretary of the Treasury
(Ingham) endeavored to induce the President of the Bank (Biddle) to
remove Mr. Mason. Biddle refused to do this. In this controversy the
administration men were in the position of striving to bring the
Bank into politics on their side and the Bank was in the position of
striving to remain neutral in politics. From this, however, dates
the great conflict of Jackson’s administration. You will greatly err
in trying to form any judgment in this matter if you doubt the _bona
fides_ of General Jackson. Where his personal value was not at stake
he was genial, good-natured, and generous. In questions of policy he
was easily led up to the point at which he formed an opinion. His
opinion might be crystallized, however, suddenly, by the most whimsical
consideratives, or under the most erratic motives. When he had formed
what for him was an opinion, he clung to it with astonishing obstinacy.
It rose before his mind as a fact of the most undeniable certainty. The
echo of it, which came back to him by virtue of his popularity, seemed
to him to sanction it with the highest authority. One who denied it was
shameless and unpardonable, one who resisted it deserved any punishment
which the fashions of the age allowed. You recognize the description of
a strong and originally powerful mind destitute of training.

At the outset the Bank was guilty only of neutrality where he demanded
support. At this time it had lived down much of the hatred it had
justly incurred at the outset, but there was no difficulty in reviving
it. The Bank was never in a stronger or sounder condition than in 1829,
and it enjoyed high credit both at home and abroad. The word went out,
however, that the Bank was a monopoly, the possession of the moneyed
aristocracy, undemocratic, and hostile to liberty. The first blow fell,
in spite of some vague premonitory rumors, with great suddenness. In
the annual message of December, 1829, Jackson incorporated a short
paragraph questioning the constitutionality of the Bank and proposing
a Bank on the credit and revenues of the government. The alarm thus
created was twofold, first on account of the Bank which was threatened,
and second on account of the new institution which sounded like a
government paper money bank. Parties did not as yet divide on this
issue. The strongest partisans of Jackson took up the cry against the
Bank, but not yet with vigor; the more intelligent supporters of the
administration still favored it. In 1830 the message was much milder in
regard to the Bank, and the Treasury Report was even favorable to it.
In 1831, however, the message was once more strongly hostile.

In the meantime the President had vetoed an internal improvement bill
and taken up a position of hostility to the policy of improvements.
The tariff of 1828 had provoked the South to more and more energetic
protests until South Carolina adopted the doctrine and policy of
nullification. There never was a greater political error, for she
alienated the vast body of the nation, even in the South, which
might have been brought to oppose protection but would not favor
nullification as a means of destroying it. It was in this connection
that Jackson’s traits availed to procure him, in his own day, the
approval of men like Webster and has availed to give him a place
amongst our political heroes and in the hearts of people who to-day
know little more about him than that he prevented nullification. He
certainly acted with very commendable firmness in giving it to be
understood that nullification meant rebellion and war. His attitude
and, far more, the legislation of the session of 1832–1833 including
the compromise tariff of March 2, 1833, averted civil war. What part
in all this drama was played by his hostility to Mr. Calhoun it is
difficult to say. They were now sworn enemies, General Jackson having
been informed (by Mr. Crawford) that Mr. Calhoun, instead of being
his friend in the cabinet of Mr. Monroe, had been one of those who
disapproved of his acts in the Seminole war in 1878. General Jackson
upon this diverted the succession from Mr. Calhoun and, after taking a
second term himself, gave the succession to Martin Van Buren, a weak
and unpopular candidate, who had, by virtue of his position in the
Albany Regency, given New York to Jackson. Mr. Van Buren was Secretary
of State in Jackson’s first cabinet, which suddenly exploded in 1831 on
a question of social etiquette. He was next nominated to the English
mission and went out, but failed of confirmation, an incident only
worth mentioning because the hotter partisans of Jackson proposed to
abolish the Senate for rejecting one of his nominations.

All these and other personalities which it is impossible to group in
any way, and which I cannot follow into detail, played their part
in the great drama which was opening. The popular democratic party
was gaining ground every day. A consciousness of power, a desire to
assume public duties from which they had hitherto held aloof, was
taking stronger possession of them. On the other hand, an opposition
was forming under the name of the National Republican party which had
a certain vague legitimacy of descent from the old Federal party.
It adopted as its principles protection, internal improvements,
distribution of the public lands, and the National Bank. This party
first began to be called Whigs in Connecticut, in 1834.[54] It always
seemed strangely lacking in political sagacity. It offered to its
enemies the very strongest arguments against itself. It had managed to
get on the side, which will pass into history as the wrong side, of at
least three great questions and perhaps also of the fourth. It forced
the administration into an impregnable position in regard to free
trade, hard money, and an opposition to the distribution of land or
revenue; and it managed in the end to put itself unequivocally in the
wrong and the opposite party in the right on the sub-treasury and the
public finances.

It commenced its career as a party by a great blunder--an act which
was recognized as such immediately afterwards--and that was the effort
to re-charter the Bank in 1832. It had been the strongest answer of
the Bank to Jackson’s early attacks that its charter did not expire
until March 3, 1836, that he had forced the issue of a re-charter on
the country six and a half years before the time, and that he had
nothing to do with the re-charter unless he assumed that he was to be
reëlected. The National Republican convention was held at Baltimore on
December 12, 1831. Mr. Clay was nominated for President. The petition
for a re-charter was presented January 9, 1832, as a manœuvre in the
campaign. Forthwith the charge of anticipating an exciting question
was turned against the opposition. They were charged with bringing the
Bank into politics, and the Bank was forced into the political campaign
to defend its existence. The re-charter was passed July 4, 1832, and
vetoed July 10. Up to this time there had been plenty of administration
men who favored the Bank. This issue, thus forced by the opposition on
the eve of election, and thus accepted by the President for his own
person, raised Bank on Anti-Bank to a test of political orthodoxy,
and, in the political language of the time, many were forced to “turn
a sharp corner.” The issue was now also Jackson _versus_ the Bank, and
then first did it become apparent to what extent the Jackson party had
gained and how thorough was its devotion. The current party names were
Jackson and Anti-Jackson, and candidates were so designated down to the
lowest town officers. The Whigs protested in vain against the folly of
this. They argued with men who would not argue, and assumed the force
of motives the powerlessness of which was proved by the fact that men
could profess such personal political allegiance. They did not truly
appreciate the democracy in which they lived. They suffered themselves
to be isolated as a body and they lost the proper conservative power
of an opposition by failing to go with the sentiment of the vast
energetic, growing (if you choose to call it so), vulgar democracy.
It is a danger which always besets the conservative party here, whose
members will always be a minority, and will always find much to offend
their refinement in a new community like this. They will always be
tempted to withdraw from contact with it and to gratify their vanity at
the expense of all public influence.

The consequence of the issue as it was made in 1832 was that Jackson
got 219 and Clay 49 votes in the Electoral College.[55] Things
now entered on a new stage. The lower class which I have hitherto
endeavored to characterize fairly, but without timidity, now took
on the character of a genuine proletariat. It has been only at few
periods that any development of the lowest sections of our population
has produced what could properly be called by that name. The period
of Jackson’s second administration was the most marked of these. In
the large cities trades-unions arose, and in certain sections agrarian
doctrines were advocated, while there was a general dissemination
of socialistic notions. In 1836 there were formal riots and public
disturbances of lesser grade. Partly this was due to the arrogance
of class success, partly to the flattery of demagogues, and partly
to industrial changes and to currency disturbances which are to be
mentioned in a moment.

The National Bank being doomed if Jackson should be reëlected, a large
moneyed class had been drawn into the administration party, _viz._,
those who wanted to found local banks. The administration party,
therefore, included these two branches, to the former or lower of which
the nickname Locofoco was given.

General Jackson regarded his reëlection as a sanction of all that he
had done or proposed. According to his principles the question of
wisdom in banking and currency did not come from history or science,
but from a majority vote of the people. What is to be noticed, however,
is that the people simply assented to whatever he proposed and ratified
whatever he did, because it was he that did it. There resulted a state
of things paralleled in our history only in the case of Mr. Jefferson,
that is, an action and reaction between the executive and a popular
majority in which each stimulated the other by ready sympathy and
mutual support. The President pursued his way without a misgiving,
and the opposition in Congress while they saw their members dwindling
and the majority becoming more and more overwhelming, could only
express their astonishment at the sudden acts and irregular methods
of procedure of the executive. The subservient majority, consisting
largely of professional politicians of the new type, recognized that
for the time being their occupation of plotting and controling was
gone. Their hopes lay in no independent action, but in loyalty to the
chief.

I feel here how much I am saying which under other circumstances would
require proof, but the proof lies before any one who will throw aside
Benton and Parton and look into the Congressional debates and the
newspapers of the time.

The President now pushed on his hostility to the Bank, being
doubly enraged by the efforts it had made to fight its own battle
in contending against him during the campaign. He avowed his
determination to make the “experiment” of using local banks as fiscal
agents of the government. Naturally enough, the banking and commercial
world was frightened at experiments, carried on without skill or
knowledge and running athwart the financial and business interests of
the country. Up to this time, you must remember, the administration had
not pronounced for specie currency at all, but it was supposed that the
President favored a government paper bank. In his Bank veto message
he had said that a charter for a Bank which would have been free from
objection might have been obtained by coming to him beforehand. In his
first message after his reëlection he raised the question whether the
public deposits were safe in the Bank and whether the government shares
in the Bank ought not to be sold. In spite of all that had gone before
these were startling questions. A majority of the Committee of Ways
and Means found the deposits safe. The minority made some strong and
undeniable points against the Bank.

During the summer of 1833 Amos Kendall was appointed agent to see
what banks could be engaged to take the public deposits. On August
19 of that year the five government directors of the Bank made a
report showing the amount expended by the Bank in printing during the
campaign, and on September 18, 1833, the President read to his cabinet
a paper setting forth the reasons why the public deposits should be
removed from the United States Bank. The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr.
Duane, refused to give the order for removal and was dismissed. Mr.
Taney was made Secretary and he ordered that no further sums should
be deposited in the Bank by collectors or others. December 3, 1833,
he reported to Congress his reasons for doing this. On December 9,
the government directors sent in a memorial to Congress saying that
they had been shut out from a knowledge of the affairs of the Bank. On
March 28, 1834, the Senate, after having tried in vain to pass a more
specific censure, resolved that the President had “assumed upon himself
authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and the laws.”
On April 15, the President sent in a protest against this resolution,
saying that if he had been guilty of violating the Constitution he
ought to be impeached, not censured by resolution. This protest the
Senate refused to register. They could not impeach him, and the House
was far from thinking of such a thing. In fact, the question of status
of the Secretary of the Treasury is a delicate one. Some independent
responsibility is laid upon him, according to the laws of 1789 and
1800, but, as he is liable to be dismissed by the President, he
cannot have an independent responsibility. The resolution of censure
was “expunged” on January 16, 1837. In the House of Representatives,
on April 4, 1834, it was resolved that the Bank ought not to be
re-chartered, that the deposits ought not to be restored, that the
state banks ought to be made depositories of the public funds, and that
a select committee on the Bank should be raised. The majority of this
committee reported, on May 22, that the Bank had refused to submit to
investigation, while the minority (Everett and Ellsworth) reported that
the majority had made unreasonable demands. On February 4, 1834 the
Senate had referred to the Finance Committee an inquiry in regard to
the Bank; and at the next session, on December 18, 1834, the Committee
reported, by John Tyler, favorably to the Bank in every respect. In the
message of December, 1834, the President reviewed the whole war against
the Bank and summed up the charges against it. Therewith the political
and congressional war over the old Bank came to an end with a full
victory for the administration.

The earliest announcement of the policy of the administration in favor
of a metallic currency was in a reply made by the President[56] in
February, 1834, to a deputation from Philadelphia who came to complain
of the hard times. According to the report they gave, the President was
very rude and violent. He ascribed all the trouble to the “monster,”
as he called the Bank over and over again. He declared that he would
introduce a specie currency and that the government should use no
other. He evidently knew little of the laws of money and finance, and,
although much which he and his supporters afterwards urged in support
of this policy was as true and sound as any propositions in physical
science, yet it was mixed up with fallacies which neutralized it, and
it degenerated into a kind of fanaticism about the precious metals.
The measure of distributing the deposits amongst local banks, and
thereby stimulating bank credits, was destructive to the other measure
of introducing a specie currency. The distribution of the surplus
revenue, which had accumulated in the banks amongst the states, was an
opposition measure that was passed on account of the foolish belief,
which so often leads our politicians astray, that there was political
capital in it. Jackson signed the bill, but he criticized it in his
next message, giving plain and statesmanlike reasons against it.

I must mention one other institution which took its rise in this
period, and that is the national convention. I have already mentioned
the Convention of the National Republicans at Baltimore in 1831. The
Jackson men held one at Baltimore on May 21, 1832. With this invention
our political institutions entered on a new phase, and “politician”
acquired a new meaning. The power of party, the binding force of
caucus agreements, the conception of bolting a regular nomination as
the highest political crime, were developed first in the ranks of the
Jackson party, but speedily followed to the best of their ability by
the opposition. The Tammany Club of New York was the school in which
these political arts were cultivated to the highest pitch, to be
imitated elsewhere. There had been loud shouts over the downfall of
“King Caucus” when, in 1824, the candidate of the congressional caucus
was defeated, but the fact was that King Caucus had only just come
of age and was entering into his inheritance. Behind the convention
speedily arose the class of politicians vulgarly known as wire-pullers
who spent their time between elections in intriguing and plotting and
distributing. The Albany Regency found that its power slipped away into
the hands of these more secret operators. There sprang up men who did
not care for office, who lived no one knew how, or who took offices
which to them were sinecures while they wielded the real political
power. The convention proved to be an engine well adapted to the
purposes of this class. It had all the forms of freedom, publicity, and
popular initiative, while the real manipulation was astonishingly easy
for two or three shrewd and experienced men. I am using the past tense
here again for decency’s sake. I wish that I could do so because the
things I describe were really matters of history.

You see now that I have spared nothing whatever here, neither national
pride, nor party prejudice, nor hereditary family feeling. My business
is simply with the truth of history so far as it is attainable, and so
far as I am able faithfully to state it. It would be very easy now to
say that Andrew Jackson demoralized American politics, and to throw
upon his memory the blame for all the political troubles, shames, and
problems of which we are every day reminded. Such, however, would be
very far from the inference I want to draw. I have tried to emphasize
the fact that Jackson himself was only a typical and representative man
in and of his time, that it is often difficult to say whether he led or
was carried forward. His administration, in the view I have tried to
present, was only the time at which a certain tendency came to victory.
It was only a case of the conflict which constitutes great political
parties under all governments, the conflict between the radical and
conservative tendencies. The radical tendency had won one victory
under Jefferson, and, coming into office, had become conservative.
In Jackson’s elevation a new radical tendency, more excessive than
the first, came to victory. I have shown also in my criticism on the
Whig party how it fell out of sympathy with the great movement which
was going on and which was inevitably conditioned in the social and
economic circumstances of the country.

This tendency has still pursued its way down to our own times. The
party which organized under Jackson became involved in the slavery
question by combinations which it would be most interesting to study;
but this will be only a passing phase, a temporary issue in our
political life, and only a feature of the history of the concrete
Democratic party, not of the great democratic tendency. The doctrines
of the Jacksonian democracy have permeated nearly the whole country.
They have come to be popularly regarded as postulates or axioms of
civil liberty. Those who deny them are the scholars, the historians,
the philosophers, the book-men of every grade; and they deny them
under their breath, at the penalty of sacrificing all share in public
life. It is certain, however, that the issue must come back to its
permanent form and that the political strife must be waged between the
conservative and the radical theories of politics--between those who
lay the greater stress on law and those who lay the greater stress on
liberty, between those who see political health chiefly in the social
principle and those who see it chiefly in the individual, between
constitutionalism and democracy.

This will not come about by any critical reflections of mine or by
those of any other political philosopher. It will come about by
experience, and by instinct rather than by reflection. For the evils
and corruptions of which we daily complain arise from democratic
theories of politics, developed and applied without reference to the
actual circumstances of the case, and under assumptions which are
false. Experience has convinced nearly all of us who are willing to
think about the matter that rotation in office is mischievous to the
public interest and demoralizing to the men who enter the public
service. Experience has long since brought home to us the shame of the
doctrine that to the victors belong the spoils. Experience has shown
us the evils of frequent elections and short terms of office, and it
is continually opening the eyes of more and more of us to the evils
of electing a large number of administrative officers and making them
independent of each other. Experience has shown us the inapplicability
of the principle of election to the selection of judges. Experience
is showing that the notion of the responsibility of a party is a
delusion and that the notion of responsibility to the people is only a
jingle of words; and as new constitutions are formed we find that they
continually take more guarantees from the people against themselves.

On the contrary the path of reform lies in the direction of stronger
constitutional guarantees and greater reverence for law as law.
Any conservative party which fulfills its function in this country
will have to take its stand on that platform. Its reforms must be
historical, not speculative. They must be founded in the genius and
history of the country. The democracy here, in the sense of the widest
popular participation in public affairs, is inevitable until the land
is taken up and the population begins to press upon the means of
subsistence, that is to say, for a future far beyond what we need take
into consideration. Our whole history shows this, and the part which
I have discussed shows conclusively what we may also all see in our
own daily observation--that the men, the parties, the theories which
oppose themselves to this tendency are swept down like seeds before
a flood. It is idle to ask whether is it a good tendency. It is a
fact--a fact whose causes arise from the deepest and broadest social
and economic circumstances of the country. But there is a foundation
for true constitutionalism in the traditions of our race and in our
inherited institutions--in our inherited reverence for law, which is
all that keeps us from going the way of Mexico and Peru.

The philosophers and book-men have no great rôle offered them in a new
country. They will always be a minority, they will always be holding
back in the interest of law, order, tradition, history, and they will
rarely be entrusted with the conduct of affairs; but, since their
lot is cast here, if they withdraw from the functions which fall to
them in this society, such as it is, they do it at the sacrifice not
only of duty but also of everything which makes a fatherland worth
having, to them or to their posterity. The fault which they commit is
the complement of that committed by their opponents. For the notion
which underlies democracy is that of rights, tenacity in regard to
rights, the brutal struggle for room for one’s self, and, still more
specifically, for _equal_ rights, the root principle of which is envy.
This was abundantly illustrated in Jackson’s day. The opposition of
his supporters to bank and tariff had no deeper root than this, and
the name they chose for themselves as descriptive of their aims was
“The Equal Rights Party.” But the principle of political life lies
not in rights but in duties. The struggle for rights is at best war.
The subjection to duty reaches the same end, reaches it far better,
and reaches it through peace. Still less is there any principle of
political health in the idea of _equality_ of rights, much as some
people seem to believe the opposite. In political history it has been
the melancholy province of France to show us that if you emphasize
equality you reduce all to a dead level of slavery, with a succession
of revolutions to bring about a change of masters.

If, then, the classes which are by education and position conservative
withdraw from public activity, pride themselves on their cleanness from
political mire, and satisfy themselves at most with a negative and
destructive interference at the polls from time to time, the conception
of political duty with them must be as low as with their opponents;
and I will add that they will at best turn from one set of masters to
another, under a general and steady deterioration in the political tone
of the country. If we have to-day a society in which we go our ways
in peace, freedom, and security, a society from the height of which
we look back upon the life of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
with a shudder, we owe it to no class of men who wrote satirical essays
on contemporary politics and said to one another: “What is the use?”
Elliott and Hampden and Sydney and these revolutionary heroes whose
praise we are just now chanting did not win for us all the political
good we owe them by any such policy as that. There was no use, as
far as any one could see, in their cases. They risked persecution,
imprisonment, the axe, and the scaffold, and their puny efforts seemed
ridiculous in the face of the task they undertook; but they never
stopped to think of that. They saw that it was the right thing to do
then to speak or to resist, and they did it and let the end take care
of itself.

Now we Americans of to-day have no heroic deeds to perform. We have
no fear of the stake or the axe for political causes. We are not
called upon to do any grand deeds. Perhaps it would be easier if we
were. If we had a Cæsar at Washington I would warrant him his Brutus
within a fortnight. But we have need of the same sense of duty which
has animated all the heroes of constitutional government and civil
liberty, and I am not sure but we need some of their courage also,
for it demands at least as much moral courage to beard King Majority
as it ever did to beard King Cæsar. Nothing less than the experiment
of self-government is at stake in the question whether thousands of
citizens are capable of that form of duty which makes a man work on
without results and without reward, even, it may be, in the face of
misrepresentation and abuse, simply because he sees a certain direction
in which his efforts ought to be expended.

Such, however, I conceive to be the calling of the conservative classes
of this country, at least for this generation. We have undertaken to
govern ourselves, and we are just finding, now that the country is
filling up and its cities growing large, that it is a great task,
that it takes time and thought, that we need any and all resources
of science and experience which we can call to our aid; and we are
finding especially that the forms of law and of the Constitution are
every year more essential, and the untamed forces of society more
dangerous. No supernatural interference will come to our assistance.
No man, no committee, no party, no centralized organization of the
general government, can rid us of our difficulties and yet leave us
self-government. Nor can we invent any machinery of elections or of
government which will do the work for us. We have got to face the
problems like men, animated by patriotism, acting with business-like
energy, standing together for the common weal. Whenever we do that we
cannot fail of success in getting what we want; so long as we do not do
that, our complaints of political corruption are the idlest and most
contemptible expressions which grown men can utter.




THE COMMERCIAL CRISIS OF 1837

[1877–1878]


The decade from 1830 to 1840 is the most important and interesting in
the history of the United States. The political, social, and industrial
forces which were in action were grand, and their interaction produced
such complicated results, that it is difficult to obtain a just and
comprehensive view of their relations and influences. In the first
place, the United States advanced between the second war with England
and 1830 to a position of full and high standing in the family of
nations. The security and stability of the government were accepted
as established. England and France, on the other hand, just before
and after 1830, were involved in social and political troubles of
an alarming kind. By contrast, the United States, with a rapidly
increasing population, expanding production and trade, a contented
people, and a surplus revenue offered great attractions to both
laborers and capital. At the same time the pride of the Americans in
their country produced self-reliance, energy, and enterprise which
laughed at difficulties. New means of transportation by steamboats
and canals were opening up the country and assuring to the population
the advantages of a new and unbounded continent. Production therefore
offered high returns to both labor and capital.

The advantages of a new country were credited to the political
institutions of democracy, and increasing prosperity, due to the fresh
resources brought within reach, was held to be proof of the truth of
the political dogmas entertained by the workers. A sort of boyish
exuberance, compounded of inexperience, ignorance, and fearless
enterprise, marked politics as well as industry. Jackson’s election
in 1828 brought to power a party which had been produced by these
circumstances.

The war debt of 1812 became payable in the years after 1824 and was
distributed over the period down to 1835. With growth and increasing
prosperity, the revenue increased with such rapidity that the debt
could be paid almost as fast as it became payable. The chief purposes
for which the Bank of the United States had been founded in 1816
were to provide a sound and uniform paper currency convertible with
specie, of uniform value throughout the Union, and to act as fiscal
agent for the government, holding the revenue wherever collected and
disbursing the expenditures wherever they were to be made. The interest
of the government and the people was the motive, and the bank charter
was a contract with the Bank to perform the services for specified
considerations. One of the considerations was the right of the Bank
to use the deposits as loanable capital. The government was not bound
to keep any balance over expenditure, but the revenue was so large
that the Bank came to hold annually increasing average deposits of
from five to eight or nine millions of public money, which it used for
profit. From this vicious arrangement two consequences followed: first,
public attention was directed to the deposits, not as existing for the
public service, but for the profit of the Bank; and, second, the public
considered itself entitled to claim something of the Bank besides true
business credit, in the matter of discounts.

Jackson opened the war on the Bank publicly in his first message.
Sharp correspondence had been going on already between the Secretary
of the Treasury and the Bank, which had reached such a point that the
Secretary had referred to the removal of the deposits as a power in his
hands to coerce the Bank. Generally speaking, the state of the Bank
and the state of the currency were satisfactory in 1830, but the Bank
had begun in 1827 to issue branch drafts which stimulated credit and
soon produced mischief. Of the war on the Bank it is not necessary to
speak in detail. In December, 1831, Clay was nominated for President by
the National Republicans, and he and his friends determined to bring
on the question of the re-charter of the Bank as a campaign issue.
The re-charter was passed by Congress and vetoed by the President in
1832. The issue in the campaign was thus made up between the personal
popularity of Jackson and of the Bank. The former won an overwhelming
victory which he construed to mean that the people had weighed the
question of re-chartering the Bank and had decided against it.

In September, 1833, he removed the deposits from the National Bank
on his own responsibility, and placed them in selected state banks
which would agree to keep one-third of their note circulation in coin,
redeem all notes on demand, and issue no notes under a five-dollar
denomination. This was to be an experiment. In the meantime the
administration was eagerly pressing on the extinction of the public
debt. The consequences were such as to prove that, however popular
such a policy may be, it may easily be carried too far. The public
deposits were loaned by the Bank to merchants, then recalled and paid
to the public creditors, and then reinvested by them, so that the money
market was subjected to recurrent and sudden shocks. The withdrawal and
transfer of the deposits constituted another and more violent operation
of the same kind, so that there was a crisis and panic in the spring of
1834. The eight or nine millions of public deposits were a continual
source of mischief to the money market. By the contraction of the Bank
of the United States to pay the deposits, and the contraction of the
state banks to put themselves within the rule for receiving the same,
the currency, in the summer of 1834, was perhaps better than ever
before. The coinage act of June, 1834, turned the standard over from
silver to gold.

The deposit banks were urged to discount freely so as to satisfy the
public with the change. Banks were organized in great numbers all over
the country to take the place of the great Bank and to get a share in
the profits of handling the public money. On January 1, 1835, the debt
was all paid and the government had no further use for its surplus
revenue. There was but one correct and straightforward course to pursue
in such a case and that was to lower taxes so as not to collect any
surplus, but this the Compromise Act forbade. The surplus revenue was
the greatest annoyance to the protectionists who wanted to keep duties
high for “incidental protection,” and they proposed scheme after scheme
for distributing the lands, or the proceeds of the lands, or, finally,
the surplus revenue itself, so as to cut down the revenue without
reducing the import duties.

With the increase of banks and bank issues speculation began. It became
marked in the spring of 1835 and went on increasing for two years.
Cotton was rising in price, for the new machinery, and new means of
transportation in England, together with the extension of joint stock
banks there, had given a great stimulus to the cotton manufacturer.
There was an increasing demand for the raw material. It followed that
the cities in which the exchange and banking of all this industry were
carried on also enjoyed great prosperity. Railroads were just being
introduced and ships were needed to transport the products. Thus from
natural causes the period was one of immense industrial development.
The great need for carrying it on was capital, and the political
incidents which brought about or encouraged the bank expansion may be
regarded as accidental. The combination of the two in fact, however,
produced a wild speculation. The banks furnished credit, not capital,
and being restrained by usury laws from exerting through the rate of
discount the proper check upon an inflated or speculative market they
embarked with the business community on a course where all landmarks
were soon lost.

No sooner, however, was this condition of the commercial and banking
community well established than a new shock was given by another
political interference. The administration had now advanced to the
point of desiring to establish a specie currency for the country. The
object was laudable and the means taken were proper, but, following as
they did in the train of the events already mentioned, they produced
new confusion. In 1836 various acts were passed to bring about a specie
currency, and in July of that year the Secretary of the Treasury
ordered the receivers of public money to take only gold and silver
for lands. The circumstances warranted this order. The sales of lands
had risen from two or three to twenty-four million dollars in a year,
and the amount was paid in the notes of “banks”[57] which deserved
no credit. If the nation was not to be swindled out of the lands the
measure was necessary. It then became necessary for the purchasers of
land to carry specie to the West and vast amounts of it accumulated
in the offices of the receivers, or were transferred at great trouble
and expense to deposit banks. The specie was obtained from the
eastern banks, and inasmuch as the whole existing system had pushed
them to the utmost limit of expansion, these demands for specie were
embarrassing. Two points here deserve notice. It is strange to see what
a superstition about “specie” had taken possession of the public mind.
It was regarded as a good thing to have, but too good to use. A specie
dollar was regarded as an excuse for its owner to print and circulate
from three to twenty paper ones, but it was not regarded as having any
other use. The withdrawal of the specie basis from an inflated paper
was no doubt a serious blow to the whole fabric, but, if the paper had
not been redundant the transfer of specie to the West could only have
forced an importation of so much more. This superstition about specie
also prevented any demand upon the banks for specie for any purpose.
Such a demand was regarded as a kind of social or business crime. Hence
the “convertibility” of the notes was a polite fiction. The second
point worth noticing is that the bank advocates continually talked
about “the credit system” when they meant the system of issuing credit
bank notes; and they grew eloquent about the advantages of credit, as
if those advantages could only be won by using worthless bank notes and
not by lending gold or silver or capital in any form.

We are not yet, however, at the end of the political acts which threw
the money market into convulsions. The opposition succeeded, in the
summer of the presidential election year, 1836, in passing an act to
_deposit_ with the states the surplus over a balance of five millions
in the Treasury on January 1, 1837. The amount was thirty-seven
millions. This sum was scattered in eighty-nine deposit banks all over
the country. Its distribution was, therefore, controlled by local
pressure and political favoritism, not by the needs of the government
(for it did not need the money at all) or by the demand and supply
of capital. The banks had regarded it as a permanent deposit and had
loaned it in aid of the various public and private enterprises which
were being pushed on every hand at such a rate that labor was said to
be drawn away from agriculture so that the country was importing bread
stuffs. It was now to be withdrawn and transferred once more, and this
time it was said that, if these “deposits” were such an advantage,
the states ought to have it, and could then, as well as the banks,
be called on to give back the money whenever it might be needed. The
deposit took place in 1837, in three installments, January, April, and
July, and amounted to twenty-eight millions. The fourth installment was
never paid. The money was all squandered or worse.

The charter of the Bank of the United States was to expire on the
3d of March, 1836. One year before that time the directors ordered
the “exchange committee” to loan the capital, as fast as it should
be released, on stocks, so as to prepare for winding up. From this
resolution dates the subsequent history of the Bank, for the exchange
committee consisted of the President and two directors selected by him,
to whose hands the whole business of the Bank was hereby entrusted. The
branches were sold and the capital gradually released throughout 1835,
but in February, 1836, an act was suddenly passed by the Pennsylvania
legislature to charter the United States Bank of Pennsylvania,
continuing the old Bank. The act was said to have been obtained by
bribery, but investigation failed to prove it. The most open bribery
was on the face of it, for it provided for several pet local schemes of
public improvement, for a bonus and loans to the state by the Bank, and
for abolishing taxes--provisions which secured the necessary support to
carry it.

During the year 1836 the money market was very stringent. The
enterprises, speculations, and internal improvements demanded continual
new supplies of capital. The amount of securities exported grew
greater and greater and kept the foreign exchanges depressed. American
importing houses contracted larger and longer debts to foreign agents.
The money market in England became very stringent likewise, and these
long credits became harder and harder to carry. Three English houses,
Willson, Wildes, and Wiggins, had become especially engaged in these
American credits which they found it necessary to curtail. The winter
was one of continual stringency, aggravated by popular discontent,
riots, and trades-union disturbances, arising from high prices and high
rents. The failures commenced on the fourth of March, 1837, the day
that Van Buren was inaugurated, in Mississippi and Louisiana. Hermann,
Briggs & Co., of New Orleans, failed, with liabilities said to be from
four to eight millions. As soon as this was known in New York, their
correspondents, J. L. & S. Joseph & Co. failed. The first break in the
expanded fabric of credit therefore came in connection with cotton.
The price had advanced so much during the last three or four years
as to draw many thousands of persons who had no capital into cotton
production, but the profits were so great that a good crop or two would
pay for all the capital. The planters of Mississippi especially had
accordingly organized themselves into banking corporations and issued
notes as the easiest way to borrow the capital they wanted. From 1830
to 1839 the banking capital of Mississippi increased from three to
seventy-five millions, which of course represented one credit built
upon another, on renewed and extended debt, as the old planters bought
more slaves and took up more land instead of paying for the old, or
as new settlers came in. Mississippi was therefore indebted to the
Northeast for the redemption of their immense bank debt, or for the
capital bought with it. The high rates for money in England and this
country at last checked the rise in cotton in 1836. Bad harvests and
high prices for food fell in with a glut of manufactured cotton, and
when cotton began to fall ruin was certain. As soon as the revulsion
came it ran through the whole speculative system. The new suburbs which
had been laid out in every city and village never came to anything.
Western lands lost all speculative value, and railroad and canal stock
fell with rapidity.

The first resort for help was to Mr. Biddle. The calamity most
apprehended was a shipment of specie, and the effort was to gain an
extension of credit or the substitution of a better for a less known
credit. The Bank of the United States had high credit in Europe, and
indeed all over the world. Ultimately payment must be made by crops yet
to be produced or forwarded. Biddle entered into an agreement with the
New York banks which seems to have been only partially carried out, but
he sold post notes payable one year from date at Barny’s in London. He
received one hundred and twelve and one-half for these, specie being at
one hundred and seven. The bonds were discounted in England at five per
cent. United States Bank stock was at one hundred and twenty.

The situation in England was so serious that all seemed to depend on
remittances from the United States. The Bank of England extended aid
to “the three W’s” to the extent of five hundred thousand pounds on
a guarantee made up in the city, and opened a credit of two million
pounds for the United States Bank, if one-half the amount should be
shipped in specie. To this condition the United States Bank would not
agree. The proposition attributed to the Bank of the United States
a strength which it did not possess. The management of the Bank of
England in this and the two following years was bad, and did much to
enhance the mischief in both countries. France participated in the
distress although there had been no speculation there.

A delegation of New York merchants was sent to Washington on May 3
to ask the President to recall the specie circular, to defer the
collection of duty bonds, and to call an extra session of Congress. In
their address to him they sum up the situation: in six months at New
York, real estate had shrunk forty millions; in two months two hundred
and fifty firms had failed, and stocks had shrunk twenty millions;
merchandise had fallen thirty per cent, and within a few weeks twenty
thousand persons had been thrown out of employment.

Early in May three banks at Buffalo failed. On May 8, the Dry Dock Bank
(New York) failed. On the tenth all the New York City banks suspended.
The militia were under arms and there were fears of a riot. On the
eleventh the Philadelphia banks suspended, because the New York banks
had, and because, although they had plenty of specie for themselves,
they had not enough for the whole “Atlantic seaboard.” They said,
however, that they were debtors, on balance, to New York. As the news
spread through the country, the banks, with few exceptions, suspended.
It was one of the notions born of the bank war that the United States
Bank was guilty of oppression when it called on state banks for their
balances, and the state banks had practiced “leniency” towards each
other. Bank statements of the period show enormous sums as due to and
from other banks. This was what carried them all down together, for one
could not stand alone unless its debits and credits were with the same
banks.

During the summer the governors of several states called extra
sessions of the legislatures. The President had refused to recall
the specie circular, or to call an extra session of Congress, but
the embarrassments of the Treasury forced him to do the latter. The
collection of duty bonds was deferred and the revenue thereby cut
off. The public money was in the suspended banks, and the Treasury,
nominally possessed of forty millions, at the very time when part of
this sum was being paid to the states, had to drag along from day to
day by the use of drafts on its collectors for the small sums received
or by chance left over in their hands since the suspension. As notes
under five dollars had been forbidden by nearly all the states, and as
specie was at ten per cent premium, all small change disappeared, and
the towns were flooded with notes and tickets for small sums, issued by
municipalities, corporations, and individuals.

The most interesting fact connected with this commercial credit is
that New York and Philadelphia took opposite policies in regard to
it, and thus offered, in their differing experience, an experimental
test of those policies. The New York legislature passed an act
allowing suspension for one year. The New York policy then was to
contract liabilities and prepare for resumption at the date fixed. The
Philadelphia policy, in which Mr. Biddle was the leader, was to wait
without active exertions for things to get better. In his letter of
May 13 to Adams, Biddle said that the Bank could have gone on without
trouble, but that consideration for the rest forced him to go with
them. What especially moved him was that, if the Pennsylvania banks
had not suspended, Pennsylvanians would have had to do business with a
better currency than the New Yorkers, which would have been unfair. Mr.
Biddle knew perfectly well that the exchanges would arrange all that.
He was an adept at writing plausible letters. The truth, which was not
known until four years later, was that the capital of the Bank had
never been withdrawn from the stock loans, that the chief officers of
the Bank were plundering it, and that suspension was not more welcome
to any institution in the country than to the great Bank. The jealousy
between New York and Philadelphia was very great at this time. Mr.
Biddle’s personal vanity seems to have been greatly flattered when, in
March, he was called on by the New Yorkers to help them. He was still
the leading financier of the country. The business men could not spare
him, even if the government had thrown him off. There seems also to be
some evidence that he hoped that a great and universal revulsion would
force the general government to re-charter his Bank. The success of his
post notes in England and France was another source of gratified vanity
to him. In his theory of banking he was one of those who believe that
the redemption of the bank note is effected by the merchandise. Hence
banking was, for him, an art by which the banker regulated commerce
through expansions and contractions of the circulation according to the
circumstances which he might observe in the market.

The first effect of the opposite courses taken by New York and
Philadelphia was very favorable to his views. The southern trade was
transferred from New York to Philadelphia. Southern notes were at a
discount of twenty or twenty-five per cent. Receiving these notes from
the merchants, the Bank employed them through Bevan and Humphreys in
buying cotton. This operation began in July and was intended to move
the cotton to Europe in order to meet the post notes of the Bank when
they should become due. The firm of Biddle and Humphreys was also
formed and established at Liverpool as the agent of this operation.
In the extension of the transaction cotton was bought and paid for
by drafts on Bevan and Humphreys of Philadelphia, which drafts were
discounted by the Bank. Biddle and Humphreys, having sold the cotton,
remitted the proceeds to Mr. Jandon, former cashier of the Bank, sent
to England as its agent in July. To all this it must be added that
the Bank assumed the function of securing, for its producers, a good
or fair price for cotton. Jandon’s instructions were to protect the
interests of the bank, and “of the country at large.”

If the Bank had simply been a strong, sound bank, intent on earning
profits, it would have sent two or three millions to Europe, selling
exchange at one hundred and twelve, and would not have suspended.
The rest of the story would then have been very different for all
concerned. The arrival in June of a ship in England with one hundred
thousand dollars specie sufficed to sustain American credit and to
revive American securities. When the credit of a debtor is tainted,
nothing revives it like payment.

The extra session of Congress met on September 4. The fourth
installment of the State Deposit Fund was postponed until January 1,
1839, but it was locked up in the suspended banks and, as the former
installments had been drawn from the better banks, the balance due
was all in the worst banks of the country, those of the southwestern
states. As they had loaned it to their customers, it was, in fact,
amongst the people of those states. A law was passed to institute suit
against these banks unless they paid on demand, or gave bonds to do so
in three installments before July 1, 1839. There were only six deposit
banks then paying specie; one was new, four had not suspended, and one
had resumed. Power to call on the states for the funds “deposited” with
them was taken from the Secretary of the Treasury and held by Congress.
Interest-bearing Treasury notes were provided for one year, to meet
expenses, and an extension of nine months was given on duty bonds.
At this session the sub-treasury system was brought forward as an
administration measure. It split the party. The “bank democrats” (state
bank interest which joined the Jackson party in 1832 to break down the
United States Bank) went into opposition. The advocates of the “credit
system” said the sub-treasury scheme, by giving the government control
of the specie in the country, would give it control of all credit.
Meanwhile Benton said that the eighty million specie in the country
was its bulwark against adversity, and the Locofocos said that any one
who exported specie was a British hireling. So that there was a fine
confusion of financial notions.

In the fall the English money market became much easier, and the same
tendency appeared here. Specie at New York was at about seven per
cent premium, but steadily declining. Prices of breadstuffs remained
very high (flour nine dollars to nine dollars and a half at New York)
and the stagnation of industry was complete. Migration to the West was
large.

On August 18 the New York banks called a convention of banks to
deliberate on resumption. The Philadelphia banks frustrated the
proposition by refusing. A convention met in October but adjourned
without action until April. On the 7th of April the New York banks
had assets two and a half times their liabilities, excluding real
estate, and were creditors of the Philadelphia banks for $1,200,000.
They had reduced their liabilities from $25,400,000 on January 1, 1837
to $12,900,000 on January 1, 1838, and the foreign exchanges were
favorable.

The bank convention met April 1, 1838, and voted by states to resume
January 1, 1839, without precluding an earlier day. New York and
Mississippi alone voted nay, the former because the date was too
remote; the latter because it was too early. New England joined
Philadelphia and Baltimore for the later day. Mr. Biddle published
another letter in which he blamed the rigor of the contraction at New
York; he wanted to remain “prepared to resume but not resuming,” and
looked to Congress to do the work. The exchange between New York and
Philadelphia was then four and a half per cent against the latter. The
southwestern exchanges were growing worse. On May 1, the Philadelphia
banks resolved to pay specie for demands under one dollar. The Bank
of England engaged to send one million pounds in specie to support
resumption, and did send one hundred thousand pounds, but then receded
from the undertaking; its stock of specie was now very large and
increasing. The New York banks resumed during the first week in May,
the Boston and New England banks generally at the same time. Specie was
coming into New York. On May 31 Congress repealed the specie circular,
whereupon Mr. Biddle published another letter saying that since
Congress had acted, he saw his way to resumption and would “coöperate.”
The Bank had, at this time, over thirteen millions loaned on “bills
receivable,” that is, on securities put in the teller’s drawer, as cash
to replace cash taken out.

After the adjournment of Congress on July 9 there was a much better
feeling, especially on account of the defeat of the sub-treasury
bill, and on July 10, Governor Ritner of Pennsylvania published a
proclamation requiring the banks to resume on August 13, and to pay and
withdraw all notes under five dollars. On July 23 a bank convention
composed of delegates from the middle states met at Philadelphia. It
was agreed to resume on August 13. The Philadelphia banks were obliged
to contract very suddenly and money was very dear there. As soon
as they resumed there were demands on them from New York, exchange
being against them. This caused excitement and indignation. The banks
generally declared dividends as soon as they resumed. Elsewhere, here
and in England, money was easy and the times rapidly improving. There
was, however, a feverish and uncertain market for cotton. Biddle and
Humphreys were carrying an immense stock, and buyers and sellers
differed as to prices.

On December 10, 1838, Biddle published another letter to Adams in
which he reviewed his policy of the last two years, and withdrew the
Bank from all its former public activity. He says: “It abdicates its
involuntary power.” He defended the cotton speculations, saying that
he had saved the great staple of our country from being sacrificed, by
introducing a new competitor into the market. Here then was a buyer who
had gone into the market on purpose to “bull” some one else’s property.
His fate could not be very doubtful. At this same time the Liverpool
market was very dull and the spinners were curtailing their demands
because the supply was under the control of speculators. It was true,
as was asserted, that the crop was short, but the buyers took this for
a speculator’s story, and, anticipating a break in the corner and a
fall in price, they refused to buy. The speculation no doubt unduly
depressed the price. The southwestern agents of the Bank of the United
States were offering advances of from two to five cents above the
market price to secure consignments to Biddle and Humphreys, and Mr.
Jandon, because he had lost instead of winning confidence, was paying
ruinous rates for money to carry on his operations.

During the winter most of the southern and western banks resumed, at
least nominally, but as the spring of 1839 approached the southern
exchanges again fell and many of the banks suspended again. On March
29 Biddle resigned the presidency of the Bank, saying that he left it
strong and prosperous. The stock fell from one hundred and sixteen to
one hundred and twelve, but soon recovered. The money market became
stringent again, influenced by fears of the South.

In March, by speculative sales, by the diminution of stock, and by the
real shortness of the crop, cotton was forced up one and one-fourth
pence at Liverpool, and Biddle and Humphreys sold out their entire
stock. The net profit was six hundred thousand dollars. This was
regarded as a great triumph, and as a complete vindication of Biddle’s
policy. In July, 1839, the Bank of the United States paid a semi-annual
dividend of four per cent--its last one.

The success of the cotton speculation led to a plan for renewing it on
a grander scale. On June 6, an unsigned circular was published at New
York, which proposed a scheme for advancing three-fourths of the value
at fourteen cents on all cotton consigned to Biddle and Humphreys.
They were to “hold on until prices vigorously rally.” The agent, Mr.
Wilder, declared that this had nothing to do with the United States
Bank, so far as he knew. It was, however, a scheme of the Bank. The
Southwestern notes were falling lower and lower, and the post notes
issued in the Southwest the year before were now falling due, and were
not paid. The pressure of this fell on Philadelphia, where money was
up to fifteen per cent and the banks were curtailing. The news from
England was also bad. Cotton was down two cents. The specie of the Bank
of England was rapidly declining and money was at five per cent. The
arrangements from this side in 1837 had simply consisted in renewals
or extensions, and as yet few payments had been made. Stocks, etc.,
were sent over, but they fell upon a glutted and stringent market and
the prices declined. These securities therefore did not furnish means
of payment, and specie shipments were found to be necessary. The Bank
of the United States had prevented any shipment of specie by offering
all the bills demanded at one hundred and nine and a half, and Mr.
Jandon had been obliged to adopt the most reckless means to meet these
bills. In August he wrote to Biddle and Humphreys to supply him with
money at any sacrifice of cotton. “Life or death to the Bank of the
United States is the issue.” The Bank here urged Bevan and Humphreys
to direct their agents to meet Jandon’s demands and the Bank assumed
the loss. In August the Bank sent an agent to New York, to draw all the
bills he could sell on Hottinguer at Paris, to draw the proceeds in
specie from the New York banks, and to ship it to meet the bills, the
object being to force the New York banks to suspend in order that their
example might again be quoted. The Bank also sold its post notes at a
discount of eighteen per cent per annum in Boston, New York, Baltimore,
and smaller places, and gathered up capital to meet the emergency at
Philadelphia caused by the failure of the Southern remittances. The
money markets in all these cities were very stringent until October. On
the ninth of that month the Bank of the United States failed on drafts
from New York, and on the tenth the news was received that the drafts
on Hottinguer had been protested. He had given notice that he would not
pay unless he was covered, and the drafts arrived before the specie
did. Jandon succeeded in getting Rothschild to take up the bills. The
amount was seven million francs.

The banks south and west of New York and some of the Rhode Island
banks now suspended again. Specie at Philadelphia was at one hundred
and seven to one hundred and seven and one-half. United States Bank
stock at seventy. On October 15, it was at eighty, and sold at New
York at one-fourth premium. Scarcely any New York City notes were in
circulation.

This suspension was the real catastrophe of the speculative period
which preceded. A great and general liquidation now began. Perhaps as
many as two hundred of these banks never resumed. The stagnation of
industry lasted for three or four years. The public improvements so
rashly begun were suspended or abandoned. The states were struggling
with the debts contracted. Some repudiated; some suspended the payment
of interest. The New England states and New York escaped all the
harsher features of this depression and emerged from it first. In
proportion as we go further south and west we find the distress more
intense and more prolonged. The recovery was never marked by any
distinct point of time, but came gradually and imperceptibly.

The credit of the Bank of the United States bore up wonderfully under
the shock of its second suspension. Its friends were ready to attribute
its misfortunes to conspiracies, jealousy, or any other cause but its
own faults. They did not indeed know its internal history. It might
have recovered if it had not been ruined from within. The cotton
speculations showed a loss, in the summer of 1840, after saddling the
Bank with all possible charges, of $630,000 for the speculators. The
legislature of Pennsylvania ordered the banks to resume January 15,
1841. On the first of January, 1841, a statement of the assets of
the Bank was made, when it appeared that they consisted of a mass of
doubtful and worthless securities. The losses to date were over five
millions, according to the report of the directors, but over seventeen
millions, taking the stocks at their market value. The Bank resumed
January 15, with the other Philadelphia banks, and the great Bank
loaned the state four hundred thousand dollars, agreeing to loan as
much more. In twenty days the Philadelphia banks lost eleven millions
in specie, of which six millions were taken from the Bank of the United
States. On February 4 the Bank failed for the third and last time.
Its final failure was said to be due to stock jobbers. Suits were at
once begun in such numbers that all hope of ever resuscitating it had
to be abandoned. Its deposits, when it failed, were one million one
hundred thousand dollars and its notes in circulation two million eight
hundred thousand dollars. Twenty-seven millions out of the thirty-five
of its capital were held in Europe. The stock, in March, 1841, was at
seventeen. A committee of the stockholders reported in April, showing
the internal history of the Bank for five years. This brought out from
Mr. Biddle six letters of explanation, defense, and recrimination,
which are valuable chiefly for the further insight they give into the
history. As to the winding up of the Bank it is very difficult to
obtain information. Private inquiries lead to the following results.
Three trusts were constituted: one for the city banks to which the Bank
owed five or six millions; one for the note-holders and depositors; and
one for the other creditors. The city banks, the note-holders, and the
depositors were ultimately paid in full. The other claims were bought
up by one or two persons who took the assets. What they made of them is
not matter of history.

The attempt of the Pennsylvania banks to resume in January, 1841, had
been the signal for similar attempts in the other states. The banks on
the seaboard as far south as South Carolina generally resumed, and in
the Western and Gulf states some took the same step. All were indebted
to the Northeast, and were asked to pay as soon as they said they
were ready to pay. Like the Philadelphia banks they succumbed to this
demand. The Virginia banks held out until April, when the suspension
was once more universal south of New York.

All the states except New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, and Delaware had debts, amounting in all to nearly two
hundred millions. The Southern States had generally contracted these
debts to found banks. The Middle and Western States had contracted
debts for public works. In the former case the profits of the banks
were expected to cover the interest on the debt. In the latter case
the works were expected to be remunerative in a short time, and the
interest was provided for in the meantime by bank dividends (on stocks
owned by the state, which only constituted another debt), by taxes on
banks, and by royalties. Both schemes were plausible and might have
been successful if managed with good judgment and moderation. Under
the actual circumstances they were subject to political control, the
methods of which were reckless and ignorant. The consequence was
that when credit collapsed and the English market no longer absorbed
the state stocks with avidity, the states found themselves heavily
indebted, bound to pay large interest charges, and without the
anticipated revenue. The state banks of the South had loaned their
borrowed capital to legislators and politicians, and had no assets but
“suspended debt.” The improvement states had become heavily indebted
to their own banks and depended on bank dividends to pay interest. The
state banks all held state stocks as assets, and when these declined
in value, the banks became insolvent. Thus the banking system was
interlocked with the state finances and with the mania for improvements
unwisely planned and attempted without reference to the capital at
command. The aversion to taxation was very strong, and as taxation
was delayed, one state after another defaulted on its interest. The
delinquent states were Pennsylvania (which laid taxes in 1840, but
inadequate to meet the deficiency), Michigan (of which the Bank of the
United States held two millions in bonds not paid for when it failed),
Mississippi (of which the same bank held five millions in bonds the
obligation of which was disputed and never met), Indiana (whose debt
was one-fifth of the total valuation), Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland
and Arkansas, and Florida territory--total amount, one hundred and
eleven millions. In five years the Bank of the United States gave to
Pennsylvania three millions, subscribed nearly half a million to public
improvements by corporations, and loaned the state eight and one-half
millions. In 1857–1858 Pennsylvania sold out her works, which had cost
thirty-five millions, for eleven millions. The bonds deposited in New
York to secure circulation had a par value of four and six-tenths
millions, but were worth only one and six-tenths millions on the first
of January, 1843. As early as March, 1841, this decline caused a panic
in “Safety Fund” and “Free Bank” notes at New York.

Pennsylvania now entered on another experiment which threatened to
ruin her remaining banks as the reckless demands on the Bank of the
United States had helped to ruin that institution. On May 3, 1841, the
legislature passed, over a veto, a “Relief Act.” The object was to
secure a loan of three millions from the banks. The Act allowed them to
issue that amount in small notes which they were to subscribe to a five
per cent loan. They were to redeem the notes in five per cent stock on
demand in amounts over one hundred dollars. The stocks were then at
eighty and specie at seven per cent premium.

The best financial writer in the country at that time (Gouge) said of
this Act: Pennsylvania, “after having borrowed as much as she could in
the old-fashioned way from banks and brokers, and domestic and foreign
capitalists, resolved to extort a loan of a dollar a head from every
washerwoman and woodsawyer and everybody else within her limits who
had a dollar to lend. But as washerwomen and woodsawyers and other
dollar people cannot long dispense with the use of their funds, it was
necessary to give these certificates of loan in a circulating form, so
that the burden might be shifted from one to another day by day, or, if
necessary, two or three times a day.”

The summer of 1841 was marked by intense distress in Pennsylvania. A
table of the best investment stocks of Philadelphia shows a shrinkage
between August, 1838, and August, 1841, from sixty million to three and
one-half millions. The wages class was exposed to the bitterest poverty
and distress. The Pennsylvanians attributed the trouble to the want of
a protective tariff. For a time, in the autumn, the Relief notes seemed
to act beneficially. The banks took them and they circulated at par
with the rest of the state currency. In January, 1842, the Girard Bank
failed, and about the same time the Pennsylvania and three others less
important, and by March a crisis was reached worse than anything which
had preceded. A bill was suddenly passed by the legislature commanding
immediate resumption. An amendment was proposed that the banks should
no longer be bound to receive the Relief notes, although the state
should do so. The amendment was afterwards withdrawn, but the Relief
notes were ruined. They fell, some to seventy-five and some to fifty
in state currency and then became merchandise, after six months and
three days of use. Capital was now not to be had at four per cent per
month, but this bankruptcy had cleared the situation. The eleven banks
which had not failed agreed to resume on March 18. The exchanges with
New York turned in favor of Philadelphia. The years 1842 and 1843 were
years of great depression. The banks throughout the west and south were
liquidating, after which they either perished or resumed. From 1843 a
new sound and healthy development of industry and credit began. The
recovery, however, was very slow, and banks sprang up again sooner and
faster than anything else.

The total amount of Relief notes issued in Pennsylvania was two and
one tenth millions. In January, 1843, the amount outstanding was,
of depreciated $639,834, of specie value (issued by banks which had
resumed) $240,801. Bicknell’s _Reporter_ said: “If any one can devise
an immediate plan whereby the people can get rid of about $700,000 of
paper trash, he will be entitled to the name of a public benefactor.”
In February, 1843, the Legislature ordered the Treasurer to cancel
$100,000 of Relief notes at once and $100,000 monthly until all were
destroyed, but in June, 1843, there were still $684,521 out.

This is certainly a melancholy story of the way in which people who
enjoy the most exceptional chances of wealth and prosperity can
squander them by ignorance of political economy and recklessness
in political management. Banks were regarded as means of borrowing
capital, not as institutions for lending it. If there was anywhere
a group of needy speculators, they secured a bank charter, elected
themselves directors, gave their notes for the stock, printed a lot
of bank notes, loaned the notes to themselves, and went out and with
the notes bought the capital they wanted. Bank after bank failed with
an immense circulation afloat and no assets but the notes of its
directors, who had failed too. When the United States had thirty or
forty millions surplus on hand and these banks could get the custody
and handling of it for an indefinite period, because the country had
no need for it, it can readily be understood why banks multiplied. The
banks were encouraged to lend this deposit freely to the public, which
they were by no means loath to do, for that was the only way to gain a
profit on it. They lent it, not once but two or three times over. The
New York bank commissioners pointed out the danger of a system in which
the borrower came directly into contact with the bank which issued the
currency. If a man was eager to borrow and pay high interest and the
bank had only to print the notes to accommodate him, there was every
stimulus to over-issue. If the borrower engaged in any enterprise he
raised the price of everything he bought. When he became engaged in
his enterprise and wanted more capital, he went back to the bank more
eager and more ready to pay high interest than ever, and the operation
was repeated. In 1836, on the top of the inflation, the rates for money
were twelve and fifteen per cent throughout the year, with a very
tight money market. The banks and the business community could not
throw the blame on each other. They stimulated each other and went on
in their folly hand in hand. The penalties, however, were not fairly
distributed. The banks “suspended,” as they called it; that is, when
asked to pay their debts, they said they would not; and they enjoyed a
complete immunity in this respect, while people outside who could not
pay had to fail.

I have tried, within the limits to which I am bound, to show how many
elements were combined in this period and how they were all interwoven.
There are the political elements, the tariff element, the movement
of population to the new land, the fiscal operations of the general
government, the revolution in the coinage, the mania for public
improvements, the reckless creation of state debts, and the war on
the United States Bank. Any one of these might have accounted for a
financial crisis in an old country, and the fact that the catastrophe
produced by all combined was not greater here is a striking proof of
the vitality of the country and the wonderful advantages which it was
wasting.

On the four or five years of inflated prosperity there followed four
or five years of the most slow and grinding distress. 1843 is the year
of lowest prices in our history, and the year of severest restriction
in industry. In 1842 the United States Treasury was under protest and
actually bankrupt, and American credit was so low that an agent of the
general government who was sent to Europe to try to place a loan of
only twelve million dollars there could not do it at all. In that same
year, however, out of what income it did have, the general government
distributed six hundred thousand dollars, which came from land, amongst
the states. As for calling back any of the twenty-eight millions
deposited with the states, no effort of the kind was ever made. The
states were complaining that the fourth installment, to which they had
a right, had never been paid to them. The question is sometimes mooted
whether a national debt is a curse or a blessing. There can be no doubt
whatever that a national surplus is a curse.

In the years before 1837 there had been a great deal of eloquence
spent upon “the credit system.” After 1837 this matter was dropped. By
the credit system they meant the multiplication of bank notes which
were false promises. The notion was that the system of using these in
business gave poor men an easier chance to get rich. At first they
were loaned easily at low rates. Then, as prices rose and speculation
became active, interest advanced. The “poor men” found themselves
forced to submit to more and more ruinous renewals, all the heavier
because of the usury law, until they lost all they had ever really
owned. The question, then, is how much better off than they were would
the poor men of 1830 have been in 1845 if they had gone on slowly
earning and saving capital and making no use of credit at all. As it
was, the poor men of 1830, after supposing themselves rich in 1836,
were all bankrupt in 1845. Such is the course of every inflation of
the currency. It is proved by hundreds of instances; and there is no
delusion which it seems so hard to stamp out of the minds of men as
this, that in business we can make something out of nothing, although
we cannot in chemistry or mechanics. Nothing more surely tempts the man
without capital to his ruin than the easy credit which accompanies the
first stages of inflation.

It is worth while also to reflect for a moment on the results of the
two plans for dealing with the crisis: the New York plan and the
Philadelphia plan. When an error has been committed in this world, we
always have to bear the penalty for it. If we do not like the stripes
on one side we can turn and take them on the other, but when nature
inflicts penalties for her broken laws we never can squirm out of
the way. In this case, then, when the folly had been perpetrated the
punishment had to be suffered. The only choice was whether to take it
quick and heavy, or light and long. The New Yorkers chose the former
way. The contraction was severe and painful while it lasted, but it
was soon over. From May, 1838, the New York banks resumed and held on
without further default and the New York business recovered and entered
upon a new course of growth from that time. The Philadelphians took
the other course. They made it easy for the debtors and waited for the
storm to blow over. The consequence was that the debts increased still
further. The advantage in trade over New York proved shortlived and
terribly expensive, for the goods were not paid for. The confusion and
distress lasted for four years longer than in New York, and the total
loss was very much greater. For the last five years we have been under
the same necessity as that which oppressed the country in 1837. We have
been following the Philadelphia plan and I may give you my opinion that
we have not been wise. I think that we might have escaped three years
ago with far less loss, and might have been three years further on the
road to new prosperity.

In conclusion let me draw your attention to the lesson of this history
in regard to resumption. There was no resumption, you see, until the
currency had been reduced to the limits of the actual specie necessity
of the country or even below it. Either voluntarily or by bankruptcy
the redundant paper had to be withdrawn. Such has been the case in
every other instance of resumption that I know of, which has been real
and permanent. Applying this to our own present circumstances I ask
myself whether the amount of paper now in circulation is in excess of
the requirement of the country, and there seems to me every reason
to believe that it is. If that is so, resumption cannot be real and
permanent until a portion of it has been redeemed and withdrawn.
The interest in resumption of the great body of industrious, sober,
and thrifty citizens cannot be exaggerated. Renewed prosperity on a
solid basis is impossible until after a complete return to specie
value. There are those, however, who want to live by anything but
honest labor, who find their best chance when prices are fluctuating
and currency is continually changing in value. They have schemes and
interests which resumption must destroy. They have done all they could
to make it fail and they are watchful and eager to see it fail. If it
does fail it will be a great national calamity, on account of the
authority which it will offer to these prophets of evil if for no other
reason. Resumption with us now stands at just that point where the
lightest preponderance of force may turn it one way or the other--may
insure its success or cause its failure. It is a great gain to get our
faces set in the right direction. It arouses the national pride in the
success of resumption. It silences opposition and malevolent efforts
against it. It makes it very much easier to take the requisite steps to
insure success, for they involve no pain at all, nothing but economy
and prudence in the national finances; the avoidance of unnecessary
expenditure and the postponement for a time of certain expenditures
proper in themselves. If the country needs six hundred million dollars
to do its business with, then the withdrawal of a portion of the paper
would simply bring gold into circulation, and resumption would be
placed beyond a doubt. If the country does not want six hundred million
dollars to do its business with, then we cannot sustain specie payments
with that amount afloat, and we have still before us more of the
experience of 1842 and 1843.




THE SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY[58]


In the present state of the science of sociology the man who has
studied it at all is very sure to feel great self-distrust in trying
to talk about it. The most that one of us can do at the present time
is to appreciate the promise which the science offers to us, and to
understand the lines of direction in which it seems about to open out.
As for the philosophy of the subject, we still need the master to show
us how to handle and apply its most fundamental doctrines. I have the
feeling all the time, in studying and teaching sociology, that I have
not mastered it yet in such a way as to be able to proceed in it with
good confidence in my own steps. I have only got so far as to have an
almost overpowering conviction of the necessity and value of the study
of that science.

Mr. Spencer addressed himself at the outset of his literary career to
topics of sociology. In the pursuit of those topics he found himself
forced (as I understand it) to seek constantly more fundamental
and wider philosophical doctrines. He came at last to fundamental
principles of the evolution philosophy. He then extended, tested,
confirmed, and corrected these principles by inductions from other
sciences, and so finally turned again to sociology, armed with the
scientific method which he had acquired. To win a powerful and correct
method is, as we all know, to win more than half the battle. When so
much is secured, the question of making the discoveries, solving the
problems, eliminating the errors, and testing the results, is only a
question of time and of strength to collect and master the data.

We have now acquired the method of studying sociology scientifically so
as to attain to assured results. We have acquired it none too soon. The
need for a science of life in society is urgent, and it is increasing
every year. It is a fact which is generally overlooked that the great
advance in the sciences and the arts which has taken place during
the last century is producing social consequences and giving rise to
social problems. We are accustomed to dwell upon the discoveries of
science and the development of the arts as simple incidents, complete
in themselves, which offer only grounds for congratulation. But the
steps which have been won are by no means simple events. Each one
has consequences which reach beyond the domain of physical power
into social and moral relations, and these effects are multiplied
and reproduced by combination with each other. The great discoveries
and inventions redistribute population. They reconstruct industries
and force new organization of commerce and finance. They bring new
employments into existence and render other employments obsolete,
while they change the relative value of many others. They overthrow
the old order of society, impoverishing some classes and enriching
others. They render old political traditions grotesque and ridiculous,
and make old maxims of statecraft null and empty. They give old vices
of human nature a chance to parade in new masks, so that it demands
new skill to detect the same old foes. They produce a kind of social
chaos in which contradictory social and economic phenomena appear side
by side to bewilder and deceive the student who is not fully armed
to deal with them. New interests are brought into existence, and new
faiths, ideas, and hopes, are engendered in the minds of men. Some of
these are doubtless good and sound; others are delusive; in every case
a competent criticism is of the first necessity. In the upheaval of
society which is going on, classes and groups are thrown against each
other in such a way as to produce class hatreds and hostilities. As
the old national jealousies, which used to be the lines on which war
was waged, lose their distinctness, class jealousies threaten to take
their place. Political and social events which occur on one side of the
globe now affect the interests of population on the other side of the
globe. Forces which come into action in one part of human society rest
not until they have reached all human society. The brotherhood of man
is coming to be a reality of such distinct and positive character that
we find it a practical question of the greatest moment what kind of
creatures some of these hitherto neglected brethren are. Secondary and
remoter effects of industrial changes, which were formerly dissipated
and lost in the delay and friction of communication, are now, by
our prompt and delicate mechanism of communication, caught up and
transmitted through society.

It is plain that our social science is not on the level of the tasks
which are thrown upon it by the vast and sudden changes in the whole
mechanism by which man makes the resources of the globe available to
satisfy his needs, and by the new ideas which are born of the new
aspects which human life bears to our eyes in consequence of the
development of science and the arts. Our traditions about the science
and art of living are plainly inadequate. They break to pieces in our
hands when we try to apply them to the new cases. A man of good faith
may come to the conviction sadly, but he must come to the conviction
honestly, that the traditional doctrines and explanations of human life
are worthless.

A progress which is not symmetrical is not true; that is to say, every
branch of human interest must be developed proportionately to all the
other branches, else the one which remains in arrears will measure the
advance which may be won by the whole. If, then, we cannot produce a
science of life in society which is broad enough to solve all the new
social problems which are now forced upon us by the development of
science and art, we shall find that the achievements of science and art
will be overwhelmed by social reactions and convulsions.

We do not lack for attempts of one kind and another to satisfy the
need which I have described. Our discussion is in excess of our
deliberation, and our deliberation is in excess of our information. Our
journals, platforms, pulpits, and parliaments are full of talking and
writing about topics of sociology. The only result, however, of all
this discussion is to show that there are half a dozen arbitrary codes
of morals, a heterogeneous tangle of economic doctrines, a score of
religious creeds and ecclesiastical traditions, and a confused jumble
of humanitarian and sentimental notions which jostle each other in the
brains of the men of this generation. It is astonishing to watch a
discussion and to see how a disputant, starting from a given point of
view, will run along on one line of thought until he encounters some
fragment of another code or doctrine, which he has derived from some
other source of education; whereupon he turns at an angle, and goes on
in a new course until he finds himself face to face with another of
his old prepossessions. What we need is adequate criteria by which to
make the necessary tests and classifications, and appropriate canons of
procedure, or the adaptation of universal canons to the special tasks
of sociology.

Unquestionably it is to the great philosophy which has now been
established by such ample induction in the experimental sciences, and
which offers to man such new command of all the relations of life, that
we must look for the establishment of the guiding lines in the study of
sociology. I can see no boundaries to the scope of the philosophy of
evolution. That philosophy is sure to embrace all the interests of man
on this earth. It will be one of its crowning triumphs to bring light
and order into the social problems which are of universal bearing on
all mankind. Mr. Spencer is breaking the path for us into this domain.
We stand eager to follow him into it, and we look upon his work on
sociology as a grand step in the history of science. When, therefore,
we express our earnest hope that Mr. Spencer may have health and
strength to bring his work to a speedy conclusion, we not only express
our personal respect and good-will for himself, but also our sympathy
with what, I doubt not, is the warmest wish of his own heart, and our
appreciation of his great services to true science and to the welfare
of mankind.




INTEGRITY IN EDUCATION[59]


In addressing you on the present occasion, I am naturally led to
speak of matters connected with education. We are met here amid
surroundings which, to the great majority of us, are unfamiliar, but
we are assembled in the atmosphere of our school days and under the
inspiration of school memories. Some of us are rapidly approaching, if
we have not already reached, the time when our interest in education
re-arises in behalf of the next generation. Many are engaged in the
work of teaching. Others have only just finished a stage in their
education. I therefore propose to speak for a few minutes about
integrity in education, believing that it is a subject of great
importance at the present time, and one which may justly command your
interest.

By integrity in education, I mean the opposite of all sensationalism
and humbug in education. I would include under it as objects to be
aimed at in education, not only the pursuit of genuine and accurate
information and wide knowledge of some technical branch of study, but
also real discipline in the use of mental powers, sterling character,
good manners, and high breeding.

Modern sensationalism is conquering a wide field for itself. It is a
sort of parasite on high civilization. Its motto is that seeming is as
good as being. Its intrinsic fault is its hollowness, insincerity, and
falsehood. It deals in dash, flourish, and meretricious pretense. It
resides in the form, not in the substance; in the outward appearance,
not in the reality. It arouses disgust whenever it is perceived; but
the worst of it is that its forms are so various, its manifestations
are sometimes so delicate, and it often lies so near to the real and
the true, that is it difficult to distinguish it. Life hurries past
us very rapidly. The interests which demand our attention are very
numerous and important. We have not time to scrutinize them all. Then,
too, the publicity of everything nowadays prevents modest retirement
from being a sign of merit. We go on the principle that if anything
is good, it is for the public. Publicity is honorable and proper
recognition, and those who have charge of the public trumpets have not
time, if they have the ability, to discriminate and criticize very
closely.

These reflections account sufficiently for the growth of sensationalism
in general. Probably each one sees the mischief which it does in
his own circle or profession more distinctly than elsewhere. I have
certainly been struck by its influence on education. I see it in
common-school education as well as in the universities. It attaches to
methods as well as to subjects. It develops a dogmatism of its own.
Men without education, or experience as teachers, often take up the
pitiful rôle of another class which has come to be called “educators.”
They start off with a whim or two which they elaborate into theories
of education. These they propound with great gravity in speech and
writing, producing long discussions as to plans and methods. They are
continually searching for a patent method of teaching, or a royal road
to learning, when, in fact, the only way to learn is by the labor of
the mind in observing, comparing, and generalizing, and any patent
method which avoids this irksome labor produces sham results and
fails of producing the mental power and discipline of which education
consists.

Persons of this class are generally impatient until they have attained
some opportunity of putting their notions in practice, and then it
is all over with any institution which becomes subject to their wild
empiricism.

The saddest results of such proceedings are seen, of course, in the
pupils. That a certain school should lose its pupils, or fall into
debt, or be closed, is a comparatively small affair. The real mischief
is that men should be produced who have no real education, but only
a perverse training in putting forward plausible and meretricious
appearances. Such education falls in with the outward phenomena of
a sensational era and strengthens the impressions which a young and
inexperienced observer gets from our modern society, that audacity
is the chief of talents, that success or failure is the only measure
of right or wrong, that the man to be admired is the one who invents
clever tricks to circumvent a rival or opponent, or to skip over
a troublesome principle. Young people are more acute in their
observations, and they draw inferences and form generalizations
more logically and consistently than their elders. They have not
yet learned respect for dogmas, traditions, and conventionalities,
and their “education” goes on silently but surely, developing a
philosophy of life either of one kind or another. If, therefore, you
have an educational system consisting of formal cram for recitation or
examination, if there is a skimming of text-books, an empty acquisition
of terms, a memorizing of results only, you may pursue high-sounding
studies and “cover a great deal of ground,” you may have an elaborate
curriculum and boast of your proficiency in difficult branches, but you
will have no education. You may produce men who can spend a lifetime
dawdling over trifles, or men who always scatter their force when
they try to think, but you will not have intelligent men with minds
well-disciplined and well under control, who are able to apply their
full force to any new exigency, or any new problem, and to grasp and
conquer it.

The fault here is plain enough. People forget, or do not perceive, that
simplicity and modesty are the first requisites in scientific pursuits.
We have to begin humbly and with small beginnings if we want to go
far. Inflation and pretense only lead to vanity and dilletantism, not
to strength and fruitful activity. If we advance eagerly, we deceive
ourselves by the notion that we are making grand progress. We are only
leaving much undone which we shall have to go back and repair. If, on
the other hand, we proceed slowly and with painstaking, every step of
advance is sure and genuine. It forms a great vantage-ground for the
next step. It strengthens and confirms the mental powers. They come
to act with certainty by scientific processes, not by guesses, and
this mental discipline enables us to apply our powers wherever we need
them. A new task is not a dead wall which is impassable to us because
we have never seen one like it before. It is only a new case for the
application of old and familiar processes. I never see anything more
pitiable than the helpless floundering in a new subject of a young man
far on in his education who has never yet learned to use his mind.

In what I have already said about the philosophy of life which a young
person forms during the process of education, I have suggested that
education must exert a great influence on character. It is sometimes
asserted that education ought to mold character--ought to have that
object and work towards it, of set purpose. I do not deny this, but
I beg you to observe that it obscures the truth. The truth is that
education inevitably forms character one way or the other. The error is
in speaking as if academical instruction could be carried on without
training character, unless the set purpose were entertained. One might
read many books on mathematics and the sciences without any very direct
moral culture, but everything we learn about this world in which we
live reacts in some sort of principle for the regulation of our
conduct here. This, however, is not the most important thing. A school
is a miniature society. Do we not all know how it forms an atmosphere
of its own, how the members make a code of their own, and a public
opinion of their own? And then, what a position the teacher holds in
this little community. What a dangerous and responsible eminence he
occupies. What criticism he undergoes. What an authority his example
exerts. So, in this little society, general notions of conduct are
unconsciously formed, principles are adopted, habits grow. Every member
in his place gives to, and takes from, the common life. It may be well
doubted whether there is any association of life which exerts greater
influence on character than does the school, and its influence comes,
too, just as the formative period, when impressions are most easily
received and sink deepest.

Here then is where sensationalism may do its greatest harm, and
where integrity of method is most important. The untruthfulness of
sensationalism here becomes a germinal principle, which develops into
manifold forms of untruthfulness in character. Young people cannot
practice show and pretense and yet be taught to believe that the only
important thing is what you are, and not at all what people think
about you. They cannot practice the devices which give a semblance of
learning, and yet be taught to believe that shams are disgraceful and
that the frank honesty which owns the worst is a noble trait. They may
learn to be ashamed when caught in a false pretense, but they will
not learn shame at deceit. I do not say that they will lie or steal,
but it is a pitiful code which defines honesty as refraining from
seizing other people’s property. Honesty is a far wider virtue than
not-stealing. It embraces rectitude of motive and purpose, completeness
and consistency of principle, and delicacy of responsibility.
Truthfulness is the very cornerstone of character, and an instinct of
dislike for whatever is false or meretricious is one of the feelings
which all sound education must inculcate. It cannot do so, however,
unless its _personnel_ and its methods are all animated by unflinching
integrity.

I mentioned also, at the outset, amongst those things which are
embraced in education and to which I desire to see the principle of
integrity applied, good manners. Some people make an ostentatious
display of neglect for good manners. They think it democratic, or a
sign of good fellowship, to be negligent in this respect. They think
it something to be boasted of that they have no breeding. Some others
make manners supersede education and training and even character.
It is the latter error which most invades the sphere of education.
We are familiar with its forms. It gives us the mock gentleman of
the drawing-room under the same coat with the rowdy of the bar-room.
When this system triumphs, it fits our young people out with a
few fashionable phrases, which suffice for the persiflage of the
drawing-room, when a scientific subject by chance comes up. Girls are
the victims of this system far more than boys, but in “cultivated
circles” cases are common of this kind, in which a smattering of books
has been engrafted on the culture of the dancing school. Young men
and young women who have tacked together a few miscellaneous phrases
current amongst the learned will deliver you their opinions roundly
on the gravest problems of philosophy and science. The phrases which
stick in their minds the longest are those which are epigrammatic and
paradoxical, whether true or not. In fact, they could not analyze
or criticize their mental stock if they should try. They have never
learned to consider a subject and form an opinion.

It does not follow, however, that boorishness is erudition, or that it
does not belong to education to teach the good manners which are good
simply because they are the spontaneous expression of a sound heart
and a well-trained mind. Envy, malice, and selfishness are the usual
springs of bad manners. They belong to the untrained and brutish man,
and it is the province of true education to eradicate them. Hence it
is that where true education is wanting we may often find the worst
manners with the greatest social experience, and the truest courtesy
where there has been genuine discipline, but little acquaintance with
social forms.

I have not started this train of thought in order to tell you now that
we have enjoyed the true method of education, and that others have
not, but there are some things connected with this institution which
we may remember with pleasure in view of the reflections which I have
presented.

This school was founded so long ago that it already has a body of
graduates who are useful and influential men in this city, and many
others are scattered up and down the country, useful and honorable, if
not celebrated citizens. It was not founded without some struggle, but
the more enlightened views prevailed and the results have vindicated
those views, I suppose to the satisfaction of everybody. The enterprise
enjoyed at the outset the patronage of a body of men of remarkably
broad views and sound public spirit. We who profited by its instruction
in our time may properly remember those men on this occasion with
gratitude and respect. One of them, surpassed by none in zeal to work
for and intelligence to plan such an institution, has only just passed
away. Your city has been fortunate in possessing such citizens.

The plan on which the school was founded was remarkably wise and
farseeing. It has placed the highest education within the reach of
every boy in your city who had sufficient industry and self-denial to
seek it. Many of you are now in the position of active and responsible
citizens. You must regard this institution as one of the boasts of
your city. Guard it well. You may not boast of it only. You owe it a
debt which you must pay. Every boy and girl who has graduated here owes
a debt to the common school system of America. Every man for whom this
school has opened a career which would otherwise have been beyond his
reach, owes a tenfold debt, both to the common school system and to
the class in which he was born. Sectarian interests, private school
interests, property interests, and some cliques of “culture” falsely
so called, are rallying against the system a force which people as yet
underrate. There is no knowing how soon the struggle may open, and you
may be called upon to pay the allegiance you owe.

This school has also been remarkably fortunate in the selection of the
teachers who have presided over it. We cannot exaggerate the value of
this selection. It is by the imperceptible influence of the teacher’s
character and example that the atmosphere of a school is created. It is
from this that the pupils learn what to admire and what to abhor, what
to seek and what to shun. It is from this that they learn what methods
of action are honorable and what ones are unbecoming. They learn all
this from methods of discipline as well as from methods of instruction.
They may learn craft and intrigue, or they may learn candor and
sincerity. They may learn to win success at any cost, or they may learn
to accept failure with dignity, when success could only be won by
dishonor.

You know well what has always been the tone impressed on this
institution by the teachers we had here. We had many, both gentlemen
and ladies, whom we remember with respect and affection. Our later
experience of the world and of life has only served to show us more
distinctly, in the retrospect, how elevated was their tone, how sincere
their devotion, how simple and upright their methods of dealing with
us. They were not taskmasters to us, and their work was not a harsh and
ungrateful routine to them.

One figure will inevitably arise before the minds of all when these
words are said, the figure of one who died with the harness on. I
have never seen anywhere, in my experience, a man of more simple and
unconscious high-breeding, one who combined more thoroughly the dignity
of official authority with the suavity of unrestrained intercourse with
his pupils. It is a part of the good fortune which came to us and to
this city from this institution that so many young people here enjoyed
his personal influence.

It follows, as a natural consequence, from these facts, that we enjoyed
here to a high degree what I have described as integrity in education.
Sensationalism of any kind has always been foreign to the system here.
It must perish in such an atmosphere. We had instruction which was real
and solid, which conceded nothing to show and sacrificed nothing to
applause. We learned to work patiently for real and enduring results.
We learned the faith that what is genuine must outlast and prevail
over what is meretricious. We learned to despise empty display. We had
also a discipline which was complete and sufficient, but which was
attained without friction. There was no sentimentality, no petting, no
affectation of free and easy manners. Discipline existed because it was
necessary, and it was smooth because it was reasonable.

Now there is nothing to which people apply more severe criticism, as
they grow old, than to their education. They find the need of it every
day, and they have to ask whether it was sufficient and suited to the
purpose or not. It is because we find, I think, that our education here
does stand this test that we are able to meet here on an occasion like
this with genuine interest and sympathy. The years in their flight have
scattered us and brought us weighty cares and new interests. We could
not lay these aside to come back here for purposes of mere sentiment,
or to repeat conventional phrases. We meet on the ground of grateful
recollection of benefits received, benefits which we can specify and
weigh and measure.

This school must be regarded as a local institution. It belongs to
this city and its advantages are offered to the young people who grow
up here. I have referred to the exceptional wisdom and enlightenment
which presided over its foundation and have nourished its growth. In
conclusion, let me refer to what concerns its present and its future.
We are reminded by all we see about us here that its building and its
appliances are far better than they were in our day. Its prosperity
bears witness to its present good management. But, gentlemen, these
good things are not to be preserved without vigilance and labor. The
same wisdom and enlightenment must preside over the future as over the
past. I doubt not that the value of this institution to your city is
so fully appreciated, and the methods by which it has been developed
are so well understood, that any peril to it or to them would arouse
your earnest efforts for its defence. Keep it as it has been, devoted
to correct objects by sound methods. Sacrifice nothing to the _éclat_
of hasty and false success. Concede nothing to the modern quackery
of education. Resist the specious schemes of reckless speculators on
educational theories. It is not to be expected that you can escape
these dangers any more than other people, and you have to be on your
guard against them. You want here an educational institution which
shall, in its measure, instruct your children in the best science and
thought of the day. You want it to make them masters of themselves and
of their powers. You want it to make them practical in the best and
only true sense, by making them efficient in dealing intelligently with
all the problems of life. The country needs such citizens to-day. The
state needs them. Your city needs them. They are needed in all the
trades and professions. You must look to such institutions as this to
provide them, and you must keep it true to its methods and purpose
if you want it to turn out men of moral courage, high principle, and
devotion to duty.




DISCIPLINE


It occurs very frequently to a person connected as a teacher with a
great seat of learning to meet persons who, having completed a course
of study and having spent a few years in active life, are led to make
certain reflections upon their academical career. There is a great
uniformity in the comments which are thus made, so far as I have heard
them, and they enforce upon me certain convictions. I observe that an
academical life is led in a community which is to a certain extent
closed, isolated, and peculiar. It has a code of its own as well for
work as for morals. It forms a peculiar standpoint, and life, as viewed
from it, takes on peculiar forms and peculiar colors. It is scarcely
necessary to add that the views of life thus obtained are distorted and
incorrect.

I should not expect much success if I should undertake to correct
those views by description in words. It is only in life itself, that
is, by experience, that men correct their errors. They insist on
making experience for themselves. They delude themselves with hopes
that they are peculiar in their persons and characters, or that their
circumstances are peculiar, and so that in some way or other they can
perpetrate the old faults and yet escape the old penalties. It is
only when life is spent that these delusions are dispelled and then
the power and the opportunity to put the acquired wisdom to practice
is gone by. Thus the old continually warn and preach and the young
continually disregard and suffer.

Although I could not expect better fortune than others if I should thus
preach, yet there are some things which, as I have often been led to
think, young men in your situation might be brought to understand with
great practical advantage, and which, if you did understand them, and
act upon them, would save you from the deepest self-reproach and regret
which I so often hear older men express; and the present occasion seems
a better one than I can otherwise obtain, for presenting those things.
I allude to some wider explanations of the meaning and purpose of
academical pursuits. I do not mean theories of education about which
people dispute, but I mean the purposes which any true education has
in view, and the responsibilities it brings with it. It surely is not
advisable that men of your age should pursue your education as a mere
matter of routine, learning prescribed lessons, performing enforced
tasks, resisting, unintelligent, and uninterested. Such an experience
on your part would not constitute any true education. It would not
involve any development of capability in you. It could only render you
dull, fond of shirking, slovenly in your work, and superficial in your
attainments. Unless I am greatly mistaken, some counteraction to such
a low and unworthy conception of academical life may be secured by
showing its relation to real life, and attaching things pursued here to
practical and enduring benefits. I have known men to get those benefits
without knowing it; and I believe that you would get them better if you
got them intelligently, and that you would appreciate them better if
you got them consciously.

In the first place, it will be profitable to look at one or two notions
in regard to the purpose of education which do not seem to be sound.
One is that it is the purpose of education to give special technical
skill or dexterity and to fit a man to get a living. We may admit at
once that the object of study is to get useful knowledge. It was,
indeed, the error of some old systems of academical pursuits that they
gave only a special dexterity and that too in such a direction as
the making of Greek and Latin verses, which is a mere accomplishment
and not a very good one at that. It must be ranged with dancing and
fencing; it is not as high as drawing, painting, or music. There is,
moreover, a domain in which special technical training is proper. It is
the domain of the industrial school, for giving a certain theoretical
knowledge of persons who will be engaged for life in the mechanic arts.
With this limitation, however, we have at once given to us the bounds
which preclude this notion from covering the true conception of an
academic career. It does not simply provide technical training for a
higher class of arts which require longer preparation. You know that
this conception is widely held through our American community, and that
it is laid down with great dogmatic severity by persons who sometimes,
unfortunately, are in a position to turn their opinions into law. It
is one of the great obstacles against which all efforts for higher
education amongst us have to contend.

I pass on, however, to another opinion just now much more fashionable
and held by people who are, at any rate, much more elegant than the
supporters of the view just mentioned, that is, the opinion that what
we expect from education is “culture.” Culture is a word which offers
us an illustration of the degeneracy of language. If I may define
culture, I have no objection to admitting that it is the purpose of
education to produce it; but since the word came into fashion, it has
been stolen by the dilettanti and made to stand for their own favorite
forms and amounts of attainments. Mr. Arnold, the great apostle, if
not the discoverer, of culture, tried to analyze it and he found it to
consist of sweetness and light. To my mind, that is like saying that
coffee is milk and sugar. The stuff of culture is all left out of it.
So, in the practice of those who accept this notion, culture comes to
represent only an external smoothness and roundness of outline without
regard to intrinsic qualities.

We have got so far now as to begin to distinguish different kinds of
culture. There is chromo culture, of which we heard much a little while
ago, and there is bouffe culture, which is only just invented. If I
were in the way of it, I should like to add another class, which might
be called sapolio culture, because it consists in putting a high polish
on plated ware. There seems great danger lest this kind may come to be
the sort aimed at by those who regard culture as the end of education.

A truer idea of culture is that which regards it as equivalent to
training, or the result of training, which brings into intelligent
activity all the best powers of mind and body. Such a culture is not to
be attained by writing essays about it, or by forming ever so clear a
literary statement or mental conception of what it is. It is not to be
won by wishing for it, or aping the external manifestations of it. We
men can get it only by industrious and close application of the powers
we want to develop. We are not sure of getting it by reading any number
of books. It requires continual application of literary acquisitions to
practice and it requires a continual correction of mental conceptions
by observation of things as they are. For the sake of distinguishing
sharply between the true idea of culture and the false, I have thought
it better to call the true culture discipline, a word which perhaps
brings out its essential character somewhat better.

Here let me call your attention to one very broad generalization on
human life which men continually lose sight of, and of which culture
is an illustration. The great and heroic things which strike our
imagination are never attainable by direct efforts. This is true
of wisdom, glory, fame, virtue, culture, public good, or any other
of the great ends which men seek to attain. We cannot reach any of
these things by direct effort. They come as the refined result, in a
secondary and remote way, of thousands of acts which have another and
closer end in view. If a man aims at wisdom directly, he will be very
sure to make an affectation of it. He will attain only to a ridiculous
profundity in commonplaces. Wisdom is the result of great knowledge,
experience, and observation, after they have all been sifted and
refined down into sober caution, trained judgment, skill in adjusting
means to ends.

In like manner, one who aims at glory or fame directly will win only
that wretched caricature which we call notoriety. Glory and fame, so
far as they are desirable things, are remote results which come of
themselves at the end of long and repeated and able exertions.

The same holds true of the public good or the “cause,” or whatever
else we ought to call that end which fires the zeal of philanthropists
and martyrs. When this is pursued directly as an immediate good, there
arise extravagances, fanaticisms, and aberrations of all kinds. Strong
actions and reactions take place in social life, but not orderly
growth and gain. The first impression no doubt is that of noble zeal
and self-sacrifice, but this is not the sort of work by which society
gains. The progress of society is nothing but the slow and far remote
result of steady, laborious, painstaking growth of individuals. The man
who makes the most of himself and does his best in his sphere is doing
far more for the public good than the philanthropist who runs about
with a scheme which would set the world straight if only everybody
would adopt it.

This view cuts down a great deal of the heroism which fills such a
large part of our poetry, but it brings us, I think, several very
encouraging reflections. The first is that one does not need to be a
hero to be of some importance in the world. Heroes are gone by. We want
now a good supply of efficient workaday men, to stand each in his place
and do good work. The second reflection to which we are led is that we
do not need to be straining our eyes continually to the horizon to see
where we are coming out, or, in other words, we do not need to trouble
ourselves with grand theories and purposes. The determination to do
just what lies next before us is enough. The great results will all
come of themselves and take care of themselves. We may spare ourselves
all grand emotions and heroics, because the more simply and directly
we take the business of life, the better will be the result. The
third inference which seems to be worth mentioning is that we come to
understand the value of trifles.

All that I have said here about wisdom, fame, glory, “public good,” as
ends to be aimed at, holds good also of culture. It becomes a sham and
affectation when we make it an immediate end, and comes in its true
form only as a remote and refined result of long labor and discipline.

Before I speak of it, however, in its direct relation to education, let
me introduce one other observation on the doctrine I have stated that
we cannot aim at the great results directly. That is this: the motive
to all immediate efforts is either self-interest or the desire to
gratify one’s tastes and natural tendencies. I say that all the grand
results which make up what we call social progress are the results
of millions of efforts on the part of millions of people, and that
the motive to each effort in the heart of the man who made it was the
gratification of a need or a tendency of his nature. I know that some
may consider this a selfish doctrine, eliminating all self-sacrifice
and martyr or missionary spirit, but to me it is a pleasure to observe
that we are not at war with ourselves, and that the intelligent pursuit
of our best good as individuals is the surest means to the good of
society. Moreover, do you imagine that if you set out to make the most
of yourself in any position in which you are placed, that you will have
no chance for self-sacrifice, and no opportunity of martyrdom offered
you? Do you think that a man who employs thoroughly all the means he
possesses to make his one unit of humanity as perfect as possible,
can do so without at every moment giving and receiving with the other
units about him? Do you think that he can go on far without finding
himself stopped by the question whether his comrades are going in the
same direction or not? Will he not certainly find himself forced to
stand against a tide which is flowing in the other direction? It will
certainly be so. The real martyrs have always been the men who were
forced to go one way while the rest of the community in which they
lived were going another, and they were swept down by the tide. I
promise you that if you pursue what is good for yourself, you need not
take care for the good of society; I warn you that if you pursue what
is good, you will find yourself limited by the stupidity, ignorance,
and folly of the society in which you live; and I promise you also
that if you hold on your way through the crowd or try to make them go
with you, you will have ample experience of self-sacrifice and as much
martyrdom as you care for.

Now, if I have not led you too deep into social philosophy, let us
turn again to culture. We find that culture comes from thought, study,
observation, literary and scientific activity, and we find that men
practice these for gain, for professional success, for immediate
pleasure, or to gratify their tastes. The great motive of interest
provides the energy and this culture is but a secondary result. It
is a significant fact to observe that when the motive of interest is
removed, culture becomes flaccid and falls into dilletantism.

I think that we have gained a standpoint now from which we can study
undergraduate life and make observations on it which have even
scientific value. During an undergraduate career, the motive of
interest in each successive step is wanting. There is no immediate
object of pleasure or gain in the lesson to be learned next. Only
exceptionally is it true that the learning of the lesson will gratify
a taste or fill a desire. The university honors are only artificial
means of arousing the same great motive, which is in the social body
what gravitation is in physics. The penalties which are here to be
dreaded are but imitations of life’s penalties. I think that many who
have undertaken to give advice and rebuke and warning to young men in
a state of pupilage have failed because they have not fully analyzed
or correctly grasped this fact, that the academical world is a little
community by itself in which the great natural forces which bind
older men to sobriety and wisdom act only imperfectly. Life is far
less interesting when the successive steps are taken under compulsion
or for a good which is remote and only known by hearsay, than it is
when every step is taken for an immediate profit. I doubt very much
whether the hope of culture or self-sacrificing zeal for the public
good would make older men toil in lawyer’s offices and counting-houses,
unless there were such immediate rewards as wealth and professional
success. In real life it is true that men must do very many things
which are disagreeable and which they do not want to do, but there
too the disagreeable things are made easier to bear. The troubles of
academical life seem to be arbitrary troubles, inflicted by device
of foolish or malicious men. Troubles of that kind always rouse men
to anger and rankle in their hearts. But there is no railing against
those ills of life which are inherent in the constitution of things.
A man who rails at those is laughed at. So the man just emancipated
from academical life finds himself freed from conventional rules
but subjected to penalties for idleness and extravagance and folly
infinitely heavier than any he has been accustomed to, and inflicted
without warning or mercy or respite. On the other hand, he finds that
life presents opportunities and attractions for him to work, where
work has a zest about it which comes from contact with living things.
His academical weapons and armor are stiff and awkward at first and he
may very probably come to despise them, but longer experience will show
that his education, if it was good, gave him rather the power to use
any weapons than special skill in the use of particular ones. Special
technical skill always tends to routine. Although it is an advantage in
itself, it may under circumstances become a limitation. The only true
conception of a “liberal” education is that it gives a broad discipline
to the whole man, which uses routine without being conquered by it and
can change its direction and application when occasion requires.

This brings me then to speak of the real scope and advantage of a
disciplinary education. A man who has enjoyed such an education has
simply had his natural powers developed and reduced to rule, and he
has gained for himself an intelligent control of them. Before an
academical audience it is not necessary for me to stop to clear away
the popular notions about untutored powers and self-made men. It is
enough to say that the “self-made” man is, by the definition, the first
bungling essay of a bad workman. An undeveloped human mind is simply
a bundle of possibilities. It may come to much or little. If it is
highly trained by years of patient exercise, judiciously imposed, it
becomes capable of strict and methodical action. It may be turned to
any one of a hundred tasks which offer themselves to us men here on
earth. It may have gained this discipline in one particular science
or another, and it may have special technical acquaintance with one
more than another. Such will almost surely be the case, but there
is not a more mistaken, one-sided, and mischievous controversy than
that about _the_ science which should be made the basis of education.
Every science has, for disciplinary purposes, its advantages and its
limitations. The man who is trained on chemistry will become a strict
analyst and will break up heterogeneous compounds of all kinds, but he
will be likely also to rest content with this destructive work and to
leave the positive work of construction or synthesis to others. The
man who is trained on history will be quick to discern continuity of
force or law under different phases, but he will be content with broad
phases and heterogeneous combinations such as history offers, and will
not be a strict analyst. The man who is trained on mathematics will
have great power of grasping purely conceptional relations, or abstract
ideas, which are, however, most sharply defined; but he will be likely
to fasten upon a subordinate factor in some other kind of problem,
especially if that factor admits of more complete abstraction than
any of the others. The man who is trained on the science of language
approaches the continuity and development of history with a guiding
thread in his hand, and his comparisons, furnishing stepping-stones
now on the right and now on the left, lead him on in a course where
induction and deduction go so close together that they can hardly
be separated; but the study of language again always threatens to
degenerate into a cram of grammatical niceties and a fastidiousness
about expression, under which the contents are forgotten. Now, in
individual affairs, family, social, and political affairs, all these
powers of mind find occasion for exercise. They are needed in business,
in professions, in technical pursuits; and the man best fitted for the
demands of life would be the man whose powers of mind of all these
diverse orders and kinds had all been harmoniously developed. How
shallow then is the idea that education is meant to give or can give
a mass of monopolized information, and how important it is that the
student should understand what he may expect and what he may not expect
from his education. As your education goes on, you ought to gain in
your power of observation. Natural incidents, political occurrences,
social events, ought to present to you new illustrations of general
principles with which your studies have made you familiar. You ought to
gain in power to analyze and compare, so that all the fallacies which
consist in presenting things as like, which are not like, should not be
able to befog your reason. You ought to become able to recognize and
test a generalization, and to distinguish between true generalizations
and dogmas on the one hand, or commonplaces on another, or whimsical
speculations on another. You ought to know when you are dealing with a
true law which you may follow to the uttermost; when you have only a
general truth; when you have an hypothetical theory; when you have a
possible conjecture; and when you have only an ingenious assumption.
These are most important distinctions on either side. Some people are
affected by a notion, fashionable just now, that it belongs to culture
never to go too far. Mr. Brook, in “Middlemarch,” you remember, is
a type of that culture. He believed in things up to a certain point
and was always afraid of going too far. We have a good many aspirants
after culture nowadays whose capital consists in a superficial literary
tradition and the same kind of terror of going too far. They would put
a saving clause in the multiplication table, and make reservations
in the rule of three. On the other hand, we have those who can never
express anything to which they are inclined to assent without gushing.
A simple opinion must be set forth in a torrent fit to enforce a great
scientific truth. One is just as much the sign of an imperfect training
as the other, and you meet with both, as my description shows, in
persons who pride themselves on their culture. I will not deny that
they are cultivated; I only say that they are not well disciplined,
that is, not well educated.

Your education, if it is disciplinary, ought also to teach you
the value of clear thinking, that is, of exact definitions, clear
propositions, well-considered opinions. What a flood of loose rhetoric,
distorted fact, and unclear thinking is poured out upon us whenever
a difficult question falls into popular discussion! You cannot find
that people who assume to take part in the discussion have a clear
definition in their minds of even what they conceive the main terms in
the discussion to mean. They do not seem able to make a proposition
which will bear handling so as to see what it is, and whether it
is true or not. They cannot analyze even such facts as they have
collected, and hence cannot draw inferences which are sound. It needs
but little discussion of any great political or social question to show
instances of this, and to show the immense importance of having in the
community men of trained and disciplined intellects, who can think
with some clearness and resist plain confusion of terms and thought.
For instance, I saw the other day a long argument on an important
public topic which turned upon the assertion and belief on the part
of the writer that a mathematical ratio and a subjective opinion were
things of the same nature and value. Perhaps, when he was at school,
his father thought there was no use in studying algebra and geometry.
It would not make so much difference if he would not now meddle with
things for which he did not prepare himself, but it is this kind of
person who is the pest of every science, traversing it with his whims
and speculations; and perhaps I feel the more strongly the importance
of this point because the political, economic, and social sciences
suffer from the want of high discipline more than any others.

I ought not to pass without mention here the mischief which is done in
every science by its undisciplined advocates who, while admitted to
its inner circle, distract its progress and throw it into confusion by
neglect of strict principles, by incorrect analyses or classifications,
or by flinching in the face of fallacies. They render the ranks
unsteady and delay the march, and the reason is because they have never
had rigorous discipline either before or since they enlisted.

If your education is disciplinary, it ought also to teach you how to
organize. I add this point especially because I esteem it important
and it is rarely noticed. It is really a high grade of discipline
which enables men to organize voluntarily. If men begin to study and
think, they move away from tradition and authority. The first effect
is to break up and dissolve their inherited and traditional opinions
as to religion, politics, and society. This is a necessary process of
transition from formal and traditional dogma to intelligent conviction.
It applies to all the notions of religion, as has often been noticed,
but it applies none the less to politics and to one’s notions of
life. The commonplaces of patriotism, the watchwords of parties and
tradition, the glib and well-worn phrases and terms have to be analyzed
again, and under the process much of their dignity and sanctity
evaporates. So too one’s views of life, of the meaning of social
phenomena, and of the general rules for men to pursue with each other,
undergo a recasting. Now during this process, men diverge and break
up. They do not agree. They differ by less and more, and also by the
various recombinations of the factors which they make. Pride, vanity,
and self-seeking come in to increase this divergence, it being regarded
as a sign of independence of thought.

It is not too much to say that so long as this divergence exists, it
is a sign of a low and imperfect development of science. If pride and
vanity intermingle, they show that discipline has not yet done its
perfect work. It is only on a higher stage of culture or discipline
that self is so overborne in zeal for the scientific good that opinions
converge and organization becomes possible. But you are well aware
that without organization we men can accomplish very little. It is not
the freedom of the barbarian who would rather live alone than undergo
the inevitable coercion of the neighborhood of others that we want. We
want only free and voluntary coördination, but it belongs to discipline
itself to teach us that we must have coördination in order to attain to
any high form of good.

I have now tried to show you the scope, advantages, and needs of
a disciplinary education. I have one remark more to make in this
connection. A man with a well-disciplined mind possesses a tool which
he can use for any purpose which he needs to serve. I do not consider
it an important question by the study of what sciences he shall get
this discipline, for, if he gets it, the acquisition of information in
any new department of learning will be easy for him, and he will be
strong, alert, and well equipped for any exigency of life.

Before quitting the subject, I desire to point out its relation to
one other matter, that is, to morals, or manners. It is a common
opinion that the higher man attains, the freer he becomes. A moment’s
reflection will show that this is not true--but rather quite the
contrary. The rowdy has far less restraints to consider than the
gentleman. “Noblesse oblige” was perverted in its application, perhaps,
before the Revolution, but it contains a sound principle and a great
truth. The higher you go in social attainments, the greater will be
the restraints upon you. The gait, the voice, the manner, the rough
independence, of one order of men is unbecoming in another. Education
above all brings this responsibility. Discipline in manners and morals
does not belong to the specific matter of education, but it follows of
itself on true education. The educated man must work by himself without
any overseer over him. He finds his compulsion in himself and it holds
him to his task longer and closer than any external compulsion.

This responsibility to self we call honor, and it is one of the
highest fruits of discipline when discipline, having wrought through
intellect, has reached character. Honor falls under the rule which I
mentioned early in this lecture. You cannot reach it because you want
it. You cannot reach it by direct effort. It cannot be taught to you
as a literary theory. True honor can only grow in men by the long
practice of conduct which is good and noble under motives which are
pure. We laugh at the artificial honor of the Middle Ages and despise
that of the dueling code, but let us not throw away the kernel with
the shell. Honor is a tribunal within one’s self whose code is simply
the best truth one knows. There are no advocates, no witnesses, and no
technicalities. To feel one’s self condemned by that tribunal is to
feel at discord with one’s self and to sustain a wound which rankles
longer and stings more deeply than any wound in the body. It is the
highest achievement of educational discipline to produce this sense
of honor in minds of young men, which gives them a guide in the midst
of temptation and at a time when all codes and standards seem to be
matter of opinion. I have said some things about lack of discipline in
thought and discussion, but that is nothing compared with the lack of
discipline in conduct which you see in a man who has never known what
honor is, whose whole moral constitution is so formless and flabby that
it can perform none of its functions, and who is continually seeking
some special plea, or sophistry, or deceptive device for paying homage
to the right while he does the wrong. Education ought to act against
all this and in favor of a high code of honor, not simply the education
of schools and academies, but that together with the education of
home and family. Our great educational institutions ought to have an
atmosphere of their own and impose traditions of their own, for the
power which controls in the academic community is not the voice of
authority but the voice of academic public opinion. That might root out
falsehood and violence and meanness of every kind, which no penalties
of those in authority could ever reach; and I submit that such a
public opinion would be becoming in a body of young men of good home
advantages and the best educational opportunities the country affords.
Call it high training, or culture, or discipline, or high breeding, or
what you will, it is only the sense of what we owe to ourselves, and it
is greater and greater according to our opportunities.




THE COÖPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH

NOTE BY THE EDITOR


Among Professor Sumner’s papers there turned up a curiosity which I
do not like to pass over altogether, although it is more appropriate,
perhaps, to the purposes of the biographer. Apparently Sumner amused
himself, along in the seventies or early eighties, in figuring to
himself the state of the world under a socialistic régime of the sort
which he was always ridiculing and opposing. He did this by imagining
the contents of a socialist newspaper, the _New Era_, of the date July
4, 1950, consisting of editorials, news notes, public announcements,
criminal cases, and even a book review. The whole caricatures in
high colors the phenomena attending such a régime in its period of
exuberance. “The following,” he writes, “is a complete and verbatim
copy of a [New York City] newspaper of the date given. It is printed on
a small quarter sheet of coarse paper. The printing is so bad that it
is hard to read, and the typographical errors, all of which have been
corrected, are inexcusable.”

The motto of the paper is: “Let the Rich Pay! Let the Poor Enjoy!”
The responsible editor is Lasalle Smith, and the proprietors Marx
Jones, Chairman of the New York City Board of Ethical Control, Cabet
Johnson, Chairman of the Board of Arbitration for Wages and Prices,
Babœuf Brown, Chairman of the Board of Control for Rents and Loans,
and Rousseau Peters, President of the Coöperative Bank. A notice warns
readers that “This paper is published strictly under the coöperative
rules established by the Typographical Union in our office and under
the direction of the council of the same. The Committee of Grievances
gives its assent and approval to each number before it is published.
All subscriptions are payable monthly in advance to the Treasurer of
the Typographical Union. The Typographical Union, being a member of
the organized Coöperative Commonwealth, has police powers for the
collection of all sums due to it.”

       *       *       *       *       *

A special notice reads as follows:

We send copies of this edition of our paper to a large number of
persons who have not hitherto coöperated in our enterprise but whom
we have enrolled until they signify their refusal. We call especial
attention to the names and standing in the Coöperative Commonwealth
of the proprietors of this journal. We believe that many of those
whom we now invite to coöperate, and who have been under suspicion of
being monopolists, capitalists, recalcitrants, and reactionists, will
see that they cannot better establish their credit for civism than by
accepting our invitation.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following extracts are from the editorials:

Our reports of the Ethical Tribunal show that our noble Board of
Ethical Control needs to guard diligently our interests. Another
pestilent preacher has been condemned to the chain gang. At least we
make sure that our streets will be cleaned, a task which no coöperators
could be asked to perform, since all the ancient lawyers, professors,
and preachers are now condemned to this business. The stubbornness
and incorrigibility of these classes towards the Commonwealth is
astonishing.


The Board of Ethical Control announce as the result of the plébiscite
which was taken on April 1 last, that, by a vote of 5319 to 782, the
Commonwealth voted to retain the present Board of Ethical Control for
ten years, instead of reëlecting them annually as heretofore. This is
as it should be. Why disturb the tranquillity of our happy state by
constant elections when our affairs are entrusted to such competent
hands?


The agents of the Board of Ethical Control reported 213 persons found
dead in the streets at the dawn of day, 174 bearing marks of violence;
the rest, not having coöperators’ tickets, were ancient monopolists
who had apparently perished of want. The Grand Coöperator said that he
should submit to the Board of Ethical Control the question whether it
is edifying to continue these reports.

       *       *       *       *       *

There follow extracts from the inaugural of G. P. M. C.[60] Lasalle
Brown, which begin with the sentiment:

_Of old ye were enslaved by those who said: Work! Save! Study! We
emancipate you by saying: Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy!_

The first right of everyone born on this earth is the right to enjoy.
The Coöperative Commonwealth assures this right to all its members.

We have not abolished private property. We only hold that every man
is considered to have devoted his property to public use. We have not
abolished landlords, capitalists, employers, or captains of industry.
We retain and use them. Such members of a society are useful and
necessary if only they be held firmly in check and forced to contribute
to the public good.

We need “history” and “statistics” to batter down all the old system,
but we should be the dupes of our own processes if we used them
against ourselves. All sensible coöperators should know that history
and statistics are far greater swindles than science.

There are dangers in the Coöperative Commonwealth which demand
vigilance. There is danger of jealousy and division amongst
coöperators. Harmony is essential to the Coöperative Commonwealth and
we must have it at any price.

Some say that our Commonwealth is weak. It is the strongest state that
ever existed. No one before our time ever knew the power of a “mob,”
as it used to be called. At a tap of the bell, every coöperator is at
hand. Our only danger is factious division of this power. Let every
coöperator have rewards for harmony and penalties for faction--strict,
sure, and heavy!

There is danger from science. The evolution heresy is a worse foe to
coöperation than the old Christian dogma. Stamp it out!

There is danger from the virus of the old anarchism--worst of all
because it is often enough like the truth to deceive the elect. It
means liberty and individualism. Stamp it out!

       *       *       *       *       *

Under the heading “Domestic News” occurs the following:

The Commissioners of Emigration have detected several persons striving
to leave the city for Long Island, carrying gold with them. It is well
known that many rich persons, animated by selfishness and disregarding
their duties as trustees of their wealth for the public, have escaped
to the wilds of Long Island beyond the Commune of Brooklyn, carrying
with them all the gold which they could obtain. Hence the Commissioners
of Emigration have arranged to patrol the East River by the
Commonwealth galleys and have limited the ferry transits to the Fulton
ferry between 8 and 9 A.M. and 5 and 6 P.M. Any persons found carrying
away gold will be sent to the galleys and the gold confiscated. Gold is
needed to buy supplies for the Commonwealth.


No dispatches from Philadelphia have been received for a fortnight. A
steamboat of 100 tons burden is cruising in the Hudson River, taking
toll of all goods in transit across the river. Reports disagree as to
the character of the persons on this boat. By some it is asserted to be
manned by coöperators who, being poor, are putting into effect ethical
claims against material goods. By others it is said to be manned by a
gang of monopolist scoundrels and vagabonds, who, driven to desperation
by the boycott and plan of campaign, seek this means to perpetuate
their existence. It behooves the Board of Ethical Control to learn
which of these reports is correct before taking action.


A report comes from the West that the Indians have seized Illinois,
killing the whites and taking possession of the improvements. They
have imbibed the ancient capitalistic notions and are impervious to
ethical and coöperative doctrines. They are rapidly increasing in
numbers, strange as it may seem, for we have read in ancient books
that they were dying out a century ago. It is suggested that they now
increase because they are conquering, and that they will go on doing so
until they exterminate all whites from the continent. In the absence
of private mails, we humbly suggest that our Board of Ethical Control
should communicate with similar boards of the communes to the westward.

       *       *       *       *       *

Under the heading “Industrial”:

The Board of Equalization of Production have set the amounts of various
commodities which may be produced during the coming fall season. Those
whom it concerns are to call at the office of the Board at once, pay
the fees, and obtain their instructions. The penalty of over-production
is fixed at 100 coöperative units per unit of product, half to the
informer.


The Board of Arbitration for Contracts will sit daily at their office
in Coöperative Hall from 10 to 12 A.M. to approve of contracts. The
fee is 1000 coöperative units from each party. Notice is called to the
ordinance of the Board of Ethical Control: “If two or more persons
make a contract without the presence and approval of the Board of
Arbitration or otherwise than in conformity with the regulations of
said Board, they may be fined according to the circumstances of the
case.”


The Coöperative Railroad Commission, having found a mechanic to repair
the locomotive, announce that they will recommence regular weekly trips
to Yonkers on next Monday. A train will start at 9 A.M., or as soon
thereafter as convenient. Accommodation for twenty-five passengers.
Passports may be obtained until noon on Saturday. They must be viséd
by the Railroad Commission and by the Coöperative Guardians of Public
Morals at their office in the Coöperative Workhouse not later than
two o’clock on the same time. The fare to Yonkers will be 10,000
coöperative units. On account of the inter-county commerce law, all
freight and passengers will be trans-shipped at Yonkers. To prevent
vexatious inquiries, the Commission hereby announce that they are not
informed whether or when trains will be dispatched to points beyond.


Since the Commonwealth was founded, as our readers know, coöperators
have refused to work in coal mines. No great harm has come of this
since the factories and machinery have been abolished and railroads
and steamers have almost gone out of use. Some coal, however, is a
convenience, and our readers will see with pleasure that delinquents in
considerable numbers are being sent to these mines under an agreement
with our Board of Ethical Control with the similar authority of the
Lehigh Commune in the ancient state of Pennsylvania.

We are informed that a number of ancient capitalists and monopolists,
being in a starving condition, recently applied to the Board of the
said Commune for leave to go into an abandoned coal mine and work it
for their own support.


A week ago yesterday, Coöperative Association 2391, A. P. D.,
bricklayers, 7824, M. X. H., plasterers, 4823 N. K. J., hodcarriers,
F. L. M. 8296, joiners, met to consider the state of the building
trades. On account of the decrease in the population, by which great
numbers of houses are vacant, building has ceased for years past and
these once great associations have dwindled down. The Board of Ethical
Control has caused public buildings to be constructed in order to give
them work and has ordered landlords to make repairs to the same end.
The conference on Friday, a week ago, was to consider further measures
of relief. It was decided that no vacant house ought to be allowed to
stand. Some maintained that no repairs ought to be allowed at all,
in order that new houses might become necessary, but others thought
that this would take away what little work is now obtained. G. C. Marx
Rogers, former professor of political economy, made a speech in which
he proposed that all houses now vacant and all ruins now standing which
give shelter to unregistered vagabonds and boycotted persons should be
destroyed; also that a committee be appointed to inspect all existing
dwellings, mark those which are out of repair and unfit for coöperative
residences, and that these latter should then be razed to the ground.
This would cause an immediate demand for new houses. This proposition
was unanimously adopted.

On Wednesday last the coöperative associations aforesaid met to hear
the report of the committee. Twelve hundred and forty-seven houses
had been noted so far as unfit for residences. The joint associations
passed a decree against said houses, as a beginning, and ordered the
committee of the whole to proceed to execute it.

They marched in a body to Bleecker Street, the northernmost limit
of the ruined houses and demolished them entirely. They then moved
southerly, destroying all vacant houses. Gradually, a number of persons
gathered to look on. The agents of Ethical Supervision kept this crowd
at a distance and secured the joint Coöperative Associations full
independence in the execution of their decree.

In East Canal Street, Nonconformist Jonathan Merritt, lessee of a block
of tenements, tried to dissuade or prevent the destruction of his
buildings. He was roughly handled, his skull split open and his arm
broken by the coöperators. The agents of Ethical Supervision took him
in on a charge of disturbing the public peace.

When it came to the destruction of occupied buildings, the tenants
objected. By the ordinance of the Board of Lodgings and Rents, each
had been allotted to his domicile and was, of course, bound to keep it
until allowed to change. It was also feared that no lodgings could be
found. The Board of Lodgings and Rents immediately convened and issued
new allotments of domicile. Suspects, nonconformists, recalcitrants,
and reactionists were sent to lodge in the ancient churches and the
coöperators were assigned to their tenements.

The revival and prosperity of the building trades is now assured.

       *       *       *       *       *

Under the heading “Misdemeanors”:

Of all forms of incivism, the most reprehensible is hoarding gold. All
good coöperators who know of cases of this criminal selfishness are
bound to report it at the Bureau of Ethical Supervision under penalty
of incivism on the one hand and a reward of ten per cent of the sum on
the other. All gold must be exchanged at the bank of G. C. Cabet Rogers
for coöperative units.


An audacious lampoon has been printed at some secret press, the authors
of which must be discovered at all cost. It is a blasphemous parody
of the Coöperative Catechism. The Commission of Ethical Inquiry has
directed all its powerful machinery to detect the authors of this
outrage. Let every coöperator appoint himself a detective to help.
Search every house in your neighborhood! Trust nobody! Every person
found in possession of a copy of this pamphlet will be summarily
removed from the Commonwealth.


The supply of potatoes which forms the staple food of the mass of our
population is obtained from the northern part of the commune, in what
was formerly Westchester County. The great fields there are tilled
by the delinquents under taxes and fines, incorrigible monopolists,
survival capitalists and others under judicial sentence, under the
direction of the Board of Ethical Control. The convicts work from
sunrise to sunset, in order to mark the distinction between them and
honorable coöperators, who work but five hours per day. The product
of the fields on its way to the town is subjected to toll by the free
coöperative associations of the suburbs. Hence it always threatens to
be inadequate. Good coöperators cannot better serve the Commonwealth
than by ferreting out violators of the ordinances and other persons
guilty of incivism.


Karl Marx Jones, agent of the Board of Equalization of Distribution,
has disappeared. It is thought that he has gone towards Boston. He
reported to the Board, it will be remembered, two weeks ago, a case of
hoarding of gold. He was sent to collect it and was made custodian of
it. It has disappeared. The Board count upon the aid of communes to the
eastward to recover the gold, but not very confidently. He left all his
coöperative units behind him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ordinances of the Committee of Inquiry appears as follows:

Boycotts are declared against Robert Dorr, for saying that the
Coöperative Commonwealth is only a scheme to let a few exploit all the
rest; Matthew Brown, for saying that it is all a woman’s honor is worth
to appear on the street of the Coöperative Commonwealth, even thickly
veiled, for she runs the risk of attracting the attention of someone
against whom no one can defend her; James Rowe, for refusing to aid the
agents of the society in taking from her home without public scandal
a woman charged with incivism; John White, for hiding gold coin;
William Peck, for saying that Grand Coöperator Lasalle Brown secured
the boycott of Elihu Snow to get his property away from him; Edward
Grant, for saying that the Coöperative Commonwealth is only slavery in
disguise and the treatment of persons convicted of incivism is slavery
without disguise; Peter Moon, for saying that the Plan of Campaign is
only a scheme to allow a man’s debtors to rob him of a small fraction
of their debts if they will let some of the Grand Coöperators rob him
of all the remainder.

       *       *       *       *       *

A considerable number of minor offences are tried before Grand
Coöperator Rodbertus Pease, Member of the Board of Ethical Control:

George Wood, aged sixty, was arraigned for carrying a pistol at night,
not being a member of any coöperative club and therefore not entitled
so to do. He declared that the streets were unsafe at night and that
he never went out after dark if he could help it, but that he was
compelled to go for a doctor for his sick grandchild and took the
pistol for security. He was met by two coöperators who asked him to
contribute to the Aged Coöperators’ Retreat. On his declaring that he
had nothing, they searched him and found the pistol. They then demanded
his coöperator’s ticket. As he had none, they took him to the Bureau
of Ethical Supervision, where he was detained until morning. The two
complainants appeared against him. They declared that they were poor
men. On examination it appeared that he was an incorrigible adherent
of the ancient monopolism. He was fined 10,000 coöperative units, half
to the informers. He began to lament at this, saying that he was very
poor--poorer than the complainants; but the Grand Coöperator declared
that no man could be a poor man who was not a coöperator.

The Emigration Commissioners whose sole duty is to prevent any
immigrants from coming into our commune put at the bar Fritz Meyer,
charged with immigrating. He pretended to be a sailor on the _Ferdinand
Lasalle_, but did not return on board of her before she sailed. In
defence he pleaded that he was left by accident. He was condemned to
serve on the yacht of the Board of Ethical Control at the pleasure of
said Board.

Ulysses Perkins and others, some of whom were coöperators and some
not, complained that their neighborhood was annoyed by the Coöperative
Brotherhood who hold their evening festivals at Coöperative Hall. They
declared that there was shouting and singing and that windows were
broken in spite of the heavy shutters. Their complaint was dismissed
as an attempt to oppress organized labor, and the coöperators amongst
them were especially reprimanded. The Grand Coöperator remarked that
the prejudice against beer which was manifested in ancient prohibitory
and license laws was not respected by the ethical judgment of our time.

On Monday last, several persons appeared to complain that the roads
outside of the city are infested by robbers. They were detained and the
Board of Ethical Control sent out delegates to inquire. They reported
yesterday, when the complainants were brought before the tribunal
to hear their report. They denied that there was any robbery, since
robbery means undue exaction of rent or of work for wages. The word
was used by the complainants in the ancient capitalistic sense. The
delegates found many coöperators enjoying holiday in the fields and
by the wayside. Some of them were playful and resented the exclusive
manner of passers-by who did not engage in sport. They asked for
treats, and they had appointed a committee to solicit funds for their
games. Some bands of banished monopolists were reported to be infesting
the woods, living by chance or by tilling some small fields which have
not been allotted to them, and plotting against the Commonwealth. The
Grand Coöperator said that such persons would be promptly dealt with
and dispatched a force of guardians of Ethical Order against them. The
complainants were discharged with a reprimand for misrepresenting the
innocent enjoyment of the coöperators in the suburb.

William Johnson, employer, was arraigned for contumacy. The Board of
Arbitration ordered him to pay 1000 coöperative units per day of six
hours. He closed his works. The Grand Coöperator ordered a second
charge for malicious lockout and fined him 10,000 coöperative units per
day until he should reopen his works.

Eliza Marcy, cook, actress, 26, was charged with defamation of Emily
Wilson, coöperative seamstress. The accused presented a certificate
of patronage from G. M. C. Brissot Robinson and was discharged from
custody, a rescript of the charge being transmitted to G. M. C.
Robinson for such action as he should deem proper.

Maria Waters, arraigned for working at type-setting below man’s rates,
pleaded poverty and distress as an excuse. She is the daughter of
an ancient monopolist from whom she inherited $100,000 before the
abolition of inheritance. She had therefore been denied admittance to
any coöperative society. She was fined 1000 coöperative units and sent
to the Ethical Workhouse to work it out.

Patrick Boyle, coöperative bricklayer, for mending his own table, he
not being a member of the furniture-makers’ union, was arraigned as a
scab and sentenced to forfeit his coöperative ticket, be graded as a
non-conformist, and pay 1000 coöperative units fine. Being unable to
pay, he was put under G. M. C. Scroggs to work it out.

       *       *       *       *       *

Under “Benefits and Amusements”:

In addition to the three regular Labor Days of July, the 10th, 20th,
and 30th, the Board of Ethical Control has decreed an extra one on the
18th, with full wages. Commonwealth galleys will be ready to convey
coöperators and their families to Blackwell’s Island, where the dancing
and dining rooms in the ancient prisons of despotism will be arranged
for their entertainment. There will be a free circus at 3 P.M. and a
free variety entertainment in the evening. The two latter have been
provided by the liberality of G. P. M. C. Lasalle Brown.


Rents remitted for June and all arrears before January 1.


All coöperators in good standing are entitled to pensions of 100
coöperative units per week, with rations of coöperative bread and beer.


The agents of the Board of Equalization of Distribution will begin
next Monday the distribution of July pensions to all coöperators in
good and regular standing. The agents will call at the residences
of coöperators. There has been some delay which has occasioned just
murmurs. It has been due to delinquencies of tax-payers, amongst whom
not a little old capitalistic virus remains.


Masked Ball on every Sunday evening in the ancient Trinity Church.
Coöperative Enjoyment Association. Admission 100 c. u. All persons must
wear coöperative medals displayed.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Foreign News” reports the following débâcle:

It will be remembered that about three years ago the last remnant of
English landlords was exiled to Guiana. The Commune of London granted
them a ship, of which an immense number blocked the Thames, not having
occupation, and they were allowed to navigate it if they could. Their
children were taken away from them, to be educated in the principles
of coöperation. From this mistaken complaisance a series of evil
consequences have flowed.

Some of the exiles have had yachting experience and most of them,
being trained in the ancient athletic sports, were able to navigate
the ship. Instead of obeying the law, they sailed to Gibraltar and
captured the ancient fortress. There they obtained arms and cannons,
of which they put a number on board their ship and returned to London.
Their first step was to seize the _Columbus_, a fine steamer of 1000
tons burden, one of the newest and in best repair of those lying in the
river. They then filled her bunkers with coal and wood which they took
by force from the Commonwealth barges in the river. They next seized
the arsenals at Greenwich and Norwich, carried off a great number
of repeating rifles and ammunition, and destroyed all the rest. The
coöperators of London, being taken unawares and being prepared only to
cope with the city monopolists, who had been disarmed, were unable to
interfere.

The pirates moored their vessel opposite the city and sent a message
of the G. P. M. C. by a captured coöperator that they would bombard
the city if their children were not all delivered to them. A hundred
of them landed with repeating rifles and revolvers and marched to the
coöperative factories, where they set free all who chose to join them.
In short, they departed after securing their children, a vast quantity
of tools and machinery, arms, supplies, and ammunition. A large number
of flunkies and snobs joined them, sufficient to man one or two other
vessels.

It now appears that they have taken possession of the Island of Sicily
and made it a base of concentration for a grand political reaction.
They have proclaimed as far as possible that their island is a refuge
for landlords, monopolists, and capitalists, and the roads of Europe
are crowded with vagabonds seeking to reach this nest of pirates. The
pirate state is growing. It is a republic like one of our ancient
states. It has an army of 5000 men who boast that with the arms which
they possess they can march from one end of Europe to another. They
control the Mediterranean and all its coasts. They have served notice
on the communal commonwealths of the Continent that they will avenge
any coercion exercised against any persons who seek to join them, and
six months ago they sent a force of 6000 men to Lyons to set free a
band of aristocrats who were imprisoned there and were threatened with
the guillotine.

It is said that there are no artisans now who are able to manufacture
repeating rifles like those which these robbers possess, except amongst
themselves--they having hired mechanics to recover the art. Even the
guns yet remaining on the Continent cannot be used because the art of
making the ammunition is lost. It was a great mistake to let these
pestilent scoundrels loose. Their state threatens the whole coöperative
movement. Its existence has greatly strengthened the collectivists
among coöperators, for it is said that the big empires must be restored
(on coöperative principles) to cope with them.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Personal Items” record the following:

G. P. M. C. Lasalle Brown last evening gave a grand ball and
house-warming in his new house on Fifth Avenue. By demolishing and
removing the unsightly ruined houses in the neighborhood, a beautiful
park and garden have been added to this fine tenement. It was
illuminated last evening by thousands of lamps and torches carried by
the convicts who are under discipline in the household of the G. P. M.
C. The guests were members of the Board of Ethical Control and their
families, some of whom, remembering their own antecedents, observed
with interest amongst the convicts sons and daughters of ancient
monopolists, and in some cases white-haired survivals from the age of
bankers, railroad kings, and merchant princes. Such are the revenges of
history!


One hundred new carriages for the Board of Ethical Control have just
arrived. They are of the most superb workmanship and cost $5000 in
gold each. They belong, of course, to the Commonwealth and can only be
used under permission of the Board of Ethical Control. They have been
put, one each, under the care of separate members of the Board, as no
private individual is allowed to violate equality by owning a carriage.
We noticed with pleasure yesterday the families of Grand Coöperators in
these carriages in the park.

Non-conformists and others like them outside the pale of the
Commonwealth have, of late years, when they found their position
disagreeable, adopted the plan of attaching themselves voluntarily
as retainers or vassals to coöperators, especially to the leading
members of the Board of Ethical Control. In this way they secure some
of the advantages of coöperation. In order to show their position
and relationship, they wear special tokens or marks. The clients of
the newly inaugurated G. P. M. C. have just been put into uniform or
livery. They attended him in a body on his recent visit to his country
seat at Riverdale, where they did guard duty. Added to his personal
bodyguard of coöperators and friends, they made an imposing body. This
country-seat, by the way, has just been surrounded by a high stone wall.

       *       *       *       *       *

There occurs an obituary of one of the community’s leading lights:

G. C. Brissot Cunningham died at 01 Fifth Avenue on Wednesday last.
He was born May 16, 1905 and was educated for a lawyer. In 1930,
putting himself in the foremost rank of the coöperative movement and
identifying himself with the most radical section, he was admitted to
the bar. By the abolition of inheritance, he found himself, on the
death of his father in the following year, thrown entirely on his own
resources. He then passed through some years of obscurity and great
poverty, which taught him to feel for the poor.

Allying himself with the noble band which supported our present G. P.
M. C., he helped to bring about the foundation of the coöperation in
1940 and was elected member of the Board of Ethical Control. In the
Board he filled many of the most important and responsible positions
on the several committees and was regularly reëlected. He devoted
himself to securing the Commonwealth, flinching from no measure to
establish it. He believed thoroughly in the motto “Enjoy.” After he
became a member of the Board of Ethical Control, the former mansion
of the ----s on Fifth Avenue was allotted to him and furnished from
the Commonwealth storehouse of forfeited property. He there kept up a
munificent hospitality on the most altruistic principles. He neither
cared to know whence his income came nor whither it went. In the spirit
of a true coöperator, whatever belonged to the Commonwealth was his
and whatever was his was free to any coöperator. His popularity with
the masses was shown yesterday when they turned out in a body for his
funeral. The non-coöperators who had felt his scourge were naturally
absent. A few of them who could not conceal their joy at his death were
summarily corrected by the coöperators. By his death at the early age
of forty-five, our Commonwealth has lost a valuable supporter.

[According to the ordinance adopted by the Board of Ethical Control,
February 10, 1945, since he died a member of the Board, his family will
have a pension of $15,000 per annum in gold for twenty-five years and
the use of his house for the same time. The Board will fill the vacancy
next week.--Editor of this paper.]

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Text-book of Coöperation_, ordained by the Board of Ethical
Control for schools, is reviewed as follows:

This book is an authoritative exposition of the Coöperative
Commonwealth in the commune form. It is to supersede all other books
except the primer, writing-book, and elementary arithmetic. We have
done with all the ancient rubbish. All the books which have not been
destroyed are under the control of the Board of Ethical Control.
Especially we are now rid of all pernicious trash about history, law,
and political economy. The present book contains all that a good
coöperator needs to know. Its tone is strictly ethical. By separating
all children of incorrigibles and survivals from their parents and
educating them on this book, we may soon hope to bring all capitalistic
tradition to an end.

It is plainly proved here that the first right of every man and woman
is the right to capital. This right is valid up to the time when he
or she gets capital, when it becomes ethically subject to the similar
right of someone else, who has no capital as yet, to have some. This
principle carried out is the guarantee of justice and equality and is
the fundamental principle of the Coöperative Commonwealth in the middle
of the twentieth century.

The text-book describes the organization of our Commonwealth, with the
duties of coöperators, and gives a list of the ordinances of the Board
of Control.

There are now 1000 members of the Board of Ethical Control and 10,000
agents in their employ, chosen by lot monthly from all coöperators. The
Board is divided into ten Boards of 100 each for various branches of
duty. The members receive no salary but are remunerated by fees. They
enjoy no privileges or rights in the Commonwealth, but have the duty
of regulating all coöperative affairs according to their conscientious
convictions of justice. The ten chairmen of Boards form an exclusive
commission which decrees boycotts and plans of campaign. There are no
laws or lawyers in the system and no courts or juries of the ancient
type, now happily almost forgotten. There are no police, no detectives,
no army, no militia, and no prisons. The ancient prison at Sing Sing,
which is now within the limits of this commune, is turned into a
Coöperators’ Retreat. Under this happy régime no coöperator can do
wrong. Our only culprits are recalcitrants, suspects, incorrigibles,
survivals, and other would-be perpetuators of the old régime of monoply
and capitalistic extortion. Such persons are compelled to expiate their
selfishness and incivism by hard labor, but they are taken for this
purpose into the households or factories of the members of the Board
of Ethical Control, where they are subject to ethical discipline and
produce those things which are essential to the community and which the
Board of Ethical Control contracts to provide. The employments are such
as free coöperators consider disagreeable, unhealthy, or degrading.

The Committee of Inquiry into Incivism is a committee of the Board of
Ethical Control and has the high and important duty of watching over
coöperative duties. Its number and members are unknown, lest they
should be objects of malice. Its sessions and procedure are secret. It
employs 100 agents but has a right to command the services at any time
of all coöperators. Complaints of incivism may be lodged night or day
by any coöperator in the lion’s mouth in the court of the Coöperative
Hall (ancient United States postoffice).

The Committee proceeds against persons guilty of incivism by boycotts
chiefly. This measure puts the culprit outside the pale of the
Commonwealth which he has maligned or in which he has refused to take
his share. Such persons become vagabonds, and disappear or perish.

The chapter on coöperative religion is in the form of a catechism and
is to be thoroughly learned by heart by all pupils. It inculcates the
doctrines of our social creed by which each one is bound to serve
the health, wealth, and happiness of every other. Those who have the
means of material enjoyment shall put them at the disposition and use
of those who have them not. It impresses above all the great duty of
civism, or conformity to coöperative organization and obedience to the
Board of Ethical Control.

There is complete equality and no distinction of class in the
Coöperative Commonwealth. Every man, woman, and child is eligible
to the Board of Ethical Control. The only distinction is of merit
and service to the Commonwealth. In this the members of the Board
of Ethical Control stand first. There is no second. Outside of the
Coöperative Committee are, in order of demerit and detestation,
probationers (coöperators who have forfeited their coöperative tickets
for fault but who may be restored to membership), survivals (employers,
capitalists, landlords, usurers, subject to the Commonwealth and
continuing the ancient functions of such persons), nonconformists
(stubborn persons who refuse to conform to the new order),
recalcitrants (any of the former who have been subject to discipline
five times), incorrigibles (after twenty cases of discipline), suspects
(so decreed if charged but not convicted of incivism), reactionists
(once coöperators but convicted of disorganization) and convicts
(under boycott or plan of campaign). Every person must be registered
and have always on his person a brass medal hung by a chain about his
neck, bearing his designation and number, with the letters designating
his group, domicile, also district, ward, and arrondissement. This
constitutes his social designation. These medals are given out by
the Board of Ethical Supervision. The fee is 1000 coöperative units,
repeated each time that the person is re-classified and a new medal
issued.

       *       *       *       *       *

Advertisements are included, as, for example:

John Moon, licensed to sell pistols and ammunition. A few revolvers
newly imported from the commune of Hartford at great difficulty and
expense. Bliss Bldg.

Henry Black, pistols and bowie-knives. Sales strictly within the
ordinances. Every purchaser required to show coöperator’s ticket, and
sales registered. 268 Felicity Boulevard.

Elias Israel, pawn broker, loans at 10% per month on coöperative
private property only. Sales of forfeited goods every Sunday. 618 Joy
Avenue.

       *       *       *       *       *

The editor has no compunction about publishing these extracts, though
it may be objected that they can be at most of historical or personal
interest. Perhaps, in the light of the antics of the Bolsheviki, even
such a parody as the foregoing may seem less wide of the potentialities
of the socialistic system. In any case, if modern socialism has
renounced some of the wild dreams of its past, that is largely owing
to the criticism and ridicule poured upon them by vigorous opponents
of the Sumner type. Says a prominent American, writing to the editor
subsequently to the publication of one of the foregoing volumes of this
series: “I have for many years publicly and privately urged socialists
to read--_really_ read--Sumner--as the most doughty and competent foe
with whom they have to reckon.”




THE FORGOTTEN MAN

[1883]


I propose in this lecture to discuss one of the most subtile and
widespread social fallacies. It consists in the impression made on the
mind for the time being by a particular fact, or by the interests of
a particular group of persons, to which attention is directed while
other facts or the interests of other persons are entirely left out of
account. I shall give a number of instances and illustrations of this
in a moment, and I cannot expect you to understand what is meant from
an abstract statement until these illustrations are before you, but
just by way of a general illustration I will put one or two cases.

Whenever a pestilence like yellow fever breaks out in any city, our
attention is especially attracted towards it, and our sympathies are
excited for the sufferers. If contributions are called for, we readily
respond. Yet the number of persons who die prematurely from consumption
every year greatly exceeds the deaths from yellow fever or any similar
disease when it occurs, and the suffering entailed by consumption is
very much greater. The suffering from consumption, however, never
constitutes a public question or a subject of social discussion. If an
inundation takes place anywhere, constituting a public calamity (and an
inundation takes place somewhere in the civilized world nearly every
year), public attention is attracted and public appeals are made, but
the losses by great inundations must be insignificant compared with
the losses by runaway horses, which, taken separately, scarcely obtain
mention in a local newspaper. In hard times insolvent debtors are
a large class. They constitute an interest and are able to attract
public attention, so that social philosophers discuss their troubles
and legislatures plan measures of relief. Insolvent debtors, however,
are an insignificant body compared with the victims of commonplace
misfortune, or accident, who are isolated, scattered, ungrouped and
ungeneralized, and so are never made the object of discussion or
relief. In seasons of ordinary prosperity, persons who become insolvent
have to get out of their troubles as they can. They have no hope of
relief from the legislature. The number of insolvents during a series
of years of general prosperity, and their losses, greatly exceed the
number and losses during a special period of distress.

These illustrations bring out only one side of my subject, and that
only partially. It is when we come to the proposed measures of relief
for the evils which have caught public attention that we reach the real
subject which deserves our attention. As soon as A observes something
which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it
over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the
evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do
for X or, in the better case, what A, B and C shall do for X. As for A
and B, who get a law to make themselves do for X what they are willing
to do for him, we have nothing to say except that they might better
have done it without any law, but what I want to do is to look up C.
I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten
Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man
who never is thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, social
speculator and philanthropist, and I hope to show you before I get
through that he deserves your notice both for his character and for the
many burdens which are laid upon him.

No doubt one great reason for the phenomenon which I bring to your
attention is the passion for reflection and generalization which marks
our period. Since the printing press has come into such wide use, we
have all been encouraged to philosophize about things in a way which
was unknown to our ancestors. They lived their lives out in positive
contact with actual cases as they arose. They had little of this
analysis, introspection, reflection and speculation which have passed
into a habit and almost into a disease with us. Of all things which
tempt to generalization and to philosophizing, social topics stand
foremost. Each one of us gets some experience of social forces. Each
one has some chance for observation of social phenomena. There is
certainly no domain in which generalization is easier. There is nothing
about which people dogmatize more freely. Even men of scientific
training in some department in which they would not tolerate dogmatism
at all will not hesitate to dogmatize in the most reckless manner about
social topics. The truth is, however, that science, as yet, has won
less control of social phenomena than of any other class of phenomena.
The most complex and difficult subject which we now have to study is
the constitution of human society, the forces which operate in it,
and the laws by which they act, and we know less about these things
than about any others which demand our attention. In such a state of
things, over-hasty generalization is sure to be extremely mischievous.
You cannot take up a magazine or newspaper without being struck by
the feverish interest with which social topics and problems are
discussed, and if you were a student of social science, you would find
in almost all these discussions evidence, not only that the essential
preparation for the discussion is wanting, but that the disputants do
not even know that there is any preparation to be gained. Consequently
we are bewildered by contradictory dogmatizing. We find in all these
discussions only the application of pet notions and the clashing of
contradictory “views.” Remedies are confidently proposed for which
there is no guarantee offered except that the person who prescribes
the remedy says that he is sure it will work. We hear constantly of
“reform,” and the reformers turn out to be people who do not like
things as they are and wish that they could be made nicer. We hear a
great many exhortations to make progress from people who do not know in
what direction they want to go. Consequently social reform is the most
barren and tiresome subject of discussion amongst us, except æsthetics.

I suppose that the first chemists seemed to be very hard-hearted
and unpoetical persons when they scouted the glorious dream of the
alchemists that there must be some process for turning base metals into
gold. I suppose that the men who first said, in plain, cold assertion,
there is no fountain of eternal youth, seemed to be the most cruel and
cold-hearted adversaries of human happiness. I know that the economists
who say that if we could transmute lead into gold, it would certainly
do us no good and might do great harm, are still regarded as unworthy
of belief. Do not the money articles of the newspapers yet ring with
the doctrine that we are getting rich when we give cotton and wheat for
gold rather than when we give cotton and wheat for iron?

Let us put down now the cold, hard fact and look at it just as it is.
There is no device whatever to be invented for securing happiness
without industry, economy, and virtue. We are yet in the empirical
stage as regards all our social devices. We have done something in
science and art in the domain of production, transportation and
exchange. But when you come to the laws of the social order, we know
very little about them. Our laws and institutions by which we attempt
to regulate our lives under the laws of nature which control society
are merely a series of haphazard experiments. We come into collision
with the laws and are not intelligent enough to understand wherein
we are mistaken and how to correct our errors. We persist in our
experiments instead of patiently setting about the study of the laws
and facts in order to see where we are wrong. Traditions and formulæ
have a dominion over us in legislation and social customs which we seem
unable to break or even to modify.

For my present purpose I ask your attention for a few moments to
the notion of liberty, because the Forgotten Man would no longer be
forgotten where there was true liberty. You will say that you know what
liberty is. There is no term of more common or prouder use. None is
more current, as if it were quite beyond the need of definition. Even
as I write, however, I find in a leading review a new definition of
civil liberty. Civil liberty the writer declares to be “the result of
the restraint exercised by the sovereign people on the more powerful
individuals and classes of the community, preventing them from availing
themselves of the excess of their power to the detriment of the other
classes.” You notice here the use of the words “sovereign people” to
designate a class of the population, not the nation as a political
and civil whole. Wherever “people” is used in such a sense, there is
always fallacy. Furthermore, you will recognize in this definition a
very superficial and fallacious construction of English constitutional
history. The writer goes on to elaborate that construction and he comes
out at last with the conclusion that “a government by the people can,
in no case, become a paternal government, since its law-makers are its
mandataries and servants carrying out its will, and not its fathers or
its masters.” This, then, is the point at which he desires to arrive,
and he has followed a familiar device in setting up a definition to
start with which would produce the desired deduction at the end.

In the definition the word “people” was used for a class or section
of the population. It is now asserted that if _that_ section rules,
there can be no paternal, that is, undue, government. That doctrine,
however, is the very opposite of liberty and contains the most vicious
error possible in politics. The truth is that cupidity, selfishness,
envy, malice, lust, vindictiveness, are constant vices of human nature.
They are not confined to classes or to nations or particular ages of
the world. They present themselves in the palace, in the parliament,
in the academy, in the church, in the workshop, and in the hovel. They
appear in autocracies, theocracies, aristocracies, democracies, and
ochlocracies all alike. They change their masks somewhat from age to
age and from one form of society to another. All history is only one
long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their
fellow-men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the
expense of others and might shift the burdens of life from their own
shoulders upon those of others. It is true that, until this time, the
proletariat, the mass of mankind, have rarely had the power and they
have not made such a record as kings and nobles and priests have made
of the abuses they would perpetrate against their fellow-men when they
could and dared. But what folly it is to think that vice and passion
are limited by classes, that liberty consists only in taking power away
from nobles and priests and giving it to artisans and peasants and that
these latter will never abuse it! They will abuse it just as all others
have done unless they are put under checks and guarantees, and there
can be no civil liberty anywhere unless rights are guaranteed against
all abuses, as well from proletarians as from generals, aristocrats,
and ecclesiastics.

Now what has been amiss in all the old arrangements? The evils of the
old military and aristocratic governments was that some men enjoyed
the fruits of other men’s labor; that some persons’ lives, rights,
interests and happiness were sacrificed to other persons’ cupidity and
lust. What have our ancestors been striving for, under the name of
civil liberty, for the last five hundred years? They have been striving
to bring it about that each man and woman might live out his or her
life according to his or her own notions of happiness and up to the
measure of his or her own virtue and wisdom. How have they sought to
accomplish this? They have sought to accomplish it by setting aside
all arbitrary personal or class elements and introducing the reign of
law and the supremacy of constitutional institutions like the jury,
the habeas corpus, the independent judiciary, the separation of church
and state, and the ballot. Note right here one point which will be
important and valuable when I come more especially to the case of the
Forgotten Man: whenever you talk of liberty, you must have _two_ men in
mind. The sphere of rights of one of these men trenches upon that of
the other, and whenever you establish liberty for the one, you repress
the other. Whenever absolute sovereigns are subjected to constitutional
restraints, you always hear them remonstrate that their liberty is
curtailed. So it is, in the sense that their power of determining what
shall be done in the state is limited below what it was before and the
similar power of other organs in the state is widened. Whenever the
privileges of an aristocracy are curtailed, there is heard a similar
complaint. The truth is that the line of limit or demarcation between
classes as regards civil power has been moved and what has been taken
from one class is given to another.

We may now, then, advance a step in our conception of civil liberty. It
is the status in which we find the true adjustment of rights between
classes and individuals. Historically, the conception of civil liberty
has been constantly changing. The notion of rights changes from one
generation to another and the conception of civil liberty changes with
it. If we try to formulate a true definition of civil liberty as an
ideal thing towards which the development of political institutions is
all the time tending, it would be this: Civil liberty is the status of
the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive
employment of all his own powers for his own welfare.

This definition of liberty or civil liberty, you see, deals only with
concrete and actual relations of the civil order. There is some sort
of a poetical and metaphysical notion of liberty afloat in men’s minds
which some people dream about but which nobody can define. In popular
language it means that a man may do as he has a mind to. When people
get this notion of liberty into their heads and combine with it the
notion that they live in a free country and ought to have liberty,
they sometimes make strange demands upon the state. If liberty means
to be able to do as you have a mind to, there is no such thing in this
world. Can the Czar of Russia do as he has a mind to? Can the Pope
do as he has a mind to? Can the President of the United States do
as he has a mind to? Can Rothschild do as he has a mind to? Could a
Humboldt or a Faraday do as he had a mind to? Could a Shakespeare or
a Raphael do as he had a mind to? Can a tramp do as he has a mind to?
Where is the man, whatever his station, possessions, or talents, who
can get any such liberty? There is none. There is a doctrine floating
about in our literature that we are born to the inheritance of certain
rights. That is another glorious dream, for it would mean that there
was something in this world which we got for nothing. But what is the
truth? We are born into no right whatever but what has an equivalent
and corresponding duty right alongside of it. There is no such thing
on this earth as something for nothing. Whatever we inherit of wealth,
knowledge, or institutions from the past has been paid for by the labor
and sacrifice of preceding generations; and the fact that these gains
are carried on, that the race lives and that the race can, at least
within some cycle, accumulate its gains, is one of the facts on which
civilization rests. The law of the conservation of energy is not simply
a law of physics; it is a law of the whole moral universe, and the
order and truth of all things conceivable by man depends upon it. If
there were any such liberty as that of doing as you have a mind to, the
human race would be condemned to everlasting anarchy and war as these
erratic wills crossed and clashed against each other. True liberty
lies in the equilibrium of rights and duties, producing peace, order,
and harmony. As I have defined it, it means that a man’s right to take
power and wealth out of the social product is measured by the energy
and wisdom which he has contributed to the social effort.

Now if I have set this idea before you with any distinctness and
success, you see that civil liberty consists of a set of civil
institutions and laws which are arranged to act as impersonally
as possible. It does not consist in majority rule or in universal
suffrage or in elective systems at all. These are devices which are
good or better just in the degree in which they secure liberty. The
institutions of civil liberty leave each man to run his career in life
in his own way, only guaranteeing to him that whatever he does in
the way of industry, economy, prudence, sound judgment, etc., shall
redound to his own welfare and shall not be diverted to some one else’s
benefit. Of course it is a necessary corollary that each man shall also
bear the penalty of his own vices and his own mistakes. If I want to be
free from any other man’s dictation, I must understand that I can have
no other man under my control.

Now with these definitions and general conceptions in mind, let us
turn to the special class of facts to which, as I said at the outset,
I invite your attention. We see that under a régime of liberty and
equality before the law, we get the highest possible development of
independence, self-reliance, individual energy, and enterprise, but we
get these high social virtues at the expense of the old sentimental
ties which used to unite baron and retainer, master and servant, sage
and disciple, comrade and comrade. We are agreed that the son shall not
be disgraced even by the crime of the father, much less by the crime
of a more distant relative. It is a humane and rational view of things
that each life shall stand for itself alone and not be weighted by the
faults of another, but it is useless to deny that this view of things
is possible only in a society where the ties of kinship have lost
nearly all the intensity of poetry and romance which once characterized
them. The ties of sentiment and sympathy also have faded out. We have
come, under the régime of liberty and equality before the law, to a
form of society which is based not on status, but on free contract. Now
a society based on status is one in which classes, ranks, interests,
industries, guilds, associations, etc., hold men in permanent relations
to each other. Custom and prescription create, under status, ties, the
strength of which lies in sentiment. Feeble remains of this may be seen
in some of our academical societies to-day, and it is unquestionably
a great privilege and advantage for any man in our society to win
an experience of the sentiments which belong to a strong and close
association, just because the chances for such experience are nowadays
very rare. In a society based on free contract, men come together
as free and independent parties to an agreement which is of mutual
advantage. The relation is rational, even rationalistic. It is not
poetical. It does not exist from use and custom, but for reasons given,
and it does not endure by prescription but ceases when the reason for
it ceases. There is no sentiment in it at all. The fact is that, under
the régime of liberty and equality before the law, there is no place
for sentiment in trade or politics as public interests. Sentiment is
thrown back into private life, into personal relations, and if ever
it comes into a public discussion of an impersonal and general public
question it always produces mischief.

Now you know that “the poor and the weak” are continually put forward
as objects of public interest and public obligation. In the appeals
which are made, the terms “the poor” and “the weak” are used as if they
were terms of exact definition. Except the pauper, that is to say, the
man who cannot earn his living or pay his way, there is no possible
definition of a poor man. Except a man who is incapacitated by vice
or by physical infirmity, there is no definition of a weak man. The
paupers and the physically incapacitated are an inevitable charge on
society. About them no more need be said. But the weak who constantly
arouse the pity of humanitarians and philanthropists are the shiftless,
the imprudent, the negligent, the impractical, and the inefficient,
or they are the idle, the intemperate, the extravagant, and the
vicious. Now the troubles of these persons are constantly forced upon
public attention, as if they and their interests deserved especial
consideration, and a great portion of all organized and unorganized
effort for the common welfare consists in attempts to relieve these
classes of people. I do not wish to be understood now as saying that
nothing ought to be done for these people by those who are stronger
and wiser. That is not my point. What I want to do is to point out the
thing which is overlooked and the error which is made in all these
charitable efforts. The notion is accepted as if it were not open to
any question that if you help the inefficient and vicious you may gain
something for society or you may not, but that you lose nothing. This
is a complete mistake. Whatever capital you divert to the support of
a shiftless and good-for-nothing person is so much diverted from some
other employment, and that means from somebody else. I would spend any
conceivable amount of zeal and eloquence if I possessed it to try to
make people grasp this idea. Capital is force. If it goes one way it
cannot go another. If you give a loaf to a pauper you cannot give the
same loaf to a laborer. Now this other man who would have got it but
for the charitable sentiment which bestowed it on a worthless member
of society is the Forgotten Man. The philanthropists and humanitarians
have their minds all full of the wretched and miserable whose case
appeals to compassion, attacks the sympathies, takes possession of
the imagination, and excites the emotions. They push on towards the
quickest and easiest remedies and they forget the real victim.

Now who is the Forgotten Man? He is the simple, honest laborer,
ready to earn his living by productive work. We pass him by because
he is independent, self-supporting, and asks no favors. He does not
appeal to the emotions or excite the sentiments. He only wants to
make a contract and fulfill it, with respect on both sides and favor
on neither side. He must get his living out of the capital of the
country. The larger the capital is, the better living he can get. Every
particle of capital which is wasted on the vicious, the idle, and the
shiftless is so much taken from the capital available to reward the
independent and productive laborer. But we stand with our backs to the
independent and productive laborer all the time. We do not remember
him because he makes no clamor; but I appeal to you whether he is not
the man who ought to be remembered first of all, and whether, on any
sound social theory, we ought not to protect him against the burdens
of the good-for-nothing. In these last years I have read hundreds of
articles and heard scores of sermons and speeches which were really
glorifications of the good-for-nothing, as if these were the charge
of society, recommended by right reason to its care and protection.
We are addressed all the time as if those who are respectable were
to blame because some are not so, and as if there were an obligation
on the part of those who have done their duty towards those who have
not done their duty. Every man is bound to take care of himself and
his family and to do his share in the work of society. It is totally
false that one who has done so is bound to bear the care and charge
of those who are wretched because they have not done so. The silly
popular notion is that the beggars live at the expense of the rich, but
the truth is that those who eat and produce not, live at the expense
of those who labor and produce. The next time that you are tempted
to subscribe a dollar to a charity, I do not tell you not to do it,
because after you have fairly considered the matter, you may think it
right to do it, but I do ask you to stop and remember the Forgotten Man
and understand that if you put your dollar in the savings bank it will
go to swell the capital of the country which is available for division
amongst those who, while they earn it, will reproduce it with increase.

Let us now go on to another class of cases. There are a great many
schemes brought forward for “improving the condition of the working
classes.” I have shown already that a free man cannot take a favor. One
who takes a favor or submits to patronage demeans himself. He falls
under obligation. He cannot be free and he cannot assert a station of
equality with the man who confers the favor on him. The only exception
is where there are exceptional bonds of affection or friendship, that
is, where the sentimental relation supersedes the free relation.
Therefore, in a country which is a free democracy, all propositions
to do something for the working classes have an air of patronage and
superiority which is impertinent and out of place. No one can do
anything for anybody else unless he has a surplus of energy to dispose
of after taking care of himself. In the United States, the working
classes, technically so called, are the strongest classes. It is they
who have a surplus to dispose of if anybody has. Why should anybody
else offer to take care of them or to serve them? They can get whatever
they think worth having and, at any rate, if they are free men in a
free state, it is ignominious and unbecoming to introduce fashions of
patronage and favoritism here. A man who, by superior education and
experience of business, is in a position to advise a struggling man of
the wages class, is certainly held to do so and will, I believe, always
be willing and glad to do so; but this sort of activity lies in the
range of private and personal relations.

I now, however, desire to direct attention to the public, general, and
impersonal schemes, and I point out the fact that, if you undertake to
lift anybody, you must have a fulcrum or point of resistance. All the
elevation you give to one must be gained by an equivalent depression on
some one else. The question of gain to society depends upon the balance
of the account, as regards the position of the persons who undergo the
respective operations. But nearly all the schemes for “improving the
condition of the working man” involve an elevation of some working men
at the expense of other working men. When you expend capital or labor
to elevate some persons who come within the sphere of your influence,
you interfere in the conditions of competition. The advantage of
some is won by an equivalent loss of others. The difference is not
brought about by the energy and effort of the persons themselves. If
it were, there would be nothing to be said about it, for we constantly
see people surpass others in the rivalry of life and carry off the
prizes which the others must do without. In the cases I am discussing,
the difference is brought about by an interference which must be
partial, arbitrary, accidental, controlled by favoritism and personal
preference. I do not say, in this case, either, that we ought to do
no work of this kind. On the contrary, I believe that the arguments
for it quite outweigh, in many cases, the arguments against it. What I
desire, again, is to bring out the forgotten element which we always
need to remember in order to make a wise decision as to any scheme of
this kind. I want to call to mind the Forgotten Man, because, in this
case also, if we recall him and go to look for him, we shall find him
patiently and perseveringly, manfully and independently struggling
against adverse circumstances without complaining or begging. If, then,
we are led to heed the groaning and complaining of others and to take
measures for helping these others, we shall, before we know it, push
down this man who is trying to help himself.

Let us take another class of cases. So far we have said nothing about
the abuse of legislation. We all seem to be under the delusion that the
rich pay the taxes. Taxes are not thrown upon the consumers with any
such directness and completeness as is sometimes assumed; but that, in
ordinary states of the market, taxes on houses fall, for the most part,
on the tenants and that taxes on commodities fall, for the most part,
on the consumers, is beyond question. Now the state and municipality
go to great expense to support policemen and sheriffs and judicial
officers, to protect people against themselves, that is, against the
results of their own folly, vice, and recklessness. Who pays for it?
Undoubtedly the people who have not been guilty of folly, vice, or
recklessness. Out of nothing comes nothing. We cannot collect taxes
from people who produce nothing and save nothing. The people who have
something to tax must be those who have produced and saved.

When you see a drunkard in the gutter, you are disgusted, but you pity
him. When a policeman comes and picks him up you are satisfied. You
say that “society” has interfered to save the drunkard from perishing.
Society is a fine word, and it saves us the trouble of thinking to
say that society acts. The truth is that the policeman is paid by
somebody, and when we talk about society we forget who it is that pays.
It is the Forgotten Man again. It is the industrious workman going home
from a hard day’s work, whom you pass without noticing, who is mulcted
of a percentage of his day’s earnings to hire a policeman to save the
drunkard from himself. All the public expenditure to prevent vice has
the same effect. Vice is its own curse. If we let nature alone, she
cures vice by the most frightful penalties. It may shock you to hear me
say it, but when you get over the shock, it will do you good to think
of it: a drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be. Nature
is working away at him to get him out of the way, just as she sets up
her processes of dissolution to remove whatever is a failure in its
line. Gambling and less mentionable vices all cure themselves by the
ruin and dissolution of their victims. Nine-tenths of our measures
for preventing vice are really protective towards it, because they
ward off the penalty. “Ward off,” I say, and that is the usual way of
looking at it; but is the penalty really annihilated? By no means. It
is turned into police and court expenses and spread over those who have
resisted vice. It is the Forgotten Man again who has been subjected to
the penalty while our minds were full of the drunkards, spendthrifts,
gamblers, and other victims of dissipation. Who is, then, the Forgotten
Man? He is the clean, quiet, virtuous, domestic citizen, who pays his
debts and his taxes and is never heard of out of his little circle. Yet
who is there in the society of a civilized state who deserves to be
remembered and considered by the legislator and statesman before this
man?

Another class of cases is closely connected with this last. There
is an apparently invincible prejudice in people’s minds in favor of
state regulation. All experience is against state regulation and in
favor of liberty. The freer the civil institutions are, the more weak
or mischievous state regulation is. The Prussian bureaucracy can do
a score of things for the citizen which no governmental organ in the
United States can do; and, conversely, if we want to be taken care
of as Prussians and Frenchmen are, we must give up something of our
personal liberty.

Now we have a great many well-intentioned people among us who believe
that they are serving their country when they discuss plans for
regulating the relations of employer and employee, or the sanitary
regulations of dwellings, or the construction of factories, or the
way to behave on Sunday, or what people ought not to eat or drink or
smoke. All this is harmless enough and well enough as a basis of mutual
encouragement and missionary enterprise, but it is almost always made
a basis of legislation. The reformers want to get a majority, that is,
to get the power of the state and so to make other people do what the
reformers think it right and wise to do. A and B agree to spend Sunday
in a certain way. They get a law passed to make C pass it in their
way. They determine to be teetotallers and they get a law passed to
make C be a teetotaller for the sake of D who is likely to drink too
much. Factory acts for women and children are right because women and
children are not on an equal footing with men and cannot, therefore,
make contracts properly. Adult men, in a free state, must be left to
make their own contracts and defend themselves. It will not do to
say that some men are weak and unable to make contracts any better
than women. Our civil institutions assume that all men are equal in
political capacity and all are given equal measure of political power
and right, which is not the case with women and children. If, then, we
measure political rights by one theory and social responsibilities by
another, we produce an immoral and vicious relation. A and B, however,
get factory acts and other acts passed regulating the relation of
employers and employee and set armies of commissioners and inspectors
traveling about to see to things, instead of using their efforts, if
any are needed, to lead the free men to make their own conditions as to
what kind of factory buildings they will work in, how many hours they
will work, what they will do on Sunday and so on. The consequence is
that men lose the true education in freedom which is needed to support
free institutions. They are taught to rely on government officers and
inspectors. The whole system of government inspectors is corrupting
to free institutions. In England, the liberals used always to regard
state regulation with suspicion, but since they have come to power,
they plainly believe that state regulation is a good thing--if _they_
regulate--because, of course, they want to bring about good things. In
this country each party takes turns, according as it is in or out, in
supporting or denouncing the non-interference theory.

Now, if we have state regulation, what is always forgotten is
this: Who pays for it? Who is the victim of it? There always is a
victim. The workmen who do not defend themselves have to pay for the
inspectors who defend them. The whole system of social regulation by
boards, commissioners, and inspectors consists in relieving negligent
people of the consequences of their negligence and so leaving them
to continue negligent without correction. That system also turns
away from the agencies which are close, direct, and germane to the
purpose, and seeks others. Now, if you relieve negligent people of the
consequences of their negligence, you can only throw those consequences
on the people who have not been negligent. If you turn away from the
agencies which are direct and cognate to the purpose, you can only
employ other agencies. Here, then, you have your Forgotten Man again.
The man who has been careful and prudent and who wants to go on and
reap his advantages for himself and his children is arrested just
at that point, and he is told that he must go and take care of some
negligent employees in a factory or on a railroad who have not provided
precautions for themselves or have not forced their employers to
provide precautions, or negligent tenants who have not taken care of
their own sanitary arrangements, or negligent householders who have not
provided against fire, or negligent parents who have not sent their
children to school. If the Forgotten Man does not go, he must hire an
inspector to go. No doubt it is often worth his while to go or send,
rather than leave the thing undone, on account of his remoter interest;
but what I want to show is that all this is unjust to the Forgotten
Man, and that the reformers and philosophers miss the point entirely
when they preach that it is his duty to do all this work. Let them
preach to the negligent to learn to take care of themselves. Whenever
A and B put their heads together and decide what A, B and C must do
for D, there is never any pressure on A and B. They consent to it and
like it. There is rarely any pressure on D because he does not like it
and contrives to evade it. The pressure all comes on C. Now, who is C?
He is always the man who, if let alone, would make a reasonable use
of his liberty without abusing it. He would not constitute any social
problem at all and would not need any regulation. He is the Forgotten
Man again, and as soon as he is brought from his obscurity you see that
he is just that one amongst us who is what we all ought to be.

Let us look at another case. I read again and again arguments to prove
that criminals have claims and rights against society. Not long ago, I
read an account of an expensive establishment for the reformation of
criminals, and I am told that we ought to reform criminals, not merely
punish them vindictively. When I was a young man, I read a great many
novels by Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, and other Frenchmen of the school
of ’48, in which the badness of a bad man is represented, not as his
fault, but as the fault of society. Now, as society consists of the bad
men plus the good men, and as the object of this declaration was to
show that the badness of the bad men was not the fault of the bad men,
it remains that the badness of the bad men must be the fault of the
good men. No doubt, it is far more consoling to the bad men than even
to their friends to reach the point of this demonstration.

Let us ask, now, for a moment, what is the sense of punishment, since
a good many people seem to be quite in a muddle about it. Every man in
society is bound in nature and reason to contribute to the strength and
welfare of society. He ought to work, to be peaceful, honest, just,
and virtuous. A criminal is a man who, instead of working with and
for society, turns his efforts against the common welfare in some way
or other. He disturbs order, violates harmony, invades the security
and happiness of others, wastes and destroys capital. If he is put to
death, it is on the ground that he has forfeited all right to existence
in society by the magnitude of his offenses against its welfare. If he
is imprisoned, it is simply a judgment of society upon him that he is
so mischievous to the society that he must be segregated from it. His
punishment is a warning to him to reform himself, just exactly like the
penalties inflicted by God and nature on vice. A man who has committed
crime is, therefore, a burden on society and an injury to it. He is a
destructive and not a productive force and everybody is worse off for
his existence than if he did not exist. Whence, then, does he obtain
a right to be taught or reformed at the public expense? The whole
question of what to do with him is one of expediency, and it embraces
the whole range of possible policies from that of execution to that
of education and reformation, but when the expediency of reformatory
attempts is discussed we always forget the labor and expense and who
must pay. All that the state does for the criminal, beyond forcing
him to earn his living, is done at the expense of the industrious
member of society who never costs the state anything for correction
and discipline. If a man who has gone astray can be reclaimed in any
way, no one would hinder such a work, but people whose minds are full
of sympathy and interest for criminals and who desire to adopt some
systematic plans of reformatory efforts are only, once more, trampling
on the Forgotten Man.

Let us look at another case. If there is a public office to be filled,
of course a great number of persons come forward as candidates for
it. Many of these persons are urged as candidates on the ground that
they are badly off, or that they cannot support themselves, or that
they want to earn a living while educating themselves, or that they
have female relatives dependent on them, or for some other reason of a
similar kind. In other cases, candidates are presented and urged on the
ground of their kinship to somebody, or on account of service, it may
be meritorious service, in some other line than that of the duty to be
performed. Men are proposed for clerkships on the ground of service in
the army twenty years ago, or for custom-house inspectors on the ground
of public services in the organization of political parties. If public
positions are granted on these grounds of sentiment or favoritism,
the abuse is to be condemned on the ground of the harm done to the
public interest; but I now desire to point out another thing which is
constantly forgotten. If you give a position to A, you cannot give it
to B. If A is an object of sentiment or favoritism and not a person fit
and competent to fulfill the duty, who is B? He is somebody who has
nothing but merit on his side, somebody who has no powerful friends,
no political influence, some quiet, unobtrusive individual who has
known no other way to secure the chances of life than simply to deserve
them. Here we have the Forgotten Man again, and once again we find him
worthy of all respect and consideration, but passed by in favor of the
noisy, pushing, and incompetent. Who ever remembers that if you give a
place to a man who is unfit for it you are keeping out of it somebody,
somewhere, who is fit for it?

Let us take another case. A trades-union is an association of
journeymen in a certain trade which has for one of its chief objects
to raise wages in that trade. This object can be accomplished only
by drawing more capital into the trade, or by lessening the supply
of labor in it. To do the latter, the trades-unions limit the number
of apprentices who may be admitted to the trade. In discussing this
device, people generally fix their minds on the beneficiaries of this
arrangement. It is desired by everybody that wages should be as high as
they can be under the conditions of industry. Our minds are directed
by the facts of the case to the men who are in the trade already and
are seeking their own advantage. Sometimes people go on to notice the
effects of trades-unionism on the employers, but although employers
are constantly vexed by it, it is seen that they soon count it into
the risks of their business and settle down to it philosophically.
Sometimes people go further then and see that, if the employer adds
the trades-union and strike risk to the other risks, he submits to it
because he has passed it along upon the public and that the public
wealth is diminished by trades-unionism, which is undoubtedly the case.
I do not remember, however, that I have ever seen in print any analysis
and observation of trades-unionism which takes into account its
effect in another direction. The effect on employers or on the public
would not raise wages. The public pays more for houses and goods, but
that does not raise wages. The surplus paid by the public is pure
loss, because it is only paid to cover an extra business risk of the
employer. If their trades-unions raise wages, how do they do it? They
do it by lessening the supply of labor in the trade, and this they do
by limiting the number of apprentices. All that is won, therefore, for
those in the trade, is won at the expense of those persons in the same
class in life who want to get into the trade but are forbidden. Like
every other monopoly, this one secures advantages for those who are in
only at a greater loss to those who are kept out. Who, then, are those
who are kept out and who are always forgotten in all the discussions?
They are the Forgotten Men again; and what kind of men are they? They
are those young men who want to earn their living by the trade in
question. Since they select it, it is fair to suppose that they are fit
for it, would succeed at it, and would benefit society by practicing
it; but they are arbitrarily excluded from it and are perhaps pushed
down into the class of unskilled laborers. When people talk of the
success of a trades-union in raising wages, they forget these persons
who have really, in a sense, paid the increase.

Let me now turn your attention to another class of cases. I have
shown how, in time past, the history of states has been a history of
selfishness, cupidity, and robbery, and I have affirmed that now and
always the problems of government are how to deal with these same vices
of human nature. People are always prone to believe that there is
something metaphysical and sentimental about civil affairs, but there
is not. Civil institutions are constructed to protect, either directly
or indirectly, the property of men and the honor of women against the
vices and passions of human nature. In our day and country, the problem
presents new phases, but it is there just the same as it ever was,
and the problem is only the more difficult for us because of its new
phase which prevents us from recognizing it. In fact, our people are
raving and struggling against it in a kind of blind way, not yet having
come to recognize it. More than half of their blows, at present, are
misdirected and fail of their object, but they will be aimed better
by and by. There is a great deal of clamor about watering stocks
and the power of combined capital, which is not very intelligent or
well-directed. The evil and abuse which people are groping after in all
these denunciations is jobbery.

By jobbery I mean the constantly apparent effort to win wealth, not
by honest and independent production, but by some sort of a scheme
for extorting other people’s product from them. A large part of our
legislation consists in making a job for somebody. Public buildings are
jobs, not always, but in most cases. The buildings are not needed at
all or are costly far beyond what is useful or even decently luxurious.
Internal improvements are jobs. They are carried out, not because they
are needed in themselves, but because they will serve the turn of some
private interest, often incidentally that of the very legislators who
pass the appropriations for them. A man who wants a farm, instead
of going out where there is plenty of land available for it, goes
down under the Mississippi River to make a farm, and then wants his
fellow-citizens to be taxed to dyke the river so as to keep it off his
farm. The Californian hydraulic miners have washed the gold out of the
hillsides and have washed the dirt down into the valleys to the ruin of
the rivers and the farms. They want the federal government to remove
this dirt at the national expense. The silver miners, finding that
their product is losing value in the market, get the government to go
into the market as a great buyer in the hope of sustaining the price.
The national government is called upon to buy or hire unsalable ships;
to dig canals which will not pay; to educate illiterates in the states
which have not done their duty at the expense of the states which have
done their duty as to education; to buy up telegraphs which no longer
pay; and to provide the capital for enterprises of which private
individuals are to win the profits. We are called upon to squander
twenty millions on swamps and creeks; from twenty to sixty-six millions
on the Mississippi River; one hundred millions in pensions--and there
is now a demand for another hundred million beyond that. This is the
great plan of all living on each other. The pensions in England used to
be given to aristocrats who had political power, in order to corrupt
them. Here the pensions are given to the great democratic mass who have
the political power, in order to corrupt them. We have one hundred
thousand federal office-holders and I do not know how many state and
municipal office-holders. Of course public officers are necessary
and it is an economical organization of society to set apart some of
its members for civil functions, but if the number of persons drawn
from production and supported by the producers while engaged in civil
functions is in undue proportion to the total population, there is
economic loss. If public offices are treated as spoils or benefices or
sinecures, then they are jobs and only constitute part of the pillage.

The biggest job of all is a protective tariff. This device consists
in delivering every man over to be plundered by his neighbor and in
teaching him to believe that it is a good thing for him and his country
because he may take his turn at plundering the rest. Mr. Kelley said
that if the internal revenue taxes on whisky and tobacco, which are
paid to the United States government, were not taken off, there would
be a rebellion. Just then it was discovered that Sumatra tobacco was
being imported, and the Connecticut tobacco men hastened to Congress
to get a tax laid on it for their advantage. So it appears that if a
tax is laid on tobacco, to be paid to the United States, there will be
a rebellion, but if a tax is laid on it to be paid to the farmers of
the Connecticut Valley, there will be no rebellion at all. The tobacco
farmers having been taxed for protected manufactures are now to be
taken into the system, and the workmen in the factories are to be taxed
on their tobacco to protect the farmers. So the system is rendered more
complete and comprehensive.

On every hand you find this jobbery. The government is to give every
man a pension, and every man an office, and every man a tax to raise
the price of his product, and to clean out every man’s creek for him,
and to buy all his unsalable property, and to provide him with plenty
of currency to pay his debts, and to educate his children, and to
give him the use of a library and a park and a museum and a gallery
of pictures. On every side the doors of waste and extravagance stand
open; and spend, squander, plunder, and grab are the watchwords. We
grumble some about it and talk about the greed of corporations and
the power of capital and the wickedness of stock gambling. Yet we
elect the legislators who do all this work. Of course, we should
never think of blaming ourselves for electing men to represent and
govern us, who, if I may use a slang expression, give us away. What
man ever blamed himself for his misfortune? We groan about monopolies
and talk about more laws to prevent the wrongs done by chartered
corporations. Who made the charters? Our representatives. Who elected
such representatives? We did. How can we get bad law-makers to make
a law which shall prevent bad law-makers from making a bad law? That
is, really, what we are trying to do. If we are a free, self-governing
people, all our misfortunes come right home to ourselves and we can
blame nobody else. Is any one astonished to find that men are greedy,
whether they are incorporated or not? Is it a revelation to find
that we need, in our civil affairs, to devise guarantees against
selfishness, rapacity, and fraud? I have ventured to affirm that
government has never had to deal with anything else.

Now, I have said that this jobbery means waste, plunder, and loss,
and I defined it at the outset as the system of making a chance to
extort part of his product from somebody else. Now comes the question:
Who pays for it all? The system of plundering each other soon destroys
all that it deals with. It produces nothing. Wealth comes only from
production, and all that the wrangling grabbers, loafers, and jobbers
get to deal with comes from somebody’s toil and sacrifice. Who, then,
is he who provides it all? Go and find him and you will have once more
before you the Forgotten Man. You will find him hard at work because
he has a great many to support. Nature has done a great deal for him
in giving him a fertile soil and an excellent climate and he wonders
why it is that, after all, his scale of comfort is so moderate. He has
to get out of the soil enough to pay all his taxes, and that means the
cost of all the jobs and the fund for all the plunder. The Forgotten
Man is delving away in patient industry, supporting his family,
paying his taxes, casting his vote, supporting the church and the
school, reading his newspaper, and cheering for the politician of his
admiration, but he is the only one for whom there is no provision in
the great scramble and the big divide.

Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays--but
he always pays--yes, above all, he pays. He does not want an office;
his name never gets into the newspaper except when he gets married or
dies. He keeps production going on. He contributes to the strength of
parties. He is flattered before election. He is strongly patriotic. He
is wanted, whenever, in his little circle, there is work to be done
or counsel to be given. He may grumble some occasionally to his wife
and family, but he does not frequent the grocery or talk politics at
the tavern. Consequently, he is forgotten. He is a commonplace man. He
gives no trouble. He excites no admiration. He is not in any way a hero
(like a popular orator); or a problem (like tramps and outcasts); nor
notorious (like criminals); nor an object of sentiment (like the poor
and weak); nor a burden (like paupers and loafers); nor an object out
of which social capital may be made (like the beneficiaries of church
and state charities); nor an object for charitable aid and protection
(like animals treated with cruelty); nor the object of a job (like the
ignorant and illiterate); nor one over whom sentimental economists and
statesmen can parade their fine sentiments (like inefficient workmen
and shiftless artisans). Therefore, he is forgotten. All the burdens
fall on him, or on her, for it is time to remember that the Forgotten
Man is not seldom a woman.

When you go to Willimantic, they will show you with great pride the
splendid thread mills there. I am told that there are sewing-women who
can earn only fifty cents in twelve hours, and provide the thread. In
the cost of every spool of thread more than one cent is tax. It is
paid, not to get the thread, for you could get the thread without it.
It is paid to get the Willimantic linen company which is not worth
having and which is, in fact, a nuisance, because it makes thread
harder to get than it would be if there were no such concern. If a
woman earns fifty cents in twelve hours, she earns a spool of thread as
nearly as may be in an hour, and if she uses a spool of thread per day,
she works a quarter of an hour per day to support the Willimantic linen
company, which in 1882 paid 95 per cent dividend to its stockholders.
If you go and look at the mill, it will captivate your imagination
until you remember all the women in all the garrets, and all the
artisans’ and laborers’ wives and children who are spending their
hours of labor, not to get goods which they need, but to pay for the
industrial system which only stands in their way and makes it harder
for them to get the goods.

It is plain enough that the Forgotten Man and the Forgotten Woman
are the very life and substance of society. They are the ones who
ought to be first and always remembered. They are always forgotten by
sentimentalists, philanthropists, reformers, enthusiasts, and every
description of speculator in sociology, political economy, or political
science. If a student of any of these sciences ever comes to understand
the position of the Forgotten Man and to appreciate his true value,
you will find such student an uncompromising advocate of the strictest
scientific thinking on all social topics, and a cold and hard-hearted
skeptic towards all artificial schemes of social amelioration. If
it is desired to bring about social improvements, bring us a scheme
for relieving the Forgotten Man of some of his burdens. He is our
productive force which we are wasting. Let us stop wasting his force.
Then we shall have a clean and simple gain for the whole society. The
Forgotten Man is weighted down with the cost and burden of the schemes
for making everybody happy, with the cost of public beneficence, with
the support of all the loafers, with the loss of all the economic
quackery, with the cost of all the jobs. Let us remember him a little
while. Let us take some of the burdens off him. Let us turn our pity
on him instead of on the good-for-nothing. It will be only justice
to him, and society will greatly gain by it. Why should we not also
have the satisfaction of thinking and caring for a little while about
the clean, honest, industrious, independent, self-supporting men and
women who have not inherited much to make life luxurious for them, but
who are doing what they can to get on in the world without begging
from anybody, especially since all they want is to be let alone, with
good friendship and honest respect. Certainly the philanthropists and
sentimentalists have kept our attention for a long time on the nasty,
shiftless, criminal, whining, crawling, and good-for-nothing people, as
if they alone deserved our attention.

The Forgotten Man is never a pauper. He almost always has a little
capital because it belongs to the character of the man to save
something. He never has more than a little. He is, therefore, poor
in the popular sense, although in the correct sense he is not so. I
have said already that if you learn to look for the Forgotten Man and
to care for him, you will be very skeptical toward all philanthropic
and humanitarian schemes. It is clear now that the interest of the
Forgotten Man and the interest of “the poor,” “the weak,” and the other
petted classes are in antagonism. In fact, the warning to you to look
for the Forgotten Man comes the minute that the orator or writer begins
to talk about the poor man. That minute the Forgotten Man is in danger
of a new assault, and if you intend to meddle in the matter at all,
then is the minute for you to look about for him and to give him your
aid. Hence, if you care for the Forgotten Man, you will be sure to be
charged with _not_ caring for the poor. Whatever you do for any of the
petted classes wastes capital. If you do anything for the Forgotten
Man, you must secure him his earnings and savings, that is, you
legislate for the security of capital and for its free employment; you
must oppose paper money, wildcat banking and usury laws and you must
maintain the inviolability of contracts. Hence you must be prepared to
be told that you favor the capitalist class, the enemy of the poor man.

What the Forgotten Man really wants is true liberty. Most of his wrongs
and woes come from the fact that there are yet mixed together in our
institutions the old mediæval theories of protection and personal
dependence and the modern theories of independence and individual
liberty. The consequence is that the people who are clever enough
to get into positions of control, measure their own rights by the
paternal theory and their own duties by the theory of independent
liberty. It follows that the Forgotten Man, who is hard at work at
home, has to pay both ways. His rights are measured by the theory
of liberty, that is, he has only such as he can conquer. His duties
are measured by the paternal theory, that is, he must discharge all
which are laid upon him, as is always the fortune of parents. People
talk about the paternal theory of government as if it were a very
simple thing. Analyze it, however, and you see that in every paternal
relation there must be two parties, a parent and a child, and when
you speak metaphorically, it makes all the difference in the world
who is parent and who is child. Now, since we, the people, are the
state, whenever there is any work to be done or expense to be paid, and
since the petted classes and the criminals and the jobbers cost and
do not pay, it is they who are in the position of the child, and it
is the Forgotten Man who is the parent. What the Forgotten Man needs,
therefore, is that we come to a clearer understanding of liberty and to
a more complete realization of it. Every step which we win in liberty
will set the Forgotten Man free from some of his burdens and allow him
to use his powers for himself and for the commonwealth.




BIBLIOGRAPHY


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The following bibliography is as nearly exhaustive as we have been able
to make it. There are doubtless other articles which have not come
under our notice; and there are certainly a number of contributions
to the press, signed and unsigned, to which we have no clue. The
distribution of those which we have found will indicate the task of any
one who should aim at exhaustiveness.

It has seemed best to us to include the titles of certain unpublished
writings, especially where these are to be made accessible to students
by the deposit of the manuscripts with the Yale University Library
(under Sumner Estate). Sumner had a way of writing something out
very carefully, perhaps as a lecture, and then laying it away with
apparently no thought of publishing it; a number of such manuscripts
have been printed for the first time in this series of volumes. There
are also a few of Sumner’s printed utterances which we possessed in the
form of clippings, but could not locate; the titles of such have been
included as accessible at the Yale Library.

There is a good deal of Sumner’s writing in the reports of the
Connecticut State Board of Education. We have been informed that his
services to that Board, extending over twenty years, included much
committee work and many carefully written reports. As these are of a
somewhat special nature, we refer simply to the documents of the Board.

It is the intention of the publishers to make of the volumes now in
print under uniform style a set of four, to be numbered in the order of
their appearance. For the sake of brevity, then, War and Other Essays
is referred to below as Vol. I; Earth Hunger and Other Essays, as Vol.
II; The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays, as Vol. III; and The
Forgotten Man and Other Essays, as Vol. IV.

There are in these volumes a few numbers not written by Sumner, but
about him, such as the Memorial Addresses in Vol. III.

                                                  A. G. K.
                                                  M. R. D.

  1872.  THE BOOKS OF THE KINGS, by K. C. W. F. Bähr. Translated,
           Enlarged, and Edited ... Book 2, by W. G.
           Sumner, in Lange, J. P., A commentary on the Holy
           Scripture ... New York, Scribner, Armstrong & Co.,
           1866–1882, 26 vols., VI, 312 pp.

         THE CHURCH’S LAW OF THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.
           Unpublished manuscript on scientific criticism
           of the Bible. April 3. 61 pp. (Sumner Estate.)

         MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS. Delivered at Morristown,
           May 30. Printed for the first time in Vol. III, pp. 347–362.

  1873.  THE SOLIDARITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. Unpublished
           manuscript of an address on the influence of ideas and
           events in one country on conditions in other countries,
           delivered at the Sheffield Scientific School, January 11.
           40 pp. (Sumner Estate.)

         RELATION OF PHYSICAL TO MORAL GOOD. An address.
           Unpublished manuscript probably of this date, 35 pp.
           (Sumner Estate.)

         INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO COURSES IN POLITICAL AND
           SOCIAL SCIENCE. Printed for the first time in Vol. III,
           pp. 391–403.

         HISTORY OF PAPER MONEY. Paper money in China,
           England, Austria, Russia, and the American Colonies.
           Unpublished manuscript, 109 pp. (Sumner Estate.)

         SOCIALISM. Three unpublished manuscripts written between
           1873 and 1880 which appear to be preliminary
           sketches to the essay entitled The Challenge of Facts.
           38, 12, and 31 pp. respectively.

  1874.  A HISTORY OF AMERICAN CURRENCY, with chapters on the
           English Bank Restriction and Austrian Paper Money,
           to which is appended “The Bullion Report.” New
           York, H. Holt & Co., iv, 391 pp., twofold diagram.

         THE LESSON OF THE PANIC (of 1873). Unpublished manuscript
           advocating a return to a sound currency, 20 pp.
           (Sumner Estate.)

         HAVE WE HAD ENOUGH? Unpublished manuscript on the
           evils of paper money, written soon after the panic of
           1873, 15 pp. (Sumner Estate.)

         POLITICAL ECONOMY. From 300 to 400 pp. of lecture notes
           for classroom use. (Sumner Estate.)

         TAXATION. What it is, what its relation to other departments
           of political economy is, and what are the general
           principles by which it must be controlled. Unpublished
           manuscript probably of this date, 24 pp. (Sumner
           Estate.)

  1875.  AMERICAN FINANCE. Boston, Williams.

         THE CURRENCY QUESTION. An address delivered about
           this time opposing the issue of irredeemable paper money.
           Unpublished manuscript, 96 pp. (Sumner Estate.)

  1876.  MONETARY DEVELOPMENT. (In Woolsey, T. D., and
           others, First Century of the Republic. New York,
           Harper & Bros.)

         POLITICS IN AMERICA, 1776–1876. North American Review,
           January, Vol. CXXII, Centennial number, pp. 47–87.
           Reprinted in Vol. IV, pp. 285–333.

         SHALL THE “HARD TIMES” CONTINUE? A review of the
           address of Professor Sumner before the New Haven
           Chamber of Commerce. The Woonsocket Patriot,
           May 19.

         BOURBONISM. “Real Issues of the Day.” New York
           World, May 19.

         FREE PIG-IRON. Letter to the New York Mercantile
           Journal, June 3.

         FOR PRESIDENT? New Haven Palladium, September 12.
           Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 365–379.

         IS THE WAR OVER? “Real Issues of the Day.” New
           York World, October 9.

         FEARS OF A SOLID SOUTH. “Real Issues of the Day.”
           New York World, October 10.

         POLITICAL STATUS OF THE SOUTHERN STATES. Letter to
           the New York World, October 16.

         WHAT HAS BECOME OF REFORM? “Real Issues of the
           Day.” New York World, October 23.

         THE DEMOCRATIC REPLY. To the visiting Republicans in
           New Orleans who refused to enter into a conference upon
           the subject of the counting of the election returns.
           New York Tribune, November 17.

         “PROFESSOR SUMNER ON LOUISIANA.” Letter to the
           New York World, November 21, in answer to Governor
           Ingersoll’s request to express his views on the political
           situation in that state after his visit to New Orleans.

         IMPRESSIONS IN NEW ORLEANS. Letter to the New
           York Herald, November 22.

  1877.  LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF PROTECTION IN THE UNITED
           STATES. Delivered before the International Free-trade
           Alliance. Reprinted from “The New Century.” Published
           for the International Free-trade Alliance by
           G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 64 pp. Contents:
           The National Idea and the American System, Broad
           Principles Underlying the Tariff Controversy, The
           Origin of Protection in this Country, The Establishment
           of Protection in this Country, Vacillation of the Protective
           Policy in this Country.

         REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. The Chicago Tribune, January
           1. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 223–240.

         PROTECTION AND PIG-IRON. Letter to the Courier,
           February 12.

         DEMOCRACY AND RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT. Address
           at Providence, R. I., June 20, before the Phi Beta Kappa
           Society of Brown University. The Providence Evening
           Press, June 21. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 243–286.

         SILVER. Address before the Senior Class of Yale University.
           The New Haven Union, December 12.

         THE SILVER QUESTION. What it is and how it should be
           dealt with. New York World, December 12.

         THE COMMERCIAL CRISIS OF 1837. Written in 1877 or
           1878. (There are indications on the manuscript that
           it was once printed, but efforts to find where have
           failed.) Published, probably for the first time, in
           Vol. IV, pp. 371–398.

  1878.  OUR REVENUE SYSTEM, by A. L. EARLE. Preface by W. G.
           Sumner. New York, published for the New York Free-trade
           Club by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 47 pp. (Economic
           Monograph No. V.)

         MONEY AND ITS LAWS. International Review, January
           and February, Vol. V, pp. 75–81.

         WHAT IS FREE TRADE? Chicago News, January 7.

         SILVER. Address in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune,
           January 9.

         THE SILVER QUESTION. Lecture before the Manhattan
           Club of New York City, January 25, on the disastrous
           results of remonetization. The New York World,
           January 26.

         A FEW PLAIN ANSWERS. Letter to the New Haven
           Register, February 28, on the tariff.

         PROTECTION AND REVENUE IN 1877. Lecture delivered
           before the New York Free-trade Club, April 18. New
           York, published for the New York Free-trade Club by
           G. P. Putnam’s Sons. (Economic Monograph No.
           VIII.)

         SOCIALISM. Scribner’s Monthly, October, Vol. XVI, No.
           6, pp. 887–893.

         RELATION OF LEGISLATION TO CURRENCY. Unpublished
           manuscript written about this time dealing with the
           nature of money, coining, paper money, legal tender
           acts, the monetary experience of England and France,
           etc., and opposing the abuses of legislation in regard to
           currency. 45 pp. (Sumner Estate.)

         A CONCURRENT CIRCULATION OF GOLD AND SILVER.
           Printed for the first time in Vol. IV, pp. 183–210.

  1879.  BIMETALLISM. Princeton Review, November, pp. 546–578.

         AMORTIZATION OF PUBLIC DEBTS. Unpublished manuscript,
           chiefly historical, written about this time. 35 pp.
           (Sumner Estate.)

         THE INFLUENCE OF COMMERCIAL CRISES ON OPINIONS
           ABOUT ECONOMIC DOCTRINES. An address probably of
           this date. Printed for the first time in Vol. IV, pp.
           213–235.

         THE CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH. Written in the
           seventies or eighties. Extracts printed for the first
           time in Vol. IV, pp. 441–462.

  1880.  WHAT OUR BOYS ARE READING. Combined with “Books
           and Reading for the Young,” by J. H. Smart. Chas.
           Scribner’s Sons. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 367–377.

         THE TRUE AIM OF LIFE. Address to the Seniors in Yale
           University. The New Haven Register, February 1.
           (Not in form for re-printing.)

         THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF ELECTIONS. Princeton
           Review, March, pp. 262–286, and July, pp. 24–41.

         TWO LETTERS TO THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 3 and 4,
           giving his reasons for using Spencer’s “Study of Sociology”
           as a text-book.

         THE ADMINISTRATION OF ANDREW JACKSON. Address
           before the Kent Club of the Yale Law School, briefly
           reported in the New York Tribune, April 29. Printed
           in full for the first time in Vol. IV, pp. 337–367.

         THE REVIVAL OF OCEAN COMMERCE. A free-trade letter
           to the American Railroad Journal, September 10.

         Professor Sumner’s views respecting the tariff question.
           Letters to the New Haven Register, October 9, 12, and 14.

         THE FINANCIAL QUESTIONS NOW BEFORE US. Unpublished
           manuscript written about this time, 8 pp. (Sumner
           Estate.)

  1881.  ELECTIONS AND CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. Princeton Review,
           January, pp. 129–148.

         PANIC WITHOUT CAUSE. Lecture in Brothers’ Hall, New
           Haven, on the recent panic in Wall Street. New Haven
           Register, January 14.

         THE ARGUMENT AGAINST PROTECTIVE TAXES. Princeton
           Review, March, pp. 241–259.

         SHALL AMERICANS OWN SHIPS? North American Review,
           June, Vol. 132, No. CCXCV, pp. 559–566. Reprinted
           in Vol. IV, pp. 273–282.

         FORTUNES MADE IN THREAD. Letter to the New York
           Times, June 5, on the peculiar protection given to the
           manufacturers of thread.

         SOCIOLOGY. Princeton Review, November, pp. 303–323.
           Reprinted in Vol. I, pp. 167–192.

  1882.  ANDREW JACKSON AS A PUBLIC MAN. What he was, what
           chances he had, and what he did with them. Boston,
           New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, vi, 402 pp.
           (American Statesmen Series.)

         POLITICAL ECONOMY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE. Comp.
           by W. G. Sumner, D. A. Wells, W. E. Foster, R. L.
           Dugdale, and G. H. Putnam. New York Society for
           Political Education. Cover title, 36 pp. Economic
           Tracts No. 2.

         PROTECTIVE TAXES AND WAGES. Philadelphia Tariff
           Commission, 21 pp. Caption title.

         BANK CHECKS AND BLANKETS. A free-trade letter to the
           New Haven Register, June 2.

         THE “AMERICAN SYSTEM.” A letter to the American
           Free-trade League, June.

         WHY SHOULD THE MEN OF IOWA LEVY TAXES ON THEMSELVES
           TO BENEFIT PENNSYLVANIA? Iowa State Leader,
           September 4.

         THE FREE PLAY OF ECONOMIC FORCES. Letter to the
           Nation regarding Jevons’s “State in Relation to Labor,”
           September 30.

         LUMBER PRICES. Letter to the Northwestern Lumberman,
           October 14.

         Professor Sumner’s speech before the Tariff Commission,
           reviewed by George Basil Dixwell, Cambridge, J. Wilson
           & Son, 43 pp.

         Professor Sumner’s “Argument against Protective Taxes,”
           reviewed by George Basil Dixwell, Cambridge, J.
           Wilson & Son, 13 pp.

         WAGES. Princeton Review, November, pp. 241–262.

  1883.  THE FORGOTTEN MAN. The original lecture on this
           subject, delivered in New Haven February 8 or 9.
           28 typewritten pp. Printed for the first time in Vol. IV,
           pp. 465–495.

         WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES OWE TO EACH OTHER. First appeared
           in Harper’s Weekly, February-May, Vol. XXVII,
           Nos. 1366–1376. New York, Harper & Brothers,
           169 pp.

         ON THE CASE OF A CERTAIN MAN WHO IS NEVER
           THOUGHT OF. Reprinted in Vol. I, pp. 247–253, from
           “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other,” pp. 123–133.

         THE CASE OF THE FORGOTTEN MAN FURTHER CONSIDERED.
           Reprinted in Vol. I, pp. 257–268, from “What Social
           Classes Owe to Each Other,” pp. 134–152.

         BEST PUBLIC OPINION. Letter to the Gazette and Free
           Press, January 12, in reply to T. K. Beecher.

         LET COMMERCIAL RELATIONS ALONE. Letter to W. H.
           Knight in the Gazette and Free Press, January 16.

         Letter to Mr. Earle of the American Free-trade League
           regarding a speech of Mr. Evarts’s. Printed in the
           New York Times, February 6.

         “PROFESSOR SUMNER ON MONETARY SCIENCE.” Letter
           to the editor of Bradstreet’s in which he disagrees with
           the theory of H. C. Adams that money laws in economics
           are dependent on the nation’s sentiment as expressed in
           its legislative enactments. February 10.

         “PROFESSOR SUMNER REPLIES.” Letter to the New
           Haven Register, February 10, referring to his remarks
           about the protective tax on thread in his lecture on the
           “Forgotten Man.”

         “PROFESSOR SUMNER’S PRESUMPTION.” A defense of
           his letter to Mr. Earle regarding a speech of Mr. Evarts’s.
           New York Times, February 14.

         WILLIMANTIC LINEN MILLS. Letter to the New York
           Times, February 16, defending his position as taken
           against the protective tax on thread.

         SOME FACTS ABOUT THREAD. Unpublished manuscript,
           14 pp., referring to the controversy with the Willimantic
           Linen Co. (Sumner Estate.)

         A THEORIST ANSWERED. A free-trade letter to the New
           Haven Register, February 26, in reply to a letter signed
           “Hardpan.”

         THE GAIN TO THE COUNTRY BY PROTECTION. Letter to
           the New York Times, February 27.

         “PROFESSOR SUMNER INSTRUCTS HIS CRITICS.” A free-trade
           letter to the New York Times, March 1.

         THAT CENSUS PUZZLE. New York Times, March 2.

         PROTECTIVE TAXES AND WAGES. North American Review,
           March, Vol. 136, No. CCCXVI, pp. 270–276.

         A COURSE OF READING IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. Prepared
           for The Critic, March, 4 pp.

         THE TARIFF ON THREAD. Letter to the New York Times,
           March 8.

         THREAD. Letter to the Boston Transcript, April 25,
           regarding the Willimantic Linen Co.

         THREAD AT THREE CENTS A SPOOL. Letter to the New
           York Times, April 28.

         THE WILLIMANTIC MILLS’ PROFIT. Letter to the Boston
           Transcript, April 30.

         Letter to the Palladium (New Haven), April 30, regarding
           the controversy with the Willimantic Linen Co.

         “PROFESSOR SUMNER’S VIEWS.” Letter to the New Haven
           Register, May 26, in answer to Mr. Barrows of the
           Willimantic Linen Co.

         THE PHILOSOPHY OF STRIKES. Harper’s Weekly, September
           15, Vol. XXVII, No. 1395, p. 586. Reprinted in
           Vol. IV, pp. 239–246.

         Letter to the New Haven Register, October 18, regarding
           the development of our industries.

         “PROFESSOR SUMNER’S VIEWS RESPECTING THE TARIFF
           QUESTION.” New Haven Register, October 19.

         “MIXED UP MR. SHELDON.” Letter to the New Haven
           Register, October 30, showing Mr. Sheldon’s ignorance
           of tariff laws.

         THE SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY. A Speech at the Farewell
           Banquet to Herbert Spencer. Delivered November 9,
           1882, published in “Herbert Spencer on the Americans
           and the Americans on Herbert Spencer,” pp. 35–40.
           New York, D. Appleton & Company, 96 pp. Reprinted
           in Vol. IV, pp. 401–405.

         SUGGESTIONS ON SOCIAL SUBJECTS. Passages selected
           from “What Social Classes owe to Each Other,” in
           the Popular Science Monthly, December, Vol. XXIV,
           pp. 160–169.

         AN AMERICAN CRITICISM OF BRITISH PROTECTIONIST
           THEORIES. A criticism of Professor Sidgwick’s doctrine
           that protective taxes come out of the foreigner. The
           London Economist, December 1, Vol. XLI, No. 2,101,
           pp. 1397–1398.

         THE DEMOCRATIC THEORY OF PUBLIC OFFICES. Address
           before the Civil Service Reform Association, Rochester,
           N. Y. Reasons for reform in the manner of selecting
           public officers. What would be gained by the change.
           Printed in the Rochester newspapers of the time.
           (Sumner Estate.)

  1884.  PROBLEMS IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. New York, 12 mo.,
           125 pp. H. Holt & Co.

         OUR COLLEGES BEFORE THE COUNTRY. Princeton Review,
           March, pp. 127–140. Reprinted in Vol. I, pp. 355–373.

         SOCIOLOGICAL FALLACIES. North American Review, June,
           Vol. 138, No. CCCXXXI, pp. 574–579. Reprinted in
           Vol. II, pp. 357–364.

         EVILS OF THE TARIFF SYSTEM. North American Review,
           September, Vol. 139, No. CCCXXXIV, pp. 293–299.

  1885.  PROTECTIONISM. The -Ism which Teaches that Waste
           makes Wealth. New York, H. Holt & Company,
           October, 12mo., 170 pp. Reprinted in Vol. IV, pp.
           9–111.

         COLLECTED ESSAYS IN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE.
           New York, H. Holt & Company, 173 pp. Contents:
           Bimetallism, Wages, The Argument against Protective
           Taxes, Sociology, Theory and Practice of Elections,
           Presidential Elections and Civil Service Reform, Our
           Colleges Before the Country.

         OUR CURRENCY FOR THE LAST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
           Harper’s Weekly, January 10-February 7, Vol. XXIX,
           Nos. 1464–1468.

         SHALL SILVER BE DEMONETIZED? North American Review,
           June, Vol. 140, No. CCCXLIII, pp. 485–489.

  1886.  REGULATION OF CONTRACTS. How far have modern
           improvements in production and transportation changed
           the principle that men should be left free to make their
           own bargains? Science, March 5, Vol. VII, No. 161,
           pp. 225–228.

         WHAT IS FREE TRADE? In Good Cheer for April, p. 7.
           Reprinted in Vol. IV, pp. 123–127.

         CAN PROTECTION INCREASE THE WEALTH OF THE COUNTRY?
           The Tax-gatherer, May 22, No. 19.

         INDUSTRIAL WAR. Forum, September, Vol. II, pp. 1–8.
           Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 93–102.

         MR. BLAINE ON THE TARIFF. North American Review,
           October, Vol. 143, No. CCCLIX, pp. 398–405.

         WHAT IS THE “PROLETARIAT”? The Independent, October
           28. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 161–165.

         WHO WIN BY PROGRESS? The Independent, November
           25. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 169–174.

         THE NEW SOCIAL ISSUE. The Independent, December 23.
           Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 207–212.

         SUBJECTS FOR THESES AND COMPOSITIONS. Prepared
           with notes and references attached to the subjects for
           Senior and Junior Classes, Yale College. I. Honor
           Theses in Political Science. II. Subjects for Required
           Compositions. 9 pp. (Sumner Estate.)

         HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 1824–1876.
           Notes taken by J. C. Schwab, 1886–1887. MS 17½ ×
           25½ cm. Yale University Library.

         POLITICAL ECONOMY. Notes of lectures taken by J. C.
           Schwab, 1886–1887. MS 17½ × 25½ cm. Yale University
           Library.

  1887.  WHAT MAKES THE RICH RICHER AND THE POOR POORER?
           Popular Science Monthly, January, Vol. XXX, pp.
           289–296. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 65–77.

         SOCIALISM. Speech before the Massachusetts Reform
           Club, Boston, January 8. Boston Sunday Record,
           January 9.

         FEDERAL LEGISLATION ON RAILROADS. The Independent,
           January 20. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 177–182.

         LEGISLATION BY CLAMOR. The Independent, February 24.
           Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 185–190.

         THE SHIFTING OF RESPONSIBILITY. The Independent,
           March 24. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 193–198.

         SOME POINTS IN THE NEW SOCIAL CREED. The Independent,
           April 21. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 207–211.

         THE INDIANS IN 1887. Forum, May, Vol. III, pp. 254–262.

         SPECULATIVE LEGISLATION. The Independent, May 19.
           Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 215–219.

         UNRESTRICTED COMMERCE. Chautauquan, June.

         THE BANQUET OF LIFE. The Independent, June 23.
           Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 217–221.

         SOME NATURAL RIGHTS. The Independent, July 28.
           Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 222–227.

         STRIKES AND THE INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION. Popular
           Science News, July, Vol. XXI, No. 7, pp. 93–94. Reprinted
           in Vol. IV, pp. 249–253.

         STATE INTERFERENCE. North American Review, August,
           Vol. 145, No. CCCLXIX, pp. 109–119. Reprinted in
           Vol. I, pp. 213–226.

         THE ABOLITION OF POVERTY. The Independent, August
           25. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 228–232.

         THE STATE AS AN “ETHICAL PERSON.” The Independent,
           October 6. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 201–204.

         THE BOON OF NATURE. The Independent, October 27.
           Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 233–238.

         CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. Chautauquan, November, pp. 78–80.

         IS LIBERTY A LOST BLESSING? The Independent, November
           24. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 131–135.

         ADVANTAGES OF FREE TRADE. The Christian Secretary.
           (Sumner Estate.)

  1888.  LAND MONOPOLY. The Independent, January 12. Reprinted
           in Vol. II, pp. 239–244.

         A GROUP OF NATURAL MONOPOLIES. The Independent,
           February 16. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 245–248.

         THE FALL IN SILVER AND INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION.
           Rand McNally’s Banker’s Monthly, February, pp. 47–48.

         THE FIRST STEPS TOWARDS A MILLENNIUM. Cosmopolitan,
           March, pp. 32–36. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp.
           93–105.

         ANOTHER CHAPTER ON MONOPOLY. The Independent,
           March 15. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 249–253.

         TRUSTS AND TRADES-UNIONS. The Independent, April 19.
           Reprinted in Vol. IV, pp. 257–262.

         THE FAMILY MONOPOLY. The Independent, May 10.
           Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 254–258.

         THE FAMILY AND PROPERTY. The Independent, June 14
           and July 19. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 259–269.

         TARIFF REFORM. The Independent, August 16. Reprinted
           in Vol. IV, pp. 115–120.

         THE STATE AND MONOPOLY. The Independent, September
           13 and October 11. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 270–279.

         “A CONDITION NOT A THEORY.” Free trade. Belford’s
           Monthly Magazine, October, Vol. I, No. 5.

         DEMOCRACY AND PLUTOCRACY. The Independent, November
           15. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 283–289.

         DEFINITIONS OF DEMOCRACY AND PLUTOCRACY. The
           Independent, December 20. Reprinted in Vol. II,
           pp. 290–295.

  1889.  THE CONFLICT OF PLUTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY. The
           Independent, January 10. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp.
           296–300.

         PEASANT EMANCIPATION IN DENMARK. Based on a
           review of Stavnsbaands-løsningen og landboreformerne.
           Set fra nationaløkonomiens Standpunkt. Af V. Falbe
           Hansen, Copenhagen: Gad. 1888. The Nation, February
           7, No. 1232, pp. 123–124.

         PEASANTS AND LAND TENURE IN SCANDINAVIA. Unpublished
           manuscript, 20 typewritten pages, written in
           1889 or later, covering the period from the earliest times
           to the eighteenth century. (Sumner Estate.)

         SEPARATION OF STATE AND MARKET. The Independent,
           February 14. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 306–311.

         DEMOCRACY AND MODERN PROBLEMS. The Independent,
           March 28. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 301–305.

         SOCIAL WAR IN DEMOCRACY. The Independent, April 11.
           Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 312–317.

         AN EXAMINATION OF A NOBLE SENTIMENT. The Independent,
           May 16. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 212–216.

         SKETCH OF WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER. The Popular
           Science Monthly, June, Vol. XXXV, pp. 261–268.
           Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 3–13.

         AN OLD “TRUST.” The Independent, June 13. Reprinted
           in Vol. IV, pp. 265–269.

         WHAT IS CIVIL LIBERTY? The Popular Science Monthly,
           July, Vol. XXXV, pp. 289–303. Reprinted in Vol. II,
           pp. 109–130.

         WHO IS FREE? IS IT THE SAVAGE? The Independent,
           July 18. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 136–140.

         WHO IS FREE? IS IT THE CIVILIZED MAN? The Independent,
           August 15. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 140–145.

         WHO IS FREE? IS IT THE MILLIONAIRE? The Independent,
           September 12. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 145–150.

         WHO IS FREE? IS IT THE TRAMP? The Independent,
           October 17. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 150–155.

         LIBERTY AND RESPONSIBILITY. The Independent, November
           21. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 156–160.

         LIBERTY AND LAW. The Independent, December 26.
           Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 161–166.

         DO WE WANT INDUSTRIAL PEACE? Forum, December,
           Vol. VIII, pp. 406–416. Reprinted in Vol. I, pp. 229–243.

         FREE TRADE. Unpublished manuscript of about this
           date. I. Definitions of Protection and Protectionism.
           II. The Medieval Doctrine of Commerce. III. The
           Sixteenth Century. IV. The Dynastic States. V. Mercantilism
           and the Colonial System. VI. The New
           Doctrine. VII. Smithianismus. VIII. Protection in
           the United States. IX. Nineteenth-century Protectionism.
           X. The Present Situation. About 64 typewritten
           pages. (Sumner Estate.)

         THE STRIKES. Unpublished manuscript written sometime
           in the eighties, 21 typewritten pages. A general
           survey of the “labor question.” (Sumner Estate.)

         A PARABLE. Written in the eighties. Printed for the
           first time in Vol. III, pp. 105–107.

         THE SPHERE OF ACADEMICAL INSTRUCTION. Address
           delivered at the celebration of a school anniversary.
           To judge “what an academy is, what it ought to do,
           and how it ought to do it; and to judge of its achievements
           by true standards.” Unpublished manuscript
           of the eighties, 27 pages. (Sumner Estate.)

         INTEGRITY IN EDUCATION. An address delivered in Hartford
           probably in the eighties. Printed for the first time
           in Vol. IV, pp. 409–419.

         DISCIPLINE. Probably in the eighties. Printed for the
           first time in Vol. IV, pp. 423–438.

         THE CHALLENGE OF FACTS. Written sometime in the
           eighties. Original title was Socialism. Printed for the
           first time in Vol. III, pp. 17–52.

  1890.  ALEXANDER HAMILTON. (“Makers of America.”) New
           York, 12mo., 280 pp., Dodd, Mead & Co.

         LIBERTY AND DISCIPLINE. The Independent, January 16.
           Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 166–171.

         DOES LABOR BRUTALIZE? The Independent, February 20.
           Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 187–193.

         LIBERTY AND PROPERTY. The Independent, March 27.
           Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 171–176.

         LIBERTY AND OPPORTUNITY. The Independent, April 24.
           Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 176–181.

         WHY I AM A FREE TRADER. Twentieth Century, April 24,
           pp. 8–10.

         CAN WE GET MORE MONEY? Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
           Newspaper, May 3, Vol. LXX, No. 1807.

         LIBERTY AND LABOR. The Independent, May 22. Reprinted
           in Vol. II, pp. 181–187.

         PROPOSED SILVER LEGISLATION. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
           Newspaper, May 24, Vol. LXX, No. 1810, p. 330.

         LIBERTY AND MACHINERY. The Independent, June 12.
           Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 193–198.

         THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF LIBERTY. The Independent,
           July 17. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 198–203.

         WHAT EMANCIPATES. The Independent, August 14. Reprinted
           in Vol. III, pp. 137–142.

         THE DEMAND FOR MEN. The Independent, September 11.
           Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 111–116.

         THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEMAND FOR MEN. The Independent,
           October 16. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 119–123.

         WHAT THE “SOCIAL QUESTION” IS. The Independent,
           November 20. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 127–133.

  1891.  THE FINANCIER AND THE FINANCES OF THE AMERICAN
           REVOLUTION. New York, 2 vols., 8vo., 309 and 330 pp.

         LIBERTÉ DES ÉCHANGES. Nouveau Dictionnaire d’Économie
           Politique, vol. 2, pp. 138–166, Guillaumin et Cie.,
           Paris.

         POWER AND PROGRESS. The Independent, January 15.
           Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 145–150.

         CONSEQUENCES OF INCREASED SOCIAL POWER. The Independent,
           August 13. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 153–158.

  1892.  ROBERT MORRIS (“Makers of America”). New York,
           12mo., 172 pp.

  1893.  PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. A
           chart printed for distribution to the classes in Social
           Science in Yale University. “Not published.”

  1894.  THE ABSURD EFFORT TO MAKE THE WORLD OVER. Forum,
           March, Vol. XVII, pp. 92–102. Reprinted in Vol. I,
           pp. 195–210.

  1895.  THE VENEZUELA MESSAGE. Letter to the New York
           Times, December 18.

  1896.  HISTORY OF BANKING IN THE UNITED STATES. XV, 485 pp.
           Being Vol. I of A History of Banking in all the Leading
           Nations.

         “PROFESSOR SUMNER ON YALE.” Letter to The Yale
           News, January 20. Learning is more appreciated here
           now than thirty years ago.

         THE CURRENCY CRISIS. A course of six lectures given at
           the house of Mr. John E. Parsons, 30 East 36th St.,
           New York City, February 13 and 27 and March 5, 12,
           19, and 26. What the lecturer said, as well as the
           questions and answers at the end of his lectures, was
           taken down in shorthand and typewritten. Mr. Herbert
           Parsons has the transcript in bound form, and the Yale
           University Library also has a copy. (Sumner Estate.)

         THE TREASURY AS A BANK OF ISSUE AND A SILVER WAREHOUSE.
           The Bond Record, March, Vol. IV, No. 2,
           pp. 87–89.

         AN ANSWER TO MR. TIGHE’S LETTER ON YALE’S VENEZUELAN
           ATTITUDE. Letter to the Yale Alumni Weekly,
           May 20, Vol. V, No. 30, pp. 1–2.

         THE FALLACY OF TERRITORIAL EXTENSION. Forum,
           June, Vol. XXI, pp. 416–419. Reprinted in Vol. I,
           pp. 285–293.

         A FEW WORDS. Short address as member of the State
           Board of Education at the graduating exercises of the
           New Haven Normal School, June 18. (Sumner Estate.)

         THE POLICY OF DEBASEMENT. “The Battle of the Standards.”
           New York Journal, July 29.

         THE PROPOSED DUAL ORGANIZATION OF MANKIND. Popular
           Science Monthly, August, Vol. XLIX, pp. 433–439.
           Reprinted in Vol. I, pp. 271–281.

         PROSPERITY STRANGLED BY GOLD. Leslie’s Weekly, August
           20. Reprinted in Vol. IV, pp. 141–145.

         CAUSE AND CURE OF HARD TIMES. Leslie’s Weekly,
           September 3. Reprinted in Vol. IV, pp. 149–153.

         THE FREE-COINAGE SCHEME IS IMPRACTICABLE AT EVERY
           POINT. Leslie’s Weekly, September 10. Reprinted
           in Vol. IV, pp. 157–162.

         DELUSION OF THE DEBTORS. Leslie’s Weekly, September
           17. Reprinted in Vol. IV, pp. 165–170.

         THE CRIME OF 1873. Leslie’s Weekly, September 24.
           Reprinted in Vol. IV, pp. 173–180.

         THE SINGLE GOLD STANDARD. Chautauquan, October,
           Vol. XXIV, pp. 72–77.

         BANKS OF ISSUE IN THE UNITED STATES. Forum, October,
           Vol. XXII, pp. 182–191.

         EARTH HUNGER OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF LAND GRABBING.
           Printed for the first time in Vol. II, pp. 31–64.

         A FREE COINAGE CATECHISM. Reprinted from The
           Evening Post, The Evening Post Publishing Co., New
           York, 16 pp.

         LECTURES ON AMERICAN HISTORY, Yale University,
           1896–1897. Notes taken by J. C. Schwab. MS.
           13 × 21 cm. Yale University Library.

         ADVANCING SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN THE
           UNITED STATES. 1896 or 1897. Printed for the first
           time in Vol. III, pp. 289–344.

  1897.  THE TEACHER’S UNCONSCIOUS SUCCESS. Address given
           at a dinner held in honor of Mr. Henry Barnard, at
           Jewel Hall, Hartford, January 25. Printed for the
           first time in Vol. II, pp. 9–13.

         MONEY AND CURRENCY. A course of four lectures delivered
           in Boston. I. The Anxiety Lest there be not
           Money Enough. II. How We Resumed Specie Payments
           in 1879. What We Did Not Do. III. The
           Single Gold Standard--A Beneficent and Accomplished
           Fact. IV. Where we now Stand and what we have to
           Do. Syllabus.

         SOCIOLOGY. A course of six lectures given in Albany,
           February 27, March 6, 13, 20, 27, and April 3. Introduction.
           Individuality and Sociality. Property.
           Industrialism and Militarism. Population. Mental Reaction
           on Experience. Suggested Books for a Course
           of Reading. Syllabus.

         THE ORIGIN OF THE DOLLAR. Paper read at meeting of
           the British Association for the Advancement of Science
           at Toronto, August 19–25. (Sumner Estate.)

         OUTLINE OF A PROPOSED CURRICULUM (for Yale College).
           4 pages typewritten manuscript. (Sumner Estate.)

  1898.  THE SPANISH DOLLAR AND THE COLONIAL SHILLING.
           American Historical Review, Vol. III, No. 4, pp. 607–619.

         SYLLABUS of six lectures given during January and February
           in Plainfield. N. J. I. What is a Free Man and a
           Free State? II. What is Democracy? III. Aggregations
           of Wealth and Plutocracy. IV. The Rich and the
           Poor. V. Woman. VI. Immigration.

         LEITER HAS BEEN A HERO. Letter to The World, New
           York, June 15, on the Joseph Leiter deal.

         THE COIN SHILLING OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. Yale
           Review, November, Vol. VII, pp. 247–264, and February,
           1899, Vol. VII, pp. 405–420.

  1899.  THE CONQUEST OF THE UNITED STATES BY SPAIN. A
           lecture before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale University,
           January 16. Yale Law Journal, Vol. VIII,
           No. 4, pp. 168–193. Boston, D. Estes & Co., 32 pp. 23 cm.
           Reprinted in Vol. I, pp. 297–334.

         THE POWER AND BENEFICENCE OF CAPITAL. Proceedings
           of the Sixth Annual Convention of The Savings Banks
           Association of the State of New York, held at the Rooms
           of the Chamber of Commerce, 32 Nassau Street, New
           York, May 10; pp. 77–95. J. S. Babcock, New York,
           printer. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 337–353.

  1900.  FIRST FRUITS OF EXPANSION. New York Evening Post,
           April 14, p. 13.

         THE PREDICAMENT OF SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY. Printed for
           the first time in Vol. III, pp. 415–425. Original title of
           manuscript was “Sociology.” Written about 1900.

         PURPOSES AND CONSEQUENCES. Printed for the first
           time in Vol. II, pp. 67–75. Written sometime between
           1900 and 1906.

         RIGHTS. Printed for the first time in Vol. II, pp. 79–83.
           Written sometime between 1900 and 1906.

         EQUALITY. Printed for the first time in Vol. II, pp. 87–89.
           Written sometime between 1900 and 1906.

  1901.  THE ANTHRACITE COAL INDUSTRY, by Peter Roberts. Introduction
           by W. G. Sumner. New York, London, Macmillan
           Co., 261 pp. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 387–388.

         SPECIMENS OF INVESTMENT SECURITIES FOR CLASS ROOM
           USE. New Haven, The E. P. Judd Co., 32 pp., 27
           × 35½ cm. Verbatim reprints of a large number of
           shares, certificates, bonds, and other evidences of ownership
           of debt, without independent text or comment:
           collected for use in college instruction.

         TRUSTS. Journal of Commerce, June 24.

         THE PREDOMINANT ISSUE. Burlington, Vt. Reprinted
           from the International Monthly, November, Vol. 2, pp.
           496–509. Reprinted in Vol. I, pp. 337–352.

         THE YAKUTS. Abridged from the Russian of Sieroshevski.
           Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain
           and Ireland, Vol. 31, pp. 65–110.

  1902.  SUICIDAL FANATICISM IN RUSSIA. The Popular Science
           Monthly, March, Vol. LX, pp. 442–447.

         THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH: ITS ECONOMIC JUSTIFICATION.
           The Independent, April-June. Reprinted in
           Vol. III, pp. 81–90.

  1903.  AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER.
           A History of the Class of 1863, Yale College, pp. 165–167.
           New Haven, The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor
           Co., 1905. Reprinted in Vol. II, pp. 3–5.

         WAR. Printed for the first time in Vol. I, pp. 3–40.

  1904.  REPLY TO A SOCIALIST (THE FALLACIES OF SOCIALISM).
           Collier’s Weekly, October 29, pp. 12–13. Reprinted in
           Vol. III, pp. 55–62.

  1905.  LYNCH-LAW, by James Elbert Cutler. Foreword by W. G.
           Sumner. New York, Longmans, Green, and Co., v,
           287 pp. Reprinted in Vol. III, pp. 383–384.

         ECONOMICS AND POLITICS. Printed for the first time in
           Vol. II, pp. 318–333.

         THE SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE OF MIND. Address to initiates
           of the Sigma Xi Society, Yale University, on March 4.
           Printed for the first time in Vol. II, pp. 17–28.

  1906.  PROTECTIONISM TWENTY YEARS AFTER. (Title given by
           editor.) Address at a dinner of the Committee on
           Tariff Reform of the Tariff Reform Club in the City of
           New York, June 2. Published by the Reform Club
           Committee on Tariff Reform, 42 Broadway, New York,
           N. Y. Series 1906, No. 4, 7 pp., August 15. Reprinted
           in Vol. IV, pp. 131–138.

  1907.  FOLKWAYS: A Study of the Sociological Importance of
           Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals. Boston,
           Ginn & Co., v, 692 pp.

         SOCIOLOGY AS A COLLEGE SUBJECT. American Journal of
           Sociology, March, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 597–599. Reprinted
           in Vol. III, pp. 407–411.

  1908.  DECLINE OF CONFIDENCE. Annual Financial and Commercial
           Review, New York Herald, January 2.

  1909.  WHAT IS SANE TARIFF REFORM? Annual Financial and
           Commercial Review, New York Herald, January 4.

         THE FAMILY AND SOCIAL CHANGE. American Journal of
           Sociology, March, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 577–591. Reprinted
           in Vol. I, pp. 43–61.

         WITCHCRAFT. Forum, May, Vol. XLI, pp. 410–423.
           Reprinted in Vol. I, pp. 105–126.

         AUTOBIOGRAPHY and List of Books Published. Facsimile
           of letter and photograph in The Yale Courant, May,
           Vol. XLV, No. 7, on occasion of Sumner’s retirement.

         THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN CHALDEA, EGYPT, INDIA,
           JUDEA, AND GREECE TO THE TIME OF CHRIST. Forum,
           August, Vol. XLII, pp. 113–136. Reprinted in Vol. I,
           pp. 65–102.

         THE MORES OF THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE. Yale
           Review, November, Vol. XVIII, pp. 233–245. Reprinted
           in Vol. I, pp. 149–164.

  1910.  RELIGION AND THE MORES. American Journal of Sociology,
           March, Vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 577–591. Reprinted
           in Vol. I, pp. 129–146.

         COMMENT ON WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER. (Died April 12.)
           The Pioneer, Henry W. Farman. The Teacher, J. C.
           Schwab. The Inspirer, Irving Fisher. The Idealist,
           Clive Day. The Alan, Albert G. Keller. The Veteran,
           Richard T. Ely. Yale Review, May, Vol. XIX, pp. 1–12.

         MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. Delivered June 19, in Lampson
           Lyceum, Yale University, by Otto T. Bannard, Henry
           De Forest Baldwin, and Albert Galloway Keller.
           Printed in Vol. III, pp. 429–450.


POSTHUMOUS

  1911.  WAR. Yale Review (New Series), October, Vol. I, No. 1,
           pp. 1–27. Printed in Vol. I, pp. 3–40.

         WAR AND OTHER ESSAYS. New Haven, Yale University
           Press, 381 pp.

  1913.  EARTH HUNGER OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF LAND GRABBING.
           Yale Review (New Series), October, Vol. III, No. 1,
           pp. 3–32. Printed in Vol. II, pp. 31–64.

         EARTH HUNGER AND OTHER ESSAYS. New Haven, Yale
           University Press, 377 pp.

  1914.  THE CHALLENGE OF FACTS AND OTHER ESSAYS. New
           Haven, Yale University Press, 450 pp.

  1918.  THE FORGOTTEN MAN AND OTHER ESSAYS. New Haven,
           Yale University Press, 559 pp.




FOOTNOTES


[1] February 4, 1884, Mr. Robinson of New York proposed, in the House
of Representatives, an amendment to the Constitution, so as to allow
Congress to lay an export duty on cotton for the encouragement of home
manufactures. (Record, 862.)

[2] Philadelphia _American_, August 7, 1884.

[3] Taussig: “History of the Existing Tariff,” 78 ff.

[4] The wool growers held a convention at St. Louis May 28, 1885, at
which they estimated their loss by the reduction of the tax on wool
in 1883, or the _difference_ between what they got by this tax before
that date and after, at ninety million dollars (New York _Times_, May
29). If that sum is what they lost, it is what the consumers gained.
They are very angry, and will not vote for any one who will not help to
re-subject the consumers to this tribute to them.

[5] Broderick, “English Land and English Landlords,” p. 194.

[6] Since the above was in type, I have, for the first time, seen an
argument from a protectionist, that a tariff between our states is, or
may become, desirable. It is from the Chicago _Inter-Ocean_, and marks
the extreme limit reached, up to this time, by protectionist fanaticism
and folly, although it is thoroughly consistent, and fairly lays bare
the spirit and essence of protectionism:

“In the United States the present ominous and overshadowing strike in
the iron trade, by which from 75,000 to 100,000 men have been thrown
out of work, is an incisive example of the tendency of this country,
also, to a condition of trade which will compel individual states and
certain sections of the country to ask for legislation, in order to
protect them against the cheaper labor and superior natural advantage
of others.” The remedy for the harm done by taxes on our foreign trade
is to lay some on our domestic trade. (See §§ 26, 95.)

[7] Since the above was in type, a treasury order has subjected all
goods from Canada to the same taxes as imported goods, although they
may be going from Minnesota to England. Nature has made man too well
off. The inhabitants of North America will not simply use their
chances, but they divide into two artificial bodies so as to try to
harm each other. Millions are spent to cut an isthmus where nature has
left one, and millions more to set up a tax-barrier where nature has
made a highway.

[8] 62, Niles’s “Register,” 132.

[9] _Journal des Economistes_, March, 1885, page 496.

[10] Paris correspondent of the New York _Evening Post_, February 9,
1884.

[11] _Economist_, Commercial Review, 1884, p. 15.

[12] The Vienna correspondent of the _Economist_ writes, June 15, 1885,
“The representatives of the sugar trade addressed a petition to the
Finance Minister, asking, above all things, that the premium on export
should be retained, without which, they say, they cannot continue to
exist, and which is granted in all countries where beet-root sugar is
manufactured.”

[13] _Bradstreet’s_, July 25, 1885.

[14] _Economist_, 1884, p. 1052.

[15] A friend has sent me a report (Barbados _Agricultural Report_,
April 24, 1885) of an indignation meeting at Bridgetown to protest
because the English Government refused to ratify the commercial treaty
with the United States. The islanders feel the competition of the
“bounty-fed” sugar in the English market; a new complication, a new
mischief.

[16] _Economist_, Commercial Supplement, February 14, 1885, p. 7.

[17] Since the above was in type, a report from the “South American
Commission” has been received and published. This Commission submitted
certain propositions to the President of Chili on behalf of the United
States. The report says:

“The second proposition involved the idea of a reciprocal commercial
treaty between the two countries under which special products of each
should be admitted free of duty into the other when carried under
the flag of either nation. This did not meet with any greater favor
with President Santa Maria, who was not disposed to make reciprocity
treaties. His people were at liberty to sell where they could get the
best prices and buy where goods were the cheapest. In his opinion
commerce was not aided by commercial treaties, and Chili neither asked
from nor gave to other nations especial favors. Trade would regulate
itself, and there was no advantage in trying to divert it in one
direction or the other. So far as the United States was concerned,
there could be very little trade with Chili, owing to the fact that the
products of the two countries were almost identical. Chili produced
very little that we wanted, and although there were many industrial
products of the United States that were used in Chili, the merchants
of the latter country must be allowed to buy where they sold and where
they could trade to the greatest advantage. With reference to the
provision that reduced duties should be allowed only upon goods carried
in Chilian or American vessels, he said that Chili did not want any
such means to encourage her commerce: her ports were open to all the
vessels of the world upon an equality, and none should have especial
privileges.”--(N. Y. _Times_, July 3, 1885.)

If this is a fair specimen of the political and economic enlightenment
which prevails at the other end of the American Continent, it is a
great pity that the “Commission” is not a great deal larger. They are
like the illiterate missionaries who found themselves unawares in a
theological seminary. We would do well to send our whole Congress out
there.

[18] This is the case for which the _Inter-Ocean_ proposed the remedy
described in § 71 note.

[19] I except those of Mr. Carroll Wright. He has sufficiently stated
of how slight value his are.

[20] Bk. V, ch. 10, § 1.

[21] It has been developed mathematically by a French mathematician
(_Journal des Economistes_, August and September, 1873, pp. 285 and
464).

[22] See a fallacy under this head: Cunningham, “Growth of English
Industry,” 410, note.

[23] IMMIGRATION IN 1884

                                Males     Females       Total
  Professional occupations      2,184         100       2,284
  Skilled occupations          50,905       4,156      55,061
  Occupations not stated       19,778      11,887      31,665
  No occupation                75,483     169,904     245,387
  Miscellaneous occupations   160,159      24,036     184,195
                              -------     -------     -------
      Total                   308,509     210,083     518,592

Under miscellaneous were 106,478 laborers and 42,050 farmers.

[24] See a fallacy under this point: Cunningham, “Growth of English
Industry,” 410 note.

[25] See an interesting collection of illustrations in an article on
“Lords of Industry” in the _North American Review_ for June, 1884. The
futile criticisms at the end of the article do not affect the value of
the facts collected.

[26] Cunningham, “Growth of English Industry and Commerce,” 316, note
2. (See also §§ 114, 134.)

[27] Mill, “Political Economy,” Bk. I, ch. 5, § 5. Cairnes, “Leading
Principles,” ch. I, § 5.

[28] “Political Economy,” 491–492.

[29] I published a criticism of this case in the London _Economist_,
December 1, 1883.

[30] Quoted by Taussig: “History of the Existing Tariff,” 73.

[31] Illustrations of this are presented without number. Here is the
most recent one: “The [silk] masters [of Lyons, France] look to the
government for relief by a reduction of the duty on cotton yarn, or the
right to import all numbers duty free for export after manufacture.
With the present tariffs, they maintained, which is no doubt true, that
they cannot compete with the Swiss and German makers. But the Rouen
cotton spinners oppose the demand of the Lyons silk manufacturers, and
protest that they will be ruined if the latter are allowed to procure
their material from abroad. The Lyons weavers assert that they are
being ruined because they cannot.”--(_Economist_, 1885, p. 815.) The
cotton men won in the Chamber of Deputies, July 23, 1885.

[32] _Independent_, August 16, 1888.

[33] In _Good Cheer_ for April, 1886, p. 7.

[34] Address at a dinner of the committee on Tariff Reform of the
Reform Club in the city of New York, June 2, 1906.

[35] _Leslie’s Weekly_, August 20, 1896.

[36] _Leslie’s Weekly_, September 3, 1896.

[37] _Leslie’s Weekly_, September 10, 1896.

[38] _Leslie’s Weekly_, September 17, 1896.

[39] Pp. 161–162.

[40] _Leslie’s Weekly_, September 24, 1896.

[41] _Harper’s Weekly_, September 15, 1883

[42] _Popular Science News_, July, 1887.

[43] _The Independent_, April 19, 1888.

[44] “Earth Hunger, and Other Essays,” pp. 217–270.

[45] _The Independent_, June 13, 1889.

[46] Falke, “August von Sacheen.”

[47] _The North American Review_, Vol. CXXXII, pp. 559–566. (June,
1881.)

[48] _The North American Review_, vol. cxxii, pp. 47–87. (January,
1876.)

[49] Address before the Kent Club of the Yale Law School.

[50] Statistics means here, what it ought to mean, much more than
tables of figures.

[51] Niles, XLVI, 407.

[52] Niles, VIII, 246.

[53] Niles, XXIV, 247.

[54] Niles, XLVI, 101.

[55] For Clay, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware,
Maryland.

[56] Niles, March 1, 1834.

[57] Some counterfeiters were arrested at New York in a garret where
they had $20,000 in notes of the “Ottawa Bank” and $800 in specie.
They were very indignant--said they were a “bank” and were printing
their notes at New York for economy. They came so nearly within the
definition of a “bank” current at this time that they escaped on this
plea.

[58] Speech at the Farewell Banquet to Herbert Spencer, held November
9, 1882.

[59] Address delivered in Hartford.

[60] These initials, as will be seen below, mean Grand Passed Master
Coöperator, while G. C. indicates the lower grade of Grand Coöperator.




INDEX


In the following index, _War and Other Essays_ is referred to as Vol.
I, _Earth Hunger and Other Essays_ as Vol. II, _The Challenge of Facts
and Other Essays_ as Vol. III, and _The Forgotten Man and Other Essays_
as Vol. IV. References in heavy type are essay titles.

  Abolition, IV, 17–18, 319.

  Abolitionists, IV, 320–321.

  Aborigines, treatment of, I, 27, 33–35, 273, 274, 306, 308; II, 45.

  Absolutism, democratic, III, 305;
    state, II, 130.

  Abstract justice, II, 219.

  =ABSURD EFFORT TO MAKE THE WORLD OVER=, I, 195–210.

  Academical life, IV, 423, 430.

  Academical pursuits, IV, 424.

  Academical societies, IV, 474.

  Achievement, the work of, III, 145–146.

  Act of 1873, IV, 165, 173–180.

  Adams, John, III, 378; IV, 291, 293, 294, 296, 381.

  Adams, John Quincy, IV, 304–305, 340, 343, 347, 348, 350, 351.

  Administrative reform, III, 372–374.

  Adults, demand for, III, 113–114.

  Advancement, I, 179.

  Advancing comfort, period of, II, 201–202.

  Advancing industrial organization, I, 196–199.

  Advancing social organization, II, 286–287; III, 315–317.

  =ADVANCING SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES=,
        III, 289–344.

  Africa, III, 300; IV, 71;
    colonization of, II, 42;
    exploitation of, I, 273; II, 51.

  Aggrandizement, territorial, I, 286.

  Agriculture, III, 39; IV, 76;
    status of women under, I, 65.

  Air, II, 240.

  Alabama, IV, 55.

  Alarmists, III, 341, 342–343.

  Albany _Argus_, IV, 303.

  Albany Regency, IV, 327, 351, 355, 362.

  Alchemist, IV, 13, 19–20.

  Alchemy, IV, 18.

  Aleatory element, I, 116, 119–120.

  Algeria, IV, 59.

  Allodial land tenure, III, 312.

  Almsgiving, III, 68, 74, 75.

  Alternate standard, IV, 193, 195, 197, 198, 209.

  Altruism, II, 130.

  America, discovery of, II, 41–42, 315; III, 153–154;
    Political Growth of, III, 248–249.

  =AMERICA, POLITICS IN, 1776–1876=, IV, 285–333.

  American college, what it ought to be, I, 370–371, 372–373.

  American colleges, improvement in, I, 356.

  American colonies, the, I, 274–276; III, 248–253, 290–325; IV, 285,
        288.

  American commonwealth, conception of the, I, 332–334; II, 56.

  American culture, IV, 294.

  American history contrasted with European, III, 292–293, 307.

  American Indians, the, I, 6–7, 12, 15, 33, 44, 50, 309; II, 137, 138;
        III, 230, 249, 250.

  American institutions, III, 244.

  American life, IV, 241–242.

  American politics, history of, IV, 339.

  American principles, I, 326–329.

  American shipping, IV, 273–278.

  American Social Science Association, the, II, 217.

  American traditions, III, 353–354, 355.

  Americanism, I, 346.

  Americans, IV, 123, 125–126, 132, 300;
    what they cannot do, I, 329–331.

  Ames, Fisher, IV, 292.

  Analogy, IV, 199, 204, 206;
    argument from, IV, 199.

  Anarchistic liberty, II, 119, 131–132, 161, 198, 199, 200, 203; III,
        292, 317, 336.

  Anarchists, II, 112.

  Anarchy and liberty contrasted, II, 164–165.

  Ancient Germans, the, I, 21, 155.

  Anglo-American law, III, 215, 218.

  Anthracite coal industry, III, 387–388.

  =“ANTHRACITE COAL INDUSTRY, THE,” FOREWORD TO=, III, 387–388.

  Anti-federalists, the, III, 307, 327–328; IV, 289.

  Anti-masonic movement, IV, 311.

  Anti-slavery, I, 151.

  Appointing power, IV, 307.

  Apprentices, IV, 486, 487.

  _A priori_ method, the, III, 400, 401.

  _A priori_ philosophers, III, 244–245.

  Arbitration, I, 328.

  Aristocracy, IV, 291, 292;
    definition of, II, 290; III, 302–303, 305;
    Popular Dislike of All, III, 265–267.

  Aristotle, I, 99; II, 113, 114.

  Army, IV, 104.

  Arnold, Matthew, IV, 425.

  Art of politics, III, 246–247.

  Art of production, IV, 104.

  Art of recitation, I, 366.

  Articles of Confederation, IV, 289.

  Artificial environment, II, 251.

  Artificial monopoly, II, 135, 247; IV, 282.

  Artisans, II, 292; IV, 58, 72, 88.

  Arts, IV, 49, 58, 87, 402;
    advance or improvement in the, I, 187–189; II, 32, 42, 197, 198,
        236, 358–360; III, 23, 153, 170–174, 338;
    stage of the, III, 22–23.

  Astor, John Jacob, I, 339; III, 83.

  Astrology, IV, 18.

  Atlantic, IV, 57.

  Atlantic States, IV, 52.

  Atomism, II, 127–128.

  Australia, IV, 55, 71, 85;
    the colonization of, II, 42.

  Australians, the, I, 3–4, 7, 10, 44, 46; III, 303.

  Autocracy, definition of, II, 290.


  Babylonia, status of women in, I, 69–71.

  Bache, IV, 298.

  Balance-of-power doctrine, the, I, 274, 278; II, 59.

  Baldwin, Henry de Forest, =MEMORIAL ADDRESS= by, III, 432–439.

  Ballot, the, III, 231, 232–234, 236–238.

  Bank, IV, 313, 393–394;
    convention, IV, 384, 385;
    local, IV, 359;
    national, IV, 313, 315;
    of England, IV, 177, 379, 384, 387;
    of the United States, IV, 259, 313, 340, 352–354, 355, 356, 358,
        359, 360–361, 372–374, 377, 379, 380, 381–382, 385, 386, 387,
        388–390, 391, 395;
    state, IV, 380.

  Bannard, Otto T., =MEMORIAL ADDRESS= by, III, 429–431.

  =BANQUET OF LIFE, THE=, II, 217–221.

  “Banquet of life,” the, II, 210–211, 217–221, 233; III, 112, 115.

  Barny’s, IV, 379.

  Bastiat, Frédéric, IV, 98–99.

  Bateman, IV, 48.

  Bedouin type, the, II, 140.

  Beggars, I, 248–249.

  Belgium, IV, 48.

  Belief in witchcraft, I, 125; II, 21–22.

  Belief that “something must be done,” II, 327.

  Bellamy, Edward, I, 205, 206.

  Beloch, J., I, 100–101.

  Benton, Thomas H., IV, 319, 358, 383.

  Bequest, III, 42–44.

  Berlin, IV, 60.

  Bessemer steel, IV, 222.

  Bevan and Humphreys, IV, 382, 387.

  Bicknell’s _Reporter_, IV, 393.

  Biddle, Nicholas, IV, 259, 353, 379, 381, 384, 385, 386, 389;
    and Humphreys, IV, 385, 386, 387.

  Bimetallism, IV, 141, 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 201, 202–210, 234–235.

  Biography, the study of, II, 179.

  Bismarck, Prince, IV, 59.

  “Black Friday,” IV, 198.

  Blaine, James G., III, 368.

  Blair, Senator, III, 187.

  Bland Silver Bill, III, 186–187.

  Blood revenge, I, 22, 23.

  Boers, the, I, 342; II, 54.

  Bolsheviki, the, IV, 462.

  Bonds of the social order, III, 315, 325.

  Book-men, the, IV, 363, 365.

  Booms, IV, 152–153;
    exploded, IV, 169–170.

  =BOON OF NATURE, THE=, II, 233–238.

  “Boon of nature,” the, II, 210–211, 218, 233–238; III, 115;
    disproved by American history, II, 238; III, 291–292.

  Boot-man, the, IV, 44–45.

  Boss, the, IV, 327–329.

  Boston Massacre, the, III, 330.

  Boston Tea Party, the, III, 330.

  Bounties, IV, 12, 60–63, 65.

  _Bourgeoisie_, the, II, 313, 314; III, 161, 163–165.

  Boutwell, G. S., IV, 175.

  Boycott, the, I, 224–225; III, 100–101.

  _Bradstreet’s_, IV, 29, 60.

  Bride-price, the, I, 66, 68, 74.

  Brotherhood of man, IV, 403.

  Broderick, G. C., IV, 48.

  Brutus, IV, 366.

  Bryan, W. J., IV, 160, 173.

  Buddha, I, 134.

  Buddhism, I, 25, 136, 140.

  Bureau of Agriculture, IV, 86.

  Bureaucracy, definition of, II, 290;
    in Germany, II, 302; IV, 481.

  Bureaus, the federal, III, 278.

  Burgh, IV, 285.

  Burr, Aaron, IV, 296, 303, 307.

  Bushmen, the, I, 7, 10, 46; III, 303.

  Business and politics, IV, 135.

  Butler, General, III, 378.


  Cæsar, IV, 366, 367.

  Cæsarism, III, 239, 275, 276.

  Cairnes, J. E., IV, 101, 196.

  Calamities, IV, 29–30, 43.

  Calhoun, John C., IV, 312, 318–319, 320, 329, 340, 341, 347, 355.

  California, IV, 85;
    acquisition of, I, 341, 342.

  Callender, IV, 294, 298.

  Cameron, Senator, III, 368; IV, 65.

  Campaign, political, I, 337; IV, 29, 49, 95;
    anti-corn-law, IV, 107;
    of 1840, IV, 315–316.

  Canada, I, 289–290; II, 50–51; IV, 56, 67, 68, 94, 150.

  Cannibalism, I, 19–20.

  Canon law, I, 144;
    and marriage, I, 59.

  Capital, I, 160, 186, 207, 248; II, 144, 145, 147, 177, 187, 210,
        226–227, 236, 252, 266, 267, 268, 288–289, 295, 306, 341–342,
        344–345, 347, 348, 350, 358–360; III, 20–22, 26–28, 35–36,
        38–39, 40–42, 43–44, 61, 123, 127, 128, 130, 132, 156–157, 201,
        422–423; IV, 19, 20, 21, 25, 36, 37–38, 40, 49, 70, 74, 96,
        106, 119, 123, 127, 219, 220, 227–228, 262, 475–476, 494;
    accumulation of, I, 202–203; II, 349–352; III, 42, 172;
    and civilization, III, 27, 422–423;
    and industry, III, 41–42;
    and labor, the redistribution of, I, 239–241;
    and the state, II, 306;
    legislation regarding, III, 27–28;
    the asserted natural right to, II, 226–227;
    the dignity of, II, 297–298;
    the metaphysical side of, II, 359–360;
    the power of, II, 297, 329.

  =CAPITAL, THE POWER AND BENEFICENCE OF=, II, 337–353.

  Capitalism, I, 206–207; III, 76–77.

  Capitalists, III, 170, 172.

  Captains of industry, I, 199–200, 201; II, 134, 297–298, 329–330,
        331–332; III, 83, 84; IV, 99, 218.

  Care, II, 149.

  Carlovingians, the, III, 119–120.

  Catholic church and witchcraft, I, 123.

  Caucus, IV, 303–304, 310, 311, 315, 339, 340.

  =CAUSE AND CURE OF HARD TIMES=, IV, 149–153.

  Celibacy, I, 53–54, 59–60, 79.

  Census, IV, 47, 49, 78.

  Centralization in the United States, III, 316–317.

  Cernuschi, Henri, IV, 193.

  Chaldea, status of women in, I, 69, 70, 71.

  =CHALLENGE OF FACTS, THE=, III, 17–52.

  Chance, II, 176–178, 180, 196–197; III, 36.

  Character, II, 11–12, 178, 265; IV, 48, 412–413.

  Charity, IV, 477, 492.

  Charles II, IV, 34.

  Chartered rights, II, 222–223.

  Checks and balances, the system of, III, 283–284.

  Checks on progress, II, 35–37, 163.

  Chemistry, IV, 432.

  Chicanery, III, 231, 258.

  Child labor, II, 100.

  Children, II, 95, 96, 97, 98–101, 104–105; III, 18–19, 113–114;
    an asset, I, 66–67; III, 295–296;
    a burden, I, 65–67; III, 113–114;
    and parents, the rights and duties of, II, 95–102;
    and state protection, II, 100;
    education of, II, 98–101;
    how regarded, I, 66–67;
    love for, III, 42, 43–44;
    position of, in monogamy, II, 255, 256, 257, 265.

  Chili, IV, 69.

  China, I, 343–344; II, 55; IV, 53, 54, 92, 135, 207.

  Chivalry, II, 19.

  Christian family, the, I, 52.

  Christian view of marriage, I, 52–54.

  Christianity, I, 25–26, 134, 137–138;
    and witchcraft, I, 112;
    doctrines of natural rights in, II, 114–117;
    slavery in early, II, 114–115, 116–118;
    medieval, I, 140;
    status of women in early, I, 52–60.

  Church, the, III, 203–204;
    and state, I, 131, 162; II, 18–19, 310; IV, 18, 38;
    Catholic, I, 123;
    medieval, I, 133; III, 74;
    modern, I, 139; III, 81.

  Cicero, III, 305.

  Circulation, monetary, IV, 157–159;
    concurrent, IV, 183–210;
    forced, IV, 191.

  City life, I, 156.

  City police, III, 329.

  City, the modern, III, 169–170, 278–279, 420.

  Civil holidays, III, 360.

  Civil institutions, IV, 487.

  Civil liberty, II, 124, 128–129, 182, 198–199, 202; III, 26, 44–45,
        226, 238–240, 276, 336; IV, 110, 469, 470, 471–474;
    and the individual, II, 168–169;
    a matter of law and institutions, II, 160, 166;
    definition of, II, 126–127; IV, 230–231, 472;
    relation of, to individual liberty, II, 169–170;
    the cost of, II, 128; III, 239.

  =CIVIL LIBERTY, WHAT IS?=, II, 109–130.

  Civil officers, III, 267–268.

  Civil service, III, 268–270;
    abuse of, II, 303–304;
    reform, III, 262–263, 279–280, 308.

  Civil Service Commission, the, II, 277.

  Civil strife, III, 361.

  Civil War, the, I, 31, 32, 217, 219, 311; III, 277, 316, 321,
        329–330, 333, 349, 351–354, 359–362, 398–400; IV, 175, 223,
        323–324, 330.

  Civilization, II, 83, 139, 180, 220–221, 249–253, 340–341, 342,
        344–345; III, 23, 420–421; IV, 53–54, 93, 217, 221–223, 233;
    and capital, III, 27, 422–423;
    and liberty, II, 132, 147, 149–150, 175, 362;
    and monopoly, II, 249–253;
    and war, I, 16, 34–35;
    classical, II, 252, 296;
    danger to modern, I, 190;
    modern, II, 296–297;
    offsets to the gains of, I, 190;
    the advance of, II, 344–345;
    of Egypt, III, 146–147;
    rights a product of, II, 83;
    share in the gains of, II, 358–360; III, 21–22;
    the origin of, II, 137–138;
    the triumph of, II, 357–358; III, 421;
    the cost of, III, 208.

  Civilized man, the freedom of, III, 26.

  Civilized nations, the peace-institutions of, I, 20–24.

  Civilized society, the organization of, II, 144–145, 250, 251, 252,
        253, 283–287.

  Civilizing mission, I, 303–305.

  Clamor, I, 223; III, 185–190.

  =CLAMOR, LEGISLATION BY=, III, 185–190.

  Class hatred, IV, 253.

  Class jealousies, IV, 402–403.

  Classes, II, 291, 293; III, 131;
    conservative, IV, 364–365, 366, 367;
    distinguished, III, 308–309;
    industrial, II, 191; III, 36;
    leisure, III, 281;
    non-capitalist, IV, 12;
    patronizing the working, I, 250;
    petted, IV, 494;
    responsible and irresponsible, II, 98, 99, 103;
    burdens of the responsible, II, 216;
    servile, II, 38–39;
    social, I, 241; II, 40–41; III, 68–71, 129–130; 156–157, 307–309,
        392;
    wages, III, 94–97, 169, 170; IV, 44–45, 71–72;
    working, I, 249–250;
    struggle of the, II, 312–317; III, 129–132.

  Classical civilization, II, 252, 296.

  Classical culture, I, 367;
    the decline of, I, 157–158.

  Classical education, I, 358–360, 362–370, 372–373;
    limitations of, I, 365–370.

  Classical slavery, II, 112–114, 296.

  Classics, the, I, 362–370, 372–373.

  Clay, Henry, IV, 312, 316, 319, 341, 347, 348, 356, 357, 373.

  Cleveland, President, I, 278; II, 59.

  Clinton, De Witt, IV, 305, 306, 307.

  Cloth, IV, 39, 47;
    -man, IV, 44–45.

  Coal, IV, 33–35, 48, 56, 85, 90, 132;
    heavers, II, 194;
    owners, IV, 34–35.

  Cobden, Richard, IV, 70.

  Code of a legislative body, III, 280–281.

  Codes of morals, two, I, 11.

  Coin, IV, 54;
    contracts, IV, 167.

  Coinage, IV, 173–177;
    Act of 1834, IV, 374;
    Act of 1873, IV, 165, 173–180;
    union, IV, 184, 191–193, 196, 197–198, 199, 209, 234–235.

  College education not desired, I, 357–358.

  College electives system, I, 361–362.

  College officers, I, 360–361.

  College, the, and national life, I, 360.

  =COLLEGES, OUR, BEFORE THE COUNTRY=, I, 355–373.

  Colonial anarchistic element, the, III, 323, 324–326, 328–331.

  Colonial class distinctions, III, 297.

  Colonial history of the United States, III, 248–253, 290–323.

  Colonial industrial organization, III, 294.

  Colonial lack of organization, III, 324–325.

  Colonial land tenure, III, 312.

  Colonial liberty, III, 317–322;
    a necessity, III, 318;
    restraint on, III, 318–319.

  Colonial office-seekers, IV, 286.

  Colonial period, review of the, III, 322–323.

  Colonial policies, I, 274.

  Colonial political liberty, III, 320–321.

  Colonial religious sympathy, III, 314, 315.

  Colonial social organization, III, 310–323.

  Colonial society of America, III, 290–323.

  Colonial system, the, I, 274–275, 278; II, 49–50, 53, 57, 60; IV, 12,
        59;
    of England, I, 275, 313, 315, 316, 317; III, 323;
    of Spain, I, 306–310, 318, 319.

  Colonial towns, III, 313–315, 318–319.

  Colonial wars with the French and Indians, III, 250, 251.

  Colonies, the American, I, 274–276; III, 248–253, 290–323; IV, 285,
        288;
    independence of, I, 275–276;
    slavery in, III, 250, 298, 301–304;
    not pure democracies, III, 297–298;
    political equality in, III, 249–250;
    political institutions of, III, 249.

  Colonies, the burden of, II, 51–52.

  Colonies, the Spanish-American, I, 276, 306; II, 57–58.

  Colonists, I, 273–274, 275; II, 47–48;
    early American, II, 238; III, 291–292;
    character of the American, III, 319–320;
    liberty of the American, III, 317–322.

  Colonization, I, 272–275;
    of Africa, II, 42;
    of Australia, II, 42;
    the burden of, I, 292–293;
    the philosophy, of, II, 43–45.

  Combinations, IV, 99, 258–259.

  Comfort, II, 201–202; III, 123, 139, 170;
    material, IV, 239, 240;
    standard of, IV, 32, 47, 50, 76, 106.

  Commerce, IV, 66, 68, 76, 137, 214–215, 219;
    foreign, IV, 275, 276, 277–282;
    the regulation of, III, 323, 326.

  =COMMERCIAL CRISES, THE INFLUENCE OF, ON OPINIONS ABOUT ECONOMIC
        DOCTRINES=, IV, 213–235.

  =COMMERCIAL CRISIS OF 1837=, IV, 371–398.

  Commercial crisis, IV, 49.

  Commercial revolution, the, I, 141.

  Commercial treaty, IV, 64–69.

  Commercial war, IV, 95–96.

  _Commercium_ and _connubium_, I, 13.

  Committee, Congressional, IV, 22, 77.

  Committee legislation, III, 261, 281–282.

  Committees of Safety, IV, 286.

  Commodities, IV, 189, 192–193, 200.

  Common aims, convictions, and principles, III, 357–359.

  Common school system, the, III, 357; IV, 416.

  Communalism, II, 261.

  Communication, improvements in, I, 187–189; III, 85.

  Communism, III, 47–48.

  Competent management, III, 81–90.

  Competition, II, 133, 135, 210; III, 67–68, 177, 179; IV, 75, 79, 88,
        95, 99;
    and combination, I, 8;
    and war, I, 9–10, 14;
    of life, I, 9, 176–177, 178, 184; II, 79, 82; III, 25, 26, 30.

  Comte, Auguste, III, 208.

  Concubines, I, 47, 67, 68, 69, 75, 85, 91.

  =CONCURRENT CIRCULATION OF GOLD AND SILVER=, IV, 183–210.

  Confiscation, III, 76.

  Congo, IV, 67.

  Congress, III, 178, 187, 275; IV, 22, 25, 27–29, 35, 43, 49, 65, 68,
        94, 96, 136, 173–174, 175, 285, 329, 330, 342, 358, 359–360,
        383, 385.

  Congressional election, III, 272–273.

  _Congressional Globe_, II, 307.

  _Congressional Record_, II, 287.

  Conjuncture, III, 141;
    of the market, I, 200–201; III, 121–122.

  Connecticut, III, 314–315; IV, 37, 72, 86.

  _Connubium_, I, 13, 17.

  Consequences, II, 67–69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75; III, 46, 193, 198;
    and motives, I, 15.

  =CONSEQUENCES OF INCREASED SOCIAL POWER=, III, 153–158.

  =CONSEQUENCES, PURPOSES AND=, II, 67–75.

  Conservatism, III, 207–208, 286; IV, 366.

  Consolidation, III, 316.

  Constitution of the United States, I, 310, 311, 313, 314, 315; II,
        333; III, 251, 252–255, 306–307, 325–326, 329, 396–397; IV,
        289, 291, 292, 297, 304, 319, 320, 331–332, 344, 348–349, 360,
        367;
    and democracy, III, 334–336.

  Constitutional Convention of 1787, III, 332.

  Constitutional government, I, 163.

  Constitutional liberty, IV, 258.

  Constitutional monarchies, III, 225–226.

  Constitutional question, the, I, 313–314.

  Constitutional republic, IV, 290, 296, 331.

  Constitutionalism, IV, 349, 363, 365.

  Constitution-makers, the, III, 140, 251–255, 256, 306–307, 325–326,
        334.

  Constitutions, III, 140.

  Consuls, IV, 78.

  Consumer, IV, 21, 33–34, 82, 101, 104.

  Consuming industries, IV, 38–39.

  Consumption, IV, 465.

  Content, IV, 239.

  Contingent interest, III, 196–197.

  Contract, I, 233–234; II, 152, 185–186; III, 101, 196, 197;
    free, I, 226, 234; IV, 143, 152, 252.

  Contracts, the obligation of, III, 326.

  Convention, Home Industry, IV, 57;
    Woolgrowers’, IV, 34.

  Convict-labor, II, 102;
    laws, III, 188–189.

  Coöperation, II, 284, 285, 319; III, 41–42.

  =COÖPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH, THE=, IV, 441–462.

  Copper, IV, 35, 42, 96, 207.

  Copyrights, II, 246–247.

  Corn laws, IV, 76.

  Corner, IV, 197–198, 200.

  Cosmopolitanism, IV, 66.

  Cotton, IV, 33, 36, 47, 55, 85, 97, 374, 378, 382, 385, 386, 387.

  Country and town, I, 155–157.

  Courtesans, I, 76, 90, 91, 94.

  Crawford, William H, IV, 303–304, 308, 339–340, 347, 355.

  Credit, IV, 109, 177–178, 220, 376, 396;
    system, IV, 96, 383, 395–396.

  Creditor, IV, 143–144, 166–167, 175–176, 190, 191, 192–193.

  Crèvecœur, St. Jean de, III, 297.

  Crime of ’73, the, IV, 170.

  Criminals, I, 260; II, 102; III, 358; IV, 483–485.

  Crises, I, 200; IV, 213–235.

  Crisis, IV, 150–151;
    commercial, IV, 49, 371–398;
    of 1873, IV, 223;
    of 1893, IV, 150.

  Critical temper, the, II, 26–27.

  Criticism, the need of, II, 21, 22–24, 28.

  Crown, the, II, 312–313.

  Crusades, the, I, 33; II, 19.

  Crusoe, Robinson, used as an illustration, II, 237.

  Cuba, I, 290–291, 299; II, 55–57; IV, 53, 64;
    the acquisition of, I, 342.

  Cult-group and the peace-group, I, 24–26.

  Cultivation, margin of, IV, 87.

  Culture, IV, 425–426, 429, 433.

  Cunningham, IV, 84, 97, 100.

  Currency, IV, 141, 157–162, 173, 176, 397;
    depreciated, IV, 190, 191;
    inflation of the, IV, 175, 396;
    question, IV, 330.

  Custom, customs, I, 129, 135; IV, 189–190.


  Dalzell, John, II, 328; 136.

  Danton, Georges Jacques, II, 122.

  Death, II, 228, 231, 312; III, 30, 38.

  Debt, IV, 109, 177–178, 390;
    of war of 1812, IV, 372;
    “slavery” of, II, 136, 145.

  =DEBTORS, THE DELUSION OF THE=, IV, 165–170.

  Debtors, IV, 143–144, 166–170, 175–176, 190, 191, 192–193, 194, 200,
        466.

  Decade 1830–1840, IV, 371.

  Declaration of Independence, the, I, 162; III, 158, 252, 302, 306.

  Deductive method, the, III, 401.

  Definitions, Fundamental, III, 246–247.

  “Degradation of mankind,” the, III, 148–150.

  Delusions, II, 233;
    Revolutionary, III, 329–331.

  Demagogues, III, 277.

  Demand, II, 225; III, 97–98, 119, 121; IV, 70, 141, 196, 198, 201,
        204, 214, 251, 252;
    economic, III, 114.

  “Demand for labor,” the, III, 115.

  Demand for men, the, II, 31–32; III, 111–116, 119–123, 132, 140–141,
        145, 154, 157, 171.

  =DEMAND FOR MEN, THE=, III, 111–116.

  =DEMAND FOR MEN, THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE=, III, 119–123.

  Democracies, III, 223–225, 226.

  Democracy, I, 26–27, 151, 159–160, 183, 203–208, 302, 303–305; II,
        42, 43, 289, 306–311, 313–317; III, 82–83, 94, 132, 140,
        211–212, 226, 256, 264–275; IV, 71, 258, 280–290, 291, 292,
        300, 306, 332, 349, 352, 357, 363, 364, 365;
    and the Constitution, III, 334–336;
    and imperialism, I, 322, 325, 326;
    and militarism, the antagonism of, I, 322–323;
    and organization, III, 266–267;
    and plutocracy, I, 160, 204, 325–326; II, 299–300, 329;
    and Wealth, III, 274–275;
    checks on, III, 334–335;
    dangers to, II, 304–305;
    definition of, II, 290, 293; III, 302–303, 305;
    degenerate form of, III, 305–306;
    delegate of a, III, 260–261;
    dogmas of, III, 305–306;
    dogmatic, III, 308;
    fear of, III, 306–307, 334;
    Greek, III, 303;
    inevitable here, III, 249–250, 273–274, 286, 296, 304, 338–339;
    Jacksonian, IV, 363;
    Jeffersonian, II, 306–307;
    nature of, in the United States, I, 324–325;
    Needed, III, 273–274;
    Pure, III, 256–257;
    Pure, in Cities, III, 257–259;
    Popular, Lingering Evils of, III, 262–263;
    representative, III, 260–275;
    representative, the weaknesses of, III, 270–271;
    the new, I, 220–223;
    town, III, 256–260, 262, 266, 267;
    untried, I, 204–206;
    weakness of, II, 299–300, 309.

  =DEMOCRACY, SOCIAL WAR IN=, II, 312–317.

  =DEMOCRACY, THE CONFLICT OF PLUTOCRACY AND=, II, 296–300.

  =DEMOCRACY AND MODERN PROBLEMS=, II, 301–305.

  =DEMOCRACY AND PLUTOCRACY=, II, 283–289.

  =DEMOCRACY AND PLUTOCRACY, DEFINITIONS OF=, II, 290–295.

  =DEMOCRACY AND RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT=, III, 243–286.

  “Democracy of industry,” the, II, 323.

  Democratic absolutism, III, 305.

  Democratic-aristocracy, III, 303–304.

  Democratic Fears, III, 261–262.

  Democratic party, the, I, 160; IV, 312, 313, 316, 318, 319, 320, 321,
        322–323, 363.

  Democratic republic, IV, 330;
    nature of a, II, 301–302, 303, 305, 308.

  Democratic temper here, III, 335–336.

  Democratic tide, IV, 321–322.

  Democrats, IV, 297, 317, 319.

  Demonetization, IV, 176.

  Demonism, II, 21, 22.

  _Demos_, the, II, 290–291, 293.

  Dependencies, I, 316–317, 345;
    the United States and, I, 310, 311–312, 317–319.

  Depreciation, IV, 179.

  Destiny, I, 341–342; II, 364;
    “manifest,” I, 341, 342; II, 54.

  Device, IV, 11–12, 15, 16, 21, 24, 25, 64–65, 73, 79.

  Dexter, Samuel, IV, 295.

  Digger Indians, the, III, 40.

  Dignity of capital, the, II, 297–298.

  “Dignity of labor,” the, II, 189, 297.

  _Dilettanti_, I, 170, 225–226.

  Diminishing returns, the law of, I, 175–176.

  Dio Chrysostom, II, 114.

  Diplomacy, III, 358; IV, 66–67, 68–69.

  Discipline, II, 144, 250, 251, 301, 302; III, 336, 337; IV, 98–99,
        409, 417, 426, 428, 431, 433–438;
    and liberty, II, 170–171, 200;
    and war, I, 14, 15;
    military, I, 30;
    school, I, 368;
    the need of, II, 170–171.

  =DISCIPLINE=, IV, 423–438.

  =DISCIPLINE, LIBERTY AND=, II, 166–171.

  Discontent, IV, 149, 241;
    and prosperity, II, 337–338.

  Discoveries, the great, I, 203, 209; II, 35,163, 228–229; IV, 402.

  Disease, II, 228, 231, 312; III, 30, 38; IV, 465;
    industrial, IV, 96, 219–220;
    social, I, 171–172; II, 275.

  Distress, IV, 26, 149, 153, 221.

  Distributive justice, II, 89.

  Dividends, IV, 87, 90.

  Division of departments, III, 283.

  Divorce, I, 68, 69, 77–78, 79, 86, 93; III, 410.

  Doctrine, quantity, IV, 141.

  Doctrine, The Monroe, I, 36, 38–39, 271, 276, 278, 280, 333; II, 58,
        59–60, 333.

  Doctrine of balance of power, I, 274, 278; II, 59.

  Doctrine of equality, I, 309–310; II, 224; III, 262–263, 274.

  Doctrine of life necessity, I, 339–344.

  Doctrine of “manifest destiny,” I, 341.

  Doctrine of popularity, IV, 314.

  Doctrine of rotation in office, IV, 326–327, 352.

  Doctrines, I, 36–39, 275; II, 58–59;
    the cost of, I, 279;
    Revolutionary, III, 328;
    socialistic, III, 34, 41, 42, 44–45.

  Dogma, I, 132, 133, 134, 221; II, 118; IV, 11–12, 15, 19, 30, 298;
    that “all men are equal,” II, 88, 102, 362–363; III, 302–303.

  Dogmas, I, 161–163, 164; II, 250, 271, 291–293, 341–344;
    eighteenth century, II, 339; IV, 11;
    of democracy, III, 305–306;
    political, III, 193–194, 258;
    religious, I, 129–130;
    social, III, 193–194.

  Dogmatic method, the, III, 401.

  Dogmatism, III, 37, 245–246;
    political, II, 23; III, 252–253;
    in sociology, III, 418–419;
    social, III, 33–34.

  Dogmatizing, II, 259–260.

  Dollars, IV, 37–38, 50, 142, 143, 157–158.

  Domestication of animals, II, 244.

  Double standard, IV, 183.

  Dower, I, 58.

  Dowry, I, 68, 70, 86, 93.

  Drunkard, I, 252; IV, 479–480.

  Dry Dock Bank, IV, 380.

  =DUAL ORGANIZATION OF MANKIND, THE PROPOSED=, I, 271–281.

  Dual world-system, the, I, 276, 277, 278; II, 60–62.

  Duane, W. J., IV, 298, 305, 359.

  Duel, the, I, 19.

  Dutch, the, IV, 278;
    in New York, III, 320.

  Duties, I, 257, 258, 259; III, 193–194;
    and rights, I, 257–258; III, 193, 197–198, 224;
    and rights, equilibrium of, II, 126–127, 128–129, 165;
    and rights of parents and children, II, 95–102;
    and rights, political, III, 224;
    and servitude, II, 126;
    religious, I, 136.

  Duty, I, 150; IV, 365;
    war for, III, 362.


  Earth hunger, II, 31–64;
    and the masses, II, 39;
    economic, II, 46–47;
    economic and political contrasted, II, 63;
    political, II, 64;
    political, definition of, II, 46;
    political, of the United States, II, 50–51, 53.

  =EARTH HUNGER OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF LAND GRABBING=, II, 31–64.

  Economic and family systems, II, 34–35.

  Economic demand, III, 114.

  Economic development, II, 322–323.

  Economic doctrine, IV, 213.

  Economic earth hunger, II, 46–47;
    contrasted with political, II, 63.

  Economic facts, II, 162.

  Economic forces, I, 205; II, 314–315; III, 28–30; IV, 215–217;
    not self-correcting, III, 28–29.

  Economic jurisdiction, II, 52.

  Economic laws, III, 98; IV, 186–189, 195, 209, 213, 217.

  Economic mysticism, IV, 119.

  Economic optimism, II, 318–319, 324, 332.

  Economic power, II, 318.

  Economics, IV, 186–189, 196;
    and industry, II, 321.

  =ECONOMICS AND POLITICS=, II, 318–333.

  _Economist_, IV, 60, 64, 65, 105, 110.

  Economist, duty of the, III, 399.

  Economists, IV, 213, 224–225, 249, 250;
    historical, IV, 100;
    sentimental, III, 48.

  Economy, III, 86;
    political, I, 180–183; III, 395, 398–400, 418.

  Edmunds, Senator, III, 180.

  Education, II, 72, 144, 177–178, 255, 256, 265, 348; III, 42,
        397–398; IV, 71, 409–419, 423–438;
    and marriage, II, 94–95;
    change in the character of, I, 360, 362, 371–373;
    classical, I, 358–360, 362–370, 372–373;
    family, II, 255, 256, 265; III, 18;
    mandarinism in, I, 356;
    primary, I, 355–356;
    relation of primary to secondary, I, 355–356.

  =EDUCATION, INTEGRITY IN=, IV, 409–419.

  “Educators,” IV, 410–411.

  Egypt, II, 55;
    slavery in, III, 146;
    status of women in, I, 81–85.

  Egyptian civilization, III, 146–147.

  Eighteenth century, IV, 11;
    dogmas, II, 339;
    notion of liberty, II, 131;
    notion of rights, II, 222–223;
    philosophy, III, 87;
    wars, I, 320; II, 60.

  Election, Congressional, III, 272–273.

  Election, presidential, III, 253–254, 272–273, 335;
    of 1824, IV, 347–348.

  Elections, I, 235–236; III, 226, 227–229, 230–238;
    the theory of, III, 230–234.

  Electives system, the, I, 361–362.

  Elector of Saxony, IV, 265–267.

  Electoral college, III, 253, 307, 335; IV, 348, 357.

  Electricity, II, 318.

  Eleemosynary institutions, III, 56.

  Element of risk, the, II, 184–185; IV, 268.

  Element, the aleatory, I, 116, 119–120.

  “Elevating” inferior races, III, 148.

  _Elite_, the, II, 341, 362.

  Elliott, IV, 366.

  Ellsworth, IV, 360.

  =EMANCIPATES, WHAT=, III, 137–142.

  Emancipation, II, 187; III, 138–139; IV, 18;
    of the serfs, II, 117–118, 175–176.

  Embryonic society, III, 290.

  Emigration, I, 175; III, 22, 23; IV, 12, 16, 52, 59.

  Employees, III, 196;
    class of, lacking, III, 293–294, 295;
    organization of, III, 100.

  Employer, III, 196; IV, 44, 45, 46, 52, 73, 75, 78, 249–251, 486;
    class lacking, III, 293–294, 295;
    and employee, III, 93, 97, 99, 101–102; IV, 481–482.

  Employment, IV, 35, 241–242.

  Encyclopædia of Political Science, III, 395, 402.

  Endogamy, I, 75, 76, 77.

  Energy, conservation of, IV, 23;
    individual, II, 133–135, 308;
    political, II, 295;
    vital, III, 96–97.

  England, I, 153, 293, 303, 313, 316, 317; II, 53, 313, 321; IV, 21,
        47, 53, 55, 57, 60, 64, 65, 75, 76, 78, 97, 105, 117, 153, 170,
        224, 234, 281, 346, 350, 371, 378, 379, 482, 489;
    and the American colonies, III, 323–324, 326–328;
    as a colonizer, II, 47, 49, 52;
    jobbery in, I, 262;
    the colonial system of, I, 275, 313, 315, 316, 317; III, 323;
    the civilizing mission of, I, 303.

  English Constitution, the, III, 251–252, 284; IV, 294.

  English traditions, III, 297.

  Enjoyment, impatience for, III, 36.

  Entail, III, 126.

  Enterprise, large scale, III, 81–82, 85–86.

  Enterprises, joint-stock, III, 82–83.

  Environment, artificial, II, 251;
    societal, I, 129, 130, 143; III, 309–310.

  Equal Rights Party, IV, 313–314, 365.

  =EQUALITY=, II, 87–89.

  Equality, II, 123; III, 40, 44–45, 56–59, 157–158, 193, 224, 226–227,
        295, 296–298, 302–304; IV, 290, 291–292, 300, 321, 322, 323,
        365–366, 481;
    and progress, III, 299;
    before the law, II, 224; III, 44–45; IV, 473–474;
    political, III, 249–250, 303–304;
    social, III, 304;
    the doctrine of, I, 309–310; II, 88, 102, 224, 362–363; III,
        262–263, 274, 302–303;
    the thirst for, II, 87, 88–89, 331–332.

  Equilibrium of rights and duties, II, 126–127, 128–129, 165.

  Era of good feeling, IV, 302, 339.

  Erie Canal, IV, 306, 345.

  Eskimo, the, I, 10, 11–12, 44.

  _Esprit de corps_, III, 280.

  Ethical energy, III, 202–204.

  Ethical person, the state as an, I, 221; II, 309.

  =“ETHICAL PERSON,” THE STATE AS AN=, III, 201–204.

  Ethical principles, III, 193.

  Ethical questions, II, 322–323.

  Ethics, I, 195–196; II, 68, 70, 74; III, 95, 98.

  Ethnocentrism, I, 12, 24–25.

  Ethnography, III, 408, 411.

  Europe, IV, 73, 78;
    movement of population from, I, 272–274; II, 45.

  European history contrasted with American, II, 292–293, 307.

  Everett, Edward, IV, 360.

  Evolution, IV, 404–405;
    societal, III, 82.

  Ewing, Secretary, IV, 352.

  Exact sciences, the, III, 410.

  Exchange, II, 285–286.

  Excise taxes, III, 327; IV, 21, 60.

  Executive, the, III, 282–286;
    democracy’s fear of, III, 261–262;
    initiating legislation, III, 284–285.

  Executive ability, III, 173; IV, 78.

  Executive officers, III, 261–262.

  Existence, the right to an, II, 225–227;
    the struggle for, I, 8, 9, 164, 173, 176–177; II, 226, 347; III,
        17–18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 30–31, 57, 58, 120–121, 122–123; IV, 79,
        257;
    worthy of a human being, II, 212–216.

  Expansion, I, 337–339;
    and plutocracy, I, 325–326;
    business, I, 338;
    municipal, I, 338–339;
    territorial, I, 337, 339.

  Expansionism, I, 297.

  Experience, IV, 332.

  Exports, IV, 89, 97;
    bounties on, IV, 12;
    taxes on, IV, 12, 15–16.

  Extension, territorial, I, 285–286, 337, 339; II, 57;
    the burdens of, I, 292–293.

  =EXTENSION, THE FALLACY OF TERRITORIAL=, I, 285–293.


  Faction struggles, IV, 302–303.

  Factory, IV, 38;
    acts for women and children, IV, 481;
    labor, II, 192–193.

  Facts, III, 87, 408, 410–411;
    economic, II, 162.

  =FACTS, THE CHALLENGE OF=, III, 17–52.

  Fallacies, III, 27, 28;
    silver, IV, 141–145.

  =FALLACIES, SOCIOLOGICAL=, II, 357–364.

  Family, the, II, 93; III, 18, 203–204;
    and economic systems, II, 34–35;
    and property, II, 254, 258;
    and social change, I, 61;
    and the school, I, 61;
    an institution, I, 43;
    Christian, I, 52;
    education, II, 255, 256, 265; III, 18;
    father-, I, 47–52, 69, 80, 82, 88;
    modern, I, 60–61;
    monogamic, II, 254–258, 264–266; III, 24;
    mother-, I, 47–50, 69, 81–82, 88;
    primitive, I, 43–44, 46–47; II, 260–261, 262, 263–264;
    Roman, I, 56–60;
    sentiment, II, 256–257, 266–268; III, 19–20;
    state regulation of, II, 93–94, 103–104.

  =FAMILY, THE, AND PROPERTY=, II, 259–269.

  =FAMILY, THE, AND SOCIAL CHANGE=, I, 43–61.

  =FAMILY MONOPOLY, THE=, II, 254–258.

  Family of nations, the, II, 62–63.

  Farm, farming, IV, 41, 47, 73.

  Farmer, IV, 151, 161–162, 168, 275, 276;
    mortgagors, IV, 168–169.

  Father-family, the, I, 47–52, 69, 80, 82, 88;
    position of woman in, I, 51.

  Favoritism, IV, 485.

  Fear, I, 14, 130.

  Federal legislation, III, 316;
    on railroads, III, 177–182.

  =FEDERAL LEGISLATION ON RAILROADS=, III, 177–182.

  Federal party, the, III, 328–329.

  Federal political system, IV, 331.

  Federalists, the, III, 307, 329, 332, 342; IV, 289, 291, 292, 293,
        296–297, 302, 305, 315, 322, 343.

  Feudal period, the, II, 190–191.

  Feudal system, the, II, 312–313.

  Feudalism, I, 143, 215; III, 299–300.

  Filipinos, the, I, 301, 304–305, 328.

  Filmer, Sir Robert, II, 161, 165.

  Financial institutions, IV, 166–167.

  Financial organization, IV, 220.

  Fire, IV, 47, 56;
    -engine, IV, 57.

  Fittest, survival of the, III, 25, 423; IV, 225.

  Florida, the acquisition of, I, 341.

  Fluctuations, IV, 192–193, 201, 203, 204, 221.

  Folkways, I, 149, 150, 151.

  Foraker, Senator, I, 301.

  Force and rights, II, 82.

  Forces, I, 209–210; IV, 216;
    economic, I, 205; II, 314–315; III, 28–30; IV, 215–217;
    moral, III, 29–30, 201–202, 352–353;
    natural, I, 199, 209–210;
    of disruption, III, 315–317;
    social, I, 226, 242; II, 312; III, 76, 137, 140, 142; IV, 216,
        250–251.

  Foreign affairs, I, 276–277; II, 60–61;
    policy, IV, 66–67;
    trade, IV, 119.

  Foreigners, III, 303; IV, 21, 22, 65, 102, 103, 108–109, 132.

  Forgotten man, the, I, 247–253, 257–268; IV, 466, 469, 471, 476, 479,
        480, 482–483, 485, 486, 487, 491–494;
    burdens laid on, I, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 259–260, 264,
        267–268;
    character of the, I, 249, 264, 266–267; IV, 476, 491–492.

  =FORGOTTEN MAN, THE=, IV, 465–495.

  =(FORGOTTEN MAN) ON THE CASE OF A CERTAIN MAN WHO IS NEVER THOUGHT
        OF=, I, 247–253.

  =FORGOTTEN MAN, THE CASE OF THE, FURTHER CONSIDERED=, I, 257–268.

  Forgotten woman, the, I, 264–266; IV, 492–493.

  Fortune, II, 345–346; III, 56–57, 68;
    -hunters, I, 273–274.

  France, I, 235, 303, 322–323; II, 313; III, 226; IV, 48, 53, 58, 59,
        97, 192, 197, 198, 224, 233–234, 365, 371;
    as a colonizer, II, 52;
    civilizing mission of, I, 303;
    witchcraft in, I, 117–118.

  Franchises, II, 319–320, 321; III, 88.

  Franco-Prussian War, IV, 224.

  Franklin, Benjamin, I, 292, 313; II, 56.

  =FREE, WHO IS? IS IT THE CIVILIZED MAN?=, II, 140–145.

  =FREE, WHO IS? IS IT THE MILLIONAIRE?=, II, 145–150.

  =FREE, WHO IS? IS IT THE SAVAGE?=, II, 136–140.

  =FREE, WHO IS? IS IT THE TRAMP?=, II, 150–155.

  =FREE-COINAGE SCHEME IS IMPRACTICABLE AT EVERY POINT=, IV, 157–162.

  Free contract, I, 226, 234; IV, 474.

  Free soil, IV, 17–18, 110.

  Free Soil Party, IV, 321.

  Free trade, I, 289–290, 291, 318, 319, 321, 322; II, 109–110, 111;
        III, 378; IV, 16, 17–18, 19, 20, 26, 47, 48–49, 83, 90, 94, 95,
        109–110, 123–127, 282, 312, 318;
    definition of, IV, 17, 20;
    with Canada, II, 51.

  =FREE TRADE, WHAT IS?=, IV, 123–127.

  Free trader, the, IV, 126–127.

  Freedom, II, 209, 220; III, 157–158; IV, 281–282;
    of movement, limitations on the, II, 239;
    of the press, II, 273, 274.

  Free-will, II, 200–201, 203.

  Freight rates, II, 327, 330–331.

  French, the, I, 153;
    in Canada, III, 320–321;
    wars with the colonists, III, 250, 251.

  French Revolution, the, III, 58, 60, 73; IV, 291.

  Freneau, IV, 298.

  Friends of humanity, the, I, 248, 250; III, 416, 417.

  Frontier, the, III, 331;
    states, III, 332.

  Fructifying causation, IV, 219.

  Fuegians, the, II, 357–358.

  Fugitive Slave Law, the, IV, 320.

  Fur industry, the, II, 242.

  Future, the, III, 275–277;
    of the United States, I, 350–351.


  Gains and penalties, II, 180–181.

  Galton, Francis, I, 135; II, 24.

  Gambling, IV, 480;
    -houses, IV, 100.

  Game, the supply of, II, 241–242.

  Garment workers, III, 55, 60.

  Gas supply a natural monopoly, II, 246.

  Generalizations, II, 271; III, 137–138; IV, 467.

  George, Henry, III, 165, 208.

  German school of sociology, III, 418.

  Germany, I, 152–153, 156, 201, 217, 232–233, 293, 304; II, 49,
        302–303, 313; III, 48; IV, 48, 57, 59, 60–61, 78, 97, 224, 233;
    as a colonizer, II, 51–52;
    bureaucracy in, II, 302; IV, 481;
    militarism in, I, 323;
    the civilizing mission of, I, 304;
    the industry and discipline of, I, 15–16;
    witchcraft in, I, 106, 107, 112, 116.

  Ghost-sanction, I, 11.

  Gibson, Randall, III, 378.

  Giddings, Professor, I, 153; II, 27.

  Girard, Stephen, III, 83.

  Girard Bank, IV, 392.

  Glory, IV, 426, 427;
    “the pest of,” I, 292, 313; II, 50;
    war for, I, 14; III, 362.

  God, the peace of, I, 21;
    the Truce of, I, 21.

  Gold, IV, 85, 141, 144–145, 152, 179–180, 183–186, 189, 192, 198,
        201–202, 203, 206–209, 234, 235;
    scramble for, IV, 177;
    standard, IV, 150, 153, 157, 179.

  =GOLD, PROSPERITY STRANGLED BY=, IV, 141–145.

  =GOLD AND SILVER, A CONCURRENT CIRCULATION OF=, IV, 183–210.

  “Golden age,” the, II, 219.

  Good-for-nothing, the, IV, 476–477, 493.

  “Goods,” II, 178.

  Gouge, IV, 392.

  Governing states, the character of, I, 346.

  Government, III, 223–240, 243–286; IV, 126–127, 230–231, 325–326;
    by interests, III, 228;
    constitutional, I, 163;
    development of, III, 392–393;
    good, IV, 31;
    Jeffersonian ideas of, IV, 344;
    party, III, 393–394;
    republican form of, III, 223–240;
    Responsible, III, 280–281;
    self-, I, 300, 301, 302–303, 312, 349–350; III, 226–227, 229–230,
        238, 285;
    “stable,” I, 350;
    the “best,” system of, III, 244–245.

  =GOVERNMENT, DEMOCRACY AND RESPONSIBLE=, III, 243–286.

  =GOVERNMENT, REPUBLICAN=, III, 223–240.

  Graft, IV, 134–135, 136.

  Grant, General, IV, 35.

  Great fortunes, I, 199, 201–203.

  “Great principles,” I, 161–163, 326–329; II, 58; III, 245–246;
    Falsely So Called, III, 245–246.

  Greece, II, 37;
    slavery in, III, 303;
    status of women in, I, 85–102.

  Greed, III, 423–424.

  Greek democracy, III, 303.

  Greeks, the, I, 25.

  Greeley, Horace, IV, 86.

  Green-backers, the, I, 169.

  Greenbacks, greenbackism, IV, 175.

  Gregory the Great, II, 116.

  Grotius, Hugo, I, 162.

  Group life and the struggle for existence, I, 8.

  Group sentiment and war, I, 9.

  Groups and the competition of life, I, 10.

  Guerard, II, 174.

  Guest rights, I, 10–11, 17–18.

  Guild, the, I, 215–216; IV, 258, 262.

  Gunpowder, IV, 54;
    the invention of, I, 30; III, 153.


  Half-culture, II, 10–11.

  Hamilton, Alexander, III, 223, 226, 307, 328; IV, 80, 295, 296.

  Hammer of Witches, the, I, 106–109, 112.

  Hammurabi, status of women in the laws of, I, 67–69, 71.

  Hampden, IV, 366.

  Hancock, W. S., IV, 9.

  Happiness, III, 146, 147; IV, 468;
    individual, IV, 239;
    right to the pursuit of, II, 234.

  Hard times, IV, 9–10, 109, 111, 149–151, 152, 168, 230.

  =HARD TIMES, CAUSE AND CURE OF=, IV, 149–153.

  Hardships of life, III, 74–75.

  Harrison, W. H., IV, 316.

  Hat-man, the, IV, 44–45.

  Hawaii, II, 53;
    the admission of, I, 288–289.

  Hayes, Governor, III, 368–369, 371–372, 375–376, 379.

  Hayti, I, 312.

  Heretics, I, 308–309.

  Hermann, Briggs & Co., IV, 378.

  Herodotus, I, 82.

  Heroism, IV, 427.

  Hierocracy, definition of, II, 290.

  “High politics,” II, 56.

  Hindus, the, I, 66–67.

  History, I, 371; II, 20, 26; III, 401, 411; IV, 216, 338, 432;
    American and European contrasted, III, 292–293, 307;
    American colonial, III, 248–253, 290–323;
    the appeal to, II, 118, 120;
    the study of, III, 137, 141;
    the task of, IV, 331.

  Hobbes, Thomas, I, 115.

  Hod-carriers, II, 194–195, 360.

  Homer, status of women in, I, 85–87.

  Homogeneous institutions, III, 355–356.

  Homogeneous population, III, 354–355.

  Honduras, IV, 53.

  Honesty, IV, 413.

  Honor, IV, 437.

  Hottentots, the, II, 214; III, 303.

  Hottinguer, IV, 387, 388.

  House of Have, the, III, 165.

  House of Representatives, the, II, 327–328; IV, 304, 348, 360.

  House of Want, the, III, 165.

  House-peace, the, I, 16–17, 21.

  Hugo, Victor, IV, 483.

  Human error, II, 230.

  Human nature, II, 230–231;
    the vices of, III, 233–234;
    the weaknesses of, III, 69.

  Humanitarian propositions, II, 214–215.

  Humanitarianism, I, 29, 139, 146, 163; IV, 475, 476.

  Humboldt, Alexander von, III, 40.

  Hunger, I, 14, 130.

  Huxley, Thomas Henry, III, 29.

  Hysteria, I, 108, 119–120.


  Ideals, II, 73–74, 187–188, 202, 210, 322; III, 215, 245; IV, 11–12,
        13, 49;
    faith in, II, 25–26;
    not causes, III, 127.

  “Ideas, the power of,” II, 74.

  Ignorance, II, 229.

  Illinois, II, 44; IV, 55;
    Bureau of Labor Statistics, III, 188–189.

  Immigrants, III, 355.

  Immigration, I, 279–280; II, 61, 62; III, 116; IV, 50, 78, 88, 89,
        321, 345.

  Imperialism, I, 297, 312–313, 314, 348, 350;
    a philosophy, I, 346;
    and democracy, I, 322, 325, 326;
    and plutocracy, I, 325–326;
    and Spain, I, 297;
    and the United States, I, 291, 345–346.

  _Imperium_, II, 307.

  Imports, IV, 12, 16, 21;
    taxes on, IV, 20, 28–29.

  Improvement by change, the false hope of, III, 245.

  Improvements, IV, 70, 96, 133, 214, 222, 226–227, 345;
    cost of, IV, 221;
    internal, IV, 306, 346, 390, 391, 395, 488.

  Increment, the unearned, II, 244; III, 312.

  India, IV, 24;
    status of women in, I, 72–75.

  Individual, the, III, 111–112;
    and civil liberty, II, 168–169;
    productive power of, III, 145.

  Individual effort, II, 216, 230.

  Individual energy, II, 133–135, 308.

  Individual happiness, IV, 239.

  Individual interest, conflict of, with the social interest, I, 218.

  Individual liberty, I, 219–220, 223; II, 198, 199, 202;
    relation of, to civil liberty, II, 169–170.

  Individual questions, III, 95–96.

  Individualism, I, 218–219, 225, 226; II, 127–128, 257, 308–309; III,
        17.

  Individualization, I, 178–179.

  Inductive method, the, III, 401.

  Industrial atmosphere, II, 359.

  Industrial changes, I, 239–241.

  Industrial classes, II, 191; III, 36.

  Industrial disease, IV, 96, 219–220.

  Industrial honor, II, 33–34.

  Industrial liberty, I, 233, 234, 236; II, 331–332.

  Industrial organization, I, 155; II, 319–321; III, 82–83;
    advancing, I, 196–199;
    of the American colonies, III, 294.

  =INDUSTRIAL PEACE, DO WE WANT?=, I, 229–243.

  Industrial power, III, 148, 154.

  Industrial problems, writers on, I, 236–238.

  Industrial revolution, the, I, 141; II, 42.

  Industrial society, III, 66, 321–322;
    contrasted with the militant type, I, 28.

  Industrial struggle, II, 286–287.

  Industrial system, the, III, 55–56, 59, 61, 62; IV, 214–215, 217–219,
        222, 223, 228, 250, 259–260.

  Industrial victories, III, 130–132.

  Industrial virtues, the, II, 345–346; III, 51–52, 201–202, 297.

  Industrial war, I, 225, 232, 234–235, 237, 239, 241, 243; III,
        98–102; IV, 246, 261;
    and liberty, I, 234, 236.

  =INDUSTRIAL WAR=, III, 93–102.

  Industrialism, I, 13, 208;
    conflict of, with militarism, I, 323–324, 348; II, 190–191; III,
        300–301;
    definition of, I, 348.

  Industry, II, 320–333; IV, 21, 35–40, 60, 64, 90–92, 133–134, 151,
        214–215, 218, 259–261;
    and capital, III, 41–42;
    and economics, II, 321;
    and legislation, III, 340;
    and militancy, I, 30;
    and politics, II, 321–333;
    and the state, I, 215; II, 300, 310;
    and talent, II, 323;
    captains of, I, 199–200, 201; II, 134, 297–298, 329–330, 331–332;
        III, 83, 84; IV, 99, 218;
    definition of, IV, 36;
    “democracy” of, II, 323;
    dependence of, on political action, II, 320–321;
    diversification of, IV, 85, 91;
    fur, II, 242;
    home, IV, 346;
    infant, IV, 80, 82;
    modern, II, 294; III, 85–86;
    protected, I, 263–264, 266; II, 320;
    regulation of, I, 216–217;
    women in, IV, 243.

  Inequalities of fortune, III, 88–90.

  Inequality, II, 88, 363; III, 24–25, 26–27, 31, 38–40, 68–69,
        297–298, 302–303.

  Infanticide, I, 151; III, 114.

  Inferiority, servitude with, II, 123.

  Inflation, IV, 175.

  Ingham, Samuel D., IV, 353.

  In-group, the, I, 9–13; II, 79–80, 82;
    as peace-group, I, 17;
    rights in, I, 11, 17; II, 79–80.

  Injustice, II, 152–153;
    social, I, 258, 261; II, 152–153.

  Inquisition, the, II, 21;
    and witchcraft I, 105–109.

  Inspectors, government, IV, 482.

  Institutes of Justinian, the, II, 115.

  Institution, conception of an, I, 43.

  Institutions, I, 209;
    eleemosynary, III, 56;
    homogeneous, III, 355–356;
    financial, IV, 166–167;
    political, II, 298–299, 332–333; III, 243–244, 247–248, 249, 253;
    popular, III, 276–277.

  Insurance, IV, 79.

  =INTEGRITY IN EDUCATION=, IV, 409–419.

  Intellectual work, II, 192–193.

  Intelligence in labor, II, 193–196.

  Interest, I, 218;
    contingent, III, 196–197;
    individual, I, 218;
    military, I, 30;
    party, II, 327–328;
    public, I, 234–235; III, 258–259, 260–261; IV, 232, 324–325;
    rate of, II, 349–351; IV, 52, 177–178;
    social, I, 218;
    specific, III, 196–197;
    the devil of, II, 353.

  Interests, I, 130, 154; II, 309, 314, 322, 323, 324, 326, 328–329,
        342, 343–344; III, 178, 180, 188, 196–197, 216, 228, 258; IV,
        137;
    conflict of, II, 323–325, 330–331;
    government by, III, 228;
    private, III, 258–259, 261;
    protected, IV, 136;
    struggle of, I, 222, 224;
    vested, IV, 117–118, 228.

  Interference, II, 126;
    political, II, 332;
    state, I, 213–226; II, 96, 98, 100, 270–279, 285–289, 328.

  =INTERFERENCE, STATE=, I, 213–226.

  International law, I, 20, 280–281; II, 62–63;
    origin of, I, 13.

  Interstate Commerce Commission, the, II, 277–278, 325–326; III,
        189–190, 218–219.

  Interstate Commerce Law, the, II, 275–279, 288, 300; III, 189–190,
        216–219, 316.

  Inventions, I, 203–209, 230, 241; II, 35, 163, 228–229; III, 141,
        153, 154; IV, 133, 214, 306, 345, 402;
    mechanical, III, 247;
    military, I, 30.

  Iowa, II, 44, 46; IV, 73.

  Ireland, II, 275; III, 28–29; IV, 24, 50, 282.

  Iron, IV, 33, 40–42, 43, 55, 77, 80, 90, 91–92, 132, 274, 275;
    Association, IV, 72.

  Iroquois, the, I, 47–50;
    League of, I, 23–24.

  Irredeemable paper, IV, 196.

  Irresponsibility, General, III, 271–272.

  Irresponsible power, III, 225, 264.

  Isolation, I, 326.

  Israelites, the, I, 133–134;
    war among, I, 9.

  =ISSUE, THE NEW SOCIAL=, III, 207–212.

  =ISSUE, THE PREDOMINANT=, I, 337–352.

  Italian republics, the, II, 314.

  Italy, I, 293;
    as a colonizer, II, 51–52;
    witchcraft in, I, 112, 117–118.


  Jackson, Andrew, III, 269; IV, 303, 304, 305, 308–309, 312, 313, 314,
        338, 340, 341–343, 347–348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, 354–355,
        356–359, 360–361, 362, 363, 365, 372, 373.

  =JACKSON, ANDREW, THE ADMINISTRATION OF=, IV, 337–367.

  Jacksonian democracy, IV, 363.

  Jacobinism, III, 305–306, 325, 334; IV, 292.

  Jacquerie, the, IV, 131.

  Jamestown settlement, the, II, 238; III, 291–292.

  Jandon, IV, 382, 386, 387, 388.

  Japan, II, 45, 55; IV, 54, 56, 92–93, 159.

  Jefferson, Thomas, III, 158, 302–303, 328, 335, 342; IV, 55, 296,
        298, 299, 300, 301, 343, 351, 358, 363.

  Jeffersonian democracy, II, 306–307; IV, 344.

  Jeffersonians, the, III, 328–329, 341–342; IV, 322.

  Jevons, IV, 196.

  Jews, the, I, 25;
    status of women among, I, 51–52, 76–81.

  Jobbery, I, 261–264; IV, 169–170, 488–491;
    definition of, I, 261–262;
    in England, I, 262;
    in the United States, I, 262–263; IV, 488–491.

  Joint-stock enterprises, III, 82–83.

  Joseph & Co., IV, 378.

  _Journal des Economistes_, IV, 58, 81.

  Judaism, I, 131.

  Judea, status of women in, I, 76–80.

  Judges, IV, 364.

  Judgment, Errors of Political, III, 243–244.

  Jural state, the modern, II, 127–128, 160.

  Jurisdiction, I, 286–290; II, 54–56;
    economic and political, contrasted, II, 52;
    over territory, I, 286–288, 289, 290; II, 54–56;
    the burdens of, I, 288–289; II, 54–56;
    the forced extension of, I, 290; II, 55.

  Justice, II, 208–209; III, 23–24, 98;
    abstract, II, 219;
    distributive, II, 89.

  “Justification of labor,” II, 181–182.

  Justification of the Revolutionary War, III, 324.

  Justinian, the Institutes of, II, 115.


  Karoly, II, 111, 114.

  Keller, Albert Galloway, =MEMORIAL ADDRESS= by, III, 440–450.

  Kelley, IV, 489.

  Kendall, Amos, IV, 359.

  Kin-group, the, I, 8.

  King Caucus, IV, 304, 339, 362.

  King Majority, IV, 367.

  King’s peace, the, I, 21–23;
    as law of the land, I, 22–23.

  Kinship and regulation of war, I, 19–20.

  Knights of Labor, the, II, 287.

  Knowledge, II, 10, 73, 177–178; III, 265–266.

  Knox, Henry, IV, 295.

  Koran, the doctors of the, III, 187.


  Labor, I, 186; II, 181–182, 344; III, 17, 20–21, 34–36, 171; IV, 19,
        21, 25, 37–38, 46–47, 49, 52, 55, 70–75, 96, 119, 123, 127,
        227–228, 262;
    and capital, redistribution of, I, 239–241;
    and dignity, II, 189;
    and property, II, 243–244;
    class, benefits to the, II, 40–42, 43;
    child, II, 100;
    convict, II, 102; III, 188–189;
    definition of, II, 182;
    demand for, III, 115;
    dignity of, II, 189, 297; IV, 242;
    disputes, III, 139;
    division of, II, 361;
    factory, II, 192–193;
    intelligence in, II, 193–196;
    “justification” of, II, 181–182;
    legislation on hours of, III, 35;
    literature, I, 236, 237, 238;
    manual, II, 225;
    market, III, 122; IV, 71;
    militant notions about, II, 189–191;
    not brutalizing, II, 192–193;
    organizations, III, 100, 139;
    pauper, IV, 42, 43, 46–47, 58, 75, 106;
    problem, the, II, 312;
    question, I, 229–230, 231; II, 228–229; III, 93–102, 122;
    right to the full product of, II, 224–226;
    -saving machinery, IV, 221, 226–227;
    thought to be degrading, II, 189–190.

  =LABOR, LIBERTY AND=, II, 181–187.

  =(LABOR) DOES LABOR BRUTALIZE?=, II, 187–193.

  Laborers, II, 40–42, 43; III, 156–157, 295;
    non-union, I, 251–252;
    position of, in the United States, I, 196;
    unskilled, I, 159, 249, 251–252; II, 44; III, 122.

  _Laissez-faire_, I, 209–210; II, 300; IV, 15, 109.

  Land, I, 174–176, 178, 183; II, 235–236; III, 22–23, 156–157; IV, 48,
        49, 70, 72–75, 80, 86–87;
    acquisition of, III, 153–154;
    beneficial interest in, I, 286–288, 289; II, 54–55;
    company, III, 313;
    grabbing, I, 322; II, 48; IV, 165;
    monopoly, II, 239–244;
    new, III, 171–172, 338;
    owners, IV, 152;
    private property in, I, 179–180; II, 243, 258;
    purchases, IV, 375;
    ratio of population to, I, 174–176, 188; II, 31, 32–35, 37–40, 42,
        44; III, 22–23, 40, 296;
    rent, III, 172, 320;
    supporting power of, lessened by errors, II, 35–37, 39–40;
    tenure, allodial, III, 312;
    tenure, colonial, III, 312;
    unlimited supplies of, III, 141, 293–295;
    unoccupied, II, 31–32;
    waste, II, 37–38.

  =LAND MONOPOLY=, II, 239–244.

  Landlords, III, 156–157, 172, 295.

  Language, I, 150;
    science of, IV, 432.

  Languages, modern, I, 363–364.

  Lasalle, II, 185.

  Latin Union, the, IV, 185, 192, 207.

  Laveleye, M. de, II, 171.

  Law, I, 11, 17; II, 165–166; IV, 21, 72, 349, 363, 364;
    and liberty, II, 160, 165–166, 167–168; III, 26, 208–210;
    Anglo-American, III, 215, 218;
    canon, I, 59, 144;
    equality before the, II, 224; III, 44–45; IV, 473–474;
    impotency of the, III, 232–233, 234–236;
    international, I, 13, 20, 280–281; II, 62–63;
    Interstate Commerce, II, 275–279, 288, 300; III, 189–190, 216–219,
        316;
    legal tender, IV, 190, 191;
    -Making, Good and Bad, III, 252–253;
    natural, I, 172;
    of diminishing returns, I, 175–176;
    of population, I, 175–176;
    of population, the Malthusian, I, 181–182;
    of settlement, II, 125;
    oleomargarine, III, 187;
    “pass a law,” III, 129;
    poor, III, 74;
    positive, II, 167;
    Ricardian, of rent, I, 181–182.

  =LAW, LIBERTY AND=, II, 161–166.

  Laws, II, 80, 81, 83; III, 292;
    Anticipatory, III, 253–256;
    convict labor, III, 188–189;
    criminal, IV, 13;
    economic, III, 98;
    navigation, IV, 12;
    need of few and good, II, 330;
    of Hammurabi, I, 67–69, 71;
    of Manu, I, 72–75;
    of Moses, I, 67;
    of Solon, I, 101;
    of the social order, II, 284, 285;
    of war, II, 112–113;
    poor, IV, 13;
    social, I, 191; III, 37;
    unwritten, III, 253–254.

  Leaders, IV, 329–330.

  League of the Iroquois, I, 23–24.

  Legal tender, IV, 186, 189–191, 202, 205, 206.

  Legislation, II, 207–208, 298–299, 300, 319–320, 321, 323–324, 327;
        IV, 19, 20, 27, 108, 188, 190, 194, 195, 196, 199, 210, 262,
        274, 481, 488;
    abuse of, IV, 479;
    and industry, III, 340;
    and vice, I, 252;
    by committees, III, 261, 281–282;
    federal, III, 316;
    hasty, III, 177;
    initiated by the executive, III, 284–285;
    on hours of labor, III, 35;
    on railroads, III, 177–182;
    paternal, II, 275–279;
    prohibitory, I, 253;
    regarding capital, III, 27–28;
    speculative, III, 215–219;
    vicious, II, 275, 277.

  =LEGISLATION, SPECULATIVE=, III, 215–219.

  =LEGISLATION BY CLAMOR=, III, 185–190.

  =LEGISLATION ON RAILROADS, FEDERAL=, III, 177–182.

  Legislators, IV, 19–20, 49, 58, 490;
    the duty of, III, 185.

  Legislature, acts of the, II, 69.

  Leisure, II, 189;
    class, the, III, 281.

  Liberty, I, 198, 299–300, 305; II, 96–97, 209, 210, 211, 235, 251,
        308; III, 23–24, 25–26, 31, 44–46, 49–50, 248, 249, 274; IV,
        14–15, 17, 123, 232, 233, 235, 258, 363, 469, 470, 471–474,
        480, 494–495;
    a conquest, II, 174–175;
    a product of civilization, II, 132;
    anarchistic, II, 119, 131–132, 161, 198, 199, 200, 203; III, 292,
        317, 336;
    and anarchy contrasted, II, 164–165;
    and civilization, II, 147, 149–150, 175, 362;
    and discipline, II, 170–171, 200;
    and earthly existence, II, 156–157, 168–169;
    and industrial war, I, 234, 236;
    and law, II, 160, 165–166, 167–168;
    and property, II, 173–174;
    and responsibility, II, 158–160, 180; III, 96;
    and the schoolboy, II, 140–141;
    and wealth, II, 147–150, 150–154;
    civil, II, 124, 128–129, 182, 198–199, 202; III, 26, 44–45, 226,
        238–240, 276, 336; IV, 110, 469, 470, 471–474;
    civil, a matter of law and institutions, II, 160, 166;
    civil, and the individual, II, 168–169;
    civil, definition of, II, 126–127; IV, 230–231, 472;
    civil, the cost of, II, 128; III, 239;
    constitutional, IV, 258;
    eighteenth century notions of, II, 131;
    individual or personal, I, 219–220, 223; II, 198, 199, 202;
    in History and Institutions, II, 121–130;
    industrial, I, 233, 234, 236; II, 331–332;
    maintenance of, II, 164;
    medieval notions of, II, 141, 157–158;
    natural, history of the dogma of, II, 112–121;
    need of re-analyzing, II, 109–110;
    of civilized man, II, 140–155;
    of primitive man, II, 131, 132–133, 136–140, 141, 361–362;
    of the American colonists, III, 317–322;
    of the tramp, II, 154–155;
    popular notions of, II, 110–112;
    relation of individual to civil, II, 169–170;
    solidarity of all forms of, II, 110, 112;
    subject to moral restraints, II, 110, 112;
    the dream of, II, 201–203;
    the price of, II, 143–145, 146–147, 153–154;
    to do as one pleases, II, 124, 136, 146, 156, 161, 165, 166; III,
        26, 155–156; IV, 472–473;
    the right to, II, 234;
    under law, III, 26, 208–210;
    with responsibility, III, 96.

  =LIBERTY AND DISCIPLINE=, II, 166–171.

  =LIBERTY AND LABOR=, II, 181–187.

  =LIBERTY AND LAW=, II, 161–166.

  =LIBERTY AND MACHINERY=, II, 193–198.

  =LIBERTY AND OPPORTUNITY=, II, 176–181.

  =LIBERTY AND PROPERTY=, II, 171–176.

  =LIBERTY AND RESPONSIBILITY=, II, 156–160.

  =(LIBERTY) IS LIBERTY A LOST BLESSING?=, II, 131–135.

  =LIBERTY, THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF=, II, 198–203.

  =LIBERTY? WHAT IS CIVIL=, II, 109–130.

  Life, II, 234;
    insurance, II, 271–272;
    necessity, I, 339–344;
    the “banquet” of, II, 210–211, 217–221, 233; III, 112, 115;
    the competition of, I, 9–10, 14, 176–177, 178, 184; II, 79, 82;
        III, 25, 26, 30;
    the hardships of, III, 74–75;
    the right to, II, 234.

  =LIFE, THE BANQUET OF=, II, 217–221.

  Lincoln, Abraham, IV, 110, 323.

  Liquidation, IV, 167, 220.

  Literary productions as natural monopolies, II, 246–247, 272–274.

  Literature, II, 246–247, 272–274;
    labor, I, 236, 237, 238;
    modern, I, 153; II, 27;
    the corrupting influence of, II, 367–377;
    the regulation of, II, 272–274.

  Living, earning a, II, 213.

  Living, the standard of, II, 33–35.

  Livingstones, the, IV, 305, 307.

  Lobby, the, II, 298; III, 340.

  Lock-outs, II, 233; III, 99.

  Locofoco party, the, IV, 313–314, 315, 358, 383.

  Louis Napoleon, III, 226.

  Louisiana, II, 53–54; IV, 64;
    the acquisition of, I, 340; IV, 297.

  Love, I, 14, 130;
    modern notions about, III, 424–425;
    of war, I, 29.

  Luck, III, 56–57.

  Luxury, II, 293–294; III, 130–131;
    the thirst for, I, 190; III, 36.

  Lynch-executions, III, 383.

  =“LYNCH-LAW,” FOREWORD TO=, III, 383–384.


  Machinery, II, 194–196; III, 171, 173; IV, 12, 16, 70, 77;
    labor-saving, IV, 221, 226–227;
    party, III, 368, 369;
    political, III, 231–235, 238, 267–268, 394.

  =MACHINERY, LIBERTY AND=, II, 193–198.

  MacMahon, President, III, 226.

  Madison, James, III, 307; IV, 301, 305, 343.

  Magic, IV, 22, 106, 107.

  Maine, IV, 55–56.

  Maine, Sir Henry, III, 119.

  Major premises, I, 3, 161–163; III, 55, 57.

  Majority, III, 337;
    King, IV, 367;
    popular, III, 271, 277; IV, 358;
    rule, III, 264, 305; IV, 290;
    Sovereignty of the, III, 263–265.

  _Malleus Maleficarum_, the, I, 106–109, 112.

  Malthusian law of population, I, 181–182.

  Man, I, 209–210;
    brotherhood of, IV, 403;
    burdens laid on the forgotten, I, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253,
        259–260, 264, 267–268;
    character of the forgotten, I, 249, 264, 266–267; IV, 476, 491–492;
    the “Revolt” of, III, 416;
    the “rights” of, II, 223; III, 33–34.

  =MAN, ON THE CASE OF A CERTAIN, WHO IS NEVER THOUGHT OF=, I, 247–253.

  =MAN, THE CASE OF THE FORGOTTEN, FURTHER CONSIDERED=, I, 257–268.

  =MAN, THE FORGOTTEN=, IV, 465–495.

  Managers, Officious, III, 267–268.

  Mania, the witchcraft, I, 105–126; II, 23.

  Manifest destiny, I, 341, 342; II, 54.

  Manitoba, II, 46; IV, 55.

  Mankind, III, 207;
    the “degradation” of, III, 148–150;
    the new power of, III, 207, 211;
    the primitive state of, I, 3, 14; II, 219–220, 230, 234–235,
        237–238, 340, 357–358, 360; III, 149.

  =MANKIND, THE PROPOSED DUAL ORGANIZATION OF=, I, 271–281.

  Manners, IV, 414–415, 436.

  Manor system, the, III, 310–312.

  Manu, status of women in the laws of, I, 72–75.

  Manual labor, II, 225.

  Manufactures, IV, 76, 83, 84, 86.

  Marcy, W. L., III, 269–270; IV, 309, 352.

  Market, II, 121; IV, 250, 251, 252;
    conjuncture of the, I, 200–201; III, 121–122;
    foreign, IV, 65;
    home, IV, 24, 64–65, 66;
    labor, III, 122; IV, 71;
    philosophy of the, II, 121;
    ratio, IV, 200–201;
    separation of state and, II, 310;
    tyranny of the, II, 151–152;
    the world’s, IV, 24, 85.

  =MARKET, SEPARATION OF STATE AND=, II, 306–311.

  Marriage, I, 43, 157; II, 93, 260; III, 18;
    and canon law, I, 59;
    and education, II, 94–95;
    by capture, I, 48, 77, 85; II, 262;
    by purchase, I, 66, 68, 70, 74, 85, 86;
    Catholic law of, I, 60;
    Christian view of, I, 52–54;
    modern notions about, II, 94, 96–97;
    monogamic, III, 24;
    pair-, I, 52–53, 80;
    state regulation of, II, 93–94, 103–104.

  Martyrs, IV, 428–429.

  Marx, Karl, III, 41, 65.

  Mason, Jeremiah, IV, 352–353.

  Massachusetts, III, 314–315; IV, 51.

  Massachusetts Bay settlement, III, 291–292; IV, 72.

  Masses, the, I, 242; II, 39, 304; III, 162, 193–194, 339;
    and earth hunger, II, 39;
    power of, III, 131, 133;
    wisdom of, III, 308.

  “Material good,” I, 158.

  Mathematics, IV, 432.

  Means and end, III, 85.

  “Measures, not men,” III, 265.

  Mechanic arts, advance in the, III, 153.

  Medieval Christianity, I, 140.

  Medieval church, the, I, 133; III, 74.

  Medieval notions of liberty, II, 141, 157–158.

  Medieval society, I, 143–145, 215–217.

  Medieval system, the, I, 131.

  Medieval theory of rights, II, 222; III, 45.

  Medieval views of women, I, 106–109.

  Megalomania, I, 338, 339.

  Melanesia, war in, I, 5.

  =MEMORIAL ADDRESS= by Henry de Forest Baldwin, III, 432–439;
    by Otto T. Bannard, III, 429–431;
    by Albert Galloway Keller, III, 440–450.

  =MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS=, III, 347–362.

  Men, I, 210;
    making better, II, 104–105;
    the demand for, II, 31–32; III, 111–116, 119–123, 132, 140–141,
        145, 154, 157, 171;
    who revolt, III, 139.

  =MEN, THE DEMAND FOR=, III, 111–116.

  =MEN, THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DEMAND FOR=, III, 119–123.

  _Menschenwürdiges Dasein_, II, 212–216.

  Mercantile theories, IV, 289.

  Merchant-princes, the, III, 66.

  Metaphysician, the, III, 417.

  Metaphysics, I, 167; III, 58;
    political, II, 82.

  Mexico, I, 312; II, 47, 51; IV, 56, 150, 317, 319, 365.

  Middle Ages, the, II, 38–39, 87, 114–118, 125, 314; III, 66; IV, 457;
    mores of, I, 152;
    the phantasm of, II, 18–20, 21.

  Middle class, the, II, 313, 314, 315; III, 35–36, 70–77, 129–130.

  “Middlemarch,” IV, 188, 433.

  Might, III, 209;
    and right, III, 239.

  Migration, IV, 228, 229.

  Militancy, I, 13, 28–30;
    and industry, I, 30;
    and peacefulness, I, 28.

  Militant notions of labor, II, 189–191.

  Militant type of society, I, 28.

  Militarism, I, 312–313, 314; III, 300–301, 321–322;
    and democracy, the antagonism of, I, 322–323;
    and industrialism, the conflict between, I, 323–324, 348; II,
        190–191; III, 300–301;
    and plutocracy, I, 325–326;
    in Germany, I, 323;
    the nature of, I, 347–349.

  Military discipline, I, 30.

  Military duty, II, 125–126.

  Military glory, I, 303.

  Military hero, IV, 315, 316.

  Military interest, I, 30.

  Military service, II, 120.

  Military struggle, II, 286–287.

  Mill, John Stuart, IV, 81, 101.

  =MILLENIUM, THE FIRST STEPS TOWARDS A=, II, 93–105.

  Millionaires, II, 269; III, 89–90.

  Miners, mining, IV, 41, 159–160.

  Minnesota, II, 46; IV, 56.

  Minority, the, III, 266.

  Mint ratio, IV, 200–201.

  Misery, III, 23, 31, 32, 36–37, 47, 121–123, 128, 298.

  Misfortune, II, 229, 230; III, 56–57, 67.

  Mississippi, IV, 378, 384;
    Valley, IV, 52, 55, 99.

  Missouri, IV, 55;
    Compromise, IV, 319, 320.

  Modern age, the, II, 163;
    temper of, II, 27.

  Modern church, the, I, 139; III, 81.

  Modern city, the, III, 169–170, 278–279, 420.

  Modern civilization, I, 190; II, 296–297.

  Modern family, the, I, 60–61.

  Modern industry, II, 294; III, 85–86; IV, 214–215, 217–219, 222, 223,
        228, 250, 259–260.

  Modern languages, I, 363–364.

  Modern literature, I, 153; II, 27.

  Modern mores, I, 142–143, 145, 151, 157; II, 87, 89.

  Modern notions about love, III, 424–425.

  Modern notions about marriage, II, 94, 96–97.

  Modern politics, I, 154.

  Modern progress, I, 241.

  Modern religion, I, 138–139, 142–143.

  Modern society, II, 309; III, changes in, III, 394–395.

  Modern spirit, the, III, 347–350.

  Modern warfare, I, 29.

  Modifications, Necessary, III, 277.

  Mohammedanism, I, 47, 129, 134, 135, 137, 140, 304;
    the civilizing mission of, I, 304.

  Mohammedans, I, 25.

  Monarchy, IV, 291, 292.

  Money, IV, 82, 101, 144–145, 183, 189–190, 206;
    fiat, IV, 158;
    hard, III, 370–371; IV, 313;
    market, IV, 377–378;
    of account, IV, 177–178;
    paper, III, 216, 325, 326, 400; IV, 25, 157, 158, 159, 160, 179,
        189, 196, 286, 289, 397, 398;
    power, IV, 162, 170;
    soft, III, 371;
    sharks, IV, 162;
    token, IV, 196.

  Monogamic family, the, II, 254–258, 264–266; III, 24.

  Monogamic marriage, III, 24.

  Monogamy, I, 70, 151; II, 254, 257; III, 18, 24;
    position of children in, II, 255, 256, 257, 265;
    position of women in, II, 255, 257.

  =MONOPOLIES, A GROUP OF NATURAL=, II, 245–248.

  Monopoly, II, 124, 132–135, 210, 220, 235–236, 249–253, 254–258,
        270–279; III, 100; IV, 12, 57, 82, 83, 88, 93, 94, 99–100, 104,
        105, 196, 198, 257, 259, 261–262, 265–269, 487;
    and civilization, II, 249–253;
    artificial, II, 135, 247; IV, 282;
    land, II, 239–244;
    natural, II, 132, 134–135, 245–248, 249, 271–274; IV, 257, 267, 269;
    limited natural, III, 387;
    pressure of, II, 242–243;
    railroad, III, 179;
    the state a, II, 310.

  =MONOPOLY, ANOTHER CHAPTER ON=, II, 249–253.

  =MONOPOLY, LAND=, II, 239–244.

  =MONOPOLY, THE FAMILY=, II, 254–258.

  =MONOPOLY, THE STATE AND=, II, 270–279.

  Monroe, James, IV, 339, 342, 343, 355.

  Monroe Doctrine, the, I, 36, 38–39, 271, 276, 278, 280, 333; II, 58,
        59–60, 333.

  Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de, I, 115, 121; II, 23.

  Montana, II, 44.

  Moral forces, III, 29–30, 201–202, 352–353.

  Moral judgment, I, 150.

  Moral power, III, 201–204.

  Moral quality, II, 177–178, 192–193.

  Moralists, III, 423.

  Morals, IV, 98, 436;
    public, II, 167, 272–274;
    two codes of, I, 11.

  Mores, the, I, 129–131, 132, 133, 135, 141, 142–143, 145;
    and religion, the interplay of, I, 130, 134, 135, 138, 146;
    and rights, II, 79, 83;
    and the status of women, I, 67, 68;
    definition of, I, 149–151;
    of the Middle Ages, I, 152;
    of the Occident, I, 152;
    of the Orient, I, 152;
    origin of, I, 149–151;
    modern, I, 142–143, 145, 151, 157; II, 87, 89.

  =MORES, RELIGION AND THE=, I, 129–146.

  =MORES OF THE PRESENT AND FUTURE, THE=, I, 149–164.

  Mortgagors, IV, 168–169.

  Moses, the laws of, I, 67.

  Mother-family, the, I, 47–50, 69, 81–82, 88.

  Motives, II, 67;
    and consequences, I, 15;
    the four great social, I, 14.

  Municipal expansion, I, 338–339.

  Mystical political economy, III, 418.

  Mystical sociology, III, 418.

  Mysticism, III, 415;
    economic, IV, 119;
    political, I, 220–221.


  Napoleon. I, 32; II, 134, 159; IV, 65.

  Nation, III, 353–360, 392; IV, 12;
    a strong, IV, 85, 97;
    an inferior, IV, 52;
    definition of a, II, 353–354;
    requisites for a, III, 354–360;
    Our, the Earliest State of, III, 249–250;
    United States a, III, 350, 354.

  National bank system, the, I, 31.

  National convention, IV, 361–362.

  National debt, IV, 395.

  National prosperity, IV, 11, 16, 18, 22, 25–26, 28, 33, 34, 47,
        48–49, 50, 77, 84, 106, 109;
    art of, IV, 11–12, 15, 16–17, 106.

  National Republican Party, IV, 355–356, 361.

  National states, I, 285.

  National surplus, IV, 395.

  National vanity, I, 300–301, 303, 304, 343, 344; II, 46, 651.

  National wealth, I, 307–308.

  Nationalism, II, 130; IV, 54.

  Nations, the family of, II, 62–63.

  Native American movement, IV, 321.

  Natural agents as monopolies, II, 239–243.

  Natural fact, a, II, 135.

  Natural forces, I, 199, 209–210.

  Natural law, conception of, I, 172.

  Natural liberty, history of the dogma of, II, 112–121.

  Natural monopoly, II, 132, 134–135, 245–248, 249, 271–274; IV, 257,
        267, 269;
    limited, III, 387.

  =NATURAL MONOPOLIES, A GROUP OF=, II, 245–248.

  Natural resources, IV, 40, 41, 42, 43, 119.

  Natural rights, I, 257–258; II, 79, 81, 219–220, 223, 224, 226–227;
        III, 33–34, 45; IV, 322;
    the declaration of, II, 224;
    the doctrines of, in Christianity, II, 114–117;
    the doctrines of, to-day, II, 119.

  =NATURAL RIGHTS, SOME=, II, 222–227.

  Nature, II, 31, 32, 35, 138–139, 142–143, 147, 210, 218–220, 233–234,
        235, 236, 237; III, 17, 20, 21, 25, 112–113; IV, 480;
    the “boon” of, II, 210–211, 218, 232–238; III, 115;
    the “boon” of, disproved by American history, II, 238; III, 291–292;
    conquest from, II, 236;
    the method of, III, 29–30;
    the processes of, I, 34;
    the “state” of, II, 131, 140, 219.

  =NATURE, THE BOON OF=, II, 233–238.

  Navigation Act, the, III, 323.

  Navigation laws, IV, 12.

  Navigation system, the, I, 318, 320.

  Navy, IV, 12, 22, 67, 68, 104, 301, 302.

  Necessities, III, 17.

  Neglect, I, 259.

  Negro suffrage, I, 330–331, 349.

  Negroes, I, 28, 309, 328.

  Nervous temper of the age, I, 152.

  Netherlands, the, I, 15.

  New Brunswick, IV, 55.

  New countries, settling, I, 271–274; III, 148.

  New country, IV, 81, 97, 291–292, 306–307, 371–372, 395;
    the society of a, III, 69–70.

  New England, III, 328; IV, 33, 83, 278–279, 322;
    towns, III, 256, 314;
    witchcraft in, I, 122–123.

  New institutions, III, 139–140.

  New land, III, 171–172, 338.

  New Orleans, IV, 55.

  New philosophies, III, 139–140, 195–196.

  New Testament, status of women in the, I, 80–81.

  New world, opening up of the, II, 315.

  New York City, III, 420; IV, 380, 381, 382, 384, 385, 387, 388,
        396–397.

  New York _Evening Post_, IV, 59.

  New York state, IV, 57, 74, 307, 313, 345, 350, 393;
    politics and politicians, III, 372–373; IV, 309, 310.

  New York _Times_, IV, 34, 70.

  New York _Tribune_, IV, 86.

  New Zealand, IV, 65.

  Newspapers, regulation of the, II, 273–274.

  Newton, Isaac, III, 40.

  Nickel, IV, 35, 42, 94.

  _Niles’s Register_, IV, 351.

  Nobles, II, 312–313.

  “Noble savage,” the, II, 131.

  Nomadic stage, the, II, 140.

  Nomads, status of women among, I, 65.

  Nomads and tillers, III, 300.

  Nomination, political, III, 231–232, 234.

  Non-capitalists, III, 170–174; IV, 12.

  Non-government, IV, 14.

  Non-interference, II, 304, 305, 316–317.

  Non-union laborers, I, 251–252.

  _North American Review_, IV, 100.

  Notion that everybody ought to be happy, III, 55–56.

  Notion that “something must be done,” II, 327.

  Notion that the state is an ethical person, I, 221; II, 309.

  Nova Scotia, IV, 56.

  Novelists and sociology, III, 424–425.

  Novels, I, 168–169.

  Nullification, III, 329; IV, 354.

  Numbers, III, 132;
    and quality, III, 27–28;
    the effect of, on natural supplies, II, 239–243.


  Obedience, II, 80.

  “Obsequium,” I, 214–215.

  Occupations, desired, IV, 241–243, 245.

  Office, rotation in, III, 263; IV, 305, 326–327, 352, 364;
    the spoils of, II, 303.

  Office-holders, III, 341; IV, 307, 328, 351–352, 489.

  Office-seekers, IV, 286.

  Officers, civil, III, 267–268;
    college, I, 360–361;
    popular selection of, IV, 326.

  Offices, political, III, 259.

  Ohio, IV, 33–34.

  Oil, IV, 85.

  Old Testament, status of women in the, I, 76–80.

  Oleomargarine law, the, III, 187.

  Oligarchies in the United States, II, 329–330.

  Oligarchy, III, 305.

  “Omnicracy,” I, 221–222.

  “One man power,” fear of, III, 261.

  “Open door” policy, the, I, 319, 320, 322.

  Opportunity, II, 179, 337–338.

  =OPPORTUNITY, LIBERTY AND=, II, 176–181.

  Opposition, the, III, 282.

  Optimism, I, 186–187; II, 26;
    economic, II, 318–319, 324, 332;
    the philosophy of, I, 159.

  Optimists, III, 341–342, 344.

  Oracle, III, 255.

  Ore, IV, 36, 48.

  Organization, II, 342–344; III, 228, 231, 279;
    and democracy, III, 266–267;
    colonial industrial, III, 294;
    colonial lack of, III, 324–325;
    colonial social, III, 310–323;
    of civilized society, II, 144–145, 250, 251, 252, 253, 283–287;
    of labor, III, 100, 139;
    of society, I, 213; II, 261, 286–287;
    political, II, 363–364; III, 339–340; IV, 308, 309, 311, 328;
    social, I, 15, 30–38, 198–199, 238–239; III, 87, 292–293, 309–310,
        310–323, 331, 336–341;
    the Imbecility of Our Present, III, 270–271.

  Organs of society, the, II, 284–286.

  Others-group, the, I, 9.

  Other-worldliness, I, 141–142, 143.

  =OUR COLLEGES BEFORE THE COUNTRY=, I, 355–373.

  “Our country, right or wrong,” IV, 319–320.

  Out-group, the, I, 9–13.

  Outlying continents, II, 43;
    the exploitation of, II, 47–50;
    the opening up of, II, 315; III, 122, 171–172;
    the settlement of, I, 271–274; III, 148.

  Overpopulation, I, 59, 126, 164, 184, 185, 187–188, 305–306; III,
        22–23, 120–121.

  Overproduction, IV, 82.

  Overwork, II, 193.


  Pain, II, 220, 312.

  Paine, Thomas, III, 306; IV, 285, 286.

  Pair-marriage, I, 52–53, 80.

  Panama Congress, the, I, 276; II, 57–58, 60.

  Panic, IV, 157; of 1873, IV, 173.

  Paper currency a natural monopoly, II, 247.

  Paper money, III, 216, 325, 326, 400; IV, 25, 157, 158, 159, 160,
        179, 189, 196, 286, 289, 397, 398.

  Papuans, war among the, I, 4.

  =PARABLE, A=, III, 105–107.

  Parents, III, 18–19;
    and children, the rights and duties of, II, 95–102.

  Parliamentary debate, III, 281–282.

  Parties, political, III, 266, 268–273, 339–340, 366–368, 393–394,
        397; IV, 287–289, 292, 293–294, 310, 318, 322, 326–327, 339,
        349, 350.

  Parties are Irresponsible, III, 272–273.

  Parton, IV, 350.

  Party, the Democratic, I, 160; IV, 312, 313, 316, 318, 319, 320, 321,
        322–323, 363;
    the Federal, III, 328–329;
    the Republican, I, 160; IV, 321, 322, 323, 327.

  Party government, III, 393–394.

  Party interest, II, 327–328.

  Party loyalty, IV, 309, 310, 327.

  Party machinery, III, 368, 369; IV, 309, 311.

  Party methods, IV, 333.

  Party spirit, IV, 292.

  Party spoils, II, 328.

  Passport, IV, 17, 88.

  Patents as artificial monopolies, II, 247.

  Paternal legislation, II, 275–279.

  Paternal theory, IV, 494–495.

  Paternalism, I, 267–268; II, 275–279.

  Pathos, III, 247.

  _Patria potestas_, I, 69.

  “Patrimony of the Disinherited,” the, II, 233.

  Patriotism, I, 12, 301, 302; II, 26; III, 352; IV, 125.

  Patronage, III, 254.

  Patronizing the working classes, I, 250.

  Pauperization, II, 215.

  Paupers, IV, 101, 475, 476.

  Peace, III, 360;
    and religion, I, 24–26;
    -element, development of the, I, 16;
    for women, I, 21;
    -group, the, I, 11, 17, 18–19, 23, 24–26, 27, 28, 35;
    -institutions, I, 16–24;
    -institutions of civilized nations, I, 20–24;
    -institutions of the West Australians, I, 18;
    makes war, I, 11;
    of God, I, 21;
    of the house, I, 16–17, 21;
    -pacts, I, 7, 10;
    -rules, I, 16;
    -taboo, I, 16, 18, 26;
    the king’s, I, 21–23;
    the triumphs of, I, 315;
    universal, I, 35–36.

  Peaceful access, I, 17.

  Peacefulness and militancy, I, 28.

  Peasant-proprietors, III, 295, 301; IV, 48.

  Peasants, II, 292, 312–314, 315.

  Pearson, Karl, II, 17, 18.

  Penalties, II, 180–181;
    of vice, I, 252.

  Pennsylvania, IV, 33, 42, 313, 389, 390, 391–392;
    Relief Act, IV, 392, 393.

  Pensions, I, 262; IV, 101, 489.

  People, the, I, 222, 224; II, 290–293, 307, 329; III, 223–236,
        255–256, 264, 308, 328; IV, 469–470;
    sovereignty of, III, 263–264;
    the sovereign, III, 370–371;
    voice of, IV, 298;
    will of, IV, 314, 318, 328, 329, 344, 348.

  Pepper, IV, 265–267.

  Periodicals for boys, II, 367–377.

  Perpetual motion, IV, 196, 201.

  Persians, status of women among the, I, 75–76.

  Personal superiority a natural monopoly, II, 247–248.

  Persons and capital, III, 27–28.

  Peru, IV, 365.

  Pessimism, I, 186–187; II, 26;
    political, II, 319–333.

  “Pest of glory,” the, I, 292, 313; II, 50.

  Pestilence, IV, 465.

  Pets, social, I, 248; IV, 494.

  Phantasm, II, 25;
    definition of, II, 18;
    of the Middle Ages, II, 18–20, 21;
    political, II, 189.

  Philadelphia, IV, 380, 381, 382, 384, 385, 387, 388, 389, 390, 393,
        396–397;
    _American_, the, IV, 20.

  Philanthropic schemes, I, 247–248.

  Philanthropists, III, 416; IV, 475, 476, 493.

  Philanthropy, III, 48, 127, 128.

  Philippines, the, I, 162, 300, 301–302, 310, 311–312; II, 69;
    acquisition of, I, 343, 344, 345;
    independence of, I, 351.

  Philosophers, III, 255, 416–417, 423; IV, 299, 300, 365, 483, 493;
    social, II, 338–339, 349; III, 48;
    _a priori_, III, 244–245.

  Philosophies, new, III, 139–140.

  Philosophizing, IV, 300, 467.

  Philosophy, I, 131, 164; III, 56–57, 59, 153, 157–158; IV, 116, 118;
    eighteenth century, III, 87;
    of colonization, II, 43–45;
    of optimism, I, 159;
    of the market, II, 121;
    political, I, 158–159, 162, 310; III, 244–245;
    popular, IV, 240;
    religious, I, 158–159;
    sentimental, I, 177; III, 31–32, 36;
    social, I, 238–239; II, 339–340; III, 32–35, 68–69;
    the new, III, 195–196;
    world-, I, 129, 133, 134, 143.

  Phrases, high-sounding, III, 161.

  Pickering, Timothy, IV, 295.

  Plato, I, 98–99.

  Plunder, III, 66, 71–72, 73; IV, 23.

  Plutocracy, I, 207, 262; II, 289, 293–295, 310, 316, 329; III, 212;
    definition of, II, 293;
    and democracy, the antagonism of, I, 160, 204, 325–326; II,
        299–300, 329;
    and expansion, I, 325–326;
    and imperialism, I, 325–326;
    and militarism, I, 325–326;
    and political institutions, II, 298–299.

  =PLUTOCRACY, DEFINITIONS OF DEMOCRACY AND=, II, 290–295.

  =PLUTOCRACY, DEMOCRACY AND=, II, 283–289.

  =PLUTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY, THE CONFLICT OF=, II, 296–300.

  Plutocrat, definition of a, II, 298.

  Plymouth settlement, the, II, 238; III, 291–292.

  Poland, II, 313.

  Police, city, III, 329.

  Police defense, I, 36.

  Policy, II, 68–70;
    and doctrine contrasted, I, 37;
    of the “open door,” I, 319, 320, 322;
    the prosperity, I, 68, 154, 307, 318;
    the protectionist, I, 318, 319, 320–321, 322;
    vigorous foreign, IV, 66–67.

  Political action, dependence of industry on, I, 320–321.

  Political alarmists, III, 341, 342–343.

  =POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO COURSES IN=,
        III, 391–403.

  Political “backing,” III, 368, 369.

  Political boss, IV, 327–329.

  Political calling, III, 396.

  Political campaigns, I, 337; IV, 29, 49, 95, 315–316.

  Political changes, recent, I, 241–242.

  Political corruption in the United States, III, 395–396, 397.

  Political debauchery, III, 268.

  Political discussion, III, 277–278;
    the temper of our, I, 346–347.

  Political doctrines, IV, 352.

  Political dogmas, III, 193–194, 258.

  Political dogmatism, II, 23; III, 252–253.

  Political earth hunger, II, 64;
    definition of, II, 46;
    contrasted with economic, II, 63;
    of the United States, II, 50–51, 53.

  Political economy, I, 180–183; III, 395, 398–400; IV, 17, 19, 100,
        118, 189, 195, 209, 216, 289, 337;
    art of, IV, 102;
    mystical, III, 418.

  Political element in socialism, III, 46–48.

  Political energy, II, 295.

  Political equality, III, 303–304;
    in the American colonies, III, 249–250.

  Political influence, I, 261.

  Political institutions, III, 247–248; IV, 346;
    and plutocracy, II, 298–299;
    false notions about, III, 243–244;
    inventing new, III, 243–244, 253;
    of the American colonies, III, 249;
    the strain on, II, 332–333.

  Political interference, II, 332.

  Political issue of 1860, IV, 323–324.

  Political Judgment, Errors of, III, 243–244.

  Political jurisdiction, II, 52.

  Political leaders, III, 259.

  Political liberty of the American colonies, III, 320–321.

  Political machinery, III, 231–235, 238, 267–268, 368, 369, 394; IV,
        307, 327–329, 333, 350–351, 361–362.

  Political metaphysics, II, 82.

  Political mysticism, I, 220–221.

  Political nomination, III, 231–232, 234.

  Political offices, III, 259.

  Political optimists, III, 341–342, 344.

  Political organization, II, 363–364; IV, 308, 309, 311, 328;
    advancing, III, 339–340;
    and war, I, 4.

  Political parties, III, 266, 268–273, 339–340, 366–368, 393–394, 397;
        IV, 287–289, 292, 293–294, 310, 318, 322, 326–327, 339, 349,
        350.

  Political pessimism, II, 319–333.

  Political phantasm, II, 89.

  Political philosophy, I, 158–159, 162, 310; IV, 285–286, 298;
    Errors of, III, 244–245.

  Political power, II, 290, 293, 294; III, 46–47, 58, 164, 173–174.

  Political problems, I, 230–231.

  Political prophets, III, 341–344.

  Political reform, IV, 332;
    the path of, III, 232.

  Political regulation, II, 326.

  Political responsibility, III, 271–273.

  Political rights and duties, III, 224.

  Political science, IV, 108;
    the scope of, III, 395;
    vague notions about, III, 391.

  Political skepticism, III, 274–275.

  Political system of the United States, III, 341–342.

  Political topics, speculation on, III, 246.

  Political tyranny, I, 222–223.

  Political vice, I, 300–301, 302.

  Political warfare, III, 268–270.

  Political will, IV, 333.

  Politicians, I, 35, 37; IV, 308, 361, 362.

  Politics, II, 339; III, 227, 396–398; IV, 293–296, 302, 310, 323,
        324, 327, 329, 337, 338, 363, 435;
    and business, IV, 135;
    and witchcraft, I, 125–126; II, 23;
    “high,” II, 56;
    modern, I, 154;
    the art of, III, 246–247;
    the science of, III, 246–247.

  =POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND=, II, 318–333.

  =POLITICS IN AMERICA, 1776–1876=, IV, 285–333.

  Polk, James K., IV, 318.

  Polyandry, II, 264.

  Polygamy, I, 52, 69, 77, 79, 80; II, 262, 263–264.

  Pooling, III, 179, 219.

  “Pools,” II, 253.

  Poor, the, III, 65–77; IV, 395–396, 475, 494.

  Poor-laws, III, 74.

  Poor relief, II, 183.

  Popular conviction, II, 326–327.

  Popular institutions, III, 276–277.

  Popularity, II, 72–73; III, 318–319; IV, 299, 340.

  Population, I, 174–175, 241; II, 93; IV, 47–48, 59, 71, 86, 90–91,
        142, 144–145, 402;
    homogeneous, III, 354–355;
    increase of, I, 4, 10; III, 140–141, 171–172, 315;
    law of, I, 175–176;
    Malthusian law of, I, 181–182;
    movement of, IV, 227, 229, 242;
    movement of, from Europe, I, 272–274; II, 45;
    movement of, in the United States, II, 44;
    over-, I, 59, 126, 164, 184, 185, 187–188, 305–306; III, 22–23,
        120–121;
    ratio of, to land, I, 174–176, 188; II, 31, 32–35, 37–40, 42, 44;
        III, 22–23, 40, 296;
    under-, I, 159, 183–184, 185, 187–188; II, 42, 43, 44; III, 22–23,
        121.

  Populists, IV, 160, 162, 166.

  Porter, R. P., IV, 26.

  Possession, security of, II, 150, 153.

  Possession of the soil, forms of the, I, 178–180.

  Post notes, IV, 379, 382, 387.

  Poverty, II, 357–358; III, 23, 30, 31, 32, 37, 47, 57, 59, 60–61,
        65–77, 146, 298;
    and progress, III, 65–66;
    and wealth, III, 65–77;
    relative, II, 229–230;
    the abolition of, II, 228–232.

  =POVERTY, THE ABOLITION OF=, II, 228–232.

  Power, II, 177–178; III, 84–85, 145–150;
    and results, III, 138, 140;
    economic, II, 318;
    irresponsible, III, 225, 264;
    moral, III, 201–204;
    of capital, II, 297;
    of ideas, II, 74;
    of mankind, the new, III, 207, 211;
    political, II, 290, 293, 294; III, 46–47, 58, 164, 173–174;
    productive, II, 210;
    social, I, 199; II, 180–181, 220; III, 140, 141–142, 145–147, 150,
        153–158;
    state abuse of, III, 71–72.

  =POWER, CONSEQUENCES OF INCREASED SOCIAL=, III, 153–158.

  =POWER AND BENEFICENCE OF CAPITAL, THE=, II, 337–353.

  =POWER AND PROGRESS=, III, 145–150.

  Precious metals, the, IV, 191–210, 225–226.

  Preparedness, I, 39–40.

  =(PRESIDENT) FOR PRESIDENT?= III, 365–379.

  President of the United States, position of the, III, 283.

  Presidential election, III, 253–254, 272–273, 335.

  Press, freedom of the, II, 273, 274.

  Prices, IV, 12, 82, 101, 133–134, 141, 142–145, 168–169, 178, 202,
        220–221;
    rise in, IV, 161–162;
    wages and, IV, 249–250, 252.

  Primary, the, III, 231, 234, 267.

  Primitive family, the, I, 43–44, 46–47; II, 260–261, 262, 263–264.

  Primitive horde, the, II, 260–261.

  Primitive liberty, II, 131, 132–133, 136–140, 141, 361–362.

  Primitive society, I, 7–9.

  Primitive state of mankind, I, 3, 14; II, 219–220, 230, 234–235,
        237–238, 340, 357–358, 360; III, 149.

  Primitive trade, IV, 53.

  Principles, great, I, 161–163, 326–329; II, 58; III, 245–246;
    Falsely So Called, III, 245–246.

  Printing, the invention of, III, 153.

  Private interests, III, 258–259, 261.

  Private property, II, 259; III, 25;
    in land, I, 179–180; II, 243, 258.

  Privilege and rights, II, 126.

  Privilege with servitude, II, 124, 125–126, 127, 128.

  Privilege with superiority, II, 123.

  Producer, IV, 21–22, 101, 104.

  Product, mode of alienating, IV, 23.

  Production, IV, 19, 73, 214;
    cost of, IV, 65.

  Profits, IV, 27, 79.

  Progress, I, 152; III, 18, 31–32, 49, 50–51, 127, 146–148, 150,
        169–174, 391–392; IV, 222, 239;
    and equality, III, 299;
    and poverty, III, 65–66;
    checks on, II, 35–37, 163;
    meaning of, III, 147;
    modern, I, 241;
    of society, IV, 427, 428.

  =PROGRESS, POWER AND=, III, 145–150.

  =PROGRESS? WHO WIN BY=, III, 169–174.

  Proletariat, the, II, 316; III, 77, 161–165, 169; IV, 71, 357, 470.

  =“PROLETARIAT”? WHAT IS THE=, III, 161–165.

  Property, II, 217–218, 259–269; III, 61; IV, 231;
    and labor, II, 243–244;
    and liberty, II, 173–174;
    and the family, II, 254, 258;
    definition of, II, 173;
    private, II, 259; III, 25;
    private, in land, I, 179–180; II, 243, 258;
    redistribution of, III, 58, 60–61, 62, 69;
    war and, I, 4;
    women as, II, 262.

  =PROPERTY, LIBERTY AND=, II, 171–176.

  =PROPERTY, THE FAMILY AND=, II, 259–269.

  =PROPOSED DUAL ORGANIZATION OF MANKIND, THE=, I, 271–281.

  Prosperity, IV, 150, 151, 153, 222, 306, 307;
    material, IV, 345;
    notions about, IV, 116–117;
    national, IV, 11–12, 15, 16–18, 22, 25–26, 28, 33, 34, 47, 48–49,
        50, 77, 84, 106, 109;
    policy, I, 68, 154, 307, 318.

  =PROSPERITY STRANGLED BY GOLD=, IV, 141–145.

  Prostitution, I, 70, 71, 82.

  Protected industries, I, 263–264, 266; II, 320; IV, 136.

  Protection, IV, 123–127, 234;
    impracticability of, IV, 94–95;
    incidental, IV, 136, 374.

  Protectionism, III, 187; IV, 118, 131–138;
    assumptions in, IV, 13, 18, 25–26, 33, 105;
    definition of, IV, 16;
    demoralization caused by, IV, 99.

  =PROTECTIONISM=, IV, 9–111.

  =PROTECTIONISM TWENTY YEARS AFTER=, IV, 131–138.

  Protectionist policy, I, 318, 319, 320–321, 322.

  Protectionists, IV, 125–127, 374.

  Protective system, the, IV, 30–31, 34, 44–45.

  Protective tariff, I, 154, 155, 263, 279; II, 61, 68; III, 88,
        216–217, 400; IV, 131–138, 275, 277, 489–490.

  Protective taxes, I, 263, 264–266; III, 74; IV, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21,
        36, 43, 44, 50, 82, 86, 87, 97, 99, 105, 108, 117–119, 123;
    definition of, IV, 20, 21.

  Protestantism, I, 129.

  Protestants, II, 21, 22.

  Prussian bureaucracy, IV, 481.

  Public, the, IV, 307.

  Public buildings, IV, 488.

  Public calamity, IV, 465.

  Public disturbances, IV, 357.

  Public good, IV, 426, 427.

  Public interest, I, 234–235; III, 258–259, 260–261; IV, 232, 324–325.

  Public life, IV, 293, 294, 295.

  Public morals, II, 167, 272–274.

  Public office, IV, 485.

  Public opinion, III, 264, 279, 392–393, 394; IV, 293;
    of a town, III, 318.

  Public service, IV, 310, 328, 333, 351–352;
    abuses of the, I, 260–261.

  Public workshops, IV, 79, 92.

  Publicity, IV, 410.

  Puerto Rico, the acquisition of, I, 343.

  Punishment, IV, 484.

  Puritan sects, I, 132.

  Puritans, the, I, 24.

  Purposes, II, 67–69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75.

  =PURPOSES AND CONSEQUENCES=, II, 67–75.


  Quakers, the, I, 24, 138.

  Quality, III, 27–28;
    moral, II, 177–178, 192–193.

  Quantity doctrine, IV, 141.

  Quarrel, I, 4, 7.

  Questions, individual, III, 95–96.

  Questions ill-defined, I, 229, 230, 231, 232.


  Race antagonism in the United States, I, 28.

  Race problem, the, III, 377.

  Race question, the, III, 409.

  Races, “elevating” inferior, III, 146.

  Racial progress and war, I, 16.

  Radicalism Repudiated, III, 247–248.

  Radium, II, 318.

  Railroad commissioners, III, 189–190.

  Railroad monopoly, III, 179.

  Railroad passes, II, 326.

  Railroad question, the, III, 178–182.

  Railroad wars, I, 240.

  Railroads, II, 275–279; III, 177–182; IV, 87, 261;
    as natural monopolies, II, 245;
    in North America, III, 217–219;
    legislation on, III, 177–182.

  =RAILROADS, FEDERAL LEGISLATION ON=, III, 177–182.

  Rate of interest, II, 349–351; IV, 52, 177–178;
    the devil of, II, 353.

  Rate of wages, I, 237.

  Rates, II, 330–331;
    freight, II, 327, 330–331.

  Realities, II, 322; III, 408.

  Reality, II, 18, 19, 20, 24, 27.

  “Reasons of state,” I, 37, 333; II, 165–166; III, 240.

  Recitation, the art of, I, 366.

  Reconstruction, III, 376, 378, 398.

  Reform, III, 279–280; IV, 468;
    administrative, III, 372–374;
    civil service, III, 262–263, 279–280, 308;
    field of, III, 202;
    political, III, 232; IV, 332;
    social, I, 252–253.

  Reformers, social, I, 195–196; IV, 483, 493.

  Refugees, IV, 286.

  Regency, IV, 308.

  Regulation, II, 326;
    of commerce, III, 323, 326;
    of industry, I, 216–217;
    of interstate commerce, II, 275–279, 288, 300, 326; III, 189–190,
        216–219, 316;
    of the newspapers, II, 273–274;
    of war, I, 19–20;
    state, II, 285–287; III, 177, 210.

  Religion, I, 168; II, 255; III, 417;
    and ethnocentrism, I, 24–25;
    and peace, I, 24–26;
    and science, II, 24–25;
    and tradition, I, 131;
    and war, I, 11, 14–15, 19–20, 24–26;
    and the mores, the interplay of, I, 130, 134, 135, 138, 146;
    and witchcraft, I, 119–121;
    modern, I, 138–139;
    the nature of, I, 130.

  =RELIGION AND THE MORES=, I, 129–146.

  Religious dogmas, I, 129–130.

  Religious duties, I, 136.

  Religious philosophy, I, 158–159.

  Religious reformations, I, 133.

  Religious sects, I, 138.

  Religious wars, I, 25.

  Remonetization, IV, 165–170, 194.

  Renaissance, the, I, 141–142, 158.

  Rent, IV, 87;
    of land, III, 172, 320;
    the Ricardian law of, I, 181–182.

  Renunciation, II, 300, 306–307, 310.

  Representative democracy, III, 260–275;
    the weaknesses of, III, 270–271.

  Republic, constitutional, IV, 290, 296, 331;
    dangers to the, III, 239–240;
    the nature of a democratic, II, 301–302, 303, 305, 308.

  =REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT=, III, 223–240.

  Republican government, III, 223–240;
    definition of, III, 223, 226;
    assumptions of, III, 227–230.

  Republican party, the, I, 160; IV, 321, 322, 323, 327.

  Republicans, IV, 297.

  Republics, III, 225–227;
    the Italian, II, 314;
    the South American, I, 277–278; III, 230.

  Requisites for study, III, 391.

  Responsibility, II, 158–160; III, 46, 224–226;
    and liberty, II, 158–160, 180; III, 96;
    political, III, 271–273;
    the principle of, III, 282–286.

  =RESPONSIBILITY, LIBERTY AND=, II, 156–160.

  =RESPONSIBILITY, THE SHIFTING OF=, III, 193–198.

  Responsible classes, burdens of the, II, 216.

  Responsible Government, III, 280–281.

  =RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT, DEMOCRACY AND=, III, 243–286.

  Restrictions, IV, 123.

  Results, III, 138, 140.

  Resumption, IV, 397–398;
    act, III, 372.

  Revenue, IV, 20, 22, 109, 115–117;
    from dependencies, I, 316–317;
    surplus, IV, 109.

  Revolution, III, 347;
    the commercial, I, 141;
    the economic, II, 315;
    the industrial, I, 141; II, 42;
    the social, III, 338–339.

  Revolutionary delusions, III, 329–331.

  Revolutionary doctrines, III, 328.

  Revolutionary heroes, IV, 366.

  Revolutionary period, the, III, 323–331.

  Revolutionary principles, III, 330.

  Revolutionary War, the, III, 323–325; IV, 285, 286;
    justification of, III, 324;
    merits of the quarrel, III, 323–324.

  Ricardian law of rent, I, 181–182.

  Rich, the, III, 65–77, 88–90.

  Right and might, III, 239.

  Right to an existence, II, 225–227.

  Right to be chosen to office, III, 263.

  Right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, II, 234.

  Right to the full product of labor, II, 224–226.

  Right to work, III, 34–35.

  Rights, I, 159–160, 163, 164; II, 81, 82, 83, 87, 211, 220, 358; III,
        76, 208, 209, 239; IV, 365, 472;
    and duties, I, 257–258; III, 193, 197–198, 224; IV, 494–495;
    and duties, equilibrium of, II, 126–127, 128–129, 165; IV, 472, 473;
    and duties of parents and children, II, 95–102;
    and duties, political, III, 224;
    and force, II, 82;
    and privilege, II, 126;
    and the mores, II, 79, 83;
    a product of civilization, II, 83;
    chartered, II, 222–223;
    eighteenth century notions about, II, 222–223;
    guest-, I, 10–11, 17–18;
    in the in-group, I, 11, 17; II, 79–80;
    medieval notions about, II, 222; III,45;
    “natural,” I, 257–258; II, 79, 81, 114–117, 119, 219–220, 223, 224;
        III, 33–34, 45; IV, 322;
    notion of, IV, 471;
    of man, II, 223; III, 33–34;
    of society, II, 97–98.

  =RIGHTS=, II, 70–83.

  =RIGHTS, SOME NATURAL=, II, 222–227.

  “Ring,” the, III, 261–262; IV, 328.

  Risk element, II, 184–185; IV, 268.

  Ritner, Governor, IV, 385.

  Ritual, I, 132, 133, 135, 136.

  Robbery, IV, 23.

  Robespierre, Maximilien, II, 212.

  Rodbertus, Karl, I, 271; II, 48, 109, 110; III, 65.

  Roman Catholics, II, 21–22.

  Roman family, the, I, 56–60.

  Roman State, the, I, 32–33, 213–215; II, 34, 48, 113.

  Romanism, I, 129, 132.

  Rome, I, 214; III, 66, 71–73, 74, 119, 120, 162;
    slavery at, III, 71, 119;
    status of women at, I, 56–60.

  Roth, Conrad, IV, 265–268.

  Rothschild, IV, 388;
    fortunes, I, 201–202.

  Rousseau, Jean Jacques, I, 162; II, 131, 137, 138; III, 39–40.

  Rules of war, I, 19–20.

  Russia, I, 235, 286, 293, 304; II, 270, 300, 313; III, 234; IV, 135,
        282;
    as a colonizer, II, 52;
    the civilizing mission of, I, 304.


  St. Gothard tunnel, IV, 57.

  St. John, J. P., IV, 141, 142, 144, 145, 150, 151, 158, 178–179.

  Sandwich Islands, IV, 65.

  Sanitary arrangements, III, 123;
    the importance of, II, 239–240.

  Sansculottism, III, 306.

  Savage, the, and freedom, III, 26.

  Savage, the “noble,” II, 131.

  Savage life, the hardships of, II, 138–139;
    the status of women in, I, 46.

  Savage names, I, 12.

  Savings, III, 163; IV, 32;
    accumulation of, II, 349–352;
    bank depositor, II, 345, 346–347, 348–349, 352–353;
    banks, II, 337, 349;
    benefit of, II, 337, 347, 348–349.

  Scandinavia, III, 299–300.

  Scandinavians, the, I, 20.

  School, the, III, 203–204; IV, 19, 38, 413;
    and the family, I, 61.

  School discipline, I, 368.

  School system, the common, III, 357.

  Schoolboy, the, and liberty, II, 140–141.

  Schools, II, 98–101, 121–122;
    trade, II, 101.

  Science, I, 369, 371–373; III, 417; IV, 216, 346, 402, 404, 431–432;
    advance of, III, 415;
    and religion, II, 24–25;
    definition of, II, 18, 75;
    of life, IV, 337–338;
    of politics, III, 246–247;
    of society, II, 71, 284, 285;
    political, III, 391, 395;
    social, I, 239; II, 168, 171, 208, 217, 218, 364; III, 127, 141,
        148, 150; IV, 20, 226.

  Sciences, I, 167; II, 32; IV, 189;
    exact, III, 410;
    progress of the, III, 170–174;
    the social, III, 246, 407; IV, 337–338.

  =SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE OF MIND, THE=, II, 17–28.

  Scientific method, the, II, 24–25, 26; III, 401;
    need of, III, 425.

  Scientific sociology, III, 419–420.

  Scotland, witch-persecutions in, I, 115–116.

  Secession, III, 329.

  Security, II, 23–24, 208;
    of possession, II, 150, 153.

  Sedgwick, Theodore, IV, 294.

  Self-control, II, 168, 184; III, 19.

  Self-denial, II, 34, 236, 238, 344; III, 19, 52.

  Self-government, I, 300, 301, 302–303, 312, 349–350; III, 226–227,
        229–230, 238, 285.

  Selfishness, III, 423–424.

  Self-made men, IV, 431.

  Self-maintenance, III, 127–128.

  Self-perpetuation, III, 127–128.

  Self-will, IV, 349.

  Seminoles, IV, 342;
    war with the, IV, 355.

  Senate, IV, 185, 360.

  Sensationalism, IV, 409–410, 413, 417.

  Sentiment, III, 127;
    family, II, 256–257, 266–268; III, 19–20;
    genuine, II, 212;
    group, I, 9.

  =SENTIMENT, AN EXAMINATION OF A NOBLE=, II, 212–216.

  Sentimental philosophy, I, 177; III, 31–32, 36.

  Sentimental sociology, III, 419, 420.

  Sentimental view of social matters, II, 70–72, 73, 74.

  Sentimentalism, III, 415, 417.

  Sentimentalist, the, III, 419, 421–422, 423; IV, 493.

  Serfdom, III, 299–301, 303, 311.

  Serfs, emancipation of the, II, 117–118, 175–176.

  Servile classes, the, II, 38–39.

  Servitude, II, 123–124;
    privilege with, II, 124, 125–126, 127, 128;
    with inferiority, II, 123.

  Settlement, the law of, II, 125.

  Sex-vice, I, 78.

  Sherman Act, the, IV, 149.

  Ship-building, IV, 12, 54, 67, 68, 273–274, 277, 278, 279–280.

  Ships, IV, 57–58, 70, 273–282.

  =(SHIPS) SHALL AMERICANS OWN SHIPS?=, IV, 273–282.

  “Shooting,” III, 58, 60, 62.

  Short-haul clause, the, III, 180, 217–218.

  Sidgwick, Henry, IV, 102.

  Sieroshevski, M., I, 45.

  Silk, IV, 36, 53, 102, 104, 110.

  Silver, IV, 141, 149, 153, 157–162, 165–170, 173–180, 183–186, 189,
        192, 194, 201–209;
    coinage, IV, 111;
    craze, IV, 186, 195;
    fallacies, IV, 141–145;
    free coinage of, IV, 157–162;
    men, IV, 149, 152;
    mines, I, 286–287;
    miners, IV, 170, 488;
    question, I, 154, 231, 280; II, 68; IV, 234–235;
    remonetization of, IV, 165–170;
    standard, IV, 162, 169;
    theorists, IV, 168–169.

  Sinclair, Upton, III, 55, 58, 60.

  Single combat, I, 4.

  Single tax, the, III, 312.

  Sisyphus, IV, 99.

  Skepticism, II, 23;
    political, III, 274–275.

  Skill, the loss of, II, 361.

  Slavery, II, 140, 183–184, 252; III, 250; IV, 17–18, 49, 110, 289,
        317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322–323;
    at Rome, III, 71, 119;
    Greek, III, 303;
    in early Christianity, II, 114, 116–118;
    in the classical states, II, 112–114, 296;
    in Egypt, III, 146;
    in the American colonies, III, 250, 298, 301–304;
    in the South, III, 301–304;
    in the United States, III, 311, 348–350, 355–356;
    “of debt,” II, 136, 145;
    of women, I, 47, 57, 68, 75, 77, 85, 87; II, 262;
    “wages-,” II, 136, 145, 187, 312.

  Slums, the, I, 156; III, 169–170, 422.

  Smith, Adam, III, 323–324.

  “Social,” III, 93.

  Social actions and reactions, II, 121–122.

  Social agitator, the, II, 337, 352.

  Social ambition, IV, 242.

  Social amelioration, IV, 493.

  Social burdens, III, 70, 128.

  Social change, II, 285–286;
    the family and, I, 61.

  =SOCIAL CHANGE, THE FAMILY AND=, I, 43–61.

  Social changes, I, 241; II, 38–40.

  Social classes, I, 241; III, 69–71, 129–130, 156–157, 392;
    changes in the, II, 40–41;
    in the United States, III, 307–309.

  “Social compact,” I, 162; II, 131, 140.

  =SOCIAL CREED, SOME POINTS IN THE NEW=, II, 207–211.

  Social discontent, II, 337–338.

  Social disease, I, 171–172; II, 275.

  Social dogmas, III, 193–194.

  Social dogmatism, III, 33–34.

  Social endeavor, I, 139.

  Social environment, III, 308–310.

  Social equality, III, 304.

  Social experiments, III, 291.

  Social forces, I, 226, 242; II, 312; III, 76, 137, 140, 142; IV, 216,
        250–251.

  Social ills, I, 185–186.

  Social injustice, I, 258, 261; II, 152–153.

  Social interest, I, 218.

  =SOCIAL ISSUE, THE NEW=, III, 207–212.

  Social laws, I, 191; III, 37.

  Social living, I, 168.

  Social matters, the sentimental view of, II, 70–72, 73, 74.

  Social motives, the four great, I, 14.

  Social order, the, III, 37–38, 39;
    bonds of, III, 315, 325;
    laws of, II, 284, 285.

  Social organism, II, 283.

  Social organization, I, 238–239; III, 292–293; IV, 325;
    advancing, III, 315–317;
    colonial, III, 310–323;
    importance of the, III, 309–310;
    intensification of the, I, 198–199;
    in the United States, III, 331, 336–341;
    risks of high, III, 340–341.

  Social pets, I, 248; IV, 494.

  Social phenomena, I, 170, 191, 242; IV, 467.

  Social philosophers, II, 338–339, 349; III, 48.

  Social philosophy, I, 238–239; II, 339–340; III, 32–35, 68–69.

  Social power, I, 199; II, 180–181, 220; III, 140, 141–142, 145–147,
        150, 153–158.

  =SOCIAL POWER, CONSEQUENCES OF INCREASED=, III, 153–158.

  Social pressure, I, 184–185, 188–189; III, 156.

  “Social problem,” the, II, 228–229.

  Social problems, I, 169–170, 171, 230–231; II, 93; III, 22–23, 30–31,
        49–50, 51; IV, 229, 402–403, 404, 405.

  Social propositions, III, 208.

  Social question, the, III, 128–131.

  =“SOCIAL QUESTION,” WHAT THE, IS=, III, 127–133.

  Social reaction, II, 283, 285.

  “Social reform,” I, 252–253.

  Social reform and war, I, 31.

  Social reformers, I, 195–196.

  Social relations, II, 123.

  Social remedy, I, 171–172.

  Social revolution, III, 338–339.

  Social risks, III, 155.

  Social science, I, 239; II, 168, 171, 208, 217, 218, 364; III, 127,
        141, 148, 150.

  =SOCIAL SCIENCE, INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO COURSES IN POLITICAL AND=,
        III, 391–403.

  Social sciences, the, III, 246, 407.

  Social scientist, duty of the, III, 399–400.

  Social tinker, the, II, 285–286.

  Social topics, I, 170; III, 415–425; IV, 468, 493.

  Social uplift, I, 250.

  Social victories, III, 131.

  Social war, II, 312–317; IV, 169.

  =SOCIAL WAR IN DEMOCRACY=, II, 312–317.

  Social welfare, I, 186.

  Socialism, I, 207–208, 242, 323; II, 67, 70–71, 122, 127, 130, 174,
        178, 183–184, 187, 191; III, 17, 36–49, 51, 55–62, 65–66, 74,
        211–212; IV, 79, 441–462;
    phases of, III, 47–48;
    the political element in, III, 46–48.

  =SOCIALIST, REPLY TO A=, III, 55–62.

  Socialistic doctrines, III, 34, 41, 42, 44–45.

  Socialistic measures, the effect of, III, 77.

  Socialistic propositions, III, 193.

  Socialistic state, the, II, 302, 303; III, 73–74, 75, 77, 97, 98.

  Socialists, I, 169, 206, 229–230; II, 109–110, 191, 258, 267; III,
        36–37, 39, 40–44, 52, 55–62, 94–95, 96, 98, 129, 423.

  _Socialpolitik_, III, 215.

  Societal environment, I, 129, 130, 143.

  Societal evolution, III, 82.

  Societal functions, the integration of, III, 82.

  Societal organization, III, 87;
    and war, I, 15, 30–35.

  Societal selection and war, I, 32–34.

  Societal undertakings, III, 81–82.

  Society, I, 168, 174–175; II, 364; III, 392, 407–408, 420; IV, 12,
        13, 479–480, 484;
    advancing organization of, II, 286–287;
    American colonial, III, 290–323;
    elasticity and vitality of, III, 155;
    embryonic, III, 290;
    industrial, III, 66, 321–322;
    medieval, I, 143–145, 215–217;
    militant type of, I, 28;
    modern, II, 309; III, 394–395;
    of a new country, III, 69–70;
    organization of, I, 213; II, 261;
    organization of civilized, II, 144–145, 250, 251, 252, 253, 283–287;
    organs of, II, 284–286;
    primitive, I, 7–9;
    rights of, II, 97–98;
    science of, II, 71, 284, 285;
    welfare of, III, 201–202.

  =SOCIOLOGICAL FALLACIES=, II, 357–364.

  Sociological questions, III, 409.

  =SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY, THE PREDICAMENT OF=, III, 415–425.

  =SOCIOLOGY=, I, 167–192.

  Sociology, I, 371; II, 67, 357, 358, 364; III, 38, 51–52, 415–425;
        IV, 14, 16, 401–405;
    and the exact sciences, III, 410;
    and novelists, III, 424–425;
    and political economy, I, 180–183;
    definition of, I, 167–168;
    dogmatism in, III, 418–419;
    field of, I, 173–178;
    German school of, III, 418;
    mystical, III, 418;
    need of, I, 172–173; III, 407–408; IV, 402;
    promise of, I, 192;
    scientific, III, 419–420;
    sentimental, III, 419, 420;
    the task of, I, 170–171.

  =SOCIOLOGY, THE SCIENCE OF=, IV, 401–405.

  =SOCIOLOGY AS A COLLEGE SUBJECT=, III, 407–411.

  Soft money, III, 371.

  Soil, possession of the, I, 178–180.

  Solon, status of women in the laws of, I, 101.

  Sound money, III, 370–371.

  South, the, III, 376–378; IV, 312, 319, 320, 324, 344–345, 354;
    planters of, IV, 287;
    politicians of, IV, 317;
    slavery in, III, 301–304.

  South Africa, IV, 282;
   war in, I, 6.

  South America, IV, 52, 55;
    and the United States, I, 277–278.

  South American Commission, IV, 69.

  South American republics, I, 277–278; III, 230.

  South Carolina, IV, 354.

  Sovereignty, IV, 290;
    of the people, III, 263–264, 370–371.

  Space, II, 240.

  Spain, I, 293, 303, 304, 305, 319; II, 53–54, 313; IV, 64;
    and imperialism, I, 297;
    the civilizing mission of, I, 304, 305;
    the colonial system of, I, 306–310, 318, 319.

  =SPAIN, THE CONQUEST OF THE UNITED STATES BY=, I, 297–334.

  Spanish America, I, 304–305, 308.

  Spanish-American colonies, I, 276, 306; II, 57–58.

  Spanish-American states, I, 312.

  Spanish-American war, I, 29, 297, 298, 300–301, 343; II, 69.

  Specie, IV, 375–376, 381;
    circular, IV, 379, 380, 385;
    payments, resumption of, IV, 176.

  Specific interest, III, 196–197.

  Speculation, IV, 374–375.

  =SPECULATIVE LEGISLATION=, III, 215–219.

  Spencer, Herbert, III, 208; IV, 401, 405.

  Spices, IV, 265–267.

  Spirit, the modern, III, 347–350.

  Spoils, III, 268–270;
    doctrine, III, 269;
    of office, II, 303;
    party, II, 328;
    System, III, 268–270.

  Stable government, I, 350.

  Stamp Act Congress, the, III, 327.

  Standard of gain, IV, 68–69.

  Standard of living, II, 33–35.

  State, the, I, 247–248; II, 129, 183, 305, 364; III, 74–75, 223–226;
        IV, 13–14, 15, 17–18, 78–80, 81, 231–232, 258;
    a burden, I, 215, 216–217, 218;
    a consumer, II, 104–105;
    a monopoly, II, 310;
    an ethical person, I, 221; II, 309;
    and capital, II, 306;
    and church, I, 131, 162; II, 18–19, 310;
    and industry, I, 215; II, 300, 310;
    and market, separation of, II, 310;
    as a peace-group, I, 23;
    function of, II, 169–170, 271;
    “of nature,” II, 131, 140, 219;
    “reasons of,” I, 37, 333; II, 165–166; III, 240;
    socialistic, II, 302–303; III, 73–74, 75, 77, 97, 98.

  State absolutism, II, 130.

  State action, II, 207–208, 302.

  =STATE AND MARKET, SEPARATION OF=, II, 306–311.

  =STATE AND MONOPOLY, THE=, II, 270–279.

  =STATE AS AN “ETHICAL PERSON,” THE=, III, 201–204.

  State banks, IV, 380.

  =STATE INTERFERENCE=, I, 213–226.

  State interference, I, 213–226; II, 96, 98, 100, 270–279, 285–289,
        328.

  State necessity, I, 339–344.

  State power, abuse of, III, 71–72.

  State protection, II, 153.

  State regulation, II, 285–287; III, 177, 210; IV, 480–482;
    of industry, I, 216–217;
    of marriage and the family, II, 93–94, 103–104.

  States, character of governing, I, 346;
    expedient size of, I, 285;
    frontier, III, 332;
    national, I, 285;
    the Spanish-American, I, 312.

  Statesmanship, III, 396; IV, 15, 20, 59, 329–330;
    and war, I, 35;
    bad, III, 37;
    questions of, I, 298, 299–300, 301.

  Statesmen, III, 281–282; IV, 11–12, 15, 37, 41–42, 58, 66, 67, 299;
    of the eighteenth century, IV, 11.

  Statistics, III, 401; IV, 47, 76–77, 86, 338.

  Status, II, 125, 308; IV, 474;
    -wife, I, 47, 68, 76, 85–86, 89, 90, 91, 101.

  Steam, the age of, III, 173, 181–182.

  Steel, IV, 77, 91, 274, 275.

  Stewart, A. T., IV, 97.

  Stickney, II, 326.

  Strabo, I, 12.

  Stranger and enemy, I, 10–11.

  Strikes, I, 233; II, 286–287; III, 99–100; IV, 228, 243–245, 249–250,
        251–252;
    in Germany, I, 232–233.

  =STRIKES, THE PHILOSOPHY OF=, IV, 239–246.

  =STRIKES AND THE INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION=, IV, 249–253.

  Struggle, II, 312–317;
    for existence, I, 8, 9, 164, 173, 176–177; II, 226, 347; III,
        17–18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 30–31, 57, 58, 120–121, 122–123; IV, 79,
        257;
    for supremacy in the Union, III, 332–333;
    industrial, II, 286–287;
    military, II, 286–287;
    of classes, II, 312–317; III, 129–132;
    of interests, I, 222, 224.

  Subsidies, IV, 58, 275–276, 280–281.

  Subsistence, means of, III, 114–115, 119–121, 145, 146, 171;
    war for, I, 14.

  Sub-treasury system, the, IV, 383.

  Sue, Eugene, IV, 483.

  Suffrage, III, 253; IV, 344;
    in the United States, III, 225;
    negro, I, 330–331, 349.

  Sugar, IV, 53, 60–66.

  Sumatrans, the, I, 20.

  Sumner, William Graham, Autobiographical Sketch of, II, 3–5;
    Sketch of, III, 3–13.

  Sunlight, II, 240.

  Superiority, privilege with, II, 123.

  Supply and demand, II, 225; III, 97–98, 119, 121; IV, 141, 196, 198,
        201, 204, 214, 251, 252.

  Supreme Court of the United States, II, 325–326; III, 329.

  Survival of the fittest, III, 25, 423; IV, 225.

  Survival of the unfittest, III, 25, 423; IV, 225.

  Survivals, III, 420–421.

  Sydney, IV, 366.

  System, III, 55–56, 57–58, 59; IV, 133;
    colonial, I, 274–275, 278, 306–310, 313, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319;
        II, 49–50, 53, 57, 60; III, 323; IV, 12, 59;
    common school, III, 357;
    feudal, II, 312–313;
    manor, III, 310–312;
    medieval, I, 131;
    navigation, I, 318, 320;
    political, of the United States, III, 341–342;
    spoils, III, 268–270;
    wages, II, 185–187; III, 97, 294.


  Taboo, II, 80–81;
    peace-, I, 16, 18, 26.

  Taine, H. A., III, 73.

  Talent, II, 134, 329;
    and industry, II, 323.

  Tammany Hall, IV, 313, 327, 361.

  Taney, R. B., IV, 359.

  Tariff, IV, 22, 24, 44–45, 64, 74, 79, 85, 89, 233, 234;
    Commission, IV, 27–28, 63, 94;
    decisions, IV, 30;
    of 1828, IV, 308, 312–313, 351, 354;
    of 1883, IV, 27–29;
    rightly adjusted, IV, 133–134;
    victims of the, IV, 19, 111.

  =TARIFF REFORM=, IV, 115–120.

  Taussig, F. W., IV, 28, 108.

  Tax, IV, 21–22, 23; payers, I, 259; II, 99–101, 102, 122; IV, 101;
    protective, I, 263, 264–266; III, 74;
    single, III, 312.

  Taxation, III, 74, 327, 400; IV, 31–32, 58, 108, 110, 115–118;
    campaign against, IV, 110.

  Taxes, IV, 11–12, 19–20, 31, 33, 44–45, 58, 67, 74, 76, 96, 479;
    excise, III, 327;
    on exports, IV, 12, 15–16;
    on imports, IV, 12, 16, 20;
    reducing, IV, 115–118, 119.

  Teachers, IV, 413, 416–417;
    the demands on, II, 12.

  =TEACHER’S UNCONSCIOUS SUCCESS, THE=, II, 9–13.

  Technical training, IV, 424–425, 431.

  Telegraph and telephone, III, 89;
    as natural monopolies, II, 245–246.

  Telegraphers, IV, 243–245.

  “Tenant slaves,” II, 136.

  Tenants, III, 156–157, 295.

  Terms, definition of, needed, III, 93;
    the vagueness of, III, 161–162.

  Territorial aggrandizement, I, 286.

  Territorial extension, I, 285–286, 337, 339; II, 57;
    the burdens of, I, 292–293.

  =TERRITORIAL EXTENSION, THE FALLACY OF=, I, 285–293.

  Territory, jurisdiction over, I, 286–288, 289, 290; II, 54–56.

  Terrorism, III, 186.

  Tertullian, II, 114.

  Texas, II, 47, 57; IV, 55–56, 165, 317, 319;
    the acquisition of, I, 341;
    the admission of, III, 262.

  Theocracy, definition of, II, 290.

  Theory, IV, 16–17, 18, 19, 94;
    definition of, IV, 16.

  Those who consume more than they produce, IV, 101.

  Those-who-have, II, 315–316; III, 102, 165, 339.

  Those-who-have-not, II, 315–316; III, 102, 165, 339.

  Those who produce more than they consume, IV, 101.

  Thread, IV, 94, 492;
    protective tax on, I, 264–266; IV, 492.

  Thuringian Co., IV, 265–267.

  Tilden, S. J., III, 369–374, 378–379.

  Tillers and nomads, III, 300.

  Tin, IV, 42–43.

  Tobacco, IV, 489–490.

  Tocqueville, Alexis de, III, 256.

  Toil, II, 236, 238.

  Tories, the, III, 325; IV, 286.

  Town, the, Superseded, III, 260–261.

  Town and country, I, 155–157.

  Town democracy, III, 256–260, 262, 266, 267.

  Town meeting, the, III, 256–259.

  Towns, colonial, III, 313–315, 318–319;
    the Evils of Overgrown, III, 259–261.

  Townships and towns contrasted, III, 313–314.

  Trade, I, 320–322; IV, 51–56, 92, 93, 97, 229;
    and conquest, I, 321;
    balance of, IV, 12;
    carrying, IV, 275, 276, 277–279, 280, 282;
    conditions of, I, 321;
    foreign, IV, 119;
    free, I, 289–290, 291, 318, 319, 321, 322; II, 51, 109–110, 111;
        III, 378; IV, 16, 17–18, 19, 20, 26, 47, 48–49, 83, 90, 94, 95,
        109–110, 123–127, 282, 312, 318;
    primitive, IV, 53.

  Trade schools, II, 101.

  Trades-unions, I, 250–252; III, 102; IV, 262, 486–487.

  Tradition, II, 80;
    and religion, I, 131.

  Traditions, III, 347, 348;
    American, III, 252–254, 255;
    English, III, 297.

  Tramp, liberty of the, II, 154–155.

  Transcendentalism, III, 415, 417.

  Transportation, I, 187–189; III, 85;
    means of, II, 245.

  Treaties, I, 13.

  Trial and failure, IV, 18, 20.

  Tribute, IV, 23, 34, 86, 105, 106, 107.

  “Truce of God,” the, I, 21.

  =“TRUST,” AN OLD=, IV, 265–269.

  Trusts, I, 238; II, 253, 298–299, 343; IV, 258–262, 265–269.

  =TRUSTS AND TRADES-UNIONS=, IV, 257–262.

  Truth, II, 18.

  Turkey, II, 55; IV, 24, 135, 282.

  Tweed ring, the, III, 373.

  Tyler, John, IV, 316, 360.

  Tyndall, Professor, III, 400–401.

  Tyranny, I, 213–215;
    of the market, II, 151–152;
    of vague impression, II, 324;
    political, I, 222–223.


  Ulpian, II, 114–115.

  Undergraduate life, IV, 429–430.

  Underpopulation, I, 159, 183–184, 185, 187–188; II, 42, 43, 44; III,
        22–23, 121.

  Unearned increment, II, 244; III, 312.

  Unfittest, survival of the, III, 25, 423; IV, 225.

  Union, the, III, 315, 325–326; IV, 289, 297;
    and the Constitution, III, 250–252;
    struggle for supremacy in, III, 332–333.

  Unions, trades-, I, 250–252; III, 102; IV, 262, 486–487.

  =UNITED STATES, ADVANCING SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN THE=,
        III, 289–344.

  United States, the, I, 153, 219–220, 297, 304, 305; IV, 17, 48, 52,
        58, 69, 76, 78, 83, 90, 94, 96, 108, 118, 119, 229, 240–242,
        278, 282, 290, 291, 292, 317, 338–339, 371, 379, 477–478, 481,
        489;
    and Canada, I, 289–290; II, 51;
    and China, I, 343–344;
    and Cuba, I, 290–291; II, 55–57;
    and dependencies, I, 310, 311–312, 317–319;
    and foreign affairs, I, 276–277; II, 60–61;
    and Germany, II, 302;
    and imperialism, I, 291, 345–346;
    and South America, I, 277–278;
    and territorial extension, I, 292;
    a nation, III, 350, 354;
    as a peace-group, I, 26–29;
    Bank of, IV, 259, 313, 340, 352–354, 355, 356, 358, 359, 360–361,
        372–374, 377, 379, 380, 381–382, 385, 386, 387, 388–390, 391,
        395;
    centralization in, III, 316–317;
    civilizing mission of, I, 304, 305;
    colonial society of, III, 290–323;
    colonial history of, III, 248–253, 290–323;
    Constitution of, I, 310, 311, 313, 314, 315; II, 333; III, 251,
        252–255, 306–307, 325–326, 329, 334–336, 396–397; IV, 289, 291,
        292, 297, 304, 319, 320, 331–332, 344, 348–349, 360, 367;
    future of, I, 350–351; III, 275–277;
    government of, III, 326–328; IV, 323;
    growth of, III, 315–316;
    industrial organization in, I, 196–199;
    industrial power of, III, 154;
    jobbery in, I, 262–263; IV, 488–491;
    movement of population in, II, 44;
    national bank system of, I, 31;
    nature of, I, 310–311;
    nature of democracy in, I, 324–325;
    not a colonizing nation, I, 305–306;
    oligarchies in, II, 329–330;
    political corruption in, III, 395–396, 397;
    political earth hunger of, II, 50–51, 53;
    political system of, III, 341–342;
    position of, I, 26–27; II, 63–64; III, 321–322, 344, 350–351;
    position of laborers in, I, 196;
    position of the president of, III, 283;
    race antagonism in, I, 28;
    slavery in, III, 311, 348–350, 355–356;
    social classes in, III, 307–309;
    suffrage in, III, 335;
    Supreme Court of, II, 325–326; III, 329;
    treatment of aborigines by, I, 27–28.

  =UNITED STATES, THE CONQUEST OF THE, BY SPAIN=, I, 297–334.

  Universal peace, I, 35–36.

  University, the, III, 82.

  Unskilled laborers, I, 159, 249, 251–252; II, 44; III, 122.

  Utopias, I, 169; II, 25, 183; III, 243–244.


  Vagabondage, II, 125.

  Value, IV, 196–198, 199, 210.

  Van Buren, Martin, IV, 315, 318, 319, 355.

  Vanderbilt, I, 201.

  Vanity, I, 14, 130; III, 113;
    and war, I, 14, 39;
    national, I, 300–301, 303, 304, 343, 344; II, 46, 51.

  Venezuela, I, 38, 278, 328.

  Vice, II, 229; III, 19, 23, 67, 298; IV, 470, 480, 487;
    and legislation, I, 252;
    penalty of, I, 252;
    political, I, 300–301, 302;
    sex-, I, 78.

  Vices of human nature, III, 233–234.

  Vicious legislation, II, 275, 277.

  Village communities, III, 298–300, 313–314.

  Violence, III, 73.

  Virginians, IV, 322.

  Virtues, the industrial, II, 345–346; III, 51–52, 201–202, 297;
    taught by war, I, 15.

  Vital energy, III, 96–97.

  Voltaire, I, 121; II, 23.

  Von Holst, Professor, IV, 339, 340.

  Vows, I, 157.


  Wage-earners, III, 141–142, 162–163, 173–174; IV, 168.

  Wages, I, 233, 251, 265–266; II, 42, 43, 44, 61; III, 35, 102, 172;
        IV, 12, 29–30, 36, 43–46, 51–52, 70–78, 90, 119, 126, 168,
        243–245, 249–250, 486–487;
    and prices, IV, 249–250, 252;
    -class, III, 94–97, 169, 170; IV, 44–45, 71–72;
    rate of, I, 237;
    “slavery,” II, 136, 145, 187, 312;
    system, II, 185–187; III, 97; IV, 71;
    system lacking, III, 294.

  Wagner, II, 322.

  Wall Street, IV, 152–153, 162.

  Walras, IV, 196.

  Wampum, IV, 208.

  =WAR=, I, 3–40.

  War, I, 3–40; II, 50, 63, 79–80, 301; III, 320–322, 359–360; IV, 67,
        68, 95–96, 108, 324;
    about women, I, 5;
    a ferment, I, 33;
    among the Papuans, I, 4;
    and civilization, I, 16, 34–35;
    and discipline, I, 14, 15;
    and group sentiment, I, 9;
    and kinship, I, 19–20;
    and political organization, I, 4;
    and property, I, 4;
    and racial progress, I, 16;
    and religion, I, 11, 14–15, 19–20, 24–26;
    and social reform, I, 31;
    and societal organization, I, 15, 30–35;
    and societal selection, I, 32–34;
    and statesmanship, I, 35;
    and the competition of life, I, 9–10, 14;
    and the increase of population, I, 4, 10;
    and vanity, I, 14, 39;
    benefits of, I, 30–34;
    between the tribes of Israel, I, 9;
    causes of, I, 14;
    Civil, the, I, 31, 32, 217, 219, 311; III, 277, 316, 321, 329–330,
        333, 349, 351–354, 359–362, 398–400; IV, 175, 223, 323–324, 330;
    commercial, IV, 95–96;
    fairness in, I, 5;
    for duty, III, 362;
    for glory, I, 14; III, 362;
    for religious motives, I, 14;
    for subsistence, I, 14;
    for women, I, 14;
    Franco-Prussian, IV, 224;
    horrors of, reduced, I, 19–20;
    industrial, I, 225, 232, 234–236, 237, 239, 241, 243; III, 98–102;
        IV, 246, 261;
    inevitable, I, 10;
    in Melanesia, I, 5;
    in South Africa, I, 6;
    laws of, II, 112–113;
    love of, I, 29;
    major premises about, I, 3;
    makes peace, I, 11;
    not known, I, 6;
    of 1812, IV, 301–302, 372;
    only a makeshift, I, 35;
    regulations, I, 19–20;
    rules of, I, 19–20;
    social, II, 312–317; IV, 169;
    Spanish-American, the, I, 29, 297, 298, 299, 300–301, 343; II, 69;
    state of readiness for, I, 39–40;
    virtues taught by, I, 15;
    waste of, I, 16;
    within a peace-group, I, 18–19.

  =WAR, INDUSTRIAL=, III, 93–102.

  =WAR, SOCIAL, IN DEMOCRACY=, II, 312–317.

  Warfare, modern, I, 29;
    political, III, 268–270.

  Warlikeness, I, 7.

  Wars, eighteenth century, I, 320; II, 60;
    of the colonists with the French and Indians, III, 250, 251;
    railroad, I, 240;
    religious, I, 25.

  “Wares,” II, 185–186.

  Washington, city of, IV, 26, 41, 44, 68.

  Washington, George, III, 342, 343; IV, 291, 292, 293, 341, 343.

  Waste, IV, 33, 40, 43, 51, 106, 109, 111;
    land, II, 37–38.

  Watchwords, II, 322; IV, 298.

  Water power, II, 318.

  Water supply, II, 241;
    a natural monopoly, II, 246.

  Weak, the, IV, 475, 494.

  Wealth, I, 202; II, 10, 147, 149, 293–295; III, 42–43; 265–266; IV,
        40;
    abolishing, II, 231;
    accumulation of, III, 320;
    aggregation of, III, 66–67, 81, 90;
    and Democracy, III, 274–275;
    and liberty, II, 147–154;
    and poverty, III, 65–77;
    cares of, II, 150–154;
    concentration of, III, 81–90;
    distribution of, II, 228;
    national, I, 307–308;
    pursuit of, IV, 295–296;
    relative, II, 229–230;
    thirst for, II, 147.

  =WEALTH: THE CONCENTRATION OF, ITS ECONOMIC JUSTIFICATION=, III,
        81–90.

  Webster, Daniel, II, 327; III, 177; IV, 316, 342, 353, 354.

  Wedding, I, 43;
    ceremony, I, 75, 76, 93.

  “We-group,” the, I, 9.

  West Africans, the, I, 49, 50.

  West Australians, peace-institutions of the, I, 18.

  _Westminster Review_, IV, 107.

  =WHAT EMANCIPATES=, III, 137–142.

  =WHAT IS CIVIL LIBERTY?=, II, 109–130.

  =WHAT IS FREE TRADE?=, IV, 123–127.

  =WHAT IS THE “PROLETARIAT”?=, III, 161–165.

  =WHAT MAKES THE RICH RICHER AND THE POOR POORER?=, III, 65–77.

  =WHAT OUR BOYS ARE READING=, II, 367–377.

  =WHAT THE “SOCIAL QUESTION” IS=, III, 127–133.

  Wheat, IV, 42, 47, 55–56, 58, 59, 85, 91–92, 97;
    and iron, III, 39.

  Whigs, the, III, 325, 327, 328; IV, 314, 315, 316, 319, 321, 355,
        357, 363.

  =WHO IS FREE? IS IT THE CIVILIZED MAN?=, II, 140–145.

  =WHO IS FREE? IS IT THE MILLIONAIRE?=, II, 145–150.

  =WHO IS FREE? IS IT THE SAVAGE?=, II, 136–140.

  =WHO IS FREE? IS IT THE TRAMP?=, II, 150–155.

  =WHO WIN BY PROGRESS?=, III, 160–174.

  Wife, the status-, I, 47, 68, 76, 85–86, 89, 90, 91, 101.

  Wife-capture, I, 48, 77, 85.

  Wife-purchase, I, 66, 68, 70, 74, 85, 86.

  Wilder, IV, 387.

  “Will of the people,” IV, 314, 318, 328, 329, 344, 348.

  Williams, IV, 136, 137.

  Willimantic linen company, IV, 492.

  Willson, Wildes, and Wiggins, IV, 378, 379.

  Winthrop, John, III, 293; IV, 72.

  Wire-pullers, IV, 362.

  Wisdom, IV, 426, 427.

  =WITCHCRAFT=, I, 105–126.

  Witchcraft, I, 105–126; II, 21–23; IV, 153;
    and Christianity, I, 112;
    and heresy, I, 105;
    and hysteria, I, 108, 119–120;
    and politics, I, 125–126; II, 23;
    and religion, I, 119–121;
    and the aleatory element, I, 116, 119–120;
    and the Catholic Church, I, 123;
    and the Inquisition, I, 105–109;
    and women, I, 105–107;
    decline of, I, 121;
    in France, I, 117–118;
    in Germany, I, 106, 107, 112, 116;
    in Italy, I, 112, 117–118;
    in New England, I, 122–123;
    mania, opposition to the, I, 110, 113–115.

  Witch-persecutions, I, 109–112; II, 21–22;
    and greed for money, I, 111;
    in Scotland, I, 115–116;
    recent, I, 124–125;
    the extent of, I, 118.

  Witch-trials, I, 109–110.

  Wolcott, Oliver, IV, 292, 295.

  Wolowski, L., IV, 191–193, 194, 197.

  Woman, the forgotten, I, 264–266; IV, 492–493.

  Women, I, 65–102;
    as property, II, 262;
    as witches, I, 105–107;
    dominance of, II, 122;
    how regarded, I, 50–60, 73, 74, 77, 78–79, 81, 89, 91–92, 95–97,
        100–101;
    in industry, IV, 243;
    medieval views of, I, 106–109;
    peace for, I, 21;
    rule of, I, 49;
    seclusion of, I, 65, 69–70, 71, 89, 92, 94, 101;
    slaves, I, 47, 67, 68, 69, 75, 77, 85, 87; II, 262;
    status of, among nomads, I, 65;
    status of, among the Jews, I, 51–52, 76–81;
    status of, among the Persians, I, 75–76;
    status of, and the mores, I, 67, 68;
    status of, at Rome, I, 56–60;
    status of, how controlled, I, 65–67;
    status of, in Babylonia, I, 69–71;
    status of, in Chaldea, I, 69, 70, 71;
    status of, in early Christianity, I, 52–60;
    status of, in Egypt, I, 81–85;
    status of, in Greece, I, 85–102;
    status of, in Homer, I, 85–87;
    status of, in India, I, 72–75;
    status of, in Judea, I, 76–80;
    status of, in monogamy, II, 255, 257;
    status of, in savage life, I, 46;
    status of, in the father-family, I, 51;
    status of, in the laws of Hammurabi, I, 67–69, 71;
    status of, in the laws of Manu, I, 72–75;
    status of, in the laws of Solon, I, 101;
    status of, in the New Testament, I, 80–81;
    status of, in the Old Testament, I, 76–80;
    status of, under agriculture, I, 65;
    strength of, I, 44–46;
    subjection of, II, 122–123;
    war about, I, 5;
    war for, I, 14.

  =WOMEN, THE STATUS OF, IN CHALDEA, EGYPT, INDIA, JUDEA, AND GREECE TO
        THE TIME OF CHRIST=, I, 65–102.

  Wood supply, II, 241.

  Wool, IV, 33–34, 36, 54, 55, 90.

  Woolen mill, IV, 39–40.

  Woolen operative, IV, 46–47.

  Work, II, 149, 150, 220; III, 34, 35; IV, 36, 55, 91, 98;
    intellectual, II, 192–193;
    the right to, III, 34–35.

  Working classes, the, I, 249–250; IV, 477–478.

  “Working man,” the, II, 102; IV, 43;
    and education, II, 100.

  Workshops, public, IV, 79, 92.

  =WORLD, THE ABSURD EFFORT TO MAKE THE, OVER=, I, 195–210.

  World-improvers, III, 188, 210, 416.

  World-philosophy, I, 129, 133, 134, 143.

  World-system, the dual, I, 276, 277, 278; II, 60–62.

  Worry, II, 150, 154.

  Wright, Carroll, IV, 77.

  Writers on industrial problems, I, 236–238.


  Yakuts, the, I, 45.

  Yale diploma, what it ought to mean, I, 361–362.

  Yeomen, III, 300.


  Zendavesta, the, I, 75–76.

  Zoroaster, I, 75, 134.

  Zoroastrianism, I, 137.

  Zulus, the, III, 129.




      *      *      *      *      *      *




Transcriber’s note:

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected.

Redundant chapter headings were removed.

Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of pages, have been renumbered
into a single sequence, collected, and placed after the Bibliography.

The Index references other books in addition to this one, so versions
of this book that support hyperlinks do not contain hyperlinks to
those other books.

The Index was not systematically checked for proper alphabetization or
correct page references.

Wikipedia has a short biography of William Graham Sumner:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Graham_Sumner

Cover created by Transcriber and placed into the Public Domain.

Page 355: The Seminole wars were fought in 1817-1818, not in 1878.

Footnote 46: “August von Sacheen” may be a misprint for “August von
Sachsen.”





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