It is satisfactory to note that in using the expression "organized pride" Mr. Crawford-Frost did not deliberately intend to stigmatize the spirit of the Charity Organization people; he now expressly recognizes their "good intentions" and bases his condemnation on "the fallacies in their position." We hope to show, before we get through, on which side the fallacy lies.

The position of the reverend gentleman is stated in these questions, relating to the two quotations in parallel columns above:

Question 1. How is a man to obey both these injunctions at once?

Question 2. If he has to disobey either, which shall it be, God's or man's?

Question 3. Which breathes the more noble spirit?

The third question may be answered at once. The Sermon on the Mount is the noblest and most inspiring appeal to what is highest and purest in man's nature that the human race has ever received; the directions in the Charity Organization Society's card are rules for practical guidance as to howin the opinion of the framers of them-the least harm and the most good can be accomplished in a certain definite class of contingencies. It is absurd to condemn a set of practical rules because the Sermon on the Mount "breathes a more noble spirit"; there is not a law or regulation of any kind in force in any country in the world which would not be open to precisely the same condemnation.

But the kernel of the reverend gentleman's case is in the other two questions; and the fallacy implied in them can be very plainly pointed out. He

assumes that the choice people actually make is between following the injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount just as they stand and following the rules of the Charity Organization Society. But he must know very well that not a single person of his congregation does actually make that choice. To give a little dole now and then to a beggar is not a fulfillment of the injunction Give to him that asketh thee"; neither is lending a half-dollar once in a while to a poor devil the carrying out of the injunction "From him that would borrow of thee turn not away." Probably not a single person who heard Mr. Crawford-Frost had ever so much as entertained the idea of acting upon the advice he gave them yesterday, "If they steal your overcoat, let them take your cloak also," though they had read a thousand times the corresponding precept in the Sermon on the Mount. The alternative the reverend gentleman discusses is not at all the alternative with which the men and women whom he was addressing are confronted. The question with them is simply whether they shall yield to their benevolent impulses and do a little act of immediate material good to the beggar before them, without considering the future consequences of their conduct, or curb that impulse because they have learned that they can do more good and less harm to the poor in other ways. Not one of them is going to act upon the doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount regarded as literal rules of practical conduct; not one of them is even going to try to do so. What the best of them will do is to endeavor to act in something of the beautiful and unselfish spirit con

veyed in that inspired utterance. To assert that he who gives a pittance to every beggar who asks it— at extremely little sacrifice to himself, which is the case in at least nine-tenths of all instances-is necessarily displaying more of that noble spirit than he who does not give unless he knows something of the circumstances of the case is to take an extremely low view of the meaning of that lofty teaching.

Those who have given serious thought to the problem of poverty do not advise people to give less; they only advise them to give with more care. They do not say, despise the poor; on the contrary, they say, consider the poor worthy of your careful thought and not merely of an occasional sixpence. They do not say, do less good to the needy; they say, take care lest, in indulging your impulse of kindness, you gratify yourself at the cost of the permanent welfare of those whom you shove along the road of pauperism, and to whom, after giving your dole, you never give a second thought. Most of us can easily find in the circle of our immediate knowledge enough objects of well-placed charity to absorb all that we are in the habit of giving, and more; and in doing this, the Charity Organization Society bids every one of us Godspeed. What they ask us not to do is to give to every comer a little alms which costs us no sacrifice, but which makes easy to those weak in spirit that downward path the following of which means a lasting farewell to selfrespect, to decency, to honesty, to all that makes life worth living.

THE BENEVOLENT DESPOTISM OF THE

BILLIONAIRES

(November 14, 1901)

Another great step toward the control of the leading economic interests by a few small groups of financial potentates was taken yesterday. By the incorporation of the Northern Securities Company, capital $400,000,000, preparation was made for the full control by the Morgan-Hill combination of the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern Railways, and of their leased lines, including the Burlington. That this object, which is now immediately in prospect, does not define the limits of the movement may be set down as practically certain. The bringing in of the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific, thus completing the control of the entire trans-Mississippi railroad system of the United States, is undoubtedly contemplated as the goal to be arrived at in a not distant future.

These gigantic transactions, designed and executed by men of the highest order of financial genius, have so many bearings, and are of such profound significance and importance, that it would be an act of temerity for almost anyone to undertake to discuss them in all their aspects. There are two respects, however, in which they obviously appeal to the general interest, and call for some words of comment. On the stock-brokering side they present phenomena such as, only a few years ago, would have been regarded as almost fabulous. The mere

recasting of the organic connections of these vast interests—just as has been the case with the great industrial corporations, of which the United States Steel Corporation sets the high-water mark-has given opportunities for those engineering the deals. to make colossal fortunes at a stroke of the pen. Great consolidations are effected for the promotion of the future profits of the capitalists involved; and it is the public, not the profiting capitalists, who are asked to pay the bonus for this golden transformation. Just as soon as Mr. Morgan gets his hand on the machine, every one of its parts becomes endowed at least for the time being-with a new value in the market. The public pay the price, and those in the secret get the profit. Whether the investing public will come out unscathed in the end remains to be seen. Everything is charming just now; but who knows how long the skies will remain so smiling? The prices which rule today for securities, lifted as though by magic to a sudden height, may not prove to be justified when experience shall have covered not months, but years. When a change to the bad sets in, and the drop comes, the great operators will be standing from under, and the little people, and the not very big people, will have to suffer the consequences.

As for the interests of the public at large, it is plain that, in the great central requisites of trade and industry-transportation, coal, steel and the rest— these interests are being relegated more and more to the control of a "benevolent despotism." Any despotism which is not absolute is of necessity more or less benevolent; it must be so for the sake of self