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striving for all the good justly and properly within reach. Contentment and resignation are not virtues under evil conditions that can be improved. The facts that other nations fare worse, and that we can put up with less than the most in reach, are not to be listened to by people knowing their rights and possibilities. Many a man does well, and enjoys life, who has lost an arm. Nature has given us bountiful blessings, but we are unworthy if we fail to get and to use them all.

It is Because the Tariff Question is in Politics that it has been characterized by so much insincerity. In business this would not be tolerated. There deception is quickly resented. Candid honesty has not been the best policy in politics, because the mass of the people, the educated perhaps not less than the ignorant, will usually consent to the taking of liberties with the truth for the sake of party advantage.

The Whole Matter of Human Welfare is a Question of Knowledge, and of wise use of it. Very slowly has experience taught and improved the race. Harsh censure must be withheld from the ruling classes that have gained from unjust conditions, and have attempted to beat back the march of progress. Others in their places would doubtless have done likewise. Very naturally to them, whatever is, is right. The protected landlords under the English corn laws, which starved the people by raising price of food, piously taught that God intended many to live in poverty. Southern planters quieted coninevitable connection with legislation, have been the undoing of political morality." Such will ever be the result of exploiting the people for private gain. There is too much money in protection for human nature ever to withstand its temptations. "Forty years of tariff hypocrisy and deception have taught us that a wise man, before starting an important enterprise, secures a favoring law or franchise." (H. W. Seymour, Chicago.)

science by the thought that the blacks were born to serve, and that without slavery cotton could not be raised. Americans now benefited by protection allay inward suspicion of its unsoundness by the thought that they have always had it, and that it is necessary for diversified industry. The civilization, Christianity, and certain support possessed by negroes because of their slavery, were put forward as benefits for the same reason that America's wealth and growth are all claimed as results of protection. Under the healing effect of time, those who oppose progress are soon benefited by it as much as those who carry it forward.

The People Too Easily Deceived.—And the people in general are little less to blame. Their obvious readiness to be deceived suggests deception to those gaining from it, and relieves them from some of the guilt. Not many have had thoughts of censure toward P. T. Barnum because it was from profitable experience that he knew the truth of his famous dictum about the American people. So few persons, from the best educated downward, make a worthy attempt to know economics, that unsoundness in a tempting policy is a weak bar against its adoption.

All Classes in Fault.-Perhaps the scheming of capitalists for subsidies and protection is no worse in evil effects than the dependence of wage workers upon favoring laws hoped for, instead of on industry, frugality, and general self-help. The old methods of proper self-advancement seem destined to prevail always, being fixed in nature. The purpose of patriotic interest in government is to help it, not to get direct personal gain. Its benefits, as nearly as possible, should fall impartially upon all, like the air and the sunshine. The voting public must make the government what it ought to be, or bear the consequences.

The Principles of Getting a Living, and the public duties they impose, are doubtless as easy to discover and follow as they could be without weakening mind and character. Men could not ask for a system of nature more favorable to them. One reason why the laws of society are so difficult to discern is the longsuffering of nature the delay with which their violation is punished. The conditions of existence are evidently fitted for the highest average of human welfare. The natural laws of economics eventually force men to be just for the sake of their own gain. If people were as ready to perform duties as to clamor for rights, a comparatively perfect society would not seem unattainable. The rights of each depend upon performance of duty by all.

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Yet Now, as Never Before, There is Reason to Take Courage. — Willing acknowledgment of duty is clearly becoming more common. There is promise in the increasing admission by both labor and capital that friendly bargaining — mutual recognition of rights and duties that can never be brushed aside among Americans the proper method of settling their differences. There is promise also in the loosening of party fetters, in the growing practice of voting in obedience to conscience instead of to committees. A time of vastly greater peace and unity seems to be approaching. In important beginnings it seems to have arrived. Knowledge and agreement are the first requisites for removing evils in society for realizing the greatest good of the greatest number. By one person at a time, opening his mind to truth, the number of those who know and agree will increase. Economic knowledge is the kind specially required. To contribute to its spread, this book is written.

INDEX.

DAMS, C. F., page 59

ΑΙ

Adams, H. C., 60, 106, 136, 248
Advertising, not a waste, 170
Aldrich report on wages, 360
Anti-trust laws, 4, 9, 131, 154, 185
Atkinson, Edward, 277, 355, 370,
379, 380, 397

Austin, O. P., 279, 285, 287

BALANCE of trade, 240, 256, 278,
285, 305, 384, 430, 436
Babcock, J. W., 409, 426, 433
Beet sugar, 15, 62, 112, 135, 414–431
Bemis, E. W., 79, 124, 132
Blaine, J. G., 307, 388
Bok, E. W., 231

Bonuses to railroads, 40, 60, 83, 422
Bowen, Francis, 334-349
Bounties to industry, 119, 241, 274,
297, 300, 314, 416-431
Boycotting trust goods, 113, 135, 437
Brooks, J. G., 113, 214
Bullock, C. J., 13, 106, 114, 118,
123, 136, 180, 183, 215, 259, 260,
288, 308, 318, 359, 360, 406

CAN

ANADA, railroads, 82, 83, 422;
telegraphs, 89; succession taxes,
210; trade of, 287; trade with
United States, 302, 325, 346-351,
362, 410, 436

Capital invested in United States by
foreigners, 278, 354, 378, 394; in
other lands by Americans and Eu-
ropeans, 280-289, 378, 435-437
Capitalization of trusts, 5, 6, 25, 147
Carey, Henry, 353, 365, 388
Carnegie, Andrew, 7, 221, 222, 231
China, 306, 311, 328, 375
Clark, J. B., 117, 132, 144, 155,
187, 218, 236, 441

Cleveland, Grover, 122, 392, 395,
432

Clews, Henry, 27, 215
Clubbing of competitors by trusts, 12,
35, 134, 144, 149, 175, 214, 218,
236, 267

Coal monopoly, 130

Cobden, Richard, 302, 328
Collier, W. M., 5, 26, 129, 132, 139,

142, 193

Colonies, trade with, 241, 260, 299,
322, 418

Commons, J. R., 95, 235
Competition, as the life of trade, 17,

32, 145, 147, 203, 211, 214, 221,
225, 234; excessive, 20, 34, 176–
179, 184; not feared, 20, 22, 269;
with railroads, 46, 53, 190, 204;
under protection, 245, 267, 326,
348, 358, 374, 416
Concentration of capital, 18, 21, 160,
167, 173, 208-236
Consumption of wealth, 171, 246,
251, 275, 293, 299, 304, 314, 323,
333, 339, 377, 397, 420-442
Corporation laws, 125, 136-159, 215
Cox, Harold, 284
Crosby, E. H., 236

Cuba, 159, 305, 343, 415-431, 439

DABNEY, W. D., 60, 79

Department stores, 22, 178, 231
Depression of business, 26, 28, 122,
168, 183, 212, 291, 303, 392,
404, 440, 442
Dill, J. B., 139
Dingley tariff law, 254, 307, 396,
398, 400, 403, 431
Discrimination in freight rates, 4,
35, 61, 71, 116, 122, 144, 191,
197, 236

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