cv ^°.-^<>- y-^i^-^ '°.-^<.°- */.:^i^'^-«. V^^'^y''* "V'^^V* ^V^^""./"" V .0^ or."-* '^' Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/principlesofpoliOOputn BUSINESS, COMMERCE AND FINANCE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY ALBERT H. PUTNEY, A. B., D. C.L., LL.D. Author of "Government in the United States," "Law Library," "United States Constitutional History and Law," etc.; Member of the Chicago Bar. SOCIOLOGY BY HUBERT M. SKINNER, PH.D. Editor of "Collegiate Course" CREE PUBLISHING COMPANY MllfNEAPOLIS CHICAGO SEATTLE n^ Copyright, 1909 BY CEEE PUBLISHING COMPANY Copyrighted and Eegistered at Stationers' Hall, London, England, by Cree Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois, IT. S. A. 1909 All rights reserved Amer. Un'v.Grrcu^... School Feb.lA, I9c3 CONTENTS POLITICAL ECONOMY Chaptee I. Introductory 11 Section 1. Definition 11 Section 2, Production . . . .- 12 Section 3. Distribution 13 Section 4. Consumption 13 Section 5. Exchange 13 Section 6. Subdivisions of Political Economy 13 Chapter II. Productions 15 Section 7. Production Defined 15 Section 8. Utilities 15 Section 9. Wants 18 Section 10. Factors in Production 18 Section 11. Land 19 Section 13. Labor 30 Section 13. Application of Labor 33 Section 14. The Law of Diminishing Eeturns from Labor 34 Section 15. The Malthusian Doctrine 37 Section 16. Division of Labor 31 Chapter III. Distribution 35 Section 17. Scope of this Division 35 Section 18. Importance of this Division 35 Section 19. Combination of Different Economic Char- acters in Same Person 37 Section 30. Eent 38 5 6 CONTENTS Section 21. Interest 41 Section 22. Wages 42 Section 23. Profits 44 Section 34. Class Controversies 45 Section 25. Labor Unions 45 Section 26. Monopolies, and Trusts 50 Section 27. Socialism 51 Section 28. Taxation 54 Section 29. Income Taxes 59 Section 30. Protective Tariffs 71 Chapter IV. Consumption 75 Section 31. Place of Consumption in the Study of Po- litical Economy 75 Section 32. Wants and Utilities 76 Section 33. Diminishing Utility and Marginal Utility. 77 Section 34. Eelative Utility 81 Section 35. Order of Consumption — Necessaries, Com- forts, Luxuries 82 Section 36. Postponed Consumption 84 Section 37. Effects of Savings Upon Production and Distribution 85 Chapter V. Exchange 87 Section 38. Definitions 87 Section 39. What Determines Value 87 Section 40. Mediums of Exchange 89 Chapter VI. Economic History 91 Section 41. Periods of Economic History 91 Section 42. Economic History of Various Countries and Ages 95 Section 43. Modern Industry 137 CONTENTS SOCIOLOGY Sociology and the Social Sciences 145 What Sociology Purposes To Do 151 Social Units, Groups, Aggregates, and Organs 156 Method of Sociological Study 160 Subjects to be Studied by Observation and Investigation 161 Notable Books of Sociology 164 The Perversion of Social Institutions 166 An Industrial Basis for Social Interpretation 171 A Sociological Generalization — The Eeaction of Moral Instruc- tion Upon Social Eeform 174 A Sociological Institution — The Eussell Sage Foundation, and Its Initial Activities 183 The Scope 185 Early Activities 187 Prevention of Tuberculosis 187 Playground Extension 189 Care of Children 190 Children's School Gardens 190 Charity Organization Extension 190 Prevention of Blindness 191 Eesearch 191 Schools for Social Workers 193 Publications 193 7 8 CONTENTS Housing 194 Other Activities 195 An Adaptable Foundation 195 An Illustration of Sociological Methods — Charity Eelief and Wage Earnings 197 Number, Nativity, and Size of the Families 202 The Average Size of the Families Eeceiving Eelief 205 Age and Conjugal Conditions 206 Occupations 208 Earnings of Charity Eecipients 212 Delinquencies of Charity Eecipients 218 Causes of Distress of Charity Eecipients 224 Immediate Causes of Distress 228 Contributing or Indirect Causes of Distress 237 Persistent Causes of Distress 240 Summary 245 Social Science and Social Schemes 253 I. Sociology 253 II. The Units 265 III. The Combinations 278 IV. Equality 289 V. Dreamlands 300 VI. Progress and Poverty 319 VII. Looking Forward 330 ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY BY ALBERT H. PUTNEY, A. B., D. C. L., LL. D. Author of "Government in the United States," "Law Library," "United States Constitutional History and Law. ' ' Member of the Chicago Bar. r\. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Section 1. Definition. Political Economy or Economics may be briefly described as the science of wealth, or as to the science of utilities. By the term * utilities' is meant what- ever will tend to furnish mankind with the necessi- ties for his existence, or which promote his comfort or happiness. This last statement should be under- stood as meaning whatever a person believes is for his comfort or happiness. The wisdom of the desire of mankind, or any portion thereof, for any article is one which does not properly fall within the sphere of Political Economy. The true scope of this sub- ject is a material one and a better understanding of its problems can be secured if this fact is recognized at the outset and no attempt made by the writers thereon to encroach upon the field of sociology, ethics, psychology or law. Political Economy has been briefly described above as the science of wealth and utility. More exactly, political economy is that science which treats of the production, distribution, consumption and ex- change of utilities. Production, Distribution, Con- sumption and Exchange are the four great divisions of the subject of Political Economy. 11 12 POLITICAL ECONOMY Section 2. Production. Production is the creation of utilities. It is im- possible for man to create new matter. The ultimate raw materials for all production is furnished by na- ture, but very little matter in its original state is of utility to man. The function of production is to change matter to such a state that it become useful. Production is something more than change of form. UtiHty may also be created by a change in place or by preservation to another time. Production will be subject of Chapter II of this voliune. Section 3. Distribution. The first step, that of production, having been passed, the question next arises as to the distribu- tion of the utilities produced. In the study of pro- duction, it will be seen that three great agencies enter into the work of production — land, labor and capital, to which is sometimes added the work of the entrepreneur. The problem of that portion of study of political economy devoted to distribution is the determination of the proper share of the land- lord, the capitalist, the laborer and the entrepreneur respectively. Distribution will be the subject of Chapter IH of this volume. Section 4. Consumption. The final stage in the history of utilities is to be found in their consumption. The consumption of utilities in the main falls outside of the scope of po- INTEODUCTOEY. 13 litical economy. In so far, however, as consumption exerts a reflex action on production, distribution and exchange, it must be considered in any work on po- litical economy. Consiunption will be the subject of Chapter IV of this volume. Section 5. Exchange. The utility of any article is not universal. It only exists where there is a correlative want on the part of the individual. A person may thus be the owner of an article possessing utility to another person but not to himself, or be possessed of a superfluity of certain utilities, while totally in need of others. From such state of facts arise the phenomena of ex- change. At the present time this constitutes a most important and complicated branch of the science of political economy. Exchange will be the subject of the fifth chapter of this volume. Section 6. Subdivisions of Political Economy. Although the proper field of political economy is narrower than that assigned to it by some writers on the subject, it is nevertheless very broad, and many of its subdivisions are frequently treated as subjects by themselves. This policy has been followed in this series, for example. Banking and Currency, falling under the head of exchange, are made the special subjects of a separate volume. CHAPTER n. PRODUCTION. Section 7. Production Defined. The creation of new matter is beyond the power of man. Strictly speaking all matter exists natu- rally and it is only possible for man to change its form or place, or to preserve it, which latter is equiva- lent to changing its time of existence. Nearly all matter, however, in its natural form is unsuited for use of man. Human labor is expended upon matter BO as to render it available for use by mankind. Production, therefore, is the production of utilities, not of materials. Section 8. Utilities. The important use of the term utilities in the study of political economy renders it important that, at the outset, the student should acquire a clear and comprehensive idea of the meaning of this term and of its uses. Students of the law are generally more or less confused at the outset in their attempt to imderstand the term ^'real property,'' by the fact that this term is applied indiscriminately to the tan- gible property itself and to intangible interests therein. A somewhat similar confusion is to be found in the use of the term ** utilities" in political 15 16 POLITICAL ECONOMY economy. This word has been obliged to do double duty as describing either tangible property or in- tangible qualities therein; and, although the context should show the sense in which the term is used in a particular case, the dual character of the term ren- ders very difficult the task of framing a definition therefor, which shall be at the same time concise and accurate. Attempting, however, a definition, it may be said that utilities are either tangible objects whose use or consumption tend to satisfy human wants, or those qualities, in such objects, on account of which such ob j ects tend to satisfy such wants. In those branches of political economy which deal with consumption, distribution or exchange, the term is used in the first sense, but in that branch of the science which deals with production the true meaning of the term as used is that found in the second clause of the definition. Jevons in his masterly work on *'The Theory of Political Economy" (pp. 37-39) avoids this confu- sion by using the name commodity in place of utility wherever the term is used in its first given meaning. **It is desirable to introduce at once, and to de- fine, some terms which facilitate the expression of the Principles of Economics. By a commodity we shall understand any object, substance, action or service, which can afford pleasure or ward off pain. The name was originally abstract, and denoted the quality of anything which was capable of serving man. Having acquired, by a common process of con- fusion, a concrete signification, it will be well to re- tain the word entirely for that signification, and PEODUCTION 17 employ the term utility to denote the abstract quality whereby an object serves our purposes, and becomes entitled to rank as a commodity. Whatever can pro- duce pleasure or prevent pain may possess utility. J. B. Say has correctly and briefly defined utility as 'la faculte qu'ont les choses de pouvoir servir a rhomme, de quelque maniere que ce soit.' The food which prevents the pangs of hunger, the clothes which fend off the cold of winter, possess incontest- able utility; but we must beware of restricting the meaning of the word by any moral considerations. Anything which an individual is found to desire and to labor for must be assumed to possess for him util- ity. In the science of Economics we treat men not as they ought to be, but as they are. Bentham in establishing the foundations of Moral Science in his great Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (page 3) thus comprehensively defines the term in question: *By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this, in the present case, comes to the same thing), or (what comes against to the same thing) to pre- vent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhap- piness to the party whose interest is considered.' This perfectly expresses the meaning of the word in Economics, provided that the will or inclination of the person immediately concerned is taken as the sole criterion, for the time, of what is or is not useful." This use of the term 'commodity' instead of 'utility' by Jevons, has the advantage of far greater 18 POLITICAL ECONOMY clearness, the method of expression by certain other writers, and will be followed in this work. Section 9. Wants. It being now seen that commodities are those ar- ticles and utilities which satisfy human wants, it now remains to be determined what are human wants. In this connection it is well to repeat a clause from the citation from Jevons in the last sec- tion and say that *'the will or inclination of the per- son immediately concerned is taken as the sole criterion.'' The moral aspects of the question, or the ultimate effect of the satisfaction of a want, lie outside of the field of Political Economy. Any com- modity, so far as this science is concerned, must be held to possess utility, so long as it satisfies any human desire, or so long as any human being believes that it does or can do so. Wants will be treated more fully under the head of Consumption. Section 10. Factors in Production. The three principal factors in production are land, labor, and capital. Land, as the term is used in this connection, has a very broad significance, including water, minerals, forests, oil, gases, etc. In short, under this term are to be found all the great stores of raw material furnished by nature for the satisfaction of human wants, and as the basis for human labor. Labor includes human activities of every sort, which are expended in the effort to satisfy human wants. PEODUCTION 19 In the very earliest stages of human industry production was effected through the combined efforts of these two factors alone; very soon, how- ever, man found that he could greatly increase his ef&ciency and the quantities of commodities pro- duced by him, by abstaining from the consumption of a portion of the total amount of commodities which he had produced, and by using the commodities which he had thus saved, to aid him in his production of further commodities. This was the origin of capital. A fourth factor should perhaps be added to this list, consisting of the work of the entrepreneur, as this class of men, by securing greater efficiency in the application and combination of the other factors, increase the total production of the community. Section 11. Land. The private ownership of land is essentially different, in many respects, from that in other forms of property. The original basis for ownership of personal property was the labor expended upon its production by its owner, the original basis for own- ership of land was the simple act of its appropri- ation. In most cases at the present time this distinc- tion would not hold good when viewed from the standpoint of the present holder of property, either real or personal. In the greater number of cases the method of acquisition has been that by purchase. Still the original difference still remains in its effects, although not to be noticed in each individual case. The difference between the two species of prop- erty is to be discerned in the method by which their 30 POLITICAL ECOKOMY values are determined. Values of all kinds of prop- erty are immediately determined by the relation be- tween supply and demand, but in the case of per- sonal property the supply is variable as well as the demand, and is largely determined by the amount of labor required to reproduce the articles. In the case of real property, the supply is absolutely fixed by nature^ and only the demand is variable; the tend- ency for the demand for land being to steadily increase. Section 12. Labor. Labor includes every species of himaan activity performed with the intention of satisfying any human want. Labor is divided into physical and mental labor. The exact dividing line between these two is not always as easy to trace as it would seem at first thought. Li fact it is impossible to conceive of any labor which would not to a certain extent in- volve both physical and mental exertion. The work of those in such professions as those of the law, medi- cine, the ministry, or literature, are generally thought of as requiring merely mental exertion, but no man in any of these professions could go through a day's work without a certain amount of physical labor. On the other hand, the most unskilled laborer digging ditches in the street could not perform this simplest kind of physical labor without the exercise of a slight degree of mental exertion. •The supply of land may be increased in a sense by increasing tae utility of certain land, as, for instance, where desert land is made arable by irrigation, or where preTiously inaccessible land is "opened up" by the building of a new railroad. The fact remains, nevertheless, that the area of the earth's surface cannot be increased. PEODUCTION 31 A second classification of labor to be noted is that into productive and unproductive labor. The dis- tinction between these two generally given is that productive labor is such labor as increases the total production of commodities, while unproductive labor is labor expended in such a way as not to increase such production of commodities. Under the head of unproductive labor would be included such diverse occupations as those of the professions and of per- sonal servants. The dividing line between these two classes is hard to draw, and the distinction at its best is of little value, and at its worst has been the cause of much erroneous reasoning and unfounded prejudice. As a matter of fact, there are few occu- pations which are not in their ultimate analysis pro- ductive. The superintendent of the factory does nothing himself to directly increase production, but his work may in fact double the production of those working under him. Similarly the work of the teacher is in no sense directly productive, but the work of the teachers of the nation make the differ- ence between an intelligent and ignorant class of laborers, with the accompanying vast difference in the amount of production. The work of the doctor by saving the life of a productive laborer increases production. It is even doubtful if those whose duty is merely to amuse the members of a community may not, when the amusement is of a proper kind and quantity, tend to increase the cheerfulness and vitality and thus the efficiency of those laborers whose work is directly productive. The fact is that the distinction between physical and mental laborers or between productive and non- 22 POLITICAL ECONOMY productive laborers is one of little value, that the classes shade imperceptibly into each other and that theories as to the relative value to the community of one class or the other are to be discredited and discouraged. From the standpoint of the Political Economist whatever satisfies the desires of mankind is entitled to compensation out of the total production of the community. With the question of the wisdom or morality of the desire, Political Economy is not con- cerned. The settlement of such questions belongs to others. Section 13. Application of Labor. Given the natural resources of a country in their wild state, human utilities can be produced there- from only by the expenditure of human labor. The amount of the production will increase with an in- crease in "the total amount of the labor applied. The total amount of labor will be the product of the num- ber of laborers multiplied by their efficiency. *'The annual produce of the land and labor of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means but by increasing the number of its produc- tive laborers, or the productive powers of those la- borers who had before been employed. The number of its productive laborers, it is evident, can never be much increased, but in consequence of an increase of capital, or of the funds destined for maintaining them. The productive powers of the same number of laborers cannot be increased, but in consequence of either of some addition and improvement to those PEODUCTION 23 machines and instruments which facilitate and abridge labor; or of a more proper division and dis- tribution of employment. In either case an addition of capital is almost always required. It is by means of an additional capital only that the undertaker of any work can either provide his workmen with bet- ter machinery or make a more proper distribution of employment among them. When the work to be done consists of a number of parts, to keep every man constantly employed in one way, requires a much greater capital than where every man is occa- sionally employed in every different part of the work. When we compare, therefore, the state of a nation at two different periods, and find that the annual produce of its land and labor is evidently greater at the latter than at the former, that its lands are better cultivated, its manufactures more numer- ous and more flourishing, and its trade more exten- sive, we may be assured that its capital must have increased during the interval between these two periods, and that more must have been added to it by the good conduct of some, than had been taken from it either by the private misconduct of others, or by the public extravagance of government. But we shall find this to have been the case of almost all nations, in all tolerably quiet and peaceable times, even of those who have not enjoyed the most prudent and parsimonious governments. To form a right judgment of it, indeed, we must compare the state of the country at periods somewhat distant from one another. The progress is frequently so gradual that, at near periods, the improvement is not only not sensible, but from the declension either of cer- 24 POLITICAL ECONOMY tain branches of industry, or of certain districts of the country, things which sometimes happen though the country in general be in great prosperity, there frequently arises a suspicion that the riches and industry of the whole are decaying."^ The sum total of commodities produced from a given piece of land is therefore dependent upon the amount of labor put upon it. In this connection both the quantity and quality, or efficiency of the labor must be considered. The efficiency of the labor is influenced by many conditions, the intelligence and skill of the laborer, the intelligence with which his labor is applied and directed, the nimaber of laborers employed on a given quantity of land, and the capi- tal at the disposal of the laborer. Section 14. The Law of Diminishing Returns From Land. Labor, equal in quantity and efficiency, may not necessarily yield the same return if applied to the same land. It is one of the best established rules of political economy that the production from land can- not increase indefinitely in proportion to the increase of the amount of labor expended thereon. While up to a certain point co-operation of laborers will in- crease the production to a degree greater than the increase in the number of laborers, the time is soon reached where increased labor will not produce pro- portionally increased production. The above is the substance of the famous law of diminishing returns from land. In connection with this rule it must be noted: *Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," Book II, Chap. 3. PEODUCTION 25 1st, that the law only applied in the case of agri- cultural labor and not in the case of manufactures; 2nd, the same rule applied whether the increased labor consists of an increase in the number of labor- ers or in additional time spent by the same laborer or laborers; 3rd, the rule disregards improved methods of cultivation; the rule may more accurately be stated as follows: methods of cultivating and capital em- ployed remaining the same, after a certain stage of cultivation has been reached, each additional unit of additional labor employed upon a certain piece of land will produce a smaller increase in production than the last preceding unit of labor. To illustrate a great general principle by a simple concrete illustration, we will take the case of a man who owns and cultivates a small field. If he should spend one or two days' labor only in a year on this field such labor would probably be entirely lost, as it would be insufiicient to even prepare the field for planting, a week's labor might be sufficient to plant the crop, and hastily reap it, and thus secure some returns from the land. Crops merely planted, and not attended to, can only yield meagre and unsatis- factory returns, and an extra week spent in caring for the crops while growing and in carefully reaping them will much more than double the crop while only doubling the labor. A third week of labor would also probably increase the production in a propor- tionate amount. Before long, however, the point of the highest proportional production would be reached. A further increase of labor expended on the land 26 POLITICAL ECONOMY would increase the production, but the proportional production for each day's additional labor would grow less. Ultimately the point would be reached where the increased production resulting from any further increase in the amount of labor expended would not pay for the value of such labor. This is the point where theoretically the expenditure of labor on capital should stop. Let us illustrate this again by the following table, showing the total production obtained from a certain field by the expenditure of different quantities of labor: Number of clays' labor Number of bushels of expended. grain produced. 1 . . 2 3 io 4 25 5 40 6 60 7 69 8 78 9 85 10 90 11 94 12 97 13 99 14 100 In this table it will be seen that the highest rela- tive return is from six days' labor, where ten bushels of grain is the reward for each day's work. Prom this point on each day's additional labor produces an increased production, but an ever decreasing in- crease, until finally the fourteenth day's labor results in an increased production of only a single bushel. The expenditure of additional labor would have become unprofitable before this day was reached. In recent years the truth of the principal of the diminishing returns from land has been obscured by PEODUCTIOI^r 27 the presence of other economic forces. The wonder- ful improvements in methods and implements have so increased the production from all land that the influences which tend to restrict production are lost sight of; in spite of which fact, however, the great economic principle remains as true as ever, that under either a high stage or a low stage of agricul- tural methods only a limited quantity of labor can be profitably used on a given portion of land. Im- provements in agricultural methods and implements, while they always increase production from a given piece of land, may either increase or decrease the quantity of labor which may be profitably employed thereon. Section 15. The Malthusian Doctrine. Closely connected with the law of the diminish- ing returns from land is the so-called "Malthusian Doctrine" of population. This principle may be most briefly stated by saying that population tends to increase in a geometrical progression, while the means of supporting population only increase in an arithmetical proportion. This theory is best ex- plained in words of the author from whom the theory derives its name : ' ' The cause to which I allude is the constant tend- ency in all animated life to increase beyond the nour- ishment prepared for it. It is observed by Dr. Franklin that there is no bound to the prolific nature of plants or animals but what is made by their crowding and interfering with each other's means of subsistence. Were the face of 28 POLITICAL ECONOMY the earth, lie says, vacant of other plants, it might be gradually sowed and oversowed with one kind only, as, for instance, with fennel; and were it empty of other inhabitants, it might in a few ages be replen- ished from one nation only, as, for instance, with Englishmen. This is incontrovertibly true. Throughout the animal and vegetable kingdom Nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand; but has been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to rear them. The germs of existence contained in this earth, if they could freely develop themselves, would fill millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand years. Necessity, that imperious, all-pervading law of nature, restrains them within the prescribed bounds. The race of plants and the race of animals shrink under this great restrictive law, and man cannot by any efforts of reason escape from it. In plants and irrational animals the view of the subject is simple. They are all impelled by a power- ful instinct to the increase of their species, and this instinct is interrupted by no doubts about providing for their offspring. Wherever, therefore, there is liberty, the power of increase is exerted, and the superabundant effects are repressed afterwards by want of room and nourishment. The effects of this check on man are more com- plicated. Impelled to the increase of his species by an equally powerful instinct, reason interrupts his career, and asks whether he may not bring beings into the world for whom he cannot provide the means of support. If he attends to this natural suggestion, PEODUCTION 29 the restriction too frequently produces vice. If he hear it not, the human race will be constantly en- deavoring to increase beyond the means of subsist- ence. But, by that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, population can never actually increase beyond the lowest nourish- ment capable of supporting it, a strong check on population, from the difficulty of acquiring food, must be constantly in operation. This difficulty must fall somewhere, and must necessarily be se- verely felt in some or other of the various forms of misery, or the fear of misery, by a large portion of mankind. That population has this constant tendency to increase beyond the means of subsistence, and that it is kept to its necessary level by these causes, will sufficiently appear from a review of the different states of society in which the man has existed. * * * It may safely be pronounced therefore that popu- lation, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio. The rate according to which the productions of the earth may be supposed to increase, will not be so easy to determine. Of this, however, we may be perfectly certain, that the ratio of their increase in a limited territory must be of a totally different na- ture from the ratio of the increase of population. A thousand millions are just as easily doubled every twenty-five years by the power of population as a thousand. But the food to support the increase from the greater number will by no means be ob- tained with the same facility. Man is necessarily 30 POLITICAL ECONOMY confined in room. When acre has been added to acre till all the fertile land is occupied, the yearly increase of food must depend upon the melioration of the land already in possession. This is a fund, which, from the nature of all soils, instead of in- creasing, must be gradually diminishing. But pop- ulation, could it be supplied with food, would go on with unexhausted vigor, and the increase of one pe- riod would furnish the power of a greater increase the next, and this without any limit. From the accounts we have of China and Japan, it may be fairly doubted whether the best directed efforts of human industry could double the produce of these countries even once in any number of years. There are many parts of the globe, indeed, hitherto uncultivated and almost unoccupied; but the right of exterminating, of driving into a corner where they must starve, even the inhabitants of these thin- ly-peopled regions, will be questioned in a moral view. The process of improving their minds and directing their industry would necessarily be slow; and during this time, as population would regularly keep pace with the increasing produce, it would rarely happen that a great degree of knowledge and industry would have to operate at once upon rich unappropriated soil. Even where this might take place, as it sometimes does in new colonies, a geo- metrical ratio increases with such extraordinary rapidity, that the advantage could not last long."^ As in the case of the law of diminishing returns from land the truth of this principle is obscured and its effect to a greater or less degree counteracted by ^Malthus on "The Principle of Population," Book I, Chap 1. PEODUCTION 31 other influences. The importance of this doctrine has been overestimated by some writers, and is cer- tainly of less importance than it was at the time (near the close of the eighteenth century) when Malthus wrote. New inventions, better transportation, increased capital, have increased the production of food at a much greater rate than was considered possible by Malthus; while the increase of what Malthus refers to as the preventive checks have been so great that, in some countries, and in certain localities in nearly all countries, the birth rate is hardly sufficient to keep the population stationary. The full force of this principle is now mainly to be observed in such over crowded countries as China and India. The most injurious effect of a too rapid increase of pop- ulation in our own country at the present time, is that of keeping down wages through thepresence of a greater number of laborers than there is work for under average economic conditions. Section 16. Division of Labor. One important matter the bearing of which upon the subject of production has been the subject of much controversy is that of the effect of the division of labor. The advantages of the division of labor have thus been summed up by Professor Ely: ' ' The advantages of a division of labor have been enumerated as follows : (1) A gain of time. A change of operations costs time. Less time is also con- sumed in learning one's business, as the labor of 33 POLITICAL ECONOMY each is more simple. (2) Greater skill is ac- quired, because each person confines himself to one operation. (3) Labor is used more advantageously. Some parts of an industrial process can be per- formed by a weak person, others require unusual physical strength, some require extraordinary intel- ligence, some can be performed by a man of very ordinary intellectual powers, and so on indefinitely. Each one is so employed that his entire power is utilized, and work is found for all, young and old, weak and strong, stupid and intellectually gifted. (4) Inventions are more frequent, because the in- dustrial processes are so divided that it is easy to see just where an improvement is possible. Besides this, when a person is exclusively engaged in one simple operation, he often sees how the appliances he uses could be improved. Workmen have made many important inventions. (5) Capital is better utilized. Each workman uses one set of tools or one part of a set, and keeps that employed all the time. When each workman does many things, he has many tools, and some are always idle. (6) Finally, where the division of labor results in the simplification of operation, it facilitates the substitution of machin- ery with mechanical power in place of direct human labor." ^ The principle disadvantage arising from a min- ute division of labor are the narrowing effect upon the workman who, as it has been expressed, may be engaged day after day, year after year, making a single part of a pin, and the fact that if a man be- comes too highly specialized it narrows his oppor- * Ely's "Outline of Economics," pp. 128-9. PRODUCTION 33 tunity of becoming successful in any other direc- tion, and if he is unable to find work in his particular line, he will be unable to secure work at aU. CHAPTER in. DISTRIBUTION. Section 17. Scope of this Division. In the previous chapter the various agencies, whose combined effort is required in the production of utilities, have been considered. From the fact that various factors are thus necessarily combined for the production of utilities or commodities, the benefits derived from such utilities must be divided in some way among such factors. The determina- tion of the rules and principles in accordance with which such division is to be made, is the province of that branch of Political Economy, which is treated under the title of *' Distribution.'' Distribution is primarily concerned with the process of distribution between the different factors of production, land, labor and capital. The question of distribution among individuals is one largely neglected by writ- ers on this subject. This form of distribution, however, is the one which naturally attracts the at- tention of the public, and is treated in sections 24, 25 and 26 of this chapter. Section 18. Importance of this Division. At an earlier period the division of political economy of most vital importance to mankind was 35 36 POLITICAL ECONOMY that of production. From the dawn of history up to the time of the present generation we see the mass of the inhabitants of every country and in every age living at the very verge of bare existence. It is only in recent years that the marvelous improve- ments in the methods of production have so in- creased production, that, at least in the more favored countries, it is now possible to produce enough to more than supply the needs of all the inhabitants of the country. The result is that, at the present time, the greatest problems of political economy are to be found in the field of distribution. The earlier writers in this science almost without exception paid their greatest attentions to the prob- lems of production. The gloomy view as to the impossibility of sufficient production, taken by Malthus, has already been referred to. *'The mercantilistic writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were primarily interested in the most efficient ways of increasing the sum total of a nation's wealth. Even Adam Smith, as the title of his great work, *An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,' indicates he had chiefly in mind the same problem, although he em- phasized the fact that the real well-being of a nation consists in the well-being of the great body of its people. During the past century the production of wealth has increased beyond all precedent, the chief factors contributing to this result being the factory system, the exploitation of vast material resources (made possible only by modern methods of trans- portation), and the free scope given to the initiative of the individual business man. In the United DISTEIBUTION 37 States, at least, we do not feel that there are any pressing problems concerning the production of wealth. Yet poverty still exists, and its harsh features are thrown into sharper relief by <3ontrast with the fact that the present production of wealth per capita in the United States is indisputably the highest that the world has ever known. Moreover, while the social discontent arising from inequalities in the distribution of wealth is a very old thing, it is only in modem times that democracy has given it an adequate opportunity for formulated, organized expression. It is not too much to say that nearly all the economic problems which are felt to press upon society today for solution relate directly or indi- rectly to the distribution of wealth." ^ Section 19. Combination of Different Economic Characters in Same Person. The distribution of the commodities produced among the landlord, capitalist, laborer, and entre- preneur does not necessarily involve their distribu- tion among this number of persons. It is possible for two or more of these characters to be combined in the same person. In an extreme case, all four may be present in the same person. Thus the farmer who owns his farm *^ clear'' and cultivates it without any hired help is at once landlord, capital- ist, laborer, and entrepreneur. In this case, there is no distribution as between persons, but the principles of the distribution as between the four factors still exists; out of the total of ^ Ely's "Outlines of Eeonomies," pp. 315-6. 38 POLITICAL ECONOMY the commodities produced by the farmer, an amount equal in value to what he could have rented the farm for is received as rent; an amount equal in value to the sum which some other person would have paid him for the use of the capital which he has employed on his farm, is received as interest; an amount equal in value to which he could have received in payment for the amount of labor which he has expended on the farm is received as interest; while the surplus, if any, remaining after these three amounts have been deducted is the profits of the farm as an entrepreneur; if the total production is less than the total of the first three amounts, then the farmer has lost in his capacity as an entrepreneur. It is seldom that we find all four factors of pro- duction owned by or represented in, the same party, but the union of two or more of the same is by no means uncommon. Section 20. Rent. The parties to production, who under existing economic conditions must first be paid out of the total production, are the landowners. The share of the landowners is called rent. Rent, strictly speak- ing, is limited to that share of production which goes to the landowner in payment for the land in its unimproved condition, the additional amount paid to the landowner on account of the improvements made to, or on, the land, is in reality not rent, but interest. In popular use, we find a very common erroneous extension of the term, the name being applied not DISTEIBUTION 39 only to the price paid for the use of both land and improvements of land but also for the price paid for the use of movable personal property. In the study of political economy, however, the term must only be used in its proper restricted sense. The underlying principles of rent and interest are fundamentally different. This difference is to be observed both in the manner which the amount paid is determined, and also in the very basis upon which a share in production is demanded. The value of land (excluding improvements upon land, which are strictly, from the standpoint of Political Economy, capital rather than land) is strictly monopoly value. In a newly settled country, where the land has not been all appropriated, and there still remains enough land of the highest qual- ity for all the inhabitants, land can have no greater exchange value than air and water do at the present time. Under such circumstances, land, air and water, will all be of the highest possible degree of utility, but with no exchange value, because they are furnished free by nature, and anyone can secure all that he desires of either, by the simple act of appropriation. There can be no rent under such conditions. It is not necessary, however, that all the land of a community must be appropriated or in use, before rent begins. On account of the varying degrees of fertility in land, it will often be more profitable to pay rent for certain lands than to occupy other lands free. Rent will therefore make its appearance in a community where all the first grade land has been occupied. The securing and holding of land for 40 POLITICAL ECOITOMY speculative purposes, will cause the appearance of rent, sooner, than it would appear under natural conditions. The theory of rent may be stated as follows: Land which will not produce enough to pay for the labor expended upon it will never be cultivated, but in every community there will be certain land which will produce just enough to pay for such labor ex- pended upon it. Such land is known as ^* no-rent" land, or land ''on the margin of cultivation," and evidently can bring no rent. Such land, or at least its use, can always be obtained in any community either free, or for a nominal consideration. A man, therefore, will have his choice of using such land free, or paying rent for the use of a higher grade of land. What will be the measure of such payment? Naturally the difference between the production of the land hired and the production of land which can be obtained without paying rent. Rent therefore, is the difference between the production of any piece of land, and the production of land in the community at the margin of cultivation, the amount of labor expended in each case being the same. In determin- ing the production of different pieces of land, the expense of taking the goods to market must be deducted from the gross production. It is evident from this explanation of the theory of rent, that rent must go up as labor goes down. A reduction in the scale of wages of a community will make it profitable to employ labor on poorer lands, this reduces the margin of cultivation, and increases the rent of all land. This increased value DISTRIBUTION 41 of land, due to increased population, is known as the '* unearned increment." The theory of the *' Single Tax" advocates, is based upon the injustice of allowing individuals to receive the benefit of this unearned increment, which is due to the growth of the community. The doctrine of rent just given applies to agri- cultural land, the rent of land for other purposes is determined by a similar but not identical rule. The rent of land for either manufacturing business, or residential purposes, is determined by the relative desirability of the land. In these cases, rent is regu- lated by location, rather than by fertility, and the operation of the "unearned increment" is even more strongly marked. Section 21. Interest. The theory of interest is much simpler than that of rent. Interest is paid for the use of capital, and its amount is determined, solely and simply, by the law of supply and demand. There is no ''no-inter- est" capital to correspond with the ''no-rent" land. All capital is alike to the borrower. All capital, not used by the owner, or simply hoarded is seeking investment, and competes with all other capital. If capital is plenty, and demand for it slight, interest will fall; while, if capital is scarce and the demand for it great, then interest will rise. In theory, at least, either state of affairs will tend to produce a re-action, as low interest will discourage saving, and thus in time reduce the amount of capital seeking investment, while high interest will stimulate savings, and thus increase capital. 42 POLITICAL ECONOMY Various secondary causes modifying interest must be considered. Rates of interest will be much higher in some places (especially newly settled re- gions) than in others. There is a tendency among capitalists to prefer to invest their capital near at home, rather than at a distance. This is sometimes referred to, as the disinclination of capital to emi- grate. This tendency is constantly growing weaker. Again, even in the same community at the same time, different rates will be charged for different loans. This arises from the different degrees of risk in the loans. As a matter of fact, interest is always made up of two different elements, first, true inter- est, for the use of the capital, and second, a charge, in the nature of insurance, to re-imburse the lender for the risk of loss. United States bonds would serve as an illustration of a loan where the risk of loss (as well as the liability to taxation) has been eliminated. Section 22. Wages. It has been customary among writers on Political Economy to explain the theory of wages by stating that the general standard of (unskilled) labor in a community, will be determined by the production of an agricultural laborer working at the margin of cultivation. While such a statement was, at one time, substantially true, the increased complication of the modern economic organization of society has added so many elements to the causes that determine wages, that the old theory is to-day of little practical value. It can be briefly stated at present, that the wages DISTRIBUTION 43 of labor are regulated by the law of supply and de- mand. Even under this statement, a strong and direct connection is to be observed between wages and rent, and in general it might be said that causes which tend to raise one, will at the same time, tend to reduce the other. Increased population, as it has been shown, always increases rent by reducing the margin of cultivation, it also, at the same time, must decrease wages by compelling poorer lands to be cultivated and more labor to be spent on lands al- ready under cultivation which, according to the law of diminishing returns from land, means less pro- duction per unit of labor expended. From the stand- point of the law of supply and demand, the relation between rent and wages may thus be stated. When land is plenty, rent will be low, and the demand for labor to cultivate land will raise wages, when land is scarce (in proportion to the size of the population) rent will be high, and the competition of laborers for an opportunity to work on land will reduce wages. The great hardship, from the standpoint of labor, is that those same causes which tend to reduce the total production (per inhabitant) of a com- munity, also tend to reduce the laborer's share of what is produced, thus decreasing wages by a double force. By a similar application of the law of supply and demand, the increase of capital in a community will tend to increase wages, while the decrease of capital will tend to decrease them. The forces which affect wages in individual cases are almost numberless, the skill, education, and health of the workman, combinations of em- 44 POLITICAL ECONOMY ployers, trade-unions, the overcrowding of certain occupations, tariffs, the risk of length of time in- volved in preparing for certain occupations, all have their influence. These various factors will be dis- cussed elsewhere. Section 23. Profits. Profits are the distributive share of the entrepreneur, and should be carefully distinguished from the other shares. Money which is received for the use of land, for the use of capital, or from one's own labor, cannot be properly considered as profit. The laws governing profit are more analogous to those governing rent than those governing interest or wages; as in the case of rent, profit will be the reward of superiority. All capital can draw interest, all labor will receive wages, but not all land can be the subject of rent, and not all entrepreneurs can receive profits. In fact, the number of men who under the present industrial and economic system can succeed as entrepreneurs constitute a very small percentage of the total population, as even the majority of men who conduct their own business, and who consider themselves successful, make no profit; in a majority of such cases, the net receipts from the business will be found to be no more in amount than what would have been received as interest on the capital invested, and as wages for the labor expended by the employer himself. Competition can always be trusted to keep down the average net receipts in any line of business to this point. Profits generally, therefore, will consist in the DISTEIBUTION 45 additional net receipts that can be produced with the use of a given capital by a man of exceptional ability in the capacity of entrepreneur, over the net earnings produced by the ordinary employer in the same line of business, who may be compared to the land on the margin of cultivation, under the doctrine of rent. Section 24. Class Controversies. The past few years in American economic history has witnessed an increasing antagonism between the various economic classes ; and the substitution, to a large extent, of class competition for individual competition. The normal competition, is that be- tween men doing the same work, or engaged in the same business; that is, competition of laborers with laborers, or capitalists with capitalists. Such com- petition has largely been done away with during the past few years, by the creation of labor unions among the laborers, and of trusts and monopolies among the capitalists. In the place of this competi- tion, has arisen the contest between labor and capital already referred to. Section 25. Labor Unions. Combinations between laborers for their mutual advancement have existed in a rudimentary form throughout almost all the whole period of authentic history. In earlier periods, such unions were generally sternly repressed by law, and it was not until the 46 POLITICAL ECONOMY present generation that they have arisen to their present strength and importance. ''The history of American trade-unions may be divided into five periods: (1) A formative period reaching down to about 1840, and including the early ten-hour movement. (2) A period of quiet growth on trade-union lines, accompanied by a wave of Fourierite socialism in the country, and then the concentration of all interest in the War of the Ee- bellion, ending in 1865. (3) A period of active e:ffort on trade-union lines, reaching to 1878. (4) A period of great strikes and efforts at general organization, like the Knights of Labor, culminating in 1886. (5) The present period of the dominance of the Amer- ican Federation of Labor." ^ The arguments for labor unions have been thus summed up in the recently published Encyclopedia- of Social Reform: AEGUMENTS FOR TRADE-UNIONS. ''The first argument for the existence of trade- unions is that they are necessary to protect the in- dividual employee. For capitalists organized in great corporations to refuse to allow their employees to organize is injustice. Before the gigantic or- ganization of capital to-day the individual employee is helpless. Only by organization and collective bargaining can he at all put himself on a basis of equality in dealings with his employer. Trade-unions are necessary to allow of arbitra- tion, conciliation, and responsible, enduring relations between workmen and their employers. Boards of ^ Bliss 's ' ' Encyclopedia of Social Eef orm, ' ' p. 1228. DISTEIBUTION 47 arbitration and conciliation cannot deal between em- ployers and each of several hundred employees acting as individuals. In England the large em- ployers have learned to prefer to deal with strong trade-unions. Then responsible bargains can be made for a year ahead between the masters and the men, and the men and the corporations can know what to count on in fixing their prices. * * * Invention and machinery make trade-unions and short hours necessary. Muscular labor has been re- placed by machinery in different trades from 50 to 300 per cent. This process is going on con- tinually. Typesetting machines displace thousands of compositors. Trade-unions are often the only bulwark between the wage-worker and terrible re- ductions in wages. They are also the only hope of steady, orderly solution of the labor question. In trades where labor is well organized there are high wages and peace and hope. The best argument for trade-unions is the simple statement of what they have done. In the United States trade-unions have produced the same results. 1. That have shortened hours of toil from 13, 14, and occasionally 16, seventy years ago, to 12, 11, 10, and even to 8 in very many trades to-day. This is almost solely due to trade-unions, and has not taken place in portions of the country or in trades where trade-unionism is weak. 2. Trade-unions have mainly contributed to what rise of wages has been gained. 3. Trade-unions have prevented an unknown number of cut-downs in wages. 48 POLITICAL ECONOMY 4. Trade-unions have gained in many states leg- islation preventing the truck system, the locking of factory doors in work-hours, the employment of women and children at night, etc. They have gained legislation protecting the life and limb of employees from unguarded machinery, compelling the erection of fire-escapes, appointing factory inspectors (men and women). They have helped or led in establishing evening schools, labor bureaus, boards of arbitration and conciliation. They have caused to be enacted laws compelling weekly payment of wages, exempting the wages of wives and children from attachment, defining the responsibility of railroad and other corporations for accidents to their employees, above all, limiting the hours of labor for women and children. Such laws have not been passed in all states, nor are they wholly due to trade-union efforts; but they have scarcely ever, if ever, been passed where trade- unions are weak, and in almost all cases it has been trade-union leaders who have attended the legisla- tive hearings, collected the witnesses, and conducted the agitations that have resulted in these laws. 5. The chief benefit of trade-unions is implied in the above, viz., their educational effect. It is said that good trade-unions do good and poor trade- unions do harm, but good trade-unions usually come as the outgrowth of poor and weak trade-unions. Therefore even poor and weak trade-unions are to be encouraged and made strong and good as soon as possible. 6. Trade-unions have been of inestimable use to the working classes as benefit societies. DISTEIBUTION 49 OBJECTIONS TO TKADE-UNIONS. 1. It is said that they are tyrannical. On the contrary, they are utterly democratic. In every trade-union, every office, every rule, every strike is voted upon by the members, and the majority pre- vails. Sometimes a union, after voting to strike, empowers a walking delegate to call the strike when he thinks best; but the decision to strike does not lie with him. It not unfrequently happens that an em- ployer asks an employee why he struck, and the man says he was compelled to strike by his union. Yet often that same employee himself voted to strike. Employees do not usually tell their employers when they vote to strike. Of course, in a democratic or- ganization, a minority submits to a majority, but this is not tyranny. Sometimes, therefore, some men do strike against their will; but if they did not be- long to a union they would have their will more crossed by their employers, so that, though in a union a man does not always have his way, he has it infi- nitely more often than the employee who belongs to no union. 2. It is said that trade-unions are led by agi- tators whose salaries depend on getting up an agita- tion. This occasionally happens, but very seldom. Trade-unions employ walking delegates for two reasons : (1) To attend to the important beneficiary work of the union; (2) because they have learned that it is necessary to have some one to represent them in dealing with their employers who is not financially dependent upon his employer. This is unquestionably necessary. 50 POLITICAL ECONOMY 3. It is said that trade-unions are mischievous in creating useless strikes. This is, generally speaking, a mistake. 4. It is said that trade-unions lower the efficiency of labor, interfere with personal rights, and create violence by preventing apprentices from learning trades, by demanding equal wages for union mem- bers without reference to skill, by interfering with the employer's right to employ whom he will, and demanding that he employ only union labor, and by attacking non-union labor in time of strikes." ^ Section 26. Monopolies and Trusts. A monopoly in economics, is the exclusive right or power of production, transportation, or sale. A monopoly may be either natural or artificial. Land, is in a broad sense, a natural monopoly, on account of the limited supply. Artificial monopolies may be either those created by sanction of the law, or those created by combina- tions among individuals. Monopolies created by government were formerly very common in most countries. At the present time, in the United States, the only monopolies recognized by this government are those given by patents and copyrights. Artificial monopolies created by combinations among individ- uals or trusts, as they are generally called, have become very common and highly developed in this country in this generation. The term "trusts" is used in this connection on account of the fact that the methods employed at the creation of the first of =" Bliss's "Encyclopedia of Social Eeform," pp. 1226-7. DISTEIBUTIOK 51 these giant combinations was to transfer the stock of each of the combining corporations to certain trustees who were to vote and control the stock of each corporation. A great deal of bitter controversy is being waged at the present time as to the relative merits of trusts. The chief argument used in their favor is on account of the vast saving which it makes in the elements of competition and the improved methods of production which are possible when pro- duction takes place on such a large scale. On the other side, it is urged that the trusts have destroyed competition, ruined thousands of small business men, created a class of multimillionaires, and added still another corrupting influence in poli- tics. It is also denied that production can be carried on as economically under such vast combinations as those found in the trusts, as in the case of industrial organizations of a more moderate size. Section 27. Socialism. Socialism is the doctrine of one class of extreme opponents of the present economic and industrial institutions of the world. In general the programme of the socialists purposes the abolition of private property and the acquisition by the Government of all instrumentalities of production. It is very difficult to give an accurate definition of socialism and of the complete plans of the social- ists, because the socialists themselves have never agreed as to either of these, and any definition given by an outsider is sure to be denounced by the social- ists as unfair to the movement. The following state- 53 POLITICAL ECONOMY ment of the aims of the socialists is taken from the Encyclopedia of Social Reform, which states that it is from the standpoint of the "International So- cialist Movement": '^As a doctrine, modern socialism is founded upon the materialist conception of history, or, as it might better be called, the economic interpretation of his- tory. This economic interpretation of history sees the superstructure of society in all times, with all its institutions, its codes and morals and of laws, as a reflex of the prevailing system of production and distribution. It does not, as is often maintained, see in man's every action the spur of an economic impulse. It does not blind itself to countless individ- ual acts of renunciation, of sacrifice, of martyrdom; but it does see a coloring and an impress given to all human actions through this material environ- ment. Men gladly give themselves to torture, priva- tion, or death in behalf of a great cause, but the cause itself will inevitably be found to be a reaction from some form of social or economic oppression. As a part of this economic interpretation of his- tory, we have also the theory of a class struggle. Human activities, though fundamentally individual, take on a collective form through the very necessi- ties of social life. Men widely separated from one another, if working at like tasks, under like condi- tions, or suffering from like modes of oppression, instinctively react in like ways. They see the futil- ity of individual revolt, and spontaneously they act in concert. They may be but rarely conscious of their motives in resisting a wrong, or in seeking a political, social, or economic advantage. And yet, DISTRIBUTION 53 conscious or but partly conscious, or even uncon- scious of their motives, they tend to act in like ways under like conditions. Thus, history resolves itself into a series of struggles between possessing classes and non-possessing classes, attended by varying fortunes, and carried on with but slight intermission through all the changes in modes of production. In our day the development of industry reaches a stage wherein we see steadily maintained a contest, how- ever disguised, between a class of owners of the means of production and an increasing class of workers who own none of the means of production, but are employed at wage labor in producing wealth for the owners. It is a situation which, Socialists say, cannot last. Production has become social. That is, most commodities are produced by masses of men working in gangs or herds in workshops. But ownership, which in varying degrees has been in past times common and social, has become in- dividual and restricted to but an infinitesimal part of the population. You may hold either one of two beliefs as to the manner in which the change will come. You may hold, as Marx and others of his time held, what has been called the * theory of increasing misery,' which is, that the increasing concentration of wealth makes for a greater disparity of conditions between the owners and the workers — increasing the privation of the workers as it increases the wealth of the owners. And this development will bring about a stage wherein the workers, goaded beyond endurance and having no other alternative, will put an end forever to the private ownership of the means of production. 54 POLITICAL ECONOMY Or, you may still be a good Socialist and hold that the facts have not borne out this forecast. You may hold, rather that with the growth of organization, economic and political, among the workers, they are bettering their lot materially, they are acquainting themselves more and more with the facts of history and of economics, and that by the increase of intelli- gence and thought, by an increased discipline and mutuality of effort — rather than through the spur of extreme privation — they will bring about this change. But whether you hold one theory or the other, you must, if you would be a good Socialist, hold that the change, when it comes, must be thoroughgoing and revolutionary, an abolition of the private ownership of the means of production."* Section 28. Taxation. Another share in distribution, besides those going to the landlord, capitalist, laborer, and employer, is that which goes to the government of the country. This share in distribution is called taxes. Taxes are paid to enable the government to perform those duties which are so important, even so indispensable, to the welfare of every member of a community. All countries levy and collect taxes, but the methods and principles followed in different countries vary very greatly. Two different theories have been ad- vanced as to the primary principle upon which taxation should be based. The first, is that every person should contribute to the support of the gov- ernment according to his ability; the second, is that * Bliss's "Encyclopedia of Social Eeform," pp. 1136-7. DISTEIBUTION 55 every person should contribute according to the benefit which he receives from the government. The difficulty in applying the second principle arises from the impossibility of determining the amount of benefit which any particular individual does receive from the government. The famous four maxims of taxation given by Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," are as follows : "Before I enter upon the examination of partic- ular taxes, it is necessary to premise the four fol- lowing maxims with regard to taxes in general. 1. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation, is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate. In the observa- tion or neglect of this maxim consists, what is called, the equality or inequality of taxation. Every tax, it must be observed, once for all, which falls finally upon one only of the three sorts of revenue above mentioned, is necessarily unequal, in so far as it does not affect the other two. 2. The tax which each individual is bound to pay, ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quan- tity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other person. Where it is 56 POLITICAL ECONOMY otherwise, every person subject to the tax is put more or less in the power of the taxgatherer, who can either aggravate the tax upon any obnoxious contributor, or extort, by the terror of such aggrava- tion, some present or perquisite to himself. The un- certainty of taxation encourages the insolence and favors the corruption of an order of men who are naturally unpopiilar, even where they are neither insolent nor corrupt. The certainty of what each individual ought to pay is, in taxation, a matter of so great importance, that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears, I believe, from the ex- perience of all nations, is not near so great an evil as a very small degree of uncertainty. 3. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be con- venient for the contributor to pay it. A tax upon the rent of land or of houses, payable at the same term at which such rents are usually paid, is levied at the time when it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay; or, when he is most likely to have wherewithal to pay. Taxes upon such con- sumable goods as are articles of luxury, are all finally paid by the consumer, and generally in a manner that is very convenient for him. He pays them, little by little, as he has occasion to buy the goods,. As he is at liberty too, either to buy or not to buy as he pleases, it must be his own fault if he ever suffers any considerable inconvenience from such taxes. 4. Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible over and above what it brings DISTRIBUTION 57 into the public treasury of the state. A tax may either take out or keep out of the pockets a great deal more than it brings into the public treasury, in the four following ways. First, the levying of it may require a great number of officers, whose salaries may eat up the greater part of the produce of the tax, and whose perquisites may impose another addi- tional tax upon the people. Secondly, it may ob- struct the industry of the people, and discourage them from applying to certain branches of business which might give maiutenance and employment to great multitudes. While it obliges the people to pay, it may thus diminish, or perhaps destroy, some of the funds which might enable them more easily to do so. Thirdly, by the forfeitures and other penal- ties which those unfortunate individuals incur who attempt unsuccessfully to evade the tax, it may fre- quently ruin them and thereby put an end to the benefit which the community might have received from the employment of their capitals. An inju- dicious tax offers a great temptation to smuggling. But the penalties of smuggling must rise in propor- tion to the temptation. The law, contrary to all the ordinary principles of justice, first creates the temp- tation, and then punishes those who yield to it, and it commonly enhances the punishment too in propor- tion to the very circumstance which ought certainly to alleviate it, the temptation to commit the crime. Fourthly, by subjecting the people to the frequent visits and the odious examination of the tax-gath- erers, it may expose them to much unnecessary trouble, vexation, and oppresssion; and though vexa- tion is not strictly speaking, expense, it is certainly 68 POLITICAL ECONOMY equivalent to the expense at which every man would be willing to redeem himself from it. It is in some one or other of these four different ways that taxes are frequently so much more burdensome to the people than they are beneficial to the sovereign. The evident justice and utility of the foregoing maxims have recommended them more or less to the attention of all nations. All nations have en- deavored, to the best of their judgment, to render their taxes as equal as they could contrive; as cer- tain, as convenient to the contributor, both in the time and in the mode of payment, and in proportion to the revenue which they brought to the prince, as little burdensome to the people." ^ Taxes are divided into the two general classes, of direct taxes and indirect taxes. A direct tax, is one, where the ultimate incidence of the tax falls upon the person who pays the tax in the first place. An indirect tax is one where the ultimate incidence of the tax is shifted off from the person who pays it to someone else, generally by means of higher price. Thus, a poll tax is necessarily a direct tax, while a tax on the manufacture of an article, such as intoxi- cating liquors, is an indirect tax, as the person paying the tax will get it back again from his customers. In this country the United States government is given the power by the United States Constitution to lay and collect taxes of all descriptions, both direct and indirect (with the single exception of duties on exports), subject to the Constitutional re- strictions that all indirect taxes (duties, imposts and = Smith 's ' * Wealth of Nations, ' ' pp. 654-5. DISTEIBUTION 59 excises) must be uniform throughout the United States, while all direct taxes must be apportioned among the several States. In practice the Federal Government only levies custom duties and internal revenue taxes, and leaves the whole field of direct taxes to the States or their political sub-divisions. There is, perhaps, no other branch of the law in this country, which is in such hopeless confusion, and which works in such an unsatisfactory manner as that governing the taxation of personal property. While it is probable that the greater part, of this species of property, escapes taxation altogether, in- stances will be found where certain personal property is subjected to a double or even triple tax- ation. Examples of double taxation are to be found in taxation of mortgages, both at the domicile of the mortgagor and of the mortgagee, and in the taxation of the personal property of a corporation and of the stock which represents such property. Section 29. Income Taxes. On account of the present agitation on the sub- ject of income taxes in this country, this species of tax is considered by itself. Perhaps the best discussion of this species of taxes ever written is that by John Stuart Mill in Ms ** Principles of Political Economy": ** Setting out, then, from the maxim that equal sacrifices ought to be demanded from all, we have next to inquire whether this is in fact done, by making each contribute the same percentage on his pecuniary means. Many persons maintain the nega- 60 POLITICAL ECONOMY tive, saying that a tenth part taken from a small income is a heavier burden than the same fraction deducted from one much larger; and on this is grounded the very popular scheme of what is called a graduated property-tax, viz., an income tax in which the percentage rises with the amount of the income. On the best consideration I am able to give this question, it appears to me that the portion of truth which the doctrine contains, arises principally from the difference between a tax which can be saved from luxuries, and one which trenches, in ever so small a degree, upon the necessaries of life. To take a thousand a year from the possessor of ten thous- and, would not deprive him of anything really con- ducive either to the support or to the comfort of existence; and if such would be the effect of taking five pounds from one whose income is fifty, the sacri- fice required from the last is not only greater than, but entirely incommensurable with, that imposed upon the first. The mode of adjusting these inequal- ities of pressure which seems to be the most equitable, is that recommended by Bentham, of leaving a certain minimum of income, sufficient to provide the necessaries of life, untaxed. Suppose 501. a year to be sufficient to provide the number of persons ordinarily supported from a single income, with the requisites of life and health, and with pro- tection against habitual bodily suffering, but not with any indulgence. This then, should be made the minimum, and incomes exceeding it should pay taxes not upon their whole amount, but upon the surplus, with a 11. a year, while an income of 1,0001. should DISTEIBUTION 61 be considered as a net income of 101. and charged with a 11. a year, while an income of 1,0001, should be charged as one of 9501. Each then would pay a iixed proportion, not of his whole means, but of his superfluities. An income not exceeding 501. should not be taxed at all, either directly or by taxes on necessaries ; for as by supposition this is the smallest income which labor ought to be able to command, the government ought not to be a party to making it smaller. This arrangement, however, would con- stitute a reason, in addition to others which might be stated, for maintaining taxes on articles of luxury consumed by the poor. The immunity extended to the income required for necessaries, should depend on its being actually expended for that purpose ; and the poor who, not having more than enough for necessaries divert any part of it to indulgences, should like other people, contribute their quota out of those indulgences to the expenses of the State. The exemption in favor of the smaller incomes should not, I think, be stretched further than to the amount of income needful for life, health, and im- munity from bodily harm. If 501. a year is sufficient (which may be doubted) for these purposes, an in- come of 1001. a year would, as it seems to me, obtain all the relief it is entitled to, compared with one of 1,0001., by being taxed only on 501. of its amount. It may be said, indeed, that to take 1001. from 1,0001. (even giving back five pounds) is a heavier impost than 1,0001. taken from 10,0001. (giving back the same five pounds). But this doctrine seems to me too disputable altogether, and even if true at all, not true to a sufficient extent, to be made the foundation 62 POLITICAL ECONOMY of any rule of taxation. Whether the person with 10,0001. a year cares less for 1,0001. than the person with only 1,0001. a year cares for 1001., and if so, how much less, does not appear to me capable of being decided with the degree of certainty on which a legislator or a financier ought to act. Some indeed contend that the rule of proportional taxation bears harder upon the moderate than upon the large incomes, because the same proportional payment has more tendency in the former case than in the latter, to reduce the payer to a lower grade of social rank. The fact appears to me more than questionable. But even admitting it, I object to its being considered incumbent on government to shape its course by such considerations, or to recognize the notion that social importance is or can be determined by amount of expenditure. Government ought to set an example of rating all things at their value, and riches, therefore at the worth, for comfort or pleasure, of the things which they will buy; and ought not to sanction the vulgarity of prizing them for the pitiful vanity of being known to possess them, or the paltry shame of being suspected to be without them, the presiding motives of three-fourths of the expenditure of the middle classes. The sacri- fices of real comfort or indulgence which govern- ment requires, it is bound to apportion among all persons with as much equality as possible, but their sacrifices of the imaginary dignity dependent on ex- pense, it may spare itself the trouble of estimating. Both in England and on the Continent a gradu- ated property-tax has been advocated, on the avowed ground that the State should use the instrument DISTEIBUTION 68 of taxation as a means of mitigating the inequalities of wealth. I am as desirous as any one, that means should be taken to diminish those inequalities, but not so as to relieve the prodigal at the expense of the prudent. To tax the larger incomes, at a higher per- centage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors. It is not the fortunes which are earned, but those which are unearned, that it is for the pub- lic good to place under limitation. A just and wise legislation would abstain from holding out motives for dissipating rather than saving the earnings of honest exertion. Its impartiality between com- petitors would consist in endeavoring that they should all start fair, and not in hanging a weight upon the swift to diminish the distance between them and the slow. Many, indeed, fail with greater efforts than those with which others succeed, not from difference of merits, but difference of oppor- tunities; but if all were done which it would be in the power of a good government to do, by instruction and by legislation, to diminish this inequality of op- portunities the differences of fortune arising from people's own earnings could not justly give umbrage. With respect to the large fortunes acquired by gift or inheritance, the power of bequeathing is one of those privileges of property which are fit subjects for regulation on grounds of general expediency; and I have already suggested, as a possible mode of restraining the accumulation of large fortunes in the hands of those who have not earned them by exertion, a limitation of the amount which any per- 64 POLITICAL ECONOMY son should be permitted to acquire by gift, bequest, or inheritance. Apart from this, and from the pro- posal of Bentham (also discussed in a former chap- ter), that collateral inheritance in case of intestacy should cease, and the property escheat to the state, I conceive that inheritances and legacies, exceeding a certain amount, are highly proper subjects for taxation; and that the revenue from them should be as great as it can be made without giving rise to evasions by donation during life or concealment of property, such as it would be impossible adequately to check. The principle of graduation (as it is called), that is, of levying a larger percentage on a larger sum, though its application to general taxa- tion would be in my opinion objectionable, seems to me both just and expedient as applied to legacy and inheritance duties. The objection to a graduated property-tax ap- plies in an aggravated degree to the proposition of an exclusive tax on what is called ^'realized property," that is, property not forming a part of any capital engaged in business, or rather in busi- ness under the superintendence of the owner; as land, the public funds, money lent on mortgage, and shares (I presume) in joint-stock companies. Ex- cept the proposal of applying a sponge to the na- tional debt, no such palpable violation of common honesty has found sufficient support in this country, during the present generation, to be regarded as within the domain of discussion. It has not the palliation of a graduated property-tax, that of laying the burden on those best able to bear it; for 'realized property' includes the far larger portion DISTEIBUTION 65 of the provision made for those who are unable to work, and consists, in great part, of extremely small fractions. I can hardly conceive a more shameless pretension than that the major part of the property of the country, that of merchants, manufacturers, farmers, and shopkeepers, should be exempted from its share of taxation; that these classes should only begin to pay their proportion after retiring from business, and if they never retire should be excused from it altogether. But even this does not give an adequate idea of the injustice of the proposition. The burden thus exclusively thrown on the owners of the smaller portion of the wealth of the com- munity, would not even be a burden on that class of persons in perpetual succession, but would fall ex- clusively on those who happened to compose it when the tax was laid on. As land and those particular securities would thenceforth yield a smaller net in- come, relatively to the general interest of capital and to the profits of trade; the balance would rectify itself by a permanent depreciation of those kinds of property. Future buyers would acquire land and securities at a reduction of price, equivalent to the peculiar tax, which tax they would, therefore escape from paying; while the original possessors would remain burdened with it, even after parting with the property, since they would have sold their land or securities at a loss of value equivalent to the fee- simple of the tax. Its imposition would thus be tantamount to the confiscation for public uses of a percentage of their property, equal to the percentage laid on their income by the tax. That such a proposi- tion should find any favor is a striking instance of 66 POLITICAL ECONOMY the want of conscience in matters of taxation, re- sulting from absence of any fixed principles in the public mind, and of any indication of a sense of justice on the subject in the general conduct of gov- ernments. Should the scheme ever enlist a large part in its support the fact would indicate a laxity of pecuniary integrity in national affairs, scarcely inferior to American repudiation." ^ The United States government clearly has the power to lay an income tax. If, however, an income tax is a direct tax it must be apportioned among the States. By this is meant that Congress must first determine the amount to be raised by such a tax and then divide the amount among the different States according to their population at the last previous census, the amount so apportioned to a State, to be then collected in that State. This would make the rate different in each State (probably at least twice as great in some States as in others) and work so great injustice that its levy in this manner would never be considered. It is therefore of the greatest importance whether an income tax is a direct or an indirect tax. This question has twice come before the Supreme Court of the United States. In Springer vs. United States,^ Judge Swajrne in delivering the opinion of the Court said: ''The cen- tral and controlling question in this case is whether the tax which was levied on the income, gains, and profits, of the plaintiff in error, as set forth in the record, and by pretended virtue of the Acts of * Mill's ''Principles of Political Economy," pp. 485-8. ' 102 U. S. 586. DISTEIBUTION 67 Congress and parts of acts therein mentioned, is a di- rect tax. If it was not, having been laid according to the requirements of the Constitution, it must be ad- mitted that the laws imposing it, and the proceedings taken under them by the assessor and collector for its imposition and collection were void. Our conclusions are that direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution, are only capitation taxes, as expressed in that instrument, and taxes on real estate ; and that the tax of which the plaintiff in error complains is within the catagory of an excise or duty." In 1895 the constitutionality of the income tax provisions of the Act of August 15, 1894, was twice argued before the Supreme Court. On April 8, 1895, the Court, one Justice being absent, decided in the cases of Pollock vs. Farmers' Loan and Trust Com- pany, and Hyde vs. Continental Trust Company:^ "A tax on the rents or income of real estate is a direct tax, within the meaning of the term as used in the Constitution of the United States. A tax upon income derived from the interest of bonds issued by a municipal corporation is a tax upon the power of the State and its instrumentalities to borrow money and is frequently repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. Upon each of the other questions argued at bar, to-wit: 1. Whether the void provision as to rent and in- come invalidates the whole act? 2. Whether as to the income from personal property as such, the act is unconstitutional, as laying direct taxes'? 3. Whether any part of the tax, if not considered as a ' 157 TJ. S. 68 POLITICAL ECONOMY direct tax, is invalid for want of uniformity on either of the ground suggested? The justices who heard the argument were equally divided, and, therefore, no opinion is expressed." Upon a second hearing, held before a full Court, the entire law was declared unconstitutional on May 20, 1895.^ Mr. Chief Justice Fuller delivered the opinion of the Court. ^'As heretofore stated the Constitution divided Federal taxation into two great classes, the class of direct taxes and the class of duties, imposts, and excises, and prescribed two rules which qualified the grant of power as to each class. ' The power to lay direct taxes, apportioned among the several States in proportion to their rep- resentation in the popular branch of Congress, a representation based on population as ascertained by the census, was plenary and absolute, but to lay direct taxes without apportionment was forbidden. The power to lay duties, imposts, and excises was subject to the qualification that the imposition must be uniform throughout the United States. Our previous decision was confined to the consideration of the validity of the tax on the income from real estate and on the income from municipal bonds. The question thus limited, was whether such taxa- tion was direct or not, in the meaning of the Consti- tution, and the Court went no further as to the tax on the incomes from real estate than to hold that it fell within the same class as the source whence the income was derived, that is, that the tax upon the realty and a tax upon the receipts therefrom were ' 158 U. S. DISTEIBUTION 69 alike direct; while as to the income from municipal bonds, that could not be taxed, because of want of power to tax the source, and no reference was made to the nature of the tax being direct or indirect. We are now permitted to broaden the field of inquiry and determine to which of the two great classes a tax upon a person's entire income, whether from rents or products or otherwise, of real estate, or from bonds, stocks or other forms of personal property, belong; and we are unable to conclude that the enforced subtraction from the yield of all the owner's real or personal property, in the manner prescribed, is so different from the tax upon the property itself that it is not a direct but an indirect tax in meaning of the Constitution. Whatever the speculative views of political economists or revenue reformers may be, can it be properly held that the Constitution, taken in its plain and obvious sense, and with due regard to the cir- cumstances attending the formation of the govern- ment, authorize a general unapportioned tax on the products of the farm and the rents of real estate, although imposed merely because of ownership and with no possible means of escape from payment, as belonging to a totally different class from that which includes the property from whence the income proceeds'? There can be only one answer, unless the con- stitutional restriction is to be treated as utterly il- lusory and futile, and the object of its framers de- feated. We find it impossible to hold that a funda- mental requisition, deemed so important as to be en- forced by two provisions, one affirmative and one 70 POLITICAL ECONOMY negative, can be refined away by forced distinctions between that which gives value to property and the property itself. Nor can we conceive any ground why the same reasoning does not apply to capital in personalty held for the purpose of income or ordinarily yielding in- come, and to the income therefrom. All the real es- tate of the country and all its invested personal prop- erty are open to the direct operation of the taxing power if apportionment be made according to the Constitution. The Constitution does not say that no direct tax shall be laid by apportionment or any other property than land; on the contrary it forbids all unapportioned direct taxes; and we know of no warrant for excepting personal property from the exercise of the power, or any reason why any ap- portioned direct tax cannot be laid and assessed, as. Mr. Gallatin said in his report when Secretary of the Treasury in 1812, 'Upon the same objects of taxation of which the direct taxes levied under the authority of the State are laid and assessed.' The power to tax real and personal property and the income from both, there being an apportion- ment, is conceded. That such a tax is a direct tax in the meaning of the Constitution cannot be success- fully denied, and yet we are thus invited to hesitate in the enforcement of the mandate of the Constitu- tion which prohibits Congress from laying a direct tax on the revenue from property of the citizen with- out regard to the State lines, and in such manner that the States cannot intervene by payment in regu- lation of their own resources, lest a government of delegated powers should be found to be, not less DISTEIBUTION 71 powerful, but less absolute, than the imagination of the advocate had supposed. First. Our conclusions may, therefore, be summed up as follows : We adhere to the opinion already announced, that taxes on real estate being indisputably direct taxes, taxes on the rents or incomes of real estate are equally direct taxes. Second. We are of opinion that taxes on per- sonal property, or the income of personal property, are likewise direct taxes. Third. The tax imposed by sections twenty- seven to thirty-seven, inclusive, of the Act of 1894, so far as it falls on the income of real estate and of personal property, being a direct tax within the meaning of the Constitution, and therefore unconsti- tutional and void, because not apportioned according to representation, all these sections, constituting one entire scheme of taxation, are necessarily invalid." Section 30. Protective Tariffs. The word tariff has several diverse meanings. Its most common meaning in the field of taxation is that of a list of duties imposed on articles imported into a country from foreign countries. A protective tariff is one designed not only to raise a revenue but also to protect home industries from foreign competition. The wisdom of protective tariffs has been the subject of much controversy not only among Political Econo- mists (the great majority of whom oppose protective tariffs) but also in the field of practical politics. That a protective tariff may be of great benefit 72 POLITICAL ECONOMY to a country, under certain conditions, is proved both by theory and practical results. The adoption of a protective tariff is generally the only method by which a country not fully settled, where wages are high (not only per man but also per unit of work ac- compKshed), can get away from the position of a purely agricultural community and secure the estab- lishment of manufactures. That such an object is one highly to be desired is too clear to admit of much discussion. If every member of a community is en- gaged in agriculture, and all manufactured goods are purchased from abroad, the margin of cultivation, and consequently wages, must be much lower than if part of the members of the community are employed in manufactures. The wisdom of a protective tariff in an older country, where manufactures are already established, involves a more complicated question. In general, such a tariff will raise both wages and the price of goods. In other words, it will benefit the producer and injure the consumer (which will be largely the same people). This must be remembered, however, that it is the producer who must keep the country going, and that the workingman is in a much more independent position when he is spending his money than when he is asking for work. The true wisdom, therefore, seems to lie in that policy which will keep both capital and labor employed. It is also clear that domestic trade must be of in- finitely more importance to a country than foreign trade. *^The most advantageous employment of any cap- ital to the country to which it belongs is that which DISTEIBUTION 73 maintains there the greatest quantity of productive labor and increases the most annual produce of the land and labor of that country. But the quantity of productive labor which any capital employed in the foreign trade of consumption can maintain is exactly in proportion, it has been shown in the second book, to the frequency of its returns. A capital of a thou- sand pounds, for example, employed in a foreign trade of consumption, of which the returns are made regularly once in the year, can keep in constant em- ployment in the country to which it belongs a quan- tity of productive labor equal to what a thousand poimds can maintain there for a year. If the returns are made twice or thrice in a year, it can keep in con- stant employment a quantity of productive labor equal to what two or three thousand pounds can maintain there for a year. A foreign trade of con- sumption carried on with a country is, upon this account, in general, more advantageous than one car- ried on with a distant country; and for the same reason a direct foreign trade of consumption, as it has likewise been shown in the second book, is in general more advantageous than a roundabout one."^^ That a protective tariff, however, can be raised to such a point as to become a burden rather than a protection to the nation, must be admitted by all candid men, "Smith's "Wealth of Nations," Book IV., Chap. VII., Part III. CHAPTER IV. CONSUMPTION. Section 31. Place of Consumption in the Study of Political Economy. Many of the prominent earlier writers of Political Economy omitted a treatment of the subject of Con- sumption entirely from their work, in the thought that the private consumption by individuals was out- side the scope of the subject. Such a view, however, was a very narrow one and now has been abandoned. It is now recognized that consumption is an integral part of the science of political economy, having an important bearing upon the subjects of production, distribution and exchange. The incentive to labor is to secure goods for con- sumption, and goods must be consumed in produc- tion. The nature and importance of consumption is thus summed up by Professor Ely: "Consumption in economics means the use of goods in the satisfaction of human wants, which is the purpose of a large part of our economic activity, but it is not the sole purpose, since activity is to a certain extent an end in itself. Nevertheless, in economic society as it is organized today we are per- haps justified in looking upon consumption as the mo- 75 76 POLITICAL ECONOMY tive force beyond production. Wants are so far from satisfied at present that men look for work not be- cause they seek to be rid of surplus energy but be- cause they crave the goods which their wages will buy. The power of unrestricted consumption seems to be the prevailing ideal. Industry, furthermore, is organized and conducted primarily to satisfy the consumer, not the worker.''^ Consumption is of two kinds: productive con- sumption and final consumption. Productive con- sumption is where goods are consumed in the pro- duction of others; for example, in the case of any factory, we find not only the consimaption of the raw materials which actually go into the finished article but also the consumption of the coal used to run the machinery, the gradual wearing out of the machinery itself, etc. Final consumption is where goods are consumed to satisfy human wants. The second class of consumption only wiU be con- sidered in this chapter. Section 32. Wants and Utilities. Goods are consumed for the sole purpose of satis- fying some human want. What are human wants are to be determined from an economic standpoint by each person for himself. A want which may have a very injurious effect upon the party possessing the same will have the same economic force as a want which will conduce to his well-being. Any commod- ity which will satisfy, or tend to satisfy, a human want, or which a person believes will satisfy, or tend ^ Ely 's ' ' Outlines on Economics, ' ' p. 106. CONSUMPTION 77 to satisfy, a human want, has economic utility. In discussing utilities we must consider absolute utili- ties, relative utilities, and marginal utilities. Absolute utilities consist in the inherent charac- teristics residing in the article itself. The relative utilities of various articles become of importance when a person, being unable to secure all the com- modities which he desires to satisfy his wants, is obliged to decide as to what commodities will secure to him the greatest comfort and pleasure. Marginal utility is the utility of the last unit of any commodity consumed. Marginal utilities will be explained in the next section. Section 33. Diminishing Utility and Marginal Utility. The utility of any commodities to any person varies in accordance with the amount of that com- modity which has been consumed. This law of the variation of utility was first worked out by Jevons in his work on "The Theory of Political Economy," an extract of which is here inserted: "Let us now investigate this subject a little more closely. Utility must be considered as measured by, or even as actually identical with, the addition made to a person's happiness. It is a convenient name for the aggregate of the favorable balance of feeling pro- duced—the sum of the pleasure created and the pain prevented. We must now carefully discriminate be- tween the total utility arising from any commodity and the utility attaching to any particular portion of it. Thus the total utility of the food which we eat 78 POLITICAL ECONOMY consists in maintaining life, and may be considered as infinitely great, but if we were to subtract a tenth part from what we eat daily our loss would be but slight. We should certainly not lose a tenth part of the whole utility of food to us. It might be doubtful whether we should suffer any harm at all. Let us imagine the whole quantity of food which a person consumes on an average during the twenty- four hours to be divided into ten equal parts. If his food be reduced by the last part he will suffer but little; if a second tenth part be deficient he will feel the want distinctly; the subtraction of the third tenth part will be decidedly injurious. With every subse- quent subtraction of a tenth part his sufferings will be more and more serious, until at length he will be upon the verge of starvation. Now, if we call each of the tenth parts an increment, the meaning of these facts is that each increment of food is less necessary, or possesses less utility, than the previous one. To explain this variation of utility we may make use of space-representations, which I have found con- venient in illustrating the laws of Economics in my College lectm'es during fifteen years past. p' Ltd B iTLmTZYmmimTXix x CONSUMPTION 79 Let the line ox be used as a measure of the quan- tity of food, and let it be divided into ten equal parts to correspond to the ten portions of food mentioned above. Upon these equal lines are constructed rec- tangles, and the area of each rectangle may be as- sumed to represent the utility of the increment of food corresponding to its base. Thus the utility of the last increment is small, being proportional to the small rectangle on x. As we approach towards o each increment bears a larger rectangle, that stand- ing upon 3 being the largest complete rectangle. The utility of the next increment, 2, is undefined, as also that of 1, since these portions of food would be in- dispensable to life, and their utility, therefore, in- finitely great. We can now form a clear notion of the utility of the whole food, or of any part of it, for we have only to add together the proper rectangles. The utility of the first half of the food will be the sum of rectangles standing on the line oa; that of the second half will be represented by the sum of the small rec- tangles between a and b. The total utility of the food will be the whole sum of the rectangles and will be infinitely great. The comparative utility of the several portions is, however, the most important point. Utility may be treated as a quantity of two dimensions, one di- mension consisting in the quantity of the commodity and another in the intensity of the effect produced upon the consumer. Now, the quantity of the com- modity is measured on the horizontal line ox, and the intensity of utility will be measured by the length of the upright lines, or ordinates. The intensity of 80 POLITICAL ECONOMY utility of the third increment is measured either by pq or p'q' and its utility is the product of the units in pp' multiplied by those in pq. But the division of the food into ten equal parts is an arbitrary supposition. If we had taken twenty or a hundred or more equal parts the same general principle would hold true, namely, that each small portion would be less useful and necessary than the last. The law may be considered to hold true theoret- ically, however small the increments are made; and in this way we shall at last reach a figure which is un- distinguishable from a continuous curve. The notion of infinitely small quantities of food may seem ab- surd as regards the consumption of one individual; but when we consider the consumption of a nation as a whole the consumption may well be conceived to in- crease or diminish by quantities, which are, prac- tically speaking, infinitely small compared with the whole consumption. The laws which we are about to trace out are to be conceived as theoretically true of the individual; they can only be practically verified as regards the aggregate transactions, productions and consumptions of a large body of people. But the laws of the aggregate depend, of course, upon the laws applying to individual cases. The law of the variation of the degree of utility of food may thus be represented by a continuous curve pbq (Fig. IV) and the perpendicular height of each point of utility of the commodity when a certain amount has been consumed. Thus, when the quantity oa has been consumed, the degree of utility corresponds to the length of the line ab; for if we take a very little more food, aa', its CONSUMPTIOlSr 81 utility will be the product of aa', and ab, very nearly, and more nearly the less is the magnitude of aa'. The Y \ p \b . T ^% ---Jt ^ A / ( / ^' N s degree of utility is thus properly measured by the height of a very narrow rectangle corresponding to a very small quantity of food, which theoretically ought to be infinitely small. "^ The degree of the utility of the last unit of any commodity consumed is its marginal utility. Section 34. Relative Utility. The problem of any person with a certain income to expend is not only to expend such income in the consumption of commodities which will possess util- ity to him but to expend such income in the consump- tion of such commodity and in such amounts of such commodity as will give to him the highest possible sum total of utility. If this problem should be worked out by any man to the highest possible degree of scientific accuracy, it would be found that the marginal utility of all commodities of which he had consumed any quantity would be the same, and that such marginal utility would be greater than the utility of the first unit of any other commodity. Of course, with human nature =* Jevon's "The Theory of Political Economy," pp. 45-49. 82 POLITICAL ECONOMY in its present condition any such scientific system of consumption is impossible of complete attainment, but any wise system of expenditure will approach to this ideal position. The truth of this statement in theory can be readily proved. If the marginal utility of one commodity consumed was greater than that of another, it is evident that the party would receive the highest total degree of comfort and pleasure by decreasing his consumption of the second article and increasing that of the first. Again, if the marginal utility of every commodity which the party consumes any amount is greater than the utility of the first unit of any other com- modity would be to him, it is evident that he would lose in comfort and pleasure by reducing the amount of the consumption of any of the articles which he consumes for the purpose of adding a small quantity of some other conunodity to the list. Section 35. Order of Consumption — Necessaries, Comforts, Luxuries. It is evident that there are certain commodities or classes of commodities which must fimd a place among the articles consumed by every human being. These are the articles without which it would be im- possible to sustain existence itself. Such articles are known as necessities, and until a sufficient supply of necessities have been consumed no share of any in- come can be used in the consumption of any other class of articles. The term comfort and luxury are applied to those articles which might add to the well being and pleas- ure of a person, but are not absolutely indispensable CONSUMPTION 83 to Ms existence. As the terms are used, luxury re- fers to articles which are more easily dispensed with than comforts. It is hard to draw any hard and fast line of demarcation between these three classes of commodities. As good a distinction as any that has been given is as follows : Necessaries are those articles where an increase in price will be followed by an increase in the total amount paid for such commodities in the community; comforts are those articles where, although the price is increased, the total amount paid for such com- modity in the community will remain about the same; luxuries are those articles where an increase in price will result in a smaller total amount being paid for such articles in the community. In other words, in the case of necessaries, con- sumption will be reduced in a smaller ratio than the price increases ; in the case of comforts, consumption will be reduced in the same ratio as the price in- creases; while in the case of luxuries, consumption will be decreased in a greater ratio than that in which the price increases. Professor Engel of Prussia spent many years in attempting to show by statistics the proportion of various incomes of various sizes which would be spent for the various classes of commodities. From the statistics which he collected he deduced the fol- lowing rules : ** First — That the greater the income, the smaller the relative percentage of outlay for subsistence. Second — That the percentage of outlay for clothing is approximately the same, whatever the in- come. 84 POLITICAL ECONOMY Third — That the percentage of outlay for lodg- ing or rent, and for fuel and light, is invariably the same, whatever the income. Fourth — That as the income increases in amount the percentage of outlay for sundries becomes greater." Section 36. Postponed Consumption. So far we have been discussing consumption upon the theory that a person would expend each year his total income for that year. The principle of con- sumption, however, is complicated by the fact that there are many reasons to induce a person to post- pone the consumption of a portion of his income; or, in other words, to save a portion of his income. The factors which will determine whether a person will save anything, and, if so, how large a portion of his income, are numerous, and in the main psychological rather than economic. Three principles on this subject, however, may be laid down: First, the inducements to present con- sumption are in the great majority of mankind greater than those for postponed consumption: sec- ond, a sufficient part of an income must always be expended at the present time to secure the neces- sities of life; third, a person will save that portion of his income remaining after the marginal utility of the part consumed has been reduced to a point where it is less than the degree of utility which the party believes will result from the further enjoyment, either to the party himself or those dependent upon him, from the saving of the remainder of the income. CONSUMPTION 85 Section 37. Eif ects of Saving Upon Production and Distribution. The question is often argued as to the respective effect upon the community as a whole of spending and saving. It is impossible to give an answer as to the relative merits of the two which will be true in all cases. A certain degree of saving is absolutely necessary for a civilized community. Without saving there would be no accumulation of capital, and without accumulation of capital mankind would in time re- vert into a state of barbarism. Furthermore, in- creased capital, as has been shown in previous chap- ters, by competition will reduce interest and increase wages. On the other hand, too great a degree of saving would be almost as fatal to the welfare of the com- munity as a too small degree. Saving reduces the demand for commodities, and if this is carried too far it will result in so reducing the market for com- modities as to reduce wages and throw men out of employment. Especially in what are known as *'hard times" consumption is much more beneficial to the community as a whole than saving. On the whole, it may be said that the general welfare of the community is promoted by as great a degree of saving as possible in the case of moderate incomes, and by as great a degree of consumption and expen- diture as possible in the case of large incomes. CHAPTER V. EXCHANGIE. Section 38. Definitions. Exchange is that branch of the science of Political Economy which treats of the exchange of one com- modity for another. Exchanges, of course, are made because each party to it believes that the article which he receives has greater utility to him than the one he gives in return therefor. The ratios at which different articles are exchanged are determined by their values. The distinction must be carefully noted between utility and value. Utility is enjoyed by consumption, value is power in exchange. The utility of an article may vary in the case of each individual, while the value of an article must be the same to everyone who has access to the same market. The utility of a dollar will be much greater to a laborer than to a millionaire, but the purchasing value is the same to each. (In this chapter value is used throughout as the equivalent of exchange value, which is believed to be the proper use of the term in Political Economy.) Section 39. What Determines Value. The value of an article is not determined either by what it cost to produce it or what it would cost to 87 88 POLITICAL ECONOMY reproduce a similar article. Labor may have been wasted in the production, or the article produced may have no real utility for anyone. On the other hand, through various causes an article may acquire a value far in excess of the cost of producing it. Value is determined entirely by the relation be- tween supply and demand. If the supply of any arti- cle exceeds the demand, the sellers in their competi- tion will force down the price, while if the demand exceeds the supply the competition of the buyers will force the price up. This principle may be explained more in detail as follows: At every possible price for an article there are a certain number of prospec- tive purchasers and also of prospective sellers; the lower the price the greater the number of prospec- tive purchasers and the fewer the number of pros- pective sellers; the higher the price the fewer the number of prospective buyers and the greater the number of prospective sellers. The price, at any given time, will be that price at which the number of prospective buyers and of prospective sellers are the same. Although the cost of production does not deter- mine value, a close relation is to be observed between the two. The amount of the supply will be very largely determined by the cost of production, which will thus indirectly help to regulate value. Value also reacts on production. High value (i. e., high prices) will encourage production and al- low articles to be produced which, not being pro- duced under the most favorable circumstances, can- not be profitably produced where prices are low. Low prices will reduce production. These results EXCHANGE 89 have the e:ffect of tending to prevent prices from surviving too far in either direction. In the case of monopolies the prices of an article are no longer governed by the law of supply and de- mand.^ Section 40. Mediums of Exchange. Exchanges are effected by the use of barter, money, or credit. Money, however, has other duties to perform than that of acting as a medium of ex- change. The various functions of money are gener- ally described as being those of a medium of ex- change, a measure of value, a standard of value or a standard of deferred payments, and a store of value. This subject is treated in full in the volume on '* Cur- rency, Banking, and Exchange." * See Section 26. CHAPTER VI. ECONOMIC HISTORY. Section 41. — Periods of Economic History. The division into periods of man's economic his- tory which is so old as to have ahnost become classic, is that into the hunting stage, the pastoral stage and the agricultm'al stage. Recent writers on this sub- ject have added to these three stages the handicraft stage and the industrial stage. Little need be said of the condition of man during the hunting stage. During this period we find man existing by seeking and appropriating the food fur- nished by nature without taking any steps towards producing food for his own consumption. Manufac- tures, except rude weapons, and trade, are entirely wanting during this period. The hunting stage is the natural state of the un- civilized race and the pastoral that of the semi-civil- ized. In the pastoral stage man, instead of depending on the chance finding of the animals which furnish his food, raises and cares for such animals. In this stage, the rights of personal property are recognized, but not of real property. Trade and manufactures are still pf very secondary importance. In the agricultural stage man acquires a perma- 91 93 POLITICAL ECONOMY nent residence and respects rights of property, in realty as well as personalty. In tlie early agri- cultural stage trade and commerce remain compara- tively small in amount and each individual, or at least each family, supply practically all their needs by their own labor. The purely agricultural stage, however, is soon supplanted by a state of society where agriculture and manufacture become differentiated, part of the community devoting their labors to the one, and the remainder to the other. Where this division takes place we have first the handicraft and next the indus- trial stage. The differences between these two stages are explained by Prof. Ely in his "Outlines of Eco- nomics," as follows: **This stage begins with the development of towns as centers of trade and handicraft in the latter part of the middle ages, and extends to the introduction of power manufacture in the latter part of the eigh- teenth century. During such a long period many changes took place in the economic life of the people of Europe, but so far as the expansion and satisfac- tion of wants is concerned, — the power over nature, — ^the whole period is in marked contrast with the modern era of machine production. The growth of trade in the town brought with it the merchant gild, the purpose of which was to reg- ulate the conduct of trade and to keep a monopoly of it for the merchants of the town. Merchant gilds appeared in all the larger towns of England in the twelfth century. But a new class was developing in ECONOMIC HISTOKY 93 the towns — ^the craftsmen who were engaged in the making of things for sale. As this handicraft grew in importance, the merchant gild was superseded by the craft gild, which in England attained its fullest development in the first half of the fourteenth cen- tury. Each craft had its gild, which specified in detail how the business should be carried on, how many should be admitted to it, and how the trade should be learned. This growth in specialization meant also the growth in trade, but in this early part of the handicraft period, commerce was much re- stricted as compared with that of the present day. The towns made exchanges mostly with the country surrounding them, there being as yet no national or world market of any importance. Plainly, such a general system of exchange cannot be carried on by barter, and in this period money became increasingly important. The agricultural stage had, in the greater part of Europe, culminated in the feudal system. The no- bility maintained order and attended to the fighting, while the serfs tilled the soil. The manufacturing cities became the rivals of the feudal lords, who felt their power threatened, and hence they bitterly op- posed the cities. The cities were free and the serfs who fled to them were accepted and made freemen. * * * * "The decay of the town authority did not imply that industry and commerce were left to the free play of competition. The supervision of the central government took the place of that of the towns. The national system of regulation has been called the Mercantile System, which prevailed in 94 POLITICAL ECONOMY England in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and most of the eighteenth centuries. Its essential idea is the guidance of economic affairs in such a way as to in- crease the commercial and military power of the nation as a whole. The navigation laws which the student has met with in his study of American his- tory were a part of this system. An attempt was made to create a 'favorable' balance of trade and to maintain a good supply of the precious metals. Agri- culture was fostered with the aim of promoting the growth of population. The mercantile system has often been described as consisting chiefly of trade restrictions, but it is the contention of Professor SchmoUer that in its essence the system meant 'the replacing of local and territorial economic policy by that of the national state.' Within the nation it tended to make trade free. "It was characteristic of the mercantile system too, to interfere in the conduct of internal trade. Prices, wages, and the rules of apprenticeship were fixed by public authority. The quality of goods was inspected by public officials. Patents of monopoly on the sale of certain commodities, such as gun pow- der, matches, and playing cards, were extensively granted by royal authority to favored individuals or companies, ostensibly to foster new indus- tries. * * * * ''In the latter part of the eighteenth century, the slow-going methods of the handicraft stage were radically changed by the Industrial Revolution. The fundamental feature of this change is the introduc- tion of power manufacture. * * * "The passage from the handicraft to the Indus- ECONOMIC HISTORY 95 trial stage in England is generally known as the In- dustrial Revolution. It has been objected that this term is misleading, because the introduction of the modern factory system required many years and was but the working out of conditions that had been long maturing. It is true that the growth in the division of labor, the expansion of commerce and the techni- cal progress of former ages were necessary prelimi- naries to the industrial revolution, but there is little danger of overemphasizing the importance or the ra- pidity of the change. The period from 1770 to 1840, the span of a single life, is, after all, a short period from the standpoint of the historian. Yet the changes of this period swept away the inefficient methods that had been used for centuries and caused profound modifications in social structure.''^ Section 42. Economic History of Various Countries and Ages. There has been no uniformity between different nations and races as to the time in which they passed through the various economic ages. While we find races existing in the hunting stage today, on the other hand we find a high degree of commercial and industrial development in Babylon. The following extracts from some of the world's leading historians give some account of the indus- trial and commercial conditions among the early races: *'The Hindus in their most ancient works of poetry are represented as a commercial people. And it is one evidence of the prosperity and well-being ^ Ely's Outlines of Economics, pp. 35-42. 96 POLITICAL ECONOMY of a country, tliat its merchaiits can travel from one place to another with perfect security to themselves and their merchandise. But, further, the regulations of society appear to have awarded a high rank to persons who were employed in the business of com- merce. In the Ramayana we are informed that at the triumphal entry of Rama into his capital *all the men of distinction, together with the merchants and chief men of the people,' went out to meet htm; and the procession is closed by the warriors, tradesmen and artisans. The internal commerce of India could not have been inconsiderable, as it was in a certain degree pre- scribed by nature herself. For the sandy shores of the peninsula, not producing in sufficient quantity the first necessaries of life, and particularly rice, the importation of these articles from the country bor- dering on the Ganges became absolutely indispensa- ble, in return for which the latter received chiefly spices, and, among other valuables, precious stones, and the fine pearls only to be procured in the ocean which surrounds the former. Although cotton, one of the most important materials used for clothing, is common all over India, and manufactured with the same activity on the coasts of the peninsula as in the land of the Ganges, yet the fabric of the two coun- tries differs so much in texture that a commercial interchange of both kinds would naturally be intro- duced. The great quantity of the precious metals, par- ticularly gold, possessed by India may well excite our attention and surprise. Though it had neither gold nor silver mines, it has always been celebrated ECONOMIC HISTOEY 97 even in the earliest times for its riches. The Rama- yana frequently mentions gold as in abundant circu- lation throughout the country. And the nuptial present made to Sita, we are told, consisted of a whole measure of gold pieces and a vast quantity of the same precious metal in ingots. Golden chariots, golden trappings for elephants and horses, and golden bells are also noticed as articles of luxury and magnificence; and it has been already shown, in the course of our inquiries into Phoenician commerce, that the Hindus were the only people subject to that empire who paid their tribute in gold and not in sil- ver. The quantity of this metal then current in India will therefore enable us to infer, with reason, the existence of a considerable foreign commerce and trade with the gold countries. Without doubt commercial transactions with India during the time of the Romans, and for some time afterwards, were principally carried on in ready money, which is more than once mentioned as an article of importation. And who does not recollect the complaints of the elder Pliny of the vast sums annually absorbed by the commerce with India? How, indeed, could the case have been otherwise, when a country which produced in superabundance every possible article, whether required for the nec- essaries of life or the refinements of luxury, would, of course, export a great deal, while it imported little or nothing in return, so that the commercial balance would always be in its favor? Hence, it followed that from the moment she possessed a foreign com- merce India would enrich herself with the precious metals by a necessary consequence from the very 98 POLITICAL ECONOMY nature of things and not by any fortuitous concourse of circumstances. ' '^ "The nature of the country, however, rendered the internal commerce of India different from that of the rest of Asia in respect of transportation, for it was not necessary, nor indeed was it always possi- ble to employ caravans, as in the extensive tracts of inner Asia. That this mode of conveyance was nevertheless occasionally resorted to we learn from the beautiful episode of Nala, where Damayanti in her flight is represented to have joined a caravan of merchants. But the beasts of burden made use of in this instance are tame elephants, which were therefore attacked in the night and dispersed by their wild brethren of the forest; and, besides, the caravan in question appears to have belonged to some royal personage rather than to a company of private merchants. The greatest part of India — that is to say, the whole of the peninsula, being traversed with rocky mountains — would scarcely, if at all, ad- mit of the employment of camels ; and the moderate distances between one town and another, and the general spread of civilization, would enable mer- chants to travel alone with perfect security, while river navigation and the coasting trade afforded un- usual facilities for transporting merchandise. The Ganges and its tributary streams were the grand commercial routes of northern India, and men- tion is also made of navigation on the rivers of the peninsula in the south. It is not improbable, indeed, that artificial canals in aftertimes existed even at an earlier period. The great highroads across the coun- *Mountstuart Elphustove, The History of India. ECONOMIC HISTOEY 99 try are not only frequently mentioned in the Ramay- ana but we also read of a particular class of men who were commissioned to keep them in repair. According to Arrian, the commercial intercourse between the eastern and western coasts was carried on in coun- try-built vessels ; and when we consider the high an- tiquity of the pearl fisheries in the Straits of Ceylon, together with the necessary requisites thereto, we can hardly doubt that such was also the case many hundred years before his time. It would appear, then, that conveyance of merchandise by means of a caravan, as in India, unless the multitudes of pil- grims and penitents that were continually resorting to places of sanctity, may be said to have compen- sated for the want of it. The almost innumerable crowds that yearly flock to Benares, Jagannath and elsewhere, amounting to many hundred thousands of souls, would obviously give rise to a species of com- merce united with devotion, and markets and fairs would be a natural and indeed an indispensable requisite to satisfy the wants of such throngs of peo- ple. And consequently, too, the establishments called choultries, the erection of which was consid- ered a religious duty, and whose forms not infre- quently displayed all the magnificence of native architecture, might be said to have a similar destina- tion with the caravanseries of other Eastern coun- tries, without, however, the resemblance between the two being exactly perfect. The nature of the country and its productions, together with the peculiar genius of the people them- selves, both contributed to render Hindu commerce of a passive rather than an a<3tive diaracft^. For, as 100 POLITICAL ECONOMY the productions of India were always in high request with the Western world, the Hindus would clearly have no occasion to transport them to foreign coun- tries themselves; they would, of course, expect the inhabitants of the latter to come and fetch what they wanted. And, again, the Hindu national character has no pretensions to that hardy spirit of adventure which is capable of achieving the most extraordinary undertakings. While their fables abound with pro- digious enterprise, the people themselves are con- tent to lead a quiet and peaceful life, with just so much activity as is requisite to guide the plough or direct the shuttle, without running the risk of haz- ardous and unnecessary adventure. Their India — their Jambu-dvipa — comprised in their estimation the limits of the known world. Separated from the rest of Asia by a chain of impassable mountains on the north, while on all other sides the ocean formed a barrier, which, if their laws are silent on the sub- ject, yet at least their habits or their customs would not permit them to transgress; we can find no cer- tain proof that the Hindus were ever mariners."^ ''Commerce appears in Homer's descriptions to be familiar enough to the Greeks of the heroic age but not to be held in great esteem. Yet in the Odys- sey we find the goddess, who assumes the person of a Taphian chief, professing that she is on her way to Temesa with a cargo of iron to be exchanged for copper; and in the Iliad, Jason's son, the prince of Lemnos, appears to carry on an active traffic with the Greeks before Troy. He sends a number of ships freighted with wine, for which the purchasers pay, 'James Mill's History of British India. ECONOMIC HISTORY 101 some in copper, some in iron, some in hides, some in cattle, some in slaves. Of the use of money the poet gives no hint either in this description or elsewhere. He speaks of the precious metals only as commodi- ties, the value of which was in all cases determined by weight. The Odyssey represents Phoenician trad- ers as regularly frequenting the Greek ports ; but as Phoenician slaves are sometimes brought to Greece, so the Phoenicians do not scruple, even where they are received as friendly merchants, to carry away Greek children into slavery."* "The establishment of colonies in the East gave more substantial foundation to Italy's prosperity. Several cities, whose own interest was a constant stimulus, and whose industry grew with success, founded trading colonies in Egypt, Africa, through- out the kingdom of Jerusalem; at Tyre, where the Pisans had formed a celebrated commercial group; at Antioch; at Acre, stronghold of the Christians; at several other places which the Crusades had opened to them; and as a result the principal cause of the decline of Venice and other powerful Italian cities was not alone the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope but to some extent the conquests which made Selim I Master of Egypt. Before the days of the holy wars some of the Italian towns already possessed trading stations in the Greek Empire, but Constantinople, having fallen into the hands of the Latins, the active spirit of the Italians was no longer disturbed by the defiant pohcy of the Eastern emperors. The Genoese founded the colony of Kaffa, which became very prosperous; the " Thirlwall 's History of Greece. 102 POLITICAL ECONOMY Venetians and Pisans multiplied their warehouses in many places. The subjects of the doge, always mind- ful of their commerce, demanded the islands of the archipelago in dividing with the French the terri- tory wrested from the Eastern Empire; but at the moment of taking possession of their share they feared to weaken themselves by occupying territory so remote and widely separated. In the end, how- ever, they could not bring themselves to let go a maritime country so well adapted to trade, and the senate invited by proclamation the rich citizens to take possession of these isles, promising to give in fief those they succeeded in making subjects of themselves. Thus it happened that the descendants of the Greeks, once so jealous of their political in- dependence, saw, so to speak, their freedom at the auction block in the public squares of Venice. And thus it was that the Crusades ruined the Greeks and the Arabs, and that traffic between the East and the West had to pass almost exclusively through the hands of the Italians, then called Lom- bards, active, sharp merchants and pitiless usurers, who have left their names as a monument to their thrift upon the commercial streets of many a great town; those localities where the money lender, fur- nishing more often a passing aid to extravagance than real assistance to misery, exhibits his insatiable greed. They tried, in the twelfth century, to create merchant tribunals in several towns to decide com- mercial jurisprudence from common law. We shall be forgiven doubtless for not entering into any mi- nute description of the Italian commercial estab- lishments in Greece and Asia; it has been sufficient ECONOMIC HISTOEY 103 to note the turn given by the Crusades to trade in general. The flourishing condition to which Venice, Genoa and Pisa in the south of Europe were raised by trade with the East was almost equaled in the sea; all the products of colder climes offered to the Teutonic Hansa large and assured profits. As the Lombards brought into parts of Germany, where money was scarce, the products of the South and East there sprang up an exchange of merchandise for merchandise. The Hanseatic League apparently came into existence about the beginning of the thir- teenth century, and it is not hard to believe that the commercial activity stimulated by the Crusades fa- vored the formation of the powerful federation which breathed nothing but the love of gain, and which bartered for all the wealth of the South with all the product of the North. "^ The fall of the Roman Empire was followed by centuries of industrial and commercial retrogres- sion. The evolution of modern institutions out of the darkness of mediaeval Europe is treated in detail by Adam Smith in his ** Wealth of Nations." The following extracts will also show the evil influences of many ancient industrial institutions, some of which have not yet been entirely abandoned. *'When the German and Scythian nations over- ran the western provinces of the Roman Empire the confusions which followed so great a revolution lasted for several centuries. The rapine and vio- lence which the barbarians exercised against the an- cient inhabitants interrupted the commerce between "Choiseul d'Aillecourt de 1 'influence des Croisades. 104 POLITICAL ECONOMY the towns and the country. The towns were de- serted and the country was left uncultivated, and the western provinces of Europe, which had enjoyed a considerable degree of opulence under the Roman empires, sunk into the lowest degree of poverty and barbarism. During the continuance of those con- fusions the chiefs and principal leaders of those na- tions acquired or usurped to themselves the greater part of the lands of those countries. A great part of them was uncultivated; but no part of them, whether cultivated or uncultivated, was left without a pro- prietor. All of them were engrossed, and the greater part by a few great proprietors. This original engrossing of uncultivated lands, though great, might have been but a transitory evil. They might soon have been divided again and broke into small parcels either by succession or by aliena- tion. The law of primogeniture hindered them from being divided by succession; the introduction of en- tails prevented their being broken into small parcels by alienation. When land, like movables, is considered as the means only of subsistence and enjoyment, the nat- ural law of succession divides it, like them, among all the children of the family, of all of whom the sub- sistence and enjojrment may be supposed equally dear to the father. This natural law of succession accordingly took place among the Romans, who made no more distinction between elder and younger, be- tween male and female, in the inheritance of lands, than we do in the distribution of movables. But when land was considered as the means, not of sub- sistence merely but of power and protection, it was ECONOMIC HISTORY 105 thought better than it should descend undivided to one. In those disorderly times every great landlord was a sort of petty prince. His tenants were his sub- jects. He was their judge, and in some respects their legislator in peace and their leader in war. He made war according to his discretion, frequently against his neighbors, and sometimes against his sovereign. The security of a landed estate, therefore, the pro- tection which its owner could afford to those who dwelt on it, depended upon its greatness. To divide it was to ruin it, and to expose every part of it to be oppressed and swallowed up by the incursions of its neighbors. The law of primogeniture, therefore, came to take place, not immediately, indeed, but in process of time, in the succession of landed estate, for the same reason that it has generally taken place in that of monarchies, though not always at their first institution. That the power, and consequently the security of the monarchy, may not be weakened by division, it must descend entire to one of the chil- dren. To which of them so important a preference shall be given must be determined by some general rule, founded not upon the doubtful distinctions of personal merit, but upon some plain and evident dif- ference which can admit of no dispute. Among the children of the same family there can be no indis- putable difference but that of sex and that of age. The male sex is universally preferred to the female, and when all other things are equal the elder every- where takes place of the younger. Hence the origin of the right of primogeniture and of what is called lineal succession. Laws frequently continue in force long after the 106 POLITICAL ECONOMY circumstances which first gave occasion to them, and which could alone render them reasonable and no more. In the present state of Europe the proprietor of a single acre of land is as perfectly secure of his possession as the proprietor of a hundred thousand. The right of primogeniture, however, still continues to be respected, and as of all institutions it is the fit- test to support the pride of family distinctions, it is still likely to endure for many centuries. In every other respect nothing can be more contrary to the real interest of a numerous family than a right which, in order to enrich one, beggars all the rest of the family. Entails are the natural consequences of the law of primogeniture. They were introduced to preserve a certain lineal succession, of which the law of primo- geniture first gave the idea, and to hinder any part of the original estate from being carried out of the proposed line either by gift, or devise, or alienation; either by the folly or by the misfortune of any of its successive owners. They were altogether unknown to the Romans. Neither their substitutions nor fidei commisses bear any resemblance to entails, though some French lawyers have thought proper to dress the modern institution in the language and garb of those ancient ones. When great landed estates were a sort of princi- palities entails might not be unreasonable. Like what are called the fundamental laws of some mon- archies, they might frequently hinder the security of thousands from being endangered by the caprice or extravagance of one man. But in the present state of Europe, when small as well as great estates derive ECONOMIC HISTORY 107 their security from the laws of their country, noth- ing can be more completely absurd. They are founded upon the most absurd of all suppositions — the supposition that every successive generation of men have not an equal right to the earth and to all that it possesses; but that the property of the pres- ent generation should be restrained and regulated according to the fancy of those who died perhaps five hundred years ago. Entails, however, are still respected through the greater part of Europe, in those countries particularly in which noble birth is a necessary qualification for the enjoyment either of civil or military honors. Entails are thought neces- sary for maintaining this exclusive privilege of the nobility to the great offices and honors of their coun- try; and that order having usurped one unjust ad- vantage over the rest of their fellow citizens, lest their poverty should render it ridiculous, it is thought reasonable that they should have another. The com- mon law of England, indeed, is said to abhor per- petuities., and they are accordingly more restricted there than in any other Eiu'opean monarchy, though even ;£]ngland is not altogether without them. In Scotland more than one-fifth, perhaps more than one- third part of the whole lands of the country, are at present supposed to be under strict entail. Great tracts of uncultivated land were, in this manner, not only engrossed by particular families, but the possibility of their being divided against was as much as possible precluded forever. It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver. In the disorderly times, which gave birth to those barbarous institutions, the great proprietor 108 POLITICAL ECONOMY was sufficiently employed in defending his own ter- ritories, or in extending his jurisdiction and author- ity over those of his neighbors. He had no leisure to attend to the cultivation and improvement of his land. When the establishment of law and order af- forded him this leisure, he often wanted the inclina- tion, and almost always the requisite abilities. If the expense of his house and person either equaled or exceeded his revenue, as it did very frequently, he had no stock to employ in this manner. If he was an economist he generally found it more profitable to employ his annual savings in new purchases than in the improvement of his old estate. To improve land with profit, like all other commercial projects, re- quires an exact attendance to small savings and small gains, of which a man born to a great fortune, even though naturally frugal, is very seldom capable. The situation of such a person naturally disposes him to attend rather to ornament which pleases his fancy than to profit for which he has so little occasion. The elegance of his dress, of his equipage, of his house, and household furniture, are objects which from his infancy he has been accustomed to have some anxiety about. The turn of mind which this habit naturally forms follows him when he comes to think of the im- provement of land. He embellishes, perhaps, four or five hundred acres in the neighborhood of his house, at ten times the expense which the land is worth after all his improvements, and finds that if he was to improve his whole estate in the same manner, and he has little taste for any other, he would be a bank- rupt before he had finished the tenth part of it. There still remains in both parts of the United Kingdom ECONOMIC HISTORY 109 some great estates which have continued without in- terruption in the hands of the same family since the times of feudal anarchy. Compare the present con- dition of those estates with the possessions of the small proprietors in their neighborhood, and you will require no other argument to convince you how un- favorable such extensive property is to improvement. If little improvement was to be expected from such great proprietors, still less was to be hoped for from those who occupied the land under them. In the ancient state of Europe, the occupiers of land were all tenants at will. They were all or almost all slaves; but their slavery was of a milder kind than that known among the ancient Greeks and Eomans or even in our West Indian colonies. They were supposed to belong more directly to the land than to their master. They could, therefore, be sold with it, but not separately. They could marry, pro- vided it was with the consent of their master; and he could not afterwards dissolve the marriage by selling the man and wife to different persons. If he maimed or murdered any of them, he was liable to some penalty, though generally to a small one. They were not, however, capable of acquiring prop- erty. Whatever they acquired was acquired to their master, and he could take it from them at pleasure. Whatever cultivation and improvement could be carried on by means of such slaves, was properly carried on by their master. It was at his expense. The seed, the cattle, and the instruments of hus- bandry were all his. It was for his benefit. Such slaves could acquire nothing but their daily main- tenance. It was properly the proprietor himself, 110 POLITICAL ECONOMY therefore, that in this case occupied his own lands, and cultivated them by his own bondmen. This species of slavery still subsists in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and other parts of Germany. It is only in the western and south- western provinces of Europe that it has been grad- ually abolished altogether. (This slavery was abol- ished in Scotland in 1795.) But if great improvements are seldom to be ex- pected from great proprietors, they are least of all to be expected when they employ slaves for their workmen. The experience of all ages and nations, I believe, demonstrates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their maintenance, is in the end the dearest of any. A person who can acquire no property, can have no other interest but to eat as much and to labor as little as possible. Whatever work he does beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own. In ancient Italy, how much the cultiva- tion of corn degenerated, how unprofitable it became to the master when it fell under the management of slaves, is remarked by both Pliny and Columella. In the time of Aristotle it had not been much better in ancient Greece. Speaking of the ideal republic described in the laws of Plato, to maintain five thou- sand idle men (the number of warriors supposed necessary for its defence), together with their women and servants, would require, he says, a territory of boundless extent and fertility, like the plains of Babylon. The pride of man makes him love to dommeea:, ECONOMIC HISTOKY 111 and nothing mortifies him so much as to be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors. Wherever the law allows it, and the nature of the work can afford it, therefore, he will generally prefer the service of slaves to that of free men. The planting of sugar and tobacco can afford the expense of slave cultivation. The raising of com, it seems, in the present times, cannot. In the English colonies, off which the principal produce is corn, the far greater part of the work is done by freemen. The late reso- lution of the Quakers in Pennsylvania to set at lib- erty all their negro slaves, may satisfy us that their number cannot be very great. Had they made any considerable part of their property, such a resolu- tion could never have been agreed to. In our sugar colonies, on the contrary, the whole work is done by slaves, and in our tobacco colonies a very great part of it. The profits of a sugar plantation in any of our West Indian colonies are generally much greater than those of any other cultivation that is known either in Europe oi America; and the profits of a tobacco plantation, though inferior to those of sugar, are superior to those of corn, as has already been observed. Both can afford the expense of slave cultivation, but sugar can afford it still better than tobacco. The number of negroes, accordingly, is much greater, in proportion to that of whites, in our sugar than in our tobacco colonies. To the slave cultivators of ancient times, grad- ually succeeded a species of farmers known in France by the name of Metayers. They are called in Latin, Coloni Partiarii. They have been so long in disuse in England that at pree^it I know no English mme 112 POLITICAL ECONOMY for them. The proprietor furnished them with the seed, cattle, and instruments of husbandry, the whole stock, in short, necessary for cultivating the farm. The produce was divided equally between the pro- prietor and the farmer, after setting aside what was judged necessary for keeping up the stock, which was restored to the proprietor when the farmer either quitted or was turned out of the farm. Land occupied by such tenants is properly culti- vated at the expense of the proprietor, as much as that occupied by slaves. There is, however, one very essential difference between them. Such ten- ants, being freemen, are capable of acquiring prop- erty, and having a certain proportion of the produce of the land, they have a plain interest that the whole produce should be as great as possible in order that their own proportion may be so. A slave, on the contrary, who can acquire nothing but his mainte- nance, consults his own ease by making the land produce as little as possible over and above that maintenance. It is probable that it was partly upon account of this advantage, and partly upon account of the encroachments which the sovereign, always jealous of the great lords, gradually encouraged their villeins to make upon their authority, and which seems at last to have been such as rendered this spe- cies of servitude altogether inconvenient, that tenure in villenage gradually wore out through the greater part of Europe. The time and manner, however, in which so important a revolution was brought about, is one of the most obscure points in modern history. The church of Rome claims great merit in it, and it is certain that so early as the twelfth ECONOMIC HISTOEY 113 century, Alexander III published a bull for the gen- eral emancipation of slaves. It seems, however, to have been rather a pious exhortation than a law to which exact obedience was required from the faith- ful. Slavery continued to take place almost uni- versally for several centuries afterwards till it was gradually abolished by the joint operation of the two interests above mentioned, that of the propri- etor, on the one hand, and that of the sovereign on the other. A viUein enfranchised, and at the same time allowed to continue in possession of the land, having no stock of his own, could cultivate it only by means of what the landlord advanced to him, and must, therefore, have been what the French call a metayer. It could never, however, be the interest even of this last species of cultivators to lay out, in the fur- ther improvement of the land, any part of the little stock which they might save from their own share of the produce, because the lord, who laid out nothing, was to get one-half of whatever it produced. The tithe, which is but a tenth of the produce, is found to be a very great hindrance to improvement. A tax, therefore, which amounted to one-half, must have been an effectual bar to it. It might be the interest of a metayer to make the land produce as much as could be brought out of it by means of the stock furnished by the proprietor, but it could never be his interest to mix any part of his own with it. In France, where five parts out of six of the whole kingdom are said to be still occupied by this species of cultivators, the proprietors complain that their metayers take every opportunity of employing the master's cattle rather in carriage than in cultivation; 114 POLITICAL ECONOMY because in the one case they get the whole profits to themselves, in the other they share with their land- lord. This species of tenants still subsists in some parts of Scotland. They are called steel-bow ten- ants. Those ancient English tenants, who are said by Chief Baron Gilbert and Dr. Blackstone to have been rather bailiffs of the landlord than farmers properly so called, were probably of the same kind. To this species of tenants succeeded, though by very slow degrees, farmers properly so called, who cultivated the land with their own stock, paying a certain rent to the landlord. "When such farmers have a lease for a term of years, they may sometimes find it to their interest to lay out part of their capi- tal in the further improvement of the farm; because they may sometimes expect to recover it, with a large profit, before the expiration of the lease. The possession even of such farmers, however, was long extremely precarious, and still is so in many parts of Europe. They could before the expiration of their term be legally ousted of their lease, by a new pur- chaser; in England, even by the fictitious action of a common recovery. If they were turned out ille- gally by the violence of their master, the action by which they obtained redress was extremely imper- fect. It did not always reinstate them in the pos- session of the land, but gave them damages which never amoimted to the real loss. Even in England, the country, perhaps of Europe, where the yeomanry has always been most respected, it was not until about the 14th of Henry VIE that the action of eject- ment was invented, by which the tenant recovers, not damages only, but possession, and in which his ECONOMIC HISTOEY 115 claim is not necessarily concluded by the uncertain decision of a single assize. This action has been found so effectual a remedy that, in the modern prac- tice, when the landlord has occasion to sue for the possession of the land, he seldom makes use of the actions which properly belong to him as landlord, the writ of right or the writ of entry, but sues in the name of his tenant, by the writ of ejectment. In England, therefore, the security of the tenant is equal to that of the proprietor. In England, besides a lease for life of forty shillings a year value is a freehold, and entitled the lessee to vote for a member of parliament; and as a great part of the yeomanry have freeholds of this kind, the whole order becomes respectable to their landlord on ac- count of the political consideration which this gives them. There is, I believe, nowhere in Europe, ex- cept in England, any instance of the tenant building upon the land of which he has no lease, and trusting that the honor of his landlord would take no advan- tage of so important an improvement. Those laws and those customs so favorable to the yeomanry have perhaps contributed more to the present gran- deur of England than all of their boasted regulations of commerce taken together. The law which secures the longest leases against successors of every kind is, so far as I know, peculiar to Great Britain. It was introduced into Scotland so early as 1449, by a law of James IT. Its beneficial influence, however, has been much obstructed by entails; the heirs of entail being generally restrained from letting leases for any long term of years, fre- quently for more than one year. A late act of par- 116 POLITICAL ECONOMY liament has, in this respect, somewhat slackened their fetters, though they are still by much too strait. In Scotland, besides, as no leasehold gives a vote for a member of parliament, the yeomanry are upon this account less respectable to their landlords than in England. In other parts of Em-ope, after it was found con- venient to secure tenants both against heirs and pur- chasers, their term of security was still limited to a very short period; in France, for example, to nine years from the commencement of the lease. It has in that country, indeed, been lately extended to twenty-seven, a period still too short to encourage the tenant to make the most important improve- ments. The proprietors of land were anciently the legislators of every part of Europe. The laws re- lating to land, therefore, were all calculated for what they supposed the interest of the proprietor. It was for his interest, they all imagined, that no lease granted by any of his predecessors should hinder him from enjoying, during a long term of years, the full value of his land. Avarice and injustice are always shortsighted, and they did not foresee how much this regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt in the long run the real interest of the landlord. The farmers, too, besides paying the rent, were anciently, it was supposed, bound to perform a great number of services to the landlord, which were sel- dom either specified in the lease, or regulated by any precise rule, but by the use and wont of the manor or barony. These services, therefore, being almost entirely arbitrary, subjected the tenant to many vex- ECONOMIC HISTOEY 117 ations. In Scotland the abolition of all services, which are not precisely stipulated in the lease, has in the course of a few years very much altered for the better the condition of the yeomanry of that country. The public services to which the yeomanry were bound were not less arbitrary than the private ones. To make and maintain the high roads, a servitude which still subsists, I believe, everywhere, though with different degrees of oppression in different countries, was not the only one. When the king's troops, when his household or his officers of any kind, passed through any part of the country, the yeomanry were bound to provide them with horses, carriages, and provisions, at a price regulated by the purveyor. Great Britain is, I believe, the only monarch in Europe where the oppression of purvey- ance has been entirely abolished. It still subsists in France and Germany. The public taxes to which they were subject were as irregular and oppressive as the services. The ancient lords, though extremely unwilling to grant themselves any pecuniary aid to their sovereign, easily allowed him to tallage, as they called it, their tenants, and had not knowledge enough to foresee how much this must in the end affect their own revenue. The taiUe, as it still subsists in France, may serve as an example of these ancient tallages. It is a tax upon the supposed profits of the farmer, which they estimate by the stock he has upon the farm. It is his interest, therefore, to appear to have as little as possible, and consequently employ as little as possible in its cultivation, and none in its 118 POLITICAL ECONOMY improvement. Should any stock happen to accumu- late in the hands of the French farmer, the taille is almost equal to a prohibition of its ever being em- ployed upon the land. This tax besides is supposed to dishonor whoever is subject to it, and degrade him below, not only the rank of a gentleman, but that of a burgher, and whoever rents the lands of another becomes subject to it. ISTo gentleman nor even any burgher who has stock will submit to this degradation. This tax, therefore, not only hinders the stock which accumulates upon the land from being employed in its improvement, but drives away all other stock from it. The ancient tenths and fif- teenths, so usual in England in former times, seem, so as they affected the land, to have been taxes of the same nature with the taille, but all were abolished at the Revolution. Under all these discouragements, little improve- ment could be expected from the occupiers of land. That order of people, with all the liberty and security which law can give, must always improve under great disadvantages. The farmer compared with the proprietor is as a merchant who trades with bor- rowed money compared with one who trades with his own. The stock of both may improve, but that of the one, with only, equal good conduct, must always improve more slowly than that of the other, on account of the large share of profits which is con- sumed by the interest of the loan. The lands culti- vated by the farmer, must in the same manner, with only equal good conduct, be improved more slowly than those cultivated by the proprietor; on account of the large share of the produce which is consumed ECONOMIC HISTOEY 119 in the rent, and which, had the farmer been propri- etor, he might have employed in the further improve- ment of the land. The station of farmer beside is, from the nature of things, inferior to that of a pro- prietor. Through the greater part of Europe the yeomanry are regarded as an inferior rank of people, even to the better sort of tradesmen and mechanics, and in all parts of Europe to the great merchants and master manufacturers. It can seldom happen, therefore, that a man of any considerable stock should quit the superior, in order to place himself in an inferior station. Even in the present state of Europe, therefore, little stock is likely to go from any other profession to the improvement of land in the way of farming. More does perhaps in Great Britain than in any other country, though even there the great stocks which are, in some places employed in farming, have generally been acquired by farm- ing, the trade, perhaps, in which of all others stock is commonly acquired most slowly. After small pro- prietors, however, rich and great farmers are, in every country, the principal improvers. There are more such, perhaps, in England than in any other European monarchy. In the republican governments of Holland and of Berne in Switzerland, the farmers are said to be not inferior to those of England. The ancient policy of Europe was, over and above all this, unfavorable to the improvement and culti- vation of land, whether carried on by the proprietor or by the farmer; first, by the general prohibition of the exportation of com without a special license, which seems to have been a very universal regula- tion; and secondly, by the restraints which were laid 120 POLITICAL ECONOMY upon the inland commerce, not only of corn but of almost every other part of the produce of the farm, by the absurd laws against engrossers, regraters, and forestallers, and by the privileges of fairs and markets. It has already been observed in what man- ner the prohibition of the exportation of corn, to- gether with some encouragement given to the im- portation of foreign corn, obstructed the cultivation of ancient Italy, naturally the most fertile country in Europe, and at that time the seat of the greatest empire in the world. To what degree such restraints upon the inland commerce of this commodity joined to the general prohibition of exportation, must have discouraged the cultivation of countries less fertUe, and less favorably circumstanced it is not perhaps very easy to imagine. The inhabitants of cities and towns were, after the fall of the Roman empire, not more favored than those of the country. They consisted, indeed, of a very different order of people from the first inhabit- ants of the ancient republics of Greece and Italy. These last were composed chiefly of the proprietors of the lands, among whom the public territory was originally divided, and who found it convenient to build their houses in the neighborhood of one an- other, and to surround them with a wall, for the sake of common defence. After the fall of the Roman empire, on the contrary, the proprietors of land seem generally to have lived in fortified castles on their own estates, and in the midst of their own tenants and dependents. The towns were chiefly inhabited by tradesmen and mechanics, who seem in those days to have been of servile or very nearly servile con- ECONOMIC HISTOKY 131 dition. The privileges which we find granted by ancient charters to the inhabitants of some of the principal towns in Europe, sufficiently show what they were before those grants. The people to whom it is granted as a privilege, that they might give away their own daughters in marriage without the consent of their lord, that upon their death their own children, and not their lord, should succeed to their goods, and that they might dispose of their effects by will, must, before those grants were made, have been either altogether or very nearly in the same state of villenage with the occupiers of land in the country. They seem, indeed, to have been a very poor, mean set of people, who used to travel about with their goods from place to place, and from fair to fair, like the hawkers and pedlars of the present times. In all the different countries of Europe, then, in the same manner, as in several of the Tartar gov- ernments of Asia at present, taxes used to be levied upon the persons and goods of travelers, when they passed through certain manors, when they went over certain bridges, when they carried about their goods from place to place in a fair, when they erected in it a booth or stall to sell them in. These different taxes were known in England by the names of passage, pontage, lastage, and stallage. Sometimes the king, sometimes a great lord, who had, it seems, upon some occasions, authority to do this, would grant to par- ticular traders, to such particularly as lived in their own demesnes, a general exemption from such taxes. Such traders, though in other respects of servile, or very nearly of servile condition, were upon this ac- count called Free-traders. They in return usually 122 POLITICAL ECONOMY paid to their protector a sort of annual poll-tax. In those days protection was seldom granted without a valuable consideration, and this tax might, per- haps, be considered as compensation for what their patrons might lose by their exemption from other taxes. At first, both those poll-taxes and those ex- emptions seem to have been altogether personal, and to have affected only individuals, during either their lives, or the pleasure of their protectors. In the very imperfect accounts which have been published from Domesday-book, of several of the towns of England, mention is frequently made sometimes of the tax which particular burghers paid, each of them, either to the king or to some other great lord, for this sort of protection; and sometimes of the general amount only of all those taxes. But how servile soever may have been originally the condition of the inhabitants of the towns, it ap- pears evidently, that they arrived at liberty and independency much earlier than the occupiers of land in the country. That part of the king's rev- enue which arose from such poll-taxes in any par- ticular town used commonly to be let in farm, during a term of years for a rent certain, sometimes to the sheriff of the country and sometimes to other per- sons. The burghers themselves frequently got .credit enough to be admitted to farm the revenues of this sort which arose out of their own town, they becoming jointly and severally answerable for the whole rent. To let a farm in this manner was quite agreeable to the usual economy of, I believe, the sov- ereigns of all the different countries of Europe, who used frequently to let whole manors to all the ten- ECONOMIC HISTORY 133 ants of those manors, they becoming jointly and sev- erally answerable for the whole rent; but in return being allowed to collect it in their own way, and to pay it into the king's exchequer by the hands of their own bailiff, and being thus altogether freed from the insolence of the king's officers; a circum- stance which in those days was regarded as of the greatest importance. At first, the farm of the town was probably let to the burghers, in the same manner as it had been to other farmers, for a term of years only. In process of time, however, it seems to have become the general practice to grant it them in fee, that is, for ever, reserving a rent certain never afterwards to be augmented. The pajnuent having thus become perpetual, the exemptions, in return, for which it was made, naturally became perpetual too. Those exemptions, therefore, ceased to be personal, and could not afterwards be considered as belonging to individuals as individuals, but as burghers of a par- ticular burgh, which upon this account, was called a free burgh, for the same reason that they had been called free-burghers or free-traders. Along with this grant, the important privileges, above mentioned, that they might give away their daughters in marriage, that their children should succeed to them, and that they might dispose of their, own effects by will, were generally bestowed upon the burghers of the town to whom it was given. Whether such privileges had before them usually granted along with the freedom of trade, to particu- lar burghers as individuals, I know not. I reckon it not improbable that they were, though I cannot pro- 124 POLITICAL ECONOMY duce any direct evidence of it. But, however, this may have been, the principal attributes of villenage and slavery being thus taken away from them, they now, at least, became really free in our present sense of the word Freedom. Nor was this all. They were generally at the same time erected into a commonalty or corporation, with the privilege of having magistrates and a town council of their own, or making by-laws for their own government, of building walls for their own de- fence, and of reducing all their inhabitants under a sort of military discipline by obliging them to watch and ward; that is, as anciently understood, to guard and defend those walls against all attacks and sur- prises by night as well as by day. In England they were generally exempted from suit to the hundred and county courts; and all such pleas as should arise among them, the pleas of the crown excepted, were left to the decision of their own magistrates. In other countries much greater and more extensive jurisdictions were frequently granted to them. It might, probably, be necessary to grant to such towns as were admitted to farm their own revenues, some sort of compulsive jurisdiction to oblige their own citizens to make payment. In those disorderly times it might have been extremely inconvenient to have left them to seek this sort of justice from any other tribunal. But it must seem extraordinary that the sovereigns of all the different countries of Europe should have exchanged in this manner for a rent certain, never more to be augmented, that branch of their revenue, which was, perhaps, of all others, the most likely to be improved by the natu- ECONOMIC HISTOEY 125 ral course of things, without either expense or atten- tion of their own, and that they should, besides, have in this manner voluntarily erected a sort of inde- pendent republic in the heart of their own dominions. In order to understand this, it must be remem- bered, that in those days the sovereign of perhaps no country in Europe was able to protect through the whole extent of his dominions, the weaker part of his subjects from the oppression of the great lords. Those whom the law could not protect, and who were not strong enough themselves to defend themselves were obliged to either have recourse to the protec- tion of some great lord, and in order to obtain it to become either his slaves or vassals, or to enter into a league of mutual defence for the common protection of one another. The inhabitants of cities and burghs, considered as single individuals, had not power to defend themselves; but by entering into a league of mutual defence with their neighbors, they were capable of making no contemptible resistance. The lords despised the burghers, whom they considered not only as of a different order, but as a parcel of emancipated slaves, almost of a different species from themselves. The wealth of the burghers never failed to provoke their envy and indignation, and they plundered them upon every occasion without mercy or remorse. The burghers naturally hated and feared the lords. The king hated and feared them, too; but though perhaps he might despise them, he had to reason either to hate or fear the burghers. Mutual interest, therefore, disposed them to support the king, and the king to support them against the lords. They were the enemies of his enemies, and it was 136 POLITICAL ECONOMY his interest to render them as secure and independent of those enemies as he could. By granting them mag- istrates of their own, the privilege of making by- laws for their own government, that of building walls for their own defence, and that of reducing aU their inhabitants under a sort of military discipline, he gave them all the means of security and indepen- dency of the barons which it was in his power to bestow. Without the establishment of some regu- lar government of this kind, without some authority to compel the inhabitants to act according to some certain plan or system, no voluntary league of mu- tual defence could either have afforded them any permanent security, or have enabled them to give the king any considerable support. By granting them the farm of their town in fee, he took away from those whom he wished to have for his friends, and if one may say so, for his allies, all ground of jeal- ousy and suspicion that he was never afterwards to oppress them, either by raiding the farm rent of their town or by granting it to some other farmer. The princes, who lived upon the worst terms with their barons, seem accordingly to have been the most liberal in grants of this kind to their burghs. King John of England, for example, appears to have been a most munificent benefactor to his towns. Philip the First of France lost all authority over his barons. Towards the end of his reign, his son Lewis, known afterwards by the name of Lewis the Fat, consulted, according to Father Daniel, with the bishops of the royal demesnes, concerning the most proper means of restraining the violence of the great lords. Their advice consisted of two different proposals. One was ECONOMIC HISTORY 137 to erect a new order of jurisdiction, by establishing magistrates and a town council in every consider- able town of Ms demesnes. The other was to form a new militia, by making the inhabitants of those towns under the command of their own magistrates, march out upon proper occasions to the assistance of the king. It is from this period, according to the French antiquarians, that we are to date the institution of the magistrates and councils of cities in Prance. It was during the unprosperous reigns of the princes of the house of Suabia that the greater part of the free towns of Germany received the first grants of their privileges, and that the famous Hanseatic league first became formidable. The militia of the. cities seems, in those times, not to have been inferior to that of the country, and as they could be more readily assembled upon any sudden occasion, they frequently had the advantage in their disputes with the neighboring lords. In countries such as Italy and Switzerland, in which, on account either of their distance from the principal seat of government, or of the natural strength of the country itself, or of some other reason, the sovereign came to lose the whole of his authority, the cities generally became independent republics, and con- quered all the nobility in their neighborhood; oblig- ing them to pull down their castles in the country, and to live like other peaceable inhabitants in the city. This is the short history of the republic of Berne, as well as of several other cities in Switzer- land. If you except Venice, for of that city the his- tory is somewhat different, it is the history of all the considerable Italian republics, of which so great a 138 POLITICAL ECONOMY number arose and perished, between the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. In countries such as France or England, where the authority of the sovereign, though frequently very low, never was destroyed altogether, the cities had no opportunity of becoming entirely indepen- dent. They became, however, so considerable that the sovereign could impose no tax upon them, be- sides the stated farm-rent of the town, without their own consent. They were, therefore, called upon to send deputies to the general assembly of the states of the kingdom, where they might join with the clergy and the barons in granting, upon urgent occa- sions, some extraordinary aid to the king. Being generally, too, more favorable to his power, their deputies seem sometimes to have been employed by him as a counterbalance in those assemblies to the authority of the great lords. Hence the origin of the representation of burghs in the states general of all the great monarchies of Europe. Order and good government, and along with them the liberty and security of individuals, were, in this manner, established in cities, at a time when the occupiers of land in the country were exposed to every sort of violence. But men in this defenceless state naturally content themselves with their neces- sary subsistence, because to acquire more might only tempt the injustice of their oppressors. On the con- trary, when they are secure of enjoying the fruits of their industry, they naturally exert it to better their condition, and to acquire not only the necessaries, but the conveniences and elegancies of life. That industry, therefore, which aims at something more ECONOMIC HISTORY 1S9 than necessary subsistence, was established in cities long before it was commonly practised by the occu- piers of land in the country. If in the hands of a poor cultivator, oppressed with the servitude of vil- lenage some little stock should accumulate, he would naturally conceal it with great care from his master, to whom it would otherwise have belonged, and take the first opportunity of running away to a town. The law was at that time so indulgent to the inhabit- ants of the towns, and so desirous of diminishing the authority of the lords over those of the country, that if he could conceal himself there from the pursuit of his lord for a year, he was free for ever. Whatever stock, therefore, accumulated in the hands of the industrious part of the inhabitants of the country, naturally took refuge in the cities, as the only sanc- tuaries in which it could be secure to the person that had acquired it. The inhabitants of a city, it is true, must always ultimately derive their subsistence, and the whole materials and means of their industry from the coun- try. But those of a city situated near either of the sea-coast or the banks of a navigable river, are not necessarily confined to derive them from the country in their neighborhood. They have a much wider range, and may draw them from the most remote cor- ners of the world, either in exchange for the manu- factured produce of their own industry, or by per- forming the office of carriers between distant coun- tries, and exchanging the produce of one for that of another. A city might in this manner grow up to great wealth and splendor, while not only the coun- try in its neighborhood, but all those to which it 130 POLITICAL ECONOMY traded, were in poverty and wretchedness. Each of those countries, perhaps, taken singly, could afford it both a great subsistence and a great employment. There were, however, within the narrow circle of the commerce of those times, some countries that were opulent and industrious. Such was the Greek em- pire as long as it subsisted, and that of the Saracens during the reigns of the Abassides. Such, too, was Egypt till it was conquered by the Turks, some part of the coast of Barbary, and all those provinces of Spain which were under the government of the Moors. The cities of Italy seem to have been the first in Europe which were raised by commerce to any con- siderable degree of opulence. Italy lay in the center of what was at that time the improved and civilized part of the world. The crusades, too, though by the great waste of stock and destruction of inhabitants which they occasioned, they must necessarily have retarded the progress of the greater part of Europe, were extremely favorable to that of some Italian cities. The great armies which marched from all parts to the conquests of the Holy Land, gave extraoradinary encouragement to the shipping of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, sometimes in transporting them thither, and always in supplying them with provisions. They were the commissaries, if one may say so, for those armies; and the most destructive frenzy that ever befell the European nations was a source of opulence to those republics. The inhabitants of trading cities, by importing the improved manufactures and expensive luxuries of richer countries, afforded scmie food to the vanity ECONOMIC HISTOEY 131 of the great proprietors, who eagerly purchased them with great quantities of the rude produce of their own lands. The commerce of the great part of Europe in those times, accordingly, consisted chiefly in the exchange of their own rude for the manufac- tured produce of more civilized nations. Thus the wool of England used to be exchanged for the wines of France and the fine cloths of Flanders, in the same manner as the corn in Poland is at this day exchanged for the wines and brandies of France, and for the silks and velvets of France and Italy. A taste for the finer and more improved manu- factures was in this manner introduced by foreign commerce into countries where no such works were carried on. But when this taste became so general as to occasion a considerable demand, the merchants, in order to save the expense of carriage, naturally endeavored to establish some manufactures of the same kind in their own country. Hence the origin of the first manufactures for distant sale that seem to have been established in the western provinces of Europe, after the fall of the Roman empire. No large country, it must be observed, ever did or could subsist without some sort of manufactures being carried on in it; and when it is said of any such country that it has no manufactures, it must always be understood of the finer and more improved, or of such as are fit for distant sale. In every large country, both the clothing and household furniture of the far greater part of the people, are the produce of their own industry. This is even more universally the case in those poor countries which are commonly said to have no manufactures, than in those rich ones 132 POLITICAL ECONOMY that are said to abound in them. In the latter, you will generally find, both in the clothes and household furniture of the lowest rank of people a much greater proportion of foreign productions than in the former. Those manufactures which are fit for distant sale seem to have been introduced into different countries in two different ways. Sometimes they have been introduced, in the man- ner above mentioned by the violent operation, if one may say so, of the stocks of particular merchants and undertakers, who established them in imitation of some foreign manufactures of the same kind. Such manufactures, therefore, are the offspring of foreign commerce, and such seem to have been the ancient manufactures of silks, velvets, and brocades, which flourished in Lucca during the thirteenth century. They were banished from thence by the tyranny of one of Machiavel's heroes, Castruccio Castracani. In 1310, nine hundred families were driven out of Lucca, of whom thirty-one retired to Venice, and offered to introduce there the silk manufacture. Their offer was accepted; many privileges were con- ferred upon them, and they began the manufacture with three hundred workmen. Such, too, seem to have been the manufactures of the fine cloths that anciently flourished in Flanders, and which were introduced into England in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth; and such are the present silk manufactures of Lyons and Spitafields. Manufac- tures introduced in this manner are generally em- ployed upon foreign materials, being imitations of foreign manufacturers. When the Venetian manu- facture was first established, the materials were all ECONOMIC HISTORY 133 brought from Sicily and the Levant. The more an- cient manufacture of Lucca was likewise carried on with foreign materials. The cultivation of mulberry trees and the breeding of silkworms seem not to have been common in the northern parts of Italy before the sixteenth century. Those arts were not intro- duced into France till the reign of Charles IX. The manufactures of Flanders were carried on chiefly with Spanish and English wool. Spanish wool was the material, not of the first woolen manufacture of England, but of the first that was fit for distant sale. More than one-half of the materials of the Lyons manufacture is at this day foreign silk; when it was first established, the whole or very nearly the whole was so. No part of the materials of the Spitafields manufacture is ever likely to be the produce of Eng- land. The seat of such manufactures, as they are generally introduced by the scheme and project of a few individuals, is sometimes established in a mari- time city, and sometimes in an inland town, accord- ing as their interest, judgment, or caprice happens to determine. At other times manufactures for distant sale grow up naturally, and as it were of their own ac- cord, by the gradual refinement of those household and coarser manufactures which must at all times be carried on even in the poorest and rudest coun- tries. Such manufactures are generally employed upon the materials which the country produces, and they seem frequently to have been first refined and improved in such inland countries as were, not indeed at a very great, but at a considerable distance from the sea coast, and sometimes even from all 134 POLITICAL ECONOMY water carriage. An inland country naturally fertile and easily cultivated, produced a great surplus of provisions beyond what is necessary for maintaining tlie cultivators, and on account of the expense of land carriage, and inconveniency of river navigation, it may frequently be difficult to send this surplus abroad. Abundance, therefore, renders provisions cheap, and encourages a great number of workmen to settle in the neighborhood, who find that their industry can there procure them more of the neces- saries and conveniences of life than in other places. They work up the materials of manufacture which the land produces, and exchange their finished work, or what is the same thing, the price of it, for more materials and provisions. They give a new value to the surplus part of the rude produce, by saving the expense of carrying it to the water-side, or to some distant market; and they furnish the culti- vators with something in exchange for it that is either useful or agreeable to them upon easier terms than they could have obtained it before. The culti- vators get a better price for their surplus produce and can purchase cheaper other conveniences which they have occasion for. They are thus both encour- aged and enabled to increase this surplus by a fur- ther improvement and better cultivation of the land; and as the fertility of the land had given birth to the manufacture, so the progress of the manufacture reacts upon the land, and increases still further its fertility. The manufactures first supply the neigh- borhood, and afterwards, as their work improves and refines, more distant markets. For though neither the rude produce, nor even the coarse manufacture, ECONOMIC HISTOKY 135 could, without the greatest difficultj^, support the expense of a considerable land carriage, the refined and improved manufacture easily may. In a small bulk it frequently contains the price of a great quan- tity of rude produce. A piece of fine cloth, for ex- ample, which weighs only eight pounds, contains in it the price, not only of eight pounds weight of wool, but sometimes of several thousand weight of com, the maintenance of the different working people, and of their immediate employers. The corn, which could with difficulty have been carried abroad in its own shape, is in this manner virtually exported in that of the complete manufacture, and may easily be sent to the remotest corners of the world. In this manner have grown up naturally, and as it were of their own accord, the manufactures of Leeds, Hali- fax, Sheffield, Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Such manufactures are the offspring of agriculture. In the modern history of Europe, their extension and improvement have generally been posterior to those which were the offspring of foreign commerce. Eng- land was noted for the manufacture of fine cloths made of Spanish wool, more than a century before any of those which now flourish in the place above mentioned were fit for foreign sale. The extension and improvement of these last could not take place but in consequence of the extension and improve- ment of agriculture, the last and greatest effect of foreign commerce, and of the manufactures imme- diately introduced by it, and which I shall now proceed to explain."® The industrial conditions in England just prior to 136 POLITICAL ECONOMY what is known as the Industrial Revolution is thus described: ''Down to the second half of the eighteenth cen- tury the manufacturers of England, though already important were mere handicrafts, unaided by ma- chinery, and scattered over the whole face of the land. A series of mechanical discoveries changed all this. The first of them was that iron could be smelted with coal, a thing unknown before, which made the district of northern England, where coal and iron lie side by side, a great industrial centre instead of a range of barren moors. A few years later came the discoveries of Watt and Arkwright, the former of whom applied steam to the working of machinery, while the latter perfected the details and definitely substituted mechanism for the slowly-moving human hand in the spinning and weaving industry. These all-important inventions were well established in England, though still almost unknown abroad, when the Revolutionary war broke out. Their develop- ment coincided with the years of its progress! all our rivals being handicapped not only by antiquated methods but by the stress of the French invasions, were hopelessly distanced. Moreover, the sweeping from the seas of all mercantile navies save our own gave us control of all the markets outside Europe. In a single generation British industry supplanted that of other nations in the outer world. The de- mand for our cheap machine-made manufactures was so great that factories sprang up on every York- shire and Lancashire moor, and the population of the north quadrupled itself in thirty years. But the "Smith's Wealth of Nations, Book III, Chapters II and in. ECONOMIC HISTOEY 137 national prosperity was bought at the cost of much individual misery. The classes which had lived by handicrafts were ruined; the new factory hands were ill-paid, huddled together in badly built, unsanitary towns of mushroom growth, and often driven to the verge of starvation hj the repeated famines, which were one of the most unhappy features of the period of the great war. Trades unions were in those days prohibited by law, and the discontent of the indus- trial population could only vent itself in riots, which sometimes almost swelled to the size of insurrec- tions."^ Section 43. Modem Industry. What may be referred to as the industrial and economic renaissance was very much later in making its appearance than the renaissance in other branches of human activity. This was largely brought about by the many great inventions in the last half of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Mr. Alfred R. Wallace in his ^ * The Wonderful Century ' ' says : * ' To get any adequate comparison with the nineteenth century we must take not any preceding century or group of centuries, but rather the whole preceding epoch of human history," and then proceeds to com- pare the inventions of the nineteenth century and those of all others that foUow. (See page 138.) * C. W. C. Oman in Historians ' History of the World, Vol. p. 484. 138 POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY. OF ALL PEECEDING AGES. 1. Eailways. 1. The Mariner's Compass, 2. Steamships. 2. The Steam Engine, 3. Electric Telegraphs. 3. The Telescope, 4. The Telephone. 4. The Barometer and Ther- 5. Lucifer Matches. mometer. 6. Gas Illumination. 5. Printing. 7. Electric Lighting. 6. Arabic Numerals. 8. Photography, 7. Alphabetical Writing. 9. The Phonograph. 8. Modern Chemistry 10. Eoentgen Eays. Founded. 11. Spectrum Analysis. 9. Electric Science 13. Anaesthetics. Founded. 13. Antiseptic Surgery. 10. Gravitation Established. 14. Conservation of Energy. 11. Kepler's Laws. 15. Molecular Theory of Gases. 12. The Different Calculus. 16. Velocity of Light directly 13. The Circulation of the measures and Earth's Blood. Potation experimentally 14. Light proved to have shown. Finite Velocity. 17. The Uses of Dust. 15. The Development of 18. Chemistry, Definite Pro- portions. Geometry. 19. Meteors and the Meteoritic Theory. 20. The Glacial Epoch." 21. The Antiquity of Man. 22. Organic Evolution Es- tablished. 23. Cell Theory and Embry- ology. 24. Germ Theory of Disease, and the Function of the Leucocytes. The great changes through the nineteenth cen- tury have been the transfer of the most important problems of Political Economy from the field of pro- duction to that of distribution; the vast extensions of International trade and intercourse; and the rise of the factory system. The influence of each of these, and more particu- ECONOMIC HISTOEY 139 larly of the introduction of the factory system has been to make it necessary to conduct business and manufactures on a larger scale and to substitute large combinations for individual efforts. This has re- sulted in a vastly increased production and increased prosperity for all, although the inequalities of dis- tribution are constantly becoming more marked. SOCIOLOGY BY HUBERT M. SKINNER, PH.D. Editor of "Collegiate Course" SOCIOLOGY. BY HUBERT M. SKINNER. PH. D. THE PEEVEESION OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. By Edward T.. Devine. AK INDUSTEIAL BASIS EOE SOCIAL INTEEPEETATIOK By Graham Taylor. A SOCIOLOGICAL GENEEALIZATION— THE EEACTION OF MOEAL INSTEUCTION UPON SOCIAL EEFOEM. By Jane Addams. A SOCIOLOGICAL INSTITUTION— THE EUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION, AND ITS INITIAL ACTIVITIES. By Eobert W. de Forest. AN ILLUSTEATION OF SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS— CHAEITY— EELIEF AND WAGE EAENINGS. By S. E. Forman. SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES. By James McClelland. In this presentation of the subject of sociology, the aim has been to set forth clearly the nature of the science, and to offer notable examples of institu- tions and work based upon true sociological princi- ples. The able papers by Edward T. Devine, Graham Taylor, Jane Addams, and Robert T. de Forest, are republished, by permission, from ''The Survey," (Chicago). The valuable contribution by S. E. For- man first appeared in a publication of the Bureau of Labor (Washington). The chapters on "Social Science and Social Schemes," by James McClelland, are reproduced, with slight verbal changes, from the British edition in which they first appeared. SOCIOLOGY I. SOCIOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. The science of sociology is probably more be- wildering than any other to the unscientific student or the unsystematic reader of to-day. One may pro- cure at the book store scores of volumes of *' sociology," bearing essentially the same title, and may find them to possess little or nothing in common, as to topics or treatment. Even when eminent pro- fessors and exponents of this science put forth bibliographies of their department of learning, one may find but few names in common in the lists presented. What wonder, then, if the practical man of affairs throw the entire subject aside and deny the existence of such a science! When sociology is mentioned in a social circle, there arises in the minds of the hearers a motley throng of ideas, of which the following are but a part: ethnology; the theory of the State; the servant-girl problem; demography; the problem of labor and wages; the liability of the employer for injuries to the employed; burial or cremation of the dead; comparative jurisprudence; a comparative study of religions; hygiene; pauperism; criminology; 145 146 SOCIOLOGY charities; marriage and divorce; applied psychology; public entertainments; public or private ownership of land; etiquet; ethics, etc., etc. This list might be indefinitely extended. It is plain that if sociology means observations and specifications concerning whatever may in- fluence the life and development of human society, its scope must include all history, and must be as wide as the world. Strictly speaking, sociology, *'the science or natm^al philosophy of society," is general in its nature, and treats of the elements of social phenom- ena. The subjects named above, and many others, are special social sciences, each of which has its own field for investigation of social facts, and its own deductions to make from them. "Sociology deals with subjects which men have written about for more than two thousand years," said Professor Albion W. Small in 1894;* "but for all that, sociology is a science less than fifty years old. ' ' Speaking of the studies of other days. Professor Small says : ' ' Many now living remember that when they asked to be taught about plants, they were re- ferred not to plants, but to books; when they wished to learn of rocks, they were told to study not rocks, but books; when they wanted to know the composi- tion of matter in- general, they were told to study not substances, but books. The teachers had not found out the superior pedagogy of things; their pedantry pinned its faith to books, containing the shadows cast upon the minds of other men by mental images of things. This pedagogic slavery to books * Small and Vincent's "Study of Society," published by American Book Company, New York and Chicago. SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL SCIENCES 147 was a survival of the scholasticism which Roger Bacon began to destroy in the thirteenth century by turning from words to things, as the source of knowl- edge. Objective knowledge of society was im- possible until the sciences that dealt with simple combinations had developed the objective method." It was the laboratory that paved the way for sociology. The laboratory student observed for him- self. Sociology applies the laboratory method to the study of society as it actually is. It equips the student to investigate scientifically the conditions and actuations of the living world about him. The realistic novel, as a picture of some phase of society, is often entertaining and profitable in its lessons of human life. The novels of Charles Dickens achieved their marvelous popularity because they presented pictures of the society of his time. Even their dark and sad portrayals were accepted, as necessary to the inauguration of social reforms. But the scope of the greatest novel is limited. Even in the "story with a purpose," fact may be sub- ordinated to the novelist's art. The knowledge of the writer may well be questioned. The most meri- torious novel cannot have the scientific value of practical demonstration. Not only the lighter follies of which Dickens gave us pictures, and the occasional crimes which he por- trayed, are subjects for scientific inquiry. All the evils as well as all the blessings of society are equally legitimate topics. * 'Vested rights" may be inquired into. Old assumptions may be questioned. There is nothing that affects society which may not be brought to the light of day, investigated, and pro- 148 SOCIOLOGY nounced upon. In a former time, the sores and ulcers of society were decently hidden from view. Certain vices of men and women were not to be discussed anjrwhere. They must be wholly ignored, in the interests of propriety and decency. Science knows nothing of such restrictions. "Whatever exists may be rationally studied, and must be studied if society is to progress. Even that which was deemed un- speakable, if it exists, must be taken into account and investigated, and the scientific remedy for it must be intelligently sought. The greatest fact of the new twentieth century is its realism; its abandonment of shams; its pitiless exposure of pretensions; its honest inquiry into every matter in which society is interested. The word sociology was coined by the French philosopher Auguste Comte, in his great work en- titled "Positive Philosophy," which was completed in 1842. It comes from the Latin word socius (mean- ing a companion, with its derivative societas, meaning companionship or society), and the class ending — ^logy, meaning discourse, or philosophy. Etymologically it means, therefore, the philosophy, or science, of society. In its broadest sense, as popularly conceived, it is more than the study of a lifetime ; it is more than an army of able and trained investigators could compass in the space of a generation. In its true sense, as accepted to-day, it offers only an equip- ment for the investigator, and seeks simply to prepare him for scientific investigations in the world- wide field of the many special social sciences which radiate from it. SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL SCIENCES 149 A truly Christian spirit was formerly deemed sufficient for overcoming the ills of the world. The Christian spirit is necessary as a foundation, but it is not all. It does not furnish the skill, the intelli- gence, the special information needed. It will not answer for a knowledge of navigation on the sea, of surgery in the hospital, of skill in warfare. Sociol- ogy is not the foe, hut the handmaid, of religion. Charity, the noblest impulse of the Christian heart, may work only harm if applied unscientifically. Even mercy may bring upon society a curse, if mis- directed. The study of human society by the laboratory method will aid religion in every way, turning to the best account its noble beneficences, its Christ-like charities. Comte spoke of "social statics" in a sophomoric way, to indicate the established order of society. He spoke of "social dynamics" in the same way, to in- dicate the progress of man. Strange to say, Herbert Spencer employed the same terms before he had become acquainted with Comte. But Spencer, a thorough scientist, had in mind the meaning which these expressions would have to a laboratory student. With Spencer, "social statics" meant social forces in equilibrium; and "social dynamics," the disturbing forces which bring revolution. Herbert Spencer sought in his "Synthetic Phi- losophy" to cover the whole ground of sociology under the heads of "Social Statics" and "Social Dynamics." It was a noble task, but a task which no man, and no army of trained investigators, can ever fully accomplish. Spencer's sociology, it has been said, "is an ap- 150 SOCIOLOGY plication of the philosophy of evolution to society." Starting with speculations as to the beginning of man in the world, it seeks to follow the integrations and differentiations of man's course; to consider homogeneity and indefiniteness, and their passage to heterogeneity and definiteness of organization. There are books of sociology which begin, in their speculations, far back of all history — far back, even, of prehistoric legend — back in the imagined era of which neither history nor the most ancient story can give account, and which treat of a "matriarchal age," preceding even the patriarchal age of man. These contain most interesting speculations on the primeval life of our race. The student equipped by a study of the essential principles of sociology will take delight in the "social statics" and "social dynamics" portrayed in certain classics of our literature. He will study every description, every word, and every act de^ scribed, from the standpoint of the sociological investigator of to-day. Some sociologists, as has been intimated, begin with their imagined primeval man, and speculate upon his surroundings, his social beginnings, his achievements. It is well, as George Eliot declares in one of her novels, to predicate a beginning, even if it be ficti- tious. Small and Vincent (of the Chicago Univer- sity) in their admirable "Introduction to the Study of Society," do this. They imagine the arrival of a wagon-load of immigrants at a point upon a prairie of the Great West, in pioneer days — ^that is to say, about the middle of the last century. The pioneers SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL SCIENCES 151 encamp "upon the prairie grass. They form a settle- ment on or near an Indian trail, some miles from their nearest neighbor. A farm is begun. A ferry and a blacksmith shop are needed, and later are realized. A hamlet results. Others come to the new settlement. A village is formed; then a corporate town; then a city; finally, a capital and metropolis. Perhaps no better plan than the historical can be found for teaching an application of the principles of sociology, whether the assumed beginning be the advent of man upon earth or the starting of a Kan- sas farm. The same essential principle is illustrated in both. It is the rational, scientific study of man and his environment; of cause and effect, as related to the conduct of man in his association with his fellows, that sociology seeks to provide. The higher education of to-day has not for its aim the endowment of the student, in a congratu- latory way, with the achieved results of investigation in the past, but seeks rather to impress upon him the great work which needs to be done in his own time, and to qualify and equip him for taking an efficient part in this. n. WHAT SOCIOLOGY PURPOSES TO DO. Sociology contemplates society as an organism. This organism is to be investigated scientifically. The idea is borrowed from the laboratory. What is an organism? It is a living thing; a body composed of organs, of parts, that have separate and different functions to perform, and that are mutually de- 152 SOCIOLOGY pendent and are essential to the life or well-Being of the whole. Animals and plants are organisms, and as such are studied and investigated in laboratories. When we consider society as an organism, we contemplate it as a great living being, a body with something akin to nerves and muscles, and organs of the special senses. Some have carried this idea far, and have described the Commonwealth, or State, as a huge monster of the imagination. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), having described the English Revolution as "The Behemoth," developed his study of the Commonwealth imder the title of "The Levia- than." Both animals were monsters described in * ' The Book of Job. ' ' Some have sought to identify the Biblical behemoth with the hippopotamus, and the Biblical leviathan with the whale; but there is some doubt as to the identity of the creatures described, and the popular imagination of many centuries has endowed them with fabulous dimensions and forms. The figure was an apt one, the more so because of the indefiniteness of the animal to which society was compared. But really, is there any need of metaphor for the purpose"? Is not human society itself a real organism, to be studied as an existing thing? A corporation, under our laws, is but an artificial person, existing only in the contemplation of the law. Society exists independently of statutes. It is an entity of itself. We may compare it with other organisms if we take care not to find analogies that do not exist. If a reference to Hobbes 's "Leviathan" seems to us to-day a turning back to the long ago, we should reflect that the book was but as a thing of yesterday WHAT SOCIOLOGY PUEPOSES TO DO 153 when compared in time with the fable, happily told, which arrested an incipient rebellion in the ancient Roman state. For we all recall the Menenius Agrippa of our Eoman history, who quieted the turbulent mass of the commons with his story of the Belly and the Other Members, showing that while in an animal organism, the ''other members'' work to feed the belly, which seems to be only the recipient of favors, the members are really nourished and maintained by the service which the belly performs. What is the aim of sociology? What does it pur- pose to do ? What is the purpose of systematic study of any animal or plant, or of the human body, or of the human mind? Is it not to acquire an accurate knowledge of the subject? Passing thence, what is the use of such knowledge? It is useful in many ways. Primarily, it enables us to promote the health and the normal activities of the organism studied. A thorough knowledge of the horse is exceedingly valuable to any one who has much to do with horses. A knowledge of the physical, mental, and moral needs of a child is essential to his proper care and training. There is a very general impression that sociol- ogy has to do only or chiefly with the relief of present distress, the result of the diseases of the body politic. But in the case of any other organism, the relief of present distress constitutes but a minor part of the study. The conditions of healthful development, and those of arrested development, and disease, are alike needful to be studied. But prevention is more than cure, and healthy life is of vast importance as a sub- ject for study. 154 SOCIOLOGY **Tlie aim of sociology is the development of social health, not the cure of social disease," says Professor Small;" the restoration of diseased mem- bers is important, but it is only negatively a part of the social task. It is necessary to insist upon this as- sertion, because it contradicts so much of the most confident social doctrines of the day. Sociology is confounded with charity, and charity is defined as 'the duty of the rich toward the poor.' The defini- tion is one half platitude and the other half false- hood. There is no duty of one class toward another which is not essentially the duty of each human being to all his fellows. There is no genuine charity toward the poor which is not in principle the duty of the rich toward the rich. Charity is either the expression of man's duty, or it is an artificial and vicious code by which one class of men regulates a part of its conduct towards other classes considered as something less than men." Does this clear assertion depreciate the need, the value, the duty of charity? By no means. Charity, or love, is truly 'Hhe greatest thing in the world." But sociology is not charity. Sociology seeks to enable the charitable to know with scientific accuracy when and how and where and in what measure their benefactions will do the greatest good. Sociology seeks to direct the search for knowledge of that kind which will be of the greatest assistance to the charitable and philanthropic in bestowing their benefactions. With a clear understanding of this fact, the reader will be most interested in studying the plan of the "Russell Sage Foundation," which is an excellent WHAT SOCIOLOGY PUEPOSES TO DO 155 example of a sociological institution. Far better is such an institution than a bottomless treasury for the bestowal of indiscriminate charity, the effect of which must be to encourage and breed pauperism and dependence. The influences at work in society may be studied under the subjects ''social statics" and "social dynamics." These expressions were coined by the Prench philosopher Comte, who first coined the word "sociology," and who is therefore regarded as the father of the modern science which bears that name. But as has been stated, Comte used these expressions loosely, and in a somewhat sophomoric way, to mean, respectively, social order and social progress. A study in the social statics of a past age, for instance, is presented in the "Prologue to the Canterbury Tales" of Chaucer; in reading which, one can study the state of society, or social order, of Chaucer's time. By ' ' social dynamics, ' ' Comte meant progress. A study in this is found in Tennyson's "Locksley Hall," and "Locksley Hall Sixty Years Afterward." The static and dynamic influences of society are simultaneously at work at all times. The result of the two in operation is called a moving equilibrium. It is the resultant of a " composition of forces. " It is the same in the world of man as in the physical world. It is the interaction of forces that determines the course of suns and planets. Social forces are no less real than those of the physical world, though they are often less easy to discover and to under- stand. The correlation of studies is a fundamental study in the elementary training of the pupil of to-day. 156 SOCIOLOGY Its influence is seen in higher education, though this is unfortunately hindered by departmental segrega- tion in our colleges. The student of physics and of physical science in its various branches is best fitted by his studies to enter upon the work of sociological investigation. He is impressed with the law of cause and effect. He learns that true causes must exist for all the phenomena of the world. He depends not upon prescription, but upon demonstration. His is the mental attitude of an inquirer. He investigates accurately, and records carefully the results of his investigations. He makes legitimate deductions, and arrives at rational conclusions. He applies the scientific method to that most important of all sub- jects, the society of man. m. SOCIAL UNITS, GROUPS, AGGREGATES AND ORGANS. The individual is a social unit. He was not made to live alone. The story of Robinson Crusoe depicts the horror of solitude; and it is a relief to the reader to arrive at the point of the story at which the man *' Friday" appears upon the scene to supply a poor companionship to the castaway. The drama of ^^Philoctetes," depicting the castaway of the isle of Lemnos, is one of the literary masterpieces of the ancient Greeks, and depicts with strong feeling the horror of continuous solitude. Charles Dickens, in his ** American Notes," was much impressed with the awfulness of solitary confinement in an American SOCIAL UNITS, GEOUPS, ETC. 157 prison. "It is not good that the man should be alone," says the Good Book. Isolation tends to morbidness and to insanity. Fellowship — ^really good fellowship — ^tends to health of mind and to normal living. Social groups are composed of social units. The primary social group is the family. In Europe and America it is monogamous. In Asia and in Africa it is often polygamous. The answer of Nature to the advocate of polygamy is that the sexes are equally balanced, numerically. At, one period of life, the males are slightly in the majority; at another, the females. Thus Nature vindicates the sacred law of monogamy. The family includes the father and mother, the children, and the servants; perhaps also the grand- father and grandmother of either or both sides of the house. In the past, it has been assumed that the husband and father is absolutely the supreme head and authority of the household, and that the servant is in a position of subjection. In this day of ques- tioning, nothing is taken for granted. What are the rights of the husband and father? — of the wife and mother? — of the children? — of the servants, if there be any ? Surely a rational consideration of the rights of each member of the family is needed to-day. Nor will it answer to quote ancient authorities as to their rights. Sociology takes cognizance of the working theories upon which the household is conducted, and notes the results. Social aggregates are combinations of social groups in a mass which coheres upon some basis — as 158 SOCIOLOGY of consanguinity; religious, political or philosophical belief; business associations; nationality or race, etc. Social organs are combinations of persons or fam- ilies, and of property, for the performance of some function which relates to society. Spencer finds three classes of social organs, — ^the sustaining, the distributing, and the regulating. With all of these, sociology has to deal. Professor Vincent emphasizes the many sided- ness of the individual, who may be a part of many social aggregates and groups. ^*The same man," he says, *'may be husband and father, neighbor, manu- facturer, bank director, alderman, Republican (or Democratic) committeeman, president of the street- railway, church deacon, member of a lodge, trustee of a hospital, officer of a social club, member of a college alumni association, of a literary club, of a Holland society; he may have scores of warm friends with whom he associates in many different ways." It is this network of relationship that binds society together. The limits of a social aggregate are very in- definite. In fact, one aggregate may be made up of various smaller aggregates. The aggregate does not imply any close relation of its units. Often member- ship in an aggregate is a wholly involuntary matter, as in the case of race or nationality, kinship, language, etc. Such aggregates as clubs, political parties, professions, trades, social classes, etc., are classed as voluntary. Religious aggregates partake of the nature of both. The units of a social organ are more or less closely united, and the existence of an organ generally SOCIAL UNITS, GEOUPS, ETC. 159 implies something of property devoted to its func- tional purpose. A manufacturing establishment is an organ. A church, a college, a newspaper, a means of transportation is an organ. It is not always possible to distinguish an aggregate from an organ. The employes of a railway system form an aggre- gate. By uniting for purposes of mutual advantage, they constitute an organ, as well. Even the family, — the primary social group, — while considered gen- erally as an aggregate, may by the co-operation of its units become a social organ. Those who hold passively to a common religious belief may, as an aggregate in a community, have no special coherence ; or they may co-operate effectively in a church, thus constituting a social organ. The tendency of the time is toward a multiplicity of organs, representa- tive of social aggregates. The three classes of organs designated by Herbert Spencer, and generally recognized, — the sustaining, the distributing, and the regulating, — are easily dis- tinguished, as a rule. Earms, factories, mines, etc., belong to the first of these; transportation com- panies, mercantile establishments, express and tele- graph companies, etc., to the second; Government, or control, in its various forms, — domestic, institu- tional, industrial, civil, and religious, — educational institutions, etc., belong to the third. This classification, not always very definite as to boundaries, is found to be convenient in a study of social groups and aggregates. 160 SOCIOLOGY IV. METHOD OF SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY. Sociological study is in principle the same, whether applied to a large field or to one of small compass. For the larger study there must be co- operation of trained investigators, with facilities for ascertaining with accuracy the social facts desired. The nttle field of a rural social group — a small town- ship, or a school district — may be easily investigated by an individual of scientific aptitude who, as a resi- dent, is ''at home" in the neighborhood. In fact, there is many a venerable man — ^physician, attorney, minister, merchant, or teacher — who from long and intimate acquaintance with the people of his village and its surroundings, with their interests, their aims, and their conditions, is in himself a cyclopedia of sociological information relating to the community. The people among whom he has lived for almost a lifetime are to him an open book. If he have an analytical turn and something of a scientific training, he has perhaps arranged his data logically in his mind. Like M. Jourdain in Moliere's immortal comedy, who had been talking prose for forty years without knowing it, this village patriarch and phi- losopher has perhaps been mentally doing excellent sociological work for as long a period without know- ing of the existence of the science to which that work really belongs. The essentials of fitness for such work are the same as for all scientific investigation. There must be in the mind of the investigator a freedom from prejudice. He must be ready to accept of the truth METHOD OF SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY 161 as he finds it, without false coloring from precon- ceived notions. He must be accurate and pains- taking in his own observations. He must apply all needed and possible tests as to the authenticity of what he receives from others. He must make only logical deductions from the facts acquired. As an example of sociological work that may be done in the investigation of a rural group, the follow- ing suggestive outline is offered: Subjects to be Studied by Observation and Investi- gation. 1. The Topography of the District. The land; its boundaries, elevation, relief, ponds and streams, native trees and plants, native fauna, range of temperature, rainfall, etc. (All this is to be viewed in the light of human interest, as affecting the people.) Method of describing land in legal documents; the original and subsequent surveys; natural causes affecting boundaries; highways, and the reasons for the selection of their routes. 2. Buildings. Houses, barns, stores, shops, mills, school and church edifices, etc.; their qual- ity as to size and capacity, convenience, health- fulness and comfort, safety, durability, artistic features, expense, etc. 3. Classification of the Social Units (Individ- uals). Their division into aggregates as to na- tionality; as to religious proclivities; as to polit- ical relations; as to sex; as to self-support; as to health; as to education; as to social prominence. 162 SOCIOLOGY 4. Industrial and Commercial Activities. Agriculture — ^how conducted, and at what advan- tage or disadvantage; trade — ^how conducted, and under what favoring or discouraging conditions ; the credit system and the cash system, as applied, and the advantages and disadvantages of each; wages, and conditions of labor; means of trans- portation and of communication, and their grade of efficiency. 5. Social Organs and Institutions. The school — ^its discipline, and the quality of its intellectual and social training; the churches, and the strength of their religious, moral, and social in- fluence; entertainments of an intellectual char- acter; out-door games and sports; social, literary, scientific, historical, political, or religious so- cieties or clubs; public libraries and private col- lections of books; reading rooms; newspapers and magazines most generally read. 6. Law and Order. The standard of morality generally observed; respect for law, and its en- forcement; the general standard of courtesy and respect for the feelings of the individual; the means and instrumentalities of public censorship of morals; the home influences of the community — ^their strength and weakness. 7. Undesirable Conditions. Faults or defaults of roads, bridges, drainage, sewerage, water sup- ply, protection from public dangers, heating and ventilation of buildings, etc.; faults of family, school, or civic administration; insufficient initia- tive, enterprise, and co-operation; excessive METHOD OF SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY 163 political, denominational, or other controversy; the influence of depraved and vicious characters; insufficiency of sociability; gossip, demoralizing literature, and frivolity; idleness, dependence, and lack of ambition on the part of individuals; laxity of business methods and morals. The study of larger social groups must take into account many conditions and many social organs not represented in a small commimity. The revelations of the abnormal and the shocking in human society, — the crime, the folly, the mental suffering (often unmerited), the physical pain, the pathos of conditions, — often lead to pessimistic feel- ings and beliefs. From these revelations many turn away in horror, and exclaim that it was not thus in years gone by; that the world is rapidly growing worse. Even if this be true, it is best for us to know it and to look the fact squarely in the face. But is it true? When there were no telegraphs to transmit the news to great daily journals, the calamities of the people were not recorded for all to read. The real difference between our own time and the times of the past is that the pains and griefs of society are brought to the knowledge of the great world, whereas they were formerly hidden in their isolation. Never before were agencies so vast, so efficient, as now put forth for the amelioration of social con- ditions. The Salvation Army, church and university "settlement" work, and many other social agencies of great importance have brought together social units who formerly seldom came into contact, — never, indeed, except under circumstances of humil- 164 SOCIOLOGY iation to one or to both. Sociological investigation has added vastly to the betterment of sociological conditions by bringing to light waiting fields for philanthropic endeavor, and by multiplying in ef- fectiveness every contribution of means or of per- sonal work directed to this end. In chapters which follow are presented ex- amples of work illustrative of the method and results of sociological study. V. NOTABLE BOOKS OF SOCIOLOGY. Among the more important works on the subject of sociology are the following, the titles of which are presented here for the convenience of the student. Some of the books will be found unavailable to the general reader. Some, indeed, have never been translated into English, but deserve mention because of their influence upon the learned of many lands. 1. *' Positive Philosophy," by Auguste Comte. (Paris, 1830-42.) 2. ''Social Statics," by Herbert Spencer. (Lon- don, 1850.) 3. ''Social Reform in France," by Le Play. (Paris, 1864.) 4. "Principles of Sociology," by Herbert Spen- cer. (London, 1876-9.) 5. "Thoughts Upon the Social Science of the Future," by Paul von Lilienfeld. (Tiibingen, 1873.) 6. ' ' Structure and Life of the Social Body, " by A. Schaffle. (Tiibingen, 1874.) NOTABLE BOOKS OF SOCIOLOGY 165 7. *' Dynamic Sociology, or Applied Social Sci- ence, as Based Upon Statical Sociology and the Less Complex Sciences, ' ' by Lester F. Wood. (New York, 1883.) 8. *^Tlie Foundation of Sociology," by Ludwig Gumplowicz. (Vienna, 1885.) 9. "Studies in Social Life," by George C. Lor- imer. (Chicago, 1886, London.) 10. "Introduction to Sociology," by Guillaume de Greef. (Brussells, 1886-9.) 11. "An Introduction to Social Philosophy," by John S. Mackenzie. (London, 1890.) 12. "The Strife Among Human Societies," by J. Navicon. (Paris, 1893.) 13. "Social Science and Social Schemes," by James McClelland. (London, 1894.) 14. "An Introduction to the Study of Society," by Professor Albion W. Small and George E. Vin- cent. (New York, 1894.) 15. "The Principles of Sociology," by Franklin Henry Giddings. (New York, 1896.) 16. "Inductive Sociology," by Franklin Henry Giddings. (New York, 1901.) iTHE PERVERSION OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS Hospitals of an earlier day, like prisons and other institutions in wMch people were crowded without proper safeguards, sometimes became centers of in- fection. Skilled medical attendance was provided, but good nursing, isolation rooms, and sanitary cleanliness were wanting. Then Florence Nightin- gale announced the clarifying doctrine that hospi- tals, whatever else they do, should not make people sick. From this negative but fruitful axiom, there came as logical corollaries the essential conditions of a good hospital. The principle which redeemed the hospital is one which is capable of application to other institutions. The most obvious analogy to the principle that hospitals should not make people sick, is that prisons should not make criminals. There is much evidence of the need for applying this negative but elemen- tary doctrine. Prisons and jails which receive con- victs for brief, definite sentences, permitting associ- ation of young offenders with hardened criminals, giving no reformative or educational discipline, earn the reproach of the insanitary hospital. They per- vert the very principle of their existence. They spread the infection of crime, even as the perverted hospital spreads the infection of disease. The re- 166 PEEYEESION OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS 167 formatory has its legitimate and necessary place in the penal system. So has the colony in which, as in a hospital for the insane, incorrigible enemies of society may be permanently isolated. But the prison which represents merely the idea of ven- geance and punishment is hard put to it to justify its existence at all. And when it makes criminals of its inmates the balance against it becomes griev- ously heavy. The police system should not create hostility towards the representatives of law and order. The police drag-net, which on the assassination of a police officer brings into court innocent and law-abiding laborers, is qualified to produce just such an effect. Needless clubbing and other brutality have this effect. This attitude of hostility is natural for the small merchant who is not protected against crimi- nal blackmail, and for the Italian laborer, who, in despair of such police protection as he has enjoyed in his own country, arms himself with knife or revolver, only to find that this is more certain to be punished than the *' black-hand" outrage against which it was intended to be a protection. Unjusti- fied arrest, third-degree torture, protection of crimi- nals for pay, and other perversions of the police power, are on a par with the crime-making prison, and the insanitary, disease-breeding hospital. Charity should not make paupers. Here again we have an application of our general principle that should prove very useful in testing the value of the work of charitable societies, and the wisdom of the practices and policies of individuals who think them- selves charitable. Strength and not comfort is the 168 SOCIOLOGY end which we should rank highest among the good things which we covet for those who look to us for help. Charity is to relieve distress, as the police system is to prevent crime, but it is equally essential that it should guard effectively against the perver- sion of its function. It must not itself multiply the occasions for its exercise. Industry should not make workers unemployable. Here is opened up an exceedingly interesting field of speculation. Excessive hours of labor, under-pay, irregular employment, throwing men out of employ- ment as a first resort in periods of business retrench- ment, displacing workers at the first sign of ad- vancing age by young men because of their extra strength and pliability, are among the features of industry which may be regarded not unfairly as per- versions of its natural function. They tend to make men unemployable, which is the very destruction of industry. Goods must be produced, and transported, and placed on the market, and sold; but all this should be done in such a way as to conserve the use- fulness of those who do the work, not in such a way as to destroy their usefulness. The school should not make its pupils inefficient. The function of education is to pass on to the grow- ing generation the accumulated achievements of the race. Its aim is to put the next generation on the shoulders of the present, both in respect of earning and producing capacity, and in respect of powers of enjoyment. The life for which children are to be prepared is one of work and of leisure. They should be made efficient in both. The school which makes PEEVERSION OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS 169 misfits, either vocational or simply as living, rational human beings, compelled daily to choose between good and evil, and between the good and the better, belongs with the hospital, the prison, the police sys- tem and the charity, which miss their natural calling. The school, whatever else it does, should not make misfits. This is not the whole philosophy of educa- tion, but it is a good beginning of it. The axiom which is so useful when applied to other institutions, will at least help us determine whether a given school system is failing to meet the most elementary and fundamental of all tests, whether it is perverting its function, whether it is producing inefficiency instead of strength. Churches should not create an indifference to religion. Missions should not make bread lines. Recreation should not devitalize. Politics should not undermine good citizenship. Retail trade should not result in the exploitation of consumers. Child- saving agencies should not exhibit an excessive mor- tality. State labor departments should not neglect to make an intelligible report in regard to the factory conditions subject to their supervision. A Federal investigation of the labor of women and children should not be unable to make, from time to time, reports of progress, like the bulletins of the Census Bureau, and thus be compelled to present its results in bulk long afterwards, when the facts upon which it reports are perhaps no longer of interest or value. The perversion of social institutions is oftener than not the result of thoughtless or indifferent di- rection. Those who ultimately pay the bills for their 170 SOCIOLOGY creation and maintenance have no desire that hospi- tals shall make people sick, or that prisons shall make criminals, or that charity shall make paupers, or that factories shall make workingmen unemployable. Edward T. Devine. AN INDUSTRIAL BASIS FOR SOCIAL INTERPRETATION Statement, more than argument, is needed to es- tablish the vital and essential connection between effective philanthropy, morality, or civic progress, and industrial conditions and relations. The connec- tion of industry with all these spheres of life and effort is often causal, always conditioning. Liveli- hood and Hfe are indistinguishably identified in fact, if not in our theories of either. There is no such immorality as that which so divorces life from live- lihood that the way of making a Living is not the way to live. There is no such demoralization as that which fairly disintegrates everyone able to work who has no opportunity or inclination to earn a Living. Philanthropy's first principle is industrial self- help. To the diagnosis of dependency, the knowl- edge of industrial conditions is recognized to be as essential as personally to know the dependent indi- vidual or family. The standard of living in the in- dustrial class to which a needy family belongs is more and more seen to be the test of the method and the measure, as well as of the human considerateness of reHef. The first inquiry of the charity worker is for the claim upon the industrial insurance of the union or friendly society, of the employers' benefit or state guarantee against total loss from accident, 171 172 SOCIOLOGY sickness, unemployment, or death. Industrial casual- ties are among the deepest tap-roots of dependency. Occupational diseases are newly accepted terms of both medical and social pathology. Housing and health are indissolubly connected by the rate of wages. Child labor is economic waste. Unrestricted hours and unregulated conditions of women's toil tell the toll of blighted births, degenerate lives, and untimely deaths, in our vital statistics. Both personal and civic safety and progress are more and more dependent upon the public control and regulation of living and working conditions. Philanthropy, morality, state-craft, and even religion are confronted by the industrial situation in every way they turn. Those interested or engaged in pro- moting social, civic, and moral efficiency are forced to face the results of these economic forces resident in industrial conditions and relations. But where to look for the facts and the spirit which interpret the sources, the motives, the move- ments, and the measures which produced these results in personal destiny and public development, most people are at a loss to know. The strike and lockout are for the most part isolated in thought and judgment from the conditions that occasioned them, if not from the consequences produced by them. The organizations of labor and capital alike are too often accounted for and condemned because of the person- alities which aggravate their differences, when they ought to be explained, if not justified, by the eco- nomic necessities which make them inevitable. Dis- turbances of industrial relationships and the public peace are intensified by being detached in our knowl- INDUSTEIAL BASIS 173 edge from the world-wide forces of which they are but the local manifestation. Industrial conflict is not due to the last agitator or the latest cut in wages. The labor movement has a history, a literature, insti- tutions of its own, and a powerful press. Whole classes of men and their organized movements are hopelessly misunderstood and misinterpreted by not being allowed to interpret themselves and make themselves understood by those outside their own ranks. Nothing is more dangerous in a democracy than to allow a sense of detachment to divide a class from the mass, a craft or an individual from the com- munity of interests in the working world, personal and private instincts and ideals from public welfare. There is therefore a wide field and a practical function lying between social aims and efforts and industrial conditions and relations. No individual or public interest can afford to leave this field unoc- cupied, or this function unfulfilled. Graham Taylor. A SOCIOLOGICAL GENERALIZATION — THE REACTION OF MORAL INSTRUCTION UPON SOCIAL REFORM Each generation of clergymen, moralists, educa- tors, and publicists find themselves facing an inevi- table dilemma — ^first, to keep the young committed to their charge ^^imspotted from the world;" and second, to connect them with the ruthless and mate- rialistic world all about them, in such wise that they may make it the theater for their noblest exploits. It is fortunate for these teachers that some time during the *' Golden Age" lying between the years of thirteen and twenty-three the most prosaic youth is seized by a new interest in remote and universal ends; and that if a clue be but given him by which he may connect his lofty aims with his daily living, he himself will drag the very heavens into the most sordid tenement. The perpetual difficulty consists in finding the clue for him, and placing it in his hands ; for while the greatest possible wrong is done him if this expanding period of human life is not seized upon for spiritual purposes, at the same time, if the teaching is too detached from life, it does not result in any psychic impulsion at aU. Youth invari- ably becomes impatient of a creed which does not afford a guide to actual conduct; and it must be grand, vague and noble conduct at that! 174 A SOCIOLOGICAL GENEEALIZATION 175 We are obliged to admit,' however, that in many cases both the school and the church have failed to perform this office for him, and that thousands of young people in every great city are either frankly hedonistic or are vainly attempting to work out for themselves a satisfactory code of morals. They cast about in libraries, in settlements, and in theaters, for the clue which shall connect their loftiest hopes with their actual living. Several years ago a committee of lads came to see me, in order to complain of a certain high-school principal because ''He never talks to us about life." When urged to make a clearer statement, they added, *'He never asks us what we are going to be. We can't get a word out of him, excepting lessons and keeping quiet in the halls." Of the dozens of young women who have begged me to make a connection for them between their dreams of social usefulness and their actual living, I recall one of the many whom I had sent back to her clergyman, returning with this remark: "His only suggestion was that I should be responsible every Sunday for fresh flowers upon the altar. I did that when I was fifteen, and liked it then; but when you have come back from college and are twenty-two years old, it doesn't quite fit in with the vigorous efforts you have been told are necessary, in order to make our social relations more Christian." That old desire to achieve, to capture the world, seizes the ardent youth of today with a stern com- mand to bring about juster social conditions. They are impatient with "rose water for the plague" pre- scriptions, and insist upon something strenuous and 176 SOCIOLOGY vital. It would seem a golden opportunity for those to whom is committed the task of spiritual instruc- tion; for to preach and seek justice in human affairs is one of the oldest obligations of religion and morality. All that would be necessary would be to attach this teaching to the contemporary world, and really to believe that ''if the hydraulic force of re- ligion could be turned into conduct, there is nothing which it could not accomplish." The particular faith from which it is preached is not so important as that it should be connected with actual social movements, in such wise that the eager youth might feel a tug upon his faculties and a sense of participation in the moral life about him. The youth of Jewish birth has been taught that prophets and statesmen for three thousand years declared Jehovah to be a God of Justice, who hated oppres- sion and desired righteousness more than sacrifice. But there is no real appeal to his spirit of moral ad- venture unless he is told that the most stirring at- tempts to translate justice into the modern social order have been inaugurated and carried forward by men of his own race, and that until he joins in the contemporary manifestations of that attempt, he is recreant to his highest traditions and obligations. The Christian youth has been taught that man's heart-breaking adventure to find justice in the order of the universe, moved the God of Heaven himself to send a Mediator in order that the justice which man craves, and the mercy by which alone he can endure his weakness, might be reconciled; but he will not make the doctrine his own until he reduces it to action, and tries at one and the same time to "do A SOCIOLOGICAL GENERALIZATION 177 justice" and to '*love mercy," realizing in his own experience that the order can never be reversed. If your youth calls himself an "evolutionist" (it is rather hard to find a name for this youth, but there are thousands of him, and a fine fellow he often is), he knows of that long struggle beginning with the earliest tribal effort to establish just relations be- tween man and man; and that, after all, justice can be worked out upon this earth only by those who will not tolerate a wrong to the feeblest member of the community; and that it will become a social force in proportion only as men steadfastly desire it and establish it. If the young people who have been subjected to this varied religious instruction have also been stirred to action, — or, rather, if the instruction has been given validity because it has been attached to conduct, — ^then it may be comparatively easy to bring about in America certain social reforms which now seem so impossible. The whole agitation for state industrial insur- ance may afford a good example. In one year in the German Empire one hundred thousand chil- dren were cared for through money paid from the state insurance fund to their widowed mothers and invalided fathers. Certainly we shall have to bestir ourselves if we would care for the victims of the industrial order as well as other nations do; and it ought to be easy to exhort a care for the widow and the fatherless from the point of view of all religions, or from that evolutionary standpoint which asserts that a soimd physique is the only basis of progress. 178 SOCIOLOGY and that to guard the mothers of the race is simply sanity. And yet, from lack of preaching of these varied creeds, we do not unite for action because we are not stirred to act at all; and protective legislation in America is shamefully inadequate. We say in despair, sometimes, that because we are a people who hold such varied creeds, there are not enough of one religious faith to secure any- thing; but the truth is that it is easy to unite for action people whose hearts have once been filled by the fervor of that willing devotion which religion always generates in the human breast, from what- ever creed it may be preached. It is comparatively easy to enlarge a moral concept, but extremely diffi- cult to give it to an adult for the first time, — as those of you, for instance, who have had experience with certain legislators can testify. We are failing to meet the requirements of our industrial life with courage and success, simply because we do not real- ize that unless we establish some of that humane legislation which has its roots in a consideration for hiunan life, our industrialism itself will fall behind. It is suffering from inbreeding, growing ever more unrestrained and more ruthless. It would seem obvious that, in order to secure relief in a com- munity dominated by commercial ideals, an appeal must be made to the old moral sanctions for human conduct; that we must reach motives more substan- tial and enduring than the mere fleeting experiences of one phase of modern industry, which vainly imagines that its growth would be curtailed if the health of its employes were guarded by the state. A SOCIOLOGICAL GENEEALIZATION 179 And yet, when we attempt to appeal to these old sanctions, the conclusion is often forced upon us that they have not been ingrained in the present generation; that they have never been worked over into character; that they cannot be relied upon when they are brought into contact with the arguments of commercialism; that the colors of the flag flying over the fort of our spiritual resources wash out and dis- appear when the storm actually breaks. It seems sometimes as if the church and the school, because they are so reluctant to admit that conduct is the supreme and efficient test of moral validity, had turned over to commercialism itself the teachings upon our most vexed social problems. To the credit of commercialism be it said that it has boldly stepped in and, so far as people will pay for it, is entering the field as moral instructor. There is no doubt that we are at the beginning of a period when the stage is becoming the most suc- cessful popular teacher in public morals. Many times the perplexed hero reminds one of Emerson's description of Margaret Fuller: ^*I don't know where I am going. Follow me." But nevertheless the stage is dealing with these moral themes in which the public is most interested. This may have come about largely through the very exigencies of dra- matic art. The playwrights must at least reduce their creeds to action; they must translate their be- liefs into interesting conversation, if they are to be played at all. While many young people, and older ones as well, go to the theater if only to see represented and to hear discussed the themes which seem to them so 180 SOCIOLOGY tragically important, there is no doubt that what they hear there, flimsy and poor as it often is, easily becomes their actual moral guide. In moments of moral crisis, they turn to the sayings of the hero who found himself in a similar plight. The sayings may not me profound, but they are at least appli- cable to conduct. It would be a striking result if the teachings of the contemporaneous stage should at last afford the moral platform upon which the various members of the community would unite for common action in matters of social reform. This platform would be adopted, not because the teach- ings of the stage had of necessity been fine, but because they had made an appeal for justice and fair play in our social relations, and had at the same time reduced this appeal to suggestions for actual conduct. A dozen plays at the present moment are on the stage whose titles might easily be translated into a proper heading for a sociological lecture or a sermon: 1. ''The Battle" might be called The Need for Model Tenements. 2. ''The Melting Pot," The Value of Immigra- tion. 3. "The Easiest Way," The Entrenchments of The Social Evil. 4. "The Strong People," A Strike and Its Un- fair Suppression. 5. "The Man of the Hour," An Effort to Com- bat Municipal Corruption. 6. "The Lion and the Mouse," The Ruthless Methods of Big Business. A SOCIOLOGICAL GENEEALIZATION 181 7. ^'Tlie Dawn of a To-Morrow," Optimism as a Rectifier of Social Wrongs. 8. *'The Third Degree,'' The Sweating in Police Courts Resulting in False Confessions. 9. "Salvation Nell," has been called, rightly or wrongly, The Divine Comedy of the Poor. 10. **The Writing on the Wall," An Exposition of the Methods of Trinity Church in Administering Its Property. 11. "Samson," The Result of Frenzied Fi- nance. 12. "The Flag Station," The Accidents Result- ing from Long Hours of Labor. This list does not even mention the plays of Ibsen, Shaw, and Hauptman, which deal so directly with moral issues that the moralists themselves wince under their teachings and declare them brutal. Educators, moralists, clergymen, publicists, all of us forget how very early we are in the experi- ment of founding a first civilization in this trying climate of America, and that we are making the ex- periment in the most materialistic period of all his- tory, having as our last court of appeal against that materialism only the wonderful and inexplicable instinct for justice which resides in the heart of man. This instinct may be cultivated or neglected, as we choose to give it opportunity for expression, and it is never so irresistible as when the heart is young. It is as if we ignored a wistful creature who walked through our city streets calling out, "I am the spirit of youth; with me aU things are possible." 182 SOCIOLOGY We fail to understand what he wants, or even to see that he is caught into all sorts of movements for social amelioration, some of them abortive and fool- ish simply because they appeal to him as an effort to moralize our social relations. We may either feed the divine fire of youth with the historic ideals and dogmas which are after all the most precious possessions of the race, or we may smother it by platitudes and heavy discourses. We may listen to the young voice rising clear above the roar of indus- trialism, and to the prudent counsels of commer- cialism, or we may become hypnotized by the sud- den new emphasis placed upon wealth and power, and forget the supremacy of spiritual forces in men's affairs. Jane Addams. A SOCIOLOGICAL INSTITUTION— THE RUS- SELL SAGE FOUNDATION, AND ITS INITIAL ACTIVITIES The purpose of the Russell Sage Foundation, as set forth in its charter, is "the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States of Amer- ica." Its charter also provides that it shall be within these purposes "to use any means to that end which from time to time shall seem expedient to its members or trustees, including research, publica- tion, education, the establishment and maintenance of charitable or benevolent activities, agencies and institutions, and the aid of any such activities, agen- cies or institutions already established." Mrs. Russell Sage, in her letter of April 19, 1907, which may be called her deed of gift, further defines the scope of the Foundation, and the limitations within which she wishes her trustees to act, as follows : "The scope of the Foundation is not only national but is broad. It should, however, preferably not undertake to do that which is now being done or is likely to be effectively done by other individuals or by other agencies. It should be its aim to take up the larger and more difficult problems, and to take them up so far as possible in such a manner as to secure co-operation and aid in their solution. "In some instances it may wisely initiate move- 183 184 SOCIOLOGY merits, in the expectation of having them maintain themselves unaided after once being started. In other instances it may start movements with the expectation of carrying them on itself. *'I have had some hesitation as to whether the Foundation should be permitted to make invest- ments for social betterment which themselves pro- duce income, as, for instance, small houses or tene- ments, in distinction from investments in securities intended only to produce income. I realize that in- vestments for social betterment, even if producing some income, may not produce a percentage so large as that produced by bonds or like securities, and that the income of the Foundation might be therefore diminished by such investments. On the other hand, if I fail to give the Foundation powers in this respect it may be unable to initiate or establish important agencies or institutions. ''I decide to authorize the trustees of the Foun- dation to invest the principal of the fund, to the extent of not more at any one time than one-quarter of its entire amount, directly in activities, agencies, or institutions established and maintained for the improvement of social and living conditions, pro- vided that such investments shall, in the opinion of the trustees, be likely to produce an annual income of not less than three per cent." Quite independently of Mrs. Sage's desires as expressed in this deed of gift, wise trustees would naturally have directed their efforts *'in such man- ner as to secure co-operation and aid." Her ex- pressed desire has made this course of action all the more imperative. At the very outset the broad scope A SOCIOLOGICAL INSTITUTION 185 of the Foundation not unnaturally attracted to it all kinds of proposals from many who were acting with the best intentions. It was overwhelmed with ap- plications for individual and corporate relief. It was overwhelmed with applications from educational institutions of all kinds and churches of all denomi- nations. It seemed important to the trustees to further define and limit its sphere of action. Con- sequently, at one of the very earliest meetings the question of scope was considered, and the following conclusions were unanimously reached: The Scope (a) The Foundation will not attempt to relieve individual or family need. Its function is to eradi- cate so far as possible the causes of poverty and ignorance, rather than to relieve the sufferings of those who are poor or ignorant. Not that it is not a noble work to relieve suffering, however caused, but that if the Foundation should attempt to relieve such suffering there would be nothing left with which to perform the higher function of trying to prevent its existence. There is another equally cogent reason for this conclusion. The relief of in- dividual need is not one of the ^'larger and more difficult problems." It is a duty which every one of us who is more prosperous owes to our less pros- perous neighbor. Every neighborhood should re- lieve its own cases of individual need for its own sake, and every neighborhood is measurably meeting this obligation. The sources of neighborly charity would be dried up if such needs were supplied from without. 186 SOCIOLOGY (b) The sphere of higher education, that served by our universities and colleges, is not within the scope of the Foundation. It is sufficiently cared for by the General Education Board. Not so, however, elementary education of the kind that directly affects social and living conditions, e. g., industrial educa- tion; education in the household arts; training of charity workers, etc. (c) Aid to churches for church purposes, what- ever their denomination, is not within the scope of the Foundation. The initial work of the Foundation has been largely in the line of cooperation with other efforts, corporate and individual, and necessarily so, quite aside from the greater results to be obtained by combining its resources with the efforts of others. It could not otherwise have immediately made its income useful. It was fortunate in securing at the very beginning the services of John M. Glenn as director; but to have effectively used its resources directly through agencies created by it, or persons employed by it, would have involved defer- ring action until a staff had been gathered to- gether and trained in its service. In whatever lines of progress immediate action seemed clear, it was deemed wise to utilize its capacities for direction and its money promptly; and it was immaterial to the Foundation whether in co-operating action the Foundation should be known as the *' Brown," ''Jones" or "Robinson" of the firm, or whether it should simply be the nameless and frequently un- known, but none the less efficient, "Co." A SOCIOLOGICAL INSTITUTION 187 Early Activities The early activities of the Russell Sage Founda- tion may be roughly grouped under several different heads. First, educational propagandist movements di- rected toward ends clearly within the purposes of the Foundation, and as to which there could be no doubt of the expediency of action. Second, research relating to lines of effort in which action might be expedient, but in which either expediency of action or the particular direction of action should be predicated on greater knowledge. Research, too, in the ascertainment and record of facts useful and necessary to direct future action. Third, publication, either in aid of propagandist movements or of the results of research likely to be of general utility. Fourth, aid to the corporate or individual effort of others. Fifth, direct action by its own staff. In all these varying kinds of activity its degree of control has varied from absolute direction to en- trusting the entire direction to others, and its money contribution has varied from the whole to an insig- nificant part of the sums necessary to carry on undertakings. Among the propagandist movements to which the Foundation has contributed both direction and financial support are the following: Prevention of Tuberculosis At the time when the Foundation was organized, the educational side of this movement was being 188 SOCIOLOGY successfully prosecuted in the city of New York under the leadership of the Committee on the Pre- vention of Tuberculosis of the New York Charity Organization Society. The National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis had been organ- ized, and was looking forward to the International Congress which was recently held in Washington. There had been no considerable educational move- ment in the state of New York. The Foundation provided the means whereby a very successful educational campaign has been instituted in New York state through the State Charities Aid Association, which, through its county or- ganization extending through the State, was able most effectively to reach the State at large. The result of this campaign has been that over a million dollars has been appropriated by municipali- ties, counties and individuals for tuberculosis hos- pitals, dispensaries, and other agencies. It has also helped the educational work of the Charity Organi- zation Society in Manhattan, and the same work of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities in Brooklyn. The handbook of the national association, compiled by Philip P. Jacobs, and entitled '^The Campaign Against Tuberculosis in the United States," was printed as a Russell Sage Foundation publication. It has enabled the national association to accom- plish several other special pieces of work and to begin some educational work, which when once proved successful will be supported by individual contributions. The Foundation contributed to the International Congress at Washington. It also paid part of the expense of the recent tuberculosis ex- A SOCIOLOGICAL INSTITUTION 189 hibition in New York, which attracted the unparal- leled attendance of about 750,000 people within six weeks, and made it possible to bring the exhibition here by a guarantee at a time when immediate action was necessary and action depended upon assurance of adequate financial support. Playground Extension The Playground Association of America was formed about the time the Russell Sage Foundation was chartered. It contained among its officers and members great enthusiasm, but very small financial resources. One of the first things the Foundation did was to contribute the money necessary for a model playground and exhibit at the Jamestown Exposition. The great interest created by the first congress of the Playground Association, held in Chi- cago during the summer of 1907, made it manifest that important results could be accomplished throughout the country by the establishment and proper organization of playgrounds if an active propagandist movement to that end was instituted. The Russell Sage Foundation has contributed largely to this movement, and has secured for it the guidance of Luther H. Gulick, M. D., president of the Play- ground Association, and his assistant, Lee F. Hanmer. Since the Foundation took part in this movement, playgrounds have been established in about one hun- dred cities, and about 175 have been projected under either municipal or private management. An active campaign has been carried on throughout the coun- 190 SOCIOLOGY try by correspondence, personal visits, addresses, and publications, stimulating interest in and knowl- edge of the play movement. Care of Children The Foundation has been carrying on investiga- tions into *^placing-out,'' and the management of institutions. The result has been very encouraging. Notable improvements in methods are reported in several states. The Foundation has recently se- cured the services of Hastings H. Hart as a member of its staff to oversee and direct its work for children. Children's School Gardens The Foundation gave the money necessary to establish and operate at the Jamestown Exposition a model children's school garden. It has aided in the education of teachers for such gardens, and it has assured the continuance of a model garden in the neighborhood of New York, to which the many who are seeking information and direction on this subject can be referred as a demonstration of what they can do in their own localities and how they can do it. Charity Organization Extension At the time when the Foundation was organized, a movement was in progress to promote the organi- zation of such societies in cities in which they did not already exist, and in which some form of chari- table organization was needed to unite the philan- thropic efforts of the community. This was under A SOCIOLOGICAL INSTITUTION 191 the direction of the Meld Department of Charities Publication Committee, of which department Miss Mary E. Richmond, of Philadelphia, is chairman. The Foundation has given this committee the means to secure the services of Francis H. McLean, for- merly connected with the Brooklyn Bureau of Chari- ties, and Miss Margaret F. Byington, formerly of the Boston Associated Charities. The secretaries have visited some fifty cities and towns, and report encouraging progress everywhere. One noteworthy accomplishment was the establishment of an Asso- ciated Charities in Pittsburg, and the bringing into concerted action a number of societies there which had been working on independent lines. Prevention of Blindness The Foundation has been supporting the work of a special committee of the New York Association for the Blind, directed particularly to the prevention of blindness in children. A recent pamphlet on this subject, entitled ''Children Who Need Not Have Been Blind," issued by the committee, has had wide circulation. Research Illustrative of research relating to lines of effort in which action may be expedient are the following: A careful study of workingmen's and other forms of small insurance, conducted at home and abroad by Lee K. Frankel, until recently general manager of the United Hebrew Charities. A study of the evils of the salary loan business and of the chattel loan business. 193 SOCIOLOGY The desirability of establishing an employment bm-ean in the city of New York. This last investi- gation, conducted by Edward T. Devine, will un- questionably lead to the establishment of such a bureau on a business basis within a short time, and the Russell Sage Foundation stands ready to supply as much of the needed capital as may be necessary to supplement individual subscriptions. In cooperation with the school officials of New York city, Leonard P. Ayres, under the direction of L. H. Gulick, has been making a study of the causes of slow progress among school children. Valuable discoveries have been made. Dr. Ayres 's first report has been embodied in the annual report of the super- intendent of schools. The problem can now be at- tacked with new hope of progress for the backward child. Illustrative of research useful or necessary to record past experience for future use, is a careful study of and report on the methods used and results accomplished in relieving the recent earthquake suf- ferers in San Francisco. An important special line of research has been the so-called Pittsburgh Survey, under the personal direction of Paul U. Kellogg. When the Foundation was organized, a study of industrial conditions in Pittsburgh was being made by the staff of Charities, as the basis for a special magazine number. The op- portunity was seized to provide the means to extend this into a wider and deeper study of social and in- dustrial conditions in Pittsburgh as a typical Amer- ican industrial city, and to assemble the material into a series of reports somewhat analogous to A SOCIOLOGICAL INSTITUTION 193 Charles Booth's famous study of the city of London. Part of this material has already been published in Charities and The Commons. It will be embodied in several volumes now in course of preparation by the Foundation. As a direct result of the Pittsburgh Survey, a Civic Commission composed of fifteen lead- ing citizens of Pittsburgh, each chosen because of special qualifications, has been appointed by the mayor to work for the betterment of conditions in the city. The Survey will be the basis of the com- mission's work. Among other results have been the destruction of insanitary tenements and dwellings, the closing of some bad lodging houses, and addi- tions to the inspecting force of the health depart- ment. Pittsburgh has received this constructive criticism in a generous spirit. Schools for Social Workers The schools in Boston, New York, Chicago, and St. Louis have been given the means to establish de- partments for social investigation. This has in- creased their ability to train workers and investiga- tors and has produced some interesting studies. Publications The publications of the Foundation already num- ber eight, and are in the form of books and pam- phlets. They are standardized in form and typog- raphy. The titles of those already issued are as fol- lows: First Steps in Organizing Playgrounds, Lee F. Hanmer. 194 , SOCIOLOGY The Meld Day and Play Picnic for Country Chil- dren, Myron T. Scudder. Campaign Against Tuberculosis in the United States, prepared by the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis. Medical Inspection of Schools, Luther H. Gulick, M. D., and Leonard P. Ayres. The Salary Loan Business in New York City, Clarence W. Wassam. The Chattel Loan Business in New York City, Arthur H. Ham. Report on the Desirability of Establishing an Employment Bureau in the City of New York, Ed- ward T. Devine. The Standard of Living Among Workingmen's Families in New York City, Robert Coit Chapin. Housing The subject on which the Foundation is at the moment placing great emphasis is that of the hous- ing of the working classes. It is not proposing to duplicate the model tenement building of Phipps Houses, or the City and Suburban Homes Company, in Manhattan or Brooklyn, but it is giving serious attention to suburban housing. The recent purchase of some fifty acres of land near Jamaica, which has been credited in the public press to Mrs. Russell Sage, was a purchase by the Foundation. For more than a year past Grosvenor Atterbury, the well known architect, has been making for the Founda- tion studies for small houses, and experiments in cheap construction. A SOCIOLOGICAL INSTITUTION 195 Other Activities Among the corporate or individual efforts to which the Russell Sage Foundation has contributed pecuniary aid are the following: The National Red Cross, to secure the appoint- ment of an efficient director. It was after this con- tribution that Ernest P. Bicknell was chosen to fill this new office. The Presidents' Home Commission of the city of Washington. The expenses of the recent Child Saving Con- gress in Washington were in large part defrayed by the Foundation. This statement of the initial activities of the Foundation is not inclusive or complete, nor is it intended to be. It is only illustrative. The Foundation has many lines of effort under consider- ation, and action in some is progressing. Publicity would embarrass some of these efforts. Knowledge that the Foundation was aiding financially might deter contributions from others toward the same purposes, and discourage desirable co-operation. An Adaptable Foundation The fundamental idea of the Foundation is to place in the hands of qualified trustees the income of a considerable fund, with power to use it in what- ever particular way they think best from time to time to improve social and living conditions. It is not confined, as have been so many foundations in the past, to a single form of social betterment. A foundation most needed and most beneficent a quarter of a century ago might now, with the shift 196 SOCIOLOGY and change of social conditions, be comparatively useless. A foimdation most wisely adapted to present needs might find those needs better sup- plied from other sources in the course of the next generation and thus become unnecessary. Twenty-five years ago, improved tenements and playgrounds were among the greatest needs in New York, and could wisely have been made the purpose of any foundation. Today these tenements are being supplied largely by individual enterprise, and the city has taken up the establishment and main- tenance of playgrounds. Just so, great as are the present needs, let us say of tuberculosis sanatoriums, and the extension of industrial education, another quarter of a century may find them supplied, in one case by the extension of our State and city hospital system, and in the other by an extension of the public school system. The history of past foundations emphasizes this point of view. Many which were highly desirable when they were established have become useless and worse than useless. More controlling, however, in determining the scope of the Foundation is the thought that, with the constant change and shift of social conditions, and broadening, or it may be contraction, of the sphere of government activity, the future may de- velop other and greater needs for private philan- thropic action than any which are now apparent. For these reasons the Russell Sage Foundation was made sufficiently elastic in form and method to work in different ways at different times. — Robert W. de Forest. AN ILLUSTRATION OF SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS— CHARITY, RELIEF AND WAGE EARNINGS. This article is a study of the relief given by the Associated Charities in the city of Washington, D. C, in 1905. The investigation deals with the cases of several thousand persons who sought relief at the door of charity. The aim of the study is to deter- mine the relation which exists between the charity relief and the earnings of the recipients, and to dis- cover to what extent this distress was due to low wages or to a lack of employment, and to what extent other causes figured in the distress. The result of the study will be better understood if consideration is first given to the aims and meth- ods of the Associated Charities. Those aims and methods have been recently formulated as follows: 1. To bring about the adequate treatment of each needy individual or family upon the basis of an adequate understanding of the needs and resources. 2. To promote co-operation between all the philanthropic forces, the public and private chari- ties, the churches, municipal authorities, and benevo- lent individuals of the community, in order that the efficiency of all may be increased and each enabled to do its own best work in its own best way. 197 198 SOCIOLOGY 3. To obtain and administer material aid where necessary, endeavoring to secure the assistance from appropriate organizations and individuals, and not to interfere with or unnecessarily decrease in any case the responsibility of agencies or persons from whom the relief should be derived. 4. To enlist, organize, and direct volunteer workers, including division conference members, friendly visitors, savings collectors, conductors of outing parties, office assistants, and helpers in other lines. 5. To prevent pauperism and dependence; to discourage begging and the giving of alms without adequate investigation; to expose deliberate impos- ture or fraud; not merely to palliate distress, but to relieve it permanently, and in every case to develop all the possibilities of self-help. 6. To improve home life, develop character, and elevate the standards of life; to prevent children from growing up as paupers, and to aid needy fam- ilies in securing for ruptured and deformed children such treatment as will prevent permanent disabilities and dependence. 7. To aid in the diffusion of knowledge as to con- ditions of life in neglected neighborhoods or among needy families, and as to the best methods of philan- thropic work. To suggest, stimulate, inaugurate, or undertake such efforts for remedial, preventive, or constructive social service as shall from time to time seem wise. 8. To maintain a careful, thorough system of confidential records so that all the essential knowl- SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 199 edge obtained regarding needy families may be im- mediately available, in confidence, for the guidance of persons having a legitimate charitable interest. 9. To exclude from every department of its work all questions as to sectarian religious belief, politics, or nationality, and to allow no representative of the association to use his or her position for the purpose of proselytism. From the foregoing official statement it will be seen that an office of the Associated Charities is not primarily a relief station. It is rather a clearing house, where various charitable influences are so co- ordinated and directed that overlapping, waste, and fraud are either wholly prevented or reduced to a minimum. Relief of some kind is given to almost every family that applies to the Associated Chari- ties, but it is not always material relief — ^such as money, food, or clothing. The chief object of the association is to enable the applicant to help him- self. ^' Every case is studied carefully, unnecessary relief is refused, employment is secured, the good influence of relatives, employers, and other natural helpers is enlisted, and every possibility of self-help is as far as possible discovered and emphasized." Such a policy reduces the giving of material aid to the lowest point. Of the 4,377 families dealt with in the charity year ending June 30, 1906, only 1,050 were given material aid. After such a sifting proc- ess, a family is not likely to receive material aid unless there is actual distress. A phase of the society's work that is of great Interest is its system of gathering and recording all 200 SOCIOLOGY pertinent facts relating to the family applying for aid. This inquiry begins when application for as- sistance is made. The investigation is informal and unobtrusive, but thorough and painstaking. Infor- mation about the family is sought from the most direct sources. Letters of applicants and the repre- sentations of proxies may set in motion an investiga- tion, but they will not suf&ce to place the family upon the roll of recipients. A personal inspection of home conditions by the charity agent must be made before the merits or demerits of an application are passed upon. In cases of emergency, or when the work of the office is heavy, this rule is not always strictly fol- lowed. At such times the giving of aid may precede the investigation; but the general policy and the habitual practice of the society is to furnish aid only in the light of the fullest knowledge possible. The investigation into the merits of an applica- tion usually begins in the charity office. When a request is made that aid be given to a family, if the person asking for aid is not a member of the family, or is a child, the agent probably will not entertain the request at all, but will demand that a responsible member of the family come to the office. If the wife or husband or grown child comes and makes known the needs of the family, the agent in a conversational way draws from the applicant everything about the family that may have a bearing upon the subject in hand. Inquiry is made as to the size of the family, the ages of the children, the conjugal conditions that prevail, the occupations of the members of the family, the wages received, the names of employers and SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 201 friends, and church affiliations. Having noted these and other relevant facts, the agent, withholding aid for the time being, promises to visit the home of the applicant at the earliest possible moment. Only in rare instances does the first interview result in the immediate giving of doles. As soon as it can be ar- ranged, the agent goes to the home of the applicant, where the inquiry is continued far beyond the point to which it was carried at the office and until suffi- cient information is obtained regarding the family to make it possible to deal with the case intelligently. The facts brought out by the investigation are arranged in order, typewritten, and placed in a large envelop, which becomes the receptacle for the charity record of the family and for all documents bearing upon that record. In this envelope are found letters applying for aid, letters expressing thanks for aid received, letters from friends and relatives of the family, letter of reconunendation, corres- pondence of charity officials, newspaper clippings containing information about the family, ejectment notices, evidences of chattel-mortgage transactions, and notes of promise. Every item throwing light upon the charity side of the family's history is care- fully preserved. In the majority of cases the record is brief and the contents of the envelope are small, but in many cases where the charity record extends over many years the contents of the envelope, if printed, would make a good-sized volume. The conclusions of this article are based upon a study of 19,000 envelopes found in the eight charity offices of the city of Washington, Every envelope 202 SOCIOLOGY containing a record of material relief, such as money, food, clothing, or shelter given in 1905 has been ex- amined. The work has been conducted in the charity offices, and in numerous cases when there was per- plexity or doubt the writer has been assisted by the charity agents. Number, Nativity, and Size of the Families In dealing with charity cases the efforts of the organization are directed toward the family regarded as a social unit. Likewise in studying these charity cases the family has been regarded as a imit, but strictly as an economic rather than as a domestic unit. A man living alone in a shanty or in a single room has been regarded as constituting a family of one, even though he has children living. Where a husband is serving a term in jail and the wife is left to take care of herself and several children, the family is regard- ed as consisting of the wife and children, and the husband is not included in the enumeration. In deal- ing with the subjects of delinquencies and of causes, however, it has often been found necessary to look outside the economic group. Of the 1,256 families for which the records showed that material relief was given in 1905, 73 have not been considered in this article. In a number of cases it was impossible to determine the composition of the family in 1905. In such cases the record ex- tended over a number of years, but the changes that came with the years were not fully recorded. In other cases, because of a rush of applications, aid was SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 203 given without any investigation at all. In a few in- stances the records were too meager to serve the pur- poses of this study. There remained for considera- tion the charity records of 1,183 families, 452 of these being white families and 731 colored. Nearly all who were assisted were Americans. Only 40 families, or 3.4 percent of the total, were of wholly foreign extraction. This element is so small as to be without special significance, yet it is notice- able that whereas the foreign population of the city is about 7 per cent of the total population foreign charity recipients constitute a percentage only about half as great. When the number of white families is compared with the number of Negro families it is found that the former comprise 38.2 per cent and the latter 61.8 per cent of all the families receiving aid. In 1900 the white population of the District was 68.7 per cent and the Negro population was 31.1 per cent of the whole population. The number of persons in the 1,183 families re- ceiving material aid from the Associated Charities in 1905 was 4,365. Of these, 1,860 were white persons and 2,505 were colored persons. If the 73 families which were eliminated on account of imperfect rec- ords had been included the total number of persons would have approximated 5,000. The number re- ceiving material aid, however, by no means fully measures the work of the organization in Washing- ton. In addition there are thousands who are as- sisted by the organization but who do not actually receive money, food, or clothing. A very large num- ber of applicants desire free medical treatment, and 204: SOCIOLOGY this they receive at the public dispensaries upon the recommendation of the charity agents. A great many seek employment and the charity agents find work for them. Some, who seek material aid are shown a way by which they may help themselves and thus avoid being enrolled as objects of charity. It is probable, taking the official reports of the associa- tion as a guide in making an estimate, that 15,000 persons per annum are affected in one way or an- other by the work of this organization. The 4,365 recipients of material aid, it should be clearly understood, are for the most part the float- ing, unattached poor. In a very true sense they are the derelicts of society. The ties that morally bind the individual to society have been in a large degree severed. They rarely belong to a union or to a lodge ; they have no friends or relatives to whom they can turn for help; they have no church connections. In- dustrially and socially they are without moorings, and when the hour of distress overtakes them they drift to the charity office, because they have nowhere else to go. The isolation of this class of charity recipients is brought out when the subject of the membership of the wage-earners in labor organizations and in fra- ternal and beneficial associations is considered. The records are not entirely satisfactory, though efforts are made to secure as much information as possible about the lodges and societies to which the applicants belong. In nineteen cases out of twenty there is nothing to learn. Of 1,175 wage-earners, only 81 made any statement as to whether they belonged to labor organizations, and of these only 23 stated that SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 205 they were members of such organizations. In only 40 families was there evidence of membership in fra- ternal or beneficial societies. The reason for not be- longing to labor organizations and the result of non- membership appear frequently in notes and com- ments of the agent like the following: "He (the wage-earner) does not belong to the union, and for that reason finds it difficult to get work." "The husband said he thought X could get him work to do if he (X) cared to do so, but the husband does not belong to the union and X does. ' ' (Here X was the father-in-law of the applicant.) "Man (a carpenter) had gone to a job of work; but when the other workmen found he was a non- union man, they objected. Man made inquiry about union, and found that he would have to pay $10 to join. This he could not do." The Average Size of the Families Receiving Relief is 3.7 persons for each family. In 1900 the average size of the family in the District of Columbia was 4.9 persons. The charity family is therefore consider- ably smaller than the normal family. The lower aver- age of the charity family is due to the fact that among the very poor there is an unusually large number of families consisting of but one or two per- sons. The father or the mother, or both father and mother, either childless or forsaken by their children, live alone until old age comes on and the earnings become so scant that recourse must be made to char- ity. Statistics show that nearly 40 per cent of the families receiving aid were families of one or two persons. In the District of Columbia in 1900 not 206 SOCIOLOGY quite 20 per cent of the whole number of families be- longed to this class. If the families consisting of one and of two persons are excluded, the average number of persons in the charity family is increased to 5, which is about normal. The figures bearing upon the size of the family, therefore, contain noth- ing of great significance. The poverty-stricken fam- ily, on the average, is about the same size as the prosperous family. Age and Conjugal Conditions An analysis of the age periods brings out the fact that there is a much larger percentage of children under the age of 16 in the charity population than there is in the population at large. In 1900, 26.6 per cent of the entire population of the District of Co- lumbia was under the age of 16, while in the charity population studied 47.7 per cent was under the age of 16. Analysis further shows that the percentage of children under 10 years of age was 30.9 per cent in the charity families, while the percentage of chil- dren under 10 in the entire District was only 16.8 per cent of the total population. Young children, therefore, are relatively very numerous among char- ity dependents in the District of Columbia, a fact of considerable significance. In families where there are many small children, much of the time and energy that might be given to breadwinning is of necessity given to the care of children. In some of the fami- lies a care taker — usually an old woman who could do nothing else — ^was provided for the children, and all the older persons were thus permitted to go out and earn something. SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 207 Not only do chilren under 10 years of age pre- dominate in these families, but the female children are proportionally more numerous than they are in the average family. In 1900 in the District of Columbia the number of males under 16 years of age was 36,517, and the number of females 37,683, the excess of females over males being 3.2 per cent. A comparison of figures shows that the females under 16 years of age are in excess of the males by 18.3 per cent. If comparison is made only for the children of 10 or under 16 years it is found that in the District the excess of females over males is 8.1 per cent, whereas in the charity population the ex- cess is 21.8 per cent. In whatever way they are con- sidered, the figures point to a large proportion of girls in the charity families. In so far, then, as the boy is a better wage-earner than the girl, so far this excess of female children must be regarded as a handicap in the struggle for subsistence. Not the actual nimaber of children in these families, but the sex of the children, is significant. In respect to the conjugal conditions prevailing among these charity recipients, the table gives in- formation regarding separation (desertion), widow- hood, and divorce. In the 1,183 families there were 144 deserted persons. In 137 of these cases the wife was reported as having been deserted, and in 7 cases the husband was deserted. If only those cases are considered in which abandonment was possible, that is, those in which both husband and wife were living, this matter of desertion may be brought out more plainly. There were in all 736 families in which both husband and wife were living, and in these, as 808 SOCIOLOGY above stated, there were 144 cases of desertion, or 19.6 per cent. Among the Negroes, desertion was much more frequent than among the whites. In the 322 white families which had both husband and wife living there were 42 cases of desertion, or 13.0 per cent; in the 414 Negro families of this class there were 102 cases of desertion, or 24.4 per cent. The number of families in which either the hus- band or the wife was dead is also strikingly large, nearly 30 per cent of all the families belonging to this class. Of the 452 white families receiving aid, 6 had widowers and 89 had widows at the head. Of the 731 colored families, 24 had widowers and 218 had widows at the head. In these families there were 923 persons, 256 whites and 667 colored. The figures show that the charity family is very often the fatherless family. There were 307 families in which the husband was dead. Including with these the 137 families that were abandoned by the husband, it is found that 444 families, or 37.5 per cent of the total, were without male supporters at their head. Divorce among the charity families played prac- tically no part at all, there being only 6 divorced people among 4,365. This paucity of divorce cases is easily explained. The very poor can not afford divorcement. Separation is the cheap substitute for divorce. Occupations A study of the occupations of the charity re- cipients shows that they are by no means an idle or nonwage-earning class. Of the 2,186 persons re- SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 209 ported as being 16 years of age or over, 1,687, or 77.2 per cent, were engaged in some kind of gainful occupation. Of those over 16 who had no gainful occupation, the greater part consisted of old people and of women who as wives spent their time in housework. The number of families in which both husband and wife were gainfully employed was very large. Of the 271 white families in which there were both a husband and a wife living at home, there were 95 in which both the husband and wife were gain- fully employed; while of the 291 colored families having both husband and wife living at home, there were 222 in which both husband and the wife were gainfully employed. In respect to the employment of married women, the broad facts of the charity world resemble the broad facts of the world at large. The white married woman does not expect to work as a wage-earner, while marriage has little effect in reducing the number of Negro women at work. Ex- treme poverty, however, drives many white married women into the ranks of wage-earners, for the per- centage of white wives with occupations in the char- ity families is much greater than the percentage of white married women gainfully employed in the District at large. Among the children of the charity recipients 88, or 12 per cent, of those 10 or under 16 years of age were gainfully employed. In 1900, of 27,319 children in the District of Columbia from 10 to 15 years of age, 2,144, or 7.8 per cent, were reported as engaged in gainful occupations. Thus child labor among the charity recipients is seen to be a considerably greater factor than it is among the people at large. 210 SOCIOLOGY But the statements of the charity records bearing on this topic do not tell the whole story. They show merely the nmnber of children who were employed for a definite wage, whereas hundreds of children in the families receiving charity helped their mothers to do the washing and ironing which was so often the chief source of income; these have not been included in the enumeration here given, yet plainly they were engaged in gainful occupations. The occupations of the chief wage-earners and of other wage-earners in the families receiving charity relief, and the number of persons engaged in each occupation, are shown in the two tables which follow: MALES. Art critic 1 2 1 2 1 2 "2 2 27 3 2 2 5 "5 2 5 6 1 2 1 "i 8 1 1 14 1 6 1 10 "i "i "i "i "*i "i 1 1 ... 1 1 2 3 1 1 2 1 4 1 Blacksmiths 1 1 "i 5 2 26 1 2 1 2 5 2 26 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 ... ... 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 "6 1 2 1 5 "i 2 1 3 1 "i 1 9 1 5 2 1 2 1 3 2 Clerks 6 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 7 1 1 5 1 1 ... 2 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 "i '. '. '. 1 1 1 1 Government employee 1 1 8 1 9 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 12 1 6 "3 "i 12 2 7 2 4 1 2 1 4 2 ... 1 7 1 ... 4 7 Jobbers 1 2 1 3 4 2 2 1 2 7 2 27 1 1 1 1 3 9 2 5 2 8 2 1 5 7 1 2 1 1 1 9 1 2 14 2 7 6 11 SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 211 Junk Dealers 6 183 "7 6 206 '29 6 266 2 1 1 2 1 1 "2 1 '23 4 2 1 10 4 2 ' '2 1 "i "5 1 1 2 "s "i "i 1 1 2 "i 8 30 "i "i 1 6 "6 "i "e 22 52 6 13 83 2 1 1 2 1 1 97 2 1 1 2 1 16 303 2 1 Mechanic 1 Merchants 2 Metal worker 1 Missionary 1 1 "5 1 5 5 5 2 2 2 Newspaper work 1 '23 3 1 1 5 4 "i "i 1 1 25 3 1 2 5 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 25 Paper hangers 1 1 1 1 4 Peddlers 2 Physicians 2 5 5 10 4 Bag pickers 2 2 "i 2 Railroad employee 1 "2 1 1 2 1 1 1 Salesman 1 1 1 "i 1 Scullion 1 "3 1 1 3 1 Sexton 1 1 Shoemakers 2 1 2 1 5 Steam fitter 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 "i 4 13 2 1 1 2 11 5 1 1 1 8 6 303 2 1 1 1 MALES — concluded. 1 1 7 5 1 1 1 3 1 241 1 25 5 1 1 7 3 2 513 1 1 "3 1 1 190 1 "i 1 149 "io 44 2 Teamsters 4 9 18 2 29 13 40 Tinsmiths 5 Traveling salesman 1 1 Waiters 2 6 ... 8 2 4 1 87 9 4 1 49 8 Occupation not reported .... ... 38 1 272 1 4 17 5 327 1 11 630 FEMALES. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ■'6 1 'i5 1 1 1 1 1 5 1 3 1 "i 1 "i "i 4 17 8 3 1 38 1 1 1 1 16 1 5 37 1 2 1 139 422 30 452 1 9 Clerks 3 "ii 1 156 '*6 1 173 2 4 34 1 " 'i 1 15 "5 33 211 1 Factory operators 1 1 2 2 Polder printing office 1 1 1 1 13 134 6 153 14 1 '"4 169 Milliner 1 5 11 5 11 10 Seamstresses 4 48 1 Waitresses 1 1 1 "4.5 132 1 2 406 919 ?, '26 64 2 310 582 5 18 35 7 354 681 50 781 8 Total females Total, both sexes Families for which no chief 19 68 96 337 473 1103 80 . . . 1 1 118R 1 1 212 SOCIOLOGY The occupations represent almost every ordinary vocation. In the same list with laborers and domestics are art critics, musicians, physicians, missionaries, newspaper men, and clergymen. A couple, who in their younger days had kept at their own expense what was known as a ^'Tramps' Rest," where penniless wayfarers might receive food, rai- ment, and shelter, were in their old age compelled t6 become the objects of charity. Although the list of occupations is long, the dis- tress was confined to a very few classes of people. The occupations of more than 60 per cent of the chief wage-earners were those of laborers, laun- dresses, and domestics, while among others than chief wage-earners these three classes formed 64 per cent of the whole. This was a result to be expected, for Washington on its industrial side is above all places a city of laborers, laundresses, and domestics. While this is true, the table shows a number of char- ity recipients from the organized and well-paid trades. Twenty-seven carpenters, 25 painters, 10 plasterers, 9 clerks, 7 ironworkers, 5 shoemakers, and 4 plumbers were chief wage-earners in families that were driven to charity. Earnings of Charity Recipients The subject of the earnings of charity recipients is one of the most important connected with the sub- ject of poverty, and at the same time one of the most difficult to treat satisfactorily. When a family ap- plies for aid, the earnings are inquired into at the outset. The inquiry as to the amount and source of SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 313 income is painstaking and thorough, for aid must be given or withheld on the basis of the family income; yet the facts obtained by the inquiry are in most cases such as can not be conveniently tabulated. The period of charity seeking is a period when earnings are either irregular or abnormally low or when there are no earnings at all. The most significant item is the one showing the number of families in which the chief wage-earner, at the time of application, was earning nothing. In more than two-thirds of the .families the wages of the chief wage-earner had entirely ceased. If the 80 families in which there was no chief wage-earner at all are included, the proportion of families de- prived of a regular bread-winner at the time of ap- plication was three-fourths of the whole number of families relieved. In the majority of cases, distress was contemporaneous with the cessation of the earnings of the chief breadwinner, a fact which in- dicates prima facie, at least, that the poverty of these poor is not chiefly a moral problem, but is chiefly an economic or financial problem. In 206 of the families there was evidence of a normal income additional to that derived from the labor of wage-earners. In many cases the reports told of assistance given by neighbors; in other cases the family could rely upon regular donations from a church; occasionally an absent child or a near rela^ tive would regularly pay the rent. Upon the whole, however, assistance by relatives and kinsmen was rare — ^not so frequent perhaps as assistance by friends. In 43 families a monthly pension supple- mented the regular earnings. These pensions 214 SOCIOLOGY ranged from $8 to $12 a month, and were in a few cases practically the sole income of the recipient. With the exception of the pensions, the element of additional income constituted but an insignificant factor in the finances of the families. In a great majority of cases when the regular earnings of mem- bers of the family were cut off, practically every- thing was gone. Lack of food was the most potent factor in driv- ing people to seek charity. In 60 per cent of all the cases tabulated food, constituted either the whole or a part of the donation. Next to food, fuel is most frequently sought by charity applicants. In nearly half the cases of relief given in 1905, fuel was one of the articles first given. Frequently recourse is made to charity because the usual supply of fuel is cut off by severe weather. Many very poor families are accustomed to get their fuel in a haphazard way, picking coal and cinders from public dumps and private ash heaps, and gathering stray pieces of wood here and there. The charity records bring out this fact. In 40 families it was the custom to gather fuel wherever it could be secured for nothing, and in a number of cases distress was due to the fact that cinders could not be picked from the dump because of the ice and snow. After food and fuel, clothing is most frequently given. A word of explanation about the frequent giving of clothing is necessary. In a great many instances the clothing consisted of shoes given to children in order that bare feet might not prevent attendance at school. Cases happen where a family that can afford most things can not buy shoes for SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 315 the children, and without shoes the children can not attend school. In such a case the charity or- ganization conies to the relief of the family and gives the necessary shoes, even though there be no acute distress. This policy, with respect to the giving of shoes to enable children to attend school, materially increases the number of times clothing is given, and adds to the charity roll quite a number of families who ordinarily would not belong there. The number of times rent appears in the table by no means measures the distress that is connected with the arrears of rent. Next to the food problem the rent problem is unquestionably the one that presses most heavily upon the poor. The charity reports give many instances of arrears of rent. Notices of ejectment, costing the tenant $1.85 for service, are constantly appearing. Sometimes a let- ter from the landlord appears, as follows: "You have six days from the 25th of this month, which was last Tuesday, the day that judgment was ren- dered against you, to vacate the room you occupy. The constable will be there when the six days are out, if you are not by that time removed." The records show that the constable knows how to fulfill his duty. The following are from the charity agents' reports : "Yesterday woman and her children were set out of doors. All slept on the porch last night." "Put out on street on a rainy day." "Put out on street in spite of agent's protest." "The rent not having been paid, the family were set out in the midst of a heavy snowstorm." The records, however, do not always show the 316 SOCIOLOGY landlord to be cruel and hard-hearted. "I have given," says a landlord in a letter to the agent, *' notice to Mrs. X to move. I wish it could be ac- complished in such a way as to avoid the publicity which might hiuder her from getting another house." In this note can be seen the real natiu'e of the hardship of being turned out of doors for non- p-ayment of rent. Ejectment not only puts a family out on the street, but it also at the same time closes all doors against the family. No landlord wants a freshly ejected tenant. The poor know this, and make every effort to avoid ejectment. In the archives of poverty nothing is sadder than the accounts of the efforts that are made to meet the rent. ^'Said that she had to pay her last cent to-day on her rent, and was now out of food and fuel, and would have to wait until she has another week^s work before she could buy food and fuel." ^*Sold feather bed and pillows for enough to pay the rent." ^'Said she was going to pawn her skirt to pay for rent." **They have just gotten enough money for rent, and if they could keep that without paying anything for groceries they woiild be able to pay up rent on the following day." In the above excerpts can be discerned the policy of the poor in respect of rent; they will pay the rent money, even if it takes every cent they have to do so, and they afterwards have to go to charity for food or for fuel. The serious results of ejectment cause them to do this. This policy goes far in explaining SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 317 why so few cases of assistance in rent appear in the table. There is another reason why the table does not show a larger number of rent cases : The char- ity organization does not make it a practice to pay the rent of applicants. Only in extreme cases will it undertake to furnish relief of this kind. An old woman on her deathbed had an ejectment notice served on her. There was nothing to do but pay the rent. In such cases the charity organization will meet the arrears, but in ordinary cases it does not undertake to do this. Of the 1,183 families, 208 at some time and to some extent found arrears for rent associated with their appeal to charity. Nearly a third of the fam- ilies thus distressed were fatherless; that is, they had as heads either widows or wives whose husbands had abandoned them. Arrears of rent is the most frequent form of debt among those stricken by poverty, but there are other forms that are accompanied by acute distress. One kind of debt frequently met with is the unpaid grocery bill. This is sometimes quite as pressing as an unpaid rent bill. Another form of debt that presses sorely upon these families is the chattel- mortgage loan. This is a debt that constantly threatens to take the furniture out of the house. The charity organization helps the poor in many ways with their chattel-mortgage troubles, but they seldom pay the debt outright. In the table can be seen the extent to which the chattel mort- gage entered into the poverty of these poor. In 26 families the exactions of the loan company were felt. The rates of interest were those usually 218 SOCIOLOGY charged in similar transactions. In one case there was a loan of $25 to be paid in 18 fort- nightly payments of $2.50— $20 for the use of $25 for nine months. In another case a widow was be- hind two months in the payment of a loan. She had all the money except $1, but the company, which had sent a notice of foreclosure threatening seizure the following day, demanded payment in full. Every cent of the debt had to be paid or the furniture would be taken. In this case the charity agent gave the needed dollar. The widow paid $4.40 for the use of $10 for four months. Delinquencies of Charity Recipients Statistics as to the moral conditions which pre- vailed in these families, and the extent to which vice and crime were associated with the poverty of these charity recipients, are shown in a carefully prepared table. In almost exactly two-thirds of the families there was no palpable delinquency whatever. This is to say, that a fairly decent standard of morals prevailed in a very large majority of the families. In almost exactly one-third of the families there was a marked delinquency of some kind. Of the 394 families tainted by delinquency, 174 were white and 220 colored, these numbers representing 38 per cent of the total white families and 30 per cent of the total colored families, respectively. In charging delinquency against a family, its whole charity record was taken into consideration; and in locating a fault, it was sometimes necessary to go outside the economic group. In some cases it SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 219 was exceedingly difficult to say whether there was delinquency or not. It was difficult to determine, for instance, in a case where the chief wage-earner — a widow — was arrested and incarcerated for steal- ing bread for her children, whether there was delinquency. Because it was lawlessness, it was de- cided that the woman was a delinquent. A man at the age of 59 married a young woman of 28. After the birth of several children there was a separation. Then the husband returned, another child was born, and there was another separation. This alternation of desertion and home-staying continued until the time of the investigation, when the husband, then at the age of 72, was a deserter and when there were seven children in the family. The husband was not charged with moral delinquency on account of the desertion, for the reason that at no time had the man been able to contribute much to the family sup- port. In another very interesting case a man and a woman, who had never been legally joined in marriage, were living together and raising a family of children. There seemed to be perfect loyalty, and the adulterous relation seemed to have no kind of effect upon the affairs of the household. Econom- ically it was the same as if there had been a marriage certificate. The family was stamped, of course, with licentiousness, but the action of the couple contrasts favorably with the many cases where women with illegitimate children were abandoned. The facts bearing upon delinquency, besides being difficult to interpret, are also sometimes exceedingly difficult to ascertain. In one case, after a certain family had been scheduled as being without delinquency, the 220 SOCIOLOGY information was unearthed that the husband was a drunkard and for several years had been going on long sprees. During these years the charity agent had been patiently trying to learn the cause of the trouble, but her inquiries had been skillfully eluded. The leading delinquencies are intemperance, de- sertion, licentiousness, neglect by natural sup- porters, lawlessness, thievery, and mendicancy. First among the delinquencies stands intemperance. In 128 families, more than 10 per cent of the whole number receiving charity, and nearly one-third of all those in which delinquency was visible, intem- perance was present. In the families afflicted by intemperance, the husband was the delinquent in 114 cases. In not one family in a hundred is a drunken woman found. In 96 cases the intemper- ance was in white families, and in 32 cases it was in colored families. Next to intemperance stands the vice of deser- tion. In 144 cases there was wanton abandonment of the family, and in 137 of these cases the o:ffender was the husband. In 102 cases the desertion occurred in colored families, and in 42 cases in white families. After intemperance and wanton abandonment, the evil most apparent was licentiousness. Evidence of this delinquency was in many cases, of course, largely a matter of inference. Sometimes when the evidence was direct and clear, it was still hard to brand the family with moral turpitude, as in the case of an old colored woman of 70 years who had never been married and who yet was the mother of chil- dren. Her error, however, was of another age and SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 221 was committed in slavery times. The circumstances that most frequently supported the charge of licentiousness was the presence of illegitimate children. Of these there was an unusually large number — 11 illegitimate white children and 68 illegitimate colored children. Of the 64 cases in which licentiousness is the principal charge, women were the offenders in 61 cases. This disproportion between the sexes is due to the fact that the male offender was most frequently an outsider who could not be included in the enumeration. In 17 cases this vice was found in white families, and in 47 cases in colored families. Of the 43 cases of neglect by natural supporters, more than a third were chargeable to husbands, and were therefore similar to cases of desertion. This neglect very often consisted in staying away from home several days and nights at a time, and spend- ing whatever cash might be on hand. Sometimes the neglect took the form of intermittent desertion; the husband would go and come, supporting the family when at home, and leaving it to shift for itself when away. Next to husbands, the greatest offenders in the way of neglect were grown sons. In 11 cases, sons who were able to help their parents ungrate- fully withheld the sorely needed aid. Mendicancy can not figure largely among delin- quencies of charity recipients, for the reason that the charity organization withholds aid from mendi- cants. This evil, however, is one that the charity people have to deal with constantly; and now and then, as the table shows, a family in which there are beggars succeeds in securing doles. This is not sur- 283 SOCIOLOGY prising when the methods to which mendicants resort are considered. One family succeeded in ex- ploiting fifteen different churches and organizations, the charity organization among the number. There were eight in the family, five being over 15 years of age, but nobody worked, not even the male head of the family. Another instance was that of an oily-tongued person who posed as a preacher, and who received aid for several years before he was discovered to be a beggar and a fraud. In another case a mendicant family was holding membership in three different churches, and passing imder a differ- ent name in each church. The ruse was not discov- ered until the charity organization had been for some time a victim of the deception. But more troublesome than mendicancy itself is a certain reliance upon charity, a certain inclination to pauperism, which crops out in many charity re- cipients. Such a spirit of dependence was visible in 69 families, 40 of which were white and 29 colored. The reliance upon charity here referred to did not quite assume the form of a positive delinquency. The dependence sometimes took on the aspect of faith, as in the case of an old man who, when asked why he did not go to the poorhouse, said that he relied on God to take care of him and keep him out of the poorhouse. When applying for charity, it seemed to him that he was only falling in with a divine scheme. In some cases it is plain that the feeling of reliance is due to the unwise action of friends or of churches. "I fear the family has been too much petted by the church people" is the impression of one agent in respect to a family that SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 223 was accustomed to haunt the charity office. Quite often the person put down as relying upon charity was an old colored woman who was used to getting help here and there from white people and who re- garded the charity agent simply as one of her '* white folks/' A remarkable case of dependence was that of a woman who relied on an ex-slave to support her. The faithful domestic worked only to keep her former mistress from want; and when the earnings were too scant for this, it was the ex-slave and not the mistress that visited the charity office. Farther removed from delinquency than reliance on charity, is a certain perversity of pride w^hich figures in these cases with sufficient frequency to warrant mention here. In at least a dozen cases the applicants went to the charity office because they were too stubborn or too proud to appeal to natural supporters who were able and willing to help them. **A rich brother would give aid," is the agent's note in one case, *'but because she thinks he would give grudgingly she would rather take charity." In another case a woman applicant had relatives who would have helped her gladly. The agent wrote to the applicant suggesting that she appeal to her rela- tives for aid. The applicant refused, saying in the letter of reply: *'It is very easy for you to advise me to do what Heaven and earth couldn't make you do if you were in my place." In a very few cases the delinquency was so com- prehensive and multifarious as almost to warrant its being classified as total depravity, but that classifi- cation was of course not practicable. In such cases poverty and delinquency are indissolubly united. 224 SOCIOLOGY The records in cases of this kind usually extend over many years — ^in one case over twenty years — and the account is a long story of crime, licentiousness, in- temperance and mendicancy. Causes of Distress of Charity Recipients Consideration is next given to the causes which operated to produce in more than a thousand fam- ilies a distress so deep that relief could be found only in a charity office. In characterizing the causes of poverty, it is well to use only such terms as the poverty-stricken per- son himself would understand. In doing this the word '' inefficiency" should rarely be used. A machine that does not fulfill the purpose for which it was constructed may be said to be inefficient and, by a metaphor, a man who does not do well the work for which he has been trained may be charged with inefficiency; but it is seldom that the charity seeker can justly be called inefficient. The condi- tions of life which surround the poverty-stricken class are incompatible with anything like effi- ciency. "It is the bitterest portion of the lot of the poor that they are deprived of the opportunity of learning to work well. To taunt them with that incapacity, and to regard it as the cause of poverty, is nothing else than a piece of blind insolence. In- efficiency is one of the worst and most degrading aspects of poverty; but to regard it as the leading cause is an error fatal to a true understanding of the problem." The same reasons that dissuade from assigning SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 325 *' inefficiency" as a cause of poverty dissuade from assigning '* ignorance" as a cause. It is true that large numbers of charity seekers are ignorant of the art of right living, and the poverty of these might be ascribed to ^* ignorance," meaning that they were ignorant of the art of right living; but such a classi- fication would not throw much light on the subject of poverty. Nor would it tell the charity seeker any useful things about himself. If a man is told that his poverty is due to drunkenness, or licentiousness, or lawlessness, or mendicancy, he will understand and may respond morally to what is said; but if he is told that it is due to ignorance he will not, can not, have the faintest notion of what is meant. Ig- norance, like inefficiency, is one of the ugly aspects of poverty, but it can not be usefully regarded as one of the causes of poverty. There is a phase of ignorance that may some- times be rightly characterized as a cause of poverty. This is illiteracy. Modern life demands a knowledge of reading and writing; and a person who is ignorant of these arts is often as seriously impeded in the race for a livelihood as one who has a lame foot. The matter of illiteracy was therefore not disre- garded in this investigation. As far as the records gave an account of the literacy of the family, the facts were carefully noted. But the account was in many instances unsatisfactory and incomplete ; and taking them all together, the facts relating to illiteracy were not full enough to teU the whole story. A correct picture of the literacy of these families was desir- able; but even if one had been obtained, the addi- tional knowledge thereby furnished would not have 2^6 SOCIOLOGY influenced the analysis now being made, for it happens that in these charity cases illiteracy, pure and simple, figures hardly at all as a cause of pov- erty. In one case a boy could not get employment as a messenger because he could not read and write. In another case a delicate man could not get a clerk- ship in a store for the same reason. Here ignorance in the sense of illiteracy was unquestionably a cause contributing to the poverty. In neither case, how- ever, did it happen to be a cause of such weight as to deserve notice in the schedules. "Irregularity of employment" is another ex- pression that has been avoided in the characteriza- tion of the causes of poverty, although this cause is at the bottom of so much distress that it might be justifiable to call irregularity of employment the ** causing cause" of poverty. But such language is too broad to be useful. Industrial society, especially that segment of it wherein these charity recipients are comprised, is organized on the basis of irregu- larity of emplojonent. Among these workers there is no certainty that employment of any kind, regular or irregular, will be secured; and even when regular employment has been secured, many things, like sickness, severe weather, accident, fire, flood, panic, dullness of trade, strikes, or lockouts intervene to make it irregular. To say, therefore, that a man's poverty is due to irregularity of employment, is hardly more than to say that it is due to the adverse conditions which prevail in the industrial world. But while irregularity of employment has not been used as a convenient term in the enumeration of the causes of poverty, the subject has nevertheless SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 227 received careful attention in this study. In evey case examined this question was asked: Does the chief wage-earner of this family seem to have a steady job? In those cases where the employment seemed to be of a kind that usually continues right along without serious break, the employee was re- garded as being regularly employed. In all other cases the employment was put down as irregular. Of the 1,051 cases in which it was possible to char- acterize the employment of the chief wage-earner as regular or irregular, 919 were irregular. That is to say, in about one family in eight the chief wage- earner could feel that he had steady work, while in seven-eighths of the cases the chief wage-earner was liable to lose his job at any moment. *'The curse of the American workman, '^ says Dr. T. S. Adams, '*is irregular employment.'' If this is true of the whole class of workmen, how distressingly true is it of the workmen among these charity recipients. The expression "financial element" is used in this discussion as a comprehensive phrase referring to a certain restricted class of causes which operate to produce distress. At first thought, ''financial ele- ment" would seem to be at the bottom of every case of distress. In a certain sense this is true, but for the purpose of this analysis a case of distress can not be so easily disposed of. For instance, there was a man whose wages were $5 a day, whose services were in demand, and who worked quite regularly but he squandered his money by drinking and gambling, and his wife and children were thrown upon charity. It would not be correct to ascribe this distress to a lack of money, and the 328 SOCIOLOGY case shows that there is a non-financial as well as a financial element which operates to produce distress. The financial element, as used here, includes one, or several, or all of the following causes: Insufficient earnings, lack of employment, sickness, accident, old age, and severe weather. All of these in the last analysis operate like a financial cause in producing distress. In 28 of the families the ** financial ele- ment *' was not visible at all. In these families it was not possible to point to insufficient earnings, nor to lack of employment, nor to sickness, nor to accident, nor to old age, nor to severe weather, as contributing to the poverty; the financial element figured neither openly nor in disguise. Of the 28 families in which only the nonfinancial element appeared as the cause of distress 20 were white and 8 were colored. Immediate Causes of Distress Usually a case of distress acute enough to drive a family to charity is complicated. The following is typical of many: *'The husband has been out of work for two months; they are back in their rent and notice has been served, and they are likely to be set out on the street. There is nothing in the house to eat, while the wife expects to be confined in a very short time." At first glance it appears that the cause of distress in this case can be expressed by a single phrase. Lack of employment would seem to account satisfactorily for the distress. If, however, the record went on to show that a prolonged spell of cold weather prevented the husband from following his usual vocation, an indirect or contributing cause, SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS ' 339 namely, severe weather, would have figured in the account. If further study of the record showed that the wife was an invalid with tuberculosis, and that for years the family had been kept down by reason of her condition, still another fact would have to be reckoned with, and sickness might have to be set down as the underlying, permanent cause of the destitution. This typical case, then, foreshadows three classes of causes, direct or immediate causes, indirect or contributing causes, and dominant or persistent causes. Immediate causes are those catastrophes — the debauch of the father, the confinement of the mother, the sudden and unexpected loss of work, the visita- tion of death — which overtake the family. The im- mediate cause is the one that impinges directly upon the consciousness of the applicant, and the one that seems to hurry him to the charity office. It is the cause which the applicant himself is apt to assign as a reason for making an appeal to charity. **What brings you here asking for sddV^ inquires the charity agent of the applicant. In the answer to this ques- tion will usually be found what is here called the immediate cause. The direct causes of distress in all the families were shown in a prepared table. Sickness easily leads the list. In nearly half the families that applied for aid for the first time in 1905, the distress was directly connected with some form of bodily ailment. There was almost every kind of disease which flesh is heir to, but the greatest 230 SOCIOLOGY distress was caused by rheumatism and tuberculosis, the latter leading by far all the other diseases. Figures can not tell the complete story of the ravages made by sickness in these families. In one case, the whole family was prostrate at one time. In another case, a teamster regularly employed at fairly good wages by a great express company was brought to charity by a prolonged illness. In still another case, where the regular wages of the husband was $60 a month, the sum of $800 had been saved. Sickness came and remained for many months, and before it had departed, every cent of the savings was wiped out, and the family was reduced to charity. Good wages, thrift, and regularity of employment, all combined, availed not to save the family from the havoc of a long illness. Next to sickness among the causes of immediate distress is the lack of employment, more than one- third of the families having sought relief for this cause. It will be understood that lack of employ- ment is to be taken here as meaning an entirely different thing from irregularity of employment. The latter expression as employed in this article has been used to denote a certain unsteadiness in the nature of the man's job or a certain insecurity in his tenure of it. Lack of employment on the other hand refers to the man's definite inability to get work during a definite period of time whether his usual vocation is classed as regular or irregular. For ex- ample, a man whose occupation is that of a clerk in a store loses his position and, before he can secure another place becomes an object of charity. Here the man's employment is classed as "regular," but SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 231 the immediate cause of his distress is put down as "lack of employment. ' ' The charity records are constantly referring to the evil resulting from lack of employment: "X has been out of work nine weeks, and has used up all he saved." In this case X was a sober man and a member of a union, with a wage of $3.50 per day — when he could get work. ** While the husband was at work, his wages, to- gether with those of his wife, were sufficient to sup- port his family; but when the husband lost his job for only a week, the family was thrown upon charity." "The man earned $4 a day at structural iron- work, but a long-continued spell of bad weather exhausted the funds and brought the man to poverty." "The father had tramped all over the city looking for work, until his feet were sore." In the last excerpt, the reference to feet made sore by tramping in search of work calls attention to one of the most serious phases of the distress that is wrought by lack of employment. If a period of enforced idleness were a season of recuperation and rest, there would be a good side to lack of employ- ment. But enforced idleness does not bring recuper- ation and rest. The search for labor is much more fatiguing than labor itself. An applicant sitting in one of the charity offices awaiting for the arrival of the agent related his experiences while trying to get work. He would rise at 5 o'clock in the morning and walk 3 or 4 miles to some distant point where he had heard work could be had. He went early so 232 SOCIOLOGY as to be ahead of others, and he walked because he could not afford to pay car fare. Disappointed in securing a job at the first place, he would tramp to another place miles away, only to meet with disap- pointment again. Then would follow long journeys to other places. After a day consumed in useless tramping, he would make his way home, exhausted in body and depressed in spirit. The next day would be a repetition of the day before, and every day it became more and more difficult to go home to his family without anything to give them. *'It almost grieves a man to death," he said, "not to have some- thing to give his wife and children." As the man told his story he drove home the truth that lack of employment means far more than simply a loss in dollars and cents; it means a drain upon the vital forces that can not be measured in terms of money. Next to sickness and lack of employment in the list, but a long way behind both, stands insufficient wages as a direct cause of distress. Insufficient wages means that the rate of wages was so low that the family could not live upon the earnings, even though the full wage was being received at the time of the application. The preceding table shows that 81 families whose wage-earners were regularly em- ployed were compelled to supplement their earnings by doles from the charity office. In determining whether the wage was sufficient for subsistence or not, a calculation was made based upon the supposition that an adult male requires at least $1 per week for food (uncooked). In es- timating for rent in the calculation, a monthly sum ranging in amount from $5 to $8, according to the SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 233 size of the family, was allowed. Wlien these allow- ances for food and rent consumed all (or practically all) the earnings of the family visible at the time of the application, the immediate cause of the distress was determined to be insufficient wages. A glance at the earnings shown in the tables shows that the methods of determination here adopted would very frequently result in finding insufficient wages as the cause of the distress. In some of the tables, account was taken only of the wages of the chief earner, whereas in a later table the earnings of all the mem- bers of the family were taken into account. In making the latter table, very frequently a family was regarded as receiving insufficient earnings, even though the exact amount of these earnings was not stated. Thus where the applicant was a widow with 6 small children, and her earnings consisted only of what she made at the washtub, the cause of distress was put down as insufficient earnings, for the reason that the regular work of one woman at washing and ironing will not bring in enough to support a family of 7. When forming conclusions as to whether the wages received were sufficient or not, hard and fast rules were often found to be impracticable. Each case was studied in its entirety, and judgment was based upon all the facts. A few illustrations wiU serve to show how this subject was treated in cases where wages were indefinitely stated: 1. A family of 8 persons. The rate of wages is not stated, but the records show that when it was a family of 6 persons the husband was earning $1.52 per day as a laborer, and that this was not sufficient at times to keep them from charity. Although the 234 SOCIOLOGY rate of wages at the time of application in 1905 is not given, the occupation of the husband was in that year still that of a laborer; and since the family had increased to 8 persons, there was no hesitation in ascribing the distress to insufficient earnings. 2. A family of 9 persons. The father is a waiter, the wife a laundress. A girl of 16, nurses, and a boy of 15 earns a little now and then at jobbing. The young children go to school. When all the wage- earners are at work, there is no need for charity; but when the wages of a single member of the family are cut off or interfered with, recourse to charity had to be made. For the reason that it was only normal and inevitable that some untoward events should arise, the destitution was put down to insufficient wages. Where the wages are so low that the least ripple of adversity brings a family to poverty, wages may be fairly regarded as insufficient. 3. A case extending over many years. An aged couple work and make what they can. Their work was irregular, and sometimes they earned so little that they were compelled to visit the charity office. Here not insufficient earnings but old age was regarded as the direct cause. 4. A family of two — ^man and wife — both quite old. The man served as a watchman at $5 per week, a sum not sufficient to keep himself and wife from charity. The man worked regularly and performed his work well. Not old age, but insufficient wages was here assigned as the direct cause. 5. A family of 9 persons. Husband's salary $9 per week. Oldest boy clerks at $3 per week, but his earnings are not regular. Agent states that SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 835 ''man has regular work, but family is so large that it is not sufficient for their needs." The distress in this case was determined to be due to insufficient wages, the conclusion being based in part upon the comment of the agent. In 55 families the immediate cause of distress was accident. This cause in its economic results is quite like that of sickness; and viewed in this light, the cases of accident might very properly have been classified with those of sickness. One phase, how- ever, of the subject of accidents among the poor requires special notice — the phase bearing upon the question of the employer's liability. As the cases are studied, one is impressed with the justness of liberal liability or compensation laws for workmen. A few of the agents' notes descriptive of accidents may suffice to show present conditions : 1. A man was working, helping in the building of a house. While wheeling a wheelbarrow, he stepped aside to let a fellow- workman pass. In passing he was jostled, and was caused to lose his barlance. He fell, and was made a permanent cripple. He received no compensation. 2. A man was working for a large transportation company, handling boxes. At 3 p. m. he hurt his foot severely. Nothing was allowed in the way of liability, and the statement is made that the man was paid for only three-fourths of a day's work. 3. A man was injured by an explosion while working on a sewer for the city. In this case a small indemnity was allowed, but the authorities explicitly stated that the city was under no obligation to give 236 SOCIOLOGY anything, although the disability caused by the acci- dent was permanent. 4. A man was working at a freight depot, and while in the performance of his labors met with an accident which cut off his earnings for several weeks, and which sent him to charity. No compensation. 5. A man was caught in a rope and crushed be- fore the machinery could be stopped. The accident, it was alleged, was due to the fact that there were not proper appliances of safety to the machine. No compensation. Fifth among the causes that urged these families to seek the charity office was old age. In 49 families the applicant's earning power had been exhausted by the weight of years. '*I am worn out," was the way one applicant, a physician of four score and seven, expressed it. In many of the old-age cases there is a record of but one visit to the charity office. This often meant that the applicant had found a permanent home, either in the grave or in the poorhouse. The five leading, direct causes that operate to throw the poor upon charity have been pointed out. It is seen that sickness, lack of employment, insuffi- cient wages, accident, and old age constitute nearly 94 per cent of all the direct causes. This is to say that in nearly nineteen cases out of twenty the im- pelling cause of the application is directly referable to a financial factor; either the rate of wage is too low for subsistence, or there is a stoppage of income due to a lack of employment, to sickness, to accident, or to old age. Most of the remaining direct causes are so re- SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 237 motely comiected with the question of wages that they may be regarded as non-financial. Sudden de- sertion may plunge a family into temporary distress, even when the deserter is receiving high wages. A spree will often cause a resort to charity, even though the husband is in receipt of a fairly good income. A man whose family is subsisting upon charity may be lying in prison for the commission of a crime ; yet his incarceration, the direct cause of his family's distress, may have had nothing what- ever to do with the question of wages. The non- financial direct causes, however, form but an insig- nificant portion of all. In only about one case out of twenty can it be said that a financial element did not figure as an immediate cause of distress. Contributing or Indirect Causes of Distress Usually the story of a charity case is only begun when the direct cause has been stated. In 854 of the families, a contributing cause might be added to the cause that appears on the sxu*face. In 329 families, the direct cause told the whole story. The case was simply due to a temporary loss of employment, to a debauch, to a spell of cold weather, or to some other isolated and perhaps non-recurring circum- stance. The list of contributing causes differs essentially from that of immediate causes. Sickness, insuffi- cient earnings, lack of employment, and accident figure very much less than they did in the direct causes, while desertion, intemperance, and neglect by natural supporters figure very much more. New 238 SOCIOLOGY causes, too, appear. Among these are licentiousness, shiftlessness, mendicancy, and thievery. Plainly none of these could very well appear as direct causes. The applicant could hardly say that he made the appeal for charity because he was a beggar or be- cause he was a thief. A broad survey of the surface causes of distress showed that in a vast majority of cases the trouble was, at bottom, due to financial adversity. A broad survey of the contributing causes shows that the undercurrent of distress is strongly colored with moral delinquency. Desertion, intemperance, licen- tiousness, neglect by natural supporters, mendi- cancy, and thievery constitute about 25 per cent of all these contributing forces. The subject of con- tributing causes is therefore closely interwoven with the subject of moral delinquencies. Among the contributing causes is one which has not been set down as a delinquency but which in quality closely approaches delinquency, namely, shiftlessness. In 55 families this has been given as the contributing cause. Shiftlessness is here re- garded as consisting in a failure to make the best of opportunities. It is not exactly laziness. Laziness does not appear in any of the tables as a cause of distress, for the reason that the charity agents will not give to lazy people. If the wage-earner is sus- pected of being lazy, a **work tesf is applied. When the industry of a man is a question of doubt, he is sent to the municipal workhouse, where he can earn some money at sawing wood. A woman sus- pected of being lazy is given an opportunity to earn something by sweeping or cleaning or scrubbing. If SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 239 the applicant will do the work provided for him, he is not regarded as being lazy. If he will not do the work, he is put down as lazy, and relief is withheld. Thus lazy applicants are not enrolled among the re- cipients and, theoretically, laziness is not discover- able in the records. Because shiftlessness is not downright laziness, it has not been set down in this study among the moral delinquencies, the class in which laziness un- doubtedly belongs. But shiftlessness is very similar to laziness. For instance, a family comes from the coimtry to live in the city. It can not stir itself to meet the demands of city Hfe. There are girls in the family old enough to work, but they shrink from work because they had not been accustomed to earn a living, and are unable to adjust their notions to urban conditions. Positions are secured for them; but they work in a half-hearted way, and soon find themselves out of employment. The wages of the father are insufficient to feed aU the mouths, and the family finds itself in distress. In the records of such families there is an habitual failure to take hold and do the best that can be done; and where such failure is evident, it has been characterized as shiftlessness. One other cause contributing greatly to the pov- erty of these families must receive notice here. This is severe weather. In 79 families, nature itself operated to produce distress. *' Please be kind enough," said one applicant in a note written to the agent, *'to send me some groceries and fuel, as I am very much in need. It is very hard to get on now with all this family, and my husband has not been 340 SOCIOLOGY working this cold weather when the ground is frozen. Remember me, please, and God will remember you." Lack of employment was put down in this case as the direct cause, but a cause almost as direct was severe weather. Some of the agents' notes show the ways in which the cold weather contributes to poverty: ''The family was in need of fuel, as they were unable to pick up any cinders on account of snow." *'It was simply impossible to get out and do work, there was so much snow on the ground." ''He (a blind man) couldn't stand on the street and sell shoe strings and peanuts, it was so cold." "Impossible to do her washing, as the pipes and hydrants are frozen and she has to walk three squares for water." "He (a ragpicker) can not work in the ice and snow." Persistent Causes of Distress When determining what was the underlying or persistent cause or causes of a family's distress it was found necessary to reckon with a time element. In the case of a family where the records showted only one application for aid, or where the distress continued for only a short period of time, the dom- inant or persistent cause was of course not dis- cernible. The records revealed a persistent cause only when the charity history extended through sev- eral years. When looking for the persistent cause, therefore, it became necessary to confine the search to those families whose charity career was of con- siderable duration. SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 241 In 683 cases, for which reports were made as to the year in which relief was first given, the record went back of 1905. In 307 cases the family had been upon charity for five years or more; in 56 cases for ten years or more; in 13 cases for fifteen years or more, and in 3 cases for twenty years or more. In one case the year was not reported. It was found convenient to classify the cases as temporary, intermittent, or permanent. When it is said that a case is temporary, it is meant that the records show no occasion of distress previous to the first application in 1905 and no further recourse to the Associated Charities for aid after the distress of that year was relieved. This does not mean, how- ever, that in a temporary case there was only one act of relief, for many cases designated as temporary involved records extending over several months, and showed that numerous doles were given. They were put down as temporary because they covered one definite season of distress and that not a very long one. Nor must it be thought that because a case was classified as temporary that the family was no longer a recipient of charity. In some cases temporary re- lief marked only a fetep on the road to the poorhouse. More often, however, it marked only a short period of misfortune and one that was safely tided over. A tailor with his wife and two small children drifted to Washington to search for work. Employ- ment was not speedily found, and the funds were exhausted. The wife applied to charity. Corres- pondence brought out the fact that the man's record was excellent. A former employer wrote that the applicant was a first-class workman, upright, sober. 342 SOCIOLOGY and anxious to work. The charity people helped him a little with provisions, and secured him suitable employment, and that was the beginning and the end of his experience with charity. In the temporary case we sometimes get a glimpse of a family at the lowest ebb of its fortunes — just when it is in the trough of adversity. For example, a husband works at $5 a week while his wife earns what she can at the washtub. The combined earnings do not meet the demands of the family, and charity is sought. But at the very time of distress two boys large enough to work begin to earn something, and the family makes no further appeal for aid. Sometimes the temporary case marks simply a sharp, short <2risis in domestic affairs. A chief wage-earner de- serts his family, leaving it penniless. At first there is nothing to do but to go to the charity office. When new adjustments have been made, however, and the wife and children have found employment, no fur- ther appeal for aid is made. Of all the charity cases, more than one-third (415) mark only a fleeting period of adversity. The tables show, too, that the immediate causes of these tem- porary appeals to charity are mainly sickness and lack of employment, the distress in more than three- fourths of the cases being due to these two causes alone. Among the contributing causes of the tem- porary cases, sickness still holds the lead, although desertion, intemperance, and licentiousness are much more conspicuous among the contributing than among the direct causes of temporary distress. The intermittent case is where the appeal for aid is made only at intervals, sometimes of long and SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 243 sometimes of short duration. In many a family prosperity alternates with adversity. For example, a large family is mentioned, which, in its whole career, has enjoyed much of prosperity, but has not been able altogether to keep its name from the char- ity roll. In 1902 a cold snap drove it to the charity office. In 1904 the husband lost his job for several weeks, and appeal for aid had to be made again. In 1905 a prolonged spell of sickness caused a third appeal to be made. The family tried hard to keep its head above water, but once in a long while it was unable to do so unaided. Sometimes an intermittent case shows a strange regularity in the recurrence of the date of application. In one case, application was made and aid was given January 6, 1904, January 12, 1905, January 12, 1906, January 17, 1907. In another family, aid was given January 20, 1905, Feb- ruary 21, 1906, February 5, 1907. In these cases, coal was given each time, and the periodicity of the dis- tress gave rise to a suspicion that the applicants were something of frauds, and that the charity office was visited merely because experience had taught that at about a certain time in the year a little fuel could be secured. Sometimes, in the intermittency of the dis- tress, there can be read the varying fortunes of the family. A widow was left in 1892 with 7 chil- dren, the ages of the children being respectively 15, 13, 10, 7, 6, 5, 3. During the years 1892, 1893, 1894, and 1895 her applications for relief were frequent. In 1896 they became less frequent, and by 1899 they had ceased, not to begin again until 1905, when the sickness and death of one child and the loss of the 2U SOCIOLOGY wages of another brought the family again to charity. In this case it was plain that the applications for charity decreased in number as the children grew older, and thus made an increase in the labor re- sources of the family. Frequently the charity record ends altogether when the children get large enough to bring in some money. All cases that were neither temporary nor inter- mittent were classified as permanent. A permanent case differs from an intermittent case only in the continuity of the relief. Where aid was given right along, week after week for months and years, with- out serious break, the case was designated as permanent. Where the relief was either permanent or intermit- tent, some dominant or persistent cause was usually discoverable. Where the persistent causes in both permanent and intermittent cases are given, it is seen that in 768 cases, or in nearly two-thirds of all, it was possible to assign a persistent or underlying cause of the poverty. In this list of deep-seated, persistent causes we find the non-financial or moral element figuring as it has figured in no previous comparison. It is true that sickness leads, as always, and lack of employment is responsible for much; but shiftlessness, desertion, in- temperance, and licentiousness here answer for much more than has elsewhere been charged against them. As direct impelling causes of distress, these moral, or as we might very well say, immoral, elements pre- vailed in hardly 5 per cent of all the cases; as con- tributory causes, they prevailed in about 25 per cent of aU the cases; but as the imderlying cause of pro- SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 345 longed distress, they prevail in a third of all the cases. As knowledge of a case becomes more com- prehensive, the greater does the relative importance of the moral element appear. A consideration, then, of the deeply seated causes of the poverty of these 768 families shows that in the final analysis the dis- tress was due in one-third of the cases to moral ele- ments, and in two-thirds of the cases to financial ele- ments. The poverty of charity recipients would therefore seem to present a problem that is some- thing less than one-third moral, and something more than two-thirds economic. This, at least, is the con- clusion drawn from the charity records in Washing- ton. Summary. The results of the study may be summarized as follows : Material aid, consisting of money, food, and clothing, was given in 1905 to 1,256 families in all. The charity records of 1,183 of these families were taken as the basis of this study. The number of per- $ons in these 1,183 families was 4,365. These re- cipients constitute the floating, unattached, isolated poor of the city. This isolation is seen in the fact that of the 1,775 wage-earners among the recipients only 23 of the 81 who reported on the subject stated that they belonged to labor organizations, and in only 40 families was there evidence of membership in fra- ternal or beneficial societies. The average size of the charity family is 3.7 per- sons, as against an average of 4.9 persons of the Dis- trict of Columbia. Excluding that large class of char- 246 SOCIOLOGY ity families consisting of only 1 person or only 2 per- sons, the average of the charity family is brought up to 5, a normal average. The charity family therefore is neither much larger nor much smaller than the prosperous family. The number of children under 16 in the charity families was 47.7 per cent of the charity population, whereas the class of children in the District of Co- lumbia at large constituted only 26.6 per cent of the population. Children under 10 constitute 30.9 per cent of the population of the charity families, while of the total population of the District only 16.8 per cent were under 10 years of age. In the District the excess of females over males among children under 16 was 3.2 per cent; in the charity families the excess was 18.3 per cent. Among children 10 or under 16, the excess of females over males in the charity popu- lation was 21.8 per cent, and in the District the ex- cess was only 8.1 per cent. So in the charity families the number of helpless children was relatively great, and the excess in the number of female children was strikingly large. In 12 per cent of all the families there was deser- tion. Counting only the families in which the hus- band and wife were both living, there was desertion in nearly 20 per cent of the cases. Desertion was found in 13 per cent of the white families in which there were both a husband and wife, and in 24.4 per cent of the colored families. In nearly 30 per cent of all the families either the husband or the wife was dead, and in 37.5 per cent of all the cases the family was without a male supporter at its head. The char- ity family is therefore very often a fatherless family. SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 247 Divorce does not prevail to any appreciable degree among the charity-receiving families. Of all the persons in the charity families 16 years of age or over, 77.2 per cent were employed in gain- ful occupations. In the 271 white families in which both husband and wife were at home, both husband and wife were gainfully employed in 95 cases ; and in the 291 colored families having both a husband and a wife at home, both husband and wife were employed in 222 cases. Extreme poverty has relatively a greater effect in drawing white married women into the ranks of wage-earners than it has in the case of colored married women. Of the children under 16 years of age in the charity families, 12 per cent were gainfully employed, a much larger percentage than obtained in the District at large. On the charity roll, many occupations are repre- sented, although laborers, laundresses, and domestics comprised more than 60 per cent of all the chief wage- earners. Among the wage-earners in the families driven to charity were 27 carpenters, 25 painters, 10 plasterers, 9 clerks, 7 iron workers, 5 shoemakers, and 4 plumbers. The actual earnings of a family receiving charity is a most difficult matter to determine, for at the time of charit}^ seeking there is in most cases only finan- cial chaos. In more than two-thirds of the families the wages of the chief wage-earner at the time of ap- plication had entirely ceased. In 80 families there was no wage-earner at all. Altogether, three-fourths of the families were deprived of a regular breadwin- ner at the time of the application, a circumstance that, prima facie at least, indicates that the poverty; 248 SOCIOBOGY of these poor is chiefly an economic or financial and not a moral problem. In 78 families, the chief wage-earner was earning the normal rate of wage at the time of application. In 269 cases, the normal wage of the chief wage- earner was reported in dollars and cents. This nor- mal daily wage varied from 8 cents a day to $5 a day. In over two-fifths of the families in which the normal wages were definitely known, the rate of the male worker ranged from $1 to $2 per day, the wage most often not exceeding $1.50 per day. These workers were for the most part day laborers, some of them being employed on the streets of the city. In 206 of the families there was evidence of income addi- tional to that derived from labor. In 43 cases, pen- sions were received. With the exception of pensions the element of additional income was insignificant; when the regular earnings of the members of the family were cut off practically everything was gone. Eelief in 60 per cent of the cases consisted in giv- ing food. Next to food, fuel was most frequently given. In nearly half the cases fuel was one of the articles given. The payment of rent does not figure largely in the relief extended, for the reason that the charity organizations will seldom undertake to meet arrears in rent, and for the further reason that the applicants adopt the policy of getting the rent paid first and then going to the charity office for food and fuel. The real magnitude of the rent problem in the lives of these recipients is seen in the fact that 208 of the 1,183 families, at some time and to some extent, found arrears of rent associated with their appeal to SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 349 charity. The chattel-mortgage loan figured in the distress of 26 families. In two-thirds of the families, there was no marked delinquency whatever. Of the 394 families tainted with delinquency, 174 were white and 220 colored, these numbers representing 38 per cent of the total white families and 30 per cent of the total colored families, respectively. The leading delinquencies were intemperance, desertion, licentiousness, neglect by natural supporters, lawlessness, thievery, and mendicancy. In nearly one-third of all the families in which delinquency was visible, intemperance was the evil. In 96 cases, the intemperance was in the white families and in 32 cases in colored families. Next to intemperance is the vice of desertion. In 102 cases desertion occiu'red in colored families and in 42 cases in white families. Licentiousness is third on the list of delinquencies. This vice was discover- able in 17 white families and in 47 colored families. The evidence supporting the charge of licentiousness consisted in part of the presence of illegitimate chil- dren, of whom there were 11 in white families and 68 in colored families. Neglect by natiu*al supporters — not including cases of outright desertion — occurred in 12 white families and 31 colored families. Akin to delinquency, but not included among the delin- quencies, was a certain reliance upon charity, a cer- tain inclination to pauperism. This spirit of de- pendence cropped out in 69 families, 40 of which were white and 29 colored. When considering the causes of the distress of the recipients, it was found practicable to avoid using the terms "inefficiency," ** ignorance," and **irregu- 250 . SOCIOLOGY larity of employment ' ' to denote causation. The sub- ject of regularity and irregularity of employment, however, received careful attention, and it was found that of the 1,051 cases in which it was possible to characterize the employment of the chief wage- earner as regular or irregular, 919 were irregular. In the discussion of causes, the expression "finan- cial element" is used to include one or several or all of the following elements of causation: insufficient earnings, lack of employment, sickness, accident, old age, and severe weather. In 28 families (20 white, 8 colored), the financial element did not enter at all into the explanation of the causes of distress. Among the immediate causes of distress — those that impinged directly on the consciousness of the applicant and hurried him to the charity office — sick- ness figured in nearly one-half of the families, rheu- matism and tuberculosis leading all the other dis- eases. Next to sickness, lack of employment was the immediate cause of most distress, more than one- third of all the cases being assigned to this cause. Third in the list of immediate causes, stands insuf- ficient wages. In 81 families the wages were so low that the family could not live upon the earnings, even though the full wage was being received at the time of the application. In 55 cases the immediate cause of distress was due to accident. Illustrations of the circumstances attending these accidents show plainly enough the need of a liberal liability law. In 49 cases, old age was the direct cause of the appeal to charity. Sickness, lack of emplojrment, insufficient wages, accident, and old age constituted 94 per cent of all SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS 251 direct causes. That is to say, in nineteen cases out of twenty the impelling cause of the application is di- rectly referable to a financial factor. In the immediate causes of 329 cases could be seen a full explanation of the distress. In 854, the immedi- ate cause was supplemented by a contributory cause. As contributory causes, sickness, insufficient earn- ings, lack of employment, and accident figure very much less than they did as immediate causes, while desertion, intemperance, and neglect by natural sup- porters figured very much more. Among the con- tributory causes there appear also certain causes that did not appear among the direct causes, such as licen- tiousness, shiftlessness, mendicancy, thievery. While the immediate causes were in the vast majority of cases due to financial adversity, the undercurrent of distress was strongly colored with moral delinquency — desertion, intemperance, licentiousness, neglect by natural supporters, mendicancy, and thievery con- stituting about 25 per cent of all the contributory forces. In 55 families the controlling cause of dis- tress was put down as shiftlessness, a fault that was regarded as consisting in a failure to make the best of opportunities. In 79 cases severe weather oper- ated as a contributing cause. When studying the subject of underlying or per- sisting causes, it was convenient to classify the cases as temporary, intermittent, or permanent. More than one-third of the cases were found to be temporary; and in these, of course, no deep-seated cause was dis- cernible. In 768 cases it was possible to assign a persistent or underlying cause of the poverty. Here the nonfinancial or moral element figured much more 253 SOCIOLOGY prominently than in any previous comparison. As direct, impelKng causes, sMftlessness, desertion, in- temperance, and licentiousness had to answer for hardly 5 per cent of all the cases. As contributory causes, they prevailed in about 25 per cent of all the cases, but as the underlying cause of prolonged dis- tress, they prevailed in one-third of all the cases. S. E. Forman. SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES. I. Sociology. Philosophers and thinkers are divided in opinion as to the possibility of there being a science of so- ciety, with laws at once definite, consistent, and as capable of prevision, in regard to men's actions in association with each other, and their sequences, as are the laws which have been laid down as governing the world of nature. There are many who look with distrust upon the attempt which has been made by such master minds as Comte and Herbert Spencer to establish such a connection between human nature and conduct, on the one hand, and its natural consequences, on the other, as shall justify the enunciation of laws to which these to all appearance respond. Such per- sons have contended that science, depending as it does for the validity of its laws on the constant recurrence of a series of identical facts and their (so far as ascertained) imchanging sequences, can have no validity or reality in a sphere where these conditions are admittedly impossible of realization. The facts of human history, it is said, be they ever so faithfully recorded, are valueless for the pur- pose of guiding us in the constructing of such laws, because they can never repeat themselves. The in- dividuals who compose society can furnish no clue, 253 254 SOCIOLOGY because no two of them are identical with each other or with any of the units that have contributed to form the society of preceding ages. For nature, with pro- gressive and unceasing change, renders duplication unknown. Even a parallel which may be asserted between two periods cannot be instituted with any reliance on its being approximately accurate. For with mankind, knowledge has so rapidly increased in range and in precision that occasionally a decade is sufficient to revolutionize our conceptions of the pos- sibilities of human destiny, and entirely to modify our ideas of morality and duty. While we are de- ducing laws from our present knowledge, a new regime is ushered in; old influences lose their power, and old conceptions are forever supplanted by the more extended volume of knowledge and the higher ideals involved. Identity, therefore, being non-existent, and simi- larities between our units close enough to be valuable being also lacking, "Where," the doubtless tri- umphantly ask, **are the data which wiU form a stable basis for a social science?" There is much appearance of reason in this view of the case; but it is probable that it originates in, and owes its continuance to, a misconception of the true meaning of the term law, when used in connec- tion with science. There are really no absolute and final laws in any branch of science. What, by com- mon consent, we designate laws, are merely formulas expressive of the sequences and relationship of the facts which have been acciunulated by the most care- ful and extended observation. We cannot demon- strate scientifically that there is any inherent neces- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 255 sity in, or any power compelling, the continuance of tlie particular order which has, as far as our observa- tion goes, prevailed up to the present time. It is quite impossible for us to prove, as Karl Pearson demonstrates in his "Grammar of Science," that a cataclysm may not engulf the universe to-morrow; though our past experience gives an overwhelming probability against such a cataclysm. It is well, therefore, to understand clearly that our capacity to construct laws for any branch of science is limited strictly by our observation of the particu- lar order of events in the past, and of the frequency with which they have occurred without variation; from this we proceed to an inference, strong in pro- portion to the period over which the recurrence has been observed, that it is an invariable routine. Such, however, is never probable. We may even proceed, from what we have observed to recur with unvarying regularity, to deduce laws to explain other observed phenomena which will so harmonize with the phe- nomena in hand as to be accepted as a satisfactory explanation by the normal mind. But it must always be remembered that these theories are liable at any moment to be disproved by the addition of fresh factors, which, though slight, and at first sight unim- portant, may change the whole conception of the sub- ject Examples are numerous of practical experience demonstrating the fallacy of theories sustained by the strongest analogies ; and illustrations are common of the important results which have accrued from the more minute and critical examination of the facts. The weU-known instance of the difficulty with which 266 SOCIOLOGY the mechanical theory of heat superseded the caloric theory, and of the great development of the steam engine, which immediately became practicable, may be cited as an example. In the region of science, therefore, we may con- fidently assert that no positive and final laws are pos- sible. And as our means of acquiring and recording exact information become more perfected, the in- creased volume of knowledge wiU enable us to frame more comprehensive formulas or laws ; so that assur- ance of finality cannot be given at any time. There is no fatal necessity in the physical laws — ^no more than in social laws. Their validity and permanence are commensurate only with the extent and accuracy which has characterized the collection of the data; and in no branch can it be asserted that investigation has been so exhaustive and exact that we cannot hope for more light. Absolute prevision being beyond the claim made for the laws of any science by the true scientist, it is difficult to understand upon what rational basis a place in science can be denied to those conditional laws of society which are formulated from the data collected regarding the history of man — ^his physical, psychological, and sociological development. In each of these three aspects we possess, undoubtedly, au- thentic information of the progress which man has made ; and from them we who believe in a social sci- ence deduce not only the order of evolution but also the causes which have contributed to make modifica- tions imperative to existence. That physical improvement and specialization of organism was a necessary precedent to mental ele- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 257 vation whicli would make possible a social system, and that this system would, with every increase of mental — which would be accompanied by moral — im- provement, become more nearly perfect needs only to be stated to be accepted as an axiom. It is impos- sible for us ever to know the gulf which separates barbarism from civilization; for while we might, by transplanting existing barbaric nations to the condi- tions necessary to hasten their evolution, and thus in a comparatively short time force their development to higher types, it would not aid us in deciding the question. Primitive man had to win everything in his advancement; and the necessity for advancing was forced on him by the altering conditions of life. It would be only when the niggardliness of unculti- vated nature no longer sufficed for the sustenance of all the organic life on the globe, and man had to prove his supremacy over other animals if he was to retain dominion, that his mental resources would be ex- erted, and by their exercise strengthened and devel- oped, until the possibilities of modern civilization would be reached. It may, however, be asserted that while the gen- eral course of progress is easily traced in the foot- prints that have been made by our race on the sands of time, yet particular details of their action are not so easily ascertained; and by reason of this want of precision no definite forecast can be made. *'What do we really know," it may be asked, ^^of the facts underlying historical records ? ' ' These too frequent- ly are ignored in the desire to give exact biographical details of the leading personages, which will enable U8 to form about as correct an estimate of the real 358, SOCIOLOGY life of the period as the inflated and exaggerated ut- terances of the popular demagogue would give us of the condition of "the masses." This is largely true. But there are still in our his- torical records and in our personal experience indi- cations of one fundamental principle underlying all human conduct, a principle ingrafted in nature, es- sential to our existence; and while occasionally dis- torted to an extent which makes us shrink from ac- knowledging its power, is not only the main spring of our progress but also the salvation of our race. That principle is self-preservation. In civilized so- ciety its action is greatly modified from what is cur- rent under primitive conditions; but it is the real power which rules the world of men. No longer in the original sense is it self-preservation; for the dan- ger is not now to life, but to fortune; and it is in pos- terity the conditions which will contribute to our own aggrandizement, careless of how oiu* neighbors may fair, that we now carry on the unending struggle. A great amount of spurious sentiment is indulged in over this — what reformers call the selfishness of man. To it are attributed most of the misery and suffering in the world; but despite its unamiable aspect when viewed cursorily and designated self- love and selfishness, there is no more important prin- ciple implanted in the human breast. From it, pure and unmixed, there are more advantages than ever could accrue from love of your neighbor, which looks so much better to profess. Every step of human progress may be placed to its credit; and with its disappearance enterprise would die, and mankind would become stagnant. The SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 259 basis of all the manufacturing trade and commerce in the country is self-love. Men do not invest their capital in mills for the sake of giving the people an opportunity of earning a livelihood; they do not put down a plant for the building of ships and the con- structing of engines for the love of giving employ- ment; they do not import the products of other coun- tries simply for the pleasure of seeing the natives of their own enjoying them; nor do they export the products of our own country for the gratification of their love for the foreigners, and their desire that these should be happy. All these undertakings — all the works in the world — are prompted not by love of neighbors but by love of self, and by the conviction that the path selected is the shortest way to the in- creasing of their portion of the world's wealth. The result to the community is the same as if it were done solely for the benefit of the community; for no man can further his individual interests in a lawful manner without benefiting society at large. Nothing but our desire to further our own fortunes would induce us to take the trouble to bring the nec- essaries of life to our neighbor's doors; and the dis- tributing of provisions through a city is surely more satisfactorily accomplished when inspired by desire of gain than when by consideration for the happiness and comfort of our neighbor. In actual life there is little room for sentimental considerations; and there is little necessity for them in the present age. At no previous period in the history of the world have the conveniences and comforts of life been so great and so extensively diffused. The laborer of to-day enjoys comforts which were 360 SOCIOLOGY unknown to kings a few centuries ago ; and with the facilities for education, with free libraries and art galleries, the road to learning has become to all, as nearly as possible, a royal road. There being no caste distinctions in our country, there is no position to which the humblest born may not aspire. The guerilla warfare of primitivism, it is true, is super- seded, and civilization places all in pleasanter condi- tions ; but a contest, none the less real because more refined, continues ; and under its domination men are compelled to attend to their own self-interest, to the exclusion of all others, with the same fidelity as in the earliest ages. In the course of evolution, self-sacrificing person- alities have flashed across the social sky. This is ad- mitted. But they are classed as meteors, whose er- ratic course cannot be predicted, or their recurrence counted on with certainty; so that they may be con- veniently eliminated from our data, without vitiating the result. No doubt their influence will have a cer- tain effect upon the surrounding phenomena, and their track may threaten destruction to many a time- honored custom; but as nothing long prevails which is not established in reason and confirmed in equity, we can look with complacency alike upon philan- thropic but mistaken attacks of the benevolent and the mercenary, and misleading assault of the charlatan. For there is no subject in which quackery and spurious sentiment is more common. Benevolence being a matter of universal interest, in which prince and peasant alike have an every-day experience, a premium is placed on its practical; and there are no SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 261 end of Joseph Surfaces who seek to maintain a repu- tation for benevolence without incurring the expense of it. The time also is particularly favorable for the prosecution of such a purpose, as ''the schoolmaster is abroad," and each has obtained just that amount of knowledge which enables him to give an unhesi- tating opinion on social problems. Had such persons drunk more deeply of the Pierian spring, the force and freshness of their decisions would have been de- stroyed and they would have been landed in that abyss of doubt and indecision which is characteristic of those whose acquirements enable them to take cog- nizance not only of the proximate effects, but of the most distant consequences, of proposed reforms. This is the difference between the barroom orator, who will tell you most positively what ought to be done, and the statesman, who has considered a ques- tion in all its bearings, and in its relationship to the entire scheme of public policy, and is still undecided as to the most advisable course to pursue. No dog- matic opinion is possible to him who, with a trained understanding and an appreciation of the daily ac- cretions which our knowledge is receiving, ap- proaches a subject, not as a special pleader, but with the sole desire of ascertaining the truth and following wheresoever it leads. This, unfortunately, is too often not the spirit in which those who desire to renovate society ap- proach the task. However honest the intention of such may be in general (and of that I have no desire to offer an opinion), they usually start from a priori grounds, and immediately proceed to demonstrate how a proposed reform — usually a most superficial 362 SOCIOLOGY one — would eliminate all the injustice of the world and herald the golden age. They have, as a rule, an exaggerated conception of the evils to be remedied, a very slight acquaintance with the subject, and a positive conviction that some single panacea which they advocate will be all the re- form that is required. Considering that there are before the world at present at least a dozen schemes for its remodeling and for the establishment of perfect justice, happi- ness, and contentment, and that the disciples of each scheme have no great confidence in the efficacy of any but their own, or any conviction of the honesty of the advocates of the most of the others — we may well be pardoned for subjecting all their places to the most rigid criticism before identifying ourselves with any of them. In fact, we are tempted to dub as empirics those who dilate on the diseases of the body social, and the simplicity of its cure by their patent decoc- tion. If it is diseased, no single remedy will suffice for its cure ; but those who have most carefully diag- nosed the sjrmptoms are apt to assert that these indi- cate only infantile complaints, which it will outgrow in the natural course of events, without the aid of noxious draughts or dangerous operations. They are strengthened in this opinion by the well- known fact that, since men first began to live in asso- ciation, the progress has been enormous, and the con- stant tendency is to establish higher standards of comfort. This, they are convinced, shows that the or- ganism is healthy; that its development is satisfac- tory; and that such changes as the socialist, the com- munist, the land nationalizer, and the "cooperator'* SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 263 (in modern acceptation) would bring us, are neither necessary nor desirable. In the following pages I shall endeavor to show briefly the natural laws which govern men in asso- ciation; how they act and react on each other in such a way that interference with the existing order, so far from being beneficial to all, would frequently work injustice to the most deserving, for the benefit of the least valuable portion of hiunanity. I shall review and demonstrate the fallacy of leading '* re- forms" that have been proposed and advocated with all the fervor of those who aggrandize themselves by discovering for the masses the injustice which the latter suffer but are wholly unaware of imtil these are placed home by the brave-sounding words of the popular orator. There is no way in which cheap popularity is more easily won than by playing courtier to the crowd; but it is surely advisable that we occasionally let the truth have an airing. However unpleasant this may be, I am certain that it is a more substantial proof of friendship to indicate errors than to disguise them. A statement of the facts of the case and of their in- evitable consequences, a demonstration of the de- structive tendency of the unnatural interference with private rights, is urgently demanded, and is neces- sary for those whose minds have become so perme- ated with the conceived advantage of a certain plan that honor and honesty appear to them as if ready to be laid as a sacrifice on the altar. And if, in pursuance of this purpose, we find it impossible to avoid enunciating doctrines which must appear hard-hearted and unsympathetic, it must not 264 SOCIOLOGY be forgotten that, in deducing conclusions from as- certained facts, we are unable to control them. How- ever much we might deplore certain laws of society which exist, we should never allow our individual feeling to blind us to their existence; but carefully repressing sentiment, and depending solely on our data, without fear or favor, we should uphold the true and expose the false conception of them. While doing so, we may be careful to state exactly the data upon which our notions of laws are based; so that in the event of an extension of our knowledge its in- fluence could be at once assimilated to the system. There is no subject in which more possibilities of extension exist, both on account of its comparative newness as a science and because of the plasticity of the units considered; and there is certainly none in which constant introspection is more necessary for getting at the actual truth. We must always keep before us the indubitable fact that in all sciences the errors due to the position of the observer must be taken into account, — and frequently indeed, as in astronomy, the same facts must be noted by observers thousands of miles apart, — so that from the results of two independent observations the inaccuracy may be reduced to the minimum. In no science is it more important that we should strenuously endeavor to eliminate our own personalities; and in none is it so difficult to take the result of the observations of others and, placing them side by side with our own, to arrive at the true state of the case. This is, of course, due to the fact that our own interests are usually involved in the answers which we give and that we have also inherited traditions which con- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 265 tribute to our mental attitudes and determine the po- sitions which we assume in respect to every question. There is also the complementary source of error in the inaccuracy of our judgments of our fellow men. Just as we are, rarely do we, in our partiality, consider ourselves. Others are often a great deal better than we give them credit for — ^unless, indeed, when they happen to be particularly in accord with our opinions and sentiments; then we extend to them a part of the charity which we give to ourselves. By making an allowance fOr these factors, the impartial and educated man can approach to accuracy in his judgment of the laws which govern social Hfe. At any rate, he will have all the elements necessary for formulating such laws and for pronouncing a val- uable opinion upon all proposed reforms ; and while he will probably arrive at conclusions which will harmonize ill with the hopes of the enthusiast or the expectations roused by the agitator, he will be able to indicate the direction which improvement must take to be permanent and so to render a service to the best interests of society. This, though less ap- preciated by the majority, will be much more val- uable than all the vaporings of would-be reformers. II. The Units. If you ask a chemist to describe the nature of a certain substance, he seeks to reduce it to its ele- ments, and to give you the exact proportions in which these enter into its total. There is often, however, a residuum which defies his analysis, and which is represented by the percentage necessary to complete 266 SOCIOLOGY his assumed total of parts. In like manner, when we undertake to describe society we must also reduce it to its elements, which are the individual, or units, of which it is composed. We shall also find a residuum which will not be so distinct as to be included under a definite head in our analysis, but which wiU require to be indicated in order to make up the total. The units of society, though characterized by a certain degree of sameness, are in reality exceedingly varied; but like other elements, they have exact combining affinities, to which they unconsciously have con- formed since they first began to live in association, and which are the essence of society's continuance. It is conceivable that, as originally constituted, the possibility of identity amongst the units was present; but the different circumstances by which they were surrounded, facilitating in the one case growth and development, and in the other stunting and dwarfing the natural possibilities, early introduced varieties. These would be intensified with the lapse of time and with the continuance of the more diversified environ- ments, which would necessarily ensue from the pro- gression of one and the stagnation of another. Even where the rates of development were not so far apart, there would be sufficient diversity amongst the sur- roundings to produce the distinct and irreconcilable personalities which we find amongst the inhabitants of the most limited areas, and which, to all outward appearance, have been subjected to the same influences. Our conceptions of right and wrong are largely the result of the environment in which we are bound; and our conduct in the minor affairs of life wiU be SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 267 decided in the main by our position in the social scale, which gives boundaries to our knowledge, and regu- lates the canons to which we submit our actions. Antecedents, training, and environment form, in- deed, the triple cord which bind men. They are the factors which mold their lives and color their char- acters, and they are connected in such indissoluble bonds that when we know the first we can with a great degree of certainty foretell the other two. Not only so, but if we could know the complete history of any one individual we should know the complete history of the universe. The complete history would involve, of course, not merely the record of his life since birth, but all the causes which, since the earliest time, have contributed to his production. Each is but the resultant of a long series of causes, linked inextricably with the causes which have been mold- ing the other entities and extending into a complete chain, embracing all the creation a change in any part of which would be represented by an entirely different present. If effect follows upon cause, the present is the only possible outcome of the past; and the future is already decided by the present. Indi- vidually and collectively, therefore, we are dissolubly linked to the past, inheriting in the aggregate the whole of its virtues and of its vices, its material and physical and mental progress. Each individual, how- ever, possesses distinct traits, he having been sub- jected only to a small portion of the entire circum- stances which represent human experiences. Since conclusions must take this into account, they are far from being comprehensive. It is not difficult to understand how views so dis- 268 SOCIOLOGY similar are reached on the same subject by appar- ently equally educated and equally intelligent and fair-minded men. It is owing to the mental or social bias from which even those desirous of being impar- tial cannot entirely emancipate theselves. This is possibly inherited, and is strengthened by class prejudices, which prevent them from dissociating themselves from their immediate interests and ob- taining an impersonal view of the subject considered. Thus, when a certain subject recommends itself pri- marily to any mind for study, it is apt to assume to that mind proportions entirely at variance with its intrinsic importance. The mental equilibrium is dis- turbed; the subject becomes a sort of Aaron's rod, and gradually swallows up all others; and to the mind thus distorted, it seems the one important factor to the proper understanding of life. Its promulgation becomes a solemn duty, and it is confidently expected that the acceptance of it by humanity at large as a cardinal article of faith will be the precursor of the golden age. Nearly all proposed social reforms emanate from martyrs to single ideas, the undue preponderance in their minds of the one train of thought preventing the other factors receiving such consideration as their importance demands ; and thus the whole reno- vation of society is made to appear to depend upon the alteration of some relatively unimportant detail. The exponents of marvelous theories for not only the preservation of life but also the amelioration of its least desirable features, are the residuum which defy our analysis of society. They are not amenable to the ordinary rules of logic, and their enthusiasm over SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 269 their pet project blinds them, when they are honest, to the counteracting disadvantages which would ac- company their proposed change, which too often could only be brought about by the violation of every principle upon which we depend for the permanancy of social combination. As each new theory is propounded, the injustice of present conditions exemplified, and the efficiency of the proposed remedy demonstrated, we can only marvel how our poor forefathers survived in igno- rance of their hard lot, and assume that their con- tented and happy existence was owing to the absence of the geniuses who in modern days are called social reformers. Leaving this residuum, we find that although we cannot proclaim identity amongst our units, there are very close similarities and very cogent reasons for supposing that in their primal instincts and impulses, and in their ultimate desires, all men are equal. That their actions are so dissimilar in apparently similar circumstances, is due solely to the difference of in- herited qualities, modified or intensified, as the case may be, by their environments. The importance of these two factors cannot be overestimated, and yet they can scarcely be correctly ascertained. Despite the painstaking and exhaustive re- searches of the great German scientist Weismann into the question of heredity, the subject is still beset with difficulties, and is scarcely capable of definite- ness. His investigations have resulted in the germ plasm theory, from which it would appear that the germ is continuous and unmodifiable, and is transmit- ted with aU its racial distinctions from sire to son; 270 SOCIOLOGY that it is impossible for variations due to environ- ments to be so assimilated as to be transmitted. There is a recognition of the possibility of the fusion of the two germ plasms, and of a consequent modifi- cation resulting; but it surely must be granted that if the environments through successive generations have not called for the exercise of qualities which might exist in the original plasm, while other require- ments have induced in the individual the exercise of different powers, the dormancy in the one case and the activity in the other would lead ultimately to a modification of the inherited proclivities. On no other assumption can we account for the aptitude which is frequently shown by children for the class of work to which their immediate ancestors have been accustomed, as it certainly has not been transmitted from a long past, when the very condi- tions of life were incompatible with the exercise of such qualities. If such is not the case, and if, as the law of heredity seems to establish, out of a bad and improvident stock, no amount of training, no dura- tion of time will ever eradicate the undesirable and unamiable qualities, how can we explain the pro- digious changes which have taken place in man's na- ture? How can we account for progression at all if, with each generation, we start precisely with the same original conditions and tendencies, and have to undergo the same slow course of elimination and im- provement? If permanent improvement is impos- sible, and our task, like that of Sisjrphus, is a never- ending and ever-beginning one, are we justified in making the conditions of present life such as shall ensure our successors having to grapple with the SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 273 same never-ending problems ? The truth seems to be that the environment which has led to modifications in individual cases is likely to be experienced by the succeeding generations to an equal if not greater ex- tent; so that if the environments and conditions of life were unaltered, men would necessarily remain identical and stationary. With the slowly envolving conditions, a corre- sponding evolution takes place. It is the growth of population that is the principal incentive to progress ; because as the world is called upon to support the increasing numbers, man is forced to consider how he can best aid nature in responding to the demand, and the knowledge thus acquired is the origin of all advancement. Once started on the road of progress, men's wants increase in volume and in refinement, and men's mental powers are developed; for there is nothing so effective as necessity for insuring invention and improvement. That we in this age occupy a ground so much in advance of that held by the preceding, is not due to any mental superiority among the existent units of society, but is the consequence of the very rich lega- cies which we have inherited from the former in- habitants of the earth — legacies which have been gradually growing in volume and value through the centiu'ies, and which we will pass on to posterity with our added experience. These legacies consist of ac- cmnulated data, extended observation, careful ex- periment, and, where not actually established beyond doubt, suggestive theories which may be confirmed or corrected by us in our subsequent investigations. We take up the skein where the most advanced of 272 SOCIOLOGY our predecessors have left it, with the task of unrav- eling it greatly simplified by their efforts. If we for a moment consider what our position would be were it possible for each generation as it passed away to carry with it the knowledge it had acquired, and to leave its successors to collect for themselves all data, make all the necessary experiments, and undertake all investigation de novo, we should at once realize that, notwithstanding man's mental superiority, he would never progress beyond the rudest state of bar- barism. It is in his power to transmit to posterity the accumulated experience on which the continuity of development depends, and if our present knowl- edge were to be destroyed by a vandal incursion, to restore it would take centuries, even with the power of transmission. Our vantage ground is inheritance; and it is therefore impossible to overestimate the im- portance of mental and moral characteristics in con- nection with social science. These, being the product of centuries of growth, and being concerned with all the questions pertaining to human life and destiny, naturally form a mental boundary for each individ- ual, which it is highly probable he personally has very little power to control or to alter. The conclusions at which different individuals will arrive on the same subject, and with apparently the same information, are often very different; but an approximation can be made by taking into ac- count the country inhabited, its moral standard, and intellectual attainments, together with the position of the individual, which will indicate his general con- formity or want of conformity to the leading canons of the society in which he exists and of the minor SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 273 circle within which his personal interests are confined. The primal instinct we can always rely on with absolute certainty as being present in all men; and that is self-preservation. This may now-a-days be called more correctly self-interest, because it is usually our material welfare which has to be con- served, instead of the preservation of our existence. This principle gives color to all human action; and that the results are so varied, is due to the different answers which each gives to the question of what will best serve his interests. All our actions, let them appear involuntary or otherwise, are in reality the natural outcome of our experience. In some cases the frequency with which like circumstances have occurred gives an appearance of spontaneity to conduct, while in others the rarity makes reflection imperative; but in all, comparisons and conclusions precede action, however involuntary they may seem. Practically, therefore, the question which each answers before taking action is, what is the most ad- visable method of conserving his own best interest ? And the different methods adopted for accomplish- ing this, the first end of civilized man, will depend entirely on inheritance, training, and experience, — the latter being probably a necessary accompaniment of the two former. There are, however, many cases in which we might, without great risk to our reputation, hazard a definite prediction as to how, in given circum- stances, men would act. For instance, if we should see a man passing along a railway track and a loco- motive coming from the opposite direction on the 2U SOCIOLOGY same line, we might with safety predict that the law of self-preservation would ensure him immediately to leave the track. In one such case out of ten thousand we might find our prediction falsified; but on investigation we should discover that there was a factor in that par- ticular case which is not normal in human beings, and which, therefore, our generalization did not cover. It might be due to a physical defect, such as the loss of sight. It might be due to a mental defect, which occasionally manifests itself by a very er- roneous conception of the nature of things. Or the abnormal element might be a sociological one, such as a feeling of being out of harmony with the rest of society, or a sense of unjust treatment or of un- merited obloquy. In whatever way, however, the abnormality was explained, it would not affect the validity of our statement as to the impulses and con- sequent actions which in ordinary circumstances would follow from the approach of the train. It is therefore our ability to ascertain all the fac- tors of the case that will determine the measure of our accuracy, as the primal motive in men so identi- cal and is modified only by the evolutions of the social instincts. Those in whom it is least apparent are usually the most cultured and refined; and its dor- mancy in their case is due to the substitution of a higher ideal than the merely personal. As civilization reaches higher and still higher levels, it ceases to be evidenced at all in the grosser forms, because the conditions are so changed; and so far from the struggle of the many being for mere existence it is only for the obtaining of the greatest SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 275 pleasure and happiness that life can afford. This becomes the one end of existence, however different the means for effecting it may be. Examples ap- parently irreconcilable with this dictum may easily be given; but they are only apparently so, for in reality their seeming incompatibility is due to our limited knowledge of the whole facts of the case. Many sensitive and heroic men there are who would suffer less by immolating themselves for the benefit of a number of their fellows than they would suffer by allowing all that might be saved by their self- sacrifice to perish. Enthusiasm and the strong con- sciousness of the rectitude of their cause and of the importance of its teaching to humanity may inspire martyrs to bear the most exquisite refinements of torture which the perverted ingenuity of man can invent; and the generous and noble natures may act in a manner which cannot be reconciled by the more phlegmatic as in keeping with this rule. The explanation is that it is the different concep- tions of what constitutes happiness that is animating them. With many, the respect and esteem of their fellow men is more essential to their happiness and enjoyment than any acquirements of fortune, or any escaping of personal danger, or even any consistency in action. Others there are, who pursue their own career uninfluenced by praise, undeterred by blame, only gratified by accomplishing their own ends, and careless who may suffer, so that they succeed. The social units, therefore, although identical in primal instincts and motives and in the ends which they have in view, vary in their actions according to different conceptions of the best means of furthering 276 SOCIOLOGY these identical objects. The different conceptions originate not in any original, inherent variety, but in the different experiences of the units, owing to their infinitely varied surroundings. The difference of en- vironment has divided men so widely that they have appeared to naturalists not varieties of a single spe- cies, but distinct species, different in color, in stature, in mental power, and in moral capability. And while in its extremes it has done this, in its more limited operation it has established in one community classes sharply divided from each other, with different tra- ditions, different and irreconcilable interests, and a different standard for guiding their actions, each class with a jealous eye watches the other, envying that which appears to give it a precedence, or an ad- vantage, to such an extent that, leaving the residuum out of consideration, we can with a fair claim to accuracy foretell what course will be pursued under given circumstances by individuals, if we possess some particulars of their antecedents. This does not mean that the characteristics and tendencies accompanying any station in life are in- variable, but that they are so generally consistent that the exception may be taken as proving the rule. Temperance would not long continue in the brothel, nor healthy views of life in the harem. There is another aspect of the question of ante- cedents and inheritance which in civilized life is most important, and which lends itself to little specula- tion. That is the accumulation of material wealth which ancestors may have acquired in fierce compe- tition and bequeathed to their immediate successors. This gives the latter such an advantage in the social SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 277 state that they may almost be considered to have it in their power to give the less fortunate permission to exist. Indeed, to such an extent is this the case that it sometimes appears as if, by some right divine they were put into possession of the indispensible necessaries of life of the many to use these rightly or wrongly at their pleasure. Without the recognition of such a right of trans- fer, there would be little stimulant to the exercise of our best powers. It is clearly and indispensably nec- essary that such right be recognized, as its absence would destroy progress by causing investigation and experiments to cease. Without that right, men would languish and approximate to that existence which has always characterized the Eastern nations, which so early reached a high point in civilization and re- finement, but which, owing to the want of incentive and security, lacked the power requisite to carry them over the dead center, and have ever since remained stationary. The present inheritance of our race is developed in physical, mental, and moral power, a vast accumu- lation of knowledge, and its practical application to the affairs of daily life. This places the necessaries of Life within the reach of all, and offers the luxuries and refinements to the most. To some it gives as a start and a precedence the results of the superiority of their stock. It thus accentuates the natural in- equality of man, and arouses in the breasts of the superficial a keen sense of injustice and a desire to renovate society and to envolve a juster social order. The natural facts of the case are often overlooked, and proposals subversive of the best interests of so- 278 SOCIOLOGY ciety are freely advocated. Impossible Utopias are constructed in which human nature is assumed to be divine, and the natural discontent of man is intensi- fied and directed. Reason may cry from the house tops to would-be reformers, but they will be deaf to her voice, as likewise will be their dupes. They will not recognize that not only is the struggle for exist- ence a necessary one, but that to it is to be accredited the rapidity of human progress, and that its cessation would produce an apathy and indifference to the affairs of life which would be much worse than the struggle where men meet each other with their tal- ents sharpened and their activities alert for the slightest advantage which they can obtain. The re- forms which would eliminate this struggle would arrest mental development, destroy self-reliance, and reduce men to the merest automatons. III. The Combinations. Nearly all writers assume a pre-social state; but while this may be a convenient figment for the basing of our arguments as to what man's rights would be under such conditions, it is scarcely conceivable that such a state ever really existed except in the imagination. Let us accept either the biblical or the scientific explanation of our origin, and we will alike conclude that man was never the solitary being which this state would imply. At first, of course, his social in- stincts would be confined by a very narrow area; but yet, both by duration and by nature, they would be SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 279 different from mere animal association and would be entitled to be considered social. The grouping of different families into a confed- eracy would be, in the early ages of the world, a natural consequence of the realization of the fact that their united strength would present a more effective protection against powerful beasts, and also a recog- nition by comparatively weak companies of shep- herds that they would not be secure in their flocks and herds unless they should increase their numeri- cal strength. This cooperation for protection against external foes could exist only by an agree- ment among the individuals associating, to respect the rights of the members of their league; so that from the very earliest time a few of the most funda- mental principles of all government would be practiced. The first and most important of these would be the granting of equal freedom to all members of the combination. This freedom would, of course, be different from the freedom possible in any assumed state of nature. In a natural state, man would be ab- solutely free; not bound by any ties to recognize the effects of his conduct on others; having in his own person an inalienable claim to all the produce of the earth that he might be strong enough to secure for himself. And as each would have equal rights, con- stant collisions and warfare would prevail. Men would have been Ishmaels, with their hand against every man's, and every man's against them; their only duty being to sustain their own existence at all costs, and against all creatures. When, how- ever, men associate for mutual advantages, they can 380 SOCIOLOGY only do so by foregoing some of their natural rights. I do not suppose that at first they met and made a definite contract as to what they would give up and what retain; this would be gradually agreed to as the necessities of the case would arise, and more complex relationships would ensue. But they certainly would have to agree to recognize their neighbor's rights as being equal to their own, and their own as being perfect freedom so far as it did not conflict with the rights of others. Very early, too, a central power would exist, upon which would devolve the duty of seeing that the weaker members of the federation obtained their just rights; and laws would soon be enacted — ^laws in the legal sense, and with means of enforcing conformity to them and of punishing infringements. These laws, restricting the natural tendencies of the members, when erratic, would give greater defi- niteness to social principles. The operation of per- sonal peculiarities would be repressed, as the great bulk of the inhabitants of any given society may be depended on to conform generally to legal enact- ments, even to the abandonment of undesirable traits. Association, being accompanied by the right to freedom, would also require the recognition of the inviolability of property. The articles so considered in early times might be of no great consequence — such as articles of adornment, and weapons; but when men began to be tillers of the soil as well as keepers of flocks and herds, property rights would come to be of greater importance. When a community had set- tled on a certain tract, if the right to continue in oc- cupancy had been in any way arbitrary, so far as the SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 281 society in possession of the district was concerned cultivation would have been impossible, because what one sowed another might have reaped. Fixity of tenure may be assumed, therefore, as characterizing this state, with certain duties to the head of it, in return for protection. The right also to labor in whatever manner might be congenial would be per- mitted. Necessarily there would be joined to the right protection in the enjoyment of the fruits thereof. This enjoyment might consist in an inmae- diate consumption of the products or in their preser- vation, or in their transfer to others ; but in no matter what form the individual elected to use them, his right, so long as not inimical to the general interests, would have to be held inviolate. Progress would be exactly proportioned to the sacredness with which property and personal rights were observed. From these principles of what must admitted to be simple justice, has flowed all progress. Had man- kind in general not concurred in maintaining them, our bridges would not have been built, our canals would not have been excavated, our railways would not have been constructed, our steamboats would not have been built, our manufactories would not have been established, nor would our colleges have been endowed. On the other hand, their continuance gives such a precedence to those in whom the desire of ac- cumulation is e:ffectively developed as to give them the control of the essentials of existence and estab- lish that form of poverty which peculiarly distin- guishes civilization, and which makes life itself, to a large majority of mankind, depend upon the consent of a few. 282 SOCIOLOGY That this characteristic of civilization is an inevitable consequence of the first and most in- dispensable condition of its permanency, a very slight review of the circumstances will demonstrate. The differentiation of employments which would oc- cur immediately after primal association would fol- low from an intuitive perception of the fact that the exertion of an individual, when confined to a special work, would be more productive than if a turn was taken at all the occupations necessary to a social existence. As human wants are not in one direction, this could be taken advantage of only by a mutual agreement to exchange the products in proportion to their values. Their values would necessarily at first be measured by the time required to produce them; for as all the various labors engaged in would be equally essential to the existence of the community, each would have to be paid in the quantity of goods desired that could be produced in an equal time with those offered in exchange, or he would not con- fine himself to a single relatively unremunerative emplojnnent. The work in which each would engage, when all was of equal importance, would depend upon immediate conditions; but it would not be long until tastes and aptitudes would make their appear- ance, and would lead to modifications of the primal equality. Two occupied at the same work would be discovered to produce different quantities in the same time ; so that the most expert would be able to command for a portion of his time as much as the other for his whole time. And thus he could either enjoy much leisure or acquire a surplus of goods for SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 283 future necessities. The introduction of a system of exchange other than the barter of the actual products of labor would encourage laborers to occupy their time in the accumulation of reserves, rather than in the enjoying of the leisure to which their superiority entitled them; and these reserves, as civilization be- came more complex, would assume ever-increasing importance. But they would not alter the fact that in social life the natural tendency is for all labor to exchange on the basis of the production of the least effective worker at each employment; and every de- gree of superiority above this minimum receives its proportional return. Not only does the exchange value of all employ- ments tend to the minimum of the least production, but it also tends to equality in each. The mere state- ment of the first fact assumes its acceptance ; but the second is not so self-evident, and will require some illustration. There does not, at first sight, appear much equality or tendency to equality between the fee of a specialist in any profession and the wages of an unskilled laborer. But this is owing to the factors of the problem being obscured by the complex condi- tions of modern life ; so that an analysis of the causes of one man's labors exchanged for the products of the labor of a number becomes indispensable. In the first place, then, we shall find that the labor commanding the least value is that which can be most readily engaged in. Thus the unskilled laborer requires no expensive training to qualify him for his task. He is self-supporting from a very early age, and his relative success in comparison with those in his own sphere is assured; for as there are no 284 SOCIOLOGY heights to which he is likely to attain, so there are few depths to which he can descend. Now, if there are two unskilled employments rated at different values, we shall find that the more highly rated is disagreeable or dangerous, and that the increased premium just balances its undesirability. Were it otherwise, more would compete for employment in it, and they would so reduce the wages to the normal standard. The skilled artisan is rated on a higher basis because his labor requires a lengthened appren- ticeship and a more skillful treatment ; and did it not hold out the prospect of future compensatory bene- fits, no one would go to the trouble and expense of acquiring the necessary skill or consult to the length- ened dependence on the kindness of others which it entails. In the professional man's case, the probationary period is still greater, the expense of education more, -and the natural qualities, if success is to be secured, must be of a much higher order; for it cannot be de- nied that the number of genuine successes in the higher callings are few in comparison with the en- tries, and that those who are destined for the rank and file are in a much worse position than the trades- man. A fortune has been spent in their education and training; they are expected to maintain a very expensive position, and the returns for their services are not greater than — sometimes not equal to — those of the best in the more cheaply rated employments. The importance of these considerations will be admitted; and when the difficulty experienced in en- tering particular employments is recognized, the spe- cial qualities necessary for exceptional success are SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 285 taken into account, and the inherent agreeableness, unpleasantness, or risk is considered we shall arrive at the conclusion that the varying returns are in real- ity more nearly equal than they are generally ac- counted. No argument will be required to convince one that if the expenses of training for all business were identical, the same qualities necessary in all, and the chances of success equal in all, the reward would be equal; and the cogent corollary is that when the differences indicated are allowed for, the rewards are in all cases practically equal. The third-rate pro- fessional man earns no more than— if as much as — the first-class artisan; and the extra emoluments of those who secure the leading positions in his profes- sion are simply the returns for extra skill and com- pensation for extra expenses, with perhaps a small percentage for the confidence in their own powers, which induced them to enter upon a profession num- bering considerably more failures than successes amongst its members. This, it may be said, does not take sufficient cognizance to the chances to which many apparently owe their success, rather than to any intrinsic merit ; but in an advanced civilization it is impossible to de- prive individuals of the accidental advantages of po- sition and claim resting more on the merits of friends than on their own. The man of no ability, however, no matter what his original opportunities may have been, will not for long remain ahead of the better qualified; and in a country v/here there is a constant blending of classes, the highest positions being alike open to all, and the performance of duty with fidelity and capacity being the sole requisite, he who pos- 286 SOCIOLOGY sesses genuine qualifications will find a market for them. The discernment of the world is generally fairly correct; and progress is not due to a systematic selection of those least adapted for the places of power. The units of any society therefore combine under certain definite and well understood social laws, which restrict natural tendencies that would be inimical to the general welfare of the combination. These restrictions at first confine themselves ex- clusively to the most palpably necessary conditions of the permanency of association, such as individual liberty limited only by recognition of equal liberty in the other members, the inviolability of personal prop- erty; and from an early date the agreement to con- cede a right to continuation of occupancy in land. The units start equal; but being placed in differ- ent situations, they develop in unequal degrees. Some, being careless and improvident, become de- pendent upon the more thrifty members of the com- munity and of necessity sell their birthright for the metaphorical mess of pottage. While as a whole, the aggregate would be animated by a single purpose on questions concerning their rights, in opposition to the rights of other aggregates, there would be ques- tions of internal policy upon which they would take the most diverse views. The community, in short, would be split up into separate parts; and the rights of the part to which the individual belonged, in con- tradistinction to the rights of other parts, would ap- pear to him the most essential consideration. These class distinctions would distort judgment, and the apparent inequity of lots would foster discontent. SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 387 The inexorable laws owing to which they exist being little understood, attempts in their nature ineffectual would be made to minimize the seemingly harsh effects. So long as man remains essentially the creature he is, failure must follow all such efforts; for ma- terial affairs move in such a cycle that the reduction of pressm^e in one direction but increases it in an- other, and nothing really beneficial can be secured by attempting a revolution in the moral nature of man. For with his present distinctive traits no essentially different form of aggregation is possible. It is, in- deed, only in the moral improvement of men that we can look for regeneration; and if a time should dawn when all should realize that they are their brothers' keepers, the effect on life would be incalculable. No longer would men pursue their own careers in entire oblivion of the consequences upon others, but a new spirit, grander than anything conceived of by the loftiest chivalry, would prevail; the most austere fea- tures of life would be softened, and the time would probably not be far distant when ** earth would reach its earthly best." We are told that London is no poorer today, be- cause of the great fire of 1666, nor Chicago because of that of 1871 — ^both of which statements are probably accurate. The effects of these disasters were imme- diate, and they were repaired by the immediate hard- ships, privations, and suffering of the people living in those years. During the replacing of the material wealth which had been destroyed, there were less goods available for consumption; and consequently, there was for a year or two a lowered standard of 288 SOCIOLOGY comfort and convenience; but this, of coiu-se, natu- rally and quickly disappeared. It is interesting to note, however, that these catastrophes which de- stroyed for a time the material inequality of men, did not do this permanently; and that out of them, men of enterprise and capacity made fortune rapidly, and these men soon left the less capable far behind. The poverty, sin, and misery which prevail are sufficiently intense to arouse in the hearts of all sin- cere persons a desire to alleviate them; but this can never be done by a carping criticism of existing in- stitutions. Let us look at the real facts of the case, and, discarding sentimental considerations, endeavor to see in what direction the regeneration of mankind may be looked for. This will be a much more useful employment of our time than drawing doleful comparisons of the ex- tremes to which civilized society gravitates, and as- serting an equality of rights and powers which exists only in the imagination. We shall then realize that, considering the origin of our race, the basis upon which just social institutions are possible to be erected, and the gradual and natural evolution of ex- isting conditions, it is only to the superficial that inequality will be apparent. Mankind has evolved very slowly, and has ex- tended over the whole cultivatable portion of the globe. In its course of development, new difficulties have had constantly to be overcome, and new dangers faced; and with each additional experience a modify- ing conception of life and duty has been introduced. It is to the extension of the finer conception of human destiny that we must ever look for any permanent SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 289 improvement in the lot of humanity in general; but its rapid extension is impeded by the increasing dens- ity of population, which more than keeps pace with the food supply in the old countries, and so compels that strenuous competition for the means of exist- ence which is incompatible with the practical accept- ance of the highest teaching. The salvation of the man, therefore, appears to consist in the restricting of population, which can be accomplished in several ways, but must be done in some way; and every year, as it rolls along, brings the question more within the practical limit. Intense competition, with the relentless crushing of those least equipped for the struggle, will check the numbers, while it contributes to progress; but the same end may be attained in a more desirable manner by elevating the standard of comfort amongst mankind, so that a natural barrier to undue increase will be established. The tendency seems to be toward a voluntary ac- ceptance of this method; and an improvement in the general material welfare of mankind will be in exact proportion to its adoption, which is the only panacea for poverty. IV. Equality. Liberty, equality, fraternity, are the shibboleths of popular democracy, and are supposed to express the three essentials of happy and contented exist- ence. Liberty is a relative term, its interpretation depending upon the progress which men have made in the arts of civilization; and where this is con- 290 SOCIOLOGY siderable, the unrestrained freedom of barbarism would not be liberty, but license. In a state of re- finement, true liberty consists quite as much in respecting the rights of others as in asserting our own. A general, undue preponderance of the latter practice would be destructive of society, and would be altogether incompatible with a continued belief in the brotherhood of man, which is a conception of advanced ethical attainments popularized by the democratic orator. That all three, when viewed from a given stand- point, express incontrovertible truths, must be ad- mitted; but when the standpoint required to be assumed is inconsistent with the present position of man or is inaccurate in regard to many im- portant aspects of his life, their practical value is sensibly diminished. All are entitled to the fullest liberty that the well-being of the other units of society will permit; and if all had attained the moral elevation necessary for the acceptance, in its entirety of the doctrine of fraternity, with all its correspond- ing duties and responsibilities, it might, conceivably, be advantageous; but more probably it would be destructive of all enterprise. However, we need not investigate what the conse- quence would be, because its adoption would mean such a revolution of human nature as we are not justified in anticipating on this side of the bourn. Religion and science are at one in asserting that all men are of one flesh and blood; but so, too, in the opinion of the most profound scientists, is the rest of the animal creation. But it does not therefore SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 291 follow that they are all equal. Shylock, in declaring the equality of Jews and Christians asks, "Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affec- tions, passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapon, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer ? ' ' If these constitute equality, then not only all humanity but the higher types of the animal crea- tion as well, are equal, both in these and in their ultimate relations to the physical laws of the uni- verse. It would, however, be a far too hasty general- ization to assume that because in these very important essentials they are equal, they must or can be equal throughout; in fact such an assumption carries with it its own refutation. We know that whatever may have been the capacity for equality "in the beginning,'' no two human beings ever have been, nor in the decrees of nature ever can be, circumstanced exactly alike; so that infinite variety is insured, not only in physical but also in mental and moral capabilities of men; and each is, of necessity, a distinct personality. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the fact, which is as true in regard to the peer as to peasant, that the positions which we to-day occupy in the world have been determined by the forces to which we owe our being, and the limitations by which we have been surrounded; and we have had just as much control over these as a puppet has over the showman. None of us has had the opportunity for exercising any selection as to either the country in which we should be born or the position which we should occupy in 392 SOCIOLOGY life. Had we been consulted in the matter, and had there been, by some superhuman means, a knowledge of the different conditions conveyed to us, it is not likely that our careers would have been the same; but so long as effect follows cause, so long must we be content with our lot, however arbitrary and unjust it may, at first sight, appear It must be admitted that it does at first appear both arbitrary and unjust that a large portion of humanity should be doomed, through no fault of their own, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, while a small percentage, without exertion or, ap- parently, any moral, mental, or physical superiority, should be Fortune ^s favorites, and should possess all the luxuries and conveniences which that fickle dame can confer. No wonder if this aspect of the case, when fixed upon by those modern dreamers of dreams and seers of visions, to the exclusion of the other factors in the problem of life, gives them an exaggerated and distorted view of the lots of human- ity, and leads them to emulate the wisdom of the grumbling clown who conceived that there was some- thing wrong which he could set right. A partial view of human life does not enable us to see any harmony or equity therein, but seems to induce the belief that mortal man is more just than God, or else such suffering as everywhere abounds would never be permitted to continue in the universe. The actions of many modern reformers seem to imply a conviction that if they had been taken behind the scenes and consulted about the creation, they could have given some hints which would have in- sured a juster and nobler social order; for there is SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 293 scarcely any existing institution with which they do not find fault; and as all institutions are the necessary evolutions of the laws which were or- dained to govern the world, it follows that the im- perfections now discovered are directly due to primary arrangements, being wrong. We should never know half the reasons there are for discontent, had we not a few demagogues to make them a special study; and as each is able to suggest some improve- ment on the original design, it is evident that from their point of view, at any rate, it was far from perfect. One remedy for the existing inequity is to level all ranks, and to communize all property; for Jack, being as good as his master, must become his equal in station and in fortune. The distinction between mine and thine, which from the dawn of civilization down to the present have been as a principle held inviolate, is to be ruthlessly swept away; and the nineteenth century is to see the revival of the good old rule — the simple plan — "That they shall take who have the power. And they shall keep who can." By this means, all traces of poverty, with its con- comitant misery, will be removed from the world; and as by the stroke of some mighty magician's wand, all external inequalities will be abolished. Were it possible to give effect to these day- dreams, and to establish this much-lauded Utopia, the succeeding few months would exceed in crimin- ality, suffering, and vice all the previous records of humanity. A power would be placed in the hands of 294 SOCIOLOGY those unaccustomed to its use; the greatest abuses would prevail; and earth, so far from becoming the promised Paradise, would be a Pandemonium. The equality which would result from establish- ing a sameness in externals would of necessity be of short duration. The natural powers of men would reassert themselves; and as progression and development go on unceasingly, men would quickly find their levels again; and in a couple of years or two, the fittest would be carried to the surface, and would become supreme. If we lived in India, or some other Oriental country, where the accident of birth fixed for all time our position and vocation in Ufe, — where the rigid distinctions of caste divide the various classes from each other, and preclude the possibility of advancement in life, no matter what the ability, we could see a substantial reason for discontent, and could understand and sympathize with an agitation for the removal of ^'birth's invid- ious bar." Living, however, as we do, in a country where the most absolute freedom consistent with the rights of others is our birthright, where every call- ing and employment, so far as our laws and customs are concerned, is open to all citizens, and the only qualification really essential to success is ability, dis- content with our social system is inexplicable, and really means the jealousy which small minds ex- perience at the success of the more deserving. Under existing conditions, the highest offices in the country are open to the most humbly born; and that they are not more frequently occupied by such, is due not to any social barrier, but to their relative capacity. SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 395 It is idle to grumble because another is born under conditions more favorable to rapid advance- ment. The State cannot regulate such a matter, nor can its legislation affect many of the other factors of life which are the most fruitful sources of com- plaint. Pope has said, "Men would be angels, angels would be gods;" and certainly the philanthropy which some modern reformers teach seems based upon angelic principles, and can be realized only when the people are, as a whole, translated into an angelic sphere. It may be fairly asked. What real reason for dis- content exists at the present time? At no previous period in the world's history have the conveniences and comforts of life been so great and so generally diffused. There is nothing to prevent the lowliest from scaling the highest pinnacles of knowledge, and so acquiring the most extensive power. They may, by the jewels which the exploring mind brings from the caves of knowledge, buy their ransoms from the twin jailers of the daring heart — **low birth, and iron fortune." And yet all these advantages and all these possibilities, are not merely in theory such, but in practical evidence, and can be pointed to on every hand. Men of the present age are not more happy nor more contented than those who have preceded them. It is here, indeed, that we find in all ages, in all classes, and in all conditions of men, a true and in- disputable equality — the equality of discontent and dissatisfaction; for such are the feelings with which life seems to have inspired mankind generally. The 296 SOCIOLOGY king on his throne, the prince in his palace, the philosopher in his study, the manufacturer, the mer- chant, the farmer, and the artisan, without excep- tion, has each his particular grievance. A man per- fectly contented with his position in life would be as great a rarity as the mastodon; and the strange thing is that it is those whose positions seem the most enviable that are the greatest grumblers. Happi- ness, ''our being's end and aim," is a sort of mirage, which, while luring us on successfully, avoids our possession; so that to all, the raptiu'e of pursuing is the only prize that is gained. ''All is vanity and vexation of spirit," said the Wise Man of the East; and the experiences of mankind generally seem con- firmatory of this dictum. The literature of the world is replete with the pessimistic utterances of its great men, who found that the prize which they gained, and which at a distance looked so enchanting, was but Dead Sea fruit. Lord Byron, in the language of Macbeth, compared his life to a "sere and yellow leaf" when he was at the height of his fame. Lord Beaconsfield, whose phenomenal success in life has been a beacon to the ambitious, declared that "Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, and old age a regret"; and of the rest of the men of genius or of power, similar evidence of discontent might invariably be given. There is something pitiable in such sentiments; and the man who can go through life and find that its only lesson is that "Man is made to mourn" is de- serving of our sympathy, and might well envy the philosophy of Cowper's jackdaw. The prevalence of such sentiments is directly at- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 297 tributable to men's disposition to make comparisons. These are always, as Mrs. Grundy wisely remarked, "odious" things, and are by no means comforting. Jack compares himself with his master, or with some other Jack's master, with results perfectly satisfac- tory to himself, but all together irreconcilable with the positions in which, by the verdict of the world, he finds himself placed. The bantam cock that thought the sun got up to hear him crow was modest when compared with the estimate of their own importance which the ma- jority of men form. Men's actual ability and worth are usually so very different from their exaggerated conceptions of them that we might all well exclaim, in the language of Scotland's bard, "O wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us." Undoubtedly others can form a more correct opinion of our merits and demerits than we ourselves can; and as it is impossible to assume that there is a conspiracy organized to repress and underrate any particular individual, we shall be tolerably safe in accepting the verdict of the world as a just and a true one, unbiased or uninfluenced by any personal considerations. Each individual may therefore rest assured that in this world he will receive full value for any marketable qualifications which he may pos- sess; but he must not be disappointed if he does not manage to get them accepted at his own valuation. This, being so unreliable, owing to the activity of the "personal equation," is set down in favor of the juster estimate of his fellow men, which usually dif- 298 SOCIOLOGY f ers so widely from his own tliat he is amazed at their obtuseness and discredits and disbelieves the ac- curacy of their judgment. As, however, he has no power of insisting on his own appraisement's being admitted, and as he has no means of compelling con- formity to his opinion on that particular subject, the natural result is discontent and unhappiness, and a settled conviction in too many cases that it is nothing but the dullness of others that prevents him occupy- ing a better position — unless, indeed, when he favors the other absurd conclusion that it is dread of his rivalry that induces his superiors to discountenance his advancement. In my opinion, there is no really clever or capable man who does not ultimately find his proper position in the world, while there is no power that can for long succeed in keeping a dullard from sinking to his level; and while this to many may be a disagreeable doctrine, it would be much better to adopt it grace- fully than to go whining through life on the suppo- sition that others, less deserving, are more lucky than oiu'selves, and so to live miserable in the constant contemplation of how happy we might have been had the world not been so slow to recognize our worth. Had even om* fondest expectations become reali- ties, is it not only possible, but highly probable, that our real comfort and happiness would have been no greater. We do not depend upon external conditions for the possession of these. Our mind is our empire; and with contented thoughts we may have that re- pose which is unknown to the head that wears a crown. And it is here that we may and do have an equality which is indisputable. SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 299 Just as the various substances in nature have various capacities for heat, so the various human beings have various capacities for enjoyment, due to the difference in their receptive powers ; and it is conceivable that a standard could be formed for de- termining the conditions most favorable to the hap- piness of each. This, however, would require an exactitude in knowledge of antecedents and of en- vironments which would be difficult of attainment; but if undertaken by a disinterested tribunal with power to conmaand the necessary data, it is highly probable that the finding in the vast majority of cases would be that they are in the position most conducive to their happiness. In our differences, therefore, we discover a truer equality than any that could be induced by an anni- hilation of all varieties. The standard of each is determined by his surroundings, and the law of evo- lution insures man's adapting himself to every change of circumstances; so that all external inequal- ities are compensated for. This enables us to under- stand something of the Divine equity, and to realize that the true philosophy of life is to disregard the extreme dissimilarity of conditions which is insep- arable from social existence, and to recognize that we may live happy and useful lives where we are; and believing in that *' Divinity which shapes our ends," we may feel convinced that if our occupation of another and higher position would be conducive to any good purpose, we shall find ourselves gradu- ally drifted to it, without any anxious efforts on our part. Above all, we must bear in mind that the most 300 SOCIOLOGY successful life is not necessarily the life that is one of constant advancement in wealth and power, but that, on the contrary, the life really worth living is more commonly that of htm who can with sincerity adopt the language of the old poet who wrote : '*My conscience is my crown; Contented thoughts my rest. My heart is happy in itself; My bliss is in my breast." V. Dreamlands. The human race has never been left without its prophets, priests, and kings. To every age, and in every clime, there has come the voice as of one crying in the wilderness, *' Prepare ye the way, make straight the path for the perfect State which we foresee." Long before the Christian era, discontent with social arrangements prevailed; their inperfec- tions and inequities were discussed and the condi- tions of an ideal and perfectly happy state were out- lined. The '^Eepublic" of Plato equals, and prob- ably transcends, the most elevated thought of mod- ern times on world reform; and indeed, it is possible that all our most valuable ideas on the subject have had their source in the old pagan philosopher. No doubt the standard which the idealistic have persistently kept before the world has contributed somewhat to the continued progress of mankind and the continued amelioration of the lot of humanity in general; but it must not be forgotten, nor the fact underrated, changing environments, — changing the SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 301 necessities of existence, — would be inconsistent with the permanency of conditions ; and the amount of im- provement would be determined by the actual re- quirements of the circumstances, rather than by the teachings of the schoolmen. , The lofty conceptions of the virtuous few might season mankind, but it would be the actual wants of practical life which would give tone to the age ; and nothing that is widely different from the thought of the people at large is likely to influence the immedi- ate remodeling of society. The dreamlands of world improvers are always occupied by "enlightened and carefree men," and so have no parallel in actual life. We can only imagine the conditions, and theorize on how they might be attained; and consequently it is not wonderful that the visions of the various dream- ers should be widely different. Some have seen as in a glass darkly a State in which all things have been held in common, and where to require was but to stretch forth the hand and possess. The practical difficulties in the way of the adoption of such a scheme seem insurmountable, and in the highest degree undesirable. Painted by an enthusiast, nothing but universal happiness and content are shown. The former capitalist relieved of the care to which his wealth gave rise; and the worker forever exempt from the anxiety as to what he shall eat on the morrow, or wherewithal be clothed, knowing that State attendeth to these things, — are both left free to put forth their best efforts for the general weal. Is it, however, consonant with our experience that in the absence of all incentives to labor, men in 302 SOCIOLOGY general attain their highest rate of efficiency? Is it not, on the contrary, the almost universal conse- quence of having no necessity to work that indolence is generated, and discreditable habits are acquired? The socialistic scheme is envolved naturally from this communistic one, and is in many respects its superior. It recognizes with a fair degree of accu- racy the main factors of the problem, admits the in- equality of man, and does not advocate equality of rewards or community of goods, but, on the contrary, desires desert to be the deciding factor in the appor- tionment of recompense. It is thus a much less objectionable scheme, and has succeeded in enlisting under its banner many of the purest and best of mankind, who, with all the fidelity of ancient crusaders, have girded on their armor and pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their honor to the destruction of the gross wrongs which, as they have convinced themselves, prevail. The fundamental error in both cases is identical, and consists of the belief that government can at- tend to the interests of individuals better than the individuals themselves can; and so far does this fal- lacy permeate the opinions of those desirous of re- form, that it is almost assumed, though not stated in so many words, that a governmental enactment could create the wealth necessary for aU to live in affluence. How different the actual facts are, it is scarcely nec- essary to stop to indicate; but there can be nothing more apparent to anyone who will for a moment re- flect on the subject, than that government can spend only the money which it collects out of the pockets of the people, minus the salaries of an immense staff SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 303 of officials, who are usually irresponsible, and fre- quently inefficient and wasteful. Any money to be raised for a given purpose must come from the people ; and its collection is likely to press most hard upon those least able to bear it. There is in this direction no creative power pos- sible to be vested in the government; and the expe- rience most common is not that governments are guided by any superior wisdom in their action. The ordinary — and sometimes more than ordinary — amount of human fallibility is evinced by them; and there is, as a rule, not any very striking approxima- tion to what is called divine justice and equity in their general practices. Economy in management is not, with them, usually conspicuous except by its ab- sence. This being the case, it is difficult to see what advantage could be secured by State intervention in the managing of personal affairs. But we shall deal with this point more fully when we come to discuss the provisions of Bellamy's dreamland, "Looking Backward." The pertinent question at present is. What bene- fits could be derived from the adoption of the so- cialist's scheme? Are we not, under existing condi- tions, rewarded in general according to our deserts'? True, it may not always be in accordance with our own opinions of our merits ; but may that not be quite as much due to our overestimating as to others' un- derestimating them? Having given services to the community, valued by it in proportion to the services of others at a rate which enables us to acquire a sur- plus, how could it possibly conform even to the crudest conceptions of justice to have that surplus 304 SOCIOLOGY trameled by governmental restrictions, in our method of expending, of hoarding, or of transferring*? Would such enactment be conducive to the obtaining of that superior service which insert contributes to material progress ? Let us face the facts, and admit that restraints so unnatural would sap industry, de- stroy the inventive faculty, and restrict scientific in- vestigation; for the numbers who pursue any work, manual or mental, solely for the love of it, are in- finitesimal compared with those who are animated by the desire to attain to the reward which awaits pre-eminence. A cooperative commonwealth, in the modern acceptation of the term, is now very generally advocated, and is looked upon as the most feasible solution of the problem of practical life. Cooperation is, of course, co-existent with asso- ciation. It is the cohesion which binds society to- gether; and consent to it, tacit or otherwise, is a con- dition indispensable to the continuance of social life. In its original meaning, men co-operated for the fur- thering of the interests of their own communities; but their individual interests were always their pri- mary object. Their individual interests, however, never are or can be inimical to the general interests, so long as not actively opposed to the rights of the other members of community. It is now sought to extend the meaning of the term; to make it include the recognition of an iden- tity in individual interests, and to admit nothing but the general well-being as a sufficient justification for action. The State is to produce aid to distribute all goods under a central power controlled by the people themselves, instead of by individual capitalists, as SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 305 at present. The advantages to be gained are repre- sented as being enormous; but if allowance is made for the interest necessary for the use of the funds, and if the expenses of management are provided for, the difference to the people at large would be inconsiderable. The scheme is by no means an untried one, for many years have elapsed since practical form was given to it by the Scottish reformer, Robert Dale Owen; and since his time it has been in operation in several districts, — ^but it does not seem to be gaining ground. The inherent defects of the system are easily real- ized. For each person to have an interest in the busi- ness, so far from reducing the friction, increases it. Envy grows stronger; and none can see either the necessity or justice of his occupying a place of drudg- ery or of ordinary work. After the disbanding of the American army, the country was filled with its former Generals, Colonels, Majors, Captains and Lieutenants; but there was none who liked to admit that he had served in the ranks. The same feeling of self-glorification would make the men of cooperation workshop *^all mas- ters, and no men." Wages could not be increased; since, if they should be made economically higher, their purchasing power would be no greater — indeed, it might be less, owing to an increased cost of pro- duction, involving a larger capital, on which interest would be no greater. The recognized management of such a concern would have before it a task such that the most con- simamate tact could scarcely discharge satisfactorily. 306 SOCIOLOGY ^'No man can serve two masters;" but under these conditions an effort would have to be made to serve two or three dozen masters, and the result would hardly be conducive to even temper or high moral conduct. In productive employments, the plan has always been found destitute of advantage to work- men, but very favorable to co-operators. Such men as Mr. Holyoake attribute this more to the seem- ingly benevolent capitalist's hampering the boons with such conditions as destroy its efficacy, when, indeed, they can be accepted at all with credit. In the case of distribution of products, there do not seem to be necessarily the same inherent defects ; but it is a matter of notoriety that private enterprise can successfully compete with any co-operative store. The latter is rarely managed with the strict care and economy which characterizes the former. It is also frequently subject to the peculation of un- faithful servants, or to their bribery by interested competitors. The shareholders are usually too little conversant in business as to be able to control ef- fectively the official in charge; and if he is a first- class and faithful man, he may be so harrassed with their interference as to retire in disgust. The consequence is, that permanent success rarely attends such ventures; and at the best, the possible advantage to shareholders is the proportion of the profits made by the store, which is never so great as to counterbalance the risk and trouble incurred. The same money, placed in almost any other bona fide business, would yield an equal return, with greater immunity from risk, and with an entire absence of SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 307 the trouble, worry, and uncertainty which are the inseparable concomitants of the scheme. Probably no more effective attempt at depicting actual life in its real state has ever been made than that of Bellamy, in *' Looking Backward." He therein conceives the conditions which would exist did the dreams of the purest and most disinterested of mankind become realities, and demonstrate to the satisfaction of Julian West how the national plan would eliminate entirely the unamiable traits of life in the nineteenth century. For the purpose of con- sidering the details of the scheme he formulates it is almost unnecessary to mark on the brief siesta which Julian West enjoyed, compared with the amaz- ing transformation scene which took place. Cer- tainly it is one of the most remarkable of scenic conceptions. If his dreamland is a possible reality, it is immaterial whether, for illustrating the details of its working, he assumes one or ten centuries to elapse. We may, however, in passing, be pardoned for expressing surprise that, considering the brief period that is supposed to have passed, the records of the nineteenth century and the manners and cus- toms of the people are so little preserved that the elucidation of them is elevated to something like an antiquarian research. No doubt this is considered the padding necessary for the easy running of the story, and necessary also to form a sort of peg on which to hang those sapient criticisms on our system which were so freely indulged in by the benevolent Dr. Leete. This wealthy, learned clown, when he visited Lady Friendly, was delighted to find in Sir 308 SOCIOLOGY Thomas so well-read a gentleman that their opinions on classical subjects were identical; but the value of Sir Thomas's confirmation of his views was consid- erably depreciated by that unfortunate edition of Xenophon in the library, which proved to be only a board with leather and gilding, made to represent the works of that classic author. In the same way we are led to submit that Dr. Leete's triumph in argument over Mr. West is due not so much to either the soundness or unassailabiUty of his theories as to the latter 's entire ignorance of the whole questions brought up for discussion at the dinner table. The safety vault, with its securities and gold, are the mountings of the piece, and lend reality to the assumption that if the new order of things were established the present capitalists would be its most ardent converts, although they appear to be the ones that would be most injuriously affected. We say most injuriously affected; but all would suffer by the change which would destroy man's noblest attribute — self-reliance — and would seem that all should be drilled into mere automatons, to dance to whatever tune the State might elect to play. The industrial arena into which all ranks are pressed, regardless of their tastes, is a bold concep- tion; and we can only regret that, after having its formation so elaborately described, we are not treated to a glimpse of its practical working. This is a most significant omission, which leads us to the conclusion that its actual operation defied even the genius of Bellamy to paint. The only operator, indeed, to whom we are intro- duced is that exemplary waiter who conducted him- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 309 self in so dignified a manner at the Doctor's dining table; and that leads to the remark that attending to the wants of the inner man seemed the main work of that ideal State. One cannot but sympathize with the worthy Doc- tor in his eulogy on the perfection to which they had brought the culinary art; but at the same time he showed a wise discretion in not introducing his guests to the kitchen where the feast was prepared, since, considering the magnitude of the task, a perfect Bed- lam of confusion must have prevailed. Even in an ordinary restaurant the preparation of dinner for a few dozen is not accomplished with- out taxing the temper and patience of the attendants ; but what would it be in so gigantic an establishment as is presented by Bellamy, in which the whole dis- trict dines, not table-d'hote, but each according to his own taste and in his own private apartment. Imagination fails us in trying to conceive the feat; and while we may admire its comprehensiveness, we deny the possibility of its accomplishment. Each member of the State, in Bellamy's scheme, is possessed of exactly the same income — man, woman, and child — no matter what contribution to the general well-being of the State may be made ; and a wholly novel standard by which to judge their worth is erected. No longer are we to estimate the value of conduct by its effect on the community at large. Henceforth the only claim to merit is the in- tention or inclination of the performer. A man may undertake a task for which he is altogether incom- petent; but if he conscientiously endeavors to per- form it he is more deserving of credit than he who, 310 SOCIOLOGY with an aptitude for it, gives greater results, but does not exercise himself so faithfully. No autocrat ever exercised the arbitrary power which is vested in this ideal State, with its neces- sarily hydra-headed management. The child is re- moved from the parents' control and rendered inde- pendent on them from the earliest time. Its educa- tion is conducted by the State, and its labor is sub- ject to State control. For twenty-one years school is attended rigorously, and a learned education is ac- quired; but on the arrival of the faithful time each is enrolled in the industrial army. No question as to what task he is most competent to perform is asked, but for three years he is compelled to follow those menial and unskilled employments to which his at- tainments surely would not qualify him. We are, of course, assured that the word menial has no longer any significance, owing to the conception of perfect equality, and to the fact that the most ordinary tasks are as requisite as the more refined. Would such a training qualify men better for the tasks of life than our present system? We know practically that the best way in which to disqualify men from the following of manual or mechanical em- ployments is to defer starting them in these until they have reached something like mature years. The habits are then formed, and it is impossible that any- one who has attended a collegiate course till that time would gracefully become a waiter or a road sweeper. It would be the most refined cruelty to in- sist upon his being one, in view of the manner in which they had been educated. After the expiration of the three years, the indi- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 311 viduals in Bellamy's scheme are permitted to select some skilled trade, to which they become appren- ticed at the age of twenty-four. This special trade is no better paid than any other, no matter what skill or talent its pursuit involves, and naturally we should imagine that the most agreeable and easily acquired trades would receive a surplus of volun- teers. This would be the inevitable consequence if the theoretical perfect equality of reward were main- tained. A variety therefore is of necessity intro- duced; and owing to the impossibility of having the remuneration take a monetary form the expedient is made of equalizing advantages by extending or reducing the hours of labor and of minimizing thus the attractiveness of the one avocation and increas- ing that of the other, which is naturally less agree- able. This is but a clumsy substitute for our own practice, which offers its rewards in strict accord- ance with the value of the services to the commun- ity. The business of the administration, however, is to see t>"at there is always an ample supply of volun- teers for each employment; and, consequently, a close watch is kept on the rate of volunteering to each, and constant modifications of the conditions appertaining to each takes place, so as to preserve an equality among them. These modifications would seem to us unjust to those who are already following a given trade. They have been induced to join it by its apparently greater attractiveness; and when their choice is made, and no retreat is possible, the conditions of employment are so changed as to deprive them of the advantages 312 SOCIOLOGY which they have reckoned on receiving. An entire absence of permanency in arrangement is foreign to our conception of a possibly happy and contented State, and there would certainly be greater discon- tent arising from continued compulsory alterations than exists under our own regime, in which the rewards of labor are left to adjust themselves natur- ally, and depend upon society's own estimate of the worth of the services. A still more remarkable thing is that in so ideally perfect a State such provisions are found necessary. This does not confirm Dr. Leete's somewhat inflated boast that the organization of society no longer ''of-j fers a premium to baseness." Human nature had evidently not changed, and the greatest care had to be exercised in order to prevent the possibility of ad- vantages being taken by one over another. Where could the Board be found in such a State who would use their power impartially? And how would they estimate the value of their own service as to time? The doctor informs Mr. West that if any occupa- tion was so arduous and oppressive that, in order to induce volunteers, the day's work in it had to be reduced to ten minutes, it would be done. None but a dreamer could conceive of occupations being carried on under such circumstances. So great a relay of workers would be requisite, and there are few works in which another can take up the task where left by his predecessor and carry it on towards completion. Certainly if each were to devote only ten min- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 313 utes per day to it, we should be far from expecting accurate work. The immense industrial establishments which we are asked to conceive as existing, each equaling one hundred or more of our present private concerns, does not seem at all feasible. We know that the greatest drawback of our moderately large estab- lishments is the distance which men have to traverse before entering upon their work; but under the sup- posed conditions those distances would be so greatly increased that it would be scarcely practicable to have the men conveyed to and from their work. The women in Bellamy's scheme are entirely relieved from the burdens of housework, and are made to con- tribute in other and more effective as well as more agreeable ways to the common weal; but with a con- venient disregard for details we are not informed how the former can be altogether dispensed with, nor how the latter can be accomplished. There is a general statement that the washing is done at public laundries, the cooking at public kitchens, and the making and repairing of wearing apparel in public shops. But surely the various op- erations are not performed without workers ; and so far from such an arrangement's reducing the amount of work to be accomplished it would increase this. A whole army of carriers would be necessary to carry the required articles to and from various establish- ments, and an immense number of clerks to record the particulars of the goods, etc., belonging to or re- quired by the householders. The success of the gen- eral cooking at public kitchens would be impaired or destroyed during the conveyance to the houses, and 314 SOCIOLOGY possible collisions might be expected in the bustle attending the operations which would take place, presumably, for all families at the same hour. According to the ideas prevailing among the in- habitants of this wonderful dreamland, none of our present methods of conducting the work of the world is right in fact. When not morally wrong it is stupid- ly inefficient. The very motives by which mankind are now influenced are assumed to be base, and most elaborate precautions are taken to nullify the possi- bility of anyone's obtaining an advantage over his neighbors. Labor is not compulsory; it is inevitable, says Dr. Lette; and to refuse to work is to be shut off from humane society. The only extra reward which can be obtained for it is the esteem of your fellows; and the measurement of worth is not results, but in- tentions — a much less reliable standard. It is also a ladies' paradise that is offered; for, being altogether independent of men, women are per- mitted absolutely equal rights, even to proposing marriage. There is no moral objection to this; but it might prove embarrassing, and it is so foreign to our ideas of etiquette that we are appalled at the prospect which it would hold out to us. It is unnecessary to follow the worthy doctor through all his comparisons of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Suffice it to say that, viewed from his standpoint, the scheme which he eulogizes has much of what is admirable in its construction. It does not, however, alter the inherently unequal conditions of men, and their distinctively different SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 315 rewards. In fact, the common error of all social re- forms is very pronounced, and that is the belief that it is in external circumstances alone that happiness is possible. Nothing, in reality, has less to do with the matter; and the woman may occasionally — fre- quently, perhaps — enjoy the comfort and content- ment which are denied to him who wears a crown. The economic theories advanced by Bellamy's book are not likely to become popular. It is a gen- erally accepted axiom that nothing really goes to waste; but we are here informed that in our indus- trial system there are four great wastes resulting from leaving the conduct of industry to irresponsible individuals. To the ordinary mind there does not seem any consistency in this assumption, since in the other portion of the book we are informed it was the weight of responsibility consequent upon the management of capital and labor that made existence in the preceding age not worth having. If men did not feel responsibility when the immediate effects concern themselves and their families it would scarcely be very active in a State where no undesir- able consequence could result from mismanagement, so long as the bulk of the contemporaries were satis- fied that the intention was not blamable. The first waste mentioned is that of mistaken un- dertakings. The assumption is made that the pro- jector of a given enterprise had no general view of the fields of industry and consumption; but this is entirely unfounded. No man enters upon any enter- prise without having a fairly accurate knowledge of the requirements of the community in relation to it; and the fact that failure occasionally attends his ef- 316 SOCIOLOGY forts would not be a waste to commumty. It would transfer his claim to a given quantum of wealth from himself to the community at large. But surely there would not therefore be a waste. In fact, the fortunes of the individuals inside a State may fluctuate very widely in relation to each other at different periods, and the State itself may be in nothing the poorer, so that the consequence of the error does not impover- ish the State but the individual only. The waste of competition is still less consonant with the facts, as anyone who has considered the laws of industry will realize. If all men in the same trade would fraternize as comrades, instead of regarding each other as rivals, there would prevail only monopoly prices for their products. The competition which leads to the reduc- tion of prices is surely more beneficial to the com- munity as a whole than any combination for main- taining prices, which would simply give the manu- facturers combining a greater relative return than was obtained in other trades not federated in the same way. It is a purely romantic conception that the day- dream of the nineteenth century producer is to gain absolute control of the supply of some necessity of life, so that he may keep the public on the verge of starvation. The interest of those providing for the wants of the community might be to keep it on the verge of starvation were it not for that competition which prevails and which insures the conflicting per- sonal interest always to bring the prices — not only of necessaries but of luxuries — to the lowest point at which they can be produced; and any attempt of in- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 317 creasing this minimum rate would rectify itself by inducing further competition in that particular de- partment. For the duty is not intrusted to a par- ticular class but is open to every citizen who thinks that he possesses the necessary qualification. The waste from periodical gluts and crises is non- existent; there is a cessation of production, but this is quite distinct from waste, and it only implies that labor has become so effective that continuous exer- tion is no longer requisite for supplying all human wants. True, there are some who cannot use more than they obtain; but they are not able to give such a re- turn of service to society as to enable it to produce for them. The fourth waste indicated by the good Doctor was that of idle capital and labor. The fact that capital is idle is simply an indication that there is accumulated a greater amount of it than can be usefully employed. The devices which have accompanied civilization have greatly increased natural productiveness, and have so facilitated the growth of population, but there is a limit to this; and it is in consequence of this limit's being reached that capital becomes inop- erative, unless when new fields of enterprise are opened or unless valuable inventions are introduced, which for a time will ease the depression that is inevitably comes to a densely populated country. Capital is therefore not wasted in such cases; it is not consumed, and so it is not necessary to be re- placed; and so it receives, while in this state, no interest. Labor is not wasted; there is a surplus 318 SOCIOLOGY over what is required, and that is practically valueless. It is immaterial whether a certaiQ number go without employment and are supported by those who are working, or whether all are employed for a shorter period, and receive the same amount in the aggregate, but less individually than the present workers. There is no evading the relentless dic- tum that "The poor ye shall have with you alway." A national system of co-operation would com- pletely destroy individual responsibility, by remov- ing all incentive to industry; human character would be dwarfed by the removal of its noblest feature — self-reliance; energy would be sapped, and men would become little better than automatons. An indolent and degenerate race would succeed the present active and enterprising generation. The knowledge that, under 'the new order of things, all were assured of a sufficiency of the good things of Hf e, irrespective of personal effort, would result in a diminution of the desire of discovering improved methods; scientific investigation would languish; and the retrogression of humanity would be inevitable. Besides this, if those for whose especial benefit the scheme is devised had it fairly explained to them, they would join in denunciation of it. Tell those who at present earn a livelihood by casual work — and the number of these in large cities is by no means inconsiderable — that in future they will not be permitted to live this free and easy existence, but must confine themselves to some certain vocation for which by temperament they are very unsuited, and will they unite with you? Tell those who at present SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 319 are supported by the enforced charity of the fairly prosperous, without exertion, that henceforward they must return in work an equivalent for their main- tenance, and will they consider this an improvement of their condition? This indeed is an essential differ- ence between the ** national plan" and the plan now existing. The former does not intend to support any but those that will be compelled to contribute to the welfare of the community; while at present we sup- port vast numbers who do not labor. Economically, the latter is the correct method, since pauper labor would quickly disturb the bal- ance of trade and, so far from elevating any, would reduce all to the level of paupers. The conclusion which must be reached in respect of all those dreamlands which philanthropic econo- mists have depicted, is that they would require so much of minute arrangements, so much would have to be compulsory and so much (if harmony were to prevail, or justice to be maintained) would depend upon voluntary action, that their successful adoption on this side of the millennium cannot be conceived as practicable. VI. Progress and Poverty. Mr. Henry George's book on ''Progress and Pov- erty" was deserving of all the popularity that it at- tained. Written by a warm-hearted and generous man, with all the wealth of diction that unquestion- ing belief in the verity of the new factor of social life which he had discovered could inspire, it is in no way surprising that it possessed many remarkable 320 SOCIOLOGY features. Not the least noteworthy of these was the iinboTinded confidence evinced in the power of his panacea to revolutionize life, and the scornful and unqualified condemnation of nearly all previously ac- cepted canons of political philosophy. The message which he had for humanity, and which, he had absolutely no doubt, was one of peace, was fraught with doctrines decidedly original, enunciated in a decidedly novel manner, and advo- cated with a fervor which often trenches on dog- matism. The language of the book, always ornate in the extreme, is frequently a model of that vigorous expression which originates in the certainty of being in the right, and in the enthusiasm which results from an unhesitating conviction of having solved the problem which had baffled all former inquirers in the same field; in having found for humanity at large the narrow way out of that labjT^inth of pov- erty which had been the fruitful source of the sin and suffering of the race. No man ever saw more clearly, or painted more vividly, the misery in which large masses of men exist. No man ever saw more clearly through the shallowness and inefficiency which char- acterize the remedies which other thinkers on social subjects had propounded with an enthusiasm in their sufficiency not inferior to his own. No man, how- ever, believed more implicitly in his own remedy, or denounced more emphatically the barriers which pre- vented its adoption. He spurned with contempt al- most all the remedies which had before been advo- cated; and he demonstrated, in brief but unmistak- able logic, their fallacies. It is certainly an interest- ing mental study to observe the keenness which is ex- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 331 hibited in demoKsMiig the pet projects of others, and the entirely insensibility to any possible factor which may weaken his own theory, or in practice invalidate it. The fact that practical results seldom conform exactly to theoretical expectations did not suggest any disquieting apprehensions to his mind; and the spectacle of innumerable errors to which, as he proved — to his own satisfaction, at any rate — that even the acutest intellects that have adorned our race had given their sanction of authority, did not make him doubt either the correctness of his premises or the accuracy of his conclusions. The factors of the problem of social life are, ac- cording to him, increasing wealth and increasing and intensifying poverty — and this in despite of the fact that the State, within its boundary, possesses more than enough to satisfy all; men, women, and children starving or forced into crime or dishonor to escape the pangs of hunger, while at the same time the nec- essaries of life are abundant in the community; num- bers huddled together in small, scantily-furnished, unsanitary garrets, while there are in the district, and unused, ample areas for comfortable, healthy dwellings; wealth the most magnificent, poverty the most intense, jostling each other on the highway and in the street; and this, too, without apparently any inherent difference in the physical, mental, or moral capacity of the representatives of the two classes. There is reason for supposing that the existing differences amongst humanity are not inherent, but that they are simply the product of the different en- vironments, for which the individuals themselves are 323 SOCIOLOGY in the main very little responsible. This fact leads naturally to the conclusion that they do not exist by any decree of the Creator, but are the result of the unjust system of appropriation of natural resources which has been concurred in by humanity in general, and the consequent inequitable distribution of the products of labor. There is just enough truth in this representation of the prevailing condition of society to form the basis of a popular creed; and so we are not in any way astonished to find that it quickly out- distanced all other reforms, and won numerous con-- verts. On every hand the truth of the premises ap- peared to be shown, and even the most implacable opponent of the Georgite doctrine must admit that in every great enlightened and progressive city of the world we find not only wealth, luxury and culture, which characterizes civilization, but also the deepest poverty, the lowest degradation, and a distortion and perversion of intelligence which is worse than the crude ignorance of barbarism. The poverty, too, is of a kind unknown in the barbaric state. It is the entire exclusion from the sources from which sustenance can be directly drawn; and it is this that is held to constitute the peculiar hardships of civilization. The fact is, that under the modem system of co-operative production, in which masses of men live in association, human labor obtains a very high rate of efficiency and can, without undue effort, produce more than enough to satisfy in a luxurious manner the wants of all. But this does not confer the advantage which theoretical- ly it should. This is owing to the fact that a certain number of men have acquired a right to the surplus SOCIAL SCIEN-CE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 323 goods, the consumption of which, under the modern conditions of life, is a necessary precedent to repro- duction. These men, relatively few, are therefore in the position of controlling absolutely the production; and — in theory, if not in practice — ^life itself, with the majority, depends upon the caprices of such men. In civilized society it depends not so much on a man's ability or desire to work as on his being able to ob- tain an advance of the essentials of existence from those in whom it vested the ownership of the natural resources of the country, and those who possess its reserve funds. In short, in the language of Burns, *'He has to ask his fellow worm To give him leave to toil." before he can exercise his powers productively. This aspect of the case, when emphasized without regard to the other factors of the problem of social life, has an undoubted appearance of iniquity; and any doctrine which holds forth a reasonable prospect of doing away with the seemingly iniquitous system is assured of popularity. The antidote offered by the Georgite theory is to be found in the omitted factors, which indeed contain the essence of the whole subject. Nature unculti- vated is not sufficiently bountiful to sustain the vol- ume of life at present on the globe, and it is to man's power of realizing and availing himself of favoring circumstance that we are indebted for the obtaining of the necessaries of life for the numbers which are supported on the cultivated area. In the earlier stages of human existence, when 324 SOCIOLOGY natural resources are unappropriated, vast areas are populated by relatively small numbers, who obtain the necessaries of life without difficulty from the spontaneous productions of nature; but as a conse- quence of not cultivating, or assisting nature, or ma- king provision for future contingencies which are constantly experienced, the greatest hardships — and for all the starvation point — are unceasingly within measurable distance. To such an extent is this the case, that under primitive conditions population, which is the certain index of material prosperity, is practically stationary; and the deliberate destruction of the aged and infirm — and in fact of all incapable of preserving themselves — is frequently resorted to by barbaric peoples. That such an expedient should be found necessary imder conditions where the purest theoretical equal- ity undoubtedly prevails, with an entire absence of the appropriation of the material properties, is the most conclusive evidence of the inability of nature to provide, without the assistance of man's labor, for all possible inhabitants. Even with the most rigor- ous system of improved cultivation, her capacity to support life is limited; and it is the proximity of na- ture's limit which in all stages of existence causes the struggle for survival. The expansion of the limit, which is due to human devices, is not indefinite; and no matter what the wealth that may be stored, as soon as population begins to press on the means of subsistence, the natural and intense struggle for sur- vival begins to be specially experienced. That its effects have been postponed, and the volimie of life so greatly increased, is due to man's improvements SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 335 and adaptation of means to ends; and precedent to all these has been permanency of occupation, without which progress and invention would be non-existent. Permanency of possession denies, indeed, to the later comers the right of appealing directly to nature for support; but in an absence of the restriction, their presence at all would be impossible. We are not now concerned with the much-discussed question as to whether existence is such a boon as to be particu- larly grateful for. Suffice it to say that the vast ma- jority of those possessing it appreciate it, much as they may grumble; and few there be who willinglj^ seek to escape from it. Poverty is co-existent with man's being; but in the primitive state, it is the most grinding and intense. There is not only poverty of material goods, but of mental attainments. In cer- tain directions it may be urged that primitive peo- ples possess qualities superior to those of civilized man; and it cannot be denied, so far as adaptability to their particular circumstances is concerned. But what a wealth — not only of material goods, but of accumulated knowledge and experience, of mental compass and adaptability — does the latter inherit. It is this wealth, which is a creation of civilization, that is its most important characteristic ; and it is due entirely to an appreciation of the necessity of utiliz- ing and adopting to his needs the particular circum- stances by which he is surrounded — which is the out- come of association, and which reaches its highest position in the most advanced stages of society. It does not, indeed, eliminate poverty from the world, but it insures all being proportionately better 326 SOCIOLOGY provided for than would be possible under natural conditions. Civilization progresses, and is distinguished, in its course, not by an increase of poverty, but by its proportioned diminution. Every improved method introduced for accomplishing work reaches neces- sarily the arduousness of toil in all classes, and leaves whole classes free to devote their time, their energy, and their intelligence to the investigation and exten- sion of the sum of knowledge. The appearance of reason in the doctrine that poverty is increased only by material progress con- sists in the sharp contrast into which it brings the extremes of society and which to on-lookers makes life to some appear not worth living. It must not be forgotten, however, that the standard of comfort differs in each class ; and it is only by applying that which is applicable to the highest to the condition of those in the lowest rank that we are led to believe that misery and unhappiness are the constant com- panions of most. In reality, the good-natured philanthropist gives himself a world of unnecessary trouble on the sub- ject; and if he were practically acquainted with the inmost thoughts and feelings of those whom he most commiserates, he would probably find their state as little to be deplored as his own. The professional man glories in his successes, and in his prominence among his brother professionals ; the merchant, in the extent and profitable nature of his business; the manufacturer, in the magnitude and superiority of his operations ; the honest workman, in his work and in the satisfaction of duty well done; the pests of so- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 327 ciety, in the successful eluding of justice and in the very impunity and guilt which have characterized their depredations. The different classes, as a rule, have no real sympathy or appreciation of the stand- ard to which the others tacitly subscribe ; and while the denizens of the slum may compare their material circumstances disadvantageously with those of the affluent, they are utterly incapable of understanding the different mental attitudes that counteract the effects of the more favorable surroundings. Just as little can the affluent realize the attitude of the out- casts of society, which enables them to extract a full measure of happiness from what to the former ap- pear to be intolerable circumstances. The question is altogether one of adaptability; and no beneficial results can ever accrue from comparing the lot of those whose environments educe irreconcilable qual- ities, and consequently whose comfort, so far from being conserved, would be irretrievably destroyed by establishing a sameness of externals. The most of the unhappiness and discomfort in the world exist not on account of dissimilarity of for- tune, nor among any particular class of the commun- ity, but is originated and perpetuated by the jealousy of those possessing an average of knowledge and a great amount of sensitiveness of others whom they consider more particularly favored, while in reaUty less deserving than themselves. The consequence is that there is less real misery in the lowest class of so- ciety than in any other, because there is more of the pachydermatous in their nature, and so they are more invulnerable to the caprices of ^Hhe fickle jade," Fortune. 328 SOCIOLOGY It is interesting to note that tlie arguments on wMch the author of ''Progress and Poverty '^ de- pends for establishing his theory, and for destroying the teaching of the classical economists, are the sub- ject: "High wages [the mark of a relative scarcity of labor] must be accompanied by low interest [the mark of the relative abundance of capital] ; and, con- versely, low wages must be accompanied by big in- terest, if the current teaching of political economy is accurate." That, however, is not the case, he informs us, but on the contrary interest is high where wages are high, and low where wages are low. In impartially consid- ering the case with the view of getting at the truth rather than of buttressing a theory, the first point to be considered is the state of the society to which the arguments are to be applied; for it must be self-evi- dent that what will be true in regard to a congested State, and to one which has reached a high standard of attainment, will necessarily be equally valid for one just emerging from barbarism, and having still to perform works of improvement which change the face of nature, but which are now^ the necessaries of civilized society. Such a State, with its sparse popu- lation and crude appliances, if it can obtain the ad- vantages of the use of the accumulated capital of previously settled districts, will be able to pay for it a high rate of interest; while at the same time labor will also receive a high return, owing to the fact that the number of laborers available is scanty, and that the discomfort and inconvenience attendant upon life in that State is so great as to restrict immigration in that State is so great as to restrict immigration, SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 329 The factor there is not only scarcity of laborers, but also scarcity of suitable objects for the employ- ment of capital — the two factors wanting in older countries, where the modification of nature to the re- quirements of humanity has continued for so long that there remains but little outlet for the expendi- ture of capital. So much is this the case in long-set- tled countries that the limits of industry would be reached were it not for intercourse with the more re- cently exploited lands, to whom they send mechan- ism and finished products in exchange for the nat- ural produce which the latter can so abxmdantly provide. In old countries, therefore, the relatively low rate of wages prevails, not on account of a scarcity of capital, but by the reason of the few suitable open- ings for its employment. This fact also makes the rate of interest low. The value of labor is also de- preciated by the fact the numbers seeking employ- ment are disproportionate to the work to be done, and the consequent competition depreciates the rate of labor beyond the natural value; and though there are still open to humanity vast tracts of territory to be brought under the influence of civilization and culti- vation, there are comparatively few that have been accustomed to the conveniences of modern society who will voluntarily exile themselves and undergo the privation and danger of being the pioneers of new colonies. The high rate of interest paid by new countries for capital, therefore, is seen to be the natural con- comitant of a big rate of wages, just as low wages and low interest distinguish and are inseparably con- 330 SOCIOLOGY nected with long-established communities. New countries nowadays are always exploited by the capi- tal drawn from the old, where it has no outlet; and those who have the courage and energy to leave their home and friends can there secure a better remunera- tion at the expense of the many disadvantages which attend life in a new country. VII. Looking Forward. Having, now, for a period roamed with some de- gree of freedom through the romantic dreamland of those disinterested philanthropists who have no doubt honestly desired to leave the world better than they found it, we may again descend to the region of actual life, and endeavor to discover the goal which humanity may attain. It will be well, however, to summarize briefly and succinctly the conclusions to which our investigation has tended. The idea in view — ^no matter how imperfectly we may have developed it — ^has been that the state of society, as existing, is not only the natural one, but is the only possible one at present. This thought originates in a consideration of human history and development, and in a knowledge of human nature which can be verified by each inquirer. The char- acteristics of our existing system which are appar- ently equitable, and which, consequently, are spe- cially attacked by reformers, exist by reason of the hitherto-unquestioning acceptance of principles that are inseparable from association. In the complexity of the civilized state, an analy- sis of the essentials of society — which few popular SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 331 reformers take the time to make — is necessary to the recognition of what they really consist of, and of their imperativeness; but in their earlier stages they are realized, and are accepted, intuitively. The principles are those of individual freedom and jus- tice, which no one would care knowingly to oppose; but as yet the laws of social intercourse are so little appreciated that doctrines destructive of these prin- ciples find acceptance and advocacy from many who would shrink from being identified with an open attack on them. Freedom in a social state is differ- ent from natural freedom, owing to the tacit agree- ment — which existence in the State implies — ^^of ob- serving the rights of your neighbor with the same exactness with which you guard your own; and while government, therefore, is not restricting true free- dom by insisting on restraining everything inimical to the general welfare of the community, where this is conserved individual freedom must not in any way be curtailed. Bearing in mind the saving clause, we find that the essential principles demand that each individual shall be permitted to exercise his powers in the way most conducive to his own welfare ; and that absolute protection in the enjoyment of the results of indus- try must be assured before he will begin to accumu- late those reserves which are indispensably neces- sary to progress, or even to existence, in association. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is only when the reserves become very extensive that any hardship is experienced; and it is then due quite as much to the fact that the adaptation of nature to the wants of 33^ SOCIOLOGY man is approaching its limit, extended as this may- be by the discovery of improvements. A new invention may for a time ease the pressm.'e by introducing a fresh outlet for capital, and, a plan for bringing new territory under cultivation will have the same effect; but there are not illimitable possibilities, and the struggle for existence becomes intensified when population continues to increase while the means of its support are diminished. To confer on each person the absolute right to deal with the fruits of his own toil, leads to a con- dition in which the reserves are possessed by the comparatively few who have what has been called the effective desire of accumulation largely devel- oped in their nature. The offspring of such are in- troduced into the world under the most favorable circumstances, not only in respect of material goods, but also in regard to inherited habits of frugalitv and thrift. This transmission of the results of past inequality often causes the existing conditions of men do be entirely inrreconcilable with their apparent mental, moral, or physical differences; and discontent arises spontaneously out of the hardships which many en- dure through no fault of their own, and the super- fluous luxury which others enjoy without any special deserving of it. Still, there is not in this any in- equity, since a constant intermingling of classes occurs in our free country, so that anyone possessing real merit is likely to find a market for it and, like Claude Melnotte, to purchase his ransom from *'the twin jailors of the daring heart — low birth and iron fortune." SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 333 Interference with the laws of exchange of labor is unnatural, and is as destitute of advantage; for when it is exercised in all departments of industry, it simply means a permanent increase in the price of all commodities. And if only a few are included in its operation, the followers of the particular employ- ment which may be affected will enrich themselves at the expense of the other members of the com- munity. To be able to continue to do this must in- terfere with individual liberty by forbidding the numbers drawn by the favoring conditions to enter the favored ranks; and so it would compel these to adopt vocations for which they have less aptitude, thus inflicting a real wrong on the community by depriving it of services which, if men were left free to select work according to personal inclination, would have a much higher rate of efficiency. The direct tendency of the scheme is to establish caste distinction, owing to the unwritten rule of accepting as apprentices to given trades only the sons of the men at present following those trades. This at first sight seems a just arrangement; but it is difficult to conceive how popular favor can be extended to anything possessing to so large an extent the elements of real slavery. The proposed remedies of the assumed inequities of social life, while expressive of sentiments in every way creditable, originate in that dangerous thing, a little knowledge of the subject. They deal exclu- sively with the most superficial aspects of society. Whatever advantage might be gained in a given direction by their introduction, would be counter- acted by their evil effects in others, since social forces 334 SOCIOLOGY act and react on each other in such equal and appo- site directions as to maintain the status quo of advantage. That the conditions of existence in civilized so- ciety seem improved, is due to our different require- ments of existence, and to the different standards which we have erected; nevertheless, conditions have become rudimentary which made existence in the earlier period quite as tolerable as it is now, with all its education, refinement and power. The happiness and contentment of the people, though in some cir- cumstances inseparable from surroundings, are by no means indissolubly connected with them, since adaptability and adjustment of means to end enables man to extract in most cases the essentials of desir- able life from whatever externals. The cause of the periodical depression in trade is overproduction — though the popular teacher of political philosophy will immediately demolish this statement, to his own and his hearers' satisfaction, by saying, "Overproduction of whaf? Of bread, while men and women — aye, and little children — starve'? Of shoes and stockings, while thousands have none to wear? Of clothing, while many go shivering along our streets for want of clothes to shield them from the piercing blasts' We cannot deny that these interrogatories cor- rectly represent the facts of social life, irreconcilable as they must appear with the statement that there is overproduction which causes social troubles. Under the at-first favoring conditions of civilization, the race increases in so rapid a ratio that the numbers begin to be disproportionate to the suste- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 335 nance possible to be raised in the immediate area. Even the most careful and arduous labor will not secure from the soil supplies to keep pace with the multiplying population; and the consequent compe- tition for what is produced leads to the survival and propagation of those most fitted for the conditions of life. It does not, however, immediately eliminate those who are not so well qualified, but reduces them to the least favorable positions, and this in propor- tion to their adaptability. The grades, or strata of society are therefore determined by the qualities of those who favor them; and as these can never be- come uniform, such grades or strata must, so far as human prescience goes, continue while time shall last. The competition which is induced by the increas- ing difficulty of obtaining a livelihood is far from being disadvantageous; for, being equally active in all departments of life, it gives to the workers in cheapness of goods what it deprives them of by cheapening their labor. Besides this, it sharpens the intellect, and makes men resourceful, active and self-reliant, if they are to be successful; and where these qualifications cannot be induced, it renders their existence less desirable, and so tends to dimin- ish the numbers of that class which is to be produced. The evolution of the species to higher and still higher levels must be through this source ; and as the requirements of life become more exacting, the dross of humanity finds existence increasingly difficult. And just in proportion to the progress of the most intellectual, does their comparative condition be- come, to all appearance, more miserable. 3^6 SOCIOLOGY THat humanity is destined to be continuously progressive, is a proposition which may be advanced with the greatest confidence, despite the fact that research into the history of antiquity discloses a higher degree of attainments among the inhabitants of the ancient nations than that which the subse- quent barbaric conditions into which the nations sank would lead us to expect. Reflection on this may lead to the conclusion — which indeed has been often expressed — ^that there is nothing in our civilization so essentially di:fferent from what prevailed in ancient times as to render certain that retrogression may not again take place, and that after we all shall have attained a certain standard disintegration may ensue, and anarchy and despotism for a time become supreme, after which the cycle of improvements then may reappear, and all complete its unvarying course. We cannot see any reason for giving our adhe- sion to this theory, because modern civilization differs very materially from anything that has pre- ceded it. The means of perpetuating knowledge are 'the most complete, and the portion of the world peopled by the European race is of such an extent that, unless a cataclasm were to engulf the universe, the continuity of attainment would seem to be assured. Admitting, therefore, that we are on a path of improvement from which we are not likely to depart, the question naturally arises. Shall we have the poor with us always ? We have the very highest authority for answer- ing this in the affirmative; but were this not the case, what would be the logical deduction from the ob- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 337 served facts ? No matter what form of society might' be established, rivalry would naturally prevail, owing to the disposition of each to secure for himself the most elevated position. No one would voluntarily perform the menial offices of social life, and they v/ould naturally devolve upon those who had failed in competition with their fellows to secure the more prominent and honorable employments, and who would consequently be forced by the exigencies of the case to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water," and so to be the poor of that society. Such poverty would not be inconsistent with educational acquirements, and would perhaps be more the pen- alty of individual inferiority than it is at present. To make it so, would be the legitimate duty of the State. Without transcending its proper function, the State may take under its care the education of the people. This, while not attempting the impossible task of establishing an artificial equality, will still give to each a more nearly equal start in life. No attempts at making the individuals exact counter- parts of each other, or of restraining the natural powers or aptitudes, should be made, since there is nothing more foreign to our ideas of justice and free- dom than would be implied by so extreme a system of regimentation. Consequently, the natural result of the improved arrangements would be an exalted standard of life, but without an appreciable reduc- tion of the mmaber of those in menial places, while each had an opportimity to qualify himself for the highest. This very desirable state of affairs is at present as nearly as possible approximated by our government, 338 SOCIOLOGY which has shown itself particularly awake to the interests of the people at large. To the people them- selves, however, we must look for permanent im- provements, which will not take place through their seizing the reins of government and governing for their own especial benefit. If such a course were to be pursued, it would not insure a general ameliora- tion of the lot of the individual, but would simply displace the present ruling body, and establish an- other one from amongst the present leaders of the people. The new governing body, elated by their success, would become as intolerable and autocratic towards their former companions as the most super- cilious of the aristocrats of the present time. The most effective plan, and that to which we should strenuously direct attention, is the elevation of the standard of comfort among the masses. The more we educate, the more we shall contribute to this, which is not the least important advantage of education. By doing this, we shall contribute to keep popu- lation within the limits of luxurious subsistence, and we shall increase the natural value of all human labor by maintaining an equilibrium between the work to be done and the workers. Arbitrary exac- tions will then be impossible, and the giving of labor will come to be considered as important a service as the providing of capital. This does not imply that it is not so in reality at all times, but only that the numbers who are willing to offer it are now so disproportionate to the work as to depreciate both the market value of labor and the estimation in which labor is held. SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL SCHEMES 339 To the limitation of offspring and the restraining of immigration we look forward, therefore, as the true solution of the problem of pauperism. The State which contains within itself the means of sus- tenance for all its inhabitants without the necessity of importing foreign produce, is the only one that is not overpopulated; and consequently none of its citi- zens would experience the depths of degradation which unfortunately are too common in the modern State, where the congestion, now partially relieved by the exploiting of new areas, is likely to become even more intensely felt when this outlet closes — as close it must, and as it is closing even now. James McClelland. QUIZ QUESTIONS POLITICAL ECONOMY CHAPTER I. Page 11. 1. Define political economy. 2. What are the four great divisions of political economy"? CHAPTER n. Page 15. 1. Define production. 2. Define utilities. Page 16. 1. Define commodities. Page 18. 1. Define wants. 2. What are the principal factors in production*? Page 19. 1. What is the basis of the private ownership of land? 2. Distinguish between real and personal property. 341 343 POLITICAL ECONOMY Page 20. 1. What does labor include? Page 21. 1. Classify labor. Pages 22-3. 1. How is the total amount of labor determined? 2. According to what principles will the increase of labor increase the total production? Pages 24-6. 1. State the law of diminishing returns from land. Pages 27-35. 1. State the Malthusian Doctrine. Pages 31-3. 1. What are the principal advantages arising from the subdivision of labor? 2. What are the principal disadvantages arising from the subdivision of labor? Pages 33-5. 1. Define distribution. CHAPTER ni. Page 36. 1. Discuss the importance of this branch of political economy. Page 37. 1. Are the different economic characters ever united in the same person? 2. Illustrate. Page 38. 1. Define rent. QUESTIONS 343 Page 39. 1. Compare rent and interest. Page 40. 1. What is the underlying principle of rent*? Page 41. 1. Define interest. 1. How is the amount of interest determined *? Pages 42-3. 1. Define wages. 2. How are the amounts of wages regulated? Page 44. 2. How are profits regulated? 1. Define profits. Pages 45-50. 1. Give the principal arguments for and against trade unions. Pages 50-51. 1. Give the principal arguments for and against the creation of trusts. Pages 51-3. 1. Describe socialism. Page 53. 1. Define taxation. Pages 55-7. 1. Give Adam Smith's four canons of taxation. Page 58. 1. Into what two general classes are taxes divided? 344 POLITICAL ECONOMY Pages 59-65. 1. Define and discuss income taxes. Pages 66-70. 1. Discuss the right of the United States Govern- ment to lay and collect income taxes. Page 71. 1. Define a tariff. 2. What is meant by a protective tariff? Pages 72-3. 1. Discuss the wisdom of protective tariffs. CHAPTER IV. Page 75. 1. Discuss the proper place of consumption in the science of political economy. Page 76. 1. Discuss the relation between wants and utilities. Pages 77-80. 1. Define diminishing utility. 2. Define marginal utility. Page 81. 1. What is meant by relative utility. Pages 82-3. 1. Define necessaries. 2. Define comforts. 3. Define luxuries. 4. What will be the order of consumption among the three classes of commodities f QUESTIONS 345 Page 84. 1. What is meant by postponed consumption? 2. When will this take place*? Page 85. 1. What are the effects of saving upon production and distribution? CHAPTER V. Page 87. 1. Define exchange. Pages 88-9. 1. What determines value? CHAPTER VI. Page 91. 1. What are the principal periods of economic his- tory? 2. Describe the hunting stage. 3. Describe the pastoral stage. Page 92. 1. Describe the agricultural stage. 2. Describe the handicraft stage. Page 94. 1. Describe the beginnings of the industrial stage. Pages 95-9. 1. Give a brief account of the early commerce and industries of India. 346 POLITICAL ECONOMY Page 100. 1. Describe commerce of the early Greeks. Pages 101-2. 1. Discuss the effect of the Crusades upon the com- mercial cities of Italy. Pages 103-135. 1. Describe the transition period from medieval to modern industrial history. Page 136. 1. Describe the industrial condition of England prior to what is known as the Industrial Revolution. Pages 137-8. 1. What are some of the great industrial achieve- ments of the nineteenth century? 2. Compare the progress made in the nineteenth century with that made during the previous history of the world. Pages 138-9. 1. Describe some of the effects of the introduction of the Factory System. QUIZ QUESTIONS SOCIOLOGY Pages 145-151. 1. Why is sociology especially bewildering to the unscientific student or reader? 2. Strictly speaking, what is sociology? 3. How old is the science of sociology? 4. What relation had the laboratory to modern sociology? 5. Why is it not safe to study society from the delineations made by novelists? 6. What are fit subjects for sociological inquiry? 7. By whom was the word *' sociology" coined, and what is its etymology? 8. Why is a truly Christian spirit of itself insuffi- cient for overcoming the ills of the world, and what aid does sociology extend to the church? 9. What is meant by "social statics"; by "social dynamics?" 10. What is the scope of Herbert Spencer's Soci- ology? 11. How is the development of society portrayed by Small and Vincent? 347 348 SOCIOLOGY Pages 152-156. 1. What is an organism? 2. How did Thomas Hobbes portray society as an organism? 3. How did Menenius Agrippa portray society as an organism? 4. What is the aim of sociology, and what errone- ous impressions are generally held in refer- ence to it? 5. Mention a notable sociological institution in America. 6. Mention two classics in English literature which are valuable for sociological inquiry as well as for literary study? 1. Mention two notable classics in which the horror of solitude is portrayed? 2. What is a social unit? 3. What is a social group? 4. What is a primary social group? 5. What is the verdict of nature as to monogamy and polygamy? 6. Is there a present need for re-study of the prob- lem of the authority of the family? 7. What are social aggregates? 8. What are social organisms? 9. Are the boundaries of the social aggregates definite ? 10. How is a social organism differentiated from a social aggregate? 11. What three classes of social organisms are designated by Herbert Spencer? QUESTIONS 349 Pages 160-164. 1. What are some of the essentials of fitness for sociological investigation? 2. Name five of the subjects presented to be studied for investigation in a small com- munity? 3. What is said of the relative conditions to be encountered in a large community and in a small community? 4. What benefit has been derived and is to be derived by the sociological activities of the present in the United States? Pages 164-165. 1. Mention five notable books on sociology, and indicate the country in which they were published. Pages 166-170. 1. What was the notable work of Florence Night- ingale ? 2. How does the author apply the principles of her work to the police system? 3. How does he apply it to charity? 4. How does he apply it to industry? 5. How does he apply it to schools? 6. How does he apply it to other social organisms? Pages 171-173. 1. What does the author say of the essential con- nection between effective philanthropy, mo- rality or civil progress, and industrial con- ditions ? 2. Is this relation casual? Is it conditioning? '350 SOCIOLOGY 3. Wiiat is the first principle of philanthropy? 4. Upon what are personal and civil safety and progress dependent? 5. What is the need of sociological study in this connection? Pages 174-182. 1. What dilemma do the clergymen, moralists, educators, and publicists face in each gen- eration? 2. What does the writer designate as the ** Golden Age" of the individual? 3. What is the leading characteristic of this age? 4. What office have school and cniu'ch often failed to perform for the individual of this age ? 5. What does the author say is more important to the individual than the particular form of faith professed? 6. What does she say of the Jewish faith? 7. What does she say of the Christian faith? 8. What example does she find in the State Indus- trial Insurance of Germany? 9. What does she say of the possibility of uniting the members of various churches in a com- mon effort to meet the requirements of our industrial life? 10. What does she say of the old-time religious sanc- tions in the present generation? 11. What does she believe the influence of a high- class drama to be ? 12. State her characterization of six dramas of the present time. QUESTIONS 351 13. How does she characterize the present period of history? 14. What does she think of our present progress in the new civilization? Pages 183-196. 1. What can you say of the purpose of the Russell Sage Foundation? 2. Mention three important classes of activities which are within its scope. 3. Mention three of its early activities. 4. Mention three lines of research undertaken by it. 5. What is said of the adaptability of the Foun- dation? Pages 197-252. 1. What extended illustration is given of the prac- tical application of sociological methods? 2. What were the two subjects studied by the Associated Charities in the City of Washings ton in 1905? 3. State five of the aims and methods. 4. How is an office of the Associated Charities dis- tinguished from a relief station? 5. What is the value of the facts recorded in its investigation? 6. When does the inquiry begin, and how is it con- ducted? 7. Where does the investigation generally begin? 8. Upon how extensive a study of returns are the conclusions of the investigation based? 9. How is a family regarded in making this study ? 353 SOCIOLOGY 10. Were natives or foreigners found to be more dependent as a class? 11. Were white people or colored people found more dependent as a class? 12. How does tlie author describe the '' derelicts of society," and how does this illustrate nega- tively the value of association? 13. What was the average size of the family receiv- ing relief? 14. Was the charity family, therefore, considered smaller or larger than the normal family? 15. Was the percentage of children greater or less than that of adults in the charity population? 16. In what stages of childhood was relief most largely needed? 17. Were the females, as a class, more or less depen- dent than the males as a class? 18. Was desertion of husband or wife more fre- quent among the white or among the colored people ? 19. What was the influence of divorce shown to be among the charity families ? 20. What was noted of the occupations of the charity recipients? 21. What is said of the range of occupations pre- sented? 22. In the long list of occupations studied, were there many or few classes of people? 23. In what sense does the writer here use the word classes ? 24. What was the most significant item in the investigation? 25. What was found to be the most potent factor in QUESTIONS 353 driving people to seek charity? What was next? What was next"? 26. What is said of the distress arising from the arrears of rent? 27. What does the writer say of the various kinds of debt owed by the dependent ? 28. In how large a proportion of the families aided was there no delinquency whatever on the part of the members? 29. What were the three leading delinquencies dis- covered? 30. What was the attitude of the charity relief toward mendicants? 31. What was found to be more troublesome than mendicity itself? 32. What was found to be the influence of personal pride? 33. Why should not the word inefficiency be com- monly used to characterize the causes of poverty? 34. What is the relation of illiteracy to poverty? 35. Did irregularity of employment receive careful study? 36. What does the writer say of the "financial ele- ment?" 37. What does the writer say of the complication of causes of distress ? 38. What does the writer say of the insufficiency of labor? 39. What does the writer say of persistent causes of distress? 40. What does the writer say of contributory or indirect causes of distress? 354 SOCIOLOGY 41. What was the proportion of charity cases which marked only a brief period of adversity? 42. In the list of deep-seated persistent causes, what element was shown to be surprisingly increasing*? 43. What were the proportions of temporary, inter- mittent, and permanent causes of distress? Pages 253-265. 1. Are philosophers and thinkers united as to the existence of a science of society, with definite and consistent laws? 2. What is the contention of those who reject sociology as a science? 3. In the author's opinion, to what is the rejec- tion due? 4. By what is our construction of laws for any sci- ence determined? Is it possible, then, to assert any absolute and final laws in any branch of science? 5. Does the fact constitute a valid objection to sociology as a science ? 6. What are the limitations of our knowledge of historical facts? 7. What fundamental principles underlie all hu- man conduct? 8. Are there more advantages or more disadvan- tages springing from the selfishness of man? Illustrate. 9. How are the great, self-sacrificing men of his- tory to be regarded? 10. What does the author say of the Joseph Sur- faces of society? (See Dictionary of Fiction). QUESTIONS 355 11. What is said of schemes for remodeling the world, and establishing happiness, content- ment, and perfect justice? 12. Is there any single remedj^ that will suffice for the cure of the evils of society? 13. What work does the author set out to accom- plish? 14. What iirst impression does he expect his doc- trine to make? 15. What does he say of the attitude which the sociological inquirers should assume? 16. What is your estimate of the importance of this attitude? Pages 265-278. 1. What does the author say of the residium in a chemical analysis? 2. How does he apply the figure to society? 3. How does he conceive that the identity which was present among the units of original society was differentiated into diversity of types. 4. Of what are our conceptions of right and wrong largely the result? 5. What influences does the author characterize as the triple chord which binds men? 6. Of what is each individual the resultant? 7. From what classes of persons do the majority of the proposed social reforms emanate? To what are these persons not amenable? 8. What does the author say on the subject of heredity? 356 SOCIOLOGY 9. What influence must be taken into considera- tion to modify the plasm theory of Weis- mann? 10. Is the assumed greater power of heredity over environment, as held at the present time, justified by human experience ? 11. To what is the great advancement of the pres- ent age to be especially ascribed? 12. What is the vantage ground"? 13. Can the primal instinct of self-preservation always be relied upon? 14. Can the wisest men always predict with cer- tainty how in any instance man would act? 15. If not, what is the explanation? 16. What does the author say of the right to inherit property? 17. What does he say of impossible Utopias? Pages 278-289. 1. What is assumed by the majority of writers on the evolution of the social state? 2. To what common conclusion do we arrive regarding the biblical and scientific explana- tion of our origin? 3. What would cause the first group of our family to form a confederacy? 4. What would be the first and most important of the articles of the social compact? 5. Was the supposed social compact originally devised by men in a formal meeting, and in a definite form? If not, how did it come to be recognized and accepted? QUESTIONS 357 6. What may be supposed to have been the second article of the original social compact? 7. From what did the differentiation of employ- ments of men in the primal association result? 8. What would be encouraged by the introduction of a system of exchange other than barter of the original actual products of labor? 9. To what does the exchange value of our employ- ments tend? 10. What is said of the labor in which men can most readily engage ? What is the reason for this ? 11. Why are the earnings of professional men greater than those of unskilled laborers? 12. What conditions would be necessary to make the rewards of labor in all cases practically equal? 13. What does the author say of the element of chance or accident in the success of men? 14. What course does the author say will fail to eliminate poverty, sin and misery? 15. Has the evolution of man been rapid or slow? 16. To what must we always look for any improve- ments in the lot of human beings in general? 17. What does the author hold to be necessary for the salvation of men? Pages 289-300. 1. What are the historical shibboleths of popular democracy? 2. In what does true liberty consist? 3. From a given standpoint, do all three of the shibboleths express incontrovertible truths? 358 SOCIOLOGY 4. Are two individuals ever circumstanced exactly alike? 5. Do the experiences of human life allow us to see harmony or equity therein? 6. Would the leveling of all ranks and the com- munizing of property be a true remedy for the existing inequality of men? 7. Could a condition thus secured endure? 8. Are men of the present more happy and con- tented than were those of a previous time? 9. Are the utterances of remarkably successful men apt to be optimistic or to be pessimistic ? 10. Is the individual apt to form a just estimate of the value of his own work? Pages 300-319. 1. What is the author's estimate of the ^'Eepublic of Plato" as compared with the more ele- vated thought of the present time on the subject of modem reform? 2. From what is the socialistic scheme evolved, according to the author? 3. What does he say as to the character of many socialistic leaders? 4. What does he deem their fundamental error to be? 5. What does the writer say of the principle of cooperation? 6. How is the meaning of cooperation sought to be extended by the socialists? 7. Have socialistic experiments ever been made on any considerable scale? QUESTIONS 359 8. What has been the general result of attempts to realize social schemes'? 9. Why does the author deny the possibility of a successful realization of Bellamy's scheme? 10. What objections does he find to the plea for the education of children, in Bellamy's scheme? 11. What is the principal objection the author finds to the application of the scheme to the work of trades? 12. What does the author declare to be the great error of all social reforms? 13. Is there any evading of the dictum, ''The poor ye have always with you"? 14. How does the author summarize, in conclusion, his reference to the dreamlands depicted by philosophers and economists? Pages 319-330. 1. What is the author's estimate of Henry George as a man? 2. What are the factors of the present social life, according to Henry George? 3. Is the poverty encountered in civilized life of a kind unknown in a barbaric state ? 4. What factors in the case are omitted by the Georgite theory? 5. Is it a fallacy that poverty is increased only by progress ? 6. What is the fallacy of the assumption made as to the standards of comfort among the differ- ent classes? 7. Can there be over-production while many are 360 SOCIOLOGY unhappiness and discomfort in tlie world to be due? 8. What is Henry George's theory as to the rela- tion of wages to interest on capital! 9. What do the classical economists teach as to this relation? 10. What does the author hold to be the fallacy in Henry George's theory as to this relation? Pages 330-339. 1. Accepting society as it is, what do essential principles demand for each individual? 2. Is it true that the adaptation of nature to the wants of man is approaching its limits, despite the discovery of the new improve- ments ? 3. What influence has the inheritance of property upon the highly-favored inheriter? 4. Are the inequalities of society at the present time likely to be transmitted for a long time in the individual family? 5. Is interference with the laws of labor wise, and does it really advance the interests of society? 6. What is the cause of periodical depressions in trade? 7. Can there be over-production, while many are suffering from want? 8. Is the competition in obtaining a livelihood dis- advantageous on the whole? 9. Have we good reason to believe that progress may not in time give place to retrogression? QUESTIONS 361 10. What is the author's argument as to this? 11. What is the author's most effective plan to secure progress? 12. What two things does he present as the true solution of the problem of pauperism? INDEX POLITICAL ECONOMY A. Agricultural Stage 91 C. Claesi Controversies 45 Comforts 83 Commodities 16 Consumption 13 Place of in Study of Political Economy 75 Order of 82 Postponed 84 D. Dark Ages, Economic Conditions in 104 et seq. Economic Errors in 104 et seq. Diminishing Eeturns from Land 24 Diminishing Utility 77 Direct Taxes 58 Distribution 13 Definition 13 Scope of Division 35 Importance of 35 Effects of Saving Upon 85 E. Economic History, Period of 91 Economics, see Political Economy 11 Exchange 13 Definition 87 Mediums of 89 363 364 POLITICAL ECONOMY F. Factors in Production 18 G. Greek, Commerce, Early 100 H. Handicraft Stage 92 Hindus, Commerce and Industry of 95 Hunting State 91 I. Income Taxes — 59 Indirect Taxes 59 Industrial Revolution 136 Industrial Stage 94 Interest 41 Italian Cities, Effects of Crusades on 101 L. Labor 20 Classifications of 21 Productive 21 Unproductive 21 Application of 22 Division of 31 Labor Unions 45 Land 19 Law of Diminishing Returns from 24 Luxuries ^ 82 M. Marginal Utility 78 Maltliusian Doctrine 27 Mediums of Exchange 87 Modern Industry 137 Monopolies 50 N. Necessaries 82 Nineteenth Century, Achievements of 138 INDEX 365 P. Pastoral Stage 91 Political Economy, Definition of 11 Divisions of 11 Postponed Consumption 84 Production 12 Defined 15 Factors in 18 Effects of Saving upon 85 Profits 44 Protective Tariffs 71 Effects of 73 K. Relative Utility 81 Rent, Definition 38 Theory of 40 S. Socialism 51 T. Tariffs 71 Taxes, Classification of 58 Direct 58 Indirect 58 Income 59 Power of United States to Lay 66 Taxation 54 Canons of 55 Trasts 50 F. Utilities 15 Utility, Diminishing 77 Marginal 78 Relative 81 366 POLITICAL ECONOMY V. Value, Definition 88 What Determine? 88 W. Wages 42 Wants 60 H 13 84 ' J'^^^ ^ ^ /\ ''%^'' ^'^'■^ 11K'° /\ °'%^-" /% '■) h:^ -^^ ^ *j V* ^VZj* '<^ aO O. * o „ o '' .0 ,-»•' . ■^V^-?*'^'' V'^*'/ V**-"'\** ^ o„o- ^U ^^ '^ '.,,- _^^ V -^ %'««»-V 4.*^ '^ -. **' ^^ • ' .-e- '^^ * o « o ' - '^ *bv^ HECKMAN ^11 , ,^^^ *^' BINDERY INC. ^^ I <> ^^^ JAN 84 I ^♦^ ^'rfs'- ^^«=>'^ ^&K\ \<^ ^m »B^ N. MANCHESTER. S^ ^J-yy/n-r^^fSSS. - . . - ^\NJ3-1M^>^ « , .i^^ ^^ INDIANA 46962 J ^^^ \