LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, HB-t m r helft 4f4< &la UNITED STATES OF /AMERICA. ; OQ'A UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION OF EARNINGS. - The Evil Effects and the Remedy. ¥ & J: by W: V. MARSHALL. OSWEGO, KANSAS. 1886. Copyright, 1886, By W. Y. MARSHALL. PRESS OF GEO. C. HACKSTAFI ST. LOUIS, MO. PREFACE. All pretense to merit from a literary stand- point is waived in the presentation of this work before the public. I have gained my object if I have succeeded in making understood the fol- lowing, believed by me to be, genuine facts, viz: That Unfair Distribution of Earnings is the true and only cause of over-production, indus- trial depression and " hard times." That the primary agencies of unfair distribu- tion are two : i. Unfair taxation, exercised through the in- strumentality of a false tax code. 2. Unfair exchange, exercised through the instrumentality of monopoly. That a proper remedy consists of the intro- duction of a fair system of taxation and the abolition of monopolies. That fair taxation, while constituting of it- self a remedial measure, will effectuate the abol- ition of monopolies. 11 PREFACE. That what must follow is independent enter- prise, free competition and the rapid advance- ment of society to a state of unrestricted pro- gress and prosperity. That all must be interested in the change since no class is exempt from the deleterious influences of present morbid conditions. W. V. M. CONTENTS. Preface, # • • • . i Introductory, : , . . 5 Over-production, industrial depression and "hard times." CHAPTER I. Man's mission on earth—Agencies or means — Lacks and tendencies. 39 CHAPTER II. M ethods of wealth getting — Earnings — No contradiction — Why does man mistake and encroach ? — Erroneousness of man — Preponderant strength of self-interest — Nature of remedies considered — Not de- signed to encroach — Fines and penalties — The proper way. 57 CHAPTER III. Division of labor — Powerlessness to discover values of earnings — Money — Worths or values — Capital — Amplification of wants — Balance between capital and need of it — Fallacious cause for hard •. times. ______ 33 CHAPTER IV. Competition — Reward with earnings — Supply and demand — Over- production — Restricted competition. - - m CHAPTER V. Monopoly — Irresistible divestment of properties and priveleges — Obligatoriness of monopoly — Advantage sought. - 135 11 CONTENTS. C HAPTER VI. Wars and rumors of wars — Standpoint of hard times reform — Ex- actor's standpoint — Standpoint of revolt — Finance of war— Regu- lating the currency. - - 166 CHAPTER VII. Waste of human capabilities, • • 185 CHAP TER VIII. Combinations of capital, justifiable and unjustifiable. • 196 CHAPTER IX. Common place fallacies — Born money makers — Let us see aright — Whom does it hurt?— Legitimate fortunes — Labor combinations — Strikes and revengeful violence — What they say. - 207 CHAPTER X: The remedy— Tables— Who would pay the taxes ?— The method of levy — Rate of tax increase — Personal satisfactions — Incomes — Money— Right of tax regulation— Tariff— Labor and capital- Tax on liquors — Who must lead. - - 231 Addenda, . . .... 262 Subsidies. Confirmatory Arguments, . , . 268 Selections, . . . . 281 INTRODUCTION. The substantial ills with which society is afflicted are these : Unfair distribution and the evils and evil agencies growing out of unfair dis- tribution as a primary cause. By unfair distribution, I mean such a division of earnings as allows to some more than is theirs by right of their own energy and expenditure of means, the process involving a denial to others of an equivalent amount which they have been instrumental in bringing forth. Here is one way in which an unfair distribution of earnings may be executed: A manufacturing company may pay less than real worth for the hired labor and raw material used in the manufacture of its specific articles of sale, and charge and get more than real worth for the manufactured articles when sold, producing the consequences that the manufacturing company receives a greater share of wealth than by its industry and the use of its capital it has legitimately earned, while the laborers, the furnishers of the raw products, and the purchasers of the finished products have so 6 . UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. much wealth deducted without an equivalent given from their earnings. A railroad com- pany may pay less for the labor of others, and for the machinery of transportation than they are worth and charge more for their own servi- ces of transportation than they are worth. This giving to one class or set of persons more than they have earned, which can only be done by disallowing to others as much as they have earned is attended, I am forced to believe, with grave and untoward results, the facts of which I will show, or cherish the belief that I will, with the double view in hand, of convinc- ing people whereat lies the foundation of the ills which oppress them, and of giving light upon the proper course to pursue for relief. A prospective impression of the causes, meth- ods and consequences proposed to be examined as . phenomena embraced in unfair distribution and its relations, will be of help to an understand- ing of the subject, and can be conveyed as well, as in any other way, by the employment of a few ideal illustrations: The Great Wall Street and Peoples Railroad, I will say, is projected to extend through a cer- tain section of the Union. The projectors resort to the usual custom of asking for aid. They get it. Possibly the National Government aids them with landed donations and in the procure- UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 7 ment of funds. State aid of a similar kind is given them, and they get aid along the projected route in the settled districts from cities, towns, counties, townships and private citizens, in the way of bond issues, land and money donations, and other help. The amounts provided by all or any of these different forms of aid, positively in the gift of means to meet expenditures, negatively in the gift of reliefs from necessity to undergo expendi- ture, form a magnificent basis available for con- struction and equipment purposes and the credit necessary to complete. When after the receipt of such aid and the lapse of time the road is completed, by all the rules commonly governing in such cases the pro- jectors are the leading owners; and having from that fact the balance of control, they usually make use of the advantage to secure, at a trifling cost to themselves by means of dark integrity, whatever interests the people may have reserved in the property during the time of its develop- ment. What follows? Full proprietors, and wholly undeterred by any menaces that exist in law or elsewhere, they turn to and run the road as it if were an instrument provided solely for their own rapid and grand self-enrichment. They proceed as if they never took thought 8 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. that the road was ever designed by any one for any other purpose than their self-enrichment, and they conduct it as if that were the sole need of it. By their system of alliances with other roads, and over-charging, and use of the road in gene- ral to foster the private interests of themselves instead of the public interests of the founders, they add to their exchequer every year hundreds of thousands of dollars above what is a fair remuneration for their services and a fair profit upon the capital employed, assuming their right to profit upon capital which has been donated to them. Such practice illustrates how we are repaid for the favors we bestow. Having been induced to relinquish large blocks of our wealth into the hands of a few individuals we are rewarded by its being ever afterward used for the swindle and oppression of us. Another illustration: The manufacturers of three-profits — a name which I use for conven- iency, but which is applicable to many manufac- tured articles of special utility — are capitalists of great wealth and thrift. Years ago the leading men in that business met in secret council to take into consideration the advancement of their interests by the adoption of methods looking to improvement in the manufacture, sale, business conduct and legislative enactments relative to UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 9 three-profits. At this meeting they agreed upon a general plan of concerted action and manage- ment which had for its object the control of the business of three-profits in such manner as to enable them to regulate the supply, destroy com- petition, set their own prices upon the labor and raw material which they engaged and to charge what they might see fit for the finished article. By union of action they succeeded in their pur- poses and they now are, as they long have been, masters of the situation. They are sole dealers, sole dictators of terms, and will not brook oppo- sition. The public is compelled to patronize them or go without. Three-profit mechanics must work for them upon such terms as are allowed or quit the trade, and producers of the raw materials must sell to the combination for such prices as they can get or not sell at all. To keep out native competition the combined three- profit manufactures glut the markets in the vicinity where a new factory has started up at such a temporary low price as to ruin the new enterprise and force it out of existence. To keep out foreign competition they secure the enact- ment of tariff laws forcing foreign manufactures to pay a large price for the privilege if they ship any three-profit goods into this country. ^ As a result their wealth is increasing, as it long has 10 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. increased, out of all proportion to the increase of a just and fair profit. This is a picture of the consolidating and mon- opolizing methods of the present day, permitted and fostered by a faulty system of taxation. Again. In the province of Wealthy-few the people are divided into two classes, the Opulent and the Common. A double method of taxation there prevails, the direct and the indirect. By the direct method the money which is demanded for public needs is paid directly from the hands of the contributors into the hands of the collec- tors. The direct tax levies are putatively ap- portioned according to worths of properties. In practice it is anything else than according to worths of properties, since by schemes of under- valuation, exemption and evasion, the rich Opulents manage to throw the burden of tax- ation upon the common class of people. The in- direct tax is paid by" the people of this province when they buy most or all of manufactured goods, they paying each time they make a purchase a certain excess above what they would have to pay were there no indi- rect tax. The goods upon which this tax is collected are of both foreign and domestic man- ufactures. The tax upon the foreign goods is collected for the benefit of the government; that upon the domestic goods is collected for the ben- UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 1 1 efit of the domestic manufacturers, the Opulents. Those who bring in the foreign goods advance the tax to the government when the goods are brought in. They are then so much out of pocket for the benefit of the people. They get reimbursement by charging enough when they sell their goods to make up for the government tax they have advanced. Domestic manufacturers, Opulents, get their tax by adding to the regular profit price of their goods enough to make their price equal the price importers sell at to make up for the gov- ernment tax which they pay. This double source of revenue — first, the regular profit upon their goods; secondly, the tax collected from the purchasers of their goods, has given, and goes on giving, astonishing riches to the manufactur- ing Opulents of Wealthy-few. Add, that by schemes of evasion these fellows escape the payment of a large share of what would be under the law their direct tax, and who, seeing as men see now, would not be an or- thodox Opulent of Wealthy -few? The common people in that land do not get to taste much of the enjoyments flowing from wealth, for the Opulents, having great influence at the law making centers, get import duties so gauged as to give them well nigh the exclusive home trade in their specific lines of business, 12 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. whence they are enabled to so over-charge and under-pay as to gather up about all the wealth that is produced above what is needed for the plain subsistence of the common people. While the Opulents of Wealthy -few can keep their peo- ple in the present way of thinking, as regards both the direct and indirect methods of taxation there pursued, they will, as they look at it, be most admirably circumstanced. They will be supreme against the molestations of large man- ufacturers abroad and against the inroads of infant manufacturers at home. For while im- port duties protect them from being over- whelmed by more powerful competitors of for- eign nations, no similar law of taxation prevents them from overwhelming infant concerns which attempt to compete with them within the bounds of their own nation. This shows what is practically the form and workings of part of our system of taxation. These illustrations will serve to exemplify in the rough, the mistakenness of some of our poli- cies and practices and what is the character of some of the unjustifiable methods employed by designing men for self preferment, though not all. Other methods will be noticed as the de- velopment of the subject brings them into relief. I may here state that unfair distribution is not something peculiar to the age. In all prior UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 1 3 times of which history treats, it has been the case that the citizens of one country as against those of another country, or a portion of the citizens as against the rest in their own country, have contrived to get at and enrich themselves from accumulations they have not themselves earned. We are advised that savages have invaded fellow tribes, clubbed and plundered them, then feasted upon the booty gained. That chiefs have arbitrarily appropriated the lands of their own subjects or those of conquered nations, then robbed the tillers of it through exhorbitant rent charges. That members of one race have captured those of another, reduced them to ser- vitude, then subsisted upon the surplus fruits of their labors. These are simply the records of methods popular in their time and place for the execution of unfair distribution. These methods we are now prone to look upon as methods of v'o'ence and robbery, the authors of them as tyrants and plunderers, the objects of them as victims who were forced to succumb and deliver. Such rude methods for the subjection and plun- der of a people, the more highly civilized inhab- itants of the globe will not now tolerate. Those who do now profit at the expense of their fellow- men have been constrained into the selection and use of methods more refined and less shocking. But though the execution of unfair distribution 14 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. is conducted in a manner less shocking, it is none the less, on that account, the robbery of men by men. Nor does* the refinement of the business make it the less objectionable since the effects are just as harsh and hard to bear. But because the business of plundering has not changed as man has marched forward and up- ward, except in the manner of pursuing it, we are not to infer that the business will never cease, and so have all hopes in us for the better- ment of the condition of man made naught. Considerations are sufficient, as shall be observed upon hereafter, . to assure us that man will even- tually rise to the capacity to see all that relates to the evil of unfair distribution, among other things the way to an entire banishment of the evil. In my opinion the basic or foundation methods by which unfair distribution is popularly execu- ted at the present day in our country are — First — Unfair Taxation. Second — Unfair Exchange. I call these the foundation methods, because it has been by getting on the advantageous side of . them that intriguers have laid the foundation for, the inflow of the wherewithal they subsequently v employ to invest in our homestead possessions, or incumbrances against them, for the purpose of reaping additional profit from us in rent and in- UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 1 5 terest. If we apply to and get rectitude in these fundamental methods of dispensing wealth, rec- titude in the others will follow as matters of in- evitable consequence or march of event. We have unfair taxation. Taxes are, or should be, solicited and contributed to meet those expen- ditures for the need and benefit of us which must from the nature and necessities of society as a body, be publicly incurred. For one party to evade payment of his proper share of such requis. ite expenditure is but to cause another or others to pay the unsatisfied portion for him. Such evasion and shouldering upon others what one himself should bear is a proceeding in nowise different in its nature and production of effects from the art of taking advantage, one of another, in a deal or trade. Unfair exchange is executed through the in- strumentality of monopolies, those having the monopoly of any business or occupation having it in their power to dictate terms of their own. making to both buyers and sellers dealing with them. Unfair taxation, such as we have, is a promoter of monopoly. It does not conduce to the perpetuation of industries in disconnected, competitive and independently working wholes, but encourages the aggregation of them into consolidated concerns under single and non-com- 1 6 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION petitive managements. In this form the) 7 are creative of unbounded mischief. Fair taxation would be of double good. First, those who paid taxes would have justice done them. Secondly, it would discourage combina- tions and give to independent and rising industries strength to defend and continue themselves, whence would follow good. When we had fair taxation we would have the provision which secures us industrial liberty; when we had in- dustrial liberty, man would, impelled by his nature, work out and maintain the solid welfare of himself. So much upon methods. Let us go ahead and outline some of the results of, and the manner of the connection of these results with, unfair distribution. OVER-PRODUCTION, INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSION AND a HARD TIMES." Readers are familiar with the fact that we are treated every few years with an interval of stag- nation in business and industry which is charac- terized by intense want among a large portion of the population, while the country abounds in such a plenty that the possessors do not know what to do with their stores. Overstocked mills and factories everywhere are closed for UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 1 7 want of orders, when thousands upon thousands of people all over the country are in distressive need of the ver}' things which are therein pro- duced. Nobody seems to want to buy although everybody is intensely anxious to sell. The hungry laborer cannot trade his labor for pro- duce, for his labor would worse the condition of things by the production of more. Overproduc- tion of the needs of life is just what the trouble is. Yet for the reason that we have over-produc- tion we have the living in a state of pinched neces- sity and distress, the larger .portion of our population. This must appear to many strange. Something must appear to them to get out of joint. The question naturally occurs: how is it that the yield of the earth and of toil gets piled up unsold, unused and unsought for while so many are in such dire distress from need of it and owners are so willing to sell, but cannot? What is the nature of the monster that lodges itself in our midst by spells^ and causes every- thing to come to a stand still, and this in the face of every willingness of the people to act and every readiness of the wheels and implements of industry to be set in motion. The answer is to be found in a study of the effects of unfair distribution or that misdivision of earnings which gives continuously to one class shares that another should have. The following 1 8 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. illustration will demonstrate the development of these effects: The Island of Notseen, we will imagine, con- tains a population of orte thousand able bodied men, who, with their families, form an isolated and self-sustaining community. All of these men sustain the relationship of employing pro- prietors and employed, in the ratio of 50 of the former to 950 of the latter. All the wants of the community are supplied by the management and industry of these one thousand men. But 50 of these men employ the other 950, and pay them wages, so that the subsistence produced by the 1 000 men is first owned by the employing proprietors, who dispense it into the community in manner as merchants sells goods. We will imagine that the community produces commodities averaging in amount $2,000 worth per day ; that the workmen get $1.50 per day, a rate of wages enabling the lot of 950 to pur- chase an average of $1,425 worth of commodities daily. Then $575.00 worth becomes the daily average share of the employers. Let us sup- pose that this $575 worth just suffices to supply the employers with all their personal wants upon the island, and to provide them with the capital they must join with the efforts of themselves and workman to produce the $2,000 daily earnings. We have before us, then, a case of happy adjust- UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 1 9 ment of reward with earnings all around, in which the process of production and consump- tion are equalized — in which the commodities produced in the community will go as fast as they are prepared, and the people will be kept continuously busy in forming a new supply. Assuming the adjustment here marked out to be the one suited to exactly maintain equili- brium between supply and demand in this case, let us see what will take place under a change of adjustment. Suppose the employing proprie- tors of Notseen to go at and reduce the wages of their workman to $1.25 per day, without reduc- ing the scope of their operations, or the prices of their commodities : the workman then will be able to purchase daily, with their wages, only $1187.50 worth of goods or five-sixths as much as they did before, causing there to be left of their earnings, one-sixth, or a sum equal to $237.50 worth daily, in the hands of the proprietors as a gain or bonus to. the latter. Now, let us keep in sight of this gain or bonus and learn what use is made of it or how it dis- poses of itself. The first fact we are made cognizant of is this: the gain shuns ready use or consumption. It is not turned to the speedy benefit of anybody like products that are not gains. At first blush this affirmation may not appear correct, but we 20 ' UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. shall soon prove the truth of it. We readily un- derstand that the workmen cannot make speedy use of this gain because they cannot purchase it with current wages. Their wage income is ex- hausted upon the expenditure, by each of them of $1.25 per day, or by all of them of $1187.50 per day. They would have to expend $1425 per day to secure the $237.50 worth gained awa}^ from them by the cut wages, but this they cannot do out of a wage income of $1.25 per day. So we see that inability to purchase pre- vents the workmen from making ready use of it. But why does this gain fail to admit of ready use by the proprietors. Because provision exis- ted prior to the cut in wages for full supply of all their regularly accruing wants, both personal and capital, in consequence of which no avenue of need afterward existed into which could be immediately projected this newly gotten gain. Increased extravagance of living on the part of the proprietors would serve for the making way with some of the gain, but the proprietors being in numbers few, and the gain in the aggregate large, the greatest extravagance they are in- clined to indulge in suffices for the consumption and extinguishment of but a small portion of it. They can use none of it profitably as capital, it must not be forgotten, since having abridged th e purchasing power of the great body of their UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 2 1 customers by the cut in wages, they have need to decrease their capital employed in production rather than to increase it. The gain is not * readily consumed, because the getters of it have no need of it, and the losers of it cannot purchase it. To the question of what use is made of this gain, we must answer in view of the facts just given, that no material use is made of it at the start. To the question of how does it dispose of it- self, the answer is, that following the customary order of disposing itself this gain for awhile sim- ply accumulates — because it is unusable on the one hand and unpurchasable on the other hand by regular methods, it sets itself to piling up in the bins and shelves of store houses. So far we have traced this gain and are re- warded by finding that it sets itself to accumu- lating. Presently we will be made acquainted with a familiar completed development. The accumulation goes on until the proprietors of Notseen have their store houses stocked to suf- focacy with everything the people have been in the habit of producing and consuming. That condition of things is popularly know as "over- production," and the reader is advised that the over-production here traced up to, is over-pro- duction from the only cause which ever leads to 22 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION general over-production of the needs of life, namely, unfair distribution, or the practice of profiting, class at the expense of class. Unfair distribution, the only cause of general over-production, leads inevitably to general over- production as one of its most eminent effects. Deny a class of a portion of it earnings, and all that portion except what may be used up by the getters of it in extra extravagances, piles up. Those from whom it is gotten are forced to re- duce themselves to greater meagerness of living. These are some of the first effects, though not all nor the most, as we are upon the verge of discov- ering. The over-stock of commodities in Notseen, consequent upon the greedy action of the pro- prietors, having assumed proportions beyond which the proprietors care not to let them fur- ther expand, other events rapidly follow. The first in order of these is the adoption of meas- ures by the proprietors for the check and de- crease of over-production. The execution of these measures consist in the closing down of industries, the discharge of the workmen and the refusal to them of' further chance to gain a living by work at their customary vocations. After this there appear and reign the events known as "industrial depression'' and "hard UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 23 times." These follow in rapid succession after the full development of over-production. "Over-production" needs no further descrip- tion for us to have an idea of what it is. "In- dustrial depression" we know to be the torpor of trade and industry occasioned by the stoppage of operations. Of what sort is the experience of "hard times." Keeping at our illustrations, it is the experi- ence of discouraging trials and hard luck, joined with impoverishment and distress, attendant upon the men in their endeavors, during the season of industrial depression, to maintain soul and body together. For though the men may be forced to desist from earning further subsis- tence, the physical systems of themselves and families do not cease to demand support. Common experience teaches us what is the succession of events that will occur through the period of hard times. After their discharge the men subsist so long as they can upon the means they have been enabled to lay by. Their means gone, they seek out their employers and beg to be allowed to resume work for the further sup- port of themselves and families. Comformably to rule, their petition fails of success. The em- ployes are not only denied labor, but are usually accused of shortsightedness and blamed for their condition in language not out of such fashion as 24 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. this: "No, you should see that there is a plen- ty of the means of support. You must suffer the consequences of your folly. Had you been less extravagant and shiftless in the past you would not now be without means to purchase a living." To this the petitioners might very con- vincingly retort, " How is it possible to purchase the whole of a thing with less money than its real worth? Had we saved with unexampled care would that have left in our hands means to purchase the sixth you gained away from us when you reduced our wages twenty-five cents on the day." A reply characteristic of the kind usually given to terminate said conferences is: "It is not our business to engage in arguments with you; we understand how-to conduct our affairs, and desire neither your importunity nor your advice." After this petition and colloquy, which is caused to take place out of sheer desperation in the men rather than from any hope they harbor of succeeding in a sort of attempt that they can not but know will fail, the next event transpires. This event is the reluctant impairment by the workmen of their homesteads. They are forced to part with their home properties — accumulated previous to the era of exaction — in such quan- tities and upon such terms as they can, or to encumber them, in order to get the. wherewithal UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 25 to live upon. To sell or to mortgage pre-earned possessions was in reality the only thing left the workman to do, the only recourse left open to them for the getting of a living in fact, after their employers had closed down and promul- gated the dicta that the stock in hand must be reduced before more should be produced; and if 'it were done after every imaginable struggle to avoid it, it had to be done before there could be a return to industrialism and "good times." Those who have no properties to yield up on these occasions, or have yielded up all and are still in want before the close of the period, must beg or steal, and in consequence get themselves lodged in pauper shops or prison pens. Such experiences as these contain the gist of what is meant, when we speak of "hard times." They are the peculiarly disagreeable experiences joined with the vanishment of accumulated gains. They are the more remote and harsh effects of unfair distribution. The denial to the em- ployes of Notseen of their full wages allowed them to live less bounteously upon $1.25 per day. Now, for the dissipation of the resulting over-production, industries are closed down and they are denied the chance of getting any sort of a living, except as they surrender pre-earned possessions in exchange for it, beg or steal it, or have it furnished them as paupers or criminals. 26 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. It is, indeed, experiencing hard times when will- ing hands are not peimitted to satisfy the crav- ing stomach by industry, when one is forced to part with the accumulations of his former toil out of dire necessity, and when a victim is sen- tenced to pay the penalty of pauperism or crime because he has not disobeyed the injunction of nature to preserve life, and given himself up to starve. This I will let suffice for the dispensing of an idea of the methods and results of unfair distribution, with the hope that it will find its use in making easier to understand what is to follow. In what has gone before the ill experiences are given as borne by employes for the sake of sim- plicity and not because it is held that hired laborers alone suffer from unfair distribution. The evil effects of unfair distribution are visited upon everybody, the ordinary farmers, mer- chants, manufacturers and upon those who are the recipients of the earnings extorted from the common people. An unfair distribution of earn- ings, no difference how made, whether through unfair taxation or unfair price, or otherwise, affects society in the same disastrous man- ner. At the expense of ' some repetition, UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 27 this part of the introduction being written since the writing of the balance of the work, I will give some more of the events growing out of unfair distribution. Again for sake of simplicity I will treat them from the single stand-point of unfair exchange through the instrumentality of monopoly. First. The authors of monopoly force a system of self-denial and stupor of trade upon the balance of society. Those who combine industries into the form of monopoly carry out the purposes of their combinations by over-charging for the commodities and services which they sell, and under-paying for the commod- ities and services which they buy. The effect of this practice is to leave the balance of society less than the full share of its earnings. If the people who compose the balance of society are deprived of a share of their earnings, then, they must do with less of the means of welfare than full earnings will buy and less business must be done to satisfy common demands. The peo- ple must do with fewer and poorer houses, barns and fences, and lumber and hardware merchants must sell less lumber, nails and building material. The people must do with fewer suits and dresses, and clothing and dry goods merchants must sell less garment and drapery stuffs. The 28 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION people must skimp in the kind and variety of their food, and flour dealers and grocery men must do a poorer trade, butchers must sell less meat, farmers less wheat and fat steers, and gardeners less garden truck. The people must cut short in their pleasures and enjoyments, and dealers in carriages and musical instruments must do only half the business they might have done had the public been allowed to retain the full share of their winnings. In short, if only a fraction of earnings is left with the balance of society, then the balance of society can only en- joy a fraction of earnings and tradesmen can have only a fraction of trade with its profits. This is self-denial and stupor of trade. If this self-denial and stupor of trade served an}' good purpose whatever to the monopolists there might be some justification for its enforce- ment ; but it does not, as will be made presently to appear. Second. The authors of monopoly indulge in useless piling up of products. The piling up of products occurs from this fact. I have stated that the authors of monopoly force a system of self-denial upon all the rest of society. What does this system of self-denial mean ? It means that the balance of society do not consume the full amount of their earnings. What do those earnings consist of ? They consist of the pro- UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 29 ducts of their effort — the lumber, food, clothing and every thing else produced for the satisfac- tion of man. The balance of society consumes but a part of their earnings, because the monopo- lists set such prices for them in their dealings with them as to allow them opportunity to get but a part of their earnings. The earnings which the balance of society does not consume, must then pile up. But, says one, cannot the monopolists con- sume them? Certainly not. Their own bona fide earnings, the part which would be left them if there was a fair deal, suffices for their con- sumption, both of personal and capital wants. This, which they get b} 7 overcharging and un- derpaying, is a gain, something that falls into their possession over and above the bona fide earnings which they themselves make. They may and do make way with some of these gains by indulging in extravagancies, but they cannot? with the utmost extravagance, make way with all their gains, their number being too small as compared with the number they are gaining from. It is probable that fifty thousand would include the number of monopolists in the United States. An even estimate of the balance of earners is twenty million persons. If these fifty thousand monopolists gained an average of 25 cents per day from each of the twenty million 30 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. earners, it would give to each of the monopolists above his own legitimate earnings, a gained sum equalling upon the average, $100 per day, or $30,000 per year. This large sum they cannot consume in addition to their own legitimate earn- ings, and it is not probable that their gains are even as small as this sum. This gain must pile up and take the name that it is commonly known by, which is, " Over- production." Over-production consists as follows: On hand, of the monopolists' own make, pro- ducts which would not have been left on their hands had they let their wares go at earned val- uations; in the possession of the monopolists, by actual or debt claim, of the peoples' make, pro- ducts which they would not have got had they taken in the peoples' wares at earned valua- tions. Over-production always stands opposed to scarcity. That is, because over-production and scarcity have one and the same cause. When you rob 20,000,000 citizens of a large share of their earnings, then we must hear the com- plaint of scarcity. When you turn these earn- ings over to another 50,000 citizens, then we must hear the complaint of over-production. But the passing of earnings out of the hands of one set into the hands of another set is a single operation. That is why plenty and scarcity go UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 31 together and have the same cause. The mon- opolists cause such a division of earnings as to give themselves too much, while they leave the balance of society too little. That is why we have over-production always side by side with destitution. I have stated that this piling up of products was a useless piling up of products. This we shall presently see. Third. The monopolists force, check and stoppage of production, with its hardships, until their gains or over-productions can be disposed of. It has been shown that the gains of the monopolists simply pile up — accumulate upon the shelves and in the bins of warehouses and in storage yards. In time every storing place is filled to overflowing. Then what is done? There is stop put to production. Manufactur- ing, mining and productive concerns which have these surpluses are closed until these surpluses can be disposed of. Men are stopped from work, and those that are poor are thrown upon the charities of the public or driven into crime to get the wherewithal to sustain life. Here, I ask, where was the wisdom in piling up this stuff if production must cease for the sake of. getting it consumed? Has an}^ good purpose, whatever, been subserved? All society, outside of the monopolists, have been forced to practice a 32 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. system of self-denial, more or less stringent, that an over-production might be saved. Now they must be forced to undergo a period of industrial depression, with its dangers and hardships, that this over-production maybe consumed. Would, it not have been better had we indulged in plen- teous consumption of our productions along as we created them, and thus avoided the occa- sion for stoppage, industrial depression and hard times ? We have, in effect, been forced to work five years and to be idle one year, with the result of a poor living six years. Would it not have been better for us to have kept a brisk activity for the whole six years and enjoyed all we could produce in that time ? We work that we may have a living, and as good a one as we can get. Then, why should we work five years, and be idle one, and lose the comforts that the year oHdleness fails to bring forth? If the monopolist is looking for riches alone, would he not get more of it by six continuous years upon a smaller margin than by the present course with excessive margins ? I am convinced that any one who will take time to examine the subject must answer in the affirmative. I may proceed to another fact. Fourth. The authors of monopolies waste our earnings in useless over-investments. The great gains which the monopolists make are not all UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 33 put into the forms of over-production. Another name for their great gains is profits — extra prof- its. A portion of this extra profit is used by the monopolists to increase the size and capacity of their industries. But the increase which they make is a misapplication of capital. Why? By producing more another year, without changing their terms of dealing with the public, as they do not, they only add to the amount which goes into over-production. Why, then, do the mon- opolists increase the capacity of their industries? Because capital is always crazy for investment. These monopolists want their enormous profits to be doing something, and to enlarge industries already over-large, is the only chance they see to make an investment that promises anything in the shape of reward. But to enlarge industries that are already overlarge — is not that a waste of earnings ? That money which has gone to double the needed capacity of our factories, mines and railroads — would not a more wise investment of a share of this capital have been in farmers' barns, labor- ers' houses and homes, struggling merchants' ex* penses, poor peoples' clothes — in fact, where it could have been fully used instead of half used ? Should the lumber manufacturers profit to such an extent as to force the people to do with in- sufficient buildings, while the}' double the coun. 34 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. try's needs for saw and planing mills? Should three-fourths of the people of the Union be forced to curtail in their wearing apparel in order that a few manufacturers can boast of a manufac- turing capacity sufficient to ^supply the world? Do we earn that we may enjoy as we need to enjoy, or do we earn that some men may make a grand and vain display? I think the burden of complaints heard around us should convince us that, though there is a one-sided getting of wealth and development of industries, yet nobody is satisfied with it — neither the gainers nor the losers. The cotton and woollen manufacturers' wail is, " What shall we do to find a market for our surplus cloths and calicoes?" The workmen's wail is, "What shall we do to keep ourselves, wives and chil- dren from nakedness? " The lumberman com- plains, " What shall I do to get rid of nry enor- mous stacks of lumber?" The farmer com- plains, " What shall I do for the means to pro- tect my stock from the storms of winter? " The stockholders of the railroads say, " How are we going to make our enormous capital in railroad extensions pay?" The masses say, " What are we to do for capital to run our industries with?" The monopolists, in concert, say, " What are we going to do with our enormous profits and idle money?" The balance of society, in con- UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 35 cert, say, u How are we to raise the means to make our affairs come out so that both ends will meet?" The monopolists have overloaded themselves with facilities for doing and stuffs to sell, and have done it by impoverishing those whom they looked to do for and sell to. They have overleaped bounds and ruined their market in the process of getting ready for it. In con- sequence, they have got themselves into a situa- tion that has set them to complaining as loudly as the rest of the public. It worries them as much not to be able to sell to and perform for the public as it does the public not to be able to patronize them. We now see what is the secret of our troubles. Since the one side complains of having too much and the other side of having too little, the great trouble is because of unfair distribution of earn- ings. The monopolists want to rapidly enrich themselves, but they are proceeding too greedily and it is giving them constant dissatisfaction. They want to trade largely with the people, but they dictate such one-sided terms as to exhaust the peoples' means before much trading has been done. They want to force the people to live upon little, but to buy much at the same time, and because it cannot be done they only get themselves into trouble. They cannot sell much to the people if they charge such high prices as 36 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION to enable the people to buy but little. The doc- trine of long hours and starvation wages will never produce anything but a thorn to its best friends. If the monopolists continue on in their policy of over-investing what must eventually be the shape of their industries and that of the condition of the people? First, their own industries will be five times as large as the people need, while the people will be so poor as to be able to wear noth- ing but bear coverings, and to eat nothing but the cheapest sort of adulterations. Secondly, the monopolists themselves will be forced to a cheap living, since it will take all they can get out of their large railroads and factories and all they can get out of the people also to keep their over- sized railroads and factories in form and repair. Their big industries will be like elephants on their hands, taking all the animals can earn and all they can steal besides to keep them alive. When that time comes many railroad lines will be abandoned to the rust and many factories will be given up to the rats and hooting owls. Fifth. The authors of monopoly cause to fall into their own possessions the capital of the bal- ance of the members of society. It has been stated that the monopolists force check and stop- page, when surpluses accrue, until they can rid themselves of their over-productions. We may UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 37 now ask, whom do they unload their over-pro- ductions upon? The answer is, upon the gene- ral public of course. There lacks place of lodg- ment else for them ; besides,the public must subsist when they are gaining nothing as well as when they are gaining something. The merchant must eat, clothe and shelter himself as well when his sales are dull and he is falling behind as when he has a brisk trade, and is doing well. The laborer must eat when he is idle as well as when he is at work. How are the public to pay for these over-pro- ductions, seeing that their low compensation did not permit them to buy the stuffs during the pro- cess of their creation ? Cut off from the power to buy them at one time how are the people to buy them at another time? The only way that the people can pay for these over-productions is by having recourse up- on their original capital. The merchant must subsist upon his original stock of goods instead of upon the profits he expects to make from sales. The farmer must sell off some of his land, or mortgage it, to pay for the share of over-produc- tion he buys back. The laborer must part with his house and lot. If he has no house or lot, then the public must be taxed to support him in the soup-house, poor-house or penitentiary. To conclude upon this last fact, I simply state 38 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. this proposition, which is obvious enough to need no explanation. Extortion, through the instru- mentality of monopoly, consists in gaining away portions of our earnings along as we create them, then of forcing us to take back these earn- ings and yielding up our capital in exchange for them. The policy, of course, can only end in reducing our children, or our children's 'children at furthest, to a state of poverty and servitude. CHAPTER I. man's mission on earth. Man has been established upon earth with a design looking foremost to the self-preservation, enjoyment and development of himself while here. This we judge to be so because he has implanted within him an irresoluble want or in- clination to achieve and realize such a design, and because such a want or inclination would not have been implanted within him had it not been meant to effect such an achievement and realiza- tion. This disposition or want, repeating itself under a different phase in the disposition or want to do what will conduce to the preservation, en- joyment and development of self, is a force with- in man which he cannot annul or contrarize. Man cannot want, or want to educe, harm or misery to self or an abridgment in the number of days of his sojourn upon earth, for he is not con- stituted so to want and as he is constituted so he must manifest himself. He may and does seek 40 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. that which to himself is harmful, but he does not do so out of preference or under the thought that he is doing himself injury; he does so only when he is working under false impressions as to results or under morbid conditions of self. All the rational and clear-sighted acts of man are favorable to the end judged to be that of man's purpose upon earth, and guided by the best judgment he can command, he directs his energies toward the constant accomplishment of this pur- pose, not persistently merely, but with a vigor that marks one of the chief characteristics in living beings. He is impelled by his disposition to pre- serve and prolong his life with all the energy and diplomacy he can command, to minister to his enjoyments with a prolific hand and to develop himself by all the means within his power. It is thus he is led to perform the duties he is to perform as coming within the pale of responsi- bilities he is made to assume toward fitting him- self for his future state. Whatever aids man in carrying out*his design upon earth, is right; whatever opposes 'it, is wrong. This we conceive to be so because it harmonizes with his duties as involved in the belief, based upon our experiences, that nature has not set up parts of herself in such a fashion as to antagonize other parts of herself, but has UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 41 made all things to act in unison one with the other. By the development of man we mean his im- provement in the art of ministering to his self- preservation and enjoyment. Man wants to live long and well, and as there is a chance for im- provement in this art he desires to avail himself of it, the longest life filled with the greatest measure of enjoyment conducing most to the complete satisfaction of himself. As a rule what is applied practically for the sustenance and preservation of the body, affords enjoyment as well, and what is applied to afford in the main enjoyment, contributes through that enjoyment to the self-preservation of man. Food, man eats with a principal view of affording life, and health and strength of body, but he does not consume food in blank unfeelingness. There is a pleasure in eating food. Exercise and rest must be had to maintain the soundness of the system, but aside from this use of them there is a real pleasure in exercise and rest. To enter the category of things considered as of pleasure wholly, as music and sight seeing. They answer a purpose more than that of mere pleasure. They accelerate the bodily functions, invigorate the system and thus conduce to prolong life. As what satisfies the one want of man does so no less effectually on account of its contributing to 42 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. satisfy the other want, man can claim to be fortu- nate in having things minister doubly to the satisfaction of himself. The purpose of man's creation; the long living comfort, happiness and advancement of man; the welfare of man; the right doing of man; his duty to himself; his wants, in an enlightened manner understood; his inclination in behalf of himself; the real interest of himself; hisproper self-interest, are all homogeneous terms, phrases expressive of a train of ideas in unison with a central concept- ion which is this: a justification of whatever is calculated, really and unequivocally and without misapprehension, to lengthen out the days of man and to swell the measure and intensit}' of his joys. These and all expressions of a kindred strain are delivered in the interest of the object indexed by his sympathies and will as being the object of his earthly career. It is in the sense that the welfare of man consists in the sustain- ment and happiness of him that these phrases are universally used and understood by man, because his nature, reason and experience forbid him to conceive that he has been placed here for any other purpose. Following such a conception as this must be the one that of all the devices em" ployed by man for the attainment of, and experi- ence in, these purposes of his existence, none can be considered irrational or blameworthy, UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 43 none can be justifiably characterized as extrava- gant, let them elicit results never so profuse, so they are of a kind fitted to really promote these purposes, for these are the purposes of his exist - ance, the. ends he was created to accomplish as coming within the pale of responsibilities he was made to assume in order to the accomplishing of still more ultimate ends of himself, and the more fully he accomplishes these ends the more full}' does he fulfill the purpose of his creation — that is, act out his part here, and his duties to himself. AGENCIES OR MEANS. Man does not execute his mission without the application and impropriation of agencies or means. Thus when we say that man preserves his life and health we signify among other things that he employs food, drink and raiment in the operation; that he exercises himself, rests and sleeps. Without agencies or means, or, as other- wise called, wants adapted to the promotion of man's mission upon earth, there could not be man's mission, because no man, he not being sub- sistive independent of his resources. Man depends upon food and drink, upon raiment and shelter, upon air and sunshine, upon things vital and things not vital, upon things requiring task and those requiring no task to make him what 44 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. he is and what he is to be. It is these that are applied by himself to his person and are inbibed by his person with the view to extend his hold upon his life, to give to himself comfort and en- joyment and to grant to himself the development or advancement of himself. When supplied with an adequacy of these, his agencies, means or wants, the purpose of his creation is promoted to the highest degree. Some things come to man thoroughly fitted in the natural state to serve him, as the sunshine and air of free space. These are essential to his welfare but compose but a part of things essen- tial to him. Much that is needed by him must go through the ordeal of task before it is fitted for his use. Such are bread, clothes, houses and everything we see which has been fashioned by man out of the materials of the earth. For the fashioning of these things there has been called into practical application the agency of exertion, essential in and of itself to give health and strength and pleasure to the system. After ex- ertion comes rest and leisure and sleep, made sweet by virtue of exertion, and these complete the round of agencies which conduce to the self- preservation and enjoyment of man. The agencies which conduce to the welfare of man we may now classify, in order to a more UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. .. 45 thorough explanation and understanding of them. They are: i. Things ready in the natural or primitive state to be appropriated by him, as the air of free space, the light and warmth of the sun, the water running at his feet. 2. Things made ready from unready material in the natural state. These compose all the products of man's industry, the wealth of his toil acquired by him for the support of himself. 3. Exertion of mind and body. It is by the exertion of man that tangible acquisitions for the use of him are made to arise, comprising the second class of agencies. But exertion becomes a third agency by contributing to the needs of man on its own account and' irrespective of the tangible acquisitions summoned through it. Man must undergo exertion to give to himself health and strength and tone of system, and to work off the regularly recurring uneasiness which arise within the system and which have for their anti- dote,exertion. 4. Things partaking of a restorative character as rest, leisure, and sleep. Exertion, as an agency of itself answers its purpose in exhausting and tiring parts of the system when there comes into need an agency of a reactionary or recuperative sort. Opposed to the day of activity, there is the night of sleep; opposed to toil, rest; opposed to 46 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. application, recreation; opposed to the active effort for supply, the passive enjoyment of supply. In these four classes are included all of the agencies or wants of man considered as being pre-supplied with the earth for an abode. The classification is based upon peculiarities predom- inant in each set and will aid in the elucidation of our subject. These different classes, we observe, occupy different relationshipsto man. The first are pure gratuities of nature. They come to him with- out call or help, and with all are so perfect for the purposes they are designed to answer that no improvement in them could be supposed. They are as essential to him as any that occupy a place upon his list of wants, but they cause him no care to assure their coming or to assure their suitableness for him. They are perfectly satis- factory to man. To the^others are attached man's great solici- tude and concern as being wants which he, fixed so as to be largely the responsible architect of his own fortune, must satisfactorily work out for him- self if they are to be satisfactorily worked out at all. In the present stage of his existence these wants are lacking. They are not thoroughly satisfactory to him. They are pervaded with imperfections. But while this is true it is also true UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 47 that these imperfections are not unsusceptible of mitigative and even of obliterative influences at the hand of man. In this fact there is supplied a hope and a solace for man as being a creature disposed to be gratified and to be rid of all imper- fections attending his means of gratification. If we discover the exact condition of existence and relationship to man, of the wants which are de- pendent upon him for their coming and condition we will be possessed of a clearer conception of what are the things which go to make up the real problem man is to solve in order to the com. plete welfare of himself, and why it is his tenden- cies are bent always and tenaciously into a one single direction or course of pursuing. The first of these three self-regulative wants of man, that is the second in the list,or task made means, stand related to man in this way: the task for their supply must proceed from him. His is the task by which they are made to appear. This is in accordance with the theory of crea- tion, universally encountered, that whatever is sustained by the help of task must be the author of the task which helps to sustain it. The bird which would have food, to be used as a means of support of itself, must make itself a means for procuring that food. The wild beast must be itself the seeker of its prey; the plant must be 48 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION- itself the accumulator of the sap which enters into its growth. Man is no exception to the conse- quences of this rule. Standing in need of task- made means to fulfill the purpose of his creation it devolves upon him to expend the task for their procurement. . The task which man undergoes for the procure- ment of his task-supplied means is another want of his, coming under the head of the third class of wants, and stands related to him as means, not consisting of outward things to be applied by himself unto himself, but as means arising within and that are to be imbibed by himself through the energy of himself. That provision in the econ- omy of nature which makes the existence of man's need also an instrumentality for supplying another need, does not make the exertion less satisfactory on that account, but more so. Exertion under gone to satisfy the muscular need of contraction and relaxation, and the mind's need of attention and concentration, is enhanced in its power to satisfy in its special field by reason of its leading to satisfaction in another field. Anyone who will take the trouble to study the subject, will be convinced that the productive feature of exertion gives to it pungency and zest, and constitutes in other respects a very important part of the virtue in exertion, as exertion, to satisfy. Exertion of this sort is what we call by the UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 49 name of work, toil, labor. It occupies a double relationship to man. It satisfies a craving that can only be satisfied by things existing within, and it is a means of granting to him things needed to satisfy cravings of his which can only be satisfied by the application of things existing from without. The last class of agencies are like the class just above in this : they are agencies to be had as they are undergone or to be enjo} T ed simultane- ously as they are developed through certain manipulations of the body, but they are unlike this same class above in this, they are not a means of supplying for other wants. They have no results beyond satisfying the single desires they are designed to satisfy. Rest and sleep produce man nothing from without, but he must have them just as much as if they did. He wants also leisure and recreation, and the exertion that is for pastime instead of profit, and that calls into play a new set of activities to exert an influence in restoring to freshness and vigor the long used and tired activities. This class of wants would come under the head of idleness, and we can say man wants idleness as well as work. LACKS AND TENDENCIES. These three classes of wants, just gone over, are imperfect, unsatisfactory to man, not calcu- 50 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. lated to conduce thoroughly to his welfare. In what respect are thus lacking or deficient: i. There is too little of the fruits of toil. 2. There is required an excess of toil. 3. There is too little of the period of idleness or relief from toil. These lacks are evils to mankind. They are drawbacks to the promotion of the purpose of his existence. What is the way to mitigation or avoidance of these evils? The way is through increased efficacy of effort; through making labor more productive by degrees. That gives us more fruits for the same toil, or makes requisite less toil for the same fruits, or works betterments as it is apt to be made to do both ways, and when there is less toil required it is an improvement in the last de- partment of wants. Now inasmuch as increased productiveness or labor enhances the welfare of man, and his wel- fare is the cardinal desire of his being, with what view uppermost are we always to find man pur- suing? With the view uppermost always to accomplish the most possible with a given amount of effort, or, as equivalently stated, to accomplish any given thing with the least possible amount of effort. This is his cardinal tendency: to adopt that line and policy of conduct which will conspire most to UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 5 1 satisfy his wants for material things or means on the one side without detracting incongruously from his wants for rest, recreation and saving of health and strength on the other side. He does not court absolute idleness. We do not try to con- vey any such meaning. It is an opinion common- ly held, however, that he does wish that — that he would like wholly to be in possession of a plenty of the fruits of effort, and to be excused wholly from undergoing effort, in the procurement of them. But this is an erronous opinion, and arises from confounding exertion with over-exertion. The fact is, man wants exertion no less than he wants the fruits of exertion. Exertion is as essen- tial to the welfare of man, exertion at labor, as any other thing that is listed among his means of welfare. But man desires his exertion to be, as he desires all his other agencies to be, in quantity and in kind suited to conduce to his wel- fare. He wants so much for instance, as condu- ces to the invigoration and strengthening of the system, but not so much as tires inordinately and annoys and cripples and so produces an opposed effect. Idleness is irksome to man, as irksome as overwork. In moderate toil is man's needs and pleasureable feelings, that are dependent upon mental and bodily activity, answered. When man has reached that station of advance in which all his varying wants for toil-made wealth 52 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. can be supplied through the moderate exercise of his mind and body, then will he have reached the goal of his ambition to self -satisfy, He will then revel in the possession of a full measure in all his wants. Linked with the gratuitous wants of nature, which are always aright, there will be so much of material products as he shall have a desire to apply, procurable through so much of effort as he shall have a real desire to undergo, and as leaves unintrenchedupon so much of time as is wanted to be undergone in relief from toil. All these he will have, toil among the rest, but the toil so potentized that what is wanted of it will bring and leave what is wanted of the others reared or left to grow out of it. Now a little further upon this same topic that we may not be misled by expressions employed. It is thoroughly proper to say that man wants to do all that is in his power to forward the purpose of his existence, because when we say this we do not mean, as is often thought, that he wants to undergo all the exertion his system can bear to procure effort-induced things, productions of labor, for himself. We mean that he wants to do all in his power to make so much exertion as he desires to undergo, bring him so much of effort- induced things as he desires to have, whence all will be right for him. These meanings must be UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 53 kept clearly cut in the mind to obviate confusion. Let us go over the ground of man's wants for sake of a clear understanding. Man wants the self-preservation, enjoyment and development of himself. As he cannot have these without agencies or means(and called wants) adapted to the accomplishment of them, he de- sires to possess the agencies or means required for their accomplishment. As he cannot possess these agencies or means, or a large part of them at least, through non-attempt, he desires to do that which will put him in possession of them. That is he desires to do that which will give him as much exercise in toil as he needs, as much leis- ure or relief fromtoil as he needs,and as much toil made things as he needs to accompany as much of the gratuities of nature as he needs, but here- in we have a case of the use of the verb "to do," in which it is not by great odds to be construed as signifying nothing but laborious effort; it is to be interpreted as signifying to a large extent exactly to the contrary — the avoidance of labor- ious effort. And it is in this sense that we are to understand man's efforts to satisfy himself. Now if we have arrived at a clear conception of what are man's real wants, and how are to be construed his desires to do, and I trust that I have conveyed the idea, if not in the best fash- ion, at any rate conveyed it, we are ready to go 54 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. back to man's great tendency, described again as the propensity to render most efficacious at all times the labor bestowed in given cases, or which is the same in meaning, to render least extensive the effort required in special cases This tendency is identical with the desire of man for self-promotion, and to have what will promote him, and to do what will promote him, as just explained, it being merely a manifestation of the desire under that phase which consists in the selection and adoption of a particular method of promoting his welfare. There are other phases of the desire to be noticed as we proceed. This desire is known under its various phases and shades of meaning as the principle of self-preser- vation, self-protection and so on, more commonly as self-interest, and it is a ruling force in man, over-mastering all his other forces. Manifesting itself under that particular phase of itself repre- sented by the tendency just under discussion, it is a force which actuates man into stern adhesion to a one steady policy of operating, viz: the policy of going where he can get the most with given ex- penditure, and it does this all the while there is an active body enveloping the force. As such a force it has so much to do with the destiny of UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 55 man, is a cause leading to such momentous con- sequences, that I desire to call the reader's spec- ial attention to its existence and nature. For it is the force which propels man into the accom- plishment of his welfare or ill-fare according as the conditions under which he operates are right or wrong. We now see that man desires to potentize his labor because his deficiencies as to his satisfac- tionsarise from impotency of his labor. If his deficiencies arose from some other cause he would desire to eradicate the other cause, what- ever it was, and his tendency would be in some other direction suited to the eradication of this cause. As it is now, superior potency of labor is what is needed. Man, or mankind, has never experienced the time when he could procure more of the fruits of toil than he desired to pos- sess with less exertion than he desired to under- go. Or, as stated after the manner in which we must interpret his rational desires, he has never experienced the time when he could procure more than was good for him with less effort than was good for him. It has always been entirely the reverse with him. But he has within him- self the power to increase his productiveness, and each step in this sort of advance is a step toward the betterment of his condition. He earns more comforts, or needs not to work so hard to get 56 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. necessary comforts, or he shares betterments both ways and in all ways. He desires betterments, so we see why he works for betterments. This he will continue to do until he has brought him- self up to a state of perfection in regard to his wants, if that be possible, when it can be expec- ted that he will stand on the alert to maintain that degree of potency in his efforts which" conduces to entire satisfaction, for alertness will be required as much to maintain the proper de. gree, and to prevent retrograde, as it was re- quired in the first place to attain to it, and man will always be on the alert to grant entire satis- faction to himself. Nor is the alertness, as a thing of itself wanted to be avoided, for there is a pungent pleasure in watching for one's best good. CHAPTER II. METHODS OF WEALTH GETTING. We have seen that man tends to provide for himself as best he possibly can, and that this is done by maximumizing his productiveness, or, as some may better understand it, by operating in such a manner as to occasion to himself the greatest profit. Man resorts to various devices in order to achieve the greatest results. These devices we may divide into two classes : the justifiable and the unjustifiable. The justifiable devices are those which really conduce to the welfare of man, and consist in attempts to over- come the forces of nature. The unjustifiable devices are those which do not conduce to the welfare of man, but to the contrary, and they consist in attempts to profit one fellow at the ex- pense of another fellow. There are but two wa} T s in which an indivi- dual can come into the possession of wealth, as the fruits of toil are commonly called. 5f our beings has seen fit to furnish us with perceptions as varied as the nat- UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 187 ural objects it was designed we should study and solve the intricacies of. One person is fitted to excel in one thing, another person in another thing. A useful idea that would not dawn upon a certain man's brain in a life-time is perceived by another in an instant. The devising often men will readily dissolve difficulties that would im- pede one man always, because his devising capacity was limited to the grasp of a single mind. In any piece of planning two heads are better than one, and, in the same line, the freest exercise of universal talent will the soonest bring about the complete mastery of man over the forces of nature. To provide that condition, then, which liberates to the largest extent the countless capacities of man, mental and physi- cal, is to provide for the most rapid development of the human race. By the interest of possession in the fruits of toil, the second condition resulting from capital ownership, the people profit by the inducement of that prudence of management, saving, watch- fulness, care and modification of methods to suit peculiar cases which a man extends to any pursuit in which his reward depends upon the yield he can produce by his industry and care. The fruits of his labor being his own, he is interested in getting the largest return possible, and he will? from the very nature of things, create a much 1 88 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. greater return than can be hoped for from one who looks for compensation in salary or wages only. Seeing then that ownership calls for the wisest exertions and best devising expedients in man we become thorougly convinced that the productive appliances of a people will be perfected in the most effective way, by keeping in vogue a system which invokes to the highest extent the facilities for obtainment by men of proprietary interests in their vocations. But we have said that unfair distribution causes a waste of human capabilities. How? By con- version into few hands of extravagant possessory interests, thus reducing the proprietary class to the minimum number. By creating a small class of millionaire owners on the one hand, and a large class of propertyless employes on the other, both of whom have their efficienciesimpaired by the obstructions attending their situations. First, the owners of immense establishments can give only general and skipping attention to the details of affairs, leaving the real management and performances of their businesses to others, under their employ. This is operating second handed, which is a very disadvantageous mode. It is impossible to get men to take the same con- cern in the welfare of others' interests that they will take in their own. The very natures of men UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 1 89 forbid the practice of the minutest productive economy when the fruits of toil do not become their own, and as the owners of immense estab- lishments cannot themselves give attention to all of the innumerable details, or in many cases to any of the details, upon which the fruitfulness of operations depend, there follows inevitable waste and loss. The losses occasioned by want of strictest care here, and the allowance of a small waste there, and the failure to create to the utmost capacity every where, things that would be pre- vented by a proprietor having a smaller concern over which he could give completer supervision, go to make up an immense aggregate to be de- ducted from what might be the real produce of employed labor and capital. While proprietors of vast concerns cannot fa* miliarize themselves with their businesses suf- ficiently well to fit them to formulate the best plans for the general, and specifically the depart- mental, conduct of them, still by virtue of their authority as owners, all orders must emanate from them. Those under them, therefore, have no higher powers than that of executives and ser- vants. The superintendents and men in employ have authority to execute only such plans as are furnished to them ready made. They are without power to adopt the better methods which their greater familiarity with the businesses in I9O UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. hand and practice would enable them to prescribe. From this ensues more waste — a waste of the superior knowledge and skill which the super- intendent and others obtain from close contact and intimate experience with the businesses in hand, and from constant observation of the phenomena, rules, causes and effects connective therewith. Though they may be animated by a concientious desire to expend their knowledge and skill for the best interests of their employers, yet are they bound by master's rules and subjected to the con- servatism, and opposition to new methods, which characterize the masters as a class. It is well- known that useful inventions and improvements seldom emanate from large capitalists, and that it requires the most strenuous efforts by the authors of the best appliances to get them generally adopted. The direct managers are the quickest to discover the advantages in improvements and the defects in existing things, but being without the power which ownership confers, that is the power to enforce the adoption or discharge of measures and appliances according as they see that they will beneficially or do injuriously effect the concerns in charge, the}' are often compelled to carry out modes and policies which their better grounded judgments plainly tell them are far from being the best that could be employed. This superiority of ability to control, direct and UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 191 adopt becomes so much wasted, so much of diversified and practical talent shut off from utilization in progress, improvement and cheap- ening of production. Again, self-interest constructs policies to suit the situations of men. It is policy for the super- intendent to preserve the good esteem of the proprietor who engages him, as likewise it is policy to maintain the good will of the men over whom he exercises control. Good will between the men and superintendent fills the proprietor with an exalted idea of the superintendent's fit- ness for the position he occupies. This high idea protects the superintendent in the enjoyment of his position and salary, the things of ruling mo- ment to him. But the good relationship between superintendent and men may depend upon a series of favoritisms toward the latter which is anything but to the interests of the*, proprietor. Again, the superintendent may find it to his ad- vantage to flatter his master upon the latter's exer- cise of sound judgment where there has been plainly unsoundness of judgment, and refrain from speak- ing the blunt truth in the matter. By so doing he attaches himself more firmly to the good will of a vain employer and profits thereby; and while it is certain such conduct is not for the best interests of the employer, it serves to pro- mote the interests of the superintendent; it an- 192 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. swers his needs, and is but an exhibition of a natural motive. Without multiplying examples, I think I have shown that that of a superintendent's authority, privileges and interest being foreign to those of a proprietor's, he lacks the proprietor's opportuni- ties for the exercise of that knowledge and ac- quired skill, and he lacks the proprietor's incen- tives for the exercise of that prudence, saving, care and attention to details which are so enrich- ing, when exercised, in results. In these facts are found objections to the aggregation of indus- tries into immense wholes in ownership of a few. Extending to the common workmen our in- quiries, we still fail to find good in a system which increases beyond necessity the list of people deprived of all the interests and incentives which give inspiration and ambition to owners. We are only multiplying those who are interested rather in saving their strength and muscle than in putting forth extra exertions in the creation of supply. Coupled with the drawbacks of restraint and dis-interest are the inefficiencies resulting from weakness of mind and body. The meagre wages which the monopolists can compel men to ac- cept shuts them off from schools, churches and all the means of enlightenment of mind. It is not necessary to dwell upon the inferiority to the UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. IQ3 educated, of the ignorant and dense-minded, as producers and earners. Statistics, observation and common sense satisfy us on that point. As to physical worth, the deprivations of body which under-paid employes are made to endure from lack of nutritious food, warm clothing, comforta- ble houses, and the overwork they are subjected to, are so health -destroying as to render it uncom- mon to find a perfectly robust person of middle age among them. Producing inefficiency in such men it needs no argument to establish. It is only necessary to say that these are some more of the crippling agencies born of monopolies, and that they greatly increase the cost of produc- tion ; so much so that the monopolies could not be made self-sustaining if the destruction of compe- tition did not give them license to rob the public indefinitely. The common belief is that the more capital there is engaged in a single industry, the cheaper the production in that industry. But there is error in this. The influx of capital into an in- dustry acts as a cheapener, until the amount of sufficiency is reached; further, it acts to the con- trary. Adequacy of capital, to the degree that it gives into an enterprise the best form of buil- dings, the most adaptible machinery and tools,, and operating fund to correspond, is essential to. cheap production. But where there is enough., i 9 4 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. efficiency is marred by the addition of more. The manufacture of a supply of anything being divided among a number of independent manu- facturers, possessed each with all the modern fa- cilities for doing his work, the wares will be turned out upon the lowest basis of cost. Because there will be a large number of interested pro- prietors engaged in directly overseeing and care- fully watching every detail in order to secure the greatest economy in the production of their arti- cles. Because the proprietors can bestow upon their business their own time and dispense with dependence upon salaried sub-masters to half- conduct businesses for them. Because direct contact with their men, as well as the better re- muneration they will have to pay their men on account of the demand for labor by many other employers, will secure the earnest effort, vigor- ous movement, intelligent action and well-wishes of their employes. Because the employes them- selves will be thrifty stockholders in the con- cerns; and will have all the interest in the success of the concerns that ownership gives. Conversely, when a set of persons have plied the wrecking and consolidating processes to extinguish the separateness in entity of busi- nesses and industries, and have succeeded in merging all smaller concerns into a few enor- mous ones, they have originated a series of cum- UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 1 95 brances, unwieldinesses and perplexities that ren der the most economical production impossible. Even could there be fair distribution in connec- tion with consolidated production, the annual out-put from nature would be immensely short of possibilities. CHAPTER VIII. COMBINATIONS OF CAPITAL, JUSTIFIABLE AND UNJUSTIFIABLE. Combinations of capital into single enterprises are occasioned by different motives in men. These motives may be justifiable or unjustifiable. We may suppose an instance of justifiable com- bination. A party of persons conclude that it would be a paying investment to establish a shoe factory in the western town of Owago. The facts which they have taken into consideration are these : First. Shoes can be made cheaper and better by machinery than by hand. Second. The factory would be near to the raw material of cattle hides and others stuffs, and near the people who should want the shoes. Third. A factory that was most perfectly equipped, containing neither less capital than was necessary for proper carrying on of the business, UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. I97 or such an excess as to make it cumbersome and costly to manage, could turn out shoes upon the lowest basis of cost. Fourth. Cheap shoes would make many sales, many sales would make many margins, many margins would make big profits. These facts, we will suppose, have caused the persons in question to decide to make the in- vestment. But the making of the investment is a combination of capital, as common under- standing goes. A considerable sum of value is put into a single enterprise. It requires, to erect a building of suitable dimensions, and to place in it a complete outfit of machinery and tools, and to stock it with a due amount of leather and other material, and to make provision for a sufficient quantity of surplus or operating fund, and to keep these all up to the proper standard, an estimated capital of, say, $50,000. This is a combination of capital, and similar to thousands of combinations of capital existing everywhere. But, what fault can be found with this combi- nation? None whatever. Why not? Because the founders have done nothing in the establish- ment of this industry, but what is a benefit to the rest of the community and to themselves. They have arranged to furnish to the community cheaper shoes than could be furnished before. They save a big share of the cost of all hand- I98 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. work by employment of labor-saving machinery. They save the cost of transporting raw hides away and finished shoes back again, over thousands of miles of railway. They have established a factory that can produce cheaper than one which contains more or less capital. These various sav- ings reflect to the advantage of all. The manu- facturers have maximum profit upon capital, af the same time that the people have shoes at min- imum cost. Who, therefore, can find fault with a combination backed by such motives as gov- erned in the formation of this supposable one. If the same motives controlled all parties en- gaged in the manufacture of shoes, what would we see in industrialism as a result? Shoemaking establishments would be distributed regularly over the country in the form of greatest per- fection of magnitude, neither too large or too small as respects capital contained, each supplying the territory within its own range. This could not but be, if the same motives controlled as did in the case just described. Let us now give attention to what would be an unjustifiable combination or one governed by un- justifiable motives. Instead of shoemaking establishments being distributed here and there throughout the country in the form of smaller but complete concerns, we may find them existing as immense establish- JNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 199 ments upon few points of the continent, and all under a single management, agreement or pool. Various may have been the modes by which the shoe manufacturers got themselves into this latter form of combination. There may have been a general agreement among all pre-existing inde- pendent manufacturers to thus consolidate. Or, the stronger pre-existing manufacturers may have joined together and bought out the weaker man- ufacturers, or crushed them out if they refused to sell out, and then formed their combination. Or, those who first started into the business, may have, by means of menacing new factories with railroad discrimination, or under priced sales in the vicinities where the latter should start, kept new factories from ever coming into existence. Whatever has been the mode employed for get- ting the shoe industry under control of a very few persons, we will suppose that a very few persons have combined to get the shoe industry under their control. The question then arises, what has been the motive of parties who have engaged in this sort of combination ? It could not have been to let the people have cheaper shoes for they have done that which enhances the cost of getting shoes into the possession of the people. By establishing factories at but few points, probably upon one side of the continent, they have placed a long 200 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. distance between themselves and the bulk of their raw material, and between themselves and the majority of those who are to be the patrons for their wares. They have also aggregated the in- dustries into a few enormous or unwieldy concerns which cannot, by any means, produce shoes at the lowest possible cost at which shoes can be made. What can be the motive, then, of those who have combined to monopolize the shoe in- dustry. The motive cannot be else than a motive to profit at the expense of the public. Those who formed the combination cannot have formed it for any other purpose than to enable them to overcharge and underpay in such a manner as to overcome the extra cost of making and trans- portation and yet to leave them a greater profit than was allowed without a monopolizing com- bination. A fortune at the expense of the world must have been the controlling thought with them. There has now been described two forms of combination. One was a concentration of capital for the purpose of having enough under a single management to form a complete shoe factory. The motive was to gain greater profit, not by adding to the price of shoes, but by saving upon the cost of making and upon the cost of trans- portation. The other was a concentration of capital for the purpose of getting all the shoe UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 2QI industries under one or a very few managements. The motive was to gain greater profit, not by saving in the cost of supplying shoes, but by set- ting a fictitious advance upon the price of shoes and forcing the people to pay it. My selection of the shoe industry is not to be interpreted as signifying that the shoe manufactories of the country consist of the one or the other forms of combination. That industry has been selected for mere illustration's sake. The first form of combination, I call a justifiable combination, and claim that it consists of a due and beneficent concentration of capital. The second I call an unjustifiable combination, and claim that it consists of an overdue and injurious concentration of capital. The first form of combination I say is right, the second form of combination I say is wrong. By right, I mean that which conduces to the long-living, comfort and enjoyment of man. By wrong, I mean that which conduces to the con- trary. Now, I ask, what do we work for ? In order that we may have those things which are neces- sary to our long-living, comfort and happiness, or, in short, welfare. Then the more we can produce with a given amount of energy and ex- penditure the better. That being so, a combi- nation that, like the first one described, gives us 202 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. cheaper goods than could be given to us without it, is a combination in the interest of right. The other combination is in the interest of wrong. We have now dealt with two kinds of combi- nations, under the designations of justifiable and unjustifiable. These complete the list of combi- nations formed with a view to profit. They em- brace one more, however, than is commonly conceived to be. It is a common thought that all aggregations of wealth are in principle and underlying motives identical. This is an error, and one which I take to be a very grave one, for I believe it to be the cause of so many being unwilling to take strong issue against monopolies, at the same time that they admit that monopolies are the foundation ot many serious evils. They imagine that a contest against monopoly is a contest against concentration of capital in every form, and perceiving the benefits of justifiable concentration they refrain from striking a blow at any for fear of doing harm to all. But the error is a thing of thought. There is as much difference between a combination formed for the purpose of adequacy of capital in a par- ticular trade, and one formed for the purpose of monopolizing an entire trade, as there is between daylight and darkness. There is no parallel between an independent company of shoe manu- facturers, doing business in Owago, in competition UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 203 with other shoe manufacturers in other places, and a combination composed of all the shoe man- ufacturers in the United States. Their modes of locating, operating, dealing, attitude toward the public, and attendant effects are diametrically opposed to each other. A justifiable combination is one which cheap- ens production and gives more to be distributed into society than can be procured in any other way. It is a combination which has no advan- tage over the public, and therefor must deal with the public upon the same terms, as regards privileges and restraint, that the public deals with it. It is a combination which makes the same rate of profit upon the unit of energy and capital employed that every other business makes, and therefore gains nothing which it cannot itself use, and will not let others use. It is a combination that appears or dissolves as supply and demand dictate, and does not dis- tort production and enterprise out of all harmony with salient needs. It is a combination that has no selfish designs against the public whatever, but seeks only to get capital into the best pay- ing forms after the example of our ordinary tradesmen, manufacturers and producers, pursu- ing their vocations all around us. An unjustifiable combination, on the other hand, enhances first cost of goo ds, holds the 204 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. public by the throat and dictates to the rest of the world. It denies the general public a good living after they have earned it, and piles up products to mould, rust and spoil. It wastes capital in mammoth investments that are only half needed, and forces the people to shift and half-do with constant lack of means. It keeps a million of men constantly idle, divests the common people of their homesteads, and sends the nation whir- ring along towards destruction. The nature and doings of these two forms of combination are so entirely unlike that they can- not exist together. While four men control the railroads of the nation, there cannot be a hun- dred or more different railroad companies doing business in competition with one another, and working out the prosperity of themselves and the people. While the woolen industry is held in the hands of a few parties in the east, there cannot flourish woolen factories in the vicinities where both the wool could be grown and the woolens sold. While there is a coal monopoly in the city of Pittsburgh, Kansas, there can be no flourishing mines at Columbus, Hollowell, Oswego and other places along the coal belt. Now, if I am right in what I have gone over, we are brought to the question of a choice. "Which shall it be," is the question. Shall it be industries in the form of monopoly or shall it be UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 205 the extinction of such form, and in lieu thereof, industries of adequate size and conducted in com- petition with one another. Blot out the form of monopoly, and you have the other. Have the form of monopoly and the other is blotted out. Blot out the form of monopoly and you are rid of its influences. Have the form of monopoly and you cannot avoid its influences. Blot out the form of monopoly and you rid society of a curse. Have the form of monopoly and you have some- thing there is no necessity for whatever. Some may imagine that the destruction of the form of monopoly is the destruction of an industry itself. But that is merely an error of the mind. Capital contained in the form of monopolies could no more be obliterated than the earth could be sent turning backward. The monopolists will keep their capital as they have a right to do, but they will never cease to use it as monopolists do while they are allowed to hold it in the form of monopolies. We hold to these conclusions: Adequate aggregations of capital into enter- prises are necessary to cheapest cost of production and exchange. They and free competition go together, are mutually promotive and are es- sential to the welfare of society. Consolidated aggregations, comprising all the industries of a class into the form of a monopoly, 206 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. fail to possess the advantages of adequate aggre- gations, while they lead to all the enormous evils of which society makes complaint. Where there is aggregation into the form of monopoly, there cannot be adequate aggregations and free competition. The direct contrary of this is true. Fair taxation will cause monopolied aggre- gations to yield to the ascendency of adequate aggregations and free competition. Fair taxation is the true remedy for the great evils which have the monopoly of industries as their cause. CHAPTER IX, COMMONPLACE FALLACIES. I desire in this chapter to bring together some thoughts that are of a sundried and therefore disconnected character. A common mode of raising money for carry- ing on vast enterprises like the building of rail- roads, bridges, waterworks and so forth, is through the issue and sale of bonds and stocks. It is a rule to go to the large capitalists, congre- gated usually about the money centers, to affect the exchanges. The purchase of securities by the capitalists does not imply that they have undertaken to execute, or have led in any way to the origination of the enterprises their money is to be expended upon. They may have noth- ing to do with the practical operation of carry- ing on the works; may never have known of their contemplated existence until sought to in- vest in the securities of the concerns. The point I desire to draw especial attention 208 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. to is, that the large capitalists are appealed to invariably, or almost invariably, whenever mon- ied means for the prosecution of enterprises are sought to be evolved out of the crude or ina- daptible forms of stocks or bonds, based in the ordinary ways. It is a custom to go to the great capitalists and money centers to get securities exchanged for working funds ; and the custom is so common that it does not occur to many that that is any other than an unalterable mode of procedure. I think that very many men talked to upon the subject will hold that this practice is a necessary and unchangable one. These same persons believe also that we could not have great and costly improvements if there were no places where money was found in large collective quantities. In fact they think that the massing of wealth in large quantities into single hands, is what inspires larg'e improvements ; that the latter would neither be probable or pos- sible if there were no large capitalists to origin- ate and encourage them for the purpose of get- ting their funds into investment. Such views can only lead to the conclusion that the amassing of the surplus wealth of the country into few hands is desirable, or else that great and expensive improvements had best be entirely dispensed with. But such views can only be classed as misap- UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 2o 9 prehensions. When persons have imbued themselves with the idea that great aggregated monied possessions are the originating agents or prerequisites of great performances, they have failed to ground themselves upon genuine facts. They have failed, in the first place, to credit great and expensive performances to their gen- uine authorships, viz: the demand for them. In the second place, they have failed to distinguish between funds aggregated and belonging to single owners, and those aggregated for tie purpose of prosecuting enterprises. It is necessary to have large funds at hand to draw upon to meet the expenses of great enter- prises, but it is not necessary for them to pre-exist in great bulk in single hands before they can be obtained. A ready fund is evolved out of a crude fund, like grants, stocks, bonds and so forth, by sales of and loans upon this crude fund. That the sales and loans are usually or invariably made at the money centers is only an incident of circum- stances and not an unalterable mode of procedure. When it is understood why it is that the money is concentrated in a few hands, it will then be made plain why application is made to the few rich invariably to get funds for purpose of push- ing forward improvements. If the gain-exactors had not become unjustly 2IO UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. possessed of the people's surpluses they would not be the sole owners of unfixed or investment seeking capital. If the people were allowed to keep what was justly theirs, they would have surpluses to invest in profit bearing securities. Under a fair system of distribution,great improve- ments would be developed as under the present system, and large sums of money would be raised to meet expenditures, as now is done, but these sums of money would not be obtained from rich capitalists alone. All classes would contribute. Air sorts of people from the richest down to the least well-to-do, would have means to spare, and investment would be general, and the fruits of investment would be distributed among myriads of owners, ranging from large to small, and fol- lowing all kinds of pursuits, and living every- where. An illustration will not be out of place. A railroad becomes a necessity somewhere, any- where, to the extent of provoking a resolve that it shall be built. Preliminaries are gone through with, plans are devised and executed, and in due course of time all is in readiness for the work proper of building to begin. One of the incidents helping to compose the whole round of activitives necessary to execute the work, is the flow of un- fixed capital into the enterprise for investment. If the people needing the road have not been im- UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 211 poverished by the promoters of unfair distri- bution, they will be able to advance funds for the construction of the road. But if they have been despoiled of their surplus wealth by the exactors, the latter will become the owners of the stocks, bonds and gifts, by virtue of having been the only parties able to advance funds for the construction and equipment of the road. But whatever be the forms in which the ready capital exists, whether in myriads of moderate surpluses in the hands of the earners of it, or in consolidated ag- gregations in the* hands of the despoilers of the people, it will go into the enterprise, because the enterprise attracts it. It is the essence and na- ture of money to take unto itself wings, as it were, and wend its way, in large or small quantities as it may happen to exist, to those quarters where it is most wanted, because it there serves its masters best by securing for them the greatest returns. I write this to dissolve an erroneous and mischievous impression many harbor in regard to the way money must be raised for the exe- cution of costly enterprises. There is no reason, except unfair distribution, why every community should not furnish the funds for the construction and ownership of all its own enterprises, big and little, private and public, railroad and manufacturing. Guarantee the people in common a fair hold upon their ac. 212 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. quisitions, and communities would take care of their own enterprises in a manner that would show an even development of the country, home ownerships, home manufactures, and the general enrichment of all. Autocracy of wealth is not natural, it is artificial. Outside ownership is not natural, it is artificial. Manufacturers, of the present day, impose the burden of racing materials across the continent and back again, for change from raw articles to finished ones, when the conversion could have been managed better at home, and the services of transporters utilized to better advantage. This does not occur from choice. It occurs, be- cause it is the business of monopolists to absorb the people's means, crush presumptive rivals, and concentrate industries to suit their inclinations. Give people freedom and their earnings, and local- ization of industries would take place, because cheaper, and because there would be funds at home for the work. ! Jfair terms would not only give 'us home in- dustries but would also work a radical difference in the plan of founding industries. People would not begger themselves and transmit burdens to succeeding generations in the vain attempt to build up their vicinities. Why? Fair dealing en- riches everywhere, and plentious capital, anxious for investment, would be willing to -pay for the UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 213 privilege of anchoring itself where the prosperity of the people guaranteed good patronage. A people able to buy is the sufficient, the best en- ticer of capital. Are not bonds of aid a superfluous tribute to greed? Would capital be idle if people refused such aid? Is money less anxious to get into in- vestment than the people are to have the invest- ment? Does a bond add a cent to the money keen for investment ? Between the offer of bonds everywhere, and the refusal of them everywhere, would any difference be made in the general lo- cating of industries? And do the founders of industries advance their own welfare by impov- erishing their prospective patrons through bonded indebtednesses ? A study of these questions, it appears to me, should lead us into conduct widely different from what it is. BORN MONEY MAKERS. Some people entertain the idea that the hand- ling of riches is the gift of the few, and that the quick-bred millionaires of the day have invariably made their money by fair and square contests with nature, as opposed to exacting it from off their fellows. As to natural gift, I admit that fitness of personal endowment will help an indi- vidual in his business, but I hold that training is 214 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. the main essential for the successful handling of wealth, as it is for the successful doing of any- thing else. Rear one in the use and employment of wealth, and he will know how to take care of it, and what to do with it. On the other hand bequeath a large sum to a person who has never had control of more than a little, and the chances are largely on the side of his misapplying, and thereby letting a portion of it slip away from him. The banker would hardly make a success from the begining at the new business of mer- chandizing, and the railroad magnate would fail as ignobly at trying to run a truck patch as the truck raiser would in trying to boss a railroad. Managing capital is a trade like anything else. To credit our quick-made railroad and manufac- turing masters with being the natural starters of themselves, is to forget what have been the mushroom productions of our land grants, bonded aids, monied gifts, and tariff taxes trmt have re- quired no higher sort of genius in individuals than willingness to receive. If there lived in this world individuals who could extract from nature hundreds of times faster than the gene- rality of persons, we would get demonstration of the fact in such a way as would convince us. We would see men take hold of a machine and make it to produce a hundred fold in excess of what was accomplished by ordinary persons. UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 215 The land would be made by some of these extraordinary men to produce its thousands of bushels, where common culture brought forth less than hundreds of bushels. Such results we never see, however, and therefore cannot grant that there is more difference in the capacities of men to fairly enrich themselves than that incident to ordinary variety. LET US SEE ARIGHT. Let us know that we earn to live and do not live to earn. Let us know that we save capital not to look at, but to assist us in getting more upon which to live. Let the capitalists know" that capital can get the mastery of man. When railroads and manufactories have become so over- grown as to require all that can be earned with them by the most vigorous extortion to keep them in form and repair, then will the owners of railroads and manufactories be capital poor. Then will they be upon the verge of self -disaster. Then will an adverse season bring on famine and start the nation in a body to weakness and decline. Looked at from the money making point of view alone, the capitalist has nothing to gain by getting the better of the people. For by so doing he destroys the prosperity of the very class upon whose prosperity his own prosperity depends. 2l6 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. To whom is he going to sell among a people who have been deprived of their means of buying? How is he going to make an industry pay in a country void of other industries to correspond and keep up trade to match ? Let us understand that the plagues which harrass us arise purely from plethorea versus dearth and that the remedy must be sought in balance. Let the capitalist understand that contentment with normal pay, upon the principle of " quick sales and small profits," will advance him none the less rapidly, at the same time that it will in- sure him permanent prosperity by providing him with a public that can respond to his advances with the same vigor that he responds to theirs; that can exhaust the spare he has while he ex- hausts their spare supply, and that can keep his wheels forever in motion by keeping their own in vigorous motion. WHOM DOES IT HURT? Who is hurt by unfair distribution ? Every body; the exactor as well as the victim. Then to the stickler for the rights of the capitalist: Would you force him to do that which will ben- efit him and the race, or let him force us to do that which will harm him and the race? It is force in either case, as you look at it. Which do . UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 21 7 you prefer? Which is the design of nature? I say you do not observe your whole duty in being honest to others; you neglect much of your duty in not requiring others to be honest towards you and yours. Let me say that in making such assertions, I do not mean to imply that I would divest the capitalist of a cent of his possessions. I would force him to disburse his capital in such manner as to make it of real and permanent value to him, and to society in the future. I would stop capital from getting the mastery over man. We do not dispute the necessity of our subjection to the sway of nature. But let us not be mastered by anything we create. We create capital. Let us keep mastery over it. LEGITIMATE FORTUNES. We have no complaint to make, as might be erroneously implied, against him who amasses rapid fortune through superior productive efforts. The man who has rapidly enriched himself through a useful invention or discovery is to be extolled. Because while he may have tempo- rarily inconvenienced some he has benefitted all the rest. He has cheapened one product and endeared all others in comparison. He has enabled others to use more of his, yet save more 2l8 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. of their own. He has raised the degree of every man's comfort by requiring less expendure in one direction than was required before. Thus we see, there is a vast distinction between the producer of a fortune and the extorter of a for- tune; between him who amasses a fortune out of or through conquer of the elements, and him who amasses a fortune by extracting it from the produce of others. The one adds to the aggre- gated wealth of the country, the other changes wealth from one hand to another, without making any increase. The one helps us to climb by ad- ding to our accumulations, the other keeps us from climbing by robbing us of our accumulations. The one as he goes up reaches out a helping hand to pull us up after him, the other reaches his hand that he may grasp our accumulations and build of them a monument of pomp. The one ameliorates and sets to advancing, the other burdens and sets to declining. The differences of condition which owe their authorship to the one are healthful, necessary and natural ; the differ- ences of condition promoted by the other are abnormal, outrageous, extravagant. Here we see the distinction, and it is plain that there is no relationship between the two modes of self- enrichment. UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 219 LABOR COMBINATIONS. I call attention to this subject to show that there is nothing justifiable in this method of se- curing welfare. The underlying principle of a labor combination, and the underlying principle of a monopoly are identical. Both are inspired by a motive which looks to the sole benefit of the victorious, though those who are upon the weak and defensive side may not be ready to so ac- knowledge. They, or some of them, may honestly think that, could they win as they pleased, they would stop at justice, but self-interest forbids any to construe the line of justice to be this side of bare subsistence to others* There is no use in disguising the truth that self-interest is the ruling motive in man, and that self-interest and honesty do not ride together. As long as we indulge in false sentiment for the sake of our feelings so long will we be a thousand times worse off than it we did not. There is but one way to do; that is to acknowledge the supremacy of self-interest and then govern ourselves accordingly. We must admit that a human being with complete authority is an incarnate fiend, and always will be, and that no remedy that looks to placing in power any body of men, in whatever shape or form, in preference to others, will affect the removal of the evils from which we suffer. The remedy 220 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. which is productive of good, must be one which places all upon an equal footing with regard to power and restraint. Labor unions may plead the necessity of self- defense. While the necessity exists, there is justification of the measure, without doubt, but wisdom dictates the dissolving of every need of organized self-defense, through the going back to, and the righting up of, first causes. STRIKES AND REVENGEFUL VIOLENCE. Strikes and the resort to violence against the properties and persons of the capitalists, are both impracticable and unjustifiable. Strikes are im- practicable, because strikers lose time and wages, seldom carry their points, and have themselves yielded to only when it is thought more expedient for this to be done, and for them to be defeated in the future by detail. Destruction of property is im- practicable because it is the people who become the losers. The corporations sustain damages for the destruction of their properties, the perish ment of goods, and the failure to execute con tracts, which damages are obtained through tax ation of the people, the strikers included. Be sides, the policy should not be to destroy the re suits of labor, but to secure its proper use. Fur ther, acts of revenge against capitalists cannot UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 221 be based upon good cause. For while we may admit that the exactors have long robbed the people, pitilessly starved them, ruthlessly em. bruited them, malevolently stricken them with disease, and have half shortened their lives, yet the exactors can justly plead that it has been by the sufferance and aid of the common people that they have so done. We have not seen how to prevent exaction, and have therefore unwittingly bred up exactors and given them our encour- agement and support, which is to inculpate all in the sin of exaction or leave none to be blamed. The exactor is what the victim would be if he could, and is merely a winner in a state of so- ciety which promotes the setting of a class above class. We therefore find no good grounds for practice of violence against the exactors. WHAT THEY SAY. " See what a magnificent industry we've got,'* proudly exclaims the admirer of the American system, " we could supply the world if only we had the market." That's the trouble, proud admirer, your in- dustry is too magnificent. If a part of the cap- ital contained in it were now in the hands of the poorer classes, they would be covering up their sterner needs, and you would have as much as 222 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. you could do to supply the part of the world your industry was destined to supply. " We cannot pay any greater wages without losing money," says the rich manufacturer. No, your big industry is twice the size that's needed, and a voracious expense consumer, busy or idle ; so the laborer must go on short rations and dine much of his time with Duke Humphrey. " But we always have paid the highest wages we could." Then how did you save up enough to build up an oversized industry? "A big trade with the foreign countries is what we need to rid ourselves of our surpluses and to keep our factories going," says another. Who would you sell to in the overstocked foreign countries? What would you take in exchange for your goods? What would you do with what you got in exchange? Would you give it to the public, you have made moneyless and unable to buy? How would paying higher prices to the public, and charging them less for your own goods, act toward ridding you of your surpluses and keeping your factories down to proper proportions? "We do not want to degrade the laborers and masses of this country to the standard that exists in the European countries?" Then, I suppose we are not descendents of the UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 223 people of Europe, and possessed of the sort of flesh, blood and hearts, as they ? Is it not time a theory was gotten up to prove that the God who creates the European, and the God who creates the American are not one and the same great Ruler? " The trouble is that we can produce more than we can consume." More than who can consume; the sewing girls and garret habitants of New- York city ? No, it can't be them. Then whose powers of consump- tion are we exceeding? Let's see. Now we have it. It is the capitalist's. Well, let us see what earnings are for. Only two things ; to supply personal wants, to supply capital wants. The capitalist cannot consume his surplus possessions in satisfaction of either of these wants, therefore he has no need for these surpluses whatever, and they are only a worry to him. Now, Mr. Capi- talist, why not end the worry by throwing the horrid surpluses over to the poor to be feasted up- on and used up by them. The time would sooner come around, then, when you could have the sat- isfaction of seeing, what you so much long to see, viz: activity of your industries and demand for your products. "It is ' brains' that gives the capitalist his money." Just so, but let us see. The middle class, it 224 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. must be admitted by all who are willing not to hedge upon facts, are falling behind. That is, they are not earning a living for themselves, and the capitalists are supplying them with the defi- ciency of food and clothes and taking their pro- perties in exchange for them. The middle class then, in fact, are a great burden to the capitalists- The laborer must be a much greater burden to the capitalists since the}' have no property from which to earn even partial support. The rea- soning carried out must lead us to the conclusion that the public are living by the sufferance of the rich and that the rich are the authors of all wealth in sight. To be this they must have "brains" indeed. " What would the laborer do without the exis- tence of capital to give him employment?" Your Genesis reads: "In the beginning God created the heavens, and the earth. Then he cre- ated capital. Then he created mankind, that a few chosen ones might take hold of this capital and keep the multitude from starving." " Population is pressing against subsistence." So I hear you say, but in the beginning of your tale, you said the trouble was over-production. Inconsistency, thou art a very cheap commodity. I see a world but little used. I see capital but partially emplo}'ed, and I see a large portion of the population doomed to enforced idleness, yet we UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 225 still live. That makes me think if man's energies and his capital could be always employed, and to the best advantage we would be most happily conditioned. " The practical suggestions of one successful business manager are worth more than the doc- trines of all the theorists you can scare up." Well, if you mean by "successful business man- ager," him whose judgment has led him into developing an over-sized and glutted industry without looking out for corresponding develop- ments to match, and whose management has never relieved but doubled his necessity to be bolstered with subsidies, tax reliefs, and favors of every kind begged from the public, then I don't agree with you that your "successful business manager's" suggestions are worth a shuck to anybody. I consider him an outright failure, a dead beat, one who could not maintain himself and industry a single season by honorable, inde- pendent and self-reliant effort. What would be thought of a groceryman doing a heavy retail trade in New-York, should he move his full stock; to a country village and expect within the latter place to do a remunerative trade? And what is to be thought of the business tact of the exactors as, a class, who go deliberately about incapacitating the balance of the world from carrying on with 22 6 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. them an even-handed, quick- buying, cash-paying trade ? " We have got the upper hand, and we propose to hold it," comes out as a last retort. But you may not always have the upper hand, Look at the foes you are breeding in the popu- lation that is forced to eke out a precarious subsistence amidst discouragements, deprivation, disgust, discord and disdain. Look at the ene- mies you are rearing in the Job-hunters, semi- charitists, hovel-habitants, hoodlums and tramps. Their condition favors the rankest growth of the elements of combustibility and violence. Feeling that they are the outraged victims of those who are above them, there flows in their bosoms an undercurrent of enmity against all save them- selves. Being propertyless, they feel no interest in the preservation of properties. Finding the gateways ot responsibility and trust closed to them, they become reckless of what is said of their character or their name. Shut off by their condition and poverty from all the avenues of en- lightenment, from schools, churches, newspapers and books, their reasonings and methods partake of the deficiencies of their mental culture. What can we expect from such a class but a readiness for mob-law, anarchism, fire, dynamite, violence and bloodshed. Such things harmonize with their thoughts, their passions, their enmity. They UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 227 appear to afford to them the only avenue of bet- terments, since they feel that law and order is degradation of them and degradation only. Is there no danger to be apprehended from this class? This is a rapid age. Nothing is done by halves. Historic events afford no guage of what might be. I think the capitalist is as blind to this as to every other effect, if he thinks he can escape the eventful wrath of an army made up, in this day and age, of brutish and revengeful spirits. I shall not occupy further time in elaborating upon the theory proposed in this work. As to its correctness, it would be exceeding the bounds of common sense for me to say more than that I believed in it. I believe no error is made in iden- tifying unfair distribution with the cause of the engrossing evils of society. How there could be unfair distribution without just the evils I have tried to connect with it, or how the evils could be without unfair distribution, I am unable to see. The grievances certainly are bottomed upon earn- ings. "What are we to do with our surplus means?" and "what are we to do for want of means?" are certainly the grave but conflicting murmurings of the hour; and both sides have cause for complaint. The poor can appreciate what it is to be short of provisions for present comforts and short of capital to create future comforts. 228 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. The capitalist does not lack for provisions of life but he can appreciate what it is to have mam- moth factories and mammoth railroads situated among an impecunious set of customers. He can appreciate what it is to have loads of facilities to do with, but without having others half able to tax his powers to do for. But he does not seem to appreciate how he got himself and themselves into the conditions both are in. He does not seem to think that he has over-expanded his in- dustry by destroying his market, and that the continuance of the process will eventually render his own property entirely worthless on his hands. Still, if he does not know how he has misfixed himself, he knows that he is misfixed for we hear his murmurings of complaint, and we know the nature of them. We know the nature of the opposite complaints, and from a comparison can plainly see that the difficulty resembles the case of a ship with its load all too much to one side. The nature of the difficulty suggest to us the remedy. It should be such distribution of earn- ings as will establish balance. It does not mean taking from one and giving to another; it means readjustment of wealth in the hands of those who have it, to a basis of prosperity. I have explained what would be the good ef- fects of industrial freedom or that state of things UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 229 in which all men stood upon the same footing with regard to liberty and restraint, none co- ercing more than he was coerced, and the coercion that was, being the coercion bred of competition, man with man, throughout all society. In- dustrial freedom does not affect the removal of all restraint. It only distributes restraint and makes one man as powerful as another in its ex- ercise. But when that is done, everything is done that is desired. Each man then, becomes an effective monitor to watch over all others, and compel the others in their dealings with the public to observe, as well as discover to us, fair dealings. There is inaugurated mutual interchange of watchfulness and check, mutual bargaining, mutual privilege to accept or reject, the absence of any who has more power to dictate than others. Society under such terms becomes a self-regulating machine, valuable because effective for good, and because it relieves people of the necessity of forming, for the prevention of encroachment, restrictive mea- sures that, it has before been shown, are after all, unavailing. How are we going to have this mutual inter- change of privileges and forces, this free compe- tition ? Do away with the fundamental instrumen- talities by which unfair distribution is executed. What are the fundamental instrumentalities? 23° UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. Unfair taxation and unfair exchange. To pre- vent unfair taxation we must substitute fair tax- ation by positive resolve and enactment. To prevent unfair exchange we must provide for the abolishment of the instruments of unfair ex- change which are monopolies. To provide for the abolishment of these we must work through the medium of self-interest and make it more profitable, at sight, to not monopolize than to monopolize. By so doing we prepare to effect through the operations of natural law what we can never hope to effect by artificial law. We place ourselves in such an attitude toward our self-interest that as we are actuated by it so is it best for society that we should be actuated. CHAPTER X. THE REMEDY. The remedy for unfair distribution and its at- tendant evils is to be sought in taxation of capi- tal at increased percentages along with increased worths, as it exists under single managements or pools. TABLES. For the purpose of illustration, I present some tables showing plans of increasing the taxation of properties along with increases in the valua- tions of properties. The tables may not embrace the best forms that could be devised for the pur- pose they are designed to effect, but I present them in the interests, subsidiarily, of method, uniformity and ease of calculation. We first as- sume that the revenue needs, in a specific case, subjects the capital of $i,oooeven, to a rate per cent, of tax equalling one cent upon the dollar. 232 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. Then we consider $1,000 to be a unit of valua- tion, doubling and trebling itself, and so on. We add one-tenth of a cent tax when the capital ex- ceeds $1,000, and does not exceed $2,000; two- tenths of a cent when it exceeds $2,000, and not $3,000, the process being kept up as is shown. The tables are constructed with the use of even valuations treated, in all cases except the last, as if they embraced more than their even valu- ations. The tax upon fractional parts, which are fractional parts of the unit of increase, may be obtained by getting a half, third or fourth of the tax of the unit, at the rate of tax it bears, according as the fraction is a half, third or fourth of that unit. 'alues Rates on the Taxes on Total even axed. Dollar, each $1,000. Taxes . 1,000 1 1-10 cents. $11 00 $11 00 2,000 1 2-10 " 12 00 24 00 3,000 1 3-10 " 1300 39 °o 4,000 1 4-10 " 1400 56 00 5,000 1 5-10 " 15 00 75 °° 6,000 1 6-10 " 16 00 96 00 7,000 1 7-10 " 17 00 119 00 8,000 1 8-10 " 18 00 144 00 Q,000 1 9-10 " 19 00 171 00 10,000 2 it 2000 200 00 Subject to this rate, the party with the capital of $2,250 pays one-fourth more than $11.00, or $ T 3-75- The P art y with a capital of $2,500 UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION. 233 pays, for the $500, one-half of what he pays upon $1,000 at the $2,000 rate, or $6.00, and upon all $30.00. So, for other fractions. The last sum, $10,000, being that and no more, pays at the even rate of two cents on the dollar. As soon as $100, or any other fraction of a unit, is added, then it and the fraction become liable for an increase, next above, of tax. Here is another table showing less speed of variation and increase in the tax. It taxes each person the same upon the first $1,000 worth of capital. Then it raises the rate upon his second $1,000 worth, does so again upon his third $1,000 worth, and proceeds so to the end: Rates on the Values Taxed. Dollar. Taxes. First $1,000 1 1-10 cents. $11 00 Second 1,000 1 2-10 a 12 00 Third 1,000 1 3-10 a 1300 Fourth 1,000 1 4-10 u 14 00 Fifth 1,000 1 5-10 « 15 00 Sixth 1,000 1 6-10 «« 16 00 Seventh 1,000 1 7-10 tt 17 00 Eighth 1,000 1 8-10 n 18 00 Ninth 1,000 1 9 10 tt 19 00 Tenth 1,000 2