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 PRICE, FIFTY CENTS. 
 
 Economic 
 
 Crumbs, 
 
 Plain Talks for the People 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 LABOR — CAPITAL — MON EY, 
 TARIFF — Etc. 
 
 T. T. BRYCE, 
 
 Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 
 Hampton, Virginia. 
 
 HAMPTON, VIRGINIA: 
 
 NORMAL SCHOOL STEAM PRESS, 
 
 1879. 
 
Economic 
 
 Crumbs, 
 
 Plain Talks for the People 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 LABOR— CAPITAL— MONEY, 
 TARIFF— etc. 
 
 T. T. BRYCE, 
 
 Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 
 Hampton, Virginia. 
 
 " If Vv 
 
 V 
 
 '■> 
 
 °f WAS 
 
 nAMPTON, VIRGINIA: 
 
 NORMAL SCHOOL STEAM PRESS, 
 1879. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by T. T. 
 Bryce, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LABOR 
 
 '* Laboring Classes " 2 
 
 Pig-iron and Watch Springs 3- 
 
 "I Want, I Want, I Want " 4 
 
 From the Mine to the Mess Table 5 
 
 Coffee and Cotton ft' 
 
 Nature's Laws Supreme 7 
 
 Labor not Linked with Love 8- 
 
 Wages fix Themselves 9 
 
 Half a Dime, or Half a "Century" 10 
 
 Property in Labor 11 
 
 Plain Words 12 
 
 Labor's Rights 13 
 
 When "Strikes" Succeed 14 
 
 Friends, not Foes 15 
 
 Machinery, and its Maligners 1ft 
 
 Multiplying Machinery : . . . . 17 
 
 Labor is Honorable 18 
 
 Brutes Work, Men Labor 19 
 
 CAPITAL. 
 
 Head and Hands 21 
 
 Safe Bind, Safe Find 22 
 
 6?1 
 
IV 
 
 Bees and Beavers 23 
 
 Capital a Coward 24 
 
 Capital and Labor, Both Free 25 
 
 Credit's Composition 26 
 
 Thievish Theories 27 
 
 "More" 28 
 
 A Gloomy Picture 29 
 
 PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. 
 
 One Creator, Many Creatures 31 
 
 ' ' Changeless Law of Change " 32 
 
 All Men are Middlemen 33 
 
 Ethics of Economy 34 
 
 Sand Ropes 35 
 
 u Ux Nihilo Nihil Fit" 36 
 
 How Blankets are not Lengthened 37 
 
 The Two Sides of a Dollar 38 
 
 Owls of Society 39 
 
 MONEY. 
 
 The Contagion of Inflation 41 
 
 Qualities Money Should Possess 42 
 
 Continental and Confederate Currencies 43 
 
 Value 44 
 
 The Best Dollar 45 
 
 Units of Measure 46 
 
 What Varies Least 47 
 
 Why ? -. 48 
 
 A Watch for an Eagle 49 
 
 What Balances Accounts 50 
 
 Always Good Everywhere 51 
 
Bread Buys Dimes 52 
 
 More Debts, More Taxes 53 
 
 Definition of Money 54 
 
 WAGES. 
 
 Why People Give Wages 56 
 
 Boot Polishers and Railroad Presidents 57 
 
 Delmonico's Waiters 58 
 
 Seeming and Being 59 
 
 $61 Per Hour 60 
 
 Birth of Property 61 
 
 Nothing for Either 62 
 
 Slave Whips 63 
 
 LIBERAL TRADE. 
 
 A Proud Parentage 65 
 
 Simplest Form of a Protective Tariff 66 
 
 Between Two Stools 67 
 
 Axioms 68 
 
 A Bit of Buncombe 69 
 
 . Really Raw 70 
 
 Lung Action of the Nation 71 
 
 Bill-of-Fare for Bears 72 
 
 Perpetual Infants 73 
 
 Sublime Faith in Legislation 74 
 
 A Flattered Flea 75 
 
 More Bounties Mean More Taxes 76 
 
 Old is a Comparative Term 77 
 
 Malaria a Blessing ; Cables a Curse 78 
 
 Coin and Quinine 79 
 
 A New Kind of Heart 80 
 
 Can Yankees " Swap ? " 81 
 
VI 
 
 Nature no Niggard 82 
 
 Ten to One 83 
 
 Inside or Outside 84 
 
 Squaring Circles 85 
 
 Loosen Your Stays, Young Woman ! 86 
 
 Fair Play 87 
 
 Unity of Design 88 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following articles, (reprinted, except the 
 last, from the " Sosthern Workman,") were origin- 
 ally written in furtherance of the educational aim 
 of that journal : and are now, at the request of sev- 
 eral friends, published in their present form, with 
 the same object in view. 
 
 No claim to originality is made, nor is anything 
 attempted, beyond telling, in the simplest way, the 
 plainest truths of Political Economy. A notion 
 seems to prevail, that this branch of knowledge con- 
 sists of a dead mass of dry abstractions, instead of 
 being a living science, whose phenomena are con- 
 stantly occurring around us. 
 
 It is a little singular, that even among people 
 otherwise well informed, there is only a very misty 
 understanding of such terms as Labor, Capital, 
 Money, Tariffs, etc. If by reading the following 
 pages, these words become live words, with live 
 meanings, to any reader, the object of this little 
 book will have been accomplished. 
 
 T. T. B. 
 
 Hampton, Va., May 1st, 1879. 
 
LABOR 
 
 Labor, labor everywhere — all men labor- 
 ers — MANKIND, A BROTHERHOOD WITH RECIPROCAL 
 WANTS — LAW OF MUTUAL DEPENDENCE — BRUTES 
 AND SAVAGES THE ONLY TRUE INDEPENDENTS — HOW 
 ATOMS OF THE LABOR OF THOUSANDS OF MEN ARE 
 FOUND IN AN IRON POT — DEMAND AND SUPPLY 
 RULE THE PRICE OF LABOR — LOVE AND CONGRESS 
 HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT — MAN'S LABOR HIS 
 OWN — STEALING IT, IS THEFT — STRIKES — HOW 
 PROPER, AND HOW IMPROPER — WHEN THEY SUC- 
 CEED, AND WHEN THEY FAIL TRADES UNIONS 
 
 THEIR USES AND ABUSES ECONOMIC QUACKS 
 
 — A SYLLOGISM, WITH " LABOR IS HONORABLE " AS 
 A CONCLUSION. 
 
 Of all the many wonderful things we can see 
 in this world, if we keep our eyes open, perhaps 
 one of the most striking, is the omnipresence 
 of motion. From the sweep of the most dis- 
 tant planet, in its tremendous orbit, to the 
 disintegration of the hardest rock, there is 
 motion ; different in degree, but the same in 
 
2 " Laboring Classes" 
 
 kind. Everything about us is in motion, and 
 all motion is work ; but it is not with work 
 in general that this paper has to do, but with 
 that small, yet important part of work, called 
 Labor. What is Labor ? Labor is any human 
 exertion, voluntarily put forth in exchange for 
 something desired. The Chinaman, who toils 
 all day for two cents, and the eminent advocate, 
 who receives thousands of dollars for a single 
 plea, are both laborers ; they both put forth 
 well-defined exertions, to obtain in exchange 
 something they desire. 
 
 It is an error, then, popular though it be, to 
 speak of the "laboring classes," as a distinct 
 division of society. Every man, who puts forth 
 any exertion, in order to obtain something in 
 return, is a laborer; and I fail to see how any 
 living man can be excluded from the so-called, 
 "laboring classes." If the expression, "laboring- 
 classes" has any distinctive meaning, it means 
 free men as opposed to slaves. The toil of a slave 
 is not a labor, it is not a voluntary exertion put 
 forth with any exchange in view ; and scienti- 
 fically speaking, it differs in no way from the 
 work of a mule, or an ox. Viewing labor in 
 this, the only true light, the consideration of 
 the labor question becomes simpler, for there are 
 no class feelings to irritate, no color line to 
 
Pig-iron and Watch Springs. 3 
 
 fight over. Even with this simplification, the 
 labor question is a vast one, embracing, as it 
 does, every voluntary human effort not put 
 forth from pure selfishness, from charity, or a 
 sense of duty. 
 
 Labor forms a greater or less part of every- 
 thing; that is exchanged; therefore the universal 
 laws governing exchanges, can be applied di- 
 rectly to labor. To illustrate what I mean by 
 "labor forming a greater or less part of every- 
 thing that is exchanged," let us suppose we 
 had a ton of pig-iron : we could exchange it for 
 perhaps fifteen dollars ; but if this ton of pig- 
 iron were "worked up" into watch-springs, it 
 could be exchanged for many hundred dollars. 
 Whence comes this increase of cost to the buyer 
 of watch-springs ? Mainly from the increased 
 labor, that has been bestowed upon the raw 
 material; which was in both cases, a certain 
 quantity of iron ore. The ton of pig-iron was 
 the result of comparatively little labor ; the ton 
 of watch-springs of much labor. When offered 
 in exchange for other things, the result of but 
 little labor is demanded for the former, while 
 the result of a great deal of labor is demanded 
 for the latter. 
 
 God has made mankind a brotherhood with 
 reciprocal wants ; and in this truth is founded 
 
4 "J Want, I Want, I Want" 
 
 the grand law of Mutual Dependence. This 
 law is universal; there are no "ifs" nor "excepts" 
 about it; it is based directly on the endless wants 
 God has implanted in men's natures, •which 
 wants are the mainspring of all human activi- 
 ties. Man's life is a series of wants not even 
 ended by the grave ; in the faint cry of the 
 new-born babe*; in the last gasp of extreme old 
 age ; and in all between, is sounded the refrain, 
 "I want, I want, I want." Not only has 
 God implanted unnumbered and unending 
 wants in man's nature; but He has also giv- 
 en endless means of gratifying them ; and 
 it seems part of the Divine plan, that our 
 own wants must find gratification through 
 others efforts, and that our own efforts be the 
 means of gratifying the wants of others. This 
 is the law of " Mutual Dependence ; " and per- 
 haps I cannot state it better, though the state- 
 ment is far from perfect, than by repeating the 
 words with which this paragraph was begun, 
 viz.: that God made mankind a brotherhood 
 with reciprocal wants. 
 
 Any man who should attempt to gratify all 
 his wants, without the aid of his fellow men, 
 would be a savage, and little better than "the 
 beast that perisheth." As an example of the 
 satisfying of the three first wants of" life — 
 
From the Mine to the 3Iess Table. 5 
 
 food, shelter, and clothing — let us imagine a 
 frontiersman, clad in jeans, living in a log- 
 cabin, finishing his dinner of boiled pork, 
 washed down by a cup of coffee. Certain- 
 ly the picture is not one of luxury; yet 
 atoms of labor on the part of countless men 
 have been put forth, before our frontiersman 
 could even have the iron pot, in which his din- 
 ner was boiled. The ore, from which the iron 
 was smelted, was perhaps dug from some deep 
 English mine, where hundreds of brawny 
 workers sold the exertions of their tough mus- 
 cles for wages ; raised to the surface, the ore 
 had to be smelted by another gang of workers, 
 and the pig-iron carried to some town, Birm- 
 ingham perhaps ; where it had to pass through 
 many other hands before it was fashioned into 
 a pot. From Birmingham, it had to be trans- 
 ported to Liverpool or London ; and many 
 were the hands employed on the railroads 
 that carried it. From Liverpool or London, it 
 was shipped by some steamer or sailing vessel 
 to New York, in the sailing or steaming of 
 which vessel, many other men were employed. 
 Landed in New York, it had to pass through 
 many fresh hands, before it started to the Far 
 West, on some of the great railroads, which 
 employed thousands of men in merely running 
 
6 Coffee and Cotton. 
 
 the trains, and in whose construction tens of 
 thousands of workers had been busied. Yet 
 this pot required an atom of labor on the part 
 of all these men, before it could be used to cook 
 the frontiersman's dinner. 
 
 Let us take one step deeper, and remember 
 that every one of the many, who shared in the 
 work of putting the iron pot in the log cabin, 
 depended also on the labor of millions of others 
 for the necessities of his daily life. The multi- 
 tude of laborers thus conjured to our view, is 
 almost beyond the grasp of our intellects, and 
 gives us a faint idea of the universality of the 
 law of Mutual Dependence. This meagre 
 sketch of the atoms of labor that have centered 
 in the iron pot, sufficiently illustrates the law ; 
 although the very mention of the coffee brings 
 to our minds another multitude of laborers, 
 who planted, raised, picked, cured, bagged, 
 shipped, handled, ground, and packed the fra- 
 grant berry. The cotton fibre in our frontiers- 
 man's jeans at once suggests some plantation 
 in our Southern States, and the dusky laborers? 
 who plowed, planted, hoed, picked, ginned and 
 packed the cotton, before it was ready to be 
 sold to some Eastern or English mill, where it 
 was spun and woven into cloth. Again re- 
 membering that all these laborers had to be 
 
Nature's Laws Supreme. 7 
 
 fed, clothed and housed ; and that for their 
 food, clothing and shelter, they were in turn de- 
 pendent on millions of others, the brain be- 
 comes fairly dizzy, contemplating the multi- 
 tude arrayed. 
 
 The next great law of exchange, that I 
 would apply to labor, is the law of Demand and 
 Supply. If there be one man with a barrel of 
 flour for sale, and two men want to buy it, the 
 one will get it, who offers the more in exchange. 
 If, however, there be two men, each with a 
 barrel of flour to sell, and only one buyer, who 
 wants but one barrel, he will take the barrel 
 that he can get by giving the less in exchange. 
 If for flour we read labor, the truth is none the 
 less self-evident. If there be two men wanting 
 to buy labor (that is, to hire it), and only one 
 man with labor to sell, it is certain the man, who 
 offers the more in exchange, will secure the la- 
 bor. If on the other hand, there be two men 
 to sell their labor, and only one to buy it ; it is 
 equally certain, that the one will be hired who 
 will sell his labor the cheaper. This law of de- 
 mand and supply is a law of nature, and no 
 amount of legislation can change it, any more 
 than it could prevent the earth turning on its 
 axis. 
 
 The first deduction, that I draw from this 
 
8 Labor not Linked with Love. 
 
 law of nature is ; that the more employers there 
 are, and the more prosperous they are, the bet- 
 ter for the employed. If there be two factories 
 in a town, with sufficient demand for their 
 goods to run them night and day, it is better 
 for the laborers, than if there were only one 
 factory run under the eight-hour law. In like 
 manner, it is better for the factories to have 
 enough " help" to tend all their machinery, than 
 to have to work half-handed. The factory is 
 also benefited by having the same set of hands 
 steadily employed, as the skill of each one in 
 his particular department is increased by con- 
 stant practice. 
 
 Laborers do not hire themselves to capitalists, 
 nor do capitalists hire laborers,/or love ; not a bit 
 of it — each one looks for some gain from the use 
 of the other, and ever seeks the largest possible 
 gain. A factory will not buy a man's labor 
 for a dollar a day, except it thinks it can sell 
 it in the product of the man's daily labor for 
 more than a dollar. Neither will a man work 
 for a dollar a day in one factory, if he can get 
 a dollar and a dime in another. Dollars and 
 cents (or means to satisfy their respective 
 (wants are the objects of both factory and 
 " help." Self-interest makes the bargain on 
 both sides ; love has no more to do with it 
 than a cock-crow has to do with an eclipse. 
 
Wages fix Themselves. 9 
 
 Labor has its market price, just as corn or 
 cotton; if there be a large supply and small de- 
 mand, prices will be low ; if there be a small 
 supply and a large demand, prices will be 
 high, — and no amount of law making, nor 
 mass-meetings, will prevent it. Everyone tries 
 to buy as cheaply and sell as dearly as possi- 
 ble ; the man with labor to sell, will seek the 
 highest price he can get ; the man with labor to 
 buy, will seek to give as little as possible ; the 
 price they may agree upon, is the market price 
 and neither close the bargain, while they think 
 they can do any better for themselves. Buyer 
 and seller together make the price ; neither can 
 do it alone. The Government has no more 
 to do with the price of labor (that is, the rate of 
 wages) than it has with the price of potatoes. 
 ~No Govern ment can fix the price of labor ; that 
 is, it cannot say wages shall be so much 
 or so little. No man can be compelled to em- 
 ploy labor that he does not want ; and no man 
 can be compelled to labor for wages that do 
 not suit him. Let us look for a minute and 
 see how futile would be any attempt of the 
 Government to interfere with the price of la- 
 bor. In the first place, we would have to give 
 the Government the power to say what wages 
 should be paid, which would be a terrible sur- 
 
10 Half a Dime, or Half a "Century." 
 
 render of our rights as freemen. Having 
 granted that right to the Government, it could 
 of course fix the rate where it pleased. Suppose 
 it fixed the rate at fifty dollars a day, and pass- 
 ed a law that no man should receive less wages 
 than fifty dollars a day. How many men would 
 be employed ? Clearly, only so many as employ- 
 ers thought would give them a service, the pro- 
 duct of which could be sold for more than fifty 
 dollars. Again, suppose the rate were fixed 
 at five cents a day, how many men would ac- 
 cept the wages? Clearly, only so many as 
 thought that five cents were all they could 
 earn anywhere else, and were satisfied to work 
 for it. 
 
 Every man in every civilized community buys 
 and sells labor. No free man is only either em- 
 ployer or employee. The poor man who sells 
 his labor in the field at twenty-five cents a 
 day, buys others' labor, when he pays his rent, 
 or purchases food and clothing. Mr. Vander- 
 bilt, the great owner of railroads, hires a mul- 
 titude of men, but is hired by another multi- 
 tude to carry them and their merchandise on 
 his cars. 
 
 We have now got deep enough into the la- 
 bor question to see that labor has its market 
 price, like corn or cotton ; and that every man 
 
Property in Labor. It 
 
 is daily exchanging his labor, or the fruits of 
 it, for atoms of the labor of an infinite number 
 of his fellow men. The next point in the la- 
 bor question that demands attention, is the 
 fact that every freeman's labor is his own ; it 
 is his property, as much as his purse or his 
 life. Anyone, who attempts to steal another's 
 purse, or deprive him of his life, is liable to be 
 seized and punished by the law. A man's labor 
 is his property ; he has a right to the peaceable 
 enjoyment and employment of it, and anyone 
 who attempts to interfere with such peaceable 
 enjoyment or employment, by the use of force or 
 threats, violates the law, and should be pun- 
 ished by it, as much as if he had tried to 
 wrest away his purse or his life. This truth 
 does not seem to be generally appreciated — and 
 many a so-called " strike leader," who would hes- 
 itate perhaps to steal a man's dinner, does not 
 hesitate to steal the labor, whereby he got his 
 dinner. All " strikes," or rather all forcible 
 strikes, arise from a misconception of the right 
 of property that is vested in every man, as re- 
 gards his own labor. Every man has an in- 
 alienable right to his own labor; but to no- 
 body else's, except he give something in 
 exchange for it. If I see fit to work eighteen 
 hours a day for sixpence, it is my business, and 
 
12 Plain Words. 
 
 nobody else's ; if I see fit to give a man a dol- 
 lar for blacking my boots, that is my business, 
 and nobody else's. In both cases I may be do- 
 ing foolishly, but I am doing with my own. 
 If a man come to me, and tell me I shall not 
 work for the wages I see fit, but for the wages 
 he sees fit, and I obey ; I am his slave, as verily 
 as ever one human being was the slave of anoth- 
 er. If one man or a hundred come to me, and 
 by force make me stop work, then they rob me, 
 just as much as if they took the product of my 
 labor. Hence, the conclusion is a plain one, 
 and needs be put in plain words : people 
 ivho interfere with others' work by violence or 
 threats are thieves, nothing more nor less. The 
 whole question of strikes centers in this : if 
 I do not want to work, or am dissatisfied 
 with my pay, I have an absolute right to stop 
 work ; but no right have I to make Jim, Pete 
 or Bill stop work, unless they wish to do so. 
 
 That all men, with particular interests in 
 common, should unite for mutual protection 
 and encouragement, is most proper ; that they 
 should endeavor to get the best pay, or, in oth- 
 er words, the most in exchange for their servi- 
 ces, is right and just ; but their efforts must be 
 through reasoning, and the means of the mar- 
 ket-place — and not through violence or threat- 
 
Labor's Rights. 13 
 
 enings. So long as such organizations simply 
 seek to get the most possible for what their 
 members have to sell, they are following God- 
 given impulses ; but the moment they appeal 
 from reasonings to bludgeons, they pass from 
 benevolent beings to bushwackers. 
 
 If a' certain set of workmen think their 
 employers can afford to give more wages, 
 they have a right to ask for the advance ; 
 but the employer has an equal right to 
 refuse. They have a perfect right to stop 
 work, but no right to interfere with oth- 
 ers, who are willing to take their places. A 
 peaceable strike is only a fluctuation of the 
 labor market, which will adjust itself, the 
 same as a fluctuation in the market for corn 
 or cotton, according to the law of demand and 
 supply. But any violent interference with la- 
 bor, is a breach of the peace, and should be 
 put down speedily and effectually. That such 
 breaches of the peace often and quickly de- 
 velop into riots, is well known, and for rioters, 
 there is no sympathy. If a mob grow in- 
 to rioters, every one present is either uphold- 
 ing or upsetting the law — there are no inno- 
 cent spectators of a riot. 
 
 Labor can never force capital to give em- 
 ployment, unless capital thinks it can make or 
 
§ 
 
 14 When " Strikes" Succeed. 
 
 save by giving such employment. If, for ex- 
 ample, a factory paid a dollar a day to a work- 
 man, and could sell the labor in its product 
 for, say, $1.05, the factory would be happy to 
 continue paying the man a dollar a day. But 
 suppose the man should demand $1.10 per day, 
 and the factory could only get $1.05 for his 
 labor in its product, is it not manifest that the 
 factory would decline to pay the advance de- 
 manded? No " strike" is ever successful, un- 
 less the wages being received by the help are 
 under the market rate. If you are employing 
 one hundred men at ten cents an hour, and 
 they demand an advance of two cents per 
 hour, it is simply a question of market price. 
 If you can get another hundred men to do 
 your work for ten cents per hour, you simply 
 employ them and let your first hundred go 
 seek some other employer. This rule holds 
 good, if the positions are reversed : if two 
 mills " start up " at the same time, and other 
 things being equal, one offers a dollar a day, 
 and the other a dollar and a dime, the first 
 mentioned mill will have no " help " until the 
 last has secured its complement of workers. 
 
 The most pernicious quack, who peddles pol- 
 itical nostrums, is he, who attempts to excite 
 the multitude, by declaring that " all the ills 
 
Friends, not Foes. 15 
 
 that flesh is heir to " come from the employers 
 of labor. People of this sort hold it as an axi- 
 om that there is an unending feud between cap- 
 ital and labor ; and that the former ever seeks 
 to extinguish the latter. Some of these mis- 
 chief-makers, assuming this statement to be 
 true, are logical enough to declare that labor 
 should try to extinguish capital. This is the 
 doctrine of communism. Now, if there be two 
 things in this world, between which the utmost 
 amity should exist, and between which the most 
 intimate reciprocal relations do exist, they are 
 Capital and Labor. Oue is absolutely useless 
 without the other. Ten million willing arms 
 are no better than no arms at all, if there be 
 not the means of employing them; and the 
 means of employing two arms or ten millions 
 are useless, if there be no arms to employ. Cap- 
 ital suffers when work is scarce, and work suf- 
 fers when capital is scarce. The earnings of 
 capital, or interest, aud the earnings of labor, 
 or wages, vary directly as each other. When 
 capital is being employed at fair interest, labor 
 is getting fair wages ; when capital is earning 
 little or nothing, many willing hands are idle. 
 Wages during the past year have been lower 
 in this country than perhaps ever before, and 
 capital never received so little interest. 
 
16 Machinery, and its Maligners. 
 
 The gratification of every one of our wants 
 that God does not gratify without our asking,, 
 as air, sunlight, water, etc., requires some exer- 
 tion on our part. Now it is plain, that any 
 means which enable us to gratify any particu- 
 lar want, with only half the exertion we have 
 been accustomed to put forth in gratifying 
 that want, is a benefit to us. The benefit con- 
 sists in our saving one-half our exertion, or 
 with the same amount of exertion, gratifying- 
 twice as many wants. This saving of labor is 
 just what is done by machinery: yet it is- 
 strange to see quite a large number of people in 
 this country, who declaim against labor-saving- 
 machinery, as working harm to the poorer 
 classes. They say, that if a machine be invent- 
 ed whereby two men can do the work of five,, 
 that three men are injured. 
 
 Let us look carefully at this argument ; for it 
 is one of those specious pleas, that mislead 
 many candid people ; its apparent exactness is 
 just wherein its danger lies. If such a ma- 
 chine were invented, say in the making of 
 shoes ; the profit of using it, would be the- 
 wages of three men, less the wear and tear of 
 the machine and the interest on its cost. Now 
 the use of every such machine would give the- 
 shoe factory a very large additional profit,. 
 
Multiplying Machinery. 17 
 
 and new capital would at once be drawn 
 in its direction ; in other words, new shoe 
 works would be started, where much more 
 labor would be required — for capital is ar- 
 gus-eyed, and ever on the alert to invest 
 in those enterprises, which promise the great- 
 est interest, coupled with the greatest se- 
 curity. Now any machine that would re- 
 duce the cost of any product to nearly the ex- 
 tent of three-fifths of the labor, that it formerly 
 cost, would start probably ten shoe works 
 where there was one before ; and instead of be- 
 ing a demand for five shoe-makers, there would 
 be a demand for twenty. Let us carry the ar- 
 gument a little farther: if the production of 
 shoes increased tenfold, and the cost of them to 
 the maker were reduced by nearly three-fifths 
 the labor formerly put in them, it is manifest, 
 that through the competition of the factories, 
 the price of shoes would fall sharply, and many 
 more people be able to buy better shoes than 
 before the invention of the machine. Again, 
 every machine would require a human mind to 
 guide it, — a machine that thinks for itself, is 
 among the absolutely impossible things. Hence, 
 every new machine that is put in motion in- 
 creases the demand for skilled labor ; this de- 
 mand can only be supplied by educating the 
 
 Economic Crumbs, 2 
 
18 Labor is Honorable. 
 
 unskilled workman, and surely it is a blessing, 
 but thinly disguised, that thins the ranks of ig- 
 norant toilers, and forces the development of 
 deft skill out of brute force. 
 
 If God Almighty had not intended all men 
 to work, he would not have made man the 
 most perfect machine the world has ever seen. 
 It is no more evident that he intended birds to 
 fly and fishes to swim, than that he intended 
 man to work. It is not alone in man's physi- 
 cal fitness to work, that we see the Sivine in- 
 tention ; but in his being ever filled with un- 
 ratified desires, prompting the use of his won- 
 derful physical machinery. How incomplete 
 would God's work have seemed, if man had 
 been made simply a perfect physical machine, 
 uninspired with those desires, which keep the 
 machine in motion ; or if he had been filled with 
 such desires, but not possessed of the physical 
 machinery to gratify them. In labor, then, is 
 the creature, man, carrying out the design of 
 his Creator, and in obedience to God there is 
 honor to man. That labor is honorable is thus 
 susceptible of a very complete and direct dem- 
 onstration. As all labor is the same in kind, 
 varying only in degree, let it not be said that 
 the labor of the lawyer, the physician, or the 
 merchant, is more honorable than that of the 
 
Brutes Work, Men Labor. 19 
 
 fisherman, the farmer, or the smith ; the honor 
 rests in the effort, not in its direction. Honor 
 may vary in degree, but the honor of labor 
 varies only as man uses, wholly or partially, 
 the powers Heaven has given him. 
 
 In birds and beasts, as well as in man, God 
 has implanted certain desires, and supplied the 
 means of gratifying them ; but compared with 
 those of men, their desires are few, and their 
 gratification direct. Man, and man alone, grat- 
 ifies his desires by exchanging his labor for the 
 labor of others ; there never was a dog, nor a 
 horse, so sagacious as to voluntarily seek to give 
 something he had, to some other horse or dog, 
 in order to get in exchange something the oth- 
 er horse or dog had. One horse might steal 
 another's hay, and one dog another's bone, but 
 the idea of exchange is beyond them. In no 
 other way, perhaps, is man's superiority over 
 other animals more completely shown, than in 
 the fact, that other animals work — men labok. 
 
CAPITAL. 
 
 Crazy communists — what capital is — capi- 
 tal's DIET — SAVING IS GAINING — ALL MONEY CAP- 
 
 TAL, BUT ALL CAPITAL NOT MONEY "CAPITALIST 
 
 CLASS" — DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND BEES — 
 CAPITAL A COWARD — PRODUCTION THE OFFSPRING 
 OF CAPITAL AND LABOR — LIBERTY OF LABOR, AND 
 LAW OF LOANS — CREDIT'S COMPOSITION — UNEQUAL 
 DIVISION OF CAPITAL — EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF, 
 YET BY HIMSELF HELPLESS — POLITICAL ECONOMY A 
 SCIENCE, NOT A POEM — ONLY GENERAL TRUTHS 
 HAVE GENERAL LAWS — WHAT WOULD BE WITHOUT 
 CAPITAL. 
 
 A wave of lunacy, such as seems to overflow 
 every country sometime in its history, has 
 been, and is now disturbing the political at- 
 mosphere of the United States ; and such ab- 
 surd cries as " Property is robbery," and " Cap- 
 ital a crime," were, and are mottoes of a party, 
 hardly respectable even in numbers, and really 
 dangerous only to the ignorant. This form of 
 lunacy is not a native disease, but no amount 
 
Head and Hands 21 
 
 of quarantining has served to check its im- 
 portation. The malady originates in knavery, 
 and, like the physical diseases, Yellow Fe- 
 ver and Cholera, flourishes best with igno- 
 rance and filth as surroundings. Mental sick- 
 ness of this form is commonly called " Com- 
 munism," " Socialism," or " Kearneyism," and 
 is an interesting social study ; hut the object 
 of this paper is not to discuss disease, nor its 
 symptoms, but to briefly consider what Capital 
 really is, its uses, its nature, and necessity. 
 
 Going to the root of the matter, capital 
 means " the head " or source ; and when we 
 liken capital and labor to the head and hands 
 of the industrial body, the simile is uncom- 
 monly apt. I would define capital as anything 
 of value, which has been saved, and from the 
 use of which a profit may be had : or, to put it 
 in a nut-shell, any means of profit saved. The 
 bottom idea of capital is, that somebody has 
 saved something. If nobody had ever abstain- 
 ed from the gratification of present desires, in 
 order to be able to satisfy some future want, 
 there would be no such thing as capital. A 
 capitalist, then, is not the terrible ghoul paint- 
 ed by demogogues, who daily devours working 
 men and women ; but simply one, who has 
 something that has been saved, either by him- 
 
22 Safe Bind, Safe Find. 
 
 self or some one else. The origin of all capital 
 is abstinence, and until self-control become a 
 vice, capital and crime will not be synonyms. 
 
 Capital is not an element, but a product, 
 and labor its prime factor. Man had to labor 
 before he could have anything to save; and 
 the height of absurdity is trod by those would- 
 be-philosophers, who smear labor with fulsome 
 flattery, and damn its product, capital, to 
 depths unfathomed. If two men earn equal 
 wages, and one save a dime a week, while the 
 other spends every cent in the gratification of 
 present desires, the condition of the two at the 
 year's end will be different. One will be a cap- 
 italist to the extent of five dollars and twenty 
 cents, while the other will not. This capital- 
 ist may exchange his fifty-two dimes for a 
 boat, a chest of tools, a plow, or anything else 
 he may see fit, and be a capitalist, so long as he 
 has something saved, from the use of which, a 
 profit may be had. 
 
 Money is only one of the myriad forms of 
 capital, and is no more the whole of capital, 
 than Hampton Roads is the Atlantic Ocean. 
 This idea is not half often enough shaken to 
 the surface, and too many people, consciously or 
 unconsciously, confound all capital with pieces 
 of gold or silver, with bank bills, or govern- 
 
Bees and Beavers. 23 
 
 ment promises to pay. Old Jupiter, with all 
 his masquerading, never assumed a thousandth 
 of the forms that capital takes. Farms, facto- 
 ries, ships, stocks, railways, bonds, tools, mon- 
 ey — are all forms of capital ; indeed, any ma- 
 terial thing that has been saved, and is salea- 
 ble, is a form of capital. 
 
 In the preceding paper on " Labor," it was 
 pointed out that the expression, " laboring 
 classes," failed to mark any distinct division 
 of society. " Capitalist class " fails almost as 
 signally ; for a man, if he has only an extra 
 shirt, is to that extent a capitalist ; and any 
 creature who, in the ordinary course of events, 
 has absolutely nothing saved, that is saleable, 
 is fitter to be classed with beasts than human 
 beings. The desire to save, and the willing- 
 ness to sacrifice present indulgences, to provide 
 against future wants, is an attribute of man 
 alone. The making of such provision by the 
 lower animals, as by bees and beavers, comes 
 from instinct, not from reason. A young bee, 
 which has never Been a snow-flake, will make 
 and save honey as steadily as if it had lived 
 through many a frost}' night. The extent of 
 a nation's savings is a pretty sure criterion of 
 its civilization ; the lower in the social scale a 
 nation or tribe may be, the less capital, or 
 
24 Capital a, Coward. 
 
 things saved, will be found in it. Onlj in 
 civilized countries do we find much capital 
 in many shapes. 
 
 Of all timid things, capital is the most tim- 
 id ; it ever seeks to be surrounded by strong 
 laws, that can be quickly enforced ; and at the 
 sound of war or riot, promptly seeks to change 
 its form and abiding place. There must be 
 tranquillity in any locality, that invites capital, 
 or the invitation will not be accepted. A man 
 will risk his life, perhaps, in a country, where 
 he would not buy a farm, nor build a factory ; 
 and the summa.ry execution of writs issued by 
 Judge Lynch's Courts, is not the kind of 
 strong law that capital likes. Once frightened, 
 capital is slow to again " screw its courage to 
 the sticking point." There are to-day as many 
 promising ventures, as there were before the 
 panic of 1873 ; yet capital, not having recov- 
 ered from that fright, regards them with indif- 
 ference, and nestles in the bosom of compara- 
 tive safety, rather than in the lap of even cau- 
 tious venture. 
 
 While capital is always a product, it is also, 
 always a means to further ends; to realize such 
 ends, it must be united with present labor for 
 capital by itself is as helpless as a finless fish. 
 A plane, a hoe, or a fish-hook, is a form of cap- 
 
Capital and Labor, Both Free. 25 
 
 ital, but utterly fruitless unless united with 
 human effort. Labor by itself is as ster- 
 ile as capital ; but from the union of the 
 two come all the betterments of society. All 
 production equals labor multiplied by capital ; 
 •cut out either factor, and the result can never 
 be production. Capital is the result of effort 
 in the past — canned labor, so to speak ; labor 
 is present endeavor with an object in the fu- 
 ture ; while credit is the shadow of labor yet 
 to be performed, or of capital yet to be created. 
 Liberty of labor is guaranteed in this coun- 
 try ; so is liberty of capital. A man may la- 
 bor with the peaceful plow in almost perfect 
 safety, or may risk his life in making nitro-gly- 
 cerine. So, too, may capital cuddle in the al- 
 most absolute safety of a government bond, or 
 blindly venture into the wildest schemes. No 
 man has the right to interfere with either. 
 Labor ever seeks to get the most for itself, that 
 is, the best wages : so does capital seek the best 
 (not always the highest) interest. The degree 
 of risk taken by either enters into the return de- 
 manded. A nurse, to take care of a Yellow Fe- 
 ver patient, demands and gets more than one 
 taking care of a healthy child. A sum of money 
 lent on undoubted security earns less interest, 
 than if the risk be great. The law of loans, is 
 
26 Credit's Composition. 
 
 a very simple one. " The rate of interest va- 
 ries inversely as the security." The security 
 is the sum of the things pledged or collateral,, 
 plus the credit of the borrower. If the collat- 
 eral be very large, the amount of personal cred- 
 it need be but small ; if the collateral be very 
 small, the amount of personal credit must be 
 large. In loans where direct collateral is zero, 
 as in a Government bond, the credit must be 
 high, for it is all the security a lender has. 
 Credit, also, consists of two parts : first, in one's 
 disposition or tendency to do right ; second, 
 in one's capacity to use things borrowed to ad- 
 vantage. This second item in the sum of 
 credit is an important one, for no man or State 
 known to lack capacity to use well the thing 
 he or it desires to borrow, can borrow on favora- 
 ble terms. The first item of credit, that is, the 
 tendency to do right, must be established by 
 deeds, not words. The honor of a state is more 
 accurately indicated by the market price of its 
 bonds, than by the eloquence of its orators. 
 
 The division of capital among men is as- 
 varied as their desires and powers ; and on 
 these diversities the whole world moves. Per- 
 fect equality would be perfect stagnation. If 
 all men were equally good lawyers, where 
 would be the clients ? If all were merchants- 
 
Thievish Theories. 27 
 
 with equal stocks, where would be the custom- 
 ers ? If all were equally good preachers, where 
 would be the congregations ? Indeed, if it 
 were not for the diversity of men's tastes and 
 powers, where would anything be ? The world 
 and its people might as well return to chaos, 
 and in universal nothingness, find the universal 
 equality of property preached by the commun- 
 ist, and practiced by the highwayman. 
 
 That some men should have more capital 
 than others is a necessity from the very nature 
 of things ; it is no more unjust, than that one 
 man should be stronger, taller, or more healthy 
 than another. The majority of people accept 
 such, as the natural state of things ; and the 
 minority, who decline to accept it, are found 
 among the vicious, who have squandered all 
 they had ; the improvident, who have never 
 saved anything ; and the lazy, who never labor 
 for more than mere existance. Capital and la- 
 bor are united in wedlock, and all forms of 
 production are their offspring, — but their mar- 
 riage is no affair of the heart, it is only of con- 
 venience. You will not pay a man a dollar for 
 ten hours' work, that you can have done equal- 
 ly well for seventy cents; neither will you give 
 ten hours' work for six pounds of sugar, if six 
 hours' work will buy it. Whenever capital 
 
28 " More" 
 
 and labor exchange themselves one for anoth- 
 er, rest assured, each one will make the best 
 possible bargain for itself. Political economy- 
 has nothing whatever to do with the affec- 
 tions, and any attempt to weave sentiment in- 
 to an economic web, always results in a fabric, 
 that will neither wash nor wear, fair as its 
 surface may seem. The price of capital and 
 labor depends on demand and supply , they are 
 mutually dependent, and that is all about it. 
 They are parts of an exact science, with no 
 more poetry about it than there is in the mul- 
 tiplication table. No man is ever so content 
 with the pay received for the use of his brain, 
 muscles or capital, that he would not like to 
 receive a little more ; this feeling is universal, 
 and will be, while men are made of the ma- 
 terials they now are. Charles Dickens' picture 
 of Oliver asking for " more" was only an in- 
 dividual miniature, a type of all society. 
 
 As before stated, capital is anything saved, 
 that when united with labor, is capable of pro- 
 ducing a profit ; a chisel is as much a form of 
 capital as a thousand gold dollars ; and if we 
 attempt to lay down laws to rule capital in 
 general, they must be general, and include all 
 capital ; they must apply to the tools of the 
 villao-e-smith as well as to the millions of the 
 
A Gloomy Picture. 29 
 
 bank of England. It is on this rock that the 
 ignorant agitators of the labor question split ; 
 they try to divide society into two classes, la- 
 borers, and capitalists ; but as no such divis- 
 ions exist, their conclusions are as impotent as 
 their premises are faulty. No two of them 
 agree where the line should be drawn ; one 
 would draw it between those who have bonds, 
 and those who have not ; while another would 
 regard the ownership of machinery as the di- 
 viding line ; and others still, would regard 
 those who have more than themselves, as cap- 
 italists. The great difficulty that confronts 
 the believers in this earthquake doctrine, that 
 all property should be evenly divided, is that 
 nobody ever wants to " divide down," as the 
 saying is, — that is, the man with ten cents 
 will not want to divide with the man with 
 only five ; nor he, with half a dozen, who 
 have nothing. 
 
 If the dreams of those who would destroy 
 all capital could be realized, the sun would 
 rise on the world's people, naked, home- 
 less, foodless, with nothing saved, not even 
 seed to plant. Compare such a picture with, 
 the world as it is, and a faint conception 
 can be formed of the use and necessity of cap- 
 ital. 
 
PRODUCTION AND CON- 
 SUMPTION. 
 
 Transformation a synonym for both — " use- 
 less EACH WITHOUT THE OTHER" — LIFE NOT A SEE- 
 SAW RICH NEIGHBORS BETTER THAN POOR MAN 
 
 NOT A MAKER — LITTLE TO GIVE, LITTLE TO GET 
 
 SALES ARE HINGES. 
 
 Man regarded as a physical, intellectual, 
 and moral being, is the greatest wonder of this 
 world of wonders. Yet with all his wonderful 
 powers, man never has made, and never will 
 make an atom of matter : furthermore, he is as 
 powerless to destroy matter as to make it. 
 Humiliating as this may seem, it is neverthe- 
 less a sturdy fact. What men vaingloriously 
 call production and consumption (or, in plainer 
 English, making and destroying,) are only two 
 words used to express one idea — viz., transform- 
 ation or change. Man can only change the 
 matter God has made. God is the sole Creator 
 
One Creator, Many Creatures. 31 
 
 -or Maker ; man is but one of his creatures, who 
 at best, can only change what has been created. 
 More social and economic fallacies spring from 
 considering man as a creator or producer, than 
 from any other one cause. Beyond doubt, man 
 is a wonder, but he is none the less a creature, 
 and as incapable of making an atom of mat- 
 ter as a cur dog to construct a phonograph. 
 The object of this paper is to consider man as a 
 transformer, and to point out that he does not 
 occupy an independent point in space, but a 
 point on the circumference of life's great circle, 
 with as many points to the right of him as to 
 the left of him. 
 
 The truth, that man can do no more than 
 transform matter, seems beyond the grasp of 
 most of the prating politicians, who are render- 
 ing to a people hungry for economic truths, 
 their unripe ideas, concerning what they are 
 pleased to term, producers and consumers. One 
 sect of these would-be philosophers claim, (if 
 we follow their doctrines to the end), that men 
 <5an have food without labor; and the oth- 
 -er, that men can labor without food. One is 
 -directly opposed to the other, but both are 
 equally wrong. There is no such thing on 
 earth as a producer, who does not consume ; or 
 .a consumer who. does not produce. Any sys- 
 
32 "Changeless Laws of Change." 
 
 tern of government or school of philosophy, 
 which pretends to treat any man or class of 
 men, as purely producers or purely consumers, 
 is bound to be a failure. You may cut a mule 
 in two pieces, and have one half with ears, and 
 the other half with a tail, but you will have 
 no mule. Exactly so is any attempt to divide 
 society in two classes, producers and consum- 
 ers ; the division may be made, but society 
 will be destroyed. Every act of consumption; 
 is hinged on some act of production ; and the 
 hinge is called a sale, or an exchange. 
 
 The Creator of all things made matter, and 
 man to manage it. Matter by itself is a gift 
 from Heaven ; so is the force of gravity, power 
 of germination, sunlight, etc. These are the 
 only absolutely raw materials ; and as the} T 
 have been so lavishly bestowed, man will give 
 nothing for them ; they are to be had without 
 even asking. It is only when two or more of 
 God's gifts have been combined by man's ener- 
 gy, that the relation called property springs in- 
 to being, and other men are willing to give in 
 exchange for it, what they happen to possess. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that absolutely raw ma- 
 terials have no value, as no man will give any- 
 thing in exchange for them. To my mind, raw 
 material, comparatively speaking, is anything 
 
All Men are Middlemen. 33 
 
 which any man proposes to change, as to its 
 form, time or place, although it may be, nay, 
 probably is, a finished product to some other 
 man. For instance, cotton is a finished product 
 to the planter, but raw material to the spinner ; 
 while, in turn, his yarn is a finished product to 
 him, but raw material to the weaver ; and so on 
 through the endless links of industy. 
 
 Changing the form, the place, or the time 
 of matter, is what all men are always do- 
 ing. Farmers and millers change the form 
 of grain, growing and grinding it; merchants 
 change its place, taking it from where it is 
 most abundant, to where it is most in demand ; 
 bankers and speculators, change the time of the 
 grain, by keeping it from the period of supera- 
 bundance to that of comparative scarcity. Ev- 
 ery one of the many, who handle the grain, 
 from the plowman to the baker, are middle- 
 men, and the labors of all are necessary to ena- 
 ble the man who eats the loaf to have it. Even 
 he is not a consumer only, for previous labor of 
 his, has produced something, that buys the 
 bread ; which something indirectly reaches 
 the plowman ; furthermore, eating the bread 
 is not its final consumption; for it reappears 
 in the form of physical strength, enabling 
 the eater to put forth fresh exertions in pro- 
 
 Economic Crumbs, 3 
 
34 Ethics of Economy. 
 
 ducing other things. Neither can the farmer 
 be called a producer, for although he " raises," 
 the wheat, all the time he is plowing, reaping 
 and threshing, he is consuming food, clothing, 
 etc. ; he is no more than a middleman — there 
 have been laborers before him, and laborers 
 shall come after him. Man is like the pres- 
 ent, a small space between the great past and 
 the great future, but nevertheless a space. 
 
 Granting that men are ever transforming 
 matter, but never making, nor destroying it ; 
 that men are links in industry's great chain, 
 whose ends are locked together ; it follows 
 that men are prosperous really, only as their 
 neighbors are prosperous. It stands to reason 
 that no man is better off from having all his 
 neighbors poor. The man who has but little 
 to sell, can buy but little ; the man who can 
 buy but little, has but little to sell. " Love 
 thy neighbor as thyself is an economic as 
 well as a moral maxim ; for if your neighbor 
 has but little, you can exchange but little 
 with him. Therefore, your property or capac- 
 ity to exchange, is increased as his property, or 
 capacity to exchange, is increased. Ignorance 
 of this truth is common among all classes of 
 society ; but painfully so among the colored 
 people of this country. Mutual jealousy is one 
 
Sand Hopes. 35 
 
 of their weakest social points. How this spirit 
 came about makes no difference ; it exists. 
 Instead of rejoicing at the prosperity of any 
 one of their race, they are envious ; instead of 
 trying to get up, where he is, the tendency is 
 to try to pull him back, where they are. The 
 feeling of " Comrade, touch the elbow," seems 
 foreign to them, and petty jealousy is one of 
 the heaviest chains binding them. Cohesion is 
 as necessary in a people, as in a bar of iron, if 
 either is to bear any weight. When mutual 
 distrust, or repulsion, so to speak, takes the 
 place of mutual attraction, only a rope of 
 sand binds a community together. 
 
 In the economy of nature, nothing is really 
 lost, although apparently something disap- 
 pears in every change that matter undergoes. 
 If ten thousand cords of wood were burned to 
 ashes, and then scattered in the sea, there 
 would not be an ounce of matter lost: there 
 would have been a change of form, and that is 
 all. The object of transforming any bit of 
 matter, is to increase the utility, or beauty of 
 some part of it: those transformations are 
 best, in which the least apparent loss is no- 
 ticeable. 
 
 Of nothing, nothing comes — so, if a por- 
 tion of matter has once been transformed, 
 
36 "Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit." 
 
 another similar portion of matter must be 
 found, before a similar transformation can be 
 made. If a man weave ten pounds of yarn in- 
 to twenty-five yards of cloth, he must obtain 
 another ten pounds of yarn before he can 
 weave another twenty-five yards of cloth. This 
 economic law is generally appreciated by 
 manufacturers and merchants, as in their pur- 
 suits, it is self-evident ; but many farmers 
 seem ignorant of it; for they go on, year 
 after year, taking away from the soil the 
 many elements that go " to make a crop," 
 but- return to the soil, only a part of what 
 they take away. The laws of nature are 
 inflexible, even if farmers be unacquainted 
 with them ; and sooner or later these ignorant 
 ones find their lands worn out, and themselves 
 bankrupts. This State of Virginia is full of ex- 
 amples of this fact, and many a man is wear- 
 ing his life out, trying to solve the question of 
 how to subtract two from four, and have four 
 as a remainder. If a man cut and split a cord 
 of wood, he cannot expect to feel as fresh and 
 strong, at the end of the job as at its begin- 
 ning ; he has exchanged his strength for the 
 pile of split wood, and cannot have a similar 
 amount of strength, until he has exchanged for 
 it, food, sleep, etc. 
 
How Blankets are not Lengthened. 37 
 
 All energy is a series of blows; and "to strike" 
 is an active transitive verb. Human industry 
 is the algebraic sum of human energies, and 
 depends on the consumption by one man of the 
 production of another, in order to produce 
 something for a third. To argue that the 
 the second of these, can be benefited by the 
 injury of the first or third, is to argue that a 
 blanket can be lengthened by cutting off 
 one end, and sewing it on the other. 
 
 All living men are ever exchanging some- 
 thing for something else ; give and take, are 
 the two members of life's equation. The final 
 expression of any equation of this sort, its sim- 
 plest form, so to speak, is " Labor for labor." 
 It matters not in what form, in how many 
 fractions, or parentheses, the labor may be hid- 
 den, it is always labor, labor either past, or pres- 
 ent, or yet to be performed, that is exchanged. 
 This is a rugged, homespun truth, that many 
 do not know ; and which many, who do know, 
 keep tucked away in the cobweb corner of their 
 brains, where memory and reflection are for- 
 bidden to sweep or dust. If every man could 
 have graven on his finger tips, that everything 
 he buys is a sale of so much of his labor, a truer 
 economy would guide many purchases. If 
 a man earn a dollar a day, and buy ten 
 
38 The Two Sides of a Dollar. 
 
 drinks of whiskey at ten cents a drink, he has 
 worked one day to tickle his palate ten times. 
 If people about to buy anything, would always 
 measure their intended purchases, with hours of 
 labor, instead of dollars and cents, a good deal 
 of folly would be frost-bitten, and Christmas 
 find more people with needful dollars in their 
 pockets. Every dollar has two sides, and is en- 
 titled to be looked at twice, before it is spent. 
 On one side, count how many hours' labor it 
 has cost you to get it ; on the other, how many 
 hours of your labor you are about to get for it; 
 strike a balance ; and keep or spend the coin, as 
 the balance seems in your favor or against you. 
 This doctrine of " Labor for labor" is one of 
 those genuine truths, coined in words, that con- 
 tains no sophistical alloy ; it will stand un- 
 harmed the acid tests of morals, politics, or eth- 
 ics. Beautifully true as this doctrine is, it is 
 as hateful to some people as a red rag to a bel- 
 lowing bull ; the believers in " Fiat Money," 
 the upholders of the equal redistribution of 
 property, and people fevered with like " isms," 
 hoot at this truth like owls at the moonlight. 
 Nevertheless, even as the moon, in spite of owl 
 hoots, has shone in the past, shines now, and 
 will shine in the future, just so have men in 
 the past, do men in the present, and will men 
 
Owls of Society. 39 
 
 in the future, exchange " Labor for labor," in 
 spite of the hoots of " ismites," whose " isms" 
 truth won't fit. 
 
MONEY. 
 
 Many know that it is ; few know what it 
 
 IS — HOW IT works — ITS dual nature FACTS and 
 
 FANCIES — PROMISES AND PERFORMANCES — THE TOOL 
 OF EXCHANGE AND THE STANDARD OF VALUES — WHY 
 
 GOLD IS THE BEST MATERIAL FOR MONEY PROMISES 
 
 TO PAY MONEY ARE NOT MONEY ELASTIC YARD- 
 STICKS — WHAT HAS HAPPENED, MAY HAPPEN — PIC- 
 TURES ARE NOT MEN — THE ABUSED WORD " VALUE" 
 
 FIE, ON FIAT MONEY — HONEST MONEY FOR HONEST 
 
 LABOR — MONEY DEFINED. 
 
 There is no commodity so much used, and 
 yet so little understood as money. Ignorance 
 of the nature and functions of money, is not 
 confined to any section or class ; indeed the 
 deepest ignorance is often found in the highest 
 places, as the debates and acts of the last Con- 
 gress of the United States abundantly prove. 
 The country fairly teems with wild theories 
 about money, and the national craze, if I may 
 use the expression, is directly traceable to 
 
The Contagion of Inflation. 41 
 
 the fact, that this generation has used, al- 
 most entirely, promises to pay money, in- 
 stead of money itself: the financial heresies, 
 which are rife among us, are diseases growing 
 out of the tainted atmosphere of inflation, 
 through which we have passed, and in one re- 
 spect are still passing. 
 
 The only difficulty in the way of every- 
 body's clearly understanding what money is, 
 is that it has a two-fold nature; and people are 
 apt to look at money only as a medium 
 of exchange, or only as a measure of value. Real 
 money combines in itself these two proper- 
 ties, and no money but real money does. Mus- 
 cle is always muscle ; bloat never is. 
 
 Let us first consider money as a medium of 
 exchange. If a man, who had a jackknife, 
 wanted a bushel of wheat, and could find a 
 man with a bushel of wheat, who wanted a 
 jackknife ; the two could exchange their com- 
 modities without the use of money. But sup- 
 pose, the man with the jackknife could not 
 find anybody with a bushel of wheat, who 
 wanted a jackknife ; then, he would be forced 
 to adopt some other way to obtain the bushel 
 of wheat. Just here, comes in the use of mon- 
 ey. The man with the jackknife must find 
 somebody who wants the jackknife, and who 
 
42 Qualities Money Should Possess. 
 
 can offer, in exchange for it, something, which 
 the man with the jackknife knows, the man 
 with the wheat will take in exchange for it. 
 This something is called money. It is evident 
 this something we call money, must be made 
 of some lasting material, or it would wear out 
 in the constant passing from hand to hand. 
 Again, it must be of some substance so rare, 
 that its bulk will not be unwieldy ; for in- 
 stance, iron dollars would never answer the 
 purposes of active trade. Thirdly, it must be 
 something, that all civilized men desire, and 
 for which they are willing to exchange other 
 things they possess. Fourthly, it must be of 
 such material as can be readily and accurately 
 divided and sub-divided, for the convenience of 
 commerce: for example, the purchase of our 
 daily necessities would be almost impossible, if 
 we had no other denomination of money than 
 dollars. The material, out of which money 
 is made must have certain other qualities ; but 
 these four are the leading ones. The experi- 
 ence of centuries has convinced civilization,, 
 that gold and silver are the only materials, out 
 of which real money can be made ; and that no 
 paper can be used as an equivalent, unless it 
 can be converted on demand, into these precious 
 metals. Money could be made of anything, if 
 
Continental and Confederate Currencies. 43 
 
 civilization would agree on that particular 
 thing ; but civilization has agreed on gold and 
 silver, and it is idle to speculate on what it 
 might have agreed, if it had not agreed 
 on these two metals. By the unvarying laws 
 of trade, this question has been settled in the 
 Supreme Court of Commerce, and the legisla- 
 tion of no one nation can reverse the decision. 
 Paper by itself, is not, cannot be, money : it can 
 be a promise to yay money, but it is no more 
 money, than any promise is its performance. 
 The Continental Congress, and the late Con- 
 federate States, issued thousands of pounds 
 weight of paper, and called it money ; but call- 
 ing it so, did not make it so, any more than 
 calling a picture a man, would make it human. 
 What are called Greenbacks are not money ; 
 they are bills of credit ; they represent the 
 plighted faith of the Government ; they are 
 promises to pay money, but are not money any 
 more than eggs are chickens. Greenbacks are 
 debts of the Government, and the only way 
 these debts can be paid, is by taxing the peo- 
 ple. When demagogues cry for " more green- 
 backs " they cry for more taxes ; and as taxes 
 are finally paid by labor, it needs no profound 
 wisdom to see how staunch friends of the 
 working men, are those people, who urge that 
 
44 Value. 
 
 the best way to pay debts, is to double or 
 treble them. 
 
 Let us now look at money as a measure of 
 value. This word, value, is about the best 
 abused word in the English language ; accur- 
 ately defined it is the " relation of mutual pur- 
 chase established between two services by their 
 exchange." If, for instance, I sell a day's 
 work for a barrel of potatoes, the value of my 
 day's work is a barrel of potatoes ; and the 
 value of the potatoes is a day's work on my 
 part. Value, then, is a relation, not a sub- 
 stance ; }'ou cannot weigh value in the grocer's 
 scales, nor say it is white, black, or copper col- 
 ored ; neither can you say it is a foot high nor 
 a yard long. 
 
 The only appreciation of value that is possi- 
 ble, is our ability to compare two things with 
 a third, or to measure one thing by another of 
 the same sort. If I know, that I can buy a 
 coat that I want, for five dollars, and can sell a 
 barrel of flour that I have, for five dollars; it is 
 evident my barrel of flour will buy me a coat. 
 If I sell my flour to Mr. Jones for five dollars, 
 and then give the five dollars to Mr. Smith for 
 a coat, I have simply exchanged my flour for 
 the coat. In another sense, the five dollars 
 were a measure of values, for with it were 
 
The Best Dollar. 45 
 
 measured both the flour and the coat. It 
 would make no difference to me, if I received 
 one dollar or a hundred dollars instead of five, 
 for the flour, if the coat could be got for a dol- 
 lar, or for not less than a hundred. The use- 
 fulness of money is not in its name, nor in its 
 quantity, but in its purchasing power. The 
 best dollar is the dollar that will buy most, in 
 the greatest number of places. 
 
 As all other commodities are measured by 
 nione} 7 , and as all men are willing to take 
 real money in exchange for what they have, it 
 is natural that money should be desired by all 
 of us. Although this desire is universal among 
 civilized men, the majority of people do not 
 appreciate the fact, that they do not desire 
 money for itself but as a means of 'procuring 
 whatever else they desire. One cannot eat mon- 
 ey, drink money, wear money, nor use it as 
 building material ; yet these and all other phys- 
 ical wants can be gratified, if one has money 
 to offer in exchange for their gratification. 
 Only misers want money for money's sake, and 
 as their name indicates, they are miserable be- 
 ings. Money is a mean, not an end — men de- 
 sire it, not for itself, but for what it will get. 
 
 When Ave speak of measuring anything,, 
 we mean that it contains some arbitrary unit 
 

 46 Units of Measure. 
 
 of measure so many times, as a foot, a pint, a 
 pound, a dollar. In every measurement, the 
 unit of measure must be of the same nature as 
 the thing to be measured : for example, we do 
 not measure length with a unit of capacity, 
 nor capacity with a unit of weight ; we do not 
 say it is so many bushels from Washington to 
 Richmond, but so many miles ; we do not say 
 that a horse weighs so many feet, nor that a 
 man is so many pounds high. That, with 
 which we measure length, must have length; 
 that, with which we measure capacity, must 
 have capacity ; and in like manner, that, with 
 which we measure values, must have value. 
 "While the unit of measure of value must have 
 value, it must be remembered that value itself 
 is a relation, and therefore its unit of measure 
 must be relative, not absolute. By themselves, 
 neither gold, nor silver, nor paper have any 
 value ; it is only when they can be, and are 
 compared with other things, that the relation, 
 we call value, springs into being. If one man 
 were out in a boat, in the middle of the 
 ■ocean, with nothing on board, but a thousand 
 pieces of gold, the gold then and there, would 
 have no value. But let some other man come 
 .alongside, with water, food, and means of safe- 
 ly, then, the gold would have value, for it 
 
What Varies Least. 47 
 
 could be exchanged for something desired. 
 
 All absolute units ot measure, as of length, 
 -capacity, time, weight, etc., must be constant — 
 that is, they must always be the same. But 
 as values are relations, their unit of measure 
 cannot be absolutely unvarying ; therefore, 
 that thing has been selected, as a unit of value, 
 by the commercial world, which compared 
 with other things, varies least ; and that thing, 
 is a grain of pure gold. 
 
 The necessity of steadiness in a standard or 
 unit of measure is self-evident ; what sort of 
 estimates could a farmer make, if a ton should 
 mean 1,500 lbs. to-day, and 2,400 lbs. to-mor- 
 row ? Herein lies the danger of having any- 
 thing but gold as the standard of values. 
 Compared with gold, silver has varied, in a sin- 
 gle twelve month, as much as eighteen cents 
 per ounce, and what has happened before, may 
 happen again. Still this question need not be 
 considered at present, for in a few years silver 
 will be our only standard, for the poorer cur- 
 rency always drives out the better. The ma- 
 jority of men will not pay their debts in gold, 
 if they can legally discharge them with rags 
 or other rubbish. 
 
 To show the necessity of having for money, 
 that, which compared with other things, is 
 
48 Why. 
 
 steady ; let. us carry a little further the illustra- 
 tion of the man, who sold a barrel of flour and 
 bought a coat. Let us suppose he sold his 
 flour, and received five bits of coin, each mark- 
 ed one dollar, which he put in his pocket, con- 
 cluding not to buy a coat at that time. A 
 year after, however, he wants to buy a coat, 
 and going to the tailor, asks the price, and is 
 told, seven dollars. He naturally inquires why 
 the price has been raised two dollars, and is 
 told that there are so many of these dollars 
 now, that it takes more of them to buy any- 
 thing than it did. The tailor has to pay more 
 for his cloth, more for his labor, and more for 
 everything he has to buy, so he must ask more 
 for everything he has to sell. This man would 
 appreciate how dangerous it was, to have a 
 measure of values so liable to change. If he 
 had kept his flour, or sold it for gold, either 
 would have still bought the coat ; but instead, 
 he exchanged his flour for a commodity, 
 that had no fixed value in the commercial 
 world, and had to suffer the consequences. 
 
 The stamp on a piece of money is only a cer- 
 tificate, that it contained, when coined, so 
 many grains of pure gold or silver; it adds 
 but little to the exchangeable power of the 
 coin, and its main use is, that people handling 
 
A Watch for an Eagle. 49 
 
 it, can tell at a glance, exactly its denomina- 
 tion. If a man sell a watch for a ten dollar 
 gold piece, he does not exchange the watch for 
 the eagle on the coin, but for the exchangeable 
 power that is vested in the bullion, on which 
 the eagle is stamped. If the United States 
 should make a coin, containing only 11.61 
 grains of gold, and stamp it a dollar, it would 
 not be the gold dollar we now have ; neither 
 could it be exchanged for more than half as 
 much as could a standard dollar containing 
 23.22 grains. Calling a pint a peck, or a peck 
 a pint, does not make it so. If Congress- 
 should conclude to stamp all gold dollars, " one 
 cent," it would not materially affect their buy- 
 ing power. The name of a coin has hardly 
 more to do with the coin itself, than a man's 
 Christian name has with his manhood. Mon- 
 ey in old times was always counted by weight, 
 a practice still continued in the Bank of 
 England. The fineness of the work on coins 
 is to make counterfeiting more difficult ; but 
 when they are to be melted, to make jewelry, 
 plate, or other coins, the fineness of the work 
 goes for absolutely nothing, and it is only the 
 bullion that counts. 
 
 The amount of actual money in the world is 
 an extremely small fraction of one per cent, of 
 
 Economic Crumbs, i 
 
50 What Balances Accounts. 
 
 the exchanges that yearly take place between 
 individuals and nations. The practical use of 
 money in commerce is to balance accounts. If 
 a planter receive from his factor one thousand 
 dollars worth of provisions, and send exactly 
 one thousand dollars worth of cotton in return, 
 there has been an exchange of commodities, 
 each one of which could have been exchanged 
 for one thousand dollars ; but which, in point 
 of fact, have been exchanged for each other, 
 -without the intervention of a dollar. If the 
 planter should send eleven hundred dollars 
 "worth of cotton, it would require one hundred 
 ■dollars, or some other commodity worth one 
 hundred dollars, to balance the account. This 
 law applies to nations, as well as to individ- 
 uals. 
 
 Money being so important a thing, as to be 
 the adjuster of commercial differences, and the 
 measure of value of all other things ; it follows 
 that the best is none too good ; and any man is 
 a fool, who says that " so and so " is good 
 enough money for him. A very dangerous 
 theory is now afloat in this country, that the 
 Government can stamp bits of paper, call them 
 dollars, and give them to the people in ex- 
 change for their labor or the products of their 
 labor. If a man give anything of use, he is 
 
Always Good Everywhere. 51 
 
 entitled to receive something of use in return ; 
 the reverse of this doctrine is unromantically 
 called theft. Plain as this matter is; viz., that 
 honest labor should be paid in honest money, 
 thousands of unthinking people, of the very 
 class that will suiier most, are clamorous for a 
 condition of aftairs, under which they will be 
 paid in poor money instead of good. A man, 
 who does a day's or a month's work, is entitled 
 to be paid in money, that is good to-day, to- 
 morrow, and every day ; good in the place he 
 earned it, and good in any other place, where 
 he may wish to exchange it. By good money, 
 I mean that thing, which compared with all 
 other things, will vary least in the course of a 
 life time ; and which has a known purchasing 
 power in the great markets of the world. To 
 declare that labor or anything else should be 
 paid for, by a thing, which, compared with a 
 gold dollar, may to-day be worth 80c, to-mor- 
 row 75c, and next year 35c, is to declare in 
 favor of the grandest kind of grand larceny. 
 During the war there was a kind of hair oil, 
 the wrappers of which resembled greenbacks. 
 Unscrupulous persons gave these wrappers to 
 the ignorant freedmen, in exchange for chick- 
 ens, eggs, services, etc., paying what seemed en- 
 ormous prices. The poor freedman, when he 
 
52 Bread Buys Dimes. 
 
 tried to exchange one of these dollars (?) for 
 something he wanted, discovered how he had 
 been swindled. The inflationists to-day, want 
 the people to take " wrapping paper" for 
 money ; but self interest is more eloquent than 
 inflation orators. 
 
 All languages have two different words to 
 express the idea of exchange. In English we 
 say, we buy and we sell : but in reality we 
 mean, we exchange. No man can bay un- 
 less somebody else sells, and vice versa. If a 
 man buy a loaf of bread with a dime, the ba- 
 ker buys a dime with a loaf of bread. If 
 dimes become relatively more abundant than 
 loaves of bread, the baker will ask more dimes 
 for his bread ; in other words, bread will be 
 higher. If bread become relatively more 
 abundant than dimes, the baker will get few- 
 er dimes for his bread ; in other words, bread 
 will be lower. 
 
 It is not concerning the quantity, but the 
 quality of the currency, that our people need 
 worry. If we were on a purely gold basis, and 
 more money were needed for our commerce, 
 more money would come; for money is merchan- 
 dise, and is governed by the same laws of supply 
 and demand, as are other sorts of merchandise. 
 If flour be twenty dollars a barrel in London, 
 
More Debts, More Taxes. 53 
 
 and ten dollars in New York, flour will go 
 from New York to London, until the equilib- 
 rium be restored. If money be worth 7 per 
 cent, here, and 2 per cent, in England, on equal 
 security, money will come from England to 
 America, as surely as unrestrained water will 
 run down hill. We read a great deal about 
 the duty of the government to make mon- 
 ey plenty. How can the government make 
 money plenty ? If the government coin a 
 dollar, somebody has to earn the dollar be- 
 fore it gets into circulation. If it prints a 
 promise to pay a dollar, somebody has to be 
 taxed to redeem that promise. In either case, 
 the coin or the promise, has to be earned ; the 
 government cannot give money without an 
 equivalent, any more than it can give food, 
 clothing, shelter, or gold watches. If citizens 
 could get paper dollars from the government 
 for nothing, they certainly would not give each 
 other anything in exchange for them. Who 
 will pay for anything, when they can get ex- 
 actly the same thing for nothing ? 
 
 It is boldly asserted by the Inflationists that 
 the government should issue, what they call, 
 National Money; that is bits of paper, stamped 
 so many dollars, and declare them legal ten- 
 der ; then, they argue, this money would per- 
 
54 Definition of Money. 
 
 force become the currency of the country. To 
 this scheme, there are two insuperable objec- 
 tions ; first, the Constitution forbids any ex- 
 post facto legislation ; so this National Money 
 could not be used to pay debts, contracted be- 
 fore its creation. Second, the government can- 
 not make people trade, and no man of sense 
 would exchange valuable things for valueless 
 things: in other words, they would not sell 
 for this sort of money ; and whatever of it got 
 into circulation, would be what was paid to the 
 poor and ignorant, who either could not help 
 themselves, or who had not learned by expe- 
 rience what a dollar was. Suppose a man were 
 paid one thousand of these dollars for a day's 
 work, and these thousand dollars would not 
 buy an ounce of bread, would that be prosperi- 
 ty ? Yet it is the kind of prosperity urged on 
 the workingmen by the Inflationist leaders. 
 Honest labor should be paid in honest dollars ; 
 and the dollars of sophistry reserved for the 
 sophists who claim to be satisfied with them. 
 In conclusion, I would define money as, the 
 tool whereby exchanges are effected, and the 
 standard to which all other values are referred. 
 
WAGES 
 
 Wages a richer word than salaries — what 
 
 THEY ARE WHO BUYS THEM AND WHO SELLS 
 
 THEM CONFUSED IDEAS ABOUT WAGES DIFFER- 
 ENCE BETWEEN SEEMING AND BEING " KEEP AND 
 
 CLOTHING" — WE MUST GIVE TO GET — MUCH FOR 
 
 MUCH LITTLE FOR LITTLE — WHERE WAGES ARE 
 
 UNKNOWN RATES OF WAGKS DETERMINED BY 
 
 " HIGHER LAWS," THAN CONGRESS — LABOR FREE 
 
 WEAK POINT IN TRADES UNIONS. 
 
 Some squeamish people affect to think the 
 word " wages " a trifle vulgar ; and if them- 
 selves in receipt of wages, refer to them as 
 "salaries." In this, thin-skinned daintiness 
 overleaps itself ; for the English language con- 
 tains no more poverty stricken noun than sal- 
 ary : it really means enough to buy one's salt ; 
 and was used to express the pitiful sum given 
 a Roman soldier, with which to buy that cheap 
 necessity. Wages is a good honest Saxon 
 word, and means anything exchanged for labor. 
 
56 Why People Give Wages. 
 
 In this definition there are two technical 
 terms. An exchange is the mutual giving and 
 taking of two things by two persons ; and la- 
 bor is any human exertion put forth, in order to 
 obtain something in exchange for itself. Using 
 this definition of wages, it is manifest that in 
 all free, civilized countries, every man is either 
 a wage taker, a wage giver, or sometimes, 
 both. Wages are given for men's exertions 
 alone; interest is paid for capital; and hire for 
 the use of machines and beasts. Difference of 
 individual preferences and self-interest, under- 
 lie all wage giving and taking, as they do all 
 other exchanges. There is no more sentimen- 
 tality about wages than about oxsleds. A 
 man gives wages, because he prefers the ser- 
 vices of the wage-taker, to what he gives ; oth- 
 erwise he would not give it ; so, too, the wage- 
 taker prefers what he gets for his services, to 
 keeping them for himself, else he would not 
 exchange them. There is no obligation on 
 either side ; in a free country, A is no more 
 compelled to pay B wages, than B is compelled 
 to render service to A. No clear understand- 
 ing of wages can be had, unless the idea of ex- 
 change be kept constantly in view ; that is, 
 that wages and labor are otfsets of one another. 
 Looked at in this light, the question of wages 
 
Boot Polishers and Railroad Presidents. 57 
 
 becomes simplified ; and the same principle 
 .applies to all cases, whether the things 
 •exchanged be great or small. If a man agree 
 with a boy, to give him a dollar a month, 
 in exchange for his services as bootblack, 
 or if a railroad agree to give a man $25,000 a 
 year to conduct its affairs, the same principle 
 is involved. 
 
 People who forget the idea of exchange, are 
 apt to have a confused idea, that the account 
 between wage-taker and wage-giver, is not set- 
 tled by the performance of services, and the 
 payment of the stipulated wages ; they seem 
 to think, that in some way, they know not 
 how, there is some obligation outstanding on 
 one side or the other. This confusion is need- 
 less, and arises from an ignorance of what 
 wages are. If a man go to a baker, and ex- 
 change five cents for a loaf of bread ; nobody 
 thinks there is any account open between 
 them : neither is there between two men, 
 one of whom has put forth certain exertions 
 for the other, and been paid by him a cer- 
 tain amount for them ; both illustrations are 
 examples of exchanges, and the law of ex- 
 change governs both. 
 
 Large wages are the offsets of large services ; 
 •email services are offset by small wages. The 
 
58 Delmonico's Waiters. 
 
 rate of a man's wages depends mainly on two- 
 things : the kind of services he can render, and 
 the demand there is for them. If the services 
 a man can render, are of a kind, that many 
 men in the same place can render as well as 
 he, the rate of wages will be low. If, however,, 
 his services be of a kind that few can render,, 
 or if he can render them in an exceptionally 
 good manner, then his wages will be high; 
 provided, there be a demand for them. The 
 kind of services a man renders, and the manner 
 in which he renders them, depend to a great 
 extent on himself ; but there is something be- 
 yond himself to be considered, and that is, 
 how much other people want his services. 
 The demand for any kind of service has aa 
 much to do with fixing the value of the ser- 
 vice as the supply. The most skilful butcher,, 
 that ever lived, could not obtain high wagea 
 from Hindoos, who eat no meat ; nor could 
 the most expert waiter of Delmonico, get high 
 wages from a band of Comanches. 
 
 Articles of merchandise of the same kind 
 often vary in degree ; as, for instance, one 
 piece of silk is more valuable than another. 
 Degree in merchandise is called " grade ; " de- 
 gree in labor, is called skill. Man alone can 
 possess skill ; for skill is the dual power of 
 
Seeming and Being. 59* 
 
 perceiving and performing, which man alone 
 possesses in a high degree. Machines can per- 
 form, but cannot perceive: beasts may perceive, 
 but cannot perform. Man's powers of both 
 perception and performance, are increased by 
 practice or education ; but neither practice nor 
 education, can give value to a service, for 
 which there is no demand. 
 
 To obtain high wages, a man must be able 
 and willing to do something which everybody 
 else cannot, or is not willing to do; and yet, 
 which somebody, who is willing and able to 
 pay for having done, wants done. These condi- 
 tions give a man a general opportunity ; but 
 his particular opportunity, will only come from 
 his ability to do the particular thing as well r 
 or better, than any other man, who is willing 
 to do the same thing. 
 
 Whether wages be really high or low, or 
 whether they seem high or low, are two very 
 different things ; although many people never 
 look beyond what seems. Man's prime neces- 
 sities are food, clothing and shelter; and a 
 glimmer of the truth is contained in the popu- 
 lar expression of a " man's working for his 
 4 keep ' and clothing." Every man who labors, 
 labors for his " keep and clothing " and some- 
 thing more. Wages are really high or low, if 
 
GO $61 Per Hour. 
 
 this " something more " be much or little. 
 The real highness of a man's wages, is what 
 they will buy over and above his necessities. 
 If a man earn 50 cents a day, and his necessi- 
 ties cost him 40 cents, he is really receiving 
 higher wages, than if he were paid $5.00 a day 
 and his necessities cost $4.90. In one case, he 
 •can capitalize about twenty per cent, of his 
 labor ; in the other, only about two per cent. 
 Men are too prone to look at the name of their 
 wages, instead of at the wages themselves. A 
 man who is paid a dollar a minute, and whose 
 ■" keep and clothing" cost $61.00 per hour, is 
 •on the highroad to bankruptcy. This is only 
 .another way of proving, what has already been 
 shown ; that the best dollar for the laboring 
 man is the dollar, that will buy most, in most 
 places. 
 
 As there can be no value to any exertion, 
 -except it can be exchanged for something, and 
 .as the chance to exchange varies with the skill 
 with which such exertion can be put forth, it 
 follows, that being able to supply wants, which 
 are ever present, is the best ability for the ma- 
 jority of meu to possess. This is a fact as 
 much as a theory ; for one-half the world's in- 
 habitants are devoted to cultivating the soil, 
 thus providing for two of life's prime necessi- 
 
Birth of Property. 61 
 
 ties, food and clothing. 
 
 In savage societies wages are unknown ; ev- 
 ery man does everything for himself; but so- 
 soon as a race emerges from barbarism to civil- 
 ization, the relation of property springs into be- 
 ing. Then some men, becoming possessed of 
 property or capital, find that this capital re- 
 quires more present labor, than they themselves 
 can give, so they seek the assistance of other 
 men. Naturally, these other men will not give 
 their assistance without compensation, and this 
 compensation is called " wages." It makes no 
 difference, if we approach wages from the 
 standpoint of the wage-giver or the wage-taker, 
 the result is the same ; viz., something for 
 something. A does not give B wages, except 
 for the purpose of increasing or saving some- 
 thing that he (A) has ; and B does not give A 
 his services from any love of A, or A's property; 
 but because he wants what A will give for his 
 services, more than he wants his own time and 
 powers. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that wage-givers 
 have as much right to form unions as wage- 
 takers; and as they are fewer in numbers, are 
 more wieldy bodies. Both unions, however, are 
 subjects of Demand and Supply. If the keepers 
 of summer hotels, for instance, should combine^ 
 
62 Nothing for Either. 
 
 thinking it for their interest, and resolve to 
 pay their waiters not more than $10.00 a 
 month; and the waiters should combine, and 
 resolve not to work for less than $20.00; both 
 would be exercising an undoubted right. 
 
 Which side would win, would depend to a 
 great extent, on which could hold out the long- 
 er. While both held out, no wages would be 
 earned, nor services rendered. The great dis- 
 advantage, under which such wage-takers la- 
 bor in times of " strikes," is that their unions 
 .are not large enough ; that is, that there are 
 plenty of men, who do not belong to the 
 unions, who may be employed by the union of 
 hotel keepers. Again, very few wage-takers 
 have saved enough to aflbrd many weeks' 
 " keep and clothing," without daily labor. 
 Mention has already been made of the crime 
 of one man preventing another from working, 
 if he see fit. Such acts are the complete de- 
 velopment of the spirit of slavery. If a work- 
 ing men's union say to A, who has a sick 
 family, "You shall not sell your labor to B, 
 because he will not buy our labor at our 
 price," and force A to obey ; A is just as much 
 enslaved, as if B should seize him and force 
 him to toil for nothing. Involuntary servi- 
 tude, except as a punishment for crime, is 
 
Slave Whips. 63 
 
 theoretically dead in this country and Eng- 
 land ; but ir the last few years, many a work- 
 man in both countries, has found his Trades 
 Union to be as tyrannical a master, as " ever 
 worked a gang." 
 
LIBERAL TRADE. 
 
 National taxes should be levied for the 
 public good, and not for private ends — the 
 greatest good to the greatest number, the 
 soundest policy — tarif1 sifted through the 
 sieve of philology — piracy protection's ances- 
 tor — labor a mean, not an end — incompatibil- 
 ity of revenue and protection — some pleas for 
 protection with their masks off — we must 
 buy to sell — a protectionist's dilemma ; how to 
 eat one's cake, and have it — columbia's chi- 
 nese corsets — america no longer a minor — 
 how bears' paws prove poor diet. 
 
 Between absolute freedom and liberty, there 
 is as wide a gulf, as between liberty and abso- 
 lute despotism. This truism as to the body 
 politic is equally a truism as to the body in- 
 dustrial. If man were perfect, he would need 
 no government ; absolute freedom might be 
 his : but he is not perfect, hence has to submit 
 to some restraint. If this country were abso- 
 
A Proud Parentage. 65 
 
 lutely debt free, absolute free trade would be 
 best for it ; but it labors under tbe incubus of 
 a great debt, a debt owed by all the people ; 
 hence it is only fair, that all the people con- 
 tribute to its liquidation — importers, export- 
 ers, farmers, manufacturers, bankers, brokers, 
 professional men, and all. No graver mistake 
 could be made, nor greater injustice contem- 
 plated, than proposing that our foreign trade 
 be wholly exempt from taxation. No people 
 pay taxes to support their government, more 
 willingly than the Americans : but among the 
 majority of them, there is a growing dislike to 
 the payment of taxes, direct or indirect, for 
 any other purpose than the support of the gov- 
 ernment. It is not the object of this paper to 
 offer any infallible dogma, or panacea for 
 " hard times " ; but to state a few facts about 
 tariffs in general, and ours in particular, with 
 the hope of clearing up some points, on which 
 the people sometimes seem a little befogged. 
 It must be borne in mind, that the masses of 
 the American people of this generation, have 
 had no occasion to study the theory of tariffs, 
 howsoever much experience they have had of 
 their practical workings. 
 
 It is well to remember that the word "Tar- 
 iff" has piracy for an ancestor ; being derived 
 
 Economic Crumbs, 5 
 
66 Simplest form of a Protective Tariff. 
 
 from the name of a little town on the straits 
 of Gibraltar (Tariffa), from which the Moorish 
 Chiefs used to sail out, and rob every passing 
 vessel of part of its cargo. The original sig- 
 nification of the word is pretty much forgot- 
 ten ; but as much as time has softened the 
 meaning of the word, "Tariff" still means 
 taking without giving. It differs from ex- 
 change as charities and thefts do, in there being 
 but one thing pass between two people. In 
 exchanges there are two parties, both of whom 
 are at once givers and takers : but in tariffs, 
 charities or thefts, there is only one thing taken 
 from one person by another. Philology is fall 
 of surprises, yet perhaps it contains no greater 
 surprise, than in the word "Tariff;" where, in 
 a pirate captain, with a cutlass in his teeth, we 
 find the original of the uniformed gentleman, 
 armed with red tape and sealing wax, who 
 boards every incoming vessel, and takes part 
 of her cargo, or its equivalent in money. 
 Whether we take the word in its ancient or 
 modern significance, it is always a subtraction. 
 This is a rough-edged fact, that no sophistry 
 can smooth. 
 
 Coming down to modern times, we find the 
 word tariff applied to two different schemes 
 for extracting money from the people : one of 
 
Between Two Stools. 67 
 
 these schemes is called " Protective," whose 
 object is to prevent the products of labor en- 
 tering a country, thus making exchanges as 
 few as possible: the other may be called 
 " Revenue," whose sole object is public rev- 
 enue through private exchanges. Of course it 
 is the policy of the latter to have exchanges as 
 frequent, and in as large amounts as possible, 
 for the greater the volume of exchanges, the 
 greater the revenue. 
 
 All tariffs are obstructions to commerce, as 
 much or more so, than wide deserts, high 
 mountains or stormy seas. Now, if these tar- 
 iffs, these obstacles to trade, have for their ob- 
 ject, the lightening of the public burden of 
 debt ; they are endurable, nay necessary : but 
 without such object, they are but Chinese 
 walls, or African deserts, thrown around the 
 country. Our present tariff is neither one nor 
 the other ; it aims at being both : and like 
 other creatures, trying to sit on two stools, it 
 upsets both, and floors itself between them. 
 
 The following conditions underlie a Reve- 
 nue Tariff, which is indispensable to Liberal 
 Trade: 1st, That we shall produce more of 
 some articles than we can consume, in order 
 that we may have a surplus to exchange for 
 those things we desire but do not produce. 
 
68 Axioms. 
 
 2d, That this surplus be of such things as oth- 
 er nations want. 3d, That we use the same 
 commodity as money, or means of facilitating 
 exchanges, that other commercial nations use. 
 The fertility of our soil, and the ingenuity of 
 our people supply the first two of these condi- 
 tions : while the existence of the third may be 
 hoped for, within a reasonable period. To 
 frame a tariff, that will yield the greatest rev- 
 enue with the least friction, is the problem to 
 be solved. Tariff framers alwaj^s have found, 
 and always will find this difficulty , that ev- 
 ery man will think that tariff best, when 
 every man is taxed, — but himself. The fol- 
 lowing propositions are self-evident. If there 
 be no duties levied, the revenue from duties 
 will be zero: if the duties be fixed so high, 
 that no goods come into the country, the re- 
 sult will be the same. Somewhere, then, be- 
 tween these two zeros, that is, between abso- 
 lute Free Trade and perfect Protection, will 
 the point of maximum revenue be found. Ex- 
 actly where this point may be, is hard to say ; 
 but it is clear as noon-day, if the rate of duty 
 be fixed so high, that the importation of goods 
 is seriously diminished, then the revenue will 
 be diminished : and unless the rate be fixed at 
 a point high enough to check importation, 
 
A Bit of Buncombe. 69 
 
 there is no Protection : hence, a revenue tariff 
 can never be a protective tariff; for the mo- 
 ment the point of protection is touched, the 
 point of decreasing revenue is found. To talk 
 about a " Revenue Tariff with incidental pro- 
 tection," is to talk nonsense: the phrase is a 
 pure bit of buncombe, a cluster of tinkling 
 words, intended to tickle the public ear, and 
 mislead the public mind. Precisely what the 
 highest rate of duties may be, which will not 
 materially affect imports, must be determined 
 by the experience of specialists, and actual ex- 
 periment. 
 
 Such things as we do not raise at all, or only 
 in comparatively small quantities, and which 
 our people will have, should be made to yield 
 a good portion of our revenue. The volume of 
 imports of any article, like coffee, tea, sugar, 
 etc., which the people are determined to have, 
 and which cannot be profitably produced here, 
 will not be affected by a moderate duty. The 
 simpler the duties, and the fewer articles 
 taxed (a fixed annual revenue being constantly 
 kept in view,) are important factors in a Rev- 
 enue Tariff: for this plan not only reduces the 
 cost of collection, but prevents the irritating 
 questions, which constantly and in all honesty 
 of purpose arise, under a mixed system, like 
 
70 Really Maw. 
 
 the one now in vogue. 
 
 There is another point on which " tariff 
 tinkers," and speech makers, display an amaz- 
 ing amount of ignorance ; and that is on the 
 subject of what they call " raw materials." To 
 speak of absolutely raw materials is to speak 
 of nothing at all : for any bit of matter, or 
 force of nature, to which any human labor has 
 been applied, is no longer " raw material: " it 
 would be impossible to convey any matter 
 from one country to another without applying 
 some labor to it ; so, no absolutely raw mate- 
 rials would ever be imported. If by raw ma- 
 terial is meant anything, on which further labor 
 must be expended, before it reaches the point 
 where an almost complete transformation oc- 
 curs, then there is no article which is not 
 " raw material." For instance, wool is raw 
 material to the cloth maker; but a finished 
 product to the sheep raiser : cloth is raw mate- 
 rial to the tailor; but a finished product to the 
 cloth maker; and so on, to the end of the chap- 
 ter. Raw material, then, both absolutely and 
 comparatively considered, can, with great pro- 
 priety, be thrown out of the consideration of 
 the tariff question. 
 
 The keystone, on which economists of the 
 Protective school rest their theory, is that a 
 
Lung Action of the Nation. 71 
 
 high tariff protects home industry : that it 
 shields American labor from the competition 
 of what, they are pleased to term, the pauper 
 labor of the old world. To show the hollow- 
 ness of this keystone, it may be well to recite 
 a few primer pages of Political Economy. It 
 takes two to make a bargain. In every sale, 
 there must be a buyer as well as a seller : the 
 two are as necessary to an exchange, as are in- 
 spiration and expiration to respiration. If you 
 knock a man's breath out of him, with a blow 
 of your fist, you accelerate his expiration, but 
 do not improve his respiration. If you put a 
 plaster over his mouth, and pump air through 
 his nostrils, you facilitate his inspiration, but 
 do not benefit his breathing. The vital error 
 of the Protectionist school is, that they regard 
 a citizen only as a seller, and not, as he is, both 
 a buyer and a seller. No doubt a high tariff 
 prevents Europe selling to America, but it also 
 prevents her buying from America. Wherein, 
 then, does it benefit America? Any system, 
 which prevents our buying from others, pre- 
 vents our selling, or in other words, confines 
 us to ourselves for a market. Now if we pro- 
 duced only exactly as much as we consumed, 
 this system might be upheld : and we might 
 get along for a time, like the bear, who win- 
 
72 Bill-of-Fare for Bears. 
 
 ters in a hole, and lives by sucking his own 
 paws. But unfortunately for the theory, ow- 
 ing to the goodness of our soil and the energy 
 of our people, we produce a good deal more 
 than we consume, and having no outlet, this 
 surplus must roll up, rot, and produce " hard 
 times." Production under these circumstances 
 seeks to accommodate itself to consumption ; 
 everyone economizes ; so the previous rate of 
 consumption is reduced, and when we are 
 ready to throw off the tariff, we are like the 
 bear, when he comes out of his hole, very thin 
 and discouraged in appearance. 
 
 The theory, that a high tariff encourages 
 American labor, is another fallacy. Econo- 
 mists of the Protectionist school, speak of a 
 high tariff as an active living force. It is no 
 such thing ; it, in no way, increases the volume 
 of labor, it simply changes its direction. If, by 
 the bounty wrung from the people and paid to 
 the iron masters of Pennsylvania, ten thou- 
 sand miners dig iron in Pennsylvania, instead 
 of gold and silver in Nevada, there are only 
 10,000 men at work : the direction, not the 
 quantity of labor has been changed. 
 
 Another plea for protection is, that ours is a 
 young country, and that its infant manufact- 
 ures must be protected. They urge, that by a 
 
Perpetual Infants. 73 
 
 high tariff, bounties can be taken from the 
 many, and paid to the few; and that it is wise 
 to erect a hot house, in which ail industries, 
 good, bad, and indifferent can be forced. The 
 great trouble with this plan is, that these in- 
 fant industries never mature: they always 
 remain infants: they become bigger and 
 more awkward perhaps, but never strong 
 enough to grow outside in the open air. Ship- 
 building, for example, is an infant industry, 
 that has been protected since the adoption 
 of the Constitution ; yet America, as a ship- 
 building country, ranks so low, as hardly 
 to be rateable. One would think, that after 
 ninety odd years of perfect protection, this 
 infant might be able to stand on its own 
 legs : but the fact is, we pay the paupers of 
 Europe, millions of dollars annually in the way 
 of freights, which our ship-builders and ship- 
 owners ought to earn, and which they would 
 -earn, if ship-building and kindred industries, 
 instead of being forced in a hot house, had been 
 permitted to make a slower and more natural 
 growth in the open air, where God Almighty 
 intended that they should grow. In the early 
 history of the country, protectionists argued 
 that five years would be long enough to estab- 
 lish infant industries — but alas, eighteen times 
 
74 Sublime Faith in Legislation. 
 
 five years, finds many protected beings, anxious 
 for at least five years more. 
 
 A true national economy looks to the pro- 
 ducts of a nations labor and their exchange 
 ability : while Protection regards labor as an 
 end, not as a means : it rests satisfied, if it can 
 set a given number of men to work, without 
 special regard to the product of their labor. To 
 excite human exertion is its object, let results 
 be what they may. The object of the wider 
 policy, on which Liberal Trade is based, is to 
 obtain the maximum production of a nations 
 labor ; regarding the human exertion expended 
 as only a mean to an end. There are certain 
 natural laws, which Liberal Trade obeys, and 
 of which advantage is sought to be taken. To 
 these laws, Protection gives no heed, and con- 
 structs its policy on the theory, that an act of 
 Congress can change an isothermal line. 
 
 Another favorite plea of the Protectionists 
 is, that high tariff's afford high wages. A 
 more curious confusion of substance and shad- 
 ow can hardly be imagined. Any artificial 
 means, as a high tariff" when first introduced, 
 which enables one industry to pay high wages 
 to its help, must have the same effect on other 
 industries " protected" in like manner. Now 
 it follows that the products of this labor, must 
 
A Flattered Flea. 75 
 
 be exchanged one for another, and the higher 
 wages are added to the cost of all products. 
 " The help," who have received these higher 
 wages, have to buy these goods at their higher 
 cost. So in what respect, but in name, are 
 wages higher ? A flea through a microscope 
 may look as large as a turtle, but it is only 
 a flea, never mind what it seems. Refer- 
 ence to the trite Protectionist cry, that a high 
 tariff protects Americans against foreign " pau- 
 per" labor, has been made, and its hollowness 
 shown. But granting it to be true, is it a 
 sound policy ? If it be wise to shut out the 
 products of foreign labor, it must be equally 
 wise to shut out labor itself. Yet what states- 
 man, except perhaps Dennis Kearney, would 
 advise the exclusion of industrious would-be 
 citizens ? This conclusion is forced upon the 
 Protectionists, if they be honest in saying that 
 their object is to protect American labor ; for 
 any industrious foreigner, who lands in Castle 
 Garden, is a competitor against those already 
 here. It is held indeed by some Protectionists, 
 that to invite emigration, is one of the 
 objects of high tariffs ; if so, their theory is to 
 build with one hand and tear down with the 
 other: they would act the part of political 
 Penelopes, who ravel at night the web they 
 
76 More Bounties Mean More Taxes. 
 
 weave by day. 
 
 The action of a high tariff is always restric- 
 tive ; restriction is always friction ; and fric- 
 tion is always a minus quantity in the state- 
 ment of a sum of forces. If the duty of 
 a blanket equal a bushel of wheat, and the 
 blanket itself cost a bushel of wheat ; a farm- 
 er protected by tariff, has to pay two bushels of 
 wheat, for what he could buy with one bushel, 
 if exposed to the dangers of facing foreign pau- 
 per labor. It does not require a collegiate edu- 
 cation to understand that the farmer has not 
 been benefited, even if labor has been pro- 
 tected. 
 
 Governments can do a great many things ; 
 but they cannot give any man or any set of 
 men, a bounty or subsidy, unless they take it 
 from some other men. A protective tariff is 
 a series of bounties, which the masses pay, not 
 to the government for its benefit, but to make a 
 bounty fund, to be divided among a few. As 
 before stated, the people are getting tired of 
 paying taxes to benefit individuals, instead of 
 the government ; and the more they learn 
 about " Protective Tariffs," the less they like 
 them ; and the more certainty there is of their 
 dislike taking the form of legislative action. 
 It is small comfort to the masses to know that 
 
Old is a Comparative Term. 7T 
 
 the very industries, they have been taxed to 
 protect, are in a wretched condition financially. 
 If the fact afford any satisfaction, it is of that 
 grimly moral sort, which a plaintiff in a libel 
 suit feels, when a verdict of six cents in his 
 favor is rendered. 
 
 If there be any wisdom in the policy of pro- 
 tection ; that is, in the policy of preventing 
 our nation exchanging with other nations, it 
 would be wise to amend the Constitution, so as 
 to prevent the States of this Union exchanging 
 between themselves. If the State of Virginia 
 is new and young compared with England, so 
 are Colorado and Nevada new and young, com- 
 pared with Virginia. Labor and Capital are 
 both nominally cheaper in the East than the 
 West, and the population is more dense. If 
 the policy of protection be beneficial to the 
 United States, then it would be a benefit to 
 every State in the Union, if it could be " pro- 
 tected" from every other State. The maple 
 sugar of Vermont would not have the cane 
 sugar of Louisana in the market as a competi- 
 tor ; and the cotton planter of North Carolina^ 
 who can only hope for one hundred and fifty 
 pounds of lint cotton to the acre, would be pro- 
 tected against the farmer of Texas, whose 
 acres yield him 400 pounds each. The wheat 
 
78 Malaria a Blessing; Cables a Curse. 
 
 grower on the New Hampshire Hills, would be 
 protected from the cheap wheat of Minnesota ; 
 and the miners of Nevada would be allowed to 
 mine, and coin their silver into any weight dol- 
 lar they liked, protected from California gold, 
 and the silver of other States. There is nothing 
 strained about these conclusions : they are sim- 
 ple applications of the principle of protection, 
 which holds that the United States is better off 
 without intercourse with the rest of the family 
 of nations than with it. If this be true, then 
 every State must be better off, protected from 
 every other State ; every county from every 
 other county ; every village from every other 
 village ; aye, every man from every other man. 
 
 Looked at through Protection spectacles, 
 every railroad and river is a curse ; every tele- 
 graph and mail route a disadvantage ; for they 
 increase competion : while untunnelled moun- 
 tains and uncabled seas, are the most potent 
 agents for good, with which a nation can be 
 blessed. A malarious climate is better for la- 
 borers than a salubrious one, for fewer people 
 will come to offer their labor in competition. 
 
 It is urged in favor of a high tariff, that it 
 tends to keep coin in the country. No doubt 
 money as well as all other commodities are 
 kept at home, but cui bono? What evil is it, 
 
Coin and Quinine. 79 
 
 if Americans see fit to exchange gold and sil- 
 ver for other things ? They don't give their 
 money away : they get something in exchange, 
 which they prefer to the coin, or they would 
 not make the exchange. The tariffmen argue, 
 that every dollar in coin that leaves a country, 
 makes the country a dollar poorer. This glar- 
 ing error on their part arises from their hazy 
 ideas of what exchange really is : they fail to 
 see that if a man give a dollar, he counts on 
 receiving a dollar's worth of something else. 
 The exports of coin, cotton, or corn are all gov- 
 erned by the same laws of demand and supply. 
 Suppose a man subject to malarial fever ex- 
 ported a gold dollar, and in exchange received 
 two doses of quinine from France ; would he 
 be worse off, than if he had paid a protected in- 
 dustry in Philadelphia his one dollar, and ob- 
 tained in exchange only one dose of the same 
 medicine ? To keep coin at home, let America 
 produce so many of the things she can produce 
 best, that these things will be cheaper than 
 money to ship, and then money will stay at 
 home. 
 
 That fantastic financial theories should be 
 entertained by the defenders of high tariffs, is 
 not surprising : and in the last political cam- 
 paign, we found a prominent Protectionist de- 
 
80 A New Kind of a Heart. 
 
 claring in favor of an irredeemable currency, 
 and urging as a point in its favor, that it 
 could not be exported. Rag money and high, 
 tariffs both start on the idea, that every man 
 is always a seller or a payer, and never a buyer 
 or a payee. They would make our industrial 
 heart with all veins and no arteries, and won- 
 der why the circulation is imperfect ! 
 
 Liberty of conscience, of speech, and of po- 
 litical action, are very dear to American citi- 
 zens, and most jealously guarded. Should not 
 the liberty of labor be equally dear ? If a man 
 be compelled to sell his labor, or its product, in 
 one market, when he might have the choice of 
 many, is he not restrained of his liberty ? 
 Twenty years ago slaves in the South were fine 
 examples of protected labor. Their masters 
 were their only market: "the peculiar institu- 
 tion " was in the nature of a high tariff, and 
 the slaves, the ones protected: yet who would 
 nowadays call the peculiar institution a bless- 
 ing ; or be wild enough to claim that slavery 
 was liberty ? It cost thousands of lives and 
 millons of money, to extirpate the idea that 
 slavery was a blessing ; yet the country freely 
 gave this blood and treasure as the price of lib- 
 erty. Is it not strange to hear any man, in 
 the councils of a nation, which has sacrificed so 
 
Can Yankees "Swap?" 81 
 
 much for liberty, declare to American citizens, 
 that their liberty to labor must be abridged, 
 because the markets for the products of their 
 labor must be limited? 
 
 Liberal Trade assumes that the American 
 people can hold their own in matters of trade ; 
 or in " bargains," if the phrase be more ex- 
 pressive. Protection assumes them to be in- 
 competent, and favors a paternal government 
 which will curb the industrious American in 
 his propensity " to swap." 
 
 Liberal Trade holds as undeniable facts ; 
 that this country can, and does produce annual- 
 ly more of many things, than it can or does 
 consume : it holds, furthermore, that the ratio 
 of increase of production, is greater than the ra- 
 tio of increase of consumption. Every machine, 
 that is set in motion, and does with one man 
 the work of three, must be followed by the 
 discovery of two new users of whatever the 
 machine produces, or the process of excessive 
 production has begun. That such users exist 
 there can be no doubt ; to doubt it, would be 
 to doubt the symmetry of God's creation. This 
 statement is based on the assumption, that the 
 machine is owned by an intelligent being, free 
 to seek markets where he will, and not tied 
 down to the single one a high tariff permits. 
 
 Economic Crumbs, 6 
 
82 Nature no Niggard. 
 
 Why 18 it, that so many are out of employ- 
 ment, or working for starvation wages ? Is it 
 because they are lazy ; is it because they are 
 less skilful than five years ago ; is it that our 
 soil is less fertile ? By no means ; it is because 
 there is not sufficient demand for the products 
 of their labor within the limits of the United 
 States, and the tariff forbids their export. 
 
 Nature is no niggard with her gifts, and has 
 divided this globe into many parts, and made 
 each produce many things, that many men want; 
 but there is no spot on earth, where man can 
 gratify every one of his desires, without ex- 
 change, and no legislature can make such a spot. 
 That man should exchange, is as clearly part of 
 Nature's design, as the gifts of Nature indicate 
 a Giver. Art can do a great deal, but it is only 
 the Finite compared with the Infinite. Na- 
 ture has ordained certain laws, and men had 
 better obey them, than try to make a code of 
 their own, and think Nature will regard it as 
 an improvement, and become a vassal. Man 
 can cover ten acres with a hot house, and force 
 a growth of cotton in the State of Maine, but 
 somebody has to pay the expenses of the hot 
 house. Nature has ordained that cotton should 
 flourish in the latitude of Montgomery, Ala., 
 but not in the latitude of Machias, Maine. As 
 
Ten to One. 83 
 
 stated, it can be forced in the latter place, but 
 the labor to produce it, would be measured 
 by perhaps fifty cents per pound of cotton; 
 while at Montgomery it can be raised for per- 
 haps one tenth of that amount. Just here the 
 difference between Liberal Trade and Protec- 
 tion is manifest. Protection argues in favor 
 of cotton planting in Maine, on the ground 
 that ten times as much labor is required to 
 raise the pound of cotton in Maine, as in Ala- 
 bama ; and therefore, that the demand for 
 labor is increased. Liberal Trade holds, that 
 it is better to raise the cotton in Alabama, 
 where the same amount of labor will produce 
 ten times as much cotton as in Maine: the ob- 
 ject of labor is results, not mere exertion: with 
 ten pounds of cotton, a man can buy more cof- 
 fee, sugar, cloth, house rent, etc., than he can 
 with one pound. Another grave objection to 
 the hot house system of protection, is that 
 weeds as well as wheat are forced: bad indus- 
 tries as well as good are fostered ; and it must 
 be so: for no man in a tariff" ring, is willing 
 to let his neighbor on the right, demand hio-h 
 prices from him, unless he be permitted to de- 
 mand high prices from his neighbor on the 
 left : and so round the circle. 
 
 Liberal Trade denies emphatically that all 
 
84 Inside or Outside. 
 
 exchange is robbery, and that one man must 
 lose what another makes. It holds that by 
 exchange, both sides can be benefited : it also 
 holds to the dogma, that without exchange, the 
 surplus product of every man's labor must rot 
 on his hands, and be an injury to himself and 
 his neighbors. Iowa raises more wheat than 
 her people can eat ; Arkansas, more cotton than 
 her people can wear : by exchange the people 
 of Arkansas and Iowa, can be both fed and 
 clothed; whereas without exchange, Arkansas 
 might be half-starved, with an immense surplus 
 of raiment ; while Iowa might be almost naked, 
 though fairly gorged with food. Yet the ad- 
 vocates of limited exchanges must hold, that 
 either Arkansas, or Iowa, or both, are injured 
 by the exchange. 
 
 If there be a steady demand for any product 
 of industry, the labor of some man or men will 
 be directed to supplying that demand. This 
 is a law of nature. Such industries need a 
 tariff no more than thirsty men need to 
 chew salt to make them drink. Some years 
 ago there arose a sudden and active demand 
 for grotesquely figured calicoes, known as 
 " Dolly Vardens," and straightway our print- 
 works began to produce them in huge quanti- 
 ties. Was there any need of legislation 
 
Squaring Circles. 85 
 
 to prevent these mills making other styles? 
 Did " Dolly Vardens " require any protection ? 
 Liberal Trade recognizes in the American citi- 
 zen an intelligent being, who is able to see for 
 himself what people want, and to supply their 
 wants. 
 
 Liberal Trade contents itself with striving 
 after those things which are possible ; leaving 
 to Protection the squaring of economic circles. 
 
 The action of a high tariff is very like the 
 action of corsets. These articles, which 
 Fashion stole from the Torture Chambers, dis- 
 place a woman's lungs, prevent inspiration, im- 
 pede circulation, and keep within the body 
 dead matter, that in the course of nature would 
 be thrown from it. Many are the diseases, that 
 befall women from tight lacing ; and America 
 is suffering from all of them, as the result of 
 her sixteen years of wearing those patented 
 stays, called Protection. Corsets give to a wo- 
 man a very different outline from that which 
 Nature has given ; and much as Fashion may 
 admire the lines of the corseted form, they are 
 not the lines of beauty, of activity, nor of long 
 life. To any poor woman, who had become 
 phthisicky or dyspeptic from along continuance 
 of tight lacing, Common Sense would say, 
 "Loosen your stays:" and this is just the ad- 
 
86 Loosen Your Stays, Young Woman ! 
 
 vice to give to America. " Young woman : 
 loosen your stays : you are young yet, and have- 
 a strong constitution ; give your lungs free play : 
 permit them to inhale, as well as exhale ; 
 the dead matter in your system will be 
 thrown out: your circulation will be im- 
 proved : your muscles will be nourished r 
 and bounding health take the place of whin- 
 ing valetudinarianism." This figure is not 
 fancy, it is fact. Read export and import, for 
 exhale and inhale; read Tariff for corsets; call 
 dead matter surplus production, and the state- 
 ment can stand unaltered. The object of cor- 
 sets, or their practical working at least, is to 
 make one third of a woman's body look as 
 much like a funnel as possible : the object of a 
 high tariff, or its practical working at least, is 
 as much as possible to heap up the population 
 of cities, and to taper off the rural popula- 
 tion. Liberal Trade would diffuse popula- 
 tion, and it is well to remember, that in the 
 crust of the earth lie the sources of wealth. 
 
 A vast amount of capital has been invested 
 in the "protected industries" of this country; 
 and it is not sound policy to rudely shake these 
 investments: hence an immediate or sweeping 
 change in the tariff is not expedient. No 
 doubt when the men, with capital thus invest- 
 
Fair Play. 87 
 
 eel, put their money in these protected indus- 
 tries, they did so ; because they knew they were 
 to be given a bounty; and it may be urged, 
 that they should have thought, that the 
 power which gave the bounty could take it 
 away. Still, the policy of Liberal Trade is 
 founded on the grand principle of equal rights 
 to all ; to laborers, to capitalists, to farmers, to 
 factories, and merchants; and its plan would 
 be, to say through Congress, to these gentle- 
 men, that "On and after Jan. 1st, 1881, the 
 bounties you have been receiving shall be dis- 
 continued. If you are engaged in the produc- 
 tion of anything the people want, you need no 
 other protection : but if your industry is only 
 followed on account of the bounty you have been 
 receiving, it might as well be discontinued." 
 American industry is a sturdy oak, and should 
 be kept hearty, and free from all parasites. 
 
 Liberal Trade holds (to paraphrase a part of 
 the Declaration of Independence) that it is the 
 inalienable right of the American citizen to 
 labor as he will ; and to sell the products of 
 his labor, where and for what he will. All 
 else is despotism, or protection. 
 
 For many years, probably, American indus- 
 try will have to bear taxation, and imports pay 
 their share: but let the scheme, by which such 
 
88 Unity of Design. 
 
 part is paid, be made simple, and have within 
 it but one design ; and that, the obtaining of" 
 the maximum of revenue with the minimum, 
 of friction. 
 
 
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