LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA:
'Received JAN-IS 1893 189
^Accessions No. 5~Cnr3p . Class No.
A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
ON
THE LABOR QUESTION
BY
SIMON NEWCOMB, LL.D.
AUTHOR OP "PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY"
"THE A B c OF FINANCE" ETC.
1 Strike, but hear 11
UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1886
Copyright, 1886, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
All riglds reserved.
PREFACE.
THE following chapters owe their inception
to the editor of the New York Independent,
in which journal the outlines of most of them
have recently appeared. They are now recast,
amplified, and submitted to the courteous con-
sideration of the reader.
CONTENTS.
PART I.-SOCIETY AND ITS WANTS.
TALK PAQB
I. To THE READER 9
II. SOCIETY is A CO-OPERATIVE UNION ... 13
III. OUR COMMON INTERESTS 22
IV. OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED 80
V. BENEFITS AND EVILS OF ORGANIZED AC-
TION 41
PART II. -CAPITAL AND ITS USES.
YI. THE RAILWAY QUESTION : ITS Bia SIDE . 51
VII. THE RAILWAY QUESTION: ITS LITTLE SIDE. 57
VIII. How ONE MAN MAY Do THE WORK OF TEN
THOUSAND 08
IX. WAS IT GOOD FOR Us THAT WE ALLOWED
ONE MAN TO MAKE A HUNDRED MILL-
ION DOLLARS ? 79
X. THE CAPITALIST AND WHAT HE HAS DONE
FOR Us 91
XI. WHAT CAPITAL HA DONE FOR THE LABORER. 101
VI CONTENTS.
PART III. THE LABORER AND HIS WAGES.
TALK FAGB
XII. VISION OF A PURITAN DEACON . . . .113
XIII. THE ACCOUNT CURRENT 127
XIV. A TALK TO A KNIGHT OF LABOR . . .135
XV. ANOTHER TALK TO A KNIGHT OF LABOR. 144
XVI. How CAN ALL GET BETTER WAGES ? .152
XVII. CHEAP LABOR AND ITS EFFECTS. . . . 161
XVIII. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. . . .169
XIX. Is WASTE A GOOD ? 178
XX. CONCLUSION .189
PART I.
SOCIETY AND ITS WANTS
A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
ON
THE LABOR QUESTION.
I.
TO THE READER.
I DO not address yon, dear reader, as an au-
thority on this subject, propounding a code
of doctrine which you are bound to accept.
I am only a plain man, who has all his life
tried to find out what he could, from study
and observation, about the state of society in
different countries of the world, and about the
relation between the great operations of in-
dustry and commerce on the one side, and
human welfare on the other. I do not expect
to tell you anything which you cannot easily
understand, and most of the facts I have to lay
before you you must already know; or, at
1 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
least, you can easily verify. Of doctrine I
have little, and of theory still less. Indeed,
I am not a believer in any rigid theory of
society, for the simple reason that any theory
we may propound is liable to be modified by
changes in the condition of society. The way
I look at the labor question is this :
We find ourselves face to face with a state of
things which no thinking person can contem-
plate without deep solicitude. Wide-spread dis-
satisfaction prevails among the laboring class-
es, not only in this country, but in the most
enlightened countries of Europe. 'j What gives
gravity to the problem is, that these classes
wield a power, social and political, which they
never before wielded in the world's history.
Their power is reinforced by a belief among
the intellectual classes, and in society generally,
that men have accumulated large fortunes by
unworthy means, and that great corporations
exert a power for evil which society ought
not to tolerate. When we inquire how it is
that great fortunes have been gained and dan-
gerous powers acquired by compact bodies of
men, we find it to be in pursuance of a cer-
tain way of doing business which we have in-
herited from our ancestors, and of which the
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. U
main feature is founded on the supposed right
of every man to get as rich as he can by law-
ful combinations and bargains with his fel-
low-men, and to use the wealth thus acquired
in the way that he thinks best. The question
whether this system will, and ought to be,
permanent, or whether it is unsuited to the
new conditions of production which now pre-
vail, is the great question of the day.
We see everywhere in society a deep-seated
belief that there is something wrong in a state
of society in which one man may be enormous-
ly rich while another has not a place that he
can call his own in which to lay his head.
The great object of the labor movement is
to do something towards curing the wrong.
Every right-feeling man must sympathize with
this object because every such person must
desire the good of all his fellow-men.
But it does not follow that, because labor-
organizations desire to cure the evil, therefore
all the measures they propose will have that
effect. Suppose all their measures well adapt-
ed to getting out of the frying-pan, the prov-
erb tells us where they may then find them-
selves. The interests of sixty millions of
people make a very complicated whole, which
12 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
the mind cannot easily grasp ; and when we
try to promote them at one point, we may set
them back at a hundred other points without
knowing it. The only way to reach a satis-
factory conclusion is, to study out all the facts
of the case, beginning with the biggest ones,
and going step by step to those which are
smaller. Great and universal facts should
form the basis of all our thought upon the
subject, because they are of vastly more im-
portance than the special facts, which, by their
newness and force, strike our attention at the
moment.
In accordance with this general method of
viewing the subject, I have tried to see what
is the greatest fact with which we have to
deal, and I find it to be the one which forms
the title of the following chapter.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 13
UNI7EESITT
SOCIETY IS A CO-OPERATIVE UNION.
THE first and greatest fact we have to deal
with is, that the society of which we are all
members has grown into a great co-operative
association, extending over the whole country,
nay, over the civilized world. Look where
we will, we find that every one is working
for the good of people whom, in most cases,
he never saw and never expects to see. For
example : walking through the streets of a
city we find hodcarriers and bricklayers en-
gaged in erecting a building. But not one of
the men at work on that building will ever
live in it. Yet it will be sure to benefit some
one. If it is a warehouse, it will, perhaps, be
used for the storage of clothing for thousands
of other people ; possibly for people who are
not yet born. If a dwelling, a family, or a
score of families, will soon be sheltered by it.
Going a little farther, we see a cobbler at work.
He is mending shoes for his neighbor. A
14 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
little farther on we find a furniture factory.
Here a thousand men are running machinery
to make furniture for their fellow-men. The
chairs they make may be used in half the
states of the Union. Going through the
streets where retail stores are situated we
shall find merchants and clerks taking care of
and selling goods for all the people of the city.
If we go into a manufacturing town we shall
find operatives weaving cloth or forging iron
for the community. If w y e watch a railway
we shall find that the thousand men engaged
in running it are bringing goods for the use
of the people of a whole city, or of a whole
state.
Moreover, everything that all these people
are doing is for the benefit of others. Let us
in imagination walk along a railway and stop
the first freight train that comes along. We
insist on finding out what interest we have in
that freight train. Opening the first car, we
find it loaded with hides, which are to be
tanned into leather, which leather is to be
made into boots and shoes. Accidents aside,
every hide will help to clothe somebody's feet.
Another car we find loaded with flour. Every
pound of that flour is going to be eaten by
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 15
somebody ; and what the men in charge of it
are now doing is to bring it within the reach
of the consumer. Another car we find loaded
with butter and apples. Every pound of that
butter and every one of those apples are to
be eaten by somebody. Go in this way through
the whole list, and examine every car on every
railway in the country, and you will find that
each is loaded with something for somebody,
and that all the work of the men running the
railway is for the benefit of the people who
are finally to make use of the goods they are
transporting.
As you read these lines there are tens of
thousands of men scattered from Maine to
California nay, spread over the various coun-
tries of Europe and Asia who are at work on
things which are to minister to your individ-
ual well-being, one, two, or three years hence.
Men in China are raising tea, which is to sup-
ply you with drink. Men in France are rais-
ing sheep, the wool off of whose backs will go
into your future coat. A man in Dakota is
cutting a log, the timber of which will go into
a match with which you are to light your can-
dle. A cowboy in Texas is now pasturing
the animal out of whose hide the boots you arc
A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
to wear two years hence will be made. A man
in Cornwall is digging out tin ore, the metal
from which will go upon the roof of your
house to protect you from the rain. Men in
Scotland are building a ship which will bring
the tin over to you. Men in Philadelphia are
preparing the machinery for rolling the iron
on which the tin will be spread. Men in Illi-
nois are preparing the ground to raise the
wheat to make the bread which you will eat
during the next two years.
I have studied a great many things, both in
the heavens and on the earth, but nowhere
have I found anything more marvellous than
this social organism, a glimpse of whose oper-
ations I have tried to give you. The most
marvellous thing about it is that the opera-
tions are all carried on by men who seem to
their fellows entirely selfish. We cannot pos-
sibly claim that all these thousands of peo-
ple who are at work providing for your com-
fort during the next two, three, or four years
are actuated by love for you. Following out
the principles which I have laid down, we
need not inquire too closely into their mo-
tives. The great fact is that they are work-
ing for our benefit ; and so long as they do
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 17
this we need not criticise their motives. Let
it satisfy us to remember that " handsome is as
handsome does."
I feel that my description of this social ma-
chine is extremely inadequate ; but the reader
knows as much about it as I do, and must
complete the description for himself. I beg
that he will look around his room and his
house, think what he is going to eat and drink
during the next few years, and try in imagina-
tion to picture to himself the present activi-
ties of the men on whose industry his future
happiness depends. If he will thus get a
complete picture of the facts as he already
knows them well in his mind, he will have the
key to the whole problem of the labor ques-
tion.
I now have to make an application of the
great fact just set forth. The question is
often raised whether men are born under a
natural obligation to use their powers and
faculties for the benefit of their fellows. I am
disposed to hold that they are. But the ques-
tion has always seemed to me, at its best, a
somewhat barren one, for the simple reason
that it is idle for us to claim the validity of
any such obligation unless we can enforce
2
18 A PLAIN MAN S TALK
it. Laws which cannot be enforced do more
harm than good whether in morals or poli-
tics. But the point which I wish now to urge
is, that the interest which might attach to
this question of moral obligation is dimin-
ished by the great fact that men are al-
ready engaged in using their best faculties
for each other's benefit. We really have,
among us and around us, the very Utopia
which social philosophers have so often
dreamed of; a state of society in which, if
not every man, at least a large majority of
I men, are using their best faculties for every-
body else's benefit. When they stop doing
this when the physician refuses to heal, the
railway manager to direct, the Congressman
to legislate, the professor to teach, the actor to
go upon the stage, the farmer to sow and reap,
the engine-driver to run his engine, the car-
penter to build, the bricklayer to do his work,
and the grocer to sell his goods then we shall
have before us the great, burning question
whether we are all to compel each other to
perform our social obligations. So far as the
present juncture is concerned, all I can say is
that the views set forth in this little book will
be found in perfect consistency with the the-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 19
ory that man is born with some obligations
towards his fellow-man, but that I see no pres-
ent need of urging the theory. The real point
on which men differ is, not the question of
obligation, but the question what a man ought
to do if he wanted to fulfil the obligation, and
this is the question I want to submit to your
judgment.
At this point I have a confession to make.
It has seemed to me that, in nearly all practi-
cal and social questions, the true position was
that of the golden mean. But on this partic-
ular subject of the social organization I must
confess that I am an ultraist, in admiring the
co-operative system at work among us. When
I reflect that two hundred years ago nearly
all our ancestors went barefoot, because only
a few rich people could supply their children
with shoes; that a hundred years ago none
except the rich had any clothes except what
they made themselves > nor any food except
what they raised by their ow T n labor; and
when I now look and see railway managers
planning and thinking how they can so man-
age their trains as to bring to you, to me, and
to our families, in the quickest and surest
way, the fruit from California which we so
20 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
like to eat, the butter from New York State,
the hides from Texas, and the flour from Chi-
cago, which are so necessary to our comfort
I say when, in addition to all these thousands
of men who are making these things for us,
we see these great administrators of railways
patiently planning by day and night the most
effective way to supply our wants I am as-
tonished that any man should be otherwise
than most thankful that he was not born until
the nineteenth century. If the reader thinks
lie could devise any better system for his own
happiness or for that of his neighbor he has a
much higher opinion of his own ability than I
have of mine. I confess that I should despair
of inventing any system under which that man
up in Dakota should be insured to cut down
the timber to get the wood to make the matches
to light my gas with next year, and to secure
the proper co-operation among all the thou-
sands of men who must work on those match-
es, both in making and transporting them,
until the grocer's boy in his wagon shall de-
liver them at my door. If you, dear reader,
have any plan by which this will all be done
more economically than it is done now, by
which you can guarantee that all the cutters
ON THE LABOE QUESTION. 21
of timber, the makers of rafts, the men in the
sawmill, the brakemen on the railway, the man-
ufacturers of chlorate of potash, the diggers
of sulphur, the makers of machinery, the
makers of match-boxes, the grocers and the
grocer's boy, shall every one perform his func-
tions without fail, I should like to know it.
But I do not think you have.
Possibly, however, you think there are cer-
tain unsatisfactory features in its workings
which you could remedy if you had the power
No doubt there are. No matter how well a
thing may be done, we always find it to admit
of improvement. Much as I admire our so-
cial system, I know it has many imperfec-
tions. My main object in preparing these
talks is to see what causes of complaint we
have, and whether we can heal them better
than tl^ey will heal themselves. What we
most want to know at the present critical
juncture is whether the policy urged by
friends of the labor movement will make the
laborer better or worse off; hence we have to
consider the interests of the laborer as well as
of every one else.
23 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
III.
OUR COMMON INTERESTS.
FKOM the facts laid down in the two pre-
ceding chapters we may draw certain infer-
ences of prime importance. Our first infer-
ence is that the material welfare of every
individual depends entirely upon how much
work his fellow-men do to supply his wants.
If we consider the products on which our
well-being depends the food we eat, the
clothes we wear, the beds we sleep upon,
and the houses which shelter us, we find that
they are all results of the labor of other men.
Moreover, so far as merely material prosperity
is concerned, that is, the prosperity for which
we are all laboring, our welfare depends wholly
upon the extent to which we can get our
fellow-men to supply our wants. No matter
how dull business may be, no matter how lit-
tle money we may have, no matter how low
our wages, if we are only assured for ourselves
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 23
and our children that we shall be warmly and
comfortably clothed, housed, and supplied
with all requisite nourishment, bodily and
mental, then we are prosperous. Thus our
prosperity depends upon what we get our
fellow-men to do for us, and upon nothing
else.
Of course it is not claimed that this kind
of prosperity is the only kind worth having.
Strong digestion and a good conscience are
more important than better food and finer
clothes ; but we cannot buy these great requi-
sites from anybody. I am here talking only
of things made for us by our fellow-men, and
which we cannot make for ourselves.
I now wish to illustrate the great fact that
the general prosperity and welfare of the com-
munity at large, so far as they arise from ma-
terial things outside of ourselves, depend upon
the quantity of things that are produced by
human labor, and upon nothing else. Let us
begin with the need of houses, and let us see
how completely the satisfaction of that need
depends upon the number of houses that can
be built.
There are, we may suppose, sixty millions
of people now living within the limits of the
84
United States. Let us suppose that there are
in all four millions of houses within the same
limits. Then it is mathematically certain that,
on the average, we must put fifteen people
into each house. By no kind of legislation,
by no organization, by no social changes, can
we get sixty millions of people into four mill-
ions of houses without putting an average of
fifteen into each house. If this is a greater
number than the average house will conven-
iently hold, then it is mathematically certain
that the inconvenience can be relieved only
by building more houses, and that the greater
the number of houses built, the more rapidly
the means of relief will be attained. Thus
our whole sixty millions of people, no matter
what their occupations capitalists, laborers,
carpenters, bricklayers, and farmers have a
deep interest in getting as many houses built
as possible, and every kind of action on the
part of house-builders which diminishes the
number of houses built tends to the discom-
fort of everybody.
Another consideration may be adduced.
During the next ten years the population will
probably increase by fifteen millions. If w r e
adopt the principle that every fifteen persons
ON THE LABOK QUESTION.
must have a house, then a million of new
houses must be built during that time to keep
up our present degree of comfort, and we
must also keep the present ones in repair.
There is, therefore, a still greater necessity
that we shall get as many houses built as pos-
sible. Thus we see clearly that if bricklayers,
carpenters, plasterers, lumbermen, and others
whose services are necessary to build houses
insist, on reducing their hours of labor by
twenty-five per cent., the whole community
will, with mathematical certainty, be subjected
to a certain amount of physical discomfort for
want of the house-room to which they are
accustomed. I say this is a physical and math-
ematical necessity, from which no adjustment
of wages and no public policy will relieve us.
What we have said of the necessity of houses
is true of everything else conducive to our
comfort and our subsistence. If we divide
the number of barrels of flour produced in the
country by the number of families in it, we
shall have the average number of barrels
which each family may possibly have. To
find the average which each family really
gets we must, of course, subtract the number
sent abroad before we make the division. It
26 A PLAIN MAN 8 TALK
is then certain that we shall have a certain
quantity which cannot be exceeded for the
average use of each family. If the sum total
of flour produced is diminished by any cause
whatever, there will be less to eat. Moreover,
since all flour produced is finally eaten, the
greater the crops the more flour everybody
will have.
Again, in the case of clothes, every suit of
clothes which is made is worn by somebody,
and none can be worn by anybody unless they
are first made. Hence we all have an interest
in having managers of factories, tailors, leather-
makers, shoemakers, and a host of other peo-
ple engaged in promoting the manufacture of
clothing and shoes, working as long and effi-
ciently as possible.
Of course, if any of these things which are
now made by human labor can hereafter be
made by machinery, so as to save labor, we
shall be the better off. A certain amount of
labor will be set free from the manufacture
which can be employed either in improving
the product, or in making something else
which we want. If we reflect how utterly in-
adequate all the labor of the country would
have been to produce a quarter of the good
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 27
things which surround us, had labor-saving
machinery never been introduced, we shall
see how much we all owe to this machinery.
We also see that there can be no great de-
struction of property, no matter to whom it
belongs, without damaging thousands or mill-
ions of people to greater or less degree. No
doubt when the unthinking man reads of such
a great calamity as that of the great Chicago
fire in 1871, he feels sorry for it only because
others suffered ; and he thinks he did not suf-
fer himself at all. Yet, on the average, the
people of the country at large were the worse
off for that fire. Of course, the calamity most
affected the hundred thousand people who
were for a time rendered houseless, and who
had to suffer privations while houses were be-
ing built; but the wheat that was burned
diminished the quantity that was available for
the country at large, and increased the price
in the same proportion. Thousands all over
the country had, during the }*ear or two fol-
lowing, to go with a little less bread than they
would otherwise have had.
There is a way of thinking of those conclu-
sions which will grea-tly help the reader to
judge whether any particular policy does or
28 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
does not benefit the public at large. The an-
nual products of the country form a certain
sum total which, if we knew what they were,
we could add up at the end of each year. For
example, at the end of each year there will be
a certain number of houses finished, a certain
number of barrels of flour produced, a certain
number of suits of clothes made, and so on.
We may imagine all these things to be brought
into one great central depository. Then we
may imagine everybody who uses them to
take them out of the depository. We then
see that nobody should be allowed to take any-
thing out unless he puts an equivalent in. We
also see that the more put in, the more can be
taken out, and vice versa. ?We shall also see
that the question whether the effect of any
policy is good or bad depends very largely
upon whether it increases or diminishes the
sum total of the products necessary for human
welfare^
This way of looking at our welfare and
prosperity may seem so singular to you as to
cause doubt in your own minds' of its correct-
ness. I do not ask you to accept it on my
authority, but I do ask you to think it over.
The common method is to talk about wages,
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 29
prices, demand for labor, the brisk or dull
state of business, the plenty or scarcity of
money, and so on. But a very little thought
will show you that our real welfare does not
consist in any of these things. It may, indeed,
be affected by it, but the effect must depend
on whether demand for labor, brisk business,
plenty of money, competition, combination,
and so on, result in our getting more or better
food, clothing, houses, and furniture. I think,
therefore, the true way is to go right down to
the actual things w r e want and see what will
help us to get them. Instead of thinking of
these indirect agencies, as we are prone to do,
let ns think of the things themselves food,
clothing, and shelter. If you do this, you will
clearly see that it is for your interest and
mine that all the things necessary to supply
our wants are made and brought within our
reach, and that, if this is assured, we need not
care further for the state of the market.
OF THP,
30 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
IV.
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
EVEKY person capable of reasoning must
see that the conclusions that I have drawn are
unavoidable, so far as the general or aver-
age prosperity is concerned. But the ques-
tion may arise in the mind of the reader
whether increasing the general prosperity in
the way pointed out necessarily increases the
prosperity of each individual. I can imagine
him to make the following reply to all I have
been saying on the subject:
"You show plainly enough that if we put
sixty millions of men into four millions of
houses, we must, on the average, put fifteen
people into each house ; and I readily admit
that, were one million of new houses built, wo
should, on the average, have to put only twelve
people into each house. What you call the
average prosperity, obtained by dividing the
number of people by the number of houses,
will no doubt be thus improved. But it does
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 31
not at all follow that there will be any pro-
portional increase in the actual material pros-
perity of the people, as you yourself have de-
fined it. As a matter of fact, although the
people may average fifteen to a house, they
are divided very unequally. Some large houses
have only a single family, of perhaps five
people, all told. In our great cities there are
large tenement houses in which hundreds live
in a single house. Now if the million new
houses built were all to be occupied by those
who now live in crowded quarters, your con-
clusion would be all right. But would not
these new houses, as a matter of fact, be
mostly occupied by well-to-do owners, who al-
ready have house-room enough, thus leaving
the crowded poor as badly off as ever? And
so with the bread, the shoes, the clothing, the
furniture, and everything else you have de-
scribed. Who will be benefited if their pro-
duction is increased ? It is not merely a ques-
tion of producing what the people want, but
it is a question of the product going to those
who most want it and most deserve it that is,
the laboring classes. How will your theory
stand this test ?"
I have stated this objection as fairly and
32 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
strongly as I can, because, as a matter of fact,
the thing actually works just the way you
think it ought to work. As a general rule,
an increase of product is mainly beneficial
not perhaps to the lowest class of all, but cer-
tainly to the class of honest skilled and un-
skilled laborers! Let us look closely into the
question. A million new houses are built.
As things go, will those houses be occupied
principally by the rich, who already have house-
room enough, or by those classes who have
not house-room enough, or will it be divided
between them ? I reply to this that they will
be mainly occupied by those who most need
houses, and who are industrious enough to
pay rent for them, and that very few will be
taken by the rich. The reason of this is that
the rich have already all the house-room that
they want, and will have it, do what we wilU
Practically they have the first pick out of the
depository we imagined in the last chapter,
and so will take out just what they want, and
no more. So what is added is not for their
benefit, but for the benefit of those who are
less fortunate. flfor example, a rich man with
his family cannot occupy more than one house,
except in rare instances, where a man of wealth
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 33
keeps several for his own benefit. The num-
ber who want to do this is so very small that
if a million additional houses were built we
may be assured that not one out of fifty of
them would be occupied by those who are rich
enough to have all the house-room they want.
They might indeed vacate old houses to oc-
cupy the new ones, but then the old ones
would be for rent, just as if they had been
newly built. The additional million of houses
would therefore be mostly occupied by those
who now have need of more house-room for
their own comfort.
It may be still further asked how the labor-
ing classes could have more house-room unless
they were better able to pay house rent?
This question is answered very simply and
briefly by saying thaFflie increased number of
houses would result in the lowering of rents.
The owner of each house of course wants to
get some benefit out of it, and, if he cannot
live in it himself, the only possible way by
which he can be benefited is in getting
somebody else to live in it and pay rent for
it. Hence house-owners would be obliged
to lower their rents until they got tenants.
Moreover, we must remember that in design-
3
84 A PLAIN MAN 8 TALK
ing and building a house, their own interest
would lead them to keep in view the wants of
the particular classes who would be able to
rent new houses when the rents were a little
lower.
What we have said of houses is yet more
true of the other necessities of life. Suppose
a diminution in the production of beef and
pork brought about by a strike on the part of
laborers engaged in producing the staples of
life. It is then mathematically certain that
the community, taken as a whole, will have
less beef and pork to eat. Does the objector
think that in this case it will be the rich rath-
er than the poor who suffer ? If he does, he
thinks the contrary to the truth. The Van-
derbilts and the Goulds have no regard to the
scarcity or the high price of food in deciding
what and how much they shall eat. They
never said to their wives, " Beef is so high we
must stop eating it and take to pork." "Pork
is so high that we must economize in its use."
" Flour is so dear the children must be satis-
fied with corn-cake." But since, when the
supply is diminished, it is mathematically cer-
tain that somebody will have to have less beef
and pork to eat, if this somebody is not among
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 35
the rich, he will be found elsewhere. Hence
it will not be the rich, but the poor, who, find-
ing the price raised, will be compelled to econ-
omize. Thus the whole pressure will fall
upon the poor.
The very same thing is true of clothing.
No matter how much the production of cloth-
ing may be diminished, the wealthy will get
all the clothes they want. They will wear
them so long as they are fashionable, and then
they will give or sell them to poorer people.
The man who must wear an old coat a week
longer in consequence of a scarcity will not be
a rich man, but a poor one. We thus see that
the objection, instead of operating against the
theory we have laid down, operates to strength-
en it, by showing that it is the laboring classes
who have the greatest interest in the manu-
facture of the necessaries of life, and in the
continuous running of the railway trains and
other machinery of communication necessary
to bring the products to those who want them.
The objector may claim that all this does not
quite cover the point he wishes to make. Per-
haps he proceeds as follows :
"What you admit about the advantages
which the rich have over the poor is one of
36 A PLAIN MAN S TALK
the very things I complain of. You say that
society actually is a great co-operative union.
I grant it. But it is a union which does not
divide its profits fairly among its members.
It gives one man a hundred or a thousand
times -what it does another ; and there is no
such difference as that among their merits.
Our system does not lead to justice in the dis-
tribution of the products of labor. Your claim
that if we improve our work by building
more houses, and producing more abundantly
of the necessaries of life, the poor will get
most of the advantage, does not do away with
this fundamental injustice."]
Desiring, as I do, to make no claims which
the reader will not consider valid, I must say
that I cannot fully answer this objection in the
present chapter. I In fact, the remaining part
of the present book is principally devoted to
answering it, directly or indirectly.) I cannot
even claim that a conclusive answer is possi-
ble, for the simple reason that questions of
justice are very largely questions between a
man and his own conscience. I shall endeavor
to anticipate your verdict only by suggesting
two points.
In the first place^I hope to show to youren-
\
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 37
tire satisfaction that the proportion of injus-
tice to justice is far less than is generally sup-
posed, and that there is no such inequality in
the general distribution of the products of
labor as men think there is. True, the in-
equalities are great, very great, but I think
that, looking at them on a large scale, you will
find that they are not inconsistent with Chris-
tian justice and the well-being of the race. '
[In the next place, I must point out that the
practical side of the question is that on which
it must finally turn. Granting that things 1
are not exactly what they ought to be, that is
no reason for changing them by making them
worse, j I am in hearty sympathy with every
effort to make them better; and I do not be-
lieve there is any difference of opinion between
the reader and myself as to what a better state
of things would consist in. We fully agree that
things will be improved when every man can
earn a comfortable living without laboring
more hours a day than is good for his health
and happiness. The only point on which we
can differ is whether particular measures, es-
pecially those proposed by labor organizations,
are going to promote this object or retard it.
Now this is the very question that I have
38 A PLAIN MAN S TALK
written this little book to discuss, so that we
need not consider the matter further in this
chapter.
There is still another objection which possi-
bly might have been the first one to present
itself to the mind of the reader. He will
probably put it in the following shape :
" You seem to think that human welfare is
necessarily promoted by always increasing the
quantity of the necessaries of life produced.
You forget that after enough of these neces-
saries to supply the wants of the population is
produced it is a waste of labor and a positive
disadvantage to produce more. For example :
when we have made all the clothes that people
want to wear, nobody will be the better off
for piling up more clothing in warehouses.
The same is true of all the necessaries of life
food, clothing and shelter. The overpro-
duction of the necessaries of life is not only
useless, but it is a positive disadvantage, be-
cause it lowers their price, and thus tends to
lower the wages of those engaged in the pro-
duction." This objection would arise from
mistaking my meaning. When I talk of in-
creasing the production of those things neces-
sary to our welfare, I do not mean making the
OK THE LABOR QUESTION. 39
same old goods in greater quantity, but mak-
ing them of better quality and making new
and better kinds of goods. For example : sup-
pose that the labor of all the clothiers and
tailors of the country sufficed to keep the pop-
ulation comfortably clad. Then suppose that
an improvement in producing clothes is made
of such a kind that the whole population
could be clad in the same way by the labor of
one half of those clothiers and tailors. The
whole body of the latter could then make
twice as much clothing of the same kind.
But they will not do this, nor do I mean that
they ought to do it. What they really ought
to do, and what they will do, is to employ the
labor saved by the improvement in making
the clothes finer, softer, warmer, and better; in
putting more needlework into the dresses of
your children, so that they shall look nice
when they go upon the street ; in making
you white table-cloths, so that you will have
a nicer looking table to give you an appetite
for your dinner; in making cushions for your
chairs, and better beds to sleep on, and so forth.
It is surprising how soon you will find your-
self able to enjoy twice the product when it
takes these improved forms. This is the kind
42 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
and comforts of life promotes our prosperity ;
everything which diminishes that supply re-
tards our prosperity. We have, therefore,
only to inquire whether more or less service is
rendered the public by any course of action
to judge of the effects of that action.
As a general rule, every man promotes his
own interest when he takes such measures
that he can render better service to the public.
For, as a general rule, he will be able to com-
mand a higher price for that better service.
Then he benefits the public and himself at the
same time.
But he may also benefit himself by such a
course of action that the public shall be in
greater need of his services, so that he shall
be able to exact a higher price without im-
proving those services. Such a policy will, as
a general rule, injure the public more than it
will benefit him. Assuming, as I do, that the
reader feels an interest in the public welfare,
and wants to know whether any particular pol-
icy does or does not promote that welfare, I
will give some illustrations of the principle
just laid down.
When the members of a medical society
direct their efforts towards learning how to
OK THE LABOR QUESTION. 43
cure disease by exchanging the results of their
own experience and study, they promote the
public good, because they thus learn how to
treat diseases more effectively, and to heal
their patients more rapidly. It is to their
own profit to do this, because the better heal-
ers of disease they can make themselves, the
more ready their patients will be to employ
them. But when they combine by an agree-
ment that they will not visit a patient for less
than a certain fixed price, their action tends
to the public injury, because they may ex-
clude many poor patients who, not being able
easily to pay the price, will go without med-
ical attendance. They injure the public even
more than they benefit themselves.
When manufacturers associate themselves
together to collect information for improving
their methods of producing goods, they bene-
fit the public by giving it a larger supply of
the goods. But when they agree that they
will not sell below a certain price, even if they
have to diminish the supply of goods, then
they injure the public, because they gain their
end only by increasing the public necessities
through cutting off its supplies.
When an association of merchants, or a
42 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
and comforts of life promotes our prosperity ;
everything which diminishes that supply re-
tards our prosperity. We have, therefore,
only to inquire whether more or less service is
rendered the public by any course of action
to judge of the effects of that action.
As a general rule, every man promotes his
own interest when he takes such measures
that he can render better service to the public.
For, as a general rule, he will be able to com-
mand a higher price for that better service.
Then he benefits the public and himself at the
same time.
But he may also benefit himself by such a
course of action that the public shall be in
greater need of his services, so that he shall
be able to exact a higher price without im-
proving those services. Such a policy will, as
a general rule, injure the public more than it
will benefit him. Assuming, as I do, that the
reader feels an interest in the public welfare,
and wants to know whether any particular pol-
icy does or does not promote that welfare, I
will give some illustrations of the principle
just laid down.
When the members of a medical society
direct their efforts towards learning how to
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 43
cure disease by exchanging the results of their
own experience and study, they promote the
public good, because they thus learn how to
treat diseases more effectively, and to heal
their patients more rapidly. It is to their
own profit to do this, because the better heal-
ers of disease they can make themselves, the
more ready their patients will be to employ
them. But when they combine by an agree-
ment that they will not visit a patient for less
than a certain fixed price, their action tends
to the public injury, because they may ex-
clude many poor patients who, not being able
easily to pay the price, will go without med-
ical attendance. They injure the public even
more than they benefit themselves.
When manufacturers associate themselves
together to collect information for improving
their methods of producing goods, they bene-
fit the public by giving it a larger supply of
the goods. But when they agree that they
will not sell below a certain price, even if they
have to diminish the supply of goods, then
they injure the public, because they gain their
end only by increasing the public necessities
through cutting off its supplies.
When an association of merchants, or a
44 A PLAIN MAN 7 S TALK
mercantile exchange, devotes itself to procur-
ing the latest and most exact news of prices
and markets in various parts of the world, it
promotes the public good, because its mem-
bers will then buy from the people who most
want to sell ; and they will sell to the people
who are in greatest need of goods, because it
is such people who, other conditions being
equal, will be willing to pay the highest prices.
But if they should combine not to sell below
a certain price, and to stop trading unless they
could make -a certain profit, it would tend to
the general injury by lessening the supplies
of the necessaries of life.
Please notice the principle involved in all
the preceding cases. The whole question
turns on whether yon attract men to do what
you want them to do, or throw obstacles in
the way of their doing differently from what
you desire. Suppose that you are accustomed
to go by a certain road to market. I open a
different road, which it is for my advantage
that you should take rather than your old
road. If I induce you to change by digging
up your old road, so that it is harder than be-
fore for your horses, and thus press you to
take mine, then I injure you. But if I plant
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 45
my new road with flowers and make it smooth-
er and better than the old one, s6 that you
take it of your own choice, then I benefit you.
The distinction between inducing the public
and pressing it is so simple that I do not see
how any one can fail to see it, yet the astonish-
ing fact is that they do fail. We continually
hear people say they are forced to do things
which they need not do at all unless it is for
their own advantage; and we also hear of ap-
plying force or pressure to people in order to
give them liberty to do as they please.
This same principle can be applied to the
effects of labor organizations^ A union of
laborers throughout the country, having for
its object to get information of the rate of
wages in all employments in different parts
of the country, and to learn the prices of the
necessaries of life with a view of knowing
where to apply for work, would be beneficial
both to the members and the public. It
would benefit the members by enabling them
to find the best market for the4r labor, and
it would benefit the public by sending labor-
ers where wages are highest ; that is, where
the public had most need of labor.
5 So, also, if the organization devote itself to
46 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
the improvement of its members in the effi-
ciency with which they could carry on their
trade, it would be a public benefit. For exam-
ple, if an association of carpenters should learn,
by comparing notes, how to do ten per cent,
more work in the same time, and still do it in
the very best manner, it would be a public
benefit, because then each person who lives in
a house would be able to have a little larger
or better house than he had before the carpen-
ters thus improved themselves. The same
thing would be true if bricklayers taught each
other how to build a better wall in the same
time, or plasterers to do fine and strong work
as easily as they now do poor work. In all
such cases the wants of the community would
; be better supplied.
So, also, if a labor union should devote its
energies to searching out the idle children of
the poor, who are growing up without either
manual training or an education, and should
induce or encourage all of them to learn such
trades as would make them useful members
of society, then a great good would be done.
I do not know any feature of our modern so-
ciety more discouraging to the philanthropist
than the number of children in our great
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 47
cities who are growing np with no thought of
how they shall earn a living in the future,
and I know of no more worthy form of be-
nevolent effort than that directed to their
training.
But when such a union agrees that none of
its members shall work for less than a certain
rate of wages, and makes them stop work be-
cause they cannot command these wages, then*
it injures the public. For every day that its
members stop work there will be fewer houses
for ourselves and our children. If, by hold-
ing out, they finally succeed in commanding
the increased wages, they have still suffered
privations during their strike, and have gained
their end only by increasing the public neces-
sities for their work.
I do not pretend to know authoritatively
in which of these two directions labor organ-
izations have tended ; but all I have heard of
them is in the second direction rather than in
the first. i I have seldom, if ever, heard of
their combining to render better service to
the public. Such of their rules as I have seen >
are rather in the direction of rendering as lit-
tle service to the community as they conven-
iently can. For example, it is certain that a
48 A PLAIN MAN S TALK.
man who works ten hours a day will render
'more service to the community than one who
works only eight. But some labor organiza-
tions, instead of encouraging their members
.to work ten hours, fine them if they do it;
that is, they seek to compel each other to ren-
der a less service to the public.
My object in writing this book is not so
much to criticise as to enable other people to
criticise and judge for themselves ; and, there-
fore, I shall for the present leave the reader
to draw his own conclusions as to whatsis-
good and what evil in labor organizations. I
may, however, remark that I could never feel
quite satisfied of the soundness of the oft-re-
peated claim that organized labor, as it is called,
/ has been of great benefit to the laborer. \ I
have already shown in part, and shall try to
show more fully hereafter, that the enormous
increase in the production of the necessaries
of life which has resulted from the introduc-
tion of machinery could not but make a great
improvement in the condition of the labor-
ing classes ; and I think that this, and not or-
ganization, is the source of the improvement
which we have witnessed. But this is a sub-
ject to be discussed hereafter.
PART II.
CAPITAL AND ITS USES
VI.
THE RAILWAY QUESTION: ITS BIG SIDE.
I VERY much fear that I am now going so
to expose my ignorance and lack of under-
standing that the reader will distrust my
teachings. But as I promised in setting out
only to tell things which the reader as well as
myself would understand, I am bound, when
I come to something I do not understand, to
make a frank confession. I read a great deal
in the newspapers, and hear a great deal else-
where, about the despotic dominion of rail-
way corporations and the grinding monopoly
of railways. I confess that I find it quite im-
possible to understand this view, or to see any
reason in it. I have travelled over numerous
railways in nearly every quarter of Europe
and America, and have been surprised at the
pains always taken by their managers to con-
sult my wishes and convenience. Their trains
always started at the hour most convenient
for me and for my fellows who had to travel
52 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
over the road. The study and experiments
of scores of scientific men, and the mechanical
ingenuity of hundreds of inventors, had been
drawn upon by the railway managers to make
an engine and car which should carry me with
great speed in entire safety, and land me at
my destination in time to transact my busi-
ness. Different railway managers had con-
sulted together to have their trains so connect
that I should get through with the least pos-
sible loss of time. Every man on the road,
especially the engine-driver, the most impor-
tant of all, did his very best to further my ob-
jects. Among the men for whom I have a
particular admiration are managers of railways
and locomotive engineers. "When I leave a
train I am in the habit of turning my head as
I pass the engine to have a good look at the
engine-driver who has rendered me so excellent
a service and kept such a sharp lookout against
any accident happening to me. It seems to
me that there is hardly any class of men who
show such nerve and such skill, and who have
of tener risked or laid down their lives to save
their passengers.
The cheapness with which the whole thing
is done is one of its marvels. Fifty years ago
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 53
/
it would have been quite incredible that these
monopolists should have carried a passenger
at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour at
the rate of two cents a mile. Here I may so
far anticipate as to remark upon the very
small fraction of my money which goes into
the pocket of the owners of railways. Much
the larger portion is paid out to the thousands
of workmen whose services are necessary to
my journey.
Where does the grinding and oppression
come in ? I am sure it is not on the railway.
Is it when I am away from the railway ? No ;
I never knew a railway official to follow me
after I left the station. Never in Europe or
America did one of them come to me and in-
sist that I should ride on his railway. I be-
lieve in one or two cases during my life they
woke me up by a steam-whistle when I hap-
pened to sleep in a hotel near the road. With
this exception I was never disturbed by one
of these monopolists unless I went to ride on
his train, and then I found him doing all ho
could to carry me to my journey's end in the
most easy and convenient way.
Possibly, in my ignorance of this whole
subject of monopoly, I have made a great mis-
54 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
take in concluding that it is the public at large
which is injured by it. When one is igno-
rant he has to grasp at mere possibilities;
and it may be that it is only the workmen on
the railway who are supposed to be injured
by the monopoly. If this is so, I confess to
an almost equal difficulty in understanding the
case. * If these railway managers ever force
men to run their trains who do not want to do
so for the wages they were receiving, I never
heard of it. This is a free country, and under
.our laws not even a "Vanderbilt or a Gould
can force a man to run their trains one hour
longer than he wants to. Where, then, does
the injury come in ?
I do not deny that a man may temporarily
feel himself oppressed by some action of the
railway ,by which lie is employed; that a great
many arrangements for his comfort and con-
venience may be omitted; and very little re-
gard paid to his daily wants. v If so, he has a
perfect right to do all he can to make his com-
plaints heard, and even to leave the service of
the road if they remain unheeded. Certain-
ly, it seems to me for the selfish interest of
railway Managers that they should do the very
best they can to please the men, because, the
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 55
better they treat their men, the more willing
the latter will be to serve them, and the less
likely to engage in strikes. If, then, they wil-
fully ill-treat their employees, they are not
such sharp men as we commonly suppose, and
should rather be classified as dull fools. It
seems to me that the general principle that
those corporations which treat their men best
will get the best service affords about as good
a guarantee against ill-treatment as we can \vell
advise. This, however, is a subject on which
I am open to correction ; indeed, as I have al-
ready explained, this whole chapter is little
more than a confession of ignorance and lack
of understanding, which I should be much
obliged to have remedied.
Possibly those who know more may reply
that I entirely misunderstand the matter in
dispute. The real cause of the complaint may
be, not that these railways do not serve the
public in the best way they can, but that they
are owned and managed by a very hateful,
selfish, proud, overbearing set of men, who
have managed to accumulate from one million
to two hundred millions of dollars each. If
this is the case, I immediately raise the ques-
tion of common-sense as against sentiment.
56 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
I say boldly that I do not care how selfish,
proud, wicked, and overbearing the managers
and owners of these roads may be, nor do I
care if they own one million or one thousand
million dollars, if they only arrange their
trains to suit my convenience and convey me
at the lowest rates. What should we think
of a man who brought such sentimental con-
siderations into his practical, every-day life ?
Suppose, for example, that a man should re-
fuse to have an ivory ornament or utensil be-
cause the elephant from which it came was a
very large and ugly animal, who had trampled
a man to death ? What should we think if
he would not allow his children to learn geog-
raphy because the geographies tell us about
the Atlantic Ocean, which has drowned thou-
sands of people, ,and makes men seasick when
they sail on it? I am sure you would say
that such a man was not guided by sound
judgment. But I do not see how the case is
any better with a man who complains of a
very well-managed railroad because the prin-
cipal owner of it is a very objectionable person.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 57
VII.
THE RAILWAY QUESTION: ITS LITTLE SIDE.
I FANCY the reader complaining that in the
preceding chapter I have ignored the strong
objections which he urges against our railway
management and considered only the weak
ones. I admit that he is right to- this extent :
that I persisted in looking on the subject from
a single standpoint, to wit, that of the inter-
ests of the great public, of whom we really
see and hear very little, and considering
whether, on the whole, that public was well
served by the railways. I claim that this is
the big side of the question.
But let us by all means hear the other side
and weigh it impartially. So far as I know,
its ablest and most authoritative representa-
tion is found in Mr. Hudson's book on " the
Eailways and the Republic," and in certain
papers by Dr. R. T. Ely in Harper's Magazine,
I commend these publications to the careful
study of every man interested in the subject.
58 A PLAIN HAN 7 S TALK
But I cannot pretend to answer their views
and arguments, and that for two reasons. In
the first place, if they could be answered it
would take a big book to do it. In the next
place, I am disposed to think that a good deal
of what they say is true. They do, indeed,
present only one side of the case, and I sus-
pect that that side is a little exaggerated ;
but I do not object to this, because I am in
favor of all measures which will improve our
railway management, and, in order to secure
such measures, the attention of the public
must be loudly called to the subject.
But what I wish the reader to clearly un-
derstand is that this is the little side of the
railway question and not its big side, and that
the great facts which I set forth in my last
talk are more important than all thai can be
said on the other side. Allow me to show by
an illustration what I mean when I say that
this is the big side of the question.
If a person should travel through the
healthiest country in the world, search out
all the sick, watch and describe their suffer-
ing, and then publish to the world what he
had observed, he might make his readers be-
lieve it the most pestilential country on the
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 59
globe. He could rival Milton in describ-
ing
"All maladies
Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms
Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,
Dropsies and asthmas and joint-racking rheums,"
in such terms that one would hardly dare to
visit that country, and yet tell nothing but
the truth.
But the person who wanted to know the
real merits of the country would look into
statistical tables in order to learn the death-
rate per annum. If he found it to be only
fifteen in a thousand he would know that the
country was the healthiest in the world in
spite of the melancholy picture. This little
result of statistics would be a great big fact
swallowing up all the little facts about the
sufferers, because it would be a result founded
on a consideration of all the cases of life and
death in the whole population, while the facts
set forth by the observer would only describe
individual cases.
Just so with the railroad question. The
fact that our great trunk lines of railway car-
ry a ton of freight a thousand miles for six or
seven dollars may seem like a little fact, but
60 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
in reality it is a very big one, because it is a
general average result of the price at which
they serve all the millions of people who
live in the Western and Middle States. Com-
paring it with the rates for similar services
abroad, it shows that our railroads serve the
public about as cheaply as any in the world,
notwithstanding the drawbacks under which
they labor arising from sparseness of popula-
tion and high wages. This again shows that
our railway management is among the best in
the world, in the terms on which it serves
the public. Every sensible man who is quali-
fied to judge of the subject knows that on no
other system could we get passengers or freight
carried more cheaply than we now do. If the
government of the United States should take
possession of every railway in the country to-
morrow there can hardly be a doubt that the
average cost of freight transportation would
be higher than it now is on the great trunk
lines. This great big fact completely swal-
lows up all the little facts that one or two
railways have no fixed prices, and charge
whatever they think a customer can be made
to pay, that some others make discriminating
rates, charging one man more than they do
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 61
another for the same services, and that yet
others charge more for a short haul than for
a long one. Carrying passengers forty miles
an hour for two or three cents a mile is a fact
which outweighs all we can say about watered
stocks, just as the fact of the Mruria carry-
ing a thousand passengers across the ocean at
a speed of twenty miles an hour outweighs all
we can say about the badness of the coffee
these passengers have to drink.
Do not misunderstand me. I am not argu-
ing against any measures which will improve
our railway service. I go yet further and
admit that this little side of the question is
the one which requires most attention. If, in
the healthy country we have just imagined,
it was found that here and there people suf-
fered from bad drainage, of course I would
want the drainage improved. So with our
railway service. What I think we ought to
avoid is any policy which will discourage cap-
italists from building more railways. If we
so hem these roads by restrictions that capi-
talists can no longer feel secure of a profit
by running them, we shall simply stop their
building until we adopt new measures, or give
new guarantees to capitalists Against loss.
63
I admit that there is much that is wrong in
the relation of railroad corporations to the
public. It is a wrong upon the people that
nearly all our prominent and influential pub-
lic men, including members of Congress and
members of state legislatures, travel free wher-
ever they wish to go. I am ready to do any-
thing I can to correct this wrong. It is wrong
that corporations of any kind can own and
manage state legislatures. It is a wrong when
courts are under the influence of such corpo-
rations. It is a wrong when a railroad charges
one person more than another for the same
service. We may consider these different
wrongs from different points of view ; for ex-
ample, from one point of view with reference
to their nature and remedy, and from another
point with the object of understanding their
connection with the benefits rendered by the
roads. It is from the latter standpoint that
the matter should first be considered.
The corrupting influence of railroad corpo-
rations upon state legislatures, and hence upon
the public and upon politics in general, has
been denounced in such terms as might imply
that it would be better to have no roads than
to suffer such demoralization as we are suf-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 63
fering and are likely to suffer from them.
Even if this were true, which it is not, it is
an exceedingly incomplete statement of the
question, because it implies that the main fault
is on the side of the railroads and corporations.
It is not correct to say that corporations cor-
rupt legislators. No influence can corrupt an
honest man. If corporations practice bribery
with success, it is only because they have cor-
rupt men to deal with. Hence, to state the
case exactly as it is, we ought to say that the
corporations take advantage of the corrupti-
bility of the men who form our state legisla-
tures. They find them already corrupted, and
act accordingly.
Now, if these legislators are corrupt, whose
fault is it ? Evidently it is the fault of the
public who send bad men to represent them.
It is, therefore, the voters who ought to be de-
nounced for all this wickedness, and not the
corporations. The real evil is that the aver-
age voter is nearly always ready to support
his party's ticket, regardless of the character
of the men whose names it bears. When the
great mass of voters are determined that none
but honest men shall represent them, and that
none but honest methods shall be employed
64 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
in politics, the evil will be cured, and it will
not be cured before. Our first step is, then, to
educate the people to a proper sense of their
duties and rights.
If we now look at the matter from another
point of view we shall see that the wholesale
denunciation of corrupt practices which I have
referred to tends to aggravate rather than cure
the evil. The more respect the public has for
the legitimate rights of a corporation, the less
excuse that corporation has for trying to de-
ceive the public. Vice versa, in a community
where the rights of corporations are not duly
respected, those bodies will necessarily seek to
secure their rights by improper methods. The
nearer public sentiment approaches to correct
views in this respect, the more readily will
great corporations let the public understand
and see into their affairs.
Let us illustrate this by the watering of
stocks. Suppose that some enterprise, it may
be a copper-mine or it may be a railway, finds
itself making very large profits. As a general
rule it has a perfect right to all the profits it
can make by legitimate business and lawful
methods. But the stockholders know very
well that if the public saw stock on which
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 65
only thirty, forty, or fifty dollars a share had
been paid going up to three hundred, five
hundred, or a thousand dollars a share, there
would be a loud complaint, and perhaps the
state legislatures would be called upon to in-
tervene and stop these exorbitant profits. So,
in lieu of paying money dividends and leav-
ing the shares to grow in value, the directors
declare " stock dividends," which continually
increase the number of shares held, so that the
profits per share are kept down to a moderate
percentage. The public at large is neither
better nor worse off for this " watering," for
the simple reason that the company will make
as much money from the public as they can
under any circumstances, and they cannot com-
mand any more after watering their stock than
they could before.
We may lay it down as a rule that nothing
is more useless than the denunciation of indi-
viduals or bodies of men for acts which are in
consonance with the general tendency of hu-
man nature. As a general rule such denun-
ciation makes matters worse more than it helps
them. When a remedy is needed, it must be
applied through public opinion, not by meas-
ures against the men complained of, but by
5
66 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
changing the situation so that selfish men can-
not take advantage of it. The cure for bribery
of legislators is not reached by merely de-
nouncing the men who bribe, but by sending
honest men as representatives. Of course I
do not mean to say that bribery should be
condoned. I mean that there will be very lit-
tle bribery where we have a sufficiently pure
and elevated public opinion on the subject.
Practically the courts and the laws represent
public opinion. When the latter is controlled
by a high moral standard there will be very
little bribery, and that little will be speedily
punished. When the moral standard is low,
there will be plenty of bribery, do what we
will, and we shall not be able to punish it in
the courts. It is, therefore, to public educa-
tion that we are to look for a cure.
Now let us get things in their true perspec-
tive. The facts which I have brought out in
these talks are greater and more wide-reach-
ing than any of the evils of railway manage-
ment. Denounce the latter as we will, it re-
mains true that the men who run railroads are
the ablest business managers that the country
has seen, that they serve the public cheaper
than any other set of men could have done
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 67
it, and that their work lies at the very basis
of our civilization. To settle the question ;
whether, as a class, they charge too much for
their services, we must see what profits they
make. It is said that during the past twelve
months the railways of the country at large
have not earned the current rate of interest
upon the capital actually invested by their pro-
jectors. If this is true, it disposes at a single
stroke of the complaint against high charges.
As to their tyranny, all that can be said of it
is disposed of by the great fact that not one
person out of a hundred who reads these pa-
pers was ever consciously injured by a railroad
corporation or ever received anything but
benefits from it.
A PLAIN MAN 8 TALK
VIII
HOW ONE MAN MAY DO THE WORK OF TEN
THOUSAND.
" THEEE must be something wrong in a sys-
tem under which one man can accumulate a
hundred millions of dollars, and the people of
this country are determined to do something
towards rectifying it." We have all heard
this sentiment in a thousand forms during the
last few months. I am inclined to think that
it voices the feeling on which the popular
support of the labor movement is based.
When the common man hears that somebody
has gained one hundred millions of dollars, he
naturally thinks that the system by which he
gained it must have an element of injustice in
it. If asked why any lack of justice, the
common man would probably answer, that
:his rich man must have gained money which
in equity belonged to other people. The ques-
tion of equity is not, however, the only one to
be considered. That of policy also comes into
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 69
play. If it should turn out that the public
at large were great gainers through some onefij
person being allowed to accumulate a hundred ;
million of dollars, we might dispense with thej
question of equity. But sinc'e equity as well
as policy should come into consideration, I
shall consider the subject from both points of
view, beginning with the former.
In considering a question of equity we must
agree upon some principle determining what
we are to understand by that word. Now the
customs of society have established the prin-
ciple that if two men are rendering the same
service, they should get the same price for it,
no matter if it costs one ten times as much as
it does the other. For example, if a very
skilful dairyman should learn to make but-
ter with half the work that other dairymen
make it, and should bring that butter to a
market where the selling price was forty cents
a pound, it would not be equitable for the
buyer to say to him : " Although I have been
giving forty cents a pound for butter to oth-
ers, yet I will only give you twenty cents, and
will not allow any one else to give you more,
because you make two pounds as easily as
those other sellers make one." If the reader
70
will not accept this principle, then he need
not proceed any further in this chapter, be-
cause it is on this principle that the conclu-
sions are based. But if he does accept it, then
he must do so to its fullest extent, and admit
that if one man does the work of ten thou-
sand, -there is nothing positively unjust in
paying him the wages of ten thousand men.
This may seem to be carrying the principle a
great deal further, but still the principle it-
self remains the same. Questions of justice,
considered apart from questions of policy, be-
long rather to the instincts than to the reason,
and I confess that my instincts are such that
I see nothing unjust in paying one man the
wages of ten thousand for doing the work of
ten thousand. Let us now see how a few
men did the work of ten times. as many thou-
sand.
Before railways were built, the people of
Boston, New York, Baltimore, and other cities
could be supplied with flour only from farms
near the seaboard or watercourses, or in the
immediate neighborhood of the cities. A
farmer in the middle of Pennsylvania, New
York, or Ohio could not get his wheat to mar-
ket without carting it to some canal or navi-
ON THE LABOE QUESTION. 71
gable river. So laborious was this to farmers
who lived many miles from other means of
transportation that they often burned their corn
as fuel, because it did not pay to carry it to
market. The reader may calculate for himself
how many millions of men would be required
to transport all the flour we eat from the farms
to the cities on our Atlantic seaboard if we had
no railways.
Fifty years ago the construction of railways
was only fairly commenced ; and it was doubt-
ful if they could be successful on a large scale.
But a few far-sighted capitalists saw that if
such a road were built through New York
State, a few thousand men, by running the
railway, would do the work of as many mill-
ions in transporting the products of farms to
the seaboard. Probably very few believed
them. At least only a few men were ready to
invest their fortunes in the enterprise, and so
it was by these few that the new roads were
first inaugurated on so large a scale. The re-
sult was that the productiveness of the inhabi-
tants of New York State was increased many
fold. The railroad was soon doing the work
of a hundred thousand men ; perhaps I should
be nearer the truth if I said a million.
72
Now what ought the people of New York
State to have said to the leading men of the
enterprise when their roads got going ? Should
they have said : You are making too much mon-
ey off of your road ; although your organization
is doing the work of a hundred thousand men,
you are yourself only one man, and shall only
have the pay of one man? It does not seem
to me that this would have been right. But
if we consider that it would be right to allow
him the pay of more than one man for his
services in building the road, by what principle
shall we learn where to stop? If two men,
why not three? If three, why not four? If
four, why not a thousand ? If a thousand,
why not a hundred thousand?
Facts make the principle that govern the
case. The projector might have said in reply :
My railroad is doing the work of one hundred
thousand men, and I must have the pay of one
hundred thousand men as long as I live, and
my heirs must have it as long as the road lasts.
If we estimate the pay of one man to be five
hundred dollars a year, he would then have
been demanding fifty millions of dollars per
year in perpetuity for his services.
But society did not concede any such claim
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 73
on his part any more than it tried to restrict
his profit to the pay of one man. It simply
said to him, You have got your road and we
will pay you the lowest price at which we can
get our transportation done; but we give you
notice that now, you having taught us what
good a railway can do, we will build all the
roads we want for ourselves, and we will not
"allow you a dollar more for what you do for us
with your railroad than we have to pay other
people for the same service. This, it seems to
me, was the just and natural solution of the
problem.
In the process we have been examining is
involved a principle which it is most necessary
to understand. We see it in all the operations
of business and manufacture, yet we are prone
to overlook it; I must, therefore, ask your care-
ful attention to some further illustrations of it.
Suppose a tribe of Patagonians who gain their
subsistence by killing birds with bows and ar-
rows. With the utmost industry, each of them
can only kill, on an average, two birds a day.
A lame but skilful civilized man comes among
them with a supply of guns, sulphur, saltpetre,
and lead. With the charcoal which they can
supply him he proceeds to make gunpowder,
74 A PLAIN MAN 8 TALK
and with the lead to mould bullets. He now
says to them, It takes one of yon a whole day
to kill two birds. I cannot kill any birds at
all myself because I am lame ; but I can show
you how each of you can kill, not two birds in
a day, but fifty. Whoever makes powder and
shot in the way I show, and uses one of my
guns in the way I will direct, can kill forty-
eight birds more per day than he now does.
In return for this service you must give me
half the extra birds which my skill enables
you to shoot : that is, each of you must give
me twenty -four birds out of every fifty, or
their equivalent.
It is evidently for their interest to accept
such an offer. He shows them how to get the
charcoal by burning wood; he weighs out the
materials for the powder, and shows them how
to use them. He melts the lead and makes it
into shot ; shows them how to shoot, and very
soon each man who uses one of the guns is
bringing in fifty birds a day, which is more
than they all can eat.
If the tribe is a hundred strong, its members
are now, in combination with the owner of the
guns, doing the work of twenty-five hundred
men ; and the owner is doing the work of
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 75
twenty- four hundred men, and getting the pay
of twelve hundred. Getting nearly half the
whole product, he has nearly half as much to
eat as the whole tribe.
Now, is there anything inequitable in this?
If the tribe should say to him: "Look here,
pale face ; you have not shot a single bird, nor
put in a stroke of work, unless you call it
work to weigh out the materials for making
powder. Our labor has made the powder;
our legs have carried us through the swamps.
You have no business getting more birds than
any of the rest of us, and you shall have no
more." Would that be exactly fair? Ques-
tions as to whether a thing is or is not fail-
must ultimately depend upon the inner con-
science of the judge ; so I leave this question
to the conscience of the reader, only remark-
ing thaii I myself see nothing wicked or un-
just in the arrangement by which the one
civilized man gets half the product.
Now what is the principle concealed in this
illustration ? It is that labor alone is not suf-
ficient to produce the things necessary for our
welfare to the best advantage. To make a
pair of boots to the best advantage requires
something more than the mere labor put into
76 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
them. It requires the know-how and the
show-how. Just as the Patagouians gained
their birds through the help of the man who
did no shooting, but knew how it ought to be
done, and showed them how to do it ; so boots
are made, not merely by tanners and boot-
makers alone, but by the labor of these men
combined with the knowledge and direction
| of business-managers. Clearly the latter are
entitled to a share in the product.
You reply, perhaps, Grant that they are en-
titled to a share. But a great many of them
get too large a share.
But by what principle will you decide what
share they shall get? Must they all get the
same share? In that case the good manager
and the bad manager would be paid exactly
the same profits. The latter might buy poor
leather, might fail to take good care of it,
might let his machinery be badly used, might
mismanage his business in every way without
suffering for it, if you adopted any such princi-
ple. It is evident that we must have some
way of letting a good manager get more of
r the product than a bad one. If you reflect
how difficult it would be to find out whether
the business was well or badly managed, you
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 77
will see the impossibility of fixing any definite
rate of profit for the manager.
\This correct rate of profit, which it would^
be so hard for the wisest man to fix by investi-j
gation, is determined by our system of free
competition among managers. We simply say '
to every manager : " Do the very best you can.
Direct your inen in the most efficient way you
know how, and manage your business with the
least waste. Whatever profits you can make
in this way over and above your fellow-mana-
gers you are entitled to, and no more. If they
do better, then you must go into some other
business. If you do better- than any of them,
take the profit which will thus come to you."
Please remember that under our system no
man and no body of men is required to work
under a manager, and to accept his know-how
and show-how, if he does not want to do so.
Every workman in the factory, every brick-
layer who helps in building a house, is at per-
fect liberty to sell his own services directly to^
the public if he finds it advantageous so to do.
If workmen find that the managers who di-
rect them are getting an undue share of the
proceeds, they are at perfect liberty to form
co-operative associations, and thus secure all
78 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
the profits themselves. But, if they find that
they get better wages from the manager than
they can earn by working for themselves, then
there is nothing inequitable in the manager
getting as much advantage of his skill as the
competition of his fellow-managers will per-
mit his getting.
In view of these facts it seems to me that
the quotation with which I opened this talk
should be expressed thus :
" There must be something wrong in a sys-
tem under which one man is allowed to ren-
der a hundred million dollars' worth of ser-
vices to his fellow-men, and the people of this
country are determined to do something to-
wards rectifying it."
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 79
IX.
WAS IT GOOD FOR US THAT WE ALLOWED
ONE MAN TO MAKE A HUNDRED MILLION
DOLLARS?
THE reader may possibly object to the last
chapter, that it dealt in the equities of the
case, and therefore had a little too much sen-
timent mixed up with it. He may say that,
it is not a question of equity at all, but one of
public advantage or disadvantage, and may
claim that the subject should be treated from
this point of view.
I am perfectly willing to discuss the sub-
ject on this basis, because then the foundation
is a great deal stronger than before. If you
choose to follow me carefully, leisurely, and
thoughtfully, you cannot fail to see that it is
for your good and for mine that any man who
wants to be a capitalist, and who has a talent
for business management, should be allowed
to gain all the wealth he can, whether one : ,
million dollars or one hundred millions, by
80 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
legitimate business enterprises; and that the
'more ho gains in this way the better for us all.
The common belief seems to be that, when
a man gets very rich, he does it by collecting
wealth which, but for him, would have been
gained by somebody else, who, perhaps, de-
served it better. There are few or no opin-
ions, generally held by men, which are false
under all conditions and in their entirety. So,
before we deny this popular doctrine, let us
see in what cases it may be true. There is,
undoubtedly, a great deal of speculation in
the business world in which one man can gain
only what another loses. It amounts to about
the same thing as betting on the future prices
of stocks or goods. Thousands of people go
into Wall Street to speculate. The large ma-
jority are the so-called " lambs," who are not
so wise as they think. The sharper men win
the bets made with them, and thus grow rich.
Fortunes won in this way are not of the
slightest concern to any one except those who
make or lose. None of your interests are af-
fected by some Wall Street shark gaining a
hundred dollars or a thousand from each of
a thousand other speculators. If you do not
want to suffer, all you have to do is to keep
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 81
out of Wall Street. If yon have been a " lamb "
yon have only yourself to blame. If yon have
not, yon have lost nothing. Leaving ont this
exceptional case, which, as I have said, is of
no public concern to anybody but those who
engage in speculation, the only way in which
a man can make a fortune of one hundred
million dollars is by doing one hundred mill-
ion dollars' worth of good, probably several
times over, to his fellow-men.
The question now before us may be con-
sidered under several different aspects. We
might first inquire whether there is any pos-
sible way of stopping a man who wants to
be rich from making all the money he can.
If w r e found that this was not possible, we
might dispose of the whole matter by saying
that it is of no use to trouble ourselves about
it because we cannot help ourselves. But I
do not propose to dispose of the question in
this simple way. I want the reader to put
the question to himself in such forms as the
following :
If we could persuade or force a man not to
accumulate more than a certain fixed amount
of wealth say one hundred thousand dollars
would it be to our interest to do so ?
82 A PLAIN MAN S TALK
If, when Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt had
made one hundred thousand dollars, he had
said to himself, " This is as much wealth as
one needs or ought to possess ; I will, there-
fore, retire from business, and make no more
money," would we have been better or worse
off on account of that resolution on his part?
To answer this question, we must examine
the history of the case, and learn how Cor-
nelius Vanderbilt gained his wealth. The
reader probably knows this as well as I do ;
so all I need to do is to give a short summary
of the well-known facts in the case.
When still quite young, Cornelius Vander-
bilt was the owner of several small steamboats,
which he managed himself. He was so suc-
cessful that, before reaching middle age, he
was, for those times, a very wealthy man.
Did he become so by injuring any one else ?
I think not. He never forced a man on board
his boat who did not want to go ; never car-
ried a pound of freight which the owner did
not want carried; never charged more for fare
or freight than the people to whom he ren-
dered the service were willing to give. No-
body ever paid him for his service more than
he would have had to pay any one else. His
ON THE LABOE, QUESTION. 83
only advantage lay in the fact that he knew
how to render more service at a given outlay
of labor and money than anybody else did.
He bought the kind of boats which other peo-
ple found it pleasant to travel upon. He sent
them to the places where they were most want-
ed, and took people where they most wanted
to go, at the times most convenient for them.
He selected good men to run his boats, and,
while putting into them whatever the public
liked to have, he was careful never to waste
labor or money in doing what people did not
want done.
As he made money he bought more steam-
boats, thus extending his operations over a
much wider area than before. Thus he car-
ried more and more people where they want-
ed to go, and brought more and more goods
where they were wanted. It was through be-
coming rich that he was enabled to build these
new boats ; and, having built them, he man-
aged them on the same principle as before;
that is, he sent them where thousands of peo-
ple were most desirous to go, and brought
goods from various parts of the continent to
the places where people most wanted them.
When he had thus gained several millions
84 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
of dollars by rendering, we may suppose, a
dollar's worth of service to each of several
millions of people, he saw that railway mana-
gers did not work together to the best advan-
tage, and did not convey their millions of pas-
sengers and their enormous quantities of freight
in the most advantageous and economical man-
ner. So he proceeded to purchase the stock
of the Harlem Railroad, the Hudson River,
the New York Central, and the Lake Shore
and Michigan Southern, and finally succeed-
ed in inducing the owners of a line of road
extending all the way from New York to Chi-
cago to place the whole under his manage-
ment. The result of this was, that he brought
the breadstuffs of the West to New York
State more cheaply and expeditiously than
they were ever brought before, and thus en-
abled millions of people to buy their flour at
a lower price than they would otherwise have
had to pay.
As in his early steamboat life he never de-
manded from one of his million of passengers
more money for a ticket than the passenger
deemed it to his advantage to pay, and never
charged a dollar more freight than merchants
were willing to give. Competing lines were
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 85
in operation, and every one had the right to
send by other lines, or not to send at all. The
result was a continual addition to his fortune,
amounting to several millions of dollars a year.
At this point, dear reader, do not abandon
business for sentiment by saying that I am
eulogizing a very selfish man. I am only^
stating the essential facts and leaving out the|
non-essential ones. You may, if you choose,
call him a greedy, grasping, bloated, inhuman
being. But that would be mere sentiment
and not business. If the ten millions of peo-
ple to whom he brought bread all the way
from Chicago, and the hundreds of millions
whom he carried on his railway were bene-
fited by the services, as they undoubtedly
were, his personal qualities do not affect the
question at all. Not one man out of a thou-
sand ever set eyes upon him, or was in any
way injured by his selfishness. Let us, there-
fore, confine ourselves to a business view of
the facts.
Suppose, now, that Mr. Vanderbilt, when he
found his little steamboats so successful tliat
he had gained a hundred thousand dollars
from them, had said : " This is money enough
for one man, and I will now let some one else
A PLAIN MAN'S TALlr
manage this business, while I, to show my
belief in the dignity and rights of labor, will
v work as a mere hand on a steamboat. 3 ? What
would have been the result ? The enterprise
which subsequently sent a line of steamers to
Galveston and the Isthmus would either have
been wanting, or would have been delayed
for several years. A million of people would
have had to wait two or three years for the
advantages of shipping and travelling which
Vanderbilt gave them ; and, when they finally
got them, the boats would not have been so
much to their liking, and freights would
have been higher. We may suppose that
the disadvantage of a million of people
would have averaged one or two dollars a
year to each person for a number of years.
Of course they would never have been aware
of these disadvantages, nor think that the ec-
centric man who was working as a common
hand when he had the ability to be a first-
class manager would have served them much
better had he continued to manage. But
their ignorance would not have changed the
fact that here would have been a great waste
of valuable power.
So with the railways. If Vanderbilt had
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 87
not got control of the roads I have described,
the unity of management which is so neces-
sary in working a road would have been de-
layed for several years perhaps until the
present time so that freight and passengers
would not have been carried so expeditiously
as they now are. Moreover, the managers,
not being so able as Vanderbilt to prevent all
loss and waste on the road, people would
probably have had to pay a little more on the
average for their tickets. Thus everybody
would have been worse off, rather than better.
It is on a large scale what we supposed to
take place among the Patagonians in our last
talk. The man who merely showed them
how to use a gun benefited not only himself,
but them also, by enabling them to get food
much more advantageously than before.
But there is more yet to be said. Before
we can consider the question satisfactorily
settled we must inquire who got the benefit
of Vanderbilt' s money ? Did he or the pub-
lic get the good of it? Here I have to make
a statement which at first blush may appear a
paradox ; but it appears so only to those who
have failed to look clearly at the facts. I
say that Vanderbilt never got any use of his
money, except his board, clothing, house-
rent, and appliances for the personal pleasure
and comfort of himself and friends. The
sole benefit of all the rest of his wealth went
entirely to the public. It is one of the great
vices of our times that we think and talk about
wealthy men as if they had the sole enjoy-
ment of their wealth. But all they really en-
joy is the laborious privilege of managing it
and the sentimental pleasure of calling it
theirs. If Yanderbilt had said, " Now this is
my railroad, and I shall not carry freight on
it for anybody else, and will only bring food
for my own family and give excursions to my
own friends," then the case would have been
different and the road would have been of no
use to the public. But of all the freight
brought over the road, how mlicli did Mr.
Vanderbilt ever get ? Of course, you know
very well, not enough to even think of or
mention.
But, you may reply, everybody else who
got freight carried over his road had to pay
him for it. Very well, what did he do with
the money they paid him ? Nine tenths of it
he paid to laborers. .With a good part of the
other tenth he laid new steel rails over the
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 89
whole road from New York to Chicago, by
which passengers and freight were brought
more quickly and cheaply than ever before.
For whose benefit was that? Evidently it
was for the benefit of the passengers and the
public, because after the steel rails were laid
they paid Vanderbilt less money for the ser-
vice than they did before, and they got carried
faster. But, you may say, they still had to
pay him. Yes, but how insignificant the
amount they paid him compared with the
value of the service rendered. Let us again
ask what he did with the money he received
for this important service? A portion of it
he expended in building himself a house and
filling it with pictures and furniture. What
he expended in this \vay was all that he ap-
plied to his own uses. It was a small frac-
tion of what lie received for freight. He
spent the remainder directly or indirectly in
building new roads and in other business en-
terprises for the public. When I say he did
this indirectly I mean that he loaned the
money to others to expend in this way, and
thus enabled them to build railroads and
steamboats, which they otherwise could not
have built.
90 A PLAIN MAN S TALK
I think T have made it clear beyond a cavil
that it was to your benefit and my benefit
ithat Yanderbilt did not stop making money,
jto become a steamboat hand, but that his
grasping love of wealth prompted him to en-
gage in managing steamboats and railways
with such success that he accumulated more
than a hundred millions of dollars. I hope
Yanderbilts will continue to arise until our
whole industrial organization is so perfected
that everything we want shall be made and
brought to us at the lowest possible price.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 91
X.
THE CAPITALIST AND WHAT HE HAS LONE
FOR US.
THE lessons I have tried to teach in the last
two chapters are so important that I must beg
leave to recapitulate and enforce some of their
points. I deem this necessary for the very
reason that they are conclusions which run
counter to our ordinary notions.
One of the notions to which I allude is, that
wealth is accumulated for the sole benefit of
its owner : for instance, that Vanderbilt's hun-
dred millions went for Vanderbilt's sole ben-
efit,, so that nobody else has any interest in it,
or at least only a slight interest. Yet it is
only necessary to open our eyes and look close-
ly at the state of ^ the case to see that this no-
tion is all wrong. The great proposition, to
which all that I have said converges, is that
great accumulations of capital, whether by ari
individual or a corporation, are really em-
92 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
ployed for the public benefit, so that all get
k the good of them.
What did Vanderbilt's wealth originally
consist in ? As I showed in the last chapter,
one of its large items were the steel rails
which were laid from New York to Chicago.
If he and his associates had not accumulated
- great fortunes they could never have com-
manded the money to purchase these rails,
and the bread which you and I now eat could
not have been brought so cheaply from the
West to our homes. In a word, Vanderbilt's
great wealth consisted very largely in railroads
employed, not for his benefit, but for that of
the public, and from which he did not get
materially more good than anybody else did,
because even the dividends which he gained
were expended in enlarging and improving
the roads.
Now what is true of this particular part of
Vanderbilt's fortune is true of all the accu-
mulations of the capitalists, great and small.
A capitalist may be defined as a man who
saves up his money to gain interest upon it.
But the only way in which he can gain inter-
est is by employing it for the benefit of his
fellow-men, or getting somebody else to em-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 93
ploy it in this way. That is to say, the money
which he saves goes to build a railway for con-
veying goods to and from distant communi-
ties, a factory to make clothes for the contin-
ually increasing population, a ship to convey
goods to a foreign country, a house to be oc-
cupied by people who cannot afford to buy
one for themselves, or some other permanent
agency for supplying the public wants./
This point is so important that I must ask
leave to illustrate it by continuing our little
romance about the visitor to the Patagonians.
We left him with a food supply of twenty-
four hundred birds a day, contributed to his
support by the tribe. This would be too ab-
surd to continue, because the whole tribe could
not eat half of what \vas shot. The tribe would
say : " We cannot possibly eat all these birds,
let us stop and build better wigwams." So
the lame man would say, " instead of shooting
all those birds for me, go to work and build
me a hundred wigwams. You must make one
of them very fine for my occupation, but the
others are to be my property to dispose of as I
please." When this is done the question arises,
What will the man do with all those wigwams ?
As he can only occupy one of them, he can
94 A PLAIN MAN S TALK
only say to the tribe, " Occupy the others
yourselves, and pay me what rent you can for
them." But when he got the rent he could
do nothing with it but get other tilings for the
support of himself and the tribe, and so in the
end the latter would be getting nearly all the
benefit of the man's skill, and this by the
sheer necessity of the case. I think none of
their moralists and philosophers would lament
a state of things in which one man should be
allowed to own a hundred wigwams.
The fact is that until we think carefully
over the subject we can have no conception
how valuable one man's foresight and enter-
prise may be to millions of his fellow -cit-
izens. <I recollect, in speaking to an intelli-
gent and thoughtful Knight of Labor of the
value of Vanderbilt's enterprise, he raised
what was, in principle, the very sound objec-
tion that if Vanderbilt had not done what he
did somebody else would, and that there was
therefore no particular reason why Vanderbilt
should reap so large a reward. I say the
principle on which this objection was founded
is perfectly correct, because if there are
three, ten, or fifty people capable, without
any extraordinary sacrifice on their own part,
OK THE LABOR QUESTION. 95
of rendering services worth many millions of
dollars to their fellows, it is perfectly just that
they should be made to compete with each
other until their compensation is brought down
to its lowest point. If then there were twen-
ty or fifty men able arid ready to do what
Vanderbilt did, it would have been perfectly
right that society should have commanded
their services on the cheapest terms it could.
But let us now look closely at the matter
and see how what may seem to us at first
sight a most insignificant fact may have very
important consequences. The reason why
Vanderbilt was able to collect so large a sum
from the public for services rendered was not
merely that nobody else could have rendered
these services at any time, but that he was the
only man in the field at the moment ready
and willing to go ahead with his enterprises.
Now let us calculate the money value to the
public of this mere willingness to go ahead,
coupled with the ability to see further than
his fellow-men did. At a moderate calcula-
tion there were, fifty or sixty years ago, ten
millions of people to whom a railway system
connecting New York with what was then the
West would have been worth ten cents a clay
96 A PLAIN MAN 8 TALK
each, or say thirty dollars a year. This being
the case, if Vanderbilt's enterprise did nothing
more than get each section of the road and
each step in its management into operation a
year sooner than others would have done, he
rendered his fellows a service worth three
hundred millions of dollars, merely by his
foresight and courage, to say nothing of his
organizing ability.
Successful capitalists are for the most part
the sharpest business men of the community.
This goes almost without saying, for otherwise
they would never have amassed wealth, or, if
they had amassed it, would have lost it when
they went into business. What do we mean
when we say that some prominent man is a
sharp man of business? Judging from the
newspapers and the addresses at labor assem-
blies, we should suppose this to mean that the
man had learned the art of cheating other peo-
ple out of the results of their labor. I have
shown in previous talks how groundless this
notion is, and so instead of discussing it
further shall try to find the true answer to the
question. A sharp man of business on a large
scale I mean one who successfully manages
new and great enterprises is one who is quick
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 97
to see what large bodies of people wapt, and
expert in the rare art of building up organized
systems to supply that want. We are so ac-
customed to organized systems thus built up
that we seldom think how much more they in-
volve than the men and appliances concerned
with them.
Take a railway for example. Of material
things it includes a road-bed, the rails, the
station, the engines, and the cars. Of men it
includes engineers, brakemen, conductors, and
other employees to the number of thousands.
But much more than all this was necessary in
order that the railroad might perform its func-
tions. Before a single tie was laid, before a
man was engaged to dig out the road-bed, it
was necessary to decide where the road should
start from, through what towns it should pass,
and whither it should end. Here the business
qualities of the capitalist come in. The man
who decides these things successfully is one
who knows what thousands of his fellow-men
want, not only now, but for the future ; where
towns are likely to grow up, and what prod-
ucts will be wanted at the terminus of the
road. The labor of thousands of men is to be
employed for one or more years in laying the
98 A PLAIN MAN 8 TALK
road, making the rails, and building the en-
gines and stations. It depends upon the talent
and sound judgment of the originators wheth-
er this labor shall be in great part wasted by
being of little service to anybody, or whether
it shall supply a hundred thousand people
with just the means of transportation that
they most want. Now, if every man was
born with the talent necessary for deciding
where the road should run, for knowing where
to find the best engineers to lay the road out,
and to calculate the excavations necessary ;
how and where to get the engines built, and
how to find the men to run them, and then
how to organize their work, the case would bo
entirely different from what it is. As a mat-
l ter of fact only one man out of ten thousand
^can do all this successfully, and only one out of
a hundred thousand can do it in the most ef-
fective way. If we could value men by the
services they render we might say of the best
organizer in the United States : Here is a man
who can so organize railroads through popu-
lous districts as to save a million of his fellow-
men a dollar a year each by securing them
cheaper transportation than they can other-
jwise get. He is therefore worth to them a
(million dollars a year.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 99
Then, after the road is built and in opera-
tion, it may be worth a million dollars a year
to its owners and to the men who use it to
have it managed in the very best way. You
may have the road completed, with the en-
gines and cars and men all at work, and yet
the result may be a failure. Men are contin-
ually leaving or changing their occupations,
and new ones must be got to fill their places.
Some one must decide what duties every man
shall perform and must see that he is trained
in their performance. There must be a sys-
tem by which every one of the thousands
of employees shall do the right thing, in the
right place, and at the right time ; if he does
not, accidents will happen, passengers will be
killed, and freight will be lost or delayed.
Now this is something which does not happen
of itself, but requires a body of managers of
rare qualities, to do everything in the best
way.
I hope I have justified my definition that
the sharp and successful man of business is
simply one who can render great services to
all the people who make up the state. What
have such men done ? The question will an-
swer itself if we will only look around us.
100 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
They have promoted everything that is good
in this nineteenth century. They have not
only built railways from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Ocean, and set them going, but they
have founded schools and colleges and built
churches. Had no one ever got rich we should
have had no colleges except a few miserable
ones supported by the state ; we should have
had no railways ; flour would have been worth
ten dollars a barrel and upward in all cities ;
labor organizations would have been unknown,
because no laborer could ever have spared the
time to organize or have saved the money
necessary to make his influence felt.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 101
XI.
WHAT CAPITAL HAS DONE FOR THE LABORER.
WE have all heard a great deal of talk about
the great conflict between labor and capital.
We have discussed this conflict so ardently as
to forget all about the actual facts of the case ;
and, indeed, I doubt if one man out of twenty
who engages in the discussion ever stops to
think what capital really is. If one would
only stop to study out the question he would
see that no such conflict could have any sound
reason for going on, and, in fact, could hardly
arise among sensible men. In saying this I
do not deny that there is always a kind of
contest in progress. Laborers want, and right-
fully want, the highest wages they are able to
command. Employers want, and rightfully
want, to induce them to work as cheaply as
possible. But the efforts to which the two
parties are thus led do not differ, in their orig-
inal nature, from those which have been go-
ing on ever since men- began to make procr-
^~
(UKI7ERSIT7))
102
ress, and which must continue as long as hu-
manity exists under its present conditions.
Everybody who sells goods wants to get as
much as he can for them, and everybody who
buys wants to get them as cheaply as he can.
Sellers are on the search for good buyers, and
buyers are on the lookout for good bargains.
In the same way, laborers are on the lookout
for good employers, and employers are seek-
ing for cheap and efficient laborers. To call
a contest thus arising a conflict between labor
and capital is as great a misnomer as it would
be to call a higgling and dispute between a
man and his butcher a conflict between money
and beef. It is not the beef the man is quarrel-
ing with, but it is the owner of the beef. It is
not the money the butcher is dealing with, but
the man. In the same way the laborer is deal-
ing, not with capital, but with the owner of
capital. This misuse of words is, really, a source
of great drawback to clear thinking, because it
leads people to mistake the interests of society,
and to engage in efforts which can do nothing
but harm to all. To avoid this evil, let us see
how capital and capitalists arose.
In our colonial times there was very little
that we should now call capital ; only such
ON THE LABOB QUESTION. 103
things as the horses, ploughs, and farm-build-
ings, the implements of the farmer, the stock
in trade of the shop-keeper, and the tools of the
mechanic. How does it happen that we have
any more capital now than in colonial times?
We can readily imagine everything to have
gone on, up to the present time, just as it did
in those times, without railways, steam ma-
chinery, great warehouses, paved streets, fine
furniture. Why did things not continue so?
I reply, it was because certain people were not
satisfied with what they had, but wanted to
get rich, and knew how to do it. Now, when
a man wanted to get rich, how did he have
to go to work? Robbery and gambling aside,
there was but one possible way ; he must do
something that his fellow-men wanted to have
done, and which they wanted so badly that
they were willing to pay a great deal of money
to get it done. No man could earn a dollar
except by doing something for his fellow-men
which they were willing to pay a dollar to
have done, and hence something which they
valued at more than one dollar.
Such, I say, was the problem presented to
every man who wanted to make money. Now,
if a man was only a common laborer, and could
104
do nothing more for his fellow-men than hun-
dreds or thousands of fellow-laborers could
do, he could not possibly get rich very fast,
although he might make a comfortable living.
Hence, in order to attain his end, the man
who wanted to get rich must make, buy, or
borrow some kind of appliances, implements,
or machinery which would enable him to do
more work for his fellow-men than he could
do without the appliances. For example,
some of these men found that, by establishing
a line of stages between two towns, they could
render valuable services to hundreds or thou-
sands of their fellow-men who wanted to trav-
el, or to send goods from one city to another.
So they bought horses and stage-coaches, built
houses of entertainment, and set to work car-
rying passengers, materials, and goods. The
horses, coaches, stables, and houses of enter-
tainment were then the capital of these men.
By the aid of that capital they rendered their
fellow-men services many times greater than
they could have rendered without the capital.
If they planned their work with judgment and
skill, so as to take people just when and where
they wanted to be taken in the greatest num-
bers, they made money, and thus many of
them got rich.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 105
Now notice certain necessary conditions of
these enterprises. It was impossible to get
the money to buy the horses and coaches and
build the stables unless some one saved up
money which he could have spent had he cho-
sen to do so. A man who spent all his in-
come in food and clothing could never have
got money to buy a coach. True, he might
have borrowed the money from his neighbor.
But then the neighbor must have saved the
money up, and not spent it on food and cloth-
ing, else he never would have had any to loan.
Possibly the owner of the coach might have
bought it on credit; but, in this case, the
maker of the coach must have been able to
save the money necessary to buy the material
and pay the wages of his workmen. We thus
reach two great conclusions :
Firstly, without capital we should all now
be in as poor a condition as our forefathers
were in colonial times.
Secondly, we would never have had the cap-
ital unless men had wanted to get rich, and
had saved up money to expend in making or
buying things with which to render greater
services to their fellow-men than they could
render without them.
106 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
If, from these small beginnings of capital,
we come down to the present time, we shall
see that exactly the same principles are now
at play as were at play when the first line of
stages was set agoing. Our great railway man-
agers were the successors of the early stage-
drivers; but, instead of dealing with a few
hundreds of men, they are dealing with mill-
ions. They could never have built their rail-
way unless the stockholders had saved np
money to invest in the shares or bonds, which
money was necessary to pay the wages of the
men who built the road. Another important
point is, that they did this of their own free
will, and not because any law compelled them.
No law could ever have been passed compel-
ling Mr. Vanderbilt to build and run steam-
boats, or requiring the builders of the great
railways to invest their capital in such enter-
prises.
What, then, is capital? I answer, capital
means the houses we are living in, the farms
and farming implements which produce our
food, the cattle on the plains from which we
get beef, the warehouses which hold our great
stocks of food and clothing, the machinery
which makes us clothing to wear, and the rail-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 107
ways which bring things where we can get
them. Talking about the oppressiveness of
capital is the same thing as talking about the
oppressiveness of food, clothing, machinery,
and locomotives ; that is, it is pure nonsense.
All that capital can possibly do for us is to
supply our wants. It can no more be used to
oppress the masses than a wagon-load of bread
can be used to starve them. It is impossible
for the capitalist himself to get any benefit
from his capital unless he uses it to benefit his
fellow-men.
I now fancy the reader to ask, Do you then
claim that we are in no danger at all from the
powers of great corporations, whose operations
extend over the whole country? Can the
whole population of a city or a state afford to
depend upon a few powerful and compact or-
ganizations for its supply of the necessaries
of life? If the consolidation of capital goes
on for fifty years as it has for the past tw r enty
it is possible that a few great establishments
will do nearly all the manufacturing for the
land. Can we afford to leave them entirely
unrestricted ? To all this I reply :
Firstly, granting that we are going to sub-
ject these corporations to legislative control,
108 A PLAIN MAN S TALK
the very first prerequisite of such action is a
clear perception of the functions of the capi-
talist and of his relation to the rest of the
community, as I have tried to set them forth.
Hence, if you choose, you may consider me a
believer in some such control, and you may
consider that I have uttered tliQse. talks in
order to promote intelligent control. At the
same time I freely admit that I am not wise
enough to plan any system of state regulation
of industry, nor to foresee what form such a
system will take if it is wisely adopted. To
repeat once more what I have already said,
I am no theorist, have worked out no system,
and make no pretension to doing anything
more than apply the common-sense of a com-
mon man to the study of the subject.
Secondly, as things just now look, it seems
to me that the interests of the public, and
therefore of laborers, who make up the greater
part of the public, are in greater danger from
labor organizations than they are from cap-
italists. Whatever may be the faults of the
latter, their influence is essentially conserva-
tive. It will always be directed towards
keeping the mills, machinery, and railroads on
which we all depend in good working order.
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 109
That these appliances should be kept in good
working order is as important to us as that a
ship in which we are crossing the ocean should
be kept properly trimmed.
Thirdly, I think that whatever restrictions
may be placed upon great corporations will
come by judicial decisions, following each
other so slowly, and each looking so small in
itself, that the public will hardly notice them.
I doubt whether we shall get much effective
legislation either from Congress or the states ;
but on this point I am not at all dogmatic. I
am willing to let the future keep its secrets.
PART III.
THE LABOEER AND HIS WAGES
XII.
VISION OF A PURITAN DEACON.
How interesting and instructive it would
be if we could get some Witch of Endor to
raise from the dead the spirit of one of our
ancestors, that we might show him our mod-
ern life and see what view he would take of
it. I am sure if the reader could bring be-
fore him a New England deacon of a hundred
and fifty years ago, to show him our houses,
and hear his comments, he would feel himself
a wiser man. Unfortunately, witches of all
kinds disappeared from the face of the earth
more than a century ago, so that we cannot
call them to our aid. But I find there is an-
other method of getting at the deacon's
thoughts, which we shall have no difficulty in
putting into operation. All who have read
"Paradise Lost," know that the Archangel
Michael once paid a visit to Adam in Para-
dise. By purging Adam's eyes with certain
rare plants, which have remained in existence
114
to this day, the archangel was enabled to
show him events many centuries in advance
of their occurrence. In accordance with this
ancient precedent, I propose to bring Michael
down to the house of Deacon Samuel Gush-
ing, a well-to-do farmer, a God-fearing citizen,
and a pillar of the Church, who resided in
Cambridge, New England, in the year 1727.
The object of the visit is to show the deacon
the interior of a skilled laborer's dwelling, as
we find it in this generation, and to listen to
his remarks as the wonders of modern life are
unfolded to him. So he is taken up into the
world of visions, carried a century and a half
into the future, and wafted into a little house,
such as we now see in all our cities.
The vision of the cosey little parlor strikes
him with wonder. The paper on the walls,
exceeding in richness of coloring everything
he had before seen ; the pictures, the softly
cushioned chairs, the finely painted woods,
the family photographs on the mantel, the
clock ticking in their midst, the gaudy chan-
deliers, the melodeon in the corner, with its
polished case and ivory keys, are all objects
of splendor, such as he had never before
seen. The extravagance of the window cur-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 115
tains, which seem to him of the finest and
costliest lace, might well call down his con-
demnation. Looking into the next room, he
sees a lady dressed like the governor's wife,
wearing an apron of the finest muslin, making
tea with an apparatus wholly new to his eye.
The snow-white sugar, the China cups, the
costly table-cloth, the wonderful white bread,
all excite his curiosity. Yet more incredible
are the objects in the bedroom. Such a pile
of pure white linen apparel, such gaudy bed-
quilts, such finely made shirts, are quite new
to his eye. But before he gets through his
examination a sound is heard in the direction
of the parlor. He returns to it and sees two
beings enter, whom he, at the first glance,
takes for fairies. They are two little children
dressed in a profusion of needle-worked mus-
lin garments of so singular a shape that he
cannot tell whether they are girls or boys.
His first impulse is to condemn such extrava-
gance. " Is it possible," he says, " that the
rich men of our posterity will be allowed to
make such a display of their extravagance ?"
Michael (who has forgotten how to talk
poetry, and knows only plain English prose) :
"Who do you think lives in these rooms?"
116 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
Deacon. " I suppose some governor ; or,
more likely yet, it is some wealthy nobleman,
who will come over here from England to
corrupt our people by his ostentation and ex-
travagance."
Michael. " Not at all, my good fellow. The
man who lives in this house is a bricklayer."
Deacon. " A bricklayer !"
Michael. " Yes ; he is just coming in. See
him."
Surely enough, a bricklayer appears, carry-
ing his kit and dinner-pail, and walks into
the parlor with the air of a man who owns it.
He goes up to the bedroom, washes the mor-
tar off his plebeian hands in a splendid earth-
en basin, puts on one of the fine linen shirts,
and soon goes down again, dressed as finely as
the governor. He takes his seat at the table
and commences his meal. The lady pours
out his tea, into which he puts a profusion of
the priceless white sugar.
Deacon. " A bricklayer at home in such a
little palace, sitting on such finely cushioned
chairs, and eating such food off such a table.
How can it be ? And what quantities of but-
ter he is putting on his bread ! A bricklayer
eating butter with white bread, wearing shoes
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 117
all summer, and putting on fine shirts ! How
can it be? Do tell me what a bricklayer is
doing in such a house, and who is that fine
lady waiting on him ?"
Michael. " That fine lady is his wife, at-
tending to her every-day duties."
Deacon. "Where are her spinning-wheel
and loom ?"
Michael. "They have neither spinning-
wheel nor loom in the house."
Deacon. " And those extravagant little be-
ings ; I thought they were fairies ?"
Michael. " They are his children, two little
girls who have just come in from hearing mu-
sic in the public park."
Deacon. "But how can a bricklayer ever
have such wealth, such a house, such a wife,
and such children ?"
Michael. " There is nothing uncommon
about it. All men sober and industrious
enough to learn a trade will be able to have
such a house, such a wife, and such children
in these coming days."
Deacon. " But how can all this be brought
about ? Why there is a year's work in the
curtains to that man's window, and another
year's work, I should think, in making these
JL18 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
dresses of his wife and children, to say noth-
ing of all the pictures, ornaments, and furni-
ture in his house ; and yet you say they have
no spinning-wheel and no loom. How did
they make such clothes ?"
Michael. " It would be a long story to tell
you in detail ; but I will try to give you
some idea of the process. All the cunningly
wrought things you have seen are hardly
made by hands at all, but by ingenious ma-
chines, one of which will turn out in an hour
more work than a man can do in a year.
These machines will be worked by engines
more powerful than a thousand horses. They
will turn out such quantities of goods that
their owners will hardly know what to do
with them. Then great leaders will rise and
show men how, by working together in thou-
sands, they can build roads and lay rails from
one end of the state to the other, and from
one end of the continent to the other. Then
they will invent engines which will carry a
hundred wagon-loads of the goods you have
seen across whole colonies with the speed of
a race-horse. Thus with the machine mak-
ing the goods and the engines transporting
them to every part of the country, everybody
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 119
will be able to buy them. As an example of
this, look at the bricklayer once more and see
what he is doing."
Deacon. " He is eating grapes ; but such
luscious grapes I never dreamed of. Where
did they come from ?"
Michael. " They came from the coast of
the Pacific Ocean. One of these railroads
will extend all the way across the continent
and bring fresh grapes from the Pacific
Ocean to this bricklayer's home in Massachu-
setts."
Deacon. "How the people will bless these
machines, as they get to work. Even if they
will be, as you say, inanimate objects, I do
not see how they can help crowning them
with garlands of flowers."
Michael. " Nothing of the sort. The in-
troduction of the machines will be cursed at
every step, and great numbers of them will
be destroyed by the indignant multitude."
Deacon. " That is the most incomprehen-
sible thing you have yet said. How can it
be?"
Michael. " When the machines go into
operation they make goods so cheaply that
human hands cannot compete with them, and
120 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
thus laborers will find their work taken away
from them. Thus the nail -makers will op-
pose the introduction of machinery for mak-
ing nails, the cloth-maker will oppose the in-
troduction of machinery for making cloth,
and so on through the whole range of trades
and occupations."
Deacon. u Then how will the machines ever
get introduced at all?"
Michael. "Through the persistence and self-
ishness of the men who make and own them.
They will force their machines into use in
spite of all opposition, and make money by
underselling everybody who has not got the
machinery, and thus the machine itself will
triumph in the long run."
Deacon. "But these great leaders of men,
who show them how to make a railroad from
one end of the continent to the other ; they,
if not the machines, will be crowned with gar-
lands of flowers and received like heroes
wherever they go."
Michael. " There again you are mistaken ;
they will be looked upon as the most selfish
of mortals, and people will taunt them with
their inability to take their railroads with
them when they die."
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 121
Deacon. " Is all gratitude, then, to disap-
pear from the breast of man within one hun-
dred arid fifty years? What possible object
could these men have had in showing how
the railway was to be built, if they got noth-
ing but hard words in return ?"
Michael. "Their motives will be purely
selfish, as men suppose selfishness to be.
They get their roads built in order that they
may have the pleasure of owning them, and
thus of being very rich men."
Deacon. " But how will that give them
pleasure?"
Michael. "I cannot explain it, except by
saying that such will be the propensity of
human nature. Men will go to great labor
in building roads, canals, and machinery of no
more use to themselves than to their millions
of fellow-citizens just from the innate impulse
of their nature. That is all I can tell you
about it."
Deacon. " What happy beings they will all
be. I fear they will no longer believe in tho
fall of man nor in total depravity, and will
indeed be so well satisfied with this world as
never to want another."
Michael. "On the contrary, the year 1887,
122 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
which I am now showing you, will be an era
of such dissatisfaction with their lot on the
part of skilled laborers as the world never be-
fore saw."
Deacon. " Dissatisfaction ! At first sight
I should hardly believe it possible. But I
suppose it must always be true that wealth
alone cannot make a man perfectly satisfied.
After he has got all his wants supplied and is
rolling in luxury he still finds that he needs
something which wealth cannot give. Please
tell me, then, what the laborers will want be-
sides wealth."
Michael. "Dear Deacon, they will be dis-
satisfied because they think they do not get
their fair share of riches. Orators and pub-
lic speakers will tell them that the whole
effect of railroads and machinery has been to
make the rich richer and the poor poorer;
and that laborers have a harder time to get
along than they ever had before."
Deacon. " Then will all intelligence, all
knowledge of the past, disappear from among
men in that nineteenth century?"
Michael. " Not in their own opinion. They
will boast that intelligence, virtue, and truth
never reigned as they will then."
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 133
Deacon. " But you surely do not mean to
say that any one can persuade that bricklayer,
who has just finished such a supper as no
governor of Massachusetts ever ate, that he is
a suffering and abused man."
Michael. " I do say that very thing. More-
over, there is a side of the case which we have
not yet seen. Neither the fine clothes of his
wife and children, nor the delicious food which
he eats, nor the ornaments which decorate his
house, take all his wages to buy. He still has
some surplus income which he puts into the
fund of a great organization of men like him-
self, extending over the whole country, and
called Knights of Labor."
Deacon. " I hope the money is wisely ex-
pended. But what you have said about the
machines and other matters makes me fearful
on the subject."
Michael. "I will let you judge for your-
self. You see that great news-letter which
the man has before him; can you see what he
is reading ?"
Deacon. "No; nothing but the heading.
I see in big letters the words c The Great
Boycott,' but I do not know what that
124 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
Michael. " I will tell you. You have seen
the luscious grapes which the man was eating,
and which I told you came from the Pacific
coast. Well, the way he happened to have
those grapes was that a great number of Chi-
nese sailed all the way over the Pacific Ocean
to California, and went to work for very low
wages in various occupations, among them
that of raising grapes, some of which were
brought over to Massachusetts by the railway.
ISTow these Knights of Labor, to which this
bricklayer belongs, get very angry with these
Chinese because they cultivate the grapes so
cheaply; and last week they all put their
heads together and decreed that no products
of Chinese labor should come from California
to Massachusetts. So the order was issued last
week that not a man should run a train with
California grapes on it ; and the latter are rot-
ting on the road between Massachusetts and
California. "While they are rotting the men
who would have been transporting them are
out of employment, and this man is paying
money to support them while they stand idle
and let the grapes rot.' 3
Deacon. " You are reversing human nature
in a way that is perfectly incomprehensible.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 125
You say this bricklayer is angry with tho
Chinese for raising him such luscious grapes
for almost nothing; and yet while he is pay-
ing money out of one pocket to get them, he
is paying money out of the other pocket to
keep them from coming ? What does it
mean ?"
Michael. " I can only tell you that such will
be the plan on which a large part of the ac-
tivity of labor organizations will be directed
in the future. For example, the only time
that the family of this bricklayer whom we
are now visiting really suffered for the neces-
saries of life was last winter. The suffering
happened in this way : The miners in the in-
terior of Pennsylvania and along the Alle-
ghany Mountains, where most all the coal for
future use is to come from, had a quarrel with
their employers about their wages, and refused
to work. Many thousand members of other
labor organizations, among them this very
bricklayer, paid every shilling they could spare
from their wages to support the miners, and
enable them to hold out against their employ-
ers. The consequence was that coal enough
was not mined to supply the whole popula-
tion, and the price was so high that this brick-
J.26 A PLAIN MAN 8 TALK
layer could not buy enough to keep his chil-
dren warm. Just as he pays money out of
one pocket to buy grapes, and out of the oth-
er pocket to keep them from coining, so he
contributed money out of one pocket to keep
miners from digging coal, and, in consequence,
did not have money enough in the other pock-
et to buy coal with."
,- Deacon. " But, surely, intelligent, God-fear-
ing men will rise to point out to these deluded
Knights the folly of their action and the falla-
cies of their arguments?"
n, Michael. "Perhaps so. But many other
learned men will rise and tell the Knights that
they have studied all history ; that the labor-
, ; ers are very much abused men, and are just
learning a little about their rights ; and will
do all they can to make them discontented
with their lot, and encourage them in all the
foolish devices by which they are working
their own hurt."
Deacon. " If common-sense is to disappear
from mankind in this way, what is to become
of them? Cannot you let me see another
hundred years ahead ?"
But our time is now up, and we are not al-
lowed to listen further to the conversation.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 127
XIII.
THE ACCOUNT CURRENT.
EVEEY man of business must keep an ac-
count of his receipts and expenditures in or-
der to learn whether he is gaining or losing by
the various enterprises, in which he engages.
When, tracing out the effect of any policy, he
finds a greater outgo than income, he knows
that lie is losing ; and in the opposite case he
knows that he is making a profit. This is
what every one of us should do when possi-
ble, in order to learn whether we gain or lose
by our enterprises. Hence I propose that the
laboring classes at large shall keep an account
current of their gains and losses by the labor
movement, because in that way, and in no
other, can they learn how they stand. They
want to gain benefits which will counterbal-
ance all their expenditures, and it is only by
putting down the losses and gains that they
can decide whether they are succeeding.
128
I atn now going to present one side of such
an account current to the best of my ability.
I do not pretend that it is a perfect account,
and therefore I desire the reader to correct it
wherever he finds it wrong. The principal
items of debit have been given in the preced-
ing chapters, though not always stated fully
in amounts. When they are all collected the
account may be made out in the form which
I am now going to give.
I must also disclaim any special knowledge
of the exact amounts which should be charged.
Of course, such evils as we have shown to flow
from certain phases of the labor movement do
not admit of exact measurement in dollars,
and therefore the amount of the damage will
be differently estimated by different men. If
the reader thinks I have either underestimated
or overestimated the money values, he is at
perfect liberty to correct them. All I ask is,
that he will carefully weigh the matter, put
down the items just as he thinks they ought
to stand, and draw his own conclusions.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 129
THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN ACCOUNT WITH THE
LABORING MAN.
Dr.
To amounts contributed to support strikers
upon the Missouri Pacific road, and to stop
the trains on that road from bringing coal,
leather, beef, and many other necessaries of
life to the laboring men in Eastern cities' $50,000
To higher prices which the laborers of St. Louis
had to pay for coal in consequence of the
above stoppage 40,000
Damages suffered by twenty thousand laborers
who could no longer send their children to
school in consequence of the loss of employ-
ment through the strike ; damages assessed at
three dollars for each family thus suffering. . 60,000
To ten millions of laborers having to pay on the
average one cent more for a pair of shoes in
consequence of the same strike 100,000
Assessments to support strike of coal-miners in
Pennsylvania Unknown
Increased price which laborers had to pay for
coal in consequence of said strike, amounting
to twenty cents each for five hundred thou-
sand families 100,000
Contributions to support strikers on the Third
Avenue Railroad in New York city 20,000
Loss of time suffered by twenty thousand labor-
ers who wanted to ride on that road and could
not; assessed at fifty cents each 10,000
Wear and tear of shoe leather suffered by these
same people because they had to walk, at ten
cents each 2000
Privation and suffering undergone by three
thousand employees deprived of employment
by the said strike at $50 each 150,000
Etc.,ttc., etc.
9
130
I see that, in making out this account, I
have undertaken a task which is far beyond
my powers. I cannot possibly enumerate the
thousands of cases in which large bodies of
working people have been ordered away from
their employment, or found their establish-
ments boycotted since the beginning of 1886.
These strikes have every one caused priva-
tion and suffering to scores, hundreds, or thou-
sands of people. They have also caused indi-
rect loss to all laborers in the country through
their having to pay higher prices for the nec-
essaries of life. They have also done injury
to the rising generation of little children of
laborers, whose parents could no longer give
them the necessary quantity of wholesome
food and send them to school to be educated.
They have deprived thousands of poor seam-
stresses of regular employment because those
who employ them fear to do so, owing to the
derangement of business caused by the labor
movement.
'Nor is the end yet reached. Next winter
the distress thus caused will be yet more se-
verely felt; and it may be that the poorer
classes in our cities will suffer from want of
employment, and hence of food and fire as they
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 131
have never before suffered in our time. All
who have carefully studied the preceding talks
will see that it is impossible for business to be
deranged as it has been without every laborer
in the land suffering. And why all this ? Be-
cause a large body of laborers in regular em-
ployment, railway employees, operatives in fac-
tories, drivers and conductors of street cars,
and men engaged in nearly every branch of
industry, with astonishing unwisdom, gave up
their personal liberty, and pledged themselves
to abandon their employment and see their
families suffer whenever their irresponsible
leaders chose to give the order. I can scarce-
ly recall anything in human history so unwiso
as this. We read of men having inflicted
great damage upon their neighbors and upon
their enemies; but I hardly know where we
should look for an instance in which men have
thus made war upon themselves and upon
their own means of living, by joining to-
gether in a movement to stop each other from
manufacturing the necessaries of life and from
earning the wages necessary to the support of
their families. That any movement conceived
in such folly can lead to good is contrary to
reason and sound sense.
132 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
But, before winding up the account, we
should ascertain what is to be put down on
the credit side. I confess I find it difficult to
do this, because I cannot think of anything
belonging on the credit side which it would
not seem almost ridiculous to put down. The
laborers have had several pages of good ad-
vice from Mr. Powderly, which they may es-
timate at one hundred dollars per word. They
have had the pleasure of being patted on the
back by scheming politicians desirous of buy-
ing their votes by pandering to their folly. I
would like to know just at what price they
value this gratification. Certain of their
leaders have had the satisfaction of showing
their power by ordering thousands of men to
quit their employment at a moment's notice,
without reason. That any general good has
been done I am quite unable to conceive.
I fancy I hear a Knight of Labor replying
to this : You mistake the object of our order,
if you suppose it to be the encouragement of
strikes and boycotts. The fact is the con-
trary. One of our great objects is to do away
with the necessity for either strikes or boy-
cotts ; and you should give us credit for what
ever good we may thus attain.
<
'
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 133
I am going to consider the platform and
work of the Knights of Labor in the next two
talks. At present I remind you that the fore-
going current account is made out in the name
of labor organizations in general, and not in
that of the Knights of Labor in particular.
At the same time I have a word to say in re-
ply to the foregoing remark. Not long since
I read an article by a supporter of the labor
movement, in which he complains that people
talked about and condemned this movement,
when they really knew nothing about the ob-
jects of the movement, and had never read the
platform of the Knights of Labor.
j In reply to all this I make a statement whicl
may sound almost paradoxical to wit, that i
is not at all necessary, in discussing this sub
ject, to inquire what the objects of the labor
movement are. So far as I have seen, the ob
jects of all socialistic movements are most ex
cellent, and I freely admit that the same is
true of your objects. But it is not the object3
which we are concerned with, but practica
results. If any movement is productive o1
bad results, we should condemn it, no matter
how pure and philanthropic the motives of its
promoters may be.
134 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
Tour order, and perhaps other labor organi-
zations, want to make radical changes in the
constitution of society. As a matter of fact
your efforts have done and arc doing untold
harm and very little good. The activity and
power of the Knights of Labor have so far
been directed towards the promotion and not
towards the suppression of strikes, and it was
their assemblies which introduced the boycott
into this country. You know that all the dis-
turbances which now threaten the industries
of the country, and which are going to be
productive of such unheard-of distress among
all laboring classes next winter, have been, to
a great extent, engineered and carried through
by assemblies and leaders of the Knights of
Labor. This plain fact is an answer to every
objection that can be made.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 135
XIY.
A TALK TO A KNIGHT OF LABOR
TALKING to a Knight of Labor, I would say :
A great many men are now talking to you, at
you, and about you. These talkers consider
you from two quite distinct points of view.
One class look upon you as little children in
wisdom, whose favor is to be gained, not by
telling you what is true, but by telling you
what they think it is most agreeable to you to
hear. They pat you on the back, tell you
what smart little boys you are, and offer you
candy in order that you may think well of
them and vote for them. They say it is of
no use to reason with you, or do anything but
humor and cajole you. The other class look
upon you as mature men of sense, animated by
motives as high as those which move men in
general, ready to do what is for the greatest
good to the greatest number; but not so thor-
oughly trained in history, technology, finance,
and other branches of knowledge that you have
130 A PLAIN MAN S TALK
all the facts which ought to guide you at your
finger ends. If you have read my preceding
chapters you will see that I belong to this sec-
ond class ; and you will bear me witness that
I never offered you a single stick of candy to
vote for me. I now want to talk to you very
plainly about your platform, your work, and
your objects.
Your platform begins by claiming that
" the alarming development and aggressiveness
of great capitalists and corporations, unless
checked, will inevitably lead to the pauperiza-
tion and hopeless degradation of the toiling
masses, 57 and then adds: "It is imperative, if
we desire to enjoy the full blessings of life,
that a check be placed upon unjust accumula-
lation and the power for evil of aggregated
wealth." You yourselves are supposed to
belong to these " toiling masses " whom pau-
perization and hopeless degradation are star-
ing in the face. Now I submit that to talk of
men who contribute as much time and money
as you do to printing, publishing, holding
meetings, and supporting public speakers,
strikers, and unemployed members, being pau-
perized and degraded, is a contradiction in
terms. It is like a body of sturdy men walk-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 187
ing through the streets and crying aloud :
" We are sick and prisoners, and so weak from
starvation that we can scarcely speak or move."
Men who are really pauperized and degraded
cannot combine as you have done, and cannot
raise the moneys which your order commands.
You will see the contrast in its strongest light
by inquiring how it comes that you are so suc-
cessful in your efforts.
Two or three hundred years ago the forma-
tion of any such organization as yours would
have been utterly out of the question ; and
that for two reasons. In the first place, the
laws did not recognize the equal right of men
of all classes to combine together for promoting
their objects. Had it then been attempted to
form an order of the Knights of Labor for the
purpose of doing what you have done in this
country, the leaders would have been brought
into court and punished by fine or imprison-
ment. It is because our ideas of human rights
and human liberties have advanced, and have
found expression in our laws and political
institutions, that you are now allowed to be-
come Knights of Labor at all.
In the next place, the formation of such an
order in former times was impossible because
138 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
laboring men could not possibly spare the
time, money, or thought to engage in such
business. In order to make a bare living they
had to work from twelve to sixteen hours a
day. Not only grown people had to work, but
as soon as a child acquired the muscular ability
to perform any regular labor it had to help
earn a living, instead of going to school as your
children do. The result of this was that peo-
ple had neither the time nor the ability to edu-
cate themselves into our modern ideas. After
working twelve or sixteen hours children were
too tired to learn, and grown people were too
tired to think. Every hour which a laborer
gave to the formation or management of a
great organization would have been so much
out of his means of living.
This is no longer the case. Evidently when
laborers can make a living with from eight to
twelve hours' work, can spare the time, the
money, and the thought to engage in organiz-
ing, and can let their children go to the public
schools, there has been a very great change in
their condition. Now let me ask you why
this change. I want you to ask it yourself
and to ask all your fellow-knights, and not to
be satisfied until you get an answer which is
perfectly satisfactory to you.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 139
I will tell you my answer. It has all been
done by capital, capitalists, and corporations.
You are now able to make a living with such
comparative ease through the introduction
of machinery, and the building of railroads
to make and bring within reach of you the
necessaries of life. In modern society capital
means railroads, steamboats, and machinery.
And capitalists mean the men who know how
to build railroads and steamboats and run ma-
chinery, and who are willing to apply their
wealth-producing powers to such enterprises.
To say that such men and such things lead to
your pauperization is like saying that the
bread you eat leads to starvation, and that the
house you are in is the cause of your exposure
to the weather. It is as near to a contradic-
tion in terms as anything well can be.
You probably know that the great question
which has divided men during the last two
hundred years is whether you, the laboring
masses, can safely be trusted to guide your
own destinies. The old conservative party
thinks you cannot. It says that the manage-
ment of public affairs requires the highest
wisdom, and as you do not possess this wis-
dom you should not be allowed to exercise
140 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK.
power. The other side claims that though
great wisdom is required in public affairs, it
is not necessary to the exercise of power, be-
cause men who are not wise themselves may
choose wiser men to act for them.
It seems to me that the present is the
most critical time the world has ever seen
for these two theories to be tried. There is
nothing in history to correspond to the im-
provement in the laboring man's condition ; I
mean the condition of that class of laborers
who join the Knights, during the last twenty
years. For the first time in the history of tho
world millions of toiling laborers have been
able to collect hundreds of thousands I sup-
pose, indeed, millions of dollars, for the pur-
pose of giving effect to their views of society
and government. Thus the conservative and
progressive parties have before them the very
men whom they have been disputing about,
just getting ready to act, and the whole ques-
tion is whether they will use their newly ac-
quired power wisely or foolishly. I have no
hesitation in saying that if you use it as indi-
cated in your platform, and as it has already
been used, you will USQ it foolishly and in a
way that will ultimately lead to its loss and to
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 141
your own degradation. Let us see if this is
not true.
In the first place, if you read the preced-
ing chapters carefully, and study out the con-
ditions on which your welfare depends, you
will see as plain as day that you have been en-
gaged in attacking the very instrumentalities
which have given you the power you now
wield. It is capital, as embodied in railways
arid machinery, which has given you all these
benefits, with the power they bring, and capi-
tal is one of the main objects which you at-
tack. Perhaps you may say that it is not the
capital itself, but the owners of it, which you
attack. But if you will read carefully what
I have said you will see that the owners are
nothing more than the managers of the capital,
and that, if you do not allow them the privilege
of managing the capital they have acquired,
the capital itself will disappear with them.
But this is not the only foolish thing you
are doing. You are rejecting something which
more than anything else makes life worth liv-
ing, and which has cost your forefathers more
toil and bloodshed than anything else in the
world namely, individual liberty. The other
day a mechanic was asked why he engaged in
142 A PLAIN MAN 6 TALK
the strike when he was perfectly satisfied with
his employer and when the strike would proba-
bly subject his wife and children to distress.
He replied that he was ordered to do so, and
must obey at whatever cost. If asked to justify
his course, he would probably have said that
he had voluntarily given up his own individual
rights for what he supposed to be the benefit
of his class.
Now what I wish to impress upon you is
this that the position of a man who thus gives
up his individual liberty is worse than the
position of the meanest subject of the greatest
tyrant of modern times. When a man receives
the order, " Do not go to work to-day," it is
the same to him whether it comes from a czar,
a satrap, or a master workman. Our laws do
not even recognize the right of a man to sell
himself in slavery, and, except as a matter of
sentiment and feeling, this giving up of lib-
erty is not a whit better than an involuntary
slavery.
You not only surrender your own natural
rights, but you encroach upon the rights of such
of your fellow-laborers a will not or cannot
join your ranks in the most cruel manner. If
there is any one natural right of humanity
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. M3
which the most heartless tyrant never dared
to deny it is that of every man to make an
honest living in his own way, by any reputable
pursuit he chooses to follow. But one great
object of labor organization is to prevent any
skilled laborer from making a living unless he
will join a labor union. The man may not be
able to earn union wages ; he may have such
a sense of his rights that he will not become
the subject of a tyranny ; he may not be will-
ing to contribute money for the support of
strikers; he may have a family of helpless
children dependent on him for support. In
every case your members are required to re-
fuse to work with him, and to do all in their
power not only to secure his pauperization and
degradation, but the starvation of himself and
his race. Never was a tyrant, never was a
public enemy, seldom, was an invading army,
engaged in greater cruelty than this.
144 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
XV.
ANOTHER TALK TO A KNIGHT OF LABOR.
I ESTEEM it the duty of a good citizen to
promote every movement that is good, and to
oppose every movement that is bad in its ef-
fects. Most great movements like that which
you are now inaugurating have a good object,
but, as I have already said, it does not follow
that, because the object is good, therefore the
effect will be good. The efforts of large bodies
of men like yours are very apt to be productive
of effects the very opposite of those which it
is desired to attain. It is also the case that
men do not always act in accordance with their
avowed principles. I therefore ask leave once
more to call your attention to some utterances
in your platform. I find the first object at
which you aim to be expressed in the follow-
ing words :
I. "To make industrial and moral worth,
not wealth, the true standard of individual and
national greatness.' 7
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 143
I think this looks in the right direction.
True, it implies that wealth is something en-
tirely disconnected from either industrial or
moral worth, and if you have carefully read
the preceding chapters you will see that this
is a mistake. But I do not now insist upon
this point. The great question I have now to
put to you is this : What does your order of
Knights of Labor do to promote industrial
worth ? To answer this question we must in-
quire what industrial worth is and how it is to
be measured.
It is very clear to me that industrial worth
is to be measured by the amount of good
which a man does by his labor, bodily or men-
tal. For example : The industrial worth of a
bricklayer is to be estimated by the number
and quality of the buildings, the walls of which
he erects. The industrial worth of the miner
is measured by the quantity of coal which he
gets out of the ground. The industrial worth
of the engine-driver is determined by the ef-
fectiveness with which he performs his duty,
and the certainty and safety w r ith which he
brings his train into the station at the ap-
pointed time. In a word, the industrial worth
of every man is measured by the products of
10
146 A PLAIN MAN T 8 TALK
his labor, and the more useful these products
the greater is his worth.
If, then, you really held industrial worth to
be one of the great standards of individual and
national greatness, and if you acted consist-
ently with this view, you would do all you
could to increase this worth by increasing the
products of every man's labor. You would
discourage the eight-hour movement, because
it is perfectly clear that the industrial worth
of a man who only works eight hours is less
than that of a man who works ten hours. You
would oppose all the regulations of labor unions
which require their members to refuse to work
with men who do not belong to the union.
You would oppose strikes, because a man on
strike has no industrial worth at all. You
would encourage the boys now growing up in
idleness to learn trades. You would do a great
many other good things to promote industrial
worth in the community at large.
If you were seriously attempting to carry
out these objects I should so far heartily sym-
pathize with you. But are you really doing so ?
I think not. At least I never heard of any
assembly of Knights of Labor opposing any of
the restrictive rules of the trades-unions or
ON THE LABOB QUESTION. 147
trying in any way to increase the industrial
worth of its members.
Now, when any person wants the public to
adopt his principles, the very first step is to
show that he believes in them himself. Hence
you cannot expect to take any step towards
making industrial worth a standard of great-
ness so long as your acts show that you your-
selves place so low an estimate upon your own
industrial worth.
I am very sorry for this. I think every man
ought to be proud of his work. He benefits
his fellow-men by his work, and he ought to
be proud of rendering that benefit. I may be
mistaken, and if I am I shall want to be cor-
rected, but I fear that very few skilled laborers
at the present time are proud of their work.
This ought not to be. It seems to me that
every man who does good work should take
the same delight in it that authors take in
writing books, and merchants in directing com-
merce. I remember that when a boy of four-
teen I made a clock-reel, an instrument to
wind yarn upon, which snapped a spring once
in forty turns to show that a knot had been
wound. I do not think I have ever done any-
thing since of which I was prouder than of
148 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
having made that clock-reel. I mention this
merely to show that an ordinary boy, if not a
man, can be proud of doing a very simple job.
\ If I am right in thinking that you do not
take pride in your work, then there is certainly
something wrong. But I do not by any means
wish to imply that the fault is all, or principally,
on your side. The real fault is to be found in
the theories which run through society. You
have so long and often been told by word and
action that you are condemned to a hard fate ;
that other men reap the fruits of your labor ;
and that labor itself is a mark of degradation,
that although you would rather not believe
these things, you cannot help accepting them
as in some sort a necessary result of the pre-
vailing opinion of labor. Hence the first
plank in your platform, which I have just
quoted, is not a theory which you believe and
r act upon, so much as it is a theory which you
would like to have believed and acted upon, if
society only took the same view of the case.
I also fear that labor organizations have had
a bad effect in making the workman under-
estimate the value of his labor, and look upon
it as pure drudgery. How could it be other-
wise when all the rules and regulations of
ON THE X.ABOK QUESTION. 149
such organizations imply that the greater the
quantity of work done by its members or by
others, the worse it is for them ? Now, no
man can be proud of that which it is unde-
sirable to do. Hence the first step towards
the better state of things called for in your
platform is to get rid of the theory that real
industrial worth is something to be discour-
aged, and to adopt the theory that it is some-
thing to be promoted.
The second object at which you aim is also
so good that I shall here quote it in full :
II. " To secure to the workers the full en-
joyment of the wealth they create ; sufficient
leisure in which to develop their moral and
social faculties ; all of the benefits of recrea-
tion and pleasure of association ; in a word, to
enable them to share in the gains and honors
of advancing civilization."
I say this is an excellent object. The way
to attain it is to increase the industrial worth
of the laborer by training every boy who has
the skill to learn a trade into a good workman,
so that there shall be plenty of everything for
everybody's use.
There are many other good things in your
platform. But there are at least two things
150 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
which are so bad as to more than offset any
good which could be possibly done by an or-
ganization like yours.
One of your demands is for an issue of gov-
ernment paper money. Now, if there is any
one instrumentality invented by Satan to cheat
the laborer out of his earnings, it is what is
called "fiat money." It cheats him because
it continually pretends to pay more than it
really does pay. He agrees to work for " dol-
lars," and when he gets his dollars they are
not real money at all, only little paper pict-
ures stamped " one dollar " by Congress.
You may ask, If one of them will buy me
as much as a gold dollar, why is it not just as
good as a gold dollar ? I answer it would be
as good if it were redeemable in a gold dollar ;
but the supporters of fiat money do not want
it so redeemed. Now all history and rea-
son show that unless an issue of this kind of
money is greatly restricted, more restricted,
indeed, than a believer in it would admit of,
it is sure to depreciate, and no longer to buy
a dollar's worth. The more it depreciates the
more anxious people are to get it, and the
more anxious they are to get rid of it when
they get it, and the result of this is a contin-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 151
ual increase in the price of everything we eat,
drink, and wear. It is hard to imagine what
labor organizations could have proposed worse
for themselves than this. It is like petition-
ing Congress to allow them to be cheated out
of their wages.
Yet another plank which shows as little
practical wisdom is that which demands the
purchase of all telegraphs and railroads by
the government. If you had stopped at tele-
graphs it would not have been so bad, be-
cause the management of a telegraph system
is not so complex a matter as that of a rail-
road system, and, besides, private corporations
have not managed our telegraphs so well as
they have the railroads. But to ask that the
government shall take possession of the rail-
roads and run them shows a woful lack of
practical knowledge. Such a demand could
never have been proposed by any one having
an intimate knowledge of the way in which
government business is managed. It is most
fortunate for the laboring man that there is
so little chance for carrying out this plank of
your platform.
152 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
XYI.
HOW CAN ALL GET BETTER WAGES?
ALL of us want to earn higher wages and
are trying to do so. It is a good thing for all
of us that we should try to do so, because, if
we go about it in the right way, we shall ben-
efit other people as well as ourselves by earn-
ing higher wages. ^ The right way to get bet-
Iter wages is to render more and better ser-
vices to our fellow-men, and thus induce them
to pay us more for our services.
But what are the real wages we are trying
to earn ? The common answer will be ; wages
are so many dollars and cents per day or week.
This answer is perfectly correct, so far as the
receipts of money are concerned. We are all
working to get dollars. But having got the
dollars, are our wants then supplied ? By no
means. We cannot eat the dollars nor sleep
upon them, nor hold them over our heads to
protect us from the sun and rain, nor put them
to any useful purpose whatever. Then why
ON THE LABOE QUESTION. 153
do \ve care for them at all ? Because with
them we buy the things we want food, cloth-
ing, and shelter. The real wages which we
earn in the course of the year are, not dollars,
but so many suits of clothes, the privilege of
living in a certain house, and so many barrels
of flour, meal, and pork. These, and these
alone, are the real wages ; the dollars are the
mere symbols which we use to get our real
wages.
You will reply to this : " Yery true, but
the more dollars I earn the more and better
food and clothing I can buy for myself and
my family."
Here I join issue with you. It does not
follow that you can get more of the necessa-
ries of life whenever you earn more money in
the course of the year. If prices rise in the
same proportion with your wages then you
gain nothing. The man who gets double
wages and has to pay double prices for every-
thing he gets is no better off than before.
The real problem of getting higher wages is
either to earn more money without making
prices any higher, or to adopt such a policy
that the prices of the necessaries of life shall
be lower, without people in general earning
154 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
any less wages. Either of these results will
amount to an increase of wages.
But you may think that it is quite excep-
tional if more wages do not buy more food.
To see how far this is true, let us climb up to
our old standpoint and look once more at the
interests of the country at large.
The organization of the Knights of Labor
has one very wise and liberal feature, in that
it recognizes all men who work for their liv-
ing as being laborers, and therefore makes
them eligible to its ranks. If I am rightly
informed, gentlemen of leisure, capitalists,
great managers and employers of labor, and
liquor dealers, are the only classes who are
deemed ineligible. These form a very small
fraction of the adult population. I call atten-
tion to this fact because it enables lis to agree
that the laborers, whose interests I have all
along been considering in these talks, form,
with their families and dependants, nearly the
whole of the population.
A very little consideration will show us
that they do the larger part of the eating
and wearing out of clothes, and occupy most
of the houses. The richest man in the coun-
try eats little more beef or. flour than the
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 155
day laborer, and he probably eats less corn-
meal and pork. He does not wear out much
more clothing. For, although he spends more
money in clothes, he does not wear them
until they are used up, but soon passes them
over to some poorer man, to be worn out by
him. He does, indeed, live in a much bigger
house than the poor man, and lias much more
costly furniture, and a greater variety of pict-
ures and books. It is only in this way that
he consumes much more of the good things
of life than the poor man does.
Now a very little thought will show you
that it is physically and mathematically im-
possible that higher wages should enable the
great masses of people of the country to get
more or better food or clothes, unless more or,
better food and clothes are made. Doubling 1
the wages of farm hands will not increase the
crop. Increasing the wages of operators will
not add anything to the horse-power of the
engine, and so on through the list. What,
then, would be the consequence if everybody
could, from and after January 1, next, have
his weekly wages exactly doubled ? The re-
sult would be that everything he wanted to
buy would be just twice as dear as before. It
156 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
would have to be so, because it is mathemati-
cally and physically impossible that everybody
should be able to buy more things than he did
before. He cannot buy more than are made,
and no more are made than before. True, the
rise of prices might not occur immediately.
There might be a few days, weeks, or months,
during which everybody could buy more flour,
beef, and clothing with the increased wages.
But, in so doing, we would be merely drawing
upon the stock in hand of these articles which
is stored away in the great warehouses, and
the result would be a future scarcity, which
again would more than double the prices.
You reply to this : " But we do not want a
policy which doubles everybody's wages. We
do not w r ant the rich man, the capitalist, the
great managers, to have any larger incomes
than before. Now, suppose we could adopt a
policy which would leave their incomes un-
touched, and only increase those of the labor-
ing masses ; what then ?"
The answer to this I have already given in
Chapter IV. I there pointed out that no rise
in price diminishes the consumption of the
necessaries of life by the rich. The latter
consume just as much flour, beef, arid clothes
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 157
when the prices go up as they did before.
Therefore it would still be mathematically im-
possible for the poorer classes to buy any more
of these necessaries than they did before, no
matter how much you increased their wages.
Do I mean, then, to say that if the carpen-
ters all got double wages they could not buy
more than before ? Not at all. If carpenters
had their wages increased, while all other la-
boring men got the same wages, it is quite
true that the carpenters would be able to buy
and consume nearly twice as much of the
necessaries of life. But what would be the
consequence ? With no increase of produc-
tion there would be just so much less of tho
necessaries of life for all other laborers, and
thus all the other laborers would suffer more
or less by the carpenters earning higher wages.
Prices would be higher, while the wages would
be the same as before. .
In what precedes I have talked as if it were
a very simple and easy matter to get an increase
of money wages. This is a wrong notion, be-
cause the amount of money which any person
or corporation can pay in wages is limited by
its or his means of payment. If a factory can
produce and sell fifty thousand dollars' worth
158
of cloth in a year, then $50,000 is the sum total
which it could possibly pay out to employees
of all kinds in the course of any year. It
can, perhaps, pay one half this sum to its own
operatives. A portion of the other half will
be paid for material, such as wool or cotton,
and the owners of this material can pay just
that much and no more in wages for produc-
ing more cotton and cloth. Another portion
will be paid to its stockholders and managers,
and these men will then have just so much to
pay directly or indirectly in wages to those
who supply them with the necessaries of life.
Suppose, then, that the factory is compelled
to pay higher wages. Then it must either
lessen its force or it must charge a higher
price for its products. In the latter case it
will be bad for everybody who has to buy cloth,
especially for laborers. In fact, the chances
are that fewer people will buy the cloth, and
thus the result will be, in the end, a diminu-
tion of production. What is true of this fac-
tory is true all the way through society. All
other conditions being the same, one class
cannot get an increase in money wages except
at the expense of other classes. Please re-
member that I say, "all other conditions
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 159
being equal." If with an increase of wages
the laborer makes a better article than before,
or a kind of article that serves a better pur-
pose, then his increase of wages will not be at
anybody's expense. But if everything he does
is to go on just in the same way as before, the
only result will be that everybody who has to
buy the things he makes will have to pay
more for them.
The inevitable conclusion is that, taking the
laboring classes at large, and considering their
general condition, that condition cannot be im-
proved by mere increase of wages, unless larger
and better houses are built for them to live
in, better food obtained for them to eat, nicer
clothes made for them to wear, better beds
made for them to sleep on,* The country at
large must make so many hair mattresses and
soft blankets that there shall be enough to go
all round, supplying the poor as well as the rich.
We must build plenty of houses, so that every-
body shall have plenty of house-room. This
requires that we shall make more bricks, get
more timber, and employ more men in learn-
ing how to build houses. Inventors must de-
vise improved machinery for making furniture,
so that our factories shall turn it out in such
160 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
quantities that there shall be cushioned chairs
for everybody to sit upon, and handsome china
plates for everybody to eat off of.
Conversely, if all these improvements are
made in production we are sure to get the
advantage of them, no matter whether our
wages are increased or not. The good things
will all go begging rather than remain year
after year unsold, and will be sure to find pur-
chasers.
If the Knights of Labor will turn the great
power of their organization towards the stir-
ring-up of everybody to carry out these objects,
by inducing young boys to learn all sorts of
trades, instead of idling about the streets, by
encouraging rich men to invest their money
in machinery, and by insuring everybody who
shall take part in the enterprise the secure en-
joyment of all his rights, then they will render
a benefit to themselves and their fellow-labor-
ers of the country and of the world.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 161
XVII.
CHEAP LABOR AND ITS EFFECTS.
IF the reader has carefully studied the pre-
ceding chapters he will see that there must be
something wrong in the theories on which
labor organizations are generally based. At
the same time it may seem to him that every
effort which the labor movement is engaged
in is a perfectly natural result of sound rea-
soning. Such being the case, the thinking
man who desires to have none but correct theo-
ries will not be satisfied with the mere sus-
picion that the labor theories are wrong. He
may say to me : " What you have said seems
quite plausible. At the same time the course
of thought by which I havq been led to favor
the labor movement seems to me still more
plausible ; at least I do not see anything wrong
in it. I feel, therefore, a certain amount of con-
fusion and doubt on the subject, because two
ways of looking at the subject, both of w r hiclx
seem sound, lead to contradictory results."
11
163 A PLAIN MAN S TALK
I now have to clear up this difficulty by
showing what is wrong in the popular theories
on which the labor movement is based. To
the common mind some of these theories look
so plain and simple that they cannot be
doubted, while all seem to have much in their
favor; yet I hope to show you that they are
jentirely unsound. I shall try to put these
'principles in the clearest light, so that every
promoter of the labor movement will recognize
them as being the embodiment of his own
ideas, and as being what he would himself say
if called upon to defend his position. I state
them as follows :
Firstly, when one man competes with an-
other by underselling him in the market or
working for lower wages than the latter gets,
you hold that he does him an injury by lessen-
ing the demand for his goods or his labor.
For example, bricklayers in a certain town are
getting $4 per day. A half-dozen bricklayers
come from some other city and offer to work
for $2 per day. You think that they injure
the home bricklayers who have been getting
the higher wages, by depressing their wages
either to $2 a day or to some intermediate
point, say $3 or $3.50.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 163
Secondly, carrying out this principle, you
claim that unlimited competition is an evil, in
that men who compete with each other to fur-
nish labor or goods at the lowest price that
they are able to, injure each other, and hence
injure society at large. Hence you want to. \
limit competition.
Thirdly, if called upon to defend these prin-
ciples you would probably say that the man
who worked more cheaply than another took
work from that other man.
I might ask you, why so ? If one man is
drinking water out of a river and two or three
other men come and drink water from the
same river, they do not take water from the
first man, because there is enough for all of
them and a thousand times more.
You would probably reply to this, that al-
though there is water enough in the river for
everybody and a thousand times over, there is
not work enough in the country, even for the
people already in it, and, therefore, to get a
parallel I ought to take a case where there is
not water enough to go around. Then, of course,
the three new men would take water from the
first. You would claim in the same way that
competing laborers took work from each other.
164 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK.
Now I wish to point out to you that these
principles are, to a great extent, fallacious.
When I say that they are fallacious I do not
mean that they are all the reverse of truth, as
if they had claimed that black was white and
white was black. What I mean is that they
are true only to a limited extent, and on one
side, as it were, and that it is not this true side
of them which is put into practice.
To begin with the third principle. I think
you can see without doubt that you are wrong
in thinking that the work to be done is lim-
ited. Millions of farmers in the Western
states and territories are calling loudly for
railways to be extended to their neighborhood
in order that they may send their products to
market and get back the manufactures which
they are in need of. Thirty millions of people
within these United States want their houses
improved. They would like to have better
, walls, and roofs that would never leak, and
new stoves or furnaces to warm them in win-
ter. That same number of people want newer
and whiter table-cloths, warmer and nicer cloth-
ing, better beds, the means of sending their
children to school in winter, books and papers
for them to read) and, indeed, an unlimited
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 165
supply of good things of all kinds. You know
perfectly well that all these things require
labor to produce them, and that the reason
that everybody is in want of them is that all
the labor of the country is not sufficient to
supply them, unless people do more work than
they are accustomed to.
If you will follow up this train of thought
by spending some five minutes in thinking of
everything you would like to have, and five
minutes more in thinking of everything your
neighbor would like to have, and then calcu-
late how much labor it would take to supply
all these wants, you will see that the amount
of work to be done is really unlimited.
Why is there any obstacle to this work be-
ing done ? Why has not everybody got all
the work he \vants ? The answer is : People
have not money enough to pay for it. Ah !
Here is the rub. There is work enough to ~be
done, ~but people have not the money to pay for
it. If you are a carpenter and earn $3 a day
for 250 days in the year you have just $750
to buy the products of other people's labor
with, and this makes up all the wages you
can pay to others. Thus we reach the first
great modification which your principle re-
106 A PLAIN MAN 8 TALK
quires : It is not the work to be done which
is limited, but it is the wages which people
can afford to pay for that work. And here
you must not forget what I pointed out in a
preceding chapter, that the real wages are not
the money, but what the laborer buys with
the money.
Let us now go back to our first example.
A hundred bricklayers are at work in a town
at $4 a da} r . Ten new ones come in and of-
fer to lay bricks at $2 a day. "Will not the
wages of the hundred bricklayers then be de-
pressed ? Are people going to pay $4: a day
for work when they can get it done for $2 a
day ? Before we can fully answer this ques-
tion we must look carefully into the condi-
tions. Perhaps the ten new bricklayers can
only do the work of five old ones. In this
case they will not really be any cheaper than
the old ones, and will not injuriously compete
with them. If they really do a full day's work
they would be fools to work for $2 per day
when they could get almost $4. But, to get
the strongest possible case for your principle,
suppose they are just such fools, or, if you
choose, such philanthropists, that they don't
want more than $2 per day. Then many peo-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 167
pie will be anxious to get their services. To
make the case as strong as possible, suppose
some of the master builders who have been
paying the highest wages discharge ten of their
men and take the new men in their places.
What will be the result?
To answer this question we must remember
that before the ten cheap men came there
were in the town so many people in want of
houses being built that they were willing to
give $4 per day to a hundred bricklayers.
That is, they would rather pay these high
wages than not have their work done. No
doubt they would all like to have their work
done at half price, but they cannot possibly
get it so done, because there are only ten cheap
men, whereas a hundred are wanted to do the
work. The latter is worth just as much as it
was before the cheap men came, so that the
ninety bricklayers who were not discharged
may still command $4 per day.
But what will the ten men who are dis-
charged do ? I answer, when there are a num-
ber of men willing to give $4 per day for
bricklayers there are always a number of others
who think they cannot afford to have their
bricklaying done at that price, but who would
168
be willing to pay some lower price, say $3.75.
The ten discharged men will have no trouble
in getting work at these wages.
Thus it is perfectly true that the wages of
the bricklayers are, on the average, slightly
depressed by the introduction of the ten new
men. We may suppose that in the long run
the other ninety will have to submit to the
same reduction, and get only $3.75 instead of
$4. Up to this point you are quite right in
saying that the competition of new and cheap
men will depress the wages of others to a cer-
tain extent. You are wrong in supposing it
would depress them to any wages the new men
choose to work for. If the latter demanded
the highest wages they could get, then all
would be employed at $3.75 per day.
If this were the end of the matter then your
principle would be sounder than it is, but it is
not the end of the matter. I think, however,
this is about as far as we can go without stop-
ping to rest, so let us take a breathing-spell
before showing what the end of the matter is.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 169
XVIII.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
IN order to continue the examination which
we started in the last chapter, it is necessary
to explain a somewhat intricate principle on
which the whole result turns.
Let us suppose that there are ten men, James,
John, William, Peter, etc., who are working in
co-operation with each other, and are trying to
promote each other's interests as well as their
own, so as to do, on the whole, what is best for
all ten of them.
A party comes to them and proposes that
they shall engage with him in some enterprise,
no matter what, in which each man shall take
a different part. On calculating the profit
and loss to be expected, they find that Peter
will lose three cents while the nine others will
gain one cent each. Peter does not want to
lose three cents, and they do not want him to
lose it, so they all say, " It is too bad if we, to
make one cent each, cause Peter to lose three
170 A PLAIN MAN 8 TALK
cents. Therefore we will reject this man's
proposal."
Next day another man comes and offers em-
ployment under which John would lose three
cents while all the rest would gain one cent
each as before. They reject this proposal for
the same reason. So they go on from day to
day rejecting all proposals by which any one
of their number shall lose.
Then an offer is made them by which Peter
would gain three cents while the other nine
would lose but one cent each. "It will be
very nice for Peter to gain three cents," they
all say, "and what do we care for one cent.
Let us accept this proposal for Peter's sake.
By to-morrow we shall have an offer by which
William shall gain three cents, and next day
one by which John shall gain three cents, and
so on. We will accept all these offers, and
thus we shall all get the advantages of the
three cents while nobody will lose more than
one cent at a time."
]STow it needs no high mathematics to see
that these ten men have been rejecting the
offers which, on the whole, would have been
advantageous to them, considered as a single
body, and accepting disadvantageous offers.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 171
They have suffered nine cents to be lost for
every three they have gained because, on each
occasion, they had in view the interest of the
one gainer and overlooked that of the nine
losers. Thus they rejected chances of gaining
a sum total of six cents and accept chances
which led to a loss of six cents.
This is what men are always doing, and al-
ways proposing to do in their action upon
economic questions. We may take the pre-
ceding ten men to represent so many classes
of the leading laborers ; say railroad employees,
bricklayers, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers,
farmers, factory hands, furniture-makers, etc.
Whenever any measure is proposed by which
some one of these trades may lose a little, they
get the others to oppose it, no matter whether
the others gain or not. When some one trade
has a chance to gain it gets the others to ac-
cept, no matter if they are all to lose. As a
familiar example, take the case of the strike.
When the street-car drivers all struck the la-
borers of other trades contributed money to
support them, and still others suffered for want
of cars to ride in. The sum total of the loss,
even to the laboring classes alone, was in all
cases greater than the sum total of the gain.
172 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
Nothing can happen in the commercial
, world which will not be more or less to the
disadvantage of somebody. If there is a good
crop of wheat, the men who are holding wheat
to sell are losers for the time being. When
machinery is introduced to do the work of la-
borers, the laborers whose work they take are
losers for the time being. If a man stops buy-
ing luxuries in order to save money to buy a
house, the people who have been making him
those luxuries are for the time being at a dis-
advantage. If cheap labor from another state
is introduced, the laborers whose places are
taken are at a temporary disadvantage. If we
should attempt to stop all such disadvantages
we should have to stop all improvements in
production, and, in fact, perhaps, have to lapse
back into barbarism.
A very simple common-sense rule will tell
us whether a policy thus temporarily disad-
vantageous should or should not be persisted
in. What we have to do is not merely to con-
I sider the persons who are for the time at a
'disadvantage, but the sum total of interests of
\ the whole community, future as well as present.!
If a policy which leads to a diminution of
twenty-five cents per day in the wages of
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 173
bricklayers during a whole season will result,
in a permanent advantage to all the rest of the
community, not only during the season, but in
the future, it would be folly to reject it. Oni
Jthis principle let us count up the advantages
and disadvantages of the state of things de-
scribed in our last chapter.
We there supposed ten cheap-working brick-
layers to come into a city where one hundred
men had been previously employed at that
trade at $1 per day. We showed that the first
effect of this would be that which everybody
plainly sees, that wages would be depressed by
the competition. If the one hundred brick-
layers were determined not to work for less
than $4 per day, ten of them would have to
be thrown out of employment for the time
being. They would either have to wait for
work, or go to some other place where they
might command better wages. If, however,
they were willing to submit to a reduction of
wages from $4 to perhaps $3.T5, then all would
find employment.
Now I do not wish you for one moment to
ignore the plain fact that so far as these one
hundred bricklayers are. for the time being,
concerned, this reduction of wages is an evil
174 A PLAIN MAN 7 S TALK
for them. But I do wish you to see, what
everybody ignores, that this loss is made tip
by a more than equal gain for the rest of the
community ; just as Peter's loss of three cents
was offset by a gain of one cent each to his
nine fellows, so all other laborers will very soon
gain exactly what the bricklayers have lost,
and, later, a great deal more. To see this, all
we have to do is to study out the effect of the
changes.
To make this effect clear, suppose all the
bricklayers are employed by a single man.
Then, after wages are lowered twenty -five
cents per day, that man will be making $25
per day extra profit. If he spends no more
money than he would have spent had he gone
on paying the highest wages, then, at the end
of one hundred days, he will have $2500 extra
in his bank. What will he do with this money ?
Throw it into the river? I trow not. Put it
away in a stocking? Not if he has common-
sense enough to manage a business. It is
morally certain that he will either buy some-
thing with it or hire somebody to work with
it. He may start a new house ; and then he
will want an additional force of bricklayers,
tinners, plumbers, glaziers, hod -carriers, and
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 175
teamsters. He will thus create an additional
demand for the services of these men, and they
would then get in extra wages the whole $2500,
if he spent the \vhole of it in this way. Per-
haps, however, he will spend $300 of it in buy-
ing his wife a piano, which he would not have
bought otherwise. Then the music dealer
will have $300 which he would not have had
if w r ages had kept up. The music dealer will
spend $50 of this sum, perhaps, in buying a
new horse > which he could not have bought if
he had not sold the piano, and he will send the
remainder to the piano manufacturer in pay-
ment for pianos furnished, and the manufac-
turer wUl then have so much more to pay in
wages to his workmen. Now, make what sup-
position you please respecting the manner in
which the man spends his money, and you
\vill find that every cent which the bricklayers
lose in wages goes to the employment of just
that much labor in other kinds of work, so that
laborers as a class do not lose at all.\
You may reply to this : " Let us admit that
they do not lose, still they do not gain : hence
this lowering of wages is not desirable, because
it is only giving to one set of laborers what
properly belongs to another."
176 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
This objection would be quite well founded
if we were dealing only with the lowering of
wages of bricklayers, regardless of the causes
by which the depression was produced. But
let us now go back to the beginning and con-
sider the causes which we have supposed to
lead to the depression, namely, the influx of
ten cheap- working bricklayers. In conse-
quence of the arrival of these men there are
one hundred and ten bricklayers engaged in
building houses instead of one hundred. Tho
result is that ten per cent, more houses are
built, and that the whole community will get
their houses cheaper than they otherwise would,
?or will get better houses at the old prices. In
either case there is a clear, permanent gain for
the whole community, laborers included. Ev-
ery laborer has a better house than he would
have had if the cheap men had not come.
Now if we reject this clear surplus of gains
over losses by driving away or keeping out
these cheap bricklayers, we will do exactly
what we supposed the ten men to do when
they rejected a chance to gain a cent each be-
cause some wie of their number would lose
three cents. I do not for a moment deny that,
so far as the bricklayers themselves are con-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 177
cerned, the loss would exceed the gain. The
cheapening of their rents would not compen-
sate them for the loss of twenty -five cents a
day in wages. But next week some other
chance will arise by which they will gain. A
new railroad will be built which will bring
them cheaper goods. A new post-office will
be built, and there will be an extra demand for
their labor. Some of them will die or will
leave for other cities, and there will be none
to take their places until their own wages are
raised. In a word, they take their chances
like everybody else, and good chances are sure
to come as well as bad ones.
I think if you look at the facts of the case
you will see that the soundness of this princi-
ple is proved by facts. Take, for example, the
Chinese emigration into California. The ef-
fect of this emigration is commonly supposed
to be the depression of w r ages on the Pacific
Coast. I think, however, if you study out
the matter you will find that such is not the
case, and that there is no place where the in-
dustrious laborer is better off to-day than he
is in California. Whatever he has lost by
Chinese competition he has more than gained
by the cheapening of the necessaries of life.
12
178 A PLAIN MAN 8 TALK
XIX.
IS WASTE A GOOD?
IN the last two talks I set forth the fallacy
sof the current notion that the competition of
cheap labor, or " underpaid labor," was a bad
thing for other labor. But this by no means
'exhausts the subject. There is much digging
to be done at the root of the theories I have
described, and I beg the reader to assist me
in trying what more false doctrines we can
dig up.
I have in my mind a fleet of rowboats,
some pulled by one man and some by a dozen,
whose crews are all trying to make their way
across a wide expanse of water. But they all
have a notion that in order to row in the right
direction they must turn their faces towards
the place they want to reach ; and so they
persist, whenever they get a chance, in turn-
ing the boats around and rowing in a direction
they do not want to, just because they enter-
tain this false theory.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 179
Now there is current among us a theory
which is as far wrong as the theory that a
boat is rowed in the direction in which the
rower's face is turned. We see it cropping
out in all the speeches of labor reformers, in
the resolutions of labor conventions, and in
the proceedings of Congress. The theory is,
in brief, that waste is a public benefit, and'
cheapness a public evil ; that it is a bad thing
for laborers when new and cheap substitutes
for what they make are discovered, because
there is then less demand for their labor ; that
the more work the laborer does the worse for
himself and fellow-laborers ; that it is a good
thing for workmen when things are lost and ;
destroyed, because they will then be engaged
in remaking them.
As examples : The main ground on which
a protective tariff has so strong a hold upon ,
us is the doctrine that an influx of cheap goods
from abroad is an evil. The oleomargarine i
bill was passed by both houses of Congress by
a large majority, because it was believed to be
a public misfortune for the people at large to
be able to get butter for their bread at ten
cents a pound. Of course, a great many other
reasons were assigned, but the bottom reason
180 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
was just that. If it had not been so cheap
no one would ever have inquired whether it
was a fraud or whether it was unwholesome.
Our laws now prohibit the immigration of
Chinese laborers, and the main reason on
which they are based is that these laborers do
so much work for so little money. None of
the other reasons would have been thought of
but for this. A very serious discussion is
going on in legislatures and labor meetings
about convict labor, and its competition with
paid labor. The idea on which the discussion
is based is that it would be a public evil to
have convicts producing valuable goods at no
cost to the public. It is supposed that the
public will be better off if these convicts are
supported in idleness than if they are made to
work for the public benefit. A few weeks
ago Mr. T. V. Powderly, Grand Master Work-
man of the Knights of Labor, was reported to
have said in a speech to the glass-blowers:
"Any bottle brought into my house does
not go back. I cannot smash a beer bottle, be-
cause I drink ginger ale, but the bottle never
goes out alive. That is a small thing; but if
ninety thousand men who get bottles were to
destroy them it would make a big hole."
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 181
Whether this statement was made by Mr.
Powderly or not, it voices the prevailing sen-
timent on the subject. Most fortunately for
mankind, hardly anybody ever applies this
principle in his own individual case. ! If all
did, we should very soon be transformed into
a horde of half -starved barbarians. Every
sensible man tries to get things as cheaply as
possible, and to make them last as long as they
can be made to, whereas all organized action
on this theory is directed towards making
them cost as much as possible.
We may show this theory to be wrong,
either by the reason of the case or the facts
of the case. In the first place, if we admit it
where shall we stop? If ninety thousand peo-
ple make work for others by smashing all their
bottles after being once used, would they not,
on the same principle, benefit chairmakers if
they should destroy all their chairs after using
them a short time, say a month ? One man
could not do much in this way, but ninety
thousand could make a big hole in the existing
supply of chairs. What is true of the chairs
would apply also to all the furniture of a
house, the plates and the dishes. If ninety
thousand men should break them up, after
182 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
having used them a year, they would make a
big hole to be filled up by labor. If a man
burned down his new house after living in it
a year, would it not, on the same principle, be
good for the house-builders? Then would not
everybody be rendering a public benefit by
doing the same thing?
Of course you will reply to me that you do
not carry your theory so far as this, and do
not propose to run it into the ground, as I am
doing. But where will you stop ? If your
theory is good for so little a thing as a bottle,
why should it not be good for so big a thing
as a house ? If you claim that there is a turn-
ing-point, please tell me where it is that waste
ceases to be beneficial to the public. When
you have done this to your own satisfaction,
I will tell you my answer. Waste is of no
benefit at all, and the theory that it is benefi-
cial to anybody arises from not looking at all
the facts of the case. Let us see what the
facts all come to.
Suppose that Mr. Powderly drinks one bot-
tle of ginger ale a day, and that the bottle is
worth three cents. This will make, in round
numbers, ten dollars' worth of bottles a year
which he destroys. If lie sold the bottles, in-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 183
stead of destroying them, he would have had
just $10 more in his pocket at the end of the
year. With that $10 he would have bought
something useful to himself. By so doing he
would have given just the same employment
to the laborers engaged in making these useful
things that he gave to the glassrnakers by
breaking the bottles. If he bought a pair of
fine boots, as he might well do, there would
have been $10 more in the pockets of the
shoemaker. So all he does by destroying the
bottles is to give employment to bottle-makers
at the expense of shoemakers, or whatever
trade makes the goods he would have bought,
with the money gained by selling the bottles^
Now this is a principle which comes in to'
all these cases. No cheapening process can
diminish the sum total of the demand for
labor, for the plain and simple reason that
everybody to whom money is saved by sucli,
cheapening is going to employ labor, or buyj
the products of labor with it. This side 01
the case is what we are all prone to forget
when we discuss the question.
Notwithstanding its absurdity, the theory in
question seems to be as natural as the theory
that a boat must be going in the direction in
184 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
which the rower turns his face. No doubt
the first time you, as a child, got into a boat
and tried to row, you entertained this view,
and it was only when you found that you
were pulling the boat in the opposite direction
that you got cured of the notion. Probably
this did not take five minutes ; and having
once learned the falsity of your idea you
never afterwards tried to put it into practice.
But the great difficulty with the labor theories
is that their falsity cannot be made evident
without a great deal of thinking and a great
deal of study ; and thought and study are not
properly given to the problem. The fact is,
that the theory that cheap production is an
evil, is remarkable not only because it is so
very natural, but because it is completely dis-
proved by all the facts of the case. Let us
glance for a moment at what would have been
the consequence, had it been acted upon.
Every railway that has been built comes
into competition with stage-coaches, wagons,
teamsters, and innkeepers, and drives them right
out of business by doing the work a great deal
cheaper. Therefore had the theory been car-
ried out to its utmost extent, we should never
have had any railroads.
ON THE LABOE QUESTION. 185
The spinning jenny threw thousands of op-
eratives out of employment, and caused great
distress among large classes of laborers. The
latter did all they could to destroy the ma-
chines ; in fact the cry, " Smash the machine!"
has almost come down to our day. Had the
operatives been able to have things their own
way we should still be making all our cloth
by hand.
The result of the theory would have been'
that we should now have been in the same
industrial condition that our ancestors were a
hundred years ago ; that is, the hours of labor
would have been from twelve to sixteen daily ;
the laborers would have had no clothing ex-
cept such as their wives could spin, weave,
sew, and patch ; their children would have
gone barefoot half the year, and been misera-
bly shod the other half; there would have
been no labor organizations, because, as I have
shown, when men have to work from twelve
to sixteen hours a day they have neither time
nor energy to organize; the principal furni-
ture of a laborer's cottage would have been a
straw bed, hard-bottomed wooden chairs, and
a plain pine table. In a word, his condition
would have been one in which the laborer of
180 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
the present day would not consider that life
was worth living.
I have abundantly shown what, in fact,
every man who has intellectual eyes can see
by looking at it, that the reason why the la-
borer of to-day is so much better off, is that
the force of circumstances have been stronger
than his theory. Capitalists have persisted in
building railways to bring him the products
of other regions, and in making machinery to
supply him with clothes and furniture; in a
word, to do for him the very thing which, ac-
cording to his theory, it is disadvantageous to
have done. Under these circumstances I ear-
nestly hope that labor organizations will not
succeed in doing themselves irreparable dam-
age by putting this old theory into operation.
I hope the common-sense of society will pre-
vail upon them to see that the laborer is best
supplied with the necessaries of life when
every man is at work at the very best wages
j he can get, be they high or low.
Closely associated with the policy I have
pointed out is the fear that one man will get
along a little faster than another. I have not
so low an opinion of human nature as to be-
lieve that this fear can arise from mere jeal-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 187
ousy. I take it that when a labor union stops
one of its members from doing more work and
thus earning higher wages than the others, it
is because they fear the others are injured by
such a course. In a word, they think that;
when one man gets ahead it must necessarily
be at some one else's expense.
But the truth is the very opposite. The
progress of society is like that of a great
party of men who are trying to make their
way over a rough, untrodden road, in some'
wilderness of the West. Such a party gets
along most successfully when every man in it
is allowed to use his legs in the best way he
can, and to get along, as fast as he can. Every
man who is ahead of another has to make a!
better road for him ; every stone or stick he-
knocks out of his way makes a smoother road
for all who are to follow, and thus while those
who are ahead enjoy an advantage over their
fellows, those who are behind have the advan-
tage of a better road.
Now the theory that one man should not
be allowed to get ahead of another would lead
to the practice of tying sueh a party of men
together, both by their hands and feet, so that
one could step only when another did.
I
188 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
Another form of the same fallacy is seen
in the current notion that one man is worse
off because others accumulate immense for-
tunes. I have shown abundantly that no man
can accumulate a fortune except by benefit-
ing his fellow-men, and especially the laborer,
by much more than the whole value of the
fortune. Nor is this all. I have shown that
after his fortune is acquired he cannot do
much with it except employ it for the benefit
of his fellow-men./
I have written these talks because the sin-
gular spectacle was presented to me of a large
body of men organizing and contributing
money to do themselves all the injury they
well could. What suffering they have thus
caused themselves you all know. What pri-
vation the poor will endure next winter in
consequence of the agitation thus brought
about you will see w r hen next winter comes.
I hope you will not then forget the cause of
the distress.
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 189
XX.
CONCLUSION.
I NOW invite the reader's courteous attention
to some general thoughts about the subject we
have been discussing. I do not profess to have
solved the labor problem ; I do not think it is
to be solved on any system, or by any theory,
which can be laid down either by a man or a
body of men. I am an optimist to this extent ;
It seems to me that the system on which merf
have gradually been led to work in unison by
merely following the course dictated by cir-
cumstances in each individual case works bet-
ter than any which human ingenuity could
have contrived. Studying the effect of govern-
mental interference in the past we find that
whenever it was dictated by any economic
theory it retarded rather than promoted prog-
ress. We now look back with wonder upon
the unwise policy of the Spanish government
consequent upon the discovery of America.
Yet it was dictated by the commercial theories
190
which then moved the world, though individ-
uals never acted on them. We now see very
clearly that the policy to which individuals
were led merely by following their own inter-
ests, and acting as circumstance dictated, was
wiser, and tended more to the public good,
than any system which had received the sanc-
tion of government.
I think the same thing is true at the present
time. Our posterity of a century or two hence
will ask with wonder how the people of the
United States in this nineteenth century could
have believed, in the face of reason and facts,
that the condition of the laborer would be im-
proved by a policy designed to make every-
thing necessary to his comfort scarce and dear,
by levying protective tariffs upon everything
he might import from foreign countries, by
discouraging him from building ships and
from engaging in many other forms of indus-
try, and by persuading him to produce as few
of the necessaries of life as possible.
As in the past the stern logic of facts has
proved stronger than any theories of philoso-
phers or people, so I think it will be in the
future. The inherent tendency of the indi-
; vidual to do what is for his own good, will, in
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 191
the long ran, overpower all other tendencies.
This will lead to the very best results, because,
when every individual does what is best for
himself the whole community will be doing
what is best for the whole community. 4
I by no means claim that neither legisla-
tion nor regulation will enter as factors into
the result. Our courts of law will see that
no man is allowed to pursue his own selfish
good at the expense of others, without render-
ing them a full equivalent for all he takes
from them, and that corporations shall treat
all men alike. We are approaching a new
state of things, which will need new laws.
Each new law framed to meet an evident
emergency will probably be a wise law ; if it is
unwise that fact will soon be found out and
the law will be changed.
If, then, I hold that the logic of events is\
wiser than the philosophy of men,? why have I >
penned these chapters? I reply, to set forth
that aspect of the question which seems most
in need of being set forth. I Our natural prog-
ress towards a healthy social state is retarded
by the prevalence of false theories which per-
meate society and control legislation. The
constant tendency towards unwise legislation
192 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
is the greatest difficulty society now has to
encounter. It forms the only basis on which
the so-called Manchester School of Political
Economy can now rest, and the only obstacle
to the introduction into legislation of those
more liberal and philanthropic ideas which so
many of our philosophers are disseminating.
Is it possible to get through Congress any
legislation on the labor problem which will
not be inimical to the interest of laborers?
Judging from the past, the outlook is not en-
couraging. Let us add one more to the in-
stances already given of unsound theories in
legislation.
Why have we not American shipping and
American ship-building? Because our laws
throw obstacles in the way of an American
citizen building a ship, or sailing one he has
bought abroad under the American flag. If
Congress should merely repeal all laws which
in any way abridge the right of citizens of
the United States to import all the material
and machinery needed to build ships with,
and all laws which in any manner restrict
them in the purchase of ships already built,
we should in a few years have an Ameri-
can mercantile marine of respectable proper-
ON THE LABOR QUESTION. 193
tions. Please remember that no positive legis-
lation is needed for this purpose, all we need
is the repeal of adverse legislation.
The question whether state regulation of
great organizations will be a feature of our
coming policy turns on this very point. If we
can ever get a system of legislation which shall
be based on business principles and not on erro-
neous social theories, we may expect a continual
enlargement of the functions of the state.
There are many things which the state would
do better than any corporation, could we only
have it embody the wisdom of the nation.
The careful reader of this little book will
see that it is written entirely from the point
of view of the interests of laborers. I have
nowhere considered the interests, and seldom
the rights, of capitalists and employers. I
look forward to the time when no one will
have to labor more than eight hours a day to
make a living. This time will come when a
few more improvements are made in machin-
ery, and when every boy shall be trained in
doing something useful to his fellows, and be
allowed the same rights whether he is or is not
a member of a labor organization. It would
approach very rapidly could we once get rid
13
194 A PLAIN MAN'S TALK
of the theory that plenty and cheapness are
evils, and high prices the only good.
\ Notwithstanding ray optimistic views, I am
not unmindful of the dark side of the case.
The darkest feature of all is that the maximum
of discontent has come with the maximum of
prosperity among laborers. Never before
could the industrious laborer make a living so
easily as he can to-day, never before could he
spend so much time and money in disseminat-
ing his views, and never has there been so
much organized discontent the world over.
I know it is sometimes said that the laborer is
no better off for modern improvements in
production, but this statement is so absurdly
contrary to facts which anybody can know
by merely opening his eyes and studying,
that it can hardly be characterized as otherwise
than reckless. When I walk out in the city
of Washington on a Sunday afternoon I find
the public parks and streets swarming with
the children and wives of laborers, every one
of them dressed in a style which, when I was
a boy, was possible only to the rich. I sup-
pose the same to be true in all our cities.
; In saying this I do not claim that the con-
dition of everybody is improved. There are
ON THE LABOK QUESTION. 195
in every community large numbers of people
who have not been trained to follow any special
pursuit, whose wants are very few and simple,
who are willing to go barefoot in summer and
eat the cheapest food the year round, who
want nothing but a hovel to shelter them,
and nothing but rags to clothe them, and
who will do just what is necessary to supply
these simple wants, and nothing more. Of
course, such people would never be any bet-
ter off under any conditions that we could
devise. They stay behind simply because ;
they do not want to take the trouble to go \
ahead. It is useless to smooth the road be- \
fore them because they will not walk upon it, |
no matter how smooth we make it.
A pessimist might claim that progress which
results only in discontent is an evil ; that the
very fact of the laborer being discontented
with his improved condition shows that it has
improved too rapidly, that a social cataclysm
is imminent which will once more reduce him
to the state of coarse bread, rags, and a hovel,
which was his lot in times past. All I can
say in reply is, that I hope for the best.
THE
[W7BHSIT7]
NEWCOMB'S POLITICAL ECONOMY.
PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. By
SIMON NEWCOMB, LL.D., Professor of Mathematics,
U. S. Navy, Professor in the Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity, Author of "Popular Astronomy," &c. pp. xvi.,
548. 8vo, Cloth, $2 50.
Nothing BO good is, that we know of, to be found elsewhere. Ev-
ery section, we might almost say every page, abounds in instruc-
tion. . . . The book should be more than read: it should be care-
fully studied, and students who make themselves masters of the
problems set for them in the illustrations and exercises interspersed
among the chapters will know more of the subject than many of
the avowed professors of the sciences in our colleges. N. Y. Com'
mercial Advertiser.
It is timely, useful, and invaluable. The questions considered are
now before the citizens of the United States for their decision.
More valuable help than that afforded by this volume towards a
complete understanding of these questions, and towards conclusions
that will promote national prosperity, is not to be found. Christian
Intelligencer, N. Y.
In the present volume Professor Newcomb has directed his great
powers of analysis to the difficult subject of political economy,
Whatever such a man says about anything he never fails to make
clear. The reader of this exposition of a science little understood
will never have the slightest doubt of Professor Newcomb's mean-
ing. N. Y. Journal of Commerce.
In a broad and profound consideration of the subject on both its
scientific and practical side ; in an engaging candor, a mathematical
clearness and precision, and a weighty grasp of the great subject
and its relations, no previous work on political economy can com-
pare with this by Dr. Newcomb. Boston Evening Traveller.
The merit of Professor Newcomb's treatment consists in thor-
ough knowledge and mastery of the subject, in its freedom from
partisanship, its simple and clear logical statement and apt illustra-
tion, and in its general suggestiveness to the reader to inquire and
think for himself from what is given him. Through this combina-
tion of essentials to instruction and independent investigation it
has the power to accomplish more than any other work. Boston
Globe.
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, N. Y.
3T The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price.
NEWCOMB'S ASTRONOMY.
Popular Astronomy. By SIMON NEWCOMB, LL.D., Pro
fessor U. S. Naval Observatory. With one Hundred
and Twelve Engravings, and Five Maps of the Stars.
8vo, Cloth, $2 50; *Sckool Edition, 12-mo, Cloth, $1 30.
The great reputation which the author of this work has merited
and enjoys, both in this country and in Europe, is a sufficient guar-
antee of its excellence. ... He has dwelt especially upon those top-
ics which have just now a popular and philosophic interest, care-
fully employing such language and such simple explanations as will
be intelligible without laborious study. Technical terms have as
much as possible been avoided. Such as were employed of neces-
sity, and many that occur elsewhere, have been fully explained in a
copious glossary at the end of the book. With its abundant aid, the
reader cannot fail to derive both pleasure and entertainment from
the study of what is the most ancient as well as the most elevating
and inspiring of all the natural sciences. . . . Professor Kewcomb,
throughout this whole volume, preserves his well-known character
as a writer who, in treating of scientific subjects, fully understands
the art of bringing them within the range of popular comprehen-
sion. ... It is fully calculated to hold the attention of the general
reader. N. Y. Times.
While the professional investigator and special student will find
here much to strengthen them in their researches, it is not for them
that the work has been done. Its purpose is to enlighten that great
mass of fairly educated people who have lost the astronomical
knowledge that they once possessed. It states and explains ex-
haustively and elaborately the latest methods of investigation, the
latest discoveries, and the latest general development of this ma-
jestic and almost infinite science. Great thought and much space
have been given to the historical points and philosophical aspects
of the science. ... In the treatment of weighty and abstruse scien-
tific subjects, he never fails to bring them within the range of the
average popular comprehension. Boston Post.
Professor Newcomb's aim has been to write a book which will
present to the general reading public a condensed view of the his-
tory, methods, and results of astronomical research, especially in
those fields which are of most popular and philosophic interest at
the present day. For the accomplishment of this object he has
avoided, as far as possible, the complication of the narrative and
arguments with mathematical formulas and scientific technology,
and has endeavored to give the reading public a book that, while
being exact in its statements and definitions, will be popular in the
best sense of the word. Cincinnati Times.
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, N. Y.
The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price.
VALUABLE WORKS ON POLITICAL
SCIENCE.
Curtis's Constitutional History.
Constitutional History of the United States, from their Decla-
ration of Independence to the Close of their Civil War. By
GEORGE TIOKNOU CURTIS, Author of "Life of James Buchanan.''
(In Press.}
Sumner's What Social Classes Owe to
Each Other.
What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. By Professor W. G.
SUMMER. IGmo, Cloth, 60 cents.
Ely's French and. German Socialism.
French and German Socialism. By Professor RICHARD T. ELY.
IGmo, Cloth, 75 cents ; Paper, 25 cents.
Cairnes's Leading- Principles of Political
Economy.
Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Ex-
pounded. By J. E. CAIUNKS, LL.D., late Emeritus Professor
of Political Economy in University College, London. Crown
Svo, Cloth, $2 50.
Cairnes's Character and Logical Method
of Political Economy.
The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy. By
J. E. CAIUNEB, LL.D. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
Atkinson's Labor and Capital.
Labor and Capital Allies, not Enemies. By EDWAUD ATKIN-
SON. 32mo, Paper, 20 cents.
Stickney's A True Republic.
A True Republic. By ALBERT STIOKNEY. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00.
Sticlmey's Democratic Government.
Democratic Government. A Study of Politics. By ALBERT
STIOKNEY. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00.
Newcomb's A B C of Finance.
The A B C of Finance ; or, The Money and Labor Questions
Familiarly Explained to Common People, in Short and Easy
Lessons. By SIMON NEWCOMB, LL.D. 32mo, Paper, 25 cents.
2 Valuable Works on Political Science.
Nordhoff 's Politics for Young Americans.
Politics for Young Americans. By CHARLES NQBDHOFF. 16mo,
Half Leather, 75 cents.
Wells's Robinson Crusoe's Money.
Robinson Crusoe's Money; or, The Remarkable Financial
Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island Community.
Fiction Founded upon Fact. By DAVID A. WELL& Illustrated
by THOMAS NAST. Svo, Paper, 50 cents.
Wells's Local Taxation.
Local Taxation : being a Report of the Commission appointed
by the Governor of New York, under the Authority of the Leg-
islature, to Revise the Laws for the Assessment and Collection
of State and Local Taxes. DAVID A. WELLS, EDWIN DODGE,
GEORGK W. CUYLER, Commissioners. Revised and Corrected
Edition. Svo, Paper, 50 cents.
Cushing's Treaty of Washington.
The Treaty of Washington : its Negotiation, Execution, and the
Discussions relating thereto. By CALEB CUBIIING. Crown Svo,
Cloth, $2 00.
Draper's Future Civil Policy of America.
Thoughts on the Future Civil Policy of America. By JOIIN W.
DRAPER, M.D., LL.D. Crown Svo, Cloth, $2 00 ; Half Morocco,
$4 25.
Richardson's National Banks.
The National Banks. By H. W. RICUARDBON. 32mo, Paper,
25 cents.
Amos's Remedies for War.
Political and Legal Remedies for War. By SHELDON AMOS.
12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
Published by HAEPEE & BEOTHEES, New York,
HARPER & BROTHERS will send any of the above icorks by mail,
postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on
receipt of the price.
14 DAY USE
RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED
LOAN DEPT.
This book is due on the last date stamped below, or
on the date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.
RECD LD
AUTO. Dk-:
MAY 3 1 i359
MAY 2 4 ic g^
* IGctSgFC
CJRCUUTir
REC'D LC>
FEB 8 TSS(J
HJtn'6iRTi
pi?rrD ID
JAwrr :s 1
'" t
"
JUN151989
T,n9iA ^ftwQ'
(MBtalO)4T&
General Library
University of California
YA 02595
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES
