rally and without favor that any other man has not equal chance to enjoy. This brings him to the comfortable conclusion that he is materially better off because he is more intelligent and wiser than others. The pronouncement then goes forth: "Intelligence must govern." Thus Privilege robs the poor man of his bread and then of his vote and right of jury trial. If this is not chattel slavery, it is the equally bad slavery of circumstances. Abraham Lincoln said that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. Henry Clay in a speech in Congress in 1818 said that "it is the doctrine of thrones that man is too ignorant to govern himself." As will be seen more fully in later chapters, the real directors and, therefore, rulers in politics to-day are to large extent not the masses of the people. Privilege, in the form of monopoly corporations and vested interests, is too often the dominant power. It shapes, passes or thwarts legislation. It does this in favor of the few and in spite of popular suffrage. It comes to regard this arrogated power as not merely wise, but right. As a consequence, it seeks to reduce the plain people from their place of equal citizens to that of governed workers. CHAPTER I. BOOK III VICTIMS OF PRIVILEGE DESPOILMENT OF THE MASSES CHAPTER II. PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND MORAL DETERIORATION Want makes men misdo; and hunger drives the wolf out of the forest. -FRANÇOIS VILLON. Tis'n them as 'as munny as breaks into 'ouses an' steals, -TENNYSON. CHAPTER I DESPOILMENT OF THE MASSES WHAT makes privileges springing from governmental enactment or sanction a double evil is that while they exalt the few to superabundant, intoxicating riches, they sink the many into hope-killing, brutalizing poverty. For, as we have seen, these privileges are in effect nothing less than private laws enabling some to appropriate from others. Privilege is essentially a power of appropriation, which robs some into riches and others into poverty. We have considered riches. Let us consider the other sidepoverty. A few generations ago there was such abundance of unappropriated land that any who wanted it could sooner or later have a farm. The wages of those who preferred to work in one way or another in the villages, towns and cities were high, depending, as the rate of wages must always depend, upon what such men could earn at the margin of cultivation; that is, from the best land which could be had without the payment of rent. If for a time more could be earned by laborers in selling their services to another than by going upon free land and employing themselves, then the flow of laborers would tend toward the selling of their services. When the greater gain was to be had by working for themselves, then the tendency was to take up land and work it. Hence there was and always must be a close relationship between the wages for which a laborer will part with his services to another and the wages he can earn by applying his powers directly to nature without intervention of another; that is, without payment of rent. If the land free to him is fertile and accessible for agriculture, his efforts will bring him large results. If it is rich with desirable minerals, easy to work and accessible, his efforts will be rewarded still more largely. If these free natural opportunities are plentiful, wages generally must be high; for, with everything else equal, no one will take less for his labor than he can obtain by it on the best free land open to him. As long as there seemed to be a large supply of free land in the United States few thought it of moment to consider what might happen when the supply gave out. At the time of the establishment of the Republic a sparse population scattered along the Atlantic seaboard. Westward lay the vast, unexplored continent. To populate that seemed to Thomas Jefferson a matter of centuries.1 At first efforts were made to restrict appropriations to small quantities, and those to actual settlers. And so easy was it for the man of little means to get land that there was no practice of renting as late as 1850, De Tocqueville testifying, "In America there are, properly speaking, no farming tenants; every one owns the ground he tills." 2 But behold the startling state of things that now confronts us. Estimates based upon Federal census statistics indicate that in 1900 only thirty-one per cent. of the families of the United States owned homes or farms free and clear of debt. Another fifteen per cent. owned homes and farms that were encumbered; while fifty-four per cent., or more than half the families, were paying rent. Indeed, it is considered that two thirds of the mortgagees are really tenants, so that practically only seven twentieths are really owners of homes and farms. Professor J. G. Collins, engaged in the 1890 census work, computed that 2 1 See Letter to Madison, written from Paris Dec. 20, 1787; Jefferson's Writings, Ford Edition, Vol. IV, pp. 479–480. 2 "Democracy in America,” Chap. VI (Vol. II, p. 226). |