St. Paul daily globe., 1891-12-14
VIEWS OF THE REVIEWS.


three improbable characters. Philan-
thropist A is a mild-mannered tyrant,
complacently sure of his own superior
wisdom and the ignorance and inca
pacity of the great mass of the people
He believes that they should be guided
and protected by such men as himself,
who, he confidently thinks, have been
specially gifted by the Creator for that
purpose. Securing from an imaginary
king deSpotic power over several hun
dreds of his fellow beings, he proceeds
to put his theory in force. directs them
in their employment, makes rules for
their conduct, provides them with cloth
ing, food and shelter, regulates their
hours of labor, sleep and recreation, and
allow no waste of time, nor use of Stim-
ulantS, nor profane language, teaching
them that they should accept the posi-
ton in which Providence had placed
them. and should perform their allotted
tasks without complaint. To their OBJ
lectiOnS that this was slavery, that they
had as much right to the control of their
actions as he had to his, he answered
that they were unable to take care of
themselves and that it was somebody
elSe'S duty to take care of them, and, he
being strong and they being weak, he
would perform it; that this was the de-
sign of the Creator, and that he in
tended to carry that design into effect.
Out of the product of the labor of
these people Mr.. A amaSSed a comfort
able fortune with which he built sew
eral churches and endowed several So
cieties. and when he died ''he was re-
GREETED by great many people-nOt in
cluding those who had lived under his
administration" With the usual truth
fulness which characterizes such de-
Scriptions, there was placed on his tomb
the epitaph, "He Was the Providence
of the Poor"
PhilanthrOpist B was also a manu-
facturer, but of precisely the opposite
type. He was a believer in the efficacy
of the law of demand and supply to
regulate the conditions of life, and al
lowed to his workmen the freedom of
contract, paying the wages which the
competition of labor fixed, but taking
no other interest in them. Mr.. B be-
iieved in absolute free trade, except
free trade would bring foreign products
into competition with those of his work
men, in which case his belief in the eff
ficacy of the law of supply and de-
mand was materially modified. In this
respect Mr.. IngersOll has drawn a much
more accurate type of the average pro-
tectionist than he has of the free trader,
and he has undoubtedly drawn picture
of man who has many representatives
among the greedy. graSping business
men of the country. Mr.. b, under the
operations of his ideas of free trade,
also accumulated fortune, which he
used for his own qualification; and,
when he died, "elergymen We'd with
each other in laudatiOns of the dead"
In his case the marble was made to tell
with customary mendacity that HE
Lived for Others"
In Philanthrophist G Mr.. IngersOIl
has given us a very pleasant sketch of
what men endowed with large admins
trative capacity should be, rather than
what they are. @ believed in giving
men full equivalent for labor. If his
w ere greater than theirs
he should use 1t for their advantage and
not his own. To him it was sin to
take advantage of the necessities of
his fellow men. If at the conclusion of
the years work he found that he had
derived greater profit from the labor
of his wOrkmen than he felt himself
justly entitled to, he regarded the sur
plus as belonging to them and not to
himself, and divided it among them.
Naturally, manufacturers of the type of
Mr.. Bl were ScandaliZed by such an un-
orthodox method of doing business, and
among them Mr.. & became very unpOp-
ular, but he persisted in conducting
his business on the idea that his men
were entitled to share in the profits,
and that, however subject to the
law of demand and supply were the
products of labor, that law should not
operate without some notifications
upon labor itself. Said MIR. G.: 1T is
not for me to take their money and use
it for the good of others or for my own
glory. 1t is for me to give all they
have earned to them. After | have
given them the money that belongs to
them L can give them my advice. | can
tell them how to use it, and after | have
advised them they will use it as they
please. You can not make great men
and great women by suppression. Slav-
cry is not the school in which genius is
born"
In the course of time Mr.. G also died,
and for once his tombstone was made to
tell the simple truth-that "He AL
lowed Others to Live for Themselves. :"
Of the men thus drawn, if Mr.. Inger-
soil is the logical protectioniSt he as
SnmeS to be, then Mr.. A must be his
ideal. If, however, Mr.. G is his ideal
philanthrOpist, he has given us in this
character a sketch of a man of affairs
with much administrative ability, en-
lightened and brOadened by the in
fiuence of the spirit of free trade, whose
basis is the brotherhood of man.
L. V. POwderly tells what he thinks
he knows about 1.-The Workingman and
Free Silver" Had he confined himself
to what he did know, the article would
have been too brief for place any,
where but in the One-line paragraphs of
an editorial column. But by telling
what he thinks he knows, he manages
to spread over several pages large as
Sortment of assumption, assertion, mis-
information and buncombe. 1t would
be difficult to regard the president of
the Knights of Labor as honest in what
he here says, if his past career did not
show that he is capable of growth.
When we recall that it is but a few
years since when he was as sure
that the welfare of the workingman
in this country depend solely on the
of a protective tariff as he
is now that it hinges on the free coinage
Of 75-cent dollars, and consider that lie
has moved up out of economic darkness
far enough to see the utter falIacy of
his past belief in that respect, we may !
regard his present position on the silver
question charitably, and believe that
when he has climbed little higher he
will slough his silver notions as he has
his prOtectionist skin.
The trouble with him, as with so many
others, outside the selfshly interested |
class of miners, is that he cOnceiveS of |
money as having but the one function |
Of medium of exchange, and either ig- |
nOres or is ignorant of its other more
as it was it's earli-
est function, of a measure of |
values. To such one it seems |
that there should be any
limit 10 the issue of that which moves
he exchanges Of the country. Seeing |
low easily and cheaply paper money is
produced: how unquestionIngly it is !
5aken and used by all classes; how |
slight part either gold or silver plays |
N these transactions. he naturally |
comes TO regard it as simply question |
If running printing presses if the finan-
,ial needs of the community, in his |
opinion, demand a greater supply of !