The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1940-12-25
By o'BoYLE

/
American history presents now
confusion, now a separation of tw
; antagonistic groups of ideas It h
ideas of Hamilton-the ideas of JET
ferson. The two groups have neve
really fused. They have never reall,
, died though at times as now, the lat
ter's life has been near to death.
} What are those ideas?
The Hamilton group of ideas, which
in the main consciously or uncon
sciously are the today ideas of bi,
business and main street, can be callet
physiocratic economics. These neve
have given to agriculture more than {;
passing glance. Hamilton found then
in Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations
which taught that government should
refrain from regulating or controlling
industry. He found in Hobbies Levia
than the doctrine of a state with huge
power and centralized force will
slight local government. But he him
self went beyond Smith and Hobbies
and because he feared the masses
and thought human nature VIGOROUSLY
low-"the people is a great beast" he
once said-he aimed to establish q
strong national government, central
lied power that should function with
no regard for the rights of states.
The control of this overall power
should be exercised by men of prop.
nj
chants and shippers; the well-to-do
professional men. Admission to the
governing class depended solely upon
the possession of property or the del
egated right of property to speak for
the wealthy. Possession of property
was all important. He believed abil-
ity and other virtues were with wealth.
Wealth alone was fit to rule.
To wealth. then, government should
b entrusted as tool to be used in
aiding business. The regulation and
control of business was to be beyond
the jurisdiction of government.
He never trusted farmers, nor town
meetings, nor state legislatures elected
NY Lie pGOpl0. lie Onltcu OIdICS
should be commercialized and indus
trialized and controlled by wealth;
farmers and what is called "the peo-
pie" held in silence Business neither
needed nor wanted restrictions only
tranquil security.
The brilliant German writer of the
nineteenth century, Friedrich Metz
sche, (1S44-1900) seconded and gave
philosophical responsibility to the
Hamilton thinking. Nietzsche be-
lieved in Darwinism, in brute strength,
in cunning, in merciless competition
among individuals as essential to pro-
gress. He says: "The weak and i'll
conditioned shall perish; first princi-
pie of our charity. And people shall
help them to do So"
what is more injurious than any
crime? Practical sympathy for all the
and weak:-Christian-
ity"
And how have these Hamilton ideas
worked out into a 1910 expression?
The shop and faculty is owned by a.
capitalist or a group of individuals
who have the power to say when a
man may or may not work.
The Literary Digest in giving an ac-
count of a conference at Fordham
under the leadership of the
National Catholic Alumni Federation,
says 1.-The present policy, says the |
Rev. Wilfrid Parsons, editor of Amer
lea, actually has produced nothing but |
unlimited competition and unlimited |
opportunity for avarice and greed"
In his demand of May, 1929, for I
Justice for the wage Garner, which was
almost universally commended, Pope
Plus broadcast to the whole world
.hese warning words: Free and often
lnbridled competition has been sue
,eeded by the exaggerated concentra-
ion in the hands of a few of the
whole economic power, not only of
single nations but of the entire world,
md this concentration and this power
into tyrannical despotism
st is therefore absolutely necessary
o reconstruct the whole economic sys-
EN- to bring it back to the require
nents of social justice so as to insure
. more equitable distribution of the
nited proceeds of capital and labor" /;
Nor is this rebellious criticism of
he present social order confined to t
he Catholics. The Central Confer
nee of American Rabbits, meeting in t
cincinnati, adopted a report challeng- t
lg the system which as early as t
une, 1882, according to impartial sta t
stical surveys, permitted interest S
nd dividend payment in industry to a
smain 20 percent higher than they a
ere in 1925, while factory payrolls | /