dress and somewhat inarticulate in speech, but he is the backbone of the country - the farmer. He testifies that while these city people are quarreling over socialism, reorganization of industry, "up-lift," unrest, and getting more for less, he has been forgotten. He discredits protective tariffs for city manufacturers and trade unions for city labor. He bids you go to the farms for an antidote to all of this poison. He advises you to cultivate the farm more and the city less. He denounces the discrimination against the farmer and he tells how hard it is to get a living. He points out that in 1924 the farmer's average annual net income was only $876 for his labor and investment while a common laborer received $1250.2 He says that justice is what is needed and not a reorganization of the world. And the farmer is right. There is the cure for the evils of the state.

CHAPTER XXXI

CLASS INTERESTS AND SECTIONAL INTERESTS

THIS subject is closely allied to the last in that class interests and sectional interests are chiefly to get more wealth by a different distribution of wealth.

Sectional interests are no longer a menace. They caused the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798; the Hartford Convention of 1815; the South Carolina Resolutions of 1832; the Kansas and Nebraska guerilla warfare of 1854; the Civil War of 1861. That war settled that this country will not fall apart by conflict of the sections. The scene has shifted to the danger of a conflict between classes, followed by a dictator "to preserve society."

Class interests also have always existed but are growing with our growth. The manufacturing class has always been knocking at the doors of Congress for tariff protection. The railroads have never been modest in their demands. Labor has sat in the gallery of Congress and forced a labor bill by a specified hour or railroad traffic would cease. The farmers have had their feeble and fruitless Granges, Greenbackers, Populists, Farmers Alliances, Free Silverites, and Non-Partisan Leagues. Blindly groping they have struggled against capitalistic and industrial forces and have sought governmental aid. They have resolutely stood for individual independence and have opposed monopoly, labor unions; socialism, and plutocracy. But they are beginning to realize that high tariffs are their economic enemy, raising the price of what they buy but not raising the price of what they sell.

As President Butler says:

These class interests are a menace. "For hundreds of years the path of progress has lain away from this division into groups and classes and toward the notion that a free man in a free state built upon free labor, is the equal of every other man; is free to come and go as he may choose; has equal rights before the law and equal protection from the law; may choose or change his occupation or his dwelling-place at will, and be answerable only to his own conscience and his God for his private conduct and his private life; that indeed he is a citizen in the full sense of that word. Now we are told that all this must be changed; that this doctrine is a now discredited teaching of Rousseau, and that newer and later teachers have something else to tell us, something of greater value and more practical import. There must be, it seems, no notion of a unified state built upon a citizenship of free political equals, but there must be a sort of federation of groups, or classes, each reserving to itself power, through the withdrawal of its coöperation, to cripple at will, or indeed to ruin, the entire social fabric. This fantastic notion appears to assume that free men are going to stand idly by and see civilization destroyed, not by the armies of militarist imperialism, but by the sinister and selfish mutilation of the body-politic through the destruction of some one or more of its essential services. Those who are so eagerly spreading this doctrine abroad in England, in France, in Italy, and in the United States, do not seem to realize that it invites, yes, compels, a social war that would rival in destructiveness the great military contest so lately ended, and against any possible renewal of which civilized man is now arming himself by every device of coöperation and wise counsel. We have protected society and civilization from militarism. Shall we now permit it to fall before the onslaughts of class consciousness and class interest?" President Hadley says, "When people are taking thought for the public interest, Parliamentary government is probably the best government in the world. When large groups of people are concerned

for their own several group interests and let the public interest fall into the background, it may prove the very worst." 1

All classes in America live better than their forefathers, but all classes except the capitalists think they should have a greater share of production and wealth. Russia has convinced all that the capitalistic system is necessary but there is a feeling that the system needs to be changed in some way to bring about a more equal distribution. Just how is the greatest social problem of the age. The air is full of theories, most of which would use the government for that purpose and would sweep away the constitutional restrictions that stand in the way. Let us look at the different classes.

The farming class is the most conservative but has a real grievance. In the phrase adopted by Roosevelt it is not getting a "square deal." The capitalistic class is using the government to raise the price of what the farmer buys by shutting out foreign competition by a high protective tariff. The farmer feels he is not getting his share of prosperity. Emerson says that the apple tree is a stupid kind of creature but if you gradually remove the soil under it and substitute sand the apple tree after a time will begin to mistrust something.2

The clerical and educational class also feel that they are entitled to more, especially as their salaries although raised have not gone up as fast as prices. Universal education has flooded this class with numbers until the salaries even of teachers are often less than the wages of skilled mechanics. That is materialism run mad. The result is that this class would welcome a change that would better their condition. The clerical class is not vocal over the matter nor are the school teachers, but the professors write books and articles and make themselves heard. They tend towards radicalism without pointing out how capitalism is to be reorganized. They are opposed to confiscation but they vaguely demand freedom from restrictions on the power of the majority to work its own sweet will. They are the intellec

tuals, corresponding to some extent to the French philosophers who preceded the French Revolution.

The labor class is more militant. It includes most of the foreigners in our cities. Class interest here is placed above the American Constitution and institutions. Labor is inclined to violence to accomplish its ends, namely, high wages. Labor is willing that the farmers get low prices because that tends to cheap supplies, and labor is willing that capital bring no return. Labor believes that capital gets too much and labor too little. No specific mode of change is proposed, except communism or socialism. But in general labor has an intense class consciousness and while appreciative of freedom of opportunity yet it believes that the American Constitution and institutions preserve and foster the present capitalistic system of business, and believes that that system does not give labor a fair share of production and wealth. This attitude of the labor class is a menace to republican institutions, because it is liable to lead to civil war and a dictator. It is to be borne in mind, however, that this labor is largely city labor and makes a commotion altogether out of proportion to its size. As shown elsewhere, railroad unions represent a very small proportion of labor,* and miners still less,† and yet at times they threaten to stop transportation and coal. That situation is intolerable and will lead to legislation.

England is working out this labor question more rapidly than America because this is an agricultural country and moreover labor is not organized into unions as thoroughly as in England. English labor demands a greater and greater part of profits. The trouble is there seems to be no basis or rule as to how much. Concessions lead only to greater demands. The time comes when capital withdraws because prices cannot be raised beyond competition at home and abroad. Government subsidies cannot be given to all and subsidies to a few favored industries bear heavily * See p. 181, supra and p. 331, infra. † See p. 331, infra.