Chapter XXII - Remedies Worse Than the Diseases

I freely grant that there are some men more selfish, more able, and more crooked than others; and that there is constant temptation to us all to lay the strong hand of government on business, in order to make less unequal distribution of this world's goods. There is, of course, nothing morally wrong in the dream of equal distribution, or in such an attempt of "Society" to order that business between man and man be done on "Christian" or unselfish principles; but practically and economically there is everything wrong. The actual experience of many centuries and peoples shows that human nature and natural law make the task of wisely controlling the conflicting currents and innumerable transactions of daily trade simply impossible; that control means greater or less destruction of trade, reacting worst of all on the very unfortunates, whom Society meant to aid. I have in this book, as it seems to me, conclusively proved from conspicuous instances in our own recent [ 387 ] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation history that governmental remedies are far worse than their diseases, in destruction of trade and injury to the poorer classes; and work still worse for us all in poisoning and corrupting our American political and moral fibre. Nothing could be worse for our citizens than to get into the habit of looking to the state for a good living instead of to their own hard work and thrift. Nothing. could be worse for American politicians or public officials than the growing, if not full-grown, habit of promising this or that citizen or class an easy job at public expense in return for a vote at the polls.

American home politics has become, like European home politics, largely an affair of fierce attack on private wealth, opposed by a timid and furtive de fence on the part of the wealthy, with the great mass of those who are not destitute, yet have not much, watching the conflict from the side-lines; rather indifferent, yet of the general impression that the rich have too much and the destitute too little and that if the rich had less, all the rest, including themselves, would probably, somehow or other, have more. The· last named do not realize that those who have much are those who create and save much; and if they quit so doing nobody would get much of anything. They do not reflect that private wealth is and has always been the foundation of general prosperity, and of the well being of that enormous part of every population which never saves; which consumes all it produces from day to day; and which has always been, and until human nature radically changes always will be, dependent for a living on those who produce and save a surplus, and risk their savings in employing others.

These last, the savers, the capitalists, have always, to say the least, caused to be created and accumu[ 388 ] Remedies Worse Than Diseases ~ lated all the wealth there is, of all the nations. Those nations are richest and strongest, with the best-fed working classes, where these creative men are most numerous, and best protected, by stable government, by freedom of contract, and by security of private property. Centuries of history have proved that these three elements are the pillars of prosperity. To weaken them, to undermine them, to pull them down, as blind Samson pulled down the pillars of the temple upon the heads of the three thousand Philis tines told of in the Book of Judges,. is the daily task of the Bolshevist, the labor leader, the merchant of discontent generally; with the difference that Sam son pulled down the roof on his enemies, while they would destroy their own unhappy friends and fol lowers.

These agitators would forbid those, who have so far created and saved all the wealth of the nations, to create and save any more. They propose instead that government, which in all history has done noth ing but tax and waste the wealth created by the few, shall suddenly so change human nature and its own long habit as to create and save for the commQn good of all! Well; the common sense of all-at least of the American people, of whom Lin-eoln said that you can't fool all of them all the time-will probably be content at present with the costly experiments just made by their own government; for instance, with shipping, and railway operation; and will let Soviet Russia play out to a finish for the benefit of the watching world the gamble on change of human na ture, and the mental power of the ~'proletariat," in which that vast and wonderfully rich country is now engaged. If within a reasonable length of time the Russian peasantry are happier and better off [ 389 ] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation than our American farmers; or if under Soviet Gov ernment control the Baku Oil Fields, to put a con crete case, turn out to be successful competitors with the Standard Oil, or the Sinclair, or the Texas or the Shell Oil companies, in supplying the world's growing demand for light and heat and power; it will then be time enough for Mr. LaFollette and his new "bloc"

to get after the stock dividends of the Standard Oil subsidiaries-or to inaugurate, with the kind per mission, and for the benefit, of the organized farmer a~d laborer, the nationalization of our railways and mInes. Until that day the American people can, and probably will, safely "sit tight," and let the Standard Oil go on growing. Nothing but more oil companies, more gallons of oil, and cheaper gasoline and kerosene for all the world, can possibly result meantime. Also Mr. LaFollette, who has never produced anything else, can joyfully continue, as always, to produce huge volumes of "hot air." [ 390 J CHAPTER XXIII GENERAL CONCLUSIONS IN CONCLUSION, let me repeat my conviction, ex pressed in the first lines of this book, that democ racy must simplify and minimize government and taxation, or go down under their burden. This is true not only of the United States, but of the whole world.