CHAPTER XXIX
EQUALITY AND PRIVILEGE
All men, our Declaration of Independence tells us, are created free and equal-that is, with a right to freedom and equality. They are not actually equal in natural gifts, but they ought, so far as possible, to be made equal in opportunity; equality is not a fact, but an ideal. And as an ideal it comes sometimes into conflict with its twin ideal of liberty; the freedom of the stronger must be curtailed when it robs the weaker of their fair share of happiness; but, on the other hand, a dead level of equality must not be sought at the sacrifice of the potentialities for the general good that lie in the free play of individuality. The various projects for securing a greater equality among men must be scrutinized with an eye to their total effects upon human happiness.
What flagrant forms of inequality exist in our society?
Equality is a modern ideal; in former times it was generally assumed that men inevitably belong to classes or castes; that some must have luxury and others poverty, some must rule and others obey. Plato, in constructing his ideal state, retains the walls between the small governing class, the warriors, and the mass of artisans, who are of no particular account but to get the work done. Castiglione, in his Book of the Courtier, declares that "there are many men who, although they are rational creatures, have only such share of reason as to recognize it, but not to possess or profit by it. These, therefore, are naturally slaves, and it is better and more profitable for them to obey than to command."
But the invention of the printing press brought ideas to the masses, the invention of gunpowder brought them power; the colonization of new continents leveled old distinctions of rank; the development of manufacture and commerce brought fortune and power to men of humble origin. The forces thus set in motion have resulted in our day in the general acceptance of political democracy witness in contemporary affairs the inception of the Portuguese Republic, the Chinese Republic, the abolition of the veto-power of the British House of Lords-and are creating a widespread belief in industrial democracy. So complete is our American acquiescence in the principle of equality in the abstract that it is difficult for us to realize the burning passions that underlay such familiar words as Don Quixote's, "Know, Sancho, that one man is no more than another unless he does more than another"; or Burns's "A man's a man for a' that"; or Tennyson's " 'Tis only noble to be good."
Yet, for all our abstract belief in equality, we have not become equal in opportunity, and in some ways are actually becoming less so. Land, for example, which was once to be had for the taking, is steadily rising in price, and is now, in most parts of the country, getting beyond the reach of the poor. Foreign observers agree that there is no other existing nation so plutocratic as our own; and wealth here is probably though the matter is in doubt becoming more and more concentrated. [Footnote: For a recent and cautious discussion of this point see F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 54, sec. 3. There is really no accurate information available to settle the question whether wealth is becoming more or less concentrated. Certainly the number of the rich has rapidly increased, and very many of the poor have risen into the class of the well to do. Wages and the scale of living of the poor have risen, but not in proportion to the total increase in wealth. The rich seem to be not only getting richer, but getting a larger SHARE of the national wealth.] It is estimated that one per cent of the inhabitants of our country now own more property than the remaining ninety-nine per cent.
The natural resources of the country have been to a considerable extent such natural monopolies as railways, telegraph and telephone service, gas and electric lighting, are controlled by, and largely in the interests of, a small owning class. The Astors have become enormously rich because one of their progenitors bought for an inconsiderable sum farm land on Manhattan Island which is now worth so many dollars a square foot. Others have made gigantic fortunes out of the country's forests, its coal deposits, its copper, its waterpower, its oil. A certain upper stratum of society is freed from the necessity of work, can exercise vast power over the lives of the poor, and use its great accumulations for personal luxury or at its caprice, in defiance of the general welfare. Such congestion of wealth involves poverty on the part of masses of the less fortunate. With no capital, the poor man cannot compete in the industrial game; he has no money to invest, no reserve to fall back upon; he must accept employers' terms or starve. He cannot pause to educate himself, to get the skill and knowledge that might enable him to work up the ladder. His power in politics is overshadowed by that of the great corporations with their funds and their control of legal skill. He cannot afford expert medical care, or proper hygienic conditions of life; he is lucky if he can get a measure of justice in the courts. To call such a situation one of equality is irony. It is certain that, far as we are yet from final solution of the problems of production, we are still farther from a solution of the problems of the distribution of wealth. "A new and fair division of the goods and rights of this world should be," De Tocqueville long ago declared, "the main object of all who conduct human affairs." What methods of equalizing opportunity are possible?
Three plans for a fairer distribution of wealth have been proposed. According to one, the profits from industry would be divided among the population on a basis of their NEEDS. This is, however, clearly impracticable; every one, would discover unlimited needs, and no one would be fit to make the apportionment. The second scheme is that all men should be paid alike for equal hours of work, or, rather, in proportion to the disagreeableness of the work, the amount of SACRIFICE made. This scheme is that usually advocated by Socialists. The objection to it is that equal pay for every man would take away the chief stimulus to initiative, skill, energy, efficiency; it would take the zest and excitement out of the game of life, make living too monotonous; there must be rewards for the ambitious youth, prizes to be won. The third plan proportions reward to efficiency. And on the whole, as men are constituted, it seems desirable to reward men financially according to their efficiency, so far as that can be measured.[Footnote: F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 64, sec. 3.] This does not mean to leave things as they are. For at present the shrewd, if also fortunate, are rewarded out of all proportion to their efficiency; and many who are not efficient at all, who even do no work at all that is socially useful, are among the wealthiest. Moreover, efficiency itself is only partly due to the individual's will and effort; it is due to the physique and gifts and fortune he has inherited, the education and environment that have molded him, the social situation in which he finds himself, the willingness of others to cooperate with him, and his good luck in early ventures. It seems unfair that to him that hath so much, so much more should be given. Or at least it seems fair that he that hath less should be given more favorable opportunity. It is not enough, as Professor Giddings says, to reward every man according to his performance; we must find a way to enable every man to achieve his potential performance. The plan of proportioning rewards to efficiency must be modified by mercy for the weak-minded and weak-bodied. It must be supplemented by earnest efforts to provide health, education, and favorable environment for all, and, by the limitation of the right of inheritance, that all may have, so far as possible, approximately equal opportunity. It must beware of judging efficiency by immediate and obvious results, must encourage inventions that ripen slowly, genius that stumbles and blunders before succeeding, work that contributes to others' results and makes no showing for itself. It must involve a restriction of the right to unearned incomes. To put these necessary corollaries to the efficiency-\ reward plan into concrete form:
(1) The handicap of ignorance must be removed by providing free education for all, to the point of enabling every one to develop efficiency in some vocation. Scholarships for the needy, the prohibition of child labor, and a high enough wage scale for adults to permit the youth of all classes to complete their education, are indispensable.
(2) The handicap of ill-health must be, so far as possible, removed by state support of mothers-so that children need not inherit a weakened constitution from overtired mothers, or suffer from want of care in infancy; by free medical aid to all; by strict legislation for sanitary housing, pure food, etc; by the provision of public parks and playgrounds.
(3) The possibility of exorbitant profits from industry (profits out of proportion to the actual contribution of the individual in skillful work, mental or manual) must be abolished, by one of the plans discussed in chapter XXVII.
(4) There must be abolition or sharp limitation of unearned incomes i.e., incomes for which a return to society in service has not been made by the getter. This is the step that is clearest of all theoretically, but the worst sticking point in practice. If we could persuade men that they should not reap where they have not sown, the gravest inequities of our present order would disappear. The sources of unearned incomes are, first, the "unearned increment" in land values; secondly, the "unearned increment" in the value of natural resources; thirdly, all interest on investment; fourthly, all wealth inherited or obtained by legacy or gift.
(a) Land in the heart of New York or London sells at fifteen million dollars or so an acre. The land value of Manhattan Island alone, the central part of New York City, is in the neighborhood of $3,500,000,000, and rapidly increasing. A few generations ago it was all bought from the Indians for $24. It is estimated that the "unearned increment" of land values in Berlin during fifty years has been between $500,000,000 and $750,000,000. What is true so strikingly in the case of these great cities is true, in lesser degree, of all cities and towns and villages that have grown in population. The total increase in land values in America since the days of the pioneers equals, of course, the present value of its land, since it was acquired by our forefathers without payment, or with only a nominal fee to the Indians. Almost all of this enormous increase in wealth has gone into the pockets of the fortunate individuals who got possession; very little into the public treasury. Our cities have remained terribly poor, always in debt, obliged to pass by many needed improvements and to impose heavy taxes on their citizens. Yet all this wealth (not counting improvements made by the possessor upon his land) has been socially created. Others have moved into the neighborhood, factories have been built near by, roads and railways and sewers and water systems and lighting-systems and police protection, and a hundred other things, have made the individual's land more and more salable. If our fathers had been wise enough to divert a large percentage of this increase in value into the public coffers, no one would have been wronged, but many private fortunes would today be smaller, and the entire population could have been free from taxation from the beginning, with plenty of money for all needed public works, including many that we can now only dream about.
It is easy to see what could have been done; to determine what should now be done is far more difficult. To try to regain for the public the unearned increments of past years would be an injustice to those who have purchased lands recently, at the increased prices, and even, perhaps, to those who have benefited by the increasing values, since they have regarded the increase as theirs and adjusted their expenditures to this added income. The best that could be done would be to take an inventory of all land values now, and provide for a recurrent reappraisal; then to take all, or a large percentage, of the increased value from now on. It would, indeed, be dangerous to attempt to take it all, on account of the extreme difficulty of drawing the line between earned and unearned increments; even the most painstaking and impartial decisions would be sometimes unjust. But to take half or two thirds of what should be deemed "unearned" would be practicable. Several modern States now take from ten to fifty per cent; and the percentage taken will doubtless increase. The objections to such a course are twofold. In the first place, it is pointed out that if the unearned increment of value is appropriated by the State, the State should recoup landowners for all undeserved decrements of value; it is not fair to take away the possibility of gain and leave the possibility of loss. So long, however, as our population grows, the State could afford to make good the comparatively few cases of decreased value and yet get a big income. The other objection is that the hope of winning the increased land values has been a great and needed incentive to the development of the country, and a legitimate compensation for the hardships of pioneering. But while this is true of the earlier days, it applies less and less to present conditions, and is hardly at all applicable to the profits made in city lands. On the whole, there seems little objection to the appropriation by the State henceforth of the unearned increments of land value. But the days of enormous increments are passing, and land will presently reach a comparatively stable value. So that this method of preventing inflated fortunes must be counted, on the whole except for new and rapidly growing communities a lost opportunity. [Footnote: H. J. Davenport, State and Local Taxation, pp. 294-303. F. C. Howe, European Cities at Work, pp. 189-207. Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 22, p. 83; vol. 25, p. 682; vol. 27, p. 539. Political Science Quarterly, vol. 27, p. 586. National Municipal Review, vol. 3, p. 354. F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 44, sec. 5.]
(b) What is true of land is true of the natural resources of the country-coal, minerals, oil, gas, waterpower, forests. These were seized, with a small payment or none, by the early comers, and sold later at a great advance, or worked for an increasing profit by the owner. Here, again, if the nation had maintained an inventory of these values and appropriated to itself all or a percentage of the increase in value (which results from the increasing public need of the resources and the limited supply, together with the increase in facilities for transportation, etc, rather than from the owner's labor or skill), many of our present gross inequalities in wealth would have been forestalled, and the community would be far richer in its common wealth. Add to the realization of this fact the sight of the reckless waste by private owners of such resources as can be wasted, and the present conservation movement is fully explained. The best that can now be done is to retain under government ownership such natural resources as have not yet passed into private hands, and to appropriate further increases in value of those that are privately owned. [Footnote: C. R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control, pp. 154-66. Outlook, vol. 85, p. 426; vol. 86, p. 716; vol. 93, p. 770; vol. 95, p. 21.]
(c) Practically all of the upper classes add to the incomes they earn by labor of hands or brain an "unearned" income derived from investment; i.e., from the willingness of others to pay for the use of their accumulated wealth or lands. A considerable class is thus enabled, if it chooses, to live without working. A great proportion of this wealth that draws interest was never itself earned by the possessors, in the stricter sense of the word "earned"; it has come to them by inheritance, by the increase of value of land or natural resources, or squeezed out of labor and the public by the unregulated profits of some autocratically managed industry or franchise. Is it expedient to allow this accumulated wealth to bring an income to its possessors? There are two possibilities: one goes with government control of private industry, the other with industrial socialism.
According to the first plan, income might still be derived from money in savings banks, from stocks and bonds, and from the rent of land and buildings. But it would cease to be a serious source of inequality. For if the unearned increment of land values and natural resources were deflected to the State, if none but moderate profits were allowed from industry; and if, in addition, the right of inheritance and gift were sharply curtailed, there would be, after a generation, no large fortunes left or thereafter possible. A man might receive by legacy a moderate amount of money, a little land or property; by working efficiently and living simply he might add continually to his investments and so come to have an income measurably beyond his earnings. But he could not get wealth enough for investment to be freed in perpetuity from the necessity of earning his living; and inequalities of wealth could not become very great; no greater, perhaps, than would be consistent with the greatest happiness.
According to the socialistic plan, since all industry would be run by the State, on state provided capital, there would be no demand for a man's savings except for purely personal uses, no stocks and no bonds, no savings banks, except for the safe deposit of money and valuables. All interest might then be forbidden; and a man would save merely for future use, or to pass on to others, not for the sake of drawing a further income from his savings. All rent must then in fairness be forbidden also, except such payments as would be a fair return for improvements made, buildings constructed, with the cost of repairs, insurance, etc. This would result in all land being owned by the users, and do away with landlordism. The unearned increment would be so widely distributed that it would be needless, for purposes of equalizing distribution, to bother with it, though it might still be appropriated by the State as a means of increasing its revenue. This scheme would make it impossible for any one to live without earning his livelihood, except during such periods as his accumulated earnings would tide him over. It would, indeed, lessen the incentive to saving; but if it were buttressed by the provision of fair salaries for all and by universal insurance against illness, accident, old age, and death, there would no longer be much need of saving. This social order would be eminently just, leaving only such inequalities in wealth as would result from the differences in productive efficiency of different men, coupled with a moderate right of inheritance. Its practicability, however, hinges upon the general practicability of socialism, which must remain for the present an open question. [Footnote: F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 46; chap. 66, sec. 5; chap. 64, radical change as this lies beyond the range of immediate possibilities]
(d) The right of inheritance and gift, which we have had to mention as aggravating other sources of inequality, needs, as matters are at present, drastic curtailment. The tax must not, indeed, be heavy enough to encourage spendthrift living and lessen thrift, or to cut too deeply into the capital necessary for carrying on business. But a carefully devised tax can escape these dangers; and it is plainly not best for society, or for the heirs themselves in most cases, that they should have irresponsible use of large sums of money which they have not earned in a world where millions are starving, physically, mentally, and spiritually, for lack of what money can provide. If, however, the plan last outlined is ever carried into effect, there will be no need of restricting the right of inheritance; even the alternative plan would require little attention to inheritance after present inequalities had been approximately leveled, as there would then be little opportunity for large accumulations. A sharply graded inheritance tax may therefore be looked upon as a now necessary but temporary expedient.[Footnote: F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 54, sec. 5; chap. 67. secs. 5, 6.] We may conclude with the consideration of four special problems that are related, in some aspect, to the conceptions of equality and privilege.
What are the ethics of:
I. The single tax? The single-tax idea is that all the public revenue should be raised by a land tax. The push behind the movement comes from the sight of the unearned fortunes that have been made out of land. The term is used loosely by some to mean merely the taking or taxing by the State, as we have already suggested, of all future unearned increments of land value, so far as they can be computed. But, this would not now provide enough revenue for most communities, and so would not really make possible a single tax. The real single tax would involve taking in taxation not only future INCREASES in values, but ALL the rental value of land. Even this would not always produce revenue enough, as the needs of public revenue bear no relation to the land values in a given area. But it would in most places produce considerably more than enough revenue. Land taxes in New York City, for example, if trebled, would supply all the revenue; they would have to be quintupled to absorb the entire rental value of the land the city stands on. The simplicity of the scheme appeals to many-especially to those who own no land. But it amounts to a confiscation of land values by the State, which would be unjust to land-owners, however advantageous to the rest of the community. It means charging everybody rent for the land he now owns. Present tenants would be no worse off, but present owners of the land they use, as well as landlords, would be hard hit. Let us consider each in turn.
A considerable proportion of the land is owned by the users, the majority of whom are members of the middle class and but moderately well to do. Upon them the burden of supporting our increasing public undertakings would largely fall. But why? THEY are not getting any unearned income. THEY have, in most cases, paid pretty nearly full value for their land, even though that land was originally acquired for little or nothing. They have put their earnings into land in good faith, when they might have put it into industry or enjoyed its use. The single tax would work grave injustice to them. It would also be practically inexpedient, in drawing the public revenue largely from a class that can less afford it, while leaving hardly touched most of the bigger fortunes, which consist seldom chiefly of land oldings. But even as to that part of the land that is bringing unearned income to landlords is it fair to stop that income unless we stop all other forms of income on investment? One man has put his fortune into stocks or bonds; he draws his five per cent in security with no further trouble than clipping coupons; another, having put an equal fortune into land, finds his five per cent income entirely confiscated. Not by such class legislation can justice be served or equality produced. The landlord class deserves no worse than the stockholder class or the investor in a savings bank. It is fair, as we suggested above, to put an end to ALL incomes from investment, and make every man live on his earnings; it is not fair to pick out landlords for exploitation.
II. Free trade and protection?
Free trade is undoubtedly the ultimate industrial ideal; not as a natural right, but as a matter of mutual advantage, that everything may be manufactured in the most economical place and way. The geographical division of labor is as generally advantageous as the assignment of highly specialized tasks within a community. Import duties result in diverting labor into less economical channels, and hence entail a loss to the community as a whole. The prosperity of the United States has been in considerable measure the result of its complete internal free trade. On this general truth the best economists are pretty universally agreed. The argument that a tariff wall is necessary to maintain our generally higher standard of wages and living is pure fallacy, as, indeed, can be seen in the fact that wages in free-trade England are higher than in protectionist Germany. The only legitimate economic question is whether special advantages may accrue from protecting certain industries under certain peculiar conditions. For example, a new industry, in the conduct of which skill has not yet been acquired, may need nursing while it is growing strong enough to produce as cheaply as foreign competitors. Again, when foreign nations impose a tax upon our products, it may be politically expedient to impose a counter-tariff, as a means toward reciprocity and eventual free trade. But the discussion of such situations involves no ethical principles, and may be left to the economists and statesmen.
The considerations that concern the moralist are rather such as these: Is it advisable to keep our own people self-sufficing, producing all they need to consume? Is it permissible to protect (by a subsidy, which is equivalent to an import duty in other matters) our foreign merchant marine, so as to have the satisfaction of seeing our flag flying in foreign ports and the assurance of plenty of transports, colliers, etc, in case of war? Or is it better for humanity that the nations should become mutually interdependent, requiring one another's products and somewhat at one another's mercy in case of war? There can be no doubt that the narrower, "patriotic" view retards the deepest interests of humanity, and that free trade is to be sought not only as a means toward economic prosperity, but as an avenue toward universal peace.
The other dominant ethical aspect of the situation lies in the fact that the tariff plays into the hands of certain monopolies, enables them to maintain high prices and make excessive profits, which international competition would reduce. As actually used, the American tariff is largely an instrument for favoring special classes of manufacturers at the general expense, and so is to be condemned.
On the other hand, where manufacturers are enabled by the tariff merely to make fair profits, and economic considerations would dictate a removal of the duty and the shifting of labor to industries where it could be more regard for vested interests should make us pause. To ruin an industry in which capitalists have invested their fortunes and laborers have acquired skill, although it would be in the end for the general good, would work unjust hardship to them; in such cases, then, a tariff should be lowered only with great caution, or some compensation should be made to the individuals who suffer loss thereby.
III. The control of immigration? Another contemporary question is whether discrimination may rightfully be exercised in the admission of aliens to residence in our country. Abstract considerations would suggest the desirability of equal treatment to all comers. But certain practical effects must be considered.
(1) The admission of hordes of ill-educated and ill-disciplined immigrants from countries lower in the scale of progress than our own is a serious menace to the ideals and standards of living that we have at great cost evolved. Our own morals and manners are not firmly enough fixed to be sure of withstanding the downward pull of more primitive conceptions and habits. Their willingness to work for small wages lowers the remuneration of Americans; their contentment with wretched living conditions blocks our attempts to raise the general standard of life. Many of them are unappreciative of American ideals, easily misled by corrupt politicians, and thus a deadweight against political and social advance. We may, perhaps, disregard the poverty of the immigrant, if he is in good health and able to work; we may even disregard his lack of education, if he is mentally sound and reasonably intelligent. But if some practicable method could be devised to lessen radically the incoming stream of those who are low in their standards of living, we should be spared the social indigestion from which we now suffer. One feasible suggestion is to limit the number of immigrants annually admitted from each country to a certain small percentage of the number of natives of that country already resident here. In that way the total number could be restricted without offense to any nation, and those peoples most easily assimilated would be admitted in greatest proportions. In addition, naturalization should be permitted only after a number of years, during which the immigrant would be in danger of deportation for proved criminality, vicious indulgence, intemperance, shiftlessness, troublesome agitation, and other undesirable traits.
(2) The admission of peoples of very alien race to residence side by side with our own inevitably gives rise to friction and unpleasantness. However irrational it may be, there are instinctive antipathies and distrusts between the different racial stocks. The importation of the Negroes brought us a terrible racial problem, one for which there seems no satisfactory solution. White men as a class dislike living side by side with them, and fiercely resent intermarriage, which might ultimately merge the races, as it seems to be doing in South America. A general feeling of brotherhood and social democracy is greatly retarded by this racial chasm.[Footnote: Cf. J. M. Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction.] It is earnestly to be hoped that Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, and other non-European races may not be admitted to residence here in any great degree; similar antipathies and resentments would be added to our existing discords. It is not that these races are inferior to our own, they are simply different; and however superficial the differences, they are just the sort of differences that cause social friction. Precisely the same argument would apply to the exodus of Americans and Europeans to Asiatic countries. A certain amount of intermingling of students, travelers, missionaries, traders, is highly beneficial, in the exchange of ideas and manners it stimulates; that the main racial stocks should remain apart, on their several continents, in that mutual respect and brotherhood that the superficial repugnancies of too close contact tend to destroy. The plan suggested at the close of the preceding paragraph would sufficiently avert these undesirable racial migrations.
IV. The woman-movement? The demand of women for a larger life and a recognition from men of their full equality has found expression recently, not only in the hysterical and criminal acts of British suffragettes, but in many soberer revolts against the traditional assignment of duties and privileges. We may agree at once in deploring the exclusion of women from any rights and opportunities which are not inconsistent with a wise division of labor, and that patronizing air of superiority shown toward them by so many men-a condescension not incompatible with tenderness and chivalry. Theirs has been the repressed and petted sex. Yet there are no adequate grounds for supposing that men are, on an average, really abler or saner or more reasonable naturally than women; that they are, indeed, in any essential sense different, except for the results of their different education and life, and such divergences as the differentiation of sex itself involves including an average greater physical strength.[Footnote: But cf. Munsterberg, Psychology and Social Sanity, p. 195] Men and women are naturally equals; with equally good training they can contribute almost equally to the world's work; they have an equal right to education, a useful vocation, and the free pursuit of happiness. But equal rights do not necessarily imply identical duties; there is a certain division of labor laid down by nature. Women alone can bear children, mothers alone can properly rear them; no incubators and institutions can supply this fundamental need. If women, in their eagerness to compete with men in other occupations, neglect in any great numbers this most difficult and honorable of all vocations, there will be a dangerous decline in the numbers and the nurture of coming generations. Moreover, if homes are not to be supplanted by boarding houses and hotels, the great majority of women must stay at home and do the work which makes a home possible. Home making and child rearing are the duties that always have been and always will be the lot of most women; and they are duties too exacting to permit of being conjoined with any other vocation.
On the other hand, the woman who has servants and rears no children should be pushed by public opinion into some outside occupation; women have no more right to idle than men. All unmarried women, when past the years that may properly be devoted to education, should certainly enter upon some useful vocation; and there is no reason why (with a few obvious exceptions) any occupation save the more physically arduous should be closed to such. Every girl should be prepared for some remunerative work, in case she does not marry or her husband dies leaving her childless. Such economic independence would, further, have the inestimable value that she would be under no pressure to marry in order to be supported and have an honorable place in the world; if she is trained to earn her living she will be free to marry only for love. If she does marry, and gives up her prior vocation to be housekeeper and child-rearer, she should be legally entitled to half her husband's earnings. The grave difficulty is that a woman needs to prepare herself both for her probable duties as housekeeper and mother, and also for her possible need of earning a living otherwise. Education in the former duties, that must fall to the great majority of women, cannot safely be neglected, as it is so largely today; the only general solution will be for unmarried women to adopt, as a class, the vocations for which less careful preparation is necessary.
The question of the ballot is not practically of great importance, first, because equal suffrage is coming very fast, whatever we may say, and, secondly, because it will make no great difference when it comes. There is no natural right in the matter; the decision in political affairs might well be left to half the population-when that half cuts so completely through all classes and sections-if the saving in expense or trouble seemed to make it expedient. The interests of women are identical with those of men. Women are, in most parts of this country, as well off before the law as men; they do not need the ballot to remedy any unjust discriminations. Moreover, the ballot will mean the necessity of sharing the burden of political responsibility. The women who look upon the right to vote as a plum to be grasped for, a something which they want because men have it, with no conception of the training necessary to exercise that right responsibly, are not fit to be trusted with it. It often seems that it were better to restrict our present trustful and generous right of suffrage to those who can show evidence of intelligence and responsibility, rather than to double the number of shallow and untrained voters.
But, on the other hand, there is reason to suppose that women, through their greater interest in certain goods, will materially accelerate some reforms-as, the sanitation of cities, the improvement of education, child-welfare legislation, the warfare against alcohol and prostitution. The actual results already attained where women vote are, on the whole, important enough to warrant the extension of the right, as a matter of social expediency. Moreover, the very increase in the number of voters makes the securing of power through bribery more difficult; and the entrance of women into politics will probably hasten their purification in many places. At any rate, the necessity of voting will tend to develop a larger interest among women in public affairs, to fit them better for the education of their children, and to do away with the lingering sense of the inferiority of women. Certain it is, finally, that an increasing number of women want the vote, and will not rest till they get it.
General: F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 54. W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, book I. Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, chap. XIII. C. B. Spahr, The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XXV, secs. 6, 7. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, pp. 480, 679. The single tax: Henry George, Progress and Poverty; Social Problems. R. C. Fillebrown, The A.B.C. of Taxation. Outlook, vol. 94, p. 311. Shearman, Natural Taxation. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, p. 737; vol. 113, pp. 27, 545. H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics, chap, XXVI, secs. 283-88. F. W. Taussig, op. cit, chap. 42, sec. 7. Arena, vol. 34, p. 500; vol. 35, p. 366. New World, vol. 7, p. 87. Free trade: North American Review, vol. 189, p. 194. Quarterly Review, vol. 202, p. 250. H. Fawcett, Free Trade and Protection. W. J. Ashley, The Tariff Problem. H. R. Seager, op. cit, chap. XX, secs. 211-17. F. W. Taussig, op. cit, chaps. 36, 37. Immigration: Jenks and Lauck, The Immigration Problem. H. P. Fairchild, Immigration. Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, chap. III. F. J. Warne, The Immigrant Invasion. A. Shaw, Political Problems, pp. 62-86. North American Review, vol. 199, p. 866. Nineteenth Century, vol. 57, p. 294. Educational Review, vol. 29, p. 245. Forum, vol. 42, p. 552. Charities, vol. 12, p. 129. Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 16, pp. 1, 141. The woman question: J. S. Mill, The Subjection of Women. C. P. Gilman, Women and Economics. O. Schreiner, Woman and Labor. K. Schirmacher, The Modern Woman's Rights Movement. Jane Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace, chap. VII. F. Kelley, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation, chap. V. Outlook, vol. 82, p. 167; vol. 91, pp. 780, 784, 836; vol. 95, p. 117; vol. 101, pp. 754, 767. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, pp. 48, 191, 721. Century, vol. 87, pp. 1, 663. National Municipal Review, vol. 1, p. 620.