We all have the right in this country to spend our money intelligently. If people want to get our thousand dollars a year, or two thousand a year, or three, five, or ten thousand a year, they must show cause why they should have it, dollar for dollar. We want our dollars to help people to help us, laborers who are helping the country and capitalists who are helping the country. Every time I spend ten cents I want to know that I am getting ten cents' worth of democracy, ten cents' worth of skilled capital and skilled labor working for all of us. I propose to vote with my money on the fate of my country and the fate of democracy with silver coins and with dollar bills every day. The other kind of ballot, the paper ballot, I can only use in the nature of the case once or twice a year.
XIV
THE SKILLED CONSUMER
The way to control the world and govern the well-being of men is not through the time they have left over, or the time they choose to lay one side for it, but directly and through their most important engagements and things they do and are sure to do all the time.
A man's first important engagement in this world is with his own breath.
His second engagement is with his own stomach.
His third is with the night and with sleep.
His fourth is with posterity, with the unborn, with his children and children's children.
His fifth is with his ancestors and with God.