Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/742

722 of profits, are too common to admit of mention. In high-class periodicals, too, like "The Century," we find plentiful manifestations of the same spirit. Sometimes, as in the article "Danger ahead," published in a late number of that magazine, the fear of violent revolution shows itself in the feverish manner of the argument, and may fairly be counted as the chief source of the opinions expressed; but, again, as in the recent papers of Washington Gladden, we find a calm discussion of socialism and conclusions favorable to it arrived at with no obvious bias. And in the pages of the most orthodox political economists we observe a kindred tendency. In Mill's "Political Economy" there is no exhaustive examination of the unequal distribution of wealth; but the tone of the whole work is, I think, expressive of regret that inequalities should be so great as they are. While considering inheritance he commends laws enforcing the division of accumulated wealth at death. Elsewhere he denies that the proportioning of remuneration to work done is really just, except so far as the amount of work is a matter of choice; it is only "highly expedient." This shows his feeling toward the existing system, and nearly all political economists exhibit a like feeling. And even in Mr. Fiske's "American Political Ideas," despite the magnificent paean on our "manifest destiny," which is in effect a eulogy of our comparatively free economic system, we read with sympathetic regret of the progress of a typical Massachusetts village from a state of comparatively equal prosperity and intelligence to that of a manufacturing town, where the distance between the highest and lowest becomes in nearly all ways so great. Our affections incline toward this primitive homogeneity; our ideas have been largely molded by it and by the great struggle against slavery, with which we naturally, though erroneously, associate definite class divisions, to which we are obviously tending. Our feeling for the past, or rather our adaptation to it, joins with apprehension of the future to make us fear any further departure from homogeneity, and we are impelled along rather by the action of blind economic forces than by any one's wish. A perception of our economic tendencies voices itself roughly in the very inaccurate saying that "the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer," which is the burden of the works of Henry George and most of the socialistic writers; and the united action of society is invoked to remedy the unfair operation of economic laws.

Such being the ideas more or less vaguely prevalent, it may be interesting to examine—1. What has made possible the acquirement of the great fortunes of the present generation? 2. Will the favoring circumstances continue? 3. How should we regard the holding of millions by a single man and its inheritance by his family—perchance by a single son who could never have gained such wealth for himself?