Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/483

Rh

appear to many very preferable to a democratic republic which is constantly menacing, disturbing, or plundering them.

These words suggest that the progressive who is true to the interests of mankind is not invariably the foe of property. On the contrary, it occasionally becomes his duty to defend the right of property against its misguided opponents. The abolition of slavery does not justify a crusade against property in general. Human chattels and property in other things do not logically go together. From a social point of view, the two are inconsistent, for the slave has neither the incentive nor the opportunity to become a proprietor. The ownership of one's self is the first prerequisite to the ownership of other things. The total abolition of property rights, or even their drastic curtailment, would promote equality of a certain kind, but it would be equality upon a low level of misery. The lapse of one hundred and twenty-five years has rendered the constitution in some respects unsuited to current needs, but this should not blind us to the fact that the men of substance who brought about its adoption served their day and generation well. They were the real progressives of their time, though some of their work needs revision. Likewise, the opponents of wholesale reductions in railway rates have at times best served the people. Beyond doubt, also, there have been few worse enemies of the ideal of equality than the paper money inflationists who have flourished from time to time. The man who in the midst of turbulence and disorder restores the conditions of orderly industry with a firm hand is the friend not only of property but of labor. But a still better friend of both is he who not only restores order, but who in addition prevents the recurrence of disorder by correcting the conditions out of which it sprang.

The cause of progress commonly enlists the services of the more public-spirited portion of the community. The opponents of the liquor traffic, for example, are undoubtedly less influenced by mercenary considerations than are the liquor interests. It is well to bear in mind, however, that those who take the side of reform at any time are not always such disinterested patriots as one might suppose. Many men engage in politics not for what they can make out of it in questionable ways, but for the love of the game and to gratify the sense of power, and are quite as likely to be found on the side of human rights as on the side of those who have some pecuniary interests to subserve. As any cause gains in prestige, it tends to attract more and more of this class. Moreover, some humanitarian movements are well financed and consequently attract a considerable number of those in whom sordid considerations outweigh everything else. The men and women who espoused the anti-slavery cause at the outset were actuated by high principles, though doubtless some found in the opportunity for notoriety meat for their