AN OBJECT LESSON IN SOCIAL REFORM. 305 



s'upx)lanting a " free " by a " paternal " government, which last in 

 turn finds its highest expression in the enactment of sumptuary 

 laws for the control by government of the private life of its 

 citizens ? All despotic power is alike in its nature ; and, once in- 

 dulged in, the results are always the same. Once let it be fully 

 accepted as a legitimate feature of public policy that the great 

 public power of taxation may be intrusted to individual hands 

 for private purposes and the power of life and death will be 

 promptly seized to make the former effective. Once confer upon 

 government the power of dealing out wealth, and the day is not 

 far distant when its recipients will control the Government, and 

 by the use of money elect their magistrates and legislators to 

 perpetuate this policy. 



Had the framers of the Federal Constitution even so much as 

 dreamed that the Government to be established under it would 

 ever practically refuse to acknowledge any limitations on its 

 right to interfere with the property of its citizens, would use the 

 taxing power with undisguised intent for promoting private 

 rather than public purposes, and would levy taxes to prevent the 

 payment of taxes, the Constitution itself would never have been 

 called into existence, and the great American Republic would never 

 have had a history.* 







AN OBJECT LESSON IN SOCIAL REFORM. 

 Bt franklin smith. 



''VrO error is more prevalent among intelligent and well-read 

 -L> people than that the social philosophy of Herbert Spencer 

 has little or no practical application to the modern problems of 

 social reform. So deep-rooted is this error that the ablest religious 

 journal in the United States, which gives much attention to these 

 problems, once advised him to throw it away. Because he does 

 not favor recourse to the state for purposes outside of the main- 

 tenance of justice, it could not conceive that his social philosophy 

 provided in a more effective way for the solution of social prob- 

 lems. By an account of a homely instance of the application of 

 this philosophy, I purpose to show how practical it is in the ordi- 

 nary as well as extraordinary affairs of life how it has no rival 

 in the important and beneficent work of bettering the condition 

 of mankind. The instance to which I refer is the method adopted 



* The economic student and writer (and indeed almost the only one) who has discussed 

 this subject in the English language with originality and cogency that is most potent for 

 conviction, is Mr. Theodore Bacon, of Rochester, N. Y., in an article contributed to the 

 New-Englander in 1867, and to which the author acknowledges his indebtedness both in 

 respect to ideas and language. 



TOL. L. 24 



