82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



all people clearly perceived it to be true, that each man receives 

 benefit in proportion to the value of his efforts. But all history- 

 shows that man has ever had to fight for the fruit of his labor ; 

 to stand guard over that which his efforts have gained. Herein 

 lies the meaning of theft. In broad significance, to steal is to de- 

 prive another of benefit without yielding benefit in return. The 

 robber and the thief that directly filch are shown to become less 

 in each decade in proportion to the total population ; but, in the 

 complexity of the growing industrial mechanism, the greed of the 

 unscrupulous has found new channels through which to wrest 

 from others that for which adequate recompense is not given. 

 But after war is peace, and as a wider sense of justice has fol- 

 lowed the struggles of mankind in the past, there is reason to be- 

 lieve that the industrial warfare that now confronts us on every 

 hand and the discussion of political, economical, and industrial 

 problems which is now intense throughout the civilized world 

 will result in that increased intelligence and increased morality 

 which tend ever more and more to give each man his due. 



And contributing to this end must be a fuller understanding 

 of the nature of friendship and charity and of their just limita- 

 tions. For these much-extolled virtues are but too frequently 

 with mistaken intent devoted to unworthy ends; in devious ways 

 their counterfeits are made to serve as instruments for obtaining 

 unearned gain. That a monarch of old who gave to a genial 

 comrade power to devote tribute obtained from the subjects of the 

 realm to his personal pleasure and indulgence allowed friendship 

 for his comrade to result in wrong to his people is apparent with- 

 out other proof than that of the fact. Because of the pleas- 

 ure obtained by the king from association with him, the favorite 

 benefited by the efforts of thousands of people to whom he con- 

 tributed no benefit in return. And so also with every man occu- 

 pying position of power or trust who bestows place, authority, or 

 privilege because of friendship upon a man incompetent and un- 

 worthy. For, as the efforts of each man are interlinked in greater 

 or less degree with the efforts of all others, so to do would be to 

 diminish the totality of effort that is the lifeblood of civilization. 

 The human nature quickly adjusts itself to that which is pleas- 

 ant ; the frequent bestowal of unearned benefit upon a friend 

 tends to adjust his nature to the reception of that benefit, to lead 

 him to expect it. His perception of the fact that benefit should 

 come to him in proportion to the value of his contribution to the 

 totality of effort is thereby weakened, to his mental and moral 

 detriment. And he who by the display of a kindly interest, 

 whether real or simulated, in another's welfare obtains benefit 

 from the effort of that other for which he does not make due 

 recompense adds to theft the vice of hypocrisy. It is only under 



