WELFARE AND THE NEW ECONOMICS 5°9 



scarcely an effort to throttle their taskmasters — hunger and emulation 

 — or to stay the hand of the grim reaper who annually sends seven hun- 

 dred thousand of them to premature graves. 



Irrigate ! Drain ! Lime ! Fertilize ! Aye, farmer, do these things, 

 and you will reap a plenteous harvest. You possess the knowledge and 

 the tools — then bend enthusiastically to your task. 



Educate ! Legislate ! Eeorganize ! Adjust ! Aye, citizen, do these 

 things and you will gain a satisfying livelihood. You possess the 

 knowledge, the wealth, the tools — then bend enthusiastically to your 

 task. 



The time has passed when the man with the hoe, "bowed with the 

 weight of centuries," "gazes on the ground," toiling that he may pay 

 an eternal tribute to the feudal overlord. To-day he looks the future 

 full in the face, and, with the faith of a freeman, applies natural sci- 

 ence to the solution of the heretofore inscrutable agriculture problems. 

 The time is coming when the man at the machine — striving, frantically 

 hurrying through the long reaches of the ten-hour day — that he may 

 obtain the wherewithal to buy for him and his bread, books, shoes and 

 pleasure trips — servile to economic laws which he can neither under- 

 stand nor master — will look the present system of industrial society full 

 in the face, and with the faith of an emancipated soul will consign its 

 laws to the devil and use the knowledge and the tools which the past 

 has given him, to provide himself with the means whereby he may live. 



Political economy is not a science founded on eternal principles, but 

 a philosophy of livelihood. Its aim is not to astound us with its mathe- 

 matical premises, or to frighten us with its threats of world disaster, 

 but to outline a method by which men may raise the heavy yoke of tra- 

 ditional servitude and secure a more satisfactory living. 



