544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



their equally united support of such wretched acts as the war on Egypt 

 and that in the Soudan. In our own country our endowed fellow- 

 citizens, the professorial socialists, are a corresponding class. It is the 

 instinct of self-preservation in privileged classes to cringe to power, 

 and to express its sentiments ; and when, as in our own day, powerful 

 organizations rise, and, exhibiting a great revulsion toward an ancient 

 form of social organization, seem likely to be in the ascendant, these 

 classes hasten to pay court to the brute force of ignorance and num- 

 bers, as in other countries they pay court to the majority of bayonets. 

 It matters not to them that social evolution is a continuous progress 

 toward individual property and rights. It matters not that the Eng- 

 lish race in England and America have, after centuries of struggle and 

 the sacrifice of countless heroic lives, secured individual immunity from 

 official tyranny. The unprecedented rapidity of our recent advance 

 has favored a reaction, and those last to follow in the wake of prog- 

 ress are the swiftest in retreat. But particular illustrations of this 

 fact are necessary. We might cite the astonishing article of Presi- 

 dent Seelye in " The Forum," advocating in America the establishment 

 of a national church ! But we prefer to select the most prominent of 

 the professorial socialists, whose recent utterances on economic topics 

 are extremely interesting from our present point of view. 



Mr. Richard T. Ely's " Introduction to the Labor Problem " is ap- 

 parently a hastily written paper, and it might be unfair to subject it to 

 any close scrutiny, were it not for the confidence with which the most 

 startling statements are made, and the like carelessness exhibited in his 

 other writings. The following is one of the gems of thought found in 

 the place referred to : " The idea of free governments is to stimulate 

 individual initiative and individual industry, but the consequence is 

 that a few clever or fortunate people often successful because more 

 unscrupulous than others restrict the activity of their fellows, and 

 effectually repress the freest expansion of the energies of the people." 



In the first place, the idea of free governments is not to " stimu- 

 late " anybody or anything, but simply the removal of obstacles in the 

 way of activity, and the use of the word shows a fundamental mis- 

 conception. Passing this point, however, one might suppose from the 

 above that Russia and China, where Mr. Ely's sociological ideas have 

 full sway, are better situated for a free " expansion of the energies of 

 the people," whereas it need hardly be said that individual initiative 

 is freest and individual industry is most successful where governments 

 interfere least.* 



"The ethical duties and the holy privileges of a citizen of the re- 

 public must be enforced in season and out of season," further remarks 

 Mr. Ely. This luminous dictum is delivered without explanation ; and 



* The fact that, since the absorption of the telegraph lines by the British Government, 

 all the improvements have come from America, whereas England had before furnished 

 her full share of them, is a striking illustration. 



