THE NEW POLITICAL SCHOOL 



697 



For the time, the laisse::-fairc eco- 

 nomics was necessary. 



Feudalism had to be destroyed, mod- 

 ern industry had to be established ; to 

 the extent that thinkers and teachers 

 can change systems, men of the type of 

 the Physiocrats and Adam Smith ef- 

 fected this change ; and to them the 

 world owes a great debt. 



But the new system, like its prede- 

 cessor, was born to do its work, to die 

 and pass away. 



For society is a living, growing, 

 evolving thing; institutional forms are 

 not rigid, but plastic ; not permanent, 

 but temporary. 



As the snake sheds its skin, human 

 society sheds successively its economic 

 garments, and takes on new ones. 



The time came in Europe when 

 "Smithianismus" became a fetter, as 

 feudalism and Colbertism before it had 

 been fetters. 



Laissez-faire meant the triumph of 

 the Whig, and the conquest of society, 

 industry, and politics by commercial- 

 ism ; it meant the unbridled, lawless 

 reign of the money-bags. 



On one side, society was brilliant ; 

 but on the other, it was rotten. 



Under hisses- f aire, help yourself, get 

 all you can, and devil take the hind- 

 most, "the fortunes of Lancashire" 

 grew up, "not by tens, but by hundreds 

 and thousands per cent." 



And while swollen fortunes were 

 mounting, Mrs. Browning was voicing 

 the "Crv of the Children," and "the 

 Bitter Cry of Outcast London" was 

 heard in the land. 



Gradually, the conscience of Europe 

 awoke ; Carlyle wrote his "Past and 

 Present ;" Ruskin punctured the bubble 

 of orthodox economics, and German 

 historical economists exposed the ab- 

 surdity of the "classic" fundamentals. 



Like its predecessor, feudalism, 

 laissez-faire read the handwriting on 

 the wall. 



National self-interest, moreover, op- 

 ened its eyes, and men who could see 

 beyond the profits of the rich began 

 to reflect upon the question of the na- 

 tional defense. 



Could England, for example, with an 

 army recruited from slums and pauper 

 warrens, protect herself from invasion? 



And if starvelings could not fight, 

 could they be expected to work? Could 

 a nation luaintain its commercial and 

 industrial supremacy with a laboring 

 population depleted, emaciated, and 

 broken in spirit? 



To such questions there could be 

 but one answer. How increasingly defi- 

 nite it is to-day becoming we may infer 

 from the goings-on in parliament, the 

 Lloyd George budget, the hustings and 

 the returns from by-elections. 



America, the child of England, fol- 

 lowed, as was to be expected, in the 

 footsteps of the parent country. As she 

 inherited the common law, so likewise 

 she inherited the economics of England. 



Until yesterday, Adam Smith. Ri- 

 cardo, and Malthus ruled the colleges 

 and universities of America. 



To-day, in any up-to-date institution 

 in the land, they are as dead as Ji-ihus 

 Caesar. 



Why? 



Because the era of laissez-faire busi- 

 ness — long rampant in the United 

 States as in Europe — has at last run 

 its course. 



Because the people are awakening to 

 the fact that "get all you can," and 

 "devil take the hindmost" mean one 

 rich man and an army of poor men. 



And the army of poor men can out- 

 vote the one rich man, and are gradu- 

 ally getting ready to do so. 



Our Denver critics lament that we 

 quote Roosevelt. Why do we? 



Because Theodore Roosevelt marked 

 the governmental recognition of the 

 out-of-dateness of laissez-faire, and of 

 the incoming of the new regime. 



And what is the new regime? Pri- 

 marily, it is that under which the chief 

 concern of America will be the interest, 

 not of a few industrial magnates, but 

 of the people at large. 



Tt is the era which will recognize 

 that a happy, contented, prosperous, pa- 

 triotic, intelligent people, with time to 

 live and the ambition to serve, is, from 

 every point of view, vastly to be pre- 



