THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMMERCIAL DEPRESSION. 167 



the tariff can yield but one interpretation : It is a militant ap- 

 pliance for raising money, which has been continued in existence 

 after militant necessities have ceased ; and our surplus revenue, 

 drained from the labors of the people and poured into a treas- 

 ury that has no outlet for it, fitly symbolized its uselessness and 

 waste. 



But how about the belief, ever rising to the surface of our po- 

 litical whirlpool, which, in its extreme shape, advocates printed 

 pieces of paper as a medium of exchange ; and to-day, in a modi- 

 fied form, urges the use of a silver coin of less than its pretended 

 value ? Was it in the slow experience of peaceful commerce 

 that men first detected the supposed benefits of fictitious money ? 

 Did the developing needs of industrial life lead to its use ? No. 

 Again war was the parent. War, destroying more wealth than 

 the savings of a community could be drawn upon to supply, 

 mortgaged the future with a promissory note ; and the mental 

 weakness of many men, which incapacitates them from perceiv- 

 ing the necessary equivalence between a cause and its ultimate 

 eft'ect — from knowing that, in some form or other, every debt in- 

 curred must ultimately be met — deludes them into the belief that 

 this note can pass current forever. 



Twenty-seven years ago a reversion to militancy was forced 

 upon us by our cruel civil war, which, like a disease, left its 

 deadly taint in the body politic to linger on until to-day. In 

 spite of the enormous growth that our vast territory, our active 

 and laborious population, and the never-ceasing stream of immi- 

 gration have rendered possible ; in spite of conditions for wealth 

 and plenty such as no people ever knew before — through the 

 major part of these twenty years has been felt the influence of 

 some vague deterrent to the completeness of prosperity, and the 

 complaint of trade depression has been almost constant through- 

 out the land. Militant forms, surviving in the tariff and dis- 

 honest money, will in time be recognized as the efficient causes 

 of this state of things. 



If what we have said stands for a real truth ; and if the gen- 

 eral underlying cause of all commercial reactions is to be found in 

 the protracted life of a system that society has outgrown, which 

 checks the growth of one more suited to its needs — the realiza- 

 tion of the fact can not fail to be of value. All legislation, based 

 on such knowledge, would proceed in the line of real commercial 

 advantage; and a test by which to judge the fitness of new 

 measures for the needs of modern life would be supplied. Lest 

 this should seem too visionary, we shall close with an illustra- 

 tion of its possibilities. 



The community to-day is deeply moved by a new disorder of 

 the social organism known as the " labor problem." The lower 



