22 American Ideals 



who reads the essays of Charles Francis Adams and 

 Henry Adams, entitled "A Chapter of Erie," and 

 "The Gold Conspiracy in New York," will read 

 about the doings of men whose influence for evil 

 upon the community is more potent than that of any 

 band of anarchists or train robbers. 



There are other members of our mercantile com- 

 munity who, being perfectly honest themselves, 

 nevertheless do almost as much damage as the dis- 

 honest. The professional labor agitator, with all 

 his reckless incendiarism of speech, can do no more 

 harm than the narrow, hard, selfish merchant or 

 manufacturer who deliberately sets himself to keep 

 the laborers he employs in a condition of dependence 

 which will render them helpless to combine against 

 him ; and every such merchant or manufacturer who 

 rises to sufficient eminence leaves the record of his 

 name and deeds as a legacy of evil to all who come 

 after him. 



But of course the worst foes of America are the 

 foes to that orderly liberty without which our Re- 

 public must speedily perish. The reckless labor agi- 

 tator who arouses the mob to riot and bloodshed is 

 in the last analysis the most dangerous of the work- 

 ingman's enemies. This man is a real peril ; and so 

 is his sympathizer, the legislator, who to catch votes 

 denounces the judiciary and the military because 

 they put down mobs. We Americans have, on the 

 whole, a right to be optimists; but it is mere folly 

 to blind ourselves to the fact that there are some 

 black clouds on the horizon of our future. 



