Civilization and Decay 359 



ly, in the Civil War, we utterly destroyed the system 

 of slavery, which really was threatening the life of 

 the free workingman in a way in which it can not 

 possibly be threatened by any conceivable develop- 

 ment of the "capitalistic" spirit. 



Mr. Adams possesses a very intimate knowledge 

 of finance, and there are many of his discussions on 

 this subject into which only an expert would be com- 

 petent to enter. Nevertheless, on certain financial 

 and economic questions, touching matters open to 

 discussion by the man of merely ordinary knowl- 

 edge, his terminology is decidedly vague. This is 

 especially true when he speaks of "the producer." 

 Now the producer, as portrayed by the Populist 

 stump orator or writer of political and economic 

 pamphlets, is a being with whom we became quite 

 intimate during the recent campaign; but we have 

 found it difficult to understand at all definitely who 

 this "producer" actually is. According to one school 

 of Populistic thinkers the farmer is the producer; 

 but according to another and more radical school 

 this is not so, unless the farmer works with his 

 hands and not his head, this school limiting the ap- 

 plication of the term "producer" to the working- 

 man who does the immediate manual work of pro- 

 duction. On the other hand, those who speak with 

 scientific precision must necessarily class as producers 

 all men whose work results directly or indirectly in 

 production. Under this definition, inventors and 

 men who improve the method of transportation, 

 like railway presidents, and men who enable other 



