66 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



masses have gained immeasurably in all the comforts and con- 

 veniences of life, in social position, in political power, in freedom 

 from care, in health and happiness. 



The coming conflict between proletariat and plutocrat is a 

 favorite theme with socialistic writers. According to these, 

 wealth is per se criminal, and its chief employment the oppression 

 of the poor. I claim that modern experience proves the antithesis 

 of this statement, which selects exceptional instances of financial 

 crimes and attempts to use these as a blanket with which to 

 smother all the good deeds and grand undertakings in which 

 capital is ever engaging. Patriotic sentiment also protests against 

 such statements. The aid of capital has been the means within 

 little more than a century of raising the United States of America 

 from the condition of an insignificant agricultural colony, which 

 was not permitted under monarchical rule to manufacture the 

 simplest articles for home consumption, into the greatest work- 

 shop of the world, and has placed it in the front rank of wealth 

 and power among nations.* 



Capital has stimulated the inventive faculty of the people and 

 thereby aided the operative in many instances to emerge from the 

 condition of the laborer into that of the capitalist. Very many, 

 perhaps a majority of employers in this country, are men who 

 have risen from the ranks of labor. 



The reckless denunciation of wealth by foreign socialistic 

 agitators is the chief danger confronting the industrial class in 

 America to-day, since it tends to retard investment of capital in 

 industrial enterprises, and thus to restrict the employment of 

 labor. It is far easier for the agitator to " kill the goose that 

 lays the golden egg " than it is for the mischief-maker to turn his 

 hand to honest labor. The free soil of America is not adapted to 

 the growth of such noxious weeds, and the sooner such pernicious 

 doctrines are eradicated the sooner will our industrial population 

 reap the rewards to be gained in the returning prosperity for 

 which it has so long and patiently waited. 



* The first spinning jenny ever seen in America was secretly imported from England 

 and exhibited in Philadelphia in 1775. In 1774 the British Parliament enacted stringent 

 laws prohibiting the exportation to America of textile machinery. It was provided (by 21 

 George III, chap. 37) that " any person who packed or put on board, or caused to be brought 

 to any place in order to be put on any vessel for exportation, any machine, engine, tool, 

 press, paper, utensil, or silk manufacture of the kingdom, or goods wherein wool, cotton, 

 linen, or silk are used, or any model or plan of such machinery, tool, engine, press, utensil, 

 or implement, should forfeit every such machine, etc., and all goods packed therewith, and 

 200, and suffer imprisonment for one year." In 1782 a law was enacted which prohibited, 

 under penalty of 500, the exportation or attempt to export " blocks, plates, engines, tools, 

 or utensils used in, or which are proper for, the preparing or finishing of calico, muslin, 

 etc." The same act prohibited transportation of tools employed in iron and steel manu- 

 factures. United States Tenth Census, vol. *, p. 537. 



