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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But have they earned the right to 

 set themselves up as international 

 philanthropists, when their own 

 hearthstone, according to Dr. An- 

 drew D. White, is made red every 

 year with the blood of more than ten 

 thousand victims of the homicide ? 

 Do their generous contributions to 

 domestic charities and foreign mis- 

 sions entitle them to distinction as 

 model representatives of Christian 

 civilization, when mobs of leading 

 citizens in New York and Ohio, as 

 well as in various Southern States, 

 lynch negroes charged with crimes 

 that have not been proved ? Has not 

 Christian civilization some conquests 

 to make in a land where, as in New 

 Orleans, Italians are murdered with 

 the approval of public sentiment, 

 and, as in many parts of the West, 

 the treatment of Chinese is hardly 

 less savage than that of European 

 missionaries in the most benighted 

 districts of the Celestial. Empire ? Is 

 it not clear also that barbarism has 

 yet to be abolished where striking 

 workingmen burn down property 

 and assail the men ready to take 

 their places with a ferocity that the 

 followers of Attila might have en- 

 vied ? 



But it is not such obvious facts as 

 these that justify the sneering smile 

 of the cynic at the patriotic boast of 

 Americans in regard to their civili- 

 zation. Certain conspicuous features 

 of our public policy are not less in- 

 dicative of the tastes and instincts of 

 a barbarian. Take, for one example, 

 the provision of the Constitution of 

 the State of New York that restricts 

 prison labor. Had the convention 

 that framed it proposed that, in order 

 to relieve the Commonwealth of its 

 criminal burden, a certain number 

 of prisoners should be strangled 

 every month, what an outburst of 

 horror throughout the country there 

 would have been ! But the provision 

 actually adopted by the picked repre- 



sentatives of the people and after- 

 ward approved by the people them- 

 selves is hardly less atrocious. The 

 idleness it enforces is driving prison- 

 ers mad. Yet there is more effort to 

 stop cruelty to animals and to throt- 

 tle science by putting an end to vivi- 

 section than there is to suppress this 

 form of atrocity. Take, for another 

 example, the law recently passed that 

 will either enhance the price or viti- 

 ate the quality of every commodity 

 on which a protective duty is levied. 

 A people really civilized could no 

 more have permitted it to be placed 

 on the statute books than they could 

 permit thieves to rob the poor of a 

 part of their food and clothing, mak- 

 ing it more difficult for them to live 

 and thus increasing the suffering 

 that philanthropists and social re- 

 formers are seeking in endless ways 

 to alleviate. It would have seemed 

 to them nothing less than barbarous 

 to pass a law that not only makes it 

 more difficult for their own country- 

 men to live, but deprives people in 

 foreign countries, like the Welsh tin- 

 plate makers and the Austrian pearl- 

 button makers, of a means of liveli- 

 hood. Take, for still another ex- 

 ample, the imperfect international 

 copyright law. People that appre- 

 ciate in but a very indistinct manner 

 the existence of property in ideas and 

 refuse to protect it effectively do 

 not meet the requirements of the 

 definition of civilization. 



But the policy of aggression, 

 which is the more fit term that Mr. 

 Spencer applies to what is called pro- 

 tection, a policy inherited directly 

 from feudal barbarism, is not con- 

 fined to tariff laws and imperfect in- 

 ternational copyright laws ; it ex- 

 tends to the innumerable laws passed 

 by State and national Legislatures 

 in restriction of personal liberty and 

 in authorization of the seizure of pri- 

 vate property for purposes outside of 

 the legitimate sphere of government. 



