196 



AMERICAN EEE JOURNAL, 



Mar. SO, 1899. 



effort of muscle or brain whereby any of the natural g-ifts 

 of the Creator were chang-ed from the natural form to some- 

 thing- desired by man, or some portion of the human family. 

 And this effort of the hand or brain is called " labor." And 

 the production of labor on land is called " wcaitli," because 

 it is something- desired by some portion of the human fam- 

 ily. And thus it comes about that labor alone, aided by the 

 forces of nature, produces all wealth. 



W. Z, Hutchinson finds a wild swarm of bees in its 

 native home in the forest, and by labor of muscle and brain 

 plans and makes a modern hive with supers, into which he 

 places said wild swarm, and in due time thru his labor he 

 has several cases of nice comb honey (wealth — .something- 

 desired by man) stored away in his shop. He nest sends 

 it to a distant city to be sold on commission, and the 

 carrier, the commission man, the retailer, the book-keeper, 

 etc., are all laboring on land, from an economic standpoint, 

 just as much as Mr. H. was, in producing the honey. Thus, 

 to understand a thing fully, we must look at it in "all of its 

 bearings, if we would come to a rig-ht conclusion in any 

 matter, and not make statements which ■' will not hold 

 water," 



We have seen that labor alone produces all wealth, but 

 mere c/^or/ of head or brain does not constitute /(?*();■, but 

 effort which is productive of anj-thing desired by the human 

 race or any portion thereof. If, when Mr. Hutchinson has 

 that honey all nicely crated, I go and work all night dig- 

 g-ing a hole thru the well under his shop, and just before 

 morning carry off part of the crates of honey stored there, 

 tho I may put forth much effort in so doing, yet, as by that 

 effort nothing has been produced which is desired by any- 

 member of the human family, such effort is not labor. 



And if " some Napoleon of finance " sits down in his 

 office, and by the most arduous eff'ort thinks out a plan and 

 g-ets laws past whereby he is able to steal a railroad, form a 

 trust, or accomplish a corner in the money market, by 

 which he is enabled to reduce the price of honey at the ex- 

 pense of bee-keepers, or cause them to pay a higher freight- 

 rate on their honey, so that he can live by " his wits," as is 

 often exprest. that eff'ort, no matter how arduous it may be, 

 is not labor in the economic sense. And, notwithstanding 

 what Mr. Abbott would have us think about nothing being 

 out of "joint politically," history proves that nearly all of 

 our lazvs are made politically, and nearly all of our political 

 tali's a.Te made for these " Napoleons of'jinance," to the rob- 

 bery of bee-keepers and others, thru prices made by law. 

 And to the man who " sees clearly," these politicalh'-made 

 laws are so much more oppressive to bee-keepers than any 

 adulteration of the past or present, that the adulteration 

 matter, which has been in every bee-keeper's mouth during- 

 the past decade to account for his " misery," is but a " drop 

 in the bucket " compared with the robbery coming to bee- 

 keepers thru our unjust system which prevails, by laws 

 bought thru by our Napoleons of finance, and sarictioned 

 by such bee-keepers as Rev, E. T. Abbott, and 99 out of 

 every 100 of the rest of us who call ourselves apiculturists. 



Let us look a moment : According to statistics of a few 

 years ag-o, there were living in the citv of Pittsburg, Pa., 

 6S men whose aggregate veealth was' 5700,000,000. This 

 wealth had practically been accumulated within 20 years. 

 Now, if I read Mr. Abbott aright, he would claim that, be- 

 cause these 65 men had " climbed up the mountain side " 

 faster than either he or I had done, or rather, nearly reacht 

 the top without climbing at all, they had not hindered us 

 any, for " law has nothing to do with increasing the price 

 of the produce of any individual." Have they hindered us 

 any ? We shall see. 



It is but reasonable to suppose that it would take a 

 higher order of ability in each of the above 65 men to man- 

 age their business than is required in us bee-keepers who 

 labor hard for a whole year with an income of $1,000 or less 

 annually to show for it. But would it require an ability 

 greater than is required in the Secretarj' of the Treasury of 

 the United States ? Yet that officer receives only $8,000 a 

 year. But suppose we allow them the salary enjoyed by 

 the President of the United States— $50,000 a year— and 

 that they are each worth that much to the country : -and 

 supposing that they had saved all their earnings for the 20 

 years, the accumulation of the 65 men for that time would 

 have been $65,000,000, As their accumulations were $700,- 

 000,000, it is evident that they have received from the bee- 

 keepers and laborers of the country during the 20 years 

 $635,000,000 in addition to what they would have earned 

 with a salary equal to the President. How did they g-et it ? 

 We have seen they could not have earned it, for the most of 

 them did no kind of labor except of the kind I did in 



securing Mr, Hutchinson's honey ; certainly not more than 

 to earn the $50,000 salary we have allowed them. 



As we have already seen that no zccalth can come into 

 the world except by labor on land, it >iiust have been taken 

 from others who had earned it, thru our unjust laws. And 

 yet Mr. Abbott tells us " law has nothing to do in increas- 

 ing the price of the produce of any individual !" And these 

 65 men are only samples of thousands of others who are 

 daily gathering from the bee-keepers of our land, and from 

 other laborers, thru their law-made prices, till at the lowest 

 estimate $1,000,000,000 are being taken from the rank and 

 file of our people who produce all wealth, and given to the 

 few each year, until 25,000 men own one-half of the wealth 

 produced by 70,000,000 people. This wealth is taken with- 

 out giving any return in labor of either hand or brain. It 

 is being gathered from bee-keepers, farmers and profes- 

 sional men, from the laboring men, from the women in 

 cities toiling at starvation wages, and from helpless chil- 

 dren ; gathered from all of these and poured into the lap of 

 the /aai'-protected favorites, whose wealth no man can com- 

 prehend. And yet Mr. Abbott evidently would claim that 

 this is no hindrance to those from whom it is taken ! 



Think of a scheme brought forth by " wise heads " of 

 our Government which gathers from its starving paupers 

 and hard-workt bee-keepers, gifts to pour into the laps of 

 the millionaires ! How do the people furnish this money ? 

 B3' the extra price paid on all the /arc-protected goods they 

 buy. E. R. Root gives a little hint regarding how the law 

 works, and J.C.Stephenson tells how the " produce " of 

 salaried officials and taxes are /azc-increast. 



In the Bee-Keepers' Review (page 17), R. L. Taj'lor 

 would have us think that Gen. Alger got his millions by 

 " saving $3.00 stage-coach fares in walking 40 miles and 

 back again ;" but informed bee-keepers know that law-pro- 

 tected lui>ibe7- rm.d.e exevy bee-keeper using hives tributary 

 to his riches, by paying- a higher price for the lumber they 

 had to use. Had ftfr. Alger commenced towalk'with Christ 

 on the plains of Bethlehem, and been enabled to walk 40 

 miles each working daj' ever since, at the same rate Mr. 

 Taylor tells us of, he would still have 227 j-ears to walk be- 

 fore he would have g-otten even one of his millions he now 

 possesses. 



It seems strange to me that bee-keepers can see so muc/t 

 in adulteration, and spend time and money in fighting it, 

 without a word about the unjust system in our country 

 which is "slaying its thousands to where adulteration slays 

 its tens." Adulteration is bad enough, God knows, but 

 would it not be well to get this ''big beam " (our unjust sys- 

 tem) out of our eyes, so that we can " see clearly " to pick 

 out " the mote " (adulteration) from our national affairs ? 



Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Value of Queens in the Spring-. 



BY C, P. DAD.\XT. 



nPHE publication of several articles from me about larg-e 

 hives, in Gleanings and the American Bee Journal, has 

 brought forth a number of remarks from different 

 writers, and I have noticed that great stress was laid upon 

 my statement, that in the spring- the queen is the most val- 

 uable part of the colony. I had resolved to say nothing- 

 more, being rather tired of a discussion in which I take no 

 interest, 4s I know it is out of the question to change our 

 critics. But the remarks on page 170, quoting Mr, Taylor, 

 have brought the matter afresh to my mind. 



There seems to be a denial of my assertion that the 

 queen, in the spring, is the most valuable as well as the 

 most expensive part of the colony, Mr. Taylor says, " Air 

 is of most especial value, yet is it not the least expensive ?" 

 What I wish to saj' is only a repetition of what we all know. 

 In the spring a bee-keeper may have empty hives, empty 

 combs, queenless colonies, but he never has queens without 

 bees, colonies without hives, unless he has bought them at 

 great expense and great risk from a warmer latitude. It is 

 therefore a fact, and a fact which does not bear discussion, 

 that the queen is the most valuable as well as the >nost ex- 

 pensive, since it is the most scarce, requisite of a good col- 

 ony, and the sine qua non of a living colony of bees for the 

 opening season. 



Air is inexpensive, but if Mr. Taylor were deprived of 

 air, he would be ready to pay a big price for it within a few 

 minutes. Hancock Co., 111. 



1 



The Premiums offered on page 206 is well worth work- 

 ing for. Look at it. 



