Baird.] lOO [March 16, 



mails, no post-office, no corporations, no shops, no trade, no commerce, 

 no colleges, no schools, no poeis, no historians, no history, no lit- 

 erature, no science, no philosophy, no language, no professors, no doc- 

 tors, no lawyers, no laws, no society ; but each and every man and 

 woman would be a law and a power unto himself or herself ; and so 

 would every child, from the moment of its birth to the hour of its death. 

 Indeed, the entire life of each and every human being would be different 

 from what it now is, and no one would have any occupation whatever, 

 except that of looking after his or her necessities. Thus, would each and 

 every one of these human vegetables live, grow, and flourish like any 

 other vegetable independent of his fellow-vegetables. In fact, the human 

 animal of many of the economic philosophers partakes more of the nature 

 of the vegetable than of that of the human being known as man, because 

 this philosopher has ignored and dropped out of his system the very 

 quality which most characterizes and controls man and which most sepa- 

 rates him from the lower forms of life, both animal and vegetable. 



Wealth and Poverty, What are They ? 



What then is it that men struggle for, and worry about, live, wear out, 

 and die to obtain, and retain under the name of individual wealth? It 

 is simply the power to associate with, to command the services, the com- 

 modities and the ideas of the largest body of men. What then is indi- 

 vidual poverty? The absence of the power readily to command these 

 services, commodities and ideas. Thus, whether he be prince, million- 

 aire, or pauper, man perishes of cold, of heat, of hunger, of thirst, of 

 want, unless he can bring himself into association with his fellow-men. 

 To sum up, the life of man is but a series, a net-work, a complication of 

 acts of association, to cease the performance of which acts is, of neces- 

 sity, to cease to live. 



Diversity. 



The question now arises. How is this power of association to be 

 developed? Primarily, by means of a diversity in the capabilities, em- 

 ployments, productions, and wants among the people c instituting society ; 

 to the end that there shall there exist the greatest number and the most 

 powerful societary positives and negatives attainable or conceivable. To 

 accomplish this the consumer must be brought to the side of the pro- 

 ducer, the plough, the loom, and the anvil, the farm, the factory, and 

 the workshop existing and growing up alongside of and in harmoni- 

 ous relations each to the others, giving and receiving, blessing and being 

 blessed. Thus, and thus only, can labor power, the most perishable of 

 all commodiiies, be utilized on the instant of its production, and crys- 

 tallized into work, the basis of all wealth, individual and national. No 

 foreign commodity is therefore cheap or desirable to a people, no matter 

 how low its price, wliile the labor at home is going to Avaste which might 

 be employed in its pro^luction. Hence the necessity for every people to 



