Baird.j 1^^ [March IG, 



meii, editors, distributors, etc.. etc. From the standpoint, and through 

 the luminous ether, of the law of association or commerce, as at once the 

 centre, the circumference, the foundation, the all-pervading spirit of 

 social philosophy, the study of the millions on millioas of compositions, 

 decompositions and recomposilions of services, commodities and ideas 

 involved in a pile of a single issue of a great daily newspaper, is indeed 

 the study of and the royal road to the mastery of the best part of social 

 philosophy itself. 



Labor Power. 



It cannot be too fully, too distinctly, too forcibly impressed upon the 

 mind that it is the utilization of labor power which ameliorates the con- 

 dition of mankind, creates wealth, and causes the wide and just diffusion 

 of that wealth. Such utilization is, indeed, the one and only basis of 

 individual well-being, and of national power and civilization. It is, in a 

 word, the single road which leads to the emancipation of man. 



The life of a civilized people thus involving countless millions of acts 

 of association or commerce, the absolute condition on which these acts 

 can be psrformed, and the labor power involved in these acts be utilized, 

 is an abundance of the medium, money, with its quality of universal 

 acceptability, and which thus acts as a "saving-fund for labor" and by 

 facilitating "association and combination gives utility to billions of mil 

 lions of minutes, that would be wasted did not a demand exist for them 

 at the moment the power to labor had been produced." 



Thus was it the law of association which, dominating the life of man, 

 caused, in the far-off ages, the institution of money, it being an absolute 

 necessity growing out of man's nature. It had to be ; it must now be ; 

 it will ever be while man inhabits the earth ; and it can find no philo- 

 sophical explanation, except through the recognition of the supreme and 

 all-controlling law of association between man and his fellow-men. On 

 this ground the greenbacker and the silver man can take their stand and 

 defy all adversaries. On the broad foundation rock of association, the 

 protectionist and the greenbacker and the silver man can alone come 

 into harmonious relations and associative cooperation. 



Association and the Power Arising from its Control. 



Scattered, isolated men are always feeble and powerless for great un- 

 dertakings, because of the absence of ability to exchange services, com- 

 modities and ideas, to associate, with their fellow-men. On the other 

 hand, the most powerful men in the world are those who centre round 

 the exchanges or bourses of New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Amster- 

 dam and Vienna. The great power of these men arises from the fact 

 that while having great ability to associate among their several selves, by 

 control of the instrument of association, money, and its greater repre- 

 sentative, credit, they control the power of association among hundreds 

 of millions of men, women and children throughout the world. It is 

 even in the power of these dictators largely to arrest association among 

 mankind, and they do it. 



