Life Insurance, Savings Banks, Etc. 29 



tain it? Then again, the very last thing we want to do is to add 

 to the force of the feeling among the poor that the government is 

 to take care of them. Even a government system of savings 

 banks, in the long run, will be no kindness to the poor. 



We are drifting all too rapidly to the notion that the gov- 

 ernment is to take care of us ail. Here is even a religious news- 

 paper of some note, advocating the idt-a that since we have lost 

 laith in men because of bankruplces and failures, we must now 

 put the nation where before private enterprise stood. The poor, 

 this journal says, will trust the nation as employer and pay- 

 master. 



lias not all this been tried over and over again to the over- 

 throw of the nation that tried it — ^its rich and poor together? 

 Eome stood in the gap and found corn for its people till the Goth 

 came and " destroyed them all ; " and that just because he was up 

 to the problem of providing for himself and the Romans were not. 

 "Lost faith in men ? " why we have not put faith in men ; that is 

 just the thing we have been tryiug to avoid. We have been 

 seeking safety on a property basis only, and have made no ac- 

 count of faith in men; and the men whom we have entrusted 

 with our funds have known it, and have exhibited the same heed- 

 lessness respecting moral considerations we ourselves have shown. 



We have lost our wits as to where the problem of industrial 

 reconstruction is to begin. We are looking for it to begin at the 

 top instead of the bottom ; looking for it to begin where we left 

 oif, instead of starting anew. 



We were looking for wars in foreign lands to create a demand 

 for our products. Thank God, the European war last past proved 

 that resource a broken staff ! 



We are looking for an era of railroad making to spring up 

 again. But that era will not come again, as a private enterprise, 

 till we have earned, from bottom dollar to top, the money to put 

 into such kind of expenditure. 



We are looking for the government to start a great system of 

 internal improvements ; to build the North and South Pacific 

 railroads; to embank the Mississippi river; to dig a ship canal 

 around the lakes or through the heart of the country. 



