Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 165 
tion among producers of material values, it becomes infused with 
all the sacred considerations of duty. Constituting, as they do, a 
very large majority of the population of this country, the public 
welfare is involved in their special welfare. The public interest is 
promoted with their peculiar interest, and every inspiration of pub¬ 
lic spirit, crystalized into a common love of country, demands that 
their peculiar interest be not sacrificed by any power on earth. 
The special interest of the producers being a cardinal condition of the 
public welfare, not only from the number of such producers them¬ 
selves, but from their being the source of all material wealth, it is 
cheering to reflect that, by the exercise of justice, while the pro¬ 
tection of that interest may not be degraded into selfishness, it 
cannot escape being dignified by the greatest of public virtues. 
But, take the selfishness of the human heart as the strongest ele¬ 
ment of control in human affairs, and admit the contingency of 
injustice to others, will it violate the doctrine in government of 
“the greatest good to the greatest number?' 1 Blot out all regard 
for equity in public affairs, and, in the absence of all public recti¬ 
tude, allow things to drift into special favor to producers, would it 
not then be an improvement upon the history of the past? The 
classes favored being composed of more than three-fourths of the 
whole people, and their products being essential to the very exis¬ 
tence of the whole, such favoritism becomes not only compatible 
with, but synonymous with the general welfare and the public 
good. 
Is there anything lame in this logic? It seems to me that were 
I not dealing merely in the suggestions of thought , I would advance 
this proposition as an impregnable outline of unavoidable convic¬ 
tion in defiance, too, of all the appliances of sophistry. 
Conceding, then, that favoring a very large majority of the whole 
is nctf, but that favoring a very small minority, alike interested, is 
class favoritism; and conceding that a preponderance of favor en¬ 
joyed by the many is not , but that a preponderance of favor enjoyed 
by the few is contrary to the spirit and perpetuity of republican 
institutions, it may be well to draw upon the past for recorded 
illustration of the tendencies of capital to produce wealth by the 
skillful control of itself and the absolute command it is prone to 
exercise over labor. Observation teaches that the enjoyment of 
realized wealth brings with it immunity from toil. Freedom from 
