Queen Essays

© Constitutional Rights Foundation 1

Social Darwinism and American Laissez-faire Capitalism

British philosopher Herbert Spencer went a step beyond Darwin's theory of evolution and applied it to the development of human society. In the late 1800s, many Americans enthusiastically embraced Spencer's "Social Darwinism" to justify laissez-faire, or unrestricted, capitalism.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published Origin of Species, which explained his theory of animal and plant evolution based on "natural selection." Soon afterward, philosophers, sociologists, and others began to adopt the idea that human society had also evolved.

The British philosopher Herbert Spencer wrote about these ideas even before Darwin's book was published. He became the most influential philosopher in applying Darwin's ideas to social evolution. Born in 1820, Herbert Spencer taught himself about the natural sciences. For a brief time, he worked as a railroad surveyor and then as a magazine writer. Spencer never married, tended to worry a lot about his health, and preferred work to life's enjoyments.

In 1851, he published his first book. He argued for laissez-faire capitalism, an economic system that allows businesses to operate with little government interference. A year later, and seven years before Darwin published Origin of Species, Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest."

Darwin's theory inspired Spencer to write more books, showing how society evolved. With the financial support of friends, Spencer wrote more than a dozen volumes in 36 years. His books convinced many that the destiny of civilization rested with those who were the "fittest."

The "Fittest" and the "Unfit"

Herbert Spencer based his concept of social evolution, popularly known as "Social Darwinism," on individual competition. Spencer believed that competition was "the law of life" and resulted in the "survival of the fittest."

"Society advances," Spencer wrote, "where its fittest members are allowed to assert their fitness with the least hindrance." He went on to argue that the unfit should "not be prevented from dying out."

Unlike Darwin, Spencer believed that individuals could genetically pass on their learned characteristics to their children. This was a common, but erroneous belief in the 19th century. To Spencer, the fittest persons inherited such qualities as industriousness, frugality, the desire to own property, and the ability to accumulate wealth. The unfit inherited laziness, stupidity, and immorality.

According to Spencer, the population of unfit people would slowly decline. They would eventually become extinct because of their failure to compete. The government, in his view, should not take

© Constitutional Rights Foundation 2

any actions to prevent this from happening, since this would go against the evolution of civilization.

Spencer believed his own England and other advanced nations were naturally evolving into peaceful "industrial" societies. To help this evolutionary process, he argued that government should get out of the way of the fittest individuals. They should have the freedom to do whatever they pleased in competing with others as long as they did not infringe on the equal rights of other competitors.

Spencer criticized the English Parliament for "over-legislation." He defined this as passing laws that helped the workers, the poor, and the weak. In his opinion, such laws needlessly delayed the extinction of the unfit.

Spencer's View of Government

Herbert Spencer believed that the government should have only two purposes. One was to defend the nation against foreign invasion. The other was to protect citizens and their property from criminals. Any other government action was "over-legislation."

Spencer opposed government aid to the poor. He said that it encouraged laziness and vice. He objected to a public school system since it forced taxpayers to pay for the education of other people's children. He opposed laws regulating housing, sanitation, and health conditions because they interfered with the rights of property owners.

Spencer said that diseases "are among the penalties Nature has attached to ignorance and imbecility, and should not, therefore, be tampered with." He even faulted private organizations like the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children because they encouraged legislation.

In the economic arena, Spencer advocated a laissez-faire system that tolerated no government regulation of private enterprise. He considered most taxation as confiscation of wealth and undermining the natural evolution of society.

Spencer assumed that business competition would prevent monopolies and would flourish without tariffs or other government restrictions on free trade. He also condemned wars and colonialism, even British imperialism. This was ironic, because many of his ideas were used to justify colonialism. But colonialism created vast government bureaucracies. Spencer favored as little government as possible.

Spencer argued against legislation that regulated working conditions, maximum hours, and minimum wages. He said that they interfered with the property rights of employers. He believed labor unions took away the freedom of individual workers to negotiate with employers.

© Constitutional Rights Foundation 3

Thus, Spencer thought government should be little more than a referee in the highly competitive "survival of the fittest." Spencer's theory of social evolution, called Social Darwinism by others, helped provide intellectual support for laissez-faire capitalism in America.

Laissez-Faire Capitalism in America

Historians often call the period between 1870 and the early 1900s the Gilded Age. This was an era of rapid industrialization, laissez-faire capitalism, and no income tax. Captains of industry like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie made fortunes. They also preached "survival of the fittest" in business.

American scholars like sociologist William Graham Sumner praised the new class of industrial millionaires. Sumner argued that social progress depended on the fittest families passing on their wealth to the next generation.

According to the Social Darwinists, capitalism and society itself needed unlimited business competition to thrive. By the late 1800s, however, monopolies, not competing companies, increasingly controlled the production and prices of goods in many American industries.

Workers' wages and working conditions were unregulated. Millions of men, women, and children worked long hours for low pay in dangerous factories and mines. There were few work-safety regulations, no worker compensation laws, no company pensions, and no government social security.

Although wages did rise moderately as the United States industrialized, frequent economic depressions caused deep pay cuts and massive unemployment. Labor union movements emerged, but often collapsed during times of high unemployment. Local judges, who often shared the laissez-faire views of employers, issued court orders outlawing worker strikes and boycotts.

Starting in the 1880s, worker strikes and protests increased and became more violent. Social reformers demanded a tax on large incomes and the breakup of monopolies. Some voiced fears of a Marxist revolution. They looked to state and federal governments to regulate capitalism. They sought legislation on working conditions, wages, and child labor.

Social Darwinism and the Law

Around 1890, the U.S. Supreme began aggressively backing laissez-faire capitalism. Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field asserted that the Declaration of Independence guaranteed "the right to pursue any lawful business or vocation in any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights of others . . . ."

The Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional many state laws that attempted to regulate such things as working conditions, minimum wages for women, and child labor. The courts usually based their decisions on the Fifth and 14th amendments to the Constitution. These amendments prohibited the federal and state governments from depriving persons of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." (The Supreme Court interpreted "persons" as including corporations.)

© Constitutional Rights Foundation 4

In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court used the "due process" reasoning to strike down a New York health law that limited the workweek of bakers to 60 hours. The majority of the justices held that this law violated the 14th Amendment's "liberty" right of employers and workers to enter into labor contracts. In a famous dissent, however, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes criticized the majority decision. He said: "The 14th Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics [one of Spencer's books on Social Darwinism]." [Lochner v. New York, 1905]

In 1890, reformers got Congress to pass the Sherman Antitrust Act. This law focused on "combinations" like monopolies (also called trusts). It banned them if they interfered with interstate commerce by eliminating competition and keeping the prices of goods high. When cases reached the Supreme Court, however, the justices largely ignored the control of consumer prices by monopolies. Instead, the justices focused on the behavior of "bad trusts" that used unfair tactics against competitors.

The Supreme Court limited the protest rights of labor unions in a 1911 case that outlawed some economic boycotts. The Supreme Court continued to make decisions that weakened unions until the 1930s.

Despite a hostile Supreme Court, Progressive Era reformers became increasingly successful in curbing the abuses of laissez-faire capitalism. For example, in 1906, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act that prohibited companies from selling contaminated foods and misbranded drugs.

By 1912, both the federal government and many states had adopted Progressive reform legislation aimed at ending child labor and improving working conditions. That year saw three major candidates for president, all espousing Progressive ideas (Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Republican Howard Taft, and Progressive Theodore Roosevelt, who had broken from the Republicans because he believed Taft was not progressive enough). The idea of passing more laws to correct society's ills had replaced the Social Darwinist view that civilization best advanced when the "fittest" had their way while the "unfit" were allowed to die out. Americans had increasingly come to believe that society could choose its future, which might require government regulations on private enterprise.

In England, Herbert Spencer grew increasingly pessimistic as he witnessed a swelling tide of legislation that attempted to end the evils of industrialization and laissez-faire capitalism. Spencer died in 1903, and was buried in the same London cemetery as that great enemy of capitalism, Karl Marx.

For Discussion and Writing

1. Social Darwinists believed that society naturally evolved by individual competition and the "survival of the fittest." Do you agree or disagree? Why?

2. Do you agree or disagree with Herbert Spencer's view of government? Why? 3. Would you support laissez-faire capitalism in the United States today? Explain.

Graphic: Herbert Spencer. By Engraved by Geo. E. Perine, New York. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18913026

Graphic: Rich and poor / Redding, sc.; drawn by Sol Eytinge, Jun. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b45184/

THE GOSPEL OF WEALTH

BY ANDREW CARNEGIE.

The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In former days there was little difference between the dwelling, dress, food, and environment of the chief and those of his retainers. The Indians are to-day where civilized man then was. When visiting the Sioux, I was led to the wigwam of the chief. It was just like the others in external appearance, and even within the difference was trifling between it and those of the poorest of his braves. The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us to-day measures the change which has come with civilization.

This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be so. Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor. Without wealth there can be no Mæcenas. The "good old times " were not good old times. Neither master nor servant was as well situated then as to-day. A relapse to old conditions would be disastrous to both–not the least so to him who serves–and would Sweep away

civilization with it. But whether the change be for good or ill, it is upon us, beyond our power to alter, and therefore to be accepted and made the best of. It is a waste of time to criticise the inevitable.

It is easy to see how the change has come. One illustration will serve for almost every phase of the cause. In the manufacture of products we have the whole story. It applies to all combinations of human industry, as stimulated and enlarged by the inventions of this scientific age. Formerly articles Were manufactured at the domestic hearth or in small shops which formed part of the household. The master and his apprentices worked side by side, the latter living with the master, and therefore subject to the same conditions. When these apprentices rose to be masters, there was little or no change in their mode of life, and they, in turn, educated in the same routine succeeding apprentices. There was, substantially social equality, and even political equality, for those engaged in industrial pursuits had then little or no political voice in the State.

But the inevitable result of such a mode of manufacture was crude articles at high prices. To-day the world obtains commodities of excellent quality at prices which even the generation preceding this would have deemed incredible. In the commercial world similar causes have produced similar results, and the race is benefited thereby. The poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford. What were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life. The laborer has now more comforts than the landlord had a few generations ago. The farmer

has more luxuries than the landlord had, and is more richly clad and better housed. The landlord has books and pictures rarer, and appointments more artistic, than the King could then obtain.

The price we pay for this salutary change is, no doubt, great. We assemble thousands of operatives in the factory, in the mine, and in the counting-house, of whom the employer can know little or nothing, and to whom the employer is little better than a myth. All intercourse between them is at an end. Rigid Castes are formed, and, as usual, mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust. Each Caste is without sympathy for the other, and ready to credit anything disparaging in regard to it. Under the law of competition, the employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which the rates paid to labor figure prominently, and often there is friction between the employer and the employed, between capital and labor, between rich and poor. Human society loses homogeneity.

The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great;but the advantage of this law are also greater still, for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train. But, whether the law be benign or not, we must say of it, as we say of the change in the conditions of men to which we have referred : It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the

fittest in every department. We accept and welcome therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race. Having accepted these, it follows that there must be great scope for the exercise of special ability in the merchant and in the manufacturer who has to conduct affairs upon a great scale. That this talent for organization and management is rare among men is proved by the fact that it invariably secures for its possessor enormous rewards, no matter where or under what laws or conditions. The experienced in affairs always rate the MAN whose services can be obtained as a partner as not only the first consideration, but such as to render the question of his capital scarcely worth considering, for such men soon create capital; while, without the special talent required, capital soon takes wings. Such men become interested in firms or corporations using millions ; and estimating only simple interest to be made upon the capital invested, it is inevitable that their income must exceed their expenditures, and that they must accumulate wealth. Nor is there any middle ground which such men can occupy, because the great manufacturing or commercial concern which does not earn at least interest upon its capital soon becomes bankrupt. It, must either go forward or fall behind : to stand still is impossible. It is a condition essential for its successful operation that it should be thus far profitable, and even that, in addition to interest on capital, it should make profit. It is a law, as certain as

any of the others named, that men possessed of this peculiar talent for affair, under the free play of economic forces, must, of necessity, soon be in receipt of more revenue than can be judiciously expended upon themselves; and this law is as beneficial for the race as the others.

Objections to the foundations upon which society is based are not in order, because the condition of the race is better with these than it has been with any others which have been tried. Of the effect of any new substitutes proposed we cannot be sure. The Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn present conditions is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which civilization itself rests, for civilization took its start from the day that the capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent and lazy fellow, "If thou dost net sow, thou shalt net reap," and thus ended primitive Communism by separating the drones from the bees. One who studies this subject will soon be brought face to face with the conclusion that upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends–the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions. To these who propose to substitute Communism for this intense Individualism the answer, therefore, is: The race has tried that. All progress from that barbarous day to the present time has resulted from its displacement. Not evil, but good, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth by those who have the ability and energy that produce it. But even if we admit for a moment that it might be better for the race to discard its present

foundation, Individualism,–that it is a nobler ideal that man should labor, not for himself alone, but in and for a brotherhood of his fellows, and share with them all in common, realizing Swedenborg's idea of Heaven, where, as he says, the angels derive their happiness, not from laboring for self, but for each other,–even admit all this, and a sufficient answer is, This is not evolution, but revolution. It necessitates the changing of human nature itself a work of oeons, even if it were good to change it, which we cannot know. It is not practicable in our day or in our age. Even if desirable theoretically, it belongs to another and long-succeeding sociological stratum. Our duty is with what is practicable now ; with the next step possible in our day and generation. It is criminal to waste our energies in endeavoring to uproot, when all we can profitably or possibly accomplish is to bend the universal tree of humanity a little in the direction most favorable to the production of good fruit under existing circumstances. We might as well urge the destruction of the highest existing type of man because he failed to reach our ideal as favor the destruction of Individualism, Private Property, the Law of Accumulation of Wealth, and the Law of Competition; for these are the highest results of human experience, the soil in which society so far has produced the best fruit. Unequally or unjustly, perhaps, as these laws sometimes operate, and imperfect as they appear to the Idealist, they are, nevertheless, like the highest type of man, the best and most valuable of all that humanity has yet accomplished.

We start, then, with a condition of affairs under which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which

inevitably gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist, the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good. The question then arises, –and, if the foregoing be correct, it is the only question with which we have to deal, –What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few ? And it is of this great question that I believe I offer the true solution. It will be understood that fortunes are here spoken of, not moderate sums saved by many years of effort, the returns on which are required for the comfortable maintenance and education of families. This is not wealth, but only competence which it should be the aim of all to acquire.

There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be disposed of. It call be left to the families of the decedents; or it can be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administered during their lives by its possessors. Under the first and second modes most of the wealth of the world that has reached the few has hitherto been applied. Let us in turn consider each of these modes. The first is the most injudicious. In monarchical countries, the estates and the greatest portion of the wealth are left to the first son, that the vanity of the parent may be gratified by the thought that his name and title are to descend to succeeding generations unimpaired. The condition of this class in Europe to-day teaches the futility of such hopes or ambitions. The successors have become impoverished through their follies or from the fall in the value of land. Even in Great Britain the strict law of entail has been found inadequate

to maintain the status of an hereditary class. Its soil is rapidly passing into the hands of the stranger. Under republican institutions the division of property among the children is much fairer, but the question which forces itself upon thoughtful men in all lands is: Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for the state. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of income, and very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons, men may well hesitate, for it is no longer questionable that great suns bequeathed oftener work more for the injury than for the good of the recipients. Wise men will soon conclude that, for the best interests of the members of their families and of the state, such bequests are an improper use of their means.

It is not suggested that men who have failed to educate their sons to earn a livelihood shall cast them adrift in poverty. If any man has seen fit to rear his sons with a view to their living idle lives, or, what is highly commendable, has instilled in them the sentiment that they are in a position to labor for public ends without reference to pecuniary considerations, then, of course, the duty of the parent is to see that such are provided for ?fl moderation. There are instances of millionaires' sons unspoiled by wealth, who, being rich, still perform great services in the community. Such are the very salt of the earth, as valuable as, unfortunately, they are rare; still it is not the exception, but the rule, that men must regard,

and, looking at the usual result of enormous sums conferred upon legatees, the thoughtful man must shortly say, "I would as soon leave to my son a curse as the almighty dollar," and admit to himself that it is not the welfare of the children, but family pride, which inspires these enormous legacies.

As to the second mode, that of leaving wealth at death for public uses, it may be said that this is only a means for the disposal of wealth, provided a man is content to wait until he is dead before it becomes of much good in the world. Knowledge of the results of legacies bequeathed is not calculated to inspire the brightest hopes of much posthumous good being accomplished. The cases are not few in which the real object sought by the testator is not attained, nor are they few in which his real wishes are thwarted. In many cases the bequests are so used as to become only monuments of his folly. It is well to remember that it requires the exercise of not less ability than that which acquired the wealth to use it so as to be really beneficial to the community. Besides this, it may fairly be said that no man is to be extolled for doing what he cannot help doing, nor is he to be thanked by the community to which he only leaves wealth at death. Men who leave vast sums in this way may fairly be thought men who would not have left it at all, had they been able to take it with them. The memories of such cannot be held in grateful remembrance, for there is no grace in their gifts. It is not to be wondered at that such bequests seem so generally to lack the blessing. –

The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion. The State of Pennsylvania now takes–subject to some exceptions– one-tenth of the property left by its citizens. The budget presented in the British Parliament the other day proposes to increase the death-duties ; and, most significant of all, the new tax is to be a graduated one. Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for – public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life.

It is desirable ;that nations should go much further in this direction. Indeed, it is difficult to set bounds to the share of a rich man's estate which should go at his death to the public through the agency of the state, and by all means such taxes should be graduated, beginning at nothing upon moderate sums to dependents, and increasing rapidly as the amounts swell, until of the millionaire's hoard, as of Shylock's, at least

"_____ The other half

Comes to the privy coffer of the state."

This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his

life, which is the end that society should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the people. Nor need it be feared that this policy would sap the root of enterprise and render men less anxious to accumulate, for to the class whose ambition it is to leave great fortunes and be talked about after their death, it will at- tract even more attention, and, indeed, be a somewhat nobler ambition to have enormous sums paid over to the state from their fortunes.

There remains, then, only one mode of using great fortunes; but in this we have the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor–a reign of harmony–another ideal, differing, indeed, from that of the Communist in requiring only the further evolution of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. It is founded upon the present most intense individualism, and the race is projected to put it in practice by degree whenever it pleases. Under its sway we shall have an ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense the property of the many, because administered for the common good, and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had been distributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered

among them through the course of many years in trifling amounts.

If we consider what results flow from the Cooper Institute, for instance, to the best portion of the race in New York not possessed of means, and compare these with those which would have arisen for the good of the masses from an equal sum distributed by Mr. Cooper in his lifetime in the form of wages, which is the highest form of distribution, being for work done and not for charity, we can form some estimate of the possibilities for the improvement of the race which lie embedded in the present law of the accumulation of wealth. Much of this sum if distributed in small quantities among the people, would have been wasted in the indulgence of appetite, some of it in excess, and it may be doubted whether even the part put to the best use, that of adding to the comforts of the home, would have yielded results for the race, as a race, at all comparable to those which are flowing and are to flow from the Cooper Institute from generation to generation. Let the advocate of violent or radical change ponder well this thought.

We might even go so far as to take another instance, that of Mr. Tilden's bequest of five millions of dollars for a free library in the city of New York, but in referring to this one cannot help saying involuntarily, how much better if Mr. Tilden had devoted the last years of his own life to the proper administration of this immense sum; in which case neither legal contest nor any other cause of delay could have interfered with his aims. But let us assume that Mr. Tilden's millions finally become the

means of giving to this city a noble public library, where the treasures of the world contained in books will be open to all forever, without money and without price. Considering the good of that part of the race which congregates in and around Manhattan Island, would its permanent benefit have been better promoted had these millions been allowed to circulate in small sums through the hands of the masses? Even the most strenuous advocate of Communism must entertain a doubt upon this subject. Most of those who think will probably entertain no doubt whatever.

Poor and restricted are our opportunities in this life; narrow our horizon; our best work most imperfect; but rich men should be thankful for one inestimable boon. They have it in their power during their lives to busy themselves in organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives. The highest life is probably to be reached, not by such imitation of the life of Christ as Count Tolstoi gives us, but, while animated by Christ's spirit, by recognizing the changed conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which we live ; still laboring for the good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and teaching, but laboring in a different manner.

This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him;

and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community–the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.

We are met here with the difficulty of determining what are moderate sums to leave to members of the family; what is modest, unostentatious living; what is the test of extravagance. There must be different standards for different conditions. The answer is that it is as impossible to name exact amounts or actions as it is to define good manners, good taste, or the rules of propriety ; but, nevertheless, these are verities, well known although indefinable. Public sentiment is quick to know and to feel what offends these. So in the case of wealth. The rule in regard to good taste in the dress of men or women applies here. Whatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon. If any family be chiefly known for display, for extravagance in home, table, equipage, for enormous sums ostentatiously spent in any form upon itself, if these be its chief distinctions, we have no difficulty in estimating its nature or culture. So likewise in regard to the use or abuse of its surplus wealth, or to generous, freehanded cooperation in good public uses, or to unabated efforts to accumulate and hoard to the last, whether they administer or bequeath.

The verdict rests with the best and most enlightened public sentiment. The community will surely judge and its judgments will not often be wrong.

The best uses to which surplus wealth can be put have already been indicated. These who, would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown in to the sea than so spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy. Of every thousand dollars spent in so called charity to-day, it is probable that $950 is unwisely spent; so spent, indeed as to produce the very evils which it proposes to mitigate or cure. A well-known writer of philosophic books admitted the other day that he had given a quarter of a dollar to a man who approached him as he was coming to visit the house of his friend. He knew nothing of the habits of this beggar; knew not the use that would be made of this money, although he had every reason to suspect that it would be spent improperly. This man professed to be a disciple of Herbert Spencer; yet the quarter-dollar given that night will probably work more injury than all the money which its thoughtless donor will ever be able to give in true charity will do good. He only gratified his own feelings, saved him- self from annoyance,– and this was probably one of the most selfish and very worst actions of his life, for in all respects he is most worthy.

In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide part

of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to use the aids by which they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never to do all. Neither the individual nor the race is improved by alms- giving. Those worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance. The really valuable men of the race never do, except in cases of accident or sudden change. Every one has, of course, cases of individuals brought to his own knowledge where temporary assistance can do genuine good, and these he will not overlook. But the amount which can be wisely given by the individual for individuals is necessarily limited by his lack of knowledge of the circumstances connected with each. He is the only true reformer who is as careful and as anxious not to aid the unworthy as he is to aid the worthy, and, perhaps, even more so, for in alms-giving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than by relieving virtue.

The rich man is thus almost restricted to following the examples of Peter Cooper, Enoch Pratt of Baltimore, Mr. Pratt of Brooklyn, Senator Stanford, and others, who know that the best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise–parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste, and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people ;–in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good. –

Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free ; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; intrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself. The best minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of the race iii which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows save by using it year by year for the general good. This day already dawns. But a little while, and although, without incurring the pity of their fellows, men may die sharers in great business enterprises from which their capital cannot be or has not been withdrawn, and is left chiefly at death for public uses, yet the man who dies leaving behind many millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during life, will pass away " unwept, unhonored, and unsung," no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

Such, in my opinion, is the true Gospel concerning Wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the Rich and the Poor, and to bring ' Peace on earth, among men Good-Will."

Univ. of Virginia Lib

HORATIO ALGER, Jr.

Ragged Dick, Or, Street Life in New York

with the Boot Blacks

1868 Ch. 2, 11, 14 (excerpts)

Frontispiece from the original. Photographs by Lewis Hine added.

Harvard Univ. Archives

Horatio Alger, Jr., 1852

CHAPTER II. JOHNNY NOLAN

A FTER Dick had finished polishing Mr. Greyson’s* boots he was fortunate enough

to secure three other customers, two of them reporters in the Tribune establishment, which occupies the corner of Spruce Street and Printing House Square. When Dick had got through with his last customer the City Hall clock indicated eight o’clock. He had been up an hour, and hard at work, and naturally began to think of breakfast. He went up to the head of Spruce Street, and turned into Nassau. Two blocks further, and he reached Ann Street. On this street was a small, cheap restaurant, where for five cents Dick could get a cup of coffee, and for ten cents more, a plate of beef-steak with a plate of bread thrown in. These Dick ordered, and sat down at a table. It was a small apartment with a few plain tables unprovided with cloths, for the class of customers who patronized it were not very particular. Our hero’s breakfast was soon before him. Neither the coffee nor the steak were as good as can be bought at Delmonico’s; but then it is very doubtful whether, in the present state of his wardrobe, Dick would have

been received at that aristocratic restaurant, even if his means had admitted of paying the high prices there charged. Dick had scarcely been served when he espied a boy about his own size standing at the door, looking wistfully into the restaurant. This was Johnny Nolan, a boy of fourteen, who was engaged in the same profession as Ragged Dick. His wardrobe was in very much the same condition as Dick’s. “Had your breakfast, Johnny?” inquired Dick, cutting off a piece of steak. “No.” “Come in, then. Here’s room for you.” “I ain’t got no money,” said Johnny, looking a little enviously at his more fortunate friend. “Haven’t you had any shines?” “Yes, I had one, but I shan’t get any pay till to-morrow.” “Are you hungry?” “Try me, and see.” “Come in. I’ll stand treat this morning.” Johnny Nolan was nowise slow to accept this invitation, and was soon seated beside Dick. “What’ll you have, Johnny?” “Same as you.” * Excerpted, and photographs added, by the National

Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, NC. 2005. Photographs by Lewis Wickes Hine courtesy Library of Congress.

“Cup o’ coffee and beefsteak,” ordered Dick.

“That man in the brown coat.” These were promptly brought, and Johnny attacked them vigorously. “What of him. You ain’t scared of him, are

you?” Now, in the boot-blacking business, as well as in higher avocations, the same rule prevails, that energy and industry are rewarded, and indolence suffers. Dick was energetic and on the alert for business, but Johnny the reverse. The consequence was that Dick earned probably three times as much as the other.

“Yes, he got me a place once.” “Where?” “Ever so far off.” “What if he did?” “I ran away.” “Didn’t you like it?” “No, I had to get up too early. It was on a farm, and I had to get up at five to take care of the cows. I like New York best.”

“How do you like it?” asked Dick, surveying Johnny’s attacks upon the steak with evident complacency.

“Didn’t they give you enough to eat?” “It’s hunky.” “Oh, yes, plenty.” I don’t believe “hunky” is to be found in

either Webster’s or Worcester’s big dictionary; but boys will readily understand what it means.

“And you had a good bed?” “Yes.” “Then you’d better have stayed. You don’t get either of them here. Where’d you sleep last night?”

“Do you come here often?” asked Johnny. “Most every day. You’d better come too.” “I can’t afford it.”

“Up an alley in an old wagon.” “Well, you’d ought to, then,” said Dick. “What do you do with your money, I’d like to know?”

“You had a better bed than that in the country, didn’t you?”

“I don’t get near as much as you, Dick.” “Yes, it was as soft as  as cotton.” “Well, you might if you tried. I keep my eyes open  that’s the way I get jobs. You’re lazy, that’s what’s the matter.”

Johnny had once slept on a bale of cotton, the recollection supplying him with a comparison. “Why didn’t you stay?” Johnny did not see fit to reply to this

charge. Probably he felt the justice of it, and preferred to proceed with the breakfast, which he enjoyed the more as it cost him nothing.

“I felt lonely,” said Johnny.

Breakfast over, Dick walked up to the desk, and settled the bill. Then, followed by Johnny, he went out into the street. “Where are you going, Johnny?” “Up to Mr. Taylor’s, on Spruce Street, to see if he don’t want a shine.” “Do you work for him reg’lar?” “Yes. Him and his partner wants a shine most every day. Where are you goin’?” “Down front of the Astor House. I guess I’ll find some customers there.” At this moment Johnny started, and, dodging into an entry way, hid behind the door, considerably to Dick’s surprise. “What’s the matter now?” asked our hero. “Has he gone?” asked Johnny, his voice betraying anxiety. “Who gone, I’d like to know?”

2

Johnny could not exactly explain his feelings, but it is often the case that the young vagabond of the streets, though his food is uncertain, and his bed may be any old wagon or barrel that he is lucky enough to find unoccupied when night sets in, gets so attached to his precarious but independent mode of life, that he feels discontented in any other. He is accustomed to the noise and bustle and ever- varied life of the streets, and in the quiet scenes of the country misses the excitement in the midst of which he has always dwelt. Johnny had but one tie to bind him to the city. He had a father living, but he might as well have been without one. Mr. Nolan was a confirmed drunkard, and spent the greater part of his wages for liquor. His potations made

him ugly, and inflamed a temper never very sweet, working him up sometimes to such a pitch of rage that Johnny’s life was in danger. Some months before, he had thrown a flat-iron at his son’s head with such terrific force that unless Johnny had dodged he would not have lived long enough to obtain a place in our story. He fled the house, and from that time had not dared to re-enter it. Somebody had given him a brush and box of blacking, and he had set up in business on his own account. But he had not energy enough to succeed, as has already been stated, and I am afraid the poor boy had met with many hardships, and suffered

more than once from cold and hunger. Dick had befriended him more than once, and often given him a breakfast or dinner, as the case might be. “How’d you get away?” asked Dick, with some curiosity. “Did you walk?” “No, I rode on the cars.” “Where’d you get your money? I hope you didn’t steal it.” “I didn’t have none.” “What did you do, then?” “I got up about three o’clock, and walked to Albany.” “Where’s that?” asked Dick, whose ideas on the subject of geography were rather vague. “Up the river.” “How far?” “About a thousand miles,” said Johnny, whose conceptions of distance were equally vague. “Go ahead. What did you do then?” “I hid on top of a freight car, and came all the way without their seeing me.* That man in the brown coat was the man that got me the place, and I’m afraid he’d want to send me back.” “Well,” said Dick, reflectively, “I dunno as I’d like to live in the country. I couldn’t go to Tony Pastor’s or the Old Bowery. There wouldn’t be no place to spend my evenings. But I say, it’s tough in winter, Johnny, ‘specially when your overcoat’s at the tailor’s, an’ likely to stay there.” “That’s so, Dick. But I must be goin’, or Mr. Taylor’ll get somebody else to shine his boots.” Johnny walked back to Nassau Street, while Dick kept on his way to Broadway. “That boy,” soliloquized Dick, as Johnny took his departure, “ain’t got no ambition. I’ll bet he won’t get five shines to-day. I’m glad I ain’t like him. I couldn’t go to the theatre, nor buy no cigars, nor get half as much as I wanted to eat. Shine yer boots, sir?” . . .

3

* A fact. [footnote in original]

CHAPTER XI. DICK AS A DETECTIVE

. . . “Now,” said Frank, “I think I’ll go back to the Astor House. Uncle has probably got through his business and returned.” “All right,” said Dick. The two boys walked up to Broadway, just where the tall steeple of Trinity faces the street of bankers and brokers, and walked leisurely to the hotel. When they arrived at the Astor House, Dick said, “Good-by, Frank.” “Not yet,” said Frank; “I want you to come in with me.” Dick followed his young patron up the steps. Frank went to the reading-room, where, as he had thought probable, he found his uncle already arrived, and reading a copy of “The Evening Post,” which he had just purchased outside. “Well, boys,” he said, looking up, “have you had a pleasant jaunt?” “Yes, sir,” said Frank. “Dick’s a capital guide.” “So this is Dick,” said Mr. Whitney, surveying him with a smile. “Upon my word, I should hardly have known him. I must congratulate him on his improved appearance.” “Frank’s been very kind to me,” said Dick, who, rough street-boy as he was, had a heart easily touched by kindness, of which he had never experienced much. “He’s a tip-top fellow.” “I believe he is a good boy,” said Mr. Whitney. “I hope, my lad, you will prosper and rise in the world. You know in this free country poverty in early life is no bar to a man’s advancement. I haven’t risen very high myself,” he added, with a smile, “but have met with moderate success in life; yet there was a time when I was as poor as you.” “Were you, sir?” asked Dick, eagerly. “Yes, my boy, I have known the time when I have been obliged to go without my dinner because I didn’t have enough money to pay for it.” “How did you get up in the world,” asked Dick, anxiously.

“I entered a printing-office as an apprentice, and worked for some years. Then my eyes gave out and I was obliged to give that up. Not knowing what else to do, I went into the country, and worked on a farm. After a while I was lucky enough to invent a machine, which has brought me in a great deal of money. But there was one thing I got while I was in the printing-office which I value more than money.” “What was that, sir?” “A taste for reading and study. During my leisure hours I improved myself by study, and acquired a large part of the knowledge which I now possess. Indeed, it was one of my books that first put me on the track of the invention, which I afterwards made. So you see, my lad, that my studious habits paid me in money, as well as in another way.” “I’m awful ignorant,” said Dick, soberly. “But you are young, and, I judge, a smart boy. If you try to learn, you can, and if you ever expect to do anything in the world, you must know something of books.” “I will,” said Dick, resolutely. “I ain’t

4

always goin’ to black boots for a livin’.” “All labor is respectable, my lad, and you have no cause to be ashamed of any honest business; yet when you can get something to do that promises better for your future prospects, I advise you to do so. Till then earn your living in the way you are accustomed to, avoid extravagance, and save up a little money if you can.” “Thank you for your advice,” said our hero. “There ain't many that takes an interest in Ragged Dick.” “So that’s your name,” said Mr. Whitney. “If I judge you rightly, it won’t be long before you change it. Save your money, my lad, buy books, and determine to be somebody, and you may yet fill an honorable position.” “I’ll try,” said Dick. “Good-night, sir.” “Wait a minute, Dick,” said Frank. “Your blacking-box and old clothes are upstairs. You may want them.” “In course,” said Dick. “I couldn’t get along without my best clothes, and my stock in trade.” “You may go up to the room with him, Frank,” said Mr. Whitney. “The clerk will give you the key. I want to see you, Dick, before you go.” “Yes, sir,” said Dick. “Where are you going to sleep to-night, Dick?” asked Frank, as they went upstairs

together. “P’r’aps at the Fifth Avenue Hotel  on the outside,” said Dick. “Haven’t you any place to sleep, then?” “I slept in a box, last night.” “In a box?” “Yes, on Spruce Street.” “Poor fellow!” said Frank, compassionately. “Oh, ‘twas a bully bed  full of straw! I slept like a top.” “Don’t you earn enough to pay for a room, Dick?” “Yes,” said Dick; “only I spend my money foolish, goin’ to the Old Bowery, and Tony Pastor’s, and sometimes gamblin’ in Baxter Street.” “You won’t gamble any more,  will you, Dick?” said Frank, laying his hand persuasively on his companion’s shoulder. “No, I won’t,” said Dick. “You’ll promise?” “Yes, and I’ll keep it. You’re a good feller. I wish you was goin’ to be in New York.” “I am going to a boarding-school in Connecticut. The name of the town is Barnton. Will you write to me, Dick?” “My writing would look like hens’ tracks,” said our hero.

“Never mind. I want you to write. When you write you can tell me how to direct, and I

will send you a letter.” “I wish you would,” said Dick. “I wish I was more like you.” “I hope you will make a much better boy, Dick. Now we’ll go in to my uncle. He wishes to see you before you go.” They went into the reading- room. Dick had wrapped up his blacking-brush in a newspaper with which Frank had supplied him, feeling that a guest of the Astor House should hardly be seen coming out of the hotel displaying such a professional sign.

5

“Uncle, Dick’s ready to go,” said Frank. “Good-by, my lad,” said Mr. Whitney. “I hope to hear good accounts of you sometime. Don’t forget what I have told you. Remember that your future position depends mainly upon yourself, and that it will be high or low as you choose to make it.” He held out his hand, in which was a five- dollar bill. Dick shrunk back. “I don’t like to take it,” he said. “I haven’t earned it.” “Perhaps not,” said Mr. Whitney; “but I give it to you because I remember my own friendless youth. I hope it may be of service to

you. Sometime when you are a prosperous man, you can repay it in the form of aid to some poor boy, who is struggling upward as you are now.” “I will, sir,” said Dick, manfully. He no longer refused the money, but took it gratefully, and, bidding Frank and his uncle good-by, went out into the street. A feeling of loneliness came over him as he left the presence of Frank, for whom he had formed a strong attachment in the few hours he had known him. . . .

CHAPTER XIV. A BATTLE AND A VICTORY

. . . “What’s that chap been doing?” asked the policeman of Dick. “He was amoosin’ himself by pitchin’ into me,” replied Dick. “What for?” “He didn’t like it ‘cause I patronized a different tailor from him.” “Well, it seems to me you are dressed pretty smart for a boot-black,” said the policeman. “I wish I wasn’t a boot-black,” said Dick.

“Never mind, my lad. It’s an honest busi- ness,” said the policeman, who was a sensible man and a worthy citizen. “It’s an honest business. Stick to it till you get something better.” “I mean to,” said Dick. “It ain’t easy to get out of it, as the prisoner remarked, when he was asked how he liked his residence.” “I hope you don’t speak from experience.” “No,” said Dick; “I don’t mean to get into prison if I can help it.” “Do you see that gentleman over there?” asked the officer, pointing to a well-dressed man who was walking on the other side of the street. “Yes.” “Well, he was once a newsboy.”

“And what is he now?” “He keeps a bookstore, and is quite prosperous.” Dick looked at the gentleman with interest, wondering if he should look as respectable when he was a grown man. It will be seen that Dick was getting ambitious. Hitherto he had thought very little of the future, but was content to get along as he could, dining as well as his means would allow, and spending the evenings in the pit of the Old Bowery, eating peanuts between the acts if he was prosperous, and if unlucky

6

supping on dry bread or an apple, and sleeping in an old box or a wagon. Now, for the first time, he began to reflect that he could not black boots all his life. In seven years he would be a man, and, since his meeting with Frank, he felt he would like to be a respectable man. He could see and appreciate the difference between Frank and such a boy as Micky Maguire, and it was not strange that he preferred the society of the former. In the course of the next morning, in pursuance of his new resolutions for the future, he called at a savings bank, and held out four dollars in bills besides another dollar in change. There was a high railing, and a number of clerks busily writing at desks behind it. Dick, never having been in a bank before, did not know where to go. He went, by mistake, to the desk where money was paid out. “Where’s your book?” asked the clerk. “I haven’t got any.” “Have you any money deposited here?” “No, sir, I want to leave some here.” “Then go to the next desk.” Dick followed directions, and presented himself before an elderly man with gray hair, who looked at him over the rims of his spectacles. “I want you to keep that for me,” said Dick, awkwardly emptying his money out on the desk. “How much is there?” “Five dollars.” “Have you got an account here?” “No, sir.” “Of course you can write?” The “of course” was said on account of Dick’s neat dress. “Have I got to do any writing?” asked our hero, a little embarrassed. “We want you to sign your name in this book,” and the old gentleman shoved round a large folio volume containing the names of depositors. Dick surveyed the book with some awe. “I ain’t much on writin’,” he said. “Very well, write as well as you can.” The pen was put into Dick’s hand, and, after dipping it in the inkstand, he succeeded

after a hard effort, accompanied by many contortions of the face, in inscribing upon the book of the bank the name

DICK HUNTER. “Dick!  that means Richard, I suppose,” said the bank officer, who had some difficulty in making out the signature. “No; Ragged Dick is what folks call me.” “You don’t look very ragged.” “No, I’ve left my rags to home. They might get wore out if I used ‘em too common.” “Well, my lad, I’ll make out a book in the name of Dick Hunter, since you seem to prefer Dick to Richard. I hope you will save up your money and deposit more with us.” Our hero took his bank-book, and gazed on the entry “Five Dollars” with a new sense of importance. He had been accustomed to joke about Erie shares, but now, for the first time, he felt himself a capitalist; on a small scale, to be sure, but still it was no small thing for Dick to have five dollars which he could call his own. He firmly determined that he would lay by every cent he could spare from his earnings towards the fund he hoped to accumulate. But Dick was too sensible not to know that there was something more than money needed to win a respectable position in the world. He felt that he was very ignorant. Of reading and writing he only knew the rudiments, and that, with a slight acquaintance with arithmetic, was all he did know of books. Dick knew he must study hard, and he dreaded it. He looked upon learning as attended with greater difficulties than it really possesses. But Dick had good pluck. He meant to learn, nevertheless, and resolved to buy a book with his first spare earnings. When Dick went home at night he locked up his bank-book in one of the drawers of the bureau. It was wonderful how much more independent he felt whenever he reflected upon the contents of that drawer, and with what an important air of joint ownership he regarded the bank building in which his small savings were deposited.

7