been largely due to the strength of tradition and the countervailing force of hereditary interests. But the greater activity in this country comes not alone from the comparative freedom from these restraints, but also from the larger stimulus which has been given in America by the eagerness of the citizens to develop a new country, by the disposition of the government to extend public aid and credit in furtherance of this object, and by the favorable conditions of the country, such as the fertility of the prairies, the vast extent of virgin soil, and the resources coming from variety of climate.

In thus considering the difference in the influences of modern industry upon different political institutions, we observe something like an anomaly. In England the expansion of manufacturing energy is tending manifestly towards democratic results; whilst in America, where democracy is already assumed to have a fuller form under law, the tendency hitherto is rather towards an interference with democratic sanctions. If the freedom which the fundamental law of America aims to establish had been rigorously guarded from the beginning, with a vivid jealousy to protect this freedom above all things by the strict adjustment of all industries to the institutions, whilst, doubtless, the eagerness for rapid material advancement might not have been so largely satisfied, the country would have been enabled more fully to appropriate for the furthering of equal political right all the great uses which steam and electricity have thrown upon us.

Thus, whilst the results would have been more deliberate, they certainly would have been more normal and more permanent. It is from the very carelessness with which our freedom is held, coupled with our great anxiety for rapid physical advancement, that monopolies and methods at variance with the democratic idea have found their largest opportunity with us. The too easy generosity with which vast domains of public land have been conferred has produced a concentration of corporate power thoroughly hostile to the furtherance of political freedom. Nevertheless, as I will presently endeavor to show, this condition is but a transitional one, and in the more progressive stages the guards of liberty are yet likely to be sufficient to bring all the elements of modern civilization under control.

Statistics of commercial, material, and mechanical growth abound. They come upon us at every turn, and seem to be occupying a large part of the attention of the world. Hundreds, probably thousands, of volumes have been written upon the subject of steam and its material advantages, setting forth how it has enlarged our medium of exchange, our means of subsistence, our intercommunication; how it has redistributed populations and thrown all the activities into newer, larger, and constantly changing relations with each other. The progress of railway development, the immense revenues from industry, and the extent of new territory, developing the population of new areas, constitute one of the chief

topics of discussion and the wonderment of the time. They astonish us by their magnitude, and confuse us by their variety and complexity. But these statistics too often only express the quantity, and distract our attention from the quality and the tendency of the phenomena. A not inconsiderable part of our statistical literature is devoted to exalting our national activity and inflating our national vanity. Books with this view are eagerly sought and generally read; and the supply of them seems to be less than the demand, for their number is constantly increasing. Their authors generally set forth with grandiloquent rhetoric the immense progress of America under democracy. They confuse political equality with intellectual and social equality. Their views of patriotism are satisfied by the indiscriminate abuse of every other country and form of government; their views of progress, by mere physical development. Statistics of magnitudes are marshalled in abundance to prove all kinds of merit, and are especially paraded as proofs of the growth of political virtue. But vast accumulation is not necessarily national well-being, nor indeed even wholesome wealth. The normal commonwealth best lives by diffusion of activity and wealth; by the security with which this diffusion is maintained, and by the sense of freedom and honesty by which it is governed. A slave may have ten thousand dollars in his pocket, and a freeman may have nothing; but the condition of the freeman is the better of the two.

The highest value of the money to the slave is its power to purchase his freedom. If it cannot do this, both man and money belong to a master. It is the relation of the individual to the means which constitutes true national prosperity. Wealth is only true wealth when it furnishes this well-being of society, when it tends towards freedom and manhood. This rule lies deeper than all the rules of barter or the addition of sums. When Gladstone and Herbert Spencer indicate for us a favorable future, based only upon our present energy, we must not be too ready to draw the inference from their courteous prophecies, that all the methods which we have adopted in promoting our industries are virtuous. We permit our national vanity to be stimulated by these plausible statistics and prophetic outgivings. What we need is at times to cease admiring ourselves and to fall into a more careful examination of our ways.

It has been said that "the statistician who knows nothing but statistics does not know them." The real, or at least the chief, value of figures is to illustrate principles. He has an improper perception of their value who can fall into ecstasies over the statement that a ton of wheat may now be carried for half a cent per mile, while the same service cost one dollar before steam was introduced, and who can at the same time ignore the underlying and more important fact that an enormous evil has arisen from this dif ference by reason of the misuse of the power which

controls the new convenience. A true regard for values would teach him to realize that the greatest conveniences may be bought too dearly if freedom be the price to be paid for them. The statistician tells us that the agricultural labor of one man for one year is equal to the product of 5,500 bushels of wheat, and that the labor of three men for one year will produce subsistence for one thousand other men; and another statistician tells us that a railway magnate has amassed within the past twenty years more than $300,000,000. The facts set forth in these two statements have doubtless an intimate relation to each other. The first figures express a redundancy of food products which the steam and machinery have given to mankind, and the second a grossly unequal division of the results of activity. The farmer's large product is rendered far less valuable to him, and the consumer's cost is rendered far higher to him, because the intermediary transporter, having laid two lines of rail and obtained the public franchise, is exerting the power of that franchise in taking undue values out of the product, both from the producer and the consumer. What should concern us, in such a case, is the underlying principle; to learn, if we can, what ultimate law is violated, whereby this immense disproportion of power and result is obtained. There are reformers who propose that the accumulations of corporate magnates shall be directly attacked, and limited by law. But this is an unconscious concession that the sanctities of civ