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GROUP EIGHT: CLASS DIFFERENCES

HUMAN RIGHTS VS. PROPERTY RIGHTS, MONOPOLY, PRIVILEGE, CAPITAL AND LABOR

From the early days of the nation it has been felt that one of the greatest potential dangers to the permanency of American institutions and ideals lay in class differences, privilege, monopoly, concentration of capital and all the manifold aspects of the perversion of political institutions which can result from their control by economic forces.

The development of capitalist industrialism throughout the world has been coincident with the development of the United States of America.

A vast literature has grown up, dealing with the real or alleged relationship of the two. Most of this literature is contemporary and much of it is permeated with the doctrines of various social theories.

The following excerpts have been largely taken from writers and statesmen of earlier periods when the questions now so discussed throughout the world had not assumed their contemporary form. Immediately contemporary opinions in this field, even of men high in the national councils, have been avoided.

The early quotations are given largely because it has been the tendency of republics to turn into oligarchies in which control of political machinery has either slowly or violently been seized by vigorous forces.

Any such concentration of fluid capital as permits political parties to be controlled, governments to be influenced, laws to be shaped or interpreted, opinion to be controlled or military power to be used by any group or groups of men within a free nation, inevitably represents the slow transformation of a republic into a plutocracy or oligarchy. It represents the disruption of the organic quality a democratic nation must have and a replacing of the community will by the relatively arbitrary will of some small part of the community. This means a cancerous growth which must inevitably destroy the organism

if not disrupted or excised. It marks a retrograde step in political development.

President Calvin Coolidge has declared: (141)

We justify the greater and greater accumulations of capital because we believe that therefrom flows the support of all science, art, learning and the charities which minister to the humanities of life, all carrying their beneficent effects to the people as a whole.

The support of science, art, learning and charities through the accumulation of capital in the hands of a small group of men may carry some beneficent effect to the people as a whole. But it does it at a cost which most free people have learned to be excessive.

The whole spirit of whatever essential American tradition there may be is certainly clearly opposed to the centralization of any sort of power even in the hands of those directly responsible to the people.

No power in modern nations is more formidable than the power of greater and greater accumulations of capital. No tendency is more subversive of American aspirations nor fraught with more danger to the permanency of American institutions than the irresponsible use of such accumulations.

MASSACHUSETTS BODY OF LIBERTY [1641]

No monopolies shall be granted or allowed amongst us, but of such new Inventions that are profitable to the Countrie, and that for a short time.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

It is much to be lamented that each state, long ere this, has not hunted them (monopolists) down as the pests of society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America. I would to God that one of the most atrocious in each state was hung in gibbets upon a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

To Elbridge Gerry, Jan. 26, 1799.

I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not merely for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans, and for increasing, by every means the public debt, on the principle of it being a public blessing.

I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON [1788]

Sir, if the people have it in their option, to elect their most meritorious men, is this to be considered as an objection? Shall the constitution oppose their wishes, and abridge their most invaluable privilege? While property continues to be pretty equally divided, and a considerable share of information pervades the community, the tendency of the people's suffrages, will be to elevate merit even from obscurity-as riches increase and accumulate in few hands;-as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard. This is the real disposition of human nature: it is what neither the honorable member nor myself can correct-it is a common misfortune, that awaits our state constitution, as well as all others. . . .

All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the

second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by the change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.

JAMES MADISON

The Federalist, No. 10.

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of society into different interests and parties.

But the most common and durable source of factions, has been the various and unequal distributions of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilised nations, and divide themselves into different classes actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

JOHN TAYLOR OF CAROLINE [1814]

It has been our policy, so to divide power, and diminish the excitement of avarice and ambition, as to wring out of its soul the poisons arising from the evil qualities of monopoly; laws to foster these qualities labour to revive what that policy labours to destroy.

After a patient trial of charter privilege and monopoly for three thousand years, almost at the moment they are rejected

as poison to civil and religious liberty, we are told that they are wholesome aliment for commerce. It is not surprising that self-interest should believe it, and recommence the fairest, most patient, and most expensive experiment which was ever made. After another tedious term of rueful experience, monopoly will again exclaim, that it confesses the same thing, in relation to religion and civil power, but that in some new form it is a blessing; and the experiment ought then, with as much reason as now, to be recommenced.

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JAMES MONROE [1817]

The public lands are a public stock, which ought to be disposed of to the best advantage for the nation. The nation should therefore derive the profit proceeding from the continual rise in their value. Every encouragement should be given to the emigrants consistent with a fair competition between them, but that competition should operate in the first sale to the advantage of the nation rather than of individuals. Great capitalists will derive all the benefit incident to their superior wealth under any mode of sale which may be adopted. But if, looking forward to the rise in the value of the public lands, they should have the opportunity of amassing at a low price vast bodies in their hands, the profit will accrue to them and not to the public. They would also have the power in that degree to control the emigration and settlement in such a manner as their opinion of their respective interests might dictate. I submit this subject to the consideration of Congress, that such further provision may be made in the sale of the public lands, with a view to the public interest, should any be deemed expedient, as in their judgment may be best adapted to the object.

DANIEL WEBSTER

The freest government can not long endure when the tendency of the law is to create a rapid accumulation of property in the hands of a few and to render the masses poor and dependent.

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