John Stahl Patterson

“ There is something else in life than mere money and the exuberant development of material prosperity. We could afford a little less of these, in order that the working-people might be richer in the substance of every-day life. But, when even liberal wages are not only consumed, but too often consumed in a way to injure the laborer, we see how difficult it is to hit upon the best practical thing to do. Too low wages is bad; and wages arbitrarily made extremely high would soon prove to be bad by cutting off the source from which wages are derived. ”

“ Agitators do not sufficiently keep in mind that business can not be carried on without capital, and that this capital can be had only by self-denial and by saving. Capital is not a providential gift bestowed like showers of manna from heaven. ”

“ A protective tariff raises wages, but it raises the price of products even more; and it raises wages simply because it raises prices. Any arbitrary measure which should raise wages along the whole line would so disturb the prevailing equilibrium of the economic forces as to necessitate a general readjustment which would leave the laborer no better off than before. He would find himself paying out with one hand the benefits he received with the other, and a general rise of wages, like a general rise of prices, would be no rise at all. ”

“ The savings of labor which have fallen so largely into the hands of the few, making them rich men, have built our railroads, steamships, telegraphs, manufactories, thus in many ways adding to the means of production, and the facilities of commerce at home and abroad. These saved earnings in the hands of men seeking investment for profit have increased the wealth, resources, and refinements of civilization, made abundance possible, and brought it within reach of all, except the unfortunate, or the indolent and improvident. ”

“ Only the industrious, enterprising, economical, well-managing, are certain to acquire capital and retain it. In making investments for production by the employment of labor, there are very generally risks to run, and these risks the party responsible for the business must wholly assume. The laborer as such has no capital to fall back upon, and can not share in losses. Is it right, therefore, that he should receive so much of the products that there would be little or nothing left for the responsibility and enterprise of management? ”

“ Take two men fifty years of age: A has worked hard, lived economically, invested wisely, and saved more or less every year; he is now a capitalist and employer. B has used up his earnings as he went along, and is now working for A. Has he any just right to insist that A shall forget the past, ignore its results, and take him in as an equal partner? This is substantially what all ask for who insist that labor shall have all it produces, without regard to the part which capital plays in production. ”

“ There is something more wanting than the mere increase of money wages, now so generally sought as the one thing needful. Labor is eventually paid in products which go to the support of the working-man's family, and the increased expense of his goods is often greater than the increased pay for his work. Wages and prices rise and fall nearly together, and they do so as the effect of a common cause. The actual reward of labor is thus more uniform than the money price of labor. But even here, as usual, labor is at a disadvantage, because it can not be held, as goods may, for higher prices. ”

“ Profit and utility thus go along hand in hand. But the greatest loss from the indiscriminate reward of economical misdoing would be in the actual reduction of savings and diminution of capital.
Then, what is the economical function the rich man performs? He conserves the surplus of production, holding it in trust for the good of all, and without him there would be no civilization. The accumulator, the self-made rich man, usually expends only a percentage, often a small percentage, of his income, on his own gratifications. ”

“ And here I cannot but refer to a most short-sighted policy which our Government has been pursuing in giving a factitious value to lumber made from our own timber, by a so-called protective tax on foreign lumber. While this has operated directly against the building interests of our own people, it, at the same time, has led to the more rapid destruction of our own forests; and, in thus giving protection to the capital employed in lumbering, it is removing the protection which our forests afford to the American agriculturist, thus damaging the people at large in a twofold manner. ”

“ Suppose further—which, however, is absurd—that just as much will now be saved for business as before, and that it is in the hands of the working-people themselves for business purposes. Can they make it tell in business as it does in the hands of men whose shrewdness and skill bring them to the front by a sort of natural selection? ”

“ There is, perhaps, no law of human history better assured than this: that, with high civilization and the long enjoyment of wealth, culture, and the luxury and dissipation which are sure to accompany them, population increases more slowly, in time to become stationary, and at last decline and succumb to younger and more vigorous peoples, who have been hardened in the conflicts of poverty and rough fare. ”

“ We must reiterate that if, in the event of giving all to labor, there were no immediate falling off in the amount of capital, such falling off would nevertheless soon come about through mistaken investment, since the shrewd and enterprising, into whose hands capital now usually falls, are precisely those who are best qualified to discover the fields in which investments may be made to the best advantage; for it is by the utilization of such fields that the greatest amount and variety of productions are had, and most is added to the general wealth of the civilized world. ”

“ It is not the habit of the colored people to look up a vacancy in some new State, and proceed to fill it with their own race. If they did they would have to be their own employers, and the prosperity of the community would be of their own making. ”

“ The interests of labor are in the hands of one class, and the interests of capital in the hands of a very different class, and they naturally enough contend about a certain margin of profit, since what one class gets of this the other must necessarily do without. The war is really between laborers and the employers of laborers ”

“ A good idea, which should teach modesty to the "money power"; but it has this drawback, namely, that, if capital in this particular industry is thus compelled to accept considerably less return than capital employed in other industries, it will desert this field of operations for some other which pays better, and the laborers who have their wages thus arbitrarily raised will reap the penalty for their ignorance of economical laws by finding themselves out of employment, or working on short time. ”

“ There is a surplus beyond immediate consumption from the products of all the industries in the world: what shall be done with this surplus? If certain classes of people could have their way, what is now surplus would all be consumed by the end of the year. ”

“ It never ends. There will always be a colored race, of more uniform and lighter shade than at present, and always a white, even though branches of it perish in the fatal folds of luxury and dissipation. It will not end by amalgamation with the colored race, nor change by absorbing it. ”

“ Hardly any party is ready to go into history with such a policy, for, if it tripped, as it might, it would be bad for such party. It is the teaching of all history that those who have had freedom of self-rule have proved themselves competent to take it and hold it in spite of despots. ”

“ There are many conditions which affect the reward of labor—such as the character of the soil, the cost of raw materials, the capital at command, the number competing for work, the facilities for exchange, and the like. With a more intelligent direction of effort, with sobriety and frugality, with restraint on the increase of numbers, working-men would certainly receive better pay, and it would do them more good. ”

“ There is hardly any doubt that, if the wealthy classes in this country could have their unrestrained way in all things, they would build up an aristocracy as oppressive and disdainful as ever existed anywhere. If the so-called working-classes (not embracing those who are their own employers) could have their way, they would do even worse by precipitating the conditions of universal poverty. ”

“ Every direction which humanity takes has almost always something of evil in it—is limited in its very nature, and can not stand its extreme consequences. All earthly existence bears in itself, from the first, the germs of its decay. ”

“ So rapidly is the destruction of timber going on in this country that many localities originally covered with forest have not so great a proportion as this remaining, and other localities are in a fair way soon to be in the same condition. This is becoming, or at least should become, a real cause of apprehension to those who have the welfare of the farming interest, and especially of the fruit-growing interest, at heart. This continuous destruction of timber must eventually result in injury to the market value of lands in certain neighborhoods, especially lands for fruit-growing purposes. ”

“ He held that "the white race is no more favorable to the progress of the African race in its midst than it has been to the perpetuity of the Indians on its borders." He was of opinion that the "developments of the census, to a good degree, explain the slow progress of the free colored population in the Northern States, and indicate, with unerring certainty, the gradual extinction of that people the more rapidly as, whether free or slave, they become diffused among the dominant race." ”

“ Nobody is responsible; and it may be that these vast accumulations of wealth have their good as well as their evil side. If a large proportion of civilized people have not had the energy and management to push themselves into positions of plenty and comfort, it may be that even making the rich richer has points of advantage which render it a blessing rather than a curse to laboring-men themselves. ”

“ Civilization could not advance, the world could not become richer in the comforts of life, because the basis of production, capital, that is, the savings of labor, would not accumulate. Indeed, if there were not savings to be constantly invested for the repair of waste and wear, there would soon be a calamitous falling off everywhere in the comforts of life. It is capital that makes labor tell in successful production ”

“ The possession of wealth and education is a surer check on population than the famous "positive checks" of Malthus—"wars, plagues, and famine." They are surer and greater, because they act without intermission. I do not shrink from stating the fact, unpleasant as it may be. I am aware that Knox, Clibborne, Schade, Kapp, and others, refer the slow increase of American natives they do not discriminate between Northern and Southern—to the effects on the European stock of an uncongenial climate. ”

“ FRUIT has become a necessary of life—a great variety of fruit indeed, and a great deal of it; and this will become more and more the case with the increase of intelligence and thrift. The great abundance of most kinds of fruit for the last two or three years may cause us to feel a security, which is not well grounded, with regard to the conditions of climate necessary to the unfailing production of fruit. Only within a few years past have there been seasons when the fruit-crop was very light, and not at all adequate to the demand. ”

“ Employers are not absolute arbiters of fate, and can not make a remunerating profit with the cost of production and the state of the market against them. Should the outlay for wages in any department of industry be so great that its products could only be sold as a loss, managers must contract operations or stop altogether, when the laborer becomes the direct and principal sufferer ”

“ If force could be used to compel capital under some rule to surrender all or most of its gains to laborers, it would remove to a great extent the motive for saving and the incentive to enterprise, and prevent the opening of new fields for the employment of new hands, ever asking for something to do. ”

“ The percentage of increase for the decade 1870-'80 is quite surprising. As it has taken place under freedom, it contravenes all the prejudices and upsets most of the philosophies. One would naturally have supposed, from the reputed bad treatment and destruction of freedmen in the South and the preordained tendency of an inferior people to decline in presence of a superior, that the colored race would be dying out, instead of increasing at the marvelous rate of 34 per cent, in ten years. ”

“ To the fact that under certain circumstances a forest may cause frost in the fields near by, we may add the qualification that this can only occur in the case of white frosts, and that whenever there is motion of the atmosphere, and the wind a cold one, the influence of the forest is always protective. An orchard sheltered by a wood may escape unhurt, while another in the same neighborhood not so protected may suffer the loss of its entire crop. This is believed to be not a very uncommon occurrence in the case of peaches. ”

“ This must be the case just so far as the forests belonging to the United States afford greater protection to our cultivated fields than is afforded by the forests of Canada. We do not realize the benign influence which our forests to the west and east of the great lakes exercise upon the climate and agriculture of the country. Imagine them all removed; the cold winds from the northwest and northeast, having unobstructed sweep, would reach us with greater force, and, passing over a bleak and treeless region, they would come to us absolutely colder. ”

“ Very great subjects can only be touched upon, not treated, here. Why is it that the native whites of the North are multiplying so much more slowly, not only than the colored, but even than the Southern whites? ”

“ So bound up is he with the system of civilized methods that he can not add to his wealth by successful enterprise on the methods which legitimate business requires without helping others. The worthy rich man is, indeed, a self-exalted prince of civilization, who holds his wealth in trust for the maintenance and further advancement of that civilization. ”