Harry Hubbard

“ The danger from great wealth is purely imaginary. The real danger is that men may not save their money so as to have great wealth, and thus have a great fund for investment and wages. Natural economic laws govern the accumulation and distribution of wealth, and government may well hesitate before it tries to go contrary to these natural laws.
One may challenge the world to show how there could be any system under which more money could be made available for wages than under the existing system of private property and the saving and investing of money. All there is now goes as wages. ”

“ We in America are not thankful enough that we do not need to waste so much valuable time of our young men in the army as they do in Europe. There young men are destroying wealth, while our young men are producing it. The different effects on wages are hardly appreciated as they should be.
Think of the war bonds in the world, and one begins to realize the awful waste of wealth in war, to say nothing of the waste of life and the failure to produce wealth on the part of those engaged in war. They not only do not produce, they destroy. ”

“ One would think, to read some things that have been written or said about the wealth of the rich, that they had their wealth in money on deposit in banks or perhaps locked up in their own safes; and that they were constantly adding to their "pile" thus locked up; and that there was danger that they would thus lock up all the wealth of the world, and what would the poor do then? Most of the fear of great wealth has as senseless a foundation as that. The truth is that the wealth of the rich has been paid out, invested in business where it is fixed, and could not be taken back by the owner. ”

“ The men who have been the great captains of industry have not done their work for a salary, but because they were building up a great business which was their own to manage and control, for the joy as well as the gain which was in the work and the success. Any one who thinks that government could get such work from such men on a salary as a part of a government machine can have little knowledge of human nature. ”

“ The way to have money or wealth to use in the payment of wages is by saving, as already above explained. The government itself has no means of saving; for it earns no money (at least where the government carries on no industry) , but receives taxes taken from persons who have earned money. Will individuals save more or less money if what they save is to be "controlled," not by themselves, but by the government? Perhaps it is not wise to say that all men are naturally lazy. But we may safely assume that most men like to get a living with the least possible effort. ”

“ If this means that no man who has wealth is to be elected to office, then is it not time to protest against any such doctrine? Is it not wise that able men shall sit in Congress? Shall we go out into the streets and hunt up a man who has nothing, no "interest" in anything, and elect him? ”

“ For the good of workmen no one ought to wish that a great captain of industry retire from business or have his fortune diminished. Workmen are interested to have him stay in the harness as long as possible and have a big fortune to invest and pay out in wages. Work is good for men. So is making wealth. To give permanent work and good wages is one of the finest achievements of our modern industrial system. To honor those who do this is wise for workmen and society. In our own country such men have been honored except by the demagogue and his followers. ”

“ Saving means sacrifice of a present for a future gain,—always has and always will. The savage is not always willing to make it; but civilized man knows how, and ought to make it. Envy of those who have made this sacrifice and succeeded in accumulating wealth is not becoming to a brave man.
If wealth is dangerous, how much is dangerous? Is a million dollars? May not a million dollars be wasted as readily as a hundred millions? How many cases have occurred in our day of great wealth misused? We already have some laws against the misuse of wealth,—our guardianship laws. ”

“ Furthermore, who is going to underwrite any big new railroad when the conditions are that, if any money is to be made out of it in dividends, there is a government commission ready and willing to reduce rates until dividends do not exceed an interest rate, and with no guaranty that they will equal an interest rate? When both control and profit are no longer to belong to a great business leader, what motive has he to engage in the work?
There are ways of increasing the funds for wages, and thus increasing the prosperity of the wage-earners, but they are not government control. ”

“ If the crusade against great wealth and great industries is not in accord with natural economic laws, such crusade also will have an end, and its champions, too, discredited and perhaps even hated by the people, will go into their deserved oblivion. ”

“ The increase of product, if it goes in the first instance to the capitalist, increases his income, and out of his income he has more money for saving, and all his saving, as above explained, goes ultimately as wages. Thus all labor-saving machinery and devices are for the benefit of laborers, and so also all efficiency of labor in every form. The industrial development of the United States in the last twenty years, or even the last ten years, is an instance and an irrefutable proof of this truth. ”

“ The expenses of all classes, rich and poor, have mounted upward continually. What were formerly luxuries are now deemed necessaries. Reliance upon pensions by private corporations or by the government have taken the place somewhat of saving up for old age. There is a spirit of spending now and letting the future care for itself. Such a spirit ought, in the interests of workmen and of society, to be checked. So, too, for precisely the same reasons ought to be checked anything that will discourage men from saving and investing and building up big fortunes. ”

“ An attack upon big corporations is really an attack upon millions of men and women of small wealth who have saved and invested their money, as well as an attack upon the wages of workmen.
The savings by workmen in our country are immense. The sums in savings-banks, life insurance policies, homes and furnishings, and the amounts saved and invested in various kinds of business are enormous. Most of the workmen in our country have recognized the fact that saving is the beginning of prosperity. No matter how small the income, some saving is usually possible. ”

“ Society, and especially workmen, ought to be glad that some men take pleasure in saving and investing money and in growing rich; that they enjoy it, and therefore do it. Society ought to be glad that there are great captains of industry, men who can conceive great things and carry them to success. The world needs them. There are at least a thousand followers to one leader in the industrial world. The leaders are necessary, if big industries, big production, and consequent big wages are to be had. ”

“ If the government undertook the management of industry, then, in order that the people might not suffer loss through bad management, government would be compelled to have as managers the same men that now manage business successfully. ”

“ They could not benefit themselves without benefiting their fellow-men far more. There has never before been a period when wages have been so high as during the past ten or fifteen years,—a period in which there has been the greatest corporation development in the history of the world.
We have heard much in recent years of so-called "reforms" in the control of wealth,—as if somehow society at large is to be benefited by some such "reforms." There has been much talk that wealth must be "controlled" in some way by the government or it will become "dangerous." ”

“ More people have been employed and more wages paid than would ever have been possible if railroads had not come. So all kinds of machinery and labor-saving devices in the United States have made our labor the most efficient in the world, and with our great natural resources and good climate have made the product immense out of which savings can take place. If the product goes largely to the workman, as it does, and is shown by the immense amounts paid out in wages as compared with what is paid in dividends or interest, then the workman gets the high wages directly in that way. ”

“ In civilized countries men save—that is, set aside out of their income—wealth not to be spent for their own personal needs or pleasures but devoted to producing other and additional wealth. Thus, for example, a farmer out of his crops saves a portion for next year's farm operations, a manufacturer saves enough to build a factory and operate it, and several men, united as a corporation, save enough to build and operate a railroad. ”

“ If the gifts were made and consumed, and if there was no production by means of the gifts to replace the consumption, then the workmen and society would be worse off than if the gifts had not been made and the money had been left invested in industry, paying wages and producing wealth.
When workmen see that a big sum is to be spent in anything but industry, their attitude, in their own interest, ought to be one of inquiry. Will such sum be spent for a justifiable purpose? If the sum remains in industry, it is theirs, the workmen's, though the legal title be in the investor. ”

“ Cutting off all useless offices and requiring the greatest efficiency in all necessary government officers and employees are desirable for the same reasons. Until money spent by government will produce as much wealth as the same amount of money spent by individuals or corporations, the expenditures of government and the taxes levied on the people (rich or poor) should, in the interest of workmen and society, be kept as low as the necessary and really useful functions of government will permit. ”

“ Our monuments are industrial. In the centuries past the people in Europe put vast labor and money into the erection of cathedrals and other buildings for religious purposes. We look on these with wonder. But far more wonderful and more useful are our railroads, steamships, telegraphs, telephones, wireless telegraph, our factories of a thousand kinds and their multitudes of machines and tools, the power loom and spinning machine, the cotton-gin and hosts of agricultural machinery and implements, sewing machines, knitting machines, automobiles, and countless other labor-saving devices. ”

“ On the contrary, he may be living well according to his standard and enjoying himself, and, what is more, saving up money for his family. In thousands of instances their savings enable them to start a small business, then a larger and a larger, until they become wealthy. Some of our own home-born young men might well copy such thrift instead of spending all their income on their living, including often not only food, clothing, and shelter, but liquors and useless and demoralizing amusements, whereas they might save their money and get a start in the world. ”

“ Any and all waste by government is a direct injury to workmen, whether the taxes wasted come from rich or poor.
If taxes are levied on the rich, it is to be presumed that such taxes will be paid out of what may be called their surplus for saving and investment rather than out of that portion of their income which they have been accustomed to spend for personal needs and pleasures. If this presumption is correct, taxes levied on the rich diminish their fund for saving and investment and thus diminish wages. ”

“ One of the chief things that distinguishes civilization as we have it, with all its modern comforts and happiness, from savagery, with its want and misery, is the capacity to save and invest. We are benefited by the accumulated savings and investments of preceding years, yet most wealth (except land, minerals and other natural objects) would perish very soon if it were not continually replaced. For example, our railroads in the United States have been practically all made over—road-beds, rails, bridges, stations, locomotives and cars—within a generation. ”

“ The little that the railroad commissions have saved in rates to some shippers where railroads now exist may be nothing compared with the total loss that government "control" has brought upon the wage-earners and producers and consumers of the entire country, and the end is not yet. Moreover, what the railroad commissions "save" the shippers is not a saving in any proper sense, but a transfer from one person to another. It adds no wealth or wages to the community, as does increased efficiency of labor from construction of new railroads and improvement of old ones. ”

“ If the amounts the railroads and other big industries pay out in wages and in materials (also all ultimately wages) were published with the same fulness, the public would get a much more accurate notion of how wealth produced by a big railroad or other industry is divided. The rich man cannot get even this small payment of interest and dividends without having these big amounts paid out in wages. ”

“ Officials are only individuals, and are no wiser because they are elected to office; and they are not usually elected because of any ability they have shown in managing the industries of the country. But, if they were to be elected to office because of such ability already shown, there is no reason to think they would manage business any more wisely because they were officers of the government than they did as individuals or as officers of corporations. ”