William Dean Howells

“ The Altrurian's voice expressed no contempt, but only a sad patience, a melancholy surprise, such as a celestial angel might feel in being suddenly confronted with some secret shame and horror of the Pit.
"Well," said the banker, "with us, the only way is to take the business view and try to strike an average somewhere."
"Talking of business," said the professor, turning to the manufacturer, who had been quietly smoking, "why don't some of you capitalists take hold of farming, here in the east, and make a business of it as they do in the west?" ”

“ We all laughed except the minister and the Altrurian, the manufacturer said, "Twenty-five years hence, the fellow who is going into business, may pity the fellows who arc pitying him for his hard fate now."
"Very possibly, but not necessarily," said the banker. "Of course, the business man is on top, as far as money goes; he is the fellow who makes the big fortunes; the millionaire lawyers, and doctors, and ministers are exceptional. But his risks are tremendous. Ninety-five times out of a hundred he fails. ”

“ As a gentleman he would have to tell them, because he could not take advantage of their necessities; but as a business man, he would think it bad business to tell them, or no business at all. The principle goes all through; I say, business is business; and I am not going to pretend that business will ever be anything else. In our business battles, we don't take off our hats to the other side, and say, 'Gentlemen of the French Guard, have the goodness to fire.' That may be war, but it is not business. ”

“ But I can account for it differently with you, because I understand that in your conditions a person of leisure could not do any manual labor without taking away the work of some one who needed it to live by; and could not even relieve an overworked laborer, and give him the money for the work without teaching him habits of idleness. In Altruria we can all keep ourselves well by doing each his share of hard work, and we can help those who are exhausted, when such a thing happens, without injuring them materially or morally."
Young Camp entered at this moment and the Altrurian hesitated. ”

“ If general prosperity follows, all well and good; they are willing to be given the credit for it. But, as I said, with business as business, the 'education of a gentleman' has nothing to do. That education is always putting the old Ciceronian question: whether the fellow arriving at a starving city with a cargo of grain is bound to tell the people before he squeezes them, that there are half a dozen other fellows with grain just below the horizon. ”

“ We used to cut the knot of the difficulty pretty sharply; we said a college education was wrong; or, the hot and hot Americans preadeaglers did. Business is the national ideal, and the successful business man is the American type. It is a business man's country."
"Then, if I understand you," said the Altrurian, "and I am very anxious to have a clear understanding of the matter, the effect of the university with you is to unfit a youth for business life." ”

“ He wrote a story where the failure of a business man turned on a point just like that you have instanced. The man could have retrieved himself if he had let some people believe that what was so was not so, but his conscience stepped in and obliged him to own the truth. ”

“ The fellows who were going to study professions were hugging themselves at the contrast between their fate and his, and were making remarks about business that were to say the least unbusinesslike. A few years ago we should have made a summary disposition of the matter, and I believe some of the newspapers still are in doubt about the value of a college education to men who have got to make their way. ”

“ It may give him great advantages in it, and that is the theory and expectation of most fathers who send their sons to the university. But, undoubtedly, the effect is to render business-life distasteful. The university nurtures all sorts of lofty ideals, which business has no use for. ”

“ At any rate, I don't think the sight of idleness in rags, and begging at back doors, is very corrupting to the country people; I never heard of a single tramp who had started from the country; they all come from the cities. It's the other kind of idleness that tempts our young people. The only tramps that my son says he ever envies are the well dressed, strong young fellows from town, that go tramping through the mountains for exercise every summer. ”

“ I don't own the farm that we worked so hard to pay for, and my children won't. That is what it has all come to. We were rightly punished for our greed, I suppose. Perhaps no one has a right to own any portion of the earth. Sometimes I think so, but my husband and I earned this farm, and now the savings bank owns it. ”

“ Under yours, it seems to me that while the individuality of the man who makes other men work for him is safe, except from itself, the individuality of the workers"—
"Well, that is their lookout. We have found that upon the whole, it is best to let every man look out for himself. ”

“ Twelvemough—perhaps I did not make myself clear—was that we should regard the sterile putting forth of strength in exercise, if others were each day worn out with hard manual labor, as insane or immoral. ”

“ That period passed, and the great era of material prosperity set in. The big fortunes began to tower up, and heroes of another sort began to appeal to our admiration. I don't think there is any doubt but the millionaire is now the American ideal. It isn't very pleasant to think so, even for people who have got on, but it can't very hopefully be denied. It is the man with the most money who now takes the prize in our national cake-walk."
The Altrurian turned curiously toward me, and I did my best to tell him what a cake-walk was. ”

“ Then he said he had been spending the time with young Camp, who had shown him something of the farm work, and introduced him to several of the neighbors; he was very much interested in it all, because at home he was, at present, engaged in farm work himself, and he was curious to contrast the American and Altrurian methods. ”

“ Well, they would have whatever their farms brought, to make a new start with somewhere else; and, besides, that question of what would become of people thrown out of work by a given improvement, is something that capital cannot consider. ”

“ Makely," the young fellow protested, in astonishment.
"Well, it stands to reason that if the tramps have all been black-listed men"—
"But I didn't say that, either!"
"No matter! What I am trying to get at is this: if a workman has made himself a nuisance to the employers, haven't they a right to punish him in any way they can?"
"I believe there's no law yet, against black-listing," said Camp.
"Very well, then, I don't see what they've got to complain of. The employers surely know their own business."
"They claim to know the men's too. That's what they're always saying ”

“ Then, there is no doubt but it comes, sometimes, from poverty. A man sells his vote, as a woman sells her person, for money, when neither can turn virtue into cash. They feel that they must live, and neither of them would be satisfied if Dr. ”