1893 - State Library Information Center

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONS OF BUREAUS. 67as organized industry. The President of the United States imputedthe cause to the silver purchasing act; but that act has beenvoid for months and the good predicted to come from its repealhas not appeared. Although at the last general election thepeople by a very large majority decided in favor of a reductionin the tariff rates, it is now contended by a large number ofrepresentatives, that the mere proposition to carry out this expresseddemand has destroyed the confidence of the people inthe future.Much more might be said in proof of the need for a betterunderstanding of the laws that underly our social organization.And while admitting that political economy may not be reducedto a positive science by which we can determine with mathematicalprecision the effects of the laws it treats of, it is contendedthat by an analysis of the elements that contribute to thecreation of wealth we may determine, at least approximately,their relation to each other and define the laws that controlproduction, exchange and consumption. When these areunderstood a scientific solution of the problem of the distributionof wealth is possible.There is no doubt about the capacity of our productive forcesto supply every demand for all the necessaries of a comfortablesubsistence for every man, woman and child in the country. Theproblem that has perplexed statesmen for the past generation isnot that of production, but of consumption, or, how to find amarket that will consume sufficient to keep our productive forcesin activity. Poverty, the distress from the want of employmentnow existing, is not caused by there not being enough food,clothing and houses to meet the demand; on the contrary, it iseverywhere alleged that the hard times are due to an overabundanceof these things. It is the acknowledged right ofevery man to have an opportunity to earn a living; yet there aremillions of men in enforced idleness, who are willing and anxiousto have work to do, but owing to some undefined cause theyare deprived of this right to work. The fundamental principleunderlyingour government, and which shapes our politicalinstitutions, is the declaration, " that all men are created equal;.that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienablerights; that among these t^re life, liberty and the pursuit of