American Eloquence, Volume 4: Studies In American Political History (1897)
History
American Eloquence, Volume 4: Studies In American Political History (1897)
Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- History; United States -- Politics and government
The comprehensive law of the ideal industrial condition of the word
is free manufacture and free trade. [Hear, hear! A voice: "The Morrill
tariff." Another voice: "Monroe."] I have said there were three elements
of liberty. The third is the necessity of an intelligent and free race
of customers. There must be freedom among producers; there must
be freedom among the distributors; there must be freedom among the
customers. It may not have occurred to you that it makes any difference
what one's customers are, but it does in all regular and prolonged
business. The condition of the customer determines how much he will buy,
determines of what sort he will buy. Poor and ignorant people buy little
and that of the poorest kind. The richest and the intelligent, having
the more means to buy, buy the most, and always buy the best. Here,
then, are the three liberties: liberty of the producer, liberty of
the distributor, and liberty of the consumer. The first two need no
discussion; they have been long thoroughly and brilliantly illustrated
by the political economists of Great Britain and by her eminent
statesmen; but it seems to me that enough attention has not been
directed to the third; and, with your patience, I will dwell upon that
for a moment, before proceeding to other topics.
It is a necessity of every manufacturing and commercial people that
their customers should be very wealthy and intelligent. Let us put the
subject before you in the familiar light of your own local experience.
To whom do the tradesmen of Liverpool sell the most goods at the highest
profit? To the ignorant and poor, or to the educated and prosperous? [A
voice: "To the Southerners." Laughter.] The poor man buys simply for his
body; he buys food, he buys clothing, he buys fuel, he buys lodging. His
rule is to buy the least and the cheapest that he can. He goes to the
store as seldom as he can; he brings away as little as he can; and he
buys for the least he can. [Much laughter.] Poverty is not a misfortune
to the poor only who suffer it, but it is more or less a misfortune to
all with whom he deals. On the other hand, a man well off--how is it
with him? He buys in far greater quantity. He can afford to do it; he
has the money to pay for it. He buys in far greater variety, because he
seeks to gratify not merely physical wants, but also mental wants. He
buys for the satisfaction of sentiment and taste, as well as of sense.
He buys silk, wool, flax, cotton; he buys all metals--iron, silver,
gold, platinum; in short he buys for all necessities and all substances.
But that is not all. He buys a better quality of goods. He buys richer
silks, finer cottons, higher grained wools. Now a rich silk means so
much skill and care of somebody's that has been expended upon it to make
it finer and richer; and so of cotton and so of wool. That is, the price
of the finer goods runs back to the very beginning, and remunerates the
workman as well as the merchant. Now, the whole laboring community is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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