Its Fundamental Importance.—Dangers of Neglecting 481 it.—Attempts at Evasion.—How it must be Finally met.—Silver Paper Currency Schemes, and their Futility CHAPTER XLV. THE LABOR QUESTION. Harmony Between the Representatives of Capital and 491 Labor Necessary for Business Prosperity.—If Manufacturers should Combine to Regulate Wages the Arrangement could only be Temporary.—The Workingmen are Taken Care of by the Natural Laws of Trade.—Competition among the Capitalists Sustains the Rate of Wages.—Opinion of John Stuart Mill on this Subject.—Compelling a Uniform Rate of Pay is a Gross Injustice to the Most Skilful Workmen.—The Tendency of the Trades Unions to Debar the Workingman from Social Elevation.—The Power of the Unions Brought to a Test.—The Universal Failure of the Strikes.—Revolutionary Demands of the Knights of Labor.—Gould and the Strikes on the Missouri Pacific, &c., &c. CHAPTER XLVI. AN IMPORTANT SYNOPSIS. A Resume in Brief of the Leading Events Connected with 503 Wall Street Affairs for Seventy-seven Years CHAPTER XLVII. INTERNATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BARTHOLDI STATUE. Great as an Achievement of Art, but Greater as the 525 Embodiment of the Idea of Universal Freedom the World Over.—It is a Poetic Idea of a Universal Republic.—Enlightenment of the World Must Result in the Freedom of Man CHAPTER XLVIII. LARGE FORTUNES AND THEIR DISPOSITION. How the Fortunes of the Astors were Made.—George 529 Peabody and His Philanthropic Schemes.—Johns Hopkins and his Peculiarities.—A. T. Stewart and his Abortive Plans.—A Sculptor’s Opinion of his Head.—Eccentricities of Stephen Girard, and How he Treated his Poor Sister.—His Penurious Habits and Great Donations.—James Lenox and the Library which he Left.—How Peter Cooper Made his Fortune, and his Liberal Gifts to the Cause of Education.—Samuel J. Tilden’s Munificent Bequests.—The Vanderbilt Clinic.—Lick, Corcoran, Stevens and Catharine Wolf CHAPTER XLIX. SOUTHERN AFFAIRS IN SPECULATION.