You forget, when you try the process in America, that the _plebs_ of America are not slaves, and that their leaders, of whom there is a host, are pretty nearly as well educated, are certainly as shrewd, and are probably as strong, legally, as you are. I fail to see how in this land charity of this sort can have any real effect. I am sorry to say that there is far too much of it. Let me pass on to the second weapon of defence. High society is becoming a rampant reformer. It will reform anything on a moment’s notice. When I read in the papers, and heard in the club, that a dozen women of great wealth were standing along Broadway handing bills and encouragement to the girl shirt-waist strikers of last winter, I was not a bit surprised. It is just what you might have expected. Nowadays I can hardly go to a reception or a ball without being buttonholed by somebody and led over into a corner to be told all about some wonderful new reform. It is perfectly amazing, this plague of reform, in its variety, in its volume, and in the intensity of earnestness with which it is pushed. Not long ago a professor of economics in a great university, lecturing on “Social Reform,” openly advocated almost every imaginable variety of labour legislation. I do not believe he understood exactly what he was saying when he gave as a reason for such advocacy that the support of such legislation by the wealthy classes would tend to check the spread of certain vague but dangerous movements amongst the people, which he did not describe in detail, but which, to any intelligent man, simply meant the widespread Socialistic movement. I wonder, does that college professor really think that the enactment of all sorts of legislative reforms for labour would have any such tendency? Give Lazarus crumbs, and he will crawl for them. Give him nothing, and he will demand bread, and then a steady job. After a time we will be visited by Mr. Lazarus, walking delegate of the labour union, requesting an eight-hour day and higher wages for his constituency. Dives will probably answer by building a church and a museum for Lazarus, and forcing Mrs. Lazarus to turn over her garbage to the public scavenger. After that you may be sure of the result. Every Lazarus in the land will demand to be made a co-partner in the business of the nation. That college professor may know quite a bit about economics, but he couldn’t hold a job for a week handling a bunch of half a dozen railroad navvies on a construction job.