The troubled face of to-day is chiefly due to the realization that so much of our achievement does not stand the morality test—does not make the right kind of men. Here is where the trust fails. A Standard Oil Company violates a man’s self-respect and outrages the rights of the other man. The harsh judgment of the world is due to that. The gathering into a few hands of what nature made for all, weakens equally the sense of justice in the individual and limits the natural freedom of his fellow, and doing so must cease. Here, too, is the final case against the doctrine of protection. As we know it, it operates in defiance, and often in contempt, of the imperative moral demand that all human activities improve, not injure, those concerned, that men be better, not worse, for them. The history of protection in this country is one long story of injured manhood. Tap it at any point, and you find it encouraging the base human traits—greed, self-deception, indifference to the claims of others. Take the class chiefly involved in making a tariff bill—the suppliants for protection. We have seen in previous chapters the ends they seek, the methods they employ. What kind of men does this make? It makes men deficient in self-respect, indifferent to the dignity and inviolability of Congress, weak in self-reliance, willing to bribe, barter, and juggle to secure their ends. All this is on the face of the activities of men who run their business through Congress. There is another moral angle of this matter which must be faced. These men who tremble at the idea of unprotected business, what kind of producers does it make of them? _Quality is a moral issue._ A man’s handicraft is the final test of his integrity: let it be slovenly and unfinished, let it be showy but unsound, let it never get beyond a first stage of value, let it be turned to quantity, not value, and you have a measure of the man’s character. Moreover, you have a contaminating thing. People forced by conditions to use dishonest goods, who find their shoes quickly falling to pieces, their coats quickly threadbare, their food adulterated, their rented rooms out of repair, who are forced to pay for things without virtue, quickly lose all sense of quality. They never give it because they never see it. Can an employee who knows that his employer adulterates his fabrics and covers up imperfections regardless of the interests of the consumers, be expected to continue to care for the quality of his own work? There is a universal outcry against the poor workmanship the day laborer gives—the lack of interest in the work—but can he be expected to care if his employer does not? At the very basis of the laborer’s general indifference as to whether he gives a full day of honest work or not lies a widespread indifference among business men as to the quality of the output of their factories and shops.