A century and more of matchless development, wherein money getting had been the chief aim of life, especially with those possessing aptitude and enough energy to pay the price of achievement, divided the people into classes. Those possessing aptitude for acquisition won wealth, those with aptitude for discovery won distinction, those possessing aptitude for statesmanship, or for war, won fame. Many of those who won wealth became arrogant, overbearing, snobbish and some of them despisedly mean. Logically—for everything in this world proceeds from cause to effect—those who did not possess the particular type of aptitude necessary for acquisition, together with those who were unwilling to pay the price, denounced riches and the possessors thereof. Some of these became envious, threatening, even rebellious, and not a few despisedly mean. The result is a different America than the one our fathers knew, and it does not require an old fogy to see it. A man is not a pessimist simply because he recognizes self-evident facts. Noah came far nearer being a statesman than a pessimist. History simply repeats itself. Macauley, singing of the “brave days of old,” says: “Then none was for a party, Then all were for the State, Then the rich man helped the poor And the poor man loved the great.” Now the poor man first envies the rich man and then hates him, the rich man hates the richer, and the richer snubs the would-be rich. As a matter of fact, there was never as much sympathy for the poor as now, never as much being done for him as at present. But sympathy and charity are not what he needs, as I hope to be able to show. IS THE SITUATION HOPELESS? If the human race has reached a condition where further progress is impossible, and nothing but class antagonisms are left, it would seem that a second occasion has arisen when Jehovah might “repent that he had made man.” Patriotism demands a solution, without which no sane man dares hope for anything except what the socialist predicts in language more ominous than any direct threat.