must be quite disreputable to be respectable, quite dishonest to own
property, quite unjust to go one's own way and earn one's own living,
and that the only really admirable person was the good-for-nothing. The
man who by his own effort raises himself above poverty appears, in
these discussions, to be of no account. The man who has done nothing to
raise himself above poverty finds that the social doctors flock about
him, bringing the capital which they have collected from the other
class, and promising him the aid of the State to give him what the
other had to work for. In all these schemes and projects the organized
intervention of society through the State is either planned or hoped
for, and the State is thus made to become the protector and guardian of
certain classes. The agents who are to direct the State action are, of
course, the reformers and philanthropists. Their schemes, therefore,
may always be reduced to this type--that A and B decide what C shall
do for D. It will be interesting to inquire, at a later period of our
discussion, who C is, and what the effect is upon him of all these
arrangements. In all the discussions attention is concentrated on A and
B, the noble social reformers, and on D, the "poor man." I call C the
Forgotten Man, because I have never seen that any notice was taken of
him in any of the discussions. When we have disposed of A, B, and D we
can better appreciate the case of C, and I think that we shall find
that he deserves our attention, for the worth of his character and the
magnitude of his unmerited burdens. Here it may suffice to observe
that, on the theories of the social philosophers to whom I have
referred, we should get a new maxim of judicious living: Poverty is the
best policy. If you get wealth, you will have to support other people;
if you do not get wealth, it will be the duty of other people to
support you.

No doubt one chief reason for the unclear and contradictory theories of