now work and hold their own products, and are assured of nothing but
what they earn. In escaping from subjection they have lost claims.
Care, medicine, and support they get, if they earn it. Will any one say
that the black men have not gained? Will any one deny that individual
black men may seem worse off? Will any one allow such observations to
blind them to the true significance of the change? If any one thinks
that there are or ought to be somewhere in society guarantees that no
man shall suffer hardship, let him understand that there can be no such
guarantees, unless other men give them--that is, unless we go back to
slavery, and make one man's effort conduce to another man's welfare. Of
course, if a speculator breaks loose from science and history, and
plans out an ideal society in which all the conditions are to be
different, he is a law-giver or prophet, and those may listen to him
who have leisure.

The modern industrial system is a great social co-operation. It is
automatic and instinctive in its operation. The adjustments of the
organs take place naturally. The parties are held together by
impersonal force--supply and demand. They may never see each other;
they may be separated by half the circumference of the globe. Their
co-operation in the social effort is combined and distributed again by
financial machinery, and the rights and interests are measured and
satisfied without any special treaty or convention at all. All this
goes on so smoothly and naturally that we forget to notice it. We think
that it costs nothing--does itself, as it were. The truth is, that this
great co-operative effort is one of the great products of
civilization--one of its costliest products and highest refinements,
because here, more than anywhere else, intelligence comes in, but
intelligence so clear and correct that it does not need expression.