thread-mill. Some nations spend capital on great palaces, others on
standing armies, others on iron-clad ships of war. Those things are all
glorious, and strike the imagination with great force when they are
seen; but no one doubts that they make life harder for the scattered
insignificant peasants and laborers who have to pay for them all. They
"support a great many people," they "make work," they "give employment
to other industries." We Americans have no palaces, armies, or
iron-clads, but we spend our earnings on protected industries. A big
protected factory, if it really needs the protection for its support,
is a heavier load for the Forgotten Men and Women than an iron-clad
ship of war in time of peace.

It is plain that the Forgotten Man and the Forgotten Woman are the
real productive strength of the country. The Forgotten Man works and
votes--generally he prays--but his chief business in life is to pay.
His name never gets into the newspapers except when he marries or dies.
He is an obscure man. He may grumble sometimes to his wife, but he does
not frequent the grocery, and he does not talk politics at the tavern.
So he is forgotten. Yet who is there whom the statesman, economist, and
social philosopher ought to think of before this man? If any student of
social science comes to appreciate the case of the Forgotten Man, he
will become an unflinching advocate of strict scientific thinking in
sociology, and a hard-hearted skeptic as regards any scheme of social
amelioration. He will always want to know, Who and where is the
Forgotten Man in this case, who will have to pay for it all?

The Forgotten Man is not a pauper. It belongs to his character to save
something. Hence he is a capitalist, though never a great one. He is a
"poor" man in the popular sense of the word, but not in a correct
sense. In fact, one of the most constant and trustworthy signs that the