event is obviously and indisputably the cause of the later event. For
instance, in the present case, the cause or seat of our existing and
very manifest social, political and financial disturbances is attributed
as of course to some peculiarity of legislation, either a subtreasury
bill passed in the administration of General Jackson, or a tariff bill
passed in the administration of Mr. Taft, or the demonetization of
silver in the Hayes period,--that "Crime of the Century," the
Crucifixion of Labor on the Cross of Gold! Once for all, let me say, I
contemplate this school of politicians and so-called "thinkers" with
sentiments the reverse of respectful. In plain language, I class them
with those known in professional parlance as quacks and charlatans. Not
always, not even in the majority of cases, does that which preceded bear
to that which follows the relation of cause and effect. A marked example
of this false attribution is afforded in more recent political history
by the everlasting recurrence of the statement that American prosperity
is the result of an American protective system. Yet in the Protectionist
dispensation, this has become an article of faith. To my mind, it is
undeserving of even respectful consideration.

If I were asked the cause of that change, little short of
revolutionary, if indeed in any respect short of it, which has occurred
in the material condition of the American people, and consequently in
all its theories and ideals, within the last thirty years, I should
attribute it to a wholly different cause. Mr. Lecky some years ago, in
his book entitled "Liberty and Democracy," made the following statement,
in no way original, but, as he put it, sufficiently striking: "The
produce of the American mines [incident to the discoveries made by
Columbus] created, in the most extreme form ever known in Europe, the
change which beyond all others affects most deeply and universally the
material well-being of men: it revolutionized the value of the precious