The time has certainly arrived when the policy of protection ought to be more broadly considered and dealt with in a public-spirited and statesmanlike manner. If it is to be continued as a national policy, the interests of employees as well as employers must be taken into account. The chief evils of the protective system have been due to the fact that it has been too largely a class policy, and while maintained in the interest of a class, it has been adroitly defended as a means of benefiting the classes who derived little or no benefit-who were, indeed, often injured by our tariff legislation.

The large capitalist may grow eloquent in defense of that broad humanitarian policy under which the weak, the oppressed, and the ignorant of all nations are invited to come among us and share in the economic and political opportunities and privileges of American citizens. Such highsounding and professedly disinterested cosmopolitanism appeals to a certain class of sentimental believers in democracy. It does not appeal, however, to any one who fully understands presentday industrial and political conditions. This capitalistic sympathy for the weak and the oppressed of other nations may be regarded by some

The Russian Empire and Finland furnished only 5 per cent. of the total number in 1886 and about 18 per cent. in 1904. In 1886 the immigration from Asiatic countries was insignificant, but in 1904 it had increased to 26,186. See Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1904.

as the expression of a broader patriotism, but its tap-root is class selfishness-the desire to secure high profits through maintaining active competition among laborers. As a matter of fact, all legislation does, and always must, appeal to the interest of those without whose influence and support it could not be enacted, and nothing is ever gained for true progress by making the pretence of disinterested love for humanity the cloak for class greed.

The desire of the employing class for cheap labor has been responsible for the greatest dangers which menace this country to-day. It was the demand for cheap labor which led to the importation of the African slave and perpetuated the institution of slavery until, with the voluntary immigration of foreign labor, it was no longer an economic necessity from the standpoint of the employing class. Indeed the very existence of slavery, by discouraging immigration, tended to limit the supply of labor, and by so doing, to cripple all enterprises in which free labor was employed. In this sense the abolition of slavery was the result of an economic movement. It was

to the advantage of the employing class as a whole who found in the free labor hired under competitive conditions a more efficient and cheaper instrument of production than the slave whom they had to buy and for whose support they were responsible.

Had it not been for this eagerness on the part of the employing class to secure cheap labor at first through the importation of the African slave and later through the active encouragement of indiscriminate foreign immigration, we would not now have the serious political, social and economic problems which owe their existence to the presence among us of vast numbers of alien races who have little in common with the better class of American citizens. This element of our population, while benefiting the employing class by keeping wages down, has at the same time made it more difficult to bring about that intelligent political co-operation so much needed to check the greed of organized wealth.

The limitation of governmental powers in the Constitution of the United States was not designed to prevent all interference in business, but only such as was conceived to be harmful to the dominant class. The nature of these limitations as well as the means of enforcing them indicate their purpose. The provision relating to direct taxes is a good example. The framers of the Constitution were desirous of preventing any use of the taxing power by the general government that would be prejudicial to the interests of the well-to-do classes. This is the significance of the provision that no direct taxes shall be laid unless in proportion to population.1 The

1 Art. I, sec. 9.

only kind of a direct tax which the framers intended that the general government should have power to levy was the poll tax which would demand as much from the poor man as from the rich. This was indeed one of the reasons for opposing the ratification of the Constitution.

"Many specters," said Hamilton, "have been raised out of this power of internal taxation to excite the apprehensions of the people: double sets of revenue officers, a duplication of their burdens by double taxations, and the frightful forms of odious and oppressive poll-taxes, have been played off with all the ingenious dexterity of political legerdemain...

"As little friendly as I am to the species of imposition [poll-taxes], I still feel a thorough conviction that the power of having recourse to it ought to exist in the Federal government. There are certain emergencies of nations, in which expedients, that in the ordinary state of things ought to be forborne, become essential to the public weal. And the government, from the possibility of such emergencies, ought ever to have the option of making use of them."

It is interesting to observe that Hamilton's argument in defense of the power to levy polltaxes would have been much more effective if it had been urged in support of the power to levy a direct tax laid in proportion to wealth. But this 1 Federalist, No. 36.

kind of a tax would, in the opinion of the framers, have placed too heavy a burden upon the well-todo. Hence they were willing to deprive the general government of the power to levy it even at the risk of crippling it in some great emergency when there might be urgent need of a large

revenue.

This is not strange, however, when we remember that it was the property-owning class that framed and secured the adoption of the Constitution. That they had their own interests in view when they confined the general government practically to indirect taxes levied upon articles of general consumption, and forbade direct taxes levied in proportion to wealth, seems highly probable. It appears, then, that the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court declaring the Federal Income Tax unconstitutional merely gave effect to the original spirit and purpose of this provision.

The disposition to guard the interests of the property-holding class rather than to prevent legislation for their advantage is also seen in the interpretation which has been given to the provision forbidding the states to pass any laws impairing the obligation of contracts. The framers of the Constitution probably did not have in mind the extended application which the courts have since made of this limitation on the power of the states. Perhaps they intended nothing