them they ought to get still more, that they were cheated out of all the benefits of 'protection/ which were intended for them, but had been swallowed up by the bosses. So the 'change' was voted. This produced increased caution and timidity on the part of employers, who feared to continue their business on the old scale, and, in fact, were unable to do so. Then, when employment could ho longer be had, great numbers of these men, who had saved nothing, found themselves destitute and forthwith began to accuse and denounce society and government for conditions resulting from their own imprudence. . . . It is not In the power of the national authorities to find remedies for the evils which men bring on themselves through want of forethought and steady industry, through dissipation of time, opportunity and money, through the common modern habit of pushing the demand for wages beyond what employers can possibly afford to pay and compelling establishments to close or greatly reduce their force. . . . They who spend their money in one way or another as fast as they make it, who never postpone present gratification to the expectation and purpose of future advantage, who live in and for the passing day, with little thought of the morrow, and none at all of next year, or of the necessary provision for later life; who have been accustomed to work, when they worked at all, only at such employments and such hours and wages as they could select or dictate; whose lives in many instances have been as profligate as that of the prodigal son, but who have not yet reached the better resolve of repentance and amendment all such are stranded, of course. These are fit recruits for the armies of vagrancy now pointed toward Washington by the demagogue folly which has long been proclaiming it to be the duty and within the power of Congress to help men by legislation who can be helped only by themselves."
As this quotation describes Mr. Scott's ideas of individual thrift, it has been included here at some length. While there might be an occasional exception to the general rule that a man's success or failure in life is what he himself makes it, Mr. Scott averred that the exceptions could not disprove the rule. With men as a class and with individuals who failed to build a foundation of personal prosperity, he had little or no sympathy. He did feel, however, and most deeply, for children in destitution. Their helplessness was always a source of sadness to him.
