Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/24

436 Economists arguments. At the time, however, Carey formed a school which counted among its adherents thinkers Hke Diihring in Germany and Ferrara in Italy, and which included at home three Penn- sylvania publicists : William Elder, who wrote Questions oj the Day, Economic and Social (1871) ; E. Peshine Smith, A Manual oj Political Economy (1853) ; and Robert Ellis Thompson, Social Science and National Economy (1875) as well as several other works on protection. Belonging in part to the same school is Stephen Colwell's A Preliminary Essay to the Translation of List's National System of Political Economy (1856), with a good historical sketch of the science in which he declared his variance at some points from Carey. Colwell also wrote Ways and Means of Payment: a Full Analysis of the Credit System (1859). Side by side with this development of the general theory of economics, there proceeded, as mentioned above, a heated discussion on practical economic problems. Most of this pamphlet literature, interesting as showing the current of pop- ular thought, was of only temporary interest and must be passed over in this brief sketch. A few books are deserving of mention. In the workingman's movement which developed in the third decade in New York, three authors exerted more than a passing influence. L. Byllesby's Observations on the Source and Effects of Unequal Wealth (1826) and Thomas Skidmore's The Rights of Man to Property (1829) furnished the basis for the new and short- lived socialist movement. Frances Wright, the eloquent and at- tractive apostle of freedom for women and negroes, exerted a great influence by her Course of Popular Lectures (1829) and by TheNewHarmony Gazette (1825-35) which she edited in co-opera- tion with Robert Dale Owen, a son of Robert Owen. Interest- ing discussions of the principles of the labour movement are found in The Journeyman Mechanic's Advocate (1827), which has the distinction of being the first labour paper in the world ; The Mechanics' Free Press (irom 1828-1831); and TheWork- ingmen's Advocate, edited by G. H. Evans (1829-36). For the next few years the interest in the question was maintained by William Maclure's Opinions on Various Sub- jects Dedicated to the Industrious Producers (1821), Stephen Simpson's Workingman's Manual, a New Theory of Political Economy (1831), and Seth Luther's An Address to the Working- men of New England (1833), as well as by the labour periodicals