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OR

CAUSES WHICH RETARD FINANCIAL AND

POLITICAL REFORMS IN THE

UNITED STATES

BY

SIMON STERNE

HINDRANCES TO PROSPERITY;

OR

CAUSES WHICH RETARD FINANCIAL AND POLITICAL REFORMS IN THE UNITED STATES.*

Mr. President and Gentlemen:

It must appear something like a paradox to my hearers, but I shall maintain, in this address, that in all financial and political reformatory measures, we do not keep pace with our sister nations of Europe.

That the mass of our people is perhaps better fed and clothed than those standing upon the same level abroad, is due to causes quite independent of legislation and politics; but that our people are not better off than we find them, is mainly due to our inaptitude to appreciate and carry out what other nations have done in the way of such reforms.

In every form of society there is, and always has existed, a spirit which desires change, and a vis-inertice which happily resists change of every kind, be it beneficial or otherwise. This conservative element prevents the adoption of change until the community is rightly or wrongly persuaded that it is a reform.

To the extent that we share this spirit with the rest of mankind, we may leave it out of the question. We may equally leave out of the question those vast changes which have been brought about by the application of steam to industrial pursuits and purposes of transportation, and by the application of electricity to the service of society; because rapidly as the wealth of our nation has developed under the stimulus of these great promoters of human industry and multipliers of the results of human effort, we have shared these benefits with the rest of mankind, and have not from these causes alone accumulated wealth either more rapidly, or more largely than other nations.

A glance at the condition of Germany, France and England fifty years ago, and the change and progress which their histories exhibit in administrative, financial and political reforms, in comparison with the political and financial history of the United States during the same period, must yield considerable food for reflection, and to a large degree modify that exultant spirit in which we are so prone to indulge, which attributes to our political methods and institutions that degree of physical and material well-being which is due to our vast extent of territory, our fruitful soil, our admirable climate, our cheap land and the freedom of movement and intercourse between the various states. We were not cursed, at the time of the organization of our government, with the consequences of long successive generations of caste and class privileges; we had no powerful neighbors, involving the maintenance of large armies; we had no great public debts ; the guild system had never taken root in our country ; and we had a seemingly exhaustless body of land to draw upon, so that population never for one moment pressed upon the means of subsistence.

How different was the condition of the foremost nations of Europe, at about the beginning of the present century? As to the trades, the guilds had possession of almost all; they had their own courts, and privileges of such a nature that they determined the manner in which the trades were to be conducted and who were to follow them. In Germany no skilled mechanic was permitted to change his residence from one place to another, or even to travel during his years of apprenticeship. The number of bakers, of shoemakers, of watchmakers, was strictly limited, and general freedom to select a vocation would have been regarded as bringing about chaos. These guilds were, during the middle ages, not only great trade organizations, but powerful imperium in imperio, as is illustrated by the fact that Philip of Artevelle, the head of the brewers of the Netherlands, brought 60,000 men into the field in favor of Edward III, of England, against the King of France and the Counts of Flanders.

The first change in that particular took place through