Page:Forgotten Man and Other Essays.djvu/17

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PROTECTIONISM;

THE ··ISM WHICH TEACHES THAT WASTE
MAKES WEALTH

[1885]

PREFACE

DURING the last fifteen years we have had two great questions to discuss: the restoration of the currency A and civil—service reform. Neither of these questions has yet reached a satisfactory solution, but both are on the way toward such a result. The next great effort to strip off the evils entailed on us by the Civil War will consist in the repeal of those taxes which one man was enabled to levy on another, under cover of the taxes which the government had to lay to carry on the war. I have taken my share in the discussion of the first two questions, and I expect to take my share in the discussion of the third.

I have written this book as a contribution to a popular agitation. I have not troubled myself to keep or to throw scientific or professional dignity. I have tried to make my point as directly and effectively as I could for the readers whom I address, viz., the intelligent voters of all degrees of general culture, who need to have it explained to them what protectionism is and how it works. I have therefore pushed the controversy just as hard as I could, and have used plain language, just as I have always done before in what I have written on this subject. I must there- fore forego the hope that I have given any more pleasure now than formerly to the advocates of protectionism.


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