t job of all is a protective tariff. It includes the biggest
log-rolling and the widest corruption of economic and political ideas.
It was said that there would be a rebellion if the taxes were not taken
off whiskey and tobacco, which taxes were paid into the public
Treasury. Just then the importations of Sumatra tobacco became
important enough to affect the market. The Connecticut tobacco-growers
at once called for an import duty on tobacco which would keep up the
price of their product. So it appears that if the tax on tobacco is
paid to the Federal Treasury there will be a rebellion, but if it is
paid to the Connecticut tobacco-raisers there will be no rebellion at
all. The farmers have long paid tribute to the manufacturers; now the
manufacturing and other laborers are to pay tribute to the farmers. The
system is made more comprehensive and complete, and we all are living
on each other more than ever.

Now, the plan of plundering each other produces nothing. It only
wastes. All the material over which the protected interests wrangle and
grab must be got from somebody outside of their circle. The talk is all
about the American laborer and American industry, but in every case in
which there is not an actual production of wealth by industry there
are two laborers and two industries to be considered--the one who gets
and the one who gives. Every protected industry has to plead, as the
major premise of its argument, that any industry which does not pay
_ought_ to be carried on at the expense of the consumers of the
product, and, as its minor premise, that the industry in question does
not pay; that is, that it cannot reproduce a capital equal in value to
that which it consumes plus the current rate of profit. Hence every
such industry must be a parasite on some other industry. What is the
other industry? Who is the other man? This, the real question, is
always overlooked.

In all jobbery the case is the same. There is a victim somewhere who is
paying for it all. The doors of waste and extravagance stand open, and
there seems to be a general agreement to squander and spend. It all
belongs to somebody. There is somebody who had to contribute it, and
who will have to find more. Nothing is ever said about him. Attention
is all absorbed by the clamorous interests, the importunate
petitioners, the plausible schemers, the pitiless bores. Now, who is
the victim? He is the Forgotten Man. If we go to find him, we shall
find him