by
work. In pecuniary effect, the ordinary American farmer, who legally
owns a moderate farm of the common sort, belongs among those who work
for a livelihood; such a livelihood as the investment interests find it
worth while to allow him under the rule of what the traffic will bear;
but in point of sentiment and class consciousness he clings to a belated
stand on the side of those who draw a profit from his work.

So it is also with the menial servants and the middle-class people of
"independent means," who are, however, in a position to see more clearly
their dependence on the owners of predominant wealth. And such, with a
further accentuation of the anomaly, may reasonably be expected to be
the further run of these relations under the promised regime of peace
and security. The class of well-kept gentlefolk will scarcely be called
on to stand alone, in case of a division between those who live by
investment and those who live by work; inasmuch as, for the calculable
future, it should seem a reasonable expectation that this very
considerable fringe of dependents and pseudo-independents will abide by
their time-tried principles of right and honest living, through good
days and evil, and cast in their lot unreservedly with that reputable
body to whom the control of trade and industry by investment assigns the
usufruct of the community's productive powers.

* * * * *

Something has already been said of the prospective breeding of pedigreed
gentlefolk under the projected regime of peace. Pedigree, for the
purpose in hand, is a pecuniary attribute and is, of course, a product
of funded wealth, more or less ancient. Virtually ancient pedigree can
be procured by well-advised expenditure on the conspicuous amenities;
that is to say pedigree effectually competent as a background of current
gentility. Gentlefolk of such syncopated pedigree may have to walk
circumspectly, of course; but their being in this manner put on their
good behavior should tend to heighten their effectual serviceability as
gentlefolk, by inducing a single-mindedness of gentility beyond what can
fairly be expected of those who are already secure in their tenure.

Except conventionally, there is no hereditary difference between the
standard gentlefolk and, say, their "menial servants," or the general
population of the farms and the industrial towns. This is a
well-established commonplace among ethnological students; which h