Abstract: Despite decades of repeated failure, President Obama and Congress continue to promote the myth that government can spend its way out of recession. Heritage Foundation economic policy expert Brian Riedl dispels the stimulus myth, lays out the evidence that government spending does not end recessions–and presents the evidence for what does end recessions. Hint: It’s not another “stimulus package.”

It’s kind of like pulling money out of the bottom of your piggy bank and then stuffing it back into the top and fooling yourself into believing that you just made a bunch of money.  Why is this so hard for some people?  Go read the article and enjoy some common sense.

Socialism Illustrated

In the spirit of Obama the Marxist winning and more and more democrats “coming out” as socialists now, I present this wonderful article entitled “Why Socialism Failed” by Mark J. Perry (blog), Ph.D. Professor of Finance and Business Economics, about why Socialism has failed in so many countries already. I think the practical reality of historical evidence is crucial in our day when it’s so easy to sell Socialism as a wonderful cure-all – in theory. (I also updated my Barack Obama and Global Warming articles if you’re interested.)

Please check out the article and comment on it. Thanks. Here’s a quote from the article just to whet your appetite:

Socialism is the Big Lie of the twentieth century. While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery.

In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses, socialism may show early signs of success. But any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies of central planning emerge. It is the initial illusion of success that gives government intervention its pernicious, seductive appeal. In the long run, socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery.

A pyramid scheme is ultimately unsustainable because it is based on faulty principles. Likewise, collectivism is unsustainable in the long run because it is a flawed theory. Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives.

Socialism Illustrated

Introduction

With all of the bailouts, automotive and bank takeovers, health-care reform, and wealth redistribution going on under the Obama administration lately, Socialism has become a popular topic.  I oppose Socialism because: 1) It doesn’t achieve its most important stated goals, 2) it is immoral and unchristian, and 3) for a bunch of other reasons (to be explained below).  First, let’s define some terms and then we’ll get to the details.

Socialism is defined as the government owning and controlling a country’s means of production (manufacturing, shipping, etc.) and allocation of resources (raw materials, property, etc.).  It concentrates a lot of freedom of choice to a small group of politicians.  Capitalism, on the other hand, allows individuals to control a country’s means of production and allocation of resources.  It distributes the freedom of choice across the people.  People choose which products to buy, which jobs to take, which companies to create, etc.  Then through a variety of prices (wages, prices of raw materials, prices of finished products, rent, etc.) agreed upon by millions of people through their individual choices, capitalism distributes goods, services, raw materials, risks, people, and wealth in the most efficient manner thus far discovered as evidenced by the per capita GDP of citizens participating in capitalist free markets vs. those using socialism.

One stated goal of socialism is to help the poor, and I agree wholeheartedly with that goal.  What I disagree with is the means by which that goal is achieved.  Often when a person opposes socialistic programs, they are assumed to be opposing the intentions of that program, “So you don’t like to help the poor then?” when in fact it’s not the intentions that are being opposed but the programs themselves, which have been shown not to work and almost always end up hurting the poor the most.  It would be similar to becoming a thief to make your way through college and someone tells you, “Hey, I don’t think you should be stealing from people.” and you reply, “What?  You don’t want me to go to college?”

It doesn’t achieve its stated goals

Some of the stated goals we hear each time socialism is brought up are helping the poor and punishing greed.  I agree with these goals.  They’re great goals.  The big problem is that the centralized planning of Socialism just doesn’t work – it doesn’t help the poor.  Take a look at the levels of freedom compared to the conditions of the poor in each country in the following maps as well as how well the poor fare in free market societies:

The poorest of the poor are in the least “free” countries.  This means centralized planning just doesn’t achieve its main goal of helping the poor.  The richest poor people in the world live in the U.S. where a free market has raised the standard of living of their poor well beyond any socialized or centrally planned system ever has.  There are simple reasons for this.  One reason is that you just can’t squeeze the wisdom and knowledge of 300 million people out of a few hundred central planners.  A central planner just doesn’t have the knowledge of the supply and demand of local markets that the people who live in those markets do.

A 2010 study on the correlation between economic freedom and prosperity has also found that the more free a country is, the more prosperous they are.  So why again is there a group of people who consistently wants to destroy the freedoms of prosperous countries to make everyone equally poor instead of freeing impoverished countries to let them prosper?  The same study also notes that government spending and “stimulus” has no effect whatsoever on a country’s growth.

The other goal is to punish greed.  The problem with that is that greed is a motive, not an action.  A wealthy person could be greedy or they could just be a hard worker.  So since there’s no way for government to measure the level of greed in a person, they assume that all wealthy people are greedy and then punish them all equally.  This has the unfortunate and destructive side effect of punishing and discouraging hard work as well.

This really should be enough, shouldn’t it?  If Socialism doesn’t help the poor - it hurts them – then why even consider it as an option for helping the poor?  Furthermore, if as it tries to punish greed, it ends up ignoring incentives that allow a good company to be rewarded with profits and a bad company to be punished with failure, should it be considered as a good greed punisher with no side effects?  It punishes good companies by taxing them (since they must just be greedy, not efficient or well-run) and rewards and keeps around bad companies (think teachers’ unions tenure rules, auto workers unions, failed bailed out banks, etc.).

Socialism also has another side effect of disconnecting people’s choices from their consequences.  If a company works hard to be efficient and thereby makes a profit which is then confiscated, the consequences of their choices have been removed.  If a doctor under socialized medicine gets the same pay and same patient load regardless of their performance, then the consequences have been disconnected from the choices they made.  If a patient under socialized healthcare pays a flat fee (or nothing) for services, then the choice of going to the doctor for every scratch in their throat is disconnected from the consequence of that choice, which is the cost incurred for treating them.  When consequences are removed, progress is slowed and efficiency and wealth are reduced.

The removal of consequences is like mercy robbing justice.  Justice treats all people equally.  It connects people’s choices to their consequences whether those consequences and choices are good or bad.  Mercy, which is appropriate at the right time, forgives choices and takes away consequences.  Mercy is essential but only in a case-by-case basis when the individual is truly sorry for their mistakes and who truly wants to improve.  If mercy is applied to everyone without regard to these things, it robs justice.  The government can’t administer mercy across all people at all times without robbing justice, bankrupting society, and giving limitless power to politicians who then have the option to abuse that power, which has happened several times throughout history.

It is immoral and unchristian

But Christ said to help the poor and take care of the sick and afflicted, to clothe the naked and take care of the widows!  Right, but he didn’t tell the government to force people to do these things - he told individuals to do it themselves.  The scriptures explain it quite plainly.  The war in heaven discussed in the scriptures was not about right and wrong, it was about freedom and slavery: Do we allow people to make their own choices or do we force them to do what’s right?  God’s plan was to give us agency.  Satan’s plan was to force us all to do what’s right by taking away our choices or agency.  And Satan wanted all of the glory and credit, of course, since he’d be calling all of the shots.  With freedom and choice comes power and responsibility.

Does any of this sound familiar?  Have you ever heard of a politician forcing the rich to give to the poor and then taking credit for the “charity?”

Furthermore, while Socialism puts forth the ideas of “equality” and “social justice” (and it actually does end up forcing most people to equal poverty as this and other forms of tyranny has done for millenia), it assumes that politicians are more moral than citizens are.  I don’t know of anyone who thinks politicians are generally more moral than the general public.  (One reason for this is that politicians generally have their choices and consequences disconnected – if they waste a bunch of my money on a failed project, they have no consequence especially if they can spin it right in the media.)  One group of people declares itself better than the rest, and then they rule over them – it’s an old storyline.  With Socialism, this is done to keep the “greedy” people from hording all the resources from the poor.  But aren’t we just putting greedy politicians in charge of greedy people at that point?  If we treat people differently by taking from some and giving to others then the door for corruption is wide open for favors, vote-buying, etc.

The way to cause charity while maintaining freedom is to preach the Gospel to people to motivate them to give and be generous of their own free will and choice.  Only among a righteous people can there be no poor and no tyranny in the same place at the same time!

“But people just won’t take care of each other unless we force them to!”  The ironic thing is that with all of America’s wealth, we have been the most charitable country in the history of mankind - to our own poor as well as to other nations.  That goes against what Socialists claim.  Also, when a politician or person from a socialist country argues against the greed of the rich in a capitalist country, they’re really just arguing against freedom.  Yes, freedom to do good or bad.  Freedom to choose what you want to do and to learn from the consequences.  To argue against freedom like this is to argue against the progression of mankind, and it’s ironic that modern socialists call themselves “progressives” when they’re just trying to take us back to the tyranny that has reigned in this world for thousands of years!  Do you realize that tyranny and centralized planning has been the norm for this planet throughout almost its entire recorded history?  The result has been widespread poverty and slavery – denying people of their God-given rights.  Purposefully and knowingly going back down that road again is immoral.

So, here we have the United States of America breaking free from 1000′s of years of tyranny into the light of freedom and the tyrants start to complain about this unmitigated greed!  They stir their follower-slaves up against it in the name of greed bashing – breaking the 10th commandment of covetousness.  Their plan is to grab free markets that are flourishing and drag them back down into tyranny through socialism.  The capitalists plan, however, is to free the rest of the enslaved globe.  “But won’t we need like 5 planets if everyone were living like Americans?”  Americans and other upcoming free market capitalistic countries are wallowing in wealth because they have a monopoly on freedom.  If the rest of the world were freed, then they’d compete with Americans and others for resources, products, etc. and through prices, people would automatically self-regulate.  That’s how it works.  And it works really well.  I would love to have the entire world liberated and free from the tyranny and oppression of socialism – based on history, this would truly help the poor.

A bunch of other reasons

People often complain about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer in the United States.  The reason for this is simple, and it’s a great example for us to learn from:  The rich are working under capitalism, the poor are working under socialism in the form of wealth redistribution and welfare.  What a great example of how socialism  hurts all those who use it and how capitalism helps those who use it.  You want to close the gap between the rich and poor?  Take the poor off socialism and welfare and put them into pure capitalism and let them be free to lift themselves to their full potential.  Of course there are situations where the poor need help and that can be done, and is being done, through charity.

Any time you want to force people to do something you want them to do, they have to give you a lot of power.  Any time you give a lot of power to imperfect human beings, they often, as history has shown us, abuse that power, which many socialists have done to the tune of murdering tens of millions of people throughout history once they have the power.  Just look at the list of socialist and communist murderers who have slaughtered hundreds of millions of their own citizens - usually the crippled, poor, elderly, Jew, handicapped, Christian, and others who couldn’t contribute enough: Hitler (17 million total through gas chambers, execution style murder, etc., not including the people killed in WWII), Mao (50 to 70 million through military slaughter combined with starvation brought about by socialist programs), Stalin (anywhere between 10 and 100 million), Pol Pot (only 1.7 to 2.5 million), Kim Il Sung (1.6 million, not including the 2.5 million killed during the Korean War), Mussolini (only 300,000), Che (“several thousand” citizens – but he, in his own words, liked to kill them himself execution style at close range and forced their families to watch the executions), etc.  What a strange pattern of mass murder from those who just want to take from the rich and give to the poor to level the playing field – of course, out of compassion for the poor.  Socialism is not just immoral, it’s satanic, according to how satan himself describes his plan in the scriptures and that seems to be backed up by the fruits of those who follow his plan of socialism and communism.

Government through taxation disconnects its choices from its consequences.  If it does a bad job, it still gets taxes.  If it throws money away on a bad program, it still gets taxes and has lost nothing.  Because of this disconnection, combined with its monopolistic nature, government should be kept as small as possible.  When it creates a program, it’s generally the only option and so free market controls, incentives and disincentives are not there to help it stay efficient and to minimize corruption.   It should be big enough to maintain order and protect its people.  The reason that the military is one of the only things a government does well, is because a government’s military is in competition with other countries’ militaries and so that competition keeps it in check whereas other government programs don’t have that competition.

I think it’s worth mentioning one other pattern I’ve seen recently in the environmentalist movement.  Parts of it appear to have been hijacked by the socialist movement.  With global warming scares (no global warming has occurred since 1998, by the way), the socialists have found a vehicle upon which they can achieve their wealth redistribution goals.  This is happening through cap-and-trade legislation, which will funnel trillions of dollars from the wealthiest countries to the poorest countries over the upcoming decades.  Why don’t we just free the poor countries and let them become wealthy like the U.S. and others have instead of stealing, redistributing, and keeping them poor all in the name of helping them?  Proponents of these socialistic environmental programs stir up support by encouraging people to break the 8th and 10th commandments in the name of injustice – stating that the injustice comes from freedom when it actually comes from slavery.  Don’t usher in “equality” by enslaving the free – do it by freeing the enslaved!

One other area that is worth mentioning is the housing and financial crisis.  Socialists like to blame those problems on the unregulated free market and by doing so, they suggest that what we need is more regulation and less freedom, thereby achieving their freedom destroying socialistic goals.  They’ve already taken over large portions of the financial and automotive industries through these crises in the name of saving us from our consequences.  If it weren’t so tragic, the hypocrisy would be quite funny.  The housing crisis happened because the government put pressure on banks to lend to minority groups.  They wouldn’t let banks open up new branches or install ATM’s or do other things that require government approval unless they met certain quotas.  The government also allowed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to buy bad mortgages from banks, moving the risk from the banks onto the taxpayers.  So, with pressure to loan to those who would likely not repay and a removal of the risks involved with doing so, the banks were incentivized to make loans to anyone who was breathing.  This caused housing prices to skyrocket with all the new demand and money flowing into the market.  Once Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac started to crumble under the weight of all of these bad loans, the house of cards fell and there was the government, ready and willing to blame its own mess on the “free” market.  They bailed out (which equates to taxpayers buying these homes for the people who could not pay for them – which was the socialists agenda in the first place) and blamed and pushed forward with more regulation.  It’s actually quite disgusting – and of course it ended up hurting the poor once again.  I recommend reading “The Housing Boom and Bust” by Thomas Sowell for a more in-depth look at this socialistic wealth distribution housing mess.

Part of a socialist government’s power grab is to demonize the heads of the companies that the government wants to take over in the name of greed and then start to take away their rights and punish them.  We see this currently as the government currently demonizes the heads of banks and the American public sits by and watches this happen because, “well, they really don’t need all that money”, right?  If we allow the government to take the rights of some, we give them power to take away rights of all of us – all in the name of forcing people to do what’s right to help the poor and needy.

Profits are also demonized and losses are bailed out by the government – if they choose to.  Those two incentives are what cause a free market to be efficient.  Profits reward companies that are doing well, allowing them to reinvest those profits to increase the size of that good running company.  Losses shrink poorly running companies.  If the failing company doesn’t change something quickly, it will disappear.  This frees up the people involved in that failing company to go do something else that they’re better at.  It punishes waste and inefficiency.  It gets rid of things that people don’t want.  It rewards efficiency which allows more goods and services to be available to more people.

Property is the physical manifestation of our choices.  If we choose to get an education, then choose to work hard to contribute something of worth to our society, our employer choses to pay us for our efforts, then we choose to go purchase goods with that money.  The results of all of those choices is the property we own and the knowledge we have gained.  While the government can’t take our knowledge and give it to others, it can take our property and give it to others.  This boils down to taking the results of our choices – or really the choices themselves – after the fact.  This fits the pattern of taking choice away through confiscating property.

Socialism pretends that incentives don’t matter when thousands of years of history prove that incentives do matter.  Some day, when a group of pure people who can live together in love and who have good work ethics regardless of pay, they can help each other and there will be no poor among them and that would obviously be the best kind of society.  There have been a few examples in the scriptures of that happening, but those situations are rare and fleeting.  That kind of heavenly society is what we all yearn for, socialists included, but instead of letting people arrive at that place by their own refinement, free will, and choice, they seek to force all people into a fake form of that kind of society where all end up suffering equally.  Forcing people against their wills is slavery and it just doesn’t work in the end – it achieves exactly the opposite of its stated goals of helping the poor and punishing greed.  It’s been proven throughout history over and over but we, like Satan, try it again and again because of the power grab it provides as a side effect.

There are four ways to spend money: 1) Spending your own money on yourself – this is the best way to spend money because you look for the best quality and the lowest price, 2) Spending your own money on others – This is a little worse because you still look to save money since it’s your money, but you aren’t as concerned about quality because you won’t be using the item being purchased, 3) Spending other people’s money on yourself is worse still – you look for good quality because it’s for you, but you don’t care about cost because it’s not your money, 4) Spending other peoples’ money on other people – this is socialism and government spending in general, and is the worst form because you don’t care about either quality or cost.

Socialism goes against natural law. In “de Legibus“, Cicero expresses his belief in natural law, which talks about self-evident truths dealing with what’s “right” and what’s “wrong”. He says that a country’s laws must promote good behavior and forbid or punish evil behavior. If a country’s laws go against natural law, it will fail and you’ll get less good behavior and more bad behavior as a natural consequence. Socialism inadvertently rewards bad behavior and punishes good behavior.

Socialism breaks at least the eighth and tenth commandments that deal with stealing and coveting. We’re playing robinhood and stealing from the rich and giving to the poor because we don’t like how the rich person is living their life. I think you need to give me your bank account number so I can spend your money on my house because I think I know better how to spend your money than you do.

It almost seems that socialism is really just a clever and covert method of gradually turning a free country into an enslaved dictatorship in the name of helping the poor and providing social justice.  At least that’s what history has shown us.

Educate yourself.  Vote.  Get involved.  Talk to your friends, neighbors, family, and relatives about these things.  Oppose socialism now in all of its forms.  Fight for freedom - apparently it’s worth fighting for.

Below is a summary from the above linked paper of some of the problems in Mr. Gore’s movie/book.  The paper itself goes into great detail on these topics and others:

One-sided statements

• AIT never acknowledges the indispensable role of fossil fuels in alleviating hunger and poverty, extending human life spans, and democratizing consumer goods, literacy, leisure, and personal mobility.
• It never acknowledges the environmental, health, and economic benefits of climatic warmth and the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content.
• It neglects to mention that aggregate mortality and mortality rates due to extreme weather events declined dramatically during the 20th century.
• It neglects to mention the circumstances that make it reasonable rather than blameworthy for America to be the biggest CO2 emitter: the world’s largest economy, abundant fossil energy resources, markets integrated across continental distances, and the world’s most mobile population.
• The book impugns the motives of so-called global warming skeptics but never acknowledges the special-interest motivations of those whose research grants, direct mail income, industrial policy privileges, carbon trading commissions, regulatory power, prosecutorial plunder, or political careers depend on keeping the public in a state of fear about global warming.
• AIT never addresses the obvious criticism that the Kyoto Protocol is all economic pain for no environmental gain and that regulations stringent enough to measurably cool the planet would be a “cure” worse than the alleged disease.

Misleading statements

• AIT implies that, throughout the past 650,000 years, changes in CO2 levels preceded and largely caused changes in global temperature, whereas the causality mostly runs the other way: CO2 changes followed global temperature changes by hundreds to thousands of years.
• It ignores the societal factors that typically overwhelm climatic factors in determining people’s risk of damage or death from hurricanes, floods, drought, tornadoes, wildfires, and disease.
• It erroneously implies that a study, which found that none of 928 science articles (actually abstracts) denied a CO2-global warming link, shows that Gore’s apocalyptic view of global warming is the “consensus” view among scientists.
• It reports that 48 Nobel Prize-winning scientists accused Bush of distorting science, without mentioning that the scientists acted as members of a 527 political group set up to promote the Kerry for President Campaign.

Exaggerated statements

• AIT hypes the importance and exaggerates the certainty of the alleged link between global warming and the frequency and severity of tropical storms.
• It claims polar bears “have been drowning in significant numbers,” based on a single report that four polar bears drowned in one month of one year, following an abrupt storm.
• It portrays the collapse in 2002 of the Larson-B ice shelf—a formation the “size of Rhode Island”—as harbinger of doom. For perspective, the Larson-B was 220th the size of Texas and 1/246th the size of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS).
• AIT presents a graph suggesting that China’s new fuel economy standards are almost 30% more stringent than the current U.S. standards. In fact, the Chinese standards are only about 5% more stringent.

Speculative statements

• AIT blames global warming for the record-breaking 37-inch downpour in Mumbai, India, in July 2005, even there has been no trend inMumbai rainfall for the month of July in 45 years.
• It blames global warming for recent floods in China’s Sichuan and Shandong provinces, even though more damaging floods struck those areas in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
• It blames global warming for the disappearance of Lake Chad, a disaster more likely stemming from a combination of natural regional climate variability and societal factors such as population increase and overgrazing.
• AIT warns that a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 levels to 560 ppm will so acidify seawater that all optimal areas for coral reef construction will disappear by 2050—implausible because coral calcification rates have increased as ocean temperatures and CO2 levels have risen, and today’s main reef builders evolved and thrived during the Mesozoic Period, when atmospheric CO2 levels hovered above 1,000 ppm for 150 million years and exceeded 2,000 ppm for several million years.
• It warns of “significant and alarming structural changes” in the submarine base of the WAIS, but does not tell us what those changes are or why they are “significant and alarming.” The WAIS has been retreating since the early Holocene. At the rate of retreat observed in the 1990s, the WAIS should disappear in about 7,000 years.
• It warns that “moulins”—vertical water tunnels formed from surface melt water—could cause half the Greenland Ice Sheet to break off and “slide” into the sea, even though the scientific study to which Gore alludes found that moulins increase glacial flow by only a few meters a year.

Wrong statements

• AIT claims glaciologist Lonnie Thompson’s reconstruction of climate history proves the Medieval Warm Period was “tiny” compared to the warming observed in recent decades. It doesn’t. Four of Thompson’s six ice cores indicate the Medieval Warm Period was as warm as or warmer than any recent decade.
• It claims the rate of global warming is accelerating, when it has been remarkably constant for the past 30 years—roughly 0.17°C/decade.
• It attributes Europe’s killer heat wave of 2003 to global warming; it was actually due to an atmospheric circulation anomaly.
• It claims that 2004 set an all-time record for the number of tornadoes in the United States.  Tornado frequency has not increased; rather, the detection of smaller tornadoes has increased.  If we consider the tornadoes that have been detectable for many decades (F-3 or greater), there is actually a downward trend since 1950.
• It blames global warming for a “mass extinction crisis” that is not, in fact, occurring.

In light of these and other distortions, AIT is ill-suited to serve as a guide to climate science and climate policy for the American people.

Fluorescent lights contain mercury. If a fluorescent light breaks, there are specific cleanup instructions that involve leaving the room for 15 minutes with the windows open and then you put contaminated materials in a sealed glass jar. If I have an infant, it is recommended that I consider cutting out the carpet in the breakage area and removing it. Ok.

LED lights are getting better and supposedly they are finding ways that will be ready for mass production in three years or so. Ok.

I have a mix of incandescent and fluorescent lighting in my house – trying to move to something more energy efficient mainly for the purpose of saving some money so I can go blow it on candy bars.

But now I learn that my cool new fluorescent bulbs are a hazard to my family and ironically, the environment. Some of them have burned out long before the promised 4 years or so of life so now I have the choice of going back to the old incandescents, replacing the hazardous waste fluorescent lights or look into LED technology that isn’t optimal and is expensive. Or I could leave the lights out and live in partial darkness while I wait for LED’s to catch up.

Oh, and I don’t like the government forcing me to switch even though I would do it anyway. The market would (and is) delivering cheaper and more efficient bulbs without the need to outlaw the old kind – especially since what they want us to move toward is hazardous to my health. Can’t people leave each other alone?

What are your plans for switching over? What are your views on legislating incandescent bulbs into extinction? Do you know of any really good normal-looking decently priced LED household lights?

This story appeared in The Life Of Colonel David Crockett, published by Porter & Coates in 1884. Now in the public domain.

I was one day in the lobby of the House of Representatives when a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support, rather, as I thought, because it afforded the speakers a fine opportunity for display than from the necessity of convincing anybody, for it seemed to me that everybody favored it. The Speaker was just about to put the question, when Crockett arose. Everybody expected, of course, that he was going to make one of his characteristic speeches in support of the bill. He commenced:

“Mr. Speaker — I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the Government was in arrears to him. This Government can owe no debts but for services rendered, and at a stipulated price. If it is a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained? If it is a debt, this is not the place to present it for payment, or to have its merits examined. If it is a debt, we owe more than we can ever hope to pay, for we owe the widow of every soldier who fought in the war of 1812 precisely the same amount. There is a woman in my neighborhood, the widow of as gallant a man as ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is as good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor, and if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit, I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in the country just such as the one I have spoken of; but we never hear of any of these large debts to them. Sir, this is no debt. The Government did not owe it to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died. I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Like many other young men, and old ones too, for that matter, who had not thought upon the subject, I desired the passage of the bill, and felt outraged at its defeat. I determined that I would persuade my friend Crockett to move a reconsideration the next day.

Previous engagements preventing me from seeing Crockett that night, I went early to his room the next morning, and found him engaged in addressing and franking letters, a large pile of which lay upon his table.

I broke in upon him rather abruptly, by asking him what devil had possessed him to make that speech and defeat that bill yesterday. Without turning his head or looking up from his work, he replied:

“You see that I am very busy now; take a seat and cool yourself. I will be through in a few minutes, and then I will tell you all about it.”

He continued his employment for about ten minutes, and when he had finished it turned to me and said:

“Now, sir, I will answer your question. But thereby hangs a tale, and one of considerable length, to which you will have to listen.”

I listened, and this is the tale which I heard:

“Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. When we got there I went to work, and I never worked as hard in my life as I did there for several hours. But, in spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them, and everybody else seemed to feel the same way.”

“The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business, and rushed it through as soon as it could be done. I said everybody felt as I did. That was not quite so; for, though they perhaps sympathized as deeply with the sufferers as I did, there were a few of the members who did not think we had the right to indulge our sympathy or excite our charity at the expense of anybody but ourselves. They opposed the bill, and upon its passage demanded the yeas and nays. There were not enough of them to sustain the call, but many of us wanted our names to appear in favor of what we considered a Praiseworthy measure, and we voted with them to sustain it. So the yeas and nays were recorded, and my name appeared on the journals in favor of the bill.”

“The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up, and I thought it was best to let the boys know that I had not forgot them, and that going to Congress had not made me too proud to go to see them.”

“So I put a couple of shirts and a few twists of tobacco into my saddle-bags, and put out. I had been out about a week, and had found things going very smoothly, when, riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly, and was about turning his horse for another furrow, when I asked him if he could give me a chew of tobacco.”

“Yes,” said he, “such as we make and use in this part of the country; but it may not suit your taste, as you are probably in the habit of using better.”

“With that he pulled out of his pocket part of a twist in its natural state, and handed it to me. I took a chew, and handed it back to him. He turned to his plow, and was about to start off. I said to him: “Don’t be in such a hurry, my friend; I want to have a little talk with you, and get better acquainted,” He replied:

“I am very busy, and have but little time to talk, but if it does not take too long, I will listen to what you have to say.”

“I began: “Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and—”

“Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.”

“This was a sockdologer. I had been making up my mind that he was one of those churlish fellows who care for nobody but themselves, and take bluntness for independence. I had seen enough of them to know there is a way to reach them, and was satisfied that if I could get him to talk to me I would soon have him straight. But this was entirely a different bundle of sticks. He knew me, had voted for me before, and did not intend to do it again. Something must be the matter; I could not imagine what it was. I had heard of no complaints against me, except that some of the dandies about the village ridiculed some of the wild and foolish things that I too often say and do, and said that I was not enough of a gentleman to go to Congress. I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

“Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest.”

“Thank you for that, but you find fault with only one vote. You know the story of Henry Clay, the old huntsman and the rifle; you wouldn’t break your gun for one snap.”

“No, nor for a dozen. As the story goes, that tack served Mr. Clay’s purpose admirably, though it really had nothing to do with the case. I would not break the gun, nor would I discard an honest representative for a mistake in judgment as a mere matter of policy. But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.”

“I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.”

“No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true!”

“Certainly it is, and I thought that was the last vote for which anybody in the world would have found fault with.”

“Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity!”

“Here was another sockdologer; for, when I began to think about it, I could not remember a thing in the Constitution that authorized it. I found I must take another tack, so I said:

“Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.”

“It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the Government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the Government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right: to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive, what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.”

“I have given you,” continued Crockett, “an imperfect account of what he said. Long before he was through, I was convinced that I had done wrong. He wound up by saying:

“So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.”

“I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

“Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it, than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote, and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.”

“He laughingly replied: “Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go round the district, you will tell the people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.”

“If I don’t,” said I, “I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.”

“No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.”

“Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-by. I must know your name.”

“My name is Bunce.”

“Not Horatio Bunce?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad that I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend. You must let me shake your hand before I go.”

“We shook hands and parted. “It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

“At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.

“Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

“It is not exactly pertinent to my story, but I must tell you more about him. When I saw him with his family around him, I was not surprised that he loved to stay at home. I have never in any other family seen a manifestation of so much confidence, familiarity and freedom of manner of children toward their parents mingled with such unbounded love and respect.

“He was not at the house when I arrived, but his wife received and welcomed me with all the ease and cordiality of an old friend. She told me that her husband was engaged in some out-door business, but would be in shortly. She is a woman of fine person; her face is not what the world would at first sight esteem beautiful. In a state of rest there was too much strength and character in it for that, but when she engaged in conversation, and especially when she smiled, it softened into an expression of mingled kindness, goodness, and strength that was beautiful beyond anything I have ever seen.

“Pretty soon her husband came in, and she left us and went about her household affairs. Toward night the children–he had about seven of them– began to drop in; some from work, some from school, and the little ones from play. They were introduced to me, and met me with the same ease and grace that marked the manner of their mother. Supper came on, and then was exhibited the loveliness of the family circle in all its glow. The father turned the conversation to the matters in which the children had been interested during the day, and all, from the oldest to the youngest, took part in it. They spoke to their parents with as much familiarity and confidence as if they had been friends of their own age, yet every word and every look manifested as much respect as the humblest courtier could manifest for a king; aye, more, for it was all sincere, and strengthened by love. Verily it was the Happy Family.

“I have told you Mr. Bunce converted me politically. He came nearer converting me religiously than I had ever been before. When supper was over, one of the children brought him a Bible and hymn-book. He turned to me and said:

“Colonel, I have for many years been in the habit of family worship night and morning. I adopt this time for it that all may be present. If I postpone it some of us get engaged in one thing and some in another, and the little ones drop off to sleep, so that it is often difficult to get all together.”

“He then opened the Bible, and read the Twenty-third Psalm, commencing: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” It is a beautiful composition, and his manner of reading it gave it new beauties. We then sang a hymn, and we all knelt down. He commenced his prayer “Our Father who art in Heaven.” No one who has not heard him pronounce those words can conceive how they thrilled through me, for I do not believe that they were ever pronounced by human lips as by him. I had heard them a thousand times from the lips of preachers of every grade and denomination, and by all sorts of professing Christians, until they had become words of course with me, but his enunciation of them gave them an import and a power of which I had never conceived. There was a grandeur of reverence, a depth of humility, a fullness of confidence and an overflowing of love which told that his spirit was communing face to face with its God. An overwhelming feeling of awe came over me, for I felt that I was in the invisible presence of Jehovah. The whole prayer was grand–grand in its simplicity, in the purity of the spirit it breathed, in its faith, its truth, and its love. I have told you he came nearer converting me religiously than I had ever been before. He did not make a very good Christian of me, as you know; but he has wrought upon my mind a conviction of the truth of Christianity, and upon my feelings a reverence for its purifying and elevating power such as I had never felt before.

“I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him–no, that is not the word–I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

“But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted–at least, they all knew me.

“In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

“Fellow-citizens–I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can to-day offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.”

“I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation as I have told it to you, and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

“And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.”

“It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit of it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.”

“He came upon the stand and said:

“Fellow-citizens–It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.”

“He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.

“I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.

“Now, sir,” concluded Crockett, “you know why I made that speech yesterday. I have had several thousand copies of it printed, and was directing them to my constituents when you came in.

“There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week’s pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men–men who think nothing of spending a week’s pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased–a debt which could not be paid by money–and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.”

The hour for the meeting of the House had by this time arrived. We walked up to the Capitol together, but I said not a word to him about moving a reconsideration. I would as soon have asked a sincere Christian to abjure his religion.

I had listened to his story with an interest which was greatly increased by his manner of telling it, for, no matter what we may say of the merits of a story, a speech, or a sermon, it is a very rare production which does not derive its interest more from the manner than the matter, as some of my readers have doubtless, like the writer, proved to their cost.