duction of some sort would be impossible in the long run. The factors of production, among the owners of which, wealth is divided, are land, labor, and capital. Land, of course, is the necessary basis for agriculture or any extractive industry as well as a site for manufacturing goods, for which it furnishes the raw materials. Labor includes not only the barehanded unskilled workman but also directive and managerial ability of the highest type. Capital consists of raw materials, machinery, buildings, and money, or, briefly, the products of past industry used as aids to further production. Labor, as well as land, is essential to all industry, while the use of capital adds to the product of both land and labor. The individuals assisting production may be classified as landowners, laborers, capitalists, and, in addition, enterprisers, or entrepreneurs, who bring together and direct the three factors of production-land, labor, and capital. The returns or shares in distribution are known as rent, wages, and interest, together with a fourth and rather unmapped Siberia known as profits, which are the return for risk, exceptional ability, monopoly power, luck, and the taking advantage of changing conditions.

Now, the question of distribution centers about the rewards for the various factors of production. The quarrel or dissatisfaction is not concerned

with production but with distribution. The picture is one of abundance; there is enough for all, we are told, but how shall it be divided? What ideal of distributive justice should we have in mind?

One ideal of distributive justice is known as the aristocratic ideal, that there should be special privileges for persons of special classes or positions. This ideal runs back into prehistoric times. It is the rule of the strong man. Brute force and cunning won the game among the troglodytes. This period remains in some sections even yet.

"For why?-because the good old rule
Sufficeth them, the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."1

The ideal is that some men are better than others, and that an employing class and a working class are both based on the eternal reality and fitness of things. Feudalism was one aspect of this theory, and although based at first on the idea of service, became a vested institution. The land owners, dukes, and earls of England, the Junkers of Prussia, and the feudal aristocracy of Austria, are illustrations of this ideal. The law of primogeniture, or the inheritance of the estate by the eldest male heir, together with the inheritance laws of some countries which give a double share 1 Wordsworth, Rob Roy's Grave.

to the eldest, prevents the estate from being broken into small pieces and thus perpetuates the aristocratic ideal. Primogeniture has been abolished in this country by the laws of all the states. "Perpetuities and monopolies," runs the constitution of Oklahoma, "are contrary to the genius of a free government and shall never be allowed, nor shall the law of primogeniture or entailments ever be enforced in this state." Because of the importance of this matter, most states by laws and taxes direct, limit, divide, and disperse all inheritances.

Back of the aristocratic ideal of distribution is the idea of the survival of the fittest; but here one must pause and ask as to the conditions of fitness. The captain of industry, for instance, because of his strength, exacts a toll from the community. If adequate services or products are given in exchange, both are benefited and real prosperity ensues. He may be and often is an exemplification of the predatory principle, a wolf in sheep's clothing. More concretely he may represent a monopoly which controls one of the necessities of life, such as the anthracite coal combine of railroads and mine-operators in Pennsylvania, which limits the output, determines the price to the consumer and the wages of the miners, flouts a president of the United States to his face when he endeavors to settle a strike of the employees, and even puts out

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the claim to be the divinely appointed guardian of the property interests of the country.

Another illustration is that of a certain employer of child labor who defends himself by saying that "Willie, although only ten years old, now working from six in the morning until eight in the evening, is a better boy than he was before he went to work." Childish mischief is eradicated and dividends are increased at one stroke. The aristocratic ideal to be workable depends, like that of despotism in government, upon its being benevolent, but this does not always follow. In the absence of benevolence, and with human nature as it is, things must be nailed down or they will be carried off, hoof, horns, and hide-even a coffin plate is not safe. Commodore Vanderbilt's expletive, "The public be damned," is not very ancient.

Then again, fitness, if it be granted, is not always inherited. Three generations from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves was the old rule, and although delayed somewhat at present by large fortunes and safe, low interest-bearing investments, it still has some truth. Inheritance taxes and laws, likewise, aid a wider distribution. Equal rights to all and special privileges to none are the bases of industrial democracy; the question being, said John Ball,

"When Adam dolve, and Eve span,

Who was then the gentleman ?"

Another distributive ideal is the communistic one of equal division of all goods, or, as it is sometimes expressed, "From everyone according to his ability: to everyone according to his needs." This ideal may be brought out by means of two contrasting pictures. The one of a disorderly family at dinner, where all are grabbing at one and the same time, food is being stowed in the pockets of some and dropped by others to be picked up later, all is hubbub, noise, and confusion, and the result is that only a few get enough to eat. The other is the well ordered family, where all are seated, are waited upon, and are fed in due time in peace and quietness. The analogy is plain. Nature has set a bountiful table, there is enough for all, the fault is not in production but in distribution.

There is a good deal in this ideal of distribution according to needs to recommend it to our heads, as well as our hearts. The special reason for its recommendation is that it is the actual ideal of the family as we know it. The income when brought into the family is distributed according to need of father, mother, children-and many times with emphasis on the children. The division is not according to merit, service, or productiveness, but according to need, the helpless getting the most.

But what is the family? In an economic sense, it is an institution for keeping down the popula