21 October, 2011

The Forgotten Man

As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X, or in the better case, what A, B and C shall do for X....


What I want to do is to look up C. I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who is never thought of....


He works, he votes, generally he prays....but he always pays....



--William Graham Sumner

Yale University, 1883

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