l keep it in the cup-board," you know very well that I
shall not get any increase as a result of my abstinence. I do not get
anything more than I actually save.

Now, I am perfectly willing that any man shall have all that he can
save out of his own earnings. If no man had more there would be no
need of talking about "legislation to limit fortunes," no need of
protest against "swollen fortunes."

But now suppose, friend Jonathan, that while I have the dollar,
representing my "abstinence," in my pocket, a man who has not a dollar
comes to me and says, "I really must have a dollar to get food for my
wife and baby, or they will die. Lend me a dollar until next week and
I will pay you back two dollars." If I lend him the dollar and next
week take his two dollars, that is what is called the reward of my
abstinence. But in truth it is something quite different. It is usury.
Just because I happen to have something the other fellow has not got,
and which he must have, he is compelled to pay me interest. If he also
had a dollar in his pocket, I could get no interest from him.

It would be just the same if I had not abstained from anything. If,
for example, I had found the dollar which some other careful fellow
had lost, I could still get interest upon it. Or if I had inherited
money from my father, it might happen that, so far from being
abstemious and thrifty, I had been most extravagant, while the fellow
who came to borrow had been very thrifty and abstemious, but still
unable to provide for his family. Yet I should make him pay me
interest.

As a matter of fact, my friend, the rich have not abstained from
anything. They have not accumulated riches out of their savings,
through abstaining from buying things. On the contrary, they have
bought and enjoyed the costliest things. They have lived in fine
houses, worn costly clothing, eaten the choicest food, sent their sons
and daughters to the most expensive schools and colleges.

From all of these things the workers have abstained, Jonathan. They
have abstained from living in fine houses and lived in poor houses;
they have abstained from wearing costly clothes and worn the cheapest
and poorest clothes; they have abstained from choice food and eaten
only food that is coarse and cheap; they have abstained from sending
their sons and daughters to expensive schools and colleges and sent
them only to the lower grades of the public schools. If abstinence
were a source of wealth, t