nd power of their creative
industry. The power to create riches is just as much a part of the
Anglo-Saxon virtues as the power to create good order and social safety.
The things required for prosperous labor, prosperous manufactures, and
prosperous commerce are three. First, liberty; second, liberty; third,
liberty. [Hear, hear!] Though these are not merely the same liberty, as
I shall show you. First, there must be liberty to follow those laws of
business which experience has developed, without imposts or restrictions
or governmental intrusions. Business simply wants to be let alone.
[Hear, hear!] Then, secondly, there must be liberty to distribute and
exchange products of industry in any market without burdensome tariffs,
without imposts, and with-out vexatious regulations. There must be these
two liberties--liberty to create wealth, as the makers of it think best,
according to the light and experience which business has given them; and
then liberty to distribute what they have created without unnecessary
vexatious burdens.

The comprehensive law of the ideal industrial condition of the word
is free manufacture and free trade. [Hear, hear! A voice: "The Morrill
tariff." Another voice: "Monroe."] I have said there were three elements
of liberty. The third is the necessity of an intelligent and free race
of customers. There must be freedom among producers; there must
be freedom among the distributors; there must be freedom among the
customers. It may not have occurred to you that it makes any difference
what one's customers are, but it does in all regular and prolonged
business. The condition of the customer determines how much he will buy,
determines of what sort he will buy. Poor and ignorant people buy little
and that of the poorest kind. The richest and the intelligent, having
the more means to buy, buy the most, and always buy the best. Here,
then, are the three liberties: liberty of the producer, liberty of
the distributor, and liberty of the consumer. The first two need no
discussion; they have been long thoroughly and brilliantly illustrated
by the political economists of Great Britain and by her eminent
statesmen; but it seems to me that enough attention has not been
directed to the third; and, with your patience, I will dwell upon that
for a moment, before proceeding to other topics.

It is a necessity of every manufacturing and commercial people that
their customers should be very wealthy and intelligent. Le