recognize the duty
of the strong to fight for the weak, we, now that fighting is gone by,
recognize his duty to work for him.

"A solution which leaves an unaccounted-for residuum is no solution at
all; and our solution of the problem of human society would have been
none at all had it left the lame, the sick, and the blind outside with
the beasts, to fare as they might. Better far have left the strong and
well unprovided for than these burdened ones, toward whom every heart
must yearn, and for whom ease of mind and body should be provided, if
for no others. Therefore it is, as I told you this morning, that the
title of every man, woman, and child to the means of existence rests
on no basis less plain, broad, and simple than the fact that they are
fellows of one race--members of one human family. The only coin
current is the image of God, and that is good for all we have.

"I think there is no feature of the civilization of your epoch so
repugnant to modern ideas as the neglect with which you treated your
dependent classes. Even if you had no pity, no feeling of brotherhood,
how was it that you did not see that you were robbing the incapable
class of their plain right in leaving them unprovided for?"

"I don't quite follow you there," I said. "I admit the claim of this
class to our pity, but how could they who produced nothing claim a
share of the product as a right?"

"How happened it," was Dr. Leete's reply, "that your workers were able
to produce more than so many savages would have done? Was it not
wholly on account of the heritage of the past knowledge and
achievements of the race, the machinery of society, thousands of years
in contriving, found by you ready-made to your hand? How did you come
to be possessors of this knowledge and this machinery, which represent
nine parts to one contributed by yourself in the value of your
product? You inherited it, did you not? And were not these others,
these unfortunate and crippled brothers whom you cast out, joint
inheritors, co-heirs with you? What did you do with their share? Did
you not rob them when you put them off with crusts, who were entitled
to sit with the heirs, and did you not add insult to robbery when you
called the crusts charity?

"Ah, Mr. West," Dr. Leete continued, as I did not respond, "what I do
not understand is, setting aside all considerations either of justice
or brotherly feeling toward the crippled and defective, how the
workers of your day c