Michiganensian. [1900]

1

Professor Adams' first work received favorable attention. Tlis
was his doctor's thesis 1)ublished under the inlluence of Waglner, in
Tfibinlge) Zeitschrift fi'r die gesramirrte,Sttaafts(issenscth('ft, 1s79, under title
Zutr Geschichte der Beste.ertcur i in de(lc I,i e iifjt()l Sta(tt en t)) l mc 'i'n i i iln
der Periode e von 1789-1Si1;. This thesis is familiar to American readers
as Taxation in the 1 'ited States, /,7'^'-181;, published in.//,h).sl IlIpk,)sii
Uniive'rsit Studties, 1884. In this work Professor Adamns ngave evidene of
the clearness of insight and power of analysis of which he was later to
show himself so eminently possessor. These qualities are just as al)l)arent in an article on SoceialisiTi which was published in the Pe(') l/ Nlf/t1y for
April of that year. This article shows true historical mindedness, and
affords consolation neither for those who favor unconditional socialism,
nor for those who just as unconditionally condemn it. Tle lrinciple
of free competition, he says, is the object at which socialism is aiming,
its blows, and while socialism is as a system untenable, it is ri-gllt in
claiming that the remedy must lie in a proper restraint on tile oleration of the principle of free competition. Not an abolishment of freedom, but freedom of the rigiht sort, is the solution; liberty with responsibility. Among the most interesting- expressions in this article, from our
view of twenty years later, are those concerning the duty of Political
Economy in America. He says, "America must repudiate thle centralizing tendency of German Economy, because that tendency is olp)osedl to
the ideas upon which the government is founded: but, on the other hand,
another century of unrestrained activity of l)rivate enterprise will itself
contradict the theory of freedom, and destroy the government. From
this dilemma must arise an American Political Economy ---an economy
which is to be legal rather than industrial in its claracter." How interesting, in the light of the American Political Economy tlhat lias been
since developed, in the light of Professor Adams place in it, and in the
light of certain industrial phenomena, like trusts, which lmave appeared.
In January, 1881, appeared in the New Enrlaldce, from his pen, an
article on The Irish Land Qu(estion, and in November of tle same year, one
on Deiltocracy, a consideration of that subject which affords some satisfaction as one turns from most of the books of this title that are tlooding
the market at present. Nowhere has the subject been more vitally
touched than in these words: "Democracy does not necessarily mean,
as usually employed, a definite form of government. It is ratlher tile
expression of political individualism. Constitutional govTernmlenlts are
not necessarily democratic; nor, on the other hand, are democratic ideas