As social Darwinism gained supporters all across America, some felt that those with money to spare should help individuals who were struggling to survive. William Graham Sumner argued that his theory was the absolute truth of society, and that helping the poor would only interfere with laws of nature and slow down evolutionary progression. He claims that a "poor" or a "weak" person does not truly exist, that those who take up these titles are "dead weight" on society. These people supposedly neutralize and/or destroy the efforts of the "wise and industrious".
At the beginning of the excerpt, Sumner states the basic logic of the time, that the class structure he created are the "facts of life". He claims that those who desire to help the less fortunate are confused, as the set of doctrines America was governed under contained increments of old-fashioned social theory relying on Middle Age status systems. Glorifying the morales of the Gilded Age, Sumner praises the new system of contract relations saying, "Contract is...realistic, cold, and matter-of-fact. A contract relation...endures only so long as the reason for it endures." Emotionally, he attempts to make those who want to help the poor guilty for feeling sympathy for them, arguing that people who belong to the weak class have done nothing and therefore do not deserve property, medical care, or other types of aid from the State. All of these statements support Sumner's character, that he was a man who was ignorant and could not empathize with the plight of the poorer people.
Sumner was a political economy professor at Yale who started social Darwinism in the United States. Drawing on the principles Charles Darwin taught in his book On the Origin of Species (1859), he developed a societal theory that greatly benefitted the lifestyle of the era. In his book, Darwin theorized that all living organisms went through an adaption to the environment called natural selection that determined whether their traits were desirable enough to survive, or if the species would die off. Sumner adapted this idea to America's economic state, concluding that society progressed when relentless competition existed among people and businesses, resulting in the "strongest" (most successful) surviving while the "weak" (poorest) die off. Businessmen of the Gilded Age were attracted to this mindset as it fit with their economic goals, to make the most money and have the most control.
In some respects, I agree with Sumner. He states in the second page of the excerpt that lower class sympathizers "glossed over the faults of the class in question and exaggerated their misfortunes...", and that they "forget all about the rights of the other classes". I believe it is important for all citizens of this country to work hard and do their best to earn their rights of property, medicine, and protection. That being said, those who could not earn a decent living were not people who did "nothing" like Sumner claimed, but instead were caught working long hours and being paid low wages by businessmen who followed social Darwinism.
