quarter, or a beer check from Kansas City, when he lives in Cincinnati; he goes down in his new pants' pocket, and he yanks out a roll of dollar bills with a five spot wrapped around the outside. He peels off the aforesaid five spot, forks it over to the preacher, and says: "Here, Parson, take this V; go and buy yourself a square meal. You never had one under capitalism anyhow, and if that ain't enough, come around for more."
The Loss of Incentive.
But how about that incentive? Wouldn’t he lose his ambition to work? Did you ever see a mule that had an incentive for anything? Now, if you want to give an incentive to a mule, tie a stick to his neck, and hang a bundle of alfalfa hay about two feet from his nose. The first thing that mule does is to stretch his neck. In all your life, did you ever see such a stretching as that mule is doing now? You see he never had an incentive to stretch his neck like that before. Unable to reach the hay, he takes a step forward and then another, and still another, and by and by he falls into a trot, and before long he runs with all his might and main, and if he is big enough of a mule, he will run until he falls down exhausted. You see, as long as the mule can't get the hay, he has an incentive to run after it. Now, if the mule should get a little horse sense, break the stick and eat the hay, he would lose his incentive to run.
The great question for the philosophers and political economists to decide is, Is the mule after the hay, or does he want incentive? Most mules of my acquaintance don't seem to care much about the incentive. All they want is the hay. But I have met a great many two-legged mules, who don't seem to care for the hay, but
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