Yale Universty Professor;s Sumner's forgotten man

Yale University professor William Graham Sumner appears to be the first to use the phrase "the forgotten man", in his timeless essay. His algebraic definition of the forgotten man was "C", who is coerced into helping the man at the economic bottom "X", by "A" and "B" who demand charity for "X".^[4]

As soon as A observes something which seems to him wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X, or, in better case, what A, B, and C shall do for X... What I want to do is to look up C. I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. he is the man who never is thought of....

I call him the forgotten man...

He works, he votes, generally he prays—but he always pays.....