Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1878-11-21

sought the lives of such officials in all ages,
but three attempts within short period in
dlcates causes at work more general than
mere individual idiosyncrasy. The old
time notion of the sacredness of majesty is
dead, and its murderers have been the mon
archs themselves. With their quarrels, their
petty ambitions, their follies, their vicious
ness, and their general mischieyousness, they
have irretrievablv damaged their profession,
and instances of splendid and virtuous rulers
have not had influence enough to prevent
monarchy, as a profession, from being on the
way toward extinction. The kingship bust
ness is "going to the dogs" and men now
see in a king only man filling public office,
and he becomes liable to be called to account
like other men, whether justly or not. If the
republic established by France should prove
successful, the knell of monarchy has sound
ed throughout Europe. Right or wrong, the
turn of public sentiment, IN all civilized ma
tons, is setting strongly and increasingly in
favor of government for the people and by
the people" From such public sentiments
there is no appeal, and against its aggres-
sion there is no defense. The more imme-
diate cause of attempts at regicide, however,
are rather social than political. The great
inequality existing in the distribution of
wealth is arousing a feeling that promises
fearful future difficulty, and is the cause of
the existence of socialism and communism,
from which spring associations having for
their object the destruction of present social
arrangements-wnether in monarchical or
republican Landslide that destruction
followed by what it may. Rulers, and men
high in office, become the objects of attack by
these associations, as being representatives
and special supporters of the present order of
things. This personal vindictiveness is in
creased by the course everywhere adopted to-
ward the communists, under whatever name
they may be called. There is everywhere a
stern determination to "stamp them out, "
by the power of force. Their claims receive
little serious attention, and their arguments
which, usually, are based upon the notion
that whatever is is wrong"-are commonly
met with passionate and harsh assertions
that whatever is is right. When COM
munists break the law and resort to murder,
robbery and plumber, they deserve, and must
receive, the same punishments as other law
breakers. Crime does not cease to be crime
even when perpetrated in connection with
good cause, or disguised in the mantle of re-
igion. The thoughtful observer, however,
will see in the case of communism something
more than the occurrence of crime; something
that in itself is not crime, although it be-
comes the occasion of it. The widespread
feeling of which communism is the express
sion, is a phenomenon which, like other
phenomena, has its causes, and those causes
are worth investigation and in the end will
obtain it, for hanging and deporting, and
Imprisoning few individuals will not extir-
pate what has found footing in every Euro
pean community, and is not unknown even in
our own favored republic. The great and
prominent cause Of communism is the vast
inequality in the distribution of wealth. That
the communists, even were they successful TO
their utmost wish, could eradicate inequality
of possessions, we know to be impossible.
Not only so, but it is undesirable, for the
causes underlying that inequality are i'm
bedded in the very nature of mans constitu
tio1. While human beings differ in energy,
intellectual power and susceptibility to emo
ton, they will differ in the amount of material
wealth each individual obtains and
aecumulates. The problem for the philoso-
pher and the political economist to consider
is not the one everywhere put forward upon
that point, which is: "Can property be
equalized, and kept equal ?" The real
problem is-whlle the distribution of proper
is necessarily unequal, ought not check to
be interposed by which the tendency to in
equality shall be restrained, so that the rich
shall not be able to nonopolizs wealth in
definitely, nor the poor be exposed to destruc-
ton? Local enactments cannot, and ought
not, prevent inequality; but they can be SO
arranged as to prevent the rich becoming
rich, except temporarily, and
the industrious, sober, honest poor
from falling into restitution. Those coun-
tries that pursue this restraining course will
deprive communism of its power for mis-
chief. Those that confne themselves to at
tempts at torcible repression, will have calam
tiles of no ordinary character to encounter.
These calamlties will come for the reason
that future revolutions and revolutionary
changes for their object, unless as a means
to an end, and that end will be social change,
modes of so distributing wealth that, while
the rights and property of none shall be dis
turbed, excessive and mischievous inequality
Of possessions shall be avoided. Until due
attention is given to this irrepressible social
problem, and national legislation brings
A.
subject of the distribution of social wealth,
the same connections and overturnings,
crimes and recriminations, may be looked for
as, in previous periods of history, were caused
by the opposition to feudalism, to divine
right, to religious intolerance, and other ex-
sting arrangements which had become dis
tasteful, and were modified or utterly abol
shed