The herald., 1896-06-14
EOS ANGELES HERALD. SUNDAY MORNING. JUNE lsee.

the clergy, while the burden Of taxation
fell upon the remaining .one-third. Is 1t
q matter OF wonder that the oppressed
masses repudiated such government,
such church and preferred the goddess
OF reason to such god?
were 10000 land owners. Now there are
IL. 900 900 and it is claimed they paid the
German war indemnity In less than two
years. You may draw your own infer
ence as to what constitutes the funda-
mental conditions of prosperity.
The influence of free economic condi-
tions upon the energies and morals Of
the criminal class has been widely no.
ticed In the report of q parliamentary
commission concerning the penal colony
of New South Wales. In substance 1t
stated that the convicts under their i'm
proved conditions had developed such
manhood and integrity that It was ad-
ed so no man could point to their pos
terity as having descended from con-
victs. Ninety-seven per cent were re-
formed.
Gladstone has said that at is the duty
Of government to make 1t easy for men
to do right" This agrees with the gen.
eral common sense rs we'll. If govern
ments take an opposite economic policy
and make 1t as difficult as possible for
man to do right 1t simply endangers or
destroys It's own existence, for the fund
amental principle Of human action Is
that men Will seek to crafty their de-
sires with the least exertion. AS SYM
ptom of our need of economic knowledge
and Wilderness will note the fact that
during the decade of 1885 to 1895 the num-
ber of murderers increased 1000 per cent
in the United States and that we have
the highest criminal record of any civil
lied nation with the exception of Italy
r cfo tfctt to1 c(o1t t1,D,,
1 have them not at HANDY will prove the
steady increase of crime as the condi-
tions of life have become such as to make
it more difficult for man to supply his
wants.
We cannot evade the instinct of life
to sustain itself and reproduce its kind
and its abnormal efforts under abnor-
NAL conditions is characteristic as we'll
of It's less evolved forms. One illustra-
tion will suffice. During what in Cali
fornia we call a dry year q certain tree
did not receive sufficient moisture to
supply it's wants. BY some intelligence
or plant knowledge it's roots made their
way to water pipe some distance away
and gained an entrance. 1t played the
burglar in fine plant style. The mass of
its rootlets filled the pipe and burst it.
The integrity Of the pipe was impaired
and the family were put to much dis
comfiture. Science has demonstrated to
us the responsiveness or the organism to
it's environment and the physiological
chage wrought by a change in the sur
roundings. The human organism can
not escape from the law and If society
and governments furnish abnormal con-
ditions of growth they must expect to
reap abnormal results.
Such facts have led students into an
inquiry of the nature and functions of
government and the wisdom and Justice
Of our laws. Herbert Spencer says that
the state had it's origin in aggression
and has continued an aggressive insti-
tuition from its birth.
1t is upon such a premise that the
philosophic anarchists, of whom Proud
hon, one of the forty immortals of
France, is perhaps the most illustrious,
base their claim that the essence of gov
ernment is control or the attempt to
control, and that authority is incom-
patible with liberty; that all the affairs
of men should be managed by individu-
al or voluntary associations and that
the state should be abolished, thus TAX
ing the extreme view of the Jeffersonian
statement that the best government is
that which governs least. They further
claim that the abuses of government
are the prime cause of poverty and
crime.
OF the anarchist philosophy Kidd in
his Social Evolution says on page 81 tina
sit would be an extremely difficult, if not
impossible, task to find any halting place
| for reason before the doctrines of an
archy, the advocates of which in the
| words of Michael Bakourin, object to al