Los Angeles herald., 1906-06-07

/ and civil law; which laws prevent the
| property of the dead from reverting, as
| II otherwise would do i'm a state Of
| nature, to the common stock.
"All laws of property must stand
upon the foot Of the general advantage,
for a country belongs TO its inhabitants;
and In what proportions and by what
| rules It's inhabitants are to own its
property must be settled by the law;
and the moment fragment of the peo-
pie set UP rights as Inherent in them
and not founded upon the public good,
| plain absurdities follow. for laws Of
| property are like all other laws, to be
changed when the public good re-
| quires It.
ut would be WELL indeed, that the
owners of property In land or money,
from the largest to the smallest, should
recognize that their title to the enjoy
ment of it must rest upon the same
foundation, and that the mode and
measure Of their enjoyment of the com
mon stock of the state If It Injuries the
state, can no more be defended and will
nc more be endured by free people
than any other public mischief or nui-
sance."
Resuming the argument, TX" says Of
what Mr. Webster calls violence and
revolution:
"The suddenness Of such revolutions,
and their unexpectedness by the vic
Tins of them, is one of the common
places of history. The small minority
at the top. accustomed to enjoy them
selves as they please and to regard
these beneath them as permanent mud
sills doomed by providence to work and
suffer in order that they themselves
may be idle and luxurious, never seem
to have sufficient intelligence to realize
the dangers which threaten their priv
ileges and themselves, even when such
dangers are close at hand and ought
to have been clearly perceived This
was notably the case just before the
French revolution wheni not only
Arthur Young, whose sympathies were
rather with the oppressed and tortured
peasantry than with their oppressors,
but even Lord Chesterfield, whose SYM
pathies were naturally with the govern
ing class to which he belonged, coming
from another country, were able to see
the perilous condition in which the roy
atty and aristocracy of France were
then standing, and they substantially
agreed that the signs of a great revo-
luton we're then to be seen by anybody
who had eyes to see them.
This same story has just been re-
peated in the Russian revolution The
themselves to be in secure possession
of all their properties and privileges,
and they fully expected that the Rus
sian workmen and peasants would con-
tinue contentedly to labor for future
generations in order that they should
continue to enjoy themselves as they
pleased; and yet we have all seen to
what a sudden and terrible awakening
their blindness sujected them.
Many unkind observers insist that
our millionaires have been stricken
with just such blindness; but it must
be remembered that this being actually
a government of the people, by the
people and for the people, ballots will
here prove far more effective in reach
ing any result the majority of the
voters may desire as to the possession
and distribution of property than could
possibly be secured by any number Of
dynamite bombs; so that the danger
confronting us is that the majority of
American voters will effect their wishes
by very extreme and very dangerous
legislation unless they are guided in
safer paths"
AS basis for argument 'X" ad
vances the theory that $50000 year
might be set as reasonable limit Of
the value of the services to the COM
munity of any man, and that million
dollars would naturally suggest itself
as a reasonable limit to his accumula-
tions. He adds:
And to this. as pat as it were direct
reply, tx" rejoins;
"A great deal of utter nonsense has
been talked about the necessity of
allowing predatory persons of a bur-
glariouS disposition to take from So
ciety whatever sums they can by hook
nj hNy fer a
said their astounding abilities would
not be put to use. 1t is a strange and
indeed a degrading deluSion to suppose
that, judged by any moral standard,
either the desire or the capacity to
amass a large fortune can be anything
but a public calamity.
"The truth is that no genuine service
in any department of human effort has
ever been conferred upon mankind
tho ESch Ro0;~