The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1919-05-01
FARMING AND SOCIALISM

| further showed that the owners OF
these farms numbered little short OF
four millions of persons. Some fami-
| lies worked two or more farms, the
remainder being workers on shares,
renters for cash and farms with sal
aried managers.
The average size of the American
farm in 1873 acres showing wide dis
tribution of farm property among the
people. More than five-eights of the
owners of these farms live upon them
and work them. They have been Gre
ated from the wilderness by them and
their predecessors by unremitting toll.
In the mind Of the socialist they are
Capital and accursed. Socialism
boldly proposes that these farms are
to be stripped from their owners,
nationalized, made the property of
the nation, no individual being per-
mitted to own any property. They are
only to De used by agriculturalists un-
der the direction of government Off
GERS; the actual workers to receive
only a livelihood for themselves and
family, who also must work.
The socialist doctrine is that man
has no individual rights of property,
and that doctrine can never prevail in
this country without first overthrow
ing both the government and the
whole order of society. For both
these are founded on the antagonistic
principles, that all men are by nature
endowed with certain individual rights
which are inalienable, rights which
they cannot abandon or transfer even
of their own will and cannot be de-
prived of by others. The national bill
of rights declares that among these
are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness. The courts have invariably
construed the latter clause as includy
ing the right to acquire, enjoy and
protect property"
Every state constitution sets forth
this principle in definite terms. Colo
RADIO, Nevada, Massachusetts, Pennsyl-
vania, New Hampshire, Vermont, Ohio
and r.Nny Others that of acquiring,
possessing, and protecting property"
Missouri, the right Of "life, liberty and
the enjoyment of the gains of their
own industry" Maryland and North
Carolina, life, liberty and the enjoy
ment of the fruits of their own labor"
Virginia, enjoyment of life and lib
erty, with the means of acquiring and
possessing property"
Every state constitution, without
exception, contains in some form two
declarations supporting and confirm
ing those rights, first, that private
property shall never be taken for pub
lie use without just compensation;
second, What no person shall be de-
prived of life, liberty or property, with
out due process of law. Each and all
further declare that governments are
instituted for the express purpose of
securing those rights.
Socialism is Numerically opposed
in its principles to those upon which
our present state of society and our
government are founded, for it holds
that there exists no natural right in
the individual to possess property,
that such rights are collective or So
cial; that property should belong to
the entire community, to everybody,
and consequently to nobody. The orig
inal program of Marx, Laselle, En-
gels and the early apostles of social
ism was that all land should be con-
liscated by the state, taken from priv
ate ownership and possession and be
cultivated by workers as hired labor
ers of the state. Farms were capital
and capitalism is anathema. More
than all other workers, the farmer de-
sires to own the thing upon which he
labors. Talk with any renter of such
property and you will find MS hearts
desire is to own a farm.
Socialists have made and are max
ing every effort to gain recruits among
farmers and have been ready to COM
promise everything on the question of
destroying capital in farms. Even
Morris Hillquit, who is perhaps the
most conservative of the American
socialists, indicates that the socialist
state is to be only the existing state
radically amended by rela-
tive equalization in the enjoyment of
wealth and opportunities" Other
American socialist writer's have even
declared a willingness to permit the
small farmer with lands OF reason
able dimensions actually cultivated or
used by him." without hired labor, to
remain under his individual control.
But all socialists cling to the doctrine
that the individual title to all land
must be extinguished and vested in
the state.
This would mean that the state
could turn out the small farmer at any
time and while 1t allowed him to re-
main in possession, tax the land at its
full rental value. Some have conceded
that measure Of compensation might
be paid. Hillquit suggesting that 3 per