SHALL THIS COMMUNITY BE ESTABLISHED?

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mental, and social wants and desires in abundance, it seems to me, could possibly be made.

Has the period arrived in the evolution of society toward a higher and nobler standard, when the love of their kind has so imbued the souls of even a small Spartan band that they will furnish the means requisite to test the result of such a community as the writer has depicted? If so, then our embryo community will soon be established. If otherwise, then it must wait until such a period shall arrive.

CHAPTER XVI.

DANGER.

ALTHOUGH in the preceding chapter the writer has made a somewhat vigorous protest against the righting of wrongs by Force, yet he is not unaware of the fact that thus far in the course of human events great oppression has usually culminated in violent revolution. Another fact to which I would call the reader's attention here is that-leaving aside religious dissensions-it is the property question that causes the greater portion of all intestine conflicts. It is said it was slavery that caused our late rebellion; but what is slavery save property in man? And so, if seemingly otherwise, we shall find by probing to the root that, as a rule, it is the property question that is the cause of most domestic conflicts-as it has already been pointed out that it is of international wars. Trace the history of nations if you would become better convinced of this fact. The incessant conflicts between the rich and poor in Greece so demoralized her people and sapped her resources that she fell an easy prey to victorious Rome. These domestic feuds were the hardest matters which her rulers found to contend against, and her philosophers and statesmen were continually striving to devise some plan by which these conflicts might be avoided.

THE GREAT CAUSE OF CONTENTION.

495

The immortal Plato saw, no doubt, what was ever likely to be the fate of a people striving to exist under a system of individual property, hence the "Republic."

Rome furnishes another illustration of this same character. Almost constantly were these internal conflicts being waged under the Roman republic, and according to Gibbon the Roman empire fell from them at last. Here is what he says on the subject: "The most potent and forcible cause of the destruction of Rome was the domestic hostilities of the Romans themselves. At the beginning of the tenth century began a dark period of five hundred years, in which Rome was perpetually afflicted by sanguinary quarrels of the nobles and the people, the Guelphs and the Ghibelines, the Colonna and the Ursini."

So fell Rome! and her fate, I contend, must ultimately be the fate of every people that persists in maintaining the system of private property. Coming nearer our own times, we find both Europe and America-the whole world, in fact-convulsed every now and then with domestic conflicts born of this very same cause. These conflicts will continue, and grow more and more bitter and sanguinary, so long as the existing property system is retained.

Why this," would you ask? Because there is that in human nature which revolts against oppression, and the system of private property gives rein to the most despotic oppression. We are often told that there is no excuse for these domestic conflicts relative to property matters in our country, and this I shall believe when I can be convinced that there is no

496

PREMONITIONS OF REVOLT.

oppression growing out of our existing property system, and not before.

I do not forget what I have said in a former chapter, and hold firmly to my statement that there is always a better way for righting wrongs than through violence; but I do not admit that the oppressed of this or any other country have no excuse for rising up against their oppressors.

It matters little, however, what may be the individual opinions of men as to the best methods of righting wrongs; the tide of progress must and will continue to roll on, be it through peaceful or violent means, until the oppression of man by his fellow shall no longer be known upon the earth. The concessions must come, too, on the part of the oppressors, if the better course is to be taken for the righting of those wrongs which spring from our property system.

It is true that we have not such flagrant oppression as had been borne for some considerable time. in France directly preceding her revolution of 1789, but it should be understood that Americans have been so educated that no such putting on of the screws as was there long endured would be suffered here for a moment before there would be open revolt. And now, while I would not attempt to define--as did Cazotte in reference to the French Revolution, with a prescience which now seems almost miraculous-who are to be the prominent victims, and by what means they shall fall, my belief is that, unless some radical measures are taken through which property shall cease from passing into the hands of a few with the rapidity of the last quarter of a century, before such another period shall roll around our country will be

SOMETHING TO BE DONE.

497

convulsed with internal struggles and violent conflicts. My countrymen, we are sleeping upon a volcano, and these half-stifled murmurings continually reverberating are the prelude of what is to come, except we take measures efficient for its prevention.

Shall we go on, then, as we are going, and bequeath to our children the conditions which shall involve them in unutterable woes, or shall we take measures to prevent these foreseen troubles? If the latter, it is high time for us to act, and it behooves us to act quickly. Something, at least, must be done to provide the opportunity to labor for those who have no other means of support; and, moreover, some better way than we now have must be provided for securing to the laborer the just reward of his toil. But these, after all, are but mere makeshifts for prolonging the life of a property system that ought to die and be forgotten.

Association in Equality is the only method by which mankind can dwell peacefully and harmoniously together on the earth.

Reader, my task is finished. I have done my best to impress you with the fact that intelligent Communism, or a well-devised system of collective property, is not that infamous property system which it is usually taught us would plunge mankind into confusion, anarchy, and bloodshed, sap their energies, subvert all progress, and destroy civilization itself. I have done my best to show up the individual property system in its true light; to give a fresh insight into the innumerable and abominable wrongs which are its legitimate progeny.

Yet I am quite sensible of having fallen short of my