The same tendency is observable in the new States, where the large scale of cultivation recalls the latifundia that ruined ancient Italy. In California a very large proportion of the farming land is rented from year to year, at rates varying from a fourth to even half the crop.
The harder times, the lower wages, the increasing poverty perceptible in the United States are but results of the natural laws we have traced—laws as universal and as irresistible as that of gravitation. We did not establish the republic when, in the face of principalities and powers, we flung the declaration of the inalienable rights of man; we shall never establish the republic until we practically carry out that declaration by securing to the poorest child born among us an equal right to his native soil! We did not abolish slavery when we ratified the Fourteenth Amendment; to abolish slavery we must abolish private property in land! Unless we come back to first principles, unless we recognize natural perceptions of equity, unless we acknowledge the equal right of all to land, our free institutions will be in vain; our common schools will be in vain; our discoveries and inventions will but add to the force that presses the masses down!
[BOOK VIII.]
APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY.
CHAPTER I.—PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND INCONSISTENT WITH THE BEST USE OF LAND.
CHAPTER II.—HOW EQUAL RIGHTS TO THE LAND MAY BE ASSERTED AND SECURED.
CHAPTER III.—THE PROPOSITION TRIED BY THE CANONS OF TAXATION.
CHAPTER IV.—INDORSEMENTS AND OBJECTIONS.
Why hesitate? Ye are full-bearded men,