“The change in the mode of production would not have been sudden”, Mr. Forest explained, “but would have been brought about gradually, thus giving the business people, perhaps thirty years time to let their children join guilds instead of becoming storekeepers and traders. And there is no reason why enterprising merchants who had a fine taste in selecting goods, should not have retained a large number of customers. It is not cheapness alone that attracts buyers, and in the country, where there were no factories, etc., close at hand, stores would have to be kept”.
“You said you would have passed laws preventing farmers owning more than forty acres of land”, I said, “Would you have also limited the amount of city property to be owned by any one man?”
“The possession of one house ought to have satisfied every fair-minded man”, Mr. Forest continued. “Nobody can deny that the accumulation of fortunes amounting to many millions in the hands of a few people, while hundreds of thousands could earn hardly more than a living, was a state of affairs which made this damnable communism possible”.
“But how would you have been able to prevent this?” I queried with some curiosity.
“By making the taxation of inherited property the principal assessment for the maintenance of the national, state and local governments as well as of the schools. I would have proposed a tax of one percent on all property inherited by a single person, amounting upward to $10,000. An inheritance amounting to $20,000 I would have taxed two percent, $30,000 three percent, $100,000 ten percent, $200,000 twenty percent, $500,000 fifty percent. If anybody left a fortune yielding a larger sum than $250,000 to each heir, the surplus should have been considered as an income to humanity, the national, state and local governments sharing therein in a just proportion”.
“Would not such a law have acted as a check upon the ambition and the enterprise of the people?” I asked.
“If it had prevented people amassing immense fortunes it would have served a good purpose. It would not have lessened but protected competition”, Mr. Forest answered. “Men possessing twenty or fifty millions of dollars and using them without regard for the rights of other people, were very dangerous. They were in a position to annihilate their competitors, and they frequently used their power unmercifully. Thus by increasing their millions and by killing competition they were paving the way for communism. And was it not unfair that a man who had amassed by all manner of means such an enormous fortune could leave it to a son who would continue the work of killing competitors with smaller means? What could the most able man accomplish in an avocation, if he had against him a man who possessed, perhaps, very little ability, but who was unscrupulously using his millions to attain his ends? Parents might leave their children enough to place their dear ones beyond the reach of want but they should not enable them to prevent the children of poorer parents having a fair show to get ahead in life”.
“You would have met with considerable resistance to such a proposition in my days”, I remarked.
“I fancy the millionaires would have objected”, Mr. Forest assented. “Still, I think that such a law would have served the best interest of both the children of rich parents and humanity in general. Nothing but a law of this kind could have stemmed the tide of communism and anarchy. A child inheriting $250,000 ought to be satisfied with his lot and ought to let the surplus go to the defraying of the expenses of the government. By sacrificing a part of their enormous fortunes, the heirs would have saved the rest, and would have weakened the communistic tendency of your days. And it appears more than doubtful to me whether the possession of such enormous properties made these wealthy people good, or even happy and contented”.
“If such a law had been passed in 1887 most of the millionaires would have converted their property into cash and emigrated to Europe”, I objected.