We did not steal the gold which glistened in its dark caverns!
We did not rob the capitalist of the labor which he owned!
The labor of men and women was not his vested right, like his mine. He had preached the merits of competition and we had simply competed for and won the labor force that dug his mine.
Now the mine was worthless because the men who made it would no longer work it. What did the Co-opolitan Association do which was immoral? Having taken its labor force and set it at work for itself, this mine had no value except if the labor force could be restored to it.
Capital could not do it. The Co-opolitan Association could. We purchased it for what it was worth without the labor force, which nobody owned. We could never have done this if capital had been able to work that same force and steal its products. Yet the newspaper press of that day denounced us as immoral and was effusive in its praise of the competitive system.
The Great Council at this session provided for a Supreme Judicial Court and as many County Courts as there were counties. The purpose of this system was to secure the proper administration of justice.
The Supreme Court was not authorized to decide any question of the constitutionality of a law enacted by the Great Council adversely, but if in their opinion such law was unconstitutional they were required to certify the same, with their reasons, to the Great Council for review. The jury system was preserved, with the exception that in civil cases a majority of the jury decided. Many radical changes were effected by this Great Council, but those mentioned were the most sweeping.
The Great Council of 1904, perhaps because it was unhandicapped by precedents, was the most memorable, for the swiftness and merit of its legislative work, of any session which has occurred since. Its successors had been, in a very marked degree, required by public sentiment to conform to its standards.
Humanity, as all history proves, when once it accepts a system, whether good or bad, is loath to abandon it, and permits it to be changed only when the necessity for change is made apparent by experiences often of the most distressing nature. For this reason revolution has rarely ever produced lasting results except in the mere form, and not in the substance and spirit of things. If it be contended that society has undergone great changes in those respects let it be remembered that evolution, not revolution, did it.