



CHAPTER IX 

 THE PROBLEM OF COMMUNAL DEPENDENTS 



WHEN one considers the incalculable hosts of ants 

 that inhabit all parts of the earth, and that every 

 individual thereof has been reared, from egg to imago, 

 by the direct personal care and toil of adult members of 

 ant communes, he may have some conception of the 

 immensity of the labors involved therein. 



It would, perhaps, be pushing metaphors to an un- 

 warranted extreme to speak of "dignity of labor" in 

 connection with the occupations of ants. But if by 

 the phrase we mean that labor is the honorable lot of all 

 citizens, and that all labors of whatever sort are upon 

 the same level of respectability, then we might venture 

 to apply the saying even to the labors of an ant-hill. 

 For therein all are workers from the newly fledged 

 callow to the veteran of a second summer. 



Therein is no taboo upon "hand toil." All forms 

 thereof are equally creditable. We are reminded of the 

 simpler state of society in the pioneer days of the 

 United States and Canada and the British colonies. 

 Indeed, it is the natural social order of human com- 

 munities, until great possessions, earned and inherited, 

 or usurped, or fortuitously acquired through communal 

 increment, create a favored class. Surely this is an ideal 

 republic no idlers, no tramps, no citizen-parasites, no 

 misers, no spendthrifts, no paupers ! 



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