316 STATE HORTICULTURAL, SOCIETY. 



otherwise, thus leaving the possessor to dippose of his accumulationg as he chooses, 

 but limiting the anaount of gift to any one person. From this he expects gifts to 

 the State, and for educational or charitable purposes. He also mentions the cutting 

 off collaterals, in cases of distribution of property by law. These suggestions, if 

 carried into effect properly, would largely increase the number of owners of pro- 

 perty. Home, being the. outgrowth of family relations and individual property 

 rights, undertakes to cement both. It can have no place in the communistic or 

 social reform scheme spoken of. 



There would seem to be with us no need for an agitation even. But even in 

 spite of this, it has come in terrible earnest, with the torch of the incendiary in its 

 hand and the assassin in its train. The dangerous mania for ill-digested reforms 

 Schiller, in his lay of "Bell," has well delineated. He depicts the consequences 

 of a departure from the course prescribed by law. After alluding to the various 

 uses for which the bell is intended, he proceeds to describe it as the given signal 

 for revolution, and speaks of the consequences in these words : 



Now all that's sacred, men efface. 



And break all bounds of pious fear; 

 Before the vice the virtne flies. 



And universal crime is law. 



Man fears the lion's kingly tread, 



Man fears the tiger's fangs of terror; 

 But man himself is most to dread 



When mad with social error. 



This is by no means a fancy picture, as the French communists and their im- 

 itators among us have shown. 



In a country with such vast undeveloped resources as our own, there can at 

 most be a want of provision for bringing the laborer in contact with abundant and 

 inviting fields of labor. This in due time will undoubtedly be attended to. Condi- 

 tions such as we are suffering from at present, we cannot hope to escape in the 

 future. The more prosperous a people, the oftener they occur, for it is prosperity 

 which leadd from the sober, frugal ways of industry to speculation, extravagance 

 and idleness, the causes of our affliction. The remedy is neither in communism nor 

 socialism, but in the proper carrying out the institutions under which we live. The 

 underlying principle is not to look to the government as the leading agency of our 

 well-being, but to the individual. It is here that modern agitators do the greatest 

 harm by diverting attention from the cause of suffering, and the remedies, in rais- 

 ing expectations which can never be realized, but tend to destroy the energies of 

 the people. Notwithstanding these misdirected and vicious efforts, it is safe to 

 assume that homes will be established and maintained in our country during our 

 day and generation, and the making of them abundant will tend to moderate the 

 agitation, and may convert the communist without a home to the opposite theory 

 when he gets one. 



To aid in making homes abundant, the public domain should, by law, be 

 declared as held in trust for that purpose. Prohibitions of all kinds, and the most 

 stringent, should be adopted and enforced against the acquiring of any part of the 

 public domain except for actual use and occupation, save and except perhaps for 

 educational purposes. Grants already made— still within the control of the gov- 

 ernment from any cause — should be made to revert to the public domain in all 

 cases where it can be done without infringing on acquired rights. No extension 

 of time or change of conditions upon which the grants may have been made should 

 be indulged in for the purpose of preventing them to lapse. Exemption laws, 



