268 LAND AND LABOR. 



must be taken by society for the protection of the 

 foundation upon which it rests. This means law, 

 pure law and nothing more nor less. Anything else 

 would be anarchy, dire confusion, of which we have 

 already too much. Without the strong controlling 

 force that can be found only in law, the spirit of com- 

 petition and desire for monopoly which has so long 

 ruled only to ruin, can not be controlled. Therefore 

 we must resort to law, or allow things to drift on in 

 the current now sweeping to destruction. 



The effect of the enactment of this law will be mul- 

 tifarious and wide reaching. There is hardly a condi- 

 tion in life that would not, by it, be modified or revo- 

 lutionized. The first effect would be to take the idle 

 out of idleness and put them into remunerative em- 

 ployment. The destruction of the competition that 

 now exists would directly operate to the increase of 

 wages, an increased demand for production, to meet 

 the increased consumption, and the general prosper- 

 ity that would be developed in every direction. But 

 these points have been sufficiently discussed in other 

 chapters. 



The next most important effect would be, that 

 through it the great land monopolies and machine 

 cultivation of bonanza farms, without population or 

 family occupations, would be destroyed, for want of a 

 large body of idle or half employed labor to draw upon. 



When it is said that it was the great landed aris- 

 tocracy that destroyed Rome, but half the story is 

 told. Pliny's words, " latifuudia perdidere Italiam," 

 tell but half the truth. Without conditions existing 

 that enabled the great Roman landlords to control the 



