PERILS. — SOCIALISM. 159 



are also the natural places of refuge for all in our own 

 country * who are soured by misfortune, misanthropic, 

 seekers of radical reforms, renegades, moral pariahs. 

 They are hence, in the nature of things, a sort of hot- 

 bed where every form of pestilent error is sure to be 

 found and to come to quick fruitage. You can hardly 

 find a group of ranchmen or miners from Colorado to 

 the Pacific who will not have on their tongue's end the 

 labor slang of Denis Kearney, the infidel ribaldry of 

 Robert Ingersoll, the socialistic theories of Karl Marx." ^ 



Heretofore socialism has made few proselytes among 

 farmers. Less than one-half of all the land w^est of the 

 Mississippi is arable. The agricultural element, there- 

 fore, will be a much smaller proportion of the whole 

 population in the West than in the East. The industries 

 of several of the great mountain states will be almost 

 wholly mining and manufacturing; nearly the whole 

 population, therefore, w^ll be wage-workers — the class 

 most easily discipled by socialistic agitators. The capi- 

 talist is a large figure in the West. He owns the mines, 

 he owns vast reaches of grazing land, and the great 

 herds of cattle. ^ He has also invested in many thou- 

 sands of acres of farming lands. Railroads of immense 

 length have been richly subsidized with lands which will 

 steadily appreciate in value. These corporations bid 

 fair to become much richer and more powerful than like 

 monopolies in the East. The longest eastern roads 

 would hardly be considered more than first-rate side- 

 tracks out West ; and some day the wealth and power 

 of the western roads w^ill be in proportion to their 

 length. 



There was no immense disparity of fortune among the 



^ Rev. E. P. Goodwin, D. D., Home Missionary Sermon, p. 16. 



2 At a raeetins: of cattle " kings " in St. Louis, there were many associations 

 represented which own half a million head of stock or more. The Northern 

 New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association own 800,000 cattle, besides a large 

 number of horses, which graze over 15.000,000 acres of laud. The Texas Live 

 Stock Association own 1.000.000 cattle. 1.000.000 sheep and 350,000 horses. A 

 moderate estimate of their value would be $45,000,000. 



