CHAPTER XV 



SOCIALISM AND THE FARMING 

 INTEREST 



IF I have any special qualification for 

 discussing socialism it is that of sym- 

 pathetic opposition. I was once as near 

 being a disciple of Rodbertus as I could 

 come without baptism into the church. I 

 thought I saw in Rodbertian socialism, 

 socialism scientifically wrought out and 

 applied, a remedy for the most glaring of 

 our social evils. In time and upon study, 

 however, the system which had seemed to 

 me so desirable grew to look quite other- 

 wise, the difficulties connected with it as- 

 suming vaster and vaster proportions, until 

 in my thought they towered above and out- 

 numbered those necessarily bound up with 

 the present order. I was thus converted to 

 the opinion that society has greater hope of 

 reform on the general basis of individual- 

 ism than by flying to the unknown though 



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