SOCIALISM AND THE FARMING INTEREST 



against this. Marx would have us believe 

 that economic welfare inevitably begets 

 intellectual and moral sanity. I could 

 never see any proof of this. It is another 

 of those bland and thoughtless assumptions 

 with which socialist discussion reeks. In- 

 numerable cases of physical plenty could be 

 cited, taken from all the historic centuries 

 and from the most diverse conditions of 

 race, climate and society, which are not fol- 

 lowed by mental or moral uplift. I instance 

 the good-for-naught Anglo-Saxon men in 

 the most prosperous parts of this country 

 without large families, rarely sick, able to 

 command good wages if willing to work, 

 yet forever in rags, without a cent's worth 

 of property or credit; e. g., Joe Beal, in Sam 

 Walter Foss's poem, "He'd Had No Show." 



"Joe Beal 'ud set upon a keg 



Down to the groc'ry store, an' throw 

 One leg right over t'other leg 



An' swear he'd never had no show. 

 'Oh, no,' said Joe, 

 'Hain't hed no show.' 

 Then shift his quid to t'other jaw. 

 An' chaw, an' chaw, an' chaw, an' chaw. 



297 



