OPENING UP THE LAND 239 



What society really wants is more wealth and a 

 more equitably distributed wealth. We want more 

 food, more houses, more clothes, more fuel, more of 

 the comforts and necessities of life. And the aim of 

 society should be to increase the production of these 

 things and then see that those who produce them re- 

 ceive the full result of their labor. These should be 

 the first and most important aims of government. 

 Possibly if these two functions were properly per- 

 formed there would be but little need for jails, for 

 prisons, for institutions of all kinds. Possibly the 

 improvement in the condition of the people would 

 be so marked that the evil conditions under which 

 so large a portion of the people live would pass 

 away and a new kind of society would come mto 

 existence born of the absence of poverty, of igno- 

 rance, of fear. 



And the opening up of the resources of America 

 to use would increase the wealth produced as would 

 no other change in our economic life. For if the 

 land and the mineral resources, the timber-land, and 

 the sites for homes in the cities and suburbs were 

 freed from the dead hand of idle ownership there 

 would be a marvellous increase in the wealth pro- 

 duced and an even more mai'vellous change in its 

 distribution. What we most need is a new freedom 

 in agriculture, in industry, in labor. And that will 

 come when means are applied for the ending of the 

 monopoly which now prevails. 



