OH, SHOOT! 



"Why should I pay my good money? 

 You took this land, without due process of 

 law, from its original owners, who held it 

 under sacred government guaranty. What is 

 to prevent you from some day taking it away 

 from me?" 



In view of this absurd attitude of mind, ar- 

 guments, further guaranties, availed nothing; 

 so it was decided that the state should work 

 the lands, for revenues had to be raised 

 somehow. 



Here comes the lesson in socialism a 

 lesson that our own restless element would do 

 well to ponder over, for it applies to one coun- 

 try, one people, as well as to another. When 

 Mexico tried to work her own lands, she failed, 

 as she was bound to do. Either she could not 

 get the labor or such labor as she did get was 

 lazy, inefficient, or dishonest. Anyhow, the 

 scheme blew up and left the government more 

 than ever perplexed as to means of meeting 

 the "overhead." That need remained; it 

 grew steadily. 



There was but one other course to follow, 

 viz., increase taxes. That Mexico did. She 

 boosted them with a vengeance. But the 

 idealist has a hard row to hoe; the obvious 



262 



