INTRODUCTION, 



"!N THE sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, n is 

 the decree of Almighty God. Since the earliest stages 

 of human history, man's effort to shun this decree has led 

 to crime. For this reason usury was forbidden. Had it 

 been intended that u ln the sweat of thy brother's face 

 thou shalt eat bread," it would have been so ordained. 

 Usury and monopoly would have been consistent with 

 divine law, and the best agents to secure that end. But 

 for these crimes God destroyed the nations. 



"Thou hast taken usury and increase and thou hast 

 greedily gained of thy neighbor by extortion, and hast 

 forgotten me, saith the Lord God. Behold, therefore, I 

 have smitten my hand at thy dishonest gain which thou 

 hast made, and at thy blood which has been in the midst 

 of thee." [Bzekiel xxii, 12, 13. 



As far back as we have any history of the human 

 family, there has been a constant struggle between those 

 who tilled mother earth, and those who sought to live and 

 thrive by manipulating the products of the soil. In the 

 early history of the nations of the old world, it was the 

 common belief that a certain portion of the people posses- 

 sed the right to collect taxes and tithes, and impose burdens 

 upon the producing classes. For many centuries it was 

 believed that kings ruled by divine right, and that their 

 descendants were entitled to places of distinction and 

 privileges, on account of their birth, to which the common 



