a many of the apparently
moderate Revolutionists would throw off their masks and unhesitatingly
declare for the most radical plan of government ownership.

Yet even if the contemplated state should permit the private ownership
of small farms, their owners would be displeased because they would no
longer be allowed to hire laborers for working the fields. Some
conservative Socialists, indeed, profess willingness to tolerate the
employment of one or two farm hands. But not alone do the 1908 National
Platform and the amendment adopted by party referendum on September 7,
1909, oppose exploitation, or the employment of hired labor in the
production of goods, but innumerable articles in Socialist papers, books
and reviews denounce exploitation most emphatically. Hence, if the
Socialist state allowed farmers in good standing with the government to
own little farms, they could not hire labor to operate them. If the
farmer should fall sick, his crops would go to ruin. Advantage could not
be taken of some of the great inventions helpful to agriculture, nor
scientific methods of work and management. The individual farmer, thus
handicapped, might feed himself, his wife, his children, his horse, his
cow, his pig, but very little more.

In the Socialist state great discontent would arise from either the
toleration or prohibition of small business enterprises. If permitted,
without power to hire labor, they must compete with the government. If
forbidden, large numbers of persons would be obliged to work for the
government, after losing little stores or shops in which for years they
had been interested.

In its issue of March 30, 1912, the "Appeal to Reason," then the leading
Socialist weekly of the United States, declared that under Socialism
John D. Rockefeller would be allowed to retain his money and decide what
to do with it. Were this the case, and every person of wealth allowed to
retain his money, it is difficult to see how Socialists who hate and
detest the rich could endure such a condition, any more than they could
tolerate the granting of full or partial indemnity to property owners.
The attempt to leave the rich in possession of their wealth would
probably incite Socialists to rise in arms against the state they had
founded.

On the other hand, if wealth were confiscated, the wealthy and the
honest poor alike would be discontented with a dishonest government.
Moreover, where would the Socialists draw the line of lawful