chools,
baths, hospitals, parks, museums, public lighting service, water,
streets and street cleaning service, the city government is taking
away your personal liberties? I ask these questions, Jonathan, for the
reason that all these things contain the elements of Socialism.

When you go into a government post-office and pay two cents for the
service of having a letter carried right across the country, knowing
that every person must pay the same as you and can enjoy the same
right as you, do you feel that you are less free than when you go into
an express company's office and pay the price they demand for taking
your package? Does it really help you to enjoy yourself, to feel
yourself more free, to know that in the case of the express company's
service only part of your money will be used to pay the cost of
carrying the package; that the larger part will go to bribe
legislators, to corrupt public officials and to build up huge fortunes
for a few investors? The post-office is not a perfect example of
Socialism: there are too many private grafters battening upon the
postal system, the railway companies plunder it and the great mass of
the clerks and carriers are underpaid. But so far as the principles of
social organization and equal charges for everybody go they are
socialistic. The government does not try to compel you to write
letters any more than the private company tries to compel you to send
packages. If you said that, rather than use the postal system, you
would carry your own letter across the continent, even if you decided
to walk all the way, the government would not try to stop you, any
more than the express company would try to stop you from carrying your
trunk on your shoulder across the country. But in the case of the
express company you must pay tribute to men who have been shrewd
enough to exploit a social necessity for their private gain.

Do you really imagine, Jonathan, that in those cities where the street
railways, for example, are in the hands of the people there is a loss
of personal liberty as a result; that because the people who use the
street railways do not have to pay tribute to a corporation they are
less free than they would otherwise be? So far as these things are
owned by the people and democratically managed in the interests of
all, they are socialistic and an appeal to such concrete facts as
these is far better than any amount of abstract reasoning. You are not
a closet philosopher, i