ntinue to grow until it usurps the entire
legislative and executive branches of our government, and, like a huge
vampire, slowly draws the life-blood from every healthy, helpful
creature. This power of wealth is the greatest danger that has
threatened our country since the civil war, and against it we must
constantly be on our guard. If the power is permitted to grow it may
become too late, and can then be remedied only by putting class against
class--by revolution, which always means the rejoicing of the poor at
the downfall of their oppressors.

This, then, is to be the battle of the future--concentrated wealth on
one hand, concentrated poverty on the other. The battle should not be
one of force, but one of reason and agitation until wealth shall be
bound by proper constitutional limitations; a battle in which law shall
triumph; for the true remedy, the remedy most conducive to equality,
lies in legislation. But this legislation should be immediate. If we
desire to prevent actual war between class and class, it is imperative
that a legal check at once be placed upon the growing power for evil of
aggregated wealth.

The limitation of wealth by law has received the approval of some of the
most gifted as well as philanthropic of minds. In our own country such
men as Horace Greeley, Theodore Parker, and William Ellery Channing have
advocated it. Still, a ready objection of some against the limitation of
wealth is that any attempt to remedy by legislation the inequality of
fortune at once infringes upon the right of personal liberty. Have we no
laws in existence now which infringe upon the right of personal liberty?
Do not our usury laws take some rights from the individual? Does not our
custom-house law, which permits the trunks of every new arrival to be
searched, infringe somewhat upon the right of personal liberty? The
citizen who would object to these laws would have but a very narrow
conception of the true purpose of government. If we examine our laws
closely we shall find many that encroach upon individual liberty for the
sake of public good. Then why should any objection be made to those laws
which tend to limit wealth?

Undoubtedly a tax levied upon all incomes, which would be progressively
raised and graduated according to the amount of the individual or
corporate wealth could be constitutionally enacted. And if a progressive
income tax can be enacted, the graduated inheritance tax can also be
enacted, for the