humanity. In the United States the names of these men are
practically unknown. Their books are either out of print, as is the case
with the fundamental works of Morgan, or they are not translated into
English. Only a few of them are accessible to a few individuals on the
dusty shelves of some public libraries. Their message is dangerous to
the existing order, and it will not do to give it publicity at a time
when further intellectual progress of large bodies of men means the doom
of the ruling class. The capitalist system has progressed so far, that
all farther progress must bring danger to it and to those who are
supreme through it.

But the forces, which have brought about the present social order,
continue their work regardless of the wishes of a few exploiters. A
comprehensive work summarizing our present knowledge of the development
of social institutions is, therefore, a timely contribution to socialist
propaganda. In order to meet the requirements of socialists, such a
summary must be written by a socialist. All the scientists who devoted
themselves to the study of primeval society belonged to the privileged
classes, and even the most radical of them, Lewis Morgan, was prevented
by his environment from pointing out the one fact, the recognition of
which distinguishes the socialist position from all others--THE
EXISTENCE OF A CLASS STRUGGLE.

The strongest allusion to this fact is found in the following passage of
"Ancient Society": "Property and office were the foundations upon which
aristocracy planted itself. Whether this principle shall live or die has
been one of the great problems with which modern society has been
engaged.... As a question between equal rights and unequal rights,
between equal laws and unequal laws, between the rights of wealth, of
rank and of official position, and the power of justice and
intelligence, there can be little doubt of the ultimate result" (page
551).

Yet Morgan held that "several thousand years have passed away without
the overthrow of the privileged classes, excepting in the United
States." But in the days of the trusts, of government by injunction, of
sets of 400 with all the arrogance and exclusiveness of European
nobility, of aristocratic branches of the Daughters of the Revolution,
and other gifts of capitalist development, the modern American
workingman will hardly share Morgan's optimistic view that there are no
privileged classes in the United States. It must be a