York for want of room. The proposition is
under discussion in Massachusetts, and if we do our duty Massachusetts
may set the example of the greatest social revolution ever
accomplished by law. If Boston received the benefit of such a tax on
its own population, it might be adjusted to raise from one million to
more than ten millions a year; at any rate a succession tax might
produce more than all other taxes produce at present, and it would
bring about such radical changes that it would be expedient to make
the change gradual, and gradual it must be, for it will meet
determined opposition, and we must enforce our principle by every
argument of justice and expediency, for it is both just and expedient.
_What right have the millionnaires to say how the world shall be
managed after they have left it?_ What right to say that when they
have established a dangerous inequality, posterity shall be compelled
to make it perpetual. The robber barons established inequality by the
sword, and by the same power made it perpetual. The posterity of kings
and barons, however worthless, corrupt, criminal, or imbecile,
continue to occupy the saddle upon the public donkey. But inherited
royalty is going, and inherited aristocracy must also go. We who
survive are the responsible parties, and (as the Romans charged their
rulers in times of danger) we must see that the republic does not
suffer, and that aristocracy shall not be its permanent master.

What right has the millionnaire to direct from the grave, that the
wealth which he has left shall be used in the manner most dangerous
and most injurious to society. He has no such right. He has no right
in the matter, but what we in our justice or in our good-nature may
give him. If these views are just, they must in time rule the world,
but they are not yet asserted by those to whom the world looks for
counsel.[3]

[3] A year after this was written, the following
advanced sentiment was uttered by Rabbi Schindler:
"Have the dead the right of imposing laws upon the
living, of making contracts of which future generations
ought to bear the burden?"

The sacred right of the living citizen in that which his industry has
created, has no application here. It is a totally different case. It
is the question what right has he to rule the world after he has
enjoyed his full share and more, and gone away. We do not ask whether
he got his wealth by fraud, or r