rushing control through the monopoly of wealth. Property
has become the medium through which the most binding of human relations
are organized. Accumulated wealth has become a great reservoir of power
to which some individuals gain access through rights of birth, others
through carefully guarded privileges, and still others through cunning
devices or through force; but the masses of the people must gain their
fragments of this wealth through arduous lifelong labor. Even the earth,
the original source of all wealth, is parceled out, and all of it is now
owned by individuals or groups who control it in their own interests.
One man may thus have thousands of acres which he cannot use, and which
he will not allow others to use, while another has not where to lay his
head. Laws jealously guard this wealth, which is the key to all
opportunity; and public opinion, that most subtle, pervasive and
compelling of all forms of law, gathers a thousand sacred initiations,
rites, ceremonies, prohibitions and ex-communications around it. A man
who has killed his neighbor, or ruined his friend's family, may be less
punished by society than one who cheats at cards.

In primitive life a man may be a man by virtue of what he is; to-day he
may have all the rights and privileges of any man by virtue of what he
possesses. In any community can be found strong men, honest, though
misplaced or unfortunate, begging bread, wasting their lives for want of
money to live decently. And beside these one sees other men of weak
physique and feeble minds, who have lived as parasites on society all
their lives, but who are handsomely dressed, well fed, and possessed of
power to do as they will, simply because they have access to wealth. It
is no wonder that if one would seek freedom to-day in America he must
look for her image on a gold coin.

It is not difficult to see why property has become such a powerful
instrument in civilization. Anything which a person really owns, in a
psychological sense, is a home for his soul. Really owning an object, a
toy, a garment, a watch or a home, means infusing one's personality into
it. A man who possesses significant things has a new body through which
his soul can work; this body trains his powers; and it should give him
life more abundantly. A landless man must become a soulless man. Of
course, we are not here speaking of legal ownership. Many people own
legally things into which they have never infused themselves;