lay before you?

_First:_ The act of transfer, whether it take the form of confiscation
or otherwise, must be the will of a legal majority of the people. If the
unit is the city, a legal majority of the citizens there; if the unit is
the state, then a legal majority of the citizens of the state; if the
unit is the nation, then a legal majority in the nation. I use the term
"legal majority" to indicate my profound conviction that the process
itself must be a legal, constitutional process. Of course, in the event
of some great upheaval occurring, such as, for example, the rising of a
suffering and desperate people in consequence of some terrific panic or
period of depression, brought on by capitalist misrule, or by war, this
might be swept away. Throughout the world's history such upheavals have
occurred, when the people's wrath, or their desperation, has assumed the
form of a cyclone, and in such times laws have been of no more
resistance than straws in the pathway of the cyclone sweeping across the
plain. Omitting such dire happenings from our calculations--for so we
must wish to do--we may lay down this principle of the imperative
necessity for a legal majority, acting in legal manner.

_Second:_ The process must be gradual. There will be no _coup de force_.
No effort will be made to socialize those industries which have not been
made ready by a degree of monopolization. This we can say with
confidence, if for no other reason than that we cannot conceive a legal
majority being stirred sufficiently to take action in the absence of
some degree of oppression or danger, such as monopoly alone contains.
Further, as a matter of hard, practical sense, it is not conceivable
that any government will ever be able to deal with all the industries
at one time. The railroads may be first to be taken, or it may be the
mines in one state and the oil wells in another. The important point is
to see that the process of socialization _must_ be piecemeal and
gradual. This does not mean that it must be a _slow_ process, suggesting
the slowness of geologic formations, but that it must be gradual,
progressive, advancing from step to step, and giving opportunities for
adjusting things. Otherwise there would be chaos and anarchy.

_Third:_ The manner of the acquisition must be determined by the people
at the time, and not fixed by us in advance, according to some abstract
principle. If the people decide to take any particular individual or
co