crisis, or an abundant crop, and a small foreign demand has lowered the price of wheat or cotton! If we are to enter upon that path, it is well to know whither it leads. One such step in Socialism leads to another, and the outcome is the subversion of existing society. * * * Shall we accept dishonor, or shall we disappear down the unknown path of Socialism? One or the other must we choose, if the public is pleased to occupy itself in the future with the price question. * * * And so soon as the forces operating on price are understood to be complex and of a nature not to be interfered with by legislation, we shall be freed from a dangerous agitation. * * * sooner or later, the United States must face the inevitable political issue between the socialistic and non-socialistic conceptions of Government. * * * It was not merely the free coinage of silver, or the attacks upon the Supreme Court, which created an epoch-making year in American politics, but it was the first open appearance of a Socialistic theory of Government, which happened to emerge in the guise of the price question. * * * Whatever the special issue, we shall have to cope with Socialistic forces in one form or another."
On the same subject, Henry George, whom no one will accuse of ultra-conservatism, says, in his "Progress and Poverty:"[1] "These are the substitution of governmental direction for the play of individual action, and the attempt to secure by restriction what can better be secured by freedom. As to the truths that are involved in socialistic ideas, I shall have something to say hereafter; but it is evident that whatever savors of regulation and restriction is in itself bad."
- ↑ Henry George's "Progress and Poverty" (page 317).
