do not make the community poorer, but give increased zest to life by interfering with the few plundering the many. If it were practicable to restore the unlawful pickings of industrial combinations to those whose pockets have been filched, there would be no destruction of property, but merely a return of value to those to whom it rightfully belongs. The control which the community is asserting over children, in so far as it makes the child stronger mentally and physically, increases the value of the property right which the child at maturity has in himself. The greater freedom accorded women, married or single, including the recognition of their individuality in the ownership of property, has merely lodged a control in them which was formerly exercised by their husbands or fathers.
Furthermore, an increase of collective property may enlarge rather than contract the sphere of private property by giving the individual more playroom in life. This is the normal consequence of public expenditures for education. The municipalization of public works, such as water, lighting and surface transportation, has contributed to the prosperity of private industry in many European cities. If the state were completely freed from the control of special interests, if all forms of exploitation were abolished, including the various kinds of corporate rascality, it may well be that private property in numberless directions would be given a new lease of life. The lack of sympathy between capital and labor is an ominous fact. But every successful attempt to bridge the chasm, every reform that makes the working class feel that it has something more than a stipulated wage at stake in industry or that makes the relation between wages and efficiency more obvious, will make for the continuance of the existing order. It is no longer prudent for the state to take a negative attitude toward the social problem. Positive action is imperative or it will fall into the hands of the more venturesome portion of society. The Liberal party in Great Britain has pointed the way. By keeping abreast of the times it has helped to prevent a radical brand of socialism from sweeping the country. As Lowell puts it:
It is only when the reasonable and practicable are denied that men demand the unreasonable and the impracticable; only when the possible is made difficult that they fancy the impossible easy.[1]
V
It is possible that our institutions may be wrecked by innovation, but our danger lies rather in not responding rapidly enough to the reasonable demands of the times. Our different states are so many political experiment stations for the trying out of new ideas, and a dan-
- ↑ Op. cit., pp. 16-17.
