ists have been accused by the peasant-loving utopians of all sorts of horrible designs against the poor peasants. Of course, Marx and the Marxists have nothing but compassion for the poor peasant. But, besides seeing clearly the hopelessness of their case, they recognize the fact that the peasant, were he to exist, would be the greatest obstacle in the way of socialism. First let us note his ideas as to property. By reason of his occupation and the environment in which he and his forefathers have lived for ages, he has contracted such a love for his land, his house, his cattle, and everything else which he calls his own, that he will find it more difficult to separate from them than a millionaire from his millions. Their worthlessness has nothing to do with the case: their value can hardly be measured in money. This colors all his ideas about property. He and his forefathers before him have lived on this particular spot of land, and all his family history is connected with it. Here are buried the labors and sufferings of generations. All his own woes, and his pleasant memories (if he has any) are intimately associated with this patch of ground. Here he was born and here he hopes to die. Every tree, every building, is the result of his own and his family's great cares and labors. Every animal is his friend and companion in toil and misery. Most of them have been reared by him, even as were his own children. He will not enter the promised land if he has to give up his ruined, worthless, tax-eaten property for it. The "sacredness" of property rights to the peasant, the tenacity with which he holds on to it, is well recognized by those who have studied his character. This "idea" of his as to private property, in view of his stolidity and immobility, due to the immobility of his surroundings and the sameness of the methods and nature of his work, would make him an inveterate enemy of socialism and a stout upholder of capitalism. But, aside from this, he is unfitted for a socialist society, and particularly unfitted to make a fight for it, because of his inability to co-operate with others. A
