The change in the mode of production would not have been sudden", Mr, Forest explained, "but would have been brought about gradually, thus giving the business people, perhaps thirty years time to let their children join guilds instead of becoming store- keepers and traders. And there is no reason why enterprising merchants who had a fine taste in select- ing goods, should not have retained a large number of customers. It is not cheapness alone that attracts buyers, and in the country, where there were no fac- tories, etc., close at hand, stores would have to be kept", "You said you would have passed laws preventing far- mers owning more than forty acres of land", I said^ <'Would you have also limited the amount of city property to be owned by any one man?" "The possession of one house ought to have satis- fied every fair-minded man", Mr. Forest continued. "Nobody can deny that the accumulation of fortunes io8 LOOKING FORWARD, amounting to many millions in the hands of a few people, while hundreds of thousands could earn hardly more than a living, was a state of affairs which made this damnable communism possible". "But how would you have been able to prevent this?" I queried with some curiosity, '•By making the taxation of inherited property the principal assessment for the maintenance of the na- tional, state and local governments as well as of the schools . I would have proposed a tax of one percent on all property inherited by a single person, amount- ing upward to $10,000. An inheritance amounting to $20,000 I would have taxed two percent, $30,000 three percent, $100,000 ten percent, $200,000 twenty percent, ^500,000 fifty percent. If anybody left a fortune yielding a larger sum than $250,000 to each heir, the surplus should have been considered as an income to humanity, the national, state and local governments sharing therein in a just proportion'

"Would not such a law have acted as a check upon 
the ambition and the enterprise of the people?'* I 
asked, 

"If it had prevented people amassing immense 

fortunes it would have served a good purpose. 

It would 
not have lessened but protected competition'', Mr. 
Forest answered, "Men possessing twenty or fifty 
millions of dollars and using them without regard 

for 
the rights of other people, were very dangerous. 

They 
were in a position to annihilate their competitors, and 
they frequently used their power unmercifully. 

Thus by increasing their millions and by killing 

competition 
they were paving the way for communism. And was 
it not unfair that a man who had amassed by all 

manner of means such an enormous fortune 

could leave it 
to a son who would continue the work of killing 

competitors with smaller means? 

What could the most 
able man accomplish in an avocation, if he had 
against him a man who possessed, perhaps, 

very little 
ability, but who was unscrupulously using 

his millions 
to attain his ends? Parents might leave their 
children enough to place their dear ones beyond the 
reach of want but they should not enable them to 

prevent the children of poorer parents 

having a fair show 
to get ahead in life".

 You would have met with considerable resistance 
to such a proposition in my days", I remarked. 

"I fancy the millionaires would have objected", Mr. 
Forest assented. "Still, I think that such a law would 
have served the best interest of both the children of 
rich parents and humanity in general. Nothing but a 
law of this kind could have stemmed the tide of com- 
munism and anarchy. A child inheriting $250,000 
ought to be satisfied with his lot and ought to let the 
surplus go to the defraying of the expenses of the 
government. By sacrificing a part of their enormous 
fortunes, the heirs would have saved the rest, and 
would have weakened the communistic tendency of 
your days. And it appears more than doubtful to 
me whether the possession of such enormous proper- 



no LOOKING FORWARD. 

ties made these wealthy people good, or even happy 
and contented". 

*^If such a law had been passed in 1887 most of the 
millionaires would have converted their property into 
cash and emigrated to Europe", I objected, 

"I suppose they would have done so", Mr, Forest 
admitted. "But I am, nevertheless, convinced that 
a law of this kind would not only have been just but 
that it would have done a great deal to save humanity 
from communism. Civilized countries would have 
been obliged to pass a similar law at the same time". 

"The temptation to avoid the consequences of the 
statute would have been very great", I remarked. 
"Many people would have tried to evade the tax by 
declaring to the authorities a smaller amount of prop- 
erty than they really owned, or by presenting during 
their life time, a part of their fortune to their chil- 
dren'\ 

"Any attempt at fraud should have been punished 
by a confiscation of all the property", said Mr. Forest 
^^And as for gifts they could have been taxed at the 
same rate as inheritances from one percent up to 
fifty. — But such a law would have been necessary only 
during the first fifty or sixty years of a new order of 
things. As soon as mutual producing associations 
were in general operation, selling their goods directly 
from the factories to the consumers, and buying all 
the necessities of life and commodities, as far as pos- 
sible, at wholesale, and selling them a little above 
cost price, there would have been little occasion for 

men to amass millions of dollars. The numoer of 
middlemen and traders would have largely decreased^ 
Everybody would have been compelled to do work of 
some kind and would have received a compensation 
according to both the quantity and quality of his per- 
formances'\ 

"But would not cliques like the one you are charg- 
ing with having control of your government have 
taken possession of a mutual producing association, 
thus depriving the clever workers of a part of their 
earnings and paying the poorer men more for their 
work than they deserved?" I queried. 

"In such a case the good men could have left an 
association, where they were cheated and joined an- 
other partnership . Good laborers are always appre- 
ciated wherever competition rules. 

But the association, thus driving away their

 ablest members, would 
soon have been unable to compete with others.

 Difficulties, therefore, could have been regulated

 without 
much trouble".  

 Would you have encouraged immigration?" 1 
asked* "At the end of the nineteenth century, many 
honest, Uberaland fair-minded people, whom nobody 
could fairly class as know-nothings, were of the opin- 
ion that the United States had all the foreign elements 
the country could assimilate, and that the rest of the 
public lands should be preserved for the children of 
the people living in the Union, in the year of our 
Lord 1887. The objection against further immigra- 
tion was largely due to the actions of the German 
and Irish dynamiters", 

"I can imagine", Mr. Forest answered, "that some of 
the customs and notions of the numerous immigrants 
of your time were objectionable to the native Ameri- 
cans, and that the crimes of the anarchists, their crazy 
revolt against the laws of a country that had offered 
them hospitality, must naturally have created a deep 
emotion among the Anglo-Americans. But I think 
they had, nevertheless, many reasons for encouraging 
immigration, especially under your form of produc- 
tion. A strict execution of the laws of the country", 
he continued, after a pause, "against all transgressors, 
native as well as transplanted, would have done the 
country good and have made all attempts to restrict 
immigration entirely unnecessary, all the more so, as 
the really objectionable foreigners could reach the 
United States via Canada or Mexico if they desired 
strongly to become inhabitants of the United States.'' 

'^These arguments were frequently used in my time/' 
I remarked. 



LOOKING FORWARD. 113 

<'The comparatively small harm done by immigrants 
was largely over-balanced by the many advantages the 
citizens of the United States obtained through the 
large influx of people from Europe'% said Mr, Forest. 
"The very fact that hundreds of thousands of able- 
bodied people, whose rearing and education had cost 
the European countries millions of dollars, landed on 
American shores was a great gain to the United States. 
The very presence of these men and women increased 
the value of the lands or city lots where they settled, 
thus enriching the property owners. Many of the 
immigrants were well trained laborers and mechanics, 
others artists and scholars. All these men and women 
were not familiar with the ways and means of their 
new country, many of them were unable to speak the 
English language, and they all had, therefore, to start 
in the very lowest places of American business life — 
thus naturally elevating all the inhabitants of the 
United States in a more or less degree, to higher 
positions in life. Many of these people, coming from 
all parts 6f Europe, were ably and well trained, and 
they became successfull competitors of th6se, who 
were here before their arrival. But the constant 
stream of people from Europe to the United States 
was, nevertheless, steadily enriching and elevating 
the American people, and all the blows aimed at im- 
migration were, therefore, unwise, and the legislators 
who proposed such blows remind me of the man who 
intended to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs*'» 



"It is, of course, impossible to advance social theo- 
ries to which everybody will agree", Mr» Forest said 
in conclusion. "I maintain, however, that all such 
theories should be based on two fundamental princi- 
ples. They should have as an aim the estabhshment 
of a state of society, where everybody should be pro- 
tected against an undeserved poverty, where the brain- 
cancer, fear of an undeserved poverty, should be 
cured; and they should preserve competition, the 
power that is permanently spurring everybody to use 
his best efforts to elevate himself and humanity".