After Midith and Viola had returned from the postoffice on their bicycles the following evening, Mr. Uwins requested Mr. Midith to give us the promised explanation of the Marsian government.
“How does your government fit with your perfect social and industrial world?” asked Mr. Uwins. “Are all its functions in harmony with all your industrial and social functions? Do or can the politicians hoodwink the ignorant? Are not the governmental functions sometimes exercised barbarously at times by cruel, incompetent men?”
“I fear by your remarks that you have an entirely erroneous opinion of our government,” said Mr. Midith. “Let us see now if I can give you a correct idea of our government.
“You have already learned that we live in families of a thousand or more in ‘big-houses.’ Our large family is just like an orderly, well-adjusted family with you, only ours is larger. For instance, let us take Mr. Uwins’ family here, as far as I can see has no superior and no inferior, no commander and no obeyer, no ‘boss.’ We want to bear in mind that it is as painful, if not more so, for a highly cultivated person to command his companions as it is for him to obey a tyrant. A command always involves a hindrance to order and progress. It makes the obeyer less self-governing and less self-reliant, and it makes the commander more tyrannical and more ostentatious.
“In a well-adjusted family every adult has learned his part as a social and industrial being, and he does that part without being commanded; he does it because it gives him more happiness than to act otherwise. Our children know of no physical compulsion. They are exhorted and pleasantly taught, by precept and example, that the right course of conduct is the easiest and brings the most happiness, which they soon learn by experience as they grow in years and in wisdom, in a world where the adults set no bad examples. The old idea that a family cannot exist without a ‘boss’ is nothing but a relic of barbarism. Mr. Uwins cannot command Mrs. Uwins in her work, for Mrs. Uwins understands her work better herself than her husband can tell her, and vice versa. His command would therefore be a disadvantage, would cause discord, ill-feeling, and unproductive labor; it would take up his time which ought to be devoted to his own work; would make a master and a tyrant of the man and a slave of the woman and child.
“From the foregoing remarks you will see at once that every sane individual man, woman, and child of our large family enjoys perfect freedom. They do what they believe to be their equitable part without being commanded by any one. Our internal motives and promptings are the only recognized standard of Marsian conduct. But, in order to avoid being misunderstood, let me tell you right here, that we can certainly not expect the same kind of conduct from a child, which is full of life and activity, that we do from an older person. The child requires constant activity to develop body and mind; and we must make due allowance for that. One who does not make that allowance cannot be successful in orderly government.
“We always construct and arrange our things and institutions to suit the purpose they are intended to serve. We do not, like you, endeavor to make, with a rod, a sage out of an infant in a few days. For example, if we have a door or a gate that we desire to have always closed, when not in use, we make it self-closing. If we have a department in which little children may hurt themselves, or unknowingly destroy delicate things, we have a self-closing door that cannot be opened by a little child.
“We keep our infants and little children, who are unable to swim, out of the deep lakes in our parks by fencing the lakes with an impassable fence, and by guarding the entrance with a self-closing and self-locking door, which can be opened only by swimmers who hold a key for it. The little children go in the shallow lake. If we do not wish our children to play certain games all over the green park, we fit up grounds more suited for the game, and they will always play on that ground, because it is most suitable for that purpose.
“If we, as older people, do not find it delightful, on account of our older and more inactive age, to be always and immediately surrounded by the more active children, we build and fit out nurseries’ play-grounds and other apartments in which the child-nature can be best gratified; and the children, during their active intervals, never fail to go there.
“If we wish to create self-reliance and a desire for laboring, we make the labor agreeable, by making it easy, by esteeming it honorable, and by creating a system of money under which every man, woman and child draws his own pay at the end of each month; and the amount of his pay is in proportion to the time each worked or to the wealth produced. If we desire to educate our children in a certain direction, we first learn that lesson ourselves, and from our practicing it the children will learn it without any formal teaching.
“To govern our children in the practice of eating, we always keep before them, as well as before ourselves, more than we want of everything; consequently the appetite is the safest guide, so that neither the child nor adult ever eats too much, and just so pleasant, harmonious and successful is our governing power in all directions.
“The foreman of any branch of industry whether of the family, such as storekeeper, barber, cook, etc., or whether of the community, such as head agriculturist, head painter, head builder, etc., always elects himself to his position by his own deeds, by his superior ability of doing work in his occupation, by being kind and pleasant, by directing the labor of his or her co-laborers in the most productive and agreeable channels. Our foreman is leader only just so far as his co-laborers are willing to acknowledge him as such; and when a person of greater ability appears in his branch of industry, the former leader naturally resigns his position to his superior, because such a resignation is agreeable to the former leader as well as to his co-laborers. Hence the leader always does the most and best work and receives no more pay than the commonest laborer. All our officers are elected, then, by the tacit or avowed ballot of superior ability and agreeableness, but never by a paper ballot. Hence you can plainly see that we acknowledge universal suffrage in its true and full sense, because every man, woman and child is a voter as well as a candidate.
“Some of our family leaders, or officers as you would call them, are foremen in the following departments: Store, restaurant, kitchen, bakery, dining hall, parlors, engine room, tailor shop, barber shop, halls, bath-rooms, commercial apartment, vehicle apartment, the departments of ushers, painters, house cleaners, laundry department, representatives in the ‘Com,’ Fano and Modano, etc., etc.
“Now let us briefly glance at the government of the community. The business of the community is transacted at the ‘Com,’ as I have already told you. Every family has one or more representatives in the ‘Com,’ who are daily laboring there, in some department, as paying bills, making money, examining labor-records, printing, receiving money from the families, canceling the community’s own money when it arrives, inventing, etc.
“The family representatives who work at the ‘Com’ nearly always return to their own family after the close of their day’s work. By this arrangement every family, and every person in the family, is in constant personal communication with the ‘Com.’ Any one who desires information concerning the business of the community can get it orally from the family representative, or, he can get it from the daily community’s newspaper, which contains all the business and which is taken and read by every one who is old enough to read it.
“Some of the community’s and family’s foremen are in the following departments: Printing, money making, paying, money receiving, selling, building and repairing motor lines, agriculture, stock raising, mining, manufacturing, warehouse, roads and boulevards, electric light, parks, conservatory and greenhouse, garden, orchard, inventor, etc., etc.
“The foregoing is a brief description of some of the most important features of our government, by which you will see at once that we have no government by physical force against man, woman or child; that we have no parties, no politicians, no election frauds, no political boodle, no vast armies and costly navies; no generals who lead the people to death and destruction; no guns and cannons; no swords and sabres; no pensions and crippled soldiers; no impoverished widows and uncared for orphans; no burning of cities and tearing up of railroads; no kings, queens, and presidents; no political congresses, parliaments, and legislatures; no crowns and thrones; no high-salaried officers, no national debt which often gets larger by paying on it; no compulsory taxation; no tariff involuntarily wrung from the people; no prisons and reform schools; no so-called courts of justice and an army of lawyers and judges who have to live from the ignorance and quarreling of the people; no political patriotism; no statute laws which monopolize natural opportunity in favor of the rich and against the poor; no hangmen, and no policemen. Our political congress slowly changed into an industrial one.”
“I must say that your government seems to be an admirable one, if it could be enforced,” said Rev. Dudley, “but I cannot see how a people can do without all those things you have just named.”
“Why, uncle,” said Viola, “it seems to me that we would be much better off without those relics of barbarism than with them, and I shall do all I can to elevate the mind of man high enough so that he feels no need for them.”
“It is doubtless true,” said Mr. Midith, “that those who have always lived in a world where a certain class of people have always ruled, or at least have tried to rule, the remainder of mankind by physical force, it may seem that no family, community or nation can do without a ruler backed by physical force. In primitive times the force process begins soon after birth and continues until death. First the child is scolded, cuffed and flogged by the parent and nurse, then by the teacher and preacher, then by his playmates and street-ruffians; when he wants to marry, the church and state begin to interfere; the policeman clubs his victim into submission, the hangman hangs him, the tax-collector forces him to pay taxes, and finally the landlord compels him or his friends to pay for the little patch of earth in which he is buried. Consequently all but a few of your foremost thinkers believe that the ruler and the force system is absolutely necessary to the welfare of an orderly society. But when we examine the pages of your history, as well as our own ancient history when our ancestors practiced the same despotism as you now practice, we find that the ruler, either directly or indirectly, has played all the cruel mischief that ever was played in the human family.
“The ruler calls the soldier to war to shoot his neighbor. The ruler instituted the practice of suttee, and exhorts the slavish widow to practice it. The ruler induces the Hindoo mother to throw her newly-born babe in the Ganges, by which the mother becomes a ruler over the child, to satisfy the ruler’s created Deity, who is supposed to be the supreme ruler. The ruler tortured and killed every so-called heretic—the cream of the mental world, during the dark ages. The ruler kindled every witch fire that consumed thousands and millions of innocent persons supposed to be witches. The ruler did all the wife and child flogging. The ruler gave all the unjust decisions that were ever given in any court of so-called justice. The ruler made all the millions of laws that have already been repealed, and are now considered wrong and cruel. The ruler had every national building and monument built and erected with the life and labor of his ruled. The ruler is the author of every battle. The ruler has been the suppressor of all liberty and freedom. The ruler has drafted every soldier, and forced him to burn and kill. The ruler has preached all superstitious doctrines, whether religious, industrial, social, political or sexual. The ruler has grown rich without productive labor, on profit, interest, rent, taxes, and the varying purchasing power of the dollar. The ruler has compelled children to attend school in which they were forced to act in direct opposition to the known laws of life and health. The ruler, whether individual, state or nation, has committed every murder. The ruler is the author of every ravishment. The ruler has received all the boodle. The ruler has so far, in your world, made slaves of women and children, and has thereby indirectly made a slave of himself. The ruler has committed every theft, robbery and burglary. The ruler has, in many cases, demanded prayer and shrine cure, instead of resorting to sanitary measures. The ruler has caused every quarrel and fight. The ruler has, in countless cases, commended the infamous and prohibited the virtuous. The ruler is the invader of all personal right and personal liberty. The ruler has done all this and much more. He has caused all the social and industrial discord. Why, then, should the ruled pay the ruler for ruling them, after having made so many errors and committed so many crimes? What guarantee have the ruled now that the ruler will not err in the present and future as he has done in the past?”
“No doubt,” said Rev. Dudley, “the ruler, under the various monarchical forms, has done a great many wrongs; but the monarchies of the world are fast passing away, we are living in a republic in which the majority rule.”
“I find that the vast majority of your citizens, like you, believe that the majority rule in your republic, as you call it, but this is an error. The majority do not rule, but only a small minority do. To illustrate:
“The population of the United States is about 65 millions. Of these about 13 millions vote. If these 13 million voters all belonged to two parties—say Democrats and Republicans—one party would require but one majority to let it in power—say the Republicans. 6,500,001 is a majority of 13 millions. The 6,499,999 Democrats would have nothing to say as far as their principles differed from the principles of the Republican party. Under these conditions, which are about as we actually find them, all the Democrats, all the women and all the children have nothing to say civilly. Now you want to remember that many of the children, the same as the adults, support themselves. We see, then, that 6,500,001 is ten per cent. plus of 65 millions. Hence one-tenth rules nine-tenths. Your boon of universal suffrage is nothing but an illusion when it is analyzed.
“We have now seen that the majority do not rule, as is generally supposed by you. But if the majority instead of the minority did rule, the question would arise: What right has a majority to rule a non-invasive minority? Who gave them the right? How long have they had it? Did your ancestors a thousand years ago give this right to each other? If so, are bargains that were made a thousand years ago binding on the present generation? Must you be cruel and unjust to one another because your ancestors were? Does not culture make justice the basis of human conduct? But this is not all. If the ballot in the hands of a man is such a great boon, why is it not equally great in the hands of the women and children? Are they not entitled to the same welfare and happiness that the man is?
“And furthermore, I suppose that all of you are ready to acknowledge that money, intimidation and fraud greatly influence the result of your ballot elections. The individual or party that spends the most money and does the most scheming generally triumphs with you. Our acknowledged leader (we have no political officers) of any branch of industry in our families and communities is elected by actual universal suffrage, solely upon his or her superior fitness for the position.
“Let us notice a few other points of difference between our government and yours. Your officials receive, as a rule, high salaries, and as it is generally difficult here for a person to acquire wealth by productive labor, on account of monopoly, all are rushing for the well-paying offices. With us the highest officer in the community receives no more pay for his day’s labor than a washerwoman does. Here, in a world where money is necessary and scarce, a person can stoop to most anything, if he thereby gains his election so that he receives the high salary and not unfrequently some boodle; for in a world where money is necessary and scarce, a victorious person can buy his honor, fame, and distinction with money. But in a world like ours, where money is not monopolized, where it can be easily obtained by every one, money has lost the power of purchasing honor, fame and distinction. In such a world nothing but personal worth, fitness and noble attainments elevate a person to a higher position where he enjoys approbation and admiration of his fellowmen. Notice here that the Marsites have removed the causes of corruption, while you are still endeavoring to make a person good under bad conditions.
“Your government, as now constituted, also tends to concentrate wealth. Rev. Joseph Cook, in Tremont Temple, Boston, Feb. 3, 1890, said: ‘Two thousand capitalists own more than all the rest of the sixty-five millions of our population. Two hundred and fifty thousand rich men control seventy-five per cent. of the national wealth. The American republic is, therefore, practically owned by less than one-quarter of a million of persons. If present causes which produce concentration of capital continue, the republic will soon be owned by less than fifty thousand men.’
“We all know, then, that some have amassed immense fortunes of material wealth, while the vast majority under your present conditions are doomed to life-long toil, to poverty. But, by what means or power did these rich men accumulate their immense wealth? Not by personal industry, for the industrial powers of an individual are too limited. Not by economy, for if he had saved everything he ever earned, he would have but a small fractional part of what he has accumulated. Not by any particular personal superiority, for the personal powers to produce material wealth are nearly equal in all sound men and women; but he accumulated and appropriated it by monopoly. You have enacted many laws by your much prized ballot, and these rich men used those laws to monopolize natural opportunity so that they are continually growing richer on interest, profit, rent and taxes, without productive labor. You see if all monopolistic statute laws, which include nearly all statute laws as such, were repealed and disregarded, all would stand equal before natural opportunity. Profit, interest, rent and taxes are produced by monopolistic laws. If there were no monopolistic laws, no person could accumulate or appropriate wealth without productive labor.
“Let us take an illustration: You have a few men that have over a $100,000,000 of wealth as you call it. You can figure up in a few minutes that they can not have earned or produced that amount of wealth in one or even in two generations. But some of these men have accumulated this immense fortune in twenty or thirty years. Let us figure a little on this. Suppose that a man has accumulated $100,000,000 in fifty years of three hundred working days each. This would require an average accumulation of nearly $7,000 for every working day. Now you all know that a man cannot, by any human power, earn or produce $7,000 worth of wealth—wheat, corn, coal, books, houses, clothing, or whatever else it may be. But we know that he has the wealth, or your representative of wealth—the dollar; and if he has not earned it himself by productive labor, by which all wealth must be produced, he must have appropriated it from the labor of others in the form of profit, interest, rent or taxes, for which the receiver does nothing and for which the giver receives nothing.
“Our government has no statute laws and has, therefore, no profit, interest, rent and taxes. Your government monopolizes land by the deed system, hence your rent. Our government has nothing to do with the ownership of land; every one may occupy and use all the vacant land he wants. Your government monopolizes the making of money, which makes money scarce, hence your interest; in our government, each individual gets his money made at the end of each month, and as much as he has produced wealth; money is plenty, and hence no interest. Your government enforces compulsory taxation, whether the individual wants it or not; we have no compulsory taxation. From the foregoing and other monopolizations your profit results. Your government has enacted laws for the collection of debts, hence your many failures and unpaid accounts. Our government has no need of such laws, because we have always plenty of money and, therefore, always pay cash. Your government endeavors to enforce its mandates by an external agency of soldier and policeman, while our governmental force resides in the internal promptings of the individual. The desire of the non-invasive individual is the highest authority on Mars.
“Of course we all understand that your government, as a whole, is better now than it ever was before. The government of the United States, in many respects, is perhaps better than any of its predecessors or any of its contemporaries. But you must remember that all ages had a best government. The question is not whether it is the best that ever was, but whether it is faultless. Best is not good enough unless it is faultless. Can we find any faults? If so, we should labor to remove them.
“I do not desire to have you understand me that I blame your government or your rich men for what they have done, or for what they are now doing. Under the same conditions the Marsites did the same things. With the present amount of intelligence, human conduct, in your world, is just about what it should be; and the only force in the universe that can ever change that course is additional intelligence. All your labor for advancement, then, should be most economically directed in the diffusion and assimilation of this additional intelligence. As long as a person is ignorant enough, he does not feel the burden unjustly imposed upon him by others; but as he grows in intelligence, the bearer of the burden becomes continually more sensitive to its weight, and the imposition becomes continually more repugnant to the imposer. Let us remember, then, that all wrong and injustice arise from ignorance. Intelligence is the only motive power that can move the physical world to higher and nobler planes.”
“Do you have insane asylums, Mr. Midith?” asked Mrs. Uwins.
Mr. Midith smiled and said: “We have no use for them. Insanity, like everything else, is produced by causes, and when the causes are removed the effects disappear proportionately. We have almost completely removed the causes of insanity. In the first place our medical science is far in advance of yours, and in the second place, in a world where everybody is rich, sound, intelligent and free, insanity, like crime, is almost unknown. Not one in a thousand million ever feels any traces of it; and if he should he would almost certainly be cured in a short time. Should there be an isolated case of insanity, the insane person would be gently cared for the same as a child.
“Now let me show you one other great advantage of our government over yours. You have one Congress and one President in a country, who make laws by which you endeavor to govern the white man and the black man; the agriculturist in the North and the agriculturist in the South; the miner and the manufacturer. But their interests are in many cases very unlike, still all must be governed by the same national laws. Your government is so extensive that the President or Congress cannot be so well informed on the needs of the people of every locality, as we can be on the needs of our own community. The needs and interests of a community in the North, on account of climate, are very unlike those of the South. So each community with us attends to its own business, and lets every other community attend to theirs. We have no interference, no antagonism. We believe in non-aggressive competition. In this manner, a sharp, healthy, commercial competition springs up between the communities, which naturally throws every community in that line of industry for which it is best adapted on account of climate, soil, and other natural resources.
“Now let us contemplate for a moment how vastly we economize and produce by our kind, peaceable government of the individual, and what an immense amount of unproductive and destructive labor you expend in the maintenance of your cruel, criminal government of force as it would appear to the Marsites.
“You build and maintain costly statehouses and spacious legislative halls. You have a vast army of national, state and municipal politicians who are supported by the productive laborer. You have an army and a navy to equip and maintain. You have guns and cannons to mine and manufacture, arsenals to build, and fortifications to construct. You have ammunition and soldiers’ clothes to manufacture. You have vast libraries to build, filled with countless volumes of law books, over the contents of which a large army of judges and lawyers wrangle and sometimes even fight. You have an endless number of courthouses to build and maintain, and a swarm of policemen to uniform and support. You have the country dotted with prisons, jails, penitentiaries, scaffolds, poorhouses, asylums and reform schools.
“Your armies and navies in time of war destroy an immense amount of wealth by burning cities and family houses, by destroying the growing crops in the fields through which they march, and in which they fight, by blowing up ships and bridges, by tearing up railroads, by cutting down fences, orchards and forests, by killing the brute animals which come in the line of their march, and by maiming human bodies and taking human life itself. Your government in time of war makes sound men diseased and crippled; it makes mothers helpless widows, and children poor orphans, and then it forcibly taxes the sound ones who live a generation later to pension the cripples it made itself.
“Besides the crime of class legislation, which produces an aristocracy of social parasites who appropriate the products of the laborer in the forms of profit, interest, rent and taxes, your government is guilty of graver and more direct crimes, a few of which I shall name. Under the cloak of capital punishment, it legally murders its so-called criminals on the pretext of protecting society. In the field of intemperance, it licenses the manufacturing and selling of intoxicating liquor, thereby indirectly sanctioning, for a consideration, the evil of intemperance. In the licentious world, it actually sells to certain fallen women the privilege of selling their own persons for lewd purposes, thereby becoming a participant in the crime of impurity, which is caused directly or indirectly by the government’s own monopoly. By its marriage interference, it often compels married men and women to live together when they do not love each other, when they quarrel and fight. As a self-righteous censor of its so-called morality, it has in all ages, countries and climes tried to suppress freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The foregoing are only a few of the countless number of evils, wrongs and cruelties which a government, by physical force, imposes on its own people. I mean which the rulers impose on the ruled.
“What a vast contrast! Our family representatives, who go daily to the ‘Com’ to work, are all engaged in productive labor, and the person, man or woman, who can add the greatest number of columns quickest and surest is the person who goes there for that purpose. The national and world representatives do the same. No strife, no monopoly, but complete individual freedom, which has eliminated every vestige of government by physical force against all non-invasive persons, and has established the highest social harmony.”
“But if you do not elect your officers by paper ballot, how do you determine who shall be your Fanoers and your Modanoers?” asked Rev. Dudley.
“I have already stated, Mr. Dudley,” replied Mr. Midith, “that we have no officers in your sense of the word. We elect a Fanoer and a Modanoer on exactly the same principle and by exactly the same process as a cultivated, orderly family here on earth elects its members to do each a certain portion of its work. That is, if you call such a mutual choice or assignment of work an election. Our election, then, is altogether by mutual consent. The process is the same as the process by which Mrs. Uwins is elected by Uwins’ family to do a certain part of their domestic work. By the same process by which Mr. Uwins is elected to do most of the scientific writing of the family. Once more, by the same process by which Viola is elected to do the parlor work, etc. Always by mutual consent based on fitness.
“Thus you see, if you call Mr. and Mrs. Uwins and the other members of Mr. Uwins’ family officers because each performs a certain portion of the aggregate family labor, then our Fanoers and Modanoers are officers; but if you do not call your members of a family officers because a certain kind of work is voluntarily performed by them, or mutually and often tacitly assigned to them on account of their peculiar fitness, then our Fanoers and Modanoers are similarly elected to their respective work by a large family, the same as you elect by a small family. In a state of culture we can generally judge ourselves and others quite accurately. You see the secret of our election, under freedom, consists in this: A laborer is nearly always proficient in that vocation which he likes best.
“Of course the harmony of this election in our communities, the same as that of your families, depends on the state of culture of its members. In some of your families one will not do his fair share of the aggregate work without he is ordered or driven to do it. But I am not here speaking of such of your families. I am speaking only of the cultured families in which each member finds delight in doing his part so as to make it easy and pleasant for all. Thus you see that some of your families are able to do what some of them are yet unable to do.
“It is certainly true that our families and communities were not always as peaceable, just and harmonious as they are at present. We, like you, passed through all the stages of progress from a savage to that state of culture which we now enjoy. Hence you see that our elections have not always been as harmonious as they are at present. Neither have your family elections ever before been as high as they now are.”
“I can see plainly how a few persons, having a common interest in each other’s labor and conduct, like our small families, can have each individual glide into his most proficient sphere of labor without much friction,” said Rev. Dudley, “but I cannot see how so many individuals as compose your large families and communities can do so.”
“I will tell you, Rev. Dudley; it certainly requires a certain state of culture before we can mentally assimilate the essential material for a thought of a given degree of complexity and range. An individual of a little horde of savages would no doubt be unable to see how so many individuals as compose the United States could all live under one flag as you call it; and that almost without war, too. But we all know that it is done, and it does not seem impossible to us either; and if progress continues in the future as it did in the past, your posterity will be able to see things that are entirely hidden from your present view.
“You see those acts which will conduce to the welfare and happiness of man will continually more and more commend themselves to the thoughtful consideration of humanity; they will be gradually accepted for their intrinsic worth.”
“If I understand you correctly, then,” said Rev. Dudley, “you have no compulsory taxation, but only voluntary taxation.”
“No,” replied Mr. Midith, “we have no compulsory taxation. No Marsite is forced to support any institution he does not wish to support. As to voluntary taxation, I may say, if you wish to call those gifts which visitors to the Fanos and Modano usually give voluntary taxation, then we have a kind of voluntary taxation; but if you do not call that taxation, we have no taxation at all.
“Just as your former baronage was gradually superseded by your national militancy—the compulsory state—so was our militancy superseded by industrialism—our voluntary state, if you wish to call it so. Our Comers, Fanoers and Modanoers are no generals, no lawmakers, no statesmen and no politicians. They are solely business men. They aid in the advantageous distribution of wealth and live from the fruits of their own productive labor. Hence, we need no taxes for their support.”
“But do you think, Mr. Midith, that we could do away with compulsory taxation without any bad effects of it at our present age?” asked Rev. Dudley.
“I fear that you do not fully comprehend this subject,” replied Mr. Midith. “You see you can not possibly do away with compulsory taxation. It is always a concomitant of a certain mental condition, and the element of compulsory taxation can be weakened only in proportion as the mental condition is strengthened by the discovery of new truths; and the discovery of new truths implies time. Therefore it is as impossible for you to do away with compulsory taxation instantaneously as it is for you to produce instantaneously a ripe apple from an unfolding blossom. There is only one known agency which can do away with compulsory taxation, and that agency is the acquisition of a higher and broader intelligence.”