The Twentieth Century Epic

The poet delivers a wide-ranging, didactic critique of modern society, arguing that centralization, expanding public systems, and proliferating laws concentrate power and weaken individual liberty. He targets taxation schemes, legal technicalities, political corruption, and cultural institutions for contributing to economic strain and moral decline, warning that unchecked bureaucratic growth risks social unrest. Rather than retribution, he urges rehabilitation for offenders, lower pay for officeholders to curb graft, and a return to limited government grounded in natural law, civic responsibility, and practical ethics. Occasional digressions consider art, science, and war as contexts for these moral and political prescriptions.