as done by the late Mayor
Pingree in Detroit, and even the public ownership of freight and
passenger automobiles, are spoken of as "purely Socialist
propositions." And, finally, the laws of Oklahoma are said to
permit socialization without a national victory of the Socialists,
though they provide merely that a municipality may engage in any
legitimate business enterprise, and could easily be circumscribed
by state constitutional provisions or by federal courts if real
Socialists were about to gain control of municipalities and State
legislature. For such Socialists would not be satisfied merely to
demand the abolition of private landlordism and unemployment as the
_Appeal_ does in this instance, since both of these "institutions"
are already marked for destruction by "State capitalism," but would
plan public employment at wages so high as to make private
employment unprofitable and all but impossible, so high that the
self-employing farmer even would more and more frequently prefer to
quit his farm and go to work on a municipal, State, or county farm.

The probable future course of the Party, however, is foreshadowed by the
suggestions made by Mr. Simons in the report referred to, which, though
not yet voted upon, seemed to meet general approval:--

"With the writers of the Communist Manifesto we agree in the principle
of the 'application of all rents of land to public purposes.' To this
end we advocate the taxing of all lands to their full rental value, the
income therefrom to be applied to the establishment of industrial plants
for the preparing of agricultural products for final consumption, such
as packing houses, canneries, cotton gins, grain elevators, storage and
market facilities."[233]

There is no doubt that Mr. Simons here indorses the most promising line
of agrarian reform under capitalism. But there is no reason why
capitalist collectivism may not take up this policy when it reaches a
somewhat more advanced stage. The tremendous benefits the cities will
secure by the gradual appropriation of the unearned increment will
almost inevitably suggest it to the country also. This will immensely
hasten the development of agriculture and the numerical increase of an
agricultural working class. What is even more important is that it will
teach the agricultural laborers that far more is to be gained by the
political overthrow of the sm