If it were to be asked what should be done at once to remedy the present
exigencies of suffering labour, I will answer what I would do had I the
power. I would first abolish legal interest and make it a crime as the
Bible does to take usury in any form. I would stop the payment of
interest of the public debt and use the money to set the unemployed and
starving labourers at work on internal improvements, and should be
justified by the people for doing so; because it would be right to
prevent widespread suffering and revolution at the expense of such a
step; I would build the Pacific railroads north and south for the people
and not give them to individuals, as was the case with those already
built; I would construct immense workshops in every State in which the
skilled labour of both sexes might be utilised when otherwise
unemployed, because every day that any labourer is idle is a loss to the
prospective wealth of the country; which fact is the condemnation of the
policy of throwing men out of employment whenever business is depressed.
Every labourer thus made idle adds to the general distress, because from
being a producer he becomes a consumer; I would abolish pauperism and
crime by giving everybody a chance to work at his chosen occupation; but
if he preferred to starve rather than to work I would let him starve; I
would purge the country of rascals by removing the inducements to
rascality; I would make it impossible for a dishonourable person to live
in a community, by placing everybody upon his honour, and in this way
abolish jails and penitentiaries, criminals and courts and lawyers; I
would remove the protection of the law from debts, and leave them to
stand or fall upon the honour or want of it in the contracting parties,
the result of which would be that a failure to pay once would discredit
one for all future time, and compel honesty as a necessity for
existence, making it to the interests of the people to be honourable in
all things; and this, in turn, would abolish all civil courts and
lawyers with all their _attachés_ and expenses. I would restore to the
public the gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, coal, oil and salt lands
and mines and work them for its benefit, and I would send everybody who
should be found tampering with the public funds to the Dry Tortugus for
life. Yes; had I the power, I would make both compulsory and voluntary
idleness impossible, and wipe out the stain of millions starving idle in
a land of plenty, capable of sustaining a thousand million people; and
hush the wail of suffering that floats upon the winds from every section
of this God-favoured land, but now reeling under the effects of vicious
legislation; I would snatch the people from being pushed headlong into
revolution, and restore to them the equal use of God’s free gifts to all
His children.