various tasks and duties, and they should be stimulated by the rewards
to which they are fairly entitled in the results; but that cannot be
made to mean that they are all equal in contributing to results and
entitled to equality in the returns. Nothing could be more inconsistent
with a sound democracy than the distribution of the material results of
productive activity applied to the resources of nature, regardless of
the merits or just claims of those engaged in the work. To apply that
so-called principle of equality of rights without regard to the part
taken in producing results, would deaden the energies applied in
achieving them, and greatly reduce the product. It would prevent
material prosperity and defeat national progress."

In a Socialistic State, inevitably there would be formed a bureaucracy
of selfish office holders. Although, owing to the impetus of our
previous free Democracy, the first Socialist officials might be men of
ability who had gained their places through successful experience, yet a
close corporation of officials would follow them and retain the exercise
of power. The people gradually would sink to a level of servile
conformity.

We have a perfect illustration of this in the Germany of the past forty
years. There is a good reason for the fact that Germany, in the hands of
a selfish and conscienceless autocracy, made more successful use of
practical Socialism than any other nation in history and even carried
efficiency itself to a point of great success. Her close corporation of
bureaucratic officials, playing upon the remains of feudal and
aristocratic loyalty among the people that have survived the darkness of
past centuries as nowhere else among civilized nations, successfully
carried through Socialism in many practical ways, just as Morris
Hillquit and his un-American followers probably would have succeeded in