poor; the artisan, the farmer, the well-to-do merchant met on terms of
mutual self-respect, as man to man; economic class consciousness was
non-existent; education was so widespread that European travellers
wonderingly commented on the fact that we had no "peasantry"; and with
few exceptions every citizen owned a piece of land and a home. Property,
a refuge a man may call his own, and on which he may express his
individuality, is essential to happiness and self-respect. Today, less
than two thirds of our farmers own their land, while vast numbers of our
working men and women possess nothing but the labour of their hands. The
designation of labour as "property" by our courts only served to tighten
the bonds, by obstructing for a time the movement to decrease the tedious
and debilitating hours of contact of the human organism with the
machine,--a menace to the future of the race, especially in the case
of women and children. If labour is "property," wretches driven by
economic necessity have indeed only the choice of a change of masters.
In addition to the manual workers, an army of clerical workers of both
sexes likewise became tenants, and dependents who knew not the
satisfaction of a real home.

Such conditions gradually brought about a profound discontent, a grouping
of classes. Among the comparatively prosperous there was set up a social
competition in luxury that was the bane of large and small communities.
Skilled labour banded itself into unions, employers organized to oppose
them, and the result was a class conflict never contemplated by the
founders of the Republic, repugnant to democracy which by its very nature
depends for its existence on the elimination of classes. In addition to
this, owing to the unprecedented immigration of ignorant Europeans to
supply the labour demand, we acquired a sinister proletariat of unskilled
economic slaves. Before the war labour discovered its strength; since
the war began, especially in the allied nations with quasi-democratic