In conclusion we may note the Richmond _Times-Dispatch's_ remark that "compared with Mr. Rockefeller's, Joseph's was a mere cozy corner."
Views Expressed by J.M. Patterson, of Chicago, Who Has Resigned Office Because of His Convictions.
One of the most recent converts to Socialism is Joseph Medill Patterson, of Chicago. Though he is now only twenty-seven years of age, Mr. Patterson has had a strong taste of public life as commissioner of public works in Chicago. In the local campaign of 1905 he supported Judge (now Mayor) Dunne, who, after election, gave him his important appointment. He has now resigned the commissionership. In his letter of resignation he says:
It was through a common belief in the cause of municipal ownership of municipal utilities that I first became acquainted with you, and in this letter of resignation I desire to express publicly just how my views on this subject have changed. They have not diminished. They have enlarged.
I used to believe that many of the ills under which the nation suffers, and by which it is threatened, would be prevented or avoided by the general inauguration of public ownership of public utilities. But my experience in the Department of Public Works has convinced me that this policy would not be even one-fourth of the way sufficient.
He then goes on to say that in Great Britain--where municipal trading has been highly developed--the problem of the unemployed is becoming very intense; while in Germany--where municipal and government ownership of public utilities has become almost the rule--the gap between the possessions of the rich and the poor grows wider every day. The letter concludes:
The universal ballot gives every male citizen an equal political opportunity. The common ownership of all the means of production and distribution would give everybody an equal chance at music, art, sport, study, recreation, travel, self-respect, and the respect of others. I, for one, cannot see why those things should be concentrated more and more in the hands of a few.
Two hundred years ago a proposition for equal political opportunity would have seemed more absurd than to-day seems the proposition for equal opportunity in all things on this earth for which men strive.