In short, I found that where the masses of the people are oppressed, where the people at the bottom are being crushed by those who are above them, there Socialism means revolution. On the other hand, where governments have shown a liberal spirit, and especially where the Socialists have had an opportunity to participate in the Government, or have been able, by means of the coöperative societies I have described, to do constructive work for the benefit of the masses, they have ceased to be revolutionists, have no longer sought to overturn the Government, but have patriotically striven to strengthen the existing order by freeing it from those defects that were dangerous to its existence.
In saying this, I do not mean to imply that I in any way favour the Socialistic programme of reform. I live in the Southern States, a part of the country which, more than any other part of the civilized world, still believes that the best government is the government that governs least; the government that you can wear like an old coat, without feeling it. More than that, I believe that the best and only fundamental way of bringing about reform is not by revolution, not through political machinery that tries to control and direct the individual from the outside, but by education, which gets at the individual from within; in short, fits him for life but leaves him free.
There is much in the history of the agricultural labourers of Hungary and Italy that is interesting to any one who has studied the condition of the Negro farm labourer in the South. In many respects their history has been the same. There is, however, this difference: When the serfs were freed in Hungary, as in most other parts of Europe, provision was made to give them land, though to a very large extent they were denied the political privileges enjoyed by the upper classes.
In Italy also it was intended, in giving the serfs freedom, to give them likewise land. Again, when the vast estates of the Church were taken over by the State, an attempt was made to increase the class of small owners and to give the land to the people who tilled it. In both cases, however, it was but a few years before the greater portion of the peasant owners were wiped out and their lands absorbed into the large estates. At the present time the small landowners, under the influence of education and agricultural organization, are gaining ground, and both countries, in the interest of agriculture, are seeking to encourage this movement.