cut off even the poor wages they received. But in Aristopia the poorest workmen had no fear of machinery. None was so dull as not to see that the vast continent offered work which every available hand, aided by every possible machine, could not do in generations. Governor Morton, foreseeing the danger that individuals, through wealth obtained by whatever means, might own and control machinery to such an extent as to oppress laborers, used every device of statecraft, first, to prevent any dangerous accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals, and next, to accustom the people to the public control of great aggregations of manufacturing machinery.
A thing which Governor Morton very much desired, but which he did not see until he was very old, was machinery for spinning and weaving, driven by water-power, replacing the spinning-wheel and hand-loom by which cloth was then produced, a work which fell with great weight on the patient, drudging housewife.
