In our own country, there are few abler or more instructed socialist writers than Mr. Hillquit. He is now under violent attack by the I. W. W. press and other revolutionaries as a "stoggy conservative," a "timid moss-back." In his last book he thus states the case:[1]
"And similarly silent is the socialist program on the question whether the gradual expropriation of the possessing classes will be accomplished by a process of confiscation or by the method of compensation. The greater number of socialist writers incline towards the latter assumption, but in that they merely express their individual present preferences. Social development, and especially social revolutions, are not in the habit of consulting cut and dried theories evolved by philosophers of past generations, and social justice is more frequently a question of social expediency and class power. The French clergy was not compensated for the lands taken from it by the bourgeois revolution, and the Russian noblemen and American slave owners were not compensated upon the emancipation of their serfs and chattel slaves. It is not unlikely that in countries in which the social transformation will be accomplished peacefully, the state will compensate the expropriated proprietors, while every violent revolution will be followed by confiscation. The socialists are not much concerned about this issue."
This writer has excellent legal training; has been a mayor's legal advisor in a considerable city. In his analogies of the French clergy, Russian nobles and
- ↑ Socialism. In Theory and Practice, 1910, p. 103.
