Usury kills off the enterprising members of a community by bankrupting them, and leaves only the very rich and the very poor; for every dollar the employers of labor pay to the lenders of money has to come eventually out of the pockets of the laborers.  Usury is therefore the cause of the first aristocracy, and out of this grow all the other aristocracies.  Inquire where the money came from that now oppresses mankind, in the shape of great corporations, combinations, etc., and in nine cases out of ten you will trace it back to the fountain of interest on money loaned.  The coral island is built out of the bodies of dead coral insects; large fortunes are usually the accumulations of wreckage, and every dollar represents disaster.”

“Well,” said Maximilian, “having abolished usury, in your Utopia, what would you do next?”

“I would set to work to make a list of all the laws, or parts of laws, or customs, or conditions which, either by commission or omission, gave any man an advantage over any other man; or which tended to concentrate the wealth of the community in the hands of a few.  And having found out just what these wrongs or advantages were, I would abolish them instanter.”

“Well, let us suppose,” said Maximilian, “that you were not immediately murdered by the men whose privileges you had destroyed—­even as the Gracchi were of old—­what would you do next?  Men differ in every detail.  Some have more industry, or more strength, or more cunning, or more foresight, or more acquisitiveness than others.  How are you to prevent these men from becoming richer than the rest?”

“I should not try to,” I said.  “These differences in men are fundamental, and not to be abolished by legislation; neither are the instincts you speak of in themselves injurious.  Civilization, in fact, rests upon them.  It is only in their excess that they become destructive.  It is right and wise and proper for men to accumulate sufficient wealth to maintain their age in peace, dignity and plenty, and to be able to start their children into the arena of life sufficiently equipped.  A thousand men in a community worth $10,000 or $50,000, or even $100,000 each, may be a benefit, perhaps a blessing; but one man worth fifty or one hundred millions, or, as we have them now-a-days, one thousand millions, is a threat against the safety and happiness of every man in the world.  I should establish a maximum beyond which no man could own property.  I should not stop his accumulations when he had reached that point, for with many men accumulation is an instinct; but I should require him to invest the surplus, under the direction of a governmental board of management, in great works for the benefit of the laboring classes.  He should establish schools, colleges, orphan asylums, hospitals, model residences, gardens, parks, libraries, baths, places of amusement, music-halls, sea-side excursions in hot weather, fuel societies in cold weather, etc., etc.  I should permit him to secure immortality by affixing his name to his benevolent works; and I should honor him still further by placing his statue in a great national gallery set apart to perpetuate forever the memory of the benefactors of the race.”