The espousal, by Mr. Walker, of a doctrine which, to most of the wealthy, is rank heresy,--an income tax,--is a step in the right direction. A graduated tax, to be regulated by the amount of income received and enjoyed by the taxpayer, would furnish a speedy, practicable, and just means, not only of preventing these vast accumulations in the hands of individuals, by accretions resulting from that part of their income which they are unable to spend, but it would also furnish a means whereby the Federal Government might be supported without the imposition of even the existing internal revenue tax, and only such protective tariff tax as would prove absolutely necessary to sustain our manufactures. It was a great step in the right direction, for the owner of such a prosperous magazine as the _Cosmopolitan_, the possessor of much of the world’s goods, to propose such an expedient for the relief of the people; especially when coupled with the suggestion that corporations, like those of the railroads, telegraph, _et al._, should not be controlled and managed for the profit of individuals. We should have fewer strikes, and much less labor trouble, if the Government controlled the great corporations who employ large numbers of laboring men. This article is given prominence and so liberally quoted from--not alone from the intrinsic merit of the article and discernment of the writer in predicting the overthrow of plutocracy, and warning the rich against their insolence to those less-favored brothers, as far as worldly wealth is concerned,--but also, because of the position of the writer of the article; a man of brains, enterprise, energy, and wealth. [Illustration: THE MISTAKE AT HOMESTEAD, PA.--JULY, 1892.] CHAPTER VIII. SURRENDER AT HOMESTEAD.--ORGANIZED LABOR DEFEATED. It is fitting to follow the chapter composed so largely of what Mr. Walker has written concerning the condition of affairs at Homestead, with an account of the surrender. Carnegie, the owner of castles and coaches in Scotland, the many times millionaire, and Frick, his representative, living in luxury and attempted social superiority, have vanquished the forces of organized labor. They have won the battle. Some victories are more disastrous than defeats, and this victory, at Homestead, of capital, wealth, sham aristocracy, against the people, will teach the people to seek other methods by which their wrongs may be righted. It will show them, coming as it does just after the exhibition of the great power of the people, November 8, 1892, that their plan of action must be changed; that the effective missile to be used against the autocratic aristocrat is not the bullet, but the missive called the “ballot.”