Why? Because Socialists believe that no validity underlies a private title to property except the validity that is completed by the _use_ of property. This statement, like any other, can be made ridiculous by construing it ridiculously. Socialists do not mean by this, for instance, that if a man should take his family to the country for the summer anybody would have a right to move into his house, merely because he had temporarily ceased to use it. But Socialists do mean that it is hostile to the interests of the community for a small class to own so much that they can never use. Socialists believe that the needs of the community are so great that all of the resources of the community should be available to the community. Therefore, they would require occupancy, or use, as a pre-requisite to the perfection of a title. Not that if a man, in spring, were to hang up his winter underclothing for the summer, any neighbor gentleman would thereby be given the right to appropriate the same—nothing of the kind. This statement with regard to use, like all other statements made by Socialists, must be construed reasonably. We simply lay down the principle that it is wrong to perpetuate conditions under which a few are enabled to grab so much more than they can use. Such grabbing hurts. What a man cannot use he should not have. He thereby prevents others from getting what they need. Besides, what is grabbing but a bad habit? Mr. Rockefeller’s $900,000,000, if expended exclusively for bologna sausages, might buy enough to supply him for a million years. If expended for golf balls, he might be able to play golf, without buying a new ball, until he had eaten the last sausage. If expended for clothing, he might be able to wear a new suit, every fifteen minutes, for the next 28,000,000 years. But what good do all of these figures do Rockefeller? His capacity for consuming wealth is extremely limited. It is only his capacity for appropriating the wealth created by others that is great. Every time Mr. Rockefeller’s watch ticks $2 drop into his till—but he never sees them. He hardly knows they are there. He has to hire a bookkeeper to know they are there. So far as certainties are concerned, Mr. Rockefeller knows only that when he wants bacon and eggs, with a little hashed brown potatoes on the side, he has the money to pay for them. In other words, the few wants of his slight physical body are never in danger of denial. Mr. Rockefeller’s physical wants would be in no danger of denial if he were worth only $50,000. Why, then, does he want to own the rest of his $900,000,000 worth of property? Plainly, it is only because he is a victim of a bad habit. Some men want money because of the power it gives them, but Rockefeller has never seemed to care much about power. He simply has a mania for accumulation. The more he gets, the more he can get—therefore, he always wants to get more.