When the constitution was adopted, even no such theoretical possibility existed. It is true that we were then almost exclusively an agricultural people, and some of the best families had stolen millions of acres of the most available land. But back of the most available land were untold millions of acres of other land upon which human life could be sustained—land that could be had for the taking and clearing. The factory age had not dawned. Every home was its own factory, in which cloth was woven and clothing was made. Aside from the stolen land which was privately owned, almost nothing was privately owned that was not suitable for private ownership. That was largely due, of course, to the further fact that there was not, at that time, much wealth in the country. But, viewed from any angle, the unrestricted private ownership of property is a curse to the people and always has been. If it were not a curse, in the sense that it enables some to rob others, no one who is in his senses would be in favor of it. The desire to use property is a legitimate reason for wishing to own it, but the desire to own property that one does not use can arise from no other motive than a purpose to use such ownership as a bludgeon with which to rob the users. Apply this test and it will be found never to fail. The landlord owns land because he wants to live in idleness from the fruits of those who till the land. The multimillionaire owners of industrial machinery want to own the industrial machinery because they want to use such ownership to appropriate part of what their employees produce. If private ownership did not give this advantage to the owners, the owners would not care to own. If it does give this advantage to the owners the workers have a right to object. Moreover, the workers have a right to insist that such ownership cease. It is not enough to reply that a man has a right to own any physical property that he can buy. Some burglars have enough money to buy dark lanterns and “jimmies,” paying for the same in perfectly lawful coin of the United States. But merely because the private ownership of burglars’ tools is not for the good of the people, we have laws forbidding such ownership, and if the laws be violated, we seize and confiscate the tools. Some day, the fact may dawn upon us that, for every dollar taken with burglars’ tools, a million dollars is taken—quite legally, of course—by the owners of industrial tools.