The state had exposed itself to much criticism as to many of the things furnished by its factories, and when Masters was still a youth of twenty-five years, the complaint on this subject became so wide-spread that he set himself to correcting the evil. He was employed in a wall-paper factory, and wall paper was just one of the articles that had given rise to the greatest dissatisfaction; so one day when an artistic friend was mocking at the work the state factory turned out, Masters suggested that they should get a few others to join them in setting up a factory of their own. The experiment was looked upon at first as a piece of innocent child's play, but when some hundred young men and women actually succeeded in producing a wall paper so preferable to that manufactured by the state that theirs alone was purchased and the state had to shut down some of the government mills, the question of the right of individuals to compete with the state was brought up in the legislature, and the issue became sufficiently serious to drive Masters into politics for the purpose of defending what came to be known as "Liberty of Industry." The principal argument made against this so-called liberty of industry was that Masters and his fellow-workers were becoming rich. The money that formerly was paid to the state factory was now paid to them, and thus the accumulation of wealth became possible which it was the principal object of Collectivism to prevent. In vain Masters argued that they applied their leisure to the manufacture of wall paper not in order to become rich, but in order to have paper that suited their taste; that the real value of Collectivism was to provide all men with the necessaries of life so as not to subject poor men to a few rich; that so long as the state provided necessaries against a stipulated amount of labor it was quite immaterial whether a few chose by voluntary labor to provide an article that was needed and incidentally increase their own wealth; and that such voluntary labor benefited all. The cry against accumulation was too powerful to be silenced, and Masters felt some concession must be made to it; so he consented to a proposition that all state money should have purchasing power only during a period of two years; under this system hoarding or accumulation would be prevented, because every two years the money so hoarded would become valueless--all money being paper and bearing a date, gold being used only by the state in foreign trade.