AN HISTORICAL WARNING The teachings of Rousseau, which logically resulted in the French revolution, wherein the confiscation of property was the prime purpose, is compared with some of the teachings of today. History that should constitute an ample warning is cited. We have been sowing what Rousseau was permitted to sow and from which was reaped the French revolution. The “Social Contract” taught that property as understood today did not exist. The citizen simply held it in trust for society. For under the “Social Contract” each “surrenders himself up absolutely, just as he actually stands, he and all his resources, of which his property forms a part.” The next logical step in the revolution was to discharge or recall the trustee, and thus vest the property again in society itself. That was done. George W. Hinman in “Can We Learn Anything from History?” summarizes this recall of trusteeships as follows: “Society proceeded to recall its trustees as fast as ‘Society’ needed the property. It recalled the trusteeships of all the church property, $800,000,000; of all the property of exiles, $600,000,000; of all the property of the guillotined and condemned, $200,000,000; of all the property of hospitals and charitable institutions, $200,000,000; of all the state domains sold and rented in the last three hundred years, $400,000,000; of all the gold and silver vessels and specie, $100,000,000; of all the property of other institutions, valuables and common goods, $700,000,000. Then it recalled the trusteeships of coats and trousers, growing crops, pots, kettles, pans and mattresses. In one town it recalled the trusteeship of ten thousand pairs of shoes from ten thousand pairs of feet, and thus condemned ten thousand former custodians of this property to go about their tasks barefooted in the snow.” Not only this but the government extended confiscation by means of income tax until the whole of every income in excess of six hundred dollars was to be taken. Taine, the historian, summarizes thus: “Whatever the grand terms of liberty, equality and fraternity may be, with which the revolution graces itself, it is in its essence a transfer of property. In this alone consists its chief support, its enduring energy, its primary impulse and its historical significance.” Hinman summarizes thus: “The people in a body is infallible; unlike individuals it can make no mistakes. Therefore we should not trust government to individual representatives or agents but to the pure and direct democracy. But we cannot have direct democracy at its purest without equality of condition. To get equality of condition we must get equality of property. To get equality of property we must correct the inequalities of the past and present. Therefore to correct these inequalities we invent the theory of trusteeship of property, recall the trustees, and take possession of all unequal properties in the name of society.