My impression has been that the Socialists were opposed to private ownership of land. I have had forcible reminders of that fact in letters which came hot from the enraged writers. Private ownership is “robbery”; that’s the way they write to me. Did I not see a Socialist orator wave his small, white hand gracefully at all the stores, factories and dwellings in St. Louis, in the summer of 1904, and did I not hear him say in his musical voice to the assembled laborers: “_All that is yours; go and take it!_” Then, with a silk handkerchief he, with courtly gesture, wiped the moisture from his marble brow, and continued: “_Don’t take a part of it, take it all. Don’t be satisfied with a loaf, take the whole bakery._” Then he froze me and Joe Folk with a glare of merciless severity, and continued, “These men”—indicating me and poor Joe, with a supercilious gesture—“_these men_ talk to you about shorter hours of labor, and the Eight Hour day. _I don’t want any Eight Hour day_: what _I want_ is _to live in the best possible manner on the least possible work_.” And now Wayland is going to spoil all this. He is going to quicken the appetite of Socialists for private property. Instead of feeding a million men on the definite expectation of getting a slice of the Astor Estate, at some indefinite time, he is going to reverse the process and feed as many as qualify, on a definite slice of Florida land _right now_. I make this prediction: As fast as Wayland makes home-owners out of his followers he will lose crusaders. _Beware Capua_, friend Wayland! A zealous Socialist, who owns nothing, but who is spurred on by that God-given desire for private property, will eagerly compete for Wayland’s prize and will win it. He will pocket the deed, and move to his land. He will find, perhaps, that it does not quite come up to representation; but it is too late to back out. He settles on his seventy acre tract. If it has no house, he builds. If he has one already, he does all that he can to make it more attractive. _It is his._ When the storm beats without, he snuggles close to his fireside, and thanks God that this is _his_ shelter from the wild night. His wife will lay her loving touches here and there, and the house will take on a look which reflects the individuality of the owners. Flowers in the front yard, vines clinging about the porch, bright pictures on the wall, ferns and grasses in the vase over the mantel, a climbing rose, perhaps, to race for the cone of the house and to throw out its crimson colors from the roof. Toil which one loves will be freely spent on garden and field, for the toiler is working for those he loves best. In a few years, under the care of home-owners, the neighbors will say, “_It doesn’t look like the same place._”