Before a printed word could be given to the world, it would have to pass the censorship of the special bureau entrusted with these responsibilities. Such a committee would have to determine whether an author’s work was worth printing or not; and suppose, by any chance, an author or an editor desired to give expression to opinions that did not harmonize perfectly with those of the ruling majority, do you suppose that the State-owned presses would be permitted to run in the publication of such theories? There is one thing, John, that you can depend upon; and that is that the Socialist scheme makes absolutely no provision for freedom. The Socialists talk as if we were “wage slaves,” but no conditions existing to-day--not excepting the worst--represent such galling servitude as would exist under the despotic bureaucracy that Socialism would develop. It is true that you might be guaranteed against unemployment so long as you were willing to take the kind of work provided for you. It is true that you might exchange your labor checks for the commodities that other workers had produced--so long as you desired to purchase the kind of things that the officials of the Commonwealth wanted you to buy. It is true that you might be permitted to write and speak and teach, so long as you desired to promulgate ideas approved by the majority. Once you begin to think along the lines advocated by the minority, what do you think would happen to you? If a full stomach were all that man required for his happiness, the Co-operative Commonwealth might seem to offer an enviable state of existence. It is because Socialists believe that a full stomach is the highest aim of man, that they fail to recognize the inadequate character of their proposed Commonwealth. It is an elaborate program that Socialism has planned--a program that provides for free services on every hand, free amusements, free excursions, free transportation, free professional services, etc. Education, of course, will be free, not only the tuition and the books but the clothes the children wear and the victuals they eat. “Will the State be able to carry out this program?” asked Godkin in _The Forum_ (June, 1894). “It cannot give more than it gets; will we be rich enough to pay the extravagant bills of Socialism?” It is assumed by Socialists that the wealth of the State will be unlimited, but on what foundations is this assumption based? I have called your attention to merely a few of the problems that suggest themselves when we attempt to consider what kind of an existence Socialism has planned for us. There are hundreds of other examples that will occur to you if you stop to think the matter over seriously. If this is the kind of life you want to live--the kind of freedom you think you would enjoy--you are welcome to it. CHAPTER XVI WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WORLD? My dear John,