One of the most effective means by which the few and idle rich oppress the many toiling poor is by the monopoly of land. Ralph Morton's reading had shown him this truth illustrated by the history of all civilized peoples. But he had before his eyes in England so flagrant an example that it needed no reading to enforce the truth. That great robber, William the Norman, had parceled out the land of England among his robber favorites, who had subdivided them among their favorites, with the burden of some conditions; and so on downward went the division, the burdens all the while increasing till at last they fell with crushing force on the poor tillers of the soil and the equally unfortunate disinherited, driven altogether from the soil. So horrible an example of a great mass of people robbed of their natural rights seemed, by the force of custom and the decorous forms of law, so right and proper that only here and there, adown the
