Page:Bierce - Collected Works - Volume 09.djvu/50

46 convict never renews his offense until driven by hunger or again persuaded by his poor brute brain that he can escape detection; he does not enter and rob the first house that he comes to, nor murder the first enemy that he meets.

That there are honest, clean-minded patriotic socialists goes without saying. They are theorists and dreamers with a knowledge of life and affairs a little profounder than that of a horse but not quite so profound as that of a cow. But the "movement" as a social and political force is, in this country, born of envy, the true purpose of its activities, revenge. In the shadow of our national prosperity it whets its knife for the throats of the prosperous. It unleashes the hounds of hate upon the track of success — the only kind of success that it covets and derides.

How bit and bridle this wild ass of civilization? How make the socialist behave himself, as in Germany, or unmask himself, as in France? It looks as if this cannot be done. It looks as if we may eventually have to prevent the multiplication of millionaires by setting a legal limit to private fortunes. By some such cowardly and statesmanlike concession we may perhaps anticipate and fore-