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SCI LIBRARY

Review of

Mass Rule Government
by Thomas L. Brunk


Joseph Dana Miller



[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, January-February 1929]


Our readers know Dr. Brunk. They know how indefatigably he has investigated the little known facts regarding land ownership in America, and with what effectiveness he has marshalled the often disgraceful revelations affecting the Fathers of the American Revolution. So, knowing his temper and his skill as well as his courage, they will be glad to welcome this new volume from his pen, a forcibly written book instinct with passionate hatred of injustice.

Some of his sentences are arresting, such as "Property in land has been the source of five sixths of our law and nearly all our law suits." " Feudal ownership of fertile or valuable lands has been at the root of all War and War preparation."

Under the heading, "The World a Single Economic Organism" the author tells us of the natural forces of justice, and he exults: "Take courage, brother. Nature is on your side. It is the foe of all the bubbles and frailties of man." And when he musters his array of facts that are to determine the final struggle whether there shall be a Wealth or Labor domination he does it in a way singularly impressive. It is a note of hope he sounds in these 260 pages.

It is nothing less than a new constitution that Dr. Brunk proposes. He has worked on the details with great care, dividing the United States into 12 provinces in place of 48 states, which would admit of the abolition of a multiplicity of laws as well as the laws that conflict. What he says of the Precinct Unit, which he calls the "basis of Mass Government," would take more space for its consideration than can be given to it here.

There is perhaps too great a tendency to provide for too many things, a fault of nearly every writer who has hitherto attempted to create a Utopia. Dr. Brunk. however, does not belong to this school; he would reduce government to the minimum, and whatever is necessary to be done by the community in its corporate capacity he would bring close to the people.

We would not without further consideration reject all the multiplicity of suggestions Dr. Brunk has set down. No blanket verdict is possible with reference to a book such as this. It is something to be studied and argued about not to be dismissed in a column book review.

Dr. Brunk is a thinker. He knows his economics and he has made some important contributions, as we have indicated, to the history of land ownership. When he sets himself to establish a new political commonwealth he is not to be disregarded as attempting too colossal a task.

Nevertheless, it may be permitted us to say that the mistake, it seems to us, is that our author gives to government an importance it does not merit. Laws and constitutions become innocuous as soon as popular tendencies assert themselves strongly; either they are modified or lapse into disuse. And economic conditions act upon political forms, so that their character seems after all of minor consequence.

But it is because of the difficulty of dealing adequately with a work of this kind in the space permitted us that we urge our readers to send to Dr. Brunk, Alton, 111., or to his publishers, for a copy of the work.