1. Property rights must meet the test of social expediency. If private property is defended on the ground of social expediency, it must show good social results. It is not a sacred thing; it is open to examination, and must be judged by its fruits. Of all the forms of income, that from property has been most strongly attacked. The thought is that enjoyment of wealth should not be found apart from labor, and that it should bear some proportion to services performed. The enjoyment of an ample income by one who does no more than to draw checks or to sign coupons seems to many minds to be unjust; and it is often questioned whether there is any social service performed by the receivers of the rent from land. Property seems in many cases to be distributed without rule or reason. It does not correspond with beauty, strength, wit, wisdom, temperance, gentleness, or charity. Since the beginning of the Christian era, reformers have assailed and preached against the prevailing inequality of wealth. The idea that incomes, if not equal,should -corre-spond to social service has always been present in some vague way in the minds of men.

Social effect of the right to give.

2. The right to transmit property by inheritance or by gift may be judged with reference to its effect on the giver, on the receiver, and on society at large. It is well to take these three points of view. The right to dispose of property either during life or at death has undoubtedly in many ways a good effect on the character of men. It stimulates the father to provide for his children, the husband to provide for his wife. There is a joy in giving, a joy in the power to bestow one's wealth on those one loves. The right to give stimulates industry, frugality, ingenuity, and yields productive results. Much of the existing wealth probably never would have been created if men did not have this right of gift. But there is a limit to the working of this motive, and other motives often are much more effective. Many men after gaining a competence continue to work for love of wealth and power in their own lifetime, as the miser continues to toil for love of gold. When men without families die wealthy, when men that have not the slightest interest in their nearest relatives labor and amass wealth till their dying day, it is evident that the right to bequeath property has little to do with their efforts. Love of accumulation and love of power in these cases supply the motive. A more limited liberty to dispose of property at death might still suffice, therefore, to call out the greater part of the efforts now made to accumulate property.

That the effects on the receiver of the property are good is somewhat more doubtful. It is true that children raised in great comfort or luxury would be more than ordinarily unhappy if plunged into poverty or even into humble circumstances on the death of their parents. There is much social justification for permitting families to maintain an accustomed standard of comfort. Few would deny that a moderate provision by parents to provide education and opportunity for their children is commendable and desirable. But the (evil effects of waiting for dead men's shoes) are proverbial. Many a boy's greatest curse has been his father's fortune. Men of native ability wait idly for fortune to come, and opportunities for self-help slip by unheeded. The world often exclaims over the failure of the sons of noted men to achieve great things, for, despite confusing evidence, men still have faith in heredity. A too easy fortune saps ambition and relaxes energy; and thus rich men's sons, if not most carefully and wisely trained, are made pitiable paupers in spirit, while the self-made fathers think their boys have chances they themselves did not enjoy. The greater social loss is not the dissipated fortunes, but the ruined characters.

Effect of the right to receive.

Broader social effects of inheritance.

The effects of inheritance on the community are good in so far as it secures efficient management of wealth. If the son or relative has been in business with the deceased, there is a reason that he should inherit the property, and his succession to it makes the least disturbance to existing business conditions. But every profligate son is an argument against inheritance; every incompetent heir is an argument in the hands of the enemies of the existing order of society. It is to society's interest that no able-bodied member shall stand idle. Every child should have presented to him the motive to devote his powers to the social welfare in economic or other directions. Moreover, many feel that the great fortunes now accumulating through successive generations in the hands of a few families are endangering our free society, even if these fortunes should continue to be well administered. There is a widespread feeling that the heredity of great wealth is, like the heredity of political power, out of harmony with the democratic spirit - though this may easily become a misleading comparison. Still, democracy wishes to see men as individuals put to the test, not profiting forever by the deeds of their forebears. This feeling is shared by those who cannot be charged with radical prejudices. A few years ago the Illinois Bar Association passed a somewhat startling resolution favoring moderate limits to inherited fortunes. Every year sees bills of this purport introduced in the legislatures and in Congress. Andrew Carnegie says it would be a good thing if every boy had to start in poverty and make his own way. Cecil Rhodes recorded in his will his contempt for the idle, expectant heir.

3. Social expediency will limit the right of intestate inheritance to persons in essential economic and social relations. Public opinion is not yet crystallized in favor of this formal proposition, but tends strongly toward it. The foregoing considerations show that the right of gift in the lifetime of the giver should be the freest. The right of bequest, that is, of gift by will, should be liberal. The man who has acquired wealth may well be trusted to decide who bear to him a close social or personal relation, and to say whose lives have in a measure furnished the motives of his activity. But the right of intestate inheritance by distant relatives is one that stands on weak social foundations today. It appears to be an unreasonable survival from more patriarchal conditions. The true test is whether the wish to provide for these heirs has furnished the motive for the producing and preserving of the wealth. The claims of those nearest in blood and closest in personal relations are strongest. Family affection and friendship form the strongest of social ties, and it is socially expedient to cultivate them. Motives for abstinence and industry must be strengthened. But the same test shows that the zealous regard of the American law for the rights of grandnephews in Australia, or even of brothers long absent in distant quarters of this country, is irrational, and is unjust to the community where the fortune lies.

The test of wise inheritance laws.