A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille

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with their position, for here to obey is considered nobler than to
command. In the fleet the rowers are the highest class; next come the
fighting-men; and lowest of all are the officers. War arises from
motives as peculiar as those which give rise to private feuds; as, for
instance, where one nation tries to force a province upon another;
where they try to make each other greater; where they try to benefit
unduly each other's commerce; where one may have a smaller fleet or
army than has been agreed on, or where an ambassador has been
presented with gifts, or received too great honor or attention.
In such a country as this, where riches are disliked and despised, I
could not imagine how people could be induced to engage in trade.
This, however, was soon explained. The laborers and artisans have to
perform their daily work, so as to enable the community to live and
move and have its being. Their impelling motive is the high one of
benefiting others most directly. They refuse anything but the very
smallest pay, and insist on giving for this the utmost possible labor.
Tradesmen also have to supply the community with articles of all
sorts; merchants have to sail their ships to the same end--all being
animated by the desire of effecting the good of others. Each one tries
not to make money, but to lose it; but as the competition is sharp and
universal, this is difficult, and the larger portion are unsuccessful.
The purchasers are eager to pay as much as possible, and the merchants
and traders grow rich in spite of their utmost endeavors. The wealthy
classes go into business so as to lose money, but in this they seldom
succeed. It has been calculated that only two per cent in every
community succeed in reaching the pauper class. The tendency is for
all the labors of the working-class to be ultimately turned upon the
unfortunate wealthy class. The workmen being the creators of wealth,
and refusing to take adequate pay, cause a final accumulation of the
wealth of the community in the hands of the mass of the non-producers,
who thus are fixed in their unhappy position, and can hope for no
escape except by death. The farmers till the ground, the fishermen
fish, the laborers toil, and the wealth thus created is pushed from
these incessantly till it all falls upon the lowest class--namely, the
rich, including Athons, Meleks, and Kohens. It is a burden that is
often too heavy to be borne; but there is no help for it, and the
better-minded seek to cultivate resignation.
Women and men are in every respect absolutely equal, holding precisely
the same offices and doing the same work. In general, however, it is