It is noteworthy that the Convention of 1908 had previously voted down this proposition to make occupancy and use the sole title to land, after the proposition had been denounced as being anarchistic, unsocialistic, nonsensical, foolish, and a dream ("Proceedings of 1908 National Convention of the Socialist Party," pages 188, 189 and 191.) One of the foremost opponents of the proposition was Delegate Morris Hillquit, who asked:
"What does the amendment mean? Occupancy and use the basis of title to land. How do we know whether the co-operative commonwealth will infer and arrange it in that way? Aren't we taking a long excursion into the domain of the future and into the domain of speculation? It may be true that the dream of the dreamer may become a reality, if this dream is the dream of the nation. But we have not come here to dream dreams and leave it to the future to realize them or to show them to be just mere pipe dreams.... The Socialist state may just as well decide on an entirely different basis for the distribution of land. It may not at all be bound to our resolution here today that occupation forms a title." ("Proceedings of 1908 National Convention of the Socialist Party," page 189.)
When the Marxians are brought face to face with the charge of adopting a program today, rejecting it tomorrow, hesitating about it on the next day and compromising it on the fourth, as they did in respect to the collective ownership of "all" the land, let them not argue that such changes are to be expected in the evolution of Socialism. They should be forced to confess that they acted in such a way solely to gain votes. Confront them with the speeches delivered in their National Convention of 1908 and in their National Congress of 1910, both by the delegates who advocated the collective ownership of "all" the land and by those who opposed it. For the convenience of the reader passages from some of these speeches will now be given: