February 11, 1888 Vol. III, No. 6Whole No. 58

VARIOUS MA[TTERS?] [end of headline covered by pasted label]

The successful starting of th[e Lond?]on Star, with T. P. [O’Connor?] in the e[dit?]orial chair, is an event of much more than newspaper importance. The Star, the first half-penny morning journal in London, has at once leaped to a circulation of 140,000. Nor is this any wonder. The wonder is that such a paper has not been started before. The field has lain ready for it in the enormous working class population, who up to this time have had no more thought of buying a morning paper than of buying a half-crown magazine. One of the strangest things to an American who travels around London in the early morning has been to see trains, trams and ’busses crowded with people going to work and not a morning paper in a single hand. The stamp tax for a long time ’kept^sic daily papers out of the reach of the working classes, and the penny journals, such as the Telegraph and Standard, which have come into such large circulations since the stamp tax was repealed, have been still too high for the great body of the working classes to get into the habit of buying them. They have been contented with an occasional sight of a daily paper at a public house, and with the purchase on Saturday night of one of the penny weeklies, which are made up of a rehash of the news of the week, and especially of the police court news. The Echo has already shown how successful a half-penny paper could be made in the evening field, and the sudden leap of the Star into a large circulation is doubtless the beginning of the formation of the morning newspaper habit among the London masses.

The most significant thing about the Star, however, is that it starts out on a more radical platform than any of the other London papers, and is edited by one of the best known of the Irish parliamentarians. Mr. T. P. O’Connor is well fitted for the task, for although his reputation has been gained in connection with the Irish movement, he has lived from an early age in London, where his newspaper education has acquired something of an American flavor, he having been a member of the New York Herald’s London staff when that brilliant journalist, John Russell Young, was in charge of its London office. The starting of the Star, with Mr. O’Connor at its head, is an evidence of the tendency, which has been rapidly developing since Mr. Gladstone came out on the Irish side, to carry the Irish struggle into Great Britain and to make it part of the general democratic movement. This tendency the Star, with the enormous circulation which it bids fair soon to have, cannot fail to powerfully promote.

In his opening article Mr. O’Connor takes broad democratic ground. While vigorously presenting the Irish case, he declares that “Ireland wants home rule not much worse than^sic the people of London,” and that “no measure of radical reform for London can be complete which does not provide for the taxation of ground rents.” He proclaims that it will be the mission of the Star “to divert the anger of the people from the visible tax collector to the invisible landlord that skulks and robs behind, and to bring home to their imaginations the great fact that the specter of land monopoly does not stop short at the homes of the farmers or agricultural laborers, but penetrates to the inmost recesses of their own dingy streets and their own wretched attics.”

“The elevation, the more constant employment, the better wages, the increase of food in the stomachs, dignity in the souls, joy, humanity, tenderness in the hearts of the people—these, and these things alone,” he says, “represent to us progress, glory, national greatness.” He proclaims war against every form of privilege, not only political but social, and declares that the first great step toward meeting “the terrible problem of hopeless poverty, unhealthy homes, and over-work or want of work among the masses of the people” is—

a vast and radical change in the land laws of the country. The spectacle at the same time, and sometimes even in the same county, on the one hand, of large tracts of land, returning to barrenness, and on the other of overcrowding in lane and alley and slum, is enough to make even the most reactionary tory perceive that the land system has broken down.

As to the quack remedy of “protection,” which is so vociferously upheld by some of the American supporters of the Irish movement, Mr. O’Connor, like Mr. Davitt, will have nothing to do with it. “Protection,” he says, “is the remedy of the foolish or selfish, that must be vehemently and if needs be violently opposed;” while as for the preaching of emigration as a remedy for poverty, that is the elevation of blood-letting into a panacea.

The starting in London of a half-penny newspaper, edited by a prominent Irishman, and proclaiming such principles as these, is indeed a happy augury.

It is announced that Helen Taylor is coming to the United States and will be present at the Women’s conference, which will meet at Washington in April. Among all the distinguished English men and women who have visited us there are p. 1, col. 2 none more worthy of honor than Miss Taylor.

Ever since the death of her stepfather, John Stuart Mill, whose inseparable companion she was, Miss Taylor has devoted fortune, time and talent to the work of social reform. She was the first woman to be elected to the London school board, where she has exerted great influence in improving education and fighting corruption, and has so endeared herself to the people of her district of Southwark that she has been elected again and again, despite the utmost efforts of the political rings and bosses that flourish in London as well as in New York, although not so much is heard of them. A thorough democrat in the highest sense of the word, every movement for the political and social emancipation of the masses has had Miss Taylor’s hearty sympathy and active support, and for years, many of them of seeming hopelessness, she has been sowing good seed, not only in London but throughout the three kingdoms. Her devotion to the cause of Irish freedom has been especially marked and constant. When English liberals were vying with English tories in upholding coercion, and, with the exception of Joseph Cowen, hardly an Englishman of any prominence could be named who would venture to show the slightest sympathy with the land league, Miss Taylor went to Dublin to take the place of Anna Parnell should the government determine to arrest the Irish ladies who were carrying on the work while the men were in prison. And when the anti-Irish prejudice in England ran strongest, I have heard her asserting the rights of the Irish people to self-government and to the soil of Ireland, before English audiences who would have driven off the platform anyone but a woman so respected and talented as she. Miss Taylor is indeed a speaker of remarkable power, uniting to the highest womanly culture and grace a strong and trained intellect and a rare power of clear and concise expression. It is to be hoped that she will tarry long enough among us to make a number of speeches in various parts of the country, especially before the anti-poverty societies, with whose principles she is in hearty sympathy.

An interesting paper upon the credit system was read at the recent meeting of the national board of trade at Cincinnati by J. A. Price, president of the board of trade of Scranton, Pa. The ever increasing national debts of Europe he estimates at $22,500,000,000, imposing upon its people an annual interest charge of some $800,000,000, and in addition to this there are railway, municipal and commercial debts and mortgages to an amount that can hardly be estimated. Of the volume of indebtedness in this country he makes the following estimate:

Estimating our population at 60,000,000, this would be some $465 for every man, woman and child in the United States, or over $2,000 for every head of a family. Some of the items in this estimate are of course mere guesses, and some of the debts included are of course offset and cancelled by others; but whatever deductions can on these accounts be made, the result is sufficiently startling. The civilized world—and our own country not last in the race—is rushing forward into a sea of indebtedness that must finally submerge in general bankruptcy and repudiation.

Colonel Price advocates the abolition of all laws for the collection of private debts. and in this^sic he is unquestionably right. There is no more reason why the state should lend its machinery of constables, sheriffs and courts—still less as is to a certain extent yet the case in New York, its prisons—to the collection of the debts of the individual, than that it should undertake to black his boots in the morning or tuck him into bed at night. The abolition of all laws for the collection of private debts would not only free our judicial machinery from a clogging mass of business which to a large degree prevents its performance of proper functions, but it would unquestionably lead to a far higher standard of personal and commercial morality, since character would then be the prime element in credit. If it lessened, as it undoubtedly would, the use of credit in commercial transactions, the result would be to put business upon a far more sound and stable foundation and to lessen the intensity of those commercial fluctuations in which periods of stagnation follow periods of speculation. The curse of credit as a flux of exchanges is that it expands when there is a tendency to speculation, and sharply contracts just when most needed to assure confidence and prevent industrial waste.

The enormous figures that Colonel Price presents are also extremely suggestive in other ways. For instance, they are worthy the attention of those who incline to the belief that it is capital that oppresses labor, and that before labor can get its fair reward interest must in some way be abolished. The greater part of this vast volume of p. 1, col. 3 indebtedness passes as capital, and on nearly all of it payments having the semblance of true interest are regularly made. Yet the world-wide proclamation of a Jewish jubilee would at the blast of a trumpet sweep away this whole vast mass of indebtedness without the lessening by a single iota the wealth of the world. Nor, for the most part, does this volume of debt represent any ownership of real and existing capital. The mortgages, for instance, in greater part, do not represent capital loaned to the users of land, but mere rent charges—payments which the users of land have been compelled to agree to make to land owners as a condition of being permitted to use land. An eastern speculator or a foreign investor gets hold of a tract of western land, cuts it up into farms and sells it out to settlers on mortgage, or a tract of land near a city is cut up and sold in the same way. The seller gets obligations which are counted as capital and receives payments which are termed interest. But there has been in reality no production or transfer of capital, and the payments are in reality not interest for the use of capital, but blackmail for the use of land. So railway indebtednesses really represents^sic in large degree, not capital invested in making railways, but what is suggestively termed “water,” and the interest they bear is not payment for the use of capital, but is a monopolistic blackmail upon the public.

As for the gigantic public debts, they represent capital only so far as there are public improvements to show for them. What they do, for the most part, as a matter of fact, represent, is either sheer public plunder, or capital and labor destroyed and wasted in war or preparations for war. Our own national debt, incurred during the war for the maintenance of the Union, is unquestionably the best and fairest of them all. But it does not represent, as is often assumed, wealth borrowed of foreign nations or of the future for the carrying on of the war. As a matter of fact we did not during the war increase our obligations to foreign nations much, if any, and it is as clearly a physical impossibility to borrow wealth from the future to carry on a war, as it is to get men still unborn to fight in it. The wealth that was used and destroyed in our civil war was that then and there existed. The carrying on of war by means of public debts, which is probably the most injurious and anti-civilizing of all injurious modern inventions, is not a device for spreading the cost of present expenditures over future time, but a device by which governments may obtain wealth from the classes who have wealth to spare, without exciting their opposition—since it gives them in return a mortgage upon the labor of the future. The United States might have come through the war without a penny of public debt if the government had taken wealth from its possessors as ruthlessly as it took men. Whether the wealthy classes would have submitted to this is quite another question.

But it is instructive at least to consider how different would have been the existing distribution of wealth if we had done so. And ever since the war our whole financial policy seems to have been steadily directed to making the taxation for the fulfillment of the obligations then given as onerous as possible. Where we borrowed forty, fifty and sixty cents, we have paid one hundred and even one hundred and twenty cents, with money wrung from the people by the most onerous systems of taxation—systems of taxation purposely devised to fatten monopoly and make the rich richer. We have paid off non-interest bearing debt in preference to interest bearing debt, and by means of the national banking system we have permitted the holders of a large part of the public debt to enjoy the principal while they draw the interest. By the national banking system the banker was allowed to draw from the government $80,000 in money for every $100,000 in bonds he deposited, and then to draw interest on the whole $100,000. This proportion was subsequently increased to ninety per cent, and now a bill is pending in congress to allow the national banks a dollar in money for every dollar in bonds they deposit, while paying them full interest on the dollar. And not contented with this, and as though from the mere desire of paying as much interest as possible, and making the redemption of our public debt as slow as possible, we are actually buying up enormous amounts of silver, for which we have no more use than for so many tons of cobble stones, and storing it away in vaults. Secretary Fairchild sees the absurdity of coining silver thus to stow it away, and proposes instead that it shall be stowed away in bars. But why not leave the silver in the ore and the ore in the ground? That would be a far greater economy. As for the silver notes, that would be^sic just as useful and just as readily taken if they promised to pay silver yet to be mined and refined, or if instead of promising to pay anything at all, they were simply made receivable for public dues.

But it is only when we come to think of the public debts of Europe that we realize the full importance of Thomas Jefferson’s idea that no generation can have the right to bind a future generation, and that p. 1, col. 4 every nineteenth year ought to be a year of jubilee, in which all public debts should be declared off. Were mankind agreed upon this, the enormous armaments of Europe would be impossible, and there is not a throne in Europe that would not crumble into dust. Colonel Price has opened a fruitful subject in calling the attention of the national board of trade to this matter of growing indebtedness.

General Master Workman Powderly, it is pleasant to learn, has now recovered from his illness, and it is to be presumed that he will soon resume in the Journal of United Labor his series of letters for the instruction of the order. One of the most interesting things he could do in this connection would be to point out for the benefit of the members of the order wherein lies the fallacy of the views on the land question which he promulgated in his official address in 1882. In that address Mr. Powderly said—the italics being his own:

In my opinion, the main, all-absorbing question of the hour is the land question. And did I allow this opportunity of expressing that opinion to the Knights of Labor of America to pass without taking advantage of it, I would prove myself false to my own convictions of right and justice. The eight hour law, the prohibition of child labor, and the currency question, are all of weighty moment to the toiler. But high up above them all stands the land question. Give me the land and you may frame as many eight hour laws as you please. Yet I can baffle them all and render them null and void. Prohibit child labor if you will, but give me the land and your children will be my slaves. Make your currency of what material you choose, but if I own the land you cannot base your currency upon the wealth of the nation, for that wealth is the LAND. You may make the laws and own the currency, but give me the land and I will absorb your wealth and render your legislation null and void. Look over our western fields to-day and note the rapid strides with which monopoly is seizing upon the fairest acres our country contains. The people of Ireland suffer from landlordism to-day; but a gleam of hope is ever before them, for if the worst comes they can go to America. Let the robbery of the people’s heritage go on in the United States in the future as it has in the past and the hope of the immigrant will die out in his bosom, and soon a sentence to the mines of Siberia will be preferable to a residence in the land of his birth. The land is the heritage of God! He gave it to all His people. If He intended it for all His people, then no one man or set of men has a right to monopolize it. We cannot say that the whole peopie^sic who now inhabit the earth can claim the land. That would imply ownership; and if one man has no right to own the land, many men cannot own it. If all the people of the present day own the land we live^sic on, what right will the millious^sic yet unborn have to the earth to which their creator will one day bring them?

These are questions worth pondering over. There are men who fear the land question. There were men who feared the appearance of Banquo’s ghost; but that ghost was an honest one, and no honest man had cause to fear it. So it is with the land question—no honest man need fear it. If I am told that our national legislature had a right to grant the land to corporations, I ask the question, From whom did they derive that right? The answer must be, The people. Yet I deny that right, for a people now living cannot give away what was ordained for the use of a people yet unborn. But granting that they had the right, then I challenge, nay, defy any man to produce a petition coming from the people to congress, asking that body to give away land. If, then, that body had no right to give away the land, it should be compelled to restore it. It may be said that such a proceeding will unsettle society. Very well, then, let society for the time be unsettled, for it were better that a momentary disturbance take place now than a greater one later on, for with the rapid concentration of the land in the grasp of the few and the rapid increase in population, the time is not far distant when men will arise in the morning, and, after eating their morning meal, they will turn away from the table not knowing where the next one is to come from. When that hour comes the labor question will be harder of solution than it is at present. When that day comes it will take more than the sophistry now in use to convince these hungry men that one man has a right to own the land and all it contains while they, the children of the same Father, have nothing. When that day comes the logic of a hungry stomach will settle the question which wise heads ’are^sic now endeavoring to solve, and knowing no law but that of want, they will obey that law, even at the risk of unsettling society. So it were better that we look to the welfare of future generations and do justice while it can be done peaceably.

If I ever come to believe in individual ownership of land, I must, in order to be consistent, believe that the man who owns the land owns the people who live on it as well. If a man owns an island in the ocean, and he wishes to clear it of tenants, for the purpose of turning it into a grazing field, the man who admits that he has a right to own the land, must also admit that he has the right to order these people off its surface. If he orders them off there is no alternative but to obey. Suppose that through his unjust exactions of rent the tenant has had no opportunity of saving money enough to pay his passage to a foreign land? A very pertinent question to ask would be, Where will the tenant go? And the only answer the believer in the individual ownership of land can give will be, Into the ocean. Does any sane man believe that God ordained that any man should have such power? Such a doctrine is monstrous. It won’t do to say that such a case is only a supposition, and that no danger of its ever occurring exists. The question to consider is, would it be just or right for such a thing to take place? If not, then take steps to remove a system that would make such a thing possible. Give heed to this land question; be not afraid of the taunts or jeers of our enemies; do not quail at the name of communist if it is applied to you, for it were better to be called a communist than be a party to the plundering of a people of the inheritance ordained for them by God.

The law condemns the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common;
But lets the greater felon loose
Who steals the common from the goose.

God hasten the day when the “greater felon” will be brought to justice! And may p. 1, col. 5 our organization be brave enough to shoulder its portion of the responsibility, and share in the glory of the achievement. If there exists such a thing on earth as a first title to the ownership of land, I have yet to learn of it; but in searching for it I found this in “Blackstone’s Commentaries on the English Law:”

Pleased as they are with the possession (of land), we seem afraid to look back to the means by which it was acquired, as if fearful of some defect in our title . . . We think it enough that our title is derived by the grant of the former proprietor, by descent from our ancestors, or by the last will and testament of the dying owner. Not caring to reflect that, accurately and strictly speaking, there is no foundation in nature, or in natural law, why a set of words upon parchment should convey the dominion of land; why the son should have a right to exclude his fellow creatures from a determinate spot of the ground because his father had done so before him; or why the occupier of a particular field, when lying upon his death bed, and no longer able to maintain possession, should be entitled to tell the rest of the world which of them should enjoy it after him.

With so highly respectable and eminent an authority as Blackstone to quote from, we ought not to fear to open up this question; and if the few words I have uttered in passing will cause others to think, then the discussion to follow must lead to good results.

General Master Workman Powderly has for some time acted as though he had forgotten all this—as though he had become one of the “men who fear the land question.” But the only attempt at explanation he has given is the following from the first of his articles in the Journal of United Labor:

Theories are advanced, which in themselves sound very nice as to the ownership of all land by the people in common. Before that object can be attained the people must learn to think “in common.” It must first be demonstrated that the idea is practicable. I once believed that the people could own and till the soil in common. I did not believe that it was right for an individual to hold absolute ownership of the soil. To-day I know that an individual cannot hold absolute title to the soil if the interests of the people “in common” require that it should be otherwise. I no longer believe that the people “in common” can till the soil and own it in common. First, because they do not think “in common;” second, because the people are only people and not angels. In other words, the people are not good enough yet to discard the native selfishness which was born in them.

But this can hardly be considered satisfactory by the members of the order. In 1882 Mr. Powderly did not say one word about tilling the soil in common, and such an idea had evidently never entered his head. Whether he ever believed in tillage in common or has since ceased to believe in it, has nothing whatever to do with the plain principles of natural right that in 1882 he so clearly laid down. Nor yet is the fact which must in 1882 have been as evident to him as in 1888, that “the people are only people, and not angels,” at all calculated to convince such men as the thousands of Pennsylvania miners now on strike “that one man has the right to own the land and all it contains, while they, the children of the same Father, have nothing.”

Whether Mr. Powderly did or did not try to influence the pope, the propaganda or Cardinal Gibbons, is a matter of small concern; but it would be a matter of great interest to know who or what has influenced the General Master Workman himself to ignore, and, as far as he can do so, to repudiate, the brave and true words which he uttered in 1882.

We print this week a letter from Mr. John H. Keyser and an interview with him, which will afford much food for thought.

We also print some extracts, furnished by Mr. Herbert Slocum of Indian River, Michigan, from a circular issued by a firm of Mississippi land agents, which show in striking manner how in the south another form of slavery is taking the place of that form abolished at the cost of bloody war. This also contains much food for thought.

HENRY GEORGE.

The New Haven Land and Labor Club.

NEW HAVEN, Conn.—Will you please announce in THE STANDARD that the New Haven land and labor club has vacated Central labor hall and will hereafter meet every Friday evening in room 26, Boardman building, corner of State and Chapel streets. We propose to read and discuss a chapter of Henry George’s works, or to discuss some timely topic at every meeting. We hope that every reader of THE STANDARD here will join our club and lend a helping hand in the work of education and agitation.

ALFRED SMITH, Sec., 93 Whalley avenue.

The Harlem Anti-Poverty Society Holds Its First Public Meeting.

The Harlem branch of the New York anti-poverty society held a meeting at Temperance hall, 125th street and Lexington avenue, last Tuesday night, at which Dr. McGlynn discussed the aims and objects of the society. The hall was crowded, and the address was frequently interrupted with applause. Jerome O’Neill, the chairman of the branch, presided, and there were present most of the active workers in Harlem, and Miss Munier’s Concordia chorus enlivened the proceedings with some of their songs.

Organizing in Larned, Kansas.

LARNED, Kansas.—Meetings of citizens of this town were held January 28 and February 3, at both of which I delivered addresses which were well received. After the close of the last address a united labor club of twenty-five members was organized, with myself as president, and prominent citizens as secretary and treasurer. A third meeting will be held on February 18.

W. M. GOODNER.

The Cigar Tax.

The cigar makers of this city propose to hold a public meeting next week to protest against the internal revenue tax which the committee at Binghampton^sic indorsed The effect^sic of the tax is to make it impossible for a workman to go into business for himself, and to concentrate the business in the hands of large employers. p. 1, col. 6

THE FREE EATING ROOM CLOSED.

The Twenty-first Ward Association of Brooklyn.

BROOKLYN, February 6.—The twenty-first ward association united labor party of Brooklyn held a very interesting meeting on February 2.

After the regular business had been disposed of the chairman made a few remarks, after which Mr. Pritchard read H. F. Ring’s famous speech, “The Case Plainly Stated.” The marked attention paid by all the members showed that they fully appreciated Mr. Ring’s argument.

Mr. E. Stillman Doubleday has volunteered his services for Thursday evening, Feb. 16, when he will read a chapter of “Progress and Poverty,” and there will also be a grand musical programme by the association band.

The association meets on the first and third Thursday evenings of each month corner Myrtle and Nostrand avenues.

JAS. R. CAHILL, secretary, 618 DeKalb avenue, Brooklyn.

A Long Session.

ST. LOUIS.—If I understand Mr. George’s proposition it is this: Remove all taxes from whatever is the result of labor and tax the land to the full extent of its rental value.

Now, let us test the practical working of this scheme by a little simple arithmetic.

1. Smith owns three city lots valued at $1,000 each. Upon two of the lots he has built houses costing $4,000 each. One of these houses he occupies and has furnished at a cost of $1,000. The other house he rents out at an annual rental of $500, just ten per cent of the full value of the house and lot. The third lot is vacant. Smith owns also a lot in the suburbs beyond city improvements, for which he paid $100. He also owns a steamboat worth $50,000. Smith’s property, then, consists of the following: Three city lots at $1,000, $3,000; one suburban lot, $100; two houses at $4,000, $8,000; furniture, $1,000; steamboat, $50,000. Total, $62,100.

Upon this he pays taxes in 1888 just about one per cent of the full value, or $621. In 1889 Mr. George’s law goes into effect and Smith is taxed only the rental value of his land. This rental value was shown to be ten per cent of its full value, and its full value being $3,100, Smith pays in 1889 a total tax of $310, or $311 less than in 1888. With the money so saved he buys three other suburban lots adjoining the one he already owns, paying for them $100 each. The remaining $11, with a little added, he uses to embellish his vacant city lot, which lies alongside of the house he occupies, by planting trees and flowers in it. As his taxes are so much reduced he can well afford to retain that vacant lot for a domestic pleasure ground. But in 1890 the city begins to move out in the direction of Smith’s suburban lots, and they go up in value $25 each. The four are then worth $500 and he pays on them $50. In 1891 they become worth $200 each, and he pays taxes on a valuation of $800, or $80. In 1892 the street is improved and the street railway extended beyond these lots; a boom takes place, and Smith sells his lots for $500 each, or $2,000 for the four. The lots cost him in the first place $400; he has paid taxes yearly on them—$10, $50 and $80—$140, and special tax for street improvements, $260; total, $800. He sold them for $2,000, and made a net profit of $1,200. Not a bad result of land speculation under the operation of Mr. George’s scheme.

It is evident that if the rental value of land be ten per cent of its full or selling value (and as regards city lots this is very near the mark), the increase from time to time in the rental value must equally be one-tenth of the increase in the full value, leaving the land speculator, under the George scheme, as his profit, nine-tenths of whatever rise takes place in his land; and this where real estate is booming, makes a very pretty profit, and is hardly calculated to altogether prevent speculation in land.

2. Here is another case: Jones is the owner of ten city lots. They come to him by inheritance, but he is otherwise poor; he works for a salary, and has no money for building on his lots. He has placed them on the market for sale, and holds at $1,000 each in expectation of a boom. Their present selling value is $600 each, and on this valuation he pays in 1888 a tax of one per cent, or $60, on the ten lots. In 1889, under the George law, they are taxed $600, their estimated rental value. Jones cannot raise this amount of money, and so his lots are put up at tax sale; but nobody will buy them, for the boom that Jones expected did not come; his lots have fallen in value, and are now considered undesirable property. Nobody wants to build on them and run the risk of having empty houses on his hands, and nobody wants to hold the lots unimproved and pay the heavy taxes on them. So year after year they lie idle, yielding the city no revenue (for the government cannot tax itself) until they are entirely forfeited to the city. So Jones has been robbed of his patrimony by process of law; the city has for years been cheated out of its revenue, and every city, it appears to me, will be afflicted with just such unproductive lots here and there, or vacant lots producing nothing but unpaid taxes.

3. Take a third case: Brown owns a city lot worth $10,000. Upon it he has erected a building for $100,000. This building he rents to Robinson, a manufacturer, who occupies it with his machinery and stock, which are worth $100,000. This piece of property then represents value as follows: Lot, $10,000; building, $100,000; manufacturer’s plant, $100,000—$210,000; and in 1888 it pays tax of one per cent, or $2,100. In 1889, under the George law, it pays only the rental value of the lot, or $1,000. So the city loses $1,100 in taxes, the capitalist landlord saves $100 in taxes and the capitalist manufacturer pays no taxes at all, adding yearly $1,000 to his capital.

4. From a consideration of these three cases it is evident that the present revenue of the city is mainly derived from the tax on buildings and personal property, and that to remove this tax (however the tax may be raised to its full rental value) will be to greatly reduce the city’s income. Of course the tax on the country outside of the city will have to be proportionately increased. Instead of levying a state tax in the city, as now, city taxes will have to be collected in the country. Without going into figures it is clearly evident that the full rental value of a farm must be greatly in excess of the amount now paid by the farmer in taxes as a small percentage on the valuation of his land, his house, his stock and other property. It is equally evident that to largely increase the farmer’s taxes (as Mr. George’s law must do if it makes him pay to the state the full rental value of his land) will be to swallow up the now too meager profits of agriculture, to discourage farming, to sell his land, if he can, and invest his money in some city enterprise exempt from taxation, to drive the countryman into the city and deter the city man from going into the country; to increase capital on the one hand and poverty on the other.

It may be that I misunderstand Mr. George’s theory. If so my premises are wrong and my argument falls to the ground. But if my premises are true my argument, it seems to me, must stand. If in either premises or argument I am wrong I desire nothing more earnestly than to be set right, for though I have read “Progress and Poverty” I have as yet not been able to find any one to answer my arguments satisfactorily either to himself or me.

5. I desire to say a word on another subject. I assert that money is a convenience for hoarding and that it possesses this faculty, possessed by nothing else, that it will keep for generations and will grow by the mere keeping. To illustrate:

A man has $10,000 in money and invests it in government four per cent bonds. These he locks up in the vault of a safe deposit company. In one year they have grown $400. This amount he re-invests in bonds and locks them up with the others to grow. I shall be told that his $10,000 did not begin to grow till he put them to use by lending them to the government to help carry on its functions. This is partially, but only partially, true. He lent his money to the government and the government put it to use, but he did not. He only exchanged his non-growing money for another form of money that had in itself the germs of growths. When he made the ex-

p. 2, col. 2 change with the government there stood two parties each holding $10,000 in money, for bonds are money quite as much as greenbacks. One party, the government, used its money; the other party, the man, locked his money up. He could have exchanged those bonds for goods to sell or in machinery to manutacture^sic, or in building houses, so as to give employment to others while yielding profit to its owner. But he locked it up and it grew, doing nobody any good, not even benefiting himself, except in the name of having it. Again, I shall be told that land possesses the same faculty of growing in idleness, and that the man in question might have invested his $1,000 in land^sic with the same result as its investments in bonds^sic. This again is partially and only partially true. Money, whether buried in the ground or locked up in a vault, is equally money withheld from circulation, from use, from benefiting society. But money locked up in a vault, if well secured and bearing interest, is sure to grow. Money buried in the ground may grow or not. I have known (so has everybody) repeated cases of men who bought land on speculation, held it and paid taxes on it for years, then sold it for less than it cost them. There is a risk in buying land, but none in locking up interest-bearing money. So I return to my first proposition, that money is the only thing that will surely grow while kept in idleness.

M. O. GILPIN.

(1) Here is a fair specimen of “statistical” reasoning. An isolated case is selected or imagined, a quantity of assorted statistics relative to it is gathered, “a little simple arithmetic” is applied, and although obvious facts, far more simple than the arithmetic, are wholly ignored, the result is pointed to as a demonstration. Mr. Gilpin has never read “Progress and Poverty;” he has never thoughtfully considered the influence of general economic principles upon production and exchange; he does not appreciate, if he knows, the effect upon land values of a land value tax, nor upon production of exemption from taxation; and yet, because in his example in “simple arithmetic” his Smith escapes a large item of taxes which most Smiths escape now, and speculates in land as some Smiths do now in greater degree, he imagines that the whole philosophy of the single tax is exploded.

Mr. Gilpin correctly states the single tax doctrine. It contemplates the removal of all taxes from products of labor and the taxation of land to the extent of its rental value. This would make it profitable to produce goods and unprofitable merely to buy land. Indeed, when the tax had reached its highest limit, there would be no real buying and selling of land, and long before that point was reached most land would have no selling value. Real estate would be bought and sold as now, even if the tax were imposed to the full extent, but prices would be governed by the value of improvements, and not at all by the value of the land. This effect, which is understood by every one who is familiar with the first principles of political economy, Mr. Gilpin wholly ignores, for he assumes that Smith may use his savings in taxes for the purchase of three suburban lots at as high a price when they are taxed ten per cent as they were held at when they were taxed but one per cent. Assuming, as Mr. Gilpin does, that ten per cent is the full annual value, no land would have a selling value. Selling value is only a capitalization of rental value, plus a speculative premium; if you tax away the whole rental value, there is nothing on which to capitalize; and if it is understood that the tax is to increase with increase of rental value, speculation is discouraged. No man will buy a thing from which he can never expect an income; and, though Smith might pay $311 less in taxes in 1889 than in 1888, he would not invest that $311 in the purchase of three suburban lots, the rental of which was, at most, but $10 each, if the tax on each were also $10.

But suppose that Mr. Smith were as simple as Mr. Gilpin’s arithmetic, and did buy those lots, and suppose that in 1890 they rose in value $25 each, so as to be worth $125, or, to state it accurately, for they would have no selling value, suppose their annual rental value rose to $12.50 each. The four lots would then be worth $50 a year, and would, as Mr. Gilpin says, be taxed $50 a year. In 1891 they would be worth $20 each or $80 in all, and the tax would be $80; and in 1892, under the influence of the “boom,” they would be worth annually $50 each or $200 in all, and the tax would be $200. Now, conceding Smith’s simplicity, where would he find any one else so simple as to pay him $2,000 for those lots? Mr. Gilpin’s sum in simple arithmetic needs radical revision.

As Mr. Gilpin makes no point of the reduction of Smith’s taxes other than to suggest that the same may be used for land speculation, a suggestion which I think he will now concede is due to his error in supposing that land which is taxed up to its full rental value can have selling value, it may not be worth while to say much regarding the reduction in Smith’s taxes. At any rate, I shall say no more than this: The tendency of taking taxes off of labor products will be to enable their owner to sell, rent or hire them for less than now with the same if not a greater profit, and therefore, using exact figures for the sake of illustration, to compel Smith to rent his extra house, worth $4,000 and now taxed $40, for $460 instead of $500, and to carry goods and passengers on his steamboat, worth $50,000 and now taxed $500, for $500 a year less than he is forced to charge now. That is, the reduction of taxes on his furniture and the house he lives in will be the only reduction that Smith will save; the reduction on his other house and on his steamboat will be saved to his tenant in one case and to his customers in the other. Smith’s benefit from these reductions will be due to increase of business. If a storekeeper makes one sale for sixteen and one-half cents of a cake of soap that has cost him ten cents and on which he has paid a five cent tax, his profit is one-half a cent less than if he makes two sales on which there is no tax. His benefit is in the increase of his business and the smaller capital required. Smith’s benefit would be of the same kind.

But I am not quite through with Smith. He owns a vacant suburban lot worth $10 a year on which he is paying a $10 tax. Smith will not continue to do that. If he wants to use the lot he will use it and pay the tax; but, then, his demands upon trade will tend to make it more active, to im-

p. 2, col. 3 prove business and to raise wages. If he does not want to use it he will stop paying the tax, and the lot will forthwith become nobody’s or anybody’s lot, and will so remain until somebody goes upon it and improves it, which he will be at liberty to do on no worse condition than that, whether he uses it well or not, he shall pay its value once a year in taxes. Smith has also a city lot worth $100 a year. Perhaps he will make a pleasure ground of this, as Mr. Gilpin supposes; but if he does, he will create a new demand for labor, which is precisely what we want him to do.

And now, Mr. Gilpin, seeing that Smith could not speculate in vacant lots because they would have no value; that he would have to use both of his vacant lots, or abandon them, because it would be unprofitable to hold them out of use; that the taxes remitted from his other property would be remitted to his customers rather than to him, and that all this would improve business and increase wages while securing to the public its own—the value of land—what objection have you to the single tax so far as it relates to the case of Smith?

2. Jones’s case is simpler than your arithmetic. If those lots are of right common property they are not Jones’s patrimony at all, and he loses nothing when he loses them. He is at present depriving his fellow citizens of an unalienable right, the right to a place on the earth, by trying to make them pay to him $1,000 for what is as much theirs as his. If, on the other hand, these lots are Jones’s property, as his hat or his coat is, to interfere with him in exclusively controlling them is wrong. I do not propose to discuss this question, but refer you to book 7 of “Progress and Poverty.”

There is, however, another than the moral question involved in this case. It is evident that the lots have no real value, for you say “nobody wants to build on them.” Their only value is speculative, for Jones “holds at $1,000 in expectation of a boom,” though no one wants to use them. Yet, the expectation that a great many people will want to use them soon is so great that any speculator is willing to pay $600 for the chance of levying a private tax on the users when they appear, and Jones is not disposed to sell the chance for less than $1,000. But when the lots are forced on the market at tax sale, the “boom” not having arrived, “nobody wants to build on them,” “nobody wants to hold” them “and pay the heavy taxes on them,” and they bring nothing. Jones therefore loses nothing but the chance of levying a private tax on the production of the future. That is a queer kind of “patrimony.”

What would really happen would be this: In 1888 Jones has ten lots worth in the market $6,000, but which he holds at $10,000. In 1889 the single tax is imposed to the full limit, say ten per cent. Jones then has the alternative of paying $600 or repudiating ownership of the lots. If he retains ownership he must pay the tax, but no one can compel him to own land that he does not want to own, and if he repudiates ownership the lots will be free to any one to occupy. Of course the market would be affected by such a condition. The value of land would fall, and a new equilibrium of values would soon be established. That might be at a point at which these lots would be worth nothing, in which case Jones or any one else could build upon them without paying any tax until values rose. But if the new adjustment fixed the value of the lots at $10 each per annum, liability for that tax would be the only condition of taking possession.

So far as the loss to the city is concerned there is no cause for worry. The lots are unproductive now. If Jones pays a nominal tax to the city it is only for the purpose of being permitted to levy blackmail on citizens when they shall desire to make the lots productive. By making all vacant lots free or practically so the city will prosper in far higher degree than by selling privileges to some of its citizens to retard improvements. In 1888 any one who wanted to build on any of those lots would have to deplete his building fund by paying Jones $1,000 for the privilege and would be taxed on every brick that was bought and every day’s work that was done; but in 1889 whoever wanted to build would need only to go upon one of the lots, and no matter how much labor he employed or materials he bought would have no taxes to pay except to the extent of the annual value of the land he entered upon. Which of these two conditions would tend to make the city the more prosperous?

3. The city would get $1,100 less in taxes from Brown and Robinson than before; but (using exact figures for illustration, as I did in Smith’s case), Brown’s building being untaxed, would rent for $1,000 less, and as Robinson would pay no taxes on his machinery, he would save in taxes $1,000, and in factory rent $1,000 more, or a total of $2,000, to say nothing of the saving of taxes on his products, the entire benefit of which would go, in the first instance, to his customers, and ultimately to the consumers of his goods.

4. How Mr. Gilpin manages to infer from three hypothetical cases that “the present revenue of the city is mainly derived from the tax on buildings and personal property” is something of a mystery. It probably is a fact; but it is not a legitimate inference. And though it be a fact, what of it? It does not follow that less revenues would be derived from a high single tax than are now derived from low miscellaneous taxes. Nor, because the revenue falls off in the three cases Mr. Gilpin has evolved from his inner consciousness, is it to be inferred that it would fall off generally? A very careful estimate of land values in the city of New York below Forty-second street shows that the annual value of land there is fully three times the whole revenue of the city, and the same proportion, approximately, will hold good, no doubt, in all cities. But suppose city revenues fell off, that would not involve higher taxation in the country. If land is to be taxed to its full value, country land could not be taxed more than its value because city revenues diminished. If land values were insufficient for public expenses, public expenses would have to be reduced. Nor is it true that the full rental value of a farm

p. 2, col. 4 is in excess of the amount now paid by the farmer in taxes. Of the entire value of a farm, one-third is ample allowance for land value. Then in the case of a $6,000 farm, the value of the bare land would be $2,000, and at fifteen years’ purchase, which is about the proper estimate in this country for agricultural lands, the rent or tax would be less than $134. Now, what farmer owning a $6,000 farm, does not pay, in direct and indirect taxes, more than $134^sic. This makes no allowance for the fall in land values that must accompany the imposition of the single tax in consequence of the death blow it will give to land speculation.

So far from swallowing up the meager profits of agriculture the single tax will lower the taxes of the farmer, expand his markets, make his trade more active and increase his wages. It will do the same for all workers and will bear down upon none but the Joneses, and upon them only in relation to what you call their “patrimony” and not at all in regard to their salaries if they work.

5. Your proposition about money is just as unsound as your single arithmetic^sic and evinces the same kind of half thought or confused thought that appears in your other questions. Money in idleness never grows. It is only as money is in use, representing real and active capital, that it may be said to grow. If you buy a flock of sheep with, say $500, that money represents the sheep; and if in the course of time the wool and lambs increase so as to make your flock worth $600 over and above the value of your labor, measured by what it would have justly earned you in, say digging ditches, your $500 has grown to $600. So if you buy the honest stock of an honestly conducted railroad company, for $500 and receive an honestly earned dividend of $100 your money has grown. The increase you receive in either case is not a tax upon any one—it is not forced from any one without an equivalent. But if you buy a government bond for $500, you are doing precisely what you would be doing if you bought a piece of land as an investment—buying a power to tax other people for your benefit; and if you receive interest to the extent of $100 in one case or rent in the other, your money has not grown, but you have added somebody else’s money to yours. In the instance of the flock of sheep or of the railroad stock, you are getting an increase that your capital has added to the general stock of wealth, and nobody is the poorer; but in the instance of the government bond or of the land investment, you are getting what somebody else has added to the general stock of wealth, and somebody is poorer. Your money has been idle and it has not grown.

You are quite mistaken in supposing that you will be told that land possesses the faculty of growing in idleness. It does not grow at all. The demand for land grows and that enables those who own land that is wanted to levy private taxes on people who want it; and it makes no difference if some speculators do make a mistake in supposing that the land they buy will be in greater demand. If they lose by their speculation they are like “nigger” speculators before the war who bought black babies and supported them and paid taxes on them only to have the babies die on their hands. The risk in that kind of speculation could not justify chattel slavery nor can the risk in land speculation justify private land ownership.

A Farmer and a Mortgage Clerk.

DIGHTON, Mass.—If the single tax were adopted would this be the result?

A farmer holding fifty acres of fair agricultural land is taxed (irrespective of improvements) say fifty dollars each year, while a neighbor has built a ten roomed house and has a fair garden piece, the whole occupying half an acre; his land, reckoning it at house lot price in that district can only produce some three dollars tax. At the same time this neighbor is a rich man and derives a large annual income from his position as managing clerk in a western mortgage office. He goes every day to this city office some twenty miles away. The clerk produces no wealth, but draws largely from western workers. The farmer produces new wealth every year, and this by hard toil, care, thought and enterprise; again he employs labor. At present their taxes are about equal—which, to say the least, is anomalous, seeing the clerk has ten times the income of the farmer. Would it not produce a sense of injustice in all such cases under the reformed system? And are they not likely to occur by thousands upon thousands? Would not the burden of government expenses fall in these cases where there was the least ability to bear?

ONE WHO DESIRES TO SEE THE CAT.

The probability is that a farmer holding fifty acres of “fair” agricultural land would pay no taxes, for land would be so plentiful that “fair” agricultural land would have no market value. The reason that “fair” agricultural land has much or any value now is because nearly all land is monopolized. But the single tax on land values would make it so unprofitable to keep land out of use that the real estate market would be glutted with unused land.

But to take your illustration as you give it: The farmer would pay $50 in taxes, while the clerk would pay but $3. At first blush, to one who has only thought of questions of taxation along beaten paths, this does seem unequal; but consider a moment. What does each man receive from the community in return for taxes? Since land is naturally common property, no individual having any better right to it than any other, whenever the community protects an individual in the exclusive use of particular land, it confers upon him a privilege which is greater or less according to the value of the land. Now, what is the value of the privilege which the community confers on the farmer in your illustration? Fifty dollars a year. And what is the value of the privilege which the community confers on the clerk? Three dollars a year. Thus so far as their respective relations to the land are concerned, these two men are taxed equally; he who gets a fifty dollar privilege pays fifty dollars, and he who gets a three dollar privilege pays three dollars.

This much you will no doubt concede, but you will argue that the clerk has a great deal of untaxed wealth while the farmer has comparatively little. Assuming that the clerk earns his greater wealth by superior industry or skill in production, or saves more by being less wasteful, what right has the farmer to complain? What

p. 2, col. 5 theory of morals can justify the farmer in demanding, or you in demanding for him, that the greater industry or more prudent habits of the clerk shall be punished by a tax? In a case of public necessity so great that the land values, which in justice belong to the whole community, are insufficient, a plea for the taxation of people according to their earnings might be entertained; but so long as public property is ample for public need it is moral larceny to take private property for public use.

What makes this seem an injustice to you is the fact that many, if not most, wealthy people do not earn their wealth. That your thought is influenced by this, appears in your supposition that the rich clerk is “managing clerk in a western mortgage office.” I do not intend to say that such a clerk may not earn what he gets. If he does earn it you have no right to tax part of it away on any pretense of equalizing his income with that of a farmer who earns less. But. assuming^sic that the clerk does not earn his income, how does he get it? Evidently through monopoly. And what kind of monopoly? Just as evidently the monopoly of land. There would be precious little business for western mortgage offices if every cent that every man earned was exempt from taxation, and land values were so taxed that all unused land was free. It is our system of taxation, which lays taxes on labor products at every turn of the wheel of industry and permits appropriators of God’s earth to make the people pay them for using it, that makes the opportunity of the western mortgage office. Take taxes off of all labor products and collect all revenues from the value of land and your “managing clerk in a western mortgage office” will have to earn what he gets in a way that will add to the wealth of the community. When that happens we may know whether he really earns more than the farmer; and if in these circumstances he does earn more you will find it difficult to prove that he ought to pay any higher tax unless he appropriates more valuable land.

The truth is that most farmers’ taxes would be less under the single tax than they are now, for the value of the farmer’s bare land is a small proportion of his wealth. And since that tax would kill the mother of all monopolies, the private ownership of land, and make it easy to get rid of her brood, no one would be able to get wealth except as the farmer gets it, by producing new wealth every year.

If you want to “see the cat” do not rely upon answers to haphazard questions, but read “Progress and Poverty,” in which “the cat” is so vividly pictured that a man of your evident intelligence cannot fail to see her.

Notes.

EDW. HIGGINSON, Fall River, Mass.—Sometimes Mr. George does use wages in the quantitative sense; but regarding the division of wealth into rent, wages and interest and the tendency of rent to increase and wages to decrease, the term is used as one of proportion. If rent increases in less proportion than productive power, then, though wages as a proportion will fall, as a quantity they will not, but will rather rise. But if rent increases in greater proportion than productive power, wages will fall as a quantity. Now, private ownership of land generates speculation, and speculation abnormally lowers the margin of cultivation until it raises rent in a proportion almost if not quite as great as the increase of productive power, with a strong tendency to lower it still further. For a full explanation read chapters III and IV of book 4, “Progress and Poverty.”——I do not think that a work on political economy calls for very serious consideration when its author is responsible for the notion that a house and lot bought for $10,000 and which without being improved afterward sells for $50,000 is a case illustrating the “unearned increment of a house.” It would be like gravely reviewing the spelling book of an author who didn’t know how to spell b-a-k-e-r.

LOUIS F. POST.

DR. M’GLYNN ON “THE STRIKES AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT.”

The Forty-first Public Meeting—Labor Organizations Not a Remedy But the Symptoms of a Disease—The Best Place to Strike Is at the Ballot Box.

The Academy of Music was crowded last Sunday evening as it has seldom been before save on great occasions. Every part of the house was fully occupied and the vestibules were filled with persons standing. Dr. McGlynn delivered the address of the evening on “The Strikes and the Labor Movement.” The meeting was presided over by Dr. Jeremiah Coughlin, president of the down-town branch of the anti-poverty society. The exclusively labor and trade organization elements were evidently present in stronger force even than on ordinary occasions, and there was great enthusiasm manifested when Dr. Coughlin announced that the next Sunday night’s meeting of the Anti-poverty society at the Academy of Music would be devoted to an entertainment for the benefit of the striking miners of Pennsylvania, under the auspices of the society and of the district assemblies of the Knights of Labor. He announced that Dr. McGlynn, Henry George and other prominent speakers would deliver the addresses. The Concordia chorus sang “The Harp that once through Tara’s halls,” which was encored and then Dr. McGlynn was introduced and spoke as follows:

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: You expect to hear me speak on strikes and the labor problem. These strikes are but a violent manifestation, an eruption, a symptom of a deadly disease. They are no cure for the disease (applause), and their chief value is that they make so manifest the existence of the disease, and that most consoling fact that even in the outcast multitudes of men, the disinherited, the down-trodden, the dying, there is still enough manhood left to make us hope for the possibility of a radical cure by the application of a radical remedy. It is not my purpose to dwell at any great length to-night upon the history of strikes, with which I frankly confess I am not very familiar. I have not thought it necessary to gather statistics concerning them. It is rather my office, as it is my purpose, to content myself with certain general principles and facts bearing upon these strikes and upon the labor problem of which they are an attempted and a most clumsy and unsatisfactory solution.

What is this labor problem? It is the problem of all life. It is the problem that our united labor party is endeavoring to solve by political methods. It is the problem which it is the office of this anti-poverty society to contribute its share toward solving by preaching the essential doctrine by which alone the problem can be solved. (Applause^sic.)

It is not my object to-night to utterly discourage men who are striking or who may at some future time be tempted to strike, but I should feel that I had gained very much if from the strikes that are going on beneath our eyes, from former strikes and certain general principles concerning them, I could show to the strikers and to all men the comparative, if not the absolute, uselessness of this blind groping after the remedy—if I could point out some lessons that should serve to induce men to give up the useless, quack remedies for a constitutional disease, to see clearly the wrong and the means of remedying it and then to strike, to strike one and all, to strike together there where alone the strike can be effectual—at the ballot box. (Wild applause and cheering, lasting over a minute.)

This labor problem, I repeat, is the problem of all life. And therefore it is most closely connected with all those fundamental religious questions that necessarily concern not merely the right ordering of our lives here, but our eternal destiny hereafter. It is the question: How shall rational men, created in the very image of the creator, endowed by him with unalienable rights and gifts, precious trusts as well as inestimable gifts, for which they must render to him an account, so use these gifts, so sacredly guard these trusts as to fulfill their destiny, to develop the natures that he has given them? The labor problem then is just this: How shall we assert, make good and practical, our right to life, to liberty and the pursuit of happiness? How shall men make practically unalienable these sacred trusts that our Declaration of Independence so truly tells us are de jure, in right, unalienable. The Declaration in that magnificent profession of a religious faith in the creator and in the equality of his essential gifts to his children, is not telling us of a fact, but of a right. It were a strange mockery of history if the Declaration had been intended to assert the fact that men have always in fact been equal. It were a bitter mockery of the outraged, the down-trodden, the robbed, the disinherited masses of men throughout the ages to assert so galling a falsity. But right is right, as God is God; and right is necessarily eternal if it exists at all; and the highest endeavor, the most earnest desire, the holiest enthusiasm of men should ever be to square the fact with the law, to make history the magnificent evolution of God’s law, of God’s providence, through the intelligent and the loving obedience of the minds and the hearts of men.

The fact is unfortunately in strange dissonance with the law. If labor be God’s law let us obey the law. (Applause.) It were strangely unwise in us to seek to amend his plan and to stifle the exercise of the labor that he has given us. It is ever the excuse of despotism that men need to be governed paternally, as if any fatherly government on earth can surpass in goodness, in wisdom and in power the fatherly government of the most high God. (Applause.) Paternal government! Men need to be led! It is dangerous to educate them. These are the theories prevalent in paternal governments. Now this movement of ours, in its attempt to solve the labor problem, means that because men are equal, endowed with the equal, unalienable right to life, to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness, that all have the equal right to cultivate their intelligence, to discipline their will, so that the child of the humblest denizen of earth may aspire to fill the highest niche in the temple of fame. It is a theory that has actually been broached in our country that from a Christian standpoint the most desirable condition of society is that in which there shall be a highly educated few and the uneducated many. It is a matter of grave importance, therefore, for us to assert in season and out of season the essential religious character, the anti-pagan character of our immortal Declaration of Independence (applause); to assert that men being born with an equal right to life, to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness are, therefore, endowed by their creator with an equal right to all those things that are necessary for the maintenance of that life, for the enjoyment of that liberty, for that pursuit of happiness—that all the general bounties of his magnificent and lavish creation are the gift of one Father equally to all his family, and not to a chosen few. It is the p. 3, col. 2 object of this platform of ours, of the united labor party, to solve the problem on these lines. These are the lines of eternal truth and justice. These are the lines indicated by the essential teaching of all religion.

The labor problem, in a more prosaic way of stating it, is simply this: How shall all men be able to maintain their lives and to exert their energies during this mortal life upon the natural bounties in such way that they shall always be able to obtain the employment that they need or desire, and when they have obtained such employment, how shall they be perfectly secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labor? That is the whole labor problem in a nutshell. How shall such condition of things be brought about? It is simply false to say that men have equal rights to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness, if you deny that they have equal rights to the general bounties of nature, without which life cannot be maintained at all, without free access to which there can be no true liberty, without the proper employment of which there can be no pursuit of happiness. (Applause.) Surely it were a mockery of the Christian gospel to say that oppression is so good a thing that it must be an act of virtue on the part of the oppressor to give to the oppressed so admirable an opportunity of exercising heroic virtue. (Laughter and great applause.) Poverty and the consequent misery and vice and crime that are in the world are not the result of God’s law, but are the result of the violation of God’s law; so that the strike and the revolution and the bloodshed and the arson, horrid and cruel as they are, only tell that God’s law has been violated, and that the outraged sense of human dignity shall never be appeased till perfect justice shall be done. (Applause, repeated again and again.) The law of gravitation is a very good thing. And as in the physical world that simple law explains all things, so in the moral world the simple universal law of God is justice. (Applause.)

I am not here to justify or to encourage strikes. But I do say that I find much comfort in them. (Applause.) I find much comfort in discovering that even in the most ignorant and oppressed, the most miserable, the least supplied with all good things of earth, there is still at least as much of human spirit to make the crushed human worm turn and at least snarl defiant protest even while he is being crushed to death. (Great applause and cheers.) The strike is a violent remedy against a most violent wrong. (Applause.) It is by usurpation, it is by robbery, it is by craft, it is by over-reaching, it is by bribery, by perjury, by the defiance of God’s law and the natural instincts of the human heart, which are a part of God’s law, that this horrid landlordism, this monopoly in the natural bounties has everywhere begun. And that wrong must necessarily work itself out to its legitimate conclusion, to the oppression, the robbery, the debasement, the degradation, the extermination of a large portion of God’s family. And it is entirely creditable to the original dignity in them that they will not give up the fight without at least protesting, that they will not quietly sit down or lie down and die without at least cursing the infamous robbery, even if they have the heroic Christian charity not to curse the robber. (Applause.) There would be no need of strikes—there would be no strikes; strikes would be simply not merely an absurdity but an impossibility—if the essential principles of this platform were carried into practice by the peaceful remedy of the ballot. (Applause,)

Complaint has been made by some of our good friends, some occasional visitors at these meetings, that they have come sometimes several times and have heard little or nothing of the distinctive doctrines of this platform, and therefore I desire to supplement this omission. What we are aiming at is simply this: To secure for all men abundant opportunity to employ their labor and the full natural wages of their labor either in the thing that they produce by their labor or a perfect equivalent for that in the product of somebody else’s labor. (Applause.) It seems a truism, it is so obvious. And yet the world is so stupid (laughter), with a little mixture of malevolence, that this obvious truth is denounced as revolutionary, as subversive of law and order. And, saddest to say, the name of sweet religion is invoked to perpetuate injustice, to denounce, to calumniate, to revile the men who, surely for no love of self, have been impelled by the humanity within them—nay, impelled by the love of God, their father—to do something in their brief time to right the wrong, to teach men not to curse God and die, but if possible to bless God and continue to live here, so that when He shall call them they shall be transferred from the kingdom of heaven here to the kingdom of heaven beyond. (Applause.)

What are we here for, anyhow? Is it to eat and drink and crawl about for a little while on the surface of this globe? No! Small as we are, the most oppressed son or daughter can stand up and say: “I am greater than all the physical universe. (Applause.) There is something here within me that shall survive the wreck of worlds, and I am dearer to God, my father, than all the wondrous suns, than all the harmonies of the spheres.” (Great applause.) If we are what reason and faith conspire to tell us we are, then in God’s name we are something more than mere crawling things, wearing out our wretched, miserable life; we are the children of the Father, we are workers to learn his tasks. And the law that he has given for this magnificent workshop must be obeyed, and that law is justice. And if, as saints and seers have prophesied, this earth shall be some time the kingdom of the Father, it will only be when all the world shall enjoy the unspeakable beatitudes pronounced upon those who shall have hungered and thirsted for justice with the assurance that they shall have their fill (applause), when the teachings of the Master shall have been incorporated in the spirit of all our laws. Now, then, it is a logical necessity, if we believe in religion at all, to accept all this, and to believe, therefore, that our present condition of society is a mockery, a violation of God’s law, a blasphemy against his beneficent designs. And we need not complain that we are reviled for teaching these truths. It has ever been so, and we can find unspeakable comfort in the knowledge of the fact that those who persecute the teachers of a truth to-day will be making tardy reparation to-morrow for the injury that they have done to-day. (Applause.) It is true of every great moral and social reform that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. (Applause.)

I have said before that no matter how wonderfully a man may preach a great truth with his head on his shoulders, should he have the good fortune to have his head cut off his shoulders for the preaching of that truth, he will preach it ten times better with his head off than with his head on. (Great cheering and repeated applause.) It is not my purpose to-night, while I still have my head on (laughter), to preach to our afflicted brethren who are striking in the coal mining regions of Pennsylvania that they should discontinue their strike. I have no such advice to give them. (Applause.) But I would say to them that even though their strike should be successful, they should feel the victory to be so wretched and poor and paltry a thing that it was hardly worth contending for (applause)—a wretched gain of eight per cent, or something of the kind. I am trying to say, dear friends, that if I thought this society of ours p. 3, col. 3 had nothing more satisfactory than a question of percentages, if it had no remedy to propose greater than a reduction of a certain percentage of the rent of Irish tenants or the increase to the very small extent of eight per cent of the wages for eight months in the year of miners in Pennsylvania, I should really not think the game worth the candle. (Applause.)

Let us hope that these good, suffering friends of ours will win the strike and get the eight per cent, or whatever it is that they want. But how much nearer will they be to their goal than they were before? How much better will their wives and children be clad, or schooled, or fed, or housed? How much more civilized will they and their successors be likely to be if that scale of wages can be maintained?

Ah, no! It is too dreary a spectacle. I have been conversing with a very intelligent man, a working man who visited in the interest of labor organizations some little while ago these very mining regions, and the tale that he tells is one full of infinite pathos. We saw in the New York Times an editorial a few days ago that these striking miners, if they chose, at any moment could go to work again at two dollars and a half a day. This man who was on the spot told me that the miners could get two dollars and a half a day for eight months in the year, but that out of this two dollars and a half they have to buy their own powder, and their fuses, and their oil, and then to pay an assistant, so that two dollars and a half are the wages of two men and the supplies necessary for doing the work. And besides, if they are wise miners and prudent, and not entirely unselfish, they will take care to purchase with the very limited amount of money that would remain to them their little groceries and the like from the company’s store. There is no absolute compulsion to buy from the company’s store. But the man who does so gets better work; he gets a breast of coal, I believe they call it, while the poor wretches who will have been so unwise as not to patronize the company’s store, to give outrageous, usurious profits to that company out of their miserable wages, will be put at less desirable work, where they can make less wages and where their lives are seriously imperiled in the work that is called “robbing the mine,” which, I believe, consists in paring down the columns of coal and sometimes taking them away entirely at the risk that the ceiling will fall in and rob them of their lives. (Applause.) It is so easy for a man in the editorial sanctum to settle the affairs of the workingmen—(laughter and applause)—and to show how well paid they are and how ungrateful they are to the kind employers, to these paternal coal companies and railway companies, that actually, it would seem, have gone into the business of coal mining and railroading more as a philanthropic enterprise than as a money making business. (Laughter.)

No! I hope that they will win the strike! But if they should not, they probably will be nearer to their redemption than if they should. (Applause.) Things have got to get worse before they can get better. (Applause.) And if they should not win this strike, they perhaps will be a little more impressed with the fact that there is something wrong in the present system, than if they should be pleased, tickled, with a sort of childish glee for a few weeks or a few months at having gained a wondrous victory! And what is the lesson that they ought to learn? That the strike is not much good anyhow. That it is only a wretched cataplasm, a poultice, a plaster for the mere symptom of the disease. It is only a mere palliative; and what they need is a fundamental remedy, a medicine that shall purge the system, shall restore the system to perfect health. And the strike is no such remedy. Why, we are actually told that the companies are making money by the strike, that the supposed scarcity of coal is putting money into the coffers of these bloated corporations. The price of coal is going up, and so, besides having to pay extra prices for your coal, dear friends, you are also asked to contribute something to help to keep up the strike. And actually the money that you are putting into the coffers of these people by buying their coal, and the funds with which your charity is aiding these striking miners, will be going into the pockets of these corporations. (Applause.)

Now, God forbid that anybody should understand from me that you are not to contribute generously. I beg you to contribute as generously as you can (applause) at the benefit here in this hall under the joint auspices of our society and of the Knights of Labor, and next Sunday I beg that you will come in greater numbers and prepared to give a great collection. But I repeat that this is only a palliative. Save some of these people from starving. Help them to maintain the strike, to maintain them for a little while longer. Do it, in God’s name. But while we are doing this charity, let us send a burning message with our poor dole, to tell them to be men and to show their manhood not merely by this wretched strike against the superior violence, but by striking where they can strike with wondrous potency—at the ballot box. (Applause.)

The golden stream that has been pouring from this country into Ireland for the last thirty years or more has actually chiefly gone to benefit the landlord. (Applause.) I don’t say therefore these Irish sons and daughters should forget their fathers and mothers, therefore they should refuse to send them money because it goes largely to maintain landlordism. But I do say, in God’s name, while doing what they can to maintain the wretched roof over their fathers and mothers, let them by word and work and prayer and contribution do what they can to hasten the day when the curse of landlordism shall be destroyed root and branch. (Applause.)

Those who clearly see the truth we are preaching can have but little patience with the pothering of Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone on the other side and Mr. Powderly on this side with some petty question of percentages of rent, homesteads and the like. Let them come out and see the truth and preach it—that God has given the land of every nation to the people of that nation; that with Bishop Nulty we should all see that to deprive the least of the children of a nation of his equal rights to the land of that nation is to rob him of his inheritance, and to be guilty of a blasphemous iniquity against the beneficent design of the creator. (Applause.)

Mentioning the name of Mr. Powderly recalls his pothering about Guilford Miller and his homestead—some old man two or three thousand miles off who found he had a homestead and then he hadn’t. President Cleveland’s authority was invoked to give him the homestead. Suppose Mr. Guilford Miller’s homestead thirty or forty years from now was the center of a town of fifty or sixty thousand inhabitants, that would be a funny kind of a homestead wouldn’t it? That poor homesteader would be the biggest kind of a bloated landlord. Now that is no doctrine of ours. We are only too glad that he or anybody else should have a homestead. We will free absolutely from taxes all the products of his industry. But when the land, the use of which has been given to him for nothing, because it was worth nothing, shall, not by his industry but irrespective of his industry, have acquired a rental value, we do not want him p. 3, col. 4 to rob the community of that value which the community has produced. (Applause.)

If Mr. Powderly and others cannot see that, more’s the pity. They ought to see it. Mr. Powderly many years ago recommended to the Knights of Labor to read “Progress and Poverty.” I wonder has he read it himself? (Applause.) Thank goodness, a good many of them took his advice. (Applause.) And thank goodness, a good many more people have read it without taking his advice.

There is one man in congress to-day—there are three or four hundred of them I believe—but there is one man in whom I feel a particular interest. He is a man with the somewhat unwonted name of Smith. (Laughter.) He is from Milwaukee, and I have the pleasure and—I say it in all seriousness—the honor of his acquaintance. He is a workingman. I met him at a labor gathering on the Fourth of July last in Milwaukee, and conceived a very high esteem and effection^sic for the man. He is the only man to-day in congress elected by the labor party—a labor party in Milwaukee in the very greatest sympathy with the platform on which we stand. That man said one of the most sensible things that have ever been said by a congressman. And I said at a little meeting that I attended last night that if he keeps on saying such good things as that, we might do worse than nominate him for the presidency. Some reporters of one of our metropolitan journals had interviews with as many as possible members of congress about the strikes. And most of them straddled. They favored the workingmen, but, of course, they believed in law and order. They looked not into the cause. And Smith, the laboring man—I think he told me he was a plowwright, a plowsmith—he said: “The place to strike is at the ballot box.” (Applause.)

And now I mention Mr. Powderly’s name, I am reminded of another victory. On this platform last Sunday evening I mentioned what I believed to be the fact, that Mr. Powderly in his well known negotiations with the archbishop of Baltimore, and through the archbishop of Baltimore with the see of Rome, in order to have this society of the Knights of Labor—a society of American workingmen—protected from the interference of Rome, had sent an ambassador at the expense of the order to Rome to negotiate for the protection and immunity of the Knights of Labor. You have seen in the newspapers certain apparent denials of what I have said. Now, I have no desire to insist upon mere technicalities and quibble about mere words. What I said I asserted upon the authority of one or more than one man or men very high in the councils of the Knights of Labor. (Applause.) And since that assertion was made and denied, I have been assured on similar authority that my assertion was substantially correct. (Applause.) And I am glad to see that the publication of what I said has actually brought out a substantial confession from parties very much interested in the truth of what I said. First, there was an apparent, most ingenuous and frank and full denial by Mr. Powderly of anything and everything that I had said on the subject. And because of my reaffirmation of the substantial truth of what I said with some additional circumstances, there appeared in the newspapers a day or two ago a very remarkable statement from Mr. Tom O’Reilly, in which he said no doubt he was the man referred to in my remarks, and kindly said some pleasant things about me, and while saying he was not in Rome and has not been in Europe for six years, said he was actually busily engaged in heading off the torrents of misrepresentation against the Knights of Labor pouring into Rome. That is substantially a confession of all that I wanted to make out. Mr. O’Reilly has not denied absolutely, as well as I can make out, that somebody went to Rome, that some money was spent for the purpose of paying his expenses to Rome. But whether that be true or not I am not going to quibble about it. The only point that I wish to make has been made good actually by the confession of Mr. O’Reilly that in this American order of the Knights of Labor there was a man, who recognized himself as a most intimate confidential friend of Mr. Powderly, who was engaged in trying to head off misrepresentations in Rome against this order. And the point I wanted to make and make now is, what had the pope of Rome, what had these cardinals in Rome, to do with this American business? (Applause.) The obvious attitude of the Knights of Labor should be to say to each individual: “We care nothing for your religion. You may believe anything or nothing, and if the rules of this society do not suit you or your religion you may get out.” (Great applause.)

I have told you that a man will preach any great truth better with his head cut off than with his head on. That is precisely my own case. (Applause.) I can never entirely stifle the palpitations of a heart that was somewhat morbidly enlarged. From a pretty early day I have been in the uncomfortable position of a man with liberal ideas subjected to the absolute dictation of a despotic machine. (Laughter.) I have told you recently some of the things that I think about the ecclesiastical machine, so I shall not thresh that old straw again to-night. (Laughter.) Some seventeen years ago I was driven by my love of the church to say some strong words against the alliance of the corrupt democratic machine with the ecclesiastical machine. I came very near coming to grief then. I hinted that the public schools were not godless schools, and that in order to believe in God it was not necessary to keep saying God, God, God, God, God. (Laughter.) I hinted there was a proper time and place to worship God, and the place to worship him best was in our minds and hearts. (Applause.) I have been on the ragged edge ever since then. A few years ago I was deliberately singled out and ordered to discuss the school question in a theological corference. And when I went there I heard such sentiments as these uttered by a man who is now a bishop, that the pastor could not give absolution to those who sent children to the public schools, that teachers earning their bread in public schools were bound in conscience to give up their positions. I had gone to that conference with some sort of prudential reserve, but when I heard such talk I threw all prudence to the winds. (Applause.) I began with my usual modesty and diffidence (laughter) and tried for about three minutes to get off these prudential reasons. I had a paper with questions between my fingers and I kept twisting it and speedily it was reduced to pulp. And finally I shook myself loose. (Applause.) I paced that platform and delivered a philippic for nearly an hour. That did not add to the esteem of the ecclesiastical machine for any prudence or conservatism. (Applause.) But I had been ordered to discuss the school question, and when a man is ordered to discuss a thing isn’t he expected to say what he thinks! (Great applause.)

Then here, five years ago, came the Irish land league question, and I, overcoming a great deal of reluctance, yielding to the entreaties of an editor who to-day is one of the bitterest foes of this platform (cries of “Ford! Ford!” hisses and hooting) and loses no opportunity of maligning it—I came upon this platform to stand shoulder to shoulder with Michael Davitt. (Applause.) And I said what Bishop Nulty said. (Applause.) And my suspension was almost immediately ordered from Rome. And so little eager was I to get out of the sanctuary that I sacrificed p. 3, col. 5 my rights as a man and as a lover of the land of my father and mother. The Lord forgive me! (Applause.) And I promised that I would make no more land league speeches. The Lord forgive me! (Applause.) You can easily understand that the edge upon which I was balancing myself was becoming more and more ragged.

And then I went to speak for the poor of New York at Chickering hall, having been forbidden to attend any political meeting in future without permission of the propaganda. And so little eager was I to break the ties that bound me to the Christian altar that I consented—the Lord forgive me!—to make no more speeches. The archbishop suspended me for two weeks and I bore it in silence. One Sunday I went to Jersey City and received communion, and another Sunday to Philadelphia. Then after two weeks the archbishop took occasion from a newspaper account of an interview to suspend me to the end of the year. I repressed myself for the sake of a higher good. But in spite of my earnest desire to avoid the present condition of things it has, as if by a special providence, been forced upon me.

And now then comes the application of the principle that I desire to make. My head has been unfortunately cut off, and I discover that I am able to preach to larger multitudes, with more freedom, more energy, more force, and as if God himself were blessing my efforts. I humbly believe he is. (Great applause, three times repeated.) And, I was saying, I humbly believe, with perhaps more efficacy than ever before, preaching the truths of God. I accept the situation. I wrote a letter last Friday to the beloved friends of St. Stephen’s parish, who have shown such extraordinary devotion to me. And what I said I meant, and I desire here to-night to remove all suspense, and to say that their protest is simply worse than futile. I appreciate and reciprocate their love and sympathy. I am grateful for their generosity. But it is simply impossible, without a moral revolution, for me ever again to be pastor of St. Stephen’s church. It is morally certain that for many years I shall never, with the permission of bishop or archbishop or cardinal or pope, minister before any Catholic altar. That is the painful fact, and I beg of my dear friends to accept it and make the best of it.

And therefore do I desire (murmurs and cries of ’No! no!“) and I insist, and I have a right to insist, that those meetings of vain and useless protest and the source of unnecessary irritation shall cease. I beg it as a favor and I demand it as a right. (Round after round of applause.)

It has been perhaps facetiously said and it may be said that it is not Dr. McGlynn’s funeral. If it is not my funeral, whose is it? (A voice: “Archbishop Corrigan’s”) No! I am the cause of it, the cause of the dissension. They will not send me back, and now to terminate the matter I don’t want to go back. (Great applause.) And you—and you, if you love me, should not ask me to go back (cries of “No! never!”), for it is impossible for me to go back except on such conditions as would be an outrage to you and to me. (Applause.) It is impossible for me to go back without retracting and humbly apologizing (cries of “Never! never!”) for what I have said from this platform, and I never shall. (Great applause.) It is not possible for your wishes to be gratified, for me to go back except on the condition that I shall submit to the so-called right of a man in Rome to forbid me to go at the request of my fellow citizens to confer with them on a social or a political question. I shall never accept such condition. (Applause.) They have it in their power, in their despotic power, to exact conditions like this: that if I am to be restored to my ministry, it shall not be to the altars that I have helped to build, to the church that I helped to plan, to the people who have become as dear to me as if they were a part of myself; no, it shall be to go wheresoever they choose to send me. And I, if they had sent me, in the exercise of their authority, a year ago; if they had ordered me to go forthwith the same day or next morning, I assure you, before God, I should have gone instantly and uncomplainingly. But at the same time, whether in St. Stephen’s church, New York, or in Middletown—Orange county, I think it is (laughter)—I should still have believed, and I probably should have exercised the right that I believe I had, to express my opinions at proper time or place to my fellow citizens, whether in speech, book, newspaper, interview or whatsoever other form. And these men made it a condition that I should swear, if need be before witnesses, that I would never do anything of the kind without their permission. And I never can do it. (Cries of “Never! never!” and applause.)

And so I thank my God that while I have done my best to prevent and retard this consummation it has come at last (applause), and I am emancipated. I cheerfully and loyally profess my allegiance to all the teachings of Christ and his holy religion—to all the spiritual doctrines of the apostolic church, and my profoundest reverence for all the sacred things of which she is the custodian, and I reaffirm with all possible solemnity, and I should do it if this were my dying breath, that I believe that the church of Christ has largely been ruined by the despotism, by the politics, by the intrigues, by the love of temporal power and wealth of what we call the “ecclesiastical machine.” (Applause.)

Some good ecclesiastical friends, after I had been suspended and then at last excommunicated, tried to reopen this case of mine, and, with a sort of negative, passive acquiescence on my part, they have been writing to Rome voluminous statements and sending copies of letters to Cardinal Gibbons which had found their way into his waste basket at Rome. And this was the excuse: Because a certain letter that should have been left with the propaganda had got into Archbishop Gibbons’ waste basket. And these letters and documents and overtures sent to Rome months and months ago have not even received the courteous acknowledgment of a receipt. And now it is my determination, which I avow before you here, that the first letter I send to Rome will be simply to disavow the action of these kind friends of mine, and to tell them that I have no case before them whatsoever.

I shall continue, as I have throughout my life, to believe what I have believed, to love what I have loved, and with the love of God my Father and His grace, that is not confined to sacraments, I shall seek to love him, to serve him. I entreat of those who can without sacrificing their manhood, not merely to believe the teachings of the church, but to receive her ministrations. But I advise you if this machine shall make it a condition of your receiving its ministrations that you shall sacrifice your manhood, your rights as citizens, as workingmen, then trust to the boundless mercy of God. Keep your manhood, and rather than sacrifice your manhood tell them to keep their sacraments to themselves. (Great applause.)

And, doctor, father, what will become of you? I am in the hands of my father and He is infinitely powerful and infinitely wise and infinitely good to me. He has always been so much better to me than my deserts. And I repose upon His fatherly bosom in tne^sic embrace of His fatherly arms with all the tender confidence of a little infant sleeping in the arms of its mother. Have no fear for me. I defy all their malignity. (Great applause.) And I here publicly give them warning that, p. 3, col. 6 much as I regret it—and I call you to bear me witness that hitherto I have most jealously and carefully refrained from it—if they shall think to hound me with the arts of which they are masters I shall expose them. (Great applause.) I shall do it—I shall do it, with the help of God, not in a spirit of vindictiveness. It is poor thing^sic to requite reviling with reviling. But I shall do it in legitimate self defense—no, not merely—but in defense of a cause that is more sacred to me than even my honor or my life. (Applause.) What this machine hates with intense malignity is not the man, but the cause. And so help me God, I shall not permit the cause to suffer in my presence if I can help it. (Cries of “Good” and great applause.) I have hitherto contented myself with pointing out the abuses of the machine, historical abuses hundreds and thousands of years old. But I give them warning that I am full of knowledge of events that might make the country too hot to hold some of them (great applause), and that it will be the part of prudence for them to let me alone. (Applause.)

The Success of the Meetings Apparently Assured.—Mr. Pentecost’s Sermon on “A Foolish Practice.”

The statement on the back of the printed order of services distributed on Sunday at the meeting of Unity congregation showed that there are now 124 regular contributors who agree to pay various sums amounting in all to [$43.65?] a week. If the loose collection at the meetings average as much more, the congregation is financially in good condition. Those who were most active in organizing the meetings believe that there is now no doubt of their successful continuance. Of the people who attend, a large part, perhaps a large majority, have attended regularly from the beginning, and in response to Mr. Pentecost’s request many of these have introduced themselves to him and personal relations have been established between them. Contrary to the general rule as to religious gatherings, there are fully twice as many men as women in the congregation.

All the assistance that Mr. Pentecost receives is entirely voluntary except that of the musicians. The music with which the meetings open and which is played when the collection is taken up, is instrumental; there is no choir. The instruments used are at present piano, violin, cello and cornet. The cornetist leads the singing, and the tunes to which tha^sic hymns are sung are almost all familar^sic to those who have attended Protestant churches. Mr. Pentecost says he desires to make the meetings in every way as attractive as possible and any surplus over the absolutely necessary expenditures will be used to that end.

However much he may disagree with the sentiments expressed at the meetings, no man can listen to Mr. Pentecost without hearing much that will appeal to his best feelings and call out his strongest reasoning powers.

The Brooklyn and Newark meetings are as well attended and as satisfactory to Mr. Pentecost as those held in Masonic temple.

The sermon last Sunday morning was on “A Foolish Practice,” the text being taken from Phillippians 4, ii^sic., “I have learned in whatsoever state I am therein to be content.”

Jesus, said Mr. Pentecost, knew what contentment in its highest sense was, not the peaceful comfort of the pet cat who purrs by the fire, but the strong poise of one conscious of resources which will suffice in any emergency. The majority make false estimates of men and things, misjudge what makes real happiness, and, as a result are subject to surprises, chagrin and disappointment. How few rosy, sunshiny people there are; how few are good natured; how few have no quarrel with the world on their own account. How sour, grumpy, cross-grained most people are.

Here Mr. Penteeost^sic showed that this discontent arose from people not recognizing that external conditions could not of themselves produce happiness, there being no cure for discontent except in the mind itself.

Discontent, said he, arises from unwillingness to adjust ourselves to our circumstances in case we cannot bend circumstances to our will. There are two things, the old adage says, you should not fret about, what you can help, and what you can’t help. When circumstances are stubborn, as they frequently are, peace of mind depends upon the comparatively simple process of adjusting yourself to them.

Contentment is not the mild virtue sometimes supposed to adorn only soft and placid natures. It presumes great strength of character, great resolution of purpose.

Involuntary poverty as a social disease is a curse because it is unjustly forced upon people who are just as unfit for poverty as wealth; but a brave heart is foolish to fear poverty. Nothing destroys the moral sense more than the fear of poverty.

Sickness as a rule is not to be feared, and to drop out of “society” is a blessing. A few friends are all that one needs, few and true; and he who has a good wife, or she who has a good husband and children, needs no other companions.

Make the best of your lot. Don’t be dolefully resigned to your mournful circumstances or you will be a nuisance to yourself and to your friends. Take the bull by the horns. “Some men make a mighty fuss about bulls,” said a farmer as he took up a club and climbed into a field from which a bull had just chased a terrified man, and, when the bull bore down on him, he knocked him down. All snivelers take courage when they see such a man.

But it is also necessary to be discontented, discontented with your ignorance while knowledge is so cheap. You have a little time left from work; consider your ignorance and kindle the divine flame of discontent in your breast which will drive you to a little study and a little thought. If the average man will not read and think how will superstitions and social wrongs be overthrown?

There is another phase of noble discontent—discontent at the miseries of others. Last week I heard a public speaker declare that all people in this country should be thankful for our unexampled prosperity. In his view everybody has plenty. He has $12,000 a year salary as a public officer. I could have wept as I heard him and thought of the women who sew and cough their wretched lives away in this city; of the nine thousand children under twelve years of age who strip tobacco and sew on buttons and do other work to help meet the family expenses; of the men who ask to be sent to prison for food and warmth. How can you and I be content to gorge ourselves while others starve; to array ourselves in fine apparel while others shiver in rags?

I do not say you have no right to what you have, or even that you should go forth and give what you have to the poor. You would do no good in this way. But I do say that you ought to apply your mind to the problem which the unequal distribution of wealth presents. You ought to seek a remedy. You ought not to scout those who cannot rest in contentment while such unjust social conditions exist.

Buddha said: To the poor salvation ought to come. And he could not remain in his princely estate while others suffered.

Six hundred years later Jesus said: To the poor salvation ought to come. And he walked houseless and homeless among them, discontented on their account.

Never pity yourself, but restlessly strive to be more and better than you are and to redeem those who sit in darkness and despair, victims of man’s injustice and inhumanity to man,

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Adopted at Syracuse August 19, 1887.

We, the delegates of the united labor party of New York, in state convention assembled, hereby reassert, as the fundamental platform of the party, and the basis on which we ask the co-operation of citizens of other states, the following declaration of principles adopted on September 23, 1886, by the convention of trade and labor associations of the city of New York, that resulted in the formation of the united labor party.

“Holding that the corruptions of government and the impoverishment of labor result from neglect of the self-evident truths proclaimed by the founders of this republic that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, we aim at the abolition of a system which compels men to pay their fellow creatures for the use of God’s gifts to all, and permits monopolizers to deprive labor of natural opportunities for employment, thus filling the land with tramps and paupers and bringing about an unnatural competition which tends to reduce wages to starvation rates and to make the wealth producer the industrial slave of those who grow rich by his toil.

“Holding, moreover, that the advantages arising from social growth and improvement belong to society at large, we aim at the abolition of the system which makes such beneficent inventions as the railroad and telegraph a means for the oppression of the people and the aggrandizement of an aristocracy of wealth and power. We declare the true purpose of government to be the maintenance of that sacred right of property which gives to every one opportunity to employ his labor, and security that he shall enjoy its fruits; to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, and the unscrupulous from robbing the honest; and to do for the equal benefit of all such things as can be better done by organized society than by individuals; and we aim at the abolition of all laws which give to any class of citizens advantages, either judicial, financial, industrial or political, that are not equally shared by all others.”

We call upon all who seek the emancipation of labor, and who would make the American union and its component states democratic commonwealths of really free and independent citizens, to ignore all minor differences and join with us in organizing a great national party on this broad platform of natural rights and equal justice. We do not aim at securing any forced equality in the distributon^sic of wealth. We do not propose that the state shall attempt to control production, conduct distribution, or in any wise interfere with the freedom of the individual to use his labor or capital in any way that may seem proper to him and that will not interfere with the equal rights of others. Nor do we propose that the state shall take possession of land and either work it or rent it out. What we propose is not the disturbing of any man in his holding or title, but by abolishing all taxes on industry or its products, to leave to the producer the full fruits of his exertion and by the taxation of land values, exclusive of improvements, to devote to the common use and benefit those values, which, arising not from the exertion of the individual, but from the growth of society, belong justly to the community as a whole. This increased taxation of land, not according to its area, but according to its value, must, while relieving the working farmer and small homestead owner of the undue burdens now imposed upon them, make it unprofitable to hold land for speculation, and thus throw open abundant opportunities for the employment of labor and the building up of homes.

While thus simplifying government by doing away with the horde of officials required by the present system of taxation and with its incentives to fraud and corruption, we would further promote the common weal and further secure the equal rights of all, by placing under public control such agencies as are in their nature monopolies: We would have our municipalities supply their inhabitants with water, light and heat; we would have the general government issue all money, without the intervention of banks; we would add a postal telegraph system and postal savings banks to the postal service, and would assume public control and ownership of those iron roads which have become the highways of modern commerce.

While declaring the foregoing to be the fundamental principles and aims of the united labor party, and while conscious that no reform can give effectual and permanent relief to labor that does not involve the legal recognition of equal rights to natural opportunities, we nevertheless, as measures of relief from some of the evil effects of ignoring those rights, favor such legislation as may tend to reduce the hours of labor, to prevent the employment of children of tender years, to avoid the competition of convict labor with honest industry, to secure the sanitary inspection of tenements, factories and mines, and to put an end to the abuse of conspiracy laws.

We desire also to so simplify the procedure of our courts and diminish the expense of legal proceedings, that the poor may be placed on an equality with the rich and the long delays which now result in scandalous miscarriages of justice may be prevented.

And since the ballot is the only means by which in our republic the redress of political and social grievances is to be sought, we especially and emphatically declare for the adoption of what is known as the “Australian system of voting,” in order that the effectual secrecy of the ballot and the relief of candidates for public office from the heavy expenses now imposed upon them, may prevent bribery and intimidation, do away with practical discriminations in favor of the rich and unscrupulous, and lessen the pernicious influence of money in politics.

In support of these aims we solicit the co-operation of all patriotic citizens who, sick of the degradation of politics, desire by constitutional methods to establish justice, to preserve liberty, to extend the spirit of fraternity, and to elevate humanity.

The Officers Elected for the Coming Year—Words of Approval for Mayor Hewitt—The Australian Ballot System Indorsed.

At the monthly meeting of the New York county committee of the united labor party, held on the 2d inst., the following officers for the year 1888 were elected, John McMackin having been elected chairman at the January meeting: First vice chairman, William McCabe; second vice chairman, August W. Mayer; recording secretary, F. C. Leubuscher; financial secretary, Patrick Doody; corresponding secretary, —— Gatens; treasurer, B. J. Hawkes; sergeant-at-arms, —— O’Hara. A committee was appointed to revise the constitution and report at the March meeting. The county executive committee reported that Dr. William Gottheil had been elected chairman and Professor William B. Clarke secretary, and that a re-enrollment had been ordered in the Eighteenth district. The difficulties in the Fifteenth district were referred to the executive committee.

The following resolutions were adopted:

Introduced by Mr. E. J. Shriver:

Whereas, The two cardinal principles of the united labor party have been from its organization, and still are, that all taxes upon the products of industry should be abolished, and that “such agencies as are in their nature monopolies,” should be placed under public control; and

Whereas, Recent messages from the mayor of this city involve a partial admission of the truth of our principles;

Resolved, That this county committee welcomes the gradual conversion of the mayor to correct economic doctrines, and regrets only that he has not been led to confess the entire faith.

Resolved, That, recognizing fully that the present elevated railroad system is entirely inadequate to the needs of the city, and that it is wretchedly mismanaged, we yet protest against any new proposition which would result simply in turning over the means of rapid transit from one set of monopolists to the grasp of another monopoly already dangerously powerful throughout the state—which the mayor practically proposes in his suggestion that the New York Central should succeed the Manhattan elevated in control of the agencies of rapid transit.

Resolved, That we insist upon the true principle as advocated by the united labor party, that the city should both own and operate its rapid transit system, and that it should grant no more public franchises to be used for private benefit, but rather resume those already disposed of; and we call upon all citizens who agree with this declaration to join the united labor party in its efforts to protect the public against any further infringement of its rights.

Introduced by Mr. F. C. Leubuscher:

Whereas, There are now pending in the legislature various bills pertaining to the reform of the election laws; and

Whereas, The united labor party is the first and only party which has placed itself on record as favoring such reform, and especially the Australian system of balloting; therefore,

Resolved, That the chairman appoint a committee of five which shall immediately consider said bills and prepare proper blank petitions for distribution among the several assembly district organizations.

A resolution was also adopted approving of the meeting of the anti-poverty society and Knights of Labor, on behalf of the striking miners, at the Academy of Music on the 12th inst.

“STANDARD” READERS’ THOUGHTS ABOUT THE COMING CAMPAIGN.

What Are Men to Do Who Believe Neither in Democratic Free Trade Nor in Republican Protection?—Why Not Confine Ourselves to Agitation?—Percy Pepoon Believes in Protection as a Medicine—A Wise General Confounds His Enemies by Cutting Their Forces in Two—Both the Old Parties Trying to Steal Our Principles.

How lively an interest is taken in the question of a presidential nomination is evidenced by the large number of letters that reach THE STANDARD on the subject. The extracts given below convey a fair idea of the various opinions expressed:

D. Briggs, Brooklyn, N. Y.—We must either have a full ticket of our own or else abstain from voting entirely; but as there are many who would rather vote for mischief than not vote at all, I think we should nominate a full ticket.

Charles J. Vogel, New York City.—I think it would be best to nominate state tickets, candidates for congress and local officials where we have organizations of any strength. I would, however, if the leading men thought it best to nominate, support a presidential ticket, too.

James W. Bucklin, Grand Junction, Col.—If a national platform were adopted, leaving the term free trade out, but demanding that all taxes, national, state and municipal, should be raised from land values, would not such a platform state our position exactly, and yet be a platform upon which we could all heartily unite? What business have we, who do not believe in taxing products at all, to take sides in a quarrel as to whether we shall raise our national revenue by taxing American or foreign products? Is not such an issue foreign to the spirit of our cause? If so, how can we consistently vote either the republican or democratic tickets? Where our party is strong, as in New York, we may be able to nominate congressional and legislative candidates without a presidential ticket; but where we are weak, as in Colorado, I doubt that, without a presidential ticket, any state or local tickets in favor of the single tax will be in the field. What then are those of us who have left our old parties, and who believe neither in democratic “free trade” nor in republican “protection” to do in the coming election if we have no ticket? We’ll have to take to the woods!

Frank C. Stevens, Albany.—I begin to see the nose of that monster corruption if we fail to enter the national contest this fall. If we do not enter the national contest, it will certainly look to many who are as yet but half convinced, and to the world generally, as though we had taken a step to the rear. We are certainly looked on generally as a free trade party. Why, then, not take the same bold position toward protectionism as we have taken toward socialism. If stragglers cannot fight under our banner, let them fall out. We are fighting for their good as well as ours. Let them know we are fighting for the whole cat, and nothing but the whole cat.

Howard Briggs, Greencastle, Ind.—Should the united labor party maintain its organization in the presidential campaign of 1888, and should it declare against custom house taxation, are questions to both of which I answer most emphatically yes! The question of free trade is so intimately associated with free soil that the Cæsarian operation would be fatal at the birth of our organization.

W. H. Beal, New York City.—The presidential nomination is favored because it will allow us to be counted and furnish occasion for a widespread agitation. Now, admitting that the agitation is the more important, would it not be best to confine ourselves to agitating and relinquish the vain desire to stand up and be counted? If we content ourselves with predicting that neither of the old parties will do anything for the people, the next four years will prove our assertions, and the people will be ready to vote with us in 1892.

David Evans, Meriden, Conn.—A few of us here have left the old parties and are bound by oath not to vote for them again, and we must have a candidate so as to give every voter a chance of declaring our principles by casting their votes with us.

H. M. Smith, Cincinnati, O.—I cannot vote my old ticket (the democratic), nor will I vote the republican, which is no better. Shall I stay at home next fall? Give us a ticket. Yourself, Dr. McGlynn, Hugh O. Pentecost, Dr. Houghton, Louis Post or Judge Maguire; any two of you will do for president and vice president. I care not who, so the ticket is out. We must have it.

V. Fell, Grand Rapids, Mich.—I favor a presidential nomination, first, because only thus can our principles be clearly defined and kept pure; second, disorganization will result if no nomination is made; third, although Cleveland’s message was a good one, his party is on the whole no better than the other and is unworthy of our support. I think we should have a presidential ticket anyhow, leaving local nominations to the option of the localities.

I. I. Barnard, Passaic, N. J.—In reference to Mr. Wilder’s letter in the issue of January 21, while the specific words “protection” or “free trade” do not appear in the Syracuse declaration, neither do the words “compromise” or “bargain;” and I am still unable to see how we are “to abolish” with one hand and with the other to retain or reimpose taxes on labor or its products.

Samuel W. Williams, Vincennes, Ind.—I favor holding a national conference of our friends at the earliest possible date. I am satisfied to leave the question of a national ticket to the conference. If they, in their assembled wisdom, say we must have a ticket all right. If they deem it best not to nominate I will be content. I favor the following platform, nothing more and nothing less: We favor—1. A single tax on relative land values. 2. The Australian system of voting. 3. The government shall operate railroads, telegraph and telephone lines. 4. Payment of the national debt. We oppose—1. Banks of issue. 2. Trusts and monopolies. This platform, when properly understood by the people, will win the masses.

M. W. Norwalk, Albany, N. Y.—I am in favor of nominating a full ticket, but as I voice only my own opinion, would it not be a good idea to have the nominating of a national ticket discussed pro and con and voted upon in each united labor organization, land and labor club and anti-poverty society throughout the country, the resolutions to be published in THE STANDARD before a national convention takes place. I make it as a motion; who will second it?

Percy Pepoon, Omaha, Neb.—We all believe that the tariff and all other forms of taxation should be transferred to the land. We do not all believe that in the meantime the taxes should be taken off from foreign productions and placed on the products of home industry. Why then draw the line and

p. 5, col. 3 divide the party hopelessly on an issue that we all believe in settling in one way, viz.: the single tax. I for one shall vote for Mr. Blaine and protection as against Mr. Cleveland and free trade or tariff for revenue only, should that issue be made and the united labor party have no candidate. Not that I believe in protection either as good principle or good policy, but because I believe it to be a medicine that the country must have in its present diseased state.

I. M. Davis, Topeka, Kan.—Democrats and republicans here frequently ask me: “How is that new party getting along?” I answer, “Splendidly. They cast 70,000 votes in New York last fall.” The next remark is: “All right; I believe it is a good thing; certainly it can’t be worse than either of the old parties. Anything for a change.” Now, to-morrow we conclude not to run a ticket, and next day I meet Mr. Jones, who is an anti-prohibition democrat, but nearly converted to the single tax theory, and he says: “Well, friend Davis, do your people expect to poll a pretty large vote in Kansas next fall?” I answer: “Well, no, Mr. Jones, we have concluded not to run a ticket?” “You have? How is that?” “Why (and I look him up and down) the democrats have concluded to reduce the tariff on whisky, and we are all going to vote the democratic ticket, as we believe they are coming our way.” Some way, I can hardly get up to this. Perhaps I may in time, but I think not. But I dismiss this theory as, to me, unsatisfactory, and turn to the go-as-you-please theory advocated by some. “Leave every man free to do as he pleases. Vote the democratic ticket if you wish, or vote the republican ticket if you chose^sic, but don’t forget to preach and practice truth and justice, in season and out of season.” Well, here I am again square “up a stump.” Candidly, if I am not to vote for the principles I advocate, whether successful or not, I would prefer to drop the word “party” entirely, and call ourselves economic educators, and go on discussing political economy until such time as we thought we had a majority of voters. I for one advocate going straight ahead, expecting success, possibly this year, probably next year, certainly the year following. I can see no other alternative.

Benj. Doblin, New York City.—I lay no claim to being a military tactician, but I would consider him a very unwise general who led his command upon the bayonets of the enemy with a clear and positive conviction that he would be defeated, nor would I consider it a valid excuse for him in defense of his action to say: “I desire that we should stand up like men, thereby proving to our opponents that there were men ready to lay down life itself in the cause of freedom.” We would admire his enthusiasm and deplore his stupidity. I would consider him a wise general who should confound his enemies by cutting their forces in two and then should slip out from between and leave them to fight each other in the darkness of the battle, with an ocacsional thrust just to “keep the pot a boiling.” Apply this as an analogy to our mooted national campaign and you will see the relevancy.

J. J., New Hamburg, N. Y.—Both the old parties are trying hard to steal our principles and use them to grease their rotten machinery. They want to plaster up their sores until after next election—then good-bye for four years to come. We want nothing to do with them. Let us nominate a president and let it be Judge Maguire or Mr. Preston of Brooklyn. I suppose it is out of the question that Mr. George or Mr. Post should run.

J. G. Malcolm, Hutchinson, Kas.—I am in favor of a national ticket, but am not in favor of a national convention. It is too expensive, can only be attended by the rich, and would give too much power to wire pullers. I favor a popular nomination. Let each sympathizer sign his name (with address) to a brief affirmation that he believes in the single tax and then give his choice for president. These can all be sent to a place to be agreed on and thus a popular nomination be obtained.

C. A. THOMPSON, Cincinnati, O.—I would not expect a presidential vote this year much larger than that cast for Henry George for mayor or secretary of state, but the banner of “the land for the people” will have been raised and its followers, even though greatly scattered, will know the march has begun. If not more than five delegates from each of ten or a dozen states appear in a national convention, the work of that convention will be as cheerfully confirmed by the party as if every congressional district in the nation were represented.

A. E. Davis, Topeka, Kas.—Let us assert our principles. Let us show these unthinking scoffers, these “yellow dog” republicans and democrats, that the united labor party has a principle to fight for, and does not concern itself with issues which have been dead for twenty years. It seems to me that when we confine our battles to local offices we virtually acknowledge that ours is not the party of “the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.”

C. C. Platt, Ithaca.—I am in favor of the united labor party nominating a presidential ticket. In this section, as in almost every other section of the interior of the state, very few had any idea of the new political economy until we began our campaign work. Then our tracts were circulated and read, as they would not be read at other times; thousands assembled to hear our reform explained, and fair reports of the speeches were published in local papers. It is wiser, I think, to advise that our party keep out of all local politics, rather than out of the coming presidential campaign. In so many sections the believers in our reform are few, and to organize conventions to nominate congressmen or candidates for minor officers^sic is impossible. If we make local nominations, those who are not clear on the principles of our party are liable to be chosen as nominees, sometimes because they have been identified with old labor movements; thus the public are led to think our candidate is standing for old issues rather than the new one which we wish to bring before them. How much better, in view of the personal criticism which candidacy for public office always excites, for us to rally under some of the able leaders in our party, nominated for president and vice-president, than under a multitude of candidates for minor offices, many of whom are sure to be very fit subjects for personal attack, and perhaps ridicule.

—— ——, Ponce Park, Volusia Co., Fla.—What the last campaign was to New York state the coming one will be (with a full ticket) to the whole Union. I want my first presidential vote for a party founded on such high principles as is embodied in the Syracuse platform. I would much like to see Judge Maguire at the head of the ticket.

J. C. Howe, Homewood.—Whatever may be said about carrying the new movement into the presidential canvass, let us not forget that there is yet a great work to be done before the wisest and best men (if given full control of government) could incorporate and carry forward successfully the reforms we all wish to see established. Our new rulers must be supported by a large, enthusiastic and intelligent constituency. I would not be understood as opposing the placing of candidates in the field (for it may be wise to do so), only let us not, in discussing the question, forget the importance of an educated constituency. Thought must precede action.

p. 5, col. 4

The Sixth Public Meeting—R. W. Harrison on Saving the Masses—Dr. DeBeck Talks About Production—How a Visitor From Saturn Would be Disappointed.

CINCINNATI, Ohio.—At the sixth meeting of the Anti-poverty society of Cincinnati Mr. H. M. Smith presided. The meeting was opened with the song, “Rescue the Perishing,” by the Jubilee choir, after which Mr. R. W. Harrison delivered an address on “Saving the Masses,” a subject which has been lately discussed in the Evening Post of this city. He pointed out that poverty is a prime factor in producing vice, and added that through land monopoly, competition for a living had increased so that our commercial and industrial system was saturated with dishonesty, and that so long as that condition of affairs existed the bulk of the people could not become moral.

Mr. Harrison then took up the interviews which the Post representative had with the various ministers of the city on the subject, and referred to the plan of the evangelical bodies—that of merely preaching their doctrines wherever they had a building—as impracticable and absurd. The Universalists and Episcopalians came a little nearer the heart of the matter, for they were prepared to support any poor that might come in among them, thus recognizing poverty as a source of vice. But alms taking destroys self-respect, and if one has to lose his self-respect in order to get into the church, better be a pagan.

The Mormons had solved the problem for themselves, for there is no poverty in their borders; but when want and the fear of want were abolished by the single tax on land values Mormonism would fall as flat as a balloon without gas. He mentioned an interview with a Catholic priest of this city, in which he was told that the Catholic church taught the same doctrines about the land as the anti-poverty society, and added that he considered the Catholic church the nearest of all to the solution of saving the masses, but thought it blamable for not speaking more emphatically on the question of poverty.

The anti-poverty doctrine of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man contains the fullness of the gospel of Jesus, by which, only, shall the masses be saved.

After the singing of the Rev. J. Anketell’s hymn, “Our Bright Cross Banner,” Mr. Fries read “Old Opinions,” and then a special anti-poverty arrangement of “Adeste Fideles” was sung by the Jubilee chorus.

Dr. De Beck then delivered an able and interesting address on the subject of “Production.” He used Voltaire’s story of a resident of Saturn coming to the earth a hundred years ago and pictured him paying a second visit. On his way to the earth he meets an official of the bureau of statistics, who tells him how marvelously production has increased—ten, twenty and sometimes a hundred fold—by the aid of machinery. Of course on his arrival on the earth he expects to find the inhabitants having an easy time and all rolling in wealth, but is astonished to observe, on the contrary, that poverty has become more widespread than ever and thinks they must have a queer way of doing things here, finding out that landlordism is the cause of it.

The meeting closed with “Keep It Before the People.”

The Evils Which Accompany the Benefits of Civilization—How They May be Remedied—Men are Joint Life Proprietors of the Earth.

CINCINNATI, O.—The cause of the publication by Thomas Paine of his essay on “Agrarian Justice,” was a sermon by the bishop of Llandaff entitled: “The wisdom and goodness of God in having made both rich and poor,” with an appendix containing reflections on the present state of England and France. The following extracts from the essay are sufficient to show that Thomas Paine “saw the cat:”

It is wrong to say that God made rich and poor; he made only male and female, and he gave them the earth for their inheritance. . . . To preserve the benefits of civilized life, and to remedy at the same time the evil which it has produced, ought to be considered one of the first objects of reformed legislation.

Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, called civilization has most promoted or most injured the general happiness of man, is a question that may be strongly contested.

On one side the spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the other he is shocked by extremes of wretchedness, both of which he has erected^sic. The most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized. To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man, such as it is at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not in that state any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets of Europe. Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state.

On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufactures.

The life of an Indian is a continual holiday compared with the poor of Europe; and, on the other hand, it appears to be abject when compared with the rich. Civilization, therefore, or that which is so-called, has operated two ways—to make one part of society more affluent and the other more wretched than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.

It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but it is never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state.

The reason is that man, in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires ten times the quantity of land to range over, to procure himself subsistence, than would support him in a civilized state when the earth is cultivated.

When, therefore, a country becomes populous by the additional aids of cultivation, arts and science, there is a necessity of preserv- ing things in that state; because without it there cannot be sustenance for more, perhaps, than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The thing, therefore, now to be done, is to remedy the evils and preserve the benefits that have arisen to society by passing from the natural to the civilized state.

In taking the matter upon this ground the first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought to still be, that the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period.

But the fact is that the condition of nillions^sic in every country in Europe is far worse than if they had been born before civilization began, or had been born among the Indians of North America at the present day.

I will show how this fact has happened. It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural uncultivated state was and ever would have been the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property.

He would have been a joint life proprietor with the rest of the property in the soil and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal. . . .

There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it. . . .

Whence then arose the idea of landed property? I answer that when cultivation began the idea of landed property began with it, from the impossibility of separating the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which the improvement was made; but it is nevertheless true that it is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor therefore owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.

Yours truly,

ALFRED S. HOUGHTON, M. D.

He Defends His System of Charity and Arraigns the Impracticable Methods of the Charity Organization Society—If a Man be Hungry, Feed Him.

NEW YORK.—May I say a word in reply to your criticisms on “Charity and Justice” in last week’s issue of THE STANDARD?

As you referred to my work of feeding the hungry in the criticism, and also in the previous week’s issue, I would rise to explain. I am a radical and not a surface reformer, one who believes that when justice obtains in human society there will be little need of charity.

I do not believe that justice can ever attain without altering the basic laws upon which society now rests its rotten and trembling foundations, and I have been working steadily for many years to destroy those foundations. But while I so believe and act, I am unwilling to withold^sic “the cup of cold water” or food from a starving brother.

It is just here that my course would diverge from the impracticable and methodical charity organization who for fear that some unworthy person might obtain a meal would condemn thousands of hungry and worthy men, enforced idlers, to suffering and starvation.

Neither are the tender mercies of the average reformer much in advance of the machine charities, for with the spectacle of 2,000 homeless and starving men applying to us daily for a simple meal, neither a reformer nor a reform or labor paper has made a sign.

This worse than apathy grieves and saddens me, because I feel that there is not the kindly sympathy toward the suffering and enforced poor that there should be among reformers, and I deeply regret it, for who shall say, “May not my turn come next?”

I have personally witnessed many harrowing scenes in this direction during my two months’ ministrations among the hungry and homeless men who were forced to apply to our humble charity. I have seen in the gray morning before half-past 5 o’clock seven or eight hundred cold, broken spirited and very hungry men of all vocations and employments standing in line waiting to be served with a simple meal of bread and coffee. But why so early? Because the large majority were self respecting men, enforced idlers, who in their extremity came, under cover of darkness, and stood in line when they felt that they were unobserved by the gaping crowd.

Let the reader put himself in their places, hungry, homeless, thinly clad and broken spirited, with the thermometer at zero, standing on a thousand feet line, and philosophize if he can upon the morality of charity and the evils that might possibly flow from feeding a hungry man.

There is one safe rule to observe in dealing with the problem of poverty which we would specially urge upon reformers, i. e., work for better conditions; but while you are doing this do all in your power to assuage the sufferings and sorrows of any.

If a man is hungry feed him. Perchance if you restore his strength, his manhood or self-respect, he may in turn help you save the ship.

Merciful ministrations toward those who in their extremity need them never debase but gladden the despairing heart.

JOHN H. KEYSER.

Learning Wisdom by Degrees.

E. W. Pettit, chief clerk to the mayor of Cincinnati, in a recent interview with a reporter of the Cincinnati Evening Post, remarked:

I am in favor of taxing real estate. It cannot dodge the assessor. It will be much less expensive for assessing and collecting, and those who pay tax on real estate are, as a rule, the same that pay on personal property. It will increese^sic tax on real estate slightly; but the owner of real estate will get his compensation by having his personal property exempt. This, however, cannot be done until our constitution is amended.

p. 7, col. 3

A Sign of Progress in Canada.

MONTREAL, Can.—The Montreal auxiliary bible society held its sixty-seventh annual meeting in the city Jan. 19. After the annual report had been read, showing the exceedingly flourishing condition of the society, the Hon. S. H. Blake addressed the meeting. His speech, as reported in the Montreal Witness, has about it a flavor of true anti-poverty doctrine which makes us crusaders here in Montreal rejoice exceedingly. Speaking of the influence of the Bible, he said:

The Bible is the most popular book in the world, circulating to the extent of four million copies a year. Two hundred million copies have already been circulated. It has been printed in three hundred and eight languages. As in pentecostal times, every man hears the word in his own language. God has made of one blood all nations. There is a universal need; there is a universal cure for that need. We are getting back to recognize these truths. We are coming to recognize that the Bible is what is needed to lift the world into a higher life. We are getting back to the land laws of the Bible. “Thou shalt not hold the land in perpetuity; it is mine, saith the Lord.” Listen to this—“And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of the harvest; thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger.” If these precepts were acted upon, the rage for wealth, the grinding monopolies, the iron heel of oppression which ground the unfortunate—these would no longer exist. But what are we still doing? Do we not still glean the last straw from our fields? and do we not dismiss that servant who leaves a little for the poor, as unprofitable? When we shall get to understand that the land is not ours, that perpetuity of ownership is impossible, and that God himself has put in an inviolable claim, despotism, grinding oppressions which crushed the weak and helpless—selfishness on the part of employers—all these will disappear.

Mr. Blake’s remarks were listened to attentively, and the evident approval of his audience showed that some of them at least had, perhaps without knowing it, been converted to the teachings of “Progress and Poverty.”

J. S. H.

Some Illustrations of Unearned Increments.

A reporter of the Real Estate Record and Guide recently interviewed Henry A. Hurlbut, one of the oldest citizens of New York. In the course of Mr. Hurlbut’s remarks he said:

When I was a young man I kept a store on the corner of Burling Slip and Water street, which was then in the center of the best business portion of the city. It was a four story building, 27x70, and I paid a rental of $1,250 per annum. I lived at No. 181 (now 215) Henry street, then a fashionable quarter. It was a two-story house with a dormer window, 25 feet wide, with a 3-foot alleyway, and for this I paid $450 rent. I recollect well the old Rutgers mansion, resided in by Col. Rutgers, whose property ran from Cherry to Monroe, and was mainly rented on leasehold. Henry street was mostly peopled by Quakers in those days, of whom one of the very prominent members was John Wood, a flour merchant. Most of the brotherhood were merchants and prosperous trades people. I recollect when the old Metropolitan bank, on the northeast corner of Pine street and Broadway, where the Equitable building now stands, was sold for $100,000 some forty or fifty years ago. Its size, I think, averages about 48 6x100^sic. The property was purchased by the Equitable Life in January, 1885, for $762,500. Some thirty years ago I bought the northeast corner of Broadway and Thirty-second street, where Rogers, Peet & Co.’s uptown store now is, for $22,500; the size was 50x60, irregular. Subsequently I secured two lots adjoining on the street, 50x100, for $2,500 per lot. Before the Central park was laid out completely, and when its limits were placed at 106th street, I purchased twenty-four lots on the south side of 110th street, taking in the three fronts from Fifth to Eighth avenues, for which I paid $450 per lot. The commissioners subsequently decided to take in the four blocks north of 106th street, so as to include the bluff, and a syndicate, who knew the inside facts, purchased my ground from me at a comparatively small advance and then resold it to the city. The residence in which I now reside, No. 11 West Twentieth street, is built on a twenty-five-foot lot, for which in 1848 I paid $2,500. We had no gas in those days, and our street had a cobblestone pavement. The southwest corner, near me (No. 152 Fifth avenue), for which the Methodist book concern a few months ago paid $225,000, was at that time ornamented with a rickety old wooden shanty, used as a factory for dyeing mats, and the liquor from its vats used to run along the gutters down our street. The house opposite, on the northwest corner of Fifth avenue, where Herter Bros. now are, was not then built by its owner, Robert L. Stewart. The corner of Twenty-third street and Fifth avenue, for which the Western Union telegraph company now pays an annual ground rent of $25,000, was part of the old Middleberger farm, which comprised about 120 lots fronting on Broadway, in the center of which was Mr. Middleberger’s farm house. That was p. 7, col. 4 before Fifth avenue was cut through at that point. When the old gentleman died, and Dr. Peckham, his son-in-law, and others came in for the estate, the lots on Fifth avenue sold at auction for $16.000^sic to $17,000. Some years later the three houses on the west side of Fifth avenue, near Gunther’s Sons, to the south, between Twenty-second and Twenty-third streets, sold for $26,000 to $27,000 each, one being bought by a Mr. Fischer, son-in-law of Frank Skiddy, the sugar broker, who also built the southwest corner of Thirty-second street and Fifth avenue. Smith Clark also bought one. One of these houses was sold a few years ago for $109.000^sic. About the year 1856 I purchased eighteen lots on Eighth avenue, 129th and 130th streets, before St. Nicholas avenue was cut through. for $6,500^sic, an average of $361 each. I sold them four years ago for $96,000. Three lots on the south side of 129th street, between Eighth and St. Nicholas avenues, which about that time cost me $450 each, I sold some time ago for $12,000. During all these years I got enough rental out of the property from market gardeners and others to nearly carry the property, so that the advance was mainly clear profit. I remember three story brick houses between Twentieth and Twenty-third streets, on the west side, where O’Neill and the other great dry goods stores now are, selling for $8,000. They were houses and lots, about 20x45x100 each. Two story and attic dwellings on the north side of Thirteenth street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, a very fashionable neighborhood, sold for $4,750 to $5,000 each some twenty-five or thirty years ago. These were 20x104, and a twenty-five foot house on the opposite side could be bought for $7,500 to $8,000. I recollect the corporation selling lots where the Central park now is for $100 and consequently condemning them^sic for $65 each. I was a member of the finance committee of the Home Life insurance company thirty years ago and bought in No. 4 Wall street for $43,000 at auction, as we would not take less than $45,000 for it. The size was about 22x48. It sold about twenty years after for $67,500.

How Infant Coal Mines are Protected.

Philadelphia Record.

The barbarous stupidity of the coal tax imposed by the protective systems of the United States and Canada is revealed by the facts of trade. During the last year the imports of coal by the United States amounted to a little more than 700,000 tons. Most of this was brought in from Canada, and its cost was enhanced to consumers by a tax of seventy-five cents a ton. In the same period the exports of coal from the United States amounted to something more than 1,000,000 tons, a large proportion of which was shipped to Canada and subjected to a tax of fifty cents a ton. By reason of the tax each country exported less coal than it naturally would have done, and received less in return. The consumers of each country suffered in the diminished supply and in the enhanced cost of this prime necessary of living and raw material of industry. Had coal been free of tax the consumers on both sides would have been benefited in its increased supply and lessened cost. Who, then, are the gainers by this brutal tax on coal? Surely not the consumers, multitudes of whom in all the large cities and towns of the country are keenly suffering on account of the excessive cost of this commodity. Not the miners of Pennsylvania, for their condition attests that they derive no benefit from this tax, which is imposed with the dishonest pretense that it is for their protection. Since the consumers of coal and the miners who dig it have no interest in this tax, save its repeal, will some pandit of protection explain for whose advantage it is maintained? If the sole object be to enable the coal combinations to rob consumers on the one hand and to oppress the miners on the other, let the advocates and apologists of this tax have the frankness and courage to avow their purpose.

Australian Progress.

Border Watch, Australia.

Said an old and astute politician to me last night: “I’ll tell you what, old friend—and by the way I don’t know what may be the views you take—but these young fellows about us will have some very nice problems to settle when you and I are out of the way. . . . By George! If I were only fifty years younger I would be in the thick of it! and wouldn’t I make some of their ears tingle! . . . You may say what you like, but they won’t put down Henry George with a mere sneer. That land question will have to be settled, and it won’t be a very comfortable thing for some of them. When in the thick of politics I hadn’t the time to think the question out; but I felt sure we were wrong somewhere. It couldn’t be right for the state, i. e., the people, to pour into the pockets of the quiescent land owners the increment of value created by national expenditure. But I never saw my way to start as I see it now. And let me tell you, old man, that question is being quietly looked at by most thoughtful men I know.”

Now I give you this little resume of a long conversation with a man who is no fool, and has never been counted one—simply as a specimen of the local tendency of thought.

Why, Certainly—And They’ll Find Landlords, Too.

New York Press.

Emigrants who may be induced by the news of fatal blizzards to reconsider their determination to go to the northwest will find thousands of acres of wild land right here in New Jersey, within a hundred miles of New York.

PROGRESS AND POVERTY,

An Inquiry Into the Cause of Industrial Depression and of Increase of Want With Increase of Wealth—The Remedy.

BY HENRY GEORGE.

[250?] pages.

CONTENTS:

Introductory.—THE PROBLEM.

Book I.—WAGES AND CAPITAL.

Chap. 1. The current doctrine—its insufficiency. 2. The meaning of the terms. 3. Wages not drawn from capital, but produced by the labor. 4. The maintenance of laborers not drawn from capital. 5. The real functions of capital.

Book II.—POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.

Chap. 1. The Malthusian theory—its genesis and support. 2. Inferences from fact. 3. Inferences from analogy. 4. Disproof of the Malthusian theory.

Book III.—THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION.

Chap. 1. The inquiry narrowed to the laws of distribution—necessary relation of these laws. 2. Rent and the law of rent. 3. Interest and the cause of interest. 4. Of spurious capital and of profits often mistaken for interest. 5. The law of interest. 6. Wages and the law of wages. 7. Correlation and co-ordination of these laws. 8. The statics of the problem thus explained.

Book IV.—EFFECT OF MATERIAL PROGRESS UPON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

Chap. 1. The dynamics of the problem yet to seek. 2. Effect of increase of population upon the distribution of wealth. 3. Effect of improvements in the arts upon the distribution of wealth. 4. Effect of the expectation raised by material progress.

Book V.—THE PROBLEM SOLVED.

Chap. 1. The primary cause of recurring paroxysms of industrial depression. 2. The persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth.

Book VI.—THE REMEDY.

Chap. 1. Insufficiency of remedies currently advocated. 2. The true remedy.

Book VII.—JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY.

Chap. 1. Injustice of private property in land. 2. Enslavement of laborers the ultimate result of private property in land. 3. Claim of land owners to compensation. 4. Property in land historically considered. 5. Property in land in the United States.

Book VIII.—APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY.

Chap. 1. Private property in land inconsistent with the best use of land. 2. How equal rights to the land may be asserted and secured. 3. The proposition tried by the canons of taxation. 4. Indorsements and objections.

Book IX.—EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY.

Chap. 1. Of the effect upon the production of wealth. 2. Of the effect upon distribution and thence upon production. 3. Of the effect upon individuals and classes. 4. Of the changes that would be wrought in social organization and social life.

Book X.—THE LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS.

Chap. 1. The current theory of human progress—its insufficiency. 2. Differences in civilization—to what due. 3. The law of human progress. 4. How modern civilization may decline. 5. The central truth.

Conclusion.—THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

The new Land and labor library paper edition of “Progress and Poverty” is now ready, price thirty-five cents. This is printed on better paper, in larger type, is better bound and a considerably larger book than the previous twenty cent edition.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS.

BY HENRY GEORGE.

342 pages.

CONTENTS:

1. The increasing importance of social questions.
2. Political dangers.
3. Coming increase of social pressure.
4. Two opposing tendencies.
5. The march of concentration.
6. The wrong in existing social conditions.
7. Is it the best of all possible worlds?
8. That we all might be rich.
9. First principles.
10. The rights of man.
11. Dumping garbage.
12. Over-production.
13. Unemployed labor.
14. The effects of machinery.
15. Slavery and slavery.
16. Public debts and indirect taxation.
17. The functions of government.
18. What we must do.
19. The great reform.
20. The American farmer.
21. City and country.
22. Conclusion.

PROTECTION OR FREE TRADE?

An Examination of the Tariff Question with Especial Regard to the Interests of Labor.

BY HENRY GEORGE.

CONTENTS:

I. Introductory. II. Clearing ground. III. Of method. IV. Protection as a universal need. V. The protective unit. VI. Trade. VII. Production and producers. VIII. Tariffs for revenue. IX. Tariffs for protection. X. The encouragement of industry. XI. The home market and home trade. XII. Exports and imports. XIII. Confusions arising from the use of money. XIV. Do high wages necessitate protection^sic XV. Of advantages and disadvantages as reasons for protection. XVI. The Development of manufactures. XVII. Protection and producers. XVIII. Effect of protection on American industry. XIX. Protection and wages. XX. The abolition of protection. XXI. Inadequacy of the free trade argument. XXII. The Real Weakness of Free Trade. XXIII. The Real Strength of Protection. XXIV. The Paradox. XXV. The Robber that Takes All that is Left. XXVI. True Free Trade. XXVII. The Lion in the Way. XXVIII. Free Trade and Socialism. XXIX. Practical Politics. XXX. Conclusion.

THE LAND QUESTION.

What It Involves, and How Alone It Can Be Settled.

BY HENRY GEORGE.

87 pages.

PROPERTY IN LAND.

A Passage-at-Arms Between the Duke of Argyll and Henry George.

77 pages.

FORTSCHRITT AND ARMUTH.

☞ (Progress and Poverty in German.)

TRANSLATION OF C. D. F. GUTSCHOW.

430 pages.

PRICE LIST.

Progress and Poverty, paper ………. $ 35 ” ” cloth ………. 1 00 ” ” half calf or half morocco …. 2 50 Social Problems, paper ………. [30?] ” ” cloth ………. 1 00 ” ” half calf or half morocco ………. 2 50 Protection or Free Trade^sic? paper ………. 35 ” ” cloth ………. 1 50 ” ” half calf or half morocco 3 00 Property in Land, paper ………. 15 The Land Question, paper ………. 10 Progress and Poverty, German, paper ………. 35

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price. Foreign editions of these books imported on order.

HENRY GEORGE 25 Ann street, New York.

p. 7, col. 6

THE LAND AND LABOR LIBRARY.—

We are now publishing under the title of “The Land and Labor Library” a series of short tracts on various phases of the social problem. These pamphlets contain facts, figures and arguments expressed in concise, vigorous language easily understood. As a means of propaganda we recommend them to all who desire to help on the movement for social reform. Those who wish to have these tracts placed where they will do good but who are unable personally to attend to their distribution, can remit the price to us, as we have every facility for sending them where they are needed and will be read.

The following have already appeared:

No. 1. “First Principles.” By Henry George. 4 pages. No. 2. “Land and Taxation.” A conversation between David Dudley Field and Henry George. 4 pages. No. 3. “The Right to the Use of the Earth.” By Herbert Spencer. 4 pages. No. 4. “A Christian Minister on the Remedy for Poverty.” A sermon by the Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost of Newark, N. J. 2 pages. No. 5. “A Sum in Proportion.” By T. L. McCready. [2?] pages. No. 6. “The Settler’s Nightmare.” By Louis F. Post. 4 pages. No. 7. “New York’s Docks. The True Mode of Raising Revenue.” By. J. W. Sullivan^sic. 4 pages. No. 8. “Unemployed Labor.” By Henry George. 4 pages. No. 9. “Voices for Reform.” 2 pages. No. 10. “A Mysterious Disappearance.” By Lewis Freeland. 6 pages. No. 11. “How to Increase Profits.” By A. J. Steers. 2 pages. No. 12. “The American Farmer.” By Henry George. 4 pages. No. 13. “Sailors’ Snug Harbor and the Randall Farm.” By W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages. No. 14. “The Collegiate Church and the Shoemaker’s Field.” By W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages. No. 15. “Only a Dream.” By Abner C. Thomas. 4 pages. No. 16. “The Anti-Poverty Society.” Dr. McGlynn’s address at the first meeting. 8 pages. No. 17. “The Cross of the New Crusade.” A poem. By David Rorty. 2 pages. No. 18. “It is the Law of Christ.” By Rev. S. H. Spencer of Henry, Ill. 4 pages. No. 19. “My Landlord. By John Jones^sic. 4 pages. No. 20.”Thou Shalt Not Steal.” An address by Henry George before the Anti-Poverty Society. [8?] pages. No. 21. “Christianity and Poverty.” An address by Father Huntington before the Anti-poverty society. 4 pages. No. 22. “Poverty and Christianity.” An address by Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost before the Anti-poverty society. 8 pages. No. 23. “The Single Tax.” By Thomas G. Shearman. 8 pages. No. 24. “Hymns of the New Crusade”—No. 1. 4 pages. No. 25. “Hymns of the New Crusade”—No. 2. 4 pages. No. 26. “Religion vs. Robbery.” Address by Rev. Dr McGlynn before the New York Anti-poverty society, June 12, 1887. 8 pages. No. 27. “Back to the Land.” Bishop Nulty’s letter to the clergy and laity of his diocese. 16 pages. Price, 5 cents. No. 28. “Anti-Slavery and Anti-Poverty.” An address by the Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost before the New York Anti-Poverty Society, June 19. 8 pages. No. 29. “Tenement House Morality.” Rev. J. O. S. Huntington in the Forum. 4 pages. No. 30. “The Case Plainly Stated.” A speech by H. F. Ring before the Knights of Labor at Houston, Texas. 8 pages. No. 31. “Questions and Answers.” Questions by Rev. Howard Henderson of the Sixty-first street M. E. church of New York; with answers by Henry George. 2 pages. No. 32. “Objections to the Land Tax.” By Thomas G. Shearman. 4 pages. No. 33. “Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 34. “Horse Sense.” W. C. Woods. 2 pages. No. 35. The Syracuse Platform. 2 pages. No. 36. “Citycus and Rusticus.” Tudor S. Jenks. 4 pages. No. 37. “Taxing Land Values.” Henry George. 8 pp. No. 38. “God Wills It.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 39. “What We Want.” Everett Glackin, president Typographical Union No. 6. 2 pages. No. 40. “Protection or Free Trade.” Henry George. Price, 35 cents. No. 41. The Syracuse Platform. (German.) 2 pages. No. 42. “First Principles.” (German.) Henry George 4 pages. No. 43. “Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error. (German^sic.) Henry George. 4 pages. No. 44.”How John’s Father Saw the Light.” W. C. Woods, M. D. 2 pages. 45. Platform of the United Labor Party^sic. 2 pages. No. 46. “Taxing Land Values.” (German.) Henry George. 8 pages. No. 47. “It is the Law of Christ.” (German.) Rev. S. H. Spencer. 4 pages. No. 48. “The Case Plainly Stated.” (German). H. F. Ring. 3 pages. No. 49. “The Distribution of Wealth.” Thomas G. Shearman. 16 pages. No. 50. “Progress and Poverty.” (German.) Henry George. No. 51. “Ten Thoughts for Christian Thinkers.” Rev. John W. Kramer. 4 pages. No. 52. “The Case Plainly Stated.” (Swedish). H. F. Ring. 8 pages. No. 53. “Sailors’ Snug Harbor.” (German.) Wm. T. Croasdale. 12 pages. No. 54. “What the United Labor Party Want.” Henry George. 2 pages. No. 55. “Stories for Farmers.” 4 pages. No. 56. “Electoral Reform.” A. T. Rice. 4 pages. No. 57. “Protection as a Universal Need.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 58. “To a College Professor.” Bartholomew Appleby. 4 pages. No. 59. “Before a Royal Commission.” W. A. Douglass. 4 pages. No. 60. “The Tariff Question.” Henry George. [4?] pages. No. 61, “A Practical Illustration.” Hugh B. Brown. 2 pages. No. 62. “Progress and Poverty.” Henry George. Price, 35 cents. No. 63, “American Protection and British Free Trade.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 64. “Hints as to What You Can Do.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 65. “To a Bookkeeper.” Rartholomew Appleby^sic. 2 pages. No. 66. “A Lawyer’s Reply to Criticisms.” Samuel B. Clarke. 16 pages.

GERMAN TRACTS.

No. 41. The Syracuse Platform. 2 pages. No. 42. “First Principles.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 43. “Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 46. “Taxing Land Values.” Henry George. [8?] pages. No. 47. “It is the Law of Christ.” Rev. S. H. Spencer of Henry, Ill. 4 pages. No. 48. “The Case Plainly Stated.” H. F. Ring. [8?] pages. No. 50. “Progress and Poverty.” Henry George. No. 52. “The Case Plainly Stated.” (Swedish.) H. F. Ring. 8 pages. No. 53. “Sailors’ Snug Harbor.” Wm. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.

SWEDISH.

No. 52. “The Case Plainly Stated.” H. F. Ring. [8?] pages.

Prices, free by mail: 2-page tracts—50 copies, 10 cents; 100 copies, 15 cents; 1,000 copies, $1; 5.000 copies, $4.25^sic. Four-page tracts—25 copies, 10 cents; 100 copies, 25 cents; 1,000 copies, $2; 5,000 copies, $8.50. Six-page tracts—25 copies, 15 cents; 100 copies, 37 cents; 1,000 copies, $3; 5,000 copies, $12.75. Eight-page tracts—25 copies, 20 cents; 100 copies 50 cents; 1,000 copies, $4; 5,000 copies, $17. Twelve-page tract —25 copies, 30 cents; 100 copies, 75 cents; 1,000 copies, $6; 5,000 copies, $22.50. Sixteen-page tracts—25 copies, 40 cents; 100 copies, $1; 1,000 copies, $8; 5,000 copies, $34.

Other numbers in preparation.

Address HENRY GEORGE,

25 Ann st., New York City.

The United Labor Party of Linn County, Iowa, Issue a Call for a State Convention to be Held at Cedar Rapids, March 1, 1888.

The following call has been issued by the central committee of the united labor party of Linn county, Iowa:

At the delegate convention of the united labor party of Linn county, held in Cedar Rapids, Ia., January 27, 1888, it was unanimously voted to instruct the county central committee to issue a call for a state conference of all friends and sympathizers with the principles of the united labor party in Iowa, to meet at Craft’s hall, corner First avenue and Second street, Cedar Rapids, at 10 o’clock a. m., Thursday, March 1, 1888. Now is the time to spread our grand principles, and the committee most earnestly hope that every true friend of the movement for the restoration of the people’s rights in the land, will make a strong effort to be present.

In Linn county the united labor party has been organized for over a year, and at a large and enthusiastic county convention held September 12, 1887, the Syracuse (N. Y.) platform was adopted and an energetic and successful campaign carried on throughout the county. The encouraging success our efforts have met with here, and the many expressions of sympathy with our principles coming from friends in other parts of the state warrants us in believing that the time is rapidly approaching when the people of Iowa will be ready to throw off the yoke of monopoly in all its forms, and especially to overthrow “land monopoly, which is the parent of all other monopolies,” and “which compels men to pay their fellow creatures for the use of God’s gifts to all, and permits monopolizers to deprive labor of the natural opportunities for employment, thus filling the land with tramps and paupers and bringing about an unnatural competition which tends to reduce wages to starvation rates and to make the wealth producer the industrial slave of those who grow rich by his toil.”

Therefore, we call upon all who believe in man’s inalienable right to the use of the earth, and to the enjoyment of the just fruits of his labor; all who favor freedom of trade and the abolition of the farce called protection; all who would stop the plundering of Iowa’s farmers and laboring men by the gigantic money, coal, iron, oil, insurance, railroad and other monopolistic corporations, trusts, etc., to join with us in an earnest, organized effort to abolish the unjust laws that have created and fostered these robbers of the people.

The committee would urge all friends of the cause in Iowa to bestir themselves at once and make a strong effort to bring out a good attendance from all parts of the state at Cedar Rapids on March 1. A national conference will soon be called; the other western states are rapidly organizing, and Iowa should be prepared to take part and aid in the work of the national campaign.

Address all correspondence to L. G. Booth, box 80, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Circulars, tracts, land and labor documents, etc., furnished on application to the committee.

By order of the county central committee, united labor party, Linn county, Iowa.

L. G. BOOTH, Chairman.

Mr. Erickson of Minneapolis Defines and Illustrates the Evil and Points the Remedy—A Doctrine “in Bad Repute”—Mr. Donovan of New York Talks About the Campaign.

PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—A. H. Stephenson presided at the meeting of the Philadelphia anti-poverty society last Sunday evening, and in a few well chosen remarks introduced Mr. Erickson of Minneapolis as the first speaker.

Mr. Erickson’s opening sentences contained an allusion to his own state of Minnesota. He said people here thought land was plenty out with them, and they were right; land was plenty there, but, although there were millions of acres lying unused, if any one should think of taking some of it to use, he would find that he would have to mortgage his labor for years, practically for life, before he would be allowed to set his foot on it. When I look around me and see on the one hand the inexhaustible riches, the lavish bounty that the great creator has prepared for his children, and, on the other hand, how thousands, yes millions, of little children, old men and women, and even strong men in the prime of life, are starving, stinted and stunted, physically and morally, in order that a few may live in luxurious idleness, I feel like wringing my hands in indignation and sorrow. To be silent in the face of such facts is to be a coward.

The speaker likened our social system to a hunter pursuing the hare with hounds. The hounds catch the hare and the hunter takes it and gives the hounds the head and the legs. Our laboring people are the hounds and the landlord is the hunter. And if any of the poor hounds become weak and famished because the legs and head are not sufficient to keep them strong, the hunter may pity them and give them the tail also. That is what I call charity. Charity is giving the hounds the tail of the hare. And when some hunters find out that other hunters are giving the hounds the tail they will take advantage of that and give the hounds less head and legs. That is the way charity works with us. By reducing the struggle for existence you stimulate competition and consequently lower wages all around.

Then turning to the remedy for this state of things, Mr. Erickson defined the object of the anti-poverty society. What taxing land values means, said he, is this: Land in the heart of your city is far more valuable than land on the outskirts, not because the holders have worked so much harder on it, but because something like a million people have settled around it. To tax land values is merely to take for the common use the value thus created by the common effort, the common presence and the common need. We propose to do away with fines for improving and beautifying and increasing the conveniences of your city. If a man comes into town with a wagon load of produce we will not compel him to go to the city hall first and pay $1.50 for permission to sell those things, but we will tell him, Come and welcome. Bring all you can. We need it all.

But people ask us how about the poor man who owns a valuable lot and has no money to build anything but a shanty on it. You would rack rent him out of existence. I don’t know how it is with you here, but I surmise it is the same as it is with us in Minneapolis. Those poor men who live in that kind of shanties out there are always worth millions of dollars in land they are keeping out of use, and those are precisely the men we want to rack rent. We want to make them let go. (Great applause.) The men who improve the land they hold won’t be touched at all.

Chairman Stephenson then made several announcements, and stated that he had fully expected to give notice that by invitation from the Episcopal hospital society a lecture would be given on the single tax before that society by a member of the anti-poverty society. He was sorry to say, however, that the rector of the parish, who was absent when the invitation was given, had since his return been persuaded by a few members of his congregation to forbid the proposed lecture take place^sic on the ground that this society and the doctrine it holds are in bad repute. “This society and the anti-poverty doctrine,” continued Mr. Stephenson, “are in bad repute among the so-called ‘saviors of society,’ and there is only one way to bring them into good repute, and that is by coming out boldly and standing by your beliefs in season and out of season. And the higher your position in the community, the greater is your responsibility.”

Mr. Donovan of New York was then introduced. He spoke of himself as one of the 68,000 who had voted for Henry George in the mayoralty election of 1886, and said that that vote was a blow struck by the united force of the laboring portion of the city’s population for the mere purpose of breaking the power of the ring. It was not a vote in favor of the single tax; it was not a vote for industrial freedom. Most of those voters, like himself, had only voted a labor ticket and knew little or nothing of a tax on land values. But since that time many, if not most, of these voters had been studying the single tax theory, and the result had been that the last election showed 37,000 anti-poverty missionaries in New York city alone.

Mr. Donovan complimented the Philadelphia society upon its “catechism,” and said the last question, “Through what means can this great reform be brought?” was tersely answered in the words, “Through the ballot box.” But to make this possible, the ballot box must first be purified; and the first step we take must be in the direction of electoral reform.

The speaker vehemently denounced the malice of those who were endeavoring to create the impression that there was any estrangement between Dr. McGlynn and Henry George. The only foundation for such a report was a difference of opinion between the two men as to the policy of entering the national campaign next fall, which Dr. McGlynn favored, but Henry George did not. He agreed with Dr. McGlynn, and thought we should stand shoulder to shoulder, fighting for the one great principle we all believe in.

The chairman, in his closing remarks, said that Henry George’s position was simply that we should throw our weight and influence in with those who are going our way and whose efforts will awaken thought, and who will be compelled to go further in our direction than they want to or intend to. Our work in politics is necessarily an abolition movement. Our single tax movement is essentially a state movement and not a national one. He himself was in favor of holding a convention, and making a platform in which all taxes on industry, whether by customs duties or internal revenue taxes, should be denounced and the beauties of the single tax pointed out. His remarks were received with wild enthusiasm and cheering.

The meeting then adjourned.

J. F. HALBACH.