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THE STANDARD
HENRY GEORGE, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.
NO. 65—VOL. III, NO. 13. | NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1888. | PRICE FIVE CENTS
p. 1, col. 1 [Note: an owner’s rubber stamp is printed diagonally across the head of the contents box: “104 Dr Walter Mendelsou 167 / 179 W 74th st” (stamp, not part of the printed paper; it obscures the start of the heading and the ends of several entries). The page numbers at the right of the contents list are lost in a faded band of the scan except for “1” after “The Poor Ye Have Always With”.]
[CO]NTENTS:
Various [illegible]
All Along t[illegible]
Anti-Poverty.
A Lecture by Sam[illegible]
Does It Benefit or Inj[illegible]
Queries and Answers.
The Poor Ye Have Always Wit[h?] … 1
Society Notes.
One of the Signs.
Unreliable Statistics.
More Protection.
A Potent Socialistic Element.
By Work, by Gift, or by Theft.
Protection for Reese & Co.
A Critic and a Teacher.
The Whyness of the Which.
At the Antipodes.
Inflicting Fines by Guess Work.
The Value of a Taxing Franchise.
An Unnatural Mother.
American Shop Girls.
A Leader of Men.
Straws that Show the Wind.
Picked in Passing.
Io Victis.
A Pleading for the Worthless, by Cardinal Manning.
Doun sic of Mac-o-Cheek.
The Good Great Man.
Girl Labor in London.
In the Tropics.
Our American Barons.
A Blundering Economist.
London Slums.
Publishers’ Notes.
VARIOUS MATTERS.
On another page we reprint from the Nineteenth Century a striking article by Cardinal Manning. The profound pity, the keen feeling of outraged justice, the deep sense of human brotherhood, and the intense longing for that kingdom of God on earth, the hope of which thrilled and nerved the hearts of the early Christians, make this “Pleading for the Worthless” of the great English cardinal inspiring reading despite the gloom of its portraiture of monstrous evils, for which no adequate remedy is perceived. With all his heart and with all his soul Cardinal Manning feels that there must be a rem edy. He tears down and casts aside those sic pleas that in the mouths even of so many of the avowed ministers of Christ are used to stifle conscience by justifying “things as they are.” Even the worthless—this is the burden of his touching plea—even the worthless; the tramp and the prostitute, the thief and the drunkard—the human vermin who burrow in underground cellars and huddle by night in Trafalgar square, poor, broken, degraded creatures, from whom strength and hope and self respect and self help seem utterly gone—even the worthless were once innocent babes, children of God, brought by his providence upon his earth. If they are worthless, their worthlessness is in at least many cases the result of social conditions; of that slough of poverty that festers amid abounding wealth into which from their very birth they were cast. There was once a community, and that not a Christian community, in which there was room for all, work for all, leisure for all, plenty for all. Why should this not be in a Christian community?
The international council of women which assembled in Washington on Sunday, and the meetings in the previous week of the New York state woman suffrage society at which the European delegates were present, bring up again the matter of the disfranchisement of that “better sic of mankind, who even in American states where every tramp can vote are debarred from the suffrage. The cause of woman suffrage is steadily, though slowly and quietly, making progress in public opinion. In a large and ever widening circle the women who want to vote are no longer deemed masculine nor the men who would have them vote, effeminate. The goal has not been reached and may yet be far off, but since tne sic woman’s rights convention was held in the United States forty years ago, great advances have been made. Much of this is below the surface, and shows in a changed tone of opinion rather in changed sic, but it is none the less real. The progress of such reforms is not to be measured by the noise they make. It is like the progress of a quiet stream in undermining a massive wall. The stream flows on, month after month and year after year, but the great structure yet stands, and to one who looks from a distance seems as strong as ever; until some day—when no one can predict—and as the result perhaps of some immediate cause so slight that no one can precisely tell what it is, the great mass trembles and sways and falls.
Some parts of the wall have already fallen. Already in Wyoming territory women have the full suffrage. They voted for five years in Washington territory, until last year the act under which their votes were cast was set aside by the territorial supreme court because of a technical informality in its title. They also voted in Utah until disfranchised by congress in the bigoted Edmunds bill. In Kansas they have municipal suffrage. Arkansas and Mississippi permit them a vote on the liquor question. And in fourteen states and four territories—viz: Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Wisconsin, Dakota, Idaho, Montana and Washington—they have more or less restricted right of voting on school questions.
The advance of women in respect to higher education, their entrance into the professions, their larger place in literature, their occupation here and there of public
p. 1, col. 2 positions, such as Josephine Shaw Lowell holds on the New York state board of charities, are to some extent results of the agitation in favor of equal political rights, and certainly tend to quietly promote it. So with the increasing employment of women in factories, stores, offices, etc. This is in itself an evil—the result of the growth of unnatural conditions and increasing social pressure. But it furnishes an obvious and strong argument for the extension of the suffrage. When women must work like men, it is clear that they ought to vote like men.
One thing is noticeable in these recent suffrage conventions. Women have learned to conduct meetings without men. In the meetings in this city, and in the larger and more important gatherings at Washington, not a man—either of the long haired or short haired variety—appeared on the stage or assisted in the proceedings in any other way than that of listener, with the privilege of putting something in the collection baskets, carried around by women. No man was even called on to make a prayer or give a benediction. Six “reverends” assisted at the opening meeting in Washington on Sunday last, but every one of them was a woman. Nor have the meetings been any the worse on account of this exclusion of the bearded sex. They have shown not only a high order, but a great variety of talent.
The notion of the intellectual inferiority of women is in fact quietly but steadily melting away. That women intellectually differ from men is, of course true, and must remain true. But this difference does not necessarily imply inferiority. “If I cannot carry forests on my back, neither can you crack a nut.” And even in matters in which men are generally considered superior, women, with the larger opportunities now opening to them, are constantly giving evidences of their ability. An illustration of this, so striking as to be ludicrous, was given last week at Harvard University, where the highest of the Bowdoin prizes, $100, was awarded to E. B. Pearson for an essay on “The Roman Senate under the Empire.” But Mr. E. B. Pearson not being forthcoming, it was discovered that the author of the essay was Miss E. B. Pearson—“only a woman” and only a student in the “annex,” to which female students have been admitted as a compromise between the old fogyism that would keep them out altogether and the rising demand for their admission to the university. Seeing she was merely a student of the [annex?], the award of the $100 had to be reconsidered, and Miss Pearson got only [$30?]. But she made a point for her sex, all the same, and the joke of the matter is that the chairman of the committee who awarded the prize—Professor Terry—had opposed the institution of the “annex” on the ground of female incapacity for hard study!
Says the London Church Reformer:
Any of our readers who are tempted to think that they are overworking themselves in the cause of God and the people might conveniently make the following list of lectures the subject of a Lenten meditation. We have made a note during the past month of such lectures delivered by Miss Helen Taylor, on the land question, as we happen to have heard of through the newspapers or otherwise, and we print them here “to encourage the others” (or to make the others duly ashamed of themselves, as the case may be). Here, then, is the list:
February 2, Southsea; 9, Hull; 10, Sunderland; 12, Newcastle; 13, Gateshead; 14, Seaton Delaval; 15, Morpeth; 16, Jarrow; 17, Prudhoe; 18 and 19, [Willington?]; 21, Carlisle.
Had we been able to get a full list of Miss Taylor’s lectures the above would probably have been greatly extended. These lectures were mostly given on behalf of the English land restoration league, but it is also well known that Miss Taylor is doing a great work for education and for women’s rights. We leave to others the task of explaining how it is that a woman whose lectures are molding the political opinions of thousands of enfranchised men is not considered worthy to be trusted with a vote.
It may, indeed, well be doubted whether there is any man in England who, without the advantages of official position and party leadership, has approached in extent and effectiveness the work in liberalizing thought that Miss Taylor has been doing for years. And while we have not in this country any woman who holds quite the same position in the general reform movement as Miss Taylor does in England, and none who with the same power and eloquence and influence has taken up the fundamental question of the relation of labor to land, we have a large number of women who, in special lines—as for instance, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony in the suffrage movement and Miss Willard in the temperance movement—haye sic the power of women to organize and effectively agitate.
All such women have their influence—their inability to vote cannot deprive them of that. But the main argument for woman suffrage, to my mind, is not that it will enable women to vote, but that it will lead women to think. In all questions of politics—that is to say, in all questions of law and government—women have as direct and as vital an interest as men. If times are hard and wages low, must not women stint and strain and worry and slave? If people are crowded into narrow tenement rooms, and children die by thousands before their time, upon which sex does the discomfort and pain most bitterly fall? It is true that women cannot fight, or, rather, that it is not the custom
p. 1, col. 3 of civilized nations to drag or bribe them into armies or navies for the purpose of standing ready to wound and kill each other. But for every man who wears a uniform is there not some woman, his natural complement, left at home to get along as best she can? And do the losses, the wastes, the agonies of war, fall more lightly on women than on men? If one sex must shed blood, are not the tears of the other often bitterer than blood?
But with this direct and vital interest in public questions, women, not being called upon to pass upon such questions, are accustomed to regard them as beyond their sphere, and if they think of them at all to think of them flippantly. And this disposition of one-half of our people must exert a powerful influence upon the other half.
I do not regard women as the down trodden sex. On the contrary, it seems to me that the influence of women upon men wherever they care to exercise that influence, is a natural fact, and that the power which maintains laws and customs oppressive to women is to be looked for rather in feminine than in masculine opinion. Clearly this is the case with our restriction of the suffrage to male citizens. All that the advocates of woman suffrage have to do is to convert their own sex. Whenever a majority of the women of the United States want to vote, a majority of the men will vote to have them vote. But in the mean time, men take a less intelligent interest in public affairs because of the little intelligent interest that women take. The conservatism that springs from the indisposition to think; the neglect of general interests which arises from failure to appreciate how powerfully general interests affect individual interests, are largely reflected from the opinion of women into the opinion of men. Does not this account for much of the sluggishness and flippancy of our thought upon the most important public questions? Does it not account for much of the difficulty in getting the masses to realize the relation between bad laws and hard times? Does it not largely account for that dull, stolid conservatism which is the greatest obstacle in the way of all reform?
The gain in woman suffrage would not merely be that it would bring into play, in the direction of public affairs and the sic of social questions those qualities of the feminine mind and character complementary to the masculine mind and character, but that it would interest in public questions the mothers, sisters, sweethearts, wives and daughters of men, and as a con sequence bring to these questions more of the attention, the thought and the conscience of men themselves. And that more attention, more thought and more conscience should be devoted to public affairs, is the imperative necessity of an advancing civilization. The tendency of increasing population and growing cities, the tendency of all the inventions and improvements that now so rapidly succeed each other, is to increase the relative importance of general interests, and to require quicker intelligence and higher conscience for the management of public affairs.
Elder F. W. Evans, head of the Shaker community, has issued a little pamphlet, in which he overhauls the New York Tribune for its many sins and gives Whitelaw Reid some good instruction in the ways of righteousness. The Shakers, by the bye, are primarily spiritualists, and their name does not come from the religious dance which is one of their modes of worship, but from the fact, as they say, that when a man joins the Shakers the spiritual influences take hold of him and shake him as a terrier does a rat until they shake the evil out of him. Elder Evans, representing those who have undergone this operation, wants every one to have an inalienable homestead, that they may during the period of their earthly life have a firm foothold upon the earth. He also wants to abolish alcoholic drinking, custom houses, army, navy, forts and arsenals, soldiers, lawyers, doctors, priests and speculators—most of which at least could well be spared. And he not only wants full woman suffrage—for the essential equality of male and female is one of the fundamental tenets of Shakerism—but he in sists that there is no sense in our dual legislatures as at present constituted; and that one house ought to be composed ot sic and the other of men.
Here is a point for the consideration of the advocates of woman’s rights. Its agitation would have the incidental advantage of calling public attention to the worse than uselessness of our present division of legislative powers. Our senates and assemblies are in reality copies of the British parliament, with its house of lords and house of commons. Unfortunately for us, however, one house has not dwarfed and absorbed the power of the other, as in Great Britain, but in our states, as in the legislature of the nation, one house can neutralize the other. There is some reason for this division of congress, the senate affording an equal representa tion to the states, irrespective of their population, while the house represents the people. But the inconvenience and injustice of such representation are becoming more apparent as our national government becomes more
p. 1, col. 4 and more the government of a nation and less and less that of a league, and as the disproportion between the populations of states steadily increases. In our state legislatures, if any reason at all can be assigned for the division, it is simply that of dividing power and providing in one house a check upon the other. But all experience shows that the result of this is merely a division of responsibility which distracts attention and removes the representative from the control of public opinion, while the difference between the members of the two houses as to the times of election and length of terms also serves to diminish party responsibility. One of the remarkable things in American journalism to-day is the little space that is given to the proceedings of our state legislatures and our national congress. The majority of the people of New York know no more of what is being done in the “law mill” at Albany than the mass of the people of China know of what is being done in the Pekin boards, and the American congress has almost ceased to be a forum from which a statesman may speak to the nation. A bit of scandal or a disgusting crime gets more attention in our daily papers than a congressional debate on the most important subject. Other causes have undoubtedly contributed to this result, but there can be no question that the duality of our legislatures has something to do with it. Every important measure must be fought over twice. Its fate in one house by no means determines its fate in the other. Thus public attention tires in the needless strain of watching struggles that may be of no consequence. A single house would call more attention to its acts, would attach more responsibility to its members and to the dominant party, and would unquestionably tend to bring to our lawmaking a higher standard of character and talent.
But if we must have two houses, then by all means let us adopt the Shaker suggestion and fill one with women and the other with men.
The voters of Rhode Island are, on April 4, to pass upon what is known as the Bowen amendment, which proposes to so change the state constitution as to accord the suffrage to male citizens of foreign birth upon the terms on which it is now exercised by other male citizens. The amendment leaves intact the requirement of a poll tax from voters who have paid no other taxes, and of a property tax from voters for members of a city council or on any question of city taxation or expenditure. Though far from coming up to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the amendment is a step in the right direction and ought to be adopted. Whether it will be adopted is another question, since not only are those who are disfranchised by the present constitution debarred from voting, but the amendment to be adopted must receive a three-fifths vote.
There are not wanting strong superficial reasons for keeping up the restrictions of the Rhode Island constitution. They undoubtedly exclude a considerable purchasable vote and would do the same in all our great cities. But that there is all over the country such a considerable purchasable vote does not impair the validity of the American declaration that governments can only justly derive their powers from the consent of the governed. That there is a vote that can be readily intimidated and easily bought is partly due to bad elective methods, but in greater part is the result of that unjust distribution of wealth which breeds demoralizing poverty. There is a substratum of sound sense in the idea that no one ought to vote unless he has some interest in the community. But under a just condition of things every citizen would have a real and tangible interest in the community.
The St. Louis Republican is growing alarmed at the rapid progress of landlordism in the United States. Carefully explaining that it makes no reference to landlordism in cities and towns, which it declares “is universal and has always been recognized sic useful and not inconsistent with public prosperity, it”just goes” for landlordism in the country:
The landlord is rapidly becoming an American institution. It was fondly believed for a long time that the landlord was an adjunct of aristocracy, an offshoot of the feudal system, and that he could neither flourish nor take root in the free soil of the great republic. This belief is being gradually dissipated. Already landlordism is flourishing to a troublesome extent in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, California and Colorado, and the system has been planted in other states and territories, and will be seen and felt in the near future if something is not done to check its growth. Under this system the agriculturists are quasi-slaves, and the cultivators of the fields little more than peons. All are familiar with the results of landlordism in Ireland. The story has been told a hundred times, and few Americans withhold sympathy from the people of Ireland struggling to shake off the baneful grip of the landlord. But while we pretend to abhor the system on the other side of the Atlantic, it is rather strange that we shut our eyes to its propagation and growth right here at home.
So it is. It is also rather strange that eyes like the Republican’s should be utterly closed to the evils of landlordism “in cities and towns,” and should only be so far open to the evils of landlordism in the country as to discern the “foreign land
p. 1, col. 5 lord.” For this is all that its diatribe against landlordism amounts to.
Millions of acres in Texas, California and Colorado are owned by British noblemen, and these vast estates are being peopled with hardy agriculturists, who will cultivate the fields, build houses and increase the value of the property without any corresponding benefit to themselves. As fast as they increase the value of the lands their rents will be increased, and when they refuse to pay sic prices the courts and sheriffs will be called to the landlord’s assistance and the tenant will be driven from his home with all the anguish and ceremony attending evictions in Ireland or Scotland. Already evictions have become familiar in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska.
Then, of course, the Republican descants upon the horrible wickedness of Lord William Scully in buying land in Illinois and Iowa, and treating that land as the laws of Illinois and Iowa entitle him to—as though it were his own. It tells with evident approval how, when in 1870, he inaugurated an eviction campaign on his estate at Ballycoohey, in the county of Tipperary, “the first house he came to was loaded, so to speak, and he received several doses of buckshot and a couple of bullets.”
“The eviction campaign,” says the sic, “stopped suddenly, and when Scully recovered he sold his estate in Tipperary and invested in lands in Illinois and Iowa. He has introduced the same customs in this country that made him the scourge of the south of Ireland and resulted in driving him out of his native land.”
“How long,” the Republican asks, “shall such landlords as Scully be tolerated in this country?” If they are, it continues, “it will not be long until the farmers will use shotguns to pay their debts, and the rural homes of America will be fortresses to-day and the centers of squalid poverty to-morrow.”
This is hinting at a pretty strong remedy, especially in a paper which is horrified at the idea of the single tax. But it is a bad disease, the Republican thinks:
Landlordism is the seed of poverty and discontent. It begets anarchy, socialism, communism, robbery and murder. It is not a native of this country, nor can it ever be made to harmonize with American institutions and American ideas.
Therefore, continues the Republican, if “landlordism is tolerated at all it ought to be a native article, founded on existing conditions and consistent with American ideas regarding the rights of man.”
It is to be hoped that the Republican will in some future issue explain just what kind of landlordism it is that is consistent with those “American ideas regarding the rights of man” that are set forth in the Declaration of Independence, and will also explain why it is so much nicer to be rack-rented and evicted by one’s own countryman than by a foreigner. But before it again suggests, even by indirection, the shooting of alien landlords or the repeal of “alien land laws,” whatever they may be, it might be well for it to note what our American land laws really are, and in what they differ from those atrocious laws which are in force in Ballycoohey, in the county of Tipperary and the kingdom of Ireland.
Here is a comparison between Irish land laws and American land laws, taken from an article in Home Knowledge, by F. T. Jones, a lawyer of experience in three countries—Great Britain, Canada and the United States. It cannot fail to be in sic to those Americans who are constantly writing and speaking of the atrocity of Irish land laws:
In Ireland, under an act passed over a hundred years ago, trees planted by a tenant for fourteen years or upward belong to the tenant. In the United States, to this hour, they belong to the landlord; an outgoing tenant cannot remove a shrub or even pluck a flower planted by himself.
In Ireland all improvements made by the tenant belong to him. In nearly all the United States they belong to the landlord. If one doubts this let him lease a farm for five years, say on Long island, and build a $10,000 country residence on it. He will be a wiser but much sadder man when he wakes up one fine morning and finds that his costly mansion belongs to his landlord.
In Ireland, before a tenant is evicted for non-payment of rent, the landlord has to give forty-eight hours’ notice to the relieving officer, who is to provide shelter for the evicted family out of the poor rates. If the landlord neglects this duty he is liable to a penalty of £20 ($100.) In every state of the Union, when a tenant is evicted, he and his family are thrown out into the road without more ado and left to shift for themselves as they best can.
In Ireland, a tenant evicted for non-payment of rent can redeem his holding at any time within six months after the date of his eviction. In none of the United States has a tenant any such right; in them a tenant once evicted is evicted forever.
In Ireland, a tenant evicted for non-payment of rent can, within six months, sell his interest in his holding, either by private sale or by public auction, pay nis sic out of the proceeds and pocket the balance, and the landlord is obliged to accept the purchaser as tenant or pay him “compensation for disturbance.” This compensation is definitely fixed by statute and amounts to from one to seven years’ rental, according to the value of the holding. In none of the United States has an evicted tenant any such right; he has no interest to sell. In Ireland, this tenant’s interest, or tenant right as it is called, is readily salable for ten, twenty, forty, or, in some cases, a hundred years’ purchase of the rental. It is now, in fact, more valuable and far more readily salable than the landlord’s interest, which, indeed, for some years past, has been almost if not quite unsalable to any one except the tenant.
In Ireland, it is expressly provided by law that no rent shall be charged upon the tenant’s improvements. There is no such provision in any one of the United States. An American landlord can charge what rent
p. 1, col. 6 > he pleases, whether on his tenant’s improvements or otherwise. > > 7. In Ireland, a landlord can distrain for only one year’s arrears of rent. In most of the United States he can distrain for five or six years’ arrears. > > 8. In Ireland, a landlord who wishes to resume possession of his property for the purpose of using it himself is obliged to give his tenant a year’s notice to quit and to pay him “compensation for disturbance,” as above mentioned, such compensation to be paid before the tenant can be obliged to vacate. In most of the United States the tenant in such case gets only three months’ notice to quit; in some only one or two months. In the city of New York, under the most common form of tenancy, the tenant gets just five days’ notice to “get out.” In no state of the Union does the tenant get a single cent of “compensation,” whether for “disturbance” or otherwise. > > 9. In Ireland, a tenant whose rent is raised can either sell his tenant right and compel the landlord to pay him the depreciation in its value caused by the increase of rent, or he can vacate and compel the landlord to pay him “compensation for disturbance,” as above mentioned. In no state of the Union has a tenant any such rights. > > 10. In Ireland, a tenant who thinks his rent too high can apply to commissioners appointed by the government and get a “fair rent” fixed, and the landlord cannot raise this “judicial rent,” as it is called, for fifteen years. If the landlord, at the end of the fifteen years, raises the rent, the tenant can again apply to have a fair rent fixed, which remains for another period of fifteen years. No such provision enabling a tenant to get a fair rent fixed exists in any state of the Union. No act, indeed, containing such a provision could be passed in this country. It would be unconstitutional. Congress could not pass it, because it would be a violation of states’ rights, and no state could pass it, because the constitution prohibits any state from passing a “law impairing the obligation of contracts.” > > 11. In Ireland, a tenant evicted for the non-payment of an “exorbitant rent” can compel the landlord to pay him “compensation for disturbance,” as above mentioned. In none of the United States has a tenant any such right. Such a thing as “exorbitant rent” is unknown to the law in this country. Here a landlord can charge what rent he pleases, and, if the tenant agrees to it, the landlord can compel him to pay it or evict him without more ado, and a tenant so evicted has no right to any compensation whatever against the landlord. > > 12. In Ireland, a tenant agreeing with his landlord for the purchase of his holding can borrow the whole purchase money from the imperial government, repaying the same, with interest at four per cent, in small annual installments spread over forty-nine years, these installments being about twenty per cent less than his rental. The Irish tenant, therefore, can in this way improve his position at once to the extent of twenty per cent, with the further prospect of all liability ceasing at the end of forty-nine years, instead of continuing indefinitely, as it will while he remains a tenant. In the United States a tenant wishing to purchase his holding cannot borrow a cent from the government. He has to raise the money himself, pay a large sum down, and the balance in a few years, with interest, not at four per cent, but at six or seven per cent.
Is it any wonder that Irish landlords are learning that it is better to have estates here than estates in Ireland?
Mr. Breckinridge of Kentucky, who, being an absolute free trader, is a respecter of the rights of property, has introduced in the house a duplicate of the Chase copyright bill, already on its way in the senate. Committee hearing has been had, and there is a fair prospect of the bill becoming law at this session, and of the American privilege of stealing from foreigners being considerably diminished. It is though, after all, a poor cat of a bill, and the fact that the hopes of its passage are based on the support of publishers and printers as well as authors is anything but complimentary to our national character. Did we as a nation really respect the command “Thou shalt not steal,” we should long ago have accorded to foreign authors, without question or stipulation, the same rights of property in their literary productions that we accord to our own citizens. The Chase-Breckinridge bill is better than nothing, and will protect foreign authors who have won reputation or possess money; but its requirement that to take advantage of it foreign authors’ works must be published simultaneously here from type set in the United States will make it useless to many foreign authors. Take, for instance, such men as myself and such books as “Progress and Poverty.” Had I been a “foreigner” I could never have secured an American copyright under this law, since it was as much as I could do to get the type set in one country.
The requirement that to be copyrighted a book must be set up in this country is an amendment introduced at the suggestion of a committee sent on to Washington by the typographical unions of New York and Philadelphia. It is a good illustration of protectionism. Books are now almost universally printed from plates, of which, after the type is set up, any number of duplicates can be taken at small cost. If a book is to be printed in two or more places the cheapest way of course is to have the type set up in one place, and have duplicates sent to the other places. The amendment procured by the printers will in the case of books copyrighted by foreign authors prevent advantage being taken of this labor saving device, and compel, even when it is utterly needless, the type to be set again in this country. The object is, of course, to make more work for American printers—to compel the doing of unnecessary work.
Now, is this the way to help labor? Is this the way to increase wealth and make wages high? If it is, why halt here? If it continued on p. 2 →
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2 THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1888.
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← continued from p. 1 is going to do American compositors any real good to compel the unnecessary resetting of foreign books by forbidding the use of foreign plates, how much more good it would do them to prohibit the use of plates altogether, and thus compel—as was the old method before the days of stereotyping—the resetting of a book with every new edition. If the importation of a few foreign plates will injure American printers, how enormously greater is the injury inflicted upon them by permitting the manufacture of plates here? And on the same principle we ought certainly to prohibit the use of power presses. If it be good policy to make as much work as possible, consider how much work would be made by compelling the printing, not only of all our books, but all our papers, on the old hand press. This would be something worth while in the way of “making work,” for to print from type and by the hand press such editions as some of our great papers print daily would require the employment of four to ten thousand men for each paper. And then consider how much more work would be made if these papers were required to be folded by hand and carried to their destination on hand carts?
But in fact, on the same principle that carried the typographical committee to Washington, and procured the insertion of the amendment, printers themselves ought to be prohibited. For printing it- self is a labor saving device. Consider if no printing were permitted, and every copy of a book or paper had to be written out, how much more employment would be furnished; how much more work made?
To carry out the protective principle to its logical conclusion would be to destroy every machine, to prohibit every labor-saving device; to tear up every railroad track, to cut every telegraph wire. It would, in short, be to bring civilization to barbarism.
I submit to printers and to all other men who earn their bread by their daily toil, whether there is any hope for labor in a policy which cannot be carried out. In parleying with protection are they not like the man who carefully closed the spigot and left the bung hole open? While they are devoting their energy and political in- fluence to shutting out foreign productions, labor saving invention, constantly accelerating, is every day diminishing the amount of labor necessary to produce a given result.
In spite of the decision of the United States supreme court sustaining the Bell patent, the existing telephone combination is likely to have a powerful rival in the field. The Bell patent is founded upon the use of a continuous current of electricity, but Mr. J. W. Bonta of Philadelphia obtained last year patents for a telephone in which an intermittent current is employed. This telephone is said to be far superior to that at present in use and a conversation in low tones, or even the ticking of a watch can be heard distinctly over it at a distance of five miles. Mr. Bonta has so well demonstrated the validity of his patent and the utility of his in- vention, as to have organized a powerful company, consisting of many well known capitalists. That such men have taken an interest is presumptive evidence that the invention is a good one. But it is no evidence that a combination will not be formed with the Bell company which will largely deprive the public of the advantage of the invention.
A patent has also recently been granted for what may prove to be one of the most important inventions yet made in railroading. In sic in increasing electrically the frictional adhesion between the driving wheels of the locomotive and the rails. It is claimed that the tractive power can thus be nearly doubled without increasing the weight of the locomotive, and that difficulties from slippery rails will be overcome; that cars can be stopped and started much more quickly than at pres- ent; that the friction obtained is cheaper than sanding, without its consequent wear, and that a forty per cent grade can be more easily surmounted than a seven per cent one under the old system. If it will do all this, the cost of transportation will be largely decreased by this invention.
Another somewhat similar application of electricity has been recently made at the Otis iron and steel works in Cleveland, where a large number of laborers have been employed in handling steel billets and loading them on the cars. The new invention, which is that of S. T. Wellman, superintendent of the works, consists of employing a strong electric magnet, attached to a a sic, to pick up and carry these steel billets as needles may be picked up and carried with an ordinary magnet, the billets being caught or released by the [turning?] on or off of the current. One boy, it is said, will thus be able to do the work of a gang of men, and already a number of laborers have been discharged.
According to the Philadelphia Times, a still more striking application of electricity has been made to the refining of sugar, by which the whole process of converting crude sugar into refined sugar can be accomplished in a fraction of the time now required and at a small fraction of the cost.
These are only some of the items of labor-saving invention noted in one week in one department of invention. What can protection do to resist this tendency? The conclusion is inevitable. If the working classes stick to the protective idea the forces of invention, every year accelerating, will grind them to powder, Only one sic can save them, and that thing is the reverse of protection—it is freedom. There is no salvation for labor in forming trades
p. 2, col. 2 unions and entering into unequal contests with men who own the means of labor. Its only salvation is in the assertion of natural rights. A man with only the power to labor is an utterly helpless creature. But God never made a man with only the power to labor. Before He made man He made the earth—for men.
HENRY GEORGE.
With utter mercilessness Austin Corbin pushes his victory. Machinery has been introduced at Port Richmond which will enable the Reading coal to be handled with half the force formerly employed. And this circular which has been addressed to heads of departments by General Manager A. A. McLeod of the Philadelphia and Reading railroad company speaks for itself:
PHILADELPHIA, March 21, 1888.
Whenever any of our employes having a good record with this company up to the time of the strike, and against whom there is no complaint, except that they went on strike, shall ask for a recommendation from the head of the department with whom they were employed, you are requested to give it to them, using the form enclosed.
The following is the form:
The Philadelphia and Reading railroad company.—This is to certify that —— was employed on this road as —— up to ——, and while in our service performed his duties satisfactorily. He is one of our former employes who lost his situation by joining in the strike of December last. He informs me that he has abandoned the Knights of Labor, and will hereafter faithfully serve the person or company that employs him; and, as I believe he will, I cheerfully recommend him to any employer having a place for such a man.
The judiciary committee of the New York assembly has reported the Australian voting bill with an amendment, which, if carried, will nullify the effect of the measure in a most important particular. Under the bill as amended no third party can enter into an election contest without submitting to the disadvantages that make independent movements so hopeless under the present system, for it provides that a party must have cast at least fifteen per cent of the votes at the last preceding election to entitle it to be represented on the official ballots. Hence an independent party, no matter how formidable, would be compelled to issue and distribute its own ballots, and its sympathizers would be ex- posed to intimidation, until it had passed through one election and made the statutory record. Some precautions ought to be taken to prevent any Tom, Dick or Harry who wanted to make believe he was a political party from doing so at public expense, but the precaution of this bill as reported is more dangerous than the danger. A deposit, or better yet, a petition from a certain proportion of voters, would prevent trifling, while securing opportunity for voting outside of party lines, and the bill should be amended by the substitution of some such provision before it goes to the senate.
THE NEW CIGAR MAKING MACHINE.
Experts Say It Will Not Work, and Give Their Reasons.
Considerable attention has of late been attracted in industrial circles to a cigar wrapping machine invented by Oscar Hammer- stein, which, it has been claimed, will almost entirely do away with the necessity for skilled labor in cigar making. The wrapping of the cigar has hitherto been the most difficult and costly part of the manufacture, and up to the present time has defied the skill of the inventor.
A representative of THE STANDARD visited the factory of Straiton & Storm in quest of information about the new machines, and was courteously received by Mr. Miller, the gentleman in charge.
“When any new thing in cigar making comes along,” said Mr. Miller, “we examine it closely to see what it is good for. We always consider two things: Will it save labor? and Will it do its work sic! We have a reputation to maintain, and we must not let the cheapening of labor interfere with the quality of the tobacco and the salableness of our goods. We have examined the wrapping machine and we find it will not do, because (1) it can only be operated with ‘scrap’ bunches, and (2) it rolls and wraps all bunches exactly the same whether the bunch happens to have a shade more or less tobacco in it. It is easy to see how it is a failure in the second instance—if the bunch happens to have a ‘scrap’ or two too much tobacco in it the cigar will be rolled so tight as not to be smokable; if it happens to have too little tobacco in it the cigars will burn up. You may be able to ‘strip’ tobacco, ‘bunch’ it, ‘mold’ it and cut the wrappers with labor saving machinery, but when it comes to wrapping, judgment and skill must be used or the tobacco will be spoiled. In our experience, which extends over a number of years, we have found that the only invention that saves labor and at the same time allows of good cigar making is the ‘mold,’ and even that can only be used in making the very cheapest cigars. Nothing has yet been shown to us that will interfere in the least with the making of good cigars by hand.”
Jesse Miller, in charge of the Solidarity cigar factory, said that the machine was a failure. About the only places in which the cigars made by this machine could be sold would be along the water fronts of our seaport cities. A sober sailor would never buy more than one of them; a drunken sailor might buy two.
Recreation After Work.
Mr. Flagler, one of the largest shareholders in the Standard Oil company, has lately been building a number of hotels in Florida. They are magnificent beyond anything that has ever appeared in those regions before, and their chance of ever paying is remote in the extreme. When asked why he did this Mr. Flagler answered that he wanted to amuse himself. He had been a close business man for forty years and determined to take a vacation and build hotels.
Maintaining Dignity With a Vengeance.
St. Paul Globe.
Political demagogues will solicit the vote of the laboring man for a protective tariff in the coming campaign on the ground that protection maintains the dignity of American labor. Inferentially we may consider that this use of the word dignity is intended to imply high wages, short hours of labor, comfortable homes, cheap living and other good things.
But investigation, however slight, reveals this dignity standing in a suppliant attitude toward capital; receiving low wages, giving long hours of service, bearing on bowed shoulders a goodly portion of the crushing weight of high taxation.
p. 2, col. 3
ALL ALONG THE LINE.
A Meeting of the General Committee.
The general committee of the united labor party, New York city, meets at Clarendon hall, on Thursday evening, April 5, at 8 o’clock.
A Single Tax Meeting [on April 3?].
The single tax free [traders in the?] New York county committee of the united labor party have begun to get very restless under the efforts of a few protectionists in the party ranks to force a policy of ignoring the tariff question; and at a conference of some twenty or twenty-five gentlemen, held last week, it was decided to hold a public meeting, which will give an opportunity to voice the opinion of those who consider that the real sentiment of the party is misrepresented in the decrees given out from 28 Cooper union. The meeting will take place on Tuesday evening, the 3d of April, at Masonic hall, Twenty-third street and Sixth avenue, and will be addressed by Louis F. Post, Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost, Rev. J. O. S. Huntington and W. J. Gorsuch. Wilbur O. Eastlake of the Twenty-third assembly district is chairman of the committee having the matter in charge.
An Appeal to Tenants’ Pockets.
BROOKLYN.—A scheme has been devised by some members of the Twenty-third ward association of Brooklyn to call the attention of tenants to the injustice of allowing landlords to pocket the rental value of land, and showing them how the taxation of land to its full rental value would be a direct pecuniary benefit to them. As this is the season when leases will shortly terminate and the annual moving day approaches, tens of thousands of persons will be practically evicted by the higher rents demanded by their landlords. We propose to send to every house in the ward where there is a sign “to let” a copy of a suitable tract, together with the following sentences printed on a fly leaf pasted to the tract:
WHEN YOUR RENT IS RAISED.
It is not because your house is worth any more;
But
It is because the land your house stands on has increased in value.
Has the land increased because of anything that the man who owns it has done?
No; but because there is a greater demand for it. More people want it. Why should the people who have created this value be not only deprived of it, but fined on account of it, to the advantage of one man?
The united labor party proposes to take the tax from houses, thus increasing their number and cheapening house rents, and to put additional taxes on land values, so as to make it unprofitable for any man to hold valuable land unused.
If you are a voter join the united labor party. Read its platform. It will not turn out to be what you may have expected. All who are interested in this subject are requested to address Thomas B. Preston, secretary of the ward association, No. [138?] McDonough street, Brooklyn.
The tract we have selected for this purpose is “A Sum in Proportion.” I send you this account of our work, hoping it may find imitators in other wards.
THOMAS B. PRESTON.
Victor A. Wilder Withdrawn.
BROOKLYN, March 26.—The Twenty-second ward association, national labor sic, have withdrawn V. A. Wilder from the county committee for his action at the last meeting of that body in taking the chair, not having been elected thereto.
T. P. RYAN, Sec.
Interesting to Massachusetts Anti-Povertyites.
BOSTON, Mass.—As a matter of interest to readers of THE STANDARD in Massachusetts I would announce that Professor Hamlin Garland, vice-president of the anti-poverty society of Boston, is open to engagements to speak in the cause of land reform at places not too distant from Boston, at the request of any person or organization who will arrange for meetings. Mr. Garland asks nothing for personal services. The only charge would be for actual expenses, which in most cases would be simply the railway fare.
All who are familiar with the work of Mr. Garland as lecturer and journalist will recognize at once the great value of this contribution of personal effort to our cause. Mr. Garland is a true “crusader.” Political economy is no longer a “dismal science, its lessons no longer arid disquisitions on value and cost of production,” when treated as it is by Mr. Garland in the light of a broad culture and in a true poetic spirit. The address of Mr. Garland is Jamaica Plain, Boston, Mass.
Among the officers and members of the Boston anti-poverty society are many others who more or less frequently lend their best efforts to the cause. The work of Rev. Samuel Brazier and of Mr. Robertson James is already familiar to the readers of THE STANDARD. President John R. Roche has probably done more to initiate and to maintain the cause of land nationalization in Massachusetts than any other one person. Mr. E. M. Chamberlin, the veteran labor reformer; Rev. W. D. P. Bliss and Mr. Andrew Garbutt of the land and labor club, have also spoken at our meetings, and are interested in the success of this and of other reform movements.
The time and place of meeting of the Boston anti-poverty society is every Sunday afternoon at 3, at Well’s memorial sic, 987 Washington street.
EDWIN M. WHITE, Corresponding Secretary, 45 Eliot st.
Anti-Poverty in Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA.—Mr. H. V. Hetzell was the presiding officer at last Sunday evening’s meeting of our anti-poverty society, and the principal address was delivered by E. J. Hoare, a well known Irish patriot. Mr. Hoare spoke eloquently of the evils of the present system of land ownership, and enforced his arguments by illustrations drawn from his own experience.
The National Tax Reform Association.
The first report of the executive committee for the state of Texas of the National tax reform association shows that clubs are formed or in process of forming in forty-seven counties of the state. Nearly five thousand tracts have been distributed, forty-eight meetings have been held, and more than five hundred persons have been addressed, orally or by letter, on the subject of tax reform. In several places arrangements have been made to place THE STANDARD on file for public reading; and in Houston it is being distributed weekly to every barber shop in the city. It is contemplated to employ colporteurs to distribute tracts from house to house and explain the truth to all who can be induced to listen.
The report makes the following excellent suggestion:
There is no more effective way of spreading the light than by writing short articles for local newspapers. In such articles it is generally a mistake to try to cover the whole ground. A very good plan is to use some local instances of an idle non-resident speculator drawing to himself wealth which industrious farmers have created by improving
p. 2, col. 4 > their own land adjoining his. Or mention a local instance of a farmer being taxed five times as heavily as a speculator for making the latter’s land more valuable. There is not one of the scores of members of this association who have written us since its organization who cannot do something in the newspaper line. You can at least cut out a striking paragraph from THE STANDARD and request the editor of your local paper to publish it.
The Bayonne Land and Labor Club.
BAYONNE, N. J.—The land and labor club of this city held a very successful meeting on Tuesday evening last. William B. DuBois, the president of the society, occupied the chair. The meeting was devoted to a debate on the tariff question, Mr. Kenneth McKenzie, a visitor to the club, taking the protectionist side, and Mr. James Marks that of the single tax. A general discussion followed the debate, in which many members of the club took part.
Without a Dissenting Voice.
AUBURN, Me.—We heartily indorse the opinion of Mr. Henry George and the course he has taken in the late disturbance in our ranks in New York. And we denounce as selfish and dishonest the course of those who are trying to side-track the party for the promotion of their own selfish interests.
Passed without a dissenting vote at a meeting of the land and labor club, No. 2, held March 20, 1888.
F. W. BEALS, Secretary.
Land and Labor Club No. 1 of Richmond, Virginia.
RICHMOND, Va.—Land and labor club No. 1 was organized here to-day. E. J. Dakin was elected president, J. T. Chappell secretary. We have sixteen names on our roll to commence with, and any amount of good material to work upon.
Those interested in the single tax question residing in the state of Virginia are invited to communicate with us.
JOHN T. CHAPPELL, Sec. L. and L. Club No. 1.
What is Doing in Kansas.
LARNED, Kan.—Since my last letter to THE STANDARD our reform club in Larned has increased its membership to seventy-five and adopted a platform of principles.
Whenever persons were invited to join our club we were asked for our platform, and hence it became necessary, especially when holding meetings in the country, to have a platform. And as our association is composed in part of those who prefer the Syracuse and in part of those who favor the Cincinnati platform, we adopted the Syracuse platform minus the paragraph beginning as follows: “While declaring the foregoing,” etc., and embraced a few paragraphs from the Cincinnati platform. When the vote was taken on the single tax plank there were three or four in the negative, but it is quite evident that the former prejudices against this principle are giving way as it is better understood.
The adoption of a platform was designed only as a help in the educational work in which we are now engaged in Pawnee county. I have delivered a lecture in each of two country school houses to large and deeply interested audiences, and was urged to visit them again in the near future and further discuss social questions. All present were very glad to see THE STANDARD, and if I can continue in the field until the whole country is sic, I feel sure that great good will result.
W. M. GOODNER.
Poughkeepsie Sets a Good Example.
POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y.—A series of five meetings for the discussion of the “Henry George Land Theories” has been held in the Vassar Brothers’ institute. The mayor of the city and several of the leading lawyers and college professors led the attack, and seemed at first to think that ridicule and abuse would be the only weapons they would need to use. But the alert and witty president of the land and labor club, Mr. W. C. Albro, effectively showed them the uselessness of that sort of thing on the first evening, and the discussion settled down to a clear, able and dispassionate basis. Much interest was manifested. Mayor Elsworth made an able speech of nearly two hours against the single tax and all that it implies, but every argument that he adduced was easily demolished. The most striking feature of the whole debate was that all the objections raised were against what our opponents supposed the “theories” to be rather than what they are. The result of the meetings has been a decided respect for Henry George, a large sale of his books and a much clearer comprehension of the subject by those who have, as well as those who have not, read his works. Very many have said that THE STANDARD was the ablest paper published in New York, and that it had raised the standard of journalism, although they could not indorse all it advocated.
PROGRESS BUT NOT POVERTY.
The “Radical Labor Party” Adopt a Single Tax Resolution.
CHICAGO, Ill., March 20.—The radical labor party convention held here last night was very favorable to our ideas. John Z. White presided, and more than 200 delegates from seventy different labor organizations were present. A straight single tax resolution was unanimously adopted, and at least four candidates on the ticket are of our faith. The leaven is surely working.
T. H. WITTLER.
In Dayton, Ohio.
Rev. J. K. Lewis, a chaplain in the United States navy, delivered a lecture before the Henry George club of Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday, March 4. The subject was “The sufficiency of the single tax upon land values.” Mr. Lewis’s lecture was enriched with illustrations drawn from his experiences at home and abroad, and was well received by the audience.
A Lecture in Toledo.
TOLEDO, Ohio.—The Century club of this city met at the residence of David Ketcham, corner Bush and Superior streets, last Friday evening. The weather being stormy prevented many from attending, but about thirty persons of more than ordinary intelligence were present. Dr. Cravens of Toledo read an essay on “The new Economics,” in which he took decided ground in favor of the single tax, showing its practicability, its justice, and the many benefits that might be expected to follow its adoption. At the close of the lecture those present were given opportunity for discussion, and judging from the questions that were asked, it was evident that the subject was new to many of them, and that they had been deeply interested in what they had heard. The general remark was that the doctor had given them something to think about and lifted them out of the old rut. Dr. Cravens is capable of doing much good in this locality and will force the fight in the “Century club.”
A. R. W.
From Minneapolis.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.—Our anti-poverty society is doing good work. We keep many trying to refute our arguments, and that sets as many thinking as our speeches. Very many of our friends here who were very anxious for a presidential fight next summer
p. 2, col. 5 have changed their minds. If a conference is held in July, Minneapolis will in all probability send a delegation.
OLIVER T. ERICKSON.
From a Veteran of the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.
LONDON, March 12.—Allow an Englishman who believes that England has not yet attained free trade to congratulate you American reformers upon the prospect that the fight for free trade is beginning in the United States, and to express appreciation of the attitude of THE STANDARD in endeavoring to hasten it. I have always said that when the people of the United States made up their minds to have free trade they would not do it by halves, as we in England unfortunately have done, but would rid themselves of all customs duties and excise taxes. If we had done that in 1846—and this was what Cobden wished to do—we would have seen the benefits that real free trade would bring and would have got rid of many embarrassing questions. We would not have had the Irish question as we have it now and as we are very likely to have it for some time yet.
I hope the protectionists will make a good fight in the United States, so that when the victory comes it will be decisive. If you of the United States establish free trade in its entirety—as can only be done by resorting to the single tax—you will settle all labor questions and give an example which the civilized world must follow. In its full meaning universal free trade would mean universal comfort and universal peace. It would bring about that state of things of which our Scottish bard sung:
When man to man, the wide world sic Shall brothers be, and a’ that.
THOMAS BRIGGS.
ANTI-POVERTY.
The New York Society Holds Its First Annual Meeting—Officers Elected and Amendments Proposed to the By-Laws—A Resolution Referred to the United Labor Party Convention.
The anti-poverty society held its first annual meeting in the large hall of Cooper union Monday night, March 26. About one-third of the members were present, a considerable majority of whom were women. Dr. McGlynn presided. The minutes of the last general meeting were read and approved, after which Secretary Clarke read his report for the past year, in which he referred to the prosperity of the society, the spread of the land doctrine throughout the country, and the large number of newspapers which indorsed the principles of the anti-poverty society.
The treasurer’s report was next read. It covered only the seven weeks during which Mr. Sylvester Malone has acted as treasurer. The total receipts for that period were shown to be $1,894.11 and disbursements $1,773.[76?], leaving a balance of $120.16. The receipts of the Academy of Music meetings for the same period were $1,510.68 and the expenses were $1,329.42, leaving a balance for that department of $181.26.
A report was then read from the executive committee proposing the following amendments to the by-laws of the society: Increasing the membership of the executive committee to thirty; providing that hereafter the president’s appointments to the executive committee be subject to the approval of the society at its next general meeting, and providing that general meetings of the society shall hereafter be held quarterly.
The officers for the coming year were then chosen. Dr. McGlynn was elected president, Michael Clarke secretary and Sylvester Malone treasurer.
On motion of Mr. Phelan resolutions were adopted favoring a presidential ticket and an alliance with the union labor party, and pledging the united labor party all the financial and moral encouragement at the society’s command.
A member then offered a resolution that it was the sense of the society that no man addicted to strong drink should be nominated for any office. Mr. John McMackin remarked that the resolution was out of place at such a meeting, and moved that it be referred to the convention of the united labor party, which was carried.
The meeting then adjourned.
A LECTURE BY SAMUEL GOMPERS.
The President of the Federation of Labor Tells the Union for Ethical Culture Something About Cigar Making Tenements—No Lace Curtains or Canary Birds.
Morris S. Wise, counsel for the cigar manufacturers’ association, recently lectured before the Young men’s union for ethical culture on “Home labor as applied to the New York cigar industry,” in which he gave a somewhat glowing picture of the culture and comfort to be found among the tenement house cigar makers of this city. On Monday evening last President Gompers of the American federation of labor spoke in reply. Mr. Gompers was introduced by Professor Felix Adler, and told the audience some startling facts.
He said that he had recently visited many tenements where cigars are made. He went disguised as a book peddler, because the cigar makers are not, as a rule, willing to admit inquisitive strangers to their rooms. The condition of these workmen, with their wives and children, the speaker said, is worse than is generally supposed. A family has two rooms, rarely three, and the largest room is twelve feet long and nine feet wide. A hole two feet square in the wall supplies the dark bedroom with air from the dark corridor—air which is already vitiated before it reaches the bedroom. In the halls and cellars are old and sic tobacco stems. The cellars are rarely dry.
Mr. Wise had said that in many of these tenements are pianos, carpets, lace curtains and canary birds. In not one tenement house that Mr. Gompers visited did he see a piano or an organ, and he did not believe that Mr. Wise had ever been in one of the pestilent holes where his employers made their money. Manufacturers themselves live a mile from the tenements.
Mr. Wise pleaded for charity for all, especially for the poor manufacturer, “but I remember,” said Mr. Gompers, “that on the day when Mr. Wise delivered his lecture eighteen families of cigar makers were evicted from their miserable tenements into the storm, and there were no pianos or lace curtains or canary birds among their effects.”
Mr. Gompers’s lecture was attentively listened to and produced an evident effect upon the audience.
Yet Topeka Papers Will Give the Valuation of These Men’s Lots, and Call It “The Wealth of Topeka.”
Topeka, Kan., Capital.
There are men here to-day who count their wealth by the hundreds of thousands, made by reason of the fact that they have squatted upon lands and lots and refused to turn a wheel or give a cent toward Topeka’s advancement unless it returned threefold to their personal gain. They have been and are to-day the stumbling blocks in Topeka’s pathway to a grand future.
But for these facts Topeka would to-day have a population of 100,000 people—no doubt about it.
p. 2, col. 6
DOES IT BENEFIT OR INJURE?
The Tariff Debate in Boston—Some Striking Illustrations from Everett P. Wheeler’s Speech.
The Tariff reform league and the Home market club met in debate on Saturday evening, March 24, in Tremont temple, Boston, Governor Ames of sic occupying the chair. The question for discussion was, Is the wage earner benefited by the protective policy as embodied in the present tariff? Everett P. Wheeler of New York delivered the argument on the negative side, while the Hon. Benjamin sic defended the protective system. We take from Mr. Wheeler’s speech a few striking illustrations of the beauties of protection:
Let me tell you what first led me to study the present tariff:
THE LESSON OF A SHIPWRECK.
A German steamer ran down a bark that had been built in Nova Scotia, cut a hole in her side, knocked her over on her beam ends, and left her floating in the ocean off Nantucket. Some enterprising skipper got hold of her, towed her into port; she was condemned for salvage and brought to East Boston to be repaired. I was retained to bring a suit against the German steamer, and I found that as the vessel had not been destroyed it was necessary to prove what it cost to repair her. I found out who had repaired her, and what those repairs cost, and to my astonishment I learned that it cost more to repair her in Boston than it cost to build the entire bark in Nova Scotia. Now, I remember very well, when a boy, to have gone to the ship yards and seen ships launched in the East river, as some of you, perhaps, have seen ships launched in the harbor of Boston, and I said to myself, Why is it that ships can no longer be built in New York or Boston, and that the British are taking away all the ship building trade? My evidence in the collision case answered this question quickly, for I found they could build ships cheaper. Then I inquired, Are their ship builders any better than ours? No. Does it cost any more for wages to build a ship in Nova Scotia than in Boston? No; for although our men get higher wages, they are better workmen, and the cost of wages on the ship is no more than it is in the British possessions. Then I looked into the tariff, and I found that every article that went into the construction of a ship was taxed thirty, forty, fifty and one hundred per cent—the ropes, the timber, everything from the truck to the keelson paid a tax to the United States government. Ostensibly this was for the benefit of American industry, but really it was to enable the iron masters of Pennsylvania to get more for their iron thad it was sic. Ostensibly it was to benefit the wage earner, but really it had destroyed or crippled the business of every shipwright along the Atlantic coast.
The building of ships for foreign trade is practically extinct. We only build ships for the coastwise trade, because foreign built ships are prohibited from engaging in the latter. The copper smelting industry formerly furnished employment to great numbers of people in Boston and New York, but has been destroyed by the duty on copper ore, the only result of which has been to increase the dividends of the owners of the mines of Michigan. Base and monstrous ingratitude they have shown in entering into a combination with a French syndicate to increase the price of copper all over the world, and thus levy a tax on every manufacturer of brass or copper goods to swell their already enormous dividends.
Even the protectionists themselves deplore the decay of American shipping, and are proposing, with monstrous inconsistency, to give a bounty to American ships for carrying the products of other countries to this country, and for taking ours back in return. We enact a high tariff, confessedly far in excess of the needs of revenue, not for the purpose of taxation, but for the purpose of excluding the goods of other countries, and then having crippled commerce with one hand. pro- pose to nurse it with the other.
THE PROTECTION OF MR. WHARTON.
There is the great Meriden Britannia company. They make plated goods of the best quality. In making these goods they need nickel. Years ago, when this metal was discovered in the mines of Austria, the miners called it nickel because they could make nothing of it. But our friend, Mr. Wharton of Pennsylvania, who happens to own the only important nickel mine in the United States, has found out a way to make a very good thing out of it. If congress had passed a law making him duke of Lancaster and giving him a pension of $20,000 a year, you would all have been horrified and called it a wicked waste of the tax payers’ money, a heavy burden upon industry, a setting up of a privileged class, opposed to the genius of American institutions. But in all except the name congress does this very thing when it puts so heavy a duty upon nickel that the manufacturers are compelled to pay Mr. Wharton what he chooses to ask for the product of his mines. Now mark the result. The Meriden Britannia company has been com- pelled to build a factory in Canada, where it can get nickel free of tax, and with the products of this factory it supplies the demand for plated goods in Canada and in England. All this might just as well have been done in the United States if it were not for the pension of $20,000, more or less, that our beneficent and paternal government compels us to pay to Mr. Wharton of Pennsylvania. Now I assert, without fear of contradiction, that if the manufacturers of plated goods in this country could get their nickel free of tax, they could supply the markets of the world. But no! our industry may suffer, our laborers be deprived of work, our people lose the fruits of their skill and enterprise; all these may perish, but let Mr. Wharton levy his annual tax and cheat the people by calling it protection to American industry.
Let laws and learning, arts and commerce sic, But leave us still our old nobility.
HOUSE BUILDING.
Some years ago I had occasion to build four houses. I found that if it had not been for the tax upon the materials of which those houses were built I could have built five with the same money.
Let me tell you one extraordinary fact that I would like every citizen of Boston to lay to heart. Since Prince Bismarck compelled Hamburg to submit to a high protective tariff there has not been a house built in that city. Before that time it was a free city and one of the most thriving ports in Europe.
A Correction.
Mr. T. B. Preston, the official stenographer of the anti-poverty society, writes to THE STANDARD as follows:
NEW YORK, March 27.—Please correct the statement imputed to Dr. McGlynn by Mr. Shriver last week in THE STANDARD that “Dr. McGlynn further stated that ‘seven or eight’ of the withdrawing committeemen were employes of THE STANDARD.” I am sure that Dr. McGlynn said “five of the withdrawing committeemen were employes of THE STANDARD.” It is a small matter, but it should be corrected, as it has been made the basis for ascribing to Dr. McGlynn the utterance of a falsehood.
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THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1888. 3
p. 3, col. 1
QUERIES AND ANSWERS.
We All Do Something.
NEW YORK.—“One individual adds as much to the value of land as any other individual” is an expression often used, and, to my mind, is not in its full meaning true. You would oblige quite a number of the west end labor club if you would give a thorough diagnosis of this assertion.
JEREMIAH SULLIVAN.
Land values are due to population and invention. They arise and increase with the rise and advance of demand for land, just as the value of clothing would increase if the supply of clothing were fixed and the demand for it increased.
More people require more land, and as there is no more, that which there is becomes more valuable. An exceptionally active and intelligent worker makes an exceptional demand for more land, and as there is no more, that which there is becomes more valuable. A labor saving machine makes demand for more land, and as there is no more, that which there is becomes more valuable. A land speculator takes some land out of use with somewhat the same effect as if he had cut a piece out of the earth and launched it into space, and the land that remains becomes in consequence more valuable. From sic illustrations you will see that in its full meaning it is not true that “one individual adds as much to the value of land as any other individual.” But since one individual has the same natural right to land as any other individual, any value which land, as land, acquires from being monopolized is as much the property of one individual as of another. If one individual makes land more valuable than another by demanding more of it, he cannot therefore claim that he has a better right than the other to that value.
The Mortgagee.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.—I inclose a clipping from THE STANDARD of the 19th, in which you state that under the single tax “half of the tax” would be paid by the mortgagee, under the supposition that the property was worth twice the amount for which it was mortgaged. I do not so understand the Syracuse platform nor Mr. George’s writings. A mortgagee may be in reality a “joint owner,” but by every consideration of present law and abstract equity he is a preferred joint owner, never reaping the benefit of any rise in the value of the property, and therefore he should not lose by its depreciation, unless that be so great as to swallow up so much of the value of the thing pledged as to not leave enough to satisfy his debt. Let me illustrate this by taking the stocks and bonds of a railroad company. If the government were to buy out a line of railroad the bonds would be a first lien on the price paid to their full amount. They would not have to accept pro rata with stockholders and other subsequent claimants.
Besides, a mortgage represents value created by labor and loaned, and unless a most serious, and, I believe, fatal departure is made from the simple strength of our great principle it should not be subject to taxation. It would simply result in increased rates of interest and an immediate calling in of loans.
BOLTON SMITH.
The clipping referred to does not say that under the single tax the mortgagee would be treated as joint owner, but that he should be; nor that he should pay half the tax if the property was worth twice the amount of the mortgage, but that he should pay half the tax if the land was worth twice the amount of the mortgage, there being no improvements worth speaking of. Nor does the clipping refer to mortgages generally, but to mortgages existing when the single tax takes effect. A general provision of this kind, one affecting future as well as existing mortgages, would, as you say, simply result in increased rates of interest. It is also true that a provision limited to existing mortgages would result in a calling in of loans as fast as they fell due, but, where the security was unimproved land, the calling in of the loan would result in nothing more than the abandonment of the land by the mortgageor.
There are many cases in which such a provision would operate unjustly on the sic. For example: If the money was borrowed for building purposes the mortgage would represent capital and not land. But many mortgages are really investments in land. The man who sic money on the security of vacant land, standing timber, or a mining privilege, stands on precisely the same equitable footing as the man who buys vacant land standing timber or a mining privilege.
It is true that such a provision is not in harmony with the simplicity of the single tax principle, and if it were proposed as a permanent feature of the single tax reform, it would not deserve a moment’s consideration. But our system of land ownership, so long encouraged, has generated a complication in respect to mortgages which may make it necessary in establishing the single tax to consider the relation of existing mortgagees and mortgageors. It is certain that a great deal of “interest” on mortgages is in reality rent, and that many mortgagees are in fact landlords and their mortgageors tenants; and to impose the single tax on land values, treating this relation in its legal rather than in its substantial aspects, might be a discrimination against one class of tenants, or at any rate in favor of one class of landlords.
In a change such as we propose, some selfish interests must suffer. If the interests of the land mortgagee be among these, he cannot complain if the purchaser of land cannot. The mere fact that he gets no benefit from increase of land values makes no difference. The test is not the quantity of his property, but its quality.
Whether or not a temporary exception to the general principle of the single tax should be made, such as that to which you except, depends, in my opinion, on the extent of landownership by way of mortgage. If it is not extensive, the exception would be too trifling in its effects to be worth making; but if it is extensive, it should be made, especially as it would be an exception in form only.
Effect in a Manufacturing Town.
WEBSTER, Mass.—I am pleased to know that you take the right stand on the tariff question. I hope the laboring sic will not be deceived any longer. They have voted to be taxed already too long, to benefit a class that did not deserve it. Of course they were deceived as I myself have been.
England pays the highest wages of any p. 3, col. 2 country in her surroundings (all of which have protection), and pays her own help fifty per cent more than she did with protection.
I wish you would explain one point about the land question. In this town nearly one-half of the taxes are raised from sic or personal property. Now, if we undertake to raise the taxes on the land alone we would have to tax the land from three to five times more than before. In this town there are not many vacant lots for building, and I should say that three-fourths or more of the houses in town are owned by those who work in mills and shoe shops, and probably many of them are mortgaged. It would not do to tax these house lots very high; neither would it do to put the tax very high on the farms.
AN OLD REPUBLICAN, and an old liberty party man.
So far as national taxation is concerned there would be a reduction in three ways: (1) In decreased expense of collection; (2) in the lower price for which foreign products could be bought; and (3) in the lower price for which domestic “protected” products could be bought. Your town would make a net gain here, for the land value tax for federal purposes would be much less than you now pay on personal property under federal tax laws.
So far as state and local taxation is concerned, even if the land were taxed five times as much as now, which could not be unless it is worth five times as much as the present tax, every one who rents a home would be better off, for his rent would be no higher, but rather less, and he would have no other taxes to pay; every one who wanted to buy a home would be better off, for he could get both his land and his house cheaper; every one who wanted to improve his home would be better off, for no matter how much he improved it his taxes would not be increased; every one who wanted to furnish his house would be better off, for he would have no tax to pay in the purchase price of his furniture nor on the furniture after he bought it; every one who is at any time out of work would be better off, for the demand for labor would be all the time in excess of the supply; and every one who worked would be better off, for the great demand for workers would make wages high.
All the revenues your town needed, if raised from land values alone, would fall with less weight on your mill hands and shop workmen than do the taxes you raise now. If you investigate you will in all probability find that these of your fellow citizens now pay in taxes direct and indirect, every year, more than the annual value of their land. Try it and note the result. What is their real estate tax? What is their poll tax, if any? What do they pay on their furniture? How much sugar, coal, iron, cloth and so on do they consume and what is the tariff on these? How much tobacco do they use and what are the tariff and internal revenue taxes on it? And so on until you ascertain about how much taxes they pay. Then estimate the annual value of their land irrespective of improvements, and from this make a moderate deduction to allow for speculative value.
If the single tax were in force three-quarters of your working people would not be mortgaged.
Read it Again.
BOSTON.—I have read “Poverty and Progress,” and as far as I understand it believe in the principle it explains, but I am not clear on one point, which I wish you would explain.
Supposing a man rents a piece of ground and builds himself a house on it and has no money left when it is paid for. Now, becoming through misfortune unable to pay the rent, how is he secured against loss for the money he put into the house?
You have not read “Poverty and Progress,” as you call it, very carefully. You have not made yourself acquainted even with the title page. Would you regard yourself as very well acquainted with John Smith if you deliberately called him Smith John. However, you might be pardoned your lack of familiarity with the name of the book were it not that you show by your question how carelessly you have read the book itself.
If the single tax were in full force, to such an extent as to take for public use the full annual value of land, a man would not rent a piece of ground on which to build a house. He would go upon any vacant piece he preferred, and there would be no one to stop him because no one would want to own vacant land when they had to pay its full value to the community as soon as it became valuable. When he had gone upon the piece of ground he selected, your suppositious man would build, and in due time the tax collector would come to him, if the land was valuable, and ask for the annual tax, which would be no more than others occupying land of the same value were paying. If he had no money with which to pay his tax, his house would be sold for taxes, just as it would be now, and the proceeds of the sale, less the tax, would be given to him. With that he might build another house, and if he had sense enough this time to build it on land the value of which was within his means, he would not again be sold out for taxes.
A man with no income who should use all his money in building a home on land having a high rental value, would exhibit very poor judgment. Men do not do such things now, and there is no reason to suppose that the single tax, whatever else it might accomplish, would add to the census of idiots.
Changing Values.
ATLANTIC, Iowa.—Will you please answer the following question: A owns a lot the value of which is $50; B owns the same kind of a lot similarly located; A and B each have $500 worth of improvements on their lots. D wants a location in our town; he can buy for just what improvements are worth, but instead of that he gives B $200 more than his improvements are worth. Would D’s taxes rise by making such exchange when your system did not compel him to make such terms?
M. R. S.
I do not think I understand your question. If D gave B $200 more than the whole property, land and improvements, was worth, the taxes on that property would not be increased. But if the land had increased in value from $50 to $200, so that D paid $500 for the improvements and $200 for the lot, then the tax would be based on $200 instead of $50.
The mere fact that D paid so much would not prove that the lot had increased in value. One swallow does not make a p. 3, col. 3 summer. D might have an individual preference for that lot, as being next door to the residence of a relative or friend, or for some similar personal reason. But if people generally were willing to pay A or B $700 for property that was once worth only $550, and if the improvements were worth only $500, that would prove that the land had increased in value from $50 to $200, and it would be taxed accordingly whether D bought it or not.
What Protectionists Say.
PORTLAND, Me.—(1) I am told by protectionists here that most of the articles placed on the “free list” the past few years cost as much now as before. Is that true?
Also that trade has improved and wages are higher in Germany since the adoption of protection there. Is that true, and if so, why?
When I tell them that protection has not enriched the working man, they tell me that neither has free trade, and say that working people are worse off in free trade countries than in protection countries.
And that wealth concentrates into the hands of the few fastest in free trade countries.
When I tell them that foreign laborers are allowed to come here and compete with native laborers, they ask me if we propose to restrict the coming of the foreigners?
S. T. TAYLOR.
Let them name some or all of the articles and give the figures, namely, price under tariff and price after repeal of tariff. For their encouragement you might suggest that they begin with quinine.
Whether it is true or not I am not informed; but if it be true the fact is insignificant unless the improvement in trade and increase of wages cannot be traced to any other causes. I do know, however, that wages are less in protected Germany than in free trade England.
We have never yet had free trade, for free trade in its fullness means the removal of all taxes, public and private, that interfere with production or trade. But this reply from protection friends is insufficient. The argument of the protectionist is that protection improves the condition of people. If he is told that it does not do that, it is not for him to retort that free trade does not do it either. Free trade is the natural condition, and if men do not improve under either that or protection, it is protection, not free trade, that must retire. It is true that commercial free trade would not permanently benefit the class known as workingmen. That it is better than protection, however, is shown by the fact that workingmen in England get a larger proportion of the product of their labor than do workingmen anywhere else, except in countries where land has not yet been so completely monopolized. It is not true that working people are worse off in free trade countries than in protection countries. Compare working people of England with those of highly protected Russia.
This is not true. It is monopoly that concentrates wealth, and protection is a nursery of monopoly. Ask your friends for facts and they will be condemned out of their own mouths.
We do not propose to restrict immigration; but if protectionists are honest in claiming that cheap goods should be kept out so as to make American wages high, they must urge the restriction of immigration, for it is cheap labor, not cheap goods, that makes low wages.
The Tariff on Tea, Coffee and Fish.
BOSTON.—(1) In an article on the tariff, in Harper’s Monthly for February, Senator Edmunds takes the price of tea and coffee, before and after the duty was taken off, as an argument that the tariff does not raise prices of commodities, because the price of tea and coffee six months after the duty was taken off did not fall to the extent of the duty placed upon them, one or two grades of tea or coffee being actually a cent or two higher per pound. Is this any argument against the general tendency of the tariff to raise prices? Would not the price of these articles have been a great deal higher at the time he quotes if the duty had remained on, the price always being governed by the supply relative to demand, the fluctuations of which would always produce changes in price whether there was a tariff on the article or not?
- He also mentions fresh fish, the price of which was no lower after the duty was taken off than it was before. Was not the price of fresh fish in Canada (the only country that could possibly send any fresh fish to this country) the same as it was here?
E. LUCAS.
- Protectionists are like the Jew who ate a slice of ham, and when his act of infidelity was followed by a terrible thunder storm remarked that it was a good deal of a fuss to make over a little piece of pork. Whenever prices go up it is because there is no tariff; when they go down it is because there is a tariff; whenever wages are high it is due to the tariff, and whenever they are low it is for want of a tariff. The tariff is their god, and all the ills we suffer are due to his vengeance for our neglect to fall down and worship. They have not yet attributed thunder storms and drouths, potato bugs and grasshoppers, blizzards and hurricanes, to free trade, but their line of argument is advancing yet, and as their arguments, like their industries, are infants, they may be expected to get there in time.
Countries in which wages are lower than in ours and lower than in England are stringently protected, but because the protectionist observes that ours are higher than in England he blandly attributes the difference to protection.
So with variation in prices. Noticing that coffee did not fall in price when the tariff was taken off, he concludes that protection does not raise prices. If protection does not raise prices why in the name of all that is sensible should we have protection at all? Has protection any other excuse for itself than that by raising prices it gives more profit to the employer and enables him to pay higher wages to his men! Is not protection intended to dam out that deluge of cheap goods which foreigners are with such persistent malice turning toward our shores? And if after all protection does not protect us from cheap goods, what is the use of protection?
Does not Senator Edmunds’s argument knock the pins from under protection? If a foreign article can be imported for 10, and we impose a tariff of 5, it is obvious that the foreign article must sell for 15 or it will not be imported. But if we can make the domestic article for sic½, isn’t the tariff a kind of fifth wheel to a coach? Wouldn’t we supply the home market the p. 3, col. 4 same without a tariff as with it? If there were no tariff would our people pay 10 for a foreign article when they could get as good a domestic article for 9½.
We do not produce tea nor coffee. Is it reasonable then to suppose that tea and coffee would sell for more or as much under free trade, other conditions remaining the same, as under a sic. Is it indeed a permissible conclusion until we have demonstrated not only that it does sell for more but also that there is no other way of accounting for the fact? Of course not. That is plain to the lowest class in logic. And has Senator Edmunds demonstrated that there is nothing but repeal of the tariff to account for the higher price of these sic. Has he shown that home prices did not fluctuate; that crops were not less; that demand was not suddenly greater; that cost of transportation and distribution was not enhanced? The only commodity of which it can be truly said that repeal of the tariff may increase the price is a monopolized commodity, and if you will pay attention to this point you will be able to prove in all cases in which it is shown that prices have sic after a tariff reduction, that the production of the article was a monopoly. For example: Suppose A in France has acquired a great reputation for the manufacture of a certain glove. His price for that glove in this country would then be a monopoly price, i. e., the highest instead of the lowest price at which the glove could be profitably sold here? Let us suppose that price to be 10, though he can sell at 5 and still make a profit. Now, so long as there is no tariff, he will supply our market as fully as he cares to at 10; but if a tariff of 5 were put on, so that he could not get 10 without selling for 15, domestic manufacturers would find a larger home market than before, since a great many people would buy gloves that had no reputation rather than pay 15 for gloves with a reputation. Consequently A’s market here would be very much contracted, and to keep up his trade he would pay the duty himself; that is, he would sell his gloves at 5, the commercial profit price, so that, with duty added, they could sell at 10, as before. In that case you see the tariff would not add to the price; and if, following that, the tariff on gloves were repealed A’s price would rise to 10 again and the repeal would not reduce the price. This would be in accordance with the same principle that compelled the monopolizers of copper mines in this country to sell copper abroad cheaper than they sold it at home.
The principle might operate temporarily upon tea or coffee or any other product of a narrow district. Suppose the lowest price at which coffee could be sold, under free trade, were 1; then if a tariff of 1 were imposed it would have to sell for 2, which would tend to diminish demand for it. Now let the tariff be repealed. The immediate tendency is to a greater demand than before, and as the supply is fixed from season to season, the increased demand would enhance the price, and might so enhance it for a time as to raise the price to as high a point as when the tariff was imposed, or even higher. A reaction would set in, however, and with the assurance of an ample crop for the next season the price would fall until an equilibrium was reached at 1.
But of labor products generally, those which are not monopolized nor their production confined to small districts, a reduction of tax is a reduction of price. Whatever must sell continually at the lowest price that will leave the usual profit on capital or not sell at all, is increased in price by a tariff and decreased by repeal of the tariff.
- I have not the figures at hand, but if the price of fish here, cost of transportation eliminated, was any greater than in Canada, the Canadians must have stopped eating fish; for I cannot imagine a Canadian fisherman with an intellect so perfectly constructed on the protection plan that he would sell his fish at home when he could make more money by sending them abroad. But supposing that fish were cheaper in Canada than here, after the repeal of the tariff, of what use was the tariff to our fishermen if their fish brought no more under protection than they did under free trade?
Having Eyes He Sees Not.
BROOKLYN, N. Y.—(1) In THE STANDARD of the 10th inst. you say that the rental value of land in New York city would amount to more than $100,000,000 annually outside of labor and improvements. The assessed value of real estate in New York city this year is $1,254,500,000, including all labor and improvement done since the first settlement of the island, and I think it safe to say that the labor and improvements done during that time will amount to ten times that amount. Then where do you get your $100,000,000 from?
The entire tax of the city this year amounts to $32,500,000. This includes real estate, personal estate, corporation and bank tax. Subtract from this amount all except the naked land value and you will have much less than nothing with which to run the entire machinery of the government, state and national, $800,000,000 per annum, and make free trade.
What is true of New York is so in the rest of the United States. Labor is all that is taxable. Land has no rental value aside from labor. Population never anywhere raised land above the labor value. Therefore the whole “unearned increment,” “rental value” of land doctrine is but the baseless fabric of a vision.
I. V. PRATT.
- I did not say the rental value of land in New York city would amount to more than $100,000,000 annually; I said that according to the only serious attempt ever made to appraise it, it does amount to more than that sum.
The assessed value of real estate is utterly unreliable. If you have an opportunity to buy any New York real estate at its assessed value do not lose the chance. Improved property is assessed at from fifty to sixty per cent of its value and unimproved at from forty per cent down to almost nothing.
The labor done since the settlement of the city has nothing to do with the question. Labor products are worth nothing after they have returned to the elements. The only labor values are the values of existing things that labor has produced, and of these things few are older than the century, most are not older than the decade, a very large proportion were produced within a year, and another large p. 3, col. 5 proportion is produced and consumed from day to day. In New York the value of improvements is nothing like so great as of the land.
- Why do you not state the conclusion you imply? Thus: “The entire tax of the city this year amounts to thirty-two and one-half millions; this includes real estate, personal estate, corporation and bank tax; subtract from this amount all except the naked land value and you will have much less than nothing;” ergo, the value of land in New York is less than nothing. Are you not enough of an artist to paint a pathetic picture representing New York landlords offering a bonus to have their lands taken off their sic.
If you subtracted all values but land values from the tax levy, of course there would be nothing left. It is equally true that if you subtract land values from the tax levy, there will be nothing left. But what does that show except that the tax levy is less than the value of land, and less than the value of other sic.
- A mine which labor has never touched may have a value which can be taxed; a forest which has never been explored may have a value that can be taxed; a city lot which is but a barren rock on which labor has never been exerted may have a value that can be taxed. A house and a lot in a growing city are worth more, when so many years have elapsed that the house is decaying, than when the house was new. Let ten thousand people decide to settle in the little village of Podunk, and the news of the decision will make a boom in Podunk land. Your proposition exhibits such ignorance of the elements of the subject, and is so transparently stupid that any further reply would be a primer lesson. If you haven’t time to read, and cannot observe with judgment, and don’t know how to think, ask some moderately intelligent friend, who has the leisure, to help you out of your muddle. That “vision” which you mention is in your own imagination, and the “baseless fabric” is the gray matter in which your imagination resides.
LOUIS F. POST.
The Poor Ye Have Always With You.
London Christian Socialist.
It is wonderful to observe how many there are who quote scripture nowadays. Formerly the scriptures were referred to most frequently by those who believed in them or who wished to do so; now many who do not believe in the inspiration of the bible, but who take for granted that we, their opponents, do, make use continually of certain passages to confront us with, thinking, doubtless, this to be an effectual way of silencing us. But, “it is written,” must be answered by “it is written,” as of old.
Sometimes the very same text used against us may be used by us, not as an arrow shot at a venture, but as one, that, well directed, gets in between the joints of the armor somehow and makes itself felt. It is very discouraging to find that the very texts on which we relied for success in our argument are used against us, and that many (I for one have often done so) retire from the contest crestfallen and dumb. Twisted texts, what trouble they can occasion, of what comfort do they often deprive us! In order to have them smoothed out and made straight, so that we can read them aright and see God’s meaning quite clear, shining through, we should study the circumstances which called forth certain sayings. We must search all over the bible for words that bear upon them, that help to clear them up, to simplify them and thus make them of use. As to this twisted text about the poor, Christ evidently meant to convey the idea that although he was soon going to leave the earth, men would still have the poor among them, and to them they could show kindness at any time. It seems to be so very clear that it was a matter of comparison between his short stay on earth and the prolonged continuance of the poor after his departure. And, then, did not Christ come to destroy the works of the devil? Everything that causes poverty is the work of the devil; so when justice, love, and peace shall be fully established in the land, poverty shall be no more.
If those who blasphemously assert that God intends that poverty, and, therefore, sin and suffering shall always exist in the world, had made use of some other statements in the bible regarding the poor, such for instance as Deuteronomy xv 11, sic shall never cease out of the land,” they might have had apparently greater reason for asserting that to be a part of God’s law. But then verse 4 of same chapter qualifies and explains verse 2. In the beginning of the chapter we find that certain measures were to be carried out (verse 2), “Save when there shall be no poor among you,” or, as it is in the margin, “To the end that there be no poor among you.”
Possibly the words of Christ, recorded by Matthew, would never have been spoken had they not been intended as a rebuke to the covetous hypocrite, Judas. There was no immediate prospect, when Christ spoke, of either poverty or sin ceasing; but both will come to an end when God’s will is done on earth as it is done in heaven.
Although I have said that many who do not believe in the bible make use of passages from it in order to disconcert their opponents, many more, who call themselves Christians, quote from the bible in a bitter and narrow spirit, shaping the texts to suit their own views, or rather wishes, instead of molding their thoughts according to the meaning of the texts arrived at by careful study of them and by comparison of the statements relating to them. It is no wonder that Christianity has lost its hold upon the masses, a fact so much deplored by many sincere Christians, when this text has been so twisted as to sic, seemingly, a belief in Christianity with a belief in the necessity for a poor class in our midst. To deny the necessity for such a class seems to the text-twister to deny Christ and to assert a superior knowledge over him. But let men be guided more by the spirit of Christ’s teaching and less by his isolated sayings and then they will come to know and understand him better.
E. E. C.
Worshiping a God, But Rejecting His Teachings.
John Ruskin.
No nation ever before declared boldly, by print and word of mouth, that its religion was good for show, but “would not work.” Over and over again it has happened that nations have denied their gods, but they denied them bravely. The Greeks, in their decline, jested at their religion and frittered it away in flatteries and fine arts; the French refused theirs fiercely, tore down their altars and broke their carven images. The question about God with both these nations was still, even in their decline, fairly put, though falsely answered: “Either there is or is not a supreme ruler; we consider of it, think there is not and proceed accordingly.” But we English have put the matter in an entirely new light: “There is a supreme ruler, no question of it, only he cannot rule; his orders won’t work; he will be quite satisfied with euphonious and respectful execution of them. Execution would be too dangerous under existing circumstances, which he certainly never contemplated.”
And the World is Moving That Way.
Northfield, Minn., Independent.
The world was made to be inhabited by men, and that Hebrew legislation of old that recognized the inheritance of every tribe and family in the land upon which they lived, allowing only forfeiture for a brief time, when it should revert to the heirs again, was wise and beneficent legislation. To something like this, in some way, the world must come before there can be permanent peace and prosperity on earth.
p. 3, col. 6
SOCIETY NOTES.
The end of Lent is at hand, and society will keep very still until the bright dawn of Easter shines through the curtain of sack cloth and makes visible the wonderful spring bonnets and gowns that have been preparing during this period of sorrow. The sewing classes and “Lenten readings” will come to an end with this week, and those who have not been very regular in church going will hasten to make up for it by a sort of “death bed repentance.” Dancing and theater going will stop for the nonce, and even bowling and fencing will be frowned upon. Then when Sunday comes society will don its new clothes, trip out into the sunshine and proceed to forget as quickly as may be sic about Lent and its lessons. Vanitas sic—when will there be less in the world?—[New York Herald.
The dead body of an old German woman, named Rosie Goebel, was recently found lying in the cellar of No. 62 Willett street, New York. There was no furniture in the room, but some loose straw, on which the body was lying. The woman had evidently been dead some days, and half a dozen chickens which shared the apartment with her had picked the flesh to the bones. It was learned from neighbors that the woman had been living on what she could beg and pick out of ash barrels.
Ladies’ gloves should now contrast with the remainder of the toilet instead of matching it.
As a train on the Ohio, Illinois and Western railroad was passing an out of the way side track, the conductor noticed fire issuing from the top of a box car standing on the siding. The train was stopped, the fire extinguished and examination made. The dead body of Angelina Boles was found lying on the floor of the car. It is thought the woman had built a fire on the floor of the car to keep from freezing to death, the night being extremely cold.
Queen Christina of Spain is an early riser, and after a simple breakfast devotes an hour or two to her children, while the rest of the morning is consumed by public business. She lunches at 1 with the Infanta Isabel, who resides in the palace, and in the afternoon, when not compelled to give further audiences to her ministers, she rides or drives out, in the latter case taking her children with her. On her return she plays with or reads to the little princesses, while his majesty the king takes an afternoon nap. Dinner is served at 8, and the queen retires at 11, the evenings being rendered agreeable by good music. Christina is exceedingly popular, and the people are especially pleased when she appears at a palace window with her son in her arms. She appears to be as liberal a sovereign as she is an excellent mother and woman.
Mr. Joseph Dugnol, who won Mr. Vanderbilt’s heart by cooking a duck, arrived in New York March 25. Mr. Dugnol repudiates the idea that he is engaged as Mr. Vanderbilt’s cook. He is a maitre d’hotel and gets $10,000 a year. Somebody else will do the actual cooking for the Vanderbilt family under his superintendence, and on a lower salary.
Two brothers, William and Charles Winn, escaped from the Albany jail, March 24, by sawing the window bars of their cell and letting themselves down by their blankets. They were awaiting trial for post office robberies.
Jay Gould is much excited over the attempts made to indict him and Russell Sage, and declares that the movers of the assault upon his character are a newspaper, a cable company and a woman.
Deacon S. V. White, the champion of the Pacific railroads and a well known dealer in stocks, has introduced a bill in congress providing that any person who knowingly deposits or causes to be deposited for mailing, or who aids in such depositing, any letter, circular or advertisement concerning any scheme to deceive by false pretenses, shall be fined not less than $100 nor more than $5,000, and be imprisoned at hard labor for not less than one year nor more than five years, or both.
A dispatch from San Francisco reports the arrival there of Frank Mutten, a cigar maker, who claims that while walking along the water front he was accosted by an unknown person, and they had a drink together, after which he became unconscious. When he regained his senses he was out at sea on the whaling bark John C. [Hofland?], bound for a cruise in the Arctic regions. The whaler spending some time in the neighborhood of the Hawaiian islands he determined to escape, threw a plank overboard and jumped after it. He was sixty hours in the water and almost exhausted when picked up.
The faro bank of Scholan & McLaughlin, at Troy, N. Y., was raided March 23, and one of the proprietors was arrested. The bank is said to have been chiefly patronized by members of the legislature.
Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Vanderbilt are at home again after a four weeks’ tour through the south. As soon as Mrs. Vanderbilt feels sufficiently rested they will run up to Newport to inspect their fine new villa, which is being pushed rapidly toward its completion. Mr. Vanderbilt has already been to inspect it.
A freight train was wrecked at Barre, Pa., March 22, by the breaking of an axle. Four tramps who were riding on the train were caught in the wreck. One was instantly killed and the other three will die.
The duke of Newcastle, although the possessor of neither private yacht nor private Pullman car, managed to enjoy himself in Florida, whence he has just returned. Mrs. Roberts captured the duke for dinner on Friday—that is, of course, the duke was not for dinner, but his presence there influenced others to overlook Lent and attend. The dinner was in every respect worthy of the hostess, and the occasion justified the pious in not confining themselves to fish.—[New York Herald.
Mr. and Mrs. John Bigelow are preparing to sail for Europe in April. Mrs. Bigelow, who gave a reception a few days ago for Mrs. Ashton Dilke, adopted a novel method of inviting her guests. Instead of writing them notes she sent her footmen around to summon them in person to her house. Those who failed to obey this summons were obliged to give their reasons in writing, and they got square with Mrs. Bigelow by detaining her emissaries to carry back their replies. As a means of avoiding the usual bother and expense Mrs. Bigelow’s idea is not a bad one—for those that keep footmen.—[New York Herald.
An up town firm that sells walking sticks says that the younger men about town are getting to carry canes of altogether different shapes and weights in winter and summer. The winter walking stick should be heavy and stout, a support on slippery days, and in keeping with cape coats and other ponderous protections against the weather. Most canes last winter had handles three to four inches long, of horn, silver, or silver plating. Lighter sticks, all of wood, polished at the handles, have come in for milder weather. Many canes, too, are now made straight, with silver or fancy tips, odd shaped knobs of bone, ivory and different colored hard woods. Silver heads are at a discount now because of the cheap plate imitations with which unscrupulous makers have flooded the market.
Lew Decker, a butter dealer of Harrison, N. J., while visiting the barn behind his house, was attacked by three men, who bound and gagged him, and robbed him of his coat, vest, and [$242?].
Mr. and Mrs. George Gould expect to spend the summer on the continent.
The Farmers Have No Use for It.
St. Paul Globe.
There can be no question about the bulk of the Illinois people being in sympathy with the Cleveland tariff policy. Illinois is an agricultural state, and the American farmer has no more use for a protective tariff policy than a wagon has for a fifth wheel. If the Illinois democracy would show more grit and force the fighting on the tariff issue all along the line, the time would very soon come around when Illinois would be as solidly democratic as it has been republican in the last twenty-five years.
Page 4 of 8contents
4 THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1888.
p. 4, col. 1
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ONE OF THE SIGNS.
A very significant lecture was delivered recently before the Social science league at New Haven, by Professor A. T. Hadley of Yale college. His subject was “Private Ownership of Land.”
A great deal of what the professor is reported to have said is not worth comment. It was merely a conservative frame for a radical picture. He argued, for example, that as civilization advances private ownership of land becomes necessary; but his argument related not to ownership of the land but to ownership of improvements. Again, he insisted that the single tax would not be practicable because assessors would to some extent include improvements in the assessment of land, and so discourage the investment of capital in improvements; but he did not attempt to explain why an attempt to exempt improvements from taxation would be more discouraging to capital than the laws which now authorize the taxation of improvements. He also brought forward the fact that some English agricultural land has fallen in value, to prove that rent does not tend to absorb the value of improvement; but he did not explain that English agricultural land has recently come into keen competition with the agricultural land of Russia, India, Australia and America; nor did he make the mistake of asserting that English land as a whole has fallen in value. He claimed in the same connection that the aggregate value of American farm lands has been practically stationary since 1873; but he made no such claim for the aggregate value of American land.
All this part of Professor Hadley’s lecture only shows that he has not made himself familiar with the effect of private ownership as distinguished from possession, nor with the nature of land values, and that he has not observed the tendency of land values to rise generally, though stationary or even retrogressive in localities. Either that, or, realizing the responsibility of his position as a college professor, he hesitates to indorse opinions that would be disagreeable to the fathers of the boys whom he teaches.
However this may be, Professor Hadley made a declaration which under the circumstances is all that could be asked from him, and which in itself is enough for the present. It was that that gave importance to his lecture. In the language of the New Haven News report, he said, speaking of the proposition to tax ground rents to their full value:
Much city land is in the form of monopoly, and on the ground that it is always desirable to tax monopolies rather than competitive interests, it would be a good thing to shift much of the taxation from improvements to land. Professor Hadley, however, insisted that in saying this he was not accepting George’s theory, for the latter wants to tax land to the fullest extent for the sake of destroying private ownership, while Professor Hadley would tax land only for the purpose of relieving improvements, and only so far as such relief sic. The tendency, it was said, seemed to be toward greater taxation of monopolies, land among the rest, and less taxation of improvements and other competitive interests.
It makes little difference whether Professor Hadley accepts “George’s theory” or not. The essential thing is that he does accept the proposition to shift taxation from improvements to land, and that he accepts it because land ownership is a monopoly and “it is always desirable to tax monopolies rather than competitive interests.”
This is the first step, and if taken for the reason given by Professor Hadley, one that cannot fail to lead up to the taxation of land to its full rental value. It will be observed that the professor recognizes of necessity two fundamental principles, one economic and the other moral. The economic principle is that taxes that fall on monopolies do not interfere with trade, while taxes falling on competitive interests do; and the moral principle is that it is just to tax monopolies while exempting other kinds of property.
His proposition to “tax land only for the purpose of relieving improvements, and only so far as such relief demanded,” has no limit short of taxing land to its full value. This Professor Hadley, on reflection, will no doubt admit. Taxes on improvements discourage improvement. The discouragement is greater or less according to the tax, but any tax on improvements discourages improvement to some extent. Therefore, improvements cannot be wholly relieved unless wholly exempt from taxation. But when improvement is wholly exempt, nothing remains to tax but personal property, land, and monopolies other than land. Taxes p. 4, col. 2 on personal property are just as objectionable as are taxes on improvement, for just as the latter discourage improvement the former discourage the production of personal property. A tax on monopolies other than land must be very limited, for it is not railroads and rolling stock that are monopolized, but railroad franchises; not mining machinery, but mines; not oil well equipments, but oil wells; not telegraph plants, but telegraph franchises. In fact, all monopolies center in land ownership or government franchises. If, therefore, we are to exempt improvements and personal property from taxation, we are practically restricted to land values, from which it follows that Professor Hadley, according to his own declaration, must advocate substantially the imposition of all taxes upon land values.
Further than that single tax men will not ask him to go, unless it should appear that land values are so much in excess of taxation as to leave a sufficient margin of value to form a basis for land speculation. Yet, if that should prove true, Professor Hadley’s declaration and his reason for it will logically justify such an increase of public improvement as to absorb the land value remaining. Just as a tax on improvements discourages improvement, so do rental values which encourage speculation in land discourage improvement, for when men who would improve must deplete their capital to purchase a place to be improved, the improvement is either prevented entirely or lessened.
In this way the single tax is making headway. Men like Professor Hadley see the truth vaguely, or, seeing it clearly, declare it in a half hearted manner; but in some form they do declare it, and their declarations make others think along new lines until what at first was unfamiliar and seemed revolutionary becomes a matter of common concern and common acceptance.
UNRELIABLE STATISTICS.
Bradstreet’s draws attention to a report recently issued by the department of agriculture in which the commissioner laments the unreliability of the statistics of agricultural wealth. No state, we are told, has full returns either of crops, farm animals or anything else, the range of omission, as compared with the last census, being from ten to fifty per cent. The reason for this lapsus is very frankly given. It lies in the fact that “the enumeration is made by assessors who are, of course, agents of the taxing power, and who are met with the concealment and evasion which is usually employed toward such ’agents.” Neither the commissioner who makes this report, nor the editor of Bradstreet’s who comments upon it, appears to be in the least discomposed by this amazing evidence of habitual perjury on the part of the farmers of the United States. The first suggests that the task of gathering statistics should be connected with the school system, apparently thinking that a farmer will be less ready to stain his immortal soul with a false oath before a school teacher or trustee than before a tax assessor; and the latter remarks that “a proper substitute will hardly be provided until popular appreciation of the value and importance of statistics is more extended than it is at present.” Precisely how or why an appreciation of the value and importance of statistics is going to make a farmer more ready to stand up and be fined for his industry we are not told.
It might be well for Bradstreet’s to reflect that a large portion of the generalizations it weekly lays before its readers are founded either upon just such statistics as the commissioner of agriculture speaks about, or upon others equally unreliable. Thinking this matter over, it may come to see that the one sure way to get reliable information is to make it for the interest of men to tell the truth rather than to lie—to reward them for honesty instead of, as at present, for deceit and perjury. When Bradstreet’s shall have progressed thus far in its thinking it will not be a great way from seeing the beauty of the single tax.
MORE PROTECTION.
The “protective” tariff, designed to protect American special interests from foreign competition, is naturally enough giving birth to “protective” laws designed to protect American special interests from domestic competition.
The internal tax on whisky, with its attendant train of books, bonds, stamps and spies, which protects established distillers and dealers from competition with men of small capital, and the internal tax on tobacco, with its attendant train of books, bonds, stamps and spies, which protects established manufacturers from competition with journeymen in the trade, were imposed to raise war revenues, but they are continued for protection to special interests. Last year an internal tax on oleomargarine, with still another attendant train of books, bonds, stamps and spies, was imposed, with the avowed purpose of protecting manufacturers of lower grade butter from competition with manufacturers of oleomargarine. And now comes Senator Dawes, a protectionist of protectionists, with a bill to impose a tax on adulterated lard and bring into being one more attendant train of books, bonds, stamps and spies, for the purpose of protecting manufacturers of hog lard.
Senator Dawes provides in the bill that for the purposes of the bill when it shall become a law, “lard” is to be understood to mean “the food product usually known as lard, and which is made exclusively from the fresh fat of slaughtered swine,” and that “all mixtures and compounds of tallow, beef fat, linseed oil, cotton seed oil p. 4, col. 3 and grease,” calculated or intended to be sold as lard, shall be known as “adulterated lard.” Having thus distinguished the manufacturers of hog lard, good hog lard, indifferent hog lard and bad hog lard, who are to be protected, from the manufacturers of lard in which non-hoggish substances are used, who are to be discriminated against, Mr. Dawes would require manufacturers of “adultered sic” to pay a special tax of $100, wholesalers $500 and retail dealers $50, besides a stamp tax of one cent a pound; and to assure the payment of these taxes all the safeguards of bonds, inventories, books, stamps, notices, indictments, fines, and so forth, so familiar to the tobacco trade, are provided for. The legal pretense of this measure is to raise revenue for a government that does not know what to do with its surplus; the moral pretense is to keep an adulterated food out of the market, although it admits the food, however adulterated, provided it be adulterated with hog; but the real purpose is to protect a class of manufacturers from competition.
The simple fact is that cotton seed oil, a perfectly healthful food product, has been found to be an excellent and cheap substitute for fat in refined lard, an article which is superseding certain grades of crude lard. This was injurious to the business of the packers, and finding ample justification in the protective theory with encouragement in the oleomargarine law, the packers have procured Senator Dawes to present his “adulterated lard” bill for the protection of their superannuated industry.
The more of this kind of legislation the better. The clearer the people see, by object lessons, such as the Dawes bill and the oleomargarine law afford, what “protection” is, whom it protects, where it leads to, how it interferes with business, how it creates monopolies, how it destroys legitimate industries, the surer will they be to do away with the whole idiotic and infamous system of protection, branch, trunk and root.
A POTENT SOCIALISTIC ELEMENT.
“Whether they know it or not,” says the New York Sun, “the most potent socialistic element in the country is now the brotherhood of locomotive engineers.” How such a declaration must rasp the nerves of Mr. Depew, who, only one year ago, in that patronizing way that is all his own, complimented this same brotherhood on its good sense and told its members how to own the Central railroad by abstaining from five cents’ worth of beer a day! And how it must make the beads of cold perspiration glisten on the magisterial forehead of Mayor Hewitt, who at the same time congratulated these engineers on the anti-poverty society of one which each of them had organized. Ye gods! The brotherhood of locomotive engineers the most potent socialistic element in the country! What have they done that in one short year they should have tumbled from the giddy perch of conservatism where, in the estimation of Mr. Depew and Mr. Hewitt and the Sun, they swayed so serenely, into the muddy depths of socialism?
What, indeed! Why, they have been trying to boycott a certain railroad system and to force all other railroads to do the same, which means, according to the Sun, whether they were in the right in their original demands or not, “that the brotherhood of locomotive engineers mean to control the country’s railroads;” and if it comes to that—well! don’t you see? why—“the public would lay its own hands upon the railroads and they would be turned into a government enterprise!”
Why this should result from that is not very clear; but the Sun explains it by saying that the control of the railroads “would not be permitted to rest with the engineers.”
The Sun has been one of the most persistent opponents of government control of railroads. In its view government control would be undemocratic. Having memorized that democratic maxim which teaches that that government is best which governs least, it applies it to existing conditions so as to make it appear that that government is best which farms out to individuals and corporations most of its functions. Forgetting that democracy is based upon principles which must be adapted to conditions, and not upon inflexible rules, it applies democratic rules a century old to the conditions of to-day. sic ignoring what other people are beginning to see, that in observing the rule it repudiates the principle.
It is good democratic doctrine that least government is best government. This does not mean least in an absolute sense, however, but least under the circumstances. If it were not so, that would be the best government which allowed every man to trample upon the liberty of other men at his discretion; and the democratic ideal of a superior government would be one which permitted murder, arson, and robbery, as well as legitimate business. Of course the Sun never contemplated that kind of government when it aired its crude notions of democracy. But what is the difference in principle between such a government and one that permits individuals or corporations to harass and plunder the community through their management of public highways?
Whenever the alternative occurs whether the people shall be governed by individuals or corporations, or by themselves, the vital principle of democracy comes forward, and no matter what mere rule of democracy adapted to other circumstances may have prevailed, declares that the people shall govern themselves. This is the alternative which the railroad question p. 4, col. 4 presents. It is only by public management of railroads that the people can be saved from government by railroad magnates, who fleece them in transportation rates and use part of the plunder to corrupt their law makers.
In such an emergency the principle that that government is best which governs least, demands that the government shall govern respecting railway facilities. It is not a question of whether or not we shall be governed in this respect, for we are governed. The question is, how and by whom shall we be governed—by irresponsible individuals and corporations having only selfish interests to serve, or by ourselves?
It is worthy of note that the Sun, always so strenuously opposed to public control of railroads because that would be governmental interference with what it chooses to regard as private business, has no such democratic scruples about government interference by way of protective tariff with what really is private business.
That government is best which governs least, is good democratic doctrine against depriving railroad monopolists of their power, but it does not apply to deprive tariff monopolists of their power. When railway kings sway their scepters the government must let them alone, because that government is best which governs least; but when an American farmer chooses to trade his grain for Canadian coal to avoid the extortion of Pennsylvania coal barons, the government must come to the relief of the coal barons. In the latter case government interferes, in a purely democratic way, of course, to compel the farmer to pay an extra price for his coal. And though every ship is watched, and every trunk overhauled; though custom houses stand like forts at every port, and merchants must give an account of their importations; though oaths are administered and bustles searched—all to regulate and govern the private business and affairs of the citizen—none of this jars upon the democratic sensibilities of the Sun.
Would it be strange, then, if some suspicious person should some time wonder whether, after all, it is the Sun’s democracy so much as its loyalty to our privileged classes that is offended by the proposition to make railroads public property and to repeal the tariff?
And would not this suspicion, excited by its inconsistency in opposing government railroads, while defending government “protection,” be justified by the Sun’s willingness to have railroads turned into a government enterprise rather than that their control should rest in the engineers? Is it more democratic for railroads to rest in the control of the Depews, and Goulds, and Vanderbilts, than in that of the men who drive the engines? Is it more democratic to make our railroads the tennis balls of Wall street speculators than to leave them to the management of the brotherhood of locomotive engineers? Of course not.
And if it is all right to turn them into government enterprises rather than permit them to be controlled by associations of workingmen, is it not all right to turn them into government enterprises rather than leave them to the control of private corporations of capitalists. If not, why not?
BY WORK, BY GIFT, OR BY THEFT.
In the Christian Union’s series of “Homely Talks on Homely Topics,” a writer who veils his identity under the pseudonym of “Laicus,” discourses concerning “Thrift,” reaching the conclusion that there are four rules, obedience to which may not, indeed, make a man wealthy, but “will certainly make him comfortable.” These are:
Earn your money by honest industry; earn more than you spend; earn it before you spend it; and spend it for the best things.
Stated by themselves, these maxims have a certain flavor of platitude. The same things have been said ten thousand times before by men whose idea of earning money by honest industry was to let other folks supply the industry while they confined their efforts to gathering in the money, and whose notions as to the “best things” for which money can be spent were remarkable for indefiniteness. But from the arguments by which he enforces his rules of life, it is clear that “Laicus” really means what he says, and appreciates the intent of his words. This is the way he amplifies his proposition that money should be earned by honest industry:
There is only one legitimate way of making money—by honest industry. He who makes money by taking it out of his neighbor’s pocket, without giving his neighbor an equivalent, does not make money at all; he simply steals it. He may do this pocket picking by reputable methods or by methods that are disreputable; but pocket picking, whatever the method, is always dishonest. Any transaction the object of which is to make A richer by making B poorer is in the nature of theft. Naked we came into this world, naked we shall go out of it. No skeptic is so skeptical as to deny this proposition. If, then, after living twenty years, we possess anything, we must have got it either by receiving it as a gift, by producing it by our industry, or by stealing from our neighbor. There is, perhaps, a fourth way; we may share in a general increase of wealth which we have done nothing to produce. This can hardly be called theft, but can hardly be called honorable industry.
To find sentences like these in the columns of a paper of such widespread influence as the Christian Union is indeed encouraging. They betoken earnest and fearless thought. It would, we fear, be too much to claim “Laicus” as a convert to the principles of the single tax on land values; but it is absolutely certain that if he continues thinking along the line on which he has started, he will be forced to see the absurdity and wickedness of private ownership of natural opportunities. p. 4, col. 5 And even if he himself should never give another thought to the subject, the words he has spoken in the Christian Union cannot fail to awaken and stimulate thought in others.
“Any transaction the object of which is make A sic by making B poorer is in the nature of a theft.” Suppose B is a miner or an agriculturist seeking to create wealth by applying his labor to land which no one else is using, is not A, who forbids him to go to work until he shall first consent to give him (A) a portion of the product, really trying to become richer by making B poorer? A, who lives in idleness on the proceeds of B’s labor, can certainly not pretend that what he takes from B is a gift—the spontaneous offering of a grateful heart. Still less can he pretend that he produces it by his own labor. Yet, according to “Laicus,” there is only one other way in which he can get it, viz., by stealing it. Or if A absolutely refuses to allow B to mine coal or plant corn on any terms whatever, but building a fence around the land which our laws blasphemously permit him to call “his,” keeps it unused for a generation, until the pressure of population has raised its value a hundred fold, and then sells it, has not A in such a case, taken the “fourth way” of acquiring wealth, which “Laicus” admits “can hardly be called honorable industry?”
It is the glory of the doctrine of industrial emancipation—the sure warrant of its success—that no man can begin to really think on the problems of social and individual life without being forced to acknowledge, consciously or unconsciously, the existence of that hideous wrong that dwarfs and threatens our civilization. Confronting alike the economist, the moralist, and the teacher of the pure precepts of Christ, stands the portentous fact that men and women, sent by providence into this world, are compelled to waste their lives, sacrifice their moral principles, and destroy their souls, in the life long struggle for permission to remain in the world. There are, as “Laicus” admits, but three ways of obtaining wealth: by gift, by work, or by theft. The crime of our society is that it has made the second method well nigh impossible, and encouraged men to depend upon the third.
PROTECTION FOR REESE & CO.
The Pittsburg Press opens its approving columns to Mr. Jacob Reese, whom it describes as a man “who has proven himself a veritable thorn in the side of the free trade advocates.” Mr. Reese intimates that the time has come when “the people of the United States should lay aside all foolishness and enter hand and heart into the development of the tin trade in this country, and further that the government should protect the industry by a tariff the same as it was protected in its infancy in England.”
We have the ores lying dormant in our hills, and we use more tin and tin plate than all other countries on the globe. We export more tin, as tin cans, than any other country, and yet we do not manufacture a pound. Why, sir, it is a shame and a disgrace to the nation, that with abundance of tin ore and all the facilities for the production of tin and tin plate, the government refuses to foster its manufacture.
If by “we” Mr. Reese means the people of the United States, he betrays a singular lack of knowledge of facts. We, the people of the United States, have no ores lying dormant in our hills that we know of, nor have we very many hills for the ores to lie dormant in. Some English lord, or some American corporation, or perhaps Mr. Reese himself, may have some dormant ores in their hills, but they will take precious good care that the people of the United States get none of it without first paying roundly for the privilege.
What Mr. Reese really means to say is that he and his friends, having built a fence round the hills in which the tin ores lie dormant, want another fence built around the whole country, so that when an American citizen wants to buy tin he may find it cheaper to pay for the privilege of passing the fence of Reese & Co. than to break or buy his way through the fence of the tariff. That would be “laying aside all foolishness” with a vengeance.
Isn’t it ridiculous? If there were no tin ores in this country, Mr. Reese would allow us to go to England, or Sumatra, or anywhere else where tin was produced, and buy as cheaply as we could; but because providence was so cruel as to store the mountains of Montana with tin, we must pay a double price or go without.
A CRITIC AND A TEACHER.
Monsieur Joseph Dugnol, the uncovenanted covenanter who recently arrived in New York without any contract with Mr. Vanderbilt, has told the American people, through the American press, just what his position is to be in Mr. Vanderbilt’s family, under the contract which he swears was never made. He is not, he assures us, a cook—that is, not a cook in the ordinary paper cap and white apron acceptation of the term. He knows how to cook, but will only utilize that knowledge in seeing that the real cook does his cooking properly. His real office is that of maitre d’hotel, which is French for master of the house, and indicates the extent of the influence he has acquired over Mr. Vanderbilt.
Monsieur Dugnol has not yet been a week in the United States, but like other visiting noblemen, who stay with us a fortnight and then abuse us in a book, he has already arrived at well defined opinions about us. Monsieur Dugnol is different from the other aristocracy, however. They lament our want of aplomb, of savoir vivre, of je ne sais quoi; they miss the ton, the noblesse oblige sort of spirit of their native land; whereas Monsieur p. 4, col. 6 Dugnol’s chief complaint about us is that we don’t know how to eat. “Americans,” he tells us—or he told a Herald reporter—its all the sic—“Americans don’t eat because they like it: but they seem to look upon eating as an arduous duty which should be gotten through with as quickly as possible.” We drink cocktails, too, which Monsieur Dugnol thinks is very sad. And we drink ice water, which is positively criminal, and sic destroy the morals of any nation. Altogether we are in a pretty bad way.
However, Monsieur Joseph Dugnol is not without bowels. He criticizes severely, but he also mercifully corrects. He points out our errors, but shows us how to amend them. He tells us how he lives himself. This is the modest style of breakfast that satisfies his simple sic
For my part I like for breakfast fish first—oysters, sardines or soles—with half a bottle of white wine; then soup, sic by boiled beef and roast, washed down with half a bottle of red wine; then sic and dessert—cheese, for instance—topped off with a glass of wine superior to what I drank while eating. Then I take my coffee and drink my cognac.
Monsieur Dugnol hasn’t told us yet what he likes for luncheon, for five o’clock tea, for dinner, and for his supper after the opera, but doubtless these sic will be made public through succeeding interviews with Herald reporters. But the description of his breakfast gives the key to his whole system and shows how readily it can be adapted to the conditions of American life, especially in the tenement house districts. Meantime we may remark that we are not at all astonished that Monsieur Dugnol expects to be the master of Mr. Vanderbilt’s house. He will need to be if he is going to live up to his breakfast.
THE WHYNESS OF THE WHICH.
Carroll D. Wright, the administration’s own commissioner of labor, has demonstrated that the cost of living is only seventeen per cent higher here than in free trade England. Wages here, on the other hand, are double. Free trade therefore practically means the cutting in half of the workingman’s wages. It means robbing him of a dollar to save him seventeen cents.—[New York Press.
This is a sledge hammer argument—a statement of the whole question in a nutshell. So simple that anybody can understand it, so convincing that the most skeptical must acknowledge its force. It seems like painting the lily to amplify it, and yet at the risk of being thought superfluous, we cannot resist the temptation to point out its beauties in detail.
Wages here are double what they are in free trade England. That means that where the English farmer earns one dollar, the American farmer earns two dollars.
The cost of living here is only seventeen per cent higher than in free trade England. That means that whereas the English farmer spends the whole of his one dollar on the cost of living, the American farmer spends only $1.17 out of his two dollars.
Therefore, out of every two dollars that he earns, the American farmer can, without difficulty, save eighty-three cents.
In just the same way the American artisan gets two dollars where his British free trade competitor gets only one; and out of every two dollars that he earns he can put by eighty-three cents against the rainy day that never shall come as long as protection flourishes.
Everybody earns two dollars. and sic spends more than $1.17. Is it possible you don’t see it? Then you haven’t grasped the true inwardness of the great protective principle. Suppose we try again.
Smith, Brown, Jones and Robinson each spend $1.17. That makes $4.68 altogether, doesn’t it? All right. Now pay attention.
Smith gets $2 for his services in producing the things that Brown, Jones and Robinson buy. In the same way Brown gets $2 for the things used by Smith, Jones and Robinson; Jones $2 for the things used by Smith, Brown and Robinson, and Robinson $2 for the things used by Smith, Brown and Jones. Four times two dollars are eight dollars. Smith, Brown, Jones and Robinson have each contributed $1.17 to the common fund and each drawn out $2.
Where does the extra $3.32 come from? Is that what you want to know? Why, good sir, that’s just where the great protective principle comes in. It’s the tariff does it all. As a result of encouraging home industries, our coal miners, and our cotton spinners, and our sewing women, and our handicrafts people generally, get just twice the wages they otherwise would. That builds up the home market for our agricultural produce, and so the farmers get just twice what they otherwise would. Then when everybody has been paid his wages competition comes in and cuts down the prices of what everybody has been paid high wages to produce. And so we all sell for high prices to people who buy for low prices, and all buy for low prices from folks who sell for high prices.
There! do you understand it now? If you don’t you had better ask the Press to give you a “tariff talk” on the subject.
> The statements spread by free traders to the effect that a reduction of wages will be followed by a reduction of the cost of the necessaries of life is absolutely false.—New York Press.
We should say they was. So are that other statement, well known to be the fundamental postulate of every free trade argument, that two and two am five.
Interesting to Kansas Readers.
F. M. P. Donnelly, 211 Armstrong street, Kansas City, is the official organizer, appointed by the state central committee, united labor party, for the second congressional district of Kansas. He invites communications from all persons in the district who favor the levying of all taxes upon land values.
Page 5 of 8contents
THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1888. 5
p. 5, col. 1
AT THE ANTIPODES.
THE CAUSE MAKING STEADY PROGRESS IN AUSTRALIA.
Letters from Dubbo, Sydney and Melbourne—Newspapers Advocating the Single Tax—Effects of Land Speculation—The Cry of Protection—Plans for Propaganda—The Outlook.
DUBBO, N. S. W., Feb. 17.—The single tax idea is steadily advancing in this part of Australia. We have a stanch and open advocate in the Lithgow Enterprise, Mr. John Farrell’s paper. There are other papers doing something, notably the Goulburn Evening Post and the Riverine Grazier, also the Bligh Watchman. The editors of these papers have a good grip of the question, as shown by their writings.
The mass of the working people, just beginning to feel the pressure of dull times, naturally fall into protectionist ideas, which are everywhere fully represented. It almost seems as if the experiment would have to be tried before our workers will realize that they are following a will o’ the wisp. What I dread is the combination, a small land tax with exemptions, boxed up with protection. Whatever good the land tax does it will thus be credited to protection, as it has been in Victoria. If protection were tried alone, in two or three years our workingmen would see its worse than uselessness. At present it is unfortunately true that the “revenue tariffists,” who at present usurp the name of free trade, are not at all in favor of land taxation. Hence we, not being strong enough to run alone, are in some centers allied to protection, and our feeble voice is drowned in the roar of party cries mingled sometimes with sectarian ones. But there seems to be no part of the colony within which at least a few have not taken up the crusade. Judging from the past our hope lies in quiet missionary work. We are far too few to make a potent party in politics yet. Nor can we afford to drive the unthinking into a corner in which they will have to decide yea or nay, but must keep the question open. Public opinion has grown immensely in our direction of late. The comparatively small numbers of our organization is no test, for the general feeling is with us on two main points, that land belongs to the state; and that unearned increment is not legitimately private property. Many thousands content themselves with the parrot cry, “The land should never have been sold,” having a hazy admixture of A. R. Wallace and Henry George. Personally, I hope much from the discussion of land value tax versus taxation of improvements in municipal areas. Wherever discussed as a municipal amendment it has gained ground. If it could be applied in municipalities first, so as to take the place of the at present combined rate on “property” and land, it would commend itself generally. Then there would be less difficulty in having it taken up as a national question. But if applied to rural lands only, municipal centers being exempt, the tax will be regarded as a burden, and the complaints of the country (impotent because scattered) will make unthinking townsmen afraid of the reform, and progress will be retarded. Even now not one tenant (city) in a hundred has any idea that this tax will lessen rent, or that it is of any consequence to him. Municipal reform is easiest to obtain first.
So in the states some of our friends think that success in a presidential campaign would be commencing at the wrong end, and prevent the full development of the reform—for workers are so apt to regard this crowning triumph as the completion of the work. We might as well call a man dressed who had simply put on his hat. The work, to commence at the bottom and work up, will not see a pure reformer in the presidential chair for many years; but what is done will be sound.
GEORGE PLUMMER.
SYDNEY, Feb. 22.—New South Wales is steadily and surely, if slowly, awakening to the necessity of land reform, for a league is in process of formation in Sydney whose work will be one of systematic organization and education on the subject, and which will be controlled by some of the ablest, most respectable and disinterested men in the colony.
A manifesto has been formulated and approved by an influential committee, numbering among its members some of our leading press men, commercial men and a good sprinkling of university students. There has never been a movement started in Sydney which, at so early a stage, attracted the notice and the sympathy of so many strong and healthy intellects.
Preparations are being made for the holding of a large public meeting shortly, at which the business will be the adoption of the manifesto and rules, and the enrollment of members. The adoption of the manifesto will be moved by Mr. W. H. Traill, the editor of the Australian Star, a gentleman who, while editor of the Sydney Bulletin some years ago, did yeoman’s service in the cause by writing a series of magnificent articles on Henry George and “Progress and Poverty,” and will be seconded by Mr. E. W. Foxall, whose lecture on the land question appeared in THE STANDARD of December 24 last. Mr. Foxall’s attitude and utterances upon this subject are arousing some interest, as his profession (that of manager of a large land and building company) is not one among the ranks of which people would expect to find a champion of the new reform.
It is probable that New South Wales will take up land nationalization sooner than most people think. The matter appears to be engaging the attention of quite a different class of men, so far as their public positions are concerned, from those who have been attracted to it in other countries. And when the new league is formed their names will redeem the movement from much suspicion which among the uneducated now hangs about it.
The country organizations are growing strong, and are anxious for a central association in the metropolis, to which they may affiliate.
He would be a rash man who should venture to predict what there is in store for Australia within the next twelve months in regard to this grandest and noblest of all questions.
MELBOURNE, Feb. 20.—There has been for the last few years and there is now, a land boom or land racket in Melbourne and Sydney, owing, perhaps, to the investment in city property of two millions sterling sent from England and Germany. The buying up of blocks of land around the city, and their resale in allotments has enriched the syndicates. This, however, has affected ordinary business, and it looks as if there was going to be a season of depression in Melbourne. The establishment in which I have been employed for many years begins to feel it. Seven persons were discharged last year and now this month eight more went. The profits made by investing in land companies p. 5, col. 2 and in brewing companies pay so high a dividend that capital is not content with a moderate profit. This must tell soon at the other end of the beam. The cause seems to be making faster progress in New South Wales owing to the efforts of Mr. George Plummer of Dubbo and Mr. Hunter, bookseller of Wagga Wagga, than in Victoria, although the prospect is cheerful here.
Politics here are just as rotten as with you. There is only a sham opposition in parliament. All seem silenced by the land grabbing business.
THE STANDARD is very much appreciated by those who see it here, and I have hopes of its circulation extending.
JOHN BRUNTON.
INFLICTING FINES BY GUESSWORK.
How the Tax Assessors of Kansas Do Their Work—Assessments Varying from 20 to 100 Per Cent of Actual Value.
If you live in Kansas it makes a heap of difference what part of the state you live in. Not on account of sic, or drought, or things of that sort, but because the statutes for the discouragement of industry are unequally enforced. If you live in one county and have been guilty of making a ton of hay you will be punished by a fine of a certain amount. In another county the fine for the same offense will be only half as great; in another it will be little more than one-third; and in still another county the fine will be scarce a quarter what it is in the first. This is not the fault of the legislature of Kansas, which designs to make the punishment fit the crime equally in every case, but it arises from the variations of the standards by which the officials of different counties measure the extent of criminality. The legislature yearly imposes a fixed rate of percentage of punishment, to apply equally to everybody in the state who may be guilty of having made anything, according to the measure of his crime; but it is left to the lord high executioners of the different counties—assessors is the cant name for them in Kansas—to do the measuring; the result being that $10 worth of sin in one county is only reckoned as $2.50 worth in another. The lamentable result is that idleness and unthrift, instead of being equally encouraged all over the state, are amply rewarded in some parts and rather frowned upon than otherwise in others.
The Topeka Post has been investigating this matter lately, and presents the result in a striking series of extracts from Kansas papers in its issue of March 16. From this we learn that while the law of Kansas directs that all property shall be assessed for taxation at its true value in money, it also provides that the assessors of each county shall meet on the first Monday of March in each year and agree upon an equal basis of valuation of such property as they may be called on to assess. How variously the assessors of different counties perform this duty may be judged from the following table, which we take from the columns of the Post. It shows the different values at which the same kind of property is assessed in two different counties.
| Property. | Osage County. | Shawnee County. |
|---|---|---|
| Horses— | ||
| One year old, each | $22.00 | $15.00 |
| Two years old, each | 32.00 | 20.00 |
| Work, each | 60.00 | 40.00 |
| Stallions, thoroughbred, each | 1,000.00 | 500.00 |
| Mules— | ||
| One year old, each | 28.00 | 20.00 |
| Two years old, each | 40.00 | 25.00 |
| Three years old, each | 75.00 | 50.00 |
| Steers— | ||
| One year old, each | 7.00 | 5.00 |
| Two years old, each | 15.00 | 7.00 |
| Three years old, rough fed, each | 25.00 | 10.00 |
| Three years old, half fed, each | 30.00 | 15.00 |
| Three years old, full fed, each | 45.00 | 18.00 |
| Four years old, half fed, each | [39.00?] | [20.00?] |
| Four years old, full fed, each | 60.00 | 22.50 |
| Cows, as a class | 15.00 | 10.00 |
| Hogs, fat | 12.00 | 6.00 |
| Sheep, fat | 1.50 | 75 |
| Goats | 1.25 | 75 |
| Oats, per bushel | 30 | 15 |
| Corn, per bushel | 40 | 20 |
| Rye, per bushel | 45 | 30 |
| Hay, per ton | 4.00 | 2.50 |
| Millet seed, per bushel | 1.00 | 50 |
| Clover seed, per bushel | 5.00 | 1.50 |
| Timothy seed, per bushel | 2.50 | 1.50 |
In this table twenty-five pieces of property are enumerated. In Osage county they will be valued at $1,521.40; in Shawnee county at only $792.65.
With such facts staring them in the face, farmers in Kansas are beginning to ask themselves why any taxes should be imposed upon industry at all; why, when a man has raised a beef or made a ton of hay, he should not be allowed to enjoy the fruits of his toil without having an uncertain grab at them made by the tax assessor. The single tax is gaining friends in Kansas.
The Value of a Taxing Franchise.
The New river water company of London is a corporation whose chief asset is a guaranteed monopoly. For more than two hundred and fifty years it has enjoyed the privilege of forbidding the inhabitants of a large part of London to drink water or wash themselves except on payment of a tax to itself. How valuable this taxing franchise has become may be judged from the following paragraph, which we extract from a recent issue of the London Star:
Two shares of the New river water company were sold on Tuesday for £171,000. In 1877 a single Adventurer’s share sold for £104,000. We know of no other shares that would fetch a fiftieth part of that sum. It may not be generally known that—if we put aside the shares issued last year, the capital of the New river company—founded in 1613 by Hugh Myddelton, sometime lord mayor of London—consists of 72 shares, 36 “Adventurers’” and 36 “King’s.” They are generally sold in fractions. The increase in the value of the shares may be gathered from the following figures: At the beginning of the century an “Adventurer’s” share fetched £10,000; in 1858, £19,600; in 1870, £40,000, and now about £85,000. This increased value is mainly due to the growth of the income of the company. In 1865 it amounted from all sources to £239,707; in 1885 it had risen to £480,545, and is still increasing. The income per share is about £2,250 per annum. A director’s qualification is the possession of one Adventurer’s share, so that not a single member of the directorate but is worth £85,000 any way.
A “Henry George” Club Which Doesn’t Believe in the Single Tax.
COLUMBUS, O., March [23?].—At a meeting of the Henry George club of the Third ward, Columbus, O., held Sunday, March 18, the following were adopted:
Whereas, Whatever the land tax men do they should all unite in doing, and not some go one way and part another; and
Whereas, This unanimity is best secured by a general candid expression of opinion by the different clubs throughout the country; therefore be it
Resolved, That we do not look to the democratic party for any advancement of our principles. That in the general derangement of our commerce and industries resulting from the abolition of the tariff the people will rather return to the old and comparatively good condition to going on to a (to them) doubtful end, and that we will then have a greater prejudice than ever to overcome.
Resolved, That we do not unanimously favor a single tax, but are with one voice devoted to the principle of the land tax, which alone we regard as the vital issue of the George men.
G. M. LEON, Secretary.
p. 5, col. 3
AN UNNATURAL MOTHER.
Instead of Parting Quietly With Her Children When Poverty Forbade Her to Keep Them, She Puts Them to Death—The Strange Reasoning By Which She Justifies Her Crime.
“Will you tell me why the American people liberated the blacks, and make slaves of the whites?”
These words were uttered by Minnie Lebkuchner, a German mother, who had administered poison to her three children.
Last Saturday morning early a woman entered the Thirtieth street police station, walked up to the big desk and said to the sergeant in charge:
“I have given poison to my three children; two of them are dead. I would like to have a doctor come to the house.”
The sergeant was considerably startled at the announcement, and at the quiet manner in which it was made, but recovered sufficiently to ask:
“Why did you do this?”
“Because I loved them so,” was the strange answer. “I was so very poor, and I could not get work enough to support them, and they were going to be taken away from me, and I preferred to have them die rather than to part with them.”
The officer’s impression was that she was demented; but he ordered a roundsman to go with her to her house to investigate. Before she left the police station she told the sergeant that she lived in the rear tenement at 154 West Twenty-eighth street: that she was thirty-five years old; that her name was Minnie Lebkuchner; that her children were Anthony, nine years old, Charles, seven, and Christopher, four.
When the roundsman and the woman entered the tenement the agonized moaning of a child reached their ears, and a weak voice cried out:
“Oh, mamma! why don’t you take me into the yard and pour water over me? I’m burning up!”
Said the woman: “That is Christopher who is crying, but he will soon die. This is Anthony,” quietly indicating the elder of the dead boys, “and this,” pointing to the other dead boy, “is Charles.”
Christopher repeated his eager cries for water and writhed in the utmost agony. As soon as possible an ambulance was brought to the place and the little sufferer was taken to the New York hospital. The mother observed his departure as she had his agony, with perfect composure, her face never relaxing its settled expression of hopeless grief. When the roundsman told her that she must return with him to the station house she assented as quietly as if she had expected the order, and went along unhesitatingly.
Once more in the presence of the sergeant at the station house she told him her story. She was warned that all she said would go upon record, and that it might be used against her in a trial for murder.
“You do not need to warn me,” she said; “I understand fully what I have done, and I know exactly how I stand before the law. I know that I may be hanged, but I shall tell the truth and be very careful in what I say.”
She was the second wife of Jacob Lebkuchner, who was in his day a wealthy brewer. A few years ago he failed in business, and when he died in 1885 he was a poor man. He had been a member of the Bloomingdale aid association, one of the numerous German organizations which are substantially insurance societies. His interest in this society amounted to nearly $1,000, of which $600 was paid soon after his death to the children of his first wife. Three hundred dollars was in trust for the three children of his second wife, but not a penny of it could be made available for their needs until they had attained their majority.
Mrs. Lebkuchner, therefore, found herself under the necessity of going to work. From her own statements and the accounts of others, it appears that she stood the severe test bravely. She took in washing and sewing, and applied herself to every honorable opportunity for employment that came in her way. Her children were sent to school, were well trained, neatly dressed and cared for admirably considering the widow’s circumstances.
Those who have seen them say that the boys were exceptionally pretty and interesting. The mother felt that they ought to have better care than she could give them, for she was unable, by all the work she could do, to earn money enough to support them all and herself. Whether she made overtures to the Bloomingdale society, or whether the offer came from the other party, is not clear at present; at all events the officers of the society, with the mother’s sanction, tried to provide the boys with homes. Anthony, the eldest, was placed for a time in an orphan asylum, but his mother could not endure being separated from him and insisted on taking him back. She toiled night and day, and her face seems to show the passage of ten to fifteen more years across it than have been her share.
Last Tuesday week Mrs. Lebkuchner received a letter from the Bloomingdale aid society in which its officers announced that they had secured good homes in the west for each of her boys, and that she should get them ready to leave the city by the following Saturday. At this point the story becomes well nigh incredible, but it is probably entirely true, for not only has every outside evidence thus far corroborated her statements, but the dead bodies of her children are sufficient to lend belief to her explanations. The letter plunged her into an excess of grief. She thought that she had no legal power to retain control and care of her children, and the prospect of parting from them was maddening. Her resolution, apparently, was soon taken, for on that same evening she sent Anthony to a neighboring grocer for fifteen cents’ worth of “Rough on rats.” In the morning she mixed the poison in the tea and gave the boys liberal drinks of the mixture. Paris green, when taken in moderate quantities, usually causes the death of a human being at the end of twenty-four hours. In this case the dilution of the dose delayed its fatal effect, but did not mitigate in the slightest degree the terrible suffering that inevitably accompanies death by this poison.
Mrs. Lebkuchner with perfect composure told the police officers how her boys fell sick and complained of burning pains and cried for water; and how, as the poison continued its work, they writhed and moaned in anguish—how she gave Anthony and Charles small doses of whisky in order to lessen their suffering, and how Anthony died at 2 o’clock Thursday afternoon and Charles followed him three hours later.
It would seem that through all this terrible ordeal she kept her unutterable purpose rigidly in mind, for she summoned no doctor or help of any kind, and conducted herself and cared for the boys to such effect that not another inmate of the five-storied tenement house suspected that anything unusual was happening in the first floor back rooms.
Finally, having sat over the dead bodies of two of her boys nearly twenty-four hours, and believing that the third would surely die, she reported the matter to the police in order to assure herself that the children would be p. 5, col. 4 decently buried, and with a hope, perhaps, that medical skill might do more than she could to lessen the last torments of baby Christopher.
Mrs. Lebkuchner was taken to the Tombs, where she was visited by a reporter; but she seemed disinclined to talk of what she had done, further than to say that she had lived for years in the deepest poverty. All her earnings were insufficient to maintain her boys and herself, and her love for them was so great that she could not bear the thought of being separated from them.
“Why,” said she, after a pause, “was it that I, by working from early morning till late at night, could not earn enough to support my boys and myself half way decently?”
Then, after another pause:
“Will you tell me why the American people liberated the blacks and make slaves of the whites?”
Echo answers, “Why?”
AMERICAN “SHOP GIRLS.”
They Don’t Mean to Wear Distinctive Uniforms if they Can Help It—What Some of Them Say About It.
A movement is on foot in some of the larger dry goods stores to enforce the wearing by saleswomen of some distinctive style of costume. The young ladies in the employ of Frederick Loeser & Co., Brooklyn, have already donned dresses of black cashmere in obedience to orders from the firm. The new plan appears to meet with general disfavor, and many of the saleswomen in New York stores are outspoken in their condemnation of it. A reporter of the Sun obtained several interviews on the subject and describes the result as follows:
A dark haired, black eyed girl said, with flashing eyes and a defiant toss of her head:
“If you want to know why I don’t approve of a regulation dress for shop girls I can tell you. It is simply because I’m too independent and democratic to wear a livery for anybody. If they would give me a new dress every month and make it in the most becoming way they know, I wouldn’t wear it. I live in a free country, and I don’t propose to be dictated to by anybody about what I shall wear.”
“Do you think this costume would be any more expensive than dressing as you do now?”
“I don’t care how much or how little it costs, I wouldn’t wear it one day for anybody.”
A saucy little brown haired maiden in a stylish blue and gray costume, with an angry color burning in her cheeks and a liberal intermingling of exclamation points with dagger tips, in her remarks, said: “Wear a uniform? Indeed, I wouldn’t for anybody! The policemen and firemen wear them, but I will not. I earn my money fairly and I propose to spend it as I like. Besides, I don’t care to be pointed out in the street as a Macy girl or a Stern girl or an Altman girl. So long as I act like a lady in the street I propose to look like one and not be stared out of countenance by people because I am a shop girl. Nice appearance it would give a store, too, to have all the girls in black—look as if there had been a general funeral and everybody was dead but the shop girls. There’s no charitable institution taking care of me. I earn my money honestly and think I might spend it without asking anybody’s leave. They would have a nice time making the girls in this store put on anything like a uniform. This isn’t an asylum; the proprietors don’t take care of us; we are just as independent as they are. We earn our money and they earn theirs. We work and they work, and I don’t see why they have any more right to tell us what to wear than we have to tell them what to wear, so long as we are neat and tidy.”
“Do you not think the girls would get very tired of a regulation dress?”
“Yes, the others might, but I wouldn’t. I’d tear it off and fire it so far I’d never see it again in less than two days.”
A very pretty girl in a neat, tasty costume said, with an angry twitch of her skirts: “I don’t mind being a shop girl. I have a good position and am well paid, and think it no disgrace to work, but I don’t want to be stared out of countenance by the loafers in the streets who think a shop girl is ready to flirt with them any way. I always wear black, and dress as quietly and neatly as I can, but I am too much of an American to be bossed by anybody, and I think I work hard enough for my money to have the pleasure of spending it for the things I like. I like pretty things as well as if I didn’t have to work for them. As far as any one’s furnishing the cloth for my dresses is concerned, I don’t thank them to. I know how to earn my living, and don’t need any charity, but some of the girls are too poor to dress in a uniform dress. I knew a girl once who had been out of work for a long time and was poor. At last she obtained a position in a store on Fourteenth street, and was told she couldn’t go to work without a regulation dress. She couldn’t afford to get it and lost her place. And when Macy tried to keep his girls in black dresses the girls all said that it was very expensive, that black was a very disagreeable color to wear, and that often they had to take the first money they earned to buy the dress of the store, no matter how many dresses they already had or how much they needed other things. As for the cash girls wearing a regulation dress, that is worse than absurd. Their dresses have to be fixed over from their mothers’ or older sisters’, and are sometimes given them right out, and then it is all they can do to live.”
Why Didn’t They Protect the Puddlers by a Tax Upon the New Processes?
Age of Steel.
> It is rather sad after all to reflect upon the great changes in the iron trade brought about by the introduction and increasing uses of steel. For years the puddling process grew in England, until a large part of the production of pig iron in that country was for use in the puddling furnaces; and the puddlers and their assistants earned enormous sums, and, like Jeshurun of old, “waxed fat.” A dozen years ago the industry attained vast dimensions—an English contemporary says there were then over 2,000 puddling furnaces in the Durham and neighboring districts alone, and that that district made 30,000 tons of iron rails monthly; now only 237 tons are produced. Thus it is clear that this branch of the puddlers’ art is not only decaying, but so threatened as to be dying. Iron for ship building succeeded to wood, and frequently 500,000 tons of it have been used yearly for the walls, boilers and machinery of British vessels. But the Siemens process is doing away with a large part of the demand for malleable iron for use in steamers, after the manner of the Bessemer process in robbing the puddler of the call for iron for rails. Out of 500 boilers in steamships not five have iron used in their construction, mild steel having become almost universally used. In bridges the newer metal is now generally substituted for the older. By the Siemens open-hearth process—which, of course, dispenses with the employment of puddlers—there were 694,150 tons of metal made last year in Great Britain, against 187,000 tons ten years ago. In consequence of the general preference for steel, malleable iron is but little used, and out of close upon 5,000 puddling furnaces said by our English exchange to exist two years ago, not more than half are in use—the rest being dismantled or idle.
p. 5, col. 5
A LEADER OF MEN.
Some Information About New York Society by the Man who Stands Guard Over It—Respectable Poverty and a Million Dollars.
“Why, there are only about 400 people in fashionable New York society. If you go outside that number you strike people who are either not at ease in a ball room or else make other people not at ease.”
This was what Mr. Ward McAllister said to a reporter who enjoyed the privilege of an interview with him, and wrote an account of it for the columns of the Tribune. “Of course,” Mr. McAllister conceded, “there are any number of the most cultivated and highly respectable, even distinguished, people outside of fashionable society. When we give a large ball like the last New Year’s ball for eight hundred guests, we go outside of the exclusive fashionable set and invite professional men, doctors, lawyers, editors, artists and the like.”
The name of Ward McAllister is well known among the common people who work for a living and read the newspapers in their intervals of leisure. To them he is a mysterious personality, who sits upon a social throne, and has dominion over patriarchs’ balls, family circle dancing classes, and similar recherche diversions of the noblesse americaine. They regard him, as the Tribune man puts it, “as a mysterious power, whose favor is an ‘open sesame,’ or as an ogre who stands blocking the way to the enchanting inner circle of New York society.” Mr. McAllister himself, however, denies this flattering impeachment, and modestly assures the world, through the Tribune, that he is only “a representative of the exclusiveness that must necessarily characterize the balls that he conducts for society”—the term “society” meaning, be it remembered, the exclusive four hundred, outside of whose magic circle are to be found the professional men, doctors, lawyers, editors, artists, and all the rest of them. The Tribune reporter, in a column and a half article, gives the American people a pretty good picture of the methods of life and thought of this gentleman whose chief function apparently is to represent the exclusiveness of the haut ton.
Mr. McAllister has what many members of east side society would call a pretty easy life of it. A forenoon devoted to business—the Tribune tells us he is a manager of estates and promoter of financial, commercial and political enterprises where diplomacy is essential—an afternoon stroll up the avenue, with an hour or two at the Union club, a dinner party or ball in the evening—such is the usual routine of his life when in town. In the summer he goes traveling, spends a month or two at Newport and only makes occasional visits to the city. There are quite a number of American citizens who produce more wealth than Mr. McAllister, but very few who consume as much.
But the management of estates, the financial, commercial and political diplomacy, the strolls on the avenue, the travel and sojournings at Newport—all these are but outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace which makes Ward McAllister great. His real occupation is to look after the noble four hundred who constitute society—to watch the creme de la creme and see that it be not soured nor diluted by the admixture of any inferior fluid. “Society,” Mr. McAllister affably informs us, “is an occupation in itself. Only a man who has a good deal of leisure and a taste for it can keep up with its demands and with what interests it. Numbers of people are introduced in fashionable society every season who cannot and do not make a success, and they fall out. They cannot float themselves even when some one gives them a good start. These people have not the poise, the aptitude for polite conversation, the polished and deferential manner, the infinite capacity of good humor and ability to entertain or be entertained that society demands.”
The day when fortunes admitted men to exclusive society has gone by. Twenty or thirty years ago it was otherwise. But now with the rapid growth of riches millionaires are too common to receive much deference; a fortune of a million is only respectable poverty. So we have to draw social boundaries on another basis; old connections, gentle breeding, perfection in all the requisite accomplishments of a gentleman, elegant leisure, and an unstained private reputation, count for more than newly gotten riches. You would be surprised at the number of apparently eligible men this list of requirements strikes out of consideration.
If Mr. McAllister regards a fortune of a million dollars as only respectable poverty, it would be decidedly interesting to have his opinion of a fortune of ten dollars a week, with the privilege of working twelve hours a day for it, and the possibility of losing it any Saturday night. But probably men of such extremely moderate resources are not within the limits of his ken. He goes on to tell us some more about society, notably what it eats when it really gives its attention to eating:
The dinner which the Cooks’ Bulletin has called the finest ever served in the city for artistic cooking and appointments was that given to Attorney General Brewster by Frederick D. Thompson at Delmonico’s on February 5, 1883. It cost about $7,000, and was a remarkable affair. A patriarchs’ ball followed the dinner, which all the dinner guests attended. The table was I-shaped and a mass of flowers. This was the unparalleled, brilliant season that saw the Vanderbilt fancy dress ball. Patti and Scalchi were charming people in the old Academy with Italian melodies, and Mrs. Potter was making her first brilliant impression as an amateur. This season’s gayety was so remarkable that a history of it, in book form, was compiled.
Of course there have been handsome entertainments since. I suppose Mr. Borrowe’s dinner to Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Martin has rarely been eclipsed, while the Martins themselves have given dinners, like that on February 14, that could not be surpassed in beauty. You know that Mr. Martin ships large quantities of pheasants and grouse to this country from his Scotch shooting grounds and has them frozen for him in Fulton market. Then he has them at any time during the winter, and their flavor is remarkably fine.
Ah, yes, there has been a great advance made of late years in the quality of suppers at our balls. Three delicacies are now considered indispensable, and they are canvasback ducks, terrapin and pate de foie gras. This season, however, it is difficult to get good canvasbacks. Either the best of them are shipped to English markets or there has been so much gunning at Havre de Grace and other points on the Chesapeake as to frighten them away from their feeding grounds of wild celery, thereby spoiling their delicacy of flavor. It seems as if something would have to be done to prevent the extinction of the canvasback ducks, or they will follow in the wake of the buffalo. Now they are so scarce as to command $7 to $9 a pair. You know that when Lord Rosebery was here, that after a dinner of canvasback, he asserted that the United States should have chosen a canvas back duck as their national emblem instead of a tough and worthless bald eagle.
You must know that one of the most expensive as well as the latest dishes is capons truffled in Paris. Of course they cost so much as to be in limited demand. Another new dish is four year old mutton. It is not new on the other side, as Englishmen always prefer their mutton to be four years old. But at the last farmer’s dinner four year old mutton was thoroughly tested and pronounced a great delicacy and a decided success both in flavor and texture; the honors being divided p. 5, col. 6 between Frederic Bronson and J. Hobart Warren, who furnished the mutton from their flocks of thoroughbred southdowns. These sheep were, of course, four years old wethers, and fatted and fed with the nicest discrimination. The serving of terrapin is another thing on which epicures have undergone a change of taste. For thirty-five years the Baltimore and Philadelphia styles have contended for the palm. The first is to serve with black’ sic and Madeira wine, the chafing dish and a little pepper being used. The Philadelphia fashion is to use fresh butter and cream, such as was formerly called a Trenton stew, and was highly thought of by General Cadwalader and other famous epicures. This is now the style of terrapin served at high-class dinners, only it cannot be prepared for large dinners, as the cream curdles at the least delay.
Mr. McAllister told the Tribune man a good deal more besides this, but nothing more interesting. We drop him here, and trust the readers of THE STANDARD, at their future high class feasts, will see to it that the terrapin be properly served, and bear in mind that terrapin with cream cannot be prepared for large dinners, as the cream curdles at the slightest delay. They may also obtain a bran new sensation, if, when next they partake of a “farmer’s” dinner, they will insist the mutton be four years old and make sure that it has been fatted and fed with the nicest discrimination.
STRAWS WHICH SHOW THE WIND.
The gas company could afford to sell gas for a dollar when it feared opposition. It may be given that opportunity again.—[Indianapolis News.
Mr. Powderly advances the proposition that the coal fields should be owned and controlled by the government. Mr. Powderly’s head is very level on this question.—[Minersville, Pa., Free Press.
The miners in the Pennsylvania coal regions ought to feel happy, as their industry is protected; but all the protection is like a pan of milk, the cream all rises to the top, and then the milk goes to the hogs, after the mine owner has secured the cream.—[Samuel Sinnett in Beaumont, Texas, Free Speech.
A north of England paper says that the Russian petroleum men have been successful in their effort to exclude American petroleum from Russia, and that none was imported into that country last year, whereas the Russian producers exported 6,000,000 gallons during 1887 and are making preparations for a larger output.—[Philadelphia Record.
Philadelphia is talking of buying some four to seven million dollars’ worth of property surrounding its city hall in order to make a proper approach and plaza for it. Our state should think of a similar thing for our state house. A comparatively small expenditure now could secure a proper open space for the state capitol—something that will have to be done surely in time.—[Indianapolis News.
Taxation for the mere sake of taxation—taxation to surfeit the government treasury, is a practice against which the intelligence of free citizens instinctively revolts, and it cannot but be that the political party which proposes simply the reduction of it to the level of current public necessities will command the suffrages of a large majority of those on whom so needless and unreasonable a burden is laid.—[Boston Globe.
The Catholic bishops in the south have on hand a colonizing scheme. They intend to form a company, with a capital of $2,000,000, with which land may be bought in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina and sold in lots of from ten to a hundred acres. No one will be allowed to purchase more than the latter number. The immigrants are to come from the north and west as well as from Europe, and are to he a good class of sic.—[Philadelphia sic.
Wipe out the tariff on coal and then put the land tax in force so that there will be no rich coal lands held in idleness, and there will be no necessity for government ownership in this especial industry. It is the power the barons have of cornering the product of the mines under existing laws that is working the hardship on the consumers at the present time. Open up the coal lands by the land tax and there will be thousands of small shafts run down to nature’s fuel that will soon dispel the scarcity of fuel.—[Houston, Tex., Labor Echo.
Mrs. Mackay’s lavish banquets, with their costly displays of flowers and other adornments, have been quite distanced by the dinner recently given at Delmonico’s by a rich New Yorker. On this occasion a ring of diamonds and emeralds, worth $1,000, was attached to the menu card at each plate. It now only remains for some millionaire who wishes to dazzle the eyes of the less fortunate with an ostentatious display of wealth to devise menu cards in the form of checks to any amount he pleases. This would be about as sensible a way as any of giving his guests a distinct impression of his monetary value as a host.—[Boston Post.
PICKED IN PASSING.
In Ireland there are 80,000 spindles and 1,000 looms in the woolen mills.
Marseilles, France, workingmen have petitioned the government not to employ foreigners in the dock yards and impose a tax on employers of any but Frenchmen.
The emigration returns show an increase of 19,786 in the number of Irishmen and Irish women who left their country during last year. The increase is more than thirty per cent.
A Cleveland, Ohio, steel mill has put up a big “magnet” extended on a chain from a crane which, when charged with electricity, does the work of fifteen men who were formerly employed in lifting billets to railroad cars. A boy can run the new labor saver.
Gold is often carried away by streams near the mines. A Colorado man places a number of hides on the surface of a stream out there, and as the water passes over them fine gold lays on the hides. Every two weeks he burns his hides, and is rewarded with about $80 or $90 worth of gold.
Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt is not content with his sic and splendid New York mansion and his Scotch shooting forests; he wants a house in Paris as well, and he has bought in that city the magnificent residence of Mrs. Bischoffsheim, in the avenue des Champs Elysees, one of the very finest mansions in Paris.
A bill has passed first reading in the lower house of the Massachusetts legislature conferring upon women the right to vote for or against license for the sale of liquor under the local option law. The vote stood—yeas, 100; nays, 92. The opponents of the bill insisted that it was the entering wedge for the complete exercise of the suffrage by women.
The Dublin board of guardians report an increase of nearly fifty per cent in the grants of outdoor relief during the last twelve months, the numbers being 1,035 as against 539 this time last year. More than this, we are told that the farmers of the district are on the brink of pauperism and will soon be applying for poor law relief if relief comes to them in no other shape.
Bismarck claims to have discovered that the very best of fuel gas can be manufactured cheaply and abundantly from lignite. The figures given are 60,000 feet to the ton. If this be true, Dakota is destined soon to be independent of the anthracite barons. Lignite is as plenty in parts of Dakota as bluffs at Duluth or mud in Chicago, and a new era of prosperity will open for those regions if the claims made for this half-formed coal prove true.
The Philadelphia rapid transit electric railroad company, a newly incorporated organization, has issued prospectuses containing a request of the city council that it be allowed the use for three months of the abandoned and disused tracks on Poplar street for the purpose of demonstrating the practicability of its plans. The motive power is electricity transmitted from a copper bar in a conduit under the track to a motor in the car. The sum of $1,000,000, payable in twenty annual installments of $50,000, is offered for the privilege of running cars over a described route.
Page 6 of 8contents
6 THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1888.
p. 6, col. 1
Io Victis.
By W. W. Story.
I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the battle of life— The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died o’erwhelmed in the strife; Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding acclaim Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wore the chaplet of fame— But the hymn of the lowly and humble, the weary, the broken in heart, Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part; Whose youth had no flower in its branches, whose hope turned in ashes away, From whose hands slipped the prize they had grasped at, who stood at the dying of day With the work of their life all around them, unpitied, unheeded, alone, With death swooping down o’er their failure, and all but their faith overthrown. While the voice of the world shouts its chorus, its pæan for those who have won; While the trumpet is sounding triumphant and high to the breeze and the sun Gay banners are waving, hands clapping, and hurrying feet Thronging after the laurel-crowned victors—I stand on the field of defeat, In the shadow, ’mongst those who are fallen and wounded and dying, and there Chant a requiem low, place my hand on their knotted brows, breathe a prayer, Hold the hand that is helpless, and whisper, “They only the victory win Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the demon that tempts us within; Who have held to their faith, unseduced by the prize that the world holds so high; Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight—if need be, to die.” Speak, History! Who are life’s victors? Unroll thy long annal, and say. Are they those whom the world called the victors, who won the success of a day? The martyrs, or Nero? The Spartans, who fell at Thermopylæ’s tryst, Or the Persians and sic! His judges, or Socrates? Pilate, or Christ?
A PLEADING FOR THE WORTHLESS.
BY CARDINAL MANNING.
Nineteenth Century.
The workless and thriftless have had their sentence. Let me plead now for the worthless. There was once a commonwealth in which every wrong against a neighbor was judged and punished, not only as a wrong against man, but also against a higher law. The lord of the harvest did not glean his fields, nor did the master of the vineyard and of the olive-yard go twice over the vines and the olive trees. The gleaning and after-gathering were for the poor, the widow and the orphan. Usury was unlawful. The lender might take a pledge for repayment of a loan, but he might not take the stone by which the borrower ground his corn, nor the cloak in which he slept at night. If taken in pledge by day, it was to be restored by nightfall. Every fifty years all prison doors were opened, all debts absolved, all lands returned to the rightful heir. Even the lower animals shared in the generous equity of the common law. The ox was not muzzled when he trod out the corn, and he rested on the seventh day.
And yet this commonwealth was not Christian, nor the unconscious inheritor of Christian civilization.
Does history tell us that such words as follow could, without aberration of mind, have been addressed to such a commonwealth?
It seems almost incredible that in wealthy England, at the close of the nineteenth century, so much destitution should exist, and still more that vagrancy and mendicity should so prevail. It may be well asked, Is this the grand total result of the wisdom of our legislators, the efforts of our philanthropists, the Christianity of our churches, that our streets are infested with miserable creatures, from whose faces almost everything purely human has been erased, whose very presence would put us to shame but for familiarity with the sight—poor wretches, filthy in body, foul in speech and vile in spirit—human vermin? Yes, but of our own manufacture, for every individual of this mass was once an innocent child. Society has made them what they are, not only by a selfish indulgence in indiscriminate almsgiving, but by permitting bad laws to exist, and good laws to be so administered as to crush the weak and wreck the lives of the unfortunate.
But these words have been publicly written as an impeachment of Christian and civilized London. The justice of the impeachment cannot be denied.
I.
My purpose is to trace out the cause of this monstrous wreck of humanity, and to see how far we are responsible for the creation of these dangerous and pitiable outcasts from our Christianity and our civilization.
- The first cause of this social wreckage is the destruction of domestic life. A large proportion of the people in London are herded in places not fit for human habitation. While the ‘royal commission on the housing of the poor’ was sitting, efforts were made again and again to set on foot an inquiry as to the number of people who were thus inhumanly housed. Such an inquiry was held to be impossible. The reason of this reply I have never been able to ascertain. But governments seem to shrink from the trouble or the expense of inquiry. If there be any impiety in numbering the people, as some good men said at the time of the first census, there can be no impiety in numbering the miserable. The number of families living in one only room is less indeed now than a few years ago; but the number of families of from five to ten persons living in two rooms—fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, of all ages, and sometimes with lodgers—is still very great. I will not enter into details. Anyone who heard, or has even read, the evidence taken before the housing commission will never forget it. That which creates a people is domestic life. The loss of it degrades a people to a horde. The authorities and the obedience, the duties and the affections, the charities and the chastities of home, are the mightiest and purest influences in the formation of human life. A good home is the highest and best school; it forms and perpetuates the character of a nation. What moral influence or formation of the life and character of children is possible in overcrowded dens where all is misery and confusion? I refer to the report of the commission and to the evidence
p. 6, col. 2 of Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. Horsley, and gladly refrain from explicit details.
The next cause of utter wreck is, I will not say intoxicating drink, but the drink trade. This is a public, permanent and ubiquitous agency of degradation to the people of these realms. That foul and fetid housing drives men and women to drink, and that drink renders their dens sevenfold more foul and fetid is certain. The degradation of men women and children follows by an inevitable law, but only those who are striving to save them have any adequate knowledge of the inhuman and hopeless state of those who have fallen into drunkenness. I am not going to moralize upon drunkenness. I will only say that the whole land is suffering from the direct or indirect power of the drink trade. In times of depression only one interest still prospers—its profits may be slightly lessened, but its gains are always large and safe—that is, the great trade in drink, which enriches half a million of brewers, distillers and publicans, with the trades depending on them, and wrecks millions of men, women and children. This one traffic, more than any other cause, destroys the domestic life of the people. The evidence taken by the Housing commission expressly shows that in the overcrowded rooms in Dublin the moral wreck wrought in London is not equally found. A counteraction or preservative is there present and powerful. This I can affirm also of a large number of homes in London. The same is affirmed on evidence of Glasgow. Nevertheless these exceptions only prove the rule. The drink trade of this country has a sleeping partner who gives it effectual protection. Every successive government raises at least a third of its budget by the trade in drink. Of this no more need be said. It changes man and woman into idiocy and brutality. It is our shame, scandal and sin: and unless brought under by the will of the people, and no other power can, it will be our downfall.
A third cause of this human wreck is the absence of a moral law. It is materially impossible for one-half of the population of London to set foot on a Sunday in any place of moral teaching or of divine worship. If all the churches and places of worship were filled three times on Sunday, they would not, I believe, hold more than 2,000,000. But the population of London properly so called is 4,000,000. Of the remaining 2,000,000 of men, how many have received Christian education, or even Christian baptism or moral teaching? How far is God in all their thoughts? This may be an argument without weight to some of our social philosophers; but to those who still hold fast not only to faith, but to the intellectual system of the world, it is a fact of evil augury, as self evident as light. They who think themselves able to live and die well without God will treat this assertion lightly; but they who believe, with St. Jerome, “Homo sine cognitione Dei pecus,” will be unable to understand how the moral life of men can be sustained without the knowledge of God. Where there is no legislator there is no law, and where there is no law each man becomes a law to himself: that is, the perversion and passions of his own will are his only rule of life. What ruin to himself and all depending on him comes from this needs no words. Look at our calendars of crime and our revelations of social vice. And yet every one of these human wrecks was once an innocent child.
From these three chief causes comes all personal demoralization by immorality, intemperance, and ignorance, and therefore by poverty in its worst form. From these also come the greater enormities, as some appear to think—namely, imposture and idleness. Such are the social outcasts that form our criminal or dangerous class. And so long as they are born in dens, and live in drunkenness, and die without the light of God’s law, they will multiply and perpetuate their own kind. Multitudes are at this day in London in the abject poverty of moral degradation, and of reckless despair of rising from their fallen state. But these three causes are the direct results of the apathy or the selfishness of what is called society, or more truly of our legislation or neglect to legislate, or of good laws inefficiently administered.
II.
Some are of opinion that a great part of the crime in London springs from poverty. Others say that in times of distress the gaols are comparatively empty. This would seem to imply that want does not lead to crime. Both of these assertions are true. No one will say that poverty always leads to crime; much less that poverty never leads to crime. Therefore both sides admit that poverty sometimes leads to crime. This reduces the question to one of degree: how far is poverty a cause or motive to crime?
There is indeed no necessary connection between poverty and crime; for poverty is a state which may generate the highest human perfections of humility, self-denial, charity and contentment in a hard lot and life. Such a lot may be the inevitable lot of some. It may be also voluntarily and gladly chosen by others who for many motives, not of this world, choose poverty rather than wealth.
But this is not our question. The poverty of which we speak is that into which the majority of poor men are born; in which they hardly earn bread for themselves and for their homes; a poverty always on the brink of want; to which they may be reduced in a day by no fault of their own: that is, by the ruin of their employer, the vicissitudes of trade, the suspension of work by natural causes such as winter, or the failure of the raw material of their labor. When once reduced to this state of want, there is nothing before them but the legal relief of the poor law, coupled with conditions which their highest and best instincts make them refuse, or doled out to them inadequately so as to give no real and lasting relief. This forms a pauper habit of mind: helplessness, hopelessness, and the loss of self-respect. Will any thoughtful man say that in such a state a father, seeing a wife sinking by want and toil, and his children famishing for lack of bread, is free from the strong temptation to find unlawfully the food which society refuses
p. 6, col. 3 except on odious conditions to give him lawfully? Add to this the sense of injustice when, without fault of his own, he is brought down to want. And, as men are human, there comes in a sting of resentment when he sees on every side an abundance of food and clothing in those who never labor and never lack.
The ostentation of luxury is a sharp temptation to men in despair. It is not only the hunger that pulls down a man’s own strength, but the cry of those who look to him for bread that sounds daily in his ears, and haunts him wherever he goes. This is true of the most upright and honest man; but all men are not honest and upright. Surely it is Pharisaism to preach to such men ‘Go in peace; be you warmed and filled; yet give them not those things that are necessary for the body.’ It is both injustice and hardness of heart to denounce almsgiving, to defeat the giving of work, and to offer nothing but the break-up of home as the condition of food necessary for life. If such a man begs he may be taken up. If he can bear his miseries no longer and steals, his moral rectitude is broken down; and once destroyed, all boundaries are gone.
They must know little of life who do not know what ruin of men and of women comes from the straits of poverty. Forgery, embezzlement, prostitution are brought on gradually, and after long resistance to temptation, even in the educated, by the desperation of want. Will anyone say: Yes, but they imply vice as the motive. I answer: And are the poor free from vice? But again, vice is in such cases the consequence as well as the companion of crime. The moral nature has given way. The misery of want destroyed it before vice or crime was perpetrated. There was a time when forgers and prostitutes were as far from their fall as those who moralize about them when fallen. And if this be true of all men, how much more true of the worthless for whom I am pleading!
A student of crime the other day thought that he had disproved the proposition that poverty leads to crime by showing that in times of distress the prisons have fewer inmates; and that the statistics of crime show a diminution of prisoners in the ten years from 1877 to 1886, which was a period of depression.
A little more thought would show that this is no disproof.
For, first of all, Sir Lyon Playfair some years ago exhibited in a tabular form, resulting from official inquiry, conclusive evidence to show that when wages are low drunkenness decreases, when wages are high drunkenness increases. Shall we then say that prosperity leads to crime? If so, blessed indeed are the poor. Surely no man will maintain that prosperity is to be checked and deprecated, and that the duty of legislators and political economists is to reduce the prosperity of the country in order to check the crime.
Moreover, the proposition that poverty leads to crime, does not mean that poverty on Monday leads to crime on Tuesday, but that poverty leads to all manner of temptations. Sometimes the misery of innocent children will drive a man to do what his conscience condemns. Sometimes a daughter, to support an aged mother, will do what her whole soul abhors. They who live among statistics, and have seldom, if ever, lived among the poor, little know how poverty brings temptation, and temptation both vice and crime.
But as we have statistics, let us go to them, though they are like the quadrants and compasses by which the tailors in Laputa measured their customers. The moral life of men cannot be measured by mere numbers. Nevertheless they are pointers.
And, first, it is beyond contention that the majority of our prisoners are of the poor. This fact alone proves at least the close relation of poverty and crime. It would be an affectation of skepticism to say that this close relation is not by way of cause and effect.
Secondly, the official statistics show this directly and indirectly.
The judicial statistics for England and Wales in 1886-87 state that of the people committed for crime 27.5 per cent could neither read nor write, 70.0 could only read or write imperfectly, only 2.8 could read and write well, and only 0.1, or one in a thousand, had superior instruction.
If it be said that this proves ignorance to be the cause of crime, I answer that poverty was the main cause of this ignorance.
Thirdly, the occupation of prisoners gives the same indication. Of no occupation there were 10.5 per cent; laborers, charwomen and needle women, 52.0; factory workers, 6.0; skilled mechanics, 14.1; professional employment, 0.2; prostitutes, 3.3; domestic servants, 2.5.
These statistics prove beyond doubt that, in proportion as the criminals are further from poverty, the smaller the number; in proportion as they are nearer the greater the number; and that the vast majority are those who are absolutely poor and live in all the vicissitudes of poverty. It is an old world saw that half our virtues are from the absence of temptation.
But, lastly, the statistics of increase in indoor paupers and decrease in prisoners, in the years between 1877 and 1886, prove nothing. There are many explanations of this fact. I have it on high authority that thousands of adults who used to be imprisoned are now fined under the amended summary jurisdiction act of 1879; and thousands of children who used to be sent to prison are now sent to reformatory or industrial schools or let off with a reprimand. The report of 1887 shows for Great Britain the number of children in industrial schools as follows:
In 1877 . . . . . . . . . . . 12,555 In 1880 . . . . . . . . . . . 15,136 In 1886 . . . . . . . . . . . 20,688
These two facts fall precisely into the ten years from 1877 to 1886, and prove that a change both in the treatment of persons charged and in the tables of statistics had been made, which accounts for the decrease of prisoners.
III.
From the change in the administration of the poor law two consequences have followed; first, a profuse alms giving.
We have been told with great confidence
p. 6, col. 4 that five millions of money were spent in a year in alms in London alone. Without doubt much was imprudently spent, and this imprudence caused many accidental evils of mendicity, mendacity, indolent dependence upon help, neglect of duty, wastefulness and refusal to work for bread. But to affirm that this is the inevitable result of alms giving is to condemn what the author of Christianity enjoins. And there have not been wanting men of note and name who have censured his teaching as erroneous. The effect of these excesses is to provoke a reaction which is somewhat strong and vivid in certain minds. Again, to tell us that alms giving springs from selfish indulgence of emotion, or of self-contemplation, is as shallow as the Hutchinsonian philosophy, which tells us that men do right only because it makes them happy; or the Benthamite, that they do so because it is expedient. Compassion has suffering for its proper object, as hunger has bread. These philosophies of the second syllogism are credible to those who know of no divine commandments, but to those who know a higher law and a nobler lore they would be simply ridiculous if they were not mischievous. Nevertheless there can be no doubt that the charity and generosity of individuals and of societies were profusely abused, and that the accidental evils of good things when abused were many. But it is to be borne in mind that this large alms giving of five millions of money arose, not only from the promptings of charity, but from the constant sight of suffering unrelieved by the poor law. If it had been more compassionately administered, these five millions would in all likelihood have never been given. They rose to this vast sum by the daily sight of unrelieved want. It was so far a spontaneous return to the profusion of old days.
And here it may be well to call to mind the recommendations of the poor law commissioners in 1834. They provided for loans to deserving men in time of distress, attaching the wages of the same on the return of work. And, further, the commissioners continued as follows:
We recommend, therefore, that the central board be empowered to incorporate parishes for the purpose of appointing and paying permanent officers, and for the execution of works of public labor.
Under the executive commission afterward appointed, road work was provided for the outdoor relief of the Spitalfields weavers, which they largely undertook.
At the time of the cotton famine in Lancashire outdoor relief was provided in the form of earth works, as sanitary works, for the relief of 40,000 men. A million and a half of money was lent to the local authorities by the government for the execution of remunerative sanitary work. Seven thousand took the work; and the rest, with the assistance of friends and relations, were otherwise provided for. A large part of sanitary drainage work is earth work; and but for a change in the administration, such work to the amount of a million and a half of money would have been provided, and might now be provided by a return to the administrative principles formerly recommended.
A great amount of alms giving, then, manifestly resulted from the refusal or discontinuance of such employment of labor.
But, further, there was a second consequence from the changed administration of the poor law. As the large return to almsgiving sprang from this change, so the existence of the Charity organization society sprang from the profuse giving of alms. It was said that, of the five millions, two were devoured by the administrators or distributors; there was constant overlapping, so that money was given by several persons or societies to the same person or case, and to the most undeserving.
The Charity organization society arose with these chief attributes. First, to promote correspondence and co-operation among the many beneficent societies, so that their alms should not be wasted by overlapping and relieving the same case twice over.
Secondly, for the detection of impostors who were obtaining help under false pretenses; living as paupers and refusing to work for their bread.
Thirdly, to assist the deserving in time of transient distress, either by gift or by loan. This part of the society’s work is most wise and charitable. It is in the spirit of the acts of Elizabeth and of the recommendations of the commission in 1834.
Fourthly, to oversee the cases of poverty brought before them, and to aid both by help and by advice those who were striving to maintain or to retrieve their state.
All these are excellent offices, of true and prudent charity. There may be others unknown to me, but these were the motives which induced me to become a member of the society at its outset. So long as it is coextensive with the whole field of poverty, and adequately supplied with means, large hearted in promoting all prudent agencies of relief, and free from the narrowness of doctrinaires, it must be regarded as a valuable supplement of the legal and mechanical operation of the poor law. They are both needed, and neither without the other could cover the whole area of poverty. Moreover, it is necessary that voluntary and personal service without hire or reward should be added to the legal administration of relief. In point of education, intelligence and perseverance, the members of the charity organization society are of the highest efficiency.
The words ‘I am a man, and everything human to me is as my own,’ ran through the old Latin world like an electric spark. They were written by an emancipated slave who had known sorrow. ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ was spoken by One who made himself a servant and the Man of sorrows for our sakes. Compassion is fellow feeling and a share in the sufferings of others. If the commonwealth of Israel was pervaded by pity for poverty and compassion for sorrow, what ought to be the large and watchful compassion of England for its people? It is a Christian people. It believes in him who said ‘I have compassion on the multitude.’ There is no doubt that in every great city there will be a refuse of the population who, through
p. 6, col. 5 their own perverse will, blind conscience, and evil passions, gather together into a demoralized and dangerous horde. But it is also certain that each was once an innocent child. The bloated and brutal man, if he had been nurtured by a loving mother in a pure home fit for a man to live in; if he had grown up in the consciousness of a divine law and presence; if he had lived in honest labor, found as a rule in the labor market, or as an exception, in times of distress, provided by the compassion of a wise charity, or of a law wisely and charitably administered—he would not have become the wreck in body, mind and speech which we may see in our streets every day. If parents, teachers, pastors had been faithful, if the legislation and administration of public and social law had been conceived and carried out, not with a view to money, or to enrichment, or to retrenchment, but for the moral and domestic life of the people, though some men will always wreck themselves, society would not be guilty of the ruin of its offspring. When society is sound it sustains individuals who are falling. When society declines it pulls down individuals in its fall. A commonwealth in which domestic life is perishing has a settlement in its foundations.
If, then, the worthless are what they are because the society of to-day has wrecked them, what is society doing or willing to do, to redeem and to save the worthless? None are so bad that there is not still a hope. But the class of men and youths who came into open day some weeks ago are not to be bettered by neglect, much less by defiance. Goodness will overcome evil and kindness will break the hardest hearts. If the confidence of the worthless and dangerous could be won, it would be like the warmth of the sun breaking up a frost. The poor youths of eighteen and nineteen may be bad, but they are not yet hardened in evil. Are they to be left to become hopeless criminals? Surely there are men and women ready to go among them. Human sympathy, kind care, personal service, patient good will, are powers which never fail. If through fault of ours, however remotely or indirectly, by commission or omission, they are outcasts, let us now begin and try to bring them back to what once they were. The memory of their childhood is not dead within them; if it be only as a gleam of innocence long-lost, it is also a throb of a higher life not yet extinct for ever.
DONN PIATT OF MAC-O-CHEEK.
How He Started an Infant Industry and Became a Foster Child of Government.
In an article on “Free Trade and Farmers Rights” in Home Knowledge, Donn Piatt of Mac-o-cheek, Ohio, reports a speech which he some time ago made to his farmer neighbors, from which we take the following:
Some years since, as you will remember, I started a hickory handle factory on the Mac-o-cheek. (Laughter.) It is fun to you, but it was anything but fun to me in the end. I ran across a fellow who had learned the process of converting the healthy second growth of hickory into handles in the Ohio penitentiary. (Renewed laughter.) He was the best workman and the biggest scoundrel unhung. (Laughter and applause.) I made him foreman over two men, and gave him my confidence. He made beautiful handles. They were as tough as the conscience of a county commissioner, strong as Limburger cheese and smooth as ivory.
I made money for awhile, but soon I found that the pauper labor of Canada was making as good handles for less money than my convict. They undersold me at my own door. I said “Here’s an infant industry that needs protection,” and so I boarded the cars and rode to Washington on a free pass. I saw our senator, Ben Wade, and stated my case. He called in the Hon. Pig Iron [Kelley?]. “Here,” cried Senator Wade, “is an infant industry that calls for our fostering care.”
“A great industry,” replied the Hon. Pig Iron; “and it must be protected.” There is nothing mean about old Pig Iron.
And so they slapped a high protective duty on foreign made hickory handles. Not content with that, they put another duty on foreign hickory; I did not object, for I grew the hickory. (Laughter.)
I returned home and my infant industry prospered. For a while I made money hand over handle. We raised the price of handles far above what it had been. The Canadian paupers did not pay this, for they were producers, not consumers, and we had shut down on their trade. The good people at home paid it all, but we were fostering an infant industry—industries of growing hickories, and the industry of my capital. I was careful to follow other foster children and paid no more to my convict and his force of two men than I had before.
Soon, however, there came a blight. The increased price of hickory handles stimulated capital all over the land, and every overshot country sawmill in the democratic hoop pole region, where owls fly around at noon and the mails are chased in by wolves ahead of time (laughter) was converted into a handle factory, and excessive competition brought down prices lower than the Canadian pauper labor had done.
At this critical moment I had a strike. My convict foreman wanted higher wages. In vain I told him of the “depressed condition of trade,” “the shrinkage of values’ sic that if he persisted I should have to close my furnace—that is, shut down the headgate and stop business. He took me one side and said in a Sammy Tilden whisper:”I say, boss, this ax handle business is played. I know it. Now I’ll tell you what to do; get a big insurance on the old rattle-trap and I’ll stick a chunk under her and we’ll divvy.” (Laughter.) I declined this business ending of a fostered industry, and that night my foreman stole my best horse and disappeared. (Great laughter.)
The mistake I made, my friends, was in not seeing the other manufacturers of hickory handles and getting up a combination, and so lessening the production to the demands of the market. That is what is being done by other foster children, who are as wise as serpents, if they are not as innocent as doves. sic.
Englishmen Whom Californians Will Have to Support Hereafter.
FRESNO, Cal.—As an evidence of the tendency of the land of the United States to concentrate in the hands of a few, and those few non-residents, I will mention the fact that a three-quarters’ interest in an immense fruit farm in this rich and growing county of Fresno, consisting of a section, or 640 acres, has just been sold to a rich English syndicate for $1,500,000. There is a “boom” in this town which is giving sellers of property and real estate agents great satisfaction, but furnishes to the thoughtful most striking examples of the injustice of private ownership in land.
B. W.
p. 6, col. 6
The Good, Great Man.
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
How seldom, friend, a good great man inherits Honor and wealth, with all his worth and pain! It seems a story from the world of spirits, Where any man obtains that which he merits, Or any merits that which he obtains.
For shame, my friend! renounce this idle strain! What wouldst thou have a great man obtain? Wealth, title, dignity, a golden chain, Or heap of corses which his sword hath slain? Goodness and greatness are not means, but ends. Hath he not always treasures, always friends, The good, great man? Three treasures—love, and light, And calm thoughts, equable as infant’s breath; And three fast friends, more sure than day or night— Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.
GIRL LABOR IN LONDON.
Margaret E. Harkness in London Justice.
There are at the present time absolutely no figures to go upon if one wishes to learn something about the hours and wages of girls who follow certain occupations in the city. The factory inspectors (admirable men, but very much overworked) come with the most naive delight, to visit any person who has information to give about the people over whose interests they are supposed to watch with fatherly interest. Clergymen shake their heads, or refer one to homes and charities. One has to find out the truth for oneself. Both employers and employes must be visited. Even then one must wait days and weeks to inspire them with confidence, for thus alone can one obtain a thorough knowledge of things as they really are, and arrive at facts unbiased by prejudice.
So far I have found that there are at least 200 trades at which girls work in the city. Some employ hundreds of hands and some only fifty or sixty. Printers give the greatest amount of work, perhaps, but there are at least 200 other occupations in which girls can earn a living, namely, brush makers, button makers, cigarette makers, electric light fitters, fur workers, indiarubber stamp machinists, magic lantern slide makers, perfumers, portmanteau makers, spectacle makers, surgical instrument makers, tie makers, etc., etc. These girls can be roughly divided into two classes; those who earn from 8s. to 14s., and those who earn from 4s. to 8s. per week. Taking slack time into consideration it is, I think, safe to say that 10s. is the average weekly wage of the first class and 4s. 6d. that of the second class. Their weekly wage often falls below this and sometimes rises above it. The hours are almost invariably from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., with one hour for dinner and a half-holiday on Saturday. I know few cases in which such girls work less; a good many in which overtime reaches to ten or eleven at night; a few in which overtime means all night. There is little to choose between the two classes. The second are allowed by their employers to wear old clothes and boots, the first must make “a genteel appearance.”
I often hear rich women say, “Oh, working girls cannot be very poor; they wear such smart feathers.” If these women knew how the girls have to stint in underclothing and food in order to make what their employers call “a genteel appearance,” I think they would pass another verdict. I will give two typical cases: A girl living just over Blackfriars bridge, in one small room, for which she pays 5s., earns 10s. a week in a printer’s business. She works from 8 a. m. to 6 p. m., then returns home to do all the washing, cleaning, cooking, etc., that is necessary to a one-room establishment. She has an invalid mother dependent on her efforts, and is out patient herself at one of the London hospitals. She was sixteen last Christmas. Another girl, who lives in two cellars near Lisson grove, with father, mother, and six brothers and sisters, earns 3s. 6d. a week in a well known factory. She is seventeen years old, but does not look more than ten or eleven. Every morning she walks a mile to her work, arriving at eight o’clock; every evening she walks a mile back, reaching home about seven o’clock. If she arrives at the factory five minutes late she is fined 7d. If she stays away a whole day she is “drilled”—that is, kept without work a whole week. Her father has been out of employment for six months, so her weekly [8s.?] 6d. goes into the family purse. Her food consists of three slices of bread and butter, which she takes to the factory for dinner; one slice of bread and butter and some weak tea for supper and breakfast. These cases are not picked. They are to be found scattered all over London. Many and many a family is at the present time being kept by the labor of one or two such girls, who can at the most earn a few shillings. When one thinks what the life of a young girl is in happy families, all the joyousness of which she is capable, until sorrow sets its seal on her, one’s heart aches for the sad lives of these girls in the city:
And still her voice comes ringing Across the soft still air, And still I hear her singing, “O, life, thou art most fair!”
A young girl is capable of feeling in one brief hour more intense delight than a boy of her age experiences in a fortnight. Yet all joyousness is ruthlessly stamped upon by competition, and thousands of girls in London have no enjoyment except to gaze at monstrosities in penny gaffs, or to dance on dirty pavements; and generally these poor things are too tired even to do that. It is strange that the public take so little interest in these girls considering they must become mothers of future citizens. “The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity.” What sort of daughters are these girls, with their pinched faces and stunted bodies, likely to give England? What will posterity say of the girl labor that now goes on in the city? I have seen strong men weeping because they had no bread to give their children; I know at the London docks chains have been replaced by wooden barriers, because starving men behind pressed so hard on starving men in front, that the latter were nearly cut in two by the iron railings; I have watched a contractor mauled when he had no work to give, and have myself been nearly killed by a brickbat that was hurled at a contractor’s head by a man whose family was starving; but I deliberately say that of all the victims of our competitive system, I pity these girls the most. They are so fragile. Honest work is made for them almost impossible, and if they slip no one gives them a second chance; they are kicked and spat upon by the public. I know that the girl labor question is but a portion of the larger labor question, that nothing can be done for them at present; but I wish that they were not the victims of the laissez faire policy in two ways instead of one; I wish that their richer sisters were not so terribly apathetic about them.
Every obstruction to a free exchange of commodities is born of the same narrow and despotic spirit which planted castles upon the Rhine to plunder peaceful commerce. Every obstruction to commerce is a tax on consumption. Every facility to a free exchange cheapens commodities, increases trade and protection and promotes sic,—SENATOR JOHN SHERMAN.
Page 7 of 8contents
THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1888. 7
p. 7, col. 1
IN THE TROPICS.
Imagine a clear, deep blue sea, a sky of delicate, transparent blue, and a gentle breeze that softens the heat of a tropical sun. Far ahead, where sky and water meet, hangs a mistiness, like a cloud, that darkens as you push on. Gradually the cloudy color shades off into a smoky blue and outlines of land appear. More and more distinct the land becomes until an island rises out of the sea with mountains and hills and patches of dark green. Nearer, and bright green fields appear, and trees and specks of white and red houses; here an old time windmill with huge sail like arms, there a tall chimney from which floats feathery smoke.
Turn aside from this island, and, pressing onward, another island appears, and another; and for days new islands rise out of the blue sea and sink away again.
Like such a picture appear the Caribbean islands, which comprise that group of the West Indies which, ranging northward from the coast of Venezuela, hem in the Caribbean sea on the eastward from the Atlantic ocean. They are also known as the Windward islands and the Lesser Antilles. With a tropical sun tempered by trade winds, a fertile soil and a sea abounding with fish, these islands are capable of supporting a large population in comfort. Vegetation grows wild. Man has but to turn his hand to obtain abundance for his physical wants. But in the very face of nature’s lavish gifts, with but a small population, the major part of the inhabitants are able to obtain barely the necessaries of life. The pictures of riches on the one hand and poverty on the other, so prevalent in our own country, are to be seen in these islands where men are so few and land is so plenty that there can be no ground for the stock explanation of overpopulation. And even in the island of Barbadoes, where population is densest and where it is said there are a thousand human beings to the acre, poverty and disease and misery among a large number of the inhabitants cannot be ascribed to inability of the soil to support that number, but must be set down to a system which robs the workers of their earnings to foster ostentation and luxury. The few are truly lords of the land, the many live there on sufferance—a place where landlords and governing lords drain away the lion’s share of the wealth produced, leaving only enough to keep the human machines in working condition. It is of the English islands—St. Kitts, Barbadoes, Trinidad, Grenada, St. Vincent, Montserrat, sic and a few others—that I wish to speak.
From their earliest history these islands have been involved in a great plan of robbery. The famous buccaneers of the Spanish main who frequented these waters were peaceable and Christian gentlemen beside the gentry who came sailing over the Western ocean from England, France and Spain authorized by kings and princes to rob and kill. The former confined themselves to laying along side an occasional vessel, helping the crew over the side, or treating them to cold steel or the yard arm. And they used these islands only as places of temporary resort—to make repairs, to bury treasure or the like. They concerned themselves little about the natives, cutting down only such as came in their way. But those other buccaneers had bigger business. They came with parchments signed and sealed on expeditions of wholesale rapine and butchery. The age was greedy for gold. Spanish sic issuing from the Spanish main laden down with treasure filled the general mind with visions of wealth. And ships were started out in quest of riches, to be obtained by peaceable means, if possible, but by sic means if necessary. European monarchs divided up the new world as they chose, granting this piece to this favorite and that piece to that favorite. And these favored individuals came to take possession of their property. The most daring and reckless characters were selected for the business, and they conducted a heartless and relentless war of extermination against the natives. After they had got a foothold these gangs of desperadoes quarrelled among themselves and fell upon each other and robbed and slew whenever opportunity presented itself; so that nearly all of the Caribbean islands have more than once changed hands.
And thus the land in these islands was parcelled out, and to-day the descendants of the original Caribs have to pay tribute to the descendants or successors of those men who plundered their fathers. On the island of St. Vincent, for instance, there are about eight hundred Caribs. Their ancestors fought savagely against the incursions of the English, but at last succumbed. Their chiefs were transported to the neighboring island of Balleceau, and thence to the island of Rattan. The Caribs now living on St. Vincent are quiet, peaceable people, who make baskets, help to load and discharge ship cargoes and perform menial services. Having by industry and economy accumulated small sums of money, they are buying from the government small pieces of land of from two to ten acres at £5 an acre—purchasing the right to call their own that land which had been their father’s.
If the fate of these Caribs in having to buy freedom to use their native soil is hard, so is the fate of all those human beings hard, who have only their labor to give for the privilege of living upon these islands. For generations the growing of sugar cane has been the chief pursuit. The arable land, divided into estates, was worked by gangs of negro slaves, who constituted by far the major part of the population. These slaves worked right on from childhood to old age at small cost. But even this was lessened after the abolition of chattel slavery fifty years ago. For the negroes, owning no land to till and having no money to buy any, were compelled to compete with each other for employment, thereby carrying wages down to a point at which they got little more than the necessaries of life. Besides this, all risk to planters from the sickness or death of a worker and the expense of supporting aged laborers, was eliminated,
p. 7, col. 2 except the amount necessary to support the alms house and similar institutions.
The price of sugar being high and the cost of producing it low estate owners were in receipt of immense revenues. A typical story is that told of a Mr. Graham, who, forty years ago, left a store in Barbadoes a poor man and went to St. Vincent. He acquired money, became the owner of one and then of several estates, and laid the foundation of the present firm of Porter & Co., which owns two-thirds of the estates on the island, which are valued at £500,000 ($2,500,000). Mr. Graham, like the majority of wealthy planters, went to England to enjoy his money, and at his death, not long since, he left £100,000 to the poor of London, and to St. Vincent, £10,000. This indicates the rich harvest reaped by the individuals who held sugar land. But those golden sugar days came to an end at the close of the seventies. The cultivation of the sugar beet in Europe, which had begun early in the century, suddenly swelled into formidable proportions in France and Germany under the stimulus of bounties.
Beet sugar sold for a fraction of the price which cane sugar had been bringing, and the price of cane sugar tumbled down, carrying with it the big revenues from West India plantations. Planters who had all along been living up to their incomes were unwilling to believe that beet sugar competition could long continue, and they mortgaged their estates to keep up their establishments in the meantime. But competition did not cease; beet sugar continued to come upon the market in great quantities and the price of cane sugar remained low, so that one planter after another, becoming financially embarrassed, was forced into the bankruptcy court. Depreciation in the price of sugar caused a corresponding depreciation in the value of land under cane cultivation. A case in point is an estate in the island of Barbadoes, which had been purchased for £5,000. The estate went into the court of chancery and was there sold for £2,500, and this, notwithstanding the fact that the introduction of machinery and improved processes had since more than doubled the size of the sugar crop obtained from that plantation.
But all this is not to say that there are no prosperous planters to-day. In recent years economies have been introduced in the production of cane sugar by which profits have been largely increased. Besides this much land formerly under cane is being laid out with cocoa plants, which is found to be more profitable.
The big fall in sugar prices that was so disastrous to the planters did not materially affect the negro laborer, for the simple reason that wages could not go down far without reducing him to the starvation point. The brunt of the blow had to be borne by the planters. It is true that the labor saving machinery and the neglect of a few estates threw some laborers out of employment, but this was offset by new opportunities opening there and elsewhere. In the island of Grenada, for instance, a considerable number of the best negroes on the plantations were, in 1882, attracted to the Panama canal excavations by the superior wages offered. The intensity of competition among laborers being somewhat relieved wages in Grenada advanced. The mechanic who before could get but two shillings and sixpence a day got threepence more, and others whose wages had formerly been three shillings got sixpence more. St. Kitt’s furnishes another instance. A number of the young men go to the United States each year to work as waiters in the large hotels at Saratoga and other watering places, returning after the season is over to spend their money among their relatives and friends. Their stories and fine ways and fine clothes excite in their companions ambition to do likewise, and this travel is in consequence growing yearly. This restlessness of the negroes and readiness to seize any opportunity for improvement some years ago resulted in a scarcity of labor that sent wages up to an unprecedented height. In 1869 there was a demand in the Bolivian gold diggings for laborers. Many plantation negroes sic from Grenada) went there, and such were the wages paid that many of them were able to save sufficient to come back to the islands in a few years and purchase small pieces of tillable land. Their absence caused an increase in the wages which the remaining laborers were able to demand. But planters, like our protected monopolists, though getting immense profits themselves, were unwilling to pay any more wages to their laborers and they imported cheaper foreign labor. Grenada planters sent to India and obtained four or five thousand coolies to work under indentures of five years duration. Their wages were a shilling (twenty-four cents) a day. If at the expiration of their term they engaged to work five years more they received a bounty of £10. To cover the expense of providing hospitals and similar institutions specially for these coolies Grenada in 1875 obtained a loan of £30,000 from England, paying it off by levying an export tax on sugar, cocoa and rum.
It appears from this that wages in the West Indies are little higher than wages in the East Indies, else coolies would continue to come. The wages of cane cutters average, for men, twenty or twenty-four cents, and women, sixteen cents. Women in many places are found doing hard manual labor side by side with men. In Antiqua they sweep the streets, and in one of the other islands they carry coal in baskets on their heads to the ships. But if it is cheap such labor is not efficient. Six or eight New York farm hands would do as much, if not more, than a large gang of these negroes working around a sugar mill. If their wages were higher they could accomplish more. But the white man cannot endure the constant and intense heat of the sun, and for this reason the blacks have the field to themselves.
As may be sic, there can be no high living on a shilling a day. The negroes’ food consists for the most part of fruits, yams and a kind of flour wafer. In the sugar cane season they drink quantities of the cane juice. They now and again eat fish not the nicest, and even whale meat, cooked in its own stale and rancid oil, is eaten with seeming relish. In the markets women sit around with
p. 7, col. 3 their products upon the ground before them, and the negro purchasers buy a penny’s worth of charcoal here, and a half penny’s worth of fruit at another place, and so on. The whole stock of some of these women is so scanty that it could be purchased for a few cents.
The negroes live in small wooden shanties, perhaps ten by twenty feet, one story high, and divided into two rooms. Very few of these shanties are painted. They appear to be in the last stages of decay and ruin, as if a good wind would blow them down. Their wretchedness is relieved, however, by grasses and shrubs growing wild around them, by brilliantly colored vines climbing up their sides, or by broad banana leaves bowing over their roofs. Save the shops, merchants houses and public buildings, there is little else to be seen in these island villages than these wretched sheds. Only the exceptional planter graces the place with his presence. He generally prefers to spend his income in England and leaves an overseer or agent to keep his laborers to their task. Up the street lives the governor. He is some favored pet of royalty or cousin of privilege in the old country for whom a soft berth had to be found. As a governor he is of no more practical use than a figurehead is to a ship. He has under him enough officials and clerks to conduct the necessary work of the government several times over. He is there to be taken care of. He enjoys a fine house, eats and drinks the best the land can produce, keeps open house for all travelers of note and does his best to entertain those hard worked slaves of duty, the bedecked and bespangled officers of her majesty’s squadron. In Trinidad the governor lives in one of the finest mansions in the Windward islands. About it is a beautiful garden, and on the lawn, beside the house, glisten brass field guns. For accepting all this he condescends to draw a salary of $30,000 a year. His jurisdiction does not extend beyond the island of Trinidad, which contains only 103,000 souls.
In the meantime the question of poor relief stands like a spectre at the feast. “How to relieve the poor effectually without encouraging idleness,” is the problem agitating the minds of people in Barbadoes, who do not or will not see that the chief reason why there are any “poor” is because the workers are permitted to retain only a small portion of what their labor draws forth from the storehouse of nature. “The poor” have to work for a mere pittance and live along from hand to mouth. When they get old or fall ill, they become an extra weight on their relatives and friends or are compelled to seek the almshouse. But though the almshouse is despised by the poor people, it should not be. There is good reason why even the young and strong in limb might seek this place, for once there, all sense of responsibility and care are sic. Not only is a safe and wholesome shelter provided, but better and more nutritious food is supplied than the ordinary family can possibly afford to buy. In the parish which embraces Bridgetown, the largest town in the island of Barbadoes, there is an almshouse which is fittingly called a “palatial residence” when compared with the negro shanties. It contains three hundred inmates who are acknowledged by the officials to be provided with more good things, and are much better off than the average man and woman who have to provide for themselves by working on the plantations. One old widowed woman has been there nineteen years. She is not dependent upon the institution for her support, as she more than pays for her keeping by the use of her needle, but her companions having died, she is afraid to go out into the world again, and so remains in the shelter of the almshouse.
But a change must soon come in the West Indies. Schools and travel are filling the blacks with aspirations, and the day of the white man’s supremacy is fast closing. Everywhere colored men are rising to the top. They are found in stations of responsibility and influence and here and there individuals have accumulated large wealth and own more than one estate. But unless the new regime brings with it radical changes in social government service to whites will be changed for a more grinding and degrading service to blacks, and the black man will find in the black master a tyrant lacking those qualities with which his awe of and habitual deference to the white master have caused his imagination to clothe the latter. But if they shall follow the star of the new hope rising over the civilized world; if they shall acknowledge the equal rights of all men to those materials of nature which all must use, but which are now permitted to be called the private property of a few, they will obliterate the spectacle of riches and privilege side by side with poverty and degradation; will find sufficient food and raiment for the needs of all and make of those islands, so favored by nature, a realization of man’s fond dreams—an earthly paradise.
HENRY GEORGE, JR.
What Absolute Free Trade Means.
Hemstead, sic., Advance Guard.
The adoption of the single tax means absolute free trade. Free trade means taking nearly fifty per cent from the expenses of the consumer. So if a farmer purchases $500 per year and pays taxes on his improved farm, say, $30 per year, of which one-half is on improvements, the adoption of the single tax would most probably reduce his taxes one-third, as only the rental value of his land would be assessed. The abolition of direct taxes would save him nearly half his outlay for supplies during the year, and he would find himself able to indulge in some of the luxuries of life from the amount thus kept back from the pouches of monopoly.
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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.
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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.
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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 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 sic.
(Progress and Poverty in German.)
TRANSLATION OF C. D. F. GUTSCHOW.
430 pages.
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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.
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[Advertisement] Anti-Poverty Doctrines in a Nutshell
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Page 8 of 8contents
8 THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1888.
p. 8, col. 1
Our American Barons.
Thomas Dunn English.
On the banks of the Rhine, the bold baron of old Like a spider enwebbed, sat alert in his hold; And when burgher in tunic, or clerk in his gown, Jogged along on the highway to abbey or town. Impartial to all who were able to pay, Down he swept with his stout men-at-arms on his prey; Some parted with silver, some parted with gold, But all paid their toll to the baron of old.
To the Emperor Conrad, who sat on the throne, Came burgher and priest with a pitiful moan. Conrad heard with knit brows and with evident ire, And cried: “The foul robber is playing with fire. Good knights and brave vassals the felon shall know That law bears alike on the high and the low.” And widely the justice of Conrad was praised When the baron was hanged and his castle was razed.
Now we have a baron who plays the same game— His methods may differ, his ends are the same; Poor pay to the swart, toiling miner he deals; With high prices the store of consumers he steals; He rends them asunder at will or in whim; The beggar and bond holder both must pay toll To swell the fat purse of the Baron of Coal.
Is justice a farce, and are laws but a jest, And courts only act at the baron’s behest? And have we no Conrad, no monarch, whose sword Can reach in his stronghold this baron abhorred? Ah, yes! in the People. Once roused for the right, They are potent these cogging forestallers to smite, And woe to the wretches who waken their ire— Coal Baron, beware! you are playing with fire!
A BLUNDERING ECONOMIST
The Rev. Mr. Jasper, the colored preacher who obtained notoriety some years ago by insisting that “the sun do move,” could doubtless construct a theory of astronomy that would be satisfactory to his Virginia brethren so long as their knowledge was restricted to their own observation. If, however, the children of these people went to school, they would, without any special instruction in astronomy, soon begin to learn things that would lead them into great confusion of thought so long as the Jasperian theory obscured in their minds the great central truth of our solar system. Such confusion of thought did exist among otherwise learned men so long as the truth expounded by Copernicus and Galileo was denied.
A similar resistance to demonstrated truth is the cause of the most of the confusion existing in the minds of those who are now engaged in the study of the great social question of our day. Men twist the truth, exaggerate the importance of some facts and ignore others in attempts to solve a problem that they persistently refuse to understand. The supreme question of the hour in this comparatively new country is, how shall men willing to work be continuously certain of an opportunity to make a living, and something more than a living if they choose to do so? The most conservative writers admit that the natural resources of this country are ample to provide a good living for a thousand millions of industrious people, and all see that with probably not more than sixty millions many men earnestly desiring to work are shut sic from all opportunity to do so. The problem is not, how shall existing wealth—even that dishonestly acquired—be divided, but how shall natural resources be opened to labor, so that hereafter no man shall be deprived of the opportunity to work, nor denied the possession of the wealth created by his labor?
It must be clear to the dullest mind that if this problem is solved, the free exchange of products will give abundance to all, and that the greater the product the greater will be the general welfare and the better the condition of each individual. But what must we think of a man who, ignoring the real question at issue, attempts to discuss the labor problem without so much as considering the opportunities for the access of labor to that on which alone it can be exerted in order to accomplish any results? Yet this just sic some one claiming to be a foreman in the building trade does in a little book recently issued by the Harpers.(1)
This writer sees clearly that there is no necessary antagonism between labor and capital, and deprecates the attitude of organized labor toward the employing class. He claims to be a superior workman who realizes from fifty to one hundred per cent more from sic at the end of each year than most of his fellow workmen; and he says that he has money in the savings bank. He is, in short, one of the comparatively few who have done fairly well under existing conditions, and he is naturally better satisfied with those conditions than the great mass of wage earners. This fact does not at all disqualify him from a discussion of the labor problem, but it does deprive him of any special right to speak as the representative of the vast body of workingmen who cannot attain to the advantages he enjoys by reason of his superior ability. The very fact that such a man poses as a working man while he differs from the mass of wage earners as much in sympathy as in condition, accounts for the disposition that he laments on the part of the mass of workmen to look with suspicion on the more prosperous among them.
This foreman, for instance, deprecates the complaint against Commodore Vanderbilt for amassing a hundred millions of dollars, and says: “Now please remember that Commodore Vanderbilt was one of us, a workingman. . . . He enjoyed no rights or privileges which are not possessed by you and me, and we may become Vanderbilts ourselves if we have the brains,
p. 8, col. 2 the endurance and the courage to do what he did.” Then he descants on the advantages derived by labor from the enterprise of just such men. Now this may be the expression of a proper ambition on the part of a man who proposes as nearly as he can to gain the advantage won by Vanderbilt over his fellow men, but it is not a discussion of the problem of how to secure safety and comfort to the many. It is, on the contrary, a declaration that what concerns the writer is not the amelioration of the condition of wage earners, but how he and other bright men can most surely get from among them.
His definition of riches shows how thoroughly this ambitious foreman is committed to the rule of “every one for himself and the devil take the hindmost.” He declares that those only are deemed rich who are richer than the majority, and that “if every one in a given country were to be a millionaire, he would not be considered a rich man, and only those few would be so considered who were greatly richer than their neighbors.” It is perfectly clear that this writer has no conception of what real wealth consists in, for if every man in a country had a million dollars’ worth of real wealth, the product of the application of labor to natural resources and available for the common wants of man, all the people would be rich and they could live without the necessity of any other labor than that required for culinary operations and a limited exchange of commodities.
Of course no community ever could acquire this much of real wealth, for this earth is so constructed that most of those things that are required to meet the wants of mankind must be produced from year to year, and can only be preserved for a moderate period of time. Neither does any man now possess millions of dollars of actual wealth. Investigate the fortune of a Vanderbilt and comparatively little of it will be found to consist of those things needed to satisfy human wants or to gratify human tastes, but the bulk of it will consist of papers authorizing the possessor to levy taxes on land or commerce. The foreman is right in saying that it is useless to abuse the Vanderbilts for making the most of the opportunities we give them, but he is stupid when he fails to see that it is not in the interest of the many to leave such opportunities open to the sharp or unscrupulous.
In his presentation of what he calls facts the foreman is hardly more fortunate. It must be remembered that he professes to be writing of the condition of the ordinary workingman; yet speaking for the immigrants, he says: “Our sic, our badge of servitude, our political impotence, our class degradation, seem to have dropped in the ocean sic we landed.” Let this foreman go to the polls in a tenement house district next election day and see for himself how much of truth there is in even the most plausibly sounding portion of this statement. Again, referring to the results of improvidence, this remarkable laborer says that “the laborer who is in debt buys his coal by the sic or by the hundred pounds, and pays for it at the rate of ten dollars the ton. The man who lives from hand to mouth buys a half or a quarter of a ton, as needed from month to month, and pays for it an average price of five and a half dollars the ton, while the man who has the capital lays his sic supply in early in the summer months when coal is sold for four and a half dollars the ton.” This is a portion of an argument that laboring men ought to save up so as to always have some capital, and suggests a doubt as to the kind of workingman this workingman who writes so glibly really is. Who that knows anything at all of the ordinary conditions of life among workingmen in New York does not know as a fact that not one in five hundred of them could afford to hire space sufficient for storage of a whole year’s supply of coal?
And yet in some respects the book is excellent. It clearly shows the folly of the delusion that a protective tariff does anything for the benefit of the wage earner, and it even more lucidly explains the fundamental error that underlies trades unionism as a remedy for the evils of which labor justly complains. The iniquity of the system that permits stock watering and other fraudulent devices of speculators is pointed out, and there is a partial assertion of the government’s duty in dealing with the corporations it creates and to which it delegates its power of eminent domain. On this subject a nice question is raised as to whether land acquired by a private corporation which derives a revenue therefrom can be considered as so far devoted to a public use as to justify the ceding of the right of eminent domain to such a corporation.
Here and there throughout the book are sound sentiments of truth, such as these:
Four dollars a day wages means nothing more than an order upon the world’s commodities of a certain quantity and quality of supplies.
The total production of all labor is its reward.
The reason why American workmen live better than those of other countries is not owing to high wages, as is popularly believed, but to the abundance of land, the rich soil, the universal use of labor saving machines and superior tools, cheap transportation, and finally, to the fact that almost all men work.
If we were not accustomed to it, it would seem astonishing that any one capable of writing the last sentence quoted should fail to see that the way to enable men to live still better in this country is to give them easier access to our abundant land, cheapen transportation, and set an even larger proportion of our people to work. Yet this astonishing workman really does fail to see this and is capable of saying:
We must come to the conclusion, therefore, that our wages are worth more in proportion as other laborers’ wages are worth less. When we want flour we are interested that farm laborers and millers should be paid low wages. When they want to hire or build houses they are interested that (if we are masons, carpenters or stone cutters) our wages should be low.
This is the wretched position to which this foreman’s blindness to the value and importance of natural opportunities brings him. He is simply horribly wrong. As he says, “the total production of all labor is its reward.” What the mechanic wants to insure to him this reward is not that
p. 8, col. 3 other labor shall be cheated out of a portion of its reward, but that all labor shall have such free access to natural opportunities that it may at any time it chooses earn full natural wages without the intervention of any employer. When that time shall come every employer of labor will, as a mere matter of course, pay to his employes the full product of their labor, and will receive as his own reward such additional product as may be due to the use of his capital and the exertion of his talents as a captain of industry.
If this foreman who thus instructs laborers how to get big wages by compelling other laborers to content themselves with low wages will visit the Sailors’ Snug Harbor on Staten island, he can there learn an object lesson in political economy which may induce him to get out a revised edition of his book. He will find in the Sailors’ Snug Harbor a well developed industry of basket making carried on by the inmates of the institution. Every man is not only free to make baskets on his own account, but can do so without difficulty, as the materials and tools are within the reach of every one, and a ready market is to be found in the great bazar stores of New York and among individual customers. Yet, certain of the old sailors, whose skill in buying material and selling products is greater than their skill in making baskets, find it profitable to hire their fellows to make baskets for them, which they carry to New York and sell. And the wages of these hired basket makers are fixed, not by competition among laborers jostling each other in the market place, and spurred by the knowledge that if no master will hire them, they must stand idle, but by what a man can earn who works at basket making on his own account, the wages paid being always a trifle in excess of what the individual worker can earn by himself. A captain of industry in the Sailors’ Snug Harbor does not find it necessary that those who work for him should make less in order that he may make more. By applying his special ability for buying and selling, he increases the total product of basket work, and takes as his share, not the whole of that increase, but only his just proportion of it.
The solution of the labor problem is not to be found in the cut throat competition that now exists between laborers denied the full opportunity for producing, but in the removal of all barriers to production or exchange. If laborers who write books cannot see a truth so plain, is it any wonder that those who toil and whose anxiety leaves them little time for thought become the prey of the demagogues whose evil leadership this foreman criticises?
WM. T. CROASDALE.
[Footnote, printed at the foot of column 1:] (1) “Big Wages and How to Earn Them.” By a Foreman. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1887.
LONDON SLUMS.
A Sunday Morning’s Picture in the Seven Dials.
London Echo.
If one wants to realize the real sharpness of contrasts in London, where horrible slums are side by side with wealthy squares, and where the beggar and the millionaire tread the same pavements, one cannot see it better than by walking a very few steps from the well dressed, middle class decorum assembled in St. George’s church, Bloomsbury, or the fine drawn intellectualisms of Mr. Stopford Brooke at Bedford chapel, into Seven Dials, on any Sunday morning. It is really a matter of some difficulty to pass along Neal street or Little Earl street, so crowded is the whole roadway with costermongers and Cheap Jack’s barrows. Every one of the little poverty stricken, grimy shops is open, and the whole scene is more busy than it is on any other day of the week. The sight is one to freeze the heart of a strict sabbatarian, but, more than that, it is a truly dreadful picture of the real condition of life in west central London. I stood for some time in the doorway of one of the sickeningly odoriferous butcher shops, where loathsome scraps and trimmings of bone, fat, and skin were sold at twopence a pound.
A tall, gaunt woman came and looked them over; but the butcher said, “No picking; yer ‘takes as they comes’ with them, missus!” “Well,” she answered, “then yer might let me have two pounds for threepence halfpenny.” “Can’t,” was the vendor’s prompt and laconic reply, and the woman turned away; but she stood by the barrow of a potato dealer till his back was turned, and furtively appropriated first one, and then another of his tubers. She then retreated swiftly, but the “coster” knew not of his loss. . . .
Not only were the evidences of poverty something appalling in this Sunday fair, but the looks of utter degradation of soul and body in the majority were truly lamentable. Angry words, and an occasional blow even, sic; but that terrible apathy and sullen indifference to all but the immediate object in view spoke volumes on the lives they lived. Young men in dirt and rags; girls who had lost the feminine pride or vanity which leads them to bestow a thought upon their personal appearance; strong middle-aged men whose love of drink was apparent; mothers with babies in their arms, but who looked old and careworn enough to be grandmothers, these prevailed in the crowd. And the noise and the bustle, the tumult and bargaining, lasts till about half-past one, when things resume a more weekday-like tranquillity. But one passes out into Shaftesbury avenue and sees the conventional and well-to-do going home to Sunday dinners, and one has a grim realization that in London more than anywhere else, “One half of the world knows not how the other half lives.”
Why They Elected Him.
NEW YORK CITY.—In THE STANDARD of March 10 you suggest the expulsion from congress of Deacon White because he put himself forward as the champion of the Pacific railroad frauds and manipulates its bonds in Wall street at the same time.
Now Deacon White’s constituents elected him to congress because he was the owner of millions of dollars. They knew that in the very nature of things he can have but little mental or moral identity but that which has been gained by manipulation of stocks. If they think at all they must believe that the possession of great wealth, or successful stock jobbing, is a proof of the possession of the qualities of statesmanship. Therefore if he were expelled from congress they would immediately re-elect him, for how can he better gain the further support of his constituency than by availing himself of the more extended means they have conferred upon him of gaining more wealth by the trade of stock jobbing? He is doing only that for which they will most admire him in the future, getting more millions in a more rapid manner than he did before,
ONLY A VOTER.
p. 8, col. 4
PUBLISHER’S NOTES.
“What has become of ‘Publisher’s Notes?’” asks a correspondent who sends us, all the way from California, one of those pleasant, chatty letters that once in a while find their way to the publisher’s desk—a letter in which advice, and sympathy, and congratulation, and criticism are pleasantly blended—in which THE STANDARD is deftly taken to pieces and the different parts of it examined one by one, with a word of commendation here, a suggestion for improvement there, a cautious hint at superfluity in another place:
What has become of “Publisher’s Notes?” Is the publisher sick or tired, or what is the matter with him! I used to think it one of the most interesting features of the paper, and never failed to turn to it as soon as I had finished reading Mr. George’s article. Do start it going again, and give the readers of THE STANDARD a chance to let one another know what they are doing.
A letter like this deserves an answer—all the more because it is only one out of a number that the publisher has received lately, all voicing the same inquiry—all of them asking, with one accord, “What’s the matter with the ‘Publisher’s Notes?’”
Well, good friends, the question is very easily answered. The “Publisher’s Notes” were discontinued because the publisher in his modesty thought they had been continued about long enough. It seemed to him that after telling you week after week, for six months or more, of the duty you owed to the cause and the work you might do for THE STANDARD, of what Brown, and Jones, and Robinson were doing to increase its circulation, of the good words that were being sent to us about it from all over the world, you must be just a little tired of the constant reiteration, and rather longing for a rest. There is an old French proverb to the effect that partridge—or suppose we say quail on toast—every day palls on the appetite. And while the publisher doesn’t mean to hint at any analogy between his weekly discourses and the bird in which epicures delight, still the principle is the same.
However, since many of THE STANDARD readers have been good enough to express a wish that the Notes should be continued, continued they shall be accordingly. Only, good friends, bear one thing in mind: If you want the publisher to talk to you you must talk to him in return. If he is to suggest to you what you can do to help along THE STANDARD and the cause THE STANDARD champions, you, on your side, must let him know what you are doing. There is not one of you who cannot tell something interesting about the progress of the movement in his neighborhood—something that will encourage others in their labors and make them strive to emulate his work. And when you come to see in print the story of what you yourself have done, it will astonish you to find how many new ideas the reading of the record of your own work will give you.
BRADFORD, Pa.—At our meeting last night our club voted to send you $24.45, for which please send us books and tracts as per list inclosed. Our meeting last night was the best we ever had. We had been dragging along for some time with slim attendance. Of course we were all sound financially, but were not making rapid headway. So one day last week I took the thought that I would invite Mr. J. M. McClure, a leading lawyer here, who I knew was opposed to us on the single tax, to come and debate with us. He was pleased with the proposal, and last night he was at our meeting. And of all our meetings, last night’s was by far the most interesting. We feel now that our success is assured, for no doubt other prominent men will be ambitious to cross swords with us, and we are willing that they should. Our club is well up on the Georgean system, and they responded to Mr. McClure’s objections promptly.
B. J. BIRNEY.
Your club is to be congratulated, friend Birney. You have discovered the secret of the Socratic method of argument. Make your adversaries confute themselves in trying to persuade you. Ask them for explanations. Invite them to point out your foolishness to you. It is the beauty of the truth we are striving to enforce, that no matter how much a man may hate it and affect to despise it, if he can only be brought to look at it—and the man who tries to controvert it must look at it—he cannot help acknowledging its merits. The most earnest friends of the single tax to-day are the men whose object in first examining it was to find the weak points in it.
PASADENA, Cal.—I send by this mail a few more names for your paper, and should have got still more, but the past winter has been very dull here, and our people are out of money. Still this is a good thing in some ways, as it sets many to thinking who won’t try to think as long as times are fair. I send also for a few more tracts. I distributed quite a number last winter, and every few days I see some one who has read them, and wants to know more about the matter. I take every opportunity to talk up our principles, in season and out of season. It is strange how many I find who never heard of them. I feel guilty when I think how little I have done to help the cause along, for it seems to me an imperative duty for ever sic that sees the light to do all in his power to make others see it. There are a great many who thoroughly believe in good principles, and if they could be stirred up and got at work there would be no trouble about carrying our points. I am confident that the time will come, perhaps sooner than most of us think.
It seems as if on God and your principles rested the only hope of freedom for the working people, not only of this country but of the world. I think your idea as to a campaign correct, and am very sorry to see so much over zealous opposition.
L. A. HILL.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Tex.—For inclosed remittance send me six copies of “Progress and Poverty” for six persons whom I have persuaded to read what you really advocate. Also send THE STANDARD for three months to the following addresses. . . . I hope to be able to send again soon. This is an out of the way place, but one which may in the course of time become a great seaport. I have had a hard time working this matter up among the shop men, and had the promise of several more, but owing to a change in the shop officials they are expecting to have to leave and are hoarding their nickels. If they stay they shall not be left in ignorance if I can help it.
J. J. MAGRATH.
CLINTON, Ill.—I write to tell you that I am still living, with the single tax banner still waving from the mainmast. Like many of
p. 8, col. 5 our friends I am almost as poor as a “muzzled dog in a pie house.” Grit is my principal stock in trade, as a goodly number can testify. I get THE STANDARD regularly from our news agent. There are a few copies sold here, but not as many as should be. Although a free trader and single tax man, he appears to be afraid to press matters thinking perhaps it will injure his business.
Inclosed find postal note, for which send me a copy of “Protection or Free Trade?” and tracts as per list herewith.
JOHN M. PARKER.
The space at the publisher’s disposal is limited this week, and these are consequently all the letters that he can lay before you. But even these few are interesting, not only in themselves, but as types or samples of THE STANDARD’S correspondence. The cause is moving on. The banner of the new crusade is pressing forward. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower, but moving always. Not in our own country only—not alone in every state and territory of the United States—but all over the world, from Europe to distant Australia, are men whose hearts are filled with longing for the good time coming, whose hands are never weary of working for the good cause that they know must surely triumph in the end.
And you yourself? What is it you are doing for justice? Is our final victory being brought any nearer by any effort of yours? Do your neighbors know you as a single tax man? Have they heard from you about THE STANDARD? Have you made any effort to bring them to your side? These are questions you will do well to ask yourself and insist upon a truthful answer from your own consciousness.
There are three plain, straightforward ways in which you can help along the cause—by securing new subscribers to THE STANDARD; by sending the paper, on the recruit subscription system, to people whom you know, and by contributing to the recruiting fund, which enables us to supply literature to those who otherwise would not receive it. In one of these ways everybody can do something—many can utilize all three.
These are our terms for THE STANDARD:
| One subscription, one year, . . . . | $2 50 |
| One subscription, six months, . . . . | 1 25 |
| One subscription, three months, . . . | 63 |
Three or more subscriptions:
| One year, each, . . . . . . . . . . . | $2 00 |
| Six months, each, . . . . . . . . . . | 1 00 |
| Three months, each, . . . . . . . . . | 50 |
After the first club of three has been sent, subsequent subscriptions may be forwarded at the same reduced rates.
Recruit subscriptions, for four weeks, will be received, singly or in clubs, to different addresses at fifteen cents each.
The contributions to the recruiting fund since the last published acknowledgement have been:
| A. S. Garrett, Howells, Arizona Ter. . . . . . . | $1 10 |
| Georgean, New York . . . . . . . | 15 |
| ’ammer, ’ammer, ’ammer . . . . . . . | 2 00 |
| Georgean, City . . . . . . . | 25 |
| S. H. R. . . . . . . . | 5 00 |
| Peleg Bradford, Damascus, Me. . . . . . . | 50 |
| A B C . . . . . . . | 100 00 |
| R. W. Jones, Brooklyn, N. Y. . . . . . . | 1 00 |
| James Perry, Brooklyn . . . . . . . | 4 65 |
| Soloman Joseph . . . . . . . | 2 00 |
| William Mahoney, Kansas City, Mo. . . . . . . | 2 00 |
| George W. Wood, Poplar Creek, Montana . . . . . . . | 1 09 |
| McBarry, Georgetown, Minn. . . . . . . | 35 14 |
| Richard Vight, Vienna, Austria . . . . . . . | 50 00 |
| $204 88 | |
| Previously acknowledged . . . . . . . | 2,066 76 |
| Total to date . . . . . . . | $2,271 64 |
The Unity Circle Entertainment.
The second entertainment of the Unity circle was given on Monday evening at Masonic temple. Although heavy rain fell during the evening the attendance was fair. Under the direction of Mr. A. Fermin a very interesting programme, consisting of instrumental and vocal musical selections and of recitations was rendered. The entertainment closed with a laughable little play entitled “Ici l’on Parle Francais,” in which the participants conducted themselves very creditably.
[Advertisement] Miss Agatha Munier
MISS AGATHA MUNIER IS NOW forming classes for instruction in vocal sight reading for ladies and gentlemen, as well as in solo singing in all its branches, and in elocution. For terms, etc., address MISS MUNIER, [23?] East Thirty-second street, New York.
[Advertisement] The Railway News
[Illustration: engraved cover of the journal, a pictorial masthead (railway scene) with large ornamental lettering, presumably “Railway News” (largely illegible on the scan), a banner reading “RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE” and a ribbon of subject words of which “CONSTRUCTION,” “OPERATION,” “MANAGEMENT,” “PROJECTS,” “APPOINTMENTS” and “ELECTIONS” can be made out; the rest of the cover lettering is illegible. Printed vertically on both sides: “ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION $2.”]
The RAILWAY NEWS is a monthly journal which discusses all the railway problems and specially undertakes the protection of all railway employes.
Mechanical and technical articles by leading experts. This journal notes all industrial advance and is in sympathy with its progress. Offices, 40 Broadway, New York.
[Advertisement] Photographs (McGill)
DR. M’GLYNN, POWDERLY, HENRY GEORGE, Pentecost. 4 Cabinet Photos, 25 cents. McGILL, 304 Henry street, New York city.
[Advertisement] Notice (Samuel Williams)
NOTICE.—Those who believe that the public revenues should be raised by a single and direct tax upon relative land values, and who favor the holding of a National Conference, are requested to send address immediately to
SAMUEL WILLIAMS, Vincennes, Ind.
[Advertisement] Printing. Concord Co-operative Printing Company
PRINTING.
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p. 8, col. 6
[Advertisement] Unity Congregation
UNITY CONGREGATION. REV. HUGH O. PENTECOST, MINISTER. MASONIC HALL, Sixth avenue and Twenty-third street. SERVICES, Sunday Morning, 11 o’clock.
MISCELLANEOUS.
[Advertisement] Braham’s (suits to order)
SUITS TO ORDER FROM $13.50. PANTS TO ORDER FROM $3.50.
Samples and self-measuring chart mailed on application by stating price and, as near as possible design desired.
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[Advertisement] The Keystone Watch Club Co.
[Illustration: display advertisement in an ornamental border lettered with city names, of which “NEW YORK” and “PHILADELPHIA” (top), “WILMINGTON, DEL.,” “HARRISBURG, PA.,” “CINCINNATI, O.” and “CLEVELAND, O.” (bottom) and “WASHINGTON, D. C.,” “BALTIMORE” and “DENVER” (sides) can be partly made out, the rest illegible; a keystone at the centre of top and bottom; an engraving of an open-faced pocket watch whose dial bears a keystone emblem and the words “THE KEYSTONE WATCH CLUB CO. … PHILADA. PA.” (partly legible).]
A Gold Watch For $38. That tells the TRUTH.
Fully equal for Accuracy, Durability, Appearance and Service, to any $75. Watch.
Philadelphia’s building associations have done much toward building it up and making it the city of homes. The same system of co-operation carefully and economically managed, has built up The Keystone Watch Club Co., until they are now selling more Watches to consumers than all others combined. They handle only the
Keystone Dust-proof Watch
which is deservedly regarded as the crown and climax of Pennsylvania’s manufactures. This Watch contains every essential to an accurate time-keeper, and many important improvements patented by the Company. They are Dust and Damp Proof, a quality possessed by no other movement in the world. Jeweled throughout with genuine rubies. Patent Stem Wind and Set, strongest and simplest. Sold through authorized agents at $38.00. Either all cash down or $1.00 per week. There can be no disappointment in this system. An active, reliable Agent Wanted to represent us in every city and town. Write for full particulars.
The Keystone Watch Club Co 926 Chestnut St., PHILADA., PA. REFERENCES—Any Commercial Agency.
[Advertisement] Canned Goods (Organized Labor stamp)
[Illustration: round trade-mark stamp lettered “HAND MADE” around the top and “C. M. M. P. A.” around the bottom, with a small device at the centre.]
Canned Goods WITH THIS STAMP [ON?] THE BOTTOM OF CANS ARE Free from Poison, AND ARE MADE BY ORGANIZED LABOR.
Trade-Mark.—Registered.
[Advertisement] Piso’s Cure for Consumption
[Illustration: display advertisement framed by heavy decorative bars; vertical side panels read “25 CTS.” on each side.]
PISO’S CURE FOR CONSUMPTION. CURES WHERE ALL ELSE FAILS. Best Cough Syrup. Tastes good. Use in time. Sold by druggists.
[Advertisement] The Great American Tea Co.
[Illustration: block-letter emblem reading “THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA COMPANY,” the word TEA set vertically down a T-shaped panel.]
GOOD NEWS TO LADIES.
Greatest offer. Now’s your time to get orders for our celebrated Teas, Coffees and Baking Powder, and secure a beautiful Gold Band or Moss Rose China Tea Set, Dinner Set, Gold Band Moss Rose Toilet Set, Watch, Brass Lamp, Castor, or Webster’s Dictionary. For particulars address
THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO., P. O. Box [289?]. 31 and 33 Vesey St., New York.
[Advertisement] Ollendorf’s Neurodontine
OLLENDORF’S NEURODONTINE.
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[Advertisement] Holland’s Coffee and Dining Rooms
HOLLAND’S COFFEE AND DINING ROOMS, [113?] Fourth avenue, Bet. 13th and 14th sts.
[Advertisement] James Bogan
JAMES BOGAN, PRINCIPAL AGENT for James Means’ $3 and $4 shoes. 226 BOWERY near Prince street.
[Advertisement] Charles B. Schaidner, Photographer
CHARLES B. SCHAIDNER, PHOTOGRAPHER. 2280 Third avenue, cor. 124th street, New York. Children’s Photographs by instantaneous process a specialty.
[Advertisement] The Single Tax (Union Printing Co.)
THE SINGLE TAX. Special editions of ready-printed newspapers containing current Single Tax reading matter. All sizes; low prices. UNION PRINTING CO., 15 Vandewater street, New York.
[Advertisement] Coogan Bros.
[Illustration: engraving of the Coogan Brothers store, a five-storey building with lettered bands between the floors (partly legible: “COOGAN BROTHERS,” “WHOLESALE & RETAIL … FURNITURE CARPETS &,” “… WAREROOMS,” “MANUFACTURERS”; the rest illegible) and a sign over the shop front reading “125 COOGAN BRO’S 121”; horse-drawn wagons and pedestrians in the street in front.]
COOGAN BROS., CARPET AND FURNITURE DEALERS, COR. BOWERY AND GRAND STS.
[Advertisement] Briggs’ Pianos
[Illustration: display advertisement with an engraving of an upright piano in a frame decorated with foliage, and a pointing tab lettered “SEND FOR CATALOGUE.”]
BRIGGS’ PIANOS C. C. BRIGGS & CO. [illegible]5 APPLETON ST. BOSTON MASS. MANUFACTURERS OF GRAND · SQUARE · & · UPRIGHT PIANO FORTES GRACEFUL DESIGNS · SOLID CONSTRUCTION MATCHLESS TONE · BEAUTIFUL FINISH
SOCIAL PROBLEMS.
BY HENRY GEORGE.
342 pages.
CONTENTS: