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THE STANDARD — Vol. 4, No. 6 (Whole No. 84), Saturday, August 11, 1888 — Page 1
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THE STANDARD
NO. 84—VOL. IV, [NO.?] 6. | NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1888. | PRICE FIVE CENTS
[Note: a subscriber’s address label is pasted diagonally across the masthead and the top sic column 1, reading “104 Dr Walter / Mendelson 167 / 1?9 W 74th” (partly illegible). It hides “NO.” in the dateline and parts of the first lines of column 1. Not part of the printed text.]
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THE STANDARD FOR THE CAM[PAIGN?]
Subscriptions to THE STANDARD from [now?] to the close of the campaign will be rece[ived?] at the following rates:
Single subscription . . . . . 52c Ten or more, each . . . . . 48c One hundred or more, each . . . . 44c
“The Standard” is sent this week to a number of persons whose friends have paid to have the paper forwarded to them for four weeks in the hope that they may be induced to read it, examine the principles it advocates and become regular subscribers. Those who receive the paper without having ordered it will understand that it has been sent in this manner and will be sent for four successive weeks without charge to them.
Terms of subscription will be found on the fourth page.
CONTENTS:
The Single Tax Conference in this City. Immigration. Mr. Powderly on the Land Question. Natural Rights and Revenue Laws. Progress in England. Texas Single Tax Men. The Army is Gathering (song). “Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights!” The Beating of the Drums. Pennsylvania’s Protected Miners. Straws Which Show the Wind. Cleveland and Free Trade. In and About Baltimore. From Ring of Texas. Personal. Pen, Paste and Scissors. To Single Tax Cleveland Voters. Mr. Shearman on the Republican Platform. The Tariff and the Single Tax. Literary Property. A Law Breaker in Office. Workingmen Speak for Themselves. Men and Things. Notes from Correspondents. “Standard” Campaign Fund. The Tariff Harp (poem). Society Notes. What Might Have Been. Current Thought. New Ideas, Methods and Inventions. The Single Tax in Canada.
Despite the extremely hot weather, and the fact that it was the only notice given, the call published in THE STANDARD of last week for a conference of single tax men in favor of the election of Cleveland and Thurman, filled the upper hall of the Cooper sic on Monday night. The meeting was a representative one, as gratifying in its warmth and unanimity of feeling as in numbers. All seemed to be of one mind, that single tax men, as such, should make themselves felt in this election, and should endeavor to bring to the support of the democratic national candidates that confidence and enthusiasm in and for a great principle in which the democrats in this part of the country seem as yet to be so lacking.
When the timidity of the democrats in attacking the monstrous pretensions set up in behalf of protection by the republicans began to make apparent the need for some organization of radical men, the proposition which at first found most favor with some of our friends was that single tax men should throw their force into the Free trade club of this city and aid in forming branches in the New York congressional districts and through the country. But the opinion which showed itself at the conference on Monday night, and which seemed to be unanimous, was that the greater is stronger than the less, and that much more effective work can be done in this campaign under the banner of the single tax than under the banner of what is generally known as free trade. While the common sentiment was in favor of working with the believers in a purely revenue tariff as far as they would go, and a recommendation that wherever possible single tax men should join the free trade clubs was adopted, there was a strong feeling that some steps should be taken to bring single tax men together, as such, and to give emphasis to the fact that men whose only aim in politics is the emancipation of labor and the abolition of poverty, are supporting Cleveland with all their might for the very reason that the advocates of the protectionist superstition are telling workingmen they should vote against him—because at this time he represents in practical politics the side of freedom.
The plan adopted by the conference is extremely simple and flexible. It does not look to the formation of anything like a party, nor even to a regular and formal organization. It provides only for the enrollment of single tax men who propose in this election to support Cleveland and Thurman, and for the appointment of a committee which shall take steps for the holding of meetings, the distribution of literature, and the conduct of correspondence. This will give all that is necessary—a nucleus for association and action, and will enable us to work in unison for the essential things on which we are agreed, without regard to anything sic. The resolutions adopted expressly disclaim any inference that our support of the democratic national candidates constitutes us adherents of the democratic party, or pledges us to the support of their state or municipal candidates. In New York, indeed, most of us (I have yet heard of no exception) propose on account of his veto of the ballot reform bill to work p. 1, col. 2 and vote against Governor Hill, should he be renominated by the democrats.
The meeting of Monday night was the first gathering representative of the main body of single tax men that has been held since the split in our organizations consequent upon the determination of some of their officials to carry them into ridiculous and questionable politics. It represented the clear conviction and strong common sense of men who do not propose either to play at politics or to trade in politics, but who, firmly believing in a great principle, are bent on pushing it forward in the easiest, shortest and most effective way. And what was peculiarly gratifying and inspiriting in the meeting was the old time ardor and enthusiasm which it evinced; the evident pleasure which coming together again and feeling again “the touch of the elbow” aroused; the evident desire to “get to work.” In this I am confident the conference was representative not only of the feeling of single tax men in New York and its vicinity, but of the feeling of single tax men throughout the country. And wherever in other parts of the country our friends see that it would be worth while to hold conferences similar to that we have held in New York, and to appoint similar committees, it is to be hoped they will do so. These committees will form nuclei, which will enable us the better to keep in touch with each other, to arrange for meetings, provide speakers, and to carry into effect any plan for general work that may hereafter seem advisable.
Until the committee which Chairman Post has appointed effects an organization, blanks for enrollment in the same form as that signed at the meeting on Monday night will be furnished from this office on application. In the meantime, as the readiest way of presenting this form for signature, it is printed on the third page of this issue of THE STANDARD, in such a way that it can be cut out, signed, and returned. If more are needed they can be written. Or, better still, if every reader of THE STANDARD will constitute himself a committee of one on enrollment in his locality or circle, it is only needed to cut out this form and paste it at the head of a sheet of paper, and to add another sheet when necessary, to give space for any number of signatures.
Let it be noted that the signing of this declaration does not involve the joining of any society, the paying of any fees or dues, or the assumption of any duties. Nor will the list be published. The idea is simply to enable us, to sic our strength and to give the committee the names and addresses of our friends, in case it should wish to communicate with them or to send them literature for distribution. And while it is more important for the purposes of this committee that it should have the names and addresses of those in sympathy with it in New York and vicinity, it would also be useful and encouraging that it should have such names and addresses from all parts of the country. Not only might we as well make this as far as we can a general enrollment and showing of strength, but the possession by the committee here of the names and addresses of our friends in other localities sic be of much use in starting local committees in other parts of the country.
And, therefore, I would ask every reader of THE STANDARD from Maine to California and from Florida to Washington territory, who is in sympathy with this object, to take the trouble to get as many signatures as possible and to send them to this office. Here is an easy and telling way in which every one can at once help the good cause on. The greater the strength we find we have, the more heart shall we find to work, and the more readily will others join us.
Now let us get to work and take our part in this campaign, joining with the democrats where they are willing, pushing forward for ourselves where they are not; but always keeping to the front the idea that we are for tariff reduction as a step to tariff abolition, and for that as a step to the removal of all the taxes that fine and hamper industry, and the consequent taking for public uses of that value which the growth and improvement of the whole community attach to land. And let us show what this means. It means not merely the breaking down of the trusts, the combinations, and the minor monopolies that in various ways are fostered by indirect taxation. It means not merely the simplification and purification of government, the lessening of the cost of living, the bringing of the refinements and opportunities of an advancing civilization within easy reach. But greatest of all—and without which nothing else can avail labor—it means the breaking up of the most important and p. 1, col. 3 most injurious of all monopolies, that monopoly of natural opportunities, which, withholding unused land from willing hands, produces artificial scarcity where nature has provided all the elements of abundance, and forces men who ought to be able to employ themselves into a cutthroat competition with each other for the wages of an employer.
Let the machine supporters of Mr. Cleveland protest that they are not free traders if they will, and apologize to protectionists for slicing down protection, if they think the votes of protectionists are to be kept thereby. But let us who are free traders in the highest, fullest, truest sense, proclaim where they cannot, the glorious gospel of freedom. Let us, as they cannot, strike at protection “where it lives”—in the idea that labor, instead of being the producer of all wealth, is a poor, weak, helpless thing that must be dependent on the benevolence of those who do no labor for a living; in the idea that there is not work enough to go round; in the idea that there is not room enough and employment enough in this wide, rich world for all the Creator has brought into it; in the idea that the interests of men and of nations are antagonistic, not harmonious; in the miserable national jealousies and hatreds that the oppressors of the masses utilize for the enslavement of the masses. Let us appeal to moral forces, to first perceptions, to the self evident truths proclaimed by Jefferson. Where they retain votes, we can make votes. Where they persuade that a a scaling down of protection will do no harm, we shall emancipate the slaves of a degrading superstition and make of them free minded men—men who can be counted on, not merely for this election, but while life shall last, or till the end be reached.
This campaign gives us a great opportunity. Let us improve it to the limit of our ability. The discussion that now excites the public mind, and that during every week from now until election must still more excite it, leads directly to the questions it is our aim to raise, to the principles it is our mission to promulgate. Let us urge it on. In coming to the front and showing our colors in the van of the fray, we shall not merely bring many to our side, we shall lead others forward. The democratic party itself must follow us. For though in the lead of that party are many who could have no place in a party that really held to Jeffersonian principles, though in its ranks those principles have been well nigh forgotten, yet the instincts to which Jefferson appealed are as true in 1888 as they were in 1800. And the work of bringing back the democratic party to Jeffersonian principles has already commenced. Such men as Cleveland and Mills have already moved far, and as they find popular opinion in their own party supporting them will move farther still.
The protectionist campaign will probably burst into full activity on the arrival of the man who is expected to play Mayor of the Palace to the roi faineant, who by his grace was nominated at Chicago. We of New York propose to hold a big single tax Cleveland meeting as soon as the committee provided by the Monday night conference can make arrangements. This will open our campaign, and ought to be followed by such meetings, big or little, as our friends may be able to hold. But the great work to be done is not in meetings, but in the hand to hand work of personal effort. And the most important thing just now—that in which everyone can aid, is the enrollment of our friends.
While still talking of the necessity of education, and calling for funds for that purpose, General Master Workman Powderly is still as dumb as an oyster on the great issue on which every member of the Knights of Labor who votes at all must vote this year. In the Journal of United Labor, however, he does have something to say on the land question, and something that so far as it goes is good. A member of the order having asked for his views on the land question, Mr. Powderly replies by quoting from his message as mayor of Scranton in 1883, calling attention to the low rate at which unimproved lots are sic as compared with improved lots, and recommending to members of the order that they look into this subject in their localities and have it remedied. And thus he goes on to illustrate and comment:
Squire Grabland saw a nice tract of land in a young and growing town; he had the means, and for $500 purchased 100 lots as near to the center of the village as possible; he was besought to sell lots immediately after he made his purchase, but he refrained and held on to them until the town had grown up and manufacturing establishments began to locate in and around the place. Being near the heart of the town, these lots became very valuable, not because the land was any better, p. 1, col. 4 but because labor had erected dwellings, stores and factories all around them and they became desirable. Five hundred dollars was the price which Mr. Grabland paid for the whole tract. One day Jacob Hardup made a contract with him for the purchase of one lot. On it he paid $100 down and entered into an agreement to pay $400, with interest, in four years. By this transaction Squire Grabland secured the same price for one lot as he gave for the hundred. On the hundred lots Squire Grabland paid taxes by the acre, and for the entire tract of land was assessed at the lowest valuation, so that his taxes on the land amounted to but $20 a year; it being unimproved land it was not assessed for the same value which the squire placed upon it. At the end of a year Mr. Hardup had erected a neat little house on the center of his lot, had built a fence around it, and had moved his sic into the house. The time came around to make his second payment to Squire Grabland, and with the $100 he paid the interest on $400, which, according to the legal rate of interest in Pennsylvania, is six per cent. In interest Mr. Hardup paid $24, or $4 more than the taxes paid by Mr. Grabland on 100 lots for the year. The assessor in making his rounds values Mr. Hardup’s lot at $600 because he has improved it by erecting a house on it; the house is valued at $1,000, and Mr. Hardup is obliged to pay taxes on $1,600 worth of property. When the assessor goes to Squire Grabland that old gentleman asks to have the taxes on the ninety-nine remaining lots reduced, on the plea that having sold one of them he should not be obliged to pay on so large an acreage as before, and accordingly his taxes are reduced 20 cents, and he pays but $19.80 for that year.
Jacob Hardup’s cousin, Samuel Workhard, wishing to locate near his kinsman, goes to Squire Grabland and makes terms to buy a lot. He is told that the lots are now worth $700 apiece. On asking why the price went up he is informed that Mr. Hardup having built a nice house, and having otherwise improved his lot, it has enhanced the value of the surrounding property, and he cannot afford to take less than $700 for so valuable a piece of land. Mr. Workhard pays $300 down and enters into a contract to pay the remaining $400 in four years, with interest, of course. Squire Grabland has in one year received in payment on two lots $500, the full amount of his original investment, and is certain of $700 more from Messrs. Hardup and Workhard, whose contracts call for that amount with interest.
The taxation on the remaining lots held by Squire Grabland is reduced still more when the assessor calls again, while that of the two men whose labor improved his land is increased, so that in addition to purchasing the two lots they are also paying the taxes on the remaining acres of Squire Grabland, whose cupidity has kept the most available lands in the town off the market, thus driving dwellers to the outskirts and impeding the progress and growth of the town by keeping stores and factories from locating near the center of trade, as they would have done if the law did not allow Squire Grabland to speculate in what the Almighty was kind enough to place under our feet for the use of the whole human family.
Call a town meeting and appoint a committee to go through your town and find out how many men are holding on to lots with a view to speculation; then go to the assessor’s office and see if they are paying taxes according to the price they ask for their lots, and if they are not, insist on their doing so. Make every man who owns a lot pay taxes on it for its full value, the same as the poor or rich man does on his improved lot. If you do this, you will find that your taxes will be reduced in some instances over half, and in that way will you afford protection right at home, and the best of it is that you can do it yourselves without the aid of either of the grand old or new sic.
This is not Spencerism, Georgeism or Powderlyism. It is better than all of them put together. It is equity. It is equal and exact justice. Try it.
This pointing out of the evils of the general practice of assessors in discriminating in favor of the owners of unimproved land would be worthy of all praise in Mayor Hewitt or Mayor Fitler, and it would be commendable in Mayor Powderly of Scranton addressing the common council of Scranton, and as to practical measures restricted to making the best of the law as it exists. And even coming from Mr. Powderly, who for some time has seen fit to ignore what he once declared was the greatest of all questions, it is a gratifying evidence that he feels the growth and pressure of the single tax idea. It will, moreover, do something toward turning attention in the direction in which alone any solution of the labor question can be hoped for. And for this we should be thankful.
But as an expression of the views of the Master Workman of the Knights of Labor on the land question it is altogether contemptible. It is certainly not Spencerism, or Georgeism, or equity. If it is any of the four things that Mr. sic mentions, it is certainly Powderlyism—that is, trifling.
Compelled, as though against his will, to say something on the land question, Mr. Powderly ignores the essential to dwell upon the incidental. The heart of the great labor question is exposed in his illustration. The Grablands grow rich by appropriating as their own the value which the presence and work of the Hardups and Workhards collectively create, and in order to obtain this, to them, “unearned increment” of wealth, they seize and hold natural opportunities so that an artificial scarcity of the natural means of employment is produced and laborer forced to bid against laborer in an unnatural competition. But instead of pointing all this out; instead of showing the essential difference between property in land and property in the results of labor, and proposing what alone would secure justice and gain freedom—the taking by the community of the p. 1, col. 5 value arising from the growth and improvement of the community and the leaving to the individual of the value which his productive exertion creates—Mr. Powderly has no better advice to the Hardups and Workhards than that they should see to it that the Grablands pay as much taxes on values which really belong to the public as they themselves pay on values their toil has created, and which therefore belong of right to them, entirely and exclusively. A pretty doing of equity, a pretty solution of the land question—that the mere appropriator shall be compelled to pay quite as much taxes on what he appropriates as the producer pays on what his labor brings forth.
No one can know better than Mr. Powderly ought to know that to advise the Hardups and Workhards, of whom the Knights of Labor are composed, to do merely this, is practically to advise—nothing.
So long as public opinion is not aroused to the essential distinction between property in land and property in the results of labor—so long as it does not realize that the value which attaches to a lot by reason of the growth and improvement of the community belongs of right to the community and ought to be taken in taxation for the use of the community, while the value which labor embodies in such a thing as a house belongs to the producer and ought not to be taxed at all—so long as our laws treat these two utterly different species of property as of the same kind and direct their equal taxation, it will be impossible for the Hardups and the Workhards to secure that equal taxation. Mr. Powderly might as well advise the catching of birds by sprinkling salt on their tails. The Grablands have wealth, power, leisure, and their interests in electing and controlling assessors are large and direct. The Hardups and the Workhards have their noses to the grindstone; their individual interests are small, and to the majority of them not direct. Thus it has been universal experience that the assessors favor the Grablands. And this must continue to be the universal experience until the masses wake up to the paramount importance of exempting from taxation all the products of labor and of taking for common purposes, by the taxation of land values alone, that common fund which of natural right belongs to the whole community.
There is no man in the United States who has had grander opportunities than Terence V. Powderly. There is no man who has given higher promise. Six years ago his address as general master workman of the great order of the Knights of Labor rang with the passionate declaration of the central truth. “In my opinion,” he then said—
In my opinion, the main, all-absorbing question of the hour is the land question. And did I allow this opportunity of expressing that opinion to the Knights of Labor of America to pass without taking advantage of it, I would prove myself false to my own convictions of right and justice. The eight hour law, the prohibition of child labor, and the currency question, are all of weighty moment to the toiler. But high up above them all stands the land question. Give me the land and you may frame as many eight hour laws as you please. Yet I can baffle them all and render them null and void. Prohibit child labor if you will, but give me the land and your children will be my slaves. . . Give me the land and I will absorb your wealth and render your legislation null and void.
And so he went on to teach that the land question was the heart of the labor question; to denounce individual ownership of land as monstrous; to assert the equal rights of all men to the use of land as derived direct from their Creator; to deny that any human being or any number of human beings could justly deprive the unborn child of its heritage in the use of natural opportunities; to declare that no honest man could fear the land question; and to exclaim:
Give heed to this land question; be not afraid of the taunts or jeers of our enemies; do not quail at the name of communist if it is applied to you, for it were better to be called a communist than be a party to the plundering of a people of the inheritance ordained for them by God. . . God hasten the day when the “greater felon” will be brought to justice! And may our organization be brave enough to shoulder its portion of the responsibility, and share in the glory of the achievement.
What a pitiable contrast between these brave words and what Mr. Powderly has to-day to say on the land question!
We who believed in Mr. Powderly in 1882, and who continued to believe in him for years after, have been waiting for him to redeem his promise, but with fainter and fainter hope, till now it has well nigh gone. He seems at last to have deliberately shirked the responsibility that was on him, and declined the glory of achievement that might have been his. He seems to have deliberately chosen to be a mouse rather than a man—an office holder of the Hardups and Workhards rather than their leader into freedom and plenty.
p. 1, col. 6 But in spite of their official leaders, the rank and file of the order are not ignoring vital questions. District assembly No. 168, Knights of Labor, whose jurisdiction extends over the important sic district comprising Adams, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lebanon, Lancaster, Perry and York counties, at its recent meeting held at Lancaster, adopted resolutions declaring that an economic question has been presented for decision at the polls, on which it would be criminal for workingmen to remain in ignorance, and therefore asking all the local assemblies in the district to discuss the sic propositions and report their decision upon them to the district assembly:
Should each subject of government contribute to its support in ratio to the benefits received and ability to pay?
Does increased cost of an article diminish demand and consumption, and also the means of purchase?
If the principle of protection is just, does it apply to state and individual as well as to the nation?
Should the golden rule or the law of reciprocity be practised in trade and commerce?
Is it a violation of natural right to prevent a person from disposing of the result of his labor, or the purchase of the labor of another, without being taxed?
Is it better to exchange products for those that can be produced cheaper than to produce them ourselves at a greater expense?
Do custom houses embarrass trade and furnish inducements to dishonesty, smuggling and bribery?
Does protection foster selfishness and bribe men to forsake principle for profit, to enrich the few at the expense of the many?
Does a country become wealthier when her imports exceed her exports?
It is easy to see to what these propositions lead.
The Ford committee of the house of representatives is still sitting in New York, inquiring into the question of immigration and especially of contract sic. But they have not touched the vital point of the whole matter—why it is that the man who comes here willing to work cannot find work without interfering with some one else; why it is that, with room for millions, a few more thousands cannot find places? Is labor indeed the source of all wealth? Why then should we not welcome labor?
Here is an item from the New York Daily News, one of a kind that is daily appearing:
Manuel Lopez was taken into custody and arraigned before Commissioner Shields to-day by Internal Revenue Officer Coleman, who found him in possession of three hundred unstamped cigars, which he was trying to dispose of on the Bowery. Lopez was committed in default of $300 bail, and the cigars were confiscated.
Stripped of property that was justly his, and sent to prison for the exercise of a natural right, and that in a country that boasts of freedom!
Here is another item of the same kind from the Herald:
Among the passengers by the steamer Rotterdam, which arrived yesterday, was the Rev. J. V. Dundas of Rice county, Minnesota, who declared that he had no dutiable articles in his baggage. Customs Officer Schaeffer, however, found in his trunk a fine white India crepe shawl, embroidered in silk; a large quantity of men’s underwear, ladies’ underwear, a silk umbrella, an aneroid, parcels of prayer books, towels, handkerchiefs, perfumery, and in a false bottom five thousand cigars packed in boxes snugly fitting to the trunk. The trunk was seized.
What is to be thought of laws which tempt even ministers of the gospel to take false oaths? The Rev. J. V. Dundas is a criminal in the eye of the law. What offense has he really committed in the sight of heaven? He bought this property, prayer books and all. He did not steal it. It was fully his, in the outward side of the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World. Why was it not as fully his on the inward side? As for his false oath, suppose he had met a pirate who proposed to take half his property, and who to discover it compelled him to take an oath?
HENRY GEORGE.
They Will Crush It.
J. G. B. Erwin of Erwin, Ga., a manufacturer of steel cultivators, writes to THE STANDARD:
I believe in equal and exact justice to all classes and do not favor hasty or precipitate action that would tend to injure American manufacturing interests unless the protection barons refuse and obstruct such laws as the Mills bill, and in that event the masses may be goaded to strike at the root of this evil and crush it in a sweeping political charge, the inevitable output of protectionists’ folly, which they will deserve.
The True American System is Yet to Come.
Clinton, Ind., Saturday Argus.
> One of the most brazen falsehoods ever placed upon the shoulders of the poor little types is the statement that the system of protection is an “American system.” The truth is protection of labor is no more American than is the habit of eating. It is a heathen idea and originated in China, where it was carried to its natural and logical conclusion by the erection of a great stone wall around the country. The real American system still remains to be put into operation. The American system will be new, far advanced, humane, just and above all, Christian. It will be founded upon the rock of absolute justice. It will operate so as to leave to labor the full product of its industry. It will recognize and protect the highest and most sacred rights of property, instead of taking from the industrious producer and turning it over to the lazy and selfish. The American system will give labor freedom of access to raw material and freedom to exchange the product of its industry with whomsoever and for whatsoever it pleases.
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2 THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1888.
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PROGRESS IN ENGLAND.
AN INTERESTING LETTER FROM REV. GEORGE BROOKS.
A Proposition to Shift Part of the Local Tax on to Landlords Brings on a Debate in Parliament—Radical Utterances of Sir George Trevelyan and Shaw Lefevre—Opinions of the Press—Where the Taxes Fall—The Land Restoration League Again Active—Significant Incident in the National Liberal Club—A Victory for Striking Match Girls—Lord Salisbury and the Dissenters.
LONDON, July 25—Things are moving fast now, even in this conservative old country. The most sic recent occurrence was the debate in the house of commons on the [16th?] inst. Nominally on the local government bill, it was really on the taxation of ground rents. Mr. Channing moved a new clause to that bill in favor of dividing the rate between owner and occupier. This, of course, opened the whole question, and though the strongest things that sic said will appear feeble to those who go down to bottom principles, they were yet far in advance of anything that has been said hitherto in parliament, and they will have a great educational effect. Sir William Harcourt, for example, who led the opposition, said:
“The present manner in sic the whole burden of the sic is thrown solely upon the occupier is a glaring instance of the great injustice which property has always inflicted upon industry and labor, and I cannot understand how those who represent the great majority of the metropolitan constituencies will be able to justify the vote which they are about to give against the principle, to their constituents. As regarded those honorable members opposite who were going to reject this principle, they were about to vote in the interest of the landlords against that of the tenants. The question, however,” said he, “is one which the tenants of England will have to take into consideration at the next general election.” The significance of this utterance will be at once manifest.
Mr. Channing’s motion was rejected by a majority of fifty-five. But it was not rejected on its merits, as most of the supporters of the government approved it, but deprecated the matter being pressed to an issue just now, as it was inopportune. Had not Lord sic intervened as an inopportunist, and carried his followers with him, the government would have been defeated. The burdens of British tax payers are to be perpetuated in order to put sic home sic as long as possible.
It is a noteworthy fact that the so-called “labor” members were mostly silent during this debate. Only one of them spoke, Mr. J. Rowlands, and the strongest thing he screwed himself up to say was that “it seemed to him that the people at present were entirely at the mercy of these ground landlords.”
Ex-cabinet ministers like Sir G. Trevelyan and Shaw Lefevre spoke out plainly. Trevelyan said: “Surely, the first method is to make the people pay the rates who ought, but who did not, pay them. The people from whom most ought to be expected in the way of rates, and from whom we got nothing, are the ground landlords. Before we impose sic new taxes or transfer old ones for the benefit of the burdened rate payers, these people who ought to pay rates and do not, should be made to sic.
Lefevre said he thought that “the proposal now before us, that in future the landlord shall not be able to contract himself out of his liability, is one which no metropolitan member will venture to oppose. It is a sound proposition, and one which will be carried into effect, if it is not passed now.”
But the metropolitan members did venture to oppose this proposition. The division list shows that no less than thirty-four tory members for London supported the landlords. That, however, is but natural. The surprising fact is that two tories, G. C. T. Bartley and Baron sic voted in the interests of the tenants. Three other tory members, Sir N. Lethbridge, C. J. Darling and L. N. Isaacs, spoke for the tenants and voted for the landlords.
Here are some press comments on the debate and division. The Echo said:
The figures on the division are of small importance under the circumstances; the debate has shown clearly enough that ground landlords can no longer reckon upon the monstrous immunity from local taxation which they have so long enjoyed. The fight will be certainly renewed next session or the session after; and, as regards houses to be built hereafter, we do not anticipate any serious trouble.
The Star said:
For ourselves we are not careful to say where taxation of land values should stop. Once admit with Mill that land values are a kind of unclaimed inheritance of the people, and practical politics may in time carry you as far as Mr. George’s single tax.
Even the Times went so far as to say:
The question of the division of the rates between owners and occupiers, especially in relation to ground rents in London and other great towns, which was discussed on Wednesday, could not be adequately dealt with at the tail end of a measure already overweighted with details, but there was a general agreement that it would have to be dealt with at no distant date, though not in the form supported by Sir N. sic.
The actual state with regard to London is this: The ratable value of the land in the metropolis is £418,000,000; the value of the buildings on this land is sic. But the owners of the £418,000,000 pay no local rates whatever, and all they contribute, even to the imperial exchequer (in the form of income tax), is half a million a year, while the tenants of the £212.000,000 not only pay income tax and house duty, but they also pay local rates of 5s. 3d. in the pound, or £7,000,000 per annum. The tenants build London, drain it, light it, support its police, maintain its poor and educate its children; they repair the landlord’s houses, beautify streets and squares and parks; and then in the course of a few years the landlord, who has done nothing and paid nothing, possesses himself of their property and lets it to them over again at an increase of five hundred per cent on the rental.
Mr. John Morley, who stands next but one to Gladstone, has again been speaking out on the question of rents and royalties. In a speech to the Northumbrian miners last week, he said:
While wages fall, while profits fall, or even disappear, yet those who contribute neither toil, nor skill, nor enterprise, those who risk nothing, those who invent nothing, those who discover nothing, are to remain where they were. I am glad to think that there are large numbers of capitalists who feel the inconvenience and the wrong of this as much as any of you do; and I do not believe that Mr. Burt’s motion will be otherwise than supported by a great number of those who in other matters are not entirely in accord with your own view of your own interests. It is a thing that interests the whole community that in England the royalty upon coal should be something like 8d. or 8½d. a ton, while in France it is not more, I think, than 1¼d., and in Germany it is not more than ½d. per ton.
The match girls here won a brilliant victory. All their demands were conceded by
p. 2, col. 2 Messrs. Bryant & May, and they have all been taken back to work, even to the ring leaders. What this shows is that the public conscience is now awakening to a sense of the frightful extremes which exist in our present social condition. It also proves that there is a solidarity among the industrial classes such as has never existed before, and that they are beginning to act together as a compact whole. By and by they will come to realize that land monopoly is at the bottom of their trouble, and then they will make short work of landlordism.
Lord Salisbury, our prime minister, owns most of the town of Hatfield, in Hertfordshire. He is, of course, a state churchman, and also, of course, has an orthodox hatred of dissenters. There are some Wesleyans in Hatfield, and for forty years they have been compelled to meet in a public house stable, for which they pay eighteen pence a week. Lord Salisbury has been repeatedly asked to sell them a site for a chapel, and he has always refused. But some time ago the question got into parliament, and it was discussed in the press in a way that the marquis did not at all relish. So, in the generosity of his heart, he condescended to offer to sell them a site, after closing his ears to their appeal for years. It was, therefore, announced that “an eligible site” had been offered to the Hatfield Wesleyans; but this “eligible” site was a mile away from the town, the only house within site of sic was the workhouse, and it was close to the sewage outfall, the stench from which is at times intolerable. Of course they indignantly repudiated this grossly insulting offer. They have now bought a site from another land owner, but there are two houses on it, for which they have had to pay an exorbitant price. Thus Lord Salisbury has been able to persecute and oppress and insult these good people all these years simply because he owns the soil. Such cases are constantly coming to light among us, and yet our people are such stupid fools that they cannot see the fundamental fact involved. People who are will- ing to be enslaved in this manner are fit for nothing better, and deserve nothing better.
GEORGE BROOKS, 153 Amhurst road, Hackney.
Louis Lesaulnier’s Proposal for a Cartoon.
RED BUD, Ill., July 30.—Inclosed $5 is for THE STANDARD fund for New York sic, as I think it will do the most good there. Mr. John G. Hummel of St. Louis, Mo., suggested to me the following idea for a picture: A capitalist is fighting with a laborer. Capitalist fights with a club marked lockout. Laborer with one marked strike. A huge dragon is behind these two, it has three heads. The biggest is marked “land monopoly,” the second “money monopoly,” the third “transportation monopoly.” In the coils of its tail a man, woman and child are being squeezed to death. Its huge front claws are set on “natural rights and constitutional liberty.” Henry George is pictured as waving THE STANDARD and a huge club marked “single tax.” He calls to the men: “Stop your foolish fighting and help me kill that monster behind you which threatens all of us.”
So far goes Mr. Hummel’s idea. I would like to see added on one side Uncle Sam robs all his people through tariff and internal revenue, and sic back the biggest bulk of the plunder [of?] his favorites in private monopoly, pensions and salaries for unproductive labor; on the other side the single tax frees labor on land having no rent value from all taxes, while those who monopolize the valuable parts get full value for the single tax they pay. On the one side people are trying to do things in the dark which, although morally right, are forbidden by law; on the other side the sun shines and liberty reigns. On the one side are millionaires and willing, able idle men; on the other side every one who works has plenty in proportion to his ability and industry. On the one side reigns peace; on the other side strike, boycotts, lockouts and riots.
I hope others may contribute, so that we can get a good picture. I am ready at any time to pay my promised contribution if nobody else feels like contributing. Many of my neighbors to whom I explained the idea want to buy a picture. Everybody here is now talking about tariff and Henry George.
LOUIS LESAULNIER.
A Protective Association for Street Peddlers.
CINCINNATI, O.—A few days ago we formed a salesmen’s protective association for the purpose of fighting our license system. On no class of men does the present system of taxation fall heavier than on the poor peddler. For instance, in Marietta, Ohio, last week I had to pay $1.00 per day for the privilege of selling in the town. When I remonstrated the only answer I got was that the merchants should be protected. From this state of affairs we seem to have no redress so that we have concluded to take the matter in hand and see if we cannot put a stop to the system. Nine out of ten of this class of men, when you explain to them the single tax idea accept it at once. We have good single tax men at the head of the organization, who see a splendid field for the agitation of the doctrine. We hope in the course of three months to have at least 1,000 men in the organization, who in the nature of things must be free tra- ders, not in the narrow sense, but in the full sense of believing in freedom of all production. I would say in conclusion that the majority of the men are for Cleveland and Thurman as they instinctively recognize the slave trade sic as the favorite of monopolists. Yours for the death of the protective idea,
JOHN SALMON.
Any agent, streetman or peddler seeing this and wishing to join the organization can gain particulars by addressing
GEO. E. FOWNES, Sec’y pro tem., 134 Park Row, New York.
It Does Rejoice Them, Though They Are Not Yet So Many.
Boston Globe.
In his speech in Tremont temple on Tuesday night Dr. Burden said:
If the recommendations of President Cleveland’s message are carried out this country must come at once under a policy of free trade. The issue as to the tariff between the republican and democratic parties is protection vs. free trade.
If that were true, how it would rejoice the hearts of the little band of free trade theorists of which Henry George is the head! But yesterday they were the only free traders in the country; and to-day, if Dr. Burden is correct, they have increased to at least 5,000,000 voters! Such a rapid growth was never known in politics.
To Help Single Tax Strangers.
The following list contains the names and addresses of men prominent in the single tax cause in their respective localities, with whom believers wishing to join in the movement may communicate:
Chicago, Ill.—Frank Pierson, secretary Land and labor club No. 1, 45 La Salle street. Peoria, Ill.—J. W. Avery. Trenton, N. J.—[H.?] R. Mathews, 9 Howell street. Youngstown, O.—Billy Radcliffe, Radcliffe house. Memphis, Tenn.—R. G. Brown, Sec. Tariff reform club. Nashville, Tenn.—P. H. Carroll, 235 N. High street, Sec. American land league. Brooklyn, N. Y.—J. Hickling, 41 Sidney place, Pres. Single tax club. Philadelphia, Pa.—Wm. J. Atkinson, 926 Chestnut street, Pres. Anti-poverty society. Houston, Tex.—H. F. Ring. Washington, D. C.—Dr. William Geddes, 221 E street, N. W., Sec. anti-poverty society. Minneapolis, Minn.—C. J. Buell, Pres. anti-poverty society. Boston, Mass.—Edwin M. White, 45 Elliott street.
p. 2, col. 3
TEXAS SINGLE TAX MEN.
They Formally Organize the Tax Reform Association—Thirty Counties Represented—Reports of Delegates.
The single tax men of Texas met in Knights of Labor hall at Houston, July 31, and organized the Texas tax reform association, for the purpose of more effectively propagating the doctrine of the single tax. The meeting was presided over by Mr. David Russell of Tyler county with Mr. E. P. Alsbury of the Hempstead Advance Guard, acting as secretary. There were thirty counties represented, the overwhelming majority of the attendants being free traders and supporters of Cleveland. We take the following account of the proceedings from the telegraphic report to the Galveston Daily News:
The association organized under the rules and usages governing the democratic party of Texas and every person signing the single tax petition to the legislature is to be accounted a member of the association. The association makes an auspicious start with several thousand enrolled members. A committee was appointed to select a chairman for each congressional district and one for each county and to attend to such other details as are necessary to set the machinery in motion. It was decided that tax reform clubs be formed wherever possible as auxiliary organizations.
Mr. David Russell, a delegate from Tyler county, reported that about one-half of the voters of that county had already signed the single tax petition, and that the alliance farmers there were signing it almost unanimously.
Mr. Ira McColloch of McLenan sic stated that in his precinct 225 votes were cast at the last election, and that of these 187 voters had already signed the petition, all of the signers being farmers but two, they being merchants.
The reports from all the delegates present were equally satisfactory as to the work accomplished in their respective neighborhoods.
The unanimous sentiment of the meeting was that it only required an explanation of the theory in conversational methods, and the aid of tax reform literature, to secure the approval and hearty indorsement of four-fifths of the people to whom the subject was presented.
The association also decided to establish a missionary paper, to be called the Texas Tax Reformer, issued monthly, and to be dis- tributed free to all persons signing the petition.
In Houston many prominent merchants have declared for the single tax, and the Knights of Labor assemblies are practically solid for it. About 2,000 have signed the petition in this county. In the evening of the same day another meeting was held at the market house. It was presided over by Geo. H. Breaker, Esq., and addresses were made by J. C. Burge of Dallas, Ira McColloch of McLenan county and H. F. Ring of Houston.
The Army is Gathering.
The army is gath’ring from near and from far, The trumpet is sounding the call for the war; The land is our birthright, let this be our song, For Truth and for Justice we’re marching along.
Chorus:
Marching along, we are marching along, For Right and for Freedom we’re marching along; Marching along, we are marching along, For Truth and for Justice we’re marching along.
The land is our birthright, the earth is our home, No landlord shall hold it while homeless we roam; The land for the people, let this be our song, For Truth and for Justice we’re marching along.
The land for the people, it shall not be sold, It shall not be bartered for silver or sic; The right wrongeth no man, let this be our song, For Truth and for Justice we’re marching along.
The Right wrongeth no man; the Earth is for all: This truth will free Labor from Slavery’s sad thrall; The freeman’s good ballot will right every wrong; For Truth and for Justice we’re marching along.
The freeman’s good ballot will right every wrong; No dynamite bomb is so sure or so strong, The right that our forefathers fought for so long, Shall be our good weapon as we’re marching along.
W. G. SELLERS. San Francisco.
“FREE TRADE AND SAILORS’ RIGHTS!”
William Lloyd Garrison Talks True Democratic Doctrine From a Democratic Stump.
From William Lloyd Garrison’s Speech at Hyannis.
Upon this bended arm of Massachusetts which we call Cape Cod, protecting our mother state from the assaults of ocean, dwelt formerly a hardy race of sailors who carried our native products to all quarters of the earth and brought back in exchange the wealth of different climes and peoples. To-day that race of old shipmasters is almost extinct and the summer boarder appropriates their deserted mansions and bids fair to absorb the cape itself. The ships which led all nations of the globe have vanished from the seas and the Stars and Stripes are curiosities in many ports where once the flag dwarfed every other. In those days commerce was not considered harmful. The inundation of foreign goods made no one afraid, for they built up great commercial houses, loaded our sic with the products of India and China and the sic, we returning for them not gold and silver, but our native products which employed the skill and labor of Americans. And the more imports the more exports, all contributing to the prosperity and wealth of the country. It was the bright day when the cape supplied Boston with merchants whose descendants are among the solid families of the city now—the Sears, Riches, Snows, Bacons, Nickersons, Bakers and their like, and gave to the supreme bench of the state one of its ablest judges in Lemuel Shaw. But the war came with its terrible exactions and the taxes that seemed necessary to the preservation of the nation wiped out as with a sponge the vessels that the confederate cruisers spared. With what reluctance the taxes were imposed, and how ready were the assurances of legislators that they were merely temporary, let the records of the debates in congress show. It is twenty-three years since the rebellion ended and Grant received the sword of Lee at sic. The boys who were not then born are to cast their votes at this election. Still, to the minds of many the war is not yet over, and the same excessive taxation that only the most devoted patriotism could then bear for the country’s sake, sits fixed upon our shoulders like the old man of the sea. The party whose noblest exemplars deplored the burden which patriotism willingly assumed, now makes it an article of faith that they shall be continued. At the expense of the industries and labor of the people, an enormous and dangerous surplus threatens the welfare and the morals of the government. It invites schemes of plunder and wastefulness. It demoralizes public sentiment and debauches public men. Its collection paralyzes the natural industries of the United States and prevents the existence of occupations that without its withering touch would spring up in the night like Jonah’s sic. The system that produces this is buttressed with defenses as hollow as they are plausible. They are built to deceive. A protective tariff is simply a restrictive tax. It is paid by the people it especially pretends to benefit. You are asked to believe that a tax enriches. Your good sense tells you that it has only the power to impoverish. It may enrich a few; it certainly impoverishes the many. If the many who suffer understood
p. 2, col. 4 the reason, there would be short work of the robber tariff.
You are told that the tariff raises wages. You have but to look at the wages paid in the protected industries to find there the lowest reward of labor. Does the tariff benefit the mason or carpenter of sic? Does it add to the income of the blacksmith or the farmer? Is there a single occupation from Buzzard’s bay to Provincetown that is a gainer by the tariff? Is there one which is not the loser?
Gentlemen, I do not mean to put this on the selfish ground alone. If by your willing self-denial the whole country prospered, virtue would be its own reward. There are considerations above personal aggrandizement, and this question reaches far beyond mere fiscal considerations and touches the foundation of republican institutions. It concerns itself with the rights and powers of government, and demands to know by what authority the privilege is conferred upon one class of men to tax the community for its own profit. We demand to know where the right was obtained to draw a larger revenue from the people than the economical administration of the government needs for its actual expenses. The republican platform, with a comprehensiveness of demagogy, has gathered into its bosom doctrines that would wreck any nation. If successful in the election to come and faithful to the creed which it proclaims, national debasement must follow. If, on the other hand, the democratic party, adhering to its new departure, shall cling to the policy so well enunciated by the president, we take an upward and a hopeful turn.
Whether the party of reform is successful in this campaign or not, there is no question of its ultimate success. The principles we advocate must surely triumph. We have thrown the burden of defense upon our opponents and must press the sic of our position. It is for them to sic and to explain. It is for us to attack.
THE BEATING OF THE DRUMS.
The only fault we find with the Mills bill is that it don’t go far enough in its reduction. We heartily favor it because it is all right as far as it goes.—[Mauch Chunk Democrat.
That a high tariff does not protect the wages of our laborers is proved by the fact that while the tariff remains the same, the wages of the laborers are frequently reduced 10 to 15 per cent on a week’s notice.—[Dayton, O., Workman.
There is more protection to the manufacturers in this free raw material policy than there is in the republican protection policy. Why not give the farmer free woolen clothing as well as to give the sic free wool.—[Pike County, Ill., Banner.
Judge Chester H. Krum, one of the most prominent St. Louis republicans, has come out for Cleveland and Thurman with a ringing free trade speech in Garrison Hall. J. Martin Williams, organizer of the K. of L., is to follow him in the same hall on Aug. 10.
What the farmer and laborer of this country mostly need is protection against protection. And that can only be done by killing protection. Protection is a hungry wolf, a never satiated tiger, an eternally gnawing jackal that lives only on the life blood of labor.—[Manistee, Mich., Broadaxe.
Protection is not a tax levied on the foreign manufacturer, but an attempt to prevent the fulfillment of our own desires. If we did not them the sic there would be no market for them here; and the tariff is added cost which we, not the manufacturers, pay. This ought to be clear to every mind.—[Chicago Labor Enquirer.
If a man had freer access to nature, to the coal mines, the oil wells, the grazing fields, the forests and the streams, he would employ himself rather than take starvation wages from a master, and the great question of machinery and labor would be settled by the employer seeking the man and not the man the master.—[Baltimore Crisis.
The tariff robbers are not satisfied with catching the farmer “a-gwyin” but must catch him again “a-comin.” This is what the tariff does for the farmer, and it is true in the case of corn and the other farm products, in which a delusive promise of protection is held out to him with a view of luring him to his ruin.—[Terre Haute Evening Gazette.
The only way to convince people of the fallacy of protection is to assail that doctrine of taxation with the truths of free trade. Tariff for revenue only may be as far as policy should lead during this campaign, but the economic truths can be taught only when stripped of all protection blemishes and shown to the intellect without shield or covering.—[Grand Rapids, Mich., Workman.
The republican party is gaining from the democracy a few rich manufacturers who want to become richer at the expense of the public and some disappointed office seekers. but for sic there is ample compensation in the numerous men of intellect and character who are severing life long political ties to espouse the cause of tariff reform.—[Paterson, N. J., Guardian.
When the republican papers boast of cheap clothing to be had in the United States as compared with former years and other countries, they are not referring to woolen goods. The cheap clothing they talk about is made of shoddy. It is a fraud, and came into use about the time the republican party came into power. It won’t wear any better with workingmen than the republican policy that fosters monopolies, creates millionaires of a few and slaves of the many.—[Grand Rapids, Mich., Leader.
The tariff tax falls on people not according to what they have but according to what they consume. As much sugar is needed to sweeten a cup of coffee for a laboring man as for a millionaire, but the proportion of their means which the sugar tax compels each to pay is in the case of one much greater than in the case of the other. So it is with the tariff upon all articles of general consumption. It bears far more heavily upon married men than upon bachelors; on those who have children than those who have none; on those who are barely able to support their families than those who have large incomes.—[Tilford, Dak., Times.
A Pointer for Applicants to Government.
Toronto Grip.
Farmer—“I want you to raise the duty on lithographic stone. I have got a quarry of it on my farm, and if you will exclude the foreign article and give me a chance to sell it at my own prices I can make a pile of boodle out of it.”
Premier—“Sir, would you insult me by asking my assistance in a barefaced scheme of robbery for your personal benefit? Get right out.”
Farmer—“I beg pardon; I didn’t mean no harm. What I meant to say was, I am anxious to develop the resources of this great country by opening a lithographic stone quarry, and thus giving employment to Canadian labor. I am a Canada-for-the-Canadians man, and I go in for the national policy which has made this dominion great. In the interests of the country in general, and the workingmen in particular, I ask for an increase in the duty on lithographic stone. I am for the old flag, and never fail to contribute to the funds of the patriotic party.”
Premier—“Ah, that’s different. It shall be done. Why didn’t you say that at first?”
The Eagle and the Beaver.
Toronto Grip.
An American Eagle lived near a Canadian Beaver. “My first duty is to my own,” said the Eagle, “therefore I will discourage trade with this foreign animal.” So she put a high tax on all the good things the Beaver brought her; and as she still continued to take the good things the tax only increased the cost to herself. “This Eagle is a wise bird,” mused the Beaver, “and if she will not have my goods at the low price I offer, neither will I have her’s.” So the Beaver also put on a tax, and thereafter paid higher prices for all he purchased from the Eagle. And both were happy.
p. 2, col. 5
PENNSYLVANIA’S PROTECTED MINERS.
Why Thousands of Coal Workers Will Vote Against Protection This Year.
The following letter from W. B. Estell, special organizer of the Knights of Labor, to a friend explains itself:
FREELAND, Pa., July 20—My Dear Hopkins: Your favor received. Was more than glad to hear from you. In reply to your questions as to how I intend to vote, let me confess that I shall lessen by one the 80,000 majority which James G. Blaine received in 1884. I was always a dyed in the wool protectionist, I suppose because my father before me was one, and because I had never heard anything since my youth but the glorious benefits to be derived by the workingman from a protective tariff. Since I became one of these gloriously protected workingmen myself my eyes have been opened considerably; and I, by a series of practical experiences, have demonstrated to my entire satisfaction that something more than tariffs are necessary to high wages. In fact, Hopkins, I have lost all faith in the efficacy of protective tariffs to, in the slightest extent, regulate the wages of workingmen. There has been a protective tariff on coal ever since I can remember, to protect the “coal barons” from the disastrous results which competition with coal mined by the “pauper labor of Europe” would bring. This has been a fine thing for the coal barons. It has enabled them to form the notorious coal pool and make every poor devil in the United States pay seventy-five cents a ton more for his coal than there is any necessity for. It has made every coal operator a millionaire, but has not helped the miner one iota, but on the other hand has injured him, because, while the tariff protected the operator from the “pauper mined coal,” it did not protect the American miner from the “pauper” who mined it. To be effectual, the coal tariff should be carried to its logical conclusion. If the operator is protected against the coal of foreign countries, the miner should be protected against the foreign miner who comes over here to compete with him for work. I have worked in and about the mines twenty-four years and I know that work for which I received $18 per week with steady work fourteen years ago, I can only get $9.60 for now and only work about two-thirds of the time, and in some collieries no more than $7.40 per week. Yet the tariff on coal has not been reduced, but the competition between workmen for employment has, and there lies the whole secret, Hopkins. It may seem strange to you that I, an old hard-shell republican, should write in this way, but I can’t help it. I am only doing what a candid examination of the whole question and a desire to act according to my convictions compels me to do. I am convinced that no duty or tariff can ever benefit the American coal miner while European miners are coming to our shores by the thousands and are compelled to compete with our men for work. Why, right down here in Hazleton the other week an Italian advertised for work for 300 of his countrymen, offering them for sixty cents per day. Of what avail can all the tariffs in the world be when men are thus forced to work for a bare sic? I believe to be effective a tariff must be extended so as to prohibit immigration, and I believe any law that makes this grand country other than an asylum for the oppressed of all nations, violates the fundamental principles of our government. We have room enough for all if we would only compel these dogs in the manger who are holding natural opportunities idle, to put them to a productive use.
I am not the only one in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania who will leave the republican tariff platform to stand with Grover Cleveland upon the democratic one of revenue reform. There are thousands of them who have already determined to do this, and there are thousands of others who are wavering and can be brought over if the democrats have courage to attack protection in its stronghold. Even the republican politicians are impregnated with free trade. The Hon. D. M. Evans, who was a republican member of the last state legislature, is a free trader, and, much as the machine would like to, it dare not oppose his renomination, because the majority of the voters are miners, and Evans himself being a miner, is the only one who can be elected. The time has passed when any old fossil can be foisted on the miners and elected by an appeal to their predilection for a protective tariff. I am not giving you hearsay, but what I know to be facts. I am special organizer for the K. of L., and my conversation with representative men in every place I have been is my authority. I know that on every street corner you can hear men discussing revenue reform and its bearing upon wages, and the conviction is rapidly forcing itself upon them that the protective tariff fallacy has only been held up before their eyes in order to obscure their vision and keep them from seeing the true cause of their industrial slavery. I am for Cleveland because he is going in the right direction. I know that just as soon as men learn that tariffs will not raise wages they will begin to ask what will; that when they begin to ask that, they will learn that competition among men for work regulates wages; that this competition is caused by the denying to men (through the monopolization of natural opportunities) of free access to the land upon which all must labor; and that this can only be remedied by raising all revenue from a tax upon land values. I’ll wager a new hat that Pennsylvania can be swung into the democratic column with proper effort.
W. B. ESTELL.
The Greenback in the Indiana Campaign.
There has always been a strong greenback element in Indiana and sic from the prominence Senator Voorhees gives that sic in his opening campaign speech, the greenback still has a great many friends in Hoosierdom. The senator spoke at his own home (Terre Haute) and to a large audience with whose sentiments he was familiar. The senator’s speech gives promise that the greenback will play no insignificant part in the Indiana campaign. Here is what the Tall Sycamore said to his neighbors of the Wabash bottoms:
I propose to show that the history of the republican party on the subject of taxation is the history of premeditated crime against the laboring people of the United States. Every movement in the machinery of government set in motion by republican leaders and managers has been to swell and bloat the gains of the rich and to increase the burdens of the poor, to deprive labor of its honest reward, and to reduce the industrial classes on the farms, in the workshop, and in the mines to the estate and conditions of serfs paying tribute to their rapacious masters. The republican conspiracy to fasten the fangs of the money power in the struggling body of American labor and to enable gigantic usury and legalized robbery to suck the blood of every American industry took its first great step when, in authorizing legal tender currency in 1862, the greenback, the immortal and glorious greenback, was discriminated against and degraded in the money markets of the world by being made non-receivable for duties on imports and for interest on the bonded debt of the United States. In all the annals of nations no financial measure was ever more wilfully wicked in conception and design nor more far reaching, oppressive, and destructive to the rights of labor in its results than this. The laboring people have been too patient, too forbearing. I do not believe any other people on the globe would have submitted, unless restrained by force, to the monstrous act of congress of March, 1869. By one dishonest stroke of a dishonest pen, guided and held by the dishonest leaders of a great party, the debt which labor has to pay was swollen 25 per cent. The great bulk of our bonds, the five twenties, were payable in greenbacks, and the authors of the act of March, 1869, knew it was false when they declared they were payable in coin.
Why should not the greenback, with its glorious history and with all the crimes committed and attempted against it by the leaders of the republican party, come to the front at this time and at all times, when the interests of the laboring classes are under consideration? Branded at its birth with the bar
p. 2, col. 6 > sinister as a bastard in the field of currency, persistently stigmatized and characterized as a rag baby, born in a foundling hospital without known parentage, for years denounced as dishonest money, a fraud upon the business and commercial world, yet it stands to-day in every state in the Union with its head as high and its purchasing power as great as the brightest gold that ever flashed from the depths of the earth. It is true the republican candidate for president suggested in 1878 that an idiot asylum ought to be erected for believers in the greenback; for you, my old greenback friends, and for me. I believed in the greenback then, and do now, and I take my place alongside of you under General Harrison’s sweeping, intolerant, brutal criticism and denunciation. I did so ten years ago when he poured out his scornful wrath upon us, and I was well content with the result. He canvassed the state in 1878 as the candidate for his party for the senate, as I did as the candidate of mine, and the people of Indiana decided by more than 30,000 majority on the popular vote for members of the legislature that he was nearer a financial idiot than I was and that I should go back to Washington and leave him at home.
The Protectionist Notion of Encouraging Commerce.
New York Evening Post.
We would respectfully suggest that General Harrison should put into the same speech an outline of the letter which an American commission merchant or manufacturer in New York should write to his agent in Brazil or Chili in order to procure orders for American products from those countries when that “regular (subsidized) mail communication” is established which, the nominal candidate says, is all that is necessary to give us profitable commercial intercourse with those countries. As matters now stand, we speak advisedly when we say that not a single manufacturer or dealer in this country knows what to say in such a letter, particularly as he would have to begin by repeating General Harrison’s warning that we will never allow any foreign goods to be offered for sale in our markets, on equal terms. At present, without the further light which General Harrison may hereafter throw on the subject, it would have to be something of this sort:
NEW YORK, Nov. 8, 1888.—Dear Sir: We take the liberty of inclosing herewith a price list of the leading articles of American manufacture, in which we shall be pleased to execute your orders in this market. You will note, doubtless, that the prices are all, or nearly all, from thirty per cent to fifty per cent higher than those of similar articles in England and on the continent of Europe, which you will, we feel sure, not object to pay, both in order to maintain your own self respect and to enable us to keep up the wages of the laboring man in this country. It is proper to add that should you think of paying for the same in goods of your own, the like of which are produced here, even in small quantities, it cannot be permitted, this market being reserved exclusively for American sellers. Any dealings we have with you will, therefore, have to be for coin, and particularly silver, of which we are now seeking to accumulate as large a store as possible. You will be rejoiced to know that owing to the regular mail communication with your country recently established by our government, we shall be able to forward you a communication of like tenor and effect with this one, every week, which must, we are sure, inure to our mutual advantage.
Trusting to hear from you in due course, and thanking you in advance for the orders you would probably like to send, but will not send, we remain, with great respect,
Your faithful servants,
LUNKHEAD & CO.
STRAWS sic SHOW THE WIND.
Senator Chace of Rhode Island proposes to convert the post office department into a machine for conducting the express business of the country. His plan for accomplishing this is to reduce the post office rates for carrying parcels a little below the rates which the private express companies now charge.—[Philadelphia Record.
The way to get at the trusts is to first determine what circumstances enable them to control production. If it is a tax, as it probably is, repeal the tax. sic creates no monopolies or trusts. Law does. What is wanted is a thorough revision of the laws and the repeal of all which enable such combinations.—[Albany Press and Knickerbocker.
By the course of natural law the man who feeds the world ought to live in the swell houses on Murray hill, New York; but by the course of hocus pocus that is worked over the farmer he is fortunate to live in an unpainted house, with his wife in a calico gown, and himself in a hickory shirt and plow shoes.—[Brockwayville, Pa., Record.
It has always been the cunning and conscienceless few who have built up aristocracies and enslaved the masses of mankind. To accomplish their evil designs they always use means well adapted to the age in which they live. In the present day the four corner stones on which the superstructure of aristocracy is builded are public debts, banks of issue, indirect taxation and land monopoly.—[Cedar Rapids, Ia., New Era.
Why do the political parties lay so much stress on the labor vote, and ring so many changes on the negligence of the opposing party to legislate for workingmen? Because the workers have the votes which will place the politicians in power. But the workingmen are getting tired of negative virtues in political parties, and desire to see some tangible result from so many promises.—[Washington, D. C., Craftsman.
Last year it seems we paid out in pensions $81,575,937. In 1885 the annual pension bill was about $56,500,000, and in 1879 not more than $35,500,000. Of course, even in this last year the pension list was altogether too large; and instead of increasing $46,000,000 it ought not to-day to be $25,000,000. It shows how blunted is the moral sense of our press when these facts are not kept before the public. Our $81,500,000 annual pension list is one of the most monstrous scandals in the history of governmental action. It ought to create a furore of indignation from one end of the country to the other.—[Real Estate Record and Guide.
Vindicating the Law.
New York Herald.
The American steamer Reindeer recently made a trip from St. John’s to Burlington on Lake Champlain with an excursion party. It also stopped at sic, a Canadian town, to receive other excursionists.
It was at this point that the Canadian customs officers vindicated the majesty of the law. Among the party from St. John’s were a young French sic lawyer and his wife. The young couple had formed the idea of enjoying the excursion. sic what could they do with the baby, who was teething? They determined to leave it with the grandmother at Lacolle, and telegraphed her to meet them at the wharf.
Lacolle came in view; the steamer stopped at the wharf and the grandmother was there ready to receive the baby. She had, in fact, extended her arms to take the child, when the customs officer interrupted and caught hold of the baby, saying that passing her on shore was a violation of the Canadian coasting act, which prohibited an American steamer from bearing traffic between two points in Canada. The grandmother drew back, the crowd remonstrated but in vain. The mother, vaguely fearing that her child might be locked up in bond for the attempted offence or sold at auction—one-third for the benefit of the Canadian treasury and two-thirds for the seizing officer and informer—was glad to get it back and disembark at Rouse’s Point, in New York state, to drive back across the line to Lacolle, as her maternal anxiety would not allow her to subject the baby to a longer trip on the water.
Page 3 of 8contents
THE STANDARD’ SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1888. 3
CLEVELAND AND FREE TRADE.
SINGLE TAX MEN TO TAKE CONCERTED ACTION.
A Conference of Representative Men at Cooper Union—Strong Speeches and Much Enthusiasm—A Committee of Nine Appointed to Direct a Single Tax Free Trade Campaign.
By a little after 8 o’clock last Monday night the upper meeting hall of Cooper union was filled with single tax men of New York and its vicinity who met in response to the call issued in last week’s STANDARD, to decide on a plan for active work in the present campaign. The meeting was a very enthusiastic one and remarkable for the earnestness and unanimity shown by those present.
Henry George opened the meeting. He said that it had been called in response to a strong feeling on the part of single tax men who were going to vote for Cleveland and Thurman that some plan should be devised by which they could best make their influence felt in the coming election. Since Grover Cleveland stands at least on the side of freedom, and the great political party he represents is going in the direction of the single tax, it is the duty of the single tax men to help his election. Mr. George concluded by nominating Louis F. Post for chairman of the meeting. Mr. Post was elected chairman, and Henry George, jr., was elected secretary.
The meeting being declared open for business, W. T. Croasdale arose to present a set of resolutions in regard to the method of work to be pursued in the campaign. He said that his was not the only plan proposed; already the single tax men in one of the districts had organized for work as a branch of the Free trade club, and the plan was advocated by others; but the more he thought of it the more he felt that the men who had been in the movement for the last two years as “George men” would prefer now to go into the campaign as single tax men, not as an organization, but simply by an enrollment of their names as single tax men who would vote for Cleveland and Thurman, in order to facilitate communication with each other and make it easier to do effective work. The resolutions he presented were as follows:
Whereas, Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman, democratic candidates for president and vice-president, stand in the coming election against the degrading superstition of protection and on the side of greater freedom; therefore
Resolved, That we, advocates of the single tax on land values, whose aim is the perfect freedom of labor, hereby pledge our votes and efforts to assist in securing the success of the democratic national ticket.
Resolved, That we do not by this action constitute ourselves adherents of the democratic party or pledge ourselves in any way to the support of its candidates for state or municipal offices.
Resolved, That in order to secure concert of action during the present canvass the chairman of this meeting be requested to appoint a committee of nine (with power to add to their numbers) whose duty it shall be to procure the enrollment of single tax men who propose to vote for Cleveland and Thurman, to provide for the holding of public meetings and for the distribution of single tax free trade literature.
These resolutions were considered section by section, and a general discussion followed. Mr. Vanderporten offered an amendment that the committee be enlarged to one member from each (New York) assembly district; Mr. Silbernik wanted it to be composed of twenty-five members, but these amendments were finally withdrawn.
Mr. George said that, as Mr. Croasdale had remarked, there had been some talk among their friends as to the necessity of doing something in this campaign. They wanted to put the issue in a much more radical form than the democrats are doing or are likely to do. (Applause.) They wanted once in a while and here and there at least a platform on which a man could stand and declare himself a free trader (applause); on which a man could stand and declare that he voted for Grover Cleveland because he wanted the tariff utterly abolished (applause), and because he wanted to go further and abolish every tax on every product of labor and take for the use of the whole community that fund which properly belonged to the community. (Applause.) Now it had been proposed by some friends that they, acting simply in the capacity of free traders, should join hands with the men who had already organized a free trade club, and, as friends in Harlem have already done, form branches of that club, and saying nothing about the single tax, stand in this election as free traders, as Jeffersonian democrats, as men who saw in this movement the beginning of the great struggle for the emancipation of labor and the bringing back the republic to democratic principles. (Applause.) Mr. George said that he was not entirely clear as to whether this was the best course, or whether it would be better to form an organization as single tax men, letting such as wanted to (and he for one would do it) go into the Free trade club also. The organization proposed in the resolutions of Mr. Croasdale was a simple kind of an organization, having simply a committee that could bring men together and take such steps as it might deem advantageous to take for effective work. The enrollment proposed was of this kind:
I authorize the enrollment of my name on the list of voters who propose to support Cleveland and Thurman in the coming election, on the ground that any step toward tariff reduction tends toward the abolition of all taxes on the products of labor, and the final transfer of such taxes to land values.
Name.
Address.
With such an organization, he said, they could bring men together and enable them to know each other, and give to this campaign something of a more radical aspect than it otherwise would have. (Great applause.)
In response to calls, Edward J. Shriver said that he had delayed speaking for two reasons—first, that he had wished to see what the sentiment of the majority of the men was; and, secondly, that he had a certain feeling of delicacy in appearing to solicit members for the Free trade club, of the governing committee of which he was chairman. He favored the formation of a single tax organization, and also joining the Free trade club. It was a very good thing to enroll men in favor of the election of Cleveland and Thurman; but work could best be conducted in the districts through the Free trade club. He continued:
We here all believe, I take it, that our first step forward must be on the tariff issue. Now there are in the Free trade club and elsewhere many hundreds and many thousands of men who do not go so far as we do. Some believe in absolute free trade and direct taxation; others again are even willing to lay all taxes on land values, but don’t want to go to the confiscation point. (Laughter). Now, here is an opportunity to go into this club and work with these men of this kind; and, as we single tax men have the truth on our side, the result must be that we will win over those others little by little to our way of thinking. Of course the Free trade club has dues of one dollar a year, but I don’t think that will make much difference. It seems to
p. 3, col. 2 me we should resolve on this enrollment of names, and then I think as many as are willing should come into the Free trade club for the purpose of organizing in the assembly districts for active campaign work. By this means we shall gain the advantage of being in an already established organization, and one which in this campaign at least is working for the same cause as we are. (Applause).
Mr. Croasdale then said:
Before the resolutions are put I wish to say that one of the objects in having that committee which the resolutions call for appointed, is that it shall, as speedily as possible, secure some large hall, such as Cooper union or the Academy of Music, according as we have more or less funds, for we are, as usual, poor (laughter), and hold a meeting to indorse and ratify the nomination of Cleveland and Thurman on the grounds on which we do indorse and ratify them. (Applause.) And what we will do in holding such a meeting will be not merely to show our approval of the stand they have taken, but to show to the democratic party, as a grand object lesson, one of the largest halls in New York filled with workingmen shouting for free trade. (Great applause.)
I have no doubt that as the result of the campaign on which we are about to enter we can add to the vote of Cleveland and Thurman many thousand of votes in New York and New Jersey, and that this influence of single tax men will not be confined to this region, for we know that our friends in Indiana and Illinois are as anxious to take this action as we are. But, any accession of voters, any success for the ticket, will be but trivial compared with what we have done if we once force the cowardly leaders of the democratic party to turn again to the principles of Thomas Jefferson. (Applause.) There is nothing that is so jeopardizing the election of Grover Cleveland as the cowardly counsels that dominate his party to-day. (Applause.) There is no one thing that can so surely help his election, or that can help the democratic party to the goal toward which all its sic point, than the spectacle of earnest, thinking men standing up and preaching true democracy to the men who have gone back on their faith. (Applause.) I hope these resolutions will be adopted; but I have no objection to the plan of joining the Free trade club. Thank God, we are free traders, real free traders, and we are not afraid to acknowledge it. (Great applause.) By adopting the resolutions we will not restrict ourselves from acting with any other organization. Let us take all the means we can to push a campaign for free trade, direct taxation, and the concentration of all taxes on land values which the people create. (Applause.)
The chairman then put the resolutions, and they were carried unanimously.
Mr. Shriver offered the following:
Resolved, That this meeting urges all single tax men to join the Free trade club for the purpose of organizing for active political work in the congressional districts.
In discussing the resolution, Mr. Shriver said he thought local work could be best done in this way. He said, too, that the necessary money for literature, halls, etc., could be raised through the medium of the Free trade club; that that club had a good strong platform, and had year by year been growing more radical, the majority of the executive committee to-day being in favor of absolute free trade and direct taxation.
Two gentlemen from Brooklyn suggested that it might be just as well for Brooklynites to join the Brooklyn revenue reform club, which was something like the Free trade club.
Wm. McCabe suggested that the word “invited” be substituted for “urged.” He said also that his experience was that men preferred the name “single tax.” For present purposes be sic that a stronger name than the name of Free trade club. (Applause.) There was a magnetism about the name of “single tax” that the name of “free trade” did not have. (Applause.) He believed the Free trade club would have to accept it yet. (Applause.) The work the Free trade club desired to do in the congressional districts was good work, but he thought the resolution should be simply in the form of an invitation to our people to join the organization.
A gentleman from the Twenty-sixth ward of Brooklyn said he was somewhat surprised to find that a large number of the men in his district who had voted for Henry George last year were contending now that the Syracuse platform contained not a word in reference to the single tax. (Laughter). Nevertheless, he believed in the single tax himself, and as he could not get those others to join with him, he had organized a single tax association by himself and had issued challenges to any and everybody to debate with his organization. (Laughter). He said he could convince people that to have one single tax in place of so many varieties of taxes would be a good thing, and it was not necessary to tell them what the single tax would be levied on (laughter); they would find it out later. The speaker favored the name single tax.
A gentleman who said he represented an organization of six hundred men on Long island, said that while they were all for the single tax, yet ninety per cent of them were afraid of free trade. (Laughter.)
Mr. George then rose and said:
I don’t well see how this body can invite men to join the Free trade club. This is not the Free trade club. And I don’t know that I would have it go so far as to urge them. But I think that all of us who can ought to join the Free trade club, and I rise simply to give my hearty support to the spirit of Mr. Shriver’s motion. I think, wherever we can, we ought to support the free trade organizations. I recognize as a fact what the gentleman from Long island has said about the fear of free trade which many workingmen have. The democratic party has so long been so cowardly that to-day among great bodies of workingmen the name free trader is the same kind of a bugaboo that the name abolitionist was to the slaves in the south before the war when they had been so long told that an abolitionist was everything that was bad that the more ignorant of them believed it. And one of the great benefits that I expect from this campaign is the disabusing of workingmen’s minds of this impression. (Applause.) What we want to show them is that men who have no object in politics but the emancipation of labor are free traders, and that the interests of the masses is always in freedom. (Applause.) Talk about the British flag and the British system! This thing “protection” is nothing but an old British rag. (Applause.) I am a free trader because I am an American. (Great applause.) I am a free trader because I love the republic. (Applause.) And I am a free trader because I wish for that republic not merely that she shall be rich, not merely that she shall be great, but that she shall lead the world to freedom. (Applause.) I am an American, born under the shadow of Independence hall, and I spurn and I put my foot upon that thing miscalled patriotism that looks askance at other nations and cherishes the enmities and prejudices of race and creed. (Long continued applause.) An American citizen pleading the baby act! (Laughter.) An American citizen talking about Great Britain overwhelming us! (Laughter.) The industries of sixty million people only existing by virtue of custom houses, by grace of spies and informers and baggage searchers and seizers! (Laughter and applause.) It is time that we should popularize the name of free trade. I am a free trader because I believe in freedom. (A voice: That is right. Show your colors.) I want to show my colors (applause), and last campaign, although this was not an issue, yet whenever there was a question asked from an audience, I proclaimed myself a free trader, a free trader absolute, whose aim was not a revenue tariff, but no tariff at all. (Applause.) And now when what I have waited for so long has come at last, now that this great contest that I have been hoping for and praying for for years is at hand, I want to go forth as a free trader. (Applause and a voice, “That’s good!”) I know there are so-called free traders in this country who look
p. 3, col. 3 on us, or who have looked on us, with alarm, with contempt; who thought we were cranks, who thought we were communists; and who perhaps think so still; some who will fight us as soon as we get past the point to which they are willing to go; some who now would rather have our room than our company. (Applause.) I care nothing for that. The man who has begun this long march and wants to carry it on to the end will go to-day with those who are willing to go the day’s journey, even if he has to fight them to-morrow. (Applause.) And so whenever we can we ought to make use of those tariff reform free traders; wherever we can we ought to get them to do our work, for they will be doing our work in so far as they aid in breaking down protection. Therefore, I think we should go into the free trade clubs, or any other clubs, where we can forward the free trade movement. And so I would like to have it go forth that the sentiment of this meeting is that we should join the free trade organizations everywhere. (Applause.)
Mr. Shriver consented to so change his resolution that it recommended single tax men to join the Free trade club, and it was adopted, and referred to the committee to be appointed by the chairman. Blanks for enrollment were passed around and over 180 signatures obtained; and a collection amounting to $59 cash, with pledges for $15 more, was taken up. With three cheers for Grover Cleveland the meeting adjourned.
Pursuant to the resolutions the chairman appointed the following committee:
William T. Croasdale, chairman. Michael J. Murray. August Lewis. William H. Faulhaber. Jerome O’Neill. Edward J. Shriver. Charles O’Conner sic. Benjamin Urner. Thomas G. Shearman.
IN AND ABOUT BALTIMORE.
The Steelton Steel Company—Single Tax Cleveland Men Organizing.
BALTIMORE, Aug. 3.—To-day I visited a place called Steelton, about ten miles from Baltimore, on the Patapsco. This settlement is neither a village nor a town. It is an enterprise of the Pennsylvania steel company, whose headquarters are at Steelton, Pa. It has some remarkable similarities to an old time slave plantation. The company owns all the land and refuses to sell to any one. Like a benignant Christian slaveholder of the ancient regime, it prevents the sale of liquor on the premises. It is careful of the morals of its employes, assisting in the establishment of both a Catholic and a Protestant church. The houses of the employes are mere bunk rooms one story high. That there can be family life developed in such a way I cannot see. The company has a store where everything is sold. Of course these gentlemen who are managing this enterprise are pure philanthropists and would not overcharge their employes in any way, but they don’t let anybody else start a sic on their ground all the same. If the people want to buy elsewhere they have to go to Baltimore, ten miles away by steamer. The men are employed by the month and must give seven days notice before leaving.
This is one of our highly protected infant industries, and, as far as I know, is something of an anomaly about Baltimore, no company having heretofore attempted to control the commercial relation of their employes. It will be interesting to observe in the future whether this institution is productive of a greater increase or decrease in the poverty of its employes. To my mind it has the appearance of a state socialistic settlement where the workers have no voice in the management of their affairs—all that trouble being taken off their shoulders by the benevolent “captains of industry”—for a consideration.
A movement is on foot to organize the single tax men of Baltimore who propose to support Mr. Cleveland, into a separate organization. All persons who desire to participate therein are requested to send their names and addresses to J. W. Jones, 125 North Bond street, as early as possible.
As an instance of sic good effect of our present policy I would like to mention that this morning, in conversation with a well known democratic leader of this city, I was enabled to outline the single tax idea in a conversation of more than half an hour’s duration. This man, less than two years ago, characterized Henry George as an enthusiast, totally impracticable in all his actions. Now his eyes and the eyes of other democrats are open to the fact that if they wish Mr. Cleveland to occupy the presidential chair for another term they will have to seek the aid and sympathy of the “George enthusiasts,” otherwise they will get badly left.
WM. N. HILL, M. D.
Gaining Ground in Toronto.
NEW FORT BARRACKS, TORONTO.—We are certainly gaining ground in this city and vicinity. Mr. A. C. Campbell last Sunday addressed a large audience in Queen’s park from the band stand. He was given an attentive hearing from beginning to end although speakers before and after him were interrupted and annoyed. Sunday evenings the commonwealth club meet at Labor hall, Tecumseh street, and discuss the single tax. Last Sunday Mr. Banks of the World gave us a very interesting address, during the course of which he stated that he could get a house with modern conveniences, seven rooms, a large hall, fifteen minutes walk from the center of an English city of two hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants, with gas at 2s. 6d. per thousand cubic feet, for five dollars per month. He then asked his audience what sort of a house could be got in Toronto for such terms? Five dollars a month for such a house seems like a fairy dream to most of us. Such a house in Toronto would rent at at sic twenty-five dollars.
The central anti-poverty society is considering the advisability of working this winter to secure an exemption of $600 on all house property. This in itself does not seem much but it introduces the idea.
ROBERT CARTWRIGHT.
The New York Single Tax Petition.
NEW YORK, Aug. 6.—Editor STANDARD: As I am in constant receipt of applications for single tax petitions from people outside of this state you would confer a favor by saying in your columns that I am prepared to supply the petitions for New York state only. As you are aware, one form of petition is not adapted to all the states. Some will require a constitutional amendment before their legislatures can apply the single tax principle in taxation and others will not. New York state does not. I am always glad to send a copy of the petition prepared for this state to applicants from other states as a form to be used so far as applicable to their requirements.
BENJ. URNER, Clerk Single tax league.
Now Tell Us Why Men Can Earn More Here Than Elsewhere as Their Own Employers.
Philadelphia Record.
It is not through the good will of the employers of labor in this country that wages are any better than they are elsewhere, but simply for the reason that men cannot be hired to work for less money than they can earn when they are their own employers.
p. 3, col. 4
FROM RING OF TEXAS.
The Work of the Petition—How It Opens the Way for the Full Truth.
HOUSTON, Tex., Aug. 1.—In THE STANDARD of the 28th sic., you say that we seem disposed to think it a mistake to present other than the fiscal side of the single tax reform. This is not the case. What we do think, however, is that it is best to present the fiscal side first. By means of our single tax reform memorial, and the arguments which show the direct advantages of a fiscal character to result from this change in the system of taxation, we approach the great body of the people in a manner which allays prejudice and apprehension. Everyone sees at a glance that to exempt improvements on land and personal property from taxation does not mean a violent revolution. There is nothing to be ashamed about in that proposition. The press cannot misrepresent us by saying that we propose to confiscate the land and improvements on it, as Vice Chancellor Bird did. The mere statement of the proposed amendment will preclude them from doing that. It also appeals at once to the self interest of the great majority of people who hear about it. I fully agree with you, however, that nothing less than a full realization of the moral side of the question will arouse enthusiasm, and that until one sees and appreciates this he will do little work for the cause with a tax reform petition or anything else. But as a matter of expediency only I claim that the fiscal side should generally be presented first. After half or two-thirds of the people in a community have signed a single tax petition the entire community will have learned that Henry George does not propose to divide up the land or confiscate land and improvements, or do anything else which need alarm the average citizen. Meanwhile interest in the subject has been excited. Here and there a thinking man who had always thought it a waste of time to read “Progress and Poverty,” is induced to do so. Again, the single tax missionary with the petition is constantly meeting with people who are ready to hear the whole truth, and they do hear it then and there from his lips and from tracts specially adapted to such cases.
The fact is, while we may attempt to keep the fiscal side to the front, we cannot help appealing in many cases to the listener’s sense of justice, and this appeal is generally, as you say, more effectual than the appeal to his selfishness. I think, perhaps, the advantage we have found to result from presenting the fiscal side of the question first lies as much in the fact that it is the easiest way of teaching the truth as in anything else. It only takes a few words to show any man the absurdity of a system of taxation which encourages speculators to hold land in idleness and discourages capitalists from investing their wealth in enterprises giving employment to labor. This is the first lesson, and the result of it is to incline the listener to a favorable opinion of the single tax doctrine.
H. F. RING.
Will Governor Brown Explain?
MANITOU SPRINGS, Col.—THE STANDARD of July 21 contained an article with the above heading, wherein it is shown how Governor Brown of Georgia, in his message to the legislature of that state in 1860, showed how protectionism built up the great fortunes of a few in the north at the expense of the many, and that now the Governor says “the south ought to adopt the protective policy that enriches the north.”
The correspondent who brings forward the quotations asks Governor Brown to explain this discrepancy in his position. I lived in Atlanta, Ga., in 1883 and 1884 and the explanation that was given among Governor Brown’s neighbors was that he had become a large owner of iron mines and iron mills and lands in Alabama. He is a very wealthy man He sic a great deal of that kind of property and as he sells iron and employs labor he wants iron high and labor low. So he wants the United States government to maintain a policy which will insure him these two considerations; and he knows well enough that the tariff will do this for him.
But this is not the only thing that can be said about Governor Brown. I have a grievance of my own against him.
When I first went to Atlanta I was delighted to see the Atlanta Constitution, one of the ablest papers in the south, come out strongly in favor of free trade, and in a series of editorial articles which for clearness of reasoning and strength of statement, showing the fraud and deception in the claim that the tariff benefited the American people as a whole, equalled any newspaper articles I ever read.
But, behold! all at once, to the astonishment of everybody who took any interest in any economical subjects, these articles suddenly ceased, and in their place appeared arguments in favor of the tariff.
The favorite amusement of a number of the other newspapers in Georgia was to present in their columns a couple of articles from the Constitution, one printed when that paper was for free trade and the other when it was in favor of a tariff on iron, etc.
The explanation of the change in policy that was current in Atlanta and repeated by Governor Brown’s friends was that he had bought a controlling interest in the paper, and that he intended it should advocate tariff principles because he owned large holdings of iron mines and mills.
So we free traders in Georgia, instead of being able to read free trade literature in the Atlanta Constitution were compelled to read articles favoring a tariff, all because Governor Brown had placed his grip on a portion of the earth containing iron. It is wonderful how a man’s interest will sometimes change his principles.
THOMAS HUNT.
Why New Yorkers Pay Two Prices for Raisins.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 19.—As an illustration of the way in which the land question naturally and necessarily forces itself into the tariff discussion now going on, here are some extracts from an article published in the San Francisco Call, giving opinions of leading merchants interested in the fruit trade, favoring protection to this “infant industry.” They illustrate very clearly by whom the benefits of “protection to American labor” are absorbed:
Raisins from Malaga are laid down in New York by the steamship companies with a freight charge of only eight cents per box, while it costs thirty-five cents per box to ship California raisins by rail from here to New York.
This extract doesn’t apparently bear distinctly on the land question, but suggests to me this idea: Considering the claimed right and avowed policy of our principal railroad company, in the words of its president, to charge “all the traffic will bear,” doesn’t it seem altogether likely that this charge of thirty-five cents per box would “bear” a little reduction in case it becomes necessary in order to enable California raisin growers to compete with the foreign article?
But it does have a bearing on the land question also, for the railroad monopoly is founded on the right of exclusive use of a narrow strip of land located in the most advantageous position to give an easy grade and tap the most productive country between certain points. By taxing the right of way to its full
p. 3, col. 5 rental value—“all the traffic would bear”—we would get the benefits of the monopoly element, leaving to the railroads the fair profits of conducting a transportation business; the more they taxed the shippers the more we would tax them.
But here is another extract, having a still more evident bearing:
Another fact bearing on this question: Raisin land in bearing is now worth, say $500 per acre. The grower receives on an average four cents per pound for his raisins. Now if the duty is reduced say one-half cent a pound, and the grower has to stand it, as he will, it reduces his income just one-eighth, and consequently the value of his land in like ratio, or $62.50 per acre. If the duty were abolished entirely and it were possible for the grower to continue, the value of his land would be reduced $100 per acre or less, as the profit lies in the amount received for his raisins in excess of two to two and one-half cents per pound.
So here we see the effect of this whole monstrous system is according to their own showing, not the protection of labor, but of land owners—the increase of rental and consequent selling value of land; but in my opinion the benefits are divided between the owners of raisin land and the transportation monopoly in such proportions as they may be able to agree upon, the lion’s share in all parts of the state where there is no railroad competition being taken by the railroad company. So it amounts to just this, that consumers in the east and all over the country, nine-tenths of whom belong practically to the “laboring classes,” are to be plundered to the extent of the duty in order to boom the price of California land and add to the vast incomes of railroad “magnates.”
The person quoted in the above extracts forgets to make the usual protectionist claim that protection, while enabling the producer to obtain better prices, actually cheapens the article to the consumer; but this branch of the subject is ably elucidated in the regulation style in other interviews contained in the same article.
As to the labor employed in the fruit business, it is mostly Chinese labor, and the price of all is regulated by their competition, though some experiments have been made lately with negro labor brought from the south under contract.
In the whole article the question is viewed by the fruit growers from the standpoint of producers and land owners—never from the standpoint of consumers. They look at the benefits they think they get from protection, not at the disadvantages which they know result from it.
The only real protection, the only protection that will protect everybody while wronging nobody, is protection from imposition, not from competition; from monopoly, not for monopoly; from robbery, not by robbery.
W. G. SELLERS.
In Southern California.
LOS ANGELES, Cal.—It is quite evident the temperance people and the republicans do not agree as to who should be elected president. The temperance people had a rousing open air meeting here the other evening. One of the speakers said: “They say we helped knock out the republican party four years ago. I own it. We plead guilty and we are going to do it again this year. Do you know what G. O. P. means? It means ‘Got off the perch.’”
I meet many people who say they voted for Blaine four years ago, but this year they will vote the democratic ticket, as the platform of that party represents their ideas on the tariff question. There is a strong sentiment among the people throughout this district in favor of a modification of the revenue. They believe wool, lumber, coal, salt, steel and drugs ought to be admitted free of duty.
THE STANDARD is an excellent paper. Its circulation will make voters for Cleveland.
SUN SET.
PERSONAL.
The Northwestern Labor Review publishes a letter from Clarence Moeller to J. H. Gooch. Mr. Moeller, who until recently supported the ticket of the united labor party, now says: “The logic of events forces me reluctantly to come over to the position of Mr. George, which you have already done. While I have felt that any hope from the democrats was largely a matter of faith, still the vote on the wool question shows that they have fallen into line with Mr. Cleveland’s policy of a re-duction of the present wicked levy by placing raw material on the free list.”
Word has just been received of the safe arrival in Ireland of Mr. Henry Ancketill, for a long time connected with THE STANDARD. During the passage over he was requested to explain the single tax doctrine to the passengers assembled in the cabin, which he did, and made several converts and started many more to thinking. Men gathered together in groups day after day during the remainder of the voyage to discuss the questions.
James M. Duncan, president of Typographical union No. 6, told Eber Thompson that he is going to vote the democratic national ticket this fall. He has always been a republican, but because of the Tribune trouble he voted for Cleveland in 1884. He says protection doesn’t appear to him to have done any good, and he is willing to give the free traders a chance.
John Swinton last week had an operation performed on his right eye by Dr. [Born?], the well known eye specialist, for cataract, from which he has been suffering since February. The crystalline lens was extracted. No test of the vision has yet been made, but it is believed that sight will be restored. Mr. Swinton is still confined to a darkened room in Dr. Knapp’s eye and ear infirmary.
Samuel A. Boyd, manager of the Keystone watch club company, celebrated his birthday on Saturday last by taking his employes and some other friends on a coaching trip down to Coney island. Arriving there they found that he had arranged for a fine dinner. When coffee had been served and speaking was begun Mr. Boyd called upon William J. Gorsuch to explain the single tax doctrine, which Mr. Gorsuch did very eloquently, and started several men to thinking who had never thought seriously on the subject before.
p. 3, col. 6
sic, PASTE AND SCISSORS.
A white marble bust of Apollo, said to be of wonderful beauty, has just arrived in Constantinople from Smyrna, where it had been excavated along with a Juno and a Roman emperor. Connoisseurs say the Apollo is of the time of Praxiteles.
Russia imports annually 360,000,000 pounds of cotton, chiefly from America and Egypt, but it is believed that recent acquisitions of the czar in central Asia are excellently adapted for cotton raising. Some has already been grown at Khiva and Bokhara, and an extensive system of irrigation is being created to develop other land for this crop.
On July 9 the atmosphere in the English channel became so rarefied that objects could be seen with extraordinary distinctness at a distance of between thirty and forty miles from Dover and Folkestone. Nature says that the light house at Cape Grisnez, Calais and the dome of the cathedral, and Napoleon’s column at Boulogne, could be distinctly seen with the naked eye, and every prominent object could be picked out along the French coast. The distance from Dover to Boulogne as the crow flies is twenty-eight miles, and the column is about two miles further inland.
Mr. F. Lugrin of Geneva has discovered a method of feeding young fish of the trout and salmon varieties. Great difficulty has hitherto been experienced in carrying the the young sic through the first year of their existence, the artificial food not being sufficiently nutritious, often costly, and involving constant care and attention. Mr. Lugrin’s invention consists in a material which, when spread on the bottom of a tank, spontaneously produces myriads of minute organisms. When one tank is depleted the fish are driven off to another pasture similarly prepared. The first tank, at the end of a few weeks, is again swarming with organic life.
The drastic censorship of the press in Russia is a curious study for Americans. We have most of us seen Russian newspapers with whole columns blurred out by the censor. Carlyle’s histories of “Frederick the Great” and “The French Revolution” have only just been admitted to circulation. The queerest thing is to take the French and Russian editions of Rambaud’s “History of Russia” (London, 1879) and compare them; no one would recognize them as the same work. But then, as the celebrated Olga Novikoff once said to the present writer, “You know our peasants are not allowed to know that Peter III was murdered by the Empress Catharine.” The whole thing was contained in that sentence.—[Belford’s Magazine.
Kuhlow’s of Berlin says that the time is quickly drawing near when Hamburg, Bremen, Bremerhaven and Altona will relinquish their time honored privileges as commercial ports and will enter the Zollverein. The date fixed for the transition is October 1 of the present year, and the requisite measures are being busily pushed forward at all these places, as well as on the side of the customs department. It will be long before the inhabitants of the free ports get accustomed to the changed conditions, and it is only to be expected that the alteration will give rise to heart burning, but everybody recognizes the departure as an inevitable one. The fact of these cities coming under the tariff regulations of the empire instead of having the regulation of their own trade as heretofore has not stopped them from making extensive preparations for increased commerce.
It is proposed to have a national zoological park in the suburbs of Washington. The site selected is one of the best for such a purpose in the country. Through the center of it winds Rock creek, a most picturesque little stream, from the banks of which, on either side, rise a series of beautiful hills covered with fine timber. The area of the proposed park is about one hundred and twenty-one acres. About three-fourths of it is covered with forest, and although its length is only three-fourths of a mile, the course of the stream in passing through it is more than a mile and one-third. It is believed that the entire tract can be purchased for less than two hundred thousand dollars. The distance from the White house to the proposed entrance to the park is but a little more than two miles. If congress acts promptly in authorizing the establishment of a national zoological park, specimens of animals that have already become practically extinct, although they were numerous when America was first settled by Europeans, may yet be obtained, and in time the entire fauna of the country may be represented.
Plans have been completed and funds subscribed for the holding of a national exposition of the cigar and tobacco industries at New York city on or about May 1, 1889. Prizes, medals and diplomas will be awarded. The plan of operation includes a display of tobacco in all its forms, such as cigars, cigarettes, smoking, chewing and plug tobaccos, snuffs, etc. It will also comprise an exhibition of all inventions in cigar and tobacco machinery, cigar lithography, cigar box and cigar ribbon making, packing and all other exhibits illustrating manufacture in tobacco and its kindred trades. The report of the committee appointed to consider the advisability of holding the exposition says: “That the propriety of such an enterprise is proven by the fact that America leads all the world in all the departments of the tobacco industry; that there are over 500,000 men engaged in the industry, either as growers or manufacturers or dealers; that the exposition would have an educational influence on consumers and manufacturers alike, benefiting both classes and developing the standard of manufacturing excellence.”
Discussion Leading the Workingmen Toward Free Trade.
The workingmen of Milwaukee have two societies, the Working People’s club and the Fraternity club, which maintain free platforms for the discussion of the vital social and political questions sic the day. They hold weekly meetings and of late, as a matter of course, the tariff question has almost monopolized the discussions. The Milwaukee Review makes this observation: “It is noticeable that a great majority of not only the members of the club, but of the outsiders who attend the meetings and take part in the discussions, are opposed to the present high tariff. Many are absolute free traders; others favor a lowering of the tariff imposed upon imports, while a few, a small minority, believe that to tinker with the tariff will have the effect to cause a reduction of wages to workingmen and advise that it be let severely alone. One who regularly attends these debates cannot but be convinced that there is a growing tendency on the part of workingmen toward free trade. They do not longer believe that the only hope of the wage and salary slave lies in the perpetuation of the iniquitous high tariff—in other words, they do not believe that protection protects.
TO SINGLE TAX CLEVELAND VOTERS.
The conference of single tax men held at Cooper union, New York, on Monday, August 6, decided to make an enrollment of all single tax men who propose to support Cleveland and Thurman. All who desire to have their names added to this roll can do so by signing the blank given below and forwarding it to this office. One blank can be made to serve for a number of signatures by clipping it out and pasting it on a sheet of paper.
I authorize the enrollment of my name on the list of voters who propose to support Cleveland and Thurman in the coming election, on the ground that any step toward tariff reduction tends toward the abolition of all taxes on the products of labor, and the final transfer of such taxes to land values.
NAME,……………………………………
ADDRESS,…………………………………
Send this blank when signed to THE STANDARD office, 12 Union square, New York.
Page 4 of 8contents
4 THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, AUGUST 11 1888.
p. 4, col. 1
THE STANDARD.
HENRY GEORGE, Editor and Proprietor.
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SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1888.
THE STANDARD is forwarded to subscribers by the early morning mails each Thursday. Subscribers who do not receive the paper promptly will confer a favor by communicating with the publisher.
MR. SHEARMAN ON THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.
The “platform of principles” adopted by the republican convention of 1888 is one of the most thoroughly unprincipled declarations ever made by any great party in any civilized country. Even in the worst days of public plunder no party ever before dared to go before the people on issues almost exclusively relating to the management of state or national finances, without a single word in favor of economy, prudence, honesty or integrity in the administration of the public funds, and demanding, on the contrary, a policy of unbounded expenditure and reckless extravagance for the sake of keeping up taxation. Yet this is what the great party, which owed its origin entirely to a great moral movement and appealed only to the conscience of the people, has now done. Not one word can be found in this platform which, directly or by implication, promises for its own party or demands from their opponents the slightest economy or even honesty in public expenditures. Such promises have doubtless often been hypocritical; but it is an evil omen for the republic when vice no longer deems it necessary to pay even the homage of hypocrisy to virtue.
The omission of all reference to economy, moreover, is not a mere accident. The whole spirit of this declaration is plainly opposed to economy. It demands national aid to state schools—in other words, the Blair bill, distributing $70,000,000 among the states; a bounty to ship builders and ship owners, to make it worth their while to run empty ships to and from foreign ports after the merchandise, which would naturally fill the ships, has been excluded by a tariff still higher than that now existing; appropriations for rebuilding the navy; for fortifications against invisible enemies; for ordnance which will be as obsolete as wooden guns long before it can be used; for scratching creeks and harbors, and finally for pensioning every soldier without regard to his real needs or merits. After such clear and unequivocal declarations in favor of squandering the public moneys in every conceivable direction, it certainly would have required greater coolness in hypocrisy than even Joseph Surface possessed to say a word in favor of economy.
It is fit that such a platform should omit all those appeals to the honor and conscience of the American people, which were such striking features of all republican platforms during the first quarter century of its existence. This omission is conclusive proof either that the party now in power has conformed and may be trusted to conform to all that is required by the public conscience, or else that the republican party, which was founded upon moral ideas, no longer cares for such things. It is entirely fit that such a platform should ignore the past pledges of the party to an honest payment of the public debt and should condemn the refusal of the present administration to degrade the currency of the country by an unlimited issue of silver, which would of course instantly banish gold from circulation. It is equally fit that in a final desperation of fear lest all possible squandering of the public funds should fail to reduce the surplus, the platform should declare for free whisky rather than that the slightest reduction should be made upon the necessaries of life.
Quite irrespective of the question of protection the new platform, as a whole, is the most wicked and conscienceless declaration ever made in the history of politics. It does not at all follow that the convention which adopted this platform, without a chance to read it, was composed of conscienceless or unprincipled men. On the contrary, it is altogether probable that it contained a larger proportion of conscientious and personally honorable men than the convention which met at St. Louis. It is quite probable that even the men who framed this platform in committee are personally upright and could safely be trusted with any amount of public money, without the slightest apprehension that they would ever misappropriate one dollar for their own use. I am sure that this is true of Mr. McKinley, the only member of the committee whose name I now know, and who is, of course, the chief author of the platform.
The fact that such good men can deliberately frame such a bad platform has a deeper meaning than appears upon the surface. They are driven to it by their fanatical devotion to the cause of “protection,” which they now see cannot be
p. 4, col. 2 maintained on any other terms. Not one of them, in all probability, is really in favor of squandering the hard earned money of the people in the various ways which they recommend. Not half of them favor any one of the schemes which they unanimously indorse. Not one member from the eastern states approves of the silver clause or the river and harbor clause. Not one-fifth of the members from northern states are at heart in favor of free whisky. Yet none of them ventured to dissent, either in committee or in convention, from a policy of unlimited sicver, unlimited extravagance and unlimited whisky.
There are, of course, many excellent men who sincerely believe that silver coinage ought to be unlimited and that whisky ought not to be made a source of revenue to the government. That is no excuse for this platform. It is perfectly well known that the mass of the republican convention held no such belief, that at least one-third of its members heartily approved of everything which the present administration has done to restrict silver coinage (in which, indeed, it has simply followed the course of three republican administrations preceding it), and that more than two-thirds of them believed that the abolition of the tax on whisky would lead to a vast increase of drunkenness and would be a national calamity. Indeed, the language of the platform makes it perfectly clear that the convention regarded the repeal of the whisky tax as an evil. If it had considered this repeal a desirable thing in itself, it would sic declared plainly for it. But, by mentioning it as a last resort, only to be adopted in case it should be absolutely necessary to avoid the least reduction of the protective tariff, the convention showed that it regarded such a repeal as a disaster, which, however, it was prepared to endure rather than to surrender the smallest shred of taxation for the profit of private individuals. And it is certain that the objection of the majority of republicans to the repeal of the whisky tax is based upon moral grounds. It is because this tax is the only method by which the federal government can restrain the use of whisky that they support it. Only by an amendment to the constitution, which is practically impossible, can the federal power prohibit or limit the sale of whisky otherwise than by taxing it.
The position of the republican party, then, is precisely the same as if a convention of professing Christians should resolve that, if it should become absolutely necessary, in order to enable them to make their usual profits in business, that atheism should be taught in the public schools, atheism should be taught accordingly. There are sincere atheists, of whom Mr. Ingersoll is an example. But who, more than he, would despise Christians who were willing to sell their faith for the sake of their profits? Just so, it does not relieve the republican party from the disgrace of selling its convictions on the temperance question for the sake of “protection,” to show that there are a few sincere temperance fanatics who would rather that a million men should be made drunkards by free whisky than that any remedy short of total prohibition should be adopted.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits.” The fruit of a hardened faith in protective tariffs is a readiness, upon the part of men naturally honest to abandon all their principles, to consent to acts which, in their judgment, repeatedly expressed, tend to corrupt the integrity and debauch the morals of the people, and to squander, without even a pretense of economy or caution the proceeds of taxes taken mainly from the poor, rather than to submit to the smallest reduction of the profits of protected owners of mines and factories. Since, by the admission of its own champions, the protective policy cannot be maintained without such infamous results, that policy must, in itself, be essentially wicked and corrupt. No severer condemnation has ever been passed upon the whole tariff system than that which is plainly implied in the republican platform of 1888.
THOMAS G. SHEARMAN.
Luzerne, Switzerland, July, 1888.
THE TARIFF AND THE SINGLE TAX.
The Chicago Labor Enquirer—Joseph R. Buchanan’s paper—is throwing itself most heartily into the fight for free trade, declaring protection to be an encroachment upon the natural rights of man and the constitutional rights of the citizen, and that the settlement of the “labor problem” involves the extermination of these privileges that carry with them the taxing power.
Even supposing they are right as to their selfish interests, which it utterly denies, it compares “wage earners like those of the union labor party who protest against a reduction of the tariff,” under the supposition that it advances their interests, to the slave overseers of slaves:
Their attitude in politics toward the labor of unprotected industries is identical with that of Sambo, the lash plier, toward the cotton pickers on Legree’s plantation, even supposing they get advanced wages through the tariff. Then they get the advance as a reward for the votes that enable the Legrees of protection to tax the multitude at their will. So Sambo got cast off garments from his master for faithful service with his rawhide in the cotton field. What, at the year’s end, had Sambo to show for that, more than his fellow slaves? A brutish nature that sic him for selection as overseer more brutalized. What else?
With the men (now happily very few) who, while declaring themselves in favor of the single tax, propose to ignore the tariff as a “trivial” question, the Enquirer has as little patience. This, it says, amounts to the declaration that the removal of taxes from labor products is of prime importance, p. 4, col. 3 but the removal of one-third of those taxes is “trivial:”
Comment is hardly needed. Taxes on personalty, improvements and internal federal taxes are direct, and afford no one a bounty except as they compel a larger capital with which to conduct business; but think of our tariff taxes:
Iron ore is worth a certain sum in England (say $10 per ton for ease of calculation). The American mine owner must sell at $10 or the American manufacturer will buy in England. Now place a duty of 50 per cent on iron ore; the American manufacturer must pay $10 to the English miner and $5 to the government—making $15. The American miner is now in competition with $15, instead of $10 ore, and of course raises his price, thus making his mine worth 50 per cent more than under free trade. Is it not true that the tariff operates to intensify the “unearned increment?” the private appropriation of which is the disturber of the social equilibrium, according to the land reformers. Will not the same reasoning apply to sugar lands, lumber lands, copper lands—any lands? Squarely, what is the difference between the “raw material” of the free trader and the “land” of the political economist? Are they not one and the same thing when analyzed?
Thus, while the tariff is a tax on labor products—just as are internal, personal and improvement taxes, against which the wrath of our single tax comrades is undisguised—it is open to much more serious objection, in that it sustains a bounty system which has no parallel outside of pure landlordism itself.
The tariff is too “trivial” a question to be mentioned in the united labor platform, but such economically unsound propositions as opposition to convict labor are mentioned and indorsed, and are, therefore, considered of more importance than the tariff question. No wonder reformers are usually considered dreamers.
If there is any body of men who should use their utmost strength to aid and force, by every means in their power, the tariff reform fight, one would think the single tax men would be that body.
Continuing the iron mine illustration: Suppose we now remove the 50 per cent duty, do we not destroy one-third of the value of the American mine? Do we not thus make plain the fact that the private sic of “real” values is the result of legislation? Is it not clear that this value is the result of the power to deny men access to natural opportunities, as the moment the tariff is removed a broader field is open to labor, and at once the value of the ownership declines? And will it not be easy to teach that the remaining value is the result of the same power, and thus open the way for the full land tenure reform?
In short, are we not at every stage in the tariff fight teaching the same economic ideas, the same social philosophy as is taught by the clear headed land reformer? Have we not, then, prepared the minds of the people for still broader truths? Have we not made an advance that makes our farther advance easier?
LITERARY PROPERTY.
The United States judges of the northern district of California—Field, Sawyer and Ogden—have rendered a decision respecting rights of property in unpublished manuscripts which strongly marks a tendency toward first principles.
That an author has an absolute natural right of property in his arrangement of words, and that this right continues and cannot be justly limited to a period of years, has been pointed out in these columns. The right was at one time recognized in English jurisprudence, and but for a thoughtless confusion of literary property with monopoly would be fully recognized now both in England and America. In the reign of Queen Anne a copyright statute was adopted which secured to authors for a term of years the sole right of publishing their works. “Thomson’s Seasons” was copyrighted under this statute, and being published without authority after the expiration of the term, a suit was brought which was finally determined on the opinions of the judges in the house of lords. It being agreed that the author’s right of property was absolute at common law, the question was whether the statute of Queen Anne had merely accorded additional protection for a period or had substituted a limited right for the absolute right. Some of the judges maintained that the common law right had not been abrogated; but others were of opinion that the statutory copyright was a substitute for that at common law, and therefore advised that all rights of property in “Thomson’s Seasons” were at an end. And they were strongly influenced in arriving at this conclusion by the impression that copyright was a monopoly which parliament had intended to limit pursuant to the theory, then well established, that monopolies were contrary to public policy. The house of lords sustained this view, and thenceforth “Thomson’s Seasons” has been common property.
Following this adjudication it has ever since been held that an author’s property in his published work can be secured only by statutory copyright; but it is also well settled that until an author publishes his work by distributing copies to the general public his common law right of property continues. This, however, is of little benefit to any but dramatic authors and lecturers, since others can make no profit without distributing copies of what they write. And it is chiefly in cases of dramatic compositions and lectures that the right of “first publication,” as it is now called, has been established.
When foreign plays were in vogue here American managers bought rights of American representatives. Such plays could not be copyrighted because they were written by foreign authors, but the exclusive right of representation was protected by holding that the author, whether native or alien, had an unqualified property in his manuscript until he published it, and that until he did publish it no one could read it or represent it on the stage without his permission. It is a case of this kind that the California court has just decided. A firm of managers, Conreid & Goldmark, bought from the foreign authors the right to represent the comic opera, “Nanon,” in the United States. After their purchase the piano score was published p. 4, col. 4 by the authors as alleged, and Joseph Kreling, the defendant in the suit, claiming that the score was common property by virtue of its authorized publication, arranged an orchestration from it. It was to enjoin him from producing the opera, thus prepared, that Conreid & Goldmark brought the suit.
Proceeding logically from the accepted theory as to common law right and copyright, already explained, Conreid & Goldmark were not entitled to their injunction. They had not bought the manuscript. If they had, its publication by the authors would have been in violation of their right as owners and of no more effect in dedicating it to public use than unauthorized publication by any other disinterested party. But what Conreid & Goldmark bought, and all they bought, was a license to put the manuscript to stage use in the United States—the right of first publication still remaining with the authors. This right of first publication the authors exercised, and when they did so, according to the current of decisions, the right was exhausted, the manuscript became common property, and any license to use it, such as Conreid & Goldmark’s, merged in the broader rights of the public.
But the California court protected Conreid & Goldmark. It said: “They were the owners for America, and in possession of the manuscript before there was any publication of any part in Europe or America. The authors certainly could not have sold and conveyed any right to a third party to perform their operetta in America so as to cut off the prior, exclusive right conveyed to Goldmark & Conreid. If they could not cut them off by subsequent sale, we do not see how they could do it by subsequent dedication to the public by publication. In our judgment, the defendants had no right to use the piano score, even if it had been published by the authors in Europe after the right of complainants had attached.”
This decision proceeds upon the theory that the right of first publication in an unpublished manuscript may be parceled out so that dedication by an owner for one territory shall not destroy the property right of an owner for another territory. In other words, that the right of first publication may be in several people at the same time, and that its exercise by one shall affect only his property, leaving the others each for himself to make a second, third, fourth or fifth first publication at pleasure. That theory is inconsistent with the irrational doctrine that any authorized publication is dedicative, and if sustained, will go a long way toward overthrowing it and re-establishing the author’s absolute property right in his arrangement of words, which is by nature as clear as the property right of a shoemaker in his arrangement of leather and thread.
A LAW BREAKER IN OFFICE.
The echoes of the letter carriers’ congratulatory parade have scarcely died away, when Mr. Postmaster Pearson coolly announces that he intends, not indeed to set the eight hour law at defiance, but to obey it after such fashion that the letter carriers shall curse the day that ever it was enacted. “It is apparent,” says Mr. Pearson in a statement he has issued to the public, “that the carriers made a great mistake. They saw fit to take the matter into their own hands, ignoring the responsible head of the service with whom all proposals for postal legislation properly originate; sent delegates from various cities to Washington, maintaining them there as a lobby, and finally secured the passage of their bill. The embarrassment and disturbance it has caused, both here and at other cities, were foreseen; but we have honestly endeavored to make the best of the situation. In arranging schedules to meet its requirements the most laborious and careful study was necessary and was given to the matter, in order to give the carriers all possible consideration and at the same time furnish and maintain a good service. This could not be done without such an apportionment of the time which is covered by deliveries and collections as leaves the carriers with varying and irregular intervals between their tours of actual service, and the inevitable consequence is that many of them are worse off than before.”
To say that many of the carriers “are worse off than they were before,” is to put the matter very euphemistically indeed. Here is the story of a single branch office—Station F. It employs three carriers and two collectors, who spend their days as follows:
One carrier reports for duty at 6 a. m. and works continuously till 9.15 a. m. Then he takes a “swing” of nearly seven hours, returning to duty at 4 p. m. and working till 8.45.
The second carrier works from 6.15 a. m. to 11 a. m., when he “swings” to noon; works from noon to 2.15 p. m., “swings” to 5.45 p. m., and finishes his day at 6.45 p. m.
The third carrier begins the day at 7.15 a. m., works till noon, “swings” to 3 p. m., works till 5.15 p. m., “swings” to 7.30 p. m. and works till 8.30 p. m.
The first collector works from 5.15 a. m. to 6.15 a. m., “swings” to 7.15 a. m., works till 10.15 a. m., “swings” to 3.15 p. m. and works till 7.15 p. m.
The second collector works from 10 a. m. till 3 p. m.; “swings” to 8:40 p. m.; and works till 11:40 p. m.
Bear in mind that these men, if they want to visit their homes during their “swings,” must travel to and fro in their own time; remember, also, that besides their regular daily duty it is exacted of them that they should hunt up obscure addresses, and enter and forward removals, using their own time for the work, p. 4, col. 5 if necessary, and it is pretty evident that if they are not “worse off than before,” their previous condition must have been bad indeed. To say that they are in any way getting the benefit of an eight hour law is to insult them with stones for bread.
Mr. Pearson apparently thinks it his paramount duty to make a certain number of letter deliveries daily; and proposes to obey the spirit of the eight hour law only as far as can conveniently be done without neglecting the more important duty. What he should do is directly the reverse. It were better that the deliveries should be cut down to any extent than that any citizen should be deprived of any jot or tittle of his legal rights. The intent of the law clearly and unmistakably is that the letter carriers shall work eight hours daily, and no more. That law was made for Mr. Pearson’s government; and his first duty is to obey it. He should arrange his delivery system as best he can without breaking the law; and if he finds that an extra force of carriers is needed for the full efficiency of the system, the remedy is in an application to congress.
But the fact is that there is no difficulty in arranging a perfectly satisfactory system of letter delivery, and at the same time observing both the letter and the spirit of the law. It is being done in Philadelphia; it is being done in Brooklyn, and presumably it is being done in Boston, and other cities. And what is being done elsewhere can be done here. It is only the desire to do that is wanting.
And it is remarkable that Mr. Pearson’s anxiety for efficiency by no means extends to every department of the office under his control. He prefers to flagrantly defy the spirit of a statute rather than permit the slightest delay in the delivery of a letter. But it happens, not occasionally, but week after week, that THE STANDARD, mailed in New York on Wednesday afternoon, does not reach towns twenty miles distant by trunk railways until Friday or Saturday. Unless Mr. Pearson is guilty of discriminating against THE STANDARD, what happens in the case of this paper must also happen in the case of all others; and an important function of the post office is thus neglected, apparently with no better excuse than that the neglect is not apt to excite attention. Mr. Pearson is less anxious to be a good postmaster than to seem a good postmaster, and the rights of the letter carriers are sacrificed to his seeming.
Mr. Pearson would be a good man to dismiss. A flagrant law breaker has no business at the head of a great public office. Or if President Cleveland should find it necessary to retain him in the public service, as a concession to the Evening Post, we respectfully suggest that he be transferred to Brooklyn or Philadelphia, where the problem that he finds insoluble has already been solved, and that Mr. Harrity or Mr. Hendricks be given his position here.
WORKINGMEN SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.
The single tax men of Indianapolis turned the tables neatly on the protectionists last Thursday. It had become apparent to the protectionist managers that the workingmen of Indiana were not to be misled by the lies and sophistries of protection, and these managers attempted to make a decoy duck of ex-Governor Porter, a man of great popularity with Indiana workingmen, by nominating him for governor. To help along this purpose they called a workingman’s mass meeting in the state house yard to consider the propriety of urging ex-Governor Porter to become a candidate for governor. If this meeting had gone smoothly the telegraph would no doubt have carried the news in all directions that the workingmen of Indianapolis had declared for Porter and Harrison. But the meeting did not go smoothly according to the notions of the schemers who called it, though it went smoothly enough according to the views of the meeting itself. The organized laborers of Indiana turned out in large numbers, and after electing for chairman L. P. Custer, who is well known to STANDARD readers as an energetic single tax advocate, adopted the following resolutions;
Under a call from the political friends of Benjamin Harrison, published in the daily papers of Indianapolis, for a mass meeting of laboring men for the purpose of considering the propriety of urging ex-Governor A. G. Porter to become a candidate for governor of the republican party of Indiana, and to give an honest expression of their feelings upon that subject: Now, therefore, we, a popular gathering of workingmen, representing the several industries of the city of Indianapolis, irrespective of party, here assembled, sic
First—We are unalterably opposed to the election of Benjamin Harrison to the presidency of the United States, because his life and official record fully demonstrate that he is blindly wedded to the corporate powers of the country, and has no proper regard for the interests of labor.
Second—That we are not to be longer deceived by a system of extortionate “war taxation,” although denominated “protection,” which demands tribute from the millions of wage workers for the benefit of the wealthy trusts and combines.
Third—That we demand cheaper necessaries of life, a wider market for our products, and that the American home shall not be transformed into a grog shop and our people debauched by cheap whisky.
Fourth—That to become a candidate on the republican state ticket is to adopt Benjamin Harrison’s record and the platform on which he stands, and we now pledge our votes and influence in opposition both to said candidate and platform, and likewise to any person who shall espouse them. Therefore be it
Resolved, That we sincerely advise Albert G. Porter, who has heretofore evinced a spirit of friendship toward the workingmen of Indiana, that he shall not, at this late day in his life, place himself in an attitude of hostility to their interest or lend himself to his personal enemies, who would thus use him in an hour of dire extremity for their own p. 4, col. 6 selfish purposes, and bring upon his own head final humiliation and defeat.
After the adoption of the resolutions a committee of ninety-five men who had never voted any but a republican ticket, with Mr. Custer at their head, was appointed to wait upon ex-Governor Porter and present the resolutions to him.
That stanch protection organ, the Philadelphia Press, denounces the callers of this meeting as “meddlers,” and admits that the meeting “pretty effectually ended the talk of Porter, at least for the time being.” As the Press states in the same article that until the meeting “there was no doubt in the minds of any one that Porter would be nominated, and that when nominated he would accept,” the single tax men of Indianapolis may congratulate themselves.
The Indiana state federation of trades has also, in spite of the efforts of the republican managers, adopted resolutions denouncing Gen. Harrison’s candidacy, and calling on workingmen in that and other states to vote against him.
The Philadelphia Record has been making investigations into the condition of “protected American labor” in the Wyoming coal fields of Pennsylvania. It finds that there are 8,000 Hungarians and Poles, and 1,500 or 2,000 Italians in the valley—about one-third of the entire number of laborers. Last year 2,000 Hungarians and Poles came into the region directly from Castle garden. To show that this influx of population consists largely of imported laborers, the Record publishes the statement of a member of the coal pool, who stated that in 1887 the coal operators of the anthracite region, after consultation, decided that in order to keep the labor in the coal fields in subjection it was necessary to do two things; first, to make twice as many coal openings as were necessary to supply the demand, and second, to get a supply of cheap foreign labor large enough to overstock the region, so that when any trouble should arise there would be plenty of surplus labor on hand, and if a strike should occur at one point the supply of coal could be kept up at another point.
The result of this policy has already been to reduce wages 25 per cent and to crowd into houses owned by the operators and formerly occupied by one family, as many as thirty or forty Hungarians, each paying $1 a month for lodging.
That free trade would do away with this infamous condition is not pretended. Nothing short of the single tax upon land values, which would make labor free, will do that. But free trade would meliorate the condition of the miner and it is the falsest kind of pretense to claim that tariff duties is of the slightest benefit to him.
The Press has discovered another mare’s nest. This time it is in the manufacture of labels. Hinds, Ketcham & Co., label manufacturers of Brooklyn, E. D., find that they cannot manufacture labels for canned salmon for less than $1.35 per thousand, but a German house offers such labels for 84 cents a thousand. The tariff is 25 per cent, which enables the German house to deliver their labels in New York for about $1.05, and the senior member of the Brooklyn firm says that if the tariff on labels were taken off “he would have to pay his laborers starvation wages or shut down altogether.” Taking his own figures there is nothing mysterious about his conclusion; but what is mysterious about the whole affair is why he doesn’t have to shut down now. How can he compete with a house that delivers labels here for $1.05 when he is compelled to charge sic.
Mr. Hinds says that “these facts show a condition of affairs that he would like to see the free traders explain.” We frankly admit that free traders cannot explain how Mr. Hinds gets $1.35 a thousand for labels when the same goods can be bought in the same market for $1.05. Can Mr. Hinds explain it?
If he can he might, while he is about it, also explain what effect it would have on his business if there were no protective duty on paper and the machinery and materials entering into the manufacture of paper, on inks and the machinery and materials entering into their manufacture, and on his own machinery and materials other than paper and inks. Although some of these things are not protected, yet many of them are, and with a proper schedule before them his workmen might be able to figure out how much he would have to cut down their wages if free trade were established.
And inasmuch as he says that he “employs several hundred laborers and pays fair wages,” will he kindly state how much higher wages he pays than he is compelled to pay, and whether he would pay higher or lower wages if an embargo were laid on the importation of labels.
The Recorder of Americus, Ga., wants some inventive genius to discover a method by which the latent force that is wrapped up in street loafers can be made active, and thinks he could make a pile of money and fame that would carry his name to posterity as one of the great of earth. But nothing is said about the good it would do the street loafers, because, perhaps, it is obvious that so far at least as getting a living is concerned it wouldn’t do them any good. That latent force, like every other latent force when released, would be applied to the raising of land values.
There is a method, however, by which the latent force wrapped up in street continued on p. 5 →
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p. 5, col. 1 [continued from page 4]
← continued from p. 4 loafers can be made active and at the same time secure to the “loafers” themselves all the benefit of its activity. The principle sic why it is not active is because the “loafers” cannot get anything to do without begging for it as a privilege, and they are so far philosophers that they do not regard the privilege as one worth begging for. If they are to beg at all, they prefer to beg for the products of work instead of the privilege of working, deeming it quite as profitable and not so irksome. But if land values were taxed to the full, so that public expenses could be met from the public fund that is now diverted to private uses, and business be relieved of all burdens, all land that had no present rental value would be in common, and any one could put it to use. Such a condition sic make industry the only source of wealth, and so stimulate enterprise that men, instead of begging for work to do, would be begged of to do work at rates of wages which would secure to them the products of their labor. That this would be the effect is proved by the fact that when opportunities to work are very scarce there are plenty of tramps, but when it is comparatively plentiful the tramps are few.
Before the American revolution, the colonists had made such progress in iron manufacture that they were exporting both pig and bar iron to England. England was then a high protective country, and for the benefit of her iron manufacturers a colonial export duty was imposed on American iron. The duty was subsequently repealed, but in the face of a perfect storm of opposition from the English iron manufacturers, who whined, much after the fashion of our protected monopolists of to-day, that if they had to compete with American makers of iron they would be ruined, the English and Welsh furnaces would have to be closed, and “a great number of families reduced to beggary.” Since those days we have become a protective country, while England has become a free trade country, and now it is our manufacturers who want to keep English iron cut of our sic, instead of English manufacturers wanting, as then, to keep American iron out of their market. Is not the inference obvious?
Frank Hurd’s zeal got ahead of his discretion when in his recent article on tariff reform in Belford’s Magazine he said:
You may reduce as much as you please the taxes on whisky and tobacco, and I will have to pay just as much for the cigar which I buy from the tobacconist, or for the glass of whisky I buy at the bar.
If the tax on tobacco and the tax on whisky do not enhance prices to the consumer then it must also be true that the tax on wool and the tax on lumber do not, and indirect taxation does, indeed, afford a means for making governments rich without making the sic poor.
The Nashville American (Dem.), which was much disturbed by Judge Reid’s announcement that he, as a single tax man, would support Cleveland and Thurman, is still more disturbed by Judge Reid’s speech. It says:
The speech of Judge Reid, the main points of which we published yesterday morning, fully confirms the view we took of his change when it was announced. Now that Judge Reid’s position is fully stated, in favor of taxing land up to its rental value, indorsing in toto the Henry George idea, the democrats who were so ready to rejoice over his conversion had better take time by the forelock and overrule their hasty decision.
If Judge Reid had not announced his purpose to support Mr. Cleveland because he thought that was the road to his desired destiny, the handshaking when he came over would have been all right.
A proposition to do away with impost duties and rely for revenue alone on a land tax—a land tax equal to the rental value—is simply communism, as we see it. Our dispatches from Washington a few days ago gave us to understand that there were thirty members of congress who had accepted this Henry George theory.
. . Judge Reid is a brilliant man and is going to press this doctrine. We hope he will not do it as a democrat. The democratic party is by no means communistic. The disturbance of rights is not in the democratic creed. The fundamental doctrine of the democratic party is that every man shall be protected in his liberty and his property.
This doctrine of collecting all the revenue by a land tax equal to the rental value could not be enforced by the United States army. It is the wildest communism, and it is to be regretted that Henry George and his followers are tying on to Mr. Cleveland.
The Western Watchman of Eureka, California, undertakes to refute the assertion of the Arata sic that in every state where there has been effective temperance legislation it has been secured by the republican party in the face of the most persistent democratic opposition. First gently chiding the Union man as “a bacchanalian editor” who has been taking “post graduate courses in the Sagarac lying club,” it opens a ledger account with the two old parties, crediting each with the states which have adopted prohibitory legislation while under their control and debiting them with the states which, while under their control, have discarded it. The accounts foot up as follows:
DEMOCRATIC SUMMARY.
Cr.—By prohibitory enactments in 11 states (duplicated in 2) . . . . . 11 Dr.—By repealing prohibition in 4 states and changing law in Texas . . . 5 Balance to credit of party . . . . . sic
REPUBLICAN SUMMARY.
Cr.—By prohibitory enactments in 10 states (duplicated in 2) . . . . . 10 Dr.—By repealing prohibition in 10 states (duplicated in 2) . . . . . . . . . 10 Balance to credit of party. . . . . 0
Henry G. Hubbard, who sent the president a pair of suspenders and an announcement that he, the manufacturer thereof, was not afraid of the Mills bill, is said by the Middle-
p. 5, col. 2 town, Conn., Herald to have reduced the wages of the employes of the Russell manufacturing company every year since 1867, without reducing dividends a single time. The Herald adds that his employes are now ground down to the English wage standard. No wonder he is not afraid of the Mills bill. He would reduce wages still further if necessary.
We clip the above from the Press, and respectfully ask if the employes of the Russell manufacturing company have not had the benefit of the protective tariff since 1867? Also, if the said employes are already ground down to the “English wage standard,” wouldn’t it be an act of mercy to give their wages the English purchasing power? And, by the way, is it only when a manufacturer isn’t “afraid of the Mills bill” that he acquires the power to oppress his workmen?
There is a strong movement among the Minnesota democrats to nominate for governor Albert Scheffer, who has been spoken of for the republican candidacy and who is a strong tariff reformer. This would be wise. There are now but two real parties in the country—the protection and anti-protectionist parties.
That stanch single tax paper, the Houston Labor Echo, has dropped the word labor and become the Houston Echo. It does this, as it explains—
For the simple reason that the word “Labor” always arouses not only bitter opposition from narrow-minded bigots, but because it induces the impression even with intelligent people that the reforms demanded by the working classes would be narrow in their operation and result in injury to every class save the wage workers, when in reality they are of vital importance to and would benefit every class save the monopolists.
The Press remarks:
The Post is having lots of fun over the republican welcome to Blaine. Bless you, esteemed contemporary, Harrison can stand it. A fruitful tree is not jealous of the admiration paid to a gorgeous rosebush.
Is Mr. Blaine the rosebush?—or, is he the fruitful tree?
“Our 60,000,000 people,” said General Harrison at Indianapolis, “are the best buyers in the world.” And so the general puts himself at the head of the men who refuse to let them buy.
NOTES FROM CORRESPONDENTS.
H. Martin Williams, writing from St. Louis, says there are abundant indications that the two great parties, in the tariff discussion, are doing our work for us, and that “our cause will receive such an impetus during this campaign that it will assume the proportions of a tidal wave in a twelvemonth.”
Henry Ash, Minneapolis, Minn.—Please correct a few errors in a letter in your issue of July 28, signed Hamlin Garland. The president of the anti-poverty society is C. J. Buell, the vice-president is Henry Ash, the secretary, Mrs. Florence Sears (and not O. F. Erickson or Mr. M. Daniels as reported), treasurer, Mr. Gooch.
William T. Green of Toronto writes to say that the single tax men of that city propose to have a bill exempting dwellings from taxation to the amount of $600, introduced at the next session of the legislature. This would be a good move, as it would bring up the question why all dwellings, and in fact all products of labor, should not be exempt from taxation.
A. Hilton, Alexandria, La.—While passing a grocery store a few days ago, I was attracted by a conversation between an Irishman and a negro on the tariff question. I heard the negro say: “I wish they would take the tariff off the land. If they would reduce the rent of land that brings, say, $4.50 or $5 per acre to $2 or $2.50 per acre they would interest me.”
William H. Voose, writing from Indianapolis, says that he finds everywhere he goes evidences of the wisdom of the policy pursued by single tax men in supporting Cleveland, and believes that should Cleveland win there will be an advance all along the democratic line to the single tax idea. He adds: “I am running a two hundred acre farm eight miles south of this city, upon which I am putting many improvements, and am bringing it up to a much higher state of cultivation, and for so doing my tax fine will be increased. After the present campaign is over it will be an easy matter to show working farmers the injustice of taxing their improvements.”
J. G. Malcolm, Hutchinson, Kansas.—As one who has worked almost daily and to the best of my ability for about seven years for the single tax upon land values, I wish to say that the hope of personal gain has not been thought of. How often we risk our lives to save others who are in danger! We do not stop to think of remuneration. The abolitionists worked for years to free the negroes with no hope of remuneration. The impelling force is the hope of bettering the condition of humanity. We see so much injustice, so much wretchedness, misery and crime, caused by depriving a large portion of the people of their natural rights that we cannot cease work until these evils are abolished. I know that I lose friends and make enemies by working for what I believe is right, but yet I cannot cease to work. I would not work another day for this cause if I could see nothing but personal gain in it; for I believe I can do fully as well with things as they are. But this is a great moral question and it is a moral duty for every man to work for what he believes is right and just.
Sol Levy, New York.—The Press in a recent issue said: “Great Britain is trying to conquer America this time with golden bullets. Americans will answer them with red, white and blue ballots.” I have no special love for the British. I am prejudiced against no race, but I cannot succeed in cultivating admiration for their policy. It smacks too much of greed, gain and selfishness. It reminds me too much of the fable of the wolf and the lamb. Of late, however, according to protectionists’ statements, they seem to have repented of their evil ways; soft impulses have conquered their mercenary natures; in fact, they have utterly lost their sense of business in the bounty of their generosity. They are sending us gold. Surprising as it may appear, the protectionists insist the sic are doing something of which no one has ever yet accused them. They are said to be giving something away. They are shipping us gold, they are flooding the country with it, and take nothing in return. And yet protectionists are raising a howl at this. If these wicked Englishmen are bound to flood the country with gold, don’t you stop them. If they are pouring it into the land, I say, let them pour.
p. 5, col. 3
MEN AND THINGS.
Though there are no signs of Edison’s latest invention being placed at the service of the general public, yet the phonograph has commenced its career. The first of the little cylinders, scored with the sound waves of human speech, has crossed the Atlantic and delivered its message. This is what it said to its English auditors, in the voice of the Rev. Dr. Powers of Hudson, New York:
I seize the palpitating air. I hoard Music and speech. All lips that breathe are mine. I speak, and the inviolable word Authenticates its origin and sign.
I am a tomb, a paradise, a throne: An angel, prophet, slave, immortal friend. My living records, in their native tone, Convict the knave, and disputations end.
In me are souls embalmed. I am an ear Flawless as truth, and truth’s own tongue am I. I am a resurrection: men may hear The quick and dead converse, as I reply.
Hail English shores and homes and marts of peace! New trophies, sic, yet are to be won. May sweetness, light, and brotherhood increase— I am the latest born of Edison.
Mr. Barrett, the manager of the Pears’ soap corporation, made a statement lately of his advertising expenses. It appears that he pays out yearly £55,000 in Great Britain, £15,000 on the continent of Europe, and £30,000 in the United States. It would be interesting to be told how much of this last named sum is received by journals who are constantly warning their readers to be on their guard against the teachings of newspapers subsidized by British gold.
A recent experience of the British post office illustrates the tendency of trade to flow along the line of least resistance, in defiance of national boundaries and prejudices. The postage on newspapers from England to India is much heavier than from France. The effect has been, it is now discovered, to induce a large firm of newsdealers to send all the papers for their East Indian subscribers over to France and mail them there. The firm saved something like £1,000 a year, and the British post office, of course, lost a much larger sum. The best part of the story, however, is not told officially, but only whispered by the tongue of rumor. It is said that the “large firm of newsdealers” is no other than W. H. Smith & Son, whose head is a leading member of the British cabinet.
Justice is sharp and swift in England, and the way of the transgressor is hard indeed. A boy near the village of Dronfield, out for a holiday, wickedly stole a minnow from a brook, with the aid of a hook and line and worm. For the striking of this blow at the foundations of society the worthy magistrate fined him twenty shillings, which, of course, he couldn’t pay. So as the next best way of atoning for his crime he went to prison, and there he is.
The English landlords fight hard, and so far fight successfully; but it is a matter for congratulation that they are obliged to fight at all. In the debate on the new local government bill an amendment was offered providing that owners of houses built on leased lands should be allowed to charge one-half their taxes against the land owners from whom they rented. The amendment was defeated; but the tory government’s reason for refusing to accept it was significant. The question of the land owners’ position, they asserted, was too large a one to be dealt with otherwise than in a separate bill.
The Sioux Indians still stubbornly refuse to consent to the sale of their reservation land in Dakota; and it is a curious commentary on their experience in past dealings with the whites that they are unwilling to affix their marks to a paper of any kind, even to one which expresses their rejection of the proposed treaty.
Whether twenty odd thousand Indians really need 22,000,000 acres to live on or not, is a question as to which there may easily be two opinions. But one thing is absolutely certain: The territory of Dakota has no need of any of the reservation land. She has land enough, and to spare, for fifty times her present population. And if settlers find a scarcity of desirable locations it would be far more proper to insist that white monopolists should surrender the acres they will neither use themselves nor allow others to use, than to endeavor to rob the Indians of lands whose possession has been solemnly guaranteed to them by treaty.
Once in a while an advertisement tells the truth. Here is an extract from a “reading notice” of a sale of vacant lots at Edgewater, on Staten island, which contains about as much truth to the thousand ems as Euclid’s Elements:
“Watching the career of many men,” said Erastus Wiman, “as it is my business to do, the conviction has grown upon me that there has been more money made in real estate than in any other single article of barter and sale. There is something very tempting in a real estate venture, especially when one considers the enormous innate value of land in and about large centers of population, which increases in value in the most startling manner, without the slightest effort on the part of the owners, save and except the payment of the tax. In the fable, King Midas, with his mere touch, turned everything into gold. On Manhattan island the Astors, the Goelets, the Livingstones, the Gebhards and a score of other great families have gained wealth beyond the dreams of avarice by the simple possession of barren, rocky soil, unfit even to grow grass, in the upper portion of New York city.”
The workingmen’s meeting at Indianapolis on Aug. 2 was considerable of a surprise to the protectionist managers. The programme was that the meeting should pass resolutions praying for protection to American labor, and denouncing everybody who should venture to say that an American citizen can be trusted to go to market without a string tied to him. Unfortunately, however, the workingmen
p. 5, col. 4 proved restive, and passed the following resolutions, among others:
That we are not to be longer deceived by a system of extortionate “war taxation,” although denominated “protection,” which demands tribute from the millions of wage workers for the benefit of the wealthy trusts and combines.
That we demand cheaper necessaries of life, a wider market for our products, and that the American home shall not be transformed into a grog shop and our people debauched by cheap whisky.
Apparently the American workingman needs to be protected, not only when he goes to buy anything, but when he attends a public meeting as well. If this spirit of insubordination spreads, goodness only knows what may happen.
The Standard oil company’s new pipe line from Lima, Ohio, to Chicago is completed, and will begin transporting oil within a few days. Chicago manufacturers, who are paying trust prices for coal, seem to have indulged the hope that the new pipe line would enable them at least to threaten that they would abandon coal and use crude oil for fuel. But corbies don’t pick out corbies’ e’en in any such way as that. The Standard oil company, it is announced, will only sell crude petroleum for fuel to the rolling mills—and the rolling mills own and work their own coal mines.
The senate committee on appropriations has before it an amendment to the general deficiency bill, providing for the payment by the secretary of the treasury to the United States and sic navigation company, of $100 for every colored man who may desire to emigrate to Africa by the company’s steamers. If the amendment should be adopted, colored citizens visiting Africa will be provided free transportation, while colored citizens desiring merely to visit some part of their native country will have to pay their fares.
This overpopulated country of ours is not the only one that finds itself embarrassed by the advent of foreigners who ask for work when there is no work to give them. Canada has the same trouble. Dispatches from Toronto announce that gangs of Italian laborers are arriving there from all quarters and taxing the resources of the Italian society and other charitable organizations to feed them. The Italian consul at Toronto announces that he has made such representations to the Italian government as will secure the fitting punishment of the wretches who have been telling Italians that Canada would allow them to go to work.
The prohibitionists of Connecticut held their state convention at Hartford Aug. 1. The platform adopted affirms allegiance to the national prohibition party and its candidates, indorses woman suffrage, and demands the abolition of the internal revenue tax on liquors by the immediate prohibition of the traffic. A full state ticket was nominated, headed by Hiram Camp of New Haven for governor. Two thousand dollars were subscribed by the audience and delegates for the expenses of the state campaign.
That was a laughable mistake in the public printer’s office at Washington by which the name “McKinley” was mis-read as “McMillen,” and a hundred thousand copies of the Tennessee congressman’s free trade speech were distributed throughout Pennsylvania as “protection” documents and at a protectionist’s expense.
The county general committee of the united labor party held its regular meeting August 2. The full membership of the committee is 398, but only 89 answered to the roll call, 309 members, or more than three-fourths of the committee, being conspicuous by their absence.
The most important business transacted was the striking from the constitution of the clause providing that:
This party or any member thereof, or any candidate or other person acting for any candidate of the united labor party, must not have any fusion or dickering with the democratic or republican parties, or those acting for them.
This was not accomplished without some opposition. Patrick H. Doody, in particular, denounced the measure in strong terms, and expressed his conviction that the abrogation of the no-dicker clause meant purely and simply the sale of the organization to the protectionist managers. He refused to be a party to such a disgraceful act, and both he and his brother announced their intention to withdraw from the organization.
A resolution was received from one of the assembly districts recommending that the state convention should make no nomination for governor, but leave members of the party free to support any candidate favoring electoral reform. The resolution was laid on the table.
A Protectionist Discovery.
San Francisco Examiner.
In the office of a protectionist organ:
Editor (to office boy)—Patsy, have you ever studied political economy?
Patsy (awed)—No, sir.
“Well, you should. I find it very interesting. Here’s a book I picked up at a second-hand stand the other day that seems to have been written by a pretty well posted man, though he’s dangerously inclined to free trade views. It’s called the ‘Wealth of Nations.’”
“Written by anybody in town, sir?”
“No; no, I think not, Patsy. The author (referring to the title page) is one Smith—Adam Smith. If I can find his address I’ll drop him a note and have him do some articles for us.”
The Wage Hoister Fails to Work in Pennsylvania.
Chicago Herald.
The protective tariff which the iron manufacturers of Pennsylvania demanded and got in order to pay good wages does not seem to be in good working order. Their men are poorly paid, and no class of labor is more often locked out or on strike. Pig Iron Kelley and Mr. Randall should at once see what is the matter with the tariff, and set it to going as they claim it would go, or American labor will lose faith in it as a means of obtaining good wages.
Balaam Was the Man That Took Counsel With an Ass.
New York Tribune.
Dr. Cuyler called upon Dr. Storrs to curse the republican party for him; and, lo! like Balaam, he has blessed it altogether.
p. 5, col. 5
CAMPAIGN “STANDARD” FUND.
The following subscriptions to the fund for special circulation of THE STANDARD during the presidential campaign have been received this week:
Thomas Briggs, London, Eng. . . . . . $25 35 John Rix, Ilion. . . . . . 5 00 Mark W. Cross, Boston, Mass. . . . . . 10 00 S. B. Riggen, Portland, Oregon, (monthly contribution). . . . . . 2 50 Edward Ferguson, Brooklyn (monthly contribution. . . . . . 2 50 A. R. Wynn, Toledo, Ohio. . . . . . 85 Robert Baker, Albany, N. Y., (monthly contribution . . . . . . 1 00 Frank S. Churchill, Burlington, Iowa. . . . . . 96 S. & W. Mendelson, New York, (monthly contribution . . . . . . 10 00 O. M. & L. O. M., New York. . . . . . 5 00 Louis Lesauliner, Red Bank, sic. . . . . . 5 00 Robert Cartwright, Toronto, Can. (for July and August). . . . . . 5 00 N. B. Dresser, Rock Springs, W. T. . . . . . . 4 00 E. B. Shearman and John Oberlin, Indian Creek, Pa . . . . . . 5 00 $82 16 Previously acknowledged. . . . . . 1,702 72 Total to date. . . . . . $1,7[8?]4 88
[The sum of $70 credited to Dunham and Leavens in THE STANDARD of July 28, should have been credited to “Friends at Webotock farm, Sharon, Conn.,” among whom Messrs. Dunham and Leavens are included.]
Here is a letter from a democratic lawyer of Ohio, which is a testimony to the missionary effort of THE STANDARD:
Your paper has been reaching my hands through a friend for two months. I am not a “practical” politician in that ideas are immeasureably more to me than offices, and I am always ready to hospitably entertain “princes of the house of the brain,” especially when introduced by sincere lovers of men. THE STANDARD entertains me more than any paper I read, and the truths you teach find a ready lodgement in my mind, along with the sic family of democratic ideas to which I am wedded. In truth, you are ideally democratic, and perhaps my party is not really so very far behind you. All democratic ideas are cognate, and you address yourself to the party composed (as Parton truly says) of “the many who suffer and the few who think.” I salute you, captain. Lead on.
WM. ST. CLAIR CREIGHTON.
> NEW FORT BARRACKS, Toronto.—Inclosed find a post office order for $5, my subscription for the months of July and August toward the campaign fund. I wish it was more, but there is work to be done here, too. > > ROBERT CARTWRIGHT.
> ROCK SPRINGS, Wyoming Ter., July 28.—Being a resident of a territory I am disfranchised at our presidential elections, but if I cannot vote I can help make make sic for our cause, and for this purpose I inclose $5 to THE STANDARD campaign fund. Will repeat the contribution as often as possible. > > I know of no better way to help the cause of land and labor reform than by the distribution of STANDARDS and STANDARD tracts. To make them accomplish the most practical good it seems to me they should be circulated largely in the so called doubtful states, and in those sections and among industries where wages are lowest and times the hardest. > > I find that people who are fairly well off—workingmen who have comparatively steady work and living wages are not generally in favor of any change. Through some mental delusion they attribute whatever blessings they enjoy to “protection,” and argue on the “laissez faire” principle. But it don’t take much argument to convince the man who is out of work or working for starvation wages that protection is of no benefit to him and that free trade cannot possibly make his position any worse than it now is. > > I also think many of the farmers in the middle and western states would, if approached, become easy converts, first to free trade and then to the single tax. With their farms under mortgage, their products “unprotected” and all that they buy heavily taxed their continued belief in tariff taxation can only be because they have not examined the question for themselves. > > This community is better off than the majority of towns even in the west. It is a coal mining town; work is steady the year round and wages are better than the average in mining camps. Consequently people don’t bother their heads much about either free trade or the single tax, but I do what I can to throw light on these questions through my newspaper, The Independent, and will continue pegging away whether I see any results or not. > > I am so thoroughly convinced that the single tax is the solution of the social and industrial troubles from which we suffer that I could not hold my peace, though I knew the truth would not win for a thousand years. But our faith is more hopeful than this. We look for victory in our day and generation. > > NORMAN B. DRESSER, > Editor Rock Springs Independent.
> INDIAN CREEK, Pa., Aug. 1—Inclosed find express order for five dollars, our contribution to the campaign STANDARD fund. We hope the state of our finances will be such that you will hear from us again before the end of the campaign. > > E. H. sic, > JOHN OBERLIN.
The Single Tax is Simpler and Easier.
Cork, Ireland, Eagle.
“Nationalization of the land” is coming to the front slowly but surely. It is the main plank in the labor reformers’ programme. It has too many disciples now to allow it to be laughed at longer as visionary by the monopolists. It has the advantage of being almost simplicity itself. Its meaning is that the state, as the trustee and representative of the people, is to administer the laws of the land by leasing it out to tenants who will work the land free from any rent charge for their own improvements. What has kept the Irish tenants down is that they have always paid rent for their own improvements. Under nationalization, rents to the state will be for supporting the public administration, and will not be much greater than what is known as “prairie” rent. The laborers and mechanics, under such a system, would be freed from many oppressive taxes. For them a peasant proprietary would be little better than landlordism. The latter “is a tax upon the industry of the farmer, the laborer, and the entire community.” Peasant proprietary differs from it only that the present landlords will vanish, but to be succeeded by a vastly increased body of the same class. By choosing peasant proprietary now we try to rob the community at large of their right to share in the benefits of the land; but we only succeed in postponing the final settlement for a generation or two, and making it hard for posterity to accomplish a thing which is comparatively easy now. Michael Davitt is the man of men on whom the question of choice devolves for decision, and that he is alive to the gravity of the situation into which the matter is drifting his recent speeches conclusively show.
A Question for Workingmen.
San Francisco Examiner.
You are supposed to be the chief beneficiaries of the tariff.
There are, on a generous estimate, perhaps 20,000 workers in protected industries in California. Of these 20,000 fully 15,000 are Chinese.
The people of California pay at least $20,000,000 a year to “protect American labor.” That means to protect you, the 5,000 white workers in the protected industries of California—for of course the workers in other states are supposed to be cared for by the taxes paid by their neighbors.
Suppose the 15,000 Chinamen average $10 a week apiece, their total wages amount to $7,800,000 a year. That leaves $12,200,000 for you, or about $2,500 apiece.
Do you get it? You help to pay the bills, but do you get the reward?
Unless the average “protected” worker in California is receiving $2,500 a year, somebody is swindled.
p. 5, col. 6
The Tariff Harp.
I ask your patience, citizens, and trust you’ll hear me through, While I point out the beauties of this harp I have on view. We’ve christened it the Tariff Harp, for workingmen it’s made; It’s sic makes quite plain to them our modern laws of trade. Political economy, dressed up in chords and trills, They swallow and digest as well as sugar coated pills.
This little string on this side, which squeaks upon high “G,” Is made to represent to you an Infant Industry; Then comes a scale chromatic, all like the first, you note, And each string shrieks for tariff laws as if ’twould crack its throat. This other one is Government, it trembles and cries out Whenever Infant Industries begin to yell and shout.
High Tariff Tax this represents, fierce epithets it rolls Against all importations—but Italians and Poles. These others are Statistics and nicely cooked up Facts Which every good protectionist from history extracts. The little strings that follow will be dispensed with soon, They are Reason, Justice, Honor, and are just now out of tune.
This harp is recommended by men of wealth and brain— Carnegie, Chauncey M. Depew, Jones, Stanford and Jim Blaine; Its dulcet tones has soothed them here, and whilst abroad they roam They want the workingmen to have its benefit—at home; Its strains will stimulate each man to be good, wise and great, The owner of an iron mine, a railroad or a state.
In playing tunes upon this harp, be circumspect, have care, That all subordinate effects assist your high tax air; Of all Fair Arguments and Truth, steer clear, they’re not the thing, But thump on Infant Industries and this High Tariff string; Then harmonies Wagnerian and melodies divine Will make your reputation as a harpist Rubinstein.
W. B. S.
SOCIETY NOTES.
Cora Eldridge, an eighteen-year-old Poughkeepsie girl, has been sentenced to five years in the house of refuge for the larceny of a canary bird worth $2.
Mrs. William Laytin, who is attracting so much attention on account of her many and marvelous gowns, is staying at Saratoga. One of her newest wraps is of white moire, embroidered with 3,000 seed pearls and cut crystals in a design of clusters of grapes, twined among roses.
The congressional committee appointed to inquire into the immigration question, went into the New York slums the other night. Here are a few of the sights they saw: The first house visited was the notorious boarding house at No. 116 Mulberry street, kept by Antonio Resarte. The rooms were filled with sleeping laborers, who pay five cents apiece for the privilege of sleeping on the floor. There were forty-two men packed in on this floor. On the floor above that were found a woman and two men in an intolerably close inner room. An eight months’ old infant was lying in a rude cradle. It looked as if it were dead, and it was undoubtedly dying from inhaling the putrid atmosphere. In the rear room were five women, three children and fifteen men. A pile of new clothing lay on the floor, which the women make for the niggardly price of ten cents a dozen. They were afraid to tell the congressmen who employed them for fear of losing their meagre and ill paid work. Three of the women were sic, and were in a terrible condition from want of proper care.
At Lenox, Mass., William D. Sloane of New York has twenty driving horses. Captain J. S. Barnes keeps fifteen for riding or driving in his new $10,000 stables, the finest in town. W. D. Bishop owns at least a dozen fine specimens of horseflesh, while the Laniers, Barclays, Bradfords and others have large stables.
The Chicago Times says that the house No. 542 Clark street, in that city, is a tenement. It has twenty-one rooms and a saloon. In each of the twenty-one rooms is an Italian family, and these families average about ten persons each. As for the building itself the following description is given: “As one feels his way through the dark halls and up the rotting stairs he must be careful where he puts his feet, for the floor is slippery with filth and covered in places with the refuse matter pitched there by the occupants of the rooms. The smell is sickening and dense, the air of the place being of that fetid, damp character that oppresses the lungs and compels one to take short respirations. The outside air is hot and full of the stench from the yards, yet it comes like a breeze from the lake after a tour through one of these tenements.”
The sic novelty on the tennis lawn is a wheeled table. The invention naturally followed the fashion of serving tea and something light to eat to the players after a few games had been played. The vehicle has wheels about the size of those on a baby carriage. They are made of steel, with rubber tires like the wheels of a bicycle, Schackle sic rise above the wheels to support a rectangular tray, perhaps two feet by three and a half large. The tray is made of either papier mache, polished birch, oak or mahogany, to suite the sic of the buyer, and the price varies from $22 to $25. They are imported from England.
Arthur McManus, a bookbinder, was arraigned in a Baltimore police court for stealing. He pleaded guilty. He said that he had but recently been discharged from the city hospital, where he was confined with rheumatism; that he had tried to get work, without success. As starvation stared his wife and child in the face, he made up his mind that he would have to steal. So he did it.
At Maple Ridge farm just outside of Lexington, Ky., the famous three year old trotting stallion, Bell Boy, was sold at auction a few days ago for $50,000.
A fire broke out in the tenement house death trap, No. 197 Bowery, on Friday afternoon last week, and in half an hour out of the sixty people who were in it seventeen were dead and several dangerously injured. The tenement was a rear house and was completely boxed in by adjoining buildings.
The assessed value of the properties of some of the best known clubs in Philadelphia foots up in the aggregate $486,000. A computation of the value of New York club property would make our rural cousins green with envy. The value of the Stewart house, which the Union club will probably take, alone is double that of all the Philadelphia clubs put together.
William Ryan, an old man living at No. [303?] Delancey street, had occasion to pass through Pell street at a late hour on Tuesday night. James Sullivan of No. 9 Pell street and George Mullen of 40 Mott street, two promising Whyos, met the old man, dragged him into the hallway of No. 13 Pell street, beat and kicked him about the head and body and then robbed him of what little money he had about him and fled.
East New York Single Tax Club.
Everett Glackin, J. G. Utter, A. L. Voorhees and others are desirous of organizing a single tax club in East New York for the purpose of extending the discussing of single tax sic. All those who wish to join should send their names to A. L. Voorhees, [1248?] Herkimer street, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Page 6 of 8contents
6 THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1888.
p. 6, col. 1
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
Two weeks ago I laid before the readers of THE STANDARD the story of what I ventured to call my exile; in which I told how, having been driven from my native city by the owners thereof, I had found a refuge in New Jersey, in a town where mosquitoes and other local inconveniences render it still possible for a man of moderate means to find a home. The moral that, in my feeble way, I tried to point was this: That with advancing civilization the privilege of living on the earth grows every day more valuable, while the opportunities for earning a living by work are, if anything, diminishing. The pressure of population tends at once to make land more valuable and work more difficult to get; the result being that men like myself, who depend on their labor for a living, are compelled either to sink in the social scale or to endure discomforts and annoyances to which their fathers were strangers. We are like housekeepers when meat doubles in price. They have to content themselves with the poorer parts of beef; and we are obliged to be satisfied with the poorer parts of land. I spend four hours daily traveling forth and back between my home and my work, and endure mosquitoes and flies, because I can’t avoid these unpleasantnesses without paying a tax altogether beyond my means, to the men who have secured control of the land nearer to my work and free from the insect pests which now annoy me. I use poorer land than my father did; and I am compelled to thank heaven that there is poorer land for me to use, or I might not be able to live at all, but find myself squeezed off the earth altogether, just as thousands of innocent little citizens of New York are squeezed off every year.
And now a correspondent writes:
I have read “The Story of My Exile” carefully and I cannot think of any possible device by which the facts narrated could be prevented from being facts.
So long as there is a choice of places to live in, and so long as only a given number of people can live in a given place, must not some people who desire to live in that particular place (presumably the best) be prevented from living there? If houses are to belong to individuals, even though the land belongs to the community, rent will still have to be paid and advantages of situation will raise the rent. And as some men will be able to pay higher rents they will necessarily secure better houses and neighborhoods than other men. Even if all property, houses as well as land, should belong to the community, yet all men could not possibly occupy the best situation.
I am curious to see how you could devise a plan by which advantages should not add to rent, if rent is to be paid; or by which some men, if only by lot, should not have some advantages which others could not have. If everybody who wants to come to New York is to be made welcome, it must be only a question of time—since the territory available is limited—when some of the people must be “exiled.” Two bodies cannot at one time occupy a given space; if there is not actually room for everybody who wants to be in New York, how can we decide who shall and who shall not stay? You may say that there is room now, if all the land were free; but the time would come very quickly when there would not be. I agree that it is hard. But I can see no way to escape the difficulty.
I put this letter in my pocket as I was leaving THE STANDARD office one evening; and the next day, alone in my room, I pulled it out and read it again and again. I don’t know how it may strike you, but to me it is sadly interesting. For between its lines I read the creed of the pessimist, that humanity is either the plaything of a heartless, mocking god, or the sport of cruel chance. “It is true,” the writer seems to say, “that advancing civilization does nothing for the mass of mankind. It is true that the increasing wealth of the few involves increasing hardship to the many. It is true that men born in New York, hard working and honest, are being driven from the city of their birth to mosquito infested and malarial lands, and think themselves lucky that mosquitos and malaria exist. It’s true. And it is hard. But there is no help for it; and the only thing to be done is to persuade the lucky rich, out of their superabundance, to judiciously relieve the distress of the deserving poor.” This is what, as it seemed to me, I saw in the mind of my correspondent by the light of that letter.
And as I sat and mused with that letter before me, I fell a-dreaming. I looked back over the years of my life, filled with struggles to keep out of the poverty slough and to get far enough away from its slippery edge to make sure that neither I nor mine should run the risk of falling into its horrid depths. I thought of the many efforts I had made—some futile, some successful, not to produce wealth—I was never fool enough to look for gain in that direction—but to get it. And as I recalled the misery of it all—the lies, and deceptions, and oppressions that I had been forced to employ—the way in which I had found it necessary to avoid Christ’s precepts, to steel my heart against the cry of the afflicted, to take constant thought for the morrow, to strive to lay up treasures upon earth—as I thought of all this, slowly there came to me the vision of What might have been, the story of the life I might have led, had I indeed enjoyed those rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that my forefathers asserted to be the inalienable heritage of every man. May I tell you the story? It was only a dream, I know, yet not a baseless, incoherent vision of the night. If it wasn’t true, at least it might have been:
My father was a physician in New York, and at the time I first remember him sic must have been, I think, in very moderate practice. I know his patients were chiefly poor people, and I can remember hearing him speak of the difficulty of getting money, and the necessity for economy in our household expenditures. We lived in a pleasant old fashioned house in what is now one of the busiest business streets of the city, though then it was well up town. Father had bought the house, paying a small amount in cash and giving a mortgage for the rest. I believe—for the house was bought before my memory began to store up facts—that he was largely influenced to make the purchase by his confidence in the city’s future. He expected that the lot on which the house stood would more than double in value within a
p. 6, col. 2 few years, and so unhesitatingly invested his savings in it.
Whether this were so or not, I know my father was bitterly opposed to the policy of levying all taxes upon land values. One of my earliest recollections is of hearing him inveigh against the wickedness of such a plan. It was, he said, nothing less than sic confiscation, and would surely bring ruin upon the country. This must have been about the time when the single tax men, having secured a clear majority in congress, were forcing the abolition of the custom houses and the raising of the federal revenue by direct apportionment among the states. My mother, I remember indistinctly, took a different view of the situation. She was as far off as my father from understanding the philosophy of the single tax, but she administered the family revenues, and had a very clear idea of what absolutely free trade would do for her. I recall a dispute between her and my father, in which he told her that if those single tax men sic their way he would lose all the money he had put into his house and lot and have to pay the mortgage besides, and all for worse than nothing at all. He could never sell the place, he said, and would have to pay heavy taxes on it all his life long. My mother, for her part, didn’t believe the single tax men would ever be quite as wicked as all that, and was enthusiastic over the prospect of getting rid of the custom house. She rattled off a list of clothing and furniture, and heaven knows what, and showed how much cheaper she would be able to get them all when once the free trade bill should be passed. I know I sided with my father, and in my boyish way thought what a shame it was to turn our markets over to England, and that the single tax men must be a precious pack of scoundrels.
Well, the free trade bill was passed, the custom houses were done away with, and the states were called on to provide the federal revenue. Everybody knew that this meant the concentration of all taxes into one on land values, and everybody was either vowing that the country was irretrievably ruined, or predicting an era of unexampled prosperity. I think the people who were most astonished were the foreign manufacturers, many of whom really thought that free trade would give them control of our markets. Of course, we all know now how bitterly they were disappointed, but there were precious few people at the time who weren’t surprised at the turn things took. The foreign manufacturers not only couldn’t undersell the Americans, but the latter actually shipped their goods abroad and beat the foreigners in their own markets.
I didn’t understand this then, being but a boy; but as I look back on it now I can see the reasons for it well enough. The tumble in prices commenced in coal and iron. People who owned mines saw that they were going to be taxed upon their values and judged quite correctly that it wouldn’t be many years before all the values of the mines would be taken in taxation. Men who owned coal and iron lands were glad to sell them for pretty much anything they could get; and the folks who bought them did so with a thorough knowledge that the only way to make any money out of them was to work them. In six months the coal production of the Lehigh valley was doubled; within a year it had doubled again. The iron furnaces sprang up as if by magic. I remember a cartoon in Harper’s Weekly which illustrated the situation beautifully. John Bull was represented driving up to Uncle Sam’s door with a loaded cart. “Don’t you want to buy some coal to-day?” says Mr. Bull. “Oh, d——n your coal!” answers Uncle Sam, sic got plenty of my own in the cellar. But I’ll give you good wages to come in and help carry it upstairs.”
There were plenty of wiseacres who, when the boom began in coal and iron, were certain it would end up in a smash very shortly. The country never could stand such an over production, they said. But somehow the more coal and iron were turned out, the more the country seemed to want. For the same causes that made the miners busy made men in other trades busy, too. Men who owned building lands and quarries and brick fields saw clearly that they could only hold their properties idle at a dead loss, without the slightest prospect of any future gain. Those who could command capital brought their lands into use themselves; the others sold for the best prices they could get. Throughout all the building trades there was a ferment of activity. In all the great cities of the Union houses grew like mushrooms; and somehow a tenant was always ready for the house before the house was ready for the tenant. “What on earth do you expect to do with all these houses?” asked the correspondent of a western paper, of a contractor who was putting up a full block of modest dwellings on one of the streets beyond the Harlem. “Faith! then,” spoke up one of the brick layers beside them, “We’ll live in sic!”. And so, the correspondent found, they did; and reason good. For rents were down and wages up; and the man who worked could afford to hire a house to live in, and commit no such great extravagance either.
It was amazing how throughout the whole country, all of a sudden, men seemed to go to work at once. Just as, when a line of men stand hand in hand, if the two end ones touch each a pole of an electric battery, a shock runs through the entire line, so it seemed as if even the imperfect access to the earth which the mere prospect of the single tax secured to labor sufficed to send a thrill of industry through the whole community and set every wheel and hand in motion. The farmers and the market gardeners could have sold double the crops they did; and fields that had been lying fallow for a generation were brought into use as fast as horse and man and plow could do their work. The mills and factories were all working full time, and would have worked nights too if they could have got the hands. The railroads were blocked with goods waiting transportation. It is easy to understand how the activity spread. For each industry developed all the rest. The miners, and the furnace hands, and the men in the building trades, and the farmers, and the mill hands, and all the other workers, were
p. 6, col. 3 all getting big wages and wanted to buy things. They used more meat, and bread, and vegetables. They needed more furniture, and more and better clothes. They bought books, and went on excursions, and visited the theaters. In short, they spent their money rationally as they earned it, and so set other people to work, who made work for them in turn.
What puzzled people most was that while prices dropped lower and lower, wages mounted higher and higher. This was just what the leaders of the single tax movement had predicted; but I think even they were half frightened at the quick fulfillment of their own prophecies, while to an immense number of people the condition of things seemed portentous. Coal dropped nearly fifty per cent in price, while miners’ wages were more than trebled. Cloths and calicos were never so cheap before, yet the mill hands got without difficulty the wages they asked for. Houses became cheaper and cheaper, yet masons, bricklayers, carpenters and all the rest of them, even to the plumbers, earned more and more money every day. The columns of “Situations Wanted” in the daily papers shrank to almost nothing, while page after page told of help required and liberal salaries for competent men. Immigrants landed by scores of thousands; but come as fast as they would there seemed to be work of some kind for them all. Men said we were going headlong to ruin; that the laboring classes would own the whole country before long, and capital be driven off to foreign lands. But even those who feared the most for the future were compelled to own that for the present, at least, we certainly were doing splendidly.
At last the truth began to dawn upon men’s minds. The giant Labor was beginning to be relieved of the frightful burden that had been crushing him down. He was just beginning to use his muscles and give some faint signs of the tremendous strength he would attain to when once perfect freedom should be granted. The fall in prices was chiefly due to the lifting of the enormous taxes formerly paid to the government, to protected monopolists, and to land owners; and partly also to the extraordinary improvements in machinery. It seemed as though the genius of invention had but just awakened and were only beginning to learn what amazing mastery he could assert over the forces of nature. Where a hundred men had formerly been employed in a mill, working long hours for scanty wages, ten men now turned out a greater and a better product, working short hours and at treble pay. And the ninety men were by no means thrown out of work. There were plenty of new mills starting—plenty of enterprises of all kinds springing up which cried aloud for labor! labor! labor! and lingered for the lack of it. A man out of work was a man to be run after quickly and secured before somebody else should capture him. And if every man in the country had been able and willing to labor twenty-four hours every day, there would have been work enough and to spare for all of them. For the more each man earned, the more he wanted to buy of the products of other men’s labor. On the other hand, save for a fast vanishing rent tax to the landlords (out of which, so soon as the single tax was imposed, they had to pay the entire state and federal taxes), and a fair royalty to inventors, scarcely any portion of the product of industry went to any man who didn’t work for it; and every man received exactly in proportion to his production. The captains of industry—the men who ran the mills, and operated the mines, and superintended the great commercial establishments—had to understand their work and perform it efficiently, or get no pay. The man who employed a hundred hands had to pay them the full sum of what they could have made by working without his superintendence and capital, and even a trifle more. If by his energy, business knowledge and economical management he could add to the value of their product, he got the added value as his own wages; otherwise, he was very soon driven out of business or forced to trench upon his capital while gaining experience. Even the railway monopolists were curbed and bridled. The courts that had been their subservient allies were now their vigilant overseers; state and federal laws held them in check; and the fear of worse things befalling them kept them on their good behavior.
I remember the gradual change that took place in my father’s opinions—how his dread of the single tax system grew less and less, until at last it turned to eager advocacy. True, he lost the money he had paid for his lot of land and growled a little when he satisfied the mortgage. “But after all,” he said, “if the taxes on it get too heavy for me, I can always trade it off for another piece; and really land speculation wasn’t wholesome.” And on the other hand his income, like every other worker’s, increased from year to year, both positively and relatively to the cost of living. His patients paid him. They could afford to do it. They called upon him far more frequently. And his profession was no longer crowded with incompetents who had rushed into medicine, not because of any special vocation for it, but simply because they could find nothing else to do. In fact, I used to hear him and other physicians lamenting because young men were not coming into the profession fast enough and too heavy a burden of work was laid upon the old practitioners.
I write of these things as though I had seen and understood them all as they occurred. Indeed, I feel as if I had done so; and yet I fancy that my knowledge is largely second hand, and that the marvelous social changes that took place in my boyhood really impressed me very little at the time. I have no distinct recollection of the evil days when men stood idle in the market places and begged other men to let them go to work. I know there were such days, but the knowledge is not a realizing sense. I cannot imagine to myself American citizens so degraded and so careless of their birthright. I can remember seeing beggars, and indistinctly I recall the great charitable institutions where able bodied men received food and shelter with thankful humility, and helpless women and children were given alms and patronizing good advice. But when
p. 6, col. 4 I try to realize that those poor creatures were of the same race as myself, that some of them may have been connected with me by ties of blood, my imagination refuses duty. And I find it harder still to realize that in those old days—to me they seem as distant as the days of Cæsar—there were actually men who pretended to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and yet denied his precepts. The fact is historic. The whole world knows it. Men were told that they could secure an eternity of bliss by simply asking Christ to give it them, but that the less attention they paid to Christ’s clearly uttered rules of life in this world the better it would be for them. It seems to me—and to millions of other men, doubtless—ridiculous that men should have worshiped a deity of whom the best they could say was that he was a pretty good God for heaven, but a mighty unreliable God for earth.
The fact is that I grew up with the great reform; and just as to a child whose mind first awakens amid war and tumult, war and tumult seem normal conditions of humanity, so to me the successive stages of development through which society passed so rapidly in my boyhood seemed each a perfect matter of course, and excited no astonishment—not even any special interest—in my mind. I remember that year by year the rate of taxation upon land values was increased, until finally the whole was absorbed, save only the narrow margin which now rewards the nominal owners for the trouble of collecting it. I can recall the passage of the law for the nationalization of the railroads, and I remember the roar of laughter that shook the whole nation when a few valetudinarian stock and bond holders suggested that they ought to be paid, not only the value of the rails, and ties, and bridges, and rolling stock, and other material property, but also of the rights of way and franchises! I remember these things, but only as I remember going fishing. They were matters of course, as to which there was no division of public opinion; and to save my life I couldn’t name the dates when they occurred. Of course I could refer to any school history for information, but as I am simply trying to dig out of my own mind the story of my personal recollections and impressions, I forbear.
It was not till I was sixteen years old, and almost ready for college, that we moved away from the old house in which I had been born. Most of our neighbors had gone up town long before, and all around us were stately office buildings and busy warehouses. The value of the land had risen enormously, and if I am not mistaken, the yearly tax was well nigh half the price my father had originally paid for both house and lot. But we had an attachment for the old home, and year after year, when the question of moving came up for discussion in the family congress, it was tabled for another twelvemonth, and we still hung on.
In fact, we might have stayed there ten years longer had it not been for the merchant who occupied the warehouse next door. This worthy man wanted to extend his building, and could only do it by using our lot. It was just one of those cases in which a particular piece of land has a special value for one particular man. No other lot in the whole city would answer our neighbor’s purpose; he must have our lot or none. The end of it all was that after some negotiation he offered to give my father a far better house and larger lot in the upper part of the city if father would surrender the lot to him. A proposal so advantageous turned the scale in favor of removal, and it was decided that we should go.
Our new house was delightfully situated on Washington heights, overlooking the Hudson, and really, it wasn’t until we were established in it that we fairly realized what comforts and conveniences New York was providing for her citizens. The free electric light and free telephone and pneumatic services, of course, we had had down town. We were quite accustomed to telephoning for our household supplies to the butcher and baker and grocer, and seeing the things come tumbling into the receiver five minutes later; and I well remember how my sisters would ring up all the dry goods stores in the city, get a lot of samples and prices of each, make their selections, send out their money, and get their goods home, all within a half an hour. But the new house, standing in the residential part of the city, had a dozen other advantages, all paid for out of the magnificent revenue which the single tax yearly poured into the city treasury. Of course we knew all about them before, but it was only when we commenced to enjoy them that we really began to appreciate them.
If we wanted to go anywhere there were the three great viaduct roads, with their crosstown branches, at our service. We could go to the Battery in twenty minutes from the house, and he most remote part of the city was not more than half an hour distant. Then in summer time there were the swift city steamers running from Yonkers clear around to New Rochelle, stopping at every twentieth street and landing close to our house every ten minutes. Many a pleasant summer evening have we passed on board of them making the round trip with the cool breezes fanning us and a public band to make music for us. But indeed it wasn’t necessary to take to the water to get cool in the hottest weather, for the public cooling and heating services were laid through the entire house, and we had but to set the automatic regulator to keep a room at any temperature desired. The electric power was supplied us, too, from the central ward station, and whether we wanted to run the elevator, or to drive a sewing machine, it was only necessary to touch a button and the thing was done. In fact, housekeeping was pure pleasure, and involved scarcely any work. The streets were kept so beautifully clean that dust was almost a curiosity, and with the patent brooms the whole house could be swept in an hour. We had a kitchen, of course, with the heating service in the range, but it was seldom we did any cooking there, preferring the luxury of a table d’hote near by. A widow lady and her daughters (one of whom afterward became my sister-in-law) attended to our washing, so that there really was scarcely any
p. 6, col. 5 housework to be done. My mother used to make us laugh by telling us stories of the old days of menial servants, with their awkwardness and carelessness, and petty deceptions. Poor things, I don’t wonder they were hard to got along with, treated as they were as a class apart, refused admission into society, and denied every opportunity for culture.
We found a pleasant lot of neighbors ready to welcome us to our new abode—mostly young people with tastes refined by the culture of the public schools. Pretty much every trade and calling was represented. There were shoemakers, seamstresses, blacksmiths, printers, sign painters, engineers, editors, lithographers, cigar makers, carpenters, stenographers, and goodness only knows what besides. When we assembled at each others’ houses it was a regular federation of trades; and whenever a boy was making ready to earn his own living he had the advantages of fifty different vocations explained to him by men who knew what they were talking about. There was a pretty park of some thirty acres near where we lived, and every pleasant afternoon, at three sic’clock, when the work of the day was over, the whole neighborhood would gather there in a sort of local congress, and twice a week an amateur band performed. The result was that everybody knew everybody else; and though, of course we had our likes and dislikes, we really got to be like members of one great family.
One thing we very soon discovered—that we were getting a great deal more out of the public treasury than we put into it. Down town, where we had persisted in occupying land that had become immensely valuable for business purposes, we had paid a very heavy tax and enjoyed comparatively few public conveniences; but in our new home the taxes were comparatively light, and the conveniences were many. The simple fact was that the merchants down town were using land vastly more valuable than that we occupied, and practically they were paying us the difference. The tax was assessed on every man according to the value of the natural opportunities he enjoyed, but its benefits were distributed sic to all. Had we been contented to remove to the outskirts of the city, where building lots were still vacant, we could still have enjoyed many privileges without paying any tax at all; the drawbacks being distance from the center of population, lack of neighbors, higher store prices, and things of that sort. But we were very well satisfied where we were, and my father acknowledged that he had made a mistake in remaining so long in a neighborhood which, when it was invaded by business, had ceased to be a good location for a physician.
I am getting garrulous, and shall weary out your patience if I don’t get over the ground more rapidly. I need say nothing about the years of my college life, which passed uneventfully enough. If I didn’t distinguish myself, at least I maintained a fair standing in my class; and when I graduated I felt honestly certain that I really had laid a solid foundation for an education. Then the question to be settled was, What should I do for a living?
I had a strong bias toward literature, but a thorough disinclination to depend on it for support. I wanted to study, and to write only when I had something to say. As for mere money making work, my taste tended toward printing, and I had already taken a couple of courses in the public school of technology, and could operate a type setting machine pretty rapidly, and had a fair knowledge of the other details of the business Of sic, I had no difficulty in finding employment. Like every other industry, the printing business was increasing every day, with the marvelous growth of New York’s wealth and population. The trouble was, not to find “sits,” but to get men to fill them. Journeymen printers were setting up in business for themselves, or dropping work to spend a year or two in travel, or turning to other occupations, and there was scarcely an office in the city that wouldn’t have been glad to employ additional men. It was the same in all other trades. Demand always kept ahead of supply in the labor market, and we young men used to be vastly amused at the stories the oldsters would tell us of the days when men organized themselves into unions and assemblies to guard the privilege of work and make sure that men shouldn’t take the bread out of each others’ mouths by offering to sell their labor for lower wages. It required quite a mental effort for us to realize that in those times men were forced to flock from the country to the cities, begging other men to buy their labor, and not only leaving unused fields and mines behind them, but actually standing idle, praying for the privilege of work with vacant lots and garden lands and natural opportunities of other kinds all around them. How they stood it, when they had the ballot and might have put an end to it all at a single election, I cannot for the life of me understand.
Well, I started out as a journeyman printer, first in a job office, for the sake of the experience, next with a book publisher, and finally in the office of the Daily New Era. And a journeyman printer I have been for well nigh twenty years. I have never thought of going into business for myself. I might have done it any time, for men with capital are eager to find workers who will consent to use it. And I dare say I should have succeeded well enough, since there is always plenty of work to do at prices that leave good wages for the labor of superintendence. But why should I? As a journeyman, I am just as well thought of and received in society as I should be if I were at the head of the biggest establishment in the country. I earn all I need for my expenses, and could easily earn more if I wanted to spend more or had a taste for avarice. I have plenty of leisure for my books and writing. I have no responsibilities to worry me; when I leave the office in the afternoon it is as though I had said good bye to it forever; if it should burn down some night, or the paper discontinue publication, it would make no difference to me. I work three hours every day, go off for two or three months in the summer, and except for the health
p. 6, col. 6 of my family and myself, I haven’t a care in the world. There are men who are ambitious to be great printers—to invent new labor saving devices, to rule over great establishments, to distinguish themselves in their art. I thoroughly understand the feelings of such men, and love to see them succeed. But with me, fingering a type setting machine is nothing more than the way in which I produce food and clothes, and shelter and other things needful for myself and those dependent on me. The work I love is done at home in my study; and I pursue it, not for the sake of any wealth to be gained by it—though it brings me in a few dollars all the same—but because, in that direction, I have an ambition to distinguish myself, and a hope to benefit humanity. Is not my life a consistent one?
And now a word or two about my family and home, and this little story of my life will be finished—doubtless to your great relief.
I have been married for sixteen years, and have three children, two girls and a boy. My wife’s tastes are much the same as my own, and as her household cares take but two or three hours daily of her time, she has plenty of leisure to indulge them. We read together, dispute a good deal, make fun of one another’s foibles, and are every bit as much in love with each other as on the day when we were married. We have a large circle of friends, who seem always glad to see us, and whom we certainly are glad to see. There is always an extra plate at our dinner table, and the days are rare when it isn’t put in use. And if another friend drops in, and another and another still, why there are more plates in the cupboard, and generally enough for them to eat.
Our children are stout and healthy, and, we think, good looking. Of course they are being well educated at the public schools, and their characters are beginning to develop. The boy, I fancy, will become a merchant, and, I am vain enough to think, a great one. He has the trading instinct strongly developed, has a better knowledge of our railroad system than I can boast of, and is forever inquiring about the products of the different parts of the world. The eldest girl takes after her mother and myself, and vows she will live just such a life as we do. She is studying stenography and proposes to earn her living in that vocation, and devote her leisure to pen and ink and books. The younger is a born cook, and means to win fame and fortune in the kitchen. My own belief is that neither the stenographer nor the cook will ever work for wages. Good girls are not scarce by any means, but somehow the supply never seems to catch up to the demand. In our happy days young men can marry.
For ten years after our marriage we lived at Washington heights. We had a pleasant little eight-roomed house which we rented from the owner at $250 a year, and which suited us exactly. It was within reasonable distance of the park, not more than five minutes’ walk from either the viaduct depot or the steamboat landing, and surrounded by the houses of our friends. When first we rented it we certainly thought we were settled for life. I admit that for my own part it was considerable of a wrench to move. The truth is, that since it has become possible for men to have homes they have learned to love them and hate the mere idea of abandoning them. It puzzles us when old fellows of the last generation tell us how, in their early days, men used to go house hunting every year and shift about from flat to flat and tenement to tenement as unconcernedly as so many wild Arabs changing their camping grounds.
However, I think upon the whole that we were wise to move. As New York widened her bounds, naturally land values on the heights went up, and the rise was made more rapid by the coming of several large store keepers. Our rent rose by degrees until it reached $500 a year. Of course we could have paid this easily enough. If a man wanted more money he had only to work a little harder and the money came. But neither my wife nor myself were partial to work. We wanted leisure. And when it came to a question of my setting type for an extra half hour every day merely that we might live on Washington heights, instead of in some other place that would be just as convenient for us, why we weren’t long in making up our minds. I dropped my trade for a couple of months, and we spent the time in house hunting, visiting different neighborhoods in succession, and stopping for a few days in each to see how we liked the natural surroundings and the people.
Finally we decided to pitch our tent in Plainfield, New Jersey, and here we have lived ever since. The natural advantages of the place for residences—it has absolutely none for manufacturing purposes, and there isn’t a mill or factory within ten miles of us—are very great. It enjoys deliciously pure water, the best, we think, on the Atlantic coast. The air is pure, the climate mild, and the well drained gravelly soil free from any taint of malaria. A range of hills is close at hand, from whose summits we can catch glimpses of New York bay and see at night the giant statue of Liberty holding up her torch. In former times, I understand, the town was plagued with mosquitos and flies, but since the Newark marshes were redeemed and the land generally brought into use, these insect pests have vanished for the lack of breeding grounds.
For all practical purposes, I am as much in New York, out here in Plainfield, as if I had never left the city. The only difference is that I have given up a few special natural advantages which I didn’t want while other people did. We have our free heating and cooling services, our free telephones and pneumatic tubes, our free electric power, just as they have them in the city. A magnificent six track railway, run at the public expense, connects us and the country beyond us with New York, crossing the Hudson on the great suspension bridge. Local trains stopping at stations a mile apart are run at five minute intervals, while fast expresses stopping every ten miles succeed each other every twenty minutes. In half an hour from the time I leave my house in the morning I am in the office ready for continued on p. 7 →
[continued on page 7]
Page 7 of 8contents
THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1888. 7
p. 7, col. 1 [continued from an earlier page; the paper does not say which (begins mid-sentence)]
← continued from p. 6 work; or if I prefer I can mount my electric tricycle and do the distance in less than two hours. I am thoroughly contented with my home and my surroundings. I live here, not because I must, but because I like to. There is nothing of the exile about me!
Ah! well! The dream is over. The vision fades away; and here I sit, in my study out in Plainfield, with a lot of written sheets before me, and the flies and mosquitoes buzzing about my ears. And yet, It sic have been. It might have been! And it surely shall be. Not in my day, perhaps. Not even, possibly, in my children’s day. But sooner or later, the time must come when men will realize that God made the earth for them to be happy in, not miserable; that He is not a mocking fiend, but a wise and loving father; and that the prize of freedom belongs to them, and to them only, who are willing to put forth their hands and grasp it.
T. L. MCCREADY.
Kreuscher’s Millennium.
I was trying to explain the thing to Kreuscher. Kreuscher—Kroysher, Kroosher or Crusher as his friends call him, according as the spelling of the name which is over the door strikes them—is a German groceryman. We were sitting on some empty boxes in the back of his store.
“But,” I was saying, “don’t you see that if we tax the vacant lots and make the owners use them and build stores and buildings, then rents will be smaller and it will be easier for new men to start in business?”
“Lieber Herr Gott! More easier to start in pizness. It is already too easy. Here is agross dot streedt anoder krocery store; den you haf one on der next streedt already, und on der next streedt again one. Vot for you vant more? Die koncurrenz—how you say dot—koncurrenz?”
“Competition,” I suggested.
“Ya, die gompetition is already too much; more stores dot means more gompetition. Ach, my young friendt, haf noding to do mit such dummheit. Now I tell you vonce vot is der matter;” and he raised his arm and shook his forefinger at me. “You haf here in der city too many peobles; und dose peobles are here too free; you haf here no kofernment, no sic.”
“But suppose we had a Bismarck, what would he do? How would he get rid of the people?”
“Vell, I tell you vot he do. First he take dose Henry Cheorges und he send dem away to Australien. Den he gets rid of dose temperanzlers—how you say temperanzlers?”
“Prohibitionists?”
“Ya, dose brohibitionists. Den he vould make all dose rich men, dose Chay Goulds und Hoontingtons und all to pay much money efery year to dot koferment. Den he make all dose peobles in der city vot has no vork to go oud west on dose farms; und he haf schools un sic und—”
“And a big army,” I ventured.
“Ach nein! Vot for you vant an army?” Kreuscher had served six years in the German army.
“I don’t want one; I only thought Bismarck would want one. But tell me, how would Bismarck give these farms to all the idle people? He don’t own them.”
“Lieber Herr! He take dem. Dey are now no use; nobody use dem except a few gowboys, maybe. Dose farms could millionen of peobles support; und den dose peobles could buy from die cities, und piziness vould be goot, und die koncurrenz—”
“And then your landlord would raise your rent and make lots of money without doing anything, hey?”
“Ya, den sic makes money. You are always so against dot landlord. For vot? He is a goot man. Dot is his brofession, und he will haf a goot chance to sugceed by dot brofession; krocery geschaeft is my brofession und I will sugceed by dot brofession. Eferybody must haf a brofession und eferybody must respect dot brofession of eferybody else. But eferybody must not gome to dose cities; dot is die hauptsache—die—die—brincipal ding. Den you haf no more Henry Cheorges.”
W. B. sic
An Ecclesiastical City.
All the Year Round.
Strange as it may sound, London is, and always has been to all appearances, an essentially ecclesiastical city. There are probably at this time more churches assembled within the boundaries of London wall than within any other space of equal dimensions in the world; and this plethora of ecclesiastical buildings must have been much more striking in an age when land was comparatively cheap, when there was no necessity to seize upon every available plot of ground for the purpose of running up warehouses, and counting houses, and shops, and when such houses as did exist had open spaces about them. Before the great fire there were one hundred and thirty-nine churches in London, of which thirteen belonged to religious houses—an enormous number if we consider the space of ground over which the London of 1666 spread; and, in the middle of the fourteenth century, when Roman Catholicism in England was in the full flush of its power and glory, there were no less than thirty distinct and powerful religious houses in London, not inclusive of “cells” and “colleges.”
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HENRY GEORGE’S WORKS.
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.
sic:
Introductory.—THE PROBLEM.
Book I.—WAGES AND CAPITAL.
Chap. 1. The current doctrine—its insufficiency.
The meaning of the terms.
Wages not drawn from capital, but produced by the labor.
The maintenance of laborers not drawn from capital.
The real functions of capital.
Book II.—POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.
Chap. 1. The Malthusian theory—its genesis and support.
Inferences from fact.
Inferences from analogy.
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.
Rent and the law of rent.
Interest and the cause of interest.
Of spurious capital and of profits often mistaken for interest.
The law of interest.
Wages and the law of wages.
Correlation and co-ordination of these laws.
The statics of the problem thus sic.
Book IV.—EFFECT OF MATERIAL PROGRESS UPON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.
Chap. 1. The dynamics of the problem yet to seek.
Effect of increase of population upon the distribution of wealth.
Effect of improvements in the arts upon the distribution of wealth.
Effect of the expectation raised by material progress.
Book V.—THE PROBLEM SOLVED.
Chap. 1. The primary cause of recurring paroxysms of industrial depression.
- The persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth.
Book VI.—THE REMEDY.
Chap. 1. Insufficiency of remedies currently advocated.
- The true remedy.
Book VII.—JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY.
Chap. 1. Injustice of private property in land.
Enslavement of laborers the ultimate result of private property in land.
Claim of land owners to compensation.
Property in land historically considered.
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.
How equal rights to the land may be asserted and secured.
The proposition tried by the canons of taxation.
Indorsements and objections.
Book IX.—EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY.
Chap. 1. Of the effect upon the production of wealth.
Of the effect upon distribution and thence upon production.
Of the effect upon individuals and classes.
Of the changes that would be wrought in social organization and social life.
Book X.—THE LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS.
Chap. 1. The current theory of human progress—its insufficiency.
Differences in civilization—to what due.
The law of human progress.
How modern civilization may decline.
The central truth.
Conclusion.—THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.
The new Land and labor library paper edition of “Progress and Poverty” is now ready, price thirty-five cents. This is printed on better paper, in larger type, is better bound and a considerably larger sic than the previous twenty cent edition.
PROTECTION OR FREE TRADE?
An Examination of the Tariff Question with Especial Regard to the Interests of Labor.
BY HENRY GEORGE.
CONTENTS.
I. Introductory.
Clearing ground.
Of method.
Protection as a universal need.
V. The protective unit.
Trade.
Production and producers.
Tariffs for revenue.
Tariffs for protection.
X. The encouragement of industry.
The home market and home trade.
Exports and imports.
Confusions arising from the use of money.
Do high wages necessitate sic
Of advantages and disadvantages as reasons for protection.
The Development of manufactures.
Protection and producers.
Effect of protection on American industry.
Protection and wages.
The abolition of protection.
Inadequacy of the free trade argument.
The Real Weakness of Free Trade.
The Real Strength of Protection.
The Paradox.
The Robber that Takes All that is Left.
True Free Trade.
The Lion in the Way.
Free Trade and Socialism.
Practical Politics.
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 sic.
77 pages.
FORTSCHRITT AND sic.
(Progress and Poverty in German.)
TRANSLATION OF C. D. F. GUTSCHOW.
430 pages.
PRICE LIST.
| Progress and Poverty, paper | $ 35 |
| ” ” cloth | 1 00 |
| ” ” half calf or half morocco | 2 50 |
| Social Problems, paper | 20 |
| ” ” cloth | 1 00 |
| ” ” half calf or half morocco | 2 50 |
| Protection or Free sic? paper | 35 |
| ” ” cloth | 1 50 |
| ” ” half calf or half morocco | 3 00 |
| Property in Land, paper | 15 |
| The Land Question, paper | 10 |
| Progress and Poverty, German, paper | 35 |
For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price. Foreign editions of these books imported on order.
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p. 7, col. 4
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TARIFF TRACTS.
The following Tracts on the Tariff Question are published in the Land and Labor Library:
No. 57. “Protection as a Universal Need.” Henry George. 4 sic.
No. 60. “The Tariff Question.” Henry George. 4 pages.
No. sic. “American Protection and British Free Trade.” Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 69. “Protection and Wages.” Henry George. 8 pages.
No. 70. “The Common Sense of the Tariff Question.” sic G. Shearman. 8 pages.
No. 72. “Protection the Friend of Labor?” Thomas G. Shearman. [6?] pages.
No. 75. “A Short Tariff History.” Thomas G. Shearman. 2 pages.
No. 76. “Plain Talk to Protectionists.” Thomas G. Shearman. 4 pages.
No. 77. “An Address to Workingmen on sic Tariff Question.” Henry George. 4 pages.
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NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THE LAND AND LABOR LIBRARY.—
We are now publishing under the title of “The Land and Labor Library” a series of short tracts on various phases of the social problem. These pamphlets contain facts, figures and arguments expressed in concise, vigorous language easily understood. As a means of propaganda we recommend them to all who desire to help on the movement for social reform. Those who wish to have these tracts placed where they will do good but who are unable personally to attend to their distribution, can remit the price to us, as we have every facility for sending them where they are needed and will be read.
The following have already appeared:
No. 1. “First Principles.” By Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 2. “Land and Taxation.” A conversation between David Dudley Field and Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 3. “The Right to the Use of the Earth.” By Herbert Spencer. 4 pages.
No. 4. “A Christian Minister on the Remedy for Poverty.” A sermon by the Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost of Newark, N. J. 2 pages.
No. 5. “A Sum in Proportion.” By T. L. McCready. [2?] pages.
No. 6. “The Settler’s Nightmare.” By Louis F. Post. 4 pages.
No. 7. “New York’s Docks: The True Mode of Raising Revenue.” By J. W. Sullivan. 4 pages.
No. 8. “Unemployed Labor.” By Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 9. “Voices for Reform.” 2 pages.
No. 10. “A Mysterious Disappearance.” By [Lewis?] Freeland. 6 pages.
No. 11. “How to Increase Profits.” By A. J. Steers. 2 pages.
No. 12. “The American Farmer.” By Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 13. “Sailors’ Snug Harbor and the Randall Farm.” By W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.
No. 14. “The Collegiate Church and the Shoemaker’s Field.” By W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.
No. 15. “Only a Dream.” By Abner C. Thomas. [4?] pages.
No. 16. “The Anti-Poverty Society.” Dr. McGlynn’s address at the first meeting. 8 pages.
No. 17. “The Cross of the New Crusade.” A poem. By David Rorty. 2 pages.
No. 18. “It is the Law of Christ.” By Rev. S. H. Spencer of Henry, Ill. 4 pages.
No. 19. “My Landlord. By John sic. 4 pages.
No. 20. “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” An address by Henry George before the Anti-Poverty Society. 8 pages.
No. 21. “Christianity and Poverty.” An address by Father Huntington before the Anti-poverty society. 4 pages.
No. 22. “Poverty and Christianity.” An address by Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost before the Anti-poverty society. 8 pages.
No. 23. “The Single Tax.” By Thomas G. Shearman. [8?] pages.
No. 24. “Hymns of the New Crusade”—No. 1. 4 pages.
No. 25. “Hymns of the New Crusade”—No. 2. 4 pages.
No. 26. “Religion vs. Robbery.” Address by Rev. Dr sic before the New York Anti-poverty society, June 12, 1887. 8 pages.
No. 27. “Back to the Land.” Bishop Nulty’s letter to the clergy and laity of his diocese. 16 pages. Price, 5 cents.
No. 28. “Anti-Slavery and Anti-Poverty.” An address by the Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost before the New York Anti-Poverty Society, June 19. 8 pages.
No. 29. “Tenement House Morality.” Rev. J. O. S. Huntington in the Forum. 4 pages.
No. 30. “The Case Plainly Stated.” A speech by H. F. Ring before the Knights of Labor at Houston, Texas. 8 pages.
No. 31. “Questions and Answers.” Questions by Rev. Howard Henderson of the Sixty-first street M. E. church of New York; with answers by Henry George. 2 pages.
No. 32. “Objections to the Land Tax.” By Thomas G. Shearman. 4 pages.
No. 33. “Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error.” Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 34. “Horse Sense.” W. C. Woods. 2 pages.
No. 35. The Syracuse Platform. 2 pages.
No. 36. “Citycus and Rusticus.” Tudor S. Jenks. [4?] pages.
No. 37. “Taxing Land Values.” Henry George. 8 pp.
No. 38. “God Wills It.” Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 39. “What We Want.” Everett Glackin, president Typographical Union No. 6. 2 pages.
No. 40. “Protection or Free Trade.” Henry George. Price, 35 cents.
No. 41. The Syracuse Platform. (German.) 2 pages.
No. 42. “First Principles.” (German.) Henry George 4 pages.
No. 43. “Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error.” (German.) Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 44. “How John’s Father Saw the Light.” W. C. Woods, M. D. 2 pages.
- Platform of the United Labor sic. 2 pages.
No. 46. “Taxing Land Values.” (German.) Henry George. 8 pages.
No. 47. “It is the Law of Christ.” (German.) Rev. S. H. Spencer. 4 pages.
No. 48. “The Case Plainly Stated.” (German). H. F. Ring. 8 pages.
No. 49. “The Distribution of Wealth.” Thomas G. Shearman. 16 pages.
No. 50. “Progress and Poverty.” (German.) Henry George.
No. 51. “Ten Thoughts for Christian Thinkers.” Rev. John W. Kramer. 4 pages.
No. 52. “The Case Plainly Stated.” sic). H. F. Ring. 8 pages.
No. 53. “Sailors’ Snug Harbor.” (German.) Wm. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.
No. 54. “What the United Labor Party Want.” Henry George. 2 pages.
No. 55. “Stories for Farmers.” 4 pages.
No. 56. “Electoral Reform.” A. T. Rice. 4 pages.
No. 57. “Protection as a Universal Need.” Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 58. “To a College Professor.” Bartholomew Appleby. 4 pages.
No. 59. “Before a Royal Commission.” W. A. Douglass. 4 pages.
No. 60. “The Tariff Question.” Henry George. [4?] pages.
No. sic, “A Practical Illustration.” Hugh B. Brown. 2 pages.
No. 62. “Progress and Poverty.” Henry George. Price, 35 cents.
No. 63, “American Protection and British Free Trade.” Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 64. “Hints as to What You Can Do.” Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 65. “To a Bookkeeper.” Rartholomew sic. 2 pages.
No. 66. “A Lawyer’s Reply to Criticisms.” Samuel B. Clarke. 16 pages.
No. 67. “A Piece of Land” By the late Francis G. Shaw. 2 pages.
No. 68. “The Tax on Buildings.” William T. Croasdale. 8 pages.
No. 69. “Protection and Wages.” Henry George. 8 pages.
No. 70. “The Common Sense of the Tariff Question. . Thomas G. Shearman. 8 pages.
No. 71. “My Butcher Woman and My Grocery Man. William sic. 4 pages.
No. 72. “Protection the Friend of Labor?” Thomas G. Shearman. 8 pages.
No. 73. “Property in Land.” Henry George. Price, 15 cents.
No. 74. “Social Problems.” Henry George. Price, 35 cents.
No. 75. “A Short Tariff History.” Thomas G. Shearman. 2 pages.
No. 76. “Plain Talk to Protectionists.” Thomas G. Shearman. 4 pages.
No. 77. An Address to Workingmen on the Tariff Question. Henry George. 4 pages.
GERMAN TRACTS.
No. 41. The Syracuse Platform. 2 pages.
No. 42. “First Principles.” Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 43. “Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error.” Henry George. 4 pages.
No. 46. “Taxing Land Values.” Henry George. 8 pages.
No. 47. “It is the Law of Christ.” Rev. S. H. Spencer of Henry, Ill. 4 pages.
No. 48. “The Case Plainly Stated.” H. F. Ring. 8 pages.
No. 50. “Progress and Poverty.” Henry George.
No. 52. “The Case Plainly Stated.” (Swedish.) H. F. Ring. 8 pages.
No. 53. “Sailors’ Snug Harbor.” Wm. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.
SWEDISH.
No. 52. “The Case Plainly Stated.” H. F. Ring. 8 pages.
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Page 8 of 8contents
8 THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1888.
p. 8, col. 1
CURRENT THOUGHT.
Some More of Edward Atkinson’s Notions.
In the August issue of the Forum Edward Atkinson asks the question, “Must Humanity starve at last?” He does not say distinctly whether they must or must not, but closes his essay by answering his own query in this dubious and hypothetical fashion:
If the functions of government were admitted to be to give each man an equal opportunity to make use of the benefits which science and invention place at his disposal, and to do, through the intervention of government, only such actual work as can be done by society in its corporate capacity better than individuals can do it for themselves, most of the obstructions which legislation has placed in the way of mutual service would soon be removed, and the true law of human progress would then develop itself. Wages would then increase to the maximum within the limit of a product attained under the most favorable conditions.
It may astonish Mr. Atkinson to be told that this is nothing but a clumsy indorsement of the single tax on land values; but if he would ask himself a few questions, and insist on getting straightforward answers, he could hardly fail to see it. There is absolutely nothing that prevents any man from making “use of the benefits which science and invention place at his disposal,” save only his ability to command the natural opportunities to use them on. Rendrock blasting powder is a benefit placed at man’s disposal by science and invention, but no man can make use of it without first paying somebody else for the privilege of access to a quarry or a coal mine. Cotton spinning machinery is another such benefit; but what use can a man make of it if he has no land on which to place it, and is refused direct or indirect access to the soil on which to grow the cotton to be spun?
Mr. Atkinson, however, has never asked himself any questions of this kind; and so he goes sloshing about through a perfect slough of unrelated ideas, getting nowhere in particular, but making a tremendous mess. It is impossible to discover with any certitude just what he really means to say; but the following is probably a fair statement: Mankind have been oppressed by three bugbears—the bugbear of the Malthusian theory of population and subsistence, the bugbear of Ricardo’s theory of rent, and the bugbear of the iron law of wages. These must be utterly destroyed and swept out of human consciousness before any real progress can be made. Next men must learn that it is not labor that produces wealth, so much as “the mind of man when applied to the direction of natural forces.” When this lesson has been learned it will be found that the productive powers of land may be almost indefinitely increased, and—and—well, that’s about all. There are a few general observations about the evils of war, pestilence and famine, a suggestion that our universities should establish traveling scholarships in political economy; and the essay ends with the passage about “the function of government” already quoted.
Belford’s for August.
Belford’s Magazine for August, besides a complete novel by N. J. W. Le Cato, and a well selected miscellany of light literature, contains some notable contributions to current economic discussion. First comes a breezy, well digested article on “The Real Issue,” by Hon. Roger Q. Mills, in which, while the absurdities of protection are not spared, the perfectly true assertion is made that “no democrat in this country, whatever he may desire, demands free trade:”
The fact is, however, the trouble is not in the measure before the house, but in a subtle, ill-defined fear that if a popular agitation is had, the people will come to learn what a fraud and extortion this tariff system is. Such agitation will bring out the fact that instead of aiding on the real sic of the country, it is its deadly enemy. The people will find that it has robbed us of the carrying trade upon the high seas and driven our flag back from the furthest reaches of civilized and savage life the world over, to within the limits of our own land. They will learn that while it protects capital, arresting competition in its behalf, it leaves labor to compete with the very pauper labor of Europe, for our ports are open and millions of these poor people are admitted to contest the rags and food awarded by these favored few to the toiling thousands, for it is a fact, not to be denied, that the poorest paid labor of the United States is this claimed protected labor. They, the people, mostly agriculturists, will learn through this agitation that this system of protection leaves the farmer to sell under free trade all that he produces, for the market for his produce is in Europe, where he competes with the lowest form of pauper labor; while all that he purchases—his clothes, the material for his fences, shelter, and iron, glass, furniture and all that gives him and his stock shelter is augmented to twice its value by the tariff.
Mr. Mills’s bill does not fail to sic out, too, that not the least evil of protectionism is the way in which it has degraded our politics and substituted for the old time campaigns of principle a mere succession of struggles to determine how, and to what extent, one set of men shall be legally privileged to oppress their fellows:
Time was in the history of our government when a contention between parties as to the administration of the general government turned on purely political matters of an abstract sort. Of course, they affected one way or another the policy of the administration, and let what party soever succeed, the success had no other result than a defeat of the opposite organization’s idea of the better sort of a political administration. Since the late civil war all this has changed. A change of policy directly affects all the moneyed and material interests of the country. In other words, the government erected by the fathers has passed from a political structure built mainly to keep the peace between states, protect us as a nation from foreign aggression, to secure, so far as its limited jurisdiction can, to every citizen his rights to life, liberty and the lawful use of his property, to a commercial affair that undertakes to not only influence but directly guide the moneyed and material business of the people. The government has come to be, what the monarchies of Europe are, paternal. It seeks to do something for everybody, with the natural result of great benefit to a few and a grave injury to all.
A change of policy then, especially one that looks to a restoration of the government to the political basis of its framers, involves,
p. 8, col. 2 > besides a change cf policy of a political sort, the material interests to the extent of millions, invested not only under direction of the government, but insured success by the payment of bounties gathered from the taxes levied upon the labor and property of all the people. This is called the business relations; and when a republican says we are disturbing such business relations, he tells the truth, and his zeal can be measured by the amount he has invested and the premium the government has agreed to pay him out of the pockets of the consumers. That such interested party will be loud in his denunciations, and not particular in either his abuse or assertion of fact, is not to be wondered at.
This is written in no spirit of anger. The protectionist is not to be blamed. He has taken advantage of the situation, and made his investment in accordance with the law, and is no more to blame for the criminal system under which he grows rich than the slave holders of the south were for the slavery sanctioned by law and sanctified by usage upon which they lived. That was for its day the business relation which at first a handful of fanatics, and afterward the people of the United States, sought to disturb, not by argument, but by the bayonet. We have lived to be thankful that that business relation was wiped out, how much soever we may lament the gallant dead and the wasted treasure. And the time will come when all the people will rejoice to see this business relation—a darker evil than that of slavery—eliminated from the land. It is a darker evil; for while the southern system of unrequited toil enslaved the blacks, this system is reducing white labor to slavery, and we revenne sic or free traders, if we may be so called, are making our fight for our own race, whose misery keeps pace with our prosperity, and we can measure our present progress not not sic by the palaces of millionaires, but by the huts and hovels of oppressed labor.
The parable sic that business relation of slavery and this business relation to-day is yet more strongly marked in the anxiety to keep down all discussion and avoid all agitation of the subject. We of the south protested against all agitation, for we had the gravest reason to fear the worst. We were not the authors of the slave system. It had been forced upon us, and the mere fact that it could exist made agitation such a terrible menace, for it meant appeals to a race capable of being enslaved, and capable therefore of all such a condition made possible in a servile insurrection.
In like manner our moneyed friends deprecate agitation. In their efforts in this direction they have very nearly succeeded in making the term free trader as obnoxious as was that of abolitionist before the war. They feelingly attribute the depression in trade to this agitation. “These free traders are seeking to disturb the business relations,” they cry. “No man will invest in any enterprise so long as the country is menaced by such cranks and fanatics.” How absurd, how laughable this is, one learns by considering the measure introduced by the ways and means committee of the house, over which all this disturbance arises.
The article on “British Free Trade,” by Alfred H. Peters, that on “British Interests in American Protection,” by Fred Perry Powers, and an editorial “About Wool Again,” are also well worth reading. But the gem of the current number of Belford’s is an article by T. E. Willson, entitled “War Declared on Agriculture,” in which the author makes a convincing demonstration of the utterly reckless manner in which the interests of farmers are trampled under foot by the upholders of the tariff system.
Mr. Willson points out that the effect of our protective system is to limit our opportunities for selling those things that we can produce to most advantage, and to absolutely compel our workers to enter into competition with foreign pauper labor:
No competition is possible between the New York farmer and the French weaver, although the former may have exchanged a surplus of one hundred bushels of American wheat for one hundred yards of surplus French silk. Both were working independently, and both were gainers. Other farmers might compete with this farmer in bidding surplus wheat, other weavers might compete with this weaver in offering surplus silk, but no farmer could compete with a weaver. Sellers compete, buyers compete; but there can be no competition between buyer and seller. So long as there is an exchange of commodities there can be no competition between the traders.
To close up these industries now producing native American goods, to force these workmen to make the goods we now obtain by barter, is to drive them into open competition with the foreign paupers. It is to destroy the New York farmer’s surplus of one hundred bushels of wheat, and to send his daughter into a protected Paterson silk mill to make the one hundred yards of silk in direct competition with every pauper silk weaver in Europe.
Every protected workman in the country is in direct and open competition with pauper labor the world over. The unprotected workman never comes into competition with the foreign pauper, because he does not produce what the foreign pauper produces. Competition requires identity of interests. The mere exchange of a surplus in one business for a surplus in another business is not competition. But to stop the surplus and to manufacture that which was exchanged is direct competition.
What was the nature of the unprotected industries producing this surplus of sic which the republican party says must be destroyed? Who are the free born independent workmen the republicans wish to drive into competition with foreign paupers by forcing them to produce the same articles? Turn to page 41 of the last report of the secretary of the treasury:
The values of exports of domestic merchandise during the year 1887, classified by groups, were as follows:
Product of agriculture………………..$523,073,798 ” ” manufacture………………..136,735,105 ” ” mining………………..11,758,662 ” ” forests………………..21,126,273 ” ” fisheries………………..5,155,775 ” ” miscellaneous………………..5,178,310 Foreign goods re-exported………………..13,160,288
Total………………..$716,183,211
It is the farmer who stands in the way of protection. It is the farmer who must be crushed. It is the farmer against whom the republican party stands openly arrayed. It is against agriculture that war is declared in the republican platform when it demands:
Such revision of the tariff laws as will tend to check imports of such articles [made by foreign pauper labor] as are produced by our people [in competition with foreign paupers], the production of which gives employment to our labor [driven out of self-supporting industries].
To rob the farmer and the people the first step was, to use the language of the republican platform, to “check imports of such articles [made by foreign paupers] as could be produced by our people,” and to force our workmen to enter into competition with foreign pauper labor. To do this a series of heavy fines, ranging from 25 to 325 per cent,
p. 8, col. 3 > were levied on the importation of foreign pauper products. These fines checked the importation and stopped the manufacture of the native American products previously exchanged for them. The workman, thrown out of employment, was forced to go into the mill producing pauper products, at a lower wage, which yet was higher than the foreign pauper received. The pay roll was so insignificant, the profits so enormous, that the manufacturer protected in this debasement and enserfment of the American workman could afford to be liberal—for a time. How insignificant wages are to him may be seen by consulting the census. In 1880 the 49 sugar refiners of this country received from the people of the United States $155,484,915 for sugar that could have been bought in foreign markets for $100,312,847—an advance of $55,172,068 over normal profits. The 49 firms employed 5,857 workmen, to whom they paid $2,875,032 in wages, or 5 per cent of the blackmail paid by the people to the 49 firms. Last year the blackmail paid the 49 firms was over $80,000,000, and their workmen struck against a decrease in wages—and were beaten. What “protection” did the tariff afford these workmen?
The American farmer was limited by the republican tariff for protection last year to an export of $523,073,798. Did he receive foreign pauper made goods of this value in exchange? Yes; but before he received them he was compelled to pay a fine of over $200,000,000, so that he should not be able to dispose of them at profit in competition with the American manufacturers of European pauper products. This fine represents the profit he was unjustly robbed of on the small transaction.
A Panorama of Words.
Of the making of books of travel truly there is no end. No matter in what part of the world you may be presently interested— Timbuctoo, Thibet, Kamtchatka, Patagonia. be it what you sic, in any well equipped library you shall find the stories of a dozen travelers who have visited it. And every one of them shall be full of an unsatisfactoriness that is double sic because you cannot put your finger on it and say, This is what displeases me, or, Here is something lacking. You want to know about the people?—there they are, color, manners, customs, methods of life—the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. You read about the public buildings, about the government, about the commerce and the industry, the flora and fauna, the climatic conditions, the natural resources. Ask what question you please, and the book will answer it. What more do you want? What more? Why only this—to see something. The traveler has told you many things; but he has showed you nothing.
But in Lafcadio Hearn we have a traveler who takes his readers with him and shows them things. His story of a “Midsummer Trip to the West Indies,” now running in Harper’s Magazine, is veritably a word painted panorama, in which we literally see the tropic isles, and we see them, too, through trained and beauty loving eyes. Read, for instance, this description of a forest in Martinique:
But all the wonderful little city is just one minute patch of color on the curving coast, relieved against the blazing green of forest climbing thousands of feet above it, and behind sic, and all around it. To describe the monstrous beauty of these woods, so as to convey to the reader anything like an adequate idea of the impression they produce, seems to me almost impossible; there are forms, there are tones, there are colors, which seem to demand the creation of new words to express. Painters are filled with astonishment and despair by the splendor of these woods; no human art can mock their glory: it could be painted only with green fire!
You have only to follow any one of the mountain roads leading out of St. Pierre to find yourself within twenty minutes before the forest verge. The city roofs lie far below your feet already, with the blue strip of sea beyond; above you the woods climb up to the clouds, a prodigious precipitous surface of burning green, solid and rugose like a cliff. You do not distinguish whole trees in the mass; you only perceive suggestions, dreams of trees—phantasmagorias, Doresqueries; sylvan shapes that seem to be staggering under great drooping burdens rise a hundred feet above you; still huger laboring forms tower far above these; and yet, at a more dizzy altitude, a legion of fetiches, goblins, monstrosities, specters, are nodding, bending, writhing, tossing up green arms, pushing out prodigious knees, projecting buge curves like backs and shoulders, intertwining colossal mockeries of limbs. But you discern no suggestions of heads, except where some royal palm, after an astounding struggle, has succeeded in pushing up its crest two hundred feet to greet the sun. All else appears as if under a ponderous vail, half hidden, half sic by drooping things. Blazing green vines cover every branch, every twig, every stem; they form mantles and draperies and curtains and tapestries, pouring down over all projections like a thick, slow flood of incandescent color, cascading over all in one amazing inundation of parasitic life. All this may rise to two thousand, three thousand, four thousand feet above you, according to the height of the mountain; and one perpetual, never-slackening storm of shrill sound rises from it—innumerable voices of birds, insects and tree-climbing frogs.
But this absolutism of green does not eternally prevail; in the season corresponding to our winter these woods suddenly break into enormous conflagration of color, and such colors!—flame yellow, flesh pink, blood scarlet, burning azure, vermilion—colors that that shimmer in sheets, often without touching or blending; there are cataracts of these colors that pour from the mountain crests unbrokenly to the roofs of the city; there are curtains of pure crimson or fiery lilac; there are precipices of canary yellow; there are rose burning glens; and between these, when flowering species intermingle in the merciless tropical struggle for life, there are supernal coruscations of a hundred hues, pyrotechnical splendor of tint blendings and tint contrasts impossible to describe, impossible to paint, bewildering to vision, dazzling the eye like some tremendous kindling of chemical fires.
But the sense of awe inspired by the view of a tropical forest is unutterably greater than any mystical fear which any wooded wilderness of the north could ever have inspired. The very brilliancy of these colors—that seem preternatural to northern eyes—is terrifying; but the vastness of the mile broad and mile high masses of frondage, their impenetrability, the violet blackness of the few rare apertures in their perpendicular facades, where mountain torrents break through to the sun, and their enormous murmur, made up of a million inexplicable crawling, creeping, crumbling sounds—all combine to produce the conception of a creative force that appalls. Man feels here like an insect, fears like an insect ever on the alert for merciless enemies. To enter these green abysses without a guide were madness; even with the best
p. 8, col. 4 > of guides it is a peril. Nature is dangerous here; the powers that build here are also the powers that putrefy; here life and death are perpetually interchanging office in the never ceasing transformation of forces, melting down and reshaping living substance simultaneously within the same awful crucible. There are trees distilling venom; there are plants that have fangs; there are perfumes that affect the brain; there are cold green creepers whose touch consumes flesh like fire; while in all the recesses and the shadows is a swarming of unfamiliar life, beautiful or hideous—insect, reptile, bird—interwarring, devouring, observing, preying. Strange spiders of burning colors, immense lizards, scaribs cuirassed in all tints of metal, humming birds, plumaged in all splendor of jewel radiance, flies that flash like fire, centipedes of gigantic growth. And the lord of all these, the despot of these vast domains, is the terrible Fer-de-lance, the trigonocephalus, the Bothrops lanceolatus, the craspodecephalus, deadliest of Occidental thanatophidia.
Dont you see the forest? Don’t you feel the oppression of it round, and half shudder at the thought of the dangers you may be encountering? To write thus is to be a true artist of the pen; and such Lafcadio Hearn approves himself.
“In the Sick Room,” which comes to us from Clark W. Bryan & Co., publishers, Springfield, Mass., is a fifty cent pamphlet on the art of nursing, by Elizabeth Robinson Scovil, which will be exceedingly useful to all who have the care of the sick.
NEW IDEAS, METHODS AND INVENTIONS.
The little steamboat Buzz, which has made the astonishing record of a mile in 2 minutes and 8 seconds, which is at the rate of 28 miles an hour, was designed by Mr. C. D. Mosher, whose idea was to make a boat which would not sink any deeper when going rapidly than when at rest. The screw revolves at maximum speed from 600 to 700 times per minute. The little speeder is now the property of W. W. Ames. Mr. Mosher is now drawing the plans for a 100-foot steam yacht on the same principle as the Buzz.
An Austrian engineer has, it is said, designed a truck to be run before every railway train, being maintained always at a fixed (but adjustable) distance in front by the force of an electric current transmitted from a dynamo on the engine. The current is conducted in glass tubes to the pilot truck. If, therefore, the truck comes into collision the tubes are broken and the contact necessarily destroyed. The interruption of the current instantly and automatically applies the brakes on the following train.
The Richmond electric street railroad uses the Sprague overhead wire system. This road has been running long enough to allow reliable figures as to the expense being obtained. It is found that the cost of power is $1.48 per car day, the car making eighty miles, and of material, labor, and depreciation, $1.98 per car day; the total being $3.46 per car day or 4.32 cents per car mile. This is to be compared with the ten cents a car mile that horses cost, and in the latter estimate there is no allowance for depreciation of cars, etc. At present there is a saving in this line of $125 a day as compared with horses. The passengers carried are over 10,000 per day.
At a recent meeting in New York of the Commercial travelers’ protective association the subject of the reduced railway tariff was discussed, It is sic by the association to have a ticket available over 5,000 miles in any direction issued to every member of the travelers’ union, the charge to be at the rate of two cents per mile, and that the ticket run for one year. The pass shall be available on any of the great trunk lines, and to it will be affixed the photograph and full description of the person to whom it is issued. The association guarantees that the passes in question shall be used only by members of their union, and in case of violation of this agreement by members the association will summarily expel the persons offending.
The Westinghouse people, who control the now universally used air brake, have an invention for demagnetizing watch works which have been rendered useless by coming too near a magnet or an electric current. A bundle of iron wires is wrapped with an insulated copper wire; through the copper wire is passed an alternating current which changes its direction 14,200 times per minute. The iron wires become magnetized with each passage of the current, the north pole being at one end one time and at the opposite end the next time. Now if the magnetized watch works are held near this bunch of wires the magnetism in the works is reversed in the same way, and if the works are gradually moved further and further from the wires the current in them becomes less and less powerful, and when withdrawn from the field of magnetism they are perfectly demagnetized.
A compound engine of Webb’s system, and made by Beyer, Peacock & Co. of Manchester, will soon be tried upon the Pennsylvania railroad. As many of the fastest English trains are run regularly by engines of this type, it will be of interest to note their performance on American lines. Possibly the inferior quality of American coal may be found unequal to supply steam in an English fire box, which, for the work done, is generally smaller than in America. If this is not the case, there can be no reason for failure, apart from unskillful handling. The English express trains are run much faster than ours. One train between London and Glasgow runs the 401 miles in eight hours, including forty-five minutes stoppages; that is, while running the speed is 48½ miles an sic. Several other trains run at about the same speed for long distances.
Here is a description of a new type setting machine just perfected by J. E. Munson, a well known stenographer of this city. In this system the compositor is replaced by a perforator, who works a machine something like a type writer. This machine cuts into an endless tape a combination of holes, differently arranged for each letter and punctuation mark. The tape after the perforation is read by the proof reader, who adds holes where they are needed and blots out those that are incorrect until the copy is perfectly justified. The perforations are produced by steel dies communicating with a key board similar to that used on the type writer, but much larger and more complete. The justified tape is then placed in the receiver of the main machine, and the power, steam, electric, or hand, applied. As it runs along the perforations free the levers, as in the orguinette, and each combination causes the corresponding type to drop from a type reservoir into the carrier and then into the galley. If the tape is correct the galley is equally correct, so that the old style of galley proof and page proof revision is done away with completely. As there is almost no limit to the speed with which the main machine can be run, and as two dozen perforators can be used at once, it is easily seen that the new invention will do the work of a large number of compositors. A child, it is claimed, can operate the perforator and can “cut tape” three times as fast as an expert typesetter can work. One justifier, it is estimated, could revise the tape of five perforators, and one workman at the main machine would be all that is requisite to keep everything going. As the type now in use are of varying and arbitrary widths, necessitating the insertion of “leads,” “spaces” and “quads,” it is not suited for the machine. Mr. Munson has therefore been compelled to devise a new system of types, based upon tenths of inches, which enables the machine when setting type to fill each line to the mathematical limit. The machine will be quite costly, but once in operation it will involve little or no expense for maintenance and repairs. The claim is made that with it copy may be prepared up to within three minutes of going to press.
p. 8, col. 5
THE SINGLE TAX IN CANADA.
Address of the Anti-Poverty Society of Toronto.
The anti-poverty society of Toronto, Canada, have issued the following address which we reprint from the Toronto Globe:
Strike from Christianity the principle of love and what is left? A corpse, a husk, a tomb. The life is gone and it matters not what traditions or ceremonies remain, the relic is no more Christianity than a corpse is a man.
While this truth will at once be conceded, we take the liberty of asking you, good readers, if in our social arrangements we are making anything like a decent approximation to this principle. Do our laws, so far as they affect the division of the products of labor, make any approach to the command, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself?”
When the farmer resorts to fertility, the miner to the most productive mines, and the fisher to the best fisheries, they are all trying to enrich by producing abundance. In the same way each producer, by sticking to his own occupation, develops special skill and produces better in quality and more in quantity. The developed skill of one produces abundantly, the developed skill of another likewise produces abundantly; they exchange, they enrich and are enriched. No statutory enactment compels this. It is the outgrowth of man’s natural impulses. Here is the harmony of mutual enrichment.
The characteristics of this harmonious trade are toil for toil, service for service, enrichment for enrichment, benefit for benefit. This is trade; and when viewed in this aspect it is seen to be not a tug of war, one succeeding by another’s failure, but each one blessed and benefited by others’ success.
In contrast to this we ask attention to the following circumstance: Some years ago, when Toronto was very small, a man obtained possession of a piece of land for a very trifling sum. The ground rental was then about $50 per annum. Population has increased, land has become relatively more scarce, people are now crowding into back alleys unfit for human habitation, and that land owner is now drawing a rental of upward of $10,000 per annum. Has he become rich by enriching, by rendering toil for toil, service for service, enrichment for enrichment, benefit for benefit? No, not by any means.
Does the relationship thus established between this man and the rest of society accord with the spirit of Christianity?
In answer to this question we ask attention to the following particulars:
He did not produce this value of $10,000 yearly. This value depends on the presence of a population of 150,000 people. The value caused by 150,000 is appropriated wholly by one.
As he does nothing to produce this $10,000 yearly, he obtains this wealth every year by the deprivation and impoverishment of the toiler. He rises to wealth not by the abundance of his production, but on the crushed fortune of his neighbors.
This man’s share of the products of toil has increased not because he has benefited or enriched society in any way, but, on the other hand, because land has become relatively more scarce; because society is poorer in land; therefore he is richer.
Population is rapidly increasing, land is yearly becoming more scarce, congestion is growing more intense. Therefore the toil that produces must surrender more and more to the land holder. At first toil surrendered to him but a small portion of its produce; as population increased toil had to surrender more; and as population still further increased toil had to surrender still more, and the more the toiler pays the more he has to pay—the more he pays, the greater grows his debt. The debt is continuous, increasing and irredeemable.
For the possession of that estate there was paid originally into the public treasury a very trifling sum of money, probably less than one dollar, and for that small sum the law decrees to the land owner the power to compel his fellows to maintain him and his successors for all time in luxurious idleness. The law thus sells to him the power to become a perpetual task master.
Do not the principle of Christian brotherhood and the principle of Christian equity demand that reward should be proportioned to service? Should not the hand of industry make rich, and idleness tend to poverty? Should not each receive according to his work? Does not common honesty demand this? What could we think of ourselves if we sanctioned laws that decreed wealth to the idler and poverty to the toiler? And yet that is exactly the very character of our land system. Let a man become possessed of land round which men congregate, and the law allows him to appropriate the value of that land without limit of time or amount. His hand may know no diligence, but he becomes rich, while toil with enormous diligence must live in comparative penury. Toil must pay tribute to idleness. Donothing may revel in luxury, toil must wallow in want!
Toil producing much and enjoying little, while idleness may produce nothing and appropriate princely pay. Christianity says: To each according to his work; our land laws reverse this order and decree to toil penury, to idleness plenty.
- Amid the thunders of Sinai there came the command: “Thou shalt not steal.” And in the enlightened and purified conscience there still thunders the same command. We may build churches, adorn sanctuaries, have service of beauty beyond reproach, with song and chant of thrilling sweetness, sermons faultless in logic and eloquence; but unless we can practice common honesty, unless we put into practice the command, Thou shalt not steal, what avail all our forms and ceremonies? Now what lies at the basis of property? There can be but one claim, namely, production, or the rendering of service. How can a man who produces nothing establish a claim to something which another man produced? Yet by our laws we decree that the man who acquires a land value may produce nothing, but he can claim food from the farmer, clothing from the clothier, service from the doctor, and tribute continuously. It gives the land owner the power to push his hand, year after year, deeper and deeper into the pocket of the toiler. How can he who produces nothing, who renders no service to society, honestly be entitled to the produce and service of other people? Can this be honest? Do not our land laws, which empower the non-producer to appropriate products of toil, thus sanction perpetual confiscation?
The land restoration league has been revivified and will engage in active work again. Mr. Verinder, its secretary, is a very active young man. Its president, Mr. William Saunders, late M. P. from Hull, has organized a series of Saturday afternoon “conversaziones” in Trafalgar square. It will be remembered that public speaking there has for some months been prohibited. Printed resolutions are distributed, and when St. Martin’s church clock strikes certain hours, they are voted on. Thus public meetings are virtually held, and their decisions registered, though no speeches are made. How long this will go on is doubtful, as the police authorities are getting very restive.
Not much importance can be attached to the bill which has been drawn up by the land
p. 8, col. 6 nationalization society for the municipalization of the highlands of Scotland. It may be safely affirmed that no such bill will ever be passed. The proposal to compensate the landlords would alone be sufficient to cause its defeat. It is too late in the day to talk of compensation to landlords, and especially to such landlords as we have in the highlands. The bill is merely interesting as indicating the rapid growth of opinion on the land question.
A significant incident has just occurred at the National liberal club—the headquarters of official liberalism. There has been a debate on the land question, and all the speakers who took part in it, except one, were in favor of land nationalization. True, they were in favor of compensating landlords; but little importance is to be attached to that, as belief in compensation is a stage which most persons go through in the evolution of this question. Not long hence hardly one of these men will be in favor of compensation. I hear that Alfred Illingworth, M. P., who presided over the debate, and who is considered an extreme radical, was much shocked by the “extreme” views which were expressed. The world moves.
What is to be the development of society? Read Helen Campbell’s “Prisoners of Poverty,” describing the poor in New York; read the “Bitter Cry” of London; look at the misery of Ireland or among the crofters of Scotland. These tales, so harrowing, make the heart sicken at the life of hopeless poverty into which millions are yearly born. We have adopted precisely the same system of land laws here. Twice two beget four in Ireland, twice two cannot beget five or three in Canada. With the same social arrangement here as there we see precisely the same law of development. Every year sees the gulf between the rich and poor grow wider. Population on this continent doubles every twenty-five years.
Ground rentals in cities grow more rapidly than population. To-day in the best parts of Toronto the toilers must surrender a ground rental to the amount of forty to fifty thousand dollars per acre per annum; twenty-five years hence the tribute to be surrendered by the toiler to idleness will have grown to a hundred thousand dollars per acre per annum! For what? For service in return? No, no, but simply to get access to God’s earth!
Just think what this arrangement involves. Two children are born—one heir to that tribute as claimant, the other heir to that tribute as debtor. The latter must serve a lifetime of toil to house, feed clothe and maintain in brilliant luxury the former, who by our social arrangements is not bound to render any service in return. The child of penury is born to a life of servitude, not for any sin of himself or his parents, but simply because we who profess Christianity, the religion of brotherly love, have decreed that so it shall be. To sell absolutely as we do the whole habitable earth with all its potentialities to one part of society, and thus compel the other part to pay tribute for ever to get access to the earth, and then to teach the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the supremacy of love; could there be a greater mockery? If twenty men raise a crop or build a boat and one claims full possession of all the product, he is guilty of theft. All instincts of justice insist that the producers of the value should own the value. The peculiar value that comes from the crowding of population or from public improvements should belong to the people. Justice proclaims it, and no legislative enactment can reverse this decree without wrong.
The remedy is very simple and very easy. Let all taxes be removed as quickly as possible from the products of toil, as so wisely suggested by Henry George, and concentrated on land values. We thus accomplish several advantages.
The adoption of the simplest possible form of taxation, the easiest to assess, the easiest to collect, the one that no one can evade.
We thus prevent that terrible disaster of placing one part of society to stand as impediments between their fellows and the original source of wealth, the earth, and thus beget unwilling idle tramps at one end of society and idle confiscators and non-producing consumers at the other end.
By thus appropriating for public purposes that value which is not the product of toil, we effectually prevent one becoming rich simply by impoverishing. Then each will become rich only as he renders service and thus enriches.
And if civilization is to advance, if the principle of love is to become supreme, if we are to develop a true Christianity, must not this reform be accomplished? Let the present method continue, with population increasing at its present enormous rate, must not the result largely nullify all attempts at the improvement of the race? Where toil surrendered $100 fifty years ago, it surrenders twenty-five fold that sum to-day. In the next twenty-five years the increase of population on this continent will be as great as during the last 100 years. Instead of this being a grand benefit to society it will act as a huge wedge, the ground rentals of the land sic will have increased to enormous proportion, while the burden of the toiler will have become increasingly great.
Dives comes to the sanctuary in his gilded coach; his rentals have grown. Toil tramps afoot and sits apart on a hard board; his burden has grown. The service is read—“Little children, love one another?”
How They Came to Spell It Smythe.
Chambers’s Journal.
At the present day we have many smiths of many kinds—goldsmiths, silversmiths, locksmiths, blacksmiths, etc.; and there is no reason to doubt that in early times they were proportionately just as numerous; for we read (2 Kings, xxiv, 16) that the king of Babylon took captive “all the men of might, even seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand.” But however this may have been, there is certainly no scarcity of Smiths in our days. In all English speaking countries the Smiths outnumber the members of any other family; and they are also very numerous in all European countries. Thus, the German Schmidt is almost as familiar as our Smith; while in other foreign tongues the same well known name may be detected under many curious disguises. Its various other English forms, as Smithe—which is very uncommon—Smyth, and Smythe, can hardly be spoken of as disguises; for although these spellings of the name nowadays certainly indicate a desire on the part of those so spelling it to show that they come of more ancient and aristocratic or better family than the other Smiths, it is the case that these forms are more ancient than the ordinary modern form. In times when the spelling of personal surnames was made to vary according to the ignorance or caprice of the writer, it was common to spell Smith with a double ii. This double ii was written ij, as may still be seen in physicians’ prescriptions, and in the name of the Bowyer-Smijths, baronets, of Hill nall, sic, now almost, if not quite, the only family so spelling the name. In the course of time this form, having the dots omitted, became the y, as we now see it in Smyth and Smythe.
The Grand Old Man’s Opinion of Our Tariff.
Speech by the Hon. William E. Gladstone at Leeds, England, 1881.
I will say this, that as long as America adheres to the protective system your commercial supremacy is secure. Nothing in the world can wrest it from you while America continues to fetter her own strong hands and arms and with these fettered arms is content to compete with you, who are free, in neutral markets. And as long as America follows the doctrines now known as those of fair trade, you are perfectly safe and you need not allow, any of you, even your lightest slumbers to be disturbed by the fear that America will take from you your commercial supremacy.
SOCIAL PROBLEMS.
BY HENRY GEORGE.
342 pages.
CONTENTS:
The increasing importance of social questions.
Political dangers.
Coming increase of social pressure.
Two opposing tendencies.
The march of concentration.
The wrong in existing social conditions.
Is it the best of all possible worlds?
That we all might be rich.
First principles.
The rights of man.
Dumping garbage.
Over-production.
Unemployed labor.
The effects of machinery.
Slavery and slavery.
Public debts and indirect taxation.
The functions of government.
What we must do.
The great reform.
The American farmer.
City and country.
Conclusion.