September 8, 1888 Vol. IV, No. 10Whole No. 88

THE STANDARD FO[R THE CA?]MPAIGN.

Subscriptions to THE ST[ANDARD fro?]m now to the close of the campaig[n will be r?]eceived at the following rates: [words partly obscured by a later owner’s stamp]

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“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 Australian Ballot. Governor Hill and the Democratic Nomination. What Will Elect Cleveland. The Benefits of Free Trade. The Danger to Property. Signs of the Times in Ohio. The Free Trade Club of Cleveland. Secretary Litchman and the Grand Master Workman. The Second Single Tax Cleveland and Thurman Meeting. The Golden West. Knights of Labor. Michigan Politics. Cleveland and Hill—More Interviews with Representative Single Tax Men. A New Argument for Protection. Campaign Letters. The Campaign “Standard” Fund. Men and Things. Notes from Correspondence. Looking Backward (poem). Personal. Society Notes. A Story About Bears. Queries and Answers. A Great Co-operative Factory. Current Thought.

The movement in favor of the Australian system of voting is steadily progressing. The democratic convention in Minnesota has adopted a plank pledging the party in that state to it; and the Pioneer Press and other Minnesota papers, commenting on it, say that the republican convention, in session as we go to press, is sure to do the same thing. In Rhode Island a ballot reform association has been formed which is circulating a petition, reproduced on another page, giving a succinct statement of the plan and its advantages; and there is a good prospect that at the next session of the legislature of the corrupt little state, bribery and intimidation of electors will, by this simple system, be made impossible. It is now certain that the reform, although it has as yet passed into law only in Massachusetts, has taken such a hold upon public attention that its adoption all over the Union is cnly^sic a question of a little time.

In New York the republicans have declared for the reform, and the democrats, seem likely by the renomination of Governor Hill to declare against it even more emphatically than they could by resolution. There is yet some little hope that this nomination may not take place; but the men who propose to vote for Cleveland and Thurman because they stand for economic reform, might as well be in readiness to vote against the head of the local democratic ticket for the same reason.

A public meeting of citizens who propose to vote for Cleveland and Thurman is to be held in Cooper Union on Friday evening, September 7, to protest against the nomination of Mr. Hill, and to give public expression to their determination to vote against him. Did the state election stand alone, it would not be worth while to make any such protest. But in the concurrence of the national election with the state election, opposition to Hill, if he is the democratic candidate, will in some sort weaken Cleveland; and the men who, while determined to do their utmost to elect Cleveland, are also determined to do their utmost to defeat Hill, ought to give the best notice they can of their intention.

Nothing more incongruous than the running of Cleveland and Hill by the same party at the same election can well be imagined. The one stands for the democracy of Jefferson; the other for the democracy of Tweed. The one by his courage, and his faith in the people, has compelled the machine politicians of his party to yield a reluctant assent, or rather submission, to the placing it, in the national campaign, as the representative of vital reform. The other, the chosen of the machines, must stand in the state campaign for all that blocks the way of reform. The bitterest opponent of Mr. Cleveland’s election in New York state to-day is Charles A. Dana of the Sun. He is also the warmest supporter of Mr. Hill’s nomination.

If any of Mr. Cleveland’s friends are consenting to the nomination of Mr. Hill because they imagine that the failure to nominate him would injure Mr. Cleveland through the resentment of Mr. Hill’s friends, their calculation seems to me a superficial one. Mr. Hill is an astute and active politician in a small way, and no one, probably, knows better than he how to make a “keen sense of favors to come” bring him supporters. But without the p. 1, col. 2 nomination he would be powerless to hurt Mr. Cleveland, while with it he would possess immense capacity for mischief. The elements that are clamoring for his nomination would cease their clamor if he should be defeated in the convention; while should he be renominated, they would unhesitatingly “knife” Cleveland for his sake, if opportunity offers, by adopting the usual trading methods at the polls.

This, however, is a matter for the politicians to consider. As for the men who propose to vote for Mr. Cleveland, not because he is the democratic nominee, but because he represents a great principle and stands for vital reform, they, if the democratic politicians persist in nominating Hill, will have no option but to vote for the democratic electoral candidates and the republican gubernatorial candidate. If there are enough of us to carry the state for Cleveland and Thurman, and at the same time to defeat Hill, it will be the greatest of victories.

The number of men who will vote because of principle and irrespective of previous party affiliations will be greater this year than has been the case for a generation. The disintegration of parties, to which Mr. Cleveland gave so powerful an impulse when he wrote his tariff message, is going on faster and faster as the contest becomes warm. He will unquestionably lose many votes that he received in 1884. But his gain will be more than his loss.

The interviews and letters showing the previous affiliations and present political feelings of single tax men, which THE STANDARD has been publishing, and of which we give a considerable installment in this issue, are extremely interesting and suggestive reading. They show incidentally how deep is the opposition to Governor Hill among a large body of men who will cast their votes for Cleveland and Thurman, and they show how largely the single tax strength is drawn from republicans. I am satisfied that further west a still larger proportion of our single tax men are drawn from the ranks of those who voted against Mr. Cleveland four years ago. This is a force that the political calculators who are figuring on the election take little note of. But it is none the less real. And many times exceeding in number those who as yet avow themselves single tax men, are those who silently hold the doctrine or are strongly influenced by it. The strength we will bring to Cleveland and Thurman is not a fixed quantity; it is steadily and rapidly increasing. Not merely is the single tax idea spreading now more rapidly than ever before, but in the hand to hand discussion that is going on, our single tax free traders are shattering the superstition of protection in thousands of minds that they do not at once win to the beauties of complete freedom.

This is true of the whole discussion. It is telling quietly but steadily, and day by day free trade ceases to be a bugaboo, and Mr. Cleveland grows stronger. He is going to be elected, because, as William Lloyd Garrison expressed it, his tariff message has turned the whole country into a debating club. It is an essential quality of truth that it always makes head against error whenever issue is fairly joined. Falsehood and superstition can retain whatever mastery they have gained only so long as the appeal to reason is not made. When that appeal is made, they are doomed.

Mr. Randall, Mr. Dana, and “democrats” of that sort have been the strongest bulwarks of protection in the United States. By preventing the question of the tariff being brought into political issue, they have prevented discussion. Mr. Cleveland has done the greatest thing for his party and the greatest thing for the country that any one man could do, by bringing on discussion. The protectionists would have been wise if they had declined it, even by surrendering at discretion to whatever the democrats of the committee of ways and means could be brought to ask. But they were “between the devil and the deep sea.” There is no such thing as a coherent theory of protection. Protection is not a theory, it is a swindle. Its primary strength lies in the combination of utterly selfish interests, to take the subsidy from any one of which would be to turn it into an enemy of subsidies to the rest—a policy as dangerous as for a gang of thieves to refuse a share of the spoil to any of their number.

This suggests something that Mr. Mills is probably thinking about when he takes such pains to protest that he is not a free trader and that his bill is not a wicked free trade bill. There is not one of the protected interests that would not gladly wel- p. 1, col. 3 come free trade in everything else if it could only keep its own protection. The spirit of all the “infant industries^sic” was expressed by Mr. Gratz of St. Louis, when the other day he remarked to the house committee on trusts, “I am a free trader in everything but cotton bagging.” The Mills bill is framed on the policy of divide and conquer, and it puts the temptation of cutting off the protection which lowers their profits, while retaining the protection which enhances their profits, before the most powerful protected interests. This will increase Mr. Cleveland’s strength, or rather weaken the opposition to him, in a way that is not much talked about, and probably accounts for the alleged difficulty the republican campaign committees are experiencing in the process of “frying the fat” out of the men who get all the benefit of “protection to American labor.”

One of my correspondents writing from Weatherford, Texas, says that quite a number of single tax men in that vicinity will vote the prohibition ticket, though if they were at the north they would vote for Cleveland. But they say that Texas is sure for Cleveland anyhow, and they think that votes cast for the prohibition ticket will have a general reform tendency and help to stir up thought on new issues. My correspondent incidently^sic mentions that there are four or five hundred single tax voters there. This is good indeed for Weatherford, which is credited with a population of not five thousand, and it furnishes strong evidence of the work that the single tax memorial is doing in Texas.

I hope, however, that our friends in Texas will do as [we?] of the north are going to do, and cast their votes for Cleveland. Even though he is sure to get the electoral vote of the state anyhow, he ought to have also the biggest popular vote we can help to roll up. And above all things, our friends in Mr. Mills’s district ought to do their utmost to send him back to congress with an increased majority. He has made a reputation and done a work in congress which make it an honor for any constituency to be represented by him.

The Ohio legislature at its last session appointed a joint committee to prepare and report amendments to the constitution. It also appointed a joint committee to consider the system of taxation, with the view of suggesting some remedy for the gross injustices and inequalities shown by the discussion of the subject last winter to attach, all over the state, to the attempt to tax personal property. It would seem that this committee on taxation, though they have not yet reported, have come to the conclusion, which must be reached by any one who fairly investigates the subject, that it is utterly impossible to tax personal property with anything like fairness, and that such taxes inevitably fall with great weight on the poorer classes, while the rich, and especially the very rich, “walk out from under them.” They wish, therefore, to get the constitutional amendment committee to propose an amendment abrogating that clause in the Ohio constitution which requires the equal taxation of all property. This would be the first step toward the single tax on land values. Whether the committee will report directly in favor of the single tax is not yet known, but here is a most significant paragraph from the Columbus dispatch to the Cincinnati Times-Star, a paper whose sympathies may be seen from its motto: “Patriotism, Protection, Progress.”

The legislative committee appointed to inquire into the operation of the present tax system will have a conference with the constitutional amendment committee. The implied duties of the former committee are to draft, if found necessary, a bill making such changes in the mode of taxation as may be advisable. It finds, as an obstacle to the changes it would propose, the constitutional requirement, that all property shall be taxed uniformly. The two committees will tell each other what constitutional changes are needed, and the constitutional amendment committee will doubtless take proper action. Senator Massie of the tax revision committee states that the committee invited the views of a number of prominent gentlemen in various parts of the state as to the best methods of providing revenue for the state government, and EVERYONE with a single exception, expressed a preference for the Henry George theory of land taxation. That is a straw in the wind.

A straw! rather a haystack!

One little incident that makes for the probability of Senator Massie’s statement, and indicates how rapidly single tax ideas are spreading below the surface, occurred at the formation of the free trade club of Cleveland. At the preliminary meeting which resulted in the formation of this most vigorous club, twelve gentlemen met together. They had not talked long upon the subject of the tariff before they discovered, to the astonishment of each, that every one of the twelve was a single tax man, although among the twelve there were but two who had ever openly avowed that faith.

p. 1, col. 4 This free trade club of Cleveland, started by single tax men, is doing good work in this campaign, and work that looks beyond. It is saying nothing about the single tax, but it is avowing and promulgating uncompromising free trade principles which have but to be carried to their logical conclusion to lead to the single tax. Here is its platform:

We hold that universal freedom of trade is a natural right.

A protective tax falls unequally. It has a purpose apart from needful revenue and it is unwise, unjust and not warranted by the constitution.

A tariff, delusively called protective, raises the profits of the home producer, and such increased profits come solely from the home consumer, who is thereby shut out from the benefit of free competition.

An import duty on goods operates as an export tax on the goods and agricultural products given in exchange.

We deprecate a system which compels us to surrender the trade in manufactured goods with the 1,500,000,000 of the people on the earth to the nations of Europe in order to enable a few protected monopolies to extort double prices for their products from 60,000,000 of American tax payers.

A protective tariff in our country has been productive of a long list of evils.

It has tended to centralize and unify, not to diversify, industries.

It has raised prices and thereby limited the ability of the common people to get and enjoy the necessaries of life.

It has affected^sic unequal and unjust distribution of the fruits of labor.

It has made the few very rich at the expense of the many.

It has crushed small fortunes and industries, multiplied millionaires and created tramps and trusts.

It has bred strikes and discontent among the people and encouraged speculation and waste.

It has corrupted legislatures and fed a corrupt lobby, to the general demoralization and discouragement of the people.

It has lowered wages and diminished their purchasing power.

It has made business unstable and employment irregular, subjected both to dread of congressional action and taught the people to distrust and fear their representatives.

It has inflicted its grossest wrong upon agricultural industry, an industry in which almost one-half of the people are employed.

It has destroyed the finest merchant marine the world has seen and made our flag a stranger to the open seas.

We approve the American system of interstate free trade and insist upon its application by the United States in their relations to the world.

With a firm and patriotic faith in the justice and wisdom of free trade we associate together and invite to co-operate with us all who want no special privileges themselves or are unwilling to labor that a favored few may be protected.

The officers of the club are: President, W. S. Kerruish; first vice-president, Samuel D. Dodge; second vice-president, H. C. Bunts; secretary, Frederick Green; treasurer, Manly Tello. Executive committe^sic—E. J. Blandin, Frack N. Wilcox^sic, Edmund Walton.

> CHICAGO, Aug. 19.—In a recent private conversation had with Mr. Cowdrey considering the relative importance of “free trade” and the advantages that would accrue to laborers by the abolition of any part or the total suspension of all tariffs, I held that what the protective tariff did do was to shield the “protects” from naturally higher wages in the United States. The argument whereby I claimed that the laborer would gain precisely in purchasing power the difference between the present inflated price of certain commodities and the free trade or natural price of the same articles, and this increase of purchasing power would so increase the demand for commodities, and consequently the demand for labor to make them, calling into activity the unwillingly idle, that wages would also advance in dollars and cents—was that wages tend to equal the amount that a man can produce on free land, while Mr. Cowdrey thought that this would be met by an increase of rent as the ability of the laborer to pay rent advanced. This statement, I hold, is not in harmony with the law of rent. > On the hypothesis that all advantages that cannot be localized and are universal in character, operating with equal force in all localities, both inside and beyond the line that bounds rent bearing land, conferring equal benefits to the laborers on both sides of the rent line, such advantages could not become an element of rent. And as the basic level to which competition forces wages is the amount that the laborer can produce for himself beyond the rent line, so every possible advantage (such as goods with the artificial value squeezed out of them), that extends its benefits to the laborer beyond the rent line will have an ultimately equal beneficent effect on all laborers in all occupations, and extend to the laborer even in the tenth story of a New England factory, and the tendency would remain the same if all Europe came over. Mr. Cowdrey finally said: “If you can maintain your hypothesis that all advantages that cannot be localized, and apply with equal force on both sides of the rent line never can be taken by a landlord, but go the laborer^sic, I shall be disposed to materially change my views on the wisdom of making a free trade fight.” Thereupon I hastened to get Mr. Cowdrey’s consent to lay the whole matter before you.

CLARENCE MOELLER.

To go no deeper, Mr. Moeller, in contending that the advantages of free trade would go to labor, leaves out of consideration the influence of speculation. When land at the margin of production could be had free, then any improvement which was not localized would only increase economic rent in so far as it, by increasing the demand for land, it pushed downward the margin of production. But in a country where all the the land^sic was held by an individual or combination determined to get for its use all that the active factors of production could pay, it is manifest that any general improvement in productive power could be taken by the owners of the indispensable natural element of production. No one individual owns the land of the United States, and its owners are so many that anything like effective combination between them is practically impossible. But in the confident expectation of the increase of land values by the general growth and im- p. 1, col. 5 provement of the community there is something that has the same effect. Value does not attach merely to land which will yield more than the ordinary return to labor and capital as it would were the value developed by the growth and progress of the community taken for the use of the community. But beyond this actual value extends a speculative value, based on expectation of future demand. Wherever there is a town lot or an acre of agricultural land likely ere long to be needed there the speculator has planted himself in the hopes of appropriating the earnings of labor by compelling the user to pay him a price. And the increased prosperity which free trade would bring would increase these speculative prices. Land being treated as we now treat it, the ultimate benefits of free trade, like the ultimate benefits of all general improvements, would accrue to land owners, except, of course, in so far as they may be appropriated by intermediate monopolies, such, for instance, as railroads.

Mr. Cowdrey is right if he says that free trade (in its narrow meaning and by itself) would ultimately not improve the economic condition of men who live by selling their labor. But he is not right if he leaves out the word ultimately. For the effect of abolishing the tariff restrictions upon trade would be to give a stimulus to production, and to bring about a prosperity in which all classes would at first share, and which it would take some time for the advance in land values to make over entirely to land owners.

During this time the masses of our people would have something like pause and breathing space—an interval in which to gather courage and press on to new reforms. For it cannot be too often repeated, that it is not by making things worse that they can be made better, but that improvement leads to improvement. The very poor are even a greater obstacle to social reform than are the very rich.

But the great benefit that would come by free trade, or even by any advance toward it, would be the clearing away of the fallacies, the destruction of the superstitions, which now prevent so many of the men who suffer by restrictions upon natural freedom from seeing what hurts them. In short, in the practical politics of the present national campaign the idea that social improvement is only to be gained by freedom meets squarely the idea that social improvement is to be gained by restrictions upon freedom. Mr. Cowdrey must know all this. He is a free trader, and must understand all that is involved in the struggle for free trade, else he would not have wasted time in writing free trade articles. He has allowed himself to be betrayed into a false position in accepting a ridiculous nomination for the presidency, which, if he is apprised of the temper of those who support him in New York—the only place where he can have hope of any votes—he must by this time understand can have no other purpose than that of making him a petty stalking horse for protection.

Charles H. Litchman, general secretary of the Knights of Labor, has written an open letter to Senator Quay, chairman of the national republican committee, in which, condensing all the stupid nonsense with which protectionists appeal to workingmen, he declares that he cannot remain inactive in the conflict now going on, and offers his services in any position in which they may be deemed useful to “the success of Harrison and Morton, the representatives in this campaign of the American idea of protection to American labor.”

After the publication of this letter, Mr. Litchman resigned.

Mr. Litchfield^sic should rise in public esteem because of this action. It is much more manly that he should take part in the discussion, than that he should sit still in his office, and try to head it off. It is perfectly true, as he says, that “in the gigantic political struggle now begun side issues count as nothing, except to aid or hinder one of the principal combatants in the political arena,” and that a man who has definite convictions as to which side represents the true interests of labor, has “no right to remain silent.” If Mr. Litchman really believes that “protection” is to the interest of the men who have trusted him and honored him, then he would be false to the highest duty if he did not come to the front and say so.

Mr. Litchman’s example is to be commended to Mr. Powderly. Let the general master workman of the Knights of Labor take the part either of man or mouse. It is unworthy the dignity of one who is at the head of such an order to be indirectly preaching protection, p. 1, col. 6 while refusing to take part in the active struggle now going on. Nor can anything be gained by such a course. The question now before the American people is one that is fundamental to any organization for the improvement of the condition of labor that goes beyond the narrowest trades unionism. It is a question of direction on which there can be no compromise—the question whether the emancipation of labor is to be sought by improving restrictions or by destroying restrictions and securing freedom. The divergence has commenced and it is too wide to be straddled. The Knights of Labor can continue to exist as Knights of Freedom or as Knights of Restriction; but not as both or neither.

The enrolment blank is still printed in THE STANDARD, and though signatures to it are coming in well, it seems from various letters that many of our friends imagine that all the committee desire is the names of our friends in this section of the country. This is a mistake. We want the names of those who are in sympathy with its purpose, no matter where they may be.

If even our friends in Great Britain and the continent of Europe, in South America, in Australia, in China, Japan, Siam—for we have friends now in all parts of the world, will send us their names on these blanks, it will conveniently serve the purpose of registering them, though of course, they will not be counted as voters.

A London special to the Evening Post says:

An anonymous correspondent of the Times, endeavoring to show that property is no longer safe in these democratic days, says that Charles Crocker of California told him he had trained his sons to earn their living, adding that he would not give twenty years’ purchase for any piece of property in the civilized world. The correspondent who quotes this private conversation does not feel at liberty to publish Mr. Crocker’s reasons for his opinion.

Mr. Crocker’s reasons may, however, be readily imagined. They undoubtedly sprang from a consciousness of the injustice of the methods by which fortunes like his own had been accumulated, and a vague feeling that in an age where everything is tending to foster the idea of the essential equality of men, the gulf between rich and poor would not long go on widening without bringing catastrophe.

When I first saw Charles Crocker he was behind the counter of a little dry goods store measuring out some goods. In a few years he was one of a triumvirate who controlled a railroad empire, and died rich, as it would have appeared to his earlier imaginings, “beyond the dream of avarice.” He did not grow rich by virtue of superior energy, in duty^sic and thrift. Many men his equals, if not his superiors, in all these qualities, have died poor, or are yet struggling in their old age for a mere existence.

He grew rich by acts which, on a petty scale, would have been called crimes. His millions, in far greater part at least, were not earned—they were appropriated. This is not to say that Mr. Crocker was—still less felt himself to be—a bad man. On the contrary, he was a pillar of the Episcopal church; and, according to the code of morals prevailing among his associates in his day and generation, as eminently respectable as he was rich. But looking back on his own career, noting the change that had come in his own time, and seeing the sweep of the accelerating tendencies to the concentration of wealth, it is no wonder that he sometimes thought, “After me, the deluge.”

But there is one thing of which Mr. Crocker probably never thought that may prevent this—the recognition of the true nature and rights of property. When it is recognized that there can be no private property in monopolies—in the power of levying a tribute on others—then will the “sacred rights of property” in the things produced by labor be secured, modern civilization be saved, and the cause of monstrous fortunes and of still more monstrous poverty cease to act. If Charles Crocker’s sons have to work for their living in that state of things instead of being able to live on the work of others, as he was in this, they will be far happier, and, in the command of all that conduces to the fulness and freedom of life, far richer than was their father.

The second single tax Cleveland and Thurman meeting in New York will be held in Cooper Union on next Tuesday evening, September 11, when Louis F. Post and Hugh O. Pentecost will speak. This meeting will be followed by others. I shall speak in Jersey City, Brooklyn and Philadelphia on dates to be fixed as soon as our friends in these places can make arrangements, and about the close of this month or the beginning of next shall make a trip as far west as Iowa, speaking in as many of the larger cities as I conveniently can along the route.

HENRY GEORGE.

The Great Estates of California—What a Single Land Owner Can Do—The State of Politics—The Strength of Single Tax Men Will Go to Cleveland.

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., Aug. 21—THE STANDARD is looked for eagerly in this state, and is doing solid work in paving the way for a radical reform. The single tax movement is making a steady, if not rapid, progress in California, but the wonder is that the new gospel of taxation does not gather into the fold the great body of landless voters. In no state, unless it be Texas, are there such great estates held by men who will neither cultivate, sell nor improve. The Mexican grants eatailed^sic on southern and central California a burden, which, more perhaps than anything else, has kept back our development. Mexican improvidence has given them partial relief, and the forced sale of portions of these^sic tracts from time to time to raise interest money and stave off foreclosure has been a blessing. But too often estates of five to thirty square leagues passed from the hands of the improvident grantee into the hands of a worse class, the close fisted American land grabber, who is content with the small present profits of a cattle or sheep ranch, or at best, leases small portions at a rack rent, on conditions that effectually discourage the commonest improvements. Time and a few first class funerals in California may gradually remedy this evil, but the single tax would in two or three years accomplish as much as we can hope for without such a reform in as many generations.

A striking instance of what evil a single obstinate and selfish land owner can do in thwarting public opinion and retarding improvements that would give work and homes to thousands has just come under my notice.

The voters of the city of Oakland and most of the property owners on a large tract outside of that city desire the municipal limits extended, so as to give them the same advantages, with the increased taxation, enjoyed by the present citizens. One or two selfish holders in the district mentioned are’standing^sic out with money and influence against the popular will. Foremost is one Edson Adams, who owns a great stretch of 172 acres just outside of the city and all within the district proposed to be incorporated. The county assessor valued this property this year at $116,000. A small point which projects into the city is assessed at $14,000 or for the total estate $130,000. This assessment is an increase of $36,000 over that of 1887, but is yet far below the market value, ridiculously below it. It is believed that Adams would refuse $500,000, and real estate men say that if he would bond the property for even a few days at that figure, they would have no difficulty in forming a syndicate to purchase it for cash, with the view of dividing it into residence lots and successfully putting it on the market at a considerable advance. But Adams will neither sell as a whole nor in divisions, nor will he improve. A well known Oaklander went to Adams once and asked the price per acre of a portion of this land. The price asked was $1,200 an acre. Harens agreed to give it; Adams raised the price to $1,500; Harens agreed to pay. Adams immediately raised his price to $1,800; Harens raised his figure to meet Adams’s. Adams again and again advanced his price, until he reached $3,000 an acre and when that sum was offered him^sic withdrew the land altogether, refusing to sell at any price. Yet a few short years ago, before railroads gridironed western Alameda and the ferry facilities built up a city only second in the state to San Francisco, this land would have been dear at $20 an acre. The readers of THE STANDARD may ask how much this son of Adam did toward building up the city whose wealth and population have made him a millionaire? Not a dollar. The only buildings on this tract are one or two broken, rotten shanties unfit for pigstys, near the water front, on which the assessor placed no value. But Adams owns also largely within the city limits and these lots have an aggregate value in the city assessor’s books of $183,000. But not one cent of this large sum is for improvements. Not one brick, not one stick of timber has Edson Adams laid on another on his half million dollars’ worth of land in Oakland city anymore than he has outside it.

Mr. Adams, however, resides near Oakland on another property, and there the assessor did find something to tax besides land. Adams’s assessment on his home place is $30,000 for land, $6,500 for improvements and $5,000 for personal property. As the improvements consist of an old clap board frame house, which would not sell for $300 to move, a small servants’ cottage and a fine stable; the assessor appears to have done his whole duty when he succeeded in finding something to assess besides land. Mr. Adams’s conscience does not trouble him; on the contrary, he and many of his fellow citizens who have obtained wealth by similar means, considers that he did his whole duty to society, his county, state and country when he sat down and watched others work and toil while he made the profit.

About politics here it is too early to say much. Both the great political parties claim that they will carry the state by large majorities, but more cautious lookers on say such prophets let their wishes run ahead of their expectations. Whatever strength the earnest single tax men have will go to Cleveland without regard to previous party affinities. Pixley promises that the American party will throw away their votes as “bread cast upon the waters.” The majority of laboring men in California undoubtedly favor protection, but as a set off the Examiner, besides its daily diatribes against Harrison for his pro-Chinese roles^sic and speeches, devoted the other day an eight page supplement to a full history from the Congressional Globe of the discussions, amendments offered and votes cast on every occasion when the Chinese question was before congress^sic. The indictment of Harrison and the majority of the republican leaders, with its many counts, was a tremendous document, and was published at length in German and English. With the republicans weakened by protection and American tickets, the democrats strengthened by the support of the single tax men, and the workingmen on the horns of a dilemma, their favorite protection doctrines drawing them, too, and their anti-Chinese prejudices, to speak mildly, driving them from Harrison, even allowing that under ordinary circumstances this is a republican state, who can say to-day what the result will be?

NEMO.

The Editor of the Amsterdam “Labor Stage[?]” on the Cause of Their Decay.

AMSTERDAM, N. Y., Aug. 29.—I want to thank you for giving a little attention to the wearisome stuff periodically sent out by the general master workman of the Knights of Labor. It is about time that we realized that the misfortunes of the order are due to the incompetency of its chief officers. Mr. Powderly has made a disastrous failure of his attempt at leadership for the reason that he hasn’t the capacity to formulate correct or consistent plans of action or the judgment to distinguish between a practical beneficial system and a glittering meaningless absurdity. Yet the order is paying him $5,000 for writing

p. 2, col. 2

letters that are misleading, instead of instructing, and has lately contributed thousands of dollars to have men that he and the other ambitious chaps connected with him shall select sent through the order to educate the people.

There is not on the board a man capable of educating the rank and file on industrial or economical subjects, and unless the lecturers selected are brainier and better informed they will do more harm than good. If half the amount had been spent for copies of “Progress and Poverty,” “Protection or Free Trade” and “Social Problems” and the best counter arguments to be found, and the books had been furnished to every local assembly with recommendations to read both sides of such burning questions, the money would have been much better expended.

Our knit goods lockout and the decline of our local organizations from over 3,000 to less than 300 gave me a chance to see the ability of the K. of L. leadership and convinced me that there was nothing of it.

Mr. Barry is right in saying that the board has no methods and that new blood is necessary; but Mr. Barry, though a very pleasant fellow—and that may be said of most of the other members—has proved himself no more capable than the rest.

Mrs. Barry, the Amsterdam mill girl, is the smartest of the lot and and^sic it would be easy to find seven other girls among our intelligent mill hands that would be a great improvement on the present executive board and would have clearer ideas on labor questions and labor’s needs.

It is to be hoped that at the coming general assembly at Indianapolis so much packing will not have been done that the old board will be resaddled on the order. A new live board, with a living policy, that would include intelligent organized use of the consuming power of the workers through some definite arrangement for an exchange of patronage between the different branches of labor represented, could yet save the order, and would be greatly assisted by the establishment of a political branch entirely separate in operation and formed solely for the purpose of carrying forward the principles and purposes of the order through political action.

I am glad to hear that the Michigan delegation is instructed to vote for the incorporation of the single land tax principle in the new constitution in the regular way.

JAMES BARTLEY.

A Single Tax Man Has a Good Word for the Democratic Nominee for Governor.

MANISTEE, Aug. 30.—In THE STANDARD of Aug. 25, you copy an article from the Grand Rapids, Mich., Workman, in which Mr. Burt, the democratic candidate for governor, is severely criticised. Now the truth is that Mr. Yaple was the first choice of free trade^sic men; for he is a thinker, a man of the people, and a real leader, and, as I understand it, the hope is that he may go into congress (just where he is needed) in the place of Mr. Burrows, who is a man of words, absolutely devoid of ideas. Mr. Yaple refused to allow his name to be presented as that of a candidate for governor. The next choice was Mr. Burt—by no means an ideal candidate—but we in Michigan are in a muddle in politics. The union labor party is evidently the tool of the republican party—at least it is so with us in this region beyond all dispute—and to vote the union labor ticket is to vote for Governor Luce. Now Mr. Burt may not know much about the tariff question, but Governor Luce knows nothing about it, and is a thorough Bourbon. Mr. Burt may not go as far as we free traders, as Mr. Mills, or even as far as Mr. Cleveland goes, but he is on the road, and before this campaign is over he will be pushed

p. 2, col. 3

a good deal further in the right direction than some of the machine men dream of.

He was driven out of the republican party by the monkeyism of a man named Hoar, of whom you may possibly have heard, and he is in a fold that is much more in sympathy with free trade than he at first thought for. And no matter what he says or does, this election, national and state, is going to be pushed forward and carried on this free trade issue. The drift is away from the obscure ground of tariff tinkering into the open lighted plain of free trade.. We are not afraid of the words, and it is becoming so that others find that the words free trade don’t burn their lips. We cannot, therefore, divide our forces here—we must, in Michigan, pull together for our national and state ticket. Perhaps I ought not to say Michigan, but rather this Manistee part of Michigan. And of this section I speak with confidence. We free trade men will work and vote for Mr. Cleveland, and will do the same for Mr. Burt. But this thing, mark you, is only the beginning of a great work. And our sign is that THE STANDARD in our section is working its way into a large and permanent place. Seed is being sown that will in time bring forth an hundred fold harvest.

ALBERT WALKLEY.

STILL MORE INTERVIEWS WITH SINGLE TAX MEN.

Opinions from All Parts of the State—A Universal Cry for Cleveland and Free Trade—Some Disagreement About Hill, but the Great Mass of Opinion Bitterly Against Him.

Following is a third installment of interviews with men earnest in the single tax movement. While most of them express the opinions of men residing in New York and Brooklyn, there are a sufficient number from other parts of the state to give an idea of the situation elsewhere:

FIRST A REPUBLICAN, THEN A MUGWUMP, NOW A SINGLE TAX MAN.

Herman G. Loew, 190 Monroe street.—“Previous to 1884 I was a republican. In that year I voted with the mugwumps for Grover Cleveland. This year I shall vote for him again because of the ability and courage he has displayed during his adminstration^sic, and because he has committed his party to the discussion and adoption of a principle the logical outcome of which, in my opinion, will be the adoption of the single tax theory. I am an absolute free trader and single tax man, and as such will do my utmost to secure the election of Mr. Cleveland. When Henry George first announced in his paper that he would support the democratic nominee for the presidency, there was, of course, great excitement among the rank and file of the united labor party, and had a vote been taken then I feel sure that three-fourths of the party would have voted against Cleveland or any other nominee; but as the campaign progresses, and especially since the single tax men of this city have taken such a determined stand for Cleveland, I feel confident that fully one-half of that three-fourths will be won over. If electoral reform is made an issue in the state campaign I believe it will defeat Hill or any other candidate who opposes it. I will not vote for him if he is renominated.”

CLEVELAND REPRESENTS PROGRESS.

A. J. Steers, 39 Nassau street.—“I have always been a democrat in belief, and voted the democratic ticket in 1884. This year I shall vote for Cleveland because he represents reform in the tariff, and, to my mind, progress and better conditions in the country. Unless my reason deceives me, the majority of George’s 73,000 secretary of state vote will this year vote with the democrats, and not over 40 per cent can be counted for Harrison, if indeed so many. Common sense is gaining ground, and protection, so-called, is losing fast, but I think but few of the tariff reform democrats understand or fully realize the effect of the abolition of tariff and the consequent imposition of direct taxation for the support of government. Electoral reform, except among republican mugwumps, is at present quiet and little spoken of, but a deep feeling against Hill on this score exists, and if he is renominated will elect his opponent. I will vote against him,”

VOTED FOR BLAINE IN 1884, BUT KNOWS BETTER NOW.

William J. McGrane, 337 East Fourteenth street.—“I voted in 1884 for James G. Blaine. This year I will vote for Grover Cleveland. His message, though he may not know or intend it, is the bugle blast of our single tax battle. In talking with men in my trade and in others I find protection takes hold at first, but as discussion goes on their faith weakens. It was a significant sight on the evening of the republican parade and on the evening after Blaine’s speech, to see the groups of men, young and old, discussing the question of taxation. With the exception of the most corrupt politicians and their heelers, the feeling is in favor of electoral reform. As to union workingmen, they are beginning to see the difference between a true reform and demagogism. Hill’s veto of this bill will certainly defeat him. I will not vote for him.”

ANOTHER BLAINE MAN FOR FREE TRADE.

James Cassidy, 395 Lexington avenue.—“In 1884 I voted for James G. Blaine, but shall vote for Grover Cleveland this year. In my judgment three-quarters of the men who voted for Henry George in 1887 will this year vote for Cleveland. I am sure free trade is gaining instead of this sham protection.”

FREE TRADE THE HANDMAID OF THE SINGLE TAX.

William C. Herald, corner Worth street and Park row.—“I did not vote in 1884. I will vote for Grover Cleveland this year. His stand in relation to tariff reform tends toward absolute free trade, and free trade is the handmaid to the single tax. All whom I have interviewed favor Cleveland. I will not vote for Hill.”

HAS LEARNT WISDOM THROUGH “THE STANDARD.”

Otto W. Baker, 80 Washington square.—“I voted for B. Butler believing then that he stood for the masses. I will vote this fall for Cleveland and Thurman, for the reason that I see as Henry George has taught me through THE STANDARD. I think free trade is gaining, and with it the single tax. I will not vote for Hill.”

A GREENBACKER’S GOOD REASONS.

M. Battle, 1,791 Lexington avenue.—“In 1884 I cast my first vote for Benjamin F. Butler because of my sympathy with the greenback-labor movement; because he represented the reform element in our politics, and because, at that time, I had not been educated to the fallacy of voting for a third party candidate as the best means to bring about a great reform. I believed in the old fiction, that a vote for principle was not lost, even though it was cast for an electoral ticket that would not be elected. This year I shall vote for Grover Cleveland for other and more substantial reasons. I am convinced that a reform such as ours can be brought about only in the usual American way, by the enlightenment of voters by gradual steps. It cannot be done all at once. Voting for third party candidates will not, at the present, advance our movement. The democratic party is now committed to a policy that will eventually lead it to the abolition of all tariffs and leave it no other alternative than the adoption of the tax on land values. It is traveling the only road by which it is customary for Americans to reach their highest political aspirations. I should not go off on some bypath, but should adopt the wiser course of keeping up with the procession and urge it on further, should it be disposed to stop on the road to absolute freedom. I do not care so much for the election of Grover Cleveland, although he has made a good president, as I do for the good results that will come from a discussion of the reduction of the tariff, and that this country shall not go before the world as an upholder of so-called protection. It was said the George vote in the ’86 election was composed of two-thirds democratic and one-third republican. The ’87 election lessened the democratic proportion, but did not materially the republican^sic, so that it stood about fifty per cent democratic, forty per cent republican and ten per cent of these who will vote for a reform party no matter what it is. Now, I believe that Cleveland will get seventy-five per cent of the 1887 George vote, ten per cent will go with Belva or the gentleman from Chicago, and the other fifteen per cent to Harrison and protection. At present it appears

p. 2, col. 5

as if neither free trade nor protection is gaining—but we are silencing the protectionists’ batteries. If the democratic party will only keep up a quick succession of ‘no apology’ blows, just before the 6th of November, when the protectionists will have to come to their senses, there will take place a stampede that will carry Cleveland in on a tidal wave. Many of the stampeders will pass the tariff reduction camp and will find themselves in the single tax and free trade camp. Electoral reform has the approval of all honest citizens, and only the opposition of those dyed-in-the-wool democrats who would not approve of anything that their political masters do not want. It will affect Hill’s vote to the extent of 55,000 votes—that is if all the George democrats will vote against him. Will I vote for Hill if he is renominated? You can print my answer, No! in the largest type you have.”

WILL CAST HIS FIRST VOTE FOR FREE TRADE.

Samuel Cohen, 94 East Broadway.—“I shall this year cast my first presidential vote. It will go for Grover Cleveland because his party’s platform proposes a reduction of taxes on products, thereby leading to the final abolition of all taxes on the products of labor and the placing of them on land values. All of those that I know who voted for George in 1887 will vote for Cleveland this year. Free trade is gaining, and the discussion now going on is tending to enlighten people on the single tax question. I will do all in my power to defeat Hill if he is renominated.”

WINNING VOTES FOR CLEVELAND.

G. W. Everett, 11 East Tenth street.—“I cast my first democratic vote for president in 1884. This year I will vote for Cleveland because of his tariff reform ideas. I do not know of any George men who will cast their votes for Harrison. I am in with a crowd of protectionists and they will not listen to any of the George theories, but I have got some of them to admit that freedom is what labor wants, and they will vote for Cleveland. Will vote for the candidate for governor whose policy is the best for the majority. He need not necessarily be a politician.”

A PROHIBITIONIST FALLS INTO LINE.

C. B. Cooper, 510 East Twentieth street.—“I voted for St. John and prohibition in 1884. This year I can vote for Cleveland, for I believe freer trade will eventually lead to absolute free trade, and that to a tax on land values. All with whom I am personally acquainted save one, who voted for George and the Syracuse platform last year, vote for Cleveland this year. From my standpoint I cannot see that free trade is growing except in connection with the single tax idea; the cry protection^sic and free whisky has a powerful hold on some of the cranks I know. Among the intelligent classes the electoral reform bill is considered a wise measure and by far the largest number of expressions I have heard have been in its favor. I will vote for no man who opposes such a bill. I consider it of the greatest importance to the success of the free trade and single tax party; we cannot win without it. I consider it even of more importance than a victory in favor of freer trade.”

WILL VOTE FOR CLEVELAND AND AGAINST HILL.

Daniel Day, 2,375 Eighth avenue.—“In 1884 I was not of age and unable to vote. In the meantime I picked up”Progress and Poverty,” and becoming imbued with its principles, I cast my first vote in 1886 for Henry George, because his election tended to bring the single tax idea into discussion. I am still fighting on that line and therefore will vote for Cleveland and Thurman, as tariff reform will lead to free trade and free trade to the single tax on land values. The free trade side is gaining in the discussion going on in small assemblages, where each man has something to say. Tariff reformers do not now look upon George men as cranks and will listen to their idea of putting taxes where they belong—on land values. I will vote against Hill.”

ONE OF THE FOLD, AND CAN’T BE TALKED OUT OF IT.

M. J. Dowd, 152 West 124th street.—“I voted for Cleveland in 1884. Since the united labor party started I have been one of the fold and cannot be talked out of it. I will support Cleveland and Thurman in the coming election, but as regards the candidates for other offices I will vote with the party to which I belong. Judging from the expressions of my acquaintances, Cleveland will get by far the most of the 1887 George vote. I find a great many men in both the old parties who are in favor of the Australian system of voting, or some system that would prevent bribery and corruption at elections. Among my acquaintances I do not know of any who are in favor of Hill. I for one will not vote for him.”

HIS FIRST PRESIDENTIAL VOTE GOES FOR FREE TRADE.

Michael Carroll, 203 First avenue.—“This year I shall cast my first presidential vote, which shall go for Cleveland and Thurman, on the ground that any step toward tariff reduction tends toward the abolition of all taxes on the product of labor, and the final transfer of such taxes to land values. But my main object in doing so is that I believe that the re-election of Cleveland would forever dispel the degrading superstition in the minds of workingmen that they are benefited by a protective tariff, and would thereby clear the ground for a more thorough discussion of our principles. He who really desires to advance our cause, and is wedded to it rather than to party, will not miss the opportunity presented in this campaign. It is a chance worth the waiting of a lifetime. For I find in every discussion that when a man has been convinced of the fallacies of protection, he is immediately inclined to the single tax idea. I have never yet found one who would fall into that illogical attitude of stopping short after taking off some of the tariff. But I find it absolutely necessary to argue on radical grounds in order to convince him. Timid democrats may do well to bear that in mind. I was in favor of protection up to within a few weeks ago, but I was not convinced of its fallacies by the arguments of the democratic speakers, still less of the public press. Free trade is gaining, but it has the disadvantage of having more ground to cover, and the time is fast flying. As a working man I know the sentiment of my fellows, which on every hand is dread superstition. As for the George vote of last year, I know of sixteen men who will vote for Cleveland and single tax, and right around me in all twenty-one men who will vote against Harrison. It is plain that Hill cannot be re-elected; every man of my acquaintance is against him. If the republican nominee stands for electoral reform he will carry this state.”

IS A FREE TRADER, AND THEREFORE SUPPORTS CLEVELAND.

Sol. Levy, 321[?] East Eighty-sixth street.—“This is my first vote and it will be cast for Grover Cleveland. Why? Because I am a free trader, and I am a free trader because I believe that freedom is stronger than oppression; because I believe in equal rights. Though I cannot vote for free trade and equal rights, yet I can vote against protection and special privileges. As but few people understand the full meaning of free trade it is difficult to say whether it is gaining among the people or not. There can, however, be no doubt that protection, such as is advocated by the republican party, is losing its hold on the masses. Were the democratic politicians as honest in their purpose as their leader, as fearless in the advocacy of reform as he, I am convinced that the free trade principle would score a great victory in the coming election. As a means of spreading the light of the single tax doctrine, this fight is of incalculable advantage. I have found

p. 2, col. 6

that such people as regarded the electoral reform bill as a step in the direction of enabling the people to manage their own affairs independent of the politician and ward heeler, are open in their denunciation of Hill in vetoing it, and will certainly not vote for him. The man is simply a disgrace to the state of New York and not fit to hold the office of doorkeeper in the Albany legislature. No, I shall not vote for him, not if the republicans take a man out of Ludlow street jail to run against him.”

ALWAYS A DEMOCRAT, AND NOW A SINGLE TAX MAN.

James L. Browne, 1,267 Broadway.—“Having always been a democrat I voted for Cleveland in 1884. I shall vote for Cleveland this year, not because he is a democrat, but because I am now a single tax man, and believe that the success of the democratic party upon the tariff issue in this canvass will ultimately produce free trade, and that the same sentiment which declares for free trade will declare for free land or for the single tax idea. So far I have not met with any one who voted for Mr. George last year, who will not vote for Cleveland, and have only heard of two such persons who intend voting for Harrison. I think that at least 70 per cent of that vote will go to Cleveland. It is quite surprising to see the amount of interest manifested in the tariff question. The almost invariable tendency is toward tariff reform. While many of these persons decry free trade they use very good free trade arguments. Wherever the discussion of the tariff question is intelligently waged the man who sits quietly by will hear many arguments by the friends of tariff reform which are directly in line with the single tax philosophy, and in many instances those who a year ago denounced the free land doctrine now begin to see and even admit that Henry George is right. I shall not vote for Hill upon the ground of his veto of the electoral reform measure.”

A COLLECTOR AT ANTI-POVERTY MEETINGS TESTIFIES.

A. E. Schmidt, 224 East Twelfth street.—“I do not see how single tax men can do anything better this fall than support Cleveland; and that seems to be the feeling of the majority of my friends who voted for Henry George in 1887. Having been collector at the anti-poverty meetings I made the acquaintance of a good many, and I can with safety say that about seventy-five per cent of them will vote for Cleveland. Only three will vote for Harrison, the rest go to the united labor party. In the present tariff discussion free trade seems to be gaining. I know men who three months ago didn’t care to mention the words ‘free trade,’ but now admit that free trade wouldn’t hurt the country. The free trade bugaboo seems to have lost its horrors. I come in contact with workingmen continuously, as I am one myself, and can only say that protection has lost its strength and is regarded as a humbug. Electoral reform is well spoken of by democrats and republicans alike. Hill will lose all the votes of the single tax men I know, if he should run again.”

FROM THE EX-SECRETARY, FOURTH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT, UNITED LABOR PARTY.

Morris Van Veen, 467 Grand street.—“My first vote was cast for Henry George in the mayoralty contest of 1886. This year I will cast my vote for Grover Cleveland because I believe in the total abolition of all taxes on the products of labor and the transfer of the same to those values which are created by increase of population, otherwise known as land values; and though Mr. Cleveland does not go far I am content to go with him to his journey’s end, and then to push on further alone. Having numerous democratic friends and having advocated for the past two years the abolition of all taxation on the products of labor, I would be placed in a very awkward position were I to vote any other ticket after showing them that protective tariffs in any form were restrictive measures in the production of wealth. I was for some time secretary of the Fourth assembly district, united labor party, and I recently made an examination as to how the seventy heretofore active members stood. Ten will vote for Harrison, twenty to twenty-five for Cowdrey, the nominee of the united labor party, and the remainder will vote for Grover Cleveland. In the discussion of the tariff question the free trade issue is rapidly pushing itself to the front, and the stigma which attached itself to anyone who in former years had the hardihood to proclaim himself as such is rapidly losing itself in the great conversion which is going on. In my talks with individuals I have yet to find one who, after having the question of electoral reform intelligently and plainly stated, was opposed to said measure. Eight members of our family would have undoubtedly voted for Hill had he signed the electoral reform bill. They will now vote for a republican governor. Will I vote for him^sic. Yes!—to stay at home.”

BLAINE IN ’84; CLEVELAND IN ’88.

John P. Young, 24 Manhattan street.—“I voted for Blaine in ’84, but will vote for Cleveland in the coming election. Among my acquaintances who voted for George fully 80 per cent will support Cleveland; none are for Harrison. The discussion of tariff reform seems to make free traders every time, and from the educational result the single tax is more easily approached. So it will be after the election and in the winter months. I hope Hill will get the nomination, and if he is not defeated the election to me will be a farce.”

WILL VOTE FOR CLEVELAND, BUT CAN’T STAND HILL.

John Hatton, 318 East Seventy-second street.—“I shall vote for Cleveland, as will, I believe, the very large majority of those who voted for George in ’87. Free trade is undoubtedly gaining the upper hand in tariff discussion. It is a logical result. I am in favor of electoral reform, and do not know any one who is not. I shall not vote for Hill. The enrollment of single tax men has come none too soon. It is a ground work upon which much good may be done.”

WILL WORK HARD TO DEFEAT HILL.

Charles Moser, 347 East Sixth street.—“Grover Cleveland got my vote four years ago and will get it this year because he has brought up a discussion of free trade throughout the United States. All the George voters I have come in contact with will vote for Cleveland. Free trade is winning converts, and it brings the single tax into discussion whenever I am around. Electoral reform has many friends. Governor Hill will be sadly left if renominated. I will work hard to defeat him.”

DEMOCRATS WHO WILL NOT VOTE FOR HILL.

R. T. Malone, 304 East Broadway.—“I voted for Cleveland in ’84, and shall do so again this year because he has taken a step on the road to freedom which if followed to the end will lead to the goal that single tax men desire to reach. Most of the men whom I come in contact with have given the tariff question very little thought and can give no good reasons for belonging to either party, but are so prejudiced that they will not break away from their party. Many of them, however, give way to free trade arguments. I find in most discussions on the tariff the single tax idea commands considerable attention. The feeling for electoral reform is very general. I know several democrats who will not vote for Hill.”

HILL? NOT BY A JUGFULL^sic.

James Warren, 298 Henry street.—“I voted for Grover Cleveland in 1884. I will do the same thing this year because Cleveland cares not whose toes he treads on if they are in the way of what he considers right, and because he is going my way, and I think will continued on p. 3 →

[continued on page 3]

ANOTHER BLAINE MAN FOR CLEVELAND AND AGAINST HILL.

Aug. Wolff, 417 Fourteenth street, South Brooklyn.—“James G. Blaine received my vote in 1884. I shall vote for Grover Cleveland this election for, as a single tax man, I am in favor of the abolition of all taxes save the one on land values, and now that the democratic party is going in our direction I shall give it all the support I can. When we have got a tariff for revenue only it will be an easy matter for us to tear the last of the Chinese wall down. Half the vote cast for George last year will go to Cleveland, the other half to Harrison. The majority of voters of both parties in my neighborhood are in favor of electoral reform, and I think the candidate for governor who favors it will gain many votes. I will not trust Hill a second time, no matter what he may promise.”

p. 3, col. 2

FOR FREE TRADE AND ELECTORAL REFORM.

Charles M. Skinner, journalist.—“I voted in 1884 for Blaine. This year I will vote for Cleveland because I want to see free—or at least freer—trade. I imagine that a decided majority of the last year George voters will vote for Cleveland, not because of any loyalty to the man, but because in this campaign a principle is involved. There is an unquestioned demand for electoral reform, and if only the best class of people could be compelled or induced to do their duty we should be rid in a day of thieves, rings, bosses and barnacles. I can not vote for a man like Hill for any office. It is a public calamity to have a creature like that in power.”

A BUTLER MAN FOR CLEVELAND AND AGAINST HILL.

John F. Lutterell, 483 Park avenue.—“I voted for Benjamin F. Butler in 1884. I shall take great pleasure this fall in voting for Grover Cleveland, as every consistent believer in the single tax should. Among the members of our ward association (Seventh ward united labor party of Kings county) I find that over four-fifths will support Cleveland. Among my shopmates protection has slightly the best of it at present, owing chiefly to the false position taken by some of the so-called democratic organs. But wherever a man has been led into a study of the question from a single tax standpoint we get him. It appears to me that democrats and republicans alike are anxious for electoral reform. I will not vote for Hill.”

FREE TRADE GAINING—HILL WILL BE CUT.

Antonio Bastida, 82 Livingston street.—“Did not vote in 1884. I shall vote for Cleveland this year for the reason that I don’t believe in protection The free trade^sic side in the contest is gaining, where free traders are making any fight. High protectionists become absolute free traders and don’t go back again. There is a strong feeling in favor of electoral reform. Hill, if renominated, will probably be scratched largely. No; I won’t vote for Hill. It looks to me at present as if the democratic party intended to let the election go by default. Their cowardly policy, if persisted in, will give the protectionist party a victory.”

AN ABSOLUTE FREE TRADER, WITH NO USE FOR HILL.

A. Van Dyke, 228 DeGraw street.—“I voted in 1884 for Cleveland. I shall vote for Cleveland this November because I am an absolute free trader, and Cleveland has taken the first step in the right direction. I have not less than eight personal friends who voted for Blaine in 1884 who this year will vote for Cleveland. They have not become democrats, but absolute single tax free traders. They are, with two exceptions, mechanics and wage workers. They report further gains. I push the single tax idea on every occasion. Cleveland is gaining steadily among those I meet. Practically all whom I know will vote against Hill. The demand for electoral reform is general. I shall vote against Hill if he is nominated.”

CLEVELAND, BUT NOT HILL.

John Paul Nordgren, 162 Twelfth street.—“I would have voted for Blaine in 1884 had I not moved prior to election day. This year Cleveland will get my vote because he is taking a step toward the abolition of taxes on labor and its products. About two-thirds of the votes cast for George last year will be cast for Cleveland this year. Free trade is pushing ahead, and the single tax is having a very potent influence in this discussion. Hill’s chances of election in case he is renominated are very slim. I shall not vote for Hill or anyone else who is opposed to electoral reform.”

THINKS HILL WILL BE DEFEATED.

Michael J. Hurley, 235 Fifteenth street.—“I had no vote in 1884, but I have this year, and it will be cast for Cleveland on account of his free trade ideas. One-half of the voters for George last year will vote for Cleveland this year; one-fourth for protectionist Harrison and one-fourth for Cowdrey. The one-fourth for Cowdrey will count for Cleveland, for if the united labor party did not nominate Cowdrey, they would vote for Harrison. Protection ideas are growing on account of the cowardice of the democratic party. I think Hill will be defeated if nominated. I will not vote for him.”

FOR CLEVELAND AND FREE TRADE.

William McKenna, 60 Lewis street.—“Cleveland received my vote in 1884, and he will receive it this year because I am a free trader. Free trade is gaining without question. I never knew a free trader who became a protectionist, but I have known many protectionists who have become free traders. Even if Cleveland is defeated I think the result of the campaign will be to advance the cause of free trade, though the question I have heard discussed is simply whether the protective tariff has accomplished its pretended object to raise wages. I think the majority of voters not already free traders will get little beyond the solution of this particular question in this campaign. Electoral reform has been regarded with favor by every one whom I know to whom it has been explained. Hill’s record in this regard will hurt him, but I do not think there is sufficient independence of party ties as yet to insure his defeat should he be renominated. I know half a dozen people who voted for him last time who will not this year. I voted for him last term, but I will not vote for him again.”

OF COURSE HE WON’T VOTE FOR HILL.

Peter J. Constant, 724 Prospect place.—“I voted for Cleveland as a mugwump in 1884, and shall vote for him this year. It seems to me as a single tax man that there is no other way to vote, as the democratic party is going our way, and I think it the duty of every single tax man to make this victory as complete as possible. The greater that victory the easier it will be to complete our work and show them that any tax on the product of labor is wrong. There is no doubt in my mind that free trade is gaining ground every day, and I find that once you get a man to admit that free trade is right, it is easy work to make a single tax man of him. I think his veto of the electoral reform bill will defeat Hill. Of course I won’t vote for him.”

“PROGRESS AND POVERTY” BROUGHT HIM OVER FROM BLAINE.

Andrew Valentine, 171 Norman avenue, Greenpoint.—“I voted the Blaine ticket in 1884, and would probably be shouting for the same party now if I had never read”Progress and Poverty” and Henry George’s other works. My intention now is to vote for Cleveland, unless he should follow the cowardly course of the democratic leaders since his nomination and endeavor in his letter of acceptance to show to the country that he does not want free trade, but is just as good a protectionist as his opponent. In this ward about one-half who voted for Henry George last year, or nearly every man that really believes in the single tax, will vote for Cleveland. Free trade and the single tax idea are both certainly gaining, though slowly. There is not much interest manifested at present in regard to electoral reform. I will not vote for Hill if he is renominated.”

THE PATH THAT ENDS IN THE MAIN ROAD TO FREEDOM.

Herman R. Simpson, 1,005 Lafayette avenue.—“I voted for Cleveland in 1884, and as I am a true George and single tax man, and an absolute free trader, I shall vote for Cleveland this year; not because he is Mr. Cleveland, now at the head of the democratic party (or rather at the head of a party of cowards), but because he is Grover Cleveland, a man with pluck, able to stand erect and show his

p. 3, col. 3 party and all the world the narrow path which ends at the main road to freedom. As for David, if renominated, I and my friends are against him. About four-fifths of the George voters of last year will vote for Cleveland this year.”

STUMBLED ON “THE STANDARD” AND BECAME A SINGLE TAX MAN.

William Rogers, 117 Sumner avenue.—“I came here eighteen months ago from Indiana, where I had lived and voted the republican ticket for thirty years. In 1884 I voted for James G. Blaine. Accidentally stumbling on a STANDARD I became interested, read up on the questions it deals with, and am now a single tax Cleveland man. I am decidedly against Hill in case he is renominated.”

THE STANDARD BEARER OF DEMOCRACY AGAINST PLUTOCRACY.

Henry H. Moore, 360 DeKalb avenue.—“I grew up strongly prejudiced in favor of ‘the party of moral ideas,’ but its ‘immoral practices’ induced me to cast my first presidential vote for Cleveland. I shall vote for him again this year, not only because he has shown himself to be a strong and safe man, faithful and efficient in discharging difficult duties during years when good sense and firmness of purpose have been needed rather than brilliance and dash, but because he is now the standardbearer of democracy against plutocracy, of the people against the monopolists, of the great majority of consumers against the small minority of producers, of low taxation and governmental economy against high taxation and wasteful expenditures. In opposing any reduction of the tariff the republicans have at once stultified their promises and shown themselves to be political tricksters, willing to sacrifice true statesmanship for the sake of a demagogic slogan and the chances of getting office thereby. They are now the real bourbons of the country, appealing as they do to prejudice, selfishness, ignorance and dead issues. I think a majority of those who voted for George will vote for Cleveland, but what’s the use of trying to disguise the fact that many of those who voted for George both in 1886 and in 1887 were ignorant men who only half understood what they were voting for, and who will be likely to swallow the ‘protection to workingmen’ bait of the republicans this year. Free trade is gaining among people who think as well as discuss. So far as I see, the tariff discussion is generally conducted without any reference whatever to the single tax idea and in innocuous ignorance of it; one thing at a time is enough for most people. I shall not vote for Hill unless the republicans nominate a greater demagogue—and that they can’t do, for he doesn’t exist in this state.”

SINGLE TAX MEN SHOULD WORK FOR CLEVELAND.

Robert Baker, 178 Madison avenue, Albany.—“I did not have a vote in 1884. This year I shall vote for Cleveland because, as a thorough single tax man, I think it is our duty to do all in our power to elect the man who has had the courage to attack that brazen system of fraud, misnamed”protection.” The discussion as to whether protection does or does not protect is becoming warmer every day, and must inevitably lead some who doubt its efficacy to look elsewhere for government revenues. I think that seventy-five per cent of the George vote of last year will go to Cleveland, and this number may be considerably increased if the democrats assume a more radical position.”

PROTECTION IS LOSING GROUND—SO IS HILL.

James Bohan, 36 Frazer street, Auburn.—“I voted for Cleveland in 1884 and believed in protection; but my views have since undergone a change, for, while I shall vote for Cleveland this year, it will be because he favors a reduction in the tariff. I believe Cleveland will receive sixty-five per cent of the vote cast for George in 1887. In the discussion of the tariff question protection is losing its strength among workingmen, a great many of whom are studying the single tax. I will not vote for Hill if he is renominated, because he is not in favor of electoral reform.”

ALBANY SINGLE TAX MEN ORGANIZING.

M. W. Norwalk, 199 Central avenue, Albany.—“Inclosed please find single tax Cleveland enrollment blank with signatures of myself and friends. We single tax men in Albany will shortly organize for active work. I was one of the advocates in the local press last year of electoral reform, and this year does not find me any the less ardent. If Hill is renominated I will surely dig under him unless he stands on an electoral reform platform or comes out openly for that principle.”

ALL HIS FRIENDS WILL VOTE FOR CLEVELAND.

V. D. M. Anson, Albany.—“I voted in 1884 for Cleveland. This year I will again vote for him because I believe a reduction of the tariff is a step in the direction of free trade. I know of no one among my friends who will not vote for him. The free trade idea is steadily spreading and it is strengthening the single tax idea.”

ANOTHER PROHIBITIONIST ENLISTS.

Albert A. Ultchlit, Mount Vernon, Westchester county.—“I cast my first vote for John P. St. John in 1884. I will vote for Cleveland this fall, for in this way I can help to forward the single tax idea. Protection is losing its strength. For instance, out of forty-eight journeymen masons here, thirty-five are for free trade. Two years ago only ten of them favored free trade. This change is due to ‘Progess and Poverty’^sic and ‘Protection or Free Trade?’ Governor Hill made a mistake in vetoing the electoral reform bill. I voted for him in 1886, but I shall not vote for him again.”

CLEVELAND A DEMOCRAT IN FACT.

Richard Welton, Mount Vernon, Westchester county.—“I voted for Cleveland in ’84 because he was a democrat in name. This year I vote for him because he is proving to be a true democrat in fact. Of twelve men I have spoken to, all resolute single tax men, ten will vote for Cleveland, one will vote for Harrison, and the remaining man feels such strong objections to the names of the parties he has been fighting for so many years, that he cannot bring himself to vote with either. He thinks he will vote for Fisk. Protection is gaining ground on account of the vigorous fight the republicans are making; and so half hearted is the fight of those who form the greater part of the opposing army that, unless the real free traders come to the front, Cleveland will be defeated. I hear it said on every side that the veto of the Saxton bill will hurt Hill if he runs again. I shall vote against him.”

DON’T LIKE THE PARTY, BUT WILL VOTE TOWARD FREE TRADE.

Harry D. Gawn, 17 Magnolia street, Rochester.—“I cast my vote in 1884 for Cleveland. Will do so this year, not because I like Cleveland or theparty^sic, but because Cleveland is on the track that leads to free trade. I have always voted for Hill, but will not again, and will use what little influence I have in defeating him if nominated this fall^sic.

FREE TRADE GAINING, SLOWLY BUT SURELY.

Frank C. Stevens, 192 Hudson avenue, Albany.—“I voted for James G. Blaine in 1884. Politics were merely a Fourth of July patriotism at that time with me. I voted the republican ticket only because I thought, ‘of two evils choose the least,’ and I believed that to be the least. I will vote for Grover Cleveland because he has taken a step in advance. I have always voted the republican ticket until last fall, when I voted for Mr. George. I never took kindly to protection, though I had the delusive idea that it was a necessary evil. But I see now that it is founded on selfishness,

p. 3, col. 4 and is nothing more or less than a popular prejudice. It seems to be so deeply seated, however, that it takes two good points for free trade to knock down one weak point for protection. Men get scared when you say anything of free trade. It takes more thinking than the single tax question, as it is more complicated. I think about three-fourths of those who voted for Mr. George last fall will vote for Cleveland. I know of some of our men who will vote for Cowdrey because they think the democratic party don’t even mean as much as the Mills bill implies, and they think Mr. Cleveland will also straddle when he writes his letter of acceptance. Democratic cowardice is our worst stumbling block. Nevertheless, I think free trade is gaining, slowly but surely. The single tax seems to take better than free trade, as there are not so many fairy tales of pauper European labor to tell against it. Electoral reform seems to be universally desired, but some democrats (who are democrats because their fathers were before them) try to say something against it because Hill vetoed the bill. These men think a democrat can do nothing wrong. I am neither a knave nor a fool, and therefore I will do all in my power to defeat Hill. If he should be renominated and elected it would be a big disgrace to New York state.”

WAS A PROTECTIONIST UNTIL HE TOOK TO THINKING.

J. C. Roshirt, 22 Third avenu, Albany^sic.—“I voted for Blaine last presidential election. I was a protectionist until I studied political economy. I am now a free trader and will remain one until they protect me. I have a barber shop and I want a law passed compelling every one in my ward to get shaved at my shop, and if they don’t pass that law and protect my infant industry, I won’t vote to protect anybody else’s infant industry. Most of the men who voted for George last year wil vote for Cleveland^sic and Thurman this year. But they won’t vote for David B. Hill. In my shop I am wearing my tongue out discussing free trade, but I don’t mind that, as my words are telling. I think most of the men of my craft will vote for Cleveland.”

HIS FRIENDS WILL VOTE AGAINST HILL.

Alexander Campbell, Lafayette street, Albany.—“B. F. Butler was my choice for president in 1884. Grover Cleveland is my choice this time because he is on the road to the single tax. All of my acquaintances who are single tax men will vote likewise. I think free trade is pushing ahead. It gives us a chance to bring in the single tax ideas. Almost all my friends, regardless of politics, will vote against Hill for his anti-electoral reform record. Will I vote for Hill? I will not.”

STILL ANOTHER CONVERT FROM BLAINEISM.

John Dixon, Waterloo street, Albany.—“Blaine was my candidate in 1884, but this year Cleveland will get my vote. I think he will get seventy-five per cent of the men who were for George in 1887. Free trade is gaining in this fight and is helping the single tax movement. I don’t know how Hill’s veto of the Australian ballot bill will affect his support, but as for myself I will not vote for him under any circumstances.”

FREE TRADE THE ENTERING WEDGE.

D. C. T., Albany.—“I voted for Cleveland in 1884. I will vote for him in the coming election because I think free trade is an entering wedge to the single tax principle. I have seen very few among my acquaintances who will not vote for Cleveland and tariff reform. Free trade seems to me to be gaining very fast, and it is preparing men’s minds for the single tax idea. All of the single tax men here are against Hill. For my own part I will vote for the republican candidate as against Hill.”

FOR CLEVELAND AND AGAINST HILL FOR GOOD REASONS.

P. J. Henzel, 294 South Pearl street, Albany.—“I voted at the last presidential contest for Grover Cleveland. I will vote again this year for him, because he advocates tariff reform, which is an approach to free trade. The free trade side is gaining decidedly. It is but a question of time when a large majority of the people will favor it. I believe that a majority of the people want electoral reform, but the ‘machines’ which govern the action of the parties are opposed to it. Therefore, the party out of power will favor it during that time, and reject it when in power. I will vote against Hill on account of his refusal to make the Saxton election bill a law.”

OPPOSED TO HILL AND BOODLE.

Jacob Jordan, 78 Congress street, Troy.—“I voted for Cleveland in 1884 as a republican who favored progress and reform. Again I shall vote for Cleveland because he is the representative of free trade, to which I am a firm adherent. While it is true that he has not declared himself in favor of absolute free trade, I nevertheless believe that such will be the final result of his action. You cannot direct public attention to a system of fraud without making the fraud apparent. And if people once can see that protection protects a few to the injury of many—down it goes without delay. There can be no doubt that free trade is gaining favor with the masses and that the single tax is coming prominently to the front. The discussion of tariff and free trade almost invariably lead to the question, Where shall we obtain the revenue with which to defray the expense of government? and the single tax free trader never wants an answer. I find that people can be made to see the justice of the single tax more readily than the benefits of free trade. The fact must not be lost sight of that Troy is one of the highly protected centers, and that for many years past people here have been trained to believe that high tariff is their only salvation. Out of four daily papers published here only one, the Daily Press, is fighting the battle of tariff reduction. Another daily paper, the Evening Standard, avowedly championing the cause of labor, has thus far hid its brilliant thoughts in silence. The remaining two are stanch protection papers. Taking into account these circumstances and the inactivity heretofore displayed by the democratic party, I am surprised to see the free trade idea making any advance at all. The sentiment in favor of electoral reform is most pronounced among the republicans. Democrats seem to ignore the question entirely, and I do not believe that Governor Hill, if renominated, will lose many votes in this county on account of his vetoing the electoral reform bill. In fact, he is very popular and if renominated would add strength to the democratic national ticket in this part of the state. Personally I am strongly opposed to him because I think an election should be decided—not through boodle, but conviction; not through intimidation, but the free use of the ballot by independent citizens.”

ELECTORAL REFORM GAINING GROUND.

Albert O. Young, Tuckahoe.—“I will vote for Cleveland and Thurman because I believe that a reduction in the tariff, however small, is a step in the direction of absolute free trade. Articles added to the free list involve so large a moneyed interest that the impulse in favor of the abolition of all other duties will be strengthened. If the duty is removed from lumber, for instance, the lumber interest will fight for free trade in other products on the principle of self interest. Free trade is gaining I believe. The feeling in favor of electoral reform is spreading, and will affect Hill’s chances unfavorably; but, considering the large support he has in the liquor interest, this feeling will not be strong enough to prevent his re-election. I will not vote for Hill.”

p. 3, col. 5

VOTE FOR HILL!—THE QUESTION IS AN INSULT.

J. B. Luttbeg, Mount Vernon.—“I will vote for Cleveland because of his free trade tendencies. Protection is gaining and rather hurts the single tax cause, for it is lopping off those who are not thoroughgoing single tax men. The feeling is very bitter among the more educated and honest voters against Governor Hill for his vetoing of the ballot reform bill. Will I vote for him if nominated? Your question is an insult to an honest man. I shall vote for his opponent.”

FOUR VOTES FOR BLAINE IN ’84, FIVE FOR CLEVELAND IN ’88.

Joseph Sutherland, Yonkers.—“In 1884 myself and three sons voted for Blaine; this year myself and four sons will vote for Cleveland—not because we love the democratic party, but because Cleveland has had manhood enough to make a slight move in the direction of the single tax reform. From 90 to 95 per cent of those that voted for Henry George in 1887 will vote for Cleveland this fall. About one half the remainder will vote for Harrison and the balance will probably not vote or else vote the prohibition ticket. All our discussions are on free trade vs. protection and we invariably come out best and in favor of the single tax. As to Governor Hill I think he would be the worst candidate the democracy could put in the field. A certain element here is already offering to trade off Cleveland for Hill votes. I will certainly not vote for Hill. Neither will any of the single tax men here vote for him or any other person for governor or assembly who will not pledge themselves to support the electoral reform bill.”

WORKINGMEN WANT ELECTORAL REFORM.

George Harnwell, Whitestone, L. I.—“My first vote was cast in 1886 and I voted for the republicans. This year I intend to vote for Cleveland and Thurman because, as Mr. Pentecost would say, I think that is best. I know a great many who will do the same. I believe free trade is gaining rapidly. There seems to be a general feeling among workingmen who think for themselves that electoral reform is much needed, and Hill, had he done nothing else, would, if he ran, lose many votes for vetoing the electoral reform bill; but he also vetoed the Saturday half holiday repeal bill, and that is an offset. Some say he means well and should have another chance. If renominated I shall not vote for him.”

FREE TRADE GAINING IN ULSTER.

Theodore M. Romeyn, Kingston, Ulster county.—“I voted for Cleveland in 1884. I will vote for him this year for the reason that I am a believer in absolute free trade and in Henry George’s theory of taxation, and I can see nothing better for me to do under the circumstances. I think four-fifths of those who voted for George in 1887 in this county will this year vote for Cleveland. In the discussion of the tariff question, free trade is gaining. I don’t think the vote for Hill will be materially decreased on account of his position on the electoral bill. But I will not vote for him.”

ELECTORAL REFORM MUST BE PUSHED.

James Willis, Cornwall.—“Cleveland was my choice in 1884, and I will vote for him this year because he comes nearest to my views. I think nearly all of the men who cast their votes for Henry George last year will cast them for Cleveland this year. Free trade is gaining. The single tax idea is progressing slowly, but both will do better as the fight warms up. Electoral reform must be pushed, and I do not think it will affect the vote for Hill so far as to defeat him if he is renominated. I will vote for him. I have no sympathy with the republicans. They are false piratical^sic. My desire is free trade, pure and simple; purity of the ballot box and the legislative hall free from lobbyism.”

SINGLE TAX MEN OF ’87 WILL SUPPORT CLEVELAND.

William Chadeayne, Cornwall, Orange county.—“In 1884 I voted for Grover Cleveland. I shall vote for him again in the coming election because I consider that his election will be a victory for the policy of tariff reduction and a movement toward raising government revenues by the single tax. If I thought his election would mean an opposite result I should vote against him. I think nearly all who voted for George in 1887 will vote for Cleveland this year. I cannot find any democrats who are afraid of free trade, and those republicans who lose faith in the protective system as a universal panacea seem to run to the other extreme and become free traders pure and simple. Several of the leading men of this place, formerly republicans, are this year Cleveland men, and some of them free traders. The single tax idea is growing. I believe Hill’s veto of the electoral reform bill will cost him dear. I shall not vote for him should he be renominated.”

TARIFF REDUCTION A STEP TOWARD FREE TRADE.

Isaac Denniston, Cornwall Landing.—“I voted for Grover Cleveland in 1884 and shall do so again this fall, principally because he advocates a reduction of the existing tariff which is a step toward free trade. Most of the votes cast for Henry George last fall in this election district will be cast for Cleveland this fall. Free trade is gaining decidedly. Naturally tariff reform which leads to free trade, must also lead to some other method of levying taxes, which must eventually be the single tax on land values. Hill’s veto of the electoral reform bill, so far as I can ascertain, will not cost him a single vote in this election district. While a reformation in the manner of conducting elections is desirable, the changes wrought in the bill passed by the legislature last winter were too sweeping and could not have been tolerated by the people in the country districts. I will vote for Hill if he is renominated.”

STATESMEN, NOT WIRE PULLERS.

B. T. Henley, 11 Thompson street, Port Jervis, Orange county.—“I voted in 1884 for Benj. F. Butler. This year I shall vote for Cleveland and Thurman. They have proved themselves statesmen, not wire pullers. The George vote of last fall was cast almost to a unit in the light of reason. Practically, it is solid for Cleveland. A single sheet of paper would serve to list the names of all the single tax men who will vote for the monopoly candidate. Will they nominate that discredited wire puller Hill? Are the gods so far bent on destroying them? Will I vote for Hill if he is renominated? Not unless the gods make me stark mad.”

REPUBLICANS GETTING THEIR EYES OPENED.

Horace R. Perry, South Clinton place, Syracuse.—“I voted for John C. Fremont for president and remained a republican until last November, when I voted for Henry George for secretary of state. I am fully converted to Henry George’s idea of a single tax on land values, and I shall cheerfully follow the advice of THE STANDARD and vote for Cleveland and Thurman as a step to the single tax. In my opinion nearly all in this city who voted for Mr. George last fall will vote for Cleveland in November. Many republicans are getting their eyes opened to the fact that a tariff does not protect labor, but only gives manufacturers a monopoly of the American market. It seems to me that Governor Hill made a great political blunder when he vetoed the electoral reform bill. It was popular here with all parties, and I think he will lose many votes on account of his action. I will not vote for him.”

THE SINGLE TAX ARGUMENT WINS VOTES.

C. S. H, care of postmaster^sic, Syracuse.—“I will lose my vote this year on account of change of residence. All the George

p. 3, col. 6 men with whom I have talked, with one exception, will support Cleveland. The exception will vote for Cowdrey. Tariff reform is gaining strength rapidly. It is surprising to learn of the large number of absolute free traders there are. The most of them are or have been republicans. I find that when I meet an honest opponent, one who is open to conviction, that I can win him over to the support of Cleveland by a presentation of the beauties of the single tax when all other arguments fail. I can do this all the more forcibly, as my experience in Pennsylvania has furnished me with a fund of practical illustrations of the manner in which the tariff upon coal and iron has enormously increased the value of coal and iron deposits, while decreasing wages and the returns to legitimate capital. I think the tariff discussion will sink all other issues. I consider Cleveland a stronger candidate in the state than Hill. If I had a vote this fall I would support the prohibition candidate for governor in preference to either Hill or ‘Wood Pulp’ Miller.”

READY FOR WORK.

Charles C. Whittemore, 360 Seneca street, Buffalo.—“I have read the report of the speeches at Cooper union and am ready for work. The majority of the active George men of last year are on our side and it is not too much to say that of the eight hundred votes polled here for Henry George seven hundred will go to Cleveland and against Hill. Lead on; let there be no halting.”

STANCH PROTECTIONISTS COMING OVER.

F. G. Anderson, Jamestown.—“In 1884 I voted for Mr. Blaine. This year I will vote for Cleveland because, though at one time a rabid protectionist, I am now a free trader, and I believe President Cleveland’s course is in the direction of the abolition of all taxes on commerce, which is a large step toward the abolition of all taxes on production. Half of those who voted for Henry George last fall will vote for Cleveland this fall, the remainder dividing equally between the candidates of the republican and union labor parties. The free trade cause is advancing. I know of some stanch protectionists being converted to free trade, but I have not yet heard of a single reversal of this order of conversion. The tariff discussion is making a clearing for the single tax idea. The feeling here is favorable to electoral reform, and will prove an obstacle to Governor Hill’s re-election. I will not vote for him if he is renominated, although I used to be a strong Hill man.”

OUR TARIFF LAWS ARE VICIOUS.

Robert White, 472 Pearl street, Buffalo.—“My first vote for president was cast for Grant. I voted for Blaine in 1884. I will vote for Cleveland this election, because he believes with me that our tariff laws are vicious. Count me one to help defeat Hill if he should be nominated^sic.

SINGLE TAX MEN KNOW WHY.

Henry J. Wingardner, Harlem.—“I voted for Blaine in 1884. I admired him even afterward; but I have now become somewhat sceptical. Men who are so intimate with the Carnegies and others of that ilk may well be suspected, especially by workingmen who have their wits about them. Cleveland will get my vote this year for reasons best known to every single tax man. As for Hill, I will vote for him—to stay at home. Nine-tenths of the voters in this vicinity who voted for George last year will do likewise.”

The Reform Club Against Hill.

A special meeting of the Reform club was held on Tuesday evening of this week to consider the nomination of Governor Hill for re-election. Resolutions were offered by Mr. Hinman declaring that the governor is among the most prominent opponents of the state and municipal reforms to which the club is devoted, and especially of electoral reform, urging the democratic party not to nominate him, and resolving that in that event the club would call on all good citizens to join it in voting against him. The resolutions were supported by E. J. Shriver, John Dewitt Warner, George Havens Putnam, R. R. Bowker, George Foster Peabody and W. J. Gibson, and opposed by E. R. Whitney, E. P. Doyle and George Byrne. As it was claimed that the notice of the meeting had been too short to secure a representative attendance, final action was postponed until Saturday, September 8, at eight o’clock, to which time the meeting was subsequently adjourned. Prior to adjournment a motion was adopted, by 54 to 4, recommending the resolutions to the adjourned meeting for adoption.

At the Reform Club Meeting.

W. L. Trenholm, comptroller of the currency, spoke at the regular Friday evening meeting of the Reform club last week. He said he was for neither “absolute protection” nor “absolute free trade,” but for what Mr. E. B. Bingham, in a pamphlet in 1882 in support of^sic the Morrill tariff, defined as “qualified protection.” But it was significant that the speaker was only applauded when he gave expression to general principles as much opposed to “qualified protection” as to “absolute protection.”

Wiping Up the Floor with Protection in Philadelphia.

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 29^sic.—We had a lively meeting at Delanco Saturday night. Mr. Hetzel of our club wiped up the floor with Mr. Torry in the joint debate on Protection vs. Free Trade. The audience took very kindly to single tax doctrines, and all of us agreed that had it been merely a “George” meeting, not one-tenth of the audience would have turned out. We are now satisfied that Mr. George’s decision to support Mr. Cleveland was best considered merely for the opportunities it gives to get at men with our doctrines.

W. J. ATKINSON.

The U. L. P. in the Tenth District.

The Tenth assembly district association of the united labor party has disbanded. Its members have resolved that in its stead shall be formed either a single tax Cleveland campaign club or a branch of the Free trade club for that congressional committee.

Campaign Work.

The single tax Cleveland campaign committee has engaged headquarters in THE STANDARD building, 12 Union square, where visitors may obtain signature blanks or any information relative to the movement. Work is being pushed for the big single tax mass meeting in support of Cleveland and Thurman, to be held in Cooper Union on Tuesday evening, at which Henry George will preside, and Hugh O. Pentecost and Louis F. Post speak.

Campaign Work in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn single tax men are busy arranging for an active campaign there. They propose not only to hold big public mass meetings at which the best speakers in the movement shall appear, but also, in co-operation with the Revenue reform club, a number of smaller meetings in the different wards. The work of enrolling Brooklyn single tax men who intend to vote for Cleveland and Thurman is being pushed rapidly ahead.

How the Contract Labor Law Works.

Dispatch to New York Herald.

HALIFAX, N. S., Aug. 29.—The Portuguese brigantine Neptune arrived here ten days ago from Faxal, Azores^sic, bound to Boston, with fifty-six female Portuguese immigrants on board. It was said that she came in to procure water, but it has just been discovered that she put into Halifax to land the women, who were forwarded to their destination by rail to evade the American law. Had the vessel taken the women to Boston they could not have landed there, as they had previously been engaged to enter service in the United States.

p. 4, col. 5

The Land Belongs to the People.

ELMIRA, N. Y.—In an article in the Elmira Husbandman J. E. Shepard refers to the George system of taxation, and says of it: “Until it can be demonstrated that all moneys can be collected from land values without confiscating the property of land owners, which is as legitimate and worthy of protection as any other, this system will find little favor with fair minded men.” Can’t you give us a short answer to this kind of argument?

J. S.

The “fair minded men” to whom Mr. Shepard refers are the kind of “fair minded men” who apologized for or defended slavery—the unthinking or the consciously selfish and unjust.

It is impossible to invent a tax which does not confiscate somebody’s property, using the term “confiscate” as Mr. Shepard uses it. The question is, whose property, or, rather, what kind of property shall be confiscated?” Now, the only property capable of general classification that ought to be “confiscated,” and that can be “confiscated,” not only without injustice to any one, but with a greater measure of justice to all, is the privilege which government secures to its citizens of occupying exclusively the choicer portions of what is by nature common property. To one it says, You may have a spot twice as desirable as the spot of another of your fellow citizens and you shall not be disturbed; to another, You shall have a spot ten times as desirable; and so on. The value of these privileges are not dependent on the labor of the owner and are annual in their return of benefits, and without annual confiscation they are unjust to the public at large. This is an all-sufficient reason for the single tax.

Numerous purely economic considerations can be advanced, but it is enough that land values constitute a fund which of right belongs to the whole people, and of which even the whole people cannot so divest themselves as to disinherit the unborn; and whoever is secured in the enjoyment of this fund is in justice the only person who ought to be taxed, and he ought to be taxed until none of the fund is left to him save his equal share.

That the land belongs in usufruct to the living is a proposition which does not admit of successful controversy, and believers in the single tax need to be armed with no stronger weapon to dispute with adversaries like Mr. Shepard.

Socialist Text Books.

NEW YORK.—Will you kindly inform me through your columns what book is recognized as the standard authority on socialism.

L. L. L.

None. The leading works are Karl Marx’s “Capital,” Hyndman’s “England for All,” and Gronlund’s “Co-operative Commonwealth.”

LOUIS F. POST.

How the Godin Establishment at Liege is Managed.

Good Words.

As with his social palace, so in his scheme of industrial distribution, M. Godin’s ideas were colored by Fourierist recollections. Before 1880 M. Godin had merely set apart a certain sum—£8,000 or £10,000—out of the profits of the year to be distributed among his men as a bonus; but in 1880 he converted the business into a commandite company, and introduced a complicated system of arrangements for realizing effectively Fourier’s principle of a just division of the produce of industry, the division between capital, labor and talent, according to the importance of their several contributions. It is true he thought this principle theoretically defective, because talent was only a particular kind of labor, and because nature, which Fourier wholly ignored, was, in Godin’s opinion, as important a contributor to production as any of the other three. Nature’s share in the division ought, he thought, to be appropriated by the state, partly by means of the nationalization of land for the purpose of letting it out to all sorts of productive societies, and partly by means of a heavy graduated succession duty; and the funds thus obtained ought to be employed in establishing a system of universal insurance against sickness, accidents, age and vicissitudes generally. But in the meantime, so long as the laws of private inheritance and private property in land remained unmodified, and the state showed no disposition to serve herself heir to nature’s share, individual producers must each set aside that share for themselves, and consequently the first part in M. Godin’s annual division is 25 per cent of the whole net profits to a reserve fund for purposes of personal insurance. In passing I may say that besides this every workman is obliged to pay to that fund 2 per cent on his wages, that in 1883 the fund amounted to 500,000 francs, and in the three years it had existed at that time more than 90,000 francs had been paid out of it for sick relief and pensions on a comfortable scale.

Next to nature’s deal comes the deal of talent or intelligence, and that also is fixed at twenty-five per cent. The director alone (M. Godin during his lifetime) got and gets twelve per cent of the profits, in addition to his salary of 15,000 francs. In 1883 this twelve per cent amounted to more than four times his salary. Half the profits going thus in equal shares to nature and intelligence, the other half remaining to be divided between the factors, capital and labor. Capital had already received five per cent interest, and labor had of course already received its weekly wages, all before there was any calculation of profit at all, and M. Godin concluded that the proper principle now was to give capital a share of the remaining half of the profits in proportion to the amount of interest it received, and labor in proportion to the wages it had received. In most other industrial partnerships the division is made on the amount of capital, and not on the amount of interest, and that makes a great difference. In 1883 the total amount of interest paid was 230,000 francs on 4,600,000 francs of capital, and the total wages paid was 1,888,000 francs, so that of this remaining half of the profits some nine-tenths go to the deal of labor.

M. Godin’s scheme, however, by no means ends here; his object was to make the employees in the final result owner of the capital of the business, and with this view he de- cided that the laborers’ share of the profits should not be paid immediately into their hands, to be used at their discretion, but should be applied to buy for them shares in the business. In this way the business is gradually falling into the hands of the laborers engaged in it. In 1883 they already possessed stock amounting to nearly two millions of francs, and though the capital has been raised to [6,000,000?] francs, it will only take a few more years for it to be acquired entirely by the employes. The interest on the shares they possess they receive like their wages, to spend as they will. And when we consider that the wages given at Guise are better than the current rate, that the house rent is lower, that the prices of things at the shops are co-operative prices, and that education, insurance and medical relief are virtually free, we shall not be surprised to find that the general standard of living, as tested by clear proofs, is unusually high. M. Godin states, in his book on government, that the average amount of indirect taxation on articles of consumption paid per head in the familistere of Guise is seventy-five francs, and we turn to books of statistics we find that the average for France generally is only thirty francs. The people of the familistere live, therefore, two and a half times better than the rest of the French. Their working day is ten hours, and they have besides common holidays, two special fete days of their own every year—the Feast of Labor on the first Sunday in May and the Feast of Infancy on the first Sunday in September. Labor is celebrated in the spring, because in the spring all nature returns to its task and summons man to his; and infancy is celebrated in the harvest, because then nature yields the young seed for future crops, and the two feasts are meant to be a public commemoration of labor and education as the two great factors of human progress. On these high days the whole place is bright with flowers and banners, the population of all assemble in the great lecture hall to hear an address from the director, and young and old mingle in merry games in the palace gardens.

One important feature of this establishment remains to be mentioned. There is no idea in the Familistere of Guise of any rigid socialistic ideas of equality. It contains considerable differences both of position and property. The director, who is at the head of the whole place, is an autocrat in all business affairs. He is elected—that is, since 1880—but he is elected for life, and his management is uncontrolled. He chooses the foremen and makes the bargains. Next below him stand the group that elect him, the associes, num- bering sixty-eight in 1883, who must have worked at least five years in the foundry, be men of good education and stainless life, and possess not less than 500 francs of capital in the business. Their privileges are large like their requirements. They elect themselves by co-optation, share in the profits on twice their wages, can only be expelled the association by a vote of two-thirds of their own peers (the other associes), have the first right to work when work is short, and retire on a pension of two-thirds of their wages or salaries. After them come 95 societaires, chosen by the manager and administrative council, sharing the profits on one and one-half times their wages, and getting a pension on one-third of them; 573 participants, similarly chosen, and sharing on their simple wages only; 258 auxiliaires, who as yet get no share in the profits, except through their interest in the insurance fund; and 286 interesses who are allowed to retain stock they have inherited, though they have no further interest in the concern. The stock, which is only being gradually taken up year by year, must, when it is all taken up, be again parted with in the same way, the first shareholders being then obliged to sell out their shares to the new comers. During the interval the shares may apparently be held by widows or other per- sons not in active employment, but at the end of the term they must always return to the possession of actual laborers, and so the way is smoothed for the retirement of the older generation, and the accession of the younger.

PROGRESS AND POVERTY.

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

BY HENRY GEORGE.

250 pages.

CONTENTS:

Introductory.—THE PROBLEM.

Book I.—WAGES AND CAPITAL.

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

Book II.—POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.

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

Book III.—THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION.

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

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

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

Book V.—THE PROBLEM SOLVED.

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

Book VI.—THE REMEDY.

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

Book VII.—JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY.

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

Book VIII.—APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY.

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

Book IX.—EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY.

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

Book X.—THE LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS.

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

Conclusion.—THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

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

SOCIAL PROBLEMS.

BY HENRY GEORGE.

342 pages.

CONTENTS:

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

PROTECTION OR FREE TRADE?

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

BY HENRY GEORGE.

CONTENTS:

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

THE LAND QUESTION.

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

BY HENRY GEORGE.

87 pages.

PROPERTY IN LAND.

A Passage-at-Arms Between the Duko^sic of Argyll and Henry George.

77 pages.

FORTSCHRITT AND ARMUTH^sic.

(Progress and Poverty in German.)

TRANSLATION OF C. D. F. GUTSCHOW.

430 pages.

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

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p. 7, col. 4

THE GOLDEN WEST.

SONOMA COUNTY AND RUSSIAN RIVER VALLEY ILLUSTRATED.

COMMENTS OF THE PRESS.

As a work of art nothing so costly, so faithful and so profuse in illustrations has ever been done for any county in California. Of the eighty-four pages of reading matter, historical, topographical, statistical and descriptive, it is sufficient to say it is the work of one of the best known and ablest writers in the state, and one who, from a journalistic experience of nearly a quarter of a century, has the history of the coast almost at his fingers’ ends. Altogether the work is one deserving of the highest praise.—San Francisco Examiner, June 20.

A large number of pamphlets describing and pictorially illustrating the beauties of different counties of the state have been issued from time to time. The latest, completest and ablest which has been issued for some time past is that which describes Sonoma county’s fertile soil, energetic people and beauteous scenery. The pamphlet, or more properly speaking, the volume, is a perfect encyclopedia in its particular line, treating the county geographically, geologically and historically. The illustrations of the scenes in the Sonoma valley are very faithful and have been prepared with great care and attention to detail. Different sections of the valley have been selected, and their suitability for the production of all classes of fruit is carefully pointed out.—San Francisco Chronicle, June 19^sic,

Bell & Heymans have issued another of their magnificently illustrated descriptions of a central California county. Their work on Marin was acknowledged by the daily press to be the finest of the kind ever pub- lished in California. Yet in their “Sonoma County and Russian River Valley Illustrated” they have outdone themselves and published a work that would do credit to any author or publishing house in the United States. The views, tinted and chromo, and plain lithographs and vignettes, over seventy in number, are worth five times the money. The historical, statistical and descriptive portion of the work is full, correct, and complete, and when the reader lays it down after perusal and examining the views, even though he never was in California, he will be better acquainted with the topography, products and condition of the county and its many towns than many people who have lived in Sonoma for years. It is a model book, for it gives in a concise and complete form the very information that an intelligent home seeker, who is a stranger to California, could wish to have.—San Francisco Herald of Trade, June 21.

For sale by BELL & HEYMANS, 434 California street, San Francisco. Price, 50 cents; or by mail, 60 cents.

THE TRUTH ABOUT TRISTREM VARICK.

By Edgar Saltus, author of “Mr. Incoul’s Misadventure,” etc.

12mo., Cloth, $1. Paper Covers, 50 cents.

In this novel Mr. Saltus has treated a subject hitherto unexploited in fiction. The scene is Fifth avenue, the action emotional, the plot a surprise. “There is,” some one has said, “as much mud in the upper classes as in the lower; only in the former it is gilded.” This aphorism might serve as epigraph to “Tristrem Varick.”

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As contained in act of March 3, 1883, also the Hawaiian Reciprocity Treaty, and extracts from the Navigation and Oleomargarine acts.

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ASHES OF THE FUTURE.

By Edward Heron-Allen.

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Confessions: Passionate and Playful.

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PRINCE COASTWIND’S VICTORY;

OR,

The Fairy Bride of Croton Lake.

By Mrs. Miles H. McNamara.

With illustrations. Small 4to, cloth, illustrated cover, $1,00.

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HIS WAY AND HER WILL.

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THE POLITICS OF LABOR.

By Phillips Thompson.

Cloth, gilt top, $1.25.

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PECK’S IRISH FRIEND, PHELAN GEOGHEAGAN.

By George W. Peck, jr.

Illustrated by True Williams.

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THE QUESTION OF THE DAY.

ANTI-POVERTY AND PROGRESS.

By Sister M. Frances Clare (The Nun of Kenmare.)

12mo, paper, 50 cents.

“Discusses some of the questions recently brought to public notice by Henry George and Father McGlynn.” She is opposed to the land theory of the former on the ground that it is not in accord with the Christian religion. . . . She criticises somewhat severely several of the clergy of her own church.”—New York Sun.

THE LAND OF THE NIHILIST RUSSIA.

By W. E. Curtis.

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Over one hundred engravings. A guide book.

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p. 7, col. 6

Abolishing Poverty by Statistics.

When the immortal Lemuel Gulliver visited the island of Laputa, one of the first things he did was to have a suit of clothes made, for which purpose he employed the services of a fashionable tailor. “The operator,” says Gulliver, “did his office after a different manner from those of his trade in Europe. He first took my altitude by a quadrant, and then, with rule and compasses, described the dimension and outlines of my whole body, all of which he entered upon paper; and in six days brought my clothes very ill made, and quite out of shape, by happening to mistake a figure in the calculation. But my comfort was that I observed such accidents very frequent and little regarded.”

If Mr. Edward Atkinson had been in Mr. Gulliver’s place, he would never have passed such a verdict as that upon the Laputan tailor. The ignorant Gulliver undertook to determine the fit of the clothes by trying them on. Mr. Atkinson would have checked the tailor’s calculation, and, failing to detect any error in that, would have sworn that the clothes fitted perfectly, because the figures showed they must fit. In Mr. Atkinson’s^sic philosophy, what the figures say must be true. When he does a sum, that settles it.

The Forum for September contains an essay by Mr. Atkinson, which is a beautiful illustration of the Laputan method. Mr. Atkinson entitles his essay “Progress from Poverty.” In it he demonstrates by figures and diagrams, to his own complete satisfaction, that things are, on the whole, in a very satisfactory condition. Poverty is disappearing as fast as could be expected. The working classes are immensely better off, actually and relatively, than^sic they were a few years ago. “The great economic forces which have so recently come into action are steadily working out a greater equality in the distribution of the abundant product which they have brought into existence;” and “the one thing most needed now is that the rich men shall know how the workmen live, and the workmen shall know how the rich men work.” It’s all nonsense to point out that the trousers are too short and baggy at the knees, that the waistcoat barely comes below the armpits, and the coat is made to button in the back; the figures say the clothes fit, and fit they must. As for criticising the accuracy of his figures by the absurdity of their result, the idea doesn’t enter Mr. Atkinson’s head. He knows his figures are right, and if the result doesn’t agree with facts, why then the facts have no existence, that’s all.

Mr. Atkinson begins his calculations by establishing what he calls a “multiple standard,” by which to measure the value of wages. For this purpose he assumes than an adult workman requires for his subsistence a certain quantity of beef, pork, ham, potatoes, calico, boots, coal, etc.; and measures the value of wages at different periods from 1860 to 1886 by the number of these daily portions or rations they would produce; the value of wages, of course, rising or falling as the rations rise or fall in price. It is noteworthy that in constructing his “multiple standard,” he takes no account of rent. He explains this omission by saying, first, that he found it impossible to get the data for estimating the yearly unit of rent; and, second, that he is satisfied “that the standard of rent or cost of the dwelling places occupied by working people had varied since 1860 in substantially the same proportion as the cost of the materials for food^sic, for fuel and for clothing.” That is to say, when provisions, clothing and fuel have declined in price, rents have gone down proportionately. The utter absurdity of this notion would have become apparent to Mr. Atkinson if he had taken the trouble to examine the tax lists of any city or county from 1860 to 1886.

Having fixed his “multiple standard,” Mr. Atkinson goes on to construct the statistics of wages from 1860 to 1886. For this purpose he divides his working people into four classes, as follows:

Class I. Specially skilled men; foremen, overseers, boss blacksmiths, carpenters, etc., customarily earning $3 to $5 per day at the present time.

Class II. Average mechanics, engineers, blacksmiths, carpenters, machinists and painters connected with establishments reported in Vol. xx of the census.

Class III. All the operatives, except foremen and overseers, in one hundred establishments, reporting the wages of their working people under more than 1,200 separate titles: Bricks, marble, furniture, agricultural implements, tinware, stoves, boots, hats, cars, wagons, flour and saw mills, iron, paper and textiles, employing men, women and children, from 20 to 2,000 in each.

Class IV. Laborers, computed separately, connected with above establishments.

Then under each head he states the current wages per day in 1860, 1865, etc., and multiplying these by 300, obtains a very handsome showing of yearly wages in each class, the boss blacksmiths earning $1,242 each in 1886 and the common laborers $420 in the same year. It does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Atkinson that during every year of his series there were a few men out of work; nor that the operative or laborer who earns 300 days’ wages in a year is rather the exception than the rule.

Mr. Atkinson’s next task is to determine the money value of his “multiple standard” ration for each of the years mentioned in his wages table. Having done this to his own satisfaction, he next proceeds to construct a diagram, showing the number of rations that could be purchased with a year’s earnings of a wage earner in each of his four classes, in the years 1860, 1865, 1870, 1875, 1880, and 1885-6. It is a very pretty diagram and shows clearly that “the gain in the purchasing power of wages, measured by the ‘multiple standard’ of food. fuel and cloth, has been from 1860, as compared to 1885 and 1886, as follows:”

Class I . . . . . . 70 per cent Class II . . . . . . 59 per cent Class III . . . . . . 40 per cent Class IV . . . . . . 43 per cent

This is a sufficiently encouraging showing; but it is thrown completely into the shade by the comparison between 1865 and 1885-6. Within those twenty years the increase has been:

Class I. . . . . . . . . . . . 108 per cent. Class II. . . . . . . . . . . 90 per cent. Class III. . . . . . . . . . 78 per cent. Class IV. . . . . . . . . . . 67 per cent.

p. 8, col. 2 It is not worth while to point out more than a single absurdity in all this. Mr. Atkinson asserts that rents have risen and fallen with the value of the “multiple standard” ration. If this be true, then the laborer who in 1865 paid $10 a month rent must have had his rent gradually reduced until in 1886 it stood at a trifle less than $6 for the same premises. Across the diagram just referred to, extending from near the top of the perpendicular line which denotes the year 1860 to near the bottom of the line which stands for 1885-6, Mr. Atkinson draws a broad thick mark to show the decline in the rate of interest, and therefore in the profits of capital. From this we learn that whereas in 1860 capital earned 8 per cent in the eastern states, and 10 per cent in the west, in 1885-6 it earned only 4 per cent in the east and 5 per cent in the west. Or to express it in terms of the “multiple standard,” an investment of $10,000 would produce 2,584 rations in 1860, against only 1333 in 1885-6. And now comes the grand final argument—the stitching together of the Laputan suit of clothes.

If capital could only secure by its income one-half as many portions of food, fuel and clothing in 1885 and 1886 as in 1860, and if in the meantime the productive power of labor had become one-third more effective, which is a moderate estimate, does it not follow that labor now secures the service of capital on better terms than ever before! I submit this problem in economic mathematics to the officers of the anti-poverty society.

Why, of course! Labor and capital work together to produce wealth, and whatever they produce is divided between them. Working together, their joint productive power has increased one-third within the past twenty years; and during that time the share of labor has increased by forty-three to seventy per cent, while the share of capital has diminished by one-half. What can be clearer than that labor is gaining on capital with giant strides, and that poverty is rapidly being abolished? Talk about the clothes not fitting? They must fit; the figures and the diagrams prove it, and no self respecting Laputan will deny it.

But—but—we really hesitate about disputing with a graduate of the Laputan academy—but isn’t it just barely possible that the tailor has made some mistake? May there not be some flaw in Mr. Atkinson’s mathematics? That little error about the fall in rents, now?—that queer assumption that every wage earner works 300 days every year at full wages; so that a lad when he leaves school has only to enroll himself in class I, class II. class III^sic, or class IV, to receive for life a yearly wage of 1,400 to 4,000 daily rations? Isn’t it just possible that the men who work for wages are not increasing their incomes as rapidly as Mr. Atkinson supposes? And even granting, for the sake of argument, that Mr. Atkinson’s diagram is correctly constructed, is it quite certain that the conclusions he draws from it are trustworthy? Aren’t there some other line that ought to be drawn across the year columns before we definitely conclude that poverty is being swallowed up in progress. Mr. Atkinson’s liues^sic show what labor is getting and what capital is getting. Does nobody get anything except the laborer and capitalist?

The city of New York is a great wealth producing center. Labor and capital work together there with an energy and efficiency unsurpassed in the world. Food, clothing, shelter, articles of luxury and necessity of every kind, they produce them to an almost fabulous extent. Do they divide their whole product between themselves, so that nobody gets anything unless he either works or provides capital for other men to use in working? Well, hardly!

To begin with, there is a set of men who own New York, to whom every laborer and every capitalist must pay tribute for the mere privilege of working or employing capital within the city limits. How great this tribute is there are no present means of ascertaining definitely; but careful calculations have shown that it cannot be less than $100,000,000 annually, and it is probably much larger. Mr. Atkinson’s diagram might profitably contain a line showing the increasing share of wealth these men have appropriated in successive lustrums.

Again, there is another set of men—some in uniform and some in plain clothes—whose lawful duty it is to lay violent hands on many forms of wealth produced in New York. If New York labor and capital unite to produce cigars, these men take a certain number out of every box; if to produce French silks, they cut certain yards from every piece. Their hands are forever busy appropriating wealth and doing nothing in return, and they are called custom house and internal revenue officials. Mr. Atkinson’s diagram would be more complete if it had a line devoted to their operations.

Then there are other men who enjoy special taxing privileges by virtue of the laws that forbid Americans to buy in the markets of the world. These men, secured by law against foreign competition, prevent competition among themselves by organizing trusts and pools, and gather to themselves wealth for which they give nothing in exchange. Their trust robberies are in no sense the earnings of capital, and Mr. Atkinson’s interest line has no connection with them. Here is another line which might improve the diagram.

And still the list is not complete. There are men who own great natural monopolies outside New York, as coal and iron mines. There are men who own artificial monopolies, as railways and gaspipes. There are men who collect taxes upon industry on behalf of state, city and county—fining a man if he erects a house, fining him if he owns a truck, fining him if he puts up machinery, or builds a ship. The diagram has no lines to represent what all these men take of the joint product of labor and capital. But it ought to have them.

On the whole—taking it by and large, as the sailors say—the Laputan tailor seems to have made a few mistakes in his calculations. Not only do the clothes not fit, but the figures show that they couldn’t possibly do so. Mr. Atkinson’s arithmetic and diagram are bosh. His estimate of the comparative values of wages is absurd. His notion that capital and labor divide be

p. 8, col. 3 tween themselves the whole product of their joint application is ridiculous. His diagram, with its perpendiculars and diagonals, has no more application to the problem of poverty than to the problem of the Keely motor.

Mr. Atkinson begins his essay by announcing that the facts which he is about to state “must be disproved by Henry George and other writers of his class before their empirical methods of abolishing poverty can be entitled to any serious consideration.” It is not, as we have shown, a difficult matter to disprove most of Mr, Atkinson’s “facts,” and to expose the absurdity of his logic. We will, in addition, recite certain facts that he must disprove before he can win for his blindman’s-buff system of economics the serious attention of men who really think, and don’t content themselves with groping round among a lot of notions.

He must disprove that wealth of every kind is only a modification of the eternal matter of the universe. Houses, ships, clothing, food, whatever we possess, or use, or enjoy, are merely combinations of natural elements which have existed since time was, and will continue to exist while time endures.

He must disprove that there is no possible way of producing wealth save by the exertion of human labor upon the raw material of the universe.

He must disprove that the possibility of wealth production is limited only by the amount of natural opportunities, and the amount of labor that can be applied to them. To produce a thousand tons of coal for every one now mined, a thousand watches for every one now made, a thousand houses for every one now standing, a thousand bushels of wheat for every one now harvested, there is absolutely nothing needed but to apply sufficient labor to sufficient natural opportunities.

He must disprove that the efficiency of labor increases with the quantity of laborers. A community of a thousand laborers, having access to raw material, can produce far more than a thousand times the wealth produced by a single solitary laborer.

He must disprove that the natural opportunities remaining unutilized are practically illimitable, and that men eager to work are standing idle.

Finally, he must disprove that all men have an equal right to the use of the planet they inhabit. The mere fact of birth carries with it the inalienable right to live on the earth and by the earth.

When Mr. Atkinson shall have disproved these various propositions we shall be happy to give serious consideration to his method of abolishing poverty by mathematics. Up to the present time, however, he has not, to the best of our knowledge, even taken the trouble to deny them.

How Factory Women Live.

While Edward Atkinson is busy with his hocus pocus of lines and figures, and in the seclusion of his study evolves facts out of his inner consciousness, other and more trustworthy students of the great social problem are observing things as they really are. The Atlantic Monthly for September contains the latest of Lillie B. Chace Wyman’s “Studies of Factory Life,” telling the story of how women live who in New England labor at that wealth production of which Mr. Atkinson says the toilers get so magnificent and so rapidly increasing a share. It is a pitiful tale to be read by Christian men and women in a Christian land:

A long acquaintance with factory village life has brought to my knowledge some incidents and phases of experience among the women, which I propose to relate in order to illustrate their condition. They will not all be found to bear directly on what is called the labor question, but they go to show how the people live and feel, out of whose needs and wishes, whose hopes and ideals, the labor movement has sprung.

First let us consider briefly the history of a woman who shall be called Hannah. She was of Irish birth, but came to this country when a child. She married a man who was intemperate, and after a while he left her, and died away from home. The oldest of her three children, a girl, developed epilepsy when only five or six years old. Hannah had two unmarried sisters. She kept house, and they lived with her, worked in the mill, and handed over to her their wages as if she had been their mother, or as if the family were constituted like some Russian peasant households, and she were its head. She had a bachelor brother, who, though he sometimes assisted her generously, did not make a common home and common purse with her, as the girls did. “My sisters,” said she once, “might have saved hundreds of dollars but for helping me.”

After several years one of the sisters died of consumption. She had been described to me as a fresh young girl, with beautiful hair. She looked like a worn old woman, as she lay on her death bed. The last scene was a touching one. Hannah sat mourning in the kitchen, but in the tiny chamber a number of neighbors gathered about the couch. One woman read prayers aloud. A brown garment lay on the bed, and once some one lifted the gown and touched it to the lips of the dying girl. It was to be her shroud, and it had been blessed by the priest. Why she was expected to kiss her own burial robe I do not know, and can only fancy the significance of the strange, sad rite.

After her death, Hannah went herself to work in the mill. She and her remaining sister did their housework at night and in the morning. This rendered it difficult for them to be very economical about their food, as they were obliged to cook such viands as could be made ready in a short time, and the sister Ellen had to have meat. She could not work on bread and tea. They used, perforce, beefsteak at sixteen or eighteen cents the pound, in preference to cheaper meats that can be stewed, but which require long half days of preparation.

Two of the children attended school, but the epileptic child could not be admitted, and it was difficult to know what to do with her. Sometimes her mother left her locked all day in the house. Sometimes she allowed her to wander at will. The village folks all became familiar with the figure of the crazy child. She was very crazy by the time she was ten years old, but she was straight and lithe, and carried herself with unusual grace. Her motions were quick and silent. Her dark hair was commonly tangled, and she had pathetic, beautifully shaped eyes. Hannah was very anxious about her. She trembled when any one came near her in the mill, lest he had come to tell bad news of the little one. Her forebodings of evil experience naturally increased as the helplessly ignorant girl grew toward womanhood. The mother’s health began to fail under the strain of anxiety, hard work and exposure to the weather as she went to and from the mill, and she showed symptoms of consumption. She could not wear very heavy clothing while at work in the factory, and when she came out into the cold winter air her shawl protected only her shoulders, and her thin skirts did not prevent her limbs from being chilled even in the short walk she took to her home. This is, I believe, the way

p. 8, col. 4 many factory women dress and how they injure their health, and the knowledge of this fact may serve as a hint, to philanthropic persons, of a good subject for popular instruction. These women really do not know how to clothe themselves. They do not even know that they need different clothing from what they have. They suffer with that curious submissiveness characteristic of their sex whenever dress is in any way the cause of their pain, and they do not think of altering the shape of a garment in order to insure comfort, any more than their well-to-do, well-laced sisters think of it. The gift of a long, thickly lined cloak, which protected limbs as well as body, actually marked a turning point in Hannah’s life. She ceased to have violent coughs and grew stronger.

She was a very honest woman. The epileptic child needed expensive medicine. Sometimes it was given her, but the merest hint was sufficient to let her know if any particular bottle was not intended as a gift. She never failed to save up her money and pay the debt as soon as she could.

At times the Mission Fathers came to a neighboring church, and then Hannah took her afflicted daughter to them, hoping, perhaps believing, that they might cure her. But no such miracle was ever wrought. The terrible malady continued to prey steadily on the young life. One of its effects was to release the child from all consciousness of rank or caste, though she seemed to know something of race prejudices; for she surprised me once by asking wildly “what made the Yankees hate the Irish so.” She did not sit, like Mordecai, at the gate, but stole silently and swiftly through the unguarded door of her richest neighbor, and appeared by his side as readily as by the hearth of the poorest man or woman. She came up fearlessly to whomever she would, and stood or walked in such company as she desired, without hesitation. Thus I remember her standing one autumn day in the garden, under the arch of grapevines, while she said, “Do you know what I am wishing all the time? That I was in heaven, where I’d never be sick any more.” Two or three days afterward she went on to the railroad just as the cars came along. Some one shouted to her, but she paid him no heed. The engineer saw her and vainly tried to stop the train. She knelt down between the rails—she was only a child eleven years old—and as she knelt, looking at the engine, she put up her hands as if praying and waited quietly till it struck her.

Her mother mourned, but her death was a blessing, and after that Hannah’s fortunes mended somewhat. Relieved of her constant anxiety, she grew brighter and younger looking. She began to lay by a little money. Thirty dollars were saved out of her own and her sister’s wages in the course of a year or two. Then the tidings came that an uncle had died in a neighboring state, leaving a small property. She and her sister were among the heirs, some of whom lived in Ireland, and had never been in this country. Hannah’s lawyer wrote her that the property was mostly real estate, and if divided equally among the relatives would yield her and her sister together a little more than a hundred dollars. But he told her if any of the heirs living in America chose to protest, the proceeds of the real estate might be prevented from going to the Irish heirs. If this was done, the sisters would have a much larger sum, about five hundred dollars. It was more than these women could hope ever to amass or to obtain in any other way that life on this earth, in this century, made possible to them. Hannah did not hesitate at all. She said at once that she did not think it would be fair to keep her Irish cousins from receiving their portion, and she relinquished for herself, for her sister and her children what must have seemed to her a fortune, and instructed her lawyer to let the property be divided equally. Hannah’s two remaining children have grown up to be a comfort to her. The boy, however, has been delicate, and in consequence of his idleness she has had to use some of the money she had laid by. The daughter does not earn very large wages, but she is employed in labeling the cloth made in the mill, and works in a nice room. “It does not seem like working in the mill,” the mother said, with pardonable satisfaction. The girl is fond of music. Her father’s family contain some persons who are professional musicians in a small way, and Hannah, with the help of the bachelor uncle, has bought for her a second hand piano.

This is the history of a woman who has perhaps done her very best under the conditions in which life has placed her. Let us now consider briefly a factory family who have not done the best they could.

About ten years ago, a kindergartner, in a Rhode Island village, found two little girls in the street, who informed her that their father and mother were both at home sick in bed. Investigation revealed the fact that both parents were drunk, and further acquaintance with them established the additional fact that both were habitual drunkards. The father died in the course of a few years, and after that the family came directly under my own observation.

Mrs. Phelan is a woman of dissolute, haggard appearance; a shattered rather than a depraved looking person. She is not without ability. She usually keeps her floors in a condition approaching neatness, as such people understand neatness. She draws the line of effort, however, at her kitchen door, and her entry and staircase are dirty and foul.

Six or seven years ago one of her sons was ill, and he was carried to a hospital. Learning there that he must submit to an operation, he became frightened, and insisted on being taken immediately home, and he has been ill ever since and practically bedridden. A year or two after this, a grown up daughter, named Mary, died of consumption. During her last days she begged me to talk to her sister Maggie, a young married woman, and urge her never to drink. Soon after Mary’s death, Mrs. Phelan’s oldest son, a man about twenty years old, a hard drinker, fell a victim to consumption, and died. A little longer period elapsed, and then the youngest child, Katie, a pretty, delicate little creature, twelve years old, gave up her work in the mill, and lay down to wait for death. There was something terrible in the way these young creatures accepted death as their natural portion. They were passive and hopeless from the first. But more fearful was the neglect from which they suffered because of Mrs. Phelan’s drinking. When sober she is a home keeping body, but when there is illness in the house she wanders about all the time, drinking and rehearsing her woes, and neglecting to care for her children, sick or well. Yet when some charitable persons thought that Katie would be more comfortable in the almshouse, which was on a pleasant farm, the mother would not let her go, and the child did not want to go. So after lingering some months, never having a room nor a bed to herself during all her weary illness, the little one died at last.

During these years the married daughter, Maggie, stayed at her mother’s a good deal of the time, so that she could leave her babies under her care while she was at work in the mill. Her husband seemed to be neither very good nor very bad. His own mother was a rough, drinking termagant, who had a habit of seizing her grown-up daughters by the hair, and striking them with such things as the stove lifter. One of those daughters, by the way, though inefficient, was a most gentle, unselfish girl, whose history would serve to suggest a doubt as to who may be the fittest to survive, under a strict application of the law of evolution.

I do not know the exact details of Maggie’s life, but she bore several children, and endured the frightful double burden which poverty joined to maternity lays on working women. It is quite common for mothers to work in the mill till a very short time before their children are born, and somewhat less common for them to go back very soon afterward. I have been told of one woman that she went to work when her baby was only five days old. I have known of one case where the mother had moved from another town and had worked a day or two by the time that, according to her statements and to appearances, her baby was two weeks old. This woman was a worthless creature, who willfully neglected her children, and it will not do to hold society wholly to blame for all the miseries in individual lives, even when those lives have been brought under heavy pressure from so

p. 8, col. 5 cial and economic institutions. Still, if the noblest men and women are to be called the “products” of our civilization, is it not necessary to admit this wretched mother to a place as also a “product” of that same civilization?

Maggie’s health finally failed and she “quit work,” according to the mill phrase and prepared to die. She had had a hard life and she turned dry, sad eyes on her visitor one day, while she was still able to sit up and to sew a little for her children. “There’s no cure for me,” she said. “It’s leaving them four young ones I mind.”

There was money enough coming into the family at this time to make them quite comfortable but for Mrs. Phelan’s intemperance. There was a son who would not work and whom the mother would shelter and feed in spite of much advice to turn him out; but Maggie’s husband earned good wages and there was another sister, Lizzie, a fifteen-year-old girl, who was industrious. The associated charities also helped, but nothing could bring comfort into this house. After Maggie took to her bed, lying in one room, while her bedridden brother lay in another near by, there would often be no one in the house for hours together, but the little children, to do anything for either sufferer. Mrs. Phelan was drinking worse than ever and roaming about. When she was at home she was idle. Poor Lizzie generally went to the mill without eating any breakfast, and worked till noon on an empty stomach. “It ain’t good for her,” sighed, helplessly, the sick brother. He feared lest she should break down, too, and his fears will probably be justified in the course of time. It is likely that Mrs. Phelan’s cooking was not such as to tempt a delicate appetite, but factory women are often unable to eat before going into the mill; and though they do not usually go till noon without eating, they often work one or two hours before taking breakfast.

As death drew near, Maggie opened her heart a little to a visitor, and spoke of the suffering her mother’s habits caused. “I’m strong enough,” she said, “to have my bed changed, but mother does not offer to make it oftener than once a week; and Lizzie’s so tired when she comes home, nights, from the mill that I can’t bear to ask her to do anything for me.” So day and night had she lain there, under conditions which cannot be described, and had refrained from asking service of her tired young sister. Out of the lowest depth of wretchedness that poor creature attained to such unselfishness. But it was all very pitiful, and death, when it finally came, must have been truly a comforter but for the “four young ones” she left behind, to grow up, probably to live, perhaps to die, as the old ones had lived and died.

Two years ago a ten-hour law was enacted in Rhode Island. Philanthropists and workmen urged the passage of the bill. They were concerned about the health of the workwomen, the undermining of whose strength involved not only suffering, but the weakness of the next generation. The manufacturers, so far as they took any action, opposed the law. Some of them were sure their business would be ruined if it went on to the statute book. Others were merely afraid that financial disasters would be the result. The women themselves were not consulted, and, according to the fashion of the republic, had no part nor lot in deciding their own destiny. Various sorts of men, workmen, manufactnrers^sic and legislators deliberated together about woman’s flesh and blood, considered her maternal capacities and her muscular strength, and compared them with the exactions of business and of machinery. She stood and waited—or rather she worked and waited—their decision that sixty hours a week in a factory was enough for her and for her little children. The bill passed, and there was no financial collapse.

There is a young girl working in a thread factory in the state who was much pleased to have some more leisure time. She was taking a Chautauqua course of reading with her mother. She lives some distance from the mill, and so does not go home to dinner. Under the new arrangement she had an hour’s recess at noon. She carried her book as well as her lunch, and employed the extra moments in reading. She was anxious to obtain a complete copy of the Iliad, having read some portions of it in the prescribed course, which made her desire to know the whole poem. She read translations of some of the Greek plays, and was glad to have the opportunity to borrow a version of the Electra of Sophocles; and when she returned it she said she liked it better than any of the others she had read. This girl is, however, unique in my experience. She is a Protestant of English parentage. From childhood on she has shown an earnest nature. She always tried to do what seemed right to her, or what might help some one else. It was a terrible cross to her to be obliged to leave school when she was about fourteen, and go into the mill, but she did it; and her character shows its fine fibre now, in that she does her duty simply, trying constantly to improve herself, but not trying to get into any place which she is not fitted to fill thoroughly. She is not a sham lady nor a sham worker because she has a desire for something besides spindles and a taste for something other than clothes. She dresses simply, and is very willing to use her Saturday half holidays visiting in behalf of the associated charities.

Homely but pathetic was the rejoicing of a hard worked Irish widow over the ten hour law. She had been the mother of thirteen or fourteen children, but most of them died; and last of all, her husband, a handsome man, whom she seemed to consider a being quite superior to herself, died, after a protracted illness. He did the housework long after he could not do other labor, so that she might be the chief wage earner of the family. After his death, she said: “I fretted a deal for him—I couldn’t help it. I know he had been sick a long time, but you miss a person just the same if they have been sick; an’ he was such a clean man about the house, an’ kept it so neat when he was able to be about.”

In a worldly way she manages very well without him. She and a grown girl and two young lads work in the mill. Two younger children profess to guard the house, and sometimes go to school. The daughter takes books occasionally from the village library, and she has read the Scarlet Letter and even the Blithedale Romance. She said she liked these stories about as well as she did Marion Harland’s novels. The mother found the ten hour law a great help. “Why,” said she, “the extra quarter of an hour at noon gives me time to mix my bread; an’ then when I comes home at night at 6 o’clock, it is ready to put in the pans, an’ I can do that while Katie sets the table; an’ after supper, an’ the dishes are washed, I can bake; an’ then I am through, an’ ready to go to bed, mebbe afore it’s 9 o’clock. Oh, it’s splendid, the best thing as ever ‘appened. I used to be up till ’way into the night, bakin’, after my day’s work in the mill was done.”

She probably was glad of the Saturday half holiday, because it gave her a good chance to do her washing. Holidays, to women like her, mean little but the time to do some p. 8, col. 6 different kind of work from that by which they earn their living. Her boy rejoiced in healthy fashion. “Saturdays,” says he, “when you are let out at 1 o’clock, you don’t feel as if you’d been at work at all.”

Think of that poor demented child, with just sense enough to kneel before a locomotive and blunder her way out of the cruel world. Think of the mother, working in the mill, with a five-day-old baby at home. Think of the sufferings and self-denial of that poor Maggie as she lay a-dying. Think of the women to whom holidays mean little but the time to do some different kind of work from that by which they earn their living. And then return to Edward Atkinson’s wretched mockery of lines and figures, and percentages of increasing wages, and see how the horror of the gospel of things as they are will bite into your very soul.