November 3, 1888 Vol. IV, No. 18Whole No. 96

CONTENTS:

Prospects of the Election. The Australian System and Governor Hill William Lloyd Garrison. They All Got Scared. Protection in Pennsylvania—the Sixth Meeting of the Single Tax Cleveland Men. The Last Week. Campaign Work of Single Tax Men. Tom L. Johnson. A Protectionist to a Certain Extent. “A Tariff is Not a Tax.” Society Notes. Men and Things. Before the Battle (a poem). Personal. A Missionary in Pennsylvania. Those Pay Envelopes. The Beating of the Drums. Another Masterly Speech by William Lloyd Garrison. A Woman’s View of It. Queries and Answers. Current Thought. The “Press” Again. New Ideas, Methods and Inventions.

THE STANDARD of next week may be a day late in reaching its subscribers, as we shall delay one day in going to press in order to get the result of the election.

In response to the friends who have written me asking my opinion as to the result, I can only answer in this way: I think, as I thought in the beginning, that Cleveland and Thurman will be elected. So far as my observation and information go, they will carry New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and, I think, Connecticut, California and Michigan. There is hope also that they will carry Illinois, and, it may even be, one or two of the northwestern states, while in the republican states the majorities will be reduced. This is my judgment dissociated as far as possible from my wish. However, in another week we shall know. I shall not be surprised if the result exceeds our most sanguine expectations. It is certain that the current is running strongly for Cleveland, and running more strongly every day.

I say this as a matter of courtesy to the friends who have asked my opinion, and hope they will take it as a reply to their letters. But our business is to do what we can for the election of Mr. Cleveland regardless of our anticipations. What concerns us is not the election of a man, but the promotion of a principle. The more decisive the victory is, the clearer will it show that the protection superstition has lost its hold on the American people, and the more powerfully will it open the way for bolder advances on the road to freedom. Even in states which there is no hope^sic of carrying our friends should neglect no effort to swell the returns for Cleveland. For our purposes the popular vote will tell as strongly as the electoral vote. The campaign now closing has done more for the economic education of the American people than any in the history of the republic. The larger Cleveland’s majority the stronger the impulse that will be given the movement—the quicker and more numerously will tariff reformers develop into free traders, and free traders into advocates of the single tax.

The first adoption of the Australian ballot in this country was by the legislature of Kentucky, in an act applying the system to municipal elections in Louisville. The bill was introduced by Representative Arthur Wallace of Louisville, and was approved by Governor Buckner on February 24, 1888. It took effect from and after its passage. The provisions of this act are essentially the same as those of the Massachusetts act and of the Yates-Saxton bill, which was vetoed by Governor Hill in this state. In some minor details, however, it more closely follows the English system. For instance, the ballots are to be printed with stubs and bound in books, the stubs forming a record of the votes cast. The clerk is required to enter the voter’s name and residence on the stub, then tear the ballot off, write his own name on the back and hand it thus indorsed to the voter, to whom he must also hand an envelope or paper bag, in which the ballot is to be placed after being marked. The registration of candidates and the printing and custody of the books of stubs and ballots are placed in the hands of the mayor. A candidate for election to a ward office can be registered on the written petition of ten registered voters and the payment of $5; a candidate for the city at large on the written petition of fifty voters and the payment of $20. Nominations close ten

p. 1, col. 2 days before the election. The mayor is required to set up at each voting place wooden compartments, one for each 175 registered voters or fraction thereof. These compartments are to be six feet in height and about three feet square, one side to open and shut as a door, with a narrow shelf affixed to the opposite side. The clerk of each precinct is to put into each of these compartments lead pencils hung by strings. The voter, “when furnished with a ballot and envelope or bag, must step alone into one of the compartments and close the door behind him, and while within the same he shall put on his ballot, after each name of the candidates whom he prefers, a pencil mark in the shape of an oblique cross.” Should he inadvertently spoil a ballot he may return it, and receive one other ballot, the spoiled ballot to be preserved by the clerk and the fact noted by writing the word “spoiled” on the stub. When a voter avows himself to be blind, and is found to be such by the concurrence of the judges of election and the sheriff of the precinct, the clerk is required to accompany him to one of the compartments and make the ballot at his dictation^sic. It is provided that the voter shall not occupy the compartment more than three minutes. As he leaves it he is to hand his ballot, folded and within the envelope or paper bag, to the judges, who in his presence drop it into the ballot box, whereupon the voter is at once to withdraw from the room. It is also required that the voting place shall be so arranged as to leave a clear space of fifty feet between the inclosure in which the voting is done and those waiting their turns to vote, and the sheriff and police are required to keep all persons except the the officers of election^sic, those voting and the candidates or agents of candidates, at that distance from the inclosure. The next municipal election in the city of Louisville will take place on this system, and there can be no doubt that it will soon be adopted for the whole state. The bill does not say anything about illiterate voters, and at first blush it may seem as if no provision was made for their case, but it does require that the mayor shall have “the contents and form of the ballot in the exact shape and size in which it is to be used,” published in one or more of the daily newspapers or in handbill form. By getting a friend to cut holes opposite the names of the candidates he wishes to vote for in one of these fac similes, the illiterate voter or even the blind voter can readily mark the ballot as he wishes without calling in the aid of any one. This, of course, could also be done under the Saxton bill; for both parties would, undoubtedly, as in England, publish card fac similes of the ballots with their chosen candidates marked.

It is to be noted that, under the reasons assigned by Governor Hill for vetoing the Yates-Saxton bill, he would have vetoed the Kentucky bill, the Massachusetts bill, the English bill or the Australian bill—in fact any possible bill for carrying into effect the system. Governor Hill’s objection is, in truth, not to details, but to principle.

There is a great deal of opposition to the election of Governor Hill in Elmira, his own home, where corruption in politics has been open and shameless, and where he is regarded as fully identified with the whole system. The Tax reform club of Elmira has issued an appeal which it is sending to members of both parties, calling attention to the extent to which the corrupt use of money in elections in that city has grown, and inviting consideration of the following facts:

1. The Saxton electoral reform bill, which was passed by our state legislature, was introduced and urged forward by the concurrent action of labor assemblies. These men believed that if the purity of elections could be secured public questions might come to be decided upon their merits and the powerful would not so easily over ride the weak.

2. It is not claimed that this bill was perfect in every detail, but it was reasonably so. Its object was good. It was as perfect as is usual in new legislation.

3. It was the first and only attempt in this state to put the employer and the employe, the humble and the powerful, the honest man and the unscrupulous, on precisely the same equality of opportunity by security from intimidation at the polls.

4. This measure was vetoed by David B. Hill. His veto was based on technicalities; his objections were frivolous. He could have found just as good excuse, and better, for vetoing many bills approved by him.

5. David B. Hill, as governor, also prevented the bill which originated among the laboring men of this city, and which aimed to stamp out bribery at the polls, from becoming a law.

6. Chemung county is justly believed to be politically the worst debauched county in this state, or in the United States.

7. But this county never had this reputation until David B. Hill came to political chieftainship in our county politics and used vast sums of money in the open and shameless purchase of votes.

8. Governor Hill’s political ambitions have been promoted and advanced by this wholesale corruption in his own county.

9. He refused to approve the only serious attempts that have been made to stop this corruption p. 1, col. 3 of the polls. He would not do his part toward stopping it.

10. Warner Miller stands on a platform distinctly adopting ballot reform. He is pledged to this reform both by his platform and by his public speeches.

The members of this club, representing all shades of political opinion, believe that the interests of pure elections and good government demand the defeat of David B. Hill at the polls. Let us have elections in which honest men cannot be outvoted by promise of political position or money. Do your duty on November 6.

But, not content with this, a number of public spirited citizens have determined to try and put a stop to corruption at the election on next Tuesday, when, owing to the efforts of Governor Hill to carry his own county, the purchase of votes threatened to be more extensive and shameless than ever. They have organized an anti-bribery society, of which Mr. Otto Weyer is president, J. D. W. Roberts secretary and D. F. Shay. treasurer^sic. They have found such quick response from men of both parties whom they called on for the purpose that they have raised a fund sufficient to employ a large number of detectives, who will be scattered through the town on election day and whose instructions will be to look after, not so much the sellers of votes, as the buyers of votes. A large part of this fund has been contributed by men who have heretofore been in the habit of contributing to the corruption funds of the two parties, under the plea that it was necessary to “fight the devil with fire.” They are going to try and secure for at least one election an honest vote in Elmira. The very agitation of this matter of bribery will induce the casting of many democratic votes against Governor Hill, as he is regarded in his own home as a typical representative of the system.

It would be unjust to Governor Hill to charge upon him alone the shameless bribery that of late years has become habitual in Chemung county, since corruption of the same kind, though perhaps not quite so open and extensive, prevails all over the state. But it is true, as the Elmira tax reform club say, that Chemung county never had such an evil reputation until David B. Hill became a leader in its politics, and the statement that he himself has used money in the open and shameless purchase of votes is amply borne out by the testimony.

I stopped a few hours in Elmira last Friday, and had some conversation with some of the active members of the anti-bribery organization, among whom was Mr. Rufus R. Wilson, associate editor of the Elmira Telegram, and an ardent supporter of Cleveland and Thurman. From them I learned a good deal concerning Governor Hill’s connection with the purchase of votes, which ought, long ere this, to have been put in authoritative form and circulated extensively through the state.

Governor Hill came to Elmira about twenty-five years ago. Although a young man he had already distinguished himself by showing an unexpected mastery of the details of a case of which he was suddenly placed in charge by the absence of the senior lawyer who was to conduct it. Shrewd, careful, painstaking and industrious, he continued to add to his reputation as a successful lawyer, and began early to exhibit the same qualities in practical politics. The Third ward, in which he lived, was, at the time Governor Hill went into practical politics, strongly republican, many of the voters being colored. To overcome this majority Governor Hill commenced the purchase of votes. Going to the polls himself and buying votes in person he made the Third ward democratic and attracted the attention of politicians from all parts of the county, who admired his success without objecting to the means by which it was achieved. Finally the young politician obtained an election as state assemblyman. It was at the time that Tweed was struggling to control legislation for New York city. Assemblyman Hill became the political supporter and friend of Tweed, and as a reward Tweed purchased for him a controlling interest in the Elmira Gazette, which enabled him to further strengthen his hold on his party and to make his influence felt beyond the confines of the city and county. In the meantime as local boss he continued the system of purchasing votes, turning the actual work of vote buying in all the wards and townships except his own over to trusted lieutenants. He is credited by my informants with beginning in Chemung county the practice of keeping a list of the purchasable voters, and of making bargains with them before election, a practice that has ever since been kept up.

When Governor Hill began his career as a practical politician by going to the p. 1, col. 4 polls in the Third ward of Elmira and buying up voters, the prices he paid were very moderate, being in most cases only one or two dollars. But as the practice has grown, the purchasable element has increased, and the price of votes has steadily risen. I mentioned in THE STANDARD a year ago that I had been told while in Elmira of votes bringing as much as thirty dollars apiece, but Mr. Wilson tells me that in the election in which Governor Hill ran for his present position, forty, and even forty-five, dollars a vote was paid.

After serving in the assembly and getting possession of the Elmira Gazette, Governor Hill became an alderman and then secured the nomination for mayor. Samuel J. Tilden, it is said, sent him a check for five thousand dollars to help his campaign. Besides this, he collected other funds, and putting his money “where it would do the most good,” he was readily elected. Even when he had secured the nomination for the office of lieutenant governor on the ticket with Mr. Cleveland, he did not stop the practice of personally buying votes in his own ward, and citizens of Elmira had presented to them the edifying spectacle of the democratic candidate for the second highest office in the state standing at the polls in the Third ward from the time the ballot box was opened until it was closed, buying the votes of all who were willing to sell.

In 1884, when Governor Cleveland was candidate for president, my informants say that Governor Hill was unable to obtain funds from the democratic state and national committees, and, not feeling like contributing from his own resources, very few votes were bought in Elmira for the democratic ticket, the consequence being that Blaine carried Chemung county by 479 majority, and the whole republican local ticket was elected, a thing that had not happened in years. But in 1885, when Governor Hill became the candidate for the governorship, he evidently determined that the experience of 1884 should not be repeated. Three or four days before election he came to Elmira, bringing, it is said, a corruption fund amounting to $45,000, of which the money obtained on his note by the indorsement of [aqueduct?] contractors was probably a part. Though up to this election he had not scrupled to go to the polls and buy votes in person, it is due to him to say that a somewhat tardily awakened sense of propriety kept him at this time, when actually governor of the state, somewhat in the background. He did not at this election buy votes at the polls in person, but on the preceding Sunday night summoned his henchmen from the county districts outside of the city to his law office, and distributed among them fifteen thousand dollars in new and crisp two, five and ten dollar bills. The next night his city lieutenants were called to his office, and twenty-five thousand dollars more in the same kind of money was distributed to them, five thousand dollars being reserved for contingencies. With this great corruption fund scattered through a small town the amounts offered for votes proved a grateful surprise to even the most greedy “floaters.” It was, in fact, so large that some of the more conscientious of the deputy vote buyers could find no use for all the money that had been put in their hands. Mr. Wilson told me of one of these who, after the closing of the polls, came back to the governor and handed him several hundred dollars of the sum that had been given him the night previous. “Bill,” the governor is reported to have said, as he received the money, “I hate to see this stuff come back. It makes me feel as though you had not done all you could for me.” At this election the “floaters” of Elmira almost floated in money. Four thousand dollars was spent in the Fourth ward alone, and a sum even larger in the governor’s own ward, the Third. Votes were purchased on the streets as openly as any article of merchandise, and republican heelers were given as much as one hundred dollars apiece simply to stay away from the polls. As a result Chemung county testified to its high esteem for Governor Hill and the sort of democratic principles he represents, by giving to him one of the largest majorities ever given in the county.

In 1887, Governor Hill came home to Elmira on the Saturday preceding election, and as before, my informants say, brought with him a corruption fund. As the election was not important, this corruption fund was not so great as two years before, amounting only to twenty-five thousand dollars, but it was used as openly and as shamelessly as in 1885. Governor Hill did not go to the polls except to vote, but remained in his law office all day in charge of that part of the corruption fund that had not been dealt out to his henchmen on the night before, p. 1, col. 5 they having been instructed [whenever?] the funds in their hands ran low to come to the governor.

The polling place in the upper district of the Fourth ward of Elmira is at the city hall. The vote buyer for that polling place at the last election was a stanch friend and ex-partner of Governor Hill’s. On the one side of the passage in the city hall is the office of the chief of police and police headquarters, on the other side is the court room. At the end of the passage is a stairway leading to the upper story. Under this stairway, which a gentleman of the Anti-bribery association of Elmira took me to see as one of the noteable^sic places of the town, Governor Hill’s friend stood all day at the last election. His position put him within forty feet of the ballot box and but a few feet from the sanctuary of justice on one side and the police office on the other. Here he paid out to the men who were properly certified to as having voted the ballot that had been placed in their hands, the agreed price for their suffrages. The money was inclosed in sealed envelopes. But, so unblushing has bribery become in Elmira, that the majority of “floaters” when they received the envelopes tore them open and counted the money to see that they had not been deceived. The torn envelopes were in most cases thrown upon the floor, which became white with them, and when night came over two hundred of these torn envelopes were gathered up by the janitor of the building.

Governor Hill has of course not confined his corrupt use of money to the purchase of votes at general elections. The man who will buy votes in elections will not hesitate to buy votes in a primary or a convention. In this way Governor Hill has imposed his will on his party and more than a dozen times dictated the nomination of city and county candidates. Only a few weeks ago, my Elmira friends told me, he spent some $1,500 through his law partner and trusted lieutenant, Judge William L. Muller, to secure the democratic nomination for sheriff for one of his retainers.

I speak of these things because [they?] ought to be known, but with no [bitterness?] toward Governor Hill. Though he has organized corruption, and has bought his way up to the highest office in the state, he is not a sinner above other men. Though he has made a practice of going to the polls and buying votes with his own hands, or sitting in his office and parceling out corruption funds, he does not seem to me a whit worse than the highly respectable citizens who when seeking office pay assessments and make contributions which they well know are to be used for vote buying. Mr. Hill was an ambitious man, who saw that the way to power and honor was by means of “practical politics,” and being, as Mayor Hewitt said of himself two years ago, “not so unpracticable^sic as to refuse the methods by which society at any given time is governed,” he has made the corruption of elections a stepping stone to the highest honors of the state. His conscience is the conscience of the school in which he learned and taught, and it is probable that he sees no more harm in buying a vote than in buying a cigar.

But in this election Governor Hill stands as the representative and defender of the system. He has done more than to buy votes, to corrupt politics and to demoralize and degrade his fellow citizens under laws which offered great temptations to bribery. He has as governor used his official power to prevent the beneficial change in the law which would have done away with bribery and intimidation in elections. To Governor Hill, and to Governor Hill alone, is due the fact that there is not on our statute books to-day an act which, after this year, would make the corruption and intimidation of voters as much a thing of the past in this state as it now is in Great Britain and Ireland.

Governor Hill has not only availed himself of a corrupting system of elections, but he kas prevented its reform^sic. All other considerations ought to be cast aside. A vote for David B. Hill is a vote for the systematic corruption of the ballot. A vote against him is a vote for its purity.

In Elmira Governor Hill has pursued the same policy that he has in this city—of attaching to himself the men he supposes to have influence among labor organizations by gifts of position and money. But as well as I can discover the body of Elmira workingmen, as of all honest citizens, look upon him with the utmost distrust. The sentiment against him has become open and pronounced since he at p. 1, col. 6 the last session prevented from becoming a law the anti-bribery bill which originated among the labor organizations of Elmira, and since he afterward vetoed the Saxton electoral reform bill, in which they saw a cure for the shameless state of things which has disgraced Chemung county.

We print in this issue of THE STANDARD a full report of William Lloyd Garrison’s noble address at the Philadelphia single tax Cleveland and Thurman meeting. Mr. Garrison has also written a letter to Sherman Hoar in support of Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, whom the democrats have nominated for congress in the Fifth Massachusetts district, and who is running as an avowed free trader against General Banks. The letter, like the speech, is of peculiar interest to republicans who, conscious that the position of the republican party in this campaign is opposed to the principle that once made it glorious, still find it hard to break the bonds of old associations. Mr. Garrison says:

MY DEAR MR. HOAR—I confess to an exceptional interest in the election of Colonel Higginson from the Fifth district. The contest is a peculiar one. A large number of colored voters are to help to determine the result, and both sides are making strenuous efforts to gain their votes. The candidates are as well known in this city as the state house.

A single argument covers the reason for choosing General Banks—he has the nomination of the republican party. That is sufficient to persuade Frederick Douglass that if he had 100 votes to cast he would throw them for the general. Character, fitness and the nature of the issue have no weight with him. Colonel Higginson has everything that his opponent lacks—a back ground of life long devotion to the colored race, an equipment for grappling with the questions pressing for national legislation, and a habit of independence that subordinates party to principle. The single reason given for opposing him is that the democratic party nominates him.

There should be no need of recalling to the colored citizens of Boston the services of Mr. Higginson. His early identification with the abolition struggle, when it meant political and social proscription—his noble words for freedom with voice and pen—his active vigilance in foiling the slave hunters who darkened Massachusetts’ streets—his courageous attempt to rescue Anthony Burns—his efforts to save Kansas—his sympathy and friendship with John Brown—the chivalrous leading of his colored regiment in South Carolina—are a [part?] of anti-slavery history.

[Torn area: the next six lines are partly hidden; through the tear a fragment of other printed matter shows, reading “Post / Musical / …orge in / Hugh O.” at the left and a headline “TOM L. JOHNS…” at the right. These fragments are not part of this text.]

[illegible]pite of all these gifts laid upon the altar o[illegible] [illegible] if, unmindful of his past, he stood [illegible] now, no “pointing with pride” [illegible] one for present recre[illegible] re [invite?] it? Has he [left?] the [illegible] liberty, [illegible] Douglass whose feet wander and whose vision is obscured? One keeps the faith and labors to secure to toil its right to its hard earnings. The other champions the slowly dying cause of restriction, in which even his eloquence can find no spark of inspiration. It is a contest between freedom and monopoly, and no side issue can change its meaning.

I do not forget the one effective argument used to dragoon the colored people into voting for the republican ticket—the unjust suppression of the freedman’s vote. But those who urge it know that the election of General Harrison and General Banks can furnish no remedy for it. The surrender of the power to regular suffrage^sic to the southern states was made by a republican administration and tacitly acquiesced in by Mr. Douglass, then marshal under President Hayes. Silent then, he protests now when it is too late to reverse the edict. The chief value of the solid south to the republican party is to intimidate independent voters and cover party designs. Its power to conjure with is lost. What shall break up that solid solid south^sic? Have we not tried the race issue long enough? Cannot the good sense of the colored people lead them to see that it can be divided only on other issues, like the tariff or prohibition, where no purpose can be served in excluding complexional votes? It is untrue and misleading to affirm that the two great parties of the country stand for the same ideas as formerly. Old names have lost their meaning and the world has moved.

I want Colonel Higginson sent to congress because he represents both character and purpose. I want General Banks defeated because he will carry no qualities that are not already a drug in that subservient assembly. We need the measure of a man to represent this district who has convictions and carries always the courage of them. Sincerely,

WM. LLOYD GARRISON.

Mr. Frank B. Thurber sends me the following letter, the printing of which is the best thing I can probably do to carry out his request, as the attention Mr. Thurber has given to matters of state legislation is well known:

NEW YORK, Oct. 30.—I believe you are opposed to Governor Hill; so am I; but I am in favor of Lieutenant Governor Jones, who has always been a constant friend of all measures in the interest of the public; and if you can say a word in his favor in this week’s issue of THE STANDARD it would be doing justice to a really good man. Yours truly,

F. B. THURBER.

Lieutenant Governor Jones was present at the meeting I addressed on Saturday night in Binghamton and sat upon the stage. In response to a call at the close of the meeting he made a few remarks, in which he spoke highly of what he had heard, but gently disclaimed the idea that the democracy were committed to more than tariff reform.

One single tax man, who never yet cast a democratic vote, Silas M. Burroughs of Medina, Orleans county, has crossed the Atlantic at considerable loss of time and money, for the sole purpose of casting his vote for Cleveland and Thurman. In this spirit let us all work up to the closing of the polls on election day, doing each what best he can continued on p. 2 →

And Thought It Better for Their Health Not to go to the Debate for Which They Had Issued the Challenge.

The Tenth congressional district single tax Cleveland and Thurman club a few weeks ago received a challenge from W. S. Clarke, in behalf of the Retail dry goods men’s protection club, a Harrison and Morton organization, meeting at the “Chimney corner,” corner of Sixth avenue and Twenty-fifth street, to debate the question of whether or not tariffs increase wages. The challenge was accepted and the debate arranged to take place at the rooms of the dry goods men on Thursday evening, Oct. 22^sic.

The day after sending the note, however, a committee of two rashly waited on the single tax organization at its weekly meeting. It was in an evil hour, for after settling the business of the debate, the committee took the floor in behalf of the cause of protection. Whereupon the single tax club, gathering itself together, swooped down on the poor little committee in such a fashion that its two members wished they had never, never set foot in the hall.

That settled the business. For when the single tax men, armed with books and papers with which to “use up the other fellows,” put in an appearance at the protectionist quarters on the evening appointed for the debate there was nobody to receive them, save a reporter from that eminently pronounced protectionist journal, the New York Tribune, and two gentlemen detailed from the republican headquarters to make “simply republican speeches.”

The three sat together in solitary state on a bench at one of the hall^sic, with single tax men all about them. The vice-chairman had come in, but, knowing the better part valor to be discretion^sic, took an early and unceremonious departure.

At 9 o’clock Chairman Benjamin Doblin of the single tax club took the floor and explained why his club had come there, and asked if any officer of the opposing organization was present. There was no response. He then asked if any member of that organization was in the room; still no response.

The Tribune man said it was disgraceful, but the two orators from the republican headquarters, mindful of the old saw about valor and discretion, took mighty fine care, in rounded periods and with graceful gestures, to make it plain that they didn’t know anything about a debate, and that they didn’t want to have anything to do with one.

A more disgusted lot of men than these single tax men was never seen. Somebody momentarily revived their hope by asking one of the republican speakers if he wouldn’t “please make a short address, explaining how tariffs increase wages and then answer some questions?” But the gentleman did no respond^sic.

Then a man in the back of the hall got up and cried out: “Mr. Chairman, I move that the name of this organization be changed from the ‘Harrison and Morton retail dry goods men’s campaign club’ to the ‘Henry George single tax club.’”

That was too much [for?] the three republicans, and they [illegible] [in?] the uproar which [line obscured] there was no debate. [illegible] to do but adjourn.

The single tax men consoled themselves by going down to the mass meeting in Madison garden, where Mr. Blaine was speaking, where they gave out a big pile of Shearman tracts headed: “Protection the friend of labor,” which, being mistaken for protectionist documents, went off like hot cakes.

POWERFUL SPEECHES BY W. B. ESTELL AND REV. HUGH O. PENTECOST.

The Sixth Single Tax Cleveland Mass Meeting in Cooper Union—A Coal Miner’s Extraordinary Testimony—Stories of Bitter Wrong and Cruel Oppression—Starvation Wages—Brutal Evictions—Children and Aged Men Compelled to Pick Slate to Help Support the Family—Abject Poverty in the Midst of Wealth—But the Hope of the New Faith is Spreading—Mr. Pentecost’s Brilliant Sallies.

Jerome O’Neill, chairman of the city Single tax Cleveland and Thurman committee, presided on Wednesday evening, October 24, at the sixth grand mass meeting held under the auspices of that committee. In his opening remarks Mr. O’Neill said that the best illustration of the condition of labor was portrayed by Henry George in the introductory chapter of “Protection or Free Trade?” There was pictured a great bull tethered by a ring in his nose. Grazing round and round, the bull had wound his rope about the stake until he stood a close prisoner, tantalized by rich grass he could not reach and without wit enough to know how to unwind himself. That illustrated the condition of labor in the world to-day. The strength and stupidity of the bull symbolized the strength and stupidity of labor. The idea of labor, the creator of all wealth, needing protection was preposterous, and if workingmen would but think for a moment they would quickly see through the humbug.

Tariffs, said the speaker, enhance the price of goods. The enhancing of the price of goods decreases the sale of goods. This lessens the production. The decrease in production throws labor out of employment. The only thing that will ever raise wages is demand for labor; and the only way to increase that demand is by increasing the demand for products. (Applause.) What do business men do when they want to increase their sale of goods? They mark down the price. To increase the demand for any article the cost must be decreased. Take off the tariffs and let our manufacturers have the raw materials free and there will be such a demand for labor that all wages will rise without the help of any tariff. (Applause.)

The chairman introduced as the first speaker of the evening William B. Estell of Freeland, Pa., a miner who had commenced at the age of seven to pick slate in the coal breakers, and had all his life since worked in and about the mines. Mr. Estell attempted no oratory nor strained for effect, but told in a frank, straightforward way a tale that aroused in his hearers feelings of astonishment, pity, anger and contempt in turns. During its recital there was little applause, the audience sitting lost in amazement yet closely attentive to every word, but when the story was finished and the speaker had retired, then the assemblage roused up and let itself loose with cheering.

Mr. Estell’s Address.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: When I was told [that?] I was to address a meeting at Cooper union I thought that you would expect something very intellectual, so after considerable effort I arranged a story in as nice a way as I knew how, and expected to tell it to you to-night. I must say, however, that coming in front of such an audience has given wings to the nicely arranged sentences. I asked Mr. Post the other day how to talk to an audience here, and he said the best way to make a speech was simply to stand on a platform and talk. (Laughter.) He didn’t charge me anything for the advice either; and it is the first instance I ever knew of a lawyer doing that. It simply illustrates what the single tax doctrine will do even for an attorney. (Applause.) I am going to follow that advice to-night. I will give you instances and illustrations as they come to my mind without regard to arrangement.

I presume that you are aware that I come from the highly protected state of Pennsylvania, from the anthracite coal fields, where labor has been protected into the condition of the bull, and labor does not know in which way to turn, or has not until lately, known how to unwind the rope. (Laughter.) No man who has not lived all his life time in the anthracite coal fields can have any conception of what is meant by the life of a miner, nor of the changes that have taken place in his condition in the past twenty-five years.

THE COAL MINER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.

I remember when I was a boy, some twenty-five years ago, it was considered a matter of pride for a man to say he was a coal miner, not that the occupation was any more honorable than any other occupation, but simply because there was a sort of sturdy independence about it that made it very desirable to be a successful coal miner. We were then under no man’s thumb. Every man was at liberty to do as he pleased; and if one position did not suit him he was at liberty to leave the mine and obtain employment elsewhere; and the hunt for work was a very small job. All that he had to do was to cross the hill to another colliery.

Miners in those days could earn from $75 to $250 per month. They could earn this with very little toil because of the thickness of the veins of coal and the high prices they received by contract. To-day, however, they do not earn nearly as much as that—not that there is not as much coal now as then, for the veins of coal are inexhaustible—but simply that a system has grown up there by which twenty or thirty men are enabled to monopolize all the opportunities of labor and to dictate to the miners the terms upon which they shall live.

Whether workingmen in Pennsylvania require protection or not, I am not going to say; you can judge for yourselves. One thing is sure: they require something. I know their condition to-day is most deplorable. Mr. Patrick Ford in writing about the poverty of Ireland never depicted a case that cannot be paralleled in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania. (Applause.)

WHEN BIG STRIKES WERE UNKNOWN.

In [1869?] or thereabouts, before we had our miners’ unions, strikes as we had in September, 1887, were entirely unknown. If any difficulty arose between employer and employed it was easily adjusted by the miner going to the employer and explaining the matter. And he was sure of a respectful hearing, for the reason that there was more coal to mine than miners to mine it. It was to the employer’s interest to keep his men. Before he would allow his men to strike he would make every reasonable concession.

This condition of affairs existed until Franklin B. Gowen, the president of the Philadelphia and Reading coal and iron company, conceived and put into execution a plan to get hold of all the anthracite coal fields of the Schuylkill valley. That was in the p. 2, col. 3 seventies. After Mr. Gowen got possession of the coal fields he squeezed the individual mine owners, and the result was that in about two years he had under his control the entire production of the Schuylkill valley. He then began to spread out, and formed a combination with the other mine owners in the anthracite coal region; and the result was that in 1875, when a gigantic strike took place, the organization of the coal miners was completely crushed by this combination.

ALL PAUPER MINERS NOW.

The wages paid coal miners to-day in the anthracite region is just as beggarly as that paid to the so-called pauper miners in England. We are to-day beginning to realize that what we want is, not protection against pauper-mined coal, but protection against pauper miners. (Applause.) We have had foreign miners swarming in on us for the last fifteen years, and the result is we are all pauper miners. (Applause.)

I want to tell you just exactly what we get for mining a ton of coal, for which—if you buy it by the bucketful—you pay about $16 a ton in New York. (Laughter.) The men who go down into the mines, risking limb and even life, receive for every ton of forty eight cubic feet—which is considerably more than a regular ton—from thirty-seven to forty cents. Out of this he has to pay his assistant. He must also pay other expenses, such as for powder, oil, cartridge paper, etc.; and then he must stand what we call “dockage.” This dockage is a very good thing—for the operators. It consists of a regular deduction from the miners’ wages to indemnify the operators for slate and culm that has been carelessly mixed with the coal. Not satisfied with this, however, about eighteen years ago the operators insisted on the miners adding twelve extra cubic feet to each ton in order to further compensate them for slate and culm. This the miners agreed to—because they could not help themselves. The cars that miners use are supposed to hold two tons, and the miners get paid at that rate; but the fact is that they have a capacity of about 105 cubic feet. The docking is done by a man placed in the breaker, who watches carefully, and if he sees any slate or culm, with a piece of chalk marks on the ticket “¼” or “¾” or “½,” or sometimes even “one.” The meaning of this is that when the miner gets a settlement at the end of the month, instead of receiving pay for one car load, he receives pay for ¼ or ¾, as the case may be. There is a tacit understanding between the employer and the dockage boss that enough must be docked to pay his salary. That is one of the ways they have of reducing the wages of the men.

Another way is by charging the men twenty-five to forty per cent more for the necessaries of life, which most of them are compelled to purchase in the company’s “pluck-me” stores, and by charging them about 100 per cent too much for their mine supplies. For instance, powder for which the company pays $1.10 per keg of twenty-five pounds, the miner is compelled to pay $2.75.

STARVATION WAGES.

The system of miners and laborers has been changed in many collieries by making the men partners. Two men working in a chamber can mine and load on an average five cars a day. They receive eighty cents a car. After deducting dockage and necessary expenses it leaves them about twenty cents a ton. You can judge how much a man can make at this rate of payment. The average dockage in the coal region is about ten per cent. Just before I left home I met a sturdy young man, who told me that he and his partner earned for four weeks’ work just one dollar apiece in Eckley B. Coxe’s colliery; that was the net result, after deducting their mining expenses.

When I was seventeen years of age I received $17.82 per week for the same kind of work for which ten years afterward I received only $7.28, and for which the average wages now are about one dollar per day.

I quoted wages in Port Jervis at $6.90; but I was at home last Saturday and came across this ticket, which I obtained from one of the miners of Coxe Bros. & Co.’s colliery. I will withhold his name for reasons which are apparent:

No ——. June —, 1888.

Mr. Kudlich—Dear Sir:

The appointment of —————— is approved as contract miner at Gowen No. 1, as per contract ——— Co. $6 cash.

This Mr. Kudlich is a foreign contract laborer, a Hungarian, not even a citizen of the United States, the principal superintendent of Mr. Coxe, and I think has been studying the tactics of the czar. (Laughter and applause.)

Years ago when a man wanted a job, he simply went to an employer and asked if he needed help, and the invariable answer was “yes.” Now if he applies for employment he is first asked a number of questions similar to these: “What is your name? How old are you? What is your nationality? Married or single? Where did you work last? What is the name of your last employer?” You answer all these questions, and the slip is signed by the mine foreman and sent into the company office. The confidential clerk then sends to your last employer to inquire why you quit him. If you are one of these dangerous labor agitators you may be sure you won’t get any work. If you are a quiet, peaceable fellow, and likely to put up with everything, you are likely to get a job. (Applause and laughter.)

COST OF PRODUCING A TON OF COAL.

I took the trouble of going through the coal fields to find out the items of cost of producing coal. I found that in a colliery producing 500 tons a day, exclusive of interest or capital invested and exclusive of royalty which they are supposed to pay in some instances, including wages paid to miners, the actual cost of producing one ton of coal and putting it into the car for the market is 87 cents. Forty cents is supposed to go to the miner, the other 47 cents go the bosses^sic, clerks, etc. You men here in New York pay about $6 a ton—for a ton of 2,000 pounds. Where the difference goes I am not prepared to say; but I think a great deal of it goes into the pockets of the men who have the benefit of the protective tariff that is now on bituminous coal. (Applause.)

THE TARIFF AND ANTHRACITE COAL.

We used to have a protective tariff on anthracite coal; but the mine owners after a while found out that Providence had put the highest kind of a protective tariff upon their coal, for anthracite coal cannot be found any where except in six counties in Pennsylvania. So after the cry against this duty had become too strong, it was taken off. But the duty of seventy-five cents on bituminous coal simply means the same duty of seventy-five cents on anthracite coal, for this reason: Suppose there is a difference in value of one dollar between bituminous and anthracite coal. We have free trade in bituminous coal. If you go to your New York coal dealer and tell him you want a ton of coal, he shows you both kinds, and says you may have the bituminous coal for $2.50 per ton and the anthracite for $3.50. Your experience as a coal burner has demonstrated that the anthracite coal is worth a dollar more than the bituminous, and you agree to pay it. The bituminous mine owner can not charge you more than the market value of bituminous coal because Nova Scotia coal will compete with him. Neither can the anthracite mine owner charge you more, because you know the anthracite p. 2, col. 4 coal is worth only one dollar more than bituminous. Now, then, the bituminous operator or mine owner goes to congress and asks that a duty of seventy-five cents per ton be placed upon Nova Scotia coal or all foreign coal. Congress grants his request, and he immediately advances the price of bituminous coal seventy-five cents a ton. The difference in value between anthracite and bituminous being one dollar, when your coal dealer asks $3.25 instead of $2.50 for bituminous, he at the same time asks you $4.25 instead of $3.50 for anthracite. In this way the anthracite mine owners get the advantage of the seventy-five cents a ton duty on bituminous coal.

The workingmen claim that there is a pool among the mine owners, who deny it. I can’t tell you where it is, but it is there. (Laughter.) We have been trying to hunt it for fifteen years, but can not find it; but take the duty off bituminous coal and it won’t take us long to find the pool.

THE HORRORS OF EVICTION.

I read in the World—the Irish World, which is being circulated a great deal in our region by the republican national committee (laughter)—I read of horrible evictions in Ireland. But I can tell you some equally horrible ones in the coal regions. For instance, one eviction occurred some weeks ago. In the “Society Notes” of THE STANDARD you will find an account of a man named Dolan who was discharged for some cause, and immediately received five days’ notice to quit his house. He started the next day to look for work, and in boarding one of the coal trains fell under the wheels and was killed. His body was brought home the next day; and the letter in which I was told the story concluded by saying that the five days’ eviction notice still holds good, and Mrs. Dolan with her eight little children, the eldest being about thirteen, unless something extraordinary intervenes, will be homeless the day after she buries her husband. I do not think Patrick Ford could find one case in Ireland that will parallel this case.

THE LEASE SYSTEM.

Our lease system can give the Irish system ten points and beat it in a race. (Laughter.) If you are a married man, and are fortunate enough to secure work, the first thing you want is a house. In the coal region you cannot go into a town and examine a number of houses and select one—there are no towns—but you must take the one that the mine owner gives you, because he owns everything in the region of his mines. This is generally the case except in two small places in the middle district, Hazleton and Freeland. I suppose they called it Freeland because at one time it was possible to buy land there at a reasonable price. (Applause.) The lease contains a waiver; and in signing the lease you waive all possible rights a tenant may have under the laws of Pennsylvania. Among other things it gives the mine owner power to evict the workingman for any cause or without any cause by simply giving him five days notice. He can then be dispossessed and have all his effects distrained. Then the coal and iron police thugs come along and fire the man and his family out into the road. In that way they get rid of strikers, and it is very successful. I know how it works myself; I have been there. (Applause and laughter.)

THE WAY THE LEASE SYSTEM WORKS.

One day as I left my work the boss told me that Mr. Hayden, my employer, did not need me any more. That night as I was eating my supper a coal and iron policeman came to my door and said, “Mr. Hayden requires you to leave the house as soon as possible, because he needs it for some of his workmen.” I said I needed the house badly, too. But I left. I knew that for five or six months he had not been wanting me very much. I was very fortunate to have a father-in-law who had a hundred dollars or so, and he was able to help me out in renting a house. Other poor fellows were not so fortunate. For instance, I remember some years ago two men were killed instantly by a fall of coal. One left a widow with three children, the youngest being about three weeks old. Mrs. McGee was accused by a mischievous neighbor of selling liquor on the sly. This same Mr. Hayden heard of it and immediately ordered her to leave the house. Because she refused, his coal and iron policeman loaded her goods on a wagon, hauled them up near a graveyard and piled them there. This was in the middle of March, and March in Pennsylvania is the worst month in the year. Mrs. McGee was left shelterless, no one daring to take her in because that would show a disposition of rebellion and would result in his eviction as well. The mine owners say, “If you don’t like our system you can go somewhere else.” They don’t go (laughter) simply because they can’t.

Since the strike of 1887 seven hundred of our men were discharged, and the majority of them had to travel for miles and miles before they could get anything to do. The reason they could not get anything to do in other collieries was simply because of the combination between the mine owners and the system of requiring answers when application is made, which I before described.

MORE ABOUT THE PAUPER WAGES.

The average pay of miners for 1886 was $31.50 per month. Mr. Harris, president of the Lehigh coal and navigation company, told you people that they earned [$3.87?] a day. Just as soon as we saw it in the paper a committee of our [men?] went to Mr. Harris and offered to work for him at $2.87^sic day. Mr. Harris refused. He knew from past experience that his miners would, in the words of Mr. Pardee, another mine owner, “go back when their hunger compels them!” And they did go back without $2.87 a day. The wages paid are from 67 to 90 cents a day. This is to outside hands. The wages paid little boys, who are compelled to work by the necessities of their parents, vary from 25 to 40 cents a day. Sitting beside the little boy is frequently seen his grandfather doing the same work, getting about 70 cents a day. I started picking slate when I was seven years old, but mine was an extreme case. In those days they were not compelled generally to do that, because the fathers made enough to support the family.

CHILDREN HAVE TO PICK SLATE.

To-day it does not make any difference if a man has eight or nine children he has got to put every one of them to the breaker. A little boy after his eighth year bids farewell to the school forever. He goes to picking slate, from picking slate to door tending in the mine, then to driving mules, from driving mules to “laboring,” and then to working a breast, and he works a breast until a kind Providence drops a piece of coal on him and he gets out of his misery. (Applause.)

The 35,000,000 tons of coal mined in 1886 cost 279 lives and [909?] serious accidents. These 279 deaths made 144 widows and 490 orphans, who are dependent not upon the mine owners but upon the charity of their equally poor neighbors.

The last year I worked in a coal mine my daily wages averaged $1.18 the year round. You can see I am not a weak looking fellow, and I am able to hold my own with most men. I was considered a pretty good miner; yet after I had deducted rent and the cost of coal from my earnings, and divided the remainder with my family, I had twenty-one cents per day to live on—and the poor laws in the middle district allow the paupers twenty-three cents per day. (Applause.)

The great capital that these miners have p. 2, col. 5 accumulated, and their large landed interests, make it utterly impossible for us to get around this by laws. These side laws do no good. We have elected men as labor members to the legislature, and they have passed laws—semi-monthly pay laws and the like. We have had about a dozen such laws passed, such as the mine ventilation law, weigh scale bill, liability acts, etc. But the mine owners in the anthracite coal fields to-day are more powerful than any law. Although there is a semi-monthly pay law, there is only one or two collieries that pay its men that way. The others cannot make it convenient to do so.

Mr. Pardee, who is a stanch republican protectionist, and gives $10,000 a year to the republican committee, owns something like five towns—and the people who live in them. (Applause.) He posted a notice over the door of his office immediately after the strike of 1887, which stated that hereafter he would pay his employes monthly, as before the passage of the law, because there were no compensating advantages to him in it. That was in Pennsylvania, where the mine owners say their workingmen are a lawless lot of fellows who must be starved into submission. (Applause.)

EMPLOYES FORCED TO SIGN WAIVERS.

Hon. Eckley B. Coxe, who refused to take his seat as state senator because he feared the laws governing elections had been violated in his case, now compels his employes to sign waivers making inoperative the weigh scale bill—a bill that would effectually destroy the dockage system. They haven’t got the weigh scale in any colliery yet. That is one of the laws passed by the legislature of Pennsylvania for the special benefit of the miners. We also had the ventilation law passed, and mining inspectors are appointed by the court to compel its observance. This law, in spite of the inspectors, is being violated every day by this same Mr. Coxe and all the rest of them. This Mr. Coxe is considered to be one of the most philanthropic of the mine owners. There is also a bill making it unlawful for mine owners to employ children under twelve years of age. The mine owners had no objection to the passage of this bill, because they knew perfectly well it was not necessary to employ such children. All they had to do was to starve the men, and the men would compel their children to work. It might be a sin—I don’t know if it is—but when the little folks are starving at home I don’t think it is very wrong for the father to lie a little about the ages of his children. (Applause.) It is hard on the child, but really necessary sometimes.

SINGLE TAX MISSIONARIES.

We have been studying this question in the anthracite coal fields for the past twelve or fifteen years and never seemed to strike a solution of the problem. About two or three years ago some crank began to circulate Mr. George’s “Progress and Poverty” and “Protection or Free Trade?” (great applause), and the single tax doctrine took root there and has been growing since. Since the unions have been crushed by the failure of the strike the single tax missionaries must now do the work single handed. We expect in a few years to have men so educated that they will understand what is necessary to give them a fair pay for a fair day’s work. (Applause.)

I know perfectly well that a protective tariff will not benefit us. (Applause.) I do not see any benefit in bringing in a lot of pauper laborers free and at the same time compelling us to pay more for all our goods. But we cannot do anything without the help and co-operation of the people of New York and of all this country. You men must all take this matter into consideration and see what is the cause of our oppression; why it is that our little folks must go to the breaker before they have their teeth all cut, and stay there until they become full fledged miners, or until a fall of coal, or old age, or asthma comes upon them, when they must go back and pick slate again. (Applause.)

ABOLISH THE TARIFF.

You men here know perfectly well what will remedy this. Let us have free importations of Nova Scotia coal, if necessary. Let us have the duty off bituminous coal, so that competition will compel the mine owners to sell you the coal at a reasonable figure, which will compel the anthracite mine owners to do the same; and when you can buy coal at a reasonable figure you will buy more of it (great applause); and the more coal you buy the more need there will be for our labor to produce it, and the better chance we will have to tell our employers just what we will produce it for. (Applause.)

TO-DAY AND TWENTY YEARS AGO.

Twenty years ago when we had at least the advantage of knowing that we were free American citizens, it was impossible to find a millionaire mine owner in the whole region, while we were comfortably well off. To-day we are the poor fellows. You cannot find one man in the coal regions who would have twenty dollars if he were discharged to-day, except some Hungarians and such men, who live on almost nothing, and except perhaps a few favorites who get “fancy” jobs. But you can also find men there, single mine owners, who could buy up every man in this hall to-night, buy up your Goulds and Vanderbilts, even. There are men in the anthracite region who own miles upon miles of coal lands, containing veins upon veins of coal of some 250 feet thickness, containing the purest kind of anthracite, which can be produced for 87 cents a ton. And yet all the difference between the cost to the mine owners and the cost to you goes into their pockets and into the pockets of railroad companies, which are really the mine owners.

AVARICE OF COAL BARONS.

The culm, for which the men are docked, was formerly considered of no value, but is now sold to the railroads for ballast and used in the collieries for getting up steam. This culm and the slate that the boys pick from the coal lies piled in huge heaps around each breaker. The heaps were utterly useless to the company, but the poor people could pick sufficient coal out of them to keep them warm during the winter months, if the barons would permit them. They won’t, however, because they know the people must have coal, and it’s more business like to sell it to them at [$2.50?] a ton than to allow them to squander their spare moments in picking it for nothing. (Laughter.) There are people, however, whose little boys don’t earn enough to pay this price. They are the widows of the men who have been killed in the mines. They sometimes go to the culm banks on the sly and pick coal. As I sat in a train the other week waiting for it to start, I saw one of these women, a widow with five children, who makes a miserable living in doing washing, coming up the road with a bag filled with the coal she had picked from one of these banks. It held about two bushels. She was bent nearly double as she struggled under her heavy load, and had nearly reached home when one of these pauper laborers that the protective tariff don’t protect us from came up behind her, touched her on the shoulder, and pointed to the culm bank. She knew what this meant, turned quietly, walked back and dumped the coal where she had picked it. Then she went home empty handed. This man, who is a Hungarian, had been placed there by Coxe Bros. & Co. to see that no one took for their own use what was utterly useless to them. How nicely a tariff of seventy-five cents p. 2, col. 6 protects that poor widow. (Laughter and applause.)

ANOTHER INSTANCE.

All around the villages are holes in the ground caused by the mines caving in. The caves have exposed the coal, and men can easily dig enough for their own use. Last winter, when the strike was in our region, and the weather most severe, and money to purchase coal unattainable, we thought it no harm to go to these caves and take coal for our own use. We did this very successfully for a few days, but one morning coal and iron policemen were found stationed around these caves; and the men were told that the coal in them belonged to Mr. Coxe, and he didn’t believe in their risking their lives to get it. The result was that free natural mining was effectually stopped there.

THE REMEDY.

I have told you that if you take the duty off bituminous coal it will give you more and cheaper coal, and give us more employment and higher wages in producing it; but something else is necessary. We have men up there owning miles and miles of coal land. At Freeland is a piece of ninety-two acres, owned by the firm of Markle Bros. & Co., for which they refused $900,000 a few years ago. This is assessed and taxed at $2.75 an acre. (Laughter.) What I think is necessary is to compel Markle Bros. & Co. to pay a tax on a valuation of $900,000 instead of on the valuation of $2.75 an acre. (Great applause.) When we can educate our people to see the advantage of this system of taxation we will have solved the labor problem in the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania, and not only there, but all over this broad land. (Applause.) Our labor organizations have wrestled with this problem for years, until their leaders became sick and tired. Now, however, we are beginning to see the light; and if you men will take the matter in hand, do your best to spread the light, tackle, not only this coal question, but all other questions, fearlessly and without prejudice, you will find that the intelligence of the working masses is sufficient to grasp it. (Applause.)

PENNSYLVANIA PAUPER IRON MINERS.

Talking about the protected miners of Pennsylvania, I understand that John Jarrett comes into your city occasionally and tells you how much the protective system has done for the iron workers. I know one thing, that if the duty is necessary on the pauper made iron of Europe it is necessary on the pauper made iron of eastern Pennsylvania. I know from the statistics furnished by the Thomas iron company of Hokendauqua, that the wages are less there than the pauper wages in England. The editor of the Mauch Chunk Democrat asserted some months ago that the men employed in eastern Pennsylvania in the mining of iron ore received only from sixty-five to ninety-five cents a day; and an official of the Thomas iron company came out in a card the next day giving the editor “particular ——.” He proved that the editor lied and that the men received from seventy cents to $1.05 a day. (Laughter.)

THEY WINTER IN THE ALMS HOUSE.

It is the usual thing for the ore miners of eastern Pennsylvania to spend the winter months in the county alms house. Why don’t John Jarrett apply for a protective act for the western Pennsylvania iron workers against those of the eastern part of the state? I am secretary of district assembly No. 87 Knights of Labor. In my drawer at home I have orders from the district to apply to our poor directors for relief for the families of three of our protected miners. After the poor houses are crowded outdoor relief is given. You never hear of a mine owner making a very liberal contribution toward their support. Of course Mr. Coxe has built a hospital. He also furnishes the subjects for the hospital. (Long continued applause.)

I understand that Mr. Pardee has built a college at Easton for the benefit of poor working boys, so that the miners’ sons may be prepared to meet life; but we are compelled to give them that education in the breakers. The friends of the [$7?] a week dudes, the clerks and pets of the company, get the positions in the college; but our boys and girls will follow in the footsteps of their fathers. There will be no more opportunity for their education unless we change the system of land tenure.

GETTING DESPERATE.

If you men in New York can fancy a system of good government under that condition of affairs, I can not. I am not surprised that there are anarchists in Pennsylvania. I am not surprised that bombs were thrown in Chicago, but I am surprised that there have not been any bombs thrown in Pennsylvania. (Applause.) We had the greatest work in the last strike to prevent some men doing it. The very element that mine owners brought in to break us up—the Hungarians, Poles and Swedes—are proving firebrands among them. When they get educated to the necessity of higher wages they are the greatest sticklers for high wages; they are the men whom we had to rein in to prevent them from shedding blood. I, for one, do not propose to prevent them much longer. (Applause.) If I could carry this audience with me and set it down in one of the little mining villages, and show it the miserable shanties—twelve feet high by about fifteen feet long—in which families live; show it the men who are old at forty, and before which time the women are tired of life; show the little children who in winter months go illy fed and scantily clothed, with cotton stockings and thin, cheap shoes on their feet, it wouldn’t be surprised when I say that I would not stay the hand of these firebrands. (Applause.) But we hope soon to bring the mine owners to their senses, not by any half-way measures, but by bringing back the land to the people to whom it belongs.

When Mr. Estell ceased speaking there was an extraordinary exhibition of enthusiasm, the audience rising and cheering for several minutes. Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost was then introduced. His first utterances were in reference to Mr. Estell’s speech:

Mr. Pentecost’s Address.

And yet there are some people who believe there is no hell. (Laughter and applause.) Mr. Blaine said not very long ago (hisses, groans and applause) in one of his speeches, that he did not want to talk with any man in this campaign that was going to talk theories to him. He wanted to find somebody who would talk facts. I recommend him to Mr. Estell. (Applause.)

Mr. Harrison said (hisses)—you seem to know the man I mean (laughter)—that the tariff reformers were people who studied maxims, but not markets. Mr. Estell seems to me to be studying markets. (Laughter.) There is very little maxim in the speech we have heard to-night. And I confess to you, my friends, that not during this campaign or before have I heard a speech so calculated to rouse every generous sentiment in the human heart in favor of the oppressed and the down-trodden of this system, as the speech that I listened to to-night. (Applause.)

I suppose that somebody will call Mr. Estell an anarchist for what he has just said. (Laughter.) It would not surprise me if somebody should go away and say Mr. Estell had tried to incite this audience to mob violence, because he made a vague sort of prophecy that if the condition of things he described was not changed before long there might be danger in the anthracite continued on p. 3 → p. 2, col. 7 region. [rest of column not recoverable from this scan]

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FINISHING UP SINGLE TAX CAMPAIGN WORK.

Meetings to Be Held—A Cart Tail Campaign—Pushing the Free Trade Issue—Meetings Held During the Last Week—Some Republicans the Single Tax Has Brought Over to Cleveland.

The busiest and most interesting part of the campaign is not yet over so far as the single tax men of this vicinity are concerned. All the speakers who have been sent from the city to other towns, are engaged till Saturday; the grand rally takes place Thursday, and as far as work in this city goes, all the available single tax speakers have combined with democratic and mugwump free traders and tariff reformers in a scheme which has taken the town by surprise. Fifty or seventy-five of these speakers agreed to start out at noon on Monday of this week on four trucks, and keep them going in different parts of the city every afternoon and evening this week. Every time a crowd collected the trucks were to stop, and after the delivery of speeches and distribution of literature to go on to some other place.

The trucks, named the “Old Roman,” “Old Hickory,” “Grover Cleveland,” and “Samuel J. Tilden,” in charge of E. Ellery Anderson, Michael J. Murray, W. J. Gibson and Francis Lynde Stetson, respectively, have already covered a good part of the city and their tours, fully reported in the daily papers, have undoubtedly been of great service to the cause of free trade. The speakers confine themselves entirely to the tariff question and to “knocking out” the protection superstition. Among the well known speakers on the trucks are, in addition to the captains, Everett P. Wheeler, W. B. Estell, Lindley Vinton, W. J. Gorsuch, Washington E. Paige, W. T. Croasdale, John De Witt Warner and John H. Dougherty.

The other meetings of the week past have been as follows:

Wednesday, October 24, Thomas G. Shearman spoke before a large audience in Musical fund hall in Philadelphia. Mr. Pentecost and W. B. Estell addressed a large audience at Cooper union. Henry George and W. J. Gorsuch spoke at Arthur hall in Harlem, Mr. George taking the place of Mr. Post, who was announced last week to speak there. Mr. Post spoke to a very enthusiastic audience at Medina, N. Y.

On Thursday, October 25, Mr. Post spoke at Auburn and Mr. Gorsuch and W. B. Estell at Middletown.

On Friday, October 26, Louis F. Post and W. T. Croasdale spoke at the German club room at Stapleton.

On Saturday, October 27, Thomas G. Shearman spoke at Middletown.

On Monday, October 29, a very successful and enthusiastic meeting was held at Bleecker hall and addressed by Louis F. Post and Hugh O. Pentecost. Mr. Shearman was announced to appear at this meeting, but a severe cold contracted at Middletown prevented his speaking.

Tuesday, October 39^sic, Henry George consented to speak at Arion hall in Brooklyn, Mr. Shearman still being ill. Mr. Louis F. Post spoke at Raines’ Hall in Baltimore.

On Wednesday, October 31, Louis F. Post and William Lloyd Garrison spoke in Musical fund hall, Philadelphia, Henry George in Knickerbocker hall in Brooklyn, and Hugh O. Pentecost at Elizabethport, N. J.

The following speeches will be made after THE STANDARD goes to press:

Thursday, Nov. 1—Messrs. George, Shearman, Pentecost and Post at Cooper union; Gorsuch and Estell at the opera house, Olean, N. Y.

Friday, Nov. 2—Henry George at Pawtucket, R. I.; Louis F. Post at Ellenville, N. Y.; and Pentecost and Estell, Atheneum, Brooklyn.

Saturday, Nov. 3—Henry George at Passaic, N. J.

Mr. George’s out of town engagements during the past week have been: Thursday, October 25, at Harrisburg; Friday, October 26, at Ithaca; Saturday, October 27, at Binghamton, and Monday, October 29, at Morristown, N. J.

Here are some extracts from letters which show the important part the single tax doctrine is playing in the presidential canvass, in bringing over to Cleveland men who four years ago voted for one of his opponents—the majority having been strong protectionists and having voted for Blaine.

Stoughton Cooley, Chicago, Ill.—I inclose three names for enrollment. I wish to speak more particularly of F. S. Greenleaf, editor of the Savanna, Ill., Journal. Mr. Greenleaf is a young active man of great promise and his opinion carries much weight and has much influence with his neighbors. He has always been a republican and published a republican paper, though he has not been a blind party man, but once he saw the single tax cat he boldly came out for Cleveland and Thurman. He quotes extensively from THE STANDARD in his paper.

Ole Bjerke, Emporia, Kansas.—I send a few additional names, and have distributed blanks among friends in the country round about this place. I saw Mr. Roberts of Neosho Rapids a day or so ago; he said he had just sent you about one hundred names. Mr. J. A. Gingerich, the postmaster at Reading, reports that he sent you about sixty, “many of them,” he says, “either old time republicans or men who have been undecided^sic.

Jasper White, Buffalo, N. Y.—My presidential votes were for Grant, Hayes, Garfield and Blaine. This year I am for Cleveland and against Hill.

David Jacobson, Brooklyn, N. Y.—Two of the five men whose names I send for enrollment are first voters—one voted for Blaine in 1884.

George W. Kiersted, Jersey City, N. J.—I am a single tax man and for Cleveland and Thurman, and I send you the names of nine other men who believe as I do. I was a republican until two years ago.

Martin Quinn, Pertland, Ore^sic.—I inclose names of two others besides myself who favor Mr. Cleveland for president. I voted for Butler four years ago. The progress of the single tax idea is very encouraging. Your plan of campaign has given a tremendous impetus to the movement—has jumped it ahead five years at least. The sale of STANDARDS is increasing, and the sale of your works is increasing, I know, because I work in a book store and news stand.

John F. McQuaide, East Cambridge, Mass.—Four years ago I voted for Butler; I am a single tax Cleveland man new^sic. I know a number of workingmen in this vicinity who were rabid protectionists but have had their eyes opened to the single tax light and will vote the democratic ticket.

D. Quill, Sparrowbush, N. Y.—I never voted the democratic ticket before, but shall this year. I am for tariff reform and the single tax, for this is the question that will be before the people soon.

Mark F. Roberts, Pittsburg Pa.—Inclosed is a partial list of men who were protectionists until the single tax opened their eyes. Ninety

p. 3, col. 6 per cent of our club are for Cleveland; they were all protectionists before.

F. A. Clark, Newark, N. J.—Of the six men whose names are inclosed, four voted for Blaine last election^sic. They are all right now.

Geo. E. Dummer, Washington, D. C.—Here are two names for enrollment. One of the men is an ex-soldier and ex-republican.

Chas. Rutger, Cleveland, O.—The list I send contains the names of four men who have always hitherto voted the republican ticket, but now believe in the single tax and will vote for Cleveland.

George W. Spencer, Chicago Ill.—Inclosed are four names for enrollment; two of these men voted for the magnetic statesmen^sic last presidential election.

L. E. Siemon, Cleveland, Ohio.—I hand you herewith a list of fourteen single tax Cleveland and Thurman votes. Of the seven men about whose previous political belief I know anything five were republicans.

A friend in Grand Rapids, Mich., writes: I have bought four copies of “Progress and Poverty” and two copies of “Protection or Free Trade?” but have not one of either in my house—they are all out on their mission; but I have never subscribed for THE STANDARD, the reason being that I cannot save up enough money. Every Saturday evening I buy as many copies from the news stores as I possibly can afford and pass them around.

My mode of work is to select a man who I think will be useful when caught, then work him patiently, pick up an economic discussion, hand him a tract now, a STANDARD then, and so forth, till at last it dawns in his mind and he gets sight of the whole cat. Then he is a missionary, usually a red hot one, too, and I am through—to go gunning for somebody else. Don’t be discouraged because THE STANDARD campaign fund swells slowly. This slow increase is a better sign than it looks for from the outside. This is a poor man’s fight against might and ignorance, and most of us who are in for it have all we can do right at hand without sending our means over to headquarters to get used. In short, it means that we are all going into the fight for all there is in it, and do not think of hiring any substitutes, and only few can afford any more ammunition than they have use for themselves.

I don’t want to appear like an optimistic crank, but I believe that the single tax question will be the issue in the next presidential campaign, and I believe that the year 2000 will see the civilized world engaged in a jubilee in modernized Hebrew fashion.

John A. Hughes, Roadside, Pa.—Inclosed find the names of single tax men who will support Cleveland and Thurman. Three of them were formerly republicans.

George H. Metzger, New York city.—I send three names for enrollment. As for myself, I was a dyed in the wool protectionist in 1884, but have since learned to do my own thinking on the tariff question with the help of “our” paper, THE STANDARD.

W. H. Stuart, Los Angeles, Cal.—Put my name on your single tax Cleveland list. I supported the republican ticket up to the last election., Am now an absolute free trader.

George R. Gage, New York.—Enroll me as a single tax advocate. Have voted for every republican candidate from Lincoln to Blaine. Will now vote for Cleveland and “tariff reform” as leading to ultimate free trade and the single tax. Although but a car driver, I can give satisfactory reasons for the faith that is in me. Herewith I send five names to be added to your list. Many others will vote that way who decline to give their names for publication. May God speed the work.

He is Making the City of Cleveland [Hot?] With His Canvass.

Here are some notes that show how the wind is blowing in Cleveland:

LAND AND LABOR CLUB NO. 9.—CLEVELAND, O., Oct. [23?].—I hand you herewith list of fourteen single tax Cleveland and Thurman voters. I also want to add a little with regard to the progress of matters in the Twenty-first district. We are steeped in war paint from sole to pate, and the way we are bringing down republicans in the congressional canvass is astonishing.

Without any ostentation and any particular noise we are steadily setting our faces “Johnson-ward,” and through the efforts of men who see a grand possibility opening up before us the Twenty-first district of Ohio will be represented in the next congress by one who is more than a revenue tariffite.

L. E. SIEMON.

CLEVELAND, Ohio, Oct. [22?].—If all the republicans who have agreed to vote for Tom Johnson keep their word, and he gets, as he undoubtedly will, the entire democratic vote, he will be elected by such a majority as no representative from this district ever had before. Any number of men say that they will vote for Harrison, Morton and Johnson.

W. F. BIEN.

At a workingmen’s mass meeting Mr. Johnson said:

Everyone knows that wages are lower here than formerly. Why? Not because the country is poorer or the people less intelligent, but because something is wrong with the law of distribution. You pay more than you would need to if it were not for the protective tariff. The beauty of the political situation is that it is clearing the minds of men of this superstition that we want protection. What we do want is evenhanded justice. When the tariff and other questions are disposed of the greatest of all questions—the labor question—will be before the people and it will be decided whether freedom or restriction is the solution of the problem. I claim freedom. (Applause and cheers.)

Here are two newspaper extracts:

T. E. Burton is a professional talker and Tom L. Johnson a business man, who works instead of talking. Hence Mr. Burton thought it safe to challenge Mr. Johnson to a debate on the tariff. To Mr. Burton’s surprise Mr. Johnson promptly accepted the challenge. Then the challenger began to crawl back [into?] his hole, and yesterday disappeared into [it?] and pulled the hole in after him.

Burton, after receiving Tom Johnson’s acceptance of his challenge to a series of tariff debates, softly mused to himself:

“He who jaws and runs away May live to jaw another day; But he who in debate is slain Will have no chance to jaw again.”

That’s why Burton ran away instead of meeting Tom Johnson.

Burton is beaten for congress, and his closest managers know it.—[The Plaindealer.

Mr. Tom L. Johnson of Ohio, a noted and very wealthy manufacturer, is an absolute and thorough going free trader. So is Mr. John H. Bass of Fort Wayne, Ind., the largest railroad car wheel manufacturer in the world, and the owner of several coal and iron mines in Alabama. J. B. Sargent of New Haven is the largest manufacturer in his line, and he is a free trader, and William Marshall of Brooklyn, the largest cordage maker in America, is a free trader. These men rise far above mere self-seeking to the plain and level of justice and fair play, and have no wish to prosper by the wholesale robbery of the people by the robber war tariff.—[Memphis Appeal.

A Single Tax Man Who Does Some Organizing Makes Some Speeches and Sends Goods News^sic.

MAHANOY CITY, Pa., Oct. 27.—I reached this city to-day, addressed a meeting and helped to organize a single tax club. The following officers were elected: President, J. N. Becker; secretary, Robert Richardson; treasurer, Thomas Donnelly. The title of the organization will be the Free trade club, a name significant of the growing anti-protectionist sentiment of the workers.

Our folks at Shenandoah organized a club on Wednesday, with Morris Marsh, president; Thomas Potts, secretary; Robert Lees, treasurer. At Locust Dale one was organized on Thursday at a meeting which I addressed. The officers will be elected this week.

From my experience so far I am convinced that an organizer to call and address public meetings and give single tax clubs a start is all that is needed to give the single tax movement a mighty impulse in the coal regions. The conditions favor the spread of our doctrines. In Mahanoy valley there are [3,500?] Irish voters who have been driven from Ireland by landlordism, only to find it as flourishing here. The Philadelphia coal and iron company own almost the entire valley, and, I am told, will not sell even so little as a building lot in it. The company owns the land, the mines, and virtually the people. No wonder the building industry languishes, and that houses and towns are worthy of the ragged edge of civilization.

The people are crowded as much as in the large cities, and the very poor lead as wretched an existence. In Mount Carmel there is a small two-roomed house that accommodates eighty-seven inmates—eighty-six men and one woman.

In Shenandoah I entered houses occupied by Italians. The floors were uncarpeted and muddy, the furniture scant and of the rudest kind. One lower front room had a bedstead made of rough pieces of timber. In a back room a half-dozen poor, begrimed wretches were grouped around a stove. A woman sat by cooking some meat and potatoes in a frying pan. When the meal was ready each would reach into the mess with his dirty fingers. No other worker but the Hun or Chinese can hope to underbid these people in competition for the work which protection so beneficently provides.

The free traders are multiplying hereabouts. At a prohibition meeting held lately in Shenandoah the principal speaker denounced protection on the ground that it was antagonistic to the moral principles on which the prohibition party is founded, and asserted that neither one of the old parties favored free trade. That is an opinion all democrats do not share. They had a meeting at Pine Grove about a week ago. One of the speakers, afraid of frightening the workingmen present, declared that the democrats were not free traders. At once the response came from his hearers, “We are; we are free traders.” After that you may be sure the talk took a more radical turn.

Single tax men say that a bold free trade campaign in this county would have proved far more successful than the present one. Nevertheless, Reilly, the democratic congressional candidate, will defeat [Brumm?], his protectionist adversary.

I expect to address meetings at Delano, Frackville and Shenandoah this week and arrange for others.

J. C. FROST.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON IN PHILADELPHIA.

He Speaks Before a Big Single Tax Cleveland and Thurman Meeting and Preaches the Gospel of Unadulterated Free Trade—Some Points that Have Been Overlooked—Political, Economic and Moral Aspects of the Question.

William Lloyd Garrison delivered the following speech before a large audience in Musical fund hall, Philadelphia, Wednesday evening, Oct. 31, under the auspices of the single tax Cleveland and Thurman committee:

Mr. Garrison’s Speech.

I am glad to address an audience in this great city of protection, where the ideas of Henry C. Carey and William D. Kelley have dominated so long. It is cheering to know that the morning light is breaking over this community at last, and that the medieval darkness of selfish prejudice is retreating. As South Carolina was to slavery, so Pennsylvania has been to protection, the hotbed of fanaticism and unreason. It has exalted private interest above the public welfare, has nursed monopolies into “wealth beyond the dream of avarice,” and has degraded a portion of its labor to a level with the despotisms of Europe. It needs the gospel of unadulterated free trade. The sincerity of the distinguished but misguided men whom I have named has never been been questioned^sic any more than that of John C. Calhoun; and having no words of personal reprobation to bestow, I hasten to attack the system they have upheld. Although almost upon the eve of election, I have framed my address without regard to increasing votes. Our movement is to last beyond many presidential contests, and to lead to changes of opinion and law as yet undreamed by current politicians. With the abolition of the protective tariff follows the consideration of indirect revenue taxes, which opens the way for the great land question and the single tax. It is not theories but conditions that spur us to this work. We do not shut our eyes to human nature or existing conditions, and have no utopia to promise. The steps of progress are slow, and of necessity conservative, and nothing resting on fundamental truths can be disturbed or shaken by all the blasts of heresy or speculation. It is for us to open wide the doors of discussion and welcome every honest suggestion and criticism. Assured that the principles we urge are right, we can rest upon the conviction that the results will correspond. The bane and hindrance of reformers is the anxiety about consequences which can not be foreseen and must be trusted. They may safely be left to the Power that rules the universe, and our only concern is to give the natural laws full sway.

A CAMPAIGN OF FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS.

The campaign which now draws to its close will be memorable for its consideration of fundamental ideas and its freedom from personal abuse. It has appealed to the intellect and the conscience of men, and has illustrated the value of a national election with a live issue as an educational force. Many minds have been enlightened and changed, but whether [enough?] to alter the party control will only be determined on November 6.

It is not, however, as a democrat or a republican that I shall speak to-night, desirous as I am of seeing this administration reelected. Under the auspices of this club, my tongue shall wear no party fetters. Our concerning is not so much^sic with majorities as with right principles, which in good time gather invincible numbers to support them. It matters little whether the selfish prejudices of voters shall outweigh reason and justice at the ballot box this year. There is a day after to-day, and the reformer has “the safe appeal of truth to time.”

Although Mr. Cleveland’s message has made the tariff question all absorbing, forget for a moment that the issue is a political one. The standpoint of politics is the least edifying and profitable. It leads to insincerity, and tempts the speakers to juggle with figures and facts. It forces great statesmen like John Sherman to stultify previous utterances which were the fruit of conviction. When New England drew her prosperity from foreign commerce, when her sails whitened every sea, and the national flag floated proudly from every port of the world, the sentiment of free trade prevailed in Massachusetts, and Daniel Webster defended magnificently in congress the principles we advocate now. Later, when the tariff was forced upon the seaboard states and capital turned from foreign exchanges to the upbuilding of manufactures, the defense of protection was intrusted to the same hands, and the eloquent lips that had vindicated unanswerably the freedom of national trade now gave his law- yer’s plea for the reverse doctrine.

SENATOR SHERMAN’S MEMORABLE WORDS.

Senator Sherman who now defends monopoly, once uttered these memorable words: “Every obstruction to a free exchange of commodities is born of the same narrow and despotic spirit that planted castles on the Rhine to plunder peaceful commerce. Every obstruction to commerce is a tax on consumption. Every facility to a free exchange cheapens commodities, increases trade and promotes civilization.” John Sherman was right, and “it is better to be right than to be president.” I commend to him Tennyson’s lines:

“And, because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.”

Therefore we will avoid the shifting standpoints of politicians, who are simply the weather vanes of public opinion. Let us seek rather the secrets of the winds:

Eternal trades, they cannot veer,
And, blowing, teach us how to steer.

Upon one side of this controversy are ranged those who assert that the so-called protective system is necessary to the national growth and prosperity. Upon the other side are those who regard it as a hinderance and mistake. On both sides are moderate men who favor a partial restriction, based on the assumption that the task of accurately adjusing^sic a tariff, which would require omnipotence itself, can be accomplished by the crude and selfish legislators who predominate in Congress. A few like myself believe the whole system of trade interference pernicious, destructive and indefensible, and it is as an absolute free trader that I shall present my views.

FREEDOM OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE.

I labor for the freedom of international trade which shall knit together the countries of the earth as closely as our railway system binds the states. I strive to bring about an era when the natural instincts of mankind to trade shall find no barriers in custom houses or tax gatherers, and when it shall be impossible for the few legally to draw tribute from the many. This confession stamps me as a “theorist” in the popular phrase. Only those who believe in the possibility of getting rich by self taxation are “practical” men! And yet my life has been passed in the busy haunts of trade where men compete for the

p. 6, col. 2 prizes of material wealth. But I learned early that a merchant is not synonymous with a political economist, and that the selling of a bale of wool, or manufacturing a yard of cloth, confers no occult power to comprehend the tangled problems of exchange. Notwithstanding this, none are so glib in attributing commercial prosperity or distress to tariff or free trade than are tradesmen who have never studied the subject aside from personal interest. What puzzles students presents no difficulties to them. And when they prosper it follows that the country must; so hurrah for protection! “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” There is food for mirth in such performance, but the sober side touches the hearts of thoughtful men.

ON WHOM THE BURDEN RESTS.

It is upon the defenseless and the poor that the burden always settles. The capitalist, the nimble trader, the men of wit, are competent to recoup themselves for the tax levies and shift them to the shoulders of the weak. The importer adds the duty and his profit to the cost; the commission merchant adds to these his own profit on the enhanced price; the retailer adds thereto another profit, and the consumer pays the whole. No arrangement could be better devised to put the weight where it could be the least easily borne.

It is against this robber scheme that we wage an undying war. We have no compromises to offer, thankful as we are to see any step in the right direction, like the Mills bill; but, relentless as the Roman Cato, we repeat his cry, “Delenda est Carthago!” The system of restriction must be destroyed.

What stands in the way? A people deluded by custom and befogged with sophistries. They are not willingly the abettors of a national wrong. It is not denunciation which they need, although the system does, but patient explanation and reason. In the hope of contributing some little food for thought upon this question I venture to lift up my feeble voice in this assembly. I ask you to bear patiently with me while I combat some of the prominent defenses behind which this false protection covers.

THAT HOME MARKET.

The defenders of the tariff are professedly in love with a home market. They champion the curious idea that, to make trade good it must be confined. Why do not you Philadelphia protectionists act upon that principle? Cut off your railroads and you can foster your home manufactures. Now you have to share your market with the greedy traders from New England and the west, who come here to inundate you with goods. Why do you not frown upon it? Instead, you offer encouragement to the emissaries called drummers, to whom you give the best apartments in your hotels, which rival each other in show rooms for the drummer’s use. There your enemies spread out their tempting goods and entice your dealers to buy their wares. Do they not impoverish you? On your theory, if an Englishman is allowed to sell his goods freely here, the country loses by it. Why does not Philadelphia lose by letting the Yankees from New England sell here without restriction? Explain to me what difference it makes to you whether the salesman comes from Massachusetts or from Canada and performs the same function? Why is it gainful to you in one case and destructive in the other? To hear men talk one would suppose that the foreigner gave away his merchandise for the sake of closing your workshops; but if the Canadian should advertise to-morrow that he had made up his mind to do so, would you think it a calamity? You would be impatient for the cars bearing the gifts to arrive. If the tariff duties were removed, would the merchants of the British province rush to deluge this community with presents? Not one dollar’s worth. They would only bring here certain articles that you want, and that you want to pay for, moreover. And they would take their pay in things that you want to dispose of, just as the merchants you trade with in the states do. To maintain your home market as against Canada you have to consent to a law forbidding you to satisfy your wants. Annex our northern neighbor and not one of you would think of maintaining a customs barrier. You would scramble for his trade, and yet not a single economic condition would be altered under the same flag that now obtains under the two flags. I marvel at the shallowness of thought on this familiar subject.

NATIONS NEVER TRADE.

Reasonable men talk as if England was a monster lying in wait to devour us. They speak with confidence of her purpose to do this and that if we stop taxing ourselves. It is a myth worthy of the twilight days of the race. It is an assumption that exchanges are carried on by nations, and the animating purpose of each is to overreach the other. Nations never trade. It is an individual and not a national function, and it is carried on by people who are mutually benefited. It is as reasonable to talk of Massachusetts threatening Pennsylvania with ruin by forcing her to trade, when profit is the only force in the universe that can compel business trans- actions.

Here is another cobweb of the protective brain, the idea that one can sell without buying. The papers are full of schemes for creating trade with South America by subsidizing steamships and other foolish notions. Trade needs no forcing more than love does. All we have to do with our southern neighbor is to take down the bars. Then commerce will whistle of itself. It is the height of stupidity to think of selling without buying or of buying without selling. One necessitates the other, and when we pass laws to keep out foreign products we legislate to cripple our own industry. Every import compels an export to balance it, and it takes native labor to produce that export. It is every way as profitable to exchange with an Englishman as with a neighbor, and the country is just as rich by the transaction.

A NEIGHBOR WHO WANTS TO TRADE.

South of us flourishes the great Argentine Republic, rich with products that we need, and anxious for the manufactured article we could exchange for its wool and hides. It looks to our republic with admiration, tem- pered only with sorrow that our narrow laws veto a commercial alliance which would bless both. We boast of our rapid development, and fancy that we are beating all creation, but during the past twenty-five years the Argentine Republic has increased in population about seventy-nine per cent, and the city of Buenos Ayres is growing faster than Minneapolis or Denver. Its imports in 1885 were $84,000,000 in value, of which unprotected England furnished one-third of the amount, France and Germany about one-fifth each, while our great republic tags on at the tail of the list with Sweden and Hungary. It should by natural right and ability head the procession.

I know that tariff ridden Pennsylvania scouts the idea. Think of the fine wools of the River Plate coming in free to destroy the dwindling flocks of Washington county! But so much are they wanted, that, in spite of the high duty, they have forced themselves into your markets in quantities along with the fine Australian clips. The tariff remedy which is invoked fails utterly. Suppose we call off the tariff doctors and give nature a chance. If, under the stimulus of free trade, Great Britain can still raise nearly three-quarters as many sheep as we do on this broad conti-

p. 6, col. 3 nent, and send her wool into our markets duty paid, who doubts that we could manage to prosper without the tax? I am convinced that commercial freedom would increase our flocks as emancipation has increased our crop of cotton.

STORY OF THE TWO PUNCTILIOUS ENGLISHMEN.

In the “Bab Ballads” there is a story of two Englishmen who were wrecked on a desert island, but not having been introduced, felt obliged to keep in separate parts of the territory. They were named respectively Peter Gray and Somers:

On Peter’s portion oysters grew—a delicacy rare,
But oysters were a delicacy Peter couldn’t bear; On Somers’ side was turtle, on the shingle lying thick,
Which Somers couldn’t eat, because it always made him sick.

You see it was quite a protective situation, and etiquette stood in the place of a tariff. After long sighing for the delicacies beyond reach, they were able to speak, through the accidental discovery that they had a mutual friend in England; so they fraternized, inaugurated free trade and happily exchanged their oysters and their turtles. At length a convict ship touches the island and whom should they recognize among the prisoners but their mutual friend Robinson, who had been misappropriating stock! This was enough to dissolve the friendship founded on such a slender basis, and

To allocate the island they agreed by word of mouth;
And Peter takes the north again, and Somers takes the south;
And Peter has the oysters, which he hates, in layers thick,
And Somers has the turtle—turtle always makes him sick.

So the protective nations hug the limited area where their lot has been cast, each wishing for the good things of the others, and anxious to part with things of his own, forbidden by this strange international prejudice. Each heroically denies himself and insists that he is growing rich by isolation. The satire of the ballad is matched by silly nations.

BALANCE OF TRADE AND DANIEL WEBSTER.

I wish there were time to consider the balance of trade theory, which, having been exploded again and again, bobs up its stupid head perennially, and still scares a multitude of excellent people. It is soberly argued that the more wealth we send out of the country, and the less we take into it, the richer we shall be. If a merchant’s income is continually less than his outgo, it is a question of a short time when his note goes to protest. But men who call themselves merchants deplore an excess of imports over exports. Let me borrow an illustration from Daniel Webster’s speech in congress in 1824:

Some years ago, in better times than the present, a ship left one of the towns of New England with 70,000 specie dollars. She pro- ceeded to Mocha, on the Red sea, and there laid out these dollars in coffee, drugs, spices and other articles procured in that market. With this new cargo she proceeded to Europe; two-thirds of it were sold in Holland for $130,000, which the ship brought back and placed in the same bank from the vaults of which she had taken her original outfit. The other third was sent to the ports of the Mediterranean and produced a return of $25,000 in specie and $15,000 in Italian merchandise. These sums make together $170,000 imported, which is $100,000 more than was exported, and is, therefore, proof of an unfavorable balance of trade to that amount in this adventure.

Upon this transaction the custom house here would register as follows: “Exports, $70,000; imports, $170,000.” “Dreadful!” says the protectionist, “the country must pay this $100,000 in gold. So much dead loss!” But the merchant pockets his profits and lets the theorist do the worrying. If the ship had sunk on its passage out the record would have stood: “Exports, $70,000; imports, none.” “Splendid!” says our philosopher,” rubbing his hands^sic, “so much gain for the country!” But the insurance company, pay- ing the loss, takes another view of the situation.

SOME CONUNDRUMS.

We like to ask such conundrums as this to these protective brothers: How is it that the excess of imports in England over exports was £1,000,000,000 the last forty years, and yet, instead of losing gold more specie was imported than sent out, amounting on an average to about one million sterling a year? Instead of England owing this enormous amount to foreign nations it has increased its investments abroad by about £1,000,000,000. Instead of growing poorer it has grown enormously richer while that has been going on. Advocates of protection assume that a tariff creates wealth. It never created anything but a disturbance. If to tax is to create, how easy it is to get rich! As a nation we are trying that impossibility. In the terse language of Professor Sumner, “Pennsylvania taxes New England on raw wool, New England taxes Pennsylvania and Ohio on the finished wools and finished cottons. All tax each other all round, and they are all expected to get rich by the operation.” Now protection can substract^sic from wealth, but is not able to add to it. It has the power to destroy but not to increase resources. It can concentrate capital and labor on special employments, but only at the expense of other occupations. It can change the direction of capital and labor from their natural inclination, just as human interference can alter the channels of streams which it cannot create water to fill. Restrictive laws can build up certain industries because of the monopoly granted, but always at the expense of some other industry, which has suffered or been prevented from developing in consequence.

HOW PROTECTION HAS FOSTERED MONOPOLY.

Let me give an instance recently cited by Mr. Shearman: Some cotton manufacturers persuaded the committee that framed the tariff of 1883 to impose a duty on fine cottons which are used in making ruches. It resulted within a few weeks after the tariff went into effect in throwing out of employment 3,000 women engaged in making ruches, because the material had been made too costly for further use. This in the interest of American labor! The tax on copper ore helped the Calumet and Heckla^sic mining company to make its favored stockholders rich, but somebody suffered. For one it ruined the smelting works of the Revere copper company, near Boston, which had a capital of $300,000 and employed 100 to 150 hands a year. The ore it brought from Chili gave occupation to vessels which carried, not gold in payment, but our manufactured boots and shoes and cottons. For what end was this destruction? That the richest copper mine in the world, which can compete successfully with all others under freedom, might control the price of copper in this country and market its surplus in Europe many cents cheaper than the people who granted the bounty to the mine were allowed to buy it.

THE QUESTION ONE OF JUSTICE.

The free traders have an embarrassment of riches in facts and figures; but to me the question is one of justice more than arithmetic, although I affirm the perfect agreement between truth and mathematics. There is no conflict between Adam Smith and Euclid. “I warn and entreat you,” said Mr. Gladstone, “never to argue the question of free commerce as if it were a material question alone. It is just as strong in its political, in its social, and in its moral aspects, as it is in its operation

p. 6, col. 4 upon the production and increase of wealth.” I hold, therefore, that the discussion is not an abstract one regarding the wisdom of certain laws affecting the distribution of commodities, but rather the practical one, How much longer will a people submit to impoverishment under the delusion that a tariff protects them? Or, as Mr. Blaine, whose issue I accept, puts it, the question is, “Whether the great mass of the American citizens who earn their bread by the sweat of their brows shall be seriously reduced in their emoluments from day to day—that is the whole pith and moment of the campaign.” It is an interesting question to consider.

WHY MR. BLAINE LOVES THE LABORING MAN.

Why does Mr. Blaine love the laboring man so much about this time? Do you suppose that the means of bettering his condition was the absorbing topic of the magnetic statesman and Mr. Carnegie as they looked at the poor workmen of England from the top of their tallyho coach? Doubtless they thought of him, Mr. Carnegie revolving possibilities of suppressing strikes of his unreasonable employes and Mr. Blaine planning to capture that most valuable possession which the tariff has not yet been able to confiscate—the laborer’s vote.

You remember the story of the man who plunged boldly into the stream and rescued another from drowning. When complimented on his humanity he explained that the drowning man had his jackknife, which was the object of his heroism. Mr. Blaine is talking benevolently about the laborers in order to get that ballot, and appears to be anxious about the reduction of his emolument and whether he must earn less bread by the sweat of his brow. If there were more thinking behind that workman’s brow there would be less sweat to wipe off. When that time comes we shall have manlier statesmen and fewer demagogues.

THE LABORER’S COMMODITY IS HIS LABOR.

A merchant deals in commodities which are more or less affected by the tariff taxes. A duty on woolen goods or iron may for the time bring profit to the producer’s pocket, but the laborer has no commodity to sell except his labor, upon which no tariff exists.

When the claim is made that protection raises the price of labor it is in order for the claimant to prove the fact, which we deny in toto. Wages are as much advanced by the breezes that blow over the Alleghanies as by the tariff. If there is more labor offered than employment, then wages are low. In all new countries, like America and Australia, where opportunities for employment are many compared with the labor offered, wages are high. In Australia, protection exists in Victoria. By its side, in New South Wales, free trade prevails. Wages are about alike in both places, better, if anything, in the unprotected community. France and Germany are highly protected; England has, comparatively, free trade, yet her scale of wages is fifty per cent higher than theirs. In this country wages are higher than in England, which is at once attributed to protection, an explanation which fails to explain. If tariff makes wages higher here, why do they not produce a like result in the protected continental nations?

The protection theorist never faces this question. We practical free traders do.

HIGH WAGES, CHEAP PRODUCTION.

Wages vary as the profits of production vary, and not as tariffs vary. Here profits are large because of the favorable opportunities for enterprise which make production profitable, and wages share the benefit. But the rate of wages is far from deciding the cost of production, for the highest wages are found with the cheapest production. Labor which produces much will receive much. That is the true law. The wages of labor can not be increased by making the product more costly. A tax lessens the output of industry and tends to lower wages. High wages, cheap production. Low wages, costly production. Herein lies the nation’s advantage. We have the cheapest labor in the world be- cause it is the most efficient, the most intelligent, the most thrifty, the most ambitious.

MORAL ASPECT OF THE QUESTION.

In closing, let me lift the discussion from the plane of economics to the plane of morals. We live in a community professing belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Its ministers proclaim that “God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth,” and the golden rule furnishes a text for moving sermons. On Christmas, amid the decorations of the churches, high over all may be read the motto, ’Peace on earth and good will to men^sic.” The spirit of protection is alien to all these sentiments of love and justice. The brotherhood of man is arbitrarily confined to national [limits?]. All outside are natural enemies, to be despoiled and disregarded. “Do unto others as you would they should do unto you” is treated as a glittering generality. Protection embodies the essence of war, retaliation and jealousy, and rejoices in armies and armaments and battleships. Patriotism is exalted above Christianity. Imaginary lines divide human friend- ship, and “mountains interposed make enemies of nations which had else, like kindred drops, been mingled into one.”

In our school geographies we learned as children the civilizing effect of commerce. The pictures of great ships carrying the productions of one clime to exchange with those of another for mutual benefit conveyed a noble lesson. We send out cooling ice to the tropics and bring back luscious fruits in pay. Interdependence is nobler than independence.

A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.

I aspire to be a citizen of the world and not the subject of any province. Little we dreamed as we conned the lesson of the ship that in manhood we should be asked to believe that commerce is harmful and that scarcity should be the social aim; that Chinese walls were a better emblem than white winged vessels, and that America, with self-destroyed shipping, should worship protection for the sake of protection. Protection is selfishness enthroned, and like all power that builds its throne on outraged rights, its doom is certain. It may hold its unhallowed sway for a time, but it must pass surely into the graveyard of the Spanish inquisition and American slavery, a fit companion of those extinct wrongs.

The Single Tax and Railways.

CHICAGO.—A single tax man of prominence here asserts that absolute free trade is not the single tax applied; that railways could still remain private corporations contemporaneous with the full enforcement of the single tax. That is that the land monopoly and the railway monopoly are in essence distinct; one is the appropriation by individuals of economic rent, the other is not.

I assert on the contrary that the single tax idea does involve the resumption by the state of all such monopolies as the railway; that state resumption of railways is but the taking for public use of economic rent, and is therefore only another form of the application of the single tax. I conclude in this way that any steps toward the banishment of the tariff are in the direction of the accomplishment of our reform—absolute free trade—which has a broader and deeper significance than my disputant understands by the term “single tax.” Please give us your opinion.

JAMES MALCOLM.

Absolute free trade is not the single tax applied. The single tax, that is the tax on land values, is already applied; but other taxes are imposed along with it, of which tariff taxes are largely in the majority. To abolish tariff taxes is to compel direct taxation for federal purposes. This direct taxation might be a land value tax or it might not; but when the necessity of raising these revenues by direct taxation arose, we should be compelled to choose between land values and something else, and there is not much doubt that the land value tax would carry the day. To abolish tariff taxes is to clear the way for the extension of the single tax.

Railways could remain private corporations contemporaneously with the full enforcement of the single tax, but not with the spirit of the single tax idea. You must remember that the single tax is both a means and an end. As a fiscal policy it is an end, but as a mode of securing common property for common use it is a means. As a fiscal policy it does not involve public management of highways, though it would appropriate the value of those natural advantages which railways acquire; but as a mode of equalizing common benefits, the single tax involves the idea of securing to the public the benefit of those franchises from the state which make railways monopolies. But I think you are wrong in claiming that the railway monopoly, as such, is an appropriation by individuals of economic rent. Such monopolies do appropriate economic rent, but it is as land owners and not as railroads. Economic rent has a technical significance, and though railway monopoly is in a restricted degree similar to land monopoly, the two are distinct.

Any step toward the abolition of the tariff is obviously, it seems to me, in the direction of absolute free trade. We are not aiming to create a new form of taxation, but to abolish all existing forms save one.

A Question of Intent.

BROOKLYN, N. Y.—I have been living in this city one year, but on account of a strike which I was in last spring I left the city from about June 6 to July 15. I have already registered, but am told that my vote will be challenged. Have I a right to swear it in?

JAMES A. MILLEN.

If you have lived in this state for a year or more, with the intention of remaining in it permanently, you are a voter in any county in which you have resided for four months prior to November 6. Your absence from Brooklyn from June 6 to July 15 does not affect your right to vote there, unless you left with the intention of remaining away permanently. If when you left you intended to return as soon as your business would permit, you did not lose your residence, and may swear in your vote.

Hatters.

NEW YORK.—I am engaged in the hat trade. (1) What effect would the total abolition of the duties on all materials entering into a hat, also duties on manufactured hats, have on the manufacturers here?

2. What proportion of the fur is imported, and would it be possible to procure the whole supply in this country?

3. How do the yearly wages compare in hats between this country and England, also the amount of work done by each? and oblige yours respectfully,

DANIEL J. MCCARTHY, 122 East Twentieth street.

1. It would reduce cost of production, lessen price, increase demand, expand the trade, make it easier for men of small capital to engage in the business, and augment wages by making demand for more hatters.

2. I do not know; but whether it would or not, fur would be cheaper and wages higher.

3. I do not know. You, as a hatter, ought to have means of ascertaining. I do not doubt that in your industry, as in others, the labor cost of making a hat here is less than the labor cost of producing the same kind of hat abroad. Investigate carefully and let me know the result.

Australian Voting.

NEW YORK.—How many votes could be polled in an hour under the Australian system^sic.

S. EVANS.

It would depend on how many booths were provided. An average of twenty men an hour to each booth would be a fair estimate.

LOUIS F. POST.

Balance of Trade.

PEEKSKILL, N. Y.—Mr. Post in his article entitled “Goods for gold,” speaking of the “balance” resulting from our foreign trade, says: “The real balance never can run that way,” i. e. against America.

May I ask for the authority for that statement—it seems a very important one.

D. C. HASBROUCK.

If you will read the paragraph over you will see that further on Mr. Post says: “When it appears to [run that way] and we are shipping gold to settle balances, it is either because it is then profitable to export gold as goods, or because we are paying rents, bonds, corporation dividends or donations to foreigners, for none of which do we receive either money or goods.” That is, we do not pay for goods in money, we always pay for them in merchandise, whether that merchandise be gold or silver bullion, or grain and carpets and hats and books. We do not send money abroad, nor do other nations

p. 7, col. 2 send us money. What little United States currency you find in a foreign country is what travelers have carried there in their pockets, and the few bills and eagles and dollars which money brokers have on hand to supply as pocket money to those who want to come here.

In trade a nation always gets back more than it sends, in the sense that it sends what it does not need and gets in return what it does need. Therefore, the the balance of trade^sic, if there were such a thing, never could be against a nation. But if you take into consideration the whole trade of a nation with all other na tions, there is no such thing as a balance of trade. If a nation imports more than it exports, as rich England does, or if it exports more than it imports as bankrupt Egypt does, and as the protectionists would like us to do, then it is not on account of trade, but because the people of the country which imports most own lands and railroad bonds and stocks, etc., of other countries, and draw rent and interest from the other countries, and vice versa.

Taxing Chemicals.

CINCINNATI, Ohio.—The following is from McKinley’s speech here on October 17. What is the explanation of this reduction in price?

If Mr. Cleveland had known the history of his own state he would never have committed such a fallacy. I will take him down to the city of Syracuse, under the shadow almost of Buffalo, and point him to a factory there established since 1884, a factory that makes soda ash, which we had never produced in this country prior to 1884. By the tariff of 1883 the republican party put a tariff of $5 per ton on foreign soda ash, and when we had done that a party of gentlemen in that city said: “We will try its manufacture,” and they invested a million and a half of dollars in the plant. They made a success of it. Prior to 1884 we paid $48 per ton for all soda ash used in this country. Now we pay $28 per ton, $5 duty and all.

C. S. W.

Major McKinley stopped when he had reached the “point of least resistance” to his theory. That is all right for a politician, but bad for a political economist. He should have stated that, while the price of soda ash declined to $28 per ton of 2,000 pounds in this country, under a tariff of $5 a ton, it declined to $21.71 a ton in Europe; and that last year we imported 131,637 tons of it in spite of the $5 duty and freight charges; and that under free trade our manufacturers could have bought it for more than $5 less than the $28 rate. Our country is the only country which taxes chemicals heavily, for most chemicals are used in manufactures, and to tax them is to discourage manufactures. Soda ash is one of the chief materials used in glass manufacture, and the $658,185 duty on soda ash which our glass and other manufacturers paid into an overflowing national treasury last year was just so much discouragement to glass making.

A Ribbon Maker’s Yarn.

NEW YORK.—A friend of mine, in politics a protectionist, in every thing else a very reasonable man, is engaged in the manufacture of silk ribbons. He assures me that if the duty was taken off imported ribbons he would have to close his factory, or else reduce wages fifty per cent. Although raw silk comes in free, the manufacturer’s profit is but very meager, and the ribbons made here sell for about the same price as the imported ribbons, in spite of a fifty per cent duty on the latter. How can you effectively answer the above in favor of free trade?

M. BITTINER.

I also am acquainted with a gentleman engaged in the manufacture of silk ribbons, and four years ago, when the democrats did not indulge in one-tenth as much free trade talk as they do this year, he went around saying that if Cleveland were elected he and his partners would probably close up their factory entirely. But Cleveland was elected and they kept on making ribbons. If business was different after than before the election, why they just accomodated^sic themselves to the changed conditions. Wonderful how easily a man can do that—when he tries. But free trade does not mean that the duty will be taken off ribbons and be retained on other things; it means the abolition of all custom house duties. It means free dyes, free silk thread, yarn or twist (from which the ribbons are woven) and free machinery, as well as the opening up of a great trade with countries that as yet have no silk factories to speak of, and that would take ribbons in payment for their products. Dyes are not so great an item in the cost as might be sup posed, but the thread, yarn or twist which the ribbon makers use to manufacture into ribbons is a very important item, and on this material there is a duty of thirty per cent. Would free trade in silk thread hurt the ribbon maker? Under free trade ribbons would sell for less, much less, for I understand that the manufacturers at present add almost the full fifty per cent duty to the price of their goods. But cheap goods do not mean ruination to business. On the contrary, it is not until inventions make things cheap that there is any great trade or profit in them. There is more money made to-day, ten thousand times over, in making and selling twenty-five cent books than was made by the engrossers of old manuscript books or by the men who printed books in the days when they bound them in metal and wood and chained them to the reading desks.

Cheaper goods mean more wealth, more demand for goods and materials, more employment, more profit. And free trade means cheaper goods. If your friend means to say that American ribbons sell here as low as the foreign ribbon would sell here under free trade, how does he explain the fact that since importer Wanamaker has had ribbons classed as “material for hats” and dutiable only twenty per cent instead of fifty per cent, the ribbon makers are howling that blue ruin is on them? Surely, if our manufacturers sell their ribbons as cheap as the foreigners can, they do not need more than twenty per cent duty.

Distribution of Products.

LYNN, Mass.—What portion of the total production of manufacturing industries in the United States goes to labor in wages?

R. K.

According to the census of 1880 the value of the total product turned out by manufacturing establishments was $5,369,579,000, of which $3,396,824,000 was the value of material used; hence the increased value added by the processes of manufacture was the difference between

p. 7, col. 3 these two, which is $1,972,755,000. This last amount was really the value of the product of our manufacturing industries. It was divided as follows: Wages paid, $947,954.000^sic=48 per cent; rent, profits, insurance, $1.024,801,000^sic=52 per cent; total, $1,972,755,000.

Of the value of the completed article 63 1-3 per cent was the value of the material used; 17 2-3 per cent was wages paid; 19 per cent was rent, profits, etc. It is not fair, however, to say that labor gets only 17 2-3 per cent of the product of manufactures, because that does not take in the amount which went to labor in the production of the material. It is fair to presume that 48 per cent of that went to labor, in wages also, as well as 48 per cent of the added value which comes from the final processes of manufacture.

This is the best answer that can be given from the census returns, but there is no doubt that they are far from accurate.

W. B. SCOTT.

Notes.

Charles A. Crouch, Bartow-on-Sound, N. Y.—Of course your answer was right. To admit that business or manufacturing can be helped by making materials, tools and machinery dear, or that wages are raised by a swindling system of indirect larceny, would be to give up the whole strength of your position.

Isaac Feinberg.—See query and answer above entitled “Distribution of Products.”

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With these non-poisonous colors for children we issue several series of outline illustrations of familiar subjects as practice sheets. The original design is furnished in each case by some leading artist, and is strictly correct in form and detail. Directions how to paint them are furnished with every series. One specimen sheet of each series is furnished, colored by hand, in order to serve the children as a guide for harmonious coloring, and as an example of artistic work is the foundation of taste. The instruction is all the mere successful^sic because supplied in the form of amusement.

PRICE OF PRANG’S NON-POISONOUS COLORS:

Palette Colors— Palette A, containing six colors with brush, 10 cents. Palette B, containing nine colors with brush, 15 cents.

Eagle Colors— Box No. 2, containing eight colors and brush, 25 cents. Box No. 4, containing twelve colors and two brushes, 40 cents.

One box No. 2 of Prang’s non-poisonous colors and one package of Prang’s outline pictures (eight in a package with an extra copy of one of them painted by hand and full directions) 50 cents.

Or one box No. 2 of Prang’s non-poisonous colors and three packages of Prang’s outline pictures (each package different in design), [$1.00?].

To be found at all leading stationers, or will be sent by mail postpaid on receipt of price.

A RARE OPPORTUNITY.

PORTRAIT OF HENRY GEORGE IN COLORS,

Only One Dollar.

The man whose right principles and deep convictions have made the great movement for the single tax on land values thus far successful, must be dear to thousands who watch and approve his course.

But his features are not so familiar, and the esteem in which he is held has prompted many requests for the publication of his picture in worthy and permanent form.

Realizing this urgent demand, we beg to announce the publication of an entirely new and very striking portrait of

HENRY GEORGE.

It is in colors and is full life size, designed to be framed to an inside measurement of [17x22?] inches.

A similar picture of the eminent

DOCTOR M’GLYNN

is offered at the same price, which is as near as possible to actual cost, to bring these pictures within the reach of all who desire to purchase.

Either picture will be sent, on receipt of price, by mail, postpaid. Remittances may be made either by check, post office order, registered letter, or postal note.

L. PRANG & CO., ART PUBLISHERS, Boston, Mass. NEW YORK—38 Bond street. CHICAGO—79 Wabash avenue. SAN FRANCISCO—529 Commercial street.

A descriptive list of Christmas and New Year cards, novelties, booklets and satin art prints sent on application.

p. 7, col. 5

[Advertisement] BELFORD’S MAGAZINE.

BELFORD’S MAGAZINE.

Edited by Donn Piatt.

BELFORD’S MAGAZINE, published monthly, is devoted to politics, fiction, poetry, general literature, science and art.

In politics the new magazine will give an independent support to the democratic party and to the present administration. It will advocate the extinguishment of the surplus by a reform of the present iniquitous and burdensome tariff in the direction of free trade, or of a tariff for revenue only.

The department of fiction will be exceptionally full. Instead of a serial story, dragging its length through several months, and exhausting the patience of the reader, a complete novel will be published in each number; and each issue will also contain one or more short stories complete.

Colonel Donn Piatt is assisted by a staff of sub-editors, and also by a large number of able contributors, among whom are

David A. Welles, | Gen. H. V. Boynton, Hon. Frank H. Hurd, | Sarah B. M. Piatt, Prof. W. G. Sumner, | Edgar Fawcett, J. S. Moore (Parsee Merchant), | Joel Benton, Hon. John G. Carlisle, | Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Henry Watterson, | Rev. George Lorimer, Henry George, | E. Heron-Allen, Julian Hawthorne, | Coates-Kinney, Edgar Saltus, | James Witcomb Riley^sic, John James Piatt, | Soule Smith (“Falcon”), Thos. G. Shearman, | Gertrude Garrison.

BELFORD’S MONTHLY is a first class medium for advertising, as the publishers guarantee a bona-fide circulation of at least 70,000 copies per month.

Price, $2.50 a year, or 25 cents per number.

[Advertisement] TARIFF BOOKS.

TARIFF BOOKS.

THE TARIFF ON IMPORTS INTO THE UNITED STATES, AND THE FREE LIST,

As contained in act of March 3, 1883, also the Hawaiian Reciprocity Treaty, and extracts from the Navigation and Oleomargarine acts. Indexed. 12mo. Paper covers, 25 cents.

A most useful book. In a moment you can find the exact tax on any article imported into the United States, and the names of everything on the free list. Invaluable to editors and all interested in the great tariff question now so freely discussed.

AN APPEAL TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AS A JURY.

SPEECHES ON THE TARIFF delivered in the House of Representatives in the great debate, April 17—May 19, 1888.

SPECIALLY SELECTED FROM BOTH SIDES.

Carefully revised and published by authority. Compiled by William G. Terrell. Large 12mo. cloth, $1; paper, 50 cents.

The following is a list of the names of the honorable gentlemen whose speeches are printed in the work:

Hon. Mr. Mills of Texas. Hon. Mr. Kelley of Pennsylvania. Hon. Mr. Scott of Pennsylvania. Hon. Mr. Wilson of West Virginia. Hon. Mr. McKinley of Ohio. Hon. Mr. McMillin of Tennessee. Hon. Mr. Butterworth of Ohio. Hon. Mr. Cox of New York. Hon. Mr. Burrows of Michigan. Hon. Mr. Reed of Maine. Hon. Mr. Carlisle of Kentucky.

Special editions of not less than 2,000 copies for campaign purposes made at greatly reduced prices. If required, all the republican speeches can be had in a separate volume, or all the democratic ones likewise.

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF: WHAT IT DOES FOR US.

BY GENERAL HERMANN LIEB.

Fourth edition, with revisions and additions. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00.

THE PRESS UNANIMOUS IN ITS PRAISE.

This book shows the practical effect of the protective system upon the country. Perhaps the most conspicuous feature of the book is its exact alignment with the message of President Cleveland. But for the fact that the General’s work was in print before the message was made public, it might be supposed he had written it to defend the president’s position on the tariff.

The position of Mr. Blaine’s “Twenty Years in Congress” is taken up, his assertions upon the tariff are analyzed, criticised and made to furnish their own refutation.

The arrangement of the subject is in a most convenient form, and renders what is usually considered a most abtruse^sic subject easy of comprehension. It would serve as a tariff primer for the learner as well as a text book for the learned.

For sale everywhere, or may be had of the publishers on receipt of price, free of postage.

A Great Literary Hit.

OLD MAN GILBERT.

By Elizabeth W. Bellamy.

Small 8vo. cloth………………..$1.00 Paper covers…………………..50 cts.

Originally published in Belford’s Magazine.

WHAT DREAMS MAY COME.

A Romance by Frank Lin.

12mo., Cloth, $1.00. Paper Covers, 50 cents.

A book, which although undoubtedly unconventional, yet is in no wise dependent upon that quality for its success. Its interest lies in its absorbing plot, in its strong dramatic treatment, and in the bold yet logical handling of one of the most difficult and least used subjects in literature.

WHY WAS IT?

A Novel. By Lewis Benjamin.

12 mo., Cloth, $1.50. Paper Covers, 50 cents.

This book tells the story of the loving devotion of a gifted woman who gives up her life to the task of saving a man, equally gifted, from threatened ruin.

The scenes are laid in Washington, California and the new West. The [incidents?] at the Capital are true to life, and deeply interesting. The descriptions, especially the war scenes and scenes in the west, are very clear and graphic, and in parts very beautiful. Each dramatic climax is well brought about, and the tone and sentiment is pure throughout. Whoever reads the first chapters of this book will read it to the end, and the publishers believe that it will be warmly welcomed by a very large class of readers.

MARIE, A SEASIDE EPISODE.

By J. P. Ritter, Jr. With Illustrations by Coultaus.

Cloth, $1. Paper Covers, 50 cents.

In this poem the author tells an interesting love story in an exceedingly bright, clever and amusing fashion that reminds one a good deal of Byron’s “Beppo.” Incidentally, he satirizes society in a light vein of humor, and in a style that is graceful and epigrammatic. The volume contains over forty illustrations, and is an admirable specimen of the book maker’s art.

THE PRINCESS DAPHNE.

12mo. Cloth, [$1.00?].

In paper covers, illustrated by a remarkable and unique drawing by E. Hamilton Bell, 50 cents.

The heroine of this thrilling story is a creole descended from two of the original settlers of New Orleans. The story deals with phases of Bohemian life in New York and London; with love, mesmerism, death, transmigration and reincarnation; it is told in an undisguised realistic fashion that reminds one of Daudet’s “Sapho;” and it has a most startling denouement.

EDEN.

By Edgar Saltus,

Author of “The Truth About Tristem Varick^sic,” etc.

Cloth, [$1.00?]. Paper, [50?] cents.

In this novel Mr. Saltus describes an episode in a honeymoon. The plot is dramatic, the action nervous, and the scene Fifth avenue. As a picture of contemporaneous life it will be condemned by every lover of the commonplace.

EROS.

A Novel by Laura Daintrey,

Author of “Miss Varian of New York,” “Caprice,” etc., etc.

12mo., cloth, $1; paper cover, 50 cents.

Strong, interesting and a seller.

Order at once to secure a supply from first edition.

BELFORD, CLARKE & CO.,

PUBLISHERS,

Chicago, New York and San Francisco.

p. 7, col. 6

[Advertisement] OWN A SINGLE TAX PAPER (Tax Reform Company)

OWN A SINGLE TAX PAPER. MUCH effective work [during and after?] the campaign can be done by the publication of a local paper. We can furnish [500?] [8-column?] papers, containing much free trade single tax matter, for [$1.50?] per issue. [These?] will be headed and dated for any village or city. At a little extra expense items of local interest, making points against local opponents, will be inserted. The publisher will have complete control over his own paper; he can insert in it any reading matter or advertisements he pleases, collecting his own pay for subscriptions, sales and advertising. All we have to do with the plan is to furnish the work from a central office and divide the expense among the publishers. These papers can be entered at local post offices as second class matter, and can then be mailed at a cost of four cents per [100?] copies for postage. This is a very important item for clubs and groups to consider. Samples free. Write for fuller information to

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[Advertisement] HENRY GEORGE’S WORKS.

HENRY GEORGE’S WORKS.

PROGRESS AND POVERTY,

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

BY HENRY GEORGE.

[512?] pages. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 35 cents. Half calf or half morocco, $2.50.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS.

BY HENRY GEORGE.

[342?] pages. Cloth, $1.00. Paper covers, 35 cents. Half calf or half morocco, $2.50.

PROTECTION OR FREE TRADE?

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

BY HENRY GEORGE.

Cloth, $1.50. Paper covers, 35 cents. Half calf or half morocco, $3.00.

THE LAND QUESTION.

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

BY HENRY GEORGE.

87 pages. Paper covers, 10 cents.

PROPERTY IN LAND.

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

77 pages. Paper covers, 15 cents.

FORTSCHRITT AND ARMUTH.

(Progress and Poverty in German.)

TRANSLATION OF C. D. F. GUTSCHOW.

430 pages. Paper covers, 35 cents.

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

HENRY GEORGE, 12 Union square, New York.

[Advertisement] LAND AND LABOR LIBRARY

LAND AND LABOR LIBRARY

The following is a list of tracts in print:

1. First Principles. Henry George. 4 pages.
2. Land and Taxation. David Dudley Field and Henry George. 4 pages.
3. Right to the Use of the Earth. Herbert Spencer. 4 pp.
4. A Christian Minister on the Remedy for Poverty. Hugh O. Pentecost. 2 pages.
5. A Sum in Proportion. T. L. McCready. 2 pages.
6. Settler’s Nightmare. Louis F. Post. 4 pages.
7. New York’s Docks. J. W. Sullivan. 4 pages.
8. Unemployed Labor. Henry George. 4 pages.
9. Mysterious Disappearance. Lewis Freeland. 6 pp.
10. How to Increase Profits. A. J. Steers. 2 pages.
11. The American Farmer. Henry George. 4 pages.
12. Sailors’ Snug Harbor and the Randall Farm. W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.
13. The Collegiate Church and Shoemaker’s Field. W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.
14. Only a Dream. Abner C. Thomas. 4 pages.
15. It is the Law of Christ. Rev. S. H. Spencer. 4 pp.
16. My Landlord. John Jones. 4 pages.
17. “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” Henry George. 8 pages.
18. Christianity and Poverty. Father Huntington. 4 pp.
19. Poverty and Christianity. H. O. Pentecost. 8 pages.
20. The Single Tax. Thomas G. Shearman. 8 pages.
21. Religion vs. Robbery. Rev. Dr. McGlynn. 8 pages.
22. Back to the Land. Bishop Nulty. 16 pages.
23. Anti-slavery and Anti-poverty. H. O. Pentecost. 8 pp.
24. Tenement House Morality. J. O. S. Huntington. 4 pp.
25. The Case Plainly Stated. H. F. Ring. 8 pages.
26. Questions by Rev. [Howard Henderson?], with answers by Henry George. [2?] pages.
27. Objections to the Land Tax. Thos. G. Shearman. 4pp
28. Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error. Henry George. 4 pages.
29. Horse Sense. W. C. Woods, M. D. 2 pages.
30. Taxing Land Values. Henry George. [8?] pages.
31. “God Wills It.” Henry George. 4 pages.
32. What We Want. [Everett Glackin?], ex-president Typographical Union No. 6. 2 pages.
33. How John’s Father Saw the Light. W. C. Woods. 2pp
34. The Distribution of Wealth. T. G. Shearman. 16pp
35. Ten Thoughts for Christian Thinkers. Rev. John W. Kramer. 4 pages.
36. What the United Labor Party Want. Henry George. 2 pages.
37. Stories for Farmers. 4 pages.
38. Electoral Reform. A. T. [illegible]. 4 pages.
39. A Practical Illustration. [Hugh G. Brown?]. 2 pages.
40. Hints as to What You Can Do. Henry George. 4 pp.
41. [illegible] [illegible] [illegible]. 2 pages
42. A Lawyer’s Reply to Criticisms. Samuel B. Clarke. 16 pages.
43. A Piece of Land. The late Francis G. Shaw. 2 pp.
44. The Tax on [Buildings?]. William T. Croasdale. [9?] pp.
45. My Butcher Woman and My Grocery Man. William McCabe. 4 pages.
46. Election Reform. Louis F. Post. 12 pages.
47. A Republican’s Reasons for Supporting Cleveland. Judge Frank T. Reid. 2 pages.
48. The [Sugar Bounty?]. [illegible]. 2 pages.
49. The Onward March. William Lloyd Garrison. 4 pp.
50. A Republican’s Reasons for Supporting Cleveland. Judge Frank T. Reid. 2 pages.
51. A [illegible]. [illegible]. [illegible] pages.
52. The Onward March. William Lloyd Garrison. 4 pp.
53. Jefferson and Hamilton. Chauncey F. Black. 8 pp.

GERMAN TRACTS.

42. First Principles. Henry George. 4 pages.
43. Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error. Henry George. 4 pages.
44. Taxing Land Values. Henry George. 4 pages.
45. It is the Law of Christ. Rev. S. H. Spencer of Henry, Ill. 4 pages.
46. The Case Plainly Stated. H. F. Ring. 4 pages.
47. Sailors’ Snug Harbor. Wm. T. Croasdale. 12 pages

SWEDISH.

52. The Case Plainly Stated. H. F. Ring. [8?] pages.

TARIFF TRACTS.

57. Protection as a Universal Need. Henry George. 4 pages.
58. The Tariff Question. Henry George. 4 pages.
59. American Protection and British Free Trade. Henry George. [4?] pages.
60. Protection and Wages. Henry George. 8 pages.
61. The Common Sense of the Tariff Question. Thomas G. Shearman. [8?] pages.
62. Protection [illegible] Labor? Thomas G. Shearman. [8?] pages.
63. A Short Tariff History. Thomas G. Shearman. 4 pages.
64. Plain Talk to Protectionists. Thomas G. Shearman. 4 pages.
65. An Address to Workingmen on the Tariff Question. Henry George. 4 pages.
66. Protection, the Enemy of Wages. Thomas G. Shearman. [illegible].

A set of these Tariff Tracts will be sent to any address for ten cents.

Prices, free by mail: Two-page tracts—[50?] copies, 10 cents; 100 copies, 15 cents; [1,000 copies, $1?]; [5,000?] copies, $[3.25?].

Four-page tracts—[25?] copies, 10 cents; 100 copies, [30?] cents; 1,000 copies, [$2?]; [5,000?] copies, $[8.50?].

Six-page tracts—[illegible] copies, [illegible] cents; 100 copies, [45?] cents; 1,000 copies, $[3.50?]; [5,000?] copies, $[15?].

Eight-page tracts—[25?] copies, 20 cents; 100 copies 50 cents; 1,000 copies, $[4?]; [5,000?] copies, $[17?].

Twelve-page tracts—25 copies, 30 cents; 100 copies, 75 cents; 1,000 copies, $[6?]; [5,000?] copies, $[25?].

Sixteen-page tracts—[25?] copies, [illegible] cents; 100 copies, $1; 1,000 copies, $[8?]; 5,000 copies, $[35?].

A special set of [illegible], [comprising?] fifty or more of the most popular tracts, will be sent for 20 cents.

Other numbers in preparation.

Address [THE STANDARD?], 12 Union square, New York city.

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A Few of Its Recent Statements Analyzed.

GENEVA, Switzerland.—A recent copy of the New York Weekly Press, sent me by a good-hearted friend of mine, a printer, reached me a few days ago. Being made up of the cream of the daily editions for a week, the paper gives the sum and substance of the protectionist argument and puts in type the awful terrors of protectionist stage thunder. Its contents, indeed, are calculated to astound the statisticians, puzzle the men of common sense and make the American workingman’s skin creep.

This issue of the Press is strong in history, in prophecy and in reasoning, its strength being that of dogmatic statement and evasive argument.

It asserts: “When we took off the duty on imported coffee, Brazil put on an export duty”—a misstatement, the detailed contradiction of which, made long ago, seems not to have come under its notice. It says: “Free trade breeds monopolies and trusts and destroys small concerns”—a discovery in the science of political economy, it having been commonly thought that the market for a commodity in a single country might be more quickly monopolized than the markets of the world. Of Great Britain it says: “In that happy free trade land a handful of lords and a score of corporations own everything”—which, while evoking a query as to what sort of “lords” are referred to, is not entirely accurate as to the corporations. It parades the growth of production in certain American industries, but makes no reference to the contemporaneous increase of population. It proves the reduction in price of certain commodities during the era of high protection the past twenty-five years and leaves out of the question such causes as increased demand and production, the better organization of industry, the trebling of the number of miles of railroad in America, and the improvements in machinery which outstrip all ever made before in the history of mankind.

In depicting disaster and forewarning the American workingman of worse to come, the paper does its imagination credit. The degraded condition of the European worker moves its pity, and between that degradation and the millions of American toilers it sees only the giant god Protection. If the power of protection is reduced wages must go down to the European level. The consequences of the slightly diminished idol Protection proposed by the Mills’ bill, which can not become a law, have already been most dire. Factories are being closed all over the country, wages are being reduced, the unemployed are beginning to clamor for bread, industries are being destroyed, trade is at a standstill, and “financial ruin stalks through the land.”

This earnest newspaper goes through the motions of arguing. Tho brunt^sic of this work is done in patience-exhausting figures—figures, perhaps true, but true or not, of no relevancy to the question; figures apparently true, as far as they go, but halting short of the whole truth, and figures that err, as figures alone can err, since with erroneous figures not only is every type an inaccuracy, but it serves to multiply error beyond the reckoning of arithmetic. What error more glaring than that contained in tables purporting to represent the earnings of wage workers of the same trade in Europe and America, with the assumption that the figures are correct, and that they indicate all the conditions of the workers. One set may be given by an employer, who is inclined to make the figures high, the other by an employe, who puts them low, or both may be made by men ignorant or indifferent as to their truth, such as consuls are apt sometimes to be. One set may give averages for a year, the other the figures for a single week. One set of the wage earners may pay high prices for what they consume, and the other low prices. And other circumstances might lead the man receiving low cash wages to prefer his condition to that of the man who gets the greater amount of money. There are good printers working for $[5?] a week at only a few hours’ distance from New York, who believe they are better off now than when they earned $16 in that city.

The drift of the argument in the Press is to the effect that the commodities produced with the low wages of Europe would drive out of the American market the commodities now produced with the high wages of America. The assumption is constantly made by it, though not as often expressed, that high wages must raise the price of a commodity. This is, at least, not always the case. In the newspaper offices of New York writers and printers receive more in cash for their work than is paid in the newspaper offices in Paris. The force of men in a New York office is larger than that in a Paris office. Yet a New York newspaper usually contains at least twice the matter of a Paris newspaper, and generally sells at half the price. The Press sells at $4 a year. The Paris Temps, with very much less matter and labor, sells at more than $13 a year. American flour is sold generally in Europe. Yet the agricultural laborer is certainly paid more in America than in Europe. A few years ago cheap American watches were driving cheap Swiss watches out of many of the markets of Europe. This while most of the Swiss who make low grade watches live in the villages and mountains, where the cost of living is at the lowest point. The adoption of American machinery in the towns has saved to the Swiss a share of their old trade. America is further away from France and Italy than Russia, yet American petroleum, not Russian, is generally burned by the Italians and French. Here in Geneva there are merchants selling American saws, Yankee notions and agricultural tools, and canned meats from Chicago and canned salmon from Oregon—all competing successfully with the pauper labor of Germany’s factories, Spain’s cattle growing plains and the Mediterranean’s factories. In scores of European cities are shops whose windows are decorated with the photographs of American actresses, used as signs by American manufacturers advertising the sale of American made cigars. One may understand these things after he has been in Europe awhile. There is no such newspaper reading public in Europe as in America. European agricultural methods are often behind the age. Would it be possible in America to see a woman at work with a flail? It can be seen in some parts of Europe every day. American enterprise is pushing in Europe the sale of goods produced by American ingenuity.

What an atrocious attack on the manhood, the genius, the spirit, of Americans it is to assume that Europeans can take their home market from them one may clearly understand when he sees what Americans are doing in the way of taking possession of European markets despite the drawbacks of protection. Deprived of the advantages of buying raw materials where they are cheapest, and dependent upon foreigners to do their freighting across seas, they are putting a great variety of goods on the shelves of European merchants to compete with those made with the much-feared pauper labor. Open to the American manufacturer the markets for raw materials now open to the Europeans and is it not reasonable to suppose he will put his finished products down at the doors of his rival at a price the latter cannot match, and that he will do it largely through the superiority of the American workman—better taught, better fed, better paid, living under better condi-

p. 8, col. 4 tions than the European workman? The Press, instead of shivering at its prophecies of factories closing in case of a move toward lower protection, might well exercise its ingenious statisticians in estimating the loss sustained by the country through the deprivation of the markets of the world through protection.

The Cobden club bugaboo is in good working order with the Press, with it the Cobden club meaning all England. A few days ago the London Daily News, commenting editorially on the political canvass in America, said that the success of the democratic party was not desired by the manufacturers of Great Britain, a remark that it followed up by quoting a critic of Cobden, who declared he could not agree with the latter in constantly recommending free trade to all countries. “For heaven’s sake,” he said, “if we have a good thing let us keep it for ourselves.” This has been the feeling of the English I have met. Cheap American farm products have reduced the value of England’s lands. Cheap American goods might soon affect England’s manufactures in the same way.

In this copy of the Press is an editorial article on the tin plate industry. It wants a high tariff on tin plates. It says:

Why suppress this industry any longer? Because the immediate effect of placing tin plate where it belongs will be a slight increase in the cost of tin ware. What of that? The poor man will have to pay more for his dinner pail and the fruit canner more for his cans, says the free trader. How much more? Admitting that the price increases by the full amount of the duty, and that the increased cost on a vegetable can would be half a cent, on a tin cup a quarter of a cent, on a coffee pot one cent, and a trifle over one cent on a dinner kettle, is there a workman who would not be willing to pay this enhanced cost if he knew that by doing so for a short time an industry worth $[3?]0,000,000 and employing 100,000 of his idle comrades would be established? And more especially is this the case when we bear in mind that the ultimate result would be cheaper tin utensils as the American producers were able to break down the British tin trust, to say nothing of the great advantages resulting from having the mills on this side of the Atlantic.

In this paragraph does not the Press concede the justice of the plea for free trade? Does it not admit that the protective tariff acts as a tax on the consumer, that protected industries are supported by forced contributions levied on the body of the people, that trusts may run the price of goods up to a point just below the cost of their importation, and that when articles can be manufactured in America cheaper than abroad the protective tariff is not necessary. In fact, does it not “give its whole case away?” Is it not a confession similar to that made lately by the Evening Post, when; after it had contended^sic for years against the law of wages as taught in “Progress and Poverty,” it stated that law in words of its own and said that it was its conviction that such was the law?

Pray heaven, to send us more opponents like these.

J. W. SULLIVAN.