December 1, 1888 Vol. IV, No. 22Whole No. 100

CONTENTS:

The Past and the Future—By William Lloyd Garrison. The Australian System. Why Defeat Came. What We Should Do. Concentrate on One State. A Reflection (a poem). The New Democracy. In Rhode Island. An American Eviction. Electoral Reform. Among the Siberian Exiles. To Help Single Tax Strangers. Editorial Notes. Bedell and Goss. Facts About Wages. Atomic Worlds and their Motions. In a Theater, B. C. [72?] (a poem). Society Notes. Markheim (a story), by Robert Louis Stevenson. Queries and Answers. Current Thought. The Teachings of Annie Kilburn.

[No headline printed; the following article is listed in the Contents as “The Past and the Future—By William Lloyd Garrison” and is signed at its end.]

The post-election homilies and explanations have been many and from different standpoints. Their great variety indicates the complex nature of the struggle. Motives that were dominant in one quarter were without influence in another, and men of high aims who have heretofore acted in political harmony, found themselves widely separated in this campaign.

My own limited field of observation included many voters who stubbornly declined to face the issue which the parties had accepted and which the public speakers and the press made the one topic of consideration. Side issues were held to be paramount. I except from this those favoring prohibition, which, taking on a legitimate political form, fought on its own lines. But to many of the old abolitionists and most of the colored voters, the suppression of the negro vote in the south obliterated every argument for the overthrow of that kindred oppression, the protective tariff. In the name of freedom free trade was antagonized; under the pretense of doing justice to a portion of the people, a system of injustice to all was upheld. Logic was powerless to convince where this sentiment prevailed, because minds were closed against argument on a subject declared to be insignificant beside the unlawful suppression of legal votes. After the failure of Grant and Garfield and Arthur to correct this injustice, no reason could be given to show how Harrison could succeed where his predecessors failed; but that white democrats were the unlawful transgressors, and the fact that states thus carried would cast^sic their electoral vote for Cleveland were reasons enough for declining other considerations. And there was much to respect in this attitude, when sincerely taken, although it evinced a color blindness to other evils. The memories of the war are still potent, intensified by a widespread inability to recognize that the standpoints of men and parties have changed in twenty-five years. Keen politicians were not slow to avail themselves of this condition of mind, and the southern question was worked “for all it was worth,” with a modicum of scruple, in all colored districts where race prejudice could be aroused. This was illustrated in the Third Massachusetts congressional district, where a faithful and lifelong abolitionist like Colonel T. W. Higginson was defeated by colored votes in favor of General Banks, his opposite in character, ability and fidelity to freedom.

Aside from the feeling alluded to, party spirit controlled a multitude. To many, a party is as a church, and its tenets are to be accepted with unquestioning faith. It would have made no difference to the regular party voter whether the republican platform had advocated free trade or protection. Principles do not trouble him. His one reply to adverse arguments is the astonished inquiry, “What! vote the democratic ticket? I would cut off my right hand first.”

One strong reason for clinging to the republican party was the attitude of the Hill democracy in New York. Confessedly embracing the vicious elements of the community, which made it possible to elect its corrupt leader and defeat the incorruptible president, it is not surprising that many pure minded men declined to be counted in that category, exclaiming, “Unto such assembly mine honor, be not thou united.”

In Massachusetts the president obtained little help from the old democrats. They were dazed by his proclamation and at no time lent an earnest support to the campaign. The leaders in the state fight were the independents and the young democrats. They supplied the brains and the enthusiasm; they championed the reform of the tariff with a courage and ability that will yet bear abundant fruit. General Butler again threw himself into the arms of his old love, and few old democrats wept when the election returns showed Harrison’s success.

But enough of the past. What of the future? The cast is radiant with the dawn. As principles are not dependent p. 1, col. 2 on numbers, no majorities against them can for a moment alter their truth or ultimate success. They create parties and breed conditions. No numerical reverses block for a moment their imperial march. The seeming defeat of to-day turns into the sure victory of the morrow. What though the party that opposed tariff reform takes the helm of state? Its very safety will compel it to steer toward the port where shelter lies. It must follow in Mr. Cleveland’s wake or go upon the rocks. It may be that a democratic triumph would have been a hindrance to our purpose. Party success might have been mistaken for the success of principles, and apathy and self satisfaction tend to paralyze agitation. Moreover, as the republican party contains a larger portion of the intelligence, the conscience and the moral purpose of the country than its opponent, it must of necessity gravitate to our reform. Our future converts lie within its ranks to a large degree. For a political purpose all these high qualities have been derided by the republican leaders in the recent campaign, but a party which deliberately scoffs at conscience because it leads to independence of party, and at the scientific study of political economy because it conflicts with the stupidity and crass ignorance underlying the protective system, must change its tactics or lose its vital constituency.

But we who have no personal ambitions to serve or offices to seek can look unmoved upon the mutations of parties. It is our work to spread the light. The Polks and Pierces and Buchanans of this new era may for a few administrations discourage the weary workers and confirm the croakings of the pessimists, but in due season, when the time is ripe, another Abraham Lincoln will bring a clearer atmosphere to the White House, and sign the waiting proclamation that shall bring emancipation to labor.

WM. LLOYD GARRISON.

Cardinal Gibbons Advises the Pope Regarding the Single Tax.

A special dispatch to the New York Herald says:

The Rome correspondent of the Daily Chronicle telegraphs the following: “Cardinal Gibbons recently wrote another letter to the pope wherein he insisted upon the advisability of not condemning the writings of Henry George, as has been contemplated. The letter has created a great impression on the pope, and the matter will be considered at the next meeting of the holy office, which will, it is expected, follow the precedent set in the Knights of Labor case and decide against the condemnation.

The reasons on which this decision will probably be based will be that the condemnation would, in the first instance, be useless, and, second, it would be dangerous to the Roman Catholic interest in America.

Henry George in England.

The New York World on Sunday last published the following cable dispatch:

Henry George has haunted parliament all week listening to the debate on the land purchase bill. He has a great deal stronger support among the masses here than in New York. He came here for rest, but has been compelled to promise to address three big meetings. He will speak at Lambeth on Tuesday night and go to Glasgow on Wednesday night, where he is to have a public reception. On the following evening he goes to Liverpool to address the financial reform club. He speaks in London on Saturday night, and sails for New York on board the Ems on Sunday from Southampton, addressing the workingmen there from the pier before going aboard the steamer. Mr. George has been interviewed by nearly all the papers here.

It Answered Just as Well.

An enthusiastic single tax advocate is Mrs. X., who lives in the Fourteenth assembly district, and X., as everybody knows, is the name of an equally enthusiastic single tax man—her husband. In fact, so strong is their adherence to the cause that the fact of their being X.’s is lost sight of by some people in view of the better known fact of their being “cranks”—witness this anecdote:

Mrs. X. has a habit of dealing with the local tradesmen entirely on a cash basis. She never runs any accounts or “books.” One day, some months ago, she went into a butcher store, and when she had finished her purchases found she had not enough money with her to pay for them. So she went to the proprietor and said, “You can charge these things to me; I’ll be in to-morrow and pay for them.” Next day she went to the store and asked for her bill. The man took his book, and running his finger down the page, stopped when he had reached the order. “Ah yes,” he said, “here it is, ‘Henry George, one dollar and thirty-two cents.’”

“What’s that?” said Mrs. X. “Henry George don’t deal here, does he? He lives way up-town.”

“Oh, no. You see, madam, we didn’t know your name because you never have kept an account here, but we knew you were a strong believer in Mr. George’s ideas, and we just put you down as Henry George.”

Across the Water.

LONDON, Nov. 19.—The arrival of THE STANDARD every week, especially for the last three months has been to me quite an event. I have listened for the postman’s knock on Monday evenings with breathless interest something like a youth waiting for a letter from his lady love accepting his offer to make her his wife. All other literature is thrown aside until the current STANDARD has been read, almost every line of it.

One of the chief reasons why I doubted Cleveland’s election was the veto of the ballot reform bill in New York. When I heard of that it gave my confidence the greatest shock.

I beg to inclose pamphlet copy of the speeches of William Lloyd Garrison and Henry George in Cooper union, two or three thousand of which I have distributed in the workingmen’s and liberal and radical clubs.

I hope the work of educating the public mind on the importance of the free trade and single tax questions will go steadily on. I am delighted to think that it will not be long now ere a free trade party after my own heart will be making the fight in the United States.

THOS. BRIGGS.

p. 1, col. 3

THE AUSTRALIAN SYSTEM.

The Australian system of voting, so-called because first used in Australia, has been for several years in successful operation there, and, with non-essential variations, in England, Scotland, Ireland and Canada. It has also been adopted in Massachusetts, where it goes into effect in 1889. Its principal objects are to prevent bribery and intimidation, to place all candidates upon an equality before the law, and to undermine the dangerous powers of political machines.

The system will be readily understood by reference to the accompanying drawing:

The voter, upon entering the polling

[Illustration (spans columns 3–4): interior of a polling place under the Australian system — at right a row of voting booths along the wall with voters inside and waiting; in the center a railed enclosure with election officers seated at a table with a ballot box; policemen and voters standing about. Labels in the drawing: “EXIT” (at the rail in the center), “ENTRANCE” (lower right corner).]

place, turns to his right at the point marked “ENTRANCE,” where he receives, from two election officers selected from opposing political parties, a single ballot or a single set of ballots according to the local custom of voting. On the back is indorsed a stamp or signature, sufficient and only sufficient to identify the ballot as official; and on the face are plainly printed the names of the candidates for each office, with a designation of their respective political parties, after this manner:

[Sample ballot, ruled table:]

Having received his ballot the voter enters one of the booths back of the railing, where, secluded from observation, he prepares the ballot by placing in the blank column a cross opposite the name of each candidate for whom he desires to vote; or, if he prefers, by writing the names of candidates of his own nomination in place of those already there. If there are several candidates for the same kind of office, as coroners in the sample ballot above, or presidential electors, and he wishes to vote the “straight” ticket of his party, he places the cross under the name of the party, or draws it through the space in the blank column alloted^sic to the party’s candidates, which signifies that he votes for each candidate named in that space. Thus, in the sample ballot, a cross under the word “democratic,” or through the first two spaces of the blank column to the right, is one vote each for Alexander Jacobs^sic and Harvey Sylvester.

After preparing his ballot by indicating every candidate for whom he votes, the voter folds it in such manner as to conceal the face and expose the indorsement, and, withdrawing from the booth, gives the ballot to the inspectors, who identify it by the indorsement as official. It is then deposited in the box and the voter passes out at the gate marked “EXIT.”

From the time he receives his ballot until he casts it, the voter is permitted to have no communication with any one but the election officers, and with them only for official purposes; and only election officers and persons actually engaged in voting are ever admitted within the railing.

Upon proof of inability from physical infirmity or illiteracy, a voter may call into the booth officers appointed and sworn for the purpose, to aid him in preparing his ballot; and when a ballot is accidentally destroyed or defaced it may be exchanged for a clean one. The importance of the latter requirement may not at once be apparent; but to secure secrecy every ballot delivered to a voter must be either cast or returned. This explains the necessity for indorsing ballots. But for the indorsement a blank paper outwardly resembling a ballot might be cast by a voter, who would then be able surreptitiously to carry away an official ballot. This could be prepared for a bribed voter, the proof of its use being his production of a second official ballot. That could be similarly prepared and used, and so on. Such a fraud, known as the “Tasmanian dodge,” was successfully perpetrated in Australia in the early days of the system; but its repetition was prevented by requiring ballots to be officially indorsed.

As it is essential that ballots be printed p. 1, col. 4 at public expense and distributed by public officers, the system must include some mode of certifying nominations to the proper authorities a reasonable time before elections. That proposed by the Yates-Saxton bill of New York was perhaps as convenient as could be desired. Under it, state nominations were to be certified fifteen days, and local nominations ten days, before election; nominations of a political party which at the next preceding election polled three per cent of the whole vote were to be certified by party officers; and independent nominations, if for a state office were to be certified by a thousand voters and if for a local office by a hundred.

A brief explanation of the way in which this system effects its objects cannot anticipate or answer captious objections, but will be useful to candid inquirers.

Penal laws are ineffectual to prevent bribery and intimidation. The primary remedy is a secret ballot. And this is best secured when the only proof of an elector’s vote is his own uncorroborated assertion. Under the Australian system no other proof can be made. That fact gives to the most timid among dependent voters a sense of security which makes him free. And to bribery it is fatal. Bribers are not likely to invest money on the faith of a bribed man’s naked assertion; if there be such a virtue as “honesty among thieves,” it is not acceptable security to the thieves themselves.

But secrecy, though the primary remedy for bribery and intimidation, is not all that is required to purify elections, nor the only remedy the Australian system offers.

The printing and distribution of ballots is a most important part of election machinery, and, left to private enterprise, inevitably tends, as does the farming out of any other public function, to breed corruption and build up monopoly. It makes a necessity for irresponsible organizations which come to wield autocratic power over the political party they claim to serve, and in turn, through discipline almost military in severity, are dominated by an inner circle of “leaders.” As ballots can neither be printed nor distributed without money, and may not be faithfully handled unless trusty workers are rewarded with more than an election day stipend, the organization undertaking the work has a plausible if not reasonable claim for money from its beneficiaries and official patronage for its retainers. It is the necessity of raising these funds and employing these “workers” that justifies assessments, gives color of voluntary contributions to what in truth are sales of nominations, excuses the submission of official patronage to the distribution of the machine, provides ample cover for collecting a corruption fund, and, through “workers” at the polls, a convenient channel for disbursing the fund in bribes. And as corruption funds increase, masked in increasing demands for legitimate expenses, assessments grow, the price of nominations rises, independence is shackled, and the organization becomes more indifferent to party principle as its monopoly of political power strengthens. Born of the necessity of volunteer machinery for preparing and distributing ballots, it develops into a powerful instrument, which, in the hands of political jobbers, enables them to buy and sell office “as the Pretorians sold the Roman purple.” Already, poor men rarely obtain political advancement without assuming obligations to be redeemed by official perfidy, and the obstacles to unallied candidacy have become so great as often to prevent and always to discourage independent nominations.

This political monster would be destroyed by the Australian system. If the state assumed its function of providing ballots, there would be no necessity for “workers” at the polls, and the excuse for raising, as well as the best mode of using, corruption funds would disappear. Assessments could not then be levied upon candidates, for when “workers” at the polls are not required, machines can neither serve nor injure. Nor would nominations be sold; for when candidates stand upon an equality in respect to election machinery, and there is no opportunity for bribing voters, organizations merely as organizations, have nothing worth buying, while organizations as representatives of principles cannot be approached through commercial channels. Trafficking in office would be replaced by political discussion, the power of the machine by the voice of the party.

The evils of machine organization and the remedy of the Australian system, are p. 1, col. 5 summarized as follows by William M. Ivins, than whom no one has done more intelligent, energetic and effective work for electoral reform:

[Two-column comparison in small type; the numbered items are set side by side across the column. Given here as two lists.]

The Evil.

1. The necessity for voluntarily printing and distributing the ballot justifies organization for this purpose.

2. It practically vests the machine with the monopoly of the election machinery;

3. And, as a consequence, with the monopoly of nomination.

4. It involves the necessity of defraying the expenses of both printing and distribution by means of assessments on or contributions by candidates, office holders or party leaders,

5. Which facilitates bribery and corruption by affording them convenient covers.

The Remedy.

1. The printing and distribution of all ballots at public expense does away with the necessity of organization for this purpose.

2. And will deprive the political machines of the monopoly of an essential part of the election machinery.

3. It will enable anybody of citizens^sic of the number prescribed by law to have the name of their candidate printed on the same ballot with the names of all other candidates for the same office, so that before the law and before the voters all candidates and all party organizations will stand on a perfectly even footing.

4. This will dispense altogether with the necessity of and excuse for levying political assessments,

5. And leave no legal cover for bribery.

To this system it is objected that by requiring nominations to be made in advance of elections it denies a constitutional right of voters to select candidates from the whole body of voters. From such eminent authority as Judges Cooley, McCrary and Folger, and the highest courts of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York, it may be safely inferred that a restriction of the franchise to candidates nominated a short time before election is a reasonable regulation and not an unconstitutional interference; but the inference is not necessary, since the system allows each voter to reject all candidates and write new names upon his ballot.

It is objected, also, that by requiring the blind and illiterate to expose their vote to election officers’ secrecy^sic of the ballot is as to them violated. Under our present system voting is not secret; it was for that reason rejected by the British parliament and the Australian system adopted. The object now is to secure secrecy, but in aiming at that we are confronted with a class of voters to whom exposure of their ballots to somebody is necessary, and an exception must be made in their favor to prevent their disfranchisement. What form which shall be consistent with the highest degree of secrecy can that exception take? If allowed to carry their ballots away these voters fall into the hands of irresponsible and perhaps dishonest persons, and may be made, innocently or otherwise, instruments for perpetrating some form of the “Tasmanian dodge.” If, for their benefit, official ballots are generally circulated, all efforts for secrecy are frustrated. And if they are permitted to take a “friend” into the booth, a door is opened for the bribery of every venal voter who is, or can successfully pretend to be, unable to read English. Exposure of ballots must be prevented by every means that ingenuity can suggest; but in exceptional cases in which it cannot be avoided it may most safely be confided to election officers, who represent opposing parties, are under oath of secrecy and fidelity, can be readily detected in malfeasance, and when detected are liable to severe penalties. As to blind voters this seems to be the only course, but respecting the illiterate any exception to the general rule may be avoided by identifying the names on the ballots with numbers, or by printing them with inks of different colors.

There is reason to believe that the Australian system of voting is about to receive favorable consideration in all the states where election abuses have been seriously felt; but its adoption would so surely dispense with machine organizations that there is reason to fear attempts at essential modification. These are likely to be in the direction of allowing the delivery of ballots to parties and candidates before election, and distribution as well by “workers” at any time or place as by sworn officers at the polls. A little thought will show that this would continue the power of political machine and endanger secrecy. Any such modification no intelligent and sincere advocate of electoral reform can accept, for in this matter it is not true at this time that “half a loaf is better than no bread.” It were better that the reform be delayed with the force of public opinion pressing it forward, than that inefficient measures should allay public opinion by seeming to meet its demands. Details may be compromised, but essentials must be required at every step in the agitation. These are, that ballots containing the names of all candidates be printed at public expense; that one official ballot or set of ballots be delivered by sworn officers to each voter as he appears to vote; that the voter be immediately secluded for the purpose of preparing to vote; that he deliver his ballot to the inspectors so folded as to conceal its face and expose the official indorsement; that immediately after voting he withdraw from the secluded part of the polling place; that there be no intercourse with him except by election officers for official purposes from the time he receives his ballot until he votes; and that no voter be allowed to cast any ballot but the one he receives from the election officers.

LOUIS F. POST.

New York, November 26, 1888.

The big trusts do not intend to go out of business the next four years.—[St. Paul Globe.

p. 1, col. 6

WHY DEFEAT CAME.

Single tax men who can recall their own sensation one year ago, when our movement had apparently been overwhelmed by disastrous defeat, can appreciate the feelings of democrats over the defeat of Cleveland. In our own counsels there was difference and division. What to do next was a question that called forth a multitude of divergent answers. With hope and enthusiasm we had championed a principle that promised to remedy a great wrong to the masses, and we found that the very men whose good we had sought had turned their backs upon us.

Many earnest and thoughtful men in the democratic party are to-day similarly stunned and confused by unexpected defeat. They, too, have made a gallant fight against one of the delusions that blind the eyes of the masses to their own true interests and they find themselves defeated by the votes of those whose interests they had sought to serve. Many of them are even yet overwhelmed with despair and some of them say it is useless to make a fight in behalf of a great principle. Politicians of the baser sort and satanic newspapers, like the New York Sun, encourage this feeling and advise the democratic party to put aside all contact with the living issues of the present and appeal to prejudice, passion and greed in order to win back power and patronage. and they assure^sic the party that until it adopts this course it can have no hope of success. Is this true? The question is a serious one to those of us who have aided the democratic party because it has championed a principle and who see no reason for desiring the success of that or any other party unless its triumph does advance principles in which we believe. I therefore propose to consider calmly and without prejudice, the probability of democratic success as the exponent of the doctrine of tariff reform as laid down in the president’s message of last December, and as a necessary preliminary I shall here review the events of the campaign of 1888.

After years of exclusion from power the democratic party barely achieved success four years ago in a contest replete with passion and prejudice, but singularly devoid of real principle. The responsibility of power forced the president thus elected to face a situation, from which there was no retreat if he was to perform his sworn duty. The enormous surplus piling up day by day in the federal treasury compelled the president to at least state the facts to congress and propose some plan for meeting a serious exigency. So far Mr. Cleveland had no choice. Necessity compelled him to speak. No mere doctrinaire enthusiasm moved him, and the whole tone of his message showed that he yielded with some reluctance to the pressure of events. But having determined to act, he proposed to solve the problem by legislation in accord with the traditional principles of his party. Had he done less he would have justly deserved the spoilsmen’s sneer at the quality of his democracy—a sneer that found concentrated expression in the spoilsman Hill’s declaration: “I am a democrat.” Mr. Cleveland was therefore bound to recommend that the problem of the surplus should be solved by reducing protective duties and adding to the free list. How little inclined he was, on mere doctrinaire grounds, to push the traditional doctrines of his party to the front was clearly shown in his declaration that: “It is a condition which confronts us—not a theory.” The whole tone of the message leaves on the mind of the careful reader the impression that had it not been for the “condition” the president would gladly have escaped the discussion of the “theory.”

The president having done his duty the democratic leaders of the house prepared to do their part. It is a known fact that a large number of the democratic members shrunk even more than the president from opening the tariff question. Fortunately, however, real democrats, like Mills, Carlisle, the two Breckinridges and others were in control of the party’s policy in the house, and they determined that the now inevitable bill should be framed on correct lines, however moderate its provisions. They, too, faced a “condition” rather than a “theory,” and the condition was the presence in their party of several nominal democrats in full sympathy with the republican views concerning a protective tariff. Everything that could be yielded was yielded to conciliate these men, and finally a measure was framed that secured the support of all who even pretended to any belief in the traditional principles of the democratic party. In its details the measure was moderate to a fault, but in principle it antagonized the protectionist theory.

Then began the great debate in the house. At once the “condition” was to a large extent lost sight of, and both parties found themselves plunged into a hot discussion of the “theory” of protection. All attempts to conceal this fact were soon abandoned. Mr. Butterworth’s declaration on behalf of the republicans that the contest was not over the details of tariff revision, but one that arose out of an “irreconcilable difference” between the two parties “as to the wisdom and justice of the protective system” was met by Speaker Carlisle, on behalf of the democrats, with the assertion that the contest was a fundamental one “between those who believe that the power of taxation should be used for public purposes only . . . and those who believe that it is the right and duty of the government to promote certain private enterprises and increase the profits of those engaged in them” through the exercise of its taxing power. The issue was thus clearly and unmistakably joined, and that issue continued on p. 2 →

[The article breaks off at the foot of the column; no continuation line is printed. It presumably continues on a later page.]

And Raise a Single Tax School Fund to Support the Work.

HONEOYE, N. Y.—That the present plan of instructing the people in the single tax system is slow and discouraging, must be evident to all, and in my opinion it is largely owing to a lack of concerted and concentrated action. Would it not be well for our adherents to concentrate all their efforts for a short time on some one state, a state showing the least resistence^sic, a state so small that it would be within our means to give the inhabitants of every election district in the state a thorough understanding of the principles of taxation? We could then work as a majority or a large minority and would get respect and attention accordingly.

I assume that every believer in this principle of taxation is from the bottom of his heart desirous for a speedy trial of the system. Let us then raise a fund that shall be known as the single tax school fund by asking every adherent of the principle to contribute a nominal sum, say one dollar, this, if I mistake not, would raise in the aggregate a large fund. Then appoint a board of trustees to control the fund; this board to select some state of our union where the conditions such as size, closeness of vote, large latitude given in the organic law as regards taxation, are the most favorable. Then call for volunteers from out the ranks of single tax people, one for each township in the state selected, to act as teachers and to be paid from the fund their necessary expenses and a small personal remuneration; these teachers to be thoroughly examined by the board of trustees or by persons appointed by the board as to their qualifications and fitness for the position before they are sent to their field of labor, and then let the attack on that state be made simultaneously and earnestly with the full purpose and determination to make the people understand what is wanted.

To illustrate: Suppose Connecticut were the state selected. It has 167 townships. 167 volunteers would be called for and when examined and appointed they would each start a class in six election districts of their townships, giving one night a week to each. Teaching to be rudimentary. All references to party politics avoided, and scholars requested to ask questions. No election district class should be given up until the ground principles are thoroughly understood.

I believe that after two months of this kind of work in a state like Connecticut a memorial to the legislature could be circulated that would not only bring on a general discussion of the principle but its adoption.

VERITAS VINCIT.

LOOKING BACKWARD.

Lo, the poor farmer, who, from wilds way back, Sees in “protection,” God; and hears him in the clack Of the whole mad, monopolistic crew, That in his sweat and blood their hands imbrue, Yet marvel much at his bucolic sense, The while they dance and feast at his expense.

Lo, the reformer of the tariff—bent On slight reform; an undefined per cent. And scarce disturbed by smell of nauseous fat That doth exude from saintly Foster’s hat, As ’long the line, among the thieving hive, It circulates to purchase—“blocks of five.”

LOOKING FORWARD.

Hail, the free trader, whose unerring ax Hews to the line of truth—“the single tax.” No quarter asks, the same to foe denies, His motto this—“With thieves no compromise.” Then nail your flag, free traders, to the mast; Yield ignorance, monopoly and caste!

Nov. 25. E. H. P., Providence, R. I^sic.,

IN RHODE ISLAND.

The Two Kinds of Slavery.

HUTCHINSON, Kansas.—Thirty years ago the slaves were negroes, bought in Africa from some petty king of that country. They were brought over to this country and sold for about a thousand dollars per capita, mostly to cotton planters who built houses for them to live in, furnished them food and clothing and medical aid when sick. They cared for the aged and infirm. The slaves worked mostly out of doors in the good air, and were not overworked. They were taught something of the Christian religion and encouraged to hold religious meetings on Sundays. The owners had an interest in their welfare, and many of their owners were good, pious, Christian gentlemen.

Slaves now are mostly white people, brought from Ireland, Italy, Hungary, Poland and other European countries. They

p. 3, col. 2 are induced to come here by advertising this country as the land of freedom. Agents in those countries post bills offering great inducements to all willing to emigrate.

When they arrive here they are not sold but turned loose where they can find nothing to do and nowhere to live but in the streets. They wander about until they get tired and hungry, and are glad to hire for wages hardly sufficient to enable them to live, to go into the coal mines or into dusty factories to run looms or sewing machines. They work long, tedious hours for wages that do not clothe, shelter and feed them as well as the negro slaves fared thirty years ago.

They sell themselves every four years to politicians, some of whom are pious Christian gentlemen, teachers of Sunday schools, leaders of prayer meetings and main props in the Christian churches. These men buy them (for four years) at from two to ten dollars per capita on election days. It is said that the pious John Wanamaker of Philadelphia invested $200,000 in these slaves on the sixth day of this month.

The purchaser often turns his slave out of doors, takes no interest in him when hungry or naked, gives him no attention when sick, makes no provision for the infirm or aged, works them seven days in the week and fifteen hours per day.

The main cause of this latter kind of slavery is that the natural opportunities for making a living are nearly all monopolized by the rich who are holding them out of use to enable them to catch and hold those fellow beings, deprived of these natural opportunities, in slavery.

J. G. MALCOLM.

AN AMERICAN EVICTION.

The Sort of Lawbreakers Protection Breeds.

Lewiston Journal.

After a few puffs from his cigar, a Bath man who is interested in shipping began an anecdote. “Captain,” said he, “that story of yours reminds me of something in about the same line in which I was interested. A friend of mine, who was master of a large ship, promised he would bring me home some excellent liquor on the next voyage he made, and he accompanied the promise by the boast that there would not be any duty paid on it, either. Well, I had not thought much about the matter until one day I noticed in a Boston paper that the ship bad arrived in port. But the next day’s issue of the same paper contained the interesting story of the manner in which the custom house officials discovered that about half of one of the spare spars which the vessel carried was hollow, and that the hole contained fifteen gallons of liquors. I never got my five gallons, and my friend got four months in jail, while the ship made the next voyage under the charge of the mate.”

A little, short man now took up the conversation and said: “I remember a pretty neat thing once, which was done in this very port only a few years ago by the captain of one of the ships of the Houghton fleet. He came across from Liverpool, and on the voyage he treated the sailors unusually well—so well, in fact, that when the captain asked twelve of them, shortly before going into port, to do him a little favor, they readily consented. The result was that when the ship was moored to the wharf those twelve sailors walked ashore, each with an imported leather shooting coat on under his own rough pea jacket. The captain followed them to a rendezvous, where the sailors divested themselves of the English coats. The captain ‘set ’em up’ all around several times and parted from his sailors like an old friend.”

No sooner had this anecdote been concluded than another old sea captain, rich and retired now, broke in quietly with, “Yes, that’s a good scheme, but it don’t always work. It didn’t when I tried it, anyhow. You see, I was in England and I bought a handsome shawl for my wife, who was not with me, paying £20 ($100) for it. When I got into New York I asked the stewardess of the ship if she would wear the shawl ashore for me. She said she would, and, putting it on, wore it over the side and out of the reach of the in-

p. 3, col. 3 spectors. I followed her ashore, but when I overtook her, well up town, the hussy refused to give the shawl back to me and threatened to call a policeman if I attempted to take the shawl from her. What could I do? I couldn’t prove the shawl was mine, and so I was obliged to stand there and see that woman walk off with a $100 shawl that I had written to my wife about. You may believe that I never tried anything in that line again.”

A hearty laugh went round at the captain’s expense, and as soon as it died away the mate of a large four masted schooner, now discharging in port, spoke up. “Two years ago,” said he, “I was mate of a large ship, with Captain S—— of this city as master. In Birmingham, England, one day, we both purchased silk umbrellas. They were very good ones, and we paid $12 apiece for them. We came across to New York, and after we had been in port a few moments the captain and myself started to go ashore. The day before I had removed the covering from my umbrella and wiped up all the dirt I could find in my room to make it look old. The captain had thought this precaution unnecessary, and we started ashore, I having mine all waving in the wind and the captain having his with a silk wrapper around it and done up in its original package as well. An inspector stood on the wharf, and as soon as we passed him he turned and followed us. He stepped up to the captain and took his umbrella away from him, and later in the day the captain was fided^sic $25 for petty smuggling. A madder man I never saw.”

A Question of Compensation.

London Democrat.

A woman was charged before the magistrate at Westminster with having stolen a cloth dress valued at £5, which she had subsequently pawned for 15s. The owner of the dress not wishing to press the case, the woman was discharged. The question then arose, who was to have the dress? The magistrate directed that it should be given back to its rightful owner. “But why,” asked the pawnbroker, “should I lose all the money?” “You will have to give it up,” said the magistrate, “it is a risk pawnbrokers run. The pawnbroker^sic thought it very hard that he should be made to restore the dress without compensation. Yet the dress was undoubtedly the property of the lady from whom it was stolen, and the thief having no title, either moral or industrial, to it, and no right to dispose of it, could not give the pawnbroker a right to keep it. People who in past times have bought land, or have lent money on land, are in precisely the same position. The land has been stolen from the people, and the thieves cannot transfer to others what they have not themselves, a valid title to. The agitation for land restoration is now widely advertising the fact that the people are the real owners of the land, and those who in the future buy land will be acting exactly like a pawnbroker who should take goods in pledge”well knowing,” or, at least, having a reasonable suspicion “that they were stolen.” In any case, the land must be restored to its true owners, the people. To talk of compensation is absurd.

ELECTORAL REFORM.

The threatening peril to the republic lies in the debauching of its voters by the corrupt use of money. The evil has grown rapidly of late years, and has now attained such gigantic proportions that a remedy must be applied at once or it will be too late.—[Cleveland Plain-Dealer (dem).

No fair minded man and believer in the sacredness of the ballot, will deny that reform is very necessary, and no election takes place but there are abundant evidences on every hand that the sooner some reform can be had, the better for the country.—[Big Rapids, Mich., Herald.

Other devices may be hit upon, but the main thing to be achieved is the secrecy of the ballot. That point attained, the system of bribery would languish rapidly.—[Newark Evening News.

Election reform is the question of the hour in Indiana.—[Indianapolis Sentinel.

So long as the ballot is open to the influence of the political thugs and heelers of election day, there can be no such thing as an honest expression of the will of the people. The secret ballot must come, and the Argus insists that Representative-elect Lacy shall do everything in his power to bring it about.—[Clinton, Ind., Argus.

Until our elections are made a registry of the honest sentiments of electors, instead of, as at present, a mere contest of boodle, it is useless to hope for or work for other great reforms. We will get honest legislation and pure government when we get honest elections, and not before.—[Indianapolis Sentinel.

The unprecedented employment of money for the purchase of votes by the republican party at the recent election, not only in the cities but throughout the rural districts in the doubtful states, has given a boom to the Australian electoral system, which provides the most complete safeguard against this species of corruption. Politicians will not buy a pig in a poke.—[Paterson, N. J., Guardian.

Voting is everywhere more or less vitiated by illegitimate influences, such as intimidation, political trades, and bribery. To these evils only preventive and punitive measures can be applied. The most effective means of prevention is some form of regulation for distributing and receiving ballots which shall preclude their manipulation by political workers and insure secrecy in depositing them.—[New York Times.

Ballot reform is one of the necessities of the immediate future in this country. It is a necessity, to stop the purchase of votes. The ballot must be secret, the voter must be removed from all chances of being overlooked and watched when depositing his vote, so as to take away all motive for the purchase of votes.—[Toledo Blade (rep.)

The mind of the country is moving in the matter of electoral reform, and it may be accepted as certain that an improved method of securing a free ballot and a fair count will be adopted before long in every State of the Union.—[Brooklyn Standard Union (rep.)

The democrats of Indiana are thoroughly aroused on the question of ballot reform. They demand radical action upon the subject from the new legislature, and we think they will not be disappointed.—[Indianapolis Sentinel (dem).

It is said that Governor Hovey will recommend the Australian system of voting in his first message to the legislature. This is sufficient to entitle the newly elected governor to the respect and hearty support of all good citizens. Let the people “spot” every member of the legislature who refuses to vote for the bill, and give him to understand that his name is Dennis when he asks for further political preferment.—[Rockville, Ind., Tribune (dem).

The agitation for ballot reform in New York, to which the Post has repeatedly called attention, appears to be growing rather than diminishing in strength with the continued consideration of the subject.—[Boston Post (dem).

There was no opposition to it (the Australian system) in this state two years ago that was not democratic. Now that the Free Press has changed from bitter oppositon to advoeacy, or at least tolerant consideration, the democratic opposition next winter, when it will again be considered, will, we trust, be considerably modified. But in any event, we confidently expect the bill to become law this winter, as democratic opposition in the approaching legislature will aid rather than retard any measure.—[Detroit Evening News (ind).

Just now the press with one accord and without regard to party is declaring that Indiana is in need of and must have a new election law. Year by year our elections are growing more and more corrupt, and the perpetuity and purity of the government demand heroic legislation.—[Lafayette, Ind., Journal.

p. 3, col. 4

AMONG THE SIBERIAN EXILES.

Land Tax and Income Tax.

PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—(1) Does not the single tax philosophy, in the case of an insufficiency for government purposes of the tax on land values, provide for a tax on incomes?

2. Does Mr. George anywhere discuss this subject?

1. No; very few, if any, single tax men doubt the sufficiency for all expenses of government of the revenue to be obtained by the single tax. Many on the contrary think there would be far too much if the entire rental value of land were taxed away, and some of these, though single tax men, do not want to take the whole of this value.

2. Mr. George has declared himself as opposed to any taxing of incomes, and has shown in THE STANDARD that an income tax, although a direct tax, cannot be collected and is a premium on dishonesty.

Are Profits Just?

EAST ORANGE, N. J.—If a lock manufacturer has in his employ 800 men and pays an average wage of $18 per week, is this manufacturer robbing his employes if he is reaping a profit of $1,600 per month^sic. E. E. MARSH.

No; if he were robbing them and making unfair profits you would quickly see other men going into the lock making business, who would be content with fair profits and who would not rob their employes. Both the wages and the profits are determined (patents aside) by competition; only, land monopoly and other monopolies, by limiting opportunities, change fair competition into a cut throat struggle for existence.

Where to Find the Drawback Law.

DAYTON, Ohio.—Where is the “drawback law” to be found? I mean the full text.

J. G. G.

The drawback law is to be found in the United States revised statutes, sections 3,019, 3,020 and 3,026. It is called the drawback law because it entitles the American manufacturer, who has used foreign material on which he has paid a duty, to get back nine-tenths of the duty when the finished goods are exported.

High Wages and Cheap Goods.

NEW YORK.—What is the answer to the protectionist assertion that cheap goods mean cheap labor?

A SUBSCRIBER.

The answer is that the facts show the reverse. England, which pays the highest wages of any European country, makes the cheapest and best goods, taking all manufactures into consideration. Articles made with the help of machinery are cheaper than hand made articles, but the places where machinery is invented and used most are invariably the places where wages are highest.

[Schoenhof?] and others have furnished many facts which go to prove that the American workers in metal and textile industries, although they receive more wages than workers abroad, yet do more work in proportion to the wages they receive than the foreign workers do. That is, they produce goods cheaper. The reason the goods do not sell cheaper is on account of the dear materials and the monopoly of the market.

Is the Tariff Added to the Price?

ORANGE, Mass.—Is it true that articles manufactured here are sold to the consumers with the import duty added to the costs, and that, when exported, the foreign consumer has the advantage of being free from this addition?

Name a few instances.

H. W. HAMMOND.

The tariff tax, sometimes the whole tax, at other times in part, is added to the price of goods. Home competition often prevents manufacturers or producers from adding more than a small part of the duty. The fact that almost every American who returns from a trip abroad tries to smuggle in as many foreign articles as he can, and those mostly necessaries such as are made here and not mere foreign oddities and nic nacs, is a proof that necessaries cost more here on account of the tariffs.

John H. Allen, a merchant, author of “The Tariff and its Evils,” shows that the American consumer pays the following rates in excess of the English consumers:

For soap he pays 25 per cent more, crockery and glass ware 65 to 115 per cent more, window glass 95 per cent more, wool hats 50 per cent more, mixed woolen goods 78 per cent more, etc., etc., etc. These figures are made up mostly from recent actual transactions.

In some cases our producers sell their articles abroad for less than they do here. For instance the Disston (Philadelphia) manufacturing company’s hardware is sold cheaper in Mexico than in the United States. It is said there are other articles of which the same is true, but no proof of the statements is at hand.

W. B. SCOTT.

About Cotton Exports^sic,

NEW YORK, Nov. 26.—The “Queries and Answers” column is not often wrong, but its comment this week on my remarks about cotton manufacture, are not, to my mind, conclusive. The matter is not in itself, perhaps, worth disputing; but we are busy educating just now, and it is all-important to our work for the next few years that we should educate aright and furnish our people with ammunition which will not miss fire. Now, here is an anomaly that has puzzled many a free trader, and even did important service for the republicans in the last campaign as an illustration of how, under the most favorable conditions, we cannot compete with foreign nations, and must therefore protect our manufacturing industries if we are to retain them at all. Raw cotton is cheaper here than abroad, by the difference in ocean freights; and very careful computations by free trade statisticians have demonstrated that our cotton operatives work for lower wages than foreign operatives. Protectionists say that either our figures are wrong or that some mysterious cause exists to increase the cost here of making cotton goods. It will not do to answer this with the bold assertion that we can manufacture as cheaply and do not export only because, as a whole, this nation will not trade with others. However true that might be of our people in the aggregate, individual spinners would certainly seek out foreign markets to sell in if they could do so at a profit. Nor is it correct to say that high prices paid for machinery account for the discrepancy, and that they constitute an especially heavy handicap because they involve the disbursement of a large lump sum. p. 5, col. 3 Manufacturers do not count such a payment as a part of the cost of their goods in the year when it is made; but treat it properly as an investment, the interest only on which each year has to be charged as part of the goods cost, together with allowance for wear and tear. And yet, when these considerations are put aside, our cotton goods still cost more than English makes, and just enough more to keep us out of the field of free competition. Just what the difference is, I am not prepared to say, for I have never examined all the figures, and partial figures are useless. It was not of my own knowledge, but on the authority of a large cotton manufacturer that I spoke, when I said that the difference against us in cost was only on bleached and print goods, and that it consisted principally in higher priced bleaching powders and dyestuffs. As there must be very little else than these articles in cotton goods besides the cotton, it is quite probable that all of the $15,000,000 which you say was spent for “other material,” went in this way, and that your estimate of two per cent extra cost added by tariff on dyestuffs was correct. Two per cent is about four times the margin which allows or forbids competition in any market for almost any staple article. Then as to the other figures you give, those relating to exports are again incomplete, because they give values only, and not quantities. The bleached goods are the cheaper, not only because bleaching and printing require a little additional material, but because also they involve considerably more labor. So, even if your estimate is correct, that of our very small total exports, half were unbleached and half more highly finished, reckoning by values only the unbleached goods would be a good deal more in quantity.

EDWARD J. SHRIVER.

More About Cotton.

NEW YORK, Nov. 26.—Reading Mr. E. J. Shriver’s communication and your answer, published in THE STANDARD of the 24th inst., prompts me to contribute a word on exports of cotton manufactures.

It seems to me that there is little or no reason why we should not compete successfully with England or any country on the face of the globe, so far as prices are concerned, in supplying the markets of the world with cotton goods—especially white—and I am of the opinion that the reasons why we do not export cotton wares much more largely, are involved in the tariffs, beyond the mere matter of exchange which they limit or prohibit. It seems to me that exports of cotton goods are greatly curtailed by the high prices of other manufactures which are made dear by protection. Let us suppose a merchant in South America, Africa, Asia or elsewhere desires to purchase ten articles by order, and on account of our high prices for many of them, due to our protective tariffs, he is compelled to send to England for nine, eight or even seven of them, or any portion the prices may dictate, the order for the few articles of cotton he could buy in America at the same price, quality, etc., being equal, naturally go along with the rest of the order to England. Such merchants will not divide their orders and send the minor part to a new market without some great inducement in price. The conclusion is that, if we wish to increase our cotton exports to an extent commensurate with our capacity to produce at competing prices, we must put ourselves in a position to sell our other principal manufactures as cheaply as England; or to control any considerable portion of the world’s markets for specialties, we must sell such specialties considerably cheaper than England or those countries which, under our protected prices, are in a position to defy American competition in furnishing the great majority of manufactured necessities.

WALTER CARR.

The Philadelphia Record Can Answer Questions Almost as Well as The Standard.

The following query and answer appeared in the Philadelphia Record of November 21:

“Is the density of population of civilized countries a factor in making the price of labor in such countries?

“For example: If in a country like Great Britain and Ireland a hundred thousand acres of land could be thrown open to settlement, would it not result in making higher wages and better living to workers of all classes, without regard to tariff?

T. J. O.

“Middletown, Pa., Nov. 19.”

As population increases the necessity of more land from which to obtain sustenance is apparent, and the cheapness or dearness of land has a direct bearing upon the rate of wages. The cheap land in the United States is the chief factor in sustaining the rate of wages, is the poor man’s resource, and the only resource which cannot be taken away from him. The tariff has nothing to do with sustaining the rate of wages in any country.

Only an Exaggeration of the Truth.

St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Family man—What is the rent of this house?

Renting agent—What salary are you getting a month?

Family man—One hundred and ten dollars.

Renting agent—Well, that will be the rent.

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“Count Tolstoi’s Religious Views.” Archdeacon F. W. Farrar.—A specific explanation of the error of Tolstoi’s interpretation of Christ.

“The Price of Life.” Edward Atkinson.—A bird’s eye view of the earnings of all classes of Americans.

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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. 4 pp.
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. 2 pp.
34. The Distribution of Wealth. T. G. Shearman. 16 pp.
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. Rice. 4 pages.
39. A Practical Illustration. Hugh B. Brown. 2 pages. [64?]. Hints as to What You Can Do. Henry George. 4 pp.
40. To a Bookkeeper. Bartholomew Appleby. 2 pages.
41. A Lawyer’s Reply to Criticisms. Samuel B. Clarke. 16 pages.
42. A Piece of Land. The late Francis G. Shaw. 2 pp.
43. The Tax on Buildings. William T. Croasdale. 8 pp.
44. My Butcher Woman and My Grocery Man. William McCabe. 4 pages.
45. Election Reform. Louis F. Post. 12 pages.
46. The Single Tax in Canada. 2 pages.
47. The Onward March. William Lloyd Garrison. 4 pp.
48. A Republican’s Reasons for Supporting Cleveland. Judge Frank T. Reid. 2 pages.
49. A Catechism. D. A. 46. 2 pages.
50. 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. [8?] 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. [illegible] 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 the Friend of 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. 4 pages.

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Address 5 New Bridge street, London, E. C.

A Significant Defection.

I am not a republican, and probably I shall not vote a republican ticket in many years; and yet there was nothing in my bringing up which should have made me naturally a democrat according to my friend’s conception of a democrat; for I have been taught to believe Andrew Jackson a humbug, Andrew Johnson a dangerous obstructionist, the democratic policy in 1861-65 treason, and their reconstruction ideas wholly bad; and I do not deny my belief that if the republicans had chosen to hang Jefferson Davis for treason, instead of extending a noble and wise clemency to him, they would have been perfectly justified in doing so. I am not a Bourbon democrat; but, while nothing could make me swear unqualified allegiance to all the principles of Jefferson, Jackson, Benton or Seymour, no more could I endure to be a Bourbon republican. To my mind, the democratic party stands in 1888 with four years’ good service behind it, and an honest object to fight for; whereas I can see nothing good in a party which is appealing steadily and persistently to self-interest, greed and avarice; which is praising the dynamiter and reviling the college professor; and whose policy is directed, from the platform convention to the senate, by a disreputable politician whom the people have once rejected; and whom this infatuated body insist upon still maintaining (with all the dignities and honors appurtenant to such an office) as their “uncrowned king” and faithful counselor.

These are the closing words of an article by Mr. Lloyd M’Kim Garrison, in the Harvard Monthly for November, entitled “Why I Am Not a Republican.” They are a terse summary of the reasons which have induced their author, at the very outset of his manhood, to forsake and oppose the party toward which many might have thought he would be irresistibly drawn by the forces of education and inherited principle and prejudice. Like many another thinking man, Mr. Garrison sees plainly that the real republican party, the party of freedom, and of self-sacrifice for freedom’s sake, has long since perished and dissolved into its elements. He sees that its mantle has been assumed as a cloak and disguise by that very party of slavery and monopoly which the real republican party, when alive, fought to rout and ruin. And because he believes in the principles of the dead and vanished party that burnt chattel slavery out of the land, he declines to do homage to the party whose whole present aim is to cultivate and develop a system of industrial slavery more blighting to humanity than chattel slavery ever was.

Here is an extract from Mr. Garrison’s article that is worth reading. He is speaking of a well known four-page leaflet, of which the protectionist campaign managers distributed probably a million or more:

The rest of this page is especially recommended to the “attention” (in large letters) of workingmen, and purports to be a comparative table of wages under free trade in England and protection in the United States. I have sent one of these papers to my republican friend, and he sees “nothing strange” in it; is sure that workingmen “are concerned” in the campaign; and (though he doesn’t say so) seems to imply that this is honest argument. I will try to show the kind of argument it is. Seventy-four trades, including the ambiguous ones of “servant,” “polisher,” “pattern maker^sic,,” “chemical,” and “laborer,” are enumerated with the corresponding wage rate for each in England and the United States. Let us begin: “Book binders, England, $6.00; United States, $15.00—$18.00^sic.” “Brush makers, England, $6.00; United States, $15.00—$20.00.” These are the first two trades on the list, and this is all the information we have to go by. What is meant by “$6.00”? Weekly wages, most likely—but it is not stated so. Neither is it stated how book binders and brush makers are paid. Now I know of one brush factory where the payment is entirely by piece; and I am sure the rate of pay in my friend McNamee’s bookbindery varies very greatly with the skill and amount of work done by each man in the shop. What a bald assertion to say that in America bookbinders “get $15.00,” in England, “$6.00!” From what authorities are the figures derived? What English statistics? What American reports? Are the wages for skilled workmen or apprentices? By piece, week or month? Is there the same rate for bookbinders in South Carolina and Boston? Or even in the two binderies in Cambridge? Would any business man (like my friend) consult a table like this to find out how much to pay a typesetter or a “servant”? Would he not first insist upon an authoritative verification of the figures? Suppose we look further: “Butchers,” it is interesting to know, earn “$12.00 in the United States,” against “$6.00 in England.” This is well, surely; but is this the wages of the proprietor of the shop (who often is his own journeyman) or of the journeymen, or of the prentices, who both chop joints and deliver them? And what is the time for which their services exact “$12.00”? “Carpenters,” I find, receive “$15.00,” in this country. I had an idea they were paid by the hour or day, and $15 is a rather extravagant allowance for either alternative. “Hatters,” we are told, get from “$12 to $24,” a most favorable exchange for the paltry “$6” England offers. It would be interesting to know how hatters are paid in Norwich and Orange, and whether at both places they are equally prosperous; I had formerly understood, on pretty good authority, that the Orange hatters got a beggarly pittance per hat in the finishing room, while the other inferior branches were still worse paid; and I even now wonder how it can be that “hatters,” as a rule, are such a discontented, turbulent class of men, if they “get” as much as “$24!” I am forced to believe that these imaginary “hatters” must be Norwich hatters; for the kind I have known all my life are neither well paid nor well treated, nor well satisfied with hatting. Some of the Pennsylvania miners will be pleased to know that American “iron ore miners” (apparently without regard to age or strength, or whether they are pit men or workers outside the mine’s mouth) also “get” “$12” (presumably per week). I fancy some of them who are striking for $1.25 per day would like to know where this opulence is. So would the “longshoremen” of New York like to know who pays the “$15.00” this table allows them, and what it is paid for. In fact, the whole catalogue is the merest obiter dictum of an invisible omniscient; it is so silly, so incomplete, so vague and general in its statistics, that there is not a rational man in the country who would go to it for any real information concerning wages. Yet many of these same men do not think it improper to frighten workingmen (who cannot know or ascertain the imposition except in their own particular craft) with an absurd comparison of figures which never were tabulated in any official document in the world; and they are the leaders of the “party of moral ideas[!?]”

Still worse than this is the laughable table on the third page, in which Mr. Robert P.

p. 6, col. 2 Porter triumphantly “disposes forever” of “the fiction that you can get more for $7.50 per week in free trade London than in protection New York;” and which Mr. Robert P. Porter has gone through the solemn and perfectly harmless farce of swearing to the truth of. In this table there are three, instead of two columns of figures; the English values being given in £., s., d., with their equivalent, in a parallel column of dollars and cents, in which a shilling is always reckoned as 25 cents and a pound as $5! This would have considerably raised the English wages on the other page had the same method been pursued there; but Mr. Robert P. Porter was entirely too clever—that was not what the tables were meant for. “Meat” is the first article on Mr. Porter’s list of necessaries, though “beer, 3 pts.,” is not far off. “Meat: 4s. equal $1—$1.” We are not told whether it is beef, mutton or sausage; of what cut or weight; what quality or what quantity; we only know that in London “meat” for a “family” is “4s.” ($1!) per week, and in New York “$1” also. “Bread, per loaf,” is shown to be 5½ cents in London in English currency’s real equivalent (though Mr. Porter’s arithmetic makes it 5 7-10), against 5 cents in New York. “Eighteen pounds of potatoes” (I had thought one bought them by the peck or bushel) come to “1 shilling” (25 cents), in London, against “22½ cents” in New York. Then bold fancy takes another flight. “Other vegetables” are in London: “4d.” (8 cents)—in New York, “10 cents.” “Other vegetables!” Shade of Luculius^sic! What kind? Are they juicy tomatoes or January asparagus, or only carrots, beets and onions? Are they sold singly like cabbage heads, or in baskets? What, and how many “other vegetables” can one buy with a shilling? But the protection oracle is mute, and we shall never know. Not only are we compelled to get by conjecture every thing we can’t deduct by reason from these tables, but we are confronted with some most extraordinary items, such as “shoes: $2.50,”—“repairing shoes: $1.50,” an item which would seem to prove that the shoes bought at this ridiculous figure cost almost as much to cobble as would buy a new pair; and it does seem extravagant, to find that a man wearing “one suit Sunday clothes,” which only cost him “8.00”—“London price, £2 10s. ($12.50,” sic), should lay out “$2.50” more on “one silk hat,” and 25 cents on a “necktie,” especially when he can get “two hats’^sic—doubtless much more serviceable—for the paltry price of”$1.50.” In short, this whole incongruous patch work, from its first of “meat, $1.00,” to its last, of “medical attendance, 6 cents,” is the most misleading rubbish ever set before an honest man for his sober guidance; an appeal to ignorance which completely belies all claims of the party which makes use of it to being the champions of American intellect and progress.

After such rigmarole as this, one need not be surprised at the sheet further containing everything that is calculated to frighten or prejudice an ignorant voter. The crowned British flag labeled “Free trade,” and its forged quotations from London papers, which have been so often exposed as to become tedious to look upon, are there; and an extract from a renegade democratic sheet—the Sun—which argues German, Italian and Swiss wages as evidences of the perniciousness of free trade (regardless of the truth that these countries are most highly “protected”) is but a fitting climax to a collection of falsehood and disingenuousness, which, from the mongrel song on the first sheet, to the sophistical republican platform on the last, is intended to appeal solely and only to ignorance, poverty and race hatred.

To the men who now guide the policy of the republican party, the defection of a young man like Lloyd McKim Garrison probably has little significance. Indeed it is not unlikely that they would rather be left without the embarrassment of his support. But to the honest voters of their party it will mean a great deal.

A Bundle of Fallacies.

The Toronto Week—a journal, it may be remarked in passing, highly esteemed in Canada for its scholarly tone and the attention it devotes to questions of principle—presents its readers, in a recent issue, with a brief discussion of the wages problem, by Mr. J. Clark Murray, into which are crowded about as many false ideas as would suffice an ordinary economist of the Van Buren Denslow type for a folio volume. It is a perfect arsenal of exploded weapons.

Mr. Murray begins by stating that the very nature of the contract between employer and laborer makes them essentially co-partners, contributing each a share toward the production of a joint result.” Hence he infers that “in the remuneration of labor there can be no adequate fulfillment of the claims of justice until there is a full recognition of this co-partnership^sic:”

This inference, however, is merely an abstract principle; and it must be borne in mind that in practice the main difficulty is, not to find the abstract rules of action, but to apply these to the concrete circumstances in which we happen to be placed. For these circumstances are often so complicated that the acutest mind is baffled in attempting to clear a satisfactory path through their entanglements. The perplexity, we shall now see, becomes peculiarly bewildering amid the vast and complicated enterprises of modern industry.

What is meant by this, Mr. Murray explains, is that it is impossible to formulate any general rule by which the proportionate shares of employer and laborer should be settled. But why it should be necessary to have such a rule of division, Mr. Murray doesn’t stop to ask. It has not occurred to him that a natural law may be safely left to work out its own fulfillment, if only interfering circumstances are removed; and that when a natural law does not fulfill itself, it is a sure sign that there are interferences needing removal. When a brick doesn’t fall to the ground, we know there must be something holding it up. When water fails to find a common level, we know there must be a dam restraining the higher portion of it. The brick would fall, and the water would find its level, if they could; and what we have to do is not to study the formulas of gravitation, but simply to clear away the impediments and give gravity a chance. God makes laws. Man can only make obstructions. Mr. Murray has not found this out yet.

Observe with what unerring certainty of equity the value of a product is divided among the various persons who have co-operated in the labor of production, when natural law is left to run its course unchecked. A farmer in Dakota plows a field, and thus begins a process of production which is completed only when a lot of people in London go to a baker’s shop and buy bread to eat. Besides the farmer, we may assume that there are concerned in the production of that bread a railway

p. 6, col. 3 company, a steamship line, a merchant, a miller, a banker and a baker. Can any process of production be more complex than this, in which the work begins and ends at points four thousand miles apart? And yet without any formula, or any working of problems in the rule of three, each co-partner in the bread production gets just the share that belongs to him. The farmer plants his wheat, reaps it, threshes it and hauls it to the railway station. The value of the wheat at the station is his share of the ultimate product, bread. The railway and steamship companies transport the wheat across the continent and the ocean, and the measure of their reward is the average increase of value which commodities acquire by being transported over four thousand miles of sea and land. But the value of the wheat is still further increased by the labor of the merchant, who collects information, studies markets and directs the wheat toward that point at which it is most needed; and this added value is the merchant’s natural wages for his labor. The miller grinds the wheat into flour, and finds his just reward in the difference in value between them. The banker, all along, has added to the value of the product in every stage, by enabling each man to receive the wages of his labor as soon as the labor was performed, and that added value comes naturally into his hands. Finally, the baker completes the work of production, by baking the flour into bread, and appropriates the difference between the value of the flour and the value of the bread as the reward of his industry. Along the whole line, every member of the producing co-partnership has been paid for the value of his production. Natural law, left unimpeded, has performed its function unerringly, and without the necessity of any human interference.

But now, suppose that some gentleman has been wise enough to buy the Dakota prairie, and demands of the farmer a certain portion of his earnings in return for the privilege of cultivating it; suppose the railway company has united with other railway companies to form a monopoly, and refuses to transport the wheat except on receipt of far more than the natural rate of freight; suppose the merchant is refused permission to take wheat into England, except on payment of a heavy tax; suppose the miller is not allowed to grind it until he has paid a tax; nor the baker to make it into bread till he has paid another tax—is it not evident that the equitable distribution among the co-operating producers, of the value of the final product, bread, will be very seriously interfered with? And is there any way in which the injustice can be prevented, save by sweeping away the monopolies and the taxes? Apparently Mr. Murray thinks there is. But he will look a long time before he finds it. And if he would understand the reason why the laborer fails to get his fair share of production, let him imagine our supposititious Dakota farmer hired by his landlord to raise wheat on a salary; and he will see a light on the subject that will astonish him.

But when Mr. Murray tells us what he understands by co-operation in production, we cease to wonder at his gropings after a solution of the wages puzzle. He calls it co-operation when one man lets another man do all the work and pockets half the product. He does indeed. Here are his own words:

In point of fact, the general principle of equity has in numberless instances been adopted for determining the relative proportion between the wages of laborers and the profits of their employers. Since the subject of co-operation has attracted attention, and inquiries have in consequence been started into its history, it has been found that industries of various kinds have, almost from time immemorial, been carried on under some form of this principle. Not to multiply examples, it is sufficient to point out that the metayer system of cultivating land is essentially a case of co-operation. Under all variety in its forms the system implies an agreement between the land owner and the tenant who is the actual cultivator of the soil, that the whole annual produce shall be divided between the two, either share and share alike, or in some other proportion determined by an equitable regard for all the circumstances of the case.

The man who gave a boy permission to steal a basket, go begging and keep half he got, was a co-operator after Mr. Murray’s own heart. The Dakota farmer, carrying a landord^sic on his back, would doubtless be considered by him as co-operating with the landlord in the labor of walking.

Mr. Murray thinks the chief reason why wages are not universally settled on the metayer plan, is that the laborers couldn’t do anything with their share of the product if they should get it. In the case of a railway, or a canal, or a large public building, for instance, “the work may require years for its completion, it can yield no return in its incomplete state, and therefore during its progress the laborers must be supported by means derived from the unconsumed fruits of former labor.” Mr. Murray probably does not mean by this that the laborers must eat stale eggs, and stinking fish, and putrid meat. The idea in his mind is that they must be supported by the otherwise unconsumed fruits of contemporaneous labor. But as that would happen to them in any event it is difficult to see the force of the remark. And it is certainly untrue that a railway, a canal, or a great public building yields no return in its incomplete state. The men who make a business of supplying railways, canals and public buildings almost invariably dispose of their product piecemeal, bit by bit as it progresses, and are as a rule, quite sufficiently careful to collect the purchase money before they pay out any wages to their laborers. Mr. Murray evidently believes that a Dakota farmer can get nothing for his wheat crop until it has been sent to England and baked into bread.

Such are a few of the fallacies that Mr. J. Clark Murray has contrived to condense into the space of some fifteen hundred words. There are others which it would be wearisome and unprofitable to notice. He promises to return to the consideration of the problem at some future time. It is to be hoped that before he does so he will do a little genuine thinking and use a mental looking glass.

p. 6, col. 4

THE TEACHING OF ANNIE KILBURN.

NEW YORK.—Whether the novel “with a purpose” be a novel of the highest order, artistically considered; whether Mr. William D. Howells, as the writer of such novels, be thereby forfeiting his title to one of the highest pedestals in the pantheon of letters, are questions with which readers of THE STANDARD, as such, have little concern. If, as many suppose, the next phase through which the art of novel writing must pass be that in which the liberalizing scientific spirit peculiar to our century is woven into the story, and the author so weaving be recognized as the agent—and therefore rightful beneficiary—of a legitimate process of evolution, then will the aforesaid pedestal gravitate towards Mr. Howell’s^sic irresistibly, though the whole army of critics stand between and strive to bar the way.

Notwithstanding, therefore, your strictures, in a recent issue of THE STANDARD upon Mr. Howells’s story, “Annie Kilburn,” and your decision that the work is comparatively a failure, I venture to believe that there is an aspect of the case the consideration of which must lead us to pronounce the book not only satisfactory, but a distinct and unqualified success. It is the aspect presented to the single tax reformer as he views the matter from his peculiar standpoint. To him, the mere writing of such a story is a fact of the highest significance—a sure indication that certain seed scattered, it may be at random, has sprouted, and will soon bear fruit. He cannot but say to himself, “Here is an entire new region—the region of art—suddenly invaded by a powerful ally of the vital reform I seek to further.” Mr. Howells does not, indeed, attempt to solve the social problem, since he abruptly ends the story—after the manner of the modern word^sic—just where the old fashioned novel would begin to be most interesting; but he asserts that it cannot be solved by our present methods. He explicitly declares, through the lips of Mr. Peck and Annie Kilburn, that charity can never take the place of justice. Here is the condition precedent clearly laid down—the conviction that must penetrate and pervade the consciousness of every effective worker before even the first step can be taken towards a genuine reform. That this is not an overstatement, witness the following extracts:

“If you knew, or if any one knew, how difficult it is, what a responsibility, to do the least thing for others! And once it seemed so simple! And it seems all the more difficult, the more means you have of doing good. The poor people seem to help one another without doing any harm, but if I try it——”

“Yes,” said the minister, “it is difficult to help others when we cease to need help ourselves. A man begins poor, or his father or grandfather before him—it doesn’t matter how far back he begins—and then he is in accord and free understanding with all the other poor in the world; but as he prospers he withdraws from them and loses their point of view. Then, when he offers help, it is not as a brother of these who need it, but a patron, an agent of the false state of things in which want is possible; and his help is not an impulse of the love that ought to bind us all together, but a compromise proposed by iniquitous social conditions, a peace offering to his own guilty consciousness of his share in the wrong.”

“Yes,” said Annie, too grateful for the comfort he had given her to question words whose full purport had not perhaps reached her. “And I assure you, Mr. Peck, I feel very differently about these things since I first talked with you.” . . . “Yes,” said the minister, “I once worked in a cotton mill. Then,” he contiued^sic, “it seems to me that I saw things in their right light, as I have never been able to see them since. I fancied that I had authority to set myself apart from my fellow workmen, to be a teacher and guide to the true life. But it was a great error. The true life was the life of work, and no one ever had authority to turn from it. Christ himself came as a laboring man.”

“That is true,” said Annie, “but if you had been meant to work in a mill all your life, would you have been given the powers you have, and that you have just used to save me from despair?”

The minister rose and said, with a sigh, “No one was meant to work in a mill all his life.”

And this from the sermon of Mr. Peck:

In the political world we have striven forward to liberty as to the final good; but, with this achieved, we find that liberty is only a means and not an end, and that we shall abuse it as a means if we do not use it, even sacrifice it, to promote equality; or, in other words, equality is the perfect work, the evolution of liberty. Patriotism has been the virtue which has secured an image of brotherhood, rude and imperfect, to large numbers of men within certain limits, but nationality must perish before the universal ideal of fraternity is realized. Charity is the holiest of the agencies which have hitherto wrought to redeem the race from savagery and despair, but there is something holier yet than charity, something higher, something purer and farther from selfishness, something into which charity shall willingly grow and cease, and that is justice. Not the justice of our Christless codes, with their penalties, but the instinct of righteous shame which, however dumbly, however obscurely, stirs in every honest man’s heart when his superfluity is confronted with another’s destitution and which is destined to increase in power till it becomes the social as well as the individual conscience. Then, in the truly Christian state, there shall be no more asking and no more giving, no more gratitude and no more merit, no more charity, but only and evermore justice.”

It is not likely that either the tract or missionary society will ever fee Mr. Howells largely for such writing, since the former, even if it does not entertain the ancient prejudice against novels, chooses rather to have its morality carefully differentiated from the narrative proper, unmistakably labelled and thrust at the reader, as it were, by means of a long stick; while the stay at home, searching character of Mr. Howells’s challenge of injustice, revealed in the above words, is clearly at variance with the remote indirection of the methods of the latter. There is nothing, however, even in the “Shepherd of Salisbury Plain,” more essentially tract like or reformatory, more fundamentally Christian, than the spirit and purpose of “Annie Kilburn.” Nor is this all of Mr. Howells’s service. A fit preliminary and companion to this latest story of his is his larger one, “A Modern Instance.” Bartley Hubbard’s career is a life-like portrayal of that to which every young American entering the world of business is urgently invited by the conditions around him, and which a majority of them, with a certainty progressively increasing, are sure to run. The one story supplements the other; between them, the bane and antidote are both presented. That Mr. Howells is doing inestimable service in thus thrusting upon the attention of the artistic world the underlying principle of a new and higher political economy is not only evidence of his courage and sincerity of purpose but matter of congratulation to every lover of his kind.

In sharp contrast with Mr. Howells’s aggressive, radical suggestions for the solution of the social dilemma is an article by Mr. Cable entitled “Home Culture Clubs” which appeared in the August number of the Century. It is a curious and instructive study thus to find two contemporary writers of prominence treating essentially the same subject but headed in exactly opposite directions. Mr. Cable’s title is to a certain extent a misnomer since the design of the article is to show, not how persons living at home may cultivate themselves, but how persons living in comfortable and even affluent homes may in a

p. 6, col. 5

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[The Teaching of Annie Kilburn, continued from column 4]

measure merge their home life with that of other less fortunately situated with a view to the elevation of the latter. Its object, therefore, is primarily charitable rather than educational. It begins with a careful analysis of the methods usually employed in this kind of work, explaining inferentially when not directly the reason for the frequent failures, and conveying in every line a conviction of the gingerly manner in which such work must be conducted to be even measurably successful. The article is inspired throughout with the spirit of Malthus and betrays no consciousness of the freer air already stirring in the social world. It is surprising that a writer usually so acute, a writer who on the negro question has shown himself not only abreast of but in advance of his time, should, on a larger though kindred subject, be caught in such a Rip Van Winklish nap.

If this world be fashioned on any such carefully elaborate plan as the article implies; if men’s relations to each other are so delicately adjusted that beneficent intercourse is only possible with such painful circumspection, then civilization may as well be abandoned as a hopeless problem, a labyrinth of ever active, reciprocally destructive influences the intricacy of whose interplay mere human intelligence can never solve. How easily might the door to the relief of poverty be opened, if, instead of regarding its fastening as a complicated lock requiring for its opening the many warded key of charity, men could only see that justice needed only to stretch out her hand and turn the knob!

DAVID L. THOMPSON.

Getting Down to Business in Minnesota.

A number of single tax men of Minneapolis recently met at the office of Howe Paige, and formed a permanent organization. The chief work of the winter, which has been already begun, will be the circulation of a petition to the legislature asking for the submission to the people of a constitutional amendment permitting the exemption from taxation of personal property and improvements on land. A considerable number of signatures have already been obtained embracing the names of some of the most substantial business men of the city and state. Charles J. Buell, temporary president of the league, writes that the Australian electoral system is almost sure to be adopted at the next session of the legislature.

They’ll Know Us After a While.

Here is what the London Echo prints in all seriousness:

Americans undoubtedly take the presidential election very seriously. The amount of personal enthusiasm they impart into it is shown by the following fact: A few days back a notice was posted outside a church door not many miles from New York, fraternally exhorting the congregation not to wipe their foreheads during service with bandanas—bandanas being the colors of the democratic party. The reason assigned was, that the sight of a bandana “encouraged democrats to cheer for Grover Cleveland, and proved a serious interruption to divine service.”

Mr. Blaine is All Right.

Baltimore Sun.

No special concern need be felt regarding the future of Mr. Blaine. He has been eminently capable of taking care of himself in the past, and is pretty certain to keep to the fore in the future. That he will exercise a great deal of influence in times to come, as he has in the past, may be set down as unquestionable. He is one of those stirring spirits not destined to obscurity. His health is seemingly pretty good, and that he will be heard from always at the proper time is a certainty.

A Million Live in Tenements.

A second semi-annual inspection of the New York tenements has just been completed by the sanitary police. It showed that there are 32,3[9?]0 tenements, with a total population of 1,079,728 persons, of whom 142,519 are under five years of age.

> Ah! when shall all men’s good > Be each man’s rule, and universal peace > Lie like a shaft of light across the land, > And like a lane of beams across the sea, > Through all the circle of the golden year? > —[TENNYSON^sic.

[Notice] All Single Tax Men of the Ninth

ALL SINGLE TAX MEN OF THE NINTH congressional district and of other districts where there are no single tax clubs are requested to call at the Free trade club, 1[3?]5 Second avenue, to confer with a committee in regard to organizing a single tax club. The committee will be there every evening until further notice. Should a sufficient number become members we propose to organize clubs in every congressional district. Public meeting Sunday evening, December 2. All are invited. Bring your friends.

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p. 6, col. 6

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