December 29, 1888 Vol. IV, No. 26Whole No. 104

CONTENTS.

The Democratic Societies. The Single Tax Club House. Irish Pauper Mackerel. How American Authors are Protected. American Ships for the English Navy. More Protection Needed. The Petition to Congress. Shall We Invade New Jersey? From W. J. Atkinson. Indianapolis Men. Getting Very Hot in the Northwest. The Reception to Henry George. Editorial Notes. The Single Tax Club House. Louis Prang on Lithographic Free Trade. Ballot Reform. Straws Which Show the Wind. A Mysterious Visit—A Sketch by Mark Twain. Getting in His Work. Land was a Trust. Justice and Charity (a poem). The Grand Old Man. Society Notes. The Iron Man. New Ideas, Methods and Inventions. By the Night Express (a Story). London Towers. To Help Single Tax Strangers.

Within a week after the election the Democratic society of Pennsylvania, of which that true Jeffersonian democrat, Chauncey F. Black, is president, issued a ringing address congratulating its members upon the good work that had been done, and calling upon the four thousand democratic clubs and democratic societies in the United States to press forward in the work of education without a moment’s intermission. As President Black truly said:

Had the Democratic society of Pennsylvania been four years old. instead of five months^sic, with its primary societies in every election district, as they should have been, the electoral votes of Pennsylvania would have gone to Grover Cleveland, where the best interests of the large majority of her people required that they should go. Had the national association of democratic clubs been even one year old, instead of four months, New York and Indiana and the whole agricultural west would have been for democratic revenue reform, instead of republican or federalist monopoly.

Now comes the executive committee of the National association of democratic clubs with another stirring address in the same temper. It declares that reports from three thousand associated clubs and societies show that there is no faltering from the position of the last campaign and no hesitation in entering at once upon a new contest, and continues:

The National association was formed and its members organized too late for the most effective campaign work during the past presidential contest. It failed to stem the tide of republican misrepresentation and the effect of enormous sums of money handled by the most corrupt and efficient partisan organization ever known in this country; but with all our disadvantages success was barely missed. The great manufacturing states of New Jersey and Connecticut were carried. In New York and Indiana, in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the workingmen stood firmly by the democracy, as may be seen by a careful examination of the returns from manufacturing centers. Where the people understood the real difference between republican plutocracy and democratic equality their verdict was true. Had the active club organization of the democracy permeated the agricultural districts as well, Cleveland and Thurman would have had an electoral as well as a popular majority. The honest and intelligent farmers who suffer the most and gain the least from the present excess of taxation would have come forward in blocks of fifty to meet the mercenary and unpatriotic floaters in their blocks of five.

The campaign upon which the democratic clubs are now to enter is not an easy one. We cannot safely rely for a victory, in the next presidential election, upon the twenty states which elected Tilden in 1876, and which elected Grover Cleveland in 1884. The admission of the territories, to which each of the great parties has solemnly pledged itself, and the rearrangements consequent upon the next census in the representation of the present states, will change the relative power of each single state and group of states, and will broaden the national contest. To win we shall have to fight the whole field, from Maine to California, as hotly as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Indiana were fought this year.

The democratic party proposes to fight this entire field and upon the same issues as in the past campaign, upon the same principles which were inaugurated in the framework and foundation of our association at Baltimore on July 4 last. They are the principles of Thomas Jefferson, the great and first preceptor of the principles of democracy in this country, as well as of every true and enlightened democrat who has lived since our birth as a nation.

Declaring substantially for free trade and ballot reform, the address continues:

The party which has truth upon its side never fails of victory when the truth is once made known. One argument is worth a dozen fallacies. One organization campaigning for the truth and honest government in a four-years’ contest is worth a dozen armed only with prevarications and with money.

With an abandonment of every minor motive and a steady application to the accomplishment of the great ends and the establishment of the great principles for which our party was founded, as early as the republic itself, we need have no fear of the result. We lock back^sic with self respect and pride to the battle which we have waged, and with confidence to the ones to come. Let us lose no time in preparation. The next struggle for control of the national government will begin, not in 1892, but in the congressional and legislative elections of 1890. Let the democratic clubs and societies step forward and with an active, earnest, vigilant, volunteer militia oppose the paid standing army of our opponents, inaugurating immediately the agitation of our great principles, and continuing it in every voting district for the next four years.

A meeting of our general committee will be called at an early day. It is hoped that before that time there will be at least one active p. 1, col. 2 club or society in every county of the Union conscientiously at work. If there be but one in a county it is hoped that that one will have the whole county as its field. It is hoped that each club will be a permanent and self reliant literary bureau and speakers’ committee. Each club or society of the last campaign which was then or has since become a permanent organization is respectfully requested to communicate with the general committee at once, and to keep us notified of all changes in its officers.

This, like President Cleveland’s message, has the true ring—the note of victory. The great reason why the democratic party did not carry the electoral vote in the last campaign was the half heartedness of its councils and its work. That campaign was really the beginning of popular democratic education, in this generation—the birth of that new democracy, which is really the old, and which has before it the task of carrying the principles of Thomas Jefferson to full fruition.

Our single tax men who, as our correspondence shows, are everywhere in the best of heart and vigor, should remember that those democratic societies which Chauncey F. Black and his associates have founded afford the best possible sphere for their activity. These societies are formed for the study and diffusion of the principles of Jefferson. The principles of Jefferson lead to the single tax.

The scheme for a single tax club house in New York is steadily gathering strength. Such club houses will prove very useful. They will afford places of meeting and conference, where our people can make the acquaintance of each other, and plans can be formed for better work. The Ninth district free trade club has since the election changed its name to the Manhattan single tax club, and has a floor at 105 Second avenue, open every afternoon and evening, in which an average of twenty-five men nightly gather. Its success proves that the larger scheme is sure to find adequate support. The London workingmen’s radical clubs, which I spoke of in the last issue of THE STANDARD, are all clubs of this nature, and already constitute a strong educational and political force. The more successful of them occupy entire buildings—one, which I visited a few Sundays ago, having taken possession of the old chapel and parsonage of the famous Rowland Hill. They have usually a reading room and something of a library, a smoking room, refreshment room, committee rooms, sometimes a billiard room, and a hall, in many cases a large one, in which lectures are delivered and meetings held. The floors are usually bare and the furniture is very plain, but the rooms are comfortable enough. The dues are very small, amounting to only a few pence a week—a large membership sufficing at this rate to defray expenses.

Coming over on the Etruria I made the acquaintance of Mr. Daggett of Boston, a keen, alert Massachusetts Yankee, who, beginning as a boy on a fishing schooner, has passed all his life in the fish business. The last year or so Mr. Daggett has spent on the west coast of Ireland organizing the business of catching, salting and shipping mackerel to the United States.

The reason this American fisherman went to Ireland to deluge his native country with pauper Irish mackerel instead of continuing to devote his energy and capital to the catching of American mackerel, is not the want of a protective mackerel duty (for there is a duty of $2 per barrel on foreign mackerel), but the want of American mackerel. For some years past the great schools of mackerel which have been in the habit of visiting our eastern coasts have so greatly fallen off that while the price of mackerel in the American markets has largely risen, the mackerel fishermen have not been able to make a living.

Mr. Daggett, during a pleasure trip to Europe some years ago had noted with a fisherman’s eye that there were large numbers of mackerel on the west coast of Ireland, though little use was made of them, the fishermen only taking what they could sell fresh, with a few barrels to salt down for their own use or to sell at the country fairs. He therefore bethought himself that there would be money in going over to Ireland, establishing packing stations, getting the Irish fishermen to catch more mackerel, and supplying the American mackerel famine from the Irish plenty. This he has been engaged in for the past year. He has been successful and has made money, as he deserved to make it. But he would have been more successful and made more money were it not for the fact that under our protective tariff he is fined $2 for every barrel he produces into the United States.

Here is a case which it might be worth p. 1, col. 3 the while of “protectionists”—and especially of “Irish American protectionists”—to consider. There is a mackerel famine on one side of the Atlantic, a mackerel plenty on the other. Why should the federal government step in and by a $2 a barrel tax hinder the famine from being relieved by the plenty? Who is being injured by this production of Irish mackerel into the United States? Mr. Daggett has made money by it, and what he has made increases the general fund of wealth in the commonwealth of Massachusetts and in the United States. American lovers of mackerel have been enabled to enjoy mackerel they could not otherwise have had, while an industry affording new employment for labor has been opened on the west coast of Ireland. Irishmen indeed profit by it, but is that any reason why we should hamper and restrict a trade which is of benefit to our own people? And who, really, and from what, does this protective tax protect or defend? Evidently it can only protect or defend Americans who want to eat mackerel from getting mackerel to eat. It is not a restriction on what foreign Irishmen want to do to us. So far as the Irishmen are concerned we might have gone without mackerel so long as those fishes did not choose to come to our shores. It is a restriction upon what Americans want to do for Americans. It was to provide Americans with the mackerel they wanted that Mr. Daggett went over to Ireland.

Mr. Daggett told me a good many interesting things about fish. The disappearance of mackerel from the American coast happened before, during the early part of the century. It lasted at that time for five or six years, and then they came back again as plentifully as ever. So in other places. There is a fiord on the Norwegian coast that had been for many years renowned for its abundance of herring. One spring, when the boats had gathered as usual, not a herring came. For five or six seasons they utterly failed, and then came back as suddenly as they had vanished and as plentifully as ever, and have since continued so to come. What is the cause of the disappearance or reappearance of these fishes no one knows; but it is not the agency of man. The notion that catching them drives them away or perceptibly lessens their numbers, and all notion that such fishing ought to be regulated by law, Mr. Daggett utterly derides. So teeming is the life of these great schools of fish that man may take what he will without making any impression on them. “Every fisherman will tell you,” said Mr. Daggett, “that he sees ten thousand barrels for every barrel he takes. They disappear for a while from one locality, but only to appear somewhere else. What the American fisherman wants is, not protection, but to be freed from all protective regulations, so that he may catch fish wherever he can find them. What we need with Canada, for instance, is absolute free trade.”

This Yankee fisherman, be it observed, is a student of markets, not of maxims. And it is by the study of markets that he has made his living and something over, which is a good deal more than Mr. Harrison ever did. But he is not afraid of foreign cheap labor. That bugaboo he regards only as a device used by the crafty to frighten fools.

“You have tried both sides of the Atlantic,” I said. “The run of fish being equal, where can you buy fish for packing the cheapest?”

“In the United States,” he replied. “Our boats are better; our appliances are better, and we catch more fish to the man. The run being equal, our fishermen can seil^sic fish cheaper and yet make more money than the Irish fishermen.”

“Where, other things being equal, can you pack fish cheapest?”

“In the United States,” was his quick answer. “Wages are lower in Ireland; but labor is cheaper in the United States. I have been paying on the west coast of Ireland 2s. 6d. a day for men; 1s. 6d. for women; and 1s. for girls and boys. But I would have saved money if I could have had the same work done in the United States at $2.50 per day.”

Mr. Daggett has been employing a good deal of Irish labor this year, and has put a good deal of money into circulation on the west coast. Has he thereby lessened the employment of American labor or been taking money from his own country to spend it among Irish pauper laborers? Not at all. He did not pay for the catching, cleaning or packing of the fish with American money. The west coast people would have turned up their Irish noses at American money. He paid them in money bearing the image and superscription of Victoria Regina or the signatures p. 1, col. 4 of Irish bank officials. Nor did he get this in exchange for American money. He obtained the money from an Irish bank by drawing on a London banking house having a correspondent in the United States. Nor did the London banking house send that draft to the United States for collection in money to be shipped back to England. It merely used that credit to cancel a draft to a like amount drawn on some one in England to pay for American produce shipped to that country. Thus, for every barrel of mackerel which Mr. Daggett has shipped to the United States some product of American industry has been shipped from the United States. There has been no lessening of American money, no curtailment of American employment. On the contrary, by setting Irishmen to work to catch and cure mackerel which are sent to the United States in exchange for products of American industry, Mr. Daggett has opened opportunities of employment for American labor.

If the Rev. Edward Everett Hale would call upon Mr. Daggett he might get from him some lessons in the philosophy of markets which would much increase his own usefulness. This mackerel trade is but an illustration of all trade between nations.

The Unione Tipografico-Editrice of Rome, Turin and Naples, the great Italian economic publishing house, have been courteous enough to send me a copy of “Progresso e Poverta”—the Italian trans- lation of “Progress and Poverty,” which has been made by the advocate Ludovico Eusebio, and published by them. Like all the European editions of my books, it is much more beautifully printed than any American edition, for our protective duties on paper and paper stock prevent American printers from using such good paper except on very expensive books. I very much appreciate the generous courtesy of the Unione Tipografico-Editrice in sending me this book, for since I am a “protected” American I have no rights as an author that they are bound to respect. I hope the translation is a good one, and from the character of the publishing house and of the translator I have no doubt that [it is.?] But if they had chopped it up and disfigured it, or imposed on Italian readers matter that was not mine—as the lower grade of English publishers have at times done with American authors—I would have no redress. Because I am an American, I am, as an author, an outlaw everywhere outside of the United States, and have no legal rights of property in the work that is the produce of my labor. I do not complain of other nations; I complain of my own. If other nations outlaw American authors it is only because we outlaw foreign authors. American authors could get the protection of the copyright laws of all foreign nations the moment we would consent to do to foreign authors the simple justice of acknowledging their right of property in the produce of their labor. But in this respect we stand on the moral level of the Barbary pirates, and under the influence of the protective spirit, which is essentially the spirit of theft, have persistently refused to recognize the property rights of foreign authors in order that a few American publishers might grow rich by piracy.

But it is not of this I wish to speak, so much as of the sneak thief side of our protective tariff. I am not only deprived by our own laws of any right of property in the produce of my own labor abroad, but I cannot even get the book which a foreign publisher chooses in his courtesy to send me without being compelled to pay a fine before I can get it. In this case I was not so wicked (from the protective standpoint) as to buy a book printed abroad. The Unione Tipografico-Editrice made me a present of a copy. They tied it up nicely in a pasteboard cover, put the proper stamps on it, and directing it to me at this office, put it in the mail. But instead of the postman bringing me the book, he brought me a card from the official noser of the mails in the post office building, directing me, if I wanted my book, to come down there and pay duty. So I had to send a special messenger to the post office and pay a quarter (they were more moderate than usual) before being permitted to get the book. A quarter is not a great deal. But it is a good deal more to me than to the government of the United States. I have not enough quarters. The government of the United States has too many. I could have devoted that quarter to a useful purpose. The government will but add it to that sealed mine of silver which the labor of the whole country is being taxed to create in the sub-treasury vaults, for no other purpose than to keep up taxation for the sake of taxation, and p. 1, col. 5 enable a few rich silver miners to get higher prices for their bullion.

To my mind I was robbed of the quarter just as truly as though I had been robbed of it by a footpad. But there would have been this greater satisfaction if I had been robbed by a footpad: I might have been reasonably certain that he would not go and stick it down some hole in the ground.

The avowed purpose of the thieving system that is called “protection to American labor,” is to prevent foreigners from doing work that might be done by Americans. How well it accomplishes its purpose is seen clearly in the present condition of our foreign commerce. Thirty years ago the American flag was to be met on every sea. To-day the thousands of Americans who sail out of New York every year for a pleasure trip to Europe never see the American flag from the time it is hauled down from the fore truck of the foreign steamer in which they sail, as she passes Sandy hook, until it is raised again at Sandy hook, at the fore of the foreign steamer in which they come back. The immense volume of American travel and trade is forced by our protective laws to pay for the building and running of foreign ships and to add to the profits of foreign ship owners. And now the same protective laws are forcing American capital into the building of ships which must sail under the English flag and in time of war constitute the most effective kind of cruisers in her Britannic majesty’s navy. Of the four great ocean racers, which during the coming year will reduce, possibly by a whole day, the time of the transatlantic passage, two of them, the City of New York and the City of Paris, are owned by Pennsylvania capitalists, and two of them, the Majestic and her consort, are partially owned by American capitalists. Thus the direct effect of protection is to “take work out of the country”—to compel Pennsylvania capitalists to build ships on the Clyde that under free trade they would have built on the Delaware, and to swell the naval power of Great Britain with ships built by American capital and maintained by American trade. One of these ships would be more than a match for the [whole?] fleet of steel cruisers on which we are wasting millions, raised by taxation that is crushing our industry. Her greater speed will enable her to walk away from any of them, and thus select her own distance.

The movement of the American actors, with Lawrence Barrett and Edwin Booth at their head, in demanding the same protection against pauper foreign actors as has been accorded to American laborers in the vineyard of the Lord, and to American manufacturers of bibles, is in perfect accord with the principles that the American people indorsed by the election of General Harrison, and must, if he be consistent, receive the hearty support of that gentleman. It is certainly time that the hotel bell-boys, restaurant waiters, summer boarding house keepers, and domestic livery stable men should join in demanding their share of protection. On protectionist principles it is a gross outrage on these and similar classes of American laborers and capitalists that a great body of rich Americans should be permitted to go to Europe every year and spend on foreigners the money they ought by law be compelled to spend at home. What millions on millions might be retained at home by adding to our protective system a law which should forbid any American to leave the country unless he could conclusively prove that he was a pauper, and had nothing whatever to spend. And then—then the next step might be to adopt the Chinese pigtail and the Chinese language and substitute Con-fucius for Christ.

The condition of our New York state prisons to-day shows the pitch of wicked absurdity to which protective ideas are bringing us. Here are some thousands of criminals being subjected to the most cruel and destructive of punishments—that of being locked up in idleness—lest their working should prevent other people from getting work. Yet the natural cpportunities^sic for work are open on every hand—enough for millions, where now there are only thousands.

The single tax petition to congress is being rapidly signed, 873 names having come in to the committee by the last single day’s mail. We print this week a blank form of this petition, which may be signed and sent to the committee.

Our friends in Toronto are pushing with great vigor petitions to the Ontario legislature and to the municipal council of Toronto asking for an exemption from taxation to the amount of $500 on every p. 1, col. 6 building. Such an exemption commends itself directly to small homestead owners; and as it would increase the taxation of land values, is the thin end of the single tax. This mode of bringing our principles into practical issue is worth the attention of single tax men in other localities, and would be peculiarly attractive to the farmers. It is, to be sure, but a small step, but no matter how small the step, if it involves the principle, its discussion will bring on a discussion of the principle, and thus educate public opinion to greater advances.

Phillips Thompson of Toronto, author of “The Politics of Labor,” was present at the meeting in Liverpool at which the Financial reform association presented me with an address, and I had the pleas-ure of shaking hands with him afterward. Mr. Thompson is, with his family, enjoying his ease a short distance from Liverpool. It goes without saying that he did not get the means to do this from his newspaper work, still less from his book. But he has managed to get a small slice of the unearned increment of Toronto. A little legacy falling to him some years ago, he invested it in land on the outskirts of Toronto, and as soon as the increasing population enabled him to clear a few thousand dollars, he sold out and went abroad to take, so far as his bit of “unearned increment” would go, the ease of an absentee landlord. Mr. Pardee, managing editor of the Toronto Globe, who bought Thompson’s lots, wonders, I am told, bow Thompson could have sold so low, and expects to make a good deal more as his share.

President Cleveland, too, is another good man who has had money put in his pocket by the growth and improvement of the community in which he has been living. By the increase of land values at Red Top he will, it is said, carry off from Washington about $100,000 of unearned increment. It is a good thing that he has got that much, which otherwise would have gone to some such man as Secretary Whitney, who carries off a still larger amount from the same locality. It will not only give him leisure for thought, but the spending of this money which he did not earn, may assist in calling his attention to the injustice and injury involved in the system that enables individuals to take to themselves values which the growth of the community creates. On fine and strong natures the effect of benefiting by a general wrong is often to impose a deeper sense of responsibility for the continuance of the wrong.

HENRY GEORGE.

A Manufacturer Talks Free Trade.

The Manhattan single tax club’s fourth lecture meeting was held at its rooms, 105 Second avenue last Sunday evening. An exceptionally interesting address on the single tax and the tariff question was delivered by Lindley Vinton. Mr. Vinton is a lawyer, but the major portion of his income is derived from a machine shop near Indianapolis, and confining himself mainly to that business, he presented an array of facts which proved beyond any question that the skilled labor of this country is, considering the amount of work accomplished, the cheapest skilled labor in the world. The address was pronounced by single tax men to be one of the best tariff talks they ever heard. Several protectionists kept the speaker busy answering questions till a late hour.

The Manhattan single tax club will hold a lecture meeting every Sunday evening this winter at the same place.

Organized in Kansas City.

KANSAS CITY.—A meeting of single tax men called by Mr. W. Mahoney took place yesterday at Crump’s hall, corner Tenth and Main streets, at which a permanent organization was formed. Those present were J. P. Gilmer, Charles E. Reid, O. H. Schramm, H. Hermelink, R. A. Shearer, William Mahoney, H. S. Julian, John Barr, William W. Rose, E. A. Strickland, T. Lorey, S C Partee. H. B. Stewart^sic, Alex. N. [Sohlberg?], B A Birmingham^sic and P. Doherty. Mr. J. P. Gilmer was elected chairman and Mr. Charles E. Reid secretary and treasurer.

The next meeting will be held at the same place on Sunday, January 6, 1889, at 3 p. m.

CHARLES E. REID, Secretary.

A Dinner to Henry George.

An informal dinner will be tendered to Mr. Henry George on Saturday evening, December 29, 8:30 p. m., at Hotel Hungaria, 4 Union square. All single tax men desirous of participating will please notify the secretary of the committee on or before Friday, December 28. Mr. W. T. Croasdale will preside

BENJ. DOBLIN, Secretary, [854?] Broadway.

For a State Conference in Maine.

AUBURN, Me., Dec. 21.—The single tax club of Auburn, Me. is desirous of holding a state conference in the near future, and all single tax men in the state are invited to correspond with the secretary.

F. W. BEALS, Secretary, box 916.

Personal.

Mr. J. Smith of Dunkirk, N. Y., who has been one of the most energetic and useful of our single tax men in western New York, is about removing to Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Smith has been writing some admirable articles on ballot reform and the single tax for the Dunkirk Observer. The Dunkirk local assembly of the Knights of Labor is practically a single tax organization.

[A diagonal pen stroke or crease crosses the right edge of the last lines of this item; the bottom right corner of the page is torn.]

THE PETITION TO CONGRESS GALLOPING INTO FAVOR.

Signatures Coming in by the Hundreds, and at This Rate the New Enrollment in a Couple of Weeks Will Make the Old One Look Insignificant—A Demand Everywhere for Blanks—Enthusiastic Letters.

The work of the enrollment committee, since the last issue of THE STANDARD, has made very remarkable progress. Names are flowing in by the hundred in every mail, and thus far the force at the disposal of the committee has not been able to do more than classify the names. The actual work of enrollment will not begin until next week.

A considerable number of small contributions ranging from one to five dollars have been received, and there is little doubt that a sufficient sum will be raised to meet all the expenses of the petition and enrollment. But a large amount of money can be judiciously used in sending out literature. This is particularly important, as thousands of people are signing this petition simply from dissatisfaction with existing conditions and a desire to bring about some change in the present methods of taxation. Though such people practically commit themselves in some measure to the single tax, a very large proportion of them do not really understand it and from all quarters come urgent requests to send out tracts and STANDARDS.

There is no room for doubt that the new enrollment will in two weeks contain more names than there were placed on the old enrollment as the result of persistent effort during the campaign.

We shall before long have the addresses of tens of thousands of people who are in a condition to read with interest any tracts or documents bearing on the subject of the single tax, and never before in the history of the movement was such a hearing accorded to us. It would be a great pity indeed if through lack of means the committee should find itself unable to fully improve this opportunity.

One notably good effect of the new plan of campaign is the rearousing of the interest of those who were somewhat cast down by defeat. The chairman of the committee is constantly in receipt of letters which declare satisfaction that a new opportunity for work has been offered. Many writers express warm approval of Judge Maguire’s proposal to concentrate all our efforts on New Jersey. Some idea of the temper of single tax people can be had from the following extracts from letters received:

Thomas J. Hudson of Indianapolis says: Our single tax people here will spend their holidays in collecting signatures to the national petition, so that at some future Christmas tide, when each one can enjoy the fruits of his labor, we can rest and sing, “Peace on earth and good will to men” with a full understanding of its meaning.

William Hancock, Wyoming, Pa., owner of valuable lands.—Inclosed find twenty signatures. I find the object of petition quite popular, especially among democrats.

Edward H. Bailey, editor Lake View, Ill., Record.—Have distributed blanks and am sure they will all reach you soon, signed. Single tax men are wide awake here.

D. B. Terrell, Wytheville, Vt^sic.—Inclosed find five blanks signed. The people here are not conversant with the single tax, but they are in favor of ballot reform and a change in our system of taxation.

Thomas Fisher, Shaker Station, Conn.—You sent me nine blanks and I return seven signed.

John A. Kelly, Saco, Me.—I heartily approve of your plan of campaign. I inclose the nine blank petitions signed and could have got more signers had I had more blanks.

William A. Garretson, Lincoln, Kan.—Send me blanks and I will cheerfully obtain such names as I can to the petition. In my view the most practical and effective scheme yet proposed is that suggested by Judge Maguire, and I trust that his plan will be adopted.

J. C. [Roshirt?], Albany, N. Y.—Inclosed find ten petitions signed. You may send me twenty-five more.

John Cairns, Hartford, Conn.—I believe the real work has just begun. I send $1 for enrollment fund and my own and my brother’s petitions.

J. H. McCullough, Plainfield, N. J.—Please send me some blank petitions. I am ready to the extent of my ability to help on the fight. Bring on your battalions and take New Jersey.

W. P. Smith, Orange, N. J.—Please send me a package of blanks. I am a landowner under the present system, and a single tax man that you can depend on as long as life lasts.

Edward P. Faxon, Boston.—I take pleasure in forwarding to you all the blanks signed. I find no difficulty in getting names, and would like you to send me some more blanks.

H. M. Scott, president of the Free land club, Miamisburg, Ohio.—Inclosed find my own and another’s name. Will forward you a number more soon. From now on I shall work for free trade, free land and free men.

John G. Hummel, St. Louis.—Inclosed you will find ten signatures to the single tax petition. Not one of the signers except myself is a single tax man. I said to them: “Here is a petition to congress to appoint a committee to see whether there is any good in that Henry George idea. If there is we want to know it and have it brought before the people, and this is the best way to get at it;” and, agreeing to the proposition, they signed their names. On January 2 I am going on the road, and before that time I want 100 blanks.

T. J. Skidmore, Seneca Falls, N. Y.—You may send me twenty-five or thirty more blanks. I think I can get them filled, as we shut down Saturday for an indefinite time to prevent overproduction, as we have plenty to eat and wear and coal to keep us warm for the winter—in a horn.

E. P. Lewis, Washington, D. C.—Inclosed are twelve signatures. All the signers are clerks in the war department. Not all of them are yet convinced of the justice of the single tax, but all agree that our present system of taxation is far from equitable, and wish to have the matter fully discussed in congress.

W. L. Ross, Camden, N. J.—Can get more signatures if you will send more blanks. I find men willing to sign who have only a limited knowledge of the single tax theory, but who are favorable to it through faith in Mr. George and his followers.

H. W. McFarlane, Chicago.—Received blank petitions, etc., this morning, but there were not half enough. I am in a railroad office employing about three hundred men, and I can get at least [200?] of them to sign the petition. Please send me about two hundred blanks as soon as possible.

John B. Young, Beaver, Pa.—I got all your blanks signed in about twenty minutes. If p. 2, col. 2 you will send me 100 more I will get them signed. We must get a million of them.

D. St. C. Wineland, Pittsburg.—There is no difficulty in obtaining signatures to the petition.

J. W. McCluskey, Chicago.—I wrote you this morning and I wrote you at noon, and I now write you again to tell you I am out of blanks.

J. Alvin Hawley, Grand Rapids, Mich.—Please forward at least 100 blanks, as I am prepared to get the signatures.

A. G. Beecher, Warren, Pa.—Please send me some more blanks. Every one who writes for more blanks should send stamps for return postage, as the total of such small contributions would be very considerable.

Robert Baker, Albany, N. Y.—If we had two or three canvassers in this city I believe we could get a majority of the people to sign the petition. Send me some more blanks.

M. W. Norwalk, Albany.—I got all the blanks signed in three or four hours after I got them and I was well rewarded for my work by the pleasure it gave me to find how the people are already prepared for the truth we advocate.

G. Hawkins, New York.—Inclosed please find $1 toward expenses. Wish I could send more.

E. Q. Norton, Mobile, Ala.—Inclosed find slips signed. They came to me about two hours ago by mail, and without moving out of my office seat I got them all signed by people who came in on business. Please send me more slips—500 if you can. The tide has turned here in Mobile on this question and every day makes it easier for us.

James Leedon, Milwaukee.—I inclose a few signatures got without much difficulty. Some of the signers are at heart single tax men and the others say: “Let congress investigate.” After all, that’s what we want.

R. S. [Gansung?], Seneca Falls, N. Y.—Inclosed find signed petitions. Please send some more. No trouble to get signers—could get a thousand if I had time. We are just keeping the single tax question hot here. Among the names sent you is N. B. Stevens, editor Seneca county Journal.

Thomas Blackmore, Akron, Ohio.—I return blanks all signed, and want more. I also want some literature so that I can help spread the light.

David McWilliams, Wilmington, Del.—Inclosed find some names. You can always count on me to do what I can for the cause.

William Lancaster, Pawtucket, R. I.—I got blanks all signed without any trouble, as the single tax is spreading fast around here.

William G. Moffet, Williamsport, Pa.—I find very little trouble getting signers. They are not single tax men, but they are men who know that something is wrong and want a change.

J. L. Cushman, Springfield, Ohio.—I have found but two men who refused to sign. They do not all understand the single tax, but they wish to learn about it.

The following names have since the last issue of THE STANDARD been added to the address to advocates of the single tax in behalf of the new petition and enrollment:

Henry George, No. 12 Union sq., New York. T.G. Drake, 215 Ninth av., Long Island City. Wm. O. McDowell, [20?] Spruce st., Newark, N. J. Harvey Book, 20 McDonnell st., Amsterdam, N. Y. W. J. Boreman, Parkersburg, W. Va. Richard M. Rorty, Middletown, N. Y. E. W. Nellis, Paterson, N. J. Stoughton Covley^sic, 22 5th av., Chicago, Ill. H. W. McFarlane, 22 5th av., Chicago, Ill. W. A. Wood, M. D., Gloversville, N. Y. John G. Hummell, 504 South 4th st., St. Louis, Mo. L. S. Hinman, 164 State st., Hudson, N. Y.

Indorsements From all Quarters of Judge Maguire’s Suggestion.

THE STANDARD has received more letters approving of the plan for single tax men to concentrate all their strength for a campaign in New Jersey than it can this week find space for. Here are a few of them:

Wants to Start a Jersey Fund.

CINCINNATI, Dec. 17.—I have read and re-read Judge Maguire’s plan for the “Invasion of New Jersey,” and the more I think of it the more firmly I am convinced that it is the best plan yet suggested. Now, how to carry it out? The one thing indispensable is money. I propose a contribution of ten cents from every single tax man, woman and child in America—the rest of the world not to be excluded, for we are all equally interested—the fund to be known as the “New Jersey Fund,” and to be exclusively devoted to the spread of the single tax gospel in that state.

Any one who feels like giving more than a dime might do so, but certainly all can at least give the dime. If there are as many single tax men as I believe there are, a dime from each would roll up a very considerable sum—enough, I think, to do the work.

I am going to present the matter at the next meeting of our club, and if they think as I do, you may expect to see the dimes come rolling in very shortly.

The movement looks more like a “go” here now than at any time in its history. The barriers that have hitherto barred our progress are rapidly disappearing, and it would not surprise me if “we optimists” who gave the movement ten years to get a practical foothold, would have the laugh on the twenty-five and thirty years’ fellows, after all.

THE STANDARD is to me “a thing of beauty” and “a joy forever,” and I wish that not only every New Jerseyite, but every man and woman in the world that can read and think could be furnished with a copy of it. In the language of Drake (although he didn’t exactly intend it that way), I say:

Forever float that STANDARD sheet. Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom’s soil beneath our feet, And Freedom’s banner waving o’er us!

ERNEST T. FRIES.

Let Us Up and At It.

BUFFALO, N. Y., Dec. 17.—It seems to me that Judge Maguire has advanced the best plan yet proposed for future work. I, for one, will agree to contribute monthly to such a scheme, and many of my friends who are not single tax men could be induced to subscribe. A great many have said to me: “I should like to see the single tax tried.” I have no doubt an opportunity like this would be a great inducement to them to look more fully into this movement, especially as there would seem to be a good chance of it amounting to something in the near future. So let us up and at it, and give those who would “like to see it tried” a chance to take a money interest in it. They would then watch the progress we were making with a personal interest, and could not fail to be enabled soon to “see the cat.” Let us get subscription blanks printed of two kinds, one for those who propose to give regularly and one for transients.

SAMUEL C. ROGERS.

Looks Upon It as an Inspiration.

NEWARK, N. J.—Judge Maguire’s suggestion to concentrate on New Jersey is an inspiration of genius. In that way only can aggressive work be done. Scarcely less happy was he in selecting New Jersey as the state to be invaded. I know something of New Jersey, [illegible] the sentiments of her people, and I know that if single tax men would there concentrate the ability, energy and the money now being diffused over the whole country, that state would inside of two years produce splendid results.

HERBERT BIGGS.

The Most Practical Suggestion Yet Advanced.

PEORIA, Ill.—Judge Maguire’s idea is good. It is the most practical suggestion that has yet been advanced to bring about the result we all so much desire. Concentrate and carry some one state and the rest will be easy. In the meantime we, as individuals, can be working hard at home in the ranks of “tariff reform leagues,” “Jefferson clubs,” etc., etc

I may mention, as significant of the way in which the wind blows, that I am just in receipt of a circular letter from the “American tariff reform league,” 115 Monroe street, Chicago, proposing to call a convention at Chicago soon, to be composed of all parties interested in the knocking down of a few bricks from the top of our Chinese wall of high protection.

It is, perhaps, also worth stating that to-day an old soldier who, in the late election, voted for the high tariff crowd, thinking that he was “voting the way he shot,” told me that he had already discovered his mistake.

J. W. H.

Let Us!

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.—How it gladdened our hearts to read and re-read that letter from James G. Maguire! We can conceive of no measure so adapted to the speedy accomplishment of the holy object of our movement. By all means let us invade New Jersey.

TWO MADE ONE.

Heartily in Favor of It.

LYLE, Minn.—I am heartily in favor of Judge James G. Maguire’s New Jersey idea, as set forth in THE STANDARD of December 15. Why not concentrate all of our energies on that state and fight a winning battle. There is nothing in this to prevent us also from doing all we can locally.

C. F. WENHAM.

Hopes the Plan Will Be Adopted.

LINCOLN, Kan., Dec. 16.—I have watched and considered all the propositions made in THE STANDARD since election for continuing the shedding of light to the best advantage, and it seems to me that Judge Maguire’s plan is by far the most practical and the most far reaching of all. I hope it will be adopted, and believe it can be made entirely successful.

WM. A. GARRETSON.

Thinks It’s the Best Plan.

PITTSBURG, Pa.—I for one am strongly in favor of Judge Maguire’s plan for invading New Jersey with single tax ideas. I am even more in favor of it than of the petition to Congress, although I shall sign that.

The reason is simple: it is concentrated effort that tells, and that directed along the line of least resistance. Surely it will be easier to influence one state than the whole United States. We are not rich, and it seems to me our dollars will go further in this direction than in any other. So that, while I will do what I can whatever plan is adopted, I most sincerely hope our efforts will be made in this most practical direction.

EDMUND YARDLEY.

Hails It With Delight.

DETROIT, Mich.—I am in perfect accord with Judge Maguire’s idea of concentration in New Jersey. I think it a very brilliant idea. The single tax once in operation there, manufacturers would pour in from New York and p. 2, col. 4 Pennsylvania until that little state would blossom like a rose. I was at first inclined to favor Brother Bailey’s plan of concentration on Dakota, but I now see that in that place are lacking the large manufacturing plants and capital, which in New Jersey will be a powerful lever with which to overturn old systems in adjoining states.

In these adjoining states are many manufacturing concerns, more or less dilapidated, that would quickly move for the advantage of a cheap location and exemption from taxation.

Then, too, New Jersey is in close proximity to the pauper labor fields of this great country of freedom and famine, and men and women would hurry from these sloughs of despond into the real liberty of regenerated New Jersey. Pennsylvania and New York would soon be compelled to adopt this keystone to prosperity—the single tax—else their manufacturing interests would soon tumble into ruins.

S. G. HOWE.

All His Friends are Enthusiastic for It.

BROOKLYN.—The true keynote has been sounded by Judge Maguire. Every single tax man with whom I have discussed the subject is impressed with the feasibility of the plan, and my opinion is that there would be many recruits enlisted from Brooklyn. What state is better suited to our purpose than New Jersey, which lies so near to the “Home Guard,” from which we could send out our skirmishers at extremely light expense? Besides, is there another state which has upon its statutes a law which says “all land shall be taxed equally?” There are numbers, I believe, who would give up other work in order that they might expend their energy in pushing the cause there.

THEODORE ATWORTH.

That Plan Promises the Best Results.

CHACAHOULA, La.—Since the presidential election concluded our single tax educational campaign, I have been deeply interested in the suggestions of our earnest single tax people as to the method of continuing our work. Of the plans submitted through THE STANDARD, that of Judge James G. Maguire seems to me to promise the best results, and altogether meets with my approval. As an evidence of my belief in its practicability you are hereby authorized to draw on me for ten dollars in aid of the work as outlined in Judge Maguire’s letter of 27th ult. as soon as such work may be under way. What do my single tax brothers think of Judge Maguire’s proposition? Let us hear from them.

R. S. MCMAHON.

It Swoops Down and Nearly Takes Your Breath Away—Judge Maguire’s Article Did It.

FARMINGTON, Iowa.—The article by Judge Maguire in favor of concentrating effort on some one state, New Jersey for instance, deserves more than passing notice and gives rise to some strong freaks of the imagination.

It looks as if a legislature and governor of New Jersey, thoroughly on the George plan, could force free trade upon the country in a few months or even weeks, and the complete single tax plan very shortly afterward.

[Look?] at my way of figuring. I have no [statistics?] or Atkinsonian tables at hand, but [make an?] off hand guess, which will be [sufficiently?] close to convey my idea to those who realize the enormous revenues the single tax would yield: New Jersey, with a population something over 1,200,000, must collect in state, county, city and other local taxes and licenses from $8,000,000 to $15,000,000. The single tax would yield five times as much, or from $40,000,000 to $75,000,000 annually. This would give a tremendous surplus, especially since the expenses of local and state government would be materially less under the George system. Now, think what a financial revolution could be caused by the state government with this tremendous surplus at hand, by one little edict. Suppose that the state passed an act freeing all industries whatsoever from all taxes or fines save the one of ground rent; and carry this out completely by refunding to any of its citizens any tariff or other tax collected from such citizens by the United States goverment^sic or its agents. That is to say, upon the New Jersey importers presenting to the authorized state officials his vouchers or receipts showing so much money paid as duty to the custom officials, the state reimburses them, giving them absolute free trade in their business.

Now comes the financial tornado! The importer of New Jersey issues a circular to the trade, making a grand cut of 25 to 100 per cent on all standard imports. In less than a week every town and cross roads dealer almost could be notified. Now just think a moment what the great importing houses of New York, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, etc., and all the jobbers, wholesalers, commercial travelers, and retailers depending upon them from ocean to ocean would say and do. They couldn’t meet the cut; they couldn’t sell against New Jersey. The great arterial system of commerce of the whole country would be paralyzed and hundreds of millions of capital jeopardized. No man can realize fully the result. But there would a cry go up that would reach state and national assembly halls very quickly. Relief would have to be given by the general government instantly, and the only way would be to draw the red line across the whole tariff schedule from A to Z. “Be it enacted” that the tariff laws are repealed. New Jersey could sweep away the whole tariff system in a breath.

As to Judge Maguire’s method of converting New Jersey, it is good, but here is a supplementary plan that I believe would shorten the judge’s five years even—short as that is:

If New Jersey is going to be converted and made so desirable a place to live in, there are a good many of us who would like to be there. At the same time there are all over New Jersey radical hard shell opponents of the George idea, who would like to locate in other states. The thing to do then would be to have a bureau or manager in New York or some New Jersey city, to whom all the single tax men in the United States that would like to remove to New Jersey, could report. Then let every single tax man in New Jersey—and they would do it willingly—keep watch of his community, and as soon as he learned of a “hard shell” that wanted to get in some other state, write to the bureau, so stating, giving all possible information about the man and his business and where he would like to go and what he would like to do. Bring these parties from New Jersey and other states into communication, fix up trades between them and transfer the opposers of Mr. George out of New Jersey and the believers of the single tax into New Jersey.

For instance, I would register at the bureau as a newspaper man, with information about the Herald, and the town and county it was located in, business it was doing, etc. Pretty soon some single taxite would report from some New Jersey town a newspaper man that wanted to get out west, etc. Then the bureau could put us in communication. We could fix up a deal, swap offices, etc., and New Jersey would lose one or more opposers of the single tax, and gain one or two who favored it. Trades, purchases and sales and various changes could be facilitated that would make a wonderful difference in the political complexion of New Jersey quite rapidly.

Then see the value of such changes. After p. 2, col. 5 you begin to convert a man it usually takes at least a year, and oftener two or three, to make him see the “cat” in every lineament, free trade and everything. But by a transfer you get a full fledged convert who sees it and can help the work along.

By fixing upon one state, and then going at it both in an educational way and by methods of exchange and colonization, I believe we could accomplish in a few years what most of us have heretofore looked upon as beyond our lifetime.

F. W. ROCKWELL, Editor Farmington Herald.

But Is Not the Tariff a Serious Obstacle to Its Proper Working?

DIGHTON, Mass.—Judge Maguire’s editorial was interesting. There was a contagious ardor in the whole article. But will it not occur to many—did it not occur to the Judge—that the force of circumstances is against the selection of any state in the Union? When all that he proposed is done, and all the necessary converts obtained, our system of taxation could not be so carried out as to become a “working model.” There could not possibly be such a model while the national policy of “protection” remains in force at all our ports. The people in the converted state would still be taxed on food, clothing, fuel, bedding material, etc., how then could there be the single tax? How could you point to its working model?

It would be an impossibility to get the legislature at Washington to exempt tariff duties at the New Jersey ports; and if they were so disposed it could not even then be carried out, inasmuch as the imports for the whole country would then be brought that way—on the line of least resistance. That would mean more prosperity than could be warranted by the new system.

All that can be done by the course suggested is the attainment of an incomplete model. As the country looked upon the whole matter in New Jersey, the new system would be under a great disadvantage. It would be like asking the people to look upon the full play of some power in nature when an interfering, disturbing and debauching force was within acting distance—yet keeping this latter force in the dark.

Thus, if the course named by Judge Maguire be adopted, let it be done with the understanding that no just “working model” can thereby be obtained—but only partial benefits for the people. Would it then have the same convincing effect? It might.

ALFRED CROSS.

The First Work to Take Up in New Jersey.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—I heartily agree with the suggestions of Judge Maguire, believing that that is the most economical and efficient way of demonstrating the strength of the single tax movement. It appears that New Jersey is the most vulnerable point. Should it be decided to make such an effort, and it is agreed that this state of all in the Union offers the fewest obstacles and the prospect of greatest results, should not the passage of an electoral reform law there receive our first attention? I believe that the single tax will come more quickly, the victories be more decisive, and that they will cost us less in every particular if we will see to it that the Australian or a similar ballot always precedes the struggle for the single tax.

C. H. STOCKELL.

What Our Philadelphia Friends Are Doing—New Jersey—An Anti-Single Tax Democrat Who Wanted to Distribute 100.000^sic Copies of “Protection or Free Trade?”

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 23.—Inclosed I send samples of single tax petition and ballot reform circular we are sending out with good success. Are endeavoring to arrange with Rev. Mr. Pentecost to deliver a weekly address here on the single tax question exclusively. That should stir matters up.

Think that Judge Maguire’s idea of concentration is good, and from what we know here, that New Jersey would be even better than Ohio to begin on, but I may be wrong. It’s nearness^sic to New York is certainly an advantage. But New Jersey is said to be owned by the Pennsylvania railroad, and the World special correspondent stated that in almost, if not quite every, county the purchaseable vote held the balance of power. Would its nearness to New York and Philadelphia be a greater advantage to railroad corporations than to ourselves? Can we find any state easy of access to us that would not be so to them, or where our chance of speedy success would be greater?

Met a tariff for revenue only democrat from Williamsport on my way to Lancaster yesterday, who was careful to keep his name from me, refused very emphatically to sign any petition, and condemned the idea of taxing land values alone in language both forcible and choice, but who finally, when we drifted around to free trade, said that 100,000 copies of “Protection or Free Trade?” should have been distributed in Pennsylvania a year ago by democrats, but not by the democratic committee, and that he advocated doing so very strongly, but was overruled. I offered to raise half of cost of doing that now, but he is not ready to go into the ’92 campaign just yet. He said no true democrat ever was a protectionist, but that his objection to the single tax was the same as to protection, that both were taxing one class for the benefit of another. I could not convince him, but gave him Shearman’s “Single Tax” tract and the last number of THE STANDARD, which he was reading with apparent interest when I left at Lancaster. What amazed me most was that anyone so violently opposed to the single tax should want to circulate “Protection or Free Trade?” Expect some converts among the Young men’s Christian association here shortly.

W. J. ATKINSON.

The Agitation Raised by Our Friends in Minneapolis is Exciting the Newspapers in the Northwest.

The holy fight for the deliverance of humanity from the pangs of poverty undeserved is making wondrous progress in the northwest. The center of agitation in that quarter appears just now to be in Minneapolis, where the single tax men are advancing the cause at a rate that is simply marvelous. They have so persistently and intelligently urged upon the attention of the people crying evils of social arrangements that a respectful hearing can no longer be resisted. Already the newspapers, regardless of politics, are seriously discussing the feasibility of giving the single tax a trial in the two great cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and speculating on the effect it would have on their race with Chicago and other competing cities for commercial supremacy.

The Pioneer Press (rep.) of December 13 says:

The single tax movement in Minneapolis is assuming quite formidable proportions. There are a number of citizens who are working day and night in its behalf. The most indefatigable worker is C. J. Buell, the president of the single tax league. The total number of signatures has reached about 1,500. The list is said to include a large number of business men. The agitation of the subject is stirring up people in various quarters. The Chicago papers have been discussing it and recently the Herald contained an extended argument urging that the matter be brought before the Illinois legislature. The matter is likely to prove quite a bone of contention among the Minnesota legislators. It will be vigorously fought by the real estate men of the two cities and parties owning large tracts of unimproved property.

Clearly, the result of this important contest depends upon whether the great masses of the people, who are not land speculators, will fight as vigorously against being robbed and enslaved as the parties “owning” large tracts of unimproved property will to retain the lawful privilege of robbing and enslaving them.

The St. Paul Globe (dem.) says:

As we understand, the proposition of the Minneapolis merchants, embodied in their petition to the state legislature, is to submit a constitutional amendment to a vote of the people, so that the future raising of taxes shall be by a direct tax on land values and excepting merchandise, buildings and personal property. . . . It is further proposed, as an experimental trial of this single tax idea, to let Minneapolis embody it in its municipal system of taxation, so that two years hence the state legislature would have a practical demonstration of the successful operation of the plant^sic; or, if it failed to work successfully there, the matter could be dropped.

Viewed solely from the standpoint of local interest, the Globe is willing to admit that there is an element of business shrewdness in this proposition which speaks well for the business sagacity of our neighbors up the river. If the single tax system could be adopted in one city, and confined to that city, there is no question but what it would greatly promote its commercial interest. We are not sure but, if St. Paul and Minneapolis would pool issues in this single tax proposition and unite their commercial strength under its operations, in the next two years they would give Chicago the biggest jostle it ever got from a competitor. But, as we have said, the principle involved in the proposed change is too great and too far reaching in its consequences to be adopted without the maturest consideration. It is one of those things in which haste should be made slowly.

The Minneapolis Star (democrat) of December 14, contains a convincing editorial reply to the objection to the single tax by the St. Peter Tribune that it would fall heaviest on farmers The Star shows that the working farmer would share the benefits with the working denizens of the cities. The Star of the 13th contained an editorial arguing the same point.

The Hennepin county Fireside in commenting on a single tax article by Mr. Buell, which it published, says:

This movement is entirely non-partisan, and contains republicans, democrats, prohibitionists and labor party men. It has the support of two out of three daily papers printed here, the Journal and Star.

The league is sending to every editor in the state single tax literature accompanied by a circular letter entreating them to inform themselves on this greatest of all public questions before committing themselves to either side, and particularly urging them to read “Progress and Poverty.”

Altogether the situation in the northwest is so favorable that it ought to spur on to still greater effort our friends, not only in Minnesota, but wherever there may be even a handful of them.

They Are Getting in Their Last Licks for This Year.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.—The single tax league held its regular semi-monthly meeting last Wednesday evening with a first rate attendance. Mr. Samuel P. Porter, a prominent citizen, one of the firm of large furniture manufacturers, delivered a masterly address on the subject of election reform, which was very flatteringly noticed in two of our influential papers the next day. Mr. Porter joined the society and is now an active working member.

Mr. Burt Brown, formerly private secretary to the Rev. Dr. Oscar McCullough, also spoke briefly. Mr. Brown is a traveling man, and scatters good seed in the byways and dark places on his journeys. He gave a good illustration of the principle upon which the single tax would work. He mentioned the large office building in Chicago, known as the “Rookery,” a structure eleven stories in height, containing 1,100 office rooms, and worth a mighty big heap of money. It stands upon ground owned by the city of Chicago. The owners of this magnificent building have to pay into the public treasury thousands of dollars every year for the use of the site, thus reducing taxation to that extent.

Another gentleman, whose name I did not learn, came to see us, and when called on to say something, made everybody feel good by telling his experience. He said he bought THE STANDARD to find out why Cleveland was defeated, and being of an inquisitive turn of mind naturally looked at the rest of the paper, and from that beginning had continued reading until he had become a crank like the rest of us.

Mr. Thomas Hudson speaks at the next meeting, two weeks hence, on the subject: “The balance of trade.”

The following officers were elected by the league: President, L. P. Custer; secretary-treasurer, Thos. Hudson; executive board, Chas. H. Krause, Mr. [Hahn?] and Tom Hudson.

L. P. CUSTER.

Theory and Practice.

New York World, Dec. 23

Daniel Harris, president of the brushmakers’ union, reported yesterday to the Central labor union that J. M. C. Martin & Sons, brush manufacturers, of Fulton street, had been great advocates during the recent election of “protection to American workingmen,” and had their employes turn out in the republican parades, but now they were getting men for their factory through Castle garden. The firm had not paid union wages, he said, for over a year, and could not get good workmen.

A BIG GATHERING AND MAGNIFICENT SPEECHES.

Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland Delivered the Address of Welcome—Henry George’s Response—Stirring Words of Messrs. Pentecost, Shearman and Post and Father Huntington.

The return of Henry George to this country aroused a general desire among single tax people to give him such a welcome as he received abroad. The single tax city committee appointed a committee of arrangements for the purpose, consisting of W. T. Croasdale, A. J. Steers, W. J. Gorsuch and William McCabe. The committee desired that the demonstration should not be entirely local in its character and addressed invitations to be present to such single tax men throughout the country as could be reached in time. The result was Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland presided while the list of vice-presidents embraced the names of prominent single tax advocates in all parts of the country.

The meeting was a magnificent success. Cooper union was filled with an intelligent and enthusiastic audience that greeted Mr. George with a very remarkable demonstration. When the audience obtained the first glimpse of him as he stepped on the platform a mighty cheer arose, and for several minutes there followed round after round of applause, the whole audience finally rising and giving cheer after cheer until Mr. George arose and bowed his acknowledgment. The reception given to Mr. Johnson hardly fell short of that given to Mr. George himself, and when the list of vice-presidents was read the names of Shearman, Pentecost, Post, Garrison, Atkinson, Prang and others called forth hearty applause. The reception was, of course, a high personal tribute to Mr. George, but it was an equally gratifying demonstration that the old spirit and determination still animated the single tax people of New York. They are manifestly as ready to take up the fight, despite their last defeat, as they were a year ago, and the meeting gave evidence that there will be no cessation in the work that is daily widening in its scope.

The meeting was particularly gratifying to those who came from a distance who had never before enjoyed the pleasure of participating in one of our New York city single tax meetings, and many such declared that they would go home filled with new hope and courage, and work with greater vigor than ever before for the advancement of the cause.

WM. T. CROASDALE.

Mr. Croasdale opened the proceedings by introducing Mr. Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland as chairman of the meeting, and the following persons as vice chairmen and secretaries:

VICE-CHAIRMEN:

Augest Lewis^sic, New York. Louis F. Post, New York. John R. Waters, New York. S. Mendelson, New York. William T. Croasdale, New York. L. O. McDaniel, New York. Dr. Walter Mendelson, New York. Rev. John W. Kramer, New York. Edward J. Shriver, New York. W. J. Gorsuch, New York. A. J. Steers, New York. Jerome O’Neill, New York. William McCabe, New York. Michael J. Murray, New York. Martin Battle, New York. E. P. Ingersoll, New York. Thomas G. Shearman, Brooklyn, N. Y. General T. C. Christensen, Brooklyn, N. Y. J. P. Cranford, Brooklyn, N. Y. George White, Brooklyn, N. Y. E. O. Roscoe, Brooklyn, N. Y. John F. Thompson, Brooklyn, N. Y. E. Stillman Doubleday, Brooklyn, N. Y. Walter Carr, Brooklyn, N. Y. Richard Welton, Mt. Vernon, N. Y. Robert Baker, Albany, N. Y. James J. Mahoney, Albany, N. Y. Prof. H. W. Benedict, Auburn, N. Y. J. S. Crane, Cohoes, N. Y. Robert White, Buffalo, N. Y. B. B. Martis, Troy, N. Y. Michael Murray, Owego, N. Y. Harvey Book, Amsterdam, N. Y. M. J. Smith, Dunkirk, N. Y. C. H. Fuller, Middletown, N. Y. C. C. Platt, Ithaca, N. Y. Dr. W. C. Wood, Gloversville, N. Y. Charles O. Young, Port Jervis, N. Y. Hugh O. Pentecost, Newark, N. J. L. S. Hinman, Hudson, N. Y. Read Gordon, Roselle, N. J. J. J. Barnard, Passaic, N. J. Herbert Boggs, Newark, N. J. John W. Jakeway, Jersey City, N. J. E. W. Nellis, Paterson, N. J. William Lloyd Garrison, Boston, Mass. Louis Prang, Boston, Mass. B. S. Myers, North Adams, Mass. J. Lawrence Dunham, Sharon, Conn. George St. John Leavens, Sharon, Conn. W. J. Atkinson, Philadelphia, Pa. A. J. Stephenson, Philadelphia, Pa. W. P. Estell, Freeland, Pa. John W. Jones, Baltimore, Md. W. J. Boreman, Parkersburg, W. Va. John G. Hummel, St. Louis, Mo. Hamlin Russell, St. Louis, Mo. Stoughten Cooley, Chicago, Ill. H. W. McFarlan, Chicago, Ill. Samuel H. Edgar, Louisville, Ky. Bolton Smith, Memphis, Tenn.

SECRETARIES.

Fred C. Leubuscher, New York. Arthur Fiegel, New York. Benjamin [Doblin?], New York. Wm. H. Faulhaber, New York. Wm. J. Brown, New York. C. Orlo Allen, New York.

When the reading of the names had been concluded the chairman came forward and said:

Mr. Johnson’s Address.

Ladies and gentlemen, I feel deeply the sense of honor conferred upon me to-night by your committee in permitting me to preside at this meeting. I think you may have some cause to complain of your committee when you find that I am in no sense a speaker.

This is a gathering of single tax people from all parts of this country. We have with us to-night representatives from almost every section. Indeed, you may say this is the first national gathering of the friends of this movement. The occasion is the return of Mr. Henry George (great applause) from a trip to England, where he was most handsomely received. We have every evidence that his trip abroad was a grand success, and that he made many friends on that side of the water. They on that side are engaged in the same good work that we are on this, and that work is the emancipation of men from the bondage of industrial slavery. (Applause.) Here we are known by many names. Not long ago we were called a band of cranks. (Laughter.) We are called free traders, single tax men, anti-povertyites, Georgeites; and over in England they are called liberals and democrats. p. 3, col. 2 But we all have one aim, one end in view, and that is the abolition of poverty. (Applause.)

They say that a prophet is without honor nowhere save in his own country. Is it true of our prophet, the prophet who has led us out of the wilderness? I think not. (Applause.) If Mr. George could have known when he wrote “Progress and Poverty” (applause) how quickly this movement would have been on its feet, and how the people would become enthused in its cause, he would never have written those beautiful lines, “Scant justice may be done him long after the clods have rattled on his coffin lid.” He did not have to wait so long.

We have to-day, it is safe to say, in the United States a hundred thousand intelligent, earnest believers in the cause of the single tax. (Applause.) Eight years or nine years at most have elapsed since that book was written. Has ever a book been so widely read in so short a time? Think of it. It has been translated into many languages, and millions of copies have been printed, and people have been taught to think on a question that interests every man whether he be a laborer or a capitalist—for the very rich are as much interested in abolishing poverty as the very poor.

SINCE TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO.

There are many bright spots in this campaign of thought to look back to with pride and pleasure. There are many things that all of you can recall; but there are some few incidents that perhaps some of you are not familiar with. About two and a half years ago there was a meeting of eighteen men gathered in Twenty-fifth street, in this city, all believing in the same thing, and yet with their minds in a blank state as to what should be done. The question was, how to bring into practical politics this question in which we were all interested. That was the beginning of the movement, for it seemed as if by a miracle that a way opened at once; then came that great race for mayor. There were a good many honest people who looked at it with horror. They said, Here is a man getting 68,000 votes who proposes to uproot society and to tear things upside down. But a change has taken place. To-day all parties recognize us as at least in earnest; and the press of this city condescends to say we ought at least to be heard. (Laughter and applause.)

And then there came the race in this state, which, while it was not such a glorious fight, it had its lesson, and we learned a great deal from it; a great many people were educated.

At last we came to that great political fight in which two men tried to become president when only one could be. Some of us were disappointed in the result. We should not feel very greatly disappointed as to what man was elected. The thing which we can be proud of is that we had a great campaign of thought in which the doctrine of the single tax took foremost rank. (Applause.) After all it matters little who was elected; but that we had the discussion we should always be glad.

THE NEW POLITICS.

We must win in the end. Ignorance and money may win a skirmish line, but battles they cannot win. When people begin to think superstition must go. (Applause.) Whoever lost the fight or whoever won, the real victory was with the free traders of this country (applause); for it was the free traders who made the strongest, boldest, hardest fight. It was the free traders who were listened^sic to most earnestly. It was the free traders who educated the people and dissipated from their minds the dread of the thought that we might possibly have free trade. They at last said, “What of it? It is a good thing.” (Applause.)

There are all grades of free traders, almost as many as the colors of people’s hair. There is the moderate free trader, who sees only as his aim the reduction of the surplus. There is another kind that goes a little farther, and thinks that the piling up of the surplus in the treasury piles up a greater surplus in the pockets of the few. There is a class that want to wipe out all protective tariffs. There is still another kind of free traders who would not only take the tariff off commerce but would lift all burdens from production, and go further and ask how the products of labor are distributed among the workers. (Applause.) I confess that I belong to the last kind (applause), and I have not much doubt that most of you do. (Applause.)

Politics has been run for many years in this country on the question of men, a question of who is the best fellow, and who is the best looking man, and how he stands with his neighbors, and whether there is any scandal about him. But in this last race was that the fight that was made? It was not, Who is the man? but What does the man stand for? And that was the kind of a political fight that had to come to educate a whole people.

The chairman then addressed the guest of the evening with these words:

Mr. George, in behalf of the people assembled in this hall, and in behalf of the absent thousands whose hearts beat in sympathy with us to-night, I extend to you our hearty welcome home.

As the chairman said this and extended his hand to Mr. George the big audience testified its welcome with loud and prolonged cheering.

Henry George’s Response.

Mr. Chairman and Friends: I am glad to be among you again and to receive your greetings. I have been back some days, and I feel as though I were at home. (Applause.) And so, since this is the first occasion that I have met him since he was nominated, since this is the first occasion that he has appeared on a New York platform, let me take this opportunity of extending the greeting and the thanks, not merely of the single tax men of New York, but of single tax men everywhere, to him who made that gallant fight in the Twenty-first district in Ohio. (Great applause and three cheers for Tom L. Johnson.) Mr. Johnson, you should have heard the cheers that rung out in this hall during the campaign whenever the Twenty-first Ohio district was mentioned. Our hearts were with you; and to-night we are proud of the way you conducted yourself. (Applause.)

They told us that voters were afraid of the single tax. Here is a man—known wherever he was known as a single tax man—who was fairly chased by the democratic convention of his congressional district to take their nomination. In taking it he swerved not a hair’s breadth. While other democrats were anxiously protesting that they were not free traders, he avowed himself an absolute free trader (applause)—a complete free trader, who would put all taxes on the value of land. (Applause.) He refused to spend one penny corruptly, yet nevertheless in that gerrymandered district, with its overwhelming republican majority, with the whole power of the republican organization against him; with all the Randall democrats playing traitor and working against him, and with all the money and influence of the Standard Oil Company and other monopolists against him, he yet came within 500 votes of an election—a man who until that time had never been known in politics and had never made a speech. (Great applause.) Go on Tom L. Johnson. You are a young man. This is but the beginning. Ohio men have been president before. (Applause and laughter). The time will come when a single tax man will be elected to the presidency of the United States. (Great applause.) May be he will come from p. 3, col. 3 Ohio, and it may be his first name will be Tom. (Laughter.) The last American president named Tom was Thomas Jefferson. (Applause.) His principles are reviving, and his true followers to-day are single tax men. (Applause.)

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC.

You want me to tell you something about the other side of the water. On the night of my return I met a gentleman whose first question was, “How did you find the British people? Are they very much down on Americans? (Laughter.) Do they dislike us very much?” I said, “No, not that I saw.” “I am very glad to hear it,” he said; “I have heard that they do.” “Well,” I replied, “there may be some Englishmen who do, but if so, they are not those with whom I associate in England.” (Laughter.) From the time—not that I trod on English soil—but that the tender came to the ship bearing placards of “Welcome to William Saunders,” “Welcome to Henry George,” and we heard the shouts, up to the time I left, I met nothing but uniform kindness; and from first to last felt myself among friends. (Applause.)

I come back feeling that the good cause has made great progress in the four years that have elapsed since my last visit to England. The world has been moving on the other side of the water—the world of thought and opinion and aspiration; and I believe now that the three kingdoms are on the verge of a great movement forward.

GLADSTONE AND PARNELL.

I sat in the house of commons and listen ed to two great speeches from Mr. Gladstone. (Applause.) The last time I sat there and listened to the “old man eloquent” he was defending Irish coercion. This time he was attacking it. (Applause.) Then Parnell (applause) and his folowers^sic sat on the oppositie^sic benches. This time Parnell rose to follow Mr. Gladstone on the same side. (Applause.) And I heard from the government benches, from the tory side, declarations amounting to nothing less than that “the landlords must go.” (Applause.) Five million pounds’ worth of them at least. (Applause.)

When I was first in England this idea of buying out the landlords seemed so radical as to be years and years in the future. Landlords! Why landlords were looked on as the choicest product of the three kingdoms. (Laughter.) It is a big advance that even the tory party have got so far. But there is a still bigger advance in the other party.

I heard Mr. Gladstone who, only a little while ago, proposed to appropriate something like £150,000,000 for the purchase of Irish land from the landlords and its distribution among the tenants, get up and oppose this comparatively little bill. And Mr. Parnell, who has always been a land purchaser, who organized a joint stock company when he came out of Kilmainham for the purpose of buying estates and selling them again to the tenants, I heard him follow Mr. Gladstone and oppose the bill. They still declared they were for the principle of land purchase, and were only opposed to this particular purchase; but I saw that the landlords no more trusted them than our protectionists trusted Mr. Mills when he declared that his attitude to protection was not that of a free trader. (Applause.) And following Gladstone and Parnell came voices more radical, declaring that the British taxpayer would never consent to buy out landlords. (Applause.)

GLADSTONE’S PARTY MUST BECOME MORE RADICAL.

It is not always good to be successful. The English parliament of 1885 was probably the most radical parliament that has assembled in Great Britain since that parliament that chopped off the head of a king. This parliament is said to be the most conservative. Nevertheless, if Mr. Gladstone had remained in power some scheme of purchase would have been carried through for Ireland at least. Now that he and his party are out in the wilderness they must necessarily become more radical before they can get back again. (Applause.)

Said one of my friends, Richard McGhee of Glasgow, who is constantly doing good work all through Great Britain: “We have got on since you have been here before. It is not necessary now to talk to the people about the iniquity of landlordism. The thing now is how to get rid of it.” I found, not merely from the reports of friends, but from the temper of audiences, from the questions asked from the conferences I had, that this was true. All these years the light has been spreading among the masses, and now things are shaping themselves for the first practical move. And in all directions thought is concentrating upon the line of the single tax. (Applause.)

THE SINGLE TAX.

Some of our friends have said to me: “You never ought to get up before an audience without explaining our principles. There are always some who come to hear who do not clearly understand what we are striving for.” I happen to know that there are some such with us to-night; and so let me in a few words explain what we mean by the single tax. (Applause.)

[Mr. George, after a brief explanation of the single tax principle, went on.]

Now in England the land movement in all its forms is concentrating on this line—in favor, as the men of the radical clubs said, of taxing the landlords out. (Applause.) This is the simple, easy and direct way of getting rid of landlordism, and it has the enormous advantage of being a going back to the old English method.

Land in Great Britain has become the virtual property of the successors of those who were originally only tenants of the state, by the simple device of shifting taxation. The tenants did not issue a single “no rent manifesto,” but gradually put the burden of supporting the government on the masses of the people, and kept the rent for themselves.

THE EASY WAY.

Thus the easy way to restore equal rights to the land is simply a going back and re-imposing taxes on land values. When the single tax is increased up to the point of taking the annual value of land, it will amount to the same thing as if all holders of land were formal tenants of the community. (Applause.) The single tax is merely in form a tax. In its nature it is a payment made to the whole people for a valuable special privilege accorded to the individual—a collection by the community of that value which the growth of the community creates. Under it the whole people would be virtually equal sharers in the benefits of the common estate. (Applause.)

The enormous advantage of proceeding in this way is that the ascent is gradual. If it be proposed to take the land from the landlords and give it or rent it to others, the idea of compensation at once comes up. Of course that is preposterous. If there is any compensation, it should be, not to those who have long profited by a wrong, but to those who suffered by that wrong (applause)—not to the landlords but to the landless (applause)—not to the usurpers but to the disinherited. (Applause.)

But the habit of thought runs in favor of compensation. It is customary, when land is taken for public purposes, to pay the man who calls himself the owner. But it is not customary when a tax is imposed to compensate the man who is to pay the tax (laughter); and as I said to representatives of the idea that I met over there, If you must at some time buy out the landlords the best way to begin is by p. 3, col. 4 taxing them. You will get the land all the cheaper. (Laughter.)

UNION ON THE SINGLE TAX LINE.

And on the line of the single tax we can unite men whose ultimate ends are different. There are some who see the injustice of present taxation. There are some who would go so far as to substitute for our present modes of raising revenue this equal, simple, cheap method that does not hamper production, and then stop. Them we may call single tax men, limited. (Laughter.) We who want to go the whole way—we are single tax men unlimited. (Applause.) But there is no reason why we should not, and every reason why we should, go together until we get to the point where our limited friends want to stop. They can then stop, if they choose, while we keep right on. (Applause.)

There is in England and has been for some time a movement for the equalization of taxation by the imposition of taxes on ground rents. That is the way in which the question will enter into practical politics. Aye, it has already come. Not merely have many candidates been already nominated for the next parliament who are in favor of the taxation of ground rents, but the general conference of the liberal associations that recently met at Birmingham—a gathering equivalent to one of our national conventions—declared in its programme, or as we should say in its platform, for the taxation of ground rents. (Applause.) This is the line the liberal party must take. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell and the liberals who fought this “Irish landlords’ relief bill,” as Michael Davitt calls it (laughter), did so on matters of detail; but the rank and file discuss the question of principle. Even in parliament there were voices to declare against it on principle—men like Dr. Clarke of Caithness and Angus Sutherland of Sutherlandshire—who declare that buying out the landlords and selling to the tenants would not settle the land question; that getting rid of a small number of land owners and making a larger number of land owners, would do nothing for the landless (applause), nothing for the agricultural laborers of the country, nothing for the workingmen of the towns, nothing to lessen the ever-widening gulf between the rich and the poor, nothing to solve the great social questions. When you get down among the masses even now the common argument in support of Mr. Gladstone is, what right have the landlords to be paid? What is their title? It is the title of robbery. Why should we buy from one class and give to another class? (Applause.)

To-day I am as certain as that I stand here that a proposition for purchase, whether of Irish landlords or English landlords, would be killed in any general election in Great Britain. (Applause.) The day has passed when even Mr. Gladstone’s influence could save it. The liberal party step timidly forward—as timidly as the democratic party stepped forward in the Mills bill. But there, as here, the parliamentary discussion of details brings up a popular discussion of principle. The liberals having taken a stand against purchase, are looking for arguments against it, and discussion and education must go on just as the discussion and education went on here on the tariff question—aye, and on the single tax—during all the last campaign. (Applause.)

INJUSTICE OF ENGLISH TAXATION.

Shut out now from proposing purchase, the liberal party must do something on the land question if it hopes to regain power; for it is on all hands agreed that it is the burning question of the immediate future. And the declaration in Birmingham for the taxation of ground rents shows the line it must take. Whenever that question is discussed, as it is being discussed in Great Britain now, men open their eyes and see on every hand the most monstrous examples of the injustice of the present condition of things.

The greater part of London for instance is built on leased lands, and the conditions of the leases are that the buildings shall go to the landlords at the expiration of the term, and that they must be kept in what is called “decorative repair”—that is the house must be made to look like a new house before the landlord consents to take it. (Laughter.)

I went with Mr. Saunders to his home in Streatham, a part of London. There we saw plenty of vacant land. Cows were being grazed on it, and therefore it is taxed. If it were like many New York lots, a receptacle for tin cans and broken bottles and a browsing ground for goats, there would be no tax at all. But the tax amounted to about fifteen shillings for a lot because there were cows grazing on it. The terms on which the owner lets such a lot is £28 per annum ground rent, and the erection of a house worth £1700, which at the end of the term, seventy-five years, must go to the landlord in decorative repair. When a man takes one of those lots he has to pay twenty-eight pounds per year, to build a house worth £1700, which at the end of the term is to revert to the landlord, and then around comes the rate assessor to make him pay a tax of £45 per year. You can hold a piece of land there to put cows on for fifteen shillings a year taxes; but when you put on it a house for men and women and children to live in, then you must pay £45 taxes.

OTHER INSTANCES.

In another place in London which Mr. Saunders showed me, on one side was a busy street, on the other side a blank wall inclosing a hundred acres, worth not less than £150,000. It belongs to a lunatic, who is kept in a lunatic asylum (laughter), and who does not live on it at all. There are a hundred acres idle, a high wall preventing people from even looking on the grass and trees. The taxes are about £15 a year, but the annual increase in its value for years, Mr. Saunders told me, had been over £4,000 per year. In London the estimate is that the value of the bare land is over £400,000,000. The value of buildings and improvements is a little over £200,000,000. The taxes upon the land are £500,000 per year. The taxes upon the improvements are over £7,000,000 per year. (Cries of “oh” and sensation.) Is it any wonder that people are crowded together; that there are not houses enough; that royal commissions upon the housing of the poor have to be appointed, and that they see, when they come close to the problem, that it arises from the monopoly of land? (Great applause.) The only way to properly house the poor is to take taxes off the improver, to cease punishing the man who builds a house, and to make men who hold land idle pay as much as though they were using it. (Applause.)

What is true of London is true all over the three kingdoms, just as it is substantially true here. (Applause.) Take Liverpool. Where those magnificent docks are constructed was a short time ago nothing but a bare sand spit. It belongs to the earl of Derby, and he receives an enormous revenue for allowing the people of Liverpool to dig out this sand and make docks for the accommodation of ships. All over the country the growth of towns, the opening of mines, the erection of factories, adds to the wealth of those who neither toil nor spin. But labor—labor, the producer of all wealth—is everywhere ground and robbed. (Great applause.) And from Southampton, in the southern part of England, where I first landed and where enthusiastic men gathered around us and compelled us to make speeches even on the tender while we were going ashore, to the far north of Scotland, I heard that the p. 3, col. 5 whole country is becoming alive to the iniquity. Men’s eyes are opening to the monstrous injustice (applause), and minds and consciences to the fact that for the cause of destitution and want, of the crime and vice that grow out of them, we must not look to the laws of the Creator, but to man’s injustice to man (great applause); to the fact that we have allowed a few to take what the Creator provided for all. (Applause.) A fire has been started that must run on. A light has been lit that will never be extinguished until in the mother country the equal rights of all men to the soil of their native land is acknowledged. (Applause.)

When I went over I thought that we on this side of the Atlantic had been making the greatest progress. I am not so certain of that now. I think great progress has been made on both sides of the Atlantic. But our friends over there say that they are going to get ahead. (Laughter.) I do hope they will go as fast and as far as they can, for I know their advance will stimulate our advance, as our advance has stimulated them. (Applause.)

They over there have been looking at us. I met, not merely in London, but in other places, men who came to greet me with the single tax cat button in the lapel of their coats. (Applause and laughter.) And everywhere men who gathered around me would ask: “What about Hugh O. Pentecost?” (Applause.) “What sort of a looking man is Louis F. Post?” (Applause.) “Tell us something about that Cleveland man, Tom L. Johnson?” (Applause.) “How about William T. Croasdale?” (applause), and so on. They have been watching what we have been doing with the keenest interest. They have not been doing much that shows on the surface, but steady missionary work has been going on. And now they are getting to the time when what has been done quietly will come forth openly. They are coming to the time when this question will get into practical politics. That is the reason why I promised to go back in two months to stump the country from one end to the other. (Great applause.)

[Mr. George went on to give an outline of his trip in England, and then continued:]

DIFFERENCE IN CONDITION.

The British people have some advantages over us. They have, for instance, the enormous advantage of what we call the Australian ballot. (Great applause.) You cannot intimidate a voter. That was seen in the Irish movement. The Australian ballot secured Irish tenants and Irish laborers from the power of the landlords, and enabled them to elect members of their own choice in constituencies that under our system would have returned but the creature of the landlord. You cannot bribe a voter over there, or at least if you try it you have got to take the risk of his not delivering the vote. They have, on the other hand, some drawbacks. They have not yet got over the notion that property ought to vote; and a man who lives in one place and has an office or owns property in one or a dozen other places has the same number of votes. (Laughter.) I went with Mr. Saunders, for instance, and saw him vote for the school board. He had already voted in the morning where he lived, but he had recently taken an office in the Palace chambers, opposite the great parliament hall. He had forgotten all about this vote, when he received a printed circular from the duke of Westminster, enjoining him to vote early and often, and suggesting what candidates he should vote for. He took me along with him and cast his second vote. But you can safely bet he did not vote for the duke of Westminster’s candidates. (Laughter.) As a little indication, in that election, and in a hotly contested constituency, the president of the English land restoration league, the editor of the Church Reformer, Rev. S. D. Headlam, was elected, as were many other radical men. (Applause.)

ANOTHER ADVANCE.

Let me speak of another advance that has been made under this tory government. Under what is called the local government bill, London is virtually made one great municipality with a county council. So in many of the other towns. Those county councils will be schools of democracy. This London county council, for instance, will have the power of framing what perhaps can best be called a constitution for London, and presenting it to parliament. While they have not the direct power, they have the power of asking parliament for permission to levy taxes on such things as they please. And in that council which is elected next February you may be absolutely certain that the question of taxing ground rents will be a burning question. (Applause.)

But to return. Another drawback is that representative are not paid^sic, which gives an advantage to the wealthy. And although legal expenses are restricted, there is still a great deal of expense attaching to election. The next step forward in democracy there will be “one vote for one man,” as they call it; the payment of members, and the payment of election expenses. But then when you get further along the English have one great advantage over us. They have, it is true, a house of lords, and it is a bad lot (laughter). Though I don’t know that it is any worse than our senate. (Laughter and applause.) But they have no written constitution, and the house of lords has already learned that it cannot stand in the way of the house of commons when the people are determined. So that practically to carry out any reform in Great Britain, all that has to be done is to get possession of the house of commons. (Applause.) Already in the house of commons are a number of men whose aim is the securing of equal rights in the land—advocates of the single tax. It is absolutely certain that in the next parliament there will be many more of them. (Applause.)

When the movement to make land values pay some part of the taxation begins it cannot stop. Just as the protectionists knew that even those little timid attacks upon the principle of protection that were contained in the Mills bill meant an attack upon the principle, and that if they yielded they were gone, so do the landlords feel. If they allow this thing of shifting taxes on ground rents to begin in Great Britain, it will mean the ultimate destruction of landlordism. So they will resist, and as they resist the feeling will rise. (Applause.)

PROGRESS HERE.

I am glad to see, in coming back to this country—I left just after the election—so much life and as much vigor in this movement. (Applause.) I am glad to read that message of President Cleveland (great applause and cheers), in which he not merely upholds more firmly than ever the banner of free trade, but shows that he has arrived at the consciousness at least of some deeper problems. (Applause.) I am glad to hear the applause that greets his name. (Three cheers for the president, repeated with a “tiger.”) He has but to go forward to be the leader of the real democratic party (applause), to go into the campaign four years from now with a strength greater than ever. (Great applause.) And I am glad to see how the committee that you have appointed, with our friend Mr. Croasdale at its head (applause), is gathering in the signatures to that petition to congress which will indicate something of our strength, and will probably induce congress to appoint a committee which by its investigation of the subject will add a new impulse to public thought. (Applause.)

We were not defeated. To us elections are p. 3, col. 6 but incidents. We really won in the campaign. For, as Tom Johnson has said, what we aim at is not holding of office, but the propagation of ideas. (Applause.) We care and care always, not so much how men vote in the present, but how they think (applause); for we know that when a man thinks aright he will not only vote right, but that he will get others to think and vote right, too. (Applause.)

FOR ALL MANKIND.

I bear with me from our English and our Scottish friends, and from such as I saw of our Irish friends, the warmest greeting to you. When men are united in a great cause all little miserable national feelings disappear. I am glad to see there to-night the flag of England. (Great applause.) On our platform, under our banner, all races, all creeds, all conditions of men are united. We struggle not for one country, not for one class, but for all mankind. (Applause.) “See any prejudice against Americans on the other side of the water?” By those who accept our ideas, by those whose hearts have been warmed by our hope, I was everywhere received as a brother. (Applause.)

Already such a start has this movement got, such a firm hold has it secured, that it depends upon no nation and upon no one people. I met in England men from Australia who told me what a hold in that far southern continent our ideas have taken, and who declared that South Australia would be the first in leading the way. (Applause.)

But wherever it may be that our cause goes forward fastest; wherever it may be that this great idea first takes practical form, its ultimate triumph is now certain. No matter what forces may band together to oppose it, the day, I now feel, will come when some of those who are to-night sitting in this platform and in this hall, will begin to see the fruitions of our work—will begin to see the natural equality of men and the true nobility of labor recognized at last (applause)—will begin to see the principles of the American Declaration of Independence pass into living reality. (Tumultuous applause.)

Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost, the next speaker, was received with applause second only in volume and enthusiasm to that accorded Mr. George. He spoke as follows:

Mr. Pentecost’s Address.

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: I feel in my heart what you are all feeling to-night and what brought us here to-night—a hearty welcome back to his native land for Mr. George. I need not express that welcome in words I know, because you have already expressed it by your cheers and by your sympathetic greeting to him. There is really nothing that I have to say—he has said it all—except perhaps to corroborate one of his statements with reference to the growth of the ideas that this meeting represents.

Mr. Johnson said that there were probably 100,000 people in this country who were single tax men and women. I presume that that is not an over-statement of the case; but I suppose he was talking about single tax men and women who know they are single tax men and women. How many there are who don’t know it! (Laughter.)

I was talking not long ago with a Scotchman who is a manufacturer. He came to this country some years ago and has been doing well here. He goes back to Scotland every year or so to see his relatives. He was saying to me, just before going back to Scotland to his old home, “Things look so different now in Scotland from what they did before.” There is so much poverty; and he became very eloquent over it, although himself a very rich man. He said:

THE MANUFACTURER’S DISCOVERY.

“Mr. Pentecost, I don’t know whether you have ever thought about it or not, but the trouble is this: The nobleman, the landowners^sic in Scotland, have absolutely separated enormous sections of land in that country from the people and are using it for the habitation of deer and other private pet animals which they keep for their own amusement. Now, I don’t know whether you have ever thought of it or not (laughter), but the trouble is the people of that country cannot get at that land (laughter). Now, I want you to think (laughter), and I want to assure you that some plan must be devised before long to make those deer let go of that land. I told him I would think of it. (Laughter.)

Then in an innocent sort of a way I asked him if he had read “Progress and Poverty.” He said he had not. I asked him if he had heard of Henry George. He said he had. I bought him a copy of “Progress and Poverty” to read going over on the steamer, and thought probably it would make him think a little, too. He was a single tax man at heart, although he knew nothing of the single tax or the problems of “Progress and Poverty.”

ABOUT THE GENTLEMAN WHO RUNS A NEWSPAPER.

There is a neighbor of mine who has built himself a pretty house in the developing part of Newark. He is connected with an establishment in that city which is high up in the republican party. The firm, if I may so state, are pharisees of the pharisees. They are protectionists, and act with the republican party every time. The firm owns a newspaper which has sometimes suggested that there is a man in Newark who would be better off behind the bars. (Laughter.) Well, this neighbor is one of the concern; and he was saying to me in the street the other day in a rather snappish manner:

“You are an agitator and talking to the laboring men all the time. Now here is something that you might talk about that has some sense in it.” I was glad to hear sense in that quarter. (Laughter.) “What is it?” I asked. “Why,” said he, “instead of inciting discontent among the laboring people, why don’t you take up the question of taxation?” (Laughter.) I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “The whole problem that must be settled in this country is the question of taxation.” “Why, you surprise me. What is it?” (Laughter.) “I will give you an illustration. You know where I live?” “Yes.” “I built my house a year ago. Now I must pay more taxes on the land under my house than I did before.” I said, “Ah, indeed, you amaze me.” (Laughter.) He said, “Why, it is a fact. There are men holding land on my right and left. That land is lying there idle and unimproved. The snow is not shoveled off the sidewalk in the winter. The man never goes there, while I am taxed so heavily because I built my house. Now, there is a question; if you will only take it up, there will be some sense in it.” (Great laughter.) “Why,” I said, “there is something in that.”

Here was a man who had been denouncing me in his newspaper and who did not know what I had been talking about. I said, “Mr. So-and-so, I am surprised to find that you are a Henry George man.” “Sir! What do you mean, sir?” “You are talking dangerous Henry George principles in this town.” “Is that Henry Georgeism?” “Yes, pure and simple.” He changed the subject. (Laughter.) He was a Henry George man and did not known it^sic.

DIDN’T BELIEVE IT WAS THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE.

How many more would there be if they only knew it! I am inclined to think that the man who holds the foremost position in the United continued on p. 8 →

[continued on page 8]

Concluded on Eighth Page.

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Woman’s Work.

PARKERSBURG, W. Va.—As a woman I appeal to women to encourage their husbands in the good work. We have, too, the power of molding future generations though our voices may not be heard in public.

MRS. R. WILCOX.

p. 4, col. 3

Over Two Hundred and Fifty More Shares Taken—The Project is Booming, and It Now Looks as Though the Club House Would Soon Become a Certainty.

The receipt of subscriptions to the Single tax house during the past week are encouraging. They show an increase of interest in the project. They are as follows:

Henry George, 12 Union square, city………. 15 E. J. Shriver, Metal exchange, city………. 10 Martin Battle, 1791 Lexington avenue, city………. 5 George F. Ruggles, 431 East 86th street, city………. 1 J. P. Rogers, 221 East 12th street, city………. 5 T. A. Unnever, 13 Bond street, city………. 10 John Hamilton, [343?] East 13th street, city………. 10 Charles P. Kelly, 356 East [15th?], city………. 5 August Petry, 334 East 9th street, city………. 2 Charles F. Schultz, 162 East 84th street, city………. 5 Solomon Ettinger, 412 East 82d street, city………. 4 Sol Levy, 155 Water street, city………. 5 George J. Holman, 381 4th avenue, city………. 10 Ed F. Lawrence, 234 East 83d street, city………. 6 George Hecklinger, 231 East 82d street, city………. 5 Gus Schultz, 162 East 84th street, city………. 5 Magnus Gross, jr., 541 East 86th street, city………. 10 T. J. Hawkins, 457 East Seventy-ninth street, city………. 5 Moses Weinstein, 244 East Seventy-ninth street, city 2 Charles Hecht, 352 East Seventieth street, city………. 3 George Cooper, 180 East Seventy-second street, city. 10 Lonis F. Post^sic, Vanderbuilt building^sic, city………. 25 William S. Dalrymple, 457 West Thirty-fourth street, city………. 1 John F. Winter, 144 West Broadway, city………. 25 John Welsh, 535 West Thirty-seventh street, city… 5 Joseph F. Weber, 80 First street, city………. 10 M. Bittner, 526 Sixth avenue, city………. 5 J. D. Richardson, 71 Pineapple street, Brooklyn, N.Y. [5?] Miss Annie Freidell, 71 Pineapple street, Brooklyn, N. Y………. 2 Robert Baker, 178 Madison avenue, Albany, N. Y…. 5 James J. Mahoney, 25 Myrtle avenue, Albany, N.Y.. 2 Hugh O. Pentecost, 56 Oriental street, Newark, N. J. 5 O. D. Wood, Passaic, N. J………. 1 J. J. McCullough, 7 Poud place^sic, Plainfield, N. J…… 1 John Cairns, 106 Windsor street, Hartford, Conn…. 5 Frank J. Willard, 38 Pleasant street, Malden, Mass. 5 Charles F. Wenham, Lyle, Minn………. 1 Wm. J. Ryan, Charlotte, N. C………. 10 H. M. Scott, Miamisburg, Ohio………. 5 L. E. Siemon, 7 Glenwood street, Cleveland, Ohio…. 5 | 256 Previously acknowledged………. 520 Total to date………. 776

John Cairns, 106 Windsor street, Hartford, Conn., heartily indorses Mr. Steers’s plan.

A Nicodemus, writing from Reading, Pa., sends a subscription for 25 shares, in which he speaks enthusiastically of the club house plan.

Wm. S. Dalrymple writes:

I take pleasure in forwarding the inclosed dollar, only wishing I could do more. I propose sending my STANDARDS out west when I have finished, hoping they may be as seed fallen in good ground and produce abundant fruit.

J. H. McCullough, 7 Pond place, Plainfield, N. J., says:

This work should be pushed in all vigor; a permanent headquarters should be secured as soon as possible.

L. E. Siemon, 7 Greenwood street, Cleveland, Ohio:

I note with pleasure the movement to establish a club house or headquarters in New York city, where ail of the faith^sic can feel at home, and where we will have an opportunity to meet each other “on our own ground.” You may put me down for five shares, and I will endeavor to take more in the near future.

Frank J. Willard, 38 Pleasant street, Malden, Mass.:

Please find inclosed the slip cut from THE STANDARD, of which paper I am a subscriber. My whole heart is with the single tax people, and if it comes to extremes would gladly sell my coat from off my back to help the advancement of the greatest of all reforms the world ever did or ever shall see. I wish I could contribute the whole of the minimum number of shares (5,000).

A Significant Article From the Boston “Globe.”

Mr. Edward Atkinson, in his lecture on Saturday evening before the “Single tax league” of this city, laid down a surprising rule for the government of taxation, and one which, coming from so eminent a source, ought not to pass without a protest. He said that “a man should be taxed according to his productive ability, not according to the land he owns. A man’s productive ability is measured not by the land he owns or occupies, but by what he can do for other people better than they can do it for themselves.”

Why should a man be taxed, or fined, because he produces something? Why should he be taxed, or fined, because he does something for other people? Is it an injury to the community to produce things or work for other people that a man should be taxed or fined for doing it?

Mr. Atkinson’s rule would tax labor, ill-paid though it is, and relieve from taxation people who, like the Astors, produce nothing, yet have enormous possessions drawn from the production of others. Would that be just?

The true rule of taxation is that people should be taxed, not according to what they produce, nor yet according to what they spend, but according to what they possess. If a man possesses a lot of valuable land, for example, he should be taxed for it whether he prefers to let it lie idle or not. To tax idle land gives him the strongest stimulus to build upon it or otherwise improve it. Not to tax it permits him to let it lie idle, unimproved and useless. Under Mr. Atkinson’s rule a man might have a piece of land as big and as valuable as Boston common right in the heart of the city; and if, instead of making it productive, he preferred to keep it for a pleasure park, he would pay no taxes on it. No one can afford to do that now, because of the taxes. To remove the taxes from valuable but unproductive land, as Mr. Atkinson proposes, would put a premium on landlordism such as has cursed Ireland so long. In England, Scotland and Ireland unproductive land is taxed very lightly or not at all. The result is that great tracts of land which are needed for the support of the population are locked up in pleasure parks, and human beings are evicted to make room for deer. In Mexico land is exempt from taxation, and the result is that vast haciendas containing millions of acres remain in the possession of a single family, unused and unimproved from generation to generation; while the poor peons, unable to obtain land to work on, are reduced to a condition of virtual slavery. And every one knows that it is much the same in Ireland

No, no; the present system of taxation may be susceptible of improvement, but it is at least much better than that which Mr. Atkinson proposes.

Anybody Can Make a Living in This Country.

ST. LOUIS, Mo., Dec. 21.—I clipped this out of to-day’s St. Louis Chronicle:

Amelia Koetterer, a ten-year-old girl, was made nearly crazy with terror at half-past 10 o’clock this morning by the discovery of the body of her father, Fred Koetterer, hanging by the neck from a rafter in the attic of his residence at 2236 Bismarck. Her screams summoned her family to her aid and the remains were cut down by Chris Hamson, a neighbor. A piece of ordinary clothes-line rope was used by the deceased, and he had jumped into eternity from an old trunk that he had placed on end.

Koetterer was a laborer, and aged forty-three. He had been out of work for a long time, and despondency, caused by that fact and consequent poverty are supposed to be the cause of this suicide. He left a wife and several small children in an almost penniless condition.

I want single tax men to show this to the next man who says “Anybody can make a living in this country.”

ONE OF THE CROWD.

Let our adversaries appropriate the “tariff revision” phrase to themselves if they will, that will only amount to a virtual confession on their part they must at least pretend to respect the rapidly growing public demand for some substantial reform. Therefore let us take another step forward and have ourselves known as “free traders.”—Mauch Chunk, Pa., Democrat.

p. 4, col. 4

He Points Out in a Clear and Logical Way How First Free Trade and Then the Single Tax Would Greatly Benefit the Lithographer and Printer.

A letter expressive of a desire for higher protection for lithographers, signed “A Lithographic Proprietor,” and published in the American Lithographer and Printer on November 17, together with that paper’s sympathetic rejoinder thereto, has brought out a communication from Mr. Louis Prang of Boston, who, as all readers of THE STANDARD know, is a single tax free trader. Mr. Prang’s reply appeared in the American Lithographer and Printer last week. He says in his introductory note:

My endeavor will be to appeal to reason only by the presentation of a few facts and arguments, and to you, Mr. Editor, I appeal for the substantiation of the following claims, which I know you can get and will give.

He then writes as follows:

1. I claim that nine-tenths of all the lithographic work done in this country at the present time cannot be interfered with by foreign competition, for the reason that this work depends on local conditions of time and individuality of production.

2. I claim that even under present conditions of high tariff and consequent enhanced cost of production, we are able to compete successfully with foreign manufacturers in certain lines of lithographic work and that we export the same to some extent, with profit to ourselves.

3. I claim that under free trade, with a consequent saving of thirty to forty per cent on materials, paper and machinery, and with an adjustment of wages commensurate to the higher purchasing power of the dollar, we would be enabled to compete successfully in a far greater number of lines and so counterbalance by exportation probably all possible importations, to the advantage of both the exchanging parties.

Of course an exact calculation of net results under changed conditions cannot be made, but who can doubt that with like advantages in prices as to raw materials and with a lessening of manufacturing expenses, the American lithographer with American taste, American pluck and energy and American machinery, would not be a match for any foreign competitor, even at the higher wages which the American workman in our industry should always be able to command?

But this is too narrow a field for our consideration. Our prosperity as manufacturers depends on the prosperity of the whole country. That we are not generally and satisfactorily prosperous now goes without proving, else there would be no complaint to be made either by manufacturers or by workingmen. The large protective associations of workingmen on all sides, the strikes, the lock outs, the starving miners, the wretched tenement house sewing girls, and the million or two continually unemployed, attest to it. The farmers, the real trunk and support of the social body, working on mortgaged lands, with less and less chance to extricate themselves, have as a body ceased to be consumers beyond what is absolutely necessary to sus tain life. Of course under these conditions there can be no prosperity for the great mass of the people, commensurate with the immense national resources of this country. The cry for higher tariff by the lithographers will be followed by the cry for higher tariff by every other manufacturer who is scared by foreign competition, or who has a desire to manipulate the market for greater profits on his special product.

The consequence will be higher prices for all products dependent solely on a protected home market, and lower prices for all products dependent on, or regulated by the wants of the world’s market, such as the products of the soil.

Our farmers’ prosperity depends absolutely on a profitable export trade, as their producing power is always beyond the wants of the home market. The export trade can be secured only in competition with the products from Russia and India, and this competition can be carried on profitably only at a low cost of production. Free trade lowers the cost of production; protection raises it beyond the point of profitable competition in the world’s market. Stagnation in export trade means misery to the farmer, no matter how large his crops may be; his misery makes him a prey to the capitalist speculator, and by degrees he becomes a pauper laborer on an over-mortgaged farm, or an evict from the homestead, a fit candidate for the profession of the tramp.

Our protective policy impoverishes the farmers, and they, forming the great bulk of our population, ceasing to be consumers beyond the necessities of life, leave the manufacturers engulfed by their own productions, and drive them into that cut throat competition which we attribute to the interference of foreign pauper labor, instead of to the real cause, our own short-sighted policy.

There is another very important industry, depending on the world’s market, which if it existed, would be of immense value to the lithographic and printing interest. This is the ship building industry with all that it embraces. That great merchant fleet, once the glory of America, which only thirty years ago encircled the globe with its sails and with its hardy mariners, where has it gone? It is not the war, not the introduction of steam, not the lack of enterprise, that killed this industry. Our fatherly protective policy, coupled with the consequent loss of the world’s market, did the work. Our protected ship builders had to retire from business, not being able to compete with the ship builders of free trade England, who had the command of untaxed raw material.

Free trade would start this industry into life again and the demand thereby created for our productions would be a wonder to the protectionists.

Our special industry is based on the wants of other industries; it will prosper only with their general prosperity. Trusts and monopolies are not within our reach, and special protection through increased tariffs on foreign products could therefore at best give but a very temporary relief and would only serve as an excuse for monopolists to claim and obtain new favors from subservient law makers. What we as manufacturers need most, is cheap raw material, cheap machiney^sic, a lessening of manufacturing expenses and a free and fair field for action.

The course I would recommend to be pursued, and which I consider the only course that would strike at the root of the evils underlying our industrial conditions, consists in relieving industry and personal property of all taxes whatsoever, and in putting instead a single tax on land to the full extent of its rental value.

By so doing all industry and husbandry will be relieved from its greatest burden, speculation in land will be a thing of the past, all land not under cultivation will be free for the willing and actual settler, millions now crowding the cities will be enabled to create homesteads of their own, opportunities for profitable labor will be opened all around us, small farms will multiply with free land and light taxes, the thousands and thousands now forced to idleness will be called to fill the ranks of creators of wealth for the nation and for themselves. The dis

p. 4, col. 5 > tribution of the results of our prosperity will then regulate itself under natural laws, giving to every one, not according to his skill as an obstructor of these laws by manipulating trusts and monopolies, but according to his deserts as a worker.

You lithographic proprietors and printers are quite as much interested in the radical reform here suggested as any citizen possibly can be who wants to help himself and the whole nation. Only the fatal illusion which makes you believe that you can improve your condition by taxing the pockets of the people for the benefit of a class (and this not your own) prevents you from lending a helping hand, and your proposed action will drive you farther and farther into cut-throat competition.

In closing this note of warning and of suggestion to my brother lithographers and printers, I would only say for myself that not lightly and not without much misgiving have I taken up my pen to oppose the general drift of your desires. But a sense of duty to what I believe is essential for the good of us all impels me to do so, humbly apologizing for any pain I may give to some of you thereby.

The Imperial Style in Which Some Citizens Named Vanderbilt Live.

Providence Journal.

Beyond any question the most superb house in New York, in point of costliness and splendor, is the Vanderbilt palace on the corner of Fifty-first street. We went all over it the other morning from hall to roof tree, a sort of triumphal progress from cover to cover of the Arabian Nights, with such bewildering magnificence here, there and everywhere that only the most colossal mind could manage to carry away any definite idea of it all. A trim man servant threw open the front door, and we went up a few steps till we stood in the vast square hall, open straight up to the roof, with two galleries running around its sides, one above the other, and filled with a glow of rich, soft light that fell through the stained glass windows with peculiar effectiveness. Every inch of that hall is decorated by master hands; gilded, carved, painted, till its dimmest corner is a chef d’œuvre of which a king or an emperor might be proud to boast. An enormous rug covered the inlaid floor; there were silken hangings here and there, carved chairs and settees, palms and plants, and a large portrait of Mrs. Vanderbilt herself in one corner. Now and then a noiseless servant came and went. The great house looked homely and cozy in spite of its luxury, but there was no sound except those of our own voices and that of our hostess, and it seemed as if we had suddenly come upon that enchanted castle in which a beauty once slept for a hundred years.

Not, so, however^sic, when we went thence into the picture gallery—the famous picture gallery where there are gathered the masterpieces of the time, acquired with infinite care and judgment and patience by a collector who bought, not as the Philistines, but as a true connoisseur. The two great rooms were still and empty. One of them opened on a conservatory. The morning light lay in a flood of sunshine on the floor and brought out the very best points in every painting, as we wandered about in dumb delight from Corots to Daubignys, Detailles to Tademas, Meissoniers to Millais, forgetting in the joy of seeing those marvelous things that every one had cost a little fortune.

While we were enjoying this rare treat there came a sudden announcement, made by one of the trim footmen, that Mrs. Reed’s school was waiting for admission to the gallery, having been given permission to take a private view. So we hurried abruptly up into the overhanging balcony, where the musicians sit when these apartments are used for a ball, and looked down upon a scene which presently became very animated. Two hundred pretty’ young girls who are being “finished” in that fashionable boarding school before they are let loose upon society poured in under the charge of a corps of distracted teachers. They knew little about painting except from a merry and frivolous point of view, it is to be feared, dear things! though they had evidently been carefully prepared for their visit; but they chatted and gabbled and eh’d! and ah’d! with extravagant appreciation as they strolled about, doing their best to steal furtive glances at the rest of the house from which they were excluded.

To us, however, was the joy and delight of running, unquestioned, upstairs and downstairs, and in my lady’s chamber. There is a library, exquisite beyond description; a drawing room, filled with artistic foreign furniture, its walls decorated by celebrated artists, and its bric-a-brac worth a king’s ransom; a Japanese apartment, unique and curious, now used as a billiard room, its ceiling oddly wrought of bamboo, and everything in it Japanese; a dining room in richly carved oak. No words can paint this gorgeousness. Whole volumes in folio might be written without giving the faintest idea of its real fascination, and they could not convey the subtle conviction that steals over one to the effect that here is a palace which is also a home. Very costly houses are too apt, as a rule, to lack that redeeming grace of cosiness and habitableness. That was the fault of the Villard house on Madison avenue, which is well known as one of the handsomest in town, as it is the fault of many another. They are fine and stately, ornate and splendid, but their magnificence is too plainly for the world^sic at large to admire and to praise than for their owners to enjoy.

In the dining room there was a servant laying the cloth for luncheon—a luncheon for two, as there is no one left at home now except Mrs. Vanderbilt and her son, George. It was such a cloth! Of the finest damask, with an open insertion of lace just above its lace trimmed hem and a huge embroidered monogram in the center, and the man who was busy about it stopped to take us into the butler’s pantry, where everything was on a titanic and very complete scale, and there showed us the great safe, behind whose ponderous doors, that swung reluctantly open, were such treasures of silver as might well make Tiffany’s hide its diminished head and feel quite low in its mind.

So we might go on forever. Mrs. Vanderbilt’s own apartments look out upon Fifth avenue. She has a bedchamber fit for the princess who was bruised by sleeping on a pea under seventeen feather beds. One thing in it is a dressing table, with a great mirror set in silver, and strewn with silver toilet articles of every description. It is covered with old pink plush, and over that hangs a large piece of exquisite point lace, which once belonged to the ill fated Marie Antoinette, and is worth many times its weight in gold. The bed is of carved and inlaid wood, four posts and a canopy, and it is finished by an embroidered satin coverlet. Next this chamber is a boudoir or sitting room, where a cozy open fire burns on the hearth. A pretty work table, with its every implement in silver, stood invitingly open, and on the various tables scattered about were books and photographs, magazines and newspapers in lavish profusion. As for the dressing rooms, they are lined from floor to ceiling with vast mirrors, and fitted with baths of silver set in precious stones. At least it seemed so.

The most fascinating room in the whole house is that they call “George’s Library.” But time does not suffice to tell of its wonders—its book, and books, and books^sic, to drive a bibliomaniac fairly crazy.

Two Oregon Papers.

R. H. Thompson of Portland, Ore., has written articles in favor of the single tax for the Morning Oregonian and the East Oregonian, which received editorial notice from both papers.

The Morning Oregonian says:

The view of the tax question taken by Mr. R. H. Thompson of this city finds favor with the leading men of intelligence and influence in Dakota. Already a movement is on foot for the organization of single tax clubs throughout Dakota. In Bismarck the club has many prominent men on its rolls, and reports from various portions of the territory show

p. 4, col. 6 > that thousands have joined the association that is preparing to urge this reform.

But continuing it says:

The single tax scheme must not be confounded with the Henry George plan, which is a single tax that would confiscate and destroy private property in land and make all users of realty state tenants, paying full ground rent into the public treasury. Dakota favors a single tax on real estate and the exemption of all goods, chattels, money, credits and movable property of every description of the levies of the tax gatherer.

The British system for local taxation is a “single tax” in the sense that Dakota understands it, but not in the sense that Henry George pleads for “single tax.” The English argue that land should contribute to the support of the government out of and in proportion to its own income. Under the American system we tax the selling value of the land. England’s scheme of single tax is to levy on the rental value of land simply enough to raise the needed public revenue, while George, to use his own language, confiscates the whole rent, leaving to land owners the shell and taking the kernel. George would make Egyptian fellahs and Hindoo ryots of all land owners.

It would be perfectly safe to assume that the single tax men of Dakota understand what they are driving at much better than the Morning Oregonion does.

The East Oregonion says:

There is one plainly apparent reason, however, that ought to appeal powerfully to all thinking men in favor of such a reform. It is the absurdity of taxing in proportion as they are industrious, honest, saving and patriotic. This is just what we are doing.

The Hog Chewed Up $60 in Greenbacks—The Owner Will Get $40 for the Pulp.

In the early part of December a man named Pritchett, living near Somerville, Ga., while working out in a field, hung his coat on the fence. The coat contained three $20 greenbacks, which dropped out of the pocket, and a hog chewed them until they were reduced to a pulp. Mr. Thompson Hiles took the bills to J. H. Reynolds, president of the First national bank in Rome, who sent the pulp to the treasury department in Washington. Mr. Reynolds says that it was impossible for him to make anything out of the pulp, and that it looked like so much dark colored paper. This week President Reynolds received a reply from Washington to his letter. On two slips of paper were neatly pasted fragments of two bills. It was the work of an expert and showed his wonderful skill. The treasury department said that they could only make two bills out of the pulp and would pay that on an affidavit stating how the money was mutilated and the good character of the person who owned the bills when destroyed.

A Single Tax Man Calls on the Clergyman in a Friendly Sort of Way and Points Out the Cat.

Adapted from Toronto Grip.

S. T. Man.—I just dropped in, sir, to ask if you believe that God made the earth, and if so, that he made it for all his children alike?

Clergyman.—Of course I so believe. God is “no respecter of persons.”

S. T. M.—Then if one man appropriated to his own private use the whole earth, without giving an equivalent of its value, he would be doing an injustice to his fellow men?

C.—He would, most assuredly.

S. T. M.—Then if any number of men appropriate any portion of the common heritage, without giving an equivalent to the rest, the injustice would be the same in character?

C.—True—there’s no doubt about that.

S. T. M.—But, if that equivalent were given, wouldn’t the equal natural right of all be vindicated and the ends of perfect justice be met?

C.—Unquestionably; but how can you fix that equivalent, as you call it?

S. T. M.—Nothing simpler—its annual value to the appropriator; in other words, what the presence of population makes it worth in the shape of rent.

C.—Yes, that seems reasonable enough.

S. T. M.—That rental value could be taken in the form of a tax annually, all other taxes direct or indirect being abolished.

C.—I see; that would relieve labor from burdens now borne; but how about landlords?

S. T. M.—It would extinguish landlordism, that’s all. But if, as you believe, God made the earth for all, he never meant that some should live in idleness on the labor of others. “Whoso will not work shall not eat,” you know.

C.—Young man, there’s Christianity and sound reason in these ideas which are quite new to me. Now, if those crank single tax people would devote themselves to something of this sort——

S. T. M.—Sir, these are the doctrines which the anti-poverty men advocate. Good morning, sir.

p. 5, col. 3

Proof That it Was So Considered by Early English Law.

John Wheelwright in London Democrat for December

To the Commons in Parliament Assembled:

Gentlemen: Now that the infamous jobjery and robbery of the tax payers by our corrupt rulers to support their dependents are exposed to astonish the democracy, it behooves all honest men, tories, such as Mr. Jennings or Lord Randolph Churchill, and radicals alike, to resist the nefarious design that is hatching to rob the tax payers for the benefit of another set of idle parasites—the Irish landlords.

Why should we purchase what is our own without purchase?

A land holder is simply a public trustee—nothing more nor less than a trustee. Is it usual to pay outgoing trustees the value of their trust when we change them?

Lawyers like Barrister Bramwell try to impose on our ignorance, though any one of common intelligence can perceive the utter absurdity of construing a land holders’ estate in the soil into private ownership.

An “estate” is the legal jargon for the plain English word “trusteeship,” involving tenure, or tenancy, determinable by the will of the sovereign people who can direct the crown to resume the soil without compensation, only the lawyers find it convenient to forget them.

Hard as it may appear, we are not bound to compensate our tenants, the landlords, for their outlay on the soil. They themselves furnished the precedent of confiscating tenants’ improvements by law of their own making, and “sauce for goose is sauce for gander.” Landlordism capriciously and unjustly ousts its tenants, even for not voting according to order, but we can justly oust landlordism for breach of the original contract to maintain the army, navy and poor and to pay the taxes.

The whole case lies in a nutshell, bound round with the golden maxim in law that “No one can convey a better title than he receives.”

By this test we quickly perceive that no individual can possibly have received a title to ownership. Whoever first pretended to convey such a title and succeeded in making the world believe him, usurped a power based on fraud or force—a robber’s power—and the title he conveyed is null and void by the above maxim. If people cannot find this out for themselves their honest representatives should instruct them.

That everyday text book, Blackstone’s “Commentaries,” tells us plainly that the earth is the general property of all mankind from the immediate gift of the Creator (Bk. II., c. i.). It is the law of nature, and naturam expellas furca, etc. You may pitchfork nature out into the middle of the street and she will always come back and bang at your door for readmittance, as she does now in Ireland, and will soon in Scotland and Wales, and obtuse witted England. Our rulers hear her unmistakable notice to quit, and they want to secure as much plunder as they can before they do quit, by fair means or foul, by coercion or the specious form of an act of parliament.

Reproached in the columns of this periodical for my want of erudition, I resolved, as far as I could, to instruct myself, and in turn I can fasten the same reproach, and that of dishonesty as well, on you, liberal and radical members of Parliament, if you connive at the scheme of buying out Irish landlords who have nothing to sell. Your duty is merely to to tell them to resign their trusteeship and depart peacefully or make them depart. This is what history proves, and you are morally bound to study the history of the country you aspire to govern.

I. Starting with the Conquest, to avoid details about folcland and bockland for brevity, William I. made the Domesday survey to ascertain what every holder paid to the state for the use of the land, the national property. No private property in land here; it was let to the landholder at so much a year, and land was a trust.

2. The Conqueror did not grant land by the acre, but by knight’s fees, that was so much as would maintain so many knights for the public service, and their service was called the “reddit,” i. e., the return (corrupted into rent) made to the state for the use of the national property. The very word rent proves in itself that land was a trust.

3. The king might transfer the land from an elder to a younger brother if he bid fair to make a better knight, as in the case of the Mandevilles cited by Madox (“Hist. of Exchequer”). Therefore land was a trust and the trustee could be changed for state reasons.

4. This condition of affairs held out temptations to unscrupulous men who coveted their neighbor’s holding, or trust. Such would conspire to inform the king secretly that the man was plotting treason, the king would thereupon resume the land, which the conspirators would contrive to obtain in reward for their fidelity. The man’s innocence might afterwards appear, but the king did not reinstate him as a matter of course. This led to a clause in Magna Charta, that ’no man should be ousted from his tenure until his guilt was proved before his peers. Land was a trust, no more, no less.

V. After the barons had wrested certain concessions from King John, he, in retaliation, inserted a stipulation in Magna Charta that whatever concessions the court made to the chief landholders, lay and cleric, these in turn should concede the same to their subtenants. If, then, landlordism pays no rent to speak of and is not evicted, why should farmers be evicted for not paying rent? Land was a trust, no more, no less.

6. Land tenure at one time was not hereditary. It afterwards became partible among all the sons. This entailed loss on the state, because a man might have more sons than knights’ fees; each would claim exemption as not possessing a fee, and the state would suffer. So for public safety it was ruled that the eldest son should inherit the land, to keep the knights together. The very law of primogeniture proves that land was a trust.

7. If a man conveyed away his land without license first obtained from the crown, the land was forfeited unless he obtained a “pardon,” obviously because land was a trust.

8. If a large conveyance or an exchange, or new road, bridge, water course, and such like was contemplated, a jury of landholders had to determine whether any damage would accrue to the state before the undertaking was sanctioned. The process was called an “Inquisitio ad quod damnum.” And the fact that such an inquiry was necessary proved that land was a trust.

9. On the decease of every landholder, a jury of his peers sat before the king’s escheator to inquire into the nature of his tenure, and see if any land reverted to the crown, and who were the mesne, i. e., who were the chief lords of whom the defunct held land—and also to declare the name, sex, age and relationship of the next of kin. The that such inquiries were held proves that^sic fact land was a trust.

X. If the heir was under age, his lands were retained by the king or other chief lords until he attained his majority; he could then appear in the court of wards and liveries to prove his age and sue out his livery of seisin and pay certain fines in order to be entrusted

p. 5, col. 4 with the land. He acquired a trust or an estate in the soil, but not ownership. Land was a trust.

11. When heirs or heiresses were under age their wardship was of pecuniary value, and was sold by the king or chief lord for a sum large or small, in proportion to the tenure. If the defunct left a wife in possession she was obliged to marry whom the king pleased, or the state would lose the knight service, and so with an heiress, which all proves that land was a trust.

12. If a man died without heirs his trust reverted to the crown. If he was guilty of treason, his lands were forfeited to the crown. This argument was used by the escheator in his charge to the jury in the time of Queen Elizabeth to prove that land was not private property but a trust. The charge was printed in the Western Daily Mercury a few years ago. Therefore, in Elizabeth’s time, land was a trust.

13. If the state obtained no equivalent service from its trustees, the landholders, the king might and did resume possession on that account. Notably King Henry V. in resuming the lands of the alien priories, and King Henry VIII., in resuming the lands of the greater and lesser monasteries, the simple reason alleged was the necessity of the measure for the profit of the realm. Manifestly land was a trust.

14. Numerous acts of resumption have been cited in the Democrat from the works of Dr. Davenant, showing that landholding is trusteeship.

15. With the abolition of the court of wards and liveries there was a loss of revenue which William III tried to make good by his four shillings in the pound tax. The trusteeship became obscured, nevertheless land was a trust.

16. We know if one man retains another man’s land without paying rent for a certain number of years, the state resumes possession, ousts the right man for neglect of trust, and puts the wrong man in his place, this in virtue of the statute of limitations, which emphatically proves that land is a trust.

17. We know that rents are reduced by the land commissioners in Ireland, sometimes 50 per cent or more; by the same right they could extinguish the other 50, which means resumption, and proves there is no private property in land; it is a trust, and an estate in it is a trusteeship.

Much more might be added and precedents innumerable adduced, but enough has been said above to prove that our early forefathers had no private property in land, and could convey no such title to their descendants. The land is, as it ever was, the property of the population collectively, and collectively they can resume it through the instrumentality of the crown, and if Irish landlordism or trusteeship is working prejudicially to the well being of the Irish population the landlords can be constitutionally ousted from their trust. They have failed to fulfill their contract to yield reddit, therefore compensation means impudent robbery—just as if we were asked to compensate a thief for the loss of the use of a stolen horse which had been intrusted to him to hold.

Every honest representative of the people should oppose and expose the meditated wrong, and direct the wrong doers (who, unfortunately are landlords themselves) to make themselves better acquainted with the history of land tenure. It requires very little erudition to distinguish right from wrong.

In conclusion I entreat you to reflect that man cannot exist without the soil. Whoever gains possession of it acquires the mastery of man’s existence and reduces him to a slave, but as every slave has the right to strike for freedom, Irishmen will deny your right to fasten a debt upon him and will repudiate it. The democracy is learning that property in land is theft, and a day of reckoning is at hand. It believes that special aptitude for legislating is not hereditary; and is coming to the conclusion that a house of lords is an anachronism. It feels that no man has a right to a plurality of votes, unless it be the poor man with a large family, whose comfort especially depends on good government. The comfort of the man of wealth is assured to him under most circumstances. Sound government is of vital moment to the one, and of comparatively little moment to the other. Education is teaching the democracy its power, and supreme necessity is impelling it to exercise it—on the evil doers.

Rode Seventy Miles to Vote.

BOSTON.—I rode seventy miles to vote for Cleveland, and when it became certain that he was defeated I was sorely disappointed. Surely it seemed as though the majority of the people ought to jump at the chance of ridding themselves of at least a part of the heavy load they have been forced to carry for upwards of thirty years. But taking everything into consideration the result is not surprising. What the future may have in store for the democratic party we cannot tell, but one thing is certain. We have taken a long step in the right direction. We have only to move steadily forward. Let us try Veritas Vincit’s experiment and concentrate on one state. I suggest that a circular containing a clear statement of our principles be sent in a sealed envelope to every male in said state or territory. I will subscribe a dollar a month to further such a scheme.

I inclose money order to renew subscription for THE STANDARD.

E. J. F.

It Will Come With a Rush.

ST. LOUIS, Mo.—It is my private opinion that the republican party will hold the reins of national government eight years. But I think that by 1896 the Single tax party will have so educated the people that it will sweep the United States by a far greater minority than the republican^sic party has this time.

The democrats may in 1892 again try a campaign for tariff reduction, but I think that the people are not and never will be in favor of a reduction of the tariff. When the time comes for a change of taxation they will demand the abolishment of all taxes on production.

As to our work, I want to say to the readers of THE STANDARD that I have read nearly all of the tracts that have been published, and I want to tell them confidentially that THE STANDARD, as a single tax tract, is unexcelled.

K. PERRY ALEXANDER.

Let Us Have Some Ships.

NEW YORK.—It is deplorable to compare the present condition of American shipping with the flourishing aspect of past years, a condition brought about by laws restricting American citizens from purchasing ships in the cheapest market, and by the imposition of heavy duties upon so many of the raw materials that enter into ship building.

The greater part of the foreign trade of England is carried on in her own ships, consequently from the amount that she has to pay for her imports is to be deducted the profits accruing to her ship owners.

The position of the United States in the case of a trade with England is the converse. On our export shipment of American produce or manufactures the profits derived by our merchants are in nine cases out of ten solely on the merchandise. And when goods are imported, not only have we to pay for them, but the freight charges, too. The estimate is that seventy per cent of our commerce is now carried in foreign vessels, whereas previous

p. 5, col. 5 to 1860 between seventy-five and eighty per cent was carried in our own ships.

Strong efforts have been made, in spite of hostile laws, to establish steam communication between this and certain foreign countries, but with miserable success; instance Roach’s line to Rio de Janeiro, which was composed of magnificent steamers. One of the causes why we enjoy so small a proportion of the Chilian, River Plate and other trade, is that the best and cheapest route to Valparaiso is via Hamburg to Buenos Ayres, and the cheapest to Montevidio, China and Japan is via Liverpool. It is not sufficient for us to have foreign steamers coming here from South America at frequent intervals, and returning via Europe, as in the case of many of the steamers from Brazil, as the balance of trade cannot be so readily adjusted. The advantage of regular lines between different countries is the increased facility of exchanging commodities—the payment for goods with goods being without question the life of foreign trade.

HENRY FORREST.

Justice and Charity—To a Friend.

I care not for your fine poetic flame, Nor heart of flowing sentiment that stays But with the passing cause by which it came; The ebullient pity of the summer days. Your heart, transfixed by shining spears of love, Leaps to the glory of strong hope, and in it Bathes in the burning ecstasy of the minute, And moves in realms our sordid earth above.

And yet, and yet! pure thoughts and radiant hopes; What are they but the idle dreams of man? The weaving of the sea sands into ropes Since ever this mad world her course began? Justice is mighty; Charity is weak, Entering at doors that open in the sea; A Sisyphus; her work immensity; Resign thy task; let stronger Justice speak!

Without abeyance of her law, not one Of all sweet Charity’s bright dreams come true; Without we walk in way of Justice, none Shall seasons of the Golden Age renew. Not till we meet and vanquish human wrongs, Moving toward freedom till we break the chain That binds the limbs of freemen; then again May all the happy hearted sing glad songs.

JOSEPH DANA MILLER.

Gladstone Says America Would Take First Place in Commercial Greatness With Free Trade, and That Wages Would Rise.

“On my way home from England,” said a correspondent to the New York Sun on Sunday, Dec. 23, “I met Col. John Atkinson, a prominent lawyer of Detroit, who has the Irish cause very much at heart and has spent a vacation of a couple of months in close association with the leaders of the home rule party in the British parliament.

Colonel Atkinson told of a conversation he had had with Mr. Gladstone at a luncheon party. Here is one of the most interesting parts of the conversation:

He (Mr. Gladstone) inquired about the campaign in America, and particularly whether the fisheries treaty had entered very largely into the discussions before the people. I ventured the opinion that, while it was often mentioned, it played no great part.

“Do you think?” he asked, “that protection and free trade formed the issue?”

“I said Yes.”

“And which side were you on?”

“I was for protection.”

He expressed some surprise that protection should have such a hold upon Americans, but said: “I never argue with a man from another country about affairs which are purely domestic. Every nation must judge for itself what is best for itself. But what was the chief argument for protection?

I said: “The main argument was that free trade would cripple our industries, deprive us of our home market, and compel us, in competing with Europe, to reduce wages to the standard of Europe.”

“Do you know,” said he, “that by and through free trade wages have advanced in England?”

I answered that it was generally admitted that English wages had advanced since free trade was adopted, but some of our people attributed the advance to other causes. He said he regarded free trade as the cause.

“And do you think, Mr. Gladstone,” I said, “that free trade would affect us the same way?”

“I think so. As long as America maintains protection England will be the foremost of commercial nations, but when America adopts free trade we must take a second place. You may say this is arguing against England’s interest. Not so. England would gain immensely by free trade in America, but America would gain still more.”

Does What He Can.

ROBEY’S CORNER, N. H.—Inclosed please find $1 to be placed to my credit for THE STANDARD. I wish it were a hundred, as it is for what Cleveland calls “the people’s cause.” I lend out my copy of THE STANDARD as soon as I have finished reading it. The general interest is gaining. People who a short time ago would hardly treat me decently are now saying; “Mr. Kelley^sic, I believe there is something in this single tax idea.”

I am a poor man with a family of six to support. If it were not for that I would do more for the good cause in which my heart is enlisted.

God bless you, Henry George, for letting the “light shine before men.”

ALFRED KELLEY.

W. A. Douglass in Hamilton, Ont.

The energetic and indefatigable president of the Anti-poverty society of Toronto, W. A. Douglass, has been lecturing the people of Hamilton, Ont., on the single tax. The Hamilton Times says that “there was quite a large and very intelligent gathering of young men, and a good lot of those advanced in years, too, at Alexandra hall.” The chair was occupied by Alex. McKay, M. P., who expressed himself as much pleased to preside. At the conclusion of his address Mr. Douglass answered a number of questions, after which a vote of thanks was moved by Mr. Fred. Walter, seconded by Mr. Gilbert, on behalf of the land tax club, under whose auspices the lecture was delivered. The motion was unanimously carried.

Who Will Look After the Oklahoma Lands?

LINCOLN, Kan.—Dr. Malcolm is entitled to the thanks of advanced thinkers for his practical suggestions in regard to Oklahoma. But who is going to put his eyes before congress? As he says, the whole Oklahoma scheme is conceived in a spirit of land speculation and is championed by men who expect to make profits out of the speculation. They can afford to give time and efforts to their part of the work. Is there anybody who can give time and effort to the urging of Dr. Malcolm’s plans? Surely not much can be expected from the west.

WM. A. GARRETSON.

Edward Atkinson’s Unfortunate Habit.

Boston Globe.

If Edward Atkinson is going to spend his time proving that Henry George is wrong people will begin to think that the author of “Progress and Poverty” may be right after all. Mr. Atkinson has an unfortunate habit of proving “things that ain’t so.”

p. 5, col. 6

Some Good After All.

The courts will have to help us decide whether electricity is a “condition or a thing,” all because we want to tax it if it is a “thing,” that is if it is manufactured. A Harrisburg, Pa., item says: “Although the philosophers have never been able to determine whether electricity is a condition or a thing, a case will be tried by the courts of Dauphin county in the hope of throwing light on a very ancient dispute. Under the act of 1885 manufacturing companies in Pennsylvania, with few exceptions, are exempt from taxation. The state authorities have refused to recognize electric light companies as manufacturers, and several of these corporations have appealed from the settlement of the tax which the commonwealth has imposed upon them. The novel point to be decided is whether or not electricity is manufactured.”

Landlordism Takes a Drop in the English Market.

London Cable to the Sunday Sun.

The condition of the unhappy crofters may be judged from the first decision of the commission relating to Lady Matheson’s property. On Lewis island, the center of last winter’s agitation, the arrears of rent due have been practically canceled, [£2,422?] being reduced to £379. A permanent rent reduction of forty-two per cent has been granted to 150 tenants. Lady Matheson has been much held up among sympathetic London tories as a victim of cruel agitators. A commission hostile to agitation has practically declared that her [ladyship?], while getting sympathy here, was [stripping?] poor tenants in Scotland.

Interesting Historical Facts About the Famous Palace and State Prison.

London Echo.

To describe the Tower of London in detail is absolutely unnecessary—it is too well known as a whole, but there are interesting little facts not generally realized by the public, and there are nooks usually unvisited. It was my good fortune on a recent day to go carefully round this grand old pile with a special order from General [Milman?], the resident governor. Passing by the Traitors’ gate, I went into the Bloody tower, in a room in which I found myself standing upon the very spot wherein were imprisoned the two little princes, and from the window of which centuries after Archbishop Laud leaned out to bless Lord Strafford as he passed to death upon the scaffold just beyond. An old, old room this, full of historic interest, and now inhabited by one of the picturesquely attired beefeaters. St. John’s church, one of the oldest Norman churches in the kingdom, built in 1087, is too well known to require description, so I will pass on to the armory departments, where I saw Lord Wolseley going round on an evident business inspection.

In passing down a staircase in this White tower, wherein is kept this armor, and in which is placed a stand of fifty thousand modern rifles, I noticed the enormous thickness of the splendid walls, and on inquiring I was informed that they were fifteen feet in depth. Beneath the White tower are the dungeons which are never shown to the general public. Here is an eternal twilight, a musty smell, an icy chilliness. The first one, pure Norman in its architecture, is called the Torture chamber, for here were stretched upon the rack the miserable victims of political necessity or of religious bigotry. In a very narrow passage leading out of this great chamber, and which is known by the name of Little Ease, because in it a prisoner could neither sit nor lie down, was wearily imprisoned the misguided Guy Fawkes. In the pitch dark dungeon beyond, which has no flooring but the damp cold earth, were once imprisoned three hundred Jews, who in the thirteenth century were suspected of the crime of clipping coin. A dreadful place this, and hideously suggestive of the undreamed of horrors of these “good old days of yore.” The door, an old oak one, iron bound, and immensely strong—shut off these poor wretches from all communication with the outer world.

In this dungeon, or series of dungeons, was recently discovered a very deep well, into which we fearfully peeped. From the dungeon to the church is but a short step; in the old days the journey was usually made from the latter to the former. St. Peter’s dates from 1272; it is full of the saddest, tenderest interest; within its dingy walls and beneath its historic pavements there lie the bodies of three of England’s queens. Ruskin finely says of this church that “it is the saddest spot in Christendom, for here are buried in dishonor the greatest in the land, while at Westminster abbey they are buried in honor,” a most touching and suggestive contrast. Most of the beautiful brasses were removed in Cromwell’s time.

I was deeply interested to hear that in repairing the chancel in 1877, there was discovered the body of Anne Boleyn, which was recognized by the historically tiny neck, and by the fact that the body lay just in the spot described in the burial registry; also were discovered the bones of a big man, which belonged beyond doubt to the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth. These were reverently reburied in their long, long resting place.

Upon the wall, and preserved within a glass case, I saw the three coffin plates of the noblemen last decapitated upon Tower hill—Lords Kilmarnock, Lovat and Balmerino. The inscriptions were all in Latin, and that upon Lord Balmerino’s plate ran as follows: “Arthur Dominus de Balmerino, decollatus 18 die Augusti, 1746. Ætatis suæ 58.” The very plain little font dates back to the reign of Edward III.

Not satisfied with my morning’s round I went the next night to have a chat with the deputy-chaplain of the tower, Mr. Foster, who told me many interesting little facts, some of which are mentioned above. To my surprise he informed me that the tower is not supposed to be haunted, nor is there any ghostly tradition hanging round this spot. Just before 11 he and I stepped out into the cool night air. A wild windy night, clouds chasing each other over the moon, whose misty, watery rays fell upon that ancient Norman keep. Just at my hand, and railed off, was the very spot wherein was lifted so often “the axe’s keener edge.” It was upon this very spot and from yonder identical window shining white in the moonshine, that Lady Jane Grey, the nine-days’ queen, gazed as her husband slowly passed to his death; for she was imprisoned in the house of Mr. Partridge, the gentleman jailer, wherein now resides the official who to this day bears the same title.

But the silence, pregnant with such memories, is suddenly broken by the clash of arms, the tramp of feet, and the hoarse cry of military command. In the fitful light we see a small body of soldiers drawn up, and beneath the Bloody tower comes the guard, preceded by a warder bearing the keys. “Halt!” cries the officer in command; “who comes there?” “Keys,” is the immediate response. “Whose keys?” “Queen Victoria’s keys.” “Present arms.” “God preserve Queen Victoria.” “Amen,” is the clear, deep answer of all the soldiers. Every night for untold years had this ceremony taken place. It is over now. Thoughtfully I wend my way past the Traitors’ gate, beneath which the water is mournfully lapping, and, passing out of the grand old gates, I leave history behind, only to plunge into the vast weird Babylon of this nineteenth century.

He Works Twenty-four Hours Each Day and Makes it Unnecessary for Poor Stokers to Slave in the Heat.

At the sixteenth annual meeting of the American gas light association, held in Toronto, Canada, on October 17, 18 and 19, Mr. A. Q. Ross described his “steam stoker and improved charger,” which, by the way, is nothing more nor less than an “Iron man,” such as was described in the invention column of THE STANDARD of December 8. Briefly, the stoker is a machine that runs up and down on tracks in front of the retorts and fills them with coal in exactly the same manner in which a human stoker would fill them with his shovel, and the discharging machine is one that does the reverse—that is, it empties the coke from the retorts. One man manages either the charger or discharger, and the work is done in an incredibly short space of time. Mr. Ross proved by letters from the leading manufacturers of gas in the country that his invention was a success, that is to say, that it was putting money into the pockets of gentlemen of the “high order of intellectual and scientific attainments,” such as he had “the honor and privilege” of addressing. Incidentally and temporarily it was taking money out of the stokers’ pockets of course, for their occupation is gone. “Remember,” said the inventor, “that this machine does not stop with the bell, but it works eighteen or twenty-four hours each of the three hundred and sixty-five days in the year,” and an “ordinary laborer” can run it.

Naturally, an assemblage of gentlemen of high intellectual and scientific attainments did not look at the invention through the constricted orifice of a money bag, but examined it from all sides with the rays of their enlightened philosophy shed upon it. Said one of them, a Mr. Page:

The subject of this paper presents three aspects—philanthropic, prudential and financial; but I believe that every gas manager is influenced by the first, because the hardest work, it seems to me, that is done by the men is stoking, particularly in the summer time, whether it be in Canada, in the south, or in the middle states. Therefore, any means by which labor-saving machinery can be substituted for the hardest labor ought to receive our earnest attention. I am told that in some works the average life of the stoker, or the average time that he is employed, is not over five years. Therefore, a machine that can do his work is something to be hailed with joy. Next, prudential. I suppose that most gas works are subjected to strikes, and, therefore, a great industry is left at the mercy of men who, generally speaking, do not care for the company which employs them. Therefore, a machine that will take the place of the striker is something to be considered carefully and seriously. Third, financially. I was assured by an official of the Gas light and coke company that the discharging machine at the Nine Elms station, London, was an absolute success; that they could not get along without it; that they saved sixty per cent of the cost of stoking by the use of the Ross discharger. Reference has been made to the stoker at work at the Beckton station. I had an opportunity of seeing it last June. Its use is attended with many difficulties; it often breaks down; but you could not take it out of that works. You could not buy it out of that works, and for two reasons. The first is that while it is working it has an effect upon labor at a dollar and a quarter per day for stokers. Second, it makes a large saving in labor.

Who says that corporations are soulless? Or that half the world doesn’t know nor care how the other half lives? Here are the representatives of giant corporations figuring on something which will relieve the stoker who lives only five years after he begins to stoke, from all work whatever, and which will do away with the bad blood engendered by strikes and lockouts by doing away with strikers themselves. Surely not the stanchest supporter of the “Iron Chancellor” of Germany has the interests of humanity more at heart than the inventor of this “iron man” of the gas house.

Electricity on the Elevated Railroads.

The Daft electric motor “Benjamin Franklin,” weighing ten tons, drew four elevated railroad cars and fifty invited guests, weighing about seventy tons, from Fourteenth street to Fiftieth street and back without a hitch recently. The distance was a fraction less than four miles and the time for the round trip about eleven minutes. The armature in the motor is fed with a low-tension current, carried along a wire rope near the rails, and this current is not fatal to human life. The railroad men and electricians aboard the train were unanimous in the opinion that Mr. Daft had at last solved the problem of clean, efficient and comparatively noiseless rapid transit. The new motor glides along without smoke, ashes or pounding of the rails. In a short time the inventor hopes to put a train on the elevated road which will be moved, braked, lighted and heated by the same electric plant.

A New Kind of Steel With Wonderful Properties.

Arrangements, says the Philadelphia Inquirer, are making for the manufacture of a peculiar kind of steel. “By the process all the old steel, of which many tons annually are practically thrown away, can be converted into the highest grade of steel. The article that is turned out from the worthless rails is a very fine quality of malleable steel, hitherto unprocurable without the greatest care and expense of manufacture. Samples were exhibited showing how sections of it could be bent at right angles without the least break or giving being noticeable at the turn. To obtain this valuable quality of flexibility in steel of a high grade has hitherto been a most difficult thing to do, for the metal, as it advances in quality increases in brittleness. For this reason it was impossible to use steel for various purposes where its employment would have been of the utmost value, and the invention overcomes this defect. The saving that will annually be effected by the employment of the old steel rails is something enormous. Horseshoes, steel wheels and hundreds of small articles that have hitherto been made of iron can be manufactured of the new process metal. Another important item is the extreme facility with which the new steel is welded. Experts assert that this is the first instance on record where it was found possible to weld two pieces of high grade steel. Specimens are exhibited of the new variety consisting of two, three and four pieces of the metal welded into one. Close inspection failed to discover where the different pieces joined, the edges appearing as if the section was one homogeneous whole. The intention is to have the plant in Pittsburg or the immediate vicinity.”

Separating the Wool from Cotton in Rags.

A process for separating the wool from cotton in rags where the threads of the two materials are interwoven, is described by the Textile Record. Dilute muriatic and sulphuric acids are used. The action of these acids upon wool is very small compared with their action on cotton, which is readily disintegrated by them, and this fact is the basis of a process known as carbonizing, in which rags are submitted to the action of acid, washed, dried and beaten. The cotton passes away as dust and leaves the wool. Muriatic acid gas can also be used. This process, if carefully conducted, is said not to injure the wool to any considerable degree.

Liquor as Well as Melody From a Piano.

For some time past, says the Boston Herald, the police have been suspicious that Mary A. Wright was selling liquor at 15 Lyman street, and last evening Sergeant Butters visited the place and after a thorough search located the illicit ardent. In the parlor was a grand piano and among the fantastic carving of one of the legs Sergeant Butters discovered a keyhole. He obtained a key and in the hollowed out leg he found a number of bottles of lager and the necessary glasses for its use.

Making Work for Custom House Inspectors.

The Detroit railroad tunnel company was incorporated recently for the term of 999 years, with a capital stock of $1,500,000, or more than half the cost of the proposed tunnel under the Detroit, which will connect the United States with Canada. The tunnel will be begun about half a mile from the river and run to the middle of the river, or the national boundary line. The other half of it is to be completed by the company to be organized under the Canadian law. Tracks will be run from the tunnel to the northern part of the city of Detroit, and there connect with every railroad entering the city. The company will lease its track tunnel privilege to the railroad companies. Work will be commenced next spring. Arrangements for asking for bids for its construction have not yet been made, but it is said that they will be shortly.

Superstitions Attributed to Jay Gould.

The Epoch.

It is said that when Mr. Jay Gould is going up or down the stairs of the “L” road he always puts his left foot on the step first, even if he has to get out of step to do it. If, by accident or through thoughtlessness, he happens to start with the right foot, he is certain to remark it before reaching the top of the steps, and if he does will return^sic and start over again. Another reported peculiarity of Mr. Gould is his antipathy to fair haired men. There is not a single blonde clerk in his immediate employ, and it is said that he dislikes to do business with men who have fair hair.

The Fuel of The Future.

G. Hasecoster, in the Age of Steel.

It is a long-known fact that has been taught by chemistry for years, that water possessed all the elements necessary for perfect combustion, and where so burned made the hottest fire in existence, sufficiently hot to melt any metal. Water, as a liquid, will not burn, but the gaseous products of water enter readily into combustion; hence water must be decomposed before combustion can take place. This is done by three methods—electrical, chemical and artificial heat. The latter method as will hereinafter be explained.

It is an established fact in chemical physics that a very high degree of heat will weaken the affinity that holds together the gases composing water and ultimately liberate them. Now dry steam is water separated into its p. 7, col. 3 original molecules, consisting each of one atom of oxygen united to two of hydrogen.

Hydrogen, so called from the Greek word hydros, water, forms two-thirds of the bulk of water. For all the water of wells, rivers, lakes and seas is not an elementary substance but consists of two kinds of gases chemically united, one being hydrogen and the other oxygen, both of which can be produced out of water. Indeed, if ever means should be found which would enable man to produce both of these gases out of water at a small expense, humanity would have taken a great step forward, for we should then be able to procure the fuel for kitchen, shop and factory from the same water which has hitherto been thought to constitute the very reverse of fire.

Fire is extinguished by water thrown upon it, because the water cools the burning objects and robs them of the heat necessary for combustion. If the temperature of the fire be high enough and the amount of water thrown upon it small in proportion, the water will not only be ineffectual in extinguishing the fire, but will even further and support it. It can easily be noticed that when a stream of water is thrown into a great conflagration the vast heat changes the water into steam even before it reaches the objects on fire. If, however, the heat reach a still higher degree, the steam will be expanded to such an extent that the chemical union of the two elementary substances of water is dissolved, and in place of water two separate gases, hydrogen and oxygen, will reach the flame and nourish the fire, instead of extinguishing it. That combustion thus may be furthered by water is known practically, if not theoretically, to every blacksmith who sprinkles his coal with water before working his bellows. The great heat produced by the combustion of the coal, when a strong current of air (and hence of oxygen) is forced into them by the action of the bellows suffices to decompose the water into its elementary substances, which are genuine supporters of combustion.

The “National electric furnace,” a new device with artificially forced combustion, is so constructed, to utilize the product of combustion and waste steam; instead of atmospheric air, it creates a new elementary substance, to support the combustion and fuel to nourish the fire. The combustible gases and hot air are forced from the point where they leave the furnace into a mixing apparatus. The exhaust steam is forced from behind the piston of the engine into the mixer.

The steam and fine particles of carbon and hot gases mingle and mix as quickly as they enter into the mixer; the dry hot air at a temperature of about 500 degrees Fah. absorbs and superheats the steam; the mixture is then blown into the combustion chamber, where the other fuel is, in a spray-like manner. The molecules being thrown into an intensely heated flame, in company with the combustible gases and hot air, the oxygen of the water will leave the hydrogen to combine with the carbon of the fuel, while the abandoned hydrogen will combine with the oxygen at the outer margin of the flame. Thus we have the heat of a double combustion. This suggests an interesting possibility that coal and water will be the fuel of the future.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

NEW PUBLICATIOUS^sic.

Continued from Third Page.

[continued from page 3]

← continued from p. 3 [S]tates to-day comes under that category. [(A]pplause.) When I took up the morning [p]aper that published the president’s last message and began to read the message, I put [i]t down and rubbed my eyes and turned it [o]ver again, and looked at the heading, and read the message, and looked at the paper, and pinched myself to see if I was awake. I thought I was reading an editorial in THE STANDARD. (Applause and laughter.)

I am firmly convinced that the ideas which are being propagated by those who are interested in this movement are spreading far more rapidly than any of us imagine. I take a paper which is published in Denver. When I began to take it a year or so ago, it was a general newspaper. It was interested in reform topics. Everything was discussed—money, and the reformation of the courts—every sort of reform. To-day there is hardly anything in that paper but the pros and cons of Georgeism. (A voice: How about the New York Times?) The New York Times, I am afraid, is hopelessly in our direction, too. (Loud laughter.) I every once in a while find myself in strange company. (Laughter.)

YOU CAN’T KILL THE SINGLE TAX MOVEMENT.

I was up in Connecticut just after the election. I won’t say in what place, but where there is an enormous quantity of money to the population invested in insurance and other things. Well, people would poke me in the ribs and say, “Where is Henry George now?” “He is all right,” I would say. “Nonsense, he has gone out of sight entirely; gone down forevermore.” I have no doubt that there are some people who think that; but somehow or other I can’t pick up a newspaper—no matter what kind of newspaper—without finding the single tax in some way referred to in it. (Applause and laughter.) And although people keep telling us that this question is dead, and that the man is dead, and the movement is dead, it seems to me to be dead just like the little figures that Mr. Punch knocks completely out; as soon as he turns his back they are up again. Just so with this movement. You may kill it, and kill it, and here we are again. (Applause.)

[JU]DGE MAGUIRE’S SUGGESTION MAKES HIM HAPPY.

One of the best suggestions I have seen in a long time is the suggestion of Judge Maguire, of San Francisco (great applause), a suggestion that we move over into New Jersey and capture that state. I have been happy ever since I read that letter. (Laughter.) New Jersey is a splendid state to experiment on, because if you kill it you know you haven’t destroyed any part of the United States (laughter), and if you redeem it—why, think of Jersey redeemed! (Laughter.) This proposition seems to me to be one that ought to appeal to every single tax brain, and every single tax heart.

There are a great many reasons why this movement should be pushed in New Jersey. If we were not all anarchists in New Jersey we would not be in the condition we are in now with reference to land speculation. We have a law there which says that all land shall be taxed equally—that unimproved land shall be taxed exactly as improved land shall be taxed. That is the law of the state of New Jersey. Now if you will make Jersey a law-abiding state, if you will get Jersey to put its existing law into execution, you will give the movement a great impetus.

I want to extend my arms to single tax men in behalf of New Jersey and make a Macedonian cry to send your missionaries right over into Jersey, and our workers will join with you. See what can be done in that little state, and then after the victory is once attained there the redemption of the whole union and the whole race of men is not far off. (Great applause.)

Rev. J. O. S. Huntington followed Mr. Pentecost. His words were brief, but terribly in earnest:

Father Huntington’s Address.

Mr. Chairman, Brothers and Sisters: When I came into this hall to-night I heard two words from Mr. George. They are words that struck in with my mood—that answered like an echo the thoughts that were in my mind as I walked over here. He spoke of people crowded together. That is what I have been thinking of this evening, and a great many other evenings.

I have been visiting twenty or thirty families to-night. I have been visiting them for Christmas, but not to take down their names as beneficiaries of turkey and plum pudding, because, principally, I have nothing to give away. I always hear something in my visits of the single tax. I tell you there are a hundred thousand unconscious single tax men on the east side. (Applause.) Those men and women and boys and girls look at it in their patient way and tell me of their wrongs and sufferings, the unfair dealings of shop and factory, the raised rent that is taken from them—“that rent that is eating up all of our earnings”—one after the other is saying as they speak of the injustice.

I know there are many single tax men and women among them. It is very encouraging to me to find that men even in the trades where there is the least chance for the development of intelligence, are getting hold of the single tax principle, are beginning to be ready to take their places in the great army that is swelling on both sides of the Atlantic. (Applause.)

WASTE NO TIME.

As I talk with them I feel this, and this is what I want to say to you: Do not let us lose time. Do not let us waste any energy and any force. You will take time enough anyway. Do not let us go away feeling there is so much gained. It is a close thing any way. The wrong is getting too cruel, the injustice is too tremendous for things to remain much longer as they are. The only hope for this country is in the growth of the principles in which we believe, in the strength of the doctrines which we preach.

I plead with you in the name of the girls out of whom the life is being crushed. In

REMEMBER THE EVILS ARE GROWING.

I was down south a while ago. There, too, it came to me again that the real question for the vast colored race is the land question. (Applause.) I was in a little town where I could see the conditions very plainly. I went about among the colored people. I made my own inquiries, and gave a little lecture of a Sunday evening. I gave them a few facts about the miners in the Lehigh valley, about the tenement houses in New York city, about the landgrabbers out west, and then something about the single tax. Then something about the negroes. They did not pay me the usual compliment paid to northerners—tarring and feathering—because it had gone out of fashion. (Applause.) The redemption of that great race, the uplifting of those darkened lives, depends on the growth of the principles which we represent.

Remember that the evils and the wrongs are growing. We are not to flatter ourselves because so much has been done, for these evils are increasing; but we have seen an example of the apostle’s word that “the devil has come down in great wrath, knowing that his time is short.” (Laughter.)

Do not let us lose time. Men are suffering and dying, children are wronged, women are degraded, boys and girls are being trampled under the feet of oppression and monopoly and greed. Go at it; do not lose time. For God’s sake, for man’s sake, do what you can to free the wronged, to deliver the oppressed and let the prisoners go free.

Every heart beat fast, every pulse quickened, as the speaker closed, and when his passionate words had ceased a hoarse roar of applause gave token that again the cry of the outcast had been heard and a fresh vow to push on the work of rescue had been taken; so that, when Thomas G. Shearman was introduced he was accorded a very warm and hearty applause.

Address by Mr. Shearman.

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: I was very sorry not to hear the speech of our guest and friend this evening; but I can imagine what he has been talking about, because I can well imagine that the feelings of his heart are represented by this association of flags at the speaker’s stand. (Pointing to the various national flags draped together.) We leave it to others to wave the American flag in a spirit of hostility to other nations. We leave it to others to boast of their patriotism and show it only by showing how much hate they have in their hearts for other people who are just as good as they are. (Applause.) The kind of patriotism which burns in the heart of Henry George (applause) is a feeling which consists in love for his country supreme and overmastering to the extent of a passion. The reason why he loves his country so much is because he loves humanity more. (Applause.)

Now he has been to another country, a country against which all the hostility and all the passions and all the mean feelings that could possibly be aroused in the American people were aroused by a party to which it was for so many years my pride and honor to belong; aroused in the days of the decadence of that party; aroused when it is led by the most rotten men whom it can find in its ranks. And in the day of its degradation it revives in one’s memory the words of old Samuel Johnson when he proposed for his new dictionary the definition of “patriotism” as “the last refuge of a scoundrel.” (Laughter and applause.)

Fellow citizens, the patriotism that can find no other expression for itself than that of inciting hatred to other peoples, than that of stirring up the workingmen of this country to hate and to trample under foot the workingmen of other countries—that kind of patriotism is the refuge of a scoundrel. (Applause.)

THE FALSE AND THE TRUE.

And how beautifully and logically it expresses itself. The American workingman is told, first, that his chief and fundamental duty, the object of his being, is to hate and to trample upon foreign workingmen; second, that for the purpose of keeping the foreign workingmen down, he should adopt a policy which he is next told will compel the foreign workingmen to leave his country and come over side by side with the American workingman and compete with him. (Laughter.)

Henry George stands for that noble spirit of true patriotism which recognizes in all honest men all the world over a man and a brother. (Applause.) Now the fruit of that sound principle is beginning to tell.

FOR EACH AND ALL.

So he comes back to put these flags together, to tell you, no matter whether you be native born Americans or born Englishmen or born Irishmen or born Germans, that you have one common purpose to answer, one common aim to promote, and that that which is for the good of all is for the good of one, and that that which is for the good of one is for the good of all. You who are Irishmen do not want any more to arouse hatred against England. (Applause.) You understand now that the real England consists of the millions of workingmen whose interests are precisely the same as yours. (Applause.) You understand now that although they had perhaps been misled in the past—when they had no votes—they bave^sic not been deceived any more than you have been deceived on many points; and the moment their eyes were opened they got more quickly at the truth. And that the real England is the England of Gladstone and not the England of Salisbury. (Applause.) You know well that the real England is now on your side heartily and enthusiastically and without the possibility of any reaction. You know now that you have friends in the real England, and the real England and the real Ireland are now going hand in hand to secure liberty for each, and home rule for each, and will soon secure that system of taxation which will give the land to each without injustice to any man. (Applause.)

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

I congratulate Mr. George upon the progress which his cause has made even during his brief absence. There are many signs that the people are thinking more and more of this subject. There are many signs that our principles have not been defeated; that they have only been delayed. It is very questionable, to say the least, whether the result of the election is not better for the ultimate triumph of the cause than the opposite result would have been. (Applause.) We may regret that the people have been imposed upon and deceived; but is it not after all better that we should be relieved of all responsibility for the next two or four years and let the other side await the results of the inevitable disasters which will meet their temporizing? (Applause.)

Let me say a word supplementing Father Huntington’s remarks. We must go right on; but on the other side patience is needed. I am sorry to think of Ireland and think of what it must suffer for the three or four years in

p. 8, col. 3 which in all human probability the Salisbury government will remain in power. There is great danger that under the pressure that is put on Ireland she will do something unwise and hasty.

COURAGE AND PATIENCE.

Enormous patience is required; but that patience will be abundantly rewarded. Just see what progress, my Irish friends, you have made already. Suppose you had succeeded on the line proposed by Parnell three years ago; don’t you see that remedy was unsatisfactory? Even if the Irish people had been given home rule, they were not sufficiently educated to know what was at the root of the evil. Now they have been delayed sorely against their will, against the will of the majority of the English people, and against my will. We would have ordained otherwise. What I say is that, notwithstanding all the suffering of the delay, the Irish people are going to be a thousand times better fitted to take charge of their government and settle that land question at the end of three years from this time than they would have been three years ago.

And I tell you, my friends, that when the land question comes to be settled in Ireland in 1891 or ’92, the Irish laborer will not be forgotten. (Great applause.) If it had been settled three ago^sic, the Irish laborer would have been forgotten.

History is full of instances of the danger of a great people dealing with a question before they are ripe for it, before they understand it. It is full of examples of the danger of statesmen dealing with questions before they are ready for them. They tinker with them, they cobble with them. It was a wise word which John Stuart Mill said: “In many cases where great evils exist, half remedies are no remedies at all.” (Applause.) I must stop to guard my words, because some of my friends say that is a reason why we should not have co-operated with the tariff tinkers. We did not commit ourselves to them. The half remedy is no good at all; but the education it brings on is what leads them to adopt the whole remedy. (Applause.)

WONDERFUL PROGRESS OF OUR CAUSE.

So, my friends, have no sense of discouragement over the local results of an election or at any delays in the working out of your cause in Ireland or anywhere else. The progress of the cause has been something wonderful. The progress of the anti-slavery cause was nothing to be compared with the progress of this. You have every reason, therefore, to congratulate our friend upon his return to take part in this work, to congratulate him upon his promise to go out and help the Englishmen and promote the spread of this truth in another country; for one country will react upon the other, and we will soon be going hand in hand for what I believe to be a great and beneficent triumph.

We have now one great issue, and that is the concentration of all forms of taxation into one, the single tax. That is our doctrine now (applause), and we have no side issues to embarrass us. We have the possibility, nay, the certainty, that when it is adopted, this single tax plan will bring such immense relief for the evils which mankind suffer as seem no doubt dreams to economists and politicians, and even to statesmen now.

It will show the world that the true remedy for the evils of men is by taking burdens off and not by putting new burdens on. (Applause.) The trouble with socialism and communism and all so-called reforms is that, with the best intentions in the world, they propose to crowd fresh fetters upon your arms and more profound bondage upon the individual man, less individual energy and more slavery to the state.

The beauty of the system of taxation of which Mr. George is, I believe, the successful advocate, is that all it asks of the state is relief—the relief of the citizen from the burdens which press upon him, the relief of industry of its loads, the taking off of fetters and gyves and leading strings, and leave him more free and not less free to demonstrate that in liberty is all the prosperity that the future holds for man.

THOSE REMARKABLE MESSAGES.

Now, I have talked longer than I intended. (Shouts of “Go on.”) No, I shall not go on except to say one word more, and that is about the remarkable message from the president of the United States. (Applause.) That man, who had the courage a year ago to send in that short, terse message on tariff reform, and—as my friend Mr. Pentecost has so wittily said—go up to the great American fetich and slap it in the face, has now again gone up to the fetich, which thought it had killed Cleveland, and struck it a blow straight between the eyes (applause), a blow so well put that the newspapers of Mr. Cleveland’s party were unable to appreciate the full force of the act. His language is just and apt—“protection is communism.”

“But how do the rich advocate communism,” some may ask; “communism is an equal division between rich and poor.” That shows how you may be deceived by words. Did you ever meet a communist? You can meet thousands of them, scores of thousands; but you will never meet a communist whose idea is not just this—that everybody else snall^sic divide equally with him and he shall divide with nobody. (Laughter.) That is communism, and that is just exactly what the protectionists of this country believe in. A few rich men come together and say “We are communists, we believe in the true gospel system which was established at Jerusalem. Come Ananias, come Sapphira let us get together; we will be communists (laughter); we will get hold of all the poor folks have and divide it among ourselves and give them nothing.” (Laughter.) And that is all any communist, except a few innocent fanatics—too few to count—all that the real communists want. And I say again that since the time of Ananias and Sapphira there have never been such good communists as the protectionists of the United States. Honor to Grover Cleveland! (Great applause.)

The chairman introduced as the last speaker Mr. Louis F. Post, who when he stepped forward, was greeted with such hearty cheers that he was for several minutes prevented from speaking. When quiet was restored he spoke as follows:

Closing Remarks by Mr. Post.

I was thinking while Mr. Pentecost spoke of the number of unconscious single tax men there really are in the community. I had a little serious talk years ago with a single tax man of that kind. He lives up at High Bridge, and I used to rent a house from him. He owned two or three houses there, and mine was a little one—not much of a house and occupying not much ground. Across the street there was a large strip of vacant land. My man had improved his house, and in so doing had employed mechanics, carpenters, etc. The man across the street had done nothing. It was merely a pasture for tomato cans, cats, etc. (laughter), the same as it had been from the beginning for all I know. The owner paid a trifling tax—an agricultural tax, though the property was worth $50,000. My man’s place wasn’t worth more than $15,000, and he paid five or six times as much tax. Just about that time a grocer wanted to build, which would have employed carpenters, bricklayers and others. He saw this unused ground, but it was not for sale on any terms; the owner was holding it for a higher price. That is what he told the man who wanted to

p. 8, col. 4 buy, but he told the tax assessor that it did not bring in any income.

BUT HIS LANDLORD COMES TO SEE A GREAT LIGHT.

I told my landlord that. He said it was not right. It seemed to make an impression on him, and he said he would look into the subject. The next time I met him was in the midst of the mayoralty campaign. He said he wanted sidewalks in front of his houses; if he had them he could get more rent from his tenants. I wanted. sidewalks^sic, too, but did not care to agitate the subject. (Laughter.) He seemed much interested in the election, and said if a certain one of the candidates was elected he would get his sidewalks. His candidate was not Mr. George. (Laughter.) I said, “Vote for my man and I will see if I can’t get sidewalks for you.” He said, “I don’t like his ideas at all; but I like yours.” (Great laughter.) You see he was an unconscious single tax man.

Some time after that he was in my house—came over to see me—a habit he had once a month (laughter)—and I asked him what he thought about this taxation question. He simply said he didn’t know. I made some inquiries about him because he had been warm before and had now cooled off. I found that he had suddenly realized that he had a large strip of vacant land of his own across the hill. (Laughter.) From being unconscious before he was very much conscious now. (Laughter and applause.)

Suppose that my landlord had not been compelled to pay taxes on the improvements he had made on his lots, and the man across the street had been compelled to pay lot for lot just as much. Don’t you think something would have happened? The grocer would have got his house. Even the fiscal tax, the single tax limited, would have done a great deal. If you make landlords pay just as much for unimproved land, why you won’t have so much unimproved land, that is all.

HOW THE NEW YORK TIMES CAME TO SEE THE CAT.

Now you see the New York Times. (Laughter.) I wondered what that article could mean. I read it all over and thought about it, and wondered where that African was. (Laughter.) A gentleman on this platform told me where the African was. Don’t you remember that, until a few months ago, the Times had an old rickety building on a magnificent lot? Don’t you see the building on there now, the only kind of building that should be on such a lot? This gentleman remarked that the probability is that the tax assessor has been around. (Great laughter.)

Croasdale told me he had a scheme for getting hold of these unconscious single tax men; and when he gets hold of them I don’t believe it will have the same effect as I had on my landlord, because most of the unconscious single tax men haven’t got a tract of land across the hill. (Laughter.)

Mr. Post having read the single tax petition to congress, remarked: Of course a committee isn’t much; but then a committee of investigation will attract attention. But what is of even greater importance is this, that there are a great many unconscious single tax men in the community who will sign that petition, and every such man will be bombarded with our literature. (Avoice^sic: “I have five signatures here.”) Well, if every man does as well, Croasdale won’t have literature enough.

SINCE EIGHT YEARS AGO.

I didn’t want to speak to-night—not because I didn’t want to welcome Henry George, but because I thought I couldn’t express what I really feel at this meeting. It is eight years since I first met him. At that time he was utterly unknown as a public man. Since then I have seen him grow up until he is a great man on two continents. (Great applause.)

When he came back from his first trip abroad, I had known him but a year. He went away unknown. Upon his return I had the honor, with a few others, of welcoming him in this hall as we welcome him to-night. I felt then that in one year he had become famous, not so famous as to-day, but famous, and I took occasion to prove my belief. It was necessary to give evidence then; it is not now. I will tell you how I proved it to the satisfaction of the audience. People were beginning to name their babies after him. (Laughter.) I had a friend who had intended naming his baby Henry George. But he had to make a compromise and call it Henrietta Georgina. (Great laughter.) Such proof is no longer necessary, for the press of two continents proves this now.

THE HAND OF PROVIDENCE.

It is unnecessary to speak of the profound confidence Mr. George has had in an overruling providence. With him, as with me, a faith that has been dead is revived. After the election one year ago—which was also not a success—we went to a wake at Webster hall. (Laughter.) I said on the way there: “Mr. George, do you see the hand of the Lord in this?” “No, I don’t see it—but it is there.” (Laughter.) And it was; and I need not tell any single tax man why it was. See how, little by little, it has developed itself. You can imagine how keenly one year ago Mr. George must have felt the bitter charges of bitter friends when he took the step that he did. But, despite it all, he said no, it was the path for us to follow. Friend after friend refused to go with him. A great majority of those that had followed him said, “You are wrong,” and many of them said “You are treacherous;” but still he kept on his way. Do you doubt that the hand of the Lord was in that, too?

And even so late as last August a few of us met in a room up stairs in this building to devise means of conducting the campaign that had started. When our business was over, when most of the men had submitted their intelligence but not their hearts, even at that time to Mr. George’s guidance, somebody got up and made a motion that we cheer for Grover Cleveland. That motion was deliberately debated pro and con and carried by a bare majority. And then somebody got up and said “hurrah” and a “tiger.” (Laughter.) Compare that cheer with the cheers that have come from the same men and the men that have followed Mr. George since.

I feel like the little boy who had taken a great interest in the campaign. He was a Sunday school boy, and because Mr. Harrison was a Sunday school man he hurrahed for Harrison. After the election he got a sled; but for a long time the snow did not come. One morning he looked out and saw the snow on the ground. He was so delighted that he got a little mixed in his religious and political notions; and he reverently lifted up his little hands and said “Hurrah for God.” (Laughter.) And so I feel like the little boy and want to say: Hurrah—no, not that, but thank God for what has been accomplished, and for what we already see in the near future. (Great applause.)