December 21, 1889 Vol. VI, No. 25Whole No. 155

A Bill to Repeal the Tobacco Tax—The Tariff Question the All-Absorbing One—“A Struggle of the Many for the Benefit of the Few”—Appreciation of the Reform Club’s Work—The Single Tax in Washington.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16.—

The most important occurrence in congress this week was the introduction of Mr. Brower’s bill to repeal^sic the internal revenue tax on tobacco. If it does not interfere with the taxation bill to be presented by the chairman of the ways and means committee, the Brower bill has a good chance of passing. The Mills bill provided for the repeal of the tobacco tax, so that some democrats, and, of course, the mass of republicans, would vote for the Brower bill. It is too soon to say, however, what will happen.

The great overshadowing question at present seems to be the tariff. So much interest is taken in this that small attention was given to Senator Chandler’s plan for federal supervision of congressional elections; to Senator Call’s scheme for setting up an independent republic in Cuba; to Senator Butler’s bill providing three and a half million dollars to aid the emigration of persons of color from the southern states to foreign countries; to the Stewart free gold and silver coinage bill, or to a lot of lesser proposals. The tide of tariff discussion has been carrying everything with it, and the great problem with both parties is, What kind of a tariff measure will Major McKinley report to the house? His motto of “a tariff for protection with incidental revenue,” seems, to those qualified judges whom I have been able to consult, to indicate the end that he will keep in view. The democratic leaders are^sic of one opinion, namely, that there will be no call for reduction. “How can they reduce the tariff,” said Mr. Carlisle, “depending as they do upon such a variety of selfish interests, each bent on keeping its kind of restriction up.”

It is quite clear that Superintendent Porter has no idea of showing in the Eleventh census report what percentage of the people of this country occupy their own homes and farms, and what proportion are tenants and to what extent those homes and farms are mortgaged. His position that it would prove a failure to link the questions necessary to gain this information with the other questions put by the census canvassers and endanger the whole of the census work, is based on the assumption that, because, in taking the Massachusetts census in 1875, only nineteen per cent of the persons questioned replied that they owned their homes, this was a failure. Without entering into a discussion of the success or failure of the Massachusetts experiment I suggested to two of Mr. Porter’s experts that the facts regarding mortgage incumbrances in each county might^sic be obtained at the office of the recorders of deeds. This would leave only

p. 4, col. 3 the simple fact of the ownership of homes and farms to be ascertained by the canvassers. But they saw all sorts of insurmountable difficulties in the way of such a plan, and after much talk came back to Superintendent Porter’s declaration that the desired information could only be ascertained through a special house to house canvass, which would cost from “one to two millions of dollars, at least.” When I asked Snperintendent^sic Porter if he intended to request a special appropriation in order that he might undertake this work, he suavely referred to the secretary of the interior and Mr. Hale of the senate committee. These gentlemen on their part manifest a “masterly inactivity” in the matter. Although the Eleventh census will lack this most important information concerning the material welfare of the mass of the citizens of this country, good care will be taken that the public shall be supplied with as complete a list as can be made of the surviving veterans of the late war, “to facilitate the work of the pension bureau,” as one of the census experts explained. The census enumerators, in addition to other duties, will be requested to secure the names of all veterans, name of regiment, length of service, disability, and other useful information, for which work the canvasser will be paid at the rate of five cents a name, instead of two cents, the rate the same man is to be paid for the enumeration of population.

Roger Q. Mills tells me that he has been much interested in Thomas G. Shearman’s articles showing the concentration of the wealth of this country, as he himself, some years ago, arrived in a general sort of way at similar conclusions. The democratic party, he says, is the natural adversary of this order of things, and in its fast growing enmity to the protective idea, he sees it coming to a consciousness of its great duties. Mr. Mills says he has received many evidences of a great advance of party opinion against the protective idea since the presidential election, and many assurances of a spirit to keep up the fight. He sees a particularly marked change in New York where the party leaders now calmy^sic listen to radical utterances that frightened them a few months ago. He is assured of rapid progress in the centers of population, but is apprehensive of the farmers, whose education has been very limited. Mr. Mills is confident that if the party will boldly stand forth as the champion of truly equal rights and array itself against the party of privilege and monopoly, it will quickly achieve a glorious^sic and lasting triumph.

Such men as Representatives Mills, Carlisle, Breckenridge of Kentucky and Senator Gray, have a keen appreciation of the strength and activity of the single tax men throughout the country, and are not slow to acknowledge their important services during the recent presidential fight. The Reform club of New York, too, is attracting attention. Mr. Carlisle paid it a high compliment for the educational work it is doing in New York state. Senator Gray hopes to visit the club during the winter.

A young Tammany man whose business has brought him to Washington temporarily, and who has got very much interested in the single tax idea, tells of the following conversation which he overheard while traveling to the recent Buffalo convention which nominated Hill.

First Voice—“What’s the use of this convention? Don’t we all know who’s to be nominated?”

Second Voice—“Ah, yes; but a convention now and then affords a good way of providing for the boys, see?”

Second Voice, continuing after a pause—“I’ve been voting thirty-five years and I’m something of a politician, and between you and me and the lamp post, do you know what an election is?”

First Voice—“No.”

Second Voice—“An election is a struggle of the many for the benefit of the few.”

J. L. McCreary, a member of the Washington single tax league, is supplying an instructive series of articles to the Washington Critic, the organ of the Knights of Labor here. In one article he has shown how the application of the single tax would affect the small house owner, and instances his own case. He says he now pays $24 in taxes on his house and lot, and that he would have to pay but $5.75 if the present amount of revenue were raised by taxing land values alone.

A novel feature was introduced into the proceedings of the single tax league here at this week’s meeting. It consisted of

p. 4, col. 4 short, simple talks suited to children. President Paul Bowen and Mr. Peachin two most excellent speakers^sic, had a number of interested young listeners. After a while the children were dismissed and more weighty matters taken up.

HENRY GEORGE, JR.

Proceedings of the County Council—Lord Salisbury a Social Reformer—Mr. Morley’s Speech.

LONDON, Nov. 28.—

At the last meeting of the county council the corporate property committee brought up a long and valuable report “on the mode of dealing with the council’s land.” The consideration of this report was wisely deferred for a fortnight, but it is worth while to say a few words about it now. The report begins by pointing out that in regard to the larger part of its property the council has not a free hand. Some of the land owned by the council is by law devoted to public parks or gardens, and cannot be applied to any other purposes. Some in a similar way is absolutely reserved for the construction of artisans’ dwellings. But in addition to these two classes of property, the council also possesses a good many acres of land let on building leases and from time to acquires^sic fresh land, which it is free to let or sell, as seems best to it. How shall this land be dealt with? Shall it be sold outright, or shall it let on lease^sic, and, if so, what shall be the conditions of the lease? These, roughly, are the questions which were referred to the corporate property committee, and with which their report deals. The report is markedly in favor of selling outright in the majority of cases, but it dwells with some detail on three other ways of dealing with the land. First the ordinary London building lease is generally^sic for a term of eighty years. Under this arrangement the lessee builds a house for his own use or to let again, enjoys the advantage of it for eighty years on payment of a fixed rental for the land, and at the end of that time surrenders land and house to the lessee or landlord^sic. This is an excellent arrangement for the landlord, but it generally implies an improvident bargain on the part of the tenant, who, for the sake of an immediately moderate rent sacrifices in advance his ownership in the house he builds. Another system, much in vogue in the north of England, differs from this in the length of the lease granted. Instead of eighty years the period is one thousand years. Obviously this is economically more of the nature of a sale than of a lease. The lessee practically buys the land subject to the payment of a fixed rent and subject to a right of resumption by the lessor at the end of some thirty generations. A third scheme, proposed by Mr. Saunders, differs again from this last only in one important point, namely, the certainty of the rent. Mr. Saunders’s suggestion is that the land shall be sold, not for a lump sum or for a quit rent, but for a perpetual rent, which is to be subject to periodic revaluation. Under this scheme the lessee or purchaser would have the same freedom in dealing with his land as if he owned the fee simple, only he would be always liable to pay a rent which measured the value for the time being of his land apart from the buildings upon it. In other words, under his scheme the county council would establish, with regard to the land which falls into its hands, the same principle that land reformers contend ought to be applied to all land, namely, that the whole of the economic rent should be taken by public bodies for the benefit of the whole community. On this scheme the committee remark that it is quite new, and that it has the disadvantage common to all systems of letting, that it would involve the council in a great deal of detailed work of a semi-private character. The first objection will be removed by time, but in regard to the second it may be pointed out that the council would incur no more responsibilities with regard to the land let on this plan than it now has in regard to all land within the metropolitan area. All land within this area is valued every five years for the purposes of rating, and it would be on the result of these valuations that the rents would be fixed according to Mr. Saunders’s scheme. However, the question will come up for discussion in the council a fortnight hence and I will then recur to it.

Last week I said a good deal about John Morley’s big speech on social reform. In the interval since I wrote Lord Salis- continued on p. 5 →

[continued on page 5]

Mr. Gladstone Does Some Figuring.

Mr. Gladstone, buoyant and bristling with figures, discusses in the December Nineteenth Century “Electoral Facts of To-day.” He reviews the liberal defeat of 1886, shows the tory majority to have been 114, and notes that the bye-elections since have reduced it to 86, and says: “This is rather a remarkable decline. The question arises whether it has a political meaning: whether it constitutes a political omen. The statesmen enthroned in Downing street and Dublin castle reply that it has none whatever. It would be so bad a compliment to treat this answer as a product of their understandings, that good manners compel me to take it simply as an expression of their wish.”

Then Mr. Gladstone proceeds to a discussion of election returns. At first calculation he places the liberal majority at 100 should there be an immediate general election. By way of being perfectly fair, he allows for a moment to tory contention that bye-elections are not to be trusted, and considers the elections of municipal councils. In 1885 the Times and a tory minister found these elections cheering, but in 1889 the liberals gained 141 seats and the tories and dissentients only 57.

Mr. Gladstone then returns to the by-elections. He divides the period since the great tory defeat into three parts. The first, which was occupied in the appeal of newly appointed ministers to their constituents, he does not consider. The second, from August, 1886, to June, 1887, showed little more than an arrest of the tories’ victorious career. The third, from July, 1887, to the present date, shows a continuous liberal gain. Here are Mr. Gladstone’s figures:

The total net gain of seats by the liberals since August, 1886, has been 11. The number of contested elections has been 60; of uncontested^sic elections 24; in all 84. That is to say, on the total number of elections the opposition have gained more than 1 in 8. At a general election the total of seats to be filled is 670, or deducting universities 661. The eights in 661 are 83 (nearly). But as the present majority against Ireland stands at 86, a loss of 83 seats would give to the Irish cause a majority of 80.

Next, it is to be observed that the rate of liberal gains appears to increase. In the first period of twelve months ending with July, 1887, one seat was gained. In eighteen months, to the end of 1888, a balance of five seats was won. Ten months of the present year have added another balance of five seats.

Every seat contested in Scotland and in Wales has been carried by the liberals. This is remarkable; and is highly ominous in Scotland, where anti-Irish members hold one-third part of the representation. But England has not been idle; for, of the balance of eleven seats won, she exhibits eight.

It will be said with truth that the government have a majority of uncontested seats. The uncontested seats are the strongest of all, as is shown by the fact that no seat uncontested in 1886 has yet changed hands in any following election. Since August, 1886, the uncontested seats have been as follows (excluding universities):

Tory and dissentient . . . . . 12 Liberal and nationalist . . . . 12

Taking majorities, Mr. Gladstone shows in the second period a liberal gain of 2,497 votes, in the third a liberal gain of 15,946. Now, the general election of 1886 gave the tories only 75,000 majority of votes in 560 elections. while here^sic is nearly 16,000 in 58 elections.

Not content with this. Mr. Gladstone^sic lends ear to the most extravagant tory claims and still figures out a possible liberal majority of 172, based on the elections of 1885, to which the tories have often appealed. He finally says:

What is perhaps most interesting, in a retrospect now reaching over nearly three and a half years, is the evidence it affords of a steady acceleration in the rate at which the liberal party has been and is regaining the confidence of the constituencies. Its momentum increases with every stage it covers on its journey. In this view it may be best that the dissolution should not arrive too early. There is already in view force enough and to spare for carrying^sic the next house of commons; but, the longer it is allowed to continue its growth, the more able will it be to deal also with the house of lords, or the more likely it will be, let us rather hope, to beget within that house itself the sagacious temper which eschews a hopeless and a disastrous conflict.

Again the Land Question.

“Waterford” is the simple signature appended to “Notes on the Latest Land Programme” in the December issue of the Nineteenth Century. This signature stands for nothing less august than “the most honorable, the marquis of Waterford.” The article refers to “A Resume of the Irish Land Problem” in the October issue of the same review. The author of that article proposed that the government should acquire by compulsion the entire “congested district” of Ireland and vest it in the land commission; that the population should be thinned out by emigration or migration; that holdings should be consolidated; that light railways should be promoted and the fishing industry encouraged.

As to the first proposition, the marquis thinks no compulsion would be necessary, and if the government should decide to become the landlord he would make no opposition. He does not see how propositions two and p. 5, col. 3 three can be executed without sweeping^sic away in the districts under consideration the land acts, the advantages of which, Mr. Russell, the writer of the October article, has so carefully elaborated. Says the marquis, with a perception of the facts that go to make up the land question:

Mr. Russell can hardly expect that the peasant of the congested districts, who now is ready to fight for the sunny side of a ridge, and whose tenant right proportionally fetches a much higher price than that realized in the less populous localities, will voluntarilly^sic consent to abandon his rights under the acts of 1870 and 1881, and surrender his holding to the land commission so that he himself may be emigrated or migrated at the discretion of that department.

And again, unless the act of 1881 is to be abrogated, and the rights of free sale taken away, how can consolidation of the existing holdings be secured?

If the land commissioners suggested by Mr. Russell were to be endowed with such ample and despotic powers as would enable them to deal with each individual case as they should deem fit, then it might be possible to settle the congested districts as he proposes, though in my opinion before this could be achieved a vast number of evictions on “notice to quit” must take place, which would not fail to create the utmost indignation^sic both in England and Ireland, accompanied by terrible excitement, possibly attended^sic by bloodshed, in the localities themselves.

The marquis agrees with Mr. Russell’s fourth proposition accepting with characteristic composure the state socialism involved in encouraging the fisheries.

Then he turns to the question of encumbered estates, and affirms that compulsory sales to tenants would go far to counteract the good effects of Lord Ashbourne’s act by making purchasers discontented. Finally he sees no reason for compulsion and suspects that dual ownership, after the manner of the Ulster tenant right, is the proper thing. He declares in conclusion that “free contract, such as exists under Lord Ashbourne’s act, is the only means by which the land question, outside the congested districts, can be fairly settled by the gradual establishment of a peasant proprietary.”

A Tory View of the Question.

“The Irish Malady and Its Physicians” is the title of a tory article by Frank H. Hill in the December Nineteenth Century. Mr. Hill apparently has not discovered that there is a land question outside of Ireland, or that a very considerable number of intelligent men has come to believe that there can be no peace in Ireland or elsewhere until it is accepted doctrine that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living. Mr. Hill thinks that Ireland has greatly advanced since the famine, notes with approval the opinion that Mr. Balfour is the greatest Irish secretary of the century, and believes that Ireland would do well enough if her physicians would let her alone. Now, nobody denies that death and emigration have relieved the pressure of population in parts of Ireland, and it is true, also, that if you believe in answering well founded discontent with coercion, Mr. Balfour is an ideal Irish secretary, while those who think that Balfour and coercion are right, must of course believe that any other treatment is wrong. Mr. Hill must pardon the rest of us if we insist that a whole people, some of whose fellow countrymen have shown a remarkable faculty for progress in this country, are not quite so hopelessly beyond redemption as he imagines. The key to Mr. Hill’s attitude lies in this utterance, apropos of the proposition for state aided peasant proprietorships:

Political agitators, taking advantage of a period of distress, might bring about a general repudiation of rents, a demand for their reduction, and the wiping out of arrears—an Irish seisachtheia. The movement must be met either by capitulation—which the history of English dealings with Ireland makes too probable—or by exemplary evictions, which, if they failed, would have to be converted into a general eviction^sic. The power of England would be adequate; but the task, though great, would be odious, as justice too often is to a nation debauched by a maudlin sentimentality. It may be doubted whether English popular feeling would support such action by the government. The experiment is a hazardous one to try with a people in whom the incentives of Irish agitators, backed by the casuistry of English statesmen, has loosened the sense of the most elementary obligation—that of keeping your word and paying your debts. A system of universal and compulsory sale on the part of the landlords is, therefore, attended not only with too much danger to the British taxpayer, but with possibilities of social and civil warfare which ought not to be encountered with a light heart.

The idea of ruthless eviction here set forth is dear to the heart of the British tory, and nothing has tended more to intensify the sympathy^sic of Americans with Ireland than the utterance of such opinions by Englishmen who on other subjects seem to be intelligent and humane.

Mr. Hill is troubled lest the absence of landlords might inpoverish^sic Ireland. A few examples will show the curious sort of political economy by which he holds:

But they [the landlords] have another function. They are, to a great extent, the nearest and best market of the small farmer. The daily wants of the great house create a demand for farm produce, for fruit and vegetables and poultry. The deserted mansions, with their closed doors and shuttered windows and grass grown court yards, p. 5, col. 4 which Mr. T. W. Russell remarks as studding every county in Ireland, account, to a large degree, for this decline of the small market towns of Ireland. Arthur Young noted a similar phenomenon in pre-revolutionary France, and attributes much of its impoverishment to this cause. Nothing, he says, but being banished from court will induce a French nobleman to live on his estate. His hatred of the grand seigneur, which almost equaled his affection for the larger farmer and his distrust of the petite culture, was directed to him as a rent drawing absentee; and this is the state of things which a system of compulsory purchase would establish in Ireland during the half-century which would be necessary for the completion of the process of turning the occupier into the owner of the land. Arthur Young noted also, as a curious phenomenon, that a small town had gathered itself together at the foot of nearly every great chateau. As the English squire likes, he says, to have his stables near his house, so the French noble insists on having his serfs within call. It is more natural to suppose that the little town in unsettled times placed itself under the castle walls for the sake of protection, and that it remained there for the sake of custom. At any rate, a system of universal and compulsory sale of land to the tenants for half a century would probably transfer to London or Paris, Rome, Florence, or Dresden the annual revenues which would otherwise be spent in Ireland. . . .

If the Irish landlord may legitimately be deprived of his rent, why may not the English landlord be legitimately deprived of his land without compensation? The difference is only that which separates petty larceny from plunder on a large scale. You take a man’s house when you take the prop which supports his house. You take a man’s land when you take the rent of his land, and you may as well complete the process while you are about it. The words folly and robbery suit the one operation as well as the other. That geographical morality which Burke censured as enabling men to do in India what they would shrink from doing in England, is no longer practicable in these days of steam and electricity, of instantaneous knowledge and simultaneous judgment. The principles which are palliated, and even defended, in Ireland are sure to be applied in England to the discomfiture of some of their apologists. . . .

If the whole duty of man is to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before, the fact would be an argument against large holdings. But all the intellectual life of the agricultural community, everything which makes a man something more than—Aristotle’s definition of a slave—a living tool, comes from the example and influence of nobles and squires who cultivate their own land. The peasant and yeoman farmer of Prussia is as much bound to the soil as when he was tied to it by feudal bonds. The great owner cultivator who can visit foreign countries and compare the implements and practices which he finds there with those in use at home, is a sort of missionary of good farming to his neighbors when he comes back. An improvement is never essayed upon a small or middle sized holding till it has been tried upon a large estate and found to answer well. The great farming noble or squire is experimenter general for the benefit of the community in which he lives, and his smaller neighbors profit alike by his failures and his successes. His loss is their gain. . . .

A fair blending of large estates, cultivated by their owners, is desirable in every part of Ireland. Its introduction on that fringe of the western coast known as congested Ireland is yet more expedient. A great portion of the so-called farmers are simply laborers with a house and a plot of land, whose wages as harvestmen in England and Scotland formerly enabled them to live up to their own idea of comfort and decency. The introduction of machinery has, however, cut off this main source of income, and if the land which they occupy were their own they could not make a living out of it.

Mr. Hill, strangely enough, realizes that home rule and the land question are closely related, but he seems to have slept for a decade while the universal land question was under discussion. He admits that the solution of home rule may lie in some sort of parliament in Dublin, if none other than a committee of Irish members from Westminister^sic.

A Bishop’s Protest.

Speaking recently at a meeting in London on behalf of the bishop of Bedford’s East London church fund, the dean of Chichester said they must try to impress upon the selfish, extravagant and luxurious rich class, the appeal of the poor. Should not some great voice be lifted up and some strong protest made against the apathy of those who never stirred a finger for Christ, who were living luxurious and self-seeking lives, and creating a state of disaffection among the working classes which some called “socialism.” He often wondered at the patience of the poor in the existing conditions of their lives. When they noted the extraordinary extravagance and selfishness which existed on the part of the rich around them, he was not surprised at the disaffection which prevailed. A single meal at the Mansion house cost £2,000 or £3,000, and, after one of those costly meals lately, under the very shadow of the Mansion house, a poor woman was found dead in a doorway, starved to death for want of the common necessaries of life. These were the anomalies, these were things which were daing^sic harm. It was not much use to go to poor and starving men with the message of peace, and of the love of God in Christ, when there were these glaring anomalies in our social life.

It would be interesting to know just what is the lord bishop’s income, ecclesiastical and private, and how much of each is made up of rent exacted from those who enjoy at his lordship’s hands the privilege^sic of using natural opportunities^sic,

THE NEW JERSEY COURT OF ERRORS AND APPEALS ON THE BOOK.

Story of the Litigation Over George Hutchins’s Will—The Decision of Vice-Chancellor Bird .Reversed^sic—The Chief Justice Says That Mr. George’s Books Have Greatly Elacidated^sic and Enriched, in Many Ways, the Subjects of Which They Treat.

On the 8th day of September, 1883, George Hutchins, of Ancora, in the township of Winslow, county of Camden and state of New Jersey, made his will, in which, after providing for his wife, he undertook to establish what is known to the law as a “charitable trust” for the circulation of copies of “Progress and Poverty” and other works by the same author. Mr. Hutchins was an ardent advocate of the reform now generally known as the single tax. His wife was in sympathy with him, and it was with her consent that the will was made. After appointing William S. Braddock as his sole executor, and giving one-third of all his real estate, together with one-third of his preferred stock and scrip of the Northern Pacific railroad, to his wife, and a sewing machine to a distant relative, Mr. Hutchins provided in his will as follows:

Lastly—All the rest and residue of my estate, of any and every form, kind and description whatsoever, I hereby give, devise and bequeath, under the name of “the Hutchins’ fund,” to Henry George, the well-known author of “Progress and Poverty,” his heirs, executors and administrators, in sacred trust for the express purpose of “spreading the light’^sic on social and political liberty and justice in these United States of America, by means of the gratuitous, wise, efficient and economically conducted distribution all over the land of said George’s publications on the all important land question and cognate subjects, including his”Progress and Poverty,” his replies to the criticisms thereon, his “Problems of the Times,” and any other of his books and pamphlets which he may think it wise and proper to gratituously^sic distribute in this country; provided, first, that said George, his heirs, executors and administrators, shall regularly furnish true annual reports of the management and disbursement of the said “Hutchins’ fund” to the paper called The Irish World and the American Industrial Liberator, or its acknowledged successor, and shall also annually mail or otherwise send a copy of said paper, containing such annual report, to each of the following persons, to wit: My aforementioned wife, Mary Hutchins, now of this place, William S. Wood, now of Parker, county of Randolph, State of Indiana, and James Hutchins, now of Selma, county of Delaware and state of Indiana; and provided, second, that said George, his heirs, executors and administrators, shall cause to be inserted or printed opposite the title page of every free copy of his books distributed by means of this fund, this, my solemn request, virtually, to wit, that each recipient shall read it and then circulate it among such neighbors or other persons as in his best judgment will make the best use of it.

In the autumn of 1886 George Hutchins died leaving this will, and there came into the hands of his executor, Mr. Braddock, personal estate to the value of $9,386.10^sic, which it became the duty of Mr. Braddock to distribute according to the terms of the will. .It appears^sic, also, that the real estate was worth about $1,000. But distribution was prevented for a time by James Hutchins, a half brother of the deceased, who notified the executor that the gift of the residue of the estate to Henry George was void, and warned the executor not to pay it. This compelled Mr. Braddock to go into the court of chancery for advice or to assume the responsibility of making a payment that might be invalid. He therefore prayed the court to decide—first, whether the gift to Henry George was legal and valid; second, whether under the terms of the will it was his duty to sell the real estate; third, whether the widow was entitled to dower in the real estate; fourth, if the gift to Henry George was invalid, whether the personal estate included in the gift should be distributed to the next of kin of Mr. Hutchins; fifth, if the gift was invalid, whether the real estate should be sold and the proceeds treated as personal estate.

George A. Vroom, esq., was solicitor for the executor, and upon filing his bill of complaint setting out the foregoing facts, he obtained process against all the parties in interest to appear and answer it.

Henry George appeared by John T. Woodhull, esq., of Camden. He admitted most of the statements of the complainant, but denied that the gift to him was invalid, declaring that as it was “dedicated to a broad, useful, and educational purpose,” it was a trust that would be enforced by the court, and one which he accepted and agreed to execute according to the spirit of its dedication.

The widow of Mr. Hutchins and his half brother filed answers in which they set up the invalidity of the gift.

Meantime it had appeared that the provision for the widow was insufficient, and Mr. George proposed to relinquish his trust gift if the collateral heirs would consent to its payment to her. This they refused to do, and after the will and copies of “Progress and Poverty,” “Social Problems,” “The Land Question,” and “Protection or Free Trade?” p. 6, col. 2 were put in evidence the case came up for final hearing before Vice Chancellor Bird.

The full text of the vice chancellor’s opinion was published in THE STANDARD of June 2, 1888. It was in substance as follows:

It is insisted that the residuary clause in the will is not a charitable bequest. What is a charity? Definitions are often framed for a particular case, and I will not attempt it. I will be content with the views of others of great experience and learning. In Perry on Trusts it is said: “Charity has obtained a significance in law, and courts do not uphold or administer trusts for particular purposes which are not charitable within the meaning of the law.” Mr. Story adds: “A bequest may, in an enlarged sense, be charitable and not within the purview of the statute.” Again, it has been said that all of the purposes of a charitable bequest may be classified as ecclesiastical, educational or eleemosynary. It is claimed that the gift in question cannot be brought within either of these classifications, for in no sense does it have a tendency to benefit or to improve mankind. It has been held that a bequest of a fund to perpetuate a useful library is good. The bequest under consideration is to spread the light on the question as to who shall hold the title to lands, or how that title shall be held, or for whose benefit. A gift to publish the works of Newton, or of Bacon, or of Milton, or of Shakespeare, or of Edwards, or of Bancroft, or of Irving, or of McCosh, or Webster, or Marshall, would be good. It follows that a gift to circulate any portion of these works or any or all of them would also be lawful. There can be no doubt that the circulation of one book may be the object of a testator’s bounty. Of course the object must be to enlighten or to improve mankind. But it is not the individual judgment which is to be the guide as to what will enlighten or improve mankind, for manifestly that may be regarded as hostile to the public welfare by one individual which by another would be deemed most useful or beneficial.

With these suggestions as to the fundamental principles that must control, the vice chancellor examined “Progress and Poverty,” “Social Problems” and “The Land Question” at considerable length, to see what it was that the testator had desired to disseminate, and proceeded:

I am disposed to sustain the bequest were it not for one thing that Mr. George says with respect to the claim of landowners to compensation. He says: “It is not merely a robbery in the past, it is a robbery in the present—a robbery that deprives of their birth-right the infants that are coming into the world. Why should we hesitate about making short work of such a system? Because I was robbed yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, is it any reason that I should suffer myself to be robbed to-day and to-morrow—any reason that I should conclude that the robber has acquired a vested right to rob me?” Again he says: “Historically as ethically, private property in land is robbery.”

Clearly, the author, in these passages, not only condemns existing laws, but denounces the laws that secure titles to land in private individuals as robbery, as a crime. It is this aspect of the case which leads me to the conclusion that the court ought to refuse its aid in enforcing the provisions of this will. Whatever might be the rights of the individual author, in the discussion of such questions in the abstract, it certainly would not become the court to aid in the distribution of literature which denounces as robbery—as a crime—an immense proportion of the judicial determinations of the higher courts. This would not be charitable. Society has constituted courts for the purpose of assisting in the administration of the law and in the preservation of the rights of the citizens, and of the public welfare; but I can conceive of nothing more antagonistic to such purpose than for the courts to encourage, by their decrees, the dissemination of doctrines which may educate the people to the belief that the great body of the laws which such courts administer concerning titles to land have no other principle for their basis than robbery.

I have sought^sic to overcome the view just expressed, by striving to bring the books of Mr. George within that branch of the opinion in Jackson vs. Phillips (14 Allen, 589), which maintained that efforts to produce a change in public opinion on the subject of slavery, by the publication of books, newspapers, speeches and lectures, was charitable, but I have not been able so to do, for the reason given. However radical the works of Mr. George may be, however much in conflict with prevailing convictions or prejudices, I can find but the one thing in them that in any sense makes it my duty to say that the court cannot regard the bequest as charitable.

If I am correct in the foregoing view, the testator died intestate as to all of his estate not disposed of by the three first paragraphs of his will.

I will advise a decree in accordance with these views.

The syllabus printed in the official reports and written by the vice chancellor himself is as follows:

A bequest for the distribution of books, in which the author describes the system by which the landowners of the country hold the title to their lands as robbery, is not such a charity as the courts will enforce.

From the decision of the chancellor, made by advice of Vice Chancellor Bird, Henry George appealed to the court of errors and appeals of New Jersey.

A brief for Mr. George was submitted by James F. Minturn, corporation attorney of Hoboken. He said in substance:

According to the views of the vice chancellor, a trust created for the dissemination of educational literature calculated to obliterate existing laws, will be sustained by the courts after the judges have thoroughly investigated and dissected the books in vain to discover the use of the word “robber,” or the term “robbery.” p. 6, col. 3 If these views had prevailed in the days of Cæsar Augustus and his immediate successors, it is very doubtful whether we should have the bible to-day to send to foreign missions for the purpose of overturning governments and religions. Under the old dispensation, to insult the scribes and pharisees was equal to blasphemy, and yet the master said to them: “Ye hypocrites!” And to the money changers who were plying a profitable and legitimate trade in the temple, he said, as he whipped them out: “It is written my house shall be called the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” And to the chief priests he said: “The publicans and harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before you.” And again, to the scribes and pharisees: “Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, because you are like to whited sepulchers, which outward appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness.” And even the lawyers received attention: “Woe to you, lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves have not entered in, and those that were entering in you have hindered.”

The intense and bitter struggle for the emancipation of the colored slaves produced no judicial condemnation of strong language. Webster styled what the vice chancellor calls “the great body of laws which the courts administer” (slavery laws), “that work of hell, foul and dark—the slave trade.” “The present system of finance,” said Wendell Phillips, speaking of the same “great body of the laws,” “robs labor, gouges capital, makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, and turns a republic into an aristocracy of capital.” That “great body of the laws” which the courts administer, known as a protəctive^sic tariff, has time and again upon the floors of congress been termed “robbery.” Herbert Spencer’s works would fare badly under the vice chancellor’s decision, for Spencer says that equity “does not permit property in land;” that “it can never be pretended that the existing titles to such property are legitimate;” that “violence, fraud, the prerogative of force, the claims of superior cunning—these are the sources to which those titles may be traced;” and “had we to deal with the parties who originally robbed the human race of its heritage we might make short work of the matter.”

Such use of the word “robbery” is sanctioned by the highest tribunal in the land. Justice Miller of the supreme court of the United States, in writing an opinion on taxation, said: “To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen, and with the other bestow it on favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes is none the less robbery because it is done under the form of law and is called taxation.” So we find that the writer who denounces as robbery the great body of the laws which the courts administer has authority to justify him.

There is nothing illegal in seeking to bring about a change in existing laws, if the modus operandi proposed be legal.

L. A. Russell of the Cleveland, Ohio, bar also submitted a brief by courtesy of the court. Having no special knowledge of the laws of New Jersey relative to the rights of widows and heirs at law, he confined his discussion to the one question, “Whether the gift in trust of the residue of the estate to Henry George is a legal and valid one.” On this question Mr. Russell made the following points:

First—If the residue belonged to Hutchins in his life time, an essential part of his dominion over it was his power of disposition by will.

Second—As to the land, if his power over it were limited in the eye of the law, as it ought to be according to Henry George’s ideas, Henry George could get no title to it other than a continuing use of the land upon payment of its annual rental value to the public. But in the eye of the law it is not so limited, and his power over the land is as his power over his chattels so far as his power of disposition by will is concerned.

Third—Hutchins’s power of disposing by will over this residue (supposing the rights of his widow and heirs at law are preserved) was unlimited by any requirement of law which would not be of equal obligation on him if he had undertaken to make the same disposition of it in his life time.

Fourth—His power over his own after death, provided he left a will, was the same as it was before.

Fifth—This power during life was limited by law and nothing else. If he left a will the power after death was limited by law and nothing else.

Sixth—If during his life Hutchins had made a deed of gift in trust to Henry George, for the purposes expressed in the will, and had proposed to deliver the deed, could this court have restrained him? Yet if the proposed trust were unlawful the court could have restrained him.

Seventh—If the act for the performance of which the residue is by this will intended is contrary to law, the court is rightly invoked to advise the executor to withhold his hand from doing what Hutchins has directed him to do. But if the act is not unlawful, it can no more restrain the hand of the executor of Hutchins than it could have restrained Hutchins himself during his life time. In the eye of the law, the hand of the executor is the hand of the testator.

Eighth—There is no question here of morals or ethics, of best or worst, of wisdom or folly, of land tenure or taxation, of politics or religion, or of whether the men who in office are this court sympathize with, understand, or differ from the views of Henry George.

Ninth—The sole question is whether it is lawful or unlawful to circulate Henry George’s books.

Tenth—If it be lawful by the decision of the court then the court does only so pronounce and withdraw its shadow from athwart the beams of George Hutchins’s spreading light. If it be unlawful by the decision of the court, then the court does only so pronounce and withdraw its shadow from athwart the beams of George Hutchins’s descending property to his heirs at law, he being then intestate, as to said residue.

Eleventh—If it is unlawful in New Jersey to circulate any man’s decent, non-libelous utterances on any subject whatsoever, then New Jersey is not free.

George A. Vroom, esq., of Camden, who appeared for the executor, writes that he had no occasion to prepare any brief on the merits of the controversy, and Mr. Joline, who appeared for the contesting collateral heir, a distant relative of Mr. Hutchins, refuses^sic to furnish a copy of his brief, though he offers no reason for the refusal.

Schuyler C. Woodhull, esq., in behalf of the widow, filed a brief,of^sic which the following is an abstract:

The statute, 43 Eliz., c. 4, is the foundation in part at least of the law of charities here. That statute is entitled “An act to redress the misemployment of lands, goods and stock of money heretofore given to charitable uses.” Bequests for charity must come within the enumeration or intendment of this statute. Charity has obtained a signification in law, and courts do not uphold purposes not charitable within the meaning of the law. A bequest may in an enlarged sense be charitable and yet not within the purview of the statute. Though a bequest “for free schools” is good under statute, “No schools for dancing or fencing are within the intent of the law because they are matters of delicacy, not of necessity.” We insist that this bequest for disseminating a man’s utopian and chimerical theories of land tenures is not a charitable purpose at law.

The trust is void for uncertainty. What does the term “cognate subjects” include, and what works may not be distributed under the latitude of these words of the trust, viz.: “And any other of his books and pamphlets which he may think it wise to gratuitously distribute in this country.” They may be utterly at variance with every idea of charity—subversive of government—revolutionary. Where the bequest can be applied to other than strictly charitable purposes, the court will not execute the trust, or where there is too much discretion in the trustee.

In Kendall v. Granger, 5 Beavan, 300, the bequest was to be applied “for the relief of domestic distress, assisting indigent but deserving individuals or encouraging undertakings of general utility.” Lord Langdale said if the sentence had ended with the word “individuals” it would have been a good bequest, but that the remainder might include purposes not charitable, and the whole was void. We insist that consistently with the will the funds may be applied for purposes entirely foreign to charity, and that the trust, as a charity, must fail.

The bequest is void as against public policy. The theories advanced in the works sought to be distributed are against the policy of the law, as also their tendency is against public policy. Trusts are illegal when they are for purposes of immorality or contravene some statute or are contrary to public policy. Courts will not carry into effect charitable donations against public policy or which tend to a breach of the laws of the land. In England bequests to superstitious uses are void as contrary to public policy. Fund given in trust to apply the income to printing and promoting the doctrines of the supremacy of the pope have been held void as against public policy. Bequest to procure discharge of persons imprisoned for non-payment of fines under the game laws was held void as against public pelicy^sic.

The trust is against the policy of the law in that it seeks the dissemination of theories which do not concur with and are opposed to the existing law. The court will not permit the system of trusts to be directed to any object that contravenes the policy of the law. Gifts for purposes prohibited by or opposed to the existing laws cannot be upheld as charitable, even if for objects which otherwise would be deemed such. Speaking, in the same case, of a trust looking toward the securing of the right of franchise to women, Mr. Justice Gray said: “Whether such an alteration of the existing laws and frame of government would be wise and desirable, is a question upon which we cannot, sitting in a judicial capacity, properly express any opinion. Our duty is limited to expounding the laws as they stand, and those laws do not recognize the purpose of overthrowing or changing them in whole or in part, as a charitable use.” A trust that looks to political agitation and to attempts to alter existing laws cannot be recognized by this court as charitable. Sir Francis Moore, who drew 43 Eliz., says, in his exposition of it, that one of the requisites of a good bequest for charity is that it must be in accordance with the law. And he cites the instance of a gift for providing seats for beggars on the highway to beg in, which he says was bad, “for charity must concur with the law and the law prohibits begging.” Yet the intention of the testator here was manifestly charitable. The right to make a will is statuory^sic. A gift by will is given effect by law and must concur and be in entire consonance with law.

Attention is called to the following citations from the works of Henry George, offered in the court below: “Progress and Poverty”—p. 237; caption of book 7; pp. 239, [243?], 244, 245, [246?], 247, [248?], 249, 257, 258, 259, 261, [262?] and [263?], continued on p. 7 →

How Rich Employers Have Perverted a Trust Instituted by the Mechanics and Traders of a Century Ago.

Some weeks ago a lady, who takes a lively interest in numerous charitable enterprises, and who is also an earnest advocate of the single tax, subscribed for THE STANDARD for three months, to be sent to the Apprentice’s library at 18 East Sixteenth street, sending with it to the librarian a receipted bill for the subscription. Shortly afterward she received the following note:

GENERAL SOCIETY OF MECHANICS AND TRADESMEN OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, APPRENTICE’S LIBRARY, 18 EAST SIXTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK, Nov. 22, 1889.

Dear Madam: The reading committee has decided not to avail itself of your kind offer to supply THE STANDARD for three months, and the bill for the same is herewith inclosed, with thanks for your kindness.

Respectfully, J. SCHWARTZ, Librarian.

The lady making the gift was naturally not a little surprised at this curt and unexpected refusal, and she mentioned the fact at this office.

A representative of THE STANDARD thereupon undertook to ascertain the cause of the refusal, but all attempts at the library to find out who composed the reading committee, referred to in the note of the librarian, were vain. An effort was next made to find the secretary, an officer whose office hours seem to be confined to a portion of one evening for each week. From this official, when found, no information could be had beyond the statement that the reading committee consists of two members of the library committee. A letter was then sent to Mr. Joseph J. Little, chairman of the library committee, stating the facts in the case, saying that such ungracious action was naturally painful to a lady who sought to do a kindness, and asking specifically why the donation was refused. Mr. Little’s reply was as follows:

J. J. LITTLE & CO. PRINTERS AND BOOKBINDERS, 10 TO 20 ASTOR PLACE. NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 1889.

Managing Editor of THE STANDARD, No. 12 Union Square, City.—Dear Sir: I beg to acknowledge the receipt of yours of the 5th inst., and to say in reply that I fail to see anything “ungracious” in the action of the reading room committee of the Apprentices’ library, or in the letter of the librarian communicating its action to the lady.

It is the duty of this committee to decide what periodicals are to be kept on file in the reading room, subject of course to the approval of the library committee. You will readily understand the impossibility of keeping on file all the periodicals that are published. The committee, therefore, make such selections as they believe to be most useful and acceptable to the members of the society and others who use the reading room. Very respectfully yours, JOSEPH J. LITTLE, Chairman of the Library Com.

It will be seen at a glance that Mr. Little evades the question put to him. There was no proposition or demand that the paper should be filed, but it was simply sent to the library by one who believed it would be useful and acceptable to any organization or body of working people.

Failing to obtain any satisfactory information from an official source, THE STANDARD began for itself to look curiously into the matter with a view to finding out what kind of a society of Mechanics’ and tradesmen^sic it might be that would refuse to receive as a gift a paper devoted to the discussion of plans for the amelioration of the condition of working people and the increase of the wages of the mechanic and the profits of the tradesman.

The result of the examination discloses a curious story of the gradual but persistent perversion of a trust, while there is an amusing side in the disclosure of the fact that Abram S. Hewitt, Shepherd Knapp, Douglas Taylor, Joseph J. Little, Cornelius H. Delamater, Peter S. Hoe, George P. Rowell, Robert Rutter, Richard A. Storrs, William H. Webb, Horace Metcalf and Andrew Little are posing as mechanics and tradesmen.

The history of the society is an interesting one. In November, 1785, when New York had a population of 30,000 or less, a meeting of some twenty or more mechanics and tradesmen was held at the residence of Walter Heyer on Pine street, near Broadway, for the purpose of establishing for mutual aid and encouragement, a society for the assistance of members and their families in case of sickness or death. The people engaged in this effort were mechanics and the smaller tradesmen of the time, who proposed to institute a mutual co-operative association for their own benefit, and who doubtless would have scorned the idea of organizing a sort of literary poor house. They started on a moderate membership representing thirty-one trades. The initiation fee was sixteen shillings and the dues one-eighth of a dollar per month.

The society was incorporated in 1792 under the name of the General society of mechanics and tradesmen of the city of New York, for, in the language of the charter, “the laudable purpose of protecting and supporting such of our brethren as by sickness or accident may stand in need of assistance, and for the relief of the widows and orphans of those who may die, leaving little or no property for their support.”

p. 8, col. 4 This charter limited the amount of real and personal estate the corporation was authorized to hold to $50,000. It limited the membership to mechanics and tradesmen within the city and county of New York, and provided that the initiation fee should not exceed ten dollars.

This charter expired by limitation in the year 1812 and therefore on the 3d of April, 1811, the general assembly of this state passed an act re-chartering the society under the old name, but giving it power to hold real estate worth $200,000. This charter continued the limitation of membership to “citizens of the United States, being mechanics and tradesmen, resident within the city and county of New York,” and left the limitation of the initiation fee at $10. It also contained a clause forfeiting the society’s property to the state in case its funds were spent for purposes other than set forth in the act of incorporation. In 1821 an act was passed authorizing the society to share in the common school fund in proportion to the whole number of children taught free of expense in schools maintained by it. This chapter was, however, practically repealed^sic by the new common school law passed in 1824.

In [1833?] the charter was again amended, and queerly enough one of the new clauses allowed the corporation to fix the initiation fee, provided it be not less than $30, and required that one-third of the initiation fees should be used exclusively for promoting literary and scientific knowledge. At the same time the limitation of the power of the corporation to the possession of $200,000 worth of property was re-enacted.

In 1842 the charter was again amended, and the society authorized to create and hold a separate fund for the establishment and support of the Apprentice’s library and reading room, and to hold in trust any donation or bequest for this especial purpose. This provision was subsequently repealed.

In 1856 the society was authorized to hold real and personal estate not exceeding in value $500,000, and it was also provided that the initiation fee should not be more than $50.

In 1860 there seems to have been some question about the society’s status, for an act was passed confirming its title to certain real estate. In 1872 the charter was amended so as to allow the society to hold real estate and personal property to the value of $1,500,000. In 1888 an act was passed extending and making perpetual the charter of the society, “so that the said corporation shall have perpetual succession with all the powers and privileges which it now has, except so far as the same may be modified or changed by this act, together with such additional powers as may, by this act be granted to it.” This new act to endow the corporation with immortality, repeated the clause concerning mechanics and tradesmen, so that it now reads, “Every candidate for membership being a citizen of the United States, and a mechanic or tradesmen^sic, shall be proposed and vouched for by at least four members of the said society, at a meeting previous to his election.” Whether this is intended to allow citizens of the United States who are not mechanics and tradesmen to come in under conditions of scrutiny less rigid, cannot be told by an inspection of the charter.

The general object of the society as stated in the codification of statutes. by^sic its counsel is “the cultivation of a feeling of fraternity and brotherhood among its members; the support of indigent members and of their widows and orphan children, if indigent; the maintaining of the library and reading room for the benefit of its members, mechanics and tradesmen, apprentices, and the working class generally; the support of a school where such instruction may be given to respectable males and females as will better enable them to earn a livelihood,” and the dissemination of scientific and literary knowledge by the instrumentality of lectures or other intellectual means. The charter still provides that if money is spent for other purposes than these thus set forth^sic, the corporation will cease, and its real and personal estate shall pass into the hands of the people of the state of New York.

By the act of 1888 the admission fee for members was fixed at the sum of not less than $50 nor more than $200, and the conditions of election were left to be fixed by the by-laws. It will thus be seen that the society at the time of its incorporation was only authorized to hold personal property and real estate to the value of $50,000, and that from that time it was authorized to hold larger and larger amounts of property, the limit rising from $200,000 in 1811 to $1,500,000 at present. It will likewise be seen that as the society’s growing wealth demanded these new authorizations, the price of admission to its benefits was steadily raised, until now a poor mechanic like Abram S. Hewitt must pay $100 initiation fee in order to enjoy a “feeling of fraternity and brotherhood” with his fellow mechanics and tradesmen, and share in the other benefits of the society. However it may be with mechanics and tradesmen generally in this city, it is manifest that those among them who constitute the General society of mechanics and tradesmen have been prospering; this is not due to the fact that with the vast increase in population their number has become so great that their initiation fees give the society a splendid revenue. This would be the case if all the mechanics and tradesmen in New York were now members of the corporation, paying continued on p. 9 →

[continued elsewhere; the article breaks off mid-sentence at the foot of the column and no “continued on page” line is printed]

Signs of the Times.

The Troy Times commenting on the decision of the New Jersey court of appeals in the case of the Hutchins bequest says:

The legacy will give “Progress and Poverty” a new boom, and operate to still further popularize the George theory, as the advertisement itself involved in the novel will contest, resulting in the unique condemnation of one judge and the^sic equally unique condemnation of another, has been helpful to Mr. George’s works, as it has served to keep them more conspicuously in the public eye.

Whatever may be said of the George theory, whether it is held to be praiseworthy or pernicious, desirable or destructive, it has won a formidable foothold. It has furnished a definite creed for the enemies of monopoly, and for those who are restive under the aggressions of the moneyed classes, but lacked the genius to formulate a new doctrine around which to rally. Mr. George may be said to have given political iconoclasm a sheltering place, and erected a standard to which economical revolutionists can flock. The monster meetings held throughout England during Mr. George’s recent visit to that country, and the notable additions to his followers there, are significant.

The progress of the single tax idea in this country was shown at the recent national convention of the Knights of Labor at Atlanta. It looked as though the knights contemplated going over to Mr. George in a body. The George land tax theory was favorably considered. General Master Workman Powderly told the delegates in his address that the tariff was “a wrong to labor,” and “rests with crushing weight upon the poor.” Only a year ago Mr. Powderly was earnestly in favor of the present tariff, and his change of attitude must be significant of the tendency of organized labor in respect to this great question. The land tax theory logically involves free trade as well, and followers of Henry George almost necessarily find themselves arrayed in opposition to the tariff.

These things are merely noted as among the signs of the times.

VIRGINIA HAS A CHANCE.

A Bill Providing for Something Like the Australian System.

Th most important^sic election bill ever introduced in the Virginia legislative session has een presented^sic in the house by Mr. Flood, the democratic member for Appomattox. The bill embraces most of the important features of the Australian system. Its provisions are made to apply to federal, state and local elections. Ballots are to be printed and furnished the election officers by the state. On the first Tuesday in March, 1890, and on the same day in each succeeding year the registration books are to be kept open three days. For those who cannot read the English language separate books are to be provided, and also for the qualified white and colored voters. When an illiterate voter presents himself at the voting booth provided for in the bill, if his name appears on either of the books, he is permitted to vote. Each of the two political parties is allowed an inspector at each of the voting precincts. When an illiterate voter presents himself it is made the duty of these two officers in the hearing of the judges and clerks to read the ballot to him. They are not permitted to criticise nor to use any effort to influence the voter in choosing his ticket. Another provision of the measure forbids soliciting votes within sixty feet of the voting place. The penalty for a violation of any of the provisions of this bill by the judges, clerks or inspectors is a fine of not less than one nor more than five thousand dollars and imprisonment in jail.

The bill is understood to have been drafted by one of the most prominent democrats in the black belt. Mr. Flood, in introducing it, says that he does so by request, and he will both vote against and oppose the bill when it comes up. It is not at all likely to pass.

Governor Lee, it is understood, will in a few days send a message to the legislature embodying his views on the subject of a change in the present system of voting in the state. It is not believed that he will recommend a system as radical as that provided in Mr. Flood’s bill.

Pleased With Mr. Cleveland and Unyielding Toward Governor Hill.

The Hon. Charles T. Saxton is vastly pleased with Mr. Cleveland’s attitude on ballot reform. “There,” said the senator to a Times reporter, “is an absolutely fearless man, a man who is always ready, when the proper time comes, to express himself squarely on subjects of national importance. I may differ with him on some occasions, but I certainly always admire his bravery, and in this case I am particularly gratified with his position. This position he stated clearly and decisively, and his views are shared by all who are earnestly advocating ballot reform in this state.”

Mr. Saxton will not yield the principle of the exclusively official ballot. He says that his new ballot reform bill is practically like the old one except in a few minor details. He evidently does not think that they will take up any very great amount of Governor Hill’s time. The latter will direct his attention solely to the clause providing for the “exclusive use of official ballots” at elections, and, as he has said emphatically that he will never sign a bill containing such a clause, the authors of the bill are not especially hopeful of seeing it become a law for some time to come.

Mr. Saxton told a correspondent of the New York Tribune that he had adopted the blanket ballot in the new bill. The other changes in the bill are mainly directed toward conforming it to the Massachusetts law. The bill will not provide for a system of registration.

Senator Saxton will also make another move looking toward the purification of elections, by introducing directly after the opening of the session what he now calls his “Corrupt practices” act. This will be aimed at keeping down the expenditure of money at the polls, and among other things it will provide for candidates making statements under oath of their expenditures in the campaign. A bill having practically the same end in view was introduced last winter by Assemblyman Ernest Crosby, but failed of passage. Mr. Saxton looks for some little reform through this measure, provided the other is vetoed by Governor Hill.

He Warmly Praises the Massachusetts Law, and Hopes New York Will Follow.

Ex-President Cleveland spoke on “Political selfishness and its antidotes” at the banquet of the Boston merchants’ association last week. Mr. Cleveland said apropos of the tariff and other forms of governmental subsidies:

Equal rights and impartial justice are stipulations of the compact we have entered into with each other as American citizens; and so nicely adjusted is this plan of our political association, that favoritism for the sole advantage of any section of our membership, inevitably results in an encroachment upon the benefits justly due to others. But these things sit so lightly upon the consciences of many that a spirit of selfishness is abroad in the land, which has bred the habit of clam

p. 10, col. 2 > orous importunity for government aid in behalf of special interests—imperfectly disguised under the cloak of solicitude for the public good. Can we see no contrast between the sturdy self-reliance of the Boston merchant in the days that are past, and the attitude you are invited to assume as dependents upon the favor of the government and beneficiaries under its taxing power? Is there not a difference between the ideas that formerly prevailed concerning the just and wholesome relations which should exist between the government and the business of the country, and the present tendency toward a government partnership in trade? And was there a hint in former days that especial advantages thus once secured, constituted a vested right which in no event should in the least be disturbed?

His utterance upon ballot reform was even more significant. After noting the growth of intimidation at the polls, he said:

The condition annexed to the founding of our government upon the suffrage of the people, was that the suffrage should be free and pure. We consented to abide by the honest preponderance of political opinion, but we did not consent that a free vote, expressing the intelligent and thoughtful sentiment of the voter, should be balanced by a vote of intimidation and fear, or by an unclean, corrupt vote disgracefully bought and treacherously sold.

Let us look with a degree of pity and charity upon those who yield to fear and intimidation in the exercise of their right of suffrage. Though they ought not thus to yield, we cannot forget that as against their free ballot, they see in the scale, their continued employment, the comforts of their homes and the maintenance of their families. We need not stifle our scorn and contempt for the wretch who basely sells his vote, and who for a bribe betrays his trust of citizenship And yet^sic the thought will intrude itself, that he but follows in a low and vulgar fashion, the example of those who proceed upon the theory that political action may be turned to private gain.

But whether we pity or whether we hate, our betrayal is none the less complete; nor will either pity or hate restore our birthright. But we know that when political selfishness is destroyed, our dangers will disappear; and though the way to its stronghold may be long and weary we will follow it—fighting as we go. There will be no surrender, nor will there be desertions from our ranks. Selfishness and corruption have not yet achieved a lasting triumph and their bold defiance will but hasten the day of their destruction.

As we struggle on and confidently invite a direct conflict with these entrenched foes of our political safety, we have not failed to see another hope which has manifested itself to all the honest people of the land. It teaches them that though they may not immediately destroy at their source the evils which afflict them, they may check their malign influence and guard themselves against their baneful results. It assures them that if political virtue and rectitude can not at once be thoroughly restored to the republic, the activity of baser elements may be discouraged. It inspires them with vigilant watchfulness and a determination to prevent as far as possible their treacherous betrayal by those who are false to their obligations of citizenship.

This hope, risen like the star in the east, has fixed the gaze of our patriotic fellow-countrymen; and everywhere—in our busy marts of trade and on our farms—in our cities and in our villages—in the dwellings of the rich and in the homes of the poor—in our universities and in our workshops—in our banking houses and in the ranks of inexorable toil—they greet with enthusiastic acclaim the advent of ballot reform.

There are no leaders in this cause. Those who seem to lead the movement are but swept to the front by the surging force of patriotic sentiment. It rises far above partisanship, and only the heedless, the sordid and the depraved refuse to join in the crusade.

This reform is predicated upon the cool deliberation of political selfishness in its endeavor to prostitute our suffrage to the purposes^sic of private gain. It is rightly supposed that corruption of the voter is entered upon with such business calculation that the corruptor will only pay a bribe when he has ocular proof that the suffrage he has bargained for is cast in his interest. So too it is reasonably expected that if the employe or laborer is at the time of casting his ballot removed from the immediate control of his employer, the futility of fear and intimidation will lead to their abandonment.

The change demanded by this reform in the formalities surrounding the exercise of the privilege of suffrage, has given rise to real or pretended solicitude for the rights of our voters; and the fear has been expressed that inability on the part of electors to conform to the requirements of the proposed change, might produce great inconvenience and in some cases result in disfranchisement. It has even been suggested that the inauguration of the new plan might encroach upon constitutional guarantees.

It will not do to accuse of hostility to the reform all those who present these objections; but it is not amiss to inspect their ranks for enemies in disguise. Though the emergency which is upon us is full of danger, and though we sadly need relief, all rights should be scrupulously preserved. But there should be no shuffling, and no frivolous objections should be tolerated. When a dwelling is in flames we use no set phrase of speech to warn its inmates, and no polite and courtly touch to effect their rescue. Experience has often demonstrated how quickly obstacles which seemed plausible if not convincing when urged against a measure of reform, are dissipated by the test of trial, and how readily a new order of things adjusts itself to successful use.

I remember the inauguration of another reform; and I have seen it grow and extend, until it has become firmly established in our laws and practice. It is to-day our greatest safeguard against the complete and disgraceful degradation of our public service. It had its enemies and all of them are not yet

p. 10, col. 3 > silenced. Those openly and secretly unfriendly, said in the beginning that the scheme was impracticable and unnecessary; that it created an office holding class; that it established burdensome and delusive tests for entry in the public service which should be open to all; that it put in the place of real merit and efficiency^sic, scholastic acquirements; that it limited the discretion of those charged with the selection of public employes, and that it was unconstitutional. But its victory came—wrought by the force of enlightened public sentiment—and upon its trial every objection which had been urged against it was completely discredited.

As it has been with civil service reform, so will it be with ballot reform, except that the coming victory will be more speedily achieved and will be more complete.

And as the grand old state of Massachusetts was foremost to adopt and demonstrate the practicability and usefulness of civil service reform, so has she been first to adopt a thorough scheme of ballot reform and to prove in practice its value and the invalidity of the objections made against it. We thank Massachusetts to-night for all that she has done for these reforms; and we of New York hope that our empire state will soon be keeping step with her sister states in the enforcement of an effective and honest measure of ballot reform.

Mr. Cleveland’s reception at the banquet and throughout his stay in Boston was of the most enthusiastic character. Mr. Carnegie, Mr. Grady and others who spoke were accorded a flattering attention, but Mr. Cleveland was the lion of the occasion. The Young men’s democratic club gave him a reception on the day after the banquet, and later Mr. Cleveland visited the Bay state club, where Mr. Grady had been making a speech. Mr. Cleveland spoke briefly. After some pleasant references to the popularity of Mrs. Cleveland, he said:

I want to say one word to you, gentlemen, as democrats, about the questions of reform which are now agitating the public mind, and I don’t propose to make a speech. I beg of you as democrats not to let us be accused of lagging in the rear on any of these topics. Tariff reform, of course, is ours (cries of “Good!” and great applause), and we don’t propose to be robbed of it under any pretence whatever. (Cries of “Good!” and renewed applause.) All things good come to those who wait, and we are willing to wait. (Great applause.)

Let me tell you, gentlemen, that other reforms are as important. Let me tell you that they should be kept abreast, and let me beg of you, so far as within you lies—I don’t believe the admonition is necessary here—that it be not laid to the democratic party that we are behind in any of them. (Applause.) We are the party of the people (applause), and they can’t get that away from us. Let us, then, keep in mind the benefits of the people, their advantages and their interests, and wherever we see them let us follow those and we shall surely be right. (Applause.)

Fully Organized for Ballot Reform—Some Interesting Letters.

The Kings county ballot reform association was fully organized this week at an adjourned meeting held at the rooms of the Brooklyn single tax club. Several additional letters were read from prominent citizens of all parties indorsing the movement, and offering to assist financially and otherwise. Dr. Lyman Abbott wrote:

The matter appears to me to be of the utmost importance. The constitution declares unequivocally for the five cardinal principles of a secret ballot, and recommends that other laws be presented to the legislature to provide “for a general registration of qualified voters,” and “that candidates, or their agents, be compelled to make sworn statements in detail of their election expenses.”

L. Rotwitt, secretary of Montana, wrote in answer to an inquiry as to the working of the law:

The first trial in this state at the October election gave such excellent satisfaction that Montana will never repeal the Australian system. The law worked like a charm, and is considered by the upright and thinking people of this state as one of the principal pillars of our liberty.

F. W. Hinricks^sic, president of the Young men’s democratic club, who had been selected for president of the new association, declined the place because all his spare time will be occupied in similar work in connection with the club of which he is president.

These officers were then elected: President, David A. Boody; treasurer, W. Cary Sanger; secretary, Edwin A. Curley.

Six prominent citizens were named vice-presidents, and an executive committee of nine was appointed. Three hundred dollars was raised on the spot to carry on the work. The executive committee will call the next meeting early in January.

Boston’s municipal election last week gave the new ballot law another test. The results only confirm the favorable opinions created at the state election. There was the same absence of confusion at the polling places, the same facility afforded the voter to record his verdict without interference or molestation, and the same air of satisfaction resting on the faces of the election officers at being able to perform their work in ease and quiet. Minor points in which the new law or its observance appeared to be defective a month ago seem to have been corrected. Especially was this the case with reference to the admission of voters behind the rail before they had given their names to the ballot clerks and received their ballots. In most cases the

p. 10, col. 4 bar closing the entrance was kept down until the required formalities had been gone through with. In a few of the precincts the ballot boxes did not work properly, having been manipulated by those who did not understand them, and they had to be replaced by others from the city hall. After the arrival of the boxes everything went on smoothly.

The New York Herald’s canvass on the subject of ballot reform has reached Kansas and Colorado. There is little interest in the subject in Kansas and Governor Humphrey says that the Australian system is not needed as Kansas is free from electoral corruption. Lieutenant-Governor Smith of Colorado would be pleased to see the reform adopted by every state in the Union. C. S. Thomas, member of the national committee for Colorado is for the reform, as are ex-Senator Hill, T. M. Patterson, John Arkins of the Rocky Mountain News, ex-Postmaster Speer of Denver, and Colonel K. G. Cooper. Senator Walcott^sic is said to be of the same mind.

J. A. Beal gave notice at this week’s meeting of the Young men’s democratic club of New York that at the next meeting he would call up a resolution providing for the appointment of a committee to confer with committees from other organizations in relation to ballot reform. “The club intends to do all in its power to secure the passage of a ballot reform measure,” says the Times.

The State trades assembly, recently in session at Albany, adopted a resolution in favor of the secret official ballot and state registration. The assembly will urge before the coming legislature only three measures—the prison labor, the conspiracy and the state printing bills. The first forbids the sale of prison made articles, the second repeals the conspiracy clause in the penal code and the third establishes a state printing bureau.

Out of twenty-four district secretaries temporarily chosen by the New York ballot reform league only two declined to serve, and their places were at once filled. The organization is now complete in every assembly district of the city.

The American federation of labor declared at the recent convention in Boston for the Australian ballot, and called for agitation in its favor in all the states where it has not been adopted. A resolution to provide a strike assessment in aid of the eight hour agitation was adopted and union with the Knights of Labor was declined.

Ohio’s state grange, with a membership of 12,000, has declared for the Australian ballot.

The Union league of Philadelphia has adopted the main features of the Australian ballot for use in its elections.

“Ballot Reform” was the subject of a recent lecture by Charles C. Binney before the Wharton school of finance, a department of the university of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He said that the Australian ballot was the best yet devised.

Local assembly No 1,959^sic, Knights of Labor at Quincy, Ill., has passed resolutions pledging its members, irrespective of party ties, to insist that candidates for representatives from Adams county shall pledge themselves to use their votes and influence in behalf of the ballot law, embracing the five cardinal points of true ballot reform.

The “Toledo society for economic inquiry” was organized on December 7 with seventeen members. Petitions were distributed to the members of the society praying the Ohio legislature to establish the Australian system of voting, to which the members are expected to obtain signatures. The next meeting will take place on Saturday evening, December 21, at the rooms of the Young men’s Christian association.

On Tuesday, 17th inst., the citizens of Cincinnati who desire to advance the cause of ballot reform, gathered at a supper to discuss the Australian method of voting. The gathering was one that disregarded party lines, and we notice that F. S. Walker, Dr. David DeBeck and other single tax men participated in the call for the meeting.

The most enthusiastic advocates of the Australian ballot law could hardly have anticipated such an unqualified approval of that measure as was given to it the other day by the people of this state.—[Weekly Republican, Rapid City, Dak.

WORK OF THE REFORM CLUB.

HARD TIMES AT TOPOLOBAMPO.

SINGLE TAX PLATFORM.

The single tax contemplates the abolition of all taxes upon labor or the products of labor—that is to say, the abolition of all taxes save one tax levied on the value of land, irrespective of improvements.

Since in all our states we now levy some tax on the value of land, the single tax can be instituted by the simple and easy way of abolishing, one after another, all other taxes now levied, and commensurately increasing the tax on land values, until we draw upon that once source^sic for all expenses of government; the revenue being divided between local governments, state governments and the general government, as the revenue from direct taxes is now divided between tne^sic local and state governments, or a direct assessment being made by the general government upon the states and paid by them from revenues collected in this manner.

The single tax is not a tax on land, and therefore would not fall on the use of land and become a tax on labor.

It is a tax, not on land, bnt^sic on the value of land. Thus it would not fall on all land, but only on valuable land, and on that not in proportion to the use made of it, but in proportion to its value—the premium which the user of land must pay to the owner, either in purchase money or in rent, for permission to use valuable land. It would thus be a tax, not on the use or improvement of land, but on the ownership of land, taking what would otherwise go to the owner as owner, and not as user.

In assessments under the single tax all values created by individual use or improvement would be excluded, and the only value taken into consideration would be the value attaching to the bare land by reason of neighborhood, etc. Thus the farmer would have no more taxes to pay than the speculator who held a similar piece of land idle, and the man who on a city lot erected a valuable building would be taxed no more than the man who held a similar lot vacant.

The single tax, in short, would call upon men to contribute to the public revenues not in proportion to what they produce or accumulate, but in proportion to the value of the natural opportunities they hold. It would compel them to pay just as much for holding land idle as for putting it to its fullest use.

The single tax, therefore, would—

1. Take the weight of taxation off of the agricultural districts when land has little^sic or no value irrespective of improvements, and put it on towns and cities where bare land rises to a value of millions of dollars per acre.

2. Dispense with a multiplicity of taxes and a horde of taxgatherers, simplify government and greatly reduce its cost.

3. Do away with the fraud, corruption and gross inequality inseparable from our present methods of taxation, which allow the rich to escape while they grind the poor. Land cannot be hid or carried off, and its value can be ascertained with greater ease and certainty than any other.

4. Give us with all the world as perfect freedom of trade as now exists between the states of our Union, thus enabling our people to share through free exchanges in all the advantages which nature has given to other countries, or which the peculiar skill of other peoples has enabled them to attain. It would destroy the trusts, monopolies, and corruptions which are the outgrowtns^sic of the tariff. It would do away with the fines and penalties now levied on any one who improves a farm, erects a house, builds a machine, or in any way adds to the general stock of wealth. It would leave every one free to apply labor or expend capital in production or exchange without fine or restriction, and would leave to each the full product of his exertion.

5. It would, on the other hand, by taking for public uses that value which attaches to land by reason of the growth and improvement of the community, make the holding of land unprofitable to the mere owner and profitable only to the user. It would thus make it impossible for speculators and monopolists to hold natural opportunities unused or only half used, and would throw open to labor the illimitable field of employment which the earth offers to man. It would thus solve the labor problem, do away with involuntary poverty, raise wages in all occupations to the full earnings of labor, make overproduction impossible until all human wants are satisfied, render labor saving inventions a blessing to all, and cause such an enormous production and such an equitable distribution of wealth as would give to all comfort, leisure and participation in the advantages of an advancing civilization.

The ethical principles on which the single tax is based are:

1. Each man is entitled to all that his labor produces. Therefore no tax should be levied on the products of labor.

2. All men are equally entitled to what God has created and to what is gained by the general growth and improvement of the community of which they are a part. Therefore, no one should be permitted to hold natural opportunities without a fair return to all for any special privilege thus accorded to him, and that value which the growth and improvement of the community attaches to continued on p. 12 → [continued on page 12]

News of the Movement—J. R. Abarbanell’s Address.

The club has elected these officers for the ensuing year: President, Louis F. Post; vice-president, A. J. Wolf; secretary, A. J. Steers (re-elected); treasurer, W. D. Williams; directors^sic, William T. Croasdale, Benjamin Doblin, William H. Faulhaber, William McCabe and Joseph McDonough.

Messrs. Steers, Wolf and other members of the Manhattan single club^sic have been lately making^sic Staten island a single tax battle ground. At a meeting held at New Brighton two weeks ago, under the auspices of the Staten island single tax club, they succeeded in stirring up one of the prominent islanders. He said he was a tariff-reform democrat, but that the talk of Messrs. Steers and Wolf on their several visits to the island had made him an absolute free trader. He added that if they would arrange a special date he would get up a big mass meeting and pay all expenses. The meeting will shortly be held and he will preside.

Numerous letters are coming to the Manhattan club from local assemblies of the Knights of Labor asking^sic the club to assign single tax speakers to them. All the visits so far made have been very successful, the knights showing their deep interest by listening closely to the speakers and asking questions.

Messrs. Steers and Wolf spoke Monday evening at Staten island, and on Thursday evening at Yonkers, before the Riverside assembly, K. of L., by invitation of the local assembly.

A number of single tax men in this city talk of forming a mixed assembly of the K. of L., to do propaganda work in the order.

J. R. Abarbanell lectured before the club last Sunday evening on “Manual training and its relation to the single tax.”

Isaac Cohen will deliver the address this Sunday evening (December 22), his subject being “The tariff as a system of robbery.”

Holding Meetings in Various Wards to Advance the Movement.

The efforts of the Brooklyn single tax club to increase the sphere of usefulness of those members who live at a distance from the club rooms were continued on Thursday evening, Dec. 12, when a meeting was held in the Twentieth^sic ward at Adelphi hall, corner Myrtle avenue and Adelphi street, where Geo. W. White, president of the Brooklyn single tax club, made an address.

Mr. Jacobson spoke of the beauties of free trade, and Mr. William Spaulding, who has recently removed to Brooklyn from Chicago, showed how the single tax could be brought before the people by closely watching local affairs, so as to be able to force an application, however limited, of the single tax, as had been recently done in Chicago, where the advocates of this system had compelled the nomination by both parties of some candidates who would insist upon the cost of the proposed drainage system being levied upon those chiefly benefited—the land owners.

A club will, no doubt, be formed in the Twentieth ward in the near future.

Owing^sic to the sickness of Mr. C. O’C. Hennessey, the speaker announced for the regular Sunday evening lecture at the Brooklyn single tax club, Mr. Woerner started an informal debate upon the question whether the single tax would secure abstract justice to every

p. 12, col. 2 individual. The question was debated by Messrs. White, Rand, Thompson, Delano, Scrimshaw, Bolton and Curley.

The speaker next Sunday evening will be Mr. Fred. Scrimshaw, president of the Ocean Hill club.

Nineteen single tax men of the Tenth ward met at the residence of R. C. Utess, at 277 Smith street, on Thursday evening, December 12, to organize a single tax club for that ward. Much enthusiasm was manifested by those present, many of whom had been lukewarm in the cause for a long time, and a few of whom were new converts. R. C. Utess was elected temporary chairman and J. T. O’Neil secretary. The club holds its next meeting at Reese’s hall, 217 Court street, near Warren, on Friday evening, December 20, and invites every single tax man in the Tenth ward to be present. This club is the outgrowth of a public meeting held in the ward a few weeks ago in response to a call by the agitation committee of the Brooklyn single tax club for such meetings in every ward of the city.

Single Tax Men Watching Every Point and Their Strength Growing.

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 17.—Our cause is making progress here in much the same way as it seems to be progressing everywhere. Not perhaps so much in the direction of public meetings, although we are having our share of them, but in the steady growth of our ideas among the people. The Henry George club has been successful from the start. It now has a membership of about 225 and is still growing. The club has leased from the Keystone watch club company one entire floor of its large building, which gives the club two rooms, one of which will seat upwards of 150 persons. Six electric lights have been put in, one of which illuminates a large transparency. The club room has been handsomely furnished and “strangers welcome” is the rule on every Thurday^sic evening.

In Philadelphia, as in every other city, the assessments on real estate are very unequal, and this condition of affairs has been used by single tax men for all that it is worth in an agitation which has resulted in the raising of assessments by several million dollars on the property of the big landlords.

Several of the leading labor organizations have joined in this agitation, and the matter will not be permitted to rest here, as the committee will be enlarged and a project is under consideration to distribute throughout the city an address to the tax payers, calling attention to the injustice and recommending that taxes be levied on land values alone.

One of the significant signs of the times is the growing disposition among the churches to give us a hearing, especially among the Unitarians. This denomination has four congregations in or near this city, and three of them have invited the club to send speakers to explain the single tax theory. The ministers have also been stirred up, and through the efforts of one of our women members, Mr. George has been invited to address them next week.

The Friendship liberal league, which meets every Sunday afternoon at Broad and Wood streets to discuss economic questions, is devoting almost every meeting to a discussion of some phase of the single tax question, and the membership of the Henry George club is well represented in the debates. Here as everywhere the state socialists are about our only opponents, and they are not nearly so fierce since Edward Bellamy practically incorporated the single tax principle in “Looking Backward.”

While we may congratulate ourselves on our progress, the same cannot be said of the democrats. Randall and the protection superstition still blocks the progress of the party here, and until they are gotten rid of Pennsylvania will remain in the monopoly column.

A. H. S.

The Cincinnati Single Tax Club Commends His Position on the Subject of Foreign Immigration.

CINCINNATI, Dec. 18.—The following resolution^sic has been adopted by the Cincinnati single tax club:

Resolved, That as believers in the principle of free trade, free land and free men, and in freedom as opposed to restriction, we tender to Mr. Samuel Gompers, president of the American federation of labor, our congratulations upon the stand which he has taken against the restriction of immigration.

That it is our sincere hope that the federation of labor, in its coming convention may not give its indorsement to any such narrow-minded, unchristian and altogether pernicious policy, but rather direct their efforts to the bringing about of such changes in our system of taxation, that the unlimited natural opportunities now closed, not only to our brothers across the water, but to the great majority of our own people, may be thrown open and the fact demonstrated that we have room on this vast continent, not only for those that are here now, but for all the people of the world, if they see fit to take up their abode with us.

It is curious to note in this connection that while many people here are suggesting the restriction of immigration as a remedy for the laborer, his grace the marquis of Salisbury, premier of England, is recommending as a pancea^sic for the same trouble in that country, emigration. In other words, there are too many people in England, therefore let them emigrate to some other country, but

p. 12, col. 3 at the same time comes the cry from the other country that there are already too many people there now, and they must close the doors; so you see the poor superfluous population between his grace and the narrow minded American is really

“Between the devil and the deep sea.”

WM. C. WULFF, Sec.

An Illinois Local Assembly Commends the Action of the General Assembly.

QUINCY, Ill., Dec. 9, 1889.—At the last meeting of our assembly the following resolutions were adopted with the request that they be published in THE STANDARD. Hoping they meet with your approval, I remain, fraternally yours,

JOHN B. KOHL, Rec. Sec. L. A., K. of L., 1959.

1. We hereby commend the wisdom of our last general assembly in amending our declaration of principles so as to demand that “taxes upon land should be levied upon its full value for use, exclusive of improvements, and should be sufficient to take for the community all the unearned increment.” When this is effected, what is known as the single tax will be in effect, to which desirable end we shall hereafter render all possible aid.

2. Land values, being created by population and general industry, belong to the people collectively, are ample for the support of all kinds of government; and should, as apparently designed by nature, be taken in taxation for that purpose.

3. Any taxation upon industry or the products of industry, that is, upon the earnings or savings of individuals, is unnecessary, unjust, impracticable, unequal; is paid in the end by consumers, is enormously expensive, promotes lying, perjury, bribery and other corrupt practices, greatly restricts the production of wealth, and results in the unfair and unequal distribution of wealth.

4. The fact that out of a population of about 65,000,000, about 250,000 persons practically own all the wealth in the United States, is due to our system of taxing industry and its products, which has the effect of taxing people in proportion as they use or consume these products.

5. The taking in taxation annually of the full rental value of all land, whether building, mining, timber, agricultural or other land, would open up such a vast number of natural opportunities for self-employment, and would result in such a demand for labor to improve land unimproved now, that all wages would rise naturally to the full earnings of labor; not manual labor alone, but all kinds.

6. The abolition of all taxes on buildings, building materials, food, clothing, and all other products of labor, would lessen enormously the cost of living and of improvements of all kinds.

7. This great increase in all wages on one hand and the great decrease in the cost of living and of improvements on the other, would raise the purchasing power of the people to a height hitherto unknown, rendering^sic “overproduction” impossible.

8. Stimulated by this new and continuous demand, free from the discouraging effects of any taxation upon improvements, or any commodities, the increase in business profits would be very great. Thus the change would bring prosperity to both labor and capital, proving that they are, indeed, friends. Nothing would be unprofitable but land speculation.

9. The tax upon land values could not be “shifted” and made to increase rents of buildings, or prices of commodities; there is too much land for that.

10. The abolition of all taxes on buildings would lower rents to the amount of taxes removed.

11. While the rental value of land, the use or occupation value, would remain, and would be the value taken in taxation, the selling or market value of lots and all other land would rapidly decline, rendering it far easier for the people to get homes of their own, while their house material, houses, all other improvements and furniture, etc., would be exempt from all taxation.

12. Every person and business occupies land, and in some form pays land rent; therefore under the single tax every person, firm and corporation would contribute his, their or its just share toward maintaining government.

The Election of Sanitary Trustees—The Single Tax Men Divided, but Their Doctrines Were Represented on Two Tickets.

CHICAGO, Ill., Dec. 13.—The result of the election for sanitary trustees is gratifying to perhaps a majority of our people. The candidates for whom the greater part of us voted were successful, and the nine men chosen are all more or less directly committed to our view of the question of taxation as it is involved in this improvement.

When I reported last the democrats had just pronounced in favor of the special assessment plan which we had demanded. But they added a plank which was in effect a nullification of that on which we had set our hearts. They then committed the unpardonable folly of nominating a ticket which was open to the most serious criticism.

The republicans made their nomination on the day following. If possible, they gave even less satisfaction than those previously made, and immediately the popular feeling sought expression through a non-partisan movement that culminated in the nomination two days later of a citizens’ ticket^sic made up of three republicans, two democrats and a socialist.

The citizens’ ticket was put forth on the personal respectability of its members. The question of taxation was urged, but it was parried with the claim that the nominees were

p. 12, col. 4 a platform and a guaranty which ought to satisfy the most exacting. The single taxers persisted and the citizens’ candidates finally pledged themselves to take no action in the matter of taxation until a fair discussion of the issue has been made.

Following the nomination of the citizens ticket came our convention at the Madison street theater, on the evening of the 7th. It was called by a committee of twenty-five, representing the Single tax and Tomahawk clubs. The attendance was unexpectedly large and fairly represenative^sic of the labor organizations and of our own strength. Mr. Robert Nelson presided and Messrs. Edward O. Brown, James Malcolm and Charles Seib were the secretaries. Judge Mark Bangs was chairman of the committee on resolutions, which reported a document altogether admirable in its statement of our case.

The convention proved to be a very turbulent affair after the preliminary work was dispatched. A motion to appoint a committee to consider the question of indorsements raised a tremendous storm. It was finally defeated on a close vote, and then the trouble which had been feared broke loose. A motion was made to indorse the entire Democratic ticket, and for a time it seemed that this would be done in spite of the soberer efforts of those who felt that such an act under the circumstances would be a tactical blunder. The friends of one of the democratic candidates had been massed in the convention with a determination to carry their point at whatever hazard, but eventually they were brought to a realizing sense of their folly, and they gradually yielded, but not until great heat had been developed and a feeling of intense bitterness had been engendered against those who had so coolly ignored the purposes of the gathering in their zeal to serve their man. The convention at last adjourned without troubling further, and that was done after two hours of fruitless wrangling.

Some of our people were intensely angry. They, therefore, threw themselves boldly and aggressively into the citizens’ movement, bent on avenging themselves on the democrats. This action unquestionably determined the result at the polls, for it carried with it a large labor vote which had been represented in our convention, and which was none too well pleased with the democrats on general principles.

But not all of our people went into the citizens’ movement. A portion continued faithfully with the democrats, Mr. John Z. White, Mr. R. H. Cowdrey and Mr. Clarence Moeller being among the number.

A few others, feeling that it was of great importance that voters should be given an opportunity to cast their bollots^sic for those candidates who had deserved indorsement by their pledges, acting on their private responsibility, had tickets printed bearing the names of such candidates. It is enough to say that four of the five men on this ticket were elected.

On the whole, the outcome is reassuring. We have made no blunders and we have not only commended our views to general consideration, but we have gained a practical, definite standing as a factor in affairs. Further than this, I believe we are in closer touch with organized labor than ever before and a way has been opened for work among this class that you will hear of later on. I have the largest measure of confidence in the future, and my enthusiasm is shared by every single tax man in the city.

WARREN W. BAILEY.

An Attractive Course Arranged by the Single Tax League.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., Dec. 14.—Our league has arranged for a series of brief addresses, about fifteen in number, to be given one each Tuesday evening at our rooms, beginning shortly after the holidays. We have already had about a dozen addresses, which have helped our league considerably. The following is a partial list of what we are to have:

“The Principles of Personal Liberty;” Jas. F. Williamson, a graduate of Princeton and the leading patent attorney of Minneapolis.

“The Single Tax and the Temperance Reform;” Professor Wm. R. Dobyn, editor Progressive Age.

“Land Monopoly and the Fall of Rome;” Rev. L. G. Pervers, pastor Third Universalist church.

“The Necessity for Extending the Policy of Special Assessment for Public Improvements;” Hon. Chas. A. Pillsbury, the great flour manufacturer.

“The Northwestern Farmer and the Tariff Taxes;” Judge M. Nelund, president Minneapolis free trade club.

“The Benefits of the Protective Tariff;” Hon. John Day Smith, the most uncompromising protectionist in the northwest.

“Why the Union Soldiers Should be Free Traders and Single Taxers;” W. A. Spaulding, DD.S^sic., formerly dean Minneapolis medical college.

“Causes of the High Price of Coal;” C. C. Taylor, V. P. Minneapolis coal exchange.

“Moral Aspects of the Single Tax Movement;” Rev. S. W. Sample.

“Natural Law and the Social Problem;” Rev. H. M. Simmons of First Unitarian church.

C. J. BUELL.

New York State.

F. S. Arnold, Poughkeepsie.—Our ideas are continued on p. 13 →

[continued on page 13]

Catarrhal Deafness—Hay Fever—A New Home Treatment.

Sufferers are not generally aware that these diseases are contagious, or that they are due to the presence of living parasites in the lining membrane of the nose and eustachian tubes. Microscopic research, however, has proved this to be a fact, and the result of this discovery is that a simple remedy has been formulated whereby catarrh, catarrhal deafness and hay fever are permanently cured in from one to three simple applications made at home by the patient once in two weeks.

N. B.—This treatment is not a snuff or an ointment; both have been discarded by reputable physicians as injurious. A pamphlet explaining this new treatment is sent free on receipt of stamp to pay postage, by A. H. Dixon & Son, 337 and 339 West King street, Toronto, Canada.—[Christian Advocate.

Sufferers from Catarrhal troubles should carefully read the above.—[Adv.

Hospital Remedies.

What are they^sic? There is a new departure in the treatment of disease. It consists in the collection of the specifics used by noted specialists of Europe and America, and bringing them within the reach of all. For instance the treatment pursued by special physicians who treat indigestion, stomach and liver troubles only, was obtained and prepared. The treatment of other physicians, celebrated for curing catarrh was procured, and so on till these incomparable cures now include disease of the lungs, kidneys, female weakness, rheumatism and nervous debility.

This new method of “one remedy for one disease” must appeal to the common sense of all sufferers, many of whom have experienced the ill effects, and thoroughly realize the absurdity of the claims of Patent Medicines which are guaranteed to cure every ill out of a single bottle, and the use of which, as statistics prove, has ruined more stomachs than alcohol. A circular describing these new remedies is sent free on receipt of stamp to pay postage by Hospital Remedy Company, Toronto, Canada, sole proprietors.—[Adv.

ARKANSAS.

LITTLE ROCK.—Little Rock single tax club. Every alternate Thursday evening, 717 Main st. Pres^sicsic., Sol F. Clark; sec., O. D. Hemming, 1910 Main st.

CALIFORNIA.

SAN FRANCISCO.—California single tax society. Every Sunday evening, 909½ Market st. Reading room open every evening, 841 Market st. Pres., H. L. Pleace; sec., G. A. Hubbell, 1135 Mission st.

SACRAMENTO.—Single tax club of Sacramento. Every Friday evening, Dr. Reed’s office, 6th and K sts. Pres., Dr. Thos. B. Reed; sec., C. W. Farnsworth, 1406 4th st.

OAKLAND.—Single tax club No. 1 meets every Friday evening at St. Andrews hall, 1056½ Broadway. Pres., A. J. Gregg; sec., W. H. Messenger.

SAN DIEGO.—San Diego single tax county committee. Every Monday evening, 139 10th st. Chairman, Geo. B. Whaley, box 1088.

BLACK DIAMOND.—Contra Costa county single tax committee. Jeff. A. Bailey, sec.

COLORADO.

DENVER.—Denver single tax association. Every Thursday evening, 1448 Lawrence st. Pres,, Andrew W. Elder; sec., E. McAuley, 906 Holliday st.

PUEBLO.—Commonwealth single tax club. First and Fourth Thursdays at office of D. B. V. Reeve, Union av. Pres., D. B. V. Reeve; sec., J. W. Brentlinger, Pueblo Smelting and Refining Co.

GRAND JUNCTION^sic—Mesa county single tax and ballot reform club. Pres., James W. Bucklin; vice-pres., W. A. Pollock; treas., Thos. B. Crawford; sec., Geo. Smith.

CANYON CITY.—Single tax committee; sec., Dr. Frack^sic P. Blake.

HAWKXHURST.—Plateau Valley single tax club. Pres., John W. Hawkxhurst; sec., E. H. Parkenson.

CONNECTICUT.

NEW HAVEN.—Tax reform club. Every Friday evening, room 11, 102 Orange st. Pres., Willard D. Warren; sec., Alfred Smith, 105 Day st.

MERIDEN.—Meriden single tax club. 3 p. m. every Sunday, Circle hall. Pres., Wm. Hawthorne; sec., Wm. Williss, P. O. box 1342.

DAKOTA.

STATE.—South Dakota single tax association. Pres., Judge Levi McGee of Rapid City; sec., W. E. Brokaw, box 146, Bristol.

RAPID CITY.—Black Hills single tax league. Last Saturday in each month, Library hall. Pres., Judge Levi McGee; sec., Francis H. Clark.

MADISON.—Lake county single tax club. Chairman, Prof. E. H. Evanson.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

WASHINGTON.—Washington single tax league; always open; regular meeting Friday evening, 609 F street, N. W. Pres., Paul T. Bowen; sec., Wm. Geddes, M. D., 1719 G st., N. W.

FLORIDA.

PENSACOLA.—Pensacola single tax club No. 1. Tuesday evenings, K. of L. hall, corner of Zaragosa and Palafox sts. Pres., J. Davis Wolfe; sec., James McHugh.

TAMPA.—Thomas G. Shearman single tax league. First Monday in each month, business meeting; Sundays, public speaking. Pres., C. E. Ainsworth; vice pres., A. G. Baker; treas., H. R. Wells; sec., John H. McCormick.

GEORGIA.

ATLANTA, Ga.—Atlanta single tax club No. 1. Pres., I. M. Beath; sec., J. Henley Smith, 43 South Broad street.

AUGUSTA.—Augusta single tax club. Every Friday evening, Hussar hall. Pres., Ed. Flury; sec. George Haines, care of Loflin & Meyer.

ILLINOIS.

CHICAGO.—Single tax club No. 1. Every Thursday evening, club room 4, Grand Pacific hotel. Pres., Warren Worth Bailey; sec. T. W. Wittler, 426 Milwaukee ave.

SPRINGFIELD.—Sangamon single tax club. Pres., Joseph Farris; sec., James H. McCrea, 623 Black ave.

JACKSONVILLE.—Morgan county single tax club. Pres., Col. Wm. Camm of Murrayville; sec., Chas. W. Alexander of Jacksonville.

SPARTA.—Single tax committee. Sec., Wm R. Bailey^sic.

QUINCY.—Gem City single tax club. Every Friday evening, Opera house building. Pres., C. F. Perry; cor. sec., Duke Schroer, 327 S. 3d.

INDIANA.

STATE.—Indiana single tax league. Pres., Henry Rawie, Anderson; vice-pres., L. P. Custer, Indianapolis; sec., Thos. J. Hudson, 155 Elm st., Indianapolis. State executive committee, Henry Rawie, Anderson; S. W. Williams, Vincennes; L. O. Bishop, Clinton; Dr. C. A. Kersey, Richmond; Chas. G. Bennett, Evansville; Wm. Henry, Connersville; W. E. McDermut, Ft. Wayne; T. J. Hudson, J. F. White, L. P. Custer, Indianapolis.

CLINTON.—Single tax club; Sunday afternoons, 3 o’clock, Argus office. Pres., W. V. Wells; sec., L. O. Bishop.

FORT WAYNE.—Single tax club. Pres., W. E. McDermutt; vice pres., J. M. Schwerzgen; sec., Henry Cohen.

INDIANAPOLIS.—Indianapolis single tax league. Every Tuesday evening, 8 p. m., Mansur hall, n. e. cor. Washington and Alabama sts. Pres., L. P. Custer.

EVANSVILLE.—Single tax association. Pres., Edwin Walker; sec., Charles G. Bennett.

RICHMOND.—Single tax club. Pres., C. S. Schneider, 105 South Third st.; sec., M. Richie, 913 South A st.

IOWA.

BURLINGTON.—Burlington single tax club. First and third Wednesday of each month, 313 Jefferson st. Pres., Richard Spencer; vice pres., Robert Safely; sec., Wilbur Mosena, 920 Hedge ave.

DES MOINES.—Single tax club. Pres., H B. Allison^sic, box 4; sec., J. Ballangee.

COUNCIL BLUFFS.—Council Bluffs single tax club; second and fourth Sunday of each month, 2.30 p.m.; 724 Sixth st. Pres., Chas. Stevenson; sec., L. Kinnehan, [826?] W Broadway^sic continued on p. 15 →

[The list ends at the foot of column 4 with Iowa; no continuation line is printed on this page.]

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[Single tax organizations, continued from c1]

16. m., lecture. Club rooms, 36 Clinton pl.; open every day from 6 p. m. to 12 p. m. Pres., W. H. Faulhaber; sec., A. J. Steers.

Harlem single tax club, room 3, 247 West 125th st. Business meeting every Tuesday, [8.30?] p. m. Whist and social evening every Thursday. Pres., Eugene G. Muret; sec., Chas. H. Mitchell.

The West Side single tax club. Every Thursday evening, 490 Eighth ave. Pres., Dr. David Wark; sec., Daniel Cavanago, 387 8th ave.

BROOKLYN.—Brooklyn single tax club. Club house, 56 Livingston st. Open every evening. Discussions Wednesday evenings. Business meetings Friday evenings. Lectures Sunday evenings. Pres., Geo. White; cor. sec., G. W. Thompson, 56 Livingston st.

The Eastern District single tax club. Wednesday evening, Oriental hall, 316 Bedford ave. Pres., John Britton; cor. sec., Joseph McGuinness, 215 Ross st.

BUFFALO.—Tax reform club. Every Wednesday evening, Yox hall, cor. Watson and Howard sts. Pres., S. C. Rogers; sec., H. B. Buddenburg, 824 Clinton st.

ROCHESTER.—Rochester single tax union. Wednesday, 8 p. m.; Sunday, 3 p. m.; 80 Reynold’s Arcade. Pres., J. H. Bluntach; sec., J. M. Campbell, 30 Charlotte st.

ALBANY.—Single tax club. Tuesday evening, 8 p. m., 68 Washington ave. Rooms open every evening. Pres., Alexander Gregory; cor. sec., James J. Mahoney, 2 Division st.

SYRACUSE.—Single tax club of Onondaga. 26 Butler block. Pres., F.A. Paul; sec., H. R. Perry, 149 South Clinton st.

POUGHKEEPSIE.—Single tax club. Every Thursday evening, 8 p. m., 226 Union st. Pres., W. C. Albro; sec., F. S. Arnold.

AUBURN.—Single tax club. Mondays, 7.30 p. m., College hall. Pres., Dan. Peacock; sec., H. W. Benedict, 6 Morris st.

ELLENVILLE.—Single tax club of Ellenville. First and third Monday of each month, Canal st., over E. Bevier’s drug store. Pres., Wm. Lambert; sec., Benj. Hull.

FLUSHING.—Single tax club. Pres., D. C. Beard; sec., Fred Sheffield.

NEW BRIGHTON, S. I.—Richmond county single tax club. Pres., J. S. Cogan; sec., A. B. Stoddard.

NORTHPORT.—Single tax committee. Sec., J. K. Rudyard.

OWEGO.—Single tax committee. Sec.,Perry Hyde.

TROY.—Single tax club. Meetings weekly at 576 River st. Temporary pres., Henry Sterling; tem. sec., Frank H. King.

COHOES.—Single tax committee. Pres., P. C. Dandurant; sec., J. S. Crane 128 Ontario st^sic.

GLOVERSVILLE.—Single tax committee. Chairman, A. P. Slade; sec., Dr. Wm. C. Wood, 30 S. Main st.

SCHUYLERSVILLE.—Schuylersville single tax club. Every Friday evening, residence of J. H. Bullard. Pres., J. H. Bullard; vice pres., John McMurray; treas., Thomas E. Bullard; sec., R. S. Wells.

JAMESTOWN.—Single tax club of Jamestown. Last Saturday evening of each month. Pres., Adam Stormer; sec., F. G. Anderson, 300 Barrett st.

YONKERS.—The Jefferson club, 85 Main st. Always open. Business meeting every Tuesday evening at 7.45.

OHIO.

STATE.—Ohio Single tax league. State ex-

p. 15, col. 3 ecutive board: Chairman, C. S. Walker, foot of Evans st., Cincinnati; vice chairman, L. E. Siemon, 7 Greenwood st., Cleveland; treas., W. W. Kile, 23 E. 5th st., Dayton; sec., Edw. L. Hyneman, room 3, 348½ S. High st., Columbus.

CLEVELAND.—Cleveland single tax club Every Wednesday^sic evening, 8 p. m., 144 Ontario st., room 16. Pres., Tom L. Johnson; sec., C. H. Nau, room 25, Standard block.

CINCINNATI —Cincinnati^sic single tax club. Every Sunday afternoon at Douglass Castle hall, cor. 6th and Walnut sts. Pres., David De Beck, M.D., 139 W. 9th st.; vice-pres., Jas. E. Jennings, 216 Main st.; sec., Wm. C. Wulff, 272 Vine st.; treas., Jos. L. Schraer, Newport, Ky.

COLUMBUS.—Central single tax club. Sec., Edw. L. Hyneman, 348½ S. High st.

TIFEFN—Single tax committee^sic. Sec., Dr. H. F. Barnes.

HAMILTON —Hamilton^sic single tax club. Every Saturday evening at 314 High st. Pres., Howard Rich; sec., Ambrose Strang, 742 E Dayton st^sic.

GALION.—Galion single tax club. Every Monday evening, residence of P. J. Snay, 103 S. Union st. Pres., P. J. Snay; treas., Ettie A. Snay; sec., Maud E. Snay.

ZANESVILLE.—Central single tax club. Pres., C. A. Potwin; sec., W. H. Loughead, 47 Van Buren st.

DAYTON —Free land club^sic. Pres., John Birch; Sec., W. W. Kile; 108 E. 5th st^sic.

AKRON.—Akron single tax club. Pres, Jno. McBride^sic; sec., Sam Rodgers.

MIAMISBURG.—Land and labor association of Miamisburg. Pres., C. F. Beall; sec., J. F. Beals.

MANSFIELD.—Mansfield single tax club. Pres., Dr. T. J. Bristor; sec., W. J. Huggins, 66 W. 1st st.

TOLEDO.—Single tax club No. 1 meets at 112 Summit st. every Sunday at 10 a. m. Pres., A. R. Wynn; sec., J. P. Travers.

YOUNGSTOWN.—Every Thursday evening, Ivorites hall. Pres., Billy Radcliffe; sec., A. C. Hughes, 6 S. Market st.

OREGON.

PORTLAND.—Portland ballot reform and single tax club. 2d and 4th Thursdays of each month, Grand Army hall. Pres., R. H. Thompson; sec., S. B. Riggen, 48 Stark st.

PENNSYLVANIA.

PHILADELPHIA.—Henry George club. Every Thursday, 8 p.m., 904 Walnut st. Cor. sec., A. H. Stephenson, 214 Chestnut st.; rec. sec., O. F. Roller, 248 South Tenth st.

Kensington single tax club. Every Tuesday evening, 8 p.m., 2021 Frankford ave., Philadelphia. Pres., James Wright; sec., Jno. Moore, 2188 E. Huntingdon st.

PITTSBURG.—Pittsburg single tax club. 1st, 3d and 5th Sundays at 2:30 p.m., Union veteran legion hall, 77 Sixth ave. Pres., Edmund Yardley; sec., Mark F. Roberts, 147 24th st., S. S.

BRADFORD.—Single tax club, St. James place. Open every evening. Meetings Wednesday evening and Sunday afternoon at 3 p. m. Pres., Phil. D. Tangney; sec., J. C. De Forist.

READING.—Reading single tax society. Monday evenings, 402½ Penn st. Pres., C. S. Prizer; cor. sec., Grant Nagle, 208 S. Third st.

ERIE.—Erie tax reform league. Pres., W. G. McKean; sec., J. L. Babcock.

p. 15, col. 4 EDWARDSVILLE.—Jefferson ballot reform and single tax club. First Friday of each month. Pres., J. J. Smythe, M. D.; sec., J. P. Hammond.

LEBANON.—Lebanon single tax and land club. Pres., Adam Behny; sec., J. G. Zimmerman, 111 N. Fourteenth st.

SCRANTON.—Henry George single tax club. 1st and 3d Friday evenings of each month, Noake’s hall, cor. Franklin ave. and Spruce st. Pres., Duncan Wright; sec., Arthur McGee, 914 Capouse ave.

SHENANDOAH.—Single tax club. Sundays, 3 p.m., 415 W. Coal st. Pres., Morris Marsh; sec., Thomas G. Potts.

UPPER LEHIGH.—Single tax committee. Pres., [J. B.?] Carr; sec., George McGee.

JOHNSTOWN, Pa.—Henry George club. Meet[s?] every Monday evening for public discussion. Pres A. J. Moxham^sic; sec., Richard Eyre.

POTTSTOWN.—Single tax club. Meetings 1st and 3d Friday evenings each month in Weitzenkorn’s hall. Pres., D. L. Haws; vice-pres. G. J. Lafferty^sic; rec. sec., H. H. Johnson, 53[0?] Walnut st.

RHODE ISLAND.

PROVIDENCE.—Single tax association o[f] Rhode Island. Alternate Friday evenings room 22^sic, Slade building, cor. Washington an[d] Eddy sts. Pres., Dr. Wm. Barker; sec., Geo[.] D. Liddell, 145 Transit st.

PAWTUCKET.—Single tax association. Ev’ry Wednesday^sic evening, Main st. Pres., Edward Barker; sec., Edgar Farnell, 220 Mineral Spring ave.

TENNESSEE.

MEMPHIS.—Memphis single tax association. Sundays, 4.30 p. m., Luehrman’s hotel. Pres., Dr. T. J. Crofford; sec., M. H. McDowell, care of Townsend, Cowie & Co.

TEXAS.

STATE.—Texas tax reform association. Pres., H. F. Ring, Houston; sec., J. B. Cochran.

EL PASO.—El Paso tariff reform club. 1st and 3d Saturdays of each month, county court room, court house. Pres., G. E. Hubbard; sec., A. W. Thomas.

HOUSTON.—Single tax committee. Pres., H. F. Ring; sec., E. W. Brown, care of Germania house.

SAN ANTONIO.—Single tax club. Meets first and third Thursday in each month. Pres.,Geo. Marks; sec., Theo. Kunzmann, 11 Crockett st.

WEST VIRGINIA.

PARKERSBURGH.—Single tax league. Every Saturday night, 500 Market st. Pres., W. F. Thayer; sec., W. Curry.

[End of single tax organizations list]

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