February 4, 1891 Vol. IX, No. 5Whole No. 214

THE STANDARD

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY, BY WM. T. CROASDALE, AT NO. 42 UNIVERSITY PLACE.

VOL. IX. | NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1891. | NO. 5.

p. 1, col. 1

THE NEW KANSAS SENATOR.

—Whatever Peffer may be, the defeat of Ingalls is a good thing in itself, since his triumph could have only been due to the bribery of the representatives of the new People’s party in Kansas, while his presence in public station merely served to keep alive old issues. The letter of Mr. Post, printed elsewhere, gives a graphic description of the contest, and brings out strongly the stupidity and folly of the old soldier movement that has played so important a part in the West, and which was worked for all it was worth in behalf of Ingalls. It has been a queer combination of shouters against monopoly and supporters of high tariffs and trusts, while the strident chorus, “vote-as-you-shot,” came constantly from the would-be pensioners who have done all that lies in their power to bring the name of soldier into disgrace. We hope its breakdown in Kansas will put an end to the miserable humbuggery, and that hereafter the men who saved the Union shall show that they knew what they were about when they entered the army, and that they enlisted from motives of real patriotism instead of in the hope of so many dollars a month paid down, and of pensions for all their life thereafter. The blind, unreasoning prejudice of these soldiers, many of whom never smelt powder, has been the curse of Western politics and the convenient cloak under which the tools of monopoly misled the people.

There is, doubtless, very much of the same prejudice in the new People’s movement, as was evidenced by the immediate overthrow of Mr. Harris, because he had been a Confenerate^sic officer, and the dropping of Mr. Briedenthal^sic, because he had no war record, he having been but twelve years old when the war ended. Still, one cannot expect such folly to die out all at once, and we have no doubt that it is the continuance of this simulated and stimulated war feeling that has led to the formation of a new party rather than to coalition with the Democrats until the party of monopoly is destroyed. It is a great step forward, however, to have broken the superstition which held these people in the Republican ranks, and the man they have chosen is not likely to be in accord with the monopolists and the tools of monopoly who now govern the Senate. His views are muddled, and he was but recently what some one has called “a schoolboy protectionist.” Traces of this notion are seen in his address, reported in Mr. Post’s letter, in which he talks about doing all the good we can by a tariff for our own people, and declares that we are Americans, not Germans, etc., all of which shows that the notion that our Government is to take care of people and manage trade has not been eradicated from Mr. Peffer’s mind. He has, however, been making manifest progress in some directions. He declared with much emphasis that when he left the Republican party he had left it for good. Speaking for the People’s party he said:

We are opposed to taxing one industry for the benefit of another.

We are opposed to high tariff duties upon any article in use, no matter what.

We believe that Free Trade absolute in many articles would ofttimes be the very best form of protection.

Again, speaking of the performances of the present Congress, Mr. Peffer said: “We asked for a reduction of tariff duties and, in the M’Kinley bill, they piled them on heavier.” All of this shows that he has learned something in the past two years, and it encourages us to think that he will go on learning. His real

p. 3, col. 2 difficulty will probably be that he cannot unlearn the theories to which he has committed himself in one or two books or pamphlets, and that he will constantly run off in that direction, instead of seeking to help an overburdened people by relieving them from the taxation that drags them down, and which, if continued, will absorb a large part of any money they receive, whether it be gold, silver or paper.

THE CONNECTICUT FRAUD.

—The Democrats of Connecticut are quite jubilant over their discovery that, in violation of the Constitution, the Republicans of the House Committee on the Canvas of Votes^sic have deposited the returns with the hold-over Governor, instead of retaining them in the possession of the House. Why anybody should be jubilant over a little thing like this, in view of the general course of the Republicans in Connecticut, we cannot see. They have certainly violated the spirit and intent of the Constitution from the moment that they began to play tricks to avoid a joint session that should declare the result as it appeared from the reports of the local officers. From that time on, the course of the Republicans has been, step by step towards the setting up of a returning board at Hartford, for the specific purpose of preventing the declaration of the results of the election by the people.

There is not a shadow of constitutional or legal warrant for any of the steps taken by the House. It has been the law and the custom in Connecticut for the Moderator to make up the returns of election in his own town, and to decide what ballots were to be rejected as illegal. No one pretends that there was any concerted effort in Connecticut on last election day to cook up or doctor the returns. There were numerous moderators who were Democrats and many more who were Republicans, and it appears that, exercising the legal power that they have exercised for years, these moderators threw out 1,289 votes in the whole State. The House Committee on the Canvass of the Votes, whose very name describes its functions, now refuses to declare elected the Democratic candidates for Governor, who had 26 majority; Lieutenant-Governor, who had 559; Treasurer, who had 290; Secretary of State, who had 544; and Comptroller, who had 1,662, every one of whom is shown to be elected by the compilation of the returns of the moderators, which is a fact that the Legislature was simply bound to ascertain and declare. What nonsense then to talk of the discovery of some technical violation of Connecticut’s constitution by the men who are engaged in a conspiracy to overthrow free government in that State.

SINGLE TAX AND SOCIALISM.

—Commenting on Mr. Shearman’s article on “The Coming Billionaire,” the Galveston Daily News thinks that the inevitable corruption and inefficiency that would attend an attempt to raise all public revenues by a Single Tax on incomes would cause general disgust. After that, if the people still adhered to direct taxation, the News says they would necessarily be confronted “with the alternative plan of a Single Tax on land values.” We cannot quite make out whether or not the News thinks that such a consummation would be alarming to Mr. Shearman. It apparently would alarm our Galveston contemporary, for it thus continues:—

And here, if the tax problem is to wax to this shape and complexion, the final struggle must come between the party of Invidualism^sic and the party of Socialism over the issue of taxation. The Individualists will insist that taxation on any kind of value shall be for no other purpose than to supply the fiscal needs of Government, limited to its primary and necessary functions of police authority. The Socialists will insist on using the Single Land Tax, if that is adopted, for the purpose of an all-round social readjustment. They will propose to tax away for the benefit of the community all value accruing from social wants, social congregations and industrial concentrations.

If the News will familiarize itself with the theory and continued on p. 4 → [continued on page 4]

SECRETARY WINDOM’S SUCCESSOR.

—The sudden death of Secretary Windom has called forth numerous tributes to the many excellent qualities of the deceased. Mr. Windom appears to have been a man of popular manners and genial temperament, naturally attracting all who came within the sphere of his influence, and hence it comes easy for all who ever met him to obey the rule to speak no ill of the dead. Nominally a Minnesotan, he was to all intents and purposes a New Yorker, closely connected with the great financial interests of this city, and his selection by President Harrison for the most important place in the Cabinet was regarded as a happy compromise of conflicting interests, through securing a Western man with Eastern ideas of finance.

Speculation is rife as to Mr. Windom’s successor. Among the names prominently mentioned is that of the Hon. William McKinley, whose term in Congress will end in less than a month. Hon. John Sherman would probably be the man that would best suit the demand for a Western man with Eastern ideas, but Republicans are unwilling that he should leave the Senate, since their majority in that body, after the 4th of March, will be a very narrow one, in spite of the fact that they have stolen New Hampshire. So far as the House is concerned, Mr. McKinley can readily be spared, and it is to be hoped that the rumor which assigns him to the place is well founded. It is very convenient to have an issue personified, and McKinley, as Secretary of the Treasury, would constantly be before the eyes of the people as the author of the bill that needlessly increased the prices of living without enabling men to earn any more money. Furthermore, though a fanatic on the tariff question who will probably never have any rational ideas on political economy, Mr. McKinley is personally an honest man, and, if he can be taught anything, he would be likely to learn a needed lesson in the administration of the treasury department. He will be an infinitely more respectable figure there than ex-Governor Foster, of Ohio, who is also spoken of in connection with the place.

ANSWERING MAYOR SARGENT.

—The New Haven Standard has undertaken to answer Mayor Sargent’s recent message, and it declares that “thousands of mechanics and laboring men throughout the State own their little homes, with a small plot of ground which they can call their own, and which they have secured through thrift, industry and strict economy.” The people, it thinks, will resist Mayor Sargent’s proposal to release capital and labor from taxation, because, under the system of the Single Tax, “labor would pay heaviest on the only thing it ordinarily acquires—the land.” Land, it says, “is the only thing that labor acquires in nine cases out of ten,” and it asks “if that is to be the only thing taxed, where is the benefit to successful and ambitious labor?” It clinches its supposed argument with the declaration that under such a system as that proposed, “no one will care to own land at all, and all will desire to be tenants and not proprietors.”

A correspondent at Bridgeport asks us to answer this foolish argument for the benefit of some who have been deluded by it. It would seem that anybody who had ever read a Single Tax tract might answer it for himself. In the first place, it is not true that land is the first thing that labor acquires; in nine cases out of ten it is the last thing that labor acquires, and very few acquire it at all, except enough for a grave. As to no one caring to own land, merely for the sake of owning it, what could labor ask better ? Under such circumstances any laborer wanting to build a home would be p. 5, col. 2 able to take any lot that suited him, without the payment of a purchase price, and he would merely pay to the Government, from year to year, a smaller amount than he now pays as interest on a mortgage, or as ground rent. Under such circumstances it is probable that the first thing that an ambitious working man acquired would be a home.

It is manifest to any one, who will think, that a proposal to tax land values only would reduce the taxation on mechanics and laboring men owning little homes. To say nothing of the enormous relief that such men would experience through the abolition of tariff taxes on all they consume or wear, local taxes would be less. Every man owning a small home, who will look about him, will find that his property is assessed at a higher price than other property equally well situated, but not improved. As soon as taxes are levied on land values, alone, his house and other improvements would cease to be assessed, and he would pay no more taxes on the plot of land he holds than his rich neighbor would pay on any similar plot that he is now holding out of use for speculation. The result of this would be the proportionate decrease of the poor man’s taxes, through the addition to the general fund of the taxes that speculative holders would thus pay.

FOREIGN CONQUESTS AND ALLIANCES.

—The World does not understand why the United States should enter into an agreement with England and Germany to establish a protectorate over the Samoan Islands. It says:

Why the United States should have entered into any triple-alliance business as against this simple people does not appear. There is no land to be had, England and Germany having long since appropriated all bnt^sic the totally valueless portions which have been kindly left the natives for burial, nor are there any harbors to covet, unless we desire as permanent institutions such ship-submerging affairs as Apia appears to be.

If there was any land to be stolen by some enterprising American citizen, so that the protection of our glorious flag of freedom was needed in order to enforce their “rights,” then the World might see some reason for a tripartite agreement.

The World has in these few words stated the whole and the only reason for any protectorate or foreign conquest ever established or accomplished by a civilized nation over a savage race. It has always been for the purpose of giving to a few landgrabbers the privilege of driving the natives off their lands—or robbing them of their products; or to secure a monopoly of certain trading and commercial privileges which the natives would gladly give to all nations and individuals alike. It always means the enslavement, sometimes the destruction of the natives, as in the case of New Zealand, where, under the civilized and beneficent English rule, the native population has decreased to about two-fifths of what it once amounted to.

The spirit of American political institutions is against all foreign protectorates or conquests : but in this particular instance the interference of our Government was in the interest of the natives and against the aggressors, the Germans. Whether wisely or not, there were already treaty relations between our Government and the Samoan King. The Germans not only outraged the rights of the natives, but insulted the American Consul and behaved like brutes generally. They finally kidnapped the King and set up a creature of their own on his petty throne. It was the aggressive protest of the American representatives that caused the Germans to back down and send back the King they had deposed, and in this instance, at least, diplomacy was on the side of justice and popular government, since the elective King, kidnapped by the Germans, was only a King in name.

Nevertheless our relations with Samoa offer no exception to the rule. They began with an attempt to continued on p. 6 →

[continued on page 6]

TAXATION A TORMENT.—

“Taxation is tormenting,” says the Troy Press. “Like a malignant boil, there seems to be no suitable place for it.” These are the opening sentences of a somewhat inconclusive article agreeing with the Chicago Herald’s criticism of Governor Hill’s recent message and demanding that the State shall cease “to attempt to tax anything but tangible property that the assessor and collector can find without offensive intrusion into private affairs.” Our Trojan seems to partially grasp the alternative that must follow the abolition of taxes on personal property, but it still hopes to retain a little at least of the old system. It says:

Land bears by far the heaviest share of direct taxation of any kind, and obviously must continue to do so. It cannot be removed or hidden, and conditions have adjusted themselves to the tax. In buying real estate the purchaser takes into consideration the rate of taxation, and in turn when he can assecses it upon his tenants. Society is organized upon this plan of taxation, and any sudden and material change would be to a great extent demoralizing. Perhaps in certain ways, especially in regard to corporations and estates, personal property can be identified and taxed somewhat more extensively than now, but probably not so largely as to greatly relieve real estate.

The Press does not follow the matter further, but devotes the remainder of its article to insisting that expenditures shall be reduced, while admitting that this cannot be done until the people are educated to demand reduction. If the Press could only be induced to study the problem further it would cease to desire the reduction of any taxes on the products of labor, and it would discover to its surprise that “taxation is tormenting,” only because the “suitable place for it” has not been discovered by the people who frame tax laws. A corner-stone would be tormenting if it were hung about a man’s neck or strapped on his shoulders, but placed where it belongs it becomes the foundation of his habitation and a source of pleasure to him. Taxation, placed where it belongs, will burden no one, and will be the fruitful source of all the blessings of good government to men. Let the Press look further into the matter.

A BOOMERANG.—

The Protective Tariff League is sending out in patent inside Republican papers a reproduction of a cartoon that appeared in the Judge shortly after the November elections. It represents the Republican elephant bearing on his back a rather dissipated looking person, wearing a plug hat, and labeled “Harrison.” The elephant has a big black patch labeled “90” over his left eye, and deeply imbedded in his rump are arrows labeled Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania. The infuriated animal is standing guard over the United States Treasury, and from his trunk, which is labeled “protection,” because it is a sucker, we presume, issue the words, “Stay there.” The Treasury is represented by an iron safe, which it is the object of those surrounding the elephant to get at. A typical hay-seed, labeled “Alliance,” is trying to pull it away with a rake. Southern Democracy, armed with a shotgun and two bowie knives, is stealthily creeping toward it. Governor Hill, in the guise of an Indian, is doing likewise. Mr. Cleveland, carrying a shield bearing

p. 6, col. 2 the inscription, “Free Trade,” and armed with a mighty cutlass, is evidently advancing to attack the beast, while back of him comes Henry George, armed with a spiked club of enormous proportions and labeled “The Single Tax.”

We suppose the Republican papers are printing this thing with a good deal of enjoyment, but the more their readers study it the less will it incline them toward restoring that party to power. So long as it was attacked only by the Southern Democracy and the Northern Democratic machine, typified here by the two figures already described, it had an uphill fight at best, but with the Farmers’ Alliance taking a hand in the fight, with Cleveland aiming his sword at the very vitals of the overgrown beast, and George bringing up the rear with the spiked club of The Single Tax, it looks as though the artist had seen that the contest is between the people on one side, claiming their treasury as their own, and the Republican party on the other, continuing to assert its claim that all pullic^sic moneys belong to the Republican party, to be used for its own maintenance in power.

THE PEOPLE’S “SUPERB CONDITION.”

A few months ago Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, while hobnobbing with other nabobs in Europe, publicly declared that the condition of the American people is “superb.” From the standpoint of a money king who knows little and cares less about the real condition of the masses in this country, it doubtless does look that way. Such men never probe below the surface of society and try to find out how the people live, what are their resources, their prospects, their opportunities, their struggles for existence. With the railroad kings, the Wall street gamblers, and the great land monopolists, the condition is generally “superb.” But how is it with the toiling, struggling millions? Let us, for example, consider the condition of the poorer classes in the large cities of the United States. I mean those who are honest, sober and willing to work for a living. Mr. Depew must know, or he ought to know, that ten or a dozen of our largest cities contain hundreds of thousands of such persons who live from hand to mouth, and are constantly struggling with all their might to keep starvation at bay, and whose best efforts bring results only sufficient to prevent them from becoming absolute paupers. The New York Tribune says that in certain districts of that overcrowded metropolis, hundreds of human beings are slowly dying from lack of sufficient nourishing food. The Sun says that 40,000 working women in that city are trying to exist on wages so small that they will in all probability soon be driven by necessity to crime or lives of shame. In the tenement house districts, 290,000 persons to the square mile are crowded into tenements and compelled to exist in conditions that are not conducive to physical health, moral culture nor intellectual development. In every one of our large cities, and in most of the smaller ones, thousands who have labor to sell find the labor market glutted. In a land of plenty there is want; in a land of industry there is enforced idleness; in a land of prosperity there is misery; in a land of glittering wealth there is pinching poverty; in a land of boastful freedom there is abject slavery. And especially marked are these contrasts in our large cities.

And what is the condition of the farmers—a very numerous class, and a class whose interests are at the bottom of all national prosperity? A few facts and statistics, gathered from trustworthy sources, will tend to indicate the “superb condition” of the American farmers.

The Banker’s Magazine is authority for the statement that the farm mortgages of Kansas amount to $235,000,- continued on p. 7 →

[continued on page 7]

THE “KOCH CURE” AND THE “GEORGE CURE.”

Since Jenner banished small-pox from civilized communities, no medical discovery has been received with such enthusiasm, or been followed with such absorbing interest by the whole world, as that comprised in the announcement of Robert Koch that he had been able to produce a substance capable of exerting a marked influence upon the changes which the tuberculosis bacillus causes in the tissues of the body. Coming from so eminent an authority, men felt that one of those great discoveries, calculated to exert a profoundly modifying influence upon humanity, had at least been outlined. For the true importance of Koch’s discovery lies not so much in its application to tuberculosis alone, as in the fact that it is pregnant with suggestive possibilities of the cure of all infectious diseases by analogous methods.

It is true, the great hopes of a cure for consumption in all its stages, that perhaps the majority of laymen, at least, allowed themselves to entertain, continued on p. 8 →

[text continues beyond this page; no continuation line printed]

THE RECENT CONTEST IN KANSAS.

TOPEKA, Kansas, January 28, 1891.—The advancing power of the People’s party of Kansas culminated to-day in the election of William Alfred Peffer as the successor of Senator Ingalls. This new party traces its ancestry through the Union Labor party of 1888 to the Greenback party of the seventies. Its origin as a distinct party, however, dates back only to last June, when a small gathering of delegates from the Farmers’ Alliance and other farmer organizations, the Knights of Labor and Single Tax clubs, arranged the details for a State convention of the People’s party. From this time forward the party grew with startling rapidity, swallowing the Union Labor party, which represented 11 per cent. of the vote of the State, and drawing recruits by the thousand from both the Republican and the Democratic parties. Candidates for Congress and for the lower house of the Legislature were nominated in every district, and so were candidates for county office. The campaign was aggressive on the part of the new party, and the Republican papers and speakers were venomous and violent in their personal attacks. The Democrats made a supporting campaign, refraining from attacks as to the People’s party State ticket, and openly supporting People’s party legislative candidates in most of the districts.

The issue of the legislative campaign was the return of Senator Ingalls, the Republicans having formally nominated him and the People’s party candidates being pledged to vote against him. The issues in other respects involved various schemes for increasing the volume of currency. All parties favored free coinage of silver, and the State had been so completely revolutionized regarding the tariff question that Republican speakers dared not discuss it. Still, it was only in some localities that the People’s party recognized the tariff question as a monopoly issue; it was generally treated as a question of more or less taxation.

As the campaign advanced the power of the new party obviously grew. Its supporters were confident, and the Republicans were disheartened. Senator Ingalls’ speeches amused, but curious words and fantastic phrases could not stem the tide. Military metaphors and reminiscences of the war had lost their power to charm. Nothing but Senator Plumb’s free coinage and reciprocity arguments had any effect. These saved all the State ticket to the Republicans, except the Attorney-General. The candidate of the People’s party was endorsed by the Democrats, and went in with nearly 50,000 majority. And aided by Democratic [endorsements?] the People’s party elected ninety-four representatives out of 125, and four Congressmen, while one of their candidates for Congress was elected against both Democrats and Republicans.

If State Senators had been up for election this year the Republicans would have had less than half a dozen out of forty. As it was, they have thirty-eight. One Senator is a Democrat and one was elected by the People’s party to fill a vacancy. Thus on joint ballot the People’s party have ninety-five, or twelve more than a majority.

Nevertheless, Ingalls and his henchmen prophesied his election as Senator. The politicians were dealing with strange political factors, but money had always been powerful in Kansas politics, and these blind partisans still pinned their faith to it. That the Legisla- continued on p. 9 →

[text breaks off at the foot of the page; no continuation line printed]

AN INDIAN WOMAN’S PROTEST.

Why the present trouble? Simply because the white man has never been known to keep a treaty when he has made it. There is not a single instance known where an Indian has been the first to break the treaty: no, not one. Professor Seelye, formerly Indian commissioner, said: “There has not been an Indian war for the past fifty years in which the whites have not been the aggressors.” Bishop Whipple, who has been a life long time among the Indians, says: “I have asked scores of brave officers who have grown gray in the service if they knew of a single instance when Indians have been the first to break the treaty, and they have always answered, no.” What Indian does not know there was a William Penn and Helen Hunt Jackson, who were truly friends to the Indians. I am a full-blooded Mohawk Indian, and have lived with them the best part of my life, and know their ways and know how they feel. The prevailing opinion is that the Indians are an ignorant, degraded and immoral people. I admit they are too ignorant to know how to cope with the white man’s law, which seems to be very elastic, to stretch at will to any length when required. But they are much more moral than the whites. In their language there is not a single profane word, neither can they take God’s name in vain. There never was known in the earlier wars a case where white women were taken captive that their chastity was violated; even at this late day I would have to see it to believe it. No Indian was ever known to manufacture alcoholic liquors to destroy body and soul, which shows conclusively they naturally are not immoral, yet all these things are practiced by the so-called civilized Christian people, “our teachers.” Yet the cry from General Miles is “savage fiends,” and one of the daily press says “exterminate them all.” Let no mercy be shown! Shame on such Christian civilization! The Indians have been made desperate by want and hunger. Not only have they been robbed right and left of rations, but their lands and homes have been taken from them, and they have been denied the right of franchise which belongs to every living human being. When they held their lands in common they were happy, because that system did not admit of excessive poverty. I have visited several reservations and always heard the same cry of cruel injustice practiced by those who have the management in charge. White people are employed where Indians ought to be. I believe it is a historical fact when the Indian is treated with kindness he never forgets it. Then why this cruel injustice, when kindness would do better and is much cheaper? I say educate them, give them a chance, and see the results. I am sure the Indians are just as capable of grasping an education as any other race.

DR. PRINCESS VIROQUA.

VACANT LAND IN NEW YORK.

In one of the tax reform letters printed in the Commercial Advertiser the statement was made that one-half of Manhattan Island was unoccupied land. To verify this estimate the Commercial interviewed Mr. George S. Lespinasse, the real estate dealer. Mr. Lespinasse said:

Probably if all the vacant spaces and blocks up and down town were computed together the statement that one-half of the island is unoccupied would be largely verified. There are whole blocks here and there on the east side above Fifty-fourth street and on the river front that have not a building on them. But of all the vacant land on the island not more than one-third probably is available. This estimate, of course, includes the area reserved for parks. Really, then, taking into account only the land which is available for building, fully 65 per cent. of the island is occupied.

He estimates the value of the unoccupied land in the upper districts at one-third to one-half the value of all the land in those districts. Seventy-five per cent. of the available building lots he thinks are for sale, 25 per cent. being held out of the market by large holders. The Pinckney and Astor estates are the largest owners of unoccupied land in New York. In saying that 75 per cent. of the lots are for sale, Mr. Lespinasse does not explain that they might as well not be for sale, which is the case, for they are held at prohibitory prices.

NOTES AND QUERIES.

Public Opnion^sic quotes approvingly the Commercial’s opinion on the question presented by Rev. Mr. McQueary. We know that our contemporary’s religious research is profound. The other day its editor was writing an article on temperance, in reply to a correspondent who had referred him to John II, x. “Please look that up and copy it,” he said to one of his subs. The sub accordingly pulled down the dusty old Bible from an upper shelf and looked in vain for the Gospel according to St. John. Then he reported his inability to find it, asking his chief where it was. “Why, of course, it is the next book to Luke,” was the reply. The sub found the next book to Luke and copied the tenth verse of the second chapter. The editor was about to send it out, when he took the precaution to glance at it and found that it read: “The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakims.” “That seems to apply to the Stanley expedition.” he remarked^sic, “but I don’t see how it touches temperance. Won’t you hand me the Bible?” On turning over its leaves he discovered that some bookbinder in the early part of the century had carelessly sandwiched Deuteronomy into the New Testament and given St. John a place in the old, and the mistake had not hitherto been detected. The office Bible of the Commercial may become as proverbial as the office cat of the Sun.

* * * *

In the poem, entitled “The Single Tax Club, which^sic appeared on page 55 of this volume of THE STANDARD, in the eighth verse, the compound word”bread-want” was printed in place of the the two words^sic “dread want.” The difference is only one of one letter, but it plays the mischief with the sense all the same, and Mrs. Beck very naturally asks that the error be corrected.

* * * *

The first issue of the Daily Continent starts out with Volume XXII., No. 9009. That is surely “taking time by the forelock.”

* * * *

The Virginia State Chronicle in the course of an article on taxation recently remarked that “Henry George believes that land ought to bear all the burdens of taxation, so as to discourage people from holding land,” etc. A correspondent writing from Danville takes the editor to task for misrepresenting Mr. George’s views. The Chronicle publishes the letter and editorially remarks:

If we wrote that Henry George favored the single land tax to discourage men from holding land, we did so by error. We knew his theory and the purpose aimed at. Mr. George is a patriot and a great man, but his single land tax is impracticable. At least, that is our conviction, formed after reading his able and masterly work. He is one of the greatest men of the age.

The editor of the Chronicle should devote some of his leisure time to demonstrating the impracticability of the Single Tax. Virginia Single Taxers should acknowledge his courtesy and ask him to investigate the subject further.

* * * *

Orders to stop work in a majority of the coal mines of the Lackawanna Valley, Pa., were received a few days ago. The men think that the corporations have secretly resolved to keep the production so low from now until May 1 that the miners will not feel like striking for eight hours on that date, as it was reported they would do. As a matter of fact, however, the coal miners are in such a chronic condition of poverty and lack of work that there is very little danger of their striking for eight hours per day. As one of them said, “We are lucky if we get the chance to work twelve hours.”

* * * *

According to the Albany correspondent of the Evening Post, our Senator-Governor intends to close his gubernatorial career by sticking a knife into all the amendments now being offered in the Legislature to increase the efficiency of the Ballot bill adopted last year. The Governor’s Republican colleagues in Maine are trying, by indirection, to defeat an excellent ballot reform bill now before the Legislature of that State. The bill offered in the Pennsylvania Legislature is pronounced by the Harrisburg Patriot “defective and dangerous in some respects.” Altogether, the Australian ballot is not having as smooth a time at the hands of the politicians as last year. The only good news in this line comes from Oregon, where, the dispatches say, “the Australian ballot bill has passed the lower House.” It behooves ballot reformers to keep a sharp lookout on the various Legislatures, especially in this State, where an eye should be kept on Governor Hill and his Democratic workers.

* * * *

It would seem that Tammany Hall is now managed, as is the New York Herald, by cable from “abroad.” The old leader of the Fourteenth Assembly District of this city, John Reilly by name, is on the verge of being “disciplined” by the organization committee of Tammany. Naturally, it would be thought that the case could be settled here, where all the evidence is; but, no—the judgment is to come from Weisbaden^sic, Germany, where Chief Croker is. He, and only he, says Commissioner Gilroy, can render the verdict. Thus we see the strange spectacles of the New York City Democratic

p. 11, col. 2 party being managed from Germany, and the New York Herald being managed in Frauce^sic or wherever its proprietor may happen to be.

* * * *

The Executive Committee of the People’s Municipal League met at Mr. Deming’s residence Tuesday week, to hear a report from a sub-committee which had been previously appointed to prepare a constitution and by-laws for a permanent organization of the league. The report was adopted and another committee appointed to carry out the plans outlined. The constitution provides for the creation of a temporary committee of seventy-five men, which shall form permanent district organizations. The bodies so formed will elect members of a permanent central or general committee of seventy-five, which will be the representative body of the People’s Municipal League, and, together with the district clubs, have charge of future campaign work. The general committee of the league will be called together shortly to ratify the plans adopted, and choose the temporary committee of seventy-five, whose duty it will be to attend to the formation of the district organizations. This general committee numbers some 1,400 or 1,800 persons.

* * * *

True report of a conversation, dedicated in deep dejection to him who thinks he should convert the leaders of opinion, and to him who thinks that men always listen to women, by one of the parties engaged.

Great Statesman—The idea underlying the theory is that no man should own more land than he can use.

Single Tax Woman (gently)—Excuse me, no.

G. S. (urbanely)—O-o-oh! Take away the moral idea, which is the basis of your theory, and you have no foundation for your structure to rest upon.

S. T. W.—Our structure has a moral idea for its foundation, but not precisely that one (bracing herself for a logical argument). Mr. Statesman, what constitutes use?

G. S. (more urbanely)—A-a-ah, my young friend, when you begin to fire those practical questions at it the whole thing falls to the ground. The idea of tribunals to decide how much land each man shall hold is perfectly absurd.

S. T. W. (gasping)—But—

G. S. (most urbanely)—Now, I must go. Exit.

* * * *

The annual report of the New York State Assessors for 1890 shows the total assessed value of realty for the whole State to be $3,298,000,000, and of personal property $385,000,000, the personal being 11 per cent. of the total assessment. In 1867 the assessed value of real estate was $1,237,000,000, the increase in the twenty-three years being over $2,000,000,000, or 160 per cent^sic. The assessed value of personalty in 1867 was $436,000,000, as against $385,000,000 in 1890, showing a decrease in twenty-three years of $51,000,000. In 1867 real estate paid about 74 per cent. of the total taxes; personal property, 26 per cent. In 1890 real estate paid 89 per cent.; personal property, 11 per cent.

* * * *

According to estimates furnished by Mr. J. C. Brown, statistician of the Produce Exchange of New York, the total value of the agricultural produce of the United States in 1890 was $4,199,000,000. Estimating the mineral products at $700,000,000, and those of the forests at $375,000,000, we have a total amount of produce taken direct from the soil of considerably over $5,000,000,000.

* * * *

A table compiled from the Massachusetts census shows that one-fifth of the native born married women of that State are childless. The Chicago Tribune, commenting on this says: “It is said that in no country save France can a similar condition of affairs be found. On the other hand, instead of over 20 per cent., only 13.27 per cent. of the foreign born women of Massachusetts are childless. What is true of this State is undoubtedly in a greater or less degree true throughout the country. The time has come when we must face the fact that the increase of population by birth is decreasing—that the tendency of the times among well-to-do Americans is to small families.”

* * * *

Jones—Smith has got a house overlooking Woodlawn Cemetery. Good place for a Single Tax man.

Brown—Does he think, among other evils, the Single Tax will abolish death?

Jones—No. But he looks out on a community of which not a single individual holds more land than he can profitably use.

Jones and Brown—He! he! Haw! haw! (Exit thinking question settled^sic.

* * * *

A philosophic exchange, whose editor evidently knows whereof he wots, has this to say of the third party hobby which some of our friends of the labor organizations are just now so anxious to ride:

The organization of a third party to carry out a reform is very much like the introduction of a third party at a lovers’ tryst. While it may be mighty embarrassing to the two who have a reason for being there, it doesn’t do the interloper any good.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

CURRENT THOUGHT.

SINGLE TAX NEWS.

NEW YORK CITY.

Despite the heavy rain of last Wednesday evening the rooms of the Manhattan Single Tax Club were crowded when Mr. Doblin introduced Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, who had been announced as the lecturer of the evening. Mr. Shearman’s subject was “Local Assessment Before the Single Tax.” He began his address by congratulating the Single Tax men of the country on the rapid progress of the movement. Organization of the Single Taxers into clubs was slow at present, he said, and work was being done by individuals and little circles. Our movement to-day, said Mr. Shearman, is in the same condition that the anti-slavery movement was just before it burst in full blaze upon the country. The people are giving our ideas their deepest thought: they are unsettled; and as a result organization is not progressing. Before long they will swarm to our ranks, and then tax after tax will be abolished until the Single Tax is reached.

The work to be done now, in Mr. Shearman’s opinion, was in the direction of separate assessments of lands and buildings. When we had secured the passage of such a law by our Legislature, then we could bring to the front our claim that only the land values should be taxed. The abolishment of the tariff was now only a matter of a short time. Mr. Shearman said that the issue of tariff reform was dead, and could never be resurrected. The Democratic party in 1892 would have to go into the Presidential fight as a Free Trade party, so that, as far as that question was concerned, the fight would be fought for us.

Coming to the subject which was uppermost in the minds of his hearers, Mr. Shearman gave it as his opinion that the club should discontinue the controversy started a short time ago with Mr. Coleman, the Tax Commissioner of this city. Mr. Coleman, he said, was trying to secure a measure of justice for this city. He had to stand against the combined political forces of the agricultural districts of this State, who sought to saddle the bulk of the tax burden on the shoulders of the people of this city. The values of this city were already taxed 20 to 25 per cent. higher than the country, and the burden of this increased taxation fell upon the shoulders of the poor, for the rich were able to evade them. The assessors throughout the State ignored the law in the matter of taxation, and thus found favor with their constituents.

Considerable discussion followed at the close of Mr. Shearman’s address, which brought out clearly the lines on which he thought the Single Taxers of this State ought to work—namely, the agitation for the passage of a law for the separate assessment of lands and buildings; then the taxation of land values separate of improvements. Mr. Shearman is the member of the National Committee for this State, and he said that, if invited, he would lay out a plan of action on the lines set forth above.

Sunday evening, February 8^sic, Mr. William T. Croasdale will deliver the address.

Fred. C. Keller.—At the last meeting of the Metropolitan Single Tax Association Mr. Cooke delivered his lecture on “Interest,” making a clear and comprehensive presentation of the theory of Mr. Flurscheim. Mr. Michael P. Cody will speak on “The Money Question” at our next meeting, Saturday, February 7, at 8 P. M.

BROOKLYN.

Mrs. E. A. Deverall.—Twenty-five petitions. It has occurred to me, while reading an account of the amount of canal boats at present stopping in the Erie Basin, that it would be an excellent place in which to distribute Single Tax literature, particularly anything bearing plainly on the tariff question.

NEW YORK STATE.

George Noyes, Albany.—At the last meeting of the Albany Single Tax Club the following officers were elected: President, F. W. Croake; vice-president, M. W. Norwalk; corresponding secretary, George Noyes; recording secretary, J. J. Murray; treasurer, M. J. Callaghan; to hold office for six months.

Fielding Gower, Yonkers.—Seven petitions. Two are colored men, who loudly complain of the persecution of their race; but they do not think the Chinaman has any right to live in this country. Consistency is a jewel.

S. M. Gay, West New Brighton, S. I.—Two petitions. My brother and I are taking renewed interest in the petition, now that a definite time for its presentation is before us.

VERMONT.

G W. Lowrey^sic, Burlington.—Twenty-four petitions. I have a friend here who is Master Workman of a Knights of Labor assembly. He is a strong Single Taxer. He is getting a good many names, and expects to get a good many more. The people here do not enthuse much as yet, but prejudice has greatly lessened.

MASSACHUSETTS.

Emily T. Turner, Boston.—Dr. W. Symington Brown, of Stoneham, delivered an able address on “The Cure of Innocent Poverty” before the Boston Single Tax League Snnday, January 25^sic. In spite of the unpleasantness of the weather the attendance was good. The address was fol- continued on p. 16 →

[continued on next page]

RHODE ISLAND.

George D. Liddell, Providence.—The Evening Telegram of this city has shown by its attitude on questions of public concern in this community that its management is friendly to the people as against monopoly. This was shown most notably in its persistent opposition to the nefarious subway steal which it was attempted to push through the City Council last Summer, and the defeat of which was due entirely to this opposition. It has also been very liberal in the matter of space for the discussion, pro and con, of the Single Tax theory, and can be made an efficient medium for the propagation of our ideas if only our friends will awaken to the value of the opportunity offered, and utilize it to the fullest extent. Our club celebrated its second birthday on the evening of January 24 by a dinner at the Central Hotel. The Telegram says:

Among the gentle dreamers were Dr. Wm. Barker, the well known Westminster street dentist, and president of the club; Dr. L. F. C. Garvin, the staunch and intrepid reformer on general principles; Representative E. L. Gannon, the labor champion; Mr. Robert Grieve, the gentleman who prevented the anti-Smith labor boom being worked for McNally during the last campaign; Mr. Jesse Fox, the enthusiastic reformer from Reformerville; Mr. B. B. Edmands, who ran for Mayor on the prohibition ticket last fall; Mr. John Francis Smith, who has a record for reform; Mr. E. C. Pierce, the silver-tongued lawyer, who bore away the long-distance oratorical honors last evening, talking for thirty-five minutes on a stretch for reform, and being mildly rebuked by the president when he sat down: Mr. Frank Beagan, who is said to be the only member of the club who has kissed the Blarney Stone: Mr. George D. Liddell, the earnest secretary of the club; Messrs. Philip Capelli, Louis Kranz, John Randolph, Dr. Thomas Smith of Valley Falls, C. B. Prior, Robert Bell of Ashton, Alexander Dawson, David Harrower of Wakefield, President Bartlett of the Nationalist Society and others.

Dr. Barker presided, and Single Tax speeches were made by the presiding officer, Mr. John Francis Smith, Mr. Robert Grieve, Dr. L. F. C. Garvin, Mr. Louis Kranz, Mr. David Harrower and myself. Just before the close of the dinner Messrs. Prior, Grieve, Liddell, Randolph and Fox were appointed a committee to circulate Single Tax petitions and attend the Single Tax hearings before the legislative committee this Winter.

NEW JERSEY.

S. T., Jersey City.—Our club has issued a circular to members of Building and Loan Associations showing the benefits to be derived by them through the Single Tax.

PENNSYLVANIA.

“Uncle Tom,” Bryn Mawr.—Seven petitions. One is a telegraph operator, Republican, who signed to oblige you. Two, a school teacher, and three is his^sic brother, a former ex-Sheriff, and at present Justice of the Peace. To judge by the rapid (?) increase in the number of signers to the petition, it seems that the “Torpid Single Taxers” do not all live in Rhode Island. What are our workers doing? Where are all the women who were so anxious to do something? Why don’t they sail in and get signers while the petition is in circulation? Do they think the petition is going to be out until the last day of judgment, when we won’t have any use for a Single or any other tax^sic.

“Uncle Tom’s” Wife, Bryan Mawr^sic.—Four petitions. Bad weather prevented me from going out, shall work and get more and pay up for lost time.

J. M. Wilson, Cochranton.—Four petitions. I am indebted to Mr. Mark Ward, a recent convert, for two of them. I have assessed myself one cent per day for 1891 for the committee fund, not a very large amount; still if every Single Taxer did the same, it would make quite a respectable sum. Enclosed find amount for January, 31 cents.

DELAWARE.

J. M. Dorney, Wilmington.—Thirteen petitions. They are mostly railroad mechanics.

MARYLAND.

Wm. N. Hill, Baltimore.—The following gentlemen were chosen as

p. 16, col. 2 officers of our club for the ensuing year: President, Wm. J. Ogden; vice-president, A. M. Sommers; recording secretary, Joseph W. Hozel; corresponding secretary, Dr. Wm. N. Hill; treasurer, David Wasserzug; financial secretary, John W. Jones. Messrs. Isaac A. Miller, W. D. Williams, A. S. Niles, Dr. E. B. Britton, Lewis Robinson and John Salmon, were selected to constitute, together with the aforesaid officers, the Executive Committee.

GEORGIA.

F. Warden, Brunswick.—Since my last to you physical suffering and mental anxiety have put me hors de combat, and the last few weeks I have been the most inactive of Single Tax workers; but judging by reports in THE STANDARD, I am not the only one who has been laying low. But, perhaps, as the colored brethren put it, “we are laying back fer Spring,” It must^sic be remembered, however, that financial depression has been general, and the Single Tax cause has come in for its full share of the benefits of protection. I think the cheap edition of “Protection or Free Trade?” will be productive of much good, if its circulation is properly pushed. Owing to my crippled condition I have seen none willing to subscribe. No one cares to call on a sick stranger, so I must hunt up game as soon as able.

TEXAS.

G. E. Hubbard, El Paso.—The members of our club will be assessed 25 cents a month for the support of the national committee.

Will M. Buell, Baird.—Two petitions; one is from Paola, Kan., and was received through a letter, and a very interesting letter accompanied it; the other is a hardware merchant.

J. F. Swinnerton, Dallas.—Single Tax ideas are becoming very prevalent. In conversation with the treasurer of a financial company the other day it developed that he was a Single Tax man. At a hotel not long ago conversation turned on Henry George, and when I declared myself a disciple, the whole party owned up severally, except one, and he was interested.

R. B. Hollingsworth, Shiner.—Sixteen petitions. My material is about exhausted, as I have sent in the names of nearly everybody living in my vicinity that I could talk to, and a considerable number that I could not talk to.

OHIO.

S. T., Springfield.—At the meeting of the Trades Assembly, held here January 28, W. A. Hance brought about a discussion of the Single Tax, which was participated in by nearly all the delegates present.

James G. Hayden, Hemlock.—On January 24 the Single Tax Club of Hemlock was organized with the following officers: President, D. P. Sweeney; secretary, James G. Hayden.

ILLINOIS.

Warren Worth Bailey, Chicago, January 30.—Another large audience was present last night to hear the address of Mr. H. E. Bartholomew, who had announced that he would tell why he believed in the Single Tax. He did not speak on this subject, but upon “Social Inequality,” and he handled it with great force and clearness. Mr. Bartholomew is one of our new members, and he promises to be a tower of strength to the cause, his ability as a thinker and speaker being of no mean order. In fact, he is a most pleasing orator and a thoroughly logical reasoner, with scholarly attainments that set off his natural powers in a very agreeable way. His address last night was received with genuine approval, and it was so suggestive that the discussion became unusually animated and unusually interesting, Mr. George Schilling, Mr. John Z. White and several others joining in it with decided vigor.

The Single Tax Club has formally endorsed the Australian ballot bill prepared by the Chicago Ballot Reform League. This bill was prepared with great care, and we have reason to hope that the Legislature will adopt it.

There is talk of a celebration of Jefferson’s birthday, under the auspices of our club, and it is believed that if the project is undertaken that it can^sic be carried to a successful issue. Judge Tuley has intimated that he will not decline an invitation to speak on such an occasion, and we more than half hope that Tom L. Johnson will pay us a visit about that time.

Announcements: February 5, Leon Hornstein on “Reciprocity;” February 12, Edward Osgood Brown, on “The Abolition of Privilege;” February 19, Miss Leonora Beck, on “A Single Tax Woman” (a memorial of Kate Kennedy, of San Francisco^sic,); February 26, William T. Kellett. Mr. Kellett has announced himself as “the friend of the millionaire,” and it is understood that he will undertake to show that poverty is due, not to a denial of man’s rights, but to individual thriftlessness.

Edward H. Bailey, Bloomington.—As an evidence of the value and importance to the cause in placing Mr. George’s works in public libraries, I have to relate that to-day I called at the beautiful public library in this city, where I learned that “Progress and Poverty” was loaned. When I entered I asked the attendant, a lady whom I found to be very intelligent, if she could give me a printed list of the books in the library on political economy. She said she had no such list, and inquired if I wanted George’s works. “Have you ‘Progress and Poverty?’” I asked. “It belongs to our collection, but it is out now.” “Is it read much?” “O, yes; there are many applications for it. We very seldom have calls for any other political economies.” The lady went away and returning presently dumped four or five books before me. “These are all the books we have on political economy,” she said, “and they are seldom called for. Lawyers, preachers, teachers and students generally ask for ‘Progress and Poverty.’” The books she brought me were by Walker, Perry, Sumner and one or two others.

The secretary of our Y. M. C. A. has started a popular free lecture course. The lectures are given weekly and are on practical subjects. The attendance is usually large. Mr. Wilson, the secretary, would be glad to give dates to any of our friends who will select appropriate subjects, such as Father Huntington would choose for such meetings. He urged me to see if Father Huntington could not be induced to deliver an address here some time during the next two or three months. “If he can be secured,” said Mr. Wilson, “we will get one of the big churches for him.” I do not continued on p. 17 →

[text breaks off at the foot of the page mid-sentence; no continuation line printed]

WISCONSIN.

Martin Johnson, Milwaukee.—Pursuant to a call from Peter McGill, Wisconsin member of the National Single Tax Committee, a number of Milwaukee Single Tax men met at the Commercial Club rooms, on Grand avenue, October 16. Among those present were: Peter McGill, J. Leedom, H. L. Atkens, J. D. Droppers, Max Laue, Carl Aken, Eugene Lowe, H. Riley, D. Kidd, W. Westlake. Mr. McGill was assigned to the chair, and Mr. Leedom acted as secretary. Mr. McGill, in a brief address, then reviewed the history of Single Tax movement in Milwaukee. He declared that the time for more active propaganda was at hand, and alluding to the fact that while a constitution had been adopted at one of the meetings held by Milwaukee Single Tax men last Winter, but a partial organizatton^sic had been effected. He strongly emphasized the necessity of prompt steps toward the formation of a permanent and more effective organization, and suggested in conclusion to that end the immediate election of officers and appointment of committees; the officers so electad^sic to be considered temporary incumbents, should this, under the circumstances, be thought desirable. The constitution was then read, and an election of officers held, resulting in the election of L. B. Benton as president; H. L. Atkens, vice-president; Martin Johnson, secretary and treasurer; Carl Aken, E. Lowe and [Dr.?] Babcock, directors. A general conversation relative to the growth of the movement and the affairs of the League was indulged in, in the course of which Mr. Max Laue tendered the League the use of his room, No. 5 Gram Building, until permanent quarters could be secured. A number of signatures were added to the constitution.

MISSOURI.

T. J. Smith, St. Louis.—Seventeen petitions. I feel a deep interest in the cause and expect to do more and better work from this on. There appears to be a growing interest in the cause here, and I find little trouble getting signatures. I shall do my best in getting subscribers for “Protection or Free Trade?” and think I shall be able to make a pretty good showing.

KANSAS.

E. Z. Butcher, Solomon City.—Ten petitions, obtained at an Alliance meeting after speaking on the Single Tax. We are doing what we can to bring the new political economy before the people. Our club has three copies of “Progress and Poverty” on the rounds all the time, besides STANDARD and tracts. Mr. Beddick and myself will make a tour of the sub-alliances round about here, making the “Tax on Land Values” the subject of our addresses.

J. L. Voorhes, Olathe.—Six petitions. I have been sick, and am not well yet, but improving, which accounts for the small number of petitions I have sent.

COLORADO.

J. W. Breutlinger, Pueblo.—The one hundred STANDARDS sent me arrived in good season for distribution at our “open meeting,” held on the 23d ult. We held it in the De Reemer Opera House, because, as I have before stated, the place of our regular meeting proved too small to accommodate the increasing number. We engaged the Opera House, which has a seating capacity of 1,200, not because we anticipated that number of people, but it was the best hall obtainable. You can, therefore, imagine our delight when, as the curtain arose, we looked out upon the upturned faces of 900 people, nine-tenths of whom were workingmen and voters. Not one-half that number were ever got together at any meeting during last year’s political campaign. We did the best we could with the opportunity afforded us, and believe our efforts were fully appreciated. The STANDARDS were eagerly accepted, and will no doubt prove as seed sown on ground prepared to receive and vitalize it. I only regret my inability to order two hundred more for distribution.

Colorado seems a little backward in coming forward in reform movements; yet enough of the leaven has been injected into her legislative bodies to cause an effort to throw off some of the corrupt influences that have heretofore been paramount in our Assembly. The “gang,” as these corruptionists are termed, were checkmated before the end of the first week of the session by a combination of the reform Republicans and Democrats. The Speaker, a gangster, was “reduced to the ranks” and his committee appointments rejected, and new ones appointed by the majority of the House. The gang “persuaded” the Governor to submit the facts to the Colorado Supreme Court and request an opinion as to the authority of the majority to unseat the Speaker, pending which decision the majority and minority met at different times and ajourned^sic from day to day without transacting any business. The decision, of course, when rendered, was in favor of the majority, and the minority were obliged to recognize the new Speaker and the right of the majority to rule. Such peace now exists between the opposing factions as occurs between armed foes, who only await a favorable opportunity to begin hostilities. But our side have the people back of them, and the power of the gang, which has so long plundered our State is, let us hope, forever gone. At our meeting strong resolutions commending the action of our representatives, and urging them to continue the fight until the gang was subdued, were adopted with the greatest enthusiasm.

NEBRASKA.

Edwin Welch, Omaha.—Twenty-six petitions, testimonies of the growing importance of labor reform in Nebraska—reform on the most approved line. These were mostly procured by C. W. Lockwood and John Hiles.

George Boeck, Murray.—Enclosed find petitions. I am still working single-handed about these parts for the Single Tax, but think in course of time will have some co-workers with me. There are a good many who see

p. 17, col. 2 the cat very plainly now. I am not discouraged, but feel like doing more and better work as I am able.

MINNESOTA.

A. M. Goodrich, Minneapolis.—Eight petitions. A bill to amend the State Constitution, so as to permit any city or county or the whole State, by popular vote, to abolish the tax on personal property or improvements, or both, is now in the hands of our friends in the Legislature, and the outlook for its passage is, at this writing, better than I had dared to hope.

WYOMING.

F. W. Williams, Sundance.—Enclosed find petitions to help along our cause. We are Farmers’ Alliance men out this way, and your Single Tax takes well; will send you in more petitions soon.

SOUTH DAKOTA.

W. E. Brokaw, Pennington.—Nearly every place I go I hear talk of taking the Single Tax up for discussion in their lyceums and debating societies. Every place I leave some few who are so well pleased that they propose to keep up the agitation. Everywhere men tell me I have struck the right plan, and say that if some one would canvass each State, it would not be long until we could adopt the Single Tax. I find the farmers kind and very accommodating—even “dyed in the wool” Republicans willingly hitch up and drive me from five to fifteen miles, or entertain me over night. Collections, so far, have more than paid my slight expenses. The weather has been the very finest—mostly clear and warm—no snow, or only occasionally a little—one night it rained. It’s been as pleasant as May.

Isaac Howe, Redfield.—Eighteen petitions, all obtained in about ten minutes, after a short address I had been invited to make before an Alliance literary society on the question that all personal property should be exempt from taxation. The house was crowded. People came six and more miles to listen to the new gospel of taxation. As soon as the people come to understand the iniquity of the personal property tax it is doomed.

CALIFORNIA.

A. W. Kennedy, San Jose.—Eleven petitions. We are about getting up some meetings, and we are going to have Mr. Hoyt deliver two or three lectures for us. I think by doing so we can awaken a greater interest on the Single Tax and kindred subjects.

CALIFORNIA.

E. Hodkins, Oakland.—At the last meeting of the Oakland Single Tax Club the platform adopted at the National Conference was read and unanimously endorsed. The secretary was instructed to apply to the Secretary of the National League for enrollment. The work in this city is going ahead slowly but surely. Our members are mostly hard-working men, that have but little time to devote to the cause. At the last meeting it was decided to subscribe for 100 copies of the speciai^sic edition of “Pro- tection or Free Trade?”

O. L. Long, San Jose.—Thirty-five petitions. If the Single Taxers throughout the country would now work for signers for one week I believe the roll could be brought up to 150,000. Even here in California men are beginning to recognize the fact that something is terribly wrong.

CANADA.

S. T., Kingston, Ont.—Major Edwards, our well known Single Tax advocate, recently appointed professor of artillery in the Royal Military College, has annnunced^sic that he will oppose Sir John A. Macdonald here in the next Dominion election, and will make his campaign on the Single Tax platform.

BRITISH COLUMBIA.

W. A. Wilson, Vancouver.—I have much pleasute^sic in laying before your readers some facts in connection with the progress of the Single Tax movement in British Columbia. The work that has been going on for some time past in Victoria, Vancouver, New Westminster and other towns throughout this Province has had very encouraging results, and we have abundant evidence to show that public opinion is being slowly, but none the less surely, moulded in our favor. This new country, like most others, has been and now is handicapped in its development by land grabbing and speculation. To such an extent had this evil become manifest that the Provincial Government last August withdrew all that remained of the pub- lic lands under its jurisdiction from sale, pending legislation on the subject. As several good Single Tax men have lately been elected to the Provincial Legislature, we hope that their influence, backed up by the pressure that will be brought to bear on the outside, will have the effect of procurring legislation in accord with our principles.

In municipal matters, too, there is a steady movement towards the final abolition of taxing improvements. In the city of New Westminster a petition was presented to the City Council last week containing over four hundred signatures of the most influential citizens there, praying that body to enact a by-law exempting improvements from taxation. The indications are that the petitioners will be successful and score a victory. Victoria has also been moving in this direction, and Single Tax men there are active in spreading the light. They have a well-attended club, which has been a powerful factor in directing public attention to needful reforms, and that the Single Tax idea is not a mere “fad,” but has come to stay and grow up with the country.

In Vancouver we have several out-and-out Single Taxers in the newly elected City Council, and some others more or less favorable to our views, so that we feel confident of good results to the city generally and the Single Tax cause in particular. Some of our ministers have been interesting themselves in the movement, and alluding to it in their sermons as being worthy of consideration: but, like some of your eastern professors, they are not anxious to accept its teachings and forsake the moss-covered fallacies concerning our social and economic conditions that have played their part so long in the world’s history. We believe, however, that their conversion, inwardly if not ontwardly^sic, is only a question of time.

On the 10th inst. the Single Tax men of this province held a convention in Vancouver. Delegates attended from the principal cities and towns, continued on p. 18 →

[continued on next page]

“PROTECTION OR FREE TRADE?” FOR TEN CENTS.

The first 100,000 are being pushed as rapidly as possible, so that we hope to get them out before March 1st. All paid subscriptions have wrappers addressed and pinned to them on receipt. Unpaid subscriptions require more book-keeping, for which there is very little margin at ten cents after deducting the cost of printing, wrapping and mailing a book of over 200 pages. Wherever convenient, please remit by checks or drafts on New York or Chicago to the order of Henry George & Co. As my hands are pretty full at present, I am compelled to answer only such letters as absolutely require immediate responses, and must ask the indulgence of all other correspondents.

Jos. Leggett, San Francisco, Cal.—I hope the edition will be 1,000,000. I believe this one of the best schemes^sic yet devised to spread the light of economic truth. A million copies sent out now will, I think, make certain a grand victory in 1892. The day of redemption draws near. Let us now give a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether.

Ernest J. Foord, Chicago, Ill.—Enclosed is money order for thirty copies. More by February 1st. Many will be the hard-shell Protectionist that we will be enabled to “round up” through the seductive charms of “Protection or Free Trade?” It is a magnificent idea, and, I am sure, must win the praise and success its merit deserves.

H. Martin Williams, Jefferson City, Missouri.—Enclosed find twenty-two subscriptions aggregating three hundred and fifteen copies, which I obtained to-day. Will get one thousand or so this week.

Al. Pierson, Jacksonville, Ill.—Enclosed find money order for ten dollars in payment for a hundred copies. This special ten-cent edition is the best scheme of the times. Shall try to send order for another hundred this week.

John M. Doyle, Denver, Col.—Send a hundred subscription blanks and I will try my best during compulsory loafing hours to have them filled. Make it a million.

L. W. Hoch, Adrian, Mich.—Am now certain I can raise enough money for two thousand five hundred copies of “Protection or Free Trade?” so you may put me down for that amount.

George H. Phelps, Denver, Col.—Three of us want to take five hundred copies and make a canvass of the city, selling what we can to cover the expense.

F. A. Herwig, Chestnut Hill, Pa.—The Kensington Reform club has instructed me to subscribe for one thousand copies, five hundered^sic to be delivered so soon as printed and five hundred within six months.

E. Z. Butcher, Solomon City, Kansas.—Put our club down for one hundred copies.

J. W. Breutlinger, Pueblo, Col.—Herewith are subscriptions for fifty copies.

H. G. Casey, secretary, Auburn, Maine.—I have been directed to subscribe for 100 copies for our club.

U. C. Munch, Philadelphia.—Put me down for 100 additional copies. This is the best possible work for Free Traders. Let us all be book agents now, and put at least ten books each in circulation. This will insure Free Trade in ’92.

D. Webster Groh, Boston, Mass.—Enclosed please find $1.10 for 11 subscriptions. Got them all during a five minutes recess of the Young Men’s Congress. Expect to get many more. I collect the 10 cents with subscription, to save further trouble, and send direct to you.

J. K. Calkins, Chadron, Neb.—Enclosed find $9.90 for [99?] copies; 10 are my

p. 18, col. 2 own, balance I raised around town. Was surprised to find how readily the Democratic brethren took to the idea. We will take a lot of them with us through the country addressing Farmers’ Alliances on Free Trade and the Single Tax.

R. T. Snediker, Hartford, Kan.—Enclosed find $10 for 100 copies. You can’t get them here too quick. Plenty of sinners yet to educate.

Al. Pierson, Jacksonville, Ill.—Find $5 enclosed in payment for fifty copies, making my total 150. Will send more about February 1. Wonders can be accomplished with this special edition.

R. Scott, Whitman, Mass.—Every subscriber sure to be a convert.

Edward Burgess, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.—Enclosed find $5 for fifty copies of “Protection or Free Trade?” to be distributed at your discretion. No more effective work can be done to demolish the fallacy of Protection than by the circulation of this book. If one million copies are circulated and read Protection will be in a very bad way.

Denver P. Dayton, Helena, Mont.—Put me down for twenty-five copies. It is the most practical idea for the promulgation of Single Tax and Free Trade doctrine.

For every ten cents received a copy of Henry George’s “Protection or Free Trade?” will be mailed, postage paid, either to the subscriber himself, to any name sent with subscription, or to one of the men (on the lists already furnihsed^sic us) most desirable and important to reach. All who subscribe or obtain subcriptions^sic for one hundred copies or more become thereby members of the “Hand-to-Hand Club,” who will issue this 500,000 edition. Blanks, circulars, etc., will be supplied freely on application to W. J. Atkinson, secretary, 42 University place, New York.

PERSONAL.

William Lloyd Garrison has published an appeal for contributions for the suffering poor on the West coast of Ireland. He says that Miss Sturge, a daughter of Joseph Sturge, the Quaker philanthropist, of Birmingham, England, is now living among the starving people, and her descriptions of their pitiful condition have constrained him to try and help her in providing for them. The potato crop has failed, the people have no money to buy meal, and in the bitter cold weather they go about almost naked. Mr. Garrison says contributions may be sent to him at 132 Federal street, Boston, or direct to Miss Sturge, at Lettafrack, Galway, Ireland.

* * *

Hon. Chauncey F. Black is writing signed political articles from Washington for the New York World.

* * *

Governor Burke, of North Dakota, illustrates in his own career the possibilities that are open to American boys of the right sort. He was a New York street waif whom a children’s aid society sent West. He says: “If there are any men in the world for whom I have a profound respect they are men who are providing homes for the homeless little ones, and any time I can do anything for the waifs I want you to call on me.”

* * *

R. G. Brown has written a series of articles on “Wages and the Single Tax,” which are being published in the Memphis Unionist.

* * *

Edward Quincy Norton, of Mobile, Alabama, is carrying on quite an extended discussion on the Single Tax and tariff questions with John C. Freund, editor of the Music Trades, of this city.

* * *

Last week Miss Eva J. Turner, president of the Brooklyn Woman’s Single Tax Club, wrote a letter, which appeared in the Commercial Advertiser, in answer to an interview had by that paper with Miss Ida Van Etten, president of the Working Women’s Society of New York. Miss Van Etten desires the amelioration of the condition of working women, and proposes organization of labor as a remedy. Miss Turner asks Miss Van Etten to take the Single Tax into her calculations.

HUNTING FOR A CURIOSITY.

Joseph Dana Miller in Watertown Journal.

The museum man is disconsolate; The Corsican girl is faded and worn; The Aloino sits in her lonely chair, Unseen, unheeded and quite forlorn: Some new excitements are needed now If the show is to linger through the Fall; The Zulu sighs in his painted skin, And the bearded lady begins to pall.

And none regard the two-horned dog, And the great man monkey twirls his thumbs In an idle way, with a vacant smile, And a hideous leer from his toothless gums; The dear little female dwarfs go around, With none to eye them and none to^sic praise Alas! the museum reign is done And past, and fallen on evil days.

And yet the museum man is out With tireless feet on his daily round, In search of a marvelous curio. Oh! where may the thing be found? He looks with heart that despairs, oh, me! And what does he seek as the days go by? ’Tis the man who pays his workmen more Than he would if the tariff were not so high.

A TENDER PLANT.

New York Herald.

Carlisle Smith—How about that tin plate plant that you were going to erect—is it prospering?

McKinley Jones—No. The plant was unfortunately nipped by the late financial frost.

“AS YE WALK AND ARE SAD.”

Story’s last statue, “A Christ,” is an original and beautiful conception. The dress is that of an Arab; the cetoneth, or under garment, rich and full, bound round the waist with a soft sash; and the meil, an upper one, a mantle, which was the seamless garment we read that our Lord wore. On the head is the kiftyeh or scarf, bound around by a fillet, which forms a visor-like framing above the brow; the ends of this kiftyeh fall over the shoulders and cover the long hair which you see under the shadow of its folds; this is the napkin, as the English translation of the Bible calls it, which was taken off, folded and laid beside our Lord in the grave. This costume is most effective, for it has the rich deep folds of the Oriental quadrangular mantle and is probably exactly like the dress our Saviour wore.

Tae person^sic is that of a young man, tall, thin, but not emaciated. The right hand is extended, as if summoning you to approach. The left hand rests gently on the drapery of the breast. They are long, slender, refined, Oriental hands, modeled with feeling and delicacy. The face is singularly tender and noble; handsome, with flue brow^sic and beautiful features. The eyes have a wonderful outlook, spiritual and as if they saw far beyond mortal gaze. The expression of the face is united to that of the outstretched, pleading, earnest hand. The words “Come unto me ye who are weary and heavy laden, and ye shall find rest,” seem to be uttered by the lips, and yet the intense sadness of the face is as if He had little hope that humanity would listen to the call.

I sat some time the other afternoon looking at this impressive statue. “Ave Maria” sounded and the late afternoon shadows gathered into the studio. The half lights gave the figure of the young Messiah a striking likeness to life. I spoke, thinking aloud: “And so He may have looked.”

“It ought to look like Him, for I have seen Him,” said the sculptor, quietly.

I started, and turned to know if I had heard the words or had dreamed them.

“Yes,” repeated Story, calmly, lighting a fresh cigarette; “yes, and I will tell you how it was. It happened when I was young—about twenty. I was going in the hourly,’ as the coach was called that ran in those days every hour between Boston and Cambridge, for it was long before the time of the omnibus and horse car. Of course I mean I dreamed I was in the coach. It was, as all dreams are, at once strange and prosaic. Soon after I got outside the coach, and we had started, I suddenly became aware that Christ was seated outside with the driver. My first impulse was to touch Him; so I leaned out and rested my hand on his garments—when I felt sure it was Christ! When the coach reached the half-way house at Cambridgeport every one got out, and Christ also. I did not, but sat looking upon Him as He walked to and fro. There were ordinary common people about, and the natural prosaic actions of such a place going on. I was aware that no one but myself saw that strange being in Oriental garments, moving with stately steps backward and forward in front of the busy little crowd which assembles at the half-way house when a stage arrives. But that did not seem strange to me, nor was I surprised at His dress, so unlike anything I had ever looked on, for at that time I was not familiar with the Arab costume; I simply thought: ‘There is Christ!’ and every sense in my body was alive.

“Then came the bustle of starting and then the whole dream ended—the vision disappeared! For years and years that appearance has haunted me, and over and over again have I tried to give form and shape to that face and person, which I saw as plainly as I see you now.”—Roman Letter to Kansas City Times.

I cannot image Him, as preachers tell us— The tender friend who wept with Mary’s tear— Enthroned on height supernal, and beholding, Afar, the issue of our conflict here.

Nay, rather as the artist’s dreaming fancy Beheld Him journeying with the throng of men— Unseen companion of our wayside faring— I think he visits our sad earth again.

Not where, from arch to arch, cathedrals echo The repetitions vain He scorned of old; Not where the wealthy and the titled worship, And dare to name Him shepherd of their fold;

Not where the gilded throng of fashion gathers. Heedless of brother’s or of sister’s moan; Shining in robes of labor’s patient weaving— Spurning the hand of toil that fills their own;

Not where proud Dives from His blazoned portal, Regards the wretches shivering at His door. And gives—to feed the hungry, clothe the naked— The crumbs of wastefulness from lavish store;

But where in sordid garrets women shrivel, And weary feet the tireless treadle speed; Where even childhood’s hours must render tribute To never-ceasing, ever-desperate need.

Where, in his cheerless home, the miner cowers (O God! that we should call such shelter home), And where the factory wheels, incessant turning. Are tended by each silent human gnome;

Where the broad prairie, thro’ long days of summer, Withers from green to brown—a harvest sere; And the spent husbandman, in thoughts despairing. Counts the stern losses of the hopeless year:

Wherever love, more strong than death, endureth; Where man for men can doom unfaltering meet; Wherever purity disdains dishonor, And want and woe their piteous tale repeat:

Walks he not there?—the Man of Sorrows—marking Each bitter tear, each dumb unspoken grief? Oh, from of old, acquainted with earth’s anguish. Doth he not yearn to minister relief?

Think you, that eye of tenderest compassion Flashes not with the woe denounced of yore? Are these not, then, his brethren!—whom, despising, Despoiling, ye pass by and heed no more.

Have ye not closed your ears, lest ye should harken The deep, dread undertone that sinks and swells?

p. 19, col. 2

Soul, take thine ease; from age to age repeating. Misery’s monotone its plaining tells.

The poor have always with us their abiding, ’Tis but the back-ground, where Fate’s artist hand Darkens the shadow, that with richer splendor May glow the marvel of the picture grand.

Come, Art and Science! tell the wondrous story: Are we not gods who rule these latter days? Earth, hast thou ever yielded richer trophies, Or crowned thy conqueror’s brow with greener bays?

O. Temple glorious^sic! of the great world’s building: Civilization! thou art History’s shrine! Yet, not one stone upon another standing, Was doom pronounced of old. Shall it be thine?

San Luis Obispo, Cal., January 2, 1891.

FRANCES M. MILNE.

THE INDIANS AND THE LAND.

Mr. Murray in New York World.

With the Indians, land was the property of all. It was one of the original elementary gifts of the Creator to man, and hence the birth-right of every child born. It was grouped by them with air, sunshine, wind and rain. It was a wealth, a right, a property that no power could alienate from them. The earth under their feet on which they were born, in which were the graves of their sires and in which their dust would finally repose, was God’s gift to them and loved with a passionate devotion. Even war could not obliterate this primal right. No victorious tribe ever took the land from the conquered band. They might not take what the Great Spirit had bestowed. “Sell a country!” indignantly exclaimed Tecumseh, when protesting against the sale of land to the whites; “Why not sell the air, the clouds, the sea as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them for all his children?”

SOME OF OUR SENATORIAL MATERIAL.

Chicago Herald.

Brilliant young Ed Wolcott, Senator from Colorado, sometimes plays poker. A few nights ago there was a little game of draw at Chamberlain’s, and Wolcott and McConnell, the latter the new Senator from Idaho, were in it. On one deal of the cards McConnell stood a $10 raise with a pair of deuces, held up an ace for a “sider,” drew two cards, both aces, and with a big ace full swept the board, after making a pat flush cost the Colorado statesman a nice little bit of money. “Beats all I ever saw,” said Wolcott, “and I will bet $50 even that in drawing for a Senatorial term McConnell gets the long term. No one can play against that sort of luck. McConnell, you could draw to a hairpin and get a lady.” Some one accepted the wager, and a short time afterward Senator Shoup happened to come in and sat down to take a hand. The cards hadn’t been dealt more than a half dozen times before Shoup came into a jack pot with three clubs, drew two cards, and made a big flush. “Great heavens,” said Wolcott, “you are luckier than McConnell. You could draw to a chew of tobacco and get a gold mine.” Then Wolcott went out and hedged on his $50 bet that McConnell would draw the long term in the Senate.

DEMPSEY’S PERSONAL TAX BILL.

Commercial Advertiser.

Apparently the crude suggestions of Governor Hill in regard to the taxation of personal property are to uear fruit^sic in one last desperate attempt to collect a personal property tax in this State. Without bringing up the point that a local tax on personal property is the surest way to drive out of the State the industries needed for its prosperity, and without mentioning the utter failure that has attended past attempts at personal property taxation in this State and others; without referring to the perjury that such laws create, and the injustice of their effect in making the honest pay the taxes of the dishonest—it is only necessary to read Mr. Dempsey’s bill, as given in our columns recently, to see how inquisitorial and un-American must be any further effort to reach personal property by taxation. By its provisions every taxable citizen must furnish to the tax commissioners a complete list of all real and persoual property^sic owned by him, no matter where situated, all moneys loaned, invested, or deposited, and all credits due. And the penalty for failure to comply with the act is a fine of $1,000. Such a law as this would raise a storm of indignation in every business centre in the State. It would be an interference with private affairs that would drive thousands into the ranks of the Single Tax advocates.

CANADIAN SINGLE TAXERS GOING INTO POLITICS.

Hamilton, Ont., Times.

Kingston Single Taxers may put a Henry George candidate in the field at the next Dominion election. They have called a meeting to consider the propriety of doing so.

The Single Tax may be robbery or confiscation or anything else its opponents may call it, but the question has come to stay and public educators can no longer afford to ignore it. Not only so, they will have to study it, and that is just what the majority of its detractors has not done. The man who presumes to publicly discuss the question without first reading “Progress and Poverty” will not add to his reputation for wisdom.

THE EXTREMES HAVE MET.

St. Louis Republic.

The victory of the Farmers’ Alliance in Kansas is an event of far-reaching importance. Kansas has been to the Republican party what South Carolina has been to the Democratic. In the defeat of Hampton and Ingalls the extremes have met, and that on what will be a new basis for national politics.

A SERIES OF JOKES.

Commercial Advertiser.

Captain Codman would have been a little more than human if, when Mr. F. B. Thurber engaged him in a personal controversy in regard to the merits of Mr. H. K. Thurber, he had refrained from recalling an episode of somewhat ancient date, but all the more impressive for that. It seems that Mr Thurber^sic—that is Mr. H. K. Thurber—once wrote for publication a letter in which he said that Captain Codman was “known as the paid promoter of foreign steamship interests.” Thereupon he received a polite note asking for his sources of information. His answer was as follows:

In regard to the letter in the Press, that, of course, I assume the whole responsibility of: and, in relation to my statement of you being the paid agent of foreign steamship companies, I would ask your indulgence for a few days, in order to answer your question, and, if I am wrong, will frankly acknowledge the same.

Captain Codman’s reply was: “Certainly; take all the time you need, and let me know the result of your inquiries.” This was in the month of November, 1889; and from that day to this Mr. Thurber has neither verified, nor explained, nor apologized for his libelous statement. Our readers need not be told that in the discussion of the subsidy question, now rashly undertaken by Mr. F. B. Thurber, Captain Codman is so immensely superior to his opponent that the argument current in THE STANDARD has already become a series of jokes at the expense of the brothers Thurber. They are now in the position of the man who didn’t know it was loaded.

A COMFORTABLE CREED, FOR SOME.

Ambrose Bierce in San Francisco Examiner.

Not one in a hundred of those most swift to condemn Mr. George and his convictions know anything at all of the man or his works. I know dozens of educated and able men (that is to say, able to think about bracing their backs against a stone wall) who believe that he is an Anarchist, that an Anarchist is a Communist, a Communist a Nihilist, and a Nihilist a Socialist. The general feeling among “men of affairs” is that all these are the same, and that all are strenuously endeavoring to deprive others of their property. They feel that it is their sacred duty (and by a happy accident, greatly to their interest) to maintain “the established order of things”—that is to say. the order^sic of things under which they have succeeded in wresting from their neighbors more than their neighbors have succeeded in wresting from them. The luckiest or most skillful pickpocket is naturally the loudest in praise of the regime of picking pockets, the sincerest in believing it ordained of God and the only possible solution of the problem how to be safe in a crowd.

A BILL HE UNDERSTANDS.

Puck.

Republican Workman (in November, reading the election returns)—It’s a shame! They beat us by lying! The McKinley bill is all right!

Republican Workman (in January, reading his store bill)—Thunder and guns! Everything is way up! That darned McKinley gang ought to be kicked!

RIGHT!

Louisville Courier-Journal.

In a republic, where men are supposed to have equal rights, no man’s business should be built up at another man’s expense.

p. 20, col. 2

THE PRESIDENT DOUBTS PENNSYLVANIA.

New York Post.

The touch of humor which the situation needed is supplied by a Harrisburg despatch to the Philadelphia Press. It appears that two Republican members of the Pennsylvania Senate wanted to see the President about a matter of “business”—that is to say, patronage—and reached the White House shortly after Mr. Cameron had voted against the Force bill. What followed is thus told by the correspondent:

They sent in their cards and were ushered into the President’s presence. The latter met the pair with a degree of frigidity that startled them.

“Am I to understand, gentlemen,” asked the President, “that Pennsylvania is still a Republican State?”

The gentleman from the Juniata Valley and the Senator from Huntingdon were speechless for an instant, and then, before they could offer any explanation, or condone the disgrace which had befallen their State, Mr. Harrison remarked that he was very busy, and, excusing himself, left them to return as they came.

The picture of Benjamin Harrison as Mrs. Partington, trying with his patronage broom to sweep back the rising tide of public sentiment against sectional legislation, is extremely amusing.

REMOVING THE OBSTRUCTION.

The admirable address on the Single Tax, delivered by J. T. Ripley before the Unity Club, Oak Park, Ill., has been issued in pamphlet form. A striking passage in the address reads as follows:

It is sometimes urged that the Single Tax is too simple a measure to apply to the complicated phenomena of our industrial life in the hope of securing any considerable reform; but if it be simple it will not be denied that it is at the same time fundamental in that it begins at the bottom of the social pyramid, and radical, in that it goes direct to the root of industrial evils. The invention of the sewing machine turned upon so simple a thing as the putting the eye in the point of the needle instead of its head, and until this simple device was adopted all of the rest of the machine which Elias Howe had invented was useless; in floating logs down the small streams from the pineries, it sometimes happens that a single log will lodge across the stream and a jam results in which hundreds of logs are piled one upon another in inextricable confusion; the trained lumbermen go to work at once to get at the log which first lodged, or the key log, and when this is released the jam is quickly removed and the logs again move freely; so, when the stream of production and exchange is obstructed and clogged, relief can be had by removing the prime obstacle, namely, the locking up of the reservoir from which flows all wealth, and the stream will then flow on full to its banks.

LOBBY INSOLENCE.

Boston Globe.

Some of the shipping-bill lobbyists in Washington have threatened certain members of Congress that if they cast their votes against the bill they (the lobbyists) will boodlerize their districts, and endeavor to defeat them for re-election to the fifty-third Congress. There is an old-fashioned idea that this is a government of the people. But a new notion seems to be gaining ground that it is a government of the lobby, for the lobby, and by the lobby. There is an opportunity for a man like Governor Russell in Washington.

THE QUESTION WAS RESPECTFULLY REFERRED.

Epoch.

Good Minister: “Your little son asked me what the McKinley bill was. He said he asked you and you referred him to me. Why don’t you explain the bill to the little fellow yourself?” Deacon De Good: “I was afraid I couldn’t without swearing.”

p. 20, col. 3

SINGLE TAX LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES.

NEW YORK.

NEW YORK.—Manhattan single tax club. Business meeting first Thursday of each month at 8 p. m.: other Thursdays, social and propaganda. Club rooms, 73 Lexington av.; open every day from 6 p. m. to 12 p. m. Pres., Louis F. Post; sec., A. J. Steers.

Metropolitan single tax association. First and third Saturday evenings of each month, 490 8th av. Pres., John H. O’Connell; sec., Fred. C. Keller.

BROOKLYN.—Brooklyn single tax club. Business meetings Wednesday evenings; club house, 198 Livingston st.; open at all hours. Pres., Robert Baker; cor. sec. G. W. Thompson, 9 St. Marks av.

East Brooklyn single tax club. Meetings every Monday evening, 408 Evergreen av. Pres., James Hamilton; sec., Jas. B. Connell, 448 Central av.

Eastern District single tax club. Meetings first and third Mondays, 284 Broadway. Pres., Joseph McGuinness, 188 S. 9th st., South Brooklyn; sec., Emily A Deverall.

Eighteenth ward single tax club. Every Thursday at 8 p. m. at 253 Evergreen av. Pres., J. J. Faulkner; sec., Adolph Pettenkofer, 253 Evergreen av.

ALBANY.—Albany single tax club. Meetings Sunday, 7.30 p. m., Beaver-Block, cor. Pearl and Norton sts. Pres., F. W. Croake; cor. sec., Geo. Noyes.

OSWEGO.—Pioneer single tax club. Pres., James Ryan sec^sic., James C. Murray.

OWEGO.—Single tax club. Pres., Michael J. Murray; sec., Wm. Minehaw, 50 West Main st.

LONG ISLAND CITY.—Freedom association meets evening of every fourth Friday of the month at Schwalenberg’s hall, corner Vernon and Borden avs. Sec., T. G. Drake, 215 Kouwenhoven st.

TROY.—Single tax club. Meetings every Thursday evening at 5[7?]6 River st; Pres., Henry Sterling: sec., B. B. Martis^sic, 576 River st.

OHIO.

CLEVELAND.—Central single tax club. First and third Wednesday evenings, 8 p. m.; rooms, 301 and 302 Arcade, Euclid av. Pres., Tom L. Johnson; sec., L. E. Siemon, 7 Greenwood st.

p. 21, col. 2

DAYTON.—Free land club. Pres., J. G. Galloway; sec. W. W. Kile, 108 East 5th st.

GALION.—Galion single tax club. Every Monday evening, residence of P. [J.?] Snay, 103 South Union st. Pres., P. J. Snay; sec., Maud E. Snay^sic,

HEMLOCK.—Single tax club. Pres., D. P. Sweeny; sec James G. Hayden.

YOUNGSTOWN.—Every Thursday evening, Ivorites hall. Pres., Billy Radcliffe; sec., A. C. Hughes, 13 Public sq.

ZANESVILLE.—Single tax club. Pres., W. H. Longheed sec., Wm. Quigley.

PENNSYLVANIA.

BRADFORD.—Single tax club. Hevenor’s hall, 41 Main st. Meetings for discussion every Sunday at 3.30 p. m.

GERMANTOWN.—Single tax club. Sec. E. D. Burleigh, 13 Willow av.

JOHNSTOWN.—Henry George club. Meets every Monday evening for public discussion. Pres[.,?] A J. Moxham; sec., S. E. Clarkson.

PHILADELPHIA.—Single tax society of Philadelphia, every Thursday, 8 p. m., 1341 Arch st.; cor. sec., A. H. Stephenson, 214 Chestnut st.

PITTSBURG.—Pittsburg single tax club. Meets every first and third Sunday evening at 7.30, 64 4th av. Pres., Edm. Yardley; sec. Mark F. Roberts, 140 South 24th st.

POTTSTOWN.—Single tax club. Meetings first and third Friday evenings each month in Weitzenkorn’s hall. Pres., D. L. Haws; sec., Geo. Auchy, Pottstown, Pa.

READING.—Reading single tax society. Monday evenings, 728 Penn st. Pres., Chas. S. Prizer; sec., Wm. H. McKinney, Mineral Spring road and Clymer st.

SOUTH DAKOTA.

STATE.—South Dakota single tax association. Pres., Judge Levi McGee, of Rapid City; sec., John B. Hanten, Watertown.

WATERTOWN.—Single tax club. Pres. Jno. B. Hanten^sic; sec., L. E. Brickell. Meetings every Wednesday night in basement Granite block.

TENNESSEE.

MEMPHIS.—Memobis single tax association^sic. Pres., J. S Menken^sic; sec., R. G. Brown, Appeal building.

TEXAS.

EL PASO.—Single tax club. Meetings every Saturday evening, 200½ El Paso st. Pres., G. E. Hubbard; sec., Rev. G. H. Higgins.

HOUSTON.—Houston single tax club. Meetings every Tuesday evening, 7.30, Franklin st. Pres., E. P. Alsbury; sec., E. W. Brown.

WISCONSIN.

MILWAUKEE.—Milwaukee single tax league. Pres., L. B. [Benton?]; sec. treas., Martin Johnson.

p. 21, col. 3

THE SINGLE TAX PLATFORM.

ADOPTED BY THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE SINGLE TAX LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES AT COOPER UNION, NEW YORK, SEPT. 3, 1890.

We assert as our fundamental principle the self-evident truth enunciated in the Declaration of American Independence, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

We hold that all men are equally entitled to the use and enjoyment of what God has created and of 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 attach to land should be taken for the use of the community.

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

[Advertisement] Van Houten’s Cocoa

[Advertisement: display block in a decorative border, large lettering VAN HOUTEN’S COCOA]

PURE, SOLUBLE, Delicious

THE STANDARD COCOA OF THE WORLD, A SUBSTITUTE FOR TEA & COFFEE. Easily Digested—Made Instantly.

HIGHEST AWARDS AT PRINCIPAL EXHIBITIONS, The Original—Take no other.

VAN HOUTEN’S COCOA

“Best & Goes Farthest—Largest Sale in the World—Once Tried, Always Used.”

[Advertisement] The Single Tax Library.

(Entered at Post Office, New York, as second-class mail matter.)

A Set of Tracts (exclusive of Books), from Nos. 1 to 36, will be sent for 40 cents. The price will increase with the addition of new Tracts.

Cents.

1. A Syllabus of Progress and Poverty. Louis F. Post. 8 pages …. 3
2. Out of print.
3. First Principles. Henry George. 4 pages …. 2
4. The Right to the Use of the Earth. Herbert Spencer. 4 pages …. 2
5. Farmers and the Single Tax. Thomas G. Shearman. 8 Pages …. 3
6. The Canons of Taxation. Henry George. 4 pages …. 2
7. A Lawyer’s Reply to Criticisms. Samuel B. Clark. 16 pages …. 4
8. Out of print
9. The Single Tax. Thomas G. Shearman. 8 pages. …. 3
10. The American Farmer. Henry George. 4 pages …. 2
11. Unemployed Labor. Henry George. 4 pages …. 2
12. The Case Plairly Stated^sic. H. F. Ring. 8 pages …. 3
13. Social Problems 342 pages^sic. 12mo. Paper …. 35
14. Objections to the Land Tax. Thomas G. Shearman. 4 pages …. 2
15. Land Taxation. A Conversation Between David Dudley Field and Henry George. 4 pages …. 2
16. How to Increase Profits. A. J. Steers. 2 pages …. 1
17. The New Political Economy. E. O. Brown. 4 pages …. 2
18. Thy Kingdom Come. Henry George. 4 pages. …. 2
19. The Functions of Government Henry George. 8 pages …. 3
20. The Menace of Plutocracy. Thomas G. Shearman. 8 pages …. 3
21. Tenement House Morality. J. O. S. Huntington. 4 pages …. 2 22, 23, 24, out of print.
22. Taxing Land Values. Henry George. 8 pages …. 3 26 Henry George’s Mistakes. Thomas G. Shearman. 8 pages …. 3
23. The Democratic Principle. Henry George 8 pages …. 3
24. Progress and Poverty. Henry George. 512 pages …. 35
25. Out of print.
26. Property in Land. Henry George. 77 pages …. 15 31 and 32. out of print.
27. Out of print
28. Single Tax Platform. By Henry George. 2 pages …. 1
29. Justice the Object—Taxation the Means. Henry George. 8 pages …. 3
30. Out of print.

[Advertisement] Pears’ Soap

Pears’ Soap, established over 100 years has, from the World’s first great Exhibition in 1851 down to its last in Edinburgh, 1890, in every instance obtained the highest Medals and Diplomas at the disposal of the Judges. A series of achievements without precedent amongst exhibitors of any class of goods whatever. Of these awards, A. & F. Pears hold no fewer than twenty.

[Advertisement] Ely’s Cream Balm — Catarrh

[Advertisement block, display picture: large white-on-black lettering “CATARRH”; at right, a profile of a human head lettered with the ailments the balm claims to cure. Text in the block:]

—ELY’S CREAM BALM—Cleanses the Nasal Passages, Allays Pain and Inflammation, Heals the Sores, [Kestores?] Taste and Smell, and Cures

CATARRH

Gives Relief at once for Cold in Head.

Apply into the Nostrils.——It is Quickly Absorbed.

50c. Druggists or by mail. ELY BROS., 56 Warren St., N. Y.

[On the head:] THE CURE FOR CATARRH COLD IN HEAD HAYFEVER DEAFNESS HEADACHE ELY’S CREAM BALM 50c

p. 22, col. 2

[Advertisement] The Single Tax of Hygiene.

[Advertisement] Morris R. George

MORRIS R. GEORGE,

Manufacturing Jeweler

AND

ENGRAVER.

Society Badges and Jewels Made to Order

S. E. COR. 11th and SANSOM STS ,

PHILADELPHIA.

JOBBING. DIAMONDS RESET, ETC.

[Advertisement] Henry George & Co., Publishers

HENRY GEORGE & CO.,

PUBLISHERS,

42 University Place, New York City.

THE STANDARD

A WEEKLY REVIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY, BY WM. T. CROASDALE, AT NO. 42 UNIVERSITY PLACE.

[Entered at the post office in New York as second-class matter.]

VOL. IX., No. 6.} WHOLE No. 215.}

NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1891.

{ONE YEAR, $3.00. {FOUR MOS., $1.00.

CONTENTS.

Editorial: Current Events—To Archbishop Corrigan—Blaine, the Free Trader—The Canadian Liberals’ Dilemma—The Supreme Court and Diplomacy—Single Tax Papers—Parnell’s Obstruction—Turn the Traitors Out—Paternal Railway Legislation—Will Taxing Coal Lands Increase the Price of Coal?—A Practical Example.

How to Give Labor Its Full Earnings, - - - - - - - - W. B. Scott

Henry George in Bermuda, - - - - - - - - - - - W. E. Hicks

Senator Peffer’s Way Out, - - - - - - - - - - - Louis F. Post

English Questions Coming to the Fore, - - - - - Rev. Harold Rylett

Fable of the Two Ship Owners, - - - - - - - - - - A. G. Beecher

How Young Women are Treated and How They Should be Treated, Wm. McCabe

Progress, - - - - - C. H. Crandall. | Current Thought.

Comments on the Standard. | Welcoming Henry George in Bermuda.

Notes and Queries. | Single Tax News.

[Advertisement] AS AN ADVERTISING MEDIUM

THE STANDARD is of especial value to those who seek to reach the public generally. It circulates in ALL OF THE UNITED STATES and has regular subscribers in every country in which English is spoken. It reaches as thoughtful a body of people as can be found in the world, and it numbers among its constant and careful readers many of THE MOST EMINENT PUBLIC MEN and thousands of students of Political Economy, the Social Problem and Political Principles, as distinguished from mere machine politics.

As the exponent of the principles of THE NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY, THE STANDARD has the loyal and enthusiastic support of a large and ever growing body of men and women^sic; who not only take it and read it, but thousands of whom pass it on to others, or remail it to those who do not feel that they can afford to subscribe for a paper of its class and price. Few publications have so many readers for each copy issued.

The announcements and regular reports of THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE SINGLE TAX LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES are made through THE STANDARD, and from time to time copies of the paper are sent to the enrolled signers of the Committee’s petition, NUMBERING NEARLY 100,000. The exact number to date can always be found in the Committee’s weekly report, which leads the Single Tax News in each number of the paper.

THE STANDARD is now in the fifth year of its existence. It has a steadfast constituency of paying subscribers. The people who get it want it, and pay for it. Its advertising rates are moderate, and advertisers using its columns have a reasonable assurance that their announcements will be read. Price per line considered,

There is no Better Advertising Medium in America.

The Standard, Vol. 9, No. 5 (February 4, 1891), page 24

II THE STANDARD.

p. 24, col. 1