THE STANDARD

HENRY GEORGE, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR

Gaining Ground

It is something that our friends should never forget, that what we are doing is not shown by the vote we can poll, by the membership of our societies, by the attendance at our meetings, nor by the number of those who publicly or privately avow themselves as believers in the single tax. Beyond all these, our work is producing its effect in modifying public opinion insensibly in our direction. The majority of men are too careless and too timid for logical thought, and the best we can hope for them is that they will approach the truth by degree - that our advocacy of the single tax will bring them in some measure to see the absurdity and injustice of present methods of taxation. When they begin doing this they are not, it is true, with us, but they are on the road to our position.

Evidence of how we are in this way affecting even those who denounce us may be seen in such utterances as that in which the Evening Post recently declared that the notion of making personal property pay as much taxes as real estate is "a chimerical idea against which the experience of the civilized world is everywhere running." Another evidence is given in a privately printed circular which is being sent by mail to New York business men. In this it is shown by the census of 1880 that the personal property of the country is only one-third of the value of the real estate, while (the national taxes, falling on personal property) the aggregate taxation on real estate is $234,563,041, and on personal property $712,750,721. Therefore, the writer concludes, the owners of personal property are paying nearly two and three-quarter times as much as their proportion. He asks:

Can there be any sound public policy, wisdom or justice in our present system of taxation? Is there any reason for the demagogue cry for greater taxation of personal property? It is a fact that where taxation of personal property is nearer to nothing in the states, there is the greater prosperity. Without paying any state, county, city or other taxation the entire expenditures of the United States would still fall on owners of personal property. Being $400,000,000 it would still be twice their share of the public burdens. Is this not a strong argument for abolishing state taxes on personal property owners while the United States so taxes them for the general welfare? Can an one point to other nations which pay over seven hundred and twelve millions of dollars taxes? Do we wish to drive out personal property owners, and thus reduce the values of real estate, or to pay such high rates of interest and profits to owners of personal property that they will stay because of the high interest and profits and pay the taxes? We must suffer as a nation or change our policy.

Such an argument shows at least a glimmering of light on the true principles of taxation. This protestor against the disportionate taxation of personal property would doubtless disdain any connection with us. Yet he has been affected by our thought and is doing our work. When a man becomes conscious of the injustice and inexpediency of taxing personal property he has only to go a little further to see the inexpediency and injustice of taxing the improvements that are now taxed as real estate. And when he once realizes the propriety of looking to land values as the only source of revenue, he is a good enough single tax man for practical purposes. For when we get so far as to put taxes on land values in lieu of other subjects of taxation, the taking of the whole "unearned value" for public uses will be a certain consequence.

And now, to give greater point to what I have just written, comes Mayor Hewitt.

What a terrible bugbear the idea of abolishing all taxes save upon land values was to Mayor Hewitt fifteen months ago, every one who remembers his speeches and letters in the campaign which put him in the mayor's chair well knows. But the agitation which we have carried on and the knowledge which he has gained while in the office of mayor have so far educated him that, in his message to the board of aldermen, just sent in, he unequivocally takes the ground that taxes on personal property ought to be abolished, and has to this extent at least become one of us. He says:

In view of recent utterances, it may be well to say that this city would largely gain by the abolition of all taxes upon personal property. The amount this collected at this time is about one-sixth of the whole amount of taxation. If personal property, except bank shares, were relieved of taxation, it would not be necessary to add more than one-sixth to the rate upon real estate, which last year would have amounted to .36 of one per cent, thus raising the total taxation to 2.52 instead of 2.16, which was actually paid. There would be an apparent addition to the taxes of the holders of real estate; but as many of these are also tax payers upon personal property, the addition would be more nominal than substantial. But, in the case of those who do not pay taxes upon personal property, the advance in the value of real estate, which would inevitably follow the abolition of taxes upon personal property, would far more than compensate for any addition to the amount which would be assessed upon real estate. The abolition of personal taxes in this city would attract to it the capital of the whole world. We are now the center of exchanges on the western continent, but in a few years we should be the clearing house for the commerce of the globe. If the city of New York, therefore, could make a bargain with the rest of the state, by which it might be agreed that in lieu of taxation upon personal property for state purposes there should be added one-sixth to the amount assessed upon real estate, the present embarrassment in regard to the assessment of personal property would be relieved. This tax is notoriously impossible of collection in this city. It is doubtful whether one-fifth of the total amount which ought to be collected if the law could be enforced actually reaches the treasury. Those who ought to pay the most part of it pay the least, while the humble citizen, who is unable to "fix up" his statements, is subjected to the full amount of lawful taxation. The estates of widows and orphans and wards in chancery pay the full amount of taxation required by law, although in most cases it can be least afforded, while "bloated" capitalists either entirely escape taxation or compromise for a very inadequate sum. This condition of affairs is scandalous. It cannot be continued without subjecting property to attacks which seem to be founded in justice, and which produce very great dissatisfaction in the public mind.

Just think of it! It is not two years since Louis F. Post and I were discussing - as one of the things that might be done by and by - the possibility of getting a bill introduced in the legislature to permit New York city to exempt from taxation personal property and improvements, or even personal property alone, the city to pay a quota to the state by way of equivalent for the reduction in its revenues. We were thinking and talking about this, because we well knew that the agitation that would follow the introduction of such a bill, with a fair chance of passing, would have a very great effect in opening men's minds to the advantages of the single tax, and that its adoption would prove so beneficial that the people of this city, and the people of other cities, seeing how much had been gained by going a little way on our road, would be disposed to go further. And now comes Mayor Hewitt, one of our bitterest opponents, to propose, with a much better chance of public hearing than we could have got then, or could get now, this thin-end-of-the-wedge measure.

Mayor Hewitt goes on to follow what I have quoted with some disquisitions upon the general subject of taxation which show the regrettable weakness of his political economy, and lays down the astounding proposition that "the income tax, with proper exemptions of small incomes, is the most just mode of raising revenue, although it ought not to be the only kind of taxation levied," as well as the proposition that "in whatever form taxes may be imposed, so long as the total income of the community exceeds its expenditure, the incidence of taxation will be necessarily upon production."

But why the most just mode of raising revenue ought not to be the only way of raising revenue, and how the relation between the income and expenditure of a community affects the incidence of taxation, are questions that we need not at present raise with Mr. Hewitt. He is evidently trying to save himself from going too far, and does not wish, after taking one step in our direction, to be forced to take another. But, nevertheless, he does propose to take one step in our direction, and that the all-important first step. And we can only expect progress one step at a time.

As showing the utter impossibility of fairly collecting taxes on personal property Mayor Hewitt states that formal charges were preferred to him against two of the commissioners of taxation, who it was alleged had taxed the personal property of certain individuals and corporations far below its real value. He says that an investigation of these charges satisfied him that they were correct and that the plain injunction of the law had been violated by the commissioners. He thus continues:

Under ordinary circumstances it would have been my duty, on being satisfied of these facts, to have removed the commissioners complained of from office. But I could not shut my eyes to the fact that the existing laws never had been executed, and there was no difference of opinion among those who had studied the question that they never can be executed, as they stand, in this city. The commissioners, therefore, are confronted with a legal duty impossible of performance. If I had removed them from office I could only have appointed other persons who would have been confronted with precisely the same obstacle. Inasmuch as the good faith and sound judgment of the commissioners now in office had not been impugned there was no reason, therefore, why I should simply shift the responsibility from one set of officers to another, who could not possibly be more successful in the enforcement of the law. When we are brought face to face with an embarrassment of this kind, the conclusion is obvious that the law ought to be so amended as to enable it to be executed by conscientious and faithful officers.

The mayor's conclusion as to the law is indeed obvious; but it is far from being so obvious that he was justified in not removing officers who had deliberately violated the plain injunctions of the law. He is certainly not consistent. The position that he took in the spasmodic attempt to enforce to the very letter the Sunday law, and in preventing raffling at fairs (when the fair in question was the antipoverty fair) was, that it was his business to enforce the law as far as he was able, and that if this brought out defects in the law it would more quickly lead to its modification or repeal. If, acting on this principle, Mayor Hewitt had removed these two commissioners, and then removed the next two, and so on, it would have had the effect of calling public attention to the injustice and absurdity of attempting to tax personal property far more forcibly than could be done in any other way.

However, let us not look a gift horse too closely in the mouth. If Mayor Hewitt has not done all that he might have done, his present position with regard to taxation is certainly a great advance upon his previous position - an advance on which we single tax men may congratulate both Mayor Hewitt and ourselves. And so long and so far as he will use his large influence and his great talents in urging the abolition of taxes on personal property let us give him all the support we can. He, to be sure, only proposes to go a little way in our direction. But we need not concern ourselves with how far any one proposes to go. The all important thing it to get people started.

How true it is that our progress must be by steps, and how true it is that in accomplishing these steps we must rely upon the aid of those who are not with us in ultimate aim, but are for the moment, at least, only willing to take the immediate step, are matters that I would commend to the consideration of those friends of the good cause who think that not to run a presidential candidate would be to abandon the cause itself, and who imagine that with the issue likely to be joined between the two great parties in the coming national election we have no concern. The truth is that great reforms of this kind are not usually accomplished by parties formed for the purpose, and that the decisive political battles which secure them are generally fought on what are nominally minor issues. Thus the abolition of slavery in the United States was not accomplished by an abolition party, but by a party which distinctly and most emphatically disavowed any intention of disturbing slavery where it already existed; which denounced abolitionists without stint, and proposed merely to prevent the extension of slavery to the territories.

But the moment this extremely moderate measure became an issue of practical politics, upon which two great parties struggled for political power and spoils, more was accomplished for the anti-slavery cause than could have been accomplished by any amount of "standing up to be counted" on the part of thorough going anti-slavery men. For the men who fell into line for this moderate measure soon found themselves driven further and further by the impulse of movement and the reaction of opposition. In arguing against the extension of slavery to the territories they were compelled to argue against slavery itself, just as in advocating the reduction of protective duties, President Cleveland's supporters will, in the face of republican opposition, be compelled to deny the claims of protection, and though, perhaps unconsciously in many cases, to really advance free trade principles, and thus, as Mayor Hewitt is doing, prepare the public mind for the abolition of all taxes upon labor or its products.

For our purpose it matters very little whom or what men vote for, as compared with what they think about, and our main concern should be to stimulate thought. President Cleveland's message, Mayor Hewitt's utterance, Senator Sherman's proposition to substitute a bounty on home grown sugar for a tax on the foreign product, to say nothing of the numberless magazine and newspaper articles on similar subjects, all show that, thanks in large measure to our efforts, political discussion is rapidly drifting in the direction of our principles. Let us do what we can to encourage this drift.

In another column will be found an article from Daniel R. Goodloe of Washington, entitled, "How Land Monopoly Locks Up Capital." The assumption made in it, that what is generally called the "investment of capital in land" diminishes by that much the amount of capital that can be used for other purposes, is one sometimes made by our friends, but it will not stand analysis. The mere buying of land or renting of land within a community in no way diminishes the amount of capital that can be used for productive purposes; it merely transfers capital from the hands of one set of people to those of another set of people. And when people outside of the community buy land from members of the community, as when English investors buy land in America, the effect of the transaction is really to increase for the time the available capital of the community. Capital can really only be "locked up in land" when it is actually buried or expended upon it in unproductive improvements. If the buyer or the renter pays money, or produce, or any other thing of value, for the privilege of owning or using land, what he thus parts with some other man gets, and the wealth or the capital of the country is not thereby lessened.

But what does occur in large numbers of these cases is that wealth that would be used as capital by the purchaser or renter, and which would in his hands constitute a most effective aid to production, is transferred into the hands of men who apply it to unproductive uses and thus withdraw it from the active capital of the country. This is one of the great evils of our system of treating land as though the rights of individual ownership which justly attach to things produced by human labor also attached to it. And in addition to this, there is an actual loss of capital and labor in useless expenditures made for the sake of monopolizing land in order to compel those who will afterward need it to pay a tribute for its use. This monopolization again compels men who would gladly be at work, and for whom there are abundant opportunities of work, to stand idle and to waste capital that they might otherwise employ in increasing production, thus bringing about the state of things which we see to-day - hundreds of thousands of idle hands and millions of unused acres.

Our treatment of land has, in short, the effect of taking capital from those who would most profitably use it and putting it in the hands of those who cannot so profitably use it and who even largely waste it; and also of preventing labor and capital from applying themselves to land in the production of more wealth. It thus not only greatly reduces the aggregate amount of capital in the community, but unjustly and unnaturally distributes that amount, stripping a large class of our people of the capital that they ought to have, and gathering it in enormous aggregations in the hands of a few. But we can more effectively point this out if we always keep in mind the real nature of capital, and remember that the mere transfer from hand to hand does not of itself lock anything up.

The pressure upon the columns of THE STANDARD has made it impossible to publish all the communications that have been received on the subject of a presidential nomination. We have tried to give representation to all sides, and propose in a future issue to give a resume of those unpublished.

A Good Suggestion.

New York City. - Sitting in front of an open fire, the other night, a friend and I were discussing the coal miners' strikes - their causes, chances of success, and so forth. Among other matters we spoke of the tediousness of prolonged idleness to men accustomed to daily work.

"By Jove!" said my friend, suddenly; "what a chance those fellows have for reading."

It was a half idle remark, but it set us both to thinking. The miners have a chance for reading, such as they have never had before, and let us hope may never again. Why shouldn't we give them something to read? Why not supply them with anti-poverty literature and take advantage of their enforced idleness to teach them the cause and cure of their present distress?

My friend and myself - we are both single tax men - have become infatuated with this idea, and with your permission would like to suggest it to the other readers of THE STANDARD. To show that we are in earnest we inclosed $2 - $1 from each of us. If enough other STANDARD readers will "chip in," cannot you arrange to send one or two colporteurs to the mining regions to make a systematic distribution of tracts, books and STANDARDS?

EDWARD GRIFFITHS

Thinks We Should Keep Out of National Politics.

BROOKLYN, K Y.—It seems to me that the united labor party will grow faster the nearer the members see some chance of its principles being put into practice. The contention that free trade leads toward free land is sound enough, no doubt; but a dreary outlook is the prospect that we shall have to wait till tariff reformers (and united labor party free traders) succeed in reducing the tariff revenue to the actual needs of the government, and then, I suppose gradually, be led to the idea that they might go further and confiscate a little more economic rent.

Is not there a shorter way? Have we to overturn the lusty giant protection before we can attack private appropriation of rent? Is it not possible for one of the states, by enforcing a tax on land values and diminishing the weight of its taxes on capital and labor, to so far demonstrate the value of the single tax as to make it sure that others will follow its example? Everybody but the mere landholders would be interested in this effort - the business man as well as the artisan, the farmer
at well as the hired man, whether free traders from conviction or protectionists from habit or training.

Let us keep out of politics. Let the wisest and ablest thought of the party leaders be bent on discovering means by which a state can be gained in which to practice our principles. The full measure of prosperity might not be possible to the inhabitants of a state while national revenues continued to be raised by tariff duties and internal revenue taxes; but something would be gained, and a partial demonstration of the good effect of discouraging land speculation and increasing the opportunities for labor would bring recruits to the ranks of the party by the thousand.

The belief in protection may be an error, but it is hard to overcome it "It benefits some people," says a friend of mine, "or there would not be so much money ready to defend it; and whether it benefits the folks who hire men to work for them or folks who monopolize natural opportunities, yet the land value tax would help the hired men get a Digger share of the proceeds in the first case, and in the latter case help men to work who now can't find any one to hire them steadily.

The policy for the party is the one that will enable its members to most readily unite in work, and which will make proselytizing easy. Give us something more practical than a plan to reach free land after the whole United States agrees on free trade.

GEORGE WHITE.

A Convention of Kansas Sympathizers.

The following "call for a state convention of single tax delegates from Kansas has been issued by land and labor club No. 1 of Kansas City, Kas.:

The Citizens of the state of Kansas in favor of the Syracuse platform, adopted by the united labor party of New York, are requested to meet in mass convention at Topeka on February 9, 1888, at 10 o'clock a. m., to elect a state central committee and take such measures as in their judgment may seem best calculated to secure the success of the united labor party in the near future. Any person that is opposed to the single tax on land values will not be permitted to participate in the deliberations of the convention.

By order of the united land and labor club No. 1 of Kansas City, Kan.

DR. C. H. BLAKESLEE. President.
F. M. P. DONNELLY, Sec.

In commenting on this call the Topeka Labor Chieftain says:

"The men and what they wish to accomplish is set forth unequivocally. There is no need for hesitation or timidity on the part of any. The advocates of the single land tax in Kansas are many and as a whole will constitute a factor capable of giving prominence to any right principle which they desire to promulgate."

It is to be hoped that the convention will be a large one and of great service to the movement.

Will Continue to Discuss the Question.

BROOKLYN, N. Y. - The Fifteenth ward association of the united labor party in this city have taken up the discussion of the advisability of entering actively into the national campaign.

The predominant sentiment seems to be that we could go into the national campaign, agitate the laud value tax and not be forced to take any stand on the tariff question positive enough to produce lukewarmness in those of our number who are not willing under present conditions to accept the so-called "free trade" ideas of the "revenue reformers."

Still there are a few who do not agree with this view, and the association intends keeping up the discussion at its meetings, on the first and third Friday of each month, at 368 Grand street, and invite the attendance of any one interested.

EDWARD CROWN,
Secretary Fifteenth Ward Assn.

Thinks the Tariff Question Will be the All-Absorbing Issue.

CHICAGO, III.—Mr. Wilder takes a sound position in your issue of January 7. To go into the national contest this year would be to make the united labor party a laughing stock. The tariff question will be the all-absorbing issue, and, notwithstanding your opinion to the contrary, I do not believe that the great bulk of our party are free traders. I for one, while a firm believer in the single tax, am emphatically for protection until the single tax at least becomes an accomplished fact. Besides, where would the machinery and funds come from to run a candidate for the presidency? Education m our doctrines is an essential preliminary before the united labor party could even hope for a corporal's guard outside of the state of New York. Sentiment must yield to common sense.

J. B. CARROLL

To the Treasurer of the Anti-Poverty Society.

_______, ___ Inclosed find slip filled out, in which I agree to send the society $6 during the year of 1988. I will send it all at one time, and should you not hear from me by the time you need the money just drop me a line. I am busy and may overlook it. I must insist that my name be kept out of THE STANDARD. I can't stand it. It is not necessary for me to explain my position. God Speed the time when a man will not be obliged to conceal his sentiments on political economy. I am striving hard to accomplish my own poverty so that I may be able to do more in assisting others to do the same. I have lately converted a real estate dealer and a deacon of the Congregational church to our view of matters. If you do use any of this letter in print do not give the locality.

___________.

Louis F. Post on "The Duties of Citizenship."

BROOKLYN, N, Y. - Louis F. Post delivered a lecture in Liberty hall, corner of Nostrand and Gates avenue, Brooklyn, on Monday evening under the auspices of the Twenty-third ward association, united labor party. Major Alfred R. Calhoun presided and introduced the speaker. Many of the members of the association attended and there were several ladies present. The subject of the lecture was "Duties of Citizenship." Mr. Post showed how those duties could only be fulfilled by helping all men to a larger, fuller liberty, and that this was only possible through the principle of taxing land to its full rental value, as advocated by the united labor Party.

To "Standard" Readers in New Haven.

NEW HAVEN, Conn.—At a special meeting of the land and labor club of New Haven the following resolutions were adopted and the secretary was instructed to send a copy to THE STANDARD for publication:

Resolved. That the land and labor club No. 3 of New Haven extend a cordial invitation to all readers of THE STANDARD in this city to join our organization and take an active part in the much needed and neglected work of propaganda in this vicinity.

Resolved, that it is the unanimous opinion of this club that a national convention should be held at the earliest possible date, a presidential ticket nominated and a national campaign inaugurated.

ALFRED SMITH, Sec.

ANTI-POVERTY.

MC'GLYNN'S DISCOURSE ON "THE POPE IN POLITICS."

St. Peter and St. Peter's Successor - The Growth and Abuses of the Temporal Power - The Catholic Machine in Politics - Selling Out Poor Ireland - The Future of the Papacy

Sylvester L. Malone, the nephew of the well known patriot priest of Brooklyn, presided at the thirty-seventh public meeting of the Anti-poverty society at the Academy of music, last Sunday night, and introduced the Rev. Dr. McGlynn, who spoke on "The Pope in Politics." His remarks were listened to with the most intent interest by the thousands of ladies and gentlemen who packed the academy from pit to dome. A number of priests were scattered throughout the audience, and evidently in hearty sympathy with the speaker. Dr. McGlynn said:

The pope in politics! What business has the pope to be in politics? (Cries of "None!" and applause.) What has the pope to do with politics, and what has politics to do with the pope? (Applause.) And what have the pope's men, as pope's men, to do with politics, and what has politics to do with them as pope's men? Who is the pope?

A great many years ago there stood upon the earth a man who alone of all men dared to say of himself: "I am the way, the truth and the life;" who alone of all the men that breathed the air of heaven ever dared to say what in any one else had been a horrid blasphemy: "The Father and I are one." But that man, of all men, that Son of God, said: "Learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart." That man said: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." That man said: "My kingdom is not of this world." When men, ravished by the heavenly beauty of his doctrines, fascinated by the music of his voice, enchanted by the radiance of his countenance, were eager to touch the hem of his garment to feel health and strength flow out therefrom - when in their passionate enthusiasm they would seize him and make him king, he fled from their hands into the mountain alone and spent the night in prayer.

He had nowhere to lay his head, and yet the gold and the power of earth could not tempt him to swerve from the simple path of preaching the truth of God, of ministering God's consolations to the afflicted and refusing to have any part or parcel in the mere temporal kingdoms of the world. (Applause.) We read in the gospel how the subtle spirit of evil brought him up to a high place, showing him all the kingdoms of this world and the glory thereof, and the lying spirit offered to give him what it was not in his power to give if he would but swerve from perfect fidelity to the truth, if he would but worship him who is called the prince of this world.

This man, the gentlest, the lowliest, the humblest of men, who explicitly tells us that his kingdom is not of this world is the only possible source and author and founder claimed by the papacy. This man as he walked one day on the sands of the sea of Galilee, otherwise known as the lake of Genessareth, saw a fisherman mending his nets and called him to be a follower. He said to him that ho would make him a fisher of men, and told him that he would give him a new name that should signify unshaken fidelity in adhesion to the truth. And later on he said to this man: "Simon, Simon, dost thou love me?" and he repeated the interrogation, and a third time he propounded the question. That loving disciple, taught by sad experience how unwise it was to boast of his greater  love, of his greater fidelity, since on the bitter night of agony, after his vain boasting and cursing and swearing that he would do no such thing, at the mere word of a maidservant he cursed and swore that he knew not the man, now humble in his own conceit said: "Lord, thou knowest all things - thou knowest that I love thee;" and in answer to the modest protestation of love for the master, he heard the command, not so much as the entreaty: "Feed thou my lambs; feed thou my sheep." All the ministrations and the examples of the master, all his teaching, all the words of the shepherd's commission given to that man, teach simply that he should excel the brethren in love for the master, and show his greater love for the master by his modesty, by his humility, by his long-suffering, by his forbearance, by his tenderness for the least of the sheep, and not by his solicitude for the value of their fleeces. (Applause.)

All this went to show that he, the disciple who had denied his master thrice, having learned greater humility from his own downfall, should seek to atone for the blasphemous apostasy by being a more loving and kinder and more intelligent and self-sacrificing shepherd of the fold. He was taught with singular emphasis the truth that the master had taught in general to all, that the disciple is not above his master. And in no age of the world, in no land, should the disciple who inherits the office of Peter be above the master. (Great applause.)

The office of Peter is salutary in the world only in proportion as it is exercised in full conformity with the spirit of him who would have no earthly kingdom, whose crown was a crown of thorns, a diadem emblematic of his sufferings, of his agony; who was to be exalted not upon the shoulders of men but upon the horrid, ignominious gibbet, that, with outstretched arms strained to dislocation, he might symbolize his all embracing love for all the human race. (Applause.) The pope is, if he is anything, simply the successor of that man Simon Peter, of that man who was told that he knew not of what spirit he was when he dared to draw his sword and in his hasty, ill considered zeal, to cut off the ear of one of those who came to capture Christ in the garden of agony. He was told to put up his sword. He was told by the master with stern rebuke that if that master needed aid he could call upon his Father to send his legions of angels to light his battles. But his battles were not to be fought with the arm of the flesh. He was to conquer the world by dying for that world. And the spirit that was his, the spirit of which Peter should be the example and which as yet he ignored, was the spirit that should teach him that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world and that the power of Christ's kingdom is in inverse proportion to the temporal and earthly power that it may sway over unwilling subjects.

The office of Peter was to confirm his brethren in the faith, in their adherence to the teachings of Christ, in the spirit of fortitude with which they should go out into the whole world and preach the pure and sweet doctrines of the gospel to every creature. He was, if you choose, to establish a see on earth that should inherit the apostolic tradition of the Christ, should be the depository of the teaching of Christ and his apostles in matters of faith. It was his office to be the high priest of the Christian altar, and a bishop of his church, to consecrate other bishops and to ordain other priests who might perpetuate the priesthood of Christ, the ministry of his altar and the preaching of his word.

All this was the office, not merely of Peter, but of all the apostles. He sent them out to teach the whole world to look up to heaven and to acknowledge but one Father in heaven and one brotherhood on earth. (Applause.) This was the office of Peter, and Peter fulfilled the office. He went out into no small portion of the Roman empire and preached Christ and him crucified. He taught by example rather than by word that meekness which the master says should be characteristic of him and of all who should learn of him. And if the pope is successor of Peter, who, rather than the pope, should surpass all other men in meekness, in lowliness, in humility and poverty of spirit? (Applause.)

Peter and his successors for three centuries practiced what they preached. They were good shepherds. They loved the sheep for their own sake and not for the sake of their fleeces. (Applause.) They endured that supreme test that the master bad chosen as the test of perfect love: "A greater love no man showeth than that he should give his life for his friend." "I am the good shepherd, and I lay down my life for the sheep." Nearly every man of them who was elected to that charge for three centuries - elected, forced, driven into it by the suffrages, the entreaties, the coercion almost, of the clergy and the people (applause) - nearly every man of them made good in reality, as every one of them was prepared to make good in spirit, the word of the master. Nearly every man of them laid down his life for his sheep.

We hear, during these centuries, of no concordats between the pope and the emperor. (Applause, renewed several times.) We hear of no ambassadors, official or semi-official, officious or unofficious, going to back doors or to kitchen stairways, whether of the palatine or of the catacombs, where the popes had their palaces, to negotiate understandings and compromises between the pope and the civil power. (Applause.) The word "pope" had not yet come into existence. (Laughter.) The bishop of Rome was acknowledged by the Christian church to be the successor in the see of Rome of blessed Peter. The see of Rome was acknowledged to be by excellence the apostolic see - to be, beyond all other sees, the depository of Christian traditions. The bishop of Rome was acknowledged to have the leadership in the church of Christ - to be the chief bishop of the church.

But the development of this papal power that has been going on for centuries was then undreamed of. You find little or nothing of it in the epistles of this man Peter, who surely was as good a pope, or almost as great a pope, us his holiness, Leo XII. [should be XIII?] (Great applause.) And you seek in vain in the epistles of the first pope for anything like the incredible self-assertions of the last pope. (Applause.) I should have said of the latest pope. (Laughter and applause.) Men in their enthusiastic reverence for the apostle never dreamed of carrying him upon their shoulders, but they carried him in their hearts. (Great applause.) And he never dreamed of attributing to himself, and no one else ever dreamed of attributing to him, all the wondrous conquests of the Christian church during his not brief apostolate. There were other apostles, there were bishops and priests by the scores and the hundreds who did the work. And it is only the fashion of comparatively modern adulation and pope worship and pope deification, to attribute to a poor old man already tottering on the brink of the grave, ignorant of the history and the geography of the world, all the triumphs of the church of Christ. Christ gave to this man, Simon Bar-Jona, the authority to be the shepherd over his flock. He did not arrogate to himself the appointment of other apostles. He, with the rest, permitted the choice of a new apostle to take the place of the apostate and traitor, Judas, to depend upon the cast of a die or he drawing of lots. And the successors of Peter for hundreds and hundreds of years, for very many hundreds of years, continued modest in their high office, eager everywhere to defend the purity of the faith, ready by their letters to rebuke any bishop, no matter how high placed, who should teach anything contrary to what had been taught by the apostolic church from the beginning. And he did not arrogate to himself the right to appoint bishops to rule, to domineer with minute inspection over the affairs of the clergy of the whole world. The bishops of the church everywhere for a thousand years were elected by the clergy and the people, and the very successors of Peter for these long centuries were elected by the clergy and the people of Rome. (Applause.) This Christian society with its priests, its bishops, with the bishop of Rome acknowledged to be the senior bishop, the presiding bishop, the successor of Peter, the inheritor of his office, because of its adhesion to the spirit of the master, and not the sword of Peter. (Applause.)

After three centuries it unfortunately became good policy, as much as it was a matter of Christian conversion for the saving of his soul or as it was the result of a miraculous cross in the heavens, for Constantine the emperor to become a Christian. And we, better than the Christians of the centuries that followed the time of Constantine, can see what a sad mistake it was, what a pitiable and unfortunate thing it was, that the church of Christ was befriended, protected, enriched, not merely with wealth, but with temporal power, by Constantine and his successors. Thence dates the beginning of the degeneration of the Christian church. The purple that symbolized, not the blood with which Christ empurpled his cross, but the power that Constantine gave to the church, is the imperial purple. The privilege of wearing it comes from Constantine and his successors.

The very virtues of the church unfortunately gave occasion to the wealth and the power that have corrupted the church. Christians were willing or even eager to bring their disputes about temporal matters to the arbitration of the bishop, who was their father and their friend. In his wisdom and impartiality they had implicit confidence. In an evil hour the emperor gave the sanction of law to the judgments of bishops and erected episcopal tribunals. Great princes, wealthy testators, emperors, lavished boundless wealth the church, that the church might be their almoner in doing works of religion, of education and of charity. It is a thousand pities that the church accepted so perilous a trust. (Applause.)

Let us, taught by the bitter example of a thousand years of shameful history, do what we can by voice and pen and labor to prevent the repetition of the blunder, that shall not be merely a blunder but a crime if it be repeated at all in this new virgin continent, of that union of church and state, which means the injury and the corruption of both. Unfortunately the church is very human as well as divine. The lesson of Peter's life tells us how very human the papacy is. The fact that Peter in his successors is still very human. He may be rash on the one hand and he may be time-serving on the other. (Applause.) And certainly were a very strange pope who should think himself greater, or better, or higher, or more of a pope or a better man than Peter. And what we are safe to say of Peter surely we are safe to say of one of his successors. (Applause.)

The Roman empire, in spite of its conversion to Christianity, was doomed by its crimes, by its false policies, by its absolutism, which Christianity taught it little or nothing to mitigate. The Christian church came to teach certain general principles of religion and of morality; but somehow or other it was left to men, by sad and painful experience, by the oppressions and the robberies, the wars and the murders of long centuries, to find out for themselves the beauty of universal suffrage, the beauty of republicanism; to discover for themselves the rights of man, the rights of citizenship; to discover, or rather to re-discover and to re-promulgate the magnificent teaching of our Declaration of Independence, of the equality of men and of the unalienable rights of men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (Applause.) I know that these things are all contained in germ in the gospel, in the parables of Christ, in the teaching of the Christian church; and yet, somehow or other, they failed for all these centuries to find their perfect application.

And we must say apologetically that it was not the business of the church to teach either monarchy or republicanism. It was the business of the Christian church to teach certain religious truths, to preach pure morals, to stand for the supremacy of the moral order in the world, to give to poor, weak, sinful man spiritual help and medicine. But it has been true and it shall be ever true of political questions, as it is true of scientific questions, what the scripture says of the universe: "He has delivered it over to the disputations of man." (Applause.) It was not, then - and we need not blame the papacy - it was not the fault of the papacy if it did not teach the Roman empire republicanism. It did, in teaching the great, universal, essential principle of the equality and dignity of man, not a little to soften manners, to prevent crime, to improve morals, to prepare for a higher civilization. It emancipated not merely the slave, but woman also. It taught the preciousness of human life.

The principles of political emancipation, of the restoration of the masses of men to their God-given inheritance of natural opportunities, are all conveyed in the gospel of Christ, are all taught in the teachings of the Christian church, at least in germ. But it remains for men through the painful experiences of ages to be compelled to learn how they shall right their secular wrongs, how they shall undo their political and social evils, and all that they need from the Christian church, and all that they should tolerate from the Christian church is the general principles of truth, and morality, and its prayers, and its blessings and its comforting, holy sacraments. (Applause.)

The Roman empire became speedily Christian in its highest places, and the Roman emperors were glad to conciliate the Christian church. They were glad to lavish power and wealth upon the Christian church, not merely that it might be the almoner and educator, but that it might also be in great measure the special policeman, well paid to keep down the mob. (Applause.)

And because of its crimes the Roman empire fell. It richly deserved to fall. And the Christian society, in spite of not a few of the blunders and crimes that it began to contract because of its alliance with that Roman empire, must still remain, in spite of its human advocates, as a witness of Christ's truth, as the minister of his sacraments, as the teacher of morals to those who would practice even while the preacher did not practice himself. The Roman empire was broken into many fragments by sturdy barbarians from the north, men full of martial vigor, men with many natural virtues but still barbarians and savage. They were able to destroy the Roman empire but they were not able to destroy the Christian church, for that, in spite of its human side, had with in it a divine element. It still stood for Christ. And so the barbarian fell on his knees before the Roman altar and eagerly craved Christian baptism and Christian doctrine and Christian sacraments and Christian morals. And the barbarians become Christian, full of gratitude to the church that had rescued them from savagery, that had taught them to read, that had given them gentle manners and nobler arts, lavished everything in their new gratitude at the feet of the church, of the mistress, of the mother who taught them, who nursed them, as it were, into spiritual life.

And here was the second blunder. A thousand pities that the church accepted the trust, accepted the lands, accepted the gifts of the newly converted nations, allowed her councils in great measure to be so mixed up with the civil parliaments of these new founded nations that it was hard to say where the council ended and the parliament began, or where the parliament ended and the council began. Bishops, noblemen and sovereigns were all mingled in one common council, church and state in almost inextricable confusion. It seemed good, it seemed a wise, an admirable thing that there should be such an excellent understanding between the spiritual and the temporal power. But the clear, cold light of history makes plain that it was a horrible blunder. And for us to repeat the blunder would be the most unpardonable of crimes. (Applause.)

You owe to that condition of things all the squabbles and the conflicts and the interminable wars between church and state continued for hundreds of years during the dark ages. You owe to this the temporal power of the pope. You owe to this the pope's assumed right to restore the Roman empire in the person of Charlemagne. You owe to this the principle of the pope to Control the empire of Germany, to crown the emperor of Germany and to call him the sovereign of the holy Roman empire, of which Voltaire not only truly, but wittily, said that it was called holy Roman empire because it was neither holy nor Roman. It was not Roman, but German, and it was decidedly unholy. (Applause.)

It was through this beautiful union of church and state with the sanction of Peter's successor, who himself was at the head of the whole order, that you find bishops entangled with all the duties of feudals, bishops, bound by their civil tenures to lands with which their bishoprics were enriched, to actually furnish so many soldiers and not unfrequently willing, or not unwilling, to lead these soldiers, clad in mail, engaged in the frays of their petty lords.

And from this beautiful union of church and state that rose from the gratitude of newly converted people's lavishing everything at the feet of the church, came the indescribable corruption, the degenerate ignorance, the degradation of morals both in the clergy and the laity, the interminable confusion of the middle ages. And it was that condition of things, that need of reformation, a need that still continued for centuries in spite of the cry that was going up from thousands of the faithful for reformation of the church both in its head and in its members, it was that condition of things that continued so long in spite of the prayers of so many saints and sages, in spite of the sincere conviction and the earnest desire of all men a great controversy about religion, teaches every where, it was the continuation of that influence that made necessary the protestant reformation. (Applause.)

It is not my business here to-night, dear friends, to justify the destruction of any of the good things that that protestant reformation destroyed. I believe as a matter of history, a matter of intense conviction, that in endeavoring to reform things, it destroyed as much as it reformed; that in endeavoring to brush away cobwebs and reform abuses it actually took away from the teaching and custody of the Christian church many precious doctrines and sacraments. But at the the same time it seemed that this protestant reformation became, as it were, a necessity, a matter of course to be delayed no longer, and to be foreseen by any intelligent, sagacious spirit, as are the physical tempests that, no matter how much they may destroy, are yet absolutely indispensable to the general equilibrium of nature. After a protracted heated term of many days in hot climates, it becomes absolutely necessary that there shall be tempests, storms, thunder and lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes. I know that the tornado or hurricane is no respecter of persons or institutions. I know that the thunderbolt of heaven may rive the steeple of God's church as well as it may destroy a building dedicated to unworthy or unholy uses.

And so it may be with great political, great social revolutions. They may do much harm. They may do great wrong in the effort to effect radical remedy. They may tear up by the roots most precious things without which we should fare but ill. And yet that storm, that tempest, that hurricane, becomes, as it were, a necessity because of the criminal stupidity, the carelessness, the heartlessness, the mercilessness, with which those in authority, whether in church or state, repel as rebellious the cry that goes up from thousands of places all over the world, the cry begging for justice, for truth, for mercy, for reformation. (Applause.)

It is the tendency of power everywhere to aggrandize itself. It is a rare thing for power to abdicate one jot or tittle of what it possesses. The love of power, of self, like other passions, grows by what it feeds upon. You may find cases, several in history, of great emperors who abdicated individually the imperial throne. But you will find few, if any, cases of emperor or king who voluntarily diminished one jot or tittle of the imperial or kingly power. Though they abdicated the throne, they left it with all its power of despotism unaltered to their successors.

During these middle ages the papacy gradually grew to be a sort of universal sovereign, largely built up by the wish of the peoples themselves in their gratitude to the power that had done so much for them. But in spite of all that, we must say that it was a great misfortune that the church enjoyed such power. The church would have been a still wiser mistress if she had as speedily as possible taught the children she had educated to go out and prove themselves, if she had spurned the kingly office that was offered to her. Even though the crown should have thrice been offered to her she should have thrice refused it. It is a thousand pities that the church forgot the spirit of her master in not repeating in all the ages, "My kingdom is not of this world." (Applause.)

They justify the union of church and state as necessary for the liberty of the church. To that we may say that the best union of church and state does exist to a great extent here because of the admirable liberty that is given to all churches to do as they please, to teach as they please, provided their teachings do not conflict with public morality. Here, then, I say, we need no better union of church and state than we have. And what we call separation of church and state is the best union, where the church will respect the rights of the country and the country will respect the liberty of all churches to teach their creeds. (Applause.)

The temporal power, the wealth lavished upon the church, became a most fruitful source of corruption of popes, and cardinals, and prelates, and priests. The pope to a great extent became a temporal ruler, enriching his family, providing husbands for his nieces and wives for his nephews. (Laughter.) It is largely to the papal court and to ecclesiastical courts, to popes and cardinals and bishops, that we owe that odious word with which the dictionary of all European languages has unfortunately been enriched - the word "nepotism." The pope, the successor of Peter, the feeder of the lambs of Christ, becomes a temporal ruler. He is making treaties with France against Spain and treaties with Spain against France. He is forming alliances with foreign powers against Italian principalities. Then he allies himself with the Italian principalities against these foreign powers. And thus Catholic countries have had to look upon him time and again as a foreign enemy, and while calling out to shoot this holy father. (Laughter and applause.)

This went so far that Pope Alexander VI of infamous memory - his holiness, Pope Alexander VI, well known as Roderick Borgia - had his illegitimate children occupying his palaces. And Cĉsar Borgia, a great swashbuckler, a bully, a brute, a desperado and adventurer, in the name of and by the authority of his father, his holiness, Alexander VI, was actually traveling up and down the unfortunate Italian states killing and robbing and murdering in the name of his father, the holy father, the pope. (Applause.) And Lucretia Borgia, well known upon these boards (great
applause) - she was another one of the beautiful children of his holiness, Alexander VI. And it is significant that at the time that his holiness, Alexander VI, ruled the Roman church, a chubby, flaxen haired little German boy was playing round the streets of a town in Saxony, a boy whose name was Martin Luther. (Applause.)

And after Alexander VI there was a pope, Julius II. And he did not leave it to any son of his, if he had one, as I believe he didn't. He actually went on horseback to conquer the rebellious city of Bologna. And he had a cast made of himself in metal, sword in hand, and this in the name of him who said: "My kingdom is not of this world." (Applause.)

All this because it was indispensable to the liberty, and the dignity, and the decorum, and the support of the holy see that it should enjoy the temporal power which it had inherited by a special providence of God for nearly a thousand years. During the middle ages the pope at the head of Christendom assumed as much as he could of power, temporal as well as spiritual. And he asserted his right to interfere with the feuds of princes, protesting that he did not judge concerning the fief that was in question, but concerning the sin. And, on that pretense, there is nothing in human life in which priest, pope or bishop could not interfere.

"We are bound to take our religion from Peter." Yes; properly understood and only with very great reservations. Now, there is nothing uncatholic in that. The very definition of the dogma of papal infallibility is hedged about with all sorts of reservations. This teaching power of the church, this gift of infallibility, it is when the pope, at the head of this Roman church, as the successor of St. Peter, teaching the universal church, defining something, settling a great controversy about religion, teaches something, not as a new doctrine, but simply defines more explicitly and in clear and unquestionable terms with the seal of authority - much like a decision of the supreme court of the United States - not a new thing, but the old constitution and the old faith of the church. (Applause.) That is all. (Applause.) And it is the teaching of Catholic theology, of Roman theology which I have learned in Rome, that it is not in the power of councils or popes, or council and pope together, or the whole Catholic episcopacy called together, to teach any new doctrine as a doctrine of the Christian faith. If it is a new doctrine, then it cannot be a doctrine of the Christian faith. (Applause.) All that they can do is to define that such and such a doctrine is contained in the original deposit of faith. The mere fact of their coming out to teach a new revelation would condemn them out of their own mouths.

Now, that immediately brushes away ninety-nine one-hundredths of all this rubbish that we hear about every day, that we heard last Sunday or read in the newspapers concerning what had been uttered on Sunday of the pope sitting in his high chair - somebody put emphasis upon the word high - the pope in his high chair (laughter), that everything that the pope utters from his high chair is an oracle of God, that we are bound to believe all that the holy father says. A man in this very city dared from a Catholic pulpit to preach such rubbish as that last Sunday. (Hisses and cries of "Preston.") He said substantially that every word of the holy father was the utterance of the Holy Ghost. Now, is not that monstrous? Will the world ever accept such "rot" as that? (Cries of "No! no!" and applause.) Does it not make the cheeks of you Catholics tingle and burn with shame? (Cries of "Yes! yes!")

Now, what does theology say? That the pope simply is the representative, the successor, of Peter in defining the faith, the dogmas, most of which must be pretty well defined after these nineteen centuries, so that surely there can remain but little more to be defined. And it must be something that is already commonly accepted, and as good as defined, and taught in the general deposit or teaching of the church or it would not be capable of definition at all. With that exception we are told in our theology that the pope is as fallible as anybody else. We are perfectly free as Catholics to believe - we know by painful experience - that he is capable of the most egregious blunders and crimes. (Applause.) We know that one pope will criticise and deplore the improvidences, the imperfections, the crimes of his predecessors, by which whole nations have been lost to the Catholic faith.

Pope Pius V squabbled over the legitimacy of Queen Elizabeth. And if the people of England were content to have an illegitimate woman reign over them, what business was it of his? "But he was bound to stick up for the legitimacy of the marriage of Henry VIII and Queen Catharine." But if the English Catholics were such fools, if it was a foolish thing, were pleased to have another kind of a woman to reign over them, that was "their funeral" and not his. (Applause.) And then the pope gets himself mixed up in an alliance with that brutal despotism of Spain to invade England and depose Queen Elizabeth. And what wonder, then, that the patriotic Englishmen; hated the very name of pope? What wonder, then, that they could hardly find anything worse to frighten children with, as a sort of bugaboo, than to talk about the pope. (Laughter and applause.)

So far is it from being true that the pope's every word is the oracle of the Holy Ghost that it is the explicit teaching of Catholic theology that the pope may utter blunders, not merely in private conversation, but that he may go into the pulpit of St. Peter's church - next door to his - "prison," and from the pulpit of that church preach a sermon, and that sermon may be as full of heresies as a plum pudding is of plums.

The pope as a preacher in St. Peter's church, or any other church, teaching a single congregation, may be so ignorant of his theology and the definitions of the church as to teach heresy upon heresy. And some poor layman, some student, sitting at the foot of the pulpit, might say: "Well, isn't he making a fool of himself?" And somebody might very truthfully say after making the usual genuflections to the pope: "Well, holy father, of course, it is a long time since you have studied your theology, and permit me tell you very frankly that there were half a dozen heresies in this sermon. You said so and so, and the opposite was defined by the council of Constantinople, and so and so, and the opposite was defined by the council of Trent, and is the teaching of all the theologians;" and the pope would have to acknowledge his mistake. And it would be the duty of theologians to haul him up and say "What are you talking about?" And the pope might print his sermon in a book, and it might be the duty of the theologians to humbly petition him to allow them to put that book on the index of forbidden books until carefully expurgated. This may seem all a joke, but I assure you it is sound Roman theology. And now you see how much importance is to be attached to this New York theologian (applause) about every word that the pope utters being the oracle of the Holy Ghost. While they claim for him the right to rule and they demand of everybody else obedience, they have never yet dared to say, except some of these New York theologians, that the pope is assuredly guided by the Holy Ghost in all his utterances and that we are bound to obey him in everything because the Holy Ghost won't permit him to command anything wrong. Now, that is making of the pope a grand lama, a kind of fetich worse than the Delphic oracle, it is actually asserting for the pope what the pope has hardly ever dared even in his highest flights, even sitting on his highest high chair, to say for himself. (Laughter.)

The pope has a right to rule the flock of Christ. How much? In what way? In things that common sense would suggest to be his business. But these flatterers of the pope, these adulators, these men ignorant of theology, who flatter the human vanity of the pope, the natural love of power in the pope, just as natural and as great as in any other man, these men are making of the pope a kind of divinity, are making of the pope such a power as the world must simply reject with loathing and with unspeakable indignation. (Applause.) "All you subjects of the pope are bound to obey him." Are we? In what? In things that belong to his office, surely, and nothing else. Has he a right to send a telegram to one of us, saying, "Come over here to Rome; I want to talk to you about something. I shall not exactly tell you what, nor say how long I shall keep you here." And in the good old times he might have stuck you into jail and kept you there for life by virtue of his kingly power as the temporal as well as the spiritual ruler of Rome. Has he a right to do that? I say, no. (Cries of "No! no!" and applause.) This power is necessarily limited by the very nature of the case that every man's conscience is the final arbiter for him how far he is bound to obey the pope or any one else. (Great applause.)

The Christian church will best fulfill its mission when its goes back as near as it can to the spirit and the condition of its founder. That pope in all  modern times will be the greatest of popes, the greatest of all popes after Peter himself, who shall, like Peter, without temporal power, without scrip or staff, walk about the earth and who shall be a man among men, who shall spurn from him the flatterers, who shall almost literally kick in the mouth the men who so debase their manhood as to come to kiss his foot. (Great applause.) He will be the greatest of popes who by some miracle shall be elected to the chair of Peter - nothing short of a miracle can permit in the existing circumstances the existing men to elect such a pope - who, elected as if by a miracle, shall use all the monstrous power that has been given to him, to abdicate that power, to break it, to smash it, to grind it to powder and make it impossible for his successors for a thousand years to build it up again. (Applause.)

When a little while ago some one said that he would be one of the greatest of the popes who should be seen walking down Broadway (laughter) clad in the ordinary habiliments of a modern man and refusing to let men carry him upon their shoulders, when all men would carry him in their hearts, it was looked upon as a blasphemy. "What? The pope to wear clothes like an ordinary mortal!" As if it were worse almost than denying the trinity to assert that the pope should walk the streets with a hat of modem fashion (laughter), with a hat that should not be 500 years behind the fashion. As if it were necessary for the dignity and the honor of the office of Peter that he must wear a hat, if he wears a hat at all, 500 years old. So that, no doubt, from that point of view, it will be eminently a proper thing 500 years from now, when perhaps stovepipe hats will be five hundred years behind the fashion, for the pope to be seen carried on some kind of a vehicle up and down Broadway wearing a stovepipe hat. (Great laughter.)

Now is it a necessary concomitant of the office of Peter that he must be worshiped like a grand lama with three genuflections, one at the door, one at the middies, one at his chair; after which there comes a kind of a scramble to get at his foot and kiss it, and carried on men's shoulders in a position in which it is hard for anybody to look very dignified? Is it necessary, in order to do the will of his master, to preach the gospel as it was preached for six, seven, nearly eight hundred years by the best of his predecessors, that the pope shall for all time to come be a temporal ruler, shall have a kingdom over which to rule in spite of his subjects, as if those so-called subjects were so many cattle, born upon his estate, with no more rights than cattle? Is it necessary for the office of Peter that his successor shall be to-day the worst enemy of his country, that he shall be the chief obstacle to the liberty, the unity and the independence of Italy?

One of the most unpardonable, and, in some views, amusing aspects of the subject, is that the greatest sticklers for this temporal power, this kingship, of the pope, for what they call the spiritual and the temporal sovereignty of the vicar of Christ, are men converted from English or American Protestantism. Talk about Irish Catholics! I am glad to vindicate the Irish blood within me by saying that the most incredible subserviency, the most brutal adulation of the pope, comes from converts, English and American, to the Catholic faith. And some of the best hopes of resistance to the undue assumption of temporal power, the restraining of the pope's power where it has no business, lie to-day in the rebellious spirit of Irish Catholic. (Great applause.)

"The beneficence of the pope's influence in politics!" It is the curse of nearly every nation. It has been the curse of Italy, France, Spain, Germany, England, Ireland. God forbid! God forbid that the hated thing should have an ill-omened revival. There is a sort of revival just now, but I am glad to believe - in fact, I think I know - that it is a sort of opera bouffe revival. One of the greatest humorists of the age, Prince Bismarck, thought he might as well amuse himself by capturing a few rocks away out in the Pacific ocean, a portion of the Caroline islands upon which some German settler had built a shanty, and Bismarck thought he might as well take those islands. The Spanish hidalgos got their blood up about this, and Bismarck, the humorist, thought it too huge a joke to have a war with Spain over such a trifle; and only too glad to get any kind of half-way decent way of backing somebody to Rome to ask his holiness, the pope, to kindly consent to be arbitrator in this very unpleasant controversy that had arisen between Germany and Spain.

And the pope, the successor of Peter, the representative of Christ, was actually flattered, intensely flattered, by the attentions of Bismarck. And he fell in love with Bismarck. There was a kind of flirtation between him and Bismarck, and they exchanged portraits. (Great laughter.) And the flatterers of the pope began to tell him that he was one of the greatest of the popes. "Have you heard the roar of our lion?" punning upon his name, Leo, which you know means lion. "Have you seen the revival of the dignity of the holy see? It seems we are in the middle ages again, when the pope was the arbitrator of nations." (Laughter.) And that opera bouffe performance of the Caroline islands is one of the chief glories of this "most glorious reign." This adulation, piling it on an inch thick, is really something too disgusting.

There was a pope who died about ten years ago, who lived in the papacy some thirty-one years. One would have supposed that there never had been a pope before him. He was a great, immortal, wonderful man whom the the Lord, in his singularly loving providence, had granted to our age. And the poor old man was hardly fairly cold before he was forgotten and another man was selected in his place. And it is really amusing to see how the man who was made a god of but a few years ago is now coldly dismissed by the title of "your predecessor." The flatterers of the present pope are wise. People do not like to hear too much praise of their predecessors or successors. If you wish to be courteous to the pope have a care that you do not praise Pius IX too much now in any of your addresses to Leo XIII. And do not be too ready to praise any cardinal whom you happen to know as one eminently fit to fill the see of St. Peter, for such a man would then have a chance of being relegated to some very obscure bishopric. (Applause.)

Now, my dear brethren and sisters, is it not nearly time for those of us that are Catholics to raise our voices and protest that it is no part of our religion to engage in this fulsome adulation and deification of a poor old gentleman, seventy-eight years old, with one foot in the grave; a poor, tottering, absent minded old man, who is flattered by his worshipers with the notion that he is one of the greatest of the pontiffs and can arbitrate the quarrels of nations? Imagine Bismarck, if he had any really serious business in hand, committing it to the arbitration of the pope. (Laughter.) Imagine anybody seriously going to Bismarck and proposing to him that he should submit to the arbitration of the pope the question of the possession or the restoration of Alsace and Lorraine? (Cries of "Ah! ah!" and applause.)

So far is it from being true that the pope in politics, by being in politics, is furthering the kingdom of Christ, is preaching the gospel to every creature, that his being in politics is the chief impediment to the universal preaching of the gospel and the coming of the glorious day foretold by the master when there shall be but one Christian fold, of which he shall be the spiritual and loving shepherd. It is through the temporal sovereignty of the pope that Italy, which would be perhaps the greatest of Catholic countries, is to-day forced into an attitude of bitter hostility to the papacy because of its clinging to the rotten old timbers of the accursed temporal throne.

To prop up that tottering throne in '49 and since, the pope, prompt to act, called the bayonets of French and Austrians and Spaniards, so that Romans were compelled every day that they walked the streets of their native city, to witness the shame of a foreign garrison, brought there by the pope to keep them slaves. What wonder, then, that they hated the accursed thing?

We here are just beginning to get a taste of it in the alliances of corrupt political factions with the ecclesiastical machine. We have had a taste of it here in the recent election. (Great applause.) We had a taste of it seventeen years ago in the not very secret alliance, offensive and defensive, between the Tweed Tammany ring and a clique of Catholic priests, ratified by a clandestine meeting one Sunday evening in the back room of the episcopal residence in Mulberry street between Peter B. Sweeney and Archbishop McCloskey. (Applause.) And the object of that alliance between that infamously corrupt political faction and this ecclesiastical machine was to rob the public treasury; it was by clandestine arts, not by open persuasion, but by the clandestine arts of Peter B. Sweeney, by inserting clauses in the acts of the legislature, that the legislators themselves would not understand, to secure public money for Catholic schools.

And one chief reason of this alliance to-day between these two corrupt machines is that the corrupt democratic machine expects to get and does get Catholic votes, through the influence of the confessional and the pulpit and all the arts (great applause) of which the ecclesiastical machine is master. And the object of the ecclesiastical machine is, by the aid of that corrupt political faction, to retain the enormous appropriations that are given every year, not by new legislation, but by old legislation, at the rate of a hundred dollars and sometimes a hundred and ten dollars a head for every person committed to these Catholic institutions. So that out of your treasury to-day that ecclesiastical machine is practically receiving well on to a million dollars yearly; though it may be a surprise to most of you to hear it to-night from this platform for the first time.

And one of these institutions, the so-called Catholic protectory, not satisfied with the between three and four hundred thousand dollars a year that it must be receiving from your treasury, has been a perfect nuisance at the doors of the legislature at Albany, constantly begging for additional appropriations and bedeviling the politics of our city with its promises and its threats - with the implied promise that politicians good to that institution would not be forgotten at the polls and that the politicians who should refuse would not be forgotten either. (Applause.) And if in the last presidential election I supported Mr. Cleveland, it is my firm purpose, as you will easily understand, to do what I can to support the candidate of the united labor party at the coming election. (Applause.) What I did say for President Cleveland - it was not much - was not so much out of love for President Cleveland as it was out of love for the Catholic church, to do something to vindicate the Catholic church from being actually nothing but a wretched tail to the kite of corrupt Tammany hall, so that, because of the dissatisfaction of Tammany hall with Mr. Cleveland, he should lose the suffrages of these very people and be antagonized by them. It was too sad a sight; and I for one did what I could to show that there were priests as well as Catholic laymen who could afford to.maintain independence and not be dictated to by that machine in politics. And seventeen years ago in published interviews, with a certain prudence and moderation, I put very clearly before the public mind the question: Is it a proper thing to have any such alliance?

And if they must have Catholic schools, which I do not believe; if we must have private charities, if we have the fun of getting them up we should also have the luxury of supporting them out of our own purses. And I do not care to say much about myself, but it occurs to me that if I am somewhat in disfavor with that ecclesiastical machine of late it was not entirely because of some very recent occurrences with which you are so familiar, but because of this more ancient history that I am now recalling. (Applause.)

This infallible pope who can never say anything wrong or do anything unwise, this infallible, impeccable pope, whom it would seem as if it were the duty of everybody to consider impeccable, has time and again bedeviled the politics of nations as to-day he does the politics of Italy. There are in that country good men, holy men, learned men, gifted men, priests, bishops and members of religious orders who are hungering for conciliation between their church and their country, but they scarcely dare to speak.

Of course it is the fashion for a few days for the new pope to be a little liberal and want to reform things. Good old Pius IX started as a liberal, but he did not want to go quite so far with such reforms as others. Then he took the back track.

My predecessor in St. Stephens, Dr. Cummings, while on a visit to Italy, heard of the pope, who was on his travels, at Bologna, heard from friends of the pope right there, who felt it was their duty to say to Pius IX, with all the professions and adulations and reverences, "Holy father, there would be some little reforms desirable in your temporal administration, and of course, your holiness, in your wisdom, will see you must not overlook them, at the same time you will excuse and forgive us; our great devotion to your holiness compels us to speak, but just a few reforms are needed." And the pope said: "Am I pope, or am I not?" [shaking his head emphatically]. (Great laughter.) And then the final, unapproachable sentence was: "I had enough of reforms in '48." No more reform for him.

And so this present pope but yesterday, or a few days ago, when King Humbert was willing to show that he wanted to be a Catholic, when he sent some offerings of kindly respect and friendship to the pope, they were thrown back in his face.

And the present pope is trying to strengthen his alliance with England, with Russia, with Prussia, at the expense every time of the poor Catholic people (applause), of north Germany, of Poland, of England, of Ireland. (Applause.) The pope in politics! Look at the outrage recently put upon the faithful people of Ireland by sending a commission of two Italian prelates to investigate them at the dictation of an English lord, with the object of repressing their patriotic sentiments in order to obtain the help of England in building up his rotten temporal throne. (Applause.)

The pope in politics! Infallible! Most fallible of men. He can scarcely take a step but what he is sure to make a blunder worse than a crime because he has no business in politics. It is his business to preach the gospel to every one, and every man should stick to his own trade, and the ecclesiastical cobbler, like every other cobbler, should stick to his last. (Applause.) And a man who might make a good priest would make, as a rule, a very poor politician, of which I, myself, am an illustrious example. It is one of the signs of the degeneracy of the church and churchmen, that while criminally neglecting their own business of preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments to the poor, they seek to control education and politics, of which you have examples lying loose all around you in this very city and all over this country. (Applause.)

I flatter myself that although I am not much of a priest I am a better priest than I am a politician (cheers and applause), and I think I can safely say, as a matter of fact, that not the least of the crimes charged against me was substantially that I was too single minded and too enthusiastic and too childlike in my belief in the teachings of the church and the divine efficacy of the sacraments of Christ. I believed that religion needed not the paltry, wretched, miserable aid of sham parochial schools, that it needed not alliance of a corrupt political faction, that all it needed was to raise up priests with the spirit of Christ to send out to preach the gospel to every creature, to administer his holy sacraments, and that we in this magnificent field of perfect freedom would speedily bring the whole land to acknowledge the beauty of the religion of Christ. I am sure that not the least of the churches - that over which I happened to be pastor - there were no politics preached, no political tracts distributed in the pews (great applause), even when they were sent through ecclesiastical channels by the vicar general or the boss of Tammany Hall. (Hisses and applause.) And it is clearly true that you can be good Catholics, and I pray that you shall be all the better Catholics, for refusing in the name of religion to take your politics from Rome; for the more of your politics you take from Rome the less religion you will have (applause), and the more you refuse to take your politics from Rome the more likely you are to preserve your religion in its purity and to win for your religion the respect and the friendship and even perhaps the fellowship of your fellow countrymen. The Catholic religion is best to-day where it has been remotest for generations from the intrigue and the politics of the court of Rome. (Applause.) The Catholic religion has been purest, it has the most perfect allegiance of all those who call themselves Catholics at all in Holland, in Ireland, in England, in Scotland and in North Germany - in all those countries where the church is shorn of temporal power, where it has no voice in politics.

I know that such a sermon as I am preaching is not one likely to be heard from any Catholic pulpits (laughter); and yet I assure you on my honor as a man and my faith as a priest that I have taught nothing that is not compatible with the strictest Catholic theology. (Great applause.) I wish again and again to plead guilty to the charge of being a very poor politician. Nay, more; I wish to say, rather in vindication of myself than as confessing a fault that I am no politician at all. I am a priest, and nothing but a priest. (Cries of "Good, good!" and applause.) If I seem to have made myself singular in coming out from time to time upon secular platforms, it never was in spite of my priesthood; it was because of my priesthood. (Applause.) It was because my heart was breaking with woe at the painful spectacle of large masses of men continuing to be estranged from the church of Christ because of her apparent heartlessness toward their miseries; because of her apparent readiness to side with their oppressors; of her apparent readiness to be a volunteer policeman to club down the aspirations of struggling nationalities; to retard the progress of science; to be an enslaver rather than an emancipator of the masses of men. And I was glad to come out upon some secular platforms that might have seemed political, but to me were entirely moral and religious to show that a priest, while preaching the gospel, could advocate the preventing of misery and show men that it was the teaching of revealed as well as of natural religion; that God is the father of all, and therefore we are all his children, equally entitled to natural bounties, and that landlordism, whether in Ireland or America, is against natural religion.

I deny the right of the pope, or of any man on earth, because I am a priest, to forbid me, a free man, a citizen, at the request of my fellow citizens, from fulfilling my duty as a citizen in coming to consult with them about their economic and political affairs. I deny the right of pope, propaganda or bishop to interfere with my political right; to interfere with my right as a man and citizen, and I assert my right not merely as a man and a citizen, but also as a priest, and just because I am a priest, all the more to bring whatsoever light I can from natural or revealed religion upon public platforms and to show the people light upon a complex problem of political economy.

Because of all this routine and misinformation and sticking up for authority, whether right or wrong, there are men and women here, some actually excommunicated, others as good as excommunicated, for simply holding a truth in political economy; a truth of natural religion which is actually the teaching of religion itself. "The pope in his high chair, the great friend of science, the promotor of liberty." "The church has always been on the side of liberty, of science, of progress." So said the theologians last Sunday, and so said some of the politicians on last Wednesday at Cooper union. (Hisses.) About a thousand years ago an Irish bishop was clubbed as heretical for teaching that there were antipodes; but I have seen people from the antipodes and have had them dining at my table and am none the worse. (Laughter.) And the pope himself sent a cardinal out to the antipodes, Cardinal Moran of Sydney, a man whom he called all the way from Sydney to make archbishop of Dublin in spite of the unanimous wish of the people and clergy of Dublin and the bishops of Ireland. He sent all the way to Australia to bring back an Irishman named Moran, a nephew of Cardinal Cullen (hisses and groans), to make him archbishop of Dublin to please Queen Victoria. What had the Holy Ghost got to do with that, I should like to know? (Great laughter and applause.) While this man was coming on his long voyage from Australia the bishops and clergy of Ireland so browbeat the pope, almost threatening a schism, that the pope was really compelled to appoint Archbishop Walsh. And so the Australian prelate was met at Brindisi on the way from Australia and told that he was not to be archbishop of Dublin, but that the pope would send him back a cardinal. There is the pope in politics ready to sell out poor Ireland. (Cries of "That's it! that's it!"and applause.) There's the man Simeoni writing an insulting letter to the bishops of Ireland, calumniating the patriotic leaders of the Irish people, a letter as good as written by a little Anglo-Irish impecunious landlord - Errington. The foolish people of Longford elected this man as a home rule member, and he went to Rome to do the dirty work of the English government, which he no doubt succeeded to a large extent in doing, as the duke of Norfolk has actually complimented the pope for his "restraining influence in British politics," which, being interpreted, means having used his ecclesiastical club to club poor Paddy into submission. (Great applause.)

Now there is enough Irish blood in me, or rather I say there is enough of the red blood of a man in me, to make me angry - to make me say, at all hazards, to you Catholic men and women, to make me willing to say to all the world if I could, let the pope mind his own business. Insist upon it, clamor for it, petition, demand, threaten to rebel, refuse supplies, tighten your purse strings (cries of "That's it!" "That's it!" and applause), compel that ecclesiastical machine to give the clergy and the people the election of their bishops by the very same system by which all the great doctors and saints and confessors for eight hundred or a thousand years were elected, and the control of your temporalities. Demand a voice as to the amount of salary that shall be paid to your archbishop, who has practically the incredible right to name his own salary.

Every pope's authority is limited always by right reason and common sense; and when priest or pope interferes with your politics or dictates to you unduly about the education of your children, in such matters tell them to mind their own business. If they choose to excommunicate you for that, you can say with a clear conscience: "Let them excommunicate me." And as much as we value these sacraments, we are theologians enough to know that God has never limited his own power. Thank God, it is the teaching of Catholic theology that conscience is supreme. (Great applause.)

There come times for nations and individuals when they must fall back upon that reserved right of conscience; and it is my own case to-day. I had no misgivings. I am as near to God to-night perhaps as I ever was in all my life, an excommunicated, isolated priest. (Applause.) And so shall it be with each one of you.

And now, before I end, is it not monstrous to hear from any pulpit the assertion that we must take our politics from the pope as well as our religion? When we hear that corrupt gang of politicians in Cooper Union last Wednesday glorifying the ecclesiastical machine in order to bolster up their own and talking about the magnificent things the pope has done for civilization, is it not monstrous, I say, that with such utterances in our newspapers we should look in vain in the editorial
columns for even an exclamation of surprise? What has befallen such papers as Harpers' Weekly, and the Tribune, and the Herald, and all the newspapers that but a little while ago would have been ringing with denunciation of the ecclesiastical machine for interfering in our politics. The only paper that has made any utterance, as far as I know, at all is the New York Times to-day, which actually adjudges us the honor of being the only ones to make a vigorous protest as Christians, as Catholics, as Americans, against such an outrage.

But the Times minimizes as much as it can the horrible utterances of Mgr. Preston (hisses) and asserts that after all they are only his individual utterances, although he is the vicar-general and that not a particle of weight is to be attached to them beyond what belongs to the utterances of Mr. Preston. And the Times says that it would be a pity that so erratic a character as Dr. McGlynn should carry off the glory of being about the only one to stand up for Americanism against this interference of the ecclesiastical machine. And so the Times does what it can to minimize the utterances of Mgr. Preston and to make lighter our protest and to justify the interference of the very same ecclesiastical machine with us, because, after all, it is eminently proper that it should discipline a priest who was "denouncing the rights of property" and who was actually going in for "general robbery and confiscation." Of course it is hardly necessary to say that the Times is calumniating you and me and that in effect it is actually justifying the monstrous interference of that ecclesiastical machine with an American political party and with one American citizen.

And now I prophesy that the knownothings of the future will not be so much your native Americans as they will be Irish Catholics ("Hear, hear,"' and applause) - that the men to put to shame you Americans of old American stock, you Americans of protestant and puritan faith, the men to put you to the blush in their magnificent protest against the interference of any ecclesiastical machine will be men of Catholic faith and men largely of Irish extraction. (Applause.)

And now, dear friends, I will end with the thought that is always uppermost in my mind, the thought of universal charity, of supreme love that makes us embrace with tenderest affection even those who would put us to death. It is natural enough that we should be all the more indignant at the abuses of something that has been very near and very dear to us. We may condemn the crime, but we must have infinite pity and infinite charity for the offenders. And I think I can safely say, with all sincerity and honesty, that in all my action I am prompted not by hatred but by much love (applause), not by hatred of that Catholic church which has ever retained for its faith and sacraments, my profoundest allegiance and affection - not by hatred even of those men who are its administrators. I am philosopher enough to know that they themselves are the creatures and the victims of the machine. It would be a heroic man that, being elected pope, could be so far above his surroundings as to use his power to crush the very machine that had made him. But this is my hope and this is my prayer that that power that now seems so wonderfully entrenched shall in the providence of God be broken up either by mighty revolutions that shall reduce the machine to impotence and poverty so that all the unworthy shall be driven from the ship, and that poverty, destitution, persecution, martyrdom may purify the church; or the other alternative which seems far more difficult of fulfillments - that in the providence of God there shall come a great man with wondrous genius, with mighty heart, with dauntless courage to smash the machine that shall have created him, to make the first use of his power in kicking away the throne upon which they will have placed him; in dispensing with the useless lackeys, and soldiers, and guards, and servants, in vacating his so-called prison of the Vatican with its four thousand rooms and its pagan museum and princely courtyards, and making a free donation of all his things to the people of Rome, and saying to the people of Italy and the world: "I ask nothing but your love, that you will lend me your ears that I may preach to you the truths of Christ; I ask none of the earthly gifts beyond what may be necessary for my poor shelter and raiment, and I shall be cautious in becoming even the almoner of your charities. I have more than enough to do to preach Christ and Him crucified, to teach men to pray, to teach them morals and virtue, and to administer the consolation of Christ's sacraments. Tempt me not with power and with wealth. I will give you all that I have if you will but give the allegiance of your minds and the worship of your hearts to His love that is in Christ."

When such a man shall come upon the world, when such a man shall sit in the chair of Peter he shall be the blessed precursor of the coming of the kingdom of heaven. (Great applause.)

PHILADELPHIA ANTI-POVERTY SOCIETY.

Henry George Speaks on the Tariff Question.

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 12. - The announcement that Henry George would speak on the tariff question on last Sunday night filled Lincoln hall to overflowing half an hour before the time fixed, and a great crowd had to be turned away. Mr. B. Hetzell presided, and in a few words introduced Mr. George.

Mr. George began by speaking of the great Reading strikes as evidencing that while men were crying "peace, peace," our industrial organization was in reality passing into a state of chronic warfare.

He alluded to the letter of Mr. George W. Childs in regard to the strike, published in the Philadelphia morning papers, paying a high tribute to Mr. Childs's personal character, but taking issue with his assertion that American workingmen were in a prosperous condition and that this prosperity was due to the tariff. Mr. George reviewed the tariff arguments at considerable length, showing that protective duties could not raise wages and could not benefit manufacturers, but that they in reality only resulted in benefiting monopolists and enabling them the better to fight their workmen when the latter tried issue with them in strikes. He declared that protection could never accomplish anything for workingmen, and that the emancipation of labor could only be brought about by justice, the abolition of monopolies and the securing to all men of their equal and unalienable rights. He traced the popular disposition to accept the transparent fallacies of protection to the state of things brought about by shutting out labor from the natural opportunities the Creator has provided for its exertion, thus leading men to look on work as a good thing in itself.

Mr. George gave a brief exposition of the principles of the anti-poverty movement and showed how the application of the principle of the single tax would in Pennsylvania break up the monopoly of coal land and solve what are now called the difficulties between capital and labor. He hailed the opening of the tariff discussion as the beginning of the greatest possible educational work, and urged the anti-poverty men of Philadelphia to take part in this discussion wherever they could and thus lead men through the tariff question to a consideration of the land question.

At the conclusion of his address Mr. George answered many questions from the audience. A large collection was taken up. Louis F. Post of New York will be the speaker at the next anti-poverty meeting in Lincoln hall next Sunday night. Mr. Post will also discuss the tariff question.

From Lawrence J. McParlin.

LOCKPORT, N. Y.—Election being over, time enough has elapsed to allow the smoke to raise from the battlefield so that we may examine the results of the contest.

We have gained far more than any of the "old guard" expected. Seventy thousand votes cast by men in the state of New York who fully understand the principles of the united labor party at the recent election means at least 50,000 active, earnest aggressive workers first, last and all the time for our party.

In Niagara county, with but few exceptions, our votes came from young men. At our semi-monthly meetings, which continue right along, those young men are present and bring new recruits every meeting. The good work goes on uninterrupted. We cannot stop now if we wanted to. Inquiries for our documents come to me daily from different parts of this county, and I supply them promptly. This headquarters don't close up the day after election like those of the old parties.

I have been in labor movements - political I mean - since 1876 continuously, and as a result of that experience I am forced to the conclusion that the word "labor" in the party name is detrimental.

I could not help noticing that every speaker in the last campaign had to explain that this party, although called the united labor party, was not simply an organization of laborers, farm hands, etc, but included brain workers, professional men, clerks, business men, etc.

Why did they do this? Simply because they saw in the audience before them clergymen, lawyers, manufacturers, merchants, clerks, students, and last and least, I am very sorry to say, comparatively few laborers and mechanics as generally understood.

We get our assistance now from that great humane, liberal, educated mass, known to many by the name of the middle class. We get our workers from the thoughtful among the old labor unionists, from young mechanics just past twenty-one years, and professional men.

The "laborer," the owner of the "labor vote," I am sorry to say, dare not work for our party, although this is a free (?) country. I myself lost a non-political position last Monday night that I had held for seven years, and I was removed for no other reason than the single one, viz.: activity in connection with the united labor party. I knew it was coming as it was threatened five weeks before, but I told them go ahead; I never sold my birthright for a mess of pottage. Fortunately I am comfortably situated financially and their threats had no effect on me, but many a poor fellow in the last campaign, who would have spoken out in no uncertain tone, was handicapped by a knowledge that work for this party meant idle days this winter. It is a sad state of affairs, but true it is.

LAWRENCE J. MCPARLIN,
State Committeeman 33d District.

From the Indianapolis Anti-Poverty Society

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - On Nov. 33, 1887, six persons met in the court house here and formed the anti-poverty society. The wiseacres shook their heads and predicted a failure. Dec. 4 we held our first regular meeting in Bricklayers' hall with twenty-seven persons in attendance. Jan. 1 (last night) we moved into a larger hall. This is our progress in two months. When we outgrow this hall we will get a larger one. It is the sentiment of this society that we must have a candidate for president this year if we have to write our tickets on the morning of the election.

I have been voting the republican ticket since 1872, or ever since I have been a voter, with a strong faith in high protective tariff, and all that the party leaders have seen fit to cram down my throat. But, thank God, I have had the clay of common sense moistened by the spittle of reason daubed on my eyes by reading "Protection or Free Trade!" until the scales have fallen away, and I think I see the dawning of a better day in the single tax and free trade doctrines of the united labor party.

THOS. J. HUDSON, Treasurer A. P. S.

A Sunday Evening Service in Harlem.

The first of a series of Sunday evening mission services for the preaching of the gospel of the new crusade will be held on Sunday evening, Jan. 10, at Arion hall, 2,233 Third avenue. The service will be conducted by Bar. Charles P. McCarthy.

HOW LAND MONOPOLY LOCKS UP CAPITAL

[See George's Disclaimer]

WASHINGTON, D. C - That money invested in the purchase of the fee simple or perpetual title to land, apart from the improvements that may have been made upon it, has nothing to do with its cultivation, becomes manifest if we consider that the whole expense of cultivation is borne by the renter. If the land be cultivated by the owner, then, in that case, it is only that part of the purchase money which would pay for a year's rent that contributes to its cultivation. This is true of the land merely. If there be houses and other improvements upon it, the use of these also must be paid for by the tenant. But these improvements are necessary, and are not to be classed with land, which is ready made for us by the beneficent Author of nature, and will never leave us. Land may be impaired in value, but it cannot be destroyed or added to; and it needs not to be replaced, like houses and fences, ditches and hedges.

And since the absolute ownership of land contributes nothing to its cultivation or use, in country or in city, it follows that all capital invested in land, apart from improvements, is an unnecessary investment, and contributes nothing to production. Like the capital which formerly was invested in slaves in the south, it is diverted from any practical use to society, and only benefits the individual owner at the expense of the public. In each case it is as if monopolists were permitted to establish toll bridges upon the highways, where there are no streams to be crossed, and yet people were compelled to pass over them.

The amount of capital thus unnecessarily invested in land can be shown to be vastly greater than the capital actually employed in production in this country.

The census report of 1880 states the aggregate assessed value of real estate in the United States to have been a trifle over thirteen thousand millions, or thirteen billions of dollars. But the universal rule of assessment is to undervalue property to the extent of from fifty to one hundred per cent; and hence the true value was twenty billions. The census report furnishes no data nor estimates of the relative values of land and the improvements thereon, but my observation justifies me in the opinion that the value of the land is quite equal to the improvements, taking the whole country into view.

If I am right in this conjecture the result will be that ten thousand millions or ten billions of American capital serves no other purpose than to enable its owners to exact rent, or, as Mr. George would say, to impose a fine upon those who till or use the land.

When slavery was abolished no property was destroyed. There was only a change of titles. And in like manner, if Mr. George's policy of taxing land to the full value of the rental should be adopted, nothing would be destroyed except the current value of certain old parchments and records, and even they would be preserved as mementoes of a past and effete civilization. But such instruments would still represent value as regards all houses and improvements upon land.

Mr. George has shown that by taxing lands to the full value of the rental, no land owner could afford to hold the land idle and pay the taxes, and the consequence would be that instead of landless people seeking homes, as under present circumstances, the homes would seek the landless people; and that instead of seeing the laboring classes tramping the country in pursuit of capital and land for employment, we should see land owners and capitalists in pursuit of labor.

If the proposed system of substituting land value taxes for all others were to be imposed the present year, conditioned to go into immediate operation, the mass of land owners, especially those of small holdings, would be taken by surprise, and would suffer great inconvenience. But years must elapse before such a law can be passed; and it might be given, as regards lands actually cultivated, a prospective operation of a long term of years, In the meantime lands unused and held for speculative prices should be taxed to the extent of their possible rental.

The south was sanguine of success until near the close of the war. The abolition of slavery at the end of four years from the commencement of the struggle took the mass of the slaveholders by surprise. They were overwhelmed with bankruptcy. Not many of them escaped that fate. They were wholly unprepared for the new order of things. The political and social cataclysm had turned society upside down. They lay stunned and prone on the earth for nearly a decade before they began to see that the fearful revolution through which they had passed had opened up a new world of opportunity for development and progress in wealth and power. They began at length to realize that the institution which they had hugged to their bosoms as something more precious than life was in reality a chain that bound down their energies and their social forces as firmly as it held their slaves, and every southern state has now entered upon a career of prosperity never before dreamed of. Labor and the capital they had invested in labor have been set free. They can no longer invest from year to year their accumulating gains in slaves, and the consequence is that they build railroads, cotton, tobacco, woolen and iron factories, explore the hidden treasures of nature, and find invaluable mines of iron and coal and marl and phosphate where they had never in slavery times the means of looking for them.

And so it will be when the monopoly of the earth shall be abolished. But the good will come without the frightful circumstances of civil war and social revolution which ushered in the liberation of the south. Not only the capital heretofore devoted to active uses, but all the vast accumulations which men now bury in the earth must find investment in agriculture, in manufactures, in domestic and foreign commerce, or remain idle and useless in the hands of its owners. There can then be no more investments in land for the sake of the "unearned increment." Men will buy land on which to build houses for dwellings and factories, and workshops, and for cultivation by hired labor; but never to hold it in idleness. And this must go on from generation to generation. Capital will even be on the qui vive for new fields of employment and for laborers to employ.

The census of 1880 stated the personal property of the United States to have been three billions eight hundred and sixty-six millions. This embraces all movable property - goods, wares, merchandise, the current crops on hand or on the way to market, all farming implements, cattle, horses, and other domestic animals, with all furniture, carriages, and whatever pertains to the household or the family. But it embraces also the active money capital and the raw material employed in all branches of business. If we add fifty per cent for undervaluation, and suppose that half, or five billions, of this personal property is now actively employed in production, it will still be but half of the amount now unproductively, unnecessarily, and mischievously employed in monopolizing the earth. The effect of Mr. George's policy will be to treble the amount of capital which is now actively employed in production, while it will emancipate the earth from the thralldom of monopoly.

DANIEL R. GOODLOE.

IN SOUTHERN INDIANA.

A Township's Ground Rents - Charity and the Poor.

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - An incident occurred here a few days since which very forcibly illustrates the growth of land values. It also shows how large a fund society would have with which "to promote the general welfare" if we would only "establish justice" by taking for the use of society those values which it alone creates and which justly belongs to it.

Union township, in this county, has 280 acres of school land, which for some unaccountable reason has escaped the clutches of land speculators, and is still owned by the township. Every year these lands are rented to the highest and best bidders, and the rents are applied to the support of the township schools. The improvements consist of an ordinary farm house and a barn on each of the four seventy-acre farms, into which the tract is divided. There are no other improvements worth mentioning, and it would be safe to say that their total value would not exceed twelve hundred dollars for each farm. The land in question is situated about eighteen miles from Evansville, which is the most convenient market. It is low, rich, bottom land, producing malaria, mosquitos and corn in abundance. The water privileges are excellent, for almost every year, indeed sometimes several times in the same year, the Ohio river overflows its banks, and covers it with water, sometimes for six weeks at a time, forcing the renters to move and wait for the flood to subside. Corn is the sole crop raised, and the renters must run great risks of losing everything from the floods. Last Tuesday these farms were rented, the renters giving good security for the rent.

The following extract from the Evansville Courier of Jan. 4 shows the result:

The school lands in Union township were rented yesterday morning. There were four lots of seventy acres each, and they were rented as follows: Lot 1, Henry Sanders, for $8.50 per acre; lot 2, Louis Neal, for $10 per acre; lot o, Conrad Roth, $11.75 per acre; lot 4, Joseph Hilley, $11.80 per acre. There are three school houses to be supported out of this fund. It will be seen that the land brought splendid rental.

Southwestern Indiana has never had a "boom" like many sections of the south and west, but on the contrary is rather conservative. It has a slow, healthy growth, and land values here are more real and less speculative than at most points. The above item will give you an idea of what those values are. Very few of the farmers of Union township own the land they cultivate. One man owns, directly or indirectly, a very large part of the township, probably one-third of it in value. These renters work hard, live hard, and get but a bare living, and a poor one at that.

The very same paper that contained the above item - indeed directly below it in the same column - contained another item which also forcibly illustrates something else. It shows what happens when, refusing to "establish justice" we permit labor and capital to be robbed:

During the month of December Trustee Philip Speigel issued the following orders: 236 families supplied with groceries, 86 loads of coal, 29 sick persons provided with medical attention, 28 orders issued for boots and shoes, 10 orders given for dry goods, 10 persons sent to the poor house, 6 coffins provided and 9 funerals provided for the friendless dead, 35 people granted passes to other places. A vast quantity of other relief has been granted.

Mr. Spiegel is trustee of Pigeon township, which is the one referred to in the above paragraph, and it is in the same county as Union township. The city of Evansville now covers nearly the entire township. This relief, given by the trustee, is by no means given as a matter of course to whoever chooses to apply. Unless the applicant is well recommended the case is rigidly investigated, and relief, if given, is usually so given that the applicant, to put it mildly, is not encouraged to call again. In fact, only last month a man whose only crime was that he was poor and had failed to find work, finding himself without bread for his children, applied to the authorities for aid and was refused. When urged to try again he said he would rather die.

Last winter a poor widow applied and was refused, until an indignant remonstrance was signed by the neighbors, and then very little aid was given.

I mention these cases to show that all cases of want and suffering have not been relieved. Besides, the citizens of Evansville are not behind those of other cities in works of charity. We have all sorts of benevolent societies. The ladies have a benevolent organization which in a quiet way does an immense amount of charitable work.

The sisters of mercy and the little sisters of the poor are constantly working to relieve want. We have hospitals and homes for the friendless. We have wealthy citizens who do much charitable work. And yet with all our charity we do not even check the tide of poverty.

If charity will not abolish poverty, why not try justice? In so doing we will "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

CHARLES G. BENNETT.

Propaganda Work in Brooklyn.

The Nineteenth ward association of the united labor party in Brooklyn has taken rooms at 294 Hooper street, corner of Harrison avenue. There will be addresses and discussions on economic subjects on Friday evenings, and electors of the ward are invited to attend.

What It Will Do!

THOMASTON, Conn. - The throwing open of natural opportunities to the people will be like the miraculous opening of the wall of a burning, crowded theater. It will afford a speedy and absolutely safe escape for the crowd which must otherwise be suffocated or trampled to death.

JOHN C.

Anti-Poverty in Paterson, N. J.

PATERSON, N. J.—Our anti-poverty society meeting of Sunday, Jan. 8, was well attended. Rev. Mr. Parker delivered an interesting address, which was listened to with close attention.
The cause is marching on.

X. Y. Z.

Unfortunately We Are Not All Valets or Maid Servants.

New York Press.
There is, after all, a good deal of method about the so called eccentricity of the eccentric Winans family, the Baltimore millionaires. They gave a ball last week in their splendid mansion to their valets, coachmen, chambermaids and other men servants and maid servants, allowing: them to invite other men servants and maid servants without fear of the expenses. Of course the people were on their good behavior, the fine furniture and fixings were not injured, and all the guests went away firmly convinced that what the demagogues tell the workingmen about the heartlessness of the capitalist and the great gulf between capital and labor is bosh. One such incident is a more powerful argument against revolutionary theories than a book full of counter theories, and it is the easiest thing in the world for the well to do to multiply such arguments.

GOOD WORDS FROM MICHAEL DAVITT.

He Denounces the Protection Humbug and Declares for Taxation of Land Values.

Michael Davitt recently spoke at a great meeting of the English land restoration league at Rotherhithe, England. Rev. Stewart Headlam, Dr. Glennie, Wm. Saunders and John Murdoch also spoke, and the American single tax men were represented by Silas Mainville Burroughs of Medina, New York, now temporarily resident in London. Mr. Davitt said:

The landed tory party are endeavoring to divert attention from the real cause of poverty by raising the fair trade cry. What we really want is not protection against the foreigner who sends cheap food into the country, but against the land monopolists in Great Britain who levy every year a tax of £150,000,000 upon the industry and enterprise of the workers. The value of the land is estimated at £400,000,000 a year, and it is in the hands of a comparative few. It is the people who give the land this value, and in justice and right it [is] as much their property as is a pair of boots that any man makes for himself. Do not be misled by this tory cry of fair trade. It is simply the usual trailing of the red herring across the path of the great social movement which has for its ultimate object the full and permanent relief of the distress which the poor are now experiencing. Fair trade means high rent, low wages and dear food for the masses. Lord Salisbury has not been able to adopt it as part of his programme, because of his unholy alliance with the liberal unionists, by whose aid he has been able to dragoon the Irish people; but depend upon it as soon as that alliance is severed the tories will adopt a policy of protection, for it can only be by such a policy that they can hope to defer the downfall of landlordism. The only sure remedy for the misery and poverty which the industrial masses are subject to is the restoration of the land to the state and the appropriation of the revenue for public purposes. What the working men of Great Britain, therefore, must do is to organize, as the people of Ireland have done, and attack the aristocratic power in its most vital part. And its most vital part is - rent. By such means you will in a few years bring down British landlordism as low as you have brought down a kindred system in Ireland. This ground rent monopoly operates against everyone but the landlords themselves, and the ground is only taxed a half a million a year, while the buildings upon it, which are not are taxed at £7,000,000 a year. This must be reversed. Taxes must be placed on the unearned increment.

Taxes on Industry and Premiums on Idleness.

London Christian Commonwealth.
Time gives an artificial glamor of righteousness to the most flagrant wrongs. This is the only explanation which we can find for the fact that city inhabiting men have so long toiled and suffered in silence under the gross exactions which, with the sanction of the law, have been so long imposed on them under the title of "ground rents." What principles ought to guide a government in the imposition of taxation? Surely this if no other - to tax as lightly as possible the produce of labor and as heavily as possible the "unearned increment," which the many produce and the few enjoy. For in taxing the latter, society is but resuming possession of its own. Now surely on this principle houses would mark themselves out to be treated with peculiar leniency, since they are the results of labor. But what is the case in this "well-governed" country? Take London. The value of buildings in London is, roughly speaking, £312,000,000. Now, plainly, to tax this heavily will mean to discourage building enterprise, and therefore.will inevitably lead to overcrowding. So, of course, our best of governments will do nothing of the kind. But, alas; for those who still believe in the wisdom of governments when left alone, this £212,000,000 has to bear a yearly burden of £7,000,000! "But this is because of our tremendous expenditure; look at the ground rents - you will find them taxed in the same proportion." Let us look. The land of London has risen to the immense value of £418,000,000, thanks to no exertions on the part of those who own it, but entirely owing to the industry of the inhabitants. Now this immense value, being the creation of society, will obviously be regarded by our "good government" as in large part the possession of society. The plainest dictates of wisdom will surely lead them to lay upon it a heavy burden of taxation for the good of the whole community. Considering this it will be another blow to the believer in governments to discover that this £418,000,000 is taxed to the extent of £500,000. That is to say, the "unearned increment," so far from being taxed as heavily as possible, enjoys an especial and peculiar immunity from the burdens of taxation. Taxation is imposed lightly where it ought to be imposed heavily, and heavily where it ought to be imposed lightly. Not all the royal commissions in the world will ever improve the housing of the working classes so long as a fundamental principle of good government is thus flagrantly ignored. The consequences, of course, are seen in over crowding and disease - in luxury on the one hand, and on the other hand poverty. It is difficult to say which is the greater evil, that men should pay for their industry, or that men should be paid for their idleness. Both of these evils result from the present system, the one in fact implies the other, for if the produce of labor is taken from the laborers, to whom can it be given but to the idlers?

"The Weight That Crushes Labor."

The Toledo (Ohio) Industrial News, having invited expressions of views as to what is necessary to "lift the weight that crushes labor," a Chelsea (Mass.) subscriber replies as follows:

I believe in going to the root of the evil. That is the place to strike, and having destroyed the root and felled the tree, it will be easy work to strike off the branches afterward. Where then is the root? Why the land, of course. Without land no labor, and the owner of the land can dictate terms to the one that gets his sustenance therefrom. Private ownership in land, then, is the principal dog in the manger. I am after the big dog now. Tax the land to its full rental value, and take the taxes off production, and the one that uses the land would have to pay the taxes. That would stop land speculation, which is the curse of any country. Monopolists of means hold tracts of land for a fancy price when the population increases enough; meanwhile people are in want and willing to pay a fair tax for the privilege of using the land, and this dog in the manger claiming something he never made as his own. If we were not born under the laws that sanction it we would look upon it as something criminal. It is speculation in land that raises rents and lowers wages.

The Unprotected Laboring Man.

Savoyard in Louisville Courier-Journal
Who is the laboring man? Is not the settler who pre-empted a home in Kansas, toiled early and late, withstood the ravages of grasshoppers, braved the terrors of cyclones, dreamed of the hour when he could lift the mortgage off his farm, and labored longer than from sun to sun to that end - is he not something of a laboring man? Would you protect him by keeping a tariff tax on the lumber that formed his house, the nails that hold it together, the carpet that covers his floor, the stoves in which he burns taxed coal—in short, every article of furniture he owns, including table furniture of every kind? Would you keep a tariff tax on the barbed wire that incloses his fields, and the iron that shoes his horse and enters into the construction of all farming utensils, including engines, saws, spades, trace chains, gear, hoes and what not? Even the salt with which he cures his pork - unprotected pork - is taxed, while the salt with which the New Englander cures his fish - protected fish - is not taxed.

Masthead, Page 4 (Not Transcribed)

PLATFORM OF THE UNITED LABOR PARTY

Adopted at Syracuse, August 19, 1887

We, the delegates of the united labor party of New York, in state convention assembled, hereby reassert, as the fundamental platform of the party, and the basis on which we ask the co-operation of citizens of other states, the following declaration of principles adopted on September 23, 1886, by the convention of trade and labor associations of the city of New York, that resulted in the formation of the united labor party.

"Holding that the corruptions of government and the impoverishment of labor result from neglect of the self-evident truths proclaimed by the founders of this republic that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights, we aim at the abolition of a system which compels men to pay their fellow creatures for the use of God's gifts to all, and permits monopolizers to deprive labor of natural opportunities for employment, thus filling the land with tramps and paupers and bringing about an unnatural cooperation which tends to reduce wages to starvation rates and to make the wealth producer the industrial slave of those who grow rich by his toil.

"Holding, moreover, that the advantages arising from social growth and improvement belong to society at large, we aim at the abolition of the system which makes such benevolent inventions as the railroad and telegraph a means for the oppression of the people and the aggrandizement of an aristocracy of wealth and power. We declare the true purpose of government to be the maintainer of that sacred right of property which gives to everyone opportunity to employ his labor, and security that he shall enjoy its fruits; to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, and the unscrupulous from robbing the honest and to do for the equal benefit of all such things as can be better done by organized society than by individuals; and we aim at the abolition of all laws which give to any class of citizens advantages, either judicial, financial, industrial or political, that are not equally shared by all others.

"We call upon all who seek the emancipation of labor, and who wold make the American union and its component states democratic commonwealths of really free and independent citizens, to ignore all minor differences and join with us in organizing a great national party on this broad platform of natural rights and equal justice. We do not aim at securing any forced equality in the distribution of wealth. We do not propose that the state shall attempt to control production, conduct distribution, or in any way interfere with the freedom of the individual to use his labor or capital in any way that may seem proper to him and that will not interfere with the equal rights of others. Nor do we propose that the state shall take possession of land and either work it or rent it out. What we propose is not the disturbing of any man in his holding or title, but by abolishing all taxes on industry or its products, to leave to the producer the full fruits of his exertion and by the taxation of land values, exclusive of improvements, to devote to the common use and benefit those values, which, arising not from the exertion of the individual, but from the growth of society, belong justly to the community as a whole. This increased taxation of land, not according to its area, but according to its value, must, while relieving the working farmer and small homestead owner of the undue burdens now imposed upon them, make it unprofitable to hold land for speculation, and thus throw open abundant opportunities for the employment of labor and the building of homes.

While thus simplifying government by doing away with the horde of officials required by the present system of taxation with its incentives to fraud and corruption, we would further promote the common weal and further secure the equal rights of all, by placing under public control such agencies as are in their nature monopolies: we would have the general government issue all money, without the intervention of banks; we would add a postal telegraph system and postal savings banks to the postal service, and would assume public control and ownership of those iron roads which have become the highways of modern commerce.

While declaring the foregoing to be the fundamental principles and aims of the united labor party, and while conscious that no reform can give effectual and permanent relief to labor that does not involve the legal recognition of equal rights to natural opportunities, we nevertheless, as measures of relief from some of the evil effects of ignoring those rights, favor such legislation as may tend to reduce the hours of labor, to prevent the employment of children of tender years, to avoid the competition of convict labor with honest industry, to secure the sanitary inspection of tenements, factories and mines, and to put an end to the abuse of conspiracy laws.

We desire also to simplify the procedure of our courts and diminish the expense of legal proceedings, that the poor may be placed on an equality with the rich and the long delays which now result in scandalous miscarriages of justice may be prevented.

And since the ballot is the only means by which in our republic the redress of political and social grievances is to be sought, we especially and emphatically declare for the adoption of what is known as the "Australian system of voting," in order that the effectual secrecy of the ballot and the relief of candidates for public office from the heavy expenses now imposed upon the, may prevent bribery and intimidation, do away with practical discriminations in favor of the rich and unscrupulous, and lessen the pernicious influence of money in politics.

In support of these aims we solicit the co-operation of all patriotic citizens who, sick of the degradation of politics, desire by constitutional methods to establish justice, to preserve liberty, to extend the spirit of fraternity, and to elevate humanity.

AN ASTOUNDING DEFENSE.

Roscoe Conkling and William D. Shipman, as counsel for the Central Pacific railroad company, have made a reply to the recently published reports of the Pacific railway commission that is monumental in its audacity. No attempt is made to meet the positive demonstration by the official report that all expenditures for the construction of both Pacific roads were more than reimbursed by the sale of bonds loaned and lands given by the government, nor is the denial that the Central Pacific has violated its obligations to the government in any wise an explicit and sufficient answer to the charges and specifications found in the commission's report.

Messrs. Conkling and Shipman quote a few speeches by congressmen on the bill authorizing the construction of the roads to show that four members who favored the bill never expected that the roads would earn profits large enough to enable them to pay the bonds issued to them, and they seek to base on this an argument that the roads are under no obligation to pay these bonds, now that experience has shown that they might readily have done so had they not squandered their profits in the payment of dividends on fictitious stock.

This amazing argument is followed by a graphic recital of the physical and financial difficulties encountered by the few men, then of moderate means, who undertook the really colossal task of building the Central Pacific road eastward across the mountains, working winter and summer, and at a time when their base of supplies was practically 20,000 miles away; for all rails and locomotives used up to the time a junction was made with the Union Pacific road had to be sent in sailing vessels around Cape Horn, or else carried at much greater cost across the isthmus. It is gently insinuated that this costly haste was entirely due to the patriotic eagerness of Messrs. Huntington, Stanford, Crocker and Hopkins to comply with the desires of the government for the completion of a transcontinental line some years within the time named in the act. Considering the generally known fact that there was between the two companies building to meet each other an eager race to build the larger number of miles of road before the junction was effected, in order that they might secure the bonds and lands that rewarded the completion of each twenty miles, this claim to patriotism and commercial pride as the sole motive for persisting in the work under such difficulties is one of the most audacious of those advanced. Had these enterprising patriots succumbed to their difficulties the only result would have been that the Union Pacific (which did not have to transport material by sea) would have met the Central at some point in western Nevada instead of at Ogden, Utah, and would have been that much longer and possessed of a proportionately greater number of acres of land and United States bonds.

Following this remarkable claim comes a somewhat defiant assertion of the company's rights. Until the bonds fall due, Messrs. Conkling and Shipman declare, the Central Pacific really owes nothing whatever to the United States government, and it is broadly intimated that it is none of the government's business what dividends it pays in the mean time to its stockholders. This is equivalent to a declaration that the government, as principal creditor, must stand idle and impotent while it sees the revenue of a road that it has paid for divided among plunderers.

But now we come to the final claim, which excels all others in impudence as much as it exceeds them in magnitude. Messrs. Conkling and Shipman have calculated the cost to which the government was formerly put for the transportation of mails and munitions of war overland, ascertained what it would have cost to have continued such transportation up to this time, and thus shown the enormous saving that has been effected by the building of the Pacific roads in reducing the cost of transporting troops and supplies and carrying the mails. They calculate the share that the Central Pacific had in effecting this saving, and insist that instead of the Central Pacific owing anything to the government the government, after paying principal and interest on the bonds, would still owe the Central Pacific company over $150,000,000. Beyond this audacity could not go. If the claim be true, then the New York Central and other roads have a claim on the people of the state of New York for all the wonderful saving that has been effected in the cost of freight and travel since railroads first began operations here.

The colossal impudence of the Central Pacific's claim at first stuns one, but, remembering all the facts, surprise is followed by indignation. The effect ought to be to stimulate congress to prompt action. The milk and water programme of the majority of the Pacific railway commission should be discarded at once, and a bill drawn on the lines of Commissioner Pattison's minority report should promptly pass the house. If the representatives of the railway and other monopolies in the senate attempt to strangle or emasculate the measure the house can afford to stand firm, since nine years must elapse before the now inevitable default takes place, and the only present danger is the passage of some such measure as that proposed by the majority report and urged on congress by subsidized newspapers and a powerful lobby.

THIS WILL NOT DO. MR. VOORHEES.

Though other people are apt to be unmindful of the fact, John Sherman never forgets that he is a candidate for the republican nomination for the presidency. Just now the easiest way of attracting republican attention is to laud the beauties and advantages of a protective tariff. Mr. Blaine promptly took the lead in the business by his newspaper pronunciamento in response to the president's message, but Mr. Sherman has the advantage of being able to speak to the senate, and to have the people of the United States pay for putting his speeches into type. Accordingly, on Wednesday of last week, he delivered in the senate a eulogy on high taxes on commodities, in which he insisted that American workingmen are prosperous and happy, and that they owe their good fortune to protection.

This was to be expected, and it was likewise to be expected that, if the democratic party intends to stand by its own platform and the president's message, some one of its members would answer Mr. Sherman on the floor of the senate. Senator Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana essayed to do so. He denounced the collection of taxes amounting to $10,000,000 a month as "a crime, national in its proportions, gigantic in its strength, omnipresent in its visitations, and brutal in its rapacity." Mr. Voorhees has not won from his admirers the title, "Tall Sycamore of the Wabash," without earning it; and he proceeded in glowing language to laud the president's message as the greatest communication that has emanated from the chief magistrate "since the matchless and immortal inaugural of Jefferson." He also pertinently asked if a reduction of the tariff is to prove so hurtful to the workingmen, as Mr. Sherman insists it will be, why, under the present high tariff, were they engaged in constant strikes and severe struggles with their employers.

All this was very well; but Mr.Voorhees, in his turgid way, bitterly resented the republican charge that the president had urged action even tending toward free trade, and he insisted that "incidental protection to home manufactures had always been the policy of the democratic party." This will not do. As we have already pointed out in these columns, the democrats cannot reasonably hope to win on the issue raised by the president's message unless they have the sense and pluck necessary to enable them to fight this pitiful delusion that a tariff protects labor. If men are left to believe that, they will naturally and logically go to the support of the party that proposes to afford labor the most of such protection.

Mr. Voorhees presents in his career an example of what the democratic party must avoid if it would win in the pending contest. There was a time when the Indiana democracy was sound on this question. At a time when there was no probability that any attempt at tariff revision could be made, the republicans there raised the cry of free trade for political effect. Instead of meeting the issue in a manly manner and upholding the established traditions of his party, Mr. Voorhees protested with such vigor and apparent horror against the charge, that his own immediate followers began to think that there was something frightfully wrong in free trade, and that a protective tariff was as essential to industry as steam or other motive power. Mr Voorhees continued by that protest to educate his people backward until, to-day, it is doubtless really true that there are many democrats in Indiana who are so wedded to the republican dogma of protection that they would desert Mr. Voorhees and the democratic party if that became the issue.

It is to Mr. Voorhees and men of his kind that the democratic party owes its weakness on this question, for had they from the beginning had the courage to oppose the false pretenses and fallacies of the high tariff advocates, they would now have a party that would be a unit against a high tariff. If the democratic party proposes to put itself under the guidance of such men as Voorhees of Indiana, Brown of Georgia, Randall of Pennsylvania, Warner of Ohio, and McPherson of New Jersey, it might as well keep out of the fight, for victory cannot be won by any such tactics. Protection is a fraud and a delusion. This can be demonstrated to workingmen as easily as to others, and the work cut out for those who are to save the democratic party, if salvation is open to it, is showing men that protection, whether incidental or direct, is simply a scheme to cruelly tax the many in order to put money into the pockets of a few monopolists.

A BAD BEGINNING

As was expected, Mr. Carlisle has again placed Samuel J. Randall at the head of the committee on appropriations. It doubtless avoided trouble and promoted party convenience to do this, but nevertheless it is a surrender by an advocate of tariff reduction to the bitterest enemy of tariff reform, and is a bad beginning. In the last congress Mr. Randall used his power as chairman of the appropriations committee to prevent even the consideration of a tariff bill, and his disposition would undoubtedly be to do so again. It is commonly believed at Washington that he has promised not to do so at this session, but no one pretends that he will fail to oppose any real reform of the tariff.

If President Cleveland and Speaker Carlisle mean what they say, and if the opinions that they express are democratic, then Samuel J. Randall is no more in accord with democratic policy and principle than is William D. Kelley, the father of the Pennsylvania school of protectionists. Under the circumstances, Mr. Carlisle was bound not to give Mr. Randall the position second in importance on the floor of the house, the powers of which he has used in open alliance with republicans to prevent the great majority of the democrats in the body from carrying out the policy to which they are pledged by their platform. It is a sign of weakness, and foreshadows a compromise that will deprive the party of all credit for embodying any great principle in its tariff legislation.

The ways and means committee is, so far as the democrats are concerned, made up exclusively of revenue reformers. The complaint that New York is not accorded a place on it is worthy of no consideration. S. S. Cox was offered a place and declined, and New York city has not in the present house another member possessed of sufficient capacity to entitle him to the place left vacant by Mr. Cox's declination. It probably never will have, so long as democratic nominations a r e sold to the highest bidder, and the candidates elected by open bribery. The majority of the committee will doubtless present a bill somewhat in the line of the president's recommendations, and Mr. Randall and his handful of followers will either force changes that will emasculate the measure or else join the republicans in defeating it altogether. If the democratic leaders have the courage to accept the latter alternative, their party will be in a position to make a fight for principle in the coming campaign; but if they surrender to Randall they will throw away any new strength attracted by the message and fail to recover any votes scared away by it. Let them accept which horn of the dilemma they may, it is clear that the failure to force Mr. Randall into submission or rebellion is a cowardly blunder.

Why they want to conciliate him and his crowd is a marvel. If they were to give them everything they want, and then nominate Randall for president and Warner for vice-president, they could not carry Pennsylvania or Ohio.

JUSTICE IN TAXATION.

The Nogal, New Mexico, Nugget, which is waging an active war upon the land grabbers and land monopolists of New Mexico, devotes a recent editorial to the consideration of the theory of the single tax on land values, and its conclusion is as follows:

Henry George's theory in regard to taxing land at its full rental value, and to place no tax upon the improvements upon the land, is unjust.

Let us illustrate: McDonald & Alcock own a fine two story brick building, which is situated on a lot of land 50x85 feet. On the same street, and on a lot of the same size, Mr. Mayer owns a blacksmith building made of plank set on end. The house has no floor, except the soil, and is covered with plank, with an earth covering. According to Henry George's theory the lot owned by Mr. Mayer should be assessed at the same value that McDonald & Alcock's is. The injustice of such taxation is so clearly manifest that it is a wonder that George finds so many laboring men who are ready to follow him....

In the illustration given above, Mr. George argues that Mayer's lot is worth as much as McDonald & Alcock's lot. If Mr. Mayer "does not put as good a house upon his lot as his neighbors do upon theirs, it is his lookout; he has the opportunity to do so." So then reduced to ''bed rock," Mr. George's theory is to tax men according to their opportunity, regardless of their ability. Such a theory is repugnant to the popular sense of justice, and will never gain recognition among philanthropical, profound thinkers. The only good which Mr. George's books will do is to stimulate popular thought upon such subjects, and thus familiarize the public mind with the matter. This will lead to correct thought ultimately, and to a remedy for existing evils.

Justice, above everything else, is the aim of the editor of the Nogal Nugget. He would have all men equal before the law. In Nogal, he would have the laws of taxation based on just principles and enforced impartially.

If Blacksmith Mayer were obliged by a rush of business to work at night, and while doing so burned twenty gas jets, the same number, say, as is burned by McDonald & Alcock, and were then to plead to the gas company that the building he thus lighted was a much poorer one than McDonald & Alcock's, and that, besides, he was less able to pay gas bills than that firm, and should therefore ask that he be charged but one-fourth as much as they, would the gas company pay any attention to such a claim? or would not, rather, Blacksmith Mayer s notions of what should constitute the basis for his gas bill simply afford matter for an amusing article in the columns of the Nugget?

No, the Nugget would say, let Blacksmith Mayer pay the same price for everything that everybody else pays - the same for his gas, water, food, clothing and railroad service as do other men. In reason he can expect nothing better. Wherever there is to be an exchange of values, he can only look for like treatment with other people.

When Blacksmith Mayer advertises in the Nogal Nugget he is charged, according to its schedule of rates, the same price as are McDonald & Alcock for an equal amount of space in an equally valuable part of the paper. The blacksmith and the merchants alike are asked, say, a dollar for a space of ten lines on a back page of the paper, a dollar and a half on the first page, two dollars in the local columns, and three at the head of the editorial columns. Through a charitable feeling for a struggling man the editor of the Nugget might give Blacksmith Mayer a three dollar advertising space for two dollars, or on the principle of getting in every case as much as possible he might charge the wealthy firm of McDonald & Alcock four dollars for a three dollar space. But in neither case would he be doing justice to these two customers, to the body of his advertisers, or to himself as a business man with a reputation to maintain.

The Nugget, intending to argue with fairness, has doubtless put its illustration truthfully. Blacksmith Mayer's lot is of the same size and of the same value as McDonald & Alcock's. If all the improvements on both lots were burned away, leaving nothing but the bare ground, each would be worth, say, exactly $1,000. Then the advocate of the land value tax would assess each at $1,000. And as the two pieces of property now stand, with their improvements, he would assess each at $1,000. Why? For the same reason that the Nugget assesses rich and poor at similar rates for the space taken in its advertising columns.

A very few years ago how much was Blacksmith Mayer's lot worth? How much would all the land of Nogal have brought if offered for sale? The merest fraction of its present value, the editor of the Nugget will reply, for it was all open country. But with the coming of Nogal's population the lots were laid out, and as more people came their value increased. Doubtless there are in Nogal to-day lots of equal value with that of Blacksmith Mayer that have no improvements whatever upon them. Whence arises their value?

In another column the Nugget chronicles the closing of the Helen Rae mine and the consequent discharge of a number of miners and others. This, the Nugget informs its readers, has given Nogal a setback. It cuts off the expenditure of about $2,000 a month in Nogal, and, with the departure of the Helen Rae's hands, times will be less lively. Blacksmith Mayer's lot has already lost some value, it may be surmised. But suppose that instead of shutting. down, the company operating the Helen Rae had doubled the force at work and opened other mines in the neighborhood, would not Blacksmith Mayer's lot, and lots generally in Nogal, have advanced in price with a boom? The editor of the Nugget will admit, we think, that Blacksmith Mayer's lot gains value and loses value as Nogal's business and population increase and diminish.

Since justice is the aim of the editor of the Nugget, the question now arises whether the enhanced value of Blacksmith Mayer's lot should accrue to his benefit as the site of Nogal improves in value, or if it should not rather, with all the increase in the town's land values, go to the community creating those values? Suppose Blacksmith Mayer were to die tomorrow, bequeathing his lot to an heir living in New York. If Nogal should become another Denver, that lot might in a few years be worth a hundred thousand dollars, all of which would belong to a man living thousands of miles away from Nogal, and who, possibly, had never seen the lot. Who does the Nugget think ought (in justice) to have that hundred thousand dollars - the New Yorker or the people of Nogal, whose labor built the city and whose demand for the use of the lot imparts its value to it?

If the editor of the Nugget believes that Blacksmith Mayer and his heirs and assigns should forever hold the power to tax the users of his lot at a rate fixed by the supply and demand for lots in Nogal, he believes that unrestricted private property in land is just. One would suppose, then, that if Blacksmith Mayer, enriched, say, by Nogal's mines, were to purchase the entire town site of Nogal and hold on speculation whatever part of it he did not choose to rent out, the Nugget would hold him justified and denounce any interference with him as an outrage on the rights of property. Yet this is precisely what the Nugget would decline to do; for besides denouncing the "Henry George theory," it declared in the same issue its belief that city holdings of land should be "regulated"' so as to prevent monopoly and the enormous increase in prices of real estate, and that no man should be allowed to own more than 160 acres of farming land. The editor of the Nugget admits the land was made for all men, that the dead have no rights in it, and that it should be disposed of by its real owners, all the people, by the light of justice. He would have the law to classify holdings and regulate them by size and value. Yet in cities a single acre of land is often worth more than a hundred thousand acres in New Mexico.

Would it not be best to "regulate" land tenure by a principle of justice that would at once prevent speculation in land, enable all men to have access to land and put land to the most desirable use; - in short, abolish land monopoly of every form, whether it be that of the millionaire land holder or that of a class of land holders as against the landless?

Such a principle is found in the declaration that the land of a country belongs to all the people of that country, and that all land values, being the result of the growth of population and business, are the property of the people in common. The practical application of this principle in Nogal would require the holder of every lot to pay annually to its public treasury a, tax graded by the value of the lot. Hence Blacksmith Mayer's tax would be the same as McDonald & Alcock's in case his lot was worth the same as theirs. Toward the community of Nogal he would hold the same relation as does any advertiser toward the Nugget. He would pay its value for the space he occupied.

There may be people in Nogal who would like to advertise in the Nugget, but who cannot afford to pay for even the poorest and smallest space in it. But in this country there is no human being who could not get space somewhere if land was taxed according to its value. There is much land that has no value and much that has very little save speculative value. There is space enough in the United States for ten times its present population.

The editor of the Nugget, a man who means to be just, will regret to learn that he has by no means stated Henry George's theory with that fullness and explicitness that perfect fairness would demand. He has not explained to his readers, for instance, that Henry George, while taxing Blacksmith Mayer's lot to its rental value, would abolish every other tax, local, territorial and national. Mr. Mayer's tax on his thousand dollar lot would be perhaps $50. The taxes the average man now pays as a consumer of clothing, food, tools, tobacco, etc., is much more than $50 annually. The larger his family the greater his tax. Moreover, the masses now pay the great bulk of the taxes. If land values alone were taxed the wealthy would pay the bulk of the taxes.

If Blacksmith Mayer has a vacant lot next his shop lot, Henry George would tax it according to its value. Mr. Mayer would not hold many such vacant lots, it may be imagined. The editor of the Nugget will be aware of his oversight in not mentioning this fact, and will observe how such a tax would destroy land speculation.

There is yet more of the "theory" that has seemed unjust to the editor of the Nugget. It embraces the placing of all men on an equality with respect to opportunity. Opportunity for land is not to be paid for unless other men want the same opportunity. Then the value of the opportunity is to be fixed by competition. No opportunity is to be given one class of men to tax another, either for the bounties of nature or for services in their nature monopolies. But, as as the editor of the Nugget expresses it, the full comprehension of such things "requires close, connected and logical thinking." The Nugget is contesting the confirmation of the great New Mexico land grants; it holds that every man should have the opportunity to get himself a home; it sees the necessity for reforms in taxation: it is alarmed at the tremendous schemes of land grabbers in the territories; it invites discussion of the land question in its columns; it suggests crude remedies for the evils of land monopoly. Since the editor of the Nugget is a man who loves justice he surely will look a little further into the "theory" he has hastily pronounced unjust, in the light of the additional information here with imparted to him and on being assured that the "theory" has the support of many thousands of "profound, practical and philanthropic thinkers" all over the world.

J. W. SULLIVAN.

Grip, the humorous weekly of Toronto, is doing yeoman service for the cause of industrial emancipation, and deserves the support of every believer in the single tax reform. There is no surer way to combat falsehood than by making it ridiculous. Men who are absolutely callous to argument and reproof shrink from being laughed at. And the columns of Grip turn the laugh against the pro-povertyites very daintily indeed.

The local assemblies of the Knights of Labor in Lancaster, Pa., have protested against the proposition of the directors of the poor to send the tramps now in the Lancaster workhouse to Reading to take the places of the men on strike. If necessary, the knights have threatened to take legal measures to prevent the discharge of the tramps. This is a good specimen of the paradoxes with which, under present conditions, society is constantly confronted. It is absurd, of course, that tramps should be fed, housed and clothed at the public cost while an opportunity exists for their employment at productive labor. Yet it would be equally absurd to deny that were they so employed an additional amount of misery would be inflicted upon men and women whose load of suffering is already greater than their power of endurance.

The cable dispatches to the daily papers have for some time past indicated that the danger of a general European war is apparently less imminent than it was a short time ago; yet all appear to agree that war is inevitable, and that it can only be postponed, not avoided. Fresh cause for alarm was given this week by the announcement that Russia has again increased her already formidable military force on the Austrian frontier. All of this would be absurd if it were not so horrible. There is no reason why the poor wretches who are the victims of the czars tyranny in Russia should fly at the throats of the people of Austria-Hungary. The latter people have no cause for wrath against the Russians. The people of France have nothing to gain by killing the people of Germany,  and if all the nations of Europe consisted of intelligent Citizens governing themselves, they would see that the best thing they all could do for their own benefit would be to open up natural opportunities to labor, disband their standing armies, go to work and freely exchange the products of their labor one with another.

The sentiment of nationality, like the family and neighborhood sentiment, has its unquestioned advantages; but it is a monstrous perversion of a good thing to teach each nation that its own welfare is only to be achieved through the misfortune of its neighbors. It is to the prevalence of this false and unchristian idea that we owe not only standing armies but tariffs, and we can never see that helpful interdependence of people which mast precede the realization of the true Christian era of "peace on earth and good will to men" so long as the notion that causes tariffs to be enacted is prevalent.

As it is with nations so it is with men. So long as workingmen are subjected to conditions that cause them to think that the bread that satisfies another's hunger is necessarily snatched from their own mouths they will never be brought to be loyal one to another or to successfully combine to abolish the conditions that cause enmity and rivalry between them. It is the failure to comprehend this that disposes some of the advocates of the single tax to ignore the question of protection or free trade. Even if the tariff did assume high wages to some - as it does not - it could still only be supported through a sentiment diametrically opposed to the spirit that must animate any party that recognizes the equal right of all "to the bounties of nature and appeals to the better instincts of men to unselfishly strive for the common welfare rather than for their own mere personal advantage.

Congress has thus far done nothing that even indicates its probable course of action. A stupid quarrel over the war record and personal opinions of Secretary Lamar has delayed action in the senate on his appointment to the supreme bench, while not a word appears to have been said against his confirmation on the ground that his sympathies are with the great corporations whose acts are likely to be reviewed and passed upon by the supreme court. The fact that Mr. Lamar was formerly a secessionist and that he still retains a personal friendship for Jefferson Davis is of the least possible consequence a score of years after the war, but the fact that he recently removed Commissioner Sparks for resisting the efforts of railways and land speculators to gobble up more public lands, is one of present and vital importance. But so far as the latter fact is remembered at all, it will be effective in securing Mr. Lamar's confirmation. The democrats will all vote for him, and most of the republicans will vote against him, on party grounds; but it is likely that Stanford, Jones, Sabin, Don Cameron and other millionaire republicans will resist party pressure and vote for Mr. Lamar's confirmation, because he is the kind of man that they personally desire to have on the supreme bench, and because the other appointments, for which his promotion was originally designed to prepare the way, are likewise to the taste of millionaire monopolists.

Mr. Anderson of Iowa introduced in the house on Monday a resolution asking why, in view of the repeated violations of law by the Pacific railroad companies, the attorney general has not already proceeded, under the specific authority conferred upon him by statute, to forfeit the grants, privileges and franchises conferred upon them by the United States. If Mr. Anderson can induce the house to pass his resolution the public will await with very great interest Mr. Garland's answer to the query it propounds.

A letter from Gen. N. M. Trumbull of Chicago to a friend in the east asks for contributions for the helpless families of the anarchists hung in Chicago in November and of those who were at the same time sent to the penitentiary. Contributions may be sent to General Trumbull, 106 Hammond street, Chicago.

Of course the members of the anti-poverty society will see to it that Miss Agatha Munier shall have a full house on next Sunday evening at the Academy of Music. The services Miss Munier has rendered to the society free of all charge would of themselves, even were the concert less attractive, entitle her to the fullest support on this occasion. Though the music will be the principal feature of next Sunday evening, it is not intended that the continuity of the meetings shall be broken, and Dr. Edward McGlynn and Henry George will make brief addresses.

Readers of THE STANDARD in Massachusetts will be pleased to learn that petitions to the general court for the adoption of the Australian system of voting are being extensively circulated. Blanks may be obtained by addressing room 11, 40 Eliot street, Boston, Mass.

DR. McGLYNN'S POSITION

UNITED LABOR PARTY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, 28 COOPER UNION

New York City, Jan 9, 1888

My Dear Mr. George: With reference to your editorial of last week. I desire to re-affirm in the columns of THE STANDARD what I said as to the duty of the united labor party in the coming presidential campaign at the anti-poverty meeting on New Years night, as very fully reported in your last issue.

I would add that what we should do is not an open question. Those, of whom I am one, who were requested by the Cincinnati conference of July last, and charged by our Syracuse convention, to take action in view of the approach of the national contest, are of one mind on the subject, and will in due time take steps to carry out the plain intent of the mandate. When we shall have entered as a distinct party into the presidential contest on the lines of our Syracuse platform, I should feel recreant to a clear duty if I allowed myself to be diverted by any issue of tariff tinkering, or even by a contest for absolute free trade, from exclusive and unswerving support of our fundamental reform.

EDWARD MCGLYNN

Sees the Humbug of Protection.

NEWARK, N. J. - Some time last spring, in writing for some tracts, I said that I could not see why the question of "free trade or protection" could not be left out of the discussion until the fight against the injustice of private ownership of land (or rather of natural opportunities) was won. You answered asking me to read "Protection and Free Trade?" and then let you know what I thought. I invested at once, and have not only read it carefully more than once, but have also studied the subject from points of view which were never suggested to me before.

Mr. George's work is the first argument worthy of the name that I have ever read on the side of free trade. After reading "Progress and Poverty" I expected to be interested in anything written by the author, but never dreamed of being convinced; but the position taken in the very first chapter favoring high wages, and claiming that the protective tariff was not a cause for their existence, was not only new to me, but convinced me that I was at last to read an argument. I have now given the subject fair consideration, and conclude that the tariff is a good thing for the few, but as far as benefiting the manufacturer as such or his employes, or any one who works for a living, either on a salary or by day's wages, is concerned, it is a first-class fraud. Still, under present conditions, I don't think it makes much difference to me which wins. The right way for those who think as we do is in the coming election to make the fight as hot and the discussion as free as possible.

F. J. WERNER.

Encyclopaedia Britannica.

We have received volumes V and VI of the Encyclopedia Britannica issued by Henry G. Allen & Co. of New York. It is a marvel of cheapness, being a reduced fac-simile of the original edition, engravings and all, sold at $2.50 per volume.

PARTY PRINCIPLES AND POLICY.

NEW YORK. - Whether or not the united labor party shall place a ticket in the field in coming presidential contest is a question that involves establishing the policy to be pursued by the party until its mission is performed, if it is to follow a consistent and intelligently considered course.

In obedience to the instructions of the Syracuse convention, the New York state committee of the party will, as soon as deemed advisable, issue a call for a national conference of congressional district delegates representing citizens who believe in restoring justice in the fundamental relations of men through the administration of all monopolies by, and for the benefit of, the people. The adoption of the Syracuse platform will settle and proclaim the political principles of the new national party. Next will arise questions as to the policy to be taken up and persevered in order as speedily as possible to bring those principles into operation through the law. A most important question of policy to be considered at the outset will be whether or not the party shall enter candidates in the presidential canvass. No principle announced in the Syracuse platform requires one course or the other. Neither does any principle in the code of morals commonly accepted by men or bodies of men. It is a question of policy only - of deciding upon the most direct road to a goal.

The question is not one of abandoning the political organization. It is to be assumed that the local and state bodies already formed will be strengthened and that the work of uniting new branches to the main party will be pushed on.

Let those earnest men who are positive that duty demands that they should never again vote for a democratic or republican candidate face the question if they really should be voting for principle - voting to further their cherished principles - in case they insisted upon standing up and being counted next November as uncompromising and world defiant believers in the new political economy. By this "policy" might they not rather further put off the day of success? Would not the expenses of a national campaign draw seriously on the vitality of the party? Would the satisfaction of trying to be counted compensate for the danger of crippling the party in localities where local candidates might be placed in office, there to promote true reform principles, if it were not handicapped with a presidential ticket? In cutting off completely from the two old national parties, would the labor party not be reduced to a dead quantity in the eyes of the managers of both, the percentage of votes now drawn from each being not far from equal? On election day could the party’s own friends be relied on to march loyally up to the polls in unbroken ranks only for the purpose of being counted? Is a full count possible, conditions being as they are? Beyond these questions arises one paramount to all others. Shall the new party ignore living issues - the every day conflicts of right against wrong in the busy world - and soar above the heads of common men until human clay is brought up to the party's ideal? In other words, will those who believe in enthusiastically voting direct for the party’s principles demand that all supporters of those principles must accent that course as the only one prescribed by conscience?

There is little force in instituting a parallel between the methods of the prohibition party and those recommended by the advocates of a full ticket in every campaign for the united labor party. The prohibitionists, impractical and theatrically heroic, support a socialistic measure destructive of personal liberty and of not only the rights of property but property itself. The united labor party is bent upon proceeding in a business-like way to establish perfect freedom and render every man absolutely secure in his property - the product of his labor. The success of the prohibitionists would involve a great and sudden change in the body politic - in its effects resembling the outburst and overflow of torrents of water at the breaking down of a reservoir's dam. The labor party intends no convulsive revolution, no jarring even, in the course of public affairs, but hopes to push on toward the attainment of a reign of justice with a steady motion like that of the constantly progressing current of a broad river.

The tariff is to-day a live national issue. It was the one subject of the president’s message; it has already in the current session been made the subject of acrimonious debate in both houses of congress; the partisan editors have taken the opportunity once more to air their cut and dried opinions as to free trade or protection; the managers of the republican party are congratulating themselves that President Cleveland has cornered himself, and that he is their captive. Thus the field is being laid off for the approaching national political battle.

Are the radical tariff reformers among the single tax men going to the polls in November simply to be counted as upholders of a noble, but not immediately applicable principle, while feeling that their votes might be made the means of turning the course of legislation perhaps decisively, in a direction which will finally carry their great principle to an ascendency?

Another view of the tariff question merits patient consideration. There is in the united labor party a not inconsiderable body of men who think that not only should the single tax on land values be in operation before the time of the abolition of customs duties, but also that the present equilibrium in what are termed protected trades should be preserved until the absorption of land values by a tax shall in a measure have opened up natural resources to the skilled labor they believe would be displaced by importations of goods under a reduction of those provisions of the tariff affecting such trades. These men would not now oppose the many modifications of the tariff that they see can undoubtedly be made without disturbing any branch of the labor market. But glassblowers, cigarmakers and workers in certain subdivisions of the manufacture of metals, for example, look upon themselves, in regard to the tariff as it affects their means of employment, as in the same position as are owners of vacant lots with respect to the land value tax. Protected workman and vacant land owner alike may assent to the principle that a community has a right to absorb the unearned increment of land, and that in such case no other taxation is necessary. But no man possessed of vested legal rights desires his own interests to be singled out for destruction in advance of others of its kind or before the substitution of compensating advantages. The New York owner of a vacant lot in Pennsylvania may be reconciled to having the value of that lot taxed away from him if he can thereupon take up one of like value in New York by paying no more than the tax on it. But he will fight against giving up his Pennsylvania lot if he is to be but one of a few local land owners so to suffer. And to many workers in highly protected industries, as the phrase is, the natural course of change from the present system to that under the single just tax seems to be first to shake land values generally. Who would lose in that case? Only speculators in the needs of labor and capital. All who had land for use could continue using it.    But if a protected industry goes by the board, or its stability is seriously weakened by the withdrawal of the prop that has upheld it, the opportunity of employment for its workers is put sadly in jeopardy. They can discount the chances of loss through strikes, lockouts and improved machinery, but they will not of their own volition add to the risks before them.

Here, then, is room for the differences as to policy respecting action on the tariff that do exist in the united labor party. And for other reasons many of its members might wish to be free to vote for or against one or other of the old parties' national candidates, the success of their own party being admittedly beyond all possibility. In view of certain inability to poll its full vote, would not practical wisdom point to no nomination of a national ticket by the united labor party?

A few evenings ago, at a meeting at which thirty active members of the united labor party of New York were present, a ballot on the question of putting up a presidential ticket resulted in eight votes being cast in favor of the policy and twenty-two opposed to it. As to taxation, all were in favor of the single tax: only one favored the tariff as it stands, with a preference for priority of reduction in all other forms of taxation; nineteen favored absolute free trade with the single tax in force, the rest not voting; all voted not to have the question of the tariff as now presented to the country by the old parties introduced in the labor party; all voted that members of the labor party should be left free to hold whatever opinions they wished in regard to that issue as it now stands.

What would be the effect if this single tax, anti-monopoly party should, instead of permanently camping apart from the other parties, adopt as its invariable policy the two following rules: First, never to enter a contest leading to such a division in the party's ranks as would put one set of its adherents in opposition to another equally true to the cardinal principles of the party; second, that the party whenever possible assist in all movements heading in the direction of that social organization which it is striving to establish?

In accordance with the first of these rules, the party would not, as a national organization, enter the presidential contest of this year; nor would candidates for congress be nominated. Following the second, it could on numberless occasions sway, or at least intelligently assist in guiding, those tendencies which are already bringing many monopolies under municipal and state management and supervision, and, what is of higher importance, concentrating taxation on real estate.

In what estimation would his fellow citizens hold a member of the legislature who, making professions of a determination to destroy monopoly, would stubbornly vote alone for a pet bill providing for state ownership of railroads, while the casting of his single vote might result in the passage of a law establishing a commission empowered to supervise the acts of railroad companies, disclosing the true cost of constructing their roads and preventing stock watering, overcharging and discrimination in rates? In the long fight between monopoly and the people the united labor party, many times in many places, will have placed before it such a choice between idealism and gradual improvement. Living issues to-day, local and national, are whether the people or private monopolies shall manage water works, gas works, bridges, docks and the telegraph. The question as to modes of taxation is ever prominent. It is not only the duty of the new party every where to cast its influence with those who are moving along with it against minor monopolies, even if but for a short distance, but to lend its aid in agitating questions of taxation in order to enlighten men as to the sure means of putting an end to land monopoly.

In case a presidential ticket is not nominated, the hundreds of thousands of supporters of the Syracuse platform throughout the country will be a tempting catch for both the old parties. The bidding of the platform makers for their votes may bring about the adoption of the Australian system of voting: it may put members of the new party in some of the state legislatures, there to agitate the true principles of taxation; it may give to all government employes the benefits of the eight hour law, an advantage to the new party, for those workingmen who have time to read are generally with it; it may establish a law assessing land values separately from other real estate values; it may aid in restoring to the national government powers over the issue of currency that have been largely usurped by the banks. Who can say what it may not do in such doubtful states as Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana with respect to land value taxation?

If the united labor party sets up a national ticket, it walls off the voters for that ticket from the rest of American citizens, and the coming campaign will be conducted by the old parties either with no regard to the new party or with both striving to create a popular impression that it is in the field simply as an assassin.

The fear that the party supporting the Syracuse platform could degenerate into an office capturing body of strikers juggling as a balance of power between the two great parties, and the fear that it may fall to pieces unless it votes, solidly and uniformly, directly for principle by having candidates for every office from coroner to president, are equally groundless. Never with greater zeal did crusaders of old hasten to arms at the call to defend the faith than will the men who have seen into the merits of the principles of that perfect platform press forward to aid in their triumph when the word goes forth that there is a bare hope of success for any one of their measures.

The campaigns already fought by the united labor party have made men pause and think and finally understand that this new party believes itself possessed of imperishable principles. Respect for the sense of the party and its managerial tact will be deepened if it adopts a policy guided by high principle, based on sober reason, easily comprehended by the rank and file, and attractive to the conscientious mass of citizens from whom must be drawn that majority necessary to bring the party's principles into practical measures.

J. W. SULLIVAN

The Twenty-First Assembly District.

The Twenty-first assembly district of the united labor party of New York held its regular meeting on Tuesday evening, Jan. 3. Dr. William S. Gottheil of the county executive committee reported a request from that body that each assembly district should give expression to its views regarding a presidential nomination. After some discussion, in which Dr. Gottheil, Treasurer Rathbun and others took part, the following preamble and resolution were unanimously adopted:

Whereas, The members of the Twenty-first assembly district, united labor party, believe the principles for which we are contending to be right; that the espousal of such principles means honest, earnest and consistent work; therefore be it

Resolved, That the Twenty-first assembly district of the united labor party place itself on record not only as favoring a national conference, but as demanding in the interest of right and of economic truth a national conference, a national convention and a national candidate.

It was decided that at the next meeting, on January 10, the question of  protection versus free trade should be discussed.

H. H. C.

PROTECTION WANTED.

American Industries Threatened by a Deluge of Natural Gas - Why Not a Tariff Against the Bowels of the Earth as Well as Against the Other Side of It?

WASHINGTON, D. C - I was shocked, upon reading this morning's newspaper, to learn that natural gas had been discovered in Chicago. It is reported to have been accidentally struck by the Cook brewing company while boring for water. Now, I have lately been reading Professor Sumner, and therefore do not demand that the energy, foresight, sagacity, capacity, self-denial and several other things of the Cook brewing company go unrewarded. But, recalling the professor's "Forgotten Man," my sympathy goes out toward a large number of "forgotten men" who will suffer if the Cook brewing company should continue their boring and discover sufficient gas to light and heat the city of Chicago. I foresee that an enormous amount of suffering must accrue to multitudes of people. The occupation of the employes in the gas works will be gone. Thousands of gas meters, purchased at considerable expense, will be rendered useless. As the gas will be used for heating as well as lighting, serving as a substitute for wood and coal, the demand for these articles will be decreased - the wages of coal miners in Pennsylvania and Illinois will diminish. Not one cord of wood will be burned in Chicago where two are burned now; so fifty per cent of the wood cutters in the forests that supply the city, of the wood haulers who transport it, and of the wood sawyers in the back alleys who reduce it to a length and size for stove consumption, will be thrown out of employment. As a philanthropist - not a professional philanthropist, but only an amateur one as yet - I inquire, with tears running down my nose, what ought to be done?

I will express - no, on second thought, I will mail - to you a proposition that strikes me as being practical, efficient and unobjectionable. Let a protective tariff be levied upon that gas. Figure how much it will cost to pump it from the bowels of the earth, and levy a duty which shall rise in price considerably above that of the artificial article; enough, in short, to protect the present gas makers and wood dealers from the ruinous effects of competition. Even if the tariff should be made practically prohibitive, the Cook brewing company would be as well off as they now are, while the reduction of wages and loss of employment above lamented would not ensue. For further arguments in support of such a tariff see some seventeen thousand pages in the Congressional Record, and in the Congressional Globe before it was misnamed a record. True, this natural gas does not come from Europe or South America, but are not the subterraneous regions from which it is brought to all intents and purposes as foreign as the transatlantic or transisthmian regions? In any event, this objection, if it be an objection, is purely technical and does not affect the principle which I am advocating - the great principle of protection to American labor.

P. S.—I have read the above, as my custom is, to my wife, and asked her what she thinks of it. She suggests to me, that instead of so managing that the people of Chicago and thereabout should have more work to do, and have to do more work than is necessary to obtain light and fuel, it would be simpler and better for them to have less work to do, and have to do less work in order to obtain it. In other words, that as the Cook brewing company did not make the natural gas it must rightfully belong, with the rest of the earth, to the inhabitants of the earth, and that all the citizens of Chicago (at least) ought to be allowed to participate in the benefits of the gas underlying Chicago, by a reduction of the expense of fighting and heating their houses and places of business, instead of all the profits accruing to the Cook brewing company. While this suggestion seems to me a very just one, and perfectly practicable as soon as the public mind shall have become familiarized with the idea that nature's gifts to all should be so used as to redound to the benefit of all, yet I hesitate to advocate such a measure at present, lest the Cook brewing company should call me a "communist."

J. L. MCCREERY.

A Question for the "Herald."

NEW YORK CITY.—The Herald, in a recent editorial, under the heading of "A Word With Wage Earners," says:

Now, about this coal strike. We wish we could get the workingmen by the button hole and have a little talk with them after this fashion:

Do you know what happens when a fellow rolls a rock down stairs? Well, this happens - it hits the edge of every stair in the whole flight, but when it gets to the bottom it rests there.

If coal is not minded it becomes scarce. Then the market price rises, of course, and who are the people that suffer? Why, like the rock, the high price bumps against the rich man, but he hardly feels the weight, because it glances off. It bumps against the man who is simply well to do and hurts him a little, for he can't afford the extra expense. When it has done its bumping against this class and that class it ends by resting on the poor man's family. So long as coal is scarce it eats up his earnings, for he must have it, no matter what it costs, and the greatest inconvenience and the greatest suffering fall on the very class which has organized to relieve itself of its many burdens.

That is the naked fact, and it is worth consideration.

Workingmen will always distrust such advice as the Herald gives them, because, though they know that strikes will cause more suffering to themselves than to their employers, they also know that were it not for past strikes they would be to-day much worse off than they are.

If the striker fellow had not thrown the rock so that it should hit the edge of every stair in the whole flight, then the employer fellow would have done so, only in which case the rock would not have hit the edges of the higher stairs of the flight, and therefore, as you may well see, would have struck the harder on the last edges of the stair and hardest of all at the bottom, where the wage earners live.

A WAGE EARNER.

From a Member of the North American Phalanx.

The reference in a recent issue of THE STANDARD prompts me to say that I was, from beginning to end, twelve years - from 1843 to 1855 - a member of that once famous attempt at industrial association, the North American phalanx.

Of the many similar institutions that sprang up in the early forties, this was by far the best endowed both in capital and business talent and lasted much the longest.

Many happy remembrances cluster about that period of my life; but unlike some others, I have always considered it a bad failure. Those whose faith in the theory and the timeliness of that practical attempt has been least shaken attribute the breaking up to pecuniary embarrassment, aggravated by a destructive fire. But it could scarcely be called a pecuniary failure. Notwithstanding the loss by fire of something like one-third of the nominal sharehold property, and a great loss in buildings not well adapted to other purposes, the final settlement brought over sixty per cent to the shareholders.

After this an intense and continuous business struggle has absorbed my energies. Still I was able to join in a co-operative grocery store which made and saved money to all concerned. But after several years of success it was given up and the profits divided - a failure in my estimation the greater from its pecuniary success.

The first I saw of your writings was in the Popular Science Monthly, perhaps ten years ago. The next was your conversation with David Dudley Field in the North American Review. I am ashamed to say that I never read "Progress and Poverty" until about a year ago.

I am now satisfied that the abolition of land monopoly by the single land value tax underlies all other social or political reforms.

I am oppressed with the magnitude of the question, the radical changes involved and the opposing forces that will be arrayed against it.

Land monopoly is as old as slavery, and you attack it in the interest of many more millions of unduly requited laborers than men in slavery at the south. They cannot understandingly and rapidly appreciate your efforts; but land and other monopolists can. These will follow more or less blindly pro-slavery precedents in sustaining laws and institutions based upon the private ownership of land.

This struggle must come, and my hope of a peaceable solution lies in the wisdom, religious devotion and persistent energy of the Anti-poverty society.

The trifle more of leisure that I now enjoy comes too late in life to be of much avail for any cause; but at the least I hope not to be a stumbling block.

N. R. FRENCH

Agitation More Important Than Voting.

OLD TOWN, Me. - I have been reading the editor's resume of "The Cause and THE STANDARD," and find in it much food for reflection. If our friends who so stoutly insist upon having candidates to vote for would carefully review the trend of events during the past year, I think they would see that there are other and more important things to be considered.

If there is one object more than another that demands our moral and financial support, it is THE STANDARD. It must of necessity be the great educator, and is the only candidate that we cannot afford to have defeated. The discussion now going on in relation to a presidential ticket seems to be between sentiment and expediency.

There are in all new movements, honest enthusiasts who are guided by emotional desires rather than by mature reflection. They readily perceive a social wrong, and when a remedy is proposed hasten to apply it.

There are others who, willing to examine an argument, combat with each proposition inch by inch until firmly convinced of its truth and justice. These are guided by expediency as well as by sentiment.

Now, diplomacy - policy, if you please - is not to [be?] despised. No man better recognized this than honest Abe Lincoln. On the other hand, a very weak man may have sentiment of the right sort, yet be wholly wanting in tact.

I cannot help feeling after all that the counsels of Messrs. Croasdale and Post are wise. I do not wish to be understood as holding aloof from those of our brethren who believe in immediate political action. "Be sure you're right then go ahead" is a good motto; but when there is a great reform to be accomplished men differ widely in opinion as to how it shall be accomplished.

There is, there can be, no doubt as to the justice of the proposed remedy. The question is how can we most surely and speedily put it in practice? Have we already reached men enough? and have we a nucleus large enough to go into politics to the extent (as one correspondent expresses it) of nominating a full set of candidates from coroner to president?

Does not this desire more often spring from an enthusiastic love of the cause than from a careful consideration of facts? No one doubts that the setting up of candidates attracts attention; but will successive defeats encourage those not familiar with our principles to more readily examine them?

Campaigns cannot be carried on without the use of money. Would not the funds thus used be better spent in distributing literature among the masses?

If we are to make a political effort it seems to me that it should be in the direction of the legislative branches of government alone. We cannot hope to elect for some time either governors or a president, but we can by massing our forces aid in securing in the near future some very essential legislation.

In some communities the adherents of the single tax idea may hold the balance of power, and in such instances should make the most of it. Of course where there is a prospect of electing a candidate of their own it should be attempted, but let there be no political dickering, no sacrifice of principles. This is not expediency; it is criminal cowardice.

Beyond these limits I fail to see how our cause is likely to be promoted by entering the field of politics. It may be asked how and when are we to determine our real political strength? But, made up as we now are of scattered units, this is hardly a question for the present.

Before we can reasonably hope for a general acceptance of the single tax idea, there are other vexed questions intimately related to it that are more likely to receive early and favorable legislation. It matters not so much which of these questions shall first occupy the minds of our legislators as that a breach shall be made in the economic errors of tradition.

Let us educate further before attempting too much with the ballot. Let us "agitate, agitate, agitate;" - 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer.

E. M. EDWARDS.

Benjamin Franklin's Opinion.

MURRAYVILLE, Ill. - I would like to draw attention, through THE STANDARD, to what Benjamin Franklin says in one of his letters published in the Century a year and a half ago. The most serious charge that he brings against Thomas, oldest son of William Penn, is that "he took the quit rents, which had hitherto been public revenue, and put them into his private pocket, thus compelling the people to resort to other subjects of taxation in order that they might procure the necessary legislation and administration of the laws."

It seems to me that instead of using the expression "confiscate rent," we should do better to speak of "restoring rent to the public treasury." "Restore" would tell everyone that rent had been public revenue. "Ground rent" would at once make the distinction between rent and interest on capital in improvements, which has been so long confused with rent that the term is fixed in the public mind. Everyone knows the meaning of "public treasury," while very few know that "fis-cate" implies a public treasury.

Let me suggest to every friend of the cause who is selling, giving or loaning copies of "Progress and Poverty" that he make a reference mark after "confiscate rent" and write in the margin "restore ground rent to the public treasury."

WM. GAMM.

THE SITUATION IN IRELAND.

Land Values Depreciating and Radical Ideas Spreading.

The following notes taken from a letter to Rev. Father Sylvester Malone of Brooklyn from a correspondent in Ireland indicate the strong current of radical sentiment running beneath the politics of that country which is seldom noticed in the pro-poverty press:

In Ireland the Irish party is doing what the labor party is doing in America - fighting the landlord's right to the earth which God created for all. We are battling against the garrison that has robbed us of our rights for seven centuries. The rent has been reduced from twenty millions a year to fifteen millions, and I am sure that under the land act which allows leaseholders to get their rents reduced another five millions will be sliced off, and then the state may purchase the land at ten years' purchase: - say one hundred millions - and free the white slaves of Ireland with English gold as you freed the black slaves of the southern states with the sword. Our slaveholders got grants of lands from the kings and queens of England on condition that they should supply soldiers for the armies of England and sailors for her fleets; but when proprietors in after tunes got control of parliament they put taxes on tobacco, tea, whisky, etc., to pay the soldiers and sailors and thus got rid of the obligations under which the lands were granted. We, the masses, are going to resume our ancient rights to the land and go hand and hand with George and McGlynn in their movement in America. What has done much to lift many farm laborers from severe poverty has been the erection of 15,000 houses, each upon half an acre of rich land. These cost £100 each, the state having lent $1,500,000 for the purpose on the security of the rates.

We are preparing to build fifteen thousand additional houses. Thus in a few short years thirty thousand families of the very poorest people in the country will be lifted out of their mud cabins, where they had no gardens, and placed in comfortable cottages surrounded with a small quantity of the best land to be had in a nice elevated position, and paying only one shilling a week for all this comfort. The other shilling a week will go upon the rates of the land for supporting the poor and be collected with the poor rate.

I was valuing a farm last week of one hundred acres near Trim, and I spoke to the farmer about the George theory, to put all taxation on the land and take all off buildings, and he highly approved of it. He had expended £1,000 in buildings and improvements on his farm, and thereupon got an additional tax put on him. Of this he complained to me bitterly, saying that he was afraid to make needed improvements because his taxation would be further increased. Hence the laborer is idle, the mason is idle, the carpenter is idle, and the slater and plasterer and painter are idle. So that "spread the light" of your theories is my word and you must succeed.

I get THE STANDARD every week and like it very much.

A few instances will suffice to show the degree to which the land courts are reducing rents in Ireland. In the case of seven small farms which previously rented for £70, the rent has been reduced to £40; for three farms at Ballin, near Longwood, the old rent was £106, the new rent is £84; a farm at Dunderry, old rent £135, new rent £99; a farm near Navan, old rent £90, new rent £75. Good landlords like the Trim town commissioners employ valuators who sympathize with the tenants and who make large reductions; but bad landlords get valuators to swear that everything is going on splendidly and land is worth as much as ever it was, and judges who are linked in with the landlord class give only small reductions.

All this sort of work is going on all over the country. Still the price of produce is so small that hardly any rents can be paid, and the exasperation of the people against the government for the imprisonment and rough treatments of William O'Brien is so great that on many estates the tenants will pay no rent at all."

Believes in Utilizing the Two Old Parties.

LYNCHBURG, Va. - If those who are for the single tax are fighting for principle, as I, believing with them, think they are, why do they antagonize any party who agrees with them in any particular?

There seems to me that too much abuse is bestowed upon the two old parties. All recruits must come from two parties; in some sections largely from one; in other sections mainly from the other.

Now, if the principle be carried out partially even by either party, why not strengthen that particular party's hands? If the single tax men who were republicans refuse to help a democrat going toward the principles we believe in, and the single tax men who were democrats refuse to aid any republican candidate when he may be stirring toward abolishing some taxes, our principles will fail unless we can command a majority at once all over the country.

A better way seems to preserve organization and help either of the two remaining parties who will carry out any of our principles.

It is useless to say that this does no good because each party is compelled to conciliate the united labor party vote, and let the one doing the most conciliating get our help.

Protection is further from our position than tariff for revenue only, and any discussion of tariff brings up taxation for consideration. In this state the dominant party goes for "assessing land held for speculative purposes at its full value," and in other ways leans towards our creed.

In a state election we may, if successful, put the new system in operation almost immediately; and as such, state would show at once the feasibility of the plan, our chances for success would grow in other states "until the whole were lessened." Vote for our principles no matter who advocates them, should be our motto. Throw our weight with one or the other of the two parties most like our creed, and wherever we see a chance for local victory seize it.

THETA.

Anti-Poverty in the Queen City.

CINCINNATI, O. - The second meeting of the anti-poverty society here has done much to increase our membership and strengthen the movement. E. T. Fries and H. M. Ogden made strong speeches and C. H. Fitch read the poem "Right Here in Cincinnati" which was printed in last week's STANDARD. Our organization has applied for admission to the league of anti-poverty societies, and the agitation will go on here whether the party nominates or not in the coming election.

Believes in Capturing One State.

NEW YORK CITY. - Until I read the article of J. Z. White in THE STANDARD of Dec. 31 I was decidedly in favor of a candidate of our own. But now I am convinced that Brother White has solved the problem when he says we should exert ourselves to capture one state and by introducing our doctrines in that state the consequent social and business improvements would force other states in self-defense to adopt them also.

WILLIAM SCHWALB

GREAT BRITAIN

MORRISON DAVIDSON ON THE SITUATION AND PROSPECTS.

Agitation in Town and Country - Mr. Gladstone's Defects - The Trafalgar Square Meeting - How the President's Message Is Received.

LONDON, Dec. 16. - All the readers of THE STANDARD here watched the late election campaign of the united labor party in New York state with deep sympathy and interest. We did not like the result, but neither were we dismayed by it. Parties ebb and flow, but principles such as those embodied in the programme of the united labor party know no change. Whoever intelligently grasps the full significance of the single tax on land values is like the wise man who built his house on a rock. The winds and the waves my buffet it, but in time they will subside and both rock and home will again stand out unscathed in the glorious noonday sunshine.

To most Englishmen THE STANDARD'S account of the deplorable inefficiency of the American ballot came as a surprise. Our ballot, which is the counterpart of the Australian system, is as perfect as any political contrivance can be. It is absolutely secret, and the abuses to which it is liable are altogether microscopic.

In the rural districts, indeed, where the poor have for centuries been ground to the dust by squire and parson, it is hard to convince the peasants that the taskmasters have no means of ascertaining how they vote. But that obstacle to democratic progress has its root in the ignorance of the voters, and ignorance can be and is being rapidly removed by the new board school and the steady dissemination of political knowledge by means of lectures, terse leaflets and such like agencies.

A single London liberal club, "The Eighty," has in twelve months delivered no fewer than eight hundred lectures through its members and agents. The "Eighty" men, it is true are mere party politicians who are but a "feeble folk" where first principles are concerned, but the English agricultural laborer is, politically speaking, a babe at the breast, who would be certain to choke on strong meat. In order to make yourself intelligible to an average audience of those just emancipated English serfs, you must fairly take your own mind to pieces and, so to speak, reduce it to its simple component elements. Those who have never attempted this feat can have but slight notion of its difficulty.

Howbeit, we are making steady progress on this side, both in town and country, and you must not imagine that the arrests and other barbarous proceedings of the government in Ireland give a true idea of our political state and prospects. Landlordism is infallibly doomed in Ireland, and no one need feel astonishment that in its death throes it should kick convulsively.

At last, after long, weary centuries of bloodshed and mutual hate, a real union is visibly being cemented between the democracies of Britain and Ireland. Irish M. P.'s who have been lecturing in England and Scotland with commendable assiduity have everywhere been received with an enthusiasm which has astonished them. And yet there is no real ground for astonishment. The English people - and by English "people" I mean all those honestly engaged in useful labor - have never really had any quarrel with Irishmen.

Their sole fault - if fault it can be called - has been their gross ignorance about Ireland, past and present. To the great mass of Englishmen Ireland hitherto has been little more than a name - a terra incognita. Though anchored close to their western shore, they have known as little of its history as that of Madagascar. There is no accessible hand book of Irish annals comprehensible by the multitude, and our newspapers, being all or nearly all written in the interest of the "classes," hardly a ray of light has been permitted to reach the ''masses" But in spite of every drawback, the sun of knowledge is gradually climbing the orient, and his beams are gilding all the mountain tops, and will soon flood even the valleys with light.

The democracies of Britain and of Ireland have at last discovered that the common enemy is landlordism, and landlordism they are determined to throttle. The Georgian land ethics have taken a hold of the popular conscience and will with a grasp that will never be relaxed until the landlord octopus shall be no more.

What we have to dread most at present is an association of capitalists presided over by Mr. Arthur Arnold, who style themselves the "free land league." Their object is to strengthen landlordism by broadening its basis. They want more landlords, whereas we land resumptionists desire that the number should dwindle more and more. When landlordism has but one neck it can be easily decapitated, and this the shrewder members of the aristocracy, no less than the Arnoldian free landlord leaguers, perceive as plainly as we do.

They would fain, therefore, "Americanize" our feudal land system and make our democracy believe that on this question at least they are taking a genuine leaf out of the book of the great republic. But the workers are not to be imposed upon. Thanks to THE STANDARD and "Progress and Poverty," we know pretty well what free trade in land really means and are not to be deceived.

Every day that I rise I am more and more thankful that Mr. Gladstone's Irish home rule and land purchase bills were defeated. It they bad been carried the two peoples would have remained as ignorant of each other and as unsympathetic as before. The new form of union would have been as much a "paper" union as its predecessor, and we should have had none of that imperishable union of hearts which the delay in settling question has caused to spring up.

Besides, the bills themselves, if they had passed, would have brought us nothing but red ruin. The home rule bill was marked by every constitutional absurdity and vice which it was possible to cram into it, while the proposal to bestow $200,000,000 on the Irish landlords to induce them to "clear out" was simply criminal.

It is singular how Mr. Gladstone, as a statesman, is almost universally misunderstood by contemporary critics. The foolish tories detest him and the hardly less foolish radicals adore him. But a minute study of his political career will convince any intelligent man that he is the truest friend the privileged classes of this country ever had. He never touches a wrong because it is wrong, but because it has ceased to be defensible. His one principle upon which he has steadily acted all his life has been never to abolish an abuse however iniquitous without first capitalizing it at a premium. The cost of the remedy is so intolerable that you might just as well put up with the abuse. His statesmanship consists in taking the load of oppression off of one of the victim's shoulders and placing it on the other, thus deluding the poor man into the notion that he has obtained permanent relief. In the abolition of slavery, of the Irish Church, and of purchase in the army, in the commutations of pensions and sinecures and in his Irish land purchase scheme Mr. Gladstone never once dreamed of aught but a wretched expediency. In truth, shocking as the statement may appear to many of your readers, Gladstone is, in the strictest sense of the word, an unprincipled politician. Twice since 1880 he has had the house of landlords completely by the throat - once when they threw out his Irish anti-eviction bill (compensation for disturbance bill), and again when they rejected the franchise extension measure. On both these occasions the anger of the people against the hereditary chamber was at white heat, and he had only but to appeal to the constituencies and the aristocrats' doom would have been sealed forever. But no; he wet blanketed all democratic enthusiasm, and spared the men who never spared him, or, what was of infinitely greater importance, the democracy he was supposed to lead.

Mr. Gladstone's great defect as a statesman is total lack of originality. When his defunct home rule bill first appeared I could not conceive where he had gone for precedents for anything so grotesque. But study the history of Grattan's parliament and the mystery is readily solved. The union of that parliament with the English legislature was indeed carried by the vilest means; but the relations of the two countries, it ought never to be overlooked, had become absolutely unbearable, and these unbearable relations were substantially what Mr. Gladstone attempted to revive with sundry aggravations of his own.

The mistake made in 1800 by the Pitts and Castlereaghs lay, not in insisting on a new form of compact between the two nations, but in framing and incorporating instead a federal union. It seemingly never occurred either to them or to the grand old man to turn over the leaves of the constitution of the United States, where they would have found a precedent of the easiest possible application to the problem which they regard as so unspeakably difficult. The condemnation of statesmen like Mr. Gladstone lies in this, that light having been born into the world, they have preferred the darkness. It is merely a case with him of not being able to see wood for trees.

By the way, I have just been perusing, in the New York Tribune, Mr. Smalley's account of bloody Sunday in Trafalgar square, and I do hope none, at least of those enlisted in the cause, will give the least credence to that gentleman's version of the affair. Until I observed the familiar initials I really thought I was reading an epistle by Ashmead Bartlett or Lord Clanricarde. It is a tissue of malignant misrepresentation, or ignorant calumny, from beginning to end.

The meeting was organized not by the unemployed, but by the Federated radical club of London. It was called, before the police proclamation, to express sympathy with the Irish people, and no finer or more orderly bodies of men ever congregated to discharge a public duty. The radical clubs embrace the very flower of the workers of this vast metropolis. They are for the most part respectable, industrious and highly skilled artisans, the very class who throughout your great civil war never for a moment faltered in their allegiance to the north and their faith in the federal cause.

The square, since ever it was a square, has been sacred ground in the eyes of all true friends of the people, and many and many an historic gathering has been convened in its classic area. There does not exist in the whole world a more suitable spot for outdoor meetings, and the plea that certain adjacent aristocratic hotel owners and shop keepers have suffered loss of custom in consequence of the frequent appearance of Lazarus with his incongruous rags and sores in their august neighborhood is not less inhuman than legally preposterous. The vast army of unemployed are told to "demonstrate" where they will not offend by their presence the visual organs of aristocracy. But what would be the use of assembling in obscure haunts where they would attract neither the attention of press nor parliament? There is no hope of redress for the poverty-stricken multitude, as old Bentham justly remarked, except by making the ruling class uneasy.

The legal position of the government in excluding the London democrats from the square is at the best worthy of the times of Stafford and Laud. The crown has a shadowy claim to the superiority of the square, and proscription does not run against the crown, according to the legal maxim, nullum tempus occurrit regi. This will be the central position of the government lawyers when the right of public meeting in the square comes before the judicial tribunals. If it is upheld by the bench, it will be a fresh nail in the coffin of monarchy, which has every reason at present to keep its absurd pretensions and prerogatives in the background. But the truth is, having in this country no written constitution like that of the United States, we have no trustworthy guarantee of liberty. Our popular rights could, with very few exceptions, each be successively snatched from us by a "strong government" which set its lawyers to refurbish the old rusty armor of despotism to be found in the lumber room of statutory and customary law. So preposterous is the whole thing that, if the queen were to commit a murder to-morrow, there is no provision under our "glorious constitution" by which she could be tried, much less punished. The "queen against the queen" at the Old Bailey could not be proceeded with for a moment, and some sort of revolution would perforce be the only remedy.

As for the police attack on the people in the square, whither I accompanied "the Gladstone club" from Kensington, it was everything that Mr. Smalley says it was not; to wit, a brutal, unprovoked assault on unarmed men and women unparalleled in its atrocity anywhere, except, perhaps, in Warsaw. The soldiers behaved well and incurred no popular odium, but between the people and the police seeds of hate have been sown that may spring up like dragon's teeth at any moment on very slight provocation.

The three men who have come most prominently forward in defense of the right of public meeting have been Mr. William Saunders (of the English land restoration league), ex-M. P., for Hull; Mr. Cunningham Grahame, M. P., Lanarkshire, Scotland, and Mr. John Burns, the socialist engineer. All three are men whose motives are above suspicion and whose resolution is not to be shaken.

Mr. Saunders is diligent in season and out of season in propagating the land gospel by tongue and pen, with both of which he is is no slouch, and luckily he has the leisure which is denied to some of us. He has been called upon to make heavy pecuniary sacrifices while engaged in the work of he cause, but he cheerfully regards them as so much gain.

Mr. Cunningham Grahame is reputed to be the heir to two of the oldest Scottish earldoms, but he is nevertheless a democrat to the finger tips. He has youth, courage and wit on his side, and he is rapidly attaining a warm corner in the affections of the democracy.

As for Mr. John Burns, he, like Mr. Grahame, is a Scot, with all the perfervidum ingenium of his race. Though small in stature, he is powerfully built, and has a voice like a stentor. As an outdoor speaker he is excelled by few.

The "fair rent" land courts in Scotland are doing excellent work among the crofters. Rents are being pulled down forty, fifty and sometimes even sixty per cent; while "arrears" are frequently wiped out altogether. The moral effect of these judgments cannot fail to be very great It is a new experience for "noble lords" like his "grace" of Argyll to stand pilloried before their countrymen as little better than convicted thieves. It is in point of fact an agrarian revolution, which arouses reflection in the most somnolent and custom-ridden minds.

President Cleveland's message on the tariff question has not elicited here the warm approval in manufacturing and commercial circles which it would have done five or six years ago. We have of late been assailed and even beaten by foreigners in so many neutral markets that our capitalists, if the truth were told, dread rather than welcome the prospect of American free trade, for it would be to them the prospect of having to face in the world's marts another competitor possessed of such vast resources as the United States. Even the extension of our export trade to your shores is considered a very uncertain contingency after a time. We have to import so much of the raw material of manufacture and are so handicapped with unrighteous taxation that it seems to me quite clear that America at least has nothing to dread from a fair field and no favor.

If we can reach the single tax on land values - the only genuine emancipator of trade - before you we shall win in the commercial race, but not otherwise.

J MORRISON DAVIDSON.

REV. HUGH O. PENTECOST.

He Will Begin Preaching In New York Next Sunday.

Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost addressed a large and enthusiastic audience at the Criterion theater in Brooklyn last Sunday afternoon, and subscriptions were promptly made that assure a continuance of these services. On Sunday evening he preached to his Newark congregation at Library hall, which was so packed that a larger hall will probably have to be engaged.

On Sunday morning next at 11 o'clock Mr. Pentecost will preach at Masonic hall, corner Sixth avenue and Twenty-third street, in this city. The subscriptions here have reached a point that justify the step, and there is no doubt that they will be so increased at the first meeting that the congregation will be put on a firm basis from the start. Masonic hall will seat about a thousand people, and it was considered wiser by all concerned to start with it rather than with a larger building.

It is not proposed to organize a church in either of the three  cities in which Mr. Pentecost will hereafter speak every Sunday. He will manage the matter with such assistance as he chooses to call in, and the relations between him and the audience will be simply that between a preacher who has something to say and those who desire to listen to him. If any one gets tired of listening his remedy is obvious. Mr. Pentecost, however, recognizes fully the right of contributors to know what becomes of their money, and he prints a weekly statement of receipts and expenditures at Newark, of which the following is a specimen:

On Thursday evenings Mr. Pentecost will conduct in Newark a class in social economy, under the auspices of the Essex county antipoverty society, which will be practically a part of his religious work.

The prospect is that his first service in New York next Sunday morning will be largely attended.

Denouncing Roman Politics.

The slavish and un-American remarks of "My Lord" Preston, delivered in his pulpit on New Year's Day, concerning subserviency to the pope called forth a vigorous protest from the St. Stephen's parishioners at their crowded meeting last week. The protest was in the shape of resolutions, as follows:

Whereas, In a political harangue delivered in his church on Sunday last Mgr. Preston grossly misrepresented the principles and outraged the citizenship of American Catholics by the declaration that "if any man will say, 'I will take my faith from Peter, but I will not take my politics from Peter,' he is not a true Catholic."

Resolved, That we denounce this proposition as an insult to all Catholics, and we reject and repudiate it with all the emphasis and indignation of which we are capable; and

Resolved, That we reiterate our refusal to, recognize that the pope has any claim or title whatever to allegiance or obedience from Catholics in political affairs; and

Resolved, That we indorse and adopt the principle emphasized by Daniel O'Connell in his declaration that he would as soon take his politics from the sultan of Turkey as from the pope; and

Resolved, That as citizens and within the domain of politics, we will render neither allegiance nor obedience to any authority other than the constitution and laws of our country.

These were adopted with tumultuous applause, after which William McCabe and John J. Bealin delivered stirring addresses that were applauded to the echo. Chairman Feeney also spoke.

Victor A. Wilder and the Syracuse Declaration.

PASSAIC, N. J. - May I ask Mr. V. A. Wilder through your columns and for the benefit of many besides the writer to explain how he understands the Syracuse declaration of Aug. 17 last to say "no word of a protective tariff or of free trade?"

If we abolish "all taxes on industry or its products" and tax land values alone, how can we continue to tax those same products of industry?

I have heard of, but never seen, ambidextrous persons, who, with a pen in each hand, could at one and the same time write two letters on different subjects and in different languages. The feat seems to me impossible, and so does Mr. Wilder's position on the Syracuse declaration.

But I am anxious to learn and earnestly request him to give me some light.

J. J. BARNARD.

The Fund for Dr. McGlynn.

The publisher of THE STANDARD has received the following amounts for the fund for Dr. McGlynn:

FREE FOOD.

Scenes at John W. Keyser's Free Eating Room - How the Charity was Started, and Who Patronize It.

New York Sun.
Presently a little man with an iron gray beard came out from behind the partition with a huge mug of white china in each hand and two huge cuts of white bread on top of each mug. A mug was set down before the Sun man and one before his neighbor at the table. Then the little man withdrew, saying nothing, and the Sun reporter and his neighbor, also saying nothing, lifted the cuts of bread from the mugs and got a whiff of strong and hot coffee. Each slice of bread was two inches thick and well buttered on the top. A spoon went with each mug, and there was a bowl of sugar on the table. The Sun reporter tried sugar in his. His neighbor did not. Coffee without sugar is said to be more filling than when sweetened. The man at the left of the reporter was already eating; the man on his right quickly fell to, and the odor of good coffee conquering hesitation, the reporter made the plunge. It was not at all bad. The bread was really good and the coffee fair. After a brisk walk in the chill air the meal was not to be sneezed at.

The stalwart, ruddy man with big, coarse hands and workingman's clothing at the reporters left evidently thought so, for he attacked the bread ravenously. The younger, less well clad man on the right, with clear, blue eyes, a fair complexion, but for the need of shaving, and a coat fastened up closely at the throat with a pin, speaking eloquently of a vacancy where a shirt ought to be, seemed less hungry, and cooled his coffee before drinking it. There was no conversation in the room, unless some remark was passed in a low tone between neighbors at the table. Every man removed his hat when he sat down, the reporter presently remembering that in this respect he alone was lacking in courtesy. When one had finished, he arose quietly and went away, another slipping into his place. Sometimes several men would be standing waiting for a vacant seat. Everything was quiet and decent.

"Have you a trade?" was asked of the man
at the reporter's right.

"Na"

"Do you work at anything?"

"Anything I can get."

"Get much to do?"

"Business is pretty slack just now; it's all right most of the year."

"This must be a good thing for a fellow?"

"Well, I should think it was."

"Come here often?"

"No oftener than I can help, but it's a godsend when I do have to. I haven't been here before in three weeks."

"Stop nights in a lodging house?"

"Yes; fellows like us can't get $2 or $3 ahead to rent a room."

"They are trying to close the thing up."

"What would they do that for?"

"They say it makes men paupers; gets them coming here all the time."

"Well, they don't know much as says that. It stands to reason that a man ain't going to stand three-quarters of an hour in the bitter cold these mornings, to get a cup o' coffee and a bit o' bread, if he can get something to eat workin'. I don't see why any body should complain because somebody else gets something to eat when he is hungry."

One cut of bread and the coffee had disappeared while this was being said. The blue-eyed young man noticed a look the man on the reporter's left, both of whose slices were gone, sent toward the remaining slice of bread.

"Want some more bread?" he asked.

The man on the left murmured his thanks through a mouthful of the bread and coffee.

"What do you work at'" he was asked.

"I'm a plasterer."

The look of his clothes and hands fortified the remark.

"Working?"

"There's no work at this time o' the year."

"This place comes in rather handy then?"

"It saves a fellow from starving, or worse."

The extra slice of bread finished, he pulled his worn coat tighter, and with a comfortable look about the face passed quietly out, as the blue-eyed young man had already done. An intelligent looking, bearded man, who, in a good overcoat would have looked like a professor, had been standing near, and slipped into the vacant seat, unpinned his thin and shabby outer coat, and gazed hungrily at the remnants of bread on the table, until the little man from the back room came out and set coffee and bread down before the new comer. A young man with no overcoat at all was already in the other vacant seat, and presently a thin and shivering man in decent black, with the coat collar turned up and pinned close at the throat, took the place left vacant at the table when the reporter, too, got up.

These were fair samples of all the men in the place. None were, so far as could be seen, tramps or bums. Some, seen standing in front of a saloon, might have been taken for young loafers or rowdies, but they were as quiet and gentle as mice here. It was as decorous, clean and decent a place as any cheap restaurant could be, and its single waiter was as deferential and quiet as though he was serving costly dishes for rich diners instead of charity coffee and bread for hard-up men.

"We're not running regularly now," said he, "because the crowd got so big we couldn't provide for it. But there's a good many, a hundred and fifty or two hundred, drop in like this through the day and we give them coffee and bread. They are all like this, men who are out of work and hungry, but honest and decent men enough. They come mostly in the morning and toward evening, especially after dark. Men who are ashamed to be seen coming slip in at dusk and get their meal. It would astonish you to sec how many such there are and how hungry they are in spite of their well-to-do appearance."

Down in a Beekman street store Mr. Keyser was found. He is tall, slender, gray haired, gray bearded, with an old-fashioned kindliness in his face - a sort of elongated and attenuated Santa Claus, in fact. He feels very bad over the attack made upon him by the charity organization and other associations in their card in the papers a few days ago in the shape of a protest and warning to charitable people not to help him, as his scheme was a bad one.

"The trouble is." said Mr. Keyser, "that the charity organization society deals with humanity as a lump. I deal with it as individuals. They aim to reduce charity to a machine basis. Their ideal is to make it impossible for anybody to have to go hungry in New York. Mine is to feed those who do go hungry. The best way for them to stop my work is to successfully accomplish their own. Meantime, the facts are that there are thousands of men in this city who are out of work and cannot get enough to eat, and these men the organized charities cannot reach, because giving food to a hungry man is not in their province. I have lived fifty years in this city and have made the needs of the poor man an especial study, and I believe I know what I am talking about when I say that never since the starvation winter of 1872 and 1873 have there been so many thousands of men in this city idle through necessity as now. It will be an unpardonable crime if they are allowed to suffer because the conservators of organized charities are ignorant of their situation, and would arrest the merciful hands that are reaching out to aid them. I cheerfully second the efforts of the charity organizations to bring all charitable work down to strict business methods, but there is one merciful act that we can never err in - if a man is hungry, feed him.

"Could a census be taken to-day there would be found at least 30,000 men and women in this city dependent upon their daily toil who are working only quarter or half time, or are a large portion of the time idle, and many, possibly a quarter of this number, wholly without employment. Take the tin and sheet-iron workers and roofers - a branch of which I have personal knowledge - no less than half of them are idle. Five thousand laborers usually employed on the streets and subways and in cellar digging, are laid off on account of the weather. Of course they ought to have laid by something to help them over, but suppose they haven't, are they to be left to starve?

"It is true enough, as these organizations say, that this kind of charity degrades the recipient; so does all charity, even theirs. But does it not degrade these men infinitely worse to compel them to beg from door to door or to herd in station houses?"

Coming down from principles to facts was a hard matter for Mr. Keyser, but he finally did tell something of his own work in the particular lines he has chosen.

"In 1868," he said, "I started the 'Stranger's Rest' on Pearl street. That was an institution where homeless and penniless men could get temporary relief, food and lodgings. It ran for five years, and furnished 9,000 lodgings and 18,000 meals a year. It cost $10,000 a year to keep it going. That was before I was unlucky in business. Then in the starvation winter of 1873 I began to give food to hungry men. Before long I was feeding 1,000 of them in my back yard every day. I couldn't stand that, of course; but the Seventh street M. E. church, under the lead of Dr. Parker, its pastor, took hold of the work and put it in charge of an organized board, who kept it up all winter until the necessity for it was over.

"I live in Eighth street, and three winters ago I began to get up early in the morning and go out to Washington square. I always found from twenty-five to fifty poor men there sitting on the bench waiting for morning. I would take out bread for them and help them in any other way I could. Of course I was only an agent in this, the money being furnished by charitable people who have backed me ever since I lost my own money. Three months ago I began this work again, but there were more than ever of the men. The plan of taking out bread to them would not do, and I tried giving them ten cents apiece instead, but that would not do either, for while three-quarters of the men were honest workingmen there were some who would spend the money for something besides bread and coffee. So I rented a little place on Fourth street, and put in tables and chairs and arrangements for making coffee and soup, and began to feed free whoever came. In the morning coffee and bread and soup at nights. The first day there were seventeen came and the last day of the three weeks that we kept it up we gave out 2,800 meals - 1,200 in the morning and 1,600 at night. They came there as early as four in the morning, and by 5:30 o'clock, when we began to give the meals, a line blocks long would be waiting. It took until eight o'clock to feed them all in our little room, and as the number was increasing every day we were swamped and had to stop. They were nine-tenths of them homeless workingmen. As I went along the line I used to pick out the tramps and bums, give them five or ten cents, and tell them to go. I saw tinsmiths and roofers there, and men from almost every other trade, and they were there because they were hungry and had no other way to get food. Do you suppose men would stand for an hour or two or longer, as some of them had to, in the cold of early morning to get a piece of bread and a cup of coffee if they could get any work to do? Try standing still on the street from five o'clock till eight on a cold morning and see if it isn't about the hardest work you ever did.

"I haven't made any appeal for money from the public and do not now. I don't want any. All I have received is $1 from a man in Newburg, who didn't give his name. I gave that to a man who bought a pair of shoes and a square meal with it. The persons who have furnished me money for my work so far are as ready as ever to give me all I need myself, but this work is too big for me. Toward the last it took me seven hours every day to attend to it, and I have my own living to get and can't give that much time. I want to get somebody interested in this work that will take it up and carry it on, just as the Seventh street church did in 1873. The need now is as great if not greater than then. It wants a better place and provision for furnishing lodgings also. Most of these men live in lodging houses or rent cheap hall bedrooms and attic quarters. But there are hundreds of them sleeping every night in new buildings and in wagons on the street, or creeping into holes and corners wherever they can. They are hustled around from one station house to another, night after night, huddling, if they do get in, on stone floors, 60 or 70 of them in rooms with accommodations for 20; and if they don't get in, lying down anywhere, or walking the streets till daylight, and then going for shelter wherever they can. It doesn't need much money for this work. Sixty dollars a day will feed 2,000 people. What it wants is somebody or some organization to attend to it. This is all the appeal I make to the public. What I can do myself I will keep on with, but it is only a little, and there are so many hungry ones I cannot help.

"As an instance of the general character of these men, I can tell you of six men I picked up in the park this winter and found places for. Five of them are doing well, and one of them is at work here now, and is as good a workman as I ever had in the shop. And of the six, one was a drunkard and turned out bad. It isn't drink that ails them. It's simply lack of work."

At the Mercer street police station Mr. Keyser's statement as to the orderly character of the crowd that went to his restaurant was indorsed. The sergeant said that some complaint had been made by the residents near the place, who objected to the men sitting on their stoops, and one policeman had been detailed to see that the line was kept in order, but the men seemed to be a quiet and orderly set, and the proportion of tramps and bums small.

Gone to His Reward.

Louis Masquerier, one of the land reformers who in the 40's rallied around George Evans, and whose agitation did so much toward forcing the passage of the homestead bill through congress, died in Brooklyn on the 7th at an advanced age, and was buried in Cypress hills cemetery on the 9th. To the very last Mr. Masquerier was active in the good cause as he understood it.

He Appreciates the Standard.

PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—I congratulate you upon the success of THE STANDARD. It contains so much truth and so many interesting facts that a man never gets tired of reading it - at least I don't.

PETER KARL.

A LECTURER LECTURED.

Toronto Grip.
The inaugural lecture of the Y. M. C. A. course was delivered last night in the small hall of the association building by the Hon. G. W. Ross, minister of education. The subject was entitled "Our National Outfit." The lecturer said he had been unable to find that warm attachment to the Canadian soil and institutions among the youth of the country that he would like to see. It would be instructive to analyze the material elements constituting our national outfit and the result might encourage Canadians to love their country as she deserved. He wished to show that Canada offered every scope for the ambition and energy of our young men. Under the head of material outfit he reviewed the extent of the territory of the dominion, and its wealth, resources, under, in and on the soil. Canada has an area of 3,610,000 square miles, or 55,000 square miles more than the United States, or within 145,000 square miles of the whole area of Europe. Canada has thirty times the area of Great Britain and Ireland. In England every man had on the average one and one-half acres of land on the basis of an equal division; in Germany three acres, France three and one-half, Ireland four, the United States forty, Canada sixty-four. There was room, therefore, here for the surplus population of the old land. - [Mail, 21st

The hon. the minister of education had adjusted his overcoat and shining "plug," and was departing from the hall after the fine effort from which the above is extracted, when he was accosted at the door by a threadbare, cranky looking but evidently overjoyed fellow man.

"Excuse me, Mr. Ross, for speaking up to a real live minister of the crown, seein' as I'm only a common tramp, but would you mind telling me where them sixty-four acres of mine is situated?

"I don't know what you mean, my man," said Mr. Ross, kindly.

"Why, didn't you say as every man in Canada has sixty-four acres?"

"Oh, I see. Why, of course, you understand that I meant that there is enough land in Canada to give every man that much if it was equally distributed."

"Oh," rejoined the other. "Well, why don't they distribute it equally?"

"My good man, that's a very silly question," replied Mr, Ross. "Most of the land is taken up, you know."

"Taken up?" queried the tramp, with new interest; "do you mean arrested?"

"No; I mean it is owned by various individuals."

"Ah, I see!" said the cranky person, brightly; "then some other fellow has got my sixty-four acres; is that it?"

"Well, yes; that's one way of putting it," said the Hon. G. W. "But you know there are thousands more situated just as you are; in fact, a good majority of the people of Canada are non-owners of land."

"But, of course the fellows who own and use our land pay us an equivalent for its value every year in the shape of taxes, don't they?" persisted the tramp.

"No; not that I am aware of," courteously replied Mr. Ross; "the tax on land is merely nominal. But what put such an idea into your head?"

"You did," said the tramp, with some emphasis.

"I?" said the minister with a thunderstricken air.

"Yes, you!" didn't you say in your lecture that there should be a warm attachment to the Canadian soil among the youth of the country?"

"Yes, I said that. What then?"

"Well, you don't expect anybody to enthuse over another man's property, do you? Now, if the land of Canada belongs to every Canadian, as you say, those who occupy and use it oughter pay for its use to the public till every year, just by way of showing that it did belong to every Canadian. If that was done, there would be some sense in Canadians having a fond attachment for the soil of their native land. Isn't that clear enough?"

"It does look as though there was something in that," said Mr. Ross, seriously.

"But here's my car. Good night, stranger, I'll think that idea over."

And Mr. Ross rode home very thoughtful indeed.

A Suggestion from California.

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. - It rejoiced my heart to see in THE STANDARD of Dec. 10 the honest fashion in which our brothers stated their thoughts and the pleasant way in which you placed them before the readers of THE STANDARD. It convinced me, more than any other thing, that we are a body of united and determined men who must and will attain our purposes in time. I want to join this band of brothers and bring a suggestion by way of initiation. I think that if THE STANDARD would print the music of the most stirring of the land and labor songs it would often greatly aid us in our work. Many an hour is spent by our young men in the parlor singing, and we might set them thinking about our principles by giving them a chance to sing our songs.

H. L. PLEACE

[Our correspondent will find the words and music of some of the best land and labor songs in Miss Munier's volume, "Anti-poverty Sounds" which will be sent from THE STANDARD office for twenty-five cents. - Ed. STANDARD

Use the Tracts.

FORT EDWARD, N. Y. - We did good work here in the last election. We held our public meetings, but after Mr. George spoke at our fair, organized a small club, and meet twice a week. We canvassed doubtful voters, and saw that they had tracts. We put ballots in small envelopes, and left them with those who would take them. On election day we made little show, but the ballots were given out away from the polls quite as much as near them. The consequence was that in a total vote of about of 1,050 we polled 116. In this immediate vicinity, at two polling places where the total vote was 960, we polled 114. In commenting on the election, you say men were unable often to get tickets.

This was the part we attended to the most assiduously. To Mr. Frank Crofts's constant assiduity is due in a large part our vote. Had this same "vest pocket" voting been resorted to systematically throughout the rest of the country towns we would have polled a much larger vote.

Let us agitate now and constantly. This winter let the rural districts be flooded with our tracts. It is not just as easy as it might seem to distribute tracts. Not more than two or three kinds should be given out at once. Indeed, I think if we were to give out only one tract a week, have all reading and discussing this at one time, it would do much more good.

M. W. VANDENBURG, A.M., M.D

Civil Service Reform.

Buffalo Express (Lockport Items), Nov.20, 1887.
One of the surprises of the week was the dismissal of Lawrence J. McParlin as superintendent of the fire alarm service, and the appointment by the mayor of Frank A. Douglass. This was certainly uncalled for, as Mr. McParlin has fulfilled his duties honestly and faithfully. The action is purely a political one, inasmuch as the gentleman was the head of the labor movement, which polled 140 votes for George in the election. This a democratic mayor and council could not stand, so Mr. McParlin had to go. He left the system in A No. 1 control.

The Lesson of the Abolitionists.

"WEST SUTTON, Mass. - Inclosed is postal note for $2.50 for THE STANDARD for 1888.

In the matter of nominating a national ticket, would it not be wise to take counsel of the past? The old abolition apostles confined themselves to the agitation of the great wrong of the chattel form of human slavery. They consecrated themselves to this work, and brought all the energy of their earnest souls to bear upon this single moral question. They sought not office for themselves or their friends, and thus proved their usefulness, and by a faithful devotion to principle, without hope of reward, save that which flows from a consciousness of duty well performed, and the full faith that at some day, in some way, victory would crown the right. None knew better than they that national conviction of wrong must precede national action for its extirpation.

By such a course of proceeding; they showed to politicians their greatest terror, viz.: a united body of brave, intelligent, honest and earnest men and women. They had no measures of expediency to adopt or mere policies to follow, which are the usual, if not the inevitable, accompaniments of partisan organizations. They escaped the petty jealousies which party nominations always engender. They escaped the vast expenditure of money which all political campaigns always entail. They escaped the waste and diversion of a vast amount of mental energy which every political canvass is sure to make.

Had Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, Foster, Wright and their coadjutors run for office when the anti-slavery crusade was started, can any suppose for a moment that their eloquence would have had the convincing influence that it did have?

History is the record of the experience of the past. In view of this fact, would it not be well to recur to the lessons which its pages teach before deciding the question of a national campaign for carrying forward the principles of the Anti-poverty society?

JASON WATERS.

From Sanctuary of Liberty Assembly No. 8,789

MENOSHA, Wis. - The Knights of Labor in this town are nearly all Henry George men and are firm believers in the single tax and the land for the people. I hope our party will have a presidential ticket in the field.

P. J. ROBERTSON,
Rec. Sec. K. of L. Assembly 8,789.

THE BRITISH FARMER.

While London streets are filled with men vainly seeking for work complaint of "hard times" is elsewhere heard. Hammers are idle in ship yards on the Clyde, navvies stand with folded arms about the Manchester ship canal, girls of thirteen walk the streets of Newcastle selling their souls for enough to eat, and "father, mother, three children and two female neighbors" "tease hair" for fifteen hours in a Glasgow garret to earn eighteen pence. From the mining regions of Cumberland and Lancashire, from the farming districts of Kent and Essex, from the hills of Wales and the highlands of Scotland come reports of workers idle and mouths in need of food.

The concentration of agricultural land into big holdings has driven small farmers and farm laborers into the towns. Districts which once supported large rural populations have been converted into great farms, sheep runs or game preserves, while, remarks Professor Thorold Rogers, ''there is collected a population in our large towns which equals in amount the whole of those who lived in England and Wales six centuries ago, but whose homes are more squalid, whose means are more uncertain, whose prospects are more hopeless than those of the poorest serfs of the mediĉval cities."

The condition of affairs in rural England is illustrated in the hamlet of Market Lavinton, Wiltshire, whose inhabitants have sent an address to the prime minister complaining of the tyranny of the "chief steward" - the lord of the manor. In their address they say:

The parish contains 3,657 acres of land which is of such quality that five or ten acres of it are capable of maintaining a family in comfort. Instead of seeing that the wants of the parishioners are provided for, the chief steward has let 2,228 acres to one farmer. To make room for him four farmers were displaced and the number of laborers greatly reduced.

Some of these laborers have gone to America and produce corn and cheese, which are sent to this country and sold in Wiltshire markets.

The wages of laborers in the parish are only nine shillings per week. Carters and cowmen work long hours on week days and Sundays for 11s. 6d. Thus men have to labor for about two-thirds of the amount which it would cost to supply their families with food only, in the workhouse; under such circumstances men; women and children live in a state of semi-starvation.

In addition to this the farm of 2,228 acres is "rated" at £1,078 10s., or 9s. 6d. per acre. The 481 acres in small holdings are "rated" at £906 12s., or 37s. 5d. per acre. As the "rating" is founded on the rent it follows that the small holders pay in rent and "rates" four times as much as the large farmer.

It appears that all the capital which the large farmer brought into the concern, and all the money which he borrowed from his friends, have been lost. Thus the farmer has lost his time and capital, the laborers have worked and starved, the chief steward has looked on and profited.

Notwithstanding the fact that vital statistics show a large excess of births over deaths the population of the parish was diminished, for the chief steward seems to do all in his power to drive away the people. Policemen, who are not paid, but are controlled by him, are employed to prevent children from playing in the market place. They are instructed to seize and summon men who gather nuts or blackberries in woods formerly open to the public.

Spaces previously used as playgrounds have been inclosed. Fox cubs are imported and turned out in woods adjoining land occupied by small farmers.

These efforts to make a waste and a wilderness are carried on in the center of a county which might produce sufficient to feed a million persons besides its own population, and in which there might be created a trade demand which would bring prosperity to manufacturers, merchants and shopkeepers.

This address, signed on behalf of the inhabitants by Samuel Saunders, brother of William Saunders of London, who is doing so much for the cause of "land restoration," is a moderate presentation of the evils which beset the rural population of England to-day. Even large farmers cannot continue to pay present rents and successfully compete with imported produce, and they are petitioning parliament for a reduction. On the other hand landlords are trying to keep rents up for fear lest, as the duke of Argyll says, " the fund for improvements will be diminished." They have raised the cry of "fair trade " and are agitating for a protective tariff on imported farm products, so as to enable home farmers to get higher prices and to continue to pay high rents. They have tried to commit the tory party to that policy, but tempting though it is they cannot without flagrant inconsistency adopt it, as Lord Salisbury only last March declared that "agriculturists should not imagine that it was within the range of practical politics that protection could be restored."

The increasing difficulty of obtaining even reduced rents; the growing unrest and dissatisfaction among small farmers and farm laborers; the army of unemployed men in towns and cities, and the rise and spread of radical ideas, have filled the minds of many land owners with apprehension, and they would sell if they could get any thing like the old figures. But what greater calamity than this could befall the state? for, as Lord Abercorn pointed out at a convention of landlords, who met in Dublin recently to adopt measures to "alleviate their own sufferings" - "if landlords were compelled to sell their estates most of them would leave the country, thus depriving it of the beneficial effects of land owners residing there."

But there are other land owners who still "do business at the old stand," and who have no thought of leaving the United Kingdom, as the following letter from a Donegal landlord to the parish priest of his tenants will show:

ROYAL ST. GEORGE'S YACHT CLUB,
KINGSTOWN, YACHT FINOLA, NOV. 11.

Sir - Now, in as few words as possible, I will answer your letter. Owing to the very offensive wording of the resolutions and speeches, which show me plainly that it is useless to deal kindly any longer with those tenants, I may tell you that I would not now accept 99 per cent of all rents and costs due to me, as I am going to clear the two townlands of Brinlack and Glassagh, and it is my land I want now. Remember they are merely living on my land as long as I let them, and I will not regard costs in carrying out my plans. I have ample private means, and will set aside a certain sum yearly until all are out of that. In doing this I am only following out the scriptural precept that "a man may do what he likes with his own." I am determined on this, and in five, or, at the most, ten years time there will probably not be a single family left there. It will be no hardship to the people to have to go elsewhere, as they are in such circumstances they can hardly live, and besides, according to you, each one, as he is evicted, will be supplied with a house with three chimneys. In fact, I think, according to your showing, I will deserve their hearty thanks for evicting them. And, of course, I will level each house as I proceed. So you may look around for some sites for your three-chimneyed houses somewhere clear of my property.

I need hardly tell a man of your shrewdness, or rather cunning, that resistance will be utterly useless, and it is only a question of time and money, of both of which I have plenty.

Such is the use which many Scottish as well as Irish and English landlords are making of their "fund for improvements." In a country half the area of which is owned by seventeen individuals there are silent wastes where once amid the heather nestled the crofter's cabin. His little farm brought forth plentiful crops. Fuel cost but the labor of cutting peats from turf deposits and cattle and sheep roamed over rich pasturages. Then were the deer of the forest and the fish of the streams free to him. His wants were simple and his mind content. But within the memory of men came great changes. The deer in the forest and the fish in the stream came to be reserved for "the laird."

Pasturage was restricted and soil and turf gave out. Improvements but swelled rent and little by little what had been common enjoyments came to be luxuries. Corn, fish, beef, meal, potatoes, cheese, whisky and ale ceased to be exported and finally grew insufficient to meet common wants. When heather or grass was scarce dulce or sea weed was given to the cattle and even human beings were at times driven by hunger to eat it, "and a drink of hot milk, which, if they had not of their own, they got of their neighbors."

Then came the clearances. Cotters and crofters were driven from their little farms to make way for sheep runs and deer preserves. Not merely were families here and there evicted, but whole townships were swept away. Oft times the peasants suffered extreme cruelties, but they made no resistance lest in doing so they should bring down the vengeance of heaven and suffer eternal damnation for interfering with what their ministers told them was foreordained of God. Some of the evicted crofters strayed into the towns, some went to foreign lands, and those who remained settled along the bleak sea shore where the soil was so poor and yielded such scant crops that many of the men were compelled to resort to the sea for fish to gain subsistance.

In time all the available land was in use, and further increase in numbers caused a division and subdivision of the crofts until the minimum sized lot from which a family could be sustained was reached, and newcomers had to go without land and to depend upon the good will and charity of their neighbors. Every improvement in the appearance of the croft and every change that tended to lighten the work, but swelled the rent and increased the laird's "fund for improvements," while they offered no security against eviction if the factor or the ground officer became offended. Patiently and faithfully the peasants slaved from one year's end to another, and paid their rent regularly, save when bad seasons destroyed their crops or when the wind and sea wrecked their boats. But the rent was always paid when the men had the means, and they got along with hunger as best they could.

What wonder then as rents increased and times grew harder, that these crofters should come to gaze frequently at the laird's fat deer. What wonder when they gazed at their wives' hunger stricken faces and heard their bairns crying for food, that they forgot their minister's warning that it was an offense to heaven to trespass on the laird's domains, and the flintlock came down and a deer was shot.

Angus and Murdo M'Leod, fishermen, were recently tried before the sheriff at Stornoway, on the island of Lewis, upon a charge of killing two deer. Hunger was no excuse, for, said the sheriff, "this is one of the greatest offenses of the kind I have observed in this island, and although people make light of it I hold that it would be as well for these men to go and take a man's furniture out of his house or his horse out of his stable as it was for them to take these deer." And so Angus M'Leod was fined £2, with 23s. 6d. expenses, or ten days' imprisonment, and Murdo M'Leod 30s., with 28s. 6d. expenses, or seven days' imprisonment. Being without money and without friends who could pay their fines they went to prison.

Such occurrences have been frequent of late years among the crofters, especially in the island of Lewis, one of the Hebrides. This island is owned by one individual, Lady Matheson. Its area amounts to 400,000 acres, and its population numbers 27,000 souls. Twenty-five thousand crofters and cotters are settled upon 50,060 acres, 2,000 people are collected together in the town of Stornoway, and the remaining seven-eighths of the island is given over to sheep and deer. The crofters' land is the poorest on the island and the hardest work can bring forth but meager harvests. Testimony before the crofters' commission in 1883 showed that seventy or eighty years ago a great part of the island was cultivated by crofters and that many clearances were made quite recently. In the parish of Lochs alone twenty-six townships were depopulated to make room for the sheep farms of Park.

The result of all this was that there were many crofters without land and whose only food was potatoes received from neighbors who had land. And so, when there seemed likely to be a general famine, and with a sense of their wrongs to spur them on, they went in a body to the forest and helped themselves to the deer which had for so long eaten their grass and their corn. Whereupon her majesty's government ordered a powerful turret ship to hasten north and suppress the rebellion. As a more lasting measure of relief, however, the government has arranged for the transportation of 1,200 families from the "'congested crofter district" to British Columbia. For, as a high land peasant said, "there seems to be nothing for it but that the deer and the sheep should be sent away or that the people be sent away out of the kingdom." But it is as he further said, "The old people cannot be sent away without the young people. It is only the young people who can go and it is only they that support the old people. If the young people go the old people will die, and it is hard for them to see the sheep and the deer enjoying the fruit of their fathers' blood."

So the fiat has gone forth among the peasants that the sheep and the deer must go, and raids are being made that will soon make such properties as Mr. Winans' 400 square miles of forest utterly worthless for sport.

Moreover, the crofters' commission, appointed to inquire into the condition of the crofters and with power to reduce excessive rents, has been doing dreadful work in the highlands. Thirty, forty and fifty per cent reduction in rents have been ordered in many parts, and even the duke of Argyle has had twenty-six per cent lopped off the tribute he was exacting from his clansmen for living in Argyleshire and forty-four per cent of the arrears of rent wiped out. The commissioners were particularly severe in his grace's township of Moss, where thirty-five years before some crofters had obtained permission to settle, and by hard toil had converted a worthless piece of marsh into a garden. The duke, from his luxurious halls at Invarary, observing what they had done, saw that it was good and blessed them with a rent of from £1 to £4 apiece. But when the crofters' commission came along it cut down his rents by half and canceled three-fourths of his rent arrears, so that his "fund for improvements" was sadly diminished. And it is likely to become less in the not distant future, for the doctrine that God made Scotland for all Scotchmen equally has set the heather afire and is spreading through the highlands with a rapidity that portends speedy change in things as they are.

HENRY GEORGE, JR.

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