LVTFan's Blog

Seeing the Cat --- Have You Seen the Cat?

If you've been reading about Henry George's ideas for a while, particularly in older writings, you might have come across references to "seeing the cat."   It might be "have you seen the cat?" or "how I saw the cat" or more commonly, "do you see the cat?"   It is a shorthand for "have you seen the big picture?"  "do you get how all this fits together to solve what otherwise seems to be unsolvable?" 

It started with a speaker at an Anti-Poverty Society meeting in Manhattan on a Sunday night in November 1887.   The speaker was Judge James Maguire of California, later to be a congressman.  The Anti-Poverty Society had held its first public meeting in May, 1887, on a Sunday night, and thereafter met nearly every Sunday night in one or more large halls in Manhattan, filling all the seats and the standing room. The speeches given there, week after week, were extraordinary, and should be collected.  (That will happen.)  These were not short speeches -- some ran 2 hours, interrupted by enthusiastic audiences.  But they come alive on paper and on screen, 130 years later. For now, I'll share an excerpt from Judge Maguire's speech as it appeared in The Standard, Issue #045, 1887-11-12.

“Judge Maguire, who followed Dr. McGlynn, was greeted by round after round of applause when he came forward. When it had ceased he said:

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — The way that people rise up to defend this cause when they fully understand it reminds me of Mr. George’s story about the cat. There are men who have listened to an address on this question or that have read something about it who declare to you that they don't see anything in it at all, and though they look at it again and again some of them still don’t see it, and you point to different principles that are involved in it and still they fail to see it. You have seen little pictures in store windows with trees, animals, birds and some grass and some plants for a background. At first glance you don't think there is much of anything to one of these, but when you see a fellow standing and staring at a show window, the strongest impulse in the world comes upon you to find out what he is looking at, and you go up and look too. When you inquire what he is looking at he answers: “I am looking at that picture. Don't you see that question down at the bottom, ‘Where is the cat?'” You look, but don’t see any cat. By and by somebody comes along who has seen the picture before or who has had the cat pointed out to him. He asks: “Don't you see that twig?” “Yes.”

Bastiat, quoting Proudhon: "to whom belongs the rent of land?"

“To whom belongs the rent of land? To the producer of land, without doubt. Who made the land? God. Then, proprietor, begone!”

and later, 

M. Proudhon has brought forward many arguments against landed Property. The most formidable one—indeed the only formidable one—is that with which these authors have furnished him, by confounding utility with value.

“Who has the right,” he asks, “to charge for the use of the soil,—for that wealth which does not proceed from man’s act? Who is entitled to the rent of land? The producer of the land, without doubt. Who made it? God. Then, proprietor, begone.

“ . . . . But the Creator of the earth does not sell it—he gives it; and in giving it he shows no respect of persons. Why, then, among all his children, are some treated as eldest sons, and some as bastards? If equality of inheritance be our original right, why should our posthumous right be inequality of conditions?”

 

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45002/45002-h/45002-h.htm

Dr. McGlynn's Lesson from the 1886 New York City Election

What follows is one of three analyses of the 1886 Mayoral election in Manhattan, which appeared in the December, 1886, issue of North American Review (see https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25101145.pdf) under the title "Lessons of the New York City Election."  The authors are listed as "A Republican, Edward McGlynn and S. S. Cox."

One might consider this a supplement to Post & Leubuscher's December 1886 book, Henry George's 1886 Campaign, online at 

II.
THE LABOR PARTY VIEW.

The late contest for the chief municipal office of New York marks an historical epoch. The movement to elect Henry George to that office has been something exceptional, in fact, unique, in its inception, in its growth, and in its results, in the character of its originators, in the sympathies it won, and in the opposition it evoked. It has had an unprecedented effect in confusing and disabling political plans and factions; and it has rendered inevitable, has, in fact, already begun, the disintegration and reconstruction of political parties. It is the beginning of a pacific revolution which is destined to have upon the whole world a more beneficent effect than our first Revolution and the great Declaration which gave it its justification and battle-cry.

All this was substantially said by me at the meeting in Chickering Hall a month before the election, and was then no doubt regarded by not a few as but a campaign extravagance — a mere rhapsody inspired by foolish hopefulness of the perfectibility of human society, and by a simple but absurdly enthusiastic hero-worship. Events, however, have largely justified tho declaration made at that meeting.

After our mighty civil struggle had ended, with a Union restored and a race emancipated; after the question of reconstruction had been settled, and a large part of the burdens of the war discharged; after its deepest wounds had been healed, and even their scars obliterated, everything might have seemed to promise a long period of unexampled national prosperity and contentment. Instead of this, a new sense of disappointment and discontent began to steal over the workers of the country. With increasing wealth, they felt the pressure of increasing want. Labor in mill and mine, on railroad and farm, became more and more conscious of a wrong, in the want of opportunity to employ itself, and in the inadequate share of the product of his toil which came back to the toiler. Maddened and blinded, the giant Labor too often struck out wildly to his own hurt, and eagerly snatched at such panaceas as “protection,” urged on him by the quacks, who found profit in his ignorance. Strikes, wasteful and sometimes violent; lock-outs, long and heartless, increased and multiplied. Waves of industrial depression followed each other with a regular periodicity which suggested a law of nature. The cry was heard everywhere, “the rich were becoming richer and the poor poorer.” “Hail, Columbia, happy land!” was no longer sung with the same heartiness as in the childhood of the nation, and even the Fourth of July seemed to have lost the freshness of its charm. In the reading of the magnificent assertion of the natural equality of man, and his inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, there seemed to many an undertone of mockery. But deeply as the growing wrong was felt, there was a failure to clearly see its cause. Voices many were raised in complaint, but they were now the roar of a strong lion helpless in the toils, and now the wail of a child crying in the night. There was lacking the clear articulate speech of a man who, seeing a great truth, sounds a trumpet-call to all who would taste the fierce delight of battle against wrong.

But the hour came at last, and with it the man. The Duke of Argyll spoke better than he knew, when he sneeringly called Henry George the “Prophet of San Francisco.” No heart has sympathized more keenly with the sufferings of the toiler, no other pen has defined the wrong so clearly, and portrayed with such force and pathos the poverty that haunts progress like a spectre. No other voice has rung so loud and clear in calling men to take up the cross of a new crusade for justice, to proclaim the glad tidings of a new evangel to the poor, that shall relieve them from the degradation of want, and the deeper degradation of the fear of want. His cry rang forth, calling on the conscience of men to restore to the disinherited their equal share in the bounties of nature, and thus to fit their hearts and minds the better to receive and act out the old evangel of Him, who taught the universal Fatherhood of God and the equal Brotherhood of men. The common people of old heard the Christ gladly as He preached to them the blessedness of those that hunger and thirst after justice; and in the common people of today the same sure instinct responds to the call for social right-doing.

What gives to the late election its deep importance is that it marks the coming of a great principle into our politics; that it is a flashing into action of sentiments that have spread and are yet spreading wide and deep throughout the land and over the world. Henry George’s nomination was no accident. The working-people of New York, like their fellows throughout the country, have been reading and talking over his books, and are better acquainted with them, and have a keener appreciation of them, than most men of leisure and culture. They have learned from Henry George’s teachings an effectual and peaceful method of righting their wrongs, by the reformation of law on the lines of justice. They have got from him a new hope and courage; they have learned that the remedy must be political, since the wrong is political, proceeding from enactments that give to a few that which belongs to all. Henry George has taught them that it is not desirable nor possible to divide land equally; that the right of the individual is not to an equal division, but to an equal benefit from a common ownership. Henry George has shown that the beautiful economic law of rent suggests a simple and peaceful means of giving to every human being just what belongs to him of the common estate. He shows that rent is a good, not a bad, thing; that it is a gauge of the degree of progress from semi-barbaric, nomadic conditions up to conditions of the highest civilization. He shows that economic rent — that “unearned increment” which attaches to land by reason of the growth of population and the progress of civilization — is a value produced by the social aggregate, as distinguished from the value produced by the individual, and that thus is provided, by natural law, a common fund which may be drawn on for common needs without hampering capital or oppressing labor by taxes which check production and raise prices. He shows that it is just that he who is permitted to enjoy the advantage or privilege of occupying a larger or choicer portion of the common estate than is open to another, should pay the highest market price for this advantage: that is rent. The wrong is not in the payment of rent, but in its diversion from a common treasury into private pockets, and in the locking up of natural opportunities by the speculation which the possibility of appropriating this public revenue provokes. Henry George has taught that in this appropriation of rent by private persons, and in the forestalling which it engenders, is to be found the cause of that increasing poverty which is the dark side of progressing civilization, the true cause of the industrial depressions in which productive power is so enormously wasted, and in which willing hands cannot clothe the naked back, or feed the hungry stomach, because labor is shut out from natural opportunies for its employment by the speculation that holds land idle until it can get a blackmail price.

How this speculation in land grinds down the wages of labor, cuts down the profits of capital, and brings about these periodical industrial depressions, “Progress and Poverty” and “Social Problems” have taught the thousands on thousands who have read them. They have shown how the simple remedy of the appropriation of economic rent to its proper purpose, the public use, would destroy speculation in the elements of nature, and thus open to labor the natural opportunities which are required for the production of wealth; how in reality there is no conflict between labor and capital, but that the real conflict is between labor and monopoly. Workingmen have learned from Henry George that the simple reform which would thus give them the highest possible wages would make the cost of living much lower, since the enormous taxes which now fall with oppressive weight on the poor, and are a fruitful source of political corruption, could be entirely remitted, as no longer necessary. All the public needs that are now supplied by taxation, and many public conveniences and advantages which we have not yet become civilized enough to supply at public cost, could be provided for out of the common fund — the rent which individuals would pay to a community that included themselves.
When, therefore, organized labor, as represented in the Central Labor Union of New York City, determined to take political action, it was necessary and fitting that the doctrine of “the land for the people” — the doctrine that all are entitled to share in the benefits provided by their Creator, and the advantages which come with social growth and improvement — should be made, as it was, the chief principle of their platform, — a platform which, in its bold simplicity, is in inspiriting contrast to the straddling duplicities of the old party declarations. And it was equally fitting that they should call on Henry George to become their spokesman and standard-bearer. No other man could so well fit the platform.

When, some three or four months ago, members of the Central Labor Union began to talk among themselves of the propriety of political action, the most sanguine among them had little hope of doing more than making a small beginning. Mr. George from the first was spoken of as the candidate who could command the strongest following; yet the best they hoped for was that an independent Labor candidate might get some 15,000 votes. For they sadly remember how, a few years ago, a Labor candidate for Mayor polled only 87 votes. They knew by experience how strong were the political organizations of New York, how potent the “influences” on which these relied, and how general was the indisposition of men to "throw their votes away” on a candidate who had not a “regular” nomination. Mr. George’s own friends felt that his world-wide reputation, and the cause with which he, more than any other man, is identified, should not be subjected to the risk of being made ridiculous by a hopeless canvass. But pressed to accept the nomination, and anxious to maintain the dignity of his cause, and to inspire those disposed to vote for him with confidence in themselves, Mr. George conditioned his acceptance on a pledge from 30,000 voters, explaining the significance of the movement and of his candidacy in his now famous letter to the Secretary of the Labor Union Conference. That letter began the campaign. It infused into the movement a peculiar dignity and enthusiasm. Clergymen, lawyers, teachers, authors, business men of all kinds, joined the Labor men in requesting Mr. George to be a candidate, and crowded the meetings held to ratify his nomination.

The campaign is so recent that it would be useless to recount it here. Great as must have been the growth in economic and political education, in self-respect and self-restraint, in the ranks of organized labor to produce the astonishing result, yet it must be conceded that no other platform and no other candidate could have secured such a tremendous moral victory. It is the reputation of the candidate, his high genius and exalted character, his practical wisdom and masterly leadership, his tireless energy, the strange fascination his personality exerts, and the almost religious enthusiasm which he has been able to inspire by his presentation of the cause, that have given to the 68,000 men, who, in spite of all difficulties, voted for him, and to the thousands more in New York who are now prepared to join them, the consciousness of power, the conviction of duty, and the confidence of ultimate success. Thus has come to the front a new Land and Labor party, from henceforth utterly distinct from all other parties, prepared to go forth conquering and to conquer; and on the same platform and under the same leader to repeat, at the earliest possible moment, in the State and in the nation, this magnificent canvass, and to more than repeat the moral victory of the late municipal election in New York.

Edward McGlynn.

Marmontel: The land is a solemn gift

The land is a solemn gift, which nature has made to man; to be born, then, is for each of us a title of possession.  The child has no better birthright to the breast of its mother. 

Jean-Francois Marmontel, 1757: Address in Favor of the Peasants of the North, Euvres, Vol. X, p.56.

Nicholas Murray Butler: Prophetic Words from 1877

from Land and Freedom, January-February 1940, at https://cooperative-individualism.org/land-and-freedom-1940-jan-feb.pdf 

Prophetic Words

I CAME upon a sentence which I submit is prophetic in high degree:

“Is it too soon to hope that it may be the mission of this Republic to unite all nations of English speech, whether they grow beneath the Northern Star or Southern Cross, in a league, which, by insuring justice, promoting peace and liberating commerce, will be the forerunner of a world-wide federation that will make war the possibility of a past age and turn to works of usefulness the enormous forces now dedicated to destruction?”

Those words were spoken in San Francisco by Henry George in a Fourth of July oration, 1877. They are prophetic in their insight and prophetic in their appeal.

Shall we sit still indefinitely and let the world drift with all which that may mean, or shall we concern ourselves with the task of leadership in a broken, impoverished, and war-torn world? Shall we lead, or shall we sit and watch and wait and take the consequences?

—Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler.

Dr. Butler (1862-1947) was president of Columbia University from 1901 to 1945.  His 1931 commencement address was centered around Progress and Poverty, and ended with this quote from Disraeli:

"We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity."

Henry George's 1877 Fourth of July oration follows, and the thoughts of the San Francisco Examiner are the two posts after the speech itself.

Henry George's 1877 Oration, Fourth of July, San Francisco

The American Republic: Its Dangers and Possibilities.

[An oration delivered in the California Theatre, San Francisco,
on the celebration of the 4th of July, 1877, by Henry George.]

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is under circumstances that inspire gratitude and renew patriotism that we celebrate the completion by the American Republic of the first year of her second century. How much that year has held of the possibilities of dire calamity it may be too soon to speak.¹ But for the deliverance let us give thanks. Through the web woven by passion and prejudice has run the woof of a beneficent purpose. Through clash of plans and conflict of parties; through gateways hung with cloud and by paths we knew not of, have we come to this good estate!

1877-07-05 San Francisco Examiner: Mr. George's Oration

Mr. George's Oration

California yesterday had somewhat the advantage of the rest of the country in the matter of oratory. The one great light of the East was Senator Blaine, who took advantage of the occasion to formulate his views in opposition to the Southern policy of Mr. Hayes. But California was happy in the possession of three great orators, Senator Newton Booth, Col. Ingersoll, and Mr. Henry George.

The latter may not be an “orator" in the sense that either of the others is; but in the matter of literary expression, and in the quality of his thought upon public questions, we regard hin\, as at least their peer. Mr. George’s matter is better than his style of delivery, and the effect of several of the most striking passages of his oration was impaired, if not lost upon the audience, owing to a want of that skill in oratory which enables Ingersoll to make a telling point very often when he enunciates the merest platitudes. Fourth of July orations are usually too lengthy. No matter how good the ideas or their treatment may be, it should be the endeavor of the orator to condense into the smallest possible compass, with justice to his theme, whatever he has to say upon the occasion.

It is related by Plutarch that some one once saw Phocion walking with an air of deep abstraction, and ventured to address him and to ask him what he was thinking about, and that Phocion replied that he was considering how he could shorten what he had to say to the Athenians.

It would be well for our Fourth of July orators who are teeming with thoughts that breathe and consuming with words that burn, to study this little anecdote and consider how much they can say in a little time, and not how little they can say in a long time.

But the oration of Mr. George was good throughout and full of food for thought. It was not a turgid panegyric on the greatness and grandeur of the "nation," or a recitative of the wonderful achievements of the people, but after giving due consideration to the glories of the past, it indulged in some reflections upon the lessons of the present and the tendencies of the existent conditions of the Republic. We have not space sufficient today to make extended comment upon some points suggested by this oration, but it should be circulated far and wide and read and reflected upon by our people.

1877-07-06 The San Francisco Examiner, on Henry George's July 4th Speech

The Great Need of the Country

San Francisco Examiner, July 6, 1877, on Henry George's Speech

We have already made some reference to the oration delivered by Mr. Henry George in this city on Independence Day, which we listened to at the time of its delivery, but, after reading it, we deem it worthy a more extended review. It was anything but a “Fourth of July oration" in the generic sense that has become attached to the term; and we can fancy the astonishment of those who expected to hear the usual spread-eagle fustian about the glory and greatness of the nation when they were told instead that the Republic is getting to be not much better than a name, and that in the social conditions into which we are drifting it is utterly impossible that republican institutions could be preserved.

Though throughout instinct with patriotism, it was with patriotism of the kind that does not fear to look unpleasant facts in the face, and calling an address like this “agrarian” and “communistic” does not dispose of the facts that were marshalled in such striking form.

It is true, as Mr. George declared, that a few are becoming very rich and many very poor; that republican government is becoming a reproach in our large cities; that a class is growing up who look upon political corruption as legitimate, and that we have already an aristocracy that, both in absolute and relative power, far surpasses the feudal aristocracy. His comparison between Warwick, the king maker, and the simple citizen who stands at the head of the Central Pacific Railway corporation, and his parallel between the influences that in the middle ages compelled every freeman to seek a lord, and those that are now operating to compel every workman to seek an employer, commend themselves with the power of self-evident facts. Let us here quote a paragraph or two:

A 1976 Declaration of Independence

1976 DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT:

1 - THAT all human beings are born with equal rights to the earth, which is the source of their physical needs and the field and opportunity of all their creative enterprises and labors.

2 - THAT the returns to labor in the production of goods and services are the property of the producers.

3 - THAT the land, which is not of human production but is necessary to ail life, can never be man’s property. But in order to secure the right of the producer to his product, a private and exclusive possession of land shall be conferred upon individuals, by society, on equal terms.

4 - THAT society, as a whole, by its presence and activities, gives value to land in various degrees according to where it is situated. This social value belongs to all, and should be collected and distributed annually, in equal shares, to the people so as to give to each an equal economic opportunity.

5 - THAT the present practice of allowing the landowners, by virtue of their land-titles, to keep cost of this socially-created value, gives them an unearned income which, when capitalized for sale, becomes the selling price of land.

6 - THAT this ever-increasing price of land, by fostering land monopoly and land speculation, is the origin of great fortunes and the fundamental cause of unemployment; poverty; over-taxation; inflation; business stagnation; depressions; etc. etc.

WE THEREFORE URGE:

1 - The abolition of all land-titles, to be replaced by leaseholds.

2 - The creation of a national body elected and controlled by the people to administer their common heritage. To collect and distribute the rent of land, annually, in equal, shares to all citizens living in the United States.

3 - The abolition of all indirect taxes on business; labor and labor products, now shifted to the consumers in higher prices.

4 - A direct tax levied on all adult individuals to pay the cost of the services rendered to them by government.

These measures would be the subjects of amendments to the Federal Constitution.

 

HOW THE FREE LAND SYSTEM WORKS:

1 - There shall be no private ownership of land, but every citizen shall be entitled to all the land needed for a home and any legitimate business, upon payment of a rent based on the superior advantages of the locations. The least advantageous locations shall pay no rent. 

2 - The total rent (minus the cost of administration) shall be paid out in equal shares to every adult citizen living in the United States, thus giving to each one an equal opportunity to make an honest living.

3 - There shall be no taxation upon any legitimate business; occupation; goods or services, thus reducing prices and the cost of living.

4 -For the support of government, every adult individual shall be charged for the services he had received. There shall be no public debt.

FROM THIS PLAN THE FOLLOWING MAY BE EXPECTED:

1 - A much lower cost of living.

2 - Free land and a good home for every family.

3 - Unlimited opportunities for new enterprises with an ever-increasing demand for labor, until labor would become scarce.

4 - From then on, labor would remain scarce because, while land is available free and capital can be produced quickly, it takes twenty years or more to produce a laborer.

5 - This would, automatically, bring the wages of labor and the profits of capital to the full value of their respective contributions. And this without labor disputes and strikes, since they would no longer have to share their production with the owners of the earth.

6 - It would insure an equitable distribution of wealth and bring to an end the recurring cycles of inflation and business stagnation.

7 - It would induce a reduction of the functions and cost of government at all levels.

8 - It would pave the way for the undertaking of other much-needed reforms such as money; banking; political; labor; business; and others.

 

ALL CITIZENS who want a world of Peace and Plenty are invited to Join:
THE FREE LAND LEAGUE Box 908 250 58th St., North
St. Petersburg, Fla. 33710
There are no membership dues and no obligation whatsoever.
WRITE NOW! RIGHT NOW!

Mr. Gaston Haxo is the founder of The Free Land League. He has been active in the Henry George movement for many years and has written several books on the subject. On the Board of Directors of the League are two former Trustees of the H.G.S., N.J. - C.D. Reinhart and Stewart D. Woolley.

The GARGOYLE is pleased to publish this Special Bicentennial Issue with the sincere hope that readers will seriously consider the proposed -1976 Declaration of Independence, set forth herewith.

source:   https://hgarchives.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/july-1976.pdf

The Question Before the People, Henry George's election-year speech, San Francisco, 1876-08-15

144 years, another presidential election year --- and weeks after the centennial.

 

THE QUESTION BEFORE THE PEOPLE.
What is the Real Issue in the Presidential Campaign?

A SPEECH BY HENRY GEORGE,

BEFORE THE TILDEN AND HENDRICKS CENTRAL CLUB,

AT DASHAWAY HALL, SAN FRANCISCO, ON THE EVENING OF AUGUST 15th, 1876.

• Parties and Party Principles.
• The Two Great Parties of every Country.
• The Two Permanent American Parties.
• The Two Great American Party Leaders
• The Genealogy of our Parties
• Corruption and its Causes
• How Centralization Fosters Corruption.
• How "Protective" Taxes Foster Corruption.
• How Favored Corporations Foster Corruption.
• The Causes of Business Stagnation and Industrial Depression
• How the Policy of our Government Shackles Labor
• The Fault One of Policy not of Men.
• The Appeal to Prejudice.
• A Question for Republicans.
• Men and Reform.
• What may be Hoped from a Democratic Success.
• The Premonitions of Decay.
• The Remedy yet in our Hands.
• A Recapitulation.

The Meeting being called to order, the Hon. THOMAS P. RYAN, President of the Club, came forward and introduced Mr. HENRY GEORGE, who spoke as follows:

FELLOW-CITIZENS: We are coming to another Presidential election under circumstances which ought to give a fresh impulse to patriotic feeling. We have just entered upon a new century of the Republic the Republic one and indivisible. Over the whole vast territory held by over forty-five millions of people the same flag has been given to the breeze, the same anniversaries kept, the same traditions recalled. The thrill of Lexington, the joy of Bunker Hill, the defiant thunder of Moultrie have again swept through the land, and out again with all the added meaning of a century has rung the announcement of our independence. With eyes so fixed on the old beacons; with faces so turned towards the august shapes that loom through the mists of a hundred years, cold must be the heart that has not felt the prejudices of section and the surviving animosities of civil strife melting in the glow of a patriotism that knows but one common country.

Can we not, should we not, put away from us in this Centennial year all the rancor of party feeling? Can we not, should we not, make this Presidential election in fact, what it is in theory, a great council of the nation, to which we come not as the adherents of rival factions, but in the temper of men with mutual bonds and common interests, counciling with each other as to what is best for all? For this election means much more than the choice of an Executive. We have not simply to say what man shall govern, but what ideas shall govern; not merely who shall take the helm, but in what direction the Ship of State shall be steered.

Remembering this, the political contest is lifted above the low plain of denunciation and demagoguism, and becomes not a contest for spoils in which the people are simply permitted to choose which gang shall plunder them; but a solemn momentous inquiry, demanding from each voter a conscientious judgment.

Now, however much we may differ on minor questions it seems to me that the great body of the American people must find common ground on one thing the desire to restrain political corruption and to reduce the public burdens. It is to this class that I wish to address myself.

If one party avowed itself in favor of reform and the other party avowedly opposed it, the citizen who conscientiously wished to cast his vote for reform would be in no perplexity. But as is always the case, both parties ask the suffrage of the voter with the name of reform upon their lips. Which shall we believe?

Congressman Maguire's speech on Chinese Exclusion - October 13 & 14, 1893 --- and the remedy

This is a very long speech; it stretched over 2 days.  It was occasioned by discussion of legislation on Chinese exclusion.  James G. Maguire (1853-1920) represented San Francisco in Congress from 1893 to 1899.  Georgists are acquainted with him in part because of his writings in The Standard, Henry George's weekly newspaper, including the 1887 speech to the Anti-Poverty Society in NYC in which Judge Maguire spoke of seeing the cat, which soon became a shorthand for that AHA! moment when one starts to see the full beauty of Henry George's ideas. 

I've seen parts of this speech in various places, but don't always see what I think is the most important and remarkable part of it.    

The situation Congressman Maguire describes in San Francisco is dramatic, and one can see why explaining the situation to his mostly East Coast colleagues in Congress was a challenge. 

In the district which I represent there is a vastly greater number of adult Chinese male population than of adult males of the Caucasian race, citizens and aliens combined. That is the situation there. That was true of the whole city of San Francisco, according to the statistics, until quite recently. I believe it to be the condition in San Francisco now. I believe the census returns of Chinese population in San Francisco to be wholly and grossly inaccurate.

At the end of the first section, we get a hint of where the speech is going.

You see the hardships imposed by our Federal laws upon the Chinese, and your sympathies go out to them because you do not see the other side of the picture. We see the oppression, misery, degradation, and slavery to which our own laborers are reduced as a direct result of Chinese immigration. We see that the imported Chinese coolies are mere agencies in the hands of monopolists—domestic and foreign—by which our own people are gradually reduced to a condition of wretchedness approximating to the social condition of the Chinese slaves, and without the slightest feeling of malice against the unfortunate Chinamen we demand their exclusion and their deportation as necessary measures of defense to our own people.

Monkeys and Men

MONKEYS AND MEN.

Go to the monkey, thou voter! Consider his ways and be wise.

Do the monkeys pay ground rent to the descendants of the first old ape who discovered the valley where the monkeys live?

Do they hire the trees from the chimpanzee who first found the forest?

Do they buy the coconuts from the great-great-grandchildren of the gorilla who invented a way to crack them?

Do they allow two or three monkeys to form a corporation and obtain control of all the paths that lead through the woods?

Do they permit some smart young monkey, with superior business ability, to claim all the springs of water in the forest as his own, because of some alleged bargain made by his ancestors 500 years ago?

Do they allow a small gang of monkey lawyers to so tangle up the conceptions of ownership that a few will obtain possession of everything?

Do they appoint a few monkeys to govern them and then allow those appointed monkeys to rob the tribe and mismanage all its affairs?

Do they build up a monkey city and then hand over the land, and the paths, and the trees, and the spring, and the fruits of a few monkeys who sat on a log and chattered while all the work was going on?

No, my friend, monkeys have a wiser system of municipal government than that.

Although Kipling speaks of them in his jungle book as “the people who have no law,” yet they have laws enough to prevent the private ownership of public franchises.

If Professor Garner, who claims to have learned 40 words of the monkey language, were to escort some reflective chimpanzees around one of our cities, the professor would find it rather difficult to explain some of the manners of a civilized nation.

The chimpanzee would be amazed to see a $500,000 house, with 40 rooms, contain only a millionaire and his wife and ten servants, while a $10,000 tenement, with twenty rooms, contained forty people and no servants.

He would be still further astonished to see the warehouse district, where an abundance of everything was stored, close to the slum district, where the people lacked the barest necessities of life.

He would be shocked to see an entire street railroad system, with hundreds of miles of tracks, thousands of cars and employees, and carrying millions of passengers every year, absolutely owned and controlled by three or four men who never built a car or drove a spike.

But when the professor would explain to him that nine-tenths of the people in the city were quite content to endure such evils, and, in fact, grew angry with anyone who proposed to remove them, the chimpanzee would say: “Take me back to the forest, and may the Good Spirit deliver us from civilization.”

—The Coming Nation.

quoted in 1898-12-10 Oakland Tribune, Edgar Pomeroy's column.  Shorter versions, ending with "Do they build up a monkey city and then hand over the land, and the paths, and the trees, and the spring, and the fruits of a few monkeys who sat on a log and chattered while all the work was going on?" have appeared in various places. 

Henry George's book The Land Question has a chapter entitled "The Great-Great-Grandson of Captain Kidd," (page 37) which made some similar points about vested interests and privilege.  See also Uncivilized, and a few entries down from this one, Squirrel Island.  In the same spirit, look for Bolton Hall's parables.

A "Fighting Leaflet" from another time and place, relevant today

From an 1899 newspaper:

FIGHTING LEAFLET OF THE SCOTTISH ASSOCIATION.

The Scottish Liberal Association has just issued the following as a fighting leaflet, written by Mr. Edwin Adam. M. A., vice-president of the Scottish Land Restoration Union:

The Taxation of Land Values and Social Problems. Lower Rent. Higher Wages:

Why are house rents so high, and the accommodation so bad? Mr. Joseph Chamberlain told us that a good three-roomed house could be built for £150, but that, unfortunately, did not include the cost of the site. It remains a "castle in the air.” The Edinburgh Town Council can borrow money at 2½ percent, and yet it makes a loss in giving one-roomed houses at £6 10s a year.

Because the cost of the land is so enormous. This is the opinion of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes. Building and land in and around Edinburgh is feued from £40 to £200 an acre, and sells at from £1,200 to £6,000 an acre. Eight thousand pounds has just been refused for seventy yards of ground which the city of Glasgow wished to acquire for widening the corner of Buchanan street.

The remedy is to put a tax on the land value, whether the owner allows that land to be used or not.

Taxation of land values means putting a tax on the value of the land apart from the value of any improvement placed upon the land by the occupier’s industry. It would put the tax on the site, and not on the house built upon it.

The present system of local rating puts the tax upon the improvement— the better a man uses the land the more tax he has to pay. The less he uses the land, the lower the use he makes, or allows other to make of the land, the less he contributes to the public expenditure. This enables him to hold it idle, and wait for the rise in its value, which will result from the continued growth and expenditure of the community, to which he has contributed nothing.

We wish better houses and more houses. The present system permits the man who refuses to allow building on his ground to go free: puts the rates on the man who builds. This is unjust.

When Jenner's shop in Princes street, Edinburgh, was burnt down, the site was worth £100,000. Had the owner resolved not to rebuild, he would have paid no rates, but the value of the site would have continued to rise, because of the continued increase of population and public expenditure. He, however, not only rebuilt, but spent some £95,000 in making the building an ornament to the town. He is therefore rated on £7,000, which represents the annual value both of the site and of the £95,000 spent on the building. The new system would rate him on the value of the site, say on £4,000 a year, whether he rebuilt or not, and would leave him to enjoy all the value of the building.

Let owners of land pay their rates on what they say their land is worth. This would compel them either to use it, or let others use it, at its present market value.

Would a slum proprietor be able to demand a fancy price for his houses which have been closed by the sanitary authority, if he had to pay rates on that fancy price?

Would the Duke of Buccleuch have been able to hold out for £120,000 for 100 acres of almost barren foreshore and a flooded-out quarry, which Edinburgh required for gas works, if he had to pay rates for that, and all the similar land he holds on a value like that?

Would sites for the Usher Hall in Edinburgh be quoted at fancy figures if the owners had to pay rates on what they say is the selling value of their property? Why should they be allowed to name one value for rating, and an enormously greater for selling? The North British Railway Company refused £65,000 for the Canal Basin. That stands in the valuation roll at a rental, which represents a capital value of only £30,000.

Taxation of land values is a just system of taxation. It puts the burden of public expenditure on those who ultimately benefit by that expenditure.

It merely takes for the municipality a portion of that value which is created by the work of the municipality.

It would discourage idleness among land owners, and force them to use the land or let others use it, at its present market value.

It would not, like the present system, only rate a man according as he used and improved the land, but would leave to every man the full value of his own improvement.

It would encourage building. More houses and better houses would be built. It would therefore lower rents.

We should have land owners asking builders to come and build; they would be advertising for laborers, and not the laborers be begging for employment. It would therefore raise wages, and the conditions of labor would be improved. Monopoly would be taxed and industry would be free.


reprinted in the Oakland Tribune, 1899-03-25, in Pomeroy's single tax column

Single Tax Challenge

This appeared in the San Francisco Call 1898-10-12.  The claims he makes for the Single Tax start with one to which many 21st century folks would at first hearing, think "non-starter."  But I urge you to think further, and think about what expensive land means to most Americans, and how it makes the lives of some -- many! -- very difficult, while greatly enriching a "lucky" few.   A reform which "cheapens" land will go a long way to putting millions of people to work and self-sufficient.

SINGLE TAX CHALLENGE.

Editor Call: So repeated have been the attacks and misrepresentations of the single tax theory in The Call and other papers of late that, as a member of the Alameda County Single Tax Society, I feel bound to request the liberality of your paper to make a few pertinent propositions.

As single taxers many of us regret the action of the Republican party in their State convention in inserting an anti-single tax plank In the State platform. Such action will force many single tax Republicans in this election to vote against their own party.

It is not, however, of such vital interest to single taxers as to which political party is for or against the single tax as it is that the theory of Henry George should be understood and intelligently discussed. Up to the present editorials have been woefully at sea in the presentation of the single tax proposition, and naturally the deductions have been equally erroneous, and platform speakers also seem wretchedly ignorant of what the single tax: is and what the results of its adoption would be. General Barnes contents himself with calling it names; Mr. Gage says it is a proposition to tax realty and improvements only.

Now, in order to test the knowledge and encourage the exercise of thought on the part of random writers and ravers, and to put the subject squarely before the people—in other words, in order to give the single tax a fair, square hearing—I make the following claims for the single tax and challenge denial or adverse argument. The single tax would:

First    —       Cheapen land.
Second    —   Would encourage industry.
Third     —     Discourage speculation.
Fourth    —    Raise the wages of labor.
Fifth       —    Increase the earnings of capital invested in industry.
Sixth        —   Reduce the California farmers’ taxes to a quarter of the present tax they pay.
Seventh    —   Prevent one man living off another's labor, except by charity.
Eighth    —     Destroy monopoly.
Ninth    —      Abolish the "lobby.”
Tenth    —      Raise the wages to the full product of labor.
Eleventh—     And could not be shifted.

It seems to me that the above is a fair target for anti-single taxers. The only difficulty the antis will have will be to keep the thought out of their answers. When an anti-single taxer begins to think he is in danger, and if he keeps on thinking, he is lost to the antis and becomes as rabid as any of us.

Trusting that you will give your anti-single tax editor, orators and readers an opportunity to confute the above statements, and also permit reply. I am, sir. 

EDGAR POMEROY
Oakland, October 10.

The Study of Economics

The Study of Economics.

The important study of economics cannot be prosecuted correctly without an understanding of economic terms. Most persons who attempt to discuss economic questions fail of reaching correct conclusions because they do not understand the true meaning of the terms which they and others use.

Teachers of political economy who understand the science thoroughly recognize the following words as meaning what is here given as their true signification:

Political economy is the science of the production and distribution of wealth.

The term wealth includes all desired and appropriated labor products.

Labor is simply human exertion, whether of the muscles or the brain of man. Hence, all persons who apply their efforts to the production of such things as are needed to enable themselves to sustain life, or others to exist and enjoy life, are laborers.

Capital is simply wealth used in the production of more wealth.

Land means material things other than man and wealth.

Wages are either wealth or services received in return for labor.

Interest is wealth received in return for the use of capital. Rent is the wealth or services received in return for the use of land.

Rent line means the line that bounds land that can yield rent. Land so poor as to be in no demand does not yield rent, and therefore is not a proper object of taxation.

Utility is the quality of satisfying desire. It is an absolute and not a relative quality. It is inherent in the thing possessing it.

Value is a relative term expressing the difference between one thing and some other or all other things. In other words, it is utility in exchange.

Price is exchangeable value represented by dollars and cents.

Barter is the exchange of things without the use of money.

Monopoly is exclusive power. It implies a special privilege held by some person or persons over what others possess. Monopoly in its various forms is the giant curse of the age. The greatest and most oppressive monopoly is the monopoly of natural resources, commonly called land monopoly. It is the parent, the foundation, the bulwark and feeder of all other monopolies. Were land monopoly entirely abolished, all other monopolies would either go to pieces or become comparatively harmless. Land monopoly has been fittingly termed the robber that taken all that is left. This is because when society is temporarily benefited by the abolition of some minor monopolies, land monopoly steps in and absorbs the benefits, thus leaving the people no better off than before. Land monopoly flourishes most and is productive of the greatest evils in large cities, where ground is valued at thousands and even millions of dollars per acre.

Farmers and all other classes of producers should unite their efforts in abolishing land monopoly, and thereby lift a heavy load from the shoulders of labor.

—Ralph Hoyt.

 

 

This appeared in the Sacramento Bee, 1899-04-01

Profit Sharing worthy of the name

"Profit sharing,” proclaims the Rev. Golightly.

"Yes, profit sharing," says William the Conqueror. 

"Yea, profit sharing,” says the lion to the lamb. And thus we share so that while one feasts at a banquet another gnaws at the fag-end of a bare bone.

The only profit sharing worthy of the name is that which secures to the public the value caused by the public and leaves to the individual the products of his industry.

---quoted by Edgar Pomeroy, in the Oakland Tribune, July 15, 1899, in a column headed "What the Single Taxers Have to Say"

In 1898-1899, and perhaps beyond, Pomeroy had a regular column in that newspaper, under the heading "News and Notes of Single Tax"

Squirrel Island

http://www.cooperative-individualism.org/freeland-a_squirrel-island-191x.pdf

SQUIRREL ISLAND

By A. FREELAND.

One hundred squirrels lived on a certain island which contained a thousand nut trees. Each tree yielded sufficient nuts to support one hundred squirrels. But all of the trees were owned by ten of the squirrels. The ninety treeless squirrels rented portions of trees from the ten treelords, paying part of the nuts they gathered. The treelords did no work, but kept fat and sleek, while the treeless squirrels were very poor, both physically and financially.

One of the working squirrels invented a machine for gathering nuts. The ten treelords formed a company and paid the inventor a peck of nuts for his patent, and promised him steady employment at higher wages.

Thirty squirrels, aided by the machines, could gather as many nuts as were formerly gathered by all the working squirrels. Sixty squirrels were thus thrown out of employment. Thirty of these eventually secured employment as menials in the households of the treelords. They became cooks, flunkys, coachmen, footmen, etc., at a very low wage. The remaining thirty unemployed squirrels subsisted on charity or by theft, some actually dying of starvation.

Owing to the diminished demand for nuts, because so many were unable to buy what they needed, there was soon an “overproduction" of nuts, and the treelords were obliged to “shut down" a part of the time, thus throwing many more of the treeless squirrels out of work.

Competition among treeless squirrels for employment became exceedingly fierce and wages steadily fell. Some of the squirrels organized a union and struck for higher wages, but there were plenty of unemployed squirrels who were willing to work for the low rate. These “scab" workers were hired in place of the strikers. The latter did not relinquish their jobs without a struggle. Riots ensued, in which several of the “scabs’’ and strikers were killed.

A charitable society was organized which doled out every day a nutshell full of nut-soup to the unfortunates. The government also established a rock-pile and a public wood-yard, where unemployed squirrels could secure half of an inferior nut in return for breaking a basketful of rocks or gnawing off six double-armfuls of wood. In this way, although the majority of the squirrels were always on the verge of starvation, very few getting enough to eat, it was seldom that one actually starved. Of course their lives were shortened, but that was due, it was said, to inexorable and unavoidable conditions over which squirrels has no control.

The unemployed squirrels and those receiving meager pay began to murmur. Even some of those who operated machines were touched by the sufferings of their fellows and suggested that something must be wrong on an island which yielded sufficient nuts to feed 100,000 squirrels and yet did not support 100.

Some attributed their woes to the single nut standard; others asserted that their condition was due to the importation of pauper cracked nuts from foreign islands; still others that it was because some of the squirrels drank rain-water.

Some suggested that the hours of labor of working squirrels should be shortened, thus making work for more squirrels; others that pauper squirrel immigration should be prohibited, while a pious squirrel declared that times always would be hard so long as some of the wicked squirrels persisted in working on the Sabbath.

Many demanded an income tax of two nuts annually from each of the treelords, the revenue from such source to be given in bounties to nut-tree owners to encourage the production of nuts.

Some contended for the free and unlimited coinage of nut-shells at the ratio of sixteen nut-shells to one nut, while others asserted with considerable unction that green nut-tree leaves were the only safe, sound and flexible currency. They demanded national greenleaf money sufficient in volume to transact the business of the island on a cash basis—not less than fifty greenleaves per capita—declaring that to be the only means of restoring prosperity to the island.

To elevate the standard of citizenship, as a prerequisite to the right of franchise, a poll tax was proposed, the argument being adduced that any squirrel who would not pay for the privilege of wearing a head on his shoulders could not possibly be a good citizen.

There was a popular demand for legislation against the basket and wood trusts, which, it was claimed, were ruining the island by lowering wages and raising prices.

The treelords and the pious squirrels declared that there always were poor squirrels and always would be; that it was an inscrutable decree of Providence that some (the idlers) should be rich and the others (the workers) poor, some masters and others servants.

Many clamored for common ownership of the machines, maintaining that all the ills that were befalling treeless squirrels were the result of machinery displacing labor.

A single-tax squirrel mildly suggested that there were sufficient nut trees on the island to support in comfort 100,000 squirrels; that the treelords did not create the nut trees; that if nut-tree monopoly were abolished there would be plenty of nuts, not only for the squirrels then on the island, but for all the other squirrels on all the other islands; that then any thrifty squirrel or association of squirrels could make machines or hire them made, and the hours of labor would be reduced without legislative enactment.

Immediately there were cries from all quarters: “Anarchist! Socialist! Communist! Thief! Robber! Traitor! Revolutionist! Confiscator! Agitator! Hang him! Throw him to the sharks!" etc. So he wrote this letter.

THE JOSEPH FELS FUND OF AMERICA
Cincinnati, Ohio
Price 10 Cents Per Hundred.

 

We don't know who A. Freeland is, but there is reason to think that Louis Freeland Post could have been the author.  In The Standard, there were a couple of articles signed by "Lewis Freeland."   See "A Mysterious Disappearance," in Issue #013, 1887-04-02 and  "Lavender's Yarn," in Issue #025, 1887-06-25.

 

See also Edward Vance Cooke's poem, "Uncivilized" and J. W. Bengough's "A Poem of Political Economy"

 

 

An American Trinity: Thomas Jefferson, Henry George, Abraham Lincoln

https://books.google.com/books?pg=PA26&id=5VKP3aty_U4C#v=onepage&q&f=false
From The Conservator, April, 1895

from the masthead: "The Conservator is an exponent of the world movement in Ethics.  It is not published in the interest of any sect or party, but of Ethical principle and practice as reflected in all societies and churches and outside of all."  Horace L. Traubel was the publisher, and its offices were with those of architect Will Price, who was a founder of Arden. 

For more about The Conservator, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Traubel

An American Trinity*

*From a speech delivered at the Single Tax banquet in Philadelphia, on Jefferson's birthday, April 2.

Within the century and a little more that we have passed as a nation there have been but two supremely eminent men who have risen to the highest altitude, as to whose exact stature it remains for future generations to decide.

Of these one was a man of aristocratic lineage, inheriting in his blood those traits of caste and class which for centuries underlaid the great distinctions among men, and gave to the recipient a recognition of superiority, with all its allied privileges, prerogatives and immunities; yet a man in whose constitution there glowed a fierce hatred of all shams and enforced supremacies; whose faith in the dignity and uprightness of the common people, and whose trust in their rugged honesty and capabilities, were so great that he brushed aside all the influences of tradition and custom and greeted all men upon a common level; a man who well has been called the high priest of freedom and who swore upon the altar of liberty eternal hostility to all forms of tyranny over the souls of men; philosopher, patriot and sage— Thomas Jefferson.

The other, a man of humble parentage, born of the common stock, bread-winner on land and sea, hater of wrong, lover of right, seeker for truth, defender of the oppressed, comrade of the common people, of whom he is not ashamed; also philosopher, patriot and Sage— Henry George.

These men achieved merited pre-eminence, not by reliance upon credulity and the baser passions, but purely by reason of intellectual force and the appeal to the rigid sense of justice and right; not amid the glamour of war and conquest, but in the peaceful arena of everyday life; not by the instrumentality of carnage, but by the happy and gladsome medium of the understanding.

Jefferson's conception or central thought was that no man had a right to rule over or control another. The domination or censorship of one man over another was abhorrent to his sense of justice, and his whole life's work was to instill into the minds of men the doctrine of equal rights.

George, starting from the same premises as Jefferson, has also given to the world a philosophy from which there is no appeal. But its domain is different. It not only recognizes the equality of men before the statute law, but carries and establishes the principle of equality within the domain of natural law, showing conclusively that what we call political freedom rests upon a greater natural freedom.

So, alongside of Jefferson's conception of equal rights among men in relation to the social state we place George's equal rights among men in relation to the natural media. 

But between the period of Jefferson and that of George there arose another who, because of the momentous and awful panorama in which he was unseekingly made the dominating and controlling factor, and not by reason of any especial distinguishing individuality, must be linked with them; a man also of the common people, whom he loved with all the intensity of his great warm heart— Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln gave the world no new philosophy. For decades the enunciation of Jefferson that “all men are born free and equal” had been silently eating its way into the hearts and minds of men. In Lincoln and his compatriots it reached its culmination, as freedom and equality were then conceived. None of them saw the inner meaning of that great truth as it is seen today.

They accepted Jefferson's dictum of “equal rights.” The ownership of one man by another became so abhorrent that they could not rest until such ownership was overthrown and abolished, at no matter what cost. They did not see, as George saw and as we see, that the real ownership of men rests upon the ownership of the earth, and that to abolish one and not the other is merely to change the form of ownership.

It has been contended, and it may be essentially true, that to others, like Garrison, Phillips and Curtis, belongs greater honor for the overthrow of negro slavery than to Lincoln. Undoubtedly the labors of these men were great and sacred to the memory of man. Their enthusiasm and sacrifices were great. But, like those who, preceding Jefferson, preached the doctrine of political rights, these men were simply forerunners in the wilderness.

In Lincoln all the forces for freedom became focused. He became the great vehicle or instrumentality through which their labors should find expression. He became the crucible in which their identities were merged and lost and from which should come the enactment of their hopes and desires. He became, as it were, their composite, living personality.

Here, then, we have the great American trinity in the cause of liberty: Jefferson, who won for his nation its political freedom; Lincoln, who gave to a race its personal freedom; and George, who has given to the world, though it yet be in transition, its industrial freedom.

William M. Callingham.

Bengough: The Declaration of Independence Vindicated

This appeared in Single Tax Review in Autumn, 1905.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE VINDICATED.
(For the Review.)
By J. W. BENGOUGH.

There are some people in the United States who take the position more or less openly that the Declaration of Independence is an out-worn document; that whatever its practical merits may once have been, it is now no more than a cherished relic having certain spectacular uses on Fourth-of-July occasions. There are other Americans—constituting the vast majority—who regard such sentiments as savoring of blasphemy, but who, nevertheless, are ardent supporters of the prevailing policy of Protection. The real difference between these two classes of citizens is merely this: That the one consciously repudiates the Declaration, and the other virtually does so.

The fundamental doctrine of the Declaration is that "All men are endowed with certain inalienable rights, amongst which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The meaning of this is clear enough. The fathers undoubtedly intended to assert that whatever the duties of men might be in civilized society, however they might differ in mind, body or estate, all alike were entitled to the enjoyment of certain natural rights, which rights were inalienable—that is, could not be justly taken away, curtailed or invaded by any human power, so long as they were exercised by each man with due respect for the similar rights of every other. Amongst these rights three are enumerated: The right to Life, involving necessarily the right of access to food, clothing and shelter, the right to Liberty of mind and body, so that a man’s ownership of himself might be vindicated, and his powers applied to the securing of the things necessary to life; and the right to the pursuit of Happiness, the freedom to move about and to hold such relations with his fellow men as would conduce to the enjoyment of a full and harmonious life.

The writers of the Declaration had but recently experienced the tyrannical power of taxation, and it might almost seem that the weapon of unjust taxation, like Macbeth’s dagger, was floating before their mental vision when the memorable words above quoted were penned. For certainly there is no more effective way in which man’s right to life can be abridged than by levying taxes upon the results of his labor; and his right to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can be abrogated in no way more surely than by means of a system which interferes with his impulse to trade.

"Proputty" --- A Lecturette in Rhyme, by J. W. Bengough

John Wilson Bengough was a skilled artist and cartoonist, but he was also skilled with words.  This appeared in Single Tax Review, Winter 1906.

“PROPUTTY.”
(For the Review.)
A LECTURETTE IN RHYME.

I took up my Tennyson lately and read his dialect verse
Of the sturdy old “Northern Farmer,” whose soul was in his purse;
How he berated Sam, his son, who wanted to marry for “loove,”
And the folly of such a notion sought earnestly to prove.

“ ’Ear my ’erse’s legs,” says he, “as they canters and canters awaay,
Proputty, proputty, proputty—that’s wot I ’ears ’em saay!”
“Proputty, proputty, proputty”—that was the only thing
That to him was of real importance concerning a wedding ring.

Gentleness, truth and sweetness; a pretty figure and face,
These, and a passionate love, are all very well in their place;
But to be of any account in blushing, prospective brides,
“Proputty, proputty, proputty”—that must be there, besides!

Now, to many who read the poem this Northern Farmer seems
A sordid old grasping wretch, who only of riches dreams;
“Proputty, proputty, proputty.”—so runs his one refrain,
“Proputty, proputty, proputty”—hoarding, profit and gain.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Cross Creek

The final few pages of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' 1942 book Cross Creek, ring with the thought of Thomas Jefferson and Henry George:

I had a letter from a friend at this time, saying "I am a firm believer in property rights."

The statement disturbed me.  What is "property" and who are the legitimate owners?  I looked out from my veranda, across the acres of grove from which I had only recently been able to remove the mortgage.  The land was legally mine, and short of long tax delinquency, nothing and nobody could take it from me.  Yet if I did not take care of the land lovingly, did not nourish and cultivate it, it would revert to the jungle.  Was it mine to abuse or to neglect? I did not think so.

I thought of countless generations that had "owned" land.  Of what did that ownership consist? I thought of the great earth, whirling in space.  It was here ahead of men and could conceivably be here after them.  How should one man say that he "owned" any piece of parcel of it? If he worked with it, labored to bring it to fruition, it seemed to me that at most he held it in fief.  The individual man is transitory, but the pulse of life and of growth goes on after he is gone, buried under a wreath of magnolia leaves.  No man should have proprietary rights over land who does not use that land wisely and lovingly.  Steinbeck raised the same question in his Grapes of Wrath.  Men who had cultivated their land for generations were dispossessed because banks and industrialists believed they could make a greater profit by turning over the soil to mass, mechanized production.  But what will happen to that land when the industrialists themselves are gone?  The earth will survive bankers and any system of government, capitalistic, fascist or bolshevist.  The earth will even survive anarchy.

Post-script to Seeing the Cat

 

"The Single Tax party had a curious electioneering badge for use in the New York Mayoralty Campaign.  This consisted of a white cat with an arched back, and hair on end, while round the border is the legend "Free Trade, Free Land, Free Men."   The motto of the cat is "I scratch," and its adoption as the emblem of the party is said to be the outcome of one of the earliest puzzles, called "Do you see the cat?" which was current some 12 or 14 years ago. . . " -- The Single Tax (Glasgow, February, 1898)

(I'm not sure they had the timing right.  It appears to be from Fall 1888, a few years after the 1886 mayoral campaign.  And "see the cat" came out of the Anti-Poverty Society meeting in November 6, 1887.   Here are reports from two different Brooklyn newspapers:

 

Poem: Mary and Her Landlord

From The Sacramento Bee, July 18, 1900:

Mary and Her Landlord

Mary opened a little shop
  To help her on life's way:
And honest toil found its reward
  And it began to pay.

“How's biz?" the landlords often asked,
  And Mary was imprudent;
Of course she never guessed he was
  An economic student.

But Mary's landlord's eagle eye
  Was watching how thing went,
And when the 1st of May came round
  He doubled Mary's rent.

1897: An Eloquent Tribute to Henry George, in the Sacramento Bee

This tribute, by Phil Francis, appeared in the 1897-11-12 issue of the Sacramento Bee, about 2 weeks after Henry George's death in NYC, and was reprinted from the Stockton Mail.  Some of seems a bit overwrought today, perhaps, particularly to those who haven't read George, but what caught me were these sentences:

He did for political economy what Bacon did for philosophy, what Bentham did for jurisprudence. He found it a gibberish and left it a science.

Now that Henry George is dead the bigness of the man will begin to fill the world’s eye. It is a curious eye, seeing nothing of proportion in those who move across the stage of events. While he lived, Henry George was the mark of many men's curiosity, the target of many fools’ abuse, the object of a few men's profound esteem. Time will prove the few to be right. Time always does that. Nine times in ten the minority is right. Nine times in ten the majority lacks nothing of the ass's qualities, except his good looks. The world crucifies its Christs and stones its prophets while they are in the flesh. Dead, the world builds temples and monuments to them. So it was yesterday, and is today and will be forever, perhaps. So it was with Henry George. His was the most lucid mind living. That superb thinking machine of his worked so easily in the making of great ideas that its force and power were not apparent to the casual glance. He did for political economy what Bacon did for philosophy, what Bentham did for jurisprudence. He found it a gibberish and left it a science. Because little minds could not follow along the paths his far-sighted and sure-footed intellect blazed, the vacant heads in which these same little minds slosh about were wagged in derision at the profoundest thinker of modern times. He himself looked down from far hights on these gibbering mimes and chattering apes with a kingly forbearance. But to those who knew his lofty character and his superb powers, it was hard to rein in the angry contempt which these mowing and moping fools excited.

Terrence Powderly: On Earth Peace, Good Will Toward Men (Cosmopolitan, December, 1891)

 

"ON EARTH PEACE, GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN."

T. V. POWDERLY.

Terence V. Powderly was born January 22, 1849, at Carbondale, Pennsylvania. His parents were natives of Ireland and were honest hard-working people.The boy's school days ended at the age of thirteen.  At fourteen he was examiner for the Delaware and Hudson Canal company: at seventeen he was apprenticed in the Delaware, and Hudson shops to learn the trade of machinist; at twenty he was a machinist in the locomotive shops of the Lackawanna railway at Scranton, and in 1871 joined a labor organization.  Two years later, in spite of the fact that he was a Conservative, he was discharged from the shops because of his activity in the labor union.  He worked at his trade wherever he could find employment notwithstanding the "black list" until 1878, when he was elected Mayor of Scranton, an office he retained for six years. He has been a chief factor in organizing the Knights of Labor, whose General Master Workman he has been since 1879.

IT is easier to point out the wrong than rectify it, less difficult to find something to condemn or find fault with than praise or endorse; and in the field of industry, while the advance toward better conditions has been more rapid during the past decade than for centuries before, the results are not so apparent to the worker in the field as to the looker-on. The great danger which presented itself to the people fifteen years ago was the law. The poor were without friends: they were the recipients of denunciation from statesman, press and pulpit. It was considered rude to even hint that the man who soiled his hands in manual toil had a right to any consideration other than a patronizing kindness at the hands of his employer, and to suggest that others should take an interest in his welfare was to incur the displeasure of society. The law made it a crime to be idle and gave to employers the privilege of turning the workman away without protest. To be out of money and on "tramp" was an offense against the law: it is today, but is not punished so rigorously as it used to be.

Natural Public Revenue -- sourced to 1825

I had thought that this phrase came from J. W. Bengough, in 1914.   (For quite some time, I thought I'd originated it, in the shower one morning around 2010, and was later delighted to find that Bengough, creator of The Up-to-Date Primer: A First Book of Lessons for Little Political Economists In Words of One Syllable, With Pictures (1895) and weekly cartoonist in The Public, had used it in his Chalk Talks.)  But today, searching for references, I discovered one from 1825 and a 2nd edition from 1827.  

"Principles of Political Economy and of Population; including an Examination of Mr. Malthus's Essay on Those Subjects" by John M. McIniscon, a Fisherman (1825) online at https://books.google.com/books?id=wF1U5_IXlWsC.  Google says that "Maciniscon" is a pseudonym for J. C. Ross.

Two years later, another edition appeared: "An Examinations of Opinions Maintained in the 'Essay on the Principles of Population' by Malthus; and in the 'Elements of Political Economy' by Ricardo; with some Remarks in reply to Sir James Graham's 'Address to the Land-Owners'." (1827)   Its title page at https://books.google.com/books?id=h1hJSjgJxIAC lists the author as J. C. Ross and google says "[A reissue, with additional material, of “Principles of Political Economy and of Population,” published under the pseudonym John MacIniscon.]"  The additional material is the 65 page "Remarks."   

at pages 83-84 of the McIniscon (1825) edition:

It follows, from what we have observed, that the legislature should equally abstain from any attempts at the forcible creation of fictitious capital, as of offering artificial incitements to the increase of population.* The rent of the soil of the country, which is the only natural public revenue of the State, should be put in a course of resumption, and faithfully applied to the public service and benefit, in defraying the just expense of its government; in the endowment of seminaries of useful and necessary education, under regulations which should render them effective for that purpose, and hold out to ingenious persons the means of attaining the respective objects they may have in view, for the benefit of the community, whether these be travel—learning—the cultivation of knowledge or the inventing and perfecting of improvements in the arts and sciences—or the fitting men for all the higher and more difficult duties of society, and for becoming superintendants in all the more important works by which the domination of the human species is extended over the powers of nature—and to employ the surplus revenue in the cultivation and improvement of the country. These, together with the providing for the external and internal protection of the community, are the only legitimate objects of just legislation and good government.

*The employment of capital unproductively, and especially in war, is an artificial incitement of the most mischievous description; it causes their existence, and, at the same time, destroys the funds by which that existence should be maintained.

I commend these to your attention.  You might consider going to the 1827 edition and skipping over the "Remarks" until you've read the rest.

Searching just on McIniscon, I find, among other things, https://www.routledgehistoricalresources.com/economic-thought/sets/malthus-and-the-population-controversy-1803-1830/volumes/an-examination-of-opinions-maintained-in-the-essay-on-the-principles-of-population-two-lectures-on-population 

And I've collected a number of other references to Natural Public Revenue.    I don't think Thomas G. Shearman uses the phrase, but he certainly has the idea -- see his Natural Taxation.

 

Government and Revenue

Some governments are better than others, but there is not a really good government on the face of the earth that raises its revenues by indirect taxation. It is impossible. Such a government must rob one citizen of wealth to enrich another; it must impoverish millions of consumers to favor a few hundreds or thousands of producers. It cannot be just. The wit of man cannot devise a method by which a government can make one citizen a favorite without making other citizens victims. . . . 

We shall learn if we enquire: To whom does rent belong? We are speaking of economic rent solely—rent of land or other franchise or privilege. Most assuredly economic rent belongs to the general community which creates it. It cannot belong to the laborer. He has done no more to create it than any other man. And this is true of the capitalist, and it is just as true of the ground landlord. He has done no more to create rent value (site value) than has the tenant or any other man. The value, ground rent, is communal value, created solely by the community, and should be  appropriated by the community for public use. It is the natural revenue which nature provides; and when men first allowed this natural public revenue to be diverted into private hands they let loose a whole train of social evils on mankind.

It is easier to point out the economic errors into which past generations of mankind have strayed than to provide a proper remedy. That must be a work of time and thought and education and statesmanship. But the first absolutely necessary step to be taken is to learn and understand and acknowledge the error. When that is done statesmen will be confronted with the most important problem of the age — the introduction of a method of raising public revenues that shall be natural, unburdensome, impartial and just.

 

GOVERNMENT AND REVENUE

Notwithstanding the contentions of philosophical anarchists and extreme individualists some form of organized government is an absolute necessity of human society. No condition of human society, however perfect, can be imagined in which organized government would not be necessary. If government were no longer necessary for the suppression of crime, if every individual were a sincere altruist, an established authority would still be required to decide on the thousand etceteras of streets, roads, railways, bridges, schools, inheritances and many other things which could not possibly be left to individual initiative and control.

It is equally clear and equally true that government requires public revenue. Society could not exist without government, and government could not exist without revenue. The matter of taxation is the most important question that can engage the attention of citizens; and, more vitally than any other question, it concerns their material and social conditions.

The Single Tax: An Essay on the Single Tax in 50 Words

All men have equal right to life.

Life depends absolutely upon land.

Therefore all have equal right to land.

Some must occupy more valuable land than others.

Equal right demands that landholders pay the yearly value of land Into a common fund for common purposes.

This is the single tax.
SAMUEL BRAZIER.

in The Public, 1900

Meum, Tuum and Stealum

Another gem, also from the Leavenworth Labor News -- a little bit of filler at the bottom of a column:

Qualified Ownership

The moral law recognizes three kinds of ownership: what belongs to me, what belongs to you, and what I can legally steal from you.  "Meum," "Tuum" and "Stealum."

My high school Latin is long behind me, but I think the 3rd person plural would be Nostrum --- "ours," as in common property. 

(And http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/latin/stage-1-latin/resources/stage-1-latin-grammar-resource/pronouns/ didn't refresh my memory much.) 

 

The milk in our coconut

This is an editorial from the Leavenworth (KS) Labor News of February 10, 1893.  This newspaper is available on Newspapers.com, and it, along with the Fairhope (AL) Courier, is a wonderful resource.

The Galveston News has an editorial on the “Public Landlord” in which it attempts to show that the figures used by Mr. Thomas G. Shearman as to the total annual land values of the United States are incorrect, and then it proceeds to demolish the single tax idea. That’s the trouble with figure-mongers. What difference does it make whether Mr. Shearman’s figures are correct or not? The milk in our cocoanut lies in the statement that land does not possess in itself those qualities which enable it to be owned by an individual. It is not property, any more than the air, sunlight, or winds of heaven are property and subject to individual ownership.

Mr. Shearman is one of the most valued adherents to the single tax cause. We call him a “Single Taxer Limited.” He favors the single tax because of its simplicity as a fiscal measure.

We have all kinds of people in our camp; one highly valued Single Taxer is Billy Radcliff of Ohio, who goes around with a banjo singing our doctrine. Another is Rabbi Samuel Sale, of St. Louis, an orator whose words and figures of speech remind one of the lofty imagery of the prophet Isaiah. Then there is “Uncle Tom,” the poor workman, who writes with the eloquence, which, as Webster said, “was not taught in schools, but belongs to tho cause, the time and the occasion.”

Henry George, the philosopher; Judge Maguire and Louis F. Post, the lawyers; Dr. McGlynn, the religious teacher, and a countless number of professional men, artisans and common laborers make up our following, and run the entire gamut of human thought and endeavor.

If Thomas G. Shearman, the fiscal advocate of single tax, or Dr. McGlynn, the ethical advocate, or Louis F. Post, the legal advocate, or any other special pleader for our cause raises questions which, to men uninitiated in their special branches of learning seem to be untenable, what matters it?

The men who stand firmly upon the statement that individual ownership in land is the breeder of poverty, of sin and crime, and all the brood of evils which spring from an unjust and unrighteous act, care little whether the annual land values of the United States are seven hundred millions a year, or one million a year, or seven billions a year.

The point is that the annual value of land belongs to the creators of it, namely, to society in the aggregate—to the generation of men now living. The men who are dead have no part or lot in it; neither they nor their heirs who base their claims upon the fact that their ancestors claimed to own the land. When we die our interest in the land ceases and we do not believe that we can pass our title to our children as against the children of landless men who are living in the same generation with us.

If the annual land value be more or less than enough to support the state, what matters it? The value of land, be it great or small, belongs to all men who live on the land. That’s all there is to it.

If this contention can be sustained we need have no fears about other truths not being in harmony with our position. The first thing to do is to establish the truth that land cannot be owned by an individual — is not of a nature which permits it to be owned. After this is done, then the fiscal, ethical, legal, sentimental and utilitarian phases of the situation may be profitably considered and worked out. If our contention can be sustained, then there is a way to harmonize the details. This must be true, or else truth itself is a lie.

If you have time available, consider digging into those two newspapers.  They have a wealth of fascinating material and wisdom.

The Landlord's Game: a 1911 LTE, likely from Lizzie Magie

Earlier this week, five of us, in Arden, sat down to play The Landlord's Game, for the first time. The next day, I went searching for more information in old newspapers, and found what I think is an anonymous letter from Lizzie Magie.  It appeared in the Winnipeg Tribune on February 8, 1911, and was signed simply "Reader."

Voice of the People column

THE LANDLORD'S GAME.

To the Editor of The Tribune:

Sir, --- Some people are possessed of the idea that the franchise should not be given to womankind on the ground that she can't think or reason on political subjects as man can. Of course, this idea is an old relic of barbarism when it was considered that a wife was the "property" of the husband, just as his ox or mule was "property." At that time women were considered as the cause of all the evil in the world and out of the reach of salvation, but a better day is dawning. Women are affected more by bad "economic" condition than men are, and hence many are beginning to think along these lines, and it is surprising how correct their ideas are once they get a subject under consideration.

For example, before us is the landlord's game, invented and patented by a young woman of Chicago, a Miss Magie. She was a stenographer by profession, but could not but see the horribly unjust conditions that surround us, and, by careful consideration discovered that it was the result of the game being played on us by landlords. So, in order to popularize the study of the land question, she invented a parlor game, something like checkers, and called it the "Landlord's Game.

There are no stops for refreshments when playing it. It combines all the features of the standard chance and skill games.

It is played on a board about 18 inches square, divided into forty-two spaces which represent many of the various institutions of modern life. The names of some of the spaces are: Slambang Trolley, Soakum Lighting System, Gee Whiz Railroad, P. D. Q. R. R., Lord Blueblood's Estate, D. F. Hogg's Game Preserves, Wayback, Boomtown, Easy Street, Fairhope Avenue, Jail, Poor House, and other "signs" of civilization.

The play starts by a throw of dice which indicates the moves of the players and from that time on the deals between individuals, corporations and governments are entered into with vim and interest. At the start the players are about equally equipped, but as the moves continue one or another of the players gets the advantage over others.

The principal feature of the game is the buying, selling and renting of land. It contains all the element of success and failure in real life and the object is the same as the human race in general seem to have, i.e., the accumulating of wealth without earning it. Money, land title and franchise charters are used in the game. Lots are bought and sold, rents collected, money is borrowed, interest and taxes are paid.

There are two spaces on the board that represent land held out of use --- land that is neither for rent nor for sale --- each of which has a sign "no trespassing, go to jail." One of these tracts of land is "owned" by Lord Blueblood of London, Eng., and represents "foreign" ownership of the soil. A jail is kindly provided for anyone who trespasses on this land, and these unfortunates must serve their time and pay fines.

Should any player be so unlucky or so reckless or extravagant as to become "broke," there is a nice little poorhouse off in one corner where he may tarry until he makes a lucky throw or until some friend takes pity on him and lends him enough to set him on his feet again. And here is where he generally gets soaked, for the other players, as is often the case in real life, taking advantage of the unfortunate one's necessities, demand an enormous rate of interest for the use of their money, which the impecunious individual must promise to pay before he can complete his round and get his wages. The railing and chafing at the others when one player finds himself "in jail" and the expressions of "mock sympathy" and condolence when one is obliged to go to the poor house, is a "merry feature" of the game.

Bidding for lots as they become "for sale" is also a very interesting feature of the game and a good illustration of how prices are made and regulated by supply and demand.

The board contains two spaces marked "Chance" and when a player stops on one of these he draws a "chance" card and may get anything from a little yellow dog up to a hundred dollar bill. Again, he may get caught robbing a hen roost and he is put in jail, or he may get caught robbing the public and be elevated to the senate.

There is one space marked "luxury" that only the rich can afford, although sometimes a player will spend his last dollar and will even borrow money in order to buy this luxury.

"Stock-jobbing" is also represented and players who speculate "win and lose" as usual, but the stock-jobber Mr. Tim Sharpe, always gets his commission, although he himself is sometimes caught in the "skin game" and is sent to jail.

The player who can buy up the largest amount of land and get the monopoly of transportation, is always the winner, although, if one is extremely lucky he may possibly beat the landlord, but, as in real life the chances are largely in the landlord's favor.

The ideas embodied in the landlords game are all borrowed from real life --- real, modern, commercial, highly civilized special privileges for some people and poverty, jails and poor houses for others.

This game is easily learned and played by children as well as adults. It is expected that school boards and educationists will equip all schools with liberal supplies of these games in order that pupils and professors may familiarize themselves with the secrets of success in life and thus be enabled to "play the game." It teaches political economy from real life, and forever rebukes the assertion that women are not fitted to be voters because they can't think. Yours truly, READER.

Interestingly, the letter speaks of it both as "landlords game" and "landlord's game."

The game's cards themselves make wonderful reading.  (We were too busy playing to take the time to enjoy them.)    I'll post more when I've had a chance to study the rules again, having learned a bit by playing.

1890-01-10 New York Times editorial on Land Value Taxation: The Taxation Question

"We have no hesitation in declaring our belief that the ideal of taxation lies in the single land tax, laid exclusively on the rental value of land independent of improvements. It is the real estate tax pushed to its logical result . . ."  --- New York Times

The Taxation Question

NYT, January 10, 1890

Gov. Hill has never failed in his regular messages to the Legislature to refer to the need of reform in our system of taxation, and he has uniformly shown that he has no grasp of the subject and no ability to make suggestions that are of the least value. Heretofore the substance of his recommendations has been that means should be devised for collecting from personal property its equitable share of the public tribute. This year, although he repeats in a vague way that some new system must be adopted “to impose upon personal property its equitable share of taxation,” he practically abandons the ground which he has hitherto held. He says that the present system “has been substantially a system of real property taxation only,” but in fact the law makes no discrimination between the two classes of property. It requires all personal property to be assessed at its true value, the same as real estate, and it escapes only because it is found impracticable to assess it with any degree of completeness. This can only be done under a rigid listing system, which our law does not require, and even where that has been adopted it is only partially successful. It results in more perjury than revenue. While Gov. Hill has seemed in previous messages to favor the listing system, he says now that the inquisitorial character of “an assessment based upon a sworn statement of the person assessed is odious to the American people, who are not accustomed to have Government officers prying into their private affairs.” Even our present assessment of personal property, so far as it goes, is based upon such sworn statements, and necessarily must be, and no personal tax can be collected without prying into private affairs, but that is the least of the objections to it. In almost the same breath the Governor declares that there “must be” a system for imposing its equitable share of taxation upon personal property—meaning, if he means anything definite, an equal share with other property—and opposes the only method by which the tax can be even imperfectly assessed and collected. His only specific suggestion is the highly inequitable one of pouncing upon the estates of decedents, because they can be fully appraised in the hands of administrators and trustees, leaving the property of the living to escape. Of course, the estates of decedents are really the property of living persons, which come to them by as fair a title as any other. Its chief attraction for purposes of taxation is that it can be easily got at. It is for the time being in a position where it cannot escape, but its owners are as likely as not poor and dependent upon their inheritance.

If the Governor had any clear ideas on the subject and any capacity for logical consistency, instead of making these muddled suggestions he would boldly recommend the abolition of personal taxation, which cannot be made equitable. He says, in his muddle-headed way, that it may be true “theoretically, as some assert, that the burden of a real property tax, by the working of natural laws, is finally distributed equitably upon all wealth, because all wealth is primarily derived from land,” but he thinks it must be conceded that the process is slow, and that “vast fortunes of personal property may change hands many times while a real property tax is claimed to be slowly working out a distribution of its burden upon the owners of personal property.” This is utter and hopeless nonsense. There is nothing theoretical or slow about the diffusion of real estate taxes. It is eminently practical and prompt. The taxes of the real estate owner are as “certain as death,” and he calculates upon them all the time. He fixes his rents with reference to them, and every tenant pays his equitable share. All traffic is carried on by the occupation of real estate, and prices are affected by the factor of rent and taxation. There is no escape from it for any person who occupies a building or a room in a building or who buys anything for the sale of which a building or a piece of ground is necessary. The equity of the operation lies in the fact that the tax is finally distributed in exact proportion to the use that is made of real estate by the different members of the community, and that varies as near as may be with wealth and the ability to pay.

We have no hesitation in declaring our belief that the ideal of taxation lies in the single land tax, laid exclusively on the rental value of land independent of improvements. It is the real estate tax pushed to its logical result, but it is so far unattainable as to be beyond the range of practical discussion for present purposes. But the abolition of direct personal property taxation is entirely practicable and a step in the direction of equity. As another step toward the solution of the problem, it would be well if the revenue for State purposes could be derived from other sources than the direct assessment of property in the hands of individual owners, so that the question of assessment might be left to local authorities. We could then get rid of the inequalities due to varying standards of assessment in different counties and the arbitrary action of so-called Boards of Equalization, and the way would be prepared for further progress.

© 2019 The New York Times Company

See The Standard, January 15, 1890, p. 3, signed by Henry George.

At the time, assessment was not performed by a professional employed by the municipality, but by the owner himself.  He also assessed his personal property -- furniture and household goods, watches, horses, carriages, financial assets. The expression was that an asset was "held at" a certain value.   (It was said that only widows and orphans paid property tax on the full value of their often meager assets --- because their trustee wasn't about to risk his reputation by signing off on a lower-than-actual valuation for someone else's benefit. And rich men's estates were sworn off at a tiny fraction of their actual value.  See the last few paragraphs of this 1903 entry on Taxation: https://books.google.com/books?id=GohMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA659) 

 

Professional assessment -- including valuing land and buildings separately was soon to come.  Lawson Purdy, in New York City, was a leader in this. 

 

Remnants of "personal property taxes" still linger in Connecticut, where cars are taxed annually -- the millage rate varying by town, producing some wild variations from one town to the next for the same year and model of car.   It is not surprising that many cars bear out-of-state registrations.  Businesses' equipment is also charged a "personal property tax."   Back in the days of VHS tape rentals, the inventory of those stores was taxed as personal property.

 

See also https://lvtfan.typepad.com/lvtfans_blog/2017/10/what-he-said-harold-sudell-in-1947-and-enoch-ensley-in-1871.html 

Saving for Retirement

It is worth considering that one of the reasons that people are having more difficulty saving for retirement now than they did, say, 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, is that housing costs are absorbing a larger portion of their wages than used to be the case.

And I'm rather sure that if one looked at the sum of their housing and commuting costs as a percentage of income, that, too would have risen significantly.

The old rule of thumb was to spend no more than 1/4 of one's income on housing.  I assume that was construed to include not just the rent or mortgage payment, but also property taxes, condo or association fees, homeowner's or renter's insurance, heating fuel, and utilities such as electricity, water, sewer and telephone.  That was probably before TV was a monthly bill, and before an internet connection became, if not essential, nearly so.  And it may have been before borrowing more than 80% of the purchase price became common, adding in costs for private mortgage insurance, costing 0.32% to 1.2% of the loan principle.  It doesn't take into account the likely costs of maintenance, sometimes estimated at a few percent of the house's value.

Thirty or forty years ago, one couldn't get a standard mortgage whose payments, plus property taxes and homeowners' insurance, exceeded 28% of gross income, or take on a mortgage when the sum of those costs and other debt service (credit card, student loans, car loans) exceeded 35% of income.

Today, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Board, "Qualified Mortgages" generally don't exceed a debt-to-income ratio of 43%.   But that doesn't appear to include expenses for utilities.

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part I: About Current Politics

The two letters to which this first article of the series respond are appended below the article itself.

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1883-1930)  Sat 12 Oct 1889, Page 5  

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SINGLE TAX.
By J. Farrell.

No. 1. — About Current Politics.

A few days ago a correspondent, "H. M.," writing in The Daily Telegraph, expressed wonder that the single tax party could work hand in hand with the revenue tariff free traders.(1) He quoted some words used by the Hon. J. H. Carruthers to the effect that the man "who thinks by introducing any policy whatever he is going to bring about the millennium, and have no more poverty and no more pauperism, is a mad dreamer, and the best place for him is a lunatic asylum." Such a man, "H. M." very truly says, is Henry George, and such men are all those who endorse his doctrines. They do emphatically believe that poverty is an anomalous condition, made possible at the present time by anomalous laws, and one which with the reform of these laws will entirely disappear from the world. The extracts from George's works quoted by "H. M." truly and fairly represent the views of those who understand and accept his teachings. They do think that "we might all have leisure, comfort and abundance, not only of the necessaries, but even of what are now esteemed the elegancies and luxuries of life." They do believe "that we might all have enough wealth to satisfy reasonable desires; that we might all have so much of the material things we now struggle for that no one would want to rob or swindle his neighbor; that no one would worry all day or lie awake at night fearing that he might be brought to poverty; or thinking how he might acquire wealth." They agree with the author of "Protection or Free Trade," as against Mr. Carruthers, that "free trade is a movement which has for its aim and end nothing less than the abolition of poverty and the vice and crime and degradation that flow from it." This being so, "H. M." thinks that it is inconsistent in Mr. Carruthers and those who think with him to accept assistance from the single tax party, and foolish on the part of the latter to render it, and asks that an explanation be given.

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part II: The Need for Reform

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1883-1930)  Sat 19 Oct 1889  Page 5  

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SINGLE TAX.
BY J. FARRELL

No. II.  THE NEED FOR REFORM.

The speaker with whose words I closed my paper of last week went on to say that if the followers of Henry George occasionally gave some reason for the very common accusation that they regarded their leader as an economic pope that pope had, at least, learned his business. But as a general rule there is no foundation for such a charge other than the density of those who make it. Of the prominent supporters of the single tax in these colonies, there is not one, I believe, who is not quite prepared to state his case from start to finish and justify every point of his belief with cogent reasons, and anyone who is conversant with the literature of the subject in the United States and England can readily believe that it is the same there. Whatever doubt existed in the minds of those who were at first inclined to accept "Progress and Poverty" as the revelation of a new truth was dispelled by the attempts made to controvert the writer's positions. After Arnold Toynbee, W. H. Matlock, the Duke of Argyll, and others less widely known, but in some cases infinitely more worthy to be heard, had spoken, it began to be realized that no coherent argument in opposition to the single tax theory could be put forward. But there has not been a blindfold acceptance of the whole belief of Henry George. His teaching has been very closely scrutinized indeed, and no better proof of this could be given than that a large number of the most diligent students of it, while holding his demonstration, that by taxing away land values poverty may be finally abolished, to be complete, refuse to accept his views with regard to the matter of interest. The point here at issue is highly problematical and perfectly immaterial, as it is one which must bring its own solution with it, but it is the only part of the work that those who have pored closely over the whole of it hesitate to endorse. The wonder is that such a stupendous task as the evolving of order and sequence out of the chaotic mass of contradictions which passed as a science a dozen years ago and was called political economy, should have been so well performed by one mind, not that one or two errors may have been made. It was superhuman work to undertake, such a work as a college of trained specialists, rather than an individual, should have engaged in. And, looking upon the result and knowing of the care and the patience and conscientious effort of the writer, and his great ability, it is surely about a fair thing to feel impatient when economists of the Teohey calibre undertake to declare that the single tax is unjust or unworkable. Here in Sydney there are dozens of people who tell you that they advocated land

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part III: The New Doctrine

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1883-1930)  Sat 2 Nov 1889  Page 5 

The Philosophy of the Single Tax
By J. FARRELL

No. III. THE NEW DOCTRINE.

It should be evident that the first essential to any philosophical inquiry into social conditions and the causes inducing them is an accurate definition of the meanings of all the terms to be employed in the course of it. The want of strict and arbitrary definitions of certain words whose use enters largely into any consideration of politico-economic questions has been prolific of confusion in the past, and has led astray many of the keenest minds that have engaged in such investigations. The names of certain elements or conditions of the problem to be dealt with have conveyed different meanings to different ears — sometimes different meanings to the same ears. It has happened over and over again that writers held in very high repute as authorities in this field of research have at the beginning of a chapter attached a signification to some such term as "wealth," "capital," or "wages" which is not maintained to the end. Under such circumstances it is not to be wondered at that political economy has been rather barren of reliable guidance. Nor is it surprising that its study has only been pursued in a half-hearted sort of way, and by comparatively few students, when the accepted teachers had so little to offer in the way of firm demonstration or of future promise of results beneficial to mankind. Henry George recognized that the work which lay immediately before him was to remove the indistinctness of terminology and vague application of words which had impeded the progress or vitiated the conclusions of those who preceded him, and his first care was to analyze the materials, so to speak, of which political economy is compounded. Before his time not one economist seems to have subjected all the parts of the science he strove to advance to a close examination, independent of the verdicts of others. I need not refer to instances where, in the light of the new knowledge we possess, this is made most evident. I cannot in the space of these articles deal, save in passing and where necessary for the sake of illustration, with the old economy, which in some important respects differed so widely from that taught in "Progress and Poverty," but will here proceed to state the new.

Land, in the mouths of those who advocate the single tax, means matter, as apart from the force which molds it into human usefulness. It includes not only the surface of the earth and the water, but all that is above or under that surface in the way of raw materials and natural opportunities. As has been well said "it includes the whole material universe outside of man himself." Labor means force as apart from matter. It is the power which changes and modifies matter into forms exactly fitted to minister to the needs of mankind. The meaning of the word must not be limited to physical toil, for any effort of the mind in the domain of literature, art or science which is directed towards increasing knowledge or enjoyment is truly labor, and he who in any way ministers to the satisfaction of human desires, even though he may never have soiled his hands, is truly a laborer. Wealth is the general name given to all things which are directly

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part IV: The Heart of the Matter

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1883-1930)  Sat 9 Nov 1889  Page 10

The Philosophy of the Single Tax
by J. Farrell

No. IV   The Heart of the Matter

"The laws of distribution are obviously laws of proportion, and must be so related to each other that any two being given the third may be inferred." When it is known what the total value of a product, is, what portion of that value is taken as rent, and what as interest upon invested capital, it can readily be ascertained how much will remain to go in the shape of wages to those who engaged in the work of production. Presuming that the readers who have followed me up to this point have perfectly comprehended the differences between Henry George and the earlier teachers, and the important difference in conclusions which they must involve, I will now proceed to deal with a part of the question in which he is practically in accord with them — the law of Rent.

This, as stated by Ricardo, who more than any former writer devoted himself to the subject and who has been widely accepted as the standard authority, is as follows: — "The rent of land is determined by the excess of its produce over that which the same application of labor can secure from the least productive land in use." Here the definition of the word "land" must be borne in mind. It must be remembered that "land" means not only the surface of the earth but all natural agencies and means of production, such, for instance, as forests, mines, fisheries, &c. Rent is the advantage (expressed usually in money) which one natural avenue of production possesses over another, and can only refer to natural advantage. Rent is commonly and erroneously accepted as meaning payment for the use of buildings or improvements of any kind effected by labor or capital, but that error must be avoided. Such payment is wages or interest for the labor or capital expended in making the buildings or improvement, not rent. It must be remembered, too, that rent arises not only when the owner of land and the user of it are separate persons. If the owner and user are one and the same person, that portion of his income which he might obtain if he leased his land to a second party instead of putting it to use himself is rent. When land is purchased the purchase money — exclusive of any sum paid in consideration of improvements upon it — is simply rent capitalized. The purchaser pays in a lump sum what, if he leased the land, he would pay in rent. It must not be supposed that Ricardo's law assumed usefulness to be the basis of rent. No matter what especial advantages a piece of land possessed, rent could not attach to it while another piece, equal in every respect, was open to free use. And the expenditure of labor or capital upon such a piece of land would not in any way affect its rental. If improvements worth a million pounds stood upon it still not a single

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part V: The Humbug of Protection

This originally appeared in two installments. They're presented together here.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/235800586

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1883-1930)  Sat 23 Nov 1889  Page 9

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SINGLE TAX.
By J. Farrell.

No. V. The Humbug of Protection

I write down the above heading with particular satisfaction as a measure of reparation for having once believed in and advocated the barbarous, selfish, and dishonest principle of trade restriction. This is one of the many plans for social betterment which is offered to the world, and it is essential to the purpose of these papers that it should be closely examined; therefore I will place it upon the dissecting board. The idea of preventing a free interchange of commodities between different countries as a means of increasing the well-being of such countries, or of any one of them, monstrous as it is, is presented seductively enough. It is an apple of Sodom, but never did honest pippin look so rich or carry such allurement with it. Restriction of exchange, as a proposal of reform or advancement, could only come from economic ignorance or conscienceless self-interest, and only by these could find acceptance. I am prepared to admit the honesty, the patriotism, and the complete disinterestedness of many of those who, here and elsewhere, fight strenuously for the imposition, continuance, or increase of protective duties. I only claim that these qualities are not allied in them with such an understanding of the principles which govern production and exchange as alone can enable men to reach true conclusions. I admit that the great majority of those who are ranged on the protective side in New South Wales, earnestly believe in the cause they uphold, and only desire the greatest general good. That there are those, both among the rank and file and among their leaders who understand principles well enough to fully realize the sham and worthlessness of the protective idea, yet preach it for the furtherance of their own particular ends is also probably true.

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part VI: Trades Unionism and Socialism

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1883-1930)  Sat 4 Jan 1890  Page 9

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SINGLE TAX.
BY J. FARRELL.

No. VI. TRADES UNIONISM AND SOCIALISM.

It is not probable that the protective delusion will so possess the people of New South Wales as to cause a change of policy in the direction of increased duties on imports. There is little doubt, even in the minds of many of those who champion trade restriction and try to appear confident of ultimate success, that the political power of their party reached high-water mark at the last general election. The depression that for a few years had sat so heavily upon New South Wales, as a result of former land booms, severe droughts, the cessation of heavy governmental expenditure on public works and other obvious causes, was an instrument upon which the protectionists played to some purpose and to eager audiences. A great mass of the people, conscious that things were not by any means satisfactory or prosperous, were discontented, and the disciples of restriction had the great advantage of proposing a change to those who were weary of existing conditions. But since then much has taken place to reconcile the electors of this colony with the difference between their tariff and that of most of the other colonies. The latest statistics from all quarters have shown substantial advance on our part and have rendered it necessary on the part of the press of some of these colonies to resort to misrepresentation so labored and palpable as to entirely defeat its own ends. The present feeling among the largest class of those who think about these things in our own colony is becoming more and more favorable to expansion rather than restriction of freedom of trade. In the United Kingdom the real vital organization of free trade — the Financial Reform Association — has given its full adhesion to the single-tax principle, and avowing that land value taxation and the total abolition of all other imposts is the end to which all that British free trade yet means is but part of the road, is  working with a vigor and directness that cannot fail to have great and immediate effect. So far from any idea of protection, or fair trade as they call it there, getting a hold, the air is full of demand for the larger measure of free trade which shall give to labor its due reward. There is ample indication that such a wave of public feeling as that which once swept down the Corn Laws is now rising, and that before it land monopoly in Great Britain will go. The keener political intelligence which during the past few years has awakened among the masses will hardly much longer be hoodwinked by a scheme which helps one class at the expense of many others.

Trades unionism is another reed upon which labor is beginning to learn that it has leaned far too confidently. We have had proof of how little of such pressure it can bear in the defeat and practical decimation of the Knights of Labor in the United States. This was the most powerful and splendidly organized industrial army the world has any record of, and in the days of its growth much was confidently

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part VII: Chiefly in Reply

The letter to which this is replying follows the article itself here.

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1883-1930)  Sat 18 Jan 1890  Page 9

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SINGLE TAX.
By J. Farrell

No. VII. CHIEFLY IN REPLY.

Before proceeding to deal finally with the method of what upholders of the single tax claim to be the solution of the great problem which has so long and deeply engaged the thought of mankind, before explaining how the unravelment of the maze is to be effected, I must glance at certain objections raised by Mr. A. G. Yewen in The Daily Telegraph of January 7 against certain of my contentions. These were — that trades-unionism cannot generally avail, under present conditions, to help labor all round to a better share of what it produces; that any gain to organized labor obtained by such means is at the expense of labor not organized; and that socialism, as generally propounded, is apparently both impracticable and unjust.

Touching the first, my ground, clearly set forth in preceding papers, is that land (all the raw material or natural opportunity upon which labor and capital can exert themselves to produce anything) is so monopolized that both labor, the worker and capital, the tool he uses, can only get free access to such avenues of employment as will keep the one alive and reproduce the other. Therefore, any more productive avenues they seek to use take from them such a portion of their product in the shape of rent that they are always practically working at the most unprofitable verge possible.  The rate of wages and interest, I have endeavored to show, is determined wholly by the degree of land monopoly reached in any particular country, or, in other words, by the number of laborers or capitalists seeking to use one particular avenue of production. If these are many rent is high and wages and interest low; if few, the exact reverse is the case. The "standard of comfort" is controlled by this measure of accessibility of productive power to raw material. And while monopoly has the power to prevent production in any degree it may choose I fail to see any possibility of trades-unionism having the general beneficial effect Mr. Yewen claims for it. Monopoly need not yield an inch to allow the increased production from which alone the whole field of labor could receive substantial betterment.

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part VIII: Monopoly, and How It Works

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1883-1930)  Sat 25 Jan 1890  Page 5  

The Philosophy of the Single Tax.

By J. Farrell.

 

No. VIII. Monopoly, and How It Works.

 

In the beginning there was neither exchange nor capital. Primitive man had to face life with no other help than his hands, and satisfy his primitive wants as best he might. Each had access to everything he found existing that could serve his purpose. After a time it was found that one had different capacities from another. One excelled in tilling the soil, perhaps, and another in catching fish. Both wanted fish and bread, and it occurred to both that if the fisherman kept solely to fishing and the agriculturist solely to farming they could each, by exchanging their produce, get the best return for a given amount of labor. The fisherman found out, too, that by devoting a certain part of his work to making nets he could secure more fish in a day with that time deducted from it than he could in a full day's fishing on the old principle. The farmer made a similar discovery in regard to making implements for his own assistance. Thus capital made its first appearance. The fisherman and the farmer in turn found that someone also could make nets or implements better than they, so they exchanged fish and wheat with such makers, who could not produce either for themselves directly with such advantage, for nets and implements, to the gain of all parties. That is a true statement of the case of labor, capital and exchange, and of the relation they bear to each other. Let progress and invention go on to infinity under the conditions I have stated — equal access to all needful raw material — and that relation could not be in the smallest degree changed. It is natural cooperation of production. Every labor-saving invention in conferring gain on the user would confer it upon all others within the circle of exchange by reducing the amount of labor consumers would have to give, in the shape of their own products, for the products cheapened by the labor-saving machines. As I have before pointed out, no one could benefit himself except by benefiting others.

But monopoly soon found out a vulnerable spot and fastened upon it. It secured the raw material from which not only fish or wheat could be produced by labor, but the capital, such as nets and implements, which would add to its productive power. It said, "labor and capital can only exist and prosper by employing themselves in producing wealth and doing good. I will exist and prosper by preventing their operations." After having entered into possession of the best points of production (which involve those of exchange and distribution) it began to produce, exchange or distribute with its labor or capital. This labor

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part IX: The Method of Reform

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1883-1930)  Sat 1 Feb 1890  Page 5

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SINGLE TAX.
By J. Farrell.

IX. — THE METHOD OF REFORM.

We propose to do nothing whatever beyond changing the basis of taxation from industry, production, exchange or incomes to land values. We propose to exempt everything else from taxation and derive not only the whole necessary revenue for governmental purposes from land values, but if there is more than enough for such purposes to divide the remainder equally among the members of the community in the form of annuities, or in any tray that may he determined upon. Land value belongs to the entire community by right, and neither individual nor communal justice is being done while any part of it is being diverted from the true owners. I have already shown that the State recognizes that the value of land results from the presence and needs of the whole people by paying the proceeds of the sale or lease of Crown land into the public Treasury. But, in selling, it gives to a private owner the power to take to himself, without further payment, all future increment of value arising from precisely the same source as the first value, for which he paid, had arisen. And in leasing a similar wrong may be done when the duration of the lease is a long one. Before it falls in the growth of population, the expenditure of public money and other causes may make the land leased worth much more than the lessee pays annually to the State, in which case he secures an unfair advantage over others.

The single tax, unlike any other, is simply a payment by the individual for value received from the State. All other forms of taxation are appropriations by the State, for public use, of individual earnings. The doctor, the lawyer, the merchant, as well as the industrial producer of every class fulfill necessary functions — in some cases, no doubt, functions made necessary only by an entirely false condition of society. But for every shilling of income they may receive through the exercise of their various callings they have given in return a value of service or of some tangible thing which these who paid them

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part X: In Conclusion

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 - 1930)  Sat 8 Feb 1890  Page 9

The Philosophy of the Single Tax.
By J. Farrell.

 

X. IN CONCLUSION.

I have endeavored in the course of these articles to explain in a condensed form, and divested as far as possible of technicalities necessary to a textbook but unfamiliar to the general reader, the doctrine expounded by Henry George in "Progress and Poverty," and all his subsequent writings.  Here and there, perhaps, I have been too prolix or too concise. I have been to blame, may be, for undue repetition or insufficient demonstration. That this should happen is unavoidable in matter written hurriedly, and sometimes at the last moment before its publication. Any consideration of questions of political economy should be couched in terms of the utmost exactitude, every definition should be arbitrary, and every sentence clear and capable of but one interpretation. As in "Progress and Poverty" itself, every line should be read and reread, every obscurity removed and every unnecessary word pruned off. But although conscious of failing in this respect here and there, I feel confident that I have not in any essential point diverged from Mr. George's teaching.

The conclusions reached by Henry George in the course of a profound examination into the causes of poverty, misery and crime are shortly these: That labor is the producer of all things; that capital, a tool shaped by labor's own hand, can only be used to assist it; and that monopoly of the matter or material from which these two partners could produce everything requisite for the satisfaction of human needs is alone responsible for the shocking social conditions that now exist throughout the world.

1889-02-22 Johnson LTE on relationship of Free Trade and the Single Tax, quoting Shearman

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1883-1930)  Fri 22 Feb 1889  Page 6  FREETRADE AND THE SINGLE TAX.

FREE TRADE AND THE SINGLE TAX

To the Editor of the Daily Telegraph.

Sir, — Notwithstanding that land nationalization has been proved to be inconsistent with protection, we find a number of protectionists still professing to be also land nationalists, and this in spite of the acknowledgment of one of their foremost men that free trade is the natural corollary of land nationalization.

The very essence of Henry George's scheme is the abolition of all indirect taxation in favor of a "single tax" upon land values alone. What such a proposal has in common with protection (which proposes a multiplicity of taxes — the more the better) it is difficult for the ordinary mind to conceive, and must be left for elucidation to the unfathomable depths of protectionist wisdom.

But as showing the relations of the "single tax" to "free trade," I append the following report of a speech made by Thomas G. Shearman at a dinner given in honor of Henry George on his return to New York from England. It is clipped from the "Standard" of January 5, 1889, and the excellence of the speech must be my excuse for requesting the favor of its reproduction in your widely-read columns: —

"To respond to the toast of 'Free Trade,' the chairman called on Thomas G. Shearman, who, with some remarks as to the relations between free trade and the single tax, said:— If I could not respond to the noble toast of free trade when awakened from a sound sleep in the middle of the night, when drunk or sober, in America or Kamschatka, I think my nature must be entirely changed. (Applause and laughter.) Some of you became free traders because you were single tax men. I became a single tax man because I was a free trader. (Applause.) It

About John Farrell

I was curious to know a bit more about John Farrell, and found two articles, transcribed here:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145885711
The Worker (Wagga, NSW: 1892-1913)  Sat 14 May 1904  Page 8

EULOGY OF JOHN FARRELL

John Farrell was the chief of the present generation of Australian singers, the successors of that brilliant band— Kendall, Gordon, and Brunton Stephens— whose verses were the finest fruits of Australian poetry during our first century.  It is now over 16 years ago since Farrell's principal work was published in book form, and except for the jubilee poem Ave Imperatrix, afterwards called Australia to England when reprinted as a booklet, and a poem entitled Australia which appeared as an introduction to the

Thorold Rogers: Anarchy the Offspring of Privilege

Disorder and anarchy have generally, in the history of social civilization, arisen from no other cause than the excesses, the arrogance, the conspiracies of a privileged class.  Occasionally they have ensued from the revenge which has been given by a liberated and insulted people, when it suspects with more or less reason that the yoke will be imposed on it anew.  Democracies have crushed oligarchies remorselessly, but only when they have been stimulated to vengeance by intolerable wrong.

--- J. B. Thorold Rogers 

Bolton Hall: Misguiding Benevolence

A Benevolent Man set out to lead men in the paths of Peace, but his steps were turned in the other direction.

A Wise Man said: "You are going astray.  You must turn about face."  He answered, "Your theory may be good in the abstract, but I cannot stop to consider it.  I am doing the immediate practical work of overcoming the obstacles at hand."

The path which he made led many astray, and the Wise Man repeated, "If you would succeed, you must turn to the right."  "I have no time," replied the Benevolent One, "to discuss panaceas; if you really wish to do some good, come and help me fill up yon social gulf or bale out that landlocked Sea of Misery."

And because he was a Benevolent Man, many followed after him and they made men sick with toil, forsaking Justice for Expediency.

--- Bolton Hall

 

Liberty a Principle, Not a Privilege

Look to history, and when your heart saddens at the fact that liberty never yet was lasting in any corner of the world, and in any age, you will find the key of it in the gloomy truth that all who were yet free regarded liberty as their privilege, instead of regarding it as a principle.  The nature of every privilege is exclusiveness, that of a principle is communicative.  Liberty is a principle, -- its community is its security is its security, -- exclusiveness is its doom. What is aristocracy?  It is exclusive liberty; it is privilege; and aristocracy is doomed, because it is contrary to the destiny and welfare of man.  A privilege can never be lasting.  Liberty restricted to one nation never can be sure.  You may say "We are the prophets of God;" but you shall not say, "God is only our God."   --- Louis Kossuth

A few more thoughts from Benjamin Franklin

These are from the same book (see preceding post)

WE are not ignorant that the duties paid at the custom house on the importation of foreign goods are finally reimbursed by the consumer, but we impose them as the easiest way of levying a tax from those consumers. If our new country was as closely inhabited as your old one, we might without much difficulty collect a land tax, that would be sufficient for all purposes; but where farms are at five or six miles’ distance from each other, the going of the collectors from house to house to demand the taxes, and being obliged to call more than once for the same tax, makes the trouble of collecting in many cases exceed the value of the sum collected. Things that are practicable in one country are not always so in another, where circumstances differ. Our duties are, however, generally so small, as to give little temptation to smuggling.

Believe me ever, my dear friend, yours most affectionately,

B. Franklin.

To M. Le Veillard. April 22, 1788.

Unprejudiced men well know that all the penal and prohibitory laws that were ever thought on will not be sufficient to prevent manufacturers in a country, whose inhabitants surpass the number that can subsist by the husbandry of it. That this will be the case in America soon, if our people remain confined within the mountains, and almost as soon should it be unsafe for them to live beyond, though the country be ceded to us, no man acquainted with political and commercial history can doubt. Manufactures are founded in poverty. It is the multitude of poor without land in a country, and who must work for others at low wages, or starve, that enables undertakers to carry on a manufacture, and afford it cheap enough to prevent the importation of the same kind from abroad, and to bear the expense of its own exportation.

But no man who can have a piece of land of his own, sufficient by his labor to subsist his family in plenty, is poor enough to be a manufacturer, and work for a master. Hence, while there is land enough in America for our people, there can never be manufacturers to any amount or value. It is a striking observation of a very able pen, that the natural livelihood of the thin inhabitants of a forest country is hunting; that of a greater number, pasturage; and that of the greatest, manufactures; which last must subsist the bulk of a people in a full country, or they must be subsisted by charity, or perish.
    From Canada Pamphlet.


DO not, my courteous reader, take pet at our proprietory constitution for these our bargain and sale proceedings in legislation. It is a happy country where justice and what was your own before, can be had for ready money. It is another addition to the value of money, and of course another spur to industry. Every land is not so blessed. There are countries where the princely proprietor claims to be lord of all property, where what is your own shall not only be wrested from you, but the money you give to have it restored shall be kept with it; and your offering so much, being a sign that you are too rich, you shall be plundered of everything that remained. These times are not come here yet. Your present proprietors have never been more unreasonable hitherto than barely to insist on your fighting in defence of their property, and paying the expense yourselves; or, if their estates must, ah! must, be taxed, towards it, that the best of their lands shall be taxed no higher than the worst of yours.
    Preface to a speech.

 

A TURNPIKE tax is no burden, as the turnpike gives more benefit than it takes. And ought the rich in Britain, who have made such numbers poor by engrossing all the small divisions of land, and who keep the laborers and working people poor by limiting their wages, ought these gentry to complain of the burden of maintaining the poor that have worked for them at unreasonably low rates all their lives? As well might the planter complain of his being obliged to maintain his poor negroes, when they grow old, are sick, or lame, and unable to provide for themselves.
    Political Observations.


FOOD is always necessary to all, and much the greatest part of the labor of mankind is employed in raising provisions for the mouth. Is not this kind of labor, then, the fittest to be the standard by which to measure the values of all other labor, and consequently of all other things whose value depends on the labor of making or procuring them?  May not even gold and silver be thus valued? If the labor of the farmer, in producing a bushel of wheat, be equal to the labor of the miner in producing an ounce of silver, will not the bushel of wheat just measure the value of the ounce of silver? The miner must eat; the farmer indeed can live without the ounce of silver, and so perhaps will have some advantage in settling the price.

But these discussions I leave to you, as being more able to manage them; only, I will send you a little scrap I wrote some time since on the laws prohibiting foreign commodities.
    To Lord Kames. London, Feb. 21, 1769.


THIS pamphlet had a good effect; Governor Thomas was so pleased with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declined it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.
    Life of Franklin.


THIS gave me occasion to observe that when men are employed, they are best contented; for on the days they worked they were good-natured and cheerful, and, with the consciousness of having done a good day's work, they spent the evening jollily; but on our idle days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with the pork, the bread, etc., and were continually in bad humor; which put me in mind of a sea captain, whose rule it was to keep his men constantly at work, and, when his mate once told him that they had done everything, and there was nothing further to employ them about: "O," said he, "make them scour the anchor."
    Life of Franklin.

 

https://archive.org/details/wisdomofbenjamin00franuoft

Benjamin Franklin on Free Trade

In a book entitled The Wisdom of Benjamin Franklin; being reflections and observations on men and events, not included in Poor Richard's almanac, chosen from his collected papers, with introduction by John J. Murphy, (1906) I found a couple of gems on Free Trade. (I dipped into the book because I was researching Murphy, who was one of the 21 people Robert Schalkenbach named in his will as trustees for the foundation which today bears his name.   Murphy was involved with the New York Charity Organization Society, heading its Tenement House committee; Lawson Purdy was general director of one of COS's three departments.)

I FEEL myself strongly inclined to believe that a State which leaves all her ports open to all the world upon equal terms, will, by that means, have foreign commodities cheaper, sell its own productions dearer, and be on the whole, the most prosperous. I have heard some merchants say, that there is ten percent difference between Will you buy? and Will you sell? When foreigners bring us their goods, they want to part with them speedily, that they may purchase their cargoes and despatch their ships, which are at constant charges with our ports; we have then the advantage of their Will you buy? And when they demand our produce, we have the advantage of their Will you sell? And the concurring demands of a number also contribute to raise our prices. Thus both those questions are in our favor at home, against us abroad.

To Robert R. Livingston. Passy, July 22, 1783.

 

Our Opioid Crisis -- a thought from Frances Willard, of WCTU

Frances E. Willard, president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, who among other things published An Up to Date Single Tax Catechism, was quoted in the 1901-07 issue of The Arena as follows:

"The late Frances E. Willard, president of the W. C. T. U., after wide experience and mature thought, came to the conclusion that 'it is time we cease trying to make men comfortable by making them sober, and try to make them sober by making them comfortable.'  Temperance reform, to be effectual, must be preceded by economic reform.  Alcohol has countless sins to answer for.  But alcohol is not responsible for the poverty of the sober Hindus and Turks, nor for the poverty of America's seamstresses and factory girls. . . ."

source: https://ia600503.us.archive.org/10/items/arena22conggoog/arena22conggoog.pdf, at page 50/701.