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Chapter I. — Definitions , 4 II. — Nationalities viewed from without 6 III.— Church and State 9 IV.— The State— Its Form of Government 13 V. — The State — Subject analyzed.™. 17 VI. — Civilization Creates Demand: 18 VII. — Demand Stimulates to Labor 24 VIII. — Labor Produces Capital :. 24 IX.— Distribution of Wealth 26 X. — Land and Land Tenure 37 XI. — Commerce — Transportation 59 XII. — Money — Nature — Use and Abuse 88 XIII. — Protection or Free Trade 152 XIV. — Insurance — Life and Fire 155 XV. — Paternity and Centralization in Government 159 XVI.— To Gentlemen of the Bar 162 XVII.— Strikes and Boycots 166 'XVIII. — Supply and Demand — Over Production 170 XIX. — Taxation and License 171 XX.— Our Sitting Army 186 Appendix. — „.... ; ' 188 PRINCIPLES Moral ahd Political Economy. THE CIVILIZATION OF THE PAST A FAILURE. THE CIVILIZATION OF THE PRESENT AN EXPERIMENT ! ITS SAFETY TS TN OBEDIENCE TO THE COMMAND: 'DO UNTO OTHERS AS YE WOULD THAT THEY SHOULD DO UNTO YOU." O. D. JONSS, OF EDINA, MO. <1 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1 888 ^ By 0. D. JONES, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington* PREFACE. The need of a work on this subject, not written to sustain the interests of a class, is the only reason, if one need be given, for this attempt. All the works examined on the subject treat only of "po- litical economy" or "moral philosophy." We have these nd infini- tum — economy s of "supply and demand," "debt and credit," but in the main of debt. The above title is chosen for the reason that in all the works examined, the two subjects have been studiously di- vorced, and for the self-evident fact, that the "political economy" of the old schools is bereft all humane or moral sentiment. In a true sense no "economy" is politic that is not moral, or any moral that is not political. In many instances we have strayed so far from fundamental and just principles, we seem as a nation, to have lost moral perception and the points of the moral compass. We ask all earnest, patriotic right thinking persons to go to the sun dial of the moral and political world and then let us as citizens take our moral and political reckoning. Let us apply to ourselves, the only safe rule of human conduct, in all ages, climes and conditions of life, the rule laid down in the twelve words: "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you." To show that this rule is the underlying principle of our social compact and constitution and the only enduring rule of conduct that can preserve society and civiliza- tion in a dense population, is the aim in this little work. That rule is the only one that can act as a lubricant and prevent heating, at the centers of population amid the friction of multiplied clashing pressed and compressed interests. The intelligent reader of history must have observed that all types and degrees of civilization in all ages, have only endured, until a certain State of development and density of population was reached ; and then the dissolute, immoral and oppressive conduct of one class resting and grinding upon an- other by the friction of clashing interests caused the whole fabric to ignite and burn, with civil strife and commotion to its own de- struction. So it was with Chaldean, Persian, Medo Persian, Greek and Roman civilization. Christian civilization is just now going into the crucible test of dense population — that is the test of a nation's morality. The ma- terial question, with modern Christian civilization — at its centers is, not how wide shall its national boundaries be, but how full can it till them. The era of conquest and acquisition of territory has passed, the era of filling up has come. The history of the nations of antiquity shows, that while they had room to extend their terri- tory, they prospered after a fashion. But when that era passed and they were confined to their own territories and the day of a dense population came ; then it was, that a test was made of their morali- ty ; then it was they "were weighed in the balances and found want- ing." Like causes, under like circumstances in all ages, climes and conditions, produce like effects. Human nature is always the same in the aggregate. All we have better than the nations and civiliza- tion of the past is, the morality of our Christianity (or our morality in the abstract) that leads us, in a measure, at least, "to do to others as we would, that they should do to us." As our populations become more and more dense, the nearer are we compelled, as nations, to approach that standard of "Right- eousness," or suffer the consequences. It is no matter of choice, it is one of absolute law and dire necessity. OUR SUBJECT: ft! CHAPTER I. DEFINITIONS 1. Principles are eternal; they are God's thoughts, to those of us who believe in Him. They indicate to all of us the right way of doing. We speak of a law of nature, as that of gravitation ; we speak of a principle of human action or conduct. A principle is a general rule deduced from a series or group of laws ; it is more general and used both in the realms of mind and matter. A right principle indicates a right course of conduct, and he who attempts to accomplish even a right purpose in violation of es- tablished principles will fail. It is like an attempt to sail against wind, current and tide. In a true sense there is but one great principle underlying and govern- ing human conduct, as to our relations to each other, and that is embodied in the word, "Do unto others as ye would that they should do to you." But there are numerous relations and situations in which this principle must be applied. There are many rules of con- duct it enforces in particular relations. Here it is only possible to formulate these rules, in some of the more important social, prop- erty and political relations of life. 2. Moral! is from the latin word moralis, mos — movies — meaning manner or custom. It is now used to denote the aspect of 5 human conduct as inherently by right or wrong. A moral economy means an honest, a just, a right economy — doing to others as we would that they should do to us, in determining between mine and thine. 3. Political! This is a much abused word. As used by the masses of the people of this country it means little more than "party." Politic, from which it is derived, is a Greek word, mean- ing citizen, and relates to his and the States correlative duties and the science of the government of men in a state of society. Politi- cal economy deals with our material interests and all moral ques- tions necessarily involved. To attempt to separately discuss them would be like an attempt to discuss the subject of the circulation of the blood without reference to the organs of the circulatory sys- tem. For all intelligent human action is governed by motives ; and morah or motives of right and wrong color every human action in life and especially, every course of conduct. 4. Economy ! The word is composed of two Greek ones that mean "house" and "rule" or "law;" or, we might put it the "law of the house ;" in its modern sense it is applied to money and ma- terial affairs and its sense is now widened to include national and financial affairs in these respects. It is now used in the discussion of nearly all fiscal relations, always having a sense like rule or sys- tem, or facts reduced to order and science. In that sense it indi- cates a subject of great and daily growing importance. It must en- gage the most solicitous thought of thv statesman and phi- lanthropist alike. It pertains primarily to material things. It has another, a more important aspect ; viewed alone from that stand- point it presents a half, a distorted, a superficial view. In this life, we are a connecting link between two worlds, the worlds of mind and matter. Our being is a compound of both and our field of action reaches into the confines of both. All our great- est interests are so interwoven, in the texture, the warp and woof of both realms, it is impossible to ravel the fabric and pursue the thread of any one great human interest without crossing and re- crossing the line. A treatise of the mere moral or material side of these questions, presents either, in a distorted view. It is the in- termingling of the moral and material interests that make the sum total of what we call "political economy." Society ! The body, the entity, to which we address our thought, from which we deduce and for which we formulate our gen- eral rules of conduct, is society. The word, in its primary sense, is from the latin word "socious" meaning "a companion." In that sense, it is an aggregation of human beings remaining together from choice. In that sense there might be society without civilization. But the word is only used by and applied to civilized men. If we are the offspring of an intelli- gent Father and Creator, He intended we should be civilized, and it is of his appointment. He is grieved at the savage state of any of our race, at least as much as we would be. at beholding any of our offspring in such a condition. If, then, civilization is of His ap- pointment and desirable ; if it can be maintained only by obedience to certain laws as history and observation teach, and our subject leads us to seek for and determine, if we may, those rules of con- duct, to what more exalted subject could our thoughts be addressed? CHAPTER II. NATIONALITIES VIEWED FROM WITHOUT. A cursry view of society shows it divided into sovereignties, states and nations. Our race is clanish. It has descended from families, and short-sighted selfishness, in all ages, has lead fractions of it to set up boundary lines as the horizon of all political good. Over the establishment of these lines, half the wars of the past have been waged and half the energies of the nations wasted. But to take the race as we find it thus far in our history, political national- ities have been a condition precedent to civilization. Society must have a focal center at which accretion commences and these centers have thus far each given name and character to a nation. It will be observed that as commerce and civilization advance the artificial chess board, called political geography, at which crowned block- heads have played these bloody games, fade into insignificance. A true civilization tends to and cannot, but in the end, unify the race. The more limited a man's material and intellectual view, the nar- rower his horizon, the more jealous he is, of encroachments upon his boundaries and "prerogatives." What is true of the individual is true of the state or nation, for either is only an aggregation of in- dividuals, and the whole cannot become of higher quality than its parts, or a stream rise higher than its fountain. War is the princi- pal business of men, until they become at least half civilized. As they advance in civilization they learn better and desist from such employment. Civilization tends to put an end to national contests and war for two great reasons. First, because civilization is expen- sive and wars between civilized people are more so. Second, the higher the degree of the civilization of the people or nation, the greater its resources for resistance to an invader and dismember- ment of its territories. The assailant or invader, all things else equal, is always at a disadvantage, and thus natural causes assist and conduce to bring about the greatest good to the greatest number, that is to confine each nation, or people, to its own allotted and chosen territory. True it is the logic and morality of brute force, of two bulls pushing with their horns. Nevertheless, it is the logic and morality of the doctrine that has maintained the degree of peace, that has obtained in Europe for the last three hundred years and known as the "balance of the powers." The only protection the weaker powers of Europe have had for that period for their territory is the mutual jealousies of the great- er powers. Poor Poland's destiny in that regard fell on an evil day when the mutual necessities and fear of England, Austria, Russia and Germany of the First Napoleon made them agree, and she was mercilessly dismembered and partitioned among them. There can be no war of invasion when the true morality of Christianity ob- tains and controls. Many have been waged in the name and by professed followers, but none in the spirit, or by authority of its Founder. According to the political economy and morality taught by Him, no war is jus- tifiable but that of self-defence. He said to one of his followers, "put up thy sword ;" they who take the sword shall perish by the sword." That is, they who "take," assail with it, are governed by such a spirit of selfishness and disregard for other's rights that even if they do not perish on the swords of those they assail, they will in the end under the do- minion and lead of that spirit turn upon and destroy each other. It is a law of human nature emphasized upon the page of history. "They that take the sword shall (not may) perish by the sword." Those assailed have a right to and will resist and defend. If all ceased to "take the sword" ceased to assail with it, none would be compelled to defend and no war would be waged. Then "swords would be beaten into plough-shares, spears into pruning hooks and the nations would learn war no more." No more navies, no more forts and arsenals, standing armies to levy debts and serfdom on all who remain employed in the avoca- tions and arts of peace. The period of danger to nations and civ- ilization from wars of invasion and dismemberment is passed. So- ciety of states and nations is now threatened by h/side rather than outside foes by the waring of their own members." There is now, in the Christian civilized world, a well developed and powerful entity, known as "the public opinion" of it. It consists of what all intelligent right-thinking people as a matter of course and almost of instinct think of certain courses of conduct. That leads them to condemn the conduct of a great- er or a stronger people robbing and oppressing a weaker one, because they are able to do it. The government of England lives to-day, justly under the ban of that "public opinion." For three hundred years it has pursued a uniform course of op- pression of all weaker nations that have fallen under its influence and control. It is not intended here to enter the field .of interna- tional law. Every rule of action and conduct in the dealings and relations of nations can be easily deduced and settled for them as for individuals, by recurring to the rule, "do to others as ye would that they should do to you." The application of that rule would take England and France out of China, with their brutal, unjust dictation and interference, to enable them to compel that people to submit to christian England to destroy them by the importation and traffic in opium. It would take England out of India, Egypt and Ireland, with its repressive and forceful measures to extort from the people of those unhappy countries the fruits of their tod. A man or a nation, in the true sense, becomes civilized only in the ratio that he learns and becomes willing to concede to others all the political and religious rights he claims for himself. Not that he accepts every man as a companion, or an equal, in every personal relation in life, but is willing and does concede to every other man, in his sphere, in the use and exercise of his capacities, whatever they may be, all that he claims for himself in the same respects. England, of all the nations of the world to-day, presents the spectacle of a civilized people, at least who claim to be, but who have a half civilized, or less than half civilized, government. The morality of that government, for the last three hundred years, has not been any better than that of pagan Rome in the zenith of the prosperity of the republic, in her dealings with other nations. With both it has been only a question of power — the logic and morality of brute force. England's methods may have been a little more refined, but nevertheless, in the end, in actual results, none the less oppressive and cruel. Her maxim has been and still is, "the end justifies the means." Until the public opinion of the christian civilized world enforces a better, a higher morality than that in international relations, how can we reasonably expect intelligent Chinamen, men of India or Egypt to seek or accept our christian religion? The language of human nature is, and will be : away with a religion and faith that teaches men to deal with their fellow men as your so-called christian English government has dealt and to-day deals with us. "The guilty flee where no man pursueth." A robber mistrusts that all other men are robbers ; or that the officers will come and visit justice on him for his misdeeds. And christian Europe to-day, under the yoke of mistrpst, enslaves and makes serfs of its laboring class, to erect and maintain forts, arsenals, navies and standing armies to protect one christian(?) government against another! It presents a spectacle that "crucifies the. Lord afresh and puts Him to an open .shame" in the eyes of all true christians. These considerations pertain to "moral and political economy ;'* they affect us as individuals, states and nations, in our material welfare. Our mutual national jealousies and distrusts put the yoke of bondage upon us, load us with national expenditures and debts that rest down with crushing weight upon the toiling millions. For, as we proceed, we shall see they are made the "mud sill," the foun- dation upon which rests the entire superstructure of fraud, force, oppression and distrust. CHAPTER III. CHURCH AND STATE. The two main factors of society viewed from within a sovereign- ty, are the "Church and State." No thoughtful mind can ignore this fact. Man is a moral, a religious, a worshipping being. Nor is it a characteristic that clings to him only in a savage state ; civiliza- tion but seems to cultivate. He must, he will have a morality, a religion, better or worse, — a God to worship. This predisposition, in all ages, climes and con- ditions, when he has attained any degree of civilization, always de- velopes some kind of oracle, soothsayer, priesthood or ministry, to whom he looks for instruction as to what he ought or ought not to do in matters of conscience, and often in matters of state, and for revelations as to his hopes for the future. We have Christianity as the prevailing religion. As such it has given the name of Christian- dom to Western Europe and our own continent. The relation of "Church and State," in all ages, has been a vexed one. It is both a religious and a political one. But it will be observed, it has never been raised until men reach such a stage in their national civilization that they begin to demand constitution- al guarantees for their rights and liberties, and fixed and known rules for the administration of government and justice. Until such a period the priesthood usually, as history shows, busy the left hand in the ministrations of the altar and things eternal, and the right in grasping after the good things of life temporal. While telling the faithful, with great unction, to "lay up treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not corrupt nor thieves break through nor steal," the priest has been willing to "lay up treasures on earth" and take the chances with the moths and thieves, — that is, as a rule. A priesthood or ministry are men ; in this respect there has been little difference between the priesthood and ministry of Chris- tianity and those of other religions. While saying this we are aware of many noble and worthy exceptions ; we are now speaking in a gen- eral way. If you doubt the statement, look at the religious estab- lishments, salaries and sinecures fastened by law upon the people of Europe to-day. Such a ministry and priesthood as this, has always acknowledged the rights of the people to constitutional guarantees against their and the State's assumptions and corrupt exactions at the same time the temporal authority did ; that is when both were compelled to do il by force. The assumption of temporal authority by a Christian ministry or priesthood is in violation of the spirit, precept and ex- ample of its Founder. He claimed no superior rights for himself or his, even as a subject, much less any claims to civil authority. He sent Peter to catch the fish to get the "penny" to pay Cresar's "tax" for "me and there" "lest they be offended." He did not 10 attempt to establish any but a moral government in the world. When Peter "drew his sword and struck a servant of the high priest and smote off his ears," Jesus said unto him "put up again, thy sword into his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my father and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" — Mathew 26 Chapter, verses 51, 52, 53. As much as to say I do not seek the victory of an Alexander, or a Caesar, the victory of physical or animal forces; my battles and warfare are, in a higher sphere, on a nobler plain, my triumph shall be a moral one. Jn answer to Pilate's question he made it plain, "Art thou the king of the Jews" said Pilate? "Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world ; if my kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence." — John, 18 chapter, verses 33-36. He directly declined all jurisdiction over temporal matters. "And one of the company said unto him, Master speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me, and he said unto him. man who made me a judge or a divider over you?" — Luke, chapter 12, verses 13-14. He refused all semblance of temporal authority. "When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force to make him a king he departed again, into a moun- tain himself alone." — John, chapter 6, verse 15. Again he said : "Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man." — John, chapter 8, verse 15. "If any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the ivorld, but to save the world." — John, chapter 12, verse 47. "But Jesus called them unto him (his disci- ples) and said, ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority over them." "But it shall not be so among yov: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister ; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant; even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto, bvt to minister and to give his life a ransom for money." — Matthew, chapter 20, verses 25-6-7-8. "And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God shall come, he answered them and said, the kingdom of God com- eth not with observation." "Neither shall they say lo here! lo there! for the kingdom of God is within you." It is not in palaces "Bishoprics," "Archbishoprics" lordly state and princely incomes of my lords spiritual? who rob the widow and the fatherless to live in the style and make a display of himself in the togery, fuss and feathers of the crowned block-heads, who for centuries have ruled and robbed Europe. It was a greedy, covetous hypocrite who sold him to the "chief priests," for thirty pieces of silver." He said of himself "the foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head." 11 If he was poor and "came not to be ministered unto" but "to minister" who as a priest shall command his brethren to minister unto him? so he may live like the "Gentiles who exercise authority." If he refused to be a "judge and divider" who of his ministers shall? If he refused to be "crowned" who of them shall don that insignia (usually) of a block-head; the greatest secular kings even have refused to wear them. "Ye call me Master and Lord : and ye say well ; for so am I." "If I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet." "For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you." "Verily I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord ; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him." — Verses 13- 14-15-16, chapter XIII of John. If he washed his disciples' feet, who of them shall put on the airs of potentates and sit on "a piece of velvet stretched over a few pieces of wood" as a throne? In fact they have and many still do "rob the widow and the fatherless" and "for a pretense make long prayers." The Christian Church is the means used to propagate his doc- trines in the world ; it is that, or it is worse than nothing ; it is an imposter. Its labors are to build up a kingdom, not of benefices, sinecures and livings, where greedy hypocrites oppress the people ; not a kingdom of armies, navies, and imposing arrays of things "that come by observation ;" but a kingdom of peace on earth and good will to men ;" to teach men it is right and better in the long run to *'do to others as ye would that men should do to you," in all things. Its jurisdiction is clearly defined by its Immortal Fovf/der. If he, in the face of persecution and ignominious death would not use legions of angels to defend himself, what mangy, cowardly, greedy, bloody minded, cruel or ignorant wretch, as a pretended follower, in the centuries after him, had the right to "urge holy wars" of ex- termination against both "infidels" and "Christians." If he "judged no man," who of them had jurisdiction to send men to be roasted at the stake to appease their bigoted cruelty. Christ in- flicted no physical or civil penalties, waged no war, nor permitted any to be waged in his name. The church nor its ministers have any authority to do either ; they go beyond the bounds of their high calling when they attempt it. And history shows that when a clergy has once seated itself in the saddle of secular power, over the people, it has in all ages, been the most cruel and brutal of all classes of riders and tyrants. Their tyranny always has had a specie of ferocity no where else displayed. And this may be easily accounted for we think. From the nature of his calling, no one withstood the priest or minister in his teachings and ministration. If men differ with him they usually do it or have in the past 12 done it in silence. A priesthood or ministry are only men, with all the natural frailties of men. This very fact of their not being with- stood in their discourses and being required to "give a reason for the faith in them," leads them in their very habits of thought and expression of it to grow dogmatical. If he has authority in temporal things he will carry these very feelings and habits of thought into them and his administration of affairs will be as dogmatic as his habits of thought and religious teaching. It is natural and his axiom he makes matter of religion and conscience in secular as well as spiritual things. The offices of the church in relation to the administration of temporal affairs, in- deed, in all her real spheres, in relation to men is like that of a true mother to a wayward adult son. She admonishes and appeals to him by all his ties ; she tries to win him from his evil habits ; she sets before him the penalties here and hereafter for bad conduct and crime ; the rewards of good con- duct and living here and hereafter ; she attempts to make him a good law-abiding citizen and prevent his crime. But when an overt act of crime is committed and civil penalties are incurred, and the po- lice (or the State) takes him in hand by actual force, she hides her face in shame and sorrow ; she may follow him to the prison to ad- monish and minister, to the scaffold even to see him die. But she does not want to pull off his nails or pinch or roast his flesh, no matter how great a "heretic" or how great his crime. She does not enjoy the smell of roasting flesh of martyrs, for their opinion, or the scenes of a St. Bartholomew. That priests and ministers in her name have presided at such orgies is true. But it was when and where she was, as it were, unsexed, debauched, or truly it was not herself at all ; it was a shameful exhibition of what came and comes, yes and would come again from centuries of union of church and state. As a union it is like incest ; it is pollution and degradation of both. It is no use, as believers or unbelievers to review the past in a spirit of bitterness or acrimony. But we must all do it, for its truth. As Catholics or protestants, or neither, all of us as citizens of the world's republic in the light of the history and truths of the past, it behooves us one and all to brook with no degree of allow- ance, any daliance even that looks like union of church and state. My church can no more be entrusted with "establishment" or any secular assistance, advantage or union with the State, than yours or any one, more than another. Christ himself claimed no superior or political advantages over any man, when he was here among men. He taught men to "do to others as we would that they should do to us" in all things; who of us if actuated and directed by his spirit wants any advantage over any one, whether he believes as we do or not? Indeed, as soon as we display such a spirit, we prove we "are none of his." These are considerations that come home to us all, and the fact of unions of church and state still exists, that is an "established" church, one supported by taxes levied on men, who do not believe, in or attend at her ministrations — that too in a county that has more political influence in this country than any other ; that too in a coun- try that claims to be the great "civilizer" of the world, but that in fact is not half civilized herself. CHAPTER IV. THE STATE ITS FORM OF GOVERNMENT. The history of the world presents three distinct forms of hu- man government ; three steps the race has taken in its struggle for and toward civilization, each one taken in blood, tears and ashes ; each one has required centuries to take it and each fades into the other, by almost imperceptible shades of difference. (1). Was the patriarchial or monarchial, the one man absolute as the source of all political law-making, interpreting and executing power. History shows the law to be, that the less the one man, the monarch knows, the more wives he must have, the more solicitous he is as to what he shall eat and drink and "wherewithal he shall be clothed," the palace in which he shall reside and the tomb in which his carcass shall finally be stowed. And there is always a direct ratio between his ignorance and the degree of jealousy shown for "any encroach- ments upon his prerogative ." The Czar of Russia, the Khedive of Egypt, as agent and resident attorney for the English government, the Emperor of China, the Governor-General of India and the King of Dahominy, I believe are the most considerable personages among men now contending for such honor. The absolute monarchy is the government of animal force, with or without "the consent of the governed." (2). The consti- tutional monarchy or Empire of which England is supposed to be the highest type. Her constitution is no more or less than a his- tory of the struggle of the people with the absolute covetousness, lust of power of her monarchs and the class of retainers who al- ways surrounded them. It is the written history and tradition of the struggle of the mind, brain and heart, the intelligence of the people for their natu- ral and political rights. The more the greed of the monarch and his retainers have been checked and confined to bounds the more "constitutional" the government is. But as in the absolute so in theory, in that form of government, the "crown" is the source of political law-making, in- terpreting and executing power. Violations of law are "against the peace of the king;" "the King can do no wrong" for the satisfac- tory reason no matter what he does it is politically right. The functions of government are exercised as "grants from the 14 crown;" the charters of corporations are "franchises granted by the crown." Those who administer that form of government are the "agents" of the crown. That is to say a "constitutional monarchy" is an absolute one, with the horns sawed off. It is savage dog with a muzzle on ; a beast ferae natura, but chained so it cannot rend and tear. A half civilized people may be unable to appreciate or even sus- tain one any better. But a civilized people capable of self-govern- ment are only scandalized, hampered, retarded in all worthy human endeavors by it, and they ought to shed it as half civilized men shed their habiliments of skins, their clubs, bows and poisoned arrows, as they struggle on and up to the light and plain of a civilized life. (;!). We have the Republican, the latest in point of time the no- blest of them all. The only form that recognizes both the Father- hood of God and the Brotherhood of man. The other forms may recognize the former premise, but it changed the second to read "the guardianship of man" "by divine right." The Brotherhood of man must be acknowledged as the foundation of equal political rights, whether we reach it, as many of us do as a deduction from the premise of the Fatherhood of God or by some other mode of reasoning as many good citizens do. The mode of reasoning by which we do it is not so material, so we reach the world's platform of political rights. "Do unto others as ye would that they should do to you." "The inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pur- suit of happiness" secured in our constitution, were not snatched, a few, or one at a time, by "rebellious subjects," from the hands of a raving or grumbling monarch, more than half given away in a dis- graceful compromise. Our Revolutionary Fathers, after contending for twenty years with the beastial, covetous, lust and assumptions of the English government, for some of the alleged rights of Englishmen, under the glorious( ?) constitution ; after being denied even these ; after their "repeated petitions" had been treated with repeated insult and they had been "spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne," arose, at last, in the name of their God-given manhood, and, in the terms of the immortal Declaration of Independence, said. — You can have, gentlemen, just what you can take over our dead bodies — "We appeal to arms and the God of hosts, all that is left us now." They made a bold declaration of. and strike for, the political right a of man. They declared nor waged any war of invasion, only one of self defense. Nor was there anything new or especially meritorious in the mere "appeal to arms" in the defense of their liberties. Men have done that in all ages. But there was something new in the declaration of independence as the foundation and platform upon winch they did it. It was, and still is, new in the history of the world. It is in these words : "We hold these truths to be self-evi- dent, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights 15 governments are instituted among men deriving their just /towers, by the consent of the governed ; — that when any form of govern- ment becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such forms as to them seem most likely to effect their safety and happi- ness." That declaration, in that sense, as the platform of an "ap- peal to arms," was new in the history of the world. By it our fathers said, if we succeed in this ''appeal to arms" it is in self defense : we have no war of invasion to wage. For "all men are created equal ;" none are born with the spurs on, or a gold spoon in their mouths. In this appeal to arms, or any we are com- pelled to make in self defense, we ask, nor demand any civil, religi- ous or political right that we are unwilling to concede to our assail- ants and the rest of mankind ; — -that is, they declared the grand truth and principle that if they succeeded and did become great and powerful by repulsing their assailants and oppressors, they would not in their turn become assailants and oppressors of their oppress- ors, or any one else. The history of the world, until then, shows that those who have "appealed to arms" for their liberties and have become successful, did it on a principle that as soon as their oppressor was repulsed and they gained strength to do it, they, in turn, became oppressors. Iu a word, the declaration of independence is an application to the political rights and relations of man, of the principle embodied in the twelve words, "Do unto others as ye would that they should do to you." And in that fact, only, is it greater than any and all oth- er political documents until that time. That is the corner stone of the republic ; in that lies the secret of its success, and in obedience ro that principle, only, is there safety and perpetuity. No war of invasion can be waged to impose government of any form on anoth- er people, for "all just government is by the consent of the govern- ed ;" or to take or dismember their territory is the same thing. Our country never has openly and flagrantly violated this grand principle but once in its history. That was in its shameful and das- tardly raid upon the sister Republic of Mexico for territory upon which to extend the institution of human slavery. It was a slave- holder's unrighteous raid for slave territory. But we bled as a na- tion for it. We paid bitterly for every concession made to the slave power, and for this among the rest. The constitution of the United States is the application of that principle to government — an attempt to put it into practice It may he asked. What has the form of government to do with the subject in hand? Much in ours; in the constitutional monarchy, less ; in the absolute, since there can be no fixed rules, perhaps nothing. But, with us, "all just government is by the consent of the governed;" taxes, and all burdens levied upon the citizen for its support, are by his consent, and any tax or burden not levied by direct authority from the constitution is not by his consent, and he 16 is under no obligation to pay it. And it is not only his right but it is a duty to resist any and all such ; for they are encroachments upon his rights. If one may be thus taken, all may. And such is the history and nature of power, especially in money and financial matters, that to "give it an inch it will take an ell ;" it knows no bounds. Our constitution is a contract, a compact to which society as a unit and each citizen are parties. In its spirit and true intent "the wrong of one is the cause of all. In it we have (1) an enu- meration of the general powers granted by each citizen to the gov- ernment. (2). An enumeration of the rights to be guaranteed by the government in return to the citizen. Of course it deals as to both the powers and rights in general terms. The powers granted and the rights to be secured are correlative ; one is granted for the greater good to come, in protection of the other. The citizen yields (1) the original natural right of dividing and atomizing society into states, or smaller, or any fractions, each one "to be a law unto itself," and accepts in lieu thereof the aggregating compact of "we, the people of the United States ;" that makes us a distinct sover- eignty, a nation, to be governed in national matters by the will of the majority, not of a fraction, but of the w7ioJe. (2). He yields the right to redress his wrongs; that is the administration of justice. (3). He yields his natural right of personal barter of the products of his labor, and accepts the oflices of his government in the regula- tion of commerce, instead. (4). He yields the control of all rela- tions of his government to others ; and he retains to himself and his state all powers not expressly granted in the constitution. These powers he cedes to his government to better his condition. He has parted with all power over them ; if the government does not accept and execute them they are, so far as he is concerned, annihilated in effect. It is a part of the compact that it does accept them and un- dertakes to execute them. But there are terms and limitations upon these grants of power. One of these express limitations is, that they are not granted in solido to the government ; but they are granted in the light of the experience of mankind in three distinct classes to the three subor- dinate branches or departments of government, created and recog- nized by the constitution. The laws of the human mind and the experience of mankind in the science of civil government, naturally divides its functions into three departments or classes of agents, in the government of men by law. In the tirst place there must be law ; in the second place it must be executed. Then there must be a department of government, a class of agents whose duty it is to formulate and enact it. Second, to interpret and apply it to the cases as they arise. Third, after the law is made, interpreted, and its judgment rendered, a department and class whose duty it is to execute it. Hence, in the constitution, all power over the subject of law-making is granted by the citizens in Section 1 of Ariticle I. of the Constitution, in these words: "All legislative powers herein "ranted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which 17 shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives." And no other body or person, under the constitution, can formulate and enact any law on any subjegt or "power herein granted" that a cit- izen is under any obligation to obey. The law interpreting and ad- ministering power is granted in these words in Section 1 of Article III. of the Constitution: "The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time establish." And no other of- ficer or department of the government has the power to interpret the law and render a judgment that a citizen is under obligations to obey, than a court established under this grant. The power to execute the laws is granted in Section 1. Article II. of the Constitution, in these words: "The Executive powers shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." It will be seen that in each one of this trinity of granting clauses, the word "vested" is used. It was not a matter of chance that it was done. It- means these departments were clothed with and possessed of these powers, so they could not be divested of them. Nor are they authorized to grant or sublet the exercise of the respective functions reposed in them to another, ov even to each other ; and the Supreme Court of the United States in construing the constitution has always so held. This subject will be resumed under the head of Commerce, Transportation and Money. We shall then see that this principle his been, and is to-day, flagrantly violated. CHAPTER V. THE STATE oil: SUBJECT ANALYZED. When we view society and the State for the purpose of a study of our subject, the following order of thought is evolved : 1. Civilization creates demand. 2. Demand stimulates to labor.* 3. Labor produces property — wealth. This is the first stage and the order of the growth of a commu- nity, or state in civilization. Nature spontaneously produ- ces enough to subsist a sparse but not a dense population. It must have human labor, some wealth and some degree of civilization. It can only be supported by the fruits of the toil of human hands. Un- til human labor becomes the rule, there is little civilization and lit- tle wealth. Wealth or capital is not civilization — but there can be but little without it and there can be ho civilization without labor. Wealth is a means to an end. It ceases to be even that when its distribution is so unjust, it all lodges in the hands of a few or a class. For then the motive to intelligent human labor, the expecta- 18- tion of enjoying- its reward is taken away and in the ratio it is done, labor will at first complain, become factious and in the end cease. The problem of problems that tq-day stares Christendom in the face is that of the just distribution of wealth, the fruits of labor. It is one no civilization has ever solved. Its presentation to those of the past, has been to them, the noontide hour of their zenith prosperity and from that period they have started on the track of a sure, swift decline. At this point they have reached a majority that cast on them responsibilities they were unable to comprehend and solve. Here all of them confront the questions. Land and Land Ten- ure, Transportation and Money, if any they have of any importance, and these three great subjects: 1. Land and Land Tenure. 2. Transportation. 3. Money, its nature, use and abuse, are always the three great factors in the subject of the distribution of wealth. They stand like inscriptions on the head-stones of the civiliza- tions of the past. Thus our subject naturally divides into three Trinities, (1), the three departments of government, (2), civilization demands capital, (3), land, transportation, money. CHAPTER VI. CIVILIZATION CREATES DEMAND. Civilization is a taming process ; it reclaims and brings men back from a savage state. It shows them they are cold, naked, ig- norant and blind. The ruder and more barbaric a people, the fewer their wants and more easily supplied. They use things as nearly as possible, just as nature presents them. They live upon game and wild fruits, dress in the skins of animals and use no implements but the most primitive, have no habitation but the rudest huts. But as a people advance in intelligence and civilization, their wants and demands multiply In the same ratio. Objects, as nature presents them, no longer meet their requirements. They demand greater variety in the kinds and preparation of food, they throw away the undressed skins of animals and call for clothing; the bark, cane, or mud hut disappears and some kind of a house is erected. All these necessaries require improved implements in their construc- tion ; these to cut must be made of iron and steel, and soon through the different departments of industry and consumption. The first effort will be to supply the necessaries of life and af- ter this is accomplished, then there is a desire to possess the luxu- ries. These cost more than the necessaries, as their production re- quires a higher degree of skill in the laborer who produces them. Civilization is expensive, it quickens all the perceptions and capabilities of the human mind, wakens new desires, creates new 1!) demands and necessities, which in time will be supplied. As taste is cultivated and men make advancement in the arts and sciences, wants and demands for manufactured and artistic articles are multi- plied. Also intellectual activity calls for intellectual food, and not- withstanding- of "the making of many books there is no end," yet the cry is for more. So that in countries, the people of which were before employed in hunting, fishing, tending herds, or may be agri- culture alone, varieties of employment spring up to meet the in- creasing demands of civilization. Either the civilized nation must manufacture for itself, or pay heavy tribute to those that do. If it deals in producing the raw material alone, then it is a ''hewer of wood and a bearer of burdens" for those who do its manufacturing. It must furnish sufficient for its own wants and to pay those who work for it, thus exhausting it natural resources of raw material, while the manufacturing people invest in nothing but their labor. To be truly civilized a people not only must be so in their modes of living but also in their state and dispositions of mind. A robber is not in a true sense civilized ; he is a destroyer of civilization. If all men followed his example no matter how refined may be his meth- ods or his manner of living, civil society could not exist. No man is civilized whose example and course of conduct if universally fol- lowed would destroy society. In such case it exists in spite of him, if at all. A robber would be harmless alone on an island ; it is his viola- tion of his relations to others that makes him detestable. For soci- ety to exist certain rules must he obeyed. Civilization consists in and cannot exist without mutual trust confidence and concession among men. It clothes men and puts them in their right minds. In its highest states a man as to all his temporal wants and necessities and interests is compelled, literally "to walk by faith and not by sight." As to nearly all he eats and drinks, he knows nothing of it or its preparation, its cleanliness or healthfulness. only as he trusts to those who prepare it. If he goes to buy a piece of land he knows the title to it can only be shown by the record ; it is made and kept by men and it takes an expert to even make an abstract of what the record shows and to tell him whether his title is good, even after the abstract is made. So when he sends or receives a message over the wire ; he puts his life in the keeping of his fellow men every time he boards a steamboat, ship or car. He banks his money and buys drafts on the basis of faith. As to mutual concessions when there was not a man to the square mile, few were required, little matter how filthy his pig sty, soap factory, or when or how he disposed < f his offal or filth. But, when others crowded around him and his accumulations of filth, bad smells and sights poisoned and offended them and bred disease, then society commands him to clear away his ugly sights and clean up his bad smells. Civilized society crowds men — rubs them together — it does, it must rub off the square sharp corners of short-sighted selfishness. 20 the knots and unseemly deformities of savage and rude barbarity. As population grows more and more dense, the earth is occupied by individual holdings, the wild fruits and games and fuels that were common disappear, and soon the only source of supply of human necessities becomes the ministering hand of human toil. Every- thing of that kind must be produced or bought. In a civilized dense population there are only three ways for a human being to procure "the means whereby we live." First. By earning and ren- dering an equivalent. Second By gift or charity. Third. By rob- bery. He may rob according to law. If "all men are created equal" one man. as to natural rights occupies a place as advanta- geous as another. No one has the natural, or any right to quarter himself on Ids fellow-men. as a pensioner. And if one man by 'law or custom is permitted to thus put himself and family on the rest of society, from generation to generation exempt from the natural hu- man burden of daily and yearly producing or in any way rendering an actual equivalent for their subsistence, then something is wrong. One thing is clear — somebody is doing to others as he would not that they should do to him. If men obeyed that precept no one would appropriate something for nothing unless as a charity; Every person of right thinking admits that law custom or institu- tion in society that enables one person to do to others as he would not that they should do to him, is unjust. Christendom seems to read those words with many "mental reservations" and "ease its conscience" (if it has any) that way." Those words are a com- mand if they are anything. It reads "do" — -"do" to others," your contemporary fellow-men — not to angels in the next, but to men in this world. It is in the imperative mode. It does not read: if it suits your convenience: if you are so poor, weak and uninfluential yon cannot do otherwise — selfish hypocrites read that between the lines. It is a command as much and as plain as any one or all of the ten commandments. Indeed it is the summing up of "the law and the prophets" by Christ himself as to whole duty of man to man. "Thou shalt love * * thy neighbor as thyself." He was a great political as well as religious teacher. That one precept would "leaven the whole lump." of civiliza- tion and take all the deadly taint and virus of injustice out of it. He made no mistake, lie understood "what is in man." Those words not only embody a moral precept but a law that is and becomes an actual a military necessity to men in a dense population. He never re- tracted or qualified them : that command was given in the light of the selfishness, of human nature. No other law can preserve hu- man society ; as it grows denser and denser men are rubbed closer and closer together, all their interests become woven and interwov- en into its warp and woof, as the very means of existence come to depend daily more and more upon mutual trust, concession, it is eompelled, is driven to that rule of conduct or to destruction. If each is governed by short-sighted selfishness and distrust, they be- come more and more repellant, the atoms repel and disintegration 21 must follow. Christ's law is the attraction of gravitation, the only power that can hold society together The imperfect obedience to it, in Christendom, is all has held it in even its present loose bonds. It is clear to be seen, as populations grow dense, the oftener is the rule called in question, the oftener obeyed or disobeyed and the nearer must society approach that standard of "righteousness" as nations. To illustrate : You enter an empty railway coach, you may deposit your baggage on two seats on one side, turn two to- gether on the other and recline at ease. All goes well — no one dis- putes your appropriations. Anon your train pulls into a town where everybody and his girl are going on "picnic excursion." There is a rush, many a squeeze, "soft eyes look to eyes that speak again and all goes merry" as ten weddings on wheels. You and your luggage are unceremoniously stowed in the off end of a single seat and the fat woman and her band-boxes, etc., are stowed on you to make room. You are surprised at how little space you can occu- py. You are all on good behavior, as to humor "at least. You must all be careful to keep off each other's corns and elbows or smile po- litely "no harni." You are compelled to accommodate yourself to a new situation. And the sooner you do, the sweeter the spirit of love, charity and decency in which you accommodate yourself to that situation the better time you will have for the rest of your journey. As citizens we are all on board for a ride, from the cradle to the grave. Of late Christendom seems to be going on a picnic. The coaches are filling up. Everybody, his girl, the old folks and his wife and children are coming on, all squeezing in, they must — they will go. Congress may stop the mints of the United States and the coinage of silver to to please bankers and usurers, but it cannot stop the mints of heaven and the coinage of babies. They will obey the command, "go forth, multiply and replenish the earth," even if they obey no other; they will "multiply" even if there is no place to "go forth" to. when they can no longer "go west young man and grow up with the country." A few passengers who were first, or who claim through tickets, a little better than first-class, are making wry faces at the new order of things. Here is a gouty, bloated, short-winded choleric old fogy who wears a number five hat and number sixty pants, who wants "to own all the land joining him," but he never had capacity to cultivate forty acres of land intelligently. He de- mands four seats and displays his passes, all free, clear through with great gusto. Here sits a personage, whose anatomy and physique are made up of teeth, gullet, pocket and stomach ; he dis- dains to look at anybody — he is a law unto himself. He bought a license to run this train and anybody who don't like his way of riding can get off — he will carry his bottles and brandy on this train — he demands four seats for accommodation of the liquor traffic. Here in the rear of the coach sits a personage whose affidavit f ace savs : "I thank God I am not as other men" and "devour 22 widows' houses" and "for a pretence makes long prayer." He is the pious, deaconized passenger of the crew by all odds. Disturb him to give the common herd of picnicers a seat? He owns this road and the county through which it runs; no indeed, shylock would put the conductor (the government) off the traiu, for such impertinence. His gout, bunions, bags and baggage take four seats. So the inno- cent herd of picnicers for a while stand around in the aisles and stare at empty seats and each others vacant faces. They are stand- ing up yet. But they are growing restless. Soon the}' will hustle their gouty brutal fellow passengers. They refuse to do to others as they would have others to do to them. They will have to get on good behavior as other people. In obedience to those words is our only bow of promise, "of peace on earth and good will to men." They have a counterpart, an alternative, a consequence of disobedience as all such have. And it is as positive as unqualified. It is in these words : "Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ve shall be judged and with what measure ye mete'it shall be measured to you again." If you will not do to others as you would they should do to you ; if the only limit to the advantages you will take of your fellow-men is that of unjust law or force ; if with you might makes right, you had better beware. For after awhile, it may be long delayed ; but after awhile it will come and men will "judge" you by your own code and law; they will try you in your own court and "with what judgment ye judged ye shall be judged," and you will have no right to complain; if you do men "will laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear Com- eth." After awhile when you are corpulent, helpless and over-fed upon the fruits of your injustice by doing to others as ye would not they should do to you, they will come back to you, and they will do to you as you have done to them, and "with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again." That is the law as unalterable, as that the rivers worry, fret, murmur and hurry on, retarded at times, but they will finally get to the gulfs, the ocean. You might as well remonstrate or fight against the law of gravitation. You have to take the consequences of violated law or stand from under its penalties. You may howl and shriek all the names of the lan- guage at those who murmur of your injustice to them ; you may launch "tramp-laws" anathemas, excommunications, executions at them, but the murmur will rise higher and higher, the cloud grow blacker and they will come. Christ said they would — human nature says they will — it is a law planted in it to preserve it against tyrants. History shows they have come ; yes, and came with a ven- geance ; came to stay. And when you think a moment, they have the same right, yea more, to come back and avenge these wrongs yon had to assail and commit wrong ; you had to do to them as ye would not have them do to you. The language of Christ, of rea- son, of human nature, of the red page of history, to Christendom of to-day, is "agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him," "do to others" justly while you may, before the is- sue grows so sharp it comes to blows. The man who knowingly re- fuses to be governed by that law laid down by Christ cannot claim to be a Christian ; he cannot be a good citizen, he is an anarchist of the worst type. No matter what other professions he makes, wheth- er arrayed in Senatorial toga or Sacerdotal gown ; his example and influence leads to mutual distrust, to refusal of mutual or any con- cession to negative all the fundamental conditions of civilization to solitary chaos and that is the very essence of anarclry. No matter what such a man claims his fellowmen owe him, he denies he owes them or society anything, at least its due. On that platform, he appeals to force — or an unjust law. And on that plat- form to force sooner or later it will come. Intelligent men will have no respect for unjust rules and laws any longer than they retain the hope of repealing them by constitutional and peacable means When that hope is destroyed by the army of aggressors by subvert- ing or prostituting the constitutional means, if they have any spirit left, then and there they will meet injustice and force with force. Then society has two prospects spread before it It is on the confines of the red sands and lurid sunset of the ashy desert of an- archy ; or, by a baptism of blood and lire to enter through the gates of civil revolution to a nobler civilization, to a plain where men wil- lingly, or, by enforced obedience, come nearer the precept of doing to others as they would they should do to them. In either event, the votaries of greed and injustice are punished. A man who in theory and practice denies the obligation of obedience to that basic rule is unlit for human society. He puts his fellow-citizens to one or the other of two alterna- tives: to bear the impositions of himself and class or resist his and their assaults by force. And it only remains for men of sense and un- derstanding to defend themselves against him and his class, as they would against a savage or a beast of prey, by an appeal, if necessary to the only laws recognized by them, that is the law of force. He and his class are the same, no matter where they are found, no matter whether clad in the robes of clerical or secular power, or entrenched behind the bulwarks of laws, customs, and institutions, hoary with age, or clad in the rags of the clown or miser. As a ch'ss. they say, I am better than thou, I have a right to something for nothing. Age is not a sure sign of justice or certificate of a right, of a custom, law or institution to exist. If so, polygamy, slavery, robbery, absolute monarchy, rapine and slaughter can pre- sent the credentials. While civilization creates demand for all its accompaniments, yet whether it will be a permanent and healthy one ; whether it will be supplied, or if supplied done on such terms it can continue, all depends upon moral as well as physical causes And the moral is in this, the anterior one. the cause of causes. 24 CHAPTER VII. DEMAND STIMULATES TO LABOR. Civilized necessit} T makes an inventory of the things needed. Demand as here used is the desire, for, coupled with an effort to obtain them. It is a natural hunger for other than the accompani- ments of a savage life Appetite stimulates to effort to procure the means to satisfy and human labor is the only means by which it can be acquired. There can be no civilization without human labor. ■ Its only intelligent stimulant is the expectation of enjoying its reward. If the laborer is met with either one of two probabilities ; first, that from natural laws and causes his labor will produce no re- ward ; or, second, if it does, it will be taken from him his stimulant to engage in it diminishes in the ratio that he becomes satisfied either one of the propositions are true. It is as natural as that a hungry man will cease to make an effort for food, as he sees the chances to gain it slip away from him. As a rule nature and her laws respond to the hand of toil. The toilers do not despond or distrust because of her laws. It is the artificial customs, laws and institutions of so- ciety, that robs labor of its just reward. They depend on moral or rather immoral causes. It is man's inhumanity to man that makes countless millions mourn" and threatens the civilization of to-day with many dangers. When the laborer is deprived of the just re- ward of his toil, he by force of circumstances ceases to be a consu- mer. And thus again as it always does, we find that short-sighted greed and oppression "destroys the goose that lays the golden egg." If he is once denied his just reward, the rule is, it is the nature of injustice to go on to the last end of an extreme, until the laborer is barely permitted to retain enough to exist. It is the dictates of even greed and injustice to do that. But there, yes and long before he gets there, the laborer is only a slave — he lives with no hope — the future is to him a diminishing, a van- ishing prospect. One of two things must soon follow. Either he became a tame soulless slave "whipped to the task," in whose labor there is no profit ; or he will come out, like a she tiger robbed of her whelps, and then woe betide his despoiler. In either event the es- tablished state of things must give way. Civilization stimulates to labor. Whether it will continue to do it, depends upon whether the labor is permitted to reap its just reward. That is the ever re- curring problem left for us to solve. CHAPTER VIII. LABOR PRODUCES CAPITAL. "Labor is prior to and above capital and deserves much the greater consideration." — [Lincoln. Think one moment. What other agency can produce capital? ( Japital is the fruit of labor — a surplus, more than is needed for the present, and laid away for future use. Labor is living, think- ing, feeling, breathing, loving, hating, human life. Physiologists tell us that a day's labor by a stout, healthy man, costs about one pound of human tissue, muscle, nerve force and blood, seasoned with brain. Capital is dead; a good representation of it aisasugar cured and canvassed ham ; it has been produced and is non-product- ive. It has value, because it has cost human toil, human flesh and blood to produce it ; and it will and does meet a want as human food. It is perishable, and perishes with the using. It must he used in its season or it becomes an offense. And it depends on human consumption and demand to have a market and value. Capital, hv natural law, is classified in two kinds: (1.) That which perishes with the using. Of such nature is the food, raiment, fuels and utensils. In these man must, from the nature of the case, an absolute property, as against all others. (2.) That used by us. but that outlasts the user. Of such na- ture is air, light, water and land. In a just sense these elements can not be called capital, for they are not produced by man's effort or toil. But there is a sense in which one person, as against all others, acquires a vested right, for a time, in each one or all these elements of nature. But. at most, it is only a life estate; he may leave his successor or heir in possession, who succeeds to an like es- tate as against others. But no human being would have the right, even if he could invent a process to do it, to exhaust the life-sus- taining principle in one cubic inch of earth, one drop of water, one ray of light, one breath of air. If they could, when we look at the past and present rapacity of men. we conclude our earth would he a tlead planet, as astronomers tell us our moon is. But nature sets a flaming sword and a great gulf hetween the rapacity and ability of men in this respect. It says to man. no matter what fantastic figure he cuts, how he defies men and insults heaven, what he claims to or does not "'own," whether an acre and a hut or a palace and a conti- nent. "Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return." He can only actually use and enjoy enough for one person's natural wants. He may have robbed others of their lights, prevented them from enter- ing in and enjoying their little share of nature's bounty intended for them ; hut at last, full of violence, dissatisfied, full of choler. gcut and surfeit, ten chances he dies like a dog. before his time, hut has time and sense to see, when too late, that he has only played the part of ••dog in the manger." But there is a limited property in all these four elements, rec- ognized and that must be protected by law. A man has no right to build a wall or structure and intercept the "ancient light" of the sun or day. of you 1- dwelling ; or to build any manufactory that poisons the air of your habitation : or poison the fountain or stream at which you drink ; or dam up and intercept the natural outlet and flow of a stream and flood your land. But in all these cases the 20 question of a prior use and occupation is one consideration that governs. In these elements men have rights to use, but it is a qualified right. When the right is of such nature but one person or family can enjoy the right or privilege at a time ; one may acquire for the time he uses, an absolute right as against all others. More especially is this true of land. Improvements to land are the direct result of human lahor, as much as food, fuel and raiment ; and the right to the enjoyment of enough of land to give living room and the improvements made on it, is as absolutely unqualified as that to food and raiment, when produced or earned by labor. CHAPTER IX. THE JUST DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. We have seen the tamiug process of civilization causes men to become dissatisfied with the savage modes of living ; causes them to desire and seek the necessities, comforts, and, finally, the luxuries of life. To accomplish this end men are compelled to engage in habitual, systematic labor. No other agency can produce these things. And when they are produced and accumulate beyond pres- ent needs, they are aggregated and called capital. And this is classified as perishable and imperishable. No matter from what standpoint we view the fact or state de- nominated civilization, whether from a material or a moral one, We see the anterior cause to be actual ha man labor. It is the sine quo non of civilization. "Labor is prior to and above capital, and de- serves much the greater consideration." The fact that the question of "the just distribution of labor" is a present pressing problem, is an emphatic assertion of existing in- justice. It asserts the fact of the existence of an unjust distribu- tion. The just distribution ought never to be a necessity. For wealth or capital ought never to come to a person as "owner" only as a reward for labor and for an equivalent rendered. If it did no "distribution" would be necessary in any sense only in that of "supply and demand." For it would distribute itself, as it was produced, into the hands of the natural, the legimate "owners," that is, of the producer. Whether wealth, the fruits of labor, is now justly distributed, is a question of fact, to be passed upon from observation. That it is a question up and that will "not down at the bidding" is admitted. Two classes of anarchists threaten the destruction of the civilization of Christendom of to-day ; one by the mouthings of demagogues and actual threats, the other by acts and a course of conduct. The first .class say the civilization of to-day and its con- comitant fact, civil government, is all wrong; all vicious, no re- deeming feature in it and it ought all to be devoted to destruction and all the present recognized principles of property overturned ; the class of whom six were recently executed at Chicago. The second class is composed of those who systematically rob labor of its just reward, according to law. Who say of the present order of things it is now all just right ; it must all be maintained at the present status no matter at what cost. What we need is more "tramp" laws, "stronger government," more Pinkertons, more militia, stronger bank vaults and safes, and the proper thing to do with the other class of anarchists is, to hang them as fast as nimble policemen can get or manufacture evidence to convict and sheriffs' ropes to hang them. We thus have, as the antipodes of the situation, the refuse of both the robbed and the robbers of la- bor. Of the two classes of anarchists the second is the more resjDect- able, influential and powerful and therefore the more dangerous to the civilization of to-day. As usual in such a case, the golden mean of right, justice and truth, lies between the two extremes. Both are in part right ; both are fundamentally and destructively wrong. Destruction lies in following the path and policy of either to their natural results. The first class are right, when they say that great injustice i-s done labor and it is deprived of its just re- ward under the existing order of things. They are wrong when they say there is no good in it, and it all ought to be destroyed so there will be no head to government, or no government as anarchy means. It simply means a return to the law of force, when each man is a law unto himself. The world has had too much of that in the past to go back through centuries of blood, ashes and tears to it again. Bad, as the situation to-day may be it is bad enough, but in Christen- dom is better than ever before in the world's history. The present is the first century in the history of the world, when the injustice of which labor has a right to complain, had a hearing at the bar of an intelligent public opinion. When there was such a forum, at which to have a hearing. Never before was then a general intelligence to which an argument on the subjects of land, transportation and mon- ey could be addressed. It has taken centuries of toil, tears, revo- lution aud counter revolutions, sacks, ashes and bloody fields, for us to struggle, by stages of pain and suffering up to our present im- perfect and in many instances grossly unjust administration of law and distribution of wealth. But the language of history, reason, statesmanship and philanthropy is, hold all the ground you have. But that does not argue there is no advance position to be gained ; or that here and now our laws, customs and institutions, warped, dwarfed, deformed by the ignorance, superstition and beastial, nar- row minded greed of the past, shall chrystalize, set and stiffen, as it were, in a frost, and thus put a period to civilized rational growth. Rather when the taint and virus of injustice that lingers in our sys- tems of acquiring and holding property are discovered it is the part of candor, common honesty, patriotism and good sense, to admit it. 28 Not only that but make actual good faith effort to correct it. It must be done ; it is an actual political necessity it be. Let us have faith in the good sense, the sense of justice, the patriotism of man- kind, especially the American people. They will, in due time, take both classes of anarchists in hand and set them aright. In our opinion it is not in the power of either or both these classes to bring this country to the state of violence and anarchy that would be the natural result of the policy recom- mended by each. If the necessity for a just distribution of wealth exists to-day, it is a potent fact that no matter on what basis or how often a distribution of it be made, if the original causes that destroy- ed the equatian of justice between labor and capital remaining with unabated vigor, the same causes under like circumstances, in sure succession, will reproduce the same results. Hence it is the part of prudence to find out, if we can, what are these causes, these gener- ators of injustice, these destroyers of civilization ; for such they are if they assist in robbing labor of its just reward. For the means that does it destroys at the same time the incentive to intelligent, cheerful, effective labor, and that destroys the resources of civ- ilization. Labor is the rank and file, the vanguard, the provision train, the depot of supplies, the all to civilization. Thus under this topic are presented two great subjects of inquiry: 1. What are the causes that to-day destroy the equation of justice between labor and capi- tal? 2. What is the remedy ? The first great cause that conduces to the end and that alone would do it, is the assumption that capital, as such, has a right to accretion and increase. The assertion of the proposition that capital, as such, has no right to accretion and increase, will be pronounced by the second class of anarchists the essense of anarchy, communism, and all the other "isms" they think will injure the truth. Its truth will be doubted by many candid and earnest minds at first, All our prac- tice and the accepted assertion, and little thought have so long been to the contrary, it almost shocks us at first. Just as nature's bev- erage, pure cold water, is fiat, insipid and even nauseating to the parched and abnormal system of the toper. But in the forum of an enlightened and quickened public mind and conscience we confident- ly take the affirmative of the proposition : — Capital, as such, mas no right to accretion and increase. In ihe first place, let us understand just what the proposition means. Capital is the collected, aggregated frui's of labor. A man may be called a capitalist who owns enough of it so his income from it, without being supplemented by his actual, daily, sys ematic labor, will support him and those directly dependent on him, wbhoul in any way diminishing the principal, or actual investment, under present laws. Such a man does not "eat, his bread in the sweat of his face ;" he eats it in the '•sweat" of his capital ; he eats his bread in the sweat of other men's laces. And just what is intended to be 29 and is asserted is, no man has a right to do it. (1.) There is but one agency on earth can or does produce capital, that is actual human labor. The hands and brains that pro- duce it have the first right to it ; no just man will deny it. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread" all admit is the natural and Christian's belief, the divine law. It does not read "in the sweat of thy" neighbor's face. If "all men are created equal" politically, as we claim, theproduceer has the first right to the fruits of the toil of his hands ; and that right is inherently as perfect in one man as another. And no man has the right to such fruits until he renders to the "owner" an equal good, and if under the established order of things on* j man or class of men of ordinary ability and intelligence, are doomed to daily incessant toil for an actual existence ; and another man or class of men riot daily, free from all such toil and hardship, then injustice is on the face of it unless both the following propositions are true. (1). That all men of ordinary ability are by the very nature of things in this world doomed to such toil and privation to exist. (2). And second the class of men who daily riot in the fruits of the toil of other men's hands and are exempt from such toil, have multiplied capacity, so that one day of their toil is equal in value to that of a hundred or a thousand day's toil of other men. And we all know both propositions are false and the fact stands out clearly, one class of men do acquire the fruits of other's toil and do not in fact render an equal good for it. How do they do it? What right have they to do it? (2). Capital is dead ; it is produced. Unaided by labor it not only is unproductive, but actually wastes awa}' and returns to the elements from which it was created by labor. And in a state of society it is or ought to be, in process of time eaten up by taxes and other burdens of civil government. Labor can do better without capital, than capital can without labor. The mutual necessity of uniting their forces and advantages is actually greater upon capital than labor. A lunatic, an idiot, a Vanderbilt can inherit and "own" millions of capital; "own" telegraph and railroad lines, boats and millions of bonds and currency. But it takes the clear eye, the trained cool well-balanced brains, the skill- ful hands, the true, brave, honest hearts of thousands of laboring men "to operate his property" for a living, day by day, and turn over the millions "income" to this human cuttle-fish, that can't even count the millions, he "owns." Mr. Vanderbilt is only referred to as a sample of a class. These people are his bondsmen and bondswomen. How does he thus command all the fruits of their daily toil in the main, all but a little, if any more than enough for subsistence, in a respectable way, while actually engaged in his service? By an "income," on his dead, rusty, musty millions, his surfeited, heavy body and stupid brain, don't even enable him to count.' In the work-shop of the world this despot type of a despotic class puts his "property" he 30 "owns" but never saw his dead, rusty, musty millions, to labor over against five thousand bright, beautiful, intelligent, women and men; day by day he sits in his nickel-plated* palace and nurses his gout and teases his vertigo and keeps his millions at hard labor, day in and day out, and keeps his five thousand bright, beautiful intelli- gent, loved and loving and living bondsmen and women daily at work against his dead capital, and then at the end of the year this "owner" of dead capital has beaten God's image, warm human flesh, brain, heart and blood. It has "earned" enough to live and commence on another year, but allits production, earnings, "income" over that are added to his dead capital, and they start in next year with the odds mcreagainst labor, than before. (3). Where capital accumulates it is not from an increase of the sum total of existing wealth. Unaided capital can create nothing — cannot in fact exist. When it increases it is only accretion, like riparian additions, or snow clinging to a ball, rolled over the ground. The ball is larger, but there is no more snow. Its increase can come from no other source than appropriating the fruits of unrequited toil (4). This puts an unnatural a relentless competitor in the field with labor, for its reward. And if capital as such has gain, it must be out of la- bor's just reward. And the "earnings" of capital, under the exist- iug order of things must come with the certainty and the regularity of the duration of time. But labor's reward stands all the chances and vicissitudes of natural conditions and laws. And in the diver- sified ramifications in the business of the world where capital "earns" its "income" by usury, labor is compelled to become, not only an insurance company for the preservation and the return of the capital, principal but actually to insure an actual "earning" and "income," on the capital. Labor, so far, is the only insurance com- pany that takes such "risks." (5.) The man who owns capital more than he needs for present use, or may be, more than he and those dependent on him can use during their natural lives, for the ordinary necessities and luxuries, is already at an advantage over the mass of his fellow men. The protection of his wealth is in itself a burden on society ; he may pay for this in taxes. But it is enough that even with this he and his are protected and the principal of his unemployed capital be preserved, for him and his use by his fellow men. So that if he does not choose to supplement his capital with the tax on himself of actual toil and labor, he shall be compelled to annually draw on the principal, and his fellow men not be compelled to guarantee a return, an "income" upon it. "For he that will not labor neither shall he eat." Or, if he has capital and does not labor, make him eat off of it, instead of off the unrequited toil of his fel- low men. There is no injustice in that. It is nature's, it is God's, it ought to — it will in the near future be — man's law. Even then he would be an actual burden on society, quartered on it, a dead-head, for his support, as long as he or his dead capital lasted. But that would be better than the existing order, that enables him by his "income" on his dead capital to thus quarter him and his on it for- 31 ever. (6.) If one class of men in society, the "capitalist" class as herein defined, are permitted to thus quarter themselves on the rest of their fellow men, when and where is the end to be? Where is the rule, what is the law? One of the tests of the truth and justice of a rule of conduct, or a human law, is, if it is right and just it can be made general — be made to apply to all — and still conduce to the general welfare, the common good, the greatest good to the greatest number. You can think of examples and make the test yourself. And as to one that is wrong and unjust, the same test brings it to an "reductio ad absundwn." If it is right a man shall have "income" on loaned or unem- ployed capital, that is, that he does not supplement with his actual attention and daily labor, suppose he has $100,000 invested in bonds at five per cent, and has a commodious home with all the necessary appointments besides, his income is $5,000 per year without an actu- al engagement in any of the daily avocations of life to gain a liveli- hood. He has a family, he and all are reasonably able to support themselves, as the masses of mankind are compelled to do. But he calls his family round him on a New Year's day and says: "We are now situated so none of us need engage in the laborious employ- ments in which the mass af mankind are compelled to engage for a living. If we do labor at all it will only be for pastime. Wife, you superintend the domestic, the servants and household affairs. Daughter, you can choose the means of gaining the accomplishments that best suit our tastes and fits yau to capture and marry a foreign snob. Son, you can go to Harvard and learn to "row," and the latest arguments in defense of usury, by means of which we "eat our bread in the sweut" of other men's faces. And I will watch the markets and chances for speculation in corner lots." And all the care they need have to continue this establishment and order of thing 1 * to son, son's son after him, is to live each year in the limits of the "income." In a word, to make it last as long as the present order of things. Tht is to say, that man and his establishment are , quartered upon the laboring class of mankind ad infinitum. His $100,000 labors; he sweats in it by proxy, to offset the actual sweat of the faces of at least forty common laboring men and women. That man and his family are. pensioners, exempt from all the toil and annoyances of common mortals. And at present status, with the right to "income," accumulation and increase on c pital, as such, it is to last forever. And if one man and his family have a right to do so, all may. Or why not? Let us see. If it is right and just, and it is a desirable state ; if labor is not thus robbed of its just re- ward, and it still labors and gains on, 'hen it will slowly gain its re- ward ; and one by one, as reward for lives of fidelity and industry, the laborer, as that man, or his ancestors are supposed to have done, will, o-ie by one, pass into the favored and desirable state. At last one-half of the population are exempt from human toil. The same process goes on. Finally ihree-fourths are there. The remaining one-fourth of the population do all the labor. We are coming to the 32 millenium now. Finally all have passed into that favored class ; no- body performs the common toil ; production and preparation of the means on which the capital class subsists cease for one year, and what do we have? An reductio ad absurdum — the rule is absolute- ly false, unjust— it confers special privileges on a class ; the unjust ad- vantage of it can only be enjoyed by a class, a favored few, at a time. But suppose we take the other horn of the dilemma ; the proposition for which Ave contend. "That capital as such has no right to accre- tion and increase." The first change would be the cutting off that $5,000 ''income," the "income," the increase over actual living of the labor of about forty ordinary laboring men and women, and leave it in the hands that earned it to gladden their lives and homes. But the next change is a most distressing one. Our family of "pensioners" would be reduced to the extremity of one or the other of two necessities. The first one would be act- ually go to work like common mortals and earn their bread by the sweat of their own brows ; or the alternative is enough to make an- gels weep and Vanderbilt swear again at "them asses, "as he denomi- nates "the masses." Yes, actually they would have to go to work and do something for a living, or to continue the establishment, at its former status, be compelled to draw on the principal at the rate of $5,000 per year. And at that rate it would only last twenty years. And in that time, the heads of the family might not have died with choler, surfeit, gout, vertigo and appoplexy, and Adolphus Augus- tus and Victoria Gerusha would not each of them be able to start in with an establishment each like their now short-winded and testy old ancestor. And that would be sore distress and labor, God's poor would begin to come up out of the filthy dens and holes, down out of its serial dwellings, in rickety attics, right up and down on the surface of God's green earth — right where he intended human beings should live, and commence to make them comfortable homes. And that would be another distressing situation. But now to the contrary, all the conditions point labor the other way. The assessment lists of this country in 1840 showed there were only three persons in the United States estimated to be the "owner" of $1,000,000 of prop- erty. In 1884 the same source of information showed we now have 3,500 millionaires and more coming every day. Well may intelligent labor tremble, when it looks at that "pen- sion roll." New England daily becomes more and more like old England. It is now estimated that three per cent of the property holders of the five New England States own more property than the other ninety-seven. (7.) If capital as such is permitted to be- come a competitor with labor for its daily and yearly reward a re- flecting mind must see at a glance that labor is daily and yearly by its actual toil, contributing to the force and fund that competes, with it and it actually is thus self-destroying ; and in the end it must be reduced to the minimum hope and extremity. Its existence and prospect is a vanishing one. It daily and yearly produces capital ; 33 daily and yearly, dead though it be, capital turns upon and devours the fruits of labor. There can in the end be but one outcome to the situation. It cannot but be reduced to greater and greater extrem- ities under the present order. To illustrate, a laborer works three hundred days in the year at two dollars per day. At that rate he can little if any more than live ; he has no hope of ever gaining upon it. His labor is at least worth one dollar per day to the capitalist, or he would not pay two. The laborer thus adds three hundred dol- lars per year at least to the wealth of the capitalist and gains him- self no capital or even a competency for old age. And the next year the capitalist demands "income" on the three hundred added by him the year before, with his other capital. And this is true, whether the labor as expended actually added three hundred dollars "income" to the actual capital of the employer or was expended merely to preserve his existing capital. For labor is under no obli- gation to preserve it for him. And suppose he labors twenty years at this rate ; he has added to or preserved the capital of the em- ployer to the sum of $6,000. "Income" on this sum at the rate of five per cent is $300 per year on the capital side of the ledger — a personage, a potency, as able to "earn" and ten times as certain to demand "income" as he was even in his youth, and now he is ready to die ; but this potency, this personage lives forever to compete with his son and his son's son after him. What of the prospect? What of the night for labor? (8). It violates the laws of nature and depraves both the laborer and capitalist. A human being cannot acquire mental or physical superiority without labor; if he has acquired, he cannot retain either without labor. "There is no excellence without great labor." It vitiates the mind and depraves the body of those who from generation to generation take something for nothing. It makes their bodies soft, effeminate, passionate, appetites depraved ; causes them to become licentious, cowardly, cruel, tyrannical. They die of over-eating, drinking, of surfeit, gout, vertigo; in a word, for want of systematic exercise in healthful labor. Nature's laws cannot be violated, for a life-time, from genera- tion to generation with impunity. Her avenger will find the delin- quents, the culprits, immured in their palaces — clad in purple and tine linen and faring sumptuously every day. It will rack them on their downy beds amid their rich tapestry and make them long and pray for the healthful appetite and sound refreshing sleep of a la- borer. But on the other hand excess of labor destroys home and hearth-stone cheerfulness ; makes the laborer stiff, crooked, cheer- less, churlish and dwarfed in mind and body of which the tyranny of Europe daily delivers us samples. The system as usual is a curse to the oppressor and the oppressd, the robbers and the rob- bed. It makes the rich richer and the poor poorer ; it makes Dives at one end of the line and Lazarus at the other. It sets and daily widens the great gulf between them. It justly causes dissatisfac- tion to labor; it blots hope from its horizon, causes its view of the 34 future to be a vanishing prospect. Indeed judging the future by the past it has. it can have no hope. Second. What is the remedy? We have tried to diagnose the case in general. Any quack can tell a man lie is sick when he lies moaning before him. It is another thing to prescribe a true remedy. To do it intel- ligently the nature and location of the disease must be ascertained. If not* the remedy is given by chance and at a venture. Neither elass of anarchists prescribe a reasonable remedy, for neither of them state the true cause of disease. One asserts there is incurable disease, the other there is none. Each extreme would destroy each other and all between them. There is no hope from either of them. Both must be themselves governed. We have seen that the assumption that dead capital has a right to, and can. and does "earn" an "income" is wrong. It is wrong in principle. It cannot be modified to be right. No com- promise can be with it on greed's side the line of absolute justice. It forebodes evil to both labor and capital; it now .strainn their re- lations to about the last degree of tension. There must, there will, there has in some instances come a break. The present order of things cannot exist. It violates human nature, natural, material and divine law. We do not say this as a threat; we say it in sor- row ; not that a change will come, but that there is a necessity it shall come. We say it in the light of the laws of compensation, in human and all nature, in the light of the page of history. "For ever the. right comes uppermost and ever is justice done." But for the remedy. A physician looks first at the age and condition of his patient. If of an age and condition that indicate recent and remaining strength, he knows the patient has some con- stitution left, on which to build. He knows, too, the present ab- normal and diseased condition comes from some comparatively re- cent violation of the laws of health. The fust thing to do is. if such violation still continues, to stop it. This, usually, is sufficient treat- ment in such a case. Our patient, the Body Politic, is sick. It has the taint and virus in its system incident to a violation of the laws of justice and political health. It is in a dropsical or some such condition; at least it is all running to stomach. The circulation, all the other en- ergies, the hands, the feet, the whole system is unduly taxed tosup- port the stomach. It daily grows to untoward proportions and all other members and functions are dwarfed. The feet and legs, the hands ane arms of labor cannot support and feed it. It is a big. short-winded, dizzy. headed, appoplectic, wheezy old stomach on legs, and threatens to sit down flat and helpless on the road of pro- gress. The labor anarchists say. amputate its head, because itdoes not move on faster ; the capital anarchists say, amputate its feet, because it threatens to move at all. So it never can move. The patient is not stricken with old age ; it, is disease. True is a dis- ease of which all its ancestors died at about its age. But it still has constitution left; there is yet hope; it is dying of over-eating- and costiveness. It is all run to teeth, gullet and stomach. It all comes of the violation of natural laws, of justice and political health. Its eating ''income" and "increase" on capital, aggravates and gener- ates its unholy greed to still eat more. Its habits of permitting the stomach (capital) to keep all it gets and shift its just proportion of taxes and burdens of government, aggravate its disease of costive- ness. What is the remedy? Stop its unearthly, beastly, grave- like hunger and eating. Teach the patient it has something else than teeth, gullet and stomach ; that its other members want to, and by the grace of God they will, live. Deplete that stomach by giving the patient a healthy dose of ••income tax;" that will help deplete it so it may soon actually be able to stand on its feet and take a few steps in advance. Use these remedies, and time and nature, in a grander man and womanhood will do the rest. But as to time and manner of remedy in particular, as applied by law in practice, we will refer the reader to the different subjects as they follow. At this point we are told "capital is timid," it will not venture upon "investment" without •'inducement" and absolute "safety." We are aware of that; "timidity" is not the proper name: it is "tyranny." But, in fact, its timidity is thatof a freight train with no engine, or a baggage and provision train with no mules and drivers. Both would stand, and rust and rot down into the earth if not laid hold of, preserved and used by the energetic hand of labor. The destructive and tyrannical "timidity" of capital is not based in, nor does it arise out of. any natural advantage, su- periority or law, the law of God or nature, moral or material. It grows out of the vicious, artificial, destructive assumption we have been discussing, that capital, as such, has a right to accretion and increase. If you will permit me to assume a false premise and standpoint from which to reason and make law, I can prove anything and make any moral wrong legally right. If labor is compelled to offer all its reward to capita! to "induce" it to "invest" — to permit it to live and do its drudgery, its actual labor — human foresight and self- preservation would suggest, better desist and try one generation at least, and serif we cannot exist just as well without the labor. Capital has been on an organized "strike" in the use of legal and peaceable means for many. We will try it for one generation. Better let the canals till up., the railroad grades wash down, the tel- egraph poles tumble, the water craft rot at the docks, the improve- ments of lands go back to a state of nature, than daily and yearly yield all the reward of labor to those who turn it energized, by a false as- sumption and system on its creator. After one generation of such a "strike" labor would once more be respectable. Capital would not be so "timid." It would be seen that actual human labor is actually of some value. Or, if not, the country would go back, so far as material wealth is concerned, to comparatively a primitive 36 state, and the laborer then would exist better than now, on half the exertion. And then, and now, labor has all to gain and nothing to lose, and all the chances would be in favor of a start upon a more respectable and favorable basis on the new order of things. And labor has just the same right, yea, more, for with it it would be self- defense to thus organize and for one generation to come, agree sim- ply to live, to exist, as it has done and is now doing, and refuse to lay a hand to one of the enterprises we have mentioned and let them go back into the earth, that capital has to organize, as it has done, and lay hold of the law-making, interpreting and executing func- tions of society and government and use them to rob labor of its just reward. Labor has as much moral, legal and political right (and more natural right) to grow "timid" and demand "induce- ment and safety to invest" as capital. It has the natural right to grow both "timid and tired in view of its daily and yearly dimin- ishing and vanishing prospect. In this country it will not show the foresight, independence and blood of its fathers if it does not. Cap- ital, as such, has no right to demand anything more of labor than that, when labor uses it, labor shall assume the payment of the bur- dens of taxation on it while used, preserve and give security and assurance for the return of the principal intact to the "owner." For even then the "owner" has the advantage from every view of the situation. The rights of "owner" of property and capital • are created, conferred and protected by socieiy. Every right and ad- vantage to which a man may justly succeed in society has its cor- relative burden. The incidents of advantage that an "owner" of capital has are two : (1). The right to use and consume it as he chooses, so by do- ing it he does not injure society or others. A man has no right to wantonly burn his own house or destroy his own property. (2.) To use it as an investment, to not only preserve the orig- inal sum, but make addiiions and increase, by supplementing it with his daily attention and toil. The burden incident to the first right as owner is that of taxa- tion and the risk of holding it ; that risk as claimed by insurance companies is at the rate of from one to two and one-half per cent per annum. The burdens incident to the second right of the owner, that of investment, are all just named, and in addition thereto, the risk of his time and labor and the vicissitudes incident to gain and loss from the markets and natural law. If the owner chooses not to occupy either relation of "holder" or "invester," of his capital, but toloan it, he shifts all these burdens on to the borrower. (1). The risk of holding and insuring the return of the capital principal. (2). The burden of taxation on it and the risk of investment and the loss of his time and labor, perhaps all the capital he actually owns. So that even on this basis he is "servant to the lender" and may serve him for no reward. All his inves ment is at sea. depend- ent upon wind, tide, wet, drouth, lightning, peace, war, bad or no market, he stands a chance to actually lose all his investment of time and labor; the lender in no event can lose anything he actually ever had, has been and is released from burdens of taxation and risk of holding it ; and has been free with his time and labor to use it, as he chooses. They are still both men, although one is "owner" and "lender" and the other is a borrower; the one ought not be the better or the other the worse off as to his rights, as a man, before the law for that. And when their relations as lender and borrower are regulated upon the basis here contended for, still the lender will not then do to others, as he would they should do - to him. Even then the chances are against the borrower. CHAPTER X. LAND AND LAND TENT HE. A great potent physical law as irresistible as the law of gravi- tation and three great facts generated by it, crowd upon us great moral and political questions and issues that, put our civilization to a crucial test. The law is the obedience of the race to the natural and divine command, "go forth, multiply and replenish the earth." The three generated facts are: 1. That under the present compar- ative, peace and order of society the race is prolific. 2. Under these conditions populations are growing dense. 3. Nature does not spontaneously produce enough to subsist a dense population; it can only be done by the toil of human hands. Land is the basic- fact of animal existence. Man is an animal if he is no more ; he draws his subsistence from the earth in common with the other ani- mals. If he is no more than an animal he has the natural right to room on the face of the earth to live and subsist; and the right is as perfect in one man as another. And if he cannot have it without, he has the natural right to contend, light for and take it by force. If there is actually room for all and some are crowded because oth- ers occupy more than they need and naturally belongs to them, there is the more reason he should contend. If there is not actual- ly room he will contend and the law of force and the "survival of the fittest" will be the laAv, so that if we are only animals to live our brief allotted time, human prudence, foresight and self-preservation would suggest that we be neighborly and good natured and adjust ourselves to our new surroundings. For bad temper and bad na- ture makes bad neighbors, and it takes more room to live fighting than in peace — especially when our neighbors threaten to make room with gunpowder and dynamite. But, if we are more than animal, if this earth is only a propagating sphere of souls destined to live and think and feel and know forever, as Christians believe (or pretend 38 to), and these souls are effected here by the acts and conduct of their fellows and thus are developed and beautified or dwarfed and deformed and thus receive birth-marks that shall last forever, are the natural rights that would belong to man as an animal diminished or made less perfect by these considerations ? The gospels of tem- poral and eternal salvation go hand in hand. Christ taught both ; he said one human being, politically at least, is as good as another, when he said to all of them "do to others as ye would they should do to you." Men have stomachs as well as souls; they do not want a man or men, or church to tell them how to save their souls who conspire to and support laws and institutions that rob their bodies. Dwarfed, starved bodies make dwarfed, starved souls. If we are the offspring of an intelligent Father, who loves mercy, justice and his offspring, it is his will, we shall each have living and subsisting room to develop all the capacities of our being, and he must know, as well as we, "that a healthy mind must have its foundation, in a healthy body." We must believe there actually is such room on the earth for all his children ; or that he cannot, or does not direct these mat- ters. As a matter of fact we know there is ample room. To admit he does not direct, or care for our well being, is to concede all con- tended for by the unbelievers ; is to concede that he creates one class to "discover," "pre-empt" "own" and occupy the earth, with dogs, game, horses, mules, asses, cattle and sheep, for hunting and grazing grounds ; and another class to hang on the ragged edge of existence, suspended between heaven and earth, as if unlit for either, by that brittle thread, a "landlord's lease." Living to laborandla- boring to live. One man to "own" a million acres and a million men to own no acre. One man to riot daily, yearly, for genera- tions in the fruits of the toil of hundreds of men better before the laws of God and man than himself. Convince me such is the will and legac}' left to us, as his offspring, and my Bible goes to the owls and bats to swell the heap of musty "isms" of the world's his- tory. Then would Christ's words "do to others as ye would they should do to you" be the coldest irony. It cannot be believed much less practiced by an intelligent Christian. The fact, of dense popu- lations is crowding Christian civilization in at the gates of one or the other of two forums; the forum of reason and justice, when men in obedience to law consent to do their to fellows as they would their fellows, to reverse the situation, should do to them; or, the forum when they refuse to do that, and from whose unjust decrees men sooner or later appeal to arms and the law of force. There is no matter of choice about it; we may mouth, and demagogues deal in euphonious consonants and glittering generalities to dull the public- ear and hush into a drowse, but the surging tide of humanity, like the surf of the incoming tide and the moaning sea, crowds us daily, hourly, closer and closer, to a choice of the two. The situation is up- on us — the filling up process is a stubborn, actual fact. They are crowding in — you may growl, you may hop on one foot with your corns of prejudice and selfishness in your hand and scowl and make - —39 wry faces, and hurl political anathemas, maranthas and curses. But they will only smile at your simplicity and come right on, right in and suggest you keep your corns in a more diminutive circle. Con- gress can limit or suspend the coinage of silver, and the issue of currenc}" to enable the usurer to more effectively rob labor of its just reward; but it cannot "repeal" the law "go forth, multiply and re- plenish the earth." It goes on— it is the fiat of nature and nature's God, and the man and class of men who refuse to accept the new situation, the altered relation of things will find their situation daily becoming more and more uncomfortable. Civilization means a place for everybody and every body in his place. Why tell men to "mul- tiply" and "replenish the earth" if it is now too full. ' The short-winded, short-sighted, big girted, little hat-band class of men in this country and Europe who want to "own" all the land joining them, or a million acres apiece, ought to send in a re- monstrance to and demand repeal of that law. The police order of modern society is, straighten, even if you have to stand up ; take in your toes, your long, crooked, ungainly shanks; if you have corns look well to them, for the rest of mankind are too busy trying to live to do it, or stumble over or around you. You go to concert, lecture or theatre ; you get your ticket, your place, your section. your chair ; you get in the wrong "pew" or chair and you get "bounced!" — you must take your own place and stay in it; then you are comfortable and safe ; you get out, you get a quarrel and ejected, or like a bore, impose on the gentility of those who have more of the common decencies of mankind than yourself. Did you ever enter a crowded church when a big man took the aisle end of a pew and stuck to it like a postage stamp, and made men, women and children crowd or tumble over his knees and eleven brogans? The porcns of human nature will expose itself in all these minor relations of life. Of course the tame porcus who here is offensive only in his little meanness, in other and greater interests and rela tions of life, roused from the lair of his special privileges and advan- tages and asked to do to others as he would they should do to him be- comes the wild boar of the wildwood ; his hair all stands the other way — he walks crossed-legged and side-wise ; his tusks and foam and odor are ominous. A dense population, per force of circum- stances, puts us on our good behavior ; drives the individuals of soci- ety to an observance of "the better angels of our nature," to fideli- ty to these laws. Its existence depends on the contest waged be- tween fidelity and infidelity to them. Fidelity to them is the pre- servative, the "salt," the 'infidelity, the negative, the destructive tendency and disease; and if "its' salt hath lost its savor wherewith shall it be salted," or saved? "It is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men" and it will be done in obedience to 'he laws of human nature. As soon as one of these elements of society, the saving or the destructive one, gains a clear mastery over the other and the conditions all tend in the one or the other direction, the destiny of the community or nation in 40 that regard is fixed ; and it goes on its course like a planet in its orbit, in obedience to law. Jesus laid the foundation for the civili- zation of the future, in his gospel of temporal salvation, in the words to "'do to others as ye would they should do to you." That rule cannot harm a human being. In violation of it, every relation of man to man may be violated and not only the civilization of to- day, but the race itself be destroyed. Inside the rule is human finity and affinity, human safety and justice. Outside of it is infinity, repulsion, human danger and in- justice and consequent appeal to force. That rule and standard set- tles the rights of the parties in every relation, in every case. He who is too short will be stretched ; he who is too long will be amputated. A dense population will elbow and trample the individual until, if he cognizes no other, he will the law of fcrce. For they arc here, they have come to stay — they will insist on thinking they have a right to room to stay, and they will crowd him to somewhere near that rule, or he will have to crowd them out. That is an appeal to force anarchy. And he is the worst anarchist in society to-day, the most dangerous one, who claims most and concedes fewest rights to his fellow men. And he is the first one with whom it ought and for sake of self- preservation it will be compelled to deal. A moment's thought by a clear and unselfish mind will make this apparent. The man who deliberately and intelligently claims and demands rights and advan- tages in society, he refuses to concede toothers, challenges them to accept one of two situations he and his class force on them. First, submit to his unjust exactions, or second, resist them with force. Nature suggests and revelation sanctions the "home;" here the circle, the conditions for the propagation of the race are completed; in both it is the holy of holies. There the first lessons of mine and thine are learned by lisping prattlers at the mother's knees. There the first lessons of self-de- nial and self-government are taught. There republican self-government is enthroned or dethroned in the hearts of the people. It is the atom of our civilization. If the atom of the tissue and the molecules of the blood are formed under unnatural and diseased conditions they must he depraved and the whole body become sick. In the home natural love and affections grow, if at all, and shed their fragrance in all the relations in life, in society, and stimulate to habits of temperance, morality and industry. The first thing blighted by the influence of a dissolute man or woman is the home. There womanhood sheds sweetest fragrance, "childhood knows its sweetest joys ; innocence is a perfume and guilt a stench : there man- hood is made grave, grand, broad and deep in all that is best in us. "He that hath wife ami children hath given hostages to fortune." — Bacon. Read the history of the race as it has struggled for civil and religious liberty. Its pennons were carried over the moats and bulwarks of ignor- 41 ance, superstition, and conservative tyranny by the hands of grand men who came from virtuous homes lighted by love's watch fires. It never was confided to the hands of the homeless, the ignorant marauders, licentious libertines or slaves of avarice. -Conservative tyranny and greed always marshals that hessian and savory host un- der its banners A human home of comfort and respectability cannot be made in a den beneath or in an attic above the surface of the earth. If we credit holy writ, the first pair were not so located, but "in the midst of the garden to dress and keep it." The same breeze that rustled the leaves of the tree of •'"the knowledge of good and evil," fanned the cheek and lifted the golden tresses of bright, beautiful Eve. The same sunlight that fell on its rich pregnant soil, fell on the manly form of Adam, and both drank from the same limpid foun- tains in which the birds of paradise bathed their beaks and plumage. At this point our picture will be blotted by a suggestion of the "apple," the ejectment, the "flaming sword" and the "curse" by the pleader for special privileges. For man's sake the earth was cursed ; we do not understand the curse was on man. He was ejected from the inside of the garden and innocent nakedness and life. But at the same time got a deed to all outside, with only two limitations in the granting clause ; first that "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread;" second, "multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it," and along with this, death. Physical death was a necessary corollary of "multiply- ing;" for without it we now would not have standing or subsisting room, and our special pleader for special privileges would not be al- lowed a rod square of land. It is remarkable with what unanimity in all ages of the world, those who claim more for themselves than they are willing to concede to others, and with what fond and simple assurance they cling to the "curses" of the bible. "Cursed is Ham" from the lips of maudlin old Noah 800 B. C. was volumes of excuse for whipping women and selling babies in the eighteenth Christian century. Tell the Christian usurer, the Jew was not permitted under Mosaic law to take usury from a Jew and that Jesus said "I came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill ;" and he will inform you the Jew could take from the "stranger" or gentile. Then tell him Paul and Peter and the rest said there is no more "Jew or gentile," and he will inform you, he only takes eight per cent. It is natural and consonant with the dic- tates of human greed. Special privileges mean general curse. It is logical — the one follows the other. One grows out of the other as toad-stools on a dung-hill. It is the logic of events. If there is an intelligent Father and Creator of us all He in- tended we should be civilized. He is grieved at our miserable or degraded condition, at least as much as we would be at beholding our offspring, in such a state. Civilization is his designing and appointment. If its humanizing 42 and refining influences and results are pleasing to us, they are much more so to Him. If it is of his appointment it behooves us as professed christians to study the law and conditions under which it flourishes and thrives or languishes and dies. And the man or men who wilfully violate its laws and conditions are misanthropes and enemies to God and the race. What is it, then? In what does it consist? The name or word is derived from a Latin one, civies, a name applied b}' the ancient Romans to the dwellers in the cities ■bikI towns of that day, to distinguish them from the rude, untamed rustics of the country. It is a taming process ; it consists in a state, a condition, a disposi- tion of mind of men toward their fellows. If we go to a tribe so wild they flee from us, like the deer, we must first tame them to get in ear-shot ; show them we mean them no harm ; inspire them with faith, confidence, trust, that we wish and bring them only good. Faith, confidence, trust, is the foundation of civilization, as it is of every moral and material good. After gaining their confidence the next lesson to teach them is the difference between mine and thine. That seems to be about the last lesson men as citizens learn ; even so-called civilized men are liable to become confused at this point. Savage men cannot at first understand that those who cannot resist them with brute force have rights of person and property, they ought to respect In such a community, and among such men, woman, because of her defenselessness, is always made a menial and the means of gratifying beastly lust. They have always had but one court in which to try their mat ers of difference — that is the court of force and strong right arms. To civilize them they must be taught there i«i a higher, a nobler, a more humnne and God-like tribunal to which all such differences must be submitted ; that is, the forum of reason and justice, where all men's rights are sacred and no one will or can demand, as a right, more than he will cou- cede. Civilization is the reign of mind and justice ; barbarism is the reign of brute force and muscle. The one is reign of brain and heart, the other the reign of brawn and stomach. Our civilization still is a mixed one, and the page of history is a dark, bloody, tear-stained one. Ignorant, savage men. are ever distrustful — they distrust each other; they take no prisoners or practice the parole of honor in war; they must have hostages in time of peace. Even the eclipse nnd other manifestations of nature are to them harbingers of evil. They are dark and bloody-minded and clannish. The tendency is to dis- integration — against society — to go on dividing and isolating until each would be a tribe by himself. He then concludes his political horizon is the limit of all human and political good, the end of the world ; he is the center of the universe and it all revolves round him. The light of knowledge let in on his benighted mind changes the lenses in the field-glass of his observations and reverses his view of himself and surroundings. Instead of the hub he sees he is only a 43 spec on the ocean of matter and eternity, and dependent on all around him. The civilization of the past has been temporary, short lived, ephemeral, as its ruins scattered along the road of the race in an- tiquity testify. Most of the history of the past is made up of ac- counts of invasions made and repelled, of conquests and reconquests ; war over the "succession," whether this or that bigoted, stubborn blockhead shall wear a bauble called a crown. The national poli- cies of the past have been against all outside rather than for all in- side the boundary lines. Politically the civilized world is in a tranformation period. New conditions are rife in the political atmosphere ; it indicates a fluctu- ating moral barometer that forebodes a storm. There will soon be a series of political cyclones ; the magnetic and electrical powers of free thought, silently, but nevertheless uncontrolably, are gathering head ; it will soon strike and demolish edifices of special privileges, and greed nnd hobbies of the past. New ideas, like hatching chickens, have grown too large for the antiquated laws, customs and institutions moulded in the ignorance and greed of the past. Whole broods of them are pecking their way out; others are just out, with pieces of the shell yet on them ; more still are coming. Heretofore national policy has been one that busied itself with all outside its own boundaries. But the logic of events is driving the nations of Christendom to consider matters of inside rather than outside policy. Populations have multiplied and taken on tangible, sensitive forms, that fill their boundaries as a body fills a garment. Inside policy must engage the attention of the statesman of the future. To Europe no new world opens, to excite the cupidity and rapacity of its monarchs. Its crowded populations surge in ebulitions of discontent. On this side the Atlantic the saying, "Go west, young man, and grow up with the country," has lost its enticing charm. The day of conquest nd acquisition of territory has past. The day of planting, pruning and filling up has come. The ques- tions of the future is not, how large shall our boundaries be, but how full can we fill them ; not how many miles of area but how many population to the mile. It marks an era in the history of Christendom and the world ; a new civilization, or civilization under 'new conditions, is compelled to assert itself. Savage men cannot exist in a dense population. Society of the past has often given itself temporary relief by boiling over — by emigration into unoccu- pied territory- That source of relief is gone to-day. It is compell- ed to receive the shock of its ebulitions turned back upon itself. Like the sea it is compelled to purify itself or grow stagnant and life-destroying, The ever recurring question is, can it do it? When there was not a man to a square mile the question of lim- itation of the ownership of land was below our political horizon. Then, if it flattered a man's vanity to claim and "own" all insight or between him and the setting sun, it had the virtue, at least, of 44 innocence — it harmed no one. But that day has passed. Men now have come to claim their heritage and natural rights. The question rises on our horizon "like a man's hand" at first, but it rapidly as- sumes proportions that portend a storm. The million men with no acre question the title of the man with a million acres ; they file ejectments against him in the forum of reason and justice — they urge the cause for trial. They say, "On what meat doth this oi e Ciesar feed that he hath grown so great?" His claims and ownership dis- inherit them of the rights of even animals. They would not be men if they did not commence to examine his title. In this country the first link in his chain of title is that of "dis- covery;" in Europe it is clubs, spears and short swords. On this continent the next link is that of "pre-emption;" that is first buy- ing of some form of government, or some body who got in sight of it first and laid hold of all in sight, like the passenger in the empty railway coach. By these means, soulless, heartless corporations, "artificial per- sons" created by civil government, by men, have laid hold upon millions of acres and forbid natural persons created in God's image to enter ; crowd them out into the highways and hedges down into dens beneath and up into attics above the surface of the earth. And they are still crowding into and after our public domain. All the spawn of the effete, thick blooded, cowardly, insolent, royal and aristocratic scions of Europe and our own shoddy aristoc- racy think they must each and all be accomodated to a million acres and a "living;" they must all be provided for. There is now little or no room for them on the blood and tear-stained bone-yards, camps, forts and arsenals they have made of Europe. They must have room and foot-hold, to disinherit the sons and daughters of the Revolutionary Fathers of 1776 — who founded the World's Republic. And thus far they are having things about in accord with their own sweet wills. The successors of Washington in the presidential chair have bowed and scraped to them like shaving horses and hand- ed out to them, sweet-scented, rose-tinted "Patents," of the public domain of the "land of the free and the home of the brave." This is not overdrawn : it is a bare statement of a shameful fact. They possess and occupy with great complacency and the sons and daughters of Washington and the Revolutionary Fathers "stay if they can rent." These questions of land and land tenure always come up on the tidal wave of a dense population. It came on Rome in the 5th century, B. C. ; she battled with and failed to settle it and it settled Rome. Ever since the contest between the "plebian" and the "patrician" has waged with varying fortune in different ages and countries. The "patrician" is always the rich, the land owning, the en- croaching, the tyrannizing class. The "plebian" is the poor, the dis- inherited, the assailed, the oppressed class. There is no longer any room for the owner of a thousand acres of land in the domain of Christendom. — 45 Because first, he does not, no human being or family does need it and cannot use it any more than they need or can use one of the tributaries of the great rivers exclusively for drink. And second, if they did and all others had or can acquire just as good right to that much land, there is not not enough to go round at that rate. The situation puts the cause on the docket and demands a trial in one or the other of the two forums. To-da}' we may choose in which it shall go, the court of reason and justice or the forum of dynamite and force. No use to shut our eyes and say there is no cause, no court has jurisdiction. Charles I. tried that— he denied the jurisdiction of the court ; but that did not disturb the court ; Charles only lost his head, that was all. The court stripped him of his royal toggery and in its presence he was nobody, butplain Charles Stuart. Louis XVI did the same — it did not prevent the cause going into court, the court of force, and his denying its juris- diction did not in the least postpone the descent of the glittering blade of the guillotine on his royal neck. Both of them had a day for peace, an opportunity "to agree with the adversary quickly, while they were in the way with him." Both refused to listen to reason or justice ; both refused to accept and submit their cause to the jurisdiction and decree of that court. Both appealed to the forum, the court of force, and they nor their friends have any cause to complain of the judgment of the court into which they by choice carried their cause ; although its judgment and execution were somewhat summary, it would have been the same if the}' had been successful. Shall we profit by thier example? "Ciesar had his Brutus, Charles I. his Cromwell" and the "patricians" of to-day will do well to profit by their example. "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided and that is the lamp of experience." The "plebians" instead of a Brutus or a Cromwell, will have a Cincinnatus or a Washington; the "patrician's" cause may have a "Boston massacre" "Lexington" or "Concord," at the first; it will "sing Yankee Doodle as its ancestors did, undoubtedly it is doing it now: but in the end, in the outcome, in the "last ditch at Yorktown" it will be at the Cornwallis the surrender end of the situation. The language of temperance, philanthropy and patriotism is carry this cause, while we may, into the court of reason and justice. Stop our ears to the clamour of both the Herr Most and the Gould- Vander- bilt wings of the anarchist's factions. Do it before it is carried to the other court. No use to lag — no use to say there is no cause. The same cause came up to be tried between the church and state on one side and the people of France on the other. The people plead in rags, sack-cloth and ashes of poverty for generations with ihe "secular" and clerical "princes" the two orders, the church and state. Their pleading only inspired more insolence and robbery un- til in 1774 the secular and clerical "princes" and "orders" owned three-fifths of the best lands of France. The only relief granted by ihem to the down-trodden people and peasantry was to clasp their 46- arms together more closely and plant their feet more securely on their necks. Finally the people said, you spurn the court of reason and justice do you? You appeal to the court of force? So do we! Now try the cause in your own court. And the scenes that followed made the world stand aghast— the record is written in blood, tears and ashes. A like cause came up for hearing in our own loved country ; we were appealed to as a nation, to love, mercy and deal justly with a poor down-trodden people. As a nation we refused to do it in the forum of peace and justice. We paid dearly in blood, tears, treas- ure, ashes, vacant hearthstones and hearts. Shall the "lamp of experience" be of any use to us? Let us act the part of an intelli- gent, patriotic people. Admit there is a cause to be tried— admit it has merits — admit the "plebians" have cause for complaint — admit thev have rights that must be better protected*, by better law and better administration of it. Say to the masses of the people "come let us reason together," as just and reasonable men. Say to them no one has a right to demand and enforce special privileges ; all ought, all must in all these matters do to others as they would oth- ers do to them. You have a right to the fruits of your labor and the right to make homes by your industry. Of course this will not suit either wing of the anarchists fac- tions, but it will be in accord with humane statesmanship. And what is the remedy? In the first place it is not in taking from one man and giving to another for no equivalent rendered. As we have seen that is the very thing, the very wrong that has destroy- ed the equation of justice between labor and capital. "Two wrongs do not make one right." The question is capable of solution and justice can be done by an application of well-known and recognized principles. For, although principles are eternal in their nature and are al- ways the same, yet in the history of the civilization of the world all of them that are now acknowledged and are benign in influence, once, were new to it and the assertion of every such one has cost the race generations of civil and political travail, in blood and tears. The birth of each was a shock to society. If this cause can be met^ and the conflicting interests at stake determined by the application of recognized principles, it will be a great relief to society. It is a question and situation that cannot but create solicitude in the mind of the patriot and philanthropist. And now we lay down this proposition, not as anything new, but so old it seems almost obsolete. Actual occupation and use confers the only pre-eminent right and title to the exclusive possession of real estate on a human being. It is the only legitimate title by which one person may exclude oth- ers from possession of distinct portions of the earth. No human being ever rightfully acquired more, and none can convey any more or better title than they have. To show this is not new or an inno- 47 vation upon accepted and established principles, I now quote from Blackstone, Book II, Chapter I, Title "Of Property in General." There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and en- gages the affections of mankind, as the right of property or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe, and yet there are verv few that will give themselves the trouble to consider the original and foundation of this right. Pleased as we are with the possession we seem afraid to look back to the means by which it was acquired, as if fearful of some defect in our title ; or at best we rest satisfied with the decis- ion of the laws in our favor without examining the reason or authority upon which those laws have been built. We think it enough that our title is derived by the grant of the former proprietor by descent from our ancestors or by the last will and testament of the dying owner; not caring to reflect that (accurately and strictly speaking) there is no foundation in nature or in natural law why a set of words upon parchment should convey the dominion of land ; why the son should have a right to exclude his fellow creatures from a determin- ate spot of ground, because his father had done so before him ; or why the occupier of a particular field or of a jewel, when lying on his death-bed, and no longer able to maintain possession, should be entitled to tell the rest of the world which of them should enjoy it after him. These inquires, it must be owned, would be useless and even troublesome in common life. It is well if the mass of man- kind will obey the laws when made without scrutinizing too nicely into the reasons of making them. But, when law is to be consider- ed not only as a matter of practice, but also as a rational science it cannot be improper or useless to examine more deeply the rudi- ments and grounds of these positive constitutions of society. In the beginning of the world we are informed by holy writ, the all bountiful Creator gave to man "dominion over all the earth, and over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over ev- ery living thing that moveth upon the earth." This is the only true and solid foundation of man's dominion over external things, what- ever airy metaphysical notions may have been started by fanciful writers upon this subject. The earth, therefore, and all things therein are the general property of all mankind, exclusive of other beings from the immediate gift of the Creator, and, while the earth continued bare of inhabitants, it is reasonable to suppose that all was in common among them, and that every one took from the public stock to his own use such things as his immediate necessities required. These general nctions of property were then sufficient to answer all the purposes of human life, and might perhaps still have answered them had it been possible for mankind to have remained in a state of primeval simplicity ; as may be collected from the man- ners of many American nations when first discovered by the Euro- pean and from the ancient method of living among the first Europe- ans themselves, if we may credit either the memorials of them pre- —48- served in the golden age of the poets, or the uniform accounts given by historians of those times wherein "erant Omnis communia et in- divisa omnibus vehiti munn cunctus patrimonium e.,0n0, equal te the annual cost of a standing army of 246,000 men per annum, how did it hap- pen that "Resumption came? or did it come without it? If it did then that fact alone stamps that treasonable provision of the act as one compared to which Arnold's treason and "tiring on Sumpter" were innocent as a crime against the country and race without parallel in modern times. If it was necessary as this Sec- retary and all the others, time and again asserted, then we have now no resumption. Our Secretary and the bank oligarchy of treason can take either horn of the dilemma they choose. When the Amer- ican people awake to the sense of their serfdom, as they will, eith- er one will be too hot for them to enjoy the situation. Our Secre- tary was like a thief taken in the act by the law of Congress of May 105 31, 1878. He and the bankers were sore dismayed, that they were not permitted to compass the destruction of the legal tender notes under the provisions of the Resumption Act. In his and their "Report" to Congress printed at public expense, -'Finance Re- port, 1879," page 10, the old bank attorney quotes the provision of the law, 1878, requiring him to "re-issue and pay out again" all le- gal tender notes, and then proceeds to argue they could only be paid out for "coin' 1 or "bullion." And thus he and they hoped to and in a measure did evade that provision of the law. And then this officer of the government, paid out of its treasury, using its money to print and publish his treasonable arguments at the suggestion and dictation of his bank masters proceeds to make the point and argument against the peoples' money that it cannot, con- stitutionally be a legal tender in time of peace and paid out by the government, as follows : "The Secretary respectfully calls the attention of Congress to the question whether United States notes ought still to be a legal tender in the payment of debts. The power of Congress to make them such was asserted by Congress during the war and was up- held by the Supreme Court. The power to issue them in time of peace after they are once returned is still contested in the court. Prior to 1862, only gold and silver were a legal tender. Bullion was deposited by private individuals, in the mints and coined in convenient forms and designs indicating weight and fineness. Pa- per money is a promise to pay such coin. No constitutional objec- tion is raised against the issue of notes not bearing interest to be used as a part of the circulating medium. The chief objection to the emission of paper money by the government grows out of the legal tender clause, for without this the United States note would be measured by its convenience, its safety, and itsprompt redemption." And of this ad infinitum. Thus did this old political repro- bate in the interest of a "a class" prostitute his high office and as- sault the peoples' money. Foiled in destroying it and heaping on his confiding and suffering fellow-countrymen, a burden of $74,- o00,000 per annum, he now seeks to accomplish the same purpose by destroying the legal tender quality of that money. Even if the.y were not legal tender, even then they were as good a currency for the people as the bank notes. And this old apologizer for bank tyr- any knew it. But to destroy their legal tender quality put them in the power of the banks to refuse to receive them and thus "their prompt redemption" would be accomplished. He had already stated in this same report the legal tender notes were then on a par with gold. The whole volume of $346,000,000 then nor any year since cost the people $10,000 per annum and served every purpose of money. But that was just the reason this old ingrate sought their de- struction as a currency that on his own statement in 18G8, cost the people and paid the bankers the sum of $74,000,000 per annum 106 might be substituted in its place. And think one moment of the financial ruin such a measure as the sudden and unannounced re- peal of the legal tender clause of the legal lender note, then a vol- ume of $346,000,000, in the hands of the people, as advised and contended for by our Secretary would have caused ! Our panic of 1873 would have been mild compared with it. And in line with this "recommendation" of his is the following on page 14 of same Report. "He again respectfully calls the attention of Congress to the importance of further limiting the coinage of the silver dollar." And why do this? On page 10 of this Report when assailing the legal tender note he said: "Prior to 1862 only gold and silver were a legal tender. Bullion was deposited by private individuals in the mints and coined in convenient forms and designs indicating weight and fineness.' 1 And on that bases an argument the legal tender clause of the legal tender note, was unconstitutional, it was only "a promise to pay money," coin. That is the very effect of the silver bill of 1878 ; the government buys the bullion, coins it, at a rate, not to exceed four nor less than two million dollars per month and makes money in the operation at the rate of about ten per cent on all the coin handled. And if the owner of bullion prefers it he can have silver certificates in convenient denominations to circulate as money and leave the coin or bullion in the treasury. That is "a currency based upon and redeemable in coin," the only one the country ever had. And that these bank shylocks pretend was what they sought and contended for in "Resumption." We would sup- pose they would be pleased with "the coinage of silver." Are they? They have fought it as mercilessly as they have the legal tender note. Why? Because they do not, can not, own and con- trol it, as a volume and loan it to the people ; because government does not give it to them. It puts a money in the field in competition with their bank notes. The fruition of their hell-born conspiracy, against the liberties of the Republic is, they shall own and control the volume of the cur- rency. Hence the assaults on the "coinage of the silver dollar," in common with the legal tender notes. And when he and his subsid- ized successors have been unable to secure a repeal of the silver coinage law, they refused to obey its mandates and have issued the silver certificates, in denominations too great to be used by the peo- ple as money in denominations $500 and $1,000. We call atten- tion next to Report of Charles J. Folger's "Finance Report 1881"' page 10. Here we learn that at that time, there were then issued $96,000,000 of silver certificats and $34,0(10,000 of standard silver dollars in actual circulation among the people. On next page this subsidized official shows his indecent haste and eagerness for the banker's cause and desire to betray the people in thislanguuge : "As is said elsewhere herein the circulation of some sixty-six millions of silver certificates seems an inexpedient addition to the paper cur- rency. 107 They are made a legal tender for the purposes named, yet have for their basis about eighty-eight per cent, only of their nominal value. There is no promise from government to make good the differ- ence between their actual and nominal value. There need be no apprehension of a too limited paper circulation. (No certainly not.) "The national banks are ready to issue their notes in such quantity, as the laws of trade demand (they being the judges) and as securi- ty therefor the government will hold an equivalent in itsown bonds." And the idiots, the people, can borrow the bank notes as money at the rate, seven per cent per annum ; paj- for them each ten years in interest and yet never own them. He seems to presume upon their ignorance ; as their plans unfold and he and the bankers fear defeat, their audacity betrays them. Certainly the banks are ready to issue the paper money of the Republic and have been for fifteen } T ears only too eager to do it. This Secretary of the Treasury, like the rest, thinks the people are too dull of comprehension, to understand the effect of his, the bankers' and bondholders' conspiracy. And on page 12 of the same Report, this servant of the shylocks pleads their cause against the people in this language : "This department has little to add to what has been said in former reports from it on the notes known as legal tender notes. That they are convenient and safe for the com- munity is without doubt. That it is also for the profit of the gov- ernment to continue them is also without doubt. Yet there is one consideration that should have notice and that is whether the gov- ernment can continue to claim for them, the quality of being legal tender for debts. This department understands that the constitu- tionality of making them a solvent of contracts, was founded in the exigencies of the government raised by the civil war." If they are at par with gold as they have been since 1879, "con- venient and safe for the community," and "it is for the profit of government to continue them," in the name of the great American people and the world's republic, who has an objection to them? No one but the traitorous horde of bond and bank ingrates who want to and have for centuries eaten "their bread in the sweat of other men's faces" by levying their devilish S3 r stems of perpetual usury draw- ing debt upon the people, and here we have the humiliating spectacle of a bribed, sworn officer, as their mouth-piece, making an argument to strip the people of their legal tender money coined of their faith, credit and patriotism and baptized in their blood and tears, and thus sanctified, in the war to put down the chattel slaveholders' rebellion. And this shameless attorney has only done half hisdut when he has assaulted and tried to outlaw and destroy the legal tender note. No, here is the standard silver dollar still coined at the rate of $2,000,- 000 per month or $>24,0<>( 1,000 per annum. It is crowding his bank masters in the field of the peoples' money. Yes, there is another currency that does not bring any income to his bank masters ; he must need strike it and the peoples' cause 108 one more blow. Hear this pettifogger of the tyrant's cause, page 15, same report." "The silver question obviously is one that de- mands the early attention of our law makers or the snbject may drift beyond our (that is his and the banker's) control, unless con- trol is retained at a great sacrifice." (To whom we ask? Who complains of silver but this official and his confederates.) "A con- tinuance of the monthly addition to our silver coinage will soon leave us no choice, but that of an exclusive silver coinage and tend to reduce us in the commercial world among the minor and less civ- ilized nations." * * "It is therefore recommended that tbe provision for the coinage of a fixed amount per month be re- pealed and the Secretary be authorized to coin only so much as will be necessary to supply the demand" he and his bank confederates being the judges. They have always claimed there was no "demand" at all for the coinage of the standard silver dollar, that it is dishonest and a fraud. This sworn salaried officer and expounder of the constitu- tion of the republic has the sublime impudence in the interests of a class to ask "the Congress" to abdicate control on this subject and turn it over to his control in direct violation of the letter and spirit of the constitution. Once done, farewell to the coinage of silver, for he and the banker would conclude none was "necessary to the supply the demand." These men have so long gone unrebuked and unwhipped of justice, they have the impudence of their English political ancestors and of the devil when he took Jesus up into an exceedingly high mountain." We shall quote from the messages of but two Presidents to Congress ; first, that of Mr. Arthur in 1882. He clearly discloses the policy of the conspirators to prevent and retard the payment of the national debt ; his zeal ran away with his discretion in this lan- guage in that document. "Such rapid extinguishment of the national debt as is now taking place, is by no means a cause for congratulation ; it is a cause rath- er for serious apprehension. If it continues it must speedily be followed by one of the evil results, so clearly set forth in the report of the Secretary — either tlvat the surplus must lie idle in the treas- ury or the government will be forced to buy at market rates its bonds not then redeemable, which under such circumstances cannot fail to command enormous premiums, or the swollen revenues will be devoted to extravagant expenditures which our experience has taught is ever the bane of an overflowing treasury." Is not that a piece of profound statesmanship? The "rapid ex- tinguishment of the national debt," that is, a little over half of it in twenty years, is no matter of congratulation. No, indeed, to the national bankers, presidents, secretaries and controllers, who have racked their brains to devise ways and means how not to'pay the na- tional debt. For if paid it relegates their banks to the shades of the past. If this "extinguishment" is so rapid as to be a ground for "serious apprehension," we suppose none at all would relieve 109 them. It is a mild way of trying the English doctrine "that a na- tional debt is a national blessing," on the American people. The following from Mr. Hayes' message to Congress, 1879, shows his ignorant or wilful servility to the plans of the oligarchy : "There are still in existence, uncanceled, $346,681,016 of United States legal-tender notes. These notes were authorized as a war measure, made necessary by the exigencies of the conflict in which the United States was then engaged. The preservation of the Nation's existence required, in the judgment of Congress, an issue of legal tender paper money. That it served well the purpose for which it was created is not questioned, but the employment of the notes as currency indefinitely, after the accomplishment of the object for which they were provided, was not contemplated by the framers of the law under which they were issued. These notes long since became like any other pecuniary obligation of the Government — a debt to be paid, and when paid to be canceled as mere evidence of an indebtedness no longer existing. I therefore repeat what was said in the annual message of last year, that the retirement from circulation of United States notes with the capacity of legal tender in private contracts, is a step to be taken in our progress towards a safe and stable currency, which should be accepted as the policy and duty of the Government and the interest and security of the people." The}- were "a debt to be paid;" yes, paid over and over again to an anglicised alien bank oligarchy and aristocracy. Yes, sir, you and the whole cordon of treason have "repeated." over and over again your foul, treasonable arguments, recommendations and com- mands. But, thank God, the people have not yet complied with your desires. But some of our readers may say, that is all of republican ad- ministration ; wait until there is a change. We will only quote enough from Secretary Manning's "Finance Report, 1885," to show no change was made in the policy, unless the bank conspiracy is more audacious under the new than the old : On page 15 the Secretary, under the title "Currency Reform," shows that all the reform he seeks is to undo all that has been done in behalf of the people in this matter in the last twenty years. He says : "Currency reform is first in the order of importance and time, and fitly precedes other reforms, even taxation reform, because it will facilitate all other reforms, and because it cannot safely be de- ferred." (These are very just observations ; but we shall see this minister of the republic proceed to reform all that is just instead of the abuses. He commences to reform at the same end of affairs that Louis XVI. and Charles I. did.) "The coinage act of 1878 is overloading the mints with unis- sued, the sub-treasuries with returned silver dollars, and will una- voidably convert the funds of the Treasury into these depreciated and depreciating coins." And this official used all the power of his department to defeat the benefits of the silver, coined as a money 110 for the people, as was clearly pointed out by Senator Beck in his memorable speech and expose of the villainies of that department, practiced for years, in the debate on the bill to suspend silver coin- age. This unblushing Secretary writes of this matter as if the coin- age and money of the country was made for bankers only. Whoever heard of the standard dollar being "depreciated or depreciating," in the estimation of anybody but this cordon of unstriped convicts? He continues: "The disorders of our currency chiefly arise from the operation of two enactments: 1. The act of February 23rd, 1878, which has been construed as a permanent appropriation for perpet- ual treasury purchases of at least $24,000,000 worth of silver per annum, although, from causes mostly foreign, that metal is now mutable and falling in value,) which must be manufactured into coins of unlimited legal tender and issued to the people of the Unit- ed States as equivalent of our monetary unit." Yes, this, the first victory of the people over organized con- spiracy of legal and political scoundrelism in twenty years, must be repealed as the first step to "reform;" that is. to "reform" the re- public to subjection to the minions of greed. Hear the second great cause of complaint of this bribed official: "2. The act of May 31st, 1878, which indefinitely postponed the fulfillment of the solemn pledge (March 18th, 1869,) not only of "redemption" but also of "payment" of all the obligations of the United States not bearing interest, legalized as $346,000,00 » paper money of unlimited legal tender, and required the past-redemption issue and re-issue of this promise to pay dollars to the people of the United States as equivalents of our monetary unit." The bank flunkey actually seems mad : how he and the bank- ers cling to that solemn, suborned pledge of 1869. He does not remember, when speaking contemptuously of the legalized $346, 000,- 000 paper money," that the banks, during the same period, owned and issued a volume nearly as great of "paper money" that was not legal tender. He forgets that the American people were saved the sum of $74,500,000 per annum every year since, by the patriots who enacted that wise measure ; saved to them a tax equal to a standing army of 246, 'Hie men per annum, at a cost of $300 per man. But what enrages him is, the people retain this, and the bankers cannot rob them of it. Here is what Senator Beck, of Kentucky, said in a speech on the floor of the U. S. Senate, Feb. 9th, 1885, of the bank influence of to-day, in the debate on the bankers' bill to strike down the coinage of silver : "Yet to-day, in order to force us to strike down silver, these banks, in violation of the law, are combining with others, although they are prohibited by the very act granting their charters from do- ing so, and are refusing to receive silver certificates, for the purpose, of course, of making them less valuable, the laws of Congress to the contrary, notwithstanding. Mr. President, I do not care to argue this matter elaborately, indeed, I do not care to do it all, but when we discuss it I think it will be shown to the satisfaction of the peo- Ill pie of the country that the present condition is the result of an un- lawfid combination, organized in part by men who are our fiscal agents, our creatures, living under our law, having only such au- thority as we see fit to give them, and yet they are publicly defying our authority, because they think it is their individual interest to do so. The}- are endeavoring to drive silver and the silver certifi- cates which we have provided for out of existence, in order to bring gold to a premium, and thus embarrass the government of this country." And our Secretary Manning was a party to the conspiracy, as every one of them has been since 1864. "With officers to enforce the law we have law enough, with of- ficials here, to compel them to obey it. We have law enough, but there is no effort to punish them, and never has been anything but pretenses. 11 „ Mr. Morgan. — "If I understand the statement made by the Senator from Kentucky, a member of the Committee on Finance, it is that the banks have deliberately violated the laws, the criminal laws of the United States ; that the Secretary of the Treasury re- ports these violations to Congress and to the Committee on Finance, and instead of there having been any proceedings taken to punish the men who openly and flagrantly violate the lnw, a mere admoni- tion is served upon them that hereafter they must do better than that, or else they will be dealt with. Is that the situation?" * Mr. Beck. — "That is the way I understand it, substantially." Mr. Morgan. — "Last spring I received quite a rebuff in the Senate for having invited the Committee on Finance to look into this question, and make a report upon it. The resolution that I had the honor to introduce was referred to that Committee, and they Hat down upon it. They have got it still in the Committee, without having paid the slightest attention to it, I believe; and now it turns out, from the statement of a member of the Committee on Finance, that all of those able Senators have been cognizant of the fact these crimes have been committed ; that the President of the United States has been cognizant of the fact these crimes have been com- mitted, and that they have not got the power to call these criminals to justice, and punish them for the violation of the law. I will further add, if the Senator from Kentuck} T will permit me, that there is no use multiplying statutes merely to be dishonorded by the Senate of the United States by its constant ignoring of crime committed against law, which they refuse to take any step to insist shall be punished." Congressional Record, Vol. 16, part 2, pages 1461 and 1462. This was plain, speaking in the teeth of some of the Arch Conspira- tors and "criminals." The first plain truth spoken on that floor for twenty years, on that subject. Thank God for two tribunes of the people, two unterrified, unbribed Romans, who dared tell the criminals of their high crimes and treason to their faces. What a humiliation! TwoSenators of the United States, on their oaths, fac- 112 ing that depraved body, telling it in plain terms of crimes and acts of treason; at which it "winked." That law, made for that class of criminals "was constantly and persistently ignored" by them and the President. And no political ingrate or scoundrel among them, dared attempt to refute the charge of these patriots; if they did, they knew the half had not been told and the expose would only be more merciless The policy of that class is "addition, division and silence ." Treat such unbribed, fearless patriots as Senators Morgan and Beck, Congressman Weaver, of Iowa, and others, with silence? It remains to be seen whether they can carry out that policy; if they can, farewell to the liberties of the republic. "They who sleep upon their rights, will soon awake amid their wrongs." The American people "are amid their wrongs" and are still asleep. Can any one now doubt the organized assault of the banks upon all other species of currency, the legal tender note and the silver coinage and certificates, all but that of gold? That by undue and criminal influence it has converted two departments of government and their officers to obey its behests? What feeling but that of contempt can be inspired for a government that will punish petty offences of clip ping or counterfeiting a few coins, or a little currency and then "wink" at wholesale conspiracies to violate and public violations of the law committed against its currency of ten hundred times the magnitude?' — The only difference is, the one class of petty offences are committed by poor individuals; the wholesale crimes, akin to treason are committed by wealthy corporations Our "Rump Cor poration Millionaire Parliament" as usual "strains at a (private) gnat and swallows a (corporation) camel" without a blink The National banks never were intended to be a permanent in- stitution of the country by the men who created them. It has ever been the policy of our government to pay in time ot peace the un- avoidable debts contracted in time of war. But for these banks to be permanent about a thousud million dollars of the debt must he made perpetual. The measure of the banks was a compromise with the minions of greed to secure the passage of the legal tender acts. And the men who enacted t lie first law tried to re- strain them by many wholesome provis'ons. In no case were they to have and issue more than $300,000,000 of bank notes; they were to be distributed over the States and territories according to popu- lation ascertained by the census ; they were in no case to have cur rency to exceed ninety per cent of the principal of bonds, pledged for its redemption ; they were taxed one per cent per annum on cir- culation and for revenue on checks and drafts. One by one they have assaulted every one of these provisons and now the last one is gone. No limit on the amount of currency they may issue ; they may have currency to the par value of the bonds and the taxes are repealed. Not onlv that it has gone into the cabinet of the execu- tive and officers of heads of departments and into the Congress and by nameless and undue influences secured such action and legisla- 113 tion as is a public scandal and are positive subversions of the Con- stitution. (1.) Was its shameless and brazen intermeddling in pro- curing the so-called '"Act to strengthen the public credit in 18G9. In fact it was intended to and did add twenty-five per cent to the public debt in value to the bondholders and in burdens to the people and tended in that much to perpetuate it. In fact it did not "strength- en the public credit," as the value of the legal tender, as our barome- ter of that fact since it has been in existence, shows our credit rose faster by one-half before than after the passege of the act. (2). Was its undue influence seen in the fraud practiced on the country in demonetizing silver in all sums over five dollars under the pre- tense of Revising the Laws concerning the mints and coinage in 1878. (3.) In the Infamous Resumption Act, passed for no pur- pose, but to destroy the fractional currency and the legal tender notes and put bank notes in their place. If its provisions had been carried out, we would now be absolutely at their mercy as to the volume of the currency. " Whosoever controls the volume of the currency is absolute master of the commerce and industries of the country," said Garfield, cne of the ablest advocates of their cause against the people whoever spoke upon the subject. (4.) But in 1878 a little spirit of resistance to its t3(),< 00 per annum has been coined. And in May, same year, came the law to arrest the further destruction and require the re-issue of legal tender notes and repeal the infamous tyrannical provisions of the "Resumption" act. These were the first defeats of its influence. Since 1878 the house has had a little red blood of the people in it. But our Senate and the executive department with its cabinet has always and yet stand fast allies of the banks. They stand as true to it as the Nobility to Charles I, the "Notables" to Louis XVI and the hessians and tories to George III. Since 1878 it and its allies have made headway but slowly in the face of the rebellion of the House to its tyrannical purposes. But defiant in its unpunished course of crime it determined to as- sault and carry and use for its purposes the last stronghold of the constitution and the peoples' liberties, the conscience and heart of the nation, the judicial department. It said to itself if by fawning treason, brazen impudence and undue influence, such as has succeed- ed with the Senate and Executive Department, this one can be car- ried to subserve our purpose, then is the peoples' cause and their money, the legal tender notes, overthrown. Then the "dumb, driven cattle," will be subjected to servitude by a decision of the highest tribunal of the country. Just as the "chattel slaveholder" in the last extreme of his cause and in the height of his "pride" that goeth before destruction," sought to draw a decision from that court to sanction his unjust assumptions in 114 the famous "Dred Scott Decision." So now the "Wage Slavehold- er," will have a decision of the Supreme Court, declaring that the great American people, "in time of peace." and for "their own convenience" and "the profit of their government" cannot keep in circulation among them for domestic use, a volume of $346,009,- 000 of legal tender notes without the consent of their bank masters. That is to say that the "wage slaves have no rights that their bank masters are bound to respect." Yes, said our bank masters among themselves, we will secure a decision that shall declare the legal ten- der acts of Congress so far as the legal tender quality of the treas- ury notes are concerned, have been and now are unconstitutional. Our "Dred Scott Decision," will reduce the House and people to their position of servility and subjection occupied until 1878. And by this decision we can pay all expenses ; for in thirty years after the destruction of the legal tender notes at the rate of $74,500,0(10 interest on bonds and bank currency we can reap out of the sweat and toil of the wage-slave a sum sufficient to have paid $750 per head for every one of the 3,000,000 chattel slaves freed by the shedding of the blood and $2,750,000,000 of treasury of the late war. Make }^our own calculation and it will do it. You see this devilish influence has a moive to continue a siege of thirty years in time of peace upon the constitution and liberties of the people. That sum would print a good many sweet-scented rose- tinted "memorials" to the "Rump Corporation and Millionaire Par- liament" and subsidize a venal press for fifty years. The American people are asleep! Will they never arouse? No such question in- volving such supreme human interests, was ever before in the his- tory of the world, presented to an earthly tribunal as that involved in the issues submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States. in the Famous Legal Tender Cause, Knox vs. Lee, et al, 12 Wallace Report. The Revolutionary Fathers in 1776, rebelled against direct "taxation without representation" by direct claim of absolute pre- rogative" to do it by George III. They rebelled because the prin- ciple asserted by George III and his ministry, denied to the colo- nies, the right of "representation;'' and thus denied to them every attribute of national sovereignty as a people. And this right they claimed as Englishmen ; nor did they refuse to be taxed to defray the expenses of the then late "French and Indian War;" but refus- ed to be unless done impliedly at least with their consent by a body or parliament in which they were represented. But they did not rebel against the tax of the usurers that for a century had been lev- ied on the Englishmen by means of interest on a perpetual debt and bank of England notes based on the debt. That species of tyranny and "prerogative" did not figure in the Revolution of 1776. No declaration of independence in terms was made or gain- ed en that subject. The issue was made on the issue of direct "taxation without representation" and gained on that issue. And against the fact of encroachment on the liberties of the people from this stand-point the fathers made ample provision in the 115 constitution. Against the fact of encroachment by the usurer and his indirect tax by assuming the functions of the sovereignty of the people of England, that of issuing and emitting the volume of the paper currency of the nation to the people by loaning it to them in bank of England notes, no provision was made in express or any terms. For three centuries nearly, the English people have been chat- tel mortgaged to the aristocracy and Jewish usurers by a perpetual national debt, so great it is dmitted there is no hope, of paying anything but the interest ; they, their children, and children's chil- dren are mortgaged after them in perpetuity. Our shoddy, apish, would be aristocracy, since 1863, have been eager listeners and learners at the knees of the thick blue-blooded, brutal class, who have owned and still own this chattel mortgage, on the masses of the English people. And they have concluded it would be a good thing for them to import the English monarchial system to and en- graft it upon the World's Republic. And in this enterprise they have the hearty co-operation and sympathy of all the royal and ar- istocratic drones and thieves in Europe, who from generation to generation have eaten their bread in the sweat, blood and tears of the masses of the common people. Even the world's republic had never declared or gained its independence on this subject. Indeed it has had its constitution besieged and assaulted by the hessian army of usurers and their English aristocratic allies for twenty years ; and in the infamous Resumption Act, we had Yorktown reversed ; the stars and stripes wfcre lowered and folded in defeat and shame ; it was a direct denial of the existence of the sovereign right of the people, to own, issue, by their government and control the volume of their paper legal tender currency. It was the direct denial of the ex- istence and right of the exercise of that function of the sovereignty of the people by the Congress in whom they vested that power in their constitution and surrender of it to 2500 national bank corporations, "little copies of their faithful sire;" faithful to tyranny, faithful to the political ancestors of Charles I and II, to be exercised by them, the corporations, at their own sweet wills. And, in that cause, Knox vs. Lee et al, we have the assault of our class of usurers, the polit cal deseendents and spawn of the "tories" of '76, ' the direct deseendents politically^ of Charles I, Louis XVI and George III, upon that greatest political fact, of the Chris- tian Era; yes, and the world, the attribute of the sovereignty of the Great American people. These political vermin of the middle ages, these barnacles of civilizat on, these owls of to-day asserted no such at l'ibute of the sovereignty of the people abided with them; nor were they able to "vest" in "the Congress," by their constitution, '■the poser" to coin and emit and control the volume and use a legal tender paper currency. Their logic was, the legal tender notes were not, could not be, legal tender money ; nothing but gold coin could be ; get the Su- preme Court to so declare ; then we, who now own and control the 116 gold, and half the paper currency of the country, in bank notes, and now have the peoples' notes for $300,000,000 of our bank notes, — when they come to pay us we will refuse, as we then may, the legal tender notes, and the people then will be compelled to ask that they be taken out of circulation and some other currency put in their place, we will accept. And then we are ready with our notes, and we will at last carry out the "Yorktown" reversed policy of the "Re- sumption Act." There is no doubt of this being the policy. The reader will observe that at least once Mr. Sherman, the mouthpiece of this con- spiracy, in his "Report" quoted herein, refers to the legal tender quality of the notes ''being now contested in the courts," and this refers to this cause. And he and all of the Secretaries and Presi dents reiterated time and again they were not constitutional legal tender in time of peace. Thus did this reactionary embodyment of the spirit of the middle ages rear its deformed head, in the highest tribunal of the World's Republic, and demand of it a decision to bastardize as illegitimate the fact of the sovereignty of the people of the Republic. And all this to turn the people back into bondage at a rate of $74,500,000 per annum. Americans never half comprehended the momentous interests involved. Several other peoples since we did, have made, and made good, our declaration of independence against George III. and his minions, and others of his kith and kin. But no other has ever yet made, nor have we yet made good, the second declaration ot independence, against the usurers We are in the midst of the struggle for the second declaration of independence yet. Our Supreme Court, thank God, worthy of its high office, laid down clearly the principles of the second Declar- ation. But the "allied army" is still entrenched in the U. S. Senate and the Executive department. We quote the statement of the im- portance of the issue involved, by Judge Strong, who wrote the opinion in the cause : "The controling questions in these cases are the following: Are the acts of Congress known as "The Legal Tender Acts" constitutional when applied to contracts made before their passage ; and secondly, are they valid as applicable to debts contracted since their enactment? These questions have been elab- orately argued, and they have received from the Court that consid- eration which their great importance demands. It would be difficult to overestimate the consequences which must follow our decision. They will affect the entire business of the country, and take hold of the possible continued existence of the government. If it be held by this Court that Congress has no constitutional power, under any circumstances, or in any emergency, to make treasury notes a legal tender for all debts, (a power confessedly possessed by every inde- pendent sovereignty other than the United States), the government is without those means of self-preservation which all must admit may, in certain contingencies, become indispensable, even if they 117 were not when the acts of Congress now called in question were enacted." These greedy political jackals did not hesitate to compromise "the possible continued existence of the government" of the World's Republic to compass their unholy purposes. They did not hesitate to declare its attributes of sovereignty to be illegitimate, imbecile, and bastardized; that it was a political nullius fillius; a nondescript, a nonentity, a helpless sham of the power "confessedly possessed by every independent sovereignty other than the United States." Proceeding, the court say, "Indeed, legal tender treasury notes have become the universal measure of values. If, now, by our decision, it be established that these debts and obligations can be discharged only by gold coin; if contrary to the expectations of all parties to these contracts, legal tender notes are rendered unavailable, thegov- erninent has been an instrument of the grossest injustice; all debt- ors are loaded with an obligation it was never contemplated they should assume; a large percentage is added to every debt and such must become the demand for gold to satisfy contracts, that ruinous sacrifices, general distress and bankruptcy may be expected.'' And that was the tuillenium of "resumption" clamored for by these politi- cal vandals, who claim and pretend to be so solicitous about an "honest dollar" and "honest money" for the laboring man That is the result of their measures as asked to be sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States, and as it plainly sees their effect will be. Aftei proceeding to answer other sophistries of the conspirators, at length, the Court reaches the question of 'sovereignty" involved After stating that all the power of the states over thecurrency is taken away by the constitution, the opin- ion proceeds to say, "Whatever power there is over the currency is vested in Congress If the power to declare what is money is not in Congress it is annihilated. This may indeed not have been intended Some powers that usually belonged to sovereignties were extinguished; their extinguishment was not left to inference." For mstance, taxation without representation; transportation over the sea for trial, and in short, all the category of "abuses" complained of in the declaration But, as we have suggested, the fathers did not deal with the assumptions of the English usurers in direct terms And if all power over the currency is taken away from the States, even, and "vested in the Congress," we beg leave to ask by what authority, or by what mode of reasoning is the right, or power of Congress deduced, to "coin" or strike the bank currency, and at that point abandon and abdicate all further cus- tody, or control over it; deliver it to an alien banking system, to emit and issue, or not, as suits its absolute and tyranical purposes and thus to "regulate the value of money," by regulating and con- trolling the "volume" of it? If such control and power was too great and sacred to be left to the states, how does it come it is not too great and sacred to be vested in the hands of 2700 venal tyran- nical, rebellious bank corporations? The question just resolves it- 118 self into the one : "Who shall issue and control the volume of the national currency, paper and metallic?" If the question were left to the constitution, and the Supreme Court of the United States as ex- pounder of it, it would be no question. It is as plainly answered by both as the questions who shall "borrow mouey on the credit of the United States;" who shall "levy taxes and duties on imports;" who shall declare war, make treaties andpe t oe? But an answer that does not suit the despotic purposes of this spirit of absolutism, never was final to it, no matter what the authority ; it lives and thrives outside the pale of legitimate constitutional restraint; bring it under it, that moment it dies. The issue is made sharp and decisive. It or the con- stitution and civil liberty must die; they cannot live and thrive togeth- er; "ye cannot serve two masters;" ye will hate; the one and cleave to the other. The people have to "choose this day whom they will serve." The constitution and liberty under constitutional and legal restraints; or the absolute unbounded control of this alien system of eternal peonage under a perpetual national debt and eternally borrowed bank currency. This system well knows it is your mas- ter. In a fit of anger, it did not hesitate to threaten to precipitate in 1880 as revenge for the passage of the three per cent refunding bill, one per cent interest lower than it demanded the rate should be, a panic upon the country like "Black Friday" and 1873. This cor- don of crime and treason then said to the country, you will not obey our demands? We will show you. And under the law as then and now, they commenced to surrender their circulation to con- trol the currency of the country to create a panic to drive the peo- ple and Congress into submission and obedience And they would have succeeded only that the Secretary of the treasury violated the law (perhaps pardonable in that instance) in coming with the Uni- ted States Treasury to the relief of the business of the country. Who "shall coin money and regulate the value thereof" the Con- gress or the banks? If there were no constitution that still outside of the United States Senate and Executive Departments has some claims and hold upon the people there yet would be the question of utility and poli- cy left This question of what kind and how much legal tender money, paper and metahc, shall be in actual circulation among the people at any given time, stares the American people in the face with or without the constitution. It is a question that crawls right into your chimney corners, upon your hearth stones into the larder, yes, right upon the family board. From 1868 to 1873 a contraction of $35.00 per capita, that is from $48 to $13 shrank the price and market value of every production twice as fast as all the labor of the country could produce. Out ot four head of beef cattle, the farmer raised three for the bondholding, money loaning, money manipulating class and divided the fourth with himself and t lie cor- porations who owned and controlled the transportation. And all other business except that of loaning or speculating in obligations payable in money, a scarce and dear dollar in the same ratio. From 119 1809 to 1879 no legitimate business flourished in the United States, while the anglicised conspiracy were robbing the people of their money "to effect resumption." But the occupation of the usurer, the salmon and bawdy house keeper, were in an especially flourish- ing condition. The bankrupt courts and lunatic asylums were full ; 8,000 bankruptcies in 1877 against 600 in 1865 ; suicides and insan- ity increased in the same ratio. But that was no matter, we were contracting the currency, distressing, robbing the people, driving them into bankruptcy, suicide and insanity, destroying homes and driving innocent girls into prostitution to effect a change of legal tender notes for national bank notes, called for euphony "resump- tion ;" so that the thieving scoundrels who wrought this treason caused all this havoc, panic, moral and financial destruction, might reap $74,500,000 annually out of the sweat, blood, toil and tears of the American people ; that was all. Who shall issue and control the volume of the nation's curren- cy, paper and metalic? Some one must, some one will; it is for the people to say who shall. Shall it be "the Congress," as declar- ed by the constitution, or the banks as declared by the executive de- partment and the Senate? The Congress, a body of about four hundred men chosen by and responsible to the people who take an oath to support the con- stitution and laws of the country? That is the body designated by the constitution to hold and ex- ercise this power, too great and sacred to be confided or left even with the States. The other body is 2700 national bank associations owned and controlled by not less than 13,50< » stockholders who are "elected?" by themselves; who are "responsible ?" to no one but themselves as to the "volume" of bank currency they will issue at any given time by loaning it to the people ; a class of usurers, who, in all ages, climes and conditions, have always been without patriotism, human sympathy or any of the amenities of mankind ; and who have prov- ed in the last twenty years in this country that the class who own, control and manipulate this system are the unworthy sons of their sires of all ages. Brought to a sharp issue and statement of the matters of difference between them and the legal tender treasury notes, it is this : Legal tender paper currency coined and issued by the government paying it out to the people, is illegal and uncon- stitutional. Legal tender bank notes (for some purposes) coined by the gov- ernment and given to them to issue by loaning to the people is con- stitutional and legal. The question of the constitutionality of a pa- per currency with them, therefore, turns upon the point whether it is given to them by government to emit to the people by loaning it. The logic of the conspirators is as follows, and as certain in a civil- ized community as death and taxes : 1. Contracting the volume of the currency makes money scarce; 2, to make money scarce is to make money dear, enhance its buying power ; 3, to make money 120 dear is to make wages and all kinds of property but obligations pay- able in mone}^ cheap in the same ratio. Their conspiracy has two great objects always directly in view. First, to reduce the volume of the circulating currency of the country, paper and metallic, to the lowest sum possible per capita. Second, to as nearly as possi- ble own and have the absolute control of that minimum volume. It will be seen there is a two-fold motive to reduce the volume to the minimum and make gold the only "legal tender for debt," as claim- ed for in the legal tender decision. First, as therein pointed out, "a large per centage is added to every debt, and such must be the demand, for gold to satisfy contracts that ruinous sacrifices, general distress and general bankruptcy may be expected." The people owe the debts to which the great percentage is added ; the gold and mone}' gamblers, bondholders and bankers own the gold and the debts and the "general distress and bankruptcy" of the people, adds in same ratio to their wealth as it did fifty per cent in five years from 1872 to 1877. Second, the smaller the volume the num- ber of dollars the more perfectly can they handle and control it. Scarce money means dear money, dear money means cheap proper- ty, cheap property means cheap human wages, flesh, brains and blood. Suppose a man owned a $1,000 six per cent bond in 1865 when there were $48.00 per capita in circulation and wages $2.50 per day ; the interest on the bond is $60.00 per annum and it would take 24 days' labor to pay the annual interest. But in 1874 with only $13.00 per capita tn circulation wages were not more than $1.00 per day, if that; and it took 60 days' labor to pay the annual interest. And with the circulation at $13.00 per capita three per cent on the bond is a higher rate of interest and requires more clays' labor to pay it than six per cent is when the per capita circulation is $48.00. For then as we have seen it only takes 24 day's labor to pay the annual interest; but with the $13.00 circulation and $1.00 per day it takes 30 days to pay the $30.00 annual interest at three per cent. And it is all the same when the interest or principal of the debt i"» paid in the products of labor. It would take 401,000, 000, 0(10 of currency. If it is to be bank currency, we must perpetuate, at least that amount of principal U. S. bonds, at three per cent, per annum, untaxed, as good as two per cent, more and making five per cant, in all, an annual charge of $50,0' 0,000 ; the bank notes, at seven per cent simple interest, will cost $70,0:30,000 more, or a total per annum charge of $120,000,(100 paid for the right to live. This sum would support a standing army of 400,000 men at a cost of $3U0 per annum per man. Or. suppose in fact we do have "a currency based upon and redeemable in coin ;" have a metal dollar to actually circulate, or to be basis and lie in the treasury, to "redeem" the certificate based on it. If we use the coin, the statistics of the mintage of this and other countries show, that coin in actual circulation is clipped, worn out and lost, as such, in thirty years. And it thus disappears each such period — or suppose we use the paper certificates instead. Then we are at the annual expense of hoarding and keeping the "hostage," and risk, for humanity is fallible and locks and ke} 7 s and bonds and penalties will fail to debar and deter. National banks though watched, break, state and national offi- cers default. And at best, we would all be doing business on faith and credit and trust, at least, that there was a coin dollar in the treasury to "redeem" our certificates. And now General Weaver, of Iowa, has discovered and ex- 13(5 posed to the country the humiliating fact that the above $60,000,- 000 of surplus funds that has been accumulating in the U. S. Treas- ury for years was not in the vaults of the U. S. Treasury as the peo- ple supposed, but was actually purloined by bribed Secreta- ries of the Treasury and divided out by them for years and now, among about 298 national banks. And then suppose rebellion or foreign invasion, should come again as both have come ; in one instance the capital was taken (1814) and burned ; in the other it came near it (Bull Run) and perhaps would have been, if there had been $1,00'. >, 000, 000 "coin" stowed there to be the prize. And then where would we be? Bank- rupt sure enough, in war no money, no basis, all gone. It would be Amlek with no Dagon, Israel with no Ark, the Chinaman with no cue, the idol of our faith, confidence, trust broken. Shame on the spirit of incarnate, hell-born greed, and distrust, that puts its faith and confidence in such things. It always enslaves and dishonors those, who do it. It is this devilish spirit of distrust and infideli- ty to-day, that makes Europe a camp-ground ; her coasts and bor- ders to bristle with forts, war navies, arsenals, canon and bayonets ; one Christian? sovereign and government enslaving its people to keep one-half its able bodied men in the standing army, Avhile the other half are enslaved to support the nation, on a war footing, to pro- tect it against another Christian? Sovereign? and Government? Dis- trust, want of faith factionizes and atomizes society. Faith, confi- dence, trust, are the gravitation of the moral and intellectual world, the only force that can held civil society together. The greatest man or woman is the one of the greatest faith and a nation is only an aggregation of individuals audits capacity in the polarized capacities of them all. Faith is to the world of mind, what fact is to the world of mat- ter ; to a truly great mind, its faith is fact ; Washington's faith was fact to him, and he made it fact to the world. Ideas are the great- est political factors, in the world ; they set armies in motion and shake the nations with their tread. A man or a nation is never struck so hard as when struck with a truly, full grown, great idea. The idea of physical separation and political independence which our fathers conceived after seven years of travail brought forth York- town. The idea of civil and religious liberty, gathered from the writings of the Encycloprediests of France, set her effete institu- tions in a whirl, in the Revolution. If Christianity is anything it is a system of faith ; if it is great in anything it is in its faith in God and man. Its founder, surrounded by Roman legions, confronted with a Roman governor who had power to release or to crucify, said "now is my kingdom not from hence;" not of this world, of its ar- mies or gold or influence ; he said he could command "legions of angels" to tight. But that would have been a moral degradation an overturning of his moral government of faith and charity. If Christian civilization is anything different from or greater than the effete systems, that for a time flourished under paganism and then 137 went out in blood, tears and ashes, it is in its faith, trust and con- fidence in man and God, in a degree like that of its Immortal Founder. And yet with shame and in sorrow, we are compelled to admit a great many of the so-called ministers of his gospel to-day, teach and preach the gospel of temporal infidelity, distrust and want of faith ; the Dagon, Jaugurnaut, the Molech Amlek hostage per- petual public debt, the hard honest money, the distrust, the infidel system of finance. Do it, too, [with bitterness and ridicule of the people's faith ; do it for a share of "blood money," the tithe, the usurer deigns to give them, the prophets of Baal, for their minister- ing in his groves and high places." At contemplation of it we bow our heads in shame and sorrow. But the Nazarene is still able to go with "a whip of chords" and drive the thieves and money changers out of his father's house. Again we find the only thing that checks the greedy and cor- rupt crowd of religious and political parasites, now as then, is "be- cause they feared the people." Now they say, not on election day lest there be an uproar of the people ; then "not on a feast day lest there bean uproar of the people." The more we contemplate this system the more it appears a relic of feudal despotism, the twin sis- ter of chattel slavery and repugnant to all Christian and enlighten- ed policy. Debt is in fiscal conditions what vacuum is in nature ; nature abhors and will not brook a vacuum ; she will not brook obe- sity or exhaustion. She is all the time working to the end of level- ing inequalities, filling vacuums and paying debts. The very wind that "bloweth where it listeth" is on an errand to fill a rarified con- dition ; the ocean currents, the rivers are on the same mission. The lightning and thunder that rives the oak and shake the hills are her protests against debt, as she balances the ledger, between the over- charged positive or creditor cloud and undercharged negative or debtor one. She will loan to man and animal the elements that make his body ; but she will not brook the idea of an eternal loan or debt ; she demands and enforces settlement and payment in death ; "dust thou art and to dust shall thou return." But she never de- mands interest or usur}-. Usury is only a device of human cupidi- ty, to perpetuate debt; secure it to be paid over and over again and yet never discharged. It is like slave blood in the mother's veins in chattel slavery ; she imparts it to her offspring to all eternity. But for the usury the debt would not be desirable to the creditor or tyr- anny to the debtor. We have paid our present public debt since 1865 twice, in usu- ry, and yet at the end of twenty-five years paying we owe nearly half of it and must pay that twice yet. Our history as a nation shows we have had a war that incurs the contraction of public debt once in each twenty-five years. (1). The War of the Revolution. (2). The War of 1812. (3). The Mexican War in 1846. (4). The late Civil War, 1861. Our national policy always has been until 1861-5 and since, to pay in time of peace the unavoidable debts of war. Such was the doctrine of the fathers. The following is the language -138- of Washington on this subject in his immortal Farewell Address to the American people. "As a very important source of strength and security cherish public credit. One method of preserving it, is to use it as sparingly as possi- ble ; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remem- bering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger fre- quently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only shining occasions of debt but by vigorous exeriions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable war may have occasioned ; not ungenerously throwing on posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear." How do those sentiments comport with Mr. Arthur's assertion, quoted ante page 10S "that the rapid extinguishment of the public debt that is now going on, is not only not a matter of congratula- tion but of serious apprehension." The one is the Republican doc- trine of Washington and the Revolutionary Fathers, who gained our independence and framed the Constitution ; the latter is the utter- ance of a subsidized official, made to announce the English monarch- ial doctrine of George III and his hessian allies. For twenty years the English monarchical doctrine has obtained and for twenty-five years we have paid usury and have paid the debt two or two and a half times, and still owe half or nearly so of it ; and this apostate bank influence is fighting to the death for the per- petuation of the balance of it. Although all its treasonable asser- tions are negatived by the Great Legal Tender Decision, it shows no sign of raising the twenty-live years seige. The original law only granted as a temporary measure, charters to the banks for twenty years. But as their terms drew to a close the Presidents in messages and Secretaries and Controllers in reports to Congress commenced to recommend the law be so amended they might renew for another twenty years. And now there are nearly 2800 of them in existence and more than ever before. If the public debt is to be promptly paid according to the Amer- ican doctrine why are these English political institutions that can only remain so long as they hold U. S. bonds to secure their bank notes, fostered, fattened and toadied to by our administrations,? Let any man with the brains of a lobster answer? It is plain as day — the struggle is upon us ; the tories are entrenched in the U. S. Sen- ate and the executive department, and are fighting a running fight like Lexington and Concord for the House. Shall they have it ? In all the "Refunding Acts" the point fought for by this influ- ence always has been to put the payment of the U. S. bonds beyond the power of this generation to pay. And now suppose war comes again in the future as it has in the past and $1,000,003,000 of the last debt on which we have been paying for twenty-five or forty years is still shading us ; I ask thinking men and women in what situation will we then be? If it is, and is to be perpetual, what of the ad- 139 ditional that must be incurred to meet the exigencies of the time? And at that rate and with that as the policy, what of the future? A person of but little foresight "a wayfaring man though a fool," can see that soon the Bond Bank feudal system will have us just where it now has the English people ; that is, where we will ask the system, not what we will do with it but what it will do with us. No systems of domestic law of any civilized people permits the debt of the ancestor to descend upon the heir. If the ancestor leaves encumbered property to his heir, the heir to possess the prop- erty, it is true, must discharge the encumbrance. But, if the prop- erty does not pay half the ancestor's debts or any of them, the heir goes free But this system encumbers all of the property of the nation with a perpetual mortgage and the debt descends from an- cestor to heir from generation to generation. According to it the present generation of Americans, too pusilanimous to sustain, per- petuate and hand down the Republic unimpaired to its successor, must mortgage the lives, labor and capacity of children unborn to this hell-born, thieving alien monarchial system. That is handing down "the republic and constitution to our children unimpaired'' with a vengeance is it not? Shame on a generation of slaves, who will put their necks under the yoke of eternal debt and George III and his minions and successors with the docility, stupidity and sto- lidity of an ox ! Shall we do it? Shall we, in th<- language of Washington, ''throw on posterity the burden we ought to bear?" It is one thing to point out infirmities and abuses in existing systems ; it is another to suggest a cure or a better one. There is but one cure for the system as we have been discuss- ing, it or civil liberty must die In fact we have now no system; we have a kind of half of two, a republican and a monarchial. Our legal tender notes so far have fought for and maintained only a precarious existence. The bank system is fighting to put them and the silver coin and certificates out of existence. The situation demands action, the offices of statesmanship. For twenty years we have vascillated between two systems and our in- terests in this great matter have floated about upon the varying fortunes of the contest waged by the banks. We are at the mercy of an experimental half and half system. "A house divided against itself cannot stand ;" "the country will yet be all slave or all free," said Lincoln of the "Missouri Compro- mise Line" and other superficial, temporary half and half measures of the time. We are to-day in a better situation to demand a set tlement of the matter, than we will ever be again. The question is, shall we have a "republican" or a "monarchial" system of finance? Shall we 1)h "borrowers" and "servants" to all eternity? or shall we as Washington recommended, "pay in time of peace, the unavoid- able debts" of war? If we are to be freemen, citizens, instead of "subjects" the first thing to be done is throttle the system, that for twenty-five years 140 has besieged the liberties and constitution of the Republic. This can be done in any one of three ways. 1. Repeal the law granting their charter. 2. Pay the national debt. 3. Issue a sufficient vol- ume of Legal tender notes and silver certificates and coined silver to take the place of their notes and discard them. That is refuse to be "borrowers" and "servants." There would be no experiment in this. For twenty-five years with no basis but the faith, trust and confidence of the people based on their credit over $300,000,000 of the legal tender notes have been and still are circulating as money. And since 1879 at par ; and $300,000,000 more of them would circulate just the same. Orif that is thought too great an innovation, take the bank agents and attor- neys out of the Presidential chair and out of the office of the Secretary of the Treasury ; instead of the coinage of the minimum of two coin the maximum of four millions of silver per month under existing law ; and see to it that no certificates are issued of a higher denomination than ten dollars ; that half of them are five dollars and under. And if no bonds are due buy bonds on the market to a volume $200,000,- 01 '0 of principal with the "surplus." And then wait one year and see if the sun stood still; see if the hog and chicken cholera swept the land like a conflagration ; see if anybody is shocked, who it is. In our humble opinion nobody would be, but the hessian camp of gold, bond and bank conspirators. They would be nearly as badly as the} r were at Bunker Hill. Yes and the Republic would be with a new victory and new life for the future, like that it received at York- town. Wait one year and see if John Sherman the father of "Re- sumption" would die or go to his political father, John Bull. And then, if none of these dire results happened, we think at that time country might even venture to follow the advice of Jefferson and "take the power to issue the currency from the bank corporations and restore it to government to whom it belongs." And we would not then have to exceed $18.00 per capita for our population. And then if the English banks thought the coun- try was in danger from "inflation of the currency" let them with- draw their bank issues, those of them who had charters and bonds to continue upon. In any event, treat them as the Revolutionary Fathers did the tories at the close of the revolution ; let them re- main in the country if the}* will obey the constitution and laws. But we think they ought to be sworn about once a year for the next ten, to that effect. Well at the end of one year let the Republic feel of itself, feel the pulse of the "public credit," if it beats firmly and the legal tender notes are still at par and we feel we need, say two dollars, per capita circulation more to be on a par half way with France and England in that respect, enact an amendment of the legal tender act, declaring that all legal tender notes in existence, shall be, as they will in fact have been, then, for ten years a legal tender for all debts public and private. And that the Secretary of the Treasury shall issue in addition to the volume already in existence 141 and pay them into circulation a volume of $100.000,000 — or two dollars per capita. And then be ready with the restoratives to re- vive the bank tories and aristocracy for it and Bourbon Europe will beshocked again, just as it was when Charles I and Louis XVI each lost his block- head ; yes, just as it was at Yorktown. But then the poor old miserable mummy of the fifteenth century needs shocking to get it out of the effete condition in which it has been for three centuries, or to bury it might be a better remedy. It had better be shocked that way than the way it will soon be, by home forces. And why not do if? It would not be half the power, nor half so violently used by Congress as the power these banks now hold and have used to suit their greedy purposes for the last twenty years. They now own over four dollars per capita of the bank pa- per currency of the country and undoubtedly control quite as much more. They ; 'issue" money and ''inflate the currency" by loaning it to the people ; they contract the currency by taking in old and re- fusing to make new loans. There is no law to compel them to loan money. The Congress issues money through the U. S. Treasury by pay- ing it into circulation. The legal tender notes, the coin and coin certificates, that go out through the U. S. Treasury, go out free to a free people; they do not go out •'borrowed" to "borrowers" and "servants." They pay a debt to a citizen when they are born into the world of commerce; they go out free born and go on the errand of debt paying, healing the financial disease of the people free and are like the "leaves of the tree of life" that "are for the healing of the nations." The bank currency makes a debt when it is born into the world of commerce from be- hind the bank counter ; it is slave born ; it goes out like a dog with his master's name on the collar; it goes out on a "aticketof leave," a gilt edge note, at ten per cent in advance, perhaps for sixty days. At the snap of its master's fingers, like a dog, it comes crouching back and crawls under his counter. And the American people crawl like spaniels under and around the outside of his counter and have done it for twenty years. These blood-sucking tyrants, these bank and railroad corpora- tions, show a wonderful interest in your affairs. For twenty years they have argued and a venal subsidized press to-day, argues it would never do to entrust so important a subject as the "control of the volume of the currency" to Congress. But the same gang of tories will argue for confiding it to and leaving it in the hands of the banks. This proposition to issues $2.00 per capita of legal tender notes, will be assailed by them on that ground. I ask thinking Americans to stop a moment. What does the constitution say? — We have seen. What does the Supreme Court say? We will re- peat. "The States can no longer declare, what shall be money, or regulate its value. Whatever power there is over the currency is vested in the Congress. 142 If this is not a ''power,'' the "control of the volume," why do these banks fight to retain it? If it is a power it belongs to Con- gress. "Whosoever controls the volume of the currency is abso- lute master of the commerce and industries of the country." — Gar- field. When the currency of the country is contracted down and down from 15 to 14 to 13 dollars per capita to only a breath or two above a panic, as we now are, a man of sense sees at a glance that the last two or three dollars per capita in actual circulation are the dollars that tell on financial and commercial life and death ; that de- cide whether we have panic or not. And these last three, yes. eight dollars, this system owns and controls and does not hesitate to threaten us with and use. But for Congress to issue and pay into circulation a volume of two dollars per capita, is to them the hight of folly. It is a breach of "prerogative," equal to the "States General, 1 ' giv ng Louis XVI and the two thieving orders five hours in which to take their seats in the hall, to consider and vote on the issues that involved the existence of France. As we have shown, these tyrannical corporations now, by the class legislation that stain our statutes are enabled to and actually do by controlling the commerce, the means by which it is effected, that is the transportation and the money, levy on the American peo- ple, a direct tax equivalent to ten dollars per capita per annum. But that in their estimation is small matter, so long as it goes to them. But now for Congress to issue $2.()0 per capita to circulate as money would be in their eyes most unwarrantable. Or, if that were thought too great a change, issue one dollar per capita per year and keep the eye on the pulse of the public credit. We think the Congress and the government through the treasury department as good judges of the matter of the "volume of the currency," that should at any time be in circulation in the marts of commerce, and may as well be trusted to control that matter as the alien bank- ing system. We do not recommend any such confiscation of private rights as was made by the Congress under the lead and dictation of the banks from 1 805 to 1873 to effect resumption as they called it; and it is still defended by that system. It then, in the short period of seven years, reduced the currency from a volume of :-48 to $13 per capi- ta ; that is $35 per capita or five dollars per year, f -r seven success- ive ones. It was simple, legal, confiscation, to enrich a chiss. Even in 1868, when it was just fairly inaugurated and before he was con- verted (?) to this system, Mr. Sherman said of the "contraction policy," on the floor of the U. S. Senate in a speech on the subject: "To attempt this last (resumption of specie payme ts by contrac- tion), by a surprise on our people, by arresting them in the midst of their lawful business and applying a new standard to the value of their property, without any reduction of their debts or giving them an opportunity to compound with their creditors, would bean net of folly without an example of evil in modern times." Yet this man, I he very next year advocated all these measures and helped to push 143 the'm to the extreme of "panic," "bankruptcy and disaster" in 1873 and until arrested by the act, May 31, 1878. Their acts of confiscation were deliberate. Their opposition to any measure to reverse thir policy now comes from the same greedy motives. Cannot the American people seize and comprehend the sit- uation? Can they not see that "contraction'' to a low volume in so far is confiscation to them ? And that is the motive of the feudal system to reduce the volume to the minimum. And each measure we have recommended, is conservative. It would tie no innovation. It would be the course of events turned from a feudal system of finance to a modern republican one. And no measure so taken would be one but that has the sanction of the highest American authority. Washington and all the Fathers for the payment of the debt, Jefferson for retiring the bank currency, let them c nt.inue a legiti- mate bank business, We are here and now only assailing their is- sues of notes. And by a careful 'following of this policy we would pass out of the half and half policy into a republican system with no shock to the commerce and industries of the country. If our volume reached $30 per capita and all was well composed of legal tender notes, coin and certificates based on and redeemable in coin, who could complain? In our opinion much more summary measures than these ought to be taken with the subject. Repeal the bank charters at once. Supply their notes with le- gal tender treasury notes, if necessary, to keep the volume of the currency at least to what it now is, about $14.00 per capita. We are only a few stages above a panic now. A sufficient ground for the repeal of the entire system is that it is in violation of the plain letter and spirit of the constitution ; it never was intend- ed to and cannot be a permanent institution without violating all the historic traditions and usages of the fathers of the republic- in per- petuating our public debt. Now the conspirators shout with exul- tation, all the balance of the public debt is refunded beyond the power of this generation to pay. Strike down the alien feudal sys- tem and the main motive to perpetuating it will be removed. The premium on the. bonds will decline. Very true it is "En- glish you know;" so was the "stamp act." "You know" these pat- rons of the republic in the Revolution, in the language of that Grand Old Englishman, Lord Chatham, in his speech on the floor of the "House of Lords," on the "American War,'' said to his brethren, who were arguing the measure of setting the Indians, the "hounds of War 1 ' on our fathers to civilize them. "My lords I did not intend to encroach so much upon your time, but I cannot re- press my indignation ; I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords we are called upon as members of this House, as men, as Christians, to protest against such horrible barbarity. For "it is perfectly allowable" says Lord Suffolk "to use all the means which God and nature have put in our hands " What ideas of God and nature that noble l#>rd may entertain I know not; I know that such 144 detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What ! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping knife ! to the cannibal savage, tor- turing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims ! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feel- ing of humanity, every sentiment of honor. These abominable principles and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call on the bishops to interpose their unsullied sanctity upon the judges to in- terpose the purity of their ermine to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I in- voke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorn these walls, the immortal ancestor of this lord frowns with indigna- tion at the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend the lib- erty and establish the religion of Britain, against the tyranny of Rome if these worse than Popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are endured among us. To send forth the merciles cannibal, thirsting for blood! Against whom? Your protestaut brethren, to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings and to extir- pate their race and name by the instrumentalities. of these horrible hounds of war. Spain can no longer boast of pre-eminence in bar- barity. She armed herself with hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of Mexico ; we, more ruthless, loose the dogs of war against our countrymen in America endeared to us by every tie that can sanctify humanity. I solemnly call upon your lordships and upon every order of men in the State to stamp upon this infamous proce- dure the indellible stigma of the public abhorrence. More particu- larly I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to do away this iniquity ; let them perform the lustration to purify the country from this deep and deadly sin. My lords I am old and weak and at pres- ent unaole to say more ; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor even reposed my head upon my pillow, without giving vent to my eternal abhorrence of such enormous and preposterous prin- ciples.'' It was almost his dying effort. But all in vain. The measure, to hire the Indian savages, to furnish them arms and spir- its to inspire to a higher pitch their naturally brutal passions was carried by "my lords" spiritual and temporal." And in due time fol- lowed the "well-known mode of warfare" of the savage murdering our fathers, outraging their , wives, mothers, sisters, sweet-hearts. Lord Chatham might as well have appealed to the "bench," "bish- ops" and "lords" of the domain of his satanic majesty for "mercy," "religion" or "humanity." It was "English you know," when they came back in 1814 and burned our national capital in violation of all the usages of civilized 145 war. It was "English you know," when Earl Russell as corres- pondent of the London Times in the first years of our late civil war gleefully wrote to it and it gleefully published to the world, "the great bubble of American liberty has burst at last." This inhuman sentiment he wrote from the midst of our fratri- cidal desolation, and while treated with the utmost kindness and consideration, by both sides. As much, as to say, the daj^-break of the present and future, of liberty and civilization recedes and the night of the past draws on again. Come up ye political owls of the fifteenth century and croak, blink, nod and hoot to each other of "prerogative" of "royal families" of "provinces" traded off or "dis- membered" to appease the spite of a "mistress," or the gout or ne- cessities of his ^majesty?" Lift up your heads "lords" and "la- dies, 1 ' (Campell forinstance) ; comeonthe "Notables" the "Nobility" and the "clergy" of France and "St. Bartholomew" to the contrary notwithstanding; come on. Napoleon and Francis Joseph, with vour delectable crowd of "clogs of war," who fight for sixteen cents per day and lay the younger sister republic, Mexico, in the dust; ravish her of her liberties while her older sister cannot defend her or her- self. Rouse all the mummies out of the holes, where indignant and oppressed Europe has stowed them ; rally them to the charge once more! For "the great bubble of American liberty has burst at last." We always said it was only a "bubble," held up by the demagogues, Washington, Adams, Jefferson and the rest to dazzle the ignorant rabble. We always said the English constitution al- lowed all the liberty the "common herd" could appreciate ; we always said "the bubble" would burst, and now it has and our predictions are all verified. The idea of "republican self-government" is ex- ploded. Now let mankind come back to us, their old masters, and "strong ' government and safety. Yes, and now with the laurels of the fifteenth century on our brows, with the banner of "the divine right of kings," with the incestous union of "church and state" red- olent with the odor of roasting heretics, hetacombs of slaughtered infidels and Christians, we are coming to celebrate a triumph and put Maximillian on the throne of Mexico and emphatically veto that political heresy "the Monroe doctrine." We have come to reverse Yorktown and the American Revolution, the storming of the Bastile, and the French Revolution, the Mexican Republican Constitution and civil and religious liberty, divorcement of "church and state;" and we will wed them again with the benediction of the past. Thus reasoned the ignorance and brutality of the past ; thus it roused it- self to grapple at the throats of world's republics and the hope of humanity for the future. Every intelligent reader of history knows that the English government, house of lords and ar- istocracy have been the focal center and rallying point of the Bour- bonism of Europe and the past as against the present and future of the world for the last century. The English people are great in ma- ny respects but they have for two centuries supported and to-day support a government whose morality is no better than that of Pa- 146 gan Rome. But it is "so English, you know." It brings in the money. India is robbed and plundered to grow opium, to debauch China and the world wherever its governments will permit. The following is the statement of an enlighted Christian Englishman of his country's connection with the opium traffic. The Christian, of February 3, 1887, says: "In British India the opium trade is "a gigantic government monopoly. Without a government license no opium can be grown. Government advances enable the cultivator to sow the seed. Government agents inspect the growth. To the government officials the crude opium is delivered up at the price which the government fixes. In the government factories alone is it manufactured to suit the Chinese taste. At monthly sales it is sold by government auctioneers at a profit of about 300 per cent, to be carried to China. The proceeds, amounting to about five mil- lions sterling, are put in the government treasury. Could our con- nection with the trade be closer or our responsibility for it more complete? The opium grown in Malwa and the other native states is sent to Bombay for shipment to China. As it crosses British ter- ritory, a tax equal to half its value is levied upon it by British offi- cials. From this source a further sum of about two and a half mil- lions sterling passes into the government coffers. In proportion as we have made a market for opium in China, so this branch of the trade has grown. Altogether some seven and a half millions ster- ling of revenue per annum have been derived in India from the opi- um trade, though the amount is variable. Practically, this goes to pay the salaries of Indian officials who administer the government." Of England's unprovoked attack upon China in 1S41-2 to com- pel her to admit English opium at her ports. Ridpath, the historian. Vol. 3, 1334 page, says: "Thus by the law or the strongest and the law of the cannon was China compelled to expose her teeming millions to the ravages of the life destroying drug of Turkey, presented by the hand of Christian England. It was a work preparatory to the successful planting of Christian missions! The mockery needs no comment." After forcing China into submission, England returns to India, and robs her beggared people of 7G,80 ',000 acres of her richest lands, which she prostitutes to the production of opium. The com- mon people of India have been beggared by England's presence for two centuries. Her conduct has been and is enough to have provo- ked ten "Sepoy Rebellions." Our fathers "rebelled" against En- glish rule for mild treatment compared with it. The common people of India work for two and a half and three cents a day to support the dissolute, brutal English policy and gov- ernment in India and China. English speaking missionaries must feel embarrassed in preaching the gospel of peace and of the golden rule in the presence of the British flag. Intelligent India men must regard it as rather cold irony. If the missionaries in India, who make so much ado of the "protection" they receive from England in India, would tell and 147 publish the tale of India's woe, as robbed, plundered and beaten annually into subjection, in my humble opinion the last one of them would be expelled from her borders in two years. The} ? do not do it ; the church does not do it. We say tell the truth if the heavens or John Bull falls. Au enlightened liberty loving people, as we claim to be, ought to cry out against her worse than Pagan practices in India and China ; expose her to the Christian world ; create a moral public sentiment, that will drive the old civilized gouhl out of India and China, Turkey, Egypt and Ireland and her feudal perpetual public debt policy out of the United States. Itis with shame we con- fess it ; but it is a humiliating truth that English ce sorship seems to hold its sword over the "press," "secular and "religious" and the "pulpit" of our country. In the name of civil and religious liber- ty, in the name of Him who laid the foundation for it when he said "Do unto others as ye would that they should do to you," we invoke the return upon the country at least, in a measure of the "spirit of 1776." A very mild return and baptism of it will banish English intervention in our financial and political affairs and its ally our An- glicised perpetual public debt banking system. Our literature and schools and nearly all history in our tongue have been so anglicised and discolored that in nine out of ten instances the young, who quit our schools with a supposed education are compelled to unlearn all they had learned of the influence of English government in the world for the last three centuries. She has two plans of intermed- dling in the affairs of other countries. A poor weak half civilized people are induced to give her foot-hold on the pretense of "com- merce." Once there she intrudes her soldiery and after that any resist- ance to her greedy dictation constitutes the natives rebels and they are promptly bayoneted into obedience. If a great people, too great for such methods then she jends her polished aristocratic di- plomatists and capitalists to galvanize into life a sort of kindred class of their own in the country thus assailed ; it is and has grown to be a well-defined system of political Jesuitism. The following is a copy of a circular said to have been used to corrupt our capi- talists and bankers and signed by an English banker named Hasard in 1 s 6 2 . It will show whence the idea of our "National Banking System" came. "Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war now in progress, and chattel slavery destroyed. This I and my European friends are in favor of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborer; while the European plan, led by England, is, capital controlling the money. To accomplish this, they (the bonds) must be used as the banking basis. We are now waiting to get the sec- retary of the treasury to make this recommendation to Congress. It will not do to allow the greenbacks, so called, to circulate any length of time, or we cannot control the bonds and through them the bank issue. 1 ' Yon see with that class of gentlemen the choice is between two 148 systems, "wage" or "chattel" slavery; and of the two this English banker has the candor to tell our capitalists and bankers they have tried both and prefer "wage slavery." For the only difference in the two systems is actual "owner- ship" of the slave. But, by the system of "controling the money,'' they not only can enslave 3,000,000 black chattel slaves, but also, 45,000,000 of the "proud caucassian" as well. And the Secretary of the Treasury did recommend every measure asked by the English bank and capitalistic influence. And every successor of his since to this day has done it. Strange coincidence is it not? Before Sen- ator Sherman became the open ally of the alien English bank influ- ence in our political and financial affairs, he said of this influence and its interference in our affairs in a speech on the subject. "Many millions of our bonds and other securities have crossed the water and England is merry at the prospect of a rich tribute to be drawn yearly from the sweat and toil of American citizens." How long it will take her to acquire the lion's share cannot be determined with mathematical certainty ; but from the start she has taken, the period will be short, probably not longer than Washing- ton and his army were engaged in accomplishing our independence." After we have banished the English bank influence gained our sec- ond declaration of independence and Yorktown, then let us put up an adamantine, constitutional barrier against the second entrance of such influence. The XII amendment as follows: Sec. 1, "Neither slavery or involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party stands convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction," did way forever with chattel slavery. Now, let the XVI Amendment, in the follow- ing or like words forever do way with anglicised perpetual public debt "wage slavery." Article XVI, Sec. I, "Hereafter no interest-bear- ing obligation of the United States shall ever be issued for any purpose ; nor shall interest be paid upon any such obligations." That is the next Amendment to be made ; until made, we have "wage slavery" in existence. But what will we do in time of war? Do just as we have always done ; just as Washington and the Rev- olutionary Fathers did ; just as we did in 1862 when we had no for- eign or domestic credit; just as we did half way by the legal tender acts; coin the faith, credit, patriotism of the nation into (next time) a full legal tender money. Then pass an act declaring it high trea- son for any man to assail their character as money, and on convic- tion make the penalty banishment forever from the United States. For in the first place no war is justifiable, only a war of self-de- fense to preserve the republic, or its immediate, allies from invasion or itself from insurrection. And let the man and womanhood of each successive American generation be pledged and held responsi- ble for preserving and handing down unimpaired, the liberties and constitution of the Republic, to its succesor. Let it be understood once and forever, that every man and every dollar stand pledged and subject to call as a volunteer, or by draft if necessary, for that 149 purpose. And teach the sordid, political ingrate arid scoundrel, who will not assent to these measures, that he had better seek a more congenial clime where they have rich men's wars, and poor men's fights;" where 300 families own half the land and wealth of the country and a perpetual public debt mortgage on all of it and where the "wage slaves" stay if they can rent. If the government can draft the poor man's all, soul, body and time, to make a living for his family, to hold a bayonet and make a wall of flesh to repel the invader, it can draft the rich man's dollar's to feed and clothe him and his family, while he does it. A government that cannot or will not do it is unworthy of the name. This capitalistic class of gentlemen seem to have exalted ideas of the rights of capital ; in their estimation, human flesh and blood is pitifully cheap. That the poor man's body is none too good to be drafted into line, to stop an invader's bullets, but their property is too sacred to be even indi- rectly pledged with the rest of the life and fortune of the republic, for the payment of legal tender notes to save the life of the nation. In the great legal tender decision, they raised and pressed the point that to make anything but gold or silver a legal tender for debt vio- lated and impaired the obligation of contracts in permitting the debt to be paid in a cheaper money; and that the legal tender acts were unconstitutional, both as to contracts made before and since their passage for this reason. To this argument the Supreme Court says: "Neither of these assumptions can be accepted. It is true that under the acts a debtor who became such before they were pass- ed, may discharge his debt with the notes authorized by them and the creditor is eompelable to receive such notes in discharge of his claim. But whether the obligation of the contract is thereby weak- ened can be determined only ri'ter considering what was the con- tract obligation. It was not a duty to pay gold or silver, or the kind of money recognized by law at the time when the contract was made, nor was it a duty to pay money of equal intrinsic value in the market. (We speak now of contracts to pay money generally, not contracts to pay some specifically defined species of money.) The expectation of the creditor and the anticipation of the debtor may have been that the contract would be discharged by the payment of coined metals, but neither the expectation of one party to the con- tract respecting its fruits, nor the anticipation of the other consti- tutes its obligations. There is a well recognized distinction between the expectation of the parties to a contract and the duty imposed by it. Were it not so, the expectation of results would be always be equivalent to a binding engagement that they should follow. But the obligation of a contract to pay money, is to pay that which the law shall recognize as money, when the payment is to be made." That is, these would be tyrants were told in plain words, money is a societary invention for mutual convenience and a crea- ture of municipal law. We recognize the fact you are members of society and owe it some obligations, whether you do or not. 150 Yuu propose to and do enjoy its benefits; yon must and shall share some of its, may be burdens, in periods of peril and danger. And then proceeds to illustrate how the "fruits" of a contract may be entirely destroyed by government, in its efforts in taking meas- ures to preserve societ}^ and itself, in time of war, or by its asser- tion of its rights of eminent domain in time of peace. "Every con- tract for the payment of money, simply, is of necessity subject to the constitutional power of the government over the currency, what- ever that power may be, and the obligation of the parties is there- fore assumed, with reference to that power. Nor is this singular. A covenant for }uiet enjoyment is not broken, nor is its obligation impaired by the government taking the land granted in virtue of its eminent domain. The expectation of the covenantee may be dis- appointed. He may not enjoy all he anticipated, but the grant was made and the covenant undertaken in subordination to the para- mount right of the government, (cites authorities.) Nor can it be truthfully asserted that Congress may not, by its action indirectly, impair the obligation of contracts, if the express- ion be meant rendering contracts fruitless, or partial h fruitless. Directly it may, confessedly, by passing a bankrupt act, embracing past as well as future transactions. This is obliterating contracts en tirely, so it may relieve parties from their apparent obligations indirectly in a multitude of ways. It may declare war, or. even in peace, pass non-intercourse acts, or direct an embargo. All such measures may, and must operate seriously upon existing contracts, and may not merely hinder, but relieve the parties to such con- tracts, entirely from performance. "' And as we have heretofore pointed out, does do these very things, also, b.\ the execution and homestead exemption laws in time of peace If in time of war the issue of a reasonable volume of legal tender notes does not meet the exigencies of the situation, levy income and other taxes first. If this does not suffice and addititional drafts of men and means are necessary, while it drafts poor men, to fill the rank and file of the army, at the same time draft the rich man's money; — assess upon every citizen above such a sum, above his debts say, who owns $10,000 above all liabilities, so -much on the $100. to raise the nec- essary revenue and enact these provisions now, in time of peace, while it can be done deliberately. Do not wait to do it as we were compelled to do in 1862, with all the anti republican forces en- trenched behind the seats of a venal Senate, under the threatening cloud of war. But do it with the clear sky of peace overhead, when we have no compromise to offer or receive from the nnnnions of tyranny and greed. Poor men ami men of small means ought to refuse to bear arms for a government that will draft them to fill the ranks of its armies and. refuse to draft the rich man's money, to pay the expenses of the war. The soldier in our late war was paid $13.00 in legal tender notes depreciated at one time one hundred and fort} percent, or, at the rate of about $6.00 per month. 151 And that caused by the two "exceptions" on the note, put there to appease the greed of the gold gambling thieves, "wage slave" holders. While government paid its soldiers in greenbacks -worth $400 in gold on the $1,000, these tories were buying U. S. six per cent gold interest bonds, payable in five or due in twenty years, that re- cited in their face they were payable in "lawful money of the coun- try" a $1,000 bond for $400 in gold ; or the same thing $1,000 in le- gal tender notes for $400 in gold and then buy the bond with the notes. And this was not enough ; they would not accept legal ten- der notes in payment of their bonds in 18G9, when the notes were worth 73.5 cents on the dollar; but they conspired with our English bank tories and all together with the aid of John Sherman passed the Infamous Act to strengthen the public credit, and indirectly pledge the people to the payment of their 5-20 bonds in coin. Our Congress "pensioned" its gallant bond-holding, gold gambling to- ries who hung like vultures on the outskirts of the battle field to rob the dead and prey on the veterans, widows and children of both sides. Its gallant bond-holders who entrenched themselves behind the seats of a venal Senate who were and are the vanguard, the rear guard, the rank, file, staff line and provision train of our feu- dal English banking system. What has it done for the "musket- holder" who was paid $G. 00 to $8.00 per month? When was the act passed to make good government obligations to him ? It is as if our fathers had pensioned Arnold and the "hessians" and the highly respectable set of lords and ladies of Boston who sailed out with Gen. Howe, when Washington informed that worthy and his class of American citizens who sang "Yankee Doodle," it was time for them to go, March 17, 1775. A people who will continue to tamely sub- mit to the species of outrage class legislation and robbery, to which the American people have for the last twenty years, are incapable of sustaining our form of government. It only remains to be seen if they will. We mistake if our Anglicised corporation aristocracy do not see omens of another "Boston Tea Party" before many years. WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE. What constitutes a state? Not high-raised f battlements, or labored mound. Thick wall, or f moated gate ; Not cities proud with spires and fturrets crowned. Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; Not starred and fspangled courts, Where low-born baseness wafts perfume to pride. 152— II. No; men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes indued, In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude: Men, who their duties know, But know their rights; and knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain: These constitute a state ; And sovereign law, that state's collected will, O'er thrones and globes elate, Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill : Smit by her sacred frown, The fiend Discretion,* like a vapor, sinks, And e'en the all-dazzling crown Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. Sir William Jones CHAPTER XIII. Protection or Free Trade. This subject relates to international policy. In this nations ought, as in all others, to "do to others as they would, that others do to them." But experience shows they do not and a people have the same right to protect their industries so as to reap the fruit of their labor they have to wage a war of self-defense to expel an invader. A true civilization of Christian morality would unify all human interests and put an end to the entire doctrine and controversy. The more we study the subject of political economy, no matter from what stand-point we view it. we see the true interests of human in- dustry and civilization are identical. And the man or class, who conspire to deprive labor of its just reward, conspire against the true interests of society and civilization. If "Protection" for what? One great political party of the day says "for revenue." the other "for revenue only." In fact under our constitution, government has no right to lay a tariff or duty as such for either purpose. It does not belong to the taxing power. A tax is a sum levied pro rata upon aman's pres- ent possessions ; it must be uniform with that levied on other like classes of persons and property; and is levied solely to defray the * Discretionary or arbitrary power. 153 expenses of government. The tariff is not levied on what the citi- zen owns in the present, but on what he is expected to use or buy in the future and without regard to whether or not it bears on all with equal burden. The distinction is sometimes made of direct and in- direct tax. All there is in protection that is like a tax is that after the meas- ure yields revenue and no other purpose is known to which to devote it, it is paid into the public treasury and used as other revenues collected as taxes are used. In truth, it is a mere measure of national policy and political economy, like the family of the' homestead and execution, exemp- tion and bankrupt laws. If to raise "revenue" or for "revenue only" were the only purpose, for which protective tariff were laid it is clear, thev ought not to be laid at all. For it would be an unjust unconstitutional use of the taxing power. If "protection" then for what? For manufacturers it is answered! All well but how? — By laying an indirect tax on all the rest of society of the country to protect and build up certain industries. And that is, or may be, all well, but it has limits in time and degree. If we do so tax ourselves for such a purpose for awhile to build up our manufacturers, that supposes that sometime there will be a time when they are built up and established and may stand on their own footing. We have no right in this country directly or indirectly to tax one or all other industries to build up one only in so far as it can be shown that as a matter of fact and policy in the end in the course of years, it will be better even for those who are thus taxed, and, in fact they will in the end, be benefitted thereby in the general pros- perity b' increased wealth and revenues and exemption from bur- dens and national commercial independence. And it ,- s a measure of national policy used against an outside, a second nationality. It does not belong to inter or domestic policy. It clearly is unconsti- tutional as applied to two domestic industries, that are both admit- ted to be lawful, neither under the ban of public policy. That class of domestic legislation that discriminates between two businesses or industries must come within the exercise of the police power to have a constitutional foundation. If it is a business wrong under the ban of public policy, an injury to society so de- clare and outlaw it. If not let it alone. The "revenue" is "only" a seco clary consideration. If it were the "only" one we would have no right to make a tariff rate at all ; that is not the way to raise revenue. There was :i time in our earlier history when this subject was of much more importance to us than now. Protection as a policy implies that it is temporary. If an industry or species of manufacture does not by it approach to a footing so it may by degrees be withdrawn, and stand alone, it condemns the whole system ; it does not accomplish what was in- tended. As a fact we know it does tend that way ; and many such 154 enterprises that once needed such assistance, now need it no more, or in a less degree. And it is the duty of Congress in the exercise of a sound discretion to withdraw such protection just as fast as it can be done, so as not to endanger the industry; or otherwise it runs to an imposition and monopoly. To engage in manufacturing enterprises to any considerable ex- tent, requires capital to procure shops, material, machinery and la- borers. The commencement of manufacturing enterprises is al- ways attended with difficulties. In the first place it takes time, ex- perience and expense to perfect machinery and skill laborers, so that a perfect article may be produced ; and when once produced it may take time and expense to find for it a market. During all this time the new establishment may be compelled to compete with those that are already established in the market, and thus have the pres- tige. This was the case with manufactures in our country in its early history, and it was found impossible to establish them without home protection. As Lord Brougham said when discussing this question in the House of Lords. "It is the policy of England to strangle foreign manufactures in their swaddling cloths," referring to our attempt in that direction at that time. He then advocated 'free trade 1 as the means by which to ac- complish this to him, most desirable end, and England to-day advo- cates the same doctrine for the same purpose. When our country did adopt free trade policy for a time, it en- abled the English manufactures to close up our shops just as effect- ually as if they had stationed a red-coat guard at the door of each one, and turned our laborers into the streets. We could not com- pete with their great capital and cheap labor. Since capital is required in the establishment of manufacturing enterprises it follows that the interests of capital and manufacture become identified and united. And to have command of the manu- facturing interests of a civilized country, is to have command to a great extent of its resources. The questions of a protective tariff and free trade are pre-emi- nently political ones and of all others ought to be discussed dispas- sionately ; for the policy pursued by governments on this subject has made and unmade nations. The establishment of manufactures tends to sharpen and quick- en the inventive genius of a people, to make them independent, thrifty and energetic; a matter of no small import. And the labor of producing the raw material is usually the most slavish ; while that of producing the manufactured article, although not so severe, is more remunerative. Also the producer of the raw material draws directly upon the natural resources of his country; while the manufacturer draws upon and invest nothing but his ma- chinery and labor. The nation that does not manufacture must pay * those that do its work. It has nothing with which to pay except the raw material, hence it must make a double draw on its natural re- sources, and thus support, at least in part, the manufacturing peo- 155- pie. As, if we raise wool and do not manufacture cloth, but hire it done, then we must raise and sell an amount double our own de- mands, one half for our own use, the other to hire our own work done. And, as we must have cloth, and have no maehiuery and skilled labor to make it, we are at the mercy of the manufacturers ; their avarice, war, famine, or pestilence may cut off our supply. Our true policy is protection where it is necessary for protec- tion always ; but for revenue or for "revenue only" never. The west and south now need protection against the east nearly as much as the east ever needed it against England. But this must be done at the polls, and in fostering home manufactures. Itcannot be done by legislation. It must be done by snowing under with the ballot, the undue and tyrannical influence of the corporation money power that levies contributions, excises and taxes upon us. the like of which our Fathers never knew. Compared to which the ''stamp act" and others of its kind were mild. And they are crushing the enterprise and spirit and robbing the masses of the people of the east in common with us. CHAPTER XIV. Insurance — Life and Fire. Life Insurance ought to be prohibited by law. (1.) It is in fact and morals and in law ought to be considered a gambling con- tract. On the company side the "stake" put up played for is the sum named in the policy; on the policy holder's side, the "stake" is the "premium." One of the main inducements to the business on the company side is the "forfeitures" by lapsing by failures to pay premiums. A simple life policy is just such a wager as if I say to you, I will wa- ger you $2,000 that the first day of April, 1*9(5' wiU'b.e a clear day. Or I will wager you ^2,000 that there will not be thirty consecutive clear days in this latitude in thirty years. And you say I will do it if you will pay me twenty-five dollars premium each year until there does come thirty consecutive such days. (2). The entire motive on both sides is to get something for nothing. If the terms of the policy or wager do ever become for- feit on either side one or the other does get something for nothing. Every such enterprise that holds out inducement to engage in such wagers or contracts to get something for nothing is positively wrong in principle and pernicious in its effect on society. It is the same as the lottery and wheel of fortune, only as a rule^ the wager takes a longer term of years to decide it, being as it is decided by life and death. Every occupation and so-called business that fur- 156 nishes facilities to accomplish and that does accomplish such objects, aids and assists in taking something for nothing ; tends to destroy the dependence of society upon good faith, labor, for "livings" to destroy the equation that ought always to subsist between produc- tion or earnings and consumption; and to repeal the law, "that if a man will not labor, neither shall he eat." This encourages idleness and shiftlessness on one hand and dis- courages industry and thrift on the other. (3). The entire business is begotten and born in usury, fed and fattened on it, "conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity." (4). The only argument attempted to be made in its defence is, it is a good way for a poor man to make provision for his family in case of sudden death. That is there is a chance for his family to get something for nothing. A speculation on the Board of Trade is a chance for the same thing and he does not have to die to win. The object is laudable, but a right thing may be done, or attempted in a wrong way, and ten to one the Board or the company will freeze and for- feit him out. The greater his poverty the worse his health, the more dire his necessities the greater the probability they will do it. In fact he must have both health and money to commence to wage with the com- pany ; the Board will only ask him to put up the premiums. One is as respectable and as good morals as the other ; in fact both are im- moral. (5). If there was anything in this argument, the charity and providing feature of the insurance, then the mutual and co-opera- tive plans would be the true one. But even it is easily demonstra- ted to be based on no principle but selfishness and short-sighted selfishness at that, no just or true principle in it. For at the best it is admitted to be only a combination of the strong or able to help each other for help in return. "If 3 T e do good to them who do good to you, what thanks have ye? Do not even the publicans so? It is unchristian, uncharitable and false; arty such a combination in soci- ety is unjust to the rest, for it is in so far as it is for each other against the rest. At the least the very essence of charity is, that the able shall help the weak ; but here the obligation is that the able shall help the able, first at least, a d for lndp again. For no person in failing health so as to be likely to become an actual object of charity can gain admission to one of them In fact tiny are no more or less than "mutual" and "co-operative" selfishness and as usual such mo- tive of action soon overreaches and punishes itself. For in twenty years from to-day not one of these companies now in existence will be here. For they are built on the quicksands of selfishness and they cannot stand. (6.) The test and touch stone of a usage, law or principle of business is, if it is just and upon a true principle it may be univer- sal in its benefits and burdens to all persons and still it will be healthful and just. Try the entire business by this test and it fails. 157 Suppose government would enact, a law that upon the death of the head of every family, it should he paid the sum of $1,000. What would be the result? If all did in fact pay their share of tax that would have to be levied to do it all would be in fact injured by the tax to the amount it cost to levy, collect and distribute the fund. For it would be taking- from the family just that much more than would ever be returned to them. Or if, as is always the case, some failed to pay their share of tax, and it was carried out, the system would only put a premium on idleness and indigence. And from every view it is in the end self-condemning. That it seems to do well in special instances may be true. The proceeds of a speculation on the Board of Trade, may in some instances do the same. (7). The enormous sums of capital accumulated by the old line companies in the business shows them to be frauds and an im- position on society. True they sometimes lose and pa}' wagers or policies; so do the lottery schemes as one of the best advertisements. And these companies you will find put the losses they have paid in bold type for the same purpose. The capital now held and used by these companies in this country as stated by themselves is $425,- (t»o. 000 in round numbers. ' : Net surplus" they give at $65,000,- 000. With the older and richer companies life insurance is only a secondary matter. They now begin to compete with the Roths- childs and other usurers of the world. They are like gamblers who have made great fortunes in "shoving the queer;" who many re- spectable wives, join, at least become brothers-in-law to a respecta- ble (?) church and run the whole business. He may practice his old time vocation for amusement, or on a good subject ; so do these companies their life insurance. Their main business is to influence and corrupt legislation, so as to dodge taxation and loan money. In the Western States, where the farms are covered from five to twenty dollars deep to the - acre with their mortgages at 6 per cent to eight per cent interest and (3 to 12 per cent commission, they do not pay a cent of taxes. And in in nine out of ten instances they do not pay taxes on the money in the State of their residence. If they do pay taxes there it is un- just; for their loans in these western States are an investment, pro- tected by the law and the courts of these States are used to enforce their obligations. In these States resident capital and money is tax- ed ; but these good Samaritans are so sought for they are invited to come and stay like the churches and cemeteries, free from taxation, and they are about as easily filled and satisfied as the cemeteries. Their loans compounded at six per cent by re-loans double each ten years without regard to commission. Take their assets at this rate for a period of forty years and see what you have. And under their charters they are to loan only ; the}* do not 158 choose to own property that might be taxed ; that is a burden of one and a half to two per cent. Fire and other assurance against accidental lire, lightning, earthquakes, tornadoes and floods is legitimate. But it ought not to be in the hands of private persons or corporations as a source of private gain. At this time the business is done in this country by about one hundred and eighty companies, who claim to own about $88,000,000 of capital. Net surplus $76,000,000 in round numbers. Assets $164,000,000. Statistics published by themselves show the American people paid the 177 companies in business in this country in the year 1887, in premiums the sums $90,500,000. The same statistics show they paid the people the same year in losses the sum of $55,276,000. And it thus appears by deducting the "losses" from the premi- ums there was paid these companies that year the sum of $35.224..- 000 for management of the business of property insurance, equal to sixty-three per cent of the entire sum of losses paid ; that is the sums of $200,000 to each one of the '77 companies then in busi- ness. That is an outrageous showing for a free, intelligent commer- cial people. But what would be better? is the question. Let the United States enact a general law, providing for a commensurate fund to be raised by taxation to meet the purpose ; that is to all losses occasioned by earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and great city or other fires where the loss is so general and so great as to burden the country where it occurs. Provide a simple, plain remedy for prov- ing the losses and certifying them to be paid to the proper depart- ment and officer. And for sake of safety in all other cases, such as accidental fires, fires from lightning, explosions and other acci- dent when the owner is not guilty of culpable civil negligence let him file a petition in the circuit or some court of record to be des- ignated in the county, and be required to prove by a clear prepon- derance of the evidence his loss to be found by a jury. The proper of- ficers to defend all such cases to prevent the perpetration of fraud, and not to exceed 66 per cent of the actual loss to be paid in any case, except such as are in law from the "Act of God" and provi- ding that it may be less, if any degree of negligence by the claim- ant is shown ; costs to be awarded to prevailing party, all such losses to be paid out of a fund to be raised in the county. It might be well to provide that the losses in all cases should lie proven up in the local or. state courts and then when the losses were shown to be of a nature to be payable from the general fund of the United States provide a simple way for certifying them to be paid Under this system all would have insurance without regard to poli- cy, there would be no expired or lapsed policies. A man would be insured under the law ; it would be in fact a Christian mutual char- table "bearing of each other's burdens,'' saying to those of our fellow-citizens upon whom crushing losses fell, do not be cast down or overwhelmed; we are all united and strong; we will parcel your 159 loss out among us, so many of us, none of us uill scarcely feel it. And we would not. The insurance of all in the Republic would not co t as much as we now pay, for perhaps one half of the prop- erty . The expenditures of the War Department and for pensions both, for the year 1886 was $97,729,016, only $7,229,000 more than tlie sum paid by the American people tor ''premiums'' r,o the companies, for the year 1887. The estimated cost of tin- Legislative department of our gov- ernment as stated, by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United Stales, for the year " 1887, was $3,'275,828. 1 he Executive Depart- ment for the same period was estimated at 818,491,311. The Ju- dicial Department for the same period was estimated at $408,300, or a total of $22,174,439. Or 13,000,000 less than the cost of the "management' of the property insurance of the United States, as done by the 177 companies in 1887 The sum paid these companies for the item of "management" alone, that is, attending to the busi- ness, in the year 1887, according to their own figures, would sus- tain a standing army, in the United States, of 117,401' men at a cost of $25. per month, or $300. per annum per man A pretty good garri- son is it not for the one item of property insurance? Then add to this the $64,000,00(1 paid the Life Insurance companies per annum for "premium'' and we have an addition to our standing (or sitting) army of Insurance agents of 210,000 more or a Grand Army of 327,- OOU men. But these Life Insurance companies claim they pay cash $30,(100,000 of the 64,0(io,()(Hl in "claims on policies. ' Well, admit it and then the grand sitting arrm of Life Insurance agents is only 113,333 men and the entire body reduced to 250,000 men, quite a garrison to support for the one item of property and life insurance. And this burden the American people pay because they do not regulate the business by law. CHAPTER XV. Paternity and Centralization in Government. Every measure to check and limit the undue iufluenceand power of private and corporate capital in relation to the subjects of trans- portation, money and land, is met with the argument it tends to paternity and centralization. in government; it is too much interfer- ence and soon government must do everything. That it tends to suppress or discourage the enterprise and genius of the people and must end in a too great centralization of power. ThesH are proper considerations when applied to the right subjects. But as applied to us and our form of government in that behalf 160 it is, if anything, an argument against the spirit and form of the very constitution. There are two extremes, too little as well as too much govern- ment. The argument is that these subjects of transportation, mon- ey, land and insurance are too great, too much involved in them, too much power used in regulating these subjects, and that too directly effects the citizens to be entrused to government. If it gets this power it will grow to overshadowing extents and crush private rights. As we have, seen our government consists in the powers conced- ed by the citizen to society and exercised by the duly chosen or appointed agents, as indicated in the constitution. When the citi- zen enter the state of society regulated by law he is compelled to cede some natural rights and powers to be exercised by it. Under the constitution the lirst one ceded is the right to frac- tionize our society for any political, law-making, interpreting or ex- ecuting purpose. All such subjects are to be acted upon by "we, the people of the United States. '' He cedes the natural right of re- dress of his wrongs and defenses of person and property except in case of actual personal trespass or assault; and this function exer- cised by government becomes the judicial department. The same of the law-making and executing power. Also of the right, at least the power, of barter from hand to hand, and every other property right goes with the law-making, interpreting and executing power. Our constitution is a compact, the citizen is one, society the other party to it. Our government consists of the acts and doings of the agents chosen under the constitution in protecting the inter- ests and rights of the citizen on one hand and society on the other. And the argument of paternity is simply one against the spirit, in- tent and form of our government. It insinuates at least that our form of government cannot be entrusted with so much power; it will grow exacting and will encroach and trench upon private rights. As we have seen the whole structure from "turret to foundation stone" is held together, by faith, trust, confidence. It is this faith leads the citizen to confide to his government the right and power to pro- tect his interests, and society could not lie established in any other way. And these against such confidence are alwa3 r s the arguments of the elements who do not want to submit to constitutional and legal limitations upon their acts and doings ; these are always the argu- ments of the men and classes of men who have no faith themselves, in God or man, and who are unwilling to submit their claims to the rule of "do to others as ye would that they should do to you." And the argument in regard to transportation and money by incorporate greed and capital is that now in the process of time under the con- stitution, these two great interests of society have developed and grown up to be so powerful they have grown from under govern- ment regulation and in fact it would be dangerous to ally them and 161 government as to management. In a word carried out to its legiti- mate conclusions it is that our form of government has been tested, in part at least, and as to these two great subjects it is a failure. For here are two subjects that are of the very essence of the polity of a civilized society subjected to its control by the constitution and our form of government cannot be entrusted to attempt to manage them ; but here it must be supplemented by private management and control to protect private right from government "paternity and centralization." The citizen from the nature of the case can have no control over these subjects only through it, and it is the duty of government to exclude private ownership and control. It may as well be argued that government cannot be entrusted to "borrow money on the credit of the United States" or "to regulate com- merce" as that it cannot be entrusted to regulate these two means by which commerce is accomplished. For the fact is there can be no society, no commerce, without transportation and money. These two great factors will be and remain right here among us growing in importance and power every j 7 ear and will be controlled b} r private or public and agents and the power will be the same and is the same in the hands of the one or the other class of agents. And outside the constitution it becomes a cpaestion of choice between the two classes of agents. If it is too much power for gov- ernment, we suggest it is too much power for private control. We may concede that both classes are men, and one as a class as good as the other. But still these controling considerations are in favor of government control. 1. The government agents will not own the property or have any interest in or expectation of gain from the management of the property and service only to do duty and gain the salary. 2. They will be under oath and bond and responsible and gov- erned by law. As to the second class, first, they elect themselves, second, they own the property, third, they hope to and do make un- conscionable gains on their "watered stock" and management. 3. They make, interpret and administer their own law, are re- sponsible to no one. It is simply corporation dust thrown in the eyes of the masses of the people by a clr.ss of men who have and still propose to set themselves above the constitution and law to en- able them to follow the dictates of their ungovernable greed of gain. It is an argument not against any abuse, or practice of republi- can representative self-government, but against its very letter, spir- it ami form. An attempt to sow the seed of popular distrust that would if grown to full harvest choke out and destrov it. —162 CHAPTER XVI. To Gentlemen of the Bar. Where the common law, the jury sj-stem and constitutional lim- itations upon political power obtain foot-hold, the court-house is a school house and you are school masters of civil and religious liberty. You put the law into living words and make living applications of it to causes. You put the machinery of the courts in motion and draw from them the judgments and decrees that determine to the minds of the people the great subject of mine and thine. You enforce Irv illus- tration the subjects of vested rights and contract, the majesty of the law and the truth that in obedience to it only is their safety. The very study of history necessary to any proficiency in your profes- sion, leads and schools you in the trains of thought followed by the statesman. The very study of your profession leads you to investi- gate and classify the general truths of history, leads you to contem- plate the conditions under which institutions grow or decay and how they have grown and decayed in different ages of men ; how civil and religious liberty have been gained and how they have been lost. Your study has led you to observe that the original cause that led to great changes in the affairs of men were further back than appeared to the casual reader of history. That for years, a century it may be, the conditions of the political atmosphere had been portending a storm. The crash and whirl of the civil revolution came on like the avalanche. It has been coming for days, months, maybe years; but it was only a tendency at first; a melting away of supports, a mere tendency to move, a silent one at that; but at last comes a day, an hour, when it seems it does move, and with a vengeance in roar and thunder. All great political movements and revolutions of so- ciety are indicated at first by only silent tendencies. Sometimes their greatest results are accomplished in silent constitutional trans- itions. If you have studied the lessons of history taught by other countries you ought to study the lessons taught by the situation of our own. You cannot but see that in the last twenty years aggre- gated and incorporate wealth has made such strides in encroach- ments upon labor as were never made in any other country in the same length of time. In that time the original rules of interpreta- tion of the charter and powers of corporations has undergone great innovations and changes. It is no use any longer for a private suiter to raise any ques- tion as to their powers, questions of ultra vires. For if he does the courts say to him — no matter if it be so; "no one can take advantage of such abuses of their charters and powers, but the sovereign power of the State." -163- It is well known the "sovereign power 1 ' of the state, that grant- ed its charter, ten to one is another than the one where it viciously violates it, and the rule is simply a mild way of absolutely denying justice. While this is being written a great railroad corporation in Missouri, in open violation of her constitution and laws, has formed a "Land and Town Company," is to r day engaged in buying lands along the line of its roads, plating and "booming towns," and "spec- ulating in town lots," notwithstanding the Supreme Court of this State said directly, in the case of Pacific Railway Co. vs. Seeley, 45 Mo. 212, no such company in this State could do it. So it goes all over the country. At the present rate of en- croachment it would seem these artificial persons would soon de- mand the right to vote, marry and be given in marriage. These en- croachments and usurpations are now to be held and exercised under the cloaks of regulation by "Commissions." We have Railroad and "Insurance Superintendents'" and "Commissions." They are an easy-going slipshod way of seeming to do and yet doing nothing; they are another name for the exercise of "prerogative" of almost unbounded power. We ask you, as lawyers, to define the legal and political status of one of these "commissions." To what department of government do they belong? the law-making, interpreting, or exe- cutng? An examination will show you in an hour that none of them belong to any one of these three ; they are a species of cross, hybrid, or mule — a legal nullius fHUus, without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity. Where is the place for you in any of them, to file a suit for relief to a private suiter? How can you know what is the law as to "reasonable charges," that may or may not be violated? Suppose you do, between the "commission" and corporations find out what the law ; s, and that it has been trampled under foot and your suit is filed; where are you to have a trial? before whom? and what is your judgment to be? In truth you know there is no place for anything but a "parley" with the corporation on one hand and the uncertain legal or illegal quantity, or personages called for euphony a "commission'' on the other. You or your client may stand by the side of your valiant "commissioner," carpet-bag in hand and ' chip in" at times in the "parley." It is all a fnrce in ev- ery respect, to everybody, but its actual co3ts to the tax-payer. As a court it is not even a respect ble "bureaucracy," — does not reach even that dignity. It suppresses the public cause, enforced by pub- lic trial and the voice of a living advocate. The corporation judges and "commissions" do not have time to listen often to the clamour of oral argument. In these "commissions" there is no time or place for it. It better suits the enterprise of another class of talent — the professional lobbyist, — the class of lawyers who succed in applying the law to the case, rather than the case to the law. The solon of the state legislature who makes himself useful to the overgrown corporations, as a law maker and lobbyist before the "comnvssioners" and assessment boards or boards of equalization of assessments, without regard to any other qualifications, takes the 164 corporation attorneyship, on a gilt edge salary. The real advocate, who disdains his tricks and subterfuges, is at a discount. The lob- byist appears with tinted paper briefs, with an air of wonderful pro- fundity, and looks down with ill concealed disdain upon all who do not countenance his methods. He informs you "nothing succeeds like success," even if it is "selling your birthright for a mess of pot- tage." It is high time a halt be called. We must do it or do worse. You see it as plainly as auv patent fact. It may be easier to drift with the tide, but after awhile the roar and whirl of the civil cata- ract, or ma3lstrom. will break on our ears Our fathers made the declaration and gained our independence over the direct assumptions of absolute prerogative. But the declaration of independence and its conflict against commercial and financial serfdom to aggregate and incorporate capi- tal comes a century later. It falls on our time, you cannot shut your eyes to it if you would. As Patrick Henry said in the Virginia House of Burgesses, "Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace ; the war is actually begun." True, as yet there is little blood shed ; and yet, we have as many as ten outrageous shootings by corporation thugs, ten times as outrageous and bloody as the "Boston Massacre," that filled our fathers with such indignation. We are, on the confines of a commercial, a financial, a political rev- olution. That is now a determined fact ; the only thing unsettled and undetermined is whether it will be confined to legal and constitu- tional methods and means ; confined to the forum of justice and rea- son or go to the form and arena of force. And that will be deter- mined by the prompt action and conduct of the considerate and patriotic men in our country, who can if they will, conduct us through the crisis without resort to force. But if the Herr Most anarchists at one end of the situation and the capitalistic anarchists at the other are to be permitted in the future, as they have in the past twenty years, to be the only heeded expounders of the relative rights of labor and capital, they will carry the cause and us with it, into the arena of force. The capitalistic anarchists are the more dangerous class of the two; they are the minority, the insolent, the powerful, the encroaching class. They are the '•patrician," the "stom- ach" element of our political economy ; the stomach, the baggage and provision train, the camp-followers and sutlers have mutinied, rebell- ed and turned on the main body of the army of society. It Avould be ludicrous if it did not accomplish and threaten such dire results. The rank and file, the main body of society, go whispering about, in rags and whining in poverty and underliving, while bloat- ed sutlers and money changers and gamblers, wagon and baggage masters cut grotesqe Falstaffian figures with cocked hats, spur and whip. They crack their whip and "round up" the rank and iile to vote once in four years ; that is to receive their party "brand" and "belonging" as the "cow boys" do their herds on the plains. — And woe betide the political steer, the fanatic, that raises his caudal 165- appendage shakes his head, refuses to be branded and starts out on a course to form another political herd or party. The cow boys of a venal ignorant press go after him ; they ply him with hot irons and "brands" of vile names, until lie has neither hide or hair to receive the impress of another. But there must, there will come an end to this. The stomach, the sutler, the bag and bag-gage train will grow more and more relentless in its measures. The greater the coward the more cruel his methods; history shows that women as tyrants are more bloody than men; the "squaw'' is more merci- less than the "brave," the "clergy" as a class than the secular pow- er, and the same of sutlers, the hospital nurse, the baggage master, the mule whacker, the miser, the usurer; the shylock takes his "pound of flesh from nearest his heart, for so it is written, in the bond. ' After nwhile the rank and file of society will turn on the sut- lers, camp followers and gamblers of the army of society and then what "a fall will be there my countrymen." in usury, income, in reasonable charges for freights ; what a scattering among the Sllt- lers and gamblers; they will be put to the rout, horse, foot, ambu- lance sleepers and Delmonico on wheels, boots, bottles and fine ci- gars. But in our humble opinion nobody will be hurt. "Marry incom- ing on" Falstaff and his body guard and baggage train will have "the eramp ;" he will call for a commission and parley, indeed he has that now: the whole commission family are the rear and vanguard the wardens of his train. The three departments of constitutional self- government are made and based in the nature of things; that prin- ciple cannot be violated without endangering the integrity and safe- ty of the whole fabric. It is not technical, it is a matter of sub- stance as you know. And these commissions are conglomerations of the functions of each the law-making, interpreting and execu- ting powers. These corporations, railroad, insurance and banking have grown so great and absolute in demands that the ordinary pro- ceedings under the constitutionally appointed agents and depart- ments, one to make, one to interpret and one to execute the law, have grown inadequate to meet the case, they say. And a kind of nameless nonentity, with no defined power, not belonging eitherto the legislative or law-making department, and yet having a sort of law-making power in regulating "reasonable charg- es:" a sort of judicial authority to interpret the law and yet no power to try a cause, empanel a jury or render a judgement. In short, a sort of corporation, legislative, judicial constable or smell- ing committee on wheels, rolling over the State or United States. — It is a costly method of compelling the corporations to do as they please. It is no more or less, examine for yourself. "The preservation of free government requires not merely that the metes and bounds which separate each department be invaria- bly maintained, but more especially, that neither of them be per- 166 mitted to overleap the barrier, which defends the rights of the peo- ple. The rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment exceed the commission from which they receive their authority and are ty- ra ts. The people who submit to it are governed by laws, made neither by themselves nor by any authority derived from them and are slaves." — [Madison. "The powers of government shall be divided into three dis- tinct departments— the legislative, executive and judicial, each of which, shall be confided to a separate magistracy ; and no person or collection of persons charged with the exercise of power properly be- longing to one of these departments shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others, except in the instancesin this con- stitution expressly directed or permitted.'' Distribution of Powers, Article III Constitution of Missouri. I challenge all the corpora- tion lawyers in the State to point out any exception in the Constitu- tion of this State that authorizes the mixture of legislative, judicial and executive functions that are attempted or pre 1 ended to be vest- ed in the "•Superintendent of Insurance" and the "Railroad Com- mission" of this State. To the contrary it is expressly provided in Sec. 14 of Article XII that "The General Assembly shall from time to time, pass laws establishing reasonable maximum rates of charges for transportation and enforce all such laws by ade- quate penalties." That principle of "distribution of powers" as laid down in the Constitution of the State of Missouri and nearly all the other States is the fundamental one of the Constitution of the U. S. and is always kept distinctly in view by the Supreme Court in con- struing it. Do you not see in the board of commissioners invented and contend- ed for by the corporations themselves, the worm of human cupidity and absolute greed eating at the heart, silently it is true, of the tree of liberty? CHAPTER XVII. Strikes and Boycots. A word should net be said to discourage laboring men in their efforts to gain their rights. The spirit of resistance shown to class laws and tyranny is commendable, it is our only hope. But no abi- ding relief can ever be gained by the strikes and boveots as practic- ed for some years. In the first place who are laboring men and who are capitalists, between whom the real contest is waged and for what is it done? It is not a new one in the history of the world ; it 167 has convulsed society, in all ages, climes and conditions where civil- ization has reached a status, so that capital accumulated and popu- lations grew dense. But as applied to us where is the line between "Labor" on one side and '-Capital" on the other? Who may properly be called a "laboring man" a d who a capi- talist, under the existing order of things? For ours is in fact a con- test for the earnings, the reward of labor. It is the contest crowded upon us by the false principle we have discussed that "capital" as such has a right to earn income and thus compete with labor for its reward. Any man who owns capital sufficient to earn, as it is called, enough to support him and his from year to year without being sup- plemented by his actual daily toil and attention, may very well lie called a capitalist. He eats his bread in the sweat of his capital or other men's fa- ces : he will, ten to one, feel 'interested in continuing the conditions that enable him to do it. A certain class of much less means out of debt with a little bank account raise their empty heads to lofty heights and say "we capitalists," must all stand together. Especi- ally is this true of the class who hang upon the bounty of the usur- ers about cities, and a class who have a competence for the present i:i the rural districts. They seem utterly unconscious, that like tame sheep, they lick the hand that smites them ; the hand that can and does depreciate their property and that of the class to which they belong and annually reduce them to straighter and narrower limits of dependence and crowds them closer and closer to the rag- ged edge of insolvency. Every owner of less than twenty-five thousand dollar's worth of properly if not in money loaned at usury is in the true sense a la- bor: -i-.r m i i and his interests are identified from interest if no high- er motive with the laboring class. Nothing will carry conviction to the minds of a certain class of citizens but to see the value of their property shrink year by year and in spite of their toil, slip away from under their feet like April snow and feel the llutter of the rags of poverty in the cold winds of insolvency and bankruptcy. Then they begin to realize that all the conditions by means of class laws and usages set away from labor, from honest toil, like wind and tide, and set toward capital and the usurer to flot all labors reward to him. The line of insolvency, rags and poverty rises higher a id higher and annually covers more heads: the argument is making converts day by day ; the cancer is curing itself or is bringing about the conditions that will do it. The con- test is one between classes drawn on the line of wealth. The capi- talistic garrison is greatly in minority as to number of men, but vastly in majority in number of dollars and growing more so every day ; it is a contest between men and money, and every three to six thousand dollars of money or capital earns more income than an able-bodied man laboring 300 days in the year. But the minority 168 garrison are entrenched in a fortress of class laws and priviliges many centuries old. They are organized, they never ''strike" at each other. In nine cases out of ten, when laboring men "strike" at an immediate employer, they strike at an interest and a man on the same side the capitalistic fortifications as themselves; against men and interests that are suffering under the same causes as themselves; suffering because '-capital" "earnings" eats up all their profits. And the same of the boycot. There may be excep- tions, but that is the rule, Suppose you demand and strike for ten per cent, advance in wages, and gain it; ami it is actually a con- cession, for the time, by aggregated capital. What have you gain- ed? Incorporate capital, as now organized, and controling the transportation and money of the country, can, by raising the "reas- onable charges," of freights, by "controling the volume of the cur- rency, the money."' and consequent fall in wages, and driving men out of employment, cause them to compete with you for your places at a reduction, it may be, of twenty per cent, in your wages in six months. Your "strikes" and "boycots," if for the time successful, do not abate a tithe of the strength of the class privileges and laws! ha' are grinding you, as it were, between the upper and the nether mill- stones. Such "strikes'* are like a man in an iron cage, striking at the guard outside; if he injured or killed him all of it would be, anoth- er put in his place; he is only doing his duty for a living, and all he need do to ward off the blow, is to step back out of reach of the "striker" until he tires himself out. These "strikes" are likeagun that voids its breach at every fire ; it kills more men behind than before it. But you say, What shall we do? Strike for political organiza- tion! Strike for a full freeman's vote at the polls, and a fair count! Strike at the polls; strike at the class laws and privileges that bind you ; strike at the tools of incorporate greed that heretofore have "rounded you up" to the polls to vote against your interests. Eight years of such a strike will bring a second Yorktown, only it will be a bloodless field. History shows the class of men with whom you are compelled to contend are very careful to see that in their cause "their blood flows" on in their veins; — they do not choose to see their thick blue blood wasted on the ground. If they cannot hire one half the "ple- bians" to slaughter the other half, while they crawl in their holes with their gold and pull in the hole after them, and when the "rich man's war and the poor man's light is over, crawl out and come with the vvltures to rob the widows and orphans, it is always a bloodless field. The Senator Sharon, the Henry Ward Beecher. the Joseph Cook class of gentry, and many others who might be named, who have already threatened us with "the fiercest of civil wars," are brave as Falstaff in "coming on" the platform before an audience 169 of women and pious usurers who cheer them to the echo ; but "marry coming on" to the "civil war" he threatened "he has the cramp ;" in fact he is not very well himself ; he does not feel half so war like as his pious indignation would indicate, when he was "shoulder to shoulder" with the greedy, cowardly crew who cheered him. He is willing to "sacrifice all his wife's relations on the altar of his coun- try ;" yes, draft the poor devils who work for a dollar a day and bread and water for dinner, and water and bread for breakfast, and water and bread for supper, to fill the ranks. As for us we will stay at home and "scrape lint,'' with the women while they fight — -we will sing psalms and thank God for the victories. And when the war is over we will see that our class are all pensioned with bonds and per- petual debts, bank and railroad special class legislation, and prate for forty years how "we saved the country." Laboring men of America and Europe, that is the figure you have cut in the wars of this country and Europe of late. It seems to be about time you cease to be a like herd of cattle rounded up, to vote or fight not for but actually against your interests. For out of each you come with the yoke of "wage slavery" more close- ly fitted to your necks, as a class. If we are to have any more of it, we suggest to reverse the order once. Let us see how a "poor man's war and a rich man's fight" would seem. It would be a bloodless field; one "one laboring man" could bury all the dead in an hour. It would be a field strewn with bottles, cigar boxes, cards, crinoline and false hair of mistresses and empty cans. That field would look better than one strewn with the stark, stiff forms of poor fellows who died to preserve the flag and country for a future for capitalistic tyrants? The class who oppress you are the very class who marshal you out upon the hills to manure the. fields with your flesh and blood. Let laboring men of the world's republic set the world an example, strike for your rights at the poles within the constitution and the forms of law. Stand up and strike for your rights, shoulder to shoulder as citizens. Raise the Banner, "Do to others as ye would that they should do to you." We demand no more, we will accept no less? Strike at the poles for your hearth-stones, "Strike for your altars and your fires, Strike for the green graves of your sires, God and your native land." Incorporate capitalistic greed organizes against you one and all, — organize against it. To do this your platform must be broad and charitable enough to make room for every man who honestly seeks to make a living by "the sweat of his face." Millions of them are property owners ; if so and they use their property right they and you are the- stronger. But no fraction or class of our society can obtain any relief for itself or any one else. It will take a great civil uprising and upheaval in the use of the ballot box and the forms of law, to beat down the fortresses of class law and capitalistic greed. 170 It can never be clone by factious demagogues who roar to-day and to-morrow are silenced with a bone and crust for private needs. It must be a calm, deliberate, dignified, persistent purpose of a life time if need be. CHAPTER XVIIL Supply and Demand — Ovek Production. Supply is the entry, demand is the egress door to the market. If products of labor carried in at one, are not paid for and carried out at the other, the market becomes too full, and we are told there is an "over production ;" and the producer at one and the consumer at the other end of the line suffer. The market is the half-way sta- tion between them ; here the barter or exchange of products is made. Soon as the producer, who depends on his product for a living can no longer have market and sale for his product, he ceases per force of circumstances to be a consumer. This very common and growing complaint of labor of late is explained by the class who rob it of its just reward with the high sounding term of "Over Produc- tion." That is to say, if it means anything, that after God and na- ture have blessed labor, with the reward of plenty and to spare at the half way station in the "sweat-house" of the market its product has turned to an offense and yields no return to him who had more or who has less than his needs and in separation they suffer. That is the meaning of the doctrine ; they want you to take their word for it. When you read it in their speeches and papers you must take it as the ox does his master's voice. As a fact, in this country we know the farmers of the west of- ten burn corn to keep from freezing while the miners of the east would fain eat coal to keep from starving. That you see is an "over- production" of corn and coal. It takes four bushels of corn to freight one from the producer to the consumer. In nine out of ten instances every "over production" will be found to come from some such causes. Yes, do not charge your distress to a just God and his provi- dences ; look to the conspiring classes who thus would destroy your faith in God and man, so they may isolate, insulate and rob you. It comes from the machinations of short-sighted private greed in using and abusing the means to accomplish the great fact of the nation's commerce, the transportation an d the money of the country. It comes of government abdication of its rightful control of these branches of the public service. It comes of the "earnings," of capital that earns more than labor and robs it of its just reward. From the moment the product leaves the hand of the producer, 171- yes, and before it is besieged all along the line in turn, by the car- rier and the usurer for "my income" until before it reaches the con- sumer, it is eaten up perhaps among them and then they call it "over-production." Thus labor famishes in the land and in sight of plenty, while the usurer, the common carrier, the speculator on the Board of Trade, the Life and Fire Insurance Company classes the class as a whole, who "raise nothing in the country but hell," gamble for its reward. And when nothing goes or comes to it they call it an "over production." If labor lives through the drouth, the flood, the chicken and hog cholera, the murrain, the grasshoppers, then comes the cor- ners" on the market more dire than all; then comes the usurer and demands his "income" no matter of whom it "comes out," then the common carrier. And on Sabbath if he chooses, he may hear a "sweet singer" of the usurers in a church ornamented with a mort- gage with a "paid up policy" on his life, a through first-class excur- sion ticket for the "heated season" to the Garden of the Gods in his pocket, with his pews well filled or owned by usurers, distillers, brewers, bankers, insurance and railroad corporation officers, saloon and bawdy house landlords, "thank God we are not as other men." Over production, yes in these lines of human endeavor to get some- thing for nothing. Over consumption here, under consumption ev- erywhere else ; over-surfeit here, underfeeding and living among those who produce that on which they surfeit. CHAPTER XIX. Taxation and License. A tax is a "contribution imposed by the government, upon the individual v for the service of the State " The constitution of the U. S. declares all such burdens shnll be according to value and uniform. When the citizen becomes a party to the social compact and cedes to society the right, and it accepts the obligation of protecting his person and property, he imposes on himself the obligation to give it material support with his means. All of us have persons, — some more, some less, some no property — to be protected. As to propertv, reason and the constitution say that when nothing is giv- en, nothing shall be required. What, then, are the legitimate subjects of taxation? (1). Is the "poll"* the head or person one of them? Society has no right to tax a citizen for a possession or right it does not confer or protect. Nor does it have a right to tax a citizen for the protection of rights of such nature that every human being must, and does receive the —172 - very same kind and degree of protection; for instance, snch as the protection of person. This we must, and all do have in common, without regard to place, circumstances, state or possessions. A tax levied for the protection of such a right, is as illogical as it would be to put a tax of one dollar on each human being when born; or to attempt to assist the citizens by a payment of a sum of $100 or any other sum to the legal representatives of every person when he died, the sum to be raised as a tax. It is seen at a glance in any and all such instances, that neither society or the citizen is bene- fited, but both actually are burdened and injured by it, to the ex- tent of the labor and cost of levying, collecting and paying out the tax. In support of the person or poll tax, it may be said that socie- ty assists to the end, by its regulations in regard to marriage and divorce, that a person shall be well born; that is not born on*, of wedlock or the offspring of prostitution, incest or miscegenation, and free from the infirmities of body and mind they entail On the other hand, it may be said, these regulations are mere acts of self preservation on the part of the race, like the acts of ship-wrecked passengers and crew, pumping to keep afloat and for mutual preser- vation. And no legal obligation for such service so rendered ever arises in favor of one person against another when m tual preserva- tion of being was the common object. But as to property just such obligation does arise in favor of the one who at severe service or great peril saves another's property. It is administered in sen, farina- operations, and is called ''salvage. ' But it extends only to property. And if an individual cannot, by such services put another under ob- ligations to him, neither can they do it collectively, or as society, and we conclude that the "poll'' or head tax, set on a man's being is illogical, illegal and unjust. And another fact to be remembered is, the pott tax is never levied for that purpose — the protection of the person hy law, but always for road and street purposes (2 ) Ought the home and homestead furnishings and utensils be exempt from taxation? Society does not confer any natural rights on the citizen if it does protect us in the enjoyment of them. It does not confer on us land, air, light, water or the relation of husband and wife, or parents and children; but it is its dniy to protect us in the enjoyment of all these rights. Every human being has the natural right to living and subsisting room on the surface of the earth; that is to make and maintain a home upon it; it is as perfect a right and as natural an one as the right of marriage, for the pur- pose of the propagation of the race. And to deny the former, in effect defeats the object of the latter. They are both natural rights, — not confered by society; but they are of such nature that all hu- man beings mur>t from the nature of ihe case, enjoy them to the same extent, to the end that society may exist. Man is entitled to a home on the surface of the earth, in a sav- age state and usually gets it; socety does not confer the right of 173 the family and home of the citizen and since it is right all must or ought to have and enjoy equally, we conclude that the homestead as such to a minimum extent and value ought to be in law, and in jus- tice is, exempt from taxation. It is just like a tax on the person or on any other right or privilege that all must enjoy for society to ex- ist. It is exempt on the very same principle that public buildings and roads, parks and improvements are exempt. That is that they are for the common good, and one and all have a common and eqnal interest in them. Hence it is illogical and a work of su- perogation to tax one common interest to fill the coffers to support another one . And outside the reason and justice of the thing, it is a measure of public policy and economy to encourage and protect the building and sustaining of the homes ; tends to common and public thrift, morality and the prevention of pauperism and crime. The dictates of justice, morality and humanity never part company along this line . (3) What then are the proper subjects of taxation? And we answer all those rights, privileges and sources of income that are both conferred and conserved by society. All the property above the homestead exemptions and the learned and professional occupa- tions, and the writer is a lawyer. My profession would not be in existence or lucrative but for society I choose it before all others ; it is no more than just that a reasonable tax be assessed upon it to help support society, the entity that creates the conditions that makes the profession possible and lucrative, and so of others. And all property and property rights above the homestead are the chil- dren of societary conditions and protection and make it bear the weight of the burdens of its mother society. The more a man has the more taxes he should pa\ and the easier it is for him to do it, even at a higher rate. And put on the "income tax'' in an increas- ing ratio to keep pace with the increase of the "income." If capital as such were not permitted to have accretion and in- crease the "income tax" would be unjust. But since it does, the in- come tax does not do half justice. Look a moment at the present unjust assumptions of capital! The owner of $100,000 demands income annually on it of at least five per cent, or if 5,000; the sweat of his capital earns that. A common laborer with a family at $3.00 per day and no sickness and working 300 days in the year cannot possibly lay by to exceed $300. And the $5,000 income of the cap- italist that comes right out of labor's annual earnings and produc- tions can come from nowhere else, eats up the $300 income of 166 of these laborers. But he and his class demand and enact laws to tax the laborer's home if he has any, or to keep him from ever getting one if he has not, by taxing the one rented to him, and that the landlord adds to his rent ; and then in addition to all levies a "poll-tax" of one to three dollars to build roads round and through the possessions of himself and class. And all that after every cent of the income of 174 the 166 men has been eaten up by $5,000 income of the capitalist. He calls it a potency, a personage as capable of earning and claims it does earn more than the 166 laborers and demands income on it for its sweat ; make him, make all those assumptions good to the assessor as well. He is at an unconscionable advantage over the la borer, even if his capital as such in usury and rents did not earn a cent. Put the income tax on him and the learned professions and let the little homes of God's poor go free Of course the owners of homes must pay the expenses of mak- ing and recording surveys and transfer of the title, but no other tax as such ought to be put on them. Akin to taxation is the subject of licensing. Society has no right to tax any primitive industry, such as agriculture, building habitations, preparing food, clothing or utensils; or any calling that teaches the young and imparts general information to the end that each succeeding generation shall know more of all its duties and re- lations, moral, social and political than its predecessor did. But it is also made a cover and a pretence to compromise with and lend the sanction of the law to occupations that are actual crimes against society, such as prostitution and the liquor traffic. Some of our good citizens we expect are not aware that prostitu- tion as such has been actually licensed in some of our great cities. It was done in St. Louis in the year 187 and was maintained. Women were charged a license fee and registered as such; and charged a fee to pay a scab of society called for euphony a "doctor ' to make stated rounds to the "houses" to examine the inmates and if entitled give them certificates of bodily health, if not order them to the hospital for treatment until restored and then she might have another certificate. The moral sentiment of the State revolted and kicked the hell born crew of "madams," 'doctors" and the rist, at least out of legal toleration and recognition. But it still gives ley al tolera- tion and recognition to the ante-chamber, the vestibule, the lower floor of the bawdy house, its twin sister, the dramshop. And the cities of the United States are full of establishments, dramshops on the first and bawdy houses on the second floor. And pious (?) deacons and usurers collect the rents with marked stated punctuality on Saturday night and go to church on Sunday and "thank God they are not as other men '"' The laboring men and women of this country must understand that the usurer, the rent racker and the liquor traffic make common cause against them all along the line. They well understand the alliance all the time and act on it even if you do not. John Sherman, the Judas of the people's cause, had the impudence to introduce into the 'Rump Corporation and Millionaire's Parliament" the Uir'ted States Senate, a bill provi- ding that the national bankers might loan money to the own- ers of bonded whiskey to enable them to pay their United States taxes on it, and then permit the banks to roll the whiskey in their cellars or other safe place and deposit it in lieu of U. S. Bonds as 175 the law now is, as basis to secure their issues of bank notes. That is, bottom the currency and business of the country on a sea of alcohol. This old reprobate has fought for twenty years to destroy the $340,000,000 of legal tender notes bottomed on the hon- or, patriotism and property of the great American people, but was willing to do that to join in unholy wedlock these two enemies of so- ciety, the usurer and the traffic, and then thought they surely would make him president. The Supreme Court of Missouri says of the license paid by the dramshop keeper, "the license fee exacted by the general law reg- ulating dramshops and the act amendatory thereof is not a tax within the meaning of sections 1 and 3 of Art. 10 of the Constitu- tion, but is a price paid for the privilege of doing a thing, the doiDg of which the legislature has a right to prohibit altogether. Such laws are regarded as police regulations, established by the legislature for the prevention of intemperance, pauperism and crime and the abatement of nuisances;" and are not regarded as an exer- cise of the taxing power. "Pursuits that are pernicious or detri- mental to public morals may be prohibited altogether or licensed for a compensation to the public." It does not follow be- cause the license fee is large, or because it may become a part of the public revenue that it is therefore a tax. Many fines, penalties and forfeitures become a part of the public revenue of the State that are not derived from taxation." State vs Hudson, 78 Mo. 304 That is, it is a compromise with a species of crime against society that "spreads intemperance, pauperism and crime," "a price paid for the privilege of doing it;" a transaction in which society or the gov- ment says, you may do it if you will divide blood money with us. And wh«n the dramshop keeper or his sattellite, the ward or county shyster asks laboring men to petition the authorities to grant a license for a saloon, they ask them to levy a special tax on them- selves to pay the taxes of the saloon and bawdy house landlords and other property owners. If it is granted the keeper pays the license fee into the treasu- ry as so much tax, say $1,000 per year — he now is out that, he must have a barkeeper at §600 per year, and at the lowest figure he must make $2,000 for income and to keep up expenses, that is he must have at least $3,600 per annum, and he levies this sum on his pat- rons. Who are they as a rule? You know laboring men, your wives and children know too well. It is you on whom he levies and off whom he collects as a class every cent of it; and you stand up at his bar and pay it. For- what as a rule ? The vilest decoctions of goat's horns, old shoe soles, tobacco stems and fusil oil that ever burned and rotted the coats of a human stomach. And you pay the regulation 5 or 10 cents evary time you drink. Suppose while you are drinking and paying, mayor, mugwump aldermen, mug, grog and magog and Col. Pod Auger and Shyster Bnzfnz, fanning their red, bloated taces, inarch in. Mr Dramshop Keeper is wreathed in -176- smiles down to his apron ; he snatches your money and shabs yon out , he beckons the late arrivals back to the coolest and cosiest cor- ner in the concern, and does he offer them the vile stuff that tortur- ed your parched gullet? No, indeed, they would scorn it. He draws out the special decanter with a fine article and fans the flies off of them while they suck it iced through a straw. And they in return make arrangements then and there to lower or renew his li- cense and to "round up the voting cattle" at the next election to vote for their old masters, the usurers, the saloon, the bawdy house landlords and the liquor traffic. And you men pay the bills for the ice, the fine wines, the straws, the fine cigars, the rents, the usury, in short for the whole establishment And on Sunday you walk out to the park or other public resort with your wife in faded calico, your children barefoot and there is Madam Saloon Keeper making faces at you, rustling in silk, stinking in pomade, and her children dressed in the height of fashion, paid for with your money as a class. Don't you think you ought to rush up or be lead up to sign the petition of Jake Sniggle, Fritz or Patrick OToole, for a license? Mo, in the name of God, Home and Native Land, men, be men, boy- cott the saloon, let it severely alone. Let Col. Pod Auger and his gang pay their own bills and do their own voting. The liquor traffic is one of the vilest monopolies in the civiliza- tion of to-day. Along with the rest it annualiy eats up labor's reward and the saloon is the headquarters, the recruiting office politically of the whole brood, who feast like crows and buzzards upon you. Boycott it men, in the name of your wives and children, sisters and sweet- hearts, in the name of your manhood. And the license, high or low, is a covenant with hell ; every one issued ought to be, in the sight of a just God it is written in blood and tears. It stains the stars and stripes just as much as slavery did. Shame on the national statutes, revenue and license laws that will say to a man who makes oath in the state of Iowa or Kansas or in the Local Option counties in Mis- souri, that he "intends to sell intoxicating liquors" at such or such a place in their boundaries and in violation of their laws. Shame, I say upon a national government that will say to such an insurgent law breaker and traitor to his state and its laws ; I know you intend to violate the laws of your state ; but divide before you commence ; give me a pittance of the fruit of your law breaking, your blood money, your "spreading intemperance, pauperism and crime," and you have my permission to go in with your state in a free fight, ar.d spread all of these evils you choose. That is the attitude to-day of the U. S. license and revenue law to the prohibition states and counties. — Shame upon it, it is akin to and black as ever were the blood hound slave refugee acts that disgraced our statutes in slave times. 177 CHAPTER XX. TO THE CLERGY. You will pardon the presumption, but you may learn something from a layman, as they may learn much from you. Your influence is great in a government composed as ours. You may not intend to "preach politics," but if you "declare the whole council of God," as taught in the new testament you are compelled to deal with and discuss great moral questions that enter into the great political issues of the times. Politics in a true sense is one thing, "party" is another ; with par- ty as such in the pulpit you have nothing to do. With the great moral questions that affect the moral and material welfare of socie- ty and and that may or may not enter the "party" strifes of the da} T , you do. Such was chattel slavery ; such is pol} r gamy, the law of di- vorce, and wage slavery in all its features. For wnge slavery is in- jurious to both the oppressor and the oppressed, as was chattel slavery. In some instances civil and municipal law Imve directly in both letter and spirit repealed the law of both the old and new testament. I shall here call your attention to but two. One in the matter of di- vorce ; there is but one cause for divorce according to the Christian rule, and either party who marries after divorce for any other com- mits adultery. Yet nearly all the states have numerous other "causes," and comparatively the pulpit is silent. Under the old testament law. given for the the government, of the "chosen people," a Jew was not permitted, to take usury or interest from a Jew, but might from a stranger. Christ said, "I come not to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfill." Peter, Paul and the rest sa}*, there is "no more Jew or gentile and we are all one in Christ." If the privilege of the Jew over the "stranger" or Gentiles, of eating up his substance and that of his class by usury yet remains to :iny, will you please inform us, who are the Jews now? to whom this privilege belongs? The truth is, here is another instance when first custom invaded the law of Christ and the innovation was en- acted into law. The Christian church stood stoutly committed against it, until the sixteenth century. John Calvin was the first Christian minister or priest who ever undertook to justify its prac- tice. Its practice by the Jews in Europe caused them time and again to be driven from one country to another. In these persecuiions undoubtedly there was much of human cupidity, as well as religious belief. For then, as now, the practice of it, slowly, but surely, as surely as the duration of time, gathered the greater share of wealth of the products of the labor of the com- ix] unnity into the hands of the usurers. And when this abuse not only antagonized their religious belief, but actually reduced them to poverty and suffering, the earlier Christians, as bodies, arose and 178 ejected the leeches and drones of their hives, of society, with little or no regard to public form or law or private rights. And unless the encroachments of the usurers are checked by law, by civil and peaceable means, history will repeat itself. And next time it will take the shape of open hostility to the Christian church, as the French Revolution did ; unless the church takes her proper place and breaks the apparrent truce and in many cases real league with the usurers. I respectfully call your attention to the following old testament Scripture on the subject: USURY, INTEREST, INCREASE. Text: Nehemiah, 5th chapter, 6th to 13th verse. And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words. Then I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the nobles, and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. And I set a great assembly against them. And I said unto them, We after our ability, have redeemed our brethren the Jews, wnich were sold unto the heathen ; and will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us ? Then held they their peace and had nothing to answer. Also I said, It is not good that ye do ; ought- ye not walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies? I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might exact of them mone3 r and corn: I pray you, let us leave off this usun<. Restore, I pray you, unto them, even on this day, their lands, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses, also the hun- dredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them. Then said they, we will restore them and will require nothing of them ; so we will do as thou sayest. Then I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise. Also I took my lap, and said, so God shakes out every man from his lap, that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. And all the cong r egation said, Amen, and praised the Lord, And the people did according to this promise. If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him a usurer ; neither shalt thou lay upon him usury — Exodus, 22nd chapter, and 25th verse. And again. If thy brother be waxed poor and fallen into decay with thee, thou shalt relieve him ; yea, though he be a stranger or sojourner ; that he mny live with thee. Take thou no usury of him or increase; but fear thy God, that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money on usury nor lend thy victuals for increase. Ye shalt not, therefore, oppress one another, but thou shalt fear the Lord thy God: for I am the Lord thy God. — Leviticus, 25, 3G. 37 and 17. Again it is said. In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood. Thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbor -179- by extortion, and hast forgotten me saith the Lord thy God. — Ezekiel 22nd chapter, and 12th verse. Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother, usury of money, usary of victuals, usury of anything lent upon usury. — Deuterono- my, 23rd ch., 19th v. He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. — Prov. 28th ch.. and 8th v. While it is said that a good man leaveth an inheritance to his children, it is also said that the wealth of a sinner is laid up for the just. — Prov. loth and 22nd. For he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase. — Ecclesiastics 5th and 10th. It is also said of the good man, that he putteth not out his mon- ey to usury, nor taketh a reward against the innocent. — Psalms, loth and 5th. Her princes in the midst thereof, are like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain. And her prophets have daubed them with untempered morter, seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying: Thus saith the Lord God when the Lord hath not spoken. The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy ; yea, have oppressed the stranger wrongfully, and I souggt for the man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it ; but I found none. Therefore I have poured out my in- dignation upon them ; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath ; their own way I recompensed upon their heads saith the Lord God.— Ezekiel* 22nd ch., 27, 28, 29, 30th verses. This is strong language, but it is not mine. It is the language of righteous indignation at the oppression that always in all ages and conditions of men follow this practice. Have you declared the whole truth on this subject? This is the old testament. Read the new. — The law and the prophets were untilJohn ; since that time the kingdom of God is preached and every man presseth into it. And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than it is for one tittle of the law to fail. — Luke, verses 15 and 17, chapter XVI. "And Jesus looked around about and saith to his desciples. how hardly shall they that have riches enter the kingdom of God." "And the desciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again and saith unto them, children how hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God." "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." — Mark, verses 23, 24, 25, Chapter X. This young man of whom this was said whom "he loved" marked up higher on the standard of moral ex- cellence than any man, "who by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance "can do ; for he had "kept the commandments from his youth up"' including, "Defraud not." 180 "Think not I am come to destroy the law or the prophets ; lam not come to destroy but to fulfill." "For verily I sa} T unto you, till heaven and earth pass one jot or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." — Verses 17, 18, Mathew, Chapter V. "Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." "For I was an hungered and you gave me meat : I was thirsty and you gave me drink ; I was a stranger and ye took me in." "Naked and ye clothed me ; I was sick and ye visited me ; I was in prison and ye came unto me." "Then shall they answer him saying, Lord when saw we thee an hungered and fed thee or thirsty and gave the drink?" "When saw we thee a stranger and took thee in or naked and clothed thee?" &c. "And the king shall answer and say unto them, verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me." "Then shall he say unto them on the left hand depart from me? ' "For I was ahungered and ye gave me no meat?" "Then shall they also answer saying Lord when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stanger or naked, or in prison and did not minister unto thee?" "And then shall he answer them saying verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me." — Verses 34-45 inclusive, Mathew, Chapter XXV. He makes a personal matter of it and no mistake. He felt the indignity and insult of the enforced poverty of his class in his time ; more than once refers to it. "Beware of the Scribes which desire to walk in long robes and love greetings in the markets and the highest seats in the syna- gogues and the chief rooms at feasts." "Which devour widow's houses and for a show make long prayers : the same shall receive greater damnation. ' — Verses 4G-47, Luke, Chapter XX. "The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head." "And he said woe unto you also ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be bon c and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers." — Luke, verses 46, Chapter 11. "Then said he unto the desciples, it is impossible but that offen- ses will come; but woe unto him through whom they come!" "It were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these lit- tle ones."— Verses 1 and 2, Luke, Chapter XVII. There is but one letter and spirit in it all the way. He took these matters of every day living and doing home to himself and daily and hourly enforced them by precept and example upon his disciples. A true Christian minister can do no less. He cannot stuff himself with all the good things afforded by a modern market and a $10,000 a year salary, yes and less, all the week, and on Sunday stand up in a rich church in which the usurers 181 and oppresors of the people, men who "lay burdens grievous to be borne on other men's shoulders" devourers of widow's houses, loll at ease, who divide their extortions with him and preach them and himself to ease is Zion" and still claim to be a minister of Christ. For just such priests and ministers Christ denounced to their faces when he was here as "whited sepulchers, full of dead men's bones." Just such priests and ministers sought to put him to death, but said "not on a feast day lest there be an uproar of the people."' The United States and Europe have each more than a complement of such ministers. You do not need be named any more than Christ need name them in his day; they knew and you know very well who is meant and who you are. "You are known and read of all men." I will give you a state, an open secret, if will 3011 receive it. The masses of the public are not half so ignorant as you think. They have long since put you right where you belong, as the open allies of injustice, oppression and fraud, of "devourers of widow's houses." They class you politically right where the "third estate" the people of France classed their "clergy" on and prior to 1789. The people soon learn who are their' friends; they do not want a class or a clergy to tell them how to save their souls in the next world who give aid and comfort and conspire with a class to rob them of the means whereby they live in this. We are glad to believe this class of clergy are greatly in minority in this country ; we are glad to know many have began to seize the situation and teach the real Christian doctrine on these subjects. Many of the clergy and their churches seem oblivious of how they are regarded ; they do not seem to know they are now classed as and called "close corporations." "By their fruits ye shall know them." and men soon classify men and classes of men and influences by their "fruits." If you would but open your eyes you might see them turn their backs on such "clergy" and their churches. When the feelings and sentiments of a class of clergy and churches becomes such it draws the lines of division on the money or the wealth line it leaves the masses of common people and Christ on the outside. You may say this is strong language — it is but not half so strong or plain as the following: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.'' "Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth eaten." "Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against } t ou and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasures together for the last days." "Behold the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth ; and the cries of them which have reap- ed are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth."- — Verses 1 and 4 inclusive, James, Chapter V. And the voice of a prima donna in a $100,000 church with a $50, < 00 mortgage on it, seconded by a $20,000 organ and a $15,000 choir and, a sweet bit of a preacher with his hair parted in the middle and the most approved English 182 accent (aw) will not drown out that cry from the ears of the "Lord of Sabaoth." It is well to preach Christ as the "Lamb of God" and as a sac- rifice, but he has also another just as well defined character as the "Lyon of the tribe of Judah" and the avenger of his people's wrongs. Such a clergy united with the Nobility of France, when they and the king owned three-fifths of the land and three-fourths of the wealth, to put "burdens on the people's shoulders grievous to be borne," all the burdens of the State. And held them down under it until they were driven into the wild excess of the Revolution, Reign of Terror and Infidelity. And those wild and bloody scenes are now put by an intelligent and dis- cerning public, right at the doors of an apostate, greedy, cruel cler- gy, dissolute nobility and ignorant and brutal monarchy. No wonder the masses of the people became infidel : no wonder that in their rags and poverty as they beheld the revels and debauch- ery of the clergy and nobility whose motto was "after us the del- uge," the}' said, if this is the fruit of centuries of Christianity, come on — let us beat in the doors and windows of the churches, scatter the clergy and beat the altars into the earth. No wonder they re- pealed the Christian Sabbath and put up over the entrances to the cemeteries, "death is an eternal sleep." The clergy and nobility had for centuries repealed and trampled the law and spirit of Christ of "do to others as ye would that they should do to you" under their feet, had baptized the land in blood and violence of St. Bar- tholomews and persecutions ; no wonder the laity, the masses said the whole thing is a farce and we will away with it. It ill becomes a Christian minister to denounce Voltaire, Rosseau, Turgot and La Harpe, the Encyclopedists, and others as the morally guilty agents for all those scenes and doings. I suppose thousands like myself who have learned all they at first knew of these great civil commo- tions from a distorted, untruthful and anglicised presentations of it will be compelled to do as I have done, unlearn nearly all thus learn- ed and then learn the truth. But a truthful history and statement of those awful scenes, in spite of the anglicised, religious and secular history and press, in justice to the great French people, is at last reaching the American people. And although a certain class of clergy and theological students seem to know no better than to attempt to throw all those bloody and terrible scenes and doings upon and at the doors of infidelity, as such, yet all other informed people will lay these ghastly scene* and infidelity both at the door of an apostate, greedy clergy, a bru- tal monarchy and nobility, who for centuries had "sown to the wind" and in the cyclone of the Revolution "reaped the whirlwind." The "Encyclopaedists" of France taught and preached Christ's gospel of temporal salvation, "do unto others as }'0u would that they should do to you," in a very modified sense; they conceded too much to the clergy and nobility ; but taught the people to rise 183 and reclaim some of theit" natural and political rights. The clergy ignored this part of Christ's gospel and pretended to teach and preach "eternal salvation ; "and in fact did neither. The "Encyclo- paedists, Rosseau, Voltaire and others, as a class, in their teachings and pratices came as near being Christians as the apostate and dis- olute clergy, and they will always reach the hearts of the people, when such a clergy will not. "The best way to reach a hungry man is to strike him on the stomach with a loaf of bread." No one knew this better than Christ, and for this and his natural human compassion, he would not send the famishing multitudes away hungry, "for many lived remote," and "lest they faint by the waj-," he fed them. It be- hooves an intelligent, patriotic, American clergy, in this day, in this exigency of our country to see to it that Christianity and the the church do not stand before the people as in league with their ad- versaries. — To study and learn and declare the real cause of the Great French Revolution. For, to it we may look as the workings of some of the political elements that now are at unrest among us. True, the French people were then far behind us in general intelligence, and especially in lessons of self-government. But it was a civil com- motion ; a rebellion of an insulted, robbed, terrorized class by two classes of tyrants who stood one on one side and ihe other on the other, of the monarchy. It was a war of classes all in France. The people were attempt- ing to follow the path then so lately blazed out and trodden by Wash- ington and the Revolutionary Fathers. They had to contend with our enemy, England, and have been compelled to do it ever since., as the old political Jesuit and libeler of and intriguer against all good faith effort to establish republican representative self-govern me id in the world. She has industriously and incessantly stirred up strife and com- motion at home in Europe against all their efforts in that direction and slandered them abroad. When I speak of England in this sense, I mean the government and the governing class, — the class who so far controls her civil foreign policies and political career. The class who, clergy and laity, teach the anglicised perpetual debt, wage slavery system of established church anity. The class who will "protect" and "establish" any clergy, church or religion that will pronounce the benediction while it steals the land from un- der the peoples' feet and robs them. We have (aw) quite a sprinkle of that class of clergy (aw) and gentry in our republican household. In truth, until recently, that class have anglicised and to a great extent still do anglicise our literature, religious and secular. They stand as a unit, committted to the propagation of everything, En- glish and aristocratic, that distinctly is not republican, and have sounded the key-note to the religious and political anathemas that have' been hurled for years against the republicans of France, as in- fidels. If the American people would take a sober, second thought, they would remember that class of gentry and clergy who now (aw) 184 preach this "comforting doctrine, 1 ' were chaplains in the royal and hessian regiments, "who thanked God for victories," when the In- dian blood hounds murdered our fathers and ravished their wives and daughters on the frontiers. Who voted down Lord Chatham when he remonstrated with them. (See page 143). And then France and French republicans crowded into our armies to fight with us shoulder to shoulder, replenished our exhausted treasury, sent us arms and ammunition, received our ministers, with marked distinc- tion, fitted and sent out a fleet to relieve our ravaged coasts. And they were at Yorktown, on our side of the entrenchment when that class of "gentry" and "clergy" sheathed their bloody blades under their cloaks, their bibles under their arms, and gnashing on the young republic, left, saying through their clenched teeth, "we will come again." And they did come in 1812-14 and burned our capi- tol like savages, — -a piece of vandalism, the like of which Napoleon I. never was guilty. Napoleon and France ceded us an empire for a trifle, on the Mississippi, with a benediction and God speed ; this class of "gen- try and "clergy" waged the unprovoked war of 1812-14 and burned our capitol ; and in our late fratricidal war rejoiced in and bandied the sentiment, "the great bubble of American liberty has burst at last." And yet a class of American clergy never are done denounc- ing French republicans as infidels, for revolting and trying to follow in the foot steps of our fathers ; and attempt to blacken their memo- ries with all the wild excesses of those terrible times. And strange coincidence that anglicised class, as a "class" stand allied with and as defenders of all the capitalsitie English measures now used in this country to rob labor of its ju*f reward. A "pastorate" of that kind, when it has bloomed and fruited, if it ever does in the United States, will fill them as full of infidels as France ever was. Bartholdi's "Goddess of Liberty Enlightning the World," the embodiment of the sentiment and offering of republican Frenchmen to republican Americans, will haveten thousand tongues of eloquence and be heard ten times in the hearts of the people, when the yelping of "wolves in sheeps 1 clothing will not be heard once. It behooves those of you who minister among, and draw your support from the masses of the common people, to inform yourselevs and be equipped and ready to defend the interests of your class and its posterity in society. These encroacnments of one class in society upon the rights and livings of another are mere tendencies at first ; they come about, not in a day or a year, but in a series of years; the} T come as fall comes ; first a mere change of hue in the foliage, a tendency to decay rather than life. In society, the small farms and holdings, where families used to live and groAv to noble man and womanhood, commence to be absorbed into larger estates; the small homes and holdings melt away, sell out and are sold out under the mortgage, and the sons "go west, young man, to grow up with the country," or go out to rent a farm of Col. Podaugur, the usurer, who resides at the county seat, and is buying all the land joining him. 185 If you will lift up your eyes, yes and open them, you can see the sear and yellow leaf already giving the tinge and hue of autumn to the final prospect of your class in society. Your master was wont to talk very plainly on these subjects, as did his predeces- sors, the prophets, and successors, the apostles. The statistics of this country show that the ratio of the increase of its wealth, includ- ing increase in the value of real estate from improvement, — the most lucrative source, — has never been to exceed two and a half to three per cent, per annum. The average of tax is at least one per cent, on actual value, so that the ner, increase in wealth per annum is not to exceed two per cent per annum. What is 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 per cent, per annum but "income 1 ' on capital? And the man who reaps it, reaps and gathers to himself the natural, the actual legitimate increase on the capital of three or four or five other men, in turn, as investors of the capital he has "loaned" to them, and "he toils not, neither does he spin.'' Now look at (1), a perpetual public debt, virtually so in- tended by our anglicised usurers, lay and clergy to be; (2), Our state, municipal and private indebtedness — five to twenty dollars deep to the acre in the middle and western states; (3), $340,000,000 of per- petual usury drawing bank currency based on a perpetual public debt; (4), $3,882,966,330 as the "funded railroad indebtedness" of tiie country; (5), the means used to levy usury by by private indebt- edness and other means on the people; (6), the public domain and lands of the republic so distributed that one man "owns" a million, and a million men own no acre; and all the'.usuers, with ihe ceitainty of death, taxes and the duration of time demanding "my per cent" on "watered stock," "my income" my living out of the annual re- ward of labor and taking it according to law whether labor has left much, little or any. You may see, you will see the sere and yellow leaf. And. now these conditions will very fast grow more and more aggravated. Because (1) the public domain is being fast filled and occupied ; in fact little is now left for good faith poor men who want it for homes. (2.) Usury like a.snow ball, is annually rolling the wealth of the country to itself; each year it has a greater, a ge- ometrically increasing principal upon which to demand "income." Each $3,000 in money or capital "earns" demands and receives more of the annual reward of labor than an able-bodied man can earn. Capital never has "sickness in the family,'' it knows no Sunday or holiday ; it earns and grows while its owner sleeps ; it literally is eating labor, its creator, out of house, home and country. I heard an intelligent man of Iowa say "I can stand in the door of my house where I have lived for thirty year& and count thirty homes that in that time have been owned by respectable families in sight, that now are sold out under the mortgage and are gone and their homes pas- tured with cattle, or occupied by renters." Open your eyes and you may see the sere and yellow leaf as the exponent of the prospect of yourself and class. -186- CHAPTERXX. Our Sitting Army. Let us make an inventory of our sitting army as heretofore pointed out in these pages at annual cost of $300 per annum per man. 1. Our railroad funded debt stated by tin m at $3,882,966,330 at four per cent per annum, is $156,318,000 — and supports an army of 491,000 men. 2. Our sitting army of insurance agents, attorneys and officers as shown ante page 155-9, is 250,000 men. 3. Our National Bank army as shown ante page 104 is 1«5,000 men. 4. Our census and assessment lists showed in 1884, 3,500 mil- lionaires rated all the way from $1,000,000 to $200,000,000 each. It is safe to rate them at $3,000,000 each; at four per cent, they must each have $120,000 income annually ; this will support a battallion of 400 men each ; and for the entire 3,500 it is only tin army of 1,- 400,000 men. We cannot now take an estimate of the mortgage plastered western, northern, southern and middle States But it is safe to say that they are plastered on an average three dollars deep to the acre; Kansas is ten now by actual figures and other States nearly as bad. At that rate at six per cent per annum each seven- teen hundred acres -of plastered land supports in addition to all its other burdens one man of the sitting army at the rate of $300 per annum. Now let us inventory our sitting army per annum. 1. Our railroad army, - - 491,000 2. Our Insurance army, - 250.000 3 Our Bank army. - - - - 185,000 4. Our Millionaires 1 army, - 1,400.000 Total sitting army, - - 2.326,000 Do not talk any more about your standing armies; it is your sitting armies that are eating you out of house, home and country: that makes you ragged and hungry, that eats all the profit off of ev- ery legitimate business. There is a little over two men or this grand sitting army of the republic to each twenty-five souls, that is of women, children and men for them to support and that they do sup- port ; each twenty-five souls must and do contribute a little oyer $600 each year to keep this grand a rim on its present footing or sitting. Who are you working for? For the yrand sitfng army of the Republ'c ! Who are you voting for"? For the grand sitting army of the Republic! Certainly ! You can see one of them any day, the flag of distress floating from the gable end of his trousers, his toes beneath peep like an 187 acorn from its sheath, his hair waving from t lie top of his hat, shouting himself hoarse for the recruiting officers of the grand sit- ting armies as they preach to him the comforting doctrine of "over- production." These are no figures of speech, they are plain, cold, naked, hun- gry facts. And they will annually grow colder, more naked and hungry. Your votes, men of America, have quartered that army on you, not "in your houses," makes you serve it in your own house. Its headquarters are in Wall Street ; its lieutenants and recruiting officers are the two great political parties and their leaders who have voted the class laws on our statute books that enable it to an- nually draw its supplies out of the annual reward of your labor. It means 48,000,000 "borrowers," "servants," serfs; 2,000,000 "lenders," "masters" and aristocrats, and it means it forever under the existing order of things. 188- ^APPENDIX. An Act to Provide For Comdemning Lands for Homesteads. Sec. 1. Whereas, private persons and corporations have ac- quired and hold titles to vast tracts of land, and in view of our rap- idly inereasing population, many families are debarred of the natu- ral and political right of acquiring lands on whieh to make homes, to the detriment of the moral and material welfare of society, and tending to increase pauperism ; it has, in view of this, become the duty of the government to exercise its right of eminent domain in the interest of the public welfare, and it is the duty of the law making power to exercise its right of eminent domain to the end that all citizens, by reasonable endeavor may acquire land for actual occupation and use for homes. And it is therefore declared that lands of private persons and corporations, native and alien, not actually occupied by any family in good faith, as, and for a home may be condemned for homesteads for families, as and for a public use and benefit under the conditions and limitations of this chapter. Sec. 2. The following lnnds may be condemned for homesteads for families, under the provisions of this chapter : (1.) That have not already been condemned within five years prior to the time the condemnation is sought. (2). If in the limits of any incorporated town or city, that are not in actual use in good faith, for some wholesale or retail business or some shop or manu- facturing establishment ; or in any block in any such town or city where at the time it is sought, one half of it is so used and occu- pied. (3.) In towns and cities of less than ten thousand inhabi- tants, no more than two lots of 30 square rods, each shall be con- demned in any case. In any and all other cities not to exceed one lot, and in all cases regard being had to the original plats, streets and alleys, and no fractions of lots to be made to the injury of any party. Provided that in cities of ten thousand or less inhabitants, the homestead of no owner shall be, by the provisions of this chap- ter, reduced to less than four such lots ; or in any city to less than two such lots. Nor shall any lands dedicated to any publio use, resorts for the public good, be so condemned, either in or out- side the limits of such towns or cities. (4). Outside the limits of towns or cities and within a radius of one half mile, not to exceed 80 square rods shall be condemned; and outside that line, and with- in a radius of five miles, not to exceed five acres shall be condemned ; 189 and outside that line not to exceed fort}' acres shall be condemned, only in the states admitted into the Union within the last twent} 7 years, the amount may be condemned that is now permitted by the law of each such state to be held exempt from debts, as a home- stead ; or if it has no such law, then 160 acres ; and in the territo- ries, 160 acres of land. And provided, that in no case land holdings of no owner shall be reduced to less than the maximum herein permitted to be con- demned ; and if lands of minors is sought to be condemned, their holdings must not be reduced to less than the limitation last afore- said, for each one. But the title of all lands belonging to minors not cast by descent, must be shown to be their actual property, by good faith, absolute and recorded conveyance. And provided, that the interests of mortgagees' rights in remainders and expectancy may be concluded by proceedings un- der this chapter so as to convey a good title for the purpose of this chapter on the petitioner. Sec. 3. Any head of a family may file a petition in any court of the city or county, in which lands sought to be condemned are situate that has jurisdiction of the subject of land titles. It must state the name and last residence of the petitioner, the number of his or her family, the name, residence and post slfice address of the owner of the land sought to be condemned, if known; if not known, that fact must be stated. It must particularly describe the land sought to be condemned, the interest of each and every owner, part owner, mortgagee, or oth- erparty interested therein and any other fact necessary to be shown to entitle the petitioner to have the lands condemned under the provis- ions of this chapter, and shall be verified by affidavit. Sec. 4. On filing the petition the defendants shall be notified by summons or publication of the pendency of the proceeding ac- cording to the practice of the court, and upon return of service of such process if defendant make default the court shall be deemed to have jurisdiction of the cause as in a proceeding in rem. And the cause shall be returnable to and tried at the first term after it is filed unless continued for good cause shown. If the defendant appears and denies the facts stated in the pe- tition, the issue may be tried by a jury or the court, either party having the right to trial by a jury of twelve men. In case of de- fault and proof the land sought to be condemned shall be appraised by three house and free-holders of the county or the territory in the jurisdiction of the court. If defendant appears and there is a trial the jury shall pass on the fact of and assess the damages for the condemnation if it finds all the other issues for the petitioner. Sec. 5. If the lands sought and subject to be condemned are improved the owner may elect to and remove any or all of such im- provements. But such election shall be made before the valuation if the defendant appears. Or if he do not appear he may so elect at any time in six months after the judgment of condemation isren- 190 dered and before any of the money for it is. received, but shall pay all costs of the re-valuation that may be required to be made by the three appraisers as in the first instance, but they shall value the im- provements sought to be removed only. Sec. 6. Any petitioner under the provisions of this chapter may, before the filing of his petition, tender to the owner of any lands subject to be condemned, such sum, in lawful money, as he thinks a reasonable compensation for such lands, or to his admitted agent, and allege and prove such tender and keep it up on the trial. And if the defendant do not procure the allowance of a sum greater than that tendered, the petitioner shall recover all his costs, and such tender and all costs to that date may be made with like effect at any stage in the proceedings as to all costs that may there- after accrue. In all other cases costs shall be paid by the petitioner. Sec. 7. — Upon judgment of condemnation rendered and pay- ment of the money due to the defendant or defendants in the pro- ceedings or if the defendants do not appear then to the proper officer to be designated by the court and entered of record in the judgment, the petitioner shall be put into possession by appropriate writ to be issued for the purpose : Provided that appeals from such proceedings may be had byeither party to the proper courts as in other cases. H23 81 ^ * "by" **o« \> £'. ' <, cv o * % •** ■r-_ o <* G°\' A o IK * Y> *$■ o " ° „ V «* . « * o* '^- *c, V a? •!"- ^ 1 -^^ o^ **<<