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 The 
 
 PRICE, 15c. 
 
 Next Step Forward 
 
 Or 
 
 Better Times For Us All 
 
 By AUGUSTUS JACOBSON. 
 
 THE ARIEL LIBRARY. Extra C. June, 1892. Published monthly. 
 Per year, $5.00. 
 
 Entered at Chicago Tost-office as second-class mail matter. 
 
 Chicago: F. J. SCHULTE & CO., Publishers. 
 
 298 DEARBORN STREET. 
 
THE XEXT STEP FORWARD. 
 
 
THE 
 
 NEXT STEP FORWARD 
 
 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL 
 
 BY, 
 
 AUGUSTUS JACOBSON. 
 
 V 
 
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 >^ri LaJ~ 
 
 CHICAGO : 
 F. J. SCHULTE & COMPANY, Publishers, 
 
 298 Dearborn Street 
 
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THIS ADDRESS 
 \vas delivered 
 
 In the Series of Economic Conferences, Audi- 
 torium, January 26, 1890. 
 
 Before the Commercial Clue, Chicago, March, 
 1, 1890. 
 
 Before the Union League Club, Chicago, 
 Aprll 8, 1890. 
 
 Before the Chicago Secular Union, October 
 12, 1890. 
 
 Before the Chicago Bar Association, Xotember 
 12, 1890. 
 
 (5) 
 
The truth is that we are arrived at one of those 
 periods in the progress of society when the constitution 
 naturally undergoes a change, just as it did two cent- 
 uries ago. It was impossible then for the king to keep 
 down the higher part of the middle classes; it is impos- 
 sible now to keep down the middle and lower parts of 
 them. All that resistance to these natural changes 
 can effect is to derange their operation, and make them 
 act violently and mischievously, instead of healthfully, 
 or at least harmlessly. The old state of things is gone 
 past recall, and all the efforts of all the Tories can 
 not save it; but they may by their folly, as they did 
 in France, get us a wild democracy or a military des- 
 potism in the room of it, instead of letting it change 
 quietly into what is merely a new modification of the 
 old state. One would think that people who talk against 
 change were literally as well as metaphorically blind, 
 and really did not see that everything in themselves and 
 around them is changing every hour by the necessary 
 laws of its being. 
 
 There is -nothing so revolutionary, because there is 
 nothing so unnatural and so convulsive to society, as 
 the strain to keep things fixed, when all the world is, by 
 the very law of its creation, in eternal progress; and the 
 cause of all the evils of the world may be traced to 
 that natural but most deadly error of human indolence 
 and corruption — that our business is to preserve and 
 not to improve. — Dr. Thomas Arnold, Headmaster of 
 Rugby, pending the Reform agitation in England, April, 
 1831. 
 
 (7) 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL 
 
 i. 
 
 In 1858, Abraham Lincoln spoke of the 
 slaveiy question as a mere episode in the 
 struggle of mankind for emancipation. 
 Let me quote a few sentences: 
 
 " It is the eternal struggle between these 
 two principles — right and wrong — through- 
 out the world. They are the two princi- 
 ples that have stood face to face from the 
 beginning of time, and will ever continue 
 to struggle. The one is the common right 
 of humanity, and the other the divine 
 right of kings. It is the same principle 
 in whatever shape it develops itself. It is 
 the same spirit that says: You work, and 
 toil, and earn bread, and I eat it. No mat- 
 ter in what shape it comes, whether from 
 the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride 
 the people of his own nation and live by 
 the fruit of their labor, or from one race 
 of men as an apology for enslaving another 
 race, it is the same tyrannical principle." 
 
 (9) 
 
10 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 In the eternal struggle between right 
 and wrong, of which Lincoln speaks, igno- 
 rant people often side with those who op- 
 pose them and oppress them. So long 
 as the great majority of people remain 
 ignorant, the right, if it can prevail at all, 
 can only slowly prevail over tbe wrong. 
 If we wish the wrong to go nnder, and 
 the right to prevail, although a slow way, 
 the speediest way is to train each child to 
 the full measure of all his faculties, in 
 order to give him the full benefit of all his 
 own powers for his own use and happiness, 
 to the end that he may not, as says Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, work, and toil, and earn 
 bread for another man to eat. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 11 
 
 n. 
 
 In June, 1889, there was graduated the 
 fourth class of the Chicago Manual Train- 
 ing School. Boys about eighteen years of 
 age, who, three years before, had never 
 touched tools with a view to becoming 
 skilled with them, had drawn plans for 
 several steam engines. They had drawn 
 the patterns on paper. They had made 
 the patterns in wood. They had done the 
 chipping, and the filing, and the lathe work 
 on the castings. The boys had put to- 
 gether their engines. They had connected 
 them to a supply of steam, and at the 
 word of command, steam was turned on 
 and the engines began to run. In the 
 education of these boys, their purely men- 
 tal studies had not been neglected. All 
 their manual exercises had been intellect- 
 ual exercises, and the boys were ready to 
 stand up and be examined in books side 
 by side with boys who had devoted all 
 their time to books. 
 
 The education of the Manual Training 
 School is not a mere training of mechanics. 
 It is a training in mechanical skill, but it 
 
12 BETTER TIDIES FOE US ALL. 
 
 is a great deal more besides. There is no 
 farmer, there is no merchant, there is no 
 lawyer, there is no physician, there is no 
 preacher who would not be more effective 
 in his calling with this training. It is 
 just as serviceable for scholars who are not 
 to be mechanics as it is for those who are 
 to be mechanics. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 13 
 
 III. 
 
 Two hundred years ago, we taught the 
 three ITs, and we do so still, and we do 
 little more. At twelve, the majority of 
 children quit school. With railroads, and 
 telegraphs, and telephones, and endless 
 wealth, the children of this great nation 
 are still sent out into life' s struggle, little 
 better equipped than were children two 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 Liberty has been achieved for all, but 
 ignorance and inefficiency still enchain 
 the average man in poverty. The poor 
 Ave have with us always. The poor will 
 never be able to educate their children 
 beyond the three R's, because as soon as 
 they are able to earn anything, the chil- 
 dren of the poor must work to earn bread 
 for themselves and their parents. 
 
 As a nation, we are rich enough to do 
 without the labor of the young whose 
 bones are not hardened. We ought to be 
 ashamed of ourselves to keep them at 
 work, not for their benefit, but for ours. 
 I don't know how you feel about it, but I 
 am ashamed of it. 
 
14 BETTEE TIMES FOE US ALL." 
 
 The next step in civilization, is to take 
 the young out of the mine, out of the 
 shop, out of the factory, and train them at 
 every point, and in every direction, to 
 enable them to make the utmost of their 
 lives. 
 
 To this demand of civilization, the wealth 
 of the nation must respond. The money 
 it will cost will not be lost; on the con- 
 trary, it will stay right here among us, 
 and yield returns an hundred fold. 
 
 Two hundred years ago, all native-born 
 children of New England were taught to 
 read and write, and New England was the 
 only part of the world where such a mar- 
 velous state of affairs existed. We are 
 no longer so far ahead of the rest of the 
 world; and yet, meanwhile, the value of 
 the training of the young, as tending to 
 produce wealth and comfort, has come to 
 be better understood. Other things being 
 equal, the wealth of a nation grows in 
 proportion to the intelligence of the 
 people. Knowledge is power, and knowl- 
 edge is wealth. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. Iff 
 
 IV. 
 
 Stanley says that there are 40,000,000 
 of people on the Congo, all of them naked 
 and poor. The country in which they live 
 is one of endless natural wealth, but the 
 Africans are in the depths of poverty, 
 simply because they are ignorant. 
 
 This country, with all its immense re- 
 sources, was once in the complete posses- 
 sion of the Indians. But you know the 
 Indians did not get rich. They starved 
 and froze to death, simply because they 
 did not know anything. We took their 
 inheritance, and with what little we know, 
 see what we have done! That the increase 
 of knowledge brings increase of wealth, 
 must be clear to everyone. If, instead of 
 our present population, we had a land 
 full of Russian Moujiks, or of natives of 
 Spain or Arkansas, we should not be 
 troubled with a surplus. It is not in what 
 is in the earth, nor in the material things 
 that are on the earth, that the wealth of a 
 nation lies. It is in the training of the brains 
 of the people; it is in the intelligence of 
 the people that the wealth of a nation lies, 
 
16 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 The training of the hands and brains of 
 the people is so much added to the pro- 
 ducing plant of the nation. The brains of 
 the people are the motive power of all 
 the motive powers. 
 
BETTEK TIMES FOR US ALL. 17 
 
 V. 
 
 But how are the poor to get for their 
 children even so moderate an education 
 as that of the Manual Training School? 
 As things are now, they can not get it-.— if* 
 there were Manual Training Schools free 
 for all on every street corner, the children 
 of the poor would still have to go without 
 this training. The bequest of the late 
 Mr. Allen C. Lewis now amounts to 
 $1,000,000, and soon the Lewis School will 
 be established. When the Lewis School 
 shall be established, it will be a magnifi- 
 cent institution— just what is needed; but 
 poor boys and girls will not be able to get 
 the benefit of it, because they must work 
 in the factory, and in the shop, to earn 
 their bread. The Chicago Manual Train- 
 ing School is full to overflowing, but: it is 
 full of boys whose parents are compara- 
 tively well-to-do, and able to support the 
 boys during their years of schooling. To 
 be sure, no boy is sent away merely because 
 he is too poor to pay the tuition. Either 
 the tuition is remitted, or the Commercial 
 Club or someone else pays it, But for 
 
 2 
 
18 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 all that, boys whose parents can not sup- 
 port them during their years of school- 
 ing, are necessarily kept out of the Chicago 
 Manual Training School. The very boys 
 who need the school most, are kept out. 
 Out of 271 scholars, there are only twenty- 
 five boys in the school whose fathers are 
 mechanics or laborers. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 19 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Collateral Inheritance Tax of New 
 York yielded — 
 
 For the year 1887 .... $ 561,716 00 
 For the year 1888 . ... 736,08488 
 For the year 1889 .... 1,075,692 25 
 
 Up to December 5, 1889, the Collateral 
 Inheritance Tax of Pennsylvania had 
 yielded for the year, $1,378,453.71. This 
 tax being on Collateral Inheritances, 
 reaches bnt a small number of estates. 
 
 The Collateral Inheritance law of Penn- 
 sylvania was enacted in 1826, and is an 
 old, rock-rooted State institution. The best 
 lawyers of the State have tried to npset it, 
 bnt it has withstood all their onslaughts. 
 The law of New York was enacted in 1885. 
 The lawyers of New York have tried their 
 best to upset it, bnt the law stands, and 
 will continue to stand. In both States the 
 proceeds of the tax are used for general 
 revenue purposes. The tax is five per cent, 
 on all collateral inheritances. An estate 
 of $250 is exempt in Pennsylvania, and 
 one of $500 is exempt in New York. 
 
20 BETTEE TIMES FOE US ALL. 
 
 VII. 
 
 In 1884, I began to advocate that, inas- 
 much as parents can not, with the means 
 at their command, give such an education 
 to their children as the necessities of mod- 
 ern life demand, the money must be found 
 to pay parents, or persons standing in the 
 place of parents, for the time of their 
 children while attending school. 
 
 Under twelve years of age, children will 
 generally be kept at school because their 
 earning capacity is nothing. My proposi- 
 tion is, that the compensation should begin 
 at twelve and end at twenty, for boys and 
 girls alike. 
 
 12—13 $50 
 
 13—14 75 
 
 14—15 100 
 
 15—16 125 
 
 16—17 . . 150 
 
 17—18 175 
 
 18—19 225 
 
 19—20 -....-,,. 300 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR VS ALL. 21 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The course of study should include 
 manual, scientific, and literary training — 
 the best that could be devised — the very 
 best is none too good. This would give us 
 a population of intelligence and efficiency 
 such as the world has never yet seen — a 
 population that could be reasoned with; 
 a population that would quickly see its 
 own interest, and, seeing, would pursue it; 
 a population that would peaceably and 
 speedily right all its wrongs. 
 
 The setting free of four millions of 
 black j)eople was the greatest work of this 
 century; but this proposition means a yet 
 greater work, because it would truly eman- 
 cipate both black and white. Once begun 
 here, all the world would follow. It means 
 the raising up indefinitely of the world's 
 toilers. It means not that the exalted 
 shall be humbled, but that the humble 
 shall be exalted. 
 
 The house of our civilization would cease 
 to be divided against itself. It would be 
 all intelligent, efficient, and comparatively 
 
22 
 
 BETTER TIMES EOR ITS ALL. 
 
 well-to-do. All anxiety as to the perpe- 
 tuity of republican institutions would im- 
 mediately cease. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 23 
 
 IX. 
 
 The expense would be enormous, but the 
 money would not be lost. It would stay 
 right here among us and render every 
 business more productive. To raise the 
 money, I have advocated a graduated suc- 
 cession tax upon estates. Its collection 
 would cost little or nothing — the experi- 
 ence of Pennsylvania and New York 
 shows that. In war times we had both 
 a graduated income tax and a succession 
 tax, so that neither a graduated tax nor a 
 succession tax is new to the American 
 people. The Pennsylvania and New York 
 laws establish a graduated tax, because a 
 small estate is exempt, while a larger one 
 is taxed. The graduated succession tax 
 would not upset the country. We know 
 it wouldn't, because we have already seen 
 it in operation. 
 
BETTER TIMES EOU VS ALL, 
 
 X. 
 
 The tax which I propose would be grad- 
 uated — small on small amounts, and larger 
 as the amounts increase. 
 
 I per cent, above $ 25,000 and less than $ 50,000 
 I percent, above 50,000 and less than 100,000 
 1 per cent, above 100,000 and less than 200,000 
 
 and then 1 per cent, more upon every addi- 
 tional hundred thousand dollars, up to 
 50 per cent, on five millions, or any sum 
 above five millions. 
 
 No accumulation, no tax! Small accu- 
 mulation, a small tax; large accumula- 
 tion, a 1 arge tax. Upon an estate of less 
 than $5i>, 000 the tax could not exceed 
 8250; upon an estate of $199,000 the tax 
 would be §1,990; upon an estate of 8500,- 
 000 the tax would be 825,000; upon an 
 estate of $1,000,000 the tax would be 
 8100,000; upon an estate of $5,000,000 and 
 upwards the tax would be one-half of the 
 estate. 
 
Better times for us all. 25 
 
 XI. 
 
 For an illustration, let us take the estate 
 of the late John Crerar, which, for pur- 
 poses of administration, was valued at 
 83,550,000. The tax upon that sum at 
 35 per cent, would be $1,242,500, which 
 would keep at school for one year, upon 
 the plan proposed, 8,283 children between 
 twelve and twenty years of age. 
 
 It is said that every man should be al- 
 lowed to do what he likes with his own. 
 No, that he can not do, even now. The 
 law interferes with him at every step, and 
 tells him what he may do, and what he 
 must not do. That supremely cunning 
 lawyer, Mr. Samuel J. Tiklen, made a will 
 under which libraries w r ere to be estab- 
 lished; but the law steps in and says that 
 he attempted to do it in a manner con- 
 trary to public policy; his will goes for 
 naught, and his relatives take all his 
 money. Public policy limits a man in 
 what he may do with his money. 
 
 If the law which I propose were now 
 applicable to John Crerar' s estate, 8,283 
 children between twelve and twenty would 
 
26 
 
 BETTEE TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 get out of his estate, food, shelter, and 
 raiment during a year's schooling and 
 preparation for active life; and after pro- 
 viding for this, there would still be an 
 abundance of money left wherewith to 
 pay all the Crerar legacies, and establish 
 the Crerar library; and I say that such an 
 application of the money would be in fur- 
 therance of a good, sound, public policy. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 27 
 
 XII. 
 
 The late Alfred Cowles left $950,000 to 
 be divided among his three children. The 
 tax which I propose would take from the 
 $950, 000- $85, 500 to educate the children 
 of the people, leaving $864,500 to be di- 
 vided by the three children of Mr. Cowles, 
 which would abundantly provide against 
 all the rainy days that can come in their 
 lives. 
 
 The Cowles estate is an ideal estate. It 
 was gathered by hard work, saving, keen, 
 and shrewd enterprise. But, after all, Mr. 
 Cowles could not have gotten together so 
 large an estate if he had not lived in a 
 growing community, which helped all his 
 enterprises to flourish. Every man who 
 came to Chicago increased the revenue of 
 Mr. Cowles. The $85,500 which the pro- 
 posed tax would take from the estate of 
 Mr. Cowdes, for the general welfare, w r ould 
 be none too large a return for what the 
 community have done for Mr. Cowles. 
 And what is true of the Cowles estate is, 
 of course, true of all other large estates. 
 And, if this can be said of the Cowdes 
 
2S better times eor its all. 
 
 estate, what might not be said of the 
 estates of the stock- waterers and Standard 
 Oil magnates? 
 
BETTER TIMES EOR US ALL. 29 
 
 XIII. 
 
 There is no other land on earth where 
 so much money is given away, as there is 
 in the United States. Nearly all rich 
 men worth a million or less, do as much 
 for benevolent objects as the proposed suc- 
 cession tax would take from their estates. 
 There are bequests in this city, not yet 
 carried into effect, of at least eight millions 
 — two or three millions for the Newberry 
 Library, one million for the Lewis School, 
 three millions for the Crerar Library, and 
 other benevolent objects. No land can 
 compare with ours in munificent bequests. 
 But, as a rule, these bequests are not in 
 furtherance of any public policy. As a 
 rule, a bequest establishes the ' ' Jones 
 Chair," the "Smith College," the " Brown 
 Library," or the "Robinson Hospital." 
 A great deal of money is thrown away on 
 colleges where there are no students, on 
 libraries where there are no readers, and 
 on hospitals where there are no patients; 
 very little of it goes where all the people 
 get the benefit of it. In the North Ameri- 
 can .Review for June, 1889, Andrew Car- 
 
30 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 negie says that $950 out of every $1,000 
 bequeathed for charity, is bequeathed un- 
 wisely, and might as well be thrown away ; 
 and in the December number of the same 
 review, he reiterates and amplifies the 
 statement. 
 
 The succession tax, and the application 
 of it, which I advocate, would take money 
 which now generally does nobody any 
 good and put it where it would do the most 
 good — apply it to the healing of the nation. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 31 
 
 XIV. 
 
 To dispose of a man's estate for him! 
 Injustice! I hear someone say. Laws of 
 inheritance are laws of expediency made 
 to effect what a State or a nation wants to 
 accomplish. These laws are constantly 
 changing. Complete justice is rarely done 
 by them. Just think how the laws of in- 
 heritance and other laws in regard to the 
 property of women have been changing 
 during the last thirty years. 
 
 Laws of inheritance are simply laws of 
 expediency. In England, the laws are 
 made by the aristocracy for the aristoc- 
 racy. All but the first-born male of a 
 family have no inheritance to speak of. 
 This is done to promote aristocracy. The 
 younger son laughs at us when we suggest 
 that it is an unjust arrangement. It is a 
 measure not of justice, but of expediency. 
 The law answers perfectly the purpose for 
 which it was made. It promotes a splen- 
 did aristocracy. 
 
 What we need are laws that shall pro- 
 mote a splendid democracy. The thing 
 for us to do is to make laws that will pro- 
 
32 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 mote a splendid democracy. And if we 
 can so change our laws as to put at the 
 command of the poorest child of this land 
 an education equal to that which the rich- 
 est scion of nobility in England can obtain, 
 shall we not thereby promote a splendid 
 democracy? 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 33 
 
 XV. 
 
 That this tax would be expedient there 
 can be no doubt. That it would increase 
 the welfare of the people there can be no 
 doubt. That its enactment would be good 
 public policy there can be no doubt. 
 
 As to injustice, if there can be question 
 of injustice, the law could affect unjustly 
 only one generation. Grant, for the sake 
 of argument, and for the sake of argument 
 only, that such a law would be unjust to 
 present owners of millions. But say, now, 
 that fifty years ago, before there was a 
 millionaire in Illinois, just such a law as I 
 advocate had been passed, and that all 
 the present millionaires had, under it, ac- 
 quired their fortunes, then there would, 
 of course, be no injustice in subjecting 
 their estates to the tax. They would have 
 known what was coming all the time while 
 they were acquiring their millions, and if 
 they hadn't liked the law, they could have 
 stopped acquiring their millions under it. 
 Would they have stopped? Oh, no. They 
 would have gone on and accumulated 
 their millions just the same as they have 
 
34 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 now. They would have been glad enough 
 of the prospect of becoming millionaires, 
 even upon the condition of a succession 
 tax at death. 
 
 But let me admit, for the sake of argu- 
 ment, that I am mistaken about this, and 
 that some enterprising men would have 
 been driven away from Illinois by the 
 tax, what then? Would, for example, 
 fewer hogs have been killed in Chicago ? 
 Not at all. A great deal of the enterprise 
 we admire so much consists only in pre- 
 venting, by fair means or foul, other 
 people from being enterprising. If some 
 men were less enterprising other men 
 would have a chance to be more enterpris- 
 ing. The packers did not invent the taste 
 for hog's meat. In the Iliad, Homer 
 speaks of 
 
 " The bristly victims hissing o'er the fire." 
 
 Humanity is born with the taste for 
 pork. The packers add nothing to the 
 hog product. They raise no hogs. When 
 the hog crop is short, the packers do not, 
 and can not, help us out. With or with- 
 out our millionaire packers, the hogs 
 would be killed. The ability to kill and 
 cut up hogs is widely distributed among 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 35 
 
 mankind. The State of Illinois would 
 have survived any exodus on account of 
 the tax. 
 
36 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The argument of injustice can not have 
 any application except to the present gen- 
 eration. After the present generation 
 there can be no question of justice or in- 
 justice. It becomes a matter of pure expe- 
 diency, and we can, in the language of 
 Abraham Lincoln, "plow around" the 
 present generation of millionaires by let- 
 ting them off easily, if the notion should 
 prevail that injustice would be done to 
 them by the enactment of the succession 
 tax, as I have outlined it. The law can be 
 so framed that the rates above 10 per 
 cent, shall take effect only upon estates 
 acquired under the law, which would let 
 off the present generation of millionaires. 
 
 To make it possible to establish the 
 American Union, there was a compromise 
 of this kind in the Constitution which 
 continued the African Slave trade from 
 1787 to 1808. I have often wondered how 
 many thousands of American soldiers died 
 or were made cripples, and how many mill- 
 ions of money this compromise cost the 
 country between 1861 and 1865, The little 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 37 
 
 slaves of the mills, shops, and factories, 
 who are now at work, though wholly unfit 
 for it, and who ought to be at school to 
 learn to make the best of their lives, can 
 not speak for themselves; but I say for 
 them, that delay in emancipating them 
 will cost the country in all sorts of ways, 
 more money than the slave-trade compro- 
 mise did. 
 
88 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 A cry would, of course, go up from the 
 rich that they would be ruined; but any 
 one can see that the tax would ruin no 
 one. We are all familiar with the cry of 
 ruin. When the Inter- State Commerce 
 Act was passed, railroad presidents cried 
 aloud that the act would ruin the roads. 
 When imprisonment for debt was abol- 
 ished, the merchants cried that it meant 
 ruin to them; that henceforth no man 
 would pay his debts. When it was pro- 
 posed to light London with gas, intermin- 
 able speeches were made in Parliament, 
 in which it was said that the use of gas 
 would ruin the English navy, because 
 there would be no more use for oil, and 
 therefore, that nursery of English seamen — 
 the whale fishery — would be destroyed. In 
 the beginning of this century there were 
 in England over two hundred distinct of- 
 fences punishable with death. When Sir 
 Samuel Romilly proposed to abolish the 
 death penalty for stealing five shillings' 
 worth of property, those old war-horses of 
 the law. Lords Ellenborough and Eldon, 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 39 
 
 called God to witness that if the repeal 
 should prevail, they foresaw the ruin of 
 their country. 
 
40 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL, 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 In 1832, the Duke of Wellington was 
 convinced that the enactment of the re- 
 form bill meant ruin to England. Imme- 
 diately before the passage of the reform 
 bill, the duke proceeded to avert ruin by 
 ordering all officers absent on leave to join 
 their regiments. He ordered the cavalry 
 to rough-sharpen their swords, as at Water- 
 loo, and to hold themselves booted and 
 saddled, night and day, with carbines 
 loaded with ball-cartridges, ready for 
 instant service. But, meanwhile, the peo- 
 ple came together in meetings of 100,000, 
 of 150,000, and of 200,000, and demanded 
 not only immediate reform, but they de- 
 manded the removal of the duke from the 
 counsels of the king. The duke found, to 
 his amazement, that the very soldiers who, 
 at Waterloo, had stood with him like walls 
 of steel against the eleven onslaughts of 
 Key, showing forth, as had never been 
 done before, the mettle and enduring 
 courage of the great race to which we 
 belong — the duke found, to his amazement, 
 that the hearts of these gallant men were 
 
BETTER TIMES EOR US ALL. 41 
 
 with the people, and not with him. They 
 had not forgotten that they were English- 
 men before they became soldiers, and they 
 gave king, duke, and tory to understand 
 that they were terrible, not to peaceable 
 Englishman, but only to the enemies of 
 England. The king, too, old and weak, 
 and silly as he was, had heard of the 
 sad ending of Charles I. and of Louis 
 XVI. He liked the business he was in, 
 and was anxious to continue in it. He 
 became frightened lest something should 
 happen that would put an end to the king 
 business. He whispered to the Duke of 
 Wellington, and he whispered so eifect- 
 ually that the Iron Duke, whose great 
 heart had never quailed at danger, who 
 had brought down low one after another 
 of Napoleon's generals, and finally lowest 
 of all, Napoleon himself — the Iron Duke 
 surrendered to the spirit of democracy. 
 The duke, with about a hundred other 
 peers, kept away from the House of Lords, 
 leaving a majority there for the reform, 
 and the bill became law. When the duke 
 thought of using the troops, he had said 
 "that if the people of England wouldn't 
 be quiet, there was a way to make them." 
 
42 BETTEK TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 Martineau says that the end of it all was 
 that if the Duke of Wellington would not 
 be quiet, the people of England had found 
 a way to make him so. 
 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 43 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Ruin? Up to the time of the reform agi- 
 tation, there had been general lawlessness, 
 riots, burnings, and killings all over Eng- 
 land. Instead of bringing ruin upon 
 the country, the passage of the reform 
 bill began a new era of peace, good will, 
 and general amelioration. It was the very 
 beginning of that peaceable agitation for 
 reform and improvement in which we are 
 here engaged to-night, and which Sir 
 Robert Peel so happily called, ' ' The mar- 
 shaling of the conscience of a nation to 
 mould its laws." 
 
 And so I might go on indefinitely about 
 ruin. I have no doubt that when our 
 hairy ancestors climbed down from the 
 trees in which they had been living, and 
 took to dugouts in the solid ground, the 
 Ellenboroughs, Eldons, and Wellingtons 
 among them chattered at a great rate of 
 the ruin that was to follow. 
 
 The cry of ruin is so familiar. Bagehot 
 says: "There is no so great pain to the 
 human mind as the pain of a new idea." 
 The cry of ruin is the expression of pain 
 at the advent of a new idea. 
 
44 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 XX. 
 
 The poor couldn't be ruined, and the 
 rich would not be ruined by the succession 
 tax. Except for purposes of power and 
 display, it makes no difference whether a 
 family has five millions or ten millions of 
 money. Five millions will give them 
 everything they can use just as well as 
 ten millions. It may be safely asserted 
 that as many young people are rendered 
 worthless and ruined, as are benefited by 
 large inheritances. It is not going too far to 
 say that an inheritance so large as to place 
 its recipient above all care, forethought, 
 and work, is an injury, and not a benefit. 
 The Benjamin Franklins and Abraham 
 Lincolns are produced by a life of priva- 
 tion and struggles. It is a rare human 
 creature that can stand, without injury, 
 being so placed in the world that life pre- 
 sents no struggle — that there is no neces- 
 sity for making an effort. The man or 
 woman for whom, from the beginning of 
 life, there are more dinners than days — 
 for whom all days are Sundays — rarely 
 rises above being a mere trifier. Large 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 45 
 
 inheritances are crowding Europe with. 
 Americans who are struggling to be pre- 
 sented at court; to get into the Prince of 
 Wales' set; with girls in search of titled 
 husbands ; with young men who have 
 never by their own labor earned a dollar, 
 whose every breath is paid for by work 
 done in America, but who find existence 
 tedious among the working-day, common- 
 place beings here, and find life much more 
 agreeable in Europe among people whose 
 only occupation is to kill time. 
 
 To increase the number of those who 
 are benefited, and decrease the number 
 of those who are injured by inheritances, 
 would be sound public policy. 
 
 The rich would pay the tax, and be as 
 happy as they are now. There would not, 
 by reason of the tax, be an iota of suffer- 
 ing in any American home. And what 
 immeasurable happiness the proceeds of 
 this tax thus applied would bring to hun- 
 dreds of thousands of American homes. 
 
 In the enactment of laws, the question 
 is, not what the few would like. Is there 
 ever a law enacted of which everybody 
 approves? The question is not what the 
 few would like, The question is ? what is 
 
46 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 for the interest of the many? The wel- 
 fare of the people is the snpreme law to 
 which everything and everybody must 
 yield. 
 
 Men are importuned for charity from 
 morning till night; and men of moderate 
 means fritter and give away to objects of 
 very questionable utility more money 
 than this tax would take from their estates. 
 The men with less than a million will not 
 greatly object to this tax, because it would 
 only take from their estates a sum they 
 will be glad to see wisely bestowed for the 
 good of all. 
 
 If we were to wait to enact a law till 
 everybody was for it, we should never get 
 any law enacted. Unanimity is not nec- 
 essary. As to men worth over a million 
 each, there can not be over 25,000 of them 
 in the whole country. What they wish 
 or do not wish, is of no greater conse- 
 quence than the wishes of any other equal 
 number of men. Their opinions should 
 have the weight of their numbers, and no 
 more. Their opinions should have the 
 weight of any other 25,000 citizens. The 
 65,000,000 will not bother about the opin- 
 ions of any 25,000 citizens. The 65, 000 r 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 47 
 
 000, including the 25,000, and not the 
 25,000 alone, will say what shall or what 
 shall not be the future policy of the Ameri- 
 can people. 
 
 
48 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The millionaires would leave and go 
 elsewhere with their millions, would they? 
 Where would they go? Would they go to 
 some State where there was no succession 
 tax? When adopted in one State, the 
 succession tax would speedily be adopted 
 in all. Would they go to Europe? No, 
 they would not. There is no place outside 
 of the United States where they could go 
 and get as good interest upon their money 
 as is current here. They would see at once 
 that by reason of the higher rate of inter- 
 est, they could here, after paying the suc- 
 cession tax, leave more money to their 
 heirs than they could in Europe after es- 
 caping it. They would remain with us. 
 They would not go away. The community 
 is of more use to a millionaire than the 
 millionaire is to the community. 
 
 But would they not deed away their 
 property, and thus dodge the tax? Per- 
 haps human nature and the circumstances 
 under which we exist would generally pre- 
 vent the evasion of the succession tax in 
 that way. Death will catch people una-, 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 49 
 
 wares. If men could have timely notice 
 of approaching death, they might deed 
 away or give away their property so as to 
 avoid the tax. But men like, while they 
 live, to hold on to their property. Liti- 
 gation over wills takes large slices out of 
 estates. This could nearly all be avoided 
 if men would, before dying, distribute their 
 property. But somehow men don't like 
 to part with what they have. No man 
 likes to deprive himself of his property 
 and the consideration which it gives him. 
 Great as are the inducements to men to be 
 their own executors, they generally hold 
 on to what they have, and give up simul- 
 taneously ghost and estate. 
 
 A large estate in experienced hands in- 
 creases so fast that few men are capable 
 of depriving themselves of the pleasure of 
 seeing it grow. Moreover, no one knows 
 better than the average millionaire that an 
 estate in his own hands increases fast 
 enough over and above its possible rate of 
 increase, in the hands of the average heir, 
 to pay any tax and then come out ahead. 
 No doubt the cares of state must be trying 
 to Queen Victoria; beyond a doubt they 
 would sit much more easily on the shoul- 
 
50 BETTER TIMES EOE US ALL. 
 
 ders of the Prince of Wales; but, for all 
 that, Queen Victoria does not relinquish 
 the sceptre. 
 
 A pile of money is a sceptre which, as 
 a rule men let go when they can't help 
 themselves, and not before. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 51 
 
 XXII. 
 
 If the law were enacted, the immense 
 amount of money put in circulation would 
 make good times. Lord Bacon says: ' ' Ever 
 a State flourisheth when wealth is more 
 equally spread." If the $1,242,500 of 
 the Crerar estate which the tax would 
 take were put into circulation to buy food, 
 shelter, and raiment, to make thousands 
 of families better customers for all the 
 necessaries, comforts, and conveniences of 
 life, can you doubt that, to the extent of 
 that amount, business would be better? 
 With the succession tax levied and ex- 
 pended throughout the country — hundreds 
 of millions collected and expended every 
 year — there would be always just such flush 
 times as there were during the war. Every- 
 body would be busy and everybody would 
 be prosperous. To the extent of the tax, 
 the grip of the dead hand would be taken 
 off the business of the living. Flush times 
 like that of war times, did I say? In 
 one respect it would be unlike that of war 
 times. The great business of war times 
 was stimulated by waste and destruction, 
 
52 BETTEE TIMES FOE US ALL. 
 
 It was done on borrowed money, for 
 which there had to be a settlement, and 
 for which we made settlement, in 1873 and 
 the years following. The business activity 
 caused by the proceeds of the succession 
 tax would not be brought about by waste 
 and destruction, but by the building up of 
 places of pleasantness and peace. It 
 would be safe and sound business, done 
 upon the basis of spot cash, pay as you 
 go. With the impulse that would be 
 given to business by this measure, after 
 paying the 10 per cent, tax on a million, 
 the remaining nine hundred thousand dol- 
 lars would brini^ in more income every 
 year than the original million would have 
 done. 
 
 Taking all the young people under 
 twenty out of the competition as wage- 
 workers, would necessarily cause wages to 
 rise. Raising the intelligence and skill 
 of the people would develop endless new 
 employments. What the world has ac- 
 quired in the way of knowledge, instead 
 of being known only by the few, would be 
 known by all; instead of only the few, all 
 would have access to and would utilize 
 the world's stock of knowledge; and the 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 53 
 
 difference that this would make in the 
 production of wealth can not be over- 
 estimated. 
 
54 BETTEK TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The man who works for wages would 
 have better wages, and the man who has 
 things to sell would have better customers. 
 The waifs would all disappear from the 
 streets and be found at school. No truant 
 officers would be needed. The compulsory 
 education law would be a needless, anti- 
 quated, dead letter. The poorer the man 
 the more certain would he be to educate 
 his children. The orphans and the father- 
 less would be educated. The children of 
 drunkards would be educated. Women 
 with their own way to make in the world 
 would, accomplished and skilled at every 
 point, find all the world's roads easier. 
 Temperance would thrive with greater in- 
 telligence and bett er training. Leaving out 
 individual cases, people are temperate in 
 proportion to their intelligence. The sav- 
 age drinks all he can get; the civilized 
 man drinks in proportion to his civiliza- 
 tion. Civil service reform would be easy 
 with people, every one of whom could stand 
 the examinations. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 55 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Abnormally large estates would be cur- 
 tailed, and all the people would say, Amen. 
 The ancient republics went down because 
 the rich were too rich and the poor were 
 too poor. What is our chief trouble after 
 all? Our knowing plutocrats at the top 
 are the upper millstone of our social fab- 
 ric, and the ignorant and venal multitude 
 at the bottom are the nether millstone, 
 and we poor sovereigns are in between. 
 Seats in the United States Senate are al- 
 ready openly bought and sold, and unless 
 we call a halt, it is only a question of time, 
 when the presidency and cabinet offices 
 will go to the highest bidder. With the 
 advent of the measure I have set forth 
 before you, pinching poverty on the one 
 hand, and over-abundant wealth on the 
 other — the greatest dangers to which the 
 republic is liable — would measurably be 
 done away with. The poor would not 
 become rich, nor would the rich become 
 poor, but all would be happier and more 
 comfortable. 
 
 This measure would peaceably and qui- 
 
56 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 etly put an end to the parochial school. 
 The drawing powers of the public school 
 would empty the parochial school. Ameri- 
 can-born children would no longer grow 
 up as foreigners upon their own native 
 soil. 
 
 In our generation we are not likely to 
 forget that that portion of the United States 
 where the free school was not known re- 
 belled, and made war upon our flag and 
 government. Wherever the flag had been 
 lowered, the graduates of the free schools 
 ran it up again and re-established the 
 government. The free school means the 
 Star Spangled Banner, and the Star Span- 
 gled Banner means the free school. Who- 
 ever touches the one touches the other. 
 Puritan blood, which established English 
 liberty and which established American 
 liberty, predominates here no longer. Fif- 
 teen millions of foreigners have come to 
 this country during this century. Still 
 they come, and their children are for num- 
 bers like sands on the seashore. The 
 measure I advocate would, "out of this 
 nettle danger, pluck the flower safety," 
 by educating and Americanizing the 
 children. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 57 
 
 Thus started in life, the intelligent and 
 efficient young would take care of and pro- 
 vide for the old and infirm belonging to 
 them; and, under these circumstances, one- 
 half of the misery of the world, which has 
 its origin in want, would disappear. The 
 progress of the world would be quickened. 
 Much of the best brain material and moral 
 material is now left uncultivated. Our 
 progress would be infinitely more swift if 
 more people were given a fair chance to 
 try to do their best. 
 
 All reforms and improvements, all good 
 causes, would be helped by the measure 
 which I have set before you. It is broader 
 than any and all of them. 
 
58 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Hitherto there has never been any peo- 
 ple that could be compared with the 
 American people for intelligence; but with 
 every American child kept at school till 
 twenty, the distance between us and other 
 nations would immeasurably increase. An 
 American would be known by his having 
 the world' s skill at the ends of his fingers, 
 and the world's stock of knowledge in his 
 head. 
 
 To support one poor boy or girl at school, 
 and give him or her a good education and 
 a fair start in life, has always been looked 
 upon, and is now looked upon, as a noble 
 deed. If it is a good thing to do for one 
 child, why not for all? 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 59 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 One tiling is certain. Unless, by means 
 of this tax, or by some similar means, 
 the wealth of the country shall be made 
 to respond to the demand for a higher 
 general efficiency and intelligence, the 
 mass of the American people must forever 
 remain in ignorance. And what does ig- 
 norance mean? It means far less money 
 earned than would be earned by a popu- 
 lation of intelligence and efficiency. It 
 means, perhaps, more money than the edu- 
 cation would cost wasted on soldiers and 
 policemen, destruction of property, and 
 stoppage of social machinery. As we all 
 know by experience, the most expensive 
 way of settling things, is to settle them by 
 means of lawlessness and soldiers. It is 
 much cheaper to train good citizens than 
 it is to shoot bad ones. 
 
60 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 How much would the tax yield? How 
 much money would it take every year to 
 establish the proposed education? No liv- 
 ing man could answer either question. 
 Experience, and experience only, would 
 enable us to tell. During the six months 
 between November 1, 1889, and May 1, 
 1 890, the tax would have yielded, in this 
 city, between four and five millions of 
 dollars. 
 
 The tax would not be sufficient all at 
 once to meet the expense of the proposed 
 education. If a change so great as the one 
 proposed could be made all at once, the 
 proceeds of the succession tax would not 
 be sufficient to pay the bill. But it would 
 take years and years to bring about so 
 vast a change, and the proceeds of the 
 succession tax would probably be suffi- 
 cient to pay the bill as fast as the change 
 could be brought about. And besides, 
 wealth increases now twice as fast as 
 population, and would increase with far 
 greater swiftness, with increased efficiency 
 of the population. The growth of wealth 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 61 
 
 would catch up and be adequate to the 
 necessity. Besides, any public body into 
 whose hands the practical working* might 
 fall, would have to cut its garment ac- 
 cording to the cloth in hand, and would 
 so cut it. My proposition is, that chil- 
 dren shall be paid for going to school from 
 twelve to twenty years of age; but if only 
 money enough could be raised to keep 
 them at school till eighteen, then eighteen 
 must be the limit till funds increase. If 
 there should be enough only to pay till 
 sixteen, then sixteen must be the limit, 
 and even then the gain of the people in 
 intelligence and efficiency would be im- 
 mense and incalculable. Whatever could 
 be achieved, would be clear gain, and 
 would tend toward comfort and peace. 
 We should be working along lines of ab- 
 solute safety. 
 
 The amount of money required would, 
 perhaps, appall us to-day. Fancy some man, 
 in 1830, saying something like this: To do 
 the transportation bus'ness of this country, 
 we shall need 160,000 miles of railroad, 
 costing nine thousand millions of dollars, 
 and where is the money to come from? 
 The money for the railroads has been 
 
62 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 found, because the railroads themselves 
 have developed and enriched the country, 
 and helped produce the money wherewith 
 railroad extensions have been made. The 
 money invested in railroads has come 
 back, and has come back a hundred fold. 
 We have the 160,000 miles of iron road; 
 we have spent the money the roads have 
 cost, and we are thriving by it. All the 
 wealth in the country in 1830 wasn't equal 
 to the amount of money invested in rail- 
 roads and telegraphs to-day. The man of 
 1830 was not qualified to speak for 1890. 
 His function was to do, along safe lines, 
 the best he could in his day and genera- 
 tion. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 63 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 But says someone: To pay parents for 
 the time of their children while they go to 
 school, even in order to enable the chil- 
 dren to go to school, would pauperize the 
 people. On the morning of the 5th of 
 February last, there was this London 
 cablegram in all our papers: "Old-line 
 Tories are furious over the report that 
 Mr. Goschen intends recommending that 
 a part of the Treasury surplus be devoted 
 to free education. The Standard to-day 
 devotes a savage leader to the denuncia- 
 tion of the idea, declaring that there is no 
 difference in principle, between providing 
 the poor with gratuitous knowledge, and 
 providing them with gratuitous bread, 
 boots, and blankets. Further on, it ex- 
 claims that the character of the English 
 people is certain to be fatally injured, if 
 these demoralizing doctrines of free edu- 
 cation are ever carried out upon a large 
 scale." 
 
 If there is, in fact, no difference between 
 providing people with bread, boots, and 
 blankets, and providing free education, 
 
64 BETTER TIMES FOE US ALL. 
 
 we have been for a long time, and are now, 
 largely engaged in providing bread, boots, 
 and blankets. Did yon ever bear of any 
 man or woman who felt like a panper by 
 reason of having been educated in a free, 
 common school? The character of the New 
 England people has been subjected for 250 
 years to what the London Spectator calls 
 the demoralizing doctrines of free educa- 
 tion; and yet there has never been a x>op- 
 ulation superior to that of New England. 
 Never in the world has the feeling of indi- 
 vidual independence, and individual ade- 
 quacy to all that can happen, been so 
 strong in any people as it has always been, 
 and is, in the inhabitants of New England. 
 The people of Old England have never 
 been pauperized by free education; but for 
 some reason, at some period of his life, 
 one out of every ten native-born English- 
 man sings his "Rule Britannia! Britannia 
 rules the Waves! " on his way to the poor- 
 house. The people of New England, and 
 the descendants of the people of New Eng- 
 land, have cut a great figure in the world, 
 except in one single respect. They have 
 never cut any sort of figure in the world 
 as paupers. Ignorance breeds pauperism. 
 
BETTEK TIMES FOR US ALL. 65 
 
 Intelligence leads to self-reliance and inde- 
 pendence. Call the proceeds of the suc- 
 cession tax, distributed as I would have it 
 distributed, to boys and girls actually in 
 school — no school attendance, no pay — call 
 it, if you like, a distribution of bread, 
 boots, and blankets, for the purpose of 
 getting intelligent and efficient citizens, 
 for the welfare and safety of the State, and 
 then we shall be only going a step further 
 than we already go by common consent 
 in our enormous expenditures for free 
 schools. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 This law might be imperfectly executed 
 to begin with. That is the rule with laws; 
 but it would end by being well executed, 
 because everybody would be interested in 
 its execution. The Collateral Inheritance 
 law is being well executed in New York 
 and Pennsylvania. 
 
 In 1887, the following amounts were paid 
 in New York. I give round numbers: 
 
 Lenox estate, $76,000 
 
 Morgan estate, 64,000 
 
 Stewart estate, 61,000 
 
 Burr estate, 39,000 
 
 Euston estate, 40,000 
 
 In 1888, the following amounts were paid 
 in New York : 
 
 Wolfe estate, 
 Lenox estate, 
 Cutting estate, , 
 Howard estate, , 
 Yanderbilt estate, 
 
 $144,000 
 98,000 
 33,000 
 25,000 
 16,000 
 
 Many of these payments were made by 
 people who are champion tax-dodgers, and 
 hire their law by the year, Tfrey nevey 
 
BETTEE TIMES FOR US ALL. 67 
 
 pay any tax without exhausting the last 
 quibble to avoid payment. When they 
 pay it, it is a sign that there is no other 
 way out. The law has stood five years 
 in New York. Listen to what the Comp- 
 troller of New York says, in his report 
 rendered in January, 1889, covering the 
 year 1888 : 
 
 "The law for taxing collateral inherit- 
 ances, against which many complaints were 
 made immediately after its enactment, as 
 to its legality under the Constitution, and 
 its justice as a taxing system, is becoming 
 well understood and generally regarded 
 as a wise and just measure. 
 
 "The courts have passed upon many 
 of the important and mooted provisions 
 of the law, so that they have received 
 judicial interpretation. The law is now 
 generally and quite thoroughly respected 
 and enforced, as will be seen by the large 
 revenue realized from it." 
 
 In Pennsylvania the law has been on 
 the books for sixty-four years. Origi- 
 nally the tax was 2^ per cent., but in 
 1846 the rate was raised to 5 per cent. 
 From the lowest courts to the highest, all 
 have been full of attempts to prove the 
 
68 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 law unconstitutional. The Pennsylvania 
 reports are full of decisions on the law. 
 It has stood the test of time. This law is 
 as ready to have engrafted upon it the 
 proposition I have set before you, as was 
 the regular army of ten thousand men, at 
 the beginning of the war, to have engrafted 
 upon it a million of volunteers; and the 
 volunteers did no greater service to civili- 
 zation than this law would do. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR ITS ALL. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 In the Chicago Tribune, December 31, 
 1889, appeared the following editorial : 
 "This year there has been paid into the 
 treasury of the State of New York $1,- 
 075,000 as taxes on collateral inheritance. 
 This is $330,000 in excess of last year's 
 receipts. That State, like England, has 
 provided that where property is left to 
 other than direct heirs — to nephews, 
 nieces, cousins, and more distant relations 
 — the recipients shall pay over a portion. 
 The tax is not as heavy as in England, 
 where, for instance, a tenth is cut off from 
 a legacy to a grand-niece, but it is large 
 enough to produce this handsome sum of 
 a million dollars. The time may come 
 when Illinois legislators may think of 
 doing something of this kind, and of 
 claiming a share of the estates of the 
 dead, when they descend in another than 
 the straight line, At present, the estate 
 is charged a mere trifle in the form of a 
 docket-fee — the maximum tax being a 
 thousand dollars, if it is over a million — 
 but the legacies escape. If the New York 
 
70 BETTEK TIMES FOR TJS ALL. 
 
 law prevailed here, John Wentworth's 
 bequest to his nephew would have meant 
 a good round sum for the State, or for the 
 Probate Court; and Cook County would 
 have been that much better off, and the 
 nephew would still have had an ample 
 fortune." 
 
 I have quoted this to show you that a 
 feeling is growing in favor of the enact- 
 ment of the collateral inheritance tax, and 
 from that to the tax I advocate there is 
 only a step. 
 
 In the New York Times of January 
 6th, amongst the Albany items, I find 
 the following : ' ' Senator Fassett will in- 
 troduce a new collateral inheritance bill 
 on Tuesday, which he expects will make 
 a difference of $4,000,000 or $5,000,000 in 
 the State's finances. He proposes to ex- 
 tend the operations of the present laws to 
 all direct heirs. In Great Britain, over 
 $30,000,000 was raised last year by the 
 direct and collateral inheritance law.'* 
 
 I firmly believe that the succession tax 
 could be speedily enacted. All the matter 
 needs is a thorough agitation. The Man- 
 ual Training School for all the children 
 of the land, the succession tax paring 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 7l 
 
 down large fortunes to sustain this school, 
 and thus insuring both higher intelligence 
 and efficiency for all the people, would, 
 as a platform, fire the land with enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
72 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 The laboring man has been asked to be 
 for this, that, and the other, and he has 
 been for all sorts of things. Now let him 
 for once be for himself. ~No harm, can 
 come to the land where the common aver- 
 age man is rising to a higher condition. 
 Such a state of things makes for right- 
 eousness, and righteousness exalteth a 
 nation. 
 
 When slavery went down at Appomat- 
 tox and liberty conquered, conquerors 
 and conquered were alike victors. Lib- 
 erty conquers and leaves no vanquished. 
 So would it be in this case. All would be 
 gainers, none would be losers; all would 
 be victors. 
 
 The position which the laboring man 
 can not take by an attack in front, he can 
 easily take by the flank movement of the 
 succession tax, and not only can he thus 
 take it, but his victory will be the victory 
 of all mankind. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 73 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 " While property remains in the pos- 
 session of the same person, whatever per- 
 manent taxes may have been imposed npon 
 it, they have never been intended to di- 
 minish or take away any part of its capi- 
 tal value, but only some part of the reve- 
 nue arising from it. But when property 
 changes hands, when it is transmitted 
 either from the dead to the living, or from 
 the living to the living, such taxes have 
 frequently been imposed upon it as nec- 
 essarily take away some part of its capital 
 value. 
 
 ' ' The transference of all sorts of prop- 
 erty from the dead to the living, and that 
 of immovable property, of land and 
 houses, from the living to the living, are 
 transactions which are, in their nature, 
 either public and notorious, or such as 
 can not long be concealed. Such trans- 
 actions, therefore, may be taxed directly." 
 — Adam Smith, " Wealth of Nations." 
 
 " With respect to the large fortunes ac- 
 quired by gift or inheritance, the power 
 of bequeathing is one of those privileges 
 
74 BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 of property which are fit subjects for reg- 
 ulation, on grounds of general expediency. 
 * * * * j conceive that inheritances 
 and legacies, exceeding a certain amount, 
 are highly proper subjects for taxation; 
 and that the revenue from them should 
 be as great as it can be made without giv- 
 ing rise to evasions, by donation, inter- 
 vivos, or concealment of property, such 
 as would be impossible adequately to 
 check. The principle of graduation (as 
 it is called), that is, of levying a larger 
 per centage on a larger sum, though its ap- 
 plication to general taxation would be, in 
 my opinion, objectionab]e, is both just 
 and expedient as applied to legacy and 
 inheritance duties." — John Stuart Mill, 
 "Polit. Econ.," Book 5, Chap. II, Sec. 3. 
 
BETTER TIMES FOR US ALL. 75 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 To enable the Legislature of Illinois to 
 establish the proposed policy, a Constitu- 
 tional amendment would be necessary, 
 and the following is submitted: 
 
 ^Resolved, by the Senate of the State of 
 Illinois, the House of Representatives 
 concurring herein, that there shall be 
 submitted to the voters of the State, at 
 the next election for members of the Gen- 
 eral Assembly, a proposition to so amend 
 the first section of the Ninth Article of 
 the Constitution of this State, that the 
 same shall read as follows: 
 
 Section 1. The General Assembly shall 
 provide such revenue as may be needful by 
 levying a tax, by valuation, so that every 
 person and corporation shall pay a tax 
 in proportion to the value of his, her, or 
 its property — such value to be ascertained 
 by some person or persons, to be elected 
 or appointed in such manner as the Gen- 
 eral Assembly shall direct, and not other- 
 wise; but the General Assembly shall have 
 power to tax peddlers, auctioneers, bro- 
 kers, hawkers, merchants, commission 
 merchants, showmen, jugglers, innkeep- 
 ers, grocery keepers, liquor dealers, toll- 
 bridges, ferries, insurance, telegraph, and 
 express interests or business, vendors of 
 
76 BETTEE TIMES FOR US ALL. 
 
 patents, and persons or corporations own- 
 ing or rising franchises and privileges, in 
 such manner as it shall from time to time 
 direct by general law, uniform as to the 
 class upon which it operates. And the 
 General Assembly shall also have power 
 to provide for the collection of a graded 
 succession tax upon the property of de- 
 ceased persons, the proceeds of such tax 
 to be used in promoting the education of 
 the people by compensating the parents 
 and guardians of children for their time 
 while attending school, in such manner as 
 the General Assembly may prescribe; but 
 such succession tax shall not be levied 
 upon the property of deceased persons 
 leaving estates not exceeding twenty-five 
 thousand dollars in value, nor shall such 
 tax in any case exceed 50 per cent, of 
 the value of the property or estate upon 
 which the same is levied. 
 
A VALUABLE SCIENTIFIC WORK. 
 
 £ex and Life. 
 
 The Physiology and Hygiene of the 
 Sexual Organization. 
 
 By ELI F. BROWN, M. S., M. D. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 16mo. Cloth extra, $1.00. Paper covers, 50c. 
 
 " ' Sex and Life,'' by Dr. Eli F. Broivn, is a very sensible book, for it discusses plainly 
 yet with delicacy the physiology and hygiene of the sexual organization. After describing 
 the common sex principle in plants and animals, the author enters tqoon the discussion of 
 conjugal love, heredity, the use and abuse of the sexual p>assion, and other topics which 
 seldom find a place in a volume for general reading. Mis work cannot fail to have good 
 results, for his suggestions are wise, and the information that he furnishes should be known 
 to all." — San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 " A simple and plain treatise on life from its earliest inception to its maturity. 
 The language is clear, and every word tells just what is needful for the entire under- 
 standing of this important subject. " — St. Paul Globe. 
 
 u A modest, compact, scientific exposition of the machinery and its operation through 
 which human life is passed from generation to generation, based upon the theory that there 
 is no subject of greater importance. The innocence that is innocent simply because of igno- 
 rance is the unsafest thing in the toorld, unless it be tlie virtue that is virtuous only because 
 it has never been tempted, or the honesty that is honest from policy only. Dr. Brown has 
 done his work well and discreetly. In his introduction he says: ' For the unclean in mind 
 these pages were not written. ' Truly, nor vjill the unclean gather any gratification for 
 their uncleanness ; yet one cannot but say that these unclean need these pages as much as 
 any, though for somewhat differing reasons, and would be the less unclean for reading 
 them." — Chicago Times. 
 
 "How to teach such truths has been the study of many a parent and many a 
 teacher. There is but the one proper way, and that is by plain facts, which, while 
 teaching the truths of science, impress upon the pupil the grandeur of right living. 
 Dr. Brown, in his pages, strikes these chords admirably. The discussion nowhere 
 shocks the modesty, and the moral is always kept well in view. It tells the story 
 every father wants to tell his son, and every mother wants to tell her daughter, and 
 which both defer too often because they hesitate to approach so delicate a subject," 
 — Inter Ocean. 
 
 Sent by mail, to any address, on receipt of price. 
 
 F. J. SCHULTE & CO., Publishers, CHICAGO. 
 

 
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