Progress and Robbery. 
 
 TWO AMERICAN ANSWERS 
 
 HENRY GEORGE. 
 
 B§fc THE DEMI-COMMUNIST. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. BLEECKEE MILLER. 
 
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 
PRICE, 15 CENTS. 
 
 Progress and Robbery: 
 
 TWO AMERICAN ANSWERS 
 
 HENRY GEORGE, 
 
 THE DEMI-COMMUNIST. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. BLEECKER MILLER. 
 
 READ AT MEETINGS OF THE YOUNG MEN'S DEMO- 
 CRATIC CLUB, ON OCTOBER 4th and nth, 1886. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 The Cherouny Printing and Publishing Co., 17-27 Vandewater Street, 
 1886. 
 
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1886, by J. BLEECKER MILLER, in; 
 the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
A PROPERTY-OWNER'S ANSWER. 
 
 The candidacy of Mr. Henry George for the mayoralty is 
 in one way peculiar and appears to me to demand a dif- 
 ferent treatment in this Club, from the usual mere indorse- 
 ment or refusal to indorse. 
 
 Mr. George is known personally to but few of our 
 citizens ; it is only through his books that we can obtain 
 information as to his character, sympathies and intellectual 
 ability. As most of the members of this Club are busy 
 men, and yet must desire to be informed on this subject, I 
 thought it might be acceptable, if I submitted to you the 
 result of my examination of his works, especially as it will 
 consist largely in quotations, showing his opinions on the 
 salient points of his theory. 
 
 Mr. George, moreover, represents an idea ; — for no one 
 can deny that but for his book on "Progress and Poverty" he 
 would not have been nominated for this office. He is not 
 nominated merely because it is believed that he will make 
 a good administrative officer, but because it is hoped that 
 his election will in some way conduce to the realization of 
 a whole theory of political economy, applicable not only to 
 our City, but to the State and Nation. That this theory is 
 of sufficient importance to deserve the careful consideration 
 of this Club, is evidenced, I consider, by the general inter- 
 est which this nomination of its representative has excited 
 among all citizens. 
 
4 
 
 Among the masses of the people every one knows 
 that a large number of persons who have heretofore voted 
 the Democratic ticket are considering whether they will 
 not vote for Mr. George, or have already made up their 
 minds so to do; it is the same with the Republicans. 
 
 The manner in which he has been nominated is another 
 matter which should attract the attention of this Club. He 
 has not been nominated by politicians, but by a great class 
 of our population ; he represents in many ways a revolt 
 against present political methods; he is brought forward by 
 a combination of organizations whose entrance in the field 
 of politics has long been looked forward to by our citizens 
 with mingled feelings of desire and dread ; he has been 
 placed at the head of a force whose movements statesmen 
 and politicians have long been studying and prognosticat- 
 ing, and which, whatever may be the result of this elec- 
 tion, will remain a power for good or evil in the political 
 horizon for a long time to come, which both political par- 
 ties will have to consider in their calculations, and which 
 may be so strong as to retain permanently the elements 
 that may be attracted to it from either party in this cam- 
 paign. What theories then does the standard-bearer of this 
 new movement represent ? 
 
 It seems to me that this Club should look this matter in 
 the face at once, and consider whether the principles, 
 which Henry George represents, vary from the teachings 
 of Democracy, and whether there is anything that prevents 
 a Democrat from supporting him as a candidate. 
 
 Even if these questions were not forced upon us at this 
 time, the examination of the doctrines taught in ''Progress 
 and Poverty " appear to me to be a fitting subject for our 
 careful consideration, whether we are inclined to approve 
 or disapprove of them, in view of the great spread which, 
 this book has attained both in this country and in England 
 In this country over a hundred editions are said to have 
 
5 
 
 been printed, and it has been translated, I believe, into all 
 the languages of Europe. Learned societies have debated 
 its theories and clubs have been formed to put them into 
 practice. Very few books can boast of the reception of this 
 work,— or of having immediately influenced so many minds 
 in its favor. Another reason for considering this work is 
 that it is necessary in order to understand the full and cor- 
 rect meaning of the platform adopted by the Trade and 
 Labor Organizations of New York, and on which Mr. George 
 stands. 
 
 The first section condemns " the system which compels 
 men to pay their fellow-creatures for the use of God's gifts 
 to all," although it does not define what that " system " is; 
 and the second section states that " we aim at the abolition 
 of all laws which give to any class of citizens advantages 
 either judicial, financial, industrial or political, that are 
 not equally shared by all others," — but the statutes referred 
 to are not cited. This platform was adopted after the re- 
 ceipt of a letter from Mr. George in which he promised 
 conditionally to accept the nomination, and as it is under- 
 stood that he has virtually accepted it, we can go safely to 
 his works to ascertain the meaning which he, at all events, 
 puts upon this language, and which he will consider him- 
 self justified to follow in his official acts, if elected. And 
 no one can deny that a vote for Henry George will be con- 
 strued as an indorsement to some extent of his theories. 
 What is this system and what are these laws which are to 
 be abolished ? 
 
 Mr. George has certainly been straight-forward and con- 
 sistent; in his four books: " Progress and Poverty," "Social 
 Problems," "The Irish Land Question" and "Protection and 
 Free Trade," he emits no uncertain sound. 
 
 As the Roman Senator, when suddenly awakened, ex- 
 claimed : " Carthago delenda est," so Mr. George would, I 
 believe, in similar circumstances exclaim in the final words 
 
6 
 
 of his closing chapter in " Protection and Free Trade:" " Pri- 
 vate property in land is doomed." 
 
 It is this cry with which he first startled the world in 
 " Progress and Poverty": 4 ' We must therefore substitute for 
 the individual ownership of land a common ownership. We 
 must make land common property," p. 295. 
 
 In his ''Social Problems" he says, on page 276: " There is 
 no escape from it. We must make land common property." 
 
 In the " Land Question " he states: " In the very nature of 
 things, land cannot rightfully be made individual property. 
 This principle is absolute," p. 38. 
 
 It is therefore this system of private ownership of land, 
 and the laws which sustain this system, which the delegates 
 of the Trade and Labor Organizations of New York, in con- 
 ference assembled, declare it to be their aim to abolish, and 
 as the first step in that direction, they have nominated Mr. 
 George for Mayor of New York City. And no one can 
 deny that if this was their object, they have made a wise 
 choice in their standard-bearer. He gives not merely an 
 intellectual assent to the proposition, but no one can doubt 
 his thorough sincerity and fiery zeal. 
 
 His work entitled " Protection and Free Trade," published 
 in 1886 is as outspoken in its denunciations as his " Progress 
 and Poverty," written in 1877. 
 
 In the former he says: " Property in land is as indefens- 
 ible as property in man," (p. 349) and "the robber that 
 takes all that is left is private property in land," (p. 285); 
 in the later he says: " If chattel slavery be unjust then is 
 private property in land unjust," (p. 312). In his " Land 
 Question" he says, on page 36: "Here is a system which 
 robs the producers of wealth as remorselessly and far more 
 regularly and systematically than the pirate robs the 
 merchantman." 
 
 In his "Social Problems" he says: "Did you ever see a 
 pail of swill given to a pen of hungry hogs ? That is human 
 society as it is," (p. 102). 
 
7 
 
 And, indeed, extravagant as this language may sound, 
 when one reads the sombre pages on which he paints the 
 horrors and misery of poverty and contrasts it with the ex- 
 travagance of wealth, in language and with pathos, which 
 has been rarely surpassed, one feels more than half inclined 
 to adopt Mr. George's plan or any measure, no matter how 
 radical, if there was only some prospect of improvement. 
 
 But Mr. George does not confine himself to an appeal to 
 our sentiments; he recognizes, of course, that no matter how 
 readily we agree as to the misery and unjustifiable inequality 
 now existing, he must still show that his proposed remedy 
 will lead to an improvement, and also that it can be adopted 
 without acting contrary to the precepts of justice. — Thus, 
 he says in his "Progress and Poverty": "If private prop- 
 erty in land be just, then is the remedy I propose a false 
 one; if on the contrary, private property in land be unjust, 
 then is this remedy the true one," (p. 299.) 
 
 As to the justice of ownership of things other than land 
 Mr. George is pronounced; in his "Social Problems," he 
 says, on pays 278: "What more preposterous than the 
 treatment of land as individual property ? In every es- 
 sential land differs from those things which being the pro- 
 duct of human labor are rightfully property. It is the 
 creation of God ; they are produced by man." 
 
 It is on this distinction that he bases his whole system. 
 In his chapter entitled "Injustice of private property in 
 land," he says (p. 307): "The right to exclusive ownership 
 of anything of human production is clear. No matter how 
 many the hands through which it has passed, there was at 
 the beginning of the line human labor — some one who, hav- 
 ing procured or produced it by his exertions, had to it a 
 clear title as against all the rest of mankind, and which 
 could justly pass from one to another by sale or gift. But 
 at the end of what string of conveyances or grants can be 
 shown or supposed a like title to any part of the material 
 universe ?" j 
 
8 
 
 I think that such a title can be shown to every piece of 
 land in the State of New York fit for human use. 
 
 There is no reason for the division between personal and 
 real property, on the ground that the former is the pro- 
 duct of man and the latter created by God. God created 
 personal property as certainly as he did real. As Mr. George 
 says in his " Social Problems " (p. 182): " Man has no power 
 to bring something out of nothing. He cannot create an 
 atom of matter." 
 
 Man can fashion things after they are detached from the 
 soil, and combine them, so that they will affect every one 
 of our senses in a new manner; but is any such change 
 greater than that from a piece of the forest primeval to a 
 Fifth Avenue lot ? 
 
 Did it require no labor to drain the swamps, cut the trees 
 and blast the rocks on this Island of Manhattan, before it 
 assumed its present form, which Mr. George and his friends 
 are now content to assume as their place of residence ? Was 
 not similar work required on every field in the State ? Ask 
 a farmer, who has reduced a ten-acre lot to an arable con- 
 dition, or the builder, who has blasted the rock from a city 
 lot, whether Mr. George is correct when he says, in his 
 " Social Problems," on page 85: "When land increases in 
 value it does not mean that its owner has added to the gen- 
 eral wealth." 
 
 According to Mr. George's own definitions, land can be 
 held as property, because it is no more fit for human use 
 without human labor, than any piece of personal property, 
 and it is as senseless to say of one part of the material uni- 
 verse it can be produced by man without God, as it is of any 
 other. 
 
 It is true that Mr. George does not overlook this 
 point of human labor connected with land, but he says 
 on the page last cited: "It is a title only to the improve- 
 ments and not to the land itself." Should he not then also 
 
9 
 
 say the same thing concerning a diamond, for instance, 
 which a lapidary has cut and polished: "All I can justly 
 claim is the value given by these exertions. They give me 
 no right to the diamond itself." And yet Mr. George claims 
 that as to personal property one can have ownership. 
 
 Quote to the same farmer or builder the definition of 
 property, as given in this chapter under consideration, "As a 
 man belongs to himself, so his labor when put in concrete 
 form belongs to him," and ask him whether he does not think 
 that the definition would entitle him to claim property in the 
 lot as much as in the wood or the stone which he removes 
 from it, and it would take even more than Mr. George's in- 
 genuity to get a negative answer from him. 
 
 We are not now arguing the question of compensation for 
 improvements, which we will consider later, but examining 
 the correctness of the distinction which Mr. George makes 
 between property in land and property in other things. If 
 there be no such broad distinction, as to require that the 
 former should be taken and the latter left, as Mr. George so 
 earnestly demands, the question of compensation, in case 
 we should take the land, need not be considered. Unless 
 this radical difference be proven, he might with equal pro- 
 priety discuss in his book the compensation to be given 
 for improvements to personal property. Having thus, in 
 my opinion, shown that Mr. George's distinction between 
 personal property, as the product of man, and real property, 
 as the creation of God, is untenable, and that consequently 
 his whole theory is indefensible, as he has expressly based 
 it on this claim to justice, let us briefly consider the ques- 
 tion of justice, without reference to Mr. George's book. 
 
 How long has this work been going on in this State and 
 City before they acquired a form, which induces Mr. George 
 and his friends to take up their abode therein and even 
 to desire to have an interest in it ? Where were these gen- 
 tlemen or their ancestors during the two centuries during 
 
10 
 
 which this struggle with animate and inanimate foes was 
 going on ? Did they take part in the Indian wars ? Did 
 they fight at Saratoga, or endure the horrors of the seven 
 years' war ? Did they struggle for municipal rights against 
 the New Netherlands Company, or assist in planning the 
 Constitution of 1777 ? Were not their ancestors the men 
 who staid comfortably in Europe until America was pre- 
 pared and put in order — until the human, animal and ma- 
 terial foes were overcome, and now that a passage can be 
 made in a week, and steerage fares cost perhaps twenty 
 dollars — which is often advanced to them by Americans — 
 they sail over here and, not satisfied with our broad 
 naturalization laws, then complain : "American citizen- 
 ship confers no right to American soil," (Social Problems, 
 p. 146). The Report of the Charity Organization Society 
 (which Mr. George cites to prove the existing misery) shows 
 that over 80 per cent, of beggars, whose cases were in- 
 vestigated, were not born in America. 
 
 No matter how absurd this claim may now seem to us, it is 
 one deserving of careful attention — in fact, is not to be 
 wondered at: our Saxon ancestors once did the same thing 
 and thus gained their English homes. It was the Britons 
 who invited the Saxons over from the Continent to fight 
 the Picts, and supported them and took them into their pay, 
 until they finally so increased in number that they took pos- 
 session of the land of their former employers. Human na- 
 ture has not changed very much, and that they come over 
 in Cunarders, instead of in dragon ships or coracles, does 
 not make their demand for the land of the former inhabi- 
 tants essentially different. I believe that the true character 
 of this movement, which is just beginning, should be under- 
 stood by our real estate owners and their friends, so that 
 the contest shall be a fair and open one, and that the 
 leaders of neither side shall increase their forces or diminish 
 hat of their adversary by false pretenses of justice, disinter- 
 estedness, etc. 
 
1 1 
 
 If one wished to descend to his style of language could not 
 the terms " robber" and "pirate" be flung back with perfect 
 propriety ? 
 
 I happen to have the correspondence of James Duane (an 
 ancestor of mine), who settled the township of Duanesburgh, 
 in Schenectady County, with his agents, extending from 
 about 1770 to 1790. I would like to show that correspond- 
 ence to anyone who claims that land is the free gift of God 
 to* man and can be used like air and water, without the ex- 
 penditure of labor. Mr. Duane spent the proceeds of a 
 large professional income, together with what was, in those 
 days, considerable inherited property, upon building roads, 
 dams, mills, etc., through that region, so as to make it ac- 
 cessible to his tenants; he advanced them money, as is 
 shown by the continual begging letters, all of them imply- 
 ing confidence in his generosity or gratitude for his assist- 
 ance; there is not one implying any dislike or harsh feeling; 
 a great part of the letters consist in explanations by the 
 agent why the various tenants did not meet their obliga- 
 tions, or requests for money to carry out improvements or 
 maintain those already begun, which seemed very liable to 
 dilapidation. After representing the State of New York in 
 every Congress during the Revolutionary War, and serving 
 as first Mayor of this City after the war, until the Union 
 was formed, and then as first Judge of the United States 
 District Court of New York, he gave up the latter position, 
 and moved up there and devoted himself entirely to care 
 of this land until his death. Would he have done this, if 
 his descendants were to have had no interest in what was 
 then a wilderness ? And if he had not done it, how long 
 would that land have remained uncultivated ? 
 
 I believe that the history of any portion of this State, 
 if known, would be very much the same; and if any one 
 will consult one of the latest books on the history of land, 
 " The English Village Community," by Frederic Seebohm 
 
12 
 
 (London, 1883), he will see that in England the theory of 
 an original cultivation of the land by a community of inde- 
 pendent farmers (on which, on page 331 of "Progress and 
 Poverty," Mr. George bases his historical argument) is a 
 myth, and that the new land was then also settled by some 
 man of means advancing to dependents the subsistence and 
 implements required during the hard struggle of rendering 
 land arable. Mr. Seebohm says in his conclusion (p. 438) 
 on the village land system: " The equality in its yardlands, 
 and the single succession which preserved this equality, we 
 have found to be apparently not marks of an original free- 
 dom, not of an original allodial allotment on the German 
 mark system, but of a settled serfdom under a lordship — a 
 semi-servile tenancy implying a mere usufruct, theoretically 
 only for life or at will, and carrying with it no inherent 
 rights of inheritance. But this serfdom, as we have seen 
 reason to believe, was, to the masses of the people, not a 
 degradation, but a step upward out of a once more general 
 slavery. Certainly during the 1200 years over which the 
 direct English evidence extends, the tendency has been 
 towards more and more freedom." And Mr. Seebohm im- 
 plies that the same facts probably existed in other early 
 agricultural communities. Mr. George based his views solely 
 on what he saw in the Great West, where prairies are said 
 to be almost ready for the plow with but little prelimin- 
 ary labor; and upon the rapid increase of real estate values 
 in California, consequent upon the discovery of gold. From 
 these extraordinary circumstances he has evolved a theory 
 which he believes to be ol general application and to which 
 he still adheres, although his subsequent travels and educa- 
 tion might have been expected to have widened and cor- 
 rected his views on this plain matter of history. 
 
 He says, in page 83 of his "Social Studies: "When land 
 increases in value it does not mean that its owner has added 
 to the general wealth. . . . Increase of land values simply 
 
13 
 
 means that the owners, by virtue of appropriation of some- 
 thing that existed before man was, have the power of tak- 
 ing a larger share of the wealth produced by other people's 
 labor." However applicable these remarks may be to other 
 parts of the country, and though they may show that the 
 laws concerning the pre-emption of different kinds of public 
 lands should have varied, they do not apply to this State, 
 with its comparatively rugged soil and thick woods. 
 
 What have real estate owners done for the State of New 
 York ? Under the Constitution of 1777, only those in the 
 possession of land could vote, and to the Senate only land- 
 owners were admitted. It was the landowners of New York 
 who enabled that State to meet every requisition made upon 
 it by the Continental Congress for supplies, men and money 
 — the only one of the thirteen States of which that can be 
 said. 
 
 After forty years, the landowners peaceably of their own 
 accord gave up this privilege, and established practically 
 universal suffrage, through the Constitutional Convention of 
 1826, although there were even then men who foresaw the 
 future. Thus Chancellor Kent said, on page 115 of "Pro- 
 ceedings:" 
 
 "It is to protect this important class of the community 
 that the Senate should be preserved. It should be the 
 representative of the landed interest, and its security against 
 the caprice of the motley assemblage of paupers, emigrants, 
 journeymen manufacturers, and those undefinable classes of 
 inhabitants which a State and city like ours is calculated 
 to invite. This is not a fancied alarm. 
 
 Universal suffrage jeopardizes property, and puts it into 
 the power of the poor and profligate to control the affluent." 
 
 He was answered by Mr. Root : " We have no different 
 estates having different interests, necessary to be guarded 
 from encroachment by the watchful eye of jealousy . . . We 
 are all the same estate, all commoners . . . These powerful 
 
H 
 
 checks may be necessary between different families possess- 
 ing adverse interests, but can never be salutary among 
 brothers of the same family, whose interests are similar," 
 (p. 116.) 
 
 What would have been the action of that Convention, if 
 Mr. George's language had been heard in it ? Would he 
 and his friends now be voters ? Does he subscribe to the 
 honeyed phrases of that advocate of universal suffrage, or 
 are those former u brothers " now called robbers and pirates, 
 among whom must be included of course Washington, 
 Franklin, Madison, Jackson and probably every name which 
 Americans have been taught to revere. 
 
 I would pass now from the main point of Mr. George's 
 theory, assuming that it has appeared that Mr. George's 
 distinction between real and personal property is baseless, 
 and that property in the one is as sacred as in the other, 
 and that consequently the question of compensation for im- 
 provements on land, taken by the public, will not arise, 
 because the land may not be taken. But in order to give 
 a more complete view of Mr. George's theory, let us con- 
 sider for a moment his plan for compensation. 
 
 He assumes that there are two kinds of improvements to 
 land, for one of which only compensation is to be made. 
 
 He says on page 308 of " Progress and Poverty:" " There 
 are improvements which in time become indistinguishable 
 from the land itself. Very well ; then the title to the im- 
 provements becomes blended with the title to the land ; 
 the individual right is lost in the common right." 
 
 But he says this in the chapter on "injustice of private 
 property in land," in which he has undertaken to show that 
 this common right exists according to the principles of 
 justice; and yet here he assumes that it is already proven 
 and justified, to the negation of the right even of compen- 
 sation for improvements. — This is a fair specimen of the 
 logical mind of our would-be future Mayor. 
 
i5 
 
 But what are these ' ' indistinguishable " improvements; 
 the term is rather vague. Naturally one would suppose 
 that it would include the results of the first attempts to 
 render wild land fit for cultivation or" habitation ; such as 
 the building of roads, bridges and dams in agricultural 
 lands, and clearing away the stones and other objects, 
 which impede cultivation; and in the city, levelling the 
 ground, making the necessary excavations, etc. — I do not 
 know what else can be intended by these " indistinguish- 
 able " improvements. 
 
 I would not ask Mr. George whether this is fair or honest, 
 but I would ask him whether it is consistent with giving 
 compensation for any improvements ? 
 
 Houses and barns, I suppose, would be improvements, if 
 any thing would, whose value is distinguishable from that 
 of the land; but why should the labor spent on the erection 
 of the building be compensated, and not that spent on the 
 preparation of the site or digging the foundation ? 
 
 The real object of this distinction between these two 
 classes of improvements appears to be to form a loop-hole 
 through which Mr. George can creep, whenever he is 
 pressed on this point, so as to suit the wishes of his inter- 
 locutor. But his real spirit with which he would select the 
 " indistinguishable" improvements is shown plainly enough 
 throughout his works. He says in his " Land Question," on 
 page 38: "I have dwelt so long upon this question of com- 
 pensating landowners, not merely because it is of great 
 practical importance, but because its discussion brings 
 clearly into view the principles upon which the land ques- 
 tion in Ireland, or in any other country, can alone be justly 
 and finally settled. In the light of these principles we see 
 that the landowners have no rightful claim either to the 
 tand or to compensation for its resumption by the people, 
 and, further than that, we see that no such rightful claim 
 can ever be created. It would be wrong to pay the present 
 landowners for " their" land at the expense of the people." 
 
i6 
 
 On page 36 he says: " Yet we are told that this 
 
 system cannot be abolished without buying off those who 
 profit by it. Was there ever more degrading debasement 
 before a fetish ?" 
 
 Moreover, who would pay for these improvements, if any 
 were paid for ? It would be one landowner who would pay 
 the other, for he contemplates the abolition of all other 
 taxes. He says, on page 281 of "Social Problems:" "Were 
 land treated as the property of the whole people, the ground 
 rent accruing to the community would suffice for public pur- 
 poses and all other taxation might be dispensed with." 
 Literally his greatest advance towards compensating the 
 landowners consists in robbing Peter to pay Paul. 
 
 The last point in Mr. George's theories to which I think 
 it necessary to refer, is his proposed method of accomplish- 
 ing his great reforms. He says, on page 364 of " Progress 
 and Poverty:" "I do not propose either to pur- 
 chase or to confiscate private property in land. The first 
 
 would be unjust; the second, needless We may 
 
 safely leave them the shell if we take the kernel. It is not 
 necessary to confiscate land ; it is only necessary to confiscate 
 
 rent We already take some rent in taxation. We 
 
 have only to make some changes in our modes of taxation 
 to take it all." The naivete of these remarks is refreshing. 
 " Taking property" has a bad name in civilized countries; 
 even professed criminals prefer to avoid it, and to speak of 
 divided the stuff, the boodle or the swag. But if Mr. George 
 thinks that anyone is deceived by this use of terms, it shows 
 that he has great simplicity of mind. Of course this would 
 make the city or the State the landlord, with the accom- 
 panying duties and responsibilities; how they would be ful- 
 filled it is needless to explain to gentlemen so well ac- 
 quainted with the present workings of our government, as 
 the members of this Club. Mr. George says, on page 410: 
 " Government would change its character and would be- 
 
17 
 
 come the administration of a great co-operative society. It 
 would become merely the agency by which the common 
 property was administered for the common benefit." 
 
 As to the manner in which the money is to be spent and 
 the benefits to be derived therefrom, Mr. George gives 
 glowing pictures. The Reverend Heber Newton summed 
 the matter up in his speech at the so-called Business Men's 
 Meeting of last week, when he said: "We are going to clear 
 the way for the millenium." Mr. George describes, in his 
 " Social Problems," on page 323, the ordinary farmer, living 
 "with a daily average of two or three hours' work, which 
 more resembled healthy recreation than toil;" that his 
 family " should be able to visit the theatre, or concert or 
 opera as often as they cared to, and occasionally to make 
 trips to other parts of the country or to Europe." 
 
 In his argument in favor of free trade, which he also claims 
 can be brought about only through the appropriation of all 
 land, he says, on page 334 of " Protection and Free Trade:" 
 "An English Democrat puts in this phrase the aim of true 
 Free Trade : * No taxes at all, and a pension to everybody.' 
 
 If this is Socialism, then it is time that Free Trade 
 
 leads to Socialism." 
 
 Is this the language of a practical man ? 
 
 We have not time here for me to undertake to show 
 the hopelessness of any real improvement of the con- 
 dition of the workingmen through these theories ; I would 
 refer you to the criticisms by Mr. John Rae in " Contem- 
 porary Socialism " and to Mr. Mallock's book on this sub- 
 ject ; but I would call your attention to this fact, that in 
 his earlier work he promised the Millenium, if his plan were 
 adopted. Thus he says in " Progress and Poverty," on page 
 295: " To extirpate poverty we must therefore substi- 
 tute for the individual ownership of land a common owner- 
 ship." But in his later book, "Social Problems,' 7 he says 
 on page 273: "Yet we might recognize the equal right 
 
i8 
 
 to the land and tyranny and spoliation be continued, . . . 
 I fully recognize the fact that even after we do this, much 
 will remain to do." 
 
 Would it not be well to wait until his plan is complete, 
 before pulling down our present dwelling ? How much 
 more " will remain to do," before his glowing phantasies are 
 to become realities ? Does this uncertain prophet deserve 
 to be followed by the workingmen into a conflict with the 
 great class of real estate owners and their friends ? 
 
 I would further call attention to this fact that Mr. George's 
 arguments are nothing new. They bear a strong resemblance 
 to those of Proudhon in his book entitled: " Qu'est ce que la 
 Propriete?" to which he answers: " Property is theft." 
 Proudhon claimed that property in movables was as wrong 
 as property in land, — but another Frenchman, Considerant, 
 attempted to draw the same distinctions which Mr. George 
 has drawn between real and personal property, and prove 
 the lawfulness of the latter. Mr. George and Considerant 
 also use very much the same arguments. 
 
 Nowhere, however, that I can find, does Mr. George cite 
 Considerant; although he is evidently familiar with French 
 writers, as he has dedicated his " Protection and Free 
 Trade" "to the memory of those illustrious Frenchmen of 
 a century ago, Quesnay, Turgot, Mirabeau, Condorcet, Du- 
 pont and their fellows, who in night of despotism foresaw 
 the glories of the coming day." Mr. George then proceeds 
 to argue in favor of abolition of property in land, — 
 without mentioning Considerant. It is, of course, pos- 
 sible that Mr. George has so superficially studied this 
 subject that he did not hear of the writings of that 
 author, and that the resemblance in the arguments is 
 purely accidental. It is as probable that a man writing 
 on electricity should not have heard the name of Benjamin 
 Franklin, or on abolition of slavery and should not have 
 heard the name of Abraham Lincoln. But be this as it 
 
19 
 
 may, there is nothing new in Mr. George's arguments; they 
 have been promulgated half a century ago by unprincipled 
 Frenchmen in a dozen ways, and the Paris Commune was 
 an attempt to realize them. 
 
 If we draw a conclusion as to Mr. George's character 
 from these works, can we conclude anything except that his 
 mind is that of an illogical, unpractical and dangerous 
 fanatic ? 
 
 At all times progress has had to be on its guard against 
 robbery. We have seen what the system and the laws are 
 which this platform demands shall be abolished. It is true 
 that the Mayor is supposed to be an administrative officer; 
 but cannot the Mayor of New York do something to carry 
 out these principles ? In the first place he is a member 
 of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, which 
 has the power, practically without limitation, of determin- 
 ing the amount of money to be raised each year by taxa- 
 tion. This Board consists of four members; one of them, 
 the President of the Department of Taxes and Assessments, 
 is appointed by the Mayor. Should a vacancy occur in that 
 office, the Mayor might appoint a friend entertaining his 
 views, and they would have one-half the Board. But with- 
 out that, the tax levy can only be fixed by the unanimous 
 vote of all the four members on each item; every member 
 can veto any item, unless he is satisfied with the appropria- 
 tion as a whole. Mr. George can, therefore, demand that 
 an immense sum should be raised next year by taxation, or 
 he might by refusing to agree with any items cripple the 
 entire city government. That his power would be immense, 
 of that there can be no doubt. 
 
 The Mayor also appoints the Board of Taxes and Assess- 
 ments, which in turn appoints Deputy Tax Commissioners, 
 who fix the valuation of real estate in their several districts 
 for purposes of taxation. — (Sec. 14 of the Consolidation 
 Act of 1882.) 
 
20 
 
 Even if Mr. George should not appoint directly to these 
 offices, it is well known that with his patronage he could 
 probably influence their appointment, so as to obtain the 
 positions for persons in sympathy with him, and every one 
 knows how easily these officials could change the present 
 valuation of real estate. 
 
 Then the chief practical defense of house-owners in this 
 city comes through the summary proceedings, which are 
 executed by the Marshals of the District Courts. These 
 officers are appointed by the Mayor, and, like other city 
 officials, removed only by him. If he should nominate some of 
 his present supporters, fresh from reading his " Social Prob- 
 lems," where, on page 155, he states that certain landlords 
 "are of no more use than so many great ravenous, destructive 
 beasts, packs of wolves, herds of wild elephants, or such 
 dragons as St. George is reported to have killed," and a 
 complaint should be brought before him against a marshal 
 for neglect of duty in a dispossess proceeding, — what atten- 
 tion would it be likely to receive.? Behind the marshall, for 
 protection of all property stand the police ; what sort of 
 men will Mr. George's Police Commissioners be apt to ap- 
 point ? 
 
 We see, therefore, that a Mayor of New York, with Mr. 
 George's views, might do much to carry them into effect. 
 Probably in no position in the world, under our present laws, 
 could more be done in this direction. It is indeed rare that 
 an enthusiast of that type has a chance to attempt to realize 
 such dreams, and Mr. George will be a good deal less sin- 
 cere than his book shows him to be, if he does not use this 
 wonderful opportunity to the utmost. 
 
 I submit, therefore, that all good citizens should oppose 
 his candidacy. 
 
 But particularly, as Democrats, what ought we to do ? 
 
 The fundamental principle of the Democracy has always 
 been that of admiration and steadfast adherence to the Con- 
 
21 
 
 stitution and laws authorized by that Constitution. What 
 have they to say on this subject ? 
 
 The United States Constitution declares in the Fifth 
 Amendment: "Nor shall private property be taken for 
 public use without just compensation." 
 
 We have seen the important part which landowners 
 played in the formation of the Constitution of this State. 
 
 Section 6 of the New York State Constitution is to the 
 same effect, and Sec. 13 of this Constitution says: "All 
 lands within this State are declared to be allodial, so that, 
 subject only to the liability to escheat, the entire and abso- 
 lute property is vested in the owners, according to the 
 nature of their respective estates." 
 
 Section 8, of II. Revised Statutes, p. 719, declares: "Every 
 citizen of the United States is capable of holding lands 
 within this State, and of taking the same by descent, devise 
 or purchase." 
 
 This indeed is no new doctrine; it was imbedded in Magna 
 Charta, which declared th^t no freeman shall be disseised 
 ■or divested of his freehold, or of his liberties or free customs, 
 but by the judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. 
 Blackstone, in his "Commentaries," Vol. L, p. 129, declares 
 that the three absolute rights of individuals are: "The 
 right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and 
 the right of prrivate property;" and Chancellor Kent, in 
 Vol. II., p. 1, of his "Commentaries," uses the same lan- 
 guage. Elliott's "Constitutional Debates," on the adoption 
 of the United States Constitution in the different States are 
 full of allusions to the protection of property in land, which 
 this Constitution would afford. 
 
 That our Constitution and laws recognize no principle as 
 more fundamental and sacred than that of private property 
 in land is therefore undeniable. 
 
 But Mr. George would perhaps say that he does not 
 demand that the title to land should be taken, but only the 
 rent, and therefore that he does not take property. 
 
22 
 
 He might claim that property meant the thing which is 
 the object of ownership and not the aggregate of rights 
 which an owner has over the thing, so that property was not 
 taken when an owner was deprived of one of these essential 
 rights, such as that of rent, but only when the thing itself 
 was removed or interfered with. But the recent long 
 line of cases in the suits against the Elevated Railroads 
 have settled in this State that property means the aggre- 
 gate of rights and not the thing owned. Probably the most 
 recent decision is that of the Court of Appeals in the matter 
 of Jacobs (98 N. Y., 105). 
 
 "The constitutional guaranty that no person shall be 
 deprived of his property without due process of law may 
 be violated without the physical taking of property for 
 public or private use. Property may be destroyed, or its 
 value may be annihilated . . . any law which destroys it 
 or its value, or takes away any of its essential attributes, 
 deprives the owner of his property." 
 
 However, Mr. George woulcUhardly dare to make this 
 contention, in view of his oft repeated use of the term 
 property, in its correct sense, as defined by the courts; thus, 
 on page 343, of " Protection and Free Trade," he says: "The 
 only way to abolish private property is by the way of taxa- 
 tion. That way is clear and straightforward." 
 
 Since then this direct conflict exists between Mr. George's 
 opinions and the "aims" of his platform on the one hand, 
 and the Constitution and the laws on the other, and since 
 it is also by no means clear which of these "aims" are at 
 once to be put into practice, and since the peculiar boast 
 of the Democracy has always been its conservative strict 
 adherence to the Constitution,! do not see how any Democrat 
 can support Mr. George. 
 
 However, I do not see how Mr. George can accept this 
 office, if elected. How can he swear to support the Con- 
 stitution and laws of this State as they now exist, while he 
 
23 
 
 maintains the views expressed in his works ? — No matter 
 how he may hedge in his letter of acceptance, I do not 
 believe that he can, if he would, free his mind from the 
 passions which these years of controversy have engendered, 
 and see to the administration of these laws, so abhorrent to 
 him, according to their letter and their spirit. If he were run- 
 ning for the Constitutional Convention, this objection would 
 not exist; but to attempt to fill the position of Mayor, without 
 abolishing our present system, but according to the true 
 meaning of the laws now in force, ought to be thoroughly 
 abhorrent to him, if he means half of what he has said. — 
 I can not imagine his taking that oath, without mental 
 reservations, which would make it practically perjury; — and 
 I believe that those who approve of his making such an 
 attempt and aid him in it, by their votes, are not much 
 better than accomplices before the act. 
 
 Finally, I wish to state that these remarks have been 
 made with no feeling of hostility to the workingmen. In my 
 humble way I have for years, by various publications, done 
 what I could to induce them to go into politics; I believe it 
 is a necessary movement, and in time will be a salutary 
 one. But I object to this great movement, the most im- 
 portant one which will probably occur in our generation, 
 instead of being utilized in a practical manner for the bene- 
 fit of all, being turned aside to attack one class of our 
 fellow-citizens. Henry George says, in his " Progress and 
 Poverty," (p. 282): " Nor in the struggle of endurance must 
 it be forgotten who are the real parties pitted against each 
 
 other It is laborers on the one side and the owners 
 
 of land on the other." This will not be the first of these 
 conflicts. The history of the Dark Ages — of the 13th, 14th 
 and 15th centuries — is red with the blood spilt in the cities 
 of Europe in the fights between the trade unions and 
 the real estate owners; every man who reads that history 
 must feel it his duty to do all in his power to prevent the 
 kindling of such a conflict here. 
 
24 
 
 While we can all hope that the contingency of such fear- 
 ful contests is still remote, we must recognize that even this 
 peaceful strife at the polls of these two great classes pre- 
 vents their uniting their forces and righting the many- 
 wrongs which they jointly suffer. I do not say that this 
 contest has been engineered by the railroad kings, poli- 
 ticians and monopolists, who thrive in the present disorgan- 
 ized state of society, but I do say that nothing could have 
 happened more opportunely for them, and that if they can 
 only fan the flame, they have gained a new lease of life. 
 Moreover, with our system of government the danger of 
 diffusion of these ideas among persons who have not oppor- 
 tunity or ability to thoroughly examine them and see their 
 fallacy, presents a great danger, which all good citizens 
 should oppose. Mr. George's arguments apply to personal 
 property as well as to real; a movement started against the 
 latter cannot be stopped there; in all his books there is no 
 formula that will lay the evil spirits, if they once break 
 loose. The arguments of his master, Proudhon, he cannot 
 refute. He is a preacher of Communism, although he wants 
 to stop half way. It is the interest of all owners of prop- 
 erty, real or personal, to oppose to the utmost the spread 
 of the influence of this demi-communist. 
 
A WORKINGMAN'S ANSWER. 
 
 N Saturday I received a note from the gentleman who 
 
 at our meeting on last Monday most zealously sus- 
 tained Mr. George's theories, in which he stated that I 
 had at that time not represented the workingmen's side of 
 the question, and that consequently my argument was un- 
 democratic. I considered that I had answered Mr. George 
 when I had shown that his proposal was unjust. 
 
 However, without admitting that the Democratic party is 
 exclusively the party of the workingmen, I intend this even- 
 ing to consider Mr. George's candidacy from the stand-point 
 of a workingman, and to ascertain for what reasons they 
 ought to support him. — I will assume that the justice of his 
 propositions is proven, and that the only question is one of 
 expediency, namely, what the workingmen would gain if his 
 theories as announced in his platform were put into practice. 
 
 The best expression of the present wishes of the working- 
 men that I know of, is to be found in the constitutions of 
 the various trades unions. One of the most prominent 
 unions is Typographical Union No. 6; § 3 of its Constitution 
 reads : " The objects of this union shall be the maintenance 
 of a fair rate of wages, the encouragement of good working- 
 men, and the employment of every means which may tend 
 to the elevation of printers in social life." The Constitution 
 of the Cigar Makers Union begins : " Whereas it is the duty 
 of every worker to unite with his fellow worker to secure a 
 fair compensation for his labor ; to elevate the condition of 
 
20 
 
 the lowest paid worker to the standard of the highest ; to 
 provide for the sick members and bury the dead." 
 
 The Furniture Workers Union has Jhe following objects : 
 
 a) The maintenance and increase of wages, b) The 
 reduction of the hours of labor. c) The assistance 
 during strikes and lockouts, d^ The assistance while 
 unemployed, e) The assistance during sickness, f) 
 The assistance in case of death, g) The assistance in 
 case of loss of tools, h) The rendering of legal 
 assistance in claims against employers, i) The in- 
 struction by lectures. 
 
 The Cigar Makers International Union of America is 
 formed to improve themselves : " By prevailing upon the 
 Legislature to secure first the prohibition of child labor 
 under 14 years of age ; the establishment of a normal day's 
 labor to consist of not more than 8 hours per day for all 
 classes ; the abolition of the truck system, tenement house 
 cigar manufacture, and the system of letting out by contract 
 the convict labor in prisons and reformatory institutions ; 
 the legalization of trade unions and the establishment of 
 bureaus of labor statistics." 
 
 To these objects in the main, no fair-minded citizen can 
 object ; let us see what Mr. George will do towards their 
 realization. 
 
 The practical change proposed in his platform is to tax 
 real estate without reference to the improvements, so that 
 no one could afford to hold unimproved land but would be 
 compelled to build immediately. Without stopping now to 
 consider the practicability of this scheme, let us assume that 
 it has been done, and that a large number of houses suited 
 for dwellings and manufactures and offices have been built, 
 so as to reduce rents throughout the city very materially, 
 or even to a mere nominal sum. What advantage would 
 that be to the workingmen ? 
 
27 
 
 I am an employee of a large corporation ; if the rent of 
 its various offices were reduced or entirely abolished, my 
 pay would in no wajj be increased, — very possibly I might 
 never hear of it ; I believe the men employed in any 
 business in this city would say the same thing. 
 
 But if the rent of my apartment were reduced very material- 
 ly, it would benefit me, if it was done in my case alone; but if 
 it were done throughout the city, very soon my employers 
 would say: "We hear you no longer pay rent; that is 
 probably so much of your salary ; we intend to reduce your 
 salary that much, and if you are not satisfied, we can now 
 get a man of equal ability for that pay, as other men in your 
 branch have also to pay no rents." Even if all employers 
 did not do this at once, some would certainly begin it, and 
 then the others would be forced to follow suit, or be under- 
 sold or driven out of the business. I believe the men em- 
 ployed in any trade or manufacture in this city would say 
 that this would surely happen. Morover, where would the 
 money come from with which these houses are to be built ? 
 Would it not be taken out of the trades and manufactures, 
 where it is now invested, because it receives a larger return, 
 and would not all these other trades and manufactures, and 
 the men employed therein suffer ? 
 
 Or if the large amount of money which it is expected will 
 be immediately raised by taxation were wisely expended for 
 beneficent public purposes, and heat and light were fur- 
 nished without charge to all citizens, would not employees 
 soon hear similar remarks about the saving which they were 
 now making in the matter of light and fuel, and would not 
 one employer after the other make a consequent reduc- 
 tion in wages, as stated above in the case if rents were 
 reduced ? 
 
 Would the workingmen not be in exactly the position in 
 which they are to-day ? Would not this money expected 
 for these public benefits also attract workingmen from 
 
28 
 
 other cities, and so leave this same old contest between 
 labor and capital? Would there not be the same necessity 
 for the Declaration of the Principles of the Knights of La- 
 bor of North America, beginning : "The alarming develop- 
 ment and aggression of aggregated wealth, which, unless 
 checked, will inevitably lead to the pauperization and hope- 
 less degradation of the toiling masses, render it imperative, 
 if we desire to enjoy the? blessings^of life, that a check 
 should be placed upon its power and upon unjust accumula- 
 tion, and a system adopted which will secure to the laborer 
 the fruits of his toil " ? 
 
 Would not the fight against over-work, child-labor, the 
 truck-system, and all the acknowledged evils of the laissez- 
 faire system have to be begun again, just where they are 
 now ? 
 
 I submit therefore that this movement, as defined in their 
 platform, can not accomplish the ends which workingmen 
 desire and which would really benefit them; the amount of 
 their pay would continue to be regulated by the most un- 
 scrupulous and hard-hearted man among the class of their 
 employers. 
 
 But I believe that this movement will do more than this; 
 I believe that it will very seriously injure the real interests 
 of the workingmen and indefinitely postpone the realization 
 of all practical plans for the improvement of their condi- 
 tion. In the first place, they are wasting their energies in 
 electing an administrative officer, instead of trying to secure 
 representatives in the legislature, who would secure the 
 changes on our statute book, necessitated by our transition 
 from a purely agricultural state to one having large manu- 
 facturing interests. No one knows what ought to be pro- 
 posed in this matter so well as the workingmen themselves 
 and unless they send representatives, their just demands 
 will not be attended to. The same thing applies to our 
 local legislature, the Board of Aldermen; the workingmen 
 
2 9 
 
 have announced their intention of not paying attention to 
 these offices, but of concentrating their efforts on the 
 Mayor. It is already evident that both Aldermen and As- 
 semblymen are to be of the same class as in former years; 
 that they will be the tools of politicians and corporations, 
 as in former years ; and that the workingmen will get as 
 much benefit, as they have got in former years. But this is 
 not all the mischief : the demands which the workingmen 
 make for shorter hours, etc., can be conceded to them only 
 at a certain loss and sacrifice on the part of other classes of 
 the community. Hitherto their demands have met generally 
 with fair popular support; for instance the early closing 
 movement. But let the workingmen adhere to Mr. George's 
 theories and they will antagonize a very large class of the 
 people of this State, and drive them to unite with the em- 
 ployers, so that the demands of the workingmen will meet 
 with a" L very different reception, after a few campaigns such 
 as this promises to be. 
 
 That Mr. George's theories are not actually going to be 
 put into practice, every practical man knows; " the states- 
 manship of the plough," which, as Governor Seymour said, 
 guides this country, forbids it ; the whole movement is too 
 much against the American traditions; the Churches will 
 all be against it; the influence which a combination of em- 
 ployers and real estate owners would bring to bear, if once 
 aroused, with all their friends, would simply overwhelm the 
 trades-unions. Moreover, Mr. George's theories, as soon 
 as they are brought to light and their practical application 
 considered, will cause so many new theorists to spring up 
 with equally visionary plans, who will oppose each other, 
 so that all will cease to have attractions for any large num- 
 ber of citizens sufficiently strong to hold them together. 
 
 I do not therefore think that, admitting that the argu- 
 ment which I first advanced this evening were false, and 
 that the workingmen could realize benefits from this plan, 
 
30 
 
 that there is the remotest prospect of its being put into 
 operation. But I do think that it will immediately excite 
 hostility among a very large and important class and that 
 the real reforms needed by workingmen will thereby be de- 
 layed. 
 
 The experience of Europe during the last century shows 
 the certain futility of this movement. The first man to un- 
 dertake to put these theories into practice was Babceuf, at 
 the close of the first French Revolution ; Proudhon was the 
 first to undertake to justify it, and Considerant (in 1837), a 
 pupil of Fourier, modified the doctrine so that it should only 
 apply to land, and not to personal property. 
 
 How closely Mr. George has followed these authors a 
 few citations, showing the main points of their theories, will 
 demonstrate. 
 
 To begin with the title page of Mr. George's first book, 
 which reads : " Progress and Poverty : an Inquiry into the 
 cause of industrial depressions, and of increase of want with 
 increase of wealth" ; the article cited in note A, of Mr. Con- 
 siderant's Socialism (published in 1849) is entitled: *' Of 
 the causes of the increase of misery in proportion to the de- 
 velopment of riches." — This article states the proposition as 
 follows : " If there is a social phenomenon worthy of at- 
 tention, it is certainly that of the increase of misery among 
 the laboring classes in proportion to the progress of general 
 wealth, and that other phenomenon not less extraordinary 
 and always accompanying the latter, of this misery existing 
 most intensely among the most industrious and free nations, 
 like England, France etc." 
 
 Mr. George says in his Progress and Poverty, p. 7 : "It 
 is at last becoming evident that the enormous increase in 
 productive power has no tendency to extirpate poverty. 
 It is in the older and richer sections of the Union that pau- 
 perism and distress among the working classes are becoming 
 most painfully apparent." (p. 9.) 
 
3i 
 
 Mr. Considerant impressively says : " The Sphinx is the 
 people ; the terrible enigma is the problem of the times." 
 Mr. George says on yage 9 : "It is the riddle which the 
 Sphinx of fate puts to our civilization, and which not to 
 answer is to be destroyed." 
 
 In Considerant's other work, entitled " Destinee Sociale' 
 (1837) he says on page 250 : "It is then proved by facts 
 that the proletariat and pauperism increase in epochs of civi- 
 lization with population and more rapidly than it, and as 
 the direct cause of the growing progress of industry." — He 
 repeats the same statement in various forms, as often as 
 Mr. George does. — We see therefore that the problem which 
 these two writers propose, is the same. 
 
 As to the remedy, they also agree and Mr. Considerant 
 says, in his work of 1837 : "The whole land must be culti- 
 vated as the land of one man." In the work of Mr. Con- 
 siderant entitled "Socialism" he says on page 107 ; " Rent 
 of land is a feudal privilege which ought to go to rejoin its 
 elder brethren in the great ditch of justice of the Nations 
 
 and Revolutions There are among Socialists those who 
 
 would derange nothing in society ; who do not call us to 
 live in common, to abandon that which we have, to change 
 our manner of life for something we know not what . . . 
 Suppose that these socialists should come to power and this 
 should be then law." 
 
 Mr. George says on page 364 of Progress and Poverty : 
 " It is not necessary to confiscate land ; it is only necessary 
 to confiscate rent." 
 
 Mr. Considerant does not enter to any extent into an 
 attempt to show the justice of this appropriation of land by 
 the public ; so Mr. George has to take up Proudhon, for 
 this part of the argument, and repeats in various forms the 
 latters three arguments. 
 
 Firstly Mr. Proudhon says in his book on Property (I cite 
 from the translation published by Tucker, Princeton, Mass., 
 
32 
 
 1876) : " How can the supplies of nature, the wealth crea- 
 ted by Providence, become private property ? We want 
 to know by what right man has appropriated wealth which 
 he did not create, and which nature gave to him gratuitously? 
 Who made the land? God. Then proprietor, retire*" (p. 89). 
 Mr. George says in Social Problems (p. 278) : " What more 
 preposterous than the treatment of land as individual 
 property It is the creation of God." 
 
 Proudhon's second point is that universal consent gives no 
 justification to property, he says (p. 311 in Theorie de l'lm- 
 port) : " The earth furnishes to man the material, tools 
 and force. — Labor puts force in motion. — Labor alone is pro- 
 ductive. Now to recognize the right of territorial property 
 is to give up labor, since it is to relinguish the means of 
 labor." Mr. George says in the chapter on " Injustice of Pri- 
 vate Property in Land," in Progress and Poverty : " land on 
 which and from which all must live. The recognition of 
 private individual proprietorship of land is the denial of the 
 natural rights of other individuals. For as labor can not 
 produce without the use of land, the denial of the equal 
 right to the use of land is necessarily the denial of the right 
 of labor to its produce." 
 
 Proudhon's third argument is that " proscription (or long 
 possession) gives no title to property ; it is not based on a 
 just title ; past error is not binding on the future," p. 89. 
 
 Mr. George says on 307 of Progress and Poverty ; " Con- 
 sider for a moment the utter absurdity of the titles, by 
 which we permit it to be passed from John Doe to Richard 
 Roe. . . . Everywhere not to a right which obliges, but to a 
 force which compels, and when a title rests but on force, no 
 complaint can be made when force annuls it." 
 
 Proudhon's conclusion is : "The earth cannot be appro- 
 priated," (p. 73 of French edition). — Mr. George says : 
 " There is on earth no power which can rightfully make a 
 grant of exclusive ownership of land," (p. 304 of Progress 
 and Poverty). 
 
33 
 
 Proudhon then abuses owners, for example, citing a verse 
 which shows how first comes the contractors share, then 
 the laborers, then the capitalists and then : " I am the 
 proprietor. I take the whole," (p. 189). — Mr. George says in 
 Protection and Free Trade: "And the robber that takes 
 all that is left is private property in land," (p. 285). — The 
 number of these comparisons might be increased very 
 largely. Finally, in his picture of the results, Mr. George 
 returns to Considerant, and insists with him upon the great 
 advantages to individuals arising from this cooperation and 
 common ownership of all living in the commune, and as the 
 picture of a Utopia one is as beautiful as the other. We see 
 therefore that as to his title, problem, its solution, the 
 remedy of the evil and the result Mr. George has followed 
 Considerant, and as to the justification of the remedy 
 Proudhon. — Unfortunately Proudhon proves too much ; for 
 as I showed in my former paper, if Mr. George has demon- 
 strated that there should be no private property in land, 
 he has also demonstrated this as to personal property. — 
 Proudhon proclaimed this, and it was the chief difference 
 between him and Considerant. 
 
 If we delay for a moment to call in mind the resemblances 
 which I have pointed out to Proudhon and Considerant, — 
 and they can be greatly increased if any one will take the 
 trouble so to do, by comparing these books in the Astor 
 Library, — can we accept the generally received theory as 
 to George's intellectual capacity or of his extraordinary 
 devotion to humanity, or even of his phenomenal honesty ? 
 What must we think of those men who have compared his 
 doctrines to those of Christ ? Is it not an insult to our in- 
 telligence to dish up these warmed-up meats from which 
 Europe has long ago turned away in disgust, as the heaven- 
 born manna which alone can preserve the New World ? if 
 the ghosts of Messieurs Proudhon and Considerant were 
 allowed to sit on the stage at one of Mr.JGeorge's meet- 
 
34 
 
 ings, would not his remarks be often interrupted by their 
 indignant chestnut-bells ? 
 
 But to resume: What success had this theory in France ? 
 Babceuf s rude announcement of it was the closing episode 
 of the first French Revolution and made Napoleon I. pos- 
 sible ; the fear of it sustained the Restoration and the July 
 Monarchy ; Proudhon and Considerant were in the Assem- 
 bled of the 1848 Republic, and Considerant then published 
 his socialism above cited, and announced that in three years 
 the social-democratic republic would be in force; in far 
 less time the second Empire was established, as necessary 
 for the preservation of order. 
 
 Since then, these theories have in Europe passed from 
 the stage of practical politics and are only referred to by 
 historians as showing the steps by which modern socialism, 
 as advocated by Karl Marx and Lasalle arose. It is the 
 oblivion to which these older radical thorists have been 
 consigned by the modern communists themselves, which 
 induced the French bourgeoisie to support the present 
 Republic. If therefore this seed of dragons' teeth could 
 sprout in France and has now rotted in the ground, we 
 need not fear that it will bear fruit in this much more 
 uncongenial clime. Nor need we fear that the people will 
 accept a despotism in order to escape it; the true propor- 
 tions of this movement will be known soon enough. But 
 we must fear that this movement will excite hostility 
 against the workingmen among a large class of our well- 
 to-do population, especially in our cities, and also that it 
 will induce this class to submit with excessive patience to 
 the increasing growth of the power of the monopolists and 
 politicians, for fear that any change in our old-fashioned 
 countrified government might be for the worse. 
 
 But this revival of worn-out Old-World theories is also 
 injurious to the workingmen, in turning them irom the pur- 
 suit of the theories of Lasalle and Karl Marx, many of 
 
35 
 
 which, all must recognize, have a certain amount of justice. 
 Those writers recognize the necessity of a historical devel- 
 opment and aim at improving the workingmen's condition 
 by introducing factory regulations, shorter hours, etc., as 
 our trades-unions' circulars above cited demanded. To 
 turn back the hands of the clock for forty years and take up 
 these impracticable chimeras, means an injury to the real 
 welfare of the workingmen, and of our whole people, which 
 it is difficult to under-estimate. 
 
 The dread which those theories excited in France, so as 
 to drive men to accept the First and Second Empire, may 
 also be a warning to us of the effect which even a moderate 
 success of this movement at the polls, would have upon 
 capital invested in this City and State. I fear that a vote 
 of even 20,000 will be sufficient to give a check to our indus- 
 tries, which are just now reviving under the influence of gen- 
 eral prosperity; failing trade and closing factories will be in 
 proportion to the success of this movement, and the only 
 real change in the condition of the working men. 
 
 There is another benefit which we derive from tracing 
 Mr. George's ideas to their source : When we see how 
 many of his theories he has evidently taken from Considerant, 
 who advocated the co-operative communes with all land in 
 common, we are able to understand many suggestions of 
 Mr. George, as being part of a more or less definite intention 
 of realizing some such scheme, and which ideas appear dis- 
 connected and unintelligible, if we consider solely his in- 
 tentions of abolishing rent as his one object, with which he 
 would be satisfied. 
 
 Thus, I was surprised to find Mr. George advocating the 
 increase of the power of our Board of Aldermen. He says, 
 in the interview published in the Sun of October 3 : "New 
 York (city) should have one legislative body that in local 
 affairs would have sovereign power." There was no demand 
 for this in the platform, nor so far as I know have the work- 
 
36 
 
 ingmen demanded it ; the whole tendency of legislation has 
 been to deprive this Board of power ; Mr. George does not 
 suggest any manner of improving its character, — but only 
 wants it to have " sovereign power." — Without stopping to 
 dwell on the fact that if Mr. George were a real Democrat 
 he would not admit that any government was " sovereign '» 
 over the people, I think the explanation for this strange 
 demand is that it is an essential part of Considerant's theory 
 of the co-operative commune. This absolute local govern- 
 ment is necessary for any scheme of communism; if all are to 
 enjoy equally, all must work equally, and this requires strict 
 supervision. It was the demand of the Paris communists; the 
 beautiful Utopia that makes Mr. George's book so attractive 
 cannot be realized without it. No matter how much he may 
 strive to keep it in the back-ground, he cannot hide the cloven 
 hoof. Thus he says on page 296 of Social Questions, that 
 " society may pass into a co-operative association," and on 
 page 410 of Progress and Poverty : " Government would 
 change its character, and would become the administration 
 of a great co-operative society. It would become merely 
 the agency by which the common property was administered 
 for the common benefit." This is only Considerant's com- 
 munal government ; how much official machinery would be 
 necessary in New York to realize Mr. George's plans, as set 
 out for example, on page 410 of Progress and Poverty: 
 " This revenue arising from the common property could be 
 applied to common benefit, as were the revenues of Sparta. 
 We might not establish public tables — they would become 
 unnecessary ; but we could establish public baths, museums, 
 libraries, gardens, lecture rooms, music and dancing halls, 
 theatres, universities, technical schools, shooting galleries,, 
 play-grounds, gymnasiums, etc." Society attempts some of 
 these things now ; how does it realize them ? Had we not 
 better get our present undertakings in good working order, 
 before starting out on such unlimited extensions of the 
 system ? 
 
37 
 
 Moreover, this demand for one sovereign local govern- 
 ment, over the million and a half of people of this city, 
 and which is absolutely necessary for the realization of 
 half of Mr. George's schemes, presents the chief objection to 
 all that is hopeful in the modern labor movement. That 
 movement recognizes the necessity of trades unions, that 
 they have come to stay, that in their proyer development 
 and participation in public affairs lies great promise for the 
 welfare not only of the workingmen, but of the State; and 
 that these trade organizations should be entrusted with 
 powers and duties and form part of our body politic, as 
 the geographical divisions called States and Counties 
 made up the Union when we were purely an agricultural 
 community. 
 
 Now these trades unions have as much need for the demo- 
 cratic doctrine of wheels within wheels, and as little need 
 for a sovereign local government over them, as the States 
 have for a sovereign and therefore unlimited national gov- 
 ernment (see Mr. Bancroft's Plea for the Constitution), and 
 this radical difference between trades unionists and socialists 
 has long been instinctively recognized in labor circles, and 
 the contest between the two has been for years going on 
 with varying success ; see the following citation on 
 page 602 of the Third Annual Report of the Bureau 
 of Labor Statistics of New York: "To confound the 
 trade union movement with the political movement of 
 the Socialists is a thorough mistake, the difference being 
 that while the trades unions are organized only for 
 the purpose of protection for their labor, adapting them- 
 selves at all times to circumstances and conditions as well 
 as to the surroundings, and being largely influenced thereby, 
 the socialistic movement aims at the entire reconstruction 
 of society upon their principles, is satisfied with nothing 
 less, ignores all possible reasonable objections, and dis- 
 parages trade organizations, recognizing them only as ob- 
 stacles in their path of progress." 
 
33 
 
 Now, it is plain that Mr. George with his demand for a 
 sovereign, i. e. unlimited local government belongs to the 
 communist-socialistic school, — as every faithful desciple 
 of Proudhon and Considerant should ; and it is also for this 
 reason that I believe that workingmen, who believe in 
 trades unions, should oppose Mr. George. 
 
 Trades unions have no place in Mr. George's schemes ; 
 according to the index, they are not mentioned in Progress 
 and Poverty ; in Protection and Free Trade they are re- 
 ferred to three times, — two of which are bare mentions, and 
 the third (on pages 322 and 323) is as follows : " Something 
 can be done in this way for those within such organizations; 
 but it is after all very little .... This, those who are in- 
 clined to put faith in the power of trades-unionism are be- 
 ginning to see, aud the logic of events must more and more 
 lead them to see." — Mr. George therefore has no faith in 
 trades-unions. — Are the skilled workingmen then going to 
 allow their organizations to be used for this man's election ? 
 Have they not had enough experience with theorists, politi- 
 cians aud demagogues (often in the pay of employers) who 
 did not believe in their unions ? Among his supporters are 
 found men whose interests are identified with bodies which 
 have always opposed trades unions. A vote for Henry George 
 is a vote against the Trades Unions. 
 
 On the other hand, if the workingmen, as members of 
 their trades-unions, would make a demand on the Democra- 
 tic Party for recognition of their representatives in the 
 party's councils, they would before long, I am convinced, 
 receive due attention, and be able to have an influence 
 on legislation and choice of officers proportionate to the 
 importance of their organizations. The demands of these 
 unions for recognition by the State, and for a certain 
 amount of autonomy in their internal affairs, is justified by 
 all the Democratic Fathers in their advocacy of State 
 Rights. 
 
39 
 
 Or else the workingmen could in local matters go into 
 politics by themselves and seek to gain the practical ob- 
 jects which their constitutions have so long demanded; for 
 this they should elect members of the Legislature, instead 
 of having their Central Committee, as it has to-day done, 
 prohibit the organizations to indorse or put forward candi- 
 dates. There is where the source of evil lies; in the reck- 
 less bad laws which the Legislatures pass. But if the work- 
 ingmen say they cannot elect Assemblymen, because they 
 are divided into so many districts that their strength is 
 wasted, then they should strive to abolish this unnatural 
 division into geographical election districts. But it is worse 
 than useless for workingmen to try to put these wild theorists 
 who can only alarm men of property into administrative 
 offices. * 
 
 It is the old story of that which happened in Rome, 
 where the wild pleas for the division of land by the Gracchi 
 drove the Romans to accept a plutocracy and finally the 
 Caesars. As above mentioned, it was the similar demand 
 for common land, which led to the overthrow of the first 
 and second French Republics. Can we not profit by their 
 experience ? 
 
 Can we not do these things better in America ? 
 
 This, I think, will be the turning point in American his- 
 tory. No republic has ever yet passed from the condition 
 of an agricultural community to that of a state with large 
 cities, without being plagued by demagogues — especially 
 those who demanded a division of land — until refuge was 
 taken in a depotism. 
 
 If we can introduce those trade organizations in a peace- 
 
 * Under the Consolidation Act of 1882 the men who assess land for taxation, 
 are sworn to value improved and unimproved land equally at its selling value. 
 What selling value has city property if the actual or possible improvements are 
 not considered ? 
 
4 o 
 
 able and orderly manner into our body politic — a feat which 
 no state has yet accomplished — and satisfy their just de- 
 mands, I believe that we would have a state, which might 
 realize some of Considerant's beautiful aspirations, here in 
 America, although his French methods are impracticable. 
 America must find ; its own'' way. \ Let us remember what 
 Emerson said : 
 
 "We live in a new and exceptional age. America is 
 another name for Opportunity. Our whole history appears 
 like a last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf of the 
 ihuman race."