Certain good friends of mine were shocked, a few months ago, when they
learned that I was one of those monsters who believe in the private
ownership of land.
Some of them deplored my ignorance, and urged me to go straightway and
read “Progress and Poverty.” Well, I had read Henry George’s book soon
after its publication, and had once had the precious advantage of serving
a term in Congress with the great Tom Johnson; yet I never had been able
to see the distinction, _in principle_, between the private ownership of
a cow and the private ownership of a cow-lot.
Some men are just that stupid, and when Ephraim gets “sot” on a thing of
that kind, even Louis Post, of _The Public_, has to let him alone.
Certain other friends made the point on me that I did not understand
Count Tolstoy. That is possible. In his various ramblings into various
speculative matters, Tolstoy, like our own Emerson, gets lost, sometimes,
in mazes of his own making; and he uses language which may delight
professional commentators, but which is sorely vexatious to an average
citizen who really wants to know what the philosophers are driving at.
Tolstoy is careful to avoid _History_. The flood of light which might be
thrown upon the land question by the records of the human race is shut
out altogether.
And _this_ is the weak spot in the armor of every champion who enters
the list against the Private Ownership of Land. If History makes any one
thing plain, it is that a Civilization was never able to develop itself
on any other basis than that of Private Ownership.
Like other champions of his theory, Tolstoy forgets the elemental traits
of Human Nature. He forgets how _unequal_ we are by Nature; how we
differ, in character, capacity, taste and purpose; how few there are who
will labor for the “good of all,” and how universal is the rule that each
man labors, first of all, for _himself_.
He forgets that every beast of the field has its prototype in some
members of the human family; he forgets that the _man_-tiger is now more
numerous than the four-footed sort; that the _man_-fox is more cunning
than his wild brother; that the _man_-wolf hunts with every human herd;
that the _man_-sloth is marked by nature with her own indelible brand;
that some men are born timid as the deer are; that some are born without
fear as the lion is; that the human hog grunts and gorges, and makes
himself a nauseating nuisance, on the streets, in hotels, in the Pullman
cars—in fact everywhere, but most of all where people have to eat and
sleep.
This is the fundamental error which doctrinaires are prone to make. _They
forget what Human Nature actually is, always has been, and perhaps,
always will be._
They argue about ideal conditions, unmindful of the fact that ideal
conditions require ideal men—and that we haven’t got the ideal men.
Every society, every state, must from necessity be made up of the Good,
the Bad, and the Indifferent and the law-makers of that society, that
state, will from necessity be compelled to frame laws suited to _that_
community. Hence, the laws will not be absolutely the best, considering
the question as an abstract question, but they will be the best which
_that_ community is capable of receiving.
All legislation, like all Society, is a compromise.
In a state of Nature I would be absolutely free. But I would be alone. To
protect myself in person, property or family, I would have to rely upon
my individual arm. My absolute freedom would be an absolute isolation and
a relative helplessness.
I would find that I could not endure such a life. I would therefore seek
companionship among other men who felt the same needs that I felt, and we
would come together for the “good of all.” One hundred families coming
together in this way form the nucleus of Society, of the State. Each man
gives up a portion of his individual freedom when he enters this union of
families which forms such a nucleus.
Why does he surrender a portion of his wild, natural, individual freedom?
Why does he agree to be bound by the will of the Community instead of
his _own_ will? Why does he consent to be _governed_ by the public when
he had previously been his own ruler? He does it because it is to his
interest to do it. He finds that, while he has surrendered much, he
has gained more. _The Community_ throws around him the protection of a
hundred strong arms where previously he had but his own.
_The Community_, in a hundred ways, ministers to his wants, his
weaknesses, his desires, his prosperity.
In other words, the Community gives more than it took.
Association which improves the Community tends to improve each member
thus associated; and from this association come all those blessings which
we call Civilization.
Resolve the Association back into its elements; let each individual
separate from the mass; let each one say, “I’m my own man,”—and what
becomes of Civilization?
It perishes, of course.
Now where will Tolstoy find the basis of Society _in Nature_?
In the human instinct for _getting-together_. And that instinct seems to
grow out of our hopes, and our fears, our profound belief that we _need_
our fellow-man, and that we are not strong enough to stand alone, _no
matter how much we would like to do so_.
Deep down in your heart you will find the primeval, natural craving for
independence, individuality, separate living, separate doing. With the
great common mass of humanity this tendency has been weakened by disuse
until it is not an active principle. It is like a muscle which has lost
its strength from inaction. Hence, the common man goes with the herd,
just as a flock of sheep follows the bell-wether.
* * * * *
Society, then is a matter of convention: _Nature_ did not frame it.
Nor does _Nature_ impose upon us the relation of Husband and Wife.
Why do we adopt the present marriage system, which differs in so many
respects from Nature, and from former practices of the human race?
Simply because we believe it to be _an improvement_. We _know_ it is
better than the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes: we _believe_ it
to be better than Polygamy; we _hope_ that it will some day be a more
radiant success than the Divorce Courts would seem to indicate.
Now as to the land.
Undoubtedly, the earth was given to the human family as a home for the
family. Undoubtedly, Nature teaches that the earth belongs in common to
the entire human race.
Thus it was in the beginning. But, just as the wild horse became the
property of the bold tribesman who caught it and tamed it; just as the
natural fruit of the forest belonged to him who gathered it; just as the
cave or hollow tree became the dwelling of the first occupant, so the
well in the thirsty plain became the property of him that had dug down to
the waters; and the pasturage which one had taken up might not be taken
away from him by another.
Mine was the bark hut which my labor had built; mine the canoe which my
hands had hollowed out; mine the bow and arrows which I had fashioned;
mine the herds and flocks, the goats and asses which I had tamed and
reared and cared for till they had multiplied.
Should the idler, or the thief of the tribe, take from me that which my
labor had produced? Must _my_ canoe belong to the whole tribe? Must my
garment which I had made out of the skins of the wild beast belong to the
sloth who loafed in the tent while I risked my life in the woods?
_Nature said_, NO!
Nature, speaking through elemental instinct said: “That which _your_
labor made is _yours_.”
Yours the hut, yours the canoe, yours the garment of skins, yours the bow
and arrows—and that was the beginning of _Private Property in Personalty_.
* * * * *
But look again at the ways of Nature and of the tribe.
Pasturage failed after awhile; natural fruits were no longer sufficient
to sustain life; game disappeared from the forest; fish grew scarce in
the streams. Something had to be done to make good the shortage. The
soil was there, suggesting cultivation. The products of Nature must be
supplemented by human industry. But before the soil could be cultivated,
the trees had to be cut away; cattle and wild beasts had to be fenced
out; the virgin earth had to be made the bride of toil before the
fruitful seed would bring forth harvests.
Now _who was to do the work_?
The Idler wouldn’t; the Feeble couldn’t; the Hunter didn’t; _the strong,
clear-headed Laborer made the farm_.
Those who assail private ownership of land say that “the man who makes a
farm doesn’t make it in the sense that one makes a basket or a chair.”
They see clearly that, if they admit that _the pioneer who goes into the
wilderness or the swamps and creates a farm, is to be put on the same
footing as the man who goes into the woods, gets material and makes a
canoe, or a chair or a basket_, it is “farewell world” to their theory
about the land. Therefore they say that THE FARM WAS ALREADY THERE,
waiting for the farmer. All the farmer had to do was to go there and
tickle the soil with a hoe, and it laughed with the harvest.
How very absurd! You might just as well say that the willows that
bent over the waters of the brook _were baskets waiting for the tardy
basketmaker to come and get them_. You might just as well say that the
hide on the cow’s back was a pair of ladies’ shoes waiting for the lady
to come and fit them to her dainty feet.
Must we get rid of our common sense, our practical knowledge, before we
can argue a case of this sort? Do not these doctrinaires know that they
are denying physical facts, plain everyday experience, when they say
that a piece of wild land in the desert, in the swamps, on the mountain
side, or in the woody wilderness _is a farm waiting for the farmer_?
Sheer nonsense never went further. But they are compelled to this extent
because of the necessities of their case. They see at once that if ever
they admit my position that _the laborer takes raw materials with which
nature supplies him, and out of those raw materials creates something
that did not exist before_, then the laborer is entitled to that which
his labor creates.
Now, do you mean to tell me, that for thousands of years there were farms
waiting the pioneers here in North America? Consider for a moment what
the New England, or the Southern, or the Western farmer had to do before
he had _made a farm_. He had to go into the woods with an axe in one hand
and a rifle in the other. Very frequently he was shot down before he
could make his farm, just as Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather was killed.
Very frequently he died from the fever engendered in the woods before he
had made his farm, just as Andrew Jackson’s father did, in the effort _to
make a farm_ in the wilderness of North Carolina. Supposing the farmer
was able to snatch up his gun quick enough to shoot the Indian who was
trying to shoot him, and supposing that his constitution was strong
enough to resist the malarial atmosphere in which he had to labor while
creating that farm, what was the process through which he went _in making
that farm_? He had to cut off an enormous growth of timber. He had to
grub up stumps and roots. He had to plow and cross-plow the soil until it
had become a seed bed. He had to inclose the farm to keep out the wild
animals which would have devoured his crop. If in a rocky section, he had
to remove the stones which encumbered the ground. If in a damp, swampy
section, he had to exercise skill, as well as labor, in draining the
soil. After four or five years, the laborer _had made a farm_—something
_as different from the wild land which he found in the woods as the pine
tree is from the lumber which lies upon the lumber-yard_; as different as
the wool on the sheep’s back is from the coat which you wear; something
as different as the willow and the bamboo are from the chairs and the
baskets which are made from them.
Now, the doctrinaires say that it would be a sufficient reward to that
laborer _to give him the crop that he made on the land_. Would it? For
what length of time will you give him those crops? If you ask the
laborer, he will say, “_I made this farm_; I risked my life in the work:
I shortened my days by the labor, the exposure, the drudgery of making
this farm. I never would have gone to this amount of toil if I had not
believed that society would secure me in the possession of the farm after
I made it.”
Having established him in his security of possession, which I say is
tantamount to title, suppose that laborer wants to change his farm for
a stock of manufactured goods, or for silver and gold, or for horses,
or for another piece of land, do you mean to say he shall not have the
right to do it? If so, you limit his title, and you have not the right
to do so. _That which he made he ought to have the right to dispose of
on such terms as please him._ His title having originated in the sacred
rights of labor, you should not limit his enjoyment or his disposition
of that which his labor created. If you recognize his right to exchange
one product of his labor for another, you recognize his right to exchange
all products of his labor for others. In other words, by plain course
of reasoning, you arrive at the principle that the bargain and sale of
lands is founded upon the right of the laborer to exchange the product of
his labor with those who may have product of labor which he could use to
better advantage than he can use his own.
Now, let us see. The laborer who made the farm dies. What shall become of
it? Away back in the origin of property, OCCUPANCY was the first title
recognized. As long as one individual, or one tribe, occupied a certain
spot their right to use it was recognized, but no longer. When possession
was abandoned, the next individual, or the next tribe who occupied that
spot, had the right of possession. When tribes ceased to wander about,
the occupancy of the spot which the tribe had taken possession of became
permanent.
Therefore, the title to that spot grew up in the tribe along with
permanent possession. _No civilization was ever created by wandering
tribes._ It is only when the tribe fixes its permanent residence in
some particular spot, recognized as exclusively its own, that there is
any such thing as law and order and civilization. It is clear enough
when we consider one tribe in its relations to other tribes. Let us
consider the tribe in its relations to its members. Each individual in
the beginning had a title _by occupancy_ to the spot which he cultivated,
and this security of possession lasted so long as the occupancy lasted.
If the tribesman abandoned his spot of land, with the intent to surrender
the same, then the next fortunate tribesman who came along could take
possession of it and hold it. But, in the course of time, this created
great inconvenience, because, as favored spots became more desirable,
the competition to get them was fiercer. Hence, there were feuds, bloody
struggles, disorders in the tribe. Consequently, by natural evolution
society was forced, first, to recognize the right of the individual as
long as he wished to occupy the spot which he had taken possession of;
second _to provide for the succession to that title when the spot became
vacant_.
The learned men tell us that, at the death of the occupant, his own
family, _his own children_, being naturally the first who would know that
he was dead, _were naturally the first who would take possession after
his death_. Therefore, the sons of the deceased tenant always became
the first occupants of the vacant land which had been left vacant by
the death of their father. This succession of the sons to the fathers
becoming universal, was finally recognized by the law of the tribe; and
in the course of time it was recognized further in the law which allowed
the tenant to make a will and to say who should take his property after
his death.
Thus by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, the tribe recognized,
first, the right of the man who had made a farm to hold it as long as
he lived; second, the right of his children to follow in his footsteps
and to receive the benefit of that which their father had created by
his labor; third, and last, came the law of wills and testaments which
allowed the tribesman to say what should go with his property after his
death.
If the occupant died without heirs and without having made a will, the
land went back to the tribe, or the state, to be disposed of as public
property. This principle is recognized to this day in the doctrine of
escheats.
Property in land differs in nowise from property in horses and cows.
The law of property is the same naturally in real estate as in personal
estate, and I can conceive of no revenue in any community which is so
just as that which lays itself with an equal burden upon all kinds of
property in proportion to the amount thereof. In the beginning, one
tribesman, like Abraham or Lot, might have his cattle browsing upon a
thousand hills, while another tribesman might have made a little farm
in some secluded valley, or upon some thirsty, rocky mountain-side
where vines were planted, or where olive trees bore their fruit to the
industrious citizen who had year in and year out watched and tended their
growth. Would there be any justice in compelling those little farmers to
supply the revenue for the common purpose of the tribe, and not compel a
contribution _pro rata_ from the men who owned “exceeding many flocks and
herds”?
The trouble about these doctrinaires is that they start at the present
day and reason backward, while I start at the fountain head and reason
down. I take things as history shows them to have been; they take things
as they think they ought to have been.
The doctrinaire further says that if the tribesman who made a farm had
been satisfied to fence in his farm, only, _the common_ would have
remained after all had been supplied. In this country, we have millions
of acres of “commons” now waiting any one “member of the tribe” who wants
to go and take his share. The truth of it is, the doctrinaire doesn’t
want to go out into the wild land and _make a farm_. He wants to stay
where he is, and _take one that some other fellow has made_. Especially
doth he crave a slice of the Astor estate, which doctrinaires have
talked of so much that they can almost identify their shares therein.
One of the doctrinaires quotes the following from “Progress and Poverty”:
“If a fair distribution of land were made among the whole population,
giving to each his equal share, and laws enacted which would impose a
barrier to the tendency to concentration, by forbidding the holding by
anyone of more than a fixed amount, what would become of the increased
population?”
I do not consider it any part of my task to assail the position taken
in “Progress and Poverty,” but I think it a satisfactory answer to the
foregoing question to say that in the very nature of things posterity
must be the heirs-at-law of the conditions of those who went before. To
say that we can so frame a social fabric as flexibly and automatically
to give an equal share of everything to every child born into the world
hereafter, regardless of whether that child’s parents were thrifty,
industrious, virtuous people, or, on the other hand, were thriftless,
indolent, vicious people, seems to me to be one of the wildest dreams
that ever entered the human mind. No matter how equal material conditions
might be made today by legislation, the inherent inequality in the
capacities of men, physically, mentally, spiritually, would evolve
differences tomorrow. There is no such thing as equality among men, and
no law will ever give it to them. What the father gains the children
lose; and the grandchildren may regain. While one man runs the race of
life and wins it; another man, equally tall and strong will run the race
and lose it. Just why, it is, in some cases, difficult to tell.
Some men naturally lead; some naturally follow; some naturally command;
others naturally obey: some are naturally strong; others are naturally
weak. The law of life to some is activity; others say that they were
born tired; and there is a certain pathos in their excuse for indolence,
for they _were_ born tired. One man is naturally brave—physically,
morally—and he will venture. Another man is naturally a coward—physically
or morally—and he will not venture. A dozen different traits, or
combination of traits, make failure or success in life, and to say that
success or failure, vice and virtue, good and bad, are the results of
environment and social conditions, is as misleading, _as a general
statement of fundamental facts_, as to say that the dove and the hawk,
the tiger and the sheep, the rattlesnake and the harmless “black runner”
are the results of environment. Nature in its act of creation made the
difference between the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, the
fish of the sea, the men and women who inhabit the earth. From the
remotest ages, of which we have record, human nature has been the same
that it is today. Paganism presented precisely the same types of man in
its savagery and its civilization that Christianity now presents in its
savagery and civilization. “There is nothing new under the sun,” and the
very theories which the doctrinaires now think are matters of modern
discovery, unknown to our ancestors, and which would have been adopted
had our ancestors been as wise as we, were discussed in the days of
Aristotle and had the very best thought of the sages of antiquity.
Let it be remembered, however, that I have always qualified the Private
Ownership of Land by acknowledging the supremacy of the State. The tribe,
the community, the State, the Government holds supreme power over the
life and liberty of citizens, and over the ownership of the soil. The
State calls for me to give up my individual pursuits, my individual
liberty, my individual preference, and to take my place as a soldier in
the ranks of the army. I am compelled to obey; that is an obligation
which rests upon me as a member of society. Thus the State can demand
my life of me whenever the State declares that it is necessary for the
defence of the State. In like manner, the State can restrain me of my
liberty. For instance, in times of epidemics, we have shotgun quarantine
which destroys my liberty of movement. I would be shot down like a dog
if I sought to break through the lines of quarantine, although to make
such an escape might mean my individual salvation, whereas obedience to
law amounts to sentence of death. In this case, as in the other, the
State practically demands my life as an individual as a sacrifice for
the good of the greater number of citizens. So, as to property, no man
holds an absolute title to land as against the State. The Government,
acting for all the tribe, for all the people, can tear down or burn my
house to stop the spread of fire. It can confiscate my property for
public purposes, when the public need requires it. It can take my land
for public buildings, for canals, for railroads, or for new dirt roads
through the country. My rights in the premises would be recognized in
the payment to me of damages. My individual rights would be assessed in
so many dollars and cents. Thus my home, which might be almost as dear
to me as my life, would be coldly valued in money, and although I left
it with bitter regrets, even with bitter tears and a bitter sense of
wrong, I would have to surrender my individual preference to what is
supposed to be by constituted authorities the necessity of the State.
This right of the public to take away any portion of the soil from the
individual, and to dedicate it to the use of the public, is called
the right of Eminent Domain, and is a remnant of the old system which
recognized that the title to all the lands was in the King. Of course the
King stood for the State. Centered in the personal sovereign were those
sovereign rights which belong to the people as a whole, and the people
as a whole, represented by the King, were admitted to be the owners
of the ultimate fee in the land, and could compel any individual to
surrender his individual holdings for the benefit of the entire people,
just compensation having first been paid to the individual. It is in that
sense that I say private ownership of land is just as holy a principle,
just as equitable, as private ownership in the basket which I made from
the rushes I gathered along the stream, or from the splints which I rived
out from the white oak; just as sacred as my right to the boat which I
hollowed out from the forest tree, or the bark hut, or the hut of skins,
which my labor erected to shelter me and my family.
The doctrinaire asks: “Could he not be as secure in his possession if the
land were owned and exaction made by all the people?” Certainly. That is
my contention. The whole tribe _did_ exercise dominion over the land, but
to encourage the individual member of the tribe to improve a particular
portion of the wild land, the tribe agreed to protect the individual in
that which his labor had created, namely a _farm_. My contention now is
that the ultimate ownership of the land is in all the people; but society
had a perfect right to divide it on such terms as were thought best and
to guarantee to each individual “security of possession,” or _title_, to
that which he had produced. The great trouble with Mr. Doctrinaire is
that he does not begin at the beginning. If he would study the condition
of the human race as it gradually evolved from the patriarchal state, the
tribal state, the nomad state, into that fixed and complex status which
we now call “Christian Civilization,” he would readily understand how
private ownership of land was the axis upon which the improvement of the
conditions of the individual and of the State turned. As long as tribes
wandered about from province to province, with their herds of goats, or
sheep, or cattle, nibbling the grass which nature put up, and moving
onward to another pasture as fast as one was exhausted, there could be
nothing but tent life, nothing but personal property. The house had to
move every time the family moved. Therefore, when the herds devoured the
grass in one place, and the tribe had to move to another, tents were
struck, the few household goods were packed on the backs of the wives, or
on the backs of other beasts of burden, and the family moved. When man
and beast multiplied to such an extent that nature no longer supplied a
sufficiency of food, it became necessary for the tribe to settle down,
and to divide the territory upon which they settled among the various
members of the tribe. That was done in Germany, as well as in various
other countries, but I take Germany because the German tribes were our
own ancestors. They divided the lands every year. It was seldom the case
that the same tribesman occupied the same home for more than one year.
Like the Methodist preachers of today, their homes were always on the
go. The farmer’s home in those days was precisely like the Methodist
preachers’ homes today—a matter to be fixed at the annual conference.
The Methodist preacher who today is preaching in the town may next year
be sent into the remote rural precincts: the mountain parson may next
year be sent to the seaboard. The church is fixed and the parsonage is
stationary, but the preacher and his wife and his children are forever
moving. Now in precisely the same manner the tribesmen of the German
tribes used to be going from farm to farm, and there were no considerable
improvements made while that state of affairs existed. Why? Because we
are just so constituted that we do not care to build houses for other
people to live in, if we know it. When we start out to beautify a home,
we may never enjoy it, but we expect to do so at the time, and without
that expectation there would be no beautiful homes.
Mr. Doctrinaire thinks because each tribesman would try to grab the
best piece of land, there was original injustice in allowing private
ownership. If he will think for a moment, he will realize that the native
selfishness of man does not make against the private ownership of land
to any further extent than it does to the private ownership of personal
property. When the tribesmen went out to hunt, each hunter sought
to bring down the finest stag. Each hunter naturally wanted to hunt
where the best game was to be found. Hence those eternal wars between
the Indian tribes which brought down the population on the American
continent. Hence also those feuds and tribal wars which desolated the
East in the times of nomad life.
We find Abraham and Lot in a bitter dispute over a certain pasture; but
as to the well which Abraham “had digged” there was no resisting his
claim, that _well was his property_. Why? Because in the quaint language
of the Bible, “He had digged that well.” In other words, while nature put
the water in under the soil, and while nature made the soil itself, it
was Abraham’s judgment which selected the place where he could find the
water, and it was Abraham’s labor that removed the earth which covered
the water. In other words, Abraham _made the well_, in precisely the same
sense that the pioneer in the wilderness _makes a farm_.
But, as I said, the competitive principle, each one wanting to get what
is best, reveals itself in all directions. Every fisherman has always
wanted the best fishing grounds. Nations have been brought to war by this
cause, to say nothing of tribal disputes and individual contests.
Nowhere have I contended that it was private ownership of land that
made it possible for the laborer to claim and retain the product of his
labor. I could not have said that because I know quite well that personal
property preceded property in land. In other words, the laborers acquired
a full title to the rude garments in which they clothed themselves, the
rude implements which they used in the chase, their weapons, canoes,
etc., long before they ever made farms. This has been explained fully
elsewhere and does not at all antagonize the statement that _after_
a tribesman has acquired by his labor an interest in the land, _the
government of the tribe may be so arranged that the produce of the
land will be taken away from the land-owner as fast as he produces
it_. Instead of robbery by taxation in land—products preceding private
ownership in land—the reverse is the case. To fleece the laborer of what
he produces on his farm was the after-thought of those who governed the
tribe.
This is shown by the wretchedness of the peasant class in Russia today.
Historians tell us that the Russian peasant formerly owned a very
considerable portion of the land, just as the French peasants did,
and in addition to the individual ownership which was in the Russian
peasantry, there was a large quantity of communal land which belonged
to each community of peasants as a whole. In the process of time, the
ruling class in Russia put such burdens upon the peasant proprietor that
he gradually lost his land and became a serf. Of course, Mr. Doctrinaire
recalls that in 1860 the serfs of Russia were freed, and they were given
a large portion of the land which had been taken away from them by the
Russian nobles. They also held the communal lands. What has been the
result? The ruling classes have put such heavy burdens in the way of dues
and taxes upon the peasants that their ownership of the land, communal
and individual, has brought them none of the blessings which they
anticipated. Thus we have a striking and contemporaneous illustration of
the great truth which I have sought to emphasize, namely, that the mere
ownership of land does not emancipate the people.
Arthur Young, the famous “Suffolk Squire,” rode horseback over the rural
districts of France, just before the Revolution broke out. He found
that the French peasants owned their own farms. He made a close and
sympathetic study of their condition.
And what was that condition?
Wretched to the very limit of human endurance. The king, the noble, and
the priest were literally devouring the Common People. Privilege, Titles,
Taxes, Feudal dues were driving the masses to despair, to desperation.
Yet the French peasant had “access to the land.”
In England, at that time, the peasants did not own land, and yet their
condition was incomparably better than that of the French.
Why? Because they were _not_ ground down by Taxes and Feudal dues.
Could you ask a more convincing illustration?
Mr. Doctrinaire makes the point that when one member of the tribe decided
to undertake the arduous task of making a farm out of a few acres of the
millions which belonged to the tribe, this industrious member of the
community “robbed” all the others when he claimed as his own that which
his hands had made. I can see no more “robbery” in this case than in that
of another tribesman who went and cut down one of the millions of forest
trees which belonged to the tribe, and with painful labor hollowed out
this tree and created a canoe. At the time the one tribesman made the
canoe, every other tribesman had the same chance to do the same thing.
At the time the one tribesman went into the woods and made a farm every
other tribesman had the same right. If Mr. Doctrinaire thinks that the
first occupant of any particular spot did not have the right to locate a
farm, he might as well say that the first finder of the cavern, or the
hollow tree, did not have the right to occupy that which he had first
found, and yet he knows perfectly well that this right of discovery and
occupancy was always recognized from the beginning of time and that
from the very nature of things it had to be recognized to prevent the
bloodiest feuds in every tribe. (A curious survival of this Right of
Discovery is to be seen even now in the claim to the “Bee Tree” by the
first to find it.)
Mr. Doctrinaire says, impliedly, that if the tribesman had fenced in no
more than the spot out of which he had made a farm, injustice would not
have been done to the tribe: but he says the tribesman went further and
fenced in a great deal more—“vast areas,” which he could not use, and
also “claimed” these as his own. How does Mr. Doctrinaire know that?
I did not state anything of the sort. Nor does the historian state
anything of the sort. I was tracing title to land to its origin, and
I contended that the origin of title to land was labor. Consequently,
my contention was that the tribesman fenced in that which his labor
had redeemed from the wilderness—his original purpose in fencing it in
being _partly_ to identify what was his own, _partly_ to assert his
exclusive possession, _but chiefly_ to protect his crop from the ravages
of the wild animals that were still roaming at large in the forest. Mr.
Doctrinaire must remember that the fencing of the farm was one of the
most tremendous difficulties that the pioneer met with. _He_ had no
barbed wire; _he_ had no woven wire, _he_ had no convenient sawmill from
which he could haul plank. No; _he_ had to cut down enormous trees, and
by the hardest labor known to physical manhood, he had to split those
trees into rails, and with these rails fence in that little dominion
which he rescued from “the wild,” that little oasis in a great desert of
savagery.
To put up the fence was heroic work. To keep it up was just as heroic,
for forest fires destroyed it from time to time, and the pioneer had
to replace the barrier against the encroachment of animal life and the
inroads of savagery with as great a tenacity and as sublime a courage as
that of the people of Holland, who tore their country from the clutches
of the ocean and barred out the sea with dikes. Tell me, that after the
pioneer had created this little paradise of his—rude though it might have
been—amidst the terrors and the toils and sacrifices of that life in the
wilderness, _it should be taken from him by the first man who coveted it,
and who said, “HERE, TAKE YOUR CROP, THAT IS ALL YOU ARE ENTITLED TO:
TAKE YOUR CROP AND GIVE ME YOUR FARM!”_ Would that have been _right_, at
the time private property was first recognized by our people in Germany?
Would that have been right at the time our pioneer farmers in New England
and Virginia created their farms, endured difficulties and dangers which
make them stand out in heroic outline on the canvas of history? No, by
the splendor of God! It would have been robbery and nothing less than
robbery for the tribe to have confiscated the farm which the pioneer
of America had made—partly with his rifle, partly with his axe, partly
with his spade—and throw it into the common lot where the idler and the
criminal would have just as much benefit from it as the pioneer _who had
made the farm_.
As to _the abuse of land ownership_, that is an entirely different
question. I agree that there should be no monopoly of land for
speculative purposes. The platform of the People’s Party has constantly
kept that declaration as a part of its creed. The abuse of land ownership
is quite a different thing from land ownership itself. I am not defending
any of its abuses. I am simply saying that _the principle_ is sound. All
those things which belong to the class of _private utilities_ should
be left to private ownership, because I believe in individualism; but
all those things which partake of the nature of public utilities should
belong to the public.
Mr. Doctrinaire says that railroads have their power based in the fixed
principle of private ownership of land. I deny this utterly. It was
always necessary for the civilized community to have public roads.
Even the Indians had their great trails which were in the nature of
public roads. A public road never of itself did anything injurious to a
community. The taking of land for a public road confers a benefit upon
the entire community. It is for that reason it is laid out. The amount
of land which is taken for a road, whether you cover it with blocks of
stone, as the Romans did, or whether you cover it with iron rails, as
modern corporations do, can inflict no injury whatever upon the community
_unless you go further_. For instance, if you erect toll gates on the
public highways and vest in some corporation the right to charge toll
on freight and passengers at those toll rates, then you have erected a
tyranny which can rob the traveler and injure the community. In that
case, you can clearly see it is _not the road_, it is _not the land over_
which the road passes, that is hurting the individual and the public.
_The thing which hurts is that franchise_ which empowers the corporation
to tax the citizens and the property of the citizens as they pass along
that highway. In like manner, the road which the transportation companies
use could never have inflicted harm upon individuals or communities. _The
thing which hurts is the franchise_ which empowers the corporation to rob
the people with unjust freight and passenger tolls as they pass along the
highway.
Mr. Doctrinaire mires up badly in trying to evade the point which I
made about Italy. I contended that while it was true that great estates
were the ruin of Italy, there had to be some general cause at work,
injurious to the average man, before the soil could be concentrated into
these great estates. This is very obvious to anyone who will stop to
think a moment. Mr. Doctrinaire thinks that the great estates in Italy
were acquired by simply claiming the land and fencing it in, by “each
individual claiming far more than he could use.” If all the land of
Italy had been claimed and enclosed, the power that these land claimers
had over subsequent comers is obvious; but _how_ did “the claimers” get
the lands? The most superficial knowledge of Roman History ought to
convince Mr. Doctrinaire that _Italy was cut up into small holdings_
until one branch of the government, the aristocracy, represented by the
Senate, gathered into its own hands by persistent encroachment all the
powers of the State. After that had been done, they fixed the machinery
of government so that the aristocracy were almost entirely exempt from
public burdens, whereas the common people had to bear not only their
just portion, but also the portion which the aristocracy shirked.
The ruling class, the patricians, not only escaped their burdens in
upholding the State but they _appropriated to themselves_ the revenue
which the Roman State exacted from the lower class, the plebeians. The
result was that the Italian peasant found himself unable to sustain the
burdens which the government put upon him and he abandoned his farm,
just as the French peasant quit the land, for the same reason, prior
to the French Revolution. In other words, _the small proprietor had to
sell out to the patrician_, and the patricians got these great estates
in the same manner that Rockefeller, for instance, got the estate
which he now holds at Tarrytown. The Standard Oil King did not simply
stretch his wires and “claim” land. He bought out the people who found
themselves unable or unwilling to hold their lands. Rockefeller stood
relatively on the same ground of advantage held by the Roman patricians.
Governmental favoritism, and special privilege, the power of money which
he had attained through unjust laws, made him more able to buy than the
individual owners around him were to hold. _Therefore he absorbed the
small estates_, and his estate became the “great estate,” just as such
great estates were created in Italy.
Mr. Doctrinaire can see the process going on around us. He can see how
great estates absorb small estates. Our legislation for one hundred years
has been in the interest of capital against labor. A plutocracy which
enjoys the principal benefits of government, and contributes almost
nothing to the support of the government, has been built up: charters
have been granted by which large corporations exploit the public; and in
this way great estates, whether in stocks or bonds, or gold, or land,
have been created.
The same principles, the same favoritism, the same privilege, working
in different ways, brought about the same results in France before the
Revolution, in Rome before its downfall, in Egypt, in Persia, in the
Babylonian Empire. If there is any one word which can be appropriately
used as an epitaph for all the dead nations of antiquity, that word is
“_privilege_.” The government was operated by a ruling class for the
benefit of that class, and the result was national decay, national death.
Mr. Doctrinaire asks me: “How did the ruling class at Rome come
to control the money?” I might answer by asking him: “How did the
controlling class in the United States come into control of the money?”
He would certainly admit that they have got control of it. How did
they get it? They took into their own hands, in the days of Alexander
Hamilton, the control of governmental machinery. They erected a tariff
system to give special privileges to manufacturers. Out of this has come
the monopoly which the manufacturers enjoy of the American market, and
the natural evolution of the tariff act which Alexander Hamilton put upon
our statute book more than one hundred years ago, produced The Trusts.
Again, the power to create a circulating medium to be used as money and
to expand and contract this circulating medium, thereby controlling the
rise and fall of markets, was a vicious principle embedded into our
system by, Alexander Hamilton, more than one hundred years ago.
Again, the granting of charters to private companies to exploit
public utilities is another means by which our patrician class has
secured the control of money. Now at Rome there was a similar process.
Instrumentalities were different, the names of things were different,
but the ruling class at Rome had the power of fixing the taxes, and they
appropriated to themselves the proceeds of these taxes. They had the
power of legislation in their hands and exploited the public for their
own benefit. In this way they secured, of course, the control of money.
The one advantage of paying no tax themselves and of appropriating to
themselves the taxes which they levied upon the plebeians was sufficient
to give them not only the control of money, but the control of the land
and of the man. In fact that tremendous power, to fix the taxes and to
appropriate the public revenue, is all that the ruling class of any
country need have in order to establish an intolerable despotism over
the unfavored classes.
Mr. Doctrinaire has the fatal habit of crawling backwards with his logic.
He says that the Roman Patrician could not have controlled the money
until he got control of the land. The slightest reflection ought to
convince him that this cannot be true. No class of men ever secured the
control of money by merely controlling the land. Just the reverse is the
universal truth. Without any exception whatsoever governmental machinery,
the taxing system, usury, expansion and contraction of the currency hold
the land-owner at their mercy. The land-owner, as such, never had them at
his mercy and he never will.
Another instance of the crawl-backwards method of reasoning is given
when Mr. Doctrinaire says that _usury grew out of land monopoly instead
of land monopoly growing out of usury_. When a man gets himself into
such a state of mind that he can deliberately write a statement of that
sort for publication, he is beyond reach of any ordinary process of
conviction and conversion. My statement was that usury is a vulture that
has gorged itself upon the vitals of nations since the beginning of time.
Mr. Doctrinaire says this is not true. On the other hand, he says that
land monopoly came first, and _then_ usury. If the rich people got all
the land first, so that they had a land monopoly, upon whom did they
practice usury? _How could they fatten on those who had nothing?_ If Mr.
Doctrinaire is at all familiar with the trouble between the Russians and
the Jews in Russia he knows that one of the accusations brought by the
Russian against the Jew is that the Russian land-owner has been devoured
by the money-lending Jew. If he knows anything about our agricultural
troubles in the South and in the West, he knows that the Southern and
Western farmer complains that he has been devoured by usury. If he
knows anything about the history of the Russian serf, he knows that the
money-lending patricians made serfs out of the small land-owners by
usury. If he will study the subject, he will find that in Rome, Egypt and
Assyria the small land-owner was devoured by usury, had to part with his
property and thus surrender to those who were piling up great fortunes by
governmental privilege and by the control of money.
Take the Rothschild family for an example. Did they have a land monopoly
which made it possible for them to wield the vast powers of usury?
Theirs is a typical case. Study it a moment. A small Jewish dealer and
money-lender in Frankfort is chosen by a rascally ruler of one of the
German States as a go-between in a villainous transaction whereby the
little German ruler sells his subjects into military service to the
King of England. These soldiers, who were bought, are known to history
as the Hessians, and they fought against us in the Revolutionary War.
This was the beginning of the Rothschild fortune, the transaction having
been very profitable to the Rothschild who managed it. Later, during
the Napoleonic Wars, the character of a Rothschild for trustworthiness
became established among princes and kings who were confederated against
Napoleon and many of the financial dealings of that day were made through
him. Of course, these huge financial transactions were profitable to
the Rothschild. Again, a certain German ruler, during those troublesome
times, entrusted all of his cash to the safe-keeping of a Rothschild,
the purpose being to put the money where Napoleon would not get it. For
many years the Rothschild had the benefit of this capital, and he put
it out to the very best advantage in loans and speculations, here and
there. By the time Napoleon was overthrown at Waterloo the Rothschild
family had become so rich and strong that it spread over the European
world. One member of the family took England, another France, another
Austria, another Belgium, the parent house remaining in Germany, and to
this day the Rothschild family is the dominant financial influence of
the European world. In other words, _by the power of money and the power
of usury_, they were able to make a partition of Europe and they are more
truly the rulers of nations than are the Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns,
the Romanoffs, or any other one dynasty which nominally wields the
sceptre.
Now, can Mr. Doctrinaire ask for a better illustration of the truth of
my statement that the power of money is not based upon the monopoly
of land; and that the monopoly of land is the fruitage of the tree of
usury? Originally, the Rothschilds owned no land. It was only after they
had become so rich that they were compelled to look around for good
investments that they began to buy real estate. Their vast fortune,
which staggers the human mind in the effort to comprehend it, was not
the growth of land monopoly, but _was the growth of usury_. What the
Rothschilds have done in modern times, men of like character did in
ancient times, and just as the modern world will decay and collapse if
these evil accumulations be not prevented, so in ancient times people
went to decay and extinction because no method of reform was found in
time to work salvation.
Mr. Doctrinaire asks me what is the cause of the Standard Oil monopoly. I
thought that if there was any one thing we all agreed about it was that
the Standard Oil monopoly had its origin in violations of law, in the
illegal use of those public roads which are called transportation lines,
the secret rebate, the discriminating service, the favoritism which the
transportation company can exercise in favor of one shipper against all
others, to the destruction of competition. You might end land monopoly,
but as long as the railroad franchises exist, the Standard Oil monopoly
will exist, if they can get the favored illegal treatment which they
got in the building up of their monopoly and which they still have in
sustaining it. The power of Privilege in securing money, and the power
of money in destroying competition, was never more strikingly evident
than in the colossal growth of Standard Oil. Mr. Doctrinaire might own
half the oil wells in America, but unless he made terms with the Standard
he would never get his oil on the market at a profit. The Big-Pistol
is not the ownership of the oil-well. The Big-Pistol is the mis-use of
franchises.
With all the power that is in me, I am fighting the frightful conditions
which beset us, but I know, as well as I know anything, that the
principle of the private ownership of land has had nothing whatever to do
with our trouble.
Repeal the laws which grant the Privileges that lead to Monopoly;
equalize the taxes; make the rich support the government in proportion to
their wealth; restore public utilities to the public; put the power of
self-government back into the hands of the people by Direct Legislation;
restore our Constitutional system of finance; pay off the National debt
and wipe out the National banking system; quit giving public money to
pet banks for private benefit; remove all taxes from the necessaries of
life; establish postal savings banks; return to us the God-given right to
freedom of trade.
With these reforms in operation, millionaires would cease to multiply and
fewer Americans would be paupers. Trusts would not tyrannize over the
laborer and the consumer, Corporations could not plunder a people whose
political leaders they have bought. Some statesman might again declare as
Legaré declared twenty years before the Civil War: “WE HAVE NO POOR.”
English travelers might have no occasion to say, as Rider Haggard said
last year, that our condition was becoming so intolerable that there must
be reform or revolution. On the contrary, the English travelers might say
once more, as Charles Dickens said in 1843, that an Angel with a flaming
sword would attract less attention than a beggar in the streets.
And with these reforms accomplished any man in America who wanted to work
a farm of his own could do it.
I cannot promise that he would get one of the corner lots of the Astor
estate, but I have no doubt whatever that if he really wanted a farm,
and were willing to take it a few miles outside of the city, town, or
village, he could get just as much land as he cared to work.