LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. %p 8 / BY JOHN GIBBONS, LL.D., sL OP THE CHICAGO BAR. 0-^ n^ -3 ^ PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 1888. HBni ■1 ■ Gr4+ Copyright, 1888, by John Gibbons, LL.D. IJ^TEODTJOTIOJSr. Pjroperty is man's domain, labor the sum of his existence. To own is the passion of life, to do is the necessity of being. The germ and growth of the for- mer are furnished and fostered by the latter. Thus it is that Tenure is the prerogative of Toil, which to abridge would be violence, to abolish, sacrilege. How best to employ the one so as to most fully enjoy the other has been a burden to philanthropy, a foil to statecraft, and a perplexity to human wisdom ever since man re- ceived his title-deeds to earth, sealed by the anathema of toil. The author does not arrogate the ability to solve problems which have eluded the wisdom of philos- ophers and sages in all the ages, nor does he claim that his are infallible specifics for all the social and political ills which afflict society. The carper and icon- oclast are but thorns and stumbling-blocks in the path of social progress and political reform. Where the author seeks to modify or abolish existing conditions and institutions, he proposes plans and furnishes material with which to remodel and replace them. Whether his plans and material shall prove acceptable and effectual thought and time must determine. The weaknesses and wrongs which seem inherent in our system of political 4 INTRODUCTION. economy, as pointed out by the author, are seen and ad- mitted by all ; yet he is aware that the reforms pro- posed and remedies suggested will provoke opposition in that they comprehend a radical departure from pres- ent conditions, but, subjected to the practical analysis of common sense and to the touchstone of actual appli- cation, he believes they would prove potent factors in equalizing social conditions and promoting political advancement. It is true, what is proposed may rightly be deemed innovation, and it is also true that innovation is not always reform, yet reformation cannot be had without progression, and progress involves not only change, but advance. Change is the philosophy of life, progress the science of utility. The time is at hand when America, if she is in any manner to shape and perfect her destiny, must not only determine the true goal of. social organization, but also to walk in the best and safest way of attaining that goal ; and every American who feels a concern for the good of his fellow-men, who desires to act intelligently upon the political proposals of the day, who aspires to wield a healthful influence on the moral and material growth of the republic, should make special endeavor to understand the social and industrial problems, beside which all others are but empty queries. A recognition of this duty prompts the writing of this work. That there is something radically wrong in our national polity cannot be gainsaid. The unrest and dis- content felt and heard in every line of social and indus- trial life are but tlie protests of a struggling humanity against hardships and oppressions growing out of the INTRODUCTION. 5 inequalities of conditions which are the natural and necessary outgrowth of defective and perverted laws. The murmur of the millions is but a plea for justice. It is the part of wisdom to hearken unto these protests, to inquire as to their cause, and, on finding it, to seek its removal. Humanity demands that this plea should be heard and answered. It is worse than idle to point to the material wealth abounding on every hand as evidence that peace and plenty are within the reach of all. Wilfully blind is he who does not see want stalking beside wealth at every turn. Within the shadow of the mansion where comfort is forgotten in luxury stands the hut where privation degenerates into want. Upon the boulevards opulent idleness feasts upon tempting viands, while on the back streets and in the alleys industry feeds upon husks. The soul of popular states is equality ; and co-opera- tion is rapidly being recognized as the true social form. This is the basis and inspiration of modern progress, social, industrial, and political. It is the ethics of the advanced thought of to-day, — no romance, but realis- tic. Labor and Capital must be made sharers in the profits which are the joint product of both. Trusts, capital's conspiracy against the right to live, must be destroyed at whatever cost. As home-owners are sel- dom malcontents, but are always true safeguards against social disturbances and industrial revolts, the deserving poor in every community should be afforded means to build for themselves homes on the public domain which Providence provided as the common heritage of 6 INTRODUCTION. the people. Speculation in the public lands, which always degenerates into peculation, should be abolished, and ownership itself restrained within such limits that there will be ample acreage for all. In commercial greatness this republic is destined to exceed the record of all other nations, and, with it perforce allied, all its concomitant evils, — the outgrowth of wealth and luxury enjoyed by the few, and of penury and want suffered by the many. Foster the farm, the mart will maintain its own mastery. " "Where wealth and freedom reigns, contentment fails ; And honor sinks where commerce long prevails." Build up the home, for it is the centre of love and peace, of harmony and happiness, of social order and patriotic devotion. Make this a nation of homesteaders and peasant proprietors, and our institutions will con- tinue to be in the future, as they have been in the past, the model and marvel of the world. 0ONTEE"TS. BOOK I. THE BIGHT OF PROPERTY AND THE HISTORY OP TENURES. OHAPIEB FAas I.— The Basis of the Eight of Property 11 II. — McGlynn's Basic Principle 16 III.— McG-lynn and the Angel 22 IV. — The Divine Origin of the Eight of Property ... 29 V. — McGlynn's Mistake 36 VI. — Property Eights recognized in All Ages 43 VII. — The Heroic Age of Greece 47 VIII.— Eoman Polity 50 IX. — Eoman Property Eights 55 X.— AEesume 62 BOOK II. THE ORIGIN, GROWTH, AND DECADENCE OP FEUDAL TENURES. CHAPTER PAGE I.— The Village-Mark 72 II. — Disintegration of the Eoman Empire 77 III. — Germanic Peudalism 82 IV. — Anglo-Saxon Feudalism 87 V. — Decline and Overthrow of Feudal Servitude in Eng- land 93 VI. — Extirpation of Feudalism in France 97 VII. — Extinction of Feudalism in Prussia 103 VIII. — Decrement of Feudalism in Eussia 108 7 CONTENTS. BOOK III. THE RIGHT OF PEOPERTX AND THE STABILITY OF TENURES. CHAPTER PAGE I.— The Eight of Property defined 113 II. — How this -Eight is Best regulated and enjoyed . . 118 III.— The Subject continued 122 IV. — Eights, Vested and Prospective 128 V. — Subversion of Law is Invasion of Eight 133 VI. — Security under the Constitution 139 VII.— The Stability of Tenure 145 VIII.— The Fallacies of George's Land-Tax Theory ... 150 IX.— George's Self-Eefutation 155 BOOK IV. labor; its vtrongs and their remedies. CHAPTEE PAGE I.— Labor 162 II. — Capital should share Profits with Labor 167 III. — Strikes and Lock-Outs prevented by Arbitration . 172 IV. — The Glaris Artisan an Independent Commoner . 178 V. — Pullman as an Ideal Industrial Community . . . 183 VI.— The Pullman Artisan a Tenant at Will 187 VII.— Action demanded. What shall it be ? 192 VIII. — The State has wrought the Euin. Let her supply the Eemedy 196 IX. — Compensate Employes injured by Defective Ma- chinery 199 X. — The Kemedy ; its Economy and Beneficence .... 203 XL — Enforce the Prompt Payment of Wages 207 BOOK V. limitation of ownership and prohibition of trusts. CHAPTEB PAGE I. — Unearned Increment 213 II. — The Greed of Wealth imperils its own Safety . . 219 III. — Inequality of Conditions Humanity's Wrong . . 225 IV. — Wealth should bear the Burden of Taxation . . . 231 CONTENTS. 9 CHAPTEB PAGE V. — Trusts — Capital's Conspiracy against the Eight to Live 235 VI.— Other Trusts 240 VII.— The Hydra Trust and Quintet of the Shambles . . 244 VIII.— The Coal Conspiracy . 248 IX.— "What shall we do with Them? ......... 253 X. — Crush Trusts by Legislation 257 BOOK VL DTSTEIBXTTION OF POPULATIOK AND DIYISION OF PROPERTY. CHAPTEK PAQE I. — Those that want and Those that have 260 II. — An Equitable Division of Property demanded . . 265 III.— The Great City the Fruitful Source of National Peril 270 IV. — The Hovels where Homeless Thousands dwell . . 274 V. — Land-Homes for the Homeless 279 VI. — Use the Treasury Surplus to pay the Cost, the Home- Owner will pay the Profit . 285 VII.— National Perils and Problems of To-day ..... 290 APPENDIX. Convict Labor. Legislation proposed 299 A Bill for an Act relating to Convict Labor 300 The Encroachments of Convict Labor upon Free Labor . 310 TENURE AND TOIL. BOOK I. THE EIGHT OF PEOPERTY AND THE HISTOEY OF TENUEES. CHAPTER I. THE BASIS OF THE EIGHT OF PEOPEETY. Next to the right of life and liberty, there is noth- ing which so potently and pleasurably impresses the imagination and so interweaves itself in the affections of mankind as the right of property. To know the basis upon which this right is founded, the steps whereby one man acquired that sole and positive au- thority which he claims and exercises over a certain piece of property to the exclusion of the claim of any other man, it will be necessary to trace the origin of society and the history of property back to the infancy of the world. In the early ages of the world, before states and kingdoms were formed, the family existed, and was governed by its paternal head, .who was the arbiter 11 12 TENURE AND TOIL. and judge of whatever contests and divisions might arise within it; the natural legislator over his little society. The laws which paternal wisdom established for its guidance being dictated by no other motive than to promote the general welfare, were observed as an hereditary polity, and the penalty for their breach en- forced with paternal tenderness. Whatever visionary speculations may have been ad- vanced by fanciful writers as to the origin of property and the mode in which the right to a specific thing be- came actually vested in one man to the exclusion of all others, there is no period in the history of civilized na- tions in which the conditions verify the theory that property was ever common in the sense that each one took from the public stock to his own use such things as his fancy favored or desires demanded. Such a theory may be deduced from the history of property and the mode of its enjoyment among savage tribes whose history is recent as compared with that recorded in the Pentateuch. In human history, civilization pre- ceded barbarism. The latter is a condition wrought by the decadence and decomposition of the former. In the history of the first family (and for all historic purposes the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Bible, it is generally conceded, is the most venerable monu- ment of antig[uity) we are informed that Abel was a shepherd and Cain a husbandman : that Cain offered of the fruits of the earth gifts to the Lord. Abel of- fered of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat : and the Lord had respect to Abel and to his offerings. But to Cain and his offerings he had no regard : and Cain THE BASIS OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. I3 was exceedingly angry. From this it is reasonable to suppose that there arose, to a certain degree, sole or in- dividual ownership of property, both real and personal, in the person who occupied or possessed it. When mankind increased in numbers and families multiplied, diverse motives gave rise to different laws. As human society grew more and more refined, com- forts and conveniences, such as habitations for shelter and safety and raiment for warmth and decency, were devised to render life more easy and enjoyable ; and then it became necessary to entertain conceptions of more permanent dominion over external things than that attaching to the mere right of possession, which existed only so long as the act of possession lasted. No man would be solicitous to provide either shelter or raiment so long as he had only a usufructuary prop- erty in them, which ceased the instant that he quitted possession ; if, as soon as he walked out of his tent or pulled oif his garment, the next stranger who came by would have a right to inhabit the one and to wear the other. " In the case of habitations, in particular, it was natural to observe that even the brute creation, to whom everything else was common, maintained a kind of permanent property in their dwellings, especially for the protection of their young ; that the birds of the air had nests, and the beasts of the field had caverns, the invasion of which they esteemed a flagrant injustice, and would sacrifice their lives to preserve them." Whether we admit that "necessity begat property," or contend that the idea of property was the normal re- sultant of the evolution of natural forces, it would be ]^4 TENURE AND TOIL. irrational to assume that any man would till the earth if another might, opportunity oflPeriug, seize upon and enjoy the fruits of his industry and labor. The true theory, grounded in reason and verified by the philosophy of human events, is that the right of property, like the right of liberty, finds its basic prin- ciple in the law of natural justice, and its recognition and mpport find effective expression in the law of civil society. The family is ordained of God. Civil society in conception and organization is but the expansive ap- plication of the family principle. Its multiform and complicate relations are but radiations from the family centre, even when in enlarged combinations constituting the polities of tribes, states, and governments. In process of time, the family being divided into many branches, each of which had its head, whose various interests and characters might interrupt the general tranquillity, it became necessary to intrust one person with the government of the whole. The person so chosen eventually assumed the title and authority of king. To him a throne was erected and a sceptre given. Homage was paid him, officers assigned him, and guards appointed for the security of his person. Trib- utes were granted him, and he was invested with full power to maintain the public peace by a uniform ad- ministration of justice. At the dawn of political history each tribe had its chief or king, whose aspirations found full scope within the limits of his own narrow realm. But those in- evitable broils which destroy peace between neighbors ; envy of rival kings ; a lawless and restless spirit ; a THE BASIS OF THE RIGHT OF PRO PERT F. 15 propensity for war or a desire of conquest ; or the am- bition to exhibit superior prowess, caused the king of one tribe or country to invade the territory of another. These invasions often resulted in the complete subju- gation of the conquered, whose possessions became the spoils of the conqueror and gradually extended the limits of his kingdom. Promjited l)y diverse propen- sities, or impelled by different interests, kings utilized their victories in various ways. To some the van- quished were but slaves, and in refraining from taking their lives the conqueror deemed himself generous be- yond measure, while he robbed them and their families of their property, their homes, and their freedom ; re- duced them to servitude; compelled them to perform the most menial and servile drudgery ; driving them to dig and delve deep in the earth for the precious min- erals simply to gratify his own mercenary greed ; hence arose the division of mankind into two classes, masters and slaves, lords and vassals. Through long centuries warfare between these two classes was waged with varying fortunes and diverse results, the one striving not only to retain but to ex- tend its despotic power, the other struggling to es- cape from the bondage of tyranny and attain freedom of thought and action. Every effort made for the redress of human wrongs or to gain and defend the sacred rights of person or property, whether, failing, dishonored as rebellion or, succeeding, dignified as rev- olution, in the world's annals, but lifted humanity a measure higher in the scale of progress and brought it a step nearer universal liberty. Each of these heroic IQ TENURE AND TOIL. endeavors gathered strength and momentum from the preceding until they culminated in that grand climac- teric — the American Eevolution — which wrought the political apotheosis of mankind. While in this nineteenth century we may justly boast of having reached the very climax of political freedom, yet the lord and vassal of mediaeval feudal- ism find their prototypes in the money baron and in- dustrial serf of to-day. The accumulation of vast fortunes by the few, creating corporations with absolute control over the ways and means of doing and living, dictating the enactments of legislative bodies, per- verting the administration of justice, prescribing rules of action for executive officials, and, in the arrogance of their plenary powers, ignoring or crushing individ- ual rights and interests, it may be well to ask, Can our loudly-vaunted political freedom much longer endure even as the shadow of the substance so dearly won and once prized so sacredly ? CHAPTER 11. mcglynn's basic principle. The Rev. Edward McGlynn, D.D., in his lecture on " The Cross of the New Crusade," says, ''It is the object of this crusade of ours to preach the truth that shall make men see clearly what is the cause of the M' GLYNN'S BASIC PRINCIPLE. 17 evident injustice that condemns the mass of men to toil, and in some instances increasingly depriving them of what they produce by their toil. We assert that the one prime reason of the injustice that is done in de- priving labor frequently of the opportunity of finding employment, and when it does find employment de- priving it of the full equivalent for what it produces, is the constantly-increasing monopoly by a privileged class of the general bounties of nature, which belong by the law of nature, and of nature's God, not to a class but to the whole human family. " Tlie private ownership of the general bounties of nature is the one supreme cause of all causes of the enslavement of labor, and that condition of things which deprives labor of a full equivalent for what it produces by its exertion. " That all men have, by the law of nature, and therefore by the law of God, an equal right to these general bounties can be readily demonstrated by a very brief argument. These truths are in consonance with religion and Christian philosophy." Whether the theories of the reverend doctor " are in consonance with religion and Christian philosophy," it is not my purpose to question. As I am a layman and he a doctor of divinity, I would not presume to ques- tion the soundness of his views from the stand-point of "religion or Christian philosophy." I shall simply endeavor to show that his notions of natural justice are inconsistent, illogical, and at variance with reason and common sense. "The idea of property," he says, "comes only to b 2* 18 TENURE AND TOIL. men from the idea of making, from the idea of pro- ducing. The idea of property among men comes first from the consciousness that men have of owning them- selves. Man owns himself, and therefore he owns and controls his own labor. He may work upon this ma- terial or that. He is free to choose what he shall do, and where he shall do it, and, out of given materials, what he shall make. And when, by the free choice of his will and the free exercise of his labor, out of the general storehouse of nature, he produces something, that something is his to hold, to own, to use, to give away, to sell, and even to destroy, because he has made it. Thus he acquires the idea and the right of owner- ship. It is, as it were, a translation of his labor, of his time, his patience, and his skill into the form and the place that he gives to that portion of the general bounties of nature. He is with his cup dipping water from the stream, he is with his line and rod getting fish from the stream, and is with other instruments digging and hewing a block of stone from the quarry. Out of that block with mallet and chisel, if he has the artistic skill and vision to see a sleeping beauty, he makes haste to chisel away the larger parts to reveal the angel that he sees imprisoned there, and that angel is his to give away, to keep, to sell, and even to destroy, because he has made it. " While he has not made the raw material, he has appropriated that portion of the general bounties of nature legitimately, and no other man can have the right to claim joint ownership in that. If two men should come to the banks of a river, and one should M' GLYNN'S BASIC PRINCIPLE. 19 fish all day and the other should sleep all day, the basket of fish would belong to the fisherman, and the reward of the other would be the rest and the refresh- ment that he had enjoyed. It would be the same with the block of marble. The idea of property comes from making^" * * I fail to find in the learned doctor's elegant lecture a thought that is practical or even original. In chapter!., Book VII., of "Progress and Poverty," in answer to a series of interrogatories as to what constitutes the rightful hasis of property, George says : "As a man belongs to himself, so his labor when put in con- crete form belongs to him. And for this reason, that which a man makes or produces is his own — as against all the world — to enjoy or to destroy, to use, to exchange, or to give. No one else can rightfully claim it, and his exclusive right to it involves no wrong to any one else. Thus there is to everything produced by human exertion a clear and indisputable title to exclusive possession and enjoyment, which is perfectly consistent with justice, as it de- scends from the original producer, in whom it vested by natural law. The pen with which I am writing is justly mine. ISTo other human being can rightfully lay claim to it, for in me is the title of the producers who made it. It has become mine because trans- ferred to me by the stationer, to whom it was transferred by the importer, who obtained the exclusive right to it by transfer from the manufacturer, in whom, by the same process of purchase, vested the rights of those who dug the material from the ground and shaped it into a pen. Thus my exclusive right of ownership in the pen springs from the natural right of the individual to the use of his own faculties. . . . " The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air, — it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that some men have a right to be in this world and others no right. " If we are all here by the equal permission of the Creator, we are all here with an equal title to the enjoyment of his bounty, — with an equal right to the use of all that nature so impartially 20 TENURE AND TOIL. Let US pursue the doctor's fish-story to its logical conclusion, and see what becomes of his theory of the law of natural justice when subjected to the analysis of plain, homely common sense. When the industrious fisherman has filled his basket with fish from the store- house of nature, the man who had slept all day awakes and demands an equal division of the basket of fish. "This demand," says the doctor, "would be unjust and unreasonable, and to insist upon it would be con- trary to the law of natural justice." Right! Now, then, the man who fished all day while the other slept takes his basket of fish to market, sells it, and receives as an equivalent therefor one dollar in cash, and this dollar, the doctor says, he has the right to keep, to use, to enjoy, or destroy, because it is the compensation, the offers. This is a right which is natural and inalienable ; it is a right which vests in every human being as he enters the world, and which during his continuance in the world can be limited only by the equal rights of others. There is in nature no such thing as a fee-simple in land. There is on earth no power which can rightfully make a grant of exclusive ownership in land. If all existing men were to unite to grant away their equal rights, they could not grant away the rights of those who follow them. For what are we but tenants for a day ? Have we made the earth, that we should determine the rights of those who after us shall tenant it in their turn? The Almighty, who created the earth for man and man for the earth, has entailed it upon all the generations of the children of men by a decree written upon the constitution of all things, — a decree which no human action can bar and no pre- scription determine. Let the parchments be ever so many, or possession ever so long, natural justice can recognize no right in one man to the possession and enjoyment of land that is not equally the right of all his fellows." W GLYNN'S BASIC PRINCIPLE. 21 reward of his labor, because " the laborer is worthy of his hire." The fisherman, therefore, is entitled to his basket of fish because by his labor he has taken and appropriated them from the hand of nature. He may eat them, give them away, or sell them. So far the doctor construes the law of natural justice correctly. On the morrow the industrious fisherman and the slug- gard return to the river's bank, and again the fisherman fishes all day while the sluggard sleeps, and at night the fisherman comes to market with his basket of fish, sells them, and receives therefor another dollar in cash. This is repeated from day to day, until the fisherman has saved up one hundred dollars. These one hundred dollars, according to the law of natural justice, are as much his individual property as were the baskets of fish. The baskets of fish were the reward of his labor, and the money received as their equivalent was also the reward of his labor. It was merely an exchange of fish for money. The fisherman, anxious to secure for himself and family a home, exchanges the money for a city lot, when, lo, the sluggard, who had slept and re- freshed himself in the shade during all these many days, comes along, and says, " This lot is ours." " Oh, no," says the fisherman, "this lot is mine. While you slept I fished. The fish which I caught I carried to market, sold them, and received their equivalent in money, and with it purchased this lot, therefore it is mine." " The fish belonged to you," says the sluggard, " because you caught them. The money which you received for them was yours also, because it was the reward of your labor, but this lot is laud, and Dr. McGlynu says that all the 22 TENURE AND TOIL. men in the universe cannot make one grain of sand ; that God alone can make it, and as God made the land, it belongs to God. So nature has given the perpetual right to use it to all the children of men, and not to one individual more than another. It is true that I slept in the shade and was refreshed while you fished and toiled, but, as I am one of the children of men, I have as much right to this land as you have." " I have always heard," says the fisherman, "and, if I am not mistaken, it is so stated in Holy Writ, that the same God who made the land made the fishes too, and if the fact that I cannot make one grain of sand is to weigh in the balance, and is to be considered as a controlling reason against my right to own this land, suppose you go and tell the learned doctor to try his hand on a little fish." CHAPTER III. McGLYNN AND THE ANGEL. Passing from the fisherman to the sculptor, who has the vision so refined as to see a sleeping beauty in the rude block of stone taken from the quarry, and who has the artistic skill, with mallet and chisel, to release the angel that he sees imprisoned there, which angel " is his to give away, to keep, to sell, and even to de- stroy," because he has made it, we find here another illustration of the inconsistency and absurdity of the M'GLYNN AND THE ANGEL. 23 • learned doctor's conception of the law of natural jus- tice. According to the abstract principles of natural justice the sculptor has no right to destroy the thing of beauty which he produced from the rude rock, be- cause the sculptor could not exist separate and apart from society, and as he is indebted to society for all that he is and all that he has and all that he enjoys, it would be a crime against the law of natural justice to permit him to destroy, to annihilate that which he thus produced. The product of the artisan's handiwork is not wholly his own. His ability to transform the unhewn marble into an image of grace and beauty is a resultant of the thoughtful toil and aspiring effort of every hand that has striven with chisel and mallet since the days of Bezaleel, the son of Hur. In very truth, the civiliza- tion of to-day is the crystallization of the human thought and human effort of all the ages gone before. But I do not propose to discuss this question, as it is, at best, a mere side issue, and hardly germane to the point in controversy, so that whether I admit or deny the claim that the sculptor has a right to destroy the angel, I agree with Dr. McGlynn that the angel is his to give away, to keep, or to sell. If he has the right to sell it, the money or thing which he receives as its equivalent is the reward or tribute paid to his genius, skill, and labor. Some angels sell at a very costly price. We mean the marble images such as the sculp- tor formed from the rude rock. But suppose another man, equally a genius in his way, but not endowed with the artistic vision and skill to see and free an angel im- 24 TENURE AND TOIL. prisoned in the rock, shoulders his pick and shovel, and wends his way to the Rocky Mountains, and his artistic vision reveals to him in the outcroppings of the soil the existence of gold and silver far down amid the strata of the earth. With pick and shovel he makes haste to dig and throw the earth away, that he may secure precious metals hidden there. This gold and silver are his to give away, to keep, or to sell, just as much as was the sculptor's angel, formed out of the rude rock by the mallet and chisel guided by his genius. The gold and silver thus acquired are the rewards of his labor just as much so as the angel was the reward of the sculptor's labor. The gold and silver that he thus ap- propriated from the storehouse of nature by his per- severance and his toil are his as much as were the fish which the fisherman caught from the stream with his hook and line. The fish in the river equally belonged to the sluggard and the fisherman before they were caught. Both had the same natural right to fish from the stream, which was common property. This much the doctor admits; not only admits but asserts it to be the law of natural justice, and it is because the fisher- man appropriated the fish from the storehouse of nature by his toil that they belonged to him in his individual right. It is the same way with the " imprisoned angel." Any other man who has the genius and skill and in- dustry may go to the quarry and appropriate to him- self a rock out of which to make something useful or ornamental, just the same as did the sculptor, and what he thus appropriates from the " quarries of the gods" belongs to him because it is the reward of his M GLYNN AND THE ANGEL. 25 labor. Any oue who has the energy aud inclination may shoulder his pick and shovel and wend his way to the Rocky Mountains, and delve and dig until he finds the hidden treasure, and when found, he simply appro- priates so much from the storehouse of nature, the thing which he thus appropriates is but the reward of his labor. To say that everybody who pursues this vocation cannot find a mine is no argument against the abstract principle upon which the law of natural jus- tice is based. Two men may fish all day, the one pa- tiently and perseveringly as the other, and one of them may catch fish in abundance, while the other may catch but few or none at all. And so it is in regard to the sculptor, for the thing of beauty which his genius and fancy formed may have a priceless value, while a simi- lar rock may be used by the stone-mason in the con- struction of a stable. Thus it is that we cannot equal- ize the value of men's services, nor is there any place in the law of natural justice for the argument that the sculptor should receive no higher reward for his labor than the stone-mason, nor that the successful miner should be limited in his reward to the value of tiie basket of fish. After the sculptor had disposed of the " angel," he concluded to go West to settle upon the prairie and grow up with the country. He travelled far out on the plains until- he came to a place upon which he decided to locate. There he pitched his tent and fenced in one hundred and sixty acres of land. After years of tireless patience and unremitting toil he transforms the land which he found a wilderness into a garden of B 3 26 TENURE AND TOIL. beauty and fruitfulness. Other settlers had located near him. At the close of one bright day six seedy tramps, ordained apostles of Dr. McGlynn's new civili- zation, came along, and withont beck or bidding entered the cottage of the whilom sculptor. They remained uninvited guests for the night, and on the morrow, as they stood, with an " at-home" free and easy air, in front of the house, looking over the nicely-cultivated grounds, said to the settler, " Our farm looks fine." " Our farm !" exclaimed the settler. " This is ray farm." "Why yours more than ours?" rejoined the tramps. " Is not this land, and God made the land ? And Henry George has said, and Dr. McGlynn, the Peter of the New Crusade, has echoed his saying, that all things made by God are not of right the property of one man, but belong to all men in common." " Yes, it may be allowed that land in a state of nature belongs to God, but I have appropriated out of nature's wide domain one hundred and sixty acres, which I have entered under the homestead law, fenced and cultivated, and the fruits which it yields are the reward of my labor. No one will deny that it rightfully belongs to me. God ordains it, and the law decrees it. All philosophy teaches it. Adam Smith and all the lesser lights who have written upon politico-economic questions affirm it. Even Henry George — when George is himself — admits it, for he says, ' The man who cultivates the soil for himself receives his wages in its produce, just as, if he uses his own capital and owns his own land, he may also receive interest and rent; the hunter's wages are the game he kills ; the fisherman's wages are the M- GLYNN AND THE ANGEL. 27 fish he takes. The gold washed out by the self- employing gold-digger is as much his wages as the money paid to the hired coal-miner by the purchaser of his labor. In short, whatever is received as the re- sult or reward of exertion is " wages." ' (" Progress and Poverty," eh. ii.) Just beyond you will find broad acres lying in a state of nature, the same as I found the land which I fenced and reclaimed. This you may enter as I have done, reclaim and cultivate it." The new- comers shrugged their shoulders at the very mention of work; having tramped to the frontiers to escape sawing wood, shovelling snow, or carrying coal up-stairs for a breakfast, the idea of toil, so out of harmony with the teachings of the new dispensation, chilled them to the marrow. The spokesman replied, "This land you point out to us is worth nothing. We do not want the untilled plains, we want the cultivated farm. This farm, you understand, has a rental value, and it is the rent we are after, not the farm. We do not ask you to divide the land with us. We have no use for land. You may remain on the farm and cultivate it so long as you pay for that privilege. We would not deprive you of that pleasure for the world. We pro- pose, however, to put it up at auction every year to the highest bidder, and if you do not bid more for it than any other person who wishes to cultivate it, you will have to surrender its possession and give up its enjoyment. Its full rental value, under the new order of things, must be paid into the public treasury, of which we, the people, are the trusty guardians. It is true that you display great learning and research and 28 TENURE AND TOIL. study in quoting from Moses and the prophets, from Adam Smith, Henry George, and others, but the world has made great strides in advance of these fogies. Even Henry George has advanced since he wrote his work on ' Progress and Poverty.' He has recently enlisted in the ranks, and is marching arm in arm with our clerical Turveydrop, under the banner of the ' Cross of the New Crusade.' This movement that we would dignify by so honorable a name, in some sense, may be called a very new one, since it is a new and a very determined effort to achieve a perfectly clear and decided end, and yet, in another sense, it may be called a very old one, since it is to preach and to make more common the practice among men of a truth that is as old as man himself, and in some sense may be said to be as old as God, — the truth that justice must be the rule of any society that shall be created by God. Our remedy, then, for the injustice that now exists is not to dispossess you or drive you out of this farm, but simply to appropriate to the common treasury its full rental value through existing forms of taxation, and thus we shall maintain the absolute equality of man in the general bounties of nature, without disturbing you in your possession. Indeed, the chief attraction to many of us in this crusade is the religion that is in it. It is founded on the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, the Brotherhood of Man, and the Fatherhood of God, which is the soul of all religion. We shall establish and maintain public victualling-houses and inns, so that when we invoke the bountiful Giver of all good things, ' Give us this day our daily bread,' it shall DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 29 be given us in fact and in deed. No more shall we be required to saw wood or shovel snow for a breakfast, nor scrub the steps of a bar-room for a drink of poor whiskey, but when the 'bloated but princely tramp' comes along, if you would have him to work for you, it must be at his own price and on his own terms." Perhaps tlie writer should crave the intelh'gent reader's pardon for the apparently trivial diversions of the foregoing pages. Yet I have not been seeking to traverse the imaginary vagaries of a mythical theorist, but in truth to pleasantly dissect the worse than soph- isms of the greatest political Don Quixote of the age. For the " New Crusade'' is vauntingly proclaimed to be the last evangel that supersedes all others, — a pana- cea for all ills, social and economic, that afflict the body politic. But a truce to such pleasantry. Let us proceed to a common-sense investigation of the rights of prop- erty, and gather a few sheaves of practical justice from the harvests of aires. CHAPTER IV. THE DIVINE OEIGIN OF THE EiaHT OF PROPERTY. " The inspired sweet singer of Israel tells us," says Dr. McGlynn, " ' The heaven of heavens is the Lord's, but the earth he hath given to the children of men ;' and again, Moses said, ' The land shall not be sold for- 3* 30 TENURE AND TOIL. ever, saith the Lord, for it is mine.' The Scripture teaches Charles the First and the rest of them that they shall not give it away or sell it, because it does not be- long to them ; it belongs to God." From these quota- tions he undertakes to assert that any one born into the world is entitled by divine right to the equal enjoyment of landed property whether he works or sleeps, and that, according to the Scriptures, no one has a right to sell or dispose of land. Mr. T. E. Cliffe Leslie, in his introduction to Emile de Laveleye's "' Primitive Property," says, "The property of which M. de Laveleye treats in this volume is prop- erty in land ; of all kinds of property that which has most deeply affected both the economic condition and the political career of human societies. In one sense, indeed, land was not primitive property ; it was not man's earliest possession or wealth. The first forms of prop- erty are lost in the mist that surrounds the first infant steps of the human race. Wild herbs, fruit, berries, and roots were probably the earliest acquisitions, but the food thus obtained was doubtless devoured at once. When at length providence was developed so far as to lead to the laying by of some sustenance for the future, the inference to which the earliest developments of movable wealth, of which we get glimpses, unmistaka- bly point, is that the store which individuals might thus accumulate would not have been regarded as their own absolute property, but as part of the common fund of tlie community, larger or smaller according to circum- stances, of which they were members ;" and he under- takes to prove that movable property in primitive so- DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 31 ciety belonged first to individuals. But a close analysis of his introduction will suffice to show that Mr. Leslie confuses terms, and cites, in support of his proposition, certain usages which prevailed alike among civilized and uncivilized races. It is not the purpose of this inquiry to enter into a very elaborate discussion in re- gard to these matters further than to prove that, accord- ing to the Scriptures, the learned doctor's deduction is not warranted, and that Mr. Leslie's assertion, to the effect that " the inference to which the earliest develop- ments of movable wealth, of which we get glimpses, unmistakably point, is that the store which individuals might thus accumulate would not have been regaixled as their own absolute property, but as part of the com- mon fund of the community, larger or smaller accord- ing to circumstances, of which they were members," is not supported by the history and development of so- ciety whether examined in the light of sacred history, profane writers, or the testimony of men, who have devoted much time to researches into the origin of property, and who have given great thought and study to the subject. In the third chapter of Genesis we read that when Adam disobeyed the injunction of God, the Lord God said to him, "Because thou hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee not to eat, cursed is the earth in thy work : with toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken. And 32 TENURE AND TOIL. the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure to till the earth from which he was taken." And again, after God had scourged the earth by the deluge, in making a new covenant with Noe, God blessed Noe and his sons, and said to them, " Increase and multiply, and fill the earth. . . . And everything which moveth and liveth shall be food for you : even as the green herbs have I delivered to you all things." Again, when Abram and Lot went out of Egypt rich in cattle, gold, and silver, so that the land was not able to bear them that they might dwell together, a strife arose between the herdsmen of Abram and Lot, and Abram said to Lot, "■ Let there be no quarrel, I beseech thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen ; for we are brethren. Behold, the whole land is before thee : depart from me, I pray thee; if thou wilt go to the left hand, I will take to the right : if thou choose the right hand, I will pass to the left. And Lot, lifting up his eyes, saw all the country about the Jordan, which was watered throughout, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, as the paradise of the Lord. And Lot chose for himself the country about the Jordan, and he departed from the east : and they were separated, one from the other." Therefore it is evident that the cattle, gold, and silver which Abram and Lot possessed belonged to each of them individually. If the cattle were common prop- erty, why was it necessary to have separate herdsmen ? And after Lot was separated from him, the Lord said to Abram, '' Lift up thy eyes and look from the place where thou now art, to the north and to the south, DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 33 to the east and to the west. All the land which thou seest I will give to thee, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth : if any man can number the dust of the earth, he shall be able to number thy seed also. Arise and walk through the land in its length and breadth : for to thee I will give it." As God gave the land absolutely and forever to Abram and his seed, should " Charles the First and the rest of them" show title through Abram or his seed, their titles, from a scriptural stand-point, are indefeasible. Again, in chapter twenty-third we read that after the death of Sarah in the city of Arba, in the land of Canaan, Abraham came to mourn and to weep for her, and after he rose up from the funeral obsequies he spake to the children of Heth, saying, " A stranger and so- journer am I among you : give me the right of a burying-place with you, that I may bury ray dead." And he requested the children of Heth to intercede for him with Ephron, the son of Zohar, to give him the double cave which he had in the end of his field for such money as it was worth for a possession as a bury- ing-place. This field was valued by Ephron at four hundred shekels. And when Abraham had heard this, he weighed out the money which Ephron had asked in the hearing of the children of Heth, — four hundred siiekels of silver of common current money. And the field of Ephron, which was the doable cave, looking towards Mamre, both it and the cave, and all the trees in all its limits round about, were made sure to 34 TENURE AND TOIL. Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth and of all who went in at the gate of his city. And so Abraham buried Sarah, his wife, in the double cave of the field, which looketh towards Mamre; this is Hebron in the land of Canaan. And the field was made sure to Abraham, and the cave which was in it, for a possession to bury in by the children of Heth . This probably is the first authentic account we have of the sale and purchase of land or real property for money. In the twenty-second chapter of Exodus, in verse five, God himself, in delivering to Moses the laws by which the Israelites were to be governed, says that " if any man commit a trespass on a field or a vineyard by putting in his beast to feed upon other men's lands" [other men's lands, mark you), " he shall restore the best of whatever he hath in his own field or in his vineyard, according to the estimation of the damages." The book of Numbers abounds with references to private ownership in land and of the right of inheri- tance. In the thirty-second chapter of that book it is said that the sons of Reuben and Gad, who had many flocks of cattle, when they saw lands of Gazer and Gilead fit for feeding cattle they came to Moses and Eleazar, the priest and the princes of the multitude, and among other things said to them, " The land which the Lord smote in the sight of the children of Israel is rich in pasture, and we, thy servants, have very much cattle : if we have found favor in thy sight, give it to us, thy servants, in possession, and make us not pass over the Jordan." And in chapter thirty-third, verses fifty to fifty -six, it is written, — DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 35 " The Lord said to Moses : Command the children of Israel, and say to them : When ye shall have passed over the Jordan, entering into the land of Canaan, destroy all the inhabitants of that land, beat down their pillars, and break in pieces their statues, and waste all their high places, cleansing the land and dwelling in it. For I have given it you for an inheritance, and ye shall divide it among you by lot. . To the more numerous ye shall give a larger portion, and to the fewer less. To every one as the lot shall fall the in- heritance shall be given. The possession shall be divided by the tribes and families." In chapter thirty-fourth, after defining the limits of the land of Canaan which he gave to the Israelites, he named and selected men, Eleazar, the priest, and Josu, the son of Nun, and one prince of every tribe, to divide the land. And in chapter thirty-five God speaks to Moses, saying, " Command the children of Israel that they give to the Levites out of their possessions cities to dwell in and their suburbs round about : that they may abide in the towns, and the suburbs may be for their cattle and beasts. . . . And of these cities which shall be given out of the possessions of the children of Israel, from those who have many, many will be taken ; and from those who have less, fewer. Each shall give towns to the Levites according to the extent of their inheritance." And in order that the inheritance might not be alienated from one tribe to another, it is provided in chapter thirty-six that all are to marry within their own tribes. "And this is the law promulgated by the Lord 36 TENURE AND TOIL. touching the daughters of Salphaad : Let them marry to whom they will, only so that it be to men of their own tribe : lest the possession of the children of Israel be mingled from tribe to tribe. For all men shall marry wives of their own tribe and kindred : and all women shall take husbands of the same tribe : that the inheritance may remain in the families, and that the tribes be not mingled one with another, but remain so as they were separated by the Lord." . . . CHAPTER Y. mcglynn's mistake. These chapters explain the meaning of the text quoted by Dr. McGlynn from the twenty-fifth chap- ter of Leviticus, twenty-third verse. Dr. McGlynn's quotation is hardly correct. Dr. McGlynn's version is as follows : " The land shall not be sold forever, saith the Lord, for it is mine." The text in King James's version of the Bible is, " The land shall not be sold forever : for the land is mine ; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me." And in Keurick's* translation of the Bible it reads : " The land also shall not be sold * Dr. Kenrick's translation of the Bible is recognized among biblical scholars of every denomination as being a more literal rendering of the original text than any other, and as there is no material variance between it and King James's version, the author has preferred to quote from the former. Mf^GLYNN'S MISTAKE. 37 forever : because it is mine, and ye are strangers and sojourners with me." Now, it will be seen that when Moses made use of this expression he was laying down the law relative to the feast of the seventh and of the fiftieth year of jubilee, and it was said also while the children of Israel were still wanderers and sojourners in the desert. " The Lord spake to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying : Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them : AVhen ye shall have entered into the land which I give you, keep a sabbath to the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather the fruits thereof: But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath to the land, of the resting of the Lord." (According to Kenrick the land was to rest from cultivation for a year.) " Thou shalt not sow thy field nor prune thy vine- yard. . . . And thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim release to all the inhabitants of thy land : for it is the year of jubilee. Every man shall return to his possessions, and every one shall go back to his former family : Because it is the jubilee and the fiftieth year." (The servants in this year were set free; landed property returned to its original pos- sessors to be again allotted to the members of the tribe, so that in this manner its permanent accumula- tion in the hands of others not of the tribe was pre- vented.) The portion, which fell to the lot of the individual belonged to him to use, enjoy, sell, or give away until the return of the jubilee year. Every sale of land, therefore, w^as limited to the year of jubilee, and the price varied according to the time which it was 4 38 TENURE AND TOIL. to run from the time of its sale to the year of jubilee, and when the Lord says, through Moses, " The land also shall not be sold forever : because it is mine, and ye are strangers and sojourners with me," he meant that the land should not be sold forever, and did not mean that they should never sell it ; but rather that it might be sold for any term of years not to exceed fifty years. In this chapter, as already stated, he is laying down a law to the Israelites for the observance of the feasts of the jubilee years. Iq order that the meaning of this quotation may be properly understood and to make it harmonize with the text in which it occurs, it will be necessary to consider the verses preceding and those following it. They are as follows : " And in the eighth year ye shall sow, and shall eat of the old fruits, until the ninth year : till new grow up, ye shall eat the old store. The land also shall not be sold forever : because it is mine, and ye are stran- gers and sojourners with me. For which cause all the country of your possession shall be under the condition of redemption. If thy brother, being impoverished, sell his possession, and his kinsman will, he may redeem what he had sold. But if he have no kinsman, and he himself can find the price to redeem it, the value of the fruits shall be counted from the time when he sold it: and the overplus he shall restore to the buyer, and so shall receive his possession again. But if his hands find not the means to repay the price, the buyer shall have what he bought, until the year of the jubilee. For in this year all that is sold shall return to the owner, and to the ancient possessor." M^ GLYNN'S MISTAKE. 39 Divine justice seemed to look with peculiar favor upon the tenure by which the title to city property was held, for in this same chapter out of which Dr. Mc- Glynn quotes, and from which he proclaims his com- munistic doctrine, particularly against the owners of city property, we find it stated as follows : " He that selleth a house within the walls of a city, shall have the liberty to redeem it, until one year be expired. If he redeem it not, and the whole year be fully out, the buyer shall possess it, and his posterity forever; and it cannot be redeemed, not even in the jubilee." Ken rick, in a note to this verse, says that the incon- veniences likely to arise from temporary and condi- tional transfers of property in cities caused the right of redemption to be limited to one year, and in order that the Levites, who were dependent upon the chil- dren of Israel for their possessions, might not be de- prived of their property from inability to redeem the same, the law made a special favor, to the effect that the houses of Levites which are in cities may always be redeemed. If they be not redeemed in the jubilee they shall all return to the owners ; because the houses of the cities of the Levites are for their possessions among the childern of Israel. By considering these verses in connection with the book of Numbers, it will be seen that the object of the law was to prevent a sale of property belonging to the individual for a period ex- ceeding fifty years, as in that year all the lands were to return to the original owner, to be again allotted to the members of the tribes. 40 TENURE AND TOIL. We also find it written in the book of Ruth that in the days when the judges ruled Israel, a certain man named Elimelech, of Bethlehem, Judea, went to so- journ in the land of Moab with his wife and two sons. The sons of Elimelech married wives of the tribe of Moabites, and after the death of Elimelech and of his sons, the widow of Elimelech, named Naomi, returned to her people, the Israelites, accompanied by her daugh- ter-in-law, Ruth. Elimelech had a kinsman named Boaz, who was rich and powerful, in whose eyes the Moabitess, Ruth, found favor, and Boaz went to the gate of the city, Avhere all solemn and legal acts were performed, and sat there awaiting the coming of the nearest kinsman of Elimelech, and when he saw him he requested him to sit down, in order that they might talk over matters concerning Ruth. And Boaz called as witnesses ten of the ancients of the city, according to the manner of the Israelites, and he spoke to the kinsman of Elimelech, saying, " Naomi, who is re- turned from the country of Moab, will sell a parcel of land that belonged to our brother Elimelech. I would have thee to understand this, and would tell thee before all that sit here, and before the ancients of my people, if thou wilt take possession of it by the right of kindred, buy it and possess it : but if it please thee not, tell me so, that I may know what I have to do : for there is no near kinsman besides thee, who art first, and me, who am second. And he answered : I will buy the field. And Boaz said to him : When thou buyest the field at the woman's hand, thou must take also Ruth, the Moabitess, who was the wife of the de- M<^ GLYNN'S MISTAKE. 41 ceased : to raise up the name of thy kinsman in his inheritance." His relative having yielded his right of next of kin, Boaz, taking unto himself Ruth, the gleaner, said to the ancients and to all the people, " Ye are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and Chelion's, and Mahalon's, of the hand of Naomi : And have taken to wife Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of Mahalon, to raise up the name of the deceased in his inheritance, lest his name be cut off from among his family and his brethren and his people. Ye, I say, are witnesses of this thing. Then all the people that were in the gate and the ancients answered : We are witnesses," Before the common use of written instruments, trans- fers of property were publicly made in the presence of witnesses, and something as symbolical of the delivery of the property, such as a twig or a piece of turf, in this case a shoe, according to the custom of the Israel- ites, was given by the seller to the buyer in the presence of witnesses. And in the book of Genesis, chapter forty-seven, verses twenty to twenty-two, it is said, " So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt, every man selling his possessions, because of the greatness of the famine. And he brought it into Pharao's hands : And all its people, from one end of the borders of Egypt, even to the other end thereof, except the land of the priests, which had been given them by the king : to whom also a certain allowance of food was given out of the public stores, aud therefore they were not forced to sell their possessions." 4* 42 TENURE AND TOIL. And in the third book of Kings,* referring to Amri, it is said, " And he bought the hill of Samaria of Semer for two talents of silver, and he built upon it, and he called the city which he built Samaria, after the name of Semer, the owner of the hill." And in the New Testament we find in the fourth chapter of the Acts, verses thirty-four to thirty-seven, referring to those who had followed the disciples, the following : " For neither was any one among them needy ; for as many as were owners of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things which they sold, and laid them down at the feet of the apostles : and distribution was made to every one ac- cording as he had need. And Joseph, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, by inter- pretation, the son of consolation), a Levite, a Cyprian born, having land, sold it, and brought the price, and laid it at the feet of the apostles." These quotations, taken from the Scriptures, and many others which might be found, bear indubitable evidence of the right of individual ownership in land from the beginning of the world down to the time of the apostles. * King James's version, I. Kings xvi., 24. PROPERTY RIGHTS RECOGNIZED IN ALL AGES. 43 CHAPTER VI. PEOPEETY RIGHTS EECOGNIZED IN ALL AGES. Herodotus, called by Cicero the Father of History, in speaking of the cause of hostilities between the Phoenicians and the Greeks, says : " This nation [Phoe- nicians] migrated from the borders of the Red Sea to the place of their present settlement, and soon distin- guished themselves by their long and enterprising voyages. They exported to Argos, amongst other places, the produce of Egypt and Assyria. Argos, at that period, was the most famous of all those states which are now comprehended under the general appel- lation of Greece. On their arrival here, the Phoenicians exposed their merchandise to sale : after remaining about six days, and when they had almost disposed of their different articles of commerce, the king's daughter, whom both nations agree in calling lo, came, among a great number of other women, to visit them at their station. Whilst these females, standing near the stern of the vessel, amused themselves with bargaining for such things as attracted their curiosity, the Phoenicians, in conjunction, made an attempt to seize their persons. The greater part of them escaped ; but lo remained a captive with many others. They carried them on board, and directed their course for Egypt." Hence it is very reasonable to assume that at this early period the right of private ownership in property 44 TENURE AND TOIL. was recognized both among the Greeks and Phoenicians. Homer constantly distinguishes the Phcenicians as a commercial and seafaring people. The writers of ancient poetry and ancient history serve alike to confirm the assertion that among the Greeks, Romans, Phoe- nicians, Persians, Carthaginians, and Egyptians the right of private ownership in property existed from the earliest period of which we have any definite data. In other words, wherever we find a commercial people, we find the right of individual ownership in property recognized. This is confirmed by reference to the laws of Lycurgus, for in his days, according to the most authentic history, the right of private ownership in property in Sparta existed, and, next to the institution of the senate and the assembly of the people, the new division of the lands instituted by him is by far the most worthy of note. According to the laws established with respect to the descent of jiroperty, the estate of a deceased father descended to his sons ; but if no legitimate son survived him, it descended to his daughters, who were compelled to marry their nearest relatives or forfeit their inheyi- tauce. Persons who had no lawful issue were allowed to adopt whom they pleased, whether their own natural sons, or, by consent of their parents, the sons of other men. But such as were incapable of making wills were denied this privilege. Adopted children were invested with all the privileges and rights of, and obliged to perform all the duties belonging to, natural children ; and, being thus provided for in another PROPERTY RIGHTS RECOGNIZED IN ALL AGES. 45 family, they ceased to have any claim of inheritance or kindred in the family which they left, unless they first renounced their adoption. This could be done only in cases where children were born to them who would bear the name of the person by whom they were adopted and was intended to prevent the extinguish- ment of the family name of those who adopted them for the purpose of preserving it. If the adopted person died without lawful issue, the inheritance de- scended to the relatives of the person who adopted him. Illegitimate children were allowed some share both among the Jews and the Grecians in their father's estate. It was an ancient custom in Greece for legiti- mate sons to divide their fathers' estates by lots, each taking an equal share without regard to priority of birth, but allowing a small pittance to such as were unlawfully begotten, — the portion allotted being regu- lated by ancient custom or by law. The Athenian law-giver allowed five hundred drachmas, which was afterwards raised to one thousand. Such as had neither legitimate nor adopted children were succeeded by the next of kin. The Grecian practice concerning wills was not the same in all places; some states permitted men to dis- pose of their estates ; others wholly deprived them of that privilege. We are told by Plutarch that Solon is much commended for his law concerning wills ; for before his time no man was allowed to make one, and all the wealth of deceased persons belonged to their families; but Solon permitted them to bestow it on whom they pleased, esteeming friendship a stronger tie 46 TENURE AND TOIL. than kindred, and affection than necessity, and thus put every man's estate at his own disposal, yet he allowed not all sorts of wills, but required the following con- ditions in all persons that made them : 1. That they must be citizens of Athens, not slaves or foreigners ; for then their estates were confiscated for the public use. 2. That they must be men who have arrived at twenty years of age ; for women, and men under that age, were not permitted to dispose by will of more than one medimnus of barley. 3. That they must not be adopted ; for when adopted persons died without issue, the estates they received by adoption returned to the relations of the man who adojjted them. 4. That they should have no male children of their own, for then their estates belonged to them. If they had only daughters, the persons to whom the inheri- tance was bequeathed were obliged to marry them. Yet men were allowed to appoint heirs to succeed their chil- dren, in case these happened to die under twenty years of age. 5. That they should be in their right minds, because testaments extorted through the frenzy of a disease, or dotage of old age, were not in reality the wills of the persons that made them. 6. That they should not be under imprisonment or other constraint, their consent being then only forced, nor in justice to be reputed voluntary. 7. That they should not be induced to it by the charms and insinuations of a wife ; for (says Plutarch) THE HEROIC AGE OF GREEOE. 47 the wise law-giver, with good reason, thought that no difference was to be put between deceit and necessity, flattery and compulsion, siuce both are equally power- ful to persuade a mau from reason. Wills were usually signed and sealed in the presence of several witnesses, and were then placed in the hands of trustees, who were obliged to see them performed. At Athens some of the magistrates, particularly the astynomi (public magistrates) were often present at the making of wills. Sometimes the archons (the chief magistrates) were also present; hence we are told by Harpocration and Suidas, that when anything was given in the presence of the archons, it was termed dosis (gift) ; for this word though commonly taken for any sort of gift or present, yet was by the Athenian orators peculiarly applied to legacies and things disposed of by will. Sometimes the testator declared his will before sufficient witnesses without committing it to writing. Thus Callias, fearing to be cut off by a wicked con- spiracy, is said to have made an open declaration of his will before the popular assembly at Athens. The same was done in the nuncupative wills at Rome. CHAPTER yil. THE HEROIC AGE OF GEEECE. Let us return for the moment to the heroic age in Grecian history, and we find the people divided into three distinct classes. The nobles, who were much ex- 48 TENURE AND TOIL. alted above the rest of the community in honor, wealth, and power, and being the sole possessors of slaves during this era, were distinguished by their prowess, their large estates, and numerous slaves. But slavery was less prevalent during this period than in republican Greece. The common freemen, who possessed portions of land as their own property and a class of poor freemen called Thetes, who, though not the possessors of land, were still free and worked for hire on the estates of the others. Among the freemen we find a certain class of professional persons whose acquirements, attainments, and knowledge raised them above those of their class and procured for them the respect of the nobles, such as the seer, the bard, and also the smith and the car- penter, since the knowledge of the mechanical arts in that age was confined to but a few. Still it was not considered derogatory to the dignity of the nobles, or even the kings, to be skilled in the manual arts, for Ulysses is represented as building his own bedchamber and constructing his own raft, and he boasts of being an excellent mower and ploughman. Agriculture was extensively practised, vineyards care- fully cultivated, and property in land was transmitted from father to son. The third class was that of the slaves, who were vastly more numerous in republican Greece than in former times. As -time passed by and republics rose and fell in Greece, and the poorer classes became deeply involved at the time of Solon, we find two classes, the rich and the poor. The latter ready to rise in open insurrection. THE HEROIC AGE OF GREECE. 49 for many had been sold into slavery for debt, and their property as well as their persons taken as security for the principal and interest. Solon passed an ordinance which cancelled all contracts by which the land or per- son had been given as security for a debt; thus the land was relieved from all claims and incumbrances, and all persons were; set at liberty who had been re- duced to slavery on account of their debts. He pro- vided for the return home of all persons who had been sold into foreign countries. He forbade all loans in which the person of the debtor was pledged as security ; thereby releasing the poorer classes from their diffi- culties. He relieved the debtors by lowering the standard of coinage so that they were saved rather more than one-fourth in every payment. The title of the citizens to the honors and offices of the state was henceforward regulated by their wealth and not by their birth. He divided the people into four classes accord- ing to their property, which he caused to be assessed. He instituted courts of judicature wherein the resur- rected rights of the private citizen might be vindicated, and consequently many forms of actions suitable to the enforcement of these rights respectively grew into prac- tice. These different forms of action, though rude at first, acquired a high degree of perfection under the system of adjudication inaugurated by Solon, and they became the established means whereby the various wrongs were righted, and it would seem from the well- established system that there was scarcely "a wrong without a remedy." Whenever daughters inherited the estates of their c d 5 50 TENURE AND TOIL. parents they were obliged by law to marry their nearest relation, and by a form of action for an inheritance, persons of the same family, each member of whom claimed to be more nearly allied to the heiress than the rest, sought to establish his claim. Among these forms of actions, those used for the recovery of rent and pos- session, and that in the nature of our ejectment, were very prominent. There was one form of action where the plaintiff laid claim to the house for the rent; another form if he claimed an estate in the land. If the plaintiff cast his adversary in either of the former suits, he then entered a second action against him whereby he laid claim to the house or land as being a part of his estate. And after this, if the person in possession remained obstinate and would not deliver up the estate to the lawful owner, there was a third action commenced, in the form of an action for contempt of court, which was in effect to eject him from the prem- ises and place the lawful owner in possession who had been hindered from entering upon his estate. CHAPTER VIII. ROMAN POLITY. Giving no credence to the legends of -^neas's escape from the flames of Troy, bearing upon his shoulders his father, Anchises, the punishment of the vestal vir- ROMAN POLITY. 51 gin who gave birth to Eemus and Romulus, the mi- raculous preservation of these two boys, who were ordered to be consigned to the waters of the Tiber, the treachery of Romulus towards his twin-brother, and the founding of the city which was to become famous for all time, history attributes to Romulus the founding of all the early institutions of Rome, — social, political, and military. In the social state the population was di- vided into two classes, burgesses or citizens on the one hand, and on the other their clients or dependents. The burgesses were called patrons in relation to their clients. These patrons were required by law or custom to defend their clients from all wrong or oppression on the part of others, while the clients were bound to render cer- tain services to their patrons. So that the relation of patron and client in some degree resembled that of lord and vassal in the feudal times. The burgesses alone enjoyed all political rights, and they alone made up what was at this time the body politic of Rome. The citizens or burgesses of the political state were divided into three tribes, the Ramnenses, the Tatienses, and Luceres. The first had its name from Romulus, the second from the Sabine king, and the third from the lucus or grove where the asylum stood, and where the knights of this century had formerly dwelt. Each tribe was divided into ten curias or wards, and each curia had a chief officer or priest called its curio. Tiie citizens or burgesses met according to their curiae in the comitium to vote in all matters of state which the king was bound to lay before them, and their assembly was called the Comitia Curiata or assembly of the 52 TENURE AND TOIL. curias, and all matters were decided by the majority vote of the curiae. No law could be made without their consent. Nor was the sovereign power of the king considered legally established until it had been conferred by the curiae. By virtue of the sovereign power so conferred, the king held the chief command in war, and was supreme judge in matters of life and death, and in token thereof he was attended by twelve lictors, bearing bundles of rods, with sharp axes pro- jecting from the middle of them. Besides this as- sembly, Romulus nominated one hundred senators as an advisory council, who were styled Fathers from their honorable office, and their descendants Patricians. In every struggle for liberty, in all the revolutions brought about by the various changes of government from Romulus until the decline and fall of the Roman empire, the curiae exercised a controlling power in the political state. It gradually became the assembly of the people through which the commoners in their re- spective tribes elected the tribunes and consuls. That the nature of the tenure by which property was held in Rome under the government of the kings bore a striking resemblance to that which existed under the feudal system will be seen from the institutions es- tablished by Servius T^ullius. He instituted the cen- sus, " an ordinance," says Livy, " of the most salutary consequence in an empire that was to rise to such a pitch of greatness, according to which the several ser- vices requisite in war and peace were to be discharged, not by every person indiscriminately, as formerly, but according to the proportion of their several properties. ROMAN POLITY. 53 He then, according to the census, formed the plan of the classes and centuries, and the arrangement which subsists at present,* calculated to preserve regularity and propriety in all transactions either of peace or war." He divided the Roman citizens into six classes. Tiie first class consisted of those wlio possessed at least a hundred thousand sera (the sera were Roman coins, one hundred thousand of which would be about equal to fifteen hundred and seventy dollars), and was composed of eighty centuries ; forty elder (the elder consisted of those who had attained to forty-six years of age) ; and the same number of younger (the younger from seven- teen to forty-six). The business of the elder was to guard the city, that of the younger to carry on war abroad. The second, third, fourth, and fifth classes were established according to their respective wealth. Then follows minute regulations in regard to the arms and equipments that they were required to provide, which show how nearly the feudal system was copied from these ordinances. The agrarian system was the cause of continual discontent among the plebeians, and of incessant dissensions and internal warfare between them and the landed aristocracy. And under the third consulship of Spurius Cassius, an agrarian law was first proj5osed looking to an ad- justment of the difficulties between the classes and the increase of the political independence of the plebeians. Liddell, in his " History of Rome," speaking of these * Livy was born fifty-eight years before, and died seventeen years after, the birth of Christ. 54 TENURE AND TOIL. laws, says that " great mistakes formerly prevailed in the nature of the Roman laws familiarly termed agrarian. It was supposed that by these laws all land was declared common property, and that at certain in- tervals of time the state assumed possession and made a fresh distribution thereof to all citizens, rich and poor. It is needless to make any remarks on the nature and consequences of such a law, sufficient it will be to say, what is now known to all, that at Rome such laws never existed, — never were thought of. The lands which were to be distributed by agrarian laws were not private property, but the property of the state. They were, originally, those public lands which had been the domain of the kings, and which were increased whenever any city or people was conquered by the Romans, because it was an Italian practice to confiscate the lands of the conquered, in whole or in part, to the use and benefit of the conquering people.'^ At this time the patrician burgesses in effect constituted the populus, and they had occupied, the greater part, if not all, of this public land, which consisted of pasturage ; and it was manifest that if the jDlebeians could add to their small farms, which were mostly in tillage, the right of pasturage on the public lands, their means would be much increased, and they were likely to be- come much less dependent upon the wealthy patricians. Passing from this general to a more particular view of Roman history with respect to property, we find that the private rights of Roman citizens were first, the right of liberty ; second, the right of family ; third, the right of marriage; fourth, the right of a father; ROMAN PROPERTY RIGHTS. 55 fifth, the right of property ; sixth, the right of makiug a will and succeeding to an inheritance ; and seventh, the right of tutelage or wardship. As the right of property is the subject of discussion, it is unnecessary to consider the other rights which pertain to the citizen in this connection. CHAPTER IX. EOMAN PEOPEETY EIGHTS. Things, with respect to property, among the Romans were variously divided. Some things were said to be of divine right, others of human right; the former were called sacred, as altars, temples, or anything pub- licly consecrated to the gods by the authority of the great pontiff. Things of human right were called profane, and were either public and common, as the air, running water, the sea and its shores, etc., or pri- vate, which might be the property of individuals. The things in which a whole society or corporation had the property, and each individual the use, were called the property of the people, as theatres, paths, highways, and the like. Property was also divided, as in the present time, into movable or immovable, corporeal or incorporeal, etc. Property was either res mancipi or neo mancipi. The locality of the property and not the property itself made the distinction. Hes mancipi were things which were alienated by mancipatio. They in- 56 TENURE AND TOIL. eluded lands, houses, slaves, domestic animals, etc., on Italian soil which might be sold and alienated, or the property of them transferred from one person to another. And it behooved the seller to be answerable for them to the purchaser to secure the possession. NeG mancipi res were those things not comprised in the foregoing class, or, more properly speaking, those things which were exh^a solum, — beyond the confines of Rome proper, and not governed by its law and custom. The modes of acquiring property were as follows: The sale and transfer of the property of the res mancipi was made by an imaginary sale, in which only Roman citizens could take part. It was effected in the presence of not less than five witnesses, who were Roman citizens of the age of puberty. The civil law fixed the age of puberty at fourteen years in males and twelve in females. At this sale there was also a person of tlie same condition to hold a pair of scales, the purchaser taking hold of the property or something taken from the property if it was not capable of manual delivery, and affirming it to be purchased by him with the scales and a piece of copper. He then struck the scales witli the copper, delivering the copper to the seller by way of earnest money. Cicero commonly uses the word mancipium to imply the sale or transfer of property, conferring absolute and indefeasible title, and uses the word nexus to imply the deposit or transfer of property by way of pledge. Movable property was also sold or transferred by the parties coming before the prsetor or president of the province, who adjudged it to the persons who claimed it, which generally occurred in ROMAN PROPERTY RIGHTS. 57 the case of debtors, who, when insolvent, gave up their goods to their creditors. The word usucaptio or usu- capio was used to denote the property of a thing ob- tained by possessing it for a certain time without interruption : according to the law of the Twelve Tables, for two years, if it was a farm or immovable thing, and for one year if the thing was movable ; but afterwards possession for a longer time was necessary before the right of property accrued by prescription ; in some of the provinces ten, twenty, or in certain cases a number of years beyond remembrance. Before the adoption of the Twelve Tables, the Roman law did not recognize the right of private testamentary dispo- sition. The law prior to this period prescribed the rule of succession, which a private citizen was not permitted to alter. A citizen who was without issue could not constitute a stranger as his heir or successor without the sanction of the legislative assembly called the Comitia Calata. Anciently, wills were made in time of peace in the Comitia Curiata, which were convened biennially for the making of wills, but the testament of a soldier might be made in the presence and hearing of four of his fellow-soldiers as witnesses before engaging in bat- tle, and these wills were only valid while the expedi- tion lasted. As the Comitia for making wills con- vened only once in two years, persons in fear of immi- nent death mancipated their estates to some friend per ses et libram. (A formality of sale by which the seller, in token of the bargain being struck, put a weight into the balance, or more properly the purchaser struck the 58 TENURE AND TOIL. scales with a piece of copper and then delivered the copper to the vendor by way of purchase money.) These two forms gradually fell into disuse after the adoption of the Twelve Tables, and thereafter the testa- tor alienated his estate to some friend, who was called familise emptor, whose duties were somewhat analogous to that of a trustee. The alienation or imaginary sale took place in the presence of five witnesses, a libripens and antestatus, and the sale having been duly made per ses et libram, the testator holding up the wax tablets in his hand upon which he had written his will, he stated orally his wishes and said. Usee uti in his tabulis cerisve scripta sunt ita do, ita lego, iia testor, itaque vos Quirites testimonium prcebitote. The antestatus then stepped forward and touched the ears of the witnesses, but neither their seals nor signatures were required. It is said that Servius Tullius was the author of the first agrarian regulations ; that he divided part of the domain land among the poorer plebeians at the rate of four-and-a-half acres to the man ; but whether these assign- ments of land had taken effect, and whether the proposal of Spurius Cassius was merely intended to carry them into execution, or was an additional law of the same character, we have no means of judging. Upon either supposition the relief of the plebeians would be of the same kind. The patrician burgesses did not oppose the enactment of the law because they thought that it would be more easy to thwart its execution than to prevent its adoption. As soon as Spurius Cassius laid down his consulship, the patricians, by intrigues and com- binations, rendered the law ineffectual, and, as a conse- ROMAN PROPERTY RIGHTS. 59 quence, whenever Rome was not at war with neighboring nations, a state of civil commotion bordering upon in- surrection and rebellion existed among the classes, until at length, under the consulship of Spurius Tarpeius and Alus ^ternius, about three hundred years after the foundation of Rome, an embassy was appointed and sent to Athens to procure a copy of the famous laws of Solon, and to make themselves acquainted with the laws, customs, and institutions of the other states of Greece. These ambassadors spent a year in Greece, and upon their return to Rome submitted a report embody- ing the result of their observations and investigations to the senate, which chose ten of its members to draw up a body of laws based upon the report of the em- bassy, and then communicate the work to the senate and people for their approbation and confirmation. The decemvirs, having devoted a whole year to this great work, presented, as a result of their labors, the Ten Tables in the open forum, which were afterwards ap- proved by an express decree of the senate and con- firmed by the unanimous voice of the Roman people, voting in an assembly of the centuries. These Ten Tables, which are simple maxims or fundamental princi- ples, constituted the basis or ground- work of the Roman civil law. The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth tables deal with questions relating to property. They are as follows : TABLE V. OF INHERITANCES AND GUARDIANSHIPS. I. After the death of a father of a family, let the disposition be made of his estate, and his appointment concerning the guardianship of his children be observed. 60 TENURE AND TOIL. II. If he dies intestate, and has no children to succeed him, let his nearest relation be his heir ; if he has no near relation, let a man of his own name be his heir. III. When a freedman dies intestate, and without heirs, if his patron be alive, or has left children, let the effects of the freedman go to the family of his patron. IV. After the death of a debtor, his debts shall be paid by his heirs, in proportion to the share they have in his inheri- tance. After this they may divide the rest of his effects, if they please, and the Praetor shall appoint three arbitrators to make the division. V. If a father of a family dies intestate, and leaves an heir under age, let the child's nearest relation be his guardian. VI. If any one becomes mad, or prodigal, and has nobody to take care of him, let a relation, or, if he has none, a man of his own name, have the care of his person and estate. TABLE VI. OF PROPERTY AND POSSESSION. I. When a man conveys his estate to another, let the terms of the conveyance create the right. II. If a slave, who was made free on condition of paying a certain sum, be afterwards sold, let him be set at liberty, if he pay the person wh(^ has bought him the sum agreed upon. ■ III. Let not any piece of merchandise, though sold and de- livered, belong to the buyer till he has paid for it. IV. Let two years' possession amount to a prescription for lands, and one for movables. V. In litigated cases the presumption shall always be on the side of the possessor. And in disputes about liberty or slavery, the presumption shall always be on the side of liberty. TABLE VII. OF TRESPASSES AND DAMAGES. I. If a beast does any damage in a field, let the master of the beast make satisfaction, or give up his beast. ROMAN PROPERTY RIGHTS. Q\ II. If you find a rafter or a pole wliich belongs to you in another man's house or vineyard, and they are made use of, do not pull down the house, or ruin the vineyard, but make the possessor pay double the value of the thing stolen, and when the house is destroyed, or the pole taken out of the vineyard, then seize what is your own. III. Whoever shall maliciously set fire to another man's house, or an heap of corn near his house, shall be imprisoned, scourged, and burnt to death. If he did it by accident, let him repair the damage. And if he be a poor man, let him be slightly corrected, etc. TABLE VIII. OF ESTATES IN THE COUNTRY. I. Let the space of two and a half feet of ground be always left between one house and another. II. Societies may make what by-laws they please among themselves, provided they do not interfere with the public laws. III. When two neighbors have any disputes about their grounds, the Praetor shall assign them three arbitrators. IV. When a tree planted in afield does injury to an adjoin- ing field by its shade, let its branches be cut off" fifteen feet high. V. If the fruit of a tree falls into a neighboring field, the owner of the tree may go and pick it up. VI. If a man would make a drain to carry off" the rain- water from his ground to his neighbor's, let the Praetor appoint three arbitrators to judge of the damage the water may do, and prevent it. VII. Roads shall be eight feet wide where they run straight, and where they turn, sixteen. VIII. If a road between two fields be bad, the traveller may drive through which field he pleases. It would be unprofitable in this connection to go over the different changes which took place in the Koman 6 62 TENURE AND TOIL. civil law with regard to the right of property, the mode of its transfer, and testamentary disposition, from the adoption of the Twelve Tables to the collection and codification of the Roman civil law under the Emperor Justinian.* From tradition, from history, from legis- lation, it will be seen that the right of private property in Rome was a right which grew out of immemorial usage, a right sanctioned by custom and held inviola- ble in law. CHAPTER X. A E:fiSUM]&. Feom the Scriptures, from profane history, and from the writings of men who have given special study to the evolution of the right of property, we learn that among all tribes and peoples, sufficiently civilized to cultivate the lands, that the right of individual owner- ship in property has been and is recognized, but in each case, so long as they maintained their tribal institutions, the right of the individual to dispose of the land al- lotted to him was restricted to transfers between the members of the same tribe. He could not alienate his possession and title, — that is to say, he could not dis- pose of it in such a way as to vest an absolute title in * The most ample provisions are found in the Institutes of Justinian, compiled about the year a.d. 533 by Tribonian and others for the protection and preservation of individual rights of property. A RESUME. 63 a stranger not of his tribe. This restriction did not destroy the right of ownership in land nor the power of the individual to sell it for whatever price he could procure. The Mosaic law restricted the sale to a cer- tain number of years, that is, to the fiftieth or Jubi- lee year, when it returned to its original owner, and under the tribal system the sale was restricted to mem- bers of the tribe. The same in effect as if a law of Illinois provided that no citizen of the State shall be permitted to sell his land to an alien for a period to exceed fifty years, and that no alien shall own or in- herit lands or tenements in the State of Illinois except for a temporary purpose. Such a law would not be contrary to individual rights of property, but, on the other hand, would be deemed wise and beneficent, pre- venting the lands from being owned and controlled by aliens who have no interest in the welfare of the State or its people except to collect the rent and tithes from their tenants in possession. Even in newly-dis- covered countries where there is any evidence of civili- zation we find individual ownership of land either absolute, qualified, or restricted, but in those countries where there is no approach to civilization, where ani- mal instincts -still dominate the mind, where rings dangle from the nose to ornament the face, where pig- ments and paste besmear the countenance, where fig- leaf aprons or no aprons at all are worn, the fields lie in a state of nature, unploughed, uncultivated, unfruit- ful. Here the lands are worthless for agricultural purposes because they produce nothing. These peoples, during long-forgotten centuries, have followed the hunt 64 TENURE AND TOIL. and the chase, and in many instances we find that they had no more idea of a moral law or moral nature than the beasts of the forest or the fishes of the sea, where the stronger kills and eats the weaker and the larger swallows the smaller. On the contrary, wherever we find a high type of manhood, a tribe, or people plough- ing the fields, cultivating the soil, and living according to the command of God to Adam, " In the sweat of thy face, thou shalt eat bread," we also find individual ownership in land, that the land is valuable, and that every man may sell and receive for it an equivalent in money or goods. Men of the most profound learning and refined scholarship, whose lives have been spent in the study of books and who know little about the practical affairs of life or the real wants of society, betray an idolatrous veneration for Plato's Republic, the writings of Diogenes, Zeno, and others, who took Minos and Lycurgus for their models. True, it is said that " in the very bosom of corruption, Lycurgus regenerated Sparta and gave her a degree of strength and stability by which for a series of years she was enabled to wield the sceptre of Greece," but can we find in the vaunted laws of Lycurgus one rule of action that is commend- able, practicable, or grounded in the principles of natural justice? We are informed that Lycurgus found a greater part of the people so poor that they had not one inch of land of their own, while a smaller number of individuals were possessed of all the lands and wealth of the country, and in order to punish indolence, envy, fraud, luxury, and to prevent A RESUME. 65 extreme poverty and excessive wealth, he persuaded the citizens to give up all their lands to the common- wealth and to make a new division of them that they might all live together in perfect equality, and that no preferences or honors should be given save to virtue and merit. This scheme Lycurgus put into execution partly by persuasion, partly by force, by dividing the lands of Laconia into thirty thousand parts, which ho distributed among the inhabitants of the country, and the territories of Sparta into nine thousand parts, which he distributed among an equal number of citizens, and having met with great opposition in effecting a division of all their movable goods and chattels, he resorted to the expediency of demonetizing gold and silver, and made iron alone current money, so that it required a cart and two oxen to carry home a sum of money equivalent to twenty pounds sterling or to one hundred dollars. In accomplishing these ends, Lycurgus con- verted Sparta into a military camp, armed his fellow- citizens, and made them a nation of warriors and soldiers. He destroyed her commerce, prohibited the cultivation of the arts and sciences, demonetized her cur- rency, and made her a nation of slaves and Helots over whom the privileged few might domineer as though they were cattle and shoot them down as dogs. Let those who may laud the laws and institutions of the mythi- cal Lycurgus. It occurs to the writer that they should be considered fit only for Hottentots or Tartars. Rollin, the scholar, the thinker, the historian, in his reflections upon the government of Sparta and the laws of Lycurgus, says, " The design formed by Lycurgus e 6* 66 TENURE AND TOIL. of making equal distribution of the lands among the citizens, and of entirely banishing from Sparta all lux- ury, avarice, lawsuits, and dissensions, by abolishing the use of gold and silver, would appear to us a scheme of a commonwealth finely conceived in speculation, but utterly impracticable in execution, did not history as- sure us that Sparta actually subsisted in that condition for many ages. " When I place the transaction I am now speaking of among the laudable part of Lycurgus's laws, I do not pretend it to be absolutely unexceptionable ; for I think it can scarce be reconciled with that general law of nature which forbids the taking away one man's property to give it to another ; and yet this is what was really done upon this occasion. Therefore, in this affair of dividing the lands, I consider only so much of it as was truly commendable in itself and worthy of ad- miration. " Can we possibly conceive that a man could persuade the richest and most opulent inhabitants of a city to resign all their revenues and estates, to level and con- found themselves with the poorest of the people, to subject themselves to a new way of living, both severe in itself and full of restraint ; in a word, to debar them- selves of the use of everything wherein the hai)piness and comfort of life is thought to consist? And yet this is what Lycurgus actually effected in Sparta." Imagine to yourself the people of a city composed of a million inhabitants depending upon public caterers to prepare and serve their morning coffee, noon luncheon, and evening meal. Yet historians, commentators, and A RESUME. 67 philosophers extol as not among the least of his laws that which compelled all the citizens, their wives and children, to eat at public tables. Such a custom might do in a small community clustered together, sheltered from the rays of a tropical sun, but how would it suc- ceed in New York or Chicago where the thermometer touches 30° below zero? " But who, to feed a jaunty coxcomb, "Would have an Abyssinian ox come ? Or serve a dish of fricassees. To clodpoles in a coat of frieze ?" Lycurgus before establishing his institutions jour- neyed into Crete, Egypt, and Asia Minor to study the manners, customs, and laws of those peoples. He per- suaded Thales, the Cretan poet, to proceed to Athens, where, by the influence of his poetry upon the under- standings and hearts of his countrymen, they might be gradually prepared for those alterations in government and manners which he was then contemplating. Not- withstanding the great wisdom, learning, and foresight of the law-giver, he was convinced that he could ac- complish but little by appealing to the understanding alone. He therefore availed himself of whatever the temper, the prejudices, and superstitions of the times afforded to insure the success of his undertaking. He journeyed to Delphi to> consult the oracle, and armed with the decree of divine sanction he unfolded his plans and established his laws among a superstitious people. Minos had persuaded the Cretans that his laws were delivered to him from Jupiter. Moses persuaded the 68 TENURE AND TOIL. Hebrews that the laws written by him on the tables of stone were traced there by the finger of God on Mount Sinai. Instances of other ancient legislators might be given in which they found it convenient to declare that their institutions were direct from the gods. For that self-love in human nature, which would but illy have borne with the superiority of genius acknowledged in an unaided law-giver, found an ease and satisfaction in adopting and submitting to his new regulations when presented as a gift from heaven. Among every people we discover an awe and reverence of the Divinity ; an homage and honor paid to him ; and an open profession of an entire dependence upon him in all their under- takings, in all their necessities, in all their dangers and adversities. Incapable of themselves to penetrate into futurity and to compel success, we find them careful to consult the Divinity by oracles, and by other methods of a like nature ; and to merit his protection by vows, prayers, and offerings. It is by the same supreme au- thority they believe the most solemn treaties are ren- dered inviolable. It is that which gives sanction to their oaths ; and to it by imprecations is referred the punishment of such crimes and enormities as escape the knowledge and power of men. In all their concerns, voyages, journeys, marriages, diseases, the Divinity is ever invoked. The main design of Lycurgus in establishing his laws, and especially that one which prohibited the use of gold and silver, was to curb and restrain the ambi- tion of his citizens ; to disable them from making con- quests, and to force them to confine themselves within A RESUME. 69 the narrow bounds of their own country without carry- ing their views and pretensions further. So long as the Spartans worshipped at the shrine of the law-giver with a superstitious veneration little less than that ac- corded to the Delphian god, they obeyed his laws and observed his ordinances. While this little republic which he founded remained in seclusion from the rest of mankind, its people were comparatively happy and contented. " Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small, He sees his little lot the lot of all." No gloomier picture than that presented by the mis- erable condition of the Helots of Sparta can be found in the world's history. Every mean device was adopted to reduce them below the level of beasts. They were even forced into a condition of drunkenness for the purpose of exhibiting them in sportive mockery to the Spartan youth, so that he might the more keenly detest their contemptible condition. It was customary for the most active and intelligent of the Spartan braves to go into the country and lie in ambush, armed with spear and dagger, and rush out from their hiding-places to murder the unoffending Helots, and those in whom any superiority of spirit or genius had been observed were singled out as the special objects of these fiendish and murderous attacks. Differing from Burn's conception of the cruelty of devils where he says, — "I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie, Ev'n to a deil, To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me, An' hear us squeel 1" 70 TENURE AND TOIL. the Spartans seemed to take pleasure in such devilish work, and Spartan institutions seemed to encourage it on the pretence that the Helots might revolt and fight for their freedom. The ambition of Spartan warriors could not long be confined to practising their lances upon the unoffending Helots. Like Rasselas, the prince of Abyssinia, confined in the happy valley, they longed to go beyond the confines of Spartan territory, to go abroad in the great world and measure spears and daggers and lances with foemen more worthy of their steel, with Messenians, Persians, and Athenians. Am- bition stimulated valor, and with valor came the love of conquest and its inseparable attendants, avarice and luxury. Sparta soon became intoxicated over the wealth which flowed into her from the plunder of sur- rounding states, and the institutions of Lycurgus van- ished as her wealth and commerce increased. Perished the institutions of this lauded law-giver, — institutions more detestable than feudalism, which no one can con- template without feelings of scorn and indignation. Rollin pertinently observes that, " In order to per- ceive more clearly the defects in the laws of Lycurgus, we have only to compare them with those of Moses, which we know were dictated by more than human wisdom. ... To begin, for instance, with that ordi- nance relating to the choice they made of their children, which of them were to be brought up, and which ex- posed to perish ; who would not be shocked at the un- just and inhuman custom of pronouncing sentence of death upon all such infants as had the misfortune to be born with a constitution that appeared too weak and A RESUME. 71 delicate to undergo the fatigues and exercises to which the commonwealth destined all her subjects ?" The puny infant who developed into the giant intel- lect of a Sir Isaac Newton, under the tender care, fond solicitude, and endearing love which our Christian civ- ilization inculcates in the mother, would have been consigned, when born, to undergo the sentence of death under the laws and institutions of Lycurgus, because he had the misfortune to be born possessed of a feeble constitution. I will not refer to those other model re- publics and political Utopias of which we read, because they would be deemed as barren of utility for this age and these times, as the laws and institutions of Lycur- gus would be considered inhuman and barbarous. BOOK II. THE ORIGIN, GROWTH, AND DECADENCE OF FEUDAL TENURES. CHAPTER I. THE VILLAGE-MAEK. I HAVE no disposition to question the theories ad- vanced by men of learning and research who contend that no vestige of the Roman laws and customs can be found in the existing laws of the Anglo-Saxons. I simply declare that the history of Rome is the history of "The Western Empire," the empire of Charlemagne. Wipe out Roman history, Roman laws, Roman customs, and Roman civilization, and what remains to guide us in our investigations? Nothing. In ancient, differing from modern, times, the country was cultivated by the inhabitants of towns and villages. That Rome which became the seat of empire, the centre of civilization, was, in its infancy, but a walled town on the Palatine Hill. The government of Rome was merely a con- federation of towns or villages. Ancient Italy is said to have contained over eleven hundred towns. Teutons, Franks, Gauls, and Britons, although regarded as bar- barians, lived in towns and villages. Gaul and Spain 72 THE VILLAGE-MARK. 73 could boast of towns and cities of some pretensions connected with each other and the capital of Rome by the imperial high-ways, — those marvels of Roman enter- prise and monuments of Roman civilization. The Teutonic towns were merely the aggregate of indi- viduals of each tribe or community held together by the ties of kinship or the necessity of mutual defence. Their edifices built of rough timber, thatched with straw and pierced at the top to leave a free passage for smoke, were not even contiguous. Men dwelt together in communities; it was their normal condition, and when they wished to migrate or change their place of habitation they moved in communities. These commu- nities were governed by well-known and, in some respects, salutary laws and customs. It would be an interesting but unprofitable undertaking to trace the history and recount the laws, customs, and manners prevailing in these village communities. Each tribe or community occupied a district or mark divided into three parts. First, The town or village, in which the dwelling- house and space surrounding was held by the heads of families in individual proprietorship. This was the estate that descended to the sons, or went in the male line. It was called Salic land, because the mansion of a German was called sal, and the space enclosing it salbao, — the homestead. When the Franks issued from their own country, and gained possession in Gaul, they still continued to give to their new settlements the name of Salic land ; and hence, the law of the Franks that regulated the course of descent was called the Salic law. 74 TENURE AND TOIL. Secondly, There was the arable portion, or the district of cultivated land, in which separate plots were held, for a time, at all events, in severalty, by individual members of the tribe or community, subject to certain established regulations as to common, cultivation, enjoy- ment, and the like. Thirdly, There was the common or waste land not appropriated to individuals at all, on which the whole community had rights of pasturage; and also, vary- ing in different localities according to the nature of their surroundings, there was the right of fishing in the waters and of hunting in the forests, and also the right of turbary, — the right to dig turf for fuel on' the bog-land. The peasantry in European countries can find evidences of these ancient village-marks in every community, I am told, without the aid of learned treatises upon the subject. In Ireland, where the Feudal system never gained a footing, we can trace the village-mark to an absolute certainty. True, the worst agrarian system to be found anywhere exists there, but neither the invasion and settlement of the Danes, the plunder and rapacity of the Normans, nor the cruel, de- vastating wars of Elizabeth and Cromwell, could eradi- cate it. In the town-land of Springfield,* parish of Clon- davadog,t Barony of Kilmacrenan, Diocese of Raphoe, County of Donegal, Province of Ulster, Ireland, a Morier, a Laveleye, or a Sir Henry Maine could find in the attendant vestiges of collective property materials * The birthplace of the writer. ■|- Commonly called Fanad. THE VILLAGE-MARK. 75 for an interesting essay on early institutions or village communities. In that township, and no doubt in every township among the wild and picturesque mountains and valleys of Donegal, the village- mark has defied the mutations in the law of property, has withstood the changes introduced by conquerors and taskmasters, and resisted the ravages of time. The hut or straw- roofed cabin and the plot of ground surrounding, the long and narrow strips of arable land, the right of pasturage and the right to dig a certain quantity of turf, regulated by the amount of rent paid by the tenant, — these all remain as evidences of the village-mark, but the person in possession, and to whom the priliveges attach, has in them no vested or proprietary rights. Everything is held at the will or caprice of an absentee landlord. But this state of affairs does not add strength to the argument in favor of a community of property. Before the Norman invasion, Ireland had a well-defined code of laws known as the Brehon laws. According to these laws, each occupant of land ])elonged to a tribe, and he was liable in common with other members of his tribe to certain obligations, such, for example, as the support of aged members of the tribe, who had no children to support them ; he was also subject to discharge his proportionate liability of contracts entered into by others, when made with the consent of the tribe. As his property was considered, to a certain extent, tribal property, he could not dispose of his individual interest therein until he first offered it to his nearest kinsman or some other member of the tribe. Similar restrictions are found attached to the enjoyment 76 TENURE AND TOIL. and transfer of tribal property wherever found. These restrictions might depreciate the vaUie, but did not materially interfere with the beneficial use and enjoy- ment of property. There was a time when the Roman empire included within its limits the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind, — when the gentle but powerful influence of her laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces, and the ])ublic administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of her emperors, Avho were content with main- taining the dignity of the realm without attempting to enlarge its limits. Guided by prudence and moderation, they invited the friendship of the surrounding nations, and for a time succeeded in convincing mankind that the Roman ]X)wer, raised above the temptation of con- quest, was actuated only by the love of order and jus- tice. Public virtue and patriotism guided the councils of the republic, and inspired the Roman troops to deeds of valor and renown. The golden eagle which glittered in front of the legion was the object of their fondest devotion ; nor was it deemed less impious than ignoble to abandon that sacred ensign in the hour of danger. Until the privileges of the Romans had been pro- gressively extended to all the inhabitants of the empire, an important distinction was preserved between Italy and the. provinces. The former was considered the centre of public unity and the firm basis of the consti- tution. Italy claimed the birth or at least the residence of the emperors and the senate. From the foot of the DISINTEGRATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 77 Alps to the extremity of Calabria, all the natives of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial dis- tinctions were obliterated, and they became moulded into one great nation, unified by language, manners, and civil institutions. The republic gloried in her generous policy, and was frequently repaid by the merit and ser- vices of her adopted sons. Some of the most illustrious names which make up the galaxy of her fame may be traced to the provinces. CHAPTER 11. DISINTEGEATION OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE. While the nations of the empire were almost im- perceptibly absorbed by the Roman name and Roman people, there still remained, in the centre of every province and of every family, a servile class who en- dured the burdens without sharing the benefits of society. The greater number of this class were barbarians, taken captive by thousands in war or purchased at a vile price. It was a maxim of ancient jurisprudence that a slave had no country of his own, although he acquired with his liberty an admission into that political society of which his patron was a member. The honorable dis- tinction of freedman was confined to those slaves only, who for just causes, and with the approbation of the magistrate should receive a solemn and legal manu- 7* 78 TENURE AND TOIL. mission. Even they obtained no more than the private rights of citizens, and were rigorously excluded from civil or military honors. Whatever the merit or for- tune of their sons, they likewise were regarded un- worthy of a seat in the senate; nor were the traces of a servile origin allowed to be completely obliterated until the third or fourth generation. It is said that four hundred slaves were maintained in a single palace at Rome, and also that a freedman during the reign of Augustus left behind him three thousand six hundred yoke of oxen, two hundred and fifty thousand head of smaller cattle, and four thousand one hundred and sixteen slaves. Slavery and democracy cannot long exist side by side. True democracy like true religion destroys castes and levels conditions. The abuse of the one leads to dis- order and anarchy, of the other to fanaticism and superstition. While true democracy was unknown to the Roman people and Roman institutions, neverthe- less it was through the spirit of democracy, however base, the slaves were enabled to make some advance- ments in their social and political conditions. Their grievances, long stifled by the voice of authority, at length found a responsive echo in the discontent of the soldier who became insubordinate from excessive indo- lence and contemptuous of power from excessive in- dulgence. As the civil authority was gradually usurped by the military, disintegration of the empire became manifest not only at Rome but in the prov- inces. Pomp and splendor sharpened the avarice, while luxmy and sensuality dulled the genius of the DISINTEGRATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 79 people. Personal valor, no longer nourished by the love of conquest or the pride of independence, became emasculated and the military spirit languished. Public patriotism became an article of bargain and sale, cor- ruption and bribery stalked at will through all avenues to justice, and ministers of the state became subservient tools in the hands of military marplots. Without a violation of the principles of the constitution, the gen- eral of the Roman armies might receive and exercise an authority almost despotic over the soldiers and the subjects, as well as over the enemies of the republic. The dictator or consul had the right to command the service of the Roman youth, and to punish disobedi- ence by the most severe and ignominious penalties, by confiscating his property and by selling his person into slavery. The right to declare war or to negotiate terms of peace was usually decided by legislative authority ; but when the arms of the legions were carried a great distance from Italy these responsibilities devolved upon the generals who were the accredited representa- tives of the emperor. When the crafty Augustus played the comedy of refusing the purple in order that its glory might be thrust upon him, he was authorized to retain his mili- tary command, supported by a numerous body of guards, even in time of peace, and in the heart of the capital. By thus introducing the Praetorian guards, as it were, into the palace and the senate, Augustus and his successors inspired them with a confidence in their own strength, and encouraged them to despise the weakness of the civil government ; to view the vices of 80 TENURE AND TOIL. their masters with familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe which only distance and mystery can inspire for imaginary power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their pride was nourished by a consciousness of irresistible weight, nor was it possible to conceal from them that the person of the sovereign, the authority of the senate, the public treas- ury, and the seat of empire were all in their hands. To divert the Prsetorian bands from these dangerous reflections, the firmest and best-established princes were obliged to mix blandishments with commands, rewards with punishments, to flatter their pride, indulge their pleasures, connive at their irregularities, and to pur- chase their precarious allegiance by liberal donations which, after the elevation of Claudius, was exacted as a legal claim on the accession of every new emperor. They maintained, and who was to resist their preten- sions, that according to a proper construction of the constitution their consent was necessary to the appoint- ment of an emperor. Incited by an insatiable greed for gain they violated the sanctity of the throne in the atrocious murder of Pertinax, and dishonored its ma- jesty by negotiating with Sulpicianus, the price to be paid for the imperial dignity. Apprehensive that, by private contract they would not obtain a just price for so valuable a commodity, the Praetorians ran out upon the ramparts, and with a loud voice proclaimed that the Roman world was for sale to the highest bidder at public auction. The vain old Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator, at the bidding of his family and para- sites, hastened to the Preetorian camp, and from the DISINTEGRATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, gl foot of tlie rampart openly bid against Sulpicianus, and became the suecessfiil purchaser by offering to each soldier a sum equal to about one thousand dollars. The Praetorian guard conducted the new emperor to the throne, and the senate, which though inclined, dared not to oppose, ratified his election, and conferred upon him all the several branches of the imperial power. The empire for a time survived, but never re- covered from this, tlie crowning insult of a long cate- gory of abasements heaped upon Roman valor and Roman virtue. Tyranny and murder, bribery and corruption, usurpation and rebellion, civil war and sedition convulsed the empire from centre to circum- ference. Tiie emperors, eager to uphold the tottering dynasty and to render more secure their own precarious title to the throne, had I'eceived into their service entire battalions from the ranks of the barbarians, and to recompense their services had assigned them large tracts of land in the frontier provinces. These mer- cenaries, devoid of those virtues which made the legions of the commonwealth models of discipline and valor, regarded the provinces as their property and the people as their prey. The ancient proprietors, deprived of the use of arms, overawed by the military, plundered by rapacious governors, and drained of their wealth by hordes of ruthless tax-gatherers, had neither the ability nor the inclination to resist the invaders from whom they had little to fear, because it would be difficult to render their condition more wretched. The strength of the empire, wdiich had always consisted in arms rather than in fortifications, was insensibly undermined, and / 82 TENURE AND TOIL. tlie fairest provinces were exposed to the rapaciousness or ambition of the barbarians who swarmed around the Roman world like vultures around their prey. CHAPTER III. GERMANIC FEUDALISM. Almost the whole of Northern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Lavonia, Prussia, and the greater part of Poland, were peopled by the various tribes of one great nation whose complexion, manners, and language denoted a common origin and preserved a striking resemblance. In the rude institutions of these barbarians, and especially those of the German tribes, we may still discover some traces of our present laws and manners. They were unacquainted with the use of letters and had no knowledge of those arts and sciences which gave to Greece and Rome immortal fame. They lived in camps or rude fortifications constructed in the centre of the wood. The game of various sorts with which the forests were plentifully stocked, supplied them with food and exercise. Numerous herds of cattle con- stituted their principal source of wealth. Corn (oats) and barley were the principal products which the land yielded. The care of the house and family, the man- agement of the lauds and cattle, were assigned to the old and the infirm, to women and slaves. The assem- bly of the warriors or freemen of the tribe was convened GERMANIC FEUDALISM. 83 at stated times or on sudden emergencies. The trial of public offences, the election of magistrates, and the great business of peace and war were determined by its independent voice. A general of the tribe was elected on occasions of danger, and if the danger was great or pressing, several tribes concurred in the choice of the same general. The bravest warrior was chosen to lead his countrymen to battle by his example rather than by his command. But his power, however limited, was still invidious. For they were so jealous of any encroachment upon their liberties that the authority which they conferred upon a chief, intended to meet a given emergency, terminated with the occasion which gave rise to it. Princes were appointed in a general assembly to administer justice, or rather to compromise differences in their respective districts, to dispose of the landed property therein, and to distribute it every year according to a new division. At the same time they were not authorized to punish with death, to im- prison, or even to strike a citizen. When the youths attained the age of manhood they were introduced as equals in the general council, and it was their pride to be numbered among the faithful companions of some renowned chief to whom they devoted their arms and services. To be ever sur- rounded by them was the pride and strength of the chiefs, their ornament in peace, their defence in war. In the hour of danger it was shameful for a chief to be surpassed in valor by his companions ; shameful for the companion not to equal the valor of his chief. To survive the chieftain's fall in battle brought lasting 84 TENURE AND TOIL. infamy to his chosen adherents. To protect his per- son, and to adorn his glory with the trophies of their own exploits were the most sacred of their duties. The chief fought for victory, the companions for the chief. Such were the characteristics and institutions of the barbarous tribes who in a few centuries overthrew the throne of the Csesars, caused a total change in the geography of the Roman provinces, reduced into feudal dynasties the Western Empire, and gave to every nation of Europe a new race of kings. Various causes had contributed to accelerate the downfall of the Roman empire, which it is unnecessary to discuss here. Suffice it to say that towards the close of the fourth century commenced that famous invasion which resulted in the downfall of the Western Empire. From the extremity of Scandinavia to the frontiers of Ciiina, nation after nation appeared, and although often repulsed and driven back beyond the confines of the empire, they returned in increased numbers and with renewed energy until the whole empire was dismembered, the older inhabitants plundered of their movable property, their estates confiscated, and themselves reduced to slavery. The barbarians who established themselves in tlie provinces, introduced the political institutions by which they had been governed in their native countries. These institutions partook of the nature of military democracies under a king or chief, generals and subordinate officers, who were elected or chosen to fill these offices by the freemen of the tribes. In the distribution of the spoils taken and in the division of GERMANIC FEUDALISM. 85 the estates coufiseated, the king himself could claim nothing but what fell to his lot. While he received a quantity proportioned to the dignity of his rank, he held it by no higher or different tenure than that by which the soldier in the ranks held the quantity al- lotted to him. The property so acquired by allotment is known in law diS, allodial, — that is, he to whom it was allotted was not only entitled to its possession and enjoyment, but he could dispose of it at pleasure or transmit it as an inheritance to his children. In this respect the warriors who followed the fortunes of their king not by constraint but from choice were his equals. It is quite difficult to determine whether the lands allotted to them were held according to the Roman laws or the laws and customs prevailing in their tribes. But as the land-laws of a country become, as it were, stamped u])on its soil, it is reasonable to assume that the Koman laws regulating the sale, transfer, and descent of real property, obtained for a time, at least, after her other institutions had perished. It was a rule among all ancient nations and tribes that the victor became the lawful owner of the enemy whom he had subdued, and over whom he had the power of life and death. As the vanquished inhabi- tants of the Roman provinces were reduced to a state of slavery in the allotment of the confiscated estates, the slaves residing upon them became the property of him to whom the land was allotted. The soldier who was always a freeman of the tribe took possession of his allotment as his own, and was under no obligation to take an oath of fealty to his king or chief as a con- 86 TENURE AND TOIL. dition upon which to receive it. Nor was such an oath exacted of him. We must look to a later period to find this peculiar investiture accompanying grants of real property. As the original proprietors were not all reduced to slavery, these allotments and distribu- tions of property were confined to those districts sub- dued and peopled by the invaders. In many districts of the provinces the original inhabitants joined the in- vaders in their warfare against the empire, or capitu- lated on satisfactory terms, and were permitted to retain their possessions upon rendering to the conquer- ors the tribute agreed upon. The incursions of the barbarians did not resemble the conquests of the Roman legions during the commonwealth. The latter, when they conquered a province, established therein Roman laws and institutions, but the raids of the former were made, in many instances, in quest of spoils and not of homes and habitations. The tribes who first settled in adjacent territories were connected by ties of consan- guinity, affinity, or hospitality with the provincials, officials, and former proprietors, and by treaties and agreements. A portion of the lands were left in the possession of their owners ; and, although this portion was abridged by each successive nation of invaders, yet it was many centuries before the whole transfer was completely effected. As states, like individuals, retain their identity though changed in their constitu- ent elements, neither the manners nor customs of tribes which inhabited the provinces prior to their conquest by the Romans, nor the Roman laws and jurisprudence ingrafted upon them, were entirely superseded by those ANGLO-SAXON FEUDALISM. §7 of the invaders. From these combined elements and the necessities of the times a new institution was evolved, which in process of time became known to the world as the Feudal System. CHAPTER IV. ANGLO-SAXON FEUDALISM. Among the states which rose on the ruins of the Roman empire, that of the Franks attained the most imperial greatness, and for several ages it sustained the character of being the most powerful kingdom in Europe. This monarchy, founded by Clovis, and ex- tended still more by his successors, embraced nearly all of Gaul and the greater part of Germany. The king- dom of Clovis was divided into a number of districts, each under the government of a count or duke whose duty it was to administer justice, preserve tranquillity, collect the royal revenues, and to lead when required the free proprietors into the field. These offices, con- ferred during pleasure or for a limited period, gradually became hereditary and proprietary. While the dis- tinction of birth was not entirely disregarded in those times, yet the aristocracy of wealth or of official posi- tion preceded it. A Frank of large estate was given the title of noble. If he wasted or was despoiled of his wealth his descendants fell into the mass of the people 88 TENURE AND TOIL. and the new possessor became noble in his stead. Only they whose parents were rich in possessions were considered noble by descent. In those times a pecuni- ary compensation was paid to the relatives of persons killed or murdered which was estimated according to the rank to which the deceased belonged, and from the diiferences made in the prices or amounts paid accord- ing to rank we must conclude that there existed the elements of aristocratic privileges. Wealth and pos- sessions being the essential prerequisites connecting eminent privileges with posterity, an ambitious prince could find little difficulty in supplying his favorites and sycophants with them by the grant of hereditary benefices. Besides the confiscated estates distributed in the general public allotments, already described, great tracts of country remained uncultivated and un- inhabited. These lands, which in process of time became known as " crown lands" or " royal domains," became the property of the government whether a monarchy, a democracy, or a commonwealth. These lands, located in different parts of the king- dom, not only formed the most regular source of the king's revenue but supplied him with the means of rewarding the services of favorites and of purchasing the friendship of those whose enmity he had reason to fear. The recipients of these royal bounties were more closely connected with the crown than were the allo- dial proprietors. The possessor of a benefice was bound to serve his sovereign in the field, but, of allodial pro- prietors, only those whose property was of certain value were called upon for personal services. The ANGLO-SAXON FEUDALISM. 89 owners of these benefices carved out portions of them which they gave to their own favorites and retainers, and in this manner the custom best known by the name of " Subinfeudation" became universal. The oath of fidelity which favorites of royalty had taken, and the homage which they had paid to the sover- eign, they in turn exacted from their vassals. The essence of the compact between the lord and vassal was the reciprocity of service and protection. The abuse of benefices or fiefs was carried to such an extent by the Franks that almost all property had become feudal before the end of the tenth century. Not only grants of land and portions of large estates, but govern- ments, dukedoms, and counties, were conferred and held by this species of tenure. The consequence of this was that the great, by the allurement of fiefs or benefices, became devoted followers of the king, while the body of the nation sold themselves as retainers of the great. In the descending line of feudal bond- age, a condition of servitude existed which resembled, in some degree, the serfs of Russia or the negroes of the Southern States of the American Union about fifty years ago. These bondmen of the same race as their masters were called serfs and villeins.* No rest- * At a very early period after the Norman Conquest the name of slave disappears, and the lowest ranks in the rural districts were called villeins. There was a legal diiference between the villein in gross, whose bondage was to the person of the lord, and who could be sold and transferred from one to another the same as the American slaves before the war of the Rebellion, and the villeins regardant whose bondage was to the land and who could be sold 8* 90 TENURE AND TOIL. ing-place can be found in the depths of human degra- dation at which to fix the status of the serf, and as to the villein it seems that the lord could seize whatever he acquired or collected, or remove him from the soil at pleasure. The tenure bound him to what were called villein services, ignoble in nature and indeter- minate in degree ; the felling of timber, the carrying of manure, the repairing of roads for his master, who seems to have possessed an equally unbounded right over his labors and its fruits. Against his master he had no right of action ; because his indemnity in dam- ages, if he should have recovered, might have been immediately taken away. If he fled from his master's service, or the land which he held, a writ issued for his apprehension, and his master pursued and recov- ered his fugitive slave. His children were born to the same state of slavery. The same causes which led to the overthrow of feudal institutions brouglit about the freedom of these bondmen, and their condition up to this period need not be further discussed. The mode of warfare then universally practised ren- dered the lord independent of aid from his vassals and slaves. Battles were decided by steel-clad knights, who rode through the unprotected infantry as a modern reaper or mower sweeps through the wheat -field. It was their brother knights alone who either attracted only with the land which they held in villeinage. The one prob- ably represented a class taken in battle, carried away and reduced to slavery by their captors, the other a class of persons also con- quered but permitted to remain with their families upon the land to cultivate it for the benefit of their captors. ANGLO-SAXON FEUDALISM. 91 their notice or were deemed worthy of their hostility. The incursions of invaders, the ravages and rapacity of neighboring chiefs, provoked but little resentment while their victims were only the slaves of the country ; and the baron, secure in his well-fortified castle, beheld with indifference his villages in flames, and the long files of weeping captives who were carried off from beneath his ramparts. " Liberty, Equality, and Tranquillity," says Guizot, " were all alike wanting, from the tenth to the thirteenth century, to the inhabitants of each lord's domains ; their sovereign was at their very doors, and none of them was hidden from him or beyond reach of his mighty arm. Of all tyrannies, the worst is that which can thus keep account of its subjects, and which sees from its seat the limits of its empire. The caprices of the human will then show themselves in all their intolerable extravagance, and, moreover, with irresistible promptness. It is then, too, that in- equality of conditions makes itself more rudely felt ; riches, might, independence, every advantage and every right present themselves every instant to the gaze of misery, weakness, and servitude. The inhabi- tants of fiefs could not find consolation in the bosom of tranquillity ; incessantly mixed up in the quarrels of their lord, a prey to his neighbors' devastations, they led a life still more precarious and still more rest- less than that of the lords themselves, and they had to put up at one and the same time with the presence of war, privilege, and absolute power." Although slavery had existed in England prior to the Conquest, this species of feudal servitude was first 92 TENURE AND TOIL. introduced by William the Conqueror, and enforced in all its rigor and barbarity among the people. Within twenty years from the accession of William, almost the whole soil of England was parcelled out among his retainers and followers. The native proprietors who escaped with their lives from the scenes of rapine and tyranny which attended the conquest were reduced to serfs, villeins, and vassals. The name of Englishman became a reproach even in his own country, and none of the race was raised to any office of dignity for over a century. The native tongue was rejected as bar- barous; children were instructed in the French lan- guage, and even the cruel laws made for the persecu- tion of the Saxon were not understood by him as they were enacted and enforced in the language of the stranger. The detestable game-laws, the depopulating of whole districts to serve as hunting-grounds for royal pastime, were first enacted by William the Conqueror, who made the penalty for killing a stag or a wild boar — the loss of eyes — a greater crime than the killing of an Englishman ; "for William loved the great game," says the Saxon chronicle, " as if he had been their father." The intolerable exactions of tribute, the rapine of purveyance, the inequality of the nobility, the sale of wardships, the right to interdict the mar- riage of the daughters of vassals or to compel them to marry those who paid the highest sum into the royal exchequer, the forest laws, wager of battle, the extin- guishment of fires at the sound of curfew, — all these may be traced to Norman rule and Norman feudalism as established in England. This state of affairs which FEUDAL SERVITUDE IN ENGLAND. 93 the people long endured, might have riveted their chains for centuries, had not the Norman barons upon finding that the penalties of the rigid laws enacted for the punishment of the Saxon were visited upon them- selves, hoisted the standard of revolt, and on the plains of E-unnymede wrung from King John, Magna Charta, — the boast and pride of Englishmen, and the great bulwark of English liberty. CHAPTEE V. DECLINE AND OVERTHROW OF FEUDAL SERVITUDE IN ENGLAND. The contest which resulted in the concessions con- tained in Magna Charta was a contest between an un- scrupulous, tyrannical, and grasping monarch on the one side, and haughty barons, jealous of any infringe- ment of their ancient rights, on the other. The serfs and villeins composed probably nine-tenths of the pop- ulation of England, but their rights were not taken into consideration, and were not directly benefited by Magna Charta. These degraded human beings were beneath the notice of legislation, except in so far as it was concerned in defining their crimes and fixing their punishments. " No freeman shall be disseized nor imprisoned," etc., is the language of Magna Charta; yet long centuries elapsed ere the word " freeman" was 94 TENURE AND TOIL. construed to include every British subject. Indeed, it would seem that the last case of villeinage to be found in the law-books is as late as the fifteenth year of the reign of James I. I shall not attempt to fol- low villeinage in the several steps of its decline, it being sufficient here to note a few of the controlling causes which happily concurred, first, to check its prog- ress, and finally, to suppress it in England. The first of these was the influence of the Christian religion. After it became established. Christian princes bestowed large tracts of land upon religious houses in the divi- sion of conquered provinces. The prelates and abbots of these houses swore allegiance to the king or other superior, received the homage of their vassals, enjoyed the same immunities, exercised the same jurisdiction, and maintained the same authority as the lay lords among whom they dwelt. In these grants, the same as in grants of land made to the laity, villeins regardant, as they were called (meaning those who had been at- tached to a certain manor from time immemorial), to-" gether with their families and all the goods and chat- tels which they possessed, were conveyed and passed with the grant of the land. The religious houses were not only the first to emancipate the slaves which in this manner became their property, but " when the dying slaveholder asked for the last sacraments, his spirit- ual attendants regularly adjured him, as he loved his soul, to emancipate his brethren for whom Christ had died."* * Macaulay's History of England. FEUDAL SERVITUDE IN ENGLAND. 95 Many of the freedmen voluntarily remained under the shadow and protection of the monastery to which they had been attached in preference to facing the world on their own account, just as many southern slaves would not leave their kind masters though emancipated by the proclamation of President Lincoln. And it was upon the ecclesiastical estates to which they thus became attached that the first germs of industry and freedom began to spring. " While the vassals of the military proprietors were sunk in slavery, or lost in the sloth which follows so degraded a state, indus- try was reviving under the shadow of the monastic walls, and the free vassals of the religious establish- ments were flourishing in the comparative security of their protection." f The cruel custom of enslaving captives taken in war was also abolished through the influence of the Cliristian religion, which proclaimed the universal equality of mankind in the sight of heaven. Haughty barons, who would not agree to the absolute release of their slaves, might consider it mu- tually advantageous to enter into an undertaking with them that, after a stated time, in consideration of faithful service, they should receive their manumission. These undertakings were usually recorded in the lord's book or rolls of the manorial court. These and other obli- gations of a like nature, in process of time, developed into certain customary rights out of which immediately grew a species of land-tenure known as copyhold estates. Lords of generous dispositions granted indul- I Alison's History of Europe. 96 TENURE AND TOIL. gences which were either intended to be or readily be- came perpetual. Having time out of mind permitted their villeins and children to enjoy their possessions without interruption, in a regular course of descent, the common law, of which custom is the life, now gave them title to prescribe against their lords ; and, on per- formance of the same services, to hold their lands in spite of any determination of their lord's will. While great numbers of the villeins crept into freedom under the name of copyholders, many more became enfran- chised in a different manner. In many instances those whom the lord could not provide with labor, or supply with food and raiment, were permitted to go from place to place in search of employment. Such of them as were bound to cruel or unkind masters were not slow to make good their escape. If captured, the courts of justice took advantage of the slightest tech- nicality, and indulged every presumption in favor of the fugitive, so that his lord had little hope of carry- ing to a successful issue a suit for his recovery. Many causes and circumstances, both moral and phys- ical, contributed to bring about a change in the manners of the governing classes as well as in the mode of government, so that the disorders of feudal anarchy gradually disappeared. Religion, politics, civil com- motion, the black plague, the wars of the Roses, and many other causes which might be mentioned, re- dounded to the advantage of the inferior classes, and by a succession of fortuitous circumstances occurring during several generations before the middle of the fifteenth century, the serfs and villeins had gradually EXTIRPATION OF FEUDALISM IN FRANCE. 97 worked ont their own freedom through their relation to the lands. So that when James I. succeeded to the throne the whole system of personal and territorial servitude had virtually expired, and that able, daring, unscrupulous, and grasping prince hastened the down- fall of feudalism, already tottering to decay. He de- prived the feudal lords of the crown lands which they had usurped from his predecessors, confiscated the estates of some of the most audacious, whom he con- demned to execution, and strengthened the royal au- thority by humbling the power of the grandees and nobles. CHAPTEE VI. EXTIEPATIOlSr OF FEUDALISM IN FRANCE. There is no period in the world's history which furnishes so much food for intelligent thought and profitable investigation as do the three centuries pre- ceding the French Revolution. What great and salu- tary lessons may be drawn from a study of the lives of the men and the philosophy of the events which that period produced! It was the dawn of a new era, — the advent of a new civilization. If proof be want- ing to convince mankind that to establish a free and stable government, the subordinate holder of power must have a durable interest in the soil, it will be only necessary to study the relative conditions of the people -E. g .9 98 TENURE AND TOIL. of France and England during this period. The death of feudalism in England was so gradual, and its effects upon the people were apparently of such slow growth that it requires the closest researches of the historian to be able to fix the date of its complete extinction. But not so in France. The fires of discontent that had smouldered for centuries among the feudal slaves in France, now burst forth into a great conflagration which lighted the country from the Channel to the Pyrenees, and spread ruin and devastation all around. The desolation which it wrought in its expiring moments is its lasting monument. The best blood of France enriched the ashes of its pyre. The circumstances which contributed to the enfran- chisement of the serfs in England not only conferred upon them personal liberty, but attached to that lib- erty proprietary rights, which, if not valuable as a merchantable commodity, possessed a certain durability of which they could not be deprived on a moment's notice. Customary laws and usages added privileges to these proprietary rights which in process of time developed into hereditary tenures, at first transmissible from father to son, and subsequently transferable by gift or sale. The result was that the great body of the English people became comparatively contented with their condition, and strongly attached to the prin- ciples of a government which aiforded them not only personal freedom but the means of acquiring and en- joying property. And while we find occasional attempts at insurrection, induced by the arbitrary ex- actions and cruel oppressions of the feudal lords, the EXTIRPATION OF FEUDALISM IN FRANCE. 99 great revolutions of this period in England cannot be attributed to popular discontent arising from agrarian causes. If we look to France during the same period, no social or political advancement is discernible in the con- dition of her feudal vassals. Consigned to the abase- ment of feudal bondage, no prolonged and resolute effort was made by church or State to elevate or dis- enthrall them. No privileges were here sanctioned by usage or sanctified by law to ripen into personal or pro- prietary rights. The hounded fugitive found here no Asylsean or sanctuary, ancient borough or walled city, where he might halt with safety or tarry in security. The seal of servitude here was seldom broken through Christian love or human compassion. In his flight for freedom the weary slave here, as elsewhere, found refreshment and repose within monastic walls, but even there he M^as not beyond reach of his pitiless, powerful, and persistent pursuer. For many centuries these human beings were deprived of civil and political rights, without morals, without religion, without prop- erty ; beings more than cattle but less tlian men ; beings who had everything to gain but nothing to lose in the overthrow of order and the destruction of power ; beings who knew how to hate because never taught to love ; beings in whose breasts rankled the scorn of power, the disdain of religion to whom king and prince, baron and priest, were alike the subjects of attack, the objects of revenge. "When the supreme moment arrived which gave license to their pent-up fury, what could have been expected to follow but that 100 TENURE AND TOIL. vandalism of anarchy, that reign of terror, that night- mare of horror, that carnival of diabolism memorably and forever known as " The French Revolution." The morning of the seventeenth century saw a new era dawn for France when the giant intellect and mighty arm of Armand de Richelieu gave a new impetus to the world of thought, aroused anew the love of chivalry in the people, and restored to France her national fame and military glory. But it was not until the American Revolution, " When was fired the shot heard around the world," that the Sun of Free- dom rose to set no more on a land of feudal slaves. The people of France clamored long and incessantly to be restored to liberty and to be relieved from the thraldom and oppressions of their cruel and pitiless taskmasters. They were answered by the minions of power, in the name of the law, — driven to the galleys and consigned to the Bastile. The peasantry now formed leagues and societies in every election district, met in club-rooms and halls to discuss their grievances and organize in defence of their rights. Their protests and remonstrances but served to excite the ridicule of the nobility and clergy, who deemed themselves secure in the support of the military. A general election took place amid the greatest ex- citement. Mirabeau, rejected by the nobility, was the chosen representative of the commonalty. The states- general assembled at Versailles. The nobility and clergy refused to meet with the representatives of the people. Refused admittance to the legislative hall by a cordon of soldiers, the tiers-^tat repaired without a EXTIRPATION OF FEUDALISM IN FRANCE. IQ\ murmur to Tennis-Court. Those brave and deter- mined men assembled by the will of the people to do battle for constitutional government and the rights of man, endured with silent patience every aifront offered by the nobility, remained firm, unwavering, immovable in their purpose and betrayed not a trust. In the his- toric hall of Tennis-Court, with its dark and gloomy walls and rude floor, with no useless ornaments or costly furniture, the deputies of the people stood around a bench to deliberate on the affairs of state, found a new government for France, a charter of liberty for her people. No dilatory motions or puerile points of order were interposed to retard the progress of that solemn, thoughtful assembly of great and patriotic men, bound together by the sacred tie of love of country, determined never to separate " till the Constitution of the kingdom is established and founded on a solid basis." Induced by the intrigues of the nobility, the weak but well-meaning Louis XVI. undertook to dissolve the assembly. When the Marquis de Br§z6 made known to the tiers-6tat the mandate of the king, Mira- beau — brave, fearless, daring — rose up, and addressing the Marquis, said, " Go, tell your master that we are here by the power of the people, and that nothing but the power of bayonets shall drive us away." Danger threatened on every side. Alarm was pictured on every face as the National Guards surrounded the cap- ital, and all communication with Paris was cut off. The Assembly demanded a withdrawal of the mili- tary, but Louis hesitated, vacillated between the prompt- 9* 102 TENURE AND TOIL. ing of his own better judgment and the pressure brought to bear upon him through the machinations of the no- bility. Wild rumors of the dismissal of Necker, the Minis- ter of Finance, and of the imprisonment of the Assem- bly reached Paris. Consternation seized the populace. They wildly hurried to the Palais-Royal, where the mob was assembled, listening to the most inflammatory speeches. A young republican mounted the table, held up a pair of pistols, shouting, " To arms !" The hour arrived, the signal given, the pent-up fury of a nation long in chains wildly broke the seal of feudal bondage. "To the Bastile !" "Storm the Bastile !" was heard above the deafening noise and confusion of the frantic rabble. Onward they pressed amid showers of fiery hail from guards and pickets, from post and garrison. " On, then, all Frenchmen that have hearts in their bodies ! Roar, with all your throats of cartilage and metal, ye sons of liberty ! Stir spasmodically what- soever of utmost faculty is in you, — soul, body, or spirit ! Smite, thou Louis Tournay, cartwright of the Marais, old soldier of the regiment Dauphine ! smite at that outer drawbridge chain, though the fiery hail whistles around thee ! Never, over nave or felloe, did thy axe strike such a stroke. Down with it man ; down with it to Orcus; let the whole accursed edi- fice sink thither, and tyranny be swallowed up for- ever !" Fell that frowning monument of feudal bar- barism which stood for ages a menace to French liberty, — fell the Bastile, which the mighty Cond6 besieged EXTINCTION OF FEUDALISM IN PRUSSIA. 103 in vain, — fell that blood-stained tower, black with the crimes of centuries, before the frantic fury of the Revolutionists ! French vassals became citizens and peasant proprietors. France was free. Revolution made her free. CHAPTER VII. EXTINCTION OF FEUDALISM IN PRUSSIA. That period which marks the wane of the eigh- teenth and the dawn of the nineteenth centuries is a remarkable era in the world's history, — remarkable alike in the history of nations and in the progress of events. It is a period full of life, full of thought, full of social and political reforms, full of religious bitterness, full of warfare, full of commotion. At such a period, when the old landmarks had been over- thrown by the bitterness of the Reformation, and when all Europe was torn asunder by the wild passions en- gendered by the French Revolution, if we turn to Prussia we find the whole monarchy suffering from the devastating wars of Napoleon, whole villages laid waste, and whole districts depopulated. Agitation for land-reform, for civil and political liberty, and for felief from the exactions of the crown and the grasp- ing avarice of the nobility received a peaceful im- petus from the political and social revolutions now transpiring. Even the German serf dreamed of his 104 TENURE AND TOIL. long-lost possessions, and thought of the happy days long past when each bauer was a freeman. He too had now the hardihood to assert his rights, the nerve and will to fight for and maintain them. At this period the entire land of Prussia was dis- tributed among three classes of society, — nobles, peas- ants, and burghers. These classes were distinct castes, their personal status was reflected in the land held by them, and conversely, the land held determined the status of the holder. The noble could follow no avo- cation but that of his caste. The burgher had a monopoly of trades and industries, which, with some very limited exceptions were confined to the towns, and could not be exercised in the country. The military profession was closed to him as well as the higher civil employments. The condition of the peasant differed widely in the different provinces, but there was this feature common to all peasant-holdings that they were not isolated farms but united in a "commonalty," and these "commonalties" stood under the jurisdiction of the manor. The rural area of Prussia was divided into three districts, — the manorial district, consisting of demesne lands, cultivated by the manorial pro- prietor, and in which he exercised the functions of a police magistrate; the township of the peasant com- munity, with its arable mark and common mark, in which a schultze, usually an hereditary office, exer- cised the police authority in the name and under the authority of the lord of the manor and the different communities held by different kinds of tenure, varying in an ascending scale from those in which the allottees EXTINCTION OF FEUDALISM IN PRUSSIA. 105 were in a state of persocal villeinage with unlimited services, to those in which they were free settlers, who, though under the jurisdiction of the manor, and paying dues to it by virtue of that jurisdiction, were yet owners of their lots. The allottees were originally slaves, who settled upon the demesne lands, and had gradually emerged to the higher level of villeinage, and the free settlers were originally allodial owners of the land held by them, but who had surrendered their rights of full ownership to the manorial lords, but which they again received upon taking the oath of allegiance. As the nature of these tenures are elsewhere de- scribed it is unnecessary to go into further details here. Suffice it to say that the battles of Jena and Friedland, which led to the humiliating peace of Tilsit, hastened the consummation of events which led to the Edict of October 9, 1807, that struck the shackles from the slave and broke forever the yoke of feudal bondage in Prussia. While this edict removed the distinctions of castes, rent the fetters which bound them, allowed such rights as existed to be freely used, and broke down the barriers which separated from each other the diifer- ent classes of society, it created no new forms of prop- erty. It proclaimed freedom of exchange, but did. not point out the manner nor provide the means therefor. Peasants' lands could now be held indiscriminately by all the citizens of the state, but they were still held under the old forms of tenure; there were still two kinds of property. The lord was still owner of the peasant's land without the right of possessing it. The peasant was free, but was not master of his labors. 106 TENURE AND TOIL. The legislation of 1811 was intended to remedy tins state of affairs, and undertook to substitute allodial ownership for feudal tenures. The legislation of 1811 consisted mainly of two edicts, one entitled an "Edict for the Regulation of the Relations between the Lords of the Manor and their Peasants," the other, an " Edict for the Better Cultivation of the Land." The first is concerned with the new title-deeds for the peasant holders and the commutation of the services rendered in virtue of the old tenures. This had in view the adjusting of the equities between the lord of the manor and the peasant, and substituting allodial for feudal tenures. It would enlarge the scope of this work to too great an extent to discuss in detail all its provisions, and hence we will pass to the Act of 1850. This latter law abrogated the direct dominion or suzerainty of the lords of the manor without compensation ; so that from the day of its publication all hereditary holders throughout Prussia, irrespective of the size of their holdings, be- came proprietors, subject, however, to the customary services and dues which, by the future provisions of the law, were commuted into fixed money rents, calcu- lated on the average money value of the services and dues rendered and paid during a certain number of years preceding. By a further provision these rent- charges were made compulsorily redeemable, either by the immediate payment of a capital equal to an eigh- teen-years' purchase of the rent-charge, or by a pay- ment of four and a half or five per cent, for fifty-six and a twelfth or forty-one and a twelfth years on a EXTINCTION OF FEUDALISM IN PRUSSIA. 107 capital equivalent to twenty -years' purchase of the rent- charge. The law for the establishment of rent-banks pro- vided the machinery by which the peasants might redeem their property. The state, through the instrumentality of the rent- banks, constituted itself the broker between the peasants, by whom the rents had to be paid, and the landlords who received them. The bank established in each district advanced to the landlord in rent debentures, paying four-per-cent interest, a capital sum equal to twenty-years' purchase of the rent. The peasant, be- sides his ordinary rates and taxes, paid into the hands of the district tax-collector each month one-twelfth part of a rent calculated at five or four and a half per cent, on this capital sum, as he elected to free his prop- erty from encumbrance in forty-one and a twelfth or fifty-six and a twelfth years, the respective terms with- in which, at compound interest, the one or the half per cent, paid in addition to the four-per-cent. interest on the debenture, would extinguish the capital. This one per cent, and half per cent., when so utilized and hoarded by the government through these instrumen- talities constituted a kind of sinking-fund for the re- demption of the debenture or bond which the peasant gave to the landlord as the purchase-price of his prop- erty. Thus, by a wise and far-seeing policy engrafted by legislation upon German tenures, the peasantry secured their freedom, obtained an interest in the soil which they cultivated, and were transformed into loving and devoted citizens of a common fatherland. German 108 TENURE AND TOIL. wisdom, through masterly statesmanship, averted the danger which threatened the monarchy, and saved the country from the horrors which were brought about by the French Revolution. CHAPTER VIII. DECREMENT OF FEUDALISM IN EUSSIA. Russian noblemen were not great landed proprie- tors like the feudal barons of Western Europe. The lands which they held were usually allotted to them from the crown lands, and were cultivated by their slaves. To those noblemen who did not own slaves, the czar not unfrequently awarded the yield of the taxes due him from the peasants of one or more vil- lages. The peasants of the villages, like the nobles to whom they paid tribute in taxes, were the servants of the czar. The village, not the family, was the social unit. Movable property alone belonged to the indi- vidual. The land was the common j)roperty of the villagers. During the reigns of the Emperors Ivan III, and IV. a petty nobility fashioned after the feudal order was created in Russia. This nobility consisted partly of the courtiers or nobles whom the czars left in possession of the yield of taxes above alluded to, the servants of the czar who were in part taken from among the villagers themselves, likewise DECREMENT OF FEUDALISM IN RUSSIA. 109 endowed with the yield of taxes of one or more vil- lages, and the proprietors of such villages. It was not until the reign of Boris Godunow, the usurper, that the full weight of the mailed power of feudalism was felt by the peasants residing in villages, who uniformly hitherto enjoyed many political privileges. By a series of decrees issued by this emperor, from the year 1592 to the year 1606, the peasant was forbidden to quit his village M'ithout permission and passport from the village authorities. Any peasant found abroad without such permission was taken into custody, and sent back in irons and punished for his disobedience. During the seventeenth century the condition of peasant and slave was alike pitiful and degrading, and while, as early as the year 1797, the Emperor Paul restored to the peasants the right of electing their vil- lage heads, little progress was made towards improve- ment in their condition until the reign of the Em- peror Nicholas, who in the year 1842 issued his ukase permitting the proprietors of private estates to confer, by treaties, upon their serfs the rights and political privileges of farmers, the government vouch- ing for the farmer-serfs fulfilling the conditions under- taken by them. The idea being to ascertain what form of treaties would prove the most acceptable and beneficial to both parties, before framing a general com- pulsory measure embodying the contents of a pop- ular form of contract. He further re-enforced the law interdicting the sale of peasants without land by forbidding the transforming of peasants, first, into household slaves, in which menial condition it was per- 10 IIQ TENURE AND TOIL. mitted to buy and sell them, and second, forbade the sale of land without peasants, if by such sale the village acre was curtailed in such a way as to amount to less than twelve acres for every male villager. Finally, he issued regulations defining more specifically than before, how much labor, or how much payment in lieu of labor, in a variety of places, the peasant serf owed to his master. All measures hitherto adopted for the purpose of initiating and stimulating a voluntary abandonment of the serf-system on the part of the masters having proved ineffective, Alexander II., upon his accession to the throne, determined to eradicate serfdom from agrarian legislation. In striking contrast with the improvident policy pursued by the United States in emancipating the slaves of the South, turning them adrift, helpless and purposeless, abolishing their servile dependence upon their masters but failing to provide means or methods for their exercise or enjoy- ment of their independence, the Russian emperor incorporated in his proclamation abolishing serfdom measures dictated by wisdom and humanity, which enabled the disenthralled serf to make for himself a home in the land of his birth, and become owner of the soil he tilled. The legislation of Russia in 1861, which so happily and successfully solved this great problem, — at once social, industrial, and political, — reflects the highest credit upon Russian statesmanship. The Act of 1861 was based upon the assumption that a sudden and radical transition in the matter of compulsory rent payable in labor to the same payable in money was inadmissible even if it were possible for DECREMENT OF FEUDALISM IN RUSSIA, m each of the villagers to discharge their liabilities, and also that the preservation intact of a numerous peas- antry could be best assured by an acquiescence not only in a fragment of coercion in general but also in a rem- nant of compulsory labor, the law fixing its money equivalent. In adjusting the relative proportions of labor-rent and money-rent, and the time and manner of working out the former and of paying the latter, due care was taken not to do violence to the interests of the lord nor infringe upon the newly-vested rights of the liberated serf, or render him powerless to enjoy the benefits of the change of his condition. The transition from labor-rent to money-rent was made optional with the peasants, with the whole community, or with every single family, only two years after the law became valid, provided they were not in arrears for labor-rent. The money-rent to be paid by each male head of the population was determined not by the size or fertility of the land-share he was entitled to so much as by its location relative to distance from a market, the place of exchange. The most important, however, of the main pro- visions of the Act of 1861 is that which refers to the right of the peasants to purchase the copyhold on which they are living. They are compelled to accept the copyhold ; but, in compensation, the proprietor of the estate is compelled to accept their money, if they are able and willing to buy either each his own share, dissolving the community, or together the whole of the grant, continuing the community. This option left to them has been the subject of much controversy. The 112 TENURE AND TOIL. proprietors would have preferred to see the whole village do either the one or the other. Where the com- munity is not dissolved, and not inclined to purchase the land in common, each single peasant may yet assert his right of purchasing his own share, but on con- dition that he pays one-fifth more than the purchase- money otherwise would amount to. " Government has undertaken to assist the peasantry in purchasing the land by advancing, on the security of the 'obrok' collected by their agents, part of the necessary sum, amounting to four-fifths where the whole grant is purchased, and- to three-quarters where a part of it of certain size is purchased, in form of bonds of the Imperial Bank bearing five-per-cent. interest, or titles to rent, guaranteed, by government which afterwards are to be taken in exchange for such bonds of the bank. They are to be paid over at once to the proprietor of the estate or to his creditors. Only such peasants, of course, can receive the benefit of governmental assistance who have already turned the labor-rent into^obrok.' But government, always zealous in the interest of securing the existence of a numerous order of peasants, has placed another con- dition on their assistance. The purchase-money is only advanced in behalf of such peasants as consent to purchase the dwelling-houses and farm-yards with the land. This also will tend to lessen the number of cases — apprehended by the proprietors — of a part of the peasants in a village purchasing the houses and farm-yards with the land, and a part without it." BOOK III. THE EIGHT OF PEOPERTY AND THE STABILITY OF TENURES. CHAPTER I. THE EIGHT OF PROPERTY DEFINED. The right of property is not an absolute right which belongs to man as a natural being but a relative and restricted right, which arises from his social relations. Austin, treating of jus in rem (ownership) uses the terms " ownersiiip" or " property" as synonymous, and, referring to this term, he says that it is of such com- plex or various meaning that he does not undertake to accurately define it, but for his present purpose gives the following definition : " The right to use or deal with some given subject in a manner and to an extent which though not unlimited is indefinite." After dis- cussing the subject as thus defined, he says, " Ownership or property is therefore a species of jus in rem. It is a right residing in a person, over or to a person or thing and availing against other persons universally or generally." It will be perceived that this definition, as the author concedes, does not fully answer the pur- pose even in a technical sense, and it would but in- h 10* 113 114 TENURE AND TOIL. crease the difficulty to undertake to give a definition against which no objection can be urged. For all practical purposes, however, I may say that the right of property is a right which belongs to man as a mem- ber of society, and correlative to it, is the right in every man to use and enjoy that which is his, in such manner as he pleases, so that in the use and enjoyment thereof he does nothing that is hurtful to himself or to another. This right of property is a private right, a natural right, and a legal right. It is a private right because confined to the owner; it is a natural right because every member of society may enjoy it, and it is a legal right because it grows out of the common compact, and is sanctioned by universal usage at all times among all civilized nations and peoples. Dr. Wm. Paley, in his "Moral and Political Phi- losophy," speaking of property rights, very aptly says that " The real foundation of our right is the law of the land. It is the intention of God that the produce of the earth be applied to the use of man. This in- tention cannot be fulfilled without establishing prop- erty ; it is consistent therefore with his will that prop- erty be established. The land cannot be divided into separate property without leaving it to the law of the country to regulate that division. It is consistent therefore with the same will that the law should reg- ulate the division, and, consequently, 'consistent with the will of God,' or ' right,' that I should possess that share which these regulations assign me. " By whatever circuitous train of reasoning you at- tempt to derive this right, it must terminate at last in THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY DEFINED. II5 the will of God. The straightest, therefore, and short- est way of arriving at his will, is the best. " Hence it appears that my right to an estate does not at all depend upon the manner or justice of the original acquisition, nor upon the justice of each sub- sequent change of possession. It is not, for instance, the less, nor ought it to be impeached, because the estate was taken possession of at first by a family of aboriginal Britons, who happened to be stronger than their neighbors ; nor because the British possessor was turned out by a Roman, or the Roman by a Saxon invader; nor because it was seized without color of right or reason, by a follower of the Norman adven- turer, from whom, after many interruptions of fraud and violence, it has at length devolved to me. " Nor does the owner's right depend upon the ex- pediency of the law which gives it to him. On one side of a brook ah estate descends to the eldest son, on the other side to all the children alike. The right of the claimants under both laws of inheritance is equal, though the expediency of such opposite rules must necessarily be different." In chapter ii., Book VI., " Progress and Poverty," Henry George says : "To extirpate poverty, to make wages what justice commands, they should be the full earnings of the laborer, we must therefore substitute for the individual ownership of land a common ownership. Nothing else will go to the cause of the evil, — in nothing else is there the slightest hope. "This, then, is the remedy for the unjust and un- IIQ TENURE AND TOIL. equal distribution of wealth apparent in modern civili- zation, and for all the evils which flow from it. We must make land common property." This is the panacea which George would offer for all our social and political woes. "■ We have reached this conclusion," he says, " by an examination in which every step has been proved and secured. In the chain of reasoning no link is wanting and no link is weak. Deduction and induction have brought us to the same truth, — that the unequal ownership of land necessitates the unequal distribution of wealth." Evidently the links in the chain of reasoning by which George reached his conclusion were composed of sand and fashioned by the ocean's waves. Before establishing the truth by induction that the unequal ownership of land necessitates the unequal distribution of wealth, he infers by deduction that the remedy for this " and for all the evils which flow from it" is " to make land common property." The assumption that unequal distribution of land is of itself the cause of these evils is untrue, and any deduction drawn or conclusion reached from such an assumption must necessarily be false. What has the unequal distribution of land to do with stock-, grain-, and provision-corners which de- moralize trade and bankrupt individuals; with rail- road pools which rob both producer and consumer ; with sugar trusts, coffee trusts, oil trusts, and coal trusts which filch the last penny from the pocket of the workman every Saturday night? What has it to do with the monstrous iniquity of the law which de- prives the workman, who is injured through defective THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY DEFINED. 117 machinery or who is not paid his wages, of a speedy remedy ? And what has it to do with a thousand other wrongs which it is unnecessary here to mention. George wields such a facile pen that his writings are well calculated to decoy and ensnare those who have little practical knowledge of wordly affairs, or who do not penetrate beneath the surface to discover and detect his fallacious reasoning. That the monopoly and combination of wealth (and by wealth I mean cash, bonds, stocks, real and personal property), and the inefficiency of the law to prevent this monopoly and combination, are the real causes of the discontent and unrest of the toiling millions, every man who in- vestigates and thinks must admit. But as these views will be found more fully expressed in subsequent chap- ters of this volume, I will not enlarge upon them here, further than to assert that the right of property is best regulated and enjoyed when each individual owns, con- trols, and possesses that which is his absolutely and of right. That this mode of owning and enjoying prop- erty is more advantageous to the individual, and more beneficial to society because promotive of thrift, prog- ress, and prosperity, is established by the testimony of men whose opinions ought to have great weight with every thoughtful man. 118 TENURE AND TOIL. CHAPTER II. HOW THIS RIGHT IS BEST REGULATED AND ENJOYED. Emile de Laveleye, whose researches into the his- tory of institutions and the mode of enjoying property, comprehending nearly every country of the world, al- most unconsciously, as it were, draws the line of de- marcation in the progress of civilization where com- munity property ends and individual property begins^ demonstrating the advantages of the latter mode of en- joyment over the former. Any argument advanced or conclusions drawn by him to the contrary are hardly sustained by the evidence which he produces. The social development and progress which mark the evo- lutions in the form of landed property, so minutely and ably presented in his valuable work on the "Origin of Property," furnish indubitable evidence of the surperior advantages of individual ownership over communal property. Speaking of the inroads which this social development are producing in Russia, he says : " Since the emancipation the old patriarchal family has tended to fall asunder. The sentiment of individ- ual independence is weakening and destroying it. The young people no longer obey the 'ancient.' The women quarrel about the task they have to perform. The married son longs to have his own dwelling. He can claim his share of the land ; and, as the Russian HOW THIS RIGHT IS BEST REGULATED. I19 peasant soon builds himself a house of wood which he shapes, axe in hand, with marvellous facility, each couple sets up a separate establishment for itself. . . . " How marked is the contrast between the Russian and the American ! The latter, eager for change and action, athirst for gain, always discontented with his position, always in search of novelty, freed from parental authority in his earliest years, accustomed to count on no one but himself and to obey nothing but the law, which he has himself helped to make, is a finished type of individualism." After describing the characteristics and family life of the communities among the southern Slavs he says : " The flourishing appearance of Bulgaria shows de- cisively that the system is not antagonistic to good cul- tivation. And yet this organization, in spite of its many advantages, is falling to ruin, and disappearing wherever it comes in contact with modern ideas. The reason is that these institutions are suited to the station- ary condition of a primitive age ; but cannot easily withstand the conditions of a state of society in which men are striving to improve their own lot as well as the political and social organization under which they live. I know not whether the nations who have lived tranquilly under the shelter of these patriarchal insti- tutions will ever arrive at a happier or more brilliant destiny; but this much appears inevitable, that they will desire, like Adam in ' Paradise Lost,' to enter on a new career, and to taste the charm of independent life despite its perils and responsibilities." 120 TENURE AND TOIL. M. de Sismondi, comparing the conditions of tenant farmers and peasant proprietors, says : " Wherever we find peasant proprietorship we also find comfort, security, confidence in the future, and independence, which assures at once happiness and virtue." In a carefully-prepared treatise on Flemish hus- bandry, in the " Farmers' Series of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," the writer states that the Flemish agriculturists seem to want nothing but a space to work upon. " It is highly interesting," he says, " to follow, step by step, the progress of improve- ment. Here you see a cottage and rude cow-shed erected on a spot of the most unpromising aspect, the loose white sand blown into irregular mounds is only kept together by the roots of the heath ; a small spot only is levelled and surrounded by a ditch ; part of this is covered with young broom, part is planted with po- tatoes, and, perhaps, a small patch of diminutive clover may show itself; and this is the nucleus from which in a few years, a little farm will spread around. If there is no manure at hand, the only thing that can be sown, on pure sand, at first, is broom ; this grows in the naost barren soils ; in three years it is fit to cut, and produces some return in fagots for the bakers and brickmakers. The leaves which have fallen have somewhat enriched the soil, and the fibres of the roots have given a certain degree of compactness. It may now be ploughed and sown with buckwheat, or even with rye without manure. By the time this is reaped, some manure may have col- lected, and a regular course of cropping may begin." HOW THIS RIGHT IS BEST REGULATED. 121 Step by step the improvement goes on, the soil under- goes a complete change; it becomes mellow and reten- tive of moisture, and is enriched by the decomposition of vegetable matter, and made fertile by the hand of industry, and patient and intelligent husbandry. The people labor constantly and industriously, and wait patiently for returns, because the land which they cul- tivate belongs to them. " The magic of property turns sand into gold." Joseph Kay, A.M., of Cambridge University, speak- ing of the division of land in foreign countries, refer- ring to Germany, says : " In Saxony it is a notorious fact, that during the last thirty years, and since the peasants became the proprietors .of the land, there has been a rapid and continual improvement in the con- dition of the houses, in the manner of living, in the dress of the peasant, and particularly in the culture of land. The peasants endeavor to outstrip one another in the quantity and quality of the produce, in the prep- aration of the ground, and in the general cultivation of their respective portions. All the little proprietors are eager to find out how to farm so as to produce the greatest results ; they diligently seek after improve- ments; they send their children to the agricultural schools in order to fit them to assist their fathers, and each proprietor soon adopts a new improvement intro- duced by any of his neighbors." Mr. Howitt, writing on the Rural and Domestic Life of Germany, says : " The peasants are the great and ever-present objects of country life. They are the great population of the country, because they them- F 11 122 TENURE AND TOIL. selves are the possessors. This country is, in fact, for the most part, in the hands of the people. It is par- celled out among the multitude, — the peasants are not, as with us, for the most part, totally cut off" from prop- erty in the soil they cultivate, totally dependent on labor afforded by others, — they are themselves the pro- prietors. It is, perhaps, from this cause that they are probably the most industrious peasantry in the world. They labor busily, early and late, because they find that they are laboring for themselves. The English peasant is so cut off from the idea of property that he comes habitually to look upon it as a thing from which he is warned by the laws of the large proprietors, and be- comes, in consequence, spiritless, purposeless. The German farmer, on the contrary, looks on the country as made for him and his fellow-men. He feels himself a man ; he has a stake in the country, as good as that of the bulk of his neighbors ; no man can threaten him with ejectment or the work-house, as long as he is active and economical ; he walks, therefore, with a bold step ; he looks you in the face with the air of a free man, but of a respectful air." CHAPTER III. THE SUBJECT CJONTINUED. St. Thomas Aquinas, the great doctor and theolo- gian of the Roman Catholic Church, says : " It is lawful that man should possess things as his own. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 123 For this is necessary to human life for three reasons : First, because every one is more solicitous to procure what belongs exclusively to himself than that which is common to all or many, since each one, evading work, leaves to another what is the business of all, as it happens where there is a number of servants. Besides, there will be better order in the management of human affairs if to each citizen is laid the burden and care of acquiring certain things ; moreover, there would be confusion if each one promiscuously pro- cured every kind of thing. Thirdly, the community is kept in greater peace while each one is satisfied with his own property. Hence we see that, among those who possess something in common and indivisibly, contentions arise more frequently." The master-spirit of Catholicity in England, Cardi- nal Manning, in his recent admirable exposition of the Law of Nature, Divine and Supreme, regarding the rights of the poor, says : " By the law of nature all men have a common right to the use of things which were created for them and for their sustenance. " But this common right does not exclude the posses- sion of anything which becomes proper to each. The common right is by natural law, the right of property is by human and positive law, and the positive law of property is expedient for three reasons : (1) What is our own is more carefully used than what is common. (2) Human affairs are better ordered by recognized private rights. (3) Human society is more peaceful when each has his own protected by the law of justice. 124 TENURE AND TOIL. " Theft is therefore always a sin, — for two reasons : (1) It is contrary to justice. (2) It is committed either by stealth or by violence. "But the human and positive law cannot derogate from the natural and Divine law. According to the Divine law all things are ordained to sustain the life of .man, and, therefore, the division and appropriation of things cannot hinder the sustenance of man in case of necessity. Therefore the possessions of those who have food superabundantly are due by the natural law for the sustenance of the poor. . . . This doctrine lies at the foundation of the positive law of property in all Christendom. It exists as an unwritten law in all Cath- olic countries. . . . The obligation to feed the hungry springs from the natural right of every man to life, and to the food necessary for the sustenance of life. So strict is this natural right that it prevails over all positive laws of property. Necessity has no law, and a starving man has a natural right to his neighbor's meal. I am afraid that those who speak so confi- dently about rights, obligations, and laws have not studied, or have forgotten, the first principles of all human positive law. If the law of property did not rest upon a natural right it could not long exist. . . . Before the natural right to live all human laws must give way." Aristotle, in his efforts to find what is the best gov- ernment, briefly outlines the first principles of man's social nature, and of domestic life in its various rela- tions, showing how these relations naturally combine into that form of social existence which is called a THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 125 state, and after demonstrating that, the community of women and children, as advocated by Socrates and Plato, is not beneficial to the state, speaking of the community of property, says : " We proceed next to consider, as to property, in what way it should be regulated among those who are to live under a state formed after the most perfect mode of government, whether it should be common or not; I mean, whether it is better (although these should be held separate, as is now the case every- where), that not only the possessions but also the produce of them should be in common ; or that the soil should belong to a particular owner, but that its produce should be brought together and used as one common stock, as some nations at present do ; or, on the contrary, that the soil should be common and be cultivated in common, while the produce is divided among individuals for their special use, as is said to be the practice among some of the barbarians ; or whether both the soil and the fruit should be in common? When the htisbandman and the citizen are distinct, there is another and easier method ; but when they each labor at their possessions for them- selves, this may occasion several difficulties ; for if there be not an equal proportion between their labor and what they consume, those who labor hard and have but a small proportion of the produce, will of necessity complain against those who take a large share and do but little labor. Upon the whole, it is difficult to live together as a community, and thus to have all things that man can possess in common, es- 11* 126 TENURE AND TOIL. pecially this is the case with respect to such property. This is evident from the partnerships of those who go out to settle a colony; for nearly all of them have dis- putes with each other upon the most common matters, and come to blows upon trifles : we find, too, that we oftenest disagree with those slaves who are generally employed in the common offices of a family. A com- munity of property, then, has these and other incon- veniences attending it : but the manner of life which is now established, more particularly when embellished with good morals and a system of upright laws, is far superior to it, for it will embrace the advantages of both ; by 'both' we mean, the advantage arising from prop- erties being common, and from being divided also ; for in some respects it ought to be common, but upon the whole private. For the fact that every man's attention is employed on his own particular concerns will prevent mutual complaints; and property will increase as each person labors to improve his own private property ; and it will then happen that, from a principle of virtue, they will perform good offices to each other, according to the proverb, ' All things are common among friends.' . . . "This system of polity does, indeed, recommend itself by its good appearance, and specious pretences to humanity; and the man who hears it proposed will re- ceive it gladly, concluding that there will be a wonder- ful bond of friendship between all its members, par- ticularly when any one censures the evils which are now to be found in society, as arising from property not being common; as, for example, the disputes which happen be- THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 127 tween man and man, upon their contracts with each other; the judgments passed to punish perjury, and the flatter- ing of the rich ; none of which arise from properties being private, but from the corruption of mankind. For we see those who live in one community and have all things in common, disputing with each other oftener than those who have their property separate ; but we observe fewer instances of strife, because of the very small number of those who have property in common compared with those where it is appropriated. It is also but right to mention not only the evils from which they who share property in common will be preserved, but also the advantages which they will lose, for, viewed as a whole, this manner of life will be found imprac- ticable. " We must suppose, then, that the error of Socrates arose from the fact that his first principle was false; for we admit that both a family and a state ought to be one in some particulars, but not entirely so, for there is a point beyond which, if a state proceeds towards one- ness, it will be no longer a state." In speaking of the manners and customs of the Ger- mans, Tacitus says : " To the rest of the Germans we display camps and legions, but to the Hermundurians we grant the exclusive privilege of seeing our houses and our elegant villas. They behold the splendor of the Romans, but without avarice or a wish to enjoy it." Rome had her houses and elegant villas when the Ger- mans " neither knew the use of mortar nor of tiles. They built with rude materials, regardless of beauty, order, and proportion." Rome was civilized, — Ger- 128 TENURE AND TOIL. many barbarian. The Romans owned houses, built imperial highways, engaged in commerce, — the Germans lived in communities, shifting from place to place, " dis- persed up and down as a grove, a meadow, or a fountain happened to invite." These distinctions in the con- ditions of the social life of the peoples are not peculiar to Rome and Germany. The same may be said of Rome and Britain in the days of Csesar, and generally wherever it is possible to place civilization and progress side by side with a nation which has not emerged from barbarism, we meet with similar contrasts. CHAPTER lY. EIGHTS, VESTED AND PROSPECTIVE. The right of property embraces not only the ex- clusive privilege to use and enjoy the thing owned, but also the exclusive power to sell, transfer, and dispose of the same upon such terms, at such times, and to such persons as may be agreeable to the owner, pro- vided that in so doing he violates none of the laws or customs established by the society of which he is a member, and to which he is indebted for the protection, preservation, and enjoyment of that which is his. Nor does the right of property end here. There are rights beyond these which are as absolutely his, and which are as sacred and inviolable as those already RIGHTS, VESTED AND PROSPECTIVE. 129 mentioned. The right to which I now refer follows as the direct and necessary consequence of the law or custom upon which all other rights are based. It fol- lows as certainly and logically as effect follows cause. So long as society exists for the protection, preserva- tion, and perpetuation of personal liberty, of personal security, and of the inviolability of private property, a man ought not only to be protected in his right to things tangible and possessory, but should also be pro- tected in his just expectations as to things intangible, such as the fruits of his labors which become valuable rights of property. For example, if I plant a vine- yard, the vines which I plant are things tangible and possessory, they are vested rights of property of which I cannot be deprived under the law without just com- pensation. While my vines have ripened into a vested and possessory right of property, they are of no real present value until vintage, no more than the wheat which I sow is of any real present value until har- vest. But I may as justly and as reasonably expect my vines to yield fruit, and that I will gather the vintage, as I have to expect my wheat to grow and that I will reap the harvest. When I planted ray vineyard, and during all the years that I trimmed and tended my vines, it was just as lawful for me to expect that I might gather my grapes and convert them into wine, as it was for me to expect that I might reap my wheat and convert it into flour. The yield of my vineyard is but the reward of my skill and labor, just the same as the yield of my wheat-field. It was just as harmless and as innocent and as lawful for me to 130 TENURE AND TOIL. plant my vineyard and trim the vines as it was for me to sow my wheat-field and gather the harvest.* It was just as lawful for me to make wine from grapes, when I planted and tended my vineyard, as it was to convert wheat into flour. The vines which I planted were as surely my property, and as securely protected under the law, as the growing wheat. In fact, the laws and customs of the society, of which I was a member, encouraged the cultivation of the vine, and, relying upon the faith of these laws and customs, I expended my labor in its cultivation. This labor was my cap- ital, my property, my all. The law declared in no uncertain terms that ray property could not be taken for public purposes without just compensation. This was the solemn assurance held out to me, and upon the faith of which I expended my labor. As vintage- time drew near, and when about to reap the reward of my labor, — when my just expectations with regard to my rights of property were about to be realized, — the society of which I was a member, if not in the letter in the spirit, violated the solemn assurance which it held out to me under the law, for although it did not actually tahe from me my property, it did that which was virtually the same. It passed a law which de- prived me of the reward of my labor, — a law which * M. de Lavergne, in a letter to ClifTe Leslie, in 1869, written from Toulouse, France, says : " You could not believe what wealth the cultivation of the vine has spread through that countiy, and the peasantry have gotten no small share of it. The market price of land has quadrupled in ten years." So that the cultivation of the vine is not only a legitimate but a profitable rural industry. EIGHTS, VESTED AND PROSPECTIVE. 131 declared the manufactui'e or sale of wine from grapes unlawful. My vineyard was so far removed from market that my grapes could not be sold or utilized for any purpose but for the manufacture of wine. In consequence of this unjust law my grapes w^ere left to wither on the stem, my vineyard was consigned to waste, and thereby my labor was robbed of its just reward. I appealed to the law through the regularly constituted tribunals for redress, but was answered that my grapes were not actually taken, that, as they might be used for any purpose other than the only purpose for which, under the circumstances, they could be used, I was not entitled to compensation. That the State could not in fact take my property without making just compensation therefor, but that it might play dog in the manger, and in this way deprive me of its use. And this process of reasoning, of legal subterfuge and of judicial robbery, is based upon the theory that individual rights must yield and be set aside whenever the public good requires that such a sacrifice shall be made. If by this process of reasoning the property of any individual may be destroyed, where is the line to be drawn ? Upon the same theory and with as much semblance of justice I may be compelled to give up my fallow and pasturage, my unimproved and un- occupied city lots, to any one who will plough and sow the one, or improve and occupy the other, whenever it shall be decreed that it is necessary for the public good, provided I am not absolutely deprived of my naked legal title- It may as plausibly be said that in author- izing a farmer to plough and sow my fallow and pas- 132 TENURE AND TOIL. turage, or a manufacturer or merchant to improve and occupy my city lot, I am not deprived of my property but of its use only, as to say that I am not deprived of my vintage. Legislative sophistry and judicial legerdemain cannot convince the common mind that this system of robbery is more consonant with the principles of natural justice than that which is advo- cated by Henry George and his followers. Indeed, Georgeism is the more commendable because to him what is equal seems just, and in founding his republic individual rights would be sacrificed only upon the theory of equality. Georgeism has this merit at least to commend it, that the individual who gives up his property for the common good may hope to receive back an equal proportion of his own in the general distribution as one of the community, while the pro- hibitory liquor laws recently passed in Kansas and Iowa deprive individuals of their property without even distributing it among the community, or awarding to the owners the poor privilege of participating in the benefits which would arise from its general dis- tribution. Men in those States invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in constructing beer-cellars and breweries under the sanction of law, and with the as- surance held out to them that private property should not be taken for the public use without just compensa- tion. Upon the security of these properties large sums of money were advanced and credit given be- cause it was just as innocent, just as harmless, and just as lawful to build a beer-cellar and erect a brewery as it was to settle upon the prairie and pre-empt a homestead. SUBVERSION OF LAW IS INVASION OF RIGHT, y^^ As the law offered to the lender and borrower full assurance that capital invested in this kind of property Avould be protected, it was the solemn duty of the State to keep its faith with those who invested their capital in, and gave credit upon, this kind of security. There is no principle of natural justice which exempts a State from fulfilling its moral and legal obligations any more than an individual. The property in these beer-cellars and breweries is of no more real value, of no more utility for any purpose, other than that for wliicli they were built and constructed, than are the hollow caves which yawn back the roar of the dashing waves along the sea-shore. Yet, because the law did not actually take from its owner his naked legal title, because the property in them may be used for some purpose, — that is, the stone and mortar and wood, of which they are constructed, may be carted off or shipped to some other point and there converted into use, — there has not been a taking within the meaning of the fundamental law, and, therefore, the owners are not entitled to com- pensation. CHAPTER V. SUBVERSION OF LAW IS INVASION OF EIGHT. A NATION may outlive civil commotion, rebellion, and even anarchy, provided the body politic has not become so corrupt as to be unable to distinguish between the first 12 134 TENURE AND TOIL. principles of right and wrong, of justice and injustice. I admit, as Aristotle says, that all men have some natural inclination to justice, " but they proceed therein only to a certain degree, nor can they universally point out what is absolutely just." But the universal voice of mankind will unite in one acclaim in saying, that if I am encourged by society (and by society I mean the State) to invest money in a certain kind of property, or to build up a certain industry at a time when the fundamental law of that society declares my right of property therein inviolable, and thereafter that society should change the law so as to deprive me of the ase of my property, and render it valueless to me, it should make compensation for the injury done. This would be but natural justice, anything less is flagrant injustice. If the public safety or the public morals require the discontinuance of any business or manufacture, the legislature of a State has the undoubted right to pro- vide for its discontinuance, but where this business or manufacture grew into vested rights of property under the sanction of the law and under the assurance of the public policy of the State, its discontinuance can only be justly and legally commanded upon making due compensation for the loss which necessarily and inevi- tably will accrue to the individual.* I designed writ- * Edmund Burke, the statesman, legislator, and philosopher, in proposing "a plan of reform in the constitution of several parts of the public economy," in the British House of Commons, speaking of the uneasiness of the people in regard to the abuse of sinecures, said : " I think with the public, that the profits of these places are grown enormously ; the magnitude of those SUBVERSION OF LAW IS INVASION OF RIGHT, l^^ iuor this book with a view of combating communistic doctrine, but I am met at the threshold with the anomaly of legislative acts and judicial decrees which, if sound law, are more dangerous to society, because evincing a corrupt state of public morals, than all the wild vaporings of the wildest anarchists from the begin- ning of the French Revolution down to the execution of profits, and the nature of them, both call for reformation. The nature of their profits which grow out of the public distress is itself invidious and grievous. But I fear that reform cannot be immediate. I find myself under a restriction. These places, and others of the same kind, which are held for life, have been considered as property. They have been given as a provision for children, they have been the subject of family settlements ; they have been the security of creditors. If the barriers of law should be broken down, upon ideas of convenience, even of public convenience, we shall have no longer anything certain among us. If the discretion of power is once let loose upon pro- perty, we can be at no loss to determine whose power, and what discretion it is that will prevail at last. It would be wise to attend upon the order of things, and not attempt to outrun the slow, but smooth and even course of nature. There are occasions, I admit, of public necessity, so vast, so clear, so evident, that they super- sede all laws. Law, being only made for the benefit of the com- munity, cannot in any one of its parts resist a demand which may comprehend the total of the public interest. To be sure, no law can set itself up against the cause and reason of all law. But such a ease very rarely happens, and this most certainly is not such a case. The mere time of the reform is by no means worth the sacrifice of a principle of law. Individuals pass like shadows, but the commonwealth is fixed and stable. The difference, therefore, of to-day and to-morrow, which to private people is immense, to the State is nothing. At any rate it is better, if possible, to reconcile our economy with our laws than to set them at variance ; a quarrel which in the end must be destruc- tive of both." 136 TENURE AND TOIL. August Spies and his associates. If the acts and deci- sions already alluded to be law, there is no legal se- curity, there is no constitutional safeguard for the pro- tection of individual rights and the inviolability of private property which may not be overthrown, and tramj)led upon by State legislation. In one of the latest decisions prepared by that able jurist, Mr. Justice Cooley, when on the Supreme bench of the State of Michigan he took occasion to say ; " Personally, I have little care how this case shall be decided. But it seems to me that in constitutional questions the court is drifting to this position : that these statutes are constitutional which suit us, and those are void which do not." This severe comment upon judicial morals, I fear, is but too true. Ordinarily it is of little consequence to society how the cause of any particular individual may be decided when there is no principle involved other than the question with whom the merits of the case lie ; but the recent acts of Iowa and Kansas, and the decisions of the courts with reference thereto, involve a principle of no little importance to the whole American people, and that is, whether the language employed in the fourteenth amendment to the constitution means what it says, or is but a mere idle play of words. No man who observes the assaults upon corporate property and encroachments upon vested rights occurring almost daily in crowded cities and legislative halls can but realize that between the conspiracies of the commune and the fanaticism of well-meaning but ill-guided zealots, our institutions are not only threatened, but are en- SUBVERSION OF LAW IS INVASION OF RIGHT. y^^J during a crucial test. Judges and statesmen ought not to pause too long, but should wisely contemplate and calmly consider the limits within which every invasion of property and personal rights, under whatever guise, should be confined. Every lawyer who has given thought to the subject of legislation for the suppression of intemperance, and who has carefully examined and analyzed the decisions of courts,^will admit that more uncertainty and doubt have crept into the administration of the law through hasty and ill-guarded dicta and decisions bearing upon this class of statutory crimes than through all other agencies. It is not my purpose to assail the motive of courts that would give sanction to laws of this nature, for, whatever views I may entertain on the subject, I agree with the author of the " Rights of Man," that " it is better to obey a bad law, making use at the same time of every argument to show its errors and procure its repeal, than to forcibly violate it, because the precedent of breaking a bad law might weaken the force and lead to a discretionary violation of those which are good." From this text courts and judges may learn salutary lessons. To ascertain what the law is and to decide whether or not it conflicts with the constitution is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, of a judge's duty. A penal statute of doubtful meaning ought always to be construed in favor of the liberty of the citizen rather than against it, and when a law falls within the ban of the con- stitution, courts ought to place their seal of condem- nation upon it regardless of their personal feelings, 12* 138 TENURE AND TOIL. predilections, or prejudices. In this way only can courts uphold the dignity and maintain the supremacy of the law under the constitution. Under our politi- cal system, we ignore the " divine right" of kings and the " infallibility" of parliament, — the court alone is the final arbiter between the citizen and the State, and the law its "golden met-wand and measure." In war and in peace, at all times and under all circum- stances, our courts should be ready to guard and protect the rights and liberties of the citizen under the constitution. At their bidding legislative enact- ments made in contravention of the constitution are held inoperative and void. Executive decrees, func- tions, and prerogatives exercised and performed by the President, whether in the capacity of civil magistrate or as commander-in-chief of the land and naval forces of the nation, when not sanctioned by that instrument, are stayed, modified, or annulled. From the moment, therefore, that any judge who is called upon to decide a question involving the rights or liberties of the citizen permits himself to be swayed by personal preju- dices, however honest, our constitutional guarantees are as nothing, and the liberties of the people are at an end. It is aptly said by the learned historian who wrote " The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" that " the principles of a free constitution are irrecover- ably lost when the legislative power is dominated by the executive." And, with equal force may it be said that when a man is elected to fill a judicial position because of his predilections in favor of a particular law, or, when he is set aside and defeated for the SECURITY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 139 office because he has the manhood to do right, the boast of freedom under a written constitution becomes a " tinkling cymbal," the cant of hypocrites, and sooner or later, in such case, the structure of our institutions must fall with crushing force upon the heads of those who are slowly but surely weakening and impairing its foundations. If judges, who are the creatures of the people, are to be swayed by the clamor of the majority and to hold that those statutes are constitu- tional which suit them, and those void which do not, what difference can there be in this particular between a republican form of government under a written constitution and an absolute monarchy, such as that despicable despot, James the First of England, sought to establish? CHAPTER VI. SECURITY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. The fifth amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides that " no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury. . . . nor shall any person be subject, for the same offence, to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ; nor 140 TENURE AND TOIL. shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." But, notwithstanding this con- stitutional guarantee of personal rights and of private property, the State might deprive its own citizen, or any person within its jurisdiction, of life, liberty or property in any mode or by any form of law enacted by its legislature and sanctioned by its courts, and, however tyrannical, cruel and unusual the punishment, or unjust the decree which deprived him of his life or liberty or despoiled him of his property, he was without the protection of the Federal Constitution. "Congress shall make no law respecting an estab- lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," is the language of the first article of the constitution ; and broad and beneficent as this language may seem, if Utah were a member of the sisterhood of 8tates his polygamic majesty, by edict from his temple or by rescript of his legislature, might compel every citizen within the jurisdictional limits of- the State to bow in reverence before the shrine of Mormonism and lay yearly tithe at the foot of a Mormon altar. Can any man who fought to uphold the Union and sustain the supremacy of the nation be convinced that all the lives which were sacrificed and all the treasure which was expended to establish a principle and consummate a fact are to go for naught, and that, after all, he is but the serf of a provincial baron instead of a proud citizen of the United States under the protection of the Constitution ? " If I were to ask you, gentlemen of the jury," said Erskine in one of his noted speeches in defence of liberty, "what is the choicest fruit that SECURITY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 141 grows upon the tree of English liberty, you would answer, security under the law. If I were to ask the whole people of England, the return they look for at the hands of government, for the burdens under which they bend to support it, I should still be answered, security under the law; or, in other words, an im- partial administration of justice." There is no such thing as security under the law if the legislature can, without compensation, destroy vested rights of property acquired under the existing law. Judicial refinements may strip constitutional guarantees of their common sense and every-day meaning, may tax the art of sophistry, and throw around their decisions a glamour of pedantry, but, after all, the fact remains indelible, unchanged, and unchangeable that the individual has been wrongfully deprived of that which was legally and rightfully his. When rights are acquired by the citizen under the existing law, there is no authority vested in any branch of the government to take them away without just com- pensation.* But where they are held contrary to the * I agree with the Supreme Court of the United States in the Mugler case (123 U. S., 623), that the right of every citizen to manufacture intoxicating liquors for his own use, or as a bever- age, " does not inhere in citizenship." Indeed, I go further, and hold it to be the law that every member of society is bound by the rules of civil conduct prescribed for the guidance, govern- ment, and well-being of all, and when he transgresses those rules he thereby forfeits his right to the enjoyment of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. While under our system of government sovereignty remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts, yet here, as elsewhere, the individual 142 TENURE AND TOIL. existing law, or are forfeited by its violation, then they may be taken from him, — not by an act of the legisla- ture, but in the due administration of the law itself does not enjoy personal liberty, exercise inherent sovereignty, or possess absolute rights which are separate and apart from the society of which he is a member. I do not contend, therefore, that the State cannot, through its legislature, prohibit the manu- facture, sale, and consumption of an article of commerce which is believed to be pernicious in its eifects, and the cause of disease, pauperism, and crime. At the time the legislature of the State en- couraged and sanctioned the building of breweries, statistics similar to those accessible to every one tended to prove, then as now, "that the idleness, disorder, pauperism, and crime existing in the country are, in some degree at least, traceable to the evils of intemperance." Tet the States of Kansas and Iowa, when they were anxious to have their lands settled and cul- tivated, made large appropriations for the printing and distribu- tion of documents, in the G-erman and Scandinavian languages, setting forth the advantages of these States, the peculiar nature of the soil, and the splendid facilities for growing and producing hops, were not the least of the inducements held out to allure these frugal and thrifty peoples to settle upon their lands. The persons who built breweries built them not only under the tacit sanction of the law, but under its direct and positive assurance that they might do so with entire safety. There are no statistics accessible to any one to prove that the German and Scandinavian peoples are not among our best, law-abiding, temperate, and industrious citizens. The distinction which I draw in regard to the power of the State and the rights of those whose properties have been invaded and destroyed by legislation is very simple, — the mere distinction between right and wrong. The State has the power to prohibit the manufacture, sale, and consumption of intoxicating liquors, • — that is the right of the State ; but to do so by destroying the use of the property in which the manufacture and sale had been conducted under the sanction of State law, without making just compensation therefor, is morally and legally wrong. SECURITY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. I43 before the judicial tribunals of the State. The cause or occasion for depriving the citizen of his supposed rights must be found in the law as it is, or, at least, it cannot be created by a legislative act which aims at their de- struction. "Where rights of property are admitted to exist the legislature cannot say they shall exist no longer, nor will it make any difference that a process and a tribunal are appointed to execute the sentence. If this is the ' law of the land,' and ' due process of law,' within the meaning of the constitution, then the legislature is omnipotent. It may, under the same in- terpretation, pass a law to take away liberty or life without a pre-existing cause, appointing judicial and executive agencies to execute its will."t " The right of property has no foundation or security but the law, and when the legislature shall successfully attempt to overturn it, even in a single instance, the liberty of the citizen is no more. "J Sir William Blackstone, in his classification of fun- damental rights, says : " The third absolute right, in- herent in every Englishman, is that of property, which consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal of all his acquisitions, without any control or diminution, save only by the laws of the laud. . . . The laws of Eng- land are, therefore, in point of honor and justice, ex- tremely watchful in ascertaining and protecting this right. Upon this principle the great charter has de- clared that no free man shall be disseized or divested f Comstock, J., in Winehamer vs. The People, 13 N. Y., 392. X Mr. Chief Justice Gibson in Nooman vs. Heist, 5 Watt's and Sergeant (Pa.), 193. 144 TENURE AND TOIL. of his freehold, or of his liberties or free customs, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land. ... So great, moreover, is the regard of the law for private property that it will not authorize the least violation of it ; no, not even for the general good of the whole community. ... In vain may it be urged that the good of the individual ought to yield to that of the community, for it would be dangerous to allow any private man, or even any public tribunal, to be the judge of this common good, and to decide whether it would be expedient or no. Besides, the public is in nothing more essentially interested than in the protec- tion of every individual's private rights, as modelled by the municipal law. In this and similar cases the legis- lature alone can, and indeed frequently does, interpose, and compel the individual to acquiesce. But how does it interpose and compel ? Not by absolutely stripping the subject of his property in an arbitrary manner, but by giving him a full indemnification and equivalent for the injury thereby sustained." So that, according to Blackstone, the right of private property, in England, under a government founded upon the feudal principle, is more secure to the subject than it is to the citizen of the United States under a republican form of government. If this be the case, then away with the boasted guarantees of the American constitution ! THE STABILITY OF TENURE. 145 CHAPTER VII. THE STABILITY OF TENURE. In chapter i.^ Book YIII., "Progress and Pov- erty/' Henry George says : " What is necessary for the use of land is not its private ownership but the security of improvements. It is not necessary to say to a man ' this land is yours' in order to induce him to cultivate or improve it. It is only necessary to say to him ' whatever your labor or capital produces on this land shall be yours.' Give a man security that he may reap, and he will sow; assure him of the possession of the house he wants to build, and he will build it. These are the natural rewards of labor." And again, in chapter ii., he says: "We should satisfy the law of justice, we should meet all economic requirements, by at one stroke abolishing all private titles, de- claring all land public property, and letting it out to the highest bidders in lots to suit under such con- ditions as would sacredly guard the private right to improvements." . . . " I do not propose either to pur- chase or to confiscate private property in land. The first would be unjust; the second, needless. Let the individuals who now hold it still retain, if they want to, possession of what they are pleased to call their land. Let them continue to call it their land. Let them buy and sell, and bequeath and devise it. We may safely leave them the shell if we take the kernel. ok 13 . 146 • TENURE AND TOIL. It is not necessary to confiscate land ; it is only necessary to confiscate rent." The impracticability and injustice of this method will be readily seen and appreciated by the most casual observer. It must be inferred from his statements that Henry George is willing to let land to whomsoever would improve the same, and for any term of years or for all time, provided the fee to the land remained in the government. By no soph- istry could he convince even the most simple-minded that he might invest his earnings in improving a vacant lot without affording him some assurance of a fixity of tenure, and hence he is willing that in his republic any man who will improve his property shall be guaranteed protection in the nature of a lease for years, for life, or in perpetuity. But is this any pro- tection to him who invests his means in the improve- ment of vacant property ? Such men now hold the absolute title to their property under the guarantee of the constitution, and under that instrument there is no power in a municipality, a State, or in the Federal Government to take it away from them or to deprive them of it without just compensation. Yet Henry George and his disciples maintain that the paper titles, by and through which they claim title, are but old and musty documents, and that the titles which they evi- dence were acquired by fraud and force, by usurpation and confiscation, and therefore unworthy of protection. Granting these premises for the sake of argument, would the titles which they propose be more sacred or more durable ? After George and his followers shall have overthrown our institutions and consigned these THE STABILITY OF TENURE. 147 musty documents to the flames, and when new institu- tions are established, new compacts adopted, and new contracts entered into between the citizen and the State, and the industrious and frugal citizen improves his vacant property and feels secure in the protection of the law, a new doctrinaire writes a book on " Pro- gress and Poverty" to show that the bane of society is the monopoly of land, that the preceding government had no power to grant leases so as to bind succeeding generations, and that the panacea for all the ills of life is in tlie destruction of existing tenures; that instead of giving leases for years, for life, or in per- petuity, the owners of land must pay their rent in taxes to the full rental value of their holdings, the value to be determined by the assessor and collected by the tax-gatherer. Here again we are brought face to face with the same order of things and the same con- dition of society existing in India, China, and unhappy Ireland. Not only so, but the affairs of the govern- ment would be placed in the hands and under the con- trol of unscrupulous and corrupt officials who would hedge themselves around by political rings controlled by rum-sellers, fine workers, and pot-house politicians to such an extent that it would be impossible to remove them from office either through an election or by convic- tion in the criminal courts. The owners of property now try to control and manage it themselves or through their authorized agents, and nothing is left for public officials to do but to attend to the improvement of public highways, the distribution of public charities, the keeping and confinement of criminals and the like, 148 TENURE AND TOIL. yet the country is cursed with boodlers and boodlerisra. What would be the condition of aifairs and the state of society if the powers of these public officials were enlarged and extended to the extent contemplated in Mr. George's paper republic? It is conceded that before men will improve property they must be assured protection for improvements, permanent possession of the houses which they build, and without such assurance they will not make im- provements. What difference could it make to future generations whether George M. Pullman purchased absolutely the title to the property upon which he has built a city or agreed to give ten dollars an acre rent to the government for the use of the property in perpetuity ? Ten dollars an acre was infinitely more than the land was worth by way of rental at the time Mr. Pullman took possession of it; but because he had the means and ability to improve it, he has made it valuable. It is no answer to assert that it would have been valuable in any event, because it would not but for the improvements made upon it. It might have lain there for a million years and all the specula- tions of philosophers that now live or who may here- after live, during all that time, could not by any subtlety of reasoning or any adroit application of the argument in regard to unearned increment add one dollar to its value, unless they could induce some capitalist to invest who had sufficient means and ability to establish factories and build up a city for the ac- commodation of the men and families employed in these factories. Mr. Pullman might have reclaimed a THE STABILITY OF TENURE. 149 part of Lake Michigan, might have gone down to " Hoop Pole" Township in Indiana, if you please, and have made that property as valuable as now is the beautiful city of Pullman, which he found an unprofit- able and unproductive marsh. His capital is what made his own property valuable, and the improvements which he placed thereon increased the value of surround- ing property. The public and not the individual owner of the surrounding property are entitled to this in- crease. It is unnecessary to overthrow our institutions or to destroy existing tenures in order that the public may derive the benefit of the increase in value to the surrounding property. This may be accomplished by legislation in the manner proposed in the chapter on Unearned Increment. Suppose that fifty years ago Mr. Pullman made a contract with the government by which he was to pay ten dollars a year rent in perpetuity for a lot on the corner of State and Madison Streets, Chicago, which at that time would not have been deemed a very profita- ble investment or promising speculation on the part of Mr. Pullman; that he improved the lot by erecting thereon a dry-goods store which he has occupied ever since; and supposing the lot adjoining had not been improved, but, owing to the increase in the value of the property, the annual rental value of the adjoining lot is now worth a thousand dollars, note the advantage Mr. Pullman would have in business competition over the man who is now compelled to pay a yearly rental of a thousand dollars for the adjoining lot. Mr. Pull- man is a gainer to the extent of nine hundred and 13* 150 TENURE AND TOIL. ninety dollars per year by virtue of the improvements placed alongside of him by his neighbor, — a gainer to this extent without any effort on his part, — -just as if he had bought the lot absolutely in the first place. Had he purchased the lot in the first instance, he would have been compelled to pay taxes in proportion to its increase in value, but as he rented the lot from the government at a fixed annual rent of ten dollars a year in perpetuity, this rent is the only tax which the government can exact from him in the future, so that the nine hundred and ninety dollars a year is his in- dividual gain. The government, therefore, is not only deprived of its just proportion of taxes incident to the increase in the value of the property, but the neighbors and competitors of the lot-owner are placed at a disadvantage by virtue of the monopoly acquired through his contract with the government. And thus it will be seen how impracticable and unjust is Mr, George's theory when subjected to the test of a com- mon-sense analysis. CHAPTER VIII. THE FALLACIES OF GEOJRGE's LAND-TAX THEOEY. In Book IX. chapter i., Henry George says : " The advantages which would be gained by sub- stituting for the numerous taxes by which the public revenues are now raised a single tax levied upon the THE FALLACIES OF GEORGE'S LAND-TAX. 151 value of land will appear more and more important the more they are considered. This is the secret which would transform the little village into the great city. With all the burdens removed which now oppress industry and hamper exchange, the production of wealth would go on with a rapidity now undreamed of. This, in its turn, would lead to an increase in the value of land, — a new surplus which society might take for general purposes." This doctrine is laid down by its author as the remedy for unequal taxation. It is based upon the claim that ground values in the centres of the great marts of trade represent an immense " unearned incre- ment" and constitute the larger portion of investments in business real estate. This is also accompanied by its correlative that ground values in rural districts and in the outlying parts of towns and cities are so small, compared with the value of property in the heart of cities, that a single land-tax would rest easily on the farmer and the owners of lots in the cheaper residence portions of the city, while the capitalistic owners of lots and blocks in the business centres would have to bear the great burden. Subjecting this claim to a practical test will at once expose its fallacy, and dem- onstrate that this method of shifting tax-burdens, instead of relieving the farmer and small property owner and placing the heavier burden on the million- aire, will produce just opposite results. The properties listed below are located in the busi- ness-centre of Chicago; the assessment given being only about twenty per cent, of the true value : 152 TENURE .AND TOIL. structure. Ground. Building. Board of Trade $110,000 $300,000 Palmer House 190,000 300,000 Eoyal Insurance Company 40,000 116,000 Sherman House 75,000 85,000 Chicago Opera House 77,000 87,000 Merchants' National Bank 9,000 32,000 Times Building 20,000 25,000 Pullman Building 18,000 90,000 J. V. Farwell 100,000 160,000 Marshall Field 109,000 129,000 Insurance Exchange 50,000 75,000 Chicago Deposit Vault 75,000 120,000 Phcenix Insurance Company 80,000 125,000 Lakeside Building 32,000 50,000 Home Insurance Company 50,000 130,000 Montauk Building 12,000 55,000 It is seen that the immense " unearned increment" is invariably less than the improvement, and in some cases equals only one-third or one-fourth of it. The above figures reveal the utter fallacy of exempting immense business structures from taxation and laying the entire tax on the ground, not one foot of which may belong to the owners of the buildings. This condition obtains still more strongly in the case of residence property. The properties of this kind in the follow- ing list have dwellings which occupy in width nearly the entire lot frontage, and, of course, belong to tlie capitalist, upon whose shoulders Mr. George proposes to lay the burden of taxation : Ground. Building. No. 1 15,500 $25,000 No. 2 16,600 25,000 No. 3 7,500 13,000 No. 4 3,000 20,000 No. 5 2,500 12,000 No. 6 5,000 10,000 THE FALLACIES OF GEORGE'S LAND-TAX. 153 In exceptional instances^ where the ground is un- usually valuable or a larger area is reserved for the dwelling, the above ratio may be reversed. Improve- ments depreciate, and it is true that ground values usually appreciate, but it may be laid down as a rule that on the most desirable residence streets in all our cities first-class houses are valued higher than the ground upon which they stand. This being the actual relative condition of grounds and improvements, it is at once seen that the dweller in the humble cottaore, if the land alone is to be taxed, will have proportionately heavier taxes to pay than owners of palatial residences. And more, many of the money barons do not possess a foot of land. Which is true also of the thousands of speculators v/ho gamble and grow rich upon the stock and grain exchanges, in running corners on breadstuffs and provisions, and whose mercenary schemings and combinations frequently produce financial panics which, with other disturbances, cause depression of land values and increase the cost of living. And yet these men, according to George's theory of taxation, would be un- disturbed by the tax-gatherer, while the small home- steader, whose possessions they have depreciated and whose expenses they have increased, would have to pay tribute not only for himself but for his oppressors. Applying the theory of Mr. George to farm lands, its utter failure to produce the result claimed is still more apparent. The valuation of farm property in Massachusetts, as shown by the most reliable census ever taken in this country, gives the following re- sults : 154 TENURE AND TOIL. Land $116,629,849 Buildings 66,033,291 Land and Buildings $182,663,140 Here we see that in a State of small land-holders, possessing many and costly improvements, but a poor soil, the ground value is nearly three-fourths of the total. This disproportion would be still greater in the vast farming districts of the West, where farms are larger, soil more fertile, and improvements meagre and inexpensive. The total value of town and city grounds and improvements in the United States, as shown by the last Federal census, is $10,000,000,000. Not more than three-tenths of this is naked ground value. George would extinguish rents by taxing this value at six per cent. Admitting that the farmers hold seven- tenths of the naked ground value of the country, they then would have to pay, following out George's theory, six per cent, on $7,000,000,000 or $420,000,000 yearly, which would be $108,000,000 more than is paid in State, county, township, and municipal taxes in the United States. In brief, the farmers, who (at a true valuation) own scarce one-half of the real estate of the country, would pay seven-tenths of all the taxes, and $100,000,000 more than is now paid on all real and personal property of every description. While the farmers would be groaning under this burden of taxation, the owners of town and city real estate, whose properties equal the farmers' in value, would pay taxes only on three-tenths of a true valuation. The city capitalists paying only $180,000,000 while $420,000,000 is exacted from the farmers. Would GEORGE'S SELF-REFUTATION. I55 not this vaunted theory of Mr. George's work the most ruthless spoliation of the agricultural class? Let George himself answer. CHAPTER IX. George's self-eefutatioi^. In Book IX., chapter i., of " Progress and Poverty," Mr. George exposes the fallacy of his own theory in these words : " For the simple device of placing all taxes on the value of land would be in effect putting up the land at auction to whoever would pay the highest rent to the State. The demand for land fixes its value, and hence, if taxes were placed so as to very nearly consume that value, the man who wished to hold land without using it would have to pay very nearly what it would be worth to any one who wanted to use it." This mode of taxation would instigate the same tyranny, the same causes for rack-renting, which Henry George describes and denounces in a previous part of his work in commenting upon the condition of the people of Ireland and India. In Book II., chapter ii., " Progress and Poverty," he says : "In India, from time immemorial, the working classes have been ground down by exactions and oppressions into a condition of helpless and hopeless degrada- tion. For ages and ages the cultivator of the soil has esteemed himself happy if, of his produce, the extor- 156 TENURE AND TOIL. tion of the strong hand left him enough to support life and furnish seed ; capital could nowhere be safely^ accumulated or to any considerable extent be used to assist production ; all wealth that could be wrung from the people was in the possession of princes who were little better than robber chiefs quartered on the country, or in that of their farmers or favorites, and was wasted in useless or worse than useless luxury, while religion, sunken into an elaborate and terrible superstition, tyrannized over the mind as physical force did over the bodies of men. Under these conditions the only arts that could advance were those that ministered to the ostentation and luxury of the great. The elephants of the rajah blazed with gold of exquisite workman- ship, and the umbrellas that symbolized his regal power glittered with gems; but the plough of the ryot was only a sharpened stick. The ladies of the rajah's harem wrapped themselves in muslins so fine as to take the name of woven wind, but the tools of the artisan were of the poorest and rudest description, and commerce could only be carried on as it were by stealth. " Is it not clear that this tyranny and insecurity have produced the want and starvation of India, and not, as according to Buckle, the pressure of population upon subsistence that has produced the want, and the want the tyranny? The Rev. William Tennant, a chaplain in the service of the East India Company, writing in 1796, two years before the publication of the 'Essay on Population,' says : ' When we reflect upon the great fertility of Hindostan, it is amazing to consider the frequency of famine. It is evidently not owing to any GEORGE'S SELF-REFUTATION. 157 sterility of soil or climate ; the evil must be traced to some political cause, and it requires but little penetra- tion to discover it in the avarice and extortion of the various governments. The great spur to industry, that of security, is taken away. Hence no man raises more grain than is barely sufficient for himself, and the first unfavorable season produces a famine. " ' The Mogul government at no period offered full security to the prince, still less to his vassals, and to peasants the most scanty protection of all. It was a continued tissue of violence and insurrection, treach- ery and punishment, under which neither commerce nor the arts could prosper, nor agriculture assume the appearance of a system. Its downfall gave rise to a state more afflictive, since anarchy is worse than mis- rule. . . . The rents to government were, and, where natives rule, still are, levied twice a year by a merciless banditti, under the semblance of an army, who wan- tonly destroy or carry off whatever part of the produce may satisfy their caprice or satiate their avidity, after having hunted the ill-fated peasants from the villages to the woods. Any attempt of the peasants to defend their persons or property within the mud walls of their villages, only calls for the more signal vengeance on those useful but ill-fated mortals. They are then sur- rounded and attacked by musketry and field-pieces till resistance ceases, when the survivors are sold, and their habitations burnt and levelled with the ground. Hence you will frequently meet with ryots gathering up the scattered remnants of what had yesterday been their habitation, if fear has permitted them to return, but 14 158 TENURE AND TOIL. oftener the ruins are seen smoking, after a second visi- tation of this kind, without the appearance of a human being to interrupt the awful silence of desolation. This description does not apply to the Mohammedan chieftains alone, it is equally applicable to the rajahs in the districts governed by Hindoos.'" In speaking of Ireland Mr. George says : " It is difficult for one who has been looking over the literature of Irish misery, as while writing this chapter I have been doing, to speak in decorous terms of the complacent attribution of Irish want and suffering to over population which are to be found even in the works of such high-minded men as Mill and Buckle. I know of nothing better calculated to make the blood boil than the cold accounts of the grasping, grinding tyranny to which the Irish people have been subjected, and to which, and not to any inability of the land to support its population, Irish pauperism and Irish famine are to be attributed; and were it not for the enervating effect which the history of tlie world proves to be every- where the result of abject poverty, it would be difficult to resist something like a feeling of contempt for a race who, stung by such wrongs, have only occasionally murdered a landlord ! . . . How could there fail to be pauperism and famine in a country where rack-rents wrested from the cultivator of the soil all the produce of his labor except just enough to maintain life in good seasons ; where tenure at will forbade improvements, and removed incentive to any but the most wasteful and poverty-stricken culture; where the tenant dared not accumulate capital, even if he could get it, for fear the GEORGE'S SELF-REFUTATION. 159 landlord would demand it in the rent ; where, in fact, he was an abject slave, who, at the nod of a human being like himself, might at any time be driven from his miserable mud cabin, a houseless, homeless, starving wanderer, forbidden even to pluck the spontaneous fruits of the earth, or to trap a wild hare to satisfy his hunger? No matter how sparse the population, no matter what the natural resources, are not pauperism and starvation necessary consequences in a land where the producers of wealth are compelled to work under conditions which deprive them of hope, of self-respect, of energy, of thrift ; where absentee landlords drain away without return, at least a fourth of the net pro- duce of the soil, and when, besides them, a starving industry must support resident landlords, with their horses and hounds, agents, jobbers, middlemen, and bailiffs, an alien state church to insult religious preju- dices, and an army of policemen and soldiers to over- awe and hunt down any opposition to the iniquitous system? Is it not impiety far worse than atheism to charge upon natural laws misery so caused ? . . . " At the period of her greatest population (1840-45), Ireland contained something over eight millions of people. But a very large proportion of them managed merely to exist, — lodging in miserable cabins, clothed with miserable rags, and with but potatoes for their staple food. When the potato blight came they died by thou- sands. But was it the inability of the soil to support so large a population that compelled so many to live in this miserable way, and exposed them to starvation on the failure of a single root crop ? On the contrary, it was 160 TENURE AND TOIL. the same remorseless rapacity that robbed the Indian ryot of the fruits of his toil, and left him to starve where nature offered plenty. A merciless banditti of tax- gatherers did not march through the land plundering and torturing, but the laborer was just as effectively stripped by as merciless a horde of landlords, among whom the soil had been divided as their absolute possession, re- gardless of any rights of those who lived upon it. " Consider the conditions of production under which this eight millions managed to live until the potato blight came. It was a condition to which the words used by Mr. Tennant in reference to India may as ap- propriately be applied, ' the great spur to industry, that of security, was taken away.' Cultivation was for the most part carried on by tenants-at-will, who, even if the rack-rents which they were forced to pay had per- mitted them, did not dare to make improvements which would have been but the signal for an increase of rent. Labor was thus applied in the most inefficient and wasteful manner, and labor was dissipated in aimless idleness, that, with any security for its fruits, would have been applied unremittingly." Further comment becomes unnecessary. Mr. George's argument is the refutation of his own theory. By " putting up the land at auction, to whoever would pay the highest rent to the State," no man would be secure in his possessions. An army of tax-gatherers, rivals in rapacity of the " merciless banditti" of India, who carry off whatever part of the produce might satiate their avidity, or of the crow-bar militia who raze to the ground the houses of the Irish peasantry, would GEORGE'S SELF-REFUTATION. \Q\ infest the land, despoiling the peasantry of all the fruits of their labor, and crushing every inducement to industry. The feudal serf was bound to the soil and ordinarily had the right to live and die upon it, but no legal tie binds George's tenant of the commonwealth to the land which he improves. The civilizing influences and endearing charms of home can never find lodgement in the mind and affections of an unsettled and restless peasantry. u* book: IV. LABOR; ITS WEONGS AND THEIR REMEDIES. CHAPTER I. LABOR. Labor is the life of the world. Labor ministers to the wants of the body, and awakens the tenderest" emotions of the sonl. Labor is the creator of wealth, the employer of capital. Labor, not gold or silver, is the true standard of values. What can a pair of hands produce ? Croesus views with alarm a depreciation of values, but witnesses with indifference the debasement of labor. Pauperism has become a constitutional vice, immorality a chronic disease. The savage, in his un- tutored freedom, claims ownership in the forest, and is a patriot in the desert. The laborer of to-day is a slave, — an alien to the soil he tills, without home or country. His vote elects the law-maker, but the voice of capital dictates the law. Labor advances, marches, but makes no progress. Its progress is another's. The accumulation of wealth is not progress. The decline of Rome began when it was gorged with the riches of the provinces. We are to-day a national anomaly, — a marvel of wealth and a prodigy of want. While our 162 ^ LABOR. 1(53 national progress is the wonder of the world, the wretchedness of our millions portends degeneracy and decay. "We subordinate the spiritual to the physical, and in crowning the material we dethrone the divine. Labor is a slave to wealth. A slave is not a patriot. Labor builds palaces for its master, but has not even a hovel which it can call its own. Labor is without motives to courage, without incentives to industry. Labor has no ideals to give it dignity beyond its im- mediate wants and circumstances. In advocating the elevation of labor, I offer no premium upon indolence. Labor is free from the dross of idleness. Labor seeks nothing but its just reward. Labor has no " yearnings for an equal division of un- equal earnings." This is a libel upon labor. The unequal division of equal earnings enervates and en- slaves labor. It defaces and destroys the family altar, it severs the most sacred ties, and works the ruin of home. It draws the veil of hypocrisy over the face of the moral teacher, and transforms trusted officials into defaulters and embezzlers. It fills the poor-house, and crowds the prison. It makes anarchists of men that have enriched others by their toil, but who see their own wives and children without shelter or bread. " Work," not " charity," is the demand of labor. The equal division of equal earnings is the right of labor. Out of the nettle of toil we pluck the flower of progress. Justice to labor is a conservation of the equity of the nation, redounding to the preservation and per- petuity of the republic. ^' Justice to Labor" must 164 TENURE AND TOIL. become our watchword and battle-cry, for labor is the mode of man. The Author of life wills and com- mands it, — " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth out of which thou wast taken." Nature ordains and proclaims it. Labor is typified in God and personified in all His works. Tlie earth and the sea, not less than the beasts and the fishes, labor. Without labor, man cannot exist. Labor is the song of the fields and the anthem of the heavens. Labor is the sunshine and the shower. There is motion, there is labor, in all things. Wisely, Virgil wrote ^^ Labor omnia vinoit," for labor overcomes, sub- dues, and conquers all things. Labor makes and builds up the physical man, the moral man, and the intellect- ual man, — "There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor." The troubled heart finds rest in labor, for " man is born to labor as the young birds take up their flight." It is meet that man should labor, for labor is the sum of his existence. " Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly, for neither work, nor reason, nor wisdom, nor knowl- edge shall be in hell." Rest and repose are added to the reward of him that labors, — " Sleep is sweet to a laboring man, whether he eat little or much ; but the fulness of the rich will not suffer him to sleep." The earth is the field and the workshop where all is life and all is labor. The rivers run to the sea, and " unto the place from whence the rivers come, whither they return again," ascending in myriads of rays reflected from the sun, descending in the sparkling dew-drop and in the LABOR. I(j5 life-giving shower, shedding heaven's benediction upon the labor of man's hands. " He that tilleth the land shall be filled with bread/' but " an idle soul shall suiFer hunger." By labor we found cities ; " by slothfulness, a building is brought down." Solomon says, " I passed by the field of the slothful man, and by the vineyard of the foolish man : and, behold, it was all filled with nettles ; and thorns had covered the face thereof; and the stone wall was broken down. Which, when I had seen, I laid it up in my heart : and by the example I received instruction. Thou wilt sleep a little, said I : thou wilt slumber a little ; thou wilt fold thy hands a little to rest : and poverty shall come to thee as a runner, and beggary as an armed man." Labor inspires the imagination, elevates the thought, and ennobles the mind. " He that gathereth by labor shall increase," but " wealth gotten in haste shall be diminished." Labor is the harbinger of civilization ; idleness and envy and covetousness and sloth disappear befoie labor as snow disappears before the summer sun. Labor is the condition of man, the harmony of nature, the apostrophe to God. Labor is the song of David, the voice of the prophets, the parable of the sower, the lesson of the talents, the Lord's Prayer, the Sermon on the Mount, the life of- the body, the harmony of the soul, the religion of heaven. Any system of religion, philosophy, or political economy that discourages honest labor by teaching that the land which other men reclaim, cultivate, and make fruitful belongs as much to him that sleeps as to him 166 TENURE AND TOIL. that toils is contrary to the laws of natural justice, inimical to civilization, and blasphemous as against things sacred and essential to the welfare of society, Sublimely moral is the lesson which Hesiod * taught : " But thou, O Perses I what my words impart Let memory bind forever on thy heart. O son of Dios I labor evermore, That hunger turn abhorrent from thy door ; That Ceres bless'd, with spiky garland crown'd, Greet thee with love, and bid thy barns abound. Still on the sluggard hungry want attends ; The scorn of man, the hate of Heaven impends ; While he, averse from labor, drags his days. Yet greedy on the gains of others preys ; E'en as the stingless drones, devouring seize, "With glutted sloth, the harvest of the bees. Love every seemly toil, that so the store Of foodful seasons heap thy garner's floor. Prom labor, men returns of wealth behold. Flocks in their fields, and in their coffers, gold : Prom labor shalt thou with the love be bless'd Of men and gods ; the slothful they detest. Not toil, but sloth, shall ignominious be; Toil, and the slothful man shall envy thee ; Shall view thy growing wealth with alter'd sense For glory, virtue, walk with opulence. Thou, like a god, since labor still is found The better part, shalt live beloved, renown'd ; If, as I counsel, thou thy witless mind. Though weak and empty as the veering wina, From others' coveted possessions turn'd, To thrift compel, and food by labor earn'd. * Herodotus says that Hesiod was born about 884 years be- fore Christ, and Pliny speaks of him as the earliest writer who laid down precepts of agriculture. CAPITAL SHOULD SHARE PROFITS WITH LABOR. 167 With thy best means perform the ritual part, Outwardly pure, and spotless at the heart ; Now burn choice portions to the gods ; dispense Wine-offerings now, and smoke of frankincense ; When on the nightly couch thy limbs repose, Or sacred light from far its coming shows : So shall they yearn to thee with soul benign, And thou buy others' lands, not others thine." CHAPTER II. CAPITAL SHOULD SHARE PROFITS WITH LABOR. The wide gulf which separates labor and capital may be bridged and the bitter diflPerences which are fostering a dangerous antagonism between them may be harmonized in a simple and practical manner, viz. : By allowing the laborer to participate in the profits of his employer's business, — profits which are the joint products of his labor and his employer's capital. For example, I have one million dollars, which I desire to invest in a manufacturing, railway, or other business venture, but, to inaugurate the enterprise and carry it on successfully, I must enlist the services and co-operation of one hundred men. Unless I can do so, my million dollars is an unproductive encumbrance upon my hands, since it, in and of itself, can yield no profit. I find one hundred men who are anxious and willing to work, but are unable for want of capital to engage in business for themselves. The capital represented by the labor of 168 TENURE AND TOIL. these men is virtually lost to them, since they cannot utilize it. I approach these men and I say to A, "Your labor is worth five hundred dollars a year; now if you give your time and labor to a business enterprise which I desire to establish, I will pay you five hundred dollars a year as wages, and, in addition thereto, I will give you an interest in the concern equal to double the amount of your annual salary, so that, if the invest- ment prove profitable, you will be entitled to a dividend from the profits at the end of every year on a sum equal to one thousand dollars of the capital stock." To B, who is a skilled laborer, I say, " I will pay you one thousand dollars a year for your services, and I will give you an interest in the concern equal to one and three-fourths as much as your annual salary." To C, whom I wish to place in charge of a department, I say, " I will pay you two thousand dollars a year for your services, and give you an interest in the concern equal to one and one-half times your annual salary." And so on, decreasing the amount of the interest given each employe in the concern in relative proportion to the in- crease of salary, so that the common laborer or person who receives the smallest pay for his services will have the largest relative interest in the welfare of the enter- prise, and to that extent he will be the more careful and vigilant in promoting and protecting its interests. The million dollars cash actually invested and the whole amount represented as the equivalent of labor would constitute the capital stock for the purpose of partici- pating in the profits. The men employed would, in this way, receive the same pay for their services, or CAPITAL SHOULD SHARE PROFITS WITH LABOR. 169 nearly so, as they do now, and the capital represented as the equivalent of labor would simply be a working interest given to the men, in one sense, as an induce- ment in order to incite them to a greater vigilance and more effective industry, and, in another sense, as a more just and equitable mode of compensating labor. It may be urged that after the men are paid reasonable wages as the reward of their labor I ought to be allowed a certain percentage of the earnings before the employes would be allowed to participate in profits. But when it is considered that labor and not money is the basis of all values, no injustice can be done the capitalist in per- mitting the laborer to stand upon equality with him in the division of profits. The amount I pay the laborer is not the real value of his labor, as the real value should be the net profits arising from the sale of the thing or article produced by him, but it is simply an approximate value which barely enables him to live and support himself while performing the labor. The amount which I pay him, therefore, is paid him upoi> the same basis that I pay for a tie or rail^ a locomotive or car. It is as necessary to purchase his labor in order to build the road as it is to purchase the right of way and the materials used in its construction. The right of way, the tie, the rail, the locomotive engine, the car, and the labor which produced and brought to- gether these several parts may be sold and converted into money, and thereby I receive back the equivalent which I paid for the labor just the same as I receive back, with accrued profits, that which I paid for the right of way and the materials ( ut of which the road H 15 170 TENURE AND TOIL. is built and equipped. So that the cash which I invest I may receive back at any time, while the capital which represents the labor of the workman is lost to him. He has invested his labor in my enterprise, and it has become wholly merged therein, lost to him ; but as long as the industry endures, the profit-producing power of that labor is contributing to the enhancement of my business and the increase of my revenue. Hence, as the representative value of the workman's labor operates as an ever-present and positive investment in the enter- prise just the same as my million dollars, and which, like the right of way and materials, contributes to the growth and consequent increase of its value, it is not unjust to me that he should participate in the net prof- its produced as the combined result of his labor and my capital. The fact that the ratio between the profit- producing power of a million dollars and that of a thousand is so much greater than the ratio between the two amounts themselves, is an important element for -consideration, and should be recognized in passing judgment upon the equity of the plan of co-operation here proposed. All men in their exercise of watchful care and industrious skill are largely actuated by selfish motives, and when interested in and part owners, as it were, of a business, will not be apt to unite with or enter into combinations, strikes, or boycotts that would injure or destroy their own interests. If I should de- vote my time and energy in attending to the concerns of business, I ought to be paid reasonable compensation for my services, the same as any other employ^ capable of attending to similar duties, but there ought not to be CAPITAL SHOULD SHARE PROFITS WITH LABOR. 171 any sinecures attaclied to it, or relatives or favorites connected with it receiving compensation for services never performed. After salaries of employes and other legitimate expenses of the business are paid, the net profit should be divided upon the basis already stated, in the same way as stock dividends are now divided among stockholders. A scheme of this kind could be adapted to railroad, manufacturing, and business ven- tures of every kind, where labor and capital are mutually dependent upon one another, each indispen- sable to the success of the other. The only difficulty to overcome arises in adjusting matters so that there can be no evasion or fraud practised by employers upon the employes on the one hand, and tiiat upon no trivial or flimsy pretext can the employes involve the concern in litigation on the other. An intelligent, broad-gauge attention to details will obviate any difficulty which can arise between employ^ and employer under wise legis- lation, defining and limiting their relative rights and duties. When one estimates the magnitude of loss to capital and labor, the inconvenience to the public and detriment to business which have been occasioned by strikes, boycotts, and lock-outs during the past few years, he must conclude that some remedy ought to be adopted to prevent their recurrence. Wiiat better pre- ventive measure can be devised or suggested than to make every man a joint participator with his employer in the profits arising from his vigilant and skilful labor, and to hold both parties to a strict observance and performance of their mutual rights and duties ? 172 TENURE AND TOIL. CHAPTER III. STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS PREVENTED BY ARBITRA- TION. The third annual report of the Commissioner of Labor to the Secretary of Interior, submitted December, 1887, covering the six years ending December 31, 1886, is a startling exhibit of the strained conditions existing between Labor and Capital, and a pregnant portrayal of the great losses to both factors of industry in strikes and lock-outs, which are the legitimate result- ants of these strained conditions. The strike is the unintelligent effort of the workman to remedy his Avrongs, and the lock-out is the venal resort of the em- ployer to reduce wages or limit production. The report exhibits simply the facts belonging to each industrial trouble, aud the bare statement of these frozen facts is suflScient, — it carries with it its own commentary. Figures sjjeak, and there are voicings in the follow- ing table it were wise for the money-masters and law- makers to hearken to and heed : ■i7,„t„,,i;„v,„ t Average No. of Estab- Tear. Strikes. ^^^fJ^f^^T^ lishments involved mvoivea. j^^ ^,^^^ strike. 1881 471 2,928 6.2 1882 454 2,105 4.6 1883 478 2,759 5.8 1884 443 2,367 5.3 . 1885 645 2,284 3.5 • 1886 1411 9,861 7.0 Total Average... 3902 22,304 Gen. Av. 5.7 STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS PREVENTED, ETC. 173 New York and Chicago, the two great trade centres of our country, had the largest number of establish- ments affected. The total number of employes involved in the whole number of strikes was 1,323,203, — a num- ber equal to the entire population of bread-winners in the State of New York. The number of employes originating the strikes was 1,020,156. Is it rational to assert that no just cause for complaint exists when over one million of men unite to obtain one common end? The number of employes in all establishments prior to the strikes was 1,660,835, while the whole number em- ployed after the strikes was 1,635,047, a loss of 25,788. This decrease in the number employed is a witne-^s, that can neither be bribed nor intimidated, to the truth of the charge that strikes are sometimes provoked by em- ployers themselves when they desire to curtail their working force and wish to shirk the responsibility of turning men out of work. During the period named there were 2214 establishments in which lock-outs were ordered, employing 175,270 men before the lock-outs, and 170,747 after, — another loss to labor caused by the rapacity of capital. 74.84 per cent, of tiie whole num- ber of establishments affected by the strikes, and 89.48 per cent, of the lock-outs, were in New York, Pennsyl- vania, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Illinois, which five States contain 49 per cent, of all the manufacturing establishments, and employ 58 per cent, of the capital invested in mechanical industries in the United States. Of the 22,304 establishments in which strikes oc- curred, 18,342, or 82.24 per cent., of them were ordered by labor organizations, while of the 2214 15* 174 TENURE AND TOIL. lock-outs, 79.18 per cent, were ordered by combina- tions of managers. The .results of the strikes, so far as gaining the ob- jects sought, were as follows : Successful, 10,375, or 46.52 per cent.; partially successful, 3004, or 13.47 per cent. ; and failure followed in 8910 cases, or 39.95 per cent. By lock-outs, 564 establishments, or 25.47 per cent., succeeded in gaining their points ; 190, or 8.58 per cent., partially succeeded ; and 1339, or 60.48 per cent., failed. As to causes or objects of strikes, the report referred to shows that an increase of wages was the principal one, — 42.32 per cent. The other leading causes : reduction of hours, 19.48 per cent. ; against reduction of wages, 7.77 per cent. ; for increase of wages and reduction of hours, 7.59 per cent. ; against increase of hours, 0.62 per cent. The losses to strikers and employers is given as fol- lows : Losses to strikers, |51, 814,723, and loss to em- ployes through lock-outs, $8,157,717, making a total wage-loss of $59,972,440. The assistance given to strikers and to those suffering from lock-outs was $4,430,595. The employers' losses through strikes amounted to $30,701,553; through lock-outs, $3,362,261 ; or a total loss of $34,163,814. These strikes and lock-outs — the conflict between labor and capital — are rendered possible by the inade- quacy of our legislation to provide for the former and control the latter. Wiiether these forces shall continue in conflict until labor destroys capital, or capital reduces labor to a vassalage worse than African slavery, or whether they shall be brought into perfect harmony STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS PREVENTED, ETC. 175 with each other, depends upon the caj)acity of those who frame the Jaws to meet the exigencies of present con- ditions. Every conflict between labor and capital finds its primal cause in bad statutes, and is a natural result- ant of the perversion of justice which finds expression in the enforcement of rights that are legal but unjust. The State may, and ought to, make provision for the speedy adjustment of the differences wiiich give rise to strikes and lock-outs. This might be done without creating new tribunals or officers. We have a super- abundance of officers now. The law should provide that the parties considering themselves aggrieved, whether locomotive engineers, moulders, bakers, or brewers, on the one hand, or the employers on the other, shall present to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of their State, a petition setting forth in full and detail their grievances ; that notice shall thereupon be given to the parties complained of, who shall within a certain day, to be fixed by the Chief Justice, answer the charges in full, after which an opportunity may be given petitioners to reply. Should it be claimed that the issues thus made up do not present the matter fairly, the counsel or pei^sons representing the respective parties shall set forth the points upon which they dis- agree, and thereupon the Chief Justice shall refer the matter to some person to be named by him to take testimony upon the points of disagreement. The person so named shall be clothed with all the powers of a chancellor, who shall issue subpoenas and cause wit- nesses to come before him to testify to such matters. In order to avoid delay and to prevent unnecessary 176 TENURE AND TOIL. expenses, no more than two witnesses on each side should be allowed on any one point, as the merits or de- merits of the claims of the respective parties will be as readily comprehended from a very few as from a great number of witnesses, the main question for deter- mination being which party is at fault in the matter, — differing in this respect from a contest over rights of property. After the issues are thus settled and the testimony taken, the Chief Justice shall name three Circuit Court judges, to meet at a time and place to be designated by him, to examine into and determine the questions involved. The decision of the judges so named, or any two of them, shall be final and con- clusive, and binding upon the parties interested. Until after the announcement of said decision it shall be unlawful for the leader of any combination of men to order a strike, and any ]ierson offending shall be guilty of misdemeanor and liable to fine or imprisonment, or both, in the discretion of the Court; and it shall also be unlawful for any corporation or individual to order a lock-out, the penalty for so doing to be the payment of full wages to the men affected by such lock-out, and one thousand dollars to be recovered in an action of debt for the use of the school fund. The next question for serious consideration arises as to how the decision of this tribunal should be enforced. This is a difficulty of the utmost magnitude, for of what value, it may be asked, is the decision of a tribunal unless that decision can be enforced. " Of all the parts of a law," says Blackstone, " the most effectual is the vindicatory. For it is but lost labor to say, ' do this,' STRIKES AND LOCK-OUTS PREVENTED, ETC. 177 or ' avoid that/ unless we also declare, ' this shall be the consequence of your non-compliance.' We must, therefore, observe that the main strength and force of a law consists in the penalty annexed to it." No one will question the force of this assertion as applied to mu- nicipal laws prescribing rules of civil conduct. Never- theless, the object of the law proposed is not so much to ])rescribe a rule of civil conduct as it is to ascertain the causes which give rise to certain difficulties and adjust these difficulties by amicable arbitration. The object is to create a tribunal, which shall stand impartial and indifferent between the parties, whose decision will be relieved of the rancor and bitterness whicli invariably follow an arbitration arrived at by the parties interested, and which is usually characterized as a victory or back- down by the one party or the other. AVhich party in fault could bear up and sustain itself M'ith the public against a judicial iinding that it is in the wrong? Be- sides, I should deprecate the wisdom of legislation which would seek to compulsorily enforce a decree of this nature upon either party to the controversy. Even the Statute of Laborers of Edward III. of England soon became a dead letter, and if such legislation became inoperative and ineifectual in the days of feudal bond- age, it were folly to attempt similar experiments in this day and generation. Let us simply create a tribunal to take the j)lace of the opinionated laborer on the one side, and the haughty employer on the other, and in the legislation creating it provide a penalty somewhat simi- lar to that suggested herein, so as to prevent the one or the other party from precipitating a strike or lock-out 178 TENURE AND TOIL. until the question as to who is in fault shall be judicially ascertained and determined. When Anacharsis visited Solon, and knew the nature of the institutions which that sage law-giver designed to establish at Athens, he laughed at his undertaking and at the absurdity of imagining he could restrain the avarice and injustice of his citizens by written laws. These laws, he said, resembled, in all respects, spiders' webs, and would, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful easily broke through them. To this Solon replied, "■ Men keep their agreements when it is an advantage to both parties not to break them ; and he would so frame his laws as to make it evident to the Athenians that it would be more for their interest to observe than to transgress them." The same may be said in the case proposed. It would be to the mutual advantage of both parties to observe rather than transgress the decree. CHAPTER IV. THE GLAHIS ARTISAN AN INDEPENDENT COMMONEE. These strikes are but the physical manifestation of a deep-seated discontent with things as they are in the industrial world, — a discontent while protesting at times violently against wrongs unquestioned, yet dreads THE GLARIS ARTISAN, ETC. 179 in the righting of these wrongs to go to the extreme length which outraged humanity prompts, for the reason that man will endure oppressions grievous to be borne rather than involve himself in turbulence. Tlie political Utopia, — the fairy-land of political dreamers, — in which a perfect natural order of things should obtain through the untrammelled action of social forces, has, like the fabled Atlantis, vanished from sight. It has been superseded on the one hand by pessimism, on the other, and more generally, it has given way to a de- termination not to let things go on themselves, but to make them go in such manner as may be desired. The conviction is growing that, in the divine economy, it was never proposed that a social and industrial world should be left to itself. The material is given out of which man may construct a social order and formulate a political system consistent with right, justice, and the well-being of society. This is the basis of modern progress, social, industrial, and political. Acting upon this basis, and imbued with these principles, the founders of our institutions aimed to construct a system of government which should keep pace with the prog- ress of events and endure for ages. It seems they have but led us to the verge of a precipice unless we are able, in some measure, to equalize the inequality of social conditions which, in this country, exist side by side with political equality. Laveleye's words of timely warning are : " Either you must establish a more equitable division of property and produce, or the fatal end of democracy will be despotism and de- cadence after a series of social struggles, of which the 180 TENURE AND TOIL. horrors committed in Paris, in 1871, may. serve as a foretaste." The soul of popular states is equality. This is the ethics of the advanced thought of to-day, — no romance but realistic, — stepping out from the dim light of the student's lamp into the broad sunlight seeking actualization among the people. Co-operation is the new social form. Practicalists may sneer at it as a dream. The dream of to-day becomes the deed of to- morrow. It is the gospel of the true crusade of com- petition against monopoly, of industrial freedom against commercial vassalage, of social order against impend- ing anarchy. Its apostles are preaching it in every land. Its spread is heralded with joy by the most eminent thinkers and wisest publicists of the day. Practical applications of its humane principles have been, and are being, made in many small communities, and with most beneficent results. The common good of the many is of paramount importance to the in- dividual interests of the privileged few. In a recog- nition of this truth as the basic principle of our political and industrial economy lies the solution of those social problems which are now vexing the nations of the world, our own not less, but rather more, than any other. Nowhere can the efficacy of this principle, in its practical workings, be as fully observed as in the Canton of Claris, Switzerland. There we have an agrarian organization of a most remote period, com- bined with the conditions of modern industry, which, supplemented by the right of occupation in the com- THE GLARIS ARTISAN, ETC. Igl niou mark, has wrought a priceless improvement in the condition of the common workmen in the ffreat factories. Glaris is one of those districts in Europe where the much larger number of the laborers are em- ployed in industrial occupation. Over one-third of the inhabitants (thirty thousand) live directly by such occupations, and nearly all the others indirectly. The workmen obtain of right, and without payment, a house in which to live, and a field for the cultivation of fruits and vegetables. Tiiey pay little or no taxes. The expenses of the public service are provided for in the revenue of property set apart for the purpose, all the public institutions having their separate alp, forest, and arable, the yield from which is sufficient for their maintenance. How marked the contrast between the condition of the Pittsburg mechanic and that of the workman of Glaris ! The former breathing an atmos- phere befouled with smoke, with a hovel in some narrow and crowded street as the only abiding-place for himself and family, and the corner saloon as the only resort open to him where he can forget his life and drudgery. The latter breathes the fresh, pure air of his mountain-girdled valley, and is under the generous influence of sublime natural surroundings. He dwells in his own home, tills his own field, — his by right, natural and inalienable. He raises much of the food necessary to supply his family, and thus grows firmly attached to the soil which he owns and uses, to the community in which he is recognized as an active factor, feeling himself bound with the bond of com- mon ownership, and by the common exercise of the 16 182 TENURE AND TOIL. same rights to his neighbors and fellow-citizens. His manhood is developed in power to do and in capacity to enjoy. The consciousness of his own entity, being an acknowledged force and factor, imbues his life with a purpose and a power, which, in combination with the same agency dominating the lives of his fellow-mem- bers, brings steadiness of pursuit, a healthy progress, and restful happiness to the entire community. The forbiddino; conditions of the American work- man breed in his mind an enmity of social order, a hatred of his employer and of capital, a feeling of un- rest and bitter discontent that ripens into revolt. The Swiss commoner, contented in the enjoyment of all the natural rights of man, thinks not — the thought would do violence to his own nature — of conspiring against a system which provides him such bounteous benefits, and which his own vote helps to perpetuate. Liberty, fraternity, equality to him are not merely the empty shibboleth of the demagogue or the meaningless label of a public document. His personal liberty is com- plete, and comes down to him clothed in the sanctity of ages; equality is a fact admitted and upheld in all his laws ; fraternity is more than a sentiment, it is embodied in social and economic systems which recognize the people of the same community as members of a com- mon family, sharing equally in the heritage bequeathed from sire to son. AN IDEAL INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY. 183 CHAPTER V. PULLMAN AS AN IDEAL INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY. In contrast with the AUemand system, so admirable in operation and so beneficent in results, let us sketch outlines of the most extensive experiment of any thing approaching this character that we have in the United States. We refer to that social experimentation known as Pullman, 111., the vastuess of the scale upon which it is operated constituting its only significance. And for this reason it compels examination and discussion at this day, when dynamite is the terror of thrones, when the murmurings of discontent are swelling into imprecations that threaten to become the battle-cries of a revolution, and when the earnest, honest friends of humanity, feel- ing an eager interest in social and economic conditions, are searching for a solution of these industrial problems independent of the dogmas and teachings of a superfine political economy. Pullman is a town of ten thousand dwellers, ten miles south of Chicago^ founded by the Pullman Palace Car Company — i.e., George M. Pull- man — seven years ago. It was to be at once a centre of industry and a home for the employes of the com- pany and such other laborers as might be drawn hither by other opportunities for employment. Its growth has been rapid, owing to the many manufactories established there, all of which, however, are directly or indirectly operated or dominated by the one central power, — the 1S4 TENURE AND TOIL. Pullman Palace Car Company. Between five and six thousand men are employed, four-fifths of whom are in the employ of the Pullman Company. The value of their products can only be measured- by millions of dol- lars. Its success as a manufacturing centre is unques- tioned. With this phase of its existence we are not concerned. The question is, Is Pullman a success from the stand-point of the employe? Has it furnished a satisfactory solution of the industrial problem of to-day? While filling the coffers of its projector, is it elevating and enriching the lives wearing away in toil in its shops and factories ? To answer these questions aright one must measure Pullman by an ideal standard, for it was the boast of its founder that he would give a practical existence to ideal conditions in the building and main- taining of his new community. There is but one test to be applied to any social system ; if it fails to meet the requirements of that test, it has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. That test is, Does it so place each individual that he can share in and enjoy to the extent of his natural capacity the privileges and advantages of the existing civilization? In Pullman, perhaps to a greater extent than else- where in this country, unstinted provision has been made for the material comfort of the dwellers therein. The employes occupy houses that are, as a rule, tasteful in construction and models in neatness ; the streets are kept in perfect condition, with a rovv of shade-trees on each side, giving them a pleasant and picturesque ap- pearance; simple but ingenious designs secure a striking variety of architecture in the houses, which are built in AN IDEAL INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY. 185 groups of two or more or in blocks. Public squares, hotels, arcades, markets, miniature lakes, a stretch of meadow or a cluster of trees are most happily distrib- uted to relieve the monotony of long rows of buildings. Rents are moderate. There is a public library, — not a free one. Three dollars a year pays for the privilege of readino; such of its eig-ht thousand volumes as the artisan may select. The public-school system is permitted to give educational facilities for the children of the em- ployfe, provided the trustees rent a building of the Pullman Company to be used as a school-house,' — the only instance in the United States where a corporation nullifies that (or any other) provision of the public- school law which requires the trustees to erect suitable buildings in which schools shall be taught. The Pull- man Company owns and controls everything. The livery stables, the hotel, the theatre, the fire depart- ment, all are the property of the company. No pri- vate person can own a foot of ground or a single building. The oligarchy will not even permit the erection of a church ; religious organizations desiring to hold meetings must do so in rented quarters. There is no Lord's acre here.* Every municipal act is the act of a corporation. It is a village within the village of Hyde Park, and the latter seeks to exercise no au- thority over its territory. Members of the various Pullmanized corporations fill many of the principal * Eecently a church society succeeded in purchasing from this corporation ground upon which to erect a church-edifice, but this building-site is located outside the town. 16* 186 TENURE AND TOIL. offices of Hyde Park village, including that of school trustee. We have here millions of dollars expended in sur- rounding wage-workers with beauty and comfort. But every dollar is so invested as to return a handsome profit to its owners. There is naught philanthropic in the entire experiment. Everything is conceived in a busi- ness spirit, conducted upon purely business principles, and made a source of revenue to the projectors. The wages paid are the ruling prices for such labor. Steady employment and prompt pay are always assured. Faithful and skilful hands are specially cared for. Employes who chance to suffer loss of limb or any other physical misfortune are provided with such tasks as they can perform. In many ways thus are the physi- cal wants and conditions provided for and satisfied. Every device that the ingenuity of man can invent or suggest is employed by the owners to so completely meet the demands for material comfort and attractive surroundings that their employes, with tlieir physical senses cloyed, will feel no stirring impulse within for social, moral, or mental growth that might breed dis- content. But while this scrupulous attention to ma- terial details which so strongly combine to enhance the physical comfort of man is most admirable in conception and perfect in execution, yet there are phases of Pull- man life that must be admitted are not only unpleasant, but which unfit a man to fully understand the obliga- tions, perform the duties, and share the responsibilities of American citizenship. THE PULLMAN ARTISAN A TENANT AT WILL. 187 CHAPTER VI. THE PULLMAN ARTISAIST A TENANT AT WILL, There is frequent change of men and of officers, and each new incumbent has his chosen friends to reward. Favoritism should have no place in an ideal community. The evils incident to such a condition necessarily exist here, such as petty jealousies, displacement and dis- couragement of superior capacity, constant changing of residents, and a general feeling of insecurity. The idea of home — that idea the incarnation of which, in man's life, is essential to his true development and happiness — finds no association with the name of Pullman. The people dwell in houses not their own, and their tenure subject to termination at ten days' notice, a condition embodied in the lease, the corporation reserving the right to cancel that lease even though the rent may have been paid in advance for a longer period than the time of notice stipulated. Is not this in contravention of the law fixing and maintaining the relative rights of landlord and tenant ? The rent may be paid in the forenoon of the first day of the month, in the afternoon the decree is promulgated that notices be issued to the tenants to vacate in ten days. In this connection we must not forget that about eighty per cent, of the laborers are in the employ of the corporation in control of this petty kingdom, and all the others are employed in es- tablishments which are under its influence. Such an 188 TENURE AND TOIL. absolute extinction of individuality and such an utter absorption of that individuality by a capitalistic organ- ization is without approach or parallel in the history of any other modern civilized community. In many re- spects the power of the Eussian Czar pales into utter in- significance in comparison with the power of the close corporation which rules at Pullman. Can it be said that that power is always rightfully exercised ? Man is not perfect, though his coffers be filled with shekels and he be knighted by the king of Italy. That power is there ; the only escape from it is emigration. Within the limits of this ideal (?), social, and industrial realm es- cape from the all-pervading influence of the corporation is impossible. Many grievances exist, many acts of injustice occur, but no one dare utter a cry for help or redress. The laborers at Pullman believe that " spotters" — paid eavesdroppers of the company — mingle with them to catch and report to their masters any sign or word ex- pressive of disapproval or criticism of the actions of the authorities. Pullman is the only community of ten thousand peo- ple in the United States that has not a newspaper pub- lished within its limits. The freedom of the press here would be limited to the promulgation and approval of the decrees and dogmas of the powers that be. What a spectacle ! Ten thousand people in utter subjection to the avaricious cupidity and limitless power of a dozen men organized and co-operating together as one man, who own a pseudo-city, exempt from muni- cipal burdens and responsibilities. Not a single mau THE PULLMAN ARTISAN A TENANT AT WILL. 189 of all that ten thousand dare express an opinion about the affairs of the community in which he dwells. These conditions of existence beget a servility little less than slavery, a dependence that is moral weakness and men- tal degradation. There is a culpable lack of attention in the meagre provisions for religious instruction. The seating capacity of the halls is insufiGcient for the ac- commodation of the people, and the rental demanded is so high that it is with great difficulty any religious denomination can pay it. The company, with an eye single to its own selfish purposes, provides shelter and meat for the body, but maketh no provision for manna for the soul. The soul cannot forge a bolt or line a boiler. No public meetings are ever held in which the citi- zens could discuss local affairs, and give expression to that responsibility for things done and not done which constitute a practical education in the duties of citizen- ship, and give opportunity for the development of a capacity equal to the higher conditions and greater trusts, — that is, the practical culture which develops the desire and capacity for self-government is unknown. The individual is environed with restraints and restric- tions, unable to do anything for his own material, social, or political advancement, and thus his very entity as an integral part of that community suffers extinction. The one desire that is dearer to an American citizen than all others, the desire to have and hold a home, finds no expression at Pullman, The industry and economy so necessary to the acquisition of that home 190 TENURE AND TOIL. become the corner-stones of a career of peace and plenty. Besides, the owner of a home is a guardian of the safety and perpetuity of the community in which he lives. Home-owners are never malcontents. They are a safeguard against social disturbances and indus- trial revolts. Everything in Pullman must belong to and be a part of the corporation. The power of the capitalists who conceived and con- trol this community is limitless, and the wrong-burdened history of the world has long ago taught, with all the unction of the divine decree, that no class of men are fit to be trusted with unlimited and irresponsible author- ity. In the exercise of such power man is prone to yield to the temptation to abuse it. Moreover, the subject of such absolute authority becomes servile and degraded, and he who wields it corrupt and shame- less. In Pullman we find a condition which establishes, in fact, only under a new form, the degrading relation of lord and vassal, which is utterly abhorrent to the ad- vanced humanity of the age, and utterly subversive of every correct principle of ti'ue manhood and true womanhood. This relationship should be abolished, and in its stead a co-operation of some kind or another established, which will conduce to the growth and development of the mental and moral nature of man as well as the physical. Compare, — nay, there is no comparison, — but the contrast is striking and suggestive between the spirit- less, propertyless dependent, toiling in the workshops at Pullman, and the fearless and independent com- THE PULLMAN ARTISAN A TENANT AT WILL. J 91 moner of the Swiss Canton. The one will breed a race of slaves, the other beget a nation of heroes. If the founders of Pullman, with minds imbued with the teachings of a true political philosophy and a conscience quickened by the desire to ameliorate and elevate the condition of their workmen, had, in the organization of their industrial experiment, subordi- nated the physical comfort of the laborer to his social improvement and moral development, the evils, which we find inherent and active, and which will eventually work its destruction or the enslavement of the laborer, could have had no existence in this community. Pro- vision ought to have been made (1) that the workman could have the opportunity of buying the house which he now rents, and the sum which he pays as rental each month been taken as a partial payment upon the purchase-price. Attached to each house should have been at least one acre of ground upon which the laborer could have grown fruit and vegetables for his family. (2) That he could look forward to promotion in the line of his work as an incentive to and a just reward of fixed terms of faithful service : each promotion bring- ing an increase of wages. (3) That he could share in the net profits arising from the combination of his labor with the capital of the corporation. A recognition of the natural right of man to own property, to work out his own elevation, and to share in the products of his own labor is vital to the safety and perpetuity of any industrial or political system. 192 TENURE AND TOIL. CHAPTER yil. ACTION DEMANDED. WHAT SHALL IT BE? No system of legislation, the enforcement of which would compulsorily deprive the individual of his pro- prietary rights, can be devised that will not meet with opposition. But since it is admitted on all hands that deep-seated grievances exist among the masses of the people, — whether justly or unjustly it matters not, — arising from the unequal distribution of wealth and from the accumulation of property in the hands of the few,- and when it is also admitted that these grievances are growing to such an extent that, if something is not done to remedy them, serious disturbances, destructive of property and detrimental to the well-being of society, may ensue, it is time for men of wealth and property to pause and wisely consider what means to adopt to avert these impending calamities. The grievances existing among the laboring people must be remedied in some reasonable way. They cannot be remedied by brute force. That was resorted to in France, but when the critical moment arrived, the clergy and nobility discovered to their sorrow that the military, who were of the people, sympathized with the people. A hand- ful of armed detectives, or the militia, may succeed for a time in overawing and bringing to terms a few striking factory or railroad hands, but this agitation ACTION DEMANDED. WHAT SHALL IT BE? 193 and unrest among the people will not down. Apply- ing brute force only adds fuel to the fire. The tears of women and appeals of children who are suffering from exposure and famishing from hunger cannot be silenced or appeased with bludgeons and shot-guns. They can be appeased and silenced only by bread and clothes. Will men of wealth and property afford them the means of acquiring these simple necessaries, or wait until they take them ? Remember that want and suffering and hunger are elements more dangerous to toy witli or handle than gunpowder, Greek fire, or dynamite. Re- member the lesson of the French revolution. Remem- ber that it is much safer to render it possible for the de- serving poor to earn and enjoy a little from your abun- dance than, in the withholding from them this chance of living, drive them into the ranks of the viciously idle, who look upon property as the pauper's prey, and thus imperil your all. How shall these deep-seated griev- ances of the people be remedied without at the same time doing great injustice to the rights of property ? Henry George says. Abolish private property in land. Herr Most would throttle the law, destroy the government, and divide the spoils. These are extreme measures, and while both are rapidly gaining many adherents, the capitalists remain passive and inadive, without turning a hand or suggesting a measure to off-set these danger- ous doctrines. Men who write books or write for the press or who make political speeches — the men who influence and create public opinion — are, as a rule, men of compara- tively limited means, with but little experience in the in 17 • 194 TENURE AND TOIL. practical affairs of life. Aware of this fact, the writer addressed letters of -inquiry to men of eminence and ex- perience in railroad and manufacturing circles, hoping to elicit from them practical information which he might use to advantage in the preparation of this work, but the usual answer was, " I have no time to consider the. subject-matter of your inquiry." So that the same complaint which is made against our wealthiest citizens who do not take sufficient interest in the government to vote on election day may be urged against the capi- talists who refuse to impart practical information to men who devote time and who give their best thought to the development of economic and legislative sub- jects calculated to benefit society. A man who knows nothing about railroading or the relative duties and obligations of the company and its hands cannot be expected to suggest an economic measure or law which would be as beneficial for all concerned in that branch of industry as the late T. J. Potter, who was probably the most thoroughly equipped railroad man of this genera- tion. A man who has had no experience in manufac- turing cannot be expected to suggest a measure or to propose a law which would be as far-reaching and bene- ficial in its effects in regard to the relative rights and duties of manufacturers and their employes as Andrew J. Carnegie. The man of practical experience, who deals honestly and fairly with the subject, should be able to suggest measures or devise and formulate a system of laws of eminent utility, while the man lack- ing such experience can only deal with the subject as he sees it from a study of the philosophy of the effects pro- ACTION DEMANDED. WHAT SHALL IT BE? 195 duced. If the latter does not meet the full measure of expectations, he should not be blamed or censured on that account. As we cannot look for perfection in hu- man laws or institutions, any system proposed looking to radical changes in the existing order of things must necessarily encounter opposition. The most that any writer can hope for or expect is that the ideas which he advances and the suggestions which he makes, however objectionable they may seem in the concrete, possess elements which, when subjected to the test of practical common sense, may lead society to advance a step in the accomplishment of good results. The great and lasting effects which have proved most beneficial to mankind were not produced by sudden or spasmodic efforts, but by slow, gradual, and successive steps sanctioned by ex- perience and justified by results. It is universally conceded, because attested by the experience of ages, that the stability and durability of government and the happiness and well-being of society are best secured wfien the great bulk of the property is in the hands of peasant proprietors, — owned and con- trolled by the subordinate holders of power; and any economic measure or system of laws which will accom- plish the distribution of property among the people without doing great injustice to its present owners must be regarded as one step in advance, looking to a happy medium between the extremes of the socialistic theory and the existing system. I am not unmindful of the fact that any common laborer may pull down an old building, but that it requires a skilful artisan to re- construct it. In the suggestions which I advance in 196 TENURE AND TOIL. these pages, I trust the thoughtful reader will credit me with at least furnishing the materials for building a system better than that which I would destroy. CHAPTER VIII. THE STATE HAS WROUGHT THE EUIN. LET HER SUPPL.Y THE REMEDY. The remedy for the grievances of which the labor- ing classes now so justly complain can be found only in legislation. The greater number of our Western railways were built by means of subsidies in lands and bonds given to them by States and municipalities, — subsidies which, whether used as securities or con- verted into cash, were not only sufficient to build and equip the road, but, in addition, to furnish a princely fortune for division among the projectors. But though so richly dowered at the public expense in the very inception of their enterprise, their insatiate greed for gain prompted the organization of construction com- panies, composed of the officers of the railway company and a few outside speculators, to whom the contract was let for building the road. A corporation within a corporation, — nominally and legally (?) distinct, yet actually and morally the same. These alter-egos of the railroad companies stood as the middlemen between them and the laborers who built the road, relieving the THE STATE HAS WROUGHT THE RUIN. I97 former of all legal liability, while they robbed the latter of their hard-earned wages. The State is largely responsible for the frauds per- petrated upon the unsuspecting public by speculators and confidence-men in enabling them to issue corporate stocks, bearing, so to speak, the great seal of a sover- eign State, which, when thus used, was a badge of fraud, as the stocks were, in fact, worthless. The Slate is responsible, partially at least, if not wholly, for the manner in which many of these corporations have passed from the hands of the stockholders into the exclusive control or possession of a Gould or a Vanderbilt. The State, through a receiver appointed -by its courts, has not only taken possession, but under- took to operate these roads in the interest of a few bondholders and wreckers, who, by means of fore- closure-proceedings, secured all the property. These spoliators, operating under corporate authority and protected by perverted laws, are the moneyed barons of to-day, who, through the pernicious power inherent in their colossal wealth, endanger the perpetuity of the republic. The State is responsible for the legalized rapine by which the people have been despoiled of their heritage — the public domain — in giving it to corporations and selling it to speculators. Unfor- tunately, too often judges, jurors, and other court officials are bought and sold like sheep in the shambles ; the foul imprint of bribery is stamped upon many a corporate act of legislation ; all subservient tools in in- flicting the most gigantic wrongs and perpetrating the most unblushing frauds upon the peo])le. The State 17* 198 TENURE AND TOIL. is responsible for the whiskey trusts, tobacco trusts, coffee trusts, sugar trusts, bread trusts, oil trusts, coal trusts, and gas trusts, which are combinations most foul to monoj)olize trade, regulate production, increase values, and crush unorganized competition. The organization of these trusts, being hostile to the best interests of society, ought to be prevented by making it a felony for individuals or the officers of corpora- tions to enter into any such combination. The State is responsible for laws which make it possible for schemers and sharpers to drive out of business old and respected citizens who, through long years of honest industry and fair dealing, had built up a lucrative trade and gained the confidence of their creditors and neighbors. Honest business men cannot compete with the unscrupulous who sell their wares twenty-five per cent, below cost, and who, after placing the proceeds of their rascality beyond the reach of creditors, go into bankruptcy or make a sham assignment, and in a few days thereafter resume business as agents of their wives or mothers-in-law. It is the fault of the State that the wheels of traffic are now blocked, that business is de- moralized, that thousands of men are out of work, and millions of dollars lost through the obstinacy of a rail- road magnate on the one hand, or of a labor boss on the other. The State is responsible for the existence of all social and political conditions which work injury to the great body politic when it is within the power of the State, by legislation, to render such existence im- possible, or to punish the conspirators who combine to bring about such conditions. The conditions referred COMPENSATE EMPLOYES, ETC. I99 to, with many others of a kindred nature, are the true causes of the direful discontent and dangerous unrest now pervading the masses, and it behoov^es the State, if it would save itself, to at once set about the removal of these causes by a wise, yet radical and far-reaching, system of legislation. CHAPTER IX. COMPENSATE EMPLOYES INJURED BY DEFECTIVE MACHINERY. The daily calendar of injuries and deaths occasioned by defective machinery in the great trade-centres, and the record of the law's vexatious delays when it is in- voked to secure reparation, even in the most merito- rious cases, are most condemnatory exposures of criminal negligence of employers of labor, fostered and relieved by the iniquitous tardiness of justice, — a stigma and a shame to our boasted civilization. Paramount to all ethical considerations, however, there are at the very root of these pernicious conditions grave questions of State polity and State economy which deserve and demand serious thought and earnest action. It is safe to assume that three-fourths of the persons injured by defective machinery are the stay and support of others, — wives, children, younger sisters and brothers, or aged and infirm parents. Jt is equally true that the same proportion of those injured are unable, financially. 200 TENURE AND TOIL. to provide that care and attention at their own home necessary for their comfort and recovery, and must therefore be sent to the county liospital and cared for at the public expense, thus taxing the people to pay for the consequences of the employer's negligence. When those hands, perforce, are idle whose toil brought food, raiment, and shelter to others, what fate befalls the helpless dependents? Call the rolls of the houses of correction, the poor-houses, the asylums, and the county jails, and you will find full answer, — an answer fraught with reproach and rebuke to justice and humanity. The many and marvellous mechanical combinations wrought by the inventive genius of to-day, in the form of labor-saving machinery, compelling rapid construc- tion and frequent changes, render these accidents almost inevitable, unless the utmost skill and most vigilant care are exercised in making and maintaining each and every part of such machinery. Courts of justice, in- stead of laying down a just and equitable principle of law for the determination of these cases, which would stimulate the men who employ dangerous machinery in operating their business to an exercise of constant and critical vigilance in avoiding danger, and providing safety for their employes, have formulated a rule which encourages their indifference, and places a premium upon negligence, — that is, the law, as interpreted by the courts, relieves the employer from liability for injuries received by his employe while working with or about defective machinery if the employ^ knows the ma- chinery is defective ; and if he continues his work with- out being induced by his master to believe that a change COMPENSATE EMPLOYES, ETC. 201 will be made, he is held to have assumed the risk. Under this rule, the injustice of which is equalled only by its absurdity, the more defective and worthless the machinery the less liable is the employer for injuries inflicted upon the employ^.* Many an honest work- man, compelled to earn a livelihood for those dependent upon him by his daily toil, witii an uuselfislmess that is heroic, recks not the hazard to his own life, in per- forming his allotted task, when its abandonment would deprive his family of tiie necessaries of life. Is it right, is it just, is it humane, to drive the toiler with the lash of necessity to a task fraught with peril, and because, forsooth, he knows the danger, deny him com- pensation for injuries thereby received, which disable him perchance for life? The labor which he performs is for the benefit of a private enterprise, instituted and operated for individual gain. The employers, not the public, profit by the ser- vices, yet, perforce, through the rulings of our courts, the public must bear the burden of supporting his family and himself when his inability to supply that support is occasioned by negligence of his employer. Why should the public, having received no revenue from the ser- vices of the laborer, relieve tiie employer, who has * During the last two sessions of the Illinois Legislature, the author prepared bills providing for the abrogation of this heinous rule, and the enactment of just and humane procedure for such cases. These bills were sent to members, who admitted the ne- cessity of some such legislation, yet, so far as the writer is ad- vised, they were never considered by that body nor any of a like character. 202 TENURE AND TOIL. profited by his toil, of the expensive consequences re- sulting from that employer's negligence? Why should not the workman have and receive adequate compen- sation for injuries inflicted? And why should he not receive that compensation immediately upon the occur- rence of the accident, for it is then when his necessities require it as much, if not more, than ten years after- wards ? Does he get it ? No : the State seems to be the father of the employer, and the foster-father of the employ^. All the machinery of the courts is put in motion and resort had to the many evasions and delays of the law to hinder and hamper the latter in his efforts to obtain simple justice. Able lawyers, schooled in craft and bristling with technicalities, — those resorts of conscious wrong when seeking to elude the clutches of the law, — are employed by the year upon princely salaries to defend the case. Shrewd and unscrupulous detectives, many of them ex-convicts or fugitives from justice, are hired to hunt up and suborn witnesses for the defence, to intimidate or buy off witnesses for the plaintiff, and to bribe impecunious or dishonest jurors. Continuance after continuance is prayed for and granted upon one pretext or another. After the cause is tried, a verdict rendered, and judgment entered, the defendant appeals to the higher courts. The trial judge omitted to dot an i or cross a t in his instructions to the jury, and for some technical error of this kind the cause is reversed and remanded. When the remandant order is filed a motion may be made to transfer the case to the Federal court in order to gain more time. An order of transfer is had, and the defendant's attorney has about six months THE REMEDY; ITS ECONOMY, ETC. 203 to file the record in the latter court. Thereafter a motion is made to remand the case to the State court, which is granted, as a matter of course, because the application for the transfer was a fraud on the court in the first place. Six months more are consumed before the case comes on for trial. By that time the witnesses of plain- tiff are probably spirited away, or the plaintiff takes a change of venue to a court where wicked railroad lawyers are unknown, where detectives and jury -bribers shall enter not therein. The writer has a case in mind, which is not by any means exceptional, where an employ^ of a railroad lost his arm in an accident, and it was thirteen years from date of the accident to the time the last opinion of the supreme court sustaining the judgment which he re- covered was filed. Hundreds of similar cases might be cited in support of the proposition that the remedy afforded in this class of cases is in effect no remedy at all. CHAPTER X. THE REMEDY; ITS ECONOMY AND BENEFICENCE. Any thinking man who will take upon himself the trouble of investigating this matter must be convinced that if railway companies, and all other corporations and individuals who employ men at and around dangerous machinery, were compelled by law to pay every em- ploye injured in their employment a fixed sum based 204 TENURE AND TOIL. upon the nature and extent of tlie injury, that it would cost them little more than it now does to pay lawyers, detectives, witnesses, and court costs. This is leaving out of view altogether the amount which comes out of the pockets of tax-payers to furnish and maintain a hospital for the care and treatment of the injured, and a poor-house for the support of their dependants. In the official proceedings of the Board of Super- visors of Cook County, making appropriations to meet the expenditures for the year 1888, 1 find the following items : For Salaries, county agent's office |8,000 " Supplies, rent and transportation 12,000 " Salaries, poor-house 20,000 " Supplies and repairs 95,000 " Salaries, county hospital 50,000 " Supplies and repairs 125,000 " Out-door relief, county towns 25,000 $335,000 making a total of $335,000 to be expended in feeding the poor and in the treatment and care of the sick of Cook County. I find also that $545,910 is appro- priated to meet the expenses of the different courts of record of Cook County, including the sheriff's office, but not including the probate or county court or salaries of the county clerks. Any one having the time and in- clination to ascertain the number of days in the year that are spent in the trial of personal injury cases, the number of this class of patients received at the hospital, and the number of poor people relieved by the county agent or housed at the county poor-house, will be able THE REMEDY; ITS ECONOMY, ETC. 205 to demonstrate to a mathematical certainty, if such demonstration be deemed necessary, that it would be wisdom on the part of the State as a public measure to pass a law compelling speedy and adequate compen- sation to be made to employes who are injured in the line of their employment. The State makes laws pun- ishing usury. Is it more of an offence for a money- shark to charge five or ten per cent, a month than it is for a corporation to maim and kill its employes by the use of rotten or defective machinery ? No one would pay the brazen usurer five or ten per cent, a month for the use of money unless driven to do so from dire ne- cessity. ISFo workman would risk his life at or about machinery which he knew to be defective unless driven to do so from absolute need. It should be, and it is supposed to be, the object of the law to protect those who are unable to protect themselves, but the rule is reversed in regard to employes injured from defective machinery. The remedy which I should adopt would at once compensate the person injured, decrease litiga- tion in our courts, relieve the tax-payer, and convert the blood-money now wasted in employing lawyers, paying detectives, suborning witnesses, and bribing jurors into bread-money. It is this : When an em- ploye is injured by machinery while at work in the line of his duty, let the fact of the injury be taken as prima facie evidence that tlie machinery was defective, and compel the employer to pay $2000 for the loss of one hand or foot, $4000 for the loss of both hands, both feet, or one hand and one foot, $1500 for the loss of an eye, $4000 for the loss of both eyes, $12 a wee'k 18 206 TENURE AND TOIL. for disabling injuries of a temporary nature, $5000 for a permanent injury, and |5000 to the widow or next of kin in the event of his death.* It may be urged that legislation similar to that here proposed would have a tendency to make men careless, and even induce some to intentionally inflict injury upon themselves, but such contention is a pitiable plea in avoidance. No sane man would inflict injury upon himself in order to obtain the pecuniary con- sideration provided for the loss and suffering he would sustain any more than the man who is insured will com- mit suicide to secure the insurance. The fact that a few have taken their own life, declaring beforehand their purpose to compel the insurance company to pay their life insurance, even if true, is not a controlling argument against the adoption of the plan proposed. The act of suicide is the act of insanity. Could we trace the lineage or have revealed to us the inner life of every suicide, we would find proof strong as the confirmation of holy writ of their insanity inherited from some ancestor of clouded brain, or wrought by some carking care or sorrow grim, borne in shadow and silence until it drove them to their death. If injury be voluntarily or intentionally inflicted, no * The respective sums suggested may be deemed far below the true measure of damages. The author's plan of procedure con- teraplates immediate payment without suit, hence the employe or his representative would not have to pay costs of court or lawyer's fees, and the net amount realized by him would equal, if not exceed, that which he now recovers at suit under most favorable conditions. ENFORCE THE PROMPT PAYMENT OF WAGES. 207 compeusation should be paid ; in such case let the burden of proof rest upon the defendant, and if his plea is not well-founded, compel him to pay attorney's fees and expenses sufficient to compensate the plaintiff for time lost and money expended in litigation.* The employer may easily protect himself by insuring his employ^ against accident in accident insurance com- panies, at the trifling cost of about fifteen dollars a year for each employe, or by the creation of a fund, where such is practicable, for the purpose. CHAPTER XL ENFOECE THE PROMPT PAYMENT OF WAGES. When one contemplates the cost and delay of justice, he is inclined to commend the wisdom of Solon in promulgating a law which declared all debtors dis- charged and acquitted of all their debts. To gain some definite idea of the number of civil cases commenced and the cost of litigation in the justices' courts of Chi- cago, the writer ascertained the number of civil cases commenced in the year 1887 before one justice in each * No plan can be adopted whicli will wholly do away with litigation. The method suggested will materially diminish the number of suits for damages arising from personal injuries as the burden of proof is cast upon the employer, or, in other words, he is held to the responsibility of an insurer, and if he fails in the suit he is liable for all costs and expenses incident thereto. 208 TENURE AND TOIL. division of the city. The number commenced before the South Side justice was 2645, and as there are seven justices in this division, by taking 2000 as the average, the total number would be 14,000 cases. The number commenced before the West Side justice was 1953, and as there are six justices in this division, by taking 1500 as the average, the total number would be 9000 cases. The number commenced before the North Side justice was 1200, and as there are five justices in this division, by taking this number as the average, the total would be 6000 cases, making the total for the entire city 29,000. The average cost in these cases, including constables' fees, is not less than |3.00 a case, which would make a total cost of |87,000. ■ Out of every thousand of these, there are about thirty appeals to the higher courts, at an average cost, including the appear- ance fee of the defendant, of |9.50, to which may be added an average attorney's fee of 1 10.00, making a total sum of $16,695. Estimating the amount paid attorneys in justices' courts at an average of $1.00 per case, which is a minimum price, certainly for professional skill, and calculating the money-value of the time lost to litigants and their witnesses, which would not be less than $3.00 a case, the aggregate cost of this petty litigation exceeds $200,000 annually. At least sev- enty-five per cent.- of the above litigation was occa- sioned by suits for the collection of petty accounts and for wages justly due. Of the former class, it may be truly said that they seldom serve any other purpose than to increase the indebtedness of the poor ; and of the latter class, that even when successful, the ENFORCE THE PROMPT PAYMENT OF WAGES. 209 laborer finds the cost of collection but little less than the earnings of his toil. Would not the community be the gainer if all actions of debt, except for wage-', were abolished? Honest men, however poor, experience little difficulty in obtaining credit from their grocers, bakers, and butch- ers, and if actions for debt were abolished, to obtain credit would not only be an incentive to honesty, but honesty would become a necessity. Should a man wish to change his residence from one city to another, he would provide himself with credentials for honesty, at- tested by the signatures of his grocer, balcer, and butcher. What better or more honorable letters of credit could a man have? True, if such were the law, lawyers, judges, justices of the peace, and town constables would be at a discount. But matters would soon adjust themselves in such a way that the supernumeraries in these pro- fessions would find some other visible means of support, W'hich would contribute to, instead of detract from, the peace and prosperity of. the community. One of the justices who furnished the above statistics called Mtention to two judgments of three dollars each, one procured by a chambermaid and the other by a washer- woman, and both judgments had been appealed to the higher court by the defendants. While the amounts of these judgments were exceptionally small, it not unfrequently happens that appeals are prosecuted in this class of cases in order to defeat justice or to gratify petty malice. Poor men and women are not able to hire lawyers to prosecute their cases in the higher courts, and as a consequence they are compelled, o 18* 210 TENURE AND TOIL. in many instances, to lose their just claims. Indeed, it is cheaper for one to abandon his claim than to follow his case to any higher court to which it has been appealed, unless the amount involved is considerable, for when he pays his attorney and counts his loss of time, even if successful, he has but won a barren victory. J'he legislature should provide for the payment of attorneys' fees aud adequate damages to compensate the plaintiff for all time lost by him in the prosecution of this class of cases. That it has the power to do so is unquestioned; that it has so long delayed the exercise of that power is a shame. Manufacturing and railway companies usually pay their men monthly or fortnightly, and if a man is dis- charged from service between two pay-days he must ■wait until the pay-day succeeding his discharge for his wages. It is only those persons who have witnessed the inconveniences arising from a system of discharging men without paying them who can fully appreciate its rank injustice to those directly affected thereby. The days of worthless construction companies have doubt- less in a great measure disappeared, but in order to pre- vent a repetition of the wrongs which they perpetrated by any other corporation or individual, the law should provide that upon the discharge of any person from employment, his employer shall pay him the amount of wages to which he is entitled. As it might be im- possible to pay cash under all circumstances, the law should provide that in such cases the employer or his representative shall forthwith issue a time-check to the discharged workman showing the number of days ENFORCE THE PROMPT PAYMENT OF WAGES. 211 which he has worked, the day of his discharge count- ing as one full day, and the amount per day to which he is entitled. These time-checks should constitute evidence of the indebtedness payable upon demand,— a demand upon any agent or officer to suffice. Failure or neglect of the employer or his representative to pay such wages in cash, or to issue a time-check to the party entitled thereto as herein provided, shall render him liable to a penalty of one hundred dollars, to be recov- ered in an action of debt for the use of the school-fund in any court of record of the county, and shall also render him liable in the sum of five dollars a day for each and every day he shall fail or neglect to make such cash payment or to issue such time-check; the latter sum to be recovered by the employe in a sum- mary proceeding before any justice of the peace of the county. When the time-check herein provided for shall have been issued, fifty per cent, shall be added to the face value thereof, and the sum thus made shall bear interest at the rate of ten per cent, per annum until paid. Such time-checks shall pass by assignment and delivery, and shall be freed from all defences, the same as commercial paper purchased for a valuable consideration before maturity, and the owner and holder of any such check shall be entitled to maintain an action upon the same, and to recover judgment in his own name against the individual or corporation issuing the same. All actions upon such time-checks shall have precedence over other civil suits, and all checks owned and held by the party at the time the action was commenced shall be 212 TENURE AND TOIL. united in one suit. In addition to the amount re- covered in any such action, not less than five nor more than fifty dollars attorney's fee shall be allowed by the court, such attorney's fee to be taxed as costs of the ac- tion. In enforcing the payment of such judgment no property belonging to the corporation or individual shall be exempt from execution. In many of the States imprisonment for debt has been abolished by constitutional provisions, so that the only way of compelling the prompt cash payment of wages is to make a refusal to pay it so onerous that an em- ployer will provide for paying the same before discharg- ing his employ^. There is no controlling reason why a penalty of the nature suggested should not be as applica- ble in the case of non-payment of wages as in the case of the non-payment of taxes. There is no provision in any of the State constitutions with which such a law would conflict. The penalty which attaches to the non- payment of taxes is upheld from considerations of pub- lic policy. Similar considerations may legitimately be appealed to in support of the law proposed. I am well aware of the fact that such suggestions will hardly receive serious consideration when official position has largely become a matter of barter and sale. But if the wage-workers of the country demand that some legislative measure be adopted whereby prompt payment of wages shall be enforced, policy may impel one or other of the leading political parties to pledge itself to support such a measure. BOOK V. 4 LIMITATION OF OWNERSHIP AND PROHIBITION OF TRUSTS. CHAPTER I. UNEABNED INCREMENT. It is conceded that no radical changes can be adopted affecting the title or right of property in the hands of its present holders so as to deprive them thereof without just compensation. This is the guarantee of the Consti- tution of the United States as it is written and ordina- rily understood, but by the construction placed upon that instrument by the Supreme Court of the United States in the recent Kansas brewery cases, it would seem that any legislation which has for its apparent object the cor- rection of abuses detrimental to society may be upheld, provided the persons directly affected thereby shall not be absolutely deprived of their property. Since I can- not sanction laws nor approve decisions, no matter by what court rendered, which, in the spirit if not in the letter, violate the great fundamental principles of the constitution, I should not suggest a system of laws which I thought would contravene it. Hence, when I speak of legislation, I do not in all cases mean a 213 214 TENURE AND TOIL. legislative act, but the adoption of a constitutional amendment, when necessary, enabh"ng Congress and the legislatures of the respective States to carry out and en- force its provisions. In a government founded upon a written constitution, there is no security to life or prop- erty but in obeying the mandates of the constitution. If any thing should be wanting or any change should be made in that instrument, let the people, not the courts or legislatures, supply the want or make the change. It is better for society to move slowly within the law than it is for courts to render the law uncertain by a too liberal construction of constitutional provisions through a process of judicial refinement. A man who invests his capital in building or improv- ing vacant property ought, injustice, to reap the bene- fit of the increase in value given that property by the investment. But a part of the increase in the value which attaches to surrounding property from the estab- lishment of manufactories and the development of all kinds of business enterprises might be given to the pub- lic without doing great injustice to its owners. This latter increase in the value of property is what is known to writers on economic subjects as the "unearned incre- ment." A man who purchased a quarter of a section of land in the city of Chicago twenty or thirty years ago, and held it until the city grew up around it, finds himself rich without any effort of his own. Other men invested in property situated some fifty or one hundred miles from Chicago and still retain possession of it, yet are little better off to-day than when they purchased. Hence the man who is made independently rich without UNEARNED INCREMENT. 215 any effort of his own, and simply because he was for- tunate enough to invest in property which from its lo- cation and its surroundings has become of great value, should have little grounds for complaint if not permitted to retain the whole benefit to himself. The opening of streets, the construction of sewers and other improve- ments, paid for, directly or indirectly, by the public, the increase of population, and the investment of capital in improving the adjacent territory, have materially con- tributed towards enhancing the value of his property, and while the foresight of such a man in making the purchase, his good fortune or business qualities or what- ever you may call it, ought to receive its just reward, it would not be an act of great injustice to him if com- pelled to share his profits with the public who were in- strumental in making them. How can this division of profits be made between the individual and the public? In this way: From and after the year a.d. 1900, whoever owns property in or adjacent to any city, which he wishes to subdivide into lots, or when the public interests of the city require that such a subdivision should be made, the owner of the property subdivided shall be entitled to hold as his absolutely one-half thereof, and the municipality the other half, the lots or blocks to be allotted alternately so as to prevent any advantage being taken by the one jiarty over the other. The sale of the property thus subdivided may be ac- complished in this manner : Whoever wishes to buy a lot for the purpose of a homestead, or with a view to permanent improvement, may agree upon the purchase- price with the owner or with the municipality, as the 216 TENURE AND TOIL. case may be, aud in case of failure so to agree, the lot or parcel of land which the party may desire to purchase shall be sold at public auction by the public official charged with such duty, after due notice, to the highest bidder for cash or on time. If sold on time, the de- ferred payments are to be made in a manner similar to the regulation provided for the redemption of deben- tures in the legislation of Germany or Russia, alluded to in former chapters of this volume. Purchases for the purpose of speculation shall be by private bargain and sale. Thereafter it shall be unlawful for the owner or purchaser of any vacant lot to place an improvement thereon of less value than two thousand dollars unless for the purpose of occupying the same as a homestead, and if, after making such improvement, he sells or dis- poses of the same, any other improvement made by him, whether as a homestead or otherwise, upon any other vacant lot he may own, shall not be of less value than two thousand dollars, the intention being to prevent the owners of property evading the law by making tempo- rary improvements so as to hold vacant property for the purpose of speculation. That from and after the year 1900, whoever owns more than two vacant lots not held by him as part of his homestead in any city or addition thereto shall convey one-half the number of lots so owned or held by him to the city and the other half shall be owned by him absolutely, subject to the fore- going provision relating to the sale of lots. That from and after the division of property between the owner and municipality as herein provided such property shall be exempt from taxation the same as school property. UNEARNED INCREMENT. 217 but when improved by the owner, or a sale is made of any lot or lots, whether by the individual or by the municipality, such shall be subject to taxation the same as other property. The exact number of acres wliich may be properly held by farmers for farming purposes, by stockmen for stock ranches, and by lumbermen for the promotion of forestry and the supply of lumber, are matters upon which no one man is fully capable of determining. In- deed, the views of any one person upon any of the subjects suggested must necessarily be but limited, and therefore imperfect in many particulars. The essential point to be considered in connection with these matters is : Are the suggestions pro})osed of such a practical nature that they are capable of being put into execution ? If the answer is in the affirmative, the mode and manner of executing them are matters of detail merely. It is highly important to bear in mind the fact that the advocates of any change in party measures or State polity are apt to go to the other extreme. Great care should be taken therefore, when formulating a constitu- tional amendment which is intended to correct abuses, not to open too wide a door for other abuses which may become more serious than those sought to be eradicated. For example, there is a certain amount of injustice in compelling the individual to give up one-half of his vacant lots to the municipality, and the adoption of a constitutional amendment as a means of accomplishing that end does not in a strictly ethical sense lessen the injustice or sanctify the wrong. Yet it must be con- ceded that there is some consideration which the indi- K 19 218 TENURE AND TOIL. vidual has received in return for what lie loses which in a political sense may justify it. Even under the existing order of things it is said to be the law that the rights of the individual may be sacrificed for the public weal. This is neither right nor just in an ethical sense. So that the affairs of government are not enforced from the stand-point of natural justice, but from considerations of expediency and political justice. As natural justice ought to be the aim of governments as well as individ- uals, after the individual has satisfied the claims of ex- pediency and political justice by giving up half his vacant property, his right to hold, enjoy, and dispose of the other half should be scrupulously guarded and pro- tected. In other words, the grievances incident to a land monopoly may be remedied in the manner sug- gested without otherwise rendering the title to property less secure than it is under existing laws. It may be asked why the owners of vacant lots should be required to give up half without exacting a like sac- rifice from owners of improved property ? There are several reasons why this distinction should be made, but to mention one or two will suffice. First, the object is to destroy the monopoly in land by placing it beyond the power of the owner to withhold it from any one who is anxious and willing to improve and pay a fair price for it ; and second, provision can be made for the occupants of tenements or farms, as the case may be, to become owners of the premises held by them either by private contract or by fixing a stipulated price to be paid in cash or in interest-bearing bonds based upon the rental value of the .premises for a certain number of THE GREED OF WEALTH. 219 years, similar to the mode provided in the legislation of Germany or Russia, already mentioned. There is no reason why legislation of this nature should be confined to agricultural property. If just for the landlord of a rural tenantry, it should be just for a landlord of an urban tenantry. Besides these considerations, it may be suggested that the owner of improved property usually holds it as an investment, and not as a speculation. He has paid his share of the public burdens in the way of street and other improvements. He pays a larger pro- portion of the public taxes than the owner of vacant property, and his income may be reached, should it ex- ceed a certain amount, by the enforcement of an income tax. CHAPTER II. THE GREED OP WEALTH IMPEEILS^ ITS OWN SAFETY. There is something radically wrong in any system of government wherein an individual in the brief space of a lifetime may amass a fortune of one or two hun- dred millions of dollars. Look around and behold the number of men who are railroad magnates and mer- chant princes, owning residences fit for kings, and mam- moth, costly,. and well-appointed business structures not inferior to the Bank of England, while around them are poverty and beggary and squalid nakedness and idle- ness and hunger. It was the gravity of this condition 220 TENURE AND TOIL. of affairs and the depressing influence and the dire effects thereby produced which prompted the attack made upon corporate property in the inaugural address of the present governor of the conservative State of Iowa, instigated the legislation restricting and control- ling corporations proposed by the last legislature of that State, and which inspired the pen of a close thinker and thoughtful writer, a well-known journalist of that State, Hon. S. M. Clark, to say: "Here is an Iowa legislature attacking railroad property in the spirit and with the morals of a highway robber. . . . The invin- cible reason for every upright person to o})pose what the present legislature was doing was that that body is menacing free government and civilization by corrupt- ing the people into a belief that dishonesty and theft can be legalized by the legislature. On such an issue there was nothing left for honest people and people who want to see our jiresent form of government endure but to resist and oppose the legislature and the spirit of the anarchist and the communist that pervaded it. And just then the railways began to rob their stockholders by a cut-rate war. It is an act of spoliation and theft, and no casuistry or argument can make it any thing else. . . . The act is characteristic of that fatuity of insolence which has made the railroad managers the Ishmaelites of to-day: their hand against every man's and every man's hand against them. They are the robber barons of these times. Intrenched in the strong- holds of millions of dollars of consolidated capital, nearly every dollar of which has been stolen from the men who built the roads, they ravage the land with THE GREED OF WEALTH. 221 the remorselessness of Middle-Age feudal chiefs, re- specting neither the government above them nor the people whom they tramjile beneath them in the wanton insolence of their power. They demoralized the Ameri- can people, who were trained by long generations of respect for private property ; they corrupted them and made such a legislature as that in Iowa to-day possible by their own flagrant disregard of all property rights." Similar _complaints may be urged with respect to merchants and manufacturers who have grown enor- mously wealthy by pursuing methods which are hardly consistent with straightforward business principles- True, they did not rob their stockholders by a " cut-rate war," but they cheated either the public or their em- ployfe, — the public, by charging too high a price for the commodities which they w^ere compelled to purchase, or their employ^ by not paying them adequate com- pensation for their labor. Every yard of calico or flannel worn by the poor, every pound of tea, coffee, or sugar used in the family, every nail driven in the floor, knob or lock placed on the door, bedstead, spring, or mattress, stove, dishes, knife, fork, spoon, or other household article or utensil, has been sold at too costly a price, or the mechanic, clerk, and salesman who produced these articles and put them on the mai^ket have not been sufficiently rewarded for their skill and labor. One fact must not be lost sight of in the discussion of these and kindred subjects ; it is, that all men have the right to live, and unless afforded the opportunity of acquiring the means whereby to sustain and enjoy life, 19* 222 TENURE AND TOIL. the naked right to exist is but a bas-ren ideality. Whenever, therefore, the business of an individual or of a number of individuals assumes such vast propor- tions, or is conducted in such a manner that it demoral- izes trade and crushes competition, some means should be devised to limit its vastness and control its power. There is in the city of Chicago one dry-goods house which, it is said, does a business of $35,000,000 annually. This mammoth concern, not content with monopolizing the wholesale trade of well-nigh one- fourth of a continent, prompted by a greed insatiate and conscienceless, offers the innumerable commod- ities it carries in stock, for sale at retail, at the very door of the small dealer, at nearly the same price that it has charged him for the same articles at wholesale. It induces the small tradesman, by all the arts known to the trade, to invest his limited capital in a stock of goods, and then renders it impossible for him to dispose of those goods by enticing those who would be his patrons to come and buy of it at prices which the humble merchant cannot duplicate. In its almost illimitable retail establishment, it not only offers for sale such remnants and unseasonable goods as naturally accumulate in the course of trade, in its special line, but keeps a full stock of every article of merchandise required to satisfy the wants and gratify the pleasure of the innumerable army of purchasers. Buying these in immense quantities, it can undersell all others of limited capital, and thus grocers, druggists, jewellers, boot and shoe dealers, other dry-goods mer- chants, and all vendors with moderate means, are at the THE GREED OF WEALTH. 223 mercy of this commercial octopus, which is ever extend- ing its remorseless tentacles not only to draw into its rapacious maw all the gold of traffic, but to crush and kill even the humblest who seek a single shekel of that wealth which it arrogates as its own. This Chicago concern, unfortunately, is not the only one of its kind in this country. Each of the great metropolitan cities has similar establishments operating in the same way and with the same disastrous effects. And this absorption of business and crushing of the feebler ones engaged therein is not confined to the mer- cantile, but finds lamentable exemplification in every department of trade and traffic. The concentration of capital in gigantic manufacturing enterprises has quenched the fires in the forge, silenced the wheel, and closed the shops of thousands of artisans throughout this land, and thus forced them to seek in other lines and raid other scenes the ways and means of earning a livelihood; and ofttimes failing, they have been driven into the ranks of the legions of dishonored industry from which are recruited the ever-increasing hosts of idleness marshalled by want while begging for work^ tramping over the country, goaded by hunger and hard- ened by suffering, to victory — the victory which death brings to misery and woe. These men, driven by the direful force of pitiless circumstances — seldom of their own making — out into the world, away from the restraints and virtuous influ- ences of a home, knowing naught of the saving love of a devoted wife nor the inspiring sweetness of a chikl's caress, save as a memory fraught with agony, — these 224 TENURE AND TOIL. men, ostracized by society, spurned from every door, denied the favors given even to a homeless dog, — can it be wondered at that in time they should drift into drunkenness, vagabondage, and crime? These are facts, not theories ; facts which confront us on the streets of every city, on the lanes and highways of the country, in the wards of the hospital, in the recesses of the poor-house, and in the cells of the prison ; facts which the men of millions will do well not to ignore, and serious contemplation of which may conduce to their personal safety and the security of their much- worshipped wealth. The flippant and cynical, the two classes most worshipful at the shrine of mammon, are wont to stigmatize as shiftless vagabonds and drunken loafers that great number of men who daily loiter upon our street-corners or drag their weary length along the dusty roads from farm-house to farm-house; but in simple truth this is a vicious and cowardly libel, a conception of sordid selfishness, and the voicing of venal inhumanity. It may be true, and doubtless is, that some among them may be drunkards by choice and idlers by preference, but the great majority of them are men who would rather toil than beg, and would welcome as a blessing the fate which would enable them to exchange the life they are leading for one of severest drudgery. It is a fact, which no man can gainsay, that the great majority of our wealthier men ])ay no regard to the wants of the poor. This is forcibly true of our rapid-transit aristocracy, so numerous to-day, whose bank accounts constitute their tickets of admission to HUMANITY'S WRONG. 225 the society of the upper-tendom, in which he of the plethoric purse ont-ranks the manly man of moderate means and modest worth. These gilded parvenus, adapting themselves to their new environments, thrust out of their little minds and still more diminutive hearts all thought and feeling of the wants and rights of those with whom they were wont to associate in other days when "boiling soap" or "shoveling dirt." Considera- tion for the poor, except in making a donation for the benefit of some charity where it was certain the names of the donors would be heralded to the world through the press, would be social heresy in their circle. CHAPTER III. INEQUALITY OF CONDITIONS HUMANITY'S WRONG. It is but the old story of the toilhig millions against the scheming few that has been told and retold in the history of every nation, — the former battling for the privilege of living, the latter grasping for power and pelf; and in this conflict the plutocrat enriches himself by robbing and enslaving the proletariat until the latter turns and, in vicious violence, despoils the former of his ill-gotten gains. In our own country the number of dependents and houseless wanderers is increasing daily. The laborer and mechanic seek in vain for em- ployment that will yield a living for wife and children. P 226 TENURE AND TOJL. While labor begs for work the various industries are closed, owing to the refusal of capital to set the wheels in motion. Safety-deposit vaults and bank-coffers are filled to overflowing with millions of dollars, while thousands of men in every city are clamoring for a chance to earn food and shelter for themselves and families. It is no glittering assertion, but a glaring fact, that the rich are growing richer, and that the poor are growing poorer and more numerous. He who looks through the meretricious coloring of our much-vaunted material progress can but realize this painful truth. With these conditions existing, the poor are confronted with the alternatives of bartering their birthright to the money barons in consideration of their support and protection, or by a united, determined exercise of the modicum of political freedom they still retain, bring about a legal, civil, and social revolution which will establish and perpetuate an equitable equalization of in- dustrial and social conditions. The great majority of the i)eople are virtually propertyless, and with them- life is a battle for bread, while the favored few possess the soil and enjoy every comfort and pleasure that opulence can suggest or supply. The last and only resort for those to whom a change is a necessity is the ballot, which in the hands of the mendicant or wage- worker is as potent as when cast by the millionaire. The penniless tramp, the industrious toiler, the struggling tenant, the small landholder, the tradesman of limited means, all who have felt the grinding power of the tyranny of greed, have a common interest in working for a reformation, radical and far-reaching, that will HUMANITY'S WRONG. 227 bring to each relief of present burdens and opportunity for future efforts and success. These subordinate holders of power, acting in self-defence, should unite in solid phalanx, and break not ranks until they have engrafted such alterations and amendments upon con- stitutions and laws, fixing and regulating the title to land, as will work just division of property and conse- quent equitable distribution of wealth, securing to him who toils full fruitage of his labors. It is no less significant than lamentable that every effort heretofore made by the masses for their own amelioration has proved comparatively abortive. The failure cannot be ascribed to the weakness of their cause, but the rather must be in a great measure at- tributed to a want of unity of action and a fatal lack of intelligent conception of proper and effective means and methods requisite to employ in accomplishing the object in view. Another cause which militates against the success of such movements made in behalf of the common people is found in the proneness of men who, through a vigorous championship of their interests, se- cure the legislative and executive offices to forget ante- election pledges, and, that thrift may follow fawning, crook the pliant hinges of the knee to capital, ever seek- ing and securing proselytes among judges, governors, and legislators. Another cause, perhaps more potent than all others, that works "discomfiture and demoral- ization in these reformatory movements, is found in the fact that the greater number of those actually interested in the success of such movements are so absorbed in the struggle for existence, and so burdened with the cark- 228 TENURE AND TOIL. ing cares which crowd the life of toil, that they can give neither time nor thought to that which does not offer immediate relief to their necessities; and hence tliey are readily duped by the designing, or all too ready to clutch the paltry price proffered for their votes. Men of wealth must be wofully, wilfully blind, if they can- not read in the corruption of the franchise and the bar- tering of ballots the culmination of the crisis now im- pending. The day of reckoning may be deferred by such desperate methods, but at last, when patience is exhausted by promises broken, the conscience of the people perverted by those who have profited by its abasement, stung to madness by sin and suffering, will seek expiation for the one and revenge for the other in the destruction of the authors of their desrradation and servitude. Labor may submit to the exactions and endure the oppression of organized capital for a long period, but its permanent enslavement is not possible in a country where the common school is a fixed and fruitful factor of individual development. This antagonism between the rich and the poor, ripen- ing into revolt on the one hand and rapine on the other, wrought the overthrow of the democracies of other times, and while it may not destroy our institutions, it threatens to dismember the union, unless the causes which provoke and aggravate it are removed, and their recurrence ren- dered impossible by the adoption of constitutionaj pro- visions and legal enactments inspired by equity, tem- pered by justice, as demanded by right and reason. History has made immortal the record of the virtues HUMANITY'S WRONG. 229 and glories that characterized the golden age of Greece, when her sages and statesmen gave full recognition and application to that fundamental maxim that liberty and democracy cannot coexist without equality of condi- tions, and when this was forgotten or ignored, special privileges and powers were granted to or usurped by the favored few, entailing of necessity that inequality of conditions that at length exhausted itself in the disintegration and downfall of the grandest political structure ever conceived and reared by the brain and hand of man. The past and present of the United States are but repetitions of the rise and progress of the nations wlio have gone before. Shall the future record our failure to profit by their example, and witness our decay and destruction from that same cause that worked the over- throw and ruin of others? We have reached that stage in national development where the common weal is subordinated to individual privilege, and the wants of the many are lost in the exactions of the few. On every hand we have indubi- table evidence of positive hardship and rank injustice as resultants of the inequality of conditions which obtains through the amassing of wealth and absorption of property by a meagre minority. It is hardly half a century ago when a man could count the millionaires of the United States on the fingers of one hand, but now they are numbered by thousands. Labor produced these millions, and if labor had received a fair share of its profits, and the employers of labor had taken suffi- cient interest in the welfare of their operatives to in- 20 230 TENURE AND TOIL. struct them how to husband and judiciously invest their earnings, the mercenary phitocrats might now enjoy their millions in comparative safety, as a great majority of those now stigmatized as vagrant tramps would be loyal and industrious citizens, living with their families in their own homes, — " every man under his own vine and under his fig-tree." New York City numbers among its millions of in- habitants the richest man in America, if not in the world, who can expend two million dollars upon a pala- tial pleasure-yacht, and own a residence and grounds on Fifth Avenue which cost as much more, and yet there are thousands of men within the corporate limits of that city who are without house or home. This man inherited a princely fortune on the death of his father, and by shrewd management and skilful manipulation of stocks, it is said, he has augmented that inheritance until he is now the possessor of two hundred millions of dollars. Why should one human being possess so much wealth and enjoy all. the luxury which it affords, while so many of his countrymen are huddled to- gether in the tenements of that great city, suffering from sickness, hunger, and privation? May we not ascribe much of their wretchedness and misery to the ruin wrought through the fluctuations in the value of stocks, in the gilded gambling dens of Wall Street, by the power of his millions; stocks in which the public were induced to invest their means by allurements far more captivating than those by which the bunko-steerer of Chicago captivates the Western stockman ? How many of the haggard, famine-stricken faces daily seen in the THE BURDEN OF TAXATION. 231 back streets and alleys of that city may not trace the origin of their downfall to the first investment made in Wall Street securities? How many of our Western farmers have been rendered homeless and purposeless through the same cause? Yet this high-handed species of gaming is tolerated under the nose of a supersensi- tive class of moralists who would arrest a man for laying a wager on a horse-race. A little Miss, a very child, in Philadelphia, the reputed possessor of seven millions, fondles her dolls arrayed in costly fabrics from across the seas, while thousands of little girls in the city of brotherly love, half-clad and hungry, can be found in the basements and tenements where herd the poor. These two painful but forcible illustrations of the inequality of conditions existing in this country certainly suggest the need of ac- tion — positive, heroic action — that will make it impossi- ble for such things to be. It is not sentiment that calls for this action : sense suggests, justice demands, and humanity commands it. CHAPTER IV. WEALTH SHOULD BEAE THE BUEDEI!f OF TAXATION. Since the imposition of a tax upon income is one of the means by which the inequality existing between the capitalist and the consumer can be even partially equal- ized, the question arises, how should this tax be imposed 232 TENURE AND TOIL. and enforced? It must be imposed in such a manner as not to cripple or necessarily impair individual exer- tions. The parables of the talents and the ten wise and the ten foolish virgins apply to every condition of life. Some men will make money and accumulate wealth where other men, given the same opportunities and ad- vantages, would starve. So that in adjusting matters for the general good care must be taken not to set a premium on idleness, sloth, or extravagance. Whatever condition of things may be devised, we cannot equalize natural inequalities. Some men are endowed by nature with greater facilities than others, and to that extent are capable of putting forth greater exertions and of accom- plishing greater possibilities. How many railroad men have had as good opportunities and advantages as the late T. J. Potter ; yet how few were his equals ! Utopia is an imaginary state, — a figment of the fancy ; govern- ment is a practical reality, an existing fact. In utopia men are made for laws as they are; in government laws are made' for men as we find them. We will al- ways have the idle, the thriftless, the poor, and the law- less, because it seems to be so ordained. How to deal with these classes, to benefit humanity, to preserve so- ciety, and to do justice to all should be the ultimate end of all government. The man who has a net income of one thousand dollars a year should be truly thankful that dame fortune has dealt so kindly by him, and not grumble if required to contribute one per cent, of it to the support of a government under whose laws he may enjoy life and pursue happiness in safety and peace. He whose income is two thousand dollars annually, in- THE BURDEN OF TAXATION. 233 stead of one, ought to consider himself doubly fortunate, and should willingly part with two per cent, thereof in order to lighten the burden of taxation which would otherwise rest heavily on that portion of the community who are not so fortunate as he is and less able to bear it. The rate per cent, might be increased after his in- come has reached, say, ten thousand dollars a year, or the same rate could be continued on each additional one thousand dollars until the rate reached twenty-five per centum of his entire income. When this point was reached I should in no event require him to pay more, because to do so would have a tendency to materially chill the ardor and repress the ambition of men to ac- quire wealth and fortune. The desire to make money and to become wealthy is highly laudable when honor- able and legitimate means are employed to accomplish these ends. The object of an income-tax is not to check a laudable ambition or to stifle the efforts of the indi- vidual to " gather gear by ev'ry wile that's justified by honor," but to render it impossible for any one man to become an unwieldy cormorant, — a hoarder of millions. By a fiction of the law, personal property is said to follow the person of the owner, so that a resident of Boston, who owns one million dollars of stock in an Iowa or Illinois corporation, would be compelled to pay taxes on this amount at his place of residence, if he made an honest return of it to the Boston assessor, although the property which gives value to this stock is situated in the foreign State. This is unfair and unjust to the people of the State in which the property that the stock represents is situated. In order to obviate this 20* 234 TENURE AND TOIL. injustice and to prevent any favoritism on the one band or discriminations on the other, the United States Col- lector of Internal Revenue should collect this income- tax, and when collected, it should be apportioned to the different States upon a basis of the taxable value of their property. It may be urged that the collection of such a tax would be impracticable, that men of wealth would evade the law by making false returns. Whatever else may be urged against Federal officers, it must be ad- mitted that they do not often connive at crime or make common cause with criminals. The criminal law is pretty strictly and expeditiously executed in Uncle Sam's courts. If a law was passed making it a penitentiary oifence and forfeiture of property to render a false re- turn to the Collector of Internal Revenue, and also making malfeasance in office punishable for life or for a term not less than ten years in the penitentiary, there could be little cause for apprehending that such a law would be evaded or disobeyed. In the cantons of Switzerland, the villager who lias supported cattle through the winter may send a certain number to pasture in the common called the alp. A general assembly of villagers is held in spring, before the herds go up to the mountain pastures, and every villager declares on oath the number of cattle he has kept through the winter. The slightest attempt at fraud is pun- ished by a heavy fine or by suspension of the right of common. In many villages, in order to restore greater equality, they have imposed a tax on each head of large cattle, the amount of which is distributed among those who have no cattle. Now, if this rule produces a TRUSTS— CAPITAL'S CONSPIRACY. 235 "greater equality" in regard to large cattle sent to pasture on the alp, why should it not be productive of good results when applied to individuals in a country where some have grown so fat and unwieldy from de- vouring the good things of the earth that there is noth- ing left but crumbs for the lean and hungry to feed upon ? While inequality of conditions may be attrib- uted largely to natural causes, to mental and physical inequalities in the human species, if you please, yet it never was ordained by an All-wise Being that one man should live in luxury and extravagance, wasting and squandering sufficient to feed a thousand, while the thousand must look on and starve. It is not natural justice that he should; it is not legal justice; it is not political justice. Tax the large and fatted human cattle, and distribute the amount of the tax among the lean and hungry. CHAPTER V. TRUSTS — capital's CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE RIGHT TO LIVE. For months the public press has been filled with the details of the formation of new combinations having as the moving cause of their existence the purpose to throttle competition in those lines of industry whose products are necessary for the living and doing of the people. Conspiracies have sprung into being in every department of trade and traffic. Men schooled in the 236 TENURE AND TOIL. greed and grasp of monopoly have reached out for and secured the control of the gas and fuel supplies and transportation systems in well-nigh all the towns and cities of our land. The quantity of whiskey distilled is determined by a trust. Cabals of manufacturers have been organized to destroy competition in many fields of productions. The formation of pools, trusts, and alliances goes on undisturbed or at least with only a spasmodic effort now and then, here and there, to retard and embarrass the perfection of the conspiracies. Although the nefarious schemes by which insatiable greed is destroying industrial freedom and crushing honest competition are known to all intelligent ob- servers, and the woful wrongs wrought by their success- ful operation are seen and admitted on all hands, yet no positive, tangible action is taken by those who are the chosen guardians of the rights and well-being of the people to stay the hands of the despoilers and save their victims from oppression and plunder. The people are beginning to clamor for relief, and it is the part of wisdom for our statesmen to heed and act. It is true, bills for investigation and suppression of trusts and conspiracies have been introduced in the national Con- gress and in some of the State legislatures, but the suppressions "died a bornin'," and the investigations have proven profitless because the conditions revealed have not been removed nor their recurrence rendered impossible by legislation. I present below a few facts and suggestions touching upon this crusade of monopoly against competition. It should be remembered that one of the most pernicious results of these combinations, and TRUSTS— CAPITAL'S CONSPIRACY. 237 one of the strongest motives that instigates the conspir- ators, is the exacting of greater profits from consumers than could be possibly obtained so long as competition exists. The law of supply and demand is powerless to fix the value of products in a market dominated by a trust. Our commercial system cannot survive such violent abuse by arbitrary oppressions of consumers, which would not be tolerated in any other civilized country in the world. The people have their remedy, — that remedy is legislation. The time to apply that remedy is now. The way to secure its application is to elect men to our legislative bodies who have positive and intelligent convictions as to what is right and what is wrong, and the moral courage to leave the imprint of those convictions upon the measures which they advocate and adopt for the righting of the wrongs which corporate conspiracies are now inflicting upon the industrial and commercial system of our country, — wrongs which are destructive to personal liberty and a menace to the perpetuity of the republic. A presi- dent of a railroad, in defence of his company for having joined the combination of coal companies to avert the calamity of " too much coal," plead that there are fifty trades or more engaged in the same thing. To justify his own iniquity, he urged the wrong-doing of others. He said, " Every pound of rope we buy for our vessels or our mines is bought at a price fixed by a committee of the rope manufacturers of the United States. Every keg of nails, every paper of tacks, all our screws and wrenches and hinges, the boiler flues for our locomotives, are never bought except at the 238 TENURE AND TOIL. price fixed by the representatives of the mills that manufacture them. Iron beams for our houses or our bridges can be had only at the price agreed upon by a combination of those who produce them. Fire- brick, gas-pipe, terra-cotta, pipe for drainage, every keg of powder we buy to blast coal, are purchased under the same arrangement. Every pane of glass in the 'windows of our houses was bought at a scale of prices established exactly in the same manner. White lead, galvanized sheet-iron, hose and belting, and files are bought and sold at a rate determined in the same way." More than a century ago one of England's wisest economists said, " People of the same trade hardly meet together even for merriment or diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." The forceful truth of these words has gathered voice and volume each succeeding year since their utterance. This is verified unto all men in the reports of proceedings of meetings of the various associations of producers, dealers, and manufacturers which are held almost daily. They never fail, by " Whereas" and " Re- solves," to increase prices, determine production, and fix wages, and round up their convention with a sump- tuous feast, for which the people pay. The Sugar Trust. — The demand for sugar in this country is supplied by the refiners in whose factories the raw sugars imported from abroad, and those fur- nished from the Louisiana plantations, are prepared for use. These refiners have organized a trust which vir- tually places under the control of fifteen men in New TRUSTS— CAPITAL'S CONSPIRACY. 239 York and Boston the entire consumption of raw sugar and productions of refined sugar in the United States. This trust is governed by ten trustees, who, sitting in council, can, by one vote, raise the price of sugar for sixty millions of people. Only a motion, followed by a second, a calling of the roll, and sending notice to trust agents, and the market-price goes up. Sixty millions of freemen subject to the greed of ten gilded plutocrats ! As the law now stands, the people are powerless. They must pay the price these Shylocks demand or do without sugar. A few figures may be interesting. Over three billion pounds of sugar were consumed in this country in 1887. A raise of one- half a cent on the pound gives $15,000,000 ; one cent, $30,000,000 ; two cents brings $60,000,000. The trust not only raises the price of refined sugars, but it lowers at will the price of raw sugars. A cargo of raw sugar is brought to New York or Boston ; it is oiFered for sale ; there is but one bidder and one buyer, — that bidder and buyer is the trust. It thus fixes the price it will pay for what it buys, as well as determines the price for which it will sell. The trust buys the raw sugar, and sells the refined. It had enjoyed a mo- nopoly of the sugar trade but four months when it had made a profit of twelve per cent, on its capital stock (watered until it was swollen to $60,000,000), or forty- eight per cent, upon the true value of the property actually put into the ring, — $7,200,000 profit in four months on an investment of $15,000,000! Comment is unnecessary. The rapacity of these sugar Shylocks does not exhaust itself in reducing the price of the raw 240 TENURE AND TOIL. sugar it buys, and raising that of the refined sugar it sells, but it determines the supply. Since it began operation, nine refineries have closed, in the face of the positive assurance of the organizers of the^ com- bination that they would shut down no refineries, nor put up the price of sugar. CHAPTEE yi. OTHEE TRUSTS. Castor-Oil. — Nothing escapes the mercenary clutch of these trusts. There are but five large mills in this country making castor-oil, and the owners have formed a pool, through the power of which they limit produc- tion, and sell their product at $1.20 per gallon, while foreign producers sell the same oil at forty cents. Linseed Oil. — The combination which controls this production advanced the price from thirty-eight to fifty-two cents (over thirty-six per cent.) last year, and in the space of four months the advance was thirteen cents. There is no legal limit bounding the exactions of this trust. The people must pay its demands, or make it impossible for the producers to control produc- tion or fix prices. Steel Rails. — During the great season of railroad building in the West, last year, the combine controlling steel rails forced the companies to pay $40.00 a ton. The OTHER TRUSTS. 241 railway companies protested against such extortion, and at length determined that they would cease extensions unless $30.00 a ton was accepted. The combine protested that to sell under $32.00 or $33.00 would entail a serious loss to makers, yet they finally consented to sell for $31.50. That is, the trust agreed with the compa- nies to furnish them rails at an actual loss to the makers ! Further, when the combine was forced by the railroad companies to accept $31.50, the board of control fixed the output under this agreement at 800,000 tons, assigning a certain number to each maker, and when these were furnished no more orders could be filled.* The board of control regulates the output, distributes the work, and fixes the price. At the time of organizing this trust the price was $25.50 per ton. The cost of production has not increased more than ten per cent. Allowing for that, and as- suming there was a fair profit at $25.50, the rate of $36.00 (which was the average price last year) yielded an additional profit of $8.00 a ton. Upon the year's produc- tion (2,050,000 tons) this profit was $16,400,000. The profit at $25.50 was $6,000,000 or $8,000,000 more. These enormous sums the people have to pay. The railways only advance the money. They who travel, and who ship their merchandise and produce over the railroads, in the end pay this immense profit which the trust exacts. * The Vulcan Mill, at St. Louis, stood idle for years, its owners, liOTvever, receiving ^400,000 annually from the combine for not making rails, but its locked-out employes received no share of this bonus. L g- 21 • 242 TENURE AND TOIL. Iron Ore. — There has been also a consolidation effected of the different iron-mining companies in each region, which is the initial step to the organization of a great combine, which will control the output and fix the price of this ore, which is the staff of every industry. ^ Steel. — We hav^e two associations of steel manufac- tures, not competitors, but working with a singleness of purpose " to remedy irregularities in prices," — that is, to force all makers to sell at the same price, and that price, the highest. PiiOUGHS. — ^A manufacturer was paying four and one-half cents a pound for the steel parts of ploughs, a price satisfactory to the mills. The formation of the steel trust was followed by an advance of ten and one- half cents. The plough-makers at once formed a com- bination and raised the price of ploughs. One plough- maker refused to enter the combine. Those in the trust prevailed upon the steel-makers to make him pay two cents a pound more than the members of the association were required to pay. He was thus forced to enter the conspiracy or be driven out of business. Thus one combine begets another, and the people pay tribute to them all. Threshers. — One-half of the manufacturers of threshing-machines have organized a trust for " mutual protection and harmony of interests," which is fully provided for by passing on the farmer the taxes exacted by the steel and iron trusts. Reapers, Mowers, and Binders. — Nineteen of the twenty-one manufacturers of these machines have OTHER TRUSTS. 243 combined to " curtail production and fix a system of uniform prices/' the full purport of which those who are compelled to use these implements will understand in having to pay the increase in price. BEA.MS. — There are but seven companies making iron and steel beams in the United States. They have or- ganized a pool to destroy competition by establishing and maintaining a common price, which for two years has been $73.92 per ton. The actual cost of making beams is but little in excess of that of making rails, and rails selling at $31.50 per ton yield large profits. Nails. — A majority of the nail manufacturers have also entered into a close corabiuation to limit production and increase prices. Stoves. — The three hundred and fifteen stove manu- facturers have, in association assembled, declared " that the fundamental law of commerce and the dictates of reason" compel the adoption of the trust plan, which means the restriction of production and regulation of prices. School-Slates and School-Books. — A tribute of seventeen and one-half per cent, was levied upon the patrons of schools last year by the " combine" that controls the manufacture of slates. Nineteen of the leading publishers of school books met in solemn con- clave and resolved against "dishonest competition," and organized a combination by which they are bound to obey the orders of an executive committee as to prices and other matters. This is one of those incidental aids to free schools which lightens the purse if it does not the heart of those parents who, by stint and toil, strive 244 TENURE AND TOIL. to bestow upon their children the only heritage within their power, a common-school education. National. Bueial-Case Association. — Even the dead do not escape the merciless greed of organized cap- ital. The makers of shrouds and coJBBns have formed a close corporation under the above title, and lest mortal- ity should be discouraged and Death himself dismayed, their scheme to keep up prices and limit the number of winding-sheets and caskets is kept a secret. As a fit- ting finale to successfully "cornering" the habiliments of the dead, they close their grave deliberations with a round of festivities. CHAPTER VII. THE HYDEA TEUST AND QUINTET OF THE SHAMBLES. Standaed Oil Teust. — Kerosene is the people's light the world over. In the United States upwards of three hundred and fifty thousand gallons of petro- leum are used annually. It is exported to Europe and the far East. The demand for it in the Orient is grow- ing faster than anywhere else. It illumines the ruins of Babylon and lights the devastation of Tyre; in the isles of the Pacific and far Cathay, in Turkestan, India, and China, the bronzed millions slave and dream, smoke opium and chew hashish, woo and win, decline and die, under the gentle light of this marvellous product of our inexhaustible caverns. THE HYDRA TRUST. 245 In the United States, in town and country, it is the common illuminator. We light more lamps than we read Bibles. The crude material of this universal light is obtained in a limited area, commencing in Cattarau- gus County, New York, and extending about one hun- dred and sixty miles southwesterly, covering ten coun- ties in Western Pennsylvania, the width of the belt being about twenty miles. Here the bulk is obtained ; an unimportant yield being obtained in West Vir- ginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. But compar- atively few of the sixty millions of people in our country who nightly burn kerosene are aware that its production, manufacture, and sale are all under the ab- solute control of a single corporation, — the most gigantic monopoly of this age of monopolies, — the Standard Oil Company. It has a capital of ninety millions of dollars, upon which it declares dividends of millions every year and divides among its stockholders. It tolerates no rival. It does not hesitate to draw its check for one million dollars to suppress a competitor if he cannot be quieted in any other way. It buys the crude oil at a price fixed by itself, and transports over thirty million barrels a year over the railroads under contracts of its own making. In the plenitude of its power it has partitioned the globe among its members. One con- trols Japan and China, another the countries of Europe, another the East India trade, and another that of the United States. This company has driven into financial ruin, or com- pelled to go out of business, or forced into surrender, all of the other coal-oil refineries, with but few excep- 21* 216 TENURE AND TOIL. tions, and these are engaged in a struggle for existence, — the struggle which means extinction. It dictates rates of transportation for its own freight to railroad companies, and at its behest these companies refuse to transport the products of other refineries or demand such a freight rate that its payment would entail bank- ruptcy. In towns and cities where gas and electric light supersede the use of kerosene, in the companies organ- ized to supply the former, representatives of the Stand- ard Company are active controlling factors, making their presence and power felt in the exorbitant rates charged for these advanced illuminators. Although seemingly gorged with its ill-gotten gain, its greed still insatiate cries for more, and henceforth it will convey its products by pipe-lines from the wells to the refineries located in the tra