RESEARCH IN THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND METHODOLOGY Series Editors: Warren J. Samuels, Jeff E. Biddle, Ross B. Emmett and Marianne Johnson Recent Volumes: Volume 24A:
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Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: A Research Annual; Warren J. Samuels, Jeff E. Biddle and Ross B. Emmett; 2007
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Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Further Documents from the History of Economic Thought; Warren J. Samuels; 2007
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Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: A Research Annual; Warren J. Samuels, Jeff E. Biddle and Ross B. Emmett; 2008
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Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Further Documents from F. Taylor Ostrander; Warren J. Samuels; 2008
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Volume 27A:
Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: A Research Annual: Warren J. Samuels, Jeff E. Biddle and Ross B. Emmett
RESEARCH IN THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND METHODOLOGY VOLUME 27-B
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES EDITED BY
KENNETH C. WENZER Takoma Park, MD, USA
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JAI Press is an imprint of Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2009 Copyright r 2009 Emerald Group Publishing Limited Reprints and permission service Contact:
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For My Family Past and Present
PREFACE This anthology contains writings by Henry George and relevant authors pertaining to the Irish-American experience, Ireland, and related topics during the early 1880s. They merit attention not only for their relative unavailability and for revealing salient aspects of questions relating to the single tax as George and his supporters viewed them, but most importantly for elucidating the meteoric rise and fall of Henry George. Spelling has been standardized and Americanized except for proper nouns (e.g., ‘‘Although he labored for the good of the Labour Party he did not support the nationalization policies of the Land Nationalisation League while his defense of the National Defence Programme was not part of his program.’’) Archaic hyphenated words have been updated and excessive capitalization eliminated. Formatting has been altered at times for purposes of modernization, especially with overly long paragraphs that have been shortened. Indecipherable words taken from handwritten notes or elsewhere are marked by three asterisks and for interpolated words brackets are inserted. Sections have been categorized chronologically and annotation is presented at the end of each one. Authors other than Henry George are listed in the bibliography. Much gratitude is extended to Ross Emmett of the James Madison College of Michigan State University and Warren Samuels for their publishing expertise. The financial generosity of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation along with the assistance of Mark Sullivan, Sonny Rivera, Toni Gwartney, and Clifford Cobb have been invaluable. The staffs at the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives and the Mullen Library at Catholic University in Washington, DC; the New York Public Library; Sister Marguerita Smith of the Archdiocesan Archives of New York; Tricia Pyne and Alison Foley of the Associated Archives at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, MD; the Montgomery County Public Library of Maryland; and the periodical and reference divisions of McKeldin Library of the University of Maryland at College Park have been immeasurably helpful. Samuel and Helen Wenzer, Marzia
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Luchetti, Barbara Bull, Susan Gilbert, Robert and Audrey Halper, Cindy Kreiman, my cats Oliver, Sophia, Mr. Peebers, and Little O, and my dog Tasha have offered friendship and love that lightened the burdens and enhanced the joys of this work.
INTRODUCTION Henry George came to maturity at a time when the simplicity and democratic values that had governed the United States were under assault. Slow and placid rhythms of life prevailed, but their future would be brief. Factories were flinging mass-produced goods into an economy accustomed to expecting a hat or a pair of shoes to come to an individual consumer from a local craftsman, or perhaps from a merchant drawing craft products from small shops at some distance. Canals and then rail tracks had begun slicing into the backcountry. Cities were taking on a character Americans might more quickly have expected of ancient times: overcrowded housing, uncollected sewage, the ravages of cholera, and the spread of street crime. Philadelphia, a busy metropolis on the Delaware River, noted for its commerce, artisans, and small-scale industries, had its share of the pains and benefits of change. Between 1820 and late 1850s, Philadelphia had grown too fast. The increase in its population, from 63,800 to 565,530, placed it second to New York, which had outpaced its keystone competitor as the financial and commercial hub. Philadelphia was still a leading seaport and manufacturing center. Imbued with a potent Quaker culture, it amalgamated with cooperative democratic and republican traditions an active individualistic and entrepreneurial spirit. But particular political conditions threatened the city’s economic dynamism as well as that of the rest of the nation. It all began in a protracted battle between President Andrew Jackson and Nicolas Biddle of the National Bank. The quarrel resulted in massive indebtedness and wild speculation that brought on what historians refer to as the Panic of 1837, followed by years of depression.1 Philadelphia and the rest of the country had never totally recovered from this economic malaise when a secondary crash punished the economy in 1842. Then another depression swept through the city in the 1850s and yet more business failures pressured charities or relatives of the less fortunate. The psychological scars embedded themselves deeply in the public psyche and misery punctuated daily existence. Richard George, who was hard pressed, operated a small religious printing firm and then as an employee of xv
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the customs house was directly a victim. So his son Henry, who was born in 1839, was a child of the depression. Other factors, more encouraging, also contributed to the mentality of Philadelphia and the rest of the country. In a surfeit of patriotism that followed the War of 1812, the Monroe Doctrine broadcast in 1823 the nation’s disdain for colonization and European interference. In time this self-proclaimed guardianship over for the entire hemisphere, south of the Canadian border, would work ill upon the countries that supposedly needed our protection; but in 1823, Washington’s hegemony over the continent was not being contemplated; we wanted European nations to stay out of Central and South America but were not yet thinking of becoming the Western Hemisphere’s new empire. The mother of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy was to echo public sentiment: ‘‘I believe in the Monroe Doctrine, in our Constitution, and in the laws of God’’ (quoted in Burner, Bernard, & Kutler, 1996, p. 290). For two centuries, Americans had lived on the East Coast in the shadows of the Appalachian Mountains. By about 24 years after independence mass migration was in progress, eventually extending to the Pacific disregarding the interests of the Indians, squandering natural resources, and eradicating animal life. The editor of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review John L. O’Sullivan declared, adding an expression to the nation’s prideful opinion of itself, that the march westward would bring ‘‘the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions’’ (quoted in Burner, Bernard, & Kutler, 1996, p. 397). Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine, the one asserting our rights to what we thought to be our special slice of the globe and the other announcing our right to exclude Europe from the rest, were special examples of the nation’s vision of its superior self. Along with the Protestant intolerance of Roman Catholicism, which went oddly with a belief in religious liberty, a lofty paternalism toward Latin American countries resided alongside an idea of the equal rights and dignity of nations, and slavery coexisted with an embrace of the ideals of freedom and equality. The internal strains could not endure forever, and today this discordant cluster of beliefs has not come to resolution. Besides the excitement of endless adventure, religion of a personal and moral rather than formalistic character went deep into the national mind. The Second Great Awakening, part of series of an ongoing and uniquely American religious experiences that nonetheless shared characteristics with its older European counterparts, was empowered by its own religious
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passion and quickened by the economic distress of the times. The revival meetings, through their peculiar brand of spiritual regeneration, reached out to the skeptic and enhanced the faith of the believer. The preaching was simple, fusing with hellfire warnings about the fate of the unsaved a wondrous promise for the redeemed, who were allowed to believe, as few if any sects had proclaimed for centuries, that they were capable of selfperfection. Popular ideas held that the second coming of Jesus was at hand and the Bible the literal word of God. One scholar has described American spirituality as characterized by ‘‘screaming, trembling, physical collapse, protracted stupor, speaking with tongues, and other phenomena attendant upon religious frenzy and excessive rapture’’ (Rosen, 1969, p. 214). The ranks of established Protestant denominations grew in numbers while Christian sects, founded by people who claimed divine visions, sprang up. The Seventh-Day Adventists and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are still active. Religious and secular communities espousing a cooperative ethos and communal sharing of property and land made their appearance. The Shakers, British in origin, also took root in the new land. To the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, and a compound of adherence to caste society and a profession of egalitarianism and democracy was added this religious zeal that could either reinforce or resist, among a number of diverse groups, the other elements in what looked like a national consciousness. Into this mixture of stressful times and a heightened Protestant piety another discordant element was added. Between 1825 and 1855 five million immigrants, many of them Irish Roman Catholic, swelled the population of the United States. The Protestant Irish, the Scots-Irish from the northern part of the island, had been a considerable portion of the American populace from colonial times and made substantial contributions. In the 1840s the newcomers, however, were of alien customs and a different religion. The United States had liberated itself from Britain in the eighteenth century. Ireland was not so fortunate. The relationship between Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom was complicated and has been the object of differing interpretations, but by any reckoning, Ireland was subject to the heavy hand of a landed aristocracy at home and from across the St. George’s Channel since the twelfth century.2 The British system of gentrification and government control, backed by thousands of troops deeply tinged with racial and religious hatred, and numerous Penal Laws and Coercion Acts that were forced on the Irish people made for poverty, repression, rack rents, unemployment, hostility, and outright rebellion
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toward the British. It was a classic case of control by a majority. Although 1829 saw Catholic emancipation the reins were still tight. For the Irish problems existed in plenty. The most serious of these problems . . . was the question of the land. The land of Ireland was simply not sufficient to feed all those who were trying to get a living off it. Population was increasing rapidly. This led to competition for land, and drove up rents, thus reducing still further the people’s resources. Things could have been better if farming methods had improved, but, except in Ulster, most farmers had no security of tenure, and they had learnt by experience that, if they improved their holdings, the landlord was quite likely to put up the rent . . . . (Whyte, 1978, pp. 248–249)
In only 50 years, from 1791 to 1841, the population of Ireland increased from five to eight millions, despite a lowering in the standard of living. ‘‘The survival of a vast impoverished population depended on the recurring fruitfulness of the potato and on that alone,’’ writes Green (1978, p. 268). A fertile family life also contributed to this growth. Sixty-five percent of the people were totally dependent on the land and 80% resided in country districts, most of them on small landholdings. Things could have been better if farming methods had improved but most farmers had no security of tenure, and they had learnt by experience that if they improved their holdings, the landlord was quite likely to put up the rent. And then there were over a half a million unskilled laborers without access to the land (Golway, 2000, pp. 95–96). A country virtually without an urban structure and no industrial base and a burgeoning population squeezed upon the land, while the ruling Protestant elite, which reached its zenith in the 1770s, drew rent from 95% of the soil after years of confiscation. This unbalance made for a sharper competition, a restricted economy, and a miserable existence. When much of the land was converted from grain growing to cattle grazing, a stark increase in evictions and unemployment ensued, which changed the migration patterns from Scots-Irish to the Catholic Irish into the 1840s (Meagher, 2005, pp. 29, 54–59). Then came the potato famine. When the potato crop was ravaged by the fungus Phytophthora infestans beginning in 1845, a demographic nightmare visited the Emerald Island. About one million people died from starvation and related diseases and upwards of one and a half million emigrated. The graphic descriptions of countless people dying in the streets in the midst of even more evictions are legion. The reaction of the British authorities and the complications that it engendered are subject to debate, suffice to say, the people suffered and the disaster haunted Ireland for decades. It was the turning point in Irish history, feeding anger as it famished bodies, and
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the result, less than a century later, was to be independence for the Catholic portion of Ireland. Most of those who left their squalid homes sought a better life in America. The Catholic Irish settled primarily in the larger cities on the East Coast. When . . . the tidal waves of immigration began . . . with multitudes of ‘‘aliens,’’ poor, often illiterate, crude of speech and manner and with religious and political beliefs not easily squared with traditional Anglo-American culture – doubts arose concerning our capacity to absorb and ‘‘Americanize’’ them. These doubts were minimized or magnified as the business cycle moved up or down. The result was a merging of religious, economic, and political tensions in cyclical alternations of toleration and conflict. (Odegard, 1960, p. 24)
The lot of the immigrant was for the most part fraught with diseases, malnutrition, unemployment, low wages, and housing congestion. So the urban slum and ethnic enclave made their appearance before the Civil War. In the ranks of the paupers and criminals was to be found a disproportionately large number of immigrants, predominately of Irish descent, which forced many urban institutional changes, such as police and fire forces, and even, as we shall see, the boss machine (Glaab & Brown, 1967, pp. 93–96, 139, 141). Out of centuries of hatred for anything Roman Catholic came nativism, a demand that the country’s population confine itself to descendants of the first British settlers. England and the American colonies had been at war at one time or another with Spain and France during the 1700s and the Catholic was viewed as a potential enemy and papist intriguer. Protestant preachers would fulminate against the Romish menace that lurked on the borders, especially after England allowed the toleration of Catholicism with the Quebec Act of 1774, which by the way, contributed to hatred against London, and quite possibly, according to some observers, was ‘‘the only thing which cemented the divergent religious groups in the colonies together sufficiently to allow them to make war’’ (R. A. Billington, quoted in Odegard, 1960, p. 29). Even after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the successful conclusion of the war aided by France, antiCatholicism still ran rampant: seven states would only allow Protestants to hold office, and others legislated more restrictions (Odegard, 1960, p. 30). For a time after the revolution, the Catholic Church existed in relative peace, especially because Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore sought to amalgamate Catholicism to republicanism, or alliteratively revelation to reason. During its period of growth and accommodation, the Catholic Church was able to absorb new influxes of people. Though still outnumbered by French and English Catholics, the Catholic population began
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by the end of the eighteenth century to take on an Irish flavor, especially after the rebellion of 1798. Later, though, came the floodtide of Irish, the more so with the coming of by the potato famine, and also the Germans in the 1840s. The Catholic Church was to develop into the largest denomination with a greater degree of internal centralization and more potent institutional presence while its complexion changed. By then, antiCatholic nativism was flourishing. Between 1830 and 1866 . . . the external conditions of nativism and the internal exigencies of immigrant life, the immigrant form of American Catholicism increasingly developed religious and ethnic solidarity, cultural isolationism, institutional separatism, and an aggressive minority consciousness that was defensive as well as insular . . . . The American Catholic population increased by an overwhelming and historically unprecedented 1,300 percent, from about 318,000 in 1830 – three percent of the total American white population – to 4.5 million in 1870, representing about thirteen percent . . . . By 1860, it has been estimated, sixty-three percent of the Catholic population was of Irish stock. (Odegard, 1960, pp. 31–32)
During one of the recurring times of depression xenophobia deepened. Warfare between Philadelphia’s Protestants and the Catholic Irish in 1844 put Catholic churches to the flame and left victims injured or dead. Sailors from the USS Princeton had to be called in. The violence in the City of Brotherly Love has been called the most brutal religious riot in the nation during the nineteenth century. It was fueled by years of a volatile mixture of hatred combining politics, customs, mutual provocation, religion, and competition for work (Morison, 1965, pp. 481–482). Numerous Protestant societies and secret groups, such as the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, sprang into being determined to combat the potential cultural and political influence of this incursion. The Native American Party formed in 1843 in New York went national 2 years later. Any inquiries directed to alleged members were met with the response that they knew nothing, hence the designation ‘‘Know-Nothing Party.’’ There were Catholic countercrusades against the Protestants, which exasperated relations even more. Bishop John Hughes of New York, the most outspoken representative for his church and its ethnic adherents, harangued his parishioners: ‘‘Everybody should know that we have for our mission to convert the world, including the inhabitants of the United States, the people of the cities, and the people of the country, the officers of the navy and the marines, commanders of the army, the legislatures, the Senate, the Cabinet, the president, and all!’’ (quoted in Carey, 1996, p. 34). New York City attracted the Irish as no other urban center, for by 1855 around 175,000 lived there, or about 1 in every 8 in America, and if Brooklyn
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is factored, then 1 in every 6 (Meagher, 2005, p. 77). With an increasing presence and growing cohesiveness, the new refugees found means to climb the social ladder, foster a group identity, and find outlets for grievances. The newcomers swelled the ranks of the priesthood, as well as the popular Fenian nationalist movement.3 Mainline politics was also a particularly congenial vehicle, especially in the Democratic Party. The politics of the Big Apple had been rotten for some time, especially in the form of the Sons of Saint Tammany, or simply Tammany Hall.4 Transformed from a patriotic and benevolent group, it increasingly became a political power in local politics and eventually easily grafted onto a branch of the Democratic Party, as well as the electoral process and business interests by force or illegal means. At first Tammany viewed both foreigners and the Catholic Church as threats, but that changed abruptly. The fateful day was April 24 in 1817. Some Irish lads, being miffed at having one of their own snubbed by the sachems of Tammany, launched an attack on the sacred halls: Eyes were blackened, [and] noses and heads battered freely. The invaders broke the furniture, using it for weapons and shattering it maliciously; tore down the fixtures and shivered the windows. Reinforcements arriving, the intruders were driven out, but not before nearly all present had been bruised and beaten. (quoted in Allen, 1993, p. 27)
Thereafter, Tammany decided to take seriously a promising new constituency. With the Irish and other newcomers New York mushroomed from 123,700 inhabitants in 1820 to 813,000 in 1860, and over 1,200,000 twenty years later, Tammany made their stay more palatable by an amazing array of benefits, jobs, and other emoluments. This esteemed organization reached into just about every room in every tenement, brothel, gang headquarters, social club, and saloon on Manhattan Island. The ranks of the police and firemen were also swelling with the Irish. Given its presence on every street corner, Tammany could flex its political muscles just about everywhere and dip into every till. The beginning of the golden age, in more than one sense, came about with William Marcy Tweed at the helm in the 1860s who capitalized on the need for mass transportation and social services. Tweed sensed the Irish and their church as natural allies, and they reciprocated. Tammany itself became an Irish Catholic enclave when John Kelly, who had been the only Catholic in Congress, succeeded Tweed as the Boss in 1871 and William Grace became mayor. Kelly’s marriage in 1876 to Teresa Mullen, a niece of Cardinal McCloskey, sealed an unspoken alliance with the Catholic Church and proclaimed his ascendancy.5
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Editorials in The New York Times speak of the insidious change in political power, falling into the grasp of Irish workingmen, their demagogues, and the Catholic Church, which had been buttressed by incessant ‘‘city grants of land and moneys. The amounts which the various Romanist churches have received . . . would be incredible, were we not so hardened to such appropriations.’’6 An editorial ‘‘The Church of Aggression’’ warned its readership that we are bound as Americans . . . to watch and expose the ambitious plans of the priests and the demagogues who manage and manipulate [the Roman Church . . . for it] is seeking and has gained a political power which is dangerous to our future . . . . [and] is guided by men as much abler and more farsighted than their sentimental associates as Loyola was than the ‘‘Evangelicals’’ of his day. They aim steadily . . . at the control of our schools and charities. And to secure this, and also to strengthen their political power . . . seek especially to possess large masses of real estate. Somebody has said that ‘‘whoever has control of the real estate of this country, rules that country.’’ Nothing would give the Roman Catholic Church of United States such power over the masses, as large possessions of land and buildings.7
While Tammany and the Catholic Church were forging a closer relationship and enriching themselves, life became more difficult for the citizens of an overcrowded New York and the rest of the country in the 1870s when another periodic depression brought on industrial strife, radicalism, and more misery. In the year 1871, amidst the unrest, appeared Henry George’s first major work, Our Land and Land Policy ([1871] 1999, pp. 1–93). The writing had occupied the seasoned journalist for four months and published in San Francisco by White and Bauer. What the young political economist claimed was the most rapacious and avaricious phenomenon: a chronic land grasping abetted by state and national authorities. It had brought speculation and monopolization by railroad barons and other special interests to the destruction of democracy and the denial of a decent livelihood. Within a few decades there will be no free land left for the yeoman farmer, the bulwark of society. Six years later, while the depression was raging, George began writing the work that would be known as Progress and Poverty. He had been born during a depression; so was his most renown book, which he finished a year and a half later. Our primary social adjustment is a denial of justice. In allowing one man to own the land on which and from which other men must live, we have made them his bondsmen in a degree which increases as material progress goes on. This is the subtle alchemy that in ways they do not realize is extracting from the masses in every civilized country the fruits of their weary toil; that is instituting a harder and more hopeless slavery in place of that
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which has been destroyed; that is bringing political despotism out of political freedom, and must soon transmute democratic institutions into anarchy. (George, [1879] 1992, pp. 548–549)
And the only solution, to George’s thinking, is what has come down in history as the single tax: impose a levy on the total value of land in its unimproved state, a value that belongs to society as a whole, and the people will have broken the power of the landowners, besides having a fund for social programs. Nor will it be acceptable to break the land into small privately owned plots. Any apportionment should be only for the sake of efficiency, understood to be a kind of loan from the whole community, not a bestowal of ownership. In any event, George looked to an industrial rather than agricultural future. A worker can, however, own a chunk of the iron he is fashioning into steel. The problem is to allow the worker reasonable access to the richness of all land, all iron, all coal. The writings of Henry George appear at first to look back to a nostalgically rendered era of free altruistic, democratic, and Christian citizens, an age of minimal government shorn of privilege presiding over a population working the soil on small farms or creating useful objects in a harmonious fashion with a refined economic system. He set out to reconcile industrialism with liberation from land monopolization. And he did believe that something important in the founding American experience was at risk. Capitalism in its existing form was corroding his nation’s promise of a cooperative commonwealth. At the same time George perceived the technology of industrialism as an advanced expression of mental and physical labor uniting itself with the bounties of nature: a cooperation of field and plower translated, perhaps, into a mating of iron ore and coal with the efforts of engineers and smelters. George hoped that his political economy, in particular the single tax, would bring a new balance of communal with individual enterprise: at once a recapture and a perfecting of the older American order. The natural progress of social development is unmistakably toward cooperation . . . . Civilization is the art of living together in closer relations. That mankind should dwell together in unity is the evident intent of the divine mind – of that will expressed in the immutable laws of the physical and moral universe which reward obedience and punish disobedience. The dangers which menace modern society are but the reverse of blessings which modern society may grasp. The concentration that is going on in all branches of industry is a necessary tendency of our advances in the material arts. It is not itself an evil. If in anything its results are evil, it is simply because of our bad social adjustments. The construction of this world in which we find ourselves is such that a thousand men working together can produce many times more than the same thousand men working singly . . . .
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‘‘Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.’’ The first step toward a natural and healthy organization of society is to secure to all men their natural, equal and unalienable rights in the material universe . . . . And unless we do this nothing else will avail. ([1883] 1992, pp. 191–192)
John L. Thomas describes George’s ‘‘discovery of the key to the land question in religious conversion, [which enabled him to reach] out to a wide range of people whose Protestant evangelical backgrounds, like his own, had prepared them for a way of thinking about the world – a system of conceptualizing problems – with which they felt familiar and comfortable’’ (Thomas, 1983, p. 55). For millions of Americans at the time, religion offered the only explanation; and George’s ideals, actions, and politics were infused with evangelical fervor. His dislike of class divisions, his belief in the primacy of individual rights, and his vision of a cooperative society working up the gifts of a divine providence attracted to his banner thousands of inarticulate people, fearful of social disintegration but unwilling to shrink into the bleak semi-protection of the status quo. A short selection from a speech gives a fair example of his oratorical skill. This is no political movement in the ordinary acceptation of the term. This is a deeply religious movement. This audience – the way people have flocked to this hall – the way all over the state in which they crowd to hear the words of the priest of the people prove that today, as eighteen centuries ago, when the real truths of Christianity are preached, the common people hear them gladly.8 In this is the strength of this great movement. This is the sign in which it goes on conquering and to conquer. One of the greatest of patriots, of philanthropists, one of the greatest of moral teachers, the great Italian, Mazzini, said in the last generation that all movements for social reform must be utterly hopeless so long as they do not take hold of the religious sentiment of men;9 that to fight power and wealth and organization, to break up a system founded on selfishness and appealing to selfishness, it is utterly idle to call upon men in the name of their own personal interests; that something deeper, something stronger, must be appealed to; and in the religious sentiment of men, in the sentiment of sympathy with their fellows, in their love for their God, He is the only power that can reform the world and rescue our civilization from what will otherwise prove its certain destruction. Here today in the United States of America, in the city of New York, that world conquering power has been aroused. It is the same power that placed the cross above the temples of the Caesars. It is the great power preached through the whole earth, by the mouths of the poor and enslaved, the doctrine that revolutionized the world and made modern civilization possible. And now it comes again, another and a greater crusade, the mightiest of revolutions, the movement that aims at nothing less than the abolishing of poverty; the movement that aims at nothing less than the placing of all men upon a footing of equality; the movement that aims at nothing less than the regeneration of the world. It is an honor, it is a privilege that I feel to the bottom of my heart that I am permitted to take part in it; and every man, and every woman, and every child who joins with us may feel the same joy and the same pride. (Wenzer, 1997b, pp. 28–29)10
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Unlike contemporary Georgists and two-raters, especially with their support of private property in land, George stood for a full and radical solution. Many problems of interpretation regarding George’s radicalism during his lifetime that have continued down to the present day stem from George himself. In a short but insightful chapter in Henry George in the British Isles, Elwood P. Lawrence (1957, pp. 51–60) succinctly states the reasons for this dilemma. George has been categorized not only as a land nationalizer but also as a socialist. George did speak on both platforms and showed how his views conformed to that of the socialists. In a sense he was a land nationalizer, but rather than do it by a state takeover of the land, he would employ rent seizure, but he looked forward to a cooperative society lightly ordered by a minimal state. If the single tax does not make for a decent reapportionment of wealth, then socialism or near anarchism will be the logical extension.11 Confiscation and a redistribution of wealth George takes as a given. He differs from others on the left in the method of redistribution. It follows that the land belongs to the entire people: a principle that would appeal to anyone on the left, not to the contrary. George, who had been living in California, now looked to New York, the heart of the growing economy. The power of new forms of transportation generated a charge that enabled social contradictions to electrify. Land and sea commerce, urban transportation, communications, manufacturing, and financial predominance had contributed to an uninterrupted rise of New York City, now the most populous in the New World. It was home to 1.4 million people, and the surrounding areas including Brooklyn, another 1.1 million by 1890. The amalgamation of five boroughs and numerous other communities into Greater New York on January 1, 1898, could boast 3.4 millions. The contrast between poverty and wealth was stark. In New York and Brooklyn there lived around 1,250 millionaires, or about 30% of their number in the country, while another 15% lived just outside their city limits. The close crowding of immigrants and poorer classes made for a mosaic of neighborhood wretchedness and a vociferous labor movement raised the dust in the streets. Though George obtained pickup work with his future adversary Abram S. Hewitt, money problems still haunted him, so he was to ‘‘hitch his wagon to a star.’’12 Meanwhile, back in Ireland, life following the Great Famine had become marginally better for a short while. But the British presence was still resented as evictions continued. A series of agricultural problems, despite the land act in 1870 fostered by Gladstone (whose self-appointed mission was to reconcile a degree of reform in Ireland with maintaining its place in
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the British Empire) generated another crisis comparable to the famine 30 years earlier. Michael Silagi suggests some contributory factors: The policy of free trade had led to an agrarian crisis and flight from the land in England . . . . In Ireland, on the contrary, the disastrous effects of this policy were felt by the entire population. In 1870, more than ninety percent of the Irish made their living – directly or indirectly from agriculture. Farming was given over almost wholly to tenant farmers, more than 600,000 in number, as against 20,000 landlords. When the Irish farmers lost their British markets, both because of cheap American competition and because of decreasing purchasing power of the English people, they still had to continue paying the same amount of rent to their landlords. This caused an exacerbation of the class antagonism which had been smoldering in Ireland already for centuries . . . . Toward the end of the seventies, however, the situation became truly catastrophic. To the effects of the British economic policies now were added the consequences of the weather conditions of the years 1877 to 1879. These were devastating for the farmers so that the situation of the Emerald Isle soon came to resemble the time of the Great Famine of 1845–1847. (Silagi, 1992a, p. 231)
A combination of very wet weather, crop failures (a 75% reduction), plummeting crop prices, and a general depression, which could not be propped up by a structurally weak economy, precipitated a new wave of bankruptcy, eviction, and starvation. Various visions of rebellion, land for the people, home rule, nationalism, and independence grew apace and coalesced. Agitation centered in an alliance between the rich parliamentarian landowner Charles Stewart Parnell, who made Ireland the dominant issue in British politics, and the radical agitator Michael Davitt, himself thrown off the land during childhood, the founder of the Irish National Land League.13 Davitt determined to give priority to the land question. When I was in prison I spent my time thinking of what plans could be proposed which would unite all Irishmen upon some common ground . . . I made up my mind that the only issue upon which Home Rulers, nationalists, obstructionists, and each and every shade of opinion existing in Ireland could be united was the land question, (quoted in Golway, 2000, p. 160).
Davitt’s cry ‘‘The land for the people!’’ during a speech in Irishtown, Mayo on April 20, 1879, galvanized the forces of discontent. So began the ‘‘new departure’’ – a determination to battle the landlords in the name of the tenant farmer and the poor – a great mass movement and land war meant revolution and the eventual end of landlordism. From 1879 to 1882 with the Land League at the vanguard, clever tactics of moral force and persuasion prevailed, with the use of boycotts, mass
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demonstrations, embargoes, ostracism, and other supportive policies for evicted families. Tenant farmers as a class stood up to the landlords. The passions roused by the agitation inevitably erupted into violence and outrage (Moody, 1978, pp. 286–287). In a speech of 1880 Parnell harangued at a monster meeting at Ennis: If you refuse to pay unjust rents; if you refuse to take farms from which others have been evicted, the land question must be settled, and settled in a way that will be satisfactory to you. It depends, therefore, upon yourselves, and not upon any commission or any government. When you have made this question ripe for settlement, then, and not till then, will it be settled. (Cheers.) . . . . You must take and band yourselves together in Land Leagues. Every town and village must have its own branch . . . . If . . . [the rent question] should not be settled, we cannot continue to allow this millstone to hang round the neck of our country, throttling its industry and preventing progress. (Cheers.) It will be for the consideration of wiser heads than mine whether, if the landlords continue obdurate and refuse all just concessions, we shall not be obliged to tell the people of Ireland to strike against rent until this question has been settled – (cheers) – and if the 500,000 tenant farmers of Ireland struck against the 10,000 landlords I should like to see where they would get police and soldiers enough to make them pay. (Loud cheers.)14
The movement was even taken up by many Catholic priests, who had also been chaffing under British rule, and living with their suffering flocks. Declared their most noteworthy representative, Bishop Nulty: no individual or class of individuals can hold a right of private property in the land of a country; that the people of that country, in their public corporate capacity, are, and always must be, the real owners of the land of their country – holding an indisputable title to it, in the fact that they received it as a free gift from its Creator, and as a necessary means for preserving and enjoying the life He has bestowed upon them.15
The agitation fever that spread to village and district of Ireland crossed the Atlantic and infected the Irish in every city and state of America. New York was at the center. The war songs in the saloons and in the streets of the tenement districts that could be heard throughout Manhattan and across the East River resonated throughout the land. There was good reason. By the 1870s the Irish boasted the largest foreign-born contingent numbering 1,855,827 or one-third of the immigrants and 45% of them lived in urban areas. Besides being the center of the nation’s economy New York had the largest and most vociferous Irish community at 199,084 or 19% of the population, and Brooklyn with 78,880, 16%, came in a strong third (Rodechko, 1976, pp. 3–5). The igniting sparks were Davitt’s 1878 visit and alliance with the journalist John Devoy followed by Parnell’s tour the next year, both a
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triumph. The American Irish, first and second generations, had been simmering with hatred for the British. Other Americans not of Irish stock shared in this outrage. The harsh times of the depression with its strike activity and violence added much fuel. The working Irish Americans, fused the Irish cause with their own demands and the mixing of politics, economic justice, radicalism, social change, and land reform spread like wildfire. The Clan na Gael and the Land League movement were at the forefront. The latter had around 1,500 branches with half a million members, many of whom were labor activists enlisting, for instance, in the Knights of Labor headed by Terence V. Powderly, a son of immigrants.16 And since certain elements of the Irish were now climbing their way up the ladder in society and the Democratic Party, the cause also became a powerful issue in politics. Money and moral support flowed back across the ocean and flooded the radical movement. Irish nationalism was even more fervent and radical in the United States than in the old country. Poverty and misery were omnipresent in Ireland and the oppression was indirect, for much of the landlord class was inevitably absent, whereas in America the gulf between the well-off of British descent and the poor Irish newcomer was tangibly present (Rodechko, 1976, p. 19). With the swelling of ranks of the workingmen came growth in the Catholic Church – it filled the pews with the faithful as well as the hierarchy and clergy. Between 1870 and 1900 membership increased from 6.2 million to 12 million, or 18% of the American population (Carey, 1996, p. 50). Embracing American ideals as well as the doctrines of their religion, the reformist Catholics thought that their country had a special mission to spread democracy and that the Catholic Church had a major part to fulfill in that transformation. Many priests plunged into social reform, and in the sobering face of reality some were even radicalized. They advocated numerous church reforms and were champions of the immigrants, laborers, and the poor. Eventually the Old Guard, who wanted to maintain the integrity of tradition and identified with the more affluent, warred with these radical elements who espoused Americanism in the question of how their church should respond to modernism (Carey, 1996, pp. 50–53). This fight, with New York as a major battleground, would spread to Europe and shake the walls of the Vatican. The fires of agitation were also stoked by active journalistic endeavors founded by Irish immigrants. The most noteworthy and influential newspaper was The Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, edited by Patrick Ford. Based in New York, he was able to capture the energies of the disenchanted Irish. The depression had made of Ford a vociferous
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radical, who criticized the capitalist system, supported socialism, labor violence, and trade unions, called for a third party, condemned the Catholic Church, and, of course, supported Irish causes. What made him most popular was that he spoke for the poor Irish masses in America. As early as 1877, Ford was promoting land reform schemes as a means of ameliorating their lot (Rodechko, 1976, pp. 58, 68–74).17 Ford’s fellow journalist Henry George made a point of keeping himself informed of national and world events. The Irish heritage of his wife contributed to his fixing his attention on the great ferment in Ireland and in America. ‘‘The land question’’ appeared in the San Francisco Bee the same year as Progress and Poverty. It applauds the reformist zeal of Parnell and the others, but warns that their remedies do not answer to the deepest needs of either the Irish or his compatriots. If the land: rightfully belongs to the landlords, then is the whole agitation wrong, and every scheme for [it] in any way interfering with the landlords is condemned. If the land rightfully belongs to the landlords, then it is nobody else’s business what they do with it, or where or how they spend the money they draw from it, and whoever does not want to live upon it on the landlords’ terms is at perfect liberty to starve or emigrate. And, on the contrary, if the land rightfully belongs to the Irish people, why in the name of justice should the landlords be paid a fabulous sum for it? Why should an enormous debt be incurred, and an enormous taxation be imposed for years in order to pay the landlords for something which is rightfully the people’s? And so, too, this scheme is as inefficient as it is illogical. Supposing all practical difficulties are waived, and that the landlords of Ireland were bought out by the government and their estates resold to the tenants to be paid for in a term of years, what would be really accomplished? Nothing worth talking about, or struggling for.18
He then resoundingly declares that: The land of Ireland rightfully belongs to the people of Ireland; not to the landlords; not to the cultivators; not to some people, be they hundreds or thousands – BUT TO ALL THE IRISH PEOPLE.19
And George’s solution is what has come down in history as the single tax.20 When George reached New York City he quickly jumped into the swift waters of labor issues and the Irish cause. He swam them with ease. He made the acquaintance of Patrick Ford, who embraced the Californian’s land-reform ideas, and a friendship was struck up. He then quickly amplified the Sacramento Bee article into a large pamphlet, The Irish Land Question. This first major work after Progress and Poverty analyzes the problems that have plagued Ireland, calls for a groundswell of all the Irish and even
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the British peoples to crush landlordism, and adumbrates a program for the realization of his economic remedy. George ([1881] 1982, p. 53) also lambastes the myopic solutions on both islands, such as by mere ‘‘democratization’’ of political institutions, the promotion of peasant proprietary, land nationalization, and the ‘‘three F’s’’ of Gladstone, fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free land sale, which he dubs the ‘‘three frauds.’’21 For a year and more the English journals and magazines have been teeming with articles on the Irish land question; among all the remedies proposed, even by men whose reputation is that of clear thinkers and advanced Liberals, I have seen nothing which shows any adequate grasp of the subject. And this is true of the measures proposed by the agitators, so far as they proposed any. They are illogical and insufficient to the last degree. They neither disclose any clear principle nor . . . aim at any result worth the struggle. (George, [1881] 1982, p. 29)
The most important aspect, perhaps, of this lengthy pamphlet is George’s insistence that private property in land is the primary cause of all evils and that the ‘‘only true and just solution . . . is to make all the land the common property of all the people’’ (George, [1881] 1982, p. 53). – and that it is up to Irish to act as the standard bearer for the world. What I urge the men of Ireland to do is to proclaim without limitation or evasion, that the land, of natural right, is the common property of the whole people, and to propose practical measures which will recognize this right in Great Britain as well as in Ireland. What I urge the Land Leagues of the United States to do is to announce this great principle as of universal application; to give their movement a reference to America as well as to Ireland; to broaden and deepen and strengthen it by making it a movement for the regeneration of the world – a movement which shall concentrate and give shape to aspirations that are stirring among all nations. Ask not for Ireland mere charity or sympathy. Let her call be the call of fraternity. ‘‘For yourselves, O brothers, as well as for us!’’ Let her rallying cry awake all who slumber and rouse to a common struggle all who are oppressed. Let it breathe not old hates; let it ring and echo with the new hope! . . . The hour has come when they may stand for something higher than local patriotism; something grander than national independence. The hour has come when they may stand forth to speak the world’s hope, to lead the world’s advance! (George, [1881] 1982, p. 107)
The Irish Land Question, which was published in the spring of 1881 on both sides of the Atlantic, had put the Protestant Henry George, now in his early 40s, in the front ranks among the Irish of New York and elsewhere in the States – the boost that was to make him famous (George, Jr., [1900] 1960, pp. 348–349). Sales of Progress and Poverty soared, demand for speeches rose, and Ford’s Irish World began to promote George’s philosophy.
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As a foreign correspondent for Ford’s journal he set sail for Ireland in October, 1881. The Irish World had been popular in Ireland for some time; Ford had developed a viable network, and was a thorn in the paw of the British lion, so George’s entre´e was a foregone conclusion. Numerous personal letters and articles indicate that George immediately embroiled himself in Irish politics and met the major actors. He considered the British and landlord rule to be an arbitrary despotism of the worst kind. Mr. Forster [the chief secretary for Ireland] is supposed to be the absolute ruler of Ireland. According to the British constitution, as it seems to be in force in Ireland, he can do whatever he pleases, unless it may possibly be to hang, draw, and quarter people, and I am not entirely sure that he cannot do that. But in reality he seems to be a sort of an ‘‘ass in a lion’s skin’’ – from all reports a poor, weak creature of good enough intentions, but who has lost his head on finding himself lodged in a palace with a lord lieutenant for a sort of chief flunkey, and who has fallen into the hands of the class who surround, and flatter, and frighten him, just as an eastern sultan falls naturally into the hands of his barbers, and eunuchs, and seraglio favorites. Ireland is really governed, not by Mr. Forster, but by the landlord class, or to speak more exactly, the landlord-official class; and there seems to be in each of the various districts throughout the country an independent power, consisting of the landlords and magistrates, who run things as they please.22
And George was to receive a first-hand dose of British arbitrariness. He was arrested twice as a suspicious character. The short stays in jail intensified his radicalism. ‘‘It does not seem to me,’’ George wrote of the British presence, ‘‘that any fair-minded Englishman can visit Ireland, mix with people, and see how laws passed by an English Parliament are administered there, and how English power is used to bolster up a reckless and stupid class tyranny, without feeling indignation and shame’’ (quoted in Lawrence, 1957, p. 23). With the publication of an article in The Times by his fellow visitor and jailmate, James Leigh Joynes, George became an overnight sensation, being honored by the raising of eyebrows in the House of Commons (Lawrence, 1957, pp. 20–27).23 George had arrived at a propitious time in Irish history – the most rebellious phase of the land war was rocking the entire country and the halls of Parliament in London. The Land League, with its 200,000 members, was now throwing Ireland into a state of outright rebellion (Golway, 2000, pp. 163, 168). The Act of Union of 1801 had brought Irish questions into British politics. Charles Stewart Parnell and the Irish party continuously plagued Parliament with the issues of land reform and home rule. Parnell also advised his countrymen to establish the first boycott. William E. Gladstone,
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the prime minister, took upon himself the mission of pacifying Ireland and conceded a number of reforms, including the Land Act of 1881, which legalized the ‘‘three F’s’’ – but along with stiffer measures of coercion to cope with what was turning out to be a revolution.24 Davitt, many members of the Land League (which had become, in effect, a rival government), and even Parnell were thrown in jail, the latter on charges of sedition. The Ladies’ Land League filled the breach and carried on with courage, determination, and effect, much to the chagrin of the British authorities. In face of mounting evictions and arrests everyone had dismissed Gladstone’s concessions. But Parnell, fatigued in stir, cut a deal with Gladstone known as the Kilmainham Treaty. Agitation, strikes, and boycotts would end in return for a greater measure of land reform and home rule within the aegis of Great Britain. Leaders, as elsewhere, held too much sway over their people, so the wind died in the Irish sails, at least temporarily. But Gladstone’s unsuccessful attempt to push two Home Rule bills eventually brought down one of his ministries and splintered his Liberal Party. Davitt, who had read Progress and Poverty a number of times, now fearful of breaking the ranks was wavering on land nationalization, supporting compensation, and eventually repudiated George’s influence. George was outraged. In an interview in late October 1882 he dolefully responded to a reporter what there had transpired: a virtual conversion of the Land League party into a Home Rule party. The dropping of the word ‘‘Land’’ from the title of the League, the refusal of The Irish World to continue to receive subscriptions on this side of the water, and Mr. Egan’s resignation on that are significant indications of the change.25 Substantially, the Land League has been converted into a Home Rule League – a very good thing in its way, but a very different thing from the great Land League which excited so much enthusiasm on the one side and inspired so much terror on the other. It seems to me that there has thus been eliminated from the movement the element which gave it its force. The power of the Land League sprang from the fact that it united with the nationalistic aspirations of the people the strength of social aspirations, and the history of the Land League movement showed that this combination is, as was pointed out years ago by James Finton Lalor, the only means for welding together the masses of the Irish people in one compact and energetic movement . . . .26 The change of policy [is a result] on the part of the parliamentary leaders. This change seems to date from the release of Mr. Parnell from Kilmainham [Jail]. So far as I could judge the Irish people were never in better heart than at that time. Coercion had utterly failed to break their spirit. There was a strong faith in ultimate success, and the popular feeling, as in all revolutions, was taking more and more radical forms. But since that time the tone of the parliamentary leaders has been very much lowered, and their policy has seemed to be to suppress agitation in Ireland rather than to continue it.
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The whole influence of the parliamentary leaders, and it is very great, has been thrown against the dissemination of radical views upon the land question and in favor of subsiding into a policy which is virtually that of Mr. Gladstone . . . . Enthusiasm [has been destroyed] and . . . distrust and dissension [introduced]. The Irish people have been accustomed to rely upon leaders, and have had the fullest confidence in Mr. Parnell and his coadjutors. There is among them an intense dread of anything like dissension, for they feel that the Irish cause has in the past always been lost by divisions, and there is a strong feeling which prevents any expression of the want of confidence in those they have hitherto so implicitly trusted. But revolutions cannot go backward, and the attempt to turn a revolutionary movement into a conservative channel is to bring it to an end . . . . The parliamentary party has controlled everything and directed everything. The movement, really a great uprising of the people, has been in its nature democratic, but the organization has not been democratic . . . .27
George looked, as we have seen, beyond Ireland’s independence, to her role of touchstone to global justice, for the same problems existed everywhere – it was his belief that the single tax was the true basis for universal rejuvenation and an equitable social system. Outside his country and especially in the British Isles, his speeches were the most radical. Indignant at the injustice he had seen in Ireland, George now turned his attention to Scotland, where much land had been cleared by the aristocracy for its deer parks and sheep raising (Bastian, 1999, p. 159). Many people had to flee their homes for the teeming, overcrowded cities, also forced to absorb migrants from Ireland. The potato famine had also taken its toll in Scotland. Another period of land clearances and evictions by rich landowners around mid-century depopulated entire areas and many crofts were abandoned. A virtual civil war ensued in the countryside. With bad harvests in the 1870s an agricultural depression set in. Local cottage industries declined, unable to compete with a growing international market (Mackie, 1962, pp. 266–289). George had called for all farmers and workers on both islands to join hands and fight back. A speech entitled ‘‘Confiscation,’’ gives a sense of it. This long, lingering dragging out of justice is bad on all sides. If you are going to do a thing do it quickly and be done with it. Now the trouble about compensation [for expropriation of the wealth from private landholding] is this: I really cannot see any way of compensating for an injustice without to a greater or less degree continuing that injustice . . . . Private property in land. Why it is simply a form of slavery. The man who owns the land . . . from which another human being must live is his master, and his master even to life or to death. Under the state of things which we see here, and . . . all over the civilized world . . . [where] we are imposing it . . . are there not slaves? Are not the working masses
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of these civilized countries slaves, just . . . [like] chattel slaves, only they do not know their particular master. When a man, without doing a thing, can draw from the earnings of the community the results of labor, when he can have a palace, and yachts, and horses, and hounds, and all the things that labor produce, is not the laborer necessarily robbed? Are not the fruits of his labor necessarily taken without any return to the man who gave the labor? Why in a paper last week, in which I read a column[-long] denunciation of myself and my proposals for ‘‘theft and confiscation’’ . . . there was an article headed ‘‘The White Slaves of England,’’ in which it stated . . . that the condition of a large section of the English people was worse than that of any chattel slaves . . . . No southern slaveholder would have worked and kept his negroes as white men and women and children are worked and kept in this free England. I will take the annals of any system of chattel slavery, and for every horror that you produce, I will produce a double horror from the files of our papers.28
When George returned to New York two interrelated wars, one international and one local, were brewing. This time George was to lock horns with the Roman Catholic Church. It was reeling from multiple intellectual, economic, and political onslaughts, including sectarianism, liberalism, socialism, industrialization, urbanization, biblical criticism, secularization of state functions, anti-clericalism, and the nationalist unification of Germany and Italy. Perhaps the greatest onslaught, from the religious point of view, came in the words of one historian from the philosophical assumptions about science [not science per se], and especially with the carrying over of these assumptions from natural science to so-called social science. To accept the working hypotheses of science as of equal validity with its established facts and to explain the origin and end of man, and his behavior as well as his body, in terms of mechanical physics and evolutionary biology, might be plausible, but scarcely scientific. It involved philosophy – and a philosophy which left no room for God’s creation and man’s soul and which repudiated therefore the fundamental postulates of Christianity. (Hayes, 1963, pp. 124–125)
Increasingly the Roman Church was identified with conservative forces within the peasantry and aristocracy, while the working and middle classes sought more progressive outlets. Priests, parishioners, and members of other religious bodies meanwhile adopted a moderate position reconciling science with religion, or a radical approach termed ‘‘modernism,’’ that would jettison many of the traditions and beliefs, and then embrace science and reason. Giaocchini Pecci, who as Leo XIII came to the papal throne in 1878, opted for the middle ground – a slight adaptation that would preserve the integrity and sanctity of his church. What has been described as epochmaking encyclicals were issued that set policy.
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The first two of interest are Immortale dei of 1885 and Libertas, promulgated 3 years later, which suggest that Catholic philosophy is compatible with democracy and liberty and serves as guides for the Catholic to live amicably within the modern secular state. The Vatican had also interested itself in the burgeoning American church. Yet the Third Plenary Council, convoked in 1884, by forbidding any involvement by the priesthood in politics, made for even deeper ruptures in the church. In the United States, the Catholic middle classes stood far apart from the newly arrived immigrants over unionization and other labor issues. Other quarrels cut across class lines, involving questions of the relation between church and state, and more particularly the place of public as opposed to parochial schools. One group, known as ‘‘Americanists,’’ desired to accommodate to the new social and economic forces while maintaining the integrity of the faith. The opposing conservative ranks would not adapt to what progressives considered the spirit of the times. From the new land, the argument crossed the Atlantic to Rome (see Carey, 1996, pp. 52–60). At the center of the controversy was Edward McGlynn. For years McGlynn, an influential and persuasive parish priest in New York, had espoused radical ideas regarding the Roman Church, including priestly celibacy, infallibility of the pope in matters of faith and morals, the nature of scriptural writings, and the role of Catholicism in America’s manifest destiny and the reuniting of Christianity (Shanaberger, 1995, pp. 28, 31–33). As early as the 1860s he was posing problems for the archdiocese (Curran, 1978, pp. 174–176). But the driving force in his life was to help the downtrodden. McGlynn daily witnessed ‘‘the never-ending procession of men, women and little children coming to my door begging, not so much for alms as for employment. I began to ask myself . . . Is there no remedy . . . ? I began to study a little political economy, to ask, ‘what is God’s law as to the maintenance of His family down here below?’’’ (Bell, 1968, p. 23). This priest, who had sacrificed his own possessions and energies to help the immigrants and poor of different religious backgrounds, was enraged at the lack of concern on the part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and feared the loss of popular belief in God. Mere spiritual counseling and moral exhortation were not enough. Since many of the priests, like McGlynn, were of an Irish background news from the homeland had further incensed and enthused them. A sizeable number were drawn to relief efforts, the land question, and radical ideas, such as the condemnation of landlordism, tenant rights, especially when the Land Leagues were forming. Their passions deepened during Parnell and Davitt’s triumphant American tours (see Green, 1949).
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The Reverend Patrick Cronin, editor of the Catholic Union and Times, declared that When it is further considered that those vast estates were originally plundered from the rightful owners and bequeathed in title deeds stained with the tears of the exiled and red with the blood of the slaughtered, we need not be surprised if today there are many good, law-abiding men who believe that a touch of Christian communism in Ireland would not be so terrible a crime. (quoted in Green, 1949, p. 26)
Even within the diocese of Newark, New Jersey ‘‘in the presence of Bishop Michael A. Corrigan the priests approved the spirit of the Land League and determined ‘to aid it . . . by the voice, by the pen, and by the purse’’’ (Green, 1949, p. 30). Given his heritage, the climate of the times, radical theories, and his penchant for social reform McGlynn, moved quickly into the vanguard, while fellow priests were also speaking out publicly. So when he was introduced to Progress and Poverty in 1882, he found the ideology for which he had been seeking. Writes Richard Burtsell (quoted in Shanaberger, 1995, pp. 38–39): George, was a providential man, ‘‘the greatest, most unselfish man of this country formed by providence to preach the new gospel.’’ George supplied two important things for this zealous missionary priest. First, he provided a convincing theodicy to restore to the oppressed a faith in a loving God who did not impose economic hardship upon them in some arbitrary way. Second, he also furnished a soteriology and an eschatology that gave greater hope to McGlynn in regard to prospects for the speedy conversion of America to the gospel and to the Catholic Church. McGlynn consequently began to believe seriously that the Georgian theories could very well lead to the realization of something very much like the kingdom of God on earth. From 1881 until the end of his life McGlynn continued to promote this single-tax theory as the essence of the Christian gospel and as the message that would turn hearts to God, to the church, and to true brotherhood and peace the world over.29
Edward McGlynn and Henry George had met in the fall of 1882, after George returned from overseas, and they immediately became close friends during a time fraught with change. In the late nineteenth century, the United States was recovering from the Civil War. Industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and labor violence were increasingly redefining American society: the cities and the rest of the country were beset with social problems that the local governments were impotent to deal with. In the 1880s, a new immigration flood from central, southern, and Eastern Europe brought five and a quarter million people (Blum, Catton, Morgan, Stampp, & Woodward, 1968, p. 457). It lasted until 1920. The United States became home to about 23.5 million foreigners.
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Now swarthier people of customs stranger than the folkways of northwestern Europe were defining the meaning of immigration. At the same time, rural problems were sending migrants to the cities. In 1860, twenty-five million people had lived in rural areas and 6.2 million in cities. By 1910, the figures as defined by census takers were to be 50 million and 42 million. For much of the urban population home and work were growing further apart, and the patterns of daily life underwent profound changes. Most males in 1860 had been farmers, but in 1910 less than half would engage in directly agricultural pursuits. A major drought in 1886 and 1887 in the wake of major winter storms had brought ruin to the farmers and then only two wheat crops could be harvested between 1887 and 1897. A collapse after years of land speculation exacerbated the situation while the prices of agricultural products dropped. The value of land skyrocketed beyond the reach of the poor and made for its increasing monopolization. Such problems drew forth protest.30 Capitalist industrialism and its ethos of accumulation were threatening the small, rural communities that still thought themselves to be the custodians of American beliefs and traditions. Regionalism was giving way to a national and consumer economy with global connections. Between 1860 and 1890, coal mining, technological innovation, and techniques of mass marketing expanded manufacturing products from $1.8 to $13 billion, while the industrial workforce grew from 885,000 to 3.2 million. Over all this rapid growth presided pools, holding companies, and trusts and capitalists also gained control of financial institutions. Further promoting the triumph of capital was an elite in the Democratic and Republican parties. In an era of corruption at all levels of government, the state was increasingly identifying with money and property interests. So except for the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the impotent Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, nothing much came from the federal government in restraint of capitalism. The days of the artisan plying his trade in his own shop were drawing to a close: handicrafts centuries old were giving way to the factory, which was increasingly producing standardized goods. With the factory came impersonality and automation, both mechanical and human. The chasm deepened between work and thought. In 1880 the average annual income was $300 as opposed to $400 in 1870. Conditions in the workplace were as a general rule unsanitary and unsafe, and daily work up to fifteen hours was not uncommon. Women and children also labored under appalling circumstances. Capitalists and the wealthy boasted of their capacity for work and the concept of natural selection and survival of the fittest, which scientists had
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intended only to explain biological events, was applied to social principles in justification of the struggle for economic existence. State interference on behalf of the weak, it was argued, would impede this advancement; so would labor unionism. Legal decisions during the sway of these notions were based on the theory that the individual had the right to sell his labor according to what he would consider to be acceptable terms. Regulatory legislation was nullified by the courts as subversive of individual rights. Any law that abetted business was welcome. Subordination of the working classes intensified and the general drift of American society in the nineteenth century was . . . increasingly toward concentration, with its compulsions to reintegration and conformity – the imperious subjection of the individual to a standardizing order, the stripping away of the slack frontier freedoms in the routine of the factory, the substitution of the ideal of plutocracy for the ideal of Jacksonian democracy. And this revolutionary work of the machine was hastened by the new spirit of science that spread silently through the land, effecting a revolution in men’s thinking as great as the machine was effecting in their lives. (Parrington, 1930, pp. 189–190)
This massive industrial expansion demanded capitalization. Investment banking enabled this growth, marketing securities for many cities, states, and the federal government along with private corporations. Placing these securities in the stock market was the method, especially on Wall Street. The competition among buyers created a high-tone gambling casino and erratic price fluctuations, and with the assistance of a loan market that grew up, so did a great deal of instability. Overspeculation and overproduction, along with overcapitalization of railroads, brought on catastrophe. From 1873 to 1879, 1884 to 1886, and 1893 to 1897, tremendous flights of money created panics and depressions. Banks failed, railroads went under, farm prices sank, and people went hungry. In an economy driven by brutal competition, employers in response cut back wages or fired workers. Strikes beginning in the late 1870s were punctuated with labor warfare and workers joined hands, such as in the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor. Violent labor militancy on the railroads, in the textile industry, and in the coal mines under guerrilla warfare by the Irish Molly Maguires was a phenomenon new to the country. Between 1881 and 1905, about 7 million workers participated in 37,000 strikes. Federal and state governments responded with military force. The labor unrest awakened paranoia in the settled classes. Never before had the nation witnessed labor struggles of such vigor and scope. In cities and towns the armies of labor organized and gave expressions to the pent-up bitterness
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of years of exploitation in a series of strikes which shook the nation to its foundation. ‘‘The year 1886,’’ a contemporary report stated, ‘‘has witnessed a more profound and far more extended agitation among the members of organized labor than any previous year in the history of our country.’’ (Foner, 1955, Vol. II, p. 11)
The year 1886 was particularly fruitful, including a major railway strike in New York. A few noteworthy clashes have been described as battles. Some of them involved the loss of millions of dollars of property and at times even federal troops were dispatched. The year 1881 brought 471 strikes; in 5 years the figures had jumped to 1,432 (Rodechko, 1976, p. 92). And then there was the specter of the Paris Commune, and at home the Haymarket Riot. Many Europeans of differing radical persuasions had migrated to Chicago during the great wave of newcomers. Revolutionary exponents and organizations of anarchism and socialism proliferated here and in other major cities. Much of the labor agitation was led by the anarchists, particular objects of hostility among capitalists, city officials, and the press. During a labor rally in Haymarket Square, 3 days after a general strike was called on May 1, 1886, a bomb was tossed in a crowd. The identity of the terrorist is still unknown, but at the time much of the public assumed that anarchists had been the culprits. That incident, coupled with contrived legal proceedings against the accused, led to executions, and made the Haymarket Affair a cause ce´le`bre in American history. Anarchism immediately became identified with labor violence of any kind. Legislation curtailed boycotts and strikes. Industrialists used lockouts, Pinkerton agents, and propaganda against unionism. Volumes of literature calling for a perfected society meanwhile came off the presses. One utopia takes form in the writings of Edward Bellamy. His answer was announced in the 1887 blockbuster book Looking Backward, which was followed by Equality 10 years later. Looking Backward achieved the status of gospel and in a very short time. Nationalist Clubs advocating Bellamy’s paternal socialist reply to capitalism dotted the country. The number of followers has been estimated to be around a million and they almost organized into a political party.31 Since it was a time alive with labor activity, radicalism, and the Irish were a major component, adding to it their vociferous nationalism, a man with strong leadership and speaking qualities would naturally come forth. It was a time ripe for Henry George and the Reverend Edward McGlynn. During this period of crisis George, after gathering 30,000 signatories to support his race, decided to run for the mayoralty of New York City. George, after a hard campaign, lost this election to the Democrat Abram S. Hewitt, but he garnered more votes than the young Republican candidate
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Theodore Roosevelt. The final tally was Hewitt, 90,552; George, 68,110; and Roosevelt, 60,435. It is generally accepted that George would have won if it there had not been ballot improprieties. A letter of 1897 relates to the winner of this race, Abram S. Hewitt, who had accused George of fomenting ‘‘anarchy and social destruction,’’ an interesting turn of events during the campaign that he had kept secret for 11 years. In it George states that the powerful William Ivins, a prominent Democrat, asked him to refrain from running for mayor and that if he did so, he would receive a seat in the House of Representatives. George’s loss was certain, but Tammany did not want the aggravation. George queried: Why, if I cannot be elected, do you object to my running? His reply was, you cannot be elected. Anyone who really knows politics will tell you that, but your running will ‘‘raise hell.’’ I said, you have relieved me of all embarrassment. I do not want to be mayor of New York, I shrink from the responsibility and the work, but I do want to ‘‘raise hell.’’ I am decided, and I will run. (Henry George to Abram S. Hewitt, Oct. 1897, reel no. 6, HGP)
So George poured his heart out in this mayoralty race, which was close to warfare. The campaign was a total grassroots affair. People labored close to nonstop while George exhaustively sped from one end of town to another, giving speeches urging potential voters to fight the Tammany machine and join his ranks. McGlynn supported the struggle. In an interview he described George as destined to be, and at no distant day, the president of the United States, and . . . the movement that will have placed him in the presidential chair will be a greater and further-reaching one than the original Declaration of Independence and the movement that that placed the illustrious author of that declaration in the Chair of Washington. I think it worthwhile to say, that while I speak first of all and always as an American citizen, I may also with considerable propriety speak as an Irish-American, and one who has not failed time and again to raise his voice for the cause of justice, and of the land for the people in Ireland. I notice that the ‘‘political rascals,’’ whom Mr. George so happily described in his letter to Mr. Hewitt, are insulting the Irish-American people by utterances which imply that these precious saviors of society take the Irish-American people to be so ignorant and so stupid as to believe their vile calumnies concerning Mr. George’s relations to Ireland and the Irish. It would be simply impossible for Mr. George not to sympathize with all his heart in the cause of Ireland, and, if for no other reason, just because in Ireland the evils of the injustice against which he is fighting have reached their worst results in squalor, poverty, and starvation. Do these gentlemen think that the Irish-American people are so ignorant and so stupid as not to have known and to remember that Mr. George for a whole year was issuing trumpet blasts against English landlordism in Ireland in his magnificent letters to Patrick Ford’s Irish World? Do not Irish-Americans know of the
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ardent admiration and friendship of the heroic and beloved Michael Davitt for Henry George? Can they forget that Henry George was twice arrested as a suspect in Ireland because of his friendship and eminent services for Ireland? And what, perhaps, they do not know so well, I can inform them – namely, that Mr. George’s monumental book Progress and Poverty, won for its gifted author the ardent admiration and cordial friendship of the great Irish prelate, Bishop Nulty, who said expressly that, having read again and again Mr. George’s book, he approved every word in it. In fact, the famous utterances of Bishop Nulty, which have become historic, concerning the doctrine of the land for the people may be said to be a recapitulation of the doctrines of Henry George. (quoted in Post & Leubuscher, [1887] 1961, pp. 131–132)
A year after his loss to Hewitt, George again sought office, this time for secretary of state for New York State. George, but suffered a major defeat. McGlynn (1886, pp. 572–573) declared of the fallen candidate: No heart has sympathized more keenly with the sufferings of the toiler, no other pen has defined the wrong so clearly, and portrayed with such force and pathos the poverty that haunts progress like a specter. No other voice has rung so loud and clear in calling men to take up the cross of a new crusade for justice, to proclaim the glad tidings of a new evangel to the poor, that shall relieve them from the degradation of want, and the deeper degradation of the fear of want. His cry rang forth, calling on the conscience of men to restore to the disinherited their equal share in the bounties of Nature, and thus to fit their hearts and minds the better to receive and act out the old evangel of him, who taught the universal Fatherhood of God and the equal brotherhood of men. The common people of old heard the Christ gladly as he preached to them the blessedness of those that hunger and thirst after justice; and in the common people of today the same sure instinct responds to the call for social right doing.
Early in 1887, George, the tireless first editor, launched The Standard.32 He championed numerous social, economic, and political causes. The front page of the first issue, and many others, were devoted to his friend and colleague the Reverend Edward McGlynn. McGlynn managed to irritate the entire archdiocesan hierarchy of New York even more than before his association with George. George’s support of McGlynn and his journalistic attacks against the church hierarchy, although not against the church itself or its dogmas, beliefs, or practices, alienated a sizeable proportion of its readership, especially the Irish. One such example bears this point out. Catholic teaching is not the ‘‘religion of ignorance’’ that the prejudices of many Protestants lead them to suppose. That form of Christianity which for centuries held undisputed sway in Western Christendom, and which, taking Christianity as a whole, is to other forms of it what the river is to the rivulets, has embraced among its adherents men of the widest learning, the most acute intellect, the highest virtue, and the truest patriotism – men who could not possibly have rested in a faith which gave no scope to individual liberty and which made its votaries in all things the mere puppets of those who
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Patrick Ford, meanwhile, had politically moved to the right while the Irish agitation was fizzling out and then recoiled in horror from the Haymarket incident, increasingly denounced strikes and free trade, and became more mainline in Irish and American politics, in part because of the reappearance of nativism against Irish Americans, and since his paper was in financial trouble the Republican Party started bankrolling him (Rodechko, 1976, pp. 89–122, 168). Ford reluctantly endorsed George for the mayoralty bid at the last minute but allowed coverage of the opponents. Ford was possibly pressured by Corrigan (Gaffney, 2000, p. 11). The Irish World now came out against both George and McGlynn for the problems that they were causing the Catholic Church. Much of the paper’s Irish readership followed suit. In an article ‘‘Henry George’s Mistake,’’ Ford openly broke with them. The open and violent opposition of Mr. George to the Catholic Church necessitates this action on my part. Henry George is a Protestant, was born and brought up a Protestant, and it is but natural, of course, that he should see the Catholic Church with the eyes of a Protestant. I use the word Protestant here in the broadest sense. An expression by him of his religious views, if called upon, in public or private could not offend any sensible man. His offense is that he has singled out the Catholic Church as an institution and has declared war against her as against an enemy of society. He has misrepresented her motives, derided her authority, and sought to bring her entire hierarchy, with the pope himself, into hatred and contempt. And with the virus of this hatred he has endeavored to inoculate the new political party of which he is the recognized head. According to Henry George the Catholic Church is an utterly corrupt organization, the foe of liberty and human rights the world over. It is made up of tyrants and slaves, and in it only hypocrites can be in good standing. If all this or one-half of it were true, then no honest man could remain in the Catholic Church, and indeed only such Catholics as openly challenge and defy excommunication are, in his opinion, honest men and worthy of admiration. To say, as Henry George does say, that because he does not assail her doctrines and sacraments he does not therefore assail the Catholic Church, but only the ‘‘machine,’’ is to trifle with common sense. It is a distinction without a difference. The machine is the complex system by which the organization of the church visibly exists and is carried on – the necessary instrument by which her power is applied and made effective. Destroy this machine and you reduce the church to a mere abstraction.34
George also helped establish the United Labor Party to help support his new campaign, which was supposed to draw together disparate opposition labor and radical groups, including socialists. It had been formed in 1881 as
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the Central Labor Union, a workingman’s association that expressed solidarity with the downtrodden of Ireland.35 George said of it: Gradually yet rapidly the land question has been forcing itself upon attention; and that process of education that has been going on in Central Labor Unions, in Assemblies of the Knights of Labor and in the movements, abortive though they may have been in themselves, by which it has been attempted to unite the political power of the discontented classes, has been steadily directing thought toward the relation between men and the land on which they live, as the key to social difficulties and labor troubles. And this process has been powerfully aided by the interest and feeling that the Irish movement has aroused in the United States. Here, in fact, the tendencies of that movement have been more openly radical than in Ireland. Shut out of Ireland, The Irish World has freely circulated here, and in the beginning of the Irish movement sowed broadcast among a most important section of our people the doctrine of the natural right to the land; and while the influential editors and politicians and clergymen who have been so ready to assert or to assent to the truth that God made Ireland for the Irish people and not for the landlords, have been careful to avoid any insinuation that this continent was also made by the same power and for an equally impartial purpose, they too have been unwittingly aiding in the same work. I was originally of the opinion that the first large steps to the solution of the labor question by the recognition of equal rights to land would be taken on the other side of the Atlantic, and in what I have done to help in arousing sentiment there have always had in mind the reflex action on this country, where, as I have told our friends on the other side, I believed the movement would be quicker when it did fairly start. But, although I have known better perhaps than anyone else, how widely and how deeply the ideas that I among others have been striving to propagate have been taking root in the United States, they have reached the stage of political action quicker than the most sanguine among us would have dared to imagine. In going into the municipal contest in New York last fall on the principle of abolishing taxation on improvements and putting taxes on land values irrespective of improvements, the United Labor Party of New York City raised an issue, which by the opposition it aroused and the strength it evoked showed the line along which the coming cleavage of parties must run. We did not win that election; few among us really cared for winning, or we were not struggling for offices. But we did more than win an election. We brought the labor question – or what is the same thing, the land question – into practical politics. And it is here to stay.36
The new party too disintegrated from internal dissension and an exodus by the Irish, who had since its inception had represented its major support, and the Central Labor Union itself eventually rejected both George and McGlynn (Curran, 1978, pp. 275–292). The popular but meteoric Anti-Poverty Society also appeared during this time with McGlynn as president. Its ranks were swelled primarily by Catholics. Given the incendiary nature of McGlynn’s speeches and
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George’s affiliation with him, the church’s hierarchy viewed it as a serious menace, so members who joined were threatened by refusal of absolution and burial in church cemeteries. McGlynn had been flagrantly involved in radical labor issues and Georgist land theories, whose ideas were viewed by church authorities as dangerous and socialistic, especially once their parishioners, primarily Irish, came to view George as a rallying point for protest and change. From any point of view save that of Christianity, McGlynn was [in opposition] to the church he represented. To attack private property in land was equivalent to denouncing an institution on which the church had rested for centuries. And McGlynn was more radical than George, prepared to abolish landed property immediately by appropriation. The papal bull Quod apostolici muneris, issued in 1878 by Leo XII, had condemned socialism as ‘‘the deadly plague that is creeping into the very fibers of human society and leading it on to the verge of destruction.’’ Corrigan’s pastoral letter in November 1886 reiterated the papal position, and met with public animosity from McGlynn and George (Curran, 1978, pp. 208–209).37 McGlynn was also radicalizing the clergy and during this time of especially fierce agitation became an even greater menace. McGlynn was also in defiance of the Third Plenary Council in its opposition to priestly involvement in politics. In 1885, McGlynn had promised Cardinal John McCloskey of New York to stay out of politics, but McCloskey’s death a year later opened the way for McGlynn’s return to political agitation (Curran, 1978, pp. 186–187). McCloskey’s successor Archbishop Michael Corrigan, affluent and very conservative, had no objections when McGlynn came out for Cleveland in 1884 (Curran, 1978, p. 201).38 But Corrigan apparently harbored a personal dislike for the troublemaking McGlynn, once his classmate in Rome. As the vociferous McGlynn exceeded, his priestly duties grew in popularity and clout that made him a threat to the hierarchy, distorted stories and adverse editorials were appearing in the press. The atmosphere in New York was becoming increasingly heated. A letter from Corrigan to Cardinal Gibbons complains: The McGlynn trouble now presents the phase of organized opposition to episcopal authority on the part of some of his sacerdotal supporters and admirers, e.g., Dr. Burtsell and Dr. Curran. It is no longer the case of a wound that may heal under the soothing influence of a poultice, but it is an ulcer that needs the knife – nothing less vigorous will be effectual. (Abp. Corrigan to Card. Gibbons, Apr. 12, 1887, 82 P12, AASMSU)39
At the same time there was a change in leadership in Tammany Hall. John Kelly died in 1886 and Richard Croker became the Grand Sachem.40
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The Irish were still the organization’s most potent power base. Anyone who attempted to walk on its turf, as on Corrigan’s, was viewed as an intruder. That George was popular among the Irish both in Ireland and especially in the United States added concern to the powerful within the church and Tammany Hall. Isaccson notes the cooperation between the two institutions: ‘‘McGlynn’s support of this agitation [for George’s election] interfered with political and financial interests in Tammany Hall . . . . [It] had control over Catholic leadership in New York. Corrigan is said to have had ‘a very satisfactory arrangement . . . ’’’ with the sachems (Isacsson, 1998, pp. 108–110; see also Shanaberger, 1995, p. 40). An article by McGlynn entitled ‘‘The New Know-Nothingism and the Old,’’ originally a speech given at the end of July, 1887, fires a running broadside against his church and claims that its machinations will revive Protestant hatred. ‘‘The bishops, in great majority, are now eager to obtrude their professional rank on the public by the use of a distinctive garb, wearing about their necks the imperial purple, with which, as well as with wealth and power, the first Christian emperors began the corruption of the church’’ (McGlynn, 1887, p. 198). The article directly accuses the church of shady relations with secular authorities in the United States that included inappropriate funding for parochial schools, and coziness with Tammany Hall, where money was ‘‘procured by legislative trick and fraud’’ (McGlynn, 1887, p. 199). It speaks of the appropriation of valuable public lands and millions of dollars of public money, to the support of all manner of sectarian institutions under the control of the churches, and especially the Roman Catholic Church . . . . Would it not be enough to make the elder Know-Nothing bigots turn in their graves could they hear that vast sums and great public properties are thus turned over to irresponsible private and sectarian institutions, especially if they could learn that priests, and monks, and nuns whose institutions are thus benefited by the public, are but the more emboldened to denounce our schools and other public institutions, in language at times brutal if not obscene, while indulging in unwarranted pharisaic glorification of their own institutions and of themselves. (McGlynn, 1887, p. 200).
The article continues: But what, most of all, might seem well-adapted to revive and intensify the old hateful and bigoted spirit of Know-Nothingism, and justify its fears and predictions, is the actual and direct interference in politics of bishops, vicars-general, and priests in their ecclesiastical capacity and because of their ecclesiastical influence, to promote the pecuniary and temporal objects of the ecclesiastical machine. Recent instances of this, not a few, could be mentioned[, such as attempts to defeat constitutional amendments, securing elections of favorable candidates, which amounts
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to a] clerical alliance with the Tweed Ring . . . [the essay cites McGlynn’s own and George’s case]; the letter of Monsignor Preston to Joseph O’Donoghue in the late mayoralty canvass; [see Curran, 1978, pp. 196–198; Post & Leubuscher, [1887] 1961, pp. 132–134] the denunciation of one of the candidates and his party from Catholic altars; the secret prohibition to a priest, who went not as a priest, but as a citizen, to keep his engagement to speak at a political meeting, the chief demerit of which speech was clearly in the fact that the movement it was intended to help was likely to bring disaster upon the Tammany ally of the ecclesiastical machine; the abuse of the confessional in forbidding men under penalty of refusal of absolution to attend the meetings of one political party. (McGlynn, 1887, pp. 201–202)
The article turns directly on Corrigan: and last and worst of all, the effort, of an archbishop in the late election, to defeat at the polls by the abuse of his ecclesiastical position the call for a constitutional convention, which as the result proved, was demanded by an overwhelming majority of all those who voted on the question – an effort in full keeping with the action of same archbishop, when bishop of Newark, in sending to the Catholic pastors of New Jersey a secret confidential letter, telling them to ‘‘instruct’’ their people how they ‘‘must’’ vote upon certain proposed constitutional amendments, giving minute details as to the striking out of certain clauses, and suggesting that for greater surety it might be better that the Catholic voters should strike out all the clauses. The heinousness of this action will be better understood when it is mentioned that the object of the proposed amendments was to protect the public treasury, and to prevent the people of the counties and towns from being oppressed and robbed by railroad and other corporations. (McGlynn, 1887, p. 202)
It was as though the church were out to prove all the fears of the Protestants: It is actually the fulfillment of the prevision of those who saw in the growth of a vast army of foreign-born voters likely to be swayed as one man by other than American objects and considerations, and in the growth of an ecclesiastical power, secret and despotic in its methods, and owing, it was alleged, blind obedience to a foreign potentate, a real danger to the unity and distinctive characteristics of our nationality, and to the liberties and institutions of our country. (McGlynn, 1887, pp. 201–202)
Church authorities were incensed at the inflammatory verbiage and other attacks against the pope (Ellis, 1952, p. 571; Curran, 1978, pp. 295–296). Archival research indicates that Corrigan was indeed involved in political dealings. He did attempt to ask that friends be considered for important positions, such as to the Supreme Court, through contacts to the White House, especially if the officeseeker was ‘‘best of all, a very practical Catholic’’ (Abp. Corrigan to Card. Gibbons, Apr. 8, 1888, 84 H5, AASMSU). The reason George became an object of obloquy to the Catholic Church was simple: If McGlynn had espoused Marx’s socialism or Bakunin’s anarchism, then the same fate would probably have occurred with either one
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of them. In other words, it was not George or George’s philosophy per se that worried the episcopacy. It was the fact that their most irritating priest was preaching the single tax. For disobedience, the hierarchy suspended McGlynn twice and followed up with excommunication. But church authorities had to proceed with extreme caution. The conviction among American Protestants that the papacy was inimical to free institutions required tact in Rome’s dealings with the American public. Since the church’s numbers were growing particularly by immigration, so Catholicism was perceived as foreign, dictatorial, and hungry for political power. That George and McGlynn were popular among the Irish, both in Ireland and in the United States added concern to the powerful within the Catholic Church. The Vatican was also involved in talks with Great Britain seeking to reestablish diplomatic connections, so the situation in Ireland had to be delicately handled, especially since a particular American priest was speaking for the discontented Irish. And so, given all these facts, in the wake of the excommunication of McGlynn and his refusal to go to Rome, the prelates had to be circumspect about their dealings with the popular priest and George. The warfare between McGlynn and Corrigan, which represented a battle between liberalism and traditionalism, that was shaking the faith and structure of the church, was escalating and demonstrations unnerved the ecclesiastical and political powers in New York. The ranks of the national priesthood also took sides, so the matter became extremely grave for Rome. A lively correspondence, extant in the archives, among the American Catholic hierarchy attests to the importance of this issue for it was, to say the least, unsettling (see, e.g., Abp. William Elder to Card. Gibbons, Apr. 6., 1887, 82 P7, AASMSU). The majority sided with Corrigan but a vociferous minority favored his adversary (Ellis, 1952, pp. 557–558). Cardinal Gibbons, who wanted to maintain a balance between loyalty and independence, and aware of the particularly American ethos of private conscience, attempted to block the condemnation of George’s writings favored by Corrigan. An epistle of February 25, 1887, entitled ‘‘The Question of Henry George’s Writings’’ sent to Cardinal Simeoni, the Prefect of the Holy Congregation of the Propaganda, sensing the decay of Georgism, reflects the careful strategy of Gibbons.41 I have had already the honor of presenting to your Eminence my views on the social question which agitates America, especially regarding their relations with the Knights of Labor. But recently another form of social discussion has developed connected with the doctrines of Mr. Henry George, an American writer identified with the working classes. And since my arrival at Rome I have heard discussed the idea that the writings of
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Henry George would be placed on the Index. After having meditated well on the subject, I believe it is my duty to submit to your eminence the reasons why I must point out that a formal condemnation of Henry George’s books would be neither opportune nor useful. 1. Henry George is by no means the inventor of the theory that he maintains respecting the right of property to the land . . . . But, it seems to me that the world will judge him rather singularly if the Holy See will attack the works of a humble American artisan, in lieu of attacking his great masters. And if there is some who think that it will therefore be the duty of the Holy See to pronounce a judgment on Spencer and Mill, perhaps it would be prudent before hand to consult their Eminences Cardinals Manning and Newman on the expediency of such an action . . . . d) In a country like ours, which is not at all a country of doctrinaires and visionaries, speculative theory will not be dangerous, nor would live a long time after its practical application will have been rejected; and one could allow it, in complete sureness, to die by itself . . . . 4. Finally, it could be prudent here to apply the moral principle that counsels not to express a judgment whose consequences would probably be contrary rather than favorable towards the proposed laudable purpose. Because I maintain it for certain that such would be the result of a condemnation of Mr. George’s works. This would give them a popular importance that they would never have otherwise had and excites an appetite for curiosity which would make them sell in thousands of copies, and which would then immensely extend their influence which the condemnation would seek to restrain and prevent. Another word, with a practical people like the Americans, in whose nature bizarre and impractical ideas soon find their grave, it seems to me that prudence suggests allowing the absurdities and falsities to die by themselves, and not to run the risk of giving them an importance, and an artificial life and force by the intervention of the Church tribunals. (Card. James Gibbons to Card. Simeoni, Feb. 25, 1887, 82 N3/3, AASMSU)42
In private correspondence to Corrigan, and others, including the pope, Gibbons agrees with his colleague in New York that the matter of George was very important to the church in general but still rejected any public condemnation, which would ‘‘do harm to religion’’ (Card. Gibbons to Abp. Corrigan, Oct. 31, 1890, C-15, AANY; and Card. Gibbons to Pope Leo XIII, July 30, 1888, 84 T9, AASMSU). Apparently most of the hierarchy was in accord with Gibbons (see, e.g., Abp. Patrick Ryan to Card. Gibbons, Mar. 15, 1887, 82 N8, AASMSU). Yet the Vatican, taking the cardinal’s counsel seriously, sided with Corrigan, who by the way was instrumental in investing substantial monetary proceeds for Rome (Curran, 1978, p. 250). George’s works in 1889 were then placed on the Index librorum prohibitorum
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but without publication (Ellis, 1952, pp. 583–585; Curran, 1978, pp. 310–311, 489). As the leading biographer of Gibbons points out, The final verdict of Rome on George’s doctrines was not, of course, what the cardinal would have wished, but it is clear that the campaign which Gibbons and his friends waged against the condemnation had at least the salutary effect of preventing public fulminations against an economic theorist whose popularity was already in a state of serious decline when Rome handed down its secret judgment. The course of events ultimately sustained the cardinal’s prediction about the temporary character of the single-tax movement, for while it lived on among a few ardent followers for many years, its force was spent and it was deprived of the boon that would have experienced among many Americans had it been dignified by a public condemnation of the Holy See. (Ellis, 1952, p. 593)
Apparently Corrigan was not satisfied with a mere secret condemnation of George’s writings, so he pushed the Vatican for a strong public statement. The encyclical Rerum novarum, issued by Leo XIII in 1891, is best known for its cautious advocacy of social justice, which also addressed the portion of the priesthood and laity that had gone beyond the intentions of the document and turn seriously leftward (Shanaberger, 1995, pp. 44–46). But some scholars have decided that, as George himself suspected, it was also an attack on George’s political economy and an attempt to mark off the limits of social change (see George, [1881] 1982). It was, nevertheless, considered a major departure in Catholic policy, so it quickly became an important benchmark for the Roman Church. It was followed 8 years later with Testem benevolentiate, an apostolic letter to the American clergy that condemned liberalism. More problems, meanwhile, arose in the single-tax movement. George and McGlynn had severed relations over the tariff question. George in a change in tactics advocated the reelection in 1888 of the incumbent Cleveland, who had come out for a reduction in the tariff, while McGlynn remained a staunch single-taxer. This rift cut into the subscriptions to George’s newspaper and the membership of McGlynn’s Anti-Poverty Society, which George left. The ranks, especially the Irish, of the single-tax movement thinned. George was to write that the ‘‘estrangement between Dr. McGlynn and myself gave me great pain at first, but since it has come out into the open I am perfectly satisfied. He has qualities which I am satisfied would have made ultimate trouble and so it is best that it should come now’’ (George to Thomas Walker, Mar. 17, 1888, no. 4, HGP). Corrigan was victorious – but all this is a mere postscript to our story, for both George and McGlynn had spent themselves in health and in influence and in warfare. The church’s astute counterattack, Ford’s volte face,
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pressure from Tammany Hall, and the dissension among Georgists had turned the Irish away from the ideology of George and McGlynn. After a papal inquiry McGlynn was reinstated in late 1892 to live a life in obscurity, as did George, whose pen was drying up. The two were mere simulacra of their former selves, as was their movement that they had created.
NOTES 1. The National Bank, centered in Philadelphia, hastened the federal government’s decision to withdraw its deposits, which forced the bank to call in its loans and suspend any extension of credit. Nicolas Biddle, head of the Bank, then tried to generate a small recession with the object of winning the institution’s recharter. So when credit became restricted interest rates precipitously rose. That brought down numerous businesses and commercial interests suffered. Meanwhile, and contradictorily to this contraction of currency, the collapse of National Bank that had earlier put limits on the free-handed lending policies of state banks allowed these to flood much of the country with cheap paper money. Jackson, a wealthy landowner who had convinced the public and himself that he was a man of the people, was unusual among politicians in favoring coin over bank notes, having become persuaded that paper could be manipulated to the advantage of the rich; but his destruction of the National Bank turned the financial system into a myriad of state banks that were essentially paper mills. Speculation, much of it in the purchase of federal lands and encouraged by the free-handed policies of local banks, led to bankruptcy. When Jackson determined to stem the avalanche of paper, and to that end demanded that private purchases of governmental land be in specie alone, banks suspended payment, currency became scarce, and unemployment spread. Hunger and misery stalked the land as federal and state deficits climbed in response to the collapse of land sales and tariff receipts. Upon the inability on the part of ordinary Americans to purchase federal land, state banks bought up what the public could not buy. So the attempt to rein in the moneyed interests had not only failed but increased their power. 2. St. George’s Channel separates Ireland from England. 3. Fenianism was a nationalist revolutionary movement that sought independence for Ireland during the nineteenth century. There were also branches in England and the United States. 4. Refers to a politically corrupt group of Tammany Democrats known for their widespread corruption, graft, and patronage. 5. John McCloskey (1810–1885) was the third archbishop of New York and the first American cardinal. 6. ‘‘How Long will Protestants Endure?’’ The New York Times, Feb. 2, 1871. 7. ‘‘The Church of Aggression,’’ The New York Times, Mar. 10, 1871. St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) was the founder of the Jesuits. 8. A reference to Rev. Edward McGlynn (1837–1900), an eloquent orator, who was the president of the Anti-Poverty Society and one of the most ardent disciples of George. It was established in 1887 and lasted for about a year. Later on, political disagreement led to a break in their relations, later healed. The excommunication of McGlynn became a cause ce´le`bre. The struggle between this priest and Archbishop Corrigan of New York revealed fissures in the Roman Catholic Church in the United
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INTRODUCTION
States and even in the world between advocates of political liberties and defenders of hierarchical control. Roman Catholic enemies of George may have seen his economics as threatening the landed order on which much of Catholic culture was based. Scholars (and George) regard Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum of 1891 as perhaps, in part, a defensive attempt to present an alternative to George’s political economy. Some of this story will unfold in these pages. 9. Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) was a freedom fighter instrumental in the Italian unification (Risorgimento) and known for his revolutionary political idealism. 10. Excerpts from the speech ‘‘The Society Musters to Welcome Judge Maguire,’’ published in The Standard, Oct. 8, 1887. 11. The distinction between socialism and anarchism was more blurred at this time: a synonym for anarchism is libertarian socialism and for socialism itself, state socialism. 12. The Democrat Abram S. Hewitt (1822–1903) defeated Henry George in the mayoral election for New York City in 1886. Edward Atkinson (1827–1905) was a businessman, inventor, and economic writer who regularly attacked George’s economics in print. 13. Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891) was an Irish nationalist leader elected to Parliament in 1875, who united different Irish factions. His agitation on behalf of the Irish land question was instrumental in passage of the Land Act and the first Home Rule Bill. Michael Davitt (1846–1906) was an Irish agitator. Although a Fenian and incarcerated from time to time, he was elected to Parliament in 1880. The Irish National Land League was founded in 1879 in Dublin with Parnell as president and Davitt as a secretary. It was created to ameliorate the unjust land relations in the countryside. Some members sought to end rack rents and create a peasant proprietary; others desired a broader-base appeal for a return to the land to the entire people. The League lasted until 1882. 14. The figures are telling for the 1870s; ‘‘fewer than two thousand people owned seventy percent of Ireland’s land, and three million people, in a land that now held just over five million (down from 6.5 million in 1850), were landless tenants or laborers’’ (Golway, 2000, p. 150). This selection is found in Section IV. 15. From Back to the Land, by the Rev. Thomas Nulty, found in Section IV. Nulty (1818–1898), the Irish Bishop of Meath, irritated the Vatican by his pastoral letter affirming common rights in land. 16. Terence V. Powderly lived from 1849 to 1924. 17. Patrick Ford lived from 1837 to1913. 18. From George’s ‘‘The Land Question,’’ found in Section I. 19. From George’s ‘‘The Land Question,’’ found in Section I. 20. Thomas G. Shearman, who was a well-known lawyer and friend of George, coined the term ‘‘single tax’’ in 1887. 21. The ‘‘three F’s’’ are Prime Minister Gladstone’s ‘‘fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free land sale’’ as part of the Land Act of 1881 that he pushed through Parliament. William E. Gladstone (1809–1898) was a spearhead in the Liberal Party and prime minister four times. He promoted a range of important reforms, many of them relating to Ireland, the civil service, and the military. 22. From ‘‘Irish Democracy,’’ found in Section I. William E. Forster (1818–1886) became the chief secretary for Ireland in 1880. He opposed Home Rule and resigned in 1882 when Parnell was released from prison.
Introduction
liii
23. The Times article appears as the eighth entry in Section IV. 24. The Land Act of 1881 established judicial fixing of rents, and its scope was extended by the Land Acts of 1882 and 1887. 25. Patrick Egan was an Irish Land Leaguer who lived in exile in France. 26. James Finton Lalor (1808–1849), a militant Irish radical of the 1840s who advocated tenant and private property rights but rejected absolute ownership in land since it belonged to the community; he also rejected rent payment to landlords until economic security might be obtained. 27. From ‘‘George Interviewed,’’ found in Section II. 28. From George, ‘‘Lecture in Birmingham, England,’’ in Wenzer (2002, pp. 88, 95–96). A copy of the proclamation by W. E. Forster appears in Section IV. 29. From the diary of Rev. Richard L. Burtsell, dated Oct. 1, 1886. Burtsell was a noted expert on Catholic canon law and a close friend of Rev. Edward McGlynn. 30. The Grangers and the Populist movement reacted to the rise in the price of land and the fall in that of produce as well as to loss of independence to mechanized large-scale farming, market forces, and monopoly capital. The earlier Greenback movement became reminted in an agitation for free silver, the idea being that an increase in the circulation of currency would push up prices of farm products while debts would be repayable in cheaper dollars. 31. During the depression of the 1880s and later both the ravages and the more hopeful possibilities of social change brought social criticism and reformist action. Some responses, especially in the cities, were middle-class attempts to educate and alleviate the lot of the poor, including the immigrants who were thought to be more susceptible to the corruption of the political machines. Children’s Aid Societies, the YMCA, and the Salvation Army are examples, along with the temperance movement, the Social Gospel, and the settlement house movements. 32. The Standard was first printed on Jan. 8, 1887, and the last issue appeared on Aug. 31, 1892. George was at the helm until the last week of 1890. Then William T. Croasdale took command, and finally Louis F. Post. 33. From George’s ‘‘The Case of Dr. M’Glynn,’’ found in Section III. 34. From Ford’s ‘‘Henry George’s Mistake,’’ found in Section IV. 35. The Central Labor Union was an influential group instrumental in promoting George’s political career and in the introduction of Labor Day. 36. From George’s ‘‘The New Party,’’ found in Section III. 37. See Section IV for Corrigan’s ‘‘Pastoral Letter.’’ 38. (Stephen) Grover Cleveland, the Democrat, defeated the Republican James G. Blaine and the Greenback-Labor candidate Benjamin F. Butler. More information will appear about these gentlemen in subsequent annotation. 39. Cardinal James Gibbons (1834–1921) was highly respected in this country and considered to be a friend of labor. 40. Richard Croker lived from 1843 to 1922. 41. Cardinal Giovanni Simeoni (1816–1892) was prefect of the Propaganda of the Faith and an official of the Roman Curia. He was also the papal legate who presided at the McGlynn case. The Congregation of the Propaganda was established in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV to conduct missionary work in countries that lapsed from the fold of the Roman Catholic Church and to evangelize the newly discovered lands. 42. The complete letter can be found in Section V.
SECTION I GETTING THE FEET WET The material in this section dates as early as 1880, a year after publication of Progress and Poverty. George had not attained notoriety but was about to do so. It was at this time that he began a close association with Patrick Ford of The Irish World. So these selections should be read carefully both to clarify this transitional period and as a seedbed for future works. The first selection, ‘‘The land question,’’ appeared in the Daily Bee of Sacramento in May, 1880. Its theme got full exposition in The Irish Land Question, which catapulted George into fame. I consider ‘‘The Land,’’one of the selections published a year later, to be the most significant. A debate with Father Januarius de Concilio illustrates George’s ability to reason and underscores his radical approach to the land problem. These words taken from this work capture the extent of George’s insurrectionist mind: Father de Concilio is evidently afraid of socialism – so afraid of socialism that he will not hear with patience anything that seems to him to savor of it. But without going into the discussion as to whether what I propose is or is not socialism, surely no one acquainted with the history of Christianity will assume that socialism must be necessarily bad. Surely no priest of that church which in its religious orders has been for ages, as it is today, the greatest communistic organization of the European world, would deny that even communism may be religious as well as irreligious. And of this I am certain, and I believe I may ask you to bear me witness, that there is nothing in the idea that land should be treated as common property, which tends to irreligion . . . . (Note: see the third writing of this section.)
To view Henry George other than as the radical who wrote that passage is to commit a disservice to his lifelong struggle to eliminate injustice and poverty. Drawn into conventional progressivism after George’s death, the single-tax movement increasingly became fiscally reform minded. Further degeneration of his philosophy has manifested itself in right-wing interpretations including the dubious two-rate tax and justification for the unlimited acquisition of wealth. This has contributed to the marginalization and banalization of George’s political economy. The history of this decline is described in my essay ‘‘The Degeneration of the Georgist Movement: From a Philosophy of Freedom to a Nickel and Dime Scramble,’’ which 1
2
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
appears in The Forgotten Legacy of Henry George (Wenzer & West, 2000, pp. 46–91). George’s intentions are unequivocally spelled out in the fourth-edition preface of Progress and Poverty of 1880. ‘‘The great importance of this inquiry will be obvious,’’ for If it has been carefully and logically pursued, its conclusions completely change the character of political economy, give it the coherence and certitude of a true science, and bring it into full sympathy with the aspirations of the masses of men, from which it has long been estranged. What I have done in this book, if I have correctly solved the great problem I have sought to investigate, is to unite the truth perceived by the school of Smith and Ricardo to the truth perceived by the schools of Proudhon and Lassalle; to show that laissez faire (in its full true meaning) opens the way to a realization of the noble dreams of socialism; to identify social law with moral law, and to disprove ideas which in the minds of many cloud grand and elevating perceptions. (George, 1879, p. xxx)
Adam Smith and David Ricardo were well-known classical economists; but how could George associate himself with Proudhon and Lassalle, now nearly forgotten but once giants of radical European social thought? And what did George mean by the ‘‘noble dreams of socialism?’’ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) was the most noted radical theoretician of the first half of the nineteenth century. During a trip to Europe, Lev Tolstoi visited this self-taught man, then in exile in Belgium. So impressed was the great novelist that his epic novel War and Peace was named after a pamphlet penned by this respected thinker. ‘‘What is property?’’ asked Proudhon in a famous question with an even more famous response: ‘‘Property is theft!’’ He held the accumulation and distribution of capital and property to be the source of evil and inequality. He maintained that economic relations should base themselves on actual work performed, a libertarian socialism or anarchism that he called ‘‘mutualism.’’ At contraries to the belief on the part of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that social connections are the result of economic relations was Proudhon’s certainty that people have inherent social instincts. Since human nature dictates that justice will ally itself to liberty, all legal restraints, including laws imposed by democracies, Proudhon would replace the absolute moral principles of equality and liberty. Progress in history can be measured only by an increase in justice, and all political instruments of power negate this principle. In the absence of the state, human beings will freely conform to natural laws, and society will be harmonious. This French anarchist infuriated Marx and Engels, whose ideology competed for years with Proudhon’s for supremacy among radicals.
Section I: Getting the Feet Wet
3
Proudhon, Marx declared, had created ‘‘enormous mischief.’’ Against Proudhon’s rejection of the state, even of a revolutionary proletarian government, Marx and Engels insisted that before full liberation is achieved, revolutionists must seize and for a time make use of the state; and they considered socially and economically reactionary Proudhon’s projected future of peasant small holdings. Marx’s The Poverty of Philosophy, published in 1847, was an answer to the ‘‘Philosophy of Poverty’’ by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–1864), an indefatigable organizer and propagandist, was the father of the first workers’ political party in Germany. Unlike Proudhon the anarchist, Lassalle advocated state socialism. Lassalle believed that an iron law of wages dictates social and economic forces that prevent workers from improving their lot. With Marx and Engels he shared the view that revolution is an indispensable part of the historical process, created more by the forces inherent in society than by man per se. This Hegelian view was reinforced by the idea that the state is the means of liberation and the vehicle of freedom. Lassalle imagined a government based on universal suffrage responsive to all the people as well as a system of worker’s cooperatives so that these producers would be able to secure the entire products of their labor. George was also much impressed with Russian radicalism. The Nihilists thought of themselves as an avant-garde and did not worship the peasantry. They were more interested in the development and liberation of the individual through science. The Narodniki, or Populists, were advocates of ‘‘going to the people.’’ They desired to bring to the masses, by either revolutionary or propagandistic and educational methods, what could be deemed as an agrarian anarcho-communism. There was, however, a synergism between these two currents of thought. Neither had an accepted coherent world view, and both were subject to differing interpretations. Sometimes writers interchanged these terms, which I believe George has done. In any event, he captures their bold spirit. The ideal of socialism is grand and noble; and it is, I am convinced, possible of realization; but such a state of society cannot be manufactured – it must grow. Society is an organism, not a machine. It can live only by the individual life of its parts. And in the free and natural development of all the parts will be secured the harmony of the whole. All that is necessary to social regeneration is included in the motto of those Russian patriots sometimes called Nihilists – ‘‘Land and Liberty.’’ (George, 1879, p. 321)
Later on in Progress and Poverty George describes the devotion of the Nihilists to their cause and the suffering that they had to endure under a
4
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
repressive tsarist government. Their sacrifice at the gallows would never be forgotten: ‘‘No; not to oblivion!’’ (George, 1879, p. 557) So why did the American Henry George, an idol to present-day rightwing capitalists, laud these European and Russian radical thinkers? It was because he shared their noble dreams of a cooperative commonwealth with a responsive but miniscule state in which the producers of all goods and wealth would receive their just share while working for the good of all. And as the introductory essay asserts, Roman authorities considered George a dangerous radical, especially in his influence over one of their more recalcitrant priests, Edward McGlynn.
1. THE LAND QUESTION Rack Rents and Evictions Quite as Possible and Common in America as in Ireland. Private Ownership the Evil. May One Human Creature Rightfully Claim as His Own that on and from which Others Must Live? Plain Talk to Irish Reformers. Either the Land of Ireland Belongs Rightfully to the Landlords or the People. There can be No Middle Ground. If the Land Rightfully Belongs to the People, Why Should the Landlords be Paid for It? The Question the Same the World Over.1 The following article appears in the Sacramento, CA, Daily Bee, from the pen of Mr. Henry George, author of the most valuable of recent publications, Progress and Poverty, published by Appleton & Co., New York, a copy of which should be in the hands of every reader of The Irish World.2 Mr. George is a clear thinker, and everything from his pen deserves the respect and careful consideration of every reformer. He writes, taking for his text the agitation now going on in Ireland, and says: Out of the want and misery which a bad season has produced in Ireland has already come an agitation which is likely to be productive of great good. Thanks to Parnell and his fellows on the other side of the water, and to their sympathizers on this, we have already heard a good deal of the Irish land question, and are likely to hear more.
The position of these Irish agitators is illogical and untenable; the remedy they propose is no remedy at all – nevertheless they are talking about the tenure of land and the right to land; and thus a question of worldwide importance is coming to the front.3 For there is really nothing peculiar to the Irish land question. It in no wise essentially differs from the English land question, or the Scotch land question, or the American land question. 5
6
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
IT IS SIMPLY THE LAND QUESTION – the question whether land may rightfully be treated as private property – the question whether one human creature may rightfully claim as his own that element on which and from which other creatures must live, if they are to live at all. What brings this question into peculiar prominence in Ireland is merely that certain conditions there prevail which enable – or, perhaps, I should rather say, compel – people to see a relation between want and landownership which they do not see in other countries, though it no less truly exists. Ireland is an agricultural country, and a well-populated country, and a country where the ownership of the land is in the hands of a clearly defined class, and hence the connection between Irish famine and Irish landlordism is clearly seen. But the same relationship exists between English pauperism and English landlordism; between American tramps and the American land system; between the gradual fall of wages which we have seen in California and the gradual monopolization of our land.
THE CRUEL WAGES OF ALIEN RULE, made more hateful and more hated by sectarian animosities and race prejudices, have left in the Irish mind bitter memories, and it seems natural to Irish orators to attribute the present miseries of their country to English oppression and to talk vaguely of national independence as though it alone would improve the condition of the Irish peasant. The laws relating to land are the same in both countries – whatever legal difference there may be, being in favor of the cultivator of Ireland, where in some districts what is known as the Ulster tenant right is recognized.4 Nor, if within recent times Irish independence had been gained or granted, is there anything to show that the popular rights in the land would have been regained, the majority of Irishmen, both at home and in the United States, seeming quite as much as the average Englishman or the average American to look upon absolute property in land as natural and just. It is true that Irish land titles rest ultimately on
FORCE AND FRAUD But in this there is nothing peculiar. So do those of England, so do those of Scotland, so do those of every country where the land that was at one time
7
The Land Question
everywhere considered as common property has been made the property of the few. And even here, in our new state, how largely do our land titles rest on force and fraud!5 The fact is that the species of property which is the result of appropriation, not of production, is everywhere seized by the strong and unscrupulous – title to it can nowhere be deduced from anyone who had really any rightful title to give. We hear a good deal of Irish rack rents, and Irish evictions, and Irish absentee landlords; but neither is there anything peculiar in these.6 There are rack rents and evictions and absentee landlords in the state of California, and all these things are quite as possible under our laws or under those of Ireland. What is a rack rent? It is simply a rent fixed by competition at short intervals. This is the common rent among us today. In our towns the majority of us live in houses rented from month to month, the landlord being at liberty to raise the rent every thirty days. In our agricultural districts land is rented from season to season to the highest bidder. This is what in Ireland is called a rack rent.
WHAT IS AN EVICTION? Simply a legal ejectment, as well-known here as it is in Ireland. Any landowner among us may invoke the power of the law – the whole force of the state if necessary – to put out a tenant as readily as he can in Ireland. In many parts of California you may see the blackened ruins of the little homes from which settlers have been evicted by the sheriff at the instance of some rich thief or blackmailing lawyer, who by fraud and perjury had obtained title to their lands.
EVICTION IN AMERICA From the dome of the capitol in Sacramento the eye may stretch over a fertile plain which has for years remained uncultivated because forty or fifty families who were making homes and farms of it were evicted, I believe, with the aid of the military; and only a few days ago, one of our courts passed sentence of eviction upon eighteen-hundred settlers who have in good faith made their homes on what they believed to be government lands. Neither is the absentee landlord peculiar to Ireland. How much of the farming land of this state is held by men who live in San Francisco or the East? Do we have no landlords who live in London or Paris, or who are traveling through Europe on rents drawn from California?
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HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
THE SAME EVERYWHERE The plain fact is that the Irish land system is nothing more nor less than the land system which we in the United States have instituted and still maintain. It will, I think, conduce to a very much better understanding of the Irish land question to consider it as it would appear under our own laws. Supposing that on the first day of January next, Ireland, with the consent of England, were peaceably detached from the British Empire and made a sovereign state of the American Union, under just such a constitution and laws as those of, let us say, the state of California.7
WOULD THERE BE ANY IMPROVEMENT? Not one whit. The powers of the landlord would be, under our laws, precisely the same as now under English laws; the Irish peasant would not gain a single right or shadow of a right to his native soil. Sweep away every vestige of British rule; extend over Ireland today the constitution and the laws of the state of California, and the Constitution and the laws of the American Union, drain away the produce of the soil, as remorselessly and rapaciously as they do now. Our laws would just as fully recognize their perfect right to ask what price they pleased for the use of the their property; our courts would just as quickly issue a writ of ejectment against any tenant who failed to pay his rent, and the deputy sheriff who went to serve it would have at his back, if need be, not merely the whole power of the county, not merely the whole power of the state, but the army and navy of the United States. And the absentee landlord could still live in London or Paris and waste in wanton luxury the enormous incomes drawn from the labor of men who, even in the best of times, cannot decently keep their families, and who, when a bad season comes, must either beg or starve. A few of these landlords would lose their honorary titles.
BUT THEY WOULD RETAIN UNIMPAIRED THE POWER WHICH ALONE GIVES THEM TITLES ANY SIGNIFICANCE An Earl of Leitrim could still ruin by a raise of rent any farmer whose pretty daughter turned from his advances. Any bailiff could still give notice to quit
9
The Land Question
to a cottager who neglected to raise his hat as he passed by.8 Any merciless creature in whom was vested the legal ownership of land could still with more than Russian barbarity issue the edict which compels his tenants to deny the warmest claims of charity, the dearest ties of kinship, and leaves evicted families to the shelter of the heavens and the snow-laden blast from the chilly mountainside. Any owner of land who preferred sheep to men could still reenact the scenes which drew from Goldsmith his deathless plaint, and convert the smiling village into a dreary solitude.9 For these powers do not spring from any special laws; they are not vestiges of anti-Catholic codes nor relics of feudalism. They arise wholly from
THE OWNERSHIP OF LAND Every landowner in the United States has them as fully and completely as any Irish landowner. The only difference between the two countries is but a temporary one. The population of the United States is not yet as dense as that of Ireland, and consequently competition for the use of land is not yet as great. But when it becomes as great, and that time is fast approaching, American landlords can and will do precisely the same things that Irish landlords now do. Or, to change our supposition, let us suppose that by some gigantic and comprehensive scheme of emigration the whole population of Ireland minus the landlords could at once be transported to our state, we should have ample room for them, for California has an area nearly six times as great as that of Ireland. But would landlordism have been left behind? Not at all. In our great landholders, our Glenns, Luxs, Carrs, and Murphys, we would have a set of great land barons who, in power and wealth, would as
FAR SURPASS THE IRISH LANDLORDS as they do in the size of their possessions. And although our population would be far more sparse and our natural resources are far greater, I am inclined to think that we would have quite as much squalor and misery. For here is a significant fact: Buckle puts the average rent in Ireland at about one-fourth the gross produce.10 I am inclined to think this below an estimate; but even supposing it is, it must be something like an approximation to the truth. Now, here, in the farming districts of California though our population is yet so sparse, one-fourth of the gross produce is a common rent. In some places land is rented for one-third, and near
10
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
San Francisco there is land which is rented for one-half the crop. What would it be if our population, instead of hardly one million, were over eight million? But it will be said, we would have that great safeguard of our liberties, universal suffrage; that grand right which on election day makes the pauper in our almshouse the peer of the richest millionaire in the state; that glorious privilege which brings political leaders (in speeches and platforms) into such earnest sympathy with workingmen, and which nerves them before audiences composed of our Irish fellow citizens to hurl such bold defiance in the teeth of the cowering British lion! Well, what of it?
WHAT HAVE WE SO FAR DONE WITH OUR UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE THAT MAY ENABLE US TO DERIVE FROM IT ANY PROMISE OF THE FUTURE? Here is a question which I would like workingmen who voted for the new constitution of California to put to themselves: How under the new constitution of California, could any improvement be made in the Irish land system? If any of the men who, but a few months ago, were urging the adoption of this new constitution, and are now so loudly professing indignation against Irish landlordism think they can answer that question I would like to hear them. But there is little prospect of their making the attempt. It is much easier to declaim about their sympathy with Ireland and their hatred for English rule. For the plain fact is – and it is a striking commentary upon the little use that can be made of the ballot by men who will not think – that under this new constitution of ours, which went into effect upon New Year’s Day with a salute of one-hundred guns from the Sandlot, any reform in the Irish land system would be impossible.11 So long as that constitution remained the fundamental law of land and was enforced in letter and spirit, the Irish landlords might laugh at any system for depriving them of their rents or power. For not only does that constitution take the burden of taxation as much as possible off of rent by imposing it not merely upon capital, but upon all representatives and shadows of capital, but it expressly declares that ‘‘vested rights in land shall not be interfered with,’’ and to abolish land monopoly without interfering with what the lawyers call ‘‘vested rights’’ is like cutting the pound of flesh without drawing a drop of blood. And not merely this, but to amend that constitution in the way prescribed by it, or even to give
The Land Question
11
the people a chance to vote upon an amendment, requires the consent of two-thirds of all the members elected to both houses of the legislature, a thing which, so long as the Irish landlords retained a vestige of political power, would be manifestly impossible to get. But in Ireland they have no new constitution of California to stand in the way of land reformers. They have only the British constitution, the slow accretion of ages, unlike that instrument which was framed in Sacramento in a few months – all it requires to permit any change, even the most radical, is a mere majority of the House of Commons, for the House of Lords, as they have shown over and over again, dare not long resist any measure upon which the Commons are recently resolved.12 Now,
WHAT IS IT THAT THE IRISH LAND REFORMERS PROPOSE? Upon Mr. Parnell I do not presume to pass judgment. Whether he is really an earnest man remains to be seen. But that the remedies proposed by him and his party are, as I have said, illogical and inefficient, there can be no doubt. For it is illogical to urge men not to pay excessive rents. Either the land is rightfully the property of the landlords or it is not. If it is, the landlord has the right to say what rent should be paid. If it is not, WHY SHOULD HE BE PAID ANY RENT AT ALL? And it is inefficient, for nothing permanent can be effected in this way. Rent is fixed by general laws. The landlord always wants to get as much as he possibly can; the tenant always wants to pay as little as he possibly can. What really, on the average, will be paid, depends upon an equation over which either, individually, has little control. And if rents are temporarily under the influence of agitation somewhat reduced, they will soon, under the influence of competition, spring up again. So, too, is the scheme for creating a peasant proprietary illogical and inefficient. Either the land of Ireland rightfully belongs to the Irish landlords or it rightfully BELONGS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE.
THERE CAN BE NO MIDDLE GROUND If it rightfully belongs to the landlords, then is the whole agitation wrong, and every scheme for [it] in any way interfering with the landlords is condemned. If the land rightfully belongs to the landlords, then it is nobody
12
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
else’s business what they do with it, or where or how they spend the money they draw from it, and whoever does not want to live upon it on the landlords’ terms is at perfect liberty to starve or emigrate. And, on the contrary, if the land rightfully belongs to the Irish people, why in the name of justice should the landlords be paid a fabulous sum for it? Why should an enormous debt be incurred, and an enormous taxation be imposed for years in order to pay the landlords for something which is rightfully the people’s? And so, too, this scheme is as inefficient as it is illogical. Supposing all practical difficulties are waived, and that the landlords of Ireland were bought out by the government and their estates resold to the tenants to be paid for in a term of years, what would be really accomplished? Nothing worth talking about, or struggling for. For no sooner were the lands thus divided than
A NEW PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION would infallibly set in, which would be all the more rapid from the fact that the new landholders would be from the first heavily mortgaged by the obligation to return to the government the purchase price, with interest. And even if the land were given to the tenants outright, this tendency would assert itself. This is not a supposition, it is a proved fact. For the extreme concentration of landownership in Great Britain is not as many people seem to suppose – a relic of more barbarous times. It is the result of influences which have spread themselves in modern times, and which still exist with increasing vigor. These same influences, which are concentrating landownership in the United States in spite of the superficial appearances of the contrary, would again weld the little farms of Irish peasant proprietors into large estates, the same influences which are concentrating people into large cities, business into the hands of great houses, and for the blacksmith making his own nails, or the weaver working his own loom, substitutes for the great corporation with its millions of capital and thousands of employees. But making even this objection, what would be the real gain? Even if the agricultural tenants of Ireland could be changed into proprietors,
WHAT ABOUT THE MERE LABORERS, the mechanics, the poorer classes of the cities? What benefit will the change work to them? Have they not also some right to the soil of their native land? How is this to be acknowledged?
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All that at most could be accomplished by the scheme of the Irish agitators would be to substitute some thousands for hundreds of landlords. But landlordism would still remain, and land monopoly would continue to bear its bitter fruit. For it is a mistake to think, as many people seem to think, that there can be no land monopoly except where there are great estates. There is as much land monopoly in San Francisco County as there is in Colusa. If nine-tenths of the people of Ireland owned the whole land the remaining one-tenth would be no better off than now. Even if it were possible to cut up the soil of Ireland into the little tracts in which the soil of Belgium and France is cut in those districts where the morcellement prevails, this would not be the attainment of healthy nor just social state.13 For in those districts the condition of the mere laborer is worse than it is in Great Britain, and the tenant farmers, for tenancy largely prevails, are, according to such authority as M. de Laveleye, rack-rented with a mercilessness unknown in Ireland, and are forced to vote just as their petty landlords dictate.14
WHAT, THEN, IS THE TRUE SOLUTION OF THE LAND QUESTION? The answer must apply not merely to Ireland, but to all other countries, for the problem to be solved is the same in all. It must be logical – that is to say, it must conform to principle. And conforming to principle – that is to say, to justice – it must, if there be a true harmony in the laws of the universe, at the same time be practicable and efficient. Now, there is no difficulty in obtaining an answer if we look to principle and stick to principle. False lights and misplaced buoys may mislead the mariner, and currents may confuse his dead reckoning, but the eternal stars will not deceive him. What does justice decree? That must be the answer. To whom rightfully does the soil of Ireland belong? That is to say, who are justly entitled to its use and enjoyments – for Nature laughs at our ideas of a fee simple in land – of our passing by deed and grant exclusive title to the surface of a globe that existed before man was, and will continue to exist after he is gone – on which our succeeding generations are but the tenants of a day.15 There can be but one answer. Unless we suppose but a few hundred, or few thousand, out of the whole seven million of the Irish people have any rights to live in Ireland – unless
14
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
we suppose that God Almighty has created one set of men to be masters and another set to be serfs; unless we suppose that one human being, could he concentrate in himself the legal title to the whole soil of Ireland, would have moral, as under our laws he would have the legal, right to drive all those millions across the sea out of existence, and give back again the fair island, now teeming with human life, to the wolves and the foxes as William the Conqueror gave the new forest, there can be but one answer:16
THE LAND OF IRELAND RIGHTFULLY BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND not to the landlords; not to the cultivators; not to some people, be they hundreds or thousands – BUT TO ALL THE IRISH PEOPLE. This is the great principle upon which the Irish reformers, if they would be logical, must take their stand. The principle that the youngest child of the poorest peasant has as good a right to live on the soil and breathe the air of Ireland as the eldest son of the proudest duke. And this granted, what follows? That the landlords have no right either to rent or to compensation, and that to take the land from one set of men and to give it to another set of men would be only to change the parties while continuing the wrong.
MR. GEORGE’S SOLUTION But how practically can justice be done? How practically can the right of the whole Irish people to the soil of Ireland be asserted and maintained? Easily. By simply appropriating the rent which now goes to the landlord to the benefit of the whole people, and this may be done by abolishing all taxation save the taxation of land values, and making that heavy enough to absorb the whole of rent. In this way each individual tenant would pay his rent not to a landlord but to a whole people – in this way the poorest child would become an equal owner and equal beneficiary in the common property. Consider how easily this plan could be carried out. By simply putting all taxes on rent (or the value of land) the enormous sum which is now drained from Ireland by absentee landlords would be at once intercepted; that, and that portion of the rent which is consumed in the country by nonproducers,
The Land Question
15
who add nothing to the general wealth, could at once be appropriated to the general expenses of government, and to purposes which would benefit all – to building schools, to maintaining universities, to establishing libraries and places of instruction and recreation; to improving roads and planting parks and fisheries, and in a hundred ways beautifying the country and elevating the people. And remember, the fight for the rights of Irishmen must be the fight for the rights of Englishmen. I have said some things which will probably not be properly understood, for the discussion of a great question cannot be compressed into a few paragraphs. Nevertheless, if I have said anything which will make anyone think of the great question which this Irish agitation is bringing forward, I have done something. What seems to me hopeful about this agitation is, that while in itself, so far, it amounts to nothing, and aims at nothing, it will set people to thinking. And when once a man begins to think about property in land, he is sure, if he keeps on, to come out an ‘‘agrarian,’’ as it is the fashion to style those who deny that one man can rightfully own land which other men must use.17 And possibly some of our California Irishmen, in attempting to pick the mote out of the eye of Irish landlordism, may discover what a big beam there is in their own. It must please you, Mr. Editor, as it does me, to see men who look upon our ideas on the land question as the wildest and wickedest radicalism already joining in the denunciation of Irish landlordism! And so the great cause moves on. Little by little the light is breaking. Little by little the forces are mustering. We who see the sign and know its meaning, let us watch and wait.
2. THAT ‘‘NO-POPERY’’ HOWL Some Further Protestations Against It and Approval of The Irish World’s Stand.18 Editor Irish World:19 I have read with so much pleasure your article on the first page of this week’s World that I cannot refrain from telling you how much it has pleased me. Its temper and spirit is admirable, and I, too, would like to see a million copies circulated. If there is anything that all just men, and especially all men who hope for reform should trample under their feet it is that spirit of hatred which takes the garb of religion. It is this, and not anything essential to religion itself, that is responsible for all the cruelties and persecutions that blacken the history of all Christian denominations; and it is this same spirit in other manifestations that today makes so many men who desire the brotherhood of mankind think that to accomplish it they must destroy religious ideas. There can be no greater mistake. The spirit of true reform is also the true spirit of religion. And it seems to me that the central figure of Christianity is also the highest and grandest type of the true reformer, and that in those simple sentences which are the gospel of love, not of hate, all that philosophy can teach is summed up. With much respect, yours truly,
17
3. THE LAND (WITH DE CONCILIO)
FATHER JANUARIUS
What is the True Doctrine Concerning It? Father de Concilio and Henry George. An Important Friendly Controversy between the Two Philosophers. A Great, Far-Reaching Question.20 [Letter from J. de Concilio.] Jersey City, April 6, 1881. Editor Irish World: Dear Sir: I have had the honor of receiving a pamphlet from Mr. H. George on the Irish Land Question. In a very polite letter accompanying the pamphlet he tells me he was induced to do so at your kind suggestion. Will you permit me to express my thanks both to you and to him and at the same time give you my candid opinion upon that pamphlet? We are all the friends of the poor and the oppressed of every nation and of every land; we are all agreed that everyone should work to the best of his ability to remove all causes of poverty and oppression as far as it may be possible in this world, and therefore we should not stand on ceremony to express our most deliberate opinion as to what should be done to remove these causes; and should guard against any hazardous remedy, lest in trying to ameliorate the condition of the poor we should make it worse by far than it is now. Such, it seems to me, is the tendency of the pamphlet of Mr. George. The remedy he proposes is by far worse than the evil it seeks to remove. He assumes that the land laws in Ireland are no worse than anywhere else in the civilized world, and that Justice Fitzgerald was right in making such [an] assertion.21 I fail to find in the pamphlet proof sufficient to authorize such an important assumption, and I am not so well-informed as to decide of my own knowledge as to the truth of such [a] statement. 19
20
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
But what seems to me beyond dispute is the fact that of the frequent famines in Ireland. There is poverty in other lands, to be sure; there is distress, but surely not such distress and starvation as was in Ireland in ’47, and ’48, or ’79. The landlords in other lands may have the same rights as they have in Ireland, but in what other lands under heaven do we find fiftythousand families evicted in ten years? Evidently there must be something peculiar in the Irish land laws to bring about such an unparalleled state of things. But however this may be, what is the remedy proposed in the pamphlet to remedy all these evils? – the full and radical abolition of all private property in land. The author reasons thus: Every human being born in Ireland has a right to live, and therefore has a right to the land and none more than another. Consequently, all and everyone own the land; it does not belong to any individual or class, but to the whole people. Therefore, let the government take possession of all lands, and distribute them. And as it is not possible to divide up all the land of Ireland so as to give each family an equal share, let the government divide the rent and apply it to purposes of common benefit. So that the remedy of the author is this: 1st. Abolition of all rights of property in land. 2nd. Let the government get hold of all the lands, and rent them out as well as possible. 3rd. Let all these rents be used for public purposes and, I imagine, in behalf of such as can get no land. Of course, this is nothing less than socialism, and I, for one, as believing in the Ten Commandments reject it; and let me tell you, Mr. Editor, any social remedy contrary to the Ten Commandments is an evil rather than a remedy, for, after all, the Two Tables of the Law contain the quintessence of all social philosophy. But let us test this remedy from a philosophical standpoint. Can the author be serious in proposing that all the land of a country should be taken hold of by the government, which is to distribute it as well as possible? What is meant by the government? Surely not all the people, but the representatives of the people. And who is to assure the people that the distribution will be done fairly and justly; that some or all the representatives will not keep the lion’s share for themselves and relatives? And, then, on what principle is the distribution to be made? Shall the distribution be made according to the merits of individuals or families, or according to the wants of the same? If the distribution should be made on the principle of merit, what is meant by merit? Intellectual merit or manual
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merit, or both? And who shall be the judge of such merit? If according to the wants, who is to be the judge of the wants of a man or a family, since each man and each family would insist that they are the best judges of their wants? And what wants? Physical or intellectual? And supposing that the distribution to have been made, how long shall it stand? If one dies or another is born, this colossal work must be done over again. Or shall the distribution last for a generation? A generation never passes away at one given time; but gradually some die off, some live longer until one generation melts insensibly into another without anyone being able to say when the present generation shall pass away to make room for the next. But as in the distribution many families and individuals would be left without any land, what should be done with them? Support them out of the rents of the land? True; but then we would have all the worst evils of landlordism without the name, for this landless class supported by the rents would live on the labor of those who have the misfortune of having lands rented to them. Or suppose you would ask this landless class to work on public works and public improvements, it would always be true that one class is paying for all the public improvements, while the other is not. And suppose they would not work, who is to force them? Then, again, the land does not yield any crops spontaneously; it must be worked. Suppose those who have land are remiss in working it out or let it go to waste, what is to be done with them? Make another distribution? And the slothful who are cast out, how are they going to live? But the distinction of the right of property and the right in things that are the result of labor is more verbal than real, and if you abolish the one you must necessarily abolish the other. For once you abolish property in land you dry up the very source of labor. Why should anyone labor hard and with perseverance when he cannot own anything permanently, or transmit his property to his posterity? So long as he can eke out a spare subsistence from the land he will do no more. For what motive can he have to improve a farm – for instance, to fence it, to build outhouses, a comfortable house for himself, to embellish everything, when he knows that he owns nothing and that upon the next distribution to his children’s lot may fall the worse farm within fifty or a hundred miles? But suppose the farmer with his own industry and surplus of means drawn from the produce of his share of the farm after paying the rent built himself a fine house. Is not the house the product of his labor, and can he not do with it according to his pleasure and bequeath it to his children? But then he does not own the land, and therefore he must either lose the
22
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
product of his labor or lift up the house and plant it in the air, as he cannot according to our author own an inch of soil, which no power on earth can make his own. The distribution, therefore, between the right of property in land and the right of property in things, which are the results of labor, is nugatory. Both rights blend into each other; or else you must take away all the motive for labor, all spur to exertion. And through the radical evil of socialism to take away all the mainsprings of labor and individual exertion, and to throw the world into chaos, into barbarism, and into a state in which men would slaughter each other, as the strong would necessarily make the weak work for them. In saying all this, and in wishing to keep the rights of property inviolate, you must not understand me to say that a landlord has no duties which he must perform, or that the tenants have no rights which he is bound to respect. Most assuredly, I hold that he has most solemn duties towards the tenant, and that the latter has rights which he must respect. There is the duty of justice to the tenant, which implies that a landlord must rent his land on terms which with ordinary industry will enable the tenant to make a comfortable living for himself and his family, and to have something to spare for old age, sickness, and other necessities; on terms which will not lay all the risk of bad years or of a total failure in the crops altogether on the shoulder of the tenant, but on both; on terms which will assure the tenant of a long tenure for himself and descendants, so that he may have every motive for exertion to improvement, and to lay up enough if possible that on a given occasion he may be able to buy land and become himself a landlord. In other words, I stand for the three ‘‘F’s.’’ They are not three frauds, but the demands of a moderate, just, practical statesmanship. Let all civilized countries frame such land laws as will ensure these demands to the tenant, and I am sure the greatest part of the evil so justly complained of by the author would be removed. But let the remedy advocated by the author be carried out if such a thing were possible, and the whole society would be thrown into the utmost confusion; every source for exertion would be dried up, the world would come to a standstill, and barbarism of the worst type, and not civil progress, would be the necessary consequence. I remain with great regard, Respectfully yours in Christ, J. de Concilio.
23
The Land
MR. GEORGE’S REPLY New York, Apr. 14, 1881. Editor Irish World: I have read the letter of Father de Concilio, which at his suggestion you send me. I can hardly add that I have read it with pleasure. Not that I am impatient of criticism, but that I regret to see a gentleman of Father de Concilio’s character and influence assuming a position he cannot have fully considered. With the sentiments which Father de Concilio expresses in the beginning of his letter, I fully agree. We ought not to stand upon ceremony in expressing our opinions as to what should be done to remove the causes of poverty and oppression, and we should carefully guard against hazardous remedies that might make the condition of those we would help worse instead of better. But I dispute the reverend father’s assumption that the remedy that I propose is one of these. I dispute his assumption that it would be worse than the evil it seeks to remove. And I confidently appeal to his own fuller and more consideration. For it is impossible that any man of candid intelligence – should, if he gives the matter examination, continue to hold the views expressed in his letter. My object in the pamphlet, which, at your suggestion, I sent to Father de Concilio, was to put into clear light certain truths, which, although you have been constantly insisting upon them, are not yet fully realized on either side of the Atlantic. In this pamphlet I contend – and with due deference to Father de Concilio I think I may say by reference to indisputable facts, I prove – that Justice Fitzgerald is right in saying that the land laws of Ireland are, if anything, more favorable to the tenant than those of England, Belgium, or the United States.22 But instead of arguing from this that the Irish people have no cause of complaint, I argue that the fact that the Irish land system is essentially only the general system of modern civilization, shown that the cause for which the Irish people are contending, is the cause of people everywhere; and that in England and in America, and in fact throughout the civilized world, the movement that has been begun in Ireland ought to kindle response and receive support as a movement against a wrong which everywhere oppresses the masses. And without attempting to measure Irish distress with that of other countries, I point out the fact that distress of essentially the same kind does
24
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
exist in other countries, even in our own favored country, as showing not merely that same great cause of land monopoly everywhere produces the same effects, but that Irish poverty and distress cannot be cured by measures that will merely assimilate the condition of Ireland to that of other countries, and that the real cure for Irish poverty and distress is the true cure for the poverty and distress from which the masses in all civilized countries suffer. But I allude to these parts of my argument merely because Father de Concilio alludes to them. There is no necessity for going over the reasoning by which I show that the only true and sufficient remedy for poverty and distress is the assertion of the equal rights of the whole people to the soil of their country; that the ‘‘landowners’’ have no just claim to a single cent of compensation, and that it is a denial of principle to propose to pay them any. Let me come to the main point. I fully accept Father de Concilio’s test. If there is anything in the remedy I propose that is contrary to the Ten Commandments then let it stand condemned. Let him call over the Ten Commandments one by one, and name the one which it infringes. What I propose is simply the conforming of human laws to the eternal law of justice. Is that in opposition to the Ten Commandments? What I ask for is that the producer of wealth shall be secured in the full fruits of his labor. Does that infringe the Tables of the Law? The truth is that Father de Concilio cannot have read the pamphlet he criticizes. This will be evident to whoever does read it. He has evidently only read until he came to the declaration that land is of natural right common property, and on this condemned it. If Father de Concilio had read this pamphlet he would have not asked the questions he does. If he will do me the honor to read it now, he will find the answers to all his questions already there. He will find that instead of proposing that ‘‘the government should get hold of all the lands and distribute them as well as possible,’’ that I fully recognize the difficulties which under the conditions of modern society would attend such a plan he will find that I emphasize the fact that the changes in population and in industrial organization will not permit the demands of justice to be satisfied by the actual division and distribution of the land. He will find that under the plan I propose the right of the improver to his improvements would be fully acknowledged and secured – acknowledged and secured where now they are denied. In short, he will find that what he is combating is not any proposition that I have made but a chimera of his own imagination. And surely if Father de Concilio will think a moment, he will not risk his reputation as a logician upon the assertion that the distinction between
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property in land and property in things that are the result of labor is verbal, not real. Land and labor are of utterly different species. The one is the responsive factor in the production of wealth; the other the active factor. Land includes all that is furnished by physical Nature; labor is the exertion of man’s conscious will and power. And the distinction between the two species of property is as real and clear. Property in land springs merely from appropriation, and I challenge Father de Concilio or anyone else to assign for it any other genesis. Property in things which are the result of labor springs from production, and rests upon the right of the man to the benefit of his own exertions. The house that he builds, the crop that he raises, are rightfully the property of the man whose labor has gone to produce them – his to use, to sell, to give, or to bequeath. But where is the man who has produced the earth or any part of it, or who can trace any exclusive title from that power which did produce it? Things which are the result of labor may be indefinitely multiplied and constantly tend to decay. Land is a fixed quantity, and endures from generation to generation. Individual property in the one class of things involves no wrong to other men; individual property in land involves as society develops the impoverishment and ultimately the virtual enslavement of those who must live on land they do not own. And the reality of this distinction has been everywhere recognized by the first perceptions of men. It was recognized in the Mosaic Code, by the early institutions of all ancient nations, by the feudal system, by the Brehon Laws.23 It is recognized to this day by all primitive peoples, and traces of it yet remain in our customs and laws and in such traditions and feelings as yet persist among the Irish people in spite of the stamping out process of English domination. As for the notion that to acknowledge equal rights in land would be to abolish individual property in other things, to destroy the incentives to exertion, and to remit society to barbarism, Father de Concilio, when he comes to think seriously of the matter, will himself laugh at such fears and wonder how he could ever entertained them. Such fears arise from a confusion of ideas. The reverend gentleman is confounding security for improvements with the ownership of land. The dire results that he predicts would follow any measure which destroyed the security for improvements and took away from the sower the certainty that he should reap the crop. But such results would not follow any such measure as I propose – the results would be quite the reverse, for the effect would be not to weaken but to strengthen the security of improvements.
26
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
The ownership of land is not necessary to the security of improvements. I need only to call Father de Concilio’s attention to this, for he sees it himself. The chief good that he expects from ‘‘the three F’s’’ is largely the security of improvements. Now, if this security can be given to the improver when the land is the property of another individual, why can it not be given when the land is the property of the whole community? If the most massive and costly buildings are erected by individuals on land which is the property of Trinity Church Corporation or the Sailors’ Snug Harbor, why would they not be erected on land, the revenues of which went to the whole people of New York?24 The truth is that all the land of a country might be treated as the common property of the whole people of that country, and legitimate property rights be not only so fully acknowledged as now, but very much more fully acknowledged. For, as the land would afford all needed public revenues, the taxation which now falls upon other species of property could be remitted. Instead of lessening the incentive to exertion, the producer would have greater incentives to exertion, for he would gain that large portion of the products of his exertion which is now taken from him by taxation in various forms. Instead of reducing society to anarchy, this change, which could secure to each his natural rights, would extirpate that poverty which is the mother of so much vice and crime and ignorance and turbulence. Instead of recalling barbarism, it would stop the growth of that monstrous inequality in conditions which if not checked must destroy modern civilization as it has destroyed previous civilizations. Father de Concilio wishes to keep the rights of property inviolate. What does he call the rights of property? Is that a right which permits one human being to monopolize land from which other human beings must live? Is that a right which permits one who does not labor to demand their earnings of those who do labor? Is that a right which in the midst of the abundance which He has provided for their use and enjoyment condemns so many of God’s children, to squalor, and ignorance, and disease, to hunger and nakedness? I press upon Father de Concilio the question I ask in my pamphlet. Has or has not the child that is born in Ireland, or in any other country, the right to live? If he admits, as he surely must admit, that it has the right to live, and that to deny that right would be murder; then I ask him whether this right to live is not necessarily an equal right; whether it would not be as much a crime to deny the right to life to the baby of the poorest peasant woman as to the baby of the proudest duchess? If the right to life be equal, then the right to land must necessarily be equal, for without land no human being
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can live. And land being necessary to life, I ask Father de Concilio whether any law, custom, or agreement whatsoever, can justify the denial of the equal right to life. Unless the reverend father can justify the denial of the equal right to life – unless he falls back upon that doctrine which lies at the root of so much of modern atheism, that blasphemous doctrine invented for the defense of a landlord aristocracy, that the Creator is a blunderer, and that His laws tend constantly to bring into the world more human beings than can be fed – then he cannot defend private property in land, then he must admit that the right to land is natural, and inalienable, and equal. Father de Concilio appeals to the Ten Commandments. I accept the appeal. And I not merely ask Father de Concilio what commandment he can cite which condemns the doctrine you and I assert, that all men have equal rights to the bounty of their Creator, but I go further. I ask Father de Concilio whether this accursed system, which denies these equal rights, which brings ignorance and despair, vice and crime, want and turbulence; which clouds the apprehension of the beneficence of the Creator and dulls the natural affections; which enkindles hatred and arouses greed, does not in its practical effects fly in the face of every one of the Commandments, from that which forbids idolatry to that which forbids covetousness. And I ask him whether it does not clearly, and plainly and especially, defy these two commands: ‘‘Thou shall not steal [and] Thou shall not kill.’’ Is there not robbery when the fruits of their toil are wrung from producers that those who do nothing may live daintily? Is there not murder when, denied the plenty of their labor has yielded, men die of starvation? Let Father de Concilio turn to the Commandments. What will he find? Is it: ‘‘the land which you buy,’’ or ‘‘the land which you conquer?’’ No; it is: ‘‘the land which the Lord, thy God, giveth thee!’’ This is the truth, Mr. Editor, for which we contend – the great truth that the land is the gift of the Creator to all His children. Nor in the recognition of this truth is there, or can there be, any denial of the just rights of property, any menace to social order or to good morals. On the contrary, by thus conforming human laws to the evident design of the Creator we would assert the just rights of property, we would destroy the primary cause of that monstrous inequality of conditions which everywhere corrupts morals, and strike at the root of those evils which everywhere threaten social order. What is there in what I propose that should so alarm Father de Concilio? There is in it nothing new. That land is the property of the community, not of the individual, is not a new, but an old idea. It has been recognized in all
28
HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
ages of the world, and by the first perceptions of all people. Nowhere that individual ownership of land exists, or has existed, has it grown up except as the result of usurpation and force? Take the very plan that I propose. What is it but the application of that principle recognized throughout Christendom for centuries – the just principle that those who enjoy the common property should bear the common burdens. Even in England, where the system that makes land individual property has reached its fullest development, this principle was recognized until within comparatively recent times. Under the feudal system, when England was a Catholic country, before the cunning plan of robbing labor by indirect taxation had been invented, the land bore the public expenses. One portion of the land – the crown lands – maintained the sovereign and defrayed those expenses now known as the Civil List.25 A second portion of the land – that held by military tenure – maintained the army, and during all her long and costly wars no public debt was created. A third portion of the land – the church lands – defrayed the expenses of public worship, the cost of public instruction and of public charity, and from its revenues were erected those grand cathedrals and abbeys which are even now the architectural glories of England. And there was yet a fourth portion of the land, the commons, free of use to the people. How the crown lands and landed revenues were gradually alienated; how Henry VIII divided the church lands among his greedy nobles; how the military tenures were abolished by the Long Parliament and indirect taxation substituted; how the commons were enclosed by a territorial aristocracy, I need not tell Father de Concilio.26 Nor yet do I need to point out to him how pauperism and brutalization of the working classes have followed these usurpations – usurpations of natural right to which the territorial aristocracy of England forced the people of Ireland and the Scottish Highlanders to finally submit.27 Father de Concilio is evidently afraid of socialism – so afraid of socialism that he will not hear with patience anything that seems to him to savor of it. But without going into the discussion as to whether what I propose is or is not socialism, surely no one acquainted with the history of Christianity will assume that socialism must be necessarily bad. Surely no priest of that church which in its religious orders has been for ages, as it is today, the greatest communistic organization of the European world, would deny that even communism may be religious as well as irreligious. And of this I am certain, and I believe I may ask you to bear me witness, that there is nothing in the idea that land should be treated as common
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property, which tends to irreligion. On the contrary, when one sees, as whoever will examine the subject must see, that the want and misery so painfully apparent in all civilized countries do not flow from the laws of the Creator, but from the selfishness which in human enactments has ignored these laws, is it not true that there arises a clearer view of the beneficence of God, a deeper apprehension of mans’ duty to man? That the aspiration for social improvement has to a large extent been divorced from the religious sentiment is true. But this ought not to be, and that it should be is fraught with the greatest dangers. For while on the one hand true religious sentiment must include the aspiration for social improvement, so on the other hand the aspiration of social improvement needs the stimulation and restraint of the religious sentiment, and without it is liable to run into the wildest excesses. For whether it be the selfishness of the poor or the selfishness of the rich, selfishness can only bring forth the fruits of selfishness, and hatred begat hatred. Now, as ever, men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. Whatever is real and permanent in social improvement must spring from and be guided by that spirit of love and justice which is inculcated in those two great commandments on which we are told hang all the laws and the prophets. It is because I am deeply conscious of this that I have written this reply to Father de Concilio’s letter. Of all men the Christian clergy are the last who should rashly assume the defense of social wrongs. Upon the clergy grave responsibility devolves. By their calling they are leaders, teachers, pastors of men, and whether the aspiration for social improvement with which the world is now beginning to throb shall receive the aid and guidance of the religious sentiment, or be more and more divorced from it, depends largely upon them. And while I would urge all who was against social wrongs not to permit themselves to be forced into antagonism to religious sentiment, I would also, if I could, urge ministers of religion not to thoroughly give to religion the appearance of defending social wrongs and opposing the just aspirations of the masses. For to give religion such appearance cannot fail to lead further and further in that unnatural divorce which has been productive of so much evil in the past and may be productive of so much evil in the future. And for this reason I rejoice that the Catholic Church has such prelates as Archbishop Croke and Bishop Nulty to proclaim that religion should not be made, and with their consent shall not be made to duty as a defender of oppression; to proclaim that the great truth that the Creator has made the earth not for some, but for all of His creatures, is a
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religious truth as it is an economic truth; to proclaim that to deny this truth is an impiety!28 I hope Father de Concilio will do me the honor of reading the pamphlet he so strangely misapprehends. Neither in it, nor in the larger work in which I have sought to trace out the connection between progress and poverty, will he find anything to which as a teacher of morals he can object. And I am confident that when he shall have further considered the subject, not merely as a citizen, but as a Christian pastor, to the cause of social justice. With much respect, and in the fraternity of that cause, I am, yours sincerely,
4. HENRY GEORGE IN CANADA The Irish Land Question and the Coming Struggle of Nations. How to Bring about Justice. Strike at the Bottom Principle – Whom Does the Land of the Universe Belong? No Despotism Like that of Poverty. No Matter what the Form of Government if the Means of Life are Not within Reach of Every Man.29 Montreal, Canada, June 24, 1881. Editor Irish World: Prof. Henry George, of your city, who has been lecturing in Vermont and Canada, had very fair audiences at both of his lectures in this city, there being a very general turnout of our thinking men on both occasions. His first lecture was on
THE IRISH LAND QUESTION, on Thursday evening, and I send you condensed a report of it from the Post. Mr. George, on coming forward, was received with much enthusiasm, which was repeated throughout the evening on different occasions. He said: For the first time in his life he addressed an audience composed of others than Americans. The subject with which he was to deal might seem more especially to concern their empire, or rather the empire of which they formed a part. This was not the case. The Irish question was much more than a local one. It involved principles of paramount importance not only to Ireland but to the whole world. It was of especial importance to people on this continent, who had a vast continent yet to settle. When he spoke of the laws of Great Britain he wished to speak fairly and impartially. The land question was the fundamental question for modern civilization to settle. Events were moving fast on the other side of the Atlantic. If they looked at the conditions of Ireland today they would find that it was under 31
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HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
as arbitrary a power as existed in Russia. At the beck of a single person any man in Ireland might be carried off to prison. It was a disgraceful taunt of Forster to Healy when he challenged him to use expressions in Ireland which he had uttered in England.30 The whole power of the English government was being exerted to drive the people from their homes. Every means was being exhausted to extort from them means that they really needed for their own support. Within the last twenty years 270,000 houses, or rather hovels, had been destroyed in Ireland, that the people who lived in them might be driven forth. In Ireland at present there existed 530,000 mud cabins of but one room each. This was a nice condition in the nineteenth century for civilized people to be living in. This condition was not due to want of industry in the Irish race. Any person who thought fairly on the subject would see that there was not much difference between people, and that all the little race prejudices which were so much talked of were simply the products of ignorance. It was surely then the tenure of
THE LAND THAT WAS AT THE BOTTOM of Irish trouble and disaster. The Land League was started, timid at first, but gathering strength and courage, and rising higher and higher, until today they boldly proclaimed their principle that the land of Ireland belonged to the people of Ireland. On this basis the question would have to be settled. It would be settled on no other. Gladstone has been brought into the present difficulties by his failure to plant the question on a firm principle, and by his attempt to satisfy the landlords and at the same time to satisfy the people should be taken as a starting point. This principle was simply the principle of justice. To whom did the land of Ireland rightfully belong? Did it belong to some or to all? By what right was it that a few men could claim the right to draw from Ireland such revenues as were drawn? One landlord, the Marquis of Bath, drew a rent of d70,000, and others drew in the same proportion.31 This rent came from the labor of the people. If, therefore, d10, which was a great deal too much, were to be taken as the sum which an average laborer could save in a year, 7,000 men would be needed from whom to draw the d70,000 of rent. In other words, these 7,000 men were virtually the slaves of the landlord, having to work at his bidding alone. Was it possible to justify such a system? Where did the landlord get such a right from? It might be said from his father, he from his father, and so on, until they got down to some grant of a king or Parliament. But,
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notwithstanding this, did there exist at any time any human being who had the right to say that any act of man were to be the slaves of another act? The thing was utterly absurd. The absurdity of the principle would be seen by carrying it out. If the land of Ireland was the property of a class they had the right to say that no one else should live upon it. If, therefore, one man could get the whole land of Ireland into his hands he would have the right to drive all the other people into the sea. Such a policy was one that could not be defended or excused. Land was the only thing from which people could live, and if they gave one man all the land they made that man the master of the people. It was clear that the land either belonged to the landlords or to the whole people. If it belonged to the landlords all agitation was wrong. If on the contrary, it belonged to the whole people there would be no settlement of the question until it was made the property of the people. He did not think that the Irish Land Bill was a step backwards, but it did not appear to him to be a step in advance. What purpose would it serve? It would simply serve to extend the ownership of land, to increase the number of proprietors. This would not solve the question, as it had been tried in other countries with little success. In Belgium and in France it was said that the tenant farmers were even more cruelly treated than those in England and Ireland. Even if it were possible to institute a peasant proprietary it would be only a partial relief. He was glad that landownership was as concentrated in Great Britain as it was [sic]. The same troubles existed in England, and must in time produce the same results as in Ireland. There was one difference between the two countries, however: the English tenant farmer was a capitalist; the Irish tenant farmer compared with the English laborer, who was brought as low as ever the laborer was in Ireland. They had the same troubles also in Scotland. Dr. Mitchell, of Edinburgh, in a book lately published, had said that
ONE-THIRD OF THE POPULATION OF SCOTLAND LIVED IN ONE ROOM and that twelve percent would represent those who controlled the wealth. If anyone wanted to see human nature in its worst aspect, they should go to the Blue Books that set forth the condition of the laborers in England and Scotland, rather to reports upon the Irish people.32 It was, he thought, a true principle that the whole people owned the land, that the Creator who made
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HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
the land made it for all and not for one. Upon this principle alone he thought the present question could be solved. Another great difficulty to the settlement of the question was the difficulty of compensation – the fact that the landlords declared that their rights should be maintained. But if when the land was taken from the landlords they paid for it, what advantage would it be to the people? If they had no right to the land they certainly had no right to compensation for it. Leaving Ireland and looking at the United States it would be found that the land system there was virtually the English system. The privileges of the landlord were as fully acknowledged there as in Ireland, and the state of affairs which existed in Europe was quickly approaching in America. The constant strikes that were taking place and the great increase of tramps were sure indication of this. He had lately read a speech in an English paper, in which the speaker said that the United States had solved the land question long ago, and solved it to their infinite credit. This was wrong. The United States could claim no credit for solving the land question which they could claim was that they were situated on a boundless continent, possessing a virgin soil, and that owing to those facts, wages were higher and distress less. In conclusion, he said that when once the principle was admitted that the land belonged to the whole people landlordism was doomed just as truly as slavery had been doomed. There was no middle course in the matter. A great educational work had been going on, and we would soon see its results. The question was but another form of human equality, which had gained so many advocates in the past, and which would, he thought, gain many more in the future.
THE COMING STRUGGLE was the subject of Mr. George’s lecture in the second evening, and this was somewhat revised for the altered circumstances from that delivered by him in the United States under the same title. Mr. J.C. Fleming presided, and Mr. George, on being introduced went on to say that he did not believe any thoughtful man could look over the world today without seeing that a great change was imminent. There was great unrest among the masses everywhere. He reviewed the situation in the several countries of Europe, referring to the growth of socialistic tendencies in those places. Gladstone, he said, who began his life as a Tory, had introduced a bill for the amelioration of the condition of the
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tenants in Ireland which at any previous time would be considered revolutionary.33 There were also evidence of unrest in America. But Europe was not seeking social equality alone, she was merely seeking it as the means to a great evil. In America, also, there was not now that profound belief in republicanism as a cure for all evils. The people wanted more than political equality. Democratic institutions amounted to little in themselves. What did it matter to a man the kind of government he lived under as compared with the privilege of earning an independent living. If he could live independently, it did not matter to him very much how despotic the government under which he lived. There was no despotism like the despotism of poverty. He wanted to see a man able to stand up before the world like a freeman. In America they had abolished all hereditary distinctions, and that was as far as they had gone. Give him a community in which the wealth was in any way equally divided, and there would be had good and pure government, but select a community in which the wealth was held in the hands of a few, and no matter what the form of government was, it would be inefficient. That unrest over the world sprung from a deep principle, and from the growing intelligence of being endowed with inalienable rights. It sprung from a cheapening of literature, and the ease with which an education was obtained. Men were learning to believe that
THEY POSSESSED NATURAL RIGHTS, which made them as good as any others. Everywhere the perception of man’s equality with his fellows was strengthening. During the last few years a great advance had been made in the number of inventions and in the construction of labor-saving appliances. But the tendency to save labor in manufactures had done nothing to elevate the condition of the laboring classes. John Stuart Mill, and no better authority could be desired, had come to the conclusion that labor-saving appliances had not made it easier for laboring men to live.34 With all our progress in this direction the car drivers in New York had recently found it necessary to strike in order to obtain a reduction from seventeen hours of labor per day; and it was the same thing on the other side of the Atlantic; for Prof. Rogers had said that the condition of the English laborer was worse than it was one-hundred years ago.35 Hallam had also said that in the time
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HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
of Plantagenets the condition of the laborers in England was much better than it was today.36 In years gone by, for instance, a piece of leather and a little hemp and wax were all the things necessary to enable a man to set up in the business of making shoes, but now a capital of $200,000 or $300,000 was necessary before the same business could be entered. This was the tendency in every other business as well. Some time ago a printer could start a paper like Bennett or Franklin with nothing but his labor for capital, but at the present time millions of dollars were required if a like purpose was entertained.37 He did not think the scheme of forming a peasant proprietary in land was possible, and even if it were possible he did not think that it would do any good. Farming was not exempted from the tendencies he had referred to in other occupations. He knew of a man who owned in the state of California a farm of 100,000 acres, and who in different other parts owned 50,000 acres altogether. In England this tendency to concentrate land was going on, for the English landlords had done what the Irish and Scotch landlords were trying to do; and competition from America would go to develop the same kind of farms as they had in the West. In Dakota he had seen miles and miles of waving grass and not a single house. They were building up in America the same kind of farming which
HAD EATEN THE HEART OUT OF ANCIENT ITALY. Machinery had not benefited mankind to the extent which was generally supposed. It now cost too much to enter business. Even boxes were nailed by machinery, and on the banks of the Hudson they had a chicken factory, where the chickens were hatched by machinery, and were, he thought, fed by machinery. Recently he had entered a printing office in New York, and ascended to the bindery. In speaking to the foreman that gentleman had told him that they could not now learn a boy the trade, because each man employed only did a little and a certain part of the work, and was never put to any other. In the pressroom a man was pointed out to him who had been twelve years in the establishment and who could yet only run one press. This was the tendency throughout the world, and the only way to resist it was to engage in trade combinations. The larger the city the more these facts were forced upon a man’s mind. The conflict which this state of things must naturally bring about was rapidly approaching. Wages could only be raised by means of strikes, and there were men in the country whose wealth was
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counted by hundreds of millions. Such monstrous aggregations of wealth had not been seen since the days of Rome, and must produce social disease. Where millionaires were to be found there also could be seen paupers. As the world went on, the struggle for a living became more intense. Where wealth was concentrated in such a manner there was a proportionately greater number of suicides than elsewhere. There were more people anxious to hurry out of a life which they found more of a pain than a pleasure. There also was to be observed a decrease of marriages, for the men were unable to support wives, and it was the natural right of a man to have a wife and a woman to have a husband. According to the law of Nature there should be twenty-one boys to every twenty girls brought into the world, but to the Eastern states of America there were thousands more women than men, while in the West there were more men than women. What kind of a civilization was it that produced such irregularities to the laws of Nature?
THERE WAS ONE GENERAL CAUSE for this evil, and there could be no difficulty in ascertaining what this was. We had adopted a system which had caused the decay of Rome by recognizing individual property in land. What was the thing which grew continually in value? Land! Nothing else tended by time to increase in value. But would wages be any higher on account of the increased value of the land? All the additional power would be vested in the owners thereof. What would be the effect if Gould or Vanderbilt took it in their heads to do some good for the people of New York?38 If they contracted some public work for the benefit of the public, the result would be that land would still rise in value, and as an offset the people would perhaps be able to enjoy a trip to the country for five cents. It was the same thing in regard to the opening of railroads. The land through which the line ran would rise in value, and ultimately the settlers would find the struggle to live increasing in difficulty. If the cost of a government was reduced it would do nothing to equalize the distribution of wealth. The land would still rise in value. He did not tell them that the settlement of this question would satisfactorily arrange the whole matter, but it was a fundamental question. It was the foundation upon which to erect the edifice of human liberty, for the man who owned the land on which his fellow beings lived necessarily owned them also. Land was the mother of the universe as far as they could get at it. If inventions went on to infinity they would only give increased
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HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
power to those who owned the land. Those who did not could only live as pensioners on the bounty of others. The lecturer then referred to the slavery which existed in the Southern states before the war, and comparing it with the present agitation, predicted that before the next presidential election there would be a great advance made in the social question.39 There were but few of them yet engaged in the work, but before the abolition of slavery there were only a few who advocated freedom for black as well as white, and everybody now knew what they had accomplished. The men in Canada did not know what the Irish land war was doing, and especially what it was doing in the states. It was calling the attention of the world to the
GREAT FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE that to the people belonged the land they lived on. There were a great many men, landowners and others, who were striving hard to crush this great truth, but it would not be kept down. The Land League movement in Ireland had begun very timidly, but it had spread to great proportions, and one of the earliest omens of the change which was taking place in the people was contained in a communication sent by a certain English gentleman to a friend, wherein he said that the Irish peasants were neglecting to take off their hats when in the presence of a landlord, and this he considered an ominous sign, and it was ominous. The revolution at present going on in Ireland was, he maintained, greater than either the French or American Revolutions.40 To maintain the present system of allowing a few men to hold all the land in any country would be to resist the benevolent intentions of the Creator. But the standard had now been raised by Ireland, and although that country might be the advance guard the main body would have to catch up with it. England would also eventually join in the line, but Englishmen were always very slow. An Englishman had once said to %%him that his (the former a) countrymen were the real Chinese of the Western World. He did not care what was the fate of the Land Bill – the movement would not be materially affected by it. It could no more be stopped than the St. Lawrence River from running to the sea. Wrong could only exist until challenged by right. Private property in land in England was already on the defensive. The declaration that the land belonged to the people was not inconsistent with the natural rights of property. Anything the product of human labor could be considered the
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private property, but the land was created by the Almighty. Private property in land was not necessary to the improvement of that land. Security of possession was only necessary. He knew of large tracts of land in the United States which were lying waste because their owners did not choose to till them, and dog-in-themanger like, refused to let anybody also to do so. Land was frequently held useless on speculation. The owners would not allow those who make the desert bloom do so unless they paid for the privilege. He suggested that all land should be held by the state, and that to the state the tillers should pay rent – that was rent in an economic sense. This would be a very simple system of taxation. It had been said that it would be unjust to take the land from the present owners without compensation – that the adoption of the land would be robbery. It was impossible, however, that a great social wrong could grow up and be removed without an appearance of injustice to someone. Was it right that a certain man should continue to live upon the labor of his fellows merely because he had lived part of his life upon the labor of another, that he should continue to do so the rest [sic]. The capitalized value of the land in England was d22,000,000,000, and no nation could pay a sum like that for compensation. It would be impossible. The landowners would have as good a time as ever, and go on living on other men’s labor for infinity. There could be no injustice in removing such a condition of things. Justice herself demanded it – Justice who carried both the scales and the sword. Revolutions never went backwards, and the glow of the dawn was already in the sky. (Great applause.) A vote of thanks was passed by the audience, who then dispersed.
5. HIS FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF IRELAND AND HER JAILERS The Bottom of the Land Question. Individual Ownership in any Form is Wrong. The Land Question a Universal One – Michael Davitt’s Views – Mr. George at Kilmainham – Etc., etc.41 [The following interview between Henry George and the corresponding editor of the Newcastle-on-Tyne Chronicle, Joseph Cowen’s paper, appeared in that journal in its issue of Nov. 7].42 Correspondent: What do you think of Ireland? Mr. Henry George: I have been here but a few days; but what I have seen of the country has impressed me very much with its beauty and fertility. Correspondent: What do you think of the Irish land question? Mr. George: I have already stated my view in some detail, in a little pamphlet published in New York a few months ago, and now republished, I see, by Ferguson, of Glasgow.43 I do not think the Irish land question differs essentially from the land question in any other country. The land question is really as important in England as it is in Ireland – in the United States as in Europe. It is the coming question of both continents. Correspondent: But do not the social and political conditions of Ireland entitle the Irish land question to especial consideration? Mr. George: Especial conditions, of course, require especial consideration, and the conditions of Ireland have been, and are such as to give the land question special prominence here. The agitation which has grown out of the Irish famine is having its effect all over the world, and very strongly in the United States, in directing attention to the land question; but I do not think that the land question in Ireland can be settled on any other basis than that on which it can be settled in other countries. The land question all over the world is essentially the same. It is a question as to whether the land on which a people live, should be considered as the property of the whole people or of only a portion of their number. 41
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Correspondent: You have a land question, then, in the United States? Mr. George: Certainly. We have simply copied the land system which prevailed in Great Britain, not in all its details but in its essential features. We have treated land as property of essentially the same kind as any other species of property. This worked well enough, or at least its evils were not nearly apparent at first, but with the growth of the country these evils are developing themselves with great rapidity, and while I cannot say that our people, generally, realize the evils of that system, I am certain that interest in the question is rapidly being awakened. Correspondent: Are not those who interest themselves about our land question in your country confined to the Irish or Irish-Americans? Mr. George: Not at all. The attention drawn to Ireland and the organization of the Land League have had a great effect upon that section of our people, but there are many Americans who would think a good deal about the land question, even if there had been no Ireland and no Irish Land League. Correspondent: Are the members of the Land Leagues in the United States confined to the Irish section of your people? Mr. George: Not at all. Among its members are to be found not only Irishmen of the second and third generations, but many who have no Irish blood in their veins. Correspondent: Is not the Land Act, in your opinion, calculated to satisfy the reasonable demands of the Irish people? Mr. George: Most emphatically no. I do not see how the Land Act can satisfy anybody. It is simply a temporary makeshift, not based upon any clear principle. The only reasonable demand that can be made by the Irish people is for the complete nationalization of the land, and it seems to me that in the nature of things their demand must ultimately go that far. Correspondent: What do you mean by the nationalization of the land? Mr. George: I mean the resumption of the land as common property of the whole people – the recognition of the right of each individual, man, woman, or child to an equal share in the land of the country in which they live. Correspondent: How would it be possible to divide up land in such a way as to accomplish this? Mr. George: It is not necessary to divide up land at all. It would be utterly impossible to so divide the land of any country as to give each person an equal share, and even if that were possible, what at first was only an equal division would soon become unequal by the increase of population, the changes in commercial centers, the course of trade, the progress of invention, and the march of improvement.
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All that it is necessary to do to secure equal rights to land is to give to each equal opportunities of using it, and to divide among the community or what comes to the same thing, to use for common purposes the revenues that are derived purely from land. Herbert Spencer explained this years ago in his Social Statics, in which he shows in the first place that there can be no rightful individual title to land, and in the second place, that the complete recognition of this doctrine involves no destructive overturning of existing arrangements.44 All that it is necessary to do is, for the state to appropriate rent. Correspondent: Should rent, payable to the state, be called ‘‘rent,’’ or should it not be called a retribution tax for the occupancy of land? Mr. George: You may call it what you please. Rent paid to the state would be a payment by the individual user to the community for a special privilege which the community accorded him, and it ought to be fixed so that there may be taken from the individual user and turned into the common fund what in political economy is termed ‘‘rent,’’ that is to say, the income which any particular piece of land will yield to the application of labor and capital, over the ordinary rewards which the same application of labor and capital would otherwise obtain. This would put all members of the community on the same plane. The natural rewards of labor and capital would go to labor and capital, and that income which arises from special natural opportunities, or from the growth and progress of the community, would go to the community at large. In other words, the people as a whole would take what John Stuart Mill called ‘‘the unearned increment’’ in the value of land, while to individuals could be left that value which their individual exertions produce.45 Correspondent: Sometime ago you quoted Herbert Spencer to prove that this doctrine would involve no destructive overturning of existing arrangements. It would appear to me, then, that those advantages which arise from the application of labor would mainly go to the producers of wealth, and not to those who accidentally or otherwise came into its possession. Mr. George: Precisely. Give to everyone that which he fairly earns, and no one will get anything that he does not earn. Or prevent anyone from obtaining that which he does not fairly earn, and everyone will get that which he fairly earned. This is the ideal of equality. Equality, does not mean that each one shall have the same amount of wealth, no more than it means that each one shall have the same energy, or industry, or talent, or shall wear clothes of precisely the same size and cut, or eat the same food in the same way. It means merely that each shall have the same opportunities.
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HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES
Correspondent: But would not this be in contravention to the spirit of the law of the land, which allocated to certain individuals certain vested rights for which they gave certain acknowledgements? Mr. George: We were talking of the law of the land, but of the proper and final solution of the land question. When laws are not based on the natural justice they must eventually give way, or produce the death of the people who maintain them. As for vested rights, there never was an existing wrong that was not in its time deemed a vested right. People used to talk of the vested right of slave owners just as they now talk about the vested right of landowners, and unless one man can have a vested right of property in another man, he cannot have a vested right to the exclusive possession of the land by which that other man must live. Private property in land and private property in human flesh and blood have the same derivation, and amount to the same thing in the end. The one is gone and the other must soon go. The century which has seen the abolition of slavery all over the civilized world, will, in my opinion, not close before, all over the civilized world, private property in land will receive its deathblow.46 The course of the Irish land agitation has proved enough of this. The popular demand already seems to go far beyond the Land Act passed at the last session of Parliament, radical as that would be deemed a little while ago, and I do not think it is possible for any human power to stop it short of a demand for the complete nationalization of the land. In the words of Bishop Nulty, there can be no solution of the land question until land is acknowledged to be ‘‘the common property of all the people – the common inheritance in which even the humblest is conceded as an equal share.’’ Correspondent: Surely, though, the present landowners ought to be compensated? Mr. George: Compensate them for what? All that property that belongs to them would be left to them. In taking the land in the way I propose there would be left to the present so-called owners the full value of all the improvements they have made. With what justice can they demand anything more? Either the land belongs to those who are now recognized as its owners, or it belongs to the people. If it rightfully belongs to the present owners, then all this agitation is wrong, and Mr. Gladstone is really what your Tories call him – ‘‘the greatest communist of the age.’’ If it properly belongs to the people why should the people compensate anybody for the resumption of what is justly their own? You cannot marry wrong and right. They are as far apart as the poles, and
His First Impressions of Ireland and Her Jailers
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any compromise between them is simply to that extent an endorsement of wrong and a denial of right. If you are going to compensate anybody it seems to me that those should be compensated who have suffered from injustice, and not those who have profited by it. If anybody should be compensated it should be the people who have been condemned to poverty, and ignorance, and constant toil, no those who have lived in luxury off their labor. Correspondent: Would it not be impolitic to startle society by proposing such a sweeping change? Mr. George: I do not think so. I do not believe it is ever impolitic to take a position which can be logically defended as a just one, and I do not believe that in carrying out the full truth, such as Bishop Nulty proclaims, there is involved anything like so much change or violence as is involved in these half-way measures which go nowhere and settle nothing. You see the condition of Ireland today. If the Land Act were to be accepted by the whole people as a solution of the question, the same difficulties would be certain to recur. Discontent, agitation, violence, spoliation, and bloodshed follow injustice as inevitably as night follows day. Their antidote, or rather their cure, is in justice, and in justice alone. Correspondent: But could the mind of the people at once grasp such a doctrine? Mr. George: I have a great deal of faith in the ability of any people to grasp any doctrine which involves clear distinction between wrong and right, and these days the world moves fast. You see that in Ireland already. Correspondent: How would your doctrine, that land should be made common property, apply to England, which is a commercial and manufacturing country? Mr. George: Just as fully and as satisfactorily as it would apply to Ireland or any other country. It would turn into the state the enormous revenues now being derived by individuals from land – the land on which commercial and manufacturing cities are built as much as the land which is used for agriculture purposes. It would cut all the knots which prevent land from being used, and which keeps it from the best use which it can be put. It would be but a return to the old English system. Correspondent: But is this not a novel doctrine? Mr. George: Not at all. That land is the common property of the people is in accordance with the first perceptions of man everywhere. That land should not be considered as the private property of individuals seems preposterous to our Indians, as it does to the black man, whom you are
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displanting in South Africa; as it did to our forefathers on these islands, and to very people upon whose early history any light can be thrown. Down to even comparatively recent times it was fully recognized in the polity of England that the enjoyer of land owed a peculiar debt to the state. It is estimated by an English writer that had the feudal dues which were abolished by the Long Parliament been converted into a money payment they would now have amounted to more than the whole revenue of Great Britain. While as for the church lands, solemnly dedicated to public purposes, and which before they were parceled out among a lot of profligate and rapacious courtiers defrayed the expenses of public worship and maintained institutions of charity and learning, it was estimated that the public income which might now be derived from them would probably be greater still. I do not see what there is to prevent either the Irish or English people from recognizing fully the truth which was recognized by their forefathers, in a much ruder and more ignorant age. Correspondent: Would it not be much easier to establish peasant proprietorship? Mr. George: I do not think so. It does not seem to me possible to establish peasant proprietorship on any large scale in any country which feels as fully the influence of modern development, as this country does, and even if it were possible, it is not the thing to aim at. If you want a country to be great, and strong, and rich, if you want a happy and enlightened people, you do not want peasants of any kind. You want free and equal citizens. If you expect peasants to remain contentedly peasants, you must restrict education, and choke the press, and throttle all the great agencies of modern civilization. And, as a matter of justice, the difference between peasant proprietorship and the proprietorship of great landlords is only a difference of degree, not of kind. A man cannot have a better right to the exclusive possession of half an acre when there are not half acres enough of the same quality to go round, than he can have to the exclusive possession of a million acres. In the industrial organization of modern society all people cannot be, and do not want to be, cultivators of the soil, and the establishment of peasant proprietorship would do nothing to improve the condition of the laboring classes, whether agricultural or other. To aim at peasant proprietorship would be, in my opinion, to step backwards and not forwards. Correspondent: What do you think of the No Rent Manifesto?47 Mr. George: That I take to be a war measure, just like the embargo which the American government laid upon commerce prior to the War of 1812.48 It was intended, I presume, to make the landholding classes feel that the
His First Impressions of Ireland and Her Jailers
47
imprisonment upon suspicion of the Irish popular leaders was not good policy. Of course, if the present tenants were to keep possession of their land, paying no rent either to the present legal owners or to the state, they would themselves become proprietors, and the same vicious system would be continued in another form. Correspondent: What do you think of the general situation in Ireland today? Mr. George: It seems to me one that cannot continue, and that I really did not think possible among any English-speaking people this late in the nineteenth century. You have here what seems to me very much like a reign of terror. Correspondent: Do you mean by a ‘‘reign of terror’’ what Mr. Gladstone speaks of – that the people of Ireland are terrorized by the Land League? Mr. George: No. If there is anything of that kind I have not seen it. I mean that the people are terrorized by the government. So far as I am competent to form an opinion, the most popular men in Ireland lay in Kilmainham Jail today, and I meet men who in my own country would be considered the best of citizens, who deem themselves in constant danger of arrest, and who dare not through terror of the government either speak or write as they want to.49 Correspondent: What do you think of the way Ireland is governed? Mr. George: The government of Russia might be worse, and perhaps, the anarchy of some of the South American republics might be worse; but among a people who are supposed to have heard of Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, and to recognize constitutional principles, I can conceive of nothing worse.50 One does not have to look far to see the badness of the government. Good governments do not find it necessary to search every passenger’s package to see if he carries firearms or ammunition, nor under them will you in time of peace see a soldier at every turn. The trouble with the government of Ireland is that it is a foreign one, in which the people of Ireland have no part or power. If I understand it rightly, even this Dublin police of yours is under the control of the imperial government, and with the exception of paying its expenses, the municipal authorities of Dublin have no more control over it than I have. Correspondent: But does not the lawlessness which has characterized Ireland justify the adoption of the most repressive measures? Mr. George: It would be presumptuous on me, a stranger in the country, to speak of special facts. I can only speak of general principles – principles which are true the world over, no matter what may be the latitude or the longitude. It is a universal principle in which Mr. Bright stated in his speech
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which I have read that force is no remedy.51 It is a universal truth that to attempt to govern any people, out of whom the spirit of manhood has not been absolutely crushed by the power of soldiers, and constabulary, and policemen, is to provoke resistance and violence. If today you were to take any state in the American Union and attempt to govern it by the power of the general government, as Ireland is governed by the power of the imperial government, you would have tenfold more tumult and violence than in Ireland today, and if such a system of government could not be overthrown that state would be left a desert by the emigration of its people. Mr. George: He is a man whom I sincerely respect, and a man whom I believe the future will honor. His incarceration as a felon while engaged in a perfectly constitutional appeal to the people will be one of the deep disgraces of the present administration. Davitt is a true-hearted and wideminded man, a man of true courage, and a man of true patriotism. He left New York fearing that he would be imprisoned, but believing that the post of danger was the post of honor. As he expressed his views to me, no man more clearly saw that the agitation which would benefit the Irish people must be conducted in a strictly legal manner, and his idea of the ultimate solution of the question went as far as mine does. He wished to secure the land of Ireland, not for a class, but for the whole people. There is something very petty and mean to my mind in the shutting up of Michael Davitt in a penal jail. Correspondent: Have you been to Kilmainham? Mr. George: Yes; all I want to. I brought letters of introduction to some members of the imperial Parliament, and the most important of those, whom I expected to meet in this city I found when I got here were in Kilmainham Jail, having been arrested on suspicion. Thinking it would not be difficult to see a political prisoner, held on ‘‘suspicion,’’ and especially a member of the imperial Parliament, a position as I had supposed, of very great dignity and importance, I went at once to Kilmainham Jail. I found a small knot of people outside walking up and down to keep themselves warm in the chilling air, and with a good deal of difficulty I managed to tell the impersonation of official curtness who opens and slams the wicket what my business was.52 I found that the gentleman whom I first inquired for could not be seen at all by anybody under any pretext, as they were being punished on suspicion of having signed something that their jailers did not approve of, while prisoners on suspicion. I inquired for others, whom I was told I might see by taking my turn. I took my turn, and though it did not seem to me that more than two or three went in, exclusive of soldiers, policemen, and officials. I waited for four hours and came away
His First Impressions of Ireland and Her Jailers
49
unsuccessful, bringing with me a lady who had waited at that gate since ten o’clock in the morning. I would hardly have gone again, but on the next morning I met a gentleman who was going down there, and I went with him, but after waiting about an hour and a half, and seeing a member of Parliament who had been there before me go away in disgust, I went away, too. I was less inclined than ever to try again; but having received notice from a couple of the gentlemen imprisoned there, stating that they have reserved visits for me. I went the third day. After waiting patiently from about half past ten o’clock in the morning, the anteroom opened for me shortly before three. I then began to understand what before had been a puzzle to me, how, although but fifteen minutes are allotted to each visitor, so few visitors are admitted during the day. I had to walk around the antechamber for a good while, while a lot of confabulation went on, and a detachment of the British army marched in and out, and the warden unlocked the closets where they keep their handcuffs, and rattled them a little, and my name was written on a piece of paper, and sent, I don’t know where, and I was made to read a big placard stating in it that no political conversation with the prisoners was permitted. Finally, I was put under the charge of two warders; another iron door was unlocked and locked again; another and another, until finally, after what seemed like the most unnecessary delays, I was showed up to the ‘‘cage,’’ as it is termed there – a little cell of about six feet by eight, cooped up in one end behind a fence, breast high, was the gentleman I had course to see. Another fence cooped the prisoner in the other end of the cell. Between the two fences stood one warder, and another one behind. I had asked to see two gentlemen; but instead of calling the second into the cage, as quickly as I had concluded my interview with the first (and I made it brief out of consideration for others who were still waiting outside), I was marched downstairs again with what seemed to me all possible delay, and then after a repetition of the same circumlocution was marched in again. The whole thing would be utterly ridiculous if it were not serious. The officials of Kilmainham Jail could give lessons to magnates of the circumlocution office. Every possible effort seems to be made to waste the time of visitors, and to make seeing the prisoners as difficult as possible. As to the propriety or impropriety of permitting visitors to see men who are being punished on suspicion, I am not speaking; but of the needless annoyances and indignities. There are other countries in the world – though I am glad to say they are not English-speaking countries – where they have coercion acts, and where the political leader in power frequently seizes another political leader whom he may suspect of becoming too popular, and imprisons him,
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or exiles them, or calls out a pile of soldiers in the gray of the morning and shoots him.53 But I think any half-Indian chief in the most anarchical South American republic, would disdain to treating political prisoners as the political prisoners in Kilmainham are treated. The men who are responsible, whatever their station, cannot really have the first instincts of true gentlemen.
6. HOW THEY GOVERN IRELAND No Law for the People of Ireland but the Ipse Dixit of the Armed Policemen. Suppressing United Ireland. The Women of the Land League Baffling the Press-Gaggers.54 Irish World Staff Correspondence. 37 Lower Gardiner St. Dublin, Dec. 24, 1881. The government has at last suppressed United Ireland. Perhaps I am wrong in using the word ‘‘suppressed,’’ and it might hurt the feelings of such ‘‘Liberal’’ statesmen as Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Forster to be charged with suppressing a newspaper. For ‘‘suppression’’ has an ugly sound. It suggests, the methods of those continental despotisms against which these gentlemen have so often inveighed, and hardly boasts with that boasted liberty of the press of which Britain is so proud. And so, the government papers are careful to point out, this morning, that United Ireland has not been suppressed. The government has not said that it shall not be published any more, which is the way they do things in Russia, and used to do things in France. All it has done has been to arrest a few people and seize a few papers. William O’Brien, the editor of United Ireland, was arrested shortly after the issue of the [No Rent] Manifesto, and imprisoned in Kilmainham [Jail].55 But the paper went on. Then Killen was arrested and taken to Dundalk, with a warning that more arrests might be expected. Still the paper went on. Then the Castle detectives came into the office, arrested one of the clerks, and left word that they had warrants for O’Connor, the acting editor, for the business manager, the foreman of the printing office, and, in fact, for the whole establishment. This was on last Tuesday week. The evident intention of the Castle was to suppress the paper without doing so directly, and with as few arrests as possible. For so many arrests look bad, too. So a day was given for O’Connor and the others to get away 51
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to England. So, seeing that they did not go, the next day, Wednesday, the detectives came again, but did not find the men they wanted, and during the interval thus given, the paper for the week was not only got out, but arrangements made to compel Mr. Forster either to begin the arrest of ladies under an act which he had declared was only to be used for the imprisonment of ‘‘village tyrants and dissolute ruffians,’’ or to openly suppress the paper. This was accomplished before Mr. O’Connor was arrested on Thursday. Miss Hannah Lynch, sister of Miss Nannie Lynch, the efficient assistant secretary of the Ladies’ League, and Miss Cavanaugh, were installed as editors, and Miss Nannie Lynch and Mrs. Maloney (treasurer of the Ladies’ League, whose husband was recently sent to Dundalk [Prison] on reasonable suspicion) took charge of the business department.
HOW UNITED IRELAND WAS SUPPRESSED The paper went to press late on Wednesday night, and it is to be presumed that the Castle got an early copy on Thursday morning. It was not calculated to convince the authorities that much had been accomplished by previous arrests and previous threats. Its editorials were even more defiant than before, while not merely did it contain column after column of refusals to pay rent, but the cartoon on the first page represented the high and mighty Mr. Forster, as ugly as art or the want of art could make it, with his bugaboo of coercion, brought up in his furious career by the unmoved battalions of the Ladies’ League. Yesterday afternoon shortly after five, the seizure was made. Thirteen policemen, the ladies tell me, headed by Detective Mallon, whose particular business seems to be the arrest of suspects, entered the office, taking into custody on a warrant in the usual form of ‘‘reasonable suspicion,’’ Mr. Arthur O’Keefe, of the editorial force, whom they met going out.56 They were met inside the office by Mrs. Moloney and Miss Lynch, who demanded their business. Mallon replied that he was there to stop any further printing of the paper and to seize what had been printed. The ladies demanded his warrant, but warrant he had none to give. They told him they would not permit him to take anything from the establishment nor in anywise to interfere with it unless he produced some legal authority enough for them. They declared that it was not; that they had in charge certain property for which they were responsible, and that they did not propose to
How They Govern Ireland
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let anyone come there and take it, simply because he called himself a policeman, or even if he was a policeman. ‘‘How do we know,’’ said Mrs. Moloney, that you are not a lot of thieves calling yourselves policemen, how do we know that you have not come here to rob us of this property on your own private account? And no matter who you are or what you are, we do not propose to let you take any property from here until you show us some legal authority.
The policeman became angry and insolent, and proceeded to take all the papers they could find, telling the ladies that they would arrest them if they attempted to resist. ‘‘We cannot resist,’’ said Mrs. Moloney, ‘‘we yield to superior numbers.’’ But while the two plucky ladies were thus holding the policemen at bay, active work was going in the rear, and some 7,000 copies of the paper were got out the back way before the policemen effected an entrance into the pressroom and stopped the press. And between the time they went off with their booty and the time they returned again to arrest the only male clerk who had remained in the office during the week the plates which the policemen had intimated their intention to either take or smash on their return, were removed to a secure place, packed into an iron box, and towards midnight were by two members of Parliament, two Lady Leaguers, one cabdriver, one car-driver, and a nondescript, lifted, with much puffing, into a vehicle which got them to the mail train for London, where a new issue of United Ireland will be brought out. That is the way things are done in Ireland. Upon the mere suspicion of nobody knows who, any man in the kingdom can be hauled off to prison and kept there without trial, or even explanation. Without as much as a proclamation newspapers can be suppressed; without a warrant or even a written order of any kind a policeman can come into a house and carry off what he may please. There are people here who call themselves advocates of law and order. This is the sort of law they mean; and as for the order it is the sort of order that reigned in Warsaw . . . .57
7. A VISIT TO LONDON The Irish Question as Seen through English Spectacles. Ignorance Most Profound. A Public Prejudiced and Exasperated by a Satanic Press. But One Side of the Story Ever Heard. Gladstone’s Coercion Brutalities Not Coercive Enough the Complaint. A Patronizing Sort of Justice Prevalent. ‘‘We Acknowledge the Wrongs of the Past, but You must Let Us Remedy Them in Our Way, You Know.’’ Ireland’s Strength and Weakness. Educate and Broaden – Make It in the Real Sense a People’s and Not a Class Movement. Lady Leaguers Forcing the Issue. Coercion a Failure – A New English Democratic Party Coming to the Front.58 Irish World Staff Correspondence. 21 Upper Gardiner St., Dublin, Jan. 2, 1882: I have been on to London. No one can visit the city of cities without being profoundly impressed, but it is not of the wonders of this metropolis of the world that I wish in this letter to speak, but rather of what I was, for the time being at least, more curious about – the feelings of the English people towards the struggle now going on in Ireland. That struggle is a struggle of the Irish masses against a system of grievous tyranny and oppression; and the fact that it has received so little sympathy among the masses of Great Britain, and that the most arbitrary acts of repressive government in Ireland should as yet provoke no effective remonstrance in England, is worth consideration. Most Irishmen have a short and easy explanation of this: in English prejudice and hate. One of the things that has most struck me in talking with leading Irishmen is their utter hopelessness of any aid or support, direct or 55
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indirect, from any section of the English people, and their indisposition to take any measures to secure it. ‘‘The English naturally hate us,’’ they say, ‘‘and even to the most liberal of them nothing is too bad for Ireland. There is a natural animosity between the two races,’’ and some of them are frank enough to add, ‘‘if we had the power we would probably treat England as badly as England treats us.’’ But for my part, I do not believe in natural race animosities, in the sense of their being inbred and necessary. It is, of course, in one sense of the word natural for Irishmen to hate the country whose power has been and yet is so ruthlessly used to oppress them; and if it be natural for us to dislike those whom we injure, it is in the same sense natural for Englishmen to dislike Irishmen; but after all, as whoever has mixed much among different peoples knows, national prejudices and race animosities spring for the most part from mutual ignorance, and people the most diverse are capable of acting together when united by common interest or moved by a common purpose. That the government policy of repression and coercion has at present the hearty endorsement of the great masses of English people is clearly evident. It is impossible to mistake the strength of the feeling. Measure[d by] what it might have been without outrunning popular support, the worst acts of the Gladstone government have been moderate. An expression which I have heard attributed to a distinguished English Radical seems hardly an exaggeration: ‘‘Mr. Gladstone might, if he chose, hang a dozen members of Parliament, and there would be no serious objection.’’ This sentiment exists in spite of the fact that there is in England a strong and rising democratic sentiment; that there is much dissatisfaction, political and social, with the existing order of things, and that an attack upon the English land monopoly is surely generating. And while national prejudices against Ireland and that national self-sufficiency which, to the majority of Englishmen, makes anything done by an English government towards any other people seem perfectly proper and just, may explain much, it does not sufficiently explain the want of protest against Irish coercion on the part of at least a considerable section of the English people. ‘‘Put yourself in his place’’ is a motto as valuable in the conduct of practical affairs, be they those of an individual or those of a party or a nation, as it is in the formation of just views of human nature. He is an unwise lawyer who does not study his case from that of his own client; he is a poor general who does not try to place himself in imagination in the position of his adversary; and in a struggle such as this, it is no less important for those whose sympathies and efforts are with the Irish cause to realize how it appears through English spectacles.
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A Visit to London
ENGLISH IGNORANCE OF IRELAND. There exists in England, in the first place, a very gross ignorance of Ireland and all things Irish; and, in the second place, at this particular time the general ideas of the condition of Ireland is just what might be supposed from the reading of English papers, for it is, of course, only through them that the great majority of Englishmen get their ideas of what is going on elsewhere in the world. Stories of Irish outrages have been so multiplied and exaggerated and dwelled upon that the vast majority of Englishmen today seem to believe that two-thirds of the cattle in Ireland are running around without their tails, and that the whole country is in a state of anarchy and wild lawlessness in which only some semblance of order is preserved by overwhelming force. Their sympathies have been excited by heartrending stories of tender ladies and innocent children reduced to dire distress by the nonpayment of rent, and of the sufferings of boycotted families; but of the poor wretches evicted from their little homes, of the half-naked children who at the Christmas season shiver round poor peat fires, they hear little or nothing.
ALL AGAINST IRELAND. That this is so, and that there is so little questioning of the arbitrary acts of the government, spring from the fact that government is held in check by no opposition, so far as its repressive policy towards Ireland is concerned. Were it a Tory government that was doing in Ireland what this so-called Liberal government is now doing, a howl of indignation would go up from at least what is called the Radical section of the Liberal Party, and there can be little doubt that even Mr. Gladstone himself would be portraying with his telling eloquence, the disgrace and danger of ruling Ireland by Russian methods.59 But while governmental power and party discipline are exerted to the utmost to prevent any questioning within the Liberal ranks of the coercive policy of the Gladstone cabinet, the strength and fury of the opposition is devoted to showing that this coercive policy is not coercive enough. Instead of being denounced for trampling on every guarantee of constitutional liberty, and wielding the whole power of the nation in the interests of a selfish class as a Tory government would be denounced, the opposition denunciation of governmental policy is that it is not drastic enough.
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While they are imprisoning men on suspicion, and breaking up meetings, and suppressing newspapers, and packing juries in Ireland, Messrs. Gladstone and Forster are denounced in England for weakness, and timidity, and inefficiency, and the only defense that the government as yet feels called upon to make, is not for having done so much in the way of coercion, but for having done so little. And the most effectual ray of light that, for the British public, has recently been thrown upon the Irish situation, was Herbert Gladstone’s recent speech, in which, defending his father’s policy from Tory attacks, which are becoming dangerous, he declared that the stories of Irish outrages were enormously exaggerated and that an Englishman might travel from one end of the country to the other, not merely with safety, but without insult.60
PERSONAL WORSHIP OF GLADSTONE. Gladstone personally has enormous strength with English ‘‘progressives.’’ He is yet by them regarded as a great statesman bent on the liberalization – some even think upon the democratization – of English institutions as fast as he may safely move, and the bitter denunciations of the Tory press and Tory speakers that he has ruined Irish landlords by his communistic Land Bill and reduced Ireland to anarchy by not coercing enough seems to them to prove that he has not resorted to coercion until compelled to; that he is really bent on doing for the Irish people all they can reasonably ask, as fast as it can safely be done, and that the refusal of the Irish Party to acknowledge this is the basest gratitude.61 So far as I can judge, it does not seem to me that the average Englishman of Liberal tendencies desires to be other than just towards Ireland – that is to say, according to his notions of justice towards Ireland, which are of a very paternal and patronizing kind. He is ready enough to admit the deep wrongs which England has inflicted upon Ireland in the misgovernment of the past; but he conceives that these are now being remedied, and that coercion is, so to speak necessary to hold the patient still while the surgical operation that is to give him relief is being performed.
‘‘WE’’ ARE EVER RIGHT. It took no prophet to predict that any measure framed on the lines of Gladstone’s Land Bill would please neither side, but the fact that this is so
A Visit to London
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hides its defect from English eyes. The average Englishman reads daily of the work of some sub-commission in reducing the rent of Patrick Rafferty or James O’Meara from d36 7 s. 6d. to d29 19 s. 4 1/2d. He considers this quite a substantial gain with which Patrick Rafferty or James O’Meara ought, for the present, at least, to be quite well-satisfied, particularly as the new rent cannot, for fifteen years be increased; and he imagines that the main Irish grievances of high rents and insecure tenures are rapidly being removed. He hears little or nothing of the large classes who are excluded from the benefits of the Land Act, either by the terms or by the hopeless arrears or rent under which they labor. He hears little or nothing of the slow progress of adjudication and the large number of appeals which make the operations of the Land Courts farcical so far as large results are concerned.62 But he does hear the clamor of the landlords against the act and their denunciations of the government for its weakness and timidity, hearing this on the one side, and of the resistance of the Irish popular party on the other, he concludes that the government is holding that ‘‘golden mean’’ between both extremes, which those who do not take the trouble to look closely are always disposed to regard as the right course.
THE MOVEMENT IN IRELAND MUST BROADEN. That the Land League movement, which is largely analogous to trades union movements for shorter time and higher wages, should have as yet received so comparatively little support and sympathy from English working classes is, I think, largely due to the failure to properly present the Irish case, and to take more radical ground. The fact is that the Land League movement, up to the present time, has definitely aimed at nothing more than class advantage. There was more truth than poetry in Lord Churchill’s taunt that between Gladstone and Parnell the only difference was as to the amount of reduction that should be made in rents.63 The majority of Land League leaders, and I am inclined to think, the majority of the rank and file, have not got beyond the idea of fair rents, or peasant proprietorship, as the solution of the land question. Their idea of ‘‘the land for the people’’ is simply that the present tenants should have low rents and a tenant right that they may sell, or that they should buy their land cheaply, or, if you please, that they should get it for nothing. There are parts of Ireland where this would be to the fundamental advantage of the laboring classes, for in them the bulk of them are laboring classes on small patches. But in other parts even of Ireland – and these are
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the best and richest parts, from which the original inhabitants have been exterminated – it would only be for the benefit of the tenant farmers, who are by no means the most necessitous class, and are many of them very considerable capitalists. In Ireland, however, the national feeling has rallied to the support of the Land League, the townsmen, and the agricultural laborers. But in England this feeling that gives the League so much strength in Ireland does not appeal, save to the Irishmen domiciled there. The English and Scotch farmers have been roused by the Irish agitation, or rather, by the Irish Land Act, to demand something for themselves; but as yet there is not enough fire in their movement to call forth any antagonism toward the government for its coercion in Ireland, while the English working classes have the benefit of the farmers. ‘‘Why should we support a movement for reducing farmers’ rents, or giving them their land for no rent at all?’’ said an English artisan to me. ‘‘If the farmers get their rents reduced, or get their land for nothing, they will simply put the difference in their pockets and will grind the laborers as badly as ever, while we who live in the towns will have to pay as much rent as before, and will gain no advantage at all that I can see.’’ And it is impossible, from the standpoint of any program yet put forward in the name of the Land League, to answer this. It seems to me that much that might have been usefully done to enlighten public opinion in England as to Irish affairs has been neglected, if in fact there has not been a disposition to discourage rather than to welcome any alliance with English Radicals. The truth is, that there has been, and still is, much conservatism within the lines and in the management of the Land League: many who would like to make the movement a mere political and not a social revolution. But what I see here only strengthens my previous conviction, that the quicker this Irish movement is placed on the firm base of the broad principle that the land of Ireland, as the land of any country, is the common property of the whole people of that country, and
SOME SIMPLE PLAN FOR CARRYING OUT THAT PRINCIPLE ENUNCIATED, the surer and the quicker will be its success. It would, perhaps, lose some support, but this would involve the loss of little strength, and it would, both in Ireland and elsewhere, gain strength that it now lacks.
61
A Visit to London
But although the current of opinion seems to run so strongly in England in favor of coercion, there are various indications that it is about to turn – if in fact it has not already turned. The government is nervously afraid of discussion, and its influence is exerted through the licensing system to prevent meetings for that purpose. But the stand made such people as Joseph Cowen and Miss Helen Taylor, the members of the Democratic Federation, the discussion an agitation going on at little workingmen’s clubs that are never heard of in the papers, and such meetings of the Land League branches as are held, are having their effect.64 The attempt of the lord mayor to get up a fund for the Property Defence Association has evidently hurt the cause of the landlords in England much more than it helped them, and so with the first of the landlord meetings in the Rotunda in Dublin.
COERCION, A DEAD FAILURE. The fact cannot be disguised that coercion is a dead failure, and the government is approaching the session of Parliament with all the embarrassment of failure upon it; and though it may help keep Parnell and Dillon in prison, it must encounter an opposition more determined and active than ever.65 What may happen next month or the month thereafter, or the month after that, no one may be able precisely to predict; but it is very certain that England must soon tire of the attempt to govern Ireland from London, and that the defeat of the present government will mean the break up of the present Liberal Party, and the coming to the front of an English democratic party, though possibly not under that name. In the meantime, in Ireland the latest efforts of coercion produce no effect. Mr. Forster kept Christmas by arresting a fresh batch of suspects. The suspects in prison kept Christmas with a good dinner, and the Ladies’ Executive kept it by issuing the following circular: The Ladies’ Irish National Land League 39 Upper Backville St., Dublin Notice to the Secretaries of Branches December 25, 1881 Dear Madam: We deem it necessary at this moment, when there is greater use for our organization than ever before, to point out to you that the circular recently
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directed by the inspector-general of constabulary to his subordinates, dated December 16th, does not in any way alter the legal position of the Ladies’ Land League, which is now exactly the same as it was when the Irish National Land League was declared illegal by proclamation. The inspectorgeneral has not declared the Ladies’ Land League an illegal society, and, if he had done so, he could not have make it illegal; that can only be done by an Act of Parliament. The inspector-general has confined himself to stating, in substance, that the promotion of the objects and purposes of the Land League by females, under any name or under any pretext, would be unlawful, by virtue of the lord lieutenant’s Proclamation, which applies to females as well as males. This everybody knew without being told, and everybody knew also that the constabulary [has] always prosecuted any woman against whom they have thought a charge of illegal action in connection with the Land League could be sustained. We should, therefore, if we read the circular by its own light, be unable to find any motive for it beyond a desire on the part of the inspector-general to display his ignorance of grammar. Read, however, by the light of experience, it is undoubtedly intended as an invitation of the magistrates and police to treat the Ladies’ Land League as an illegal society, and synonymous with the Irish National Land League. You remember that about two months ago we warned you that attempts would be made to persuade you that the Ladies’ Land League was illegal, and that you might expect insult, interference, and even violence from the constabulary. At the same time we reminded you, that, whatever happened, it would be your duty to persevere. We now have to repeat the advice we then gave you, and to call on you, in addition, to hold a meeting of your branch on Sunday, 1st January, 1882, and to hold it, if possible, at 1:30 p.m., as it is our desire that meetings of the Ladies’ Land League should be held simultaneously on the first day of the new year in every part of Ireland. If any arrests or prosecutions take place in consequence of these meetings, they should be held again the following Sunday at the same hour, and this practice should be continued by every branch as long as there is any attempt, on the part of the government, to interfere with the meetings. Members should not give security to be of good behavior, etc., if required to do so by the magistrates, as they would thereby make themselves instruments for plundering those friends who might become sureties for them. The magistrates could at any time estreat the bail by ordering a second prosecution against the same individual and convicting her on any
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pretext which might be satisfactory to themselves, and you know that it would be impossible for any person, however discreet, to avoid a second conviction at petty sessions, if the magistrates desired to bring it about, as either to look at a policeman or not to look at him would be quite a sufficient offense for their purposes.66 By order of the Executive, Anna Parnell, Clare Stritch, N. Lynch, [and] B. Walsh This is intended to force the issue with the government, as the ladies have concluded that they cannot do their work if they are compelled to meet in secret.
8. IRISH DEMOCRACY Events that Mark the Rising Spirit of the People. A Year’s Wonderful Progress. Privilege after Privilege of the Territorial Aristocracy Swept Away. The March of Ideas Going Bravely On. Bishop Nulty’s Glorious Declaration [is] the Coming Platform of the Land. ‘‘Law a Perfect Mockery of Justice.’’ A Despotism that will Compare Favorably with the Worst of Them. Uselessly Trying to Stop The Irish World. The War on the Women – the Nation at the Mercy of an ‘‘Ass in Lion’s Skin.’’ What the New Year Promises.67 Irish World Staff Correspondence. 21 Upper Gardiner St. Dublin, Jan. 2, 1882. The year that has gone has been a most eventful one in Ireland, and the future will probably prove a most eventful one in the history of Great Britain as well. It has witnessed the attempt to stay the progress of a great popular movement by all the arts of diversion and corruption and all the resources of arbitrary power. But in spite of everything the revolution has gone on, and in all the long centuries since St. Patrick first raised the cross upon Irish soil, it is doubtful if there has been a twelvemonth of such real progress in Ireland as that just closed.68 There is nothing, perhaps – not even the spectacle of landlords offering reduction that a year ago would have been deemed fabulous, and yet waiting in vain for their rents; of landlords, who, a little while ago, were used to deem themselves, to use Tennyson’s forcible, though somewhat irreverent expression, ‘‘the Gods Almighty of their country sides,’’ now whining that their political influence is confined to their vote.69 65
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There is nothing that more illustrates the change that during 1881 has passed over Ireland, than the stoppage of hunting – the favorite sport of the territorial aristocracy which they loved with a passionate love. Never, say the sporting reviewers, did a year open, with more brilliant promise for this noble amusement than did the year 1881. As 1881 glides into 1882, hunting in Ireland is a thing of the past. Instead of brilliant assemblages of well-dressed horsemen and horsewomen chasing the fox with packs of blooded hounds, or coursing the hare, the only hunting that now goes on in Ireland is that of crowds of common farmers and laborers who with dogs of low degree, ornamented with collars designed to throw ridicule and contempt upon ‘‘their betters,’’ who, meeting in great numbers, kill game for the suspects with shouts of laughter and derision at those in whose presence their hats were wont to come off. This and, as one of the Lady Leaguers at Carlow told the police on Sunday, ‘‘the hunting of women by the Royal Irish [Constabulary]’’ is about all the hunting that is left in Ireland. This simple fact, to anyone who knows the historical relation between the sport of hunting and the dominance of a territorial aristocracy, speaks volumes. When the future Carlyle or Taine writes the history of the great revolution that is but now beginning to gather its forces and move on with resistless impetus, it is this suppression of this favorite amusement of the aristocracy70 – a survival from the times when Norman William drove Saxon peasants from their homes to plant the New Forest – that he will dwell on, not only as a most picturesque but as a most significant incident, that tells as nothing else tells of the rising spirit of the people, of the growth of democratic feeling, of the passing away of the old and the coming of the new. And though the New Year comes with clouds and blackness, portending times of struggle and trial and suffering, there is on its horizon the gleam of the sunburst. Whatever be the issue of this or of that, the march of ideas goes on, and the ‘‘Light is Spreading.’’
‘‘LAND THE COMMON PROPERTY OF ALL’’ That golden extract from Dr. Nulty’s letter on the land question to the clergy and laity of the diocese of Meath, which during the last six months you have so often reprinted, and which puts in a few short sentences the common sense of the whole land question and indicates the only basis upon which it can be settled, was strangely enough almost unknown here until popularized by The Irish World, for, able as it is, Dr. Nulty’s pamphlet never
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seems to have had much circulation here or to have been much noticed by the press. But on a hint evidently taken from The Irish World, that glowing declaration that is the center and kernel, has recently been reprinted here just as it last appeared in The World, with a facsimile of the good bishop’s signature. And it has already been very extensively circulated, for not only has it been posted up all over the country like the No Rent Manifesto, but the horror and indignation which it has excited among landlords and magistrates and policemen have given it the full benefit of the circulation of all the Irish government papers and all the English press. It was telegraphed in full by the news associations as a manifesto which was being distributed by the priests of Ireland, and thus has a ray of ‘‘Light been Spread’’ into dark places it would otherwise hardly have reached. And the good bishop has woke up to find himself more than famous. He is denounced as a communist of the worst kind, and as teaching a doctrine infinitely more dangerous than the No Rent Manifesto, for as one of the London papers (The Standard, if I remember rightly) declares: ‘‘This is not a mere call to do a certain thing for a certain time like the No Rent Manifesto; it is a declaration of principle that sinks into the mind and becomes a permanent conviction.’’ And The Standard is right. That ‘‘the land of every country is the common property of the people of that country’’ and that ‘‘any settlement of the land that would exclude the humblest man from his share of the common inheritance would not only be an injustice and a wrong to that man, but an impious resistance to the benevolent intentions of his Creator,’’ are selfevident truths, that do sink into the mind whenever recognized, and that are by their mere statement more dangerous to the system which gives to the few the birthright of the many than are any amount of halfway propositions.
A SAMPLE COMPLAINT. To show the tone of the English coercion press, it may be worthwhile to quote the comments of the Morning Post. It is difficult to speak in terms of moderation of the pastoral letter which Dr. Nulty, the Catholic bishop of Meath has addressed to the clergy and laity of his diocese, an extract from which with the ominous title, ‘‘Land the Common Property of All,’’ is being extensively circulated by many members of the priesthood in the sister country. The doctrine which this member of the Roman hierarchy lays down on the subject of land for the benefit of an ignorant and unscrupulous peasantry, whose ideas of the sanctity of property and respect for human life are notoriously of the lowest description, would not
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HENRY GEORGE, THE TRANSATLANTIC IRISH, AND THEIR TIMES have been out of place in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, or the pages of any of most advanced organs of communism or nihilism in France or Russia.71 They will, however, strike Englishmen as strongly out of place in a pastoral letter from a prelate of the Church of Rome, considering that the latter has in every country under the sun consistently condemned in common with all respectable religious communities of whatever denomination, the teachings of communism, and that she herself is invariably the first to suffer when they become accepted by the populace. It is not only a scandal to religion that such doctrines should be solemnly taught and officially promulgated by a bishop in her majesty’s dominions, but in the present alarming condition of Ireland there is no saying what harm it may work or what baneful effects it may produce. However little the Irish peasantry may care for episcopal teaching when it runs counter to their own inclinations, they are unfortunately only too willing to accept it when it takes such a form as that of Dr. Nulty’s Pastoral. At the present moment it is as much as the whole of the forces of the crown are able to do to hold down dissatisfaction in Ireland and prevent the vehmgericht from executing its fell purposes throughout the length and breadth of the land.72 At such a moment we find a ‘‘national’’ bishop coming forward to preach the doctrine of the most naked communism to an excitable and ferocious peasantry, and telling them plainly that it is the will of heaven they should possess the land. It is scarcely possible to realize the mischief which this episcopal manifesto may cause in the sister island, and it would be well for her majesty’s government to consider whether immunity should be extended to members of the hierarchy when they so palpably take part with the forces of disorder and throw the weight of their authority into the scale of disaffection and communism. Mr. Parnell will have some reason to complain if a bishop is allowed to do with impunity what he is himself incarcerated for doing.
This is the tone in which Dr. Nulty is spoken of by most of the papers that support coercion, and he is recommended not merely to the attention of Mr. Forster, but to the attention of Archbishop McCabe.73 The London Echo, however, which is staunchly fighting a good fight against coercion, makes Dr. Nulty’s declaration occasion for a taunt to Gladstone. It says, in effect: ‘‘You arrested Parnell; why don’t you now arrest Bishop Nulty? You arrested Parnell, thinking if you put him in prison you could stop the agitation. You were self-deluded. Behind Parnell stood the Land League; and behind the Land League, as you now may see, stands the Catholic Church!’’ I hear it said privately that that the English government, through the English Catholics of the landlord class which it has for some time past kept so busy at Rome in the effort to obtain some authoritative condemnation of the Land League, will endeavor to secure the removal of the bishop of Meath, or at least an order for him to come to Rome. But it is not likely that this effort will succeed any better than previous efforts of the same kind have succeeded. Dr. Nulty is today the best-loved prelate in Ireland.
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THE SUPPRESSION OF THE IRISH WORLD. The circulation of The Irish World in Ireland has, ever since the adoption of an active coercion policy by the government, been attended with great difficulties. Such is the fear entertained of the police, and in Dublin, at least, of boycotting by the ‘‘respectable’’ classes, that few shopkeepers have dared to keep it, and fewer still to expose it. But, especially since the seizure of the United Ireland, the landlord press has been clamoring for its utter suppression. According to them, The Irish World is very closely related to the ‘‘Father of All Evil.’’ It is the real author and inciter of the no rent policy, and has done more to produce ‘‘the present unhappy state of Ireland,’’ in which landlords have to ask for half-price railroad tickets to conventions, and gentlemen cannot even hunt, than all other agencies combined. So on last Thursday evening the police made a raid upon all the shops where they supposed The Irish World to be sold, and seized all they could find of the issue of the seventeenth, telling the shopkeepers at the same time that they would not in future be permitted to sell The World. Mrs. Keough, your principal agent, happened to have on hand some numbers of the issue of the tenth, which had come late. But these the policemen did not take, saying that their orders were only to seize the edition of the seventeenth (the paper, bye the bye, which contained the report of the Chicago Convention) and subsequent issues.74 This seizing only from the seventeenth is probably intended to head off the strictures of the Tory press, who, while urging the government on to further acts of violence, take every opportunity to declare every fresh act an admission that it should have been done before. It is characteristic of the manner in which things are done in this country that the policemen who made these searches and seizures refused to show any warrants or authority beyond the mere statement that they were policemen. And it is further characteristic of the utter absence of anything like law, or of any faith on the part of the people that they have any rights that policemen are bound to respect, that there was no resistance to what in any country governed by law would be considered robbery. But the fact is that the ‘‘government’’ in Ireland – and the full powers of ‘‘government’’ seem to be concentrated in the lowest sub-inspector – is an absolute despotism. As between the government, down to its lowest underlings, and the people, the courts, from lowest to highest, make a perfect mockery of justice, and the people know that to lodge any complaint is merely to put themselves in danger, without the slightest hope of redress.
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Of all the respectable citizens who were maltreated by the police, when they charged through the streets of Dublin in drunken fury after the arrest of Parnell, but one man had the courage to attempt to get redress. And notwithstanding the fact that, instead of being a Land Leaguer or a Nationalist, he was, at least up to that time, a most loyal subject of her gracious majesty, regarding the Land League with horror, and Parnell as a pestilent agitator, his case has been put off; and though he has been put to the trouble and expense of appearing many times with his witnesses, he has not yet got even a hearing.75 But the case of the seizure of The Irish World will not be suffered to go unquestioned, however little the hope of obtaining anything like legal redress. As soon as the issue of the twenty-fourth arrived . . . yesterday the police pounced down upon Mrs. Keough’s shop and took all they could find. Acting this time under legal instruction, she refused to give them up without payment, and compelled them to use at least as much force as was technically necessary to found a complaint, which will in due course be made. And in the meanwhile The Irish World in most cases, at least, goes through the mail, for it is very difficult to stop papers when they once get in. And the thing to do for those who want to circulate it in Ireland is to send it through the mail to their friends.
LIBERTY OF THE PRESS IN IRELAND. As for United Ireland the action of the police has been, if there are any degrees, even more arbitrary. They not only have searched the old office a number of times, arresting every man they could find who had any connection with it, even to the machinist, but they have torn the wrappers off the other papers printed in the same place to see that they did not contain United Irelands. And large numbers of the paper printed in England have been seized as quickly as they arrived, the police evidently acting on information obtained from the London police. The true crime of United Ireland is in its publications of the various refusals to pay rent. This holding up of example is, the authorities wisely think, the most effective kind of No Rent Manifesto. And it may be noticed that even the Freeman’s Journal no longer publishes these facts. Never, in truth in France, or Russia, or Austria, did an avowed despot, ‘‘reigning by the grace of God,’’ hold the liberty of the press more completely in his hand than does in Ireland this Mr. Forster, the representative of the so-called ‘‘Liberal government’’ of a constitutional
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country. Even such a paper as the Freeman’s Journal, which surely could never by the wildest stretch of the imagination be accused of radicalism, lives in daily fear that some sub-constable may come down and suppress it, and is frequently afraid to publish matters of even ordinary news until it sees whether its Tory contemporaries first publish them. To a man accustomed to living in a free country the timidity of the Freeman’s Journal seems utterly ridiculous, but conductors ought to know the government they live under better than any stranger, and they certainly are afraid of their business being at any time broken up; and, in fact, it is said that the suppression of the Freeman has been several times seriously considered at the Castle.76 Observe, this is only in the ordinary course of things. The Peace Preservation Act, passed at the last session of Parliament gave Messrs. Gladstone and Forster authority to seize anyone in Ireland whom they did not like, and shut him up in prison as long as they wanted to keep him there.77 It did not give authority for the suppression of newspapers or the seizing of property without legal process, or for the packing of juries, or the bursting into private houses and searching the people there found, or for any of the many things that are constantly being done by the police and magistrates. All these things seem to belong to the ordinary everyday system under which Ireland is governed. The only thing that puzzles me is why in a country governed as this is, any coercion act at all was needed. If there is any American who has lost his seat on the Fourth of July let him come over here for awhile, and he will appreciate the Declaration of Independence as he never did before. I see by a newspaper paragraph that Freeman, the historian, lecturing in America, has refused to be interviewed on the Irish question, saying that he didn’t want to talk about it.78 I don’t blame him. If I were an Englishman traveling in America I wouldn’t want to talk about Ireland either.
THE LADIES AND THE GOVERNMENT. The bold defiance of the ladies that made the government draw back, like the skulking tiger faced with a parasol. That it was the intention to arrest half a dozen or so of the more prominent members of the Executive, if they would not move away, and by thus frightening the rest break up the whole operations of the Ladies’ League, there can be no doubt. But the firm attitude of the ladies, the defiant call of their Executive for meetings
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everywhere on last Sunday, and their evident determination, to which the example of Miss Reynolds gave point, to go to jail one after another rather than give up the work of the League, seem to have shown either Mr. Forster, or what is more probable, some of the members of the cabinet in England, the dangers of the step about to be taken. To have to go on filling the jails with women, and that without accomplishing anything towards breaking the spirit of the people, was to undertake, especially as every day makes it clear that a strong, deep reaction against the coercive policy is arising in England. And so, Miss Anna Parnell having come over for the purpose of presiding, the Ladies’ Defiance meeting was held at the rooms of the Executive on Sackville Street, and it was the most defiant kind of a defiance meeting, too.79 Miss Parnell said that one ignorant policeman (Col. Hillier) had addressed an ungrammatical letter to other policemen as ignorant as himself, declaring the League illegal, and that they had come there to see what the authorities proposed to do, giving the police an hour to come and make an end of them. But the hour, which was taken up in speeches of the most defiant kind from Mrs. Moore and other ladies, passed without any policeman making his appearance. One solitary detective stood on the other side of the wide street, eyeing those who went in and out but that was all. But while the government thus refrained from bringing upon itself the odium of openly arresting ladies of prominence, even when openly defied, the police did in another part of the city annoy a branch meeting, and all through the country they endeavored in all sorts of sneaking ways to prevent the meetings. In some places they warned the owners of the houses where the meetings were to be held, in others they stood at the doors and prevented anyone from entering, in others the meetings were dispersed by force, the police hustling the ladies about. In Boyle and Drumcollogher the officers were arrested and taken before magistrates. In the former place the magistrate (The McDermott Roe) [sic] set them at liberty; in the latter place bail was demanded, which the ladies refused to give, whereupon they were committed to jail. In most places, however, the police took the names of the ladies with a view to summoning them. In one place, Gormanstown, to punish the lady who presided, Miss Arnold, without the odium of arresting a woman, they went off and got a warrant for her brother, and, dragging him out of bed at four o’clock in the morning, carried him off to prison as a suspect. This, I am told, is by no means the first case of the kind. In many instances women have been punished through their male relatives.
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How far the government is going to be thus committed to war upon women remains to be seen. In this case, as in many others, it has got so far that it can neither advance nor retreat without disaster. To go back would be an admission of defeat, yet with every fresh step in coercion the spirit of the people instead of being crushed rises higher and higher. And, strong as the Gladstone government, it cannot long withstand the forces that are being roused against it.
HOW THE THING IS RUN. The diversity in the action of the police in this and many other cases may be perplexing when it is considered the police are not a local body at all, but a standing army receiving their orders from headquarters at the Castle. But the fact is that the government of Ireland, like all absolute despotisms, except as they happen to fall into the hands of a very great and very strong man, is really very weak and vacillating. Mr. Forster is supposed to be the absolute ruler of Ireland. According to the British constitution, as it seems to be in force in Ireland, he can do whatever he pleases, unless it may possibly be to hang, draw, and quarter people, and I am not entirely sure that he cannot do that. But in reality he seems to be a sort of an ‘‘ass in a lion’s skin’’ – from all reports a poor, weak creature of good enough intentions, but who has lost his head on finding himself lodged in a palace with a lord lieutenant for a sort of chief flunkey, and who has fallen into the hands of the class who surround, and flatter, and frighten him, just as an eastern sultan falls naturally into the hands of his barbers, and eunuchs, and seraglio favorites. Ireland is really governed, not by Mr. Forster, but by the landlord class, or to speak more exactly, the landlord-official class; and there seems to be in each of the various districts throughout the country an independent power, consisting of the landlords and magistrates, who run things as they please.
THE PROMISE OF THE NEW YEAR. But nothing is more certain than that this whole system is doomed. The further the government . . . [goes into] coercion the stronger will the reaction be. Not merely is the popular sentiment here becoming stronger and deeper, but in England the feeling against coercion in the ranks of the Liberal Party is daily becoming more outspoken. It is impossible that the government
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should long stand the strain. And 1882 will begin to show what Ireland has gained. I do not think I can better close my letter than by sending you this beautiful little poem by Alfred Webb, which I find in the News.80 Mr. Webb is not as I wrote you a while ago Presbyterian, but a Quaker, a body for whom I have so much esteem that I am glad they have better representatives here than that Mr. Forster, sometimes called ‘‘buckshot.’’ But here is the little poem: ‘‘To Some Friends in Prison,’’ Christmas, 1881. Dear countrymen, for you no fires gleam brightly, No festive boards are laid. No gladsome gatherings ‘neath old churches portals With holly green arrayed. For you not now the tender clasp of dear ones, The glance of loving eyes. The sacred charms of home, and friends, and kindred – All that in life we prize. But vivid, piercing through the encircling darkness, Will come a people’s love. From where stern rocks beat back the Atlantic’s surges, From valley, plain, and grove – A people’s love and prayers from where our nation Dwells mid Canadian snows To where o’er campfire in Australian forest The starry South Cross glows: A nation’s love and prayers, and were she faithless, The thought of duty done – A battle for the poor, despised, downtrodden, Whose freedom ye have won. Bear up true hearts! Though winter storms beat round us. Spring, with its flowers is near, And, resting in the hope of peace and freedom, You’ll welcome the New Year.
9. HOW THE COMMONS BEGINS No Answer to Sexton’s Speech. The Cloture Not Feared . . . . Dr. Nulty and the Land Question. That the People are the Real Owners is of Incalculable Importance and Fortunately Not Clouded by a Shadow of Doubt.81
Irish World Staff Correspondence. 21 Upper Gardiner Street. Dublin, Feb. 21, 1882. Fully three-fourths of the time of Parliament for the first two weeks of the session have been occupied with the subject of Ireland, and this seems likely to be the case to the close. That the Irish question is not settled, nor in the way of being settled, as the ministry would fain believe, one has not to go to Ireland to realize. The manner in which it comes up like an uncanny ghost in all political discussions makes it sufficiently evident, and if the British Parliament is to persist in the task of governing Ireland, it is clear, that cloture or no cloture, it can only do so to the sacrifice of business of much more importance to the people of the other kingdoms.82 On the part of the Irish members (and under this I include only the members of the Irish parliamentary party or Parnellites, for the Whigs and Tories who misrepresent Irish constituencies, which, [in] spite of the restricted suffrage would reject them tomorrow were there a general election, do not deserve the title) the proceedings so far have been marked by moderation and ability. The Irish members are evidently waiting their opportunity. They have made no attempt to consume time, or in any way to obstruct; and Mr. Gladstone’s pet measure of the cloture has so far had nothing to recommend it from them. But their presentation of Irish grievances has been clear and strong, and their arraignment of the government has been, or rather would be, could it fairly reach the public (for the English press is most unfair in its reports), most damaging. 75
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And in spite of the absence of Mr. Parnell, acknowledged by those who most bitterly hate him to be the ablest of minority leaders, and of Dillon, O’Connor, Healy, and O’Kelly, the little Irish Party will unquestionably average higher in ability than either of the other parties. This is peculiarly significant from the fact that the Irish members are more truly the representatives of the ‘‘common people’’ than any other party or group in the House. For the House of Commons is still an aristocratic preserve. It is one of the grievances of those who consider themselves the ‘‘national leaders of the Irish people,’’ with but two or three exceptions, the men who are heading the present movement have no ‘‘stake in the country.’’ Yet among these ‘‘penniless scribblers, and vulgar clerks and shopkeepers’’ whom the Irish upheaval has borne to the front, has been developed, in an out of Parliament, political ability which forces recognition. There is in the House no man of brighter promise than Redmond who was sneered at as a ‘‘mere clerk’’ when first elected. Sexton, who was snubbishly alluded to as ‘‘an employee of the Nation,’’ is already deemed a not unworthy antagonist of the prime minister, who ranks as the incomparable master of parliamentary eloquence; while Healy, now on his way back, at whom the aristocratic ladies in the parliamentary cage turned up their noses with unutterable contempt as the son of the postmaster, has conquered a respect mixed with dislike.83 The session is very hard upon the Irish representatives. They are so few that they cannot absent themselves as do the members of the other parties, but must be in their places, or within call, night and day, and, in addition to this, a number of them have to do other work in order to maintain themselves. The institutions of Great Britain are curiously contrived to keep all the real power in the hands of the aristocracy of land and capital, and one of the most efficient of these contrivances is that of not paying members of Parliament. This combined with the great cost of elections, effectually excludes from the House all but the rich or representatives of rich corporations, save under such great popular excitement as prevails in Ireland. And the demand of the old Chartists and of the new Democratic Federation for paid representation must be secure before the House of Commons can become really representative of the common people.
THE DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS, marked on the side of the Irish members by powerful speeches by Dwyer Gray, Justin McCarty, Redmond, O’Donnell, and Leary, was brought to an
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unexpected close by Sexton in a speech which produced a marked impression in and out of the House.84 The House of Commons, it seems, resents generally anything that savors of oratory, and appears to have a peculiar traditional manner of speech which, with the ordinary member at least, is full of repetitions, and stammering, and struggling for the most ordinary words – a manner so welladopted, or rather burlesqued, by O’Donnell, a fiery enough speaker on the rostrum, that he is said by his colleagues to have consumed during the last session, by actual calculation, four days, sixteen hours, and thirty-five minutes in carefully adjusting his single eyeglass and then letting it drop. Sexton’s House of Commons manner is calm and deliberate, and though on the whole less fiery than it would seem natural to expect when the man who had so long lain in Kilmainham Jail stood at least face to face with the men who had kept them there, was perhaps the more effective when it did rise in restrained passion. His long defense of the Land League and arraignment of the Irish administration was listened to with great attention, and had marked effect. Again and again it roused Gladstone from his favorite position – thrown back upon the Treasury Bench with legs outstretched and chin resting on his breast, like a master who, with calm consciousness of power, lets his inferiors talk for awhile. And while the premier was every now and again startled into taking a note or exchanging sentences with his colleagues, Mr. Forster betrayed his uneasiness in [a] much more obvious manner. It was not on the program that the Irish members should close the debate; and, in fact, it has been given out that Mr. Gladstone himself would speak at ten. But when Sexton concluded, the occupants of the Treasury Bench evidently felt indisposed to reply, and their reluctance was greeted with a derisive cheer from the Irish members, who, though several of their number yet wanted to speak, evidently felt that anything more would be an anticlimax, and that the silence of the government was the best proof of the moral victory that had been gained. So the debate came to a sudden end with Sexton’s ringing appeal to the men of Ireland to stand by the No Rent Manifesto; the vote first on the amendment and then on the address was taken, and the session, which had been expected to last long into the morning, closed while the evening was yet young. But so great was the attention, which, under the circumstances, Mr. Sexton’s speech attracted from a press which frequently disposes of a twohour speech of an Irish member by saying, after giving in full the government plea, ‘‘Mr. T.D. Sullivan made some further remarks,’’ or ‘‘The debate was continued by Mr. Redmond;’’ and so marked was the feeling
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that the government had shown weakness by failing to reply to the damaging attack of Mr. Sexton, that the next day the government did reply in a long-drawn and weak defense by the attorney general for Ireland, and the debate was further continued for two days, without, however, any of the superior members of the government taking it up. Now comes
THE CLOTURE, or to adopt the plain English word, ‘‘the closure,’’ upon which Mr. Gladstone has set his heart, and which he is evidently determined to carry through. That the adoption of this measure for summarily closing the debate is repugnant to the great mass of the English people, and would be rejected if fairly referred to the body of electors, there can be little doubt. It is not merely the objection of a minority party of putting into the hands of a minister whom they look upon as quite as reckless as he is strong, a new and tremendous power; not merely the objections to gagging minorities which can be made on general principles, but the feeling that this new thing with a French name threatens an innovation upon the British constitution which in some unexplained way may lead no one knows where. The halfhearted, and in many cases deprecatory tone of the liberal press was even more significant than the bitter attacks of the Tory papers, and at the beginning of the session such was the feeling among the members that a speedy dissolution of Parliament if the government insisted upon staking its fate upon this measure was regarded as a matter of certainty. But the imperious determination of the man who is now more truly master of England than any man has been since at least the days of Pitt was not to be lightly balked, and up to the present has seemed to carry everything before it.85 The ‘‘caucus’’ machinery was set in motion; the power of threat and of blandishment in the hands of the controllers of the vast power and patronage of the English government was exerted and a marked change became apparent. At the beginning of the week, well-informed observers deemed a government defeat certain – at the end of the week, their impression was that a government victory was secure. What most largely contributed to this change is the indisposition of the average member to face a new election. Upon an average, it is estimated, a seat in the House of Commons costs d5,000. Even those members who feel confident that they will come back again shrink from such an expenditure,
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and prefer quietly to hold on to their much-prized places as long as they can. And when, in addition to this, a strong government, backed by a well-knit organization, tells its weak-kneed supporters that if they do not stand firm it will not merely face a dissolution, but will oppose their renomination and election, it has a most powerful lever.
THE ‘‘POWERFUL WEAKNESS’’ OF THE TORIES must not be forgotten in any estimate of government strength. That party seems to be today a mere party of negation and defense. And such leaders as it has may well shrink both from the risks of a general election and from the responsibilities of power at the present time. For the only thing certain in a general election is the enormous gain of the Irish Party. Whether the appeal to the country resulted in a Liberal victory or a Conservative victory the working majority could be but a small one, and the Irish Party would certainly hold practically the balance of power. What even the strongest possible Tory government could do in the way of coercing Ireland more than the present Liberal government is doing it is hard to see. But with Liberal opposition, and with the enormous gain in Irish parliamentary strength, which would certainly result from a new election, even a Tory government would be forced to give up coercion. The wiser and cooler heads among the Tories must see this. Fume as they may, and denounce as they may, nothing can be clearer than that the present government is making a better fight for Conservative interests than avowed Conservatives could do. As to the immediate future, it must be impossible even for the bestinformed and most experienced to predict. But this is certain – the tremendous upheaval which is going on in Ireland is setting in motion forces of action and reaction which must produce the most powerful effects, and though in immediate sequence and minor detail these effects may not be predicted, it is certain that all this activity and motion must tend to the destruction of institutions which exist merely by force of habit. What the session already shows is that in spite of the desire both of government and of people to have done with it, the condition of Ireland must be the leading subject. All resolves to ignore it, and to attend to other business, are as futile as would be attempts on the part of the people of the rest of London to ignore the conflagration which was wrapping a fourth of their city in flames.86 How true it is that in the most unexpected ways the Irish question must force itself upon attention, and give rise to
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NEW COMPLICATIONS is shown by the action of the House of Lords, which in spite of all the influence of the government could exert, has, by the decisive majority of forty-six, ordered a Select Committee to inquire into the working of the Land Act. This is regarded as nothing more nor less than a vital blow at Mr. Gladstone’s pet measure. The committee will have power to send for persons and papers; to bring the commissioners to London and not merely to ask the most embarrassing questions, but to seriously interrupt a work already farcical in its delays. That, if suffered to do so, the irate landlords who will compose the committee will push their power to the utmost there can be no doubt. Gladstone, superb in his imperiousness, is the last of men to brook such interference from a body which, whatever be its constitutional consequence, really exists by sufferance, and has interrupted his effort for the cloture to give notice of a motion which may take the gravest form and bring about the most important results. It is little short of madness for the Lords to engage in such a contest; but it is just such madness as this that may be counted on as one of the most important factors in forcing onward the revolutionary movement. It is the madness of the Irish landlords and of the government they inspire that has carried the Irish agitation to its present pitch and is still hurrying forward. Now events have gone so far that the majority of the Irish landlords see nothing but ruin staring them in the face, and are impelled to any desperate chance. And not merely by their votes, but by their sympathy which they excite among their order, they may force the House of Lords into the most dangerous course.
THE SITUATION IN IRELAND. In the nature of things the situation in Ireland cannot long continue. The tension is too great. If the people do not give way – the government must. And that so-called ‘‘Home Rule’’ in some form will be offered by England is as certain as anything in the future can be. There is much expression of horror at the premier’s reference to Home Rule during the debate, but the truth is that in the public mind as well as in the councils of government the fact that Ireland cannot much longer be governed from this side of the [St. George’s] Channel is slowly but surely being recognized. And Mr. Gladstone’s feeler is having the effect of accustoming the British mind to the idea of self-government for Ireland. Without accepting the premier’s
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invitation to propose any plan for Home Rule, some of the Irish members will bring forward a resolution which will in general terms embody their demand and move for a committee. But whatever this may amount to, it is the inexorable logic of events that is pressing the demand. It seems to me that the feeling upon Irish matters is much more rational than it was when I was first in London before Christmas. In large part this is doubtless due to the deepening sense of failure and perplexity, but in perceptible part is it, doubtless, also due to the work that is being done by the British Land League and such associations as the Democratic Federation – to the voices that are here and there making themselves heard? And among the true but staunch friends of Ireland no one is doing more faithful and earnest work than Miss Helen Taylor. Nobly has this noble woman redeemed the pledge she made to her Irish sisters. Pressed with her self-imposed duties upon the London School Board and with the fight against officialism which shelters the horrible cruelty exposed in the St. Paul Industrial School, she is night after night addressing in their club rooms meetings of English workingmen, combating their prejudices and exposing the tyranny which is being practiced in Ireland. And never does she speak without producing a visible effect. It is, moreover, impossible that Gladstone and Forster do not by this time recognize the mistake they have made in thinking that the Irish Land League movement could be crushed out by coercion, and see the impossibility of success on the lines they have been pursuing. How to get out of the difficulties they have created must be the perplexing questions. But the longer the inevitable is resisted the quicker and fuller must be the surrender.
THE IRISH MEMBERS AND THE CLOTURE. So far as their powers of obstruction are concerned the Irish members declare they care nothing about the cloture. If they really wish to obstruct the business of the House of Commons they can do it, cloture or no cloture. One of the ways in which this can be efficiently done is by discussing the private bills which, after having been reported on by committees, pass the House as a matter of course. The fact is that the business of the House of Commons has enormously outgrown the capacity of any deliberative body were it properly attended to, and to virtually block its proceedings would require only the concerted action of a few members. But, though they do not
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consider the cloture as particularly important to them, and are willing to leave the principal part in resistance to it to others, the Irish Party will doubtless be found against the government on the division . . . .
LIBERAL AND TORY Nor can the Irish members be blamed if they seek on every opportunity to make a coalition with the government against the Tories. It is good policy . . . [by] them to bring about a dissolution by any alliance they can make – for whatever might be the result of a new election it would vastly add to their strength by replacing the Whigs who now misrepresent Irish constituencies, with men in sympathy with the Irish people. And not merely this, but on general principles the Tories are less objectionable than the sham Liberals. If Ireland is to be governed despotically let it be by men who deeply avow despotic principles, not by those who have the cant of liberalism on their lips. All I have seen of monarchy and aristocracy has united to make me a more intense democrat than before; but if I had a vote in this country I would under present circumstances vote for the Tory rather than for the Liberal. The fact is that the difference between the two parties is little more than a difference of name. The one party is avowedly the party of aristocrats and landlords. The ‘‘Liberals’’ thus become Tories as soon as they get the power, and Tories who out-Tory Toryism as there is no opposition to hold them in check. Men and newspapers are supporting the coercive policy of the ‘‘Liberal government,’’ who would be loudest in their denunciations were it a Tory government that resorted to such measures.
DR. NULTY. A friend in California sends me an article from the San Francisco Chronicle, in which I am accused of misrepresenting Bishop Nulty’s opinions. I so well understand the difficulties of the position in which Dr. Nulty has been placed by the attitude of his ecclesiastical superiors, Archbishops McCabe and Croke, that I do not wish to take it upon myself to expound his opinions further than he has done so in his own publications. It is, however, due to myself and to The Irish World to say that I have not in any way misrepresented Dr. Nulty, nor has he ever accused me of doing so.
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The London Standard quoted me as declaring that Dr. Nulty endorsed the No Rent Manifesto. In justice to Dr. Nulty I wrote him a letter, in which I stated that I had not attributed to him any political declaration of this kind; and this extract from my letter Dr. Nulty saw fit to publish. But there is nothing in this on which any charge of misrepresentation either against me or against The Irish World can be based. Whether Dr. Nulty approves or disapproves of the No Rent Manifesto I do not know to this day. I never asked him the question, for I too well-understand the delicacy of the position in which the Irish bishops are placed to ask such a question. What I did ask Dr. Nulty was whether there was, in his opinion, anything immoral in the No Rent Manifesto; and to this his emphatic reply was, as I telegraphed to The Irish World, that there was not. Of course, Dr. Nulty does not regard any mere stoppage of the payment of rent as a final and adequate solution of the land question. As he had repeatedly declared, he believes, as I believe, that the land is the common heritage of the whole people, and ought to be made the common property of the whole people. He must, therefore, regard any mere stoppage in the payment of rent as falling far short of the demands of justice, since it would simply put present tenants in place of present landlords, while doing nothing to assert the equal rights of the rest of the people. But the temporary stoppage of rent payments as a defensive measure is quite another thing. Dr. Nulty has freely stated that he sees in this nothing immoral. As to whether he goes further and believes it politic, anyone can form their own opinion. It would have been a very easy matter for Dr. Nulty to have endorsed the action of his ecclesiastical superiors in condemning the Manifesto, and there must have been strong pressure upon him to do so. It would, from an ecclesiastical standpoint, have been very unseemly for him to have rushed into print to endorse it after the prompt action of the archbishops in condemning it. Dr. Nulty has kept silent.
MICHAEL DAVITT FOR MEATH. But Dr. Nulty and his clergy have, by their recent meeting, to recommend a candidate for the seat vacated by A. M. Sullivan, paid the highest compliment in their power to two of the men whose names were attached to the No Rent Manifesto – Michael Davitt and Patrick Egan – by declaring Michael Davitt their first choice, but he being ineligible, Patrick Egan their second. Tomorrow the electors of Meath will meet, and contrary to what is now supposed, if the plan does not leak out, elect Michael Davitt. This plan
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had to be kept secret, because Davitt being ineligible as a convict, the seat would be given under precedents of the House of Commons to the next highest candidate on the list, even if he received but one vote. Therefore, to make this protest against Davitt’s imprisonment without losing the seat it is necessary that there should be no other candidate, and this can only be secured by letting it be supposed that an eligible candidate will be voted for. Davitt’s election will not only be a new proof of the devotion of the people of Ireland to their imprisoned leaders, but will give an opportunity to bring his case before Parliament. And when the election is declared void, as it will be, then the voters of Meath can choose either Egan or someone else who can take his seat.
DR. NULTY’S LETTER. But to return to Bishop Nulty and his opinions on the land question, which I am accused of misrepresenting in order to make them tally with my ‘‘erratic views’’ and the ‘‘communism’’ of The Irish World. Dr. Nulty’s views, as he has published them, are quite as ‘‘communistic’’ as my own. In his ‘‘Letter to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Meath,’’ Dr. Nulty has fully and distinctly set forth his views, and they are substantially identical with the conclusions stated by me in Progress and Poverty. In this letter Dr. Nulty draws the clear distinction between things which are the result of human labor and the soil, which is the free gift of the Creator to His creatures. The first, he declares, is rightfully private property; the second is rightfully common property. The long existence of private property in land he declares no more justifies it than did the long existence of slavery justify property in human flesh and blood. Let me quote a paragraph or two from this letter, in addition to that which The Irish World had made so familiar to its readers: . . . The land of every country is the gift of its Creator to the people of that country; it is the patrimony and inheritance bequeathed to them by their common Father, out of which they can by continuous labor and toil provide themselves with everything they require for their maintenance and support, and for their material comfort and enjoyment. God was perfectly free in the act by which He created us; but, having created us, He bound Himself by that act to provide us with the means necessary for our subsistence. The land is the only means of this kind now known to us. The land, therefore, of every country is the common property of the people of that country, because its real owner, the Creator who made it, has transferred it as a voluntary gift to them. ‘‘Terram autem dedit filiis hominum.’’87
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Now, as every individual in that country is a creature and child of God, and as all His creatures are equal in His sight, any settlement of the land of a country that would exclude the humblest man in that country from his share of the common inheritance would be not only an injustice and a wrong to that man, but, moreover, would be an impious resistance to the benevolent intentions of his Creator. I infer, therefore, that no individual or class of individuals can hold a right of private property in the land of a country; that the people of that country, in their public corporate capacity, are, and always must be, the real owners of the land of their country – holding an indisputable title to it, in the fact that they received it as a free gift from its Creator, and as a necessary means for preserving and enjoying the life He has bestowed upon them.
The individual who has improved land Dr. Nulty declares entitled to the benefit of that improvement, and should be secured in its enjoyment and be entitled to receive either a selling price or rent for it; but the value of land which arises from the growth of the community and not what any particular individual has done (that is to say, rent in the strict use of the term) belongs to the whole community, and ought to be taken by taxation for the use of the whole community. In the fact that rent proper – or that value of land which is not due to the individual exertion of the occupier or improver – constantly increases with the growth of society, Dr. Nulty sees – as everyone must see who recognizes the true relation of this fact – a most beautiful evidence of creative design. He says: This great social fact appears to me to be of incalculable importance, and it is fortunate indeed that on the strictest principles of justice it is not clouded even by a shadow of uncertainty or doubt. There is, moreover, a charm and a peculiar beauty in the clearness with which it reveals the wisdom and the benevolence of the designs of Providence in the admirable provision He has made for the wants and the necessities of that state of social existence of which He is the author, and in which the very instincts of nature tell us we are to spend our lives. A vast public property, a great national fund, has been placed under the dominion and at the disposal of the nation to supply itself abundantly with resources necessary to liquidate the expenses of its government, the administration of its laws and the education of its youth, and to enable it to provide for the suitable sustentation and support of its criminal and pauper population. One of the most interesting peculiarities of this property is that its value is never stationary; It is constantly progressive and increasing in a direct ratio to the growth of the population; and the very causes that increase and multiply the demands made on it increase proportionately its ability to meet them, as I shall clearly show further on.
And Dr. Nulty does proceed to show that the appropriation of this fund by a class is the primary cause of the gross inequality in the distribution of
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wealth which exists in England as well as in Ireland; that the land question concerns artisans and operatives and all classes of workingmen quite as much as it does farmers; that the evils which the working classes everywhere feel do not arise from any necessary conflict of labor and capital; but from the appropriation of land as private property, and that it is to the full and complete resumption of their heritage in the land by the appropriation of rent to common uses that the working classes should bend their efforts. These are Bishop Nulty’s views as stated by him in a pastoral letter to the clergy and laity of his diocese. There is, of course, nothing communistic in them, but whoever insists on classing Michael Davitt, or Patrick Ford, or myself as communists must also include Dr. Nulty. And, further than this, to my own personal knowledge, Dr. Nulty is not the only Irish bishop who entertains these views while they are rapidly permeating the ranks of the lower clergy and especially the regular clergy. In my opinion, the time is even now passed when the Irish land agitation can be closed, even temporarily, by any scheme for buying out the landlords and selling again to the tenants.
‘‘SPREAD THE LIGHT.’’ It seems to me that no better use could be made of some portion of the Land League money than by setting aside a fund for the purposes of ‘‘Spreading the Light.’’ The efforts of The Irish World have accomplished a great deal, but more remains to be done. Dr. Nulty’s letter, to which I have alluded, has, for instance, not been circulated anything like extensively as I would like to see it. In fact, it was hardly known in Ireland until The Irish World began to call attention to it. I am glad to learn that the Land League of Great Britain has published an edition of 20,000 copies of Dr. Nulty’s letter to Joseph Cowen, while the Democratic Foundation has printed 20,000 copies of Joseph Cowen’s speech. Reading matter of the right sort is eagerly sought in Ireland, and there is a wide and useful field for it in England.
10. ‘‘WORK AND WAGES’’ (WITH FATHER O’BOYLE) Henry George Bringing the Question Home to Irishmen Mighty Voice in Belfast. Father O’Boyle and the Great American Economist Pleading for No Rent. ‘‘This Movement Cannot be Put Down Until Every Man Born on Irish Soil will be an Independent Man.’’88 From the Ulster Examiner, Saturday, Feb. 4. Last night St. Mary’s Hall was crowded to excess to hear Mr. Henry George, the great American political economist, deliver a lecture upon ‘‘Work and Wages.’’ The proceedings were under the auspices of the Belfast Political Prisoners’ Aid Society, to whose fund for the relief of the suspects now in Kilmainhaim and other prisons of the country the sum realized by the lecturer will be devoted. Among those on the platform were: . . . 89 On the motion of Mr. Felix Devlin, seconded by Mr. Robert McPeake, the Rev. Father O’Boyle was called to the chair.
FATHER O’BOYLE’S REMARKS. I accept the position of chairman of this magnificent meeting timidly, of course, but with pleasure. I do not disguise from myself that I am honored by the position. Your anti-Irish Irishman – there are such abortions – may delight in the exercise of government patronage, in being the parasite of a decaying nobility, or in having secured some piece of petty respectability under the Coercion ministry – for my part I glory in the friendship of the suspects.90 (Cheers.) I am proud to take my stand with all who hate injustice, and who are not ashamed publicly to declare themselves on the side of the workingman and of Ireland. You understand that we have 87
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assembled here to have a lecture on one of the burning questions of the hour from Mr. George, the leading political economist of the United States. (Cheers.) We are assured of a rare intellectual treat, and of something more than that. Mr. George comes to us heralded by a great name. The subject of ‘‘Work and Wages’’ which he has come to unravel this evening should be full of great interest for Irishmen, with few exceptions. The vast majority of our people are either workers in the fields or the factory. Though most Irishmen have some respectable cousin, there are very few of the native race – thanks to England – born with a silver spoon in their mouth. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Being hewers of wood and drawers of water, we must look sharp to the wages section of the lecture. Where there’s progress – there is little progress here – there should be less poverty; where there’s work done, it should have its fair wage; whatever man contributes to produce, he has a right to participate in its fruits. (Cheers.) We should hate the verse which put those demoralizing words into the mouth of the workman (Cheers.): We’re low, we’re low, we’re very, very low. Yet from our fingers glide The silken bow, and the robes that glow Round the limbs of the sons of ride; And what we get and what we give We know, and we know our share; We’re not too low, the cloth to weave, But too low the cloth to wear. (Cheers.)
I trust Mr. George will impart to us more esprit de corps, will teach us to have more respect for our calling as workmen, and leave wages that we won honestly. If you will permit a slight digression, I will introduce Mr. George to you as something more, however, greater than that one who lectures en passant, on ‘‘Work and Wages.’’ (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Mr. George has come to render Ireland at large a signal service. (Cheers.) His great purpose, which should raise him immeasurably in our esteem, is to watch the dealings of England with Ireland. When every other friendly voice is silenced, when every other pen has been stayed, he is here, at all hazard, to speak and to write to the world generally, and to America, the moral avenger of Ireland, in particular, that our current history is dark with despotism, that the Land Bill as administered, is a sham, being utterly useless for remedying, in any reasonable time, the sufferings of this country. (Cheers.) In this matter Mr. George has undertaken a heavy and holy task. For the last few months we have been making history at a lightning rate. We have had the old turmoil and confusion of Irish agitation forcing some good, yet winding up in the all but usual swindle; and in the unvarying and unnecessary
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acts of cruelty on the part of our oppressors. We have accomplished a little; we have to suffer much. The Land Bill, such as it is – which we have captured with the unstinted aid of America – must, to suit the fame of our Whig ministry, be accepted as heaven-sent and final.91 (Hisses.) However dark the side it presents to us, it has to be allowed after the manner of the pillar in the desert, to shine like fire on the other side – on the side presented to the world, looking for the justice of England. We cannot be tolerated to convict Mr. Gladstone – (groans) – of falsehood or double-dealing when he proclaims to Europe: ‘‘Now I have given to Ireland her full measure of justice.’’ It is that the name of Gladstone may be kept blazing for awhile that our leaders are clapped into prison and that our newspapers are being suppressed. Mr. George has come to contribute his share to counteract the deluge of untruth about these, our affairs, which a venal and hireling press pours out daily. He wields a mighty power on our behalf. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) From the evidence of his own senses he will tell the free people of the States that the sores of the Irish race at home are not yet healed. He will tell that Gladstone and his pigheaded Forster by their Land Bill seem to have intended only to prop up a vicious system and give renewed life and impetus to the evictor. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) He will be able to tell that Gladstone and Forster command 60,000 armed men to assist the landlords in depopulating this country – in hurling the people from the homes of their fathers for the nonpayment of a rent which the law is daily declaring to be unjust (Cheers.) Mr. George will proclaim that British laws on parchment, signed by her majesty, and that Europe may read, are vastly different from these same laws as executed in Ireland. It is very clear, then, that we owe Mr. George the very heartiest reception. (‘‘So we will.’’) We should be glad of being afforded this opportunity of testifying to him that Ireland is grateful for his generous services on her behalf. Were we not gagged, browbeaten, and impoverished by alien rule, we should give him welcome in richer fashion. (Cheers.) He hails from America – that were enough – from America – the friend of Ireland. (Cheers.) Mr. George is one of the principal contributors to The Irish World. (Cheers.) Though we are not called upon to endorse everything that appears in the columns of that or any other journal, he is the more welcome to us in that he is closely connected with a paper that has championed our cause with sincerity and power, and is now banned by Dublin Castle. In better times and under happier circumstances – times and circumstances we shall endeavor to command – we should try to give Mr. George welcome in proportion to our detestation of English unjust government, and in proportion to the never-to-be-repaid debt of gratitude which on a thousand titles we owe the great Republic of the West. (Cheers.) I have very much pleasure in introducing Mr. George.
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SPEECH OF MR. HENRY GEORGE. Mr. George, who was enthusiastically received, said: Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your cordial welcome, and I am glad to see in Belfast tonight such a meeting not to welcome me, but in honor of the patriotic men who now lie in your jails – in honor of the suspects. (Cheers.) For their aid and sustenance and help it is well that you men have come together. You owe it to them – you owe it to yourselves; and though not an Irishman, I assure you I share our good chairman’s contempt for the un-Irish Irishmen who can hold back at such a time and in such a struggle. (Cheers.) We [have] met here together tonight in honor and in aid of those political prisoners. Political prisoners! Who have been the political prisoners of the world? Look through the page of history. The men who have stood up for the rights of their fellows! (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Whom do we honor today? What are the greatest names that blazon the pages of history? Those of political prisoners; those who expiated in the dungeon and upon the scaffold their patriotism and their devotion. (Cheers.) It needs not to tell Irishmen this [sic]. Of all countries in the world this is exemplified in the history of Ireland. The men who have deserved well of the nation, what has been their fate? The dungeon, the scaffold, and exile from their land. Who have been the men who have reaped honors and sat in high places and had their families ennobled? The men who have sold and betrayed their country. (Cheers.) And who today are these political prisoners –
THE SUSPECTS OF 1882. Men for whom the great heart of the nation throbs – men who are today the best-loved men in Ireland. Charles Stewart Parnell – (cheers) – last month I went down to his place to see his neighbors plowing his ground. (Cheers.) It is one of the most beautiful spots in Ireland – a spot known throughout the world by one of those musical songs of your best-known poet; a house that seemed to me the pleasantest I had seen in Ireland, if not anywhere else in the world; a library looking out upon a magnificent view, and filled with a large collection of books. Everything was there that could make life pleasant and enjoyable. With his talents, with his opportunities, what might not Charles Stewart Parnell have been [?](Cheers.) But where is he today? I saw him yesterday in the Kilmainham cells – (hisses) – a prisoner, all but fettered, dragging away the weary hours of
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irksome confinement. There today is the man of men in Ireland – best loved and honored by the masses of the people – the man whom three constituencies elected to Parliament. (Cheers.) I saw there another man of whom a woman said: ‘‘I was sick of the smallpox and no one would touch me till Dr. Kenny lifted me up in his arms.’’ That man in Kilmainham. But why go over the list? You know them all. Five-hundred men on whom your municipalities have bestowed the greatest honors that they had to bestow. But not content with men they are putting women in the cells. (Hisses.) I heard last night of a beautiful and delicate young woman, tenderly nurtured, who was down in Cork on a message of mercy for the Ladies’ Land League. She refused to give bail, and was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, and taken to the common jail to lie on a felon’s bed of plank. (A voice: ‘‘Groans for Lloyd.’’ Another voice: ‘‘We’ll shoot him.’’ Cries of ‘‘order.’’) And out of Ireland there is a man in an English prison – a man who no Irishman ought to forget – a man who will take rank amongst the greatest and noblest that Ireland has produced – Michael Davitt – (cheers) – [the whole audience rising and cheering.] Men of Belfast, you do well to rise and cheer when that name is mentioned. No name can be mentioned that better deserves your cheers. I know of no instance of heroism greater than that of Michael Davitt’s. You know Michael Davitt’s history; how he was condemned during the Fenian terror to fifteen years’ imprisonment; how there stood with him in the prisoners’ dock, and was sentenced with him, an Englishman whom Davitt knew to be entirely innocent. You remember how he stood up there when that dreadful sentence (for it is a most dreadful sentence that of fifteen years’ penal servitude) had been passed upon him and he said to the judge: ‘‘This man is innocent; let him go and impose his sentence upon me.’’ (Loud cheers.) And if you have read the history of Michael Davitt’s imprisonment; if you know anything about that terrible torture of penal servitude; how this one-armed man was compelled to pick oakum – (cries of ‘‘shame’’) – how he was tortured until his reason gave way – tortured in a way that bereft of their reason or killed almost all the men who were prisoners with him at the time. If you remember that you will appreciate
THE HEROISM OF DAVITT. He was in the United States, doing there a good work and a great work, and at the first note of danger started back to the old country. (Cheers.) I had the
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honor – and I esteem it an honor – of bidding Michael Davitt ‘‘good bye’’ on the deck of the steamer that bore him from New York. I said to him: ‘‘Are you not going back simply to be put in prison again?’’ He said: ‘‘I am afraid so; I expect it to be so; but there is the place of duty, and there I will go.’’ (Applause.) The man who will do that is a brave man than he who bares his breast to the cannon; the man who will do that has the highest attribute of manhood, and not simple courage. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) I think I know something of Michael Davitt, and I believe him to be as pure-minded and as broad-minded as he is courageous. (Applause.) I believe he went into this fight to go to the end – not in a spirit of revenge, but in a spirit of charity, for the purpose of doing good to his fellow countrymen and to the world (Applause.) It is well said to wait till a man dies before you write his epitaph; but I believe that Michael Davitt’s name will pass down in Irish history as one of the greatest, one of the purest, and one of the best of Irishmen – and he today lies there in Portland Prison. (Hissing.) I saw a letter in a London paper the other day from an American, who said that the Americans had no sympathy with the Irish cause. I tell you that the American who understands what this cause is and who does not sympathize with it is a renegade and a traitor – (loud cheers) – a renegade to the principles upon which our nation was founded, and to the memory of the men who gained for us our independence. (Loud and continued cheers.)
WHAT IS THE AMERICAN PRINCIPLE? What is it but that grand principle enunciated in the golden sentence of our Declaration: We hold these truths to be self-evident – that men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that to maintain these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their power from the consent of the governed; and that when any government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. (Cheers.)92
Is this a government of consent which exists in Ireland today? (Loud cries of ‘‘no’’ and cheers.) A government under which five-hundred of the best men of the country lie in jail on reasonable suspicion. (Hisses.) A government under which citizens cannot be trusted to carry arms. (Groans.) Here in this town of yours how much self-government is there? Why, you have no more control over your police force – (groaning) – than
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I have, or over your judges either. You have simply the privilege of paying the taxes. (Cheers and laughter.) I come before you tonight to lecture upon ‘‘Work and Wages.’’ There is to my mind a very close connection between this subject and things we have been talking about – (‘‘hear, hear’’) – between this subject and the cause for which we [have] here met together. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Questions of work and wages – what opportunities a man shall have, what he shall get for his toil, lie at the bottom of all great political movements. They lie at the bottom of all great political disturbances and revolutions. A philosopher has said that the two great and permanent parties of every country are the hose of ‘‘have’’ and the house of ‘‘want’’ – (cheers and laughter) – the party of aristocracy and the party of democracy – the party of equal rights and the party of special privileges. (Loud cheers.) What have been all the struggles, all the wars, and all the revolutions of the world but struggles between those two parties? (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) What was the American Revolution, what was the French Revolution – (cheers) – which followed it? What was that great war of ours the struggle in which a million men faced each other, and a black curse went out of sight forever93 – (cheers) – the struggle of a few to maintain their privilege of ruling and robbing the many – (loud cheers) – the struggle of a few to live without working themselves, and therefore to live by the sweat of other people’s brows? (Cheers.) If we look over the history of the world we shall find that it is to maintain such privileges that political prisoners are thrown into jail and then the scaffold erected for popular leaders. There was a time in Ireland when a man in the garb of the gentleman who now presides here could not have shown his face in public, when a price was set upon his head. What was the cause of that? What was the reason of those infamous penal laws that garnish Irish history? A desire to save Irishman’s souls? No; but the lust for the land of Irishmen – (loud cheers) – the endeavor to keep the great masses of this country in poverty and in servitude that an aristocratic and privileged class might live easily and fare daintily. And that greatest and most momentous of all great struggles – the struggle of Christianity against paganism – what was that? Rome was most tolerant to all religions before Christianity appeared; it was her boast that all the gods in the world had their shrines in the imperial city. But the new religion was persecuted – the new religion was hunted and fought to the death, and why? Because it preached the equality of man – (enthusiastic cheers) – because it preached the fatherhood of God; because it was a message to the slave that he was a man, and that corrupt aristocracy overgrown with ill-gotten wealth wrested from the sweat and blood of
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tributary nations feared that the preaching of such a doctrine would be a menace to them – as it was. (Loud cheers.) What is this present contest?
HOW DID THE LAND LEAGUE MOVEMENT ORIGINATE? There came a cry to us, as it had come before, that women and children were dying in Ireland of famine and the call went forth to all the world: ‘‘Help us or we perish!’’ The cry was answered. (Cheers.) Contributions flowed in. But some men who had the love of Ireland in their hearts began to ask themselves: ‘‘Why is that our country, so fertile by nature, should be a beggar before the world?’’ (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Why these periodical famines? It was not because Nature was unkind. During these very Irish famines in which you have had to call on the charity of the world this country was still a food-exporting country. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) The real cause of the famine was not that crops had failed. It is in the nature of things that crops should sometimes fail. It was simply that the masses of the people were so poor that when there came a bad season they had not enough left to provide themselves. And to make up this drain to pay the rent that is constantly streaming out of the country food had to be exported, while the world was being called upon for charity. These men said: ‘‘We will strike at the root of the evil;’’ and the Land League movement was begun, and it has been carried forward. (Loud cheers.) It is more than a political movement. It goes much further than any mere political change. Its aims are to strike at the root of the evil, to ensure a state of things in which there shall be no such thing as famine in Ireland. (Cheers.)
WORK AND WAGES The speaker said the subject of ‘‘Work and Wages’’ was a very great subject, which he could not in an hour or two deal with properly, or even begin. Continuing, he said: There is one plain truth that I want to call your attention to and to firmly fix in your minds, and that is this: Among you in Ireland, as everywhere else, there are some people who get too much wages and do too little work (cheers) – and there are other people who do too much work and get too little wages! (Cheers and laughter.) I think this audience belongs to the latter class. (‘‘Hear, hear,’’ and cheers.) Men who get much wages and do no work for it do not come to meetings like this.
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(Cheers and laughter.) They have no sympathy with political prisoners, nor with anything else of the kind. (A voice: ‘‘Themselves’’ and laughter.) Look at the great stream of money which comes to you from America. That is not contributed by rich Irishmen – and there are many in my country – not by Irish millionaires, not by owners of great tracts of land, but by the working classes – (cheers) – by the hard toilers, men and women. It is thing you may be proud of, that the Irish people do not forget their kin – do not forget this land that gave them birth, but carry with them thousands of miles away that love and devotion which keeps up that stream the English government cannot understand. In speaking of workingmen I include all who may in any way contribute to production or conservation for the interests of society. And I say to you that we all do too much work for too little wages. (Much cheering.) Think for a moment what work is. It produces everything which we call wealth. Wealth is never the spontaneous gift of Nature. Even a fish must be taken from the sea, and the fruits of the earth must be gathered. In the very Garden of Eden a man would starve unless it not reasonable, then that the man who produces the most should have the most? That man who works the hardest and best should have most of the good things of this world. (Cheers.) But you find it is not so. Go through this country and you will see miserable little hovels. These are the homes of men who work. But you see a great palace. Ask: ‘‘Who’s is this. Is this the house of a man who works?’’ ‘‘Not at all,’’ will be the reply, ‘‘it is the house of a man who does not work.’’ (Cheers and laughter.) I have seen many sad sights in Ireland. I have seen workingmen and workingwomen – aye, gentlemen and ladies in the broadest sense of the term – living in little bits of hovels; a man, his wife, and six or eight children in a place hardly big enough or fit to keep a donkey in – (‘‘hear, hear’’) – and I have seen them put out of these hovel by armies of constables and soldiers – (groans) – but what struck me as the saddest sight and the hardest I have seen in Ireland I saw in your own city of Belfast. Belfast is what we Americans would call the liv[li]est town in Ireland – it is a great manufacturing town, and reminds you more of an American city than anything I have seen in Ireland. A friend took me over [to],
ONE OF YOUR GREAT FACTORIES. There I saw in a hot and stifling atmosphere young children and delicate women working at the most monotonous of employment, working in all that heat and grease. Day after day, week after week, and month after
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month, and for what? These women only get seven shillings a week. Why, there are people in this country who would hardly think that sufficient to buy a meal. It would not buy a big round of beef. The people who are condemned to that kind of employment become necessarily stunted in body and in mind. Think of it: tender women standing up feeding those looms for ten hours a day for seven shillings a week; and mothers – so the manager told me – bring their children of eight years of age and begging for employment; children who ought to be running about playing, getting strength and vigor into their young limbs, put down in one of those prisons – for they are nothing better – and working all day there for a miserable living. Is this the result of civilization? If it is, then I think those savage races are wisest who say we want none of your civilization. (Cheers.) I speak of this factory but as an example. Where you can find women and children working in that way you must find the great masses of men having the hardest possible work to get the scantiest possible living for their families. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Did God Almighty, the creator of this earth and of us, intend that His creatures should do that? If He did – and there are those who hold that He did – then there is an end of it and we cannot repine. We cannot complain, although we may wonder. But if He did not, then it arises from social maladjustment, and it is our duty to ourselves and our children and those that are crushed under foot by this juggernaut of advancing civilization to do what we can to destroy the system. But the Creator did not intend women and children to work as those women and children are working – and the proof of it is plain. They are not adapted for it. A woman’s physical constitution is such that she can’t work in that way without injury. The child’s physical constitution is such that it can’t. A good priest who knows all about it lately told me that these poor women and children in the mills were literally working away their lives. I think he said the average term of life of one of those mill girls was thirtyfive years, whereas it should be three score years and ten. (A voice: ‘‘The average is good deal shorter than thirty-five’’ and ‘‘hear, hear.’’) The Creator of the universe brings into this world one man for every woman, and something more than that. In the natural order of things the man is the breadwinner, and can provide for the woman who bears his children, and for the children that she bears. In all the habitable parts of the world human beings can keep themselves in ordinary times by the labor of the breadwinner of the family. Take an uninhabited island and put upon it one or two families, and you will find that they will make a living there. And as the population increases so does the power of production increase.
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Twenty men working together will produce much more and twenty times as much as one man working singly. As population increases its power of getting wealth increases, and there is not merely more in the aggregate, but more per head for each individual. Because, if you look over the world, you will find that the other things being equal, the greatest wealth is where there is the greatest population; and you will find that on such an island as that to which I have been referring as the population increases the people will have more and more. But only upon one condition – only upon the condition that there be free access to the bounty of Nature – only upon the condition that their access to the land is free (Cheers.) Make one individual the owner of that island, and he, by virtue of that ownership, is the master of all the rest who must live upon it. The men, women, and children are truly his slaves. He can compel them to do as he pleases; because, if they don’t choose to live upon his land on his terms, he can evict them – drive them out into the sea. He holds virtually over them a power of life and death. And so if you made one class the owner of the land, that class would be the masters of the rest, and they would be but serfs and slaves. (Cheers.) You can see that plainly enough. What are those women and children I have been speaking about but slaves? What is the life of the operative in this country but slavery?
WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF SLAVERY? That one man shall work for another, and that all he gets out of the proceeds of his labor is just enough to keep him in existence. (‘‘Hear, hear,’’ and loud cheers.) What is the ordinary living of the average workingman? Just about enough to keep him alive. I don’t believe that in any decent system of slavery – I am certain that so far as the average slave in our American states was concerned – the man had more of the ordinary physical comforts of existence than many of those so-called free white workingmen. (Cheers.) The reason for this kind of slavery is that the land of the country is treated as the property of a class. It is a great mistake to think, as a great many people do that this land question is something that relates entirely to farmers. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Why, what would any one of us be without land? What possible avocation could be carried on without it? Let a man working up ten stories in a garret, he yet rests on the land. And what can he possibly do in the way of productive work but unite his labor either to land or to the products that come from the land? All productive labor is in the last analysis but that
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union – the union of human labor with the raw material of Nature. Without land there could not be productive labor. Without land there can be no existence. Therefore, when a class holds the land on which and by which the whole of the people must live the masses of the people must toil for a bare living, whether toiling in the factories or the fields, in ships upon the sea or deep down in the mines beneath the surface of the earth. (Cheers.) Let me show you the connection in a way that is unmistakable. Two weeks ago I was up in Donegal. On a bleak, windswept peninsula I saw some forty-five families driven out of their homes by an army of constables and soldiers – driven out of their homes by the dictate of a man who had never seen this country, of a Scotchman, not an Englishman; of a man who lives not in Donegal, but in Edinburgh. Unless they get back they will ultimately be driven to America, or into Londonderry, or down here to Belfast, and compete in the labor market – (applause) – must come in and get work at any terms. They must have work. After I saw the mill I was telling you about, I went with one of your good clergymen down to a little alley, and there I saw a family from the country, a man a wife, and six children; who had come down here and were trying to get places for their children and trying to get work for themselves. Drive the people off the land and they must necessarily be driven into this labor market – must necessarily compete with each other like starving men – like drowning men. They must take ultimately the lowest wages that supports life. What fixes wages? Did you ever think of that? On what terms will I work for another man? It will depend when you come down to the lowest analysis upon what I can get by working for myself. If there are more workingmen competing for employment than there are employers for workingmen, wages must go down until they reach the lowest point of living. That is the reason why people are working for such little wages; that is the reason why, when machinery has multiplied a thousandfold the capacity of human muscles, people are working for a bare living – the wages of slavery. (‘‘Hear, hear,’’ and cheers.) How can we in any way open today opportunities which would give larger wages? Suppose there were tonight to rise in this ocean that laves the shore a new island, upon which anybody who chooses to put in a day’s work would make 10 s. a day. You would see that the very lowest wages would rise to 10 s. a day. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) The country where I came from and where I have grown up (California) wages were higher than elsewhere in the world. In the early days of California three *** a day were the ordinary wages of laborers.94 Why? Because the gold placers were open for the laborer, and
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because they were not monopolized.95 The early settlers adopted the natural principle that no man had a right to more than he could reasonably use. (‘‘Hear, hear,’’ and cheers.) Now that wages have gone down in California, it is not because the producing power has grown less, but simply that, under this cursed system of land monopolization, the land has been monopolized. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Take this island of yours. It is rich enough to give ample, luxurious support to every man who is willing to do a reasonable amount of labor. Look at the proof of it. Look at the number of people who are maintained without doing any work at all. Necessarily, the man who does work must maintain those who do not work. Look at the number of people in this island of yours who
DO NOT WORK AT ALL, YET LIVE ON THE FAT OF THE LAND Look at those landlords of yours – (loud hissing) – spending here or drawing off to other countries – to London or to Paris – millions and millions of money. Where does that money come from? It comes necessarily from the toil of the people. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Of what use are those landlords? What do they contribute to the national wealth? What do they contribute to production? Why they, as landlords, are of no more use than so many grizzly bears. (Loud cheers.) They eat; they destroy. You could afford to keep a herd of wild elephants and let them roam through the country as cheaply as you can keep these lords and earls, and other cattle of that sort. (Loud cheers.) Not only that – look at the unproductive elements a little further. You have in this little island of five millions of people 50,000 ablebodied men going around dressed up in uniform and rifles. (Hissing and laughter.) They eat, and they drink, and they are clothed; yet toil not, neither do they spin. They are kept on the toil of those who do work, and for what? Simply to maintain this system which gives to the man who does not work the wages that really belong to the men who do work. (Applause.) That is not all. Look at your prisons! In them today are five-hundred suspects, men who would be gladly at work, and who are compelled to sit in idleness, supported by others. Look at your criminal population – at the poor fellows who habitually tenant those houses of torture. Look at your workhouses – why, I think the most imposing buildings you have in Ireland,
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except some of the palaces, are these workhouses. (Cheers.) All those people who do not work and who do not toil must be maintained by the toil of those who do work, and therefore must reduce their wages. And look again at the enormous wastes that this system entails – all the wastes of poverty, all the wastes of want of capital. But look, furthermore, look at that greatest of all wastes, the waste of brainpower. (Cheers.) Man’s arm is but a tiny force; it is man’s brain that is the power by which he brings Nature to his feet; with which he compels Nature to disgorge her wealth. (Loud cheers.) In people working as those people work; chained there during all the working hours amid the whir; to those people herded in those little cabins, herded as you herd the beasts, there are powers as great, and talents as splendid as any that were ever exerted for the improvement or benefit of the human family – (cheers) – going to waste – all going to waste because of this system which denies to a man who works [for] the bread which Nature intended he should have, and the wages which Nature intended he should enjoy. (Cheers.) There is enough in the world for all of us if we do not thus waste it. Let anyone think of this waste of force, of all this unproductive expenditure, and he will readily see that an adjustment of society is possible, in which poverty would be a thing absolutely unknown – (‘‘hear, hear’’) – in which no one should have any more worry abut getting a living than he has how to worry about getting the air he breathes. What would the people think if they saw a number of birds laboring, not to feed themselves, but to feed a big, lazy, overgrown one of their number which was too indolent to work? We would think of them just about what they would think of us, if they could think. Is it not absurd that a man in Edinburgh says that land up in Donegal is his [?]. Why, if we had not become used to hear such claims we would think anyone who should soberly assume such a claim a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. (Laughter.) What has this island been created for but for the use of the men who live upon it? (Cheers.) The man who does not live upon it, what right has he to put a price upon it? (‘‘None.’’) With as much reason he might lay claim to the moon. (‘‘Hear, hear, and laughter.’’) And to admit such claims is as wicked as absurd. It is to give to those who do no work the power of wresting their fairly earned wages and from those who do work – to bring about squalor and poverty, exile and death. It is this that fills prisons and workhouses, and compels men and women and little children to the hardest work and the smallest wages. These evils cannot be removed nor the land question settled by half-way measures of Mr. Gladstone’s bill.96 If the land of Ireland belongs to the landlords, as the government says, then it is unjust to take any of it, or the
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value of it, from them. (Cheers.) It is theirs and they can exact whatever rent they please for it. If, on the other hand, they have not those rights which they claim, then the land of Ireland belongs to the people of Ireland, and those people who call themselves landlords have simply no rights at all, any more than any other individuals of the nation. (Cheers.)
THIS IS THE TRUE DOCTRINE, the doctrine the Land League should announce: that the battle must be fought on if it is to succeed, and this doctrine has been put in a nutshell by one of the greatest and best of living Irishmen, Bishop Nulty, of Meath. (Great and prolonged cheering.) Mr. George read from Dr. Nulty’s letter to the clergy and laity of the diocese of Meath: The land of every country is the common property of the people of that country; because its real owner – the Creator who made it – has transferred it as a voluntary gift to them. Terram autem dedit filiis hominum. (‘‘The earth He hath given to the children of men.’’) Now, as every individual, in every country, is a creature of God, and as all His creatures are equal in His sight, any settlement of the land of this or any other country that would exclude the humblest man in that country from his share in the common inheritance would not only be an injustice and a wrong to that man, but would, moreover, be an impious resistance to the benevolent intentions of his Creator. (Cheers.)
This paragraph had been recently taken from the bishop’s letter, and circulated through the country as a sort of proclamation – not, however, by the bishop, for he knew nothing about it, but by other friends of justice. It had frightened the English press, who said: ‘‘Here is rank communism from an Irish Catholic bishop!’’ But it was not communistic – in the bad sense of that term. Whoever will read Dr. Nulty’s letter will see that he proposes no division of rightful property, no overturning of the beneficial institutions of society. And in this self-evident truth there is nothing new and nothing unChristian. Here for generation after generation was the center of light for the Western World.
IRELAND WAS CHRISTIAN WHEN THE COUNTRIES AROUND HER WERE BARBARIAN. It was from here that the missionaries went forth to England, Scotland, and the continent to spread the truths of Christianity. How did Ireland treat the land at the time? She treated it as the common property of the people, every
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man being entitled to a fair share. (Cheers.) The feudal system, too, recognized the same truth, that the land of the country was the common property of the people of that country; the present system, a thing of comparative recent origin, had grown up in England by usurpation and fraud, dating from what was called the Reformation.97 It had been forced on Ireland by the sword. And now they were told that it was something sacred. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) To carry into practice the self-evident truth that the land belongs to the whole people, all it was necessary to do was to take for the benefit of the whole people that income which belongs properly to the whole community, and which now goes to the landlords. You have in Ulster the principle of tenant right, which recognizes that there are two properties in the land. There is that portion which should be for the occupier for what he has created and the improvements he has made. That should go to him as the result of his labor. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) All you have to do with the other portion is to take it from the landlord and apply it to the common interests as in the olden time. I have appealed to your cupidity, as the landlords say. It seem to me eminently desirable that not merely the tenant farmers, but the agricultural laborers and the workingmen of the cities, should feel that they do too much work for too little wages. But to more than selfish motives I would appeal. Look around this country today, and you will see little children growing up in squalor and ignorance. You will see sights that touch your hearts. What will you do for them? Charity – the mere giving of money – what does it accomplish? Nothing permanent to help those who so need help, you must do something that will improve the social condition. You must raise society from below and give the people an opportunity. What we want is not charity, but simply justice. (Cheers.) I trust this movement that has commenced here is in its first beginnings, and that it will go on and on.
I DON’T BELIEVE IT CAN BE PAT BROWN. (CHEERS.) There is strength in ideas that is greater than the strength of bayonets, and I trust and believe this movement will go on, not as a movement of violence, but as a movement of thought; that it will not merely secure to you selfgovernment, but a social system under which every man born on Irish soil will have an opportunity to make an easy and comfortable living – to stand
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up in the face of his fellows as an independent man. (Cheers.) In doing this you will not only have done something for yourself, but something for the civilized world. Already the Irish movement is telling everywhere. It is telling in England, and already bringing up a land question there. It is telling upon our side of the water. For we, too, have made the mistake of copying this system of private property in land, and if we are to preserve our freedom we, too, must secure to every citizen not merely a vote, but an equal share in the land of his country. (Loud and prolonged applause.) Mr. A. M’Erlean proposed a vote of thanks to the lecturer in an able and forcible speech, in the course of which he paid a high compliment to Mr. Henry George, who, he said, was admitted to be the greatest political economist of the day, and his coming over to Ireland had been the greatest blessing that America had ever conferred on this country. (‘‘Hear, hear,’’ and cheers.) Those who perused his great work must know that he was a man who had given his entire attention to the subject which he had come to illustrate there that night, and that he brought to his task a mind capable of grasping with the facts and arguments best suited to the important question which was perplexing the people of the present generation. They were under a deep debt of gratitude to Mr. George for the able and thrilling lecture that he had delivered, and he (Mr. M’Erlean) was certain that it would result in much benefit to the working people of Belfast, who would now become alive to the great question of the hour, and were determined to assert their rights against the dominant powers which had so long overruled them and deprived them of their just demands. To eulogize Mr. George before that audience, who had so heartily applauded him, and who had evidently listened with unbounded admiration to his profound eloquence, would be an effort quite unnecessary on his part. (Cheers.) . . . . Mr. George acknowledged the warmth of his reception and the heartiness of the compliment that had been paid to him. He could testify to what Mr. Ferguson had said about the Land League.98 He knew something of the leaders of the movement on both sides of the water . . . . Patrick Ford of The Irish World – (great and continued applause) . . . who had done so much to inaugurate, to support, and extend this movement; there did not live a truer, or more earnest and single-hearted man; nor did he think a more devout and consistent Christian, a man whose arms were high and noble, and who endeavored to work to just ends by just means; a man who believed heartily and unreservedly in the strength of moral sentiments and was consistently appealing to them. To say such men as Patrick Ford were striving for robbery, and outrage, and murder was preposterous. (Cheers.)
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And what had been said of Michael Davitt was the truth. (Cheers.) He was a peacemaker – he was put in jail, and today there were more outrages committed than would have been the case had he been out of prison. (Cheers.) He [Mr. George] believed as certainly as he stood there the cause which they were advocating must win. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) There had been progress made in three years – enormous progress – not only here, but over the whole world, and that progress was accelerating every day, so that in another three years politics would be so changed that those who were now Conservatives would be as far advanced as the Radicals of the present day. Mr. Gladstone and Forster – (groans) – had done more by their coercion to help on this movement than even its advocates could have done, and as for the landlords of Ireland, their madness was simply the madness of those whom the gods had doomed to destruction. (Cheers.) That system of slavery which existed here and elsewhere will be destroyed just as that accursed system of chattel slavery was destroyed – destroyed all the more quickly and all the more thoroughly because those who profited by it endeavored to measure their strength with the strength of awakening moral sentiment and to roll back the car of progress. As the movement went on it must assume a more and more radical character. They could not claim victory until the land was secured for the whole people. The struggle could have no other . . . [goal] than that of securing to Irishmen their just and natural rights – not only the right of selfgovernment that had been asserted by the Americans in their Declaration of Independence, but something without which political liberty could not long exist – the equal right to their native soil. (Much applause.) . . .
11. GENERAL MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURE OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT An Ignorant Despotism. No Regard for the People on the Side of the Aristocracy. Great Reverence for Aristocracy on the Side of the People. When the Land Agitation Catches England, England will Catch Coercion too.99 Irish World Staff Correspondence. 21 Upper Gardiner Street. Dublin, March 2, 1882. How is it that there is in England so little protest against the most flagrant exercise of despotic powers in Ireland, is a question which, since I first landed on this side of the Atlantic, I have asked myself over and over again. There is a simple explanation current among Irishmen – that the English naturally hate the Irish – but like most short and easy explanations of sociological fact, it is no explanation at all. Individual Irishmen and individual Englishmen get along very well together, and on either side [of ] St. George’s Channel, as on either side of the Atlantic, human nature is very much the same. That there is much prejudice – in part due to religious bigotry, which though happily dying out, is yet strong, and in part to the fact that the Irish who have been forced to emigrate into those countries in search of employment have been looked upon as competitors in the labor market. The constant misrepresentation of Irish affairs, past and present, and the gross ignorance which consequently prevails as to Ireland, explain, moreover, a great deal, and so does the most important fact that it is a Liberal government that is carrying out a Tory policy of repression, and that thus much opposition that would otherwise be shown is silenced. 105
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But with all this it has seemed to me strange that among a people with the political ideas that Americans generally credit to Englishmen there should be so little protest when in what they are accustomed to consider as an integral part of their country the primary rights of person and property are being trodden under foot. I am inclined to think the explanation of this lies largely in the fact that the manner in which Ireland is being governed is not so foreign to English ideas as before coming here I imagined, and that we Americans have much overrated the progress which the ideas of self-government and of popular rights have made in this country. We are accustomed to think of England as retaining aristocratic and monarchical forms simply because they have ceased to be anything more than forms; and to have become, in everything but the name, almost such a republic as the United States. In this we make a great mistake.
THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND DO NOT GOVERN THEMSELVES. Aristocratic and monarchical ideas are yet enormously strong in England, and largely permeate common thought. In practice as in theory the government of England is not the government of the people by the people; but the government of the people by those whose right and duty it is to govern them. And this, I imagine, has much to do with the insensibility of Englishmen to the outrageous tyranny that prevails in Ireland. The demand of the Irish people that they shall be permitted to govern themselves is unintelligible to the ordinary Englishman, because he is not accustomed to the idea of self-government as the right of Englishmen. So much has been talked and written of ‘‘the glorious British constitution,’’ ‘‘Britons never shall be slaves,’’ and all that sort of thing, that the average Englishman has been educated into the belief that he lives in the freest country of the whole world, and his confidence in this has very largely imposed itself upon us. But the truth is that the distinction of class runs very deep in England, and the average Englishman is accustomed to look upon those above him as his natural superiors and governors, and upon those beneath him as entitled to less right than himself. A large proportion of the English people have no political rights whatever: they have no more control of their government, no more voice, direct or indirect, in the making of the laws which they must obey, than had the slaves in our southern states; and the vast majority of those who have
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any rights at all have but partial rights. There is very much less local selfgovernment in England than most Americans imagine. The government is much more centralized. And this centralized government is, in fact even more than in theory, a government by the upper classes. Without going into the matter in detail, there are a number of things which illustrate the general fact. Some of them are little things; but little things are often the most significant. Every American, for instance, has heard of Hyde Park; and the American who comes to London naturally wishes to compare Hyde Park with the parks of our American cities. So he calls a cab and tells the driver to drive him through Hyde Park, just as he would get the driver of a hackney coach to drive him through the Central Park of New York, the Prospect Park in Brooklyn, or Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. But he quickly finds that he cannot be driven through Hyde Park except in a carriage of his own. Every vehicle let for hire has to have a number, and no numbered vehicle is suffered to enter Hyde Park. Though a public park, maintained by money raised by taxation of the whole people, it is thus kept for the use and enjoyment of the aristocratic classes who have their own horses and carriages. And in Regent Park he will find a certain large space railed in, into which no one except certain privileged persons are permitted to enter. Yet on this private pleasure garden of a few privileged parties large sums of public money are spent – d18,000 recently spent on the improvement. And when an American who has been accustomed to our state capitols or the Capitol of the nation at Washington visits the House of Commons, the popular branch of the legislature, he quickly realizes, that he is in a country where
THE PEOPLE ARE SUBJECTS, NOT CITIZENS. The centralized character of the government – the confusion of general with local powers and functions – is illustrated by the fact that all the guides and guardians of the building are policemen, belonging to the ordinary London force and wearing the same uniform. Passing through policemen at the outer entrance, the visitor proceeds through the hall of Westminster, where oaken beams once rang with the eloquence of Burke and Sheridan, but which now serves merely the purpose of a long vestibule.100 At the upper end is a door guarded by another lot of policemen. If he has a respectable look and says he wants to see a member they will let him pass; and proceeding on through other long passages he
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finally reaches an outer lobby, where another lot of policemen are guarding a passage and compelling a waiting crowd to stand back into the lines. You give your card to a policeman, who gives it to another policeman, why by and by, when he gets good and ready, moves off down the passage and hands it to another policeman at the farther end. After a long wait, amid a patiently waiting crowd, which reminds you of Kilmainham [Jail], if you ever cooled your heels there, the member you have sent for gets your card and comes out. Under his protection you pass into another lobby, but whether you can get into the House [of Commons] is quite a different matter. You cannot get in at all without the request of a member, and though the building is of recent construction the accommodation for the pubic has been designedly made so small that there are nearly always more people in waiting than the gallery will hold, and I saw the other night a crowd of two or three hundreds drawing lots from a policeman for three places that were vacant. The significant disregard of the public is very striking to an American as he, at last, gets sight of the House of Commons. The narrow side galleries are reserved for members, and the only place for visitors is a small gallery at one end – a sort of ‘‘horse heaven’’ railed off like the English railway carriage into first, second, and third class compartments. At the other end is the reporters’ gallery, and rising behind it is a latticework that reminds me of a picture of a Moorish seraglio I have somewhere seen.
THIS CAGE IS FOR LADIES, who visit the House of Commons. What terrible thing would happen to the British constitution if a woman would were to get loose in the House, no man can tell; but certain it is that no woman is ever permitted to look upon its proceedings save from this distance aloft and behind those bars. It is even more difficult for a woman to get access to the House of Commons than for a man. There are but thirty seats in the cage, and to obtain permission for a lady friend a member has to take his chances in a ballot a week before the day on which she wishes to attend, and to do this is obliged to come some hours in advance of the regular proceedings, and then if he wins a seat is disqualified from balloting for a number weeks thereafter. This small regard for the constituents of the House of Commons, this barbaric treatment of women are in themselves little things; yet they are evidences of the theory of government and of the superstitious adherence to old customs simply because they are old.
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But nothing so clearly shows how far behind the age is the English idea of government as does this Irish question. In Ireland the government is resorting to every power exercised by the most arbitrary despotism. Speech is gagged, papers are seized, houses are searched, juries are packed, and the prisons are filled with men, untried and unaccused, who are punished at the goodwill and pleasure of an absolute ruler more despotic than the czar.101 What is the justification made by the ministers? Why, the speeches of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Forster simply amounted to this – ‘‘We are good men, who want to do good things for Ireland; these other men are bad men, who want to stop us from doing good things.’’ This, in essence, is the excuse that is offered by ‘‘Liberal’’ ministers in the British House of Commons for setting aside every right that we have been accustomed to think Englishmen regarded as sacred. Now, this is not the theory of constitutional government; it is
THE THEORY OF DESPOTIC GOVERNMENT. The theory of constitutional government is that general principles are more important than particular results; that even right ends must not be attained by wrong means; that the exercise of power even for good purposes must be restricted and guarded, and required to conform to certain fixed rules and forms designed to prevent its abuse for bad purposes. But the theory of despotic government is that the despot should be free to do what he pleases without restriction, in order that he may the more certainly and quickly carry out good measures and hold in check bad men. A democratic Englishman, coming out of the House of Commons very much disgusted, described the premier’s great speech to me by saying that: ‘‘Mr. Gladstone, with tears in his eyes and his tongue in his cheek, called on God to witness that he and Mr. Forster never put a man in prison until they had, without this knowing it, given him a good, fair trial, and found him guilty.’’ But I think this is unjust to Mr. Gladstone. I do not believe that, even metaphysically, he put his tongue in his cheek. Mr. Gladstone is credited by all who know him with a remarkable power of believing in the wickedness of those who oppose him, and I have not the slightest doubt that both he and Mr. Forster really believe themselves truly good men, who are using the most efficient means of putting down bad men. I do not suppose there ever lived a despot who did not think that the men he imprisoned or butchered were bad people, and that he was carrying out a policy that would be for the
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best in hanging or burning or torturing whoever he was made to believe were engaged in wicked designs. And many of the worst wielders of despotic power have been personally men of the best intentions. No man of better intentions ever lived than Marcus Aurelius, whose persecution of the Christians was one of the bitterest; Phillip II and George III were personally kindhearted and devout men.102 The objection to despotic power is not merely that there can be no guarantee that it will not fall into the hands of men who will consider as good what suits them and as bad what they dislike, but that this is an infirmity inherent in greater or less degree in human nature, and that no human being is therefore fit to be trusted with arbitrary power. It is not strange that Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Forster should think the men they are putting in prison are very bad men, who ought to be put in prison, but it is certainly significant of ideas current among the people, that the leaders of the English Liberal Party should think such a plan sufficient. It is more significant still, that it should be so largely accepted as sufficient. It seems to me to require more than prejudice or party spirit, or misinformation, to account for this. It seems to me to be evidence that the general idea of government is paternal rather than democratic or even constitutional. And in talking with the ordinary people one meets the same thing is evident. That the Land Act is a good thing for the Irish people, and that Mr. Gladstone intends to do well by them if they only will let him, seem to most of them a sufficient justification for the placing of Ireland under virtual martial law and thinning the opposition benches by imprisoning members of Parliament; and I have talked with many men who, after admitting the badness of all these things, will wind [up] by saying: ‘‘But then we know Gladstone, and Forster, and Bright are good men, and we must trust them. They are too good and too honest to do such things if they did not have reason.’’ And it is to be observed that English liberalism is anything but democratic. English liberalism is led and dominated by the aristocratic classes. And its idea seems to be that of making concessions to the lower classes as they become fit for them; not of acknowledging rights. All this leads me to think not merely that the masses of the Irish people are, owing to a variety of causes – most potent among which is the reaction from America – much in advance of the English people in political ideas; but that the inevitable progress of ideas may in England bring about changes in a much more violent way than is generally imagined. I doubt whether the English character is in reality that sober, staid, commonsense character it is generally depicted. I am inclined rather to think that what is attributed to
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THE FANCIED CONSERVATION OF THE ENGLISH CHARACTER is due rather to the great strength of aristocratic ideas and the great influence exerted upon government and society by the classes that are always conservative. The claws of aristocratic power are sheathed in England because it does not yet feel itself seriously attacked. But when the death struggle that is going on in Ireland passes to England, as in the nature of things it must, the privileged classes will fight as bitterly. And I do not see why what is being done in Ireland may not be attempted in England, and the English people pay the natural penalty for having looked on in acquiescence while popular rights are outraged in Ireland. Not merely does absolute power rest in a Parliament which represents the territorial and capitalistic aristocracy, not the masses of the people; not merely have the people no voice whatever in the selection of their judges, from the House of Lords down to justices of the peace, who here, as in Ireland, are appointed because they are landlords, but in musty old laws that have never been repealed, and in precedents that can on occasion be raked up, there lie, as in some old arsenal, the weapons of despotic power used by Tudor, or Stuart, or Hanoverian.103 As in Ireland a statute of Edward III is discovered when it is wanted to imprison the ladies of the Land League, so in England an old, forgotten law about the printing of newspapers is made to do duty against the printer of United Ireland.104 And if in Dublin the privilege claimed by the Stuarts for ‘‘an act of state’’ is used to prevent prosecutions of government officials, the same privilege may be claimed in London. Of course, it is only when fear and passion are aroused that these old weapons will be drawn forth; but that day will certainly come. Even now I meet Englishmen in England who say that their correspondence is constantly tampered within the post office, and in this country of boasted free speech the government systematically prevents meetings which it does not like from being held. In the regular meeting notices of London clubs, printed in the Radical, you may see ‘‘closed by the police’’ set against the name of a social democratic club, and it is utterly impossible to get a good hall in London, and very rarely possible to get any kind of hall for a meeting in sympathy with the Irish movement. The government does this through the police, who use the power given them by the licensing system. And this centralization of government, this union of functions of local government and general government, gives the ministers in other ways enormous power which can be used
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quietly, but which is just as effective as though proclaimed by [a] sound of trumpets.
THE FEELING TOWARDS THE MONARCHY. What is the general feeling towards the monarchy I find it hard to make out. There is evidently not over-much personal respect. The queen – ‘‘old Mrs. Guelph’’ her loyal subjects often call her – is said to be an avaricious old woman, bent on accumulating a large private fortune which may support her numerous progeny when the nation refuses that task.105 As for the Prince of Wales, he is said to be a gross debauchee, with no ideas above animal pleasures.106 One hears stories about him, and about other members of the family, which never get into print, and which respectable people would hardly like to put in print. And there seems to be a disposition to regard the whole crowd as a lot of foreigners quartered on the country. They are said to be really more German than English; to use the German tongue exclusively among themselves, and even to talk English with a foreign accent. And the increased pension which it is one of Mr. Gladstone’s duties to ask Parliament to grant on the occasion of the approaching marriage of one of the princelings is the subject of a good deal of indignant talk.107 But for all this there may be a great deal of reverence for the monarchy, and there is certainly a widespread toadyism towards the aristocracy. Even the working classes seem to enjoy being patronized by them. The London cabdrivers had a big meeting of their benevolent society the other day, with a royal duke to honor them by presiding, and in Liverpool, where I lectured last week, I saw bills stuck around the streets announcing tea parties of various trades unions, in which a list of patrons was printed in big letters – Earl This, Viscount That, and Lord The-Other-Thing. And with this worship of hereditary rank, and the disposition to accept personal government, I do not see why, if instead of a fat-witted Guelph, a strongwilled able man were to come to the throne, he could not make the English crown, for awhile at least, a real and active power. But disintegrating influences are steadily at work upon the aristocratic structure of society, and their effort is certain to be hastened by what is going on in Ireland. The success of the Irish movement must be but the prelude to important movements and vast changes in England, and the securing of a large measure of self-government for Ireland is only a matter of time. A general election tomorrow would give the Irish Party the balance of power.
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PROSPECTS OF DISSOLUTION. Opinions vary as to the prospects of a general election, and change with the days. Some think the government cannot get through the session, and others think that when it comes to the pinch the Tories will shrink from provoking a dissolution which is certain to give the Irish representation such strength. But it is becoming evident that little is to be accomplished this session in the way of needed business, and that the best part of it must be surrendered to discussions of Irish affairs. The threatened collision between the Lords and the Commons will, it seems, amount to nothing, owing to the indisposition of both sides to come into conflict; for the House of Commons is largely made up of sons, relatives, and dependents of peers; but what next may happen no one can tell. The cloture, which awhile ago was regarded as certain to carry, is now, it seems, losing strength again.
12. PARNELL His Message to America through The Irish World. No Conditions! No Compromise! ‘‘I Was Perfectly Thunderstruck at Gladstone’s Change of Front.’’ Interviewed by Henry George. ‘‘We Have in Our Hands the Practical Solution of the Land Question and the Government of Ireland.’’ No Rent Successful. What Do You Think of the Success of the No Rent Manifesto, Mr. Parnell? Answer – I Think It has Succeeded. It’s Withdrawal Unthought of.108 Special Cable to The Irish World. Dublin, May 3, 1882. Parnell, Dillon, and O’Kelly stopped at Kingstown last night, and came on to Dublin this morning. Dillon looks very pale and weak. Parnell and O’Kelly seem well, but complain of their eyes, which have suffered from the bad light and the glare of the whitewashed walls of Kilmainham [Jail]. I had the following interview with Mr. Parnell: George: I presume you expected your release? Parnell: No; only yesterday morning we were discussing the probability of remaining in Kilmainham for another six months. We came to the conclusion that we might be as useful there as outside. Forster’s resignation was a complete surprise. I was perfectly thunderstruck when I heard it. I can’t imagine how it was brought about. George: There is no truth, then, in the reports about negotiations between you and the government? Parnell: Not the slightest. I had no communication whatsoever with the government and no understanding with them. George: Had you any conference with any member or agent of the government while on parole, as has been intimated? Parnell: None whatever. 115
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George: Have any of the Land League party had any understanding with the government? Parnell: None to my knowledge. I am satisfied that there has been none. George: Has there been no understanding then, about the withdrawal of the No Rent Manifesto? Parnell: None whatever. George: What will you do about it? Parnell: We will do nothing about it until we find out what the government proposes to do, especially about the question of arrears. George: What do you think about the success of the No Rent Manifesto? Parnell: I think it has accomplished its purpose. George: What are your immediate plans? Parnell: I had intended crossing to London tonight, but there is no necessity of appearing in the House of Commons until Friday, when W. H. Smith’s purchase resolution comes up.109 Even then I do not know that I shall speak. If I do, I shall probably confine myself to the statement that if the tenants accept the loan from the government to enable them to purchase their holdings they will not hereafter repudiate the loan. While I am here in Ireland I wish to keep as quiet as possible. George: Are you coming back to Ireland to be present at receptions given in your honor? Parnell: I see no object to be gained at present by receptions or demonstrations. I will come back on work connected with the Land League movement, and will then be better able to see what direction things are going to take. George: Do you think open meetings of the Land League will now be permitted? Parnell: I cannot tell, but I think that we formerly paid too much attention to meetings and too little to practical organization, one of the results of which was to push humbugs to the front and keep practical men in the rear. George: Do you expect Mr. Davitt’s release? Parnell: I know nothing for certain about it; but I understand from Mr. Gladstone’s statement that Mr. Davitt will be released. For personal reasons I greatly desire it, as he would relieve me from an immense deal of responsibility. George: What is your view of the situation? Parnell: The government appears to have changed . . . [its] policy entirely. [Its] . . . action evidently indicates that coercion will be abandoned or very
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much modified, and that fresh concessions of a valuable character are to be offered to the people. I feel convinced that if this opportunity which has been presented to us be properly used it will result in working out a practical solution of the land question, and after a little time will bring about an entirely new departure as regards English government in Ireland in the direction of allowing the Irish people to govern themselves. I am inclined to suppose that during some months past two opposite courses have agitated the Cabinet; firstly, the proposition to adopt more extreme measures of coercion than the country ever suffered from in the shape of the abolition of trial by jury, pecuniary penalties levied upon districts for outrages and support of military occupation; and, secondly, the alternative proposition of abandoning coercion and granting fresh concessions. The last policy having gained the upper hand has caused the retirement of Forster. It is impossible for me under these circumstances to refrain from expressing my satisfaction with the situation so far as it has been developed, but it is impossible to state what the future course of the Land League may be until we have ascertained more definitely the government’s proposals. George: Do you attach much importance to the arrears clause? Parnell: Yes; it will affect at least a hundred thousand families, while it will only take three-million pounds. In many cases it will enable the evicted to go back to their holdings, thus greatly lessening the demands on the Land League funds. George: Do the ladies now propose to retire from active participation in the Land League movement? Parnell: I don’t really know whether they will retire, but they must be greatly tired. They have had worry enough to make their heads white. It is impossible to say too much of the noble manner in which they have performed their work.
13. LETTER FROM GEORGE Our Correspondent’s Description of the Manchester Meeting. A Memorable Occasion.110 Irish World Staff Correspondence. Dublin, May 22, 1882. Michael Davitt at Manchester. Since I last wrote you I have had the honor of assisting at a great and very important public meeting. Before Mr. Davitt’s release I had agreed to lecture in Manchester last Sunday for the Land League of that city and vicinity, and when I told Davitt of that he at once offered to take the chair. When they heard that Davitt would come the Manchester Leaguers were delighted, and secured the great Free Trade Hall, the largest in the city, if not the largest in the three kingdoms, for Sunday afternoon, it being engaged for the evening. I only reached Manchester a couple of hours before the meeting, having been delayed by the failure of a steamer to make connection, and found the committee, which was headed by Dr. H. G. Dixon, beginning to feel very uneasy lest neither Davitt nor myself should appear. But though I had not seen him for a week I told them that Davitt would do as he had said – walk quietly into the hall a few minutes before the time fixed. And so it proved. But even in the committee room I should think that one arm of his must have ached. Davitt told me that the course of events since we had met had been such that he thought it important to take the occasion to express his views, and wanted, therefore, to make a long speech instead of presiding, a course to which I most gladly assented. The people who crushed into the committee room were so glad to see Davitt – they did everything but dance and stand on their heads – that it was long past the appointed hour, and the audience was thundering, before we passed upon the stage. Then what a sight! The great Free Trade Hall, that will hold, it said, six thousand people, was not merely filled – it was jammed. Not every seat, but every foot of standing room was occupied. 119
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And when they caught sight of Davitt the whole vast audience was on its feet, and the great hall was a mass of waving hats and fluttering handkerchiefs as they cheered, and cheered, and cheered. In fact, it seemed as if they would never stop. Dr. Dixon gesticulated in vain, and Davitt waved his arm to no purpose. Just as the audience would be settling down someone would start it again, and the whole hall would again go wild. But, finally, in one of the temporary halls, the band struck up: ‘‘God Save Ireland!’’ Some voices took up the refrain, and the hall shook with the thrilling strains of what has really become the Irish national anthem. It was something to remember to hear ‘‘God Save Ireland’’ sung in such a place and on such an occasion. I was glad to see Michael Davitt get such a reception before he even opened his mouth. It was a sufficient answer to what I had heard some people say in Dublin – that Davitt had hurt his popularity by his letter to the Standard, and that his intimation that there was something greater than Fenianism and force had set against him the ‘‘advanced Nationalists,’’ etc. [sic] There is a immense lot of humbug in talk of this kind, of which a certain class of Irishmen are found; and Michael Davitt’s reception at Manchester showed it. Of Davitt’s speech I need not say anything, as you will doubtless print it in full. As he had it written out, it is very correctly printed in the papers I send you. But it is not punctuated with the ‘‘cheers,’’ ‘‘applause,’’ the ‘‘prolonged applause,’’ ‘‘tremendous applause,’’ and all other kinds of applause except ‘‘faint,’’ which marked its delivery. By the time Davitt was allowed to go through all thought of a lecture from me was out of the question, for the time at which it had been agreed I was to stop had passed. But when the audience had quieted down from their response to Davitt’s request to give me ‘‘a warm Irish greeting,’’ I told them in a few words what I felt – that the movement had that afternoon entered on a new era, and that the danger that the struggle for ‘‘the land for the people’’ could be successfully diverted into a mere effort to reduce rent or give the land to some more people had passed away. While Davitt was speaking I felt that the dream of the men so numerous among the Land League leaders who have had control of things since Davitt and Brennan have been locked up, who wanted to stop the movement at reduced rents or peasant proprietary, had passed away, and the revolution had taken another leap forward.111 You can imagine how I felt to hear at a juncture like the present the founder of the Land League, the most powerful man in Ireland, plant
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himself unequivocally upon the platform of Dr. Nulty, and raise the true standard of ‘‘the Land for the Whole People!’’
GETTING OUT OF THE HALL. There were a few short speeches by Dr. Dixon, Mr. Wright, and others, and then came the getting out. I thought that Davitt would not have any arm at all left, and that in getting into the carriage that Davitt and half a dozen others of us would be squeezed to death. But finally the carriage was reached, and with great difficulty the driver managed to get through the crowd, and reach, by a circuitous route, the hotel. The next morning Davitt started quietly for Dublin. As he has shaved off his beard he escapes recognition pretty easily, and until he landed at Kingstown late in the afternoon, no one knew him. There an old woman who was selling papers, recognized him as he was stepping ashore and cried out in Irish: ‘‘O, my son! My son! A hundred thousand welcomes to old Ireland!’’ Davitt answered her greeting in Irish; but to the other passengers Irish was all Greek.
14. ‘‘TRANSPOSED SPEECH OF HENRY GEORGE’’ From The Times of London.112 Mr. Henry George, the American economist, delivered a lecture in the Rotunda last night on the land question, the proceeds to be devoted to the Political Prisoners’ Aid Societies. Dr. Kenny, one of the recently released suspects, presided. Mr. Sexton, M. P., Miss Parnell, and several prominent members of the Ladies’ Land League were present. The round room was about half-filled. A letter was read from Mr. Davitt, accepting the position of vice-president of the Central Committee of the Prisoners’ Aid Society in Dublin. The proceedings were opened by the audience giving three cheers for Michael Davitt. Mr. George, in the course of his lecture, said he presumed – not to mince words – that these political prisoners and societies represented really an organization that was now under a ban. They were associations of earnest patriotic men, and he was glad to see them combined together to form a central association. He did not want to talk politics that evening, but he thought that among other things they had about the worst government that ever existed. [Cheers.] Their new lord lieutenant and their new chief secretary seemed to him to be wiser, nobler, and better men than those who preceded them: but, so long as the character of the government depended on the accidental character of the men who were in those positions, what security had they? [Hear, hear.] There could be no resting place until the people governed themselves. [Cheers.] And if they governed themselves calmly and steadfastly there was no power in physical force and bayonets that could keep under foot five millions of people who knew what they wanted and were determined to get it. [Cheers.] Michael Davitt had said that the social question included the political question. Democratic as institutions might be in themselves, they were of no use, and would avail nothing, unless they had also something like equality of 123
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social condition. He believed that there commenced with the Land League a great social revolution, that with it there came to the front the greatest social question of modern times; and his faith was now in a fair way being justified. In Michael Davitt’s Liverpool speech the true standard of the whole people had been raised. [Cheers.] They must go further than peasant proprietary; they must give to labor the full share of the fruits. They must make the land the property of the whole people, so that every man, woman, and child should have their full, equal right acknowledged and secured. [Cheers.] The House of Lords, the great landlords of England, aye, and the landlords of that country, wanted to extend the purchase clauses in the Land Act in such a way as to diffuse landed property among the people, and thus, by getting a number of small people interested in the ownership of land, to constitute a final settlement of the question and would make it much more difficult. The end to be aimed at was not an exact division between man and man. Equality did not mean that. It simply meant that they should have equal opportunities . . . .
15. CELEBRATING AMERICA’S INDEPENDENCE IN IRELAND British and Irish Parliamentary Blunders . . . . ‘‘The Laborers of Ireland will No Longer be Ignored.’’ Miss Lynch’s Appeal for ‘‘Light.’’ ‘‘If this is Done Everything Else will Follow – Send The Irish World to Ireland.’’113
Irish World Staff Correspondence. London, July 6. I never felt more like celebrating the Fourth of July than this year. I had hoped to be in Ireland and to have joined there in some sort of a little celebration, anyhow; but detained in this great Babylon against my will, the only thing possible by way of recalling the day was to shop at Joseph Cowan’s, who lives not far from where I stay and read over the facsimile of the great Declaration which adorns his study wall. Of course, even the unreasoning patriotism that is but an extension of personal vanity and self-love becomes quickened by residence abroad, but beyond all this I do not think any thoughtful American can be here long without a deeper appreciation of the great principles of liberty enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, and a keener realization of all that was gained, not merely for his own country, but for mankind, when the thirteen colonies threw off the British yoke and the Republic was proclaimed. We have much yet to do before we can claim that our institutions truly accord with those self-evident truths which the Declaration asserts, and no American who realizes how far the Republic falls short of what a republic that truly recognized the inalienable rights of man would be can feel any pharisaical pride in comparing his own country with others; yet in a country where monarchy and aristocracy retain their sway he at least appreciates how much has been gained even in the recognition of mere political equality. 125
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The crown, the Herald’s College, the hereditary titles, the orders of knighthood – the whole ridiculous paraphernalia down to the very wigs of judges and barristers, and the ‘‘ginger bread coaches’’ of the lord mayors – parts of a degrading system which has for its base the doctrine that some men are born to rule and others to serve, and that begets and maintains a spirit of caste, a glorification of flunkeyism, that is one of the strongest forces in the enslavement of the masses and one of the greatest obstacles to progress.114 Jefferson was right in his intense hatred of monarchical and aristocratic forms.
AN IRISH CELEBRATION. There was at least one celebration of the Fourth of July on this side of the water that had in it more of the real spirit of the anniversary that the banquets at which Americans who have had their wives and daughters presented at court sit down to hobnob with titled aristocrats. On the heights of Cruckaughrim, in Innishowen, Donegal, near where I saw, some months ago, a red-coated army, at the dictate of a Scotchman who had never set foot in Ireland, driving out of their little homes people whose fathers had lived there from time immemorial, there was a great gathering. For two years previously the anniversary of American Independence has been celebrated there, and this year the celebration was renewed. Thus ran the notice: Celebration of the anniversary of American Independence – fellow citizens – assemble in four thousands on Tuesday first, the 4th of July, to celebrate the above anniversary on the heights of Cruckaughrim, as usual, and renew your fidelity to the cause. Let the civilized and your rulers see that in spite of coercion and intimidation the men of Innishowen will never relinquish their grasp until victory crowns their efforts. God save Ireland!
There were two bands and a long procession of country people, the Stars and Stripes and the Green Flag.115 Whether there were any Americans there I know not, but the speakers were ex-suspects, who had been laying for months in little better prisons than those to which Adams, and Franklin, and Washington, and Jefferson would been consigned until hung had the English coercionists of a century ago had in America a Royal Constabulary and such an overwhelming army as hold Ireland.116 Men who have tasted the bitterness of tyranny can appreciate the Declaration of Independence better than can some Americans. The American Declaration of Independence is more than a solemn declaration of the rights of Americans; it is a
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declaration of the rights of man, and its grand enunciation of fundamental truth is as applicable to Ireland in 1882 as the American colonies in 1776. And surely if any people were ever justified in asserting at any cost the inalienable right to self-government proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, it is the Irish people. The grievances and the insults that led our fathers to sever all political connection with Great Britain at the cost of a long and bloody struggle seem trivial as compared with those under which Ireland suffers. If ever there was a justifiable revolution, it would be that which would break the galling yoke under which Ireland lays today. And the American who does not recognize this is either grossly ignorant of the plainest facts or is false to the fundamental purpose of American freedom. What is an utter sham is the representation of Ireland in the British Parliament, and how thoroughly despotic is the dominant oligarchy, is wellillustrated by what has occurred this week. Had Mr. Gladstone ordered a file of policemen to knock down and drag out so many Irish members, it would have been only in form a more violent and arbitrary proceeding than their suspension by the chairman of committee at the dictation of the government. The climax was capped – if, indeed, there can be any capping to such climax – by the unseating of Mr. O’Donnell for fourteen days for declaring it an infamy that he had during his absence been suspended on a charge of obstructing a bill as to which he had offered but two or three small amendments, and made but a few short speeches. The whole thing was blustered through by the government without excuse or apology, but that it is one of those victories only a little less dangerous than defeats is clearly apparent even in the comments of the press. The proceedings are really so outrageous and revolutionary, they so clearly set a precedent by which a minister who controls a parliamentary majority, or even the officer of the House [of Commons], may make himself absolute dictator; they so especially resemble the Cromwellian and Napoleonic clearances of legislative halls that they are defended in the English press with an ill-grace even when defended at all.117 The conservative papers, in fact, do not hesitate to quietly condemn the outrage that conservative votes supported, and to plainly show their gratification at the damage which the Gladstone government has done itself. The action of the majority of the Irish party after those proceedings in withdrawing from the House, when the motion for urgency was carried, with a well-worded protest, declaring that the Irish parliamentary party having been expelled from the House under threat of physical force during the consideration of a measure affecting vitally the rights and liberties of Ireland, cast upon the government the sole responsibility for a bill which has
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been urged through the House by violence and subterfuge, ‘‘and which when passed into law will be no constitutional act of Parliament,’’ would have been most effective, both in Ireland and in England had it been unanimously acted upon and consistently followed up. But unfortunately there was a division (I sincerely trust Davitt, before he leaves America, will not be compelled to answer the charge of having caused it) – Biggar, Metge, Callan, and Richard Power, deeming it their duty, in spite of the resolve of the majority, to remain and fight it out, which they did as well as any four men could. Of course, this division destroyed what effect unanimity would have given to the protest and withdrawal; yet, on the other hand, the four in staying and continuing the fight as best they could were but continuing the policy which has been heretofore acted upon, and which it was hardly worthwhile to abandon at the last moment and merely for a day. If the Irish members after some such outrage as this suspension were to withdraw for good and all from a Parliament in which they are constantly snubbed and bullied, where their counsels are not heeded and their protests avail nothing, it would be a protest so strong and strange as in the long run to probably much more than compensate for the loss of what opportunities are to be gained by remaining in the House. But occasions on which this might have been done with the greatest effect have been suffered to slip by. And to leave one day to come back the next robs the protest of dignity and effect, and makes the action suggestive of the pettish child rather than of the determined man. Mr. O’Donnell, in that very telling speech in which he refused to withdraw his ‘‘infamy’’ expression, declared that so far from obstructing the passage of the Arms Bill or moving trivial amendments he had been of the opinion that the quicker the bill was passed, and the worse the form in which it passed, the better I am inclined to think him right.118 If Ireland must have another Coercion Bill – and it has been all along manifestly out of the power of the Irish members to prevent that – the more outrageous its provisions the quicker and the stronger will be the revulsion against it, and if the experiment must be tried, the sooner it is tried the earlier its failure will be apparent. What the Irish members have secured in the way of mitigating hostile legislation amounts to little or nothing. They have, however, caused delay and compelled the English Parliament to abandon everything save Irish business, and they have made of Parliament a rostrum for the statement of Irish grievances. But, on the other hand, in doing this they have strengthened their adversaries by irritating English public opinion, and by withdrawing
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from Parliament and appealing directly to the people they might, perhaps, have even more effectively stated Ireland’s case. This is the policy which I understand Mr. Cowen long ago urged upon the Irish party, and in the opinion of many it is the policy which would have been far more effective than that which has been pursued. When men who have been suspended, and even imprisoned, come back to take part in the deliberations of Parliament they may annoy and irritate, but they certainly lose the moral effect which their unjust treatment would have produced. The imprisonment of the members of Parliament was, for instance, beginning to tell so powerfully upon English opinion that even if there had been no letters and no interviews it was only a question of days when the government would have been compelled to release them. But when Mr. Parnell and his colleagues hurry from Kilmainham to St. Stephen’s and begin again very much as if nothing had happened this feeling is lost. The Coercion Bill is now virtually through. There is little hope that it will be administered in any less arbitrary way than was the last one, for the same influences that surrounded Forster will surround Spencer and Trevelyan.119 All through Ireland the landlords and officials are in each locality the real governors; and such murders as have recently been succeeding one another in Ireland will give provocation and excuse. But that it will be as complete a failure as the last is certain. Sooner or later England must wake up to the fact that government by coercion has become impossible in Ireland. All this will probably be hastened by the breaking of the war cloud that is gathering in the East.120 What it portends no man can yet say. Perhaps, it may prove but a gust, but it may be a tempest that will shake all Europe, and that will call for all of England’s strength . . . .
THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN IRELAND grows greater and greater, and evinces as it grows a more determined spirit. Clearly the laborers will be no longer ignored, and unless the demands of the Land League are broadened so as to include recognition of the rights of the laborer as well as of the tenant farmer a most serious division is imminent. In a recent article the London Globe, which, though an ultra-Conservative paper, has frequently shown a much more intelligent appreciation of what is going on in Ireland than most of its contemporaries, very sensibly told the projectors of the new Irish Land Company, of which so much has been said, that their whole scheme will be a failure unless they can secure the cooperation of some large class in Ireland, and that that class they must
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secure is the laborers.121 It says the strength of the Land League was due to the fact that all below the landlord class went together, and the combination was, therefore, for the time irresistible. The laborers were taught that in the settlement of the land question their interests too would be advanced, and they believe what they were told. Today it is different. Laborers in this lull of the agitation look around them and see that their interests have not been appreciably furthered. They see rents reduced from market rents to an arbitrarily determined ‘‘fair’’ standard, why they, far poorer and more wretched, work still for market wages – wages determined by the law of competition. They see the farmers enjoying full protection for their improvements – improvements in the making of which their own hands grew hard. They see them enjoying leases for fifteen years, and still see further legislation in the air intended to render more prosperous the condition of a class far more prosperous than they. It is not in human nature that men so completely ‘‘left out in the cold,’’ as have been the laborers, hardly participating in a hundredth part of the benefits secured by an agitation which but for them would have ignominiously broken down, should remain satisfied and acquiescent with results so good for others, so bad for themselves.
The Globe goes on to argue that nothing yet proposed on the part of the farmers will satisfy the laborers or ought to satisfy the laborers, and that, as their meetings begin to show, they are quite conscious that as subtenants of the farmers they can have no security in their holdings against the men who are not only their immediate landlords but their employers, and that for them direct holdings from the landlords would be far better and far more secure than holdings from the farmers. It winds up by declaring that not a moment should be lost – that the laborers should be met warmly and generously, and be taught practically that the Irish landlords are their best friends. ‘‘If the Land Company can do this,’’ it adds, ‘‘it may laugh at the efforts of the League and work every boycotted farm in the island.’’ So it may; but the laborers will have to be most certainly convinced that there is no redress for them anywhere else before they will turn to the landlords.
SPREAD THE LIGHT! Miss Nannie Lynch, the first lieutenant of the Ladies’ Land League, writes me from Dublin, asking me to impress upon our friends in America the great good that results from letters coming from America to Ireland in keeping up the spirit of the people, and to urge them to send across as many papers as they can, especially Irish Worlds. This is advice which I hope will be followed. The Irish World is getting into Ireland now, and nothing can
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more effectively help the cause than to circulate it. I am the more and more convinced that ‘‘Spreading the Light’’ is the only work that secures sure and permanent results. Unless this is done nothing is done; if this done everything else will follow. And The Irish World and other American papers that take the same ground need all the more to be circulated in Ireland because there is nothing here to enlighten and encourage the people. It is one of the weaknesses of the Land League movement today that more attention has not been given to the dissemination of principle. And now that clear ideas on the subject of the Land League are becoming of immediate importance it is more necessary than ever to ‘‘Spread the Light.’’ Among those who wanted to stop the land movement whenever it had reached a certain point The Irish World never has been popular, but the masses of the people seek it with avidity, and it is passed from hand to hand wherever it can be had. What influence it has exerted Mr. Forster testified, not only by his declarations in Parliament, but by his efforts to shut it out of Ireland. And in the present juncture its influence is needed more than ever. Send it along. And not merely into Ireland. Let those who have friends in England and Scotland send it there as well. The ‘‘Spreading of the Light’’ in England and Scotland is most important, even for the effect on Ireland.
NOTES 1. Henry George, ‘‘The land question . . . ,’’ The Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, May 1, 1880. Hereafter identified as The Irish World. 2. Progress and Poverty was first published in 1879. 3. Further reading will show that compensation to landlords and peasant holdings were anathema to George. 4. The Ulster tenant right was a tacit custom but never legally recognized. Any man who lived and worked on forfeited land expected to have a certain claim that allowed him to sell or bequeath it with the consent of the landlord who charged him rent. Sometimes this situation created problems between the landlord and the tenant. 5. A reference to California, which was admitted as the 31st state in 1850. 6. Rack rent has two definitions: rent equal to or nearly equal to the full annual rent of a property or, in this instance, the practice of exacting the highest possible rent. 7. California had just adopted a constitution in 1879. 8. George probably meant a cottar or cotter, that is, a peasant who exchanges his labor or other services so that he may live in a cottage and usually with a small parcel of land for personal use. 9. A reference to ‘‘The deserted village,’’ a poem published in 1770 by Oliver Goldsmith (ca. 1730–1774). 10. Henry T. Buckle (1821–1862), the author of History of Civilization in England, was an influential English historian. 11. The Sandlot was a vacant space next to city hall in San Francisco. 12. The term radical was used to refer to the advanced reform wing of the Liberal Party in the late nineteenth century. Prior to this time, radical also referred to a person who espoused the ideas of William Godwin, David Ricardo, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill, or parliamentary representation reform, the Chartist movement, anti-Corn Law agitation, and the Manchester school of economics. 13. Morcellement is the French noun form of the verb morceler, which means to cut up or parcel out. 14. Emile de Laveleye (1822–1892) was a Belgian political economist and publicist. 15. Fee simple is an inherited estate of land without limitation to any particular class of heirs; however, fee tail pertains to a limited class of heirs. 16. The Norman William I (ca. 1027–1087), known as the Conqueror, reigned in England from 1066. 17. Agrarian can refer to the various land-reform efforts, farmer discontent, and/ or insurgency.
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18. Henry George, ‘‘That ‘No-Popery’ Howl . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Nov. 27, 1880. The line ‘‘from Henry George’’ at the bottom of the title has been deleted. 19. Patrick Ford was the editor of The Irish World. 20. J. de Concilio and Henry George, ‘‘The Land . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Apr. 23, 1881. Januarius de Concilio was a Catholic philosopher. One of his works was Miscellanea juridico published in 1836. 21. George also refers to Justice Fitzgerald on the first page of Chapter 1 of The Land Question, which was originally published as The Irish Land Question (George, [1881] 1982). 22. The pamphlet is The Irish Land Question. 23. For information regarding the land and the Mosaic Code see ‘‘Moses,’’ in Wenzer (1997b). It was the opening address delivered in San Francisco before the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in June 1878. See Leviticus 25 for references to man’s relation to the land. The Brehon Law: An ancient Irish law that was abolished in the seventeenth century. A judge known as a Brehon interpreted and applied law wielded a great deal of power; over time the corpus of laws became known by this name. 24. Trinity Church (Episcopal) located in New York City was the richest church in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. It was New York’s largest landlord, holding an enormous amount of land, including tenement housing; and also blocked any progressive reform measure for better living conditions. Snug Harbor, the first retirement community for mariners, opened its doors in 1833 on Staten Island with a sizeable endowment and landholding. 25. The Civil List, in general, is a yearly allowance granted to a royal family with a legislative body controlling the funds. The accession of William III (1650–1702) in 1689 inaugurated the Civil List. In the nineteenth century, the phrase referred to money granted only for royal household uses. 26. Henry VIII (1491–1547) was famous for his six wives, his antipapal policy, and establishment of the Anglican Church. The Long Parliament sat off and on from 1640 to 1660. It successfully rebelled against Charles I and dissolved itself with the ascension of Charles II to the throne. In England (beginning in the 1100s and reaching its height in the late seventeenth century), enclosure was the growing practice of fencing off lands formerly considered to be under common rights. This activity was part of the change from the feudal system to free cultivation, and caused a population shift of the poor from the countryside to the cities. It did foster more efficient husbandry, stock raising, and agricultural methods. 27. The English conquest of Ireland began in 1169. Ireland and England were united in 1800, and Ireland achieved independence in 1921. The Scottish and English crowns were united in 1603 with James I (James VI of Scotland). The Act of Union of 1707 between England, Wales, and Scotland formed Great Britain. As with Ireland there was vehement protest and bloodshed in Scotland in the wake of English subjection and control of the land. 28. Archbishop Croke (1823–1902) supported Irish home rule and the Land League. 29. ‘‘Henry George in Canada . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Jul. 9, 1881. 30. Timothy M. Healy (1855–1931) was an Irish nationalist leader and first governor general of the Irish Free State.
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31. A note on British monetary symbols: d, pound; s., shilling (20s. ¼ 1 d); and d. [denarius], penny (12 d. ¼ 1s.). 32. A Blue Book was a report published by the British government to inform Parliament about a particular topic. 33. During much of the eighteenth century, the conservative Tories were staunch supporters of the landed gentry. Falling from power, they were revived by William Pitt, then fell again in 1832, and finally evolved into the Conservative Party. Presently, the word ‘‘Tory’’ is used to describe anyone with conservative political leanings. British loyalists during the American War of Independence were also dubbed Tories. 34. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was a proponent of utilitarianism and liberalism. Utilitarianism is a system of ethics which claims that good actions are morally right and justified if they produce the greatest happiness and utility for the greatest number of people. Happiness can therefore be measured in economic terms. Liberalism developed among the commercial and industrial classes in their struggle with the monarchy, the church, and feudal landowners. It sought (albeit more restrictively than now) greater freedoms, representative government, and state protection of the individual. Economically it was associated with laissez-faire and international free trade. 35. Thorold Rogers (1823–1890) was a historian and economist who taught at Oxford. Two works authored by him were Six Centuries of Work and Wages and History of Agriculture and Prices. 36. Henry Hallam (1777–1859) was an English historian. Although he wrote with a Whig bias, he was noted for accurate research and opened new doors of historical inquiry. Henry II (1133–1189) was the first Plantagenet, ruling England from 1154 until 1189. The line ended in 1399 with the abdication of Richard II. 37. James G. Bennett (1795–1872) was an American journalist who founded The New York Herald. Benjamin Franklin, who lived from 1706 to 1790, was an all-around statesman, inventor, and writer. 38. Jay Gould (1836–1892), one of the more famous railroad robber barons, schemed with others to corner the gold market which precipitated the financial panic in 1869 known as Black Friday. Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877) was another well-known robber baron. 39. It was the Democrat (Stephen) Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) who won the election of 1884 against Benjamin Harrison (and James B. Weaver) by a slim margin and became president the year thereafter. George’s support of Cleveland on the issue of tariff reduction split the ranks of the single taxers, some of whom opted for a separate uncompromised movement. 40. The dates for the American War of Independence against England are from 1775 to 1781 and the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. The French Revolution began in 1789 and arguably ended in 1815 with the surrender of Napoleon. 41. George, ‘‘His First Impressions of Ireland and Her Jailers . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Dec. 10, 1881. 42. Joseph Cowen (1831–1900) was a Liberal English journalist and politician who sympathized with Irish nationalism. 43. A reference to The Irish Land Question. 44. Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), an English philosopher who attempted to correlate natural sciences with philosophy, was best known for applying evolution to
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all phenomena including mankind, a practice known as ‘‘Social Darwinism.’’ George published A Perplexed Philosopher in 1892 as a rebuttal to Spencer’s recantation of a progressive view of the land, including a single tax, in Social statics (1850). 45. George’s reading of Mill’s economics was crucial for the development of his single-tax thought. 46. Slavery in the British Isles was abolished in 1807 and slavery in the British West Indies in 1833. In the United States slavery began to end with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and with the Union victory of the Civil War two years later. 47. The No Rent Manifesto was issued in 1881 by Irish nationalist leaders who were imprisoned. 48. The War of 1812, which lasted until 1815, was fought between the United States and Great Britain was precipitated by a number of causes. It was a catalyst to American nationalism and expansion. 49. Kilmainham Jail was built in 1796 and has had many illustrious Irish patriots as guests. 50. The Magna Carta (1215) issued by King John after his loss at the Battle of Runnymede ensured feudal rights for the aristocracy and protection from royal encroachment on their privileges. Other provisions included assessment without consent, the rights of churches, towns, and other subjects. It is considered a starting point of the supremacy of the British constitution over the monarch with due process of law, and hence, while in no sense democratic, a remote ancestor of democratic rule. William of Orange (II), who became king of England in 1689 accepted the Bill of Rights, which gave political and civil rights to the population and supremacy to Parliament over the monarchy. 51. John Bright (1811–1889) was the vociferous laissez-faire champion of free trade and repeal of the Corn Laws. 52. A wicket is a small door or gate. 53. The Coercion Act of 1881, passed by the Gladstone ministry, sought to curb the increasing violence in Ireland through the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. 54. Henry George, ‘‘How They Govern Ireland . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Jan. 14, 1882. ‘‘A Talk with a Landlord-Man,’’ ‘‘The Country Going to the Devil and All because of those Infernal Agitators, You Know,’’ ‘‘Plouging Parnell’s Fields,’’ and ‘‘Sketches on the Spot – Truly is It a United Nation that England is Fighting’’ have been deleted from the title since the sections that they represent have not been used. 55. William O’Brien (1852–1928) was an influential Irish journalist and political leader. 56. ‘‘Suspects’’ refers to the Irish people incarcerated by the British authorities, even on the flimsiest of charges. 57. ‘‘The sort of order that reigned in Warsaw’’ probably refers to the riots there and in other cities with the subsequent rebellion which spread across Poland (part of the Russian Empire at this time) lasting from 1863 to 1864. Czarist troops put it down in a most brutal fashion and then used extreme measures of Russification with the enforcement of more restrictions. 58. Henry George, ‘‘A Visit to London . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Jan. 21, 1882. 59. The Liberal Party, which grew out of the Whigs around 1830, advocated domestic reforms, free trade, extension of the franchise, and greater liberties.
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60. Herbert J. Gladstone (1854–1930) was the son of William E. Gladstone. He was a member of the Liberal Party and served in a number of capacities for the English government. 61. Irish Party refers to the Members of Parliament from Ireland. 62. With Gladstone’s second Land Act (1881) Land Courts were established to make sure that fair rents could be arranged. 63. Lord Randolph H. S. Churchill (1849–1895) was a British statesman, who served as chancellor of the exchequer, and was the father of Winston. 64. Helen Taylor (1831–1907) was an outspoken English advocate of woman’s rights and stepdaughter of J. S. Mill. The Social Democratic Federation was the first Marxist group in Great Britain and was founded by Henry M. Hyndman (1842–1921). John Dillon (1851–1927) was an Irish nationalist and a Member of Parliament. 65. Parnell and a number of other men were charged with seditious conspiracy under the Coercion Act in 1880 and then brought to trial next year. He was subsequently jailed in Dublin and released in 1882 after signing the Kilmainham Treaty. 66. According to the OED, ‘‘estreat’’ in this sense is ‘‘to extract or take out the record of (a fine, bail, recognizance, etc) and return it to a court of exchequer to be prosecuted,’’ or more generally ‘‘to exact (a fine); to force of forfeiture (of anything).’’ 67. Henry George, ‘‘Irish Democracy . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Jan. 28, 1882. 68. St. Patrick (ca. 385–461) brought Christianity to the Irish. 69. Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) was poet laureate after 1850. 70. The Scotsman Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) wrote prolifically on history and philosophy in a German metaphysical vein. Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893) was the noted French historian and critic. 71. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789, which contained principles of the Enlightenment, was written by Emmanuel J. Sieyes (1748–1836). It was incorporated as a preamble to the French Constitution in 1791. France was home to radical theories especially to the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865). Russia, at this time, was a hotbed of nihilist and populist radical activity that culminated in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. 72. Vehmgerichts were extralegal land courts in Germany supported by the Holy Roman Emperor. They came into being during the twelfth century to deal with the breakdown of authority, but after time proceedings became secret and more corrupt. After their heyday in the fifteenth century they began to disappear with the consolidation of princely power, and were finally eliminated in the nineteenth century. 73. Edward McCabe (1816–1885) who succeeded Cardinal Cullen as Archbishop of Dublin in 1879 became a cardinal three years later. 74. A major convention was held in Chicago in 1881 that attracted a number of Irish societies including representatives from the Land League. 75. A nationalist is anyone (usually a Catholic) who supported greater autonomy and/or freedom from Great Britain. 76. The British government for Ireland was seated in Dublin Castle. 77. The difficult circumstances in Ireland led to the imposition of sterner legal controls of which one example was the Peace Preservation Act of 1881. 78. Edward A. Freeman (1823–1892) was an influential English historian.
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79. Anna Parnell (1852–1911), the sister of Charles Stewart Parnell, was an active fighter for Irish freedom and founder of the Ladies’ Land League. 80. Alfred Webb (1834–1908) was a prominent radical Irish agitator who served as a Member of Parliament. 81. Henry George, ‘‘How the Commons Begins . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Mar. 25, 1882. ‘‘Why the Irish Members Voted Against Bradlaugh’’ had been deleted from the title since this section in the text was not used. 82. The three kingdoms were England, Scotland, and Ireland. 83. Three noted Irish nationalist leaders: John E. Redmond (1856–1918); Thomas Sexton (1848–1932); and Timothy M. Healy (1855–1931), who became the first governor general of the Irish Free State. 84. Dwyer Gray lived from 1845 to 1888 and the writer Justin McCarthy from 1830 to 1912. 85. William Pitt (1759–1806), the younger, was prime minister from 1784 until 1801 and from 1804 to 1806. 86. Possibly a reference to the major fire of 1666. 87. Latin Terram autem dedit filiis hominum: ‘‘the earth He has given to the children of men’’ (see Psalms 113:24). 88. Henry George, ‘‘Work and Wages . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Mar. 25, 1882. 89. A list of names has been deleted by the editor. 90. A reference to the Gladstone ministry, which pushed through the Coercion Act. 91. ‘‘Whig ministry’’ is probably a reference to the Benjamin Disraeli’s (Lord Beaconsfield) Conservative ascendancy from 1874 to 1880. He lived from 1804 to 1881. 92. An edited version of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence written in 1776 by Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) who was secretary of state under Washington and the third president from 1801 to 1809. 93. A reference to the American Civil War that was waged from 1861 to 1865. 94. Three asterisks (***) represent indecipherable words. 95. A placer is a superficial alluvial or glacial deposit containing valuable minerals, as distinguished from a lode. 96. A reference to the Land Bill. 97. The Reformation traditionally began with Martin Luther’s (1483–1546) nailing of the 95 theses on a church door in Wittenburg on Oct. 31, 1517. 98. In the preceding deleted paragraph Mr. John Ferguson declared ‘‘there was nothing immoral in the program of the Land League.’’ 99. Henry George, ‘‘General Misunderstanding . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Apr. 1, 1882. 100. Edmund Burke (1729–1797), the British political writer and statesman, was a noted conservative thinker known for his outspoken stance against the French Revolution. Earlier in his career he had spoken against the slave trade, espoused a conciliatory stand with the American colonies, and advocated a more lenient policy in India. Richard B. Sheridan (1751–1816) was a British politician, orator, and dramatist who defended the French Revolution. 101. The czar of Russia at the time of this writing was Alexander III (1845–1894) who came to the throne in 1881 after the assassination of his father. He was known for his repressive policies. 102. The Inquisition reached its height during the reign of the Spanish king Philip II (1527–1598), who was a fanatic Catholic. He also waged incessant wars throughout
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his vast realm. He launched the ill-fated Armada in 1588. George III (1738–1820) reigned from 1760 until his death, but bouts of insanity forced establishment of a regency under his son in 1811. 103. The Tudors reigned in England from 1485 to 1603. The Stuarts ruled Scotland from 1374 and jointly with England from 1603 to 1714. The first Hanover George I came to the English throne in 1714, but the connection between the two countries ended with Victoria. 104. Edward III (1312–1377) reigned from 1327. 105. Victoria (1819–1901), queen of England. The Guelphs were a European dynasty with traceable roots to the ninth century from Guelph I. Because of the Salic Law (no succession of title through a female), Hanover became separated from the English Crown upon Victoria’s accession in 1837. 106. A reference to Edward VII (1841–1910), son of Albert and Victoria, who came to the throne in 1901. 107. A reference to the marriage of Prince Leopold George Duncan to Princess Helena Frederica of Waldeck on Apr. 27, 1882. 108. Henry George, ‘‘Parnell . . . ,’’ The Irish World, May 13, 1882. 109. The Englishman William H. Smith (1825–1891) led a distinguished political career. 110. Henry George, ‘‘Letter from George . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Jun. 10, 1882. 111. Thomas Brennan was an active member of the Irish Land League. 112. Henry George, The Times, Jun. 12, 1882. 113. Henry George, ‘‘Celebrating America’s Independence in Ireland . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Aug. 5, 1882. The following headings have been deleted from the title since the sections that they represent have not been used: ‘‘Miss Helen Taylor Punished for Advocacy of Ireland and Humanity;’’ ‘‘London’s Breadless Toilers;’’ ‘‘And London’s Possessions of Gorgeous Luxury;’’ and ‘‘Outrageous Tramp Laws.’’ 114. The Herald’s College was established in 1528 to ascertain what coat of arms were in use and to log the genealogies of the families using them. The Earl Marshall could issue a warrant to its officers to grant arms to a petitioner. 115. The green flag with harp was introduced in 1798 by the Society of United Irishmen and served as the unofficial banner of Ireland until 1918. 116. John Adams (1735–1826) served in both Continental Congresses, signed the Declaration of Independence, was vice-president under Washington, and the second president from 1797 to 1801. George Washington (1732–1799) the commander in chief of the Continental Army was the first president. 117. The speaker, who is the presiding officer, is elected by the House of Commons at the beginning of every new term. Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) was lord protector of England from 1653 until his death. He sought to implement puritanical policies with a heavy hand. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was ruler of France from 1799 to 1815. 118. There was, at times, reluctance by members of the government to reduce taxation, since money was needed for the constant demands of the military forces. 119. Earl John P. Spencer (1835–1910) was a British statesman and lord lieutenant of Ireland. Sir George O. Trevelyan (1838–1928) was a British politician and historian who served as chief secretary for Ireland. 120. Possibly a reference to British involvement in Egypt in 1882. 121. Despite the Land Acts and other schemes many problems remained because the Anglo-Irish magistracy was pro-landlord and avoided implementing the new laws.
1. HENRY GEORGE ARRESTED (WITH THE IRISH WORLD) ‘‘By Order of Dublin Castle.’’1 Dublin, Wednesday, 1 a.m., Aug. 9, 1882. Patrick Ford, Irish World, New York: The Dublin Freeman’s Journal correspondent telegraphs from Loughrea, Co. Galway, that Henry George and Mr. Joynes, master of Eton College, England, were arrested there a few hours ago on the arrival of the mail train from Dublin.2
LATER. Cable from Mr. George Himself. Special Cable to The Irish World. Dublin, Aug. 9, 1882. Just returned from the barracks at Loughrea. Mr. Joynes, master of Eton College, England, and myself, traveling together, were arrested Tuesday evening, the moment we reached the hotel at Loughrea from Ballinasloe, under the Coercion Act. We were driven to the barracks at once and all our baggage was searched and papers read. After being detained three hours under guard we were brought before the resident magistrate, and after examination discharged.
BY ORDER OF DUBLIN CASTLE. Sub-inspector Byrne being asked the reasons for the proceeding, stated that he had acted on a telegraphic order from headquarters in Dublin to arrest us on arrival. 143
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I demanded the grounds of suspicion, but was refused all further information. The police persisted, as a matter of imperative duty in reading all of the private papers of Mr. Joynes, although informed who he was.
2. A REVIEW OF THE IRISH LAND QUESTION What Gladstone’s Land Act is. What Peasant Proprietary will Not do Even if Established. No Pretensions to Justice. The Comparison Vastly in Favor of Nationalization. Justice to Labor and Prosperity to Ireland Possible Only by Nationalizing the Land.3 Irish World Staff Correspondence. 37 Lower Gardiner Street. Dublin, July 23, [18]82. Of all that has been recently written against the nationalization of the land and the bringing forward of such a proposition at the present juncture of Irish affairs, there is much that is too absurd to require any answer yet, as it is evident that the matter is by many imperfectly understood, I, perhaps, cannot do better in writing to The Irish World than briefly to review the whole question. Before passing to the political aspects of the case, let us consider the social effects of the measures that have been adopted or proposed for the settlement of the Irish land question.
THE GLADSTONE LAND ACT. The Gladstone Land Act, with all its delays and shortcomings, will undoubtedly work a considerable improvement in the condition of a large portion of the Irish agricultural tenantry. Where it operates, and so far as ‘‘present tenants’’ are concerned, it gives security of tenure, abrogates the power of landlords to charge what they please, and reduces what the tenant has been paying to the landlord. It thus takes from the income of certain classes of landlords to add to the income of certain classes of tenants, and what is quite 145
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as important, it destroys the almost absolute control which, through the power of raising rent and evicting, these landlords had previously over these tenants. These are real gains, yet at the same time they are only partial and temporary gains. Those whose condition the Gladstone Land Act can improve are only certain classes of the present agricultural tenants. The leaseholders, the people of the towns and cities, the laborers, the tenants who are too poor to avail themselves of the Land Courts, etc., get no benefit of the act. And not only are the benefits of the act lost whenever the landlord, by reason of nonpayment of rent or otherwise, acquires the complete control taken from him by the operation of the act, but the man who in future takes a farm subject to the statutory rent will have to pay a rack rent as high as (and I am inclined to think, on the average considerably higher than) before the Gladstone Land Act was passed. This is not ‘‘mere theory’’; it is actual, demonstrated fact. For just as the Land Courts reduce rents, so does the selling price of the tenant right go up. The present tenant who gets his rent reduced gains by the reduction; but he is enabled to demand a higher price of the man who comes after him because of that reduction. And even more than the landlord will he be likely to demand the uttermost farthing.4 That this is the case is already seen in the rise in the selling value of tenants’ interests which has followed and even preceded the working of the Gladstone Act; and this being the case, it is evident that whatever benefit the Gladstone Act may be to the present tenants whom it affects it will be of no benefit to that whom it affects it will be of no benefit to that still more important class who have little or nothing but their labor. It will be as difficult as before for one of these to get a piece of ground on which to labor for himself – in fact, it will be more difficult, because it is always more difficult for a poor man to raise a sum of ready money than to pay its equivalent in installments, and when he does succeed in doing so he will have to borrow on usurious interest, as the poor are always compelled to, and thus when he succeeds in borrowing the ready money necessary to purchase the tenant right he will have to pay not only rent to the landlord and premium to the preceding tenant, but a usurious profit to the ‘‘gombeen man.’’5 So that it will be really more difficult for the man who has nothing but his labor to get land on which to employ that labor than before, and his net return for his labor will be less. This being the case, there is nothing in the Gladstone Act which will tend to raise his wages of labor, for the wages of labor manifestly everywhere depend upon the facilities men have of going to work for themselves, upon the freedom with which they can apply their labor to the necessary element of all production and the mother of all wealth – the earth.
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When this becomes impossible, when men who have nothing but their labor must compete with each other for employment by some employer, then wages must ultimately reach and remain at that point which will give only a bare living; and as there is nothing in the Gladstone Act which will improve the condition of those who have nothing but their labor, so there is nothing in it that will be of general benefit to the whole people of Ireland, for as to what will benefit the whole people the class who has nothing but their labor is not merely the most important class to be considered – it is the only class to be considered. If their condition is improved then the general condition of the whole people must be improved. But if their condition is not improved no gain can be either general or secure. Until the man who has nothing but his labor can make an easy, comfortable, independent living, without fear or favor, there must be poverty, misery, servility, and ignorance at the bottom of the social scale that will poison all the arteries of life. Thus the Gladstone Land Act, while it will benefit large classes and is an improvement, is still but a partial and temporary improvement. It is not a full, final, and satisfactory settlement of the land question, nor is it an advance towards it. Instead of making easier the abolition of landlordism, it is really calculated to strengthen landlordism. This is its design; it was for this purpose that it was passed. Mr. Gladstone is himself a large landowner, linked by all his affiliations and sympathies with the landlord class, and the Parliament that passed the bill is in both its branches a landlord parliament. The Act ruthlessly sacrifices the interests of the weaker and more embarrassed of the Irish landlords, but it does this to give a longer lease of their possessions to the richer and stronger of the Irish landlords, and to avert danger to English landlordism. Just as thieves will share their plunder to secure defense, so is it the design of this act to interest a large class of the tenant farmers in the defense of landlordism by giving them a small share in its spoils. The tenant farmer who gets his statutory lease at a fair rent fixed, finds himself in possession of an interest which he can sell for what to him is a considerable sum, and this not merely gives the landlord security for the collection of rent, but it engages the tenant in the defense of the system. This, as I have said, is the design of the Land Act. It yields little of the ‘‘rights’’ of landlordism in order to preserve the rest. It is on this that Mr. Gladstone relies for bringing to naught the agrarian agitation. His aim is to make landlordism tolerable to such a large class – to interest in the maintenance of ‘‘property rights’’ such a large class that for a long time to come agrarian agitation cannot raise its head in Ireland.
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Nor is his calculation an erroneous one. The main obstacle to a firm and decisive strike against rent was that the farmers, when it came to the pinch, would not risk the loss of the selling value of their holdings. And the Act, though working slowly, is working, and unless prevented by circumstances which cannot certainly be predicted, must to a greater or less extent have the effect intended – making harder the solution of landlordism.
PEASANT PROPRIETARY. I do not dispute that if all the tenant farmers of Ireland could be made the absolute owners of their holdings it would be a great improvement upon the present condition of Ireland any more than I dispute that the Gladstone Land Act would work an improvement. But the improvement would still be of the same insufficient nature. Peasant proprietary, even if it were carried out to the full, and the whole cultivatable soil of Ireland cut up into little farms, the property of the occupying cultivators would not be any complete and permanent solution of the land question. For not only would the population of the towns and cities be excluded from the benefits of such a settlement, and the urban lands be left in the possession of their present holders, but in the suburban districts it would still be only a class that owned the land. Though this would be a very large class, at first it would constantly tend to become smaller, as from choice or necessity some of the holders would sell their plots and others would add to their possessions. And still those who had nothing but their labor would be as great a disadvantage as now – peasant proprietary would not raise wages. Even if peasant proprietary could be instituted as full as in Belgium, justice would not be done nor a healthy social condition attained. Ireland would belong not to all – the Irish people, but only to some of the Irish people. But it is useless to discuss peasant proprietary of this kind. It is under existing conditions so impossible that ‘‘it does not come within the range of practical politics.’’ No one really proposes it. What Mr. Parnell and the gentlemen who insist that peasant proprietary should be the aim of the Land League mean by peasant proprietary is, as they have declared, that the agricultural tenants should be assisted to purchase their holdings of ‘‘those who now own the land.’’ This is within the range of ‘‘practical politics,’’ inasmuch as it accords with the Gladstone policy, and would require but an extension of those clauses of the Land Act originally designed to facilitate purchases, while it would not be objectionable to the Irish landlords, and is strongly favored by the English landed interest.
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But for the manner in which the time of the British Parliament has been taken by Irish business and the important matters now pressing upon its attention an endeavor to extend and liberalize the purchase clauses of the Land Act would have been made at this session, if not by the Liberals, then by the Conservatives, for the Conservative landlords very properly regard the enlisting of a large number of Irish farmers in the ranks of landowners as a peculiarly conservative measure. Even that great Scotch landlord, the Duke of Argyle, who left the Cabinet because he could not stomach Mr. Gladstone’s Land Bill, is warmly in favor of assisting the Irish tenants to buy their holdings from the Irish landlords. And no wonder. It would very much strengthen his grip on that vast area of Highland land, the immemorial property of his clan, from which his ancestors took advantage of English law to exterminate their kinsmen – the same English law which Irish chieftains were bribed to accept by the plunder of their church and the robbery of their tribesmen. If the Irish members and the English and Scotch landlords could settle the matter between them there is no doubt that a bill could be got through the British Parliament which would give very liberal help to the tenants in buying out the landlords. But there is another power to be considered. The landlords are dominant in the British Parliament, but they are not absolute. The oligarchy that rules Great Britain is an oligarchy not of landlordism alone, but of landlordism and capital, and the big beast of burden who sweats underneath – the typical John Bull – is an animal who may kick most violently when his prejudices coincide with a natural disposition to button his pocket.6 To give the landlords the value of their lands, and yet to offer the tenants such easy terms as would induce them to purchase, the general taxpayer will have to step in either with money or with credit. This is the practical difficulty, and for the present at least it would seem to grow greater as Gladstone’s power wanes. But passing this for the present, all that the Irish advocates of peasant proprietary propose is that the tenants should, by the aid of advances or guarantees from the government, buy their holdings . . . [from] the landlords. Now, whatever may be the promise of this scheme for agricultural tenants, or rather for such of them as could take advantage of it, it most plainly lacks the elements of justice and equality. It would be of no advantage to the people of the towns and cities, to the artisans and operatives, to the agricultural laborers, to the families who have been crowded into the workhouses. It would not merely be a most lame and impotent conclusion to a great movement – it would be the grossest injustice to those who have done most and suffered most.
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And as between the tenants it would just as glaringly lack justice and equality. Ireland is not a country of anything like equal holdings. These holdings run from great farms of thousands of acres down to little patches of a few acres of such poor land that they will not support the tenants, who are obliged to eke out a living by laboring or fishing, or going across to England during the harvest season. From the richest parts of Ireland the people have been exterminated. Cattle have succeeded men. The process has been going on all this century and is still going on. You may ride from Dublin half across the island and hardly see a tilled patch. By the side of every road you will see remains of ruined cabins, and comparatively young men will point out to you fields over which beasts now roam which they remembered as populous villages. It is into the mountains, and bogs, and poor land of the West that the bulk of the agricultural tenantry has been driven. The most liberal measure for enabling the tenants to purchase their holdings would do nothing whatever to redistribute population, to rebuild the desolated villages and replace beasts by human beings. The tenants who would probably profit most by it are those tenants who are best able to take care of themselves. There are many large and wealthy tenants in Ireland, and it is quite common to find shopkeepers, publicans, or capitalists of the towns holding from one to half-a-dozen farms apiece. Tenants of this well-to-do class would naturally be those who could most readily avail themselves of whatever advantage might be offered by any act to facilitate purchase. But let that act be as liberal as can reasonably be expected, it is certain that there would be from one cause or another, many tenants who could not or who would not avail themselves of it, and finally complete the purchase of their holdings. So that practically the result of any scheme for the conversion of the Irish tenants into proprietors that can be reasonably anticipated is not that the whole body of the tenantry would thus be converted into proprietors, but only some considerable portion of them. But even supposing, what seems to me practically impossible, that the whole body of tenants could be thus converted into owners, there would not only be created many considerable landowners among tenants themselves, but there would be a very large and valuable portion of Irish soil left in the hands of the present landlords. All of the large landlords have extensive grounds, plantations, and demesne farms which they do not let at all, or let only . . . [for] grazing.7 Some them, like Lord Cloncurry, graze large estates, with their own stock; others, like Mr. Parnell, let part of their estates to tenants and work the rest on their own account by means of a superintendent and hired laborers. Of course, no scheme for the conversion
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of tenants into owners touches these lands any more than it touches the lands of cities and towns. But it is necessary to dwell upon the inadequacy of this scheme. It lacks the first essential – justice. It contains no recognition whatever of the inalienable right of the Irish people to the soil of their native land. It merely proposes that one set of people should buy from another set of people a part of the soil which the Creator manifestly intended for all the people. It would still leave the land of Ireland the exclusive property of but a portion of the people of Ireland. It would be a new act of acquiescence in the disinheritance of the masses, a fresh recognition of the impious doctrine that what the Creator has freely given to all His creatures they have no right to enjoy unless they purchase the privilege from such of their fellows as have presumed to monopolize His bounty. It would not lessen nor weaken, it would but continue the great wrong which, where Nature offers plenty, condemns men to want, ignorance, pauperism, and starvation. It would be at very best but a pruning of some of the branches of the upas tree, not the cutting of its roots, and it may be but a pruning that would enable it to send forth new shoots more vigorously.8
NATIONALIZATION OF THE LAND. That all men are equally entitled to the use and enjoyment of the opportunities of Nature is a truth that requires no argument – it is self-evident. It is a religious truth as clearly as it is a political truth or an economic truth. And unless the Creator is a bungler there must be in every stage of social development some method of reconciling this truth with all social needs. In a primitive state of society this equal right of all men to the use of the opportunities and bounty of Nature may be secured by allotting to each family a piece of land and making it inalienable, as was done by the Mosaic Law;9 or it may be secured by cultivating the land in common and dividing the produce, as was the custom of some primitive communities; or by periodical redivisions, as was the custom of others. But in the present stage of civilization, when the operations of production have become very much more elaborate and industry very much more diversified, and the distribution of population and the relative value of land so much changed by improvements in methods of communication and the growth of cities, it is evident that no actual division of the land would secure equality. For how could the land of Dublin, for instance, be divided up so as to give each inhabitant of Dublin an equal share? Or how could those
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changes in value which result from the building of railroads, the opening of mines, etc., be provided for? But there is no difficulty whatever in attaining perfect equality in another way. That is by treating the land as the common property of the whole people, and collecting from those who are permitted to hold and use any specially valuable portion of the common property the value of this privilege, and either using the sums thus received for common purposes or dividing them share and share alike among all the people. If the ownership of all land were formally resumed in the name of the people, and all lands having a value let for the common benefit, the equal right of every individual would be fully acknowledged, and in regard to the opportunities offered by Nature everyone would be put on a common level. But inasmuch as large sums are constantly required for common purposes, and are taken from the people by taxation, the easiest and simplest way of nationalizing the land is to shift the burden of taxation upon land values and bring it up as near as may be to the full value of land. To take the value of land in taxation would amount to precisely the same thing as taking it in rent, and under the conditions which exist now in Ireland and other civilized countries would be a very much easier way of nationalizing the land than by formal resumption and letting. This plan, if fully carried out, would fulfill all the requirements of justice. It would secure to each one his natural right to the equal enjoyment of the bounty of Nature; it would put each on an equal footing as regards the common heritage. Whether the piece of land he was in possession of was a large piece or a small piece, whether it was rich land or poor land, whether it was far from a railroad station or market, or in the heart of a great city, would make no difference, nor yet would it make any difference whether a man held any land or not, since whatever peculiar advantage the possession of land gave would be compensated for by the return which would be made to the public in the taxation upon it. In this way land would be made the common property of the whole people, while at the same time all the advantages claimed for private property in land would be secured. The tax being levied upon the value of the bare land irrespective of improvements, the user and improver of land would have a perfectly secure title to possession and to his improvements, and these improvements he could at any time sell or otherwise dispose of. The tax would be in effect a ground rent, such as that placed upon nearly all buildings in the cities of Great Britain and Ireland, and the land and buildings would be transferred subject to the tax, just as they are now transferred subject to the ground rent. There would be these differences,
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however, that the tax, if theoretically perfect, would rise and fall as the value of the bare land rose and fell instead of being fixed for a term of years, and that the improvements would permanently belong to the improver or his representatives instead of, as is commonly the case with improvements made in this country in land let on ground rent, falling into the landlord at the expiration of a certain term. In fact, the inducement to industry, thrift, and improvement would be greater under this system than under that of absolute ownership, for the improver would not be taxed as he is now because of his improvements, and would get the full value of them himself.
PEASANT PROPRIETARY VS. NATIONALIZATION. From whatever point of view the two schemes of peasant proprietary and nationalization be compared with each other, it will be seen that nationalization presents the greatest advantages. To go over a few of these points: 1. Peasant proprietary, as it is proposed in Ireland, would only entrench and strengthen the system of landlordism. It would leave to the present landlords a great part, and that the most valuable part, of the soil of Ireland. It would merely interest in the defense of the system, by which the great proprietors draw such large incomes from the labor of the people, a number of small proprietors. Nationalization, on the other hand, would destroy landlordism, root and branch. Instead of merely bringing about a change of proprietors as to some portion of the agricultural lands, it would make every square inch of the soil of Ireland, whether city land or farming land, whether park or bog, the common property of the Irish people. 2. Peasant proprietary, as it is proposed, involves the payment to the landlords of a very large sum, which, whether it be in the first place advanced by the government or not, must ultimately be paid by the purchasing tenants. The landlords thus bought out, if not already absentees, would for the most part become absentees, and thus for a long time to come the exhausting drain from Ireland to England will be increased instead of being diminished. By the nationalization plan nothing would be paid to the landlords, and the enormous drain upon Irish resources which landlordism now causes would at once cease. 3. The buying out of their landlords by any part or even the whole of the agricultural tenants would have no tendency to destroy the monopoly of
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land or to prevent the demanding of monopoly prices for its use. It would have no tendency to make land more easily obtainable by those who wished to use it. Nationalization, on the other hand, would make monopolization impossible. Were land taxed up to its full value no one could afford to hold land that he was not using, and monopoly or speculative prices and rents would be destroyed. Could the tax be levied with theoretical perfection so as to take exactly the value of the land, land would have no selling value at all, and no one who wanted to use land would have to pay out any of this capital or incur any debt for its purchase. He would merely have to pay for the improvements, and for the use of the land would pay a greater or less tax in proportion to its value, which would be in the nature of a rent to the community. This theoretical perfection would, doubtless, be in practice impossible, just as it is impossible to draw a line with geometrical precision. But every increase of taxation upon the value of land would reduce its selling price and thus make it easier for those having little or no capital to obtain it. And as every increase of taxation upon land values would tend to force the owners of unused land to sell or rent it for what they could get, the effect would be not merely to reduce the selling price of land, but, by the destruction of speculative values, to reduce rents even faster than the increase of taxation, and to give their land to the present agriculturists much cheaper than they would get it either under the present or the peasant proprietary system. The general prosperity which the nationalization of the land would bring about would unquestionably soon add to the value of land and increase the amount of taxes which the users of land should pay, but this would be no hardship to them, for it would be in consequence of the increase of the real value of the land. If they would have to pay more it would be because they got more. And as in Ireland, as everywhere else where the same system prevails, there is a good deal of land which has merely a monopoly or speculative value, the effect of such taxation as would destroy this value would be, by the aid of some such simple provision as the fixing of a minimum of taxation to land not used by the holder, to throw open to those who wished to use it a considerable body of the poorer land free both of purchase money and taxation. What effect this would have in a country where rent is exacted even of men who go into the bogs and cut away little patches for potato fields can be imagined. In short, the nationalization of the land would do what nothing less can do. By breaking up the monopoly of natural opportunities on the one hand,
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and relieving industry and improvement of the taxes now levied upon them on the other, by utilizing for the benefit of the community that ‘‘unearned increment’’ of wealth that properly belongs to the community, it would release those who have nothing but their labor from the necessity of competing with each other for employment at starvation rates, it would raise wages, stimulate enterprise, increase population, and effect a general improvement in social conditions in which all classes would share. The political question yet remains to be considered, but the length to which this letter has grown makes it best to defer consideration of that until my next.
3. THE BOTTOM ISSUE Transferring the Land and Improvements Thereon. Replies of Henry George and ‘‘Honorius.’’ Whatever will Fully Secure the Equal Right to Land will, at the Same Time, Secure the Right of Labor to Its Produce. What Conflicts with One Conflicts with Both. Land is Not Private Property; Occupancy Alone is the Title – A Nationalization or Common Property System.10 San Francisco, Cal. Editor Irish World: The question which Mr. Edward McGraw asks, how natural rights to the soil can be reconciled with natural rights to the products of labor, is a most important one. For, since all production is the exertion of labor upon land, and all wealth is the result of the combination of these two factors, in the proper relations of labor to land must be found the key to the whole social problem. Your correspondent sees clearly two truths: 1st: That all men have equal rights to the use and enjoyment of what has been provided by Nature; and 2nd: That all men have exclusive rights to what has been produced by their labor. From the first of these principles he assumes that land should not be made an article of merchandise, to be bought and sold, but that ‘‘a man should have his share of the earth free of cost, to be cultivated with his own hands and those of his own family, as long as he lives and uses it for such purposes, and no longer.’’ This evidently seems to him a full and satisfactory mode of recognizing equal rights to land, but the moment he begins to think of the other truth there arises a difficulty. For, as he very truly says, if no one is to be permitted to sell or bequeath land, then one can sell or bequeath such improvements as houses, barns, orchards, drains, etc., which are inseparable from the land. Thus he finds himself in a dilemma – either he must give up the 157
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equal right to land in order to secure the exclusive right to improvements, or he must give up the right of labor to its products in order to secure the natural right to land. Now, this is a difficulty worth careful consideration. For it is by raising this difficulty, that landlordism always seeks to defend itself. I think I am safe in saying that there is not a single writer of repute who presumes to defend the abstract justice of the existing land system. Theoretically, they all admit either directly or indirectly, that all men are by nature equally entitled to the use of land; but they contend that land must be made private property in order to give security to improvements, and declare that although some injustice may result from this system yet to give it up would be to destroy the incentive to improvement, and to carry society back to squalid barbarism. And this position is evidently an impregnable one, as against any scheme for dividing up land into little nontransferable pieces. For under such minute divisions most of the more important improvements and processes of modern production would become impossible, and the industrial conditions of society as a whole would become those of a wandering tribe or of rack-rented tenants. But shall we thence conclude that we must give up the equal right to land in order to preserve the right of the improver to his improvements? Not at all. The only thing which we can logically conclude is that this plan of recognizing the equal right to land is not the true one. This is clear whichever way we consider it. For, when we come to analyze the two truths which Mr. McGraw perceives it, it is clear that they are not contradictory but harmonious – that they are in fact but different ways of expressing one and the same truth. For, evidently, if each of us, is equally entitled to the use and benefit of the bounty of Nature, we are, each of us, by virtue of this right, entitled to the exclusive use and benefit of the produce of our labor. And if the produce of labor is rightfully the exclusive property of the producer, then it necessarily follows that no one can justly claim any greater right than his fellows to the natural material and opportunities which are necessary to the exertion of labor. As one of these truths involves the other, it is clear that any scheme which fully recognizes the one must at the same time fully recognizes the other. Whatever plan will fully secure the equal right to land, will, at the same time, secure the exclusive right of labor to its produce; and whatever plan will fully secure the right of labor to its produce, must, at the same time, secure equal rights to land. And reversely. Whatever plan comes in conflict with one of these rights, will, upon examination, be seen to fail in recognizing the other.
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Now, it is plain to Mr. McGraw that the plan which he assumes for the recognition of the equal right to land comes in conflict with the personal right to improvement. This at once shows that it is not a true plan. And if he will turn back and examine it, I think he will see that it really fails to recognize the equal right to land. For equal rights to land cannot be secured by any scheme of dividing up the land. Equal division, with prohibition of transfer, might secure equal rights if land were all of the same quality, if all production were of the same kind, and population were fixed and in such a state of society as that for which Moses legislated this plan doubtless secured approximate equality. But these are not the conditions with which we have to deal. Not only does land vary greatly as to quality, accessibility, etc. (differences which are brought out more and more strongly as civilization progresses) but production, instead of the simple form in which each family, in pretty much the same way, produces all it consumes, has become highly complex and greatly differentiated, while population is steadily increasing and constantly shifting its center. Under these conditions it is impossible to secure equality by the rude plan of dividing up the land. To cut up land into equal sized lots would be, of course, preposterous, as some of these lots would be worth nothing, while others would be worth thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions; while, were we to attempt to secure equality of value we would be obliged to divide by the square mile in the territories and by the square inch in the centers of the great cities. And even supposing, what is utterly impossible, that such an equal division could be made and equality could be for the moment thus secured, it would not be a permanent equality, for the relative value of land is constantly changing with the growth and distribution of population. In a progressive country a few years make the most enormous differences – some land may remain stationary in value, some may even decline, while other land increases by the hundred and thousandfold. Evidently, then, to assign to each a specified share of the earth’s surface could not, under our conditions, secure equality, while to attempt it would be to dislocate society. Such plans are utterly incompatible with modern civilization. But this is not to say, as many would have us believe, that justice is incompatible with civilization. This is not to say that we must either go back to barbarism or submit to abuses which shock the moral sense and make civilization to large numbers a curse. This is not to say that Irish peasants must starve while Irish landlords live daintily; that when a hot summer
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comes little children must die like flies in New York tenement houses; that citizens of the Republic must tramp the roads of our new states, begging from the lords of square leagues for leave to work!11 We cannot divide up land equally; but we can, in a much simpler and better way, assert the equality of rights. All we have to do is to appropriate the annual value, or economic rent, of land for common purposes, leaving the land itself in the possession of individuals. In this way all users or occupiers of land (though they might continue to call themselves owners) would be virtually tenants of the state, and all land would be virtually let out to the highest bidder for the benefit, not of a few landlords, but the whole community. And this is very easily done. It involves no shock, or jar, or dislocation of industry or business. It involves no increase of governmental functions or officials, but a vast reduction. All we have to do is to so adjust our system of taxation that it will confiscate economic rent, and to do this the first steps are to abolish all the direct and indirect taxes which now weigh so heavily upon labor and enterprise, thus getting rid of an enormous army of officials, raise the whole revenue from a tax upon the value of the bare land, which as land cannot be hid or carried off, could be collected with the minimum of cost, loss, and evasion. To show the economic perfection of this simple plan for nationalizing land would carry this article far beyond proper limits, and if your correspondent wishes to see the subject fully worked out, I must refer him to the book in which I have attempted to solve the whole social problem, and which you have already noticed.12 But this, at least, I think he can see at once: that while this plan fully recognizes the equal rights of all men to the land it also fully recognizes the exclusive right of the producer to the fruits of his exertion. The two axiomatic truths which, under the plan he has been thinking about, seem to conflict, are here brought into perfect harmony. When everyone who uses land pays to the community the value of that land – everyone will be placed on an equal plane. The dogs-in-the-manger would be effectually choked off, and land would be thrown open to the user. For when the community demands in taxes anything like the full value of land, no one will take more than he has use for, nor can he afford to hold it longer than he wants to use it. While the landlord, being the whole community, whatever especial value attached to the use of land would be shared by all. And so, correlatively, the personal right to the produce of labor would be fully acknowledged, for the full fruits of his exertion would be left to the producer by the destruction of speculative rent and the abolition of the
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multiform taxes which now bear upon production. And thus improvement and production would be vastly stimulated. There would not only be a fairer division of the wealth now produced, but there would be much more to divide. And thus the effect, directly and powerfully, would be to raise wages. No scheme of social reform is worth anything that will not raise wages; and this is what makes all schemes for establishing peasant proprietaries, or dividing up land among users, but class measures. If the land of Ireland, for instance, were taken from the landlords and given to the tenants, it would not in the long run raise the wages of the mere laborers, of the mechanics, of the factory operatives, of teachers and fishermen, of ill-paid clerks and sewing girls Wages are even lower in France and Belgium than in Ireland. So long as land is monopolized, whether by a small class or a large class, those who have nothing but their labor must compete with each other for a chance to earn a living, and just as this competition becomes intense, must wages be driven down to the point of a bare livelihood. But so destroy land monopoly, by thus making land common property, would be, on the one hand, to lessen competition among laborers, by opening opportunities for employment, and on the others by raising the burdens which now weigh on production, to increase the competition among employers, and thus wages must soon rise to their natural level – the full earnings of the laborer. And in the natural or economic rent (a thing which arises from differences between lands and must continue no matter who gets it) which would thus be appropriated by the state, and which would still increase with the progress of society, would be a larger and larger fund to be used for common purposes, in which the weak would share with the strong, and which would make the advance of civilization an advance toward equality, instead of as now an advance in inequality. If I have said enough to put your correspondent upon inquiry, I am confident that he will soon see the way out of his difficulty. And I am confident that the more he thinks of it, the more and more clearly he will see that the plan that I have indicated is the true one; that it harmonizes with all real progress and reform, and opens vistas so farreaching and so grand that he who has seen hardly dares speak of them to those who have not, lest they think him a dreamer of dreams. And, as you said in a most suggestive article a few weeks since, the question of method in reform is all-important. To seek an end by wrong means is really to lead away from it. This all the pages of history, stained as they are with the blood and tears of enslaved humanity, abundantly illustrate. But experience shows that within the domain which the Creator
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has assigned to man, there is no end which he cannot attain if he will seek the right means. And there must be a way by which we can secure a just and healthful social organization – a society in which there shall be no pauperism and servitude, in which no one shall have to starve or strive for a mere living, in which the full fruits of his labor may be enjoyed by each, and progressive civilization make higher, and fuller, and richer, the lives of all. This is the way for us to seek. This, and no other, is the way for us to follow. ‘‘Search all things and hold fast that which is good.’’ This is what I would say to correspondents, and this is the essence of an editorial article in the last number of The Irish World that has come to me – a golden article which embodies the lesson which those who would strive for the right most need to learn. Just as you say, the man who would reach the truth must, instead of ignoring difficulties, meet them frankly and fairly; must be ready to change his opinions whenever he finds them mistaken. Just as you say, ‘‘the man who calls for righteousness is he who without malice, passion, or egotism, goes straight after the essence of things – who is determined to know whereof he affirms, by patient study and searching.’’ There is no royal road to knowledge. Up the steep ascent where that becomes clear, which at lower levels is obscure, no one can carry another. The thought of the thinker can only be transferred to the man who will think for himself; it is of no use save to the man who will not take it for granted, but who will try it and test it, reject it if it is bad, and make it his own if it is good. And though he speak with the tongue of men and angels no one can aid in any real and lasting social reform save as he excites men to think. For it is thought alone which raises man above the brutes. It is thought which creates and which conquers. Thought must precede action if anything is to be accomplished – not the thought of the few but the thought of the many. Social problems will not yield to mere declamation and denunciation, to political combinations or to voting, to muscle or to steel. What is needed for their solution is that people begin to inquire, to compare, to examine – that is to say, to think. And to those who do think the great duty of the time is expressed in the three words which repeat and repeat again – ‘‘Spread the Light!’’ For it is the light of Light and Darkness; The great fight of God against the Devil; The great fight of Tyranny and Freedom; Truth and Right against foul Might and Falsehood! (C. G. Leland)13
4. IRELAND’S POLITICAL SUBJECTION TO ENGLAND AND LAND NATIONALIZATION A Centralized Despotism Utterly Impossible under the Nationalization System. The Danger and Duties of the Hour. Why Irish Nationalists Should Make the Land for the Whole People the Popular Demand. The Secret of English Power. ‘‘Without the Irish Landlords England Could Never and can Never Hold Ireland.’’ Nationalization the Best Thing to Advocate Even as a Mere Matter of Policy.14 Irish World Staff Correspondence. Dublin, July 31, [1882]. My last letter having been devoted to a consideration of the social effects of the measures proposed for the settlement of the Irish land question, let us pass now to a consideration of their political relations. I sincerely respect and heartily sympathize with the longing of patriotic Irishmen for national independence, and can well-understand how Irishmen who feel the tyranny and indignity of such a government as exists in Ireland today should be disposed to postpone or even passionately to oppose any scheme of reform, no matter how good in itself, which might retard or embarrass the struggle for political reform. If it were true, as has been so loudly urged since Davitt on his release from Portland [Jail] declared for the nationalization of the land, that nationalization would strengthen the political bondage of Ireland. I would freely admit the great, if not conclusive, weight of these objections. But the very reverse of this will, I think, appear to whoever examines the subject. 163
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The cry that the nationalization of the land of Ireland would mean the ‘‘Saxonization’’ of Ireland – that it would strengthen the hold of the English government in Ireland, by making it the owner of all the land, seems almost too preposterous for serious consideration. Yet it appears, for the moment, at least, to have weight with people who are caught by a phrase without stopping to think.
NATIONALIZATION A POLITICAL GAIN EVEN IF IT MEANT OWNERSHIP BY THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. If the nationalization of the land meant that the English government should take possession of all the land of Ireland and become the direct landlord of the Irish people – even that would not be a political loss, but a political gain. Both the disposition and the power of the English government to tyrannize in Ireland would be lessened and the popular cause would be enormously strengthened: for the class would be destroyed for which and by which England tyrannizes Ireland. The Irish landlords are at once the instigators of English tyranny and the most important part of the English garrison. Did they cease to exist, as they would cease to exist were the government to become the sole landlord, their influence as the instigators and supporters of tyranny would no longer be felt. The whole powerful landlord class, with all their adherents and dependents, would lose the interest that binds them to the government and opposes them to national aspirations, and would be drawn by irresistible impulses to the popular cause. England is very much more powerful than Ireland, but England is not, nor never yet has been, powerful enough to govern Ireland against the will of a united Irish people.
HOW ENGLAND CONQUERED AND HAS HELD IRELAND. England conquered Ireland by availing herself of the divisions among the Irish people, by showing certain Irish chieftains that if they accepted English law and swore allegiance to the English king they would become owners of the land in which by Irish law and custom they had only a tribal interest. And she has held Ireland by dividing the lands that she conquered among
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those who by virtue of that ownership became, and who to this day remain, the most efficient portion of the English garrison. If to make the government the owner of all the land of Ireland would be to strengthen the hold of the English government in Ireland, how is it that English kings and English statesmen have never pursued such a policy? After every fresh conquest and fresh series of confiscations the land of Ireland might have been retained as the property of the English crown. Surely, had this been the most efficient means of retaining a hold upon Ireland, it would have been adopted. But it has never been attempted. And the reason is not that English kings and English ministers have not been avaricious, or have not been shrewd, but that they knew that to hold the country they must create in the country itself a class of powerful supporters, and to create this class, by whose aid Ireland might be effectually held, the land that might have been retained as the property of the English crown or the English nation was granted away to the predecessors of the present landlords, who thus became a permanent garrison whose interests, antagonistic to those of the people, bound them to the support of British rule. This is the common device of plunderers on a large scale, whether they be crowned kings or American ‘‘bosses’’ – the only device by which tyranny can be successfully maintained. When Henry VIII started in to make himself head of the [Anglican] Church, he did not attempt to keep for himself the spoil of the religious houses that he suppressed. Had he done so he would probably have found himself minus a head instead of living to behead so many wives. But by dividing the lands among the nobles he secured the support of a powerful interest – an interest so powerful that when Mary came to the throne, with all her desire for the restoration of the old faith, she did not dare offend the powerful nobles who had participated in the spoil by proposing a restoration of the church lands.15
WITHOUT THE IRISH LANDLORDS ENGLAND COULD NEVER HAVE HELD IRELAND,16 and were the English government today to dispossess the landlords and become the sole landowner in Ireland, the power of holding Ireland as it is now held would be gone. For of all the English garrison that part which consists of the landowners is the most efficient. With a few exceptions, of which Mr. Parnell is the most notable, the landholders of Ireland are bitter
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opponents of the popular cause and staunch supporters of the government, and though comparatively small in numbers they are strong in influence. Possessing education, means, and social respect, and animated by intense feelings aroused by self-interest, they form everywhere a counterpoise to the popular party which, were they destroyed, could not be compensated for by additional soldiers or policemen. And it is also true that without the Irish landlords the incentive and cause of English tyranny in Ireland would be gone. [And] these troops of policemen and coercive laws, what are they for but to maintain Irish landlordism? Clearly, if the nationalization of the land meant merely the substitution of the British government for the present landlords of Ireland, it would be an enormous political gain.
NATIONALIZATION DOES NOT MEAN THE OWNERSHIP BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. But the nationalization of the land of Ireland no more means putting the whole ownership and control of the land of Ireland into the hands of the imperial government than does nationalization of land in the United States means the making of the federal government the universal landlord. Nationalization is a word that has come into [use], but ‘‘townshipization’’ or ‘‘communi[zat]ion’’ would do nearly as well. What is meant is that land shall be treated as the common property of the people, not that its control shall be placed in the hands of the general government instead of the local governments. And so when it is proposed that land shall be nationalized by taking its value in taxation it is not meant that it should be ta[xed] exclusively or even at all by the general government as opposed to the local government. It would still be nationalization in the sense the word is used in reference [to] the land if all the revenue from the land were taken by the local governments and the general government supported by other taxes. And while there can be no doubt that such countries as England, Ireland, and the United States the taxation of land values would not merely suffice to defray all proper expenses of government and to do much more beside, yet I think there is no advocate of nationalization who will not agree that the local governments are the first to be considered. And so far as Ireland is concerned it is utterly impossible that land nationalization could be gained without a complete change in the character of the government, [and] such a great social reform involves and necessitates commensurate political reforms. Not merely is nationalization of the land
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inconsistent with such a centralized despotism as prevails in Ireland, and with the political [subje]ction of Ireland to England, but in the [proc]ess of winning it the whole form and character of the government must be recast.
HOW NATIONALIZATION WOULD OPERATE NOW. But insomuch as it is said that nationalization, though it may be a good thing in itself, would never do while Ireland is governed by a British legislature, let us consider what would be its real effect could it go [int]o operation under the present condition o[f th]ings. This dreadful thing which m[en] who call themselves patriotic Irishmen have been declaiming against, as though it were high treason to the Irish cause even to mention it, in what does it practically consist? Simply in abolishing all other taxation by putting the whole weight of taxation up[on] the value of land. What would be the effect [if ] this were done, or done even to any considerable extent? Why, in the first place, with [tax]es levied upon the value of land, irrespective of improvements, instead of, as now, [mai]nly upon the improvements of the poorer classes, the cost of maintaining the evicted would fall upon the landlords themselves. In the next place, the landlords who have evicted tenants, and whose [lands] are now lying idle, would be compelled to give in and to get their tenants back on *** terms they could, for if they did not they would soon be ruined by the taxes levied upon land lying idle, and their lands would be ***d upon and sold at tax sale for whatever they would bring. That under these conditions evictions would at once cease, and that [in a] very little time vacant land from which tenants had been evicted could not be found in Ireland, needs no telling. Further than this, it would [seem to] me impossible to punish and ruin the people of a whole district, as is now being atte[mpt]ed, by the imposition of heavy charges *** increased police protection, or as damage*** or outrages or destruction of property pre***ed to have an agrarian character. If t*** magistrates ordered the erection of police *** every half mile, as in some districts they are threatening to do, they would not ruin the farmers as they now propose; they would only hasten the ruin of the landlords. Again, were the revenues of the government raised by a direct tax upon land values instead of indirect taxes at present so largely resorted to, any such strike as that lately attempted would be a blow not merely at the landlords, but at the power of coercion – it would be a strike at once against rent and
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taxes. It is possible to strike effectively against direct taxes, but it is not possible to strike effectively against indirect taxes. Men who will stand eviction rather than pay rent will yet, by their consumption of tea, tobacco, whiskey, etc., support the soldiers and policemen who come to turn them out. But it is needless to pursue these illustrations. To shift taxation upon land values would be to end the whole struggle – for it would, at one blow, kill landlordism. And to kill landlordism in Ireland would be to give political freedom to the Irish people, or at the very least to make the gaining of it a comparatively easy matter.
PUTTING OFF NATIONALIZATION. But besides those who say that land nationalization would strengthen British domination in Ireland, there are also those who say that though land nationalization may be the only proper solution of the land question, it is a question for the future, and ought to be postponed until peasant proprietary, which is easier got, can be secured, or who say that all discussion of land nationalization ought to be postponed until there is an Irish parliament to deal with it. Or, rather, all these objections to the demand of the land for the whole people may be heard from the same persons, and their real meaning in the mouths of those who intelligently use them is the same. But to deal with them one by one.
PEASANT PROPRIETARY WOULD NOT LEAD TO NATIONALIZATION. I cannot understand by what process of reasoning Mr. Davitt has brought himself to the conclusion that peasant proprietary as proposed by Mr. Parnell would lead to land nationalization, and it seems to me that in this his intense desire to be in harmony with Mr. Parnell must have warped his judgment. To my mind Mr. Parnell is much nearer the truth when in his Herald interview he speaks of peasant proprietary as antagonistic to nationalization. The purchase of their holdings by any large class of the tenants of Ireland will lead away from land nationalization just as surely as Mr. Gladstone’s Land Act leads away from it. Every tenant converted into a landowner will add one more to the force that will resist dispossession. The English landlords know this, and that is
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the reason why the purchase clauses were incorporated into the Land Act; why Mr. Gladstone is willing still further to extend these clauses, and why the Conservatives have already by the proposed motion of W.H. Smith signified even more than their acquiescence in that policy. It seems to me that the resumption of the land without compensation to the landlords is of the very essence of nationalization; that it is not practicable nor would it be just that the people should pay the landlords for land that manifestly belongs to the whole people, and that if this were done it would be merely to turn the unjust tax now levied upon labor into another form, and call it interest instead of rent. But even Mr. Davitt, who, as a matter of policy, proposes to pay the landlords, proposes only to pay them less than half of the ordinary commercial value of their lands. Now, whether it be the whole, the half, or some lesser fraction of the value of the land which is proposed to be taken from the landowners by any scheme of nationalization, the injustice of taking it from holders, and especially from small holders, who have just been encouraged and assisted by the state to purchase their holdings, will be strikingly apparent. These small holders will be put by the larger holders in the front of the fight, and any proposition to nationalize the land save by paying for it its full market value will be denounced as
A PLAN TO ROB INDUSTRIOUS PEASANTS of property which they purchased at the wish and on the good faith of the nation. It is true, as Mr. Parnell says, that an Irish national government (or any other government that was supreme in Ireland) would have power to place taxation upon land values after a peasant proprietary had been created just as fully as before. But here is the difference: To do this before the tenants had purchased their holding would be to do it at the expense of the landlords, but to do it afterwards would be to do it at the expense of the tenants who had purchased their holdings. If the land of Ireland is to be nationalized, or even if, for the benefit of the people at large, there is to be any increase in the taxation of land values, that purpose should be proclaimed now and the effort to secure it should be immediate. I hold with Bishop Nulty that the right of every human being to an equal share in the heritage which the Creator has given to the children of men is inalienable, and, even though all the rest of the people of Ireland were to agree to it, any settlement of the land which would exclude the humblest
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from his equal share in the common inheritance would not only be an injustice and a wrong to him, but an impious resistance to the benevolent intentions of the Creator. I hold with Thomas Jefferson that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living and that the dead have no right or power over it.17 And consequently I hold that no matter how much the land of Ireland might be subdivided or what engagements had been made with respect to it by any government, national or alien, that justice could not at any time forbid its resumption as the common property of the whole people. But if there be an intention or desire to do this it should be avowed, for the notice of intending purchasers, since it would be manifestly unfair to aid either actively or passively the Irish landlords to sell to the tenants what is soon to be resumed by the people.
NO REASON WHY THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN PEASANT PROPRIETARY SHOULD OPPOSE NATIONALIZATION. But while it is true that peasant proprietary would lead away from land nationalization, while it is true that with every tenant who is turned into an owner land nationalization would become more difficult, and that if this is accomplished as to any considerable number any full and just solution of the Irish land question, any abolition of Irish landlordism, will be postponed for a long time, perhaps for generations, it is not true that any advance towards land nationalization would in the same manner stand in the way of peasant proprietary. The mere advocacy of the nationalization of the land is calculated to make the landlords more desirous of selling, and therefore to enable the tenants to get the better terms in purchasing, while any tax for public purposes put upon the value of the land before the transfer took place would be a gain to the people at large without involving any loss to the occupying owners in future to be created. If, for instance, any special tax, such as the poor rate or a tax which would give Ireland the boon of a complete system of free education, were imposed exclusively upon the value of land, it would reduce the selling price of land. The future purchaser would buy the land subject to the tax, and consequently at a lower rate, just as land subject to a ground rent brings a proportionately lower price than that which is not. And the imposition of such taxes upon the value of land would be virtually national endowments for the support of the poor, or for the maintenance of education, at the cost of the present landlords.
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So far as the intending purchaser, the proposed peasant proprietor, is concerned, the only difference it would make to him as a purchaser would be to his advantage, since a reduction of selling price is of peculiar advantage to a poor purchaser, while he would gain as a member of the community his share in the general benefits of the endowment. And ultimately, and by virtue of that general law which makes anything short of complete nationalization of no permanent avail in increasing wages or extirpating poverty, all the advantages of these endowments, insofar as they increased material prosperity, would add to the value of land, and consequently accrue to him. Now, if we carry out this reasoning and imagine such a progressive shifting or imposition of all taxes upon land values until the point was reached at which the land would become fully nationalized, then we will see how true it is, as I have before asserted, that land nationalization includes even to the proposed proprietor all the advantages that can flow from peasant proprietary, and a good deal more; for just as taxes were shifted to land values so would the selling price of land go down, until when the annual value of land were consumed by taxation the present tenants would get their holdings for nothing, or for the value of such improvements as belonged to the landlord, and would hold them in just as secure possession as though they had paid a high price, while as members of the community they would be gainers in the release of taxation upon labor and capital, and upon consumption and production. In short, it is, I think, clear that if land nationalization is to be had, land nationalization, not peasant proprietary, must be urged and demanded. The buying out of the landlords by their tenants is not the road to the making of the land the common property of the whole people. It leads away from it. And I think it is also clear that, admitting that peasant proprietary would be a great gain and should not be refused if nothing better can be had, that making nationalization of the land the popular demand is the policy calculated to gain the largest results; and that there can be no solid objection to it save on the part of those who wish to protect the present owners of land and to save landlordism.
WAITING FOR AN IRISH PARLIAMENT. As for postponing any demand for land nationalization until an Irish parliament meets, that is ‘‘Live, horse, till you get grass;’’ or ‘‘Don’t go in the water till you learn to swim.’’
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I can understand, and I can sympathize with the longing for self-government that to many patriotic Irishmen makes the political question seem everything. But it does not so seem to me. These poor, miserable wretches, of whom the streets of Dublin are so full – pinched, sodden, and brutalized men; women from whom all the grace and beauty and dignity of womanhood are gone; little children, some of them with the faces of angels, yet clothed in tatters – it would be almost flattery to call them rags – what benefit would an Irish parliament be to them? So long as social conditions are unaltered, which difference does it make to them whether laws are made in London or in Dublin, or under what kind of a government they live? No moral political change can benefit the great class of which they are types, for in the United States, where we have all the political freedom that the most advanced Irish nationalist can hope or desire, we are developing just such a class. Of the two the social condition is not merely in itself more important than the political, but it includes the political, for given social independence, and political independence must necessarily result; but give political freedom to a people socially enslaved and it . . . [do] them but little good. Political reform is in itself good, but to put it before social reform is putting the cart before the horse, and to postpone nationalization of the land until an Irish parliament can consider it is subordinating the primary to the secondary, the greater to the less. But waiving all this, and looking at the matter solely from the point of view of those who regard the political enfranchisement of Ireland as the sole object to be striven for, it is clear that sound policy would dictate the making of land nationalization the demand of the popular party as soon as possible, and not its postponement for that indefinite time when the political struggle shall be won. For even if it were not evident before, this agitation has proved that the demand for social rights widens and intensifies the demand for political rights, and clearly the policy of the nationalists should therefore be to continue the land agitation, not bring it to a premature close. The demand that the tenants should be aided to purchase their holdings might have suited their purpose well-enough in the beginning of the agitation, but as soon as there are any indications of the government acceding to this it is manifestly their policy to carry forward the demand to something that the government is not yet prepared to grant, and to make it so broad as to interest the very largest class, and this cannot safely be left to the last moment. What, I would like to ask those Nationalists who are now denouncing land nationalization and insisting that peasant proprietary is all that Ireland needs, do they propose to do when the government brings forward an even
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more liberal scheme for enabling the tenants to purchase their holdings than that embraced in the existing act? Even if what they are doing is not calculated to end the Land League agitation now, are they not doing their best to make it easy for the government to end it whenever it chooses by a measure to which both parties in Parliament have shown that they have no repugnance?
EFFECT OF PEASANT PROPRIETARY UPON THE DEMAND FOR POLITICAL RIGHTS. There was a section of the Nationalists who opposed or looked coldly upon the Land League in its beginning, because they held that any improvement in the material condition of the people would operate to make them more contented with English rule. Possibly this idea may be at the bottom of some of the opposition to nationalization that has recently been developed. But what of the effects of peasant proprietary? I do not believe that improvement in the material condition of men disposes them to be less restive under political oppression. On the contrary, I believe the very opposite is the truth. Deep poverty makes slaves of men, and to enable a depressed people to feel the aspirations and show the virtues of freemen the very first step must be to improve their material condition. But although it seems to me indisputable that whatever improvement might be worked in the material condition of any class of the agricultural tenants of Ireland by the establishment of a peasant proprietary would directly tend to make them more quick to perceive and more determined to secure their political rights, there is also another effect to be considered. Any peculiar advantage which one class has over another class does tend to make that class the supporters and defenders of the existing order. Thus the absurd and degrading monarchical system of England continues to exist only because it is but the crown of a social pyramid, each strata of which is willing to regard itself as inferior to the strata above in order that it may regard itself as superior to the strata below. The nobility perform the kowtow to the Widow Guelph and her brood of princes, but look down on the untitled gentry; the untitled gentry look down on the ‘‘upper middle class’’; the ‘‘upper middle class’’ on the ‘‘middle middle class’’; the ‘‘middle middle class’’ on the ‘‘lower middle class’’; the ‘‘lower middle class’’ on the ‘‘upper lower class,’’ and so on through all the gradations, which would make your heads swim were I to endeavor to enumerate – each class
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acquiescing in its degradation to the class above it because the same system enables it to look down on the class below it. And so, having taken them from the class that had no land at all, the ‘‘occupying owners’’ who might be created out of the Irish tenants would, as all experience shows, become intensely conservative. And as at present the Irish landowners of Irish blood are almost without exception staunch supporters of the English government, so are those ‘‘occupying owners’’ likely to be. In the instances where the tenants have purchased their holdings under the Encumbered Estates Act they are said to be the most bitter opponents of the popular movement.18 Clearly the nationalization of the land, not peasant proprietary, should be the demand of those who would win self-government for Ireland.
5. THE LAND FOR THE WHOLE PEOPLE AS THE STRONGEST BASIS FOR UNION How to Carry the War into England. Nationalization as a Weapon for Gaining Nationality. The Absolute Necessity of Broadening the Land League Platform. Dividing the Enemy to Conquer. A Plan that the British Government will Not Agree to, but which, After All, is the Only Feasible Settlement. Action and Education the Needs of the Hour.19 Irish World Staff Correspondence Dublin, Aug. 7[, 1882]. The very same men who in one breath assert that to nationalize the land of Ireland would be to strengthen the hold of England upon Ireland to the next breath assert that the nationalization scheme is not to be thought of – is ‘‘out of the range of political politics’’ – because the British government would never consent to it. The one assertion is in absolute contradiction of the other. But of the two the latter is more nearly correct. The British government as at present constituted, and until forced to it, will not nationalize the land of Ireland. The British government, which is virtually a government of the landlord class, does not want to destroy landlordism; it wants to preserve it. But is that any reason why the Land League should not demand the nationalization of the land? Is it not a strange doctrine for reformers and revolutionists that nothing should be demanded save what the government is willing to give? What has the British government ever been willing to grant to Ireland until forced by agitation? Was not Catholic emancipation, when O’Connell began the fight, just as much outside the pale of practical politics as land nationalization is now?20 What seemed more preposterous a few years ago than that an English parliament should ever consent to such a 175
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measure as even Gladstone’s Land Act. If measures good in themselves are not to be demanded until they are easily got, then there is an end to all reform. When we admit this we might as well sit down and content ourselves with what is. The professed policy of the Land League has been the extirpation of landlordism. If it is to shrink from the advocacy of the only policy that will extirpate landlordism because the government is not willing to consent to it, it might as well ‘‘shut up shop.’’ The truth is that when men talk about any reform not being within the range of practical politics, what they really mean is that they do not want that reform, and see no object in struggling for it.
THE PRACTICABILITY OF LAND NATIONALIZATION AND POLICY OF ADVOCATING IT. To say that the British government, as at present constituted, is inflexibly opposed to land nationalization is not to say that land nationalization is impossible. It is merely to say that in the course of gaining it the British government, as at present constituted, must be overthrown, and this is not likely to be an objection in the eyes of any patriotic Irishman. Land nationalization, which involves a general principle applicable everywhere, is really more easy of attainment than any half-way radical measure which related peculiarly to Ireland would be. For if the resistance would be greater the forces that could be utilized in its favor would also be greater in even larger proportion. And as a mere matter of policy in the struggle for national rights, there is every reason for making nationalization the avowed policy of the League. As every Irish nationalist would probably admit the fact that the British government is so opposed to it makes it all the better policy. Nationalization, which proposes to secure to the whole Irish people their equal rights in their native soil, and which is a logical conclusion from a selfevident truth that has the strongest moral sanction, is evidently a very much broader and stronger basis on which to unite a whole people and found a great movement to benefit only a class and has no logical foundation or endorsement of religious truth. And further than this, not merely would the platform of land nationalization unite the Irish people, as it is impossible that they could be united on the platform of merely helping the agricultural tenants to buy [from] the landlords, but for the Irish Land League to make the nationalization of the land its unequivocal demand would be at once to
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evoke a struggle of the same kind in Great Britain and to raise up a party which, whether friendly or not to the Irish people, would be working in the same direction and fighting the same enemies. The weakness of the Irish struggle, so far as the masses of England and Scotland are concerned, is that it has been presented to them purely as an Irish struggle – something in which they have no concern whatever. The farmer of England and Scotland is never really a laborer, as he is in some parts of Ireland, nor yet but little raised above the laborer, as he is in others. He is always a capitalist, frequently a very large capitalist, with whom the artisan and laboring classes have no sympathy whatever. The Irish agitation, especially the passage of the Irish Land Act, has stimulated the farmers of England to form an alliance and to make a demand for some such similar legislation, but this is as far as they are likely to go. And they are extremely moderate and conservative, even as to that, for the English farmers are a very conservative class. But in the industrial and laboring classes there is a very much powerful political factor which can easily be roused to make a flank attack upon the oligarchy which oppresses Ireland. When the Englishmen and the Scotchmen are told that the Irish are making all this row simply that the farmers may get a reduction of rents from the landlords, they think naturally of their own farmers, and not seeing how it can affect them, or men like them, whether the farmers get their rents reduced or not, or whether the tenant buys out the landlord, or their landlord buys out the tenant, the falsehoods and exaggerations by which appeals are constantly made to their anti-Irish prejudices have full play.
CARRYING THE WAR INTO AFRICA. But to put forward land nationalization as the program of the Irish Land League would at once begin the struggle in England. There is already in England the nucleus of a party in favor of the nationalization of the land, which, in spite of ‘‘the conspiracy of silence on the part of the press,’’ is steadily growing. And to give the subject the prominence which would necessarily be given it by making it the program of the Land League would be to produce an immediate agitation in England. There is a great deal of social discontent and a great deal of latent democratic feeling among the masses of English people which would be brought out by anything which would lay before them a clear political issue that they could understand. And there exists even in the City of London (where the working classes are said to be far less radical than in the manufacturing
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towns of the north) a very bitter feeling about the increase of rents, which would enormously strengthen the nationalization movement as soon as it was understood that the abolition of landlordism, at which it aimed, referred not merely to agricultural land, but to the land of towns and cities as well. In spite of all that has been done by governmental measures, and by such benefactions as the Peabody Fund, the masses of the English cities, and especially of the City of London, are being crowded closer and closer together and forced to pay a larger and larger proportion of their income for rents.21 A friend of mine, who recently made some inquiries into the subject, came to the conclusion that the working classes upon an average paid from one-quarter to one-third of their scanty incomes for lodgment, consisting of one or two rooms destitute of all conveniences. And the shopkeepers, too, feel the pressure bitterly, for whenever a lease expires the rent is put up not merely to the full letting value of the shop, but up to the highest point which the owner or agent believes the occupants would pay rather than move and lose the business he has established; and frequently a very heavy fine or lumped payment is exacted. Thus the landlords not only get the increase in the value of the land – that ‘‘unearned increment of wealth,’’ as John Stuart Mill called it, which results from the growth of the whole community – but they confiscate as well the value of the good will which the tenant has created by his own business ability. And so there exists in the English cities rack renting of the very same kind that has prevailed in the worst rack-rented parts of Ireland, and has enkindled the very same feelings. How the landlords gather what they do not sow; how landlordism confiscates the fruits of labor is to be seen in those English cities much more clearly than in the country districts. In the agricultural districts of England the landlords generally make the permanent improvements; but nearly, if not all, the building done in London is done upon leases under the terms the building is erected on the land must, at the expiration of the lease, be handed over to the landlord in perfect repair. Thus great blocks of buildings are constantly becoming the property of landlords who have been all the while receiving high rents for the land; and such magnates as the Duke of Westminster and the Duke of Portland are by the falling in of buildings constantly receiving enormous additions to their already monstrous fortunes. If the demand of the Irish Land League was clearly and unmistakably ‘‘All the land for all the Irish people’’ – a demand which included the people of the towns as well as the people of the country, the laborers as well as the tenant farmers – the demand of
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THE LAND OF ENGLAND FOR THE ENGLISH PEOPLE would soon ring out in a manner which could not be ignored. Peasant proprietary cannot become a political issue in England, because it does not interest any considerable class of the English people, and, in fact, its only advocates are those of the landlord class who see in the extreme concentration of landownership a danger which will some day destroy landlordism unless landlordism is forfeited by peasant proprietary. But nationalization of the land can, and whatever be the fate of the present Irish land agitation, it certainly will at no distant day, become a political issue in England. But were the Irish agitation to pass into a demand for the nationalization of Irish soil the development of a corresponding party in England would be very much hastened, because the question would at once be forced into discussion, in spite of the desire of the press to boycott anything of the kind. The attention which Davitt’s speeches excited in England and the response they got sufficiently show this. It is also proved in many other ways.
THE SOIL READY FOR THE SEED. To give an instance, Mr. William Saunders, the head of the Central News Association, a thorough land nationalizer, who believes, as Dr. Nulty and Dr. McGlynn believes, that it would be injustice to pay the landlord a single penny by way of compensation, went down into Wiltshire lately and delivered at Devizes a lecture which I heard him deliver to some London workingmen’s clubs in favor of dispossessing the landlords by putting all taxes on the value of land; and he showed that in this way all the expenses of government could be met, and there would be enough left to give every Englishman a pension for his old age. Wiltshire, or at any rate this particular riding of it, is one of the slowest and conservative parts of England, and the district is conceded to the Tories.22 I was down there some months ago, and saw the Tory candidate nominated. His recommendations are that he is the son of an earl, and spends a great deal of money in keeping a pack of hounds; and the farmers who crowded in the hall in which the nomination took place cheered lustily when these recommendations were mentioned. But Mr. Saunders lecture attracted so much attention and excited so much feeling that after canvassing the matter the local Liberal Committee
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recently came to him and asked him in the event of a dissolution to contest the riding against the Tory candidate, stating that they thought he would win on the platform he laid down in his lecture, while any other Liberal candidate was certain to be beaten. He formally accepted the nomination a couple of weeks ago in a speech in which he took the same radical line as in his previous lecture, and which was cheered to the echo. This is in conservative Wiltshire, where I doubt if there is a single Irishman unless a few straggling laborers in the summer time – in the very neighborhood where lived the ‘‘shepherd of Salisbury plain,’’ and where the cotters in their miserable little hovels are still taught by their religious teachers that it is the providence of God that condemns them to a life of hard toil, with nothing but the workhouse to look to in the close of it;23 while the same divine providence has given to other of their fellow creatures grand palaces, magnificent pleasure grounds, and all that luxury can devise and wealth purchase. In the cities and among the artisans, operatives, and miners, who have been already to a considerable extent educated by trade unionism, the effect would be even quicker.
STARTING THE FIGHT IN ENGLAND NO ABANDONMENT OF NATIONALISTIC FEELING. I can well understand the feeling that Irishmen have about asking anything of the English people, and I would not urge them to ask favor or sympathy. But looking at the matter from a purely Irish point of view, the fact that by making a radical and logical demand for themselves the Irish Land Leaguers can bring into existence a most powerful English demand for the same thing is an additional reason of the strongest kind why the program of the League should be, not peasant proprietary, but the nationalization of the land, for no matter how much the English and Irish people might dislike each other, they would be fighting the same enemy, and the Irish cause would be helped so effectually, in fact, more effectually, than though the English movement was prompted by pure sympathy for Ireland. He would be a poor general who, confronted by a vastly superior force, would neglect any opportunity for sowing dissension among his opponent, and opening a fire in the rear of his enemy. Yet this is what the Land League leaders neglect so long as they are satisfied to ask merely for the reduction ‘‘of agricultural rents or the buying out of agricultural landlords by
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agricultural tenants.’’ Davitt has shown himself to have a much wider view and a much clearer grasp of the situation, and if he will move forward on the lines he had indicated and carry the land war into England, he will do more for the Irish cause than all the speeches made in Parliament since the beginning of the agitation.
ABOUT ‘‘CREATING DISCORD.’’ One of the charges that has been made against Davitt is that in proposing the nationalization of the land he was producing discord in the ranks of the Land League and dividing its forces. Nothing could be more preposterous unless it is meant by this that the advocacy of nationalization is calculated to drive from the popular cause those interested in landlordism and do not wish to see it totally abolished. As Patrick Ford stated in his suggestions to the Committee of Seven: ‘‘The Land League has from the beginning consisted of two wings or schools – one bent upon the complete abolition of landlordism, the other merely desiring to make it for the present more tolerable.’’ These wings have worked together so far with eminent success, and there is no reason why they should not continue to work as to all immediate measures, each freely advocating their own ideas as to the proper solution of the land question. If it were true that the League was on the eve of gaining some point for the Irish cause which the present advocacy of land nationalization would interfere with, there might be some weight in the charge that to advocate nationalization is to divide the popular strength. But such is not the case. As I showed in a previous letter the advocacy of nationalization of the land is not calculated to prevent or delay any parliamentary measure looking to peasant proprietary. It is, on the contrary, calculated rather to hasten it, by intensifying the desire of the landlords to save themselves while there is yet time. The government has postponed the subject of amending the Land Act until the next session. It cannot come up till then, and may not come up even then. It certainly is not likely to come up if the land agitation subsides and Mr. Gladstone’s ‘‘infant Hercules’’24 performs the work he promised for it in making a large number of the tenant farmers contented with the present state of things. Why, then, in the meantime, should not the agitation of the nationalization of the land be doing its educational work in preparing the people for the total destruction of landlordism? Can any valid reason be assigned short of the reason that it is not desirable to destroy landlordism?
6. LETTER FROM GEORGE Pointing Out in the Clear, True Language of a Friend the Dangers Ahead. Truths from History’s Experience. It is Utterly Impossible to Carry on a Movement on a Backward Policy. A Stern Look at the Actual Facts. Any Proposed ‘‘New Departure’’ to Set Aside the Land Question Bound to Fail. A More Radical Platform Necessary, No Matter what is the Next Move.25 Irish World Staff Correspondence. Dublin, August 14[, 1882]. It seems to me that there is every reason for making land nationalization the avowed program of the League. It is the only full and complete settlement of the question – the only program that can satisfy the aspirations that have been raised during the course of the agitation and permanently unite the forces necessary to success. The program of paring down rents or of helping the tenant farmers to buy their holdings is halfhearted and illogical to the last degree. That it will not satisfy the laborers is evident from the organization now forming all over the country; and that it will not satisfy other large classes who have been extremely active in the Land League movement is evidenced by the bitter complaints one hears of the cupidity of the tenant farmers. It must not be forgotten that the Land League movement had really met with a check. The No Rent Manifesto hangs like Mahomet’s coffin, between heaven and earth, disowned and dishonored, killed without being accorded decent burial.26 Nor was it a triumph for the Land League when Mr. Parnell and his colleagues walked forth from Kilmainham [Jail]. It was really a triumph for Mr. Gladstone. Upon the land question at least the tone of the ‘‘leaders’’ has been much moderated, and it is hard to tell in what their program much differs from what the government in its own good time is 183
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prepared to accept. Lord Randolph Churchill said last winter in one of his speeches that the only difference between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell was a difference of twenty percent as to the culling down of rents, and for that difference the one sent the other to prison. The difference now is hardly that great.
CONSERVATISM A BLUNDER. Every great popular movement must advance. To stand still is to recede. Revolutions never go backward, because as soon as they cease to go forward the revolution is at an end and reaction has begun. And in the nature of things this land agitation must take higher ground or it will come to an end. Whether for its social objects or for its political objects, it is necessary, if this agitation is to continue, that its program should become more and more radical. It seems to me to have been a great weakness of the League movement that its program was not much earlier in the fight made more radical and more definite. Davitt’s mistake was not when on coming out of prison the second time he raised the standard of the ‘‘Land for the Whole People,’’ but when he consented to temporarily accept peasant proprietary instead of nationalization of the land as the League platform. Had he and the other radical men who were with him refused any compromise, but from the first preached the doctrine of the land of Ireland for all the Irish people, their progress for a while might have been slower, but it would have been much surer. After such an agitation as has since gone on, after so much expenditure and suffering, the people would not have been in such a dazed condition as they are now. I remember in one of my first letters from Ireland speaking of the struggle that was going on so bitterly as ‘‘a fight in the dark,’’ and so it was. Though so much has been said about the ‘‘Land for the People,’’ there has been no effort made to tell the masses what the ‘‘Land for the People’’ meant, or how it was to be got. And when the only practical suggestion looked to fixity of tenure and ‘‘fair rents,’’ and the buying out of the landlords by the tenants, the Gladstone Land Act necessarily weakened the power of the League, and would have weakened it much more but for the intense national feeling aroused by the Coercion [Act] which accompanied it. The failure to enunciate clear and definite principles operated strongly against the No Rent Manifesto. The tenants had been told by their ‘‘leaders’’ not that the land belonged to the people and that neither bad landlords nor good landlords had any more right to a square inch of it than the humblest laborer, but merely that they ought not to pay more than fair
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rents, and when under the pressure of the No Rent Manifesto the landlords offered [a] large reduction, and the Land Courts cut down the rents, the temptation to accept these terms and pay their rents was in most cases irresistible. In many parts of the country the people had not at any time an idea of striking for more than a reduction, and thought they were doing their duty to their country and themselves, and fulfilling the real purpose of the No Rent Manifesto, when they managed to frighten the landlord into striking off a good percentage.
A CLEAR AND RADICAL PLATFORM NEEDED. And now that the No Rent Manifesto has been abandoned, now that Ireland lays under a Coercion Act even more drastic than the one that expires in September, the weakness which results from the absence of a clear enunciation of principles becomes still more painfully apparent. The whole great movement is in danger of going to pieces for want of a standard round which to rally. The enthusiasm roused by the cry of ‘‘the Land for the People’’ is being chilled by the discovery that all the ‘‘leaders’’ mean by ‘‘the Land for the People’’ is ‘‘fair rents’’ and the purchase of their holdings by the tenants from ‘‘those who own the land’’ – that between the Land League program and the Gladstonian program there is only a microscopic difference. The laborers are waking up to the bitter consciousness that after all they have done and suffered there is nothing even promised for them. There is spirit enough in the country, but it lacks direction. Davitt has been accused of endeavoring to provoke divisions. To my mind he has, for the sake of apparent harmony, gone even further than anyone ought to go, for I have not noticed that in any of the defenses which he made while in America that he stated what I doubt not be perceived almost as soon as he got out of prison – that the land agitation had been virtually abandoned by the parliamentary leaders, and that if the standard of ‘‘the Land for the Whole People’’ was not upraised the movement was on the verge of something like collapse. The bitterness of the attacks that have been made upon him for his endeavor to continue the work he commenced shows that there is a deliberate intention to abandon the land agitation, and if what Davitt essayed to do at Manchester and Liverpool be not in some way done then the sequel will, I believe, show again that it is impossible to carry on a great popular agitation on a retrograde policy. It is, of course, preposterous to urge that any platform adopted in the inception of such a movement as the Land League movement should be the
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measure of its aims now or should limit the advocacy of more thoroughgoing measures. All popular movements of this kind are progressive in their character, and platforms merely represent the average level – or something less than the average level – of party feeling and purpose at the time they are adopted. But, further than this, it is not fair to urge that the ultimate purposes of the League were fully represented by the official platform, for the expression and action of those who spoke for the Land League were calculated to arouse expectations much in advance of what it is now insisted should be the policy of the Land League.
WHAT IS THE GAIN? In fact, if the policy of the Land League goes no further than in parliamentary leaders now propose – the improvement of the Gladstone Land Act – it is difficult to see what has been gained by all the expenditure and suffering and sacrifice of the past year. Some reduction of rent has doubtless been effected, both by the manner in which the Land Courts were stimulated to make reductions, and by the concessions which were forced from the landlords by the strike; but on the other hand is to be counted the suffering, the expenditure, the moral loss which follows withdrawal of defeat, and the increased stringency of coercion which the agitation and strike has brought about. Certain it is that if Mr. Parnell a year ago had spoken of Mr. Gladstone in the flattering terms in which he spoke of him in the House of Commons when he reentered it after his release from Kilmainham, he would never have been imprisoned, and that the premier would have accepted fully as much of the amendments to the Land Bill if proposed in the House of Commons as when proposed from Kilmainham, provided that they had been proposed in the same conciliatory spirit. For that Mr. Gladstone is an honest man his worst enemies do not doubt. Even they say that he honestly believes that whoever opposes him is wicked, and that whoever considers him great is good.
THE REAL STRENGTH OF THE LAND LEAGUE. I do not, however, wish to criticize the policy of the Irish ‘‘leaders,’’ but to illustrate the fact that the true ‘‘new departure’’ is in the lowering of tone on the part of the parliamentary leaders. For, however, well it may coincide
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with formal resolutions adopted in the inception of the movement as a compromise of conflicting opinions, it is certain that the present program of the parliamentary party does not represent the real feelings and demands which have been the animating soul of the agitation. Let me on this point call a witness who stands totally outside the Land League – a bitter opponent, in fact – Standish O’Grady, honorary secretary of the landlords’ meeting in the Rotunda in December last. In a pamphlet entitled The Crisis in Ireland, published in February last, Mr. O’Grady says: Now observe, the doctrine that the land of a people belongs to the whole people has been, and still is, the watchword of the Irish Land League agitation, and observe also that not the farmers only, but the whole mass of the population, have projected themselves into this movement with an energy and enthusiasm which would be inexplicable but for the presence of some such powerful and all-pervading incentive. Doubtless the word of their leaders that in the Land League movement the dream of ‘‘Ireland a Nation’’ was approaching to actuality exercised a great influence, but beside and around this lay, too, the mightier influence penetrating deeply into every mind, especially of the poor and unpropertied, that those magic words – the land is the property of the nation – meant remotely material good to themselves, a thought dim and vague, but in the power latent in all hopes thus veiled and indistinct, and gradually acquiring formulation in distinct and defined conceptions.
The strength of the Land League does not, and never did, lie in the farmers themselves, but in the circumambient population of which they were but a part, and on whose enthusiasm they were borne forward. It was they chiefly who formed the great mass meetings of 1880 and 1881, and it was they who sustained and enforced that iron discipline essential to the League’s success, and of which boycotting and outrage were the punishments.
LAND LEAGUE OR HOME RULE? The truth is that what has been denounced as a ‘‘new departure’’ on the part of Davitt was really but a continuation of what in truth was the former policy of the League. The real ‘‘new departure’’ is the attempt to bring this great movement down to the level with the notions of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. W.H. Smith, to give to the rallying cry of ‘‘the Land for the People’’ the ridiculous meaning of the purchase of their holdings by the tenant farmers. To be sure, after the social element is eliminated from this movement the political element remains, and to end, or at least very much moderate, the social agitation while continuing the political seems to be, as well as I can
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make out, the desire of the parliamentary leaders. But then the movement will be a very different kind of a movement. What has given this movement its peculiar character and its great strength has been that it united social and political aspirations. It has proved the sagacity of Finton Lalor, who, in the Irish Felon in 1848, declared that the true way and the only way to secure Irish liberties was by a movement which should aim at regaining the land for the people. But to convert the great Land League movement into a mere Home Rule movement is to shear the Irish Samson of his locks.
CAN THE LAND AGITATION BE STOPPED? Can an attempt to put a stop to such an agitation such as this Land League agitation be successful? I do not believe it. A temporary lull may be the result, and it may be some time before the real feeling of the country is seen and more radical men come to the front, but the revolution will go on. But, lost with me the wish may seem to be father to the thought, let me again quote Mr. O’Grady. This is the unpleasant truth that he told the Irish landlords as long ago as last February: The fact is that the idea, ‘‘the Land for the People’’ – an idea sustained by consenting influences, the product of the century, and ascending into prominence through the peculiar social and political condition of Ireland – has, through the agency of The Irish World, seized upon the democratic imagination with such tenacity that the leaders must soon give to it some practical fulfillment or retire to make room for other and more daring spirits. The Irish World has been in circulation here for several years, spreading its peculiar ‘‘Light’’ in every nook and corner of the land, and though the full meaning of its doctrines are not grasped by the mass of the people, yet they are by intelligent, ambitious, and desperate minds – that is, by minds naturally formed to lead others at all times, and especially so in an age when revolutionary ideas are in the air and when all traditional and customary conceptions as to the nature of property have been disturbed and have lost their solidity and definiteness.
I believe Mr. O’Grady told his fellow landlords the truth, and that in a little while this will appear. In the meantime the important thing for all men who believe that God made the land for all the people and not for only a few of them is to ‘‘Spread the Light!’’
7. JAILED IN IRELAND27 Though the drive was well worthwhile, the sleepy old town of Athenry seemed not more than half awake, when after getting breakfast on the morning after my release by his honor Magistrate [Byrnes] we got out in the fresh warm air. But the one*** was giving an***, and the streets were saved from utter desertion by the twenty-six policemen, some of whom were hanging at the barracks door and others lounging up on*** to give diversity to the scene. The shopkeepers were waiting for customers who never seemed to come, and I took the opportunity to call again at the shops, when my attempted purchase of a collar button on the day before had so excited the suspicions of the police, and inquire as to the suspects. It was the old story of peaceable men dragged off to prison in the gray of the morning and hold them for months, not because of crime or even the suspicion of crime, but simply because they had been taking an active part in the Land League agitation. The Athenry suspects were still in jail though Mr. Parnell and his colleagues had been since released – a couple in Galway, another in Kilmainham, and the others in various other prisons; and their families were in the meantime getting along as best they could with little hope of their release until the Coercion Act should terminate, which happily was not far off. The one who had been released – the builder whom it was one of the convicts in the police inspector’s indictment against me, and we had spoken to, owed his release, so the people said to the*** and he was wanted by the local landlord – to put up some buildings, which would have cost him more had he been obliged to send to another town for a builder, and he as I heard afterwards was*** and*** by the police charging him with having been seen talking to these such notorious characters as Father McPhilpin, Mr. Joynes, and myself. The handsome young inspector who parts his hair in the middle, was not about, but he had opportunity to say good-byes to most of my guardians of the day before; and we took the forenoon train for Galway, in company with the parish priest, Rev. Connor O’Brien, who as is his habit during the season, when the sun shines, was going up to Galway to take a saltwater bath. 189
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A fine specimen of the Irish priest of the generation now passing away is Connor O’Brien, hale and hearty despite his white hair and as full of fun as a schoolboy, and though lots of his jokes were too much larded with Latin to be intelligible to me, they were not beyond my comprehension when . . . with the classics quite as readily as did the canon.28 Connor O’Brien confirmed all we had previously heard of the peaceableness of Athenry, nor merely had there been nothing like an agrarian intrigue there*** he had been in the parish, but there was no reason or tradition of outrage before that. In fact, he said that there had never been an outrage in that vicinity – ‘‘never since the creation of cats,’’ and the creation of cats, as the Rev. canon proved by a long and ringing Latin quotation was a very long time ago. The reason Athenry is troubled by so many policemen and soldiers is simply that some of the local gentry*** them*** to add to their importance and give assurances to guilty conspiracies, and they are then all easier because the newspaper correspondents who came into the country arrived about to write up outrages, usually made a stopping place of the hotel at the railway station, which was considered the best for a long distance, and so*** their letters from Athenry. Like all the elderly people in this part of the country Connor O’Brien was full of reminiscences of a population now gone, and he pointed out to us as the train*** along many fields now turned into pasture where in the old days populous villages had stood. As we passed along the country became more stony – so stony in fact that I thought I had never seen so many stones even in New England, and to clear little patches for*** even the most lavish building of fences*** not sufficient, and get the stones out of the very great piles have been made. But in these stone-strewn sections cabins were more abundant and the population seemed to be denser than on the good land. The soil being too firm for beasts had been left to man. Galway as I was several times informed by Land Leaguers is ‘‘a rotten town.’’ It certainly is a decaying town. Yet there is no town in Ireland with greater national advantages than the old seaport once renowned for its Spanish trade. Situated on the shore of a splendid bay looking out upon the western ocean, it has the magnificent water power desirable from the outpour of Lough Corrib, advantages which ought to have made it a great manufacturing city, and were it not for the atrocious system that so long crushed all Irish endeavors would doubtless have become an important manufacturing center before Manchester had begun to grow.29 But Galway so long decaying is still steadily decaying. Of its ancient foreign commerce nothing whatever remains, and its waterpower is almost
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utterly neglected. A couple of gunboats lie in the harbor in readiness to attend evictions along the coast or the western islands, but commerce is represented only by a few small coasters and*** boats, and in the center of the city are buildings going to rack and ruin for want of occupants. There is a great deal of squalid poverty in the old town – probably more than its natural share, for the evictions that have gone on for a long term of years throughout the west of Ireland drove into Galway many who could get no further, but there are many comfortable, and some luxurious dwellings. All through this poverty-stricken country then is, in fact, much more luxury than is generally supposed by those who hear so much of the want and misery of Ireland. About the prettiest sight in Galway is to watch the salmon entering Lough Corrib. From the bridge which spans the mouth of the lough the powerful fish can be seen in the transparent water beneath, holding themselves stationary against the swift current with almost imperceptible motions of the tail, and at certain times, leaping up the rapids above as though shot from the foaming water. These beautiful fish, though they know nothing about it, are all the private property of a certain Scotchman, who has leased the seigneurial right to them from the*** of these parts, and who derives a large revenue from catching and shipping them to England, where Lough Corrib salmon, like the fish caught in Lough Neagh, are to be had easier than on the spot where they are taken. But it is not merely the fish which are thus jealously possessed. All along the coast the seaweed is made a source of revenue to the landlords. Very little is now gathered and harvested for the ask[ing], but it is a necessary revenue to the poor lands which are divided up into little*** holdings, and for the privilege of going to the shore and gathering it as revenue the peasants are made to pay soundly. The holder of a little patch renting for fifteen or eighteen pounds will pay about three pounds for the privilege of gathering enough seaweed to serve him for manure, and then it must be gathered and harvested oftentimes for very long distances. Galway Jail, whither we went to pay our respects to the suspects is of course one of the largest and most imposing buildings of the town, for it is a one-horse Irish town indeed that has not a big jail and a commander’s*** house. And inside the walls are*** trees and flowers, and there seems a more obliging spirit and less red tape about the warden than in some of the other Irish jails. The same general regulations are in force, however, and the suspects we saw were caged according to rule. The only suspects we saw, the others having had their visits were Andrew Kenny of Athenry, a tenant farmer [and] intelligent looking man who,
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despairing of getting out before, was eagerly looking forward to the expiration of the Coercion Act for his release. It is illustrative of the ruthlessness with which this Coercion Act has been used that this man who has been thus shut up for months, is the breadwinner for a family of thirteen, having depended on him, his mother and an aging uncle, beside a wife, and ten children of whom eight are girls. Another typical case is that of Harry Brian of Carlow whom we also saw. He was first arrested as a suspect, then tried on a charge of intimidation, and acquitted, and then rearrested as a suspect and sent back to prison. [In] spite of all the terrors of the new coercion law, I doubt if it can have anything like as effective an engine for the oppression of a popular movement as the land one. For under the new law no one can be punished without cause assigned, and something like the semblance of a trial; but under the old law the best men in the popular party, no matter how respectfully they kept themselves within the law could be picked off without assigned reason, and not merely silenced himself, but utilized as an example. There is much that is interesting in Galway, but it has been so often described by tourists that it is not worth speaking of in these letters. While we stayed there, we were a number of times strangers approached by wellmeaning strangers who quietly told us that detectives were following us wherever we went and making inquiries as to all we did and said, but we were not doing anything we were ashamed of and had nothing to conceal; and told our informants that the detectives might save themselves trouble and to get more easily the information they wanted if they would make themselves known and go about with us. But on leaving the hotel we hired a car without telling the driver where for certain we elected to go, and driving up one street and down another, as though we proposed to take first one and then another of the roads out of town, we finally told him to take the road for Spiddle, a little fishing town on the seacoast, not much visited by travelers, or even by mail car. Our road ran along the shore of the bay, passing the watering place, if that can be called a watering place, when the best you can do for a swimmer in the brine is to*** a towel from the hotel and leave your clothes on a rock. But a good many people came out [on a] bright afternoon to sit on the stones and breathe the salt air, and the fishing [men] take parties for a few pence a head for a sail on the bay, and we met there Connor O’Brien, who had come again that day from Athenry, and with him several clergymen, and after a pleasant chat with them, and having bid good speed by the good canon in three languages – the English for me, the Latin for Joynes, and the Irish for his own satisfaction – we were off again.
8. HOW MEN ARE LEGALLY MURDERED No Chance for Life – A Partisan Judge and Packed Jury. Religious Bigotry as Fostered by England. Catholics Disfranchised and Foreigners in a Catholic Country . . . . The Parliamentarians Getting ‘‘a Corner’’ on the Irish Movement.30 Irish World Staff Correspondence. Dublin, Sep. 16[, 1882]. The execution of Hynes on Monday last produced a profound impression throughout Ireland. It is a fact that speaks volumes as to the relation between the government of Ireland and the people of Ireland that a man hanged upon conviction of a brutal murder which could have had no political provocation or result should be regarded as a political victim. This could not be save where the government was regarded as alien to the people and hostile to the people. Whether Hynes was guilty or not of course I cannot say. So far as I read the testimony in the case it seemed to me that while the weight of the testimony in was against him it yet left that reasonable doubt which under the principles of our law is sufficient to prevent conviction. But neither according to the spirit nor the letter of the law which prevails in all English speaking countries was Hynes afforded a [fair] trial.31 He was not tried in the neighborhood where the crime was committed, nor by his ‘‘peers’’ in the true meaning of the term. He was tried before a partisan judge and a packed jury, and the requirements of the law as to the conduct of the jury were most outrageously violated. Had no political element been imported into the case there can be no doubt that he would have been reprieved and new trial granted. But to have reprieved Hynes would have been to have censured Judge Lawson, would have necessitated the release of Dwyer Gray, and would have been considered a government defeat. And so, in spite of remonstrances and 193
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petitions which poured in from every corner, Hynes was hanged. The result is that he is regarded in popular estimation as a martyr, and the divorce between the ideas of law and justice in Ireland is rendered still more complete.
RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY. Another thing that is significant of the condition of the country is a little incident recorded by the papers, but which passes unnoticed here. The walls of the grand old cathedral of St. Patrick’s – or, as it is commonly styled here ‘‘Patrick’s Church’’ – have been weakened by some excavations recently undertaken. One of the flying buttresses came down the other day with a crash, burying some children playing underneath. One little thing, a mere baby, crushed almost beyond recognition, but still breathing, was carried off to Adelaide Hospital, the largest of the Dublin ‘‘charitable’’ institutions. But, arrived there crushed, bleeding, broken, it was met by an inexorable rule. It could not be admitted because it was a Catholic! But human nature was too strong for the iron rule. The resident pupil, a young surgeon who stays in the hospital, evaded the rule by giving up his own bed to it, and registering it as a visitor instead of a patient. Just as the case of Hynes speaks volumes as to the relations between government and people, so does this incident illustrate the survival of religious rancor, which has been one of the most efficient causes in producing the political degradation of Ireland. And this incident does not stand alone. In fact, so used are the people here to such things that the only comment it excites is that the resident pupil did a noble action in thus evading the rule. Had it not been a little child, crushed by an accident that peculiarly affected the imagination, the doors of the Adelaide Hospital would not have unloosed even to a pious subterfuge, and the sufferer might have been carried away from the doors of this so-called charitable institution to die. One evening, awhile ago, the porter of a neighboring medical school fell down in a deadly fit. He was carried to the Adelaide Hospital insensible. But before he could be admitted his religion was demanded. The man could not answer for himself, and on one of those who carried him could or would answer for him. The resident pupil wanted to admit him on the presumption that he was a Protestant. But the matron, or whatever the female is called, who has charge of the place at nighttime, and who outranks the resident pupil, at least as to admissions, positively refused to receive him unless someone present would vouch that the insensible man was
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not a Catholic. No one present being able to do this, he was absolutely refused admission, and the gentlemen who had picked him up were compelled to call a cab and carry him off a long distance to one of the Catholic hospitals. The man, if I correctly remember the story as it was told me by one of the bearers, died from not having received medical assistance in time. And the reason of this rigid rule against the admission of Catholics is this: Up to a few years [ago] there was no formal prohibition against the admission of Catholics, but as no Catholic priest was suffered to cross the threshold the effect was pretty much the same, since no Catholic would willingly enter an institution when in case of the approach of death he could not receive the ministrations deemed necessary by his faith. But one day in consequences of some accident a wounded man was received who proved to be a Catholic. Feeling that death was approaching, he became very anxious to see a clergyman, and his friends who came to see him were anxious too. They begged and implored for permission to bring a priest, but without avail, and then as a last resort they sent for a Catholic clergyman, and when the clergyman arrived outside of the door they took up the dying man and carried him out and across the street into an open hallway, where the priest hurriedly administered the last consolations of his religion, and the man died. They bore away the corpse. The thing was too scandalous even for the pious directors of the Adelaide Hospital charity, and so, to avoid such scandals in the future, they made an ironclad rule that no Catholic should thereafter be admitted under any pretext, which rule in the case of the crushed baby the resident pupil broke through by giving up his own bed . . . .
THE POLITICAL SITUATION in Ireland is unchanged since I last wrote. The Mansion House Fund Committee does not yet seem to have got into working order, though Mr. Arthur O’Connor is busy organizing it. The new Labor League is succeeding in keeping itself pretty quiet, and what is left of the Land League is engaged in getting ready to put outstanding tenants into Arrears Courts. The agitation is being successfully quieted down, but about the best proof that the results of this process are not entirely satisfactory for the ‘‘leaders’’ is that a conference to consider the situation was held on Tuesday night at Avondale, at which Mssrs. Davitt and Brennan, representing the radical element, were invited to meet Mssrs. Parnell and Dillon, representing the
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Parliamentary Directory.32 As I understand it, Parnell would not listen to any proposition for reviving ‘‘The Land for the People’’ agitation, but a compromise scheme was packed up, which is best stated by the official announcement which United Ireland placed in italics at the head of its editorial columns, and which is as follows: The Announcement. We are glad to be in a position to announce that Mssrs. Parnell, Davitt, Dillon, and Brennan have been consulting together during the past few days how best to consolidate the various movements that are now before the country, with the view of uniting them in one center program of reform. A committee has been formed for the purpose of discussing how best to accomplish this object. And we understand that, in addition to the questions of self-government, land, Mansion House Evicted Tenants’ Defence Committee, Labor, Pay the Members, etc., that now appeal for their share of sympathy and support to our people, a scheme of industrial enterprise will be placed before the public, by which home manufactures will be encouraged for the general good, and land may be purchased and worked in the interest of evicted tenants. It is also intended to start a Mechanics’ Institute movement by which to improve the education of the working classes in the country districts and teach the rising farmer generation improved methods of cultivating land. We believe it is intended to hold a conference of representative men in Dublin before the opening of the autumn session of Parliament for the purpose of inaugurating a national movement that shall embrace every species of work that can revive the prosperity of Ireland and diminish its poverty and ignorance.
‘‘MAGNIFICENT, BUT NOT WAR!’’ All this is very good in its way, ‘‘but it is not war.’’ No omnibus scheme, however much it may be made to embrace, can compensate for a great principle. Revolutions are made in that fashion. For the great Land League that so lately was shaking the country and attracting the attention of the world with its cry of ‘‘The Land for the People’’ to simmer down to such a program is not merely suggestive of the toothless lion catching mice, but the notion of the Land League purchasing land for evicted tenants and becoming a landlord itself is as incongruous as was the proposition made a year or so ago to reward Davitt for his exertions by purchasing [for] him a landed estate. There was more power in Davitt’s re-enunciation of Bishop Nulty’s platform at Manchester and in the ringing speech which Brennan made the moment he was released from Kilkenny Jail and before he had been gagged by parliamentary influence than in the best omnibus scheme for uniting all interests that ingenuity could devise.
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However, it may be something to have such men as Davitt and Brennan in a position to exercise any control in the organization, and a conference will certainly be something, even though it is to consist of men selected by the ‘‘leaders.’’ Nothing could be more undemocratic than the Irish popular party as at present constituted. The Irish parliamentary party – or, as Mr. O’Donnell wittily called it, ‘‘the Irish parochial party’’ – which in effect means Mr. Parnell and two or three others, are everything. They control the funds contributed from America; they manage all the organizations; they name the candidates who are to be chosen to vacant seats; they direct the newspapers bought with moneys subscribed for the Land League – in fact, they are everything. And the weakness inseparable from this sort of thing is beginning to clearly show itself. A popular party runs on the principles of absolutism will ultimately contain only the leaders. That it was a great mistake not to have held a conference during the first week of the exhibition when so many representative men were present from all parts of Ireland is already clear in a dissatisfied and dispirited feeling that cannot be ignored.33 If a conference is held next month which will represent the country with anything like fairness, it cannot fail to have a good effect, and still better will be the effect of a convention which may come out of it. I am inclined to think, however, that with regard to ultimate results everything is, perhaps, going for the best in Ireland. Though the cry ‘‘The Land for the People’’ has been stilled, the idea of ‘‘The Land for the People’’ is making quiet progress. The educational process is, I think, going on more rapidly and more thoroughly than in the time of greatest excitement, and that is the thing of greatest importance.
9. GEORGE INTERVIEWED (WITH THE IRISH WORLD) His Candid Views on the Situation in Ireland. No Human Power Can Prevent the Land Movement Going Further. The New Departure. Not a Land League Any More, but a Home Rule League. The Quietus Policy Meets with Success. The Parliamentary Humbug the Stumbling Block to Ireland’s Freedom.34 Henry George, who has been for a year in Ireland as the special correspondent of The Irish World, arrived on the Helvetia on Monday. He found so many warm friends waiting to greet him that the time since his arrival has been fully occupied, but knowing that the readers of The Irish World would be anxious to learn his views of the present situation, The Irish World thought the shortest course would be to follow the example set by the daily papers and interview him. Mr. George expressed a readiness to answer any questions, only regretting his inability to make the answers more elaborate, saying that there were a great many interesting things relating to the situation in Ireland not fully known here: Reporter: I see that in an interview published by one of the daily papers you are represented as expressing the utmost faith in the new movement in Ireland begun by the conference. Mr. George: The reporter got things mixed a little. What I expressed was my firm belief that the great movement for the resumption by the whole people of their rights in the land must go on, and that it had already gone so far that no human power could prevent its going further. As for the conference, I know little about it. When I left Ireland, though some invitations were being sent out, the probabilities seemed to be that it would not be held. Davitt and Brennan I understood were in favor of abandoning the 199
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conference altogether and holding in its stead a convention at a somewhat later date, but Mr. Parnell was away and his decision as to the matter had not been had. Reporter: What was the reason wishing for its postponement? Mr. George: There was some dissatisfaction at anything like a representative body being called together by invitation, and they seemed to think that in a little while the people of Ireland would have a clearer idea of the situation. Reporter: What do you think of the result of the conference? Mr. George: As well as I can make out, it seems to me like a virtual conversion of the Land League party into a Home Rule party. The dropping of the word ‘‘Land’’ from the title of the League, the refusal of The Irish World to continue to receive subscriptions on this side of the water, and Mr. Egan’s resignation on that are significant indications of the change. Substantially, the Land League has been converted into a Home Rule League – a very good thing in its way, but a very different thing from the great Land League which excited so much enthusiasm on the one side and inspired so much terror on the other. It seems to me that there has thus been eliminated from the movement the element which gave it its force. The power of the Land League sprang from the fact that it united with the nationalistic aspirations of the people the strength of social aspirations, and the history of the Land League movement showed that this combination is, as was pointed out years ago by James Finton Lalor, the only means for welding together the masses of the Irish people in one compact and energetic movement. Reporter: Is this change the result of a change on the part of the masses of the people? Mr. George: I think not. It is the result of change of policy on the part of the parliamentary leaders. This change seems to date from the release of Mr. Parnell from Kilmainham [Jail]. So far as I could judge the Irish people were never in better heart than at that time. Coercion had utterly failed to break their spirit. There was a strong faith in ultimate success, and the popular feeling, as in all revolutions, was taking more and more radical forms. But since that time the tone of the parliamentary leaders has been very much lowered, and their policy has seemed to be to suppress agitation in Ireland rather than to continue it. The whole influence of the parliamentary leaders, and it is very great, has been thrown against the dissemination of radical views upon the land question and in favor of subsiding into a policy which is virtually that of Mr. Gladstone. Reporter: What has been the effect of this upon popular feeling?
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Mr. George: It has been to destroy enthusiasm and to introduce distrust and dissension. The Irish people have been accustomed to rely upon leaders, and have had the fullest confidence in Mr. Parnell and his coadjutors. There is among them an intense dread of anything like dissension, for they feel that the Irish cause has in the past always been lost by divisions, and there is a strong feeling which prevents any expression of the want of confidence in those they have hitherto so implicitly trusted. But revolutions cannot go backward, and the attempt to turn a revolutionary movement into a conservative channel is to bring it to an end. There has been a growing feeling of distrust and disappointment in Ireland ever since Mr. Parnell reentered Parliament from Kilmainhaim. Reporter: You speak of the parliamentary leaders. Are there any other leaders? Mr. George: No; the whole party organization has been in the hands of the parliamentary representatives. I spoke of them as parliamentary leaders rather to emphasize this fact than to distinguish them from any other leaders. One of the greatest weaknesses of the whole movement, in my opinion, has been the fact that its organization has been autocratic rather than democratic. The parliamentary party has controlled everything and directed everything. The movement, really a great uprising of the people, has been in its nature democratic, but the organization has not been democratic. All power and responsibility have been concentrated in the head, so that the people have not been educated in democratic modes of action. And there has been no local organization to express popular feeling, to discuss measures, or concert action. The [Irish] Parliamentary Party, which means virtually Mr. Parnell and a few others, have directed everything. When I first got to Ireland I was very much perplexed by this. I thought that there must be somewhere some sort of a managing organization outside of the prison, and spent a good deal of the time in the endeavor to hunt it up, until I finally ascertained that nothing of the kind existed. The Ladies’ Land League, which was subject to direction from Kilmainham, and Mr. Patrick Egan, in Paris, who received the money and sent it on when it was called for, represented about all there was of the Land League management outside of the prison walls. Reporter: It was proposed at that time to revive the Land League under some other name, was it not? Mr. George: Yes. There were many who thought that this should have been done, following the policy of O’Connell, who, as soon as one association was declared illegal, abandoned it and started the very same association under another name. But a veto was put upon this by the leaders
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in Kilmainham Prison. Their plea was that any organization started at that time, when men could be imprisoned on suspicion, would fall into the hands of the conservative section of the party. But, reading the past by the present, it is clear now that it would have been made more conservative than it has since become by the action of the leaders themselves, while a real organization might have been effected throughout Ireland that would have been of incalculable advantage in educating the people and teaching them to rely on themselves. Reporter: Do you think, then, that Davitt was right in proposing at the conference an amendment to the constitution of the new league giving the election of the whole council to the country instead of having only one-third of it nominated by the parliamentary party, as proposed? Mr. George: Certainly I think he was right. This thing of making any set of men, no matter how wise and good they may be, the all-in-all, the selfperpetuating dictators of any movement, is wrong, and no great movement can go on for any length of time in that fashion, for it must inevitably produce dissatisfaction and dissension. To make the parliamentary representatives the political dictators in Ireland is peculiarly objectionable. It is not merely like placing the whole control of a great national American party in the hands of a committee of congressmen, but it is a great deal worse. For the Irish members of Parliament do not sit in Ireland, but in London. They are completely out of the reach of their constituents, and they are immersed in a totally different atmosphere. The manner in which so many of the Irish members of Parliament have stood out against the influence that surround them is very much to their credit, but, on the same principle that the dog ought to wag the tail and not the tail wag the dog, it is the Irish Party that should control the Irish representatives in Parliament, not the Irish members of Parliament control the party in Ireland. And, in fact, how Ireland is represented in Parliament, or even whether it is represented there at all, is a very trifling matter as compared with the progress of ideas among the Irish people at home. As it is, everything is concentrated in the hands of the parliamentary party, and they seemed determined to hold onto their control. The Mansion House Committee is managed and directed by . . . [it]. They were all added in a lump to the Executive Committee of the so-called Labor League. [It has] . . . all the power which comes from the control of the fund contributed from America, and even though they form only one-third of the Council of the new League, they will virtually control it. This is turning a great national movement into a sort of one-horse circus that must inevitably break up in a little time.
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The parliamentary party has always been behind the popular feeling in Ireland, and I think they are today. But whether they are or not Davitt was right as a matter of principle. If Mr. Parnell and his associates in Parliament concentrated in themselves all the brains and all the patriotism of Ireland it would still be wrong to make them party dictators. You cannot teach a child to walk by carrying it around. It must be put upon its legs and compelled to make an effort for itself, and nothing can really be won to the Irish people that does not develop the capacity of the people to govern themselves. Ireland is full of able men who ought to be coming to the front in this movement, and who would give it very much greater strength than it now has, but hardly anyone is heard of save the members of Parliament. Mr. O’Donnell said a very true thing recently in a letter to the Freeman’s Journal when he declared that the time for Homeric warfare had gone, and though it might be a very picturesque thing to see two or three glittering warriors leading an unorganized mob and concentrating all attention upon themselves, it was not the sort of warfare that would succeed in modern times. Reporter: What do you think of T.P. O’Connor’s assertion that Davitt’s amendment amounted to a vote of want of confidence in the [Irish] Parliamentary Party? Mr. George: I don’t think it necessarily involved anything of the kind, nor yet do I see that to have lost confidence in the Irish parliamentary party implies treason to the Irish cause. That very many of the best men in Ireland have lost confidence in the parliamentary party is an indisputable fact. It is a great pity that Davitt allowed himself to be bulldozed by O’Connor into a withdrawal of his amendment. It is about time that some such man as he made a stand against the notion that loyalty to the Irish cause is synonymous with loyalty to Mr. Parnell and his colleagues, and it is illustrative of what I consider an essential weakness of the Irish movement that one of Mr. Parnell’s immediate followers should get up in a national conference and charge a man like Davitt with trying to injure Mr. Parnell’s prestige, as though that were the unpardonable sin. The fact is that the Irish people have to be educated out of their tendency to leader worship before they can succeed. Whoever will read Irish history will see that the blind and servile following of chieftains has been the curse of Ireland ever since the first Norman planted his foot on her shores, and has been the cause of those dissensions which gave the country to foreign invaders and has enabled them to hold it ever since. There has been far too much of the ‘‘uncrowned-king’’ business in the Irish movement ever since it started. Reporter: Do you think Davitt has been jealous of Parnell’s prestige and wanted to step into his place?
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Mr. George: On the contrary, I know that he has not – from the first day he got out of Portland Prison he has been morbidly sensitive to this charge. This led him into all the mistakes he has made, and has kept him apologizing and compromising when he should have been doing what Dr. McGlynn told him to do – preaching the gospel. In my opinion Davitt has no call to meddle with ‘‘practical politics.’’ He can do a much grander work in advocating principle. If he does not want to face the charge creating dissension by advocating it in Ireland he has a great field open to him on the other side of the Irish Sea. He would find sympathetic audiences not only among the Irish in England, but among English working classes themselves. Ever since he made his Manchester speech he has been importuned to speak in other places to English audiences. Reporter: The movement for the nationalization of the land is making headway, then, in England? Mr. George: Yes. Both in England and in Scotland. Ireland ought to have led the van, and it would have led the van but for the fact that the parliamentary party has thrown . . . [its] whole strength into the effort to bring the agitation down to a mere class movement; but both in England and in Scotland the fire has been kindled and is every day spreading. If the cry of ‘‘the Land for the People’’ could be in Ireland crushed into a pitiful demand that the English government should lend the tenant farmers enough money to buy out their landlords it would still come up on the other side of the [St. George’s] Channel. Reporter: But do you think the Irish people will be content with any scheme for enabling the tenant farmers to purchase their holdings? Mr. George: No. I am confident that they will not. The only final solution of the land question is not, as Mr. Parnell says, ‘‘to secure to farmers the right of becoming owners of their holdings by purchase’’ – that they have already; but it is to secure to every man, whether he is a farmer, a laborer, or a mechanic, an equal right in the soil of his native land. The good seed has been sown in Ireland and by and by the harvest will be gathered. Reporter: What do you think of the action of The Irish World in closing the Land League Fund? Mr. George: I do not think The Irish World could honestly have taken any other course. The Irish World has all along asked for subscriptions for the purpose of aiding in the abolition of Irish landlordism, and it could hardly with good conscience go ahead collecting this money and placing it in the hands of those who are really engaged in the attempt to conserve landlordism, not to abolish it. Reporter: What effect will this have in Ireland?
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Mr. George: I think that it will have the effect of showing them what are the real wishes of the men on this side who have contributed so largely to the fund with which operations have been carried on in Ireland. I have no doubt that the present conservative position of the parliamentary leaders is largely due to the erroneous impression as to their American support. They have been constantly told that the Irish in America were really very conservative on the land question, and that The Irish World and its socialistic doctrines have prevented rich Irishmen from meeting large subscriptions to the fund. Members of that party who have come over here and gone through the country lecturing have returned with the notion that if the ugly cry of ‘‘the Land for the People’’ could be stopped and the agitation made so conservative that it would not frighten landholders the wealthy Irishmen of America would loose their purse strings and swell the fund with enormous sums. Whether in this they were right or not, will now be seen. Reporter: You were very hopeful of the result of the Irish movement when you first went to Ireland. Mr. George: I am hopeful still. An immense amount has been accomplished by the Land League movement in raising the spirit of the people, and beneath what may seem like halt and reaction discussion is going on and thought is being stimulated. There is a refrain of one of the songs of T.D. Sullivan that rings in my memory:35 Never be downhearted boys, never know despair; Never say dear Ireland is lost at last; Keep the dear old flag, boys floating in the air, The dawn is on its fringes and the night goes past.
10. BRITISH RULE IN IRELAND36 I have taken*** to address*** on the subject of B[ritish] R[ule] in I[reland]. This is not a title I would have selected; if it does not seem to me to express the whole truth with regards to the misgovernment of Ireland. It is especially misleading for Americans. The average opinion of British rule is much too good. We are apt to think that England is a republic all but in name, whereas the truth is that the government of England is not republican at all. It is really an oligarchy – the government of the masses of the people by an aristocracy of*** rank and an aristocracy of wealth. The fundamental idea is not of the equality of man; it is not that all power is derived from the people; it is that certain men are born and made, and certain men are born and serve. Nevertheless, British laws and British institutions are associated in our minds with the*** is in the main a pure administration of the law. No one can be deprived of his liberty or life or property without a fair trial before a jury of his peers. There is in England liberty of speech and of the press as well as liberty of person. Englishmen are justly proud of this. And Americans [are] conscious that [there] can be derived from England so many admirable lessons. Granted, so much of their institutions that we treasure and revere, and not accustomed to think English rule such a very bad thing. And there are many Americans, who thinking that as an*** can look at all the troubles of Ireland as resulting from*** character of the people. This is about universally true of Englishmen. Personally and individually the English people are a very good people. Personally*** conceived; but collectively by*** enormously necessities. I must say that I never met an Englishman in Ireland, who was not disgusted but –*** Now the history of the world shows that no people no matter how good or how free themselves are fit to govern another people – least of all a*** people. English rule in Ireland must necessarily [be] that [of] a tyranny. But the real government of Ireland is something*** to English rule but though that must be – something*** and more demoralizing than any foreign tyranny could be. It is to do*** what it was when stood the*** to make the last grand speech – a speech that will be*** as long as*** language endures, 207
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that the meaning of the*** of liberty is held sacred. The government of Ireland is what he too had called it. A deadly*** despotism – the yoke of a foreign [power] of unrelenting tyranny, of the still more galling yoke of a domestic faction, its*** perpetuated in the parricide, whose reward is the ignominy of existing with an extension of splendor [with] a consciousness of depravity. It is this that gives its worst character to the government of Ireland. Foreign rule is*** bad enough, but foreign rule is*** infinitely preferable to the rule of a domestic faction backed by a foreign force, and educated to hate and despise the masses of the people. England Never Conquered Ireland: It is a historical fact that England has never yet conquered Ireland. With every English army since the landing of Strongbow, there has always marched an Irish auxiliary force.37 You know here that English rule was established by the bribery of Irish chieftains. So it is today. It is not British troops that really hold Ireland. Superior as she is in physical force England could not hold Ireland against a united people. Government of Ireland Suffrage Mayors[?] and compensation[?] Police People taught to despise persecution School books
Parliament Poor Law Boards Athenry The Castle oligarchy
Condition of Ireland today. Americans then do not sympathize with*** to traditions. Ireland a state in the Union. Americanization [of the] Irish people. Politically all right only give them the power themselves and try and be all right. Not a turbulent people. The only*** is that by not*** turbulent. But which is*** the*** socially[?] How does it settle the land question [?]
11. HIS MEMORY LIVES Robert Emmet Anniversary Demonstrations. Enthusiastic Audiences and Ringing Speeches. Henry George’s Address: Before the Emmet Association of Olneyville, RI.38 Olneyville, RI. Editor Irish World: Emmet’s birthday was appropriately observed by the Emmet Literary Association of Olneyville. Irons’ Hall was engaged for the purpose and in the evening there was a large attendance at the lecture delivered by Mr. Henry George, the author of Progress and Poverty. The platform was set off by American and Irish flags, and on it several gentlemen identified with the national movement occupied seats. Mr. Ambrose E. West presided and in a brief speech introduced the lecturer, Mr. George, who said: One gloomy afternoon he stood in that old churchyard in Dublin where rest the remains of Robert Emmet. It seemed to him that that neglected grave was typical of history, the saddest of any history on earth. But Emmet, in the esteem in which he is held, has a prouder monument than could be sculptured in any land.
HIS HISTORY, HIS MEMORY STILL LIVES. (CHEERS.) British rule in Ireland, to the majority of the people in this country, does not signify the misgovernment of English rule. A belief has slowly grown up among us that England is a republic in all but name. It is a mistake, but for all that in England personal rights are respected, and there is liberty of speech and liberty of the press. Personally, said the speaker, I like the English people, and I do not remember having met anyone who had been in Ireland who did not feel disgusted with what he saw there. One Englishman told me that ‘‘the people did not begin to understand the real condition of 209
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Ireland.’’ (Cheers.) The majority of Englishmen think that they are really trying to help poor Ireland, and that she is ungrateful. Nothing could be more unjust than to look upon the Irish as a turbulent people. No matter how much any people love liberty, they
CAN NEVER PROPERLY GOVERN ANOTHER PEOPLE. (LOUD APPLAUSE.) It does not express everything to say that England’s misrule is all the evil [sic]. In Emmet’s last speech, that speech which will last forever, he rightfully characterized the rule of Ireland as the joint rule of tyranny and parasites. England never conquered Ireland. (Applause.) Today the troops would be powerless to support the English government if there was united action on the part of the Irish people. It is difficult to give an Englishman or an American a right idea of the situation. The Irish people really have no political rights at all. The imperial Parliament is a different kind of a body from the American Congress. Parliament has virtual rule over all Ireland, and in it the Irish have very little power. In the Land Act, that most important measure, the Irish members were not consulted at all. In local matters the Irish can only elect a mayor and council who really have no municipal power over anything. All over the country the real administration of the law is placed in the hands of the landlords and their dependants. Whoever is sent as lord lieutenant, the oligarchy is still in power.
THE LANDLORDS ARE THE SUPPORTERS OF THE TYRANNY THAT EXISTS. (APPLAUSE.) Suppose that Ireland was made a state. Politically, she would gain much, but socially would not, for the Irish landlord would exercise even greater oppression than now. Again there is a cry for help from Ireland; again is money needed and asked for. Ireland, properly governed, could support four or five times her present population. (Applause.) We might make Ireland today a state of the American Union, but we should not accomplish social reform. The foundation of Irish national independence is personal independence. The Irish movement is grand and strong. But the people should be properly
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instructed on this point. What Davitt calls ‘‘moral dynamite’’ is more powerful and convincing than the dynamite sometimes advocated. But the government which exists in Ireland today is doomed. (Cheers.) Educate the people to know what they really need, and the movement which has already begun to agitate the popular mind in England and Scotland will be successfully carried out, and the day of relief and success will surely come, and it may not be far off now. (Loud applause and cheers.)
12. VIEWS ON LABOR TOPICS Henry George before the Senate Committee. He Gives His Opinions on the Various Labor Questions and upon the Western Monopoly.39 Henry George, the well-known political economist and author of Progress and Poverty, appeared before the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Education yesterday and gave his view on labor questions before a large audience. Mr. George said he was resident of Brooklyn, and had given considerable time to the study of labor questions, but he thought the committee could obtain specific facts from workingmen themselves. It was a fact, he said, that in the United States there was a growing feeling of dissatisfaction among the laboring classes. Whether or not their condition was growing worse was a difficult and complex question to answer, but in his opinion their condition was not improving. It was certainly becoming more difficult for a laboring man to become an employer. The invention of machines causing an increased division of labor made this more difficult. Mr. George did not believe that there was a direct conflict between labor and capital. The conflict was between labor and monopoly. A monopoly was a peculiar privilege possessed by one or a class of persons and not possessed by others. When speaking of the relation of capital and labor, persons generally meant aggregate capital or monopoly. Capital’s earnings were measured by the rate of interest. Some industries, the witness continued, were in their nature monopolies. This was the case of railroads and telegraph companies. No one would build a railroad side by side with another. Points of intersection were the competing points. The aggregation of capital was accompanied by progress and invention, and with its aggregation came a greater division of labor, and consequently less skill was required in the laborer. When labor-saving machinery was introduced it was thought that it would improve the condition of the working classes. Machinery should be an advantage to labor. It was certain, however, that this had not been the case. 213
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Mr. George thought that the division of labor was not of itself a disadvantage. Wages in all occupations had a certain relation to each other, and in a general sense, must depend upon the largest source of production. Therefore, ultimately, the wages depended upon land, or, in other words, agriculture. Wages would not sink below what a man could get by applying his labor to the soil. The fact that wages were higher in a new country was because the soil had not passed into private hands. As the land was closed up the wages lowered. Railroads, although reducing the cost of transportation, did not make food any cheaper or benefit the condition of the laboring classes. There could be no overproduction, Mr. George said, until men got all they wanted. Senator Pugh:40 How would you relieve the extra production in several of the industries, such as coal or iron? In the iron industry our capacity last year was five million tons of pig iron, but the market was only three million tons. Answer: There is no such thing as overproduction. When there is a case of overproduction, as it seems, in one industry, it is because of underproduction in other industries. Production in one thing might temporarily be in excess of the demand, but no one had all the iron they wanted. This cessation in active demand was often owing to the tariff. Speaking of the public lands, Mr. George said that Western tracts had become the property of private individuals, who obtained them at small costs and had taken portions along the river fronts, making the access to water difficult for others. The truth was, the agent went along just ahead of the emigrant. The American desert still existed though land agents mapped it into farms. Mr. George said that he had observed in crossing the plains that men were going back and forth. At one place he had seen an advertisement for 2,500 improved farms for sale. The best way to get a home was to buy one. In reply to a question by Senator Pugh the witness stated that overproduction in special cases was likely to occur as the tendency was to draw off capital to other pursuits. Senator Call asked why the immense tracts in the South which could be rented at low rates were not taken up by Northern laborers.41 To this Mr. George said he supposed people did not like to go South. Senator Pugh: I am told that near New York there are houses and lands that are cheap and yet the workingmen remain in tenements. Answer: Does it look reasonable that this could be so? Senator Pugh: No, it does not. Answer: You will find that it is not a fact. You go to Harlem and you find large tenement houses a little better than those further downtown and they
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are all occupied. The poorer a man is the more difficult it is for him to move. He is living from hand to mouth and has not power to get away. Mr. George then took up the subject of monopolies, and began by stating his own experience with the Western Union Telegraph Company. This experience, he said, had made him an advocate of a telegraph system under government control. This company had swallowed all smaller and weaker ones, and then grossly abused the rights of citizens upon whose patronage it largely depended. In 1868 Mr. George said he came across the plains from San Francisco to negotiate with the telegraph companies concerning the sending of news from an Eastern city to San Francisco, where a friend had embarked on a newspaper project. The Associated Press had refused to sell news to the new paper though a large price was offered for it. Mr. George then went to Western Union, and the telegraph company agreed to carry the news for $900 a month from Philadelphia to San Francisco. The paper was started, and Mr. George began to send the news, which was much more satisfactory than that of the Associated Press. In a very short time, however, he received notice from Gen. Eckert that he must file his news in New York City. Mr. George protested against this, but, coming on to New York, continued his dispatches to San Francisco. The next move of Western Union was in the form of a notice from that monopoly that thereafter Mr. George would be charged $2,000 a month for the same number of words that he had paid for $900 for. Getting no satisfaction from the management he called on President Orton, who finally said: ‘‘Mr. George, those are our terms. If you do not like them you can build a telegraph line of your own to San Francisco.’’ As a result the paper went under. ‘‘This is what I call a monopoly,’’ said Mr. George. The reason of this action the witness attributed to an agreement between the Associated Press and Western Union, and it was his belief that they worked in each other’s interest continually. There was no use, he thought, in fighting such a corporation. Mr. George believed that the government should operate a telegraph line in connection with its postal business, and he believed it could be managed at a much less cost than the lines of private companies. One of the great evils of such a corporation was in its keeping back all the benefits of new inventions from the people. Western Union did not look with favor on the patenting of inventions and discouraged their adoption. Great service, the witness thought, had been rendered to Western Union in the late strike by the newspapers both in printing rose-colored reports of the affairs in the Western Union main office and through the editorial pages. In this manner the Associated Press had done much toward defeating the
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strike. The man who had charge of the press department could wield an immense power if he chose. Another evil, he said, was that private dispatches were habitually taken advantage of and used by the operators of the company. Senator Blair:42 Is there any other interest influencing the Western Union monopoly? Answer: At the head of the company stands an unscrupulous man. Senator Blair: Do you think that the public has any cause of complaint against the Western Union for linking with the interests of the Associated Press as well as business interests? Answer: No, I do not know that they have. If under the control of the government, Mr. George thought that there would be a smaller chance for favoritism and less chance for combinations in the interests of a few. Question: In the end will there be a remedying of the abuse. If the Associated Press disseminates false news will not the public sooner or later find it out? Answer: Yes, I think it will. In answer to question by Senator Pugh, Mr. George said he did not believe that labor received its rightful share. The average wages of capital was indicated by the rates of interest. Many laborers in the Eastern states could not make enough money to live upon, and the whole family was compelled to work in the factories. Wages were now at the minimum in many industries. If American laborers could live on rice, soon wages would fall to that level. Senator Blair: Is there anything the laborers can do but combine to better their wages or meet this downward tendency? Answer: The only thing to do is to wrest the advantages which have been gained by individual skill and distribute them among the many. This applied only to land, not to other property. At this point Senator Blair and Mr. George indulged in a long discussion concerning the distinction between land and other property. Mr. George said that combinations of laborers could do some good, but very little. If wages were raised in one branch of industry others would flock into that business from other employments. This was obviated by glassblowers in some places, who refused to teach the trade to any but their children. Wages could only be raised permanently by a general rise in every branch of industry. The capitalist could hold out longer than the laborer, and the landowner longer than the capitalist. Mr. George had no faith in small remedies or ameliorating measures. He thought the protective tariff should be removed and a start made on a freetrade basis. If the state owned the land it would increase continually in value, and everyone would benefit from this increase and share in it instead
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of as now only the few. Cooperative societies the witness thought of not much value to laborers. They were simply educators. There was a fundamental injustice in society, and this was what must be removed. The government could do some good, however, by breaking up monopolies like the Western Union by establishing a postal telegraph, abolishing laws of collections of debts, simplifying laws, and removing the tariff. Mr. George did not believe in sumptuary laws. If a man gained wealth he thought he should be allowed to do with it what he pleased. There was no remedy to be found in such laws. Senator Blair: Now, Mr. George, if you were a supreme dictator in the United States, what would you do first to carry out your theory? Answer: Well, first I should abolish all taxation except upon land values; add to the government control [of the] railroads, telegraph systems; abolish the navy, West Point, and Annapolis; abolish the law for collecting debts, and simplify other laws. Senator Blair: Do you think we [should] have a navy? Answer: We have naval officers. Question: Suppose England should attack us, what would we do without a navy? Answer: What would we do with the present navy? At any rate, we have no commerce. We could use torpedoes. Mr. George thought the land system in Ireland, England, and the United States did not differ materially. Laborers in Great Britain in some vocations he thought as well off as in this country. On the whole, this country was better off for a laborer. It was a new country and there was yet some good land unoccupied. Mr. George thought the tariff increased monopolies, and was no protection. If goods coming into the country under free trade should close up some manufacturies other exports would offset the loss.
13. SPEECH AT ST. CECILIA’S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH43 Ladies and Gentlemen: I have been honored by Father Phelan with an invitation to say a few words at the opening of this fair, and I respond with great pleasure. My sympathies, as Father Phelan says, do go out to all classes; but especially do I represent now that greatest of all classes – the working class. And among workingmen there is, in my opinion, no one who does more necessary work, no one who does higher and nobler work, no one who is in every true sense of the word a workingman more thoroughly, than the priest. And there is no place where greater good can be done than in the church. I feel honored with this invitation, and it is an evidence to my mind of the progress we are making, that one who is not a Catholic should be asked to say a word at the opening of a Catholic fair. We are growing fast in this country, and I trust in all countries; we are growing past those narrow prejudices that had in them nothing that was of real religion and served but to divide men on the line of their viler passions, cloaking what was really selfishness and meanness with the garb of holy things. I congratulate you, parishioners of St. Cecilia’s, upon this beautiful edifice. And yet, looking as it stands tonight, I cannot help thinking that we have hardly in this country anything that is really worthy of the name of a church. What I mean is, that our church buildings are really, even the finest of them, far behind those of our ancestors. Your cathedral on Fifth Avenue is small compared with the edifices our forefathers built in what are sometimes called the Dark Ages.44 The grandeur, the poetry, that can be expressed in a church building I never realized until I went into that grand old [St.] Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin – until I saw that grand old relic of the times when Scotland was Catholic, in Glasgow; until I saw the beautiful and grand English cathedrals. What one reads the history of those times dwells with most pleasure on is the fact that when those grand edifices were reared there was no such thing as a pauper; there was no such thing as a tramp. The religious history of a 219
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country is very intertwined with its social and its political history. We have it on the highest authority, that of Thorold Rogers and Hallam, who have traced the history of the English people, that in those old days the lot of the workingmen was far better than that of the millions of working men in the same country today. In spite of all that we call progress, in spite of all that we call advance, in spite of electricity and our marvelous inventions, the fact remains that the great masses of the English, the Scotch, and the Irish people find it harder now to get a living than it was then. In those old times, when they reared those grand cathedrals, no one feared poverty; no one feared what the English laborer has not only to fear; but to expect, after a life of toil, as his only refuge in his old days – the poorhouse. The reason was this: That then our ancestors held to the fundamental truth that the Father of all who made the land, made it not for some people, but for all. In those old days the grounds were parceled out in this way: There were lands held by the crown that supported all the expenses of the civil list. There were the lands held under military tenures which bore all the expenses of war; then the landlord had to do the fighting, and wars were carried on without a penny of expense. There were the commons around every town and every village, free to every inhabitant to get his wood and pasture his cattle. Last of all, there were the church lands that maintained all the expenses of public worship, the cause of public education, and the care of the sick. It was on those church estates that labor first raised its head from serfdom. It was those church estates that provided hospitality and furnished the wayfarer with food and refreshment. It was not until the days of the Tudors, not until what we call the Reformation came – until the crown lands were given away to vile courtiers, until the military tenures threw off their dues and put the expenses of war upon the common people in the form of taxation, until the church lands were confiscated and made the private property of greedy nobles, and the commons were enclosed – that pauperism raised its head in that country. I hope the time will come in this country when we shall build not merely as grand, but far grander, religious edifices than our fathers built. I hope the time will come in this city when every such church as this, instead of being set up alongside other buildings, will have round each its square of ground, green grass, and the foliage of trees. Let us hope and pray and work for the coming of those good times.
14. SPEECH TO THE IRISH-AMERICAN INDEPENDENTS45 Mr. President and Secretary of the Irish Independents: I thank you for your endorsement. This is a sufficient answer to the poor lies they are telling. Tammany is hard pressed when, in order to keep the Irish, they have to resort to such a resolution as they passed the other night – that I said – what is it? – the Irish were ‘‘old tinder. [Voice: ‘‘Chips.’’] That I insulted the Irish people, and today they have a lady, fished up by the Herald, who says that as soon as I come to be elected mayor I am ‘‘going to clean the Irish out.’’ I have got a pretty big job in being mayor, anyhow, and when I am mayor I expect to do a good deal of cleaning out. To clean the Irish out is rather too difficult a job. But, seriously, to all such stupid falsehoods it is not necessary for me to reply. Here on this platform sits Patrick Ford, the editor of The Irish World. He is the man for whom I first crossed the sea and set foot in Ireland. [A voice: ‘‘And got arrested.’’] That didn’t count much, for they dropped me like a hot poker. But that I retain the friendship of such men; that I have their confidence; that I have, spite of all the differences of opinion that may be between us in this campaign, their support – is sufficient answer to any such stupid falsehoods. But I am glad, independent of this, to have the support of every IrishAmerican, for I believe that to Ireland – to the men who have been the promoters of this great movement of the Irish people – we of the United States owe a great deal. My first speech in this city was on this platform with Michael Davitt. I said then that the Irish movement was more than an Irish movement; that it had in it a message and an impetus for this side of the water a well as that, and I believe today that my words are coming true, and that the seed that was sown in those years is now beginning to spring from the ground. But all these stupid things – that I insulted the Irish! That I was in favor of Chinese immigration! What are they? 221
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They are like Mr. Hewitt’s frantic cry, that if he is not elected society is going to the bowwows, that anarchy and chaos are coming if I take a seat in city hall. These are but subterfuges to divert men’s minds from the real issue. What these men who have pushed Mr. Hewitt in front of them are trying to do is not to save society, it is to save their own plunder. It is to perpetuate a corrupt and corrupting political system that makes our republican institutions a byword and a reproach all over the world. Go abroad and talk to an aristocrat about republican government, and see how quickly he will fling in your face the rottenness of New York politics. It is so. We know it. Look at the men who nominated Hewitt. [A voice: ‘‘Murderers.’’] Aye, and already they are at their work. Today I read in the papers of a man who was killed because he avowed himself for the workingman’s candidate. The bruisers and heelers46 – all that is foul and bad in New York politics – are putting Mr. Hewitt to the front to ‘‘save society!’’ Here I read, in a letter written some little while ago to the Boston Herald by one of the editorial corps of a newspaper now warmly supporting Mr. Hewitt: The salaries that are paid to our police commissioners and excise commissioners are comparatively small, ranging from five-thousand dollars to eight-thousand dollars. But no one believes that that is their income. On the contrary, it is generally supposed that a police commissioner ought to be able to spend forty-thousand dollars or fifty-thousand dollars a year and save as much more, while as for the possibilities attending the position of an excise commissioner – well, it is absurd to talk about it.
Who doubts that the commissioner of public works, with a salary of $10,000, can easily make $150,000 a year and, with a little straining, run up to $250,000? Nobody doubts it. Is it any wonder that these men want to save society? Here is another little item that I took from a morning paper – just such an item as you read two or three times, at least, a week. John Mulvey, of No. 55 West Street, was looking at several boys quarreling near his house on Sunday, when Policeman Frederick Rowe came up and began to club him. The officer then took him to the station, where he entered a charge of disorderly conduct against him. Yesterday, at the Jefferson Market Police Court, witnesses swore that Mulvey had done nothing wrong, and Mulvey was discharged. Justice Ford told Rowe to be more careful next time.
The gentleman who wants to become mayor in order to save society from anarchy and chaos says the mayor of New York has no control over the police. Well, when I am mayor, if I cannot do something to put a stop to that sort of thing I will resign and let Mr. Nooney take the place. And if I cannot do something to put a stop to that infamous system of blackmail
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which enables men on small salaries to run yachts and live at the rate of $40,000 or $50,000 a year – well, I am not half so practical as I think I am. And, as I said before, if I amounted to nothing at all, if I was the merest, merest, merest theorist – nobody will accuse any of the committee to whom Mr. Hewitt read his letter of being a mere theorist; but if I was the merest kind of theorist my election on such a nomination as I have received, my election by a spontaneous movement of the people, breaking up these machines, throwing aside these corrupt rings, would do more to purify politics in the city of New York than anything else that could possibly happen. The very coming up of the workingman’s party, the very fact that labor has stepped to the front with demands for something real, has already had a purifying influence.47 Already! Why, even Mr. Hewitt’s balderdash about the chaos and anarchy that is going on to come upon society – it is better than nothing. He certainly has got some reason to offer. It is better than a mere blind struggle for the spoils between Tammany and the County Democracy. And it is a good thing that we have both gangs now in one body. We can beat them all together, and beat them all the worse. And this is but the beginning. If we win this election – and I believe we are going to win it, and win it by a big majority – it is the signal for a new movement all over the country. It means the coming to the front again of the party of the people; the rise in our democracy of the true democracy. And that is the only power that can purify our politics; that is the only power that can give us good government; that is the only power that can make this in reality, as well as in name, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And now, as this is a popular movement, I want to do a very popular thing. I want to ask you to put your hands into your pockets when the basket comes around. We are about to take up a collection to defray the expenses of this meeting. For a lecture, as was intended, the price of this hall is only $50, but the gentlemen who control it will not let us have it for less than $250. That money must be paid, and as we have no big moneybags to draw on, as this is a movement springing from the people and must be supported by the people, we ask you to throw in your mite, as the collectors go around, to help pay this expense.
NOTES 1. ‘‘Henry George Arrested . . . ,’’ and Henry George, ‘‘Later,’’ The Irish World, Aug. 19, 1882. 2. See the eighth selection of Section IV. 3. Henry George, ‘‘A Review of the Irish Land Question . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Aug. 26, 1882. 4. A farthing was worth one-quarter of a penny and as of Dec. 30, 1960 was no longer used as legal tender. 5. A ‘‘gombeen man’’ was a loan shark primarily in rural areas. 6. John Bull is the nickname for the stereotypical Englishman. 7. A demesne is the manorial land held by the lord; tenants do not hold or use it. 8. The poisonous sap of the upas tree is used on arrow tips. 9. As part of the sacred pact between God and the Jews, land was redistributed, debts were forgiven, and slaves were freed every 50th year; known as the Jubilee. See Leviticus 25: 8–55, among numerous biblical references to man’s relation to the land. 10. Henry George, ‘‘The Bottom Issue . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Aug. 28, 1882. The reply by Honorius has been omitted. 11. A league, depending on the country, can vary from 2.4 to 4.6 statue miles. 12. Probably a reference to Social Problems which was published as a book in 1883, but had previously appeared as a series of articles in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper and The Irish World. 13. Charles G. Leland (1824–1903) was a journalist, author, and folklorist. 14. Henry George, ‘‘Ireland’s Political Subjection . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Sep. 2, 1882. 15. Mary I (1516–1558), the daughter of Henry VIII, reigned from 1553 until her death. She attempted to restore Roman Catholicism. Many persecutions occurred, hence the sobriquet ‘‘Bloody Mary.’’ 16. A number of words in the following three sections have been interpolated since there was a crease in the page. 17. Usufruct is the legal right to use and/or enjoy the fruits, property, or profits of someone else. 18. In the wake of the potato famine (1845) the Encumbered Estates Act of 1849 permitted the auctioning off of debt-ridden estates by bankrupt landlords or the petition of creditors. Land values plunged, so speculators bought them up and rented them to tenant farmers at exorbitant rates. 19. Henry George, ‘‘The Land for the Whole People, . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Sep. 9, 1882.
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20. Daniel O’Connell (1775–1847) founded the Catholic Association in 1823 which was a catalyst for the Catholic Emancipation Act 6 years later. He advocated settlement of the land question and Irish repeal of union with Great Britain. 21. George Peabody (1795–1869) was an American financier and philanthropist who lived in London. 22. A riding is an electoral district or administrative jurisdiction. 23. The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain is the title of a religious writing published as one of the Cheap Repository Tracts at the end of the eighteenth century by Hannah More, an evangelical philanthropist who lived from 1745 to 1833. The protagonist is known for his homespun wisdom and piety. 24. Gladstone described the rapid growing industrial town of Middlesbrough as ‘‘the infant Hercules’’ in 1862; the editor could not find a reference to a man, except for Lord Palmerston who died in 1865. 25. Henry George, ‘‘Letter from George, . . . ’’ The Irish World, Sep. 16, 1882. 26. The prophet Mohammed, who lived from around 570 to 632, was the founder of Islam. 27. Henry George, ‘‘Jailed in Ireland,’’ no. 9, 1882; HGP. This piece was transposed by the editor from handwritten notes; asterisks (***) represent unreadable words. 28. A ‘‘canon’’ is a clergyman who belongs to the staff of a collegiate church or cathedral. 29. Probably a reference to absentee landlordism. A lough can be a lake, a bay, or a sea inlet. 30. Henry George, ‘‘How Men are Legally Murdered in Ireland, . . . ’’ The Irish World, Oct. 7, 1882. The following titles were deleted since they represent sections in the article that were not used: ‘‘No Sacredness of the Fireside;’’ ‘‘Capt. Dugmore’s Home Invasion as a Sample of the Common Outrages;’’ and ‘‘A Bad and Undemocratic Policy.’’ 31. The original word is unreadable. 32. Possibly a reference to Parnell’s Irish following in Parliament. 33. A reference to the Worcestshire Exhibition of 1882. 34. ‘‘George Interviewed, . . . ’’ The Irish World, Oct. 28, 1882. 35. Timothy D. Sullivan (1827–1914), a well-known poet, was a member of parliament and mayor of Dublin. 36. Henry George, ‘‘British Rule in Ireland,’’ no. 9, 1882–1883, HGP. Note at top: ‘‘Draft for lecture before *** the Irish*** probably written in winter of 1882–1883.’’ This piece was transposed by the editor from handwritten notes. 37. Richard de Clare, second earl of Pembroke (d. 1176) was an English nobleman known as Richard Strongbow. He subdued much of eastern Ireland beginning 6 years before his death. 38. Henry George, ‘‘His Memory Lives, . . . ’’ The Irish World, Mar. 23, 1883. Robert Emmet was an Irish orator and patriot who was born in 1778 and executed in 1803. 39. Henry George, ‘‘Views on Labor Topics,’’ The New York Times, Aug. 23, 1883. 40. James L. Pugh (1820–1907) was a Democratic senator from Alabama who served from 1880 to 1897.
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41. Wilkinson Call (1834–1910) was a Democratic senator from Florida who served from 1879 to 1897. 42. William H. Blair (1834–1920) was a Republican senator from New Hampshire who served from 1879 to 1885 and 1885–1891. 43. Henry George, ‘‘Speech at St. Cecilia’s Roman Catholic Church.’’ In Post and Leubuscher ([1887] 1961, pp. 106–108). 44. St. Patrick’s Cathedral was completed in 1878 and dedicated in 1879. 45. Henry George, ‘‘Speech to the Irish-American Independents.’’ In Post and Leubuscher ([1887] 1961, pp. 112–115). This speech was given on Oct. 26, 1886. 46. A ‘‘bruiser’’ is a strong-arm man working for a political party and a ‘‘heeler’’ is a party hack working at the ward level. 47. The United Labor Party was founded in 1886 and George was its prime mover. Its convention was held at Syracuse in 1887. After major loses in the New York State elections it failed to create a national political party and disbanded in 1888.
SECTION II DIVING INTO THE MURKY WATERS George knew fully well what he was getting into when he started to associate with radical Irish Americans. These varied in their demands regarding home rule, land reform, and other issues, but they had in common a detestation of British rule – they could get on with their lives without the crown and parliament, Victoria, Disraeli, and Gladstone. The British were conquerors, or at the very least unwelcome foreigners. A short extract from a letter to Patrick Ford appears in the first volume of The Henry George Trilogy and deserves a reappearance: ‘‘We’ll topple Mr. British Crown before we are done. And I don’t care what plan anyone proposes so that he goes on the right line’’ (from George, ‘‘My Dear Mr. Ford,’’ in Wenzer, 1997b, p. 135). George’s rancor was particularly strong for the royalty and the aristocracy, especially after a couple of short visits to British prisons. He found the queen herself to be rather insipid. Victoria Guelph is . . . a greedy, grasping, narrow-minded, commonplace woman, who never did a useful thing in her life unless to serve the purpose of a legal fiction that might just as well have been served by a wax figure from Madame Tussaud’s show. Yet a great people hasten to prostrate themselves before her, and to thank her with honors that fall little short of adoration for having permitted them so long to support her and her family; and rejoice over the fiftieth anniversary of her accession to the position of royal figurehead as though it marked some great national deliverance . . . . [She] is in reality an apotheosis of the system which keeps the millions of England on the verge of starvation that a favored ten thousand may enjoy luxurious idleness. (George, ‘‘The Queen’s Jubilee,’’ in Wenzer, 1997b, p. 133).
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SECTION III SUBMERGED IN THE SEA Alfred Isacsson’s long-needed definitive biography of Edward McGlynn, The Determined Doctor, should be read by anyone interested in McGlynn and George (Isacsson, 1998). McGlynn was an interesting amalgam of stubbornness and priestly compassion who could just as easily get into a donnybrook as give away the shirt off his back. But he was a troublemaker who could rarely compromise, so his friendship with George embroiled the single-tax philosopher, as described in the introductory essay, in a foreordained losing battle with the Roman Catholic Church. George also allowed himself to be easily swayed by the glamour of a political career. Hindsight suggests that he should never have gotten involved. Like his friend McGlynn, he was not easily given to compromise, so he would have probably made a poor politician. His campaigns, especially his first mayoralty race, which most certainly gave machine politics a bruised eye, created more problems for him than they were worth. The selections in this third section, along with some pieces from the fourth, highlight the raised hopes, the broken dreams, and the contentiousness created by a dual war raged against the church and the city hall. In the end it was Archbishop Corrigan who won the religious battle and the corrupt party hacks the political attack. For the latter most extant information has been based on historical rumors regarding the corruption of the 1886 election. A letter written by George in 1897 demystifies this situation. It recounts a certain incident that occurred while he was running against Abram S. Hewitt, who had accused George of fomenting ‘‘anarchy and social destruction.’’ Before the nomination had formally taken place, yet it was clear that it soon would, I received a request form Mr. William Ivins, then chamberlain of the city and a close political advocate and representative of Mr. Grace, the then Democratic Mayor and head of the Democratic organization known as the County Democracy, to privately meet him personally. I did so in the quiet restaurant on Lafayette Square, known as the ***. We sat down in a private room, unattended, and smoked some cigars. Mr. Ivins insisted that I could not possibly be elected mayor of New York. He said, the men who vote under any circumstances, no matter how many people might vote for me, knew nothing of the real forces which dominated New York. That I could not possibly
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be counted in, and he offered me, on behalf of these ruling forces, Tammany Hall and the United Democracy, that if I would not run as mayor, but would accept what they had to offer, that they would select a city district in which the nomination of the two was absolutely equivalent to an election. That I might go to Europe anywhere I choose, and when I came back should receive the certificate of election for the House of Representatives. I asked him finally, you tell me that I cannot possibly be counted? He replied that it was utterly impossible. But, I said, you want to get me to draw off. Why, if I cannot be elected, do you object to my running? His reply was, you cannot be elected. Anyone who really knows politics will tell you that, but your running will ‘‘raise hell.’’ I said, you have relieved me of all embarrassment. I do not want to be mayor of New York, I shrink from the responsibility and the work, but I do want to ‘‘raise hell.’’ I am decided, and I will run. (Note: Letter, Henry George to Abram S. Hewitt, Oct. 1897, no. 6, HGP. See also George, Jr. ([1900] 1960, p. 463).
At bottom here, perhaps, is the close interrelation on many levels between the Roman Church hierarchy, the well-off Catholics, and Tammany Hall – George and McGlynn were threats, and they had to be stopped.
1. LETTER TO ARCHBISHOP CORRIGAN1 To the Most Rev. M.A. Corrigan, Archbishop of New York: There are passages in your recent ‘‘Pastoral Letter’’ that so unmistakably refer to opinions with which my name is identified, and which have begun to take shape in the political movement that in the last election I had the honor to head – passages which have been so promptly and generally assumed by the press to be an attack upon those opinions and this movement – that I am constrained to say something in reply. I am loath to criticize what one who occupies your position may choose to say in his official capacity, but I am unwilling to remain silent when from such a position erroneous views regarding great public questions are widely disseminated. That part of your pastoral to which I refer has been taken by the press as placing the Catholic Church in the attitude of a champion of private property in land, and is certainly calculated to create the impression that the doctrine that all men have equal and inalienable rights to the use of this natural element is opposed to, and condemned by, the Catholic faith. Since I am not a Catholic it might seem hardly fitting [for] me to deny your right as an archbishop to clothe your political and economic opinions in the garb of official religious teaching, but I may, perhaps, be permitted to call your attention to the fact that such a right has been expressly denied by high Catholic authority, and to the further fact that the very opinions which you officially stigmatize as opposed to Catholic teaching, are openly avowed not only by Catholic laymen and priests, but by prelates of official dignity not inferior to your own. Perhaps, also, I may be permitted to observe that the quotation you make from the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII in nowise bears out the interpretation you put upon it. Instead of condemning as a ‘‘dangerous theory’’ the doctrine that human rights to the use of land are equal, it, on the contrary, condemns only those who assail ‘‘the right of property which is sanctioned by the natural laws,’’ and this restriction, which excludes land, is still further 231
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enforced by the pope’s characterization of the property of which he speaks – a characterization that clearly applies only to that species of property which is the result of human exertion. I leave this, however, to your co-religionists. I address myself not to what you have to say of faith, but to what you advance as reason. With what you say of the statement that all men are born equal, with what you say of natural rights, and with what you say of the sanctions of property, I have no dispute. The fallacies which confuse you lie in using the term ‘‘property’’ as coextensive with the term ‘‘property in land,’’ and in the further assumption that ‘‘possession’’ necessarily implies ‘‘ownership.’’ Reduced to the form of a syllogism, your main argument is this: The results of human exertion are property and may rightfully be the object of individual ownership. Land is property. Therefore, land is rightfully the object of individual ownership.
Reduced to this form you will at once see what logicians would call the ‘‘nondistribution of the middle.’’ To make the syllogism valid in form your middle must be: ‘‘Land is the result of human exertion.’’ Can you make such a statement? Lest it be thought by those who may read this without having read your pastoral that I do injustice to your reasoning, let me quote verbatim your main argument. These are the words: Undoubtedly God made the earth for the use of all mankind; but whether the possession thereof was to be in common or by individual ownership was left for reason to determine. Such determination, judging from the facts of history, the sanction of law, from the teaching of the wisest and the actions of the best and bravest of mankind, has been and is, that man can, by lawful acts, become possessed of the right of ownership in property, and not merely in its use. The reason is because a man is strictly entitled to that of which he is the producing cause, to the improvement he brings about in it, and the enjoyment of both.
This, clearly, is a begging of the question. You start out to justify individual ownership in land, and end by asserting the right of ownership in property, viz., property in things of which man is the producing cause. And from this you assume that you have demonstrated the rightfulness of individual ownership in land. This you have not done, and this, I submit, you cannot do. To assert that a man is entitled to that of which he is the producing cause is, by implication at least, to assert that he is not entitled to that of which he is not the producing cause; and your declaration that God made the earth carries with
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it the absolute negation of the idea that man can obtain the right of individual ownership in it. You yourself, in a preceding paragraph, define the right of property as ‘‘the moral faculty of claiming an object as one’s own and disposing both of the object and its utility according to one’s own will, without any rightful interference on the part of others.’’ How is it possible for any individual to obtain such exclusive rights in what God made for the use of all? It is true, as you say, that the way in which possession of the earth’s surface should be adjusted among men has been left for reason to determine. But is it not also true that human reason must be subordinate to the will of God? You must surely agree with me that the only legitimate, and even the only expedient, use of human reason is to conform human adjustments to the intent of Him from whom all social as well as physical laws proceed, and hence that my valid determination as to how human rights to the use of the earth shall be adjusted must be such as will best secure the right of all mankind to that use. Now, I point you to the fact, notorious in all times and in all places, that the institution of individual ownership in land does inevitably exclude a great portion of mankind from the use of what you declare God made for the use of all. If you look back through history, ‘‘Most Reverend Sir,’’ you will see that the institution of private property in land – the attaching to what was made by God of the same rights of ownership that properly attach to things made by men – has everywhere led to the impoverishment and enslavement of the masses, to the deterioration and, finally, to the destruction of civilization. If you look over the world today you will see that its operation is everywhere to frustrate what you admit to be the divine intent, and to deny the use of the earth to multitudes whom their Creator calls into life upon it. If you go into Ireland you may see all through the country the sites of once populous villages, now, by the individual ownership of land, given over to the breeding of cattle. If you go into Scotland you may see thousands and thousands of acres from which, by individual ownership of land, men have been driven in order to give place to deer and grouse.2 If you go into England you may see great tracts which, by the operation of individual ownership of land, have passed out of cultivation, while the descendants of the men who once tilled them are crowded into poorhouses or huddled together in the souldestroying slums of cities. And in our country you may see, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the same cause producing similar results. See in this city the results of individual property in land! Not half the area of New York City is yet built upon, yet hardly one family in ten can enjoy
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the comfort of a separate home, while the poor are huddled together under conditions which make health of body impossible and health of soul a miracle. Why? Because the treatment of land as individual property enables monopolists to hold land, for which they have no use, as a means of exacting tribute from those who need it. Only a few blocks to the east of your stately residence little children are dying every day for want of room and breathing space – literally crowded out of the spacious world which both reason and religion teach us God made for their use. They are forced back from the threshold of life by the false and unreasonable system which, if carried to its fullest extent, would enable one man or one family to entirely frustrate what you and I believe to be the purpose of the Creator in fitting this earth for the abode of man. Is not a system which produces such results in clear violation of the divine intent? How, then, can it be sanctioned by human reason: that faculty whose highest function is but the discovery of the intent of the Creator as manifested in His laws? When you say that the best human reason acting through [the] ages has sanctioned the property, you are stating a truism which I certainly will not dispute. But if you mean what you assume, rather than say, that human reason and experience have always sanctioned the right of individual property in land, then I commend to you a much closer examination of the subject than you can yet have made. The notion that land has always been treated as private property will not bear examination. By the Mosaic Code the right of ownership which attaches to things produced by men did not attach to land. ‘‘The land shall not be sold forever, for the land is mine, saith the Lord,’’ is the declaration that in one form or another is reiterated throughout the Sacred Books. Their constant teaching is that the land is a free gift of the Creator to all His children. And if you turn to secular history you will see that the moral perceptions of men have always led them to acknowledge common rights to the use of land, and that private property in land is so repugnant to instincts of justice that it has nowhere grown up but as the result of force and fraud. The notion that the right of individual ownership could attach to land as to things of human production only reached full development among the Romans, whose civilization it degraded and destroyed.3 It is with us a comparatively modern thing, which in England began to develop out of the feudal (or trustee) system in the time of the Tudors, and only reached full legal expression after the Restoration, and which has been forced upon Ireland and Celtic Scotland by the sword.4 And in spite of all that force and fraud could do, there is yet a clear legal distinction made,
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both in this country and in those from which we derive our laws and customs, between property in land and property in things produced by human exertion. Theoretically, at least, the state or the crown is still the only true landowner. Practically, however, we do in these modern times treat land as something which individuals may own almost as fully as they may own things produced by labor – and this is the reason that with all our unquestionable advances we are cursed with pauperism and want, unknown in that ruder state of society which existed in what are sometimes called the ‘‘dark ages.’’ Those ‘‘dark ages’’ in which, without labor-saving machines, our fathers built cathedrals beside which yours is but pretty miniature: those ‘‘dark ages’’ in which no one feared the inability to make a living, and in which, save when caused by war or famine, absolute want was unknown.5 But let me remind you, archbishop, that the laws of Caesar are not necessarily the laws of God, and that the mere calling of a thing ‘‘property,’’ its mere inclusion in the legal category of things that may be held as property, cannot give to it that moral sanction which the individual ownership of things produced by human exertion indisputably has. Property in human beings has been longer and more widely recognized than private property in land. At the time of the union of Scotland with England, the right of ‘‘pit and gallows,’’ that is to say, the right to hang men and bury women alive, was held to be a right of property, and to this day in England the cure of souls is property which may be legally bought and sold. Would you think to justify such right of property declaring that a man has a right to a statue he has carved or to the block of ice that he has produced by artificial process? Permit me to state to you the distinction, essential and irreconcilable, between land and those things produced from land by labor, to which individual rights of ownership properly attach. Land was created by God. It can neither be produced by man nor consumed by man. It is the appointed abode: the dwelling place and storehouse of the human beings who, drawing their bodies from its substance and depending upon it for the necessaries of their earthly life, follow each other, generation after generation, in seemingly endless succession, as one guest may follow another guest in the house or at the table of a bountiful host. On the other hand, the things to which the sanctions of property rightly attach, while consisting in their substance of material drawn from land, are in their essence the products of human labor. They are produced and are consumed; they vanish as the individual man vanishes, while ‘‘the earth remaineth forever.’’ The true right of ownership, the right, as you correctly
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define it, ‘‘of claiming an object as one’s own, and disposing both of the object and of its utility according to one’s own will without any rightful interference on the part of others,’’ justly attaches to things that man makes, but how can it attach to that which was here before man was; to that which God created for the use of all the generations of men? The exclusive right of ownership to anything produced by human labor is absolute and indefeasible, for it goes back to the man who made it, and rests on the right of each human being to the fruits of his own exertions. But this right cannot attach to land. Land was not made by man. Nor can any justification of individual property in land be founded upon expediency or necessity. If any case can be shown in which the ownership of land, as you define ownership, is necessary to the use and improvement of land, then I will concede that the necessity of treating land as private property is established by reason. But this you will find impossible. What is necessary to improvement is the ownership of the improvement, not the ownership of land. Granted, to follow your illustrations, that if a man hew a statue out of a block of marble he is entitled to the possession of the marble, does that justify him in claiming the quarry and forbidding anyone else from taking marble from it? Granted, that if a man by artificial means congeal water into ice he is entitled to the exclusive ownership of the ice, can he found on this any claim to the ownership of the river, any right to forbid others to make themselves blocks of ice, or even slake their thirst, without paying him tribute? And let me ask you to look a little closer into the origin of property rights. It is not the carving of a statue which gives ownership in the block of marble, else anyone who carried off a block of marble from your cathedral and carved it into a statue would become its owner. It is not the congealing of water into ice which gives ownership, else an ice manufacturer might rightfully claim ice made by surreptitiously tapping the mains of a water company. The right of property to which you allude attaches to the block of marble before it is carved, to the water before it is congealed. It attaches to the particular piece of marble or the particular quantity of water when produced (i.e., brought forth) from their natural reservoirs by the exertion of labor. Man does not create. God alone creates. What man does is to produce, or bring forth, and his production of material things consists in changing the place or form of what he finds already in existence. What individual labor thus produces the individual right of ownership attaches to, but it cannot justly attach to the reservoirs of Nature. It attaches to any improvement that man makes, but it cannot attach to the substance and superficies of the globe.
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He who erects a house or improves a farm has a clear title to the building or improvement, but this gives him no title to ownership of the original and indestructible natural element on which he has built or improved. Nor is the right of ownership in the earth necessary to secure the right of ownership in what labor produces on or from the earth. What alone is necessary is to give to the improver such right of possession as shall enable him to fully obtain the benefit of his improvement. And this right of possession that is necessary to the full ownership of improvements can be secured as well – nay, all experience shows that it can be secured far better – when land is treated as belonging in usufruct to the whole community than when land is treated as the absolute property of individuals. You struggle with a mental confusion and misunderstand the opinions you condemn, when you speak of common possession as the only alternative to the individual ownership of land, and ask: ‘‘Who would burrow the earth, to draw forth its buried treasures, if the very mine he was working were at the mercy of the passerby whom its riches might attract?’’ or ‘‘Who would watch with eagerness the season when to sow and to reap and to gather the harvest, which is the very fruit of his labors, if he is told that those who stand by the wayside idle are equally entitled to its enjoyments?’’ It is not necessary for me to stop to point out to you how the very individual ownership in land which you defend operates to rob the toiler of the fruits of his toil, and to enable the idler to reap what the industrious has sown. I merely point out to you the familiar fact that in this city the ownership of the house is frequently held by one person, while the ownership of the land on which it stands is held by another; that in our mining regions men work in security mines which other men own, and that in our agricultural districts men cultivate land for which they pay rent to others. Cannot the community reserve ownership while yielding possession quite as well as can an individual or a Girard Estate? Cannot the community receive rent as well as can an Astor or a Trinity Church corporation?6 Is it not evident, archbishop, that if God made the earth for the use of all, there must be some way of reconciling the common right to land with the individual right to things produced from land, even when such things are necessarily attached to the land? That there is such a way reflection will show. All we have to do to secure the equal right to land, and the exclusive right to improvements, is to make the community the virtual ground landlord. And the easy and simple road to this is by abolishing all the taxes which we now levy upon industry and the fruits of industry, and collecting our public revenues by taxation levied ultimately upon ground values. Can you see anything very dangerous in this? It is dangerous to monstrous fortunes; it is
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dangerous to the great incomes drawn by idlers from the fruits of other people’s industry; but it is dangerous to nothing that is good and wholesome. The value of any improvement which a man may make upon land belongs rightfully to him – belongs to him and him alone, so fully and absolutely that I would not have government even take any part of its value from him by way of taxation. But the perfectly distinct value which attaches to land by reason of the growth of the community belongs just as clearly not to the individual, but to the community as a whole, and the taking of this fund for the benefit of the community would not only permit the abolition of all taxes now levied upon the making of wealth or the saving of wealth, but would prevent any monopolization of the natural means for the employment of labor and the maintenance of life. For the holding of land would then be unprofitable except to the men who wished so to use it. Under this system all men would stand upon the same equal plane with regard to natural opportunities, and each would be free to secure and enjoy the fruits of his labor, whether of hand or brain. Thus, in conformity with all the needs of the most advanced civilization, could the principle of the equality of human rights to the use of the earth be recognized, and that monstrous injustice which lies at the root of the social difficulties and social dangers of modern civilization be done away with. For the social evil which so afflict mankind, the poverty, and degradation, and waste, and suffering – the bitter lot of the poor, the demoralizing luxury of the rich – do not flow from laws and conditions imposed upon man by God, but do flow from the human selfishness which converts into a curse that which the Creator has intended as a blessing. As you spiritual brother, Dr. Nulty, Bishop of Meath, has said: There is a charm and a peculiar beauty in the clearness with which the great social fact that the people are, and always must be, the rightful owners of the land of their country which reveals the wisdom and the benevolence of the design of Providence in the admirable provision which was made for their wants and needs in that state of social existence of which He is the author.
The methods by which civilized governments at present collect the bulk of their revenues restrict industry, repress production, bear with grossly unequal weight upon individuals, and give rise to fraud perjury, and corruption. But the necessity for resorting to these corrupting and impoverishing taxes arises only from the fact that we ignore the provision made in the economic laws of the Creator for social needs. There is such a provision, and that a provision the purpose of which is as clear and beautiful as the provision which brings into the breast of the mother nutriment fitted for the child.
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In the natural progress of society to a more and more complex and interdependent civilization, increasing social functions require larger public revenues. Here is a need. At the same time the natural progress of society brings out and tends constantly to increase a value which attaches to land, irrespective of individual exertion upon it: an ‘‘unearned increment of wealth,’’ which is due to the presence of the whole community, and may be taken for the use of the whole community without repressing enterprise, without discouraging enterprise, without discouraging industry and thrift, without promoting corruption and fraud and perjury, and without doing injustice to anyone. Here is the natural provision. It is because we discard this admirable provision of the Creator, and permit individuals to take what was manifestly intended for all, and thus put a premium upon the monopolization of natural opportunities, that invention and discovery bring curses instead of blessings, and all prodigious advances in the arts serve but to widen the gulf between the very rich and the very poor. The very provision which in the natural economy of society should make the advance in civilization an advance toward equality, is converted by our injustice into the cause of monstrous inequality. You are wrong, archbishop, if you see in this movement to secure for all the equal and God-given rights in the land any danger to morals or menace to society. On the contrary, if your time and inclination will permit you to carefully examine the matter, you must see in this act of justice the only way to cure great moral evils, and the only way to avert social disaster. A civilization cannot stand that is not based on justice.
2. THE CASE OF DR. M’GLYNN7 In the comments of press upon the article in the last number of The Standard, entitled ‘‘The Case of Dr. McGlynn,’’ the opinion is very generally expressed that in ‘‘attacking the Catholic Church’’ Henry George had forever destroyed his political aspirations and The Standard has committed suicide at birth. As to this, it may be worthwhile to say that I have no political aspirations. If I had I would not have reentered journalism. I long ago made up my mind never to seek office. If I ever hold one, it will be because the people want me, not that I want it myself. I say this without any implication upon the desire to hold office. It may be prompted by a legitimate wish to improve one’s own condition, or by a laudable ambition to win honorable distinction. But for my part, I have chosen another path – a path in which political aspirations can only hamper and befog. As for The Standard, it may be said that its success thus far has exceeded the most sanguine expectations of those engaged in it, and that we have good reason to feel that it has been safely launched. But if the time ever comes when The Standard cannot freely and frankly take a stand on any question of public interest, then it will be high time for it to give up the ghost. This, however, is matter of mere personal concern. What is really noteworthy in the press comments on ‘‘The Case of Dr. McGlynn’’ is the evidence they supply that the voice of the press is often far from being the true voice of the people; and the timidity, ignorance, and intellectual dishonesty which they show. No one who talks with men can have any question that the sympathies of the vast majority of the American people are with Dr. McGlynn, and that they deeply resent the attempt of Archbishop Corrigan to drag religion into politics. Yet no one would know this from the American press. On the contrary, he would imagine that the American people with hardly an exception applauded the doctrine that an American priest is answerable for his politics to a foreign tribunal, and are rejoiced that a clergyman who had ventured to have an opinion of his own should be ‘‘brought to grief.’’ The course of journals like the Tribune and Times of this city, that represent a strongly Protestant constituency, is especially noteworthy.8 Only 241
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a few months ago the Times was warning its readers against the political aggressions of Catholic ecclesiastical power. It is now supporting that power in the attempt to destroy the political independence of an influential class of citizens in all the ways it can. And the Times is in this but a representative of many other journals of its class. The causes of this are not far to seek. It arises partly from the feeling of the partisan than ‘‘any stick is good enough’’ for the beating of his opponent; partly it is an evidence of the rapidly growing disposition of rich Protestants to regard the Catholic Church as the best policeman they can employ to repress discontent among the ‘‘lower classes,’’ and partly it arises from misconceptions of fact and from ignorance of the Catholic faith, strongly spiced, perhaps, with a chuckling irony in placing the Catholic authorities, under the guise of praising all that the worst enemies of the church have ever said of its inconsistency with free institutions. However this may be, it is certain that the most violent demonstrations of the most rabid Know Nothing could not be to the thoughtful Catholic half so insulting as the quiet, laudatory assumptions that the Catholic can neither engage in nor tolerate any criticism of ecclesiastics, and that Catholic priests and Catholic laymen are in all things the bond slaves of ecclesiastical authority. The communications that are to be found in another column, and that are but samples of many of like tenor that have been received, show the real feeling among thoughtful Catholics. Catholics, and certainly Irish Catholics, are not the ‘‘priest-ridden’’ people that anti-Catholic bigotry paints them. There is no Catholic with an intelligent understanding if his faith who is not able to distinguish between the church itself and the individuals who may happen to hold its dignities; between what he believes to be the divine element and what he knows to be the human element. Catholic teaching is not the ‘‘religion of ignorance’’ that the prejudices of many Protestants lead them to suppose. That form of Christianity which for centuries held undisputed sway in Western Christendom, and which, taking Christianity as a whole, is to other forms of it what the river is to the rivulets, has embraced among its adherents men of the widest learning, the most acute intellect, the highest virtue, and the truest patriotism – men who could not possibly have rested in a faith which gave no scope to individual liberty and which made its votaries in all things the mere puppets of those who pulled the ecclesiastical strings. Catholic statesmen have resisted ecclesiastical interference, Catholic soldiers have fought against their temporal domination, and Catholic painters and poets have not hesitated to picture the highest dignitaries of the church and finding their just deserts in hell.
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The pope himself is in Catholic theology only a man like other men, with the same weaknesses, the same infirmities, and the same liability to err and sin which attach to all mankind. It is only in his official character, when speaking ex cathedra, as head of the universal church, and to the universal church (not to be part of it) that any particular sanctity attaches to him and to his utterances.9 In all other relations and capacities the pope may be criticized as freely by the Catholic, as though he were not a pope. And what is true of the pope is, of course, true of any lesser dignitary. However much individual ecclesiastics may presume to stretch their authority, or however much attachment to their church may prompt Catholics to resent criticism which they believe to be founded on malice, no Catholic theologian can rightfully teach that the authority Catholic pastors derive from the church can extend further than to things spiritual, or that these pastors themselves are exempt from criticism and resistance the moment they overstep the line which separates matters of faith and doctrine from matters which belong to reason and are of secular concern. A man may be an ardent Catholic and yet criticize in these respects the action of priest, bishop, cardinal, or pope just as freely as an ardent Republican may criticize a Republican administration. Of course in one case the cry that he is a bad Catholic and is against the church is quite as likely to go up, as is in the other case the cry that he is a bad Republican and against the party. But as a matter of fact, everyone who has mixed with intelligent Catholics knows that they do criticize the actions of priests, bishops, cardinals, and even the pope himself, with the utmost freedom. And this freedom which Catholics claim for themselves they cannot fairly deny to others. With religious beliefs a secular paper has nothing to do, and for my part I shall not enter into discussion about them; but the veil of religion cannot properly be thrown over political intrigues and political actions; and when it is, it ought to be torn aside. In all I have written or shall write on this subject I have no quarrel with any religious belief or any animosity to any church. I have objected not to any form of religion, but to that abuse of religious forms which seeks to make religion a political factor and to use the name of him, who was the greatest of reformers, as an agency to prevent reform. Beyond this principle of Catholic faith there are one or two misconceptions in much that has been said in relation to Dr. McGlynn, which it is worthwhile to correct. In the first place it is not true, as the press generally assumes, that Dr. McGlynn, in the position he has taken on the land question, has said anything antagonistic to Catholic doctrine. Archbishop Corrigan, it is true, insinuates this, but has never yet ventured to say it.
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In the disquisition upon the rights of property which he inflicted upon the faithful of his diocese in his recent pastoral letter, he is very careful not to say that the church or the pope has placed the seal of condemnation upon those who deny the rightfulness of property in land; and even where the logic of his argument and the necessities of the contest require the phrase ‘‘property in land’’ he has had to limit himself to the term ‘‘property.’’ So in his telegram from New Haven to the Tribune he says: ‘‘The pope expressly teaches the right of property and ownership.’’ This is a pretty piece of information to send by telegraph. Of course, the pope teaches the right of property and ownership! So does Dr. McGlynn! And so far from ever saying one word in denial of the right of property and ownership, Dr. McGlynn has always expressly and emphatically asserted it. What is in question is not the right of property and ownership, but the right of property and ownership in land, which is an entirely different matter; for while the right of property can and does justly attach to all things which man produces, it cannot guilty [sic] attach to that which the Creator has made. And the proof that the Catholic Church does not uphold private ownership in land as a matter of faith and doctrine, is furnished by the attitude of other Catholic prelates on the same question. Every Catholic holds that the Catholic Church is one and universal. In matters of discipline and in the language and form of her rites there may be differences in various localities, as, for instance, the difference between the Latin rite and the Coptic or Armenian rite. But Catholic doctrine must be the same all over the world, and no doctrine is binding upon a Catholic in one locality that is not binding upon a Catholic in every locality. Yet, in Ireland, Catholic bishops proclaim the very same opinions with regard to the ownership of land which Archbishop Corrigan declares, or rather insinuates, are condemned by the Catholic Church. Dr. McGlynn never has declared and never could declare more forcibly that the land of every country is the common property of the whole people than has one of the most eminent of Irish prelates, Dr. Thomas Nulty, Bishop of Meath. In a letter addressed to the clergy and laity of the diocese of Meath, in the year 1880, Dr. Nulty uses the following language: I infer, therefore, that no individual, or class of individuals, can hold a right of private property in the land of a country; that the people of that country, in their public corporate capacity, are, and always must be, the real owners of the land of their country – holding an indisputable title to it, in the fact that they received it as a free gift from its Creator, and as a necessary means for preserving and enjoying the life he has bestowed upon them.
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The land, therefore, of every country is the common property of the people of that country, because its real owner, the Creator who made it, has transferred it as a voluntary gift to them. ‘‘Terram autem dedit filiis hominum.’’ Now, as every individual in that country is a creature and child of God, and as all His creatures are equal in his sight, any settlement of the land of a country that would exclude the humblest man in that country from his share of the common inheritance would be not only an injustice and a wrong to that man, but, moreover, would be an impious resistance to the benevolent intentions of his Creator.
In this letter Dr. Nulty is equally explicit as to the means by which the unquestioned right of the individual to the benefit of his improvements may be reconciled with the unquestionable right of all to the land itself. He declares that the value of land – that value which is sometimes known as the ‘‘unearned increment’’ – constitutes a national fund which seems to him to have been designed by Providence itself to be drawn upon for all social needs, and points out the way in which the appropriation of this fund for social purposes would free labor and relieve poverty. Now, these are precisely the doctrines which Archbishop Corrigan insinuates are condemned by his church, and on which it is given out to the public that the suspension of Dr. McGlynn has been based. If Archbishop Corrigan is right, what becomes of the universality of Catholic doctrine? Either Catholic doctrine is one thing in Ireland and another thing in New York, or Archbishop Corrigan (to say nothing of ‘‘My Lord’’ Preston) is abusing his position and assuming to himself the functions of the pope speaking ex cathedra to the universal church.10 And how gross from a Catholic standpoint this assumption is, may be seen from the preface to Dr. Nulty’s letter, which begins this way: To the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Meath: Dearly Beloved Brethren: I venture to take the liberty of dedicating the following essay to you as a mark of my respect and affection. In this essay I do not, of course, address myself to you as our bishop, for I have no divine commission to enlighten you on your civil rights or to instruct you in the principles of land tenure or political economy. I feel, however, a deep concern even in your temporal interests, deeper, indeed, than in my own, for what temporal interest can I have save that I must always feel in our welfare? It is, then, because the land question is one not merely of vital importance, but one of life and death to you, as well as to a majority of my countrymen, that I have ventured to write on it at all.
If Dr. Nulty has no divine commission to enlighten his flock in the principles of political economy, where does Archbishop Corrigan get his? There are evidently bishops and bishops, and some bishops rush in where others fear to tread. Dr. Nulty is a student of political economy. Archbishop
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Corrigan is evidently unacquainted even with its rudiments. Yet the one feels constrained to address his flock on the land question only in an unofficial letter, while the other boldly puts his crude opinions in a pastoral which the priests of his diocese must read from their altars. The position of Archbishop Corrigan, is from a Catholic standpoint, simply ludicrous. The church never having condemned the principle that land values justly belong to the community and not to individuals, Dr. McGlynn or any other Catholic is at full liberty to accept it or reject it. For a bishop or vicar-general to do as Archbishop Corrigan and ‘‘My Lord’’ Preston have done, and define a Catholic dogma on this point, is for them to assume ecumenical powers. Even the pope himself, when four years ago he ordered Simeoni to order Cardinal McCloskey to suspend the priest McGlynn for, as Simeoni alleged, teaching doctrines contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, so far from defining a dogma binding on the conscience of Catholics, was but abusing his power and (though doubtless ignorantly) calumniating the American priest; just as his predecessor in the time of Galileo, being ex officio, prefect of the Holy Inquisition, calumniated, worried, and condemned Galileo as a heretic for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun and was guilty of compelling the aged philosopher to go on his knees and swear on the holy gospels that he repudiated the scientific truth which he read in God’s book of the heavens.11 Another point on which great misapprehension exists, is as to the Catholic view of the obedience due from the priest. Most Protestants seem to entertain the idea that the Catholic priest owes absolute obedience to his ecclesiastical superiors in all things, and can be ordered hither and thither with no legitimate alternative save to obey or resign. Much of the newspaper comment is founded on this idea, Dr. McGlynn’s case being compared to that of a soldier who should refuse to mach at his general’s command. One paper, the Brooklyn Citizen, edited by a gentleman perfectly conversant with questions of Presbyterian faith and discipline, likens Dr. McGlynn to a missionary sent out to foreign parts by some board of missions and by it called home. These misapprehensions probably arise from a confusion of the two great divisions of Catholic clerics – the regular and the secular. The regular priesthood – under which titles are embraced those belonging to all religious orders, such as the Carmelites, Jesuits, Dominicans, etc. – take a vow of unqualified obedience, which in its nature is like that which is due from the child to the parent. In their comings and their goings, and in all the details of their personal as well as of their religious life, they are subject to the orders of their superiors. This obedience, however, is tempered and controlled by well-known laws and constitutions peculiar to each order,
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which cannot be capriciously changed, and in accordance with which the vow of obedience is taken. Whether the promise of obedience made by regular priests extends to the political action, and, whether if it does, the existence of such orders is consistent with free institutions, are questions it is not necessary to discuss, since Dr. McGlynn, like most of the parish priests in this county, is not a regular, but a secular priest. The vow of the secular priest is simply that of obedience to the ordinary of his diocese – which obedience must, of course, be interpreted with reference to its subject matter – the exercise of ecclesiastical functions. The Catholic bishop has merely the right to demand obedience in reference to matters which concern the religious functions of the priest, just as an Episcopal or Methodist bishop has. Nor does any special obligation arise from the fact that Dr. McGlynn was educated at the College of the Propaganda.12 Dr. McGlynn is not, as the editor of the Brooklyn Citizen seems to think, a missionary sent to this country from Rome. He is a native-born American, owing to this country the paramount allegiance of a citizen an entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizenship. He went to Rome just as students go to Troy or Baltimore. The Propaganda College (which should not be confounded with the Congregation of the Propaganda), is merely a school of divinity for students from the various parts of the world, and the obligation that is there taken at ordination is simply that the student, now made priest, will return to his own diocese and engage in priestly work. The obligation in Dr. McGlynn’s case does not extend beyond New York. He cannot be ordered to Boston or to Philadelphia, and the cardinals of the Propaganda have no more right to call him to Rome than the faculty of Yale or Amherst have to call there one of their graduates. But where, then, it may be asked, does the archbishop get the power to compel priests to keep silent when their political opinions differ from his own, and why is it said that Dr. McGlynn must either go to Rome to answer for his political opinions or be suspended? The reply is – and it is this which makes the question raised in Dr. McGlynn’s case so important – that these powers have the very same origin as the power which has led to such abuses in our politics by compelling minor government employees to make political contributions or do political work. The one is no more inherent in the American Constitution, and arises in the one case, as in the other, simply form the abuse of the power of appointment. Archbishop Corrigan has no right whatever to dictate in politics to a priest, but having the power of removal in his hands he is able to coerce the priest. What Dr. McGlynn would be making a stand against should he refuse to go to Rome, is this
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abuse of ecclesiastical power, which is to the church just what the ‘‘spoils system’’ is to the state. Instead of doing anything inconsistent with his order he would be making a stand for the rights of his order. And whatever the theologians of the daily press may have to say, this to my personal knowledge is the view taken of the case by many Catholic priests, who, however fear to speak publicly, really look upon Dr. McGlynn as their champion against an ecclesiastical tyranny which they feel belittles their position, and degrades their manhood. I have discussed this matter from a Catholic standpoint, because that is the standpoint from which an attempt is being made to befog the issue and arouse prejudice against Dr. McGlynn. This Catholic view of the case, however, is one which in itself concerns only Catholics. There is a larger question which deeply concerns the whole public. Are we, or are we not, to have in this country a power which can coerce a most important and influential body of citizens into such political action as it may choose to dictate – a power responsible only to a foreign authority, and which sets up for itself the claim of being beyond even criticism or remonstrance? The land question, important, as it may be in itself, cuts no figure in this case. Archbishop Corrigan has, indeed, informed the Tribune that Dr. McGlynn has been summoned to Rome because of his views on the land question; but he might just as well be summoned for his views on the tariff question or the currency question. And this summon to Rome which Vicar-General ‘‘My Lord’’ Preston has informed the public is intended not for compliment but for punishment, evidently grows out of the action of the archbishop in suspending Dr. McGlynn. This suspension, we have learned, was due in the first place to Dr. McGlynn’s presence at a political meeting which he had been specifically ordered not to attend – a meeting in favor of a certain candidate whom Archbishop Corrigan did not want to have elected.13 As to the cause of the second suspension, which occurred after Dr. McGlynn had been restored to the exercise of his priestly functions and some time after the election, the semi-official account given to the press has been very hazy. It might be well to suggest the interviewers who have the confidence of the archbishop and his ‘‘monsignors,’’ that they should do something to clear this matter up. It may be news to the general public, but it is, nevertheless, a fact that Archbishop Corrigan in the last election, not only wanted to defeat a certain candidate, but also wanted to defeat the call for a constitutional convention; that letters from him were sent to priests telling them to work against the convention, and that at a gathering where one of these priests endeavored to carry out this instruction, a proposition was made to get hold of the bags
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containing the ballots in favor of the constitutional convention, and by making away with them, to lessen the vote in its favor. Supposing any priest to whom this archiepiscopal order had come had refused to obey it? Are the journals which contend that the archbishop is quite right in suspending Dr. McGlynn and having him ordered to Rome, prepared to make the claim that the archbishop would have been equally justified in similarly punishing such a priest who refused to oppose the calling of a constitutional convention? There are two distinct things in this controversy which have got somewhat mixed in the newspapers, but which it is important to distinguish – that is to say, the authorities of the Propaganda and the archbishop of New York. They have become somewhat confused, because the archbishop in his crusade against Dr. McGlynn has seen fit to fall back for excuse upon missives received from Rome by his predecessor. The Congregation of the Propaganda in Rome, is, of course, the center of the ecclesiastical tyranny which now seeks to coerce American priests, as it has at various times sought to coerce the priests of Ireland. But in the case of Dr. McGlynn it is evident that in both instances Rome has simply been used – in 1882 by the British envoy Errington, and in 1886 by Archbishop Corrigan, evidently at the instance or under the influence of the Tammany ring.14 It is notorious that in New York the Catholic Church has for a long series of years been more or less allied with Tammany, and that this influence, for which a quid pro quo has been paid by grants of public property at nominal prices and lavish appropriations of public money, had been one of the many sources of the strength of the rings that in this city have degraded the name of democracy. The raising of hands, the rolling of eyes, and the ejaculations of sacrilege when a reporter of the Telegram asked some of the sachems of Tammany whether they had passed a resolution prompting the archbishop to suspend Dr. McGlynn, are refreshing. Of course such things are not done by resolution, but there are other ways in which they can be done, all the same. And this is significant, that Archbishop Corrigan had no objections to Dr. McGlynn making any number of speeches for a candidate endorsed by Tammany, and that his concern about Dr. McGlynn’s opinions upon the land question did not manifest itself until a new party had arisen which threatened to prevent the certain victory that Tammany had thought within its grasp.15 With the alarm of Tammany the archbishop’s concern about Dr. McGlynn’s economic opinions began, just as the concern of the Propaganda began when Dr. McGlynn, in 1882, raised in the United States, whence the material supplies of the Irish Land League were coming, the standard which
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Irish landlordism most fears and which the English landlord government thought they had succeeded in lowering in Ireland. But that the things are really independent of each other is shown by the fact that Dr. McGlynn was not the only priest who was prohibited from giving any countenance to the movement that threatened the New York municipal rings. Other priests who had never made any public utterances on the land question, and who, so far as I know, have no special opinions upon it, but who were disposed to take part with the workingmen simply from their disgust with the rottenness of our municipal administration, were likewise inhibited form doing so. If they had possessed the courage of Dr. McGlynn, they, it is presumable, would also have been suspended, though it is hardly likely that they would have been summoned to Rome, since, not filling so large a place in the public eye as the pastor of St. Stephen’s, they could have been disciplined here more quietly. On the other hand, not only was the vicar-general permitted to issue a pronunciamento against the workingmen’s candidate, which was distributed on the Sunday before election at church doors, but without a word of remonstrance as far as the public knows, priests were permitted to speak against that party from their altars, and, in some cases, at least, the power of the confessional and the threat of the refusal of absolution was used against the party which opposed the Tammany ring.16 The persecution of the one priest who at last ventured to claim the right of an American citizen has been characterized by a peculiar meanness and vindictiveness which it is doubtful if the general public understand. While Dr. McGlynn has maintained a dignified silence, the press has been filled with semi-official statements, emanating evidently from the archiepiscopal confidence, and artfully calculated to place Dr. McGlynn in a light which would wean away from him the moral support of his parishioners and the Catholic public. I think I can safely state that all such stories as that of Dr. McGlynn’s neglecting to open the archiepiscopal letter, and going on performing his functions after he had been suspended, and all such stories as that of the ‘‘venerable priest’’ to whom he professed contrition and promised to go anywhere, which have been set forth in evidently inspired articles and telegraphed over the whole country, are absolute falsehoods. And while no art was being left unemployed to humiliate, degrade, and isolate the openhanded and warmhearted ‘‘priest of the poor,’’ Archbishop Corrigan went over into the diocese of Brooklyn to honor, by taking the principal part in his funeral, the deceased James A. McMaster, long the notorious editor of the New York Freeman’s Journal.17 This man, noted for his venomous intolerance, was, during the war, a blatant enemy of the
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American Union, giving all the aid and comfort he could to its enemies, hoping for its disruption by the intervention of foreign arms, and sneering at our volunteers as ‘‘utterly unfit to cope with the trained athletes of the army of France.’’ This [man was] honored by the same archbishop who had just insulted the memory and wounded the feelings of the family of a deceased public official. Judge Alder, because of his official capacity as the commissioner of a public institution had failed to take such action as ‘‘His Grace’’ saw fit, was an open enemy of free government everywhere. At the time of the Carlist insurrection in Spain he collected dollars and offered prayers in aid of the reactionary rebellion against the choice of the great majority of the Spanish people.18 He was also a promoter in the attempt to raise a papal legion in the United States to fight against the unity of Italy, and it was largely at his urgency that the pope was prevailed upon to send a discredited American soldier, one McTavish, from Rome to this country to recruit a foreign army.19 It would be a gross injustice to Catholic sentiment in the United States to assume that this outrageous attempt to infringe our neutrality laws was sanctioned by it. On the contrary, it was deemed so grave and dangerous a scandal to the Catholic Church in America that a number of its highest dignitaries met at Mount St. Mary’s College, Emmitsburg [Maryland], and by the pen of Archbishop McCloskey issued a caustic denunciation of the scheme and its promoters, making cutting allusion both the exploded general and the ultramontane journalist – one of the things that the bitter McMaster could never forgive in the gentle McCloskey. Mr. McMaster, who, in his foolish egotism, fancied himself a sort of journalistic pope of American Catholics, made his boast that he was the man who had scolded and bullied the Catholic Church in America into its present pernicious policy of opposing the public schools. But he had one quality which may just now have redeemed his character in the eyes of the archbishop. He was a bitter enemy of Dr. McGlynn, who in all things was his antipodes, and his last public utterance was a calumny against Dr. McGlynn, whom he was reported in one of the daily papers as charging with having quarreled with Archbishop Hughes, whereas everybody acquainted with the subject knows that the relations between Archbishop Hughes and Dr. McGlynn were always of the warmest character.20 But again the question comes back to Rome. Archbishop Corrigan’s interference in politics in New York is by virtue of authority derived from a foreign land. It is to a foreign tribunal that he has had an American citizen summoned for punishment, and it is only to this foreign power that he himself is responsible.
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The great question which Dr. McGlynn’s case ought to bring home to all American citizens, no matter what their views on the land question, no matter what their creed, or no matter what their politics, is whether the American Republic can afford to have in its midst a secret power, wielding a tremendous political influence, deriving its authority and impulse from a foreign kingdom, and utterly irresponsible to the American people or any part of them, whether they be Protestant or Catholic. The tremendous influence of this power is acknowledged by the press in the most significant way. The almost unanimous chorus that now goes up from the press that Henry George has ended his political career, and that The Standard has committed suicide, shows, as nothing else could, the estimate that the men who of all others in the community are best informed as to the hidden springs of political action, put upon the silent but terrific influence of this power. Is it not time that we should demand that American priests should be released from the abuse of ecclesiastical authority which makes them political slaves? Is it not time that we should see to it that the Catholic men and women whose money builds and maintains churches should have some influence in the control of church property? And is it not time that the American Catholics, for the sake of themselves, for the sake of the priests they love, and to avoid scandal to their religion, should plant themselves on the same ground taken by the great Irish liberator: ‘‘As much religion from Rome as you please, BUT NO POLITICS!’’ The case would be bad enough if the Italian cardinals who wield such power over Catholic affairs in the United States and Ireland concerned themselves merely with spiritual matters, for uncontrolled power, wherever it may be lodged, is always liable to temptations and dangers; but this is not the case. The Roman ecclesiastical authorities are politicians, and politicians of the most reactionary type, constantly engaged in scheming for the restoration of the temporal power, and to whom the United States and Ireland are but pawns on the great chessboard of continental intrigue. Every Irish Catholic ought to know from the history of his own country how dangerous it is to leave in the hands of Rome an uncontrolled power over Catholic bishops and priests. Devoted as Irish Catholics have been to their faith, much as they have done for the Holy See, it has only been by the most strenuous resistance – resistance of a kind which the American press now declare would in New York kill the man or the newspaper that engaged in it, that the Catholics of Ireland have, from time to time, been able to prevent themselves from being handed over, bound hand and foot, to the tender mercies of the English government.
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It will be remembered by those who know the history of Ireland that, in the early part of this century, when Rome was scheming with the allied powers for the restoration and maintenance of the temporal throne of the pope, which had been overthrown in the wars and outbreaks that followed the French Revolution, the Roman authorities tried to give the veto power over the appointment of Irish bishops to the English government, and that not only did Monsignor Quarantotti, Cardinal Simeoni’s predecessor in the Propaganda, exert himself to the utmost to break down the opposition of the patriotic Irish bishops, but Pope Pius VII used his personal influence to the same end.21 And it may be well to recall the fact that the same Quarantotti, in one of his letters to the English cabinet, in which he endeavored to conciliate the good will of the power that was at the very time holding Irish Catholics under the most atrocious penal laws, went on to show, as he claimed, how the Catholic Church always make people loyal and subject to their sovereigns, illustrating this point by saying: ‘‘Witness the fact that in the recent rebellion of the American colonies against his gracious majesty King George III, it was the Protestant colonies that rebelled, while the Catholic colony of Canada remained faithful to his gracious majesty.’’ We have no sovereign in this country, but we do have rotten political rings and great corporations who pack the bench and fill even our highest legislative body with paid attorneys, and there is impending a great revolt – peaceable, as we trust – on the part of honest citizens against the moneyed powers which are sapping the very foundations of the American Republic with their corruption. If the Roman diplomats could intrigue with the oppressors of Ireland, why may they not in the same way intrigue with the scheming politicians and the moneyed rings of the United States? The papal diplomats are at this moment sighing to have an Italian archbishop as their accredited ambassador or nuncio at Washington. Their emissary to make the preliminary soundings in this business has been the western German Bishop Dwenger of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who is to be rewarded, it is said, by the archbishopric of St. Louis when the venerable Archbishop Kenrick, now eighty years old, shall be called to heaven. No one will be better pleased than American-Irish Catholics to know that the efforts of Bishop Dwenger, in his repeated visits to Washington, have not been very successful, and that the Roman curia has been informed by him that at present nothing can be done.
3. RELIGION AND POLITICS22 Archbishop Corrigan has done his worst, and done his worst in the worst possible way. Dr. McGlynn has been removed from the church he has built up, and from the people to whom he was the very ideal of all that a pastor ought to be; and the removal has been accompanied by circumstances calculated to scandalize the church, outrage the priest, irritate the congregation, and disgust the general public. The statement in another column of how the chosen deputy of the archbishop took possession of the rectory and church of St. Stephen’s shows as nothing else could the character of the man who claims to be not only the ecclesiastical, but the political head of the Catholics of New York, and the kind of men he chooses for his councilors and instruments. No gentleman would have displaced a servant in the manner in which the Catholic archbishop of New York displaced the best loved priest in his diocese – the most prominent clergyman of the United States: and no ‘‘emergency man’’ could have displayed more vulgar brutality than was shown by the boor whom the archbishop picked out to evict the high-minded, gentle-mannered priest who has incurred his enmity. Father Donnelly, it is to be observed, is not merely a member of the archbishop’s council, but he is one of the few ‘‘permanent pastors’’ of New York. That is to say, he is one of the few priests of New York whom the archbishop could not have ordered to St. Stephen’s parish, while he is the very last priest in the city whom a politic if not a decent regard for the feelings of the clergy and parishioners of St. Stephen’s would have suggested as the successor of Dr. McGlynn. He was evidently selected with his own free consent as a fit instrument for the purpose in view, and the manner in which he acted is capable of no other reasonable interpretation than as being prompted by a desire to irritate Dr. McGlynn by some work or deed that might be used to put him in a false light, and destroy the effect of the dignified silence he has observed. In the last issue of The Standard, I made, in an article to which I attached my signature, a statement that Archbishop Corrigan had in the last campaign endeavored through priests of his diocese to defeat the call for a constitutional convention. He has been quoted as saying to a Herald reporter that this 255
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statement was false, and to a Tribune that it was ridiculous. Such denials are too vague to call for [a] specific reply. But I am not in the habit of lightly making statements of this kind, and this statement I now reiterate. If Archbishop Corrigan sees fit to deny over his own signature the assertion I make over mine, and, in language which gives room for no equivocation, declares that he did not use his influence against the constitutional convention by communicating with priests of his diocese for that purpose, I will either give authority for my statement or publicly retract it. In the meantime, as showing that interference in politics of this very kind is nothing new on the part of Archbishop Corrigan, it may be well to recall the fact that when bishop of Newark, some years ago, he sought in a similar way to influence the priests of his diocese to defeat an amendment to the constitution of New Jersey. Some of his priests were so scandalized and provoked by this political interference that, although they did not dare to do anything openly, they did put a press reporter in the way of obtaining and publishing Bishop Corrigan’s confidential communication. A sufficient answer to the chorus that The Standard has ruined itself by ‘‘attacking the Catholic Church,’’ is given in the expression of Catholic opinion to be found in other columns of this paper and especially in the expressions called forth at meetings of the St. Stephen’s parishioners, and at the great meeting of Catholics held in the Cooper Institute on Monday night. The truth is that not one word has been printed in The Standard which any intelligent Catholic could construe into an attack on his church. Not one word has been said in disparagement of that church, or in contradiction of any of its doctrines. Nothing has been said that has not been already said in even stronger form by men who gloried in their adhesion to the Catholic Church, and nothing has been said that is not recognized by free-minded Catholic[s] as fully called for by the outrageous attempt to dictate in the name of a foreign authority the political course of American citizens. But to those who have supposed that the Catholic Church is a religion of mental slavery, and that every Catholic must hold himself bound to bow on every subject to ecclesiastical authority, the resolutions adopted and the sentiments expressed at these representative meetings will come like a revelation. There is not one point raised by The Standard that has not thus found – not an echo, but a clear and independent assertion. Instead of bending in the dust before the political dictum of Archbishop Corrigan or the Roman Propaganda, the great body of New York Catholics indignantly disclaim any ecclesiastical right to dictate their political course; and the notion that a Catholic priest is but a political puppet, who can be called to account by ecclesiastical authority for his action in American politics, is
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spurned by them with an intensity of indignation which shows that they feel it to be but a debasing slander upon their faith. There can be no mistaking the temper of the Cooper Institute meeting. That vast assemblage did not admit that Dr. McGlynn, as a Catholic priest, was bound to go to Rome to answer for his political opinions. Its clear and emphatic declaration was that Dr. McGlynn, as an American citizen, ought not to go to Rome; that while the priest is properly subject in things ecclesiastical to ecclesiastical authority, the American citizen, even though he may be a Catholic priest, is in things political subject to no higher power than his own conscience. In large part the daily papers have confounded the meeting of Catholics, held in Cooper Union on Monday night with another meeting, not yet held, which has been called by the Central Labor Union. The meeting on Monday night was not a labor meeting; it was not a political meeting. It was a meeting of Catholic citizens. All the speakers were Catholics, and all were either Irishmen by birth or the sons of Irishmen. Those of other creeds who sought seats on the platform under a misapprehension as to the character of the meeting, were informed of its real nature, and asked to withdraw; and although there were doubtless some non-Catholics present in the audience, yet the concurrent testimony is that nine-tenths of it, at least, were Catholics, and Irish Catholics at that. It was in the truest sense a representative Catholic meeting – not representative, indeed, of the rich Catholics so dear to the archbishop, but of the great body of hardworking men and women who, out of their earnings, have built and maintained the Catholic churches and cathedrals and archiepiscopal palaces of the United States. Some of the press endeavor to minimize the meaning of these popular demonstrations of Catholic opinion by speaking of them as loving tributes to Dr. McGlynn’s long and faithful service as pastor. They are this, but they are more. The deep love and admiration born of Dr. McGlynn’s long and selfsacrificing career unquestionably give color, and add to some extent intensity, to these demonstrations; but behind all that relates to the man lies a question of principle – a question on which the masses of American Catholics feel profoundly, and on which the Catholics of Ireland have several times during this generation expressed themselves in unmistakable terms. That question is, whether the Catholic Church is a religious or a political institution. The protest which during the persecution of Dr. McGlynn has been held back only because of uncertainty as to what was really being done, and which now bursts forth on his deposition, is a protest against the assumption that to be a Catholic is to be a political bondman – is a
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declaration on the part of the Catholic masses for the political liberty of the Catholic priest. These men know their religion a great deal better than those editors of the daily press who have assumed to teach them what it is. They are quite capable of drawing a distinction between what they believe to be the divine element in their church and what they know to be the fallible, human element; between the priest as a minister of religion and the priest as a man; between the bishop as a pastor of souls and the bishop as a politician; and they resent the attempt of an archbishop to drag politics into religion as quickly and as intensely as they would the attempt of an Orangeman to drag religion into politics.23 The real feeling of the masses of American Catholics is well-expressed in that sentiment of Daniel O’Connell’s, quoted at the Cooper Institute meeting by Michael Clarke, an ardent practical Catholic, and for many years a writer on the most Catholic paper, the Dublin Nation – a sentiment received with thunders of applause: ‘‘AS MUCH RELIGION AS YOU LIKE FROM ROME, BUT NO POLITICS.’’
4. THE REBUKE TO ARCHBISHOP CORRIGAN24 Any day now may bring the restoration by papal order of Dr. McGlynn to his position of pastor of St. Stephen’s.25 Some, in fact, imagine that the order is already in this city, and though couched in the form of a suggestion or request, is in nature so emphatic a command that Archbishop Corrigan cannot find excuse for long delaying to give it effect. In any event, the restoration of Dr. McGlynn is not only clearly required by justice, but it has become so obvious that it is the only way in which the Roman See can extricate itself from the difficulty in which the imprudence of Archbishop Corrigan has involved it, that it may be predicted with all the certainty that can attach to things yet remaining to be done. Restored to his pastorate, all pretense of controlling his actions as a man and a citizen withdrawn, there will then be no reason why Dr. McGlynn should not go to Rome if his health and personal duties permit. Whatever be its final ending, the case of Dr. McGlynn has in one respect already brought about what will long make it a cause ce´le`bre in the Catholic Church. Up to the time he vainly exhausted it upon Dr. McGlynn, Archbishop Corrigan, in his authority to suspend and depose, held over his subordinate clergy a power so tremendous that it can only be likened to those electric rods, which in Bulwer’s fiction were carried by the people of his dreamland, and which they had but to point at an enemy to annihilate him.26 The odium that has hitherto attached to a deposed priest was largely akin to that which in the Middle Ages made the boldest shrink from the terrors of excommunication. It has up to the present time been an article of common belief that no matter what his talents, his virtues, or his services; no matter how gross and how cruel the injustice to which he had fallen a victim, a deposed priest must lose influence and respect, must sink into a powerless and contemptible nondescript, a sort of moral leper, who at the very best could excite among Catholics and non-Catholics alike only a contemptuous pity, and whose adherence to his faith could only hug closer to his soul the iron that burned into it. Eight weeks ago this fate was predicted for Dr. McGlynn, not only by those with whom the wish was father to the 259
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thought, but in some cases, at least, even by men who loved him and the cause for espousing which he was threatened with deposition. Over and over again have men who thought they knew and who ought to know the habit of the popular Catholic mind – men even who scorned the unreasoning feeling of which they were in so much dread – privately protested that, once deposed, Dr. McGlynn would lose all power for good, and that those who had followed him and trusted him and honored him, would turn from him with aversion. It was in vain to point out to such men that the reason why disgrace attached to suspension was that it had generally carried with it suspicion of immorality of conduct or laxity of faith – things that his bitterest enemy could not attribute to the pastor of St. Stephen. ‘‘It has always been so,’’ they said, ‘‘and it will be so in Dr. McGlynn’s case. Right or wrong,’’ they said, ‘‘no priest, however loved, can stand up against the censure of his archbishop. The Catholics of this country are not yet educated far enough for that. Dr. McGlynn must submit and go to Rome. If he does not, the very people whom he has taught and served will turn against him as an enemy of their church.’’ That is what Archbishop Corrigan thought, when, armed with the archiepiscopal mandate, he swaggered into the church of St. Stephen and with his own hands tore down the name of Dr. McGlynn from the confessional he had so long used, and then marching into the parochial residence made the astounding exhibition of boorishness detailed at the time in The Standard, but which, for the honor of the profession he disgraced, it is best to no more than refer to. But the event has proved the mistake. The contempt and disgrace which were expected to fall upon the deposed priest have fallen upon his persecutors. The Rev. Arthur Donnelly, who swaggered so lustily into St. Stephen’s, has been compelled, by the quiet force of public opinion, to slink out of it, leaving the church of which he is still nominal pastor in charge of an assistant. Dr. McGlynn’s confessional to which his name is restored, is kept sacred to his memory, and though snow be on the ground, is daily festooned by devoted hands with fresh flowers. Though the Tammany machine and the County Democratic machine have been called on to back up the archiepiscopal authority, the rebellion of the great body of parishioners of St. Stephen’s grows stronger instead of weaker, and in spite of the most strenuous exertions the once large revenues of the church have fallen to a ridiculous ebb. Loved and influential as he was while pastor of the largest of the Catholic parishes of New York, Edward McGlynn, the suspended and deposed priest, is today beyond all question
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far more loved, far more influential – is, beyond all question, the best loved, the most influential priest in America, if not in the Catholic world. Nor is this feeling confined to the laity. Before the archbishop’s departure for the Bahamas the revulsion of public opinion against his abuse of authority was so strongly felt that an effort was made by his particular friends among the clergy to get up an address of sympathy and adhesion to him in his ‘‘conflict with Dr. McGlynn,’’ as they styled what was in reality a conflict with public opinion, provoked by his persecution of Dr. McGlynn. This ‘‘address of sympathy and adhesion’’ it was intended should be signed by all the priests in the diocese, and after comforting and strengthening the archbishop on his return from the Bahamas, should be printed in all the papers and cabled to Rome. But so flat did the proposition fall that on the day appointed for the meeting of a large number of clergymen who had been asked to come together in order to get it up, only two of the whole number were in attendance – such a dismal failure in the very first step that the project was immediately and ignominiously abandoned. ‘‘Archbishop Corrigan,’’ said one of the presbyters, ‘‘has done a wonderful thing – a thing that would have seemed incredible. He has succeeded in making suspension honorable!’’ And the situation here is recognized in Rome. For the first time in the history of the church in America, the pope, instead of backing up the archbishop with his ecclesiastical thunders, has sent his apostolic benediction to a recalcitrant congregation and a deposed priest! That the highest authority in the church should thus have come to something like a true comprehension of the case is doubtless largely due to Cardinal Gibbons. The American Catholic episcopate, with a few notable exceptions, is singularly deficient in men of ability, a fact due, as was pointed out by a Catholic priest in the last number of The Standard, to the manner of selection, the American bishops being chosen neither by priests nor people, but by the bishops themselves, who constitute a sort of self-perpetuating close[d] corporation, for admission to which servility and mediocrity are stronger recommendations than talent or character. It is, however, extremely fortunate for the Catholic Church in America that at a time when the most important metropolitan see is filled by one so narrow and arrogant as Archbishop Corrigan there should be in the still higher position of the only American cardinal a man of such broad ideas and popular sympathies as characterize the cardinal-archbishop of Baltimore.
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The [enterprise] of the New York Herald, facilitated, perhaps, by the shrewd sense of the cardinal, who saw in the immediate publication of his report the surest means of making certain that it should not lie for months in the Propaganda, has given to the public the substance of the protest against the condemnation of the Knights of Labor which has been made to the Propaganda by Cardinal Gibbons.27 Carefully diplomatic in form, it is yet an outspoken and timely warning of the injury that would result to the Catholic Church in America should it be put in the attitude of a defender of social injustice and an engine for the repression of attempts on the part of the workingmen to better their condition. As Bishop Nulty some years ago told the Holy See that there was no divine assurance that the people of Ireland, if their loyalty to their faith were too much strained, would not go the way of other once Catholic peoples and cut loose from the Roman connection, so does Cardinal Gibbons now warn the Propaganda against the dangers that would attend a similar policy here. In short, Cardinal Gibbons has the wisdom to see and the independence to declare that the Catholic Church in the United States must, if it is to be a church of the people, be American, not Italian; progressive, not reactionary; must sympathize with the needs and hopes of the masses, not become the instrument of politicians and the patronized of millionaires. This of itself would sufficiently show how Cardinal Gibbons views the attempt of Archbishop Corrigan to use his ecclesiastical authority to strengthen the Tammany ring and help the corporations in their efforts to prevent constitutional reforms, and especially how he regards the manner in which, in the case of Dr. McGlynn, the archbishop has endeavored to put the Catholic Church in the attitude of a relentless enemy of human rights – a defender of the system which here, as in every civilized country, condemns the masses of men to unrequited toil and imbruting poverty. But beyond this it is very much of an open secret that Cardinal Gibbons, before sailing for Europe, expressed to personal friends his keen sense of the injustice that had been done to Dr. McGlynn. Nor does it rest on the speculations of newspaper correspondents that one of his first acts on reaching the Eternal City was to bring the case of Dr. McGlynn to the personal attention of the pope, obtaining from him a declaration that the principles avowed by Dr. McGlynn had not been condemned by the church. It seems certain, however, that the pope’s personal attention was called to the Corrigan-McGlynn case before Cardinal Gibbons arrived at Rome. On looking over the various dispatches from Rome which Archbishop Corrigan furnished to the press, it will be noticed that up to the time of Dr. McGlynn’s deposition the correspondence from Rome was conducted by
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Simeoni. This deposition occurred on Jan[uary] 15[th], and produced a sensation that made it the great topic of the day throughout the United States, and caused long dispatches to be sent to the European press. About the same time copies of The Standard, containing the first intelligible account of the whole case, and showing that instead of being a local ecclesiastical quarrel it involved issues of the most momentous importance, reached Rome. Archbishop Corrigan’s statement, which, on the 19th of January, he told the St. Stephen’s committee he would make, as a matter of favor: ‘‘if Dr. McGlynn expresses in writing a desire to that effect,’’ but which, Dr. McGlynn not expressing any desire, either in writing or otherwise, was at once given by the archbishop to the press, was dated Jan[uary] 21[st], and was handed to the reporters on the evening of the same day. It closes as follows: The latest phase of this unhappy conflict occurred this morning, when Archbishop Jacobini, secretary to the pope, cabled as follows: ‘‘For prudential reasons the Propaganda has hitherto postponed action in the case of Dr. McGlynn. The sovereign pontiff has now taken the matter into his own hands.’’ The case now rests between Dr. McGlynn and the holy father. – M.A. Corrigan
In the light of subsequent developments this dispatch has a significance which does not seem to have been noticed here at the time. It seems now to be certain that the cable dispatches to the European papers called the attention of the pope to the matter, and the article in The Standard was probably translated for him. Knowing what trouble Simeoni had made for him in Ireland, where the interposition of his own authority only came in time to save the church from danger of a schism, the pope must at once have decided to take the whole matter out of the hands both of Simeoni and Corrigan and instructed, not Simeoni, the secretary of the Propaganda, but the papal secretary, Jacobini (since deceased), to give orders to that effect. This explains the subsequent silence of Rome. The pope has been waiting for the visit of the American cardinal and for the receipt of full information. It is this that gives significance to the cablegram from the private secretary of the pope extending the apostolic benediction to the priest whom Archbishop Corrigan has deposed and to the congregation who have put themselves in open defiance to archiepiscopal injustice. Under other circumstances it might be thought that the administration of such a rebuke to Archbishop Corrigan was possibly the result of inadvertence – the dispatch of congratulation having, in the multiplicity of communications that come to Rome, been answered pro forma by a secretary ignorant of the
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case. But not only is it to be remembered that a previous dispatch had been sent direct to the pope by St. Stephen’s congregation, asking in the name of twenty-thousand Catholics the restoration of their pastor, but that it is certain that the case has otherwise been brought to the personal attention of the head of the Catholic Church. The people who with good intentions advised Dr. McGlynn to hurry off, sick or well, in response to Cardinal Simeoni’s order for him first to retract and then to come to Rome, in expectation that he would be able at once to lay his case before the supreme pontiff, must have some sort of confused notion that the pope has as many ears and eyes as a Hindu god, and that he sits all day in Rome in some sort of an amphitheater, where everyone who has anything to say to him is free to enter and state his case. The truth is that the pope is an old man of seventy-seven, and cannot possibly give personal attention to any but the most important matters, and that he knows as little of America as do most Europeans who have never crossed the ocean. It was hardly to be expected that he should trouble himself with what at Rome must have seemed at first a mere local matter. Such is the magnitude and diversity of the spiritual empire of which Rome is the center, that ordinary affairs, supposed to be transmitted to the pope, are necessarily filtered through a ramified bureaucracy, the oldest and perhaps the slowest in the world. A deposed priest, seeking redress against his archbishop, would, unless the case had in some way attained the importance of a worldwide question, have little chance of getting an audience with the pope, let alone of claiming his attention. It may somewhat surprise the pious souls who so readily fell in with the demand of the urgent archbishop, the enterprising Herald, the ultramontane Sun and Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart of the press that Dr. McGlynn, sick or well, right or wrong, should at once pack off to Rome – nevertheless it is a fact, that just while this clamor was at its height a letter was received in this city from an Italian prelate in Rome – and he a prelate closer to the Vatican than to the Propaganda – which urged that Dr. McGlynn should stay in New York, and on no account come to Rome, where they would be ‘‘certain to exhaust his patience and wear him out with the art that broke the strength of Hannibal – delay.’’28 This Italian prelate went on to say that Dr. McGlynn should ‘‘have no fear of Simeoni, because the law in Rome is higher than he,’’ and that he should have no fear either of ‘‘the little women who act as Simeoni’s female secretaries, and who telegraph in his name to New York what he has never thought of telegraphing.’’ Dr. McGlynn’s refusal to be so easily dropped out of sight into the waiting room of the Roman Propaganda, much as it may have annoyed
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Archbishop Corrigan, has, as is now evident, brought the question to the attention of the supreme pontiff. But these considerations of expediency are only for the attention of those who have urged considerations of expediency. Dr. McGlynn has based his attitude on this question upon something far higher. In denying ‘‘the right of bishop, Propaganda, or pope’’ to order him to Rome, he not only took a stand befitting an American citizen, but one of extreme importance to American priests. And there can be no question that when this matter gets past the Italian Bourbon Simeoni to the decision of the pope himself or of a competent ecclesiastical tribunal, it must be held that Dr. McGlynn is right. Every Catholic bishop makes at his consecration a promise that he will every three years write to Rome giving some account of affairs in his diocese, and that he will every ten years visit Rome. But neither archbishop, Propaganda, nor pope has any more canonical right to order a priest to go to Rome than they have to order any Catholic layman. The Catholic Church is not such an absolute despotism as Archbishop Corrigan would have it believed to be, or as many Protestants thinks it is. If it were there would be no room in it for intelligent and self-respecting men. For Dr. McGlynn to go to Rome as a suspended and deposed priest, no matter at whose solicitation, would not only be for him to acknowledge the propriety of condemnation before trial, but to betray the rights of the whole body of American priests, who have been subjected to a tyranny utterly unwarranted by the constitution of the Catholic Church, because they have had until this time no man among them strong enough to bring any question of their rights to the decision of the highest authority. This the case of Dr. McGlynn bids fair to do. About the time when Errington’s influence was all powerful at the Propaganda, and Simeoni, engaged in browbeating the patriotic bishops, wrote to New York to have the priest McGlynn suspended for his Land League speeches and for ‘‘favoring the Irish revolution,’’ an Irish bishop who saw clearly to what disaster to the church the interference of the Propaganda in Ireland was leading, told me that his hope was that the matter should finally get to the decision of the pope, whom he knew personally as bishop of Perugia, and who, he said, was really a sensible man. This reliance upon the pope proved at length to be well-founded, for it was Leo XIII himself who overruled the mad scheme of the Propaganda to insult Irish sentiment by placing a pro-English bishop, whom they had called from Australia for the purpose, in the see of Lublin, and appointed instead, in the person of Dr. Walsh, the first patriotic archbishop of Dublin since the death of St. Laurence O’Toole, seven centuries ago.29
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If the pope has made up his mind to reinstate Dr. McGlynn it is to be hoped that he will not stop there. Archbishop Corrigan is too small a man to hold the metropolitan see of New York and Cardinal Gibbons is too big a man to be kept in Baltimore. The Baltimoreans would probably protest against an exchange, nor would it be fair to them. But if Archbishop Corrigan could be made a cardinal master of ceremonies at Rome or a cardinal resident in north China, he would, doubtless, prove both useful and grateful, while such a promotion would open a way to give the metropolis of the Western World, in the person of Cardinal Gibbons, a cardinal archbishop of broad American ideas, who would constitute a fit head for the Catholic Church in America, and exert a powerful influence for good . . .
5. ANTI-POVERTY: A SENTIMENT THAT IS ROUSING NEW YORK TO ENTHUSIASM The Second Public Meeting of the Anti-Poverty Society, with Double the Attendance of the First – Scenes without Parallel at the Academy of Music – Large Collection of Money – The Third Meeting to be Held on Sunday at the Academy.30 In the latter part of last week many knowing people in New York were pleasing themselves by enjoying in anticipation a failure. It had reached their ears that those fantastic theorists – the members of the Anti-Poverty Society – intended to hold their second public meeting in the Academy of Music. Well, well! The poor, deluded enthusiasts were not aware that the success of the first meeting was largely due to public curiosity. The novelty could not last. It was folly to expect the 2,300 seats of the Academy to be filled. The great public must quickly come to its senses, and the result would be the thinning out of the attendance at the meetings of this nonsensical body. Let the audience at the Academy be a small one, and that would be the end of this society organized to take away men’s property. There was a great difference between overcrowding Chickering Hall and filling the Academy. So it was thought. The crowd that was gathered in Irving Place at seven o’clock on Sunday evening last was not one to cheer those who had doubted the success of the meeting. People at that hour were ranged in front of every door leading into the building, and they continued to gather as the minutes rolled on until the great platform which runs along in front of the building, the broad flight of steps leading to the platform, and the wide sidewalk below the steps were all filled with a multitude awaiting the opening of the doors. When, at 7:20, the doors were flung open, the pressure of the people at the entrances was such as to give rise to apprehensions of danger to the weaker ones. Once inside and seated, those who had been in the van witnessed the inpouring of such an audience as the Academy has seldom contained. In almost the twinkling of an eye the parquet circle had every seat occupied, 267
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and men and women then began to range themselves along the wall. A rumbling in the gallery next testified to the hurry and scramble for seats in that part of the house. The boxes were the last to fill, but in a quarter of an hour after the doors had been opened the house was packed, from the reporters’ tables at the footlights to the area at the rear of the top gallery. But people still pressed into the building – some of the aisles and all the doorways were choked up with men and women. The corridors and outer entrance had their knots of people looking for a place where they might push in so as to be within earshot of the stage. Then people began to turn away; but others continued to come, and more and more. There were thousands who could not get in and who went away. They who had anticipated a failure were doomed to disappointment. The enormous size of the auditorium of the Academy, and perhaps the traditions of the coldness of its audiences, served to have the effect for a time of preventing the people form expressing any feeling that they entertained, for the gathering was at first a quiet one. But when the lights were turned on and a moment afterward Henry George entered from the wing at the right of the stage with James Redpath, still pale and weak from his recent illness, leaning on his arm, there was a burst of applause that struck the ear with the suddenness of a thunderclap.31 That warmed up the house, and thenceforward there was no lack of demonstrations of every sort known to an appreciative gathering. When Mr. George stated, as he did at once, that Dr. Curran found that he could not preside at the meeting after attending his duties at Ellenville, on account of being unable to reach the railroad trains on time, there was a prolonged ‘‘A-a-ah!’’ of disappointment, but when he thereupon announced James Redpath as chairman, cheers went up that shook the building. The applause that subsequently greeted Mr. George throughout his speech was such as bursts forth spontaneously from people who hear what they recognize as truth and have felt that they have been denied hearing it. Before Mr. George began his address, the Concordia Chorus, with Miss Agatha Munier as conductor, sang the ‘‘Anthem of Liberty’’ and ‘‘To Thee, Oh, My Country,’’ Mr. Will MacFarland being the organist. Miss Munier evidently was a favorite with the public, and the chorus won the hearts of the audience. ‘‘The Cross of Our Crusade,’’ a composition by Rev. John Anketell, was also sung, all present being invited to join. Mr. George’s address was as follows: Dr. McGlynn – (great applause) – Dr. McGlynn – (great applause) – Dr. McGlynn – (great applause) – in Chickering Hall last Sunday night said it
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was a historic occasion. He was right. That a priest of Christ, standing on Sunday night on a public platform and addressing a great audience – an audience embracing men and women of all creeds and beliefs – should proclaim a crusade for the abolition of poverty, and call on men to join together and work together, to bring the kingdom of God on earth, did mark a most important event. Great social transformations, said Mazzini, never have been and never will be other than the application of great religious movements. (Applause.) The day on which democracy shall elevate itself to the position of a religious party, that day will its victory begin. (Great applause.) And the deep significance of the meeting last Sunday night, the meaning of this Anti-Poverty Society that we have joined together to inaugurate, is the bringing into the struggle of democracy the religious sentiment, the sentiment alone of all sentiments powerful enough to regenerate the world. (Applause.) The comments made on that meeting and on the institution of this society are suggestive. We are told, in the first place by the newspapers, that you cannot abolish poverty because there is not wealth enough to go around. We are told that if all the wealth of the United States was divided up there would only be some eight hundred dollars apiece. Well, if that is the case, all the more monstrous then is the injustice which today gives single men millions and tens of millions, and even hundreds of millions. If there really is so little, then the more injustice in these great fortunes. But we do not propose to abolish poverty by setting at work that vast army of men, estimated last year to amount in this country alone to one million, that vast army of men only anxious to create wealth, but who are now, by a system which permits ‘‘dogs in the manger’’ to monopolize God’s bounty, deprived of the opportunity to toil. (Applause.) Then again, they tell us, you cannot abolish poverty because poverty always has existed. Well, if poverty always has existed, all the more need for our moving for its abolition. It has existed long enough. We ought to be tired of it; let us get rid of it. (Applause.) But I deny that poverty, such poverty as we see on earth today, always has existed. Never before in the history of the world was there such an abundance of wealth. So marked is this that the very people who tell us that we cannot abolish poverty, attribute it in almost the next breath to overproduction. They virtually tell us it is because mankind produces so much wealth that so many are poor; that it is because there is so much of the things that satisfy human desire already produced, that men cannot find work, and that women must stint and strain. Poverty attributed to overproduction; poverty in the midst of wealth; poverty in the midst of enlightenment; poverty when steam and electricity and
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a thousand labor-saving inventions have been called to the aid of man, never existed in the world before. There is manifestly no good reason for its existence, and it is time that we should do something to abolish it. (Applause.) There are not charitable institutions enough to supply the demands for charity; that seems incapable of being supplied. But there are enough, at least, to show every thinking woman and every thinking man that it is utterly impossible to eradicate poverty by charity, to show everyone who will trace to its root the cause of the disease that what is needed is not charity, but Justice – the conforming of human institutions to the eternal laws of right. (Applause.) But when we propose this, when we say that poverty exists because of the violation of God’s laws, we are taunted with pretending to know more than men ought to know about the designs of omnipotence. They have set up for themselves a god who rather likes poverty, since it affords the rich a chance to show their goodness and benevolence; and they point to the existence of poverty as a proof that God wills it. Our reply is that poverty exists not because of God’s will, but because of man’s disobedience. (Applause.) We say that we do know that it is God’s will that there should be no poverty on earth, and that we know it as we may know any other natural fact. The laws of the universe are the laws of God, the social laws as well as the physical laws, and He, the Creator of all, has given us room for all, work for all, plenty for all. If today people are in places so crowded that it seems as though there were too many people in the world; if today thousands of men who would gladly be at work do not find the opportunity to go to work; if today the competition for employment crowds wages down to starvation rates; if today, amid abounding wealth there are in the centers of our civilization human beings who are worse off than savages in any normal times, it is not because the Creator has been niggardly; it is simply because of our own injustice – simply because we have not carried the idea of doing to others as we would have them do unto us into the making of our statutes. (Great applause.) This Anti-Poverty Society has no patent remedy for poverty. We propose no new thing. What we propose is simply to do justice. The principle that we propose to carry into our laws is neither more nor less than the principle of the golden rule. We propose to abolish poverty by the sovereign remedy of doing to others as we would have others do to us; by giving to all their just rights. And we propose to begin by assuring to every child of God who, in our country, comes into this world, his full and equal share of the common heritage. Crowded! Is it any wonder that men are crowded together as they
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are in this city, when we see men taking up far more land than they can by any possibility use, and holding it for enormous prices! Why, what would have happened if, when these doors were opened, the first people who came in had claimed all the seats around them, and demanded a price of others who afterward came in by the same equal right! Yet that is precisely the way we are treating this continent. That is the reason why people are huddled together in tenement houses; that is the reason why work is difficult to get; the reason that there seems, even in good times, a surplus of labor, and that in those times that we call bad, the times of industrial depression, there are all over the country thousands and hundreds of thousands of men tramping from place to place, unable to find employment. (Applause.) Not work enough! Why, what is work? Productive work is simply the application of human labor to land; it is simply the transforming into shapes adapted to gratify human desires, the raw material that the Creator has placed here. Is there not opportunity enough for work in this country? (Applause.) Supposing that, when thousands of men are unemployed and there are hard times everywhere, we could send a committee up to the high court of heaven to represent the misery and the poverty of the people here, consequent on their not being able to find employment. What answer would we get? ‘‘Are your lands all in use? Are your mines all worked out? Are there no natural opportunities for the employment of labor?’’ (Applause.) What could we ask the Creator to furnish us with that is not already here in abundance? He has given us the globe, amply stocked with raw material for our needs. He has given us the power of working up this raw material. If there seems scarcity, if there is want, if there are men who cannot find employment, if there are people starving in the midst of plenty, is it not simply because what the Creator intended for all has been made the property of the few? (Great applause.) In moving against this giant wrong, which denies to labor access to the natural opportunities for the employment of labor, we move against the cause of poverty. We propose to abolish it, to tear it up by the roots, to open free and abundant employment for every man. We propose to disturb no just right of property. As Dr. McGlynn said just Sunday night, we are defenders and upholders of the sacred right of property – that right of property which justly attaches to everything that is produced by labor; that right which gives to everyone a just right of property in what he has produced – that makes it his to give, to sell, to bequeath, to do whatever he pleases with, so long as in using it he does not injure anyone else.
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That right of property we insist upon, that we would uphold against all the world. To a house, a coat, a book – anything produced by labor – there is a clear individual title, which goes back to the man who made it. That is the foundation of the just, the sacred right of property. It rests on the right of the individual to the use of his own powers, on his right to profit by the exertion of his own labor; but who can carry the right of property in land that far? Who can claim a title of absolute ownership in land coming from the man who made it? (Applause.) And until the man who claims the exclusive ownership of a piece of this planet can show a title originating with the Maker of this planet; until he can produce a decree from the Creator declaring that this city lot or that great tract of agricultural land, or that coal mine, or that gas well, was made for him – until then we have a right to hold that land was intended for all of us. (Great applause.) Natural religion and revealed religion alike tell us that God is no respecter of persons; that He did not make this planet for a few individuals; that He did not give it to one generation in preference to other generations, but that He made it for the use during their lives of all the people that His providence brings into the world. (Applause.) If this be true, the child that is born tonight in the humblest tenement in the most squalid quarter of New York, comes into life seized with as good a title to the land of this city as any Astor or Rhinelander.32 (Tumultuous applause.) How do we know that the Almighty is against poverty? That it is not in accordance with His decree that poverty exists? We know it because we know this, that the Almighty has declared: ‘‘Thou shalt not steal.’’ (Applause.) And we know for a truth that the poverty that exists today in the midst of abounding wealth is the result of a system that legalizes theft. (Great applause.) The women who by the thousands are bending over their needles or sewing machines thirteen, fourteen, sixteen hours a day; these widows straining and starving to bring up little ones deprived of their natural breadwinner; the children who are growing up in squalor and wretchedness, underclothed, underfed, undereducated even, in this city without any place to play – growing up under conditions in which only a miracle can keep them pure – under conditions which condemn them in advance to the penitentiary or the brothel – they suffer, they die, because we permit them to be robbed, robbed of their birthright, robbed by a system which disinherits the vast majority of the children who come into the world. (Great applause.) There is enough and to spare for them. Had they the equal rights in the estate which their Creator had given them, there would be no young girls forced to unwomanly toil to eke out a mere existence, no widows finding it
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such a bitter, bitter struggle to put bread in the mouths of their little children; no such misery and squalor as we may see here in the greatest of American cities – (applause) – misery and squalor that are deepest in the largest and richest centers of our civilization today. (Great applause.) These things are the results of legalized theft, the fruits of a denial of that commandment that says: ‘‘Thou shalt not steal.’’ (Applause.) How is this great commandment interpreted today, even by the men who pretend to preach the gospel? Well, according to them, it means: ‘‘Thou shalt not go into the penitentiary.’’ (Laughter.) Not much more than that with any of them. You may steal, provided you steal enough, and you do not get caught, and you may have a front seat in the churches. (Laughter and applause, and cries: ‘‘That is so!’’) Do not steal a few dollars – that may be dangerous, but if you steal millions and get away with it, you become one of our first citizens. (Applause.) ‘‘Thou shalt not steal.’’ That is the law of God. What does it mean? Well, it does not merely mean that you shall not pick pockets! It does not merely mean that you shall not commit burglary or highway robbery! There are other forms of stealing which it prohibits as well. It certainly shall not take (if it has any meaning) that we shall not take that to which we are not entitled, to the detriment of others. (Great applause.) Now, here is a desert. Here is a caravan going along over the desert. Here is a gang of robbers. They say: ‘‘Look! There is a rich caravan; let us go and rob it, kill the men if necessary, take their goods from them, their camels and horses and walk off.’’ But one of the robbers says: ‘‘Oh no; that is dangerous; besides, that would be stealing! Let us, instead of doing that, go ahead to where there is a spring, the only spring at which this caravan can get water in this desert. Let us put a wall around it and call it ours, and when they come up we won’t let them have any water until they have given us all the goods they have.’’ (Applause.) That would be more gentlemanly, more polite, and more respectable; but would it not be theft all the same? (Great applause.) And is it not theft of the same kind when men go ahead in advance of population and get land they have no use whatever for, and then as people come into the world and population increases, will not let this increasing population use the land until they pay an exorbitant price? That is the sort of theft on which our first families are founded. (Applause.) Do that under the false code of morality which exists here today and people will praise your forethought and your enterprise, and will say you have made money because you are a very superior man, and that anybody can make money if he will only work and be industrious. (Laughter and applause.) But is it not as clearly a violation of the command: ‘‘Thou shalt not steal,’’ as taking the money out of a man’s pocket? (Applause.)
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‘‘Thou shalt not steal.’’ That means, of course, that we ourselves must not steal. But does it not also mean that we must not suffer anybody else to steal if we can help it? (Applause.) ‘‘Thou shalt not steal.’’ Does it not also mean: ‘‘Thou shalt not suffer thyself or anybody else to be stolen from?’’ (Applause.) If it does, then we, all of us, rich and poor alike, are responsible for this social crime that produces poverty. (Applause.) Not merely the men who monopolize land – they are not to blame above anyone else, but we who permit them to monopolize land are also parties to the theft. The Christianity that ignores this social responsibility has really forgotten the teachings of Christ. Where He in the gospels speaks of the judgment, the question[s] which . . . [are] put to men [are] never: ‘‘Did you praise me?’’ ‘‘Did you pray to me?’’ [or] ‘‘Did you believe this or did you believe that?’’ It is only this: ‘‘What did you do to relieve distress; to abolish poverty?’’ To those who are condemned, the judge is represented as saying: ‘‘I was ahungered and ye gave me not meat, I was athirst and ye gave me not drink, I was sick and in prison and ye visited me not.’’ Then they say: ‘‘Lord, Lord, when did we fail to do these things to you?’’ The answer is: ‘‘Inasmuch as ye failed to do it to the least of these, so also did you fail to do it unto me; depart into the place prepared for the devil and his angels.’’ On the other hand, what is said to the blessed is: ‘‘I was ahungered and ye gave me meat, I was thirsty and ye gave me drink, I was naked and ye clothed me, I was sick and in prison and ye visited me.’’ And when they say: ‘‘Lord, Lord, when did we do these things to thee?’’ the answer is: ‘‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these ye have done it unto me.’’ (Applause.) Here is the essential spirit of Christianity. The essence of its teachings is not: ‘‘Provide for your own body and save your own soul,’’ but ‘‘Do what you can to make this a better world for all!’’ It was a protest against the doctrine of ‘‘each for himself and devil take the hindermost!’’ It was the proclamation of a common Fatherhood of God and a common brotherhood of man. (Applause.) This was why the rich and the powerful, the high priests and the rulers, persecuted Christianity with fire and sword. It was not what in so many of our churches today is called religion that pagan Rome sought to tear out – it was what in too many of the churches of today is called ‘‘socialism and communism,’’ the doctrine of the equality of human rights! (Great applause.) Now imagine when we men and women of today go before that awful bar that there we should behold the spirits of those who in our time under this accursed social system were driven into crime, of those who were starved in body and mind, of those little children that in this city of New York are being sent out of the world by thousands when they have scarcely entered
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it – because they did not get food enough, nor light enough, because they are crowded together in these tenement districts under conditions in which all diseases rage and destroy. Supposing we are confronted with those souls, what would it avail us to say that we individually were not responsible for their earthly conditions? What, in the spirit of the parable of Matthew, would be the reply from the judgment seat? Would it not be: ‘‘I provided for them all. The earth that I made was broad enough to give them room. The materials that are placed in it were abundant enough for all their needs. Did you or did you not lift up your voice against the wrong that robbed them of their fair share in what I provided for all?’’ (Great applause.) ‘‘Thou shalt not steal!’’ It is theft, it is robbery that is producing poverty and disease and vice and crime among us. It is by virtue of laws that we uphold; and he who does not raise his voice against that crime, he is an accessory. The standard has now been raised, the cross of the new crusade at last is lifted. Some of us, aye, many of us, have sworn in our hearts that we will never rest so long as we have life and strength until we expose and abolish that wrong. We have declared war upon it. Those who are not with us, let us count them against us. For us there will be no faltering, no compromise, no turning back until the end. (Great applause and cheering.) There is no need for poverty in this world, and in our civilization. There is a provision made by the laws of the Creator which would secure to the helpless all that they require, which would give enough and more than enough for all social purposes. These little children who are dying in our crowded district for want of room and fresh air, they are the disinherited heirs of a great estate. Did you every consider the full meaning of the significant fact that as progress goes on, as population increases and civilization develops, the one thing that ever increases in value is land? Speculators all over the country appreciate that. Wherever there is a chance for population coming; wherever railroads meet or a great city seems destined to grow; wherever some new evidence of the bounty of the Creator is discovered, in a rich coal or iron mine, or an oil well, or a gas deposit, there the speculator jumps in, land rises in value and a great boom takes place, and men find themselves enormously rich without ever having done a single thing to produce wealth. Now, it is by virtue of a natural law that land steadily increases in value, that population adds to it, that invention adds to it; that the discovery of every fresh evidence of the Creator’s goodness in the stores that He has implanted in the earth for our use adds to the value of land, not to the value
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of anything else. This natural fact is by virtue of a natural law – a law that is as much a law of the Creator as the law of gravitation. What is the intent of this law? Is there not in it provision for social needs? That land values grow greater and greater as the community grows and common needs increase, is there not a manifest provision for social needs – a fund belonging to society as a whole, with which we may take care of the widow and the orphan and those who fall by the wayside – with which we may provide for public education, meet public expenses, and do all the things that an advancing civilization makes more and more necessary for society to do on behalf of its members? (Great applause.) Today the value of land in New York City is over a hundred millions annually. Who has created that value? Is it because a few landowners are here that land is worth a hundred millions a year? Is it not because the whole population of New York is here? Is it not because this great city is the center of exchanges for a large portion of the continent? Does not every child that is born, everyone that comes to settle in New York, does he not add to the value of this land? Ought he not, therefore, to get some portion of the benefit? And is he not wronged when, instead of being used for that purpose, certain favored individuals are allowed to appropriate it? (Applause.) We might take this vast fund for common needs, we might with it make a city here such as the world has never see before – a city spacious, clean, wholesome, beautiful – a city that should be full of parks; a city without tenement houses; a city that should own a means of communication, railways that should carry people thirty or forty miles from the City Hall in a half hour, and that could be run free, just as are the elevators in or large buildings; a city with great museums, and public libraries, and gymnasiums, and public halls, paid for out of this common fund, and not from the donations of rich citizens. (Applause.) We could out of this vast fund provide as a matter of right for the widow and the orphan, and assure to every citizen of this great city that if he happened to die his wife and his children should not come to want, should not be degraded with charity, but as a matter of right, as citizens of a rich community, as coheir to a vast estate, should have enough to live on. (Applause.) And we could do all this, not merely without imposing any tax upon production; not merely without interfering with the just rights of property, but while at the same time securing far better than they are now the rights of property and abolishing the taxes that now weigh on production. We have but to throw off our taxes to fine a man who puts up a house or makes anything that adds to the wealth of the community; to cease collecting taxes from people who bring goods from abroad or make goods at home, and put
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all our taxes upon the value of land – to collect that enormous revenue due to the growth of the community for the benefit of the community that produced it. (Applause.) Dr. Nulty, Bishop of Meath – (great applause) – has said in a letter addressed to the clergy and laity of his diocese that it is this provision of the Creator, the provision by which the value of land increases as the community grows, that seems to him the most beautiful of all social adjustments; and it is to me that most clearly shows the beneficence as well as the intelligence of the creative mind; for here is a provision by virtue of which the advance of civilization would, under the law of equal justice, be an advance toward equality, instead, as it now is, and advance toward a more and more monstrous inequality. (Applause.) The same good Catholic bishop in that same letter says: Now, therefore, the land of every country is the common property of the people of that country, because its real owner, the Creator, who made it, hath given it as a voluntary gift unto them. ‘‘The earth has He given to the children of men.’’ And as every human being is a creature and a child of God, and as all His creatures are equal in His sight, any settlement of the land of this or any other country that would exclude the humblest form his equal share in the common heritage is not only an injury and a wrong done to that man, but an impious violation of the benevolent intention of the Creator. (Great applause.)
That is the method that this society proposes. I wish we could get that through the heads of the editors of this city. We do not propose to divide up the land. (Laughter.) What we propose to do is to divide up the rent that comes from land; and that is a very easy thing. (Applause.) We need not disturb anybody in possession, we need not interfere with anybody’s building or anybody’s improvement. We only need to remit taxes on all improvements, on all forms of wealth, and put the tax on the value of the land, exclusive of the improvements, so that the ‘‘dog in the manger’’ who is holding a piece of vacant land will have to pay the same for it as though there were a building upon it. In that way we would treat the whole land of such a community as this as the common estate of the whole people of the community. And as the Sailors Snug Harbor, for instance, out of the revenues of comparatively a little piece of land in New York can maintain that fine establishment on Staten Island keeping in comfort a number of old seamen, so we might make a greater Snug Harbor of the whole of New York. (Great applause.) The people of New York could manage their estate just as well as any corporation, or any private family, for that matter. But for the people of New York to resume their estate and to treat it as their own, it is not
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necessary for them to go to any bother of management. It is not necessary for them to say to any landholder, the particular piece of land is ours, and no longer yours. We can leave land titles just as they are. We can leave the owners of the land to call themselves its owners; all we want is the annual value of the land. Not, mark you, that value which the owner has created, that value which has been given to it by improvements, but simply that value which is given to the bare land by the fact that we are all here – that has attached to the land because of the growth of this great community. (Applause.) And, when we take that, then all inducement to monopolize the land will be gone – (applause) – then those very worthy gentlemen who are holding one-half of the area of this city idle and vacant will find the taxes upon them so high that they either will have to go to work and build houses or sell the land, or, if they cannot sell it, give it away to somebody who will build houses. (Great applause.) And so all over the country. Go into Pennsylvania, and there you will see great stretches of land, containing enormous deposits of the finest coal, held by corporations and individuals who are working but little part of it. On these great estates common American citizens who mine the coal, are not allowed even to rent a piece of land, let alone buy it. They can only live in company houses; and they are permitted to stay in them only on condition (and they have to sign a paper to that effect) that they can be evicted at any time on five-days’ notice. The companies combine, and make coal artificially dear here and make employment artificially scarce in Pennsylvania. Now, why should not those miners, who work on it half the time, why shouldn’t they dig down in the earth and get up the coal themselves? (Applause.) Who made that coal? There is only one answer – God made that coal. Whom did He make it for? Any child or fool would say that God made it for the people that would be one day called into being on this earth. (Applause.) But the laws of Pennsylvania, like the laws of New York, say God made it for this corporation and that individual; and thus a few men are permitted to deprive miners of work and make coal artificially dear. (Applause.) A few weeks ago, when I was traveling in Illinois, a young fellow got in the car at one of the mining towns, and I entered into conversation with him. He said he was going to another place to try and get work. He told me of the conditions of the miners, that they could scarcely make a living, getting very small wages and only working about half the time. I said to him: ‘‘There is plenty of coal in the ground; why don’t you employ yourselves in
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digging coal.’’ He replied: ‘‘We did get up a cooperative company, and we went to see the owner of the land to ask what he would let us sink a shaft and get out some coal for. He wanted $7,500.00 a year. We could not raise that much.’’ Tax land up to its full value and how long can such ‘‘dogs in the manger’’ afford to hold that coal land away from these men? And when any man who wants work can go and employ himself, then there will be no million or no thousand unemployed men in all the United States. (Applause.) The relation of employer and employed is a relation of convenience. It is not one imposed by the natural order. Men are brought into the world with the power to employ themselves, and they can employ themselves wherever the natural opportunities from employment are not shut up from them. No man has a natural right to demand employment of another, but each man has a natural right, an inalienable right, a right given by his Creator, to demand opportunity to employ himself. (Great applause.) And whenever that right is acknowledged, whenever the men who want to go to work can find natural opportunities to work upon, then there will be as much competition among employers who are anxious to get men to work for them as there will be among men who are anxious to get work. Wages will rise in every vocation to the true rate of wages, the full, honest earnings of labor. That done, with this ever-increasing social fund to draw upon, poverty will be abolished, and in a little while will come to be looked upon as we are now beginning to look upon slavery – as the relic of a darker and more ignorant age. (Great applause.) I remember – this man here remembers – (turning to Mr. Redpath) – even better than I, for he was one of the men who brought the atrocities of human slavery home to the heart and conscience of the North – I well-remember, as he well-knows, and all the older men and women in this audience will remember, how property in human flesh and blood was defended just as private property in land is now defended; how the same charges were hurled upon the men who protested against human slavery as are now made against the men who are intending to abolish industrial slavery. (Applause.) We remember how the dignitaries of the churches, and the opinion of the rich members of the churches branded as a disturber, almost as a reviler of religion, any priest or any minister who dared to get up and assert God’s truth – that there never was and there never could be rightful property in human flesh and blood. (Applause.) So it is now said that men who protest against this system, which is simply another form of slavery, are men who propose robbery. Thus the
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commandment, ‘‘Thou shalt not steal’’ they have made, ‘‘Thou shalt not object to stealing.’’ When we propose to resume our own again, when we propose to secure its natural right to every child that comes into being, such people talk of us advocating confiscation – charge us with being deniers of the rights of property. The real truth is that we wish to assert the just rights of property, that we wish to prevent theft. (Applause.) Chattel slavery was incarnate theft of the worst kind. That system which made property of human beings, which allowed one man to sell another, which allowed one man to take away the proceeds of another’s toil, which permitted the tearing of the child from the mother, and which permitted the so-called owner to hunt with bloodhounds the man who escaped from his tyranny – that form of slavery is abolished. (Applause.) So far as that goes the command, ‘‘Thou shalt not steal,’’ has been vindicated, but there is another form of slavery. We are selling land now in large quantities to certain English lords and capitalists who are coming over here and buying greater estates than the greatest in Great Britain or Ireland; we are selling them land, they are buying land. Did it ever occur to you that they do not want that land? They have no use whatever for American land; they do not propose to come over here and live on it. They cannot carry it over there to where they do live. It is not the land that they want. What they want is the income from it. They are buying it not that they themselves want to use it, but because by and by, as population increases, numbers of American citizens will want to use it, and then they can say to these American citizens: ‘‘You can use this land provided you pay us one-half of all you make upon it.’’ What we are selling those foreign lords and capitalists is not really land; we are selling them the labor of American citizens; we are selling them the privilege of taking, without giving any return for it, the proceeds of the toil of our children. (Applause.) So here in New York you will read in the papers every day that the price of land is going up. John Jones or Robert Brown has made a hundred thousand dollars within a year in the increase in the value of land in New York. What does that mean? It means he has the power of getting so many more coats, so many more cigars, so much more wine, dry goods, horses and carriages, houses, or food. He has gained the power of taking for his own so much more of these products of human labor. But what has he done? He has not done anything. He may have been off in Europe or out West, or he may have been sitting at home taking it easy. If he has done nothing to get this increased income, where does it come from? The things I speak of are all products of human labor – someone has to work for
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them. When the man who does no work can get them, necessarily the men who do work to produce them must have less than they ought to have. (Applause.) This is the system that the Anti-Poverty Society has banded together to war against, and it invites you to come and swell its ranks. It is the noblest cause in which any human being can possible engage. What, after all, is there in life as compared with a struggle like this? One thing and only one thing is absolutely certain for every man and woman in this hall, as it is to all else of humankind – that is death. What will it profit us in a few years how much we have of it? Is not the noblest and the best use we can make of life to do something to make better and happier the condition of those who come after us – by warring against injustice, by the enlightenment of public opinion, by the doing all that we possibly can to break up the accursed system that degrades and embitters the lot of so many? (Applause.) We have a long fight and a hard fight before us. Possibly, probably, for many of us, we may never see it come to success. But what of that? It is a privilege to be engaged in such a struggle. This we may know that it is the good of every age involved in this fight; and that we, in taking part in it, are doing something in our humble way to bring on earth the kingdom of God, to make the conditions of life for those who come afterward, those which we trust will prevail in heaven. (Long and continued applause.) Mr. George then announced that the collections amounted to $334.61, and that the initiation fees enclosed in the envelopes amounted to $80.00 more. A number of people all over the hall shouted that the collectors had passed them by, and they wished to contribute and make applications for membership. From the proscenium boxes and from various parts of the hall silver dollars rained down upon the stage, and a number of new applications were handed in. Mr. George thereupon asked reporters to observe this – a significant thing in connection with this movement – that people in the audience complained that the contribution box was not passed around. A patriarchal-looking gentleman in the gallery called out: ‘‘I would like to make an application for membership from the very far West. You don’t recognize me, Mr. George?’’ Mr. George replied: ‘‘Mr. Spencer? Yes, that is he. Ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure of introducing to you one of our good friends, Mr. Richard Spencer of Burlington, Iowa, a gentleman who was one of the first to write to me on the publication of Progress and Poverty, expressing his sympathy for our cause, and who in his sphere had done good work.’’ (Applause.) ‘‘Such men are joining us from all parts of the country; aye, and they will come from over the sea. In England, in Scotland, in Wales, in Australia, and
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on the continent of Europe are those who rejoice in the establishment of this society. And I trust that it will spread and have its branches, and that in a little while every city in this country will have its Anti-Poverty Society, bringing men together to unite in one great crusade against the giant crime of our time. (Applause.) Let all who are in favor of poverty stay outside.’’ (Laughter and applause.) . . . .
6. EXCOMMUNICATION, ETC.33 On [the] *** of July the forty days within which Dr. McGlynn was ordered to present himself before the Propaganda in Rome, under penalty of excommunication by nomination, will have expired, and unless the attitude of the Catholic masses in this country shall have warned the Roman authorities of the depressing consequences this step may have on the collection of Peter’s pence, the Fourth of July will be commemorated in Rome by the excommunication of the American priest.34 As the day for the excommunication draws near, it becomes evident, however, that there is some doubt in the archiepiscopal palace whether Rome will venture upon this fulmination. Various items have recently appeared in the press, evidently intended to account in advance for the failure of the excommunication gun, should it not startle the world with its reverberations on the Fourth. It is said that no public ceremony, and even no public notice required, and that Dr. McGlynn will be excommunicated, just as in the South people [are] supposed to be ‘‘hoodooed,’’ in secret; and it is also said that it will not devolve upon the pope, upon the Propaganda, upon Archbishop Corrigan, or upon anybody else to excommunicate Dr. McGlynn; but that by terms of the order he will excommunicate himself, ipso facto, if he is not in Rome on the third of July. But all this is not only in direct contradiction to the declaration so jubilantly made to the American press by Archbishop Corrigan’s official secretary, that Dr. McGlynn had been ordered to Rome within forty days under penalty of excommunication by name, but it is in flat opposition to canon law. The learned Dr. Burtsell, the most eminent of living American canonists, in the last number of an elaborate series of articles which he is writing for the Tablet on ‘‘The Canonical Status of Priests in the United States,’’ declares expressly that excommunication ‘‘can only be imposed by the public ecclesiastical authority, which has the public exercise of public jurisdiction,’’ and that even where the excommunication is threatened as consequent upon the act of disobedience to a superior’s command ‘‘a special proclamation by this superior of the actual application of the penalty is needed before the censure can affect the relations of others with the one so threatened.’’ Thus Catholics may rest assured by the law of their church that if they do not 283
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publicly hear of Dr. McGlynn’s public excommunication he is not actually excommunicated at all. In this article Dr. Burtsell answers this question which, in view of the coming excommunication of Dr. McGlynn, was asked in this column two weeks since: If Galileo had been excommunicated for refusing to deny that the earth moves around the sun – as he surely would have been if the disciplinary power of the church had not then possessed more effective means of coercion than it has now – what binding force would this excommunication have had upon Galileo, and what binding force would it have had upon other Catholics?
Dr. Burtsell says: While it is ordinarily required to give outward acquiescence in an unjust sentence of suspension, interdict or excommunication, yet it does not really, in any sense, bind the conscience, even if the injustice comes merely from the want of due observance of the forms of trial required by the law, though the delinquency may have occurred. No respect at all, even outward, need be given if notoriously there was no delinquency on the part of the condemned. The learned D’Avino, in his ecclesiastical encyclopedia, at the word ‘‘excommunication’’ gives this principle in unmistakable language:35 If a censure is evidently null, such as one pronounced after a legitimate appeal or which was founded upon an intolerable mistake, it has no effect before God or men. And consequently there is no need of absolution from it, and as its nullity is thoroughly notorious, there is not any obligation to pay heed to it, even outwardly.
Thus, there being no delinquency in Dr. McGlynn’s case, for neither Propaganda or pope have the slightest canonical right to order him to Rome, no excommunication based on his refusal to go to Rome can have any effect, even if proclaimed with ‘‘bell, book, and candle,’’ and no Catholic will be under any obligation to pay heed to it. It is certain that at least one American Catholic prelate had telegraphed to Cardinal Simeoni that to carry out the threatened excommunication of Dr. McGlynn will be fraught with the gravest disasters. This, following upon the cable dispatch of the president and secretary of the monster demonstration of June 18, notifying the Propaganda that 100,000 Catholics of New York protest against ecclesiastical interference with the political rights of American citizens, and are prepared to stand with Dr. McGlynn, may cause the papal court to hesitate, and probably accounts for the hedging items that have appeared in the press during the week. But on the other hand, the main point at issue – the power of the papal authorities to control the political actions of Catholics is just at the present moment very dear to Rome. Under the present pope the Roman ecclesiastical machine is evidently dreaming of a restitution of at least some
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shreds of the temporal power through a pressure upon Italy from European governments. The only quid pro quo that the pope has to offer for this interference is the control over the political actions of his spiritual subjects. It is understood that he has already secured the aid of Germany by coming to Bismarck’s help in the recent critical election, when he directed the German Catholics to vote for the government candidates, and the proceedings in connection with the queen’s jubilee and the sending of Italian ecclesiastics to Ireland show that he is engaged in intrigues with the English government in which the power of the church in making the Catholic Irish lie quiet under English rule is offered as consideration for favors from English diplomacy. The pope has no army or navy. His Noble Guard, with their buckskin breeches, and his Swiss Guard, with their harlequin attire, are mere adjuncts of barbaric grandeur, like the throne on which he is carried on men’s shoulders and the peacock fans that are waved over him.36 But in the power to control the political actions of Catholics by orders transmitted from the Propaganda to the bishops, from bishops to priests, and from priests to people, as was done in the recent German election, the pope has, what in the expressive slang of New York is called ‘‘a pull’’ on the politicians and governments of all countries having a large Catholic population, which, especially in times of close elections or popular uprisings, may make them exceedingly anxious to come to terms with him. Dr. McGlynn’s indignant refusal to take his politics from Rome; his declaration that in assuming the vows of a Catholic priest he gave up none of the rights of an American citizen, and his denial of authority on the part of bishop, Propaganda, or pope to punish him for his actions in American politics or to order him to Rome to account for them, strike at the roots of this power. And a failure to carry out a threat of excommunication that has been given worldwide publicity will be a confession of inability to control the politics of Catholics, which, no matter what beneficial effects it may have upon religion, cannot fail to seriously weaken Roman diplomacy, especially in England, where the excommunication of Dr. McGlynn is looked forward to as a warning to ‘‘Irish agitators.’’ So that taking one consideration with another, it is quite probable that the Italian cardinals began to feel that Archbishop Corrigan has got them into a serious dilemma. They may seek to escape from this by failing to fulminate the excommunication, while at the same time causing it to be given out that Dr. McGlynn has excommunicated himself ipso facto. Dr. Burtsell’s showing that under the laws of the church such an excommunication cannot take place is, therefore, very timely.
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I have said that the main point at issue in the case of Dr. McGlynn is the power of the ecclesiastical authorities to control the political actions of Catholics. This is something that should not be lost sight of. Dr. McGlynn first offended the Propaganda by making a radical speech on the Irish land question in 1882, at the very time when, at the instigation of Errington, the Propaganda was cooperating with the Gladstone government to put down radical ideas in Ireland.37 It was this – as it doubtless seemed to the Italian cardinals – impertinent interference with their Irish politics, that provoked the order from Rome in 1882 for Dr. McGlynn’s suspension, and the subsequent letter of May 1883, in which he was again censured for having ‘‘again shown himself very much inclined to favor the Irish revolution.’’ These letters Archbishop Corrigan resurrected when, in 1886, he found that Dr. McGlynn was disturbing the smooth course of Tammany politics in New York by supporting the workingmen’s candidate for mayor.38 There was and there could be no assumption that in taking part in politics he was doing anything unusual as a Catholic priest, for the Catholic clergy in this and other countries are accustomed to take part in politics. His offense was not that he took part in politics, but that he took part on the wrong side. Dr. McGlynn was forbidden to attend any political meeting ‘‘without permission of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda.’’ Dr. McGlynn was first suspended for having, in spite of the prohibition of the archbishop, attended the political meeting of a party opposed to that which the archbishop favored. He served out his two weeks’ sentence for this offense, and then, in his desire to avoid scandal to the church, continued to respect the order that he should not attend any political meeting without permission from the Sacred Propaganda, deeply galling though this submission of his political rights to a lot of alien Italians must have been to his dignity as a priest and to his self-respect as a citizen. But, while respecting the letter of this order, he did, on several occasions, express his political opinions in interviews with newspaper reporters who called on him for that purpose. He was a second time suspended on the frivolous ground that in one of these interviews he had by implication spoken disrespectfully of the pope. When Dr. McGlynn denied that he had made any reference to the pope, or had, indeed, in what he said even thought of the pope, then this frivolous and manifestly dishonest excuse was abandoned, and Archbishop Corrigan placed the maintenance of the suspension on the ground of Dr. McGlynn’s views on the land question, which the archbishop took it upon himself to declare inconsistent with the doctrines of the church – despite the fact that the church has never
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pronounced on this question, and that, as shown by the letter of Bishop Nulty, which we published in The Standard two weeks since, precisely the same views had been enunciated by one of the most eminent of living Catholic prelates. Following upon this Dr. McGlynn was ordered to Rome. This order he refused to obey, placing his refusal in words that are worth reprinting: In becoming a priest I did not evade the duties nor surrender the rights of a man and a citizen. I deny the right of the bishop, Propaganda, or pope to punish me for my actions as a man and a citizen in the late municipal canvass, or in other political movements. I deny their right to censure me, or to punish me for my opinions in political economy, unless they can show that these opinions are clearly contrary to the teachings of the Christian religion. This they have not shown, and I know that they cannot show it. I have not appealed to Rome form the judgments of the archbishop, and I have no desire to do so. I deny the right of bishop, Propaganda, or pope to order me to Rome. The ‘‘vow of obedience’’ of the priest, of which so many absurd things have been said within the last few weeks, is simply a promise to obey the church authorities in matters concerning the priest’s duties of religion. It was monstrous to imagine that this promise has not clear and well-defined limitations.
Then came the letter of Pope Leo XIII to Archbishop Corrigan, in which he condoled with him on account of the ‘‘contumacious disobedience of one of your subjects’’ and ‘‘the rebellion which has arisen against your authority in your city,’’ and shortly following it, the order that Dr. McGlynn should report to the Propaganda in Rome within forty days under penalty of excommunication by name. The land question does figure in all this. Dr. McGlynn does unquestionably represent the great principle of equal rights in land, against which Archbishop Corrigan, backed by Propaganda and pope, is throwing the whole weight of the Catholic hierarchy; but the point upon which issue is joined is the power of ecclesiastical authorities to control the political acts and political opinions of the Catholic priesthood, and through them of the Catholic laity. As Judge Maguire of San Francisco put it in his ringing letter to the McGlynn demonstration, published in last week’s Standard:39 The question is simply this: Are American Catholics under any obligation to obey the pope and Propaganda in matters of purely concerns? In other words: Are American Catholics the political chattels of the pope? . . .
It is notorious that in the city of New York the Catholic Church, or rather the ecclesiastical machine, has long been in alliance with the corrupt Tammany ring, and that while aiding to keep these public plunderers in power it has received from them much consideration and large amounts of public property and public money. This alliance is cemented not only by the substantials but
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also by the ornamentals. Only this week Archbishop Corrigan lent his presence to the conferring of an honorary degree upon a member of Tammany’s ring, just as these same Jesuits in Tweed days conferred the same honorary degree upon one of the most notorious of Tweed’s corrupt judges. Archbishop Corrigan made no objection to Dr. McGlynn’s taking part in politics, so long as he did not take any part opposed to Tammany; on the contrary, he sought to utilize for office-getting purposes the doctor’s political influence. It was when Dr. McGlynn began to take sides with the workingmen against the corrupt Democratic clique that Archbishop Corrigan’s interest in his economic opinions began to show itself. Dr. McGlynn was not the only Catholic clergyman who was prohibited by the archiepiscopal order from supporting the Labor Party, but, on the other hand, not only was Vicar-General Preston permitted to issue what was virtually a campaign document for Tammany in the name of the church, but priests were permitted to preach from their altars against the workingmen’s party, and even the confessional was used to prevent the defeat of the ring with which the ecclesiastical machine in New York has so long been allied. The election over and the Democratic gangs having, with the use of every corrupt and rascally expedient, only managed to barely save their lease of power. Archbishop Corrigan evidently determined to make an example of the ‘‘rebellious subject’’ who had dared to let it be known that he favored the side opposed by the archbishop. Finding that he has a somewhat harder job on his hands than he could well manage he called in the authority, first of Propaganda and then of pope, with results such as so far are seen. In the second issue of The Standard I stated: that Archbishop Corrigan in the last election not only wanted to defeat a certain candidate, but also wanted to defeat the call for a constitutional convention; that letters from him were sent to priests telling them to work against the convention, and that at a gathering where one of these priests endeavored to carry out this instruction, a proposition was made to get hold of the bags containing the ballots in favor of the constitutional convention, and, by making away with them, to lessen the vote in its favor.
Archbishop Corrigan having been reported as saying to one reporter that this was false, and to another that it was ridiculous, I offered, in case he saw fit to deny it over his own signature, either to give authority for this statement or publicly retract it. This Archbishop Corrigan has not yet seen fit to do. In the meantime, here is another fact which is worth remembering: In 1875 amendments to the constitution of New Jersey were submitted to the vote of the people of that state.40 These amendments prohibited the legislature from granting special privileges to corporations, associations, or individuals, and
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from making special laws in reference to the management and support of public schools; prohibited the donation of land, money, property, or credit by the state or any municipal corporation to any individual, association, or corporation; forbade counties, cities, and towns from becoming security for, or directly or indirectly the owners of any stocks or bonds of any association or corporation, and required the legislature to provide for the support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools. A few days before the election Archbishop Corrigan, then bishop of Newark, issued the following letter to the priests of his diocese, a copy of which was obtained by the Newark Daily Advertiser and published by it on the evening preceding the election. Its authenticity has never been denied: Newark, Sep. 3, 1875. Reverend and Dear Sir: Having taken legal advice, I am informed that by the new constitutional amendments clerical property is liable to taxation. This would involve so heavy an additional burden to the diocese that I feel it my duty to recommend you to INSTRUCT your people to strike out the objectionable clause, or, better still, to make assurance doubly sure, let them strike out the whole ballot. It is not enough to abstain from voting; let them, and vote against the amendment. Very truly yours, Michael, bishop or Newark P.S.: Remember that our people must cancel by pen or pencil the whole ballot and then vote it thus canceled, in order to protest against injustice. Remember also that the special election in regard to these constitutional amendments will take place next Tuesday, Sep. 7.
On October 24, 1880, the Herald editorially said: When a Catholic Irishman, the leader of an Irish Catholic party, announces and boasts that he will decide political contests in this neighborhood as suits his good pleasure by means of the suffrages of thirty thousand (30,000) Irish Catholic voters, upon whom he can count, the people have an opportunity to see what sort of an institution the Catholic Church is in politics and to understand what a farce it would be to pretend that free government can continue where it is permitted to touch its hand to politics or, indeed, to exist, for where it exists it will not leave politics alone. This is a Protestant country and the American people are a Protestant people. They tolerate all religions, even Mohammedanism, but there are some points in all these tolerated religions to which they object and will not permit, and the vice of the Catholic Church, by which it has rotted out the political institutions of all countries where it exists – which has made it like a flight of locusts everywhere – will be properly rebuked here when it fairly shows its purpose.
The vice, not of the Catholic Church, but of the Catholic machine, has shown its purpose with a vengeance. It is not now a mere Catholic layman
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who boasts control of the votes of Irish Catholics. It is an archbishop, backed by a pope, who now openly declares that American Catholics are bound in their political action by the dictation of an Italian ring three thousand miles away. And the resistance to this monstrous pretension comes from Catholics, mainly from those very Catholics whom it was not long since the fashion in certain circles to denounce as the ‘‘Pope’s Irish.’’ The loudest Protestants have all of a sudden become the strongest supporters of the Roman authority in American politics. As for the Herald, it pats the archbishop on the back and ‘‘skats’’ the Sacred Congregation on.41 It is now the best friend the pope has, always excepting the Times, the Tribune, Harper’s Weekly, and Puck. This is the effect of the growing interest in the land question. Is not an issue which can in so short a time make of the bitterest Protestants and the rabbidest [sic] infidels the warmest supporters of the papal power, likely ere long to drive Republican politicians and Democratic politicians into the same camp? The relations of the papal diplomacy to the English-Irish question are just now both interesting and instructive, and have a close relation to the question which is agitating American Catholics. The pope has evidently been making another effort to secure the aid of England in getting back some scraps of the temporal power from Italy, by the promise of making himself useful in getting Ireland to ‘‘be aisy.’’ He sent a special envoy, one Monsignor Ruffo Scilla, who is described by the British papers as ‘‘dignified but dull,’’ to bear his jubilee present, a magnificent mosaic, to the queen.42 This Lord Scilla is accompanied by two young ‘‘my lords,’’ graduates of the seminary maintained at Rome for the education of young nobles who are destined to be made diplomats, cardinals, and perhaps popes. It is characteristic of the way in which holy things are prostituted at Rome, that although the office of bishop in the Catholic Church is supposed to represent and transmit in its fullness the priesthood and apostleship of Christ, with all the graces and blessings, these two young ecclesiastics, whose office it was to lug the papal mosaic into the royal presence, are still further to emphasize the pope’s admiration for the queen, to be promoted to bishoprics on their return. Envoy Scilla was received first of all by the ambassadors and envoys and then by the queen, treated with great distinction, and entertained by the young Tory Catholic duke of Norfolk, the center of those aristocratic English Catholics who hate Irish Catholicism that is not of the ‘‘Castle’’ order [, which they hate more than] any form of heresy. In addition to the
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sending of these representatives and the costly present, the pope ordered special services in honor of the queen, and Cardinal Manning issued an address to the Catholic clergy, in which Victoria was told that no sovereign had so won the love of her people, and that she had ‘‘shown the heart, not only of a queen, but also of a mother of those who mourn.’’43 The patriotic Catholics of Ireland, to whom all this adulation of the queen is in shocking contrast with the realities of the system of which she is the head, have not much relished all this, and still less have they relished the talk of a papal nuncio at the British court, which it is seemingly the great object of the pope to secure. For they know that the business of the Italian nuncio would be, in return for English favors to the pope, to watch and overrule the Irish prelates in the interest of the English government. The pope’s excuse for desiring a nuncio is to enable him to obtain correct information of the state of Ireland, an excuse that is of itself an insult to the clergy and laity of Ireland, who are his rightful informants in all he may want to know about Ireland, and who certainly, in one respect at least, keep him well-informed, since Ireland, in proportion to the numbers and wealth of her people, sends to the pope more Peter’s pence than any other country in the world.44 While this talk about a nuncio was going on, Ireland was startled by the news that the pope, not satisfied to wait, had already appointed two Italians to visit Ireland on a tour of inspection. The Irish bishops met and must have sent off by telegraph to Rome as strong a protest as that which prevented the appointment of a tool of England to the chair of Cardinal McCabe, for the orders of the two papal inspectors were countermanded when they were on their way to the railway station to take train for London.45 There was rejoicing among the Irish, but it did not last long, for a telegram from Mr. Envoy Scilla has undone all that was accomplished by the protest of the Irish bishops, and the two Italian inspectors of Irish faith and morals are on their way to Ireland via London. Before long the Irish may begin to very seriously ask themselves when it was that the Italians got to be the chosen people of God, and to wonder whether a pope in a stovepipe hat would not be a great deal better and more Christian like than a pope in a triple crown, constantly endeavoring to trade off the rights of his co-religionists in exchange for favors from the sovereigns of the earth.
7. ‘‘THE NEW PARTY’’46 The era in American politics which began with the candidacy of Fremont closed with the defeat of Blaine. When in a time of strong feeling and clashing interests no man can state a principle which will be a test question between the great political parties, and a presidential contest, fought on questions of personal character, is decided by the foolish utterance of an irresponsible speaker, it needs not even the son of a prophet to tell that the time for the drawing of new political lines has come, and that essentially new political parties must soon appear. The Republican Party died at heart sometime ago – with the second administration of Grant or, at least, with the early part of the administration of Hayes; but partly for reasons similar to those that make the days of the autumnal equinox warmer than those of the vernal equinox, and partly because of the weakness of its opponent, it still held its place. If the great party that fought the war and abolished slavery had become but a party of the ‘‘ins,’’ the great party that claimed political descent from Jefferson had become but a party of the ‘‘outs.’’ It needed only that the ‘‘ins’’ should take the place of the ‘‘outs’’ to destroy both. And this, thanks finally to the Rev. Dr. Burchard, the election of 1884 accomplished. Now that the Republican Party has lost control of the national executive and no disaster has occurred, and the Democratic Party has gained it and no particular good been done, the old prejudices, old fears, old hopes, old habits of thought and touch, are so broken down that new issues can readily come to the front and new alignments of political forces take place. The process of disintegration and reconstruction is now going on. The growth of the Prohibition Party on the one side and of a Labor Party on the other, and the readiness with which Republicans and Democrats have united in some of the recent municipal elections when threatened with what seemed to them a common danger show how rapidly. The prohibition movement, a natural effort to bring into politics, in the absence of larger questions, a matter on which a great body of men and women feel strongly, is in itself a significant evidence of the disposition to turn to social questions, but the great movement now beginning in the rise of the Labor Party takes hold of these questions lower down, and whatever 293
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importance prohibition may for some time retain in local politics, the drawing of political lines on a wider and deeper issue must throw its supporters to one side or the other of the larger question. The deepest of all issues is now beginning to force its way into our politics, and in the nature of things it must produce a change that will compel men to take their stand on one side or the other, irrespective of their views on smaller questions. Of all social adjustments, that which fixes the relation between men and the land they live on is the most important, and it is that which is coming up now. It has been, of course, for a long time evident that American politics, in the future, must turn upon the social or industrial questions, and while the questions growing out of the slavery struggle have been losing importance, these questions have been engaging more and more thought, and arousing stronger and stronger feeling. What men are thinking about, and feeling about, and disputing about, must, ere long, become the burning question of politics, and the organization of labor, the massing of capital, the increasing intensity of the struggle for existence, and the increasing bitterness under it, have for years made it clear that in one shape or another the great labor question must succeed the slavery question in our politics. In farmers’ granges and alliances, and anti-monopoly associations, in trades unions and federations, and notably in the enormous growth of the Knights of Labor, a vague, but giant power has been arising, which could only reach its ends through political action. What has delayed the crystallization of these forces into a political party has been the indefiniteness of thought on such subjects. Discontent with existing conditions there has been enough, but when it came to the improvement of these conditions by political action there was no agreement. In short, up to this time, labor has not gone into politics, because it did not really know what to do in politics. This great vague power has been like a vast body of unorganized men anxious to go somewhere, but utterly ignorant of the road and without leaders whom they have learned to trust. And while one has called ‘‘this way!’’ and another ‘‘that way!’’ and constant efforts have been made by little parties starting out in this or that direction to get the great mass to follow them, the main body has refused to move. The Greenback-Labor Party was a protest against the wasteful and unjust financial management which has enriched the few at the expense of the many, and it appealed with great strength to the debtor class; but the issue that it tried to raise was not large enough to move the great body. So with the various anti-monopoly movements, and with the local labor parties which have here and there from time to time carried a municipal or county
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election, and sometimes by combining forces with one or the other of the two great parties have carried a state. With all such movements the fatal weakness has been that they could formulate no large vital issue on which they could agree. Political parties cannot be manufactured, they must grow. No matter how much the existing political parties may have ceased to represent vital principles and real distinctions, it is not possible for any set of men to collect together incongruous elements of discontent and by compromising differences and pooling demands create a live party. The initiative must be a movement of thought. The formation of a real party follows the progress of an idea. When some fundamental issue, that involves large principles and includes smaller questions, and that will on the one hand command support and on the other compel opposition, begins to come to the front in thought and discussion, then a new party, or rather two new parties, must begin to form, though of course one or both may retain old names and develop from old organizations. That now is the situation. Gradually yet rapidly the land question has been forcing itself upon attention; and that process of education that has been going on in Central Labor Unions, in Assemblies of the Knights of Labor and in the movements, abortive though they may have been in themselves, by which it has been attempted to unite the political power of the discontented classes, has been steadily directing thought toward the relation between men and the land on which they live, as the key to social difficulties and labor troubles. And this process has been powerfully aided by the interest and feeling that the Irish movement has aroused in the United States. Here, in fact, the tendencies of that movement have been more openly radical than in Ireland. Shut out of Ireland, The Irish World has freely circulated here, and in the beginning of the Irish movement sowed broadcast among a most important section of our people the doctrine of the natural right to the land; and while the influential editors and politicians and clergymen who have been so ready to assert or to assent to the truth that God made Ireland for the Irish people and not for the landlords, have been careful to avoid any insinuation that this continent was also made by the same power and for an equally impartial purpose, they too have been unwittingly aiding in the same work. I was originally of the opinion that the first large steps to the solution of the labor question by the recognition of equal rights to land would be taken on the other side of the Atlantic, and in what I have done to help in arousing sentiment there have always had in mind the reflex action on this country, where, as I have told our friends on the other side, I believed the movement
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would be quicker when it did fairly start. But, although I have known better perhaps than anyone else, how widely and how deeply the ideas that I among others have been striving to propagate have been taking root in the United States, they have reached the stage of political action quicker than the most sanguine among us would have dared to imagine. In going into the municipal contest in New York last fall on the principle of abolishing taxation on improvements and putting taxes on land values irrespective of improvements, the United Labor Party of New York City raised an issue, which by the opposition it aroused and the strength it evoked showed the line along which the coming cleavage of parties must run. We did not win that election; few among us really cared for winning, or we were not struggling for offices. But we did more than win an election. We brought the labor question – or what is the same thing, the land question – into practical politics. And it is here to stay. The coming party is not yet fairly organized, nor is the name it will be known by probably yet adopted. But it has an idea, and that an idea that is growing in strength every day, and that from the opposition it provokes, no less than from the enthusiasm it arouses, must gain support with accelerating rapidity. For so monstrous is the notion that some men must pay other men for the use of this planet – so repugnant to all ideas of justice and all dictates of public policy is it that the values created by social growth and social improvement shall go but to swell the incomes of class; so opposed to the first and strongest of perceptions is it that the rights of individual ownership which properly attach to the products of human labor should attach to natural elements that no man made; and so clearly does the simple means by which the common right to land can be secured, the taking of land values (i.e., the value which attaches to land by means of social growth and improvement, and irrespective of the improvements made by the individual user) for public purposes harmonize with all other desirable reforms; that our present treatment of land as individual property can only be acquiesced in where it is not questioned or discussed. As this discussion goes on, and it is now going on all over the United States, the principle of common rights in the land, brought to a definite issue in the proposition to abolish all other taxes in favor of a tax on land values irrespective of improvements, must win adherents, and permeate and bring in line under its standard those associations and organizations whose existence is a proof of widely existing discontent, but which have lacked the definiteness of purpose necessary to successful political action.
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As yet the United Labor Party of New York is the strongest organization on the new lines, and the convention which it will hold in Syracuse on the eleventh of August will probably give an impetus to organization throughout the country, the way for which is now being prepared by the formation of Land and Labor Clubs. What is known as the Union Labor Party formed at Cincinnati in February by a gathering composed of some delegates from the Farmers’ Alliances of the West, Greenbackers, and Knights of Labor, with self-appointed representatives of all sorts of opinions and crotchets, was one of those attempts to manufacture a political party which are foredoomed to failure. Sooner or later its components must fall on one side or the other of the issue raised by the more definite movement. On which side the majority of them will fall there can be little doubt. While the new party aims at the emancipation of labor, and in its beginnings derives from the organization of labor that has been going on the strength which wherever it has yet appeared has made it at once a respectable factor in politics – it aims at the improvement of the conditions of labor, not by doing anything special for laborers, but by securing the equal rights of all men. It will not be a labor party in any narrow sense, and in the name which it will finally assume the word labor, if not dropped, will at least be freed from narrow connotations. But questions of name and questions of organization, are to us who see the coming of the new party, and who know its power, matters of comparatively unimportant detail. We have faith in the idea, and as that moves forward we know all else will follow. We can form no combinations and will make no compromises. How our progress may affect the political equilibrium, and give temporary success, locally or nationally, to either of the old parties, we care nothing at all. Even whether our own candidates, when we put them up, are elected or defeated, makes little difference – the contest will stimulate discussion and promote the cause. We follow a principle that through defeat must go on to final triumph. And because the new party that is forming is clustering round a great principle, we have no fear that it can be captured or betrayed. The ‘‘politicians’’ who would anywhere get hold of its organization, would get but an empty shell, unless they, too, bent themselves to serve the principle. What is the deep strength of the new movement is shown no less by the manner in which the Catholic masses have rallied around Dr. McGlynn than by the political power it has exhibited when its standard has been fairly raised. Whoever has witnessed one of these great meetings which the AntiPoverty Society is holding on Sunday evenings in New York, must see that
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an idea is coming to the front that lays hold upon the strongest of political forces – the religious sentiment; and that the ‘‘God wills it! God wills it!’’ of a new crusade is indeed beginning to ring forth. Our progress will at first be quicker in the cities than in the agricultural districts, simply because the men of the country are harder to reach; but whoever imagines that the foolish falsehood that we propose to put all taxes on farmers will long prevent the men who till the soil from rallying around our banner leans on a broken reed.
8. CAMPAIGN NOTES47 In the current issue of The Irish World, Patrick Ford publishes a long double-column, double-leaded, signed article entitled ‘‘Henry George’s Mistake,’’ in which he gives his reasons why ‘‘here where the roads fork I must bid good-bye to Henry George, still retaining for him the warmest personal regards and hoping that the day may come when we may again reunite in a good cause on a common platform.’’ The gist of these reasons is thus given: The open and violent opposition of Mr. George to the Catholic Church necessitates this action on my part. Henry George is a Protestant, was born and brought up a Protestant, and it is but natural, of course, that he should see the Catholic Church with the eyes of a Protestant. (I use the word Protestant here in the broadest sense.) An expression by him of his religious views, if called upon, in public or in private, could not offend any sensible man. His offense is that he has singled out the Catholic Church as an institution and has declared war against her as against an enemy of society. He has misrepresented her motives, derided her authority, and sought to bring her entire hierarchy, with the pope himself, into hatred and contempt. And with the virus of this hatred he has endeavored to inoculate the new political party of which he is the recognized head. According to Henry George the Catholic Church is an utterly corrupt organization, the foe of liberty and human rights the world over. It is made up of tyrants and slaves, and in it only hypocrites can be in good standing. If all this or one-half of it were true, then no honest man could remain in the Catholic Church, and indeed only such Catholics as openly challenge and defy excommunication are, in his opinion, honest men and worthy of admiration.
It is not necessary for me to say to the readers of The Standard, and especially to the Catholic readers of The Standard, including many Catholic priests and religious, that this is not true. But of all men, I am astonished that such a charge should come from Patrick Ford. For in his public and private utterances no man has more clearly drawn the distinction between the spiritual and the human, the church and the machine, than has Patrick Ford. However, this is a small matter. Patrick Ford has a perfect right to support me or to oppose me, and I do not care to question his grounds for so doing. If his religion is such that at the nod of archbishop, Propaganda, or pope he must turn his back upon the priest who incurred the hostility of 299
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the ecclesiastical machine for preaching that doctrine of land for the people, which Patrick Ford as a Catholic layman has over and over again declared to be God’s truth and God’s will, it is his own misfortune.48 But how is it that Patrick Ford should have become so silent about that doctrine? For years and years The Irish World unceasingly devoted its great influence to teaching its readers that the existing system by which the Godgiven heritage of all is treated as the private property of some individuals, is a wrong and a sin. This was the great distinctive feature of The Irish World; it was this that gave it its power; it was this that endeared it to thousands and thousands of earnest men, who, because of this, were proud to call themselves ‘‘Irish World men.’’ Patrick Ford may deem it his duty to oppose me; he may deem it his duty to stand by in silence while the priest who at his instance, as he says, came forward to make a public stand for this doctrine of the God-given and inalienable rights of all, is punished and persecuted; but why should he keep silent about the doctrine itself? He says in this very article that he yet stands upon the platform of the land for the people. How then is it that The Irish World no longer contains the telling extracts from the writings and speeches of Catholic bishops and laymen in favor of this doctrine that it used to publish? And that where its whole strength used to be devoted to ‘‘spreading the light’’ it does not now lisp one word. I am sorry for Patrick Ford. He is one of those who, having put their hands to the plow, turn to look back. The seed that he sowed is coming up faster and thicker than he could once have dreamed possible. The great cause that he did so much to forward counts today hundreds of thousands of earnest supporters. The issue is made and the battle is set – and Patrick Ford is silent. The great struggle for human rights, which has now come out of the realm of the abstract and into the arena of practical politics must be made, not only without him, but in spite of him, for the effect of his present utterances is to arouse religious prejudices against what he has so often declared to be a religious truth. But the good cause will go on to victory without him. No one who appreciates the good work Patrick Ford has done in the past will care to reproach him now. But it is a pity, nevertheless. In the meantime I commend to Patrick Ford the following article, written by a Catholic priest in good standing, the respected pastor of a very large parish, and sent to him to The Standard for publication. The Lyceum is a monthly magazine published by Jesuits in Dublin. Among its contributors are members of the faculty of their university college in the same city. A leading article in the current October number is entitled
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‘‘The Theology of Land Nationalization,’’ taking for service as text two extracts from Henry George’s works, and one from a small pamphlet by Father Higgins, a member of the same order, living now out in Kentucky. The erudite author observes: ‘‘We may note at the outset that the church has passed no formal judgment on the doctrine.’’ This is a definite and comprehensive proposition, entirely consonant with what is known by those who wish to learn that Cardinal Mazella, deputed by the Holy See to examine the writings of Henry George, found nothing censurable in them.49 Would it not be well for the directors of the Jesuit institutions in this city to pay heed to this and prevent such men as Father Prendergast from using coarse language in their pulpit and abusing the confessional by refusing absolution for Catholics for attending Anti-Poverty meetings. But the author of the article in the Lyceum proceeds to show that in the syllabus of Pius IX, par. four, quoted by Archbishop Corrigan in a letter which is part of the volume containing the acts of the late synod:50 Land Nationalization had no place in the holy father’s thoughts, and cannot be identified with the opinions he condemns. The same remark applies to the encyclical quod apostolici of the present pope, and there are no other pronouncements bearing, even remotely, upon the subject. Neither have the bishops judged the matter.
Why, then, it may be asked, do Jesuits and others presume to condemn and denounce opinions which their brethren in other lands uphold as entirely tenable? Are Catholics in New York to be excommunicated for exercising that common freedom guaranteed by their church and publicly maintained by their brethren beyond the sea? The question is too important to be put off with an offensive or malicious threat. The writer proceeds to prove the ‘‘total misapprehension of their meaning,’’ i.e., evinced in a ‘‘published criticism,’’ obviously referring to the archbishop’s synodical letter. He adduces the testimony of Cardinal Manning and Archbishop Walsh; the first, who ‘‘saw nothing to censure as unsound’’ in the works of Henry George; the second ‘‘declared in a published statement his adhesion to the principle of land nationalization.’’ He concludes: ‘‘The church, then, has pronounced no authoritative judgment upon the point we are discussing.’’ He advances further and shows clearly that the theory is in perfect conformity with the theology of the church. He very truly observes: We need not hope to find the theory of land nationalization discussed in set terms by the classical theologians. They had no idea of the modern theory, which makes ownership of land to be different in kind from ownership of any other property. But their judgment on it may be clearly gathered from the principles they lay down concerning property in general.
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He adduces extracts from the best writers of the church, such as: Molina, Sylvius, Lessius, Valentia, Salas, Vasquez, Aragon, the Saltimanticenses, Antoin, Viva, Crolly, Billuart, etc.,51 to establish the following conclusion, which I give in his own words, as follows: The importance of this teaching becomes apparent when we find that, according to the same authorities, the right of private property in material things is based upon the jus gentium.52 If private property is based upon the law of nations, and if the law of nations, like all positive human law, is liable to be abrogated or repealed by human will, private property may be abolished. Particular social circumstances will, no doubt, affect the morality of the abolition; what is desirable as well as valid in one place may be undesirable in another; but the abstract truth must be admitted that individual ownership is a product of positive legislation, and may be forbidden by it.
The intelligent reader can readily see how much more comprehensive is this statement than any to be found in the works of Henry George. Does the spiritual director of St. Francis Xavier’s alumni association permit this Jesuit monthly to be placed on the reading table of his young men? If so, why do the goody-goody pious members make faces at their clearheaded associates who have already accepted the new theory? As thinks the Catholic priest, so think thousands of the best and truest of Catholics, clergy and lay. The time is coming when the Corrigans and Simeonis will hold the same place in public estimation as is held today by the prelates and priests who a generation ago defended chattel slavery in the name of religion.
9. PERSONAL AND POLITICAL53 The discussion at the meeting of the Brooklyn County Committee of the United Labor Party on Tuesday evening of last week, Dr. McGlynn’s speech at the meeting of the downtown branch of the Anti-Poverty Society on the following Thursday evening, and various utterances and expressions which have since made through the press, make it necessary, in justice to myself and to my friends, that I should speak of matters thus brought up with greater frankness than I have hitherto cared to use, either in talking through these columns with the readers of The Standard, or in replying by letter to those who have written me on the subject of the coming presidential campaign. For some little time past an effort has been made, rather by insinuation and innuendo than by direct statement, to put me in the position of abandoning principle, for the purpose of helping the Democratic Party. In The Standard of the last issue but one I printed two letters from the West, in which I was remonstrated with the turning away from principle, and it was intimated in the ‘‘they are saying’’ style that I was engaged in ‘‘making a deal’’ with the Democratic Party. I did not feel it necessary in commenting upon these intimations to go further than the obvious considerations which were suggested by their face. In the general review of the political situation from our standpoint, of which I made these letters the text, I merely pointed out that: If it be assumed that our not running a ticket will be to the advantage of the Democrats, it must also be assumed that our running a ticket will be to the advantage of the Republicans. If, then, our refusal to run a ticket is to give rise to charges that we have sold out to the Democrats, how much more certain is it that, if we do run a ticket, we well be charged with having been paid by the Republicans to do so, and thus in the eyes of those who at other times might be disposed to act with us, be placed in the same contemptible position in which the Butler campaign land the Greenback-Labor Party, that of being a mere jackal and cats paw for the Republicans?54
This was as far as I cared to go, even under considerable provocation, in alluding to a matter that has been an important consideration in my thought and in the thought of some of us here in New York who have been in a position to really understand what lay beneath the proposition to run a candidate on a don’t-touch-the-tariff-question platform. This was as 303
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far as I had expected to go, for I felt, not merely an indisposition to anything like the public ‘‘washing of dirty linen,’’ but a very strong reluctance to assume an attitude that should savor of unfriendly opposition to Dr. McGlynn. That same reluctance I feel now. But since the charges to which the letters of Mr. Williams and Mr. Bailey gave me opportunity in some sort to reply have not only been put in more direct and more tangible form by the gentleman who is managing secretary of the committees that constitute all the state and general organizations which the United Labor Party has, but have been vehemently reechoed in the Anti-Poverty Society and through the press by Dr. McGlynn himself, I should do injustice not only to myself but to others if I did not speak more freely and frankly. Of Mr. Barnes’ asseverations of a friendship and intimacy, which, however much they may have existed for awhile, have for some time ceased to exist, and of the fly-on-the-chariot-wheel egotism which leads him to claim credit for my nomination for mayor or for my refusal of the offer of a seat in Congress, it is not worthwhile to speak.55 The statement to which all this was intended to give weight and point, was that in response to a question from him, I had declared that if a United Labor Party candidate were nominated this year on the Syracuse Platform I would not support him. In form this is not true. In spirit it is untrue. For what Mr. Barnes sought to convey, to the Brooklyn Committee, was the same idea which has since been substantially repeated by Dr. McGlynn – that I was primarily bent on the support of Mr. Cleveland, and for this reason had deliberately turned away from the principles of the Syracuse Platform.56 With the exception of a few casual words on one of the days immediately succeeding the election, in which I understood Mr. Barnes to express the belief that the result of that election had made hopeless any idea of our entering the presidential campaign, the only conversation in which he could have heard anything like this from me was a conversation in which a number of gentlemen took part. In a communication published in the Herald, Mr. Barnes, reiterating the statement, says I made the declaration to him in the presence of Mr. John McMakin and others.57 Thus there can be no doubt that it was this conversation he had in mind. And since Mr. Barnes in his course in this matter has the support of Dr. McGlynn and Mr. McMakin, whatever tacit obligation I might otherwise have been under as to speaking of such conversation is now removed. There were present at this conversation, which took place at 28 Cooper Union, about five or six weeks after the election, Dr. McGlynn, Mr. Barnes, and Mr. McMakin, who constitute the Land and Labor Committee, and (as
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the majority of five) virtually the Executive Committee of the State Committee; and Mr. Louis F. Post, Mr. W.T. Croasdale, Mr. J.W. Sullivan, and myself.58 It was a little informal conference or ‘‘takeover,’’ called by Dr. McGlynn, at my request, made as soon as I found the serious divergence as to policy that existed between us. If any of us last named have any claim to be considered ‘‘leaders’’ of the United Labor Party or Anti-Poverty movement, this is the only conference or consultation that has yet taken place between these ‘‘leaders’’ on this most important matter. If any other consultations have been held, they nave not included any of us. At this informal conference, the talk ran not so much on nominating a presidential candidate, as on what was really the more fundamental and primary question of platform, and on the manner and terms of the call for the nominating assemblage. The plan of the members of the committee as then developed to us was to ignore the tariff question – to declare in the platform and assume on the stump that the masses of the people had no concern either with protection or free trade. It was after my protest against this that I was asked – not by Mr. Barnes, but by Dr. McGlynn – not whether I would support a presidential candidate of the United Labor Party if he were nominated on the Syracuse Platform, but, whether I would be satisfied to go into the national campaign on the Syracuse Platform. To this I responded that I would not. I am not in the habit of sailing under false colors, or of hiding from friend or foe my real sentiments on important public questions; and even if I had deemed the Syracuse Platform sufficiently explicit on all points for a national campaign, it would have been unsatisfactory the moment it was proposed to use it straddle a vital issue. The plan of the committee as developed to us, further, to call, not a conference, but a convention, and to make the terms of the call such as would exclude any but those prepared to go into the presidential contest. There was no objection on our part to a calling of a national conference, but there was strong objection to forestalling the proper function of that conference, by calling at once a convention, and especially to the proposed exclusion in the terms of the call. It was further intimated that the states in which it was proposed to make a vigorous campaign were New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana – the four states namely in which we might help to give electoral votes to the Republicans. The object of this was not denied. It was asserted that the Democratic Party was our bitter enemy, and that what we ought to try to do in practical politics was to aid the Republicans to beat it. And, lastly, it was suggested that the word ‘‘labor’’ ought to be retained in the name of the
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party – the significance of which, while we had some inkling of it at the time, has more fully appeared since. Instead of reconciling differences, this conversation merely showed the irreconcilable nature of the difference that existed. Messrs. Post, Croasdale, Sullivan, and myself left with the clear conviction that what the Central Committee of the Land and Labor Party were thinking of really amounted to nothing more nor less than the Butlerizing of the United Labor Party and the turning of the political side of the Anti-Poverty movement into a Republican annex, which might in the coming campaign help to assure protectionism a new lease of plunder and a new opportunity to rivet its bonds on the people of the United States.59 I am not to be understood as questioning motives, and especially the motives of a man for whom I have so sincere a respect as I have for Dr. McGlynn. He has no bias toward protectionism and no special love either for Mr. Blaine or for the Republican Party.60 He is a free trader, with convictions of the absurdity and impolicy of protection, and was a political friend and efficient supporter of Mr. Cleveland in his first election. What is mainly influencing him, as was obvious from his remarks in this conversation, is his not unnatural hostility toward the ‘‘ecclesiastical machine,’’ which he seems to think is identified, in our cities at least, with the Democratic Party, and his belief that a presidential campaign during which, in at least the four states named, means might be found to hold meetings and keep speakers traveling, would afford a good opportunity to preach the doctrine of the ‘‘land for the people.’’ I do not question Dr. McGlynn’s motives, but for my part I claim the right to take a different view. There are, to my mind, things of much more importance than the ‘‘ecclesiastical machine,’’ and I am not ready to sacrifice principle for the opportunity to preach principle. I am not ready to eat my words and to stultify my record. I am not ready to become the stalking horse and decoy duck of any political combination. I have never quarreled with nor denounced Dr. McGlynn because of his opinions. Yet it is because I have refused to surrender not merely my opinions but my firm convictions that he has assumed to excommunicate me from the United Labor Party and to declare that, if ever permitted to come back, it must be to take a much humbler position. If the doctor will think he will find it difficult to imagine a much humbler position than that which, out of deference to him and an indisposition to have any difference with him, I have for some time occupied – that of an ostensible leader in a party in whose managing counsels I have been utterly ignored.
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The protest of Messrs. Post, Croasdale, Sullivan, and myself, made at the conversation of which I have spoken, against the program of the committee – and especially the emphatic denials on the part of Messrs. Post and Croasdale of any authority on the part of the committee to issue a call for a nominating convention instead of a conference or to prescribe a test that would exclude those not in favor of nominating – seemed to give the committee pause; and the call, which we were informed was to have been issued in a few days, has not yet to my knowledge appeared. I have had no further information of the plans of the committee or of what form they have been doing, but it has been plain from what has since occurred that the disposition to thus turn the United Labor Party into a Republican sideshow has strengthened, not weakened, though our refusal to lend ourselves has made it much more difficult, and opinions adverse to any attempt to enter national politics this year has been gaining ground. It has been evident from the columns of The Standard that the more thoughtful and influential men of the party all over the country have, even without any knowledge of the inside purpose of the committee, been coming to the conclusion that it would be impolitic for the United Labor Party to run a presidential campaign this year, and that a very great number even of those who are disposed to stand up and be counted are not prepared to ignore the tariff question. The recent letter of Judge Maguire, who has been much talked of as an available presidential candidate, in which he declared against going into the presidential campaign, must have been to the committee especially indicative of the drift of opinion. It is this consciousness of losing ground which I think led to the open and deliberate attack which began in the Brooklyn County Committee last Tuesday night. At a previous meeting of the New York County Committee a resolution drawn by Mr. Barnes declaring the determination of the party ‘‘not to be diverted by any issue of tariff tinkering from exclusive and unswerving support of the fundamental reforms set forth in the Syracuse Platform,’’ was railroaded through without the members seeing its real import, and before the committee had, in fact, organized. In the Brooklyn committee, where Mr. Barnes has a seat and Mr. Wilder, a staunch Blaine protectionist, is chairman, it was evidently determined to put forth this policy in stronger form, and to back it up by a formal reading of me out of the party. Mr. Barnes having begun, Dr. McGlynn followed at the branch Anti-Poverty meeting on Thursday night. Mr. Barnes and Dr. McGlynn have assumed to put me in the position of one who has turned aside. But is it really they who have changed?
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Up to the time when the election returns showed that we had but 70,000 votes when we had expected 150,000, it was assumed almost as a matter of course that we would enter the national field in the presidential campaign; but whatever might have been thought by such half converts as Mr. Wilder, no one intelligently acquainted with the principles we had asserted ever dreamed of ignoring the tariff question in a national campaign. I, certainly, never heard of such an idea breathed. On the contrary, it was expected that we would be THE free-trade party, and as it was assumed that the Democratic Party would still try to shirk the tariff issue, we believed that by raising the standard of unqualified free trade in the national campaign we would call to its support many from both old parties that we could not at first attract in any other way. As for the Syracuse Platform, I was the chairman of the committee that drafted it and reported it, and no one who knows me will dream that I would have been a party to anything which was in the nature of a compromise between protectionism and free trade in a national campaign. The principle of free trade is stated in abstract in the Syracuse Platform, but the campaign for which it was made being purely a state campaign, no one thought it necessary when no question of principle was involved to run any risk of offending any protectionist who might be disposed to act with us by using the terms ‘‘protection’’ or ‘‘free trade.’’ It was not supposed at Syracuse that the platform itself was to be made the platform of a national party, but merely that the great principles therein laid down were to be made the framework of a national platform. The notion of ignoring the tariff question in a national campaign was never thought of, even at 28 Cooper Union until some time after the election, since one of the first suggestions talked of (and for a time at least, as I am informed by Mr. Croasdale, received favorably by Mr. Barnes himself), was that of joining forces with the free traders in running presidential candidates, and I was invited to make an address before the Anti-Poverty Society on the tariff question – something which could hardly have occurred if Mr. Barnes and Dr. McGlynn had at that time taken their present view of the tariff question. The proposition to ignore the tariff question arises from the desire to advance a principle. And to this desire to have and to run a party all things, it is evident, are to be made to bend. Just after the last election Dr. McGlynn made a very strong speech at an Anti-Poverty meeting at the Academy of Music, in which, with great emphasis he declared that we must get rid of the word ‘‘labor’’ in our political designation, and declared his preference for the ‘‘Commonwealth Party.’’ Now, what his committee is waiting and what his committee is hoping for is the formation of one of these ‘‘labor parties,’’
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composed of politically incongruous elements which have time and again proved utter failures. Last spring, we of the United Labor Party of New York steadily refused to have anything to do with the attempt to form another ‘‘union of all the labor elements,’’ which at a conference of all sorts of ‘‘reformers’’ held in Cincinnati resulted in the formation of what is called the ‘‘Union Labor Party.’’ We (the committee included) not only refused to have anything to do with this attempt to manufacture a party, but we derided its method and the inconsequential platform which was the result of the compromises of such a mixture of heterogeneous ‘‘ists’’ and ‘‘isms.’’ Now, in their desire to get up a party of some kind, there are various significant indications that the committee of which Dr. McGlynn is head is planning to make a merger of what they would call the United Labor Party with the Union Labor Party, the socialists and all the other so-called ‘‘labor elements,’’ upon some sort of a hodgepodge platform, giving if necessary the presidential candidate to the Union Labor Party but of course retaining the position of secretary – one of much greater practical importance in a party when anything might befall the presidential candidate except that he should get an electoral vote. I have never said that I would support Mr. Cleveland, and whatever report may have been made to this effect is false. What I have said is that if Mr. Cleveland in the next campaign stands for the free-trade side of the tariff issue I will support him. And I say so in advance, as I think every man who so feels ought to say, because the protectionists within the Democratic Party are striving to defeat Mr. Cleveland’s renomination, on the ground that he cannot be elected because of the free trade of his message. I have no personal acquaintance with Mr. Cleveland; I never have even set eyes on him. I have had no communication with him or any of his friends directly or indirectly. In the last presidential campaign I refused to make speeches for him when asked to. I would have worked and voted for Butler had it not been evident that he was in the field only to help the Republican ticket. As it was, I did not stay at home to vote for anybody, but a few days before the election went off to Scotland where our friends wanted me. But I first got a Blaine man to agree that if I went he would not vote – because I believed that the quicker the party that had been so long in power was ousted the quicker would the economic question come up and party lines drawn on new issues. This choice between the parties – that one was in and the other was out – was all I could see in that election. This year the hope I see of bringing on a general discussion of economic or social questions (for the social questions are at bottom economic) is far
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clearer and nearer. It lies in doing the utmost that can be done to widen the breach that the tariff question is beginning to make in the lines of both of the old parties, and in pushing on the free-trade fight even though at first it takes the shape of mere halfhearted reform. That is the reason I shall, under the conditions mentioned, support Mr. Cleveland. I shall support any other man in his stead who shall fulfill this condition, for my support will have in it no personal element. I shall support Mr. Cleveland from the same motives that induced me to run for mayor and for secretary of state – because I see in the pushing forward of the tariff question the best way at present, of clearing the way for the great principle which I regard as of most importance, and of moving forward a recognition of the equal rights of American citizens in their native land. I would, of course, very much rather support a presidential candidate who should stand on the principles of the United Labor Party as I understand them. But, to go no further, it now seems to me idle to hope that if we were to put up such a candidate we could poll our real strength for him; and the very attempt on the part of so many to enter the national field on the basis of ignoring the most important national issues, is, to my mind, evidence that the process of education has not yet gone far enough to enable us to act together in national politics. Under these circumstances I will support Mr. Cleveland, not as the thing I would best like to do, but as the best thing I can do. When the wind is ahead the sailor does not insist on keeping his ship to the course he would like to go. That would be to drift astern. Nor yet for the sake of having a fair wind does he keep his yards square and sail anywhere the wind may carry him. He sails ‘‘full and by,’’ lying as near the course he would like to go as with the existing wind he can. He cannot make the wind, but he can use it. In supporting Mr. Cleveland, if he shall stand against protection, and the struggle between him and the Republican nominee shall be made on the tariff issue, I shall not be joining the Democratic Party nor in any way interfering with my liberty to oppose that party anywhere else or in any other thing. Nor for my support of Mr. Cleveland as the representative of the free-trade side of the tariff fight will I expect any thanks. The spoils hunting Democratic politicians who will have to be kicked into that fight, and who will try to protest that no real harm is meant to the sacred white elephant of protection, will have no thanks for the support of those whose declared object it is to abolish protection entirely, but to abolish the tariff entirely, and to bring about with the whole world as perfect freedom of trade as now exists between the states of the American Union. It may perhaps even be that the support of radical free traders like myself will
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not help Mr. Cleveland’s election. But I shall care very little for Mr. Cleveland’s election. What I care for is to bring on the tariff discussion. For I regard the general discussion of the tariff question as involving greater possibilities of popular economic education than anything else. And as I have often said when myself standing as a candidate, what I care for is not how men vote, but how they think. In all this I speak for myself. I never proposed that the United Labor Party should endorse Mr. Cleveland or any other candidate of any other party. I have never presumed to control any vote but my own or to lead anyone, who stands with me on state issues, in any direction on national issues in which he is not inclined of himself to go. My position is and has been this: When we are agreed let us act together. When we disagree let us agree to disagree without prejudice to our acting together at such times and in such fields as we can act together. I shall not accuse Mr. Wilder of going back on the position he took last fall if on the tariff question he supports what I oppose, nor will any opposition in which we may thus be placed on this question of national taxation prevent me from striking hands with him when he comes again into the field where the issue is of state taxation. And so far from wishing Mr. Wilder to make any compromise that will prevent him from advocating protection, I hope, since he cannot yet see his way to oppose protection, that he will do his best to defend and advocate it, and make as many and as strong protectionist speeches as he can. Free discussion sets men thinking and thus brings out the truth. I myself was a protectionist until I heard an honest and able protectionist explain and advocate the system. That made me a free trader. The same right which I freely accord to others I claim for myself. When I participated in the formation of the United Labor Party in the state of New York, and accepted its nomination as head of its ticket, I did not surrender my rights as a man and a citizen and agree to allow Dr. McGlynn, Mr. Gaybert Barnes, and Mr. John McMakin to do my thinking for me. Nor am I to be forced by any threat of being denounced as an abandoner of principles into submissive acquiescence in a policy which is opposed alike to my judgment of what is wise and my convictions of what is right, and which would practically make of me but a stalking horse and decoy duck for the benefit of what I would not and could not openly support. If anyone has thought this he may have been acquainted with me, but he did not know me. There is a superficial plausibility in the motive of ‘‘going straight on’’ that at first captivates the impulsive. But when it is seen that what is meant by going straight on is to make a national campaign on what are really state
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issues; to ignore the issue that is likely to divide the people, and to run off to the territories for some excuse for appearing in a national campaign; and when it is seen that what is to be achieved practically by this is to help one of the two great parties in doubtful states, and to land the United Labor Party in the same ignominious death trap into which Butler led the GreenbackLabor Party, I have no question of what will be the verdict of the majority of our friends. We have with us those to whom party is everything – those who wish a party on any terms and at any cost, because their connection with it, even if it be a little, wee bit of a party, may give them position and influence that they would not have without it. But to the great body of our friends party is not an end but a means. They are not to be led to sacrifice principle by any pretended necessity of keeping up a party. Nor are they to be used as tools. When they want to help a Republican president they will vote the Republican ticket.
10. THE LAND FOR THE PEOPLE61 The land question is not merely a question between farmers and the owners of agricultural land. It is a question that affects every man, every woman, and every child. The land question is simply another name for the great labor question, and the people who think of the land question as having importance simply for farmers forget what land is. If you would realize what land is, think of what men would be without land. If there were no land, where would be the people? Land is not merely a place to graze cows or sheep upon, to raise corn or raise cabbage. It is the indispensable element necessary to the life of every human being. We are all land animals; our very bodies come from the land, and to the land they return again. Whether a man dwells in the city or in the country, whether he be a farmer, a laborer, a mechanic, a manufacturer, or a soldier, land is absolutely necessary to his life. No matter what his occupation, it is simply the application of human exertion to land, the changing in place or in form of the matter of the universe. We speak of productive work. What is productive work? We make things. How do we make them? Man does not create them. Man cannot create something out of nothing. All the things that we call making are producing, bringing forth, not creating. Men produce coal by going down under the ground, hewing out the coal, and bringing it to the surface of the earth; they produce fish by going to the lough, or river, or ocean and pulling the fish out; they produce houses by bringing together timber and stones and iron into the shape and form of a house; they produce cloth by taking the wool of a sheep or the fibers of a plant and bringing them together in a certain connection; they produce crops by opening the ground and putting in seed and leaving it there for the germinating influences of Nature – always abringing forth, never a creation, so that human exertion, that is to say labor upon land, is the only way that man has of bringing forth those things which his needs require and which are necessary to enable him to sustain life. Land and labor – these are the two necessary and indispensable factors to the production of wealth. 313
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Now, as to the rights of ownership – as to that principle which enables a man to say of any certain things: ‘‘This is mine; it is my property’’ – where does that come from? If you look you will see that it comes from the right of the producer to the thing which he produces. What a man makes he can justly claim to be his. Whatever any individual, by the exercise of his powers, takes from the reservoirs of Nature, molds into shapes fitted to satisfy human needs, that is his; to that a just and sacred right of property attaches. That is a right based on the right of the individual to improvement, the right to the enjoyment of his own powers, to the possession of the fruits of his exertions. That is a sacred right, to violate which is to violate the sacred command: ‘‘Thou shalt not steal.’’ There is the right of ownership. Now that right, which gives by natural and divine laws, the thing produced to him whose exertion has produced it, which gives to the man who builds a house the right to that house, to the man who raises a crop the right to that crop, to the man who raises a domestic animal a right to that domestic animal – how can that right attach to the reservoirs of Nature? How can that right attach to the earth itself? We start out with these two principles, which I think are clear and selfevident: that which a man makes belongs to him, and can by him be given or sold to anyone that he pleases. But that which existed before man came upon the earth, that which was not produced by man, but which was created by God – that belongs equally to all men. As no man made the land, so no man can claim a right of ownership in the land. As God made the land, and as we know both from natural perception and from revealed religion, that God the Creator is no respecter of persons, that in His eyes all men are equal, so also do we know that He made this earth equally for all the human creatures that He has called to dwell upon it. We start out with this clear principle that as all men are here by the equal permission of the Creator, as they are all here under His laws equally requiring the use of land, as they are all here with equal right to live, so they are all here with equal right to the enjoyment of His bounty. We claim that the land of Ireland, like the land of every country, cannot justly belong to any class, whether that class be large or small; but that the land of Ireland, like the land of every other country, justly belongs in usufruct to the whole people of that country equally, and that no man and no class of men can have any just right in the land that is not equally shared by all others. We say that all the social difficulties we see here, all the social difficulties that exist in England or Scotland, all the social difficulties that are growing up in the United States – the lowness of wages, the scarcity of employment,
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the fact that though labor is the producer of wealth, yet everywhere the laboring class is the poor class – are all due to one great primary wrong, that wrong which makes the natural element necessary to all, the natural element that was made by the Creator for the use of all, the property of some of the people, that great wrong that in every civilized country disinherited the mass of men of the bounty of their Creator. What we aim at is not the increase in the number of a privileged class, not making some thousands of earth owners into some more thousands. No, no; what we aim at is to secure the natural and God-given right to the humblest in the community – to secure to every child born in Ireland, or in any other country, his natural right to the equal use of his native land. How can we secure that? We cannot secure it by dividing the land up equally, by giving each man or each family an equal piece. That is a device that might suit a rude community, provided that, as under the Mosaic Code, those equal pieces he made inalienable, so that they could never be sold away from the family. But under our modern civilization where industry is complex, where land in some places is very valuable and in other places of but little value, where it is constantly changing in relative value, the equal division of the land could not secure equality. The way to secure equality is plain. It is not by dividing the land; it is by calling upon those who are allowed possession of pieces of land giving special advantage to pay to the whole community, the rest of the people, aye, and including themselves – to the whole people, a fair rent or premium for that privilege, and using the fund so obtained for the benefit of the whole people. What we would do would be to make the whole people the general landlord, to have whatever rent is paid for the use of land to go, not into the pockets of individual landlords, but into the treasury of the general community, where it could be used for the common benefit. Now, rent is a natural and just thing. For instance, if we in this room were to go together to a new country and we were to agree that we should settle in that new country on equal terms how could we divide the land up in such a way as to ensure and to continue equality? If it were proposed that we should divide it up into equal pieces, there would be in the first place this objection, that in our division we would not fully know the character of the land; one man would get a more valuable piece than the other. Then as time passed the value of different pieces of land would change, and further than that if we were once to make a division and then allow full and absolute ownership of the land, inequality would come up in the succeeding generation. One man would be thriftless, another man, on the contrary, would be extremely keen in saving and pushing; one man would be
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unfortunate and another man more fortunate; and so on. In a little while many of these people would have parted with their land to others, so that their children coming after them into the world would have no land. The only fair way would be this – that any man among us should be at liberty to take up any piece of land, and use it, that no one else wanted to use; that where more than one man wanted to use the same piece of land, the man who did use it should pay a premium which, going into a common fund and being used for the benefit of all, would put everybody upon a plane of equality. That would he the ideal way of dividing up the land of a new country. The problem is how to apply that to an old country. True, we are confronted with this fact all over the civilized world, that a certain class has got possession of the land, and want to hold it. Now one of your distinguished leaders, Mr. Parnell in his Drogheda speech some years ago, said there were only two ways of getting the land for the people. One way was to buy it, the other was to fight for it. I do not think that is true. I think that Mr. Parnell overlooked at that time a most important third way, and that is the way we advocate. That is what we propose by what we call the single tax. We propose to abolish all taxes for revenue. In place of all the taxes that are now levied, to impose one single tax, and that a tax upon the value of land. Mark me, upon the value of land alone – not upon the value of improvements, not upon the value of what the exercise of labor has done to make land valuable, that belongs to the individual; but upon the value of the land itself, irrespective of the improvements, so that an acre of land that has not been improved will pay as much tax as an acre of like land that has been improved. So that in a town a house site on which there is no building shall be called upon to pay just as much tax as a house site on which there is a house. I said that rent is a natural thing. So it is. Where one man, all rights being equal, has a piece of land of better quality than another man, it is only fair to all that he should pay the difference. Where one man has a piece of land and others have none, it gives him a special advantage; it is only fair that he should pay into the common fund the value of that special privilege granted him by the community. That is what is called economic rent. But over and above the economic rent there is the power that comes by monopoly, there is the power to extract a rent, which may be called monopoly rent. On this island that I have supposed we go and settle on, under the plan we have proposed each man should pay annually to the special fund in accordance with the special privilege the peculiar value of the piece of land he held, and those who had land of no peculiar value should pay nothing. That rent that would be payable by the individual to the
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community would only amount to the value of the special privilege that he enjoyed from the community. But if one man owned the island, and if we went there and you people were fools enough to allow me to lay claim to the ownership of the island and say it belonged to me, then I could charge a monopoly rent; I could make you pay me every penny that you earned, save just enough for you to live; and the reason I could not make you pay more is simply this, that if you would pay more you would die. The power to exact that monopoly rent comes from the power to hold land idle – comes from the power to keep labor off the land. Tax up land to its full value and that power would be gone; the richest landowners could not afford to hold valuable land idle. Everywhere that simple plan would compel the landowner either to use his land or to sell out to some one who would; and the rent of land would then fall to its true economic rate – the value of the special privilege it gave would go not to individuals, but to the general community, to be used for the benefit of the whole community. I cannot pass on without mentioning the name of one of the distinguished Irishmen who has declared for the principle long before they heard of me. I refer to only one name. Many of you know, and doubtless all of you have heard, of Dr. Nulty, the Bishop of Meath. In 1881, before I had ever been in Ireland or Dr. Nulty had ever heard of me, he wrote a letter on the land question to the clergy and laity of the diocese of Meath. Dr. Nulty lays down precisely the principle that I have endeavored to lay down here before you briefly, that there is a right of ownership that comes from work, from production; that it is the law of Nature, the law of God, that all men should work; that what a man produces by his labor belongs to him; that the reservoir from which everything must come – the land itself can belong to no man, and that its proper treatment is just as I have proposed to let there be security of possession, and to let those who have special privileges pay into the common fund for those privileges, and to use that fund for the benefit of all. Dr. Nulty goes on to say what every man who has studied this subject will cordially endorse, that the natural law of rent – that law by which population increases the value of land in certain places and makes it grow higher and higher – that principle by which, as the city grows, land becomes more valuable – that that is to his mind the clearest and best proof, not merely of the intelligence but of the beneficence of the Creator. For he shows clearly that is the natural provision by virtue of which, if men would only obey God’s law of justice, if men would only obey the fundamental maxim of Christianity to do to others as they would be done to them: that by virtue of that provision, as the advance of civilization went on, it would be toward
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a greater and greater equality among men – not as now to a more and more monstrous inequality. These are the plain, simple principles for which we contend, and our practical measure for restoring to all men of any country their equal rights in the land of that country is simply to abolish other taxes, to put a tax upon the value of land, irrespective of the improvements, to carry that tax up as fast as we can, until we absorb the full value of the land, and we say that that would utterly destroy the monopoly of land and create a fund for the benefit of the entire community. How easy a way that is to go from an unjust situation like the present to an ideally just situation may be seen among other things in this. Where you propose to take land for the benefit of the whole people you are at once met by the demands of the landlords for compensation. Now if you tax them, no one ever heard of such an idea as to compensate a people for imposing tax. In that easy way the land can again be made the property in usufruct of the whole people, by a gentle and gradual process. What I ask you here tonight is as far as you can to join in this general movement and push on the cause. It is not a local matter, it is a worldwide matter. It is not a matter that interests merely the people of Ireland, the people of England and Scotland, or of any other country in particular, but it is a matter that interests the whole world. What we are battling for is the freedom of mankind; what we are struggling for is for the abolition of that industrial slavery which as much enslaves men as did chattel slavery. It will not take the sword to win it. There is a power far stronger than the sword and that is the power of public opinion. When the masses of men know what hurts them and how it can he cured when they know what to demand, and to make their demand heard and felt, they will have it and no power on earth can prevent them. What enslaves men everywhere is ignorance and prejudice. If we were to go to that island that we imagined, and if you were fools enough to admit that the land belonged to me, I would be your master, and you would be my slaves just as thoroughly, just as completely, as if I owned your bodies, for all I would have to do to send you out of existence would be to say to you: ‘‘Get off my property.’’ That is the cause of the industrial slavery that exists all over the world, that is the cause of the low wages, that is the cause of the unemployed labor. How can you remedy it? Only by going to first principles, only by asserting the natural rights of man. You cannot do it by any such scheme as is proposed here of buying out the landlords and selling again to the tenant farmers. What good is that going to do to the laborers? What benefit is it to be to the artisans of the
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city? And what benefit is it going to be to the farming class in the long run? For just as certain as you do that, just as certain will you see going on here what we have seen going on in the United States, and by the vicissitudes of life, by the changes of fortune, by the differences among men – some men selling and mortgaging, some men acquiring wealth and others becoming poorer – in a little while you will have the reestablishment of the old system. But it is not just in any consideration. What better right has an agricultural tenant to receive any special advantage from the community than any other man? If farms are to be bought for the agricultural tenant, why should not boots for the artisans, shops for the clerks, boats for the fishermen – why should not the government step in to furnish everyone with capital? And consider this with regard to the buying out of the landlords. Why, in heaven’s name, should they be bought out? Bought out of what? Bought out of the privilege of imposing a tax upon their fellow citizens? Bought out of the privilege of appropriating what belongs to all? That is not justice. If, when the people regain their rights, compensation is due to anybody, it is due to those who have suffered injustice, not to those who have caused it and profited by it.
NOTES 1. George,‘‘Letter to Archbishop Corrigan.’’ In Post and Leubuscher ([1887] 1961, pp. 139–149). The letter is dated Dec. 7, 1886. 2. The Duke of Sutherland, among others, was notorious during the land clearances in Scotland in the early nineteenth century. According to Julia Bastian, ‘‘in 1807 the Duke of Sutherland ordered his agents to clear some 15,000 inhabitants from his land and to burn their homes’’ (quoted in Wenzer, 1999a,1999b, p. 159). 3. Individual Roman land holdings were replaced by large estates known as latifundias on which labored people in slave-like circumstances in return for protection. 4. The Restoration period was from 1660 to 1688 with the reestablishment of the monarchy, i.e., from the accession of Charles II to the fall of James II. 5. A reference to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. 6. Stephen Girard (1750–1831), who was born in France, became a wealthy Philadelphia businessman noted for philanthropy. John J. Astor (1763–1848) was born in Germany but made a fortune in the United States as a merchant and fur trader. At his death he was the richest man in the country. Some of his descendants, known for their wealth, were prominent in public affairs. 7. Henry George, ‘‘The Case of Dr. M’Glynn,’’ The Standard, Jan. 15, 1887. 8. A reference to New York. 9. Latin ex cathedra: ‘‘from authority’’ or literally ‘‘from the chair.’’ In other words, when a pope makes a religious decision he is considered to speak infallibly in matters of faith and morals. 10. A reference to Thomas S. Preston. 11. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was the noted Italian astronomer and mathematician. The Roman Inquisition was established as a tribunal in 1231 and the Spanish Inquisition in 1480, both slated to fight heresy. They were abolished at the beginning of the nineteenth century. 12. The College of the Propaganda was established in 1627 by Pope Urban VIII to educate priests for missionary work. 13. A reference to Henry George. 14. Possibly George Errington (1804–1886), the Catholic bishop of Plymouth. 15. A reference to George’s United Labor Party. 16. The ‘‘vicar-general’’ is Thomas S. Preston and the ‘‘workingmen’s candidate’’ is Henry George. 17. James A. McMaster (1820–1886) was the editor and owner of the New York Freeman’s Journal.
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18. The Carlists were supporters of Don Carlos (1788–1855) who claimed the throne of Spain. They were defeated by Isabella II in a civil war that lasted from 1836 to 1839. Then they instigated more uprisings and then another unsuccessful civil war from 1873 to 1876. 19. A united Italy was declared in 1871 with the annexation of Rome; it was frowned upon by the papacy. 20. John J. Hughes (1797–1864) was the first archbishop of New York. 21. In April 1792, the French Legislative Assembly declared war on the Holy Roman Empire of Francis II which initiated a series of major conflicts known as the French Revolutionary Wars: for all practical purposes, they did not end until Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815. Pope Pius VIII (1740–1823) came to the papal see in 1800. His years are noted for the stormy relations with Napoleon. 22. Henry George, ‘‘Religion and Politics,’’ The Standard, Jan. 22, 1887. 23. The Orangemen, or the Loyal Orange Institution, was established in Ulster in 1795 to ensure Protestant supremacy. The name was arrogated from the Dutchdescended family of William III who reigned from 1689 to 1702. 24. Henry George, ‘‘The Rebuke to Archbishop Corrigan,’’ The Standard, Mar. 12, 1887. 25. The pope is Leo XIII (1810–1903); when he became pope in 1878 he attempted to wrestle with various issues of modernism. 26. Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton, Baron Lytton (1803–1873) was an English writer and statesman. The reference is possibly to The Coming Race (1873) which depicted a futuristic dystopia. 27. ‘‘Enterprise’’ seems apt since the original word is unreadable. The Knights of Labor was established in 1869. With a membership of roughly 700,000 people at its height in the late 1880s it wielded a great deal of clout. 28. Hannibal (247–182 BCE) was the brilliant Carthaginian general who fought the Romans. 29. St. Laurence O’Toole (1125–1180) was known for his piety, became archbishop in 1162. 30. Henry George, ‘‘Anti-Poverty: A Sentiment, . . . .’’ The Standard, May 14, 1887. 31. James Redpath (1833–1891) was a correspondent, journalist, and editor born in Scotland who championed the causes of abolition and Irish independence. He founded the Lyceum Bureau which promoted lectures and was also a committed supporter of George. 32. The New York Rhinelanders were noted for their influence and wealth. 33. Henry George, ‘‘Excommunication, etc.,’’ The Standard, July 12, 1887. 34. A superimposed address label blocked the date. 35. Vincenzo D’Avino published the four-volume Enciclopedia dell’ ecclesiastico [Ecclesiastical encyclopedia] between 1863 and 1866. 36. The Noble Guard was established by Pope Pius VII in 1801; it was a cavalry regiment detailed to escort the Pope and other papal officials on missions. The Swiss Guards have protected the pope since 1505. 37. George Errington (1804–1886) was an English Roman Catholic archbishop. 38. A reference to Henry George. 39. Judge James Maguire was a friend and supporter of George. As representative he attempted to introduce George’s reforms in Congress in 1894.
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40. New Jersey ratified its first state constitution in 1776, a second in 1844, and a third in 1947. 41. Skat, or rather scat, in this instance means to ‘‘scoot on with speed.’’ 42. Fulco Luigi Cardinal Ruffo-Scilla lived from 1840 to 1895. 43. Henry Edward Manning (1808–1892), an English cardinal of the Catholic Church, advocated social reforms and workers’ rights. 44. Peter’s pence is a tribute given to the pope from various countries at different times. 45. Cardinal Edward McCabe (1816–1885) of Dublin was known for his negative views regarding any Irish agitation. 46. Henry George, ‘‘The New Party,’’ North American Review, 368 (July 1887): 1–7. 47. Henry George, ‘‘Campaign notes,’’ The Standard, Oct. 22, 1887. 48. ‘‘The priest’’ is a reference to McGlynn. 49. Camillo Cardinal Mazella lived from 1833 to 1900. 50. Pius IX (1792–1878) became pope in 1846; he opposed the unification of Italy and articulated the doctrine of papal infallibility. 51. Antonio de Molina (1560–1612[19]); Francis Sylvius (1581–1649); Gabriel Vasquez (1549–1604); Paul Antoine (1678–1743); Domenico Viva (1648–1726); William Crolly (1780–1849); and Charles Billuart (1685–1757). 52. Latin jus gentium: ‘‘law of nations’’ or ‘‘international law.’’ 53. Henry George, ‘‘Personal and political,’’ The Standard, Feb. 18, 1888. 54. The Greenback (-Labor) Party was formed in 1874 with the aim to promote currency expansion in order to wipe out farm debts, stop declining farm prices, and foster general prosperity after the Panic of 1873. Greenbacks did become legally redeemable in specie and became a permanent part of the currency in 1879. The party dissolved after its failure in the 1884 presidential election. 55. Gaybert Barnes was a supporter of George who had a falling out over various political issues. 56. Democratic presidential candidate (Stephen) Grover Cleveland lost to the Republican Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) in 1888, beating him four years later. 57. John McMakin was another supporter of George who had a falling out over various political issues. 58. Louis F. Post (1849–1928) was a lifelong champion of George as was William T. Croasdale. J.W. Sullivan was a supporter but split from the ranks. The Land and Labor Clubs were formed in late 1886 to carry on educational efforts. 59. Benjamin F. Butler (1818–1893), the Greenback-Labor candidate waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign against the Democrat (Stephen) Grover Cleveland in 1884. 60. James G. Blaine (1830–1893) was secretary of state under Garfield and later under Harrison. He established the first Pan American Congress. He was also the unsuccessful Republican candidate for the presidency in 1884. 61. Henry George, ‘‘The Land for the People,’’ July 11, 1889; delivered at Toomebridge, County Derry, Ireland. Available at: www.grundskyld.dk
SECTION IV RELATED DOCUMENTS OF INTEREST A reason for this section is to present the most appropriate documents written by George’s contemporaries to highlight his views and interactions toward the various Irish problems. An added bonus was that George was close friends with Dr. Edward McGlynn, Michael Davitt, and Patrick Ford; had associated with Bishop Thomas Nulty, James Leigh Joynes, Cardinal Henry Manning, and Charles Stewart Parnell; and had met and fought with Archbishop Michael Corrigan. With the exception of Jones, all these men were some of the more famous players on the stage in American, Irish, and English history. Bringing to the surface some important contributions by them is in itself an important historical contribution. The connection with George immeasurably enhances their significance and interest. The articles, essays, and transposed speeches belong to the 1880s. There were no radios, televisions, or recording equipment. The newspaper reporter would sit through a lengthy speech with a shouting and clapping crowd and take it completely down in shorthand, then write it out including all the ‘‘hear, hears’’ and telegraph the words to his newspaper, thereby capturing a rich component of the times and society. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, millions of people in the United States flocked to speeches to get a bit of culture, entertainment, moral uplift, and political hell-raising. In our country many starry-eyed men and women hungry for knowledge of the outside world and reinforcement of their ideals living lonely and isolated lives jumped into their buggies or walked many miles just to spend that one time of the year, whatever the weather, to listen to a speech. A small town would come alive, a community joined, for a moment, to a higher world. The name of Henry George, one of the more gifted of the golden tongues, in an age of orators, was a major draw.
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1. THE IRISH LAND AGITATION (CHARLES S. PARNELL)1 Our Dublin correspondent telegraphed last night: A land meeting on an extensive scale was held today at Ennis. The placards which were printed in Irish, announced that Messrs. Parnell and Finigan would be present, and, the day being very fine, there was a great influx of people from the surrounding districts.2 Mr. Parnell, accompanied by Mr. Finigan and Mr. T.D. Sullivan, traveled to Ennis from Dublin by night mail, arriving at four o’clock in the morning. Notwithstanding the earliness of the hour, there [were] a large number of people awaiting them at the station, bearing torches and accompanied by a band. Mr. Parnell and his friends having taken their seats in a carriage, they were escorted, amid great cheering, to their hotel, from the window of which both he and Mr. Finigan addressed the crowd. The movements of the men composing [the] procession were regulated by bugle calls, and military order was observed on the march. A variety of mottoes, some of them of rather a novel character, spanned the streets. Among them were: ‘‘Tis near the dawn,’’ ‘‘The harvest belongs to America,’’ ‘‘Parnell gave the parties, not the landlords,’’ ‘‘You bet we win,’’ ‘‘What’s trumps?’’ ‘‘The people’s rights,’’ ‘‘The two P’s – Parnell and the people,’’ [and] ‘‘Ireland no longer is asleep.’’ In front of the platform, which was erected at the base of the O’Connell Monument, in the principal square, was the motto, ‘‘Ireland a nation.’’ The chair was taken by the Rev. Mathew J. Kenny [and] P.P. Scariff. Mr. Cleary, secretary of the meeting, said that apologies had been received from the O’Gorman Mahon and Captain O’Shea, the members of the county.3 (Groans for O’Shea.) The chairman, in the course of his speech, said he deeply regretted being obliged to state his conviction that the representative of the landlords in Ireland was the ex-member for Westmeath. (Groans.) He got an opportunity in the premier county of Ireland of a political deathbed repentance, but he did not avail himself of it. He was elected a home ruler, and his vote was against home rule. (A voice: ‘‘Shoot him.’’) Mr. Smyth was 327
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the mainstay in disguise of the landlords, and the enemy of Ireland. (Cheers.) It was not merely the landlords that the people were tired of, but of their miserable agents. Fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free sale were not enough. They must add another thing: namely, ‘‘free trade in land’’ – (cheers) – and when they had got free trade in land they could go on with the other questions. (Cheers.) Mr. Stephen M’Mahon, Kilrush, [sic] moved: ‘‘That we pledge ourselves never to be satisfied with any settlement of the land question, except upon the basis of an occupying proprietary, which we regard as the only means by which all classes of the nation can be united in a national parliament.’’ Mr. Michael Egan seconded the motion. The resolution was adopted. Mr. Finigan, M.P., who was loudly cheered, supported the motion. He said they wished no injury to the landlords, but they were determined, in the name of God and justice, to break down the bad, foul, and corrupt system that had eaten like a canker into the very social life of the country. (Cheers.) The cry had gone forth, not that they should pay no rent, but that they should pay no unjust rent; and were they, who were supposed to live by the land, prepared to endorse that? (Cheers and cries of ‘‘yes.’’) Let them stand firmly by their words, and show it by their deeds. Ireland had too long listened to words, too long floated one banner to the summer breeze. Ireland had raised too many shibboleths. Today every man, whether he believed in home rule or parliamentary action, or in the divine right of the appeal to the sword, was bound to support that vital principle – the land for the people and the government of the people by the people. (Cheers.) He would say nothing of the men who had broken their promises made on the hustings – (a voice: ‘‘O’Shea) – there was a day or reckoning coming and he left it to the people to judge.4 (Cheers.) They must do more than cheer and unfold their banners; they must agitate. (A voice: ‘‘Use the steel.’’) He asked them to stand on a platform like this with the priests and the people once more united. (Cheers.) As the representative of Ennis, and as one determined to stand by the country and the Land League, and by the tenant farmers of the county, he might assure Mr. Parnell and the leaders of the people throughout Ireland that Clare was ready to do what their forefathers did before them: to stand by the old flag, fight by the old flag for God and Irish liberty. (Cheers.) Mr. Cleary proposed: That we cordially endorse the action of the Irish Party under the guidance of Mr. Parnell during the last session of Parliament; but we view with regret the secession of one section of that party that followed the Whigs across the floor of the House, and we trust that
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next session Irish members will sit in a body in Parliament in opposition to every English ministry until the right of Ireland to self-government has been restored.
The motion was seconded by the Rev. Mr. Ryan. Mr. Parnell, who was received with loud and prolonged cheering then came forward and said: In acknowledging my gratification at this splendid reception which you have given us, and at this magnificent meeting, exceeded in size and importance by none which I have had the honor of addressing in Ireland, I wish to say that it gives me additional pleasure to have the opportunity of addressing for the first time after the session of Parliament a meeting in Ennis, which was the first constituency in Ireland to send me help in the last Parliament. (Cheers.) I may, perhaps, also be permitted to point out to you a noteworthy feature connected with this meeting, especially as I think it is a sign of the times and a sign of progress of our movement. When first I addressed you in last July twelvemonth, this square was glittering with the bayonets of police – (cheers) – and I promised you then, pointing to the force, that if we could build up a determined and united Irish Party, in a very few years this military force would be abolished altogether. (Cheers.) Today there is not a single constable present at this meeting – (cheers) – and it is the first of Irish land meetings which has not been attended by scores, and some of them by several scores, of constables. Let us look upon this as a happy omen for the future, as the first recognition in our history by the government of England of the ability of our people to maintain order for themselves, and consequently to govern themselves – (cheers) – and let me ask you, fellow countrymen, in return so to bear yourselves during this meeting and after this meeting as to show that you are worthy of practical power and self-government. (Cheers.) Let us see after this meeting no disturbance in the streets, no signs of liquor upon any man, and let us give no excuse to the police who are now confined to their barracks. (Cheers.) The resolution which has been proposed and seconded in such able terms is one inculcating the necessity of union among ourselves and independence of every English ministry, whether it be Tory or radical. (‘‘Hear.’’) I have always believed in the necessity of this, but my convictions have been tenfold strengthened by the experience of the past session. I have seen that the more independence of the Irish Party showed the more respect it gained for itself and for Ireland. (‘‘Hear.’’) I do not complain of our party. Our party, on the whole, has been a good and worthy one. It is true that a very small section followed the government
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across the House of Commons – (groans for them) – and refused to sit with the great majority of their colleagues, and the spectacle was presented of an apparently divided Irish Party, divided, perhaps, forty on one side and some twenty on the other. I regret from the bottom of my heart this appearance of division and disunion, but I trust that those members, recognizing that the overwhelming opinion of their constituents is in favor of union and unity, will retrace their steps, and will again join the great body of their colleagues in presenting a solid front to every government. For ourselves, in the last Parliament, when we had a Tory government to face, I never at the time hid my conviction that with a Liberal government in power it would be necessary for us somewhat to change or modify our action. Nothing was to be gained from the Tories, and it was therefore necessary for the Irish Party to punish them without sparing them. (Cheers.) Yet this present Liberal government has made great promises. Up to the present it has absolutely given us no one single performance. But through the mouth of the chief secretary of Ireland it has entreated that it be given one year’s time in order to see whether it cannot benefit Ireland, and we have been willing to give it that time and trial;5 but I stand here today to express my conviction that whenever we find that this Liberal government falls short of either its professions or its performances, on that day it will be the duty of the present strong Irish Party to show that it can punish the Liberal government as well as the Tory. (Cheers.) Now, we have had issued a Land Commission [sic], and there has been some difference of opinion whether the tenant farmers ought to give evidence before that commission or not.6 I have not yet had an opportunity of saying anything in public about this matter, but I may say that in the main my opinions coincide with those of Mr. John Dillon – (cheers) – with reference to this commission.7 (‘‘Hear.’’) At the same time, I only wish to express my opinion, and I do not wish to coerce the Irish tenant farmer with reference to this matter one way or the other. I am bound to tell you honestly that I believe this commission was appointed in order to try and whittle down the demand of the Irish tenantry, to find out for the English government what was the very least measure of reform that had a chance of being accepted in Ireland, and to a great extent to divert the minds of tenant farmers from agitating and organizing to the useless work of going before this commission and giving evidence. I cannot possibly see what useful effect evidence before this commission can have. We know that the report, if there is any report, must be of a very one-sided character and against the interests of the people of this country. The composition of the commission is a guarantee of that.
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Hence, we have to consider whether it is at all probable that the advantage that might be gained by having evidence put down could have any counterbalancing advantage as compared with the demoralization that farmers must experience when they turn their eyes with any hope or confidence to such [a] commission so constituted. What will be said if the tenant farmers come before this commission in any large numbers? It will be said that you have accepted the commission. It will be said that you will be bound by its report, and if there is very much evidence given it will form a very good excuse for the government and for the English Tory Party to put off legislation on the land question next session until they have time to read the evidence and consider its bearing and effect. My opinion, then, decidedly is this – whatever harm you do to your cause by going before this commission, you certainly will be able to do no good. Depend upon it that the measure of the Land Bill of next session will be the measure of your activity and energy this winter. (Cheers.) It will be the measure of your determination not to pay unjust rents; it will be the measure of your determination to keep a firm grip on your homesteads – (cheers) – it will be the measure of your determination not to bid for farms from which others have been evicted, and to use strong force of public opinion to deter any unjust men among yourselves, and there are many such, from bidding for such farms. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) If you refuse to pay unjust rents; if you refuse to take farms from which others have been evicted, the land question must be settled, and settled in a way that will be satisfactory to you. It depends, therefore, upon yourselves, and not upon any commission or any government. When you have made this question ripe for settlement, then, and not till then, will it be settled. (Cheers.) It is very nearly ripe already in many parts of Ireland. It is ripe in Mayo, Galway, Roscommon, Sligo, and portions of this county. (Cheers.) But I regret to say that tenant farmers of the county Clare have been backward in organization up to the present time. You must take and band yourselves together in Land Leagues. Every town and village must have its own branch. You must know the circumstances of the holdings and of the tenures of the district over which the League has jurisdiction. You must see that the principles of the Land League are inculcated, and when you have done this in Clare, then Clare will take her rank with the other active counties, and you will be included in the next Land Bill brought forward by the government. (Cheers.) Now, what are you to do to a tenant who bids for a farm from which another tenant has been evicted? (Several voices: ‘‘Shoot him!’’) I think I heard somebody say: ‘‘Shoot him.’’ (Cheers.) I wish to point out to you a
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much better way, a more Christian and charitable way, which will give the lost sinner an opportunity of repenting. (Laughter and ‘‘hear, hear.’’) When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside when you meet him, you must shun him in the streets of the town, you must shun him in the shop, you must shun him in the fair green and in the marketplace, and even the place of worship. By leaving him severely alone, by putting him into a moral convent, by isolating him from the rest of his countrymen as if he were a leper of old, you must show him your detestation of the crime he has committed. If you do this you may depend on it that there will be no man so full of avarice, so lost to shame as to dare the public opinion of all right-thinking men in the country and transgress your unwritten code of laws. (Loud cheers.) People are very much engaged at present in discussing the way in which the land question is to be settled, just the same as when a few years since Irishmen were at each other’s throats as to the sort of parliament we would have if we got one. I am always thinking it is better first to catch your hare before you decide how you are going to cook him. (Laughter.) I would strongly recommend public men not to waste their breath too much in discussing how the land question is to be settled, but rather to help and encourage the people in making it, as I said just now, ripe for settlement. (Applause.) When it is ripe for settlement you will probably have your choice as to how it shall be settled, and I said a year ago that the land question would never be settled until the Irish landlords were just as anxious to have it settled as the Irish tenants. (Cheers and a voice: ‘‘They soon will be.’’) There are, indeed, so many ways in which it may be settled that it is almost superfluous to discuss them; but I stand here today to express my opinion that no settlement can be satisfactory or permanent which does not ensure the uprooting of that system of landlordism which has brought the country three times in a century to a famine.8 (Cheers.) The feudal system of land tenure has been tried in almost every European country, and it has been found wanting everywhere, but nowhere has it wrought more evil, produced more suffering, crime, and destitution than in Ireland. (Cheers.) It was abolished in Prussia by transferring the lands from the landlords to the occupying tenants; the landlords were given government paper as compensation.9 (Laughter.) We want no money; not a single penny of money would be necessary. Why, if they gave the Irish landlords, the bad section of them, the four or five millions a year that they spend on police and military – (groans) – in helping them collect their rents, that would be a solution of it – (cheers) – and a very cheap solution of it. But perhaps, as with other reforms, they will
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try a little patchwork and tinkering for a while until they learn better. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Well, let them patch and tinker if they wish. In my opinion, the longer the landlords wait the worse the settlement they will get. (Cheers.) Now is the time for them to settle, before the people learn the power of combination. We have been accused of preaching communistic doctrines when we told the people not to pay an unjust rent, and the following out of this advice in a few of the Irish counties has shown the English government the necessity for a radical alteration in the land laws. But how would they like it if we told the people some day or other not to pay any rent until this question is settled? (Cheers.) We have not told them that yet, and I hope it may never be necessary for us to speak in that way. (‘‘Hear.’’) I hope the question will be settled peaceably, in a friendly manner and justly to all parties. (‘‘Hear.’’) If it should not be settled, we cannot continue to allow this millstone to hang round the neck of our country, throttling its industry and preventing progress. (Cheers.) It will be for the consideration of wiser heads than mine whether, if the landlords continue obdurate and refuse all just concessions, we shall not be obliged to tell the people of Ireland to strike against rent until this question has been settled – (cheers) – and if the 500,000 tenant farmers of Ireland struck against the 10,000 landlords I should like to see where they would get police and soldiers enough to make them pay. (Loud cheers.) A resolution was also adopted pledging the meeting not to take any farm from which a tenant had been evicted. Mr. T.D. Sullivan, M.P., in supporting it, said in the whole Irish Party there was not a more courageous or resolute man than the member for Ennis. If the order went from Charles Stewart Parnell to take the mace that lay before the speaker in the House of Commons and throw it out the window, he would do it. (Cheers.) In the evening the streets were paraded by crowds carrying torches and tar barrels.
2. BACK TO THE LAND (REV. THOMAS NULTY)10 Dedication To the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Meath: Dearly Beloved Brethren: I venture to take the liberty of dedicating the following essay to you, as a mark of my respect and affection. In this essay I do not, of course, address myself to you as your bishop, for I have no divine commission to enlighten you on your civil rights, or to instruct you in the principles of land tenure or political economy. I feel, however, a deep concern even in your temporal interests – deeper, indeed, than in my own; for what temporal interests can I have save those I must always feel in your welfare? It is, then, because the land question is one not merely of vital importance, but one of life and death to you, as well as to the majority of my countrymen, that I have ventured to write on it at all. With a due sense of my responsibility, I have examined this great question with all the care and consideration I had time to bestow on it. A subject so abstruse and so difficult could not, by any possibility, be made attractive and interesting. My only great regret, then, is that my numerous duties in nearly every part of the diocese for the last month have not left me sufficient time to put my views before you with the perspicuity, the order, and the persuasiveness that I should desire. However, even in the crude, unfinished form in which this essay is now submitted to you, I hope it will prove of some use in assisting you to form a correct estimate of the real value and merit of Mr. Gladstone’s coming bill. For my own part, I confess I am not very sanguine in my expectations of this bill – at any rate, when it shall have passed the Lords. The hereditary legislators will, I fear, never surrender the monopoly in the land which they have usurped for centuries past; at least till it has become quite plain to them that they have lost the power of holding it any longer. It is, however, now quite manifest to all the world – except, perhaps, to themselves – that they hold that power no longer. 335
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We, however, can afford calmly to wait. While we are, therefore, prepared to receive with gratitude any settlement of the question which will substantially secure to us our just rights, we will never be satisfied with less. Nothing short of a full and comprehensive measure of justice will ever satisfy the tenant farmers of Ireland, or put an end to the Land League agitation. The people of Ireland are now keenly alive to the important fact that if they are loyal and true to themselves, and that they set their faces against every form of violence and crime, they have the power to compel the landlords to surrender all their just rights in their entirety. If the tenant farmers refuse to pay more than a just rent for their farms, and no one takes a farm from which a tenant has been evicted for the nonpayment of an unjust or exorbitant rent, then our cause is practically gained. The landlords may, no doubt, wreak their vengeance on a few, whom they may regard as the leaders of the movement; but the patriotism and generosity of their countrymen will compensate these abundantly for their losses, and superabundantly reward them for the essential and important services they have rendered to their country at the critical period of its history. You know but too well, and perhaps to your cost, that there are bad landlords in Meath, and worse still in Westmeath, and perhaps also in the other counties of this diocese. We are, unfortunately, too familiar with all forms of extermination, from the eviction of a parish priest, who was willing to pay his rent, to the wholesale clearance of the honest, industrious people of an entire district. But we have, thank God, a few good landlords, too. Some of these, like the Earl of Fingal, belong to our own faith; some, like the late Lord Athlumny, are Protestants; and some among the very best are Tories of the highest type of conservatism. You have always cherished feelings of the deepest gratitude and affection for every landlord, irrespective of his politics or his creed, who treated you with justice, consideration, and kindness. I have always heartily commended you for these feelings. For my own part, I can assure you, I entertain no unfriendly feelings for any landlord living, and in this essay I write of them not as individuals, but as a class, and further, I freely admit that there are individual landlords who are highly honorable exceptions to the class to which they belong. But that I heartily dislike the existing system of land tenure, and the frightful extent to which it has been abused, by the vast majority of landlords, will be evident to anyone who reads this essay through. I remain, Dearly Beloved Brethren, respectfully yours, Thomas Nulty, Mullingar, 2nd April, 1881.
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OUR LAND SYSTEM NOT JUSTIFIED BY ITS GENERAL ACCEPTANCE Anyone who ventures to question the justice or the policy of maintaining the present system of Irish land tenure will be met at once by a pretty general feeling which will warn him emphatically that its venerable antiquity entitles it, if not to reverence and respect, at least to tenderness and forbearance. I freely admit that feeling to be most natural and perhaps very general also; but I altogether deny its reasonableness. It proves too much. Any existing social institution is undoubtedly entitled to justice and fair play; but no institution, no matter what may have been its standing or its popularity, is entitled to exceptional tenderness and forbearance if it can be shown that it is intrinsically unjust and cruel. Worse institutions by far than any system of land tenure can and have had a long and prosperous career, till their true character became generally known and then they were suffered to exist no longer.
HUMAN SLAVERY ONCE GENERALLY ACCEPTED Slavery is found to have existed, as a social institution, in almost all nations, civilized as well as barbarous, and in every age of the world, up almost to our own times. We hardly ever find it in the state of a merely passing phenomenon, or as a purely temporary result of conquest or of war, but always as a settled, established, and recognized state of social existence, in which generation followed generation in unbroken succession, and in which thousands upon thousands of human beings lived and died. Hardly anyone had the public spirit to question its character or to denounce its excesses; it had no struggle to make for its existence, and the degradation in which it held its unhappy victims was universally regarded as nothing worse than a mere sentimental grievance. On the other hand, the justice of the right of property which a master claimed in his slaves was universally accepted in the light of a first principle of morality. His slaves were either born on his estate, and he had to submit to the labor and the cost of rearing and maintaining them to manhood, or he acquired them by inheritance or by free gift, or, failing these, he acquired them by the right of purchase – having paid in exchange for them what, according to the usages of society and the common estimation of his countrymen, was regarded as their full pecuniary value. Property, therefore,
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in slaves was regarded as sacred, and as inviolable as any other species of property.
EVEN CHRISTIANS RECOGNIZED SLAVERY So deeply rooted and so universally received was this conviction that the Christian religion itself, though it recognized no distinction between Jew and gentile, between slave or freeman, cautiously abstained from denouncing slavery itself as an injustice or a wrong. It prudently tolerated this crying evil, because in the state of public feeling then existing, and at the low standard of enlightenment and intelligence then prevailing, it was simply impossible to remedy it. Thus then had slavery come down almost to our own time as an established social institution, carrying with it the practical sanction and approval of ages and nations, and surrounded with a prestige of standing and general acceptance well-calculated to recommend it to men’s feelings and sympathies. And yet it was the embodiment of the most odious and cruel injustice that ever afflicted humanity. To claim a right of property in man was to lower a rational creature to the level of the beast of the field; it was a revolting and an unnatural degradation of the nobility of human nature itself. That thousands upon thousands of human beings who had committed no crime, who had violated no law, and who had done no wrong to anyone, should be wantonly robbed of their liberty and freedom; should be deprived of the sacred and inalienable moral rights, which they could not voluntarily abdicate themselves; should be bought and sold, like cattle in the markets; and should be worked to death, or allowed to live on at the whim or caprice of their owner, was the last and most galling injustice which human nature could be called on to endure.
THE WORLD’S APPROVAL CANNOT JUSTIFY INJUSTICE To arrest public attention, and fix its gaze effectively on the intrinsic character and constitution of slavery, was to seal its doom; and its death knell was sounded in the indignant cry of the great statesman who ‘‘denied that man could hold property in man.’’ Twenty millions of British money
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were paid over to the slaveowners as compensation for the loss of property to which they had no just title, and slavery was abolished forever. The practical approval, therefore, which the world has bestowed on a social institution that has lasted for centuries is no proof that it ought to be allowed to live on longer, if, on close examination, it be found to be intrinsically unjust and cruel, and mischievous and injurious besides to the general good of mankind. No amount of sanction or approval that the world can give to a social institution can alter its intrinsic constitution and nature; and the fact of the world’s having thus approved of an institution which was essentially unjust, cruel, and degrading to human nature, only proves that the world was wrong: it furnishes no arguments or justification for allowing it to live on a moment longer.
IRISH LAND TENURE THE TWIN SISTER OF SLAVERY The system of land tenure in Ireland enjoyed a long and similarly prosperous career, and it, too, has created a state of human existence, which, in strict truth and justice, can be briefly characterized as the twin sister of slavery. The vast majority of tenant farmers of Ireland are at the present moment slaves. They are dependent for their peace of mind, for their material comforts, for the privilege of living under the roof beneath which they were born, and for the right of earning their bread on the farms which their forefathers enriched with their toil, on the arbitrary and irresponsible will of their landlord. Abject, absolute, and degrading dependence of this kind involves the very essence, and is, in fact, the definition of slavery. They toil like galley slaves in the cultivation of their farms from the opening to the close of the year, only to see substantially the whole produce of their labor and capital appropriated by others who have not toiled at all, and who even leave them not what would be allowed for the maintenance of slaves who would be expected to work, but what hardly suffices to keep them from dying of want. When grazing on land had been found more remunerative than tillage, and the people consequently became too numerous, the superfluous multitudes, who were now no longer wanted under the new state of things, were mercilessly cleared off the lands by wholesale evictions to make room for the brute beast, which paid better. Such of the evicted as had the means
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left to take themselves away were forced to fly for refuge as exiles into almost every land; and the thousands who could not leave were coolly passed on through hunger and starvation to premature graves. Let anyone who wishes visit this diocese and see with his own eyes the vast and boundless extent of the fairest land in Europe that has been ruthlessly depopulated since the commencement of the present century, and which is now abandoned to a loneliness and solitude more depressing than that of the prairie or the wilderness. Thus has this land system actually exercised the power of life and death on a vast scale, for which there is no parallel even in the dark records of slavery. But the attention of the civilized world is now steadily fixed on the cruel and degrading bondage in which it still holds a nation enslaved, and therefore its doom is inevitably sealed.
JUSTICE, NOT VESTED RIGHT, SHOULD PREVAIL Some wise and thoughtful men can see no longer objections to the abolition of landlordism now than were alleged not so long ago against the abolition of slavery. If the public good demanded the summary dismissal of landlords from an important position of trust, which as a class, they have so grievously abused, and, on the other hand, that they had been compensated for the real or fictitious property which it is assumed they possess in their lands, the justice of such a course could not for a moment be questioned. Yet I am afraid that few prudent, practical, and experienced men could be found who would advocate the policy of a measure of so sweeping and radical a character. Undoubtedly a universal or a general peasant proprietary; not, however, the result of a sudden, hasty and unnatural change, but the gradual and natural growth of years – may probably be found to be the final settlement of the question of the land. Hence the great majority of those who have thought the question out thoroughly regard the measure known as the ‘‘three F’s,’’ accompanied with largely increased facilities, and largely increased pecuniary encouragement, for the gradual establishment of a peasant proprietary, as the fullest measure of justice which the nation can just now expect from an act of Parliament. But on whatever line the ‘‘new departure’’ may start, it is essential that the eternal and immutable principles of justice which determine the character of property in land shall in no instance be departed from by the people. Ours is a struggle for justice and for right, and we must not furnish our enemies even with a pretext to reproach us with dishonest or unfair dealing.
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JUSTICE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN THE RESULTS OF LABOR The following are the acknowledged principles of justice that have a practical bearing on the question: Every man (and woman, too) has a natural right to the free exercise of his mental and corporal faculties; and whatever useful thing anyone has produced by his toil and his labor, of that he is the rightful owner – in that he has in strict justice a right of property. Any useful thing that satisfies any of our necessities, relieves any of our wants, ministers to our comforts or enjoyments, or increases our material happiness or contentment, may be an object of property, and the person whose toil and labor has produced that thing possesses in it a strict right of property. The two essential characteristics of property therefore are: First, the thing itself must be useful for some purpose; and, secondly, it must be the product or the result of our labor. Now, the effort or exertion demanded by labor is irksome, distasteful, and repulsive to the indolence and self-indulgence that is natural to us and, therefore, no one will voluntarily subject himself to the painful inconvenience of labor who is not stimulated by the prospect of the remuneration and enjoyment which the fruit of his labor will return him. Whoever, then, has voluntarily subjected himself to the painful operations of labor has, in strict justice, a right of property in the product or result of that labor; that is to say, he, and he alone, has a right to all the advantages, enjoyments, pleasures and comforts that are derivable from the results of his labor. Others cannot complain of having been excluded from the enjoyment of a thing whose production cost them nothing; which he was not bound to produce for their use, and which, were it not for his efforts, would not have existed at all.
PRODUCER’S RIGHT OF DISPOSAL Use and exclusion are, therefore, the two essential peculiarities of the enjoyment of a right of property. The power to dispose of legitimate property is almost absolute. Property may be devoted by its owner to any purpose he pleases that is not inconsistent with the public good and does not interfere with the rights of others. He may keep it for his own use and enjoyment if he wishes, or he may exchange it by barter or sale for an
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equivalent in value of the property of others; he may alienate it by free gift when living, or bequeath it to anyone he pleases, as a voluntary legacy, when dying. He might even destroy it and do no wrong to anyone. If Michelangelo, in that delirium of artistic frenzy in which he called on his celebrated statue of Moses ‘‘to speak,’’ had dealt it a blow of his mallet, which would have created not merely a rent in its knee, but had actually shattered it into atoms, the world might indeed deplore the destruction of this immortal work as an irreparable loss, but it could not complain that he did it an injustice or a wrong.11 Michelangelo was master of his own free actions, and he was not bound to spend years of labor and toil in producing that incomparable statue to delight and please the world, and, even after he had produced it, he was not bound to preserve it for its enjoyment. ‘‘He might do as he liked with his own.’’ Every individual whose labor produces an article of property makes a substantial addition to the wealth of the nation; and a nation’s general prosperity and happiness, and the degree and abundance in which it possesses all the comforts, the enjoyments, the luxuries and pleasures of life, depend entirely on the numbers engaged in industrial productiveness, and on the skill and efficiency of their labor. Every man, no doubt, works for his own self-interest, for his own benefit and happiness, but whether he wishes it or not, he works, too, for the increased enjoyment and prosperity of others. No man consumes all that his labor produces, and the benefit of the superfluous products of his labor, if not enjoyed by himself, is sure to be enjoyed by some to whom he has transferred it. If a bootmaker does not himself wear all the boots he produces, somebody else is sure to wear them for him. It is, therefore, highly [sic] in the interest of the community, as well as of individuals, to encourage the production, the multiplication, and accumulation of objects of wealth; and, therefore, to stimulate the activity and energy of the labor necessary for their production. The laws of all nations, as well as the law of Nature, have regarded as sacred and inviolable the right of property which a man enjoys in what he produces.
INSTITUTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY SPRINGS FROM THE NECESSITY FOR LABOR The first form of property ever seen or held on this earth was undoubtedly connected with land. Although political economists never dream of
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adverting to it, it is, nevertheless, an unquestionable fact that the institution of private property is one of the sad effects of original sin. It springs directly from the barrenness and sterility with which the earth was cursed in punishment of the crime of original sin. That curse deteriorated and to a great extent destroyed the primeval and teeming fertility with which the earth had been in the beginning created. Before the fatal words, maledicta terra in opere tuo [‘‘cursed is the ground in thy work,’’ from Genesis 3:17], had been pronounced the land needed not the labor of man to produce all that was superabundantly sufficient for the sustenance of man – all that satisfied to the full his wants, wishes, and desires. The rich and delicious fruits with which it spontaneously teemed were as unlimited as the waters of the seas, as the air we breathe, as the atmosphere in which we live. Like the manna, on which the children of Israel lived in the desert for forty years, everyone took all he wanted, and as the supply was as certain in the future as in the present, it would be folly to take more than was wanted for present use. In the unlimited superabundance that then prevailed there was no room for the existence of private property at all. It was only when the earth had been cursed by sterility and barrenness, and that the supply of human food consequently became limited when the produce it yielded became proportioned to the labor expended on it, and that every man had to work for his living, that private property became not only lawful but a necessary institution of society. Man’s labor became a necessary means to reverse the result of this curse, and to restore to the earth, at least partially, the primeval fertility of which it had been despoiled in punishment of his sin. The productiveness thus imparted or restored to the earth became, in strict justice, the property of the individual by whose labor it had been created, and this property in land is the first form of private property on record.
NECESSITY FOR LABOR PROVES THE COMMON RIGHT TO LAND Although the earth, even in its present deteriorated state, is a splendid inheritance provided by the liberality of God for the maintenance of man, it is, nevertheless, an inheritance which places him under the necessity of patient, laborious toil in its cultivation and improvement, in order to extract from it the means necessary for his subsistence.
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The human race cannot now any longer live on the earth if . . . [it] refuses to submit to the inevitable law of labor. No man can fairly emancipate himself from that universal decree which has made it a necessity for everyone ‘‘to earn his bread in the sweat of his brow.’’ Now, the land of every country is to the people of that country or nation what the earth is to the whole human race – that is to say, the land of every country is the gift of its Creator to the people of that country; it is the patrimony and inheritance bequeathed to them by their common Father, out of which they can by continuous labor and toil provide themselves with everything they require for their maintenance and support, and for their material comfort and enjoyment.
THE LAND OF EVERY COUNTRY THE COMMON PROPERTY OF ITS PEOPLE God was perfectly free in the act by which He created us; but, having created us, He bound Himself by that act to provide us with the means necessary for our subsistence. The land is the only means of this kind now known to us. The land, therefore, of every country is the common property of the people of that country, because its real owner, the Creator who made it, has transferred it as a voluntary gift to them. ‘‘Terram autem dedit filiis hominum.’’ Now, as every individual in that country is a creature and child of God, and as all His creatures are equal in His sight, any settlement of the land of a country that would exclude the humblest man in that country from his share of the common inheritance would be not only an injustice and a wrong to that man, but, moreover, would be an impious resistance to the benevolent intentions of his Creator.
HOW BEST TO USE THE COMMON ESTATE The great problem, then, that the nations, or, what comes to the same thing, that the governments of nations have to solve is – what is the most profitable and remunerative investment they can make of this common property in the interest and for the benefit of the people to whom it belongs? In other words, how can they bring the largest, and, as far as possible, the most skilled amount of effective labor to bear on the proper cultivation and
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improvement of the land? – how can they make it yield the largest amount of human food, human comforts, and human enjoyments – and how can its aggregate produce be divided so as to give everyone the fairest and largest share he is entitled to without passing over or excluding anyone?
SECURITY OF POSSESSION NECESSARY TO SECURE THE RIGHTS OF THE IMPROVER It is because the principle of private property fulfils all these conditions, satisfies all these requirements, and secures all these results, that it has been regarded by all nations as a necessary social institution under all forms of government. The most active, energetic, and, at the same time, the most powerful principle of human action that we know of, is self-interest, and self-interest is the principle of private property. This principle of self-interest is deeply embedded and engrained in our nature; its activity is constant, uniform, and irrepressible, and whether we advert to it or not, it is the secret and inexhaustible spring of nearly all our actions, efforts, and endeavors. We labor with untiring energy, earnestness, and perseverance, when we know that we are working for ourselves, for our own interests and benefits. If, therefore, the land of a country was surrendered up to the self-interests of the people of that country; if it was given up to the operations of the most powerful moral force known to man, which is everywhere present and everywhere supremely active and energetic, and which would throw its whole force and strength into the effort needed for the proper cultivation and improvement of the soil, then we might expect the largest possible returns of human food and human enjoyments that the land could possibly yield. Wherever, therefore, the principle of private property in land is carried out to the full extent that its justice and the interests of the community demand, the land of that country will be parceled out in larger or smaller lots among its people, on the plain principle of justice, that the increased fertility and productiveness which they shall have imparted to the soil shall be their own, and that they shall have a strict right of property in the returns – no matter how abundant – it shall yield to their capital and labor. With this disposition adopted the powerful principle of self-interest will be brought to bear effectively and with all its energy and force on the cultivation and improvement of the soil; and as the cultivators or farmers
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will have a strict right of property in the products which it shall yield to their labor and capital, so it will be [in] their highest interests, and they will make their best efforts to make them as large and as abundant as possible. The returns, therefore, from the land will be the highest it is capable of yielding. To stimulate the production and enlarged growth of that invaluable property which is created in the development and improvement of the soil, and to secure to its owner the certainty of enjoying all its uses and benefits, he must have a right to the continued and undisturbed possession of his land. The labor and capital necessary for the production of property of this kind are immediate; the returns to be derived from it may be spread over many years, perhaps over all future time. No man will incur the expenditure if others, not himself, are to be benefited by it. He might, no doubt, enjoy the full benefit of improvements already made after a certain term of years; but to stimulate him to make further and larger improvements in the soil, and, at the same time, to secure him a certainty of enjoying the full fruits of those he has already made, no term of years can produce on men’s minds what has been most felicitously called ‘‘the magical effect of perpetuity of tenure.’’
NONIMPROVERS CAN HAVE NO RIGHTS IN LAND The arguments, therefore, which prove that, in strict justice, as well as in the interests of the nation at large, a landholder who is constantly improving and increasing the productiveness of his farm has a right to the continued occupation of it, prove, too, that a nonimproving landholder has no right to be left in the possession of it at all. The people of a nation have too deep an interest in the productiveness of the land of the nation and in the amount of human food it will yield, to be able to allow any portion of it to remain in the hands of a man through whose criminal indolence or incapacity it either produces nothing at all, or what will be much less than it is capable of yielding. Thus, an improving landholder has by that very fact, in strict justice and in the higher interests of the public, the title, and, indeed, the only unquestionable title that exists to the continued and undisturbed possession of his land. The occupier’s rights of property in the agricultural products of the land, in the permanent improvements he has made in the productiveness of the soil, and in the undisturbed occupation of his farm, while he continues to improve it, are all deeply rooted in the clearest principles of natural justice.
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SECURITY OF POSSESSION AND FULL OWNERSHIP OF PRODUCTS FOR THE COMMON GOOD They are, moreover, necessary and sufficient to secure the highest permanent and progressive improvement of the soil, and to draw from it the largest and most profitable returns it is capable of yielding. The legislature, therefore, which is bound to strive in every reasonable way for the advancement of the public good, can hardly withhold its sanction and protection from clear natural rights, which are of vital interest, not only to the cultivators themselves, but also to the well-being of the nation at large. The agricultural products of the land of the nation will then be disposed of or distributed among the people of the nation by the cultivators who produced them, on the principle of competitive sale, and everyone will receive a share of the whole at the price that it cost to produce it, and that will be considerably less than it would cost himself to produce it. No one, therefore, has been called on to surrender his share in the common property of the nation without getting an equivalent in return. No one has surrendered his share in this property; everyone has simply made a most profitable and remunerative investment of it.
A JUST RIGHT OF PROPERTY IN IMPROVEMENTS, BUT NOT IN LAND ITSELF In the foregoing exposition of the principles of justice on the question of the tenure of land, I have made no distinction between the landlords of a country and the tenant farmers who hold land under them, for in truth, on the question of property in land there is no room for any such distinction. I am, however, quite ready to allow the full benefit of the rights of property in land, as I have explained them, to any landlord or tenant who has created such property; but I cannot allow either to landlord or tenant any other or further rights of property in land than those I have just enumerated. No individual or number of individuals can have a right of private property in the land of a country in its original state, and antecedently to human culture; for in that state the land of a country was and is still the public common property of the people of that country. Undoubtedly the people, by their combined labor and industry, ‘‘have not made the land’’ of their country, but they have received it as a voluntary free gift, and as a
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necessary means for their subsistence, from their common Father and Creator, who did make it.
WHAT RIGHT OF EXCLUSION IMPLIES Besides, a right of property in land implies, as I have observed, a right of exclusion as well as of use in its enjoyment; and, therefore, if any privileged class had a right of property in the land of a country they would have a right to the exclusive use of the land of that country – that is to say, they would have a right to the exclusive use of all the necessaries of life in that country, and the people would have no right to exist at all. Not only, then, would the well-being but the very existence of the nation depend on the whim and caprice of a single class of the community. Again, no class of men could have such a right of private property in the land of a nation – firstly, because they could not by their own labor and industry have created such a right themselves, for ‘‘no man has made the land;’’ and, secondly, because they could not have received that right, either by contract or free gift, from anyone who was competent to give it. The people of the nation could not give it, for if they were to barter, or sell, or give away the land, they would expropriate the means that were necessary for their own subsistence, and that would be tantamount to a nation committing suicide.
INDIVIDUALS MAY RIGHTFULLY COLLECT PAYMENT FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN LAND The tracts of country known in England as the Bedford Level, and in Flanders as the Pays des Waes, were, not so very long ago, as sterile, as barren, and even more useless than the bogs of our own country at this moment.12 By an enormous expenditure, however, of capital and labor they have been drained, reclaimed and fertilized, till they have at last become among the most productive lands in Europe. That productiveness is entirely the result of human labor and industry, for Nature did hardly anything for these lands. If the question, then, was asked: Who has a right to charge or demand a rent for the use of the soil of these lands for agricultural or industrial uses? The answer undoubtedly would be, the person who by his labor and capital
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had created all their productiveness, who had imparted to them all the value they possess. In charging, therefore, a rent for the use of what he had produced he is only demanding a most just and equitable return for his capital – a fair and honest remuneration for his labor. His right to demand this could not possibly be disputed. Now, the artificial productiveness of these tracts of country hardly equals, and certainly does not surpass, the natural fertility of large districts of rich, luxuriant, arable and pasture lands in the county of Meath, in this diocese. If it were asked, then, who has a right to charge a rent for the use of the soil of these highly favored districts in Meath for agricultural or industrial purposes, the answer should be that if human industry or labor had imparted to these lands a real and substantial amount of artificial productiveness, by the cultivation and permanent improvement of the soil, then the person who had created that productiveness had a perfect right to demand a rent for the use of it.
EXACTION BY INDIVIDUALS OF RENT FOR LAND IS WANTON INJUSTICE But who, it may be further asked, has a right to demand a rent for the natural fertility of these lands ‘‘which no man made,’’ and which, in fact, is not the result of human industry and labor at all? The answer here, also, should be, he who had produced it. But who produced it? God. If God, then, demanded a rent for the use of these lands, He would undoubtedly be entitled to it. But God does not sell His gifts or charge a rent for the use of anything He has produced. He does not sell; but He gives or bestows, and in bestowing His gifts He shows no respect of persons. If, then, all God’s creatures are in a condition of perfect equality relatively to this gift of the land, no one can have an exceptional right to claim more than a fair share of what was intended equally for all, and what is, indeed, directly or indirectly, a necessary of life for each of them. When all, therefore, relatively to this gift, are perfectly equal, and nobody has any real claim to it; when all equally need the liberality and generosity of God in it, and no one can afford, or is willing, to part with his share in it – to alienate it from any or all of them would be to do them a wanton injustice and grievous wrong, and would be a direct disappointment to the intentions of the Donor besides.
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THE WHOLE PEOPLE THE TRUE OWNERS OF THE LAND When, therefore, a privileged class arrogantly claims a right of private property in the land of a country, that claim is simply unintelligible, except in the broad principle that the land of a country is not a free gift at all, but solely a family inheritance; that it is not a free gift which God has bestowed on His creatures, but an inheritance which he has left to His children; that they, therefore, being God’s eldest sons, inherit this property by right of succession; that the rest of the world have no share or claim to it, on the ground that origin is tainted with the stain of illegitimacy. The world, however, will hardly submit to this shameful imputation of its own degradation, especially when it is not sustained by even a shadow of reason. I infer, therefore, that no individual or class of individuals can hold a right of private property in the land of a country; that the people of that country, in their public corporate capacity, are, and always must be, the real owners of the land of their country – holding an indisputable title to it, in the fact that they received it as a free gift from its Creator, and as a necessary means for preserving and enjoying the life He has bestowed upon them.
DISTINCTION BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND COMMUNITY RIGHTS Usufruct, therefore, is the highest form of property that individuals can hold in land. On the other hand, I have shown that the cultivator’s right of property in the produce of the land, in the improvements he has made in the productiveness of the land, and in its undisturbed occupation as long as he continues to improve it . . . – are all founded on the strictest principles of justice, and that their recognition and protection by the state will secure for the land the highest culture and improvement it is capable of receiving, and will draw from it, without fail, the largest returns of human food it is capable of yielding, and [on which the] welfare of society are all depend. They allow free scope and hold out the highest encouragement to the fullest development of the energy and activity of human industry and enterprise, by securing to everyone the full fruits of his labor, and recognizing in him a right of property to all that his hands produce. They guarantee to him immunity and protection from disturbance as long as he devotes himself with earnestness and zeal to his industrial pursuits.
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On the other hand, if a man, through indolence or incompetence, allows his land to run wild, to return to its primitive sterility and barrenness, so as to produce nothing at all, or at all events, much less than it is capable of yielding, it is no hardship to that man if these principles call on him to surrender a trust which he held from society, and which, to the great detriment of society, he has so grievously abused. Finally, it is no injustice to refuse the remuneration of labor to those who have not labored at all. This usufruct, therefore, is a right of property in land, which is held mainly for the benefit of the public and for the advancement of the general interests of the community. And yet the general interests of the community are hardly distinguishable from the private interests of the usufructuary. The larger the amount of permanent improvements made in the soil, and the richer and more abundant returns it will yield, the better will it be for both interests.
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INTERESTS An usufructuary or farmer who labors might and main for his own selfinterests, labors with the same amount of earnestness and zeal for the interests of the public as well. But it is the consideration of the public interests that will determine the continuity of his occupancy. The continuity of his occupancy entirely depends on the continuity of its real, practical effectiveness for the advancement of the interests of the public. The moment it ceases to be useful and beneficial to the public welfare, that moment it ceases to have a right to exist any longer. If individuals could have a right of private property in land, that right would not be fettered by these responsibilities; in fact, it would not be liable to any responsibility at all. The ownership of reclaimed tracts like the Bedford Level approximates closely, without, however, fully realizing, to a right of private property in land. The Bedford Level owner is not responsible to society for the management of that property, nor is he bound to have any regard to its interests in the use he wishes to make of it. Being master of his own free actions, he was not bound to create that property for the benefit of society, but for his own, and he may now make whatever use he pleases of it. If through mismanagement it produces less than it is capable of yielding, that is his own affair altogether. If he allowed it to return to its original sterility society might regret that it suffered a great loss, but it could not complain that he did it an injustice or a wrong.
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The distinction, therefore, between the two rights of property in land is essential and fundamental, and it is absolutely necessary to apprehend it clearly and to bear it distinctly in mind.
ECONOMISTS ON THE PEOPLE’S RIGHTS IN THE LAND Now, there is nothing novel or startling in the common and inalienable right of property which I have shown every people possesses in the land of its country. I know of no writer on political economy who disputes it, although I am familiar with the works of many of the most eminent. Bastiat, the great defender of the property classes in France, certainly does not dispute it; on the contrary, he assumes it as a settled principle of justice throughout his entire treatise.13 The late Mr. Cairnes, though by far the most able and eloquent of all the modern advocates of landlords’ rights and privileges, as far as I know, at least, does not controvert it either.14 The facts and principles set forth in some of the most powerful and best written passages of his works prove the manifest injustice of allowing anyone, except the people, a right of private property in the land of their country. Mr. Mill, in his great work on political economy, after having accepted the universally received definition of property exactly as I have given it, says: ‘‘The essential principle of property being to assure to all persons what they have produced by their labor and accumulated by their abstinence, this principle cannot apply to what is not the produce of labor, the raw material of the earth.’’ And again: ‘‘When the sacredness of property is talked of, it should always be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property. No man made the land: it is the inheritance of the whole species.’’ In the remainder of this chapter Mr. Mill lectures the proprietors of land on their obligations and responsibilities to society in the management of it, and consequently he must be addressing himself to owners who have only the right of usufruct in their lands. Such admonitions, if addressed to men who had an absolute right of private property in land, would be simply an impertinence, as they would not be obliged to account to him or to anyone else for ‘‘what they did with their own.’’ Further on Mr. Mill adds: Those who think that the land of a country exists for the sake of a few thousand landowners, and that as long as rents are paid society and government have fulfilled their
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function, may see in this consummation a happy end to Irish difficulties. But this is not a time, nor is the human mind now in a condition in which such insolent pretensions can be maintained. The land of Ireland, the land of every country, belongs to the people of that country.
Mr. McDonnell, in his excellent work on the land question of England and Scotland, says, it became a trite and popular phrase to say ‘‘that the land was the property of the people.’’15 Mr. Arthur Arnold, Member of Parliament for the borough of Salford, in his work on Free Land, published quite recently (1880), writes:16 ‘‘The land belongs to the nation, to the state, to the people. It is not possible to sever the interests of a beggar crouching at the gates of a park from that land. Infinitesimal they may be, but their existence cannot be denied.’’ He adds: ‘‘There is no such thing as private property in land held by individuals known to English law, or the law of the land.’’ He quotes the highest legal authority in proof of his statement. Williams, on The Law of Real Property, thus writes:17 ‘‘The first thing the student has to do is to get rid of the idea of absolute ownership. Such an idea is quite unknown to the English law. No man is in law the absolute owner of lands. He can only hold an estate in them.’’ Even Mr. Froude, in an extract given by Arnold, although he does not give the reference, thus writes:18 ‘‘Seeing that men are born into the world without their own wills, and being in the world they must live on the earth’s surface, or they cannot live at all, no individual or set of individuals can hold over land that personal and irresponsible right which is allowed them in things of less universal necessity.’’
LAND RENT FOR THE COMMUNITY A DESIGN OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE I think, therefore, that I may fairly infer, on the strength of authority as well as of reason, that the people are and always must be the real owners of the land of their country. This great social fact appears to me to be of incalculable importance, and it is fortunate indeed that on the strictest principles of justice it is not clouded even by a shadow of uncertainty or doubt. There is, moreover, a charm and a peculiar beauty in the clearness with which it reveals the wisdom and the benevolence of the designs of Providence in the admirable provision He has made for the wants and the necessities of that state of
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social existence of which He is the author, and in which the very instincts of Nature tell us we are to spend our lives. A vast public property, a great national fund, has been placed under the dominion and at the disposal of the nation to supply itself abundantly with resources necessary to liquidate the expenses of its government, the administration of its laws and the education of its youth, and to enable it to provide for the suitable sustentation and support of its criminal and pauper population. One of the most interesting peculiarities of this property is that its value is never stationary: It is constantly progressive and increasing in a direct ratio to the growth of the population; and the very causes that increase and multiply the demands made on it increase proportionately its ability to meet them.
LANDLORDISM TAKES THE PATRIMONY OF THE PEOPLE Let the democracy of England as well as of Ireland learn the melancholy fate that has overtaken this splendid inheritance which God has placed in their hands, and which would have saved them eighty millions sterling which they now annually pay by direct and indirect taxation for the government of the country. That patrimony was once theirs by right, and by right it is theirs still; but, in fact, it is theirs no longer: a class has wrested the land from the people of the country and now holds a strict monopoly in it. They sell it out to the people as if it were an ordinary article of private property and solely the result of their own capital and labor. The rents which the landlords draw from their lands is an income which they derive from the sale of what are avowedly God’s gifts, which ‘‘no man made.’’ If they had only claimed the right of selling the use of the permanent improvements they had made in the soil, by the capital and labor they had expended on it, no one could dispute the justice of their demand; but any element of income that might possibly be derived from this source is called in the language of political economy, not rent, but profit. Political economists who have written with scientific precision on the nature and properties of rent, confine it exclusively to the moneys which the landlord receives for allowing the tenant the use of the original and natural productiveness of the soil.
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HOW POLITICAL ECONOMISTS DEFINE RENT Adam Smith says:19 Rent may be considered as the produce of those powers of Nature the use of which the landlord lends to the farmer. It is the work of Nature which remains after deducting or compensating all that can be regarded as the work of man. It is seldom less than a fourth, and frequently more than a third of the whole produce.
The part then of the agricultural products of the land which is the result of the operations of the powers of Nature is sometimes more than a third of the whole – and that is the rent of the landlord. Ricardo, the inventor of the celebrated theory of rent, called after his name (Ricardo’s ‘‘Theory of Rent’’), defines rent to be:20 That portion of the produce of the earth which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil. It is often confounded with the interest and profit of capital . . . In the future pages of this work, then, whenever I speak of the rent of land, I wish to be understood as speaking of the compensation which is paid to the owner of the land for the use of its original and indestructible properties.
Scrope writes of it:21 The value of land and its power of yielding a rent are due to two circumstances: 1. The appropriation of its natural power. 2. The labor applied to its amelioration. Under the first of these relations rent is a monopoly. It restricts our usufruct and enjoyment of the gifts which God has given to men for the satisfaction of their wants.
Senior thus speaks of rent:22 The instruments of production are labor and natural agents. Natural agents having been appropriated, proprietors charge for their use under the form of rent, which is the recompense of no sacrifice whatever, and is received by those who have neither labored nor put by, but who merely hold out their hands to accept the offerings of the rest of the community.
McCulloch defines it:23 What is properly termed rent is the sum paid for the use of the natural and inherent powers of the soil. It is entirely distinct from the sum paid for the use of buildings, enclosures, roads, or other ameliorations.
Lastly, Mill says: ‘‘The land is the principal of the natural agents which are capable of being appropriated, and the consideration paid for its use is called rent . . . . It is at once evident that rent is the effect of a monopoly.’’
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LAND MONOPOLY USURPS GOD’S GIFTS TO ALL Thus, on the highest and most unquestionable authority, are we forced to conclude that, owing to the monopoly which the landlords have usurped in the land of the nation, they sell out the ‘‘use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil;’’ of ‘‘the natural and inherent powers of the soil;’’ of ‘‘the natural powers of the soil;’’ that is to say, they sell the use of God’s gifts like so many articles of private property, and as if they were purely the result of their own toil and labor. If the Bedford Level, and the rich tract of land in Meath with which I have compared it, were to be leased out to tenant farmers for a given term of years, the one would fetch quite as high a rent as the other. The farmer would not concern himself much in inquiring into the source from which the fertility of the land was derived; all his solicitude and inquiries would be directed to the existence of the fact that the fertility was there, and which of them possessed it in the higher degree. The rent which the owner of the Bedford Level would receive for the use of his land would be the just and equitable remuneration to which he was entitled for the expenditure of his labor and capital, while the Meath proprietor would receive as high a reward for having done nothing at all. Only that his income is so woefully wanting in justice, the condition of the Meath proprietor would certainly be enviable.
THE PRICE OF LAND A MONOPOLY PRICE This privileged class not merely sells the use of God’s gifts, but extorts for them a price which is most unjust and exorbitant; in fact, they hardly ever sell them at less than scarcity or famine prices. If a man wants to buy a suit of broadcloth, the price he will be required to pay for it will amount to very little more than what it cost to produce it – and yet that suit of clothes may be a requirement of such necessity or utility to him that he would willingly pay three times the amount it actually cost rather than submit to the inconvenience of doing without it. On the other hand, the manufacturer would extort the last shilling he would be willing to give for it, only that he knows there are scores of other manufacturers ready to undersell him if he demanded much more than the cost of its production. The price, therefore, of commodities of all kinds that can be produced on a large scale, and to an indefinite extent, will depend on the cost required to produce them, or at least that part of them which is produced at the highest expense.
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But there is a limited class of commodities whose selling price has no relation or dependence at all on the cost at which they have been produced; for example, rare wines that grow only on soils of limited extent; paintings by the old masters; statues at exquisite beauty and finish by celebrated sculptors; rare books, bronzes, and medals, and provisions or articles of human food in cities during a siege, and more generally in times of scarcity and famine – these commodities are limited in quantity, and it is physically impossible in the circumstances existing to increase, multiply, or augment them further. The seller of these commodities, not being afraid of competition, can put any price he pleases on them short of the purchasers’ extreme estimate of the necessity, utility, or advantage to themselves of such commodities. Fabulous sums of money, therefore, have been expended in the purchase of such commodities – sometimes to indulge a taste for the fine arts; sometimes to satisfy a passion for the rare and the beautiful; and, sometimes, too, to gratify a feeling of vanity or ambition to be the sole proprietors of objects of antiquarian interest and curiosity. On the other hand, enormous sums of money have been paid in times of scarcity or during a siege for the commonest necessaries of life, or, failing these, for substitutes that have been requisitioned for human food, the use of which would make one shudder in circumstances of less pressing necessity.
THE LANDLORD THE GREATEST BURDEN ON THE LAND The land is a commodity that strictly belongs to this class. It is limited in extent, and no human power can enlarge or extend its area. The competition for it is excessive, the competitors struggling for its attainment – not for the purpose of satisfying a taste for the fine arts, or to gratify a passion for the rare or beautiful, but to secure a necessary means of existence: for they must live on and by the land, or they cannot live at all. The owner, therefore, of that land can put on it any rent he pleases, and the poor people competing for it have no choice but to accept his terms or die in a ditch or a poorhouse. Under the present system of land tenure, the owners are not only enabled, but actually exact for the use of the land the last shilling the tenant is able to pay, leaving him only what is barely sufficient to keep him from dying. Mr. Mill, who is the highest of all authorities on this subject, thus writes on the letting of land as it is actually carried out in Ireland: With individual exceptions (some of them very honorable ones) the owners of Irish estates do nothing for the land but drain it of its produce. What has been
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epigrammatically said in the discussions on ‘‘peculiar burdens’’ is literally true when applied to them, that the greatest ‘‘burden’’ on the land is the landlords. Returning nothing to the soil, they consume its whole produce, minus the potatoes strictly necessary to keep the inhabitants from dying of famine.
LANDLORDISM CONFISCATES THE WORK OF IMPROVERS But the present system of land tenure not merely enables a class to exact from the people of the country a famine price for the use of the land which God made: it also enables them to charge a rent for the use of the improvements on the land which the people themselves made, which are purely the result of their own industry and capital, and which, in fact, on the strictest principles of justice are their own private property. With the knowledge and experience which we have acquired all our lives long of the transactions that are daily taking place between landlords and tenants, the clearest and most convincing proof that can be given of this fact will perhaps be found in the plain and simple statement of it. The land of Ireland would at this moment still be in its original state of Nature had it not been drained, cleared, reclaimed, and fertilized by the enormous outlay of labor and capital which has been expended on it by the people of the present and their forefathers in past generations. The landlords contributed nothing, or next to nothing, for its improvement. Mr. Mill thus writes of the improvement of land in Ireland: Whenever in any country the proprietors, generally speaking, cease to improve their lands, political economy has nothing to say in defense of landed property as there established. Landed property in England is very far from completely fulfilling the conditions which render its existence economically justifiable. But if insufficiently realized, even in England, in Ireland those conditions are not complied with at all. With individual exceptions . . . the owners of Irish estates do nothing for the land but drain it of its produce.
REPORTS OF GOVERNMENT COMMISSIONS The Bessborough and Richmond commissions recently appealed directly to the nation for information on this important point. The answer which the nation returned was (as everyone knew should be the case), that all, or
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nearly all the permanent improvements in the soil of the country were effected by the labor and capital of the people of the country. The Bessborough commissioners write in their report: As a fact, the removal of masses of rock and stone which, in some parts of Ireland, encumbered the soil, the drainage of the land and erection of buildings, including their own dwellings, have generally been effected by the tenants’ labor, unassisted, or only in some instances assisted, by advances from the landlord.
THE WORK OF THE TENANTS The Liberal section of the Richmond Commission write in their report on the same subject: In a country like Ireland, where the dwelling houses, farm buildings, and other elements of a farm, including often the reclamation from the waste of the cultivated land itself, have been, and must, in our opinion, continue to be, for the most part, the work of the tenants.
Even the Tory section of this Richmond Commission, composed as it is of men of the highest type of conservatism and landlordism, observe with a frankness that shows the force of the evidence brought before them: Bearing in mind the system by which the improvements, and equipment of a farm are very generally the work of the tenant, and the fact that a yearly tenant is at any time liable to have his rent raised in consequence of the increased value that has been given to his holding by the expenditure of his own capital and labor, the desire for legislative interference to protect him from an arbitrary increase of rent does not seem unnatural.
But further argument in proof of this fact is quite unnecessary, seeing that both Houses of the legislature bear emphatic testimony to it in that section of the Land Act of 1870, which declares that ‘‘all permanent improvements in the soil and on the farm are assumed to have been made by the tenant, except in those cases in which it has been clearly proved they have been made by the landlord.’’ The vast property thus created by the labor and capital of the people, in the permanent improvement of the soil and in the buildings and equipment of their farms, and which has been growing and accumulating for centuries, covers a very considerable part of the aggregate value of the land of the country.
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DRIVEN FROM THE LAND The question then arises, what has become of this enormous property? The correct answer to this question will, I think, be found to be that one part of it has been wantonly wasted and destroyed; that the landlords have coolly appropriated to their own use a second part of it; and that the people pay, at the present moment, a rent for the use of the residue of what was once all their own property. In the one county of Meath, in this diocese, there are about 369,000 acres of land laid down in grass seeds or pasture. That vast territory was nearly all parceled out about the commencement of this century in farms of various sizes, ranging from ten to seventy, eighty, or a hundred acres each. These farms were dotted over with clean, commodious, comfortable, whitewashed dwellings, with offices, outhouses, and the plant of well-to-do farmers. These dwellings were occupied by a race of the most laborious, industrious, hard-working, and virtuous people that ever lived in any country. But, owing to the iniquitous system of land tenure, they have been almost all mercilessly evicted and swept away, and every vestige of the vast amount of human life, industry, contentment, and happiness that once flourished on these lands has been so carefully obliterated that, looking at them in their present melancholy solitude, one would imagine them to have always been ‘‘prairie lands’’ since the creation. The property which these poor people possessed in their dwellings and farmhouses has been thus wantonly destroyed, and the permanent improvements they had created in the productiveness of the soil were coolly appropriated by the landlords who evicted them.
HOW TENANTS ARE RACK-RENTED Until the Irish Land League interfered with their operations, these exterminators sold out by public auction every year the use of the people’s property, as well as the natural productiveness of the soil, to cattle dealers, for a term of nine, ten, or eleven months, and at a rent ranging from d4 to d6 an acre; and they drew from their estates an income twice, and in many instances three times as large as the few honest and honorable proprietors in their neighborhood who never evicted anyone at all. I need hardly direct attention to the notorious fact that those who have been suffered to remain, were only too glad to be allowed the privilege of paying a rent for the use of the residue of what was once their own property.
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The proof of this is plain. Proprietors, in letting their land, do not distinguish between the enormous value superadded to the land by the people’s labor and capital for centuries, and the value it has inherited from Nature, and, perhaps in some instances, from their own improvements. They let its whole value from every source at the highest price it will bring. And yet this sorely aggrieved class of men complains that they cannot now let their lands as they always let them before, and as all other owners are allowed to sell their property still, on the principle of open competition and free sale! During the long, large, and varied experience the world has had of the letting of land on that principle, was it ever heard that an owner let his land at less than its fair value? – and surely that fair value included the people’s improvements on the land as well as his own. We have seen, on the high authority of Mr. Mill, that it is the almost universal practice of Irish landlords to exact from their tenants in the form of rent the whole produce of the land minus the potatoes that are necessary to keep them from dying of hunger; and surely rack-rents like these cover every form of value the land possesses, and consequently the people’s improvements.
LANDLORDISM PREVENTS IMPROVEMENTS But the truth is, if the landlords only confiscated the enormous property created on the land by the people’s capital and labor for ages up to the present moment, a word of complaint would not be heard against them. The great grievance of which the people complain is that, even still, if the tenant has the folly to expend his labor and capital in the permanent improvements which the soil so sadly requires, the landlords are on the lookout to appropriate it at once, and put a fresh increase of rent on him for the use of his own property. Quite recently, therefore, the nation has earnestly appealed to the legislature, through the Bessborough and Richmond commissions, to protect the property which the people were ready to create in the permanent improvement of the soil, by barring the landlord’s right to appropriate it or charge a fresh rent for its use. Even the Tory section of the Richmond Commission were so struck with the manifest injustice of the arbitrary power by which the landlord can put any rent he pleases not only on the land, but on the tenant’s permanent improvements in the land, that they virtually recommend the
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government to leave the tenants no longer at their mercy. ‘‘Bearing in mind,’’ they say: the system by which the improvements and equipment of a farm are very generally the work of the tenant, and the fact that a yearly tenant is at any time liable to have his rent raised in consequence of the increased value that has been given to his holding by the expenditure of his own capital and labor, the desire of the tenant for legislative interference to protect him from an arbitrary increase of rent does not seem unnatural.
The Bessborough commissioners deplore the extent to which this arbitrary power has been abused in constantly imposing a fresh increase of rent on every fresh improvement made in the land by the tenants’ capital and labor. The weight of evidence, they say, proves that the larger estates are in general considerately managed, but that on some estates, and particularly on some recently acquired, rents have been raised both before and since the Land Act to an excessive degree, not only as compared with the value of the land, but even so as to absorb the profit of the tenant’s own improvements. This process has gone far to destroy the tenant’s legitimate interest in his holding. In Ulster, in some cases, it has almost ‘‘eaten up’’ the tenant right. Elsewhere, where there is no tenant right, the feeling of insecurity produced by the raising of the rent has had a similar effect. The Liberal section of the Richmond Commission thus write of the extent to which rents are generally raised: But we are satisfied that a large proportion of the occupiers of land are living in fear of an increased demand of rent upon any signs of increased ability to pay, and sometimes subjected to rents which do not admit of hopeful industry, and make contentment impossible. This state of things is found in its worst form upon the poorer tillage lands, upon the smaller properties, and especially, though not exclusively, upon those which have come into the hands of new owners since the famine of 1846–47, and down to the present time. We have had strong evidence, both from our assistant commissioners, Professor Baldwin and Major Robertson, and from private witnesses, that the practice of raising rents at short and uncertain intervals prevails to an extent fully sufficient to shake the confidence of the tenants, and to deter them from applying due industry and outlay to the improvement of their farms.
And they conclude ‘‘that this condition of things has created injustice in the past, and is fatal to the progress so much needed for the future.’’
AN OPEN VIOLATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE Under such a state of things one may well ask, is it in human nature that anyone could have the heart or the enterprise to expend his labor and capital
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on the permanent improvement of the soil exclusively for the benefit of others, and with a certainty that he will be charged an increased rent for the use of his own property? How can any government allow the land of a nation to remain in the hands of a class of men who will not improve it themselves, or allow others to improve it either? How can any just government suffer any longer a system of land tenure which inflicts irreparable ruin on the general industry and prosperity of a nation, and which is maintained solely for the purpose of giving the landlords an opportunity of plundering the class of industrious, improving tenants which it is specially bound to protect and defend? Such open violations of the fundamental principles of justice and of public morality, would make one who has thoroughly thought the case out, ask himself whether he was really in the region of hard, stern facts, and realities, or only in an ideal of fancy or fiction. The essential and immutable principles of justice used [should] certainly . . . be: That everyone had a right of property in the hard-earned fruits of his labor; that whatever property a man had made by the expenditure of his capital, his industry and his toil, was really his own; that he, and he alone, had a right to all the benefits, the advantages, and enjoyments that that property yielded; and that if anyone else meddled with that property against his will, or interfered with him in its enjoyment, he was thereby guilty of the crimes of theft and of robbery, which the eternal law of God, as well as the laws of all nations, reprobated and punished with such severity. But the principles which underlie the existing system of land tenure, and which impart to it its specific and distinctive character, are exactly the reverse of these. The principles on which that system is based are: That one privileged class do not require to labor for their livelihood at all: that they have an exclusive right to all the advantages, comforts, and enjoyments that can be derived from a splendid property, which exacted no patient, painful, or self-denying efforts of labor to create it or acquire it, and which, in fact, they inherited without any sacrifice at all: that, being a singularly favored race, and being all God’s eldest sons, the rest of the world must humbly acknowledge themselves to be their inferiors in rank, lineage, condition, and dignity: that this superiority of rank gives them a right to sell out God’s gifts as if they were purely the products of their own labor and industry, and that they can exact in exchange for them famine or scarcity prices. Finally, that they enjoy the enviable privilege of appropriating the hard-earned property of others against their wills, and do them no wrong even if they charge them a rent for the use of what would really appear to be their own.
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LANDLORDISM ROBS ALL CLASSES Hitherto we have confined ourselves almost exclusively to the consideration of the various forms of injustice, and the spoliation of private property which the existing system of land tenure enables the proprietors of the soil to inflict on the tenant farmers of Ireland. But the tenant farmers, though a numerous, influential, and important section of the nation, are, after all not the nation. Despite our cruel misgovernment in the past, some few of our national industries still survive, as well as that of cultivation of the soil. Then there are, moreover, certain trades and professions whose services are indispensable to any nation that has any claims to be considered civilized. The vast numbers who are engaged and live by their labor, industry, and skill in the various trades and professions form an important and an influential section of every civilized community. Now, any form of injustice, oppression, or wrong that can possibly exist in any of the great trades or industries of a nation is only felt by the individuals who belong to that industry or trade, and who earn their livelihood by their labor and skill in it. Outside, in the other greater or lesser of the national industries, it is hardly felt at all. But the Irish system of land tenure wrongs and impoverishes not only those who live by and of the land, but all other classes in the community as well! It robs not only the cultivators of the soil, but every man in the community, of a substantial portion of the hard-earned fruits of his labor, no matter in what trade or profession he may labor for his living. It is, therefore, not a local or a particular grievance, but a great national injustice, and that, I think, is its most objectionable peculiarity. I have already shown that the land of every country is the public property of the people of that country, and consequently, that its exclusive appropriation by a class is a substantial injustice and wrong done to every man in that country, whom it robs of his fair share of the common inheritance. The injustice of this appropriation is enormously enhanced by the fact that it further enables the landlords, without any risk or trouble, and in fact makes it a matter of course for them, to appropriate a vast share of the earnings of the nation besides. They plundered the people first of God’s gifts in the land, and that act of spoliation puts them under a sort of necessity of plundering them again of an enormous amount of their direct earnings and wages. The line of argument that leads directly to this conclusion seems abundantly clear.
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LAND VALUES INTENDED BY PROVIDENCE FOR PUBLIC PURPOSES I have already observed that the chief peculiarity of the land of a country was that its value was never stationary, that it was always progressive and rising, that in fact it increased in a direct ratio with the growth of the population and the advancing progress of the industry of the nation. It would seem as if providence had destined the land to serve as a large economic reservoir, to catch, to collect, and preserve the overflowing streams of wealth that are constantly escaping from the great public industrial works that are always going on in communities that are progressive and prosperous. Besides the permanent improvements that are made in the land itself, and which increase its productiveness and value, there are other industrial works not carried out on the land itself, but on its surroundings and in its vicinity, and which enhance its value very considerably. A new road is made for the accommodation of a district; a new bridge is thrown across a river or a stream to make two important localities accessible to each other; a new railway passes close by and connects it with certain large and important centers of industry; a new factory or a new mill is erected; or a new town is built in the neighborhood. Industrial works like these add very materially to the value of all the land in their vicinity. It is a well-known fact that a new railway has in several instances doubled the value of the land through which it passed, in consequence of the increased facilities it had afforded for the sale of its agricultural products. In every state of society, which is progressive and improving, such industrial works are continually going on, and hence the value of the land is rising also everywhere. But its value rises enormously with the enlarged growth of the population of a nation, and with the increased productiveness of its industry.
WAGES DO NOT KEEP PACE The United Kingdom furnishes an example that is singularly illustrative of this fact. Says Mr. Cairnes: A given exertion of British labor and capital will now produce in a great many directions five, ten, or twenty times, in some instances perhaps a hundred times the result which an
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equal exertion would have produced a hundred years ago. It is not probable that industry is, in any direction whatever, less productive now than it was then; yet the rate of wages, as measured by the real well-being of the laborer, has certainly not advanced in anything like a corresponding degree; while it may be doubted if the rate of profit has advanced at all.
A given amount, then, of British capital and labor is now ten or twenty times more effective than a hundred years ago, while, on the other hand, the quantity of such effective labor and capital now engaged in British industrial production is perhaps twenty times larger now than formerly.
VALUE OF BRITISH INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION The total aggregate result of British industrial production is therefore something enormous, and its gross pecuniary value must be proportionately large. What that total pecuniary value is I suppose it would be impossible to determine, even approximately. We know, however, that the pecuniary value of the foreign goods imported annually into England amounted for several years past to considerably more than d300,000,000 sterling. Now, as barter, or the mutual exchange of commodities, is the principle of international trade, these foreign goods could be paid for only by the export of English manufactured goods to such an amount that their aggregate pecuniary value would be substantially equal to that sum. If to these three hundred millions we add the price of the British manufactured goods consumed at home that sum would probably realize a few hundred millions more. But to guard against the possibility of a pretext to object to our argument, let us assume that the total pecuniary value of British manufactured goods, whether consumed at home or abroad, only amounted to d300,000,000 sterling. Now, that being the sum realized by the sale of the fruits of British industrial production, becomes, of course, the natural and just remuneration of the labor and capital that produced them. The part of that sum that must be apportioned for the remuneration of capital must be comparatively small, seeing that the rate of profit on capital for years past has been as low as, perhaps lower than, at any previous period. Vastly the larger portion of it, therefore, must pass into the hands of the laborers, who will spend it, perhaps, to the last shilling. Wise and thoughtful men have often bitterly deplored the want of that spirit of self-denial in the British operative which would induce him to save and ‘‘put by,’’ with the view of improving his condition, or, at all events, of
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making provision for the evil day of sickness or of old age. The clothing of the British workman is not very expensive, and, with the exception of the outlay necessary for that purpose, the remainder of the vast sums he has earned will be spent on food.
LANDLORDS SOW NOT, BUT THEY REAP Now, the ordinary food of the operatives and people of every country is what is called ‘‘the raw products of the soil;’’ that is to say, the beef, the mutton, the bacon, the poultry, the eggs, the milk, the butter, the flour, the meal, the potatoes, and the vegetables that spring directly from the soil, and that require only the simplest and the most inexpensive industrial processes to fit them for immediate use. ‘‘The raw products of the soil’’ will then be sold to the operatives as to other people at the highest price they will bring, on the principle of open competition and free sale. When, therefore, the competition is thus for the necessaries and luxuries of life, and that the competitors must be reckoned by millions, and that their means for purchasing must be reckoned by hundreds of millions, the demand for the raw products must be enormous, and the prices which they will bring must range very high. This enormous demand will exhaust all the food-producing resources of the country till a point is reached at which a further supply of food from the soil would cost more than its production in foreign countries, plus the expense of its carriage and delivery here. The prices, therefore, of ‘‘the raw products’’ thus ranging very high, the value of the soil which produced them also rises enormously; indeed, the vast sums which the nation pays for its food, for nearly all the necessaries and many of the luxuries of life, pass directly, and with little expense or trouble, into the hands of those who hold the ownership of the land, with the single deduction of the remuneration due to the usufructuaries or farmers. If the land had not been appropriated by individuals and diverted from the original purpose for which Providence had intended it, the high prices which the nation thus imposes on itself by the vastness of its numbers and the abundance of its wealth, in the purchase of the raw products of the soil, should be regarded as a most just and natural tax, which it instinctively levies on itself to realize the large sums that are necessary for the support of its public burdens.
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THE GREAT NATIONAL PROPERTY WHICH LANDLORDS ARE PERMITTED TO APPROPRIATE But now the great national property which Providence has destined for the support of the public burdens of society has been diverted from its original purpose to minister to the wants, the necessities, and perhaps the extravagance of a class. The explanation of this extraordinary act of national spoliation will be found in the fact that hitherto this class could just do as it pleased; the government of the country lay for centuries exclusively in its hands, and despite the combined influence of ‘‘English radicalism’’ and ‘‘Irish obstructionism’’ it is practically in its hands still. The enormous value, then, thus superadded to the land from the two sources just indicated passes directly with the land itself into the hands of those who own it. Those who hold the ownership of the land hold also the ownership of all the accessions of value it receives from all quarters. This increase in the value of their property cost no sacrifice, demanded no painful effort of labor. Even while they slept their rent rolls went on increasing and multiplying. The value continually imparted to the land by the industrial exertions of the community, in the construction of harbors and bridges, in the making of new roads and railways, in the erection of new factories, mills, and houses, etc., has all gone with the land, has all been confiscated and appropriated by the owners of the soil. Professor Cairnes feels sorely perplexed to account for some of the anomalous results of this appropriation. He says: A bale of cloth, a machine, a house, owes its value to the labor expended upon it, and belongs to the person who expends or employs the labor; a piece of land owes its value, so far as its value is affected by the causes I am now considering, not to the labor expended on the land, but that expended on something else – the labor expended in making a railroad or in building houses in an adjoining town; and the value thus added to the land belongs not to the persons who have made the railroads or built the houses, but to someone who may not have been aware that these operations were being carried on – nay, who perhaps has exerted all his efforts to prevent their being carried on. How many landlords have their rent %%%rolls doubled by railways made in their despite!
PROFESSOR’S UNWITTING TESTIMONY It never occurred to Mr. Cairnes that he had here given, quite unconsciously to himself, an unanswerable argument, ex absurdo, to prove the injustice of
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the appropriation of the land. If the land had not been confiscated no such absurd or unjust result could have followed. The value imparted by labor to the land, exactly like ‘‘the bale of cloth, the house, or the machine,’’ would belong to the persons who expended or employed that labor, that is to say, to the public, by whose industrial exertions it had been created. Lastly, the vast accessions of value which the land is constantly receiving from the proceeds of that ‘‘self-imposed tax’’ which the nation levies on itself in the high prices it pays for the ‘‘raw products of the soil,’’ together with the increased productiveness of the soil itself, go all, as Mr. Cairnes is forced to confess, ‘‘neither to profits nor to wages nor to the public at large, but to swell a fund ever growing, even while its proprietors sleep – to the rent roll of the owner of the soil.’’
PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND THE REAL ROBBER OF LABOR Thus the appropriation of God’s gifts in the land led naturally, and as a matter of course, to the appropriation of an enormous amount of the wages and earnings of the nation, which, in the designs of Providence, kept constantly dropping into the land, accumulating on the land, and adding to the value of the land, not for the enrichment of the landlords, but for the support of the public burdens of the state. Now a system of land tenure which thus despoils the people of a nation of a vast amount of their earnings, which transfers a valuable property which they have created by patient, painful, and self-denying efforts of their labor, to a class who do not labor at all, and make no sacrifices whatever, can, I think, be fairly characterized as a system of national spoliation. The hardworking, industrious masses of the nation are taxed twice, and for an enormous amount each time. They are taxed first for the benefit of the owners of the soil, to supply them with all the comforts, enjoyments, and luxuries which they desire, and are taxed again to the amount of eighty millions annually for the government and defense of the country. With two such enormous drains on the productive industry and labor of the country, I cannot share in the astonishment which Mr. Cairnes feels at finding that, notwithstanding the increased productiveness of British industry, ‘‘the rate of wages, as measured by the real well-being of the laborer,’’ has not improved to any material extent, ‘‘while it may be doubted whether the rate of profit has advanced at all.’’
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BOTH CAPITAL AND LABOR ARE EXPLOITED Both capitalists and operatives, therefore, are intensely disappointed and supremely dissatisfied with these disheartening results, and mutually reproach each other with fraud and foul dealing in the division of their common earnings. Their mutual misunderstandings and rival claims to a larger share than they actually receive have given rise to ‘‘lockouts’’ on the one side and ‘‘strikes’’ on the other; to combinations of capitalists among the employers and ‘‘trade unions’’ among the laborers. Thus their mutual relations, which ought to be of the friendliest character, have at last settled down into the permanent form of an insane internecine war, which inflicts irreparable injury on the common interests of both. It never occurs to either side that a third party could possibly be liable to blame. I think I have shown that neither party has received, or at all events can retain for his own use and enjoyment, its fair share of their common earnings. The existing system of land tenure, like a great national thief, robs both parties of an enormous amount of their earnings for the benefit of a class who do not labor at all. As the operatives complain the louder, so the case they make against the capitalists seem really the weaker and the worse-founded of the two. Mr. Cairnes, with many others, proved . . . [with] evidence that unless in rare and exceptional cases it is perfectly impossible for the capitalist to withhold from the operatives their fair share in their common earnings.
HIGHER MONEY WAGES BUT LOWER PURCHASING POWER Does it therefore follow that the strong, widespread, and permanent feeling of discontent which prevail among the laborers is the result of fancy or imagination, having no solid foundation whatever in fact? Undoubtedly this feeling proves the laborers to have substantial grievances, although I think they have failed to trace them to the causes that have really produced them. The money wage of the English operative is now considerably higher than in any past period of English history. But if his money wage is now high, the price of the raw products of the soil, that is to say, of the necessaries and comforts of life, is vastly higher still. A given amount of money will not now procure for him the same quantity of food and of the other necessaries of life as formerly.
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In purchasing the raw products of the soil, he must pay not only for the necessaries and comforts of life which he enjoys himself, but also for the comforts and luxuries which go to the enjoyment of the owners of the soil. The price, therefore, of the raw products is a payment and a tax; a payment for what he consumes himself, and a tax for what is consumed by others. Then again, a vast margin of the earnings of the English people is expended in direct and indirect taxation. The public burdens of every nation fall mainly on the vast masses of that nation, and the operatives of England are the vast masses of the English nation. If the English operatives could only retain for their own use and benefit the vast sums which, under the existing system of land tenure, go on the one hand to the owners of the soil, and the sums that an economic system of taxation would save for them on the other, their material comforts and enjoyments would be multiplied a hundredfold. Under the existing state of things their condition is utterly incapable of any improvement in the future.
ECONOMIST’S REVOLTING DOCTRINE OF DESPAIR Political economists can see no possible way in which English operatives can permanently improve their condition, except they have recourse to that revolting and unnatural expedient of voluntarily restraining and limiting their numbers. ‘‘This, then,’’ says Mr. Cairnes – the limitation of his numbers – ‘‘is the circumstance on which, in the last resort, any improvement at all of a permanent kind in the laborer’s condition turns.’’ If the self-commissioned apostles who preach this new doctrine only warned the people against the consequences of reckless and improvident marriages, I would join and go with them heartily. But when they advise them (as they seem to me to do) to increase and multiply according to the requirements of trade, and in such proportions as they may be wanted, for the benefit of their betters; when they advise them to increase and multiply only when trade is prosperous, prices are high and commerce flourishes, I am heartily opposed to them. These teachings appear to me not only unchristian, but revolting and unnatural; and their wickedness is only surpassed by the astounding ignorance of human nature which they reveal in men who ought to be better informed.
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THE ONLY HOPE FOR LABOR – ‘‘BACK TO THE LAND’’ The British workman has no need to have recourse to such an unnatural expedient for the purpose of improving his condition. The chief, the fundamental obstacle he will have to overcome, will be found in the existing system of land tenure. British operatives and capitalists, of all men living, appear to me to have the largest and deepest interest in a thorough and radical reformation in the system of land tenure in our country as well as in their own. Trades unions, therefore, instead of wasting their energies and resources in a fruitless struggle with capitalists, would do well to turn their attention in this direction. They have a wide field here for their efforts, and their labors here cannot possibly be fruitless. The rallying cry of capitalists and laborers ought then to be – ‘‘Back to the Land.’’
3. THE IRISH CRISIS (IRISH LAND LEAGUE) Land League Manifesto: Refusal to Pay Rents Recommended.24 By telegraph, from our correspondent. Dublin, Tuesday, 6 p.m. The excitement in Dublin does not diminish in intensity. The Land League has just held a meeting in the offices, Sackville Street, and has issued a ‘‘proclamation,’’ signed by Messrs. Parnell, Davitt, Kettle, Brennan, Dillon, Egan, &c., and dated the 18th October. It calls on the farmers to answer the high-handed measure of the [British] government with a universal refusal to pay rent. This proclamation professes to be signed this day, simultaneously, in Kilmainham Prison, Portland Prison, and Paris, and it probably has been in preparation for a longtime past. The chair at the meeting today was occupied by the Rev. Mr. Cantwell, administrator of Thurles, and well-known as the confidential representative of Archbishop Croke. There were various other Roman Catholic priests present and one M.P., namely, Mr. T.D. Sullivan, but in a back room, which was crowded by an enthusiastic assembly. The receipt of a sum of d2,276 was announced, of which d400 came from various parts of Ireland. After this numerous new members were nominated who desired to join the League as a protest against the ‘‘despotic action’’ of the government. The list included all the ‘‘brothers’’ of the Franciscan Order at Clara, King’s County; and the Rev. Dr. Kean, parish priest of St. Michan’s, Dublin, whose name was greeted with rounds of applause, as his accession to the Land League was in direct defiance of the wishes of his ecclesiastical superior, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin.25 The text of the proclamation calling on the people to pay no rent till the leaders of the League were released was then read and listened to with the profoundest attention. The meeting seemed to know what was coming, and 373
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watched eagerly for the decisive words. When these came to be uttered there arose a prolonged and enthusiastic cheer. After the reading of the proclamation Father Cantwell alone addressed the meeting. He said this was not a time for much speaking, but he had a few words to say. The usual weekly meetings of the League on Tuesdays would be discontinued for the present, but at the same time the business of the League would continue to be transacted in these rooms. It now remained for the country to show whether, when the crisis had come, when danger was at every man’s door, the Irish people would prove themselves to be cowards. He did not think they would. The Irish people were now able to guide themselves, and the spirit of that organization would remain, though the leaders were taken away. To suppress the Irish nation was impossible. If the leaders of the people were imprisoned the priests of Ireland were not imprisoned, and while one of them remained they would be found with the people, although they had sought no leadership in this movement. The blame for the complications about to ensue would rest on the head of the government, and instead of serving and enriching the landlords by their arbitrary conduct the government was only injuring them by causing a strike against all rent, and the landlords were now in a more hopeless condition than ever. (A voice: ‘‘Thank God.’’) He predicted that the day was not far distant when England would cease to govern this country. Events were hastening rapidly to this consummation. In conclusion, he urged on everybody to avoid violence, and to inculcate the same principle on all whom he could influence, for they should remember what had been repeatedly said by Mr. Parnell, that passive resistance was the weapon of an unarmed people. The following is the text of the Land League proclamation: To the Irish People. Fellow Countrymen: The hour had come to test whether the great organization built up during years of patient labor and sacrifice, and consecrated by the allegiance of the whole Irish race the world over, is to disappear at the summons of a brutal tyranny. The crisis with which we are face to face is not of our making. It has been deliberately forced upon the country while the Land Act is as yet untested, in order to strike down the only power which might have extorted any solid benefits for the tenant farmers of Ireland from that act, and to leave them once more helplessly at the mercy of a law invented to save landlordism and administered by landlord minions.
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The Executive of the Irish National Land League, acting in the spirit of the resolutions of the National Convention, the most freely elected representative body ever assembled in Ireland, was advancing steadily in the work of testing how far the administration of the Land Act might be trusted to eradicate from the rents of the Irish tenant farmers the entire value of their own improvements, and to reduce these rents to such a figure as should forever place our country beyond the peril of periodical famine. At the same time . . . [it] took measures to secure, in the event of the Land Act proving to be a mere paltry mitigation of the horrors of landlordism in order to fasten it the more securely upon the necks of the people, that the tenant farmers should not be delivered blindfolded in the hands of hostile law courts, but should be able to fall back upon the magnificent organization which was crushing landlordism out of existence when Mr. Gladstone stepped in to its rescue. In either event the Irish tenant farmers would have been in a position to exact the uttermost farthing of their just demand. It was this attitude of perfect self-command, impregnable while there remained a shadow of respect for law, and supported with unparalleled enthusiasm by the whole Irish race, that moved the rage of the disappointed English minister. Upon the monstrous pretext that the National Land League was forcing upon the Irish tenant farmers an organization which made them allpowerful, and was keeping them by intimidation from embracing an act which offered them nothing except helplessness and uncertainty, the English government has cast to the winds every shred of law and justice, and has plunged into an open reign of terror in order to destroy by her foulest means an organization which was confessedly too strong for it within the limits of its own English constitution. Blow after blow has been struck at the Land League in the mere wantonness of brute force. In the face of provocation which has turned men’s blood to flame the Executive of the Land League adhered calmly and steadily to the course traced out for . . . [it] by the National Convention. Test cases of a varied and searching character were with great labor put in train for adjudication in the Land Courts. Even the arrest of our president, Mr. Charles Stewart Parnell, and the excited state of popular feeling which it evoked, did not induce the Executive to swerve in the slightest from that course; for Mr. Parnells’ arrest might have been accounted for by motives of personal malice, and his removal did not altogether derange the machinery for the preparation of test cases, which he had been at much pains to perfect. But the events which have since occurred – the seizure or attempted seizure of almost all the members of the Executive and of the chief officials
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of the Land League upon wild and preposterous pretenses, and the violent suppression of free speech – put it beyond any possibility of doubt that the English government, unable to declare the Land League an illegal association, defeated in the attempt to break its unity, and afraid to abide the result of test cases watched over by [a] powerful popular organization has deliberately resolved to destroy the whole machinery of the central League, with a view to rendering and experimental trial of the [Land] Act impossible and forcing it upon the Irish tenant farmers on the government’s own terms. The brutal and arbitrary dispersion of the Central Executive has so far succeeded that we are obliged to announce to our countrymen that we no longer possess the machinery for adequately presenting the test cases in court according to the policy prescribed by the national government. Mr. Gladstone has by a series of furious and wanton acts of despotism driven the Irish tenant farmers to choose between their own organization and the mercy of his lawyers, between the power which has reduced landlordism to almost its last gasp and the power which strives with all the ferocity of despotism to restore the detestable ascendancy from which the Land League has delivered the Irish people. One constitutional weapon now remains in the hands of the Irish National Land League. It is the strongest, the swiftest, the most irresistible of all. We hesitated to advise our fellow countrymen to employ it until the savage lawlessness of the English government provoked a crisis in which we must either consent to see the Irish tenant farmers disarmed of their organization and laid once more prostrate at the feet of the landlords, and every murmur of Irish public opinion suppressed with an armed hand, or appeal to our countrymen to at once resort to the only means now left in their hands of bringing this false and brutal government to its senses. Fellow Countrymen: The hour to try your souls and to redeem your pledges has arrived. The Executive of the National Land League, forced to abandon the policy of testing the Land Act, feels bound to advise the tenant farmers of Ireland from this day forth to pay no rents under any circumstances to their landlords until the government relinquishes the existing system of terrorism and restores the constitutional rights of the people. Do not be daunted by the removal of your leaders, your fathers abolished tithes by the same method without any leaders at all and with scarcely a shadow of the magnificent organization that covers every portion of Ireland today. Do not let yourselves be intimidated by threats of military violence.
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It is lawful to refuse to pay rents as it is to receive them. Against the passive resistance of an entire population military power has no weapons. Do not be wheedled into compromise of any sort by the dread of eviction. If you only act together in the spirit to which within the last two years you have countless times pledged your vows, they can no more evict a whole nation than they can imprison them. The funds of the National Land League will be poured out unstintingly for the support of all who may endure eviction in the course of the struggle. Our exiled brothers in America may be relied upon to contribute if necessary as many millions of money as they have contributed thousands to starve out landlordism and bring English tyranny to its knees. You have only to show that you are not unworthy of their unboundless sacrifices in your cause. Defeat you! Landlordism is already staggering under the blows which you have dealt it amidst the applause of the world. One more crowning struggle for your land, your homes, your lives – a struggle in which you have all the memories of your race, all the hopes of your children, all the sacrifices of your imprisoned brothers, all your cravings for rent-enfranchised land, for happy homes, and national freedom to inspire you. One more heroic effort to destroy landlordism at the very source and fount of its existence, and the system which was and is the curse of your race and of your existence, will have disappeared forever. The world is watching to see whether all your splendid hopes and noble courage will crumble away at the first threat of a cowardly tyranny. You have to choose between throwing yourself upon the mercy of England and taking your stand by the organization which has once before proved too strong for English despotism; you have to choose between all-powerful unity and impotent disorganization, between the land and the landlords and the land for the people. We cannot doubt your choice. Every tenant farmer in Ireland is today the standard bearer of the flag unfurled at Irishtown, and can bear it to a glorious victory.26 Stand together in the face of brutal and cowardly enemies of your race. Pay no rents under any pretext. Stand passively, firmly, fearlessly by while the armies of England may be engaged in their hopeless struggle against a spirit which their weapons cannot touch. Act for yourselves if you are deprived of the counsels of those who have shown you how to act. No power of legalized violence can extort one penny from your purses against your will. If you are evicted you shall not suffer, and the government which supports him with its
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bayonets will learn in a single winter how powerless is armed force against the will of a united, determined, and self-reliant nation. (Signed) Charles S. Parnell, president, Kilmainham Gaol. A.J. Kettle, hon. secretary, Kilmainham Gaol. Michael Davitt, Portland Prison. John Dillon, head organizer. Thomas Sexton, head organizer, Kilmainham Gaol. Thomas Brennan, secretary, Kilmainham Gaol. Patrick Egan, treasurer, Paris.
4. GEORGE FOR IRELAND (THE IRISH WORLD) America’s Greatest Economist on the Way to the Scene of Action. Special Correspondent of The Irish World. To Investigate Things Just as They Are and Place Them Before the American Public. One of Most Important Missions Ever Undertaken. A Reception by the Citizens of Dublin.27 The name of Henry George, author of Progress and Poverty, the most remarkable work of its kind produced in this century, carries with it wherever heard an inspiration of respect, and the hat is doffed immediately on its*** utterance to one of the brightest gems that shines in the world’s galaxy of literary geniuses. In every land the ideas upon man’s relation to the soil as expressed by him in his great production are being scattered broadcast, and are marching forward with strides that make their adoption by civilization but a matter of time. The really great minds of the world have universally acknowledged the worth of the work, performed by George, and every day brings him out in bolder relief as one of the guiding stars of mankind. When we have said all this, an idea of the influence that such a man is likely to exert in any movement with which he connects himself may be understood, and it is with much pleasure that we have to inform our readers that The Irish World has secured the services of Mr. George to report the actual condition of affairs in Ireland, and that he is already on his way to the scene of his duties, having left New York last Saturday per steamer Spain, of the National Line. It was his desire to leave as quietly as possible, and many demonstrations of goodwill were foregone at his earnest request. There was one testimonial, however, which he could not get out of, being in the shape of a farewell 379
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dinner tendered him by the principal journalists of Brooklyn at Hubbel’s Hotel last Thursday evening. After the solid part of the feast had been disposed of, the evening was devoted to speechmaking, songs, and a reasonable conviviality. Mr. George’s health was pledged over and over again, and with a heartiness that attested a friendship as sincere as the admiration felt for his work was manifest. In response to the toast of the evening, which was to himself, Mr. George, in his own clear, modest way, stated what purpose he had in view in going abroad, which was, in substance, to collect information upon the land question in general, but in particular
TO STUDY THE CASE OF IRELAND Referring to recent events in Ireland he expressed himself as heartily on the side of the wing of the Land League which insists upon the nationalization of the land. This, he felt confident, will be brought about. The movement could not be stopped by compromises, or by the use of any physical force at the disposal of any government. Mr. Gladstone’s arrest of Mr. Parnell he regarded as at once a crime and a blunder. Gladstone he regarded as a wellmeaning man, who was as completely the victim of circumstances as Necker was on the eve of the French Revolution.28 Indeed, he added, Gladstone is the Necker of our time. The cause of Ireland was, he said, the cause of humanity: the struggle there being waged is one in which the honest industry of the whole world is vitally concerned. . . . The literary labors of Mr. George have been very extensive, and adds*** from his peculiar philosophic gifts Mr. George stands among the first of American journalists, wielding an able pen and possessing one of the most fascinating of styles. Mr. George will arrive in Dublin in another week, where a reception will be tendered him, and another issue or two of The Irish World will contain the results of his first experiences there per cable and mail.
5. BY THE LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND (W. E. FORSTER) A Proclamation.29 Whereas an association styling itself the Irish National Land League has existed for some time past, assuming interfere with the queen’s subjects in the free exercise of their lawful rights, and especially to control the relations between landlords and tenants in Ireland. Now WE HEREBY WARN ALL PERSONS that the said association styling itself the Irish National Land League, or by whatsoever other name it may be called or known, is an unlawful and criminal association, and that all meetings and assemblies to carry out or promote its designs or purposes are alike unlawful and criminal, and will be prevented, and, if necessary, dispersed by force. And WE DO HEREBY CALL on all loyal and well-affected subjects of the crown to aid us in upholding and maintaining the authority of the law and the supremacy of the queen in this her realm of Ireland. Dated Dublin Castle, this 20th day of October, 1881. By the secretary of*** W. E. Forster
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6. IRISH MEETING IN THE FREE TRADE HALL (MICHAEL DAVITT) Michael Davitt on the Land Question.30 Mr. Michael Davitt presided at a lecture given yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, in the Free-Trade Hall, by Mr. Henry George, who was described as the correspondent of The Irish World. The lecture, which was entitled ‘‘The Land for the People,’’ was given under the auspices of the National Land League of Great Britain, and was attended by a large number of Irish residing in this city and in Salford, who had responded to the call on the placards asking them to ‘‘come in their thousands to greet the noble founder of the Land League and the great American champion of Irish nationality.’’ Mr. Davitt, who secured a most enthusiastic greeting when he entered the hall, the greater portion of the audience rising to their feet and cheering incessantly for several minutes, said: The very peculiar situation in which I find myself, both in reference to the present critical situation of the Irish movement, compels me to take a precaution which I think absolutely necessary – (‘‘hear, hear’’) – a precaution that what I say here today may in the first place be accurately reported, and in the second place that my words may go forth to my countrymen – (‘‘hear, hear’’) – to be understood as I wish them to be understood by those who know me. I don’t know whether my liberty is conditional upon a support of the new Whig policy in Ireland or not – (groans and cries of ‘‘shame’’) – but as I have all through my political career disregarded all the consequences that may follow from the performance of duty to Ireland – (loud cheers) – I intend to speak here today what I feel – (renewed cheers) – and if the Whigs send me back to prison for the third time – (cries of ‘‘never’’) – well, I will put up with it as I have in the past. (‘‘Hear, hear,’’ and cheers.) I am at present, as you know, out under the conditions of a ticket of leave – (loud hisses and 383
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groans) – which condition I treat with the same contempt I did three years ago. (Cheers.) In fact, I have already broken them – (renewed cheers) – and the last I saw of that most interesting document was when I saw it secured by a ubiquitous member of the press two hours after I was discharged from Portland [Jail]. (Laughter.) Where it is or where that gentleman is at present I have no knowledge whatever – (renewed laughter) – but I sincerely hope that, should he go to Ireland as a special correspondent for some London paper, and fall into the hands of that very clever detective force the Irish Constabulary – (laughter and cheers) – my ticket of leave won’t be a passport for him back to Portland. (Renewed laughter and cheers.) For these reasons, then, explained at the commencement of my address, I must claim your indulgence to read my speech. (‘‘Hear, hear,’’ and cheers.) The change that has come over public opinion upon the subject of land reform during my incarceration in Portland is so vast in its import to the cause with which I am identified that I am, I hope pardonably anxious to justify the movement by the aid of which such a revolution in the popular mind of these countries has been effected. (Cheers.) Three years ago, when the cry of ‘‘The Land for the People’’ went up from a meeting in the west of Ireland, it was received with astonishment by our own countrymen and branded at once as communistic and wicked in England.31 Yet an organization for effecting the nationalization of the land of this country is now numbered among its political forces, and has at its head such enlightened minds as Doctors Russell, Wallace, and Clark.32 (Cheers.) Peasant proprietary was ridiculed as ruinous and impossible by the late Lord Beaconsfield. (Hisses.) No, no; I must say that I don’t approve of that. (Cheers.) I never carry resentment into the tomb. (Renewed cheers.) He was our enemy while alive, but we must be just to his memory – (cheers) – and when we have shown mankind that we have learned the lesson of knowing how to be just, we shall prove that we deserve to be free. (Cheers.) He propounded his famous theory that three profits must necessarily be recognized in the agriculture of England – those of the landlord, the farmer, and the laborer; yet scarcely has his cloak of leadership fallen upon Lord Salisbury than the landlord’s profit is recognized as an evil in the rural economy of Ireland, and peasant proprietary finds a lodgment in the legislative program of the English House of Lords.33 Those who believed with myself that peasant proprietary, immensely preferable though it be to landlordism, would not meet to the full the final solution of the Irish social problem, were, two short years ago put down as utopian dreamers; yet one of the most respected bishops of Ireland has since
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proclaimed that ‘‘the land of every country is the common property of the people of that country – (cheers) – because its real owner – the Creator who made it – has transferred it as a voluntary gift to them. Terram autem dedit filiis hominum. (‘‘The earth He hath given to the children of men.’’) Now, as every individual, in every country, is a creature and a child of God, and as all His creatures are equal in His sight, any settlement of the land of this or any other country that would exclude the humblest men in this or that country from his share of the common inheritance, would not only be an injustice and a wrong to that man, but would moreover be an impious resistance to the benevolent intentions of the Creator. (Loud cheers.) All these vast strides, taken in conjunction with Mr. Gladstone’s legislation of the past and present year, ought to show, to every observing mind, that a movement from which such progress in economic thought has mainly sprung, should not be lightly treated or hastily condemned because a storm of angry passions, inseparable from human struggles, has swept over an unfortunate country as a contemporary phenomenon. (Cheers.) If movements for the social and political amelioration of a people are to be held responsible for the crimes that are incidental, not to them, but to the wrongs which they strive to abolish, liberty itself would be a bloodstained monster, and the cause of societal progress would be a criminal pursuit. No one laments the murders and outrages that have taken place in Ireland recently more than I do – (‘‘hear, hear’’) – and no one will be found more ready or earnest to prevent them in future; but to charge their perpetration upon the Land League movement, as most English papers are doing, is as blindly unjust as to bring home to the French reformers of 1789 the atrocities of the Reign of Terror, and faster upon the memory of Mirabeau the sanguinary appetite of a Marat.34 (Cheers.) Knowing that if a fair hearing could be obtained in England for a reformer it would be granted in Manchester – (cheers) – the birthplace of English reform, I have come to plead the cause of the Land League upon ground that is hallowed by the blood of Englishmen – (cheers) – spilled in the cause of justice and progress. (Renewed cheers.) My object will be to show that to a tardy recognition of principles by English statesmanship, and an indifference towards or hostility to the just demands of the people or Ireland on the part of English popular feeling, are to be attributed the excesses that follow from justice long delayed and crying evils allowed to pander to the dictates of unreasoning passion. John Bright – (slight hissing) – and who has read the speeches of other English Liberal leaders, is familiar with the tone of scornful upbraiding with
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which, not they alone, but all the organs of the Liberal Party, have assailed the Tories for their persistent opposition to all the great English reforms that have been carried, from 1832 down to the Ballot Act of 1874.35 English conservatism has been over and over again charged with initiating nothing for the national weal, and taunted with having obstructed all popular measures until success had placed them among the statutes of the realm. This hostility of the Tories towards the extension of popular privileges, as defined by their political rivals, is exactly similar to that of the people of England towards movements and measures in behalf of popular rights in Ireland. Neither English statesmen, nor English public opinion, ever trouble themselves to think of, propose, or initiate any legislative remedy for the wants and grievances that affect the well-being and contentment of the people of Ireland, but take up, as a general rule, towards such remedies as Irishmen propose and Irish public opinion endorses the same antagonistic stand as that which is so loudly condemned when assumed by one English party towards the plans and proposals of the other. Thus every single Irish proposal for measures essential to our country’s needs has to encounter two hostile conservative forces ere it can hope for lodgment with the domain of practical politics – namely, the hereditary or aristocratic in Great Britain and Ireland, and the ignorant or prejudiced on the part of the popular mind of England. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Hence not a single remedial act passed, or remnant of penal laws removed from the passage of the Act of Union until the Arrears Bill now before the House of Commons, but has had to be forced down the throat of English public opinion and Parliament by the intensity of Irish agitation.36 (Cheers.) The parallel, however, between the hostility of English Toryism towards popular rights in this country and that of English popular feeling against the recognition of identical principles in Ireland would only be complete if the Conservative Party had had the power to have suspended the Habeas Corpus Act preparatory to the concession of some remedy for English discontent, and had likewise imprisoned such of the Liberal leaders as were chiefly instrumental in forcing such [a] remedy upon reluctant legislation.37 (Laughter and cheers.) The question I would like to ask of Englishmen, who are now compelled to study the problem of Ireland’s pacification, is a simple and practical one: Is landlordism worth what its support is costing England – (cries of ‘‘no’’) – and the troubles and misery which it is entailing upon Ireland? (‘‘No’’ and cheers.) No rational mind acquainted with the treasure of blood of money that has been wasted in defending it against the assaults of its victims would
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hesitate a single moment for a reply to this simple question. The only grounds upon which anything like a reasonable defense of this anti-Irish and irrational system can be based are that it is English, that it has always been deemed essential to the maintenance of England’s power in Ireland, and that those whose interest would be affected by its abolition are the portion of the population of Ireland that is known to be the most loyal to the authority of England. Surely these reasons ought not to outweigh those which can be advanced by Irishmen, and which are supported by unprejudiced English thought upon the other side. That the Irish land code is of English origin is true; but does this fact necessarily constitute it a good code, or one suited to the genius, customs, and wants of the Irish people. (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) These land laws are notoriously unsuited to the requirements of a progressive age, and have consequently been, in a great measure, swept away in every civilized country outside of Great Britain and Ireland. But had not this been the case, and were they still capable of being pointed to as suiting the feelings and social condition of one or more civilized nations, this would be no argument for their continuance in Ireland in face of their career of disastrous failure in that country, and in opposition to the interests and will of the Irish people. (Loud cheers.) It would be a waste of words to refute the assertion that Irish landlordism is the safeguard of England’s supremacy in Ireland. (Cheers.) Of all the institutions or laws bearing an English complexion in Ireland, and making a part of the machinery by which it is governed, landlordism presents the weakest point of attack, has always been and must always continue to be the most obnoxious factor of English rule, and would alone, in the absence of every exasperating agency, keep the country in an unsettled state, fan the flame of social discontent, and inspire a national sentiment of disaffection towards the power that could sustain such a notoriously ruinous system. Instead of being England’s stronghold, it is just the reverse, as it renders the name and authority of the English government responsible for all the injuries which it inflicts upon the country, and necessarily involves in the infamy of its acts the name of that power whose instruments are essential to their perpetration. (Cheers.) The next argument that is adduced to sanction the support given by Englishmen to Irish landlordism is calculated to appeal even more strongly to popular feeling in this country than that just mentioned, as it is made to represent a loyal section of the population of Ireland as occupying an isolated situation in the midst of a disloyal majority, and in need of a protection which would not be required but for such loyalty. This is one of
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the trump cards of the Irish landlords, and has always been played in a most effective manner by them. But is it a true or honest argument? It is quite true that they constitute what is known as the loyal section of the Irish people, because they hold the land that was formerly the property of the Irish nation. (Cheers.) But would their boasted loyalty stand the test of a government confiscation such as those by which the land was stolen from the people in the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Cromwell?38 (Cries of ‘‘no.’’) They are loyal because it is their interest to be so – (cheers) – and they know as well as their persecuted tenantry could tell them that the laws by which they have succeeded in reducing Ireland to beggary and chronic discontent are detested, not because those in whose interests they are maintained are loyal to England, but from the fact of their being the root of every social evil under which the country is groaning and the chief source of the poverty and misery that burden the lives of our people. (Cheers.) Let me ask fair-minded Englishmen whether the selfish loyalty of a class is a justification for upholding a system which constantly invites twenty times its number to be discontented? (Cries of ‘‘no.’’) Can a boasted attachment to English rule be construed into a privilege of pauperizing an Irish nation? (‘‘Never.’’) Let England by all means sustain what is just and wise to defend in the interests of her Irish ultraloyalists, but let not Englishmen endeavor to perpetuate by all the influence and power of the empire an antiquated and obnoxious land code that stands forth today before the world with a record of centuries of failure unequaled by any institution that has ever fallen before the attacks of progress and enlightenment. (Cheers.) Instead of reconciling the people of Ireland to the loss of the national system which obtained among them for centuries previous to the English invasion, or winning them over to a willing acceptance of the new law, and to a submission to the power that upheld it, landlordism has had to sustain itself by every weapon of despotic power against an incessant agrarian war from its very inception in Ireland until the present hour. (Cheers.) Never has landlordism succeeded in obtaining a moral recognition from the Irish people. (Cries of ‘‘It never will’’ and cheers.) Not for a single day has the Irishman ceased to look upon the landlord as a social enemy, or the law by which he was compelled to part with most of his earnings in the shape of rent, but as the detested instrument by which himself and family are impoverished and his country ruined. Illustration or evidence is unnecessary to sustain these assertions, as they are patent to all who have given the most cursory study to the Irish land question, and stand
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uncontradicted by every English writer who has brought an impartial criticism to its investigation. I have endeavored in the foregoing remarks to place this question of the abolition of Irish landlordism before the English people, not from a purely Irish point of view, or upon grounds of abstract justice, but in the light of a reform involving serious English interests: proving that such interests are endangered infinitely more by the upholding of Irish landlordism than they could possibly be by its abolition. It is for Englishmen to make up their minds what course to pursue in furtherance of their own political interests. The people of Ireland have fully made up theirs – (loud cheers) – as to what is their just demand, and what the sentence that must be passed upon Irish landlordism. (Renewed cheers.) Mr. Gladstone’s – (hisses and cheers) – I know there is a great deal, or rather it is considered by some that there is a great deal, in a hiss, but I for one never practice what I think is reprehensible: to hiss or attack a man not present to defend himself – (‘‘hear, hear’’ and cheers) – Mr. Gladstone’s – (renewed cheers) – temporary expedient of fixing rent, backed by undisguised despotism with which he means to combat Irish land reformers, may satisfy some and frighten other Irishmen from further efforts to effect a complete settlement of the Irish social problem; but he deceives himself egregiously – (‘‘hear, hear’’) – if he believes that the Land League movement is about to efface itself all the world over because he has been converted to Mr. Parnell’s views upon the arrears question – (prolonged cheers) – and accepted the services of Mr. O’Shea in effecting the Treaty of Kilmainham. (Laughter.) I think it well to just remind the jubilant Whigs who believe they have captured the whole Irish Party through the diplomacy of a political gobetween from Clare – (renewed laughter) – that the Land League was organized to effect the complete abolition of Irish landlordism – (cheers) – and that until that work is fully and completely accomplished there can be no alliance between the people of Ireland and the Whig Party in this country. (Cheers.) Mr. Gladstone wants Ireland to give a trial to his second attempt to settle the Irish land question. The people of Ireland will refuse to give any further trial to Irish landlordism. (Cheers.) Instead of having grappled with this festering social cancer in a courageous and effective manner, which his previous failure to cure the evil would reasonably warrant, he has proceeded upon the lines of his former mistake and produced another experimental measure, by which landlord and tenant, instead of being legally divorced, are both turned over into the hands of lawyers, the country invited to place all its prospects of
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peace and prosperity in universal litigation, while tenant farmers are asked to see their interests protected, and their happiness insured in the existence of a Land Court composed of lawyers and Irish land agents. The spider inviting the fly into his net – (laughter and cheers) – is only equaled in seductive disinterestedness by Mr. Gladstone introducing the Irish tenant farmers into a mixed gang of Irish ‘‘conservators of ancient barbarism’’ and Irish agents in order to be protected! (Laughter.) Even this much of legislation, small as it is, could not be given to Ireland without being spiced with the customary vindictiveness by which Irishmen are deprived of their liberty and their country flooded with troops because the Whig Party has been put to the inconvenience of attempting something for Ireland. It has ever been, and is still the fate of English ministers never to know how to remedy any of our admitted wrongs by what are termed ‘‘installments of justice’’ in a politic or conciliatory manner. Our people must be driven either to open attempts at rebellion or Ireland must be plunged into a ferment of political agitation ere British statesmanship will admit that such wrongs, or the questions that embrace them, come within the domain of practical politics. But that is not all. Before these recognized grievances can be partially or wholly redressed, or a modicum of justice conceded, the Habeas Corpus Act must be suspended in order that Dublin Castle may be propitiated by an equivalent installment of political vengeance. Thus the credit which could be gained from a not ungrateful people by a judicious treatment of the social and political wants of our country is lost to England through the vindictive spirit by which her concessions are accompanied to a sensitive and impulsive nation. The concession upon the arrears question is now offered side by side with a bill purporting to be aimed at secret societies and for the prevention of crime – (loud hisses) – but in reality intended to arrest the further public action of the people of Ireland towards the abolition of landlordism. I am confident that if the healthy feeling of horror which was created throughout Ireland by the Phoenix Park tragedy was permitted to have its full effect upon the popular mind of the country, assassination would have been assassinated in Ireland by the melancholy event of the sixth of May.39 Now the country will see the use that Mr. Gladstone is about to make of that event. (A voice: ‘‘no.’’) The Land League movement is to be crushed. (Cries of ‘‘never’’ and cheers.) Every barrier that could stand between the people and landlord vengeance is to be removed in order that no political action in Ireland shall interfere with the subtle policy of the Whig government in support of a doomed system.
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What will be the consequence? The people of Ireland can never place confidence in any English government – (‘‘hear, hear’’) – that places the administration of its laws in the hands of Dublin Castle, that depot of centralized despotism – (loud cheers) – without a parallel in the history of constitutional government. Those in whom they have reposed confidence, to whom they look for guidance and support, are menaced with gagging laws, the very discussion of which in the English House of Commons has brought shame to the face of thousands of Englishmen. What will be the consequence? The field of Irish political strife will be left clear to the landlords, armed with unlimited power by Mr. Gladstone and the equally unlimited power of secret combination, freed from the antagonism and rivalry of an open movement. To which of these two powers will the victims of Irish landlordism – those who know the implacable nature of landlord vengeance so well – secretly incline? I will answer this question in memorable words once uttered by John Bright: When law refuses its duty, when government denies the right of a people, when competition is so fierce for the little land which the monopolists grant to cultivation in Ireland, when, in fact, for a bare potato millions are scrambling, these people are driven back from law and the usages of civilization to that which is termed the law of Nature, and, if not the strongest, the law of the vindictive; and in this case the people of Ireland believe, to my certain knowledge, that it is only by these acts of vengeance, periodically committed, that they can hold in suspense the arm of the proprietor and the agent – (‘‘hear, hear’’) – who in too many cases, if he dared, would exterminate them. At this moment there is a state of war in Ireland. Don’t let us disguise it from ourselves. There is a war between landlord and tenant; a war as fierce as relentless as though it were carried on by force of arms. There is a suspicion, too, between landlord and tenant, which is not known by any class of people in this country, and there is a hatred, too, which I believe under the present and past system has been pursued in Ireland which can never be healed or eradicated.
These expressions of John Bright’s, uttered years ago, now that we are face to face with a state of affairs in Ireland like that which confronts us now, I bring forward to show that Mr. Gladstone and the English people what will be the consequences of this battle of vengeance that is going to commence between the Iandlords of Ireland and a great portion of the people of Ireland. In presence of this state of affairs in Ireland, vengeance is to be pitted against vengeance, the settlement of the agrarian war is to be left
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between the Clifford Lloyds – (loud hooting) – and the wild justice of revenge born of landlord oppression.40 I again ask what will be the consequence? Had Mr. Gladstone been in the confidence of the secret powers with which he pretends alone to grapple he could not have more completely played into their hands. There is not power at the disposal of Mr. Gladstone, there is no method short of the extermination of the whole Irish race, that can grapple effectually with a secret movement when it is made to appear as the only protector of a wronged and trampled people – (loud cheers) – and which confronts the mandates of unlimited despotism with the weapon of retaliation. If the Land League is to be prevented from succoring the evicted, if every channel of political effort not favorable to Whig legislation on the land question is to be closed up, then indeed will the whole situation be surrendered to the secret movement, and lex talionis [the law of retaliation; ‘‘an eye for an eye’’] become the only refuge of despair. As the moral responsibility of the outrage epidemic of the past twelve months must in my humble opinion rest upon the Whig administration for its coercive incitation to vengeance, so must the crimes that will follow additional coercion be placed at same door. If Mr. Gladstone is earnest in his efforts to put down crime, let him go to the source of all agrarian outrage, and remove Irish landlordism from Ireland. (Cheers.) If he be determined to put down secret societies, let him remove from the government of Ireland what makes English rule detested and English law distrusted: let him sweep away Dublin Castle – (loud cheers) – and show that he can repose the same confidence in Ireland that has not been abused in Canada.41 (Cheers.) If he believes that peace will be restored in Ireland while landlords have power to evict and the Castle power to trample upon every political opponent and every vestige of liberty, he has read the history of the Anglo-Irish difficulty to no purpose. I believe the admirable temper and manly self-control that has distinguished almost the whole of this country during the past fortnight, in face of what might have provoked an outburst of unjust and ungenerous wrath, together with the widespread anxiety that peace should be restored to Ireland and crime extinguished by generous and just legislation, would sanction measures of justice and conciliation which the past would not contemplate, and which the future, if embittered by angry passions and violence, may refuse to consider. Has Mr. Gladstone the courage to respond to this feeling among the unprejudiced of his countrymen, and to make a heroic concession to justice and right, or will he continue, as in the new
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Coercion Bill, to be guided by the policy of a Forster – (loud hisses) – and the tactics of political adversaries? But humble and obscure though my origin and position may be – (prolonged cheers) – the son of an Irish peasant – (cheers) – who was refused shelter in an Irish workhouse by Irish landlordism, the son of an Irish mother who had to beg through the streets of England for bread for me: humble as that origin may be, the memory of that mother has made me swear so long as I have tongue to speak, or head to plan, or hand to dare for Ireland – (cheers; during which a great part of the audience rose and applauded vociferously) – Irish landlordism and English misgovernment in Ireland shall find in me a sleepless and incessant opponent. (Renewed cheers.) It is useless to think that Mr. Gladstone would be influenced by my advice, but had my voice been listened to when I last emerged from the prison into which his government thrust me in 1870 – (shame) – the sad history of the past two years would never have to be written, and the Ireland of today might have been otherwise than a standing reproach to English government. I tell him now that although the Arrears Bill may land his government over a temporary difficulty, the very next season of scarcity or partial famine that unpropitious seasons will bring upon Ireland will reopen the Irish land question, and call into play the same passions and provoke the same strife between conflicting interest that have brought the Land League into existence and forced the hands of unwilling legislators, dark as is the present outlook for Ireland. I do not despair. (‘‘Hear, hear.) In a period of unexampled trial the attitude of her people has been steadfast, courageous, and unbroken. The march of the social has dragged the settlement of the national question in its wake [sic]. If victory has not yet crowned the efforts of the Land League, we have called into existence the elements of proximate success. (Cheers.) Ere concluding what I fear has been a too-lengthy speech – (‘‘no, no’’) – I feel compelled to make a few observations upon a subject which, of all others that are discussed in connection with the present state of Ireland, is the most painful to dwell upon. The outrages that have been committed during the past year in Ireland, culminating in the assassinations of the sixth of this month have placed the character of our country in a very odious light before public opinion throughout the world. Apart from the obloquy which they are made to bring upon our country they, and they alone, are responsible for the check that has been given to the Land League movement, and for the crisis with which we are now confronted. Granting all that can be said on the head of provocation – all that can be quoted to show that the balance of crime and outrage has ever been on the
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side of our oppressors in the past – when will we learn the lesson which commonsense and prudence teach, that the one grand fatal error in all popular movements is to allow the promptings of individual passion to silence the warnings of moral sense and prudence in order to seek a selfish and criminal gratification regardless of all consequences to a people’s cause? (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) Are there not far nobler principles and more exalted and manly aspirations bequeathed to us from the past than those of hatred and revenge? If the powers on the high seem indifferent to interfere in the defense of right shall the cause of justice be sullied by unholy vengeance? If the one supreme danger that besets the path of this great movement be that of outrage, and the greatest obstacle in the way of success be the gratification of passionate resentment, why should not policy, prudence, morality, and religion stay the suicidal acts of those who retaliated for the wrongs inflicted upon injured men? If Irish landlordism finds its only support from public opinion in appearing to be the victim of a people’s implacable vengeance, why should its life be prolonged by the excesses of its victims? (‘‘Hear, hear.’’) It is heartrending to think that were it not for the excesses of the past year the cause of justice would by this time have triumphed, and Ireland would stand today in the position of a victor in her own cause and that of humanity also. (Cheers.) Had the promptings of revenge not frustrated the plans of the Land League, Irish landlordism could no more have withstood the forces that our plan of action had arrayed against it than could a rotten hulk rigged with matchbox spars and tissue paper sails bear up against the fury of an equinoctial gale. (Cheers.) As for the other class of outrages that have stained the record of our country during the same period, no language is sufficiently strong with which to reprobate and condemn them. As to the individuals who perpetrate these horrible brutalities, whether actuated by the incomprehensible motive that could prompt a tenant farmer to perform them, or by the worse design that would incite the degraded instruments of the Irish landlordism to their perpetration for the purpose of bringing odium upon the cause of Irish land reform, no difference of opinion can exist in Ireland or England as to the punishment which such crimes deserve. The wretch who is capable of such monstrous barbarity towards a dumb and inoffensive beast places himself beyond the pale of human sympathy, and merits being branded with some indelible mark of popular execration that should point him out forever to his fellow man as infamous and detestable. Let outrage cease in Ireland – (slight cheers) – let no suspicion of
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sympathy on your part here in England be made to arise at any act, great or small, that seeks justification from past events in the history of our country, and rely upon it that the number of Cowens, Storeys, Broadhursts, Taylors, Laboucheres – (cheers) – Sir Wilfrid Lawsons, Collings, and Thompsons will multiply and lend to the cause of Ireland’s social and political rights the cause of justice and humanity, the manly advocacy of fearless English minds and the unstinted sympathy of generous English hearts.42 (Prolonged cheers.) Mr. George then delivered his lecture. On the motion of Dr. Dixon, seconded my Dr. Howard, a cordial vote of thanks was passed to Mr. George for his address. In acknowledging a vote of thanks to himself, which was moved by Mr. Kenny and seconded by Mr. T. Wright, the chairman said he had never been a leader in Irish politics. He had been a ‘‘freelance,’’ and had struck the enemy where he thought him to be weakest. (Cheers.) The meeting then separated. A great rush was made towards the platform by persons anxious to shake Mr. Davitt by the hand, and some minutes elapsed ere he could free himself from their attentions.
7. IRELAND’S BISHOPS (EDWARD CARDINAL McCABE, ET AL.) A Trumpet Blast for Land and Liberty. The Most Remarkable Pastoral of the Century. The Clergy with the People. ‘‘God’s Law the Infallible Rule – What is Morally Wrong Cannot be Politically Right.’’ ‘‘Purged from Crime, the Irish National Movement has Our Support.’’ ‘‘Stop Evictions to Remove the Real Cause of Outrages.’’43 By Special Cable to The Irish World: I [Henry George] cable you in full the Pastoral of the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland issued to the people on Sunday last. It is considered the most important pronouncement of the kind during the century, and the effect on the people is reported as splendid in its having raised their hopes at a critical moment and restored confidence in themselves and their cause.
THE PASTORAL. Dublin, June 15, 1882. In the social crisis Ireland is now passing through, which must long deeply affect her moral as well as material interests, you have a right to expect your bishops to give advice, direction, and help to remove the perplexities with which the most enlightened as well as the best-disposed are now beset. Pressed by the duty we owe you at this conjecture, and anxious beyond expression for your temporal as well as spiritual welfare, we have considered at a meeting, among other subjects, the present condition of our beloved country, and hasten to communicate to you the result of our deliberations. 397
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Let us premise that in forming our judgments we have been influenced chiefly by consideration of your spiritual interests and have been solely guided by the dictates of conscience and the ever-just and beneficent law of God.
THE LAW OF GOD IS THE SUPREME RULE IN ALL THINGS. To you, devoted children of the Catholic Church, enlightened by faith and obedience to the precept of seeking first the Kingdom of God and His justice; to you as to ourselves it must be an undoubted truth that in all questions – social, political, as well as religious, the law of God is our supreme and infallible rule; that what is morally wrong cannot be politically right, and that that act which God forbids us to do cannot possibly benefit either ourselves or our country. Applying these principles to events every day occurring around us and to important questions that now absorb the attention of our people we see dangers against which we must raise our warning voice. There are not a few excesses which we must deeply lament and unequivocally condemn.
THE RIGHT OF IRISHMEN TO LIVE ON IRISH SOIL. It is true on religious as well as political grounds that it is an indisputable right of Irishmen to live on and by their own fertile soil, and to be free to employ the resources of their country to their own profit. It is, moreover, the admitted right and often the duty of those who suffer oppression either from individuals or from states to seek redress by every lawful means, and to help in obtaining such redress is a noble work of justice and charity. It is on these grounds that the object of our national movement has had the approval and blessing, not only of your own priests and bishops, but of the sovereign pontiff himself, and has been applauded in our own and foreign countries by all men of just and generous minds without distinction of race and creed.
UNLAWFUL MEANS AND OUTRAGES. It must, however, be well-known to you, and, indeed, to the world at large that in the pursuit of your legitimate aims means have been from time to
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time employed which are utterly subversive of social order and opposed to the dictates of justice and charity. It is to these unlawful means we desire to direct your attention, especially to the following: First – Refusing to pay just debts when able to pay them. Second – Preventing others from paying their just debts. Third – Injuring the neighbor in person or in rights of property. Fourth – Forcibly resisting the law or those charged with its administration or inciting others to do so. Fifth – Forming secret associations for the promotion of the above or other like objects, or obeying orders of such condemned associations. Under these heads numerous offenses, all more or less criminal, have been committed, fearfully prominent among them being the hideous crime of murder which even at the moment we address you terrifies the public conscience, disgraces our country, and provokes the anger of Almighty God. Against all and each of these offenses we most solemnly protest in the name of God and His church, and we declare it your duty to regard as the worst enemy of our creed and country the man who would recommend or justify the commission of any one of them. We solemnly appeal to all our flocks, especially to the youth of both sexes, not only to have no connection with secret societies, but to condemn and oppose them as hostile alike to religion, social freedom, and progress.
APPROVING OF THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT. Let us now assure you that the national movement, purged from what is criminal and guarded against what leads to crime, shall have our earnest support and that of our clergy.
THE LABORERS, TOO, HAVE JUST CLAIMS. A considerable installment of justice within the last few years has been given to the tenant farmers of Ireland, but to them and other classes of our countrymen, especially the laboring classes, much more is due, and it is your duty and ours to press our claims until they are conceded.
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THE CLERGY WILL WORK WITH AND FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE LIGHT OF DAY. In every peaceful and just movement your clergy will be with you to guide and, if necessary, to restrain; but you must not expect them to do what in their conscience they condemn. They cannot be sowers of hatred and dissension among their flocks. They cannot, under any pretext, tolerate, much less countenance, lawlessness, and disorder. They will work with you and for you, but in the light of day, with lawful aims and for just and laudable objects; and feel assured that your filial obedience to their instructions and to the admonitions given in this brief address will bring down the divine blessing and save our country from the evils that threaten it and lead it speedily to prosperity and peace.
EVICTIONS THE REAL CAUSE OF OUTRAGES. Before concluding we feel it to be our duty to declare without in any sense meaning to excuse the crimes and offenses we have condemned that it is our belief that they would never have occurred had not the people been driven to despair by evictions and the prospect of evictions for nonpayment of exorbitant rents, and, furthermore, that the continuance of such evictions justly designated by the prime minister of England, ‘‘sentences of death,’’ must be a fatal and permanent provocation of crime, and that it is the duty of all friends of social order, especially the duty of the government, to put an end to them as speedily as possible and at any cost. Earnestly beseeching our loving Lord to bestow on you and your afflicted country, wisdom, piety, and the fortitude of His divine spirit to teach you to prefer to treasures of His grace to all goods of earth, we heartily impart to you our pastoral blessing. Edward McCabe, cardinal archbishop of Dublin and primate of Ireland. Daniel McGettigan, archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland. John McEvilly, archbishop of Cashel and administrator of Emly. Thomas Nulty, bishop of Meath. The Pastoral is signed by twenty other prelates also.
8. A POLITICAL TOUR IN IRELAND (JAMES L. JOYNES) From a Correspondent44 Having come over to Ireland with the object of seeing something of the working of the Coercion Act, I had not expected that the police would gratify my wishes in such a speedy and practical manner as has actually been the case. So extremely ready to assist me in my object did I find them that I had not been three days on Irish soil before they arrested me as a suspicious stranger, and enabled me to judge by practical experience of the feelings of those who can ‘‘look on the sweet heavens’’ through a fretwork setting of iron bars. A short account of my first experience of Irish adventures and of government as administered by sub-inspectors of police may, perhaps, be interesting to English readers. I landed in Dublin with that large amount of ignorance of things Irish which is usual among educated Englishmen, and a receptivity of mind which was ready for a complete saturation of knowledge. It so happened that the first persons I fell in with were of the landlord class and persuasion, and in my thirst for information I asked them for their honest opinion on the working of the Land Act. A torrent of abuse, divided fairly between Mr. Gladstone and the commissioners, was the reply. The incompetence of the commissioners was said to be only equaled by their partiality. They made it their sole business to reduce all the rents which came before them, without any reference to the value of the holdings. This was a serious charge, and I began to be very indignant with such unfair commissioners; but the next complaint of the landlords rather staggered me, for it was to the effect that Mr. Gladstone had given secret instructions to the commission that whatever else they did they were in all cases to reduce rents. This was a little too strong, and I suggested that even Mr. Gladstone had some conscience and some regard for justice, and, having established an independent court, would be unlikely to attempt to bias all its decisions. 401
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In answer to this I was told that if he had not done this, and really wished too be fair, he would have given the commissioners a hint that they were going too far when he saw the extent of their reductions. This was such an original view of fairness in a legislator that I did not feel equal to attacking it, not knowing any arguments for impartiality which could not be turned by such a very eccentric flank movement. So I listened in silence to an amount of abuse of the idleness and general wickedness of the Irish tenant, which showed me that I had come into a country in which, however fair the prospect, man at any rate was exceedingly vile. Thus much had I already learned within the walls of my first Irish hotel, and even before I had well-recovered from the effects of my voyage across the troubled waters of the Irish Sea. I had come for information, and seemed in a fair way of getting supplied with it without any great expenditure of trouble; but it occurred to me that it might be as well to verity it by visiting some people to whom I had introductions, who could not be suspected of prejudice in favor of landlordism. Accordingly I called on an American, staying at present in Ireland as correspondent of an American paper of extreme views, and asked him to help me towards finding out something of the state of the country and the real sentiments of the people.45 He told me that he was shortly going with that very object to travel for some time in Galway, and invited me to accompany him, an offer which I gladly accepted. His point of view seemed decidedly Radical, but he said with some contempt that people called Gladstone a Radical now, so that the word had very little significance. Pending our travels he would introduce me to some people in Dublin who could tell me more about the state of any definite district in Ireland than anyone else, and would be able to say in what part evictions were most likely to take place. According he took me to the office of the Ladies Land League, and introduced me to several of the ladies. They seemed to be very busy and to be carrying on an immense correspondence with all parts of Ireland, but they were kind enough to show me the system on which they worked, and the forms which evicted tenants filled up when they made application for Land League huts and relief. I saw also designs and drawings of these huts, and whole volumes of copies of writs, processes, ejectments, &c., until I hardly expected to find a single inhabitant of the country who had not been ‘‘dis-homed’’ by some absentee landlord. I was introduced especially to Miss Reynolds, a young lady who had twice been imprisoned under the Coercion Act in default of bail. I asked her of what crime she had been accused, and she said the charge was intimidation of the police. I further inquired in what way she had intimidated a body of public servants not usually supposed to be timorous, and she informed me that on
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the first occasion she had told them that, although they might seize upon a man’s car if they wanted a drive, they could not compel him to drive it for them; while on the second she had been present at an eviction and had shaken her head to the police. I felt inclined to ask, with the clown in Hamlet, ‘‘Is this law?’’ but refrained, foreseeing the obvious answer – ‘‘Ay, marry, is’t; Coercion Act law.’’46 Nevertheless, I could not but pity the condition of the intimidated constables, whose nerves must have been terribly shattered by the first offense, or they would scarcely have arrested a lady for the second. They told me that there had been an enormous number of evictions and that they had seen evicted tenants sleeping in ditches by the roadside even in winter, but that this could not happen now, as the League is always ready to supply them with huts. There had lately been a lull in the camp of the evictors, but they were afraid it would not last long. The fight was being kept up most vigorously on the estate of Lord Concurry, who seemed to be put forward as the especial champion of the landlords. Outrages, they feared, were to be expected to continue as long as eviction for nonpayment of exorbitant rents went on. The Land League had always denounced them, but the Government, by suppressing their organization, had taken all responsibility away from them, and must now put them down as best they could with the help of their Coercion Acts. They told us that two educated girls, farmers’ daughters, had the other day been sentenced to a fortnight’s hard labor by a magistrate under the new act for groaning when some ‘‘emergency men’’ passed by.47 The hard labor had been remitted, but the imprisonment remained and one lady remarked that the hardest part of the imprisonment was the wearing [of] the convict dress. A lady’s opinion on a question of dress is, of course, always valuable. She went on to remark that outrages were to be expected in that district after such tyranny as that, but I am glad to say that as yet none have taken place here. They agreed that there could be no end to the agitation as long as the leaseholders were kept out of the benefits of the Land Act, as many of them had only signed their leases under threat of eviction, although they could not prove this in court, as naturally the threat had not been reduced to writing; and they highly praised the conduct of the Duke of Leinstor to bring up his famous leases, which debarred his tenants from all access to any of the courts, saying the FitzGeralds would never be boycotted in Ireland.48 After a long and interesting talk, I retired, and on shutting the door noticed that it was placarded with the sentence – ‘‘Everybody closes this door gently but you.’’ Rather humiliated by this personal remark, I went back to my hotel, and there, as a kind of antidote to the poisonous effects of
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the conversation I had lately been hearing, I had an interview with a Protestant bishop. He told me that the Protestant Church in Ireland depends chiefly on the landowners, and that it cannot with unconcern see them deprived of a quarter of their income by the commissioners under the Land Act. I suggested that, as the commissioners were fixing fair rents, the inference was that the quarter of their income of which the Protestant landowners were being deprived was an unfair exaction to which they had no moral right, but this he would not allow, maintaining that the commissioners were making it their business not to fix fair rents, but to reduce them in every case without any reference to their fairness or unfairness. I could only deplore, if this were, indeed, the case, the lamentable appointment of such an unrighteous set of commissioners. Next day I was introduced to Mr. Davitt, and heard a little from him about his scheme for the nationalization of the land. He said that when the time came a practical scheme of compensation for Irish landowners could be proposed which would satisfy all parties, and he expected that the resistance to the plan would not be so much on account of the money value of the land, as because the aristocracy depend upon it for their prestige and position, and would cling to it even if it brought no rents at all. He said that he distinguished between the English Government and Dublin Castle, that he respected Mr. Trevelyan, and was very glad that Brackenbury’s successor was not Clifford Lloyd, as had been rumored would be the case. During another day or two in Dublin I met several landlords, who generally concurred in condemning the Land Act, and denouncing the idleness of the Irish as the jons et origo mali. [Probable misspelling; Fons et origo mali is Latin for the ‘‘fount and origin of evils.’’]. The panacea, on the other hand, was a system of smart rents to prevent this unfortunate idleness, and a strict keeping of all tenants to the letter of their engagements, in spite of wild and whirling words which were going about of bringing even the leaseholders within the jurisdiction of the Land Court. I also saw several Land Leaguers, who told me that I should find that many evictions had taken place with the view of preventing the tenants from going into the court, and that the landlords now refused to accept the full amount of the arrears, rather than allow their formerly recusant tenants to get the benefits of the Land Act. However, the general opinion was that they would be obliged to reinstate them at last, as no other tenants would take the farms, and, besides the loss of rent, there was great expense in keeping the police-protected emergency men in occupation to prevent the former tenants from gathering their crops.
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Kavanaugh’s company was predicted to be an inevitable failure, not only monetarily, but absolutely, from the impossibility of getting tenants to work the farms after the eviction of their former occupants. So far, all my evidence had been hearsay, but by traveling among the people and seeing their actual condition I hoped to arrive at a more accurate knowledge. Accordingly, I started with my friend G – for the interior of the country, and we chose as our destination for the first night a place of illrepute for order, where the war between landlord and tenant had been at its bitterest, and had been waged by means of many cruel evictions on the one side and some cruel murders on the other.49 This place was Loughrea, where, besides other outrages, Mr. Blake had met with a violent death, and Mr. Bourke and the soldier was with him had been shot in open day as they were driving into the town. However for the present, as once in Warsaw, peace reigned in Loughrea; peace with Clifford Lloyd for her administrator, and almost as many policemen as inhabitants to maintain her undisturbed dominion. So with Loughrea as the goal of our day’s journey we took tickets for Ballinasloe, intending there to leave the train and drive across the country. We traveled with a laboring man, who had gone over to England for the harvest, as he could there earn 4 s. a day, in place of the 1 s. which was the remuneration for his day’s work (that is, when he could get any employment) at home. I wondered whether this could be called idleness, yet the landlords say that the laborers are idle, and the landlords are honorable men. This particular laborer, whose fine, intelligent face struck me very much, had been obliged to return to his home before the end of the harvest, having unfortunately fallen over a scythe and inflicted a terrible wound on his leg. It was a mystery to me how he could walk at all, and he was evidently in great pain; but he had tied up his wound with a handkerchief in a miserably clumsy fashion, and to my horror said that he has seen no doctor, and would not do so until he reached home, miles beyond Westport, the last station of the line. His foot and leg were a dreadful sight, but he had wished not to waste on himself the money earned in harvesting, which he had intended for his wife and children on the other side of Westport. This did not look like wastefulness or extravagance; yet the landlords say the tenants are wasteful, and the landlords are all honorable men. I wished that I had gone through a course of ambulance lectures, and learned something of surgery: but I could do nothing beyond making the man promise to have his leg bandaged at Westport and presenting him with a fee for the doctor there. He was not even smoking to divert his thoughts from
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the pain, for tobacco cost money, and that he wanted for his wife; so my friend G gave him a cigar, which puzzled and amused him considerably, as he made vain attempts to smoke it without cutting off the end, his former experiences of smoking not having gone beyond a pipe. The train stopped at a great many stations, and at every station there were a great many police on the platform, assisting as far as their presence went, a the arrival and departure of every train. This they always seem to do at the smallest stations in the most peaceable districts; in fact, they are an allpervading presence, and no picture of Irish scenery gives at all a correct impression unless the finest house in the foreground is a police barracks and the landscape is well-peopled with constables. The only occasions on which they are conspicuous by their absence are those on which the long-suffering peasants retaliate on their oppressors by some dreadful agrarian outrage. With these unfortunate exceptions they may be said to be always on the spot; but as with these identical exceptions Ireland is practically free from crime. It would seem to an outside observer that the large sums spent in maintaining in idleness this army of able-bodied policemen are rather more uselessly wasted than if they were thrown into the sea, where they would not serve to irritate the people against the government by keeping up a perpetual system of petty tyranny in their midst. Be this as it may, however, we were carefully scanned by several members of the Royal Irish Constabulary as we alighted from the train at Ballinasloe, and proceeded to order a car to drive over to Loughrea. Indeed, extra vigilance in connection with railway passengers had lately been instilled in their ranks, for there was an exhibition of Irish manufactures shortly to be opened in Dublin, and no one could tell what desperate characters might be enticed from the country to the capital by an exhibition which was patronized rather by the Land League than by the lawful authorities. So the lawful authorities, by a judicious exercise of their characteristic tact, had issued an order to the police in all the country districts to furnish them with the number, the names, and the political opinions of all persons about to visit Dublin; and hence a specially eager inspection of trains on their part, extending even to those passengers who were outward bound. Ignorant, however, of the suspicion our appearance was exciting, we ordered some lunch at Ballinasloe (although it was obvious to the police that, if we had been really bent on any honest business we might have brought it in our pockets from Dublin, and eaten it, without delay, in the train), and while the care was being got ready and the horse fed we went, under the very noses of the watchful police, to call on Mr. Matthew Harris, then residing in the aforesaid village of Ballinasloe. Now this Mr. Harris was well-known to the
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police as one of the traversers in the famous state trial along with Mr. Parnell and other bad characters of that description, so that any doubt which the police might at first have had of our object in visiting these dangerous districts was finally dispelled; but as they had no inspector at hand to direct their movements, they decided that it would be as well to throw all responsibility on the authorities at Loughrea, and accordingly telegraphed the news that a couple of desperate ruffians were coming, and the Loughrea police must assemble in force and play the men on their arrival. We, meanwhile, were having a most interesting talk with Mr. Harris, who held some strong opinions about the state of the country and the responsibility of the landlords for its disturbed condition. He told us that in our drive of nearly twenty miles to Loughrea we should hardly pass a single house, for grazing was now more profitable to the landlords than agriculture, and they had therefore exterminated the inhabitants in order to add a few pounds to their rents. This had happened more than once in the history of the country, and the culture had been changed from corn to grass and vice versa whenever a profit might be expected from the alteration, and without any reference to the rights of the unfortunate tenants. He was enthusiastic about the good qualities of the Irish people, who would make a splendid nation, and he was most anxious that they should think for themselves and not follow their leaders blindly in anything. As to the charge of idleness, he utterly denied it, and, on the other hand, charged the English with undervaluing intellectual recreation and admiring nothing but physical capacity for work – a quality in which they were easily surpassed by that patient animal, the ass. He said the effect of the Kilmainham Treaty was manifest, and that the leaders were now doing all they could to surpass the agitation. We parted on excellent terms, and started on our drive entirely ignorant of the reception which the Fates and the police were preparing for us at the other end of our journey.50 We drove through a rich tract of country and saw, as had been predicted, scarcely a single house. The district had formerly been full of people and was now inhabited by sheep. Ruins of houses we occasionally saw, but these had been almost entirely obliterated and the stones used for the walls which intersect the country. Reddish-brown stains in these stones would sometimes indicate that they had once formed the chimney of a cottage, in which a farmer’s family had maintained the peat fire on the hearth till its smoke had left a lasting mark which the weather had as yet been unable to destroy. Few and far between we now and then saw the cottages of the herdsmen and at one of these we stopped and inquired of its occupant concerning his
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condition and livelihood. He was one of those courteous and gentlemanly peasants of whom there seem to be so many specimens in Ireland and he readily told us the terms on which he worked for his bread. The work which he gave to his landlord was the supervision of 180 acres of grassland, with care of one-hundred sheep and fifty cattle. The wages he received in return consisted of a cottage and three acres of land rent free. Out of these three acres he managed to make a fair livelihood, by cultivating them in the time which he could spare from the management of the one-hundred sheep and the fifty cattle on the 180 acres of grazing land. We asked after his crop of potatoes, and he said that the blight was in them, but not so bad as it might be. About the time our driver, who had taken the opportunity to refresh himself as well as his horse during [the] interval of our lunch and talk with Mr. Harris became very ‘‘sleepy’’ – a fact of which we were made aware by the eccentric conduct of the horse, which twice preferred to turn aside into grassy lanes that led now here rather than keep steadily along the hard high road. So we deposed him from his seat as driver, and put him to sleep comfortably on the cushions, warning him at the same time to hold on well, for an Irish car is not well-adapted to give safe accommodation to sleepers. But, alas! Our warnings were unheeded, and before long a heavy thud was heard, and the driver was seen sprawling on his back in the dust in the middle of the road, groaning sadly. However, he was more frightened than hurt, and after this rude awakening took more care to hold on for the rest of the way. We saw nothing remarkable by the way, except a police hut erected at the roadside for the better protection of those who go out from and come into Loughrea. These police huts on the one side and the Land League huts on the other make quite a new feature in the scenery, partly resembling the cabmen’s shelters which may be seen in the streets of London. Moralizing on these huts and their causes and objects, we drove into the village of Loughrea and immediately noticed that here the police were even more plentiful than at the railway stations. Not for an instant supposing that this fact had any connection with our arrival, we drove up to the door of the hotel and dismounted from our car. To our horror we then discovered that these numerous police were all converging upon one common center, and that we ourselves were occupying that unenviable position. A subinspector in plain clothes suddenly advanced and informed us that we were arrested under the Prevention of Crime Act and must instantly resume our seats on the car, in order to drive to a very different destination from that which we had proposed to ourselves when we started.51
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It was useless to protest and to ask at least to be told on what charge we were arrested. The only answer vouchsafed was: ‘‘Get up instantly into the car.’’ There was nothing for it but to comply, so we climbed into our seats again; two policemen with loaded rifles took their seats besides us; a procession of similarly armed constables walked before, behind, and on each side of us; and at the slow pace of a military funeral we proceeded through the main street of the village, a sight for all beholders. The people of the place, however, were too well-accustomed to such sights to display much emotion, although they sympathized with any new victim who had the misfortune to fall into the clutch of their oppressors. We arrived at the police barracks and were placed in a small room, furnished with a table and a form, and with strong iron bars to its windows.52 Here our pockets were carefully searched for papers and a minute examination of our luggage was made. In mine, besides the ‘‘flannels,’’ they made the discovery of six clean white linen shirts, and this at once aroused their strongest suspicion. They asked me if I had supposed that it would be impossible to get a shirt washed in Ireland, and the question was certainly most apposite to the occasion, for in their zealous search for treasonable documents they thrust their dirty fingers into every fold of the aforesaid shirts, and made their speedy washing a thing of primary necessity. Having collected every scrap of paper that was to be found, they proceeded to examine their spoils. I was asked if I denied the authorship of a pamphlet on the land question which had been put into my hands in Dublin, and which I had not yet had time to read. This I accordingly did, and the statement was duly recorded. The sub-inspector and a constable, one after the other, read through every one of our private letters and diaries and notebooks, and with some difficulty and much solemnity managed to spell out between them the only thing I was ashamed of – viz., some verses which I had jotted down on a scrap of paper in imitation of the Irish national songs. When this was over, the sub-inspector departed, taking all our documents with him, and leaving us in the charge of a couple of constables. We were informed that as soon as a magistrate could be obtained our case should be tried before him, but when this would be was problematical. It was now eight o’clock, and we had already been in custody for two hours and were getting hungry as well as tired. We asked if we might be guarded to the hotel, eat some dinner under police supervision, and return to the barracks in a less famished condition to defend our case before the magistrate when he should arrive. This was refused, so we modified our demands, and asked to be supplied with some bread and water, thinking
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that this at least, was orthodox prison fare. Even this, however, could not be allowed, and our only resource was to try to forget our hunger, and to amuse ourselves as best we might by alternately sitting in our form and looking through the bars of our window into the courtyard. At last a policeman, whom I wish to take the opportunity of thanking, took pity on us, and procured at his own expense a glass of milk for each of us, and thus refreshed we hoped to be able shortly to face the magistrate. He was a long time coming, however – and time passes slowly to prisoners – but before he came we were allowed an interview with our late driver, who had come to the police station with the double object of getting his pay and expressing his sympathy. He lamented over our misfortune, and earnestly hoped that we should soon be released; but there was no saying what the police might or might not do. This was cheering, but we could only wait. At nine o’clock Mr. Byrne arrived, the resident magistrate for the district, and informed us that it was by the merest chance that he was in the neighborhood, and that otherwise we should have been necessarily locked up all night. Here was a great subject of congratulation. Meanwhile preparations were made for our formal trial, for everything must be done regularly even under [the] Coercion Acts, and all the evidence must be taken down in full on regular printed forms, of which there were none at hand, but which could not be replaced by ordinary foolscap paper. While these forms were being sent for, I made an informal statement of my aim and object in traveling through the country, and disclaimed all intention of committing an outrage at Loughrea, giving references to persons in authority which could be verified by the letters which the police had abstracted from me. Mr. Byrne was evidently anxious to get rid of us, and when the forms at last arrived, he asked the sub-inspector if, after having read our letters and listened to my statement, he still entertained suspicions of our criminal intent. To this he replied in the negative, and the magistrate had nothing to do than to discharge us and express his regret for our arrest, after which we were free to return to our hotel. I asked Mr. Byrne to give me a letter to prevent the recurrence of such an unpleasant episode, and this he said he would do; but when I received a letter from him later in the evening it only stated that he thought this sort of safe conduct would be unnecessary. So the prospect was not very pleasant. The next day we visited a convent of Carmelites, a brotherhood of barefooted friars, who trace their origin from the schools of the prophets instituted by Elijah on Mount Carmel. We were shown over the place and its beautiful ivy-covered ruins by a most courteous friar dressed in the regular long flowing dark-brown robe. He was much interested in our experience of
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the police, and invited us to a vegetarian dinner, for by the rules of the their Order they may not touch meat, and we dined with him and six other Carmelites, enjoying a most savory feast of which the chief dish was a stew of Spanish beans. In the evening we strolled about the town, and visited several shops from which ‘‘suspects’’ had been arrested after the murder of Mr. Blake. There were still about two dozen shopkeepers detained in prison on suspicion for this murder, although the priests assured us that most of them had been at mass at the time. At eight o’clock in the evening, when it was getting cool after a very hot day, we started on a car for Athenry, passing in the twilight several police huts loopholed for firing on the people if attacked, and the scenes of some very recent murders. It was getting dark when we came suddenly upon some police patrols, who were guarding the house of the widow of a man who was murdered for taking another man’s land. It was a beautiful night for driving, but the associations of the scenes that had been enacted there fastened on the fancy and spoiled the enjoyment. I could hardly consider that system of law and government satisfactory, which had made it possible for the present state of things to arise. We talked to the driver about the murders, and could easily see that he regarded them as just executions for cruelty, tyranny, or the violation of unwritten, but well-known laws. He said that if a man was notorious for harshness and cruelty, he was solemnly warned by a message from a secret assembly. If he would not amend his ways, he was warned again, and if he still persisted, he received his final notice, and after that his sudden death might at any time ensue. He evidently considered that these three notices, which are always delivered to a man before his death is determined on, regularized the proceedings, and took away from them any imputation of lawlessness to which they might otherwise have been open.
9. GEORGE’S ARREST (THE IRISH WORLD) Swelling Indignation at the Outrage. The One and Only Course to Pursue We Must Compel England to Respect Our Rights The State Department Making an Inquiry.53 Department of State. Washington, [DC], Aug. 21, 1882. John Mullan, Esquire, No. 1,310 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, [DC] Sir: Acknowledging the receipt of your communication of the fifteenth instant in relation to the alleged arrest in Ireland for the second time of Henry George, an American citizen, I have to inform you that Mr. Lowell, the American minister at London, has been instructed to inquire fully into the matter with a view of taking such action in the case as the facts may be found to warrant.54 I am, sir, your obedient servant, John Davis, acting secretary.
CONGRESSMAN HUMPHREY, OF WISCONSIN. But One Course – An Unequivocal Indicting on England’s Recognizing International Law. Hudson, Wis., Aug. 24, 1882. Mr. Patrick Ford, Editor, Irish World: Dear Sir: . . . The arrest of Mr. Henry George as a suspicious character renders it unsafe for any distinguished American to travel in Ireland. Arrested because he is ‘‘seen talking to suspected persons.’’ If the proprietor of the hotel at which he stops or the clerk is set down by the 413
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government as a suspected person – if the gentleman to whom he has a letter of introduction is a person suspected by the government – he is at once liable to arrest if seen talking with them. Suppose the government had adopted the same rule during our late war, how many distinguished Englishmen could have been arrested because they were seen talking with men known to be rebels – known to be acting to destroy this government?55 Yet, it was not an unusual thing in those days for the English press by comparison to boast of personal liberty under British law. The history of Ireland’s invasion under Henry II and Henry VII is history today.56 Her people were then deprived of their lands, which were given to England’s nobility, whose descendant today are holding those estates by no better right than the brute force under which they were first obtained. It is but natural that the same landed aristocracy of England should during our late war wish the success of the Southern Confederacy and slave power. In the case of Mr. George it is the duty of this government to make known to her majesty’s government in terms that are unequivocal that it will insist that a decent regard for international law be observed. Very respectfully yours, H. L. Humphrey. P.S.: As Mr. George is now a suspected person, please warn him not to be seen talking with Mr. Lowell, as it may cause the arrest of the American minister.
FROM CONGRESSMAN BURROWS, OF MISSOURI. Are We Neither Capable nor Will of Following the Example Set Us by England Herself [sic]? Cainsville, Harrison Co., Mo., Aug. 21, 1882. Mr. Patrick Ford, Editor, Irish World: Dear Sir: . . . I think that England for the past twelve months has been treading on very dangerous ground, and in the arrest of such men as Henry George for no other cause than a supposed complicity in the Irish troubles is a flagrant outrage upon individual rights and freedom of an American citizen guaranteed under our Constitution and flag. And I think our government [is] very tardy in its demands upon England for the insults
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offered the American people. I cannot forget the speedy demand of the former upon the latter for the release of Mason and Slidell when they were unmistakably on their way to London in the interests of the Confederates.57 We were in a poor condition at that time to resent the bullying insult, which she well-knew, but are now full able and should protect the American citizen wherever the flag of our country floats, and I hope it will be done. Yours very respectfully, J. H. Burrows.
CONGRESSMAN CURTIN, OF PENNSYLVANIA. Quite Time that We Know what Our Rights are. [sic] Bellefonte, Pa., Aug. 28, 1882. Mr. Patrick Ford, Editor, Irish World: Dear Sir: . . . In my judgment the power of our government should be discreetly, promptly, and firmly interposed in Mr. George’s behalf. The government of the United States should, at least, be informed, on the request for the discharge of all American citizens, of what crime they are accused and the evidence and reasons for their arrest and imprisonment, if they are not at liberty. If they are held, our government is clearly to be the judge of the sufficiency of the reasons, and if insufficient the American people will and should ask the citizens called to administer it to make an imperative demand for their immediate release. It is quite time in our history that the power of our government should be felt all over the world in the protection of the liberty and interests of all our citizens. Yours truly, A. G. Curtin.
FROM CONGRESSMAN VAN BRUNT. Could Only Be Committed with Impunity upon an American Citizen. New York, Aug. 26, 1882. Mr. Patrick Ford, Editor, Irish World: Dear Sir: . . . The arrest of Mr. George was an outrage such as could be committed with impunity only upon a citizen of the United States, the government of which seems to show so little interest in the protection of its citizens in foreign countries.
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This arrest seems to call for the most prompt and vigorous action on the part of our government that the liberty of American citizens cannot without good cause be interfered with, and that their rights must be respected. Yours very truly, C. H. Van Brunt.
FROM CONGRESSMAN SPARKS, OF ILLINOIS. Lowell’s Flunkeyism Seem to Be Abetted by President Arthur.58 Carlyle, Ill., Aug. 26, 1882. Mr. Patrick Ford, Editor, Irish World: Dear Sir: The arrest of Mr. George is but a repetition of outrages equally flagrant preceding it, intensified only in this case by the high character and scholarly attainments of the man arrested. I have no hope of redress of these multiplying insults so long as the power of reparation is in the hands of those who now control it. Our minister to England finds too much gratification in playing ‘‘flunkey’’ to the aristocracy, by whom he is petted, to offend them by voicing the indignant protests of his outraged countrymen, and his conduct is not rebuked by the ‘‘accidental’’ executive who stands behind him . . . . Very truly yours, Wm. A. J. Sparks.
CONGRESSMAN MATSON, OF INDIANA. An Apology Should at Once Be Demanded. Greencastle, Ind. Aug. 28, 1882. Mr. Patrick Ford, Editor, Irish World: Dear Sir: In regard to Mr. George’s arrest, my opinion is that the American minister should at once demand an apology for this outrage upon American citizenship, which is no greater because the citizen happens to be a native of this soil. Very truly yours, C. C. Matson.
A PLOT TO DRIVE MR. GEORGE FROM IRELAND. Henry George is having a taste of the delights of living under British rule in Ireland. Within two days he has been arrested twice as a suspicious character
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and his private papers have been read. Mr. George has been writing letters from Ireland to The Irish World for several months past, and has been as free in his criticism of the British government as if he had been in New York. It is probable that it has been decided to make Ireland so uncomfortable for this keen-eyed and plainspoken American that he will be glad to leave it. It is to be hoped that Mr. George will visit Russia before his return in order to ascertain from personal observation and experience which government – that of the czar or Mr. Gladstone – is the more meddlesome and tyrannical. Virginia City Daily Chronicle (Nev.).
WHAT DOES ENGLAND MEAN? Does She Want War that Would Compel Her to Respect Us? Henry George, foreign correspondent of The Irish World, was recently arrested, his private papers all read by the officers at Dublin, and after examination, discharged. Another fight with England might cause her to respect the rights of American citizens. Kalamazoo Mail (Mich.).
A TYRANNICAL PROCEDURE It is Easier to Jail Henry George than Answer His Arguments. Henry George, the distinguished American, has been arrested in Ireland on suspicion that he is intimate with suspected persons. He is one of the ablest of modern thinkers and writers on political economy, and before the world has asked the English government to be just to the Irish people. No doubt the government finds it a great deal easier to put him in jail than to answer for his arguments. Winsted Press (Conn.).
ENGLAND SHOULD BE PUNISHED FOR THIS STAGGERING INSULT TO AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP The more the American people look at the arrest of Henry George the more are they convinced that the dignity of American citizenship has received a staggering insult. For the outrage England should be made to
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suffer. Henry George, the philosopher, the economist, the philanthropist, is known the world over. Here in this country the laboring classes look up to him as their champion and defender. He it was who spoke these words of cheer: Only a little while ago nations were bought and sold, traded off by treaty, and bequeathed by will. Where now is the right divine of kings? Only a little while ago human flesh and blood were legal property. Where are now the vested rights of chattel slavery? And shall this wrong that involves monarchy and involves slavery – this injustice from which both spring – long continue? Shall the plowers forever plow the backs of a class condemned to toil? Shall the millstone of greed forever grind the faces of the poor? . . . I tell you the glow of dawn is in the sky. Whether it comes with the carols of larks or the roll of war drums, it is coming – it will come! The standard that I have tried to raise tonight may be torn by prejudice and blackened by calumny, it may now be moved forward, and again be forced back. But once unfurled, it can never be furled!
He who said these noble things is the latest victim of English stupidity and brutality. Troy Evening Standard (N.Y.).
LOWELL HAS DISGRACED AMERICA – RECALL HIM AT ONCE! The president should lose no time in recalling Lowell. That cur has done more to disgrace the American name than has every been accomplished by any person in the few years he has been abroad. As a resident minister abroad, commissioned to represent and defend the American people, he is an absolute failure, and should be at once recalled before he disgraces this country more than he has already done. Providence Visitor (R.I.).
A DIRECT INSULT TO AMERICA. Henry George has been arrested in Ireland by the English government. That is an outrage on personal liberty. The arrest and imprisonment is a direct insult to America. Indianapolis Herald (Ind.).
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PRESIDENT ARTHUR. should recall Minister Lowell at once. The American people are disgusted with his course and the course of the government. New Haven Daily Union (Conn.).
THE PITTSBURG LEAGUE. A Way to Avenge the Insult Suggested. Pittsburg, Pa., Aug. 21 [, 1882]. Editor Irish World: The Central Branch of the Land League held a well-attended meeting at their hall on Fifth Avenue and Market Street. Mr. Dennis Donahue presided, and F. W. Maguire acted as secretary. A considerable number of new members were received. Mr. Maguire presented the following resolutions, which were adopted: Resolved, That we, the Central Branch of the Irish Land and Labor League, denounce the action of the British government in arresting Mr. George, while in the performance of his duty as a journalist, as cowardly and tyrannical, and also deserving the reprobation of all true Americans. Resolved, That we demand of the American government that it shall take immediate steps to compel the British government to make reparation for the atrocious insult it has heaped upon the dignity of American citizenship, which should prove a shield and a bulwark to an American in whatever part of the world duty or pleasure may lead them. Resolved, That the proper way to avenge the insult offered to the United States in the arrest of their distinguished citizen is to recall the cowardly and sycophantic James R. Lowell and appoint Mr. George as minister in his stead.
10. GRAND DEMONSTRATION ADDRESSED BY HIM IN LONDON (THE IRISH WORLD) Rousing the English Democracy. And Advising Them to Make Common Cause with the Irish. The London Times Attacking the Great American Economist. Making an Englishman and Irishman in Three Days. A Significant Event – Alfred Wallace Presiding – Davitt Invited to Address the New Land Association, etc.59 By Special Cable to The Irish World. Dublin, Sep. 6, 1882. Memorial Hall was jammed Monday evening by one of the most enthusiastic of London audiences to hear Henry George speak on land nationalization as an Irish, English, and universal question. Alfred Russel Wallace, the distinguished author and economist presided.
ADVISING COMMON CAUSE. George urged the English masses to make cause with the masses of Ireland, Scotland, and America in demanding their natural rights. Allusions to Bishop Nulty, Rev. Dr. McGlynn, Michael Davitt, Patrick Ford, and the Central Labor Union of the American metropolis were loudly cheered. Mr. George concluded his speech amid the deafening cheers of the audience which rose to its feet and continued hat waving and shouting for many minutes. 421
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Speeches were also made by Rev. Mr. Headlam, Canon Girdleston, Sir John Bennett Briggs, and others, and strong letters were received from Prof. Newman, Miss Taylor, etc.
NATIONALIZATION DECLARED THE REMEDY. The resolutions declared that private property in land has its origin in force, fraud, or economic wrong, and that it is a danger to the community; that the nationalization of the land – the making the soil of the country the common property by confiscating rent for the unearned increment created by the whole people – is the only remedy.
BEGINNING OF A GREAT MOVEMENT. The English reformers believe this remarkably successful demonstration to be the beginning of a great movement that will eventually shake England to its center.
THE ‘‘THUNDERER’S’’ ATTACK. The London Times has a long leader declaring George worthy of attention, because he controls a large body of opinion, and is the author of a work widely read and more widely discussed. It denounces him as a socialist.
HOW TO MAKE THE ENGLISH IRISH. The Times of Monday contains a letter from Prof. Joynes, commenting upon which the Times says: Joynes went to Ireland an ‘‘Englishman, but falling in with George, became an Irishman in three days.’’ The Times further says that George was not an unreasonable object of suspicion in Ireland, and in reply George says that the laws passed by England with the idea of repressing crime are used in Ireland for the purpose of class tyranny and private vengeance, and that no Englishman can visit Ireland and mix with the people without experiencing feelings of indignation and shame.
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A BANQUET TO GEORGE. The London Democrats have tendered George a banquet.
DAVITT TO SPEAK IN LONDON. Davitt has been invited by the Land Nationalization Society, of London, to deliver an address under their auspices. The lecture of George in Memorial Hall was in every way an imposing affair, the results of which are already marked.
11. HEWITT MEN FRIGHTENED (NEW YORK TIMES) Fearing Their Candidate Will Bring Up the Rear. The Aid of the Catholic Clergy Invoked to Stem the Tide of Desertion from the Ranks.60 The managers of the Hewitt canvass are getting desperate. Not content with returning to their bad habit of giving out false information as to the situation of affairs, they have invoked the aid of Catholic clergy in denunciation of Henry George. The have become thoroughly scared at the prospect that their candidate will be third in the race, and have already been able to conceal their chagrin at the growth of the Roosevelt campaign from day to day. In order to stem the tide of deserters from the Hewitt ranks, they induced Joseph J. O’Donohue to write a letter to Mgr. Thomas S. Preston, vicar-general and chancellor of the archdiocese of New York, asking if it was true that the Catholic clergy of this city were favorably disposed toward the candidacy of Henry George for mayor and were inclined to support the social and political views expressed in his platform. To this letter Mgr. Preston responded as follows: No. 110 East 12th St., New York. Oct. 25, 1886. My Dear Mr. O’Donohue: In reference to your letter just received, I can state with confidence that the great majority of the Catholic clergy in this city are opposed to the candidacy of Mr. George. They think his principles unsound and unsafe, and contrary to the teachings of the church. I have not met one among the priests of this archdiocese who would not deeply regret the election of Mr. George to any position of influence. His principles, logically carried out, would prove the ruin of the workingmen he professes to befriend. Whatever may be said, I think there is no question as to the position of the Catholic 425
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clergy; and although we never interfere directly in elections, we would not wish now to be misunderstood at a time when the best interests of society may be in danger. Yours very sincerely, Thomas S. Preston. The letter of Mr. O’Donohue and the answer of Mgr. Preston were submitted to candidate Hewitt before they were given out for publication. It was alleged that Mr. O’Donohue had broken faith with the monsignor in turning the document over to Mr. Hewitt, the latter having been written simply to ease the disappointed office-seeker’s mind, and for no other purpose. However this may be, it is certain that the job to get the letter was put up by Bosses Croker and Power . . . .
12. SPEECH AT COOPER UNION (TERENCE V. POWDERLY)61 Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens of New York: Your chairman told you a moment ago that I was here merely to refute the slanders of the press of New York. He might have added, to refute the slanders of those who are in no way connected with the press of New York. I am here for another purpose than that of refutation of any charges, or of any assertion, or of any statement made through the press or by word of mouth. I came here to ask every man within the sound of my voice who can cast a vote to wield that weapon for an honest man, and for this land of ours. I am here to ask from you that when you leave here tonight to go to your homes, and there remain until your vote is cast tomorrow, to go to your neighbors and say to them that in this cause the number of votes that are cast will count. No amount of goodwill will elect a man. What we want tomorrow is votes – more than the other people can poll – and these you must give. You are not voting for the city of New York alone. The eyes of the entire Western World – aye, and the eyes of the entire world – are turned to this city, in the hope that you people will redeem the name of the fair metropolis of the country from the disgrace that has been cast upon our country. We ask you to throw off these insults tomorrow and elect a man who will fairly and honestly administer the affairs of your municipal government as they have not been before. [Here the speaker was interrupted by a cockcrow. Continuing, Mr. Powderly said:] When that rooster grows up, he will be a voter too. [He then referred to the charges that had been made against Mr. George of being in favor of Chinese labor, of being opposed to Parnell and the Land League, and that he was a free trader.] Mr. George . . . is running for mayor of New York, and these things have nothing to do with the case. Mr. George and I agree that poverty should be 427
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abolished. We agree that every man has a certain amount of rights due to him, and we believe that those things that God ordained that we should enjoy – we believe that all men should have – and if we ask for the things that God gave us, blame God, not us. You may say that is not exactly correct for a Christian, but I speak thoughtfully, and will stand by what I have said until I drop in my track. To begin to get these things there must be a commencement somewhere, and where could that be made better than here in this city – the entrance to our country? You have asked Mr. George to leave his home, which he loves, and stand upon the altar of your hopes. You have nominated Henry George, and in doing so you have placed him not only before the city of New York, but before the world, and you are in duty bound to support him tomorrow as you are to administer to the wants of your family tomorrow. You have voted with the parties who have held sway in this city for years, and every time the candidate for office poses as a friend of labor. But the man who now asks your suffrages has no necessity to label himself a friend of labor. Henry George’s past record shows this beyond a doubt. Mr. George has laid before the world certain principles for which he has been stigmatized as an anarchist, a socialist, and an ist of every kind. I am used to hard names myself and don’t mind them, having gone through the mill of politics. I know Henry George and have watched his course, and were I a resident in this city I would give him – only one vote. I was very nearly saying that I would give him a dozen. In addition, I would go among my friends, and the burden of my song would be ‘‘Vote early tomorrow morning for yourself, your family, your country, and your God, in he person of Henry George.’’ The question, however, is not whether Mr. George would make a better mayor of New York than any other honest man, but the people having put him forward, it behooves you to do your duty tomorrow. They may try to crow it down. I stand here not merely the representative of every man who handles a took, whether he is in the Knights of Labor or any other organization, and to ask you on behalf of the toilers of this country to do your duty. Let it be known that there are other things besides strikes, other things besides boycotts, and that these other things are a proper regulation of the land system which will properly guarantee to every man that which is justly his, and no more – that labor when she raises her voice in the future will be heeded, and that it may be written in then near future that ‘‘Industrial freedom means national prosperity.’’ That is what we aim at!
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It has been said that the people of New York cannot be honest because there are so many beer saloons. I ask you to be so tomorrow, and if you never do so again, pass by the saloon, on the other side of the street. A man who cannot vote intelligently is unworthy of a vote and of the name of [an] American citizen. If you only vote as you marched the other night you will make your candidate the next mayor of this city.
13. PASTORAL LETTER (ARCHBISHOP CORRIGAN) Addressed by the Archbishop of New York to the Faithful of His Charge, on the Occasion of the celebration of the Fifth Diocesan Synod, November 17th and 18th, 1886. Michael Augustine, By the Grace of God and Favor of the Apostolic See, Archbishop of New York, to the Faithful of His Charge, Health and Benediction in the Lord.62 Dearly Beloved Brethren: . . . I. Faith. No virtue is more necessary, dear brethren, than the virtue of divine faith. ‘‘It is the foundation of all that is good,’’ writes St. Augustine, ‘‘the beginnings of man’s salvation.’’ ‘‘It is the root of all virtues,’’ says St. Bonaventure, ‘‘without which the other virtues withers and die.’’ ‘‘Where it is found whole and entire,’’ continues St. Ambrose, ‘‘there our Savior teacheth, keepeth watch and ward; exulteth; there is rest, and peace, and a universalremedy.’’63 ‘‘Without faith,’’ says the Holy Spirit, ‘‘it is impossible to please God.’’ While it is not the office of the diocesan synods, nor even of provincial councils, to make definitions of faith or decide authoritatively controverted questions on which the Holy See has not spoken, yet it is the right and duty of the bishop, under the supreme leadership of the sovereign pontiff, to guard the deposit of faith, and, especially when the holy father has pointed the way, to lead his flock to wholesome pastures and guard them from poison. Like the sentinel on the ramparts of a city under siege, a highly important duty of a bishop’s office is to be quick in discerning dangerous movements and prompt in sounding timely alarm. Therefore we commend you, brethren, to be zealously on your guard against certain unsound principles and theories which assail the rights of property. They are loudly proclaimed in our day, and are espoused by many who not willfully 431
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advocate what is wrong. It is the fair-seeming of those theories which captivates the minds of many, inasmuch as they abound in promise of large benefit to those who are in sorest need. The distress of the poor is to be relieved, and the burden of the other lightened – results which the church, with a true mother’s love, would most gladly see accomplished whenever and wherever just means are used to reach the desired end. But the church is not the fickle creature of a day, apt to be caught by specious theories, or ready to change her course with capricious unsteadiness. She is the guardian of God’s unchanging truth, and the dispenser of the treasure of His wisdom; and her office, in her long and glorious march down the ages, has always been, in spite of fierce attack from without or base treachery from within, to save the true from all alliance with the false – gathering the one to her loving embrace, and smiting the other with her malediction. Hers is the noble task, not only of directing the actions of mankind, but also guiding their very thoughts, because she never is unmindful that thought is the parent of action, and that sound principles are the only solid foundation for pure morality. Hence, when any thought finds a welcome abode in the mind, and becomes so clear to him who harbors it as to shape itself into a principle, it is a duty to scan closely its character and bearing, and to trace its possible course from the quiet haven of the mind to the open main of public fact. However fair or shapely or attractive it may seem to the unwary, it should not be accepted by the prudent unless it is formed of elements that are altogether sound and pure. A flaw in a foundation represents a proportionate insecurity in the building raised upon it. Starting from these premises, which no sane man can deny, we invite you to consider in their light the principles about the rights of property against which we deem it our solemn duty to give you some words of warning. First of all, you must understand in its true sense the statement that ‘‘all men are born equal.’’ It does not mean that one man may not ever surpass others in power of mind, or strength of body, or beauty of form, since it is a well-established fact that no two men are exactly alike in all respects. All men are, indeed, equal in that they are all destined to the same ultimate end, have the same essence, endowed with the same faculties of sensation and understanding for purposes of animal and intellectual life. Each one has the grand endowment of free will, with the power to raise both animal and intellectual life to the dignity of the moral order by directing the whole being and his deeds toward his supreme end, which is God. This power and freedom in directing his actions towards their last end are the essential rights of man.
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Now, just as by training a man may bring the faculties of sense and understanding to higher stages of excellence, while in essence they remain the same, so, too, may a man by care and industry bring his moral faculties to a wider range and a fuller development of power and activity without their ceasing to be his rights. For right may be defined as ‘‘the moral faculty which each one has for what is his, or what is due to him.’’ And beyond all doubt every man has a perfect right to all the means necessary for him to reach his last end. Besides, as everything else in the world has for its end to subserve the uses of man, he is in consequence entitled to their use in pursuing his destiny. Wherefore, to prove that a man has a right to any particular object in God’s universe, we need only prove that such object is necessary to him in relation to his last end, or even useful, provided the rights of others are respected. This truth once established, the rest of mankind must acknowledge that right, and are bound in conscience to pay it the duty of respect. Hence, although it is hotly debated nowadays whether or not man can have the right of property or ownership in land, you must not be led by abuses however flagrant, or by theories however specious, to run the risk of embracing falsehood for truth. Aim, first of all, at having a clear idea of what is meant by the right of property. It is, then, the moral faculty of claiming an object as one’s own, and of disposing both of the object and its utility according to one’s own will, without any rightful interference on the part of others. It is universally admitted that any man can acquire the right to the use of certain things, but that any man can acquire the right to possess a thing as his own to the exclusion of others is sometimes vehemently denied. And among the plausible reasons brought forward in support of this denial is the allegation that, all being equal, no man has a right to exclude others who have rights as strong as his; not from the free air of heaven, not from the clear light of day, not (they add) from the earth and its farmlands. Undoubtedly God made the earth for the use of all mankind; but whether the possession thereof was to be in common, or by individual ownership, was left for reason to determine. Such determination, judging from the facts of history, the sanction of law, from the teaching of the wisest and the actions of the best and bravest of mankind, has been and is, that man can, by lawful acts, become possessed of the right of ownership in property, and not merely in use. The reason is because a man is strictly entitled to that of which he is the producing cause, to the improvement he brings about in it, and the enjoyment of both. But it is clear that in a farm, for instance, which one has by patient toil improved in value, in a block of marble out of which
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one has chiseled a perfect statue, he cannot fully enjoy the improvement he has caused unless he have also the right to own the object thus improved. He has a strict right – and evil are the laws and systems which ignore it – either to ownership and enjoyment or to a full compensation for the improvement which is his. To strive to base an argument against ownership in land by reasoning on the universal distribution of air and light is only a freak of the imagination. Human industry cannot scatter a cloud from before the face of the sun, or lift a fog that may be freighted with damaging vapors; we take the air and the light as God gives them, and we owe Him thanks for His bounty. It was only the earth which fell under the primeval curse when man had sinned, and only the earth, not the air or light, which man’s industrious toil can coax back to something like its original fruitfulness. When he has done so, his just reward is to enjoy the results without hindrance from others. Even in such a necessary, abundant, and free commodity as water, if a man, by artificial means, congeals a portion of it into ice, is he not entitled to enjoy its exclusive ownership? Can he not demand for it with justice a compensation equivalent to his industry? Once deny the right of ownership and you sow the seed of stagnation in human enterprise. Who would burrow the earth to draw forth its buried treasures if the very mine he was working were at the mercy of the passerby whom its riches might attract? Who would watch with eagerness the season when to sow and to reap and to gather the harvest, which is the very fruit of his labors, if he is told that those who stand by the wayside idle are equally entitled to its enjoyment? True, indeed, in many painful instances, the rights of the toiler are trampled on and the fruits of his labor snatched from his grasp. True, this is done too frequently with the concurrence, or at least the connivance of the law. This is the evil that needs redress, but such redress can never be brought about by denying a fundamental right or by perpetuating a radical wrong. Seek rather for redress of such irksome grievances by the wise methods which the church of Christ is forever teaching, though her voice may pass unheeded by the great ones of the earth. How wisely does our holy father, Pope Leo XIII, touch with a master hand the dangerous theories against which we warn you! In his encyclical Quod apostolici muneris, the vicar of Christ, says of those errors: They assail the right of property, which is sanctioned by the natural law; and, by a stupendous crime, while they seem to provide for the wants of men and to satisfy their wishes, they strive to seize and hold in common whatever has been acquired either by lawful inheritance or by labor of brain and hands, or by one’s own economy.
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They do not, indeed, cease to repeat, as we have intimated, that all men are by nature equal one with another. According, on the contrary, to the teaching of the Gospel, the equality of men is this: That, having all of them received the same nature, they are all called to the same exalted dignity of the sons of God; as also that one and the same end being appointed to all, each is to be judged by the same law, receiving reward or punishment according to his desert. But inequality in authority and power flows from the very author of Nature, ‘‘of whom all paternity is named in heaven and on earth.’’ . . . But Catholic wisdom, based on the precepts of natural and divine law, provides most carefully for public and domestic tranquility by the principles which she holds and teaches regarding the right of ownership and the division of goods required for the needs and uses of life. For while socialists traduce the law of property as a human invention repugnant to the natural equality of men, and, desiring a community of goods, hold that poverty should not be endured with a contented mind, the church, much better and usefully, recognizes the inequality that exists among men, who differ by nature in strength of body and mind, as they do in worldly possessions, and commands that the right of property and ownership, derived from Nature itself, be held intact by all and inviolate . . . . Yet not on that account does their loving mother neglect the case of the poor, or cease to take thought for their necessities; nay, embracing them with maternal affection, and knowing well that they bear the likeness of Christ himself, who consider a kindness done to the least of his poor as done to himself, holds them in great honor, assists them in every way she can, provides homes and hospitals in all parts of the earth for their reception, nourishment, and care, and takes them under her own loving guardianship. With the very strongest precepts she urges the rich to give of their superabundance to the poor, and holds over them the divine judgment, that, unless they succor the wants of the needy they shall be punished with everlasting tortures. Finally, she vehemently comforts and consoles the minds of the poor, whether by putting before them the example of Christ, who, although he was rich, for our sake became poor; or by recalling his words in which he proclaimed the poor blessed, and bade them hope for the reward of eternal happiness. Now, who does not see that this is the best way of settling this struggle of long standing between the poor and the rich? For, as the very evidence of thought and facts proves to demonstration, if this basis of settlement be set aside or rejected, one of two things must happen; either the greater part of the human race will fall back into the basest condition of slavery which long prevailed among the pagans, or human society is to be shaken by continual disturbances, afflicted by thefts and robberies, such as we grieve to have occurred even in our own days.
These luminous words of the holy father need no comment. Accept his supreme teaching, dear brethren, with the loving docility that becomes dutiful children, and give no ear to those, whoever they may be, who preach a different gospel . . . .
14. HENRY GEORGE’S THEORIES (CARDINAL MANNING) Cardinal Manning Tells of His Talk with George about Them.64 In response to a request from the editor of the Brooklyn Review, a Catholic paper, Cardinal Manning has sent a letter, which will appear in the Review of today, touching the cardinal’s opinion as to Mr. George’s theories. The letter is as follows: Archbishop’s House, Westminster, London, Dec. 1, 1886. Dear Sir: Your letter of Nov. 8 has just reached me, and I am happy to answer your question on the subject of my conversation with Mr. Henry George some months ago, on which I understand statements and comment have been made in the American papers. Mr. Wilfred Meynell, editor of Merhim and Mr. Henry George. I answered that I should most gladly receive them. They therefore called on me together. Thinking that between Mr. Henry George and myself there might not be common ground on which to meet I began by saying: Before we go further let me know whether we are in agreement upon one vital principle. I believe that the law of property is founded on the law of Nature, that it is sanctioned in Revelation, declared in the Christian law taught by the Catholic Church, and incorporated in the civilization of all nations. Therefore unless we are in agreement upon this which lies at the foundation of society I am afraid we cannot approach each other.
I understand Mr. George to say that he did not deny this principle; that his contention is mainly, if not only, on the intolerable evils resulting from an exaggeration of the law of property. I understand him to mean the old dictum, Summun jus, summa injuria [‘‘The apex of justice is the apex of injustice’’; i.e., strict application of the law leads to injustice]. He added that the present separation and opposition of the rich and the poor were perilous to society, and that he saw no remedy for them but in the example and teachings of Christ. He spoke fully and reverently on this subject. 437
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I have no distinct recollection of the mention of his books; but as it has been stated in America that I gave an opinion to the effect that in his book, meaning his original work on Progress and poverty, I saw no unsound propositions, I have to state that I have never read the book. I have, however, read certain chapters in his later work, Social problems, and in those chapters I did not see anything to censure as unsound. This, so far as my memory serves me, is the substance of our conversation so far as it bears upon Mr. George’s works. I cannot, however, end without saying how much I was pleased by the quiet earnestness with which he spoke, and the calmness of his whole bearing. Believe me, dear sir, yours faithfully, Henry Edward, cardinal archbishop of Westminster. Mr. George, in a letter to the editor of the same paper, says the conversation occurred three years ago, confirms the statement that his books were not the subject of debate, and asserts that Cardinal Manning in referring to his land theories said: ‘‘he could say that there was in the doctrines I had advanced nothing whatever which was condemned by the Catholic Church, and which a good Catholic could not hold.’’
15. ANTI-POVERTY: THE GREAT DEMONSTRATION AT CHICKERING HALL (REV. EDWARD McGLYNN) The Standard The Hall Crowded as Never Before – Dr. McGlynn’s Address – What the Society Proposes to Do – A Whirlwind of Enthusiasm and Liberal Contributions to the Cause.65 ‘‘No, sir! You gentlemen can’t have Chickering Hall for another meeting of the Anti-Poverty Society, unless you’ll consent to issue tickets and limit the attendance. Why, there hasn’t been such a crowd gathered in the hall before since it was built. It was simply a crush, and we don’t think it would be safe to have it again.’’ So said the renting agent at Chickering Hall to a member of the Executive Committee of the Anti-Poverty Society who was endeavoring to negotiate with for the use of the hall for a second Sunday evening meeting. And really it would have been hard for anyone to blame him who had looked upon the enormous crowd that filled the great room last Sunday – that packed seats, and aisles, and platform, and doorways, and overflowed down the stairs and into the street, where hundreds stood for hours, hoping for some lucky chance that might make room for them inside, while thousands had gone away disappointed.
WHAT IS THE SOCIETY? What is the Anti-Poverty Society that has sprung so suddenly into existence with vitality and force enough to gather men and women by the thousands to its first meeting? When was it organized? What are its aims? How is it going to carry them out? 439
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These are questions that have been asked by thousands since Dr. McGlynn announced the existence of the society last Sunday night. On Saturday, March 26 last, a few gentlemen assembled in the office of The Standard. They were of various creeds and shades of belief. One was a Catholic priest, another a Congregationalist clergyman, another a Presbyterian minister: some were Catholics, some Protestants, some agnostics, the strong bond of union between them all being a deep religious conviction that poverty, with its attendant evils of vice, and criminality, and greed, is not an unavoidable curse inflicted on humanity by a cruel and offended deity, but altogether the result of a neglect by man of the beneficent laws of God. At this meeting and by these gentlemen the Anti-Poverty Society was organized, its principles and purposes being embodied in the following brief declaration: Believing that the time has come for an active warfare against the conditions that, in spite of the advance in the powers of production, condemn so many to degrading poverty, and foster vice, crime, and greed, the undersigned associate themselves together in an organization to be known as the Anti-Poverty Society. The object of the society is to spread, by such peaceable and lawful means as may be found most desirable and efficient, a knowledge of the truth that God has made ample provision for the needs of all men during their residence upon [the] earth, and that poverty is the result of human laws that allow individuals to claim as private property that which the Creator has provided for the use of all.
The Rev. Dr. Edward McGlynn was chosen president, Benjamin Urner treasurer, and Michael Clarke secretary, and the Anti-Poverty Society was launched. Weekly meetings were held thereafter, at which new members were admitted, and a plan of operations discussed and elaborated, and the first of May was finally settled on for the first public demonstration and the commencement of an active campaign.
THE STORY OF THE MEETING. A brief advertisement in the columns of The Standard and the Leader was the only announcement of the proposed meeting to the public, but it sufficed to draw together an assemblage worthy of the occasion. Before six o’clock a noticeable throng of patient waiters had gathered upon the steps of Chickering Hall, content if by two hours’ waiting they could secure a choice of seats. By seven the crowd filled the sidewalk solidly to the curb, so that passersby were compelled to turn out into the roadway. As the time for the meeting approached, the throng grew denser and denser, and when, at 7:30, the doors were opened, the mass of humanity surged into the hall in one
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great wave, and within five minutes not a seat was vacant. Men and women stood in the aisles; they thronged upon the platform; they crowded the anterooms, they blocked the doorways; wherever space could be found for human feet they stood in a compact and solid mass. At eight o’clock precisely Henry George struggled through the dense throng toward the front of the platform, and was greeted with a whirlwind of cheers and applause, which brought to mind the memories of the great campaign of ’86. With a few words of welcome to the audience on behalf of the Society, he announced an organ solo by Mr. Welton, who had kindly volunteered his services for the evening. A choir of sixty voices under the direction of Miss Agatha Munier then rendered a spirited anthem, in which many of the audience joined, and Mr. George rose to address the meeting: ‘‘The presence of such an audience at the first meeting of the Anti-Poverty Society,’’ said Mr. George, ‘‘shows that there is in this community a widespread sentiment responsive to its objects. (Applause.) A society has been founded to combat the social crime of poverty – (applause) – or rather, I should say, is to be founded here tonight. A few of us have come together and mapped out a meeting and a course of action, and we look for the support now of every man and every woman in this vast audience.’’ (Audience.) ‘‘In starting this society we do not propose to found a church. (Applause.) There are churches enough already in this community. And if churches could abolish poverty and all the sin and crime that flow from it, there would be no poverty or crime here. (Applause.) Yet this society is a religious society in one sense, rather out of the ordinary. In it there will be no question of faith or creed. There will be room in it for good orthodox Catholics, Hebrews, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, –’’ ‘‘Ah-h-h!’’ There was a movement among the audience, a murmur that swelled into a roar, a sea of waving handkerchiefs, a deafening, clapping of hands, and stamping of feet, as the dear priest of the people, the sogarth aroon, [Irish: the good priest], [ste]pped upon the platform and made his way [to] Mr. George’s side. And as the two men shook hands – the thinker and the priest – the enthusiasm broke forth in redoubled energy. Women wept, men cheered and shouted, hats and handkerchiefs flew up, and a hoarse murmur from the street told that the crowd outside was adding their voices to swell the chorus of welcome and of joy. For full five minutes the uproar lasted and when, taking up the thread of his remarks Mr. George commenced: ‘‘As I was saying when our president entered –’’
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The storm of applause broke out afresh, and renewed itself at every mention of Dr. McGlynn’s name. When at length he could make himself heard, Mr. George went on: ‘‘We don’t intend to pray to God, or to praise God, but we do intend to do God’s work. We band ourselves together to do the work of God, to rouse the essentially religious sentiment in men and women which looks to the helping of suffering. We want to do what churches and creeds cannot do – abolish poverty altogether, to secure each son of God as he comes into the world a full share of God’s bounties, an equal right in all the advantages and fruits of civilization and progress, a fair chance to develop all his powers.’’ (Applause.) ‘‘The poverty that festers in the heart of a great, rich city like this, comes not from the niggardliness of the Creator, but from the injustice of man, and it would be a sin in us and a shame if we did not try to strike at it at the very roots.’’ (Applause.) ‘‘The churches have gone so far as absolutely to condemn and persecute the poor. So far from trying to obliterate poverty, they condemn and persecute the men who fight against it.’’ At this reference to the first martyr of the new crusade, the applause was deafening and long continued. Mr. George then read the declaration of principles of the society as given above, and invited every person present to become a member and to contribute to the funds as far as his means might permit. Envelopes had been distributed among the audience, each containing a blank application for membership, which those who wished to join might fill up and remit to the treasurer by mail, or hand to the collectors who would go among the audience for that purpose. Before closing, Mr. George paid a tribute of thanks to Miss Munier and her choir, to Mr. Welton, and to Signor Vincenzi, who had volunteered a vocal solo for the meeting. Miss Munier’s name evoked a storm of applause, and the mention of the other artists was greeted with demonstrations of approval. Mr. Welton, then gave a magnificent solo upon the organ, after which Signor Vincenzi sang to an air by Gounod, Wesley’s beautiful hymn on immortality:66 Each night I pitch my moving tent A day’s march nearer home.
Meantime twenty collectors were making their way, as best they could, through the closely-packed audience, and receiving in baskets and hats a shower of envelopes and money contributions. So far as could be observed,
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almost everybody gave something for the cause. The subsequent count of the contributions showed over ten dollars in one-cent pieces alone. Then the music ceased, the collectors had completed their rounds, and the orator of the evening advanced and faced the audience, his eyes glistening with kindly emotion as the applause and cheers rang out to welcome him. Again and again the ladies waved their handkerchiefs, the men their hats, and voices, hands, and feet joined in an irrepressible outburst of delight. Then the priest of the people raised his hand, and the great assemblage was stilled and hushed in listening expectancy. We give the speech below, but no cold combinations of type can convey an idea of its delivery. For nearly two hours the speaker held his audience spellbound as he told them of the high and holy objects of the new society, of the dire need for its existence and labors, of the methods it intended to pursue, and the active part he proposed to take in its affairs. Every point was clearly made and comprehended by his eager listeners. His pathos moved to tears; his sharp flashes of ridicule and satire were received with bursts of merriment; his lofty flights of rhetoric were greeted with tumultuous applause; and when the last words were said and the last appeal had been uttered there was probably not one man or woman in the hall who was not ready then and there to take up the cross of the new crusade and do whatever in him or her lay to wipe out the crime and destroy the curse of that poverty whose causes and whose unrighteousness had been so eloquently exposed.
DR. MCGLYNN’S SPEECH. Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen: I am intensely conscious that we stand here tonight upon a historic platform; that those who are the first to form this Anti-Poverty Society will treasure as something exceeding precious the little bits of paper that certify that they were among the first to conceive the thought and to carry into action the purpose of this society; and that you, who from this vast audience, will be proud to tell your children and your children’s children that you helped to encourage this work in its infancy. And conscious thus, as I am, of the importance of this platform; feeling as I do its sanctity and its dignity, I may well say without affectation that I am conscious of the difficulty of satisfying the expectations that such an occasion might well raise in the minds of all. And yet the name, the object, is full of eloquence. It contains in itself most exquisite and most touching
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poetry. It is full of pathos; it is all-radiant with heavenly light. It tells us of what is best and tenderest and most humane. It recalls for us the precepts, the examples, the tender human love that was more than love and more than human, of the heart of the best and gentlest of men that also was a heart that translated into human emotions the very thoughts and the love of the Godhead. It is not amiss that I, a priest of the Christ, should stand here tonight to speak in behalf of the cause that aims not merely to diminish, to alleviate, to soothe, poverty as best we may, but to do something better, to pluck out the very heart of the horrid thing! Not to coddle and to pet it by merely applying here a plaster and there a poultice, but going to the very root of the evil, purifying the blood, purging the system, plucking out the accursed, the perennial and fruitful root of this horrid poverty – which is the injustice of man in violating the law of God. It is therefore, with more than my wonted diffidence, that I rise to address you; but I am emboldened by a sense of duty, feeling that I were recreant to my manhood, and, still worse, recreant to my Christian profession, and still worst of all, recreant to my Christian priesthood, if I should falter and speak in any uncertain sound the word I am commanded to utter. Surely, dear friends, it should hardly need an apology from a Christian priest to love the poor of Christ. Surely, I need hardly defend my position upon this platform, the one object of which is to abolish that poverty that Christ came into the world largely to abolish, the He sought to abolish by teaching men the new and the better law of perfect equality among men, because all are equally the children of one common Father. And by these lessons of righteousness, of justice, that He came to teach by word of mouth, and still better, to inculcate by His most sweet and lovable examples, He sought to bring back man to a better knowledge of the law of His own being, of His origin, and of His destiny. Man in primeval days, in the very beginning of creation, taught by the Creator Himself with the fresh impulses of His heart, with the best energies of His mind, know that He was the Lord of creation, that He bore upon him the very image of the king; that He alone of all created things was capable of reflecting a light that never was upon land or sea, the consecration and the poet’s dream – the true, the good, and the beautiful – truth, which is above material things; goodness, of which the beauties of all the wonders of the visible creation are but the types and symbols. And so man walked the earth in the dawn of creation with the conscious pride of the child of God, the heir of his Father and the king of the world. And all men who came into the world came with these same godlike
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instincts, with this God-given knowledge of their origin and of their destiny; that, being endowed with the capacity to know the true, to love the good, to enjoy the beauty that is something more than the thing of sense, they were made for something higher and better than all these visible things. With reverent submission to the will of the Creator, man acknowledged from the beginning that the visible works of God – all wondrous in their beauty, in their number, in their order, in their proportions – were but the school into which the Father had led His well-beloved child; that learning to read aright the handwriting upon the rocks and upon the sea sands and upon the stars of the heaven, he might at length say, with the sweet singer of Israel: ‘‘The heavens are telling the glory of God’’ [Psalms 19:1]. Man felt, man knew, that he could well spurn the earth, because he was the child of the king; that the Father desired that he should earn the blessed reward of perfect favor and perfect love by working out his destiny; and so that this world was not only a school in which man might learn to read aright the Father’s glory and will that is written in unmistakable characters upon all His works, but also a workshop into which the wise Father led His child; that by the proper, the reasonable, the proportionate exercise of all his faculties he might make out of these raw materials that God has placed in such abundance around him things new and strange, and thus proclaim also, in some measure, his likeness to the king his Father by exercising in some sense the creative faculty. God gave to man then this power to know the truth, to discover the laws of Nature, and from the laws of Nature to rise to the knowledge of Nature’s God, to admire and to love all that is good in God’s visible works, and in the wondrous beauty of the multitudinous works of God to discover a rhythm and a harmony and a charming melody, the harmony of the spheres. And so to man was given – and man from the earliest day became conscious of the gift – the power to take of the crude things of the earth, and so to transform them that of the mere clays of earth he might make things of beauty that the tooth of time and the hand of man should scarcely dare to desecrate; that man should do something far more than merely feed the animal body, than merely shelter it from the winter’s blast or clothe it for the necessary purpose of comfort or decency; that man with his aesthetic sense, making him like to God, should introduce the sense of beauty even into the feeding of the animal, into the clothing of the man, into his architecture; and that man should feel permitted, even here on earth, to use these material things with which to erect temples that should not seem entirely unworthy that God should be asked to call them His house and His home.
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As a necessary consequence of this primeval truth that was impressed by the Creator upon the minds and the hearts of His children, came that other great truth that if God has made us His children by making us in His likeness, with the capacity to know Him and to love Him and to enjoy Him, then as we are all children of God, surely we are all brethren of but one family, and that regardless of differences of age, of race, of physical gifts, of mental endowments and acquirements; in spite of differences of color or of condition, all the children of men are equally the children of God, and therefore all brethren one to the other. Another immediate and necessary deduction from these great primal truths is this: If God is a father, then He is not a stepfather. If God is a just God, if God is a wise God, if God is a good and a loving God, He cannot have sent the great mass of His children into this world to be cursed forever with something that He calls evil, and have sent a chosen few to be blest with the exclusive possession of those material things out of which all God’s children are required or condemned, if you will, to work out their earthly salvation. It requires not the inspired word of the psalmist of Israel to make us know, but it is the natural instinct of the mind and heart of man that as the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s, so He has given the earth to the children. The very laws of our nature require that we should labor. It was a mistake to say that labor is entirely a curse. The very muscular capacities with which we are endowed, our physical well-being, the proper cultivation and the healthy enjoyment or our physical energy, requires that we should work. Work, then, is not entirely a curse. Work, as God intended it from the beginning, was to be a necessary and for a most useful and enjoyable part of man’s education, to fit him, in God’s good time, for a higher school; or, better still, to fit him at last equipped in the fullness of his stature of manhood to leave school, and after his day’s work in the world, to return to the rest, the peace and the quiet, the calm of the blessed light of his Father’s everlasting home. Labor is not a bad thing; labor is not an accursed thing. It is a part of the very law of God stamped upon the nature of man. It arises from the very necessity of our condition here as part and parcel of this material world. It is stamped upon the very fibers of our being, in the fact that we are land animals, that every mouth that comes in this world is to be fed; that God has admirably provided in the world for the feeding of the mouth by the hands that He has sent into the world with which it shall be fed. In the beginning man will find ready sustenance while the human family is still composed of but very small numbers, in the fishes of the streams, in the
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fruit that has grown without his culture; but that is not the highest and the best order for man. With increased population comes more and more the necessity that man shall make the earth fruitful; that by many devices he shall cheat the earth out of her secrets and rob her of her treasures. The earth, the waters, the mines, all these general natural bounties were forming under the beautiful providence of God, by the magnificent laws of creation, in the silent ages before man was. And it was when the world was ripe for the habitation of God’s best and noblest and latest work that man sprang into existence, not one moment before his time. And then it was that the visible universe at last found its purpose. Then, and not till then, did the material universe find a voice to praise the Creator; then, and not till then, was creation responsive to the voice, to the truth, to the love of Him who made it. And so, by a wondrous providence, has a clod of earth become a being of which the psalmist truthfully could say: ‘‘Thou hast made him but little less than the angels’’ [Psalms 8:5]. Now, just because we have been made with these animal bodies as well as with rational spirits, it becomes our right, our duty, so to use these animal bodies and so to use their energies that we shall not fail to carry out the magnificent and beneficent purposes to which they have been ordained by a wise and a loving Father. Labor then is good, labor is necessary, labor is the fruitful source of all the great things that enable man more and more to annihilate space and time, to discover the deeper depths of the mysteries of Nature, to penetrate the heavens and to measure and to weigh the suns, to dive deep into the bowels of the earth and to raise from them their treasures, that enable men who have been separated by vast distances, by wars, by prejudices, by hatreds, to annihilate space and time, to make the mountains that separate them no longer barriers, to hasten the day when thousands of millions of God’s creatures shall be more truly one family than were the few men and women who at one period of the earth may have found shelter under a single shepherd’s tent. ‘‘The earth He hath given to the children of men.’’ He hath given it as a gratuitous gift; and he, I care not who he may be; the law, I care not what it be, or by whom it may have been written; the teacher or preacher, I care not of what church or sect, who would rob men of what God hath given them, is a sacrilegious thief, and all the more sacrilegious if he presumes to speak in the very voice and in the very words of God. The one truth that lies at the very bottom of this much mooted labor question, the one truth the teaching of which is the main object of this AntiPoverty Society, is contained in these truths which I have just preached to
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you: That all men are created by almighty God with certain inalienable rights, that these inalienable rights are rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that life cannot be had without proper access to the materials of which this earth is made; and that therefore God has given an equal and indefeasible right to each and every one of His children of access to these materials; that no prescription, no vested right, no law can deprive the child of a beggar that may be born in a barn tonight of the same right as the child that is born to inherit an imperial throne, to equal common proprietorship, or tenancy, if you will, of the natural bounties of God. It is a part of the teaching of natural theology, it is in perfect consonance with the teachings of Him whom nearly all of us call our Lord and Master, that we should call all men equal before God our Father. The poverty that we would abolish arises from the inability to get work, or from the low wages that are paid for work. The inability to get work arises from the lamentable fact that in most countries, in most civilized countries especially, and in those countries that have attained to the highest civilization and have the densest population, which is an immense factor in high civilization, the general bounties of Nature are appropriated as private property by a few – by a class, and the masses are literally deprived of their divine inheritance. And so, instead of having the equal right to get at the general bounties of Nature, and thus fulfill the duty, as well as exercise the right, of supporting themselves and their families – the same equal chances as every other man in the world may have, they have to go cringing and begging of the few – of the classes – who are the unjust monopolists of the general bounties of God, for the boon to labor. They have to crave as a blessing the chance to get work; and where there is an unseemly competition, a scramble like that of brute beasts at the trough, it rests wit the monopolists to give the work to the one who will content himself with the least and the poorest fare of all – to the one who will consent to live and reproduce his species with the least proportion of the products of his labor. This is the result of the monopolizing by the few, by the classes, of the divinely-given inheritance of the masses. Through their ignorance as much as through their cupidity; through their stupidity as much as through their avarice, the classes fence in these general bounties. They exclude God’s children from them; they appropriate to themselves, as if their fellow creatures had no existence, a large part of the bounties of God; they create an artificial scarcity of land by fencing it in, and allow no man to use it, though they are not using it themselves. They create an artificial scarcity of marble, or of coal, or of silver, or of gold, or of iron by shutting up or
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shutting down the mines, refusing to use them themselves and not allowing anybody else to use them And so they deprive men of the opportunity to labor and reduce them literally to starvation. Then men are ready to work for little or nothing; they are willing to work for such little sustenance that they can only protract for a little while a miserable existence. Thus it is by a necessary law that wages have reached the very lowest point at which it is possible for men to exist and to reproduce their species. This is the necessary law that in every country, that sooner or later, must be brought to bear with irresistible force upon the working classes; and during a good part of the time, by the commercial depressions that are brought about through the stupidity of the rich as much as by their cupidity, the masses are out of work, and must consume their slender savings. And while they are working, they are working in such conditions and with such reward as utterly degrades God’s child from the noble thing that God intended him to be, in mind, in soul, in heart, and in body, to a thing that often seems scarcely to bear any trace of the dignity of humanity. And the men thus prematurely aged by want, by hunger, by exposure, by inhuman toil, transmit images of themselves to their children; and too many of the children of the poor inherit impaired constitutions – constitutions that by an almost irresistible instinct crave for a stimulant that shall enable them to forget their miseries, that shall give to them, for a moment at least, that energy and that sense of force that they have not inherited by Nature or that they have lost through improper food, through improper air, through want of proper rest. The solution of many moral questions, of all moral questions, must begin with the eradication of the wrong and the outrage, the blasphemy and the sacrilege that have been committed under the name of the law the world over, and too often under the authority of sweet religion. And men living in palaces and guilty of apparently of the self-same sin that Dives was guilty of, dining sumptuously everyday and being clothed in purple and fine linen, find it in their hearts to condemn and almost to curse the preachers of the blessed doctrine – as we are preaching it – of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men.67 Men who call themselves disciples and lovers and followers and even representatives of Him who loved the poor; of Him who said: ‘‘I feel compassion for them, lest they should faint by the wayside;’’ and invoked the power of His Father to work miracles to cure them of all their distempers, lest they should curse God and die – men who call themselves friends and followers, and (God forgive them) even preachers of the Christ,
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find it in their hearts to tell us that we are sinning against God; that we are violating the teachings of religion; that we are sinning against the commandment which says: ‘‘Thou shalt not steal;’’ that we are guilty of the most horrible crime, apparently, that any being could be guilty of, in invading the sacred rights of property, when we; whether priests all shaven and shorn, or prophets full bearded and bald – (here the speaker turned and indicated Mr. George) – take it into our heads to say that this thing has been going on too long, and have the impudence to say to the land grabber: ‘‘Thou shalt not steal;’’ to say to the lawmakers, that continue to sanction robbery: ‘‘You shall not steal;’’ to the man who is robbing the poor of their legitimate access to the coal that would warm them, to the land that they should build houses upon to shelter them: ‘‘YOU shall not rob these creatures of God of their equal right with you to share that land, to share those bounties.’’ It is a little strange that these people, who are so ready to preach resignation to the poor, to tell them that poverty is good for their souls, if not for their bodies, that they can save their souls rather better under a leaky thatch and on a mud floor and with only a little oatmeal, or, still better, a few potatoes, in their stomachs, than if they lived in palaces and fared sumptuously every day, it is a little strange, I say, that we who are every day of our lives thinking of nothing but saving our souls, do not immediately go in for those things which are best for our souls. And so let us tomorrow or next day give up all our marble palaces, and all our purple and fine linen, and all our French cooks, and all these things, and let us go in for the work of saving our souls on a little oatmeal and potatoes, with a few rags on our backs and a leaky thatch over our heads, and a mud floor under our feet. ‘‘Consistency is a jewel,’’ and we are, or say we are, the disciples and representatives of a man who envied the beast of the field and the birds of the air, because the beasts had their holes and the birds had their nests, but the son of man had nothing to lay His head. And while in the loving providence of God, to console the poor, who for many a day before had suffered, and for many a day since then have suffered cruel injustice, it was well that He should suffer poverty, the He should be homeless, at the same time, He complained of his homelessness, and He accepted gratefully and lovingly the ministrations of Lazarus and of the loving women, Martha and Mary, who received Him into their homes and ministered unto Him; and He commanded as a virtue the doing of hospitality, and He showed His solicitude for these bodily needs of our race, as the chairman of this meeting, has so eloquently already told you, by making the helping of men in their bodily needs the very test of fellowship in His kingdom. ‘‘Inasmuch
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as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me.’’ ‘‘Inasmuch as you have refused to do it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have refused to do it unto me’’ [Matthew 25: 40 and 45]. It was a very great mistake for you to suppose, you should be doing us a very grave injustice if you should think, that we, who are among the first to raise the banner of this crusade against poverty, take a low, a gross, a mere material view of the subject. I can say safely for myself, and with equal safety I can say it for the man who presides here tonight, and I think I can say it for all of my fellow members among those who have signed the roll of the declaration of principles of this Anti-Poverty Society, that we are attracted to this work largely, chiefly, entirely, I will say, by the religion that is in it. And so while it is entirely true, and it is extremely important that it should be made clear that we are not establishing a new church or a new religious society in the ordinary, hackneyed acceptance of the term – that we are not getting up a little bit of a church to make war upon existing multitudinous and warring churches (there are enough of them to fight already without adding to their number); at the same time we are engaged in a movement the direction of which is chiefly religious, the needs and the objects of which are chiefly religious, the inducement to which is chiefly religious; and I can say for myself and many another on this platform, that if it were not for the religious features of the movement, we should be counted out from the beginning. We are attracted to this movement because we find in it the very essence and the very core of al religion, the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man; the doctrine that teaches man that he is here for something else than merely to eat and to drink and to be merry, for tomorrow he shall die; the doctrine that fills with divine enthusiasm the minds of those upon whom it has taken a firm hold; the doctrine that gives a divine poetic frenzy to the fancies of men; the doctrine that makes the hearts of strong men tender and soft as those of women to sympathize with the wronged, and courageous and bold as those of lions to do battle with the wrong. This doctrine has all this strange potency and fascination simply because it is not of earth, because it takes the character of that light and that beauty that never was upon earth or sea – the consecration and the poet’s dream, which is but a revelation of the ideal beauty, of which material things are but the mere outward signs and symbols. It is because this movement is all filled with the fire of a divine enthusiasm of humanity that it has for us the fascination and the attraction of sweet
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religion; and shall it continue to be necessary for us week after week to apologize for talking religion upon this apparently secular platform? While it was indecorous for us to intrude upon promiscuous audiences the dogmas that we know to be true of our holy religion, at the same time it should need no apology for man or woman anywhere to tell these great truths that are of the very essence of the dignity of human nature itself. And I can assure you, dear friends, from something more than mere speculative conviction – from actual experience – that the very movement in which we are engaged and the similar movement in which we have been engaged for some time has proved its efficacy to bring men back to God. Men who were soured against what stood to them for religion, men whose lips were full of curses for systems held out to them in the very name of God, that outraged their natural sense of justice, have been brought back to a sweet and gentle sense of reverence, since they have learned from the man who presides here tonight, since they have heard form others engaged with him in the same great movement, the beautiful law of justice, and that the poverty that we would abolish, the misery that is in the world, the degradation of want and the still worse degradation of the fear of want; the avarice, the cupidity, the countless crimes of which poverty, bred of injustice, is the fruitful mother, are not the laws of a beneficent Father, but of the blasphemous violation of them. And if we have had to bring this much of religion upon this platform of Chickering Hall, it is because the ministers of the churches in too great measure refuse to preach it in their pulpits, and some of them, for preaching it, were no longer permitted to preach anything; but as, by long training and experience and force of habit they had got to be good for not much anything else than preaching, what would you have them do but continue to preach? And if, because they have ventured to preach on platforms the doctrine that God is the Father of all and all men are His equal children, and that His natural bounties were given by Him equally to all – if for teaching such doctrines they are forbidden to preach in any pulpits, then small blame to them if they continue to preach the same doctrines wherever they get the chance, whether from the platform of Chickering Hall, or from a boat by the sea sands, or from the midst of a crowd in the market place, or from the tail of a cart. A good thing is a good thing, no matter where you find it; and if some of these pulpits have got to be so high and dry and musty and moth-eaten that a good breeze of fresh, healthy doctrine would blow them all to pieces, perhaps it is just as well for us to avoid that too, too unutterable calamity, and, leaving them to the enjoyment of those who like them, and to get down
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before audiences like this (I would not say congregations), to preach the truths that are the only salvation of the churches. And now it occurs to me that it may not be entirely amiss for me to make a profession of faith: ‘‘Is it true Father McGlynn, that you had some notion of establishing a new church?’’ ‘‘No.’’ ‘‘Is it true that you are going to turn Protestant?’’ ‘‘No.’’ ‘‘Is it true that you are going to come out and preach a crusade against the pope?’’ ‘‘Oh, no.’’ ‘‘But we have heard something about a crusade that you have been preaching; and there is a man over in Brooklyn named Justin D. Fulton, and isn’t he preaching a crusade?68 Is your crusade the same as Justin D. Fulton’s crusade?’’ ‘‘No. He is preaching against the pope, but I am for the pope.’’ ‘‘So you are going to remain a Catholic, Father McGlynn?’’ ‘‘To be sure; do you mean to insult me by asking such a question as that?’’ ‘‘Then why is it that your are not preaching in a Catholic pulpit?’’ ‘‘Because they will not let me.’’ ‘‘And why is it that you are not saying mass?’’ ‘‘For the very same reason.’’ ‘‘But why won’t they let you preach in the pulpit and why won’t they let you say mass?’’ ‘‘Because somebody has made a mistake; that’s all. Some old gentleman in Rome has been told that there is a man in New York preaching all sorts of heresies. ‘Is that so? Let him be suspended.’ Then somebody got hold of some letters four years old. ‘Why, this man was teaching heresy about some Irish Land League, and this is the same doctrine now – let’s suspend him’ The joke of it all is, that not long ago, I received a note from an American bishop in Rome saying that this selfsame old gentleman in Rome acknowledges now that he never even examined the doctrine. Don’t you see that it is all a mistake? And when he commences to examine it, probably he will be good enough to say that there is something in it. So the doctrine has not been condemned. Better still, it cannot be condemned.’’ Yes, I am a Catholic, and I am going to live and die a Catholic; and, better still, I am going to be, as long as I live, nothing but a Catholic priest. In all seriousness I ask this vast audience to bear me witness that I give each and everyone of you to detest me with all the energy with which you are
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capable, as a man treacherous to what he holds most precious, if ever I shall raise my hand against what I hold to be the very Ark of God; if ever I shall be guilty of the crime and the folly of seeking to preach against one tittle of its sacred truths; if ever I shall be before the altar of the Catholic Church anything else but a reverent and a most loving worshiper. And, if I shall not be permitted to minister at those holy altars, to the service of which I consecrated the enthusiastic reverence of my youth, and my dedication to which I have never for an instant repented of in my maturer years, I shall submit patiently to the holy will of God, and I shall be before those altars ever, at least, a humble and a reverent worshiper. And if I shall not be permitted to minister to the souls of men those heaven-given sacraments – that divine food and medicine which I most profoundly believe is contained in the sacraments of Christ, I shall regret the privation; for nothing was ever dearer to my heart than to minister to the mind diseased – than to pour balm into the hearts that were bruised with sorrow and contrite with sin. But if I shall not be permitted to minister those sacraments I shall to the . . . [last] breath of my life continue to be as I have been ever, a believer in their divine and perennial efficacy, and a frequent, and I trust a not entirely unworthy, recipient of them. And in order to make this still more clear I may mention what under other circumstances it might be perhaps a little indecorous to mention of one’s private devotions, that this blessed Sunday morning I knelt reverently before a Catholic altar to receive the holy sacrament of the body of Christ, and I hope to do so tomorrow. And as I knelt there in meditation and prayer, before that altar of Christ, and reverently received that holy sacrament, I thought it no blasphemy and sacrilege, with all the earnestness of my being to beg Him to bless His ministry in which I believe I am now engaged, and to bless my mind, and to give words to my tongue, and to give strength and attractiveness to my voice when I should stand here tonight upon this platform, to teach nothing contrary to what He has taught, but rather to seek to win the minds and the hearts of men to the love of the Father, and for the Father’s dear sake, to the perfect love of all their brethren. They were guilty of a strange mistake, and guilty of worse than a mistake, of a very serious calumny, who would say of us that we are setting up a new church against the church of Christ; that we, in raising the cross of a new crusade, are raising an ensign in hostility to the cross of Christ. We rather are raising a banner upon which we would impress the holy sign of Christ’s redemption, in order to invoke most earnestly upon our cause and our banner his sweet benediction.
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It is because we find in this gospel of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man – in the abrogation of the laws that sanction the cardinal injustice that gives to the privileged few the inheritance of all God’s children – it is because we find in this gospel the very justice that comes from God, and that equal justice to and love of our brethren which was but the primal law of God, reenacted by Christ with new force and fervor, even as it had been taught amid the thunders of Sinai and inscribed upon the Tablets of Stone, it is because of this that we may well, without seeking to establish a church, hold in the stillness of the blessed Sunday evenings the meetings of this Anti-Poverty Society. If it is not a church there is much religion in it, and the day is not desecrated by the doings of this society. If it is not a church, there will be more of the essence of religion in the words which you will hear than in many of the high and dry pulpits that are, almost in mockery, called Christian. Ours is no gospel of hate for any man; our hearts are full of pity for the oppressor as well as the oppressed. We pity the poor rich man as much as we sympathize with the poor men, for we cheerfully acknowledge that the great majority of the wealthy who are enjoying as their private property what does not belong to them are themselves victims of a horrid mistake, of a system of which they are not the authors, and for which, in but comparatively small degree, are they responsible. Have they not the sanction of your laws, laws that have been made and customs that have grown up by the act of your chosen legislators, or by your tacit and equally criminal acquiescence? And so we have but little right and less inclination to curse the rich, and our hearts are full sympathy and charity and benediction for the poor, even if they misunderstand us, even if in their ignorance they misrepresent and calumniate us. If, like many a man sick with a distemper of mind, they would tear and bite the kind physician who comes to save them, we would be like him whom we call Master – we would be full of compassion for the poor. And while He many a time uttered burning words of menace to the rich, it was chiefly to the rich, you may be sure, who were conscious of their own injustice, who became rich by the doing of wrong; but never do we find anything upon His lips but words of tenderness and pity and comfort and hope for the poor. And so, while establishing no church, I for one, and I am sure many of those who are associated with me would do so, too, would spurn as a calumny any assertion that we are anything but humble, reverent, and enthusiastic followers of Christ. One of the chief attractions that this movement has for us is that it will bring back religion to the world. It is a most notorious, and it is a most lamentable, fact that religion has been vanishing from the world; that in
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your so-called Christian countries of Europe, Protestant and Catholic, a very large portion of the people, the majority of them, I should say, are bitterly hostile to the church; and because the church in their minds seems to have been necessarily connected with religion, does it happen that many men in the bitterness of their hearts at the undue interference of churchmen in all affairs, and especially in politics, and conscious of a great injustice supported by churchmen, have become embittered even against religion. It is by showing them that true religion has nothing in it contrary to legitimate national aspiration, to progress, to liberty, to the magnificent Christian doctrine of the equality, the liberty, and the fraternity of men – it is, I say, by showing this that we shall soften hearts that have become hard, that we shall call to many an eye that has not known the solace of a tear, the comforting dew and raindrops of sweet devotion in the silent closet in the public temple. Many have said to me, as many have said to him who preside here tonight, that the words he has written and some words that I have spoken have brought them back to God again; that they have plucked the bitterness out of their hearts and trampled it under foot; that they have regretted the curse that have risen to their lips; that where they once cursed they now bless; that where they were once defiant they now ask a benediction. It was by preaching to the poor the glad tidings of redemption, the blessed doctrine of the fraternity and the equality of men, the beautiful Fatherhood of God, that the Christ and His apostles and their martyred successors, century after century, went on conquering the Roman world with all its powers, subduing to the beautiful lessons of the gospel of Christ the subtle intelligence of Grecian sages and philosophers; calling into the temples of Christ the cultivated fancies of Grecian poets, and teaching the pencil and chisel of great artists to find new inspiration in the great lesson of Him who taught all men, regardless of whatsoever distinction, to look up and say: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name; Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
This is the gospel and the prophets. In the sublime prayer that He Himself taught us, He has given us the epitome of all His teachings, of all the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount that tells us of our God-given and Godlike capacities here, to which is added a Godlike hereafter. Religion will never be right until it conquers the world by precisely the same arts, by precisely the same weapons as those with which it conquered so great a part of it. You will bear with me if I repeat a somewhat facetious saying of mine, which bears, I think, repetition. Although it is facetious, it
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conveys a great truth. It is this: that religion will never be right until we shall see a democratic pope walking down Broadway with a stovepipe hat and a frock coat and a pair of trousers, and an umbrella under his arm; and in my poor opinion that man will be the greatest of all the popes; and instead of being carried on men’s shoulders he will have the laugh on them, because he will carry them all in his heart, and they will carry him in theirs. The gentleman who is presiding here has given me a hint that I have talked long enough, and I must now come to a close. I will close with a little poetic flourish, not my own, for any poetry I may produce will be all in prose. I shall read to you two stanzas by Mrs. Browning:69 Do you hear the children weeping, oh, my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows, The young flowers are blowing toward the west; But the young, young children, oh, my brothers, They are weeping bitterly – They are weeping in the playtime of others, In the country of the free. And well may the children weep before you! They are weary ere they run; They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory Which is brighter than the sun; They know the grief of man, without his wisdom; They sink in man’ despair, without his calm – Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom – Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm – Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly The blessings of its memory cannot keep – Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly; Let them weep! Let them weep!
Let them weep – yes, let them weep – since it is their only solace, and it was cruel of us to deprive them even of the comfort of their tears; but just because the children are weeping, let their hot tears scald our hearts, let their inarticulate groans and wails stir up within us all that is manly and womanly and all that is Christlike, to do what we can to dry their tears, to stop the inarticulate sobbings of their breaking hearts. Let us, just because they are weeping; feel all the more impelled to heed the voice, to believe the words, to accept the call of the master, stimulated by His example to do what we can to take away the cause of their tears. Let us,
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attracted by His powerful benedictions, encouraged by His promises, and awed by His menaces, do what we can to right the wrong and to cause the blessed day of justice to dawn. And the dawn of the day of justice will be the beginning of the doing on earth of the will of the Father as it is done in heaven. It will be the beginning of the reign of the prince of peace.
AFTER THE MEETING. A second anthem by the choir completed the exercises of the meeting, but the audience was in no mood for dispersing in a hurry. Hardly had the last notes of the music died away than they commenced to struggle toward the platform, eager to increase their contributions to the cause so ably advocated, and for ten minutes or more the officers of the Society were kept busy receiving the money offerings and applications for membership. Meantime, Dr. McGlynn had withdrawn to an anteroom, waiting till the crowd should disperse and give him a chance to go quietly home. But the many ladies of the St. Stephen’s parish among the audience – the ‘‘tramp women,’’ as a Castle Catholic priest called them – were in no humor to be satisfied without a nearer sight of their beloved pastor.70 They hunted him up, and crowded through the little room in which he stood, entering at one door and passing out the other. Just to grasp his hand, to look into his face, to assure themselves that he was not suffering in health was what they wanted, and they would not be denied. Mothers brought their little children, beseeching him to bless them. Old women thanked God aloud that they had seen him, and invoked the divine favor and protection on his head. For nearly half an hour the good priest stood there, his eyes moist with emotion, giving a kindly greeting and a brief word of cheer to each in turn. And when at last he left the building and turned his steps homeward, the crowd followed him for blocks, unwilling to lose sight of him till the very last. It was an ovation – a genuine outburst of love and sympathy, such as is given to not one man in a generation.
16. MR. GEORGE’S COMPLIMENTS TO MR. FORD (NEW YORK TIMES)71 Henry George is exceedingly sorry that Patrick Ford, of The Irish World, has not only strayed away like a sheep from the fold of the United Labor Party but has been metamorphosed into a wicked billy goat and is now butting the shins of the prophet and priest of the amalgamated United Labor flock. In yesterday’s Standard Mr. George expresses utter astonishment at such perversion, but he does not care to question Mr. Ford’s grounds for so doing, although he takes the opportunity to give a dig at Archbishop Corrigan over Mr. Ford’s shoulder.72 He says if his [Mr. Ford’s] religion is such that at the nod of archbishop, Propaganda, or pope, he must turn his back upon the priest who incurred the hostility of the ecclesiastical machine for preaching the doctrine of the land for the people, which Patrick Ford as a Catholic layman has over and over again declared to be God’s truth and God’s will, it is his own misfortune.
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17. HENRY GEORGE’S MISTAKE (PATRICK FORD) The Difficulty He has Created for Conscientious Catholics to Support His Campaign.73 Office of The Irish World. New York, Oct. 19, 1887. Readers of The Irish World more than those of any other paper in the country have for years been concerned in Henry George, and after him Dr. McGlynn. The politico-religious agitation in which these two gentlemen figured so conspicuously last winter, and which on their part has been kept up till the present, might be expected therefore to have had at least as much interest for The Irish World men as it could have for the readers of any other journal, and I am sure it did. And yet The Irish World is the one paper in the whole country that has held its peace throughout the contention and excitement! This silence certainly was not due to indifference, for indifference on my part was impossible; nor is it likely to be construed into a brilliant journalistic coup – for the underlying principle that is supposed to govern an enterprising newspaper editor is to make his paper ‘‘spicy,’’ to feed the appetite of curiosity, and under cover of news to relate every story and report every rumor regardless of its intrinsic worth or its effect on the character or peace of mind of our fellowmen, or the injury that may be wrought to even higher interests; nor, on the other hand, will those who know me suspect that I have remained quiet through cowardice, for they have had during the past seventeen years and more sufficient proofs to the contrary to allow them to harbor any such supposition. I held my peace because, in my opinion, too much had been said already and the more that was said the more difficult it was to mend matters. The daily papers were filled with surfeit with the subject. One thing that welldisposed men ought to know, bishops and priests in particular, and that is 461
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that they can never straighten out their differences or set themselves right in the newspapers. It isn’t the business of an enterprising newspaper to straighten out differences. The efforts of the fellows who go about interviewing people, like that of the witches in Macbeth [Act 4, Scene 1], is to keep the pot boiling. They are bent more on getting up ‘‘a readable article’’ than furnishing a plain, simple statement. Truth is rendered subordinate to sensation. And all this is made an evil necessity by the feverish anxiety and rivalry among the newspaper press to be foremost, the one with the other, to minister to a vitiated appetite which grows by what it feeds on. Then, too, politics had not so little to do with complicating things. Old politicians, who had ‘‘grown gray’’ in Tammany Hall, affected to be deeply solicitous for the well-being of the church, when their real object was to maintain their status and brighten their prospects in the old party; while on the other side new and obscure politicians, equally unscrupulous, some of whom had served Tammany for years without recognition, in the hope of winning for themselves positions in the new party [i.e., the United Labor Party] became fierce mob orators and declaimed against the church in the alleged interest of labor. For one like me, who sincerely wished well to the church and to the labor movement, the situation was embarrassing. To have entered the lists as a champion of the church would have been a piece of impertinence. I was not qualified to do so, and even if qualified I might hot have thought it desirable to do so. And on the other hand, how could I as an honest Catholic join with those who strutted and bellowed as the advocates of labor and howled at the church as the foe of human rights? My care was to indulge in no criticism, to utter not a single word, that might offend honest men on either side since my whole desire was to harmonize and not to put further apart. I felt that what was needed was self-denial and silence rather than selfassertion and retort, and so, regardless of what might be thought or said of me, ‘‘I became as one dumb and opened not my mouth.’’ Nevertheless, what I strove to suppress myself during that controversy my sympathies, and I may say my prejudices, were with Henry George and Dr. McGlynn, and this feeling despite my resolution did not fail to make itself manifest. We were friends and partisans. We were enthusiasts in the same cause. Henry George’s connection with The Irish World and the personal relations that always existed between us were intimate and cordial. It was on invitation from this office that Dr. McGlynn first appeared on the platform in advocacy of the land for the people. So that I felt myself bound by the ties of a common cause as well as by the natural affection to lean to their side in the fight insofar as the fight was kept within legitimate bounds.
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I was sincerely anxious to see Dr. McGlynn restored with honor to his place in the church, and I worked to that end quietly and unceasingly and as best as I knew how. To that end – to create a moral support in his behalf – I had Michael Davitt interviewed on the subject. I brought Mr. Davitt to Mr. George’s office in order that a good understanding might be reached; and it was at my instance that Davitt, at the Madison Square Garden, publicly championed Dr. McGlynn and appealed for sympathy in his behalf. That was the first great ‘‘boom’’ that was given to Dr. McGlynn in New York. Henry George well knew my fears and wishes in the matter. I wanted to see Dr. McGlynn successful, but I did not want him to succeed at the expense of the Catholic Church. But the hope that trembled in the balance is dispelled. Dr. McGlynn’s terrible resolution, escorted by an equally terrible temper, has landed him outside the pale of the church. All controversy therefore is at an end and with it the utility of further silence is also ended. Dr. McGlynn is reported in the papers as saying: ‘‘Patrick Ford, who first induced him to go the platform to talk the same doctrine he [Dr. McGlynn] is now preaching, had lately taken to sneering at him.’’ This is not true. I never speak from public platforms, and the readers of The Irish World will bear witness that nothing has ever appeared in these columns concerning Dr. McGlynn except words of goodwill. On the platform of ‘‘the land for the people’’ Patrick Ford stands today precisely where he has stood for years back. But I have not been able to approve of the attitude of Dr. McGlynn has assumed toward the church or his contemptible references to the pope. I shall not argue the merits of the controversy that grew out of the difficulty between him and his ecclesiastical superiors, nor shall I allow myself to be led into such a discussion with anyone. My purpose is to simply lay before the readers of The Irish World, and such others as may care to know, why it is that I, who earnestly supported Henry George last year, and who have not changed my principles since, have not been able to go with him in this campaign. I am not now nor was I then in favor of the single tax. Mr. George might have advocated the taxing of land up to its full rental value and stopped at that, since that is all that the necessity of his land theory logically demands; there was no need to contend for the insertion of the single tax in the Syracuse Platform, unless the object was to overthrow the protective tariff and make free trade inevitable, and as Mr. George is a pronounced free trader that presumably was the object.74 I have no fault to find with Mr. George for being a free trader. If he honestly believes that free trade is the best thing for the country, as I am sure he does, it is his right to declare himself.
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But while I respect Mr. George’s opinions I must be true to my own convictions, and as a protectionist I must, of course, antagonize his freetrade notions as pernicious to American labor. Mr. George, referring to the protective tariff and to my criticism of the single tax, says that ‘‘Patrick Ford is the personal friend and most ardent supporter of Mr. Blaine,’’ as if my friendship with Mr. Blaine had something to do with my present attitude towards Mr. George, whose personal friend I am also glad to be.75 It is generally supposed that the advent of Mr. George’s party into politics will help the party of Mr. Blaine. I was a protectionist before I ever advocated Mr. Blaine, whom I regard as preeminently the grandest personification of American statesmanship and American nationalism, as well as the most practical friend that American labor has today. But in this matter I am not considering the interests of any man or party. No, the tariff is not the principle bar to my supporting Mr. George at this time. If this were the only obstacle I could surmount it. I should, however, in justice to myself, have first entered a disclaimer, as I did last year, and then thrown myself into the campaign; but when this campaign was turned into a war against the Catholic Church a difficulty was created which I could not overcome and an issue was raised which effectually barred me out. I don’t see why I should condemn the Rev. Mr. Fulton for his fanatical denunciations of the pope and applaud the tirades of others, whether they call themselves Catholics or Protestants, who are virtually cooperating with Fulton in the same work. Again, I say I have no desire to discuss the merits of the controversy now closed between Dr. McGlynn and his ecclesiastical superiors. I know nothing of canon law. I am a mere layman and am governed in matters of this sort solely by my Catholic instincts, and for me to approve of this warfare, seeing as I clearly do the evil tendencies of the movement, would be to do violence to my conscience, to sin against light, for which I know I should have to answer before the judgment seat of Christ. Since first we met, now nearly eight years ago, the most cordial good feeling has existed between Henry George and myself. Our relations have not only been friendly but fraternal. To no man have I ever warmed more than to him, and, notwithstanding his recent mistakes, this feeling yet remains with me. He is a man of fine mind and a big heart. He is as high above the ordinary politician as Bartholdi’s statue [i.e., the Statue of Liberty] is above Tom Thumb [Charles S. Stratton; dwarf made famous by P. T. Barnum]. In his candidacy for mayor of New York in the fall of 1886 – which was the first effort to bring the land question into politics – I did what I could for him, and as best I could, and my only regret was that I was not
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able to do for him ten times more. We differ radically in religion, in American politics, and in Irish politics; but these differences have never affected our friendly relations nor stood in the way of hearty cooperation in the things on which we were agreed. But while I cheerfully recognize the virtues of Henry George I cannot allow that he is more influenced by a sense of duty than I myself am. In all things else he is my superior, but in this I am his equal. Had I acted on my impulses, when the blood was warm and old associations were revived, I might today be fighting by his side; but the question I had to answer was: ‘‘What is the right thing for me to do?’’ I have been governed in this whole proceeding by a sense of accountability to Him who sent me into this world to do His will and who shall judge me; and so, without advice, hint, or suggestion from anyone, and absolutely with no selfish consideration to move me, here where the roads fork I must bid good-bye to Henry George, still retaining for him the warmest personal regards and hoping that the day may come when we may again reunite in a good cause on a common platform. The open and violent opposition of Mr. George to the Catholic Church necessitates this action on my part. Henry George is a Protestant, was born and brought up a Protestant, and it is but natural, of course, that he should see the Catholic Church with the eyes of a Protestant. I use the word Protestant here in the broadest sense. An expression by him of his religious views, if called upon, in public or private could not offend any sensible man. His offense is that he has singled out the Catholic Church as an institution and has declared war against her as against an enemy of society. He has misrepresented her motives, derided her authority, and sought to bring her entire hierarchy, with the pope himself, into hatred and contempt. And with the virus of this hatred he has endeavored to inoculate the new political party of which he is the recognized head. According to Henry George the Catholic Church is an utterly corrupt organization, the foe of liberty and human rights the world over. It is made up of tyrants and slaves, and in it only hypocrites can be in good standing. If all this or one-half of it were true, then no honest man could remain in the Catholic Church, and indeed only such Catholics as openly challenge and defy excommunication are, in his opinion, honest men and worthy of admiration. To say, as Henry George does say, that because he does not assail her doctrines and sacraments he does not therefore assail the Catholic Church, but only the ‘‘machine,’’ is to trifle with common sense. It is a distinction without a difference. The machine is the complex system by which the organization of the church visibly exists and is carried on – the necessary
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instrument by which her power is applied and made effective. Destroy this machine and you reduce the church to a mere abstraction. Christ himself is the inventor and maker of this machine. Every idea that originates in the mind presents itself first as an abstraction; the idea in order to be effective must be instituted, and the institution is nothing else than the machine. No operation in the sensible world is thinkable independent of an instrument. All human governments and all organizations, political or otherwise, are so many machines. Henry George himself has two machines, his paper, The Standard, and his political party: and he who assails either of these machines necessarily antagonizes Henry George in his representative character. To all intents and purposes, so far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the spirit which it is sought to engraft on this new party is identical with the spirit of the old Know Nothing Party. The ostensible aims are different but the animus is the same. The Know Nothings, also, declared they did not attack the doctrines, but only the ‘‘machine,’’ of the Catholic Church. The center of the machine, of course, was the papacy. They didn’t care whether you believed in seven sacraments or in seventy sacraments, or in no sacrament at all, so long as you didn’t believe in the pope. Henry George is too shrewd a man not to have foreseen the possible evil results to the Catholic Church which his acrimonious invectives were calculated to produce. He must have counted upon losing a portion of his Catholic support, but evidently he thought he could more than make good that loss in another direction. There is still latent an element of Know Nothingism which manifests itself occasionally, and this element might be roused to action if the banner of a new crusade, with ‘‘War against Rome’’ emblazoned on it, were unfurled to the view. Henry George is not a religious bigot. His religion is free trade and nationalization of the land. To him his theories are the end of law and the prophets; and to advance these theories, he would, in my opinion welcome aid from any quarter. All this would seem to indicate that Henry George suspected, I will not say the intrinsic worthlessness of his theories, but the inability or unwillingness of the popular mind to accept these theories on their merits, and that therefore, he found himself reduced to the necessity of raising another issue, irrelevant but sensational, to which he could catch on and upon which his theory might be carried in as a rider. But in all this, nevertheless, in my judgment, Mr. George has miscalculated and blundered sadly. A crusade against ‘‘Romanism’’ today is further behind the time than land nationalization is ahead of the time. The cloud of misrepresentation that rested on the Catholic Church in America
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sixty, forty, or thirty years ago has lifted. Where no-popery preachers then attracted attention they now excite only curiosity. Men’s motives are mixed. Even well-meaning men when they find themselves in a whirlpool of excitement, where their reputations and their interests are involved, are tempted to indulge in buncombe and do evil that good may come. I fear this is the state of mind Henry George and Dr. McGlynn sometimes find themselves in. From their point of view, evidently, it is expedient to keep up the row. It is sweet revenge to ‘‘make Rome howl’’ and at the same time whoop it up for the new party. But the American mind is keen, observant, and practical. Knowing the true inwardness of the thing, it is not disturbed by the specter raised nor at all likely to be bamboozled by what is said or done. The Propaganda has been contemptuously referred to as a ‘‘foreign institution,’’ and by implication the papacy itself has been put in the same category. This is certainly an un-Catholic insinuation. In no part of the Christian world can the pope be regarded as a foreigner. The charge of ‘‘foreigner’’ could just as well have been brought against Jesus Christ, or any of his apostles, and refusal to hear him based on such an argument would have been just as plausible as that which has been used against his vicar. This cry of foreigner has always been found available by men who sought to weaken the papacy and create schisms in the church. It was used in the East in the ninth century and by the German princes who followed Martin Luther in the sixteenth century.76 Henry VIII came to the conclusion that a ‘‘foreigner’’ had nothing to do with the religion of England, that an Englishman ought to be head of the English church, and forthwith he appointed himself to that position. If there were as many gods as there are nations all this might be intelligible; but the religion of Christ is Catholic and not national, and the authority of his vice-regent is equally binding in one part of the globe as in any other. Historically and otherwise the Catholic Church certainly is not a stranger in America. The very name of the continent, its discoverers, explorers, first settlements, and names of places are intimately associated with catholicity. In the United States the patriotic record of Catholics from the beginning till now is one to be proud of. Archbishop Carroll of Baltimore, the compatriot of Benjamin Franklin, preeminently distinguished himself in the cause of the Republic; and at the centennial celebration of the Constitution the other day it was eminently fitting that Archbishop Carroll’s successor, Cardinal Gibbons, as true an American as lives, should have been the one chosen by men of all religious persuasions to offer the closing prayer for the Republic.77
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While the papacy is located in a foreign country the Holy See is not indifferent to the reasonable claims of nationalism, even in church matters. The hierarchy of France is French, that of Germany is German, and so the world over, and here in the United States the rule is to appoint no man bishop who either is not a native of the country or at least has not been raised upon its soil. On the other hand, I notice that it has become fashionable of late for leading Protestant churches in America to invite foreign ministers from abroad to come over and take pastoral charge of them. The New York Commercial Advertiser of September 25th observes: ‘‘Several of our leading Protestant churches are in charge of foreign-born clergymen. Such are Dr. John Hall, Dr. Taylor, Dr. Warren, Dr. Rainsford, and Dr. Robert Collyer. And nearby us, in charge of a great American seat of learning, is Dr. McCosh.’’ The Advertiser adds: Other names might doubtless be cited, but these occur on the instant; and they naturally raise the query: ‘‘Must the [Protestant] churches look abroad for men fitted to take a commanding station?’’ . . . To take the latest instance, we find Plymouth Church considering Dr. Parker [of England] as the first serious candidate for its vacant pulpit, and it is more than likely that the church will extend to him a call, provided there is a chance of his acceptance. If so, the church will only be following the fashion.
It is strange that Henry George and Dr. McGlynn, who have sounded the alarm against the alleged ‘‘foreign influence’’ of the Catholic Church, have not noted this foreign tendency on the part of the Protestant sects, or if they have noticed it that they have remained silent on the matter. American infidels are not less free from servility to foreign influence. And yet all that is bigoted in these sects and in these infidels, while engaged in the very act of importing foreign teachers and foreign notions, has been basely appealed to enlist itself on the side of the crusade that is put in the field to misrepresent the papacy and embarrass the Catholic Church! I venture to say that I myself am a more intense nationalist, both Irish and American, than either Henry George or Dr. McGlynn. It is the sentiment underlying the nationalism that makes me contend for Ireland’s right to national independence – they would not have Ireland independent of England, even if it were possible to effect that independence tomorrow. It is this national sentiment that makes me favor a tariff for the protection of American labor, to which they are opposed, and that would urge me to advocate an international copyright law which, while it would protect foreign authors in their rights against piratical publishers, at the same time would shut out some ideas that are foreign to our Constitution and develop in this country ideas more in harmony with the spirit of American institutions.
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But nationalist though I am, I am not tied down solely to national considerations. I believe in the unity of the human race. I recognize one Lord, one saving faith, one regenerating baptism, one God and Father of all; I hold that the kingdom of Jesus Christ, which is the symbol of a grand communion for the whole world, in which all nations are made one people, is a divine establishment, universal in time and space, and therefore it is not, nor is the papacy, which is essential to the government of the kingdom, nor is any office which is subsidiary to the papacy, a foreign institution; and I regard all attempts to prejudice the popular mind against the papacy as against a foreign institution as traitorous and wrong, and I clearly foresee, furthermore, that all efforts made to bring the pope into contempt must result inevitably in contempt for Jesus Christ, whose vice-regent in the kingdom the pope is and shall be until the end of time. For those who look upon Jesus Christ as a mere man such an event would not, perhaps, be regarded as a very great calamity; but for those who believe he is very god of very god, and who believe that the Catholic Church is his mouthpiece and authorized teacher to all nations, it is a matter of profound concern. I am of those who so believe. Should the day come – and God forbid it ever should come! – that I too shall regard Jesus Christ as a mere man, a creature liable to err like the rest of us, that day I shall look upon the founder of Christianity as an impostor, and that day I shall be prepared to join in a crusade against the Catholic Church, but not till then.
18. THEIR CHURCH INSULATED (THE IRISH WORLD) Prominent Catholics Express Their Opinion of Henry George.78 The effect among Catholics of Henry George’s recent utterances could not be better illustrated than by two letters received yesterday by the editor of The Irish World. One is from Eugene Kelly and the other from P. M. Haverty, both gentlemen prominent both as Catholics and supporters of Ireland’s cause. The letters are given below, and are self-explanatory: I. New York, Jan. 10, 1887. A.E. Ford, Esq. Dear Sir: I notice in The Times of Saturday that the intended dinner to Dr. Kelly comes of this evening and that my name is given as one of the committee. I would be most happy to be present at a dinner given to my namesake, who is not only a distinguished Irish patriot but [also] an able doctor. But I perceive the name of a gentleman whose article in his Standard are derogatory to the welfare of our grand old church and unjust and insulting to our archbishop [i.e., Corrigan]. I therefore beg to withdraw my name from the committee. I have the honor to be, yours truly, Eugene Kelly. II. 14 Barclay St., New York, Jan. 10, 1887. A.E. Ford, Esq., chairman, Committee of Arrangements, Dr. Kelly dinner. Dear Sir: In Saturday’s issue of The Daily Times I see a paragraph containing a list of names of members of the committee appointed to take charge of the dinner to be given to Dr. J. E. Kelly, lately of Dublin, which included my name and that of Henry George. 471
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While I would feel both highly honored and pleased in assisting in any way to compliment so distinguished and deserving a gentleman as Dr. Kelly I emphatically refuse to act in any position with Mr. Henry George – a man who is openly using his utmost endeavors to excite a movement against the Catholic Church in America by falsifying history and slandering ecclesiastical discipline. I have no intention of entering into a controversy with the gentleman, but will simply say that I decline being in any manner associated with one who can deliberately give to the public as truth assertions such as the following: ‘‘The Catholic Church has been used to bolster the power of tyrants and to keep the masses quiet under social injustice.’’ I am, sir, respectfully yours, P.M. Haverty.
19. HENRY GEORGE ON FREE RUM (NEW YORK TIMES)79 Albany, Oct. 19[, 1887]. Henry George spoke in the Capitol Park this evening to several hundred persons, and afterward addressed a large crowd [in] Van Vechten Hall. At the latter place he devoted his talk to answering inquiries put by those in the audience. In reply to the question: ‘‘What would you do with the saloons?’’ he said: Our party has not yet touched that question. I do not believe in prohibition, nor do I think intemperance is checked by high license. To my mind license and taxes increase, rather than decrease, drinking. I would favor either free trade in rum, permitting the free sale by everyone, or a government monopoly of the liquor traffic, as is the case in Sweden, where liquor is sold by a salaried officer under government regulation. I prefer the latter.
Someone called his attention to a statement of Patrick Ford in The Irish World that he opposed George because he was hostile to the Catholic Church. ‘‘I have never opposed the Catholic Church,’’ declared Mr. George very solemnly, ‘‘but I have opposed the most atrocious ecclesiastical tyranny which would crush down a poor priest [i.e., McGlynn] who dares to stand up for the rights of the poor people.’’
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20. GEORGE’S FATAL MISTAKE (NEW YORK TIMES)80 The Irish World of this week will contain Patrick Ford’s views on ‘‘Henry George’s Mistake.’’ George, standing as a representative of labor, Mr. Ford thinks, was all right, but in introducing the issue of religion into his canvass he went far too wrong. With the odds against him in 1886 he made a good showing, taking second place, and then his next campaign was, in reality, begun. But unfortunately the land question and the claims of labor were put second, and the ‘‘first and necessary thing was to put a stovepipe hat on the pope.’’ For the hero of the campaign an excommunicated priest was set up, and [a] hotshot [was] turned against Rome. To endorse a campaign conducted on such principles was too much to ask of any Catholic in his sobriety, and as Catholics were the backbone of George’s party that backbone was broken by the load and the rider was left in sorry plight. According to Mr. Ford’s calculations George should have, had he conducted his campaign intelligently, come out a winner this year. In his favor were the prestige of last year, plenty of money, efficient organization, innumerable campaign orators and literature, leaders who ought to have gained experience in manipulating affairs, election inspectors, and continuous advertising of George by the press. With all these advantages, had it not been for his fatal mistake he should have carried New York City, but instead he polled only half his vote of last year.81 George probably hoped to hold lukewarm Catholics, although he must have known that he would lose the consistent ones. He, in fact, lost more than the vote would show, as, without doubt, a percentage of anti-Catholics supported him for the sake of getting in a shot at popery. Still, Mr. Ford thinks, there is good material in George’s forces, and that now they know their mistake they may rectify it and do better next time.
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21. DISCARDING HENRY GEORGE (NEW YORK TIMES) Dr. M’Glynn Declares He is No Longer the Leader.82 The priest and the prophet of the United Labor Party and of the AntiPoverty Society have dissolved partnership politically, and will probably pull in different directions now. That was what, in other words, Dr. McGlynn said last evening at a meeting of the Anti-Poverty Society that was held at Pythagoras Hall, in Canal Street. It was the first meeting of the society that was held downtown, and Dr. Coughlan, the chairman, announced that the Executive Committee of the society had decided to make several branches of the organization. The downtown branch would include all that part of the city that lies below Hudson Street. It had been expected that Henry George would be present with Dr. McGlynn on the platform, and that the reports that the two leaders had become estranged would be denounced as untrue. Henry George, however, did not appear. The meeting opened with the usual vocal music by Miss Munier’s choir, and Dr. McGlynn delivered a long address, in which he spoke of the Anti-Poverty and land-tax doctrines and criticized the Romish machine. Then he spoke of the necessity of taking independent action, not only in municipal and state affairs, but also in the presidential election, and gradually wound up with a denunciation of Henry George’s unwillingness to take part in the presidential campaign. The speaker thought that the party should not allow itself to be sidetracked by tariff tinkering, and should not allow itself to be made a tail to the Democratic kite. Some of the editors on Henry George’s paper have been trying to sidetrack the party, but they had failed miserably and, in evidence of this, most of the letters in The Standard from its readers are in favor of the presidential campaign. To stop now and postpone nominating a presidential candidate would be like an army postponing action in the face of the enemy. 477
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Gradually Dr. McGlynn became more animated, especially when he said: ‘‘We will nominate a presidential candidate, and we have good material.’’ He had read a report to the effect that Henry George had declared that he would not be a presidential candidate. ‘‘Well,’’ continued Dr. McGlynn: the party had other good material. Even if Henry George should see the error of his ways, and should give up the idea of supporting Cleveland, he would, if he reentered our ranks, have to do so in a much humbler position than heretofore. I no longer want Henry George for my candidate, and his candidacy would now be more hurtful than a help to us. I have now almost emptied my mind to you in this meeting.
These words made a deep impression upon the audience, and for a moment perfect silence prevailed; but soon a number began applauding. The speech was ended, and the choir was requested to sing one of the AntiPoverty campaign songs about the two leaders being selected as the greatest of all. After the adjournment Dr. McGlynn said a few words to a knot that had collected around him. Henry George could no longer be the candidate of the party he represented. There were other good candidates, such as Smith of Milwaukee, and Judge Maguire of San Francisco.
22. THE ATTACK IN NEW YORK (THE STANDARD)83 At the opening meeting of the downtown branch Anti-Poverty Society held in Pythagoras Hall on Thursday evening Rev. Dr. Edward McGlynn was the speaker of the evening, and Dr. Jeremiah Coughlin, chairman of the branch, presided. Dr. McGlynn’s address was on the ‘‘Aims and Objects of the Anti-Poverty Society,’’ and he devoted the greater part of an hour and a half to the exposition of the principle that the earth was made for all mankind, and of the application of the single tax on land values. He maintained that the greater absorption of ground rents by the government for public uses was the only important reform, and in reference to the free-trade issue stated that Mr. George had taught in his book, Protection or Free Trade? that free trade was of comparatively trivial importance and its introduction in place of protection would be of no use to the laboring masses. ‘‘At the Syracuse convention,’’ said Dr. McGlynn: it was resolved that the committee should cooperate with the Central Land and Labor Committee in issuing a call for a convention in response to the request of our brethren of Ohio and Illinois, who in Cincinnati in July last asked that in view of the near approach of the presidential contest the Central Land and Labor Committee be requested to call a national conference.
This conference was to be for the formation of a national party. It was only months afterwards that anybody began to quibble about the meaning of this. The New York County committee adopted resolutions precisely for that purpose. The Kings County committee adopted the other day resolutions to the same effect. The Central Land and Labor Committee is fully determined to call this convention. The members of the state committee are unanimous in favor of doing so, so far as we have heard from them. It is idle to say that the United Labor Party is divided on this issue. It is not divided at all. Although some letters have been received and printed Mr. George’s paper The Standard, opposing a national campaign, and although several writers on that paper, editorial writers, have done their best to sidetrack 479
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this party, I am glad to say they will miserably fail, and the enormous majority of the letters printed in The Standard have been in favor of a national ticket. It is the full determination of the Central Land and Labor Committee at an early day to call a national conference for the purpose of reasserting the Syracuse Platform and nominating presidential candidates. (A voice in the audience: ‘‘Don’t let them sidetrack you.’’ Applause.) Right you are, we are not going to allow ourselves to be sidetracked. We are not going to allow ourselves to be made the wretched little bit of a tail to the Democratic kite. And so far from going in to elect them, if the corrupt Democratic machine should be badly defeated and smashed we should not put any crape on our hats. But it is said: The work of our society is chiefly missionary. Well, yes; suppose it is; what better opportunity is there than a presidential contest? (Applause.) It is an enormous mistake to say that your platform has nothing to do with federal legislation unless you enter into the tariff question – a huge mistake. Has not the federal government almost despotic powers in the government of all the territories! And these territories (Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, etc.), occupy a very large part of all the land of the United States. Now what is to prevent us, in a national platform, from demanding that Congress shall make laws to the effect that land in all territories shall be taxed to its full rental value and the proceeds taken for the public treasury? Is not that a good federal question? (Applause.) Did not the Anti-Slavery Party demand the very same things – take the same course of action?84 Did they not demand that slavery be abolished in the territories first? (Applause.) Again; does not the United States government hold hundreds of millions of acres of land still as public land? Why should we not demand that the United States government shall never give away or sell another single foot of our land? (Applause.) So we are gong to have a national conference. We are going to reaffirm our platform and we are going to nominate candidates for president and vice president; and we know that we will have plenty of excellent material. (Applause.) There was something said in some paper today about Mr. George not wishing to be a candidate. Well, I am not aware of Mr. George ever having been asked to be a candidate, and I [am] happy to say that we can get along abundantly well without Mr. George as a candidate. If he comes back into the party again, even if he does not support Mr. Cleveland or the Democratic Party, he will have to take a much humbler position in the ranks than he has heretofore held. For my part I don’t want Mr. George for my candidate. I think he would be rather a hurt than a help to us. We have many good men in the party willing to be our candidate.
NOTES 1. Charles S. Parnell, ‘‘The Irish Land Agitation,’’ The Times, Sep. 20, 1880. 2. An estimated 20,000 people were in attendance. 3. Charles J. P. Mahon (1800–1891), a well-known adventurer and politician, created the false title ‘‘The O’Gorman Mahon’’ to create the illusion of an ancient family lineage. The wife of Captain William H. O’Shea (1840–1905) was the mistress of Parnell. 4. Before 1872 husting was a place from where nominees for parliamentary elections were picked and made their speeches; now the word refers to an electoral campaign for an office. 5. James Lowther was the chief secretary for Ireland from 1878 to 1880 and William E. Forster from 1880 to 1882. 6. The Irish Land Commission was established in 1881 to fix rents as part of the Land Act. 7. John Dillon (1851–1921) was a member of parliament and Irish nationalist who supported Land League efforts. 8. A reference to the Great Famine of 1845, and the two other potato blights of 1872 and 1879. 9. The Prussian Reform Edict of 1807, in part, modernized property relationships and abolished serfdom. 10. Bishop Thomas Nulty, Back to the Land, Apr. 2, 1881. Available at: www. grundskyld.dk. An edited version of this letter can be found in The Standard, June 18, 1887. 11. The famed Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarotti lived from 1475 to 1564. 12. The Bedford Level was a marshy area in Cambridgeshire drained by the Earl of Bedford in the 1630s. The Pays des Waes, where drainage projects were carried out, is now part of East Flanders in Belgium and Zeeland in the Netherlands. 13. Fre´de´ric Bastiat (1801–1850) was a French political economist who supported free trade. 14. John E. Cairnes (1823–1875) was a noted Irish political economist. 15. Sir John MacDonnell (1846–1921), an expert on international law, published The land question in 1873. 16. Sir Arthur Arnold (1833–1902) published Free Land in 1880. 17. Joshua Williams (1813–1881) published the first edition of The Principles of the Law of Real Property in 1845. 18. James A. Froude (1818–1894) was a well-known English historian.
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19. The Scottish economist Adam Smith (1723–1790) is best known for his 1776 work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 20. David Ricardo (1772–1823) was an English economist. His theory of rent stipulates that the interests of those who own land were opposed to those of society, since the proprietor wanted a continuous increase in population so that the poorer quality land would have to be brought into use. The landowner does not produce rent but merely takes it. This argument formed part of the basis of George’s landvalue taxation. Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation of 1817 was quite influential. 21. George J.P. Scrope (1797–1876) was a noted geologist and political economist. 22. Nassau Senior (1790–1864) was a social reformer and political economist. 23. John R. McCulloch (1789–1864) was another well-known political economist. 24. Irish Land League, ‘‘The Irish Crisis, . . . ,’’ The Manchester Guardian, Oct. 19, 1881. 25. The archbishop of Dublin at this time was Edward Cardinal McCabe. 26. Davitt organized a monster meeting in Irishtown on April 20, 1879 that initiated a campaign for rent reductions and land agitation. 27. ‘‘George for Ireland, . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Oct. 29, 1881. 28. The Bourbon monarchy of Louis XVI ended with the French Revolution of 1789. Jac- ques Necker (1732–1804), a banker, financier, and minister attempted to save the tottering ancien re´gime. 29. W. E. Forster, ‘‘By the Lord Lieutenant, . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Nov. 5, 1881. 30. Michael Davitt, ‘‘Irish Meeting in the Free-Trade Hall, . . . ,’’ The Manchester Guardian, May 22, 1882. 31. Probably a reference to Davitt’s rousing speech at Irishtown. 32. Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) was an English scientist who simultaneously and independently of Charles Darwin hypothesized a theory of natural selection and evolution for animal species. He was also very active in social reform, especially as an advocate of land nationalization. 33. Robert A. T. Gascoyne-Cecil, third marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903), was a Conservative foreign minister under Disraeli. He was also prime minister three times and noted for maintaining peace with foreign powers. 34. The Reign of Terror (1793–1794) was the bloodiest phase of the French Revolution when the country was governed by a dictatorship known as the Committee of Public Safety. Especially notable was the leadership of Maximillien Robespierre (1758–1794), who with his other Jacobin allies attempted to eradicate all counterrevolutionary elements. Honore´ G. Riquetti, comte de Mirabeau (1749–1791) was a moderate who sought to establish a constitutional monarchy. Jean Paul Marat (1743–1793) was a journalist and another revolutionist and member of the Cordeliers. He was stabbed to death by Charlotte Corday. 35. Nineteenth-century Great Britain witnessed a number of reforms that touched upon political, economic, and social issues. 36. The Act of Union of 1707 between England, Wales, and Scotland formed Great Britain. The Arrears Act was introduced in Parliament in 1882 by Gladstone. It allowed any tenant with a yearly rent of under d30 to be exempt from back payments. 37. A reference to the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 which was suspended in Ireland on a number of occasions.
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38. Elizabeth I (1533–1603) was the last Tudor monarch. The soldier and statesman Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) was lord protector during the Commonwealth years beginning in 1649. 39. On May 6, 1882 the chief secretary for Ireland Lord Frederick Cavindish and the undersecretary Thomas Burke were assassinated. 40. Apparently Clifford Lloyd was a rather nasty magistrate in Kilmallock. 41. Canada received a great measure of self-government with the Act of Union in 1840 which formed into a dominion with the British North American Act of 1867. 42. M. P. Samuel Storey lived from 1840 to 1925. Henry Broadhurst (1840–1911) was a noted reformer, Liberal M.P., and the first workingman to be a minister. Possibly a reference to Helen Taylor Henry Labouchere (1831–1912) was a radical M.P. and journalist. Sir Wilfrid Lawson (1829–1906) was an English temperance leader and politician. Jesse Collings, an M.P. who was actively interested in landreform studies, lived from 1831 to 1920. George Thompson (1804–1878) was an English abolitionist. 43. Henry George, ‘‘Ireland’s Bishops, . . . ,’’ The Irish World, June 24, 1882. The following headings have been deleted from the title since the sections that they represent are not germane to the subject: ‘‘The Castle Organs Want His Arrest for Advocating Davitt’s Program;’’ ‘‘Honors to Davitt on Every Side;’’ ‘‘His Liverpool Speech Scattered Over England and Scotland by the Hundred Thousand;’’ ‘‘Englishmen Denouncing Coercion;’’ ‘‘A Monster Demonstration in Hyde Park Calling Out for No Further Estrangement;’’ ‘‘The Death Writs Falling in Flakes;’’ ‘‘Bishop Nulty Declaring It Not Human Nature to Stand It;’’ and ‘‘Henry George in Dublin.’’ 44. James Leigh Joynes, ‘‘A Political Tour in Ireland,’’ The Times, Sep. 4, 1882. Joynes lived from 1853 to 1893. 45. This correspondent is Henry George of The Irish World. 46. In Act V, Scene 1, line 3,365 of Hamlet the first clown said: ‘‘Ay, marry, is’t – crowner’s quest law.’’ 47. An ‘‘emergency man’’ is someone used for a special service, such as an eviction. 48. The FitzGeralds were a powerful family of landowners. The two branches (Kildare and Desmond) produced a number of prominent statesmen over the centuries. 49. A reference to his traveling companion Henry George. 50. The Fates were three goddesses who controlled the lives of mankind. These daughters of Zeus were Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. 51. The Prevention of Crime Act was passed in 1879. 52. ‘‘Form’’ here is a seat or bench. 53. ‘‘George’s Arrest, . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Sep. 9, 1882. 54. James R. Lowell (1819–1891) was a poet, educator, and diplomat who served as ambassador to Great Britain from 1880 to 1885. 55. A reference to the American Civil War. 56. The despotic Tudor Henry VII reigned from 1457 to 1509. 57. The Union Navy intercepted the HMS Trent and removed two Confederate diplomats, James M. Mason (1798–1871) the minister to Britain and John Slidell (1793–1871) the minister to France, which caused a diplomatic uproar; known as the Trent Affair or the Mason and Slidell Affair.
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58. President Chester A. Arthur (1830–1886) became president in 1881 when James A. Garfield (born in 1831) was assassinated. Thus, he is the ‘‘‘accidental’ executive’’ referred to below. Lowell is the ‘‘minister to England’’ mentioned in the message. 59. Henry George, ‘‘Grand Demonstration Addressed by Him in London, . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Sep. 16, 1882. 60. ‘‘Hewitt Men Frightened, . . . ,’’ The New York Times, Oct. 28, 1886. 61. Terence V. Powderly, ‘‘Speech at Cooper Union,’’ in Post and Leubuscher ([1887] 1961, pp. 118–120). The speech was given on Nov. 1, 1886. 62. Michael A. Corrigan, New York Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register, Nov. 27, 1886. 63. St. Augustine (354–430), St. Bonaventure (1221–1274), and St. Ambrose (339?–397) were doctors of the Catholic Church. 64. Henry E. Cardinal Manning, ‘‘Henry George’s Theories, . . . ,’’ The New York Times, Dec. 18, 1886. 65. Rev. Edward McGlynn, ‘‘Anti-Poverty, . . . ,’’ The Standard, May 7, 1887. 66. Charles Gounod (1818–1893) was a respected French composer. Charles Wesley (1707–1788), the brother of the founder of Methodism (John), wrote around 6,500 hymns. 67. Dives (Latin for ‘‘rich’’) is not found in the Bible but during the Middle Ages it began to be used as the name for the rich man in the parable with Lazarus in Luke 16: 19–31. 68. Justin D. Fulton (1828–1901) was the author of The True Woman, published in 1869. 69. Elizabeth B. Browning (1806–1861), the wife of Robert Browning, was an outstanding poet. 70. A Castle Catholic was a derisive term used for middle-class Catholics who were pro-English. 71. ‘‘Mr. George’s Compliments to Mr. Ford,’’ The New York Times, Oct. 21, 1887. 72. See the next entry, which is dated a day later. 73. Patrick Ford, ‘‘Henry George’s Mistake, . . . ,’’ The Irish World, Oct. 22, 1887. 74. The platform adopted at the Syracuse convention of the United Labor Party in 1887. 75. James G. Blaine (1830–1893) was secretary of state under Garfield and later under Harrison. He established the first Pan American Congress. He was also the unsuccessful Republican candidate for the presidency in 1884. 76. ‘‘In the East’’ could possibly refer to the iconoclastic controversy during the eighth and ninth centuries in the Byzantine Empire. 77. Archbishop John Carroll (1735–1815) was an advocate for American independence and was instrumental for securing a sound foothold for Catholicism. 78. The Irish World, ‘‘Their Church Insulted,’’ The New York Times, Jan. 11, 1887. 79. ‘‘Henry George on Free Rum,’’ The New York Times, Oct. 20, 1887. 80. ‘‘George’s Fatal Mistake,’’ The New York Times, Nov. 10, 1887. 81. After his mayoralty loss George made a dismal showing running for secretary of state of New York under the banner of the United Labor party in 1887. 82. ‘‘Discarding Henry George,’’ The New York Times, Feb. 10, 1888. 83. ‘‘The Attack in New York,’’ The Standard, Feb. 18, 1888. 84. Most likely the American Antislavery Society was organized in 1833 to promote the abolition of slavery. It was disbanded in 1870 with the adoption of the 15th Constitutional Amendment.
SECTION V LETTERS FROM THE PEN OF HENRY GEORGE AND OTHERS Historians consider correspondence to be an important primary source, especially when they open the heart and mind of the sender and the recipient. They may reveal motives too deep for the spare writings of public discourse. But a historian must deal objectively with material that, in its spontaneous emotion, can be more deceptive than revelatory. And at times, it can be an intrusive undertaking, especially with love letters. An observation by the prominent nineteenth-century American historian Francis Parkman bears heeding: Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them. He must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes [or reads]. (Bartlett & Beck, 1968, p. 721)
It is fortunate that a number of repositories exist with private collections that are readily conducive to the study of Henry George and his relationship with the transatlantic Irish. The collections housed in the archives listed in the preface have been of inestimable help. It is the welcome task of the historian to study correspondence in itself, but its meaning and intent can be better understood if the letters have an introductory essay to give them context. The letters here are chosen, and the introduction is designed, to clarify the beliefs and intentions of the main characters of our study: Henry George, Dr. Edward McGlynn, Archbishop Corrigan, Cardinal Gibbons, and Michael Davitt are now less the objects of a formal study and have taken on a greater reality that we can grasp.
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1. HENRY GEORGE TO THOMAS BRIGGS, ESQ.1 37 Lower Gardiner St. Dublin, Oct. 29, 1881. My Dear Sir: Through the kindness of Mr. Swinton I have received a copy of your letter to me – the letter itself is, I presume, at the lord mayor’s office, where I will send for it. I thank you for your kind invitation, and will see you as soon as I reach London. I am uncertain how soon that will be, as I find much here to interest me, and, to speak frankly, much that arouses my indignation. Surely the masses of the English people cannot understand the sort of government that they are maintaining here, and how the first principles of human liberty are being trodden under foot by an irresponsible dictatorship wielded in the interests of a panic-stricken and maddened class. But out of this will come good. What is going on here makes it but the more evident that land monopoly has received its death wound. What I regret most are the bitter hatreds that are being aroused. Hoping soon to see you, and with a deep appreciation of your compliment, I am Yours sincerely,
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2. HENRY GEORGE TO E. R. TAYLOR[?]2 37 Lower Gardiner St. Dublin, Nov. 20, 1881. My Dear Dr.: It was my pleasure to hear from you. So much to see, so much to do, that I have been tired ever since I have been here, and haven’t time to write as I would like. Wish you could have heard my lecture in the historic Rotunda. I had an immense audience, and had them wild with enthusiasm. It was all I could do to prevent being dragged around the streets at its conclusion. I am sorry now that I did not let them do it, as it would have compelled the press agents to have taken more notice of it [sic]. Read my letters in The Irish World and write me all you can. Wife and girls are well. Love to you and yours and regards to all friends. Yours as ever,
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3. HENRY GEORGE TO E. R. TAYLOR3 21 Upper Gardiner St. Dublin, Jan. 1, 1882. My Dear Doctor: I begin the New Year by writing to you a line. May it be to you a happy and prosperous one. Yours of Dec. 6th I have got. I’ll supply to what you ask about what the government could have done through The Irish World. You see the facts through the misrepresentation of the English press. This so-called Liberal government is utterly bad, and I hope soon to see it overthrown, so that a true radical party may spring up. The feeling you express in the latter part of your letter I often feel too. What I do seems so little to what I see I might do that it appears to be nothing at all. But it must be so with the best and strongest of men. How I would like to see you, and how I wish you were here, when just now they are making history. I wish you would take more part in public affairs. Go and join the Land League and make a speech for them. It is really a just and a noble cause. Yes, the majority of the Irish don’t know yet here to get at what they want. Like all great movements it is a blind [man] groping forward. But it is the beginning of the revolution, [I’m] sure. Subscribe to The Irish World and read my letters regularly. And I wish you would give me criticism of them that suggest itself [sic]. Wife and daughters are well, and send regards. Have spent one week in London, found a warm welcome, and expect to go back there soon. But until you see my address change in The Irish World write to this. Regards to all. Yours as ever . . .
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4. HENRY GEORGE TO FRANCIS G. SHAW4 13 Harrington St. South Kensington, London. April 28, 1882. My Dear Mr. Shaw: . . . I have little hope of the literary class here – none at all of the men who have made their reputations. It is the masses whom we must try to educate, and they are hard to get at through ordinary channels . . . . I feel sometimes less spirited, for of course some of my conditions are disadvantageous, as [it] . . . often . . . has that effect, and many times I feel self-reproachful; but after all, when I came to think of it, I can see that I have really done a great deal here. Progress and Poverty is slowly but steadily making its way – eating in as I am inclined to think no book of the kind ever before did, and the little Irish land question has certainly provided a considerable effect. And soon,*** I think, the big discussion is to open, and the organ blast will be turned on to the smoldering fire. Don’t be alarmed about their settling the Irish land question with peasant proprietary. This day has gone. The Irish Land League management is not radical. They look with something of suspicion and fear on such men as me, and upon The Irish World. We must ‘‘spread the light’’ without them. But, sure as we live, the light is spreading . . . . I will go to Ireland again tomorrow, for a last trip. With regards to your wife and daughter, Yours sincerely, . . .
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5. HENRY GEORGE TO ANNIE GEORGE[?]5 May 4, 1882 My Darling: Yes; the proofs came all right. I will not go away until Saturday, and will leave instructions about forwarding my letters. I will send you some money tomorrow. Dublin is much more cheerful now. Well; I am glad you saw the House of Commons. It was a historical scene. You must have had a good time rejoicing over Forster’s downfall. It is a personal triumph for Miss Taylor. She and Cowen are abundantly vindicated. Tell her that her prediction about Gladstone killing Forster has been realized, and I am thinking that he is determined to get rid of Chamberlain in the same way.6 Tell her that Parnell – I had a long talk with him – is no more radical on the land question than the rest of them; but that I think the radical fight will soon flare up. Parnell and Dillon say the ladies have*** many at a great rate, and would have spent d10,000 a week if they had not kept them back. Of course I did not tell Miss Parnell that. Well, I hope you will see all you can, and have the best time possible. I would like to run over tonight and come back in the morning; but can’t. Love to the young lady and to the little woman. You must do something for your mouth if it is not better. Yours,
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6. HENRY GEORGE TO FRANCIS G. SHAW7 13 Rutland Square. Dublin, May 30, 1882. My Dear Good Friend: I did not write to you by last mail, because just as I was about to, Davitt came in and ***ed me to do for him something important to be done, the doing of which made it too late to write. Things here are in a very curious position all around. The truth is that Parnell is tired; that the conservative influences in the management of the League have come out in full force, and that they want to settle the land question before it goes too far. Davitt is all right. He believes just as we do, but he is very much afraid of ***ing the movement, and is sensitive to the taunt that he has been ‘‘captured’’ by Henry George and The Irish World. I have been in a rather grim position here from the*** for from the very first I could feel the distrust of the Parnellites. The great trouble is that the people have not been sufficiently educated; but*** have really been*** in that very sense since the Land League started. I can’t see clearly what the cause of events is going to be, but I am satisfied that there can be no stop to the movement of thought. But in England as well it is going on – perhaps will go on all the quicker for the subsistence of Irish agitation . . . . Michael Davitt is full of the idea of popularizing Progress and Poverty. That was the first thing he said to me. He has read it twice before, and he read it twice again while in Portland, and as you may see from his speeches and letters he believes in it entirely. He says if a copy of that book can be put in every workman’s club and Land League and library in the three kingdoms the revolution will be made.8 His first act was to demand of Parnell and Dillon d500 to use in the English propaganda, d300 of which he wanted to put in my hands for as many copies of Progress and Poverty as it would bring. 497
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Parnell and Dillon at first agreed, and he went to Paris to get Eagan’s consent. Eagan refused; but afterwards wrote that what Davitt wanted would have to be granted, and then after Davitt’s Manchester speech Parnell and Dillon refused. The fact is that the line is really drawn and the split made but not publicly. They will not budge beyond extension of the purchase clauses; Davitt is for nationalization and our program. And the whole strength of the Land League management is to be used – in fact it has all along been used against the spread of radical ideas. Davitt says he is going to the States for the purpose of getting money for the propaganda. I am glad I have been here if for nothing but my influence on him. But the others taunt him so much with the ideas that Henry George has ‘‘captured him’’ that he didn’t want me to go down into Galway with him. The Land League leaders – that is, the ‘‘parliamentarians’’ have fought shy of me ever since I have been here. They have been all along afraid of The Irish World, too, without which they would be nothing . . . . How thankful and warm my feelings are to you I cannot say. Yours sincerely,
7. HENRY GEORGE TO THOMAS BRIGGS9 13 Rutland Square. Dublin, June 9, 1882. My Dear Mr. Briggs: . . . Davitt’s plan is simply the plan in which you and I both believe. Only he proposes compensation which is good enough to propose. But what he wants and what he sees will settle the land question is absolute free trade, or the abolition of all taxes save those on land values. I have forwarded your letter to Davitt in N.Y., as I want him to see how there are some Englishmen who will*** in on the fight. Yours sincerely,
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8. HENRY GEORGE TO FRANCIS G. SHAW10 73[?] Sydney St. South Kensington. July 1, 1882. My Dear Mr. Shaw: . . . It has been very hard work ever since I have been here. I have had a much difficult position. Every*** I write or telegraph has been watched on the other side, and here I have been in a much more difficult place than a . . . newspaper correspondent. The work that I have done doesn’t show, and it has been worrying and engrossing and exhausting to the last degree. It has been anything but a pleasure or vacation trip . . . . The L[and] L[eague] leaders, with the exception of Davitt and Brennan do not accept the true doctrine; they have done nothing for the propaganda; all that has been and has yet to be done is not merely without them but against them.11 They really fear, and largely dislike The Irish World, and know from the first has, I have felt that feeling against me. The Ladies are not such politicians, and therefore more in earnest. There is a good deal of opposition (underneath) between them and the men, and I can quietly get them to dis*** ‘‘socialism.’’ The truth about Parnell is that he is really a weak impossible man, who ‘‘flunked,’’ when he had everything to gain by holding firm. Confidence in him is gone – it is only the sham of it that is being kept up. Davitt is the strongest man in Ireland. The combination against him of politicians, financiers, conservatives, etc., is very strong, but he will surely win if he holds firm. The people are really in advance of their leaders, and the course of events is to bring to the front the most radical propositions and men. But*** as before I came here, my hope is in effecting England. Davitt sees this too. This movement has begun, and I believe the money you have sent me will hasten it immensely. All we have to work for is to bring on the 501
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discussion, when that point is reached then the movement takes care of itself. How certainly this is coming, I could tell you many things to show. But you will see it shortly . . . . Yours most sincerely,
9. HENRY GEORGE TO FRANCIS G. SHAW12 Dublin, Sep. 2[6, 1882]. My Dear Mr. Shaw: Have just returned from London via Liverpool. Sure as we live, we have kindled the fire in England and there is no human power [that] can put it out. Thanks to you, and to our Boston friend, I think I have in this year done a bigger work (or rather started bigger forces) than any American who ever crossed to the old country. I say this to you, because without you I could not have come or***. Our English friends are very earnest for me to stay; but I know the movement will go ahead without me. No man is necessary to it now. We may help a little; but whether we help or not, it will go on. I can’t tell you all of the many things that make me so confident, but I send you a few notices from various papers which will show that the ball is rolling . . . . Hoping soon to see you. I am yours [sincerely,]
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10. HENRY GEORGE TO TERENCE V. POWDERLY13 Hon. T.V. Powderly. 153 W. 14th. St. New York. April 19, 1883. Dear Sir and Brother: Permit me to tender you my warm congratulations upon that part of your annual report which refers to the land question, and which I have just seen. I need hardly say how thoughtful it accords with my earnest belief. I believe that the promulgation by you of these views marks an epoch in the labor movement. They will powerfully aid in the bringing about, among the working classes, that discussion of fundamental principles so much needed and without which nothing real can be accomplished. I joined the K[nights] of L[abor] some months ago. I am pleased with its work, and saw in it, as I had before great possibilities. But when I came to read the official papers I was much disappointed. It seems to me to show a lack of definite purpose, commensurate with the greatness of the organization or the magnitude of the objects to be attained. Small measures may, as you say, be good enough in their way, but you cannot upon them build up a great organization or arouse the enthusiasm which will enable it to hold its membership, and direct its power to a common end. There is a widespread consciousness among the masses that there is something radically wrong in the present social organization. All that is needed to weld this feeling into a power which will at length become irresistible, is concentration and enlightenment. The failure of all previous labor organizations to accomplish much, as to force their issues into politics seem to me to have been due to their failure to urge anything radical enough and large enough either to satisfy this feeling or to arouse opposition. This at last you have done, and this, I believe, is the standard that can lead to victory. The pointing out of a great primary wrong, the proposal to strike at its root, will arouse and combine men as nothing else can. 505
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I was sorry I did not learn you were here in New York until too late to see you, and I have had it in my mind to make a trip to Scranton as soon as I could find it convenient for the purpose of seeing you. I am all the more anxious to do it now. Will let me know if you are likely to revisit New York soon [?] Will you allow me, in the most fraternal spirit to say to you a word on a matter as to which we differ. If you will pardon the seeming presumption I would like to ask you not to further identify yourself with ‘‘protection’’ until you have time to more carefully think over the matter. I am a Pennsylvanian, and I was a protectionist of the most thoroughgoing kind until I once listened to a protectionist speech which set me thinking. As between a protective tariff and a revenue tariff the difference to workingmen seem to me very little, and the so-called ‘‘free traders’’ will most bitterly oppose what I call free trade. But the great injury done by the protective theory seems to me to be that it sets workingmen to ‘‘barking up the wrong tree;’’ ‘‘it draws,’’ as the Irish would say, ‘‘a red herring across the true trail.’’ What labor wants, it seems to me, is not protection, but justice. I do not seek to impress my own views upon you, nor even did you think as I do, [so] am I sure that it would be wise for you now as yet to make any direct change in your position upon the tariff [sic]. Prudence as well as courage is needed in the leader of a great organization, and he must not go too far in advance. But I am convinced that in this matter a great change is coming among the working masses. But as to any matters upon which we may differ, they are as nothing to those upon which we agree. I rejoice that you have struck the keynote, and with the warmest regards and the highest esteem, I am Yours fraternally,
11. HENRY GEORGE TO TERENCE V. POWDERLY14 70 Hancock St., Brooklyn, July 25, 1883. T.V. Powderly, Esq. Dear Sir and Brother: I really do not feel like speaking at any meeting of the Irish National League. Without being untrue to my own convictions I could not avoid saying anything that might be unpleasant. It seems to me that the surrendering of a great principle which is marked by the dropping of the word ‘‘land’’ from the title of the League and which dates from what is called the Treaty of Kilmainham, was a pitiable exhibition of weakness – the giving up of vantage which had been won by much effort and sacrifice. And [I] regret to say that among the Irish leaders there [hasn’t] been one able enough and strong enough to stand firm. All I saw in Ireland, and I took every opportunity to thoroughly inform myself, strengthened the conviction I entertained before I went there, that such timid, half-way measures as are proposed by the leaders of the National League could do nothing for the amelioration of the condition of the masses of the people. The only class in my opinion worth considering in any country is the class which these proposed measures totally ignore – the laborers. Not that they are the only class worth thinking about, but until they are affected nothing general or permanent can be attained. The Irish Land League could have commanded any services I could have rendered, because it was clearly and ostensibly a great social movement making a struggle for a principle of worldwide importance, but shorn of this social element the Irish National League seem to me a mere political movement, and while I sympathize with the Irish people in their political oppressions I have no faith in mere political movements of any kind. Where I see how much misery and degradation there is in our own country I cannot think that any mere political change would do anything to improve the condition of those classes of the Irish people who most desire our sympathy and need our aid. 507
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It seems to me [that] a most respectable thing that [and] great movement promising as much for Ireland and the world, as did the Land League movement and with success within its grasp should have so easily been switched off; and I could not address any Irish meeting without saying so. The main lesson of the Irish agitation to me is that radical men should not allow themselves from any considerations of a temporary expediency to put themselves under the leadership of politicians or to abate one jot or tittle of their principles. I am glad to say, however, that in spite of what has occurred in Ireland radical ideas upon the land question are still making their way even in that country, while in England and Scotland the progress made within the last year has been something marvelous. The banner which has been dropped in Ireland will be raised again on the other side of St. George’s Channel. I have agreed to go to Baltimore on the 1st of August to make a speech following you. I shall be glad of the opportunity to have some conversation with you. Yours fraternally,
12. HENRY GEORGE TO ARCHBISHOP CORRIGAN15 16 Astor Place. New York. Sep. 30, 1886. Most Reverend Sir: I enclose you with this a letter from the bishop of Meath, which, though not written for this purpose, will show by its incidental allusions that he fully shares the views I hold with respect to property in land.16 I have been unable to lay my hands upon a copy of his letter to the clergy and laity of his diocese in which the fundamental proposition that all human creatures have equal rights in the land into which their Creator brings them is definitely set forth, but hope to find one and will send it to you. I also send you copies of all my works. If you will do me the honor to look over them you will see clearly that there is nothing in them inconsistent with any of the teachings of religion and I think you will agree with Cardinal Manning, who declared to me that there was nothing in the principles I have advocated in regard to this treatment of the land that the church had ever condemned. Your ideas of my views have undoubtedly been founded upon the misrepresentation of opponents. I respectfully submit to you that now that these views are becoming widely diffused and are held by an already large and rapidly growing number of men it is neither just nor wise to judge of them by misrepresentations founded upon ignorance or malice. I am extremely anxious that you should inform yourself of the real character of the doctrines as to property in land which I hold in common with such men as Bishop Nulty, Doctor McGlynn, and many others of the clergy of your church, because from our conversation of yesterday I fear that your misapprehensions of these doctrines may lead you to action which from my point of view could only be productive of ill-effects. In reference to our conversation of yesterday will you permit me with all proper respect to say that the suspension of Doctor McGlynn for lending 509
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aid to an attempt of the workingmen of this city to legally redress abuses which they deeply feel could but give point to the assertions of those who are striving to alienate workingmen from the church, by declaring that its authorities have always exerted their power against any attempt to emancipate labor. Between the time of which you spoke to me yesterday, when Doctor McGlynn was censured from Rome for making speeches in behalf of the Irish Land League, and the present, he has made many political speeches without any interference of the ecclesiastical authority, and in the last presidential canvas he rendered most effective aid to the election of President Cleveland without any ecclesiastical objection. If you should step in now and prevent him from expressing his sympathy with the organized labor associations of this city, it will seem to that great body of citizens as if your ecclesiastical authority had been exerted for the purpose of breaking up a movement which had for its aim the destruction of political corruption and the assertion of popular rights. With much respect, Yours truly,
13. MICHAEL DAVITT TO HENRY GEORGE17 Nov. 4, 1886. My Dear George: Your telegram says you were deeply grieved at my silence. A moment’s reflection will convince you that I could not speak during your canvass without being guilty of an unwarranted interference in an American election on the one hand, and running an almost certain risk of bringing out Parnell or some other powerful opponent of your principles among the parliamentary party who would be induced to attack you in retaliation for my support. I speak my mind when I say I am glad you did not get elected. Some of your worst enemies out here hoped you would be. The votes polled for you demonstrate your influence with the Labor Party and you have gained a great victory without experiencing the terrible risk you would have to run in the hopeless task of cleaning out the City Hall. Sincerely yours,
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14. EDWARD HENRY MANNING, CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER TO T. B. PRESTON (BROOKLYN EXAMINER)18 Westminster. Dec. 1, 1886. Dear Sir: Your letter of Nov. 8 had just reached me, and I am happy to answer your question on the subject of my conversation with Mr. Henry George, some months ago, on which I understand statements and comments have been made in the American papers. Mr. Wilfrid Meynell, editor of Merry England, came to me to ask whether I was willing to receive a visit from him and from Mr. Henry George. I answered that I should most willingly receive them. They therefore called on me together. Thinking that, between Mr. Henry George and myself, there might not be common ground on which to meet, I began by saying: ‘‘Before we go further, let me know whether we are in agreement upon one principle. I believe that the law of property is founded in the law of Nature; that it is sanctioned in Revelation; that it is incorporated in the Christian law taught by the Catholic Church, and incorporated in the civilization of the world. Therefore, unless we are in agreement upon this, which lies at the foundation of society, I am afraid that we cannot approach each other.’’ I understood Mr. Henry George to say: That he did not deny this principle; that his contention was mainly, if not only, on the intolerable evils resulting from an exaggeration of the law of property. I understood him to mean the old dictum Summum jus, summa injuria. He added that the present separation and opposition of the rich and poor were perilous to society, and that he saw no remedy for them but in the example and teachings of Christ. He spoke fully and reverently on this subject. 513
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I have no distinct recollection of the mention of his books. But, as it has been stated in America that I gave an opinion, to the effect that in his book – meaning his original work on Progress and Poverty – I saw no unsound propositions, I have to state that I have never read the book. I have, however, read certain chapters in his later work Social Problems, and in those chapters I did not see anything to censure as unsound. This, as far as my memory serves me, is the substance of our conversation, so far as it bears upon Mr. George’s works. I cannot, however, end without saying how much I was pleased by the quiet earnestness with which he spoke, and the calmness of his whole bearing. I address this letter to you as a private person; but you are at liberty to make what you will of it. Believe me, Dear Sir, Yours faithfully,
15. JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS TO HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL SIMEONI Prefect of the Holy Congregation of the Propaganda. The Question of Henry George’s Writings.19 Rome, Feb. 25, 1887. Eminence: I have had already the honor of presenting to your eminence my views on the social question which agitates America, especially regarding their relations with the Knights of Labor. But recently another form of social discussion has developed connected with the doctrines of Mr. Henry George, an American writer identified with the working classes. And since my arrival at Rome I have heard discuss the idea that the writings of Henry George would be placed on the Index.20 After having meditated well on the subject, I believe it is my duty to submit to your eminence the reasons why I must point out that a formal condemnation of Henry George’s books would be neither opportune nor useful. 1. Henry George is by no means the inventor of the theory that he maintains respecting the right of property to the land. In his major book Progress and Poverty he precisely cites the teachings of Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill, two of the principal writers of England. And in the English periodical the Contemporary Review of November 1886, a distinguished professor cites them even more fully, to demonstrate, as he says it, that Mr. George is merely a plagiarist of these celebrated authors [see Sidgwick, 1886, p. 629]. But, it seems to me that the world will judge him rather singularly if the Holy See will attack the works of a humble American artisan, in lieu of attacking his great masters. And if there is some who think that it will therefore be the duty of the Holy See to pronounce a judgment on Spencer and Mill, perhaps it would be prudent 515
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before hand to consult their eminences Cardinals Manning and Newman on the expediency of such an action.21 2. It is proper to remark that Henry George’s theory differs from that which is ordinarily called communism or socialism. Because, as Father Valentin Steccanella has displayed it very well in his work on communism, published by the press of the [College of the] Propaganda in 1882, that the latter involves ‘‘the abolition of private property and the collectivization of all property into the hands of the state.’’ 22 But, whoever has read Henry George’s books has to recognize that he does not teach nor wish that at all. On the contrary, he upholds absolute property of all the fruits of human energy and work even if they have been increased to great riches acquired either by work or by heredity. It is only regarding the land itself that he would like to limit the individual’s property by an extension of the supremum dominium of the state and respecting this he has expressly said that by no means would he dispossess the actual owners, but that our system of taxation would simply change so that the taxes would come from the land and not from the fruits of human labor.23 One therefore sees that in the practical form in which the controversy presents itself to the American public, it is simply a question affecting governmental power over the individual possession of the land. And besides this, there is the following to note: (a) Whoever closely studies the question of the relation of the state to the right of the possession of land, as it has been treated by Father Steccanella and by other Catholic writers on how taxation laws have been regulated and of the support for the poor in several countries, and especially in England, cannot scarcely fail to understand that it is a very complex question, subject to a great deal of diverse circumstances of time and place and they have not as yet been resolved by a decisive decision. (b) The question is already before the American public as a political problem and in an arena of such practice it will soon discover its termination. (c) Because Mr. George himself recognizes that it is solely the legislative power of a country which could operate such an arrangement of affairs: and it is quite sure that there will never be a congress nor a legislature which would vote a change of such profound social relations, nor would a president approve of it. (d) In a country like ours, which is not at all a country of doctrinaires and visionaries, speculative theory will not be dangerous, nor would
James Cardinal Gibbons to his Eminence Cardinal Simeoni
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live a long time after its practical application will have been rejected; and one could allow it, in complete sureness, to die by itself. 3. Certain recent events in our country have caused a very profound and very extensive popular excitement having close relations with this question. Because your eminence understands better than myself how much it is necessary that we take care not only to speak the truth, but also to carefully choose the time and the circumstances of saying it, so that our action will produce salutary results and not disastrous ones. It appears therefore evident that even if there had been certainly cause for a condemnation, this would not now be the time to express it. 4. Finally, it could be prudent here that to apply the moral principle which counsels not to express a judgment whose consequences would probably be contrary rather than favorable towards the proposed laudable purpose. Because I maintain that it would be for certain the result of a condemnation of Mr. George’s works. This would give them a popular importance that they would never have otherwise had and excites an appetite for curiosity which would make them sell in thousands of copies, and which would then immensely extend their influence which the condemnation would seek to restrain and prevent. Another word, with a practical people like the Americans, in whose nature bizarre and impractical ideas soon find their grave, it seems to me that prudence suggests allowing the absurdities and falsities to die by themselves, and not to run the risk of giving them an importance, and an artificial life and force by the intervention of the church tribunals. James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore
16. ARCHBISHOP CORRIGAN TO DR. EDWARD MCGLYNN24 Rev[erend] Edward McGlynn, D.D. 452 Madison Ave. New York. July 3, 1887. Rev. Dr.: In accordance with the instructions of the Holy See, it is my painful duty to notify you that the term of forty days, within which you were required, under pain of excommunication to be incurred ipso facto and nominatim to appear in Rome before the S[acred] Congregation of Propaganda, has elapsed, and that, as you have failed to obey within the specified time, you have incurred by your contumacy the aforesaid penalty of excommunication nominatim.
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17. REV. DR. EDWARD MCGLYNN TO HENRY GEORGE25 Feb. 28, 1888. Dear Mr. George: Your letter of resignation of the vice presidency of the Anti-Poverty Society was submitted by me to the Executive Committee last evening. As it had been made clear that you were unwilling longer to serve, the committee, feeling that it had no alternative accepted your resignation, and requested me to inform you of this action and at the same time to express to you the sentiments of the committee, in which I heartily concur. We regret very much that we shall be deprived of your great services in our counsels and of your admirable addresses at our public meetings. For these we are profoundly grateful, and we cordially reciprocate your kind wishes for the usefulness and prosperity of the society. Very sincerely yours,
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18. JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS TO ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM H. GROSS26 Baltimore, Apr. 16, 1888. Last year while in Rome, having learned that the Cong[regation] of the Index contemplated putting Henry George’s Progress and Poverty on the Index, I wrote a letter to Card[inal] Simeoni deprecating such a condemnation as calculated to do much more harm than good. The reasons against a condemnation have more force now than even they had then. 1. Henry George has ceased to be a political or social leader. He has almost dropped out of sight. 2. He would never have attracted much attention were it not for his affiliations with Dr. McGlynn. This association is now severed. They are in opposite and hostile camps. 3. His book Progress and Poverty is well-nigh forgotten. It never made any serious impression on the American mind, as far as its theories on the land tenure are concerned. Its condemnation would result in arousing sympathy for the author and in bringing again the book to public notice and in increasing its circulation. 4. It would be made use of as a weapon against us by the enemies of the church who would charge her with being afraid of free discussion, the friend of the rich, the enemy of the poor, etc. Surely we have ample difficulties forced upon us without courting or inviting new ones. Thousands of books against faith and morals are annually published in the country. To single out George for condemnation will look like vindictiveness. And while land grabbers are stealing thousands of acres of land with impunity, to see a harmless theorist condemned by the church for views which can never enter within the domains of actual life, would not fail to excite unfavorable comment especially among the poor and simple masses. I am just informed that the Congregation is pressed in a certain quarter for a decision of condemnation, and in order to avert it, the expression of some leading prelates opposing it may be necessary. If you entertain my 523
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views on the subject, and if you deem a condemnation inadvisable, I would be thankful if you would express your views as early as practicable to the Holy See. The letter might be addressed to Dr. O’Connell, who would communicate it to the proper authorities.27
NOTES 1. Letter, Henry George to Thomas Briggs, Oct. 29, 1881, no. 2, HGP. 2. Letter, Henry George to E. R. Taylor [?], Nov. 20, 1881, no. 2, HGP. 3. Letter, Henry George to E. R. Taylor, Jan. 1, 1882, no. 2, HGP. 4. Letter, Henry George to Francis G. Shaw, Apr. 28, 1882, no. 2, HGP. 5. Letter, Henry George to Annie George [?], May 4, 1882, no. 2, HGP. Annie is his wife. 6. Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914), an English statesman and colonial secretary from 1895 to 1902, advocated domestic social reforms and imperial expansion. A member of parliament and the Radical wing of the Liberal Party, he entered Gladstone’s ministry. 7. Letter, Henry George to Francis G. Shaw, May 30, 1882, no. 2, HGP. 8. A reference to England, Scotland, and Ireland. 9. Letter, Henry George to Thomas Briggs, Jun. 9, 1882, no. 2, HGP. 10. Letter, Henry George to Francis G. Shaw, Jul. 1, 1882, no. 2, HGP. 11. Thomas Brennan was an active member of the Irish Land League. 12. Letter, Henry George to Francis G. Shaw, Sep. 2[6], 1882, no. 2, HGP. 13. Letter, Henry George to Terence V. Powderly, Apr. 19, 1883, box 8, Terence V. Powderly Papers, ACUA. 14. Letter, Henry George to Terence V. Powderly, July 25, 1883, box 8, ACUA. 15. Letter, Henry George to Abp. Corrigan, Sep. 30, 1886, C-8, AANY. 16. A reference to Bishop Nulty. 17. Letter, Michael Davitt to Henry George, Nov. 4, 1886, no. 3, HGP. 18. Letter, Card. Edward Henry Manning to T. B. Preston, Dec. 1, 1886, I-37, AANY. 19. Letter, Card. James Gibbons to Card. Simeoni, ‘‘La Question des e´crits de Henri George’’ [‘‘The Question of Henry George’s Writings’’], Feb. 25, 1887, 82 N3/ 3, AASMSU. Translated from the French by the editor. 20. The Index librorum prohibitorum is a list of forbidden books for Roman Catholics. 21. Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890) was a well-known English writer. 22. Valentin Steccanella’s (1819–1897) 1882 work Del communismo esame critico filosofico e politico [A Critical Philosophical and Political Survey of Communism]. 23. Latin supremum dominium: ‘‘supreme domain.’’ 24. Letter, Abp. Corrigan to Edward McGlynn, Jul. 3, 1887, AANY. 25. Letter, Edward McGlynn to Henry George, Feb. 28, 1888, no. 4; HGP. 26. Letter, Card. James Gibbons to Abp. William H. Gross, Apr. 16, 1888, 84I8, AASMSU. 27. Dr. Denis J. O’Connell (1849–1927) was the rector of the American College in Rome.
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REFERENCES The first part of the bibliography lists the collections of private papers from which cited material comes. The second part contains relevant works in English relating to Henry George and the single tax, and includes graduate papers. The third part presents a selected list of books about Irish history, the Irish-American experience, Roman Catholic history, and related subjects. The fourth part contains a list of consulted newspapers. All cited works are included in their respective categories, except for newspaper articles, details of which are included in the notes.
I. Collections of Private Papers AANY: Archbishop Corrigan Collection; Archdiocese Archives of New York, Yonkers, NY. AASMU: Cardinal Abp. James Gibbons Papers; Associated Archives at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore, MD. ACUA: American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, Catholic University of America. HGP: Henry George Papers, Rare Books and Manuscript Division of the New York Public Library; Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundation.
II. Henry George and the Single Tax Allen, H. W. (1936). Prosperity in the year 2000 A.D. Boston, MA: Christopher Publishing House. Aslanbeigui, N., & Wick, A. (1990). Progress: Poverty or prosperity? Joining the debate between George and Marshall on the effects of economic growth on the distribution of income. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 49(2), 239–256. Barker, C. A. (1991). Henry George. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Beggs, G. H. (1967). The Fairhope single tax corporation: An analysis of the efforts of a single tax colony to apply the ideas of Henry George. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona. Benestad, J. B. (1985). Henry George and the Catholic view of morality and the common good: George’s overall critique of Pope Leo X’s classic encyclical, ‘‘Rerum novarum’’. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 44(3), 365–378.
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Benestad, J. G. (1986). George’s proposals in the context of perennial philosophy. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 45(1), 115–123. Bengough, J. W. (1969). The whole hog book. Boston, MA: American Free Trade League. Benz, G. A. (1969). The ‘‘single tax’’ as a means of support for a local government, Edmond, Oklahoma. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oklahoma. Bernstein, W. S. (1978). Lewis Henry Morgan, John Wesley Powell, and Henry George: A study in the relation between nineteenth century intellectual thought and social reform. M.A. thesis, Brown University. Birnie, A. (1939). Single-tax George. London: T. Nelson & Sons. Bonaparte, T. (1985). Henry George: His impact abroad and the relevancy of his views on international trade. New York: Pace University. Bonaparte, T. (1987). Henry George’s impact at home and abroad: He won the workers of Marx’s adopted country but through Leninism Marxism has won half the world. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 46(1), 109–124. Bonaparte, T. (1989). George on free trade, at home and abroad: The American economist and social philosopher envisioned a world unhindered in production and exchange. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 48(2), 245–255. Borcherding, T. E., Dillon, P., & Willett, T. D. (1998). Henry George: Precursor to public choice analysis: Some conclusions from a lifetime’s study of the relationship between ethics and economics. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 57(2), 173–182. Bradley, P. (1980). Henry George, biblical morality and economic ethics. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 39(3), 209–215. Bramwell, G. (1895). Nationalisation of land: A review of Mr. George’s ‘‘progress and poverty’’. London: Liberty & Property Defense League. Brann, H. A. (1887). Henry George and his land theories. New York: Catholic Publication Society. Briggs, G. (1950). Comment on Henry George’s definitions. San Diego, CA: Henry B. Cramer. Briggs, M. C. (1891). Regress and slavery vs. ‘‘progress and poverty’’. New York: Hunt & Eaton. Brooks, N. (1899). Henry George in California. New York. Browne, M. N., & Powers, B. (1988). Henry George and comparable worth: Hypothetical markets as a stimulus for reforming the labor market. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 47(4), 461–471. Buurman, G. (1971). A comparison of the single tax proposals of Henry George and the Physiocrats. M.A. thesis, Western Washington State College. Buurman, G. B. (1986). Henry George and the institution of private property in land: A property rights approach. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 45(4), 489–502. Candeloro, D. L. (1981). Louis F. Post: Carpetbagger, singletaxer, progressive. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms. Cantwell, H. (1901). The philosophy of Henry George. St. Louis, MO: Kenmore Press. Cathrein, V. (1889). The champions of agrarian socialism: A refutation of Emile de Laveleye and Henry George. Buffalo, NY: P. Paul & Bros. Clancy, R. (1950). The story of the Georgist movement. London: Land & Liberty Press. Coleman, J. (1887). George and democracy. Washington, DC: Georgetown College. Collier, C. (1976). Henry George’s system of economics: Analysis and criterion. Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University. Cord, S. B. (1985). Henry George: Dreamer or realist? New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.
References
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Croft, A. (1952). The speaking career of Henry George: A study in ideas and persuasion. M.A. thesis, Northwestern University. Crump, A. (1884). An exposure of the pretensions of Mr. Henry George as set forth in his book ‘‘progress and poverty’’. London: E. Wilson. D’A Jones, P. (1987). Henry George and British labor politics. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 46(2), 245–256. D’A Jones, P. (1988). Henry George and British socialism. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 47(4), 472–491. Davidson, J. (1899). Concerning four precursors of Henry George and the single tax. London: Labor Leader Publishing Department. de Mille, A. G. (1950). Henry George: Citizen of the world. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Dewey, J. (1927a). An appreciation of Henry George. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Dewey, J. (1927b). John Dewey on Henry George and what some others say. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Dewey, J. (Ed.) (1928). Significant paragraphs from ‘‘progress and poverty’’. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Dixwell, G. (1882a). ‘‘Progress and poverty’’: A review of the doctrine of Henry George. Cambridge, MA: J. Wilson & Son. Dixwell, G. (1882b). Premises of free trade examined. Cambridge, MA: J. Wilson & Son. Douglas of Barlock. (1937). Social science manual, guide to the study of Henry George’s ‘‘progress and poverty’’. London: Henry George Foundation of Great Britain. Dudden, A. P. (1971). Joseph Fels and the single tax movement. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Duke of Argyll (Campbell, G. D.). (1884). The peer and the prophet. London: Reeves. Duke of Argyll (Campbell, G. D.). (1894). Property in land: A passage-at-arms between the Duke of Argyll and Henry George. New York: Sterling. Dwyer, T. M. (1982). Henry George’s thought in relation to modern economics. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 41(4), 363–374. Easterly, J. (1970). Louis F. Post: Popularizer and propagandist for Henry George and the single tax, 1849–1928. M.A. thesis, Duke University. Easterly, J. (1976). Louis F. Post 1849-1928: The ‘‘Henry George man’’ as progressive and reformer. Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University. Ely, R. T. (1880). Land, labor, and taxation. Baltimore, MD: Cushing. Faidy, J. (1903). The political economy of Henry George. Cedar Rapids, IA: Why. Fillebrown, C. (1917a). Thirty years of Henry George. Boston. Fillebrown, C. (1917b). The Catholic Church and Henry George. Boston. Fillebrown, C. (1917c). Henry George and his single tax: An appreciation. Boston. Fillebrown, C. (1960). Henry George and the economists. Boston. Flattery, H. (1887). The pope and the new crusade. New York: Thomas R. Knox. Foksch, M. D. (1980). Theoretical background of Henry George’s value theory. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 39(1), 95–104. Foldvary, F. (1996). A review article: George and democracy in the British Isles. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 55(1), 125–127. Fuller, A. B., III. (1983). Selected elements of Henry George’s legitimacy as an economist Aaron. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 42(1), 45–61.
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Harriss, C. L. (1985). Taxation: Today’s lessons from Henry George. New York: Pace University. Harriss, C. L. (1989). Guidance from an economic classic: The centennial of Henry George’s ‘‘protection or free trade’’. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 48(3), 351–356. Hawks, C. M. (1981). Herbert Quick: Iowan. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa. Hazleton, R. L. (1973). Henry George’s social economics. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utah. Heath, S. (1952). ‘‘Progress and poverty’’ reviewed and its fallacies exposed. New York: Science of Society Foundation. Hellman, R. (1987). Henry George reconsidered. New York: Carlton Press. Higgins, E. (1887). Fallacies of Henry George exposed and refuted. Cincinnati, OH: Keating. Horner, J. (1997). Henry George on Thomas Robert Malthus: Abundance vs. scarcity. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 56(4), 595–607. Horner, J. H. (1993). Seeking institutionalist signposts in the work of Henry George: Relevance often overlooked. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 52(2), 247–255. Horton, J., & Chisholm, T. (1991). The political economy of Henry George. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 50(3), 375–384. Howell, S. (1970). Scholars of the urban-industrial frontier: 1880–1889. Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University. Hubbard, E. (1907). Little journeys to the homes of great reformers. East Aurora, NY: The Roycrofters. Hughes, B. F. (n.d.). The basis of interest (A reply to Mr. Lowery). New York: Kraus Reprint. Inkster, I. (1990). Henry George, protectionism and the welfare of the working class: The economist offered a basically conventional approach to protectionism, different from today’s issues. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 49(3), 375–384. Johannsen, O. B. (1987). Henry George and his philosophy: He sought equality of opportunity to use the earth’s resources as well as the end of land monopoly. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 46(3), 379–382. Johnson, E. (1910). The economics of Henry George’s ‘‘progress and poverty’’. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago. Johnson, M. S. (1995). An address by a Georgist sympathizer: Practical issues in Georgist thought. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 54(4), 481–488. Jones, L. B. (1994). T.H. Huxley’s critique of Henry George: An expanded perspective. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 53(2), 245–255. Jones, P. (1991). Henry George and British socialism. New York: Garland. Jonsson, P. O. (1997). On Henry George, the Austrians, and neoclassical choice theory: A new look at the similarities between George and the Austrians. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 56(4), 577–594. Jordan, D. S. (1899). The true basis of economics. New York: Doubleday & McClure. Jorgensen, E. O. (1925). False education in our colleges and universities. Chicago, IL: Manufacturers & Merchants Federated Tax League. Jorgensen, E. O. (1936). Did Henry George confuse the single tax? Elkhart, IN: James A. Bell. Kamerschen, D. R. (1987). Some surviving elements in the work of Henry George. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 46(4), 489–493. Kelly, J. M. (1981). New barbarians: The continuing relevance of Henry George. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 40(3), 299–308.
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Kindleberger, C. (1987). Henry George’s ‘‘protection or free trade’’. Williamstown, MA: Williams College. Lawrence, E. (1957). Henry George in the British Isles. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. Lewandowski, E. (1980). The great American paradox: Tom L. Johnson and the controversy surrounding his role in history. M.A. thesis, Ohio State University. Lindner, E. W. (1985). The redemptive politic of Henry George: Legacy to the social gospel Christianity, New York City. Ph.D. dissertation, Union Theological Seminary. Lissner, W. (1979). On the centenary of progress and poverty. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 38(1), 1–16. Lissner, W., & Dorothy, B. (Eds). (1991). George and the scholars. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Lissner, W., & Dorothy, B. (Eds). (1992). George and democracy in the British Isles. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Love, J. (1897). A correspondence between an amateur and a professor of economics. Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott. Love, J. (1899). Japanese notions of European political economy. Philadelphia, PA: Printed under the supervision of Kuya Shihosho. Lowrey, D. (1892). The basis of interest: A criticism of the solution offered by Henry George. Philadelphia, PA: American Academy of Political & Social Sciences. Madison, C. A. (1947). Critics and crusaders: A century of American protest. New York: Henry Holt. Mallock, W. H. (1884). Property and progress or, a brief inquiry into contemporary social agitation in England. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Martin, T. L. (1989). Protection or free trade: An analysis of the ideas of Henry George on international commerce and wages. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 48(4), 489–501. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1969). Letters to Americans: 1848–1895. New York: International Publishers. McGlynn, E. (1886). The labor party view. The North American Review, 361, 571–576. McGlynn, E. (1887). The new Know-Nothingism and the old. The North American Review, 369, 192–205. McMillion, J. L. (1975). Henry George on land and liberty. M.A. thesis, Bowling Green State University. Miller, B. J. (1886). Progress and robbery: Two Americans answer to Henry George, the demicommunist. New York: Cherouny. Miller, B. J. (1887). Trade organization in politics. New York: Baker & Taylor. Moffat, R. (1885). Mr. Henry George, the ‘‘orthodox’’. London: Remington. Muirhead, J. (1935). Land and unemployment. London: Oxford University Press. Murray, J. E. (1996). Henry George and the Shakers: Evolution of communal attitudes towards land ownership. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 55(2), 245–256. Nitoche, C. G. (1981). Albert Jay Nock and Frank Chodorov: Case studies in recent American individualist and anti-statist thought. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland. Nock, A. J. (1939). Henry George. New York: W. Morrow. Noyes, R. (Ed.) (1996). Now the synthesis: The new social control. London: Shepheard-Walwyn. Nuesse, C. J. (1985). Henry George and ‘‘rerum novarum’’: Evidence is scant that the American economist was a target of Leo X’s classic encyclical. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 44(2), 241–254.
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O’Donnell, E. T. (1997). ‘‘Though not an Irishman’’: Henry George and the American Irish. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 56(4), 407–419. Oser, J. (1874). Henry George. New York: Twayne. Padover, S. K. (1960). The genius of America: Men whose ideas shaped our civilization. New York: McGraw-Hill. Pedder, D. C. (1908). Henry George and his gospel. London: A.C. Fifield. Perehman, M. (1997). Henry George and nineteenth-century economics: The village economy meets the railroad. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 56(4), 441–449. Petrella, F. (1981). Henry George, the classical model and technological changes. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 40(2), 191–206. Petrella, F. (1984). Henry George’s theory of state’s agenda: The origins of his ideas on economic policy in Adam Smith’s moral theory. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 43(3), 269–286. Petrella, F. (1988a). Henry George and the classical scientific research program: The economics of republican millennialism. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 47(2), 239–256. Petrella, F. (1988b). Henry George and the classical scientific research program: George’s modification of it and his real significance for future generations. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 47(3), 371–384. Portner, S. (1963). Louis F. Post: His life and times. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms. Post, L. F. (1899). The single tax. Cedar Rapids, IA: Frank Vierth. Post, L. F. (1912a). Outlines of lectures on the taxation of land values. Chicago, IL: The Public. Post, L. F. (1912b). Taxation of land values: An explanation. Chicago, IL: The Public. Post, L. F. (1930). The prophet of San Francisco: Personal memoirs and interpretation of Henry George. New York: Vanguard Press. Post, L. F. (1976). Henry George’s 1886 campaign. Westport, CT: Hyperion Press. Post, L. F., & Leubuscher, F. C. ([1887] 1961). Henry George’s 1886 campaign: An account of the George-Hewitt campaign in the New York municipal election. New York: Henry George School. Quinby, L. (1925). Henry George’s ‘‘progress and poverty’’. Los Angeles, CA: Chimes Press. Rafalko, R. J. (1988). Henry George and the contemporary debate over industrial protectionism. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 47(1), 111–123. Rafalko, R. J. (1989). Henry George’s labor theory of value: He saw the entrepreneurs and workers as employers of capital and land, and not the reverse. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 48(3), 311–320. Ralston, J. (1909). Open letter concerning tax reform. Cincinnati, OH: Joseph Fels Fund of America. Ralston, J. (1931). What’s wrong with taxation. San Diego, CA: Ingram Institute. Ralston, J. (1945). Confronting the land question. Bayside, NY: American Association for Scientific Taxation. Ramhurst, R. (1953). The single tax and its practical modifications. M.A. thesis, University of Arizona. Rather, L (1978). Henry George – Printer to author. Oakland, CA: Rather Press. Redfearn, D. (1992). Tolstoy: Principles for a new world order. London: Shepheard-Walwyn. Reeves, C. E. (1965). Henry George’s speaking in the land reform movements: The west coast ‘‘training phase. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 24(1), 51–68. Ring, H. F. (1887). The case plainly stated. New York: Henry George.
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Rose, E. J. (1968). Henry George. New Haven, CT: College & University Press. Rutherford, R. C. (1887). Henry George versus Henry George. New York: D. Appleton. Saldji, V. (1959). Is ‘‘progress and poverty’’ outdated? London: Land & Liberty Press. Salter, W. (1884). ‘‘Progress and poverty:’’ Rev. Dr. Salter’s sermon at the Congregational Church. Burlington[?], IA. Samuels, W. J. (1983). Henry George’s challenge to the economics profession. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 42(1), 63–66. Sawyer, R. A., & Wenzer, K. C. (Eds). ([1926] 2000). Henry George and the single tax: A catalogue of the collection in the New York Public Library. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Schwartzman, J. (1986). Henry George and the ethics of economics. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 45(1), 101–114. Schwartzman, J. (1990). Henry George and George Bernard Shaw: Comparison and contrast: The two 19th century intellectual leaders stood for ethical democracy vs. socialist statism. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 49(1), 113–127. Schwartzman, J. (1997). The death of Henry George: Scholar or statesman? American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 56(4), 391–405. Schubart, R. D. (1984). Ralph Borsodi: The political biography of a utopian decentralist, 1886–1977. Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton. Scott, W. (1898). Henry George and his economic system. Scudder, M. L. (1884). The labor-value fallacy. Chicago, IL: Jansen, McClurg. Shafer, R. E. (n.d.). The philosophy of Henry George. Shapiro, A. H. (1988). Moses – Henry George’s inspiration. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 47(4), 493–501. Shearman, T. G. (1883). Free trade. New York: The American Free Trade League. Shearman, T. G. (1889a). Henry George’s mistakes. New York: Henry George. Shearman, T. G. (1889b). Objections to the single tax. New York: Henry George. Shearman, T. G. (1892). Taxation and revenue: The free trade view. New York: Appleton. Shearman, T. G. (1895). National taxation. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Shearman, T. G. (1910). Shortest road to the single tax. Cedar Rapids, IA: Frank Vierth. Sheilds, C. H. (1914). Single tax exposed. Seattle, WA. Siemens, R. P. (1995a). Henry George: An unrecognized contributor to American social theory. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 54(1), 107–127. Siemens, R. P. (1995b). Henry George and social theory: Consequences of inattention to his contributions. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 54(2), 249–256. Silagi, M. (1986a). Henry George and Europe: As social philosopher, he was seen as synthesizing Jefferson, the enlightenment and mother Earth. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 45(3), 373–384. Silagi, M. (1986b). Henry George and Europe: The far-reaching effect of the ideas of the American social philosopher at the turn of the century. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 45(2), 201–213. Silagi, M. (1987). Henry George and Europe: Ireland, the first target of his efforts to spread his doctrines internationally, disappointed him. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 46(4), 495–501. Silagi, M. (1989). Henry George and Europe: As dissident economist and path-breaking philosopher, He was a catalyst for British social reform. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 48(1), 113–122.
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III. Irish History, Irish-American History, Roman Catholic History, and Related Works Ables, J. (1966). The Parnell tragedy. New York: Macmillan. Adams, W. F. (1980). Ireland and Irish emigration to the New World: From 1815 to the famine. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing. Allen, O. E. (1993). The tiger: The rise and fall of Tammany Hall. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley. Archdeacon, T. J. (1983). Becoming American: An ethnic history. New York: Free Press. Bartlett, J., & Beck, E. M. (Eds). (1968). Familiar quotations (14th ed.). Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co. Bastian, J. (1999). Patrick Edward Dove. In: K. C. Wenzer (Ed.), An anthology of single land tax thinkers. The Henry George centennial trilogy (Vol. III). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Bayor, R. H., & Meagher, T. J. (Eds). (1996). The New York Irish. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Bell, S. (1968). Rebel, priest and prophet: A biography of Dr. Edward McGlynn. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Bew, P. (1979). Land and the national question in Ireland. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Binders, F., & Reimers, D. (1995). All the nations under heaven: An ethnic and racial history of New York City. New York: Columbia University Press. Black, R. D. C. (1960). Economic thought and the Irish question, 1817–1870. London: Cambridge University Press. Blum, J., Catton, B., Morgan, E. S., Stampp, K., & Woodward, C. V. (1968). The national experience: A history of the United States. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World.
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Rosen, G. (1969). Madness in society: Chapters in the historical sociology of mental illness. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Salaman, R. N. (1985). The history and social influence of the potato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schrier, A. (1958). Ireland and the American emigration, 1850–1900. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Shanaberger, M. S. (1995). Edward McGlynn: A missionary priest and his social gospel. United States Catholic Historian, 13(3), 23–47. Sidgwick, H. (1886). Economic socialism. The Contemporary Review, 50(November), 620–631. Tansill, C. C. (1957). America and the fight for Irish freedom. New York: Devlin-Adair. Tuathaigh, G. O. (1972). Ireland before the famine. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. Vaughn, W. E. (1984). Landlords and tenants in Ireland, 1848–1904. Dublin: Economic & Social History Society of Ireland. Whyte, J. H. (1978). The age of Daniel O’Connor (1800–1847). In: T. W. Moody & F. X. Martin (Eds), The course of Irish history. Cork, Ireland: Mercier Press.
IV. Newspapers The The The The The The
Irish World and American Industrial Liberator. Manchester Guardian. New York Times. North American Review. Standard. Times.
