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Show Warren P VOL. 4. SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY LAND QUESTION AND WAYS. The question of how to keep wages up, is one that has apparently exhausted the genius of the politician and to all appearances is further today from being settled than ever before. High tariff and low tariff have been tried, over and over again, but the tendency, in the main, seems to be downward, while the real condition of the laborer so far as relates to his personal freedom and ence, is gradually, but surely getting worse and worse as the days go by. To the thinking mind it is qrite plain that the true remedy lies in some other direction than that usually pursued. Before we dare hope to be able to find the remedy for the evil we must find the cause. It naturally follows that whatever will remove the cause will cure the disease. There are two causes: Monopoly in land, and machinery. By monopoly in land we refer to monopoly of natural opportunity; the monopoly which cuts man off from the nse of the earth. By the ' monopolization of the lands of the country men are by the thousands driven into the trades; driven trom the forms, forests and mines into the city. They no sooner reach the city than they are met by a crowd of men, who have been driven from the city by g the machinery. Thus between are millions today who there the two causes are practically cut of) from any and all opportunity to make a living. , The result is a lowering of wages. It is safe to say that so long as there are two men for every job wages will be low, and will continue to be lower so long as that condition exists. Men who employ men are disposed naturally to hire them as cheaply as possible. There is no sentiment in the matter. Even though a certain employer of labor should have a hearty disposition to pay high . wages he could not do so because of the sharpness of competition. So long as his fellow employers pay lower wages than he does, they can undersell him in the market So there could he but one of two results, he would be either compelled to suspend business or become a bankrupt Certainly no one would favor the destruction of labor-savin- g machinery as a remedy. Surely nothing that lessens the amount of labor or increases the output can be consistly looked upon as a bad thing. Of itself it is not It is only when something else is maching wrong can it be said of ery that it is a detriment to society. Then that leaves us but one of the causes to combat, the monopoly on land. Before we can enter upon an intelligent discussion of this feature we must first understand what is meant by the term land. Land, used in an economic sence, includes everything that nature gave or gives for the use of man. The lands, the oceans, the seas and the rivers, including the forest, with its animals, and the water with its fishes, the air with the birds that fly therein, the sunshine, the rain. These are all included and understood by the simple term lard. These are all necessary to human existence and happiness. None of them were created by man, hence should not be monopolized labor-savin- g labor-savin- labor-savin- by man. No one denies that man, all men, however humble their' station, have a right to breath the air. No one denies any the right to sunshine and light; no one denies another the right to whatever use he may make of the rain fall. But as man is a land animal, he has no place or power to enjoy the use of these gifts of nature unless there be some place on the solid land where he may rest hi foot. Hence to deny a man the use of the land is the same in effect as to deny him the use of the air; the sun, and the rain. So long as the supply of land was greater than the demand, man was free to uSe it. All that he had to do was to apply his labor directly to natures opportunity and thus sustain-ancproduce what he needed for lifes But the amount of land being a fixed quantity and the population not, there came a time when the demand for land over-rathe supply. Then came the change. Then men began to appear on the earth to discover that there was no place for them, they got here too late, so to speak. And the only way that they could stay was to make e. n n. 1898 the best terms possible with those who got r here first. We would aot however have the reader infer that the actual amount of land is too small, for such is not the case. The United States could support ten times more people than now live here, were it not for the fact the land is held idle for speculative purposes'. Its mines are locked up, and its forests put out of the reach of the mases by speculators. So there are plenty of idle lands for all, but under the present monopolistic system, it might as well not exist. The natural opportunity being thus taken from the man, be has no power to employ himself. He must depend upon some one to hire him. The terms of his hire can be named by his employer, for he has no choice, in the matter. If he thinks the wages offered him too low he cannot refuse to accept, he cannot say, 'Unless you pay me my price for my work I will work for myself for the simple reason that his opportunity to work for himself does not exist. To our mind this looks quite plain. Then it follows tlpt whatever will remove land monopoly will cure the trouble. Restore to man his natural and unalieanable right to employ himself by applying hi labors to natures bounties and he at once becomes an independent man, and would find himself in a position to assist in naming the terms upon which he would engage tt work for another. We claim that the single tax proposition, as laid down by Mr. Henry George, will do that thing. We offer' it as the remedy for low wages. j Successor to THE INTER-MOUNTAI- ADVOCATE. N If this number U on tlie label e'liiUiuiug THE BLOOD STAINED GREENBACK. our ueiue, you had better it new niiiditjr quirk, a that ia the number uf the neat At the close of one of the great battles of iiwue. No paptH will be eent for a longer tune than paid the late war, I remember taking from the for, nor on credit, except by upecial arrangement. pocket of a dead comrade his dairy, a packKEEP OUT OF THE PAST. age of letters, a few little trinkets, and his r pocket book in which was a new crisp Keep out of the Past, for its highways greendack, received lrom Uncle Sams Are dark with malarial gloom; paymaster only a few days before, whih Its gardens are sere and its forests are drear, happened to be stained with the dead solAnd everywhere molders a tomb. dierss blood. I tied them up in a bundle Who seeks to regain its lost pleasures, and sent them to his old mother in Vermont. Finds only a rose turned to dust; Last summer I visited that mothers home, And its storehouse of wonderful treasures and she showed me the precious keepsakes, Are covered and coated with rust. all tenderly treasured up for all these long years the greenback being too Keep out of the past It is haunted; .lie who in its avenues gropes, precious to part with under any circumstances. No need to ask, for her sad face told it Shall find there the ghost of a joy prized the too plainly, that many a time she had p most And a skeleton throng of dead hopes that greenback with her tears even as her patriot son had baptized it with his lifes In place of its beautiful rivers, blood. How typical of the great and solemn Are pools that are stagnant with slime; five-dolla- blood-staine- d bap-tize- of our greenback currency has been baptized with the best blood of the nation, and with tears of mothers, widows and orphans. And yet there are men who tell the aged mothers the bloodstained greenback is not good enough to pay our bondholding neighbor who stayed at home and bought bonds 50 cents on the dollar! Col. S. F. Norton. Read this over twice and then think of the gang of mercerny hellions who are declaring that the greenbacks are not good enough for the traitorous, cowardly bondholders, who robbed the country blind while this boy fought and died on the field of battle, and received his pay, uncomplainingly no doubt, in this same kind of money. There are times when one sees and feels the impotence of language. Words do not express, words cannot express, the utmost lothing that we 1 feel for such scoundrels, and those who upRIGHT OF EMINENT DOMAIN. hold and assist them in their nefarious able robberies. Judge Geo. S. Adams, furnishes an article to the Boulder, Colorado, RepresenWHAT NEXT. tative, upon the .recent coal strike in that reThe authorities of the city of Bonn would gion. He takes the ground, and maintains seem to be even more advanced than the it with much force, . that coal mine owners of the world on the subject of fresh air, have no right to' close down" their min3 && rest freeze the people. That the state would be and intend to make the inhabitants regard it in very much the same way as we are at justified in taking the mines under the right of Eminent Domain, and opening them up present compelled to look upon water as something not only to pay a big price for, for the use of the people. He closes his argument in the following but to be very glad, indeed, to get The Municipal Council has recently devised some forceful manner: new building regulations, and among them is In the second plaqe it is a universal rule, which fixes the amount to be paid every without a single exception, that the govern- one for what it calls "the use of the columns ment the people have an inherent and year of air above the city streets. This air is paramount right to all the property in the obtained householder the by by merely havstate that where the general welfare of the a window or balcony to his people of a city, county or state demands ing projecting the seizure and appropriation of private prop- house. If he has a simple balcony he must fifty marks, or about 2 103. a year, for erty to be used for the public good, the same pay the privilege, and for each balcony over it a may be taken and so used. Such seems to further sum of twenty-fiv- e marks, while if he be the constitutional provision in this state. has a series of projecting windows the tax on (Constitution: Art. it Sec. ll.) is about a hundred marks, or If the contention of the claimants of these the quantity If the state authorities sanction this, it 5. coal mines, that they have, as they claim, an shall absolute right and title to this coal, aad by is not Unlikely that the next thing we is that everybody will be taxed for behear virtue of that right and title they may do as allowed to breathe in that famous Gerthey choose with their own, be conceded, ing then the following conclusions are inevitable: man university town. There are advantages, after all, in living in England. Pearsons 1. The absolute owner of these mines Weekly. may lawfully refuse to work or allow the mines to be worked by any other. The present age has no use for fossils. 2. Everv owner of every coal mine in Get out of the way or be crushed is the Colorado, and for that matter in the United 1ronunciamento of warning nailed on the of progress. Colorado RepStates, may refuse to work or allow their resentative. mines to be worked. That is som portion of the present age. 3. A syndicate, combine or trust with sufficient capital might be formed to buy up, With Bill McKinley president, John Sherman own and control all the coal mines on the secretary of state, Lyman Gage secretary of continent, and having so secured them, put the treasury, and Grover Cleveland the Big the price so high that none but the very Joss of the whole flock of fossils, furnishing wealthy could procure the coal, or absolutely the inspiration, it seems to us that the fossil refuse to mine or sell the coal under any con- business has sort of run to seed. Some peosideration or lor any price. The fearful ple are through with fossils, it is true, and of none is it more true than with the old wheel-horsconsequences resulting from such a course Geo. Vincent, editor of the would overturn our civilization, destroy every enterprise, bring to a standstill all commerce and manufacturing, and would ultiThe Teller resolution in congress settles mate in the destruction of all organized com- the question as to what will be the political monwealths, and ultimate in barbarism, if issue in 98 and 1900. The Republican party not in the absolute destruction of all govern- can never again fool the people with bimetment A political doctrine which is capable allic pledges. Industrial Leader, Lamar, Mo. , of leading to such appalling consequences, want to fool the people any dont They threatening the very existence of the human six for more years, only to fool them into race upon the earth, must be abandoned forthe Democratic ticket in 190a There ever, and one holding out more promising voting be must a goldbug Democrat elected then, results adopted in its stead. and the only way to do that is to kill tempoYou have been borrowing this paper for a rarily, the Republican party. That is what long time now, suppose you put yourself in they are doing now. a position to loan it by subscribing and pay Liying Issues and the New Time both for one year for 51.75. ingfor fact tnat every dollar . e, it NO. 5. And graves gleaming bright in a phosphoric light, Hide dreams that were slain in their prime. Keep out oi the Past. It is lonely, And barren and bleak to the view; Its fires have grown cold, and its stories are old Turn, turn to the present The New: Today leads you up to the hilltops That are kissed by the radient sun, Today shows no tomb, life's hopes are in bloom, And today holds a prize to be won. Ella Wheeler Wilcox. The silver dollar, worth about 50 cents when melted, is worth ico cents as' a coin. It is based on no other money it is not redeemable in any other money. It is not, as a matter of fact, redeemed in any other money. It is redeemed in taxes. It is a creature of law. It is fiat money. The law makes the money. It can make a dollar out of paper dollar not redeemable by the government in anything but dues. There is not enough money. Congress has power to create all that is necessary. Missouri World. That being true, and every word of it is true, it folows that every issue of bonds was a fraud; a steal; and that every cent that is now being paid, or ever was paid, in interest on these bonds represent that much stolen from the people. That there was a time. when an issue of bonds was necessary may be an open question, but no such need exists now, nor has it existed for the past twenty-fiv- e years. Hence we unhesitatingly say, without fear of successful contradiction, that when Cleveland and Carlisle issued that $262,000,000 in bonds that they knew it was unnecessary; that it was not in the interest of the people or the government; that the whole thing was a well laid plan to deceive; that it was in the interest of the gold gambling bond theives, and no one else; that they were using their position and power to rob the very people they pretended to represent; and that it was a steal, pure and simple. immbmmhm Editor Snow, of Equality, Santa Barbara, the bulls eye when he says: An international currency system is a delusion and a snare. Bimetallism, by international agreement, is a scheme in the interest of the world's bondholders. The only sound money is money that has no legal value outside of the nation that issues it Otherwise, under bimetallism, finances may easily be so manipulated by men of brains, that the bonds and the silver and the gold will be in the same hands, enslaving all the nations of the earth that use gold and silver for money. California, hits inter-nation- al More than eleven million dollars have been lost by depositors in national bank failures in this country, says the Star and Kansan. It seems that there are at least ' eleven good reasons why we should have istal savings banks in this country. Facts, snver, Colo. And there are more than eleven million fools in America who yet suppose that the government stands good for money deposited with national banks. . One thing I cant understand, is why men who believe alike as to the evils of present conditions and who alike aim to bring about a state of society in which justice shall reign, will foil out and quarrel so bitterly with each other about the means to be employed Star and Kansan. The only explanation that can be given is that men love party better than principle. They aim to make party the end rather than a means. Men had better live in comfort as barbarians than to die of hunger in civilization. New Republic. |