Show p THE NEW IDEA Henry George who is now a for the office of candidate Mayor of New York thus City outlines his views in a letter Labor to the Conference of that tiered him the nomination city who ten It I have long ment could accomplish believed that the labor move into little until politics and that carried i make their workingmen ballots must pect any real attention felt before they can ex real to their I respect for their needs or any can hope to rightsbefore alter those they general conditions 1 I r I which despite the fact that labor is the producer of all wealth make the term workingman synonymous with poor man Since the question of chattel slaver was finally settled I have acted with the Democratic Demo-cratic party in the hope that dead issues being buried the living issue of industrial slavery might come theiront The time has now arrived when the old party lines have lost their meaning and old party cries their power and when men are ready to turn their quarrels of the past to grapple with the questions of the present The party that shall do for the questions of industrial in-dustrial slavery what the Republican party did for the question chattel slavery must whatever it shall be known be by name av a workingmans partya party that shall assert as-sert the principles of Thomas Jefferson in their application of the questions of the present day and be Democratio in aim as well as in name It seems to me moreover that a fitting I and hopeful place for such a movement to begin is in our municipalities where we may address ourselves to what lies nearest at hand and avoid dissensions that until the process of economic education has gone further might divide on national issues The foundation of our system is in our local governments Nor is there any part of our country in which there is greater need of an earnest effort to make politics mean more than struggle for office than in the city of New York In this great city the metropolis of the western hemisphere municipal government govern-ment has reached a pitch corruption that the world over throws a slur and a doubt upon free institutions Politics has become a trade and the management of elections a business The organizations that call themselves them-selves political parties are little better than jointstock companies for assessing candidates candi-dates and dividing public plunder and even judicial positions are virtually bought and sold A movement begun by the labor associa tions in this spirit and with these aims would not be a class movement It would be in reality a movement of the masses against the rule of the classes It would draw strength from that great body of citizens citi-zens who though not workingmen in the narrow sense of the term feel the bitterness of the struggle for existence as much as does the manual laborer and are as deeply conscious of the corruption of our politics and the wrongs of our social system In its oroaa political sense the term workingman does not refer to particular occupations but divides those who have to work that others may enjoy from those who can appropriate the produce of others work There is and there can be an idle class only where there is a disinherited class Where all men stood on an equality with regard to the use of the earth and the enjoyment of the bounty of their Creator all men would belong to the working class He who will not work neither shall he eat is not merely the in junction of the apostle it is the mandate of nature which yields wealth to labor and to labor l alone Feeling on these matters as I have said my sense of duty would not permit me to refuse any part assigned me by the common consent of earnest men really bent upon carrying dear into politics the principles I hold |