Tenure and toil; or, Rights and wrongs of property and labor

Front matter

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

OR,

Book I

THE BIGHT OF PROPERTY AND THE HISTORY OP TENURES. OHAPIEB FAas

I.— The Basis of the Eight of Property 11

II. — McGlynn's Basic Principle 16

III.— McG-lynn and the Angel 22

IV. — The Divine Origin of the Eight of Property ... 29

V. — McGlynn's Mistake 36

VI. — Property Eights recognized in All Ages 43

VII. — The Heroic Age of Greece 47

VIII.— Eoman Polity 50

IX. — Eoman Property Eights 55

X.— AEesume 62

Book II. The Origin, Growth, And Decadence Op Feudal Tenures

CHAPTER PAGE

I.— The Village-Mark 72

II. — Disintegration of the Eoman Empire 77

III. — Germanic Peudalism 82

IV. — Anglo-Saxon Feudalism 87

V. — Decline and Overthrow of Feudal Servitude in England 93

VI. — Extirpation of Feudalism in France 97

VII. — Extinction of Feudalism in Prussia 103

VIII. — Decrement of Feudalism in Eussia 108

Book III. The Right Of Peopertx And The Stability Of Tenures

CHAPTER PAGE

I.— The Eight of Property defined 113

II. — How this -Eight is Best regulated and enjoyed . . 118

III.— The Subject continued 122

IV. — Eights, Vested and Prospective 128

V. — Subversion of Law is Invasion of Eight 133

VI. — Security under the Constitution 139

VII.— The Stability of Tenure 145

VIII.— The Fallacies of George's Land-Tax Theory ... 150

IX.— George's Self-Eefutation 155

Book IV

labor; its vtrongs and their remedies.

CHAPTEE PAGE

I.— Labor 162

II. — Capital should share Profits with Labor 167

III. — Strikes and Lock-Outs prevented by Arbitration . 172

IV. — The Glaris Artisan an Independent Commoner . 178

V. — Pullman as an Ideal Industrial Community . . . 183

VI.— The Pullman Artisan a Tenant at Will 187

VII.— Action demanded. What shall it be ? 192

VIII. — The State has wrought the Euin. Let her supply

the Eemedy 196

IX. — Compensate Employes injured by Defective Machinery 199

X. — The Kemedy ; its Economy and Beneficence .... 203

XL — Enforce the Prompt Payment of Wages 207

Book V

limitation of ownership and prohibition of trusts.

CHAPTEB PAGE

I. — Unearned Increment 213

II. — The Greed of Wealth imperils its own Safety . . 219

III. — Inequality of Conditions Humanity's Wrong . . 225

IV. — Wealth should bear the Burden of Taxation . . . 231

CONTENTS. 9

CHAPTEB PAGE

V. — Trusts — Capital's Conspiracy against the Eight to

Live 235

VI.— Other Trusts 240

VII.— The Hydra Trust and Quintet of the Shambles . . 244

VIII.— The Coal Conspiracy . 248

IX.— "What shall we do with Them? ......... 253

X. — Crush Trusts by Legislation 257

BOOK VL

DTSTEIBXTTION OF POPULATIOK AND DIYISION OF PROPERTY.

CHAPTEK PAQE

I. — Those that want and Those that have 260

II. — An Equitable Division of Property demanded . . 265 III.— The Great City the Fruitful Source of National

Peril 270

IV. — The Hovels where Homeless Thousands dwell . . 274

V. — Land-Homes for the Homeless 279

VI. — Use the Treasury Surplus to pay the Cost, the Home- Owner will pay the Profit . 285

VII.— National Perils and Problems of To-day ..... 290

Appendix

Convict Labor. Legislation proposed 299

A Bill for an Act relating to Convict Labor 300

The Encroachments of Convict Labor upon Free Labor . 310

TENURE AND TOIL.

Chapter I. The Basis Of The Eight Of Peopeety

Next to the right of life and liberty, there is nothing which so potently and pleasurably impresses the imagination and so interweaves itself in the affections of mankind as the right of property. To know the basis upon which this right is founded, the steps whereby one man acquired that sole and positive authority which he claims and exercises over a certain piece of property to the exclusion of the claim of any other man, it will be necessary to trace the origin of society and the history of property back to the infancy of the world.

In the early ages of the world, before states and kingdoms were formed, the family existed, and was governed by its paternal head, .who was the arbiter and judge of whatever contests and divisions might arise within it; the natural legislator over his little society. The laws which paternal wisdom established for its guidance being dictated by no other motive than to promote the general welfare, were observed as an hereditary polity, and the penalty for their breach enforced with paternal tenderness.

Whatever visionary speculations may have been advanced by fanciful writers as to the origin of property and the mode in which the right to a specific thing became actually vested in one man to the exclusion of all others, there is no period in the history of civilized nations in which the conditions verify the theory that property was ever common in the sense that each one took from the public stock to his own use such things as his fancy favored or desires demanded. Such a theory may be deduced from the history of property and the mode of its enjoyment among savage tribes whose history is recent as compared with that recorded in the Pentateuch. In human history, civilization preceded barbarism. The latter is a condition wrought by the decadence and decomposition of the former.

In the history of the first family (and for all historic purposes the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Bible, it is generally conceded, is the most venerable monument of antig[uity) we are informed that Abel was a shepherd and Cain a husbandman : that Cain offered of the fruits of the earth gifts to the Lord. Abel offered of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat : and the Lord had respect to Abel and to his offerings. But to Cain and his offerings he had no regard : and Cain

THE BASIS OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. I3

was exceedingly angry. From this it is reasonable to suppose that there arose, to a certain degree, sole or individual ownership of property, both real and personal, in the person who occupied or possessed it.

When mankind increased in numbers and families multiplied, diverse motives gave rise to different laws. As human society grew more and more refined, comforts and conveniences, such as habitations for shelter and safety and raiment for warmth and decency, were devised to render life more easy and enjoyable ; and then it became necessary to entertain conceptions of more permanent dominion over external things than that attaching to the mere right of possession, which existed only so long as the act of possession lasted. No man would be solicitous to provide either shelter or raiment so long as he had only a usufructuary property in them, which ceased the instant that he quitted possession ; if, as soon as he walked out of his tent or pulled oif his garment, the next stranger who came by would have a right to inhabit the one and to wear the other. " In the case of habitations, in particular, it was natural to observe that even the brute creation, to whom everything else was common, maintained a kind of permanent property in their dwellings, especially for the protection of their young ; that the birds of the air had nests, and the beasts of the field had caverns, the invasion of which they esteemed a flagrant injustice, and would sacrifice their lives to preserve them." Whether we admit that "necessity begat property," or contend that the idea of property was the normal resultant of the evolution of natural forces, it would be irrational to assume that any man would till the earth if another might, opportunity oflPeriug, seize upon and enjoy the fruits of his industry and labor.

The true theory, grounded in reason and verified by the philosophy of human events, is that the right of property, like the right of liberty, finds its basic principle in the law of natural justice, and its recognition and mpport find effective expression in the law of civil society. The family is ordained of God. Civil society in conception and organization is but the expansive application of the family principle. Its multiform and complicate relations are but radiations from the family centre, even when in enlarged combinations constituting the polities of tribes, states, and governments.

In process of time, the family being divided into many branches, each of which had its head, whose various interests and characters might interrupt the general tranquillity, it became necessary to intrust one person with the government of the whole. The person so chosen eventually assumed the title and authority of king. To him a throne was erected and a sceptre given. Homage was paid him, officers assigned him, and guards appointed for the security of his person. Tributes were granted him, and he was invested with full power to maintain the public peace by a uniform administration of justice.

At the dawn of political history each tribe had its chief or king, whose aspirations found full scope within the limits of his own narrow realm. But those inevitable broils which destroy peace between neighbors ; envy of rival kings ; a lawless and restless spirit ; a

THE BASIS OF THE RIGHT OF PRO PERT F. 15

propensity for war or a desire of conquest ; or the ambition to exhibit superior prowess, caused the king of one tribe or country to invade the territory of another. These invasions often resulted in the complete subjugation of the conquered, whose possessions became the spoils of the conqueror and gradually extended the limits of his kingdom. Promjited l)y diverse propensities, or impelled by different interests, kings utilized their victories in various ways. To some the vanquished were but slaves, and in refraining from taking their lives the conqueror deemed himself generous beyond measure, while he robbed them and their families of their property, their homes, and their freedom ; reduced them to servitude; compelled them to perform the most menial and servile drudgery ; driving them to dig and delve deep in the earth for the precious minerals simply to gratify his own mercenary greed ; hence arose the division of mankind into two classes, masters and slaves, lords and vassals.

Through long centuries warfare between these two classes was waged with varying fortunes and diverse results, the one striving not only to retain but to extend its despotic power, the other struggling to escape from the bondage of tyranny and attain freedom of thought and action. Every effort made for the redress of human wrongs or to gain and defend the sacred rights of person or property, whether, failing, dishonored as rebellion or, succeeding, dignified as revolution, in the world's annals, but lifted humanity a measure higher in the scale of progress and brought it a step nearer universal liberty. Each of these heroic

IQ TENURE AND TOIL.

endeavors gathered strength and momentum from the preceding until they culminated in that grand climacteric — the American Eevolution — which wrought the political apotheosis of mankind.

While in this nineteenth century we may justly boast of having reached the very climax of political freedom, yet the lord and vassal of mediaeval feudalism find their prototypes in the money baron and industrial serf of to-day. The accumulation of vast fortunes by the few, creating corporations with absolute control over the ways and means of doing and living, dictating the enactments of legislative bodies, perverting the administration of justice, prescribing rules of action for executive officials, and, in the arrogance of their plenary powers, ignoring or crushing individual rights and interests, it may be well to ask, Can our loudly-vaunted political freedom much longer endure even as the shadow of the substance so dearly won and once prized so sacredly ?

CHAPTER 11.

mcglynn's basic principle.

The Rev. Edward McGlynn, D.D., in his lecture on " The Cross of the New Crusade," says, ''It is the object of this crusade of ours to preach the truth that shall make men see clearly what is the cause of the

M' GLYNN'S BASIC PRINCIPLE. 17

evident injustice that condemns the mass of men to toil, and in some instances increasingly depriving them of what they produce by their toil. We assert that the one prime reason of the injustice that is done in depriving labor frequently of the opportunity of finding employment, and when it does find employment depriving it of the full equivalent for what it produces, is the constantly-increasing monopoly by a privileged class of the general bounties of nature, which belong by the law of nature, and of nature's God, not to a class but to the whole human family.

" Tlie private ownership of the general bounties of nature is the one supreme cause of all causes of the enslavement of labor, and that condition of things which deprives labor of a full equivalent for what it produces by its exertion.

" That all men have, by the law of nature, and therefore by the law of God, an equal right to these general bounties can be readily demonstrated by a very brief argument. These truths are in consonance with religion and Christian philosophy."

Whether the theories of the reverend doctor " are in consonance with religion and Christian philosophy," it is not my purpose to question. As I am a layman and he a doctor of divinity, I would not presume to question the soundness of his views from the stand-point of "religion or Christian philosophy." I shall simply endeavor to show that his notions of natural justice are inconsistent, illogical, and at variance with reason and common sense.

"The idea of property," he says, "comes only to b 2* men from the idea of making, from the idea of producing. The idea of property among men comes first from the consciousness that men have of owning themselves. Man owns himself, and therefore he owns and controls his own labor. He may work upon this material or that. He is free to choose what he shall do, and where he shall do it, and, out of given materials, what he shall make. And when, by the free choice of his will and the free exercise of his labor, out of the general storehouse of nature, he produces something, that something is his to hold, to own, to use, to give away, to sell, and even to destroy, because he has made it. Thus he acquires the idea and the right of ownership. It is, as it were, a translation of his labor, of his time, his patience, and his skill into the form and the place that he gives to that portion of the general bounties of nature. He is with his cup dipping water from the stream, he is with his line and rod getting fish from the stream, and is with other instruments digging and hewing a block of stone from the quarry. Out of that block with mallet and chisel, if he has the artistic skill and vision to see a sleeping beauty, he makes haste to chisel away the larger parts to reveal the angel that he sees imprisoned there, and that angel is his to give away, to keep, to sell, and even to destroy, because he has made it.

" While he has not made the raw material, he has appropriated that portion of the general bounties of nature legitimately, and no other man can have the right to claim joint ownership in that. If two men should come to the banks of a river, and one should

M' GLYNN'S BASIC PRINCIPLE. 19

fish all day and the other should sleep all day, the basket of fish would belong to the fisherman, and the reward of the other would be the rest and the refreshment that he had enjoyed. It would be the same with the block of marble. The idea of property comes from making^" *

* I fail to find in the learned doctor's elegant lecture a thought that is practical or even original. In chapter!., Book VII., of "Progress and Poverty," in answer to a series of interrogatories as to what constitutes the rightful hasis of property, George says :

"As a man belongs to himself, so his labor when put in concrete form belongs to him. And for this reason, that which a man makes or produces is his own — as against all the world — to enjoy or to destroy, to use, to exchange, or to give. No one else can rightfully claim it, and his exclusive right to it involves no wrong to any one else. Thus there is to everything produced by human exertion a clear and indisputable title to exclusive possession and enjoyment, which is perfectly consistent with justice, as it descends from the original producer, in whom it vested by natural law. The pen with which I am writing is justly mine. ISTo other human being can rightfully lay claim to it, for in me is the title of the producers who made it. It has become mine because transferred to me by the stationer, to whom it was transferred by the importer, who obtained the exclusive right to it by transfer from the manufacturer, in whom, by the same process of purchase, vested the rights of those who dug the material from the ground and shaped it into a pen. Thus my exclusive right of ownership in the pen springs from the natural right of the individual to the use of his own faculties. . . .

" The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air, — it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that some men have a right to be in this world and others no right.

" If we are all here by the equal permission of the Creator, we are all here with an equal title to the enjoyment of his bounty, — with an equal right to the use of all that nature so impartially

Let US pursue the doctor's fish-story to its logical conclusion, and see what becomes of his theory of the law of natural justice when subjected to the analysis of plain, homely common sense. When the industrious fisherman has filled his basket with fish from the storehouse of nature, the man who had slept all day awakes and demands an equal division of the basket of fish. "This demand," says the doctor, "would be unjust and unreasonable, and to insist upon it would be contrary to the law of natural justice." Right! Now, then, the man who fished all day while the other slept takes his basket of fish to market, sells it, and receives as an equivalent therefor one dollar in cash, and this dollar, the doctor says, he has the right to keep, to use, to enjoy, or destroy, because it is the compensation, the offers. This is a right which is natural and inalienable ; it is a right which vests in every human being as he enters the world, and which during his continuance in the world can be limited only by the equal rights of others. There is in nature no such thing as a fee-simple in land. There is on earth no power which can rightfully make a grant of exclusive ownership in land. If all existing men were to unite to grant away their equal rights, they could not grant away the rights of those who follow them. For what are we but tenants for a day ? Have we made the earth, that we should determine the rights of those who after us shall tenant it in their turn? The Almighty, who created the earth for man and man for the earth, has entailed it upon all the generations of the children of men by a decree written upon the constitution of all things, — a decree which no human action can bar and no prescription determine. Let the parchments be ever so many, or possession ever so long, natural justice can recognize no right in one man to the possession and enjoyment of land that is not equally the right of all his fellows."

W GLYNN'S BASIC PRINCIPLE. 21

reward of his labor, because " the laborer is worthy of his hire." The fisherman, therefore, is entitled to his basket of fish because by his labor he has taken and appropriated them from the hand of nature. He may eat them, give them away, or sell them. So far the doctor construes the law of natural justice correctly. On the morrow the industrious fisherman and the sluggard return to the river's bank, and again the fisherman fishes all day while the sluggard sleeps, and at night the fisherman comes to market with his basket of fish, sells them, and receives therefor another dollar in cash. This is repeated from day to day, until the fisherman has saved up one hundred dollars. These one hundred dollars, according to the law of natural justice, are as much his individual property as were the baskets of fish. The baskets of fish were the reward of his labor, and the money received as their equivalent was also the reward of his labor. It was merely an exchange of fish for money. The fisherman, anxious to secure for himself and family a home, exchanges the money for a city lot, when, lo, the sluggard, who had slept and refreshed himself in the shade during all these many days, comes along, and says, " This lot is ours." " Oh, no," says the fisherman, "this lot is mine. While you slept I fished. The fish which I caught I carried to market, sold them, and received their equivalent in money, and with it purchased this lot, therefore it is mine." " The fish belonged to you," says the sluggard, " because you caught them. The money which you received for them was yours also, because it was the reward of your labor, but this lot is laud, and Dr. McGlynu says that all the men in the universe cannot make one grain of sand ; that God alone can make it, and as God made the land, it belongs to God. So nature has given the perpetual right to use it to all the children of men, and not to one individual more than another. It is true that I slept in the shade and was refreshed while you fished and toiled, but, as I am one of the children of men, I have as much right to this land as you have." " I have always heard," says the fisherman, "and, if I am not mistaken, it is so stated in Holy Writ, that the same God who made the land made the fishes too, and if the fact that I cannot make one grain of sand is to weigh in the balance, and is to be considered as a controlling reason against my right to own this land, suppose you go and tell the learned doctor to try his hand on a little fish."

CHAPTER III. McGLYNN AND THE ANGEL

Passing from the fisherman to the sculptor, who has the vision so refined as to see a sleeping beauty in the rude block of stone taken from the quarry, and who has the artistic skill, with mallet and chisel, to release the angel that he sees imprisoned there, which angel " is his to give away, to keep, to sell, and even to destroy," because he has made it, we find here another illustration of the inconsistency and absurdity of the

M'GLYNN AND THE ANGEL. 23

•

learned doctor's conception of the law of natural justice. According to the abstract principles of natural justice the sculptor has no right to destroy the thing of beauty which he produced from the rude rock, because the sculptor could not exist separate and apart from society, and as he is indebted to society for all that he is and all that he has and all that he enjoys, it would be a crime against the law of natural justice to permit him to destroy, to annihilate that which he thus produced.

The product of the artisan's handiwork is not wholly his own. His ability to transform the unhewn marble into an image of grace and beauty is a resultant of the thoughtful toil and aspiring effort of every hand that has striven with chisel and mallet since the days of Bezaleel, the son of Hur. In very truth, the civilization of to-day is the crystallization of the human thought and human effort of all the ages gone before. But I do not propose to discuss this question, as it is, at best, a mere side issue, and hardly germane to the point in controversy, so that whether I admit or deny the claim that the sculptor has a right to destroy the angel, I agree with Dr. McGlynn that the angel is his to give away, to keep, or to sell. If he has the right to sell it, the money or thing which he receives as its equivalent is the reward or tribute paid to his genius, skill, and labor. Some angels sell at a very costly price. We mean the marble images such as the sculptor formed from the rude rock. But suppose another man, equally a genius in his way, but not endowed with the artistic vision and skill to see and free an angel imprisoned in the rock, shoulders his pick and shovel, and wends his way to the Rocky Mountains, and his artistic vision reveals to him in the outcroppings of the soil the existence of gold and silver far down amid the strata of the earth. With pick and shovel he makes haste to dig and throw the earth away, that he may secure precious metals hidden there. This gold and silver are his to give away, to keep, or to sell, just as much as was the sculptor's angel, formed out of the rude rock by the mallet and chisel guided by his genius. The gold and silver thus acquired are the rewards of his labor just as much so as the angel was the reward of the sculptor's labor. The gold and silver that he thus appropriated from the storehouse of nature by his perseverance and his toil are his as much as were the fish which the fisherman caught from the stream with his hook and line. The fish in the river equally belonged to the sluggard and the fisherman before they were caught. Both had the same natural right to fish from the stream, which was common property. This much the doctor admits; not only admits but asserts it to be the law of natural justice, and it is because the fisherman appropriated the fish from the storehouse of nature by his toil that they belonged to him in his individual right. It is the same way with the " imprisoned angel." Any other man who has the genius and skill and industry may go to the quarry and appropriate to himself a rock out of which to make something useful or ornamental, just the same as did the sculptor, and what he thus appropriates from the " quarries of the gods" belongs to him because it is the reward of his

M GLYNN AND THE ANGEL. 25

labor. Any oue who has the energy aud inclination may shoulder his pick and shovel and wend his way to the Rocky Mountains, and delve and dig until he finds the hidden treasure, and when found, he simply appropriates so much from the storehouse of nature, the thing which he thus appropriates is but the reward of his labor. To say that everybody who pursues this vocation cannot find a mine is no argument against the abstract principle upon which the law of natural justice is based. Two men may fish all day, the one patiently and perseveringly as the other, and one of them may catch fish in abundance, while the other may catch but few or none at all. And so it is in regard to the sculptor, for the thing of beauty which his genius and fancy formed may have a priceless value, while a similar rock may be used by the stone-mason in the construction of a stable. Thus it is that we cannot equalize the value of men's services, nor is there any place in the law of natural justice for the argument that the sculptor should receive no higher reward for his labor than the stone-mason, nor that the successful miner should be limited in his reward to the value of tiie basket of fish.

After the sculptor had disposed of the " angel," he concluded to go West to settle upon the prairie and grow up with the country. He travelled far out on the plains until- he came to a place upon which he decided to locate. There he pitched his tent and fenced in one hundred and sixty acres of land. After years of tireless patience and unremitting toil he transforms the land which he found a wilderness into a garden of B 3 beauty and fruitfulness. Other settlers had located near him. At the close of one bright day six seedy tramps, ordained apostles of Dr. McGlynn's new civilization, came along, and withont beck or bidding entered the cottage of the whilom sculptor. They remained uninvited guests for the night, and on the morrow, as they stood, with an " at-home" free and easy air, in front of the house, looking over the nicely-cultivated grounds, said to the settler, " Our farm looks fine." " Our farm !" exclaimed the settler. " This is ray farm." "Why yours more than ours?" rejoined the tramps. " Is not this land, and God made the land ? And Henry George has said, and Dr. McGlynn, the Peter of the New Crusade, has echoed his saying, that all things made by God are not of right the property of one man, but belong to all men in common." " Yes, it may be allowed that land in a state of nature belongs to God, but I have appropriated out of nature's wide domain one hundred and sixty acres, which I have entered under the homestead law, fenced and cultivated, and the fruits which it yields are the reward of my labor. No one will deny that it rightfully belongs to me. God ordains it, and the law decrees it. All philosophy teaches it. Adam Smith and all the lesser lights who have written upon politico-economic questions affirm it. Even Henry George — when George is himself — admits it, for he says, ' The man who cultivates the soil for himself receives his wages in its produce, just as, if he uses his own capital and owns his own land, he may also receive interest and rent; the hunter's wages are the game he kills ; the fisherman's wages are the