The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-21
THE SEPTEMBER MAGAZINES.
WI.IpnIncntt,s.O


Land Monopoly
Land Monopoly is the sole parent of civil
zation, and land monopoly has been universal,
in all ages with the white and Chinese races,
and wholly unpractised by the uncivilized
races. The latter races are incapable OF land
monopoly, and therefore can never have self
sustaining civilization. But we see around
us, every day, that they may have an exotic
civilization. Where few whites have mo-
nopolized the lands, the landless whites and
landless negroes must practise the arts of
civilized life or perish, for they can no longer
live, like brutes, on the voluntary fruits of
the earth.
They have become the subjects of capital
(and all capital results from land monopoly,
and they must fabricate the necessaries, COM
forts, and luxuries of life for the capitalists,
or be without homes or food or fuel or
clothes In fabricating necessaries, comforts
and luxuries for the rich, they learn, and
continually practise, all the arts of civilized
life Property, or capital, has ever been
close monopoly among the civilized races, and
ever unknown, as an institution, among the
other races Any people who are capable of
land monopoly, and will practise it, will at
once become civilized.
We're it possible to divide lands
equally among all the whites, each man
would have to labor for his own sup
port; for there being no landless no one
could command the labor of others. The
consequence would be, that nothing but the
merest necessaries of life could be produced
and the whites thus circumstanced would
at once become declviliZed. Men never fabri-
rate luXuries for themselves, but make them
for others to procure necessaries for them
selves None but mailman would build a
fine house or make fine furniture or clothing
or equipage for his own use. Were he to
attempt it, he would have no time left to
produce the necessaries of life, and must
starve. If lands were equally divided, or if
lands were in common among the whites,
civilization would perish 1t is the domi-
Mon of capital over labor that begets, sus-
tains, and advances civilization. Were there
no inequalities of property, there could be no
civilization. There is no accumulated wealth,
no capital, no inequalities of property,
no land monopoly among the uncivilized
races. Liberty Gin its broadest sense)
and social equality are enjoyed by all. They
are all ignorant half-starved paupers. Place
them among whites, and subject them like
poor whites, to the dominion of capital and
they necessarily acquire civilization, but it is
in most instances a feeble, siclly, exotic civil
lization. They are contented beings, and
content doOms them to eternal ignorance and
pauperism. A little coarse, common labor
will procure for them the merest necessaries
of life, and that is all they care
or hope for. Not one in a thousand
will undergo the labor of mind and body
requisite to make them good mechanics, or
artists, or scholars, or professional men. In
vested with equal political rights, as the
negroes soon will be, a very few of them will
acquire property, become educated, and occu-
py respectable social positions. The great
mass of them will continue to be a useful,
robust, and productive laboring class much
better situated in all respects, hewever than
the negroes of Africa or the Indians of
America.
The whites are ever disc0HteHted, rivalrous.
cumulative, rapacious, ambitious, proud, provi-
dent, selfish, jealous aspiring, and accumu-
lative. The most ambitious, powerful, and
rapacious from time immemorial have mono
polized the lands, and compelled. by virtue of
the dominion of land monopoly, the landless
to labor for them. The wages of the laboring
classes have ever been proportional to the in
dustry skill, and inventiveness exhibited by
each individual laborer; and this graduated
| apportionment, acting upon the moral quail
ties of the whites, such as we have Just enume-
rated, has stimulated them to untiring indus
| try, skill, and inventiveness, and thus suS-
tanned continually-improving and progress
i've civilization The civilized races are de-
cidedly unamiable, and if they were not so
would cease to be civilized. Yet we do not
think that man is endowed by Nature with
any evil moral qualities, provided such
qualities are not INDUCED in to excess
Discomfort is virtue while it only serves
to make us moderately industrious, pro-
Vident, and accumulative; content becomes
a vice when it begets Incidence and improvi-
| dence. The white becomes vicious and
criminal only when he INDUCES to excess
such passions and propensities as we have
mentioned, and this he is sure to do if not
restrained by law, public opinion, and Cat
| leasD respect for the teachings of Christian
morality. The native African is by far the
most amiabe of human beings when the har-
vest is just in and game abundant. As such.
Homer described him almost three
thousand years ago, and as such is he
described by all the African travellers of
our day. The native Africans brought to this
country as slaves were simple, guileless.
atfectionate, obedient, and industrious: their
descendants have contracted many of the
faults of the whites, without acquiring any
of their good qualities But even now the
negro is a much more amiable being than
the white man; and the great question to
be solved by the friends of humanity is.
Can so amiable being long live when
thrown into free competition with the
unamiable white man? The negro is emf
nently contented, unselfsh, improvident gene
| rous, wasteful, unambitious, unaspirinp
ready to divide the little he may have with
the first conner, and hence incapable of ac-
quirlng, holding, or welding capital or pro-
perty. In fine, all the uncivilized races
are, ever have been, and, left to
themselves, ever will be, communists. Pri-
Yate property Is an institution almost un-
known among them and equally unknown to
mem are ,a Sn other institutions of civilized