Democratic messenger., 1881-11-12
THE CIVILIZATION THAT Is.
BY HENRY GEORGE.

Mlen We Unlnk OF Jne CIVILIZATION
that might be, how poor and pitiful,
how little better than utter barbarism,
seems this civilization of which we
boast! Even here, where it has had the
freest field and fullest development !!
Even here
This is q broad land and rich land.
How wide it is, how rich it is, how the
fifty millions of us already here are but
beginning 10 scratch it, man cannot
begin to realize, till he does some thou
sands of miles Of travelling over it. There
are a school and church and a news
paper in every hamlet; we have no
privileged orders, no legacies of anti
quated institutions, no strong and
covertly hostile neighbors, who in fancy
or reality oblige MS to keep up great
standing armies. We have had the
experience of all other nations to guide
us in selecting what is good and reject
ing what is bad. In politics, in religion,
in science, In mechanism, everything
shows the latest improvements. We
think we stand, and in. fact we do stand,
in the very van of civilization. Food
here is cheaper, wages higher, than any
where else. There is here a higher
average of education, of intelligence, of
material comfort, of individual opportu-
nifty, than among any other of the great
civilized nations. Here modern civiliZa-
ton is at its very best. Yet even here
Last winter l was in San Francisco.
There are in San Francisco citizens who
can build themselves houses that cost
million and a half !; citizens who can
give each of their. children two millions
of registered United States bonds for
Christmas present citizens who can
send their wives to Paris to keep house
there, or rather to "keep palace" in a
style that outdoes the lavishness of
Russian grand dukes; citizens whose
daughters are golden prizes to the
bluest- -blooded of English aristocrats (;
citizens who buy seats in the United
States Senate and leave them empty,
Just to show their grandeur. There
are, also, in San Francisco other citi
zens. Last winter / could hardly walk
a block without meeting q citizen beg.
ging for ten cents. And, when charity
fund was raised to give work, with pick
and shovel to such as would rather work
than beg, the applications were so nu-
merous that, to make the charity fund
go as far as possible, one set of men was
discharged after having been given a
few DAYS work, in order to make room
for another set This and much else of
the same sort / saw in San Francisco
last winter. Likewise in Sacramento,
and in other towns.
Last summer, on the plains, took
from its tired mother, and held in my
arms, little sun un-browned baby, the
youngest of family of the sturdy and
keen Western New England stock, who
alone in their two wagons had travelled
nearly three thousand miles looking for
some place to locate and finding none,
and who were now returning to where
the father and the biggest boy could go
to work on a railroad, what they got by
the sale of their Nebraska farm all gone
And walked awhile by the side of long,
lank South western men who, after simi-
lar fruitless journeyings way up into
Washington Territory, were going back
to the Choctaw Nation.
This winter have been in New York
New York is the greatest and richest of
American cities-the third city of the
modern world, and moving steadily to-
ward the first place. This is time of
great prosperity. Never before were so
many goods sold, so much business
done. Real estate is advancing with big
Jumps, and within the last few months
many fortunes have been made in buy
ing and selling vacant lots. Landlords
nearly everywhere are demanding in
creased rents asking in some of the
business quarters an increase of three
hundred per cent. Money is so plenty
that government four per cents sell for
ia, and bill is passing Congress for
refunding the maturing national debt at
three per cent. per annum, rate that
awhile ago in California was not
thought exorbitant per month. All
sorts of shares and bonds have been go
ing mp and up. You can sell almost
anything If you give it high-sounding
corporate name and issue well-printed
shares of stock. Seats in the Board of
Brokers are worth thirty thousand dol
lars, and are cheap at that. There are
citizens there who rake in millions at q
single operation with as much ease as a
faro-dealer rakes in q handful of chips.
Nor is this the mere seeming prosper
ity of feverish speculation. The coun-
try is really prosperous. The crops
have been enormous, the demand insa.
table. We have at last sound cur.
rency; gold has been pouring in. The
railroads have been choked with pro.
duce, steel rails are being laid faster
than ever before; all sorts of factories