St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-12-20

Progress and Poverty" have already
been sold. No book since ''Uncle TOMS
Cabin has been SO widely read. Yet it Ia
book OF facts and calm reasoning, making
no appeal to prejudice. passion or supersti-
ton. How shall we account for the enor-
nous distribution of a book of this charac-
ter. unless on the ground that it touches
some responsive chords of human conscience
and sympathy which have not been touched
before by o master hand2 Perhaps the ex-
planatlon was suggested by the clear
headed editor of the Forum, Mr.. Metcalf,
who said to me IN the course OF q recent
diagnosis Of the social and industrial COM
plant that has ever been made, and the
world is grateful to him for that, without
indorsing the efficacy of his remedy"
am not u firm believer in Georges REM
edy. The fact Is, / nm too busy in earning
living to find time to give much thought
to the many theories on the subject of So
cial and industrial reform that are now
afoat; and have long since outgrown the
youthful habit of Jumping to conclusions.
My impression Is. however, that Georges
land theories have been developed in his
mind by contemplation OF the enormous
abuses of land ownership existing In Eng
land and Ireland and that they are not APP
plicable to this country. If | had seen
some Lsrd FitznoOdle turning out hundreds
of poor tenants from the homes of their
forefatherS in order that he might enlarge
the borders Of his deer park, l should very
likely conclude that property in land, based
on inheritance and not on the use of the
SOIL is wrong. What see instead. here
in the West, is millions of acres of fertile
land lying in virgin prairie and waiting for
somebody to come and possess them.
MUCH OF THE POVERTY
in this country comes from the unwilling
ness of people to til the soil. In Great
Britain much of the poverty comes from
the fact that the land is m0nopoliZed by
the few rich men and loaded with heavy
rent charges. Our cities are congested,
while the country is but sparsely settled
in their immediate vicinity, and vast
regions are still in state of nature
once belonged to an association in New
York the object of which was to aid poor
people to get out of the city into the coun-
try. Rev. Heber Newton. Rev. DR..
Rylance, Felix Alder and Joseph Seligman
were among the members. The society
soon found that the poor preferred poverty
i'll the city to independence in the country.
One poor woman, whose family was all
the time on the brink of want, said she
would rather lean against lamp post in
New York than to live ON the best farm
in Illinois. A colony was finally sent out
to Kansas, but most of its members found
their way back to the city within year.
In America we need to stimulate an ambi-
ton for small landed possessions rather
than to preach against land ownership. AT
the same time we should welcome all sincere
idealists and refOrmers. 1t is a great mis-
take to suppose that che law of competition.
which means in effect, everyone for himself
and the devil take the hindmost, is the last
and final note in the ganlut of human pro-
gress and the perfect harmony of an ulti-
mate civilization. There will be great
changes IN social and industrial conditions
during the next century-changes in the
direction of cooperation, of fraternity, of
fairer distribution of the fruits of labor.
The rich and strong will always take care
of themselves-thatw we may depend upon.
1t is the progress of the poor out of their
poverty that needs helping along as the
next great step in the forward movement
of the human race. E. V. SMALLEY.