Smyrna times., 1886-10-20
Henry Georges Greed.


Henry George proposes to rescue our |
advanced civilization from its evils is to |
restore us to our first estate of barbar- |
ism and savagism, wherein the land |
will be again owned in common, as it is |
in Africa by the Gorillas. In Henry |
Georges works he nowhere points |
out that this is exactly where we were |
when the Cave-dwellers, the Mound |
builders and the Stone Age babe def |
ance to all monopolies and abhorred |
al capital. Yet he seems to feel
deeper sympathy than he explains, be- |
tween his so-called Gospel Of Relief |
and simple naked barbarism, when |
twice in his recent speech at the Cooper !
Institute he refers to the methods Of |
savage life as superior 10 civilization.
One Of thcso Is the reference to the
New Zealand tenure Of land, which we
admit is in accordance with Mr..
Georges theories, and in the other he
says;
q" IN this metropolis oftho Western wo.ld
IN this year Of grace there IS q largo class of
s0-caIled free and Independent American
citizens with whom no red Indian in any
thing like his native state could afford to
exchange"
If this were true, it would be neces-
sary, before it would make out q case
for the Indian system of free land as
against private titles, on which Mr..
George has exercised his morbid fancy,
to show how the population nOwOn the
earth could be maintained at all, under
system which required the entire
Continent of North America for num-
ber not greater than is contained in
one of our cities.
It might probably likewise be said
that there were robbers in Dick Tur-
pins band, or pirates under Latitte in
Barrataria, who Jared better in most re-
spects than some residents of New
York City. Such a fact. if admitted,
does not place robbery and piracy in
in the rank of Gospels of Cure to civil
ization.
Roscher, in his exhaustive survey of
of the economic conditions of mankind,
shows that the first mode of land ten
ure known to all savage races without
exception is private ownership, by the
occupant, of his improvements only, to
continue only so long as he improves,
the title to the soil itself being always
in the state or tribe in common. This,
of monopoly and association, are the
essence of sAvagism. Yet they are
also all there is of Henry Georges
Gospel.
Exactly what he proposes as a cure
for all social ills, and commends the
New Zealanders and North American
Indians for possessing, is, according to
Roscher, enjoyed in full in Congo and
along the Gold Coast of Guinea, where
the chief for the tribe is the owner of
all the land, and everywhere, lin
whole villages, the land is titled in
common and the harvest distributed
among the families per capita" This
does not occur because the people are
/ SO generous towards each other, for
/ they will occasionally eat each other
when the harvest gives out but because
law has not yet developed to the condi-
tiOn where a private title to anything
1 of value could be defended success
1 fully, Henry George is fond of de-
acribing a civilization sufficiently ad
Vanc0d to respect private titles as con-
sisting Of wOrkingnen, lawyers and
| thieves" But on the Congo and in
Guinea, where his system Of land ten
ure prevails, the lawyers and working
men are both absent, and there are
present only slaves and thieves.
Throughout India, ancient and modern
Persia, i'll Tartary, among the Foulah
and MandingO negroes, the Caribs, the
KuskOwimers of Russian America, on
the Aleutian Islands, among the Obo-
mabs on the banks of the Orinoco, in
Peru and Mexico before the Conquest,
among the ancient Scythians according
to Shabo, among the ancient Spaniards
according to Plutarch, and among the
Ichthyophagi on the Red Sea, who
lived in caves, went naked and plum
dercd shipwrecked mariners, the exact
system of land-owning prevails which
Henry George thinks will suit the City
of New York.
The plain truth is that Georges pre-
tended Political Economy is like that
of Rousseau and ProudhOn-a mere
passionate and unreasOning preference
for the methods of barbarism over those
of civilization. What all crime is in
practice Georgeism is in theory. 1t
contains neither truth nor sense. To
apply even some small segment of it
to actual practice would bring ruin
and chaos, first of all on the people
who pledge themselves to vote for him.
We do not doubt his sympathy with
poverty. He sympathizes not only
with poverty, but with the causes
which insure and compel poverty 4;
with the desire to substitute the force
of numbers for private right, and the
power of the tribe for the liberty of the
individual, which are the essence of the
distinction between civilization and
savagery. What he calls the reign of
capital, is simply the protection which
the law affords to private right of every
kind. He pledges himself that as
Mayor the police shall not exercise the
power to arrest and club, until an ac-
cusatiOn has been made in court and a
Grand Jury has found an indictment.
This is equivalent to saying that under
his reign the power of n mob to run
T riot should never be checked at all,
and that Anarchy should have free
course to fight out her fight against
Order. For it has never yet been the
law that a policeman should not use
his club on those whom he sees engaged
) in crime. To announce such princi-
Pile is to announce Anarchy. Henry
: George, personally, is like ByrOn''
{ cOrsair,
: -" As mild hammered man,
, As ever scuttled ship or cut a throat"
, but his principles contain no boon O
relief to any working man or woman
Those who would see the outcome o
. his theories should have stood in the
/; Haymarket in Chicago when the bomt
was thrown. His Political Economy
differs not one whit in essence from
that of the eight condemned Anarch
!, lists. They recognize him as theil
: leader. In fact, whoever accepts tn,
fundamental article of GeOrgeism tha
: the methods of barbarism are the cur,
for the evils of civilization is already
> far on the way towards practical An
archism. m.-FrGnk LesIie'S ILLUSTRATED
Newspaper.
. Miraculous Escape.
, W. W. Reed, druggist, Of Winchester, Ind
2 writes zone of my customers Mrs. Louisa Pike
g Bartonia, Randolph Co., Ind, a long suiiere
+ | with COuSumptiOu. and given die b.