The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1890-11-14

the election returns as follows:
CLEVELAND, O., Nov, 5th, 1890.
EDITOR GREAT West:
What is the news? Has Minnesota
struck a blow for Freedom, or is
still the laborer and farmer the serfs
OF capital? Will you please send me
q copy OF your paper with the labor
vote OF Minnesota. The Nationalist
OF Cleveland are still increasing their
vote, as you can see by this state
ment:
Nov. II, 1889, Vote polled.. IT'S
Nov. Z, 1890, vote polled. PTS
Nov. 4. 1890, vote polled. 400
how is that for q steady growth?
w. SHURTLEFF.
In this letter Mr.. Shurtleff sends us
a letter of acceptance from the labor
candidate for Congress. Edmund G.
Vail. We publish a large portion of
it, as it will interest the farmers to
know how labor thinks on the great
issues:
GENTLEMEN:
To come to the point, this country
is rapidly increasing in population
and more rapidly still in wealth. In
1880 it's population was 100000
souls and it's wealth forty-three
thousand millions of dollars. It's
population is now 100000 souls
and it's wealth seventy thousand mil
lions OF dollars. The population is
disseminated all over the country.
but the wealth is concentrating more
and more into the hands of few, the
number OF people in enforced idleness
is increasing at more rapid rate
even than population and wealth.
women are taking the place of men
IN many Industries, children are taken
from their homes and the schools
and sent to the factory or thrown
upon the streets as bootblacks. news
vendors, messengers, etc. The pro-
gress OF machinery, which should
have been accompanied by CORE
spending progress in the intelligence
and welfare of the people, has been
used by those who control the
means of production for the degra-
dalton of mankind.
No man is free and independent
who has not free access to the soil
when he chooses to turn it for a live
lihood. And I, with growing host
OF others, hold that no man has the
right to control more land than he
needs, the question of his needs being
determined by his willingness to pay
to the community for the use of his
land what it would rent for if thrown
into the open market. [By which
rent is understood what we now call
taxes" -rent on perpetual lease
Ed. G. w. Such an ARRANGEMENT
would secure to each other man his
natural right to the use of as much
OF the earth as he needs upon the
same terms.
But the ajority of the people do
not and cannot own enough OF their
native land to fill flower-pot. and
many of them when they die will
have to pay six dollars for the priv
ilege of having their coffin lie atop of
or beneath another coffin. That's
the way they stow them away in the
poor mans section, or place them in
the potter field by what we call
charity. Yes, or give our 81, 200 per
year doctor a chance to sell them for
twelve dollars per head as they are
doing in Cleveland right along. Go
to the morgue some time, as have
been, and see the dead people from
all the charitable institutions and
hospitals waiting to be taken to" the
Potter's Field in pine boxes with a
Gotten rag, not a shroud, raped
about them. And if you can think in
such a place, think what it meant for
those poor brothers and sisters of
ours to talk about their "native
land' before the icy hand of Chris
tian charity dropped them into a
Pauper's grave, dug in their native
land" and already half full of free
and independent citizens.
Our present system of land holding
shuts the laborer off the earth and
renders him practically dependent
upon those whom the law says own
the earth; renders him practically
helpless. Not entirely helpless,
though, for man with kit of tools
is not wholly a slave. But even that
little shred of liberty was finally
taken from him, for it is absolutely
necessaryto the success of this indus
trial system that the laborer shall be
helpless. Without land he is almost
helpless; without his tools he is
wholly dependent, he is slave. And
at last his tools have been taken
from him. My God! l wish 1 could
make the people see how pitiful a
man is without land. and without
tools, for then they would join me in
the Holy War for the purpose of re-
storing to our brethren their lost
foothold on the earth and their lost
implements of labor.
But cannot I make them see it?