St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-10-24
THE MODERN MOSES.
He Speaks on the Moses Of
the Old Biblical
Times.
Henry George Given a Grand
Ovation at the Lyeeum -
Theater.

Theater.
Two Excellent Addresses on
the Subject of Prisoners
and Prison Reform.
dwelling OF Mart Williams
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
in a Den Of Vice.
The Lyceum theater was packed to
the very dome last night. The occasion
was all address by the celebrated single
tax and labor reformer. Henry George.
The crowd began to arrive soon after
supper, and when the clock struck the
halt-hour between Z and 8 there
was scarcely breathing room. Many
people were turned away, and in
each case there was dlsappoint-
ment. Rev. S. W. Sample. of the Peo-
pies church, under whose auspices
the great reformer delivered his dis
course, introduced MI. George to the
vast audience. He said that the address
to be given by Mr.. George was to be
strictly nOn-partisan and nOn-pOlitical,
and the assertion was a correct one. as
The eminent man did not dwell but
briefly upon national questions. In fact
the address partook more of the nature
of sermon, as there was Biblical text
at the head of it. But in no way was
the audience disappointed, for the adj
dress was an intellectual treat for them.
MIR. George spoke upon Moses" and
delved deeply into Egyptian and He
brew history. and proved time and
again that the tyranny of the weak and
the trodding down OF the Serf of the ma
tons has existed from time immemo-
rial. He showed that Moses was the first
OF his time to see the possible results
that the system of government would
plunge the nation into. The speaker
said that there was in modern history
tendency to look at the results of
events instead of their initiatory
causes, and it was his intention in
the address to reverse this order. Moses,
he said, was the mouthpiece Of the Most
High. Later books than the Bible have
tried to prove that the books attributed
to the works of Moses were written by
later men, but try as hard as they could
modern writer's could not make Moses a
myth. His people were the subjects of
tyranny, and Moses treatment of them
was calculated to elevate them and re-
lieve their suffering. MIR. George COM
pared the condition of the people at that
time to the status of society at the pres
ent day, saying:
Ancient and Modern Society.
"Three thousand years of advance
and still the moan goes up They have
made our lives bitter with hard bond
age in mortar and in brick, and in all
manner of service Three thousand
years of advance and the piteous voices
of little children are in the moan. And
yet while we pirate of the rights of man,
there are already among us thousands
and thousands who find it difficult to as
Sert the first of natural rights, the rights
to earn an honest living: thousands
who from time to time must except of
degrading charity or starve. We pride
ourselves upon our common schools,
yet after our boys and girls are
educated we vainly ask: What
shall we do with them?' and under
the shadow of our colleges children are
growing up in vice and crime because
refining influence. We pin our faith to
universal suffrage, yet with all power
in the hands of the people, the control
OF public affairs is passing into the
hands of a class of professional politi-
clans, and our governments are in many
cases becoming but means for the
robbery of the people. We have pro-
hibited hereditary distinction, we have
forbidden titles of nobility. yet there is
growing up among us an ariStocracy of
wealth, and as mercileSS as ever held
sway. We progress and we progress,
We girdie continents with iron
roads, and knit cities together with
the mesh of telegraph wires; each day
brings some new invention, each wear
marks fresh advance-the power of
exchange cleared and broadened, yet
the complaint of hard times is louder
and louder; everywhere are men ha-
raised by care and haunted by the fear
of want; with swift, steady strides and
prodlgious leaps the power of human
hands TO satisfy human wants advances
and advances, is multiplied, yet the
struggle for existence is more and more
intense, and labor is the cheapest of
commodities.
s'Beside Glutted Warehouses,
human beings grow faint for hunger,
and shiver with the cold; under the
shadow of churches testers the vice that
is born of want. We progress and we
progress, yet pauperism is increasing.
and insanity also. There are more and
more men who do not get wife, more
and more women who wait in vain for
husband, more and more children who
must go to work before they have time
to play. Trace to their root the causes
that are thus producing want in the
midst OF plenty, ignorance in the midst
of intelligence, arlStOcracy and democ-
racy, weakness and strength, that are
giving to our civilization a one
sided and unstable development, and
you will find it something which this
Hebrew statesman. three thousand
years ago, perceived and guarded
against. Moses saw that the real cause
OF the enslavement of the masses of
Egypt was what has everywhere pro-
duced enslavement-the possession by a
class Of the land upon which and from
which the people must live. He saw
that to permit in land the same unuuali-
fed ownership that by natural right at
taches to the things produced by labor
would be inevitably to separate the peo-
pie into the very rich and the very poor :;
inevitably to enSlave labor; to make the
few the masters of the many, no matter
what the political forms; to bring vice
and degradation, no matter what the
religion.
And with the foresight of a philo-
sophie statesman, who legisIates not for
day, but for all the future, he sought
in ways suited to his time and condi-
tons to guard against this error. Every
where in his institutions is the land
treated as the gift of the Creator to His
common creatures. which no one has a
right to monopolize. Everywhere it is
not your estate or your property, not
the land which you bought or the land
which you conquered, but the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee
the land which the Lord lendeth thee,
and by practical legislation, by regula-
tons to which He gave the highest
sanctions; He tried to guard
against the cause that converted
ancient civilizations into despotisms,
that ate out the heart of Rome, thai
produced the embruting serfdom OF
England and the gaunt misery of Ire
/ land. the pauSP that ic nrnpdiDO fo mi