Los Angeles herald., 1892-06-19
THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS,
How to Mitigate or Remove
inequalities.
Americanism Arfayed Against So
cialism.
An Expression Of Personal Opinion ON
Some Political Problems-Wealth
and Poverty Labor and Capt.
tai and Kindred Topics.

and Poverty and Capt.
tai and Kindred Topics.
EDITORS HERALD: The great question
OF the day 10 how to remove the inequal-
tiles Of wealth which threaten the ex-
istence of republican institutions, and
to remove them permanently. The
every day philosopher of superficial util-
itarianism, whether his name be Sambo,
or Yawcob, or Denis, will tell us with
the uniathomable and unsnswerable
wisdom Of an owl, that il you divide up
all the wealth Of the world and give
every one an equal share, that In short
time It will be all back in the hands of
few. This 10 tfae, absolutely, but 1t is
irrelevant, absolutely, It is not to the
point. Who wants to divide up that
way? Who said We should
We must remember that some things
are made to be divided and are useless
otherwise, while other things are not
made that way, and would be ruined by
. division A roast OF beef or q web Of
cloth must be divided before it is of any
use. One man can't eat whole OK or
wear forty suits of clothes at the same
time. On the other hand, If we at
tempt to divide mp . ship, or railroad
bridge. or an electric light plant, or any
other machinery Of production or distri-
button, and give every one piece, we
would merely destroy 1t. Now we may
assume that every. one who works for q
living, and everyone who is unable to,
work, should be we'll fed, clothed and
housed, while the machinery of produc-
ton. ETC., should be preserved intact,
because this il the means by which it
becomes possible to feed and clothe with
the least labor. p5
There are some fallacies and errors
taught by would-be reformers which are
stumbling blocks in the way of honest
investigators. For instance, the Social
istic absurdity that everyone should
have equal wages or rewards regardless
of the quality Of his work or the nature
Of his product. This vulgar and
nihilistic theory would place an Edison,
Lincoln, . Spurgeon, on an equality
with Chinese laborer; 1t would place
Beethoven on q level with q street
organ grinder; 1t would place the
nightingale on q leyel with toad, the
eagle with the mudturtle. Gold or
diamonds would be on par with dirt;
beauty would be no more pleasing than
ugiinels !; art or science would have no
standing IN such : sprogramne as that,
barren basis of hopeless monotony and
helpless ineficiency. Human nature
properly revolts against such destruct-
i've tendencies. gsgrAe ~ l'as
There 10 an aristpcracy in humanity
and in nature, as we'll as democracy.
II there was not, there would be no dis
tinctiop between the better and worse,
between worth and worthlessness, be-
tween nobility and baeeness. Men are
not created free nor equal, and are not
in fact either free OF equal except in .
very limited sense. But they should
work out their own freedom, and they
should demand equal rights, which
means simply justice and q fair chow to
make the best Of life. The trouble is
that We have false standards, and there
is . an apparent determination to set up
Doodle as the chief god Of the modern
pantheon to debeaei everything else to
the ranks Of eervitude, and to reduce
this whole people to the condition of
hewers of wood and drawers of water for
millionaires and their hunkeys.
/ disclaim the theory that people
should have equal wages, regardless of
merit. But we dnd g condition Of af-
fairs under which the highest wages are
paid without any return being made at
all. 1t does not require either brains or
merit to inherit an estate and collect
thousands or millions of dollars of the
people in rent or interest. It is enough
for anyone to get what he gives an
equivalent for. Itis too much for any
one to saddle hiswhole posterity forever
as q privileged mobility on the backs OF
the peoplo. Is otifA HsH gnffoi eer "
Rent and interest are the great chan
nels by which the wealth produced by
the many is diverted into the possession.
OF the few. We want to examine to
what extent rent and interest are legiti-
mate and just, and to what extent the
community 10 benefited or injured by
carrying the immense burden of indi-
rect taxation represented by these
terms. Let US have fguresto show the
amounts paid by this country and
Europe to landlords and money-lenders,
and let us have fActsllto show whether
the article ID worth tho price to us, and
how much It is worth and how much we
are really justified in paying.
have not data to give these facts and
figures, but will give as rough esti-
mate that the price of everything we
buy is raised from 30 to 200 per cent by
indirect taxation, most of which comes
under the head Of interest and rent,
while the wages Of labor are reduced
from 30 to 200 per cent by the same
causes, and the Opportunities of labor
are so limited that hundreds of thou
sands OF people cannot get an opportu-
nifty to labor at all, even on an equality
with Chinese slaves.
The legislation Of the past twenty-five
years has been constantly directed so az
to increase these evils. y The money
lords Of Europe have conspired with The
money lords Of Amerlca to contract the
currency 10 - to raise the rates Of inter
est by decreasing the supply Of money,
and thus draw from the deluded people
all the traffic will beaf, while the land
il rapidly passing into the hands of
landlords and America is becoming, like
Europe, 9 nation Of landlords and ten
ants. is,
The remedy for landlordism is grad
uated income tax, directed especially 1t
an income from ground rents from In
creased value of land due to increase of
population. The remedy toofi tfoofi the ID tsfs5t
robbery ID national system Of banking
and full andsufIicfent volume of money
a 4 h. " a