Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1895-01-12
CORRESPONDENTS.
A Single Tax Official Interviews
Liyesey.
SYKEsvTLLE, Mp, Jan. L. 1895.
To the MINING JOURNAL.


from a Christian Standpoint in the
JOURNAL of Dee. Sth, has drawn forth
reply, among others. from MIR. Ernest
j. Foord, the Secretary Of the Single
Tax Propaganda Committee, of Foye
Place, Jersey city.
The following dialogue will give and
reply to the chief points of his letter:
Foord-1 thank you most heartily for
the courtesy of your Henry George
from a Christian Standpoint" which |
have read with interest. 1t breathes
sincerity in every line, aud | believe
your sincerity and honesty of purpose
should be and is aetuated by a desire
to better the conditions of poor, suffer
ing humanity.
Licesey-Yes, | know something about
the conditions of the poor, sutf, ring
humanity whose condition ! am zeal
Ously trying to better. | have worked
year IN and year out, on sea and land.
hand in hand with whites and blacks
of many climes. and | know the
monotony of work and the depression
of poverty. | would be OIL v too
ready to accept for myself and advocate
for humanity any bonanza that bore
the sea of truth, as preached by Christ
and held by men, did the world contain
any save ''the good old way" | have
been endeavoring to ascertain whether
Henry Georges sympathies for the
poor were founded upon practical
experience or impractical theory, and
no pen or voice of his admirers has,
as yet, been able to disabuse me of the
idea that he is mere theorist, solicit
ing popular ar probation for the same
unworthy ends only as the unprinci-
pied politician. Do soldiers want to 90
INTO battle under n general that never
smelt powder9 Do workingmen want
to accet theory of man who never
worked? Colleges are full of pam
pered professors who never swung a
pick. held pillow or handled a marline-
spike. and are protesting to tell the
daily needs of the workingman as
consistently as God Himself looking
down from above. Labor has no use
for such men. Let Henry George tell
us where he was born: who his father
was where he has worked and what
is his family before he gives us any
more of his theorizations.
FL believe that some day, before
many moons, too, that you will see
with we single takers that this earth
this great and beautiful reservoir of
nature-that our beneficent Creator
has placed here for the use and sus-
tenance of all of His children, should
not be parcelled out and monopolized
by few.
L.-Never! | will never see it. AS
an honest and industrious workingman
| have not experienced the slightest
difficulty in obtaining all the land |
have ever wanted. A few dollars per
acre will break the monopolistic hold
on most any land in the country so
held. Nothing can be cheaper than
land as II is at present. A working
man can go out and work two months
at 81 per day and have enough to buy
him land enough to live on. Such a
man in New Hampshire bought IS
acres for $50 two years ago aud is
getting along we'll with large family.
Large farms sold in st. Mary's county,
this State. a few days ago at from $S
to Sc per acre, with fine improvements
and oysters, crabs and Ash bordering
the farms. Mr.. James H. Warn, of
Frostburg. a coal miner, went to Blue
Earth city, MINI and took up little
farm and says he is making better, a
safer and an easier living than when
he mined coal. His brother, Mr.. j.
l.. Warn. has also gone there and ex-
poets to find independence in farming.
All over the country no wOrkingman
that wants land finds monopoly pre-
venting him from getting it. There
are, however, lots of fellows known as
anarchists, socialists and single-taxers
who apparently seem to be frothing at
the mouth because monopoly, AS they
allege. keeps them from telling forests,
pulling stumps, picking rocks and
blowing fields. It's a pity that so much
muscle has TO waste itself on the city
air. If such men would initiate the ex-
ample set by the Messrs Warn they
would be measurably relieved but, |
suppose, they can't do two months
work with a pick and shovel to save
their miserable lives, let alone earn a
few dollars to honestly buy few acres
OF the 'great and beautiful reservoir
of nature
Eff the earth-the land, was
created by the all-Father for the
humblest AS well as The proudest, is it
not clearly manifest that it is an in
justice (mouldy as it seems with age
to allow one man to charge another for
the mere privilege of living upon it
LII it is IAN injustice" it is one to
which the wickedness of the people be-
fore Noah's food and the wickedness
of the builders of the Tower of Babel
bears no comparison, and to which we
might have expected God would have
shown his displeasure in some decided
form long ere this. Contrary to this,
floods have not washed away both the
people and their lank marks; nor have
earthquakes rent the earth into un-
recognizable and yalueless parcels,
while God, through Christ, has EN-
phatically decreed that 'the meek
shall inherit the earth. or the Christ
ian receive hundred times a greater
share of owne ship of Glands" than he
possessed previous to his acceptance
of Christianity. Is Henry George the
Judge of all the earth the Judge of
ali men and the judge of God-that his
decision rulesg He rules nothing
He decides nothing! But he does this
he excl ciSes the same influence over
his dupes that the bogus medicine
fakir does over tn ignoramuses of the
street who are impressed by tricky
descantings oyer humbug cure-alls.
He is Il fakir retormer and when he
gathers in of greater men than igua-
ramuses, like William Lloyd Garrison,
Hons James G.. MacGuire, Tom L.