The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-10-30

WOulu uOU d ncaInen GQlnK our GUS
toms as senseleSS as you think the
plan OF applying home-life rules to
business? In India, understand, the
wife never thinks Of sitting at the
table with her husband. On the con-
trary, she serves him while he eats
and then makes her meal out of his
leavlngs. But heavenly laws are really
the most practicable of all. Indeed it
remains to be proven that any other
laws can be devised that will not
wreck a nation. The third test is
Gods own laws for Israel, given
through Moses. Not to weary you
with details, take three great re-
marks:
l. Every seventh year all debts,
bonds, mortgages and accounts are
outlawed. (Deut. Is; Lev 25,1-7.) This
is not when debt is seven years old
but every seventh year. Loaning is
obligatory. Gods aim was to abolish
milliOnaires and control the poor by
their consciences and public opinion.
Our way is to try to control million
aires, who rarely have any conscience
at all, but who own all our great
dailies, many Legislatures and some
courts.
2. No interest. "Usury" in the
Bible always means interest. (See
Deu.-Lev. 25:36-3S and corresponding
passageS.)
3. Every fifty years all real estate
outside of walled cities was redistrib-
uted. Uev. 25:S-55) That is essenti-
ally the same as Henry Georges land
tax. Moses had the full 100 per cent
distributed every fifty years; Henry
George would take certain per cent
every year, making the total in fifty
years. "Impracticable?" Was Moses
a fool? Here are three great rules:
~ Release all debts every seventh
year, (2) no interest, l3) redistribution
OF real estate every fifty years. How
could there be any millionaireso No.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Job did
not live under Mosaic laws. They
lived long before, when there was very
little social organization. Moses made
it impossible for milliOnaires to exist
where his laws were obeyed. and Jesus
Christ SO emphasized brotherhood
that even rich men could not be his
disciples. ut is easier for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle than
for rich man to enter the kingdom
Of God" Matt. 1:24.) "But whose
ever hath this worlds goods and seeth
his brother have need and shutteth
up his bowels of compassion from him,
how dwelleth the love OF God in him?''
John 3:l7)
How the divine ideals can be recog-
nized, except in a thoroughly cooper ra-
tive nation. l confess l do not see.
But il a cooperative nation is neces-
sary to fulfill Christ's teachings, why
we are either cO-opera tionists or in
tidels and prefer by far to be CO.
operationist.
spent three years in the Rocky
mountains and saw great deal of In
dian life. Now, among the Indians,
as among all barbarous people, the
weaker one is the one more work is ap-
pOrtiOned to him. Not according to his
strength but according to his weak
ness, is the rule Of the savages. The
rich and strong are idle because they
squaws, being weak, do all the hard
work. The weak tribes are slaves to
the strong.
How is it with us? Our state taxes
are supposed to be levied on the rich.
but our $50O,0O0,0O0 of annual taxes
are levied almost exclusively on the
poor. or all the devlish contrivances
for putting heavy burdens on the
backs Of the poor. know Of nothing
SO thoroughly characterist as an in
direct tax. When at last we do get a
little justice in our revenue system
and levy per cent tax on incomes
over $4,000 il is speedily set aside by
the supreme cout.
All wealth, all political power, be-
longs first of all to the people and
then to those to whom the people
delegate it. We have set aside the
'divine right" of kings to leave their
crowns (right to oppress) to their chill
dren, and now we must go on and full.
fill the Biblical ideas by refusing to
allow millionaires to leave their chill
dren the power to oppress their fellows.
Says Carlyle: "a widow goes out into
the fields to gather nettles for her
children's dinner. My lord in the
Bulls eye tavern takes every third
nettle and calls it rent"