The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-09-13
Causes of Business Depression.

TO explain the cause OF JUSTICES suppression
and of course gives the one and only an
swer he and all orthodox single takers
give as the one and only cause. What he
SAYS in this answer to once a Weeks re-
quest about the evils of the monopoly of
land, and the application of labor to land,
is true every word of it. But when all
this is admitted the question falls short Of
being answered.
There is another factor i'll the problem,
and Mr.. George and his disciples do not
shut out this cause from the public mind
by their attempts to ignore it. Mr..
Georges favorite phrase in speaking of
money is to compare it to poker chips i'll
game, but the chips cost money to
secure them, and although the game
could be played without the chips by
substituting money, while without money
the Chips would be worthless and the
game would be proftless.
In replying to Oncea Week Mr.. George
says in part 'Did the first settlers in
this country or the men who afterwards
settled in those parts Of the country where
land was still easily had know anything
of it?" [Scarcity of employment
When the British tax gatherers stripped
the colony of Pennsylvania of money,
prior to 1928, business was so depressed
that idleness and distress became a
scourge. There was no lack of land and
everyone who wanted to apply his labor
to land had the opportunity. But without
money everything languished. Farmers,
single handed and alone, could make but
slow progress in clearing the land and
making crops, and poverty, enforced
idleness and distress was the rule. Acting
on the wise counsel of Benjamin Franklin
the colony made supply of paper money,
gave it legal tender function, and loaned
this money to the farmers, payable by
installments. Immediately, as if by
magic, business revived, the idle found
employment, and prosperity hand i'll
hand with industry shed its blessings
| throughout the colony. No freer access
was had to land, because no freer access
was desired or needed after than before
| this revival of business. That Gree
access to land would not alone prove a
sovereign remedy to the present or any
future business depression, is evident
| from the fact that large part of the
population are i'll full possession of land
and they apply their labor TO it most in
dustriously, but find themselves in
Strengthened circumstances and hard
pressed. Why is this large percentage of
persons who have free access to land not
prospecting? The reason is very plain
and Mr.. George and his disciple may
exhibit their weakness by attempting not
to be aware of so plain truth, but the
common sense public will not be deceived
or misled.
This story of free access to land brings
to mind one of Davy Crocket's anecdotes.
Crockett grew very strongly i'll the notion
of getting a wife. He thought that when
he got wife there would be nothing else
in the world he would want, but as soon
as he secured the wife he immediately
discovered that he wanted everything else
in the world. When the brawny arms of
labor secure free access to land, the dis
covery is quickly made that without
money they can accomplish but little.
And when land and labor have produced
crude form of wealth, money is wanted
| more than ever to transfer this wealth
and distribute it so as to secure, as Davy
Crockett put it, everything else in the
| world
Society has now reached the part in the
game of life, industry and business where
money asserts its power and influence.
There stands the lord of money, the
| money monopolist The laborer and
industrial classes i'll all branches of bus
mess must go to him and pay him what
he chooses to ask in the matter ofinterest
for the use of the money he has cornered;
and that class called financiers have the
money more completely cornered than
the land lords have the land They can
make it scarce and dear, which depresses
and lowers prices and the man with his
labor applied to land fluids himself COM
pletely in the power of the money monop-
olist The fact is that hundreds of
thousands who are free to apply their
labor to land are i'll as bad condition as
the land disinherited, and to remove the
tax from their personal property and
place on the rental value of the land
would not compensate for the lack of free
money.
We want more than free access to land.
! Labor needs free money as much as free
land, and no power but the government
is able to give it both. In the light of
these facts Henry Georges old story of
the one and only remedy needed is be-
coming rusty. Free money is as great
necessity to an advanced state of society
as free land. The fact is they are both
Indispensable.