The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1896-03-12


would have entitled them to 40 mem
bers in congress, loss of 33 members.
First secure proportional representa-
ton; then reformers can step into the
political arena with the knowledge that
every vote tells. Once in the field of
action people will consider it worth their
while to study your principles. As it is
now the reformers are practically dis
franchised, having no voice in the law
making Of the land.
KATHERINE J. MUssoN.
Philadelphia, Jan. 1, 1896.
NUMBER XL-THE PossEssoRY RIGHT
OF SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS.
Wherever the children of men be-
lieve or can be induced or taught to be-
lieve in the fatherhood Of one God and
the brotherhood of all men the princi-
Piles inculcated by Thomas Jefferson bid
fair to dominate the political and social
relations of the near future One of the
reasons urged by him against the crea-
tion Of national debt is Of special in
terest at the present time. In letter
written by him in August, 1918, from
which the subjoined quotation is made,
he demonstrates the "possessory right
Of successive generations" thus:
"The generations Of men may be
considered as bodies or corporations
Each generati on has the usufruct of the
earth during the period of its continu-
ance. When it ceases to exist that usu-
fruct passes on to the succeeding gener.
alton free and unincumbered, and so ON
successively from one generation to an
other forever. We may consider each
generation as distinct nation, with
right by the will Of its majority to bind
themselves, but none to bind the sue
ceeding generation more than the in
habitants of another country. Or the
case may be likened to the ordinary one
of tenant for life, who may hypothe-
cate the land for his debts during the
continuance of his usufruct, but at his
death the reversioner, who is also ten
ant for life only, receives it exonerated
from all burthen. The period of gen.
Grafton or the term of its life is deter
mined by the laws of mortality. l find
that of the numbers of all ages living
at any one moment half will be dead
in PA years and s months. But leaving
out minors, who have not the power Of
self government, of the adults living at
one moment, majority of whom act
for the society, one-half will be dead in
g years and months.
"At 10 years, then, from the date of
a contract, the majority Of the contract
ors are dead and their contract with
them. Let this general theory be applied
to a particular case: Suppose the annual
births in the state of New York to be
23,994; the whole number of its inhab-
itants will be 617 ,7O3, of all ages. OF
these, there would constantly be &c.,
2S6 minors and 34S, All adults, of
which last ia, ,209 will be a majority.
Suppose that majority, ON the first day
of the year 1894, had borrowed a sum
Of money equal to the fee simple value
of the state and to have consumed it in
eating, drinking and making merry in
their day, or, if you please. in quarrel
ling and fighting with their unoffend-
ing neighbors. Within 18 years and
months one-half of the adult citizens
were dead. Till then, being the major
ity, they might rightfully levy the in
terest of their debt annually ON them
selves and their fellow jewellers or fell
low champions. But at that period (say
at this moment) new majority have
come into place in their own right and
not under the rights the conditions or
laws of their predecessors. Are they
bound to acknowledge the debt, to
consider the preceding generation as
having had right to eat up the whole
soil of their country in the course of a
life, to ALLEVIATE it from them (for it
would be an alienation to the credi.
tors), and would they think themselves
either legally or morally bound to give
up their country and to emigrate to
another for subsistence? Every one will
say no; that the soil is the gift of God
to the living, as much as it had been to
the deceased generation and that the
laws OF nature impose no obligation on
them to pay this debt. And although,
like some other natural rights, this has
not yet entered into any declaration OF
rights, it is.no less law and Fought to
be acted on by honest governments. "
The reader who will carefully peruso
the series of letters from one of which
the foregoing extract is made and who
will then look around him, at tho NAL
adjustment of existing social conditions,
will find cumulative evidence tending
to prove that in these closing years of
the nineteenth century the soul that is
marching on" is not that of John
Brown (whose body, etc. }, but is. rather,
the soul of the patriot statesman, Thorn
as Jefferson. GEO @. WORTH.
st. Louis, February, 1895.