New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1898-01-12

ish trades union delegates to the Nash
vile convention of the American FEEDER
alton of Labor. Before returning for
home he gave out this statement:
"The policy of the American trade
unions in not engaging in politics as q
body is stupid. How can they expect
to obtain any lasting reforms if they
hold aloof? By pursuing their present
mummy plan of ignoring the control Of
political machinery as means of better
ing their condition, they are not only
fatally importing their chances, but are
inviting the scorn of the politicians
the very class from whom they expect
to get better laws for the masses.
"Your American politician, as rule,
is moved to legislation for the masses
only by a show Of superior force. Ex-
allied feeling he has none. Let the trade
unions forces this style of puppet into
retirement, and send men to boards of
aldermen, Legislatures and congress who
will not pretend to be the friends of the
people in speeches and in secret sell out
to the corporations and money power.
Things in England used to be much as
they are in the United States, but they
have changed. We trade unlonists 90
right into politics. We have succeeded
in making the political parties there de-
fer to US, and why should we not? We
are the majority. In every country the
workers are the Majority
Count Leo Tolstoi gives an unques-
tioning adherence to the views of Henry
George on the question of the ownership
OF land and the single tax system. In
letter to a German disciple of Henry
George, printed in the current Review
of Reviews, Count Tolstoi declares, with
the enthusiastic ferceness of new con-
vert, that with the abolition of the re-
voting right of ownership in land the
same thing is being repeated which took
place, as we can still remember, when
slavery was abolished. The governments
and ruling classes, knowing that the adj
vantages and authority of their position
among men are bound up in the land
question, while pretending that they are
preoccupied with the welfare of the peo-
pie, organizing workingmen's banks, IN
spection of labor, income taxes, and ev-
en- an eight hour law, studiously ignore
the land question and even, with the aid
of an obliging and easily corrupted
science, assert that the appropriation of
land is useless, harmful, impossible.
The same thing is happening now as
in the days of the slave trade. Mankind,
at the beginning of the present and at
the end of the last century, had long
felt that slavery was al awful, soul-nau-
seating anachronism; but sham religion
and sham science proved that there was
nothing wrong in it, that it was indis-
pensable or, at least, that its abolition
would be premature. To-day something
similar is taking place with reference to
property in land. In the same way sham
religion and sham science a"e proving
that there is nothing wrong IN landed |
and no need to abolish it.
One of the most remarkable wills ev-
er offered for probate was that of Henry
Taber of New York, mil
lionaire and at the same time president |
of the board of trustees of the First Pres
byterian church. The will is in the
of the testator and con-
tains the following:
"Bclieving that all religions, includ-
ng Christianity, are superstitions; that
he basic doctrine of the Christian re-
iglon, belief in the fall of man, is utter
y and absolutely false, and that its OPP
0osite rise of man from the lower
)rders-is scientific solution; that So
called miracles are Authorizations of the
brain and never had the slightest exist
,ncc in fact; that the chief characteris-
les of what is termed 'the word of Cod
ire injustice, cruelty, untruthfulness and
obscenity; that the effect OF orthodox
Christian teaching is to encourage ignor-
,nce, selishness, narrow mindedness, ac-
imoniousness, intolerance, wrong and
mental slavery THAT christianity so called,
S not the religion of Christ; that it sup
plants ethical culture and true morality
with meaningless theology and unbe-
Lievable dogmas; that it puts an un-
known (and probably unknowable)
imaginary being IN the place of nature;