The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-09-06
JUDGE MAGUIRE ON LAND OWNER
SHIP.

abolish He put the private ownership OF land in the
pllory with the railroads, and peted It as monopoly
worse than all others.
He said: THE Government must ever occupy the
position of general trustee of the common interests
of the people Those things that OF natural right
belong to all the people are held IN trust by the
Government, the only Institution that represents all
the people, in trust for the whole people, to be pre-
served from generation generation inviolae, their
use being regulated by the trustee, subject to the
power of popular control the exgencies of the
time may require These subjects of common right
should be forever kept open to all the people on
nearly equal it is possible to make them
The land of every country, for example, is the COM
mon heritage of the people OF that country and OF
all who come to it by birth or immigration. 1t is
Just as truly the common heritage of the people
the air and sunlight and is just inalienable be-
cause it is equally with air and sunlight necessary
to the sustenance of human life To part with the
right to use the land is fatal to the natural right
of life would be alienation of the right to breathe
the atmosphere But, unlike air and sunshine, land
cannot be used in common, and, unlike air and sun
shine it can be made the subject of aggression and
monopoly by the strong and cunning to the extent
of interfering with the equal rights of the weak and
undesgning. 1t is therefore the function OF demo-
cratic government in dealing with this equ natural
right of the whole people to prevent the interior
of the unscrupulously aggressive with the equal
rights of their fellow men, and in the exercise OF that
negative power, to determine by just and general
rules OF uniform application to all citizens and to all
lands, the terms and conditions upon which the &C
knowledged natural right of each citizen to his share
in the soil shall be exercised"
He then proceeded to work out his idea, using
drained lands and irrigated lands and other kinds of
lands in illustration, and said: True it is the sys
TEN now in vogue and tolerated by the Democratic
party and by Democrats, but it is equally true that
ii is not only undemocratic system but an anti
Democratic system"
1t will occur to the common mind that his sus
tanned analogy between air and sunshine and land
should logically at the point where he admits
that they differ. Air and sunshine the common
elements necessary to life. which enjoys in
mon without his voltion. No labor his
part necessary possible to prepare these for his
use subject them to it. His enjoyment of the
air. his use of it. is involuntary HIS part and con-
tinues while he sleeps and his consciousness is en-
tirely suspended. His sight, hearing, taste, smell
and touch on his pillow, but his of air to
keep his blood in state necessary to his life
tinues without voluntary labor on his part.
In like manner he uses the sunlight and has its
in the growth Of plants and animals necessary
to his sustenance without labor on his part He
does pry up the when rises in the East nor
does he toll to send it below the horizon when it
sets and by setting throws all nature into that re-
pose in the dark hours which is necessary to life
as the stimulus of light during the day. With the
OF land by civilized the is widely diff
ferent 1t is only in savage life that the land is
the property of the commune To get illustra-
ton Of the difference in effect between Judge Ma
CURES communstic ownership of land, and its pri-
vate ownership, must go to barbaric man. He
lived the soil in that perfect equality of right to
it upon which the Judge insists, but anywhere
did he subject it to its nober use. He ranged over
it in perfect equality in pursuit OF the game which
pastured on its forage and of the nuts and fruits
which it produced without his labor But nowhere
in history is it recorded that primitive invented
or progressed in the arts under such commune own
ership of the soil His life leveed down to the
plane of what the soil bore without his labor.
The arts when the individual man felt wants
that nature did not spontaneously supply To meet
those wants he resorted to the soil, put upon it his
labor and to protect that labor and its fruits
serted private ownership in what had been the prop
erty of the tribe commune.
Civilization began with the private ownership OF
land. From that point the arts and multi
piled industries varied and were differentiated When
land was the property of the commune, hunting and
gathering the fruits and nuts it produced sponta-
of individual labor upon land to increase its produc-
ton required that the laborer own it. His labor
and the subsection of the land thereby to nober uses
produced surplus of its fruits and gave the
that surplus exchange for what his enlarged
required This produced by other labor in
other industries and the constantly increasing wants
of he from the communal ownership Of
land stimulated ingenuity in supplying them and
TOOLS machinery and invention increased mans pro-
ductive capacity in all directions. Now Judge Ma
guire denounces the private of land to whom
indebted for the dawn and rise of civilization,
for the differentiation of labor, for the myriad of
inventions which distinguish civilization from bar
barism, monoposts and aggressors, as the strong
and cunning robbers who have despoiled the weak
and undesgning For them he has a rod in pickle
in the form of the single tax, provided in amend
ment No. of the State constitution. His appeal
is made to those who either by taste inclination and
training have not become 1and owpare ,rd 90 ~ !.