A Precious Pair of Pious Politicians.

Boston has a postmaster. His name is Tobey,— E. S. Tobey. He is a pious and holy man. For many years he has been a stalwart pillar of the Church. Of late years, since his official appointment, he has also been a not insignificant prop of the State. That Church and State in this country are separated more in theory than in fact thinking people generally understand. That political advancement treads close upon the heels of religious profession we have often noticed. That this fact is the explanation of Postmaster Tobey’s appointment to office we have always more than suspected. But we had never supposed that he would have the assurance, not only to publicly acknowledge his little game, but to boast of it and hold it up as a shining example to the rising generation. Nevertheless, that is just what he has done. About a fortnight ago a short paragraph in a Boston morning paper caught our eye, which briefly outlined a speech made the evening before by Postmaster Tobey before a Bethel Sunday School. This speech reminded us so strongly of a celebrated Sunday School oration said to have been delivered in the wilds of the West by United States Senator Abner Dilworthy that we asked a reporter, who heard Mr. Tobey, to write it out for us. He has done so, in words which he vouches for as substantially accurate. His manuscript furnished so remarkable a confirmation of our suspicions of plagiarism that we decided to print the two speeches side by side for our readers to compare for themselves. Accordingly, here they are:

Remarks of Postmaster E. S. Tobey, at the Bethel in Boston, before the First Baptist Mariners’ Sunday School, on the occasion of its forty-second anniversary, Sunday evening, January 8. Reported from memory by a professional reporter, who was present.

At the time the war of the rebellion broke out I had the honor to be the president of the Young Men’s Christian Association of Boston. Soon a plan was devised for calling a convention to take measures to provide for the dare of sick and wounded soldiers. I confess I did not think well of the plan, but I waived my own better judgment, hoping that, after an, the scheme might prove to be a good one, and wishing to do what I could to help along any good cause. I went to the convention in New York, was chosen one of Its vice-presidents, and in that capacity went to Philadelphia to aid in the good work, and from there to Washington, becoming acquainted with great men on all sides; and from there I went among the army, was introduced to General Grant, and as the result of that, without any solicitation on my part, I was appointed to the official position I now hold. All this honor and emolument unsolicited by me, is the result of my endeavor to do good,— in short, the result of my good act in taking pert in that convention. No one could have foretold this result, but it only serves to confirm what I have told you, that every good deed is sure to receive its reward, sooner or later.

Remarks of United States Senator Abner Dilvtorthy, during his canvass for re-election, before the Sunday School of the village church at Cattleville. Reported by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their work called “The Glided Age.”

“Now, my dear little friends, sit up straight and pretty,— there, that’s it,— and give me your attention and let me tell you about a poor little Sunday School scholar I once knew. He lived in the far west, and his parents were poor. They could not give him a costly education, but they were good and wise and they sent him to the Sunday School. He loved the Sunday School. I hope you love your Sunday School — ah, I see by your faces that you do! That is right.

“Well, this poor little boy was always in his place when the bell rang, and he always know his lesson; for his teachers wanted him to learn and he loved his teachers dearly. Always love your teachers, my children, for they love you more than you can know, now. He would not let bad boys persuade him to go to play on Sunday. There was one little bad boy who was always trying to persuade him, but he never could.

“So this poor little boy grew up to he a man, and had to go out in the world, far from home and friends to earn his living. Temptations lay all about him, and sometimes he was about to yield, but he would think of some precious lesson he learned in his Sunday School a long time ago, and that would save him. By and by he was elected to the legislature. Then he did everything he could for Sunday Schools. He got laws passed for them; he got Sunday Schools established wherever he could.

“And by and by the people made him governor — and he said it was all owing to the Sunday School.

“After a while the people elected him a Representative to the Congress of the United States, and he grew very famous. — Now temptations as sailed him on every hand. People tried to get him to drink wine, to dance, to go to theatres; they even tried to buy his vote; but no, the memory of his Sunday School saved him from all harm; be remembered the fate of the bad little boy who used to try to get him to play on Sunday, and who grew up and became a drunkard and was hanged. He remembered that, and was glad he never yielded and played on Sunday.

“Well, at last, what do you think happened? Why the people gave him a towering, illustrious position, a grand, imposing position. And what do you think it was? What should you say it was, children? It was Senator of the United States. That poor little boy that loved his Sunday School became that man. That man stands before you! All that he is, he owes to the Sunday School.

“My precious children, love your parents, love your teachers, love your Sunday Scbjol, be pious, be obedient, be honest, be diligent, and then you will succeed in life and be honored of all men. Above all things, my children, be honest. Above all things be pure-minded as the snow. Let us join in prayer.”

When Senator Dilworthy departed from Cattleville, he left three dozen boys behind him arranging campaign of life whose objective point was the United States Senate.

When he arrived at the State capital at midnight Mr. Noble came and held a three hours’ conference with him, and then as he was about leaving said:

“I’ve worked hard, and I’ve got them at last. Six of them haven’t got quite backbone enough to show around and come right out for you on the first ballot to-morrow, but they’re going to vote against you on the first for the sake of appearances, and then come out for you all in a body on the second — I’ve fixed all that! By supper time to-morrow you’ll be re-elected. You can go to bed and sleep easy on that.”

After Mr. Noble was gone, the Senator said:

“Well, to bring about a complexion of things like this was worth coming West for.”

As we pondered over these singular orations and the lessons to be drawn from them, we were involuntarily reminded of another instance of official promotion almost as remarkable. It is needless, of course, to say that we refer to the career of Sir Joseph Porter, K. C. B. And the thought occurred to us that it would be the rankest injustice for his well-earned fame to go down to posterity recorded and enshrined in the immortal verse of “Pinafore,” if the deeds and achievements of Postmaster Tobey were to remain unhonored and unsung. So we resolved to invoke the Muse,— with what result our readers now may judge:

E. Sanctimonious Tobey to the Youthful Mariners.

When I will an led, I readily learned

How the scales of popular prejudice turned;

That a sleek demeanor and pious tones

To secular success were stepping-stones.

So I shaped my course by such points as these,

And trimmed my sails for a worldly breeze.

[Chorus of Admiring Mariners.]

He steered so close to the wind, d’ye see,

That he’s now postmaster of a big cit-tee.

So I cultivated a saintly air,

“Arena in meeting” and “led in prayer,”

And the blood of the Lamb I utilized,

For it kept me pretty well advertised.

It was not strange I soon found my way

To tho head of the B. Y. M. C. A.

[ Chorus.]

He made himself so solid with the saints, d’ye see,

That he’s now postmaster of a big cit-tee.

With cunning hand I began to mix

My piety up with my politics,

And always figured on the party slate

As a highly moral candidate.

The wires pulled easily, greased with grace,

And hoisted me into a good, fat place.

[Chorus.]

He oiled the machine with santi-tee.

And he’s now postmaster of big cit-tee.

Moral.

There’s nothing so helps to win success

As a standard reputation for godliness;

For cheek and cont together, you’ll find,

Have a very strong hold on the public mind.

And it may be possible, if you try,

To become such it goodly, goody, good man as I.

[Chorus.]

Let us cultivate a holy hypocri-see,

And federal officeholders we all may be.

Appeal of the Nihilists.

Citizens,

We have been engaged for several years in the murderous struggle going on in Russia between the government on one side and on the other the men of spirit who have sworn an oath to deliver their country from the despotism which is crushing it.

From day to day the struggle takes on greater proportions and the number of victims consequently increases. The scaffold, the galleys, banishment, and exile by administrative measures seek their prey in all classes of Russian society. The beneficiaries of fortune, as well as the working people and the peasantry; fall under the blows of governmental persecution, and among the latter how many laborers who were the sole support of their families! Shall these victims of the struggle for liberty be viewed with less interest than the widows and orphans left by wars instituted by States? Are the miseries and misfortunes engendered by this struggle less entitled to our sympathies? For a long time the groups tried to relieve these ever-increasing sufferings; but, few in number and deficient in organization, the committees were unable to perform this duty in a manner at all satisfactory.

There has now been established in Russia a Society of the Red Cross of the Will of the People, concentrating in itself the activity of all the groups of this class which preceded it. Its name explains the special object of its work. Just as, on the battle-field, the nurses and doctors of the Red Cross of Geneva pick up the fallen and dress their wounds, so on this blood-stained land of Russia the new Society proposes to care for those wounded in the warfare now being waged in Russia in the name of the Will of the People, and to rush to the aid, without distinction of party or profession of faith, of all those who have suffered in the struggle for liberty of speech, thought, and human development.

It appeals to the sympathies of foreigners as well us to those of the Russians themselves, and counts on the support of all who take to heart the sufferings engendered by the struggles of liberty, in whatever country they present themselves, and who are ready to extend a helping hand to the self-sacrificing, whatever their nationality. To this end the central committee of the Society has appointed two persons to organize a foreign section and receive the sums contributed to the work. These delegates are citizeness Vera Sassulitch and citizen Pierre Lavroff. In conformity to the end which the Society has in view these delegates propose:

1. To make direct appeal for subscriptions by circulating numbered lists, stamped and signed by the delegates, on which shall be registered the sums given by the donors. The latter are requested to deposit their contributions only in the hands of the delegates or of the persons supplied by them: with the aforesaid subscription lists, or at the offices of such journals as shall open a subscription in behalf of the Society.

2. To solicit the cooperation of journals friendly to our cause by inviting them to likewise open subscriptions for the benefit of the Society and to transmit to the delegates the sums thus collected.

3. To call, from time to time, in the principal centres where the Society exercises its activity, meetings of all its members residing in foreign lands. Every parson known to the delegates as having contributed to the work of the Society, either by subscription or personal effort, may attend these meetings, take part in the discussions which they occasion, and obtain such information as can be imparted without prejudice to the Society’s action.

4. To publish in the newspapers reports of the sums received and the manner of their employment.

5. To name, in case of necessity and for countries where there is no delegate, persons of trust, whose signature shall carry in those countries a weight equal to that of the delegates themselves.

Citizens, in addressing this appeal to you, we count on your devotion to the cause of liberty. The sufferings endured by our friends in Russia deserve the profound appreciation of all men of heart. Come to their aid, and thus give proof of that solidarity without which the cause of humanity can never triumph.

Vera Sassulitch,

Pierre Lavroff,

December 27, 1881.

Our European Letter.

[From Liberty’s Special Correspondent.]

London, January 1, 1882. — Whenever, in the trying midnight hours, doubt seizes me and I despair of ever seeing the victorious realization of the ideas for which we have abandoned everything,— home, family, fortune, social position,— then I look over to Russia, where the spectacle afforded is sufficient to at once disperse the nightmares of the most pessimistic. If ever history shall be written by other than minds corrupted by the influence of their social surroundings, the famous three hundred of Thermopylae and the ten thousand of Xenophon will be looked upon as examples of courage, self-sacrifice, and sublimity a hundred-fold less imposing than those afforded by the men and women who brave death and — what is more — a living sepulchre in the icy steppes of Siberia, not for themselves, not for their own aggrandizement, bus for others unknown to them, for the wretched masses whom they love and refuse to exploit after the manner of the bourgeoisie. One hundred and twenty thousand have been sent to Siberia during the last three years! Thirty-seven have been hanged! And yet each day contributes to our ranks double the number thus taken from as.

You probably have beard the rumor that Ignatieff’s position has been much shaken on account of the various signs of life recently exhibited by our party. Put it down as a fabrication. Ignatieff stands firmer than ever, for he is the only man who is willing to continue the policy of adherence to governing on purely Asiatic principles, which the czar regards as the only cure for the growing spirit of dissatisfaction and rebellion.

Even the last remnants of the appearance of justice have now been abolished. All trials hereafter are to be held in strictest secrecy, newspapers are forbidden even to mention the fact of a trial or the names of the accused, and executions are to be accomplished in the presence of no witnesses. All newspapers except the organs of the government are suppressed, and the icy silence of death reigns throughout the vast dominions of Alexander III.

Tchernichevsky’s place of exile has now been changed for the fourth time. You will remember that at the International Literary Congress at Vienna it was moved to petition the czar for the release of the unfortunate romancier. The czar acceded to the demand officially, but give orders the same day for the removal of the exile to the utmost extreme of northern Siberia, facing the ever-frozen sea, where he has been given into the custody of some savage Exquimaux, even Russian cossacks being unable to endure the climate. He himself, even when free, is completely dead for our purposes, as only his body survives.

In Germany social politics, since the Pyrrhus-victory of the elections, has experienced a little lull, though you may prepare to hear news shortly showing it to have been but the lull before the storm. The popular vote cast by the socialists in Germany was two hundred thousand less than at the election of 1878. I do not follow the custom of all parties by counting all the votes not cast as ours. I should be glad to know that even five per cent of them were due to the policy of deliberate abstention. Bebel was defeated for the fourth time, in Mainz, too, where Liebknecht withdrew in his favor, and where thereby a constituency already won for the Social Democrats has been lost again. It is said that Bruno Geiser, Liebknecht’s son-in-law, will resign his seat for Chemnitz in order to make room for Bebel.

It is a natural law that, once started down an inclined plane, the rapidity of the fall increases in a geometrical ratio. A few days ago, in a public debate in the Reichstag, Hasenclever, a Social Democrat, revealed the fact that Hohm, a member of the revolutionary party, was a delegate to the London congress. Hohm is a married man with five children dependent upon him, and, in consequence of this infamous denunciation, will be completely ruined. Penkert, another valiant member of our party, has been arrested, through the denunciation of these same men, at Vienna.

The European newspapers have been circulating alarming reports about the state of Karl Marx’s health. I can inform you that, though having been very deeply affected by the death or his wife a few weeks ago, he has completely recovered from the shock, and is once more able to continue his subterranean warfare against the Anarchists.

On Picket Duty.

George Chainey’s “Infidel Pulpit” now comes to us under the title, “This World.” It presents a very handsome appearance, and we are glad to hear that it is achieving an abundant success.

William W. Crapo, who represents the first congressional district of Massachusetts in the national house of representatives, is soon to report, in his capacity of chairman of the committee on banking and currency, a bill draughted by himself extending the national banking system for another twenty years. Mr. Crapo is popular among his neighbors, and enjoys the reputation of being an honest man. He may mean well now, but by this action he will constitute himself the champion of the most gigantic swindle ever perpetrated upon tin American people. He is said to have his eye upon the governorship of Massachusetts, and the Crapo “boom” set in some time ago. He is evidently shrewd enough to see that capital makes our governors, and is bidding high. It usually makes no difference to us who is governor, but if Mr. Crappo runs for the office, we confess that we should enjoy seeing Uncle Benjamin Butler beat him right out of his boots.

In another column of this issue is given our estimate of the life and character of an earnest fellow-worker recently taken from the ranks forever. It is written from our own standpoint, as it should be. But how far one who accepts the task of conducting an actual funeral ceremony is justified in flying in the face of the dearest beliefs of the deceased is another question, which we are driven to consider by the action of W. J. Colville, the Spiritualist priest chosen to say the parting words over Laura Kendrick’s coffin. He began the exercises by reading selections from the Bible which he know to be in direct conflict with the teachings of her life. “Blessed are the dead who die in Christ Jesus,” he began; “The Lord is my shepherd,” he continued; and so on to the end. Laura Kendrick did not die in Christ Jesus, and would have rebelled at the very thought. She died in her own glorious self. If, beyond the veil which separates us from the future, there is a judgment day when the damned are separated from the saved, Laura Kendrick, unescorted by any mediator, will walk straight, erect, and fearlessly into the presence of the great white throne there to receive her sentence, confident in the power of her own virtues to achieve her own salvation. Nor was the Lord her shepherd. Her rôle through life was that of a shepherdess. She belonged to no flock, but tended many. And if, the other side the grave, there are green pastures and still waters, our word for it she will discover them unaided, and load countless others to enjoy their benefits. Mr. Colville, by reading these passages, outraged her memory and insulted her friends, and nothing but the proprieties of the occasion saved him from being confronted with at least one rebuffing protest on the spot. He cannot plead ignorance; he knew her too well for that. We can view his conduct only as a feeble imitation cf the cowardly efforts long practised by the Christian church to capture the infidel dead.

Theology in the Light of Sculpture.

Two little girls discussing theology in a sculptor’s studio.

First Little Girl. — “We wasn’t made out of clay like that.”

Second L. G. — “Yes, we was.”

First L. G. — “How do you know?”

Second L. G. — “The priest says so.”

First L. G. — “How does he know? Was he there?”

Second L. G. — “Well, God was.”

First L. G. — “How do you know that? You wasn’t there.”

Second L. G. — “Well, somebody was. Of course there was. Oh, ho, you silly girl! Of course somebody was.”

First L. G. — “Maybe — but — I don’t know as there was.”

— The thread of conversation was here cut by a shower of rain, and the girls scampered home.

A Second Chapter on Usury.

All statutory laws that interfere with voluntary trade between individuals must be wrong. Therefore, so-called usury laws cannot be defended on any principle of justice.

Again, all such laws are unwise, because they attempt to deal with results. O. W. Holmes says that “it is useless to medicate the symptoms.” If we wish to remove a wrong, we must find the cause, and attack that. History, experience, and reason are in accord in teaching us that usury cannot be regulated by any laws limiting the rate per cent.

The foundation of interest is debt. Therefore, when we all become Bible Christians and “owe no man anything,” usury will be no more. But it may be truly said that we can never get out of debt so long as usury prevails. Here seems to be an unsurmountable difficulty; but a lawyer of some note in this State told me that all this could be righted by less than ten lines of legislation. What we demand, and all we demand, is the abolition of class legislation.

Greenbacks do not constitute scientific money; for, while they stand to represent wealth, there is no tangible, actual wealth back of them to redeem them, in case the holders wish to realize, and close the transaction. For selling goods for money is only one-half of a transaction. All trade, let us remember, is exchanging goods for goods. But the point I wish to present here is this: while all credit money implies a debt, there is a vital difference between the greenback and the national bank note. The former does not constitute an interest-bearing debt; the latter does. Here we see hundreds of millions sucking interest from the productive portion of the people, for no good purpose and for no good reason. I hope and trust that the Greenback party soon become strong enough to remedy this matter.

Let us look at another class of interest-drawing debts, which can be easily wiped out. The people of any city can carry their city debt in their pockets in the form of credit money, just as well as to borrow the money and pay interest. Some of the Western cities are doing this. It is a hopeful indication.

Again, if the people can pay for all the railroads in the country every ten years and virtually give the same to the railroad corporations, can they not, pay for them once and own them, and thus stop all that drain of interest? But the great difficulty, after all, is to convince the live, active business man that interest is wrong in principle and bad in its results. The impossibility of meeting its demands ought to satisfy any thinking man that it cannot be right. One penny put at compound interest at six per cent would bankrupt the whole solar system in less than two thousand years, in all the planet were solid gold! Well, then, why does not interest eat us all up? Simply because A goes into bankruptcy to-day, B tomorrow, and thus through the whole alphabet many times in a year. In other words, interest necessitates failure.

If a man owns two good houses in Boston, he can live in one, and live on the man who lives in the other. Can that be just right? Look through all our cities, and see the land, the buildings, and the vast quantities of goods, on all which somebody is paying usury in the form of rent, profit, and interest. Another panic must settle a large part of those demands.

There are many reforms, improvements, and methods of education that demand our consideration, but we want money to work with. Isaac Butts, in the “North American Review” for January, 1873, said, in speaking of the various corporations: “They are wrongfully abstracting from the pockets of the people millions upon millions every month.” This must be reformed first.

Then?

Apex.

To “Apex.”

Dear Sir:— I see that you “cannot consider” what I say; yet you pronounce my statements superficial and my notions primitive with as much assurance as if you could consider them. I seek to know and follow the truth, but the “you’re another” argument, though much in favor among uncivilized folk, does not lead that way.

I am quite content to let my statements stand as they are for those who can consider them, and equally ready to acknowledge my errors when any one shows them to me.

Important truths often lie on the surface, and are missed by those who fancy themselves profound.

The fact that farmers’ mortgage debts largely increased in the State of Indiana in the year 1880 has no bearing whatever on my arguments, as you would have seen for yourself had you been free to consider them. The natural and rational explanation of the large increase of those debts is that the farmers found it profitable to borrow. Those Indiana people are not such fools as to add fourteen million dollars to their indebtedness in one year, if they did not find it pay to do so.

Among primitive peoples there was no individual ownership of land, no money, no money-lending, and I believe we shall some day resemble them in those respects; but the coming of that day will not, I venture to think, be hastened by the primitive method of calling names, or by trying to “take the second lesson first.”

Basis

Liberty.

Thy cause, O Liberty! can never fail.

Whether by foes o’erwhelmed or friends betrayed.

Then be its advocates of naught afraid;

As God is true, they surely shall prevail.

Let base oppressors tremble and turn pale;

They and they alone may justly be dismayed.

For Truth and Righteousness are on thy side arrayed,

And the whole world shall yet thy triumph hail!

No blow for thee was ever struck in vain;

Thy champions, martyrs, are of noble birth;

Rare honors, praises, blessings, thanks, they gain,

And time and glory magnify their worth.

A thousand times defeated, thou shalt reign

Victor, O Liberty! o’er all the earth.

An Unsatisfactory Reason.

My dear Mr. Tucker:— At length I see a reason, given by “Apex,” why the plough-lender is not entitled to pay for the use of his plough. It is that the use is of no value to the user. I think that “Apex” can have no knowledge of agriculture. If he had ever tried with his hands alone fit an acre of land for the reception of seed, he would hardly have such a reason. I do not see why a man would take the trouble to borrow a plough, if its use was of no value to him. I must wait for a better reason than this. “Apex” is not yet the apex.

Yours cordially,

J. M. L. Babcock

Henry George’s Errors.

Benj. R. Tucker:— The broadside which Liberty fired into the Henry George camp under the caption, “Ireland’s New Saviour,” is very exhilarating after reading to saticty the extravagant eulogy and fulsome panegyric bestowed so lavishly on that author by such journals as the “Irish World” and the New York “Truth,” About two months ago I examined “Progress and Poverty” for the first time, and was greatly astonished that such unqualified adulation have been heaped by radical reformers upon a treatise that is vulnerable in so many different points.

Wust George denominates “The Remedy” is so utterly absurd and ridiculous when closely analyzed that I decided to write a pamphlet exposing its fallacy and exhibiting to the cursory reader of that book the ignis fatuus the author has followed down to the present period.

You, too, have overlooked the fatal error in his taxation and revenue scheme. It is the destruction of land values by taxation for the purpose of making the land common property, and then proposing to make the defunct land values the source of a vast revenue system.

Do you perceive the incompatibility of the two propositions?

E. F. Boyd.

26 Second Avenue, New York, Nov. 16, 1881.

Right and Individual Rights.

Until somebody shall have formulated and demonstrated a correct science of justice, the way is ever open to constant confusion as regards the subject of right and rights. The columns of a newspaper are not the place to develop such a science; nevertheless, the matter is so important that we have determined, reconsidering our previously-announced purpose to drop it, to once more re-state our position. On several occasions our editorials have been sharply criticised by parties who are supposed to know something of the principles of Liberty; not that they would differ from us, if they carried in mind the distinction that must necessarily be kept in view in discussing the bearings of Liberty upon human acts, but simply that they have got into the habit of carelessly defining acts without reference to the sphere of the individuals acting.

The right to do a thing and the abstract right of a thing involve two essentially different principles. For instance, we have defended the right of individuals to make contracts stipulating the payment of usury, and should strike at the very essence of Liberty if we did not; but this defence of individual right by no means carries with it the defence of usury as an equitable transaction per se. In defending the right to take usury, we do not defend the right of usury. He who cannot see this has not managed the A B C of social analysis. One of our critics, who has twice challenged our defence of individuals who voluntarily choose to be parties to usury, strenuously defends “free rum.” Would he like to be accused of saying thereby that it is right, as a matter of principle, to drink rum inordinately? No, he is a severe believer in the wrongfulness of excessive rum-drinking. But he believes that the rum-drinker and the rum-seller have the right to execute a contract involving a practice wrong in itself, and that no third party has the right to step between them by force and dictate the terms of their mutual and voluntary transactions. This is exactly, and no more than, what Liberty affirms with regard to usury. Wherein, then, have we so grievously sinned?

To say that it is absolutely right to do a thing is to say that, to do it is to do that which will administer to the greatest possible good, when every possible element involved in the transaction is seen and weighed. But who possesses that sublime omniscience which can see and weigh every element, past, present, and future, that enters into a transaction? And even if one could, who is to vouch authoritatively that his weights, measures, and balances are correct? In this dilemma the theologians, of course, find an easy way out by setting up a pure fiction labelled “God” and stamped infallible. This trick, however, being “played out” with our critics, how do they propose to get at the absolute right of a thing? Is there, indeed, in practice, any absolute right?

Nor does it solve the matter at all to bring in the cost principle, and say that that is absolutely right which is done solely at the cost of the individuals who act. There is no mentionable act, not even the dropping of a pin in the middle of the Desert of Sahara, of which it can infallibly be said that it is done solely at the cost of the individuals acting. The loss of that pin as a necessary surgical instrument to treat the disabled camel may cost its life, and with it the lives of the whole party. We believe in the cost principle as a standard, and the best at our service, but its observance can never result in the universality of absolute right, since no man or set of men can ever attain to the omniscience of foreseeing the entire bill of costs, or on which side of the scales all the consequents will range themselves. In short, with our human limitations, absolute right practically has no existence.

The only way even to approximately solve the right and wrong of human acts is to leave every individual free to make such contracts with his fellows as to them seem good. The fact of how far given transactions are executed at the cost of others will soon be made evident in every case by the protest of those on whom the cost unjustly falls. If every individual in left free to make contracts and ever free individual in left free to make contracts and ever free to enter an effectual protest against transactions wherein the cost falls upon his shoulders without his consent, the consequent adjustments will reach the nearest possible approach to absolute justice. The monster that Liberty invites true reformers to help battle down and exterminate is the State, whose purpose is, first, to enforce unjust contracts through forcible defence of monopoly, and, second, to make effectual protest impossible by defending ill-gotten property from the natural retribution which attends tyranny and theft. Liberty, therefore, must defend the right of individuals to make contracts involving usury, rum, marriage, prostitution, and many other things which it believes to be wrong in principle and opposed to human well-being. The right to do wrong involves the essence of all Rights. Perfect liberty to contract for what is wrong is the shortest and surest way to abolish that wrong, provided the State can be made to step down and out and leave the wrong to its merits in a fair fight with no favors. The State, however, almost invariably takes sides with the wrong, and declares the advocates of a fair contest between right and wrong enemies of law and order. The right, losing its head in that most dangerous of superstitions known as patriotism, is stupid enough to take up arms against itself, and everything goes to suit tho oppressor.

Given the untrammelled right to take usury on the one hand, and the untrammelled right to protest that its cost shall not be shouldered by the innocent on the other, abolish all State interference, and then usury can work no harm to humanity. The minimum of its harm is measured by the total abolition of the State, and the last analysis usury is wrong, in practice, solely because the State is suffered to exist. To those who can not meet us on this ground as radical reformers we respectfully announce that we decline to waste any more time and type over their future shufflings.

A Statue to Proudhon.

A movement is on foot in France for the erection of a statue to Proudhon. It may surprise our readers to hear that Liberty questions the advisability of the project, and asks its initiators to reflect a little before going farther with it. That a journal brought into existence almost as a direct consequence of the teachings of Proudhon, and which lives principally to emphasize and spread them, should hesitate to give its sanction to the perpetuation of his memory by a public monument may be phenomenal, but is not, we think, unreasonable. There are men who make their own monuments. Of these Proudhon was one. He made his of stuff more enduring than bronze or marble,— namely, ideas. It is to be found inside the half-hundred and more marvellous volumes which demonstrate his loftiness of character, his mastery of philosophy, metaphysics, and social and political science, and his intelligent and profound acquaintance with literature, art, and history. These are capable of indefinite multiplication, and, if so multiplied, would do more than statues innumerable to enshrine the author’s memory in the popular heart. The first duty of his faithful disciples is to open these books to the eyes of the world. After that, build your monument, if you will. But we anticipate that the readers of his works will pronounce all other monuments superfluous, and will think twice before subscribing toward the erection of a statue in memory of him who wrote these words:

What is a great man? Are there great men? Do the principles of the French Revolution and of a Republic founded on the right of man admit of such? Together with the right of man we have recognized progress as a principle of the new society. Now, one of the effects of progress in a homogeneous society democratically organized is the continual lessening of the distance between man and man in proportion as the mass of mankind advances on the road of science, art, and right. In the thought of the Revolution and in the perspective of the Republic the idea of great men is nonsense; their disappearance is one of the guarantees of our deliverance. Those members of the Constituent who voted for the Pantheon, and those members of the Convention who carried thither Le Peletier and Marat, were arrant aristocrats, unless it was tacitly understood among them that one day the entire people should be gathered there; in which case it would have been simpler to have left us under the starry vault of heaven.

The Guiteau Experts.

The government experts, in Guiteau’s case, seem to be having things very much their own way; and will probably succeed in getting him hanged, provided they succeed in getting the jury to accept their opinions as to his sanity, or insanity. But will they do this? Are we to hang a man simply because a certain number of superintendents of lunatic asylums believe him sane? Are we to hang a man, upon mere opinions, the truth or reason of which cannot be judged of by common men? Do the lives of men, in this country, legally depend upon the mere judgments of any twenty, fifty, or a hundred men, who claim to know more than other men, as to what diseases, delusions, or impulses that strange thing, the human mind, is liable to, but who cannot so communicate the grounds of their opinions, as to enable other men to judge of their truth or error?

These men never saw, handled, or examined human mind. They can only observe its manifestations through the body; and can only guess, like other people, at the causes of its mysterious and erratic operations. Are men to be hanged on the strength of their guesses?

There are, we suppose, in this country, three, or perhaps five, hundred men, physicians, so called, who make a specialty of treating diseases of the human body, where there is but one who makes a specialty of treating diseases of the human mind. But although diseases of the human body are so much more extensively studied, and treated, and so much easier to be ascertained and judged of, than are diseases of the mind, we have very little confidence in the knowledge of these many physicians, as to the nature or causes of our bodily diseases. These physicians differ so much among themselves, as to the nature and causes of these diseases of the body, that we would not think of hanging a man on the judgments of any number of them, where the grounds of their judgments were so obscure that they could not be communicated to, or comprehended by, the minds of unprofessional men. In other words, we will not hang men, in this country, on any grounds whatever, that cannot be shown, to the common mind, the unprofessional mind, to be true and sound, beyond a reasonable doubt. We will not hang a man upon the mere secret, incomprehensible, or incommunicable reasonings of any number, or body of men whatever. Yet this is just what the government is attempting to do in Guiteau’s case. And it is attemting to do it on the mere opinions, or guesses of a few men only; these few having confessedly very little knowledge, except what is common to mankind in general, of the causes, or the phenomena of mental diseases.

But this is not all. So far as these experts succeed in communicating the grounds of their opinions, these grounds appear not merely fallacious, but preposterous. For example. They have each spent a months’ time, more or less, in the court room, and in the jail, examining Guiteau, to get the data, the facts, the symptoms, by which to judge whether he is, or is not, insane now. They thus impliedly confess that the question is, at least, an obscure and difficult one to themselves. And when they attempt to communicate their reasons to others, they utterly fail to show any valid ones for their conclusions; that is, any reasons that are intelligible and conclusive to common minds. Common minds know almost absolutely nothing as to the validity,or invalidity, of the reasons which these experts give for holding that he is sane now, or that he has been sane at any time since he bas been under their own eyes. If, then, Guiteau is to be hanged, on the testimony of these experts, he is to be hanged on faith, and not on reason; on faith in the simple opinions or conjectures of these experts, and not on reasons brought home to the comprehension and the understandings of the jurors themselves.

But even this is not all. These experts not only give their opinions that Guiteau is sane now, but also that he was sane on the second of July; five or six months ago.

Even if he is sane now, what do they know, or what are their opinions worth, as to whether he was, or was not, sane six months ago?

They apparently have no reason for thinking that he was sane in July, except that they think he is sane in January.

Would it not be just as sensible for them to say that, because he has no fever, or delirium tremens, on him to-day, therefore he could have had none on him six months ago?

This kind of reasoning implies that they hold that if a man was insane in July, he would undoubtedly have continued to be insane until January; or, what is substantially the same thing, that if a man is once insane, he will always remain so.

Now, this, we think, is very likely to be the rule in the asylums under their own control; that they seldom or never cure any body that comes under their care. And we ought to be thankful for this information; for it enables us to know where not to send our insane friends if we wish to have them cured.

On this theory of theirs, that once insane, always insane, the cases, in which they report the patients as “discharged cured,” must be presumed to be cases, in which the victims never were insane; but were simply sent to them on “the certificate of two physicians,” who knew just so much about insanity as it was necessary for them to know, or as they cared to know, in order to earn two or three dollars for certifying their opinions.

If these experts have really any reliable knowledge — beyond that of other men — as to the operations of minds diseased, or not diseased, why do they not give us some reasonable explanation of the conduct of Guiteau, in killing a man in open day, and before a multitude of people, and making no attempt to escape; and all this, when he had no personal malice towards his victim, and no rational prospect of gaining any thing by his death? Are such acts as this common to human experience? So common as to imply no disorder in the mind of the actor? Do all the experiences of all the Bedlams on earth explain such a phenomenon as this, consistently with the sanity of the agent?

When these experts are confronted with this question, they are confounded. Instead of telling us how a sane man could do such an act, they stammer out “wickedness,” “depravity,” “evil passions.”

But what “evil passion?” Was it the evil passion of avarice, or jealousy, or revenge, or any other particular “evil passion,” that is known to men to commit murder? No. It was evidently none of these. But it was (as thede experts would have us believe) simple “wickedness,” “depravity,” “evil passions.” They can give no answer more definite than that.

Such answers as these might perhaps pass in some schools of theology, which hold that a virus of simple “wickedness,” “depravity,” or “evil passions” was incorporated into the very nature of our first parents, and by them transmitted to all their posterity. But when they are offered in a court of justice, where a man’s life is at stake, they are not merely shameful, they are infamous. Men are not to be hanged, in this country, upon any theory that theologians or others may hold as to an ancient transaction between Adam, Eve, and the devil.

These experts have had thousands of insane persons under their care. Many of these persons have committed homicides, or other violent assaults. All of them, or nearly all of them, were supposed to be liable to commit acts dangerous to themselves, or others. The insanity of no two of them showed itself in the same way. But they were all saying and doing things, daily, that were just as absurd and irrational as was the act of Guiteau. And because their acts, whether violent or not, were so absurd and irrational, these experts have no doubt that the actors were insane. But when Guiteau does an absurd and irrational act, they hold that he is not insane, but simply “wicked,” “depraved,” under the control of his “evil passions.” And yet they can give no reasons — that are capable of being comprehended, end judged of, by common minds — why Guiteau’s absurd and irrational act is not as good proof of his insanity, as the absurd and irrational acts of others are of theirs.

Even the witches were not hanged on such absurd testimony as this.

The testimony of these experts tends to show how much science and reason are to be found among the keepers of our asylums for the insane. It tends to show that these men are either blockheads outright, and do not know that they are making fools of themselves, or that they are capable of committing, for money, or to advertise themselves as physicians for the insane, almost any possible crime against justice and reason. It tends to show that many of them, at least, are capable of all the crimes, against both the sane and the insane, with which so many of them have been charged, and of which some of them have no doubt been guilty.
[Lysander Spooner, (unsigned)]

Justice Gray.

The appointment of Horace Gray, as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, adds more weight than light to that bench. He weighs, we suppose, about two hundred and seventy-five pounds. But his light is not at all proportionate to his weight. We might as well expect to get light out of two hundred and seventy-five pounds of rump steak. Nevertheless, all this is just as it should be; for it is weight, and not light, that is wanted in Supreme Courts.

All governments, that assume to control their subjects arbitrarily, find it necessary to keep in their service some authority, or some tribunal, that shall be reverenced by the people, and that shall tell them that the acts of the government are all right, and obligatory; and that it is the moral duty of the people to obey and submit; that resistance or disobedience, on their part, is a great crime; a heinous sin against God and man.

In despotic governments, so-called, this service is performed by a State Church. The government gives great privileges, honors, and revenues to the Church, upon the condition that the Church will teach the people that the government is ordained of God; and that to disobey or resist it would be a great sin against God. In this way, the ignorant and, superstitions people are kept in subjection to an arbitrary power that robs, enslaves, and murders them at its pleasure.

We, in this country, have got rid of this superstition about the Church; and the consequence is that our government must have a substitute. And this substitute it finds in its Supreme Court. It sets up a court of its own; selects its own judges, pays them as long as they sanction all its doings; but impeaches and removes them, if they fail to sanction them.

These judges, of course, do sanction all its doings; they are appointed, and paid, and sustained for that purpose, and no other. They understand perfectly the tenure, by which they hold their places, and govern themselves accordingly. And the government, whenever its tyranny or usurpations become atrocious, and cause an outcry, points to the decisions of its Supreme Court, as if that settled the matter.

In this way, the judges of a Supreme Court, in this country, serve the same purpose as do the dignitaries of a State Church in other countries. And the judges can be as safely relied upon, by the government, in this country, to sanction all its doings, as the dignitaries of a State Church can be to sanction all the doings of the government, on which they depend for their privileges and revenues. The judges are an much part and parcel of the conspiracy, in the one case, as the priests are in the other.

In either case, the judges and priests are simply tools and confederates, employed by the government, to overawe ignorant and superstitious people, and keep them in subjection. They are simply weights, which the governments throw upon the people, to prevent their rising in rebellion against the oppressions which the governments practice upon them.

Now, Gray is just the man for a service of this kind. He has no doubt that the government is entitled to arbitrary, irresponsible power over the people; or that it is the duty of the people to submit blindly to every thing the government does. If, in any particular case, any question should be raised, as to the right or justice of any act of the government, he can tell you that, for hundreds of years back, governments have been doing the same things, or other things equally outrageous; but that the people had no alternative but to submit; and that, therefore, they have no other alternative now.

Now, this is exactly what is wanted of a judge of a Supreme Court. And that is why we say that Gray is the right man for the place. And it is the only thing he is fit for. And it is the only use that he will ever be put to, as long as he remains a member of the court.

His associates on the bench will, of course, welcome him as a brother. And they will all enjoy their dignities, and salaries, as long as they sanction all the usurpations and crimes which the government practices upon the people, and no longer.

It is to be hoped that a machine, to be called Supreme Court, will sometime be invented, to be run by foot or horse power, and made to do the work now done by Supreme Courts — that is, to grind out opinions sanctioning every thing the government does. Then the services of such men as Gray and his associates will be no longer needed.

Light-headed Socialists.

The platform adopted by the convention of socialists which met in New York last week is as singular a heap of sociological bric a brac as could be well jumbled together. Such a ridiculous confusion of ideas easily sifts itself to no ideas at all. The key note of this remarkable pot-pourri is compulsion. This is not, however, very singular, since the socialistic machine, like every other which does not propose to stand on its own merits by voluntary assent, can only be run by extraneous force.

It is, indeed, astonishing that a convention of otherwise intelligent and well-meaning men should meet to denounce the present machine, and yet, in the same breath, set up another, with exactly the same despotic element in it that damns the first,— compulsion. Compulsory factory legislation today makes the protest of the pillaged operative nugatory. Compulsory legislation makes the great railways the deadly suckers of farm labor. Compulsory education makes the Colleges, the pulpits, and the newspapers the lick-spittles of capital. Yet, after denouncing these institutions as the agents of robbery and oppression, the socialists immediately set to work, not alohne to imitate their methods, but to revive them in infinitely more atrocious forms.

Take, for instance, compulsory education. Of course the new education under the socialistic regime will be socialistic education. The taxes to support it must be levied by force. The writer of this article does not believe such to be education, but worse than ignorance. He would consider that he was insulting and degrading his children to send them to school under such a system. Now, do the socialists propose to have the audacity to compel him to pay for this education, whether he wants it or not? If so, then their denunciation of the present order is mockery, and they are worse enemies to progress than those whom they call to account.

This absurd craze of “nationalizing” things is the most impertinent lunacy that could make reform ridiculous. In last week’s “Irish World” William Howard comes out with a scheme for “free travel.” The government, which to-day alone puts travelers at the mercy of usurious corporations, is asked to buy up the railroads and thereby exterminate the only element, competition, which keeps the price of a ride from Boston to Chicago from being one hundred dollars instead of ten dollars. “But the government must run the roads at cost!” cries Mr. Howard. Whose cost? The government’s cost, of course; and yet, if Mr. Howard would only be at the pains to consult the facts, he would know beyond all cavil that the cost of running things by government is almost always above that of the most extortionate corporations. Thieving as are the great railroad monopolies to-day, this government, even though it should set to work in dead earnest to run the roads at cost, could not do it at the cost which is imposed upon the travelling public by the corporations. The most expensive public service of its kind is the national postal service, so often cited by the Socialists and Greenbackers as a guiding “star route” to perfection. A corporation now stands ready to do that service, under the most substantial guarantees and even in governmental handcuffs, at far less cost and more efficiently, whenever it shall be permitted to do so.

We are not generally supposed to be remarkably wanting in the virtue of patience, but patience with this over-repeated idiocy of “nationalization” is one of the things that puts us most severely to the test. Guiteau’s attempt to popularize the taking-off of governmental figure-heads by “theocratizing” murder is ridiculous enough, but has the whole weight of inspiration and religious logic on its side, and his arguments challenge the respect of the learned, the wise, and the pious. The socialists, more absurd than he, are in a fair way to yet demand the “nationalization” of love, lunacy, and common sense, backed by compulsory taxation. As yet we have got no farther into their logic than to concede that “free travel” to the lunatic asylums would not be altogether objectionable.

About Progressive People.

A new street in Paris is to be named after Littré, the great positivist and lexicographer.

The artist Collier has just completed an excellent and life-like portrait of Charles Darwin.

The name of Thoreau has become extinct in this country, it is said, by the dead at Bangor, Me., of Miss Martha Thoreau, an aunt of the late Henry D. Thoreau. The latter was the last male descendant of a large family.

A great-great-grandson of Danton has subscribed five florins towards the monument which is to be erected to his famous ancestor. This descendant of the member of the Convention is Aloys Emile Danton, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army.

It is reported that Karl Marx is dying. His wife, whose death was chronicled in our last issue, was a woman of brilliant talents, descended from an aristocratic and extremely orthodox Prussian family, allied, it is said, to the Scottish house o Agryll.

Professor Huxley had a cook that got so drunk and raised such a row in his house that the police were called. As she was hustled through the yard she let her tongue fly, and gave the professor a blast, of which the only words that could be made out were to the effect that he was a "damn atheist."

The remarkable types of Nihilist women are well known. Vera Sassulitch, whose shot inaugurated terrorism, was the most modest of her sex. In the court-room she blushed when she perceived any one staring at her. Lydy Figner, a charming lady and an accomplished singer, got her eight years in the Siberian mines by sitting in a parlor and playing the piano for weary hours, trying to drown the noise made by the secret printing press in the next room. Anna Lebedeff, a priest's daughter, in the disguise of the wife of a switchman, lived in a watch-house on the railroad, and was found on a box filled with dynamite, chatting with the switchman. Sophy Perovskaya, the daughter of a general and senator, who declined the dignity of maid of honor to the empress and entered the Nihilist fraternity, did the Moscow mine and directed the late Czar's assassination. Sophy Bardin, who was welcomed as a shining star in the literary horizon, wrote a few poems which, though gems of Russian literature, were treasonable, and the singing of them is a State crime.

It was generally supposed that the charges made by Henri Rochefort against M. Roustan in regard to Tunisian affairs had got the famous radical into trouble, but to Tunisian affairs had got the famous radical into trouble, but on the contrary he, alone of those involved, has come out with flying colors. In the suit brought by Roustan, Rochefort was acquitted on every point. The New York "Tribune" thus describes the defendant's appearance in court: "Rochefort's boldness in refusing to challenge the jury told in his favor. His attitude in court was also prepossessing. Spectators, and one may surmise jurymen as well, observed that his air was distingué. He was dressed by a fashionable English tailor, and did not look in any wise foppish. There was frankness in his manner, in his answers, explanations, and observations. He might have been mistaken, he might have been unfairly violent; but his good fail was patent. Gatineau, his counsel, made a point by alluding to all the misery that Rochefort's intrepidity as a journalist had brought upon him. He had never used his pen to accomplish mercenary ends, and went into the war against finacio-politicians with perfectly clean hands. Rochelfort's face is not nearly so fat as it was when he came back from exile. It now looks like a skill carved in old yellow ivory, with two coals of fire to serve as eyes. The flash of the coals appears to light up the caverns at the remote ends of which they are placed. Thick, frizzly, pepper-and-salt hair covers the head, and is arranged in a curious tuft at the coronal region. Rochefort showed presence of mind. His questions were full of meaning, and opened wide vistas which the presiding judge wished to keep shut to the jury. The Lanternier occasionally let fall a droll observation, which, in every case, had the effect of throwing a strange light upon the case. His voice is as peculiar as his head and face. It is singularly distinct. The chin acts with a chopping motion when he speaks. Gleams and glances of the flashing eyes italicize. As his chest is of enormous girth, what he says is heard a long way off. Clemenceau says that Rochefort is wider around the shoulders than any other Frenchman that he knows."

On Picket Duty.

Macaulay was right. Liberty is her own physician, and cures her own ills.

A king once said: “I require a prudent and able man, who is capable of managing the State affairs of my kingdom.” An ex-minister replied: “The criterion, O Sire! of a wise and competent man is that he will not meddle with such matters.”

The sonnet to Liberty in another column was sent to us by that Veteran reformer, John M. Spear, of Philadelphia. Speaking spiritualistically, he tells us that Garrison wrote it. We prefer to attribute it to Mr. Spear himself. In either case it is a credit to its author.

Henry George has been the subject of our severe criticism, and is likely to be again. It gives us the more pleasure, therefore, to be able to say that, as correspondent of the “Irish World” from Ireland, Mr. George, so far as at present appears, is the right man in the right place. His letters give a better idea of the situation in that unhappy country than any that we have seen. Liberty’s compliments to the Ford brothers on so valuable an addition to their staff!

Mr. W. S. Bell has issued new editions of his own “Outline of the French Revolution” and the Bradlaugh-Besant edition of Dr. Knowlton’s “Fruits of Philosophy.” The latter is interesting from having served as a test of the question of a free press in England, and the former valuable as a convenient and succinct compendium of the events that led up to, through, and away from the memorable era which marked a turning-point in human progress. These and other liberal works may be obtained by addressing Mr. Bell at 38 Upton street, Boston.

George W. Smalley, in support of a recent attempt on his part to belittle the influence of women in public life, cites the alleged fact that “the Irish cause has not perceptibly gained in popularity since Miss Anna Parnell and Miss Helen Taylor took to scolding Mr. Gladstone on the platform.” This suggests the inquiry whether any perceptible loss of popularity has been suffered by the Irish cause since Mr. Smalley “took to scolding” Mr. Parnell through the press. Will the flunkey who writes London letters to the New York “Tribune” measure his own influence by his own rule?

One more reformer who keeps a level head! Samuel Leavitt of New York has uttered his protest against the Henry George craze. In a recent lecture before the New York Somebody Club on the “Sense and Nonsense of Henry George’s Book” he poured some very hot shot into the theories of this suddenly popular philosopher, thus concisely summing up and thereby demolishing his defence of usury: “Lo and behold! because bees gather honey, and cattle increase, and corn grows while we sleep — because bountiful Mother Nature gives us something for nothing — therefore we are justified in extorting something for nothing from those of our fellow mortals who have not the same access to her fertile bosom that we have! And this from the great champion of free land!” Mr. George has gone up like a rocket; he will come down like the stick.

Among the Japanese there is nothing of the nature of a legal oath. Witnesses in courts are requested to tell all the particulars; but all the sanctions and penalties, divine and human, which among us are supposed to render an oath sacred, are totally wanting. There is no punishment whatever for bearing false witness. Sensible people, the Japanese! It would be interesting to know how much oftener they lie than we do.

The Land League appears to be spreading to the very ends of the earth. The native journals in India are beginning to republish Land League speeches, and in several of them in the Mahratta district a full translation of the “no rent”, manifesto is given. Extracts from Mr. Parnell’s addresses are quoted approvingly, and there is a prospect of a Land League being started in Hindostan. Mr. Gladstone had best keep his eyes open. Otherwise, as in the case of Ireland, the coercion screws will be applied too late.

A subscriber wishes to know why Liberty uses the word usury instead of interest. We do so for two reasons. First, usury includes all forms of unearned increase, except that which comes by gift or fortune, while interest represents only that increase which is obtained by lending money. Second, the etymology of the word usury brings out more prominently the essential characteristic of the thing it stands for,— namely, payment for use. The word interest has been adopted by modern usurers and their apologists to hide the true nature of their extortionate trade and to make that which is but theft appear as a righteous act of commerce. It is Liberty’s purpose to tear off their mask and show them for the thieves that they are.

The worst act of the socialistic convention at New York was its best. In expelling Justus H. Schwab and his associates it dissociated itself from its most intelligent and only thoroughly honest and earnest element. That element, however, is now shaping its own course, and will do much more effective work by itself than when hampered by the timidity and policy and double-dealing of time-servers and self-seekers. Mr. Schwab Was a good deal of an anarchist prior to his expulsion; we anticipate that his recent experience will transform his tendencies into firmly-settled principles. The road to social salvation leads directly away from politics. We hope to travel it to the end in the companionship of Mr. Schwab and his faithful co-workers.

That paragon of journalism pure and undefiled, the Boston “Herald,” says that “there is a growing feeling in every healthy community against the journals which make it their special object to minister to perverted taste by seeking out and serving up in a seductive form disgusting scandal and licentious revelations.” While the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return. But words alone are not meet for repentance. The fruits must be brought forth also. The columns of the “Herald” seem to be as nasty as ever they were. It must begin to inculcate purity and sweetness by example; else its fine precepts are likely to go for naught. Meanwhile, if the above quotation be true, are we to infer that there is a growing feeling against the “Herald,” or that Boston is an unhealthy community?

The Redemption of Money.

If we can fully determine what redemption is, we shall accomplish a great work for human progress. A promise to pay, written on paper, is generally considered redeemed when it is exchanged for coin. This is not always true. If I take a banknote promising to pay one dollar, so far as I am concerned, the note is redeemed; but, if the note is yet outstanding against the bank, it is not redeemed.

If A gives B a note promising to pay one dollar, and B passes that note to C, and C returns it to A, just so soon as A receives it at its full face value, that note is fully redeemed. The great difficulty, in connection with the redemption of paper money, consists of this,— that the promise to pay implies a promise to pay coin; whereas, by right, it should be considered a promise to pay value equal to gold, or silver, whichever may be taken as the standard of value.

In commerce scarcely anybody wants gold, but everybody wants value equal to gold.

If a gold dollar will buy ten yards of cotton cloth, and a bushel of wheat will buy a gold dollar, can there be any difficulty in exchanging wheat for cotton cloth?

Let us remember that, although an absolute standard of value is impossible, a comparative standard is indispensable. We want something of value by which to compare, count, and exchange all other valuable things.

How much fog, mud, and moonshine has been waded through by the would-be teachers of political economy, just because the above truth has not been clearly seen!

Primitive people, as a rule, believe the false and do the wrong. And even when the true thing has been discovered, they are almost sure to start for it in the wrong direction. This is eminently true in regard to money.

Let me repeat,— everybody wants value. Now, if A, B, and C can exchange their goods on the base of a gold valuation, what is the necessity of the gold itself?

Gold always has a marketable value, which is well known. Now, let business men make their exchanges on the value of gold, and not on the gold itself. Then they can use their own credit as money, and redeem their promises to pay by receiving them, and thus, by mutually acting together, they can be independent of the money-lender. For, be it understood that borrowing money, as a good business transaction, is but an exchange of credits. Will the people ever get over the stupid and barbarous notion that money is something of itself?

Our paper money atthe present time (November, 1881) is at par with gold because the government receives it. If A owes B $1,000 and C holds all the gold, how can A pay his debt? Is A has made the promise to pay the gold itself, he must go to C and hive him a bonus for the gold. That is the nature of usury, or interest. But if A, being solvent, has promised to pay B $1,000 in value equal to gold, the debt can be easily cancelled.

What a monstrous barbarism is the arbitrary limitation of money!

And yet money must be limited, to be good money, until people shall find a way to redeem their notes, other than by swapping them for coin.

Apex.

Capital: What It Is and What It Is Not.

Dear Mr. Tucker,— Your comments on my letter in a recent issue call for some response, as it is clear you have not yet got full possesion of the idea you characterise as “unmitigated bosh based on pure chimera.”

Let us pass over the first four and the seventh of your points, for a while, and consider the fifth and the sixth.

You say: “We quite agree with Mr. Smart that ‘accumulated thought and experience are capital,’ but we utterly fail to see why ’things that perish almost as fast as they are produced are not capital!’”

I am glad you admit that “accumulated thought and experience are capital.” You admit, then, that capital is not necessarily material. And you will admit, consequently, that thought and experience (knowledge) — being capital, and being productive — are a force; that, when combined with the simple action of brain and muscle (a purely natural force), they aid the latter, labor, in production. Good!

Now, let us suppose an untutored savage in the wilds of Africa or Australia, who knows just enough to break off a cudgel in the forest to defend himself with or to knock down an animal for food; suppose him carried into civilised lift and taught some useful art by which he can supply himself with previously undreamed-of comforts,— all his capacities developed. From being merely a natural element or organism, possessing dormant or undeveloped capacities and wants, he has now, combined with these, capital, and has become a civilized Man.

Thus far you will agree with me.

Now, let us suppose a piece of uncultivated land in the midst of a jungle, remote from civilization, possessing all kinds of capacity for animal, vegetable, and mineral production, but yielding nothing valuable; suppose a railroad taken in there, axes, ploughs,— in short, all the appliances of civilization. The land will be cleared and fenced and cultivated, and will soon be smiling with abundant crops. From being merely a natural element or organism, possessing dormant or undeveloped capacities and wants, it has now, combined with these, capital, and has become a civilized piece of land,— a farm, or a mine, or a garden.

Now, what difference is there between the two cases? In the one case we have a human savage converted into a civilized man; in the other a land savage converted into a civilized farm.

If the culture invested in the Man is capital, as you admit, why is not the culture invested in Land capital in just the same sense?

And is it not just as proper — or rather, just as improper — to call the material organism, Man, capital, as it is to call the material organism, Land, capital? or any other natural elementary substance, such as wood, stone, coal, or iron; or any animal creature?

Do you not see my meaning? That the productive property or potentiality possessed by any material substance — animate or inanimate — is invested in it, precisely as it is invested in a man’s brain, and is of precisely the same kind. It is capital in the only correct sense of the word; it is stored-up labor in a higher sense than that of the political economists; and neither the man himself, nor the creatures he has civilized, nor the land or things he has civilized are capital.

Have I made this point clear?

As my letter is already long enough for your space, and as I do not wish to confuse this primary question with the other questions included in our discussion, I will leave them for the present.

We are discussing a vital principle,— the corner-stone of Socialism.

W. G. H. Smart.

[Nothing but the above letter was needed to clinch our statement that Mr. Smart’s socialism is an incoherent structure. We print it because we do not wish to be in the least unfair, but we really have not the patience to follow the writer in his absurd hypotheses and indiscriminate analogies. For instance, his statement that “the productive property or potentiality possessed by any material substance” alone is capital, when he has previously supposed no capital to be contained in “a piece of uncultivated land possessing all kinds of capacity for animal, vegetable, and mineral production;” or, his identification of “productive property or potentiality with “stored-up labor,” as if there was no such thing an a natural productive force independent of labor; or, his confusion of man with capital, as if the word capital had not been set apart, in contradistinction to labor, to denote all productive forces and aids to productive forces outside of the laborer, man, and for the express purpose of affording a convenient terminology to be used in discussing the relation of man to wealth; or, finally, his starting out to explain to us why “things that perish almost as fast as they are produced are not capital,” and then making it the conclusion of his letter that capital is stored-up labor and that “neither man himself, nor the creatures he has civilised, nor the land or things he has civilized are capital.” Upon which Mr. Smart asks us if we see his meaning. Well, we frankly confess that we do not, unless he means that men and animals and land are “things that perish almost as fast as they are produced.” But it is useless to ask you, Mr. Smart, what you mean. You probably think that you mean a great deal, but as a matter of fact you do not mean anything at all. You have not the faintest idea of the nature of capital. The A B C of political economy is unfamiliar to you. You have long been an earnest student of the industrial question; you have thoroughly acquainted yourself with many important phases of it; you are constantly saying many good and true and useful things about it; but you have never yet planted yourself upon an intelligible basis, and that is why nobody can ever understand Mr. Smart. — Editor Liberty.]

Apex or Basis?

“Apex” says that it is a barbarism to pay interest on money. That is another way of saying that a state of society in which wealth is not universalized is barbarous, since, in our present stage of evolution, those who have no capital of their own will be glad to borrow from those who have, and to pay interest for the use of the capital.

For it is really capital that is borrowed, and not money, the latter being only the means for obtaining the former, as money would be worthless if it could not be exchanged for the capital needed. We see already that as the loanable capital of a country increases the rate of interest diminishes, and when the accumulated wealth of the world becomes large enough, no one will pay interest.

But to denounce the payment of interest to-day, and (if it could be done) to forbid the man of ability, but lacking means, borrowing the capital he needs, or, in other words, using his credit, would not tend to universalize wealth and so destroy usury; but, on the other hand, it would discourage the production and accumulation of capital, since one of the principal incentives to that production is the use of capital to increase production and add to one’s wealth. It is onvious that, unless the use of capital added to the productiveness of labor, no one would wish to borrow, and no usury could be had. It should not be forgotten, in considering this question, that, in the last analysis, reducing things to their simplest, individualized form, the possessor of capital has acquired it by a willingness to work harder than his fellows and to sacrifice his love of spending all he produces that he may have the aid of capital to increase his power of production. For example, two men work side by side; one consumes all he produces, the other saves part of his product; in time the latter has saved enough to enable him to build or buy a tool, by the aid of which he accomplishes four times as much work as before, and is able to go on adding to his accumulation. The one who has not saved, seeing the advantage of the use of capital, naturally desires to obtain the same benefit for himself, but, not liking to save and wait until he can create capital, he proposes to borrow a portion of the capital of the other. By means of this borrowed capital he can quadruple his product, and is very willing to give a part of his increased product to the neighbor who has befriended him. Would he not be a mean sneak if be were not glad to do so? By the use of the borrowed capital he is not only enabled to pay for the advantage gained, but, by his greater power to produce, he can, in a short time, buy his own tools and no longer be forced to borrow.

Although our present system of business is vastly complicated, and we sometimes seem to borrow money merely, the actual transaction being kept out of sight, yet the case supposed is the real basis of all just payment of interest. I believe there will be a state of society in which money will not be necessary, but that state cannot be built up by commencing at the top. We must build from the foundation, understanding things as they are as well as knowing how they ought to be.

The question is asked,— and it is a very important one, and, simple as it is at bottom, a complex one as it stands,— what is money? It would simplify this matter very much if all would agree to call coin, or money having value as merchandise, money, and paper or representative money, currency, or notes. It is plain that the representative money is that which must be and is principally used in this country and in all commercial countries. Coin money derives its real value in exchange, and as a measure for ths exchangeable value of other products, from the fact that it costs labor to produce it, and, although government laws may foolishly try to make it pass for more than its cost value, they never succeed in doing so. No government ever has succeeded in over-riding natural law, though they may and often do obstruct the operations of Nature’s laws to the great detriment of Nature’s children.

The simplest form of representative money, or currency, is furnished by Josiah Warren’s labor note, which was substantially as follows (I quote from memory):

For value received, I promise to pay bearer, on demand, one hour’s labor, or ten pounds of corn.

Josiah Warren.

Modern Times, July 4,1852.

So long as it was believed by his neighbors that the maker of such notes always had the corn on hand with which to redeem them (since their redemption in labor would rarery be practicable or desirable), they would pass current in that locality; and, in fact, such “labor notes” did pass to a limited extent at Modern Times. Interesting as that experiment was, and showing clearly as it does the principle at the basis of all good currency, it could not be extended so as to satisfy the needs of a great commercial country, or, safely, of a large neighborhood.

But a currency, to be good, must possess precisely the qualifications and qualities of that labor note, with the addition of a guaranty, universally recognisable, that the notes actually do represent solid wealth with which they will be redeemed on demand. Now, there is one thing, and only one, that government can rightfully or usefully do in the way of interference with the currency, the ebb and flow of which is governed by natural laws altogether out of the reach of state or national governments; and that is to issue all the notes used for currency on such terms that it shall be universally known truly to represent actual, movable capital (not land, which is not property in the true sense, and which cannot be carried off by any one wishing a note redeemed), pledged for its redumption. There should be no monopoly, but any and every person complying with the terms should be furnished with the national note. Of course no one who had not the requisite capital could procure these notes, and rightly so because notes made by those who have no capital would swindle the people. And, as our government has no property or capital except the necessary tools for carrying on the affairs of the nation, and as government should have no debts and no gold and silver accumulated, it is obvious that it cannot properly make a good note beyond the amount which could be redeemed in payment of taxes. And, as taxes ought to be diminished and ultimately abolished, there is no valid basis for a government note to be used as currency. Neither will Mutual Banks answer any good purpose, if the notes are based on land.

Basis.

The remarks that follow are not intended to debar “Apex” from answering his opponent in these columns in his own time and way, but simply to combat, from Liberty’s standpoint, such of the positions taken by “Basis” as seem to need refutation.

The first error into which “Basis” falls is his identification of money with capital. Representative money is not capital; it is only a title to capital. He who borrows a paper dollar from another simply borrows a title, and not at all that to which it is a title. Consequently he takes from the lender nothing which the lender wishes to use; unless, indeed, the lender desires to purchase capital with his dollar, in which case he will not lend it, or, if he does, will charge for the sacrifice of his opportunity,— a very different thing from usury, which is payment, not for the lender’s sacrifice, but for the borrower’s use; that is, not for a burden borne, but for a benefit conferred. Neither does the borrower of the dollar take from the person of whom he purchases capital with it anything which that person desires to use; for, in ordinary commerce, the seller is either a manufacturer or a dealer, who produces or buys his stock for no other purpose than to sell it. And thence this dollar goes on transferring products for which the holders thereof have no use, until it reaches its issuer and final redeemer and is cancelled, depriving, in the course of its journey, no person of any opportunity, but, on the contrary, serving the needs of all through whose hands it passes. Henco, borrowing a title to capital is a very different thing from borrowing capital itself. But under the system of organized credit contemplated by “Apex,” no capable and deserving person would borrow even a title to capital. The so-called borrower would simply so change the face of his own title as to make it recognizable by the world at large, and at no other expense than the mere cost of the alteration. That is to say, the man, having capital or good credit, who, under the system advocated by “Apex,” should go to a credit-shop — in other words, a bank — and procure a certain amount of its notes by the ordinary processes of mortgaging property or getting endorsed commercial paper discounted, would only exchange his own personal credit — known only to his immediate friends and neighbors and the bank, and therefore useless in transactions with any other parties — for the bank’s credit, known, and receivable for products delivered, throughout the state, or the nation, or, perhaps, the world. And for this convenience the bank would charge him only the labor-cost of its service in effecting the exchange of credits, instead of the ruinous rates of discount, by which, under the present system of monopoly, privileged banks tax the producers of unprivileged property out of house and home. So that “Apex” really would have no borrowing at all, except in certain individual cases not worth considering; and therefore, when “Basis,” answering “Apex,” says that “it is really capital that is borrowed, and not money,” he makes a remark for which there is no audible call.

The second error committed by “Basis” he commits in common with the economists in assuming that an increase of capital decreases the rate of interest and that nothing else can materially decrease it. The facts are just the contrary. The rate of interest may, and often does, decrease, when the amount of capital has not increased; the amount of capital may increase without decreasing the rate of interest, which may, in fact, increase at the same time; and, so far from the universalization of wealth being the sole means of abolishing interest, the abolition of interest is the sinc qua non of the universalization of wealth.

Suppose, for instance, that the banking business of a nation is conducted by a system of banks chartered and regulated by the government, those banks issuing paper money based on specie, dollar for dollar. If, now, a certain number of these banks, by combining to buy up the national legislature, should secure the exclusive privilege of issuing two paper dollars for each specie dollar in their vaults, could they not afford to, and would they not in fact, materially reduce their rate of discount? Would not tho competing banks be forced to reduce their rate in consequence? And would not this reduction lower the rate of interest throughout the nation? Undoubtedly; and yet the amount of capital in the country remains the same as before.

Suppose, further, that during the following year, in consequence of the stimulus given to business and production by this decrease in the rate of interest and also because of unusually favorable natural conditions, a great increase of wealth occurs. If, then, the banks of the nation, holding from the government a monopoly of the power to issue money, should combine to contract the volume of the currency, could they not, and would they not, raise the rate of interest thereby? Undoubtedly; and yet the amount of capital in the country is greater than it ever was before.

But suppose, on the other hand, that all these banks, chartered and regulated by the government and issuing money dollar for dollar, had finally been allowed to issue paper beyond their capital based on the credit and guaranteed capital of their customers; that their circulation, thus doubly secured, had become so popular that people preferred to pay their debts in coin, instead of bank-notes, thus causing coin to flow into the vaults of the banks and add to their reserve; that this addition had enabled them to add further to their circulation, until, by a continuation of the process, it at last amounted to eight times their original capital; that by levying a high rate of interest on this they had bled the people nigh unto death; thus then the government had stepped in and said to the banks: “When you began, you received an annual interest of six per cent., on your capital; you now roceive nearly that rate on a circulation eight times your capital based really on the people’s credit; therefore at one-eighth of the original rate your annual profit would be as great as formerly; henceforth your rate of discount must not exceed three-fourths of one per cent..” Had all this happened (and with the exception of the last condition of the hypothesis similar cases have frequently happened), what would have been the result? Proudhon shall answer for us. In the eighth letter of his immortal discussion with Bastiat on the question of interest he exhausts the whole subject of the relation of interest to capital; and “Basis” cannot do better than read the whole of it. A brief extract, however, must suffice here. He is speaking of the Bank of France, which at that time (1849) was actually in almost the same situation as that described above. Supposing, as we have just done after him, a reduction of the rate of discount to three-fourths of one per cent., he than asks, as we do, what the result would be. These are his words in answer to Bastiat, the “Basis” of that discussion:

The fortune and destiny of the country are to-day in the hands of the Bank of France. If it would relieve industry and commerce by a decrease of its rate of discount proportional to the increase of its reserve; in other words, if it would reduce the price of its credit to three-fourths of one per cent., which it must do in order to quit stealing,— this reduction would instantly produce, throughout the Republic and all Europe, incalculable results. They could not be enumerated in a volume: I will confine myself to the indication of a few.
If, then, the credit of the Bank of France should be loaned at three-fourths of one per cent., ordinary bankers, notaries, capitalists, and even the stockholders of the bank itself would be immediately compelled by competition to reduce their interest, discount, and dividends, to at least one per cent., including incidental expenses and brokerage. What harm, think you, would this reduction do to borrowers on personal credit, or to commerce and industry, who are forced to pay by reason of this fact alone, an annual tax of at least two thousand millions?
If financial circulation could be effected at a rate of discount representing only the cost of administration, drafting, registration, etc., the interest charged on purchases and sales on credit would fall in its turn from six per cent., to zero,— that is to say, business would then be transacted on a cash basis; there would be no more debts. Again, to how great a degree, think you, would that diminish the shameful number of suspencions, failures, and bankruptcies?
But, as in society net product is undistinguishable from raw product, so in the light of the sum total of economic facts capital is undistinguihable from product. These two terms do not, in reality, stand for two distinct things; they designate relations only. Product is capital; capital is product: there is a difference between them only in private economy; none whatever in public economy. If, then, interest, after having fallen in the case of money to three-fourths of one per cent.,— that is, to zero, inasmuch as three-fourths of one per cent. represents only the service of the bank,— should fall to zero in the case of merchandise also, by analogy of principles and facts it would soon all to zero in the case of real estate: rent would disappear — becoming one with liquidation. Do you think, sir, that that would prevent people from living in houses and cultivating land?
If, thanks to this radical reform in the machinery of circulation, labor was compelled to pay to capital only as much interest as would be a just reward for the service rendered by the capitalist, specie and real estate being deprived of their reproductive properties and valued only as products,— as things that can be consumed and replaced,— the favor with which specie and capital are now locked upon would be wholly transferred to products; each individual, instead of restricting his consumption, would strive only to increase it. Whereas, at present, thanks to the restriction laid upon consumable products by interest, the means of consumption are always very much limited, then, on the contrary, production would be insufficient: labor would then be secure in fact as well as in right.
The laboring class gaining at one stroke the five thousand millions, or thereabouts, now taken in the form of interest from the ten thousand millions which it produces, plus five thousand millions which this same interest deprives it of by destroying the demand for labor, plus five thousand millions which the parasites, cut off from a living, would then be compelled to produce, the national production would be doubled and the welfare of the laborer increased four-fold. And you, sir, whom the worship of interest does not prevent from lifting your thoughts to another world,— what say you to this improvement of affairs here below? Do you see now that it is not the multiplication of capital which decreases interest, but, on the contrary, that it is the decrease of interest which multiplies capital?

Now, this reduction of the rate of discount to the cost of the bank’s service, and the results therefrom as above described, are precisely what would happen if the whole business of banking should be thrown open to free competition. It behooves “Basis” to examine this argument well; for, unless he can find a fatal flaw in it, he must stand convicted, in saying that “when the accumulated wealth of the world be comes large enough, no one will pay interest,” of putting the cart before the horse.

“Basis” is in error a third time in assuming that “Apex” wishes to “forbid the man of ability, but lacking means, using his credit.” It is precisely because such men are now virtually prohibited from using their credit that “Apex,” and Liberty with him, complains. This singular misconception on the part of “Basis” indicates that he does not yet understand what he is fighting.

The fourth error for which “Basis” assumes responsibility is found in his statement that “in the last analysis the possessor of capital has acquired it by a willingness to work harder than his fellows and to sacrifice his love of spending all he produces that he may have the aid of capital to increase his power of production.” A man who thoroughly means to toll the truth here reiterates one of the most devilish of the many infernal lies for which the economists have to answer. It is indeed true that the possessor of capital may, in rare cases, have acquired it by the method stated, though even then he could not be excused for making the capital so acquired a leech upon his fellow-men. But ninety-nine times in a hundred the modern possessor of any large amount of capital has acquired it, not “by a willingness to work harder than his fellows,” but by a shrewdness in getting possession of a monopoly which makes it needless for him to do any real work at all; not “by a willingness to sacrifice his love of spending all he produces,” but by a cleverness in procuring from the government a privilege by which he is able to spend in wanton luxury half of what a large number of other men produce. The chief privilege to which we refer is that of selling the people’s credit for a price.

“Basis” is guilty of several other errors which we have not space to discuss at length. He supposes that to confine the term money to coin and to call all other money currency would simplify matters, when in reality it is the insistance upon this false distinction that is the prevailing cause of mystification. If the idea of the royalty of gold and silver could be once knocked out of the people’s heads, and they could once understand that no particular kind of merchandise is created by nature for monetary purposes, they would settle this question in a trice. Again, he seems to think that Josiah Warren based his notes on corn. Nothing of the kind. Warren simply took corn as his standard, but made labor and all its products his basis. His labor notes were rarely redeemed in corn. If he had made corn his exclusive basis, there would be no distinction in principle between him and the specie men. Perhaps the central point in his monetary theory was his denial of the idea that any one product of labor can properly be made the only basis of money. To quote him in this connection at all is the height of presumption on the part of “Basis.” A charge that his system, which recognized cost as the only ground of price, ever contemplated a promise to pay anything “for value received,” he would deem the climax of insult to his memory. “Basis,” in donning the garments of Josiah Warren to defend the specie fraud, has “stolon the livery of heaven to serve the devil in.” “Basis” is wrong, too, in thinking that land is not a good basis for currency. True, unimproved land, not having properly a market value, cannot properly give value to anything that represents it; but permanent improvements on land, which should have a market value and carry with them a title to possession, are an excellent basis for currency. It is not the raw material of any product that fits it for a basis, but the labor that has been expended in shaping the material. As for the immovability of land unfitting it for a basis, it has just the opposite effect. Here “Basis” is misled by the idea that currency can be redeemed only in that on which it is based.

But this fertile subject has taken us farther than we intended to follow it. So here, for the present, we will quit its company, meanwhile handing over “Basis” to the tender mercies of “Apex,” and heartily endorsing almost all that “Basis” says at the close of his article concerning the true duty of government, as long as it shall exist, regarding the currency.