Part 3

Some of them deplored my ignorance, and urged me to go straightway and read “Progress and Poverty.” Well, I had read Henry George’s book soon after its publication, and had once had the precious advantage of serving a term in Congress with the great Tom Johnson; yet I never had been able to see the distinction, _in principle_, between the private ownership of a cow and the private ownership of a cow-lot.

Some men are just that stupid, and when Ephraim gets “sot” on a thing of that kind, even Louis Post, of _The Public_, has to let him alone.

Certain other friends made the point on me that I did not understand Count Tolstoy. That is possible. In his various ramblings into various speculative matters, Tolstoy, like our own Emerson, gets lost, sometimes, in mazes of his own making; and he uses language which may delight professional commentators, but which is sorely vexatious to an average citizen who really wants to know what the philosophers are driving at.

Tolstoy is careful to avoid _History_. The flood of light which might be thrown upon the land question by the records of the human race is shut out altogether.

And _this_ is the weak spot in the armor of every champion who enters the list against the Private Ownership of Land. If History makes any one thing plain, it is that a Civilization was never able to develop itself on any other basis than that of Private Ownership.

Like other champions of his theory, Tolstoy forgets the elemental traits of Human Nature. He forgets how _unequal_ we are by Nature; how we differ, in character, capacity, taste and purpose; how few there are who will labor for the “good of all,” and how universal is the rule that each man labors, first of all, for _himself_.

He forgets that every beast of the field has its prototype in some members of the human family; he forgets that the _man_-tiger is now more numerous than the four-footed sort; that the _man_-fox is more cunning than his wild brother; that the _man_-wolf hunts with every human herd; that the _man_-sloth is marked by nature with her own indelible brand; that some men are born timid as the deer are; that some are born without fear as the lion is; that the human hog grunts and gorges, and makes himself a nauseating nuisance, on the streets, in hotels, in the Pullman cars—in fact everywhere, but most of all where people have to eat and sleep.

This is the fundamental error which doctrinaires are prone to make. _They forget what Human Nature actually is, always has been, and perhaps, always will be._

They argue about ideal conditions, unmindful of the fact that ideal conditions require ideal men—and that we haven’t got the ideal men.

Every society, every state, must from necessity be made up of the Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent and the law-makers of that society, that state, will from necessity be compelled to frame laws suited to _that_ community. Hence, the laws will not be absolutely the best, considering the question as an abstract question, but they will be the best which _that_ community is capable of receiving.

All legislation, like all Society, is a compromise.

In a state of Nature I would be absolutely free. But I would be alone. To protect myself in person, property or family, I would have to rely upon my individual arm. My absolute freedom would be an absolute isolation and a relative helplessness.

I would find that I could not endure such a life. I would therefore seek companionship among other men who felt the same needs that I felt, and we would come together for the “good of all.” One hundred families coming together in this way form the nucleus of Society, of the State. Each man gives up a portion of his individual freedom when he enters this union of families which forms such a nucleus.

Why does he surrender a portion of his wild, natural, individual freedom? Why does he agree to be bound by the will of the Community instead of his _own_ will? Why does he consent to be _governed_ by the public when he had previously been his own ruler? He does it because it is to his interest to do it. He finds that, while he has surrendered much, he has gained more. _The Community_ throws around him the protection of a hundred strong arms where previously he had but his own.

_The Community_, in a hundred ways, ministers to his wants, his weaknesses, his desires, his prosperity.

In other words, the Community gives more than it took.

Association which improves the Community tends to improve each member thus associated; and from this association come all those blessings which we call Civilization.

Resolve the Association back into its elements; let each individual separate from the mass; let each one say, “I’m my own man,”—and what becomes of Civilization?

It perishes, of course.

Now where will Tolstoy find the basis of Society _in Nature_?

In the human instinct for _getting-together_. And that instinct seems to grow out of our hopes, and our fears, our profound belief that we _need_ our fellow-man, and that we are not strong enough to stand alone, _no matter how much we would like to do so_.

Deep down in your heart you will find the primeval, natural craving for independence, individuality, separate living, separate doing. With the great common mass of humanity this tendency has been weakened by disuse until it is not an active principle. It is like a muscle which has lost its strength from inaction. Hence, the common man goes with the herd, just as a flock of sheep follows the bell-wether.

* * * * *

Society, then is a matter of convention: _Nature_ did not frame it.

Nor does _Nature_ impose upon us the relation of Husband and Wife.

Why do we adopt the present marriage system, which differs in so many respects from Nature, and from former practices of the human race?

Simply because we believe it to be _an improvement_. We _know_ it is better than the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes: we _believe_ it to be better than Polygamy; we _hope_ that it will some day be a more radiant success than the Divorce Courts would seem to indicate.

Now as to the land.

Undoubtedly, the earth was given to the human family as a home for the family. Undoubtedly, Nature teaches that the earth belongs in common to the entire human race.

Thus it was in the beginning. But, just as the wild horse became the property of the bold tribesman who caught it and tamed it; just as the natural fruit of the forest belonged to him who gathered it; just as the cave or hollow tree became the dwelling of the first occupant, so the well in the thirsty plain became the property of him that had dug down to the waters; and the pasturage which one had taken up might not be taken away from him by another.

Mine was the bark hut which my labor had built; mine the canoe which my hands had hollowed out; mine the bow and arrows which I had fashioned; mine the herds and flocks, the goats and asses which I had tamed and reared and cared for till they had multiplied.

Should the idler, or the thief of the tribe, take from me that which my labor had produced? Must _my_ canoe belong to the whole tribe? Must my garment which I had made out of the skins of the wild beast belong to the sloth who loafed in the tent while I risked my life in the woods?

_Nature said_, NO!

Nature, speaking through elemental instinct said: “That which _your_ labor made is _yours_.”

Yours the hut, yours the canoe, yours the garment of skins, yours the bow and arrows—and that was the beginning of _Private Property in Personalty_.

* * * * *

But look again at the ways of Nature and of the tribe.

Pasturage failed after awhile; natural fruits were no longer sufficient to sustain life; game disappeared from the forest; fish grew scarce in the streams. Something had to be done to make good the shortage. The soil was there, suggesting cultivation. The products of Nature must be supplemented by human industry. But before the soil could be cultivated, the trees had to be cut away; cattle and wild beasts had to be fenced out; the virgin earth had to be made the bride of toil before the fruitful seed would bring forth harvests.

Now _who was to do the work_?

The Idler wouldn’t; the Feeble couldn’t; the Hunter didn’t; _the strong, clear-headed Laborer made the farm_.

Those who assail private ownership of land say that “the man who makes a farm doesn’t make it in the sense that one makes a basket or a chair.” They see clearly that, if they admit that _the pioneer who goes into the wilderness or the swamps and creates a farm, is to be put on the same footing as the man who goes into the woods, gets material and makes a canoe, or a chair or a basket_, it is “farewell world” to their theory about the land. Therefore they say that THE FARM WAS ALREADY THERE, waiting for the farmer. All the farmer had to do was to go there and tickle the soil with a hoe, and it laughed with the harvest.

How very absurd! You might just as well say that the willows that bent over the waters of the brook _were baskets waiting for the tardy basketmaker to come and get them_. You might just as well say that the hide on the cow’s back was a pair of ladies’ shoes waiting for the lady to come and fit them to her dainty feet.

Must we get rid of our common sense, our practical knowledge, before we can argue a case of this sort? Do not these doctrinaires know that they are denying physical facts, plain everyday experience, when they say that a piece of wild land in the desert, in the swamps, on the mountain side, or in the woody wilderness _is a farm waiting for the farmer_? Sheer nonsense never went further. But they are compelled to this extent because of the necessities of their case. They see at once that if ever they admit my position that _the laborer takes raw materials with which nature supplies him, and out of those raw materials creates something that did not exist before_, then the laborer is entitled to that which his labor creates.

Now, do you mean to tell me, that for thousands of years there were farms waiting the pioneers here in North America? Consider for a moment what the New England, or the Southern, or the Western farmer had to do before he had _made a farm_. He had to go into the woods with an axe in one hand and a rifle in the other. Very frequently he was shot down before he could make his farm, just as Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather was killed. Very frequently he died from the fever engendered in the woods before he had made his farm, just as Andrew Jackson’s father did, in the effort _to make a farm_ in the wilderness of North Carolina. Supposing the farmer was able to snatch up his gun quick enough to shoot the Indian who was trying to shoot him, and supposing that his constitution was strong enough to resist the malarial atmosphere in which he had to labor while creating that farm, what was the process through which he went _in making that farm_? He had to cut off an enormous growth of timber. He had to grub up stumps and roots. He had to plow and cross-plow the soil until it had become a seed bed. He had to inclose the farm to keep out the wild animals which would have devoured his crop. If in a rocky section, he had to remove the stones which encumbered the ground. If in a damp, swampy section, he had to exercise skill, as well as labor, in draining the soil. After four or five years, the laborer _had made a farm_—something _as different from the wild land which he found in the woods as the pine tree is from the lumber which lies upon the lumber-yard_; as different as the wool on the sheep’s back is from the coat which you wear; something as different as the willow and the bamboo are from the chairs and the baskets which are made from them.

Now, the doctrinaires say that it would be a sufficient reward to that laborer _to give him the crop that he made on the land_. Would it? For what length of time will you give him those crops? If you ask the laborer, he will say, “_I made this farm_; I risked my life in the work: I shortened my days by the labor, the exposure, the drudgery of making this farm. I never would have gone to this amount of toil if I had not believed that society would secure me in the possession of the farm after I made it.”

Having established him in his security of possession, which I say is tantamount to title, suppose that laborer wants to change his farm for a stock of manufactured goods, or for silver and gold, or for horses, or for another piece of land, do you mean to say he shall not have the right to do it? If so, you limit his title, and you have not the right to do so. _That which he made he ought to have the right to dispose of on such terms as please him._ His title having originated in the sacred rights of labor, you should not limit his enjoyment or his disposition of that which his labor created. If you recognize his right to exchange one product of his labor for another, you recognize his right to exchange all products of his labor for others. In other words, by plain course of reasoning, you arrive at the principle that the bargain and sale of lands is founded upon the right of the laborer to exchange the product of his labor with those who may have product of labor which he could use to better advantage than he can use his own.

Now, let us see. The laborer who made the farm dies. What shall become of it? Away back in the origin of property, OCCUPANCY was the first title recognized. As long as one individual, or one tribe, occupied a certain spot their right to use it was recognized, but no longer. When possession was abandoned, the next individual, or the next tribe who occupied that spot, had the right of possession. When tribes ceased to wander about, the occupancy of the spot which the tribe had taken possession of became permanent.

Therefore, the title to that spot grew up in the tribe along with permanent possession. _No civilization was ever created by wandering tribes._ It is only when the tribe fixes its permanent residence in some particular spot, recognized as exclusively its own, that there is any such thing as law and order and civilization. It is clear enough when we consider one tribe in its relations to other tribes. Let us consider the tribe in its relations to its members. Each individual in the beginning had a title _by occupancy_ to the spot which he cultivated, and this security of possession lasted so long as the occupancy lasted. If the tribesman abandoned his spot of land, with the intent to surrender the same, then the next fortunate tribesman who came along could take possession of it and hold it. But, in the course of time, this created great inconvenience, because, as favored spots became more desirable, the competition to get them was fiercer. Hence, there were feuds, bloody struggles, disorders in the tribe. Consequently, by natural evolution society was forced, first, to recognize the right of the individual as long as he wished to occupy the spot which he had taken possession of; second _to provide for the succession to that title when the spot became vacant_.

The learned men tell us that, at the death of the occupant, his own family, _his own children_, being naturally the first who would know that he was dead, _were naturally the first who would take possession after his death_. Therefore, the sons of the deceased tenant always became the first occupants of the vacant land which had been left vacant by the death of their father. This succession of the sons to the fathers becoming universal, was finally recognized by the law of the tribe; and in the course of time it was recognized further in the law which allowed the tenant to make a will and to say who should take his property after his death.

Thus by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, the tribe recognized, first, the right of the man who had made a farm to hold it as long as he lived; second, the right of his children to follow in his footsteps and to receive the benefit of that which their father had created by his labor; third, and last, came the law of wills and testaments which allowed the tribesman to say what should go with his property after his death.

If the occupant died without heirs and without having made a will, the land went back to the tribe, or the state, to be disposed of as public property. This principle is recognized to this day in the doctrine of escheats.

Property in land differs in nowise from property in horses and cows. The law of property is the same naturally in real estate as in personal estate, and I can conceive of no revenue in any community which is so just as that which lays itself with an equal burden upon all kinds of property in proportion to the amount thereof. In the beginning, one tribesman, like Abraham or Lot, might have his cattle browsing upon a thousand hills, while another tribesman might have made a little farm in some secluded valley, or upon some thirsty, rocky mountain-side where vines were planted, or where olive trees bore their fruit to the industrious citizen who had year in and year out watched and tended their growth. Would there be any justice in compelling those little farmers to supply the revenue for the common purpose of the tribe, and not compel a contribution _pro rata_ from the men who owned “exceeding many flocks and herds”?

The trouble about these doctrinaires is that they start at the present day and reason backward, while I start at the fountain head and reason down. I take things as history shows them to have been; they take things as they think they ought to have been.

The doctrinaire further says that if the tribesman who made a farm had been satisfied to fence in his farm, only, _the common_ would have remained after all had been supplied. In this country, we have millions of acres of “commons” now waiting any one “member of the tribe” who wants to go and take his share. The truth of it is, the doctrinaire doesn’t want to go out into the wild land and _make a farm_. He wants to stay where he is, and _take one that some other fellow has made_. Especially doth he crave a slice of the Astor estate, which doctrinaires have talked of so much that they can almost identify their shares therein.

One of the doctrinaires quotes the following from “Progress and Poverty”: “If a fair distribution of land were made among the whole population, giving to each his equal share, and laws enacted which would impose a barrier to the tendency to concentration, by forbidding the holding by anyone of more than a fixed amount, what would become of the increased population?”

I do not consider it any part of my task to assail the position taken in “Progress and Poverty,” but I think it a satisfactory answer to the foregoing question to say that in the very nature of things posterity must be the heirs-at-law of the conditions of those who went before. To say that we can so frame a social fabric as flexibly and automatically to give an equal share of everything to every child born into the world hereafter, regardless of whether that child’s parents were thrifty, industrious, virtuous people, or, on the other hand, were thriftless, indolent, vicious people, seems to me to be one of the wildest dreams that ever entered the human mind. No matter how equal material conditions might be made today by legislation, the inherent inequality in the capacities of men, physically, mentally, spiritually, would evolve differences tomorrow. There is no such thing as equality among men, and no law will ever give it to them. What the father gains the children lose; and the grandchildren may regain. While one man runs the race of life and wins it; another man, equally tall and strong will run the race and lose it. Just why, it is, in some cases, difficult to tell.

Some men naturally lead; some naturally follow; some naturally command; others naturally obey: some are naturally strong; others are naturally weak. The law of life to some is activity; others say that they were born tired; and there is a certain pathos in their excuse for indolence, for they _were_ born tired. One man is naturally brave—physically, morally—and he will venture. Another man is naturally a coward—physically or morally—and he will not venture. A dozen different traits, or combination of traits, make failure or success in life, and to say that success or failure, vice and virtue, good and bad, are the results of environment and social conditions, is as misleading, _as a general statement of fundamental facts_, as to say that the dove and the hawk, the tiger and the sheep, the rattlesnake and the harmless “black runner” are the results of environment. Nature in its act of creation made the difference between the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, the fish of the sea, the men and women who inhabit the earth. From the remotest ages, of which we have record, human nature has been the same that it is today. Paganism presented precisely the same types of man in its savagery and its civilization that Christianity now presents in its savagery and civilization. “There is nothing new under the sun,” and the very theories which the doctrinaires now think are matters of modern discovery, unknown to our ancestors, and which would have been adopted had our ancestors been as wise as we, were discussed in the days of Aristotle and had the very best thought of the sages of antiquity.