Chapter IV: Part 4

In line, then, with established American principles is the proposition for municipal lands. And if municipalities have extended to capitalists privileges of many kinds, even granting them gratis sites for manufactories, and for terms of years exempting such real estate from taxation, why not accord to the wage-workers at least their primary natural rights? If any property be exempted from taxation, why not the homesite below a certain fixed value? And if, for the public benefit, municipalities provide parks, museums, and libraries, why not give each producer a homesite--a footing on the earth? He who has not this is deprived of the first right to do that by which he must live, namely, labor.

_Effects of Municipal Land._

A city public domain, open to citizen occupiers under just stipulations, would in several directions have far-reaching results.

Should this domain be occupied by, say, one thousand families of a population of 50,000, an immediate result, affecting the whole city, would be a fall in rents. In fact, the mere existence of the public domain, with a probability that his tenants would remove to it, might cause a landlord to reduce his rents. Besides, the value of all land, in the city and about it, held on speculation, would fall. Save in instances of particular advantage, the price of unimproved residence lots would gravitate toward the cost, all things considered, of residence lots in the public domain. This, for these reasons: The corner in land would be broken. Home builders would pay a private owner no more for a lot than the cost of a similar one in the public area. As houses went up on the public domain, the chances of landholders to sell to builders would be diminished. Sellers of land, besides competing with the public land, would then compete with increased activity with one another. Finally, just taxation of their land, valueless as a speculation, would oblige landowners to sell it or to put it to good use.

Even should the growth of the city be rapid, the value of land in private hands could in general advance but little, if at all. With the actual demands of an increased population, the public domain might from time to time be enlarged; but not, it may reasonably be assumed, at a rate that would give rise to an upward tendency of prices in the face of the above-mentioned factors contributing to a downward tendency.

At this point it may be well to remember that, conditions of land purchase by the city being subject to the Referendum, the buying could hardly be accompanied by corrupt bargaining.

When the effect of the public land in depressing land values, in other words in enabling producers to retain the more of their product, was seen, private as well as public agencies might aid in enlarging the scope of that effect. The philanthropic might transfer land to the municipality, preferring to help restore just social conditions rather than to aid in charities that leave the world with more poor than ever; the city might provide for a gradual conversion, in the course of time, of all the land within its limits to public control, first selecting, with the end in view, tracts of little market value, which, open to occupiers, would assist in keeping down the value of lands held privately.

But the more striking results of city public land would lie in another direction. The spontaneous efforts of each individual to increase and to secure the product of his labor would turn the current of production away from the monopolists and toward the producers. With a lot in the public domain, a wage-worker might soon live in his own cottage. As the settler often did in the West, to acquire a home he might first build two or four rooms as the rear, and, living in it, with later savings put up the front. A house and a vegetable garden, with the increased consequent thrift rarely in such situation lacking, would add a large fraction to his year's earnings. Pasture for a cow in suburban city land would add yet more. Then would this wage-earner, now his own landlord and in part a direct producer from the soil, withdraw his children from the labor market, where they compete for work perhaps with himself, and send them on to school.

What would now happen should the wage-workers of the city demand higher wages? It is hardly to be supposed that any industrial centre could reach the stage of radical reform contemplated at this point much in advance of others. When the labor organizations throughout the country take hold of direct legislation, and taste of its successes, they will nowhere halt. They will no more hesitate than does a conquering army. Learning what has been done in Switzerland, they will go the lengths of the Swiss radicals and, with more elbow room, further. Hence, when in one industrial centre the governing workers should seek better terms, similar demands from fellow laborers, as able to enforce them, would be heard elsewhere.

The employer of our typical city, even now often unable to find outside the unions the unemployed labor he must have, would then, should he attempt it, to a certainty fail. The thrifty wage-working householder, today a tenant fearful of loss of work, could then strike and stay out. The situation would resemble that in the West twenty years ago, when open land made the laborer his own master and wages double what they are now. Wages, then, would perforce be moved upward, and hours be shortened, and a long step be made toward that state of things in which two employers offer work to one employé. And, legal and social forces no longer irresistibly opposed to the wage-workers, thenceforth wages would advance. At every stage they would tend to the maximum possible under the improved conditions. In the end, under fully equal conditions, everywhere, for all classes, the producer would gather to himself the full product of his labor.

The average business man, too, of the city of our illustration, himself a producer--that is, a help to the consumer--would under the better conditions reap new opportunities. Far less than now would he fear failure through bad debts and hard times; through the wage-workers' larger earnings, he would obtain a larger volume of trade; he would otherwise naturally share in the generally increased production; and he would participate in the common benefits from the better local government.

But the disappearance of the local monopolist would be predestined. The owner of local franchises would already have gone. The local land monopolist would have seen his land values diminished. In every such case, the monopolist's loss would be the producer's gain. The aggregate annual earnings of all the city's producers (the wage-workers, the land-workers, and the men in productive business) would rise toward their natural just aggregate--all production. As between the various classes within the city, a condition approximating to justice in political and economic arrangements would now prevail.

What would thus be likely to happen in our typical city of 50,000 inhabitants would also, in greater or less degree, be possible in all industrial towns and cities. In every such place, self-government and direct legislation could solve the more pressing immediate phases of the labor question and create the local conditions favorable to remodeling, and as far as possible abolishing, the superstructure of government.

_Wider Applications of These Principles and Methods._

The political and economic arrangements extending beyond the control of the municipalities would now, if they had not done so before, challenge attention. In taking up with reform in this wider field, the industrial wage-workers would come in contact with those farmers who are demanding radical reforms in state and nation. As the sure instrument for the citizenship of a state, direct legislation could again with confidence be employed. No serious opposition, in fact or reason, could be brought against it. That the mass of voters might prove too unwieldy for the method would be an assertion to be instantly refuted by Swiss statistics. In Zurich, the most radically democratic canton of Switzerland, the people number 339,000; the voters, 80,000. In Berne, which has the obligatory Referendum, the population is 539,000. And it must not be overlooked that the entire Swiss Confederation, with 600,000 voters, now has both Initiative and Referendum. Hence, in any state of the Union, direct legislation on general affairs may be regarded as immediately practicable, while in many of the smaller states the obligatory Referendum may be applied to particulars. And even in the most populous states, when special legislation should be cast aside, and local legislation left to the localities affected, complete direct legislation need be no more unmanageable than in the smallest.

United farmers, wage-workers, and other classes of citizens, in the light of these facts, might naturally demand direct legislation. Foreseeing that in time such union will be inevitable, what more natural for the producing classes in revolt than to unite today in voting, if not for other propositions, at least for direct legislation and home rule? These forces combined in any state, it seems improbable that certain political and economic measures now supported by farmer and wage-worker alike could long fail to become law. Already, under the principle that "rights should be equal to all and special privileges be had by none," farmers' and wage-workers' parties are making the following demands: That taxation be not used to build up one interest or class at the expense of another; that the public revenues be no more than necessary for government expenditures; that the agencies of transportation and communication be operated at the lowest cost of service; that no privileges in banking be permitted; that woman have the vote wherever justice gives it to man; that no force of police, marshals, or militiamen not commissioned by their home authorities be permitted anywhere to be employed; that monopoly in every form be abolished and the personal rights of every individual respected. These demands are all in agreement with the spirit of freedom. Along the lines they mark out, the future successes of the radical social reformers will most probably come. But if, in response to a call nowadays frequently heard, the many incipient parties should decide to unite on one or a few things, is it not clear that in natural order the first reforms needed are direct legislation and local self-government?

To a party logically following the principle of equal rights, the progress in Switzerland under direct legislation would form an invaluable guide. The Swiss methods of controlling the railroads and banks of issue, and of operating the telegraph and telephone services, deserve study and, to the extent that our institutions admit, imitation. The organization of the Swiss State and its subdivisions is simple and natural. The success of their executive councils may in this country assist in raising up the power of the people as against one man power. The fact that the cantons have no senates and that a second chamber is an obstacle to direct legislation may here hasten the abolition of these nurseries of aristocracy.

With the advance of progress under direct legislation, attention would doubtless be attracted in the United States, as it has been in Switzerland, to the nicer shades of justice to minorities and to the broader fields of internal improvement. As in the cantons of Ticino and Neuchâtel, our legislative bodies might be opened to minority representatives. As in the Swiss Confederation, the great forests might be declared forever the inheritance of the nation. What public lands yet remain in each state might be withheld from private ownership except on occupancy and use, and the area might be so increased as to enable every producer desiring it to exercise the natural right of free access to the soil. Then the right to labor, now being demanded through the Initiative by the Swiss workingmen's party, might here be made an admitted fact. And as is now also being done in Switzerland, the public control might be extended to water powers and similar resources of nature.

Thus in state and nation might practicable radical reforms make their way. From the beginning, as has been seen, benefits would be widespread. It might not be long before the most crying social evils were at an end. Progressive taxation and abolition of monopoly privileges would cause the great private fortunes of the country to melt away, to add to the producers' earnings. On a part of the soil being made free of access, the land-hungry would withdraw from the cities, relieving the overstocked labor markets. Poverty of the able-bodied willing to work might soon be even more rare than in this country half a century ago, since methods of production at that time were comparatively primitive and the free land only in the West. If Switzerland, small in area, naturally a poor country, and with a dense population, has gone far toward banishing pauperism and plutocracy, what wealth for all might not be reckoned in America, so fertile, so broad, so sparsely populated!

And thus the stages are before us in the course of which the coming just society may gradually be established--that society in which the individual shall attain his highest liberty and development, and consequently his greatest happiness. As lovers of freedom even now foresee, in that perfect society each man will be master of himself; each will act on his own initiative and control the full product of his toil. In that society, the producer's product will not, as now, be diminished by interest, unearned profits, or monopoly rent of natural resources. Interest will tend to disappear because the products of labor in the hands of every producer will be abundant--so abundant that, instead of a borrower paying interest for a loan, a lender may at times pay, as for an accommodation, for having his products preserved. Unearned profits will tend to disappear because, no monopolies being in private hands, and free industry promoting voluntary coöperation, few opportunities will exist for such profits. Monopoly rent will disappear because, the natural right to labor on the resources of nature made a legal right, no man will be able to exact from another a toll for leave to labor. Whatever rent may arise from differences in the qualities of natural resources will be made a community fund, perhaps to be substituted for taxes or to be divided among the producers.

The natural political bond in such a society is plain. Wherein he interferes with no other man, every individual possessing faculty will be regarded as his own supreme sovereign. Free, because land is free, when he joins a community he will enter into social relations with its citizens by contract. He will legislate (form contracts) with the rest of his immediate community in person. Every community, in all that relates peculiarly to itself, will be self-governing. Where one community shall have natural political bonds with another, or in any respect form with several others a greater community, the circumscription affected will legislate through central committees and a direct vote of the citizenship. Executives and other officials will be but stewards. In a society so constituted, communities that reject the elements of political success will languish; free men will leave them. The communities that accept the elements of success, becoming examples through their prosperity, will be imitated; and thus the momentum of progress will be increased. Communities free, state boundaries as now known will be wiped out; and in the true light of rights in voting--the rights of associates in a contract to express their choice--few questions will affect wide territories. Rarely will any question be, in the sense the word is now used, national; the ballot-box may never unite the citizens of the Atlantic coast with those of the Pacific. Yet, in this decomposition of the State into its natural units--in this resolving of society into its constituent elements--may be laid the sole true, natural, lasting basis of the universal republic, the primary principle of which can be no other thing than freedom.

INDEX.

=A=

Aargau, 12, 13

Abolition of the lawmaking monopoly, 100

"A Concept of Political Justice", i

Adams, Sir Francis Ottiwell ("The Swiss Confederation"), iii

Alcohol, State monopoly, Switzerland, 59

Appenzell, 8, 13, 65

Area of Switzerland, 14, 48

"Arena", 27

Army, a democratic, 41, 42

Assembly, Federal, Switzerland, 22, 35

=B=

Bâle, 12, 13, 61

Banking, Switzerland, 54

Berne, 10, 12, 13, 61, 115

Bryce, James, "American Commonwealth", 85

Bürkli, Carl, 16

=C=

Canton, organization of the, 34

Cantons (states), names of the twenty-two, 13

Cigar-Makers' Union, 87, 88

Climate, Switzerland, 48

Communal lands, 63, 70

Communal meeting, the, 7, 32, 33
subjects covered at, 8
organization, 32

Communes (townships) 2,706 in number, 7

Congress (Federal Assembly), Switzerland, 22, 35

Congress, United States, at work, 92

Considérant, Victor, 16

Constitutions, revision of Swiss, 23
spirit of Swiss, 31

=D=

Dates--First Swiss Constitution, 14
Federal Referendum began, 14
Federal Initiative adopted, 14
cantonal Referendum began, 14
progress of cantonal Referendum, 15
French theorists' discussion of Referendum, 14
cantonal Referendum established in Zurich, 16
New England town meeting, 80

Debts, public, Switzerland, 57

Democracy vs. representative government, 5

Dicey, A.V., 28

Diet, 10, 37

Droz, Numa, 19

=E=

Elections, semi-annual, 20

Environment of the Swiss citizen, 31

Equal rights, 107

Executive councils, Swiss, 36, 37, 40

=F=

Facts established by this book, 95

Fiske, John, on town meeting, 80

Freedom in Switzerland, 57

Freiburg, 12

=G=

Garment Workers, United, 88

Geneva, 12, 13, 61

Glarus, 12, 13, 65, 66, 67

Grand Council, 18, 20, 34

Grisons, 12, 13, 61

=H=

Highways, Switzerland, 50

=I=

Illiteracy in Switzerland, 27

Immigration into Switzerland, 70

Initiative and Referendum in labor organizations, 87

Initiative, cantonal, 11
Federal, 22
not a simple petition, 22
what it is, 10

Instruction in Switzerland, 27

=J=

Jamin, P, 17

Jesuits expelled from Switzerland, 58

Judiciary, Swiss, 40

Jurors, Swiss, elected, 40

=L=

Land and climate, Switzerland, 47

Land, tenure and distribution of, Switzerland, 63, 70
Public, 64, 65

Landsgemeinde, 8, 63

Languages in Switzerland, 13

Legislation by representatives, 92

Legislators, pay of Swiss, 35

Legislatures in Switzerland, 34

Local self-government, 101

Lucerne, 12, 13

=M=

Machines kill third parties, 98

McCrackan, W.D., 27

Military system, Swiss, 42, 43

Moses, Prof. Bernard ("The Federal Government of Switzerland"), iii

Municipal land, 110

=N=

Nelson, Henry Loomis, on the town meeting, 79

Neuchâtel, 12, 13, 61

New England town meeting, 72

=O=

Oberholtzer, Ellis P., on Referendum in the United States, 82

Objections to the optional Referendum, 18

Obligatory and optional Referendum, 13, 17

Obligatory Referendum in Zurich, 20

One-man power unknown in Switzerland, 34

=P=

Parliamentary government abolished, 30

Political status in Switzerland, 25

Population, Switzerland, cantons, cities, 13, 14

Post-office, Switzerland, 49

Poverty in Switzerland, 68

President of the Confederation, 38

Press, the Swiss, 26

Principles of a free society, 25

Proportional representation, 117

=R=

Railroads, Switzerland, 49

Referendum, Federal, Switzerland, 21, 22
in labor organizations, 87
instrument of the minority, 22
in the United States, 72
in various states, cities, etc., 82
not the plébiscite, 29
obligatory, 13, 17, 20
optional, 13, 17, 18
what it is, 10

Rittinghausen, 16

Rockland, Mass., town meeting, 73

Rotation in office a partisan idea, 39, 83

=S=

Salaries of Swiss officials, 35, 36, 38

Salvation Army, Switzerland, 58

Schaffhausen, 12, 13

Schwyz, 8, 12, 13, 65

Senates, no cantonal, 34

Soleure, 12, 13

Stage routes, Switzerland, 52

State religions, Switzerland, 33

St. Gall, 12, 13, 65, 66

Statistics as to Switzerland, 13, 14

Summary of results of direct legislation in Switzerland, 70

Sunday, votings and communal meetings on, 8

Switzerland long undemocratic, 60

=T=

Table--Population, languages, form of passing laws, year of entering Switzerland, 13

Tariff, protective, Switzerland, 58

Taxes, Switzerland, 52

Telegraph and telephone, Switzerland, 50

Thurgau, 12, 13

Ticino, 12, 13, 59, 66, 67

Typographical Union, 89

=U=

Unterwald, 12, 13, 65, 66

Urgence, 17

Uri, 12, 13, 65

=V=

Valais, 12, 13, 61, 66

Vaud, 12, 13, 66

Vincent, Prof. John Martin ("State and Federal Government of Switzerland"), iii references to, 8, 32, 34, 61

Vote-buying, 20

=W=

Wage-workers in the majority, 106

Wages and political conditions, 103

"Westminster Review", 28, 45

Winchester, Boyd ("The Swiss Republic"), iv
reference to, 63

Wuarin, Louis, 30

=Z=

Zurich, 13, 16, 20, 21, 61, 65, 115

Zug, 12, 13

=Liberty=

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"American Federation of Labor,}
"New York, May 17, 1892. }

"_Mr. J.W. Sullivan_:

"DEAR SIR:--I have had the extreme pleasure of reading your book, 'Direct Legislation,' and beg to assure you that it made a deep impression upon my mind. The principles of the Initiative and Referendum so often proclaimed find sufficient elucidation in concise form. The facts that you have massed together of the practical application of these principles give the best evidence of thorough research and study. It is the first time that the labor reformers and thinkers generally have had this subject presented to them in so able and readable a manner. Every man who believes in minimizing the evil tendencies of politics as a trade or profession, cannot fail to be highly interested as well as pleased upon reading your book.

"In many of the trade organizations the Initiative and the Referendum are applied, and I have no doubt in my mind whatever that with the growth and development of the trades-union movement, much will be done to apply the principles to our political government.

"I am led to believe that now in the New England states, particularly in Massachusetts, where the town meetings exert a large influence upon the public affairs of their respective localities, much could be done to bring the subject of the Initiative and Referendum to the attention of the masses. I think the trades-unionists of that section of the country would be more than willing to co-operate in an effort to demonstrate the practicability as well as the advisability of the adoption of that idea.

"Again assuring you of the pleasure I have had in perusing the work, and thanking you earnestly for your contribution toward the literature upon this important subject, I am fraternally yours, SAMUEL GOMPERS,

_President American Federation of Labor_."

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"What! abandon legislatures and politicians and caucuses and all the paraphernalia of elective and debating bodies? Well, not quite; still very much curtailing the functions of these bodies and making laws by the direct action of the people themselves and curtailing the interference of professed legislators ... The little volume is worthy of study, if only to know how some communities get along without the trouble and contradiction involved in the systems of other popular constituencies."--_New York Commercial Advertiser_.

"Certainly the author is to be commended for contributing many facts to our political knowledge--not the least of which is that we are no more, as we were fifty years ago, leaders of the world in genuinely popular government--for simplicity of treatment, and a most direct and lucid way of pointing out the results of certain measures."--_Chicago Times_.

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