In characterizing these laws as "good," "poor," “bad,” and “fair" we have followed a very simple method. All the laws denominated "good" are modeled closely upon the original law in the series, that of Massachusetts, and are careful and thoroughgoing adaptations of the Australian system. They have the secret, official, blanket ballot, and they place independent and third-party nominations upon an equal footing with those of the regular parties. Fifteen laws follow the Massachusetts method in arranging the names of candidates in alphabetical order on the ballot, with the politics indicated after each name. Eleven arrange the names in party groups, with the title of the party at the top. There are twenty-three of the "good" laws, so that genuine ballot reform is an accomplished fact in one more than half the States of the Union. The Michigan law provided originally for separate party ballots to be distributed both in and out of the polling-places, but at the last session of the legislature it was amended so that at present it provides for the registration blanket ballot of the Australian system obtainable only inside the polling-places. The remaining six laws we have put into three classes, that of Maryland being set down as "fair," those of Connecticut and New Jersey as "poor," and those of New York, Pennsylvania, and California as "bad." The Maryland law is good so far as it provides for a secret, official, blanket ballot, but it is defective in allowing any foreign voter to take a friend or interpreter into the booth with him to assist him in preparing his ballot, and in certain other provisions which are calculated to prevent entire secrecy in voting. The Connecticut and New Jersey laws are in no sense the Australian system, since they provide official ballots, but allow them to be circulated elsewhere than in the polling-places, and do not provide blanket ballots. The Connecticut law is the cruder of the two, and it was to the defective and confusing character of its provisions that the prolonged contest over the governorship in that State, growing out of the last election, was mainly due. The laws of New York, Pennsylvania, and California, which differ in many other respects, have the common characteristic of discriminating so heavily against independent and other third-party nominations as to pervert completely the leading principle of ballot re. form. They mark a turning-point in the tactics of the professional politicians in opposition to the reform. Not venturing longer to resist the popular demand for the reform, its enemies pretend to grant it, but in doing so insidiously introduce modifications which destroy its vital principles. The foremost principle of the Australian system is that which places independent and third-party nominations on an equal footing with those of the regular parties. It was to give all candidates equal and exact facilities for having their ballots printed and distributed at the polls that the work and expense of the printing and distributing were taken from the political organizations or machines and put into the hands of the State. When the machines did the work and paid the cost they had such power over the ballots that independent nominations were beset on every side with obstacles which made their success at the polls virtually impossible except in the rare instances when they were sustained by great popular uprisings. So long as the machines paid the cost of the work it was difficult to deprive them of this dictatorial and corrupting control. By removing from them the expense and putting it upon the State, the way was open for removing from them also their exclusive control. Nobody presumed to say that they should be relieved of the expense and still be allowed to retain their control. In order to destroy their control the principle of nominations by petitions was introduced, and its justice was universally admitted. The people of the State were to bear all the expense of the election, and the State was to assure to all the people equal and exact rights under the system of voting by which the election was to be conducted. The New York, Pennsylvania, and California laws seek to destroy this principle by placing such restrictions upon its exercise as are practically prohibitive. We speak of the New York law as it was amended at the last session of the legislature. In its original form it did not discriminate against independent nominations. We said of it, after its passage in 1890, that though it was the outcome of a compromise, it was "really an excellent measure," and that, taken in connection with the law requiring the publication of campaign election expenses, it supplied the State of New York with the "most thoroughly reformed electoral system of all the States in the Union." We did not mean by this that New York had a completely reformed electoral system, or one that could not be improved. It had the only corrupt practices act which had been passed, and a ballot law which gave the State a secret official ballot and put independent nominations on an equal footing with regular party ones. At its first trial in the election of November last the law worked well, and the chief point of criticism was the provision requiring a sepa rate ballot for every party, instead of a blanket ballot for all. This provision led to a confusing number of ballots, and there was a general demand for its repeal. It had been put into the law to satisfy the demands of opponents of the Australian system, and had been yielded reluctantly by the advocates of that system, who had grave doubts of its usefulness. Instead of repealing this provision, the legislature passed a series of amendments, raising the number of signatures required for independent nominations, repealing a provision of the law which allowed an independent candidate to have his name printed upon the ballots of the regular parties as well as upon a separate ballot of his own, and substituting a provision which forbids him to have it printed upon more than one ballot. Another amendment permits any regular candidate to file a caveat forbidding the printing of an independent nomination upon his ballot. The combined effect of these changes is to make an aggregate of 10,000 signatures necessary for the nomination of a complete independent state ticket, and to make the nomination of independent candidates for separate of fices in various parts of the State practically impossible, for such nominations will have to stand by themselves upon an incomplete ticket, which no voter ought to be asked to deposit. In the Pennsylvania law the discrimination is brought about in a different but scarcely less effective manner. The signatures of three per cent. of the voters of the portion of the State over which the office to be filled extends are required for any independent nomination, and all independent nominations must be filed so far in advance of election (49 days) as to be practically prohibitive. Then, as a still further obstacle, all independent and thirdparty nominations must be arranged together in alphabetical order at the end of the blanket ballot, while the regular party nominations are arranged in groups with the party title at the top. As the voter can indicate his choice for a party ticket by simply placing a mark opposite the title, but must check every name in the list of independent candidates in case he wishes to vote for them, it is obvious that the regular parties have all the advantages. The California law makes the number of signatures necessary for independent nominations five per cent. of all the voters, and requires all such nominations to be filed thirty days before election. This percentage is of itself tantamount to a prohibitive enactment. These three laws, in fact, instead of aiding independent nominations, make them nearly or quite impossible, and thus destroy the leading principle of ballot reform, which is the facilitating of such nominations. These laws give the regular party machines a greater power than ever, for while, under the old system, they could make the printing and distributing of independent ballots difficult, under the new, as these laws pervert it, the use of all such ballots at the polls is practically forbidden by law. OPEN LETTERS. The Question of Pensions. 1. A SOLDIER'S VIEW. Many a comrade failed to apply from motives of the purest patriotism. He would not ask for a pension so long as he was able to support himself and family by [AVING read with great care the article relative his own exertions, because he knew that the nation was others, and published in the June number of your magazine, allow me to submit a few suggestions relative to that important topic as viewed from a pensioner's standpoint. The article in question seems to be directed mainly against the action had in allowing arrears of pensions, and in passing what is generally known as the Dependent Pension Bill of June 27, 1890, and appears to be intended to convey the impression that our comrades who accepted the moneys granted as arrears, and those who accept the relief granted under the recent act, are unpatriotic. On their behalf I respectfully demur to the indictment. As respects the first class I shall only ask to be shown why the comrade who waited from the time of his discharge until 1880 before asking for the pension due him at his discharge, and each year thereafter up to the time when he applied for it, and then accepted the amount found to have been due him under the law and the rulings and ratings fixed by the Department, without an allowance of one cent of interest on the amount which was legally due him during each of the several years since his discharge, is any less patriotic than I who applied for my pension promptly after my discharge in 1866, and have drawn it regularly since? all they could to injure its credit and bring about the repudiation of the obligations issued during the war. After years of toil, by reason of increasing disabilities due to advancing age, he finds himself unable longer to continue the struggle unaided. He then asks for, and receives in a lump payment, the sum which is due him. and which would have been paid quarterly during the several years since his discharge had he seen fit to apply for it within one year after his discharge. What is there unpatriotic in that case? Nay, more; I personally know comrades to-day who were disabled during their army service, and who could be placed on the pension-roll at any time by simply filing a claim with proof of service and identity, and appearing before any examining board of surgeons north of Washington, who have never applied for pensions, and probably never will, because they know that the national debt is not yet paid, and they have been, and are, able to care for themselves and dependent ones without aid from any quarter. If the author of your recent article has any extended acquaintance among the survivors of the Union army, he doubtless knows of many such cases. As regards the merits of the act of June 27, 1890, allow me to submit a few facts relative to the practical working of that act which appear to have escaped en- capped in the race. Where there is one among us with tirely the notice of Mr. Sloane. We will first note the existing conditions which prompted the action embodied in that bill. The lapse of years, the infirmities incident to age, and casualties of various kinds, had rendered large numbers of our old comrades incapable of self-support. The county poorhouses and other refuges were becoming crowded with such inmates. Their disabilities, being of a nature not directly connected with or chargeable to their army services, or perhaps due to accidental injury received since discharge, left them without the pale of relief afforded by existing pension laws. Hence the burden of their support was falling directly on the surviving comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic and other charitable organizations, and on the taxpayers of the several counties where these disabled ones had been forced to seek shelter in the county-houses. In this manner the citizens of such counties as had been most patriotic and had furnished the largest quotas of their able-bodied sons for the defense of the nation were now being rewarded (?) by the assessment of extra heavy taxes for the support of their county poor. It was the intent and design of the act of June 27, 1890, to lift that burden from the shoulders of the taxpayers of such counties and place it upon the shoulders of all taxpayers, to the end that those who had made no sacrifice of life, blood, or treasure might contribute at least equally with those who had given of their best and bravest for the maintenance of the national life. The practical working of the act is good. Many a comrade who had been forced to seek shelter in the poorhouse now finds that with the aid of the modest sum allowed under that act, and with what he is still able to do towards his own support, he can once more resume his place as a citizen and become again a worker among his fellows. As the sums granted under said act cannot exceed $12 per month, and no veteran is placed on the roll unless he is disabled to the extent of two-thirds of total disability and therefore entitled to a rating of $6 per month or more, there appears to be but little chance for the undeserving or the malingerers to be successful in an effort to secure pensions thereunder. No pensions of from $72 to $100 per month can be paid thereunder to men who are able to earn salaries in positions worth $4000 per annum, as occasionally happens under other pension acts, special and general. It is not alone in the benefit conferred upon the disabled comrades included in the terms of this act, and upon the taxpayers resident in the several counties where they reside, that the most beneficent effects of this legislation are found. The widows of this class of comrades - where the death cause is not chargeable to their own vicious habits - are now promptly granted a pension of $8 per month, and many are thus enabled to keep their children about them and to raise and to care for them as mothers. Otherwise they would be obliged to break up their homes, and see their children sent to charitable institutions or abandoned to the care and custody of strangers. It is true that the large majority of our old comrades are poor men; as respects the accumulation of wealth, the man who gave from three to five of the best years of his life, generally between the ages of twenty and thirty, on returning to civil life found himself handi wealth enough to care for him and his, and also to share to aid a destitute comrade, there will be found in any large gathering of old comrades thousands who, like myself, are wholly dependent upon their pensions and their daily earnings for the support of their dear ones. It is dire necessity, not want of patriotism, that has at times prompted the “demands " for equitable pension legislation that are so severely animadverted upon by Mr. Sloane and his coadjutors in your recent article. With a word as to my right to speak as a representative soldier I will close this already long protest. I served continuously from early in April, 1861, until July, 1866, during the late war; was shot through the lung at Antietam, in September, 1862, and lost a leg at Gettysburg in July, 1863. The first ten years after my return to civil life were spent in the office of the Second Auditor of the Treasury Department adjusting the claims of our comrades, their widows and orphans, for arrears of pay, bounty, etc. The next ten years were spent in the General Land Office adjudicating contests arising between the different claimants under the railroad grants, and the contests between the settlers on the lands within the granted limits and the railroad companies, etc. Numbers of those settlers were soldiers. Since then I have been employed as a special examiner of the Pension Bureau in the investigation of cases requiring special examination. I have worked in many different States both east and west of the Mississippi, and in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia; have always belonged to the G. A. R. since it was established, and have met many thousands of veterans at State encampments and G. A. R. camp-fires, etc. East, West, and South, and in the regular course of my business and duties. I have had ample opportunity to become well acquainted with the feelings and aims of my comrades of the late war, their desires, hopes, and aspirations. Having thus passed thirty years of my life in the service of my country and my comrades, I feel that if I am not, I ought to be qualified to speak as an expert on this matter. I know that while it is true that some comrades will be found at times who are clamorous for the passage of a service pension bill, there are but few who will not listen to reason, and upon receiving an explanation of the probable expense and the increased taxation which would be necessary in such a case, and the fact that such a measure is in conflict with the very genius of our institutions, in that it tends to create a privileged class, etc., and that if we once admit the validity of a claim for pensions for service in the army, no valid objection can be made to a claim for distinguished service in the diplomatic corps or other branches of the Government service, and thus our nation would soon be burdened with a pensioned “civil list," as the British Empire is at present-when these facts are clearly placed before them, even the most thoughtless will promptly admit that it is safer to adhere to the governing rule, as heretofore established, and make disability the basis of all pension legislation. And all will admit that they do not want a service pension if it is to endanger the pensions allowed to their disabled comrades, or to the widows and orphans of those who have been mustered out and are now awaiting the final roll-call. As a survivor of the late war I cannot but feel deeply when I see the motives of my comrades impugned, and if I have used too strong language in their defense, I hope it may be pardoned. I frankly admit that I do feel proud of my comrades and their record in the war for the Union. The humblest one who volunteered and followed the old flag has thereby earned the right to have his name inscribed upon the roll of honor and to be cherished and remembered through all time and eternity; yea, even until the "heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll," and the universe shall be dissolved in showers of star-dust never again to be gathered. Frank Bell. II. - REJOINDER BY PROFESSOR SLOANE. YOUR readers will doubtless admire, as I do, the repression and good temper of Mr. Bell's letter, but they cannot fail to note exactly the same unmoral pleas to which the article on "Pensions and Socialism" called attention. 1. He admits that right-minded veterans have not drawn the pensions they might legally have secured under the Arrears Act because disability through army service was not such as to prevent their earning a living for themselves and their families; but he can see no difference between these patriots and those who, taking the law as their only standard of right, clutch what they can get, without caring whether their disability was due to military service or to hereditary ailments and the ordinary risks and toils of the times of peace between the close of the war and 1880. own claim to either respect or honor, and, more heinous still, dragged in the mire the very name of veteran so cherished by the honest soldiers and the nation at large. The generation of men now coming into the ranks of public service, while too young in 1861 to enlist, knew well the questions at issue and the horrors of the war. It yields to no older one in devotion to the principles for which the army fought, and cannot endure to endanger or lose those very jewels thirty years later by weakly yielding either to the threats of sturdy beg. gars or to the unconsidered requests of honest and honorable feebleness, which takes refuge too often with the former class instead of seeking help where alone it can be had without dishonor, among the Christian philanthropists who are abundant in all American communities, and who would gladly pay millions for their country's honor, but refuse one cent for tribute even to their loved veterans. It would be very instructive to print the letters which have been sent me within the last month by soldiers who fought for three years, or more or less, actually demanding the repeal for their sakes of the acts which disgrace their true manhood; but the space at my disposal of course forbids me to do so now. William M. Sloane. Weakness and Danger of the Single Tax.1 FIRST.--The advocates of the single tax on land valTheir distinguished leader has declared all other taxes ues, with one accord, emphasize the epithet "single.” to be either stupid or unjust or both. To make room for this exclusive plan all existing ways and means of rais away. 2. He also admits with creditable frankness that soldiers enfeebled by age, or sickness not due to military service, are, under the act of June, 1890, the recipients of alms disguised under the name of pension. But he says nothing of the dismay of the honest pensionering revenue, national, State, and local, must be cleared who sees the name prostituted to cover quite another liquor licenses of States and cities, any existing taxes The tariff, the internal-revenue imposts, the thing, nor of the well-used opportunities for dishonesty which the bill created. I cannot hear of a single rural all must be abandoned, and no other projects for raison franchises, on railway receipts, on successions community where public morality has not suffered by ing revenue, such as an income tax, must be enterthe tolerance in it of men known to be drawing pen- tained. The single tax is nothing if not "single"; it sions (sic) they have not deserved, secured too often, is not one which might be engrafted upon the stock • alas! by false swearing. give place to its expanding efficiency. It calls for the of an existing system, whose elements might gradually obliteration of all our traditions and ideas regarding taxation; such as the idea that as all persons are under public needs require, be called upon to contribute not the protection of the state, so all persons may, if the only their services but their wealth to the support of government and its reasonable purposes. The singletax doctrine is not to touch persons as such, but only as they are receivers of the public in the income and profit of land. There is an idea that as all forms of property are protected by the state, they may all be, of right, subjected to taxation, if the public needs require. The single-tax men know of only one kind of the idea that as all industries and employments are property which may be justly taxed. Again, there is protected by the state, the government may, if public needs demand, collect some fraction of the income and profit of industry. There is no possible room nor justi 3. It is not true that the soldier who returned from the war in good health was handicapped in the race. (The preference of veterans in the public service is well illustrated by the case of Mr. Bell himself.) On the contrary, the life of the moral soldier was a wholesome life; the training of the army made him more adaptable for all uses than other men, and it is generally believed that most of the fighting and exposure throughout the war fell on less than one-third of the total number enlisted. The general poverty of the socalled veterans to which Mr. Bell refers, if it exists at all, and its existence is certainly doubtful, is due to causes utterly unconnected with the war. 4. Your readers will also observe the phrases, "due him under the law," "legally due him," at the beginning of Mr. Bell's letter, and the very different ones, "inscribed upon the roll of honor,"" cherished and remem bered. . . until . . . the universe shall be dissolved in showers of star-dust," etc., which occur at the close. To him there appears to be some connection between them, as if the latter were the climax of the former. My object was to show that in yielding to temptation and taking advantage of public sentimentality and a fallible human law, the claimant so far destroyed his fication for an income or succession tax under the single-tax régime. There is another idea which has played a great part 1 The reader is referred to a discussion of "The Single Tax," by Henry George and Edward Atkinson, in THE CENTURY for July, 1890.-ED. in the history of the Anglo-Saxon race, embodied in the epigram, "No taxation without representation." Defiance of this immemorial tradition cost one of the Stuart kings his crown, and his head to boot. "No taxation without representation" was the cry which nerved the hearts and steadied the aim of the embattled farmers at Lexington and Concord. Long usage has settled the import of this maxim. It imports not merely that they who are not represented are not to be taxed, but also that they who are not taxed ought not to be represented. In conformity with this established usage, and in obedience to universal sentiment, the framers of the national Constitution provided that representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned according to population, and not according to property or values of any kind. Representation and direct taxation are, in the national code, coextensive and inseparable. These ideas are embodied in our State constitutions, some if not all of which provide specifically that taxes shall be as nearly "equal" as may be. It will take a long time to persuade American taxpayers that “equal" may mean the laying of all taxes upon some one class of people or some one kind of property. Supposing, however, that all such ideas and traditions had been by some magic eradicated, and a singletax scheme to have been actually formulated, how would it work under a system of government as complicated as our own? We have three systems of taxation working side by side, and two independent government agencies of tax administration. We have a national system of indirect taxation by means of imposts on imported merchandise, and by internalrevenue excises on certain selected articles. We have State taxes and local taxes, mostly direct, administered by a mixed agency of State and local officials. The single-taxers demand a revolution of these systems. Suppose that possible, the question arises, What agency do they propose to employ? There would be no sense in using two or three agencies for administering a single-tax system. Some one of these must be made the primary agent for obtaining the single-tax revenue, and be required to pay over to the other one or two their respective shares as the same may be ascertained. Would the State government subordinate itself to town and city authorities in this matter? On the contrary, the power of local taxation by cities and towns would vanish away, and the municipalities would have to content themselves with such moneys as the legisla. ture would dole out to them. Local government, the pride of American and Anglo-Saxon freemen, would of consequence disappear. But how would the State governments fare when it came to the question whether they or the national Government should be primary collectors of the single-tax revenue? Does not every school-boy know that we changed the government of the United States one hundred years ago from a confederation to a national union chiefly because the States could not be persuaded nor compelled to collect and pay over the "single tax" on improved lands provided for in the Articles of Confederation? The framers of the Constitution applied themselves to make a national government which should not need the interposition of any State to raise and collect its revenue. They put into that document a power to raise revenue, absolute, unassailable, irrevocable, and this VOL. XLII.-101. power has been defined and supported by a long course of supreme adjudication. The single-tax scheme, if worked at all, must be executed by the general Government and its agents, and the States and all municipalities throughout the States will enjoy only such revenues as Congress may see fit to apportion and pay over. Under such a scheme the forms of democracy might indeed survive, but the state and the government would, in essence, be imperial. For these reasons, (1) the impossibility of clearing away at a single sweep all existing taxes, (2) the persistence of ancient custom and doctrine, (3) the peculiar and complicated nature of our American government - for these reasons, not to mention others, the exclusive tax on land values has no claim to consideration as a practical working scheme in this country in our day. SECOND. If the single tax be examined as a mere theory it will be found that its advocates make certain tacit assumptions which, when expressly stated, are seen to be false. They assume, for example, a state of univer sal and continuous peace. Deprived of every means of raising extraordinary revenue for war purposes, the nation, invaded and beleaguered, must lay down its arms and accept the terms of the foe at the point where the single-tax receipts shall have been exhausted. Were that the doctrine of the world, one single nation not so scrupulous about collecting taxes from persons, chattels, incomes, franchises, and successions, might soon dictate the conditions of existence to all the rest. The single tax thus endangers, if it does not deny, the right and power of nations to maintain their crganized existence. The old common-law doctrine is safer and better, that a free and brave people may "rob the cradle and the grave" to recruit their defensive force, and throw the last dollar they can wring from the orphan and the widow into their military chest. These single-tax dreamers assume the continuous and universal advancement of society-population always on the increase and evenly so, wealth increasing, intelligence and virtue always abounding more and more. The world does move, has moved, but never on any continuous line of advance by steady and unbroken march. The lot of civilized man in general has been painful and stormy. The progress of particular nations has been "by fits and starts"; periods of depression succeed epochs of advance as by a kind of rhythm. There have been times in the history of this country when the rental value of land in some States would not have paid the salaries of the town clerks. Fortunately our "unjust and stupid" taxes on imports and incomes, on property of many kinds, saved us from political marasmus. The progress of wealth and population is not uniform in different parts of the country. Population shifts and industries migrate. Rents go down in New England and go up in the Dakotas. The census returns show that the population of counties in the older States, and even in some of the newer ones, is declining from decade to decade. In such counties the revenue from a single tax on land values might be a minus quantity. It may however be expected by the single-tax advocates that the great national taxing machine will in some way compensate for such inequalities. The enthusiasts again make no allowances for those disasters which in every generation wreck cities, dis |