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About The independent. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 6, 1902)
4 THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT, This week we have on sale several hundred Men's Suits formerly sell ing up to $15, at $9.5 F0R CM1CE- All colors and styles, plain and fancy patterns. Good, heavy winter suits in this season's most pop ular styles. Samples sent free by mail. Also our new winter catalog. If you have clothing to buy we can save you money. M ayer mos. Lincoln, Nebraska. THE OELMABTIANS. A MliBMotft MaaUha Don't Like Them and Uu gm Peculiar Ideas of lilt Own. Editor Independent: In the last is sue The Independent comments on Barnebey, asserts that "potatoes are not value; starch is not value." They are utilities, the jug handle to which values atta:i themselves. Is there any serious agreement to that asser tion? The Independent adds that "Hu man life is not value" and it is "scarcity of potatoes makes them val uable." If a plant, especially ' a vlgirous growing tree, is ever to acquire its full healthy growth its roots must be imbedded in the solid earth of a planet. If we are ever to have a solid founda tion for an economic system, artificial as it must be, it must also, just as nec essarily as the tree, have its roots in the facts of nature as they are in the universe. We can build houses, con trive manufacturing machinery, etc., all the artificial work of man, and man can vary their form and uses, but he cannot do any of these without these two preliminary facts of nature, the. material and the human being himself. Stick a pin there. Let Del Mar and his whole school try their nut cracking abilities on these postulates. Material, the planet, it is of the past as to present use; its life as in the tree cut down is destroyed wnen man pro poses it for building purposes. The animal life in use is life of the present, but it is not human life. The brute is not the designer of our economic sys tems. He must not be brought into a class with the class of life that is and who design these systems for the ben efit of equity among themselves. Hu manity is the tree, its roots, economic ally, are in the material of the planet, and all this material that can enter in to our consideration, unless it is some thing to be got out of our way, a nuis ance, possesses and must possess ma terial utility. All utilities are not in use at the same time. They are there that they may be used. Humaa life is of the present moment; not of the past that is dead; not of the future, which is not yet within our grasp; it is the NOW another fact in nature. Will Del Martians put a pin there for their nut-crackers? Don't do any dodging by telling us It is only a point between the present and the future and that it is relative. It is, and it is extremely numerical. Ir this giving way to Del Mar? Not at all. It is demanded of him that he acknowledge the whole truth. He can not define the human being of the NOW as only a numerical relation and nothing more, without laying himself open to the charge of constructing covers for cannibalism to hide its hideousness behind, such as natural facts, postulates of political economy, material, humanity and its energies. "Now" is the point of time between the past and future, a numerical rela tion, and are utilities, not values, cap able of existence where human life does not exist? The business of Del Martians, if they would retain our re spect as honest men, must be to prove these postulates a fallacy. Now back to the editor's potatoes. He says, "A scarcity of potatoes makes them valuable." If he is correct, if af ter the last human being had disap peared on this planet the race had left a number of jugs, but only here and there one with a handle, the scarcity of handles would make them valuable. The editor would insert scarcity in lieu of humanity in the above postulates. If this is not seeking cover for canni balism, can he explain? In his com ments to my letter he says that "the abolition of interest and rent will nev er be accomplished until the socialists' demand for the collective ownership of all the means of production is in operation." When that is accomplished I say the bottom of hell has been touched and we shall all settle down right there in a comparatively short time afterwards. We are right here in the bloody gap that leads right down to it, an immensely more dan gerous gap to the race than the one at Gettysburg. Nor can it be fought out in a few hours. Compromises and ar bitration are excellent under many conditions, but under such it is trea son to the race and leads to its death. "Only a piece of property" is the epitaph that must be written above the tomb of humanity. And the Del Mar tians are afraid that their epitaph, al ready written in their scientific system of economy, may be erased. When Interest is collected from the representative of the public credit, does that credit represent humanity? Or does it. represent scarcity? Or does it represent a numerical relation only? Or does it represent a ratio? Or does It represent all of these, but humanity left out? The yes or no to these ques tions commits the man to cannibalism, or it commits him to anti-cannibalism. Del Martians are prepared to except anything. They are much'given to say ing it is nothing, only a this or a that. Not human life, says the editor, as to value. Well, value is human life, just that, and it is as measurable as electric energy. Value is its expression in economics. That being true, despite anything the editor or the other Del Martians, not excepting the man of Wall street, experienced Knickerbock ers have so far been able to bring to bear by way of showing it a fallacy. Interest is human life, and interest is that part of value for which not as much as an excuse has ever been of fered by economists. It Is not to cover risks in return for the use of value. That is accomplished by scarcity, and is proper. No quibble is offered in op position to proper security. It is only another form of exchange with certain specified contingencies. People do not exchange at least they never should and bear the reputation of honest men with the expectancy of giving less in value than the seller places upon it Scarcity, the editor's value, plays its part here, but not as creating value. The buyer comes here with his wants and the scarcity of the article with him personally governs, but does not create the expression of his bid; for the seller of his surplus does the same. The gen eral scarcity or surplussage will gov ern both in their expressions which, if .they measured values, not scarcities, alike constitute price, and prices, not values, go up and they go down. Val ues are the same in quality if not on a trifling and continual increase, as the years pass by. This is speaking in the Del Martian concrete manner, the total amount in existence, but that should not effect prices in the least whether the total lessened or in creased, for they are not nor never should be allowed to be considered in their totality of existence as a unit of value, for nature has proclaimed the unit in the expression "I am I and thou shalt have no other god before me," which is the command of nature. Is self-respect and self-preservation of the unit of natures and it is his to tality's lowering or rising in want that effects prices. He is the concrete as to want that effects prices. He is the concrete as to himself. A measure will apply to some definite amount of his energy, and with the same accuracy of any other human. Deny him a measure and he is at the mercy of any body of sharpers. Deny him the truth and that he is value, you shut him out as completely as you fence the dumb brutes in or out. In interest sou are abstracting his life as the vampire, but is represented as sucking the blood. The process may be a long one, but a true case of murder Just the same, and the editor says we shall not be able to accomplish this unless the collective ownership of all means of production is in operation. Well, what must happen then If all means of production is in collective ownership, is not the human being a means of production and is he not owned and that by an utterly irresponsible mas ter? At that, he is worse a thousand tiiiies than the slave owner of the ,south for he had an interest in the negro as a unit at least of property. Collectivism has destroyed the unit. It is the collective ooze of cannibalism brought into systematic order that sci ence in some of its forms may have an application just as it may in burg lary or ether crimes, and they can all shout and demonstrate it within their narrow limits. Why is it scientific? Will anyone deny that crime can be made scientific? We are no more called upon to condemn science for this than we are 1o condemn the axe by which one ret u has brained the other. But how about the man that used the axe for such a purpose? How about Del Mar and all the other economists who are determined to bar out the human being as the living center of econ omists, without which the circle could not exist? Under present conditions of cannibalism it is justifiable to brain the cannibal whenever the cannibal can be singled out as the collector of interest can be or the court, which never has been a court, that has al lowed it, or the legislator that by his vote has passed laws that allow it. That is justifiable if the killing of rat tle snakes in self-defense is justifiable. But the fully justifiable is not always the best thing to be done. If We can prevent further cannibalism without the killing, that is the best thing of all. We cannot undo the past as a memory, a terror through which we have escaped. It may be of use as a brake upon future attempts in that di rection and those who hate borne a hana in present conditions under other ores are best fitted to hand down to posterity the iniquity of the present rrom experience. No socialism of the collectivism or der can for a moment stand the broad daylight except as Talos. the monster. The right of eminent domain is-not collectivism, is not ownership. It is control where ownership cannot exist as with natural opportunities title to which cannot exist, as no title-giving creator has ever been known. It can not have passed on as real. Law can not make title or ownership. It can only hunt it out where it exists, and protect It It can protect possession and give possession. Its limit is there reached. Possession is not ownership as anyone may find out by stealing property when brought up before the courts with the stolen property in pos session. Acceptance of half loaves im plies that there is some one to give loaves. We deny there being any other than stolen gift loaves and are not ac cepting halves, but looking for the thieves with blood hounds. Let us have property held as property and possessions only as possessions. Pay the government in taxes for the protec tion of possession. No rent there pos sible. Protected in possession we shall have enough to do to pay the courts for protection to property. Where we cannot otherwise protect it, seizure of corporate property by government need not mean permanent manage ment by government. The best meth od experience will discover. But a per sonal manager must be held strictly responsible for his acts. No privileges of a special character granted him. No corporation to dodge behind if he is responsible for crimes. His neck should stretch hemp, not some help less" foreman, who is not blameable for his part over which be has not the control, being only a speaking tube. Hell haj flamed long enough for or dinary mortals; turn now on the delib erate scoundrels of Wall street and their politicians. H. ELLINGSTON. Minnehaha, Minn. HORRORS OF PROSPERITY. (Continued from Page 3.) to the support of legitimate means of alleviating distress, dares to leave to the little child the solving of the problem that it should take upon it self, it is guilty of a very cowardly thing. To throw the responsibility for relief in such cases onto the shoulders of childhood is to deliberately stand by and permit the boys and girls to hurl themselves into an abyss out of which there is no escape. The boys and girls of today, whe ther they be of the factory or the man sion, are the men and women of to morrow. It is not an easy thing to contemplate the future of the little ones who are chained to the drudgery of the workshop; it is not a nice thing to look forward to the day when women, dragged from their childhood into the whirlpool of despair, lashed hopelessly since their earliest years to the foot power machine or the sweatshop bench, shall in turn become the mothers of the race, or to peer further still into the future and con jure up the mental, moral and physi cal aspect of their offspring. TRUCK FARMING IX THE SOUTH. Doei Track Farming in the Sonth pay 7 Writ the nnderiigned for a free eopy of Illinois Cen tral Circular No 3, and note wbat ia aaid con cerning it. J. F. Merry, Aas't Qenl Pasa'r kgent Illinois Central Railroad, Dubuque, la. It will pay you to read the advertlao ments and take advantage oX the bar gains offered. 1