EDITORIALS
Who is to Blame? AWOMAN LAY DYING in a New York hospital last Sunday. Over her leaned a' uniformed nurse, catching the whispered story of a fearful tragedy. The words came with difficulty from...
...Therefore there can be no doubt that those portions of a body of water which form the solid fixed portions of such body of water and which in the last analysis are not portions of the body of water, but of the ground, namely, the bed and the shores, may well be subject to private ownership...
...Unbounded success to it...
...Why am I here...
...That story is terrible enough...
...Because—in blazing resentment, perhaps, at some needless holocaust—we have forced Men to enact laws that provided for fire-proof factories, adequate fire escapes, proper storing of highly inflammable materials, and so forth, and then have gone about our business while the administration of these laws was shaped by Dollars...
...For we are to blame for the death of this woman—of her and her hundred fifty fellow-workers in the ill-fated New York factory...
...If not, what are you doing to secure favorable action from your legislature...
...Exasperated no doubt by the 40 to 46 vote, our correspondent grows pessimistic...
...Under the direction of Mr...
...we're simply trying to get her done and launched before she becomes obsolete...
...There is no prospect of war is there...
...This portion of the ground may be marked off within definite boundaries and may therefore be subjected to human disposal just as ground that is not covered by water...
...So I turned from it in dissatisfaction, if not in disgust, and sought a different sphere and vocation...
...A necessary preliminary of such control is possession...
...In 1911, after ten years of trust domination, the price of steel rails remains at $28 a ton.—Collier's...
...Greeley himself, as a young lad, grappled with chores...
...Other states that have refused to ratify are West Virginia, Rhode Island, Louisiana, and Massachusetts...
...But before breath had entirely gone, the stricken woman, as delirium set in, repeated over and over a question: "Why am I here...
...to get rich, its exceptional and most exalted aim...
...A body of water, whether river, brook, or lake, is a portion of the surface of the earth, of the ground, which is covered with water...
...And even when he entered journalism, and became one of the great lights of that profession, the columns of his newspapers bear witness to his lifelong interest in agriculture...
...On March 2 the list of states that had ratified this amendment to the federal constitution, and notified the state department at Washington, contained the following: Illinois Oregon Georgia North CARolina Montana Colorado Maryland Indiana Washington Texas South Carolina Idaho Nebraska On March 2 the New Hampshire Senate, by a vote of 14 to 9, refused to ratify the amendment...
...And it matters not who is immediately to blame for this tragedy...
...I know I had the stuff in me for an efficient and successful farmer...
...The ownership of a body of water can therefore extend only so far as possession of the same is possible...
...Because we in this nation have been lax...
...Possession is nothing else than the actual power of disposal of a thing...
...There have been others—a most appalling list...
...The four great strikes in the clothing industry, shirt-waist makers, cloak makers, and garment workers—in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, 165,000 strong, the great majority women and girls—were strikes of non-union workers driven to desperation by low wages and the petty tyranny of their employers...
...Pinchot, American Conservation will unquestionably become a vigorous and effective exponent of the conservation idea...
...In the farmers' calling, as I saw it followed, there was neither scope for expanding faculties, incitement to constant growth in knowledge, nor a spur to generous ambition...
...What had she done...
...In 1901 the Steel Trust was formed and fixed the price of steels rails at the arbitrary figure of $28 a ton...
...Why was she lying in that hospital, surrounded by sufferers like herself, and receiving the last ministrations of heavy-eyed attendants...
...She was helping to make the clothes we wear...
...Many young men of that generation heeded this famous admonition...
...Wherever we have factories, we have had these burnings of human beings...
...Especially the moving water (die fliessende wasser welle) is in accordance with its very nature not subject to private ownership...
...Why was she there...
...It does matter that we citizens have not, long ago, risen in our collective might and FORCED those who run our industries to provide for the safety of those who work...
...Is your state on this list...
...The first number is notable for the excellence of its articles and editorials and is attractively printed and illustrated...
...That same will be sold to the highest bidder...
...Naval Officer (Construction department)—"Oh, no...
...Greeley's father was a poor man...
...A New Champion ANEW CHAMPION of the conservation movement has entered the field...
...And the moral I would deduce from my experience is simply this: Our farmers' sons escape from their fathers' calling whenever they can, because it is made a mindless, monotonous drudgery, instead of an enabling, liberalizing, intellectual pursuit...
...In every large industrial city the past year has witnessed this final protest on the part of workers against intolerable conditions...
...To preserve existence was its ordinary impulse...
...there to make for us the things we need...
...whatever cannot be subject to possession, cannot be subject to ownership...
...It is not a new problem...
...They did grow up with the country...
...But if our offices are to be auctioned away, why not let the proceeds of the sale go to all the people...
...Why Greeley Left the Farm IT WAS HORACE GREELEY who said, "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country...
...Germany and Bavaria and other countries in Europe, for example, have wrestled with it...
...In 1898, after thirty-eight years of the inventions and economies stimulated by free competition, the price of steel rails had been reduced to $17 a ton...
...It is a monthly magazine, American Conservation, issued monthly by The National Conservation Association, Washington, D. C. The purpose of this new magazine is stated in an editorial from the pen of Gifford Pinchot as that of keeping "its readers well abreast of the conservation movement in the states and in the nation...
...With the loss of such actual power of disposal, the possession, and with it ownership, is lost...
...The words came with difficulty from pain-whitened lips...
...She was a working woman...
...MARGARET DRIER ROBINS, in the leading editorial of the March Life and Labor, says: "Strikes of unorganized workers fighting against Lunger bargains are the order of the day...
...Society is responsible...
...Why not...
...A Suggestion THE FOLLOWING SUGGESTION regarding the manner of choosing United States Senators comes to us from C. H. Thompson, Spring Valley, Minnesota: "As it appears to be the custom for seats in the United States Senate to be sold, bartered and traded for, would it not be a good idea in the future, whenever there is a vacancy in that august body, for the secretary of state of the state where such vacancy occurs to advertise, broadcast, that a seat in the Senate is now for sale...
...but such training as I received at home would never have brought it out...
...it matters not if officials were lacking in vigilance or law-makers in foresight...
...she gasped...
...And from Bavaria comes the following bit of reasoning, written by Otto Eyman: "Ownership of a thing consists in the exclusive legal control of that thing...
...In the case of flowing water this is obvious and is almost universally admitted...
...During the whole period, though an eager and omnivorous reader, I never saw a book that treated of agriculture and the natural sciences auxiliary thereto...
...Competition IN 1860 the price of steel rails was $93 a ton...
...We have been forewarned...
...He said: "Thus ended my boyish experience of farming, which may be said to have commenced in my sixth and closed with my fifteenth year...
...What have I done...
...The Income Tax Amendment ONE BY ONE the state legislatures are acting on the income tax amendment...
...That proceeds of such sale go to the support of indigent widows and orphans...
...Seats in the Senate appear to be for sale anyway and the people ought to have the proceeds of the sale as the service of those Senators who occupy purchased seats amounts to laws that rob the man who sweats and enriches further the already rich...
...It had previously been ratified by the House, in accordance with the pledges contained in both party platforms last summer...
...It is asked of us—each one of us...
...and I doubt that we ever harvested one bounteous crop...
...They did go West...
...For every particle of water unceasingly changes its location, and on account of this continued change the moving water (die fliessende welle) is in the nature of things not subject to private ownership.' * * * "Objects which are not firmly attached to the river bed or bank and which are only temporarily in the space subject to private ownership are not eo ipso owned by the owner of the river bed...
...Visitor (at Navy Yard)—"Why such extreme haste in the building of that dreadnaught...
...It will endeavor to secure the passage of good laws, and to stand in the way of bad laws, by making public the facts in each case...
...Because we have permitted Industry to herd the workers—women and children as well as men—into death traps...
...Death interrupted the narrative...
...Ownership of Water Power PUBLIC AND PRIVATE discussion—particularly in those states like Wisconsin that are working out a state policy for the control of water powers—is concerned just now with the ownership of that force that drives the turbines...
...What have I done...
...Kentucky refused to act...
...Answer that, friends, for it demands an answer...
...Doubtless if Greeley were here to-day to coin another slogan it would be something like this: "Get an education, young man, and stay in the country...
...It will discuss instances of the progress of the conservation principles and of theft or monopoly of the people's property, with equal frankness and sincerity...
...Puck...
...In this day of Short Courses and Experiment Stations and Farmers' Institutes, Greeley's remarks sound more like a prophecy than a bit of homely philosophy wrung from his own experience on the farm...
...She was one of those who have given meaning to the phrase we now hear so often—"the women's invasion of industry...
...yet it is not to be compared with the newspaper stories of the Washington Square fire...
...a farmer whose efforts to wrest a livelihood from impoverished soil only served to carry him still nearer the brink of destitution...
...I think I never saw even one copy of a periodical devoted mainly to farming...
...That he had this idea in mind, even before Free Land was no more, we gather from his "Recollections of a Busy life...
...Since, however, the power comprised in the water is inherent only in the substance of the water, and since especially the 'fall,' i. e., the driving power of the water is inherent only in the moving water, the inevitable conclusion is that, just as is the case with the moving water, the fall cannot be a component part of the ownership of the land, if this is not expressly provided by law...
...Should you need assurance on this point, read in the April McClure's the story of "The Newark Factory Fire," by Mary Alden Hopkins...
...On the other hand, that portion of the body of water which gives to such body of water its character and name, namely, the water, that is, the liquid mass resting on the bed and enclosed by the banks, is not subject to ownership...
...Could I have known in my youth what a business farming sometimes is, always may be, and yet generally shall be, I would never have sought nor chosen any other...
...It is not as if this New York horror were the only one of its kind...
...She had labored for her bread and the bread of those who depended upon her...
...These strikes, lasting through many months of winter, attended by suffering from cold, hunger, imprisonment, and endured with a courage and self-sacrifice rarely paralleled, have at last stirred the imagination of our people to a realizing sense that industrial conditions in many trades are dangerously wrong...
...until now there is no West—as Greeley knew it...
...instead of to a few "bath room boys...
Vol. 3 • April 1911 • No. 13
