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immortalized by the Industrial Palace at Guise, warmly espoused this idea in all its breadth, and said:

"When an individual dies, society has then the right to take to itself what he leaves, for it has been the chief aid of the deceased. Without its aid, without its institutions, he could never have been able to amass the riches of which he is at his death the holder. Society inherits wealth, then, to use for the same work of social progress already accomplished; that is to say to allow others, the surviving in general (not the privileged strangers to the creation of the existing riches), to continue their labor and co-operation in the common social work. The heredity of the State is then just, both in principle and in fact.”

The two measures which are necessary now are the Department of Productive Labor and the law of inheritance by the commonwealth, which limits the transmission of estates above a hundred thousand dollars, giving the commonwealth a share, rising from one to ninety-nine per cent. according to the magnitude of the estate- or some other form of taxation (if there be a better) producing equivalent results.

I do not propose these measures as THE REMEDY par excellence for our unhappy social condition. Not at all. They are merely the gigantic blows from the right arm of the commonwealth, by which the curses established in the dark and bloody past, crushing man and woman to the earth, shall be hurled into oblivion. The true, absolute, and complete REMEDY is that industrial, intellectual, hygienic, and ethical training of all, which I have published as the "New Education" which will make new men. These are bold and revolutionary measures, but the surgery of the knife is sometimes what humanity demands. The mad riot of rivalry

*

*Succession and income taxes are now beginning to be considered. Two very feeble propositions have been brought forward. The Massachusetts Legislative Committee, on probate, reported a bill well adapted to be worthless-to discourage benevolence and keep property in the family by imposing a tax of five per cent. on property left by will, except when going to relatives or connections. Congressman Hall, of Minnesota, introduced a bill in the last Congress for an income tax, a fourth of one per cent. on incomes between two and three thousand rising gradually to one per cent. on incomes over $10,000. This very small business is not what was demanded by "The Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union" in the Ocala convention, which demanded the abolition of national banks and " the passage of a graduated income tax law." These demands were reiterated by the last legislature of Missouri, in a resolution calling upon Congress to act upon them, and pledging the legislature to enforce the farmers' demand as far as in their power. North Carolina, too, has adopted the Alliance principles. The income tax will probably be a growing one-one per cent. will not be its maximum. The British income tax under Mr. Gladstone in 1885 was three and a third per cent. But this is mere child's play, being about equivalent to a property tax of one seventh of one per cent. When seriously considered, the question will be between five, ten, twenty, and thirty per cent.

and selfishness must be restrained before it brings the republic to ruin. The power of land monopoly must be broken by a land tax, and the post-mortem despotism which perpetuates accumulated evils must be thrown off by just and practicable legislation.

We must act upon the undisguised truth that individual humanity is not yet properly educated, and not yet qualified to exercise its trusteeship of wealth, for the hard struggles against the oppressive power of poverty, sickness, robbery, fraud, and sudden calamity have made the self-protective faculties predominant, and the sharp rivalry and competition of business has so increased their predominance that the thought of public welfare is never paramount, and is but an occasional glimmer, and the death-bed surrender of wealth, if it considers the welfare of society at all, considers it so blindly that a large proportion of the benevolent endowments are of little real value.

It is, therefore, necessary that the outcry of suffering and the warning of danger should rouse the public conscience to nobler principles, and that society in its maximum wisdom, which embraces a few earnest philanthropists, many capable financiers and economists, very many tender-hearted women who will not consent to suffering, and who are destined to participate in government, as well as a great many who are personally conscious of wrongs that need rectifying, should assume the administration of the SUPERFLUOUS WEALTH abnormally accumulated.

The change proposed is so great that its realization may be far off, and the evolution of law may be rivalled by the evolution of evasive ingenuity, so that the commonwealth may be compelled to prohibit evasive ante-mortem donations, and to reinforce the succession tax by more stringent measures, from which there can be no escape, and which will control plutocracy as effectively as any succession tax, and thus render the latter of less importance; but it is none the less important that the principle should be asserted, that the dead shall not rule the living.

There are two obvious measures, and one of them is sure to be adopted soon, without waiting for the abolition of unlimited inheritance. The income tax is made almost necessary by the last Congress, which emptied the treasury, and the income tax, if made accumulative, increasing its rates with

the increase of income, will be as effective a control over plutocracy as the people wish to make it. The increasing rate of taxation upon superfluous wealth, is a sacred principle for which every reformer should contend.

But even this is not fortified against evasion, and we need the most efficient tax of all the progressively accumulating tax on wealth, which will gather a large rental from all the superfluous millions, compelling the holders to use them profitably. A three per cent. tax on all over ten millions would not only enrich the commonwealth, but stimulate industry in millionnaires. How long will the millionnaires be able to defeat such legislation?

These are the coming taxes. They are not untried theories, for Switzerland, the foremost nation in democracy, enjoys both the income tax and the progressively accumulating tax, which falls most heavily on the largest properties.

It is to be hoped that political corruption and intrigue will not delay many years this assertion of the sovereignty of the commonwealth by taxation, which will give the republic a solid foundation, and that the power of the commonwealth thus enlarged will, through the Department of Productive Labor, and by educational progress, give us a true and a happy republic. These suggestions are not farther in advance of public opinion to-day, than was the nationalization of the land, when I urged it in 1847. They will find fit champions in a few years.

To what extent the Department of Productive Labor should be fostered by every State, and to what extent it may be authorized by the federal constitution, we need not yet consider, for it is apparent that the due administration of the national domain and development of the arid region by irrigation, will furnish ample employment, if we adopt as a sacred principle, the demand of justice, that not another acre of the national domain shall ever be sold. Let us give settlers the easiest possible terms, but never surrender to monopoly the land of the commonwealth.

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SOME months ago an article with the above heading appeared in THE ARENA. It was written by Rev. C. H. Kidder, and was intended as a reply to one written by myself, on the eternal punishment.

It appears that a friend of Mr. Kidder, a physician "of great ability," on reading my article was caused great disquietude. He felt that if all the statements contained in the article were accurate, his religious instructors had been either knaves or fools - knaves, if they taught what they did not believe, and fools, if they believed what they taught," p. 101. I have only to say that the statements of my article are, in all important respects, accurate, explain the rest as he may; nor has Mr. Kidder shown that they are not accurate, except in one particular, not affecting the main question. This will be noticed in the proper place.

It is often true that men "of great ability" are men of hasty judgment, especially when they are "much disquieted"; and the doctor is certainly mistaken in supposing that his instructors were either knaves or fools. The men who teach eternal punishment are in the main honest, and of fair intelligence. The doctrine came into the church in a dark age; and for centuries it was dangerous to believe or teach anything else. When the human mind was set free, and it was no longer dangerous to teach what one believed, the doctrine had become so firmly established by a false system of interpretation, that it was a long time before much impression could be made toward its removal. But the Gospel leaven has been working in all these ages since the reformation to the present century; so that now there is little faith of that kind in the Orthodox church and none out of it.

I have not intended to admit that all the teachers of eternal punishment in the church have been honest. Some have been dishonest, in order, as they claimed, to do the more good. There was a class of ministers in the ancient church who

had two sets of opinions, one set for the congregation, and another for the private circle. Dr. Edward Beecher mentions several venerable men, who preached eternal misery, but who had not a particle of faith in the doctrine, as he believes. They are Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzus, Athanasius, and Basil the Great. See Historical Retribution, p. 273. These were great men; but a greater than these had taught that it is right to lie for the good of mankind, namely, Plato. Who will say there have been no others since that day? For the honor of humanity, I trust not many.

I would say here that all Mr. Kidder has advanced, may be admitted, without the least detriment to the main purpose of my article. The greater part of his paper is devoted to incidental topics that are not essential to the main subject, and what he says on the main point utterly fails to invalidate my argument, as the reader will clearly perceive before I get through.

So far as our version favors eternal punishment, the fact is due chiefly to a wrong translation; and it is difficult to suppress the conviction that the translators, in much of their work of this kind, were perfectly conscious of the wrong they were doing. The word hell in every place where it is found (with one or two exceptions, where the heathen hell is referred to) is the rendering of a word that has no such meaning. The word everlasting combines a wrong rendering and a wrong exegesis. These are the main points. They are the Jachin and Boaz of the orthodox temple. But the translators have sought to favor their doctrines in other ways; sometimes by supplying words not found in the text, and sometimes by rejecting words that are there.

My article was devoted chiefly to these last, particularly a wrong use of the Greek article, and the rejection of an important word, when it conflicted with their views, though they often employ it at other times.

I say with the fullest confidence that the doctrine of eternal punishment is not in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. It came into the church chiefly with converts who had believed it before their conversion, and continued to believe it by a misconstruction of the Scriptures.

THE SON OF GOD.

By not paying particular attention to what I said, my critic has misrepresented me in an important particular; and

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