Salutary -- Purpose of The Standard
Henry George
[Editorial in the first issue of The Standard,
8 January, 1887]
I begin the publication of this paper in response to many urgent
requests, and because I believe that there is a field for a journal
that shall serve as a focus for news and opinions relating to the
great movement now beginning, for the emancipation of labor by the
restoration of natural rights.
The generation that abolished chattel slavery is passing away, and
the political distinctions that grew out of that contest are now
meaningless. The work now before us is the abolition of industrial
slavery.
What God created for the use of all should be utilized for the
benefit of all; what is produced by the individual belongs rightfully
to the individual. The neglect of these simple principles has brought
upon us the curse of wide-spread poverty and all the evils that flow
from it. Their recognition will abolish poverty, will secure to the
humblest independence and leisure, and will lay a broad and strong
foundation on which all other reforms may be based. To secure the full
recognition of these principles is the most important task to which
any man can address himself today. It is in the hope of aiding in this
work that I establish this paper.
I believe that the Declaration of Independence is not a mere string
of glittering generalities. I believe that all men are really created
equal, and that the securing of those equal natural rights is the true
purpose and test of government. And against whatever law, custom or
device that restrains men in the exercise of their natural rights to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness I shall raise my voice.
Confident in the strength of truth, I shall give no quarter to abuses
and ask none from their champions. The political corruption that
shames our democracy, the false theories that assume that a nation's
prosperity lies in shutting itself in from free intercourse with other
nations, the stupid fiscal system that piles up hundreds of millions
of dollars in our treasury vaults while we are paying interest on an
enormous debt; the aping of foreign nations that insists upon standing
armies and navies modeled on aristocratic plans; the judicial system
that offers a mockery of justice on one side and condones evil-doing
on the other; the false philanthropy that gives a dole while it denies
a right; the lip-worship of a just God and the heart worship of the
Golden Calf -- all these are to my mind parts of one connected whole
whose foundations are in the denial of the equal rights of man to the
use of Nature's bounty; and in attacking and exposing them as
opportunity may offer, I shall render easier the exposure and
abolition of the great wrong from which they primarily spring.
I shall endeavor to conduct this paper by the same rules on which a
just man would regulate his conduct, I shall not wittingly give
currency to an untruth, and, if I inadvertently do so, will endeavor
to repair the wrong. I shall endeavor to be fair to opponents and true
to friends. I do not propose to make everything that shall appear here
square to my own theories, but will be willing to give place to views
which may differ from my own when they are so stated as to be worthy
of consideration. I hope to make this paper the worthy exponent and
advocate of the great party yet unnamed that is now beginning to form,
but at the same time to make its contents so varied and interesting as
to insure for it a general circulation.
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