A Change in Management
or a Vote of Confidence,
the Workers and Contributors to Decide

James H. Griffes

[Reprinted from Everyman, December 1918]

Shall I resign, cease publication of The Great Adventure Weekly and Everyman, leave the single tax struggle in this state to others?

This is asked after much deliberation, and because the complete returns of the vote just cast for single tax in California show a decided falling off, a decline from 31.6 per cent in 1916 to 25 per cent in 1918.

We have ready explanations for this: the great war conservatism shown in the vote on every state and national issue; that our young and progressive voting element was out of the state on war work, or if in the state was unable to vote by reason of removal from their registration precincts; the general psychology of actual fear or at least timidity induced by the war and by the influenza scare which was at its height on election day, etc., etc.

It seems that nothing of a radical nature stood the ghost of a show of winning anywhere in the United States at this election. Democracy had a slump everywhere. The National Security League (of Wall Street influences) seems to be in the saddle.

But, these are "reasons." The fact is that under the so-called "leadership" of myself and The Great Adventure Weekly, the single tax vote depreciated six per cent - that under the guidance of the campaign committee of which I was the chairman, the single tax vote of two years ago did not even hold its own ratio.

The three "single tax" enemies of the bill inside California, and one or two outside, gave as one of their reasons for opposition, their disapproval of me personally - and personally, "I should worry" for that.

I was denounced by them as too radical, as Bolshevik, as "a poor business man," an autocrat, and even charged with moral delinquencies. That's all in the day's work, of course. I had my pay - the rich love and faith of thousands, attested daily in the stream of letters; the confidence of a splendid band of zealous co-workers inside the headquarters and all over the state, men and women of intelligence and heart, clean of habit and thought, of unseeking devotion to their ideal of a free humanity, with whom it was a delight and a privilege to work shoulder-to-shoulder - pay enough - the pay I was looking for.

We worked hard, tho joyfully. We had more time for the campaign and worked with more experience and facility. The war, of course, reduced our number of field workers, and the epidemic prevented any sort of public gatherings during the last four weeks. Nevertheless, the campaign raged intensely, if quietly. We succeeded in running up the paid subscription list of The Great Adventure Weekly to nearly half a million copies (sent to voters) for the issue containing Gerrit Johnson's "Do We Need a New Idea of God?" and the Kern County map issue reached 150,000 circulation. Also we had more newspaper publicity of a fair and friendly kind than ever before, and the newspapers took our money for advertising with avidity, where in 1916 they had refused it. We spent more money and spent it (as we thought) more wisely.

We lacked the devoted work and the clear-sighted guiding counsel of Herman Kuehn (deceased March 5, 1918) which was so great a factor in the 1916 campaign when we startled the world and scared land monopoly with our 260,332 votes for a straight single tax bill. But Herman would be the first to concede that his financial desk and his typewriter were capably and completely filled by the long hours of daily toil put in without a thought of compensation, and even as an addition to their generous money contributions, by T. A. Robinson and Lena Ingham Robinson. We had the daily counsel, the frequently opened check book, and the pen that writes always with compassion for the under dog, of a successful business man - Gerrit J. Johnson.

We had the two debates in the public press, one daily and one monthly. J. R. Hermann had the time of. his life, luckily just before the influenza ban came, in putting Leslie M. Shaw to the blush in a debate at Long Beach.

All in all, we felt it was a big campaign, that we were doing a prodigious amount of telling work that would show results - and it didn't.

The vote is less in proportion than two years ago. Therefore this question, most sincerely put: Shall I resign, cease the publications, leave the single tax struggle in this state to others?

There seems to be no question that the fight should go on. Since election every letter has said "Go on!" and every one I have spoken with is for going on!

W. L. Ross, chairman of The Great Adventure Contributors' League with headquarters in Philadelphia, was in California during the close of the campaign and did not leave until the 20th. He was convinced that this state is still the world's best chance for inaugurating the single tax. We discussed plans far the new campaign.

The other day the Anti Single Tax League announced in big display heading in the Los Angeles Times that single tax had been so deeply snowed under it would not be heard from again for years in this state - so little they know the mettle of people who work for ideals instead of profits!

No; there seems to be no question among the singletaxers of this state or elsewhere, but that the battle against land privilege should be continued here, vigorously and without loss of time. Indeed, the new campaign began the morning after election.

Nor does there appear to be a difference of opinion as to the nature of the campaign. It is to be for the full straight single tax principle of abolishing all taxes but the one tax on land values. No one has suggested anything less.

The feeling is that we should not lower the ideal to catch enough votes to pass an innocuous measure, but that we should go out and get the votes for a true measure; that we should spend ourselves for a measure which finally won, as finally it must be, will be worth the work it cost.

To Be Answered Impersonally

But the question of my continued service in my present capacity as publisher of the voices of the single tax movement here, and as chairman of the state single tax activities, is another matter - at this moment an undecided one.

I have no desire to quit, for the reason that there is no other field open to me so big, no game I can enter in which the stakes are so high - or so hard to win. Men who reach for the stars awhile become spiritually disqualified for seriously playing marbles or rushing about here and there to get money to put in the bank or buy gew gaws.

Being neither mentally nor physically incapable of holding my own out in the world, however, should it be thought advisable for me to retire from this particular star-reaching contest, I will find compensations. I have other interests mentally and materially - my mental life has only fairly begun. I will not mourn at departing - and whether I would or not should have no weight in determining this question:

Would it be better for the single tax movement in this state if I ceased to be identified with it? Not whether it would be better for Tax Reform, but for Single Tax.

I know my own answer and that of a number of others closely associated in the work, but I am prejudiced and the others may not have perspective enough to view the issue dispassionately.

The question is not put with the slightest consideration for the foolish jealous personal attacks of the enemies of our single tax proposal; nevertheless it does not originate with me, and having been asked thus publicly, it must be answered, one way or another. Silence will be a vote against me.

It should be answered now and definitely for this campaign - and then every hour and energy of the next two years be spent in teaching the voters of this state the big central truths about single tax, i.e., that it means to change the land system, abolish all taxes on everything, put ground rent into the public treasury, open the natural resources - end the cause of war and poverty, and forestall in this country the world-encircling class war of violence and bloodshed.

More than half the time and energy of the last two years were exhausted in struggling against the intrigues of those who wanted to order a single (one) tax retreat in California and pledge the movement to a (multiple) "single" tax proposal. It was led by a few designing politicians and job hunters, but so plausibly managed, with "harmony" and "line of least resistance" palaver that it gained considerable headway and wantonly squandered force enough to have informed half the voters of the state about the purpose and meaning of so unfortunate a term as "single tax."

My personal unfitness for the unsought but "accidentally" imposed job of "leadership" was of course the peg on which the crawfishers hung much of their argument against moving straight forward on the enemy. My unworth was pretty well advertised - much better in certain quarters than the truth about single tax or the unworth of land monopoly.

I was not looking for a thornless bed of roses when, quite "accidentally," almost automatically, The Great Adventure was tentatively outlined in these pages nearly five years ago. Nor am I now complaining at the thorns - the roses were worth the scratches. My pain is - such pain that I cannot write calmly - the wasted hours, days, months! that might have gone in campaigning. The best energies of The Great Adventure have been spent in maintaining its existence and the integrity of its one tax demand against the assaults, open and secret, of "singletaxers"! - instead of against land monopoly!

I will not be a party to any such continued nonsense. Let the matter be settled now, and definitely for the two-years' term of this campaign - then on with the inarch against land monopoly, a good two-years' march; with or without me.

Who shall decide? Those whose names appear in the following columns - the workers and contributors inside and outside the state who made the battle possible. Every one of them who reads these lines should answers-vote Yes or No on the issue -

Shall I retire?

Just a postal card with your name and "Stay" or "Go," or "Yes" or "No" on it will be sufficient - but I beg of you don't neglect so simple a thing.

On With the New Campaign

Frankly, it is a vote of confidence I am after, and failing to receive it, I will retire, for without it my usefulness to the cause in this state will cease.

It is an impersonal question - it would be criminal folly to decide it upon other grounds. World interests may be at stake. The social trend, at least in America, would be very largely influenced by single tax success in California. Its winning in 1916 would have changed the whole aspect of the war period. Its success this year would have injected another, and perhaps the most powerful, factor into the fluxing social tides of reconstruction. Its failure (to our limited vision) was another of the huge human tragedies now being enacted before our eyes.

However, the California vote was in no sense a measure of the virility of single tax here. It was practically a "no vote" - a war vote. Only as a war issue could it claim any degree of public attention - and the war was over on election day. But let yesterday bury itself. Now to press on! - with or without my individual service?

Some other person may be able to direct the single tax fight here better than I have or may be expected to do in the next two years. My presence may hamper rather than facilitate the movement here - and you who are the movement and supply the means whereby it moves, should decide that question, with no sentimental consideration. Fitness is the only issue.

It is sometimes the case that the greatest service one can do for a cause is to retire from it. That may be the case now. What do you think - you whose work and money made the campaign?

That the activities should be self-directing and "democratically" propelled is the camouflage of those with "irons in the fire," mainly of the tax reformers with whom I have no interest, and of those who want a "single tax" bill with the franchise fraud left in, of those who care more for "harmony" than of enacting a straight revolutionary measure - or, if that is too harsh or too sweeping, then is not every democratic requirement honestly met in this request for a vote of confidence, which failing to receive I will retire?

The organization of The Great Adventure in California has been spontaneous rather than slated. A few who could, gave all their time and interest to the headquarters work, helped by the counsel and activities of as many volunteers all over the state as could be enlisted, about 600 in all.

Active centers at San Francisco, Eureka, Santa Rosa, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, Stockton, Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield, Atascadero, San Diego, etc., - 500 miles or more apart, most of them - have been financed, as much as possible, by the Los Angeles headquarters, at which all donations are received and from which the literature emanates.

At all the centers the greatest autonomy prevails, the activities waging according to the best light of the local workers who, however, constantly seek advice and frequently financial assistance, from the headquarters. You might think we are long on the first, if short on the second, but the truth is that being perpetually short secondarily our advice is limited to the available amount of clerical work; many letters go unanswered.

Not for Local Decision Only

At headquarters every Friday evening that a quorum can be obtained, the campaign committee gathers, and daily the finance committee meets - when its members can, which is not every day by a good many. Only a few can give all their attention to the work, and these few, with myself as chairman, now ask you who made this last campaign - all the workers and contributors - to decide whether we shall remain or retire.

Some one leads in everything that is accomplished. If he is not a fool or a madman he will earnestly seek all the Disinterested counsel he can get - and then decide as he must, for he is no more "free" than any other individual; he can only follow his strongest impulse. But -

One wolf scents prey quicker, one hare can run faster; one person excels in mathematics, another in chess, in painting, bricklaying, poetry, or sewer digging; everyone excels at something peculiar to his inner and outer makeup - and none makes himself.

Either the "accidents" of my life fit me for this job - or they don't. I have my own belief in myself, which it would be sheerest pretense at this time to hide, and rotten bad taste at any other time to flaunt -but without the overwhelming coincidence in that belief of the workers and contributors it amounts to nothing practicable - without Your continued confidence and support my effort and that of the little group at headquarters, will be ineffective.

It is not a matter entirely of local decision, because the fund by which alone it is possible to prosecute a single tax campaign of any considerable proportion comes largely from outside the state, from almost every part of the world - yet should the California vote show even a strong plurality against me, that would be good evidence to me that the cause would fare better for my absence.

Two Years' Work at Home

Of course the fund this year, as in 1916, was wholly inadequate to cope with the hundreds of thousands of dollars of the land monopolists. They could hardly have spent less than half a million as against our $28,000, which included the very heavy cost this year of canvassing for the initiative petition.

If I retire, will a larger fund come for a straight single tax campaign? Will more workers come forward and devote themselves to the cause?

Almost any amount can be had for a "tax reform" bill. Rudolph Spreckles, right at home here, will contribute handsomely for that; so will a number of the "interests," including those labor leaders who live in fifteen-thousand-dollar houses and have nice safe bank balances. No, they will not contribute, but they will see that their unions do - provided the bill doesn't mean anything.

Or will another group of contributors - the few rich ones who stayed out of this campaign because of my personality - as they said - will these guarantee a fund of respectable dimensions to inform all the people about the advantages of a straight, pure single tax amendment in this state, if I retire?

Of course I will not retire and leave the field to the inch-by-inchers, and the politicians - that would be desertion. I am not a quitter.

But I have still a great, unbroken faith that single tax can be carried in California. All that is needed is an adequate campaign fund, one sufficient to keep the truth about single tax in front of every voter, and to answer effectively the falsehoods and misrepresentations of the enemy - plus, or first of all, intensive personal and precinct work within.

The state should be intensively organized, from the bottom up - not from the top down. There are over 6000 precincts. It should be the effort - and will be if I remain in my present capacity - to locate, and keep in constant touch with, at least one man or woman in every precinct who will take some degree of active interest in the campaign, gain at least one new subscriber to The Great Adventure every week, hand out so many copies of "Single Tax, What It Is and Why We Urge It," etc., hold so many neighborhood meetings in a given time, arrange for larger meetings - the details to vary with each locality.

There must be an army of workers for single tax. Each should be armed with printed matter completely refuting every falsehood uttered by the Antis against the single tax amendment, and the army should be mobilized now. Not a day should be lost.

Missionaries for the New Faith

There is a prodigious task to be done, and only work will do it. Just money flowing to and from a central point will not gain human freedom - and that's the single tax struggle, for Freedom! We seem to lose sight of it at times and care only to carry an election, which is well enough in the closing days of a campaign, but single tax is not politics and will not be won with the organization and tactics of political parties. It is a great "new faith" to be spread by zealous "missionaries." It is both less and more than socialism, seeking only the economic Base of freedom, but seeking that Now, by definite, specific enactment.

Single tax is not an evolutionary drift, but the Bed Rock of Freedom now obscured from popular vision by - chiefly the Daily Press.

Well informed people have no respect for the press, but its hypnotizing power of iteration and of ceaselessly presenting but one side of a public issue is the all but impregnable bulwark of conservatism. It must be broken or freedom will not be attained by peaceful means; until it is at least pierced the ballot will remain an ineffective tool for the institution of fundamental economic justice.

Prohibition, equal suffrage, are not analogous to the single tax. They make no attack on the system; human exploitation can continue under them; they don't threaten Wall street. Single tax does.

If the little weekly (The Great Adventure) which can be printed and mailed at a very small cost, could attain a paid subscription list of half to three-quarters, of a million a week and hold it for six months prior to election, the power of the daily press would be broken and we would have a thread of close communion, a solid base for a speaking campaign, that would, I believe, be invincible-and the whole expense would be less than $100,000 - about half of which could be obtained in small amounts from the subscribers at home.

The work of getting this huge subscription list should be commenced at once. Paid agents should be out now gaining the actual subscriptions - and there is a deficit of $1800!

I am not afraid of the deficit. We shouldered one double the size at the conclusion of the 1916 campaign. Back of this one is a considerable "plant," much more experience, a definite plan of proceeding, and a little bunch of workers who get their best fun in life by working and giving for their ideal of a free people on a free earth.

But an abler "business man" than myself (that "poor business man" stunt was the only refuge of a few pussyfooters too decent to excuse their timidity by accusing me of more heinous crimes) - an abler "business man" maybe would find less difficulty in procuring an adequate campaign fund, and spend it more wisely than the two previous funds were spent.

Perhaps that reads ironical or something, but I mean it seriously. Someone else might well do better. If you think so, kindly say so frankly. I will be guided by your verdict.

Don't shirk this "duty" or procrastinate. It will be most unfair to me to leave me in doubt. I don't want to desert and I don't want to stay unless You feel that I am needed.

Silence will only mean doubt, and doubt will throw the decision to those with private "irons in the fire" - of which there are only a very few, but they are very active. If You do not care enough to say Yes or No, then why should I stay?

It will not be a secret vote, and no tellers and checkers will count it "impartially" - none of that transparent camouflage; there are no offices and emoluments at stake - nothing but a guide to my action. If it is a favorable vote, I will not flaunt it or make any personal capital of it. If adverse, I shall leave without tears; I do not carry the past with me very long. I shall soon be engrossed otherwise.

Life is not so personal to me. The little satisfactions, schemings, and emotions disassociated from the common welfare are mostly delusions, or appear so to me. I should think they must be so to any one over fifty, who has really lived his years.

Only those whose names appear on the following list, or anyone whose name may have been omitted thru clerical error (I hope there is none) are invited to vote. The opinion of others is not sought and will not weigh in my determination.

Your letters or postcards will be tabulated and the originals kept on file at the headquarters for any and all Friends to see upon request, but no other use will be made of them.

If Your Heart Is in This, Vote!

There are a little less than three thousand names on this list. There should be a hundred thousand, for there are easily that number of men and women who would help to put single tax into practise.

No where is so likely as California. Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and some of the Central and South American states show equal or greater areas of land monopoly, but here is the modern historic battleground; here where Henry George suffered, thought, and wrote the world-enlightening book, Progress and Poverty - here on this Golden Coast where the whole scheme of Christendom's civilization was so vividly unfolded within a single decade, is the most likely place for single tax to be first enacted.

It must be enacted and exemplified in some state before sufficient public interest can be aroused to force congressional action. Today it is only an academic theory, a subject for lectures and essays. We the people must make it a living reality, prove it in the world's eyes as the natural, beautiful, practicable thing we know it to be - or it will be cheated of its rightful part in the world-drama of reconstruction, and war continue the way of the world.

Friends, in conclusion, don't ignore this personal request, or put off answering it - this appeal, for guidance in a difficult situation. Send me at least a postal card with "Yes" or "No" on it. A letter will be more welcome, of course, but if you are hurried, send the card. Do not do less. Whatever your verdict is, I will abide by it in all good faith, and thank you heartily for so frankly expressing it.

Most sincerely yours,