Success for the Single Tax Party

Louis F. Post

[An Open Letter, Reprinted from The Standard, 3 December,1887]

Dr. A. S. Houghton, Cincinnati, O.-

Dear Sir: You ask my views of the future policy of our party. I have hardly had time to consider the subject, but will give you the opinion that seems to force itself upon me.

What we must be most careful to avoid is the danger that now threatens us of becoming a mere pantomime party. In the canvass just closed we were a political factor, owing to the great vote we had cast a year before; but in the next campaign, owing to the comparatively small vote we cast this fall, unless we avoid the political routine adopted by the prohibitionists, we shall cut the same ridiculous figure that they do.

It is plain to most of us now -- it was plain to many of us long ago -- that the running of a full county ticket this fall was bad policy; and yet against the confidence born of past success it would have been a waste of energy to urge the adoption of any other course. If our "defeat" has done no more than to admonish us that, though we be as harmless as doves, we must in fighting the powerful forces that are arrayed against us be as wise as serpents, it is enough to be thankful for.

Were our contest one of arms, it would be foolish not to wage it according to the most effective strategic methods known to the art of war ; it is no less foolish, the contest being political, not to avail ourselves of the strategy of politics. I do not mean by this that we should buy votes; buying votes is crime, not strategy.

Voters will sometimes "stand up to be counted," but they will not do it over and over again any more than soldiers will stand up over and over again to be shot down. Panic is just as certain to demoralize the voter as the soldier.

It is well known to every one of experience or observation that a party which can neither win itself nor disarrange the calculations of the other parties cannot command anything like its own strength, and tends constantly to contribute less and less to the serious, and more and more to the humorous side of the campaign. This fact should convince us that our party ought not to make a presidential fight next year. With the prestige of 68,000 votes in New York city we might have made things very uncomfortable for at least one of the old parties; but we have lost the prestige of that vote, and in a contest for the presidency, which will be a bear baiting show, public attention will be so concentrated upon the antics of the republican dogs and the democratic bear that we should be in danger of making a sorry appearance. Of our normal vote we could retain only men who are willing to stand up and be counted, and even these -- except the very true and very tried -- might be panic stricken and abandon us.

But what makes a presidential fight impolitic makes a congressional fight the very thing to be desired.

If the party will perfect a national organization, and by general consent make nominations for congress, and for nothing else, all over the country, we shall not only be an important factor in national politics, but we may put enough men into congress to make an effective third party caucus there. Having but one candidate to work and vote for, and caring nothing about the bear baiting -- whether the republican dogs tore the democratic bear or the democratic bear squeezed the republican dogs -- our party would be in a position to seriously disturb the political situation, especially in the pivotal city of the pivotal state. A party representing the principles of government for which we are struggling and entering into a presidential campaign with such a policy might be sneered at or "swore at," but it wouldn't be laughed at.

The contest would be all the more exciting and profitable if our candidates for congress were absolute free traders, and the issue of protection or free trade were boldly raised.

The congressional candidates of the old parties would, in every reasonably close district, have to take sides on that question; and as some of them would be democratic protectionists and others republican free traders or tariff reformers, the alternative would be very delicate and embarrassing, not to say complex. That would benefit us, for it would be an object lesson of a lack of a distinguishing issue between the old parties. And if the republicans nominated protectionists and the democrats nominated tariff reformers, that too, would benefit us, because discussion of tariff reform would compel the discussion of absolute free trade, and the two parties would be forced into a position involving the loss to the republicans of their free trade voters and to the democrats of their protectionist voters. Indeed, whatever the old parties did in respect to their congressional candidates, we should profit by it, for in any case that large number of voters who are with us to the extent of substituting a land value tax for the tariff would support our nominees.

This policy would raise an issue that would divide the people on a question of national interest and pressing importance, in the discussion of which the fundamental moral truth that the land belongs to the people could not be ignored. It is, therefore, more than a mere party expedient. And it is more than a party expedient for another reason. It is the legislative, not the executive, branch of government through which we are to accomplish our reforms. The election of a mayor or a president, or the casting of a large vote by our party for such an office, can serve our ends in no other way than by its moral influence in making men consider our principles. A large aggregate vote for congressmen will exert influence, and if here and there we elect a congressman, we shall have made a further advance toward putting our theories in practice than if we actually elected a president.

I have written my views in candor, with the present conviction that both party expediency and intelligent loyalty to our principles demand their acceptance. I may be wrong, and, upon realizing that I am, shall have no hesitation in acknowledging it. I shall therefore be glad to consider any other propositions. It is by some such comparisons of opinions as to the policy of the party that we are to determine upon a course which will make of us a disciplined and advancing army and remove the danger of our becoming a disorganized and retreating mob, and I hope that a general expression of opinion upon the subject will be made.