Progressive Friends vs Wealth Inequality: Many Good Questions, Few Good Answers . . . .

Thomas Garrett -- I haven't a dollar

In 1856, the Pennsylvania Progressive Friends heard a report from a committee “appointed to consider whether any, and if any, what Limitations ought to be put to the Accumulation of Property in the hands of individuals, as well as corporations, and to suggest laws and other expedients, by which the enormous inequalities among the children of men may be gradually lessened, and hereafter prevented.”

Great subject, timely then, timely now. Alas, the committee reported “that they have found themselves to be not agreed upon the subject, and, moreover, that they deem it one too intricate, as well as too important, to be hastily disposed of.”

Instead, they had agreed on a list of queries, or “interrogatories,” offered for “the consideration of Progressive Friends during the ensuing year, in order that they may be prepared, at the next Yearly Meeting, to discuss, and adopt or reject, as they may see fit, a Report which your Committee may then be able to present.”

Progressive Friends: A Continuing Series

Personally, I think most of these questions are as urgent in 2014 as they were in 1856. However, the Progressives committee was evidently NOT able to come together on proposals for the Progressives to consider, because it then disappears from the group’s minutes.

So let us hear these questions, and consider if today we have any more substantive answers to them than the 1850s Progressive Friends were able to come up with. Here are the queries:

lst. All the children of men being endowed by their Creator with a right to life, have they not, therefore, a right to a fair share of the common inheritance—the material elements, upon which the maintenance of life depends? Have they not an inalienable right to a fair share of the earth’s surface, not less than of water, air, light, heat?

2d. Are not the sunlight, air, water and soil, with the materials in and upon them, and all spontaneous growths, the bountiful gifts of the Creator, to which all men have equal rights? Can they, then, be legitimately the subjects of property? Can capital be justly predicated upon them?

3d. Is not legitimate property something produced by the labor, or invention, of man, operating upon material elements, or in the regions of thought? And are not such productions the only just basis of capital?

4th. The chief end of man is not the accumulation of wealth. Ought, then, the chief end of government to be (as it has been declared by an eminent statesman to be) the protection of property? Ought it not rather to be the improvement of the conditions and characters of all men?

5th. Should not our laws encourage agriculture more than foreign commerce; because, in the first place, the cultivation of the common heritage, and the gathering of its productions, secures to those who labor for these results a more general enjoyment of the comforts of life; and because, in the second place, foreign commerce cannot be carried on, and great cities be built up to sustain it, without deteriorating the large classes of men, women, and children, on whom the hardships of navigation, and the hand-labor in our cities, devolve?

6th. Is not the Tariff policy, and every expedient that embarrasses needful commerce with foreign nations,—is it not a policy that only a patriot, and not a philanthropist, would commend?

7th. Cannot, and should not, some changes he made in the laws of inheritance, and of the transmission of property, so that the whole of the succeeding generation may be benefited, and wealth not be accumulated in the hands of a few, where it is comparatively useless, if not pernicious, both to the possessors and the community?

8th. Ought not a stringent law to be passed, by which corporations, that have caused any work to be done, shall be holden to pay those who have done the work, if their agents—the contractors, or sub-contractors—fail to pay them?

9th. Laws are now enacted in order to limit the usury of money. Should not laws also be enacted to regulate the rents of houses and lands?

10th. Ought not all lands and buildings used for demoralizing purposes, brothels, dram shops, gambling places, bull baitings, cock fights, horse races, etc., to be forfeited to the community, which they are doing so much to damage, and converted to purposes of education and public enlightenment?

11th. Ought not the necessary expenditures of government to be provided for by direct taxation, so that the people may realize what it costs them to be governed, and know why, and for what, so much is expended?

12th. Should not taxes be levied upon a rising scale, so that the millionnaire shall pay more for the support of government than a million of men who have not a dollar that they can spare without real discomfort to themselves and families?

13th. Should not the exact amount of properties, owned by corporations or individuals, be faithfully registered, and ought not every kind of property that is withheld, or intentionally undervalued, to be wholly forfeited?

14th. Should not society provide for all its members a thorough education and good business opportunities, so that the children of the poor, as well as the rich, shall be placed on something like an equality in the start of life?

A footnote: Thomas Garrett of Wilmington, Delaware, a legendary “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, was also a mainstay of the Progressive Friends, and in particular of the committee which drafted these queries.

Besides being an expert in helping free slaves (he aided at least 2700 to escape), he knew something about capital: starting with little, he built a very successful iron and hardware business; but in 1848 he was hauled into court in 1848 by slaveowners for helping their captives escape.

The court imposed fines which left him penniless. Yet Garrett was undaunted by the court action; and such was his reputation for integrity and industry that he was able to rebuild his business afterward, and he still kept up his antislavery work until the practice was abolished.

For more on Progressive Friends, see my book, Angels of Progress.

Angels of Progress -cover

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