NEW ABOLITION AND ITS NINE DEMANDS.
[Liberty, January 25, 1890.]
The New Abolition Party, nominally of the United States, but really limited at present (pending the time when it is to "sweep the country like a wave") by the walls of the Individualist office at Denver, started out with eight demands; and, taken as a whole, very good demands they were. Lately it has added a ninth; just why, I don't know, unless New Abolition was jealous of Liberalism and bound to have as many demands. This explanation seems hardly reasonable, because in the case of Liberalism nine does not seem to have proved a magic number for demand purposes. However this may be, it is certain that the ninth demand is a square contradiction of some of the most important of its eight other demands, notably the fifth and seventh. The ninth demand is for "collective maintenance and control of all public highways, waterways, railways, canals, ditches, reservoirs, telegraphs, telephones, ferries, bridges, water works, gas works, parks, electric plants, etc., to be operated in the interest of the people." The seventh demand is for "immediate and unconditional repeal of all forms of compulsory taxation." The fifth demand is for "immediate and unconditional repeal of all statutes that in any way interfere with free trade between individuals of the same or of different countries." Suppose that Mr. Stuart (the father of New Abolition) and I live on the same side of a river. I have a boat; Mr. Stuart has none. Mr. Stuart comes to me and says: "How much will you charge to row me across the river?" "Ten cents," I answer. "It is a bargain," says Mr. Stuart, and he steps into the boat. But up steps at the same time the New Abolition party in the shape of a policeman (and it will have to take that shape, because in these matters a demand without a blue coat on its back and a club in its hand is an ineffective demand) and says to me: "See here! stop that! Don't you know that the New Abolition party, which at the last election 'swept the country like a wave,' inundated your row-boat with the rest by instituting the 'collective maintenance and control of all ferries'? If you attempt to row Mr. Stuart across the river, I shall confiscate your boat in the name of the law." And then, addressing Mr. Stuart, the policeman adds: "So you may as well get out of that boat and take the ferry-boat which the New Abolitionists have
