The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10 — John Shaqi
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
General
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
In your editorial on the "Henry George Hoodoo," which appears in
the August number of the ICONOCLAST, the following passage
occurs: "It seems to me that I have treated the Single Taxers as
fairly as they could ask, and if I now proceed to state a few
plain truths about them and their faith they will have no just
cause to complain." From the tone and tenor of these words it is
fair to assume that in the editorial referred to you have
discharged against the Single Taxers and their faith the heaviest
broadsides of which your ordnance is capable. If, notwithstanding
all the time you have wasted "crucifying the economic mooncalf"
which has played such sad havoc with the wits of Single Taxers,
it should turn out that the monstrous concept, far from being
crucified, annihilated, or even "dying of its own accord," only
gathers strength, energy, and renewed activity from the healthful
exercise with which you provide it, must it not seem the part of
prudence for you, even if occasion of regret for us, that you
should abandon the war and leave the calf to his fate? Your
belated and apparently desperate resolve to "tell some plain
truths" about us, Single Taxers, justifies the inquiry, what were
you telling before? The fact that it seems to yourself that you
have treated Single Taxers fairly is not absolutely irrefragible
proof that they have been so treated at least it has not brought
conviction of the fact to them. That the offer of your space to
Mr. George was courteously declined affords no just ground for
refusing it to those "whose matin hymn and vesper prayer reads,
there is no God but George," etc. I'll warrant you that if you
and the Single Taxers had access on equal terms to a journal
which neither controlled, and whose space both were bound to
respect, you would not have to go outside the limits of your own
state to find a dozen foemen worthy of your steel, and I'd stake
my life on it that you'd find not a few to unhorse you. This is
not claiming that any one of them, or all of them together, can
come anywhere near you in the artistic manipulation of words or
the construction of ear-tickling phrases; but it is claiming, and
that without any false pretense of modesty, that they have yet
seen no reason to fear you in rigidly logical argument when the
Single Tax is the question at issue. Their cause is so palpably
just, its underlying principle so transparently simple and
elementary, its practical application so direct, feasible and
efficient that no mere wizardry of words, no thimble-riggery or
language, can by any possibility obscure the principle--or
confuse the advocates. Of course there are among Single Taxers,
as among other enthusiasts, men who indiscreetly use abuse for
argument, and of these you may have some reason to complain; but
should not your great talents and the immense advantages which
the undisputed control of your own journal give you, enable you
to rise above their abuse, to ignore it completely, and to
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