The Mutualist advocates Mutual Banking. That is the only plank in its immediate, practical, political program, but while the land question—the evil of land monopoly—is, or eventually will be, very important, it is far more difficult just now, in this country, to concentrate sufficient force in favor of worth-while land reform to make a showing. Besides, the elimination of interest, itself, would go far toward solving the land monopoly.

But the Mutualist will not be a one-idea money paper. It will contain articles on the land question and on other fundamentally important political, social and economic problems, as well as on doctrines that are now largely theoretical, philosophical or academic. It stands for every movement toward economic justice; for the extension of liberty and the curtailment of the powers of authority over the non-invasive individual.

All pseudo-land reforms that mean merely the shifting of landlords; that do not take the tax or rent collecting vampires off the backs of tillers of the soil, are tabu in the Mutualist. And that also applies to all monetary reforms based on governmental monopoly, management or operation, with issues of fiat, legal tender stuff.

Mr. J. R. Cummings, 21 Merbrook Lane, Overbrook, Pa., sends clippings of his money articles, and in a letter to the editor, says: I read with much interest the several recommendations and editorial comments on the subjects of interest and ground rent in your May issue. I think I am in sympathy with all that the editor and these contributors desire insofar as economic conditions are concerned, but I disagree with all of you as to the remedy of our economic ills. Mr. Cummings brings up many points of criticism adverse to the views of Henry George and others in re unearned incremeent, absorption of values by land, etc., that show considerable depth of thought, or keenness of analysis by him. Mr. Cummings sees one great cause of economic ills, effecting labor particularly, in the seasonable nature of employment on farms. This he would stabilize by ending migration to industrial centers in winter, which, he claims, beats down wages. His suggested remedy is that government pass the following provision:

From and after the passage of this act, public work in the building of highways and other public utilities shall be open in every rural neighborhood to all the common labor that offers, and all labor and material to be paid for in legal tender service certificates, the unit of which shall be a day of common labor. Said certificate shall be the only lawful money of the realm.

Mr. Cummings advocates a dollar equal to one day of common labor, while Mr. Brokaw would make it one hour of adult labor of any kind. Neither of them have the required definiteness for a practicable monetary system. Like most other legal tender money schemes, Mr. Cummings would have the paper broadcasted to laboring men for road work and other public improvements, which means prohibition enforcement, river improvement, pork-barrelism, etc. Probably men fall for these weird and absolutely impractical schemes because they have never considered a medium of exchange as a private, mutual, business affair, free from State intervention—the same as swapping corn for apples. Compare any of these with Mutual Banking as set forth in this issue, and answer the question for yourself—Which seems the more sensible, practical, expedient, safe and most certain to abolish interest on money?

Mr. John L. Talbott, 7248 Anna Ave., St. Louis Mo., publishes The Statesman, advocating a money reform essentially like that of Mr. Cummings. Most of these proposed monetary reforms are the same—legal tender government money issued to tramps for road work, redeemable via taxation of land values, (chiefly on farmers). The Statesman has already prepared the bill for congress, and publishes it on its last page.

The Statesman says: The greatest criminals the world has ever been cursed with are the ones who establish and uphold private money. If that is true, the editor the Mutualist is some criminal, for he believes in and advocates private (non-governmental) banking.

Mutual Banking is practically the only currency reform proposed that defines the dollar, or refers it a definite weight of a material of value—the same as the United States dollar, 22.23 grains of gold. It has every essential of a safe, sound, sensible medium of exchange. It is based on immediately saleable property twice its value. It is exchangeable (redeemable) at par for all kinds of goods. Those to whom it is issued furnish the security, and have to recover the money they expend, or produce gold, in order to repay the bank the amount issued to them, at an agreed time.

It is not positively known that a redemption fund of gold must be maintained to keep paper money at par, if the paper is always redeemable in the needs of life at par. But there must be some way to know or ascertain what the gold values of commodities really are.