The California Campaign

Jackson H. Ralston

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, November-December 1938]

The election is over and we of the faith find ourselves severely checked, although receiving between 300,000 and 400,000 votes. Never before had such a vote been given for as forward a proposition as we presented. For this reason I use for the word "checked" and not "defeated". To my mind we can never be defeated although we may be postponed.

We fought against such powerful financial and other organizations as have never before been arrayed to oppose the best interests of the people. We begin with the Real Estate Boards, with their thousands of members in every part of the state. These influenced the Chambers of Commerce, who largely represented the financial sinews. These in turn controlled the Parent-Teachers bodies, numbering into the hunreds of thousands, and who were persuaded that the abolition of the sales tax would mean the wiping out of support for the public schools. These refused to see that such belief was unfounded.

In addition we faced powerful official influences, the whole state officialdom being united against us under the lash of the recently defeated governor. These influences included the State Board of Equalization, which could and did convince those from whom it collected taxes that self-interest demanded that it should not be opposed.

On top of all the influences mentioned, and a lot of minor elements, these were through them and otherwise the constant hammering into the minds of the people that the adoption of our amendment meant confiscation of their properties by the state, and no difference was ever suggested between the kind of property naturally public and that which was the product of the labor of individuals.

The instrumentalities I have mentioned, and a lot of others, including misguided farming organizations, spent into the hundreds of thousands of dollars on the radio, billboards, newspaper advertising (often covering five columns and probably in the majority of the papers), and through the mails.

Of argument against us there was practically none. Our opponents were for the most part content to declare that our proposition was the "Single Tax," and meant confiscation of homes and farms and places of business. These falsehoods for the time triumphed.

To oppose the above we circulated some four to five hundred thousand documents of what we believed to be of value. Our means in the active campaign did not equal one per cent of the amount expended by the opposition. The people, however, were assured that we were backed by the Fels millions, which were trying to put over the Single Tax in California. It was reported that this amounted to $12,000,000, the income of which was to be expended till the hated doctrine should obtain in California. The reports were of such a wild nature as to lead a Palo Alto woman to inquire of one of my neighbors if it was true that at the time of his death King George left millions to me to bring about the Single Tax in California.

To turn to pleasanter points in the picture, the Executive Board of the State Federation, with the exception of two among twenty-one members, did their full share, though many followers failed. Our workers struggled nobly. It seems hardly justice to the many not named but deserving recognition to name any, but I must mention Noah D. Alper, Edgar Pomeroy, Ralph Huntington, J. Rupert Mason, S. Edward Williams in San Francisco. Conspicuous among the Federation were George Kidwell and Hugo Ernst and the secretary, Edward Vandeleur. In Los Angeles, there were Corneluis J. Haggerty, President of the California Federation of Labor, who sincerely helped in many ways, and Mr. Buzzell, the Secretary of the Los Angeles Labor Council, and many other Labor men, and Harry H. Ferrell, in charge of the campaign in the south, and Ralph Chadwick, George Briggs, George VV. Patterson; and in San Diego, E. M. Stangland, Taber, Siebert, Edwards, and others. The Labor press helped unstintedly.

What of the future? Our plans are in process of formation. It is too early to make any announcements. This is certain that the work we have done will not be wasted through non-use. We have laid a wide and deep foundation. This cannot be thrown away.

What has the campaign taught us? We are too near to it to know entirely, but certain things seem to be on the surface.

The opposition thoroughly realize that they are the beneficiaries of an unjust system doomed in the end to perish. No other theory will account for their utter desperation and unprincipled fight. The ghost of what they call the Single Tax continually rises up to terrorize them, and will not down despite all electoral defeats.

The great weapon of the opposition is nothing other than fear, and this is easily invoked against anything seeming novel. This is the great enemy we have to fight. Fear of the unknown has many times checked progress in other ways and how we can expect anything else with as fundamental a reform as we struggle for?

Let us dissipate fear of the unknown.

There will always be a question of methods. We know that any attempt to invoke too great a change as at once invites disaster. We were sufferers from past efforts of this sort, and we may ourselves have attempted too much in a limited time. This point requires a great deal of thought.

If I might make a suggestion (I think I have made before in some connection) to the Henry George School it would be that they establish a post-graduate school of study as to the best methods of making the doctrine for which they stand effective politically, for without political action their work is almost fruitless. Let us have a thorough study made of methods as illustrated by the history of the campaigns we have already had. These furnish food for the most acute thought. Let this study give light for the future. Do not let the experience be wasted.