Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/294

 102 THE CONDITION OF LABOB.

responsibilities, culminating in those of your present exalted position, it is not to be expected that you should have hitherto thought to question them. But I trust that the considerations herein set forth may induce you to do so, and even if the burdens and cares that beset you shall now make impossible the careful consideration that should precede expression by one in your responsible position I trust that what I have written may not be without use to others.

And, as I have said, we are deeply grateful for your Encyclical. It is much that by so conspicuously calling attention to the condition of labor, you have recalled the fact forgotten by so many that the social evils and problems of our time directly and pressingly concern the church. It is much that you should thus have placed the stamp of your disapproval on that impious doctrine which directly and by implication has been so long and so widely preached in the name of Christianity, that the sufferings of the poor are due to mysterious decrees of Providence which men may lament but cannot alter. Your Encyclical will be seen by those who carefully analyze it to be directed not against socialism, which in moderate form you favor, but against what we in the United States call the single tax. Yet we have no solici- tude for the truth save that it shall be brought into dis- cussion, and we recognize in your Holiness's Encyclical a most efficient means of promoting discussion, and of promoting discussion along the lines that we deem of the greatest importance the lines of morality and religion. In this you deserve the gratitude of all who would follow truth, for it is of the nature of truth always to prevail over error where discussion goes on.

And the truth for which we stand has now made such progress in the minds of men that it must be heard ; that it can never be stifled j that it must go on conquering

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