Pro-Taxation in a 1913 American novel...
Nov. 4th, 2012 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blueinkedfrost"He was called to town on business. The County Commissioners are sitting to-day."
"They are deciding about the Groveville bridge, and pike?"
"Yes. He is working so hard for them."
"The devil you say! I beg pardon! But it was about that I came. I'm three miles from there, and I'm taxed over sixty pounds for it."
"But you cross the bridge every time you go to town, and travel the road. Groveville is quite a resort on account of the water and lovely country. Paul is very anxious to have the work completed before the summer boarders come from surrounding cities. We are even farther from it than you; but it will cost us as much."
"Are you insane?" cried Mr. Pryor, not at all politely; but you could see that mother was bound she wouldn't become provoked about anything, for she never stopped a steady beam on him. "Spend all that money for strangers to lazy around on a few weeks and then go!"
"But a good bridge and fine road will add to their pleasure, and when they leave, the improvements remain. They will benefit us and our children through all the years to come."
"Talk about 'the land of the free'!" cried Mr. Pryor. "This is a tax-ridden nation. It's a beastly outrage! Ever since I came, it's been nothing but notice of one assessment after another. I won't pay it! I won't endure it. I'll move!"
Mother let go of me, gripped her hands pretty tight together on the table, and she began to talk.
"As for freedom—no man ever was, or is, or will be free," she said, quite as forcibly as he could speak. "You probably knew when you came here that you would find a land tax-ridden...[and] if England is intolerable, and the United States an outrage, I don't know where in this world you'll go," said mother softly.
- Laddie, Gene Stratton-Porter
I'll add a caveat that a reason for taxation given by the sympathetic character is "newness of vast territory to be opened up and improved" (ie. territory that *definitely* does not belong to any other people groups, such as people groups living there for tens of thousands of years); but this is an amazingly pro-taxation argument for a novel like this! Past times, apparently, are not what modern-day American Republicans believe they were.
Gene Stratton-Porter's Freckles and Girl of the Limberlost are wonderful and deservedly well-known. I've also read her Michael O'Halloran lately, which involves a horrible, horrible thing happening to a child--well, several horrible, horrible things happening to children--and which was written to illuminate social conditions. Also, Her Father's Daughter, which has this backstory to it: Stratton-Porter came across an account of a Japanese high school student graduating, a Japanese student from a family who had lived in America a generation; Arthur Kaneko was his name, and after he was one of four students who topped his class at school, he had a son who joined the United States Army after World War II and served in the Pentagon. Thus Stratton-Porter decided to write a story about a thirty-year-old Japanese man infiltrating an American high school for Nefarious Purposes.
Contained in 'Laddie' is also some minor anti-Native American sentiment in a brief passage. Overall it's a young girl's account of growing up on her family farm, and primarily about her beloved older brother's love-story. The story's not so much to write home about, but the scenery porn is good--Stratton-Porter's scenic descriptions are always worth reading. I'll leave off with quoting a few of them.
The willow walls waved gently, the moss carpet was spotted with little gold patches of sunlight, in the shade a few of the red flowers still bloomed, and big, lazy bumblebees hummed around them, or a hummingbird stood on air before them. A sort of golden throbbing filled the woods.
Laddie sat straight and studied the beech branches. Father said beech trees didn't amount to much; but I first learned all about them from that one, and what it taught me made me almost worship them always. There were the big trunk with great rough spreading roots, the bark in little ridges in places, smooth purple gray between, big lichens for ornament, the low flat branches, the waxy, wavy-edged leaves, with clear veins, and the delicious nuts in their little brown burrs.
I never knew Georgiana Jane, but her people must have been very fond of her, for her grave was scarlet with geraniums, and pink with roses from earliest spring until frost, and the bright colours attracted swarms of butterflies. I had learned that if I stuck a few blossoms in my hair, rubbed some sweet smelling ones over my hands, and knelt and kept so quiet that I fitted into the landscape, the butterflies would think me a flower too, and alight on my hair, dress, and my hands, even. God never made anything more beautiful than those butterflies, with their wings of brightly painted velvet down, their bright eyes, their curious antennae, and their queer, tickly feet.
But the sun was there. A little taste of willow, oak and maple was in the air. You could see the buds growing fat too, and you could smell them. If you opened your eyes and looked in any direction you could see blue sky, big, ragged white clouds, bare trees, muddy earth with grassy patches, and white spots on the shady sides where unmelted snow made the icy feel in the air, even when the sun shone. You couldn't hear yourself think for the clatter of the turkeys, ganders, roosters, hens, and everything that had a voice. I was so crazy with it I could scarcely hang to the fence; I wanted to get down and scrape my wings like the gobbler, and scream louder than the gander, and crow oftener than the rooster. There was everything all ice and mud. They would have frozen, if they hadn't been put in a house at night, and starved, if they hadn't been fed; they were not at the place where they could hunt and scratch, and not pay any attention to feeding time, because of being so bursting full. They had no nests and babies to rejoice over. But there they were! And so was I! Buttercups and daisies be-hanged! Ice and mud really! But if you breathed that air, and shut your eyes, north, you could see blue flags, scarlet lilies, buttercups, cattails and redbirds sailing over them; east, there would be apple bloom and soft grass, cowslips, and bubbling water, robins, thrushes, and bluebirds; and south, waving corn with wild rose and alder borders, and sparrows, and larks on every fence rider.
"They are deciding about the Groveville bridge, and pike?"
"Yes. He is working so hard for them."
"The devil you say! I beg pardon! But it was about that I came. I'm three miles from there, and I'm taxed over sixty pounds for it."
"But you cross the bridge every time you go to town, and travel the road. Groveville is quite a resort on account of the water and lovely country. Paul is very anxious to have the work completed before the summer boarders come from surrounding cities. We are even farther from it than you; but it will cost us as much."
"Are you insane?" cried Mr. Pryor, not at all politely; but you could see that mother was bound she wouldn't become provoked about anything, for she never stopped a steady beam on him. "Spend all that money for strangers to lazy around on a few weeks and then go!"
"But a good bridge and fine road will add to their pleasure, and when they leave, the improvements remain. They will benefit us and our children through all the years to come."
"Talk about 'the land of the free'!" cried Mr. Pryor. "This is a tax-ridden nation. It's a beastly outrage! Ever since I came, it's been nothing but notice of one assessment after another. I won't pay it! I won't endure it. I'll move!"
Mother let go of me, gripped her hands pretty tight together on the table, and she began to talk.
"As for freedom—no man ever was, or is, or will be free," she said, quite as forcibly as he could speak. "You probably knew when you came here that you would find a land tax-ridden...[and] if England is intolerable, and the United States an outrage, I don't know where in this world you'll go," said mother softly.
- Laddie, Gene Stratton-Porter
I'll add a caveat that a reason for taxation given by the sympathetic character is "newness of vast territory to be opened up and improved" (ie. territory that *definitely* does not belong to any other people groups, such as people groups living there for tens of thousands of years); but this is an amazingly pro-taxation argument for a novel like this! Past times, apparently, are not what modern-day American Republicans believe they were.
Gene Stratton-Porter's Freckles and Girl of the Limberlost are wonderful and deservedly well-known. I've also read her Michael O'Halloran lately, which involves a horrible, horrible thing happening to a child--well, several horrible, horrible things happening to children--and which was written to illuminate social conditions. Also, Her Father's Daughter, which has this backstory to it: Stratton-Porter came across an account of a Japanese high school student graduating, a Japanese student from a family who had lived in America a generation; Arthur Kaneko was his name, and after he was one of four students who topped his class at school, he had a son who joined the United States Army after World War II and served in the Pentagon. Thus Stratton-Porter decided to write a story about a thirty-year-old Japanese man infiltrating an American high school for Nefarious Purposes.
Contained in 'Laddie' is also some minor anti-Native American sentiment in a brief passage. Overall it's a young girl's account of growing up on her family farm, and primarily about her beloved older brother's love-story. The story's not so much to write home about, but the scenery porn is good--Stratton-Porter's scenic descriptions are always worth reading. I'll leave off with quoting a few of them.
The willow walls waved gently, the moss carpet was spotted with little gold patches of sunlight, in the shade a few of the red flowers still bloomed, and big, lazy bumblebees hummed around them, or a hummingbird stood on air before them. A sort of golden throbbing filled the woods.
Laddie sat straight and studied the beech branches. Father said beech trees didn't amount to much; but I first learned all about them from that one, and what it taught me made me almost worship them always. There were the big trunk with great rough spreading roots, the bark in little ridges in places, smooth purple gray between, big lichens for ornament, the low flat branches, the waxy, wavy-edged leaves, with clear veins, and the delicious nuts in their little brown burrs.
I never knew Georgiana Jane, but her people must have been very fond of her, for her grave was scarlet with geraniums, and pink with roses from earliest spring until frost, and the bright colours attracted swarms of butterflies. I had learned that if I stuck a few blossoms in my hair, rubbed some sweet smelling ones over my hands, and knelt and kept so quiet that I fitted into the landscape, the butterflies would think me a flower too, and alight on my hair, dress, and my hands, even. God never made anything more beautiful than those butterflies, with their wings of brightly painted velvet down, their bright eyes, their curious antennae, and their queer, tickly feet.
But the sun was there. A little taste of willow, oak and maple was in the air. You could see the buds growing fat too, and you could smell them. If you opened your eyes and looked in any direction you could see blue sky, big, ragged white clouds, bare trees, muddy earth with grassy patches, and white spots on the shady sides where unmelted snow made the icy feel in the air, even when the sun shone. You couldn't hear yourself think for the clatter of the turkeys, ganders, roosters, hens, and everything that had a voice. I was so crazy with it I could scarcely hang to the fence; I wanted to get down and scrape my wings like the gobbler, and scream louder than the gander, and crow oftener than the rooster. There was everything all ice and mud. They would have frozen, if they hadn't been put in a house at night, and starved, if they hadn't been fed; they were not at the place where they could hunt and scratch, and not pay any attention to feeding time, because of being so bursting full. They had no nests and babies to rejoice over. But there they were! And so was I! Buttercups and daisies be-hanged! Ice and mud really! But if you breathed that air, and shut your eyes, north, you could see blue flags, scarlet lilies, buttercups, cattails and redbirds sailing over them; east, there would be apple bloom and soft grass, cowslips, and bubbling water, robins, thrushes, and bluebirds; and south, waving corn with wild rose and alder borders, and sparrows, and larks on every fence rider.
