[Letter] July 31,1890,[In Minnesota] Smith College [to F.H. Giddings]

July 31, 1890, [In Minnesota] Smith College.

Dear Friend,
       July gone, and
not very much done.
Still I have done some
resting. Today I had a
chat with Prof. Folwell
and am to go to his
den again tomorrow.
He is a genial man.
We had a queer game
of hide-and-seek before
we were able to meet.
I am getting interested in
the census now, and
it looks today as if
this city were getting the
better in the fight. Have
you followed it? First
St. Paul employed detectives
and caught some Minneapolis
people in frauds, and had
them arrested. The trial
is now pending. Then the
St. Paul papers assumed the
position of innocence and
superiority and blackguarded
this city to the extent of their
mastery of that kind of English.
Then the Washington
Census bureau scrutinized
the St. Paul returns a little
closely and found them full of frauds.
Two of the newspapers that are active in
the attack on Minn. were found to have
returned their employees as lodgers in the
buildings when the papers are published. The
Pioneer Press so returned 91 men and the
Globe 78. The men were also enumerated
in connection with their actual lodgings
elsewhere. Mr. Baker, of the Globe called his
employees his personal ÅgservantsÅh. Such are
the rivalries in the ÅeTale of Two CitiesÅf.
I came here hoping to get a little money
out of the rental of property during
the past year. What I discovered was a
debt of $1200 - on account of taxes not
covered by rents - so I do not go to the
Rockies this year. If I can get out of the
list of monopolists by a sale of land I may
think of it. The outlook for property is of the
best. I have reviewed Wittelsöfer and our
digging into the ethics of land tenure. Mr.
Wiston wants it for Aug. 15th. I have
gotten into our big scrape that I meant to
keep out of; the Saratoga discussion of the
Land Tax question. I have
actually agreed to go there.
Mr. Brooks wrote so many
notes that I gave it up
and said I could go. I am
in no humor for fighting,
and know by experience
what a sharp and nasty
tongue Henry George can
have when he wants it.
I can only read a 20
minute paper of the
quiet and analytical order
and let the audience
make what they can of
it.
 I am greatly interested
in your wages theory, and
must hear it.
Shall we classify the theories
thus (1) those built mainly
on the effects of time
(2) those that study
periods in their unit
one at a time.
 They study, as we called it,
the longitudinal section
and the cross section of
the stream respectively.
Stuart Wood's study is
of the latter kind, and he
ties wages and interest together in
one way. Will you do the same in another
way? Will you supplement the Austrian theory
by supplying an element, the interactions of
labor and capital? That is the way in which
the suggestion strikes me. I hardly think
it will dissociate wages from products of
labor; but let us wait and see. I hope
we may have a good long visit early in
Sept. Regards to Mrs. Giddings.

       Yours Very Truly,
            J. B. Clark