WCP4167

[1]

Hawarden, Iowa

Nov[ember]. 20, 1893.

Sir Alfred Russel Wallace

Corfe View, England.

Dear Sir:

By to-day's mail I send you a complimentary copy of my book "A Cityless and Countryless World" which I hope you will accept as part payment for the useful information I received from your writings. Your excellent articles in the Arena and elsewhere have been read by me with the keenest appreciation. Your articles "The Social Quagmire and the Way Out" touches key-note. The land question is at the bottom of all others, for all wealth must be produced by the application of labor to land. There can be no harmonious social and economic adjustment, without the free coming together of the man of the land.

Admirable and profound as your [2] reasoning is on the land question, you still advocate a few secondary principles which, I think, would prove ingenious in the end, or at least they would not prove to be the best.

If I understood correctly, you claim that land should be owned only by occupancy and rise. On this fundamental question we fully agree. Further you seem to [1 word illeg.] peasant farming, of this I can at least at present not approve. You also endeavour to adjust the land question on equitable terms with the implication that populous cities are [1 word illeg.] of high social and economic conditions. I believe that cities are not only unnecessary but highly injurious for the best social, commercial, and economic adjustment.

In the book I send you, I have [3] fully elucidated my objections of ding anything on a small scale in the line of production. There I have also endeavoured to show my objections against both crowded, unhealthy cities and lonely country abodes.

I shall be highly pleased to have you read my work; and, if you think it worth while, a few suggestions or criticisms from you will be received with many thanks.

Yours truly | H. Olerich [signature]