Cover of EPIC Plan. SSA History Archives.

IMMEDIATE EPIC

PREFACE

We of the EPIC movement presume to tell the people of California that we know how to end poverty and will do it if elected. We are not professional politicians seeking office, but men of faith believing in the right and power of the people to manage their own affairs. We believe that democratic government confronts today the gravest crisis of its history. Our old and established industrial system is falling into ruins, and a new system has to be built in the midst of the collapse. Unless Democracy can find a way to do this, we shall have civil war, followed by Fascism and ultimately by Bolshevism. In the effort to avert these events, we present a plan to the people of California. . . .

THE APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM

. . . .The difficulty with the old-style statesmen is that they are lawyers and politicians, uninformed as to modern industry. They are dealing with the problem as if it were the old-fashioned one of scarcity. They fail to envisage the new problem: The fact that modern industry is able to produce more than the people have means to buy. Nothing during five years of depression has reduced our ability to produce; on the contrary, it has been constantly increased by new inventions and the improvement of processes. The only way to end our deficit is to use this new ability.

This is the backbone of the EPIC Plan; and the answer to the question "What will you do first?" is "We will get production started. We will do it by any lawful method we can devise. We will get the unemployed factory workers into the factories and start the wheels turning. We will get access to the land for the unemployed land-workers, and each of these groups will produce as rapidly as possible, and will exchange their products among themselves, and thus enable them to become self-supporting, and put an end to that drain which is ruining the tax-payers."

In the little book, "I, Governor of California" I have drawn a picture of land colonies, in which great tracts of land are worked by modern machinery under the direction of agricultural experts, and in which the workers are comfortably housed in modern dwellings, with the use of social halls, community kitchens and dining-rooms, theaters, schools, churches, etc. I have imagined great factories placed near the sources of raw material, and with model villages erected for the housing of the workers. All that is within the scope of the Plan, and all that will be done; but it cannot he done at once, and we are discussing here the emergency steps to get production going; the method whereby the people of California, who have not forgotten how to work and are still willing to work, are to get the opportunity to work.. . .

THE EPIC PLAN

1. A legislative enactment for the establishment of State land colonies whereby the unemployed may become self-sustaining and cease to be a burden upon the taxpayers. A public body, the California Authority for Land (the CAL) will take the idle land, and land sold for taxes and at foreclosure sales, and erect dormitories, kitchens, cafeterias, and social rooms, and cultivate the land using modern machinery under the guidance of experts.

2. A public body entitled the California Authority for Production (the CAP), will be authorized to acquire factories and production plants whereby the unemployed may produce the basic necessities required for themselves and for the land colonies, and to operate these factories and house and feed and care for the workers. CAL and CAP will maintain a distribution system for the exchange of each other's products. The industries will include laundries, bakeries, canneries, clothing and shoe factories, cement-plants, brick-yards, lumber yards, thus constituting a complete industrial system, a new and self-sustaining world for those our present system cannot employ.

3. A public body entitled the California Authority for Money (the CAM) will handle the financing of CAL and CAP. This body will issue scrip to be paid to the workers and used in the exchanging of products within the system. It will also issue bonds to cover the purchase of land and factories, the erection of buildings and the purchase of machinery.

4. An act of the legislature repealing the present sales tax, and substituting a tax on stock transfers at the rate of 4 cents per share.

5. An act of the legislature providing for a State income tax, beginning with incomes of $5000 and steeply graduated until incomes of $50,000 would pay 30% tax.

6. An increase in the State inheritance tax, steeply graduated and applying to all property in the State regardless of where the owner may reside. This law would take 50% of sums above $50,000 bequeathed to any individual and 50% of sums above $250,000 bequeathed by any individual.

7. A law increasing the taxes on privately owned public utility corporations and banks.

8. A constitutional amendment revising the tax code of the State, providing that cities and counties shall exempt from taxation all homes occupied by the owners and ranches cultivated by the owners, wherever the assessed value of such homes and ranches is less than $3000. Upon properties assessed at more than $5000 there will be a tax increase of one-half of one per cent for each $5000 of additional assessed valuation.

9. A constitutional amendment providing for a State land tax upon unimproved building land and agricultural land which is not under cultivation. The first $1000 of assessed valuation to be exempt, and the tax to be graduated according to the value of land held by the individual. Provision to be made for a state building loan fund for those who wish to erect homes.

10. A law providing for the payment of a pension of $50 per month to every needy person over sixty years of age who has lived in the State of California three years prior to the date of the coming into effect of the law.

11. A law providing for the payment of $50 per month to all persons who are blind, or who by medical examination are proved to be physically unable to earn a living; these persons also having been residents of the State for three years.

12. A pension of $50 per month to all widowed women who have dependent children; if the children are more than two in number, the pension to be increased by $25 per month for each additional child. These also to have been residents three years in the State.