Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-06-21
C0nfscatlng Land.

C0HHScaImS Land.
On the first page of the REGISTER oil
June 7th is an extract from letter OF
A. Van Bibber to the National Dem
ocratic Committee, which illustrates
the Misrepresentation, ifnothing worse,
so common among politicians of both
parties. Mr.. Van B. says: "Mr. Hen
ry George, in advocating the confisca-
ton of land. In order to prove it the
best thing for every body, is compelled,
of course, to try to argue that it would
be an advantage to the farmer to have
his land confiscated. 1t bothers him,
but he is compelled to, make stagger
at it.n
The question arises, just here. wheth-
er this adviser of the National Com
mittee is knave or an ignoramus, or
whether he takes the members of the
National Committee for set of en-
phatic dolts. Mr.. Henry George says,
on page 364 of Progress and Poverty y
in italics, that at is not necessary to
contaScdfe land, but to confscate rent"
He uses the word confiscate in its
proper sense ofjoining or adding to the
public treasury; and by rent he means
only quit-rent or ground-rent, which
is the value given to land by the
growth of population and the general
improvement of ..mechanic arts. Rent
upon houses, s,improvement &c. George
does not class as rent, but as interest
upon the capital so invested, and says
it rightfully belongs to the individual
who has so invested his money or la
Dor and says it should be free from
taxation in order to encourage and in
crease such investments. What George
says to the farmer is that be would be
better off if society took for public rev.
enue the value society gives, annually,
to his land and left him entirely free
from all other forms of taxation. That's
common horse sense and yet it is some
thing very different from what Van B.
wants to stuff the National Democratic
Committee with. It is important that
we should understand this, for as it is
not all gold that glitters, all is not
Democracy that is branded with that
name; and, as has been said in Con-
gress, the ultimate of the course upon
which the Democratic party has now
fairly entered is the adoption in full
and in simple of what this make-be-
lieve Democrat calls the confiscation
of land.
For Gods sake let's show a little
common sense and a little common
honesty! We have been asserting for
a century that men had a natural right
to life and liberty. and during all that
century we have allowed men only
purchase BILE right to the means Of life,
and our Democracy has had such an
aristocratic smell as to make it sham
and shame. It's rather startling to
realize now that we have been, as
people, guilty of such stupenduous folly
so long, but it is true beyond all cavil
or denial, and we can't mend our ways
too quickly. One can hardly help feel
ing impatience at the pattering drivel
of the Presidents message, the Mills
bill and other stuff we get OH the tariff,
when he remembers that on May 2Sth,
1858, just thirty years ago, three De.1l-
ocrats and two Republicans, who con-
stituted a congressional committee on
revenue and taxation, Joined in recon-
mending the total abolition of the tar
iff and substituting system of taxa
ton. War IS always injurious to
Democracy, and one cannot help Won
dering how long it will take our DEM
ocracy, moving at this poor dying rate,
to get back to the point it occupied
before our civil war.
WHAT'S the matter? What do we
want? How shall we get it? Let ev-
cry good citizen get the answers to
these three questions and keep them
always before him.
We have ignored Jeferson,s decla-
ration of the fundamental rights of
man, and we have knocked the endoW-
ment of the Creator into cooked hat
by accepting the endowment of the
devil instead by making the right to
land purehasable instead of natural.
That's what's the matter with us. We
must make the right to land natural.
That's what we want.
We must adopt the recommenda of
of Abraham S. Hewitt when. some
nine or ten years ago, he was chair
man of the National Democratic Con-
yention, and give the unearned incre-
ment to the people. The unearned
increment is the value population and
science give to land, and the only way
it can be given to the people is by TAX
ing it for public revenue in lieu of all
other taxes. That's how we can and
must do it. That's carrying out the
mission of the Democratic party accord
ing to Hewitt and adopting the single
tax according to George.
One of the trainers of our National
Constitution said, that "a people were
never robbed of their liberties, but
were always cheated out of them, and
if ever the American people were
cheated out of their liberties it would
be done in the name of Democracy
I would say that if ever we are SO fool
ish or unfortunate it will be by needing
such Democrats as Mr.. Van Bibber
seems to be. FARMER.
Murrayville, ILL.,, June 10th, 1888.