Johnstown weekly Democrat. (Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa.) 1889-1916, 1889-12-20


There can be no shortness OF need
for work SO long as men have
wants. There is most need Of
work in times of business depres-
sion, but then there is least of it. 1t is
not over-production, but something that
prevents men from getting what they
want, that brings the ills of the panic.
For instance we want to build houses.
the raw materials taken from the earth.
Production is relative term. Man could
not create the tiniest mote that floats in
the sunbeam. We produce coal by min
ing it. we produce fish by pulling them
out of the water, we prodLce cloth by
putting together the materials out Of
which it is made. All cur productions
are, in the last analysis, found to be the
union of land and labor
Some ask Is there not land enough in
This country? Go from the Atlantic to
the Pacifc-yee begin right in New
York, and you vii, find land unused.
Yet people are so crowded that moral or
physical health is impossible. Not four
per cent of the people live in separate
houses, and still one-half of the land in the
city is unused. The trouble is that they who
would use ii can't get it. Whenever there
is disposition to use land in certain
locality, there will you find the high price
| NF I,.,I xx..n E,,4 tI, H.. -,
the manger. The value of the land
III the future will be counted
upon. An artificial monopoly will
be created. We as a people have not
chosen to take advantage of the bene-
ficent measure of equalzing mans means
of obtaining the use of the earth. We have
put premium on forestalling land.
We single-iaX men have simple rem
edy. We proprose to take for the use of
the community the value that the COM
munity creates. We do away with the
incitiment to a monopoly of the land. We
can leave as it is our treatment of land.
We can take rs rent what John Stuart
Mill calls the unearned. increment. At
present there is in all the States a direct
tax that falls on real estate. We would
take the tax on the land alone for revenue
for all public purposes. We came TO il
by removing enc tax after another till we
have but one tax left--that ON land-and
increase that till we take as nearly as may
be the whole rental value.
do not mean to tax all land. Land
only can have special value as it is more
disirable than other land, and it is this
excess of desirabilIty that we propose to
tax. The user of land, as mere user,
can not profit by the advance of the price
of land.
Here Mr.. George referred TO the present
systems of taxation. among them the
tariff, and the evasions, test-oalhs and
periuries connected with the system of
customs duties. He said the whole sys-
TEN reeks with fraud. A custom house
oath, he said, has become proverbial. lie
also spoke the proposition to tax men ac-
cording to their wealth, and of the
! CNuslou anu tOll uptl'p liidl hiuSl dttSui
such Il practice.
Continuing, MIR. George said In the
taxes we would abolish we would take
away these temp ations TO fraud and de-
cci,. You can't hide land; its value can
be readily ascertained. A man can sit
in an Office and collect tax on land.
W. Ill ,r,,f ,,...ltl ,,,,1 ,,.;,l, ,I,, 900,
majority of us it is perfectly legitimate
want. The great majority OF the people
have not as much wealth as they need, nor
have they leisure enough. BY wealth
mean those things that human labor pro-
duces. We say that there is in this
! country now more wealth than when Co.
! lumbus discovered it. We do not mean
that there are more people or more land.
1t will be seen what is meant by wealth.
! The effect of tax should be consider
ed. Tax houses and they will be fewer.
Tax horses and fewer people will be able
| to own them. Tax land rs much as you
| please, and there will he no less of it, and
what is more it will he easier to get.
! Th9se who hold it would find it HEAVIER to
holo. He who produces anything can
claim it as against all others, it is the re-
suit of his own eXertion. Herein CON
sists his right Of ownership. Who can
carry the land title back TO Him who made
it? five all arc here as children of the
Creator are we not all entitled to our plo-
| portionate share of the land
If the whole human race of to day chose
to give away their title to the earth, how
would that debar the child Of tomorrow
from its share OF the earth? If house
belongs to the man who. builds ii, how
can we tax it without violating his right
OF property? The value of improvements,
the value of buildings is value brought by
human eXertion. The value attached to
land is its superior desirability.
In the Johnstown disaster the things
made by labor were swept away, the land
remained and did not decrease in value
If II ha1 bpnu lyupu,n tl,.t az, ,,o,,,l,