St. Paul daily globe., 1889-02-22
SINGLE TAX LECTURE.
T. G. Shearman, Of Brooklyn,
N. Y, Discourses on His
Hobby.
A Fairly Large Audience
Greets the Lecturer at Har-
monia Hall.
He Makes an Attack Upon the
Present Method Of Raising,
Taxes,
And Says the Single Tax Sys-
tenn Is the Only Proper
Thing.

Owing, no doubt. to the extremely
cold weather Harmonic hall was not
particularly well filled last evening.
when Thomas G. Shearman, the noted
single tax advocate, Of Brooklyn, N. Y.
spoke on the subject nearest his heart:
The audience was composed mainly or
the people who have identified then
selves with the single tax movement,
while there was fair sprinking of DuSi-
ness men present, who had come to see
what sort of looking men the people
who advocated the single tax theory
were. The stage was occupied bye.
j. Buell., j. c. Haynes, p. NJ. Finnegan,
Herman Ash, John Erickson and others.
The meeting was called to order soon
after 8 O'Clock by c. j. Buell., who, in
few Well-chosen words introduced the
speaker of the evening. Mr.. Shearman
is a heavy-set man, about the average
height, with large, massive head and
a thoughtful, intelligent face, set off by
q pair of gold spectacies. An iron-gray
beard. running from ear to ear, hides
the lower part of his face. His upper
lip was destitute Of q mustache and
allowed firm pair of lips to be seen.
More than thirty years ago, said he,
when / helped to organize q Republican
club, the Southern papers spoke Of the
greasy mechanics of the North: but
those words did not make us creep into
our holes by any means. Instead OF
that we had war with the Southern
gentlemen, and, if ] remember Alright.
we did not get the worst OF it. When
we conquered the South we fulfilled our
mission, and then happened to us what
has happened to all other old
parties 1t was the old Democratic
party which gave the negroes their
liberty. but the Southerners got hold Of
it and degradedit until it was worthless.
But after the war the rich men and the
corporations got hold of the Republican
the poor and get rich at the expense OF
labor. But to show you how the Re-
publican party is the organ of the silk
stockings | will simply state that the
Republicans refer to US as the mudSlllS
of society.
The speaker said he was warm per-
sonal friend of Henry George, and then
paid high compliment to hire as a
gentleman and one of the best educated
men the nineteenth century had pro-
duced. In this connection he said that
Henry George was doing more than any
other living man to prevent the spread
or socialism ana dIldfcly.
[ do not advocate all Of Henry
Georges views, continued the speaker,
nor do / come here to advocate the
TOTAL ABSORPTION OF RENT
or the raising of taxes. Now if we
were to depend upon direct land taxes
for all our revenues it would result in
making about 4,O00,0 600 cut of our 12,000,-
600 people taxpayers. When our plan had
been in operation one year there would
be another million Of taxpayers, as they
would be landowners and homeOwners.
Looking at the matter in this light, is
not our plan worthy the attention Of all
practical men?
The single tax plan is so plain and
so practical that it is spreading rapidly
all over the United States, and is get
ting stronghold. Recently Prof. Fol-
well argued against the single tax
scheme. have seen other professors
of political economy do the same, but
let me tell you that l have not found
one man who in private conversation will
say that the single tax is not right and
just in every respect. These men are not
all fools by any means, nor are they
dreamerS. Educated men and thought
full men, and men who are deeply en-
gagged in political affairs. are beginning
to admit that our system Of taxation is
the best ever devised, and are only
waiting for a chance to express them
selves. 1t is not the poor men, the men
Hllo are property owners, who are ad-
vocating this plan, but on the opposite,
it is the men who own property and
the wealthy men together with the
poor men.
l shall divide my subject into
two branches. and the most ex-
treme protectionist may listen to it
without fear. If the singIe-tax does
come to us it must come to some single
state first, and Minnesota is a good state
to try it on first, for by the constitution
of the United States you cannot, un-
fortunately, tax the products sent from
here by the Illinois and Chicago mar
kets. Therefore, freetraders and pro-
tectionists can combine in trying this
plan here. and then it might be tried in
all the states in the Union.
The speaker then showed how the
present tax laws were but laws in favor
of the rich, as under them the poorer
rich class got off almost free. You tax
a man by what he consumes, said he,
and not by what he accumulates.
WHAT is THE RESULT OF THIS
and why? Why, it makes the men who
have to support their family on $3.50 a
year pay fifteen per cent of their eX
penditures. If he saves $50 a year you
don't tax the $500 he has spent, but
you take $40 of the $50 he has saved.
The government taxed the farmers of
the Northwest 2T0 time more than it
taxed Jay Gould, and yet am informed
that they still continue to vote for that
style of taxation. The single tax means
that the bod carrier shall rot pay more
tax than Jay Gould pays; that's what it
means.
Some people ask what benefit this
single tax is to the workingmen. FL
tell you. 1t would make the |
rich men pay their share of the
taxes. The single tax would not
raise workiDgman'S wages at once,
but it would in the long run, and it |
would stop the leak in his pocket at
once, so that the rich men would not |
get q portion of his wages for nothing |
every week. Every man now bears two
burdens--rents and taxes. You may |
never see the government tax collector, |
for Uncle Sam has merchants and store
keepers do most of his collecting, not |
forgetting commission for the mer- |
chant. Where you tax personal prop |
erty you tax production. and that's |
wrong. When you tax tables, chairs |
and the like, you do not tax the maker, |
but the consumer, the poor man who |
uses the articles. 1t is not in the power |
of God to devise means whereby pro-
ducts can be taxed without working an |
injustice to the poor man.
The speaker mentioned the success
sion tax plan as a good plan if it could |
be worked, but 1t could not, and that
settled it. Under that plan no man
would die rich, knowing that his heirs |
would have to give the state so per cent. |
The income tax, he continued, could
not be collected, as the rich men would
either flee the state or else buy the tax
cnllectnr The income tag can only he