The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1890-04-30

but they do not own very much land
when it comes to measuring land by ito,
value, and not by its area.
Consider this for one minute, what I
am about to tell you: In Chicago only
short time ago a piece Of land which
measured 4sx24 feet sold for over $780,
600! At the rate of S3,0OO,0O0 an acre!
There is no humbug about that, no fool
ing, no desire to deceive. saw the lot
and the building going up on it, and my
personal friend, Ed Crane, real estate
man, pointed it out to me.
Suppose the building going up on that
land costs 1000; ten per cent on the
value of the building would be IS, 900,
but the rental of the building will no
doubt be $4,000 or $4,000, and the
value which is not in any way due to
the building, and which no individual
labor could possibly produce, is the
ground value, and that is just what the
single tax will rest upon.
The man who builds building should
own that building entirely and alto
gether; and the man who makes any
other improvement, whether it consists
in planting trees, or putting manure on
the land, or ditching the land, or in any
way adding to the improvement of the
place, should have the entire benefit Of
the improvement value without one
cent of taxation being placed upon it.
But though man can build good
many houses and make many improve
ments by his own unaided effort, he can
not, to save his life, create what is
properly known as ground value. Ground
value is created by the coming together
OF number of people; and right here
let me impress it upon you that there is
no need of taxes until population begins
| to grow. Would not farmer living out
in the wilderness cut a fine figure taxing
himself in order to sustain the fire de-
partment, for instance?
| Who owns the land value in this coun-
try, which the single tax men propose to
tax? Just measure the land by value
and see the result
One acre in Chicago worth $4,000, 900,
is equal to how many acres of farming
land in TENNESSEE Would it be fair to
take farming land at $50 an acre? Ger
tainly it is not worth more. It would
take at that rate 10000 acres of farming
land to equal the one acre in Chicago.
Court Square in Memphis is piece Of
land laid out as park and has about
two acres of land in it. If that one
piece Oh land were private property and
used for building purposes the ground
value Of that very desirable piece of
land would, I am willing to say, be equal
to the ground value of the farms
owned by the Una Alliance; or, in other
words, if the taxes were placed upon
land value, the one piece of land in
Memphis would pay as much taxes as
one hundred farms Of average size in
Tennessee. 1t may be we'll to remem-
Der, too, that the value of that piece Of
land in Chicago and the value OF the
land here in Memphis is given to it by
the people living around that land. The
farmers in the country and the Knights
in the city both add to the value Of any
piece of land in this city.
The value Of land is the result Of the
labor of all. When two men go into
business they pay the expenses OF the
business out of the profits Of the bust
ness. For instance, Mr.. Farmer and
Mr.. Knight go into business. At the
end of the month, before they divide
the profits, they must pay their debts.
Again, if two men 60 into business, and
they owe you money jointly, you would
first have to levy on what they owned
jointly before you could attach the indi-
vidual. Now, whether we like it or not,
the fact remains that all the people Of
any country or any community are by
their united efforts increasing the price
of land, are making certain positions
more valuable, and that value is the
proper subject Of taxation. When that
is exhausted (if that could beg then it
will be time to take from man what he
by his labor has created. Suppose q
man working with spade turns over
one-fourth Of an acre a day; with .
horse and pillow and the same amount OF
labor on his part he will do two acres.
Is not that so? The increased amount
of work is due to the machinery he
uses. You can call that his capital, and
that capital is usually the result Of his
saving, and no one has any right to tax
: his labor or his capital. But here is
something else: A man with $4,000
worth of goods in one location can mako
in the course Of a year thousand dol
lars; but in another location he, with
the same amount of capital and the
same amount of labor, can make two
thousand dollars. Now the fact that he
can make in one place twice what he
could make in another is not due to his
increased capital, or his own brains, or
his exertions, or his luck, but due en-
tirely to the men, women and children
who have settled around end make the
trading point.
We claim 100000 people in Memphis,
and land on Main street is worth many
hundred dollars foot. Double the
population and the price Of land goes
up, up, up. II the present 100, 900 should
move away, the price OF land would be
nothing. 1t is ralher inconvenient for
the 1906 people here to move, but can