Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1891-01-09

those of ordinary men for those forty
six years to form a like proportion Of
the 80, 600, 900 to that which they actual
ly did of the $3.50, 900, we can find out in
a jiffy how much his entire earnings
during that period amount to. Let us
see:
$50, 900: 100000: 100000
Multiply our second term by our third
There you are, sir, $1,577, 142. IS; that is
the amount of Mr.. Van Grips extra
earnings during the forty-six years.
Again, if it takes twenty nobodies in
uncertain circumstances and conditions
forty-six years to earn Ss76,00O, how
many nobodies, working under similar
circumstances and conditions and for u
similar period, will it take to earn ST.
All, 142S
27G,0O0: 1,577, 1928 go.
Multiply our second term by our third
and divide the product by our first. An
swer ia 7SS57-s76, 900 nobodies. A frac-
ton of u nobody does not amount to
much, so will discard Che fraction and
call it III.
Gracious. goodness me, what an enter
eprising, philosophical man Mr.. Van
Grip was.
1t warns tho cookies of my heart to
contemplate him. just think of it. He
earned and saved more than ia of tho
ordinary run of men earned and squan-
| dered.
| Pondering over these figures an idea
occurred to me, and as ! am not one Of
those who keep their light under a
| 1,nc bn1 rriy fN fla f,f hn
Standard. 1t is this: The sole object
of life nowadays is money. Granted.
| There are over so, 900, 900 human beings
in these United States at the present
writing. Now, suppose that one-ifth
of these are able-bodied mon (Which
they are not, but we will suppose SOY,
engaged in terribly earnest pursuit of
that object, and suppose again that i'll
every lis of these 10, 600, 900 there isone
Mr.. Van Grip and ia capablenobodies
Now let us figure out that and see what
it comes to:
115 O0OO,O0 -: i:
Proceed as we have done above and
we find that there are S6956 1928 Mr..
Van Grips and 9,913,043 1928 incapable
nobodies who are unwilling or unableto
accomplish any thing toward the object
referred to-inoney.
Now have come to the idea. Listen:
Let those 9,913, 043 11-23 incapable no.
bodies be quietly choked, or burned, or,
, perhaps, it would be cheaper to dump
them into the sea, and then after that
has been done let us sJrangle all the no
body infants as fast as they appear and
save and carefully raise the Van Grip
} infants; if-but, hang it, here comes
? this terrible '.if!'' How are we to recog
' nize the Van Grip infants? There's the
. rub. Perhaps some reader of The Stand
ard NAV devise mode of obviating this
little difficulty.
), Some men are curious animals. ! re-
S lated the facts above written to my
d friend Pete Drudger, and instead Of APP
i preciating the enterprise and public
) spirit of Mr.. Van Grip as they deserve,
It he metaphorically tore that respect
|; able gentleman's memory to tatters,
@ said he never did an honest days work
e in his life, said he was nothing but a
d bloated spider who lay idly in his hole,
l. and watched an opportunity to prey up
IS on the poor nobodies, said that the
is 81, 557, 142. SIS of right belonged to the ia
If nobodies spoke of, then branched off
Il into some nonsense about "unearned in
}; crement," or some such stuff, and finally
p wound up by calling me a fool, and said
l. that if my 'idiotic idea" about burning,
: choking and drowning could, by any
s possible means, be carried into eNccu-
y ton, I should be the first victim, as he
: had never known a more incapable no.
It body than I am; whereupon left him.
g There is no use in trying to reason with
such mon. OWEN F1rZsIAloNs.
p The single tax idea is steadily COM
h mending itself to earnest thinking men.
1t is rank injustice that man should
hold property vacant with nominal taxes,
q and gain the increment of value produc-
& ed by the Improvements made by his
: neighbors, who pay taxes upon those
= improvements The bed rock of taxa
+ ton is this; no tax on the products of
: labor This principle is worldwide. It
e applies with equal force to the town,
J. the State, the nation, the world. By it's
4 adoption labor would receive healthy
stimulus, and would create wealth as
J. never before. Throughout the world
! the burdens of taxation have fallen upon
!, labor, and in all forms of indirect taxa
# weight upon all, regardless of their
circumstances. But place this burden
i upon land values only and at once the
basis of taxation becomes absolutely
v equitable, land speculation becomes I'M
:, :. profitable, and the inducements to labor
a to place improvements upon the land
q and to advance to it's more general
q ownership are vastly multiplied
d Building and Realty.
t. WHEN the idea of individual owner
o ship which SO justly and naturally at
9 taches to things of human production,
L is extended to land, all the rest is a
d mere matter of development. The
IS strongest and most cunning easily &C
y quire superior share in this species OF
10 property, which is to be had, not by pro-
1t duction. but by appropriation, and in
v becoming lords of the land they become
q necessarily lords of their fellow-men.
q The ownership of land is the basis OF
IL.