Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1891-02-20
SINGLE LA DEPARTMENT.
THE FARMER AND THE SINGLE
TAX

erty press and platform that the land
value tax will never be accepted by
farmers or small home owners. If that
tax were what its ignorant opponents
describe it these classes would be hos
tile; but when the farmer and rural
home owner learn what the tax is, as
those of New York State will in the
political campaign this fall, they will be
even more eager to adopt it than the
artisan classes of the city have been.
w. I. Hopkins, of Enterprise, Kan,
forwards clipping from paper of his
State which gives fair idea of the way
the land value tax is misrepresentedt to
farmers. After a long statement of
what he supposes the land value tax to
be and how it would affect the interests
of farmers, the editor says: This is a
plain and simple statement of the
Georgian land tax theory, put in the
vernacular of the common people," 1t
would be better English and nearer the
truth to say that it is statement of the
Georgian land tax theory, put into the
vernacular of an ignorant editor.
According to this Kansas quill, under
the George regime, the lawyer, the
doctor, the merchant, the manufacturer
men of every trade and profession
who own no land and who only repres-
ent billions of dollars worth of per-
sonal property-wi escape all taxation,
and the whole burden will be thrown
upon the farmer and home owner, ex-
cept where business men carry on en-
terprlses in their own stores and mills. :"
There is more ignorance to the thou
sand ems in this quotation than there
are puns in the funniest OF Tom Hoods
jingles.
Until we raise up class of lawyers,
doctors, merchants and manufacturers
who can live without land, we shall
have no man of either class who, under
the land value tax, can escape his share
of public burdens. They all pay land
value tax now and to the full annual
value of the land they use; but it goes
into the pockets of landlords instead of
going into the public treasury.
This Kansas editor seems to think
that man who did not own the land
he used would be untaxed. 1t is true
he would not pay any more for the land
than he pays now, but he now pays all
he ought to pay. The trouble is that he
pays the wrong man. He would pay no
less under a land value tax except as
the land he used fell in value, but so
long as that land had value he could
not escape taxation. And he ought not
to pay for any thing but the land value
he appropriates. That, and that alone,
of his wealth is produced by the COM
munity. and belongs to the community;
his personal property and land improve
ments being of his own production the
community has no right to take them.
When the community compels him to
pay for the land value he appropri-
ates 1T takes only what belongs to it;
but when it compels him to give up to
it of the products of his labor one pen
ny over and above the land value he
has appropriated it robs him
1t is not true, however. that LAWYERS.
merchants, manufacturers and doctors
represent billions of dollars worth of
personal property. What the astute
Kansas editor means by personal prop
erty may be itemized as railroad stock.
corporation and government bonds, and
so on Of the value of this class of
property, very little is a property value
at all. So much of corporation stock
and bonds as represents actual labor
products, like rolling stock, rails and
stations, is property value, and ought to
be free of taxes; first because the COM
munity did not produce these things,
and second, to encourage the produc-
ton of more. But so much of such
stock and bonds as represents special
privileges and water" is a mere device
of robbery, bearing relation to the in
dustry of our time similar to what
pirate ships bore to commerce a few
generations ago.
When we propose to exempt labor pro-
ducts from taxation, we mean labor
products. As for public franchises that
are special privileges, we would abolish
them altogether.
And how about the whole burden of
taxation being thrown upon the farmer
and home owner?
The Kansas editor will certainly ex-
clude tenant farmers. 1t is strange
that he does not classify tenant farmers
with ''men of every trade and profess
sion who own no land" for surely if
doctors are to escape taxation tenant
farmers will too. The truth is that ten
ant farmers like doctors, will pay the
same ground tax that they do now, ex-
eept as it falls in consequence of the fall
of land values, and that what they pay
will find its way into the public treasury
instead OF settling, as it does now, in
the Golfers of landlords
And why does not the Kansas editor
classify mortgaged farmers with doc
tors, lawyers and merchants? The
mortgaged farmer is to the extent of his
mortgage, a tenant farmer.
That the whole burden of taxation
will be thrown upon farm owners and
home owners is false upon the face of
it. How about mine owners? How
about factory owners? How about
store owners? How about water front
owners? How about the owners of va
cant lots?
The burden of taxation that house
owners will have to bear will depend
upon the value of the land upon which
their homes are built. If they build on
the most desirable land in the commun-
ity-as poor home owners never do. by
the way-they will have high tax to
pay; if they build on the least desirable
land in the community..as poor home
owners are now compelled to do-they
VIII have little or no tax to pay; and
according to the desireableness of the
land upon which they build, from the
least to the most desirable, SO will