The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1892-11-03


cages that represent immense wealth,
the income Of the millionaire, the earn
ings Of mighty railroad corporations, all
are to go free and untaxed, in ord ,r that
the pitiless power Of taxation may be
exercised upon your holdings till you
surrender the right to them because
you can bear no more.
To you, who have suffered cheerfully
the privations of the frontier. Mr..
George and the Democratic. Fusion
party say that you are partners in the
greatest crime with which humanity Is
stained, and that the most you have q
right to claim is to ask that you may
become tenants Of the State, pay to it
as rent the full annual value of the
land you live on.
You shall judge for yourselves.
Take no faith III this on the word of
any man.
Do not accept the denunciations Of
Mr.. Georges enemies or the protesta-
tions Of his allies, but read his own
works. These extract cts, which follow.
are taken literally from his own
writings, at time when he hoped to
win power in great cities, when he
sought the votes of the landless jewellers
of the metropolis by telling them that
they had as good right as any one to
what You have acquired at so much
cost and pain.
He puts you, farmers Of the North
west, on par with tho Shareholders Of
the South:
We have not really abolished slavery, We
have retained it in its Most insdious and
widespread f,rm-in form which applies to
whites as to blacks. So far from having abol-
shed slavery, it is extending an 1 intsnsifyinz,
and we make no scruple of selling into 1t our
own children-the citizens Of the republic vet
to be. For what else are we d g In selling
the land on " hich future citizens must live, if
they are to live at all.
Where the ownership Of land has been much
diffused, there will remain, for some time
after the mere laborer has been reduced to the
wages of slavery, = greater body Of smaller
landowners occupying an informed ate posi-
ton, and who. according to the land they
hold, and the relations which it bears t. their
labor, may to make a comparison with chaltel
slavery, bs compared, in heir gradations, to
the owners of few slaves; 10 those who own
no slaves but are themselves free; or 10 par
tial slaves, compelled to render service for
one, two three, four or five days in the eek
but for the rest Of the time their own ma sters,
He does not mean that we should keep
public land as public property for the
future, and leave men who now own
land alone. He means to dispossess
them:
There is no use in talking of -eserving what
there may be left Of our public domain to
actual settlers. That would be merely lock-
ing of the sta lie door after the horse had been
stolen. and even if it were not. would avail
| nothing. We can NO more abo ish
| Industrial slavery by limiting the siz, of
estates than we could abolish chattel slavery
|
single slaveowner might own. There
Is no escape from it. If we would save the
republic We must make land common property.
This Mr.. George would do, as has
been said, by putting on land, on the
farm and the city lot, such a burden of
unbearable taxation as would make it
ruinous for the holder to attempt to
hold it.
All 1t is necessary to do is o abolish all
other forms of tax ton until the weight Of
taxation rests upon the value of land. ire.
spective of improvements, and takes the
ground rent for the public benefit.
Practically. then, the greatest, the most
Fundamental of all reforms the reform which
will make all other reforms easier, and with
out which no other reform will avail, is to bt
reached by concentrating all taxation into 8
tax upon the value of land, and making tha
heavy enough to take as as may be tn.
whole ground rent for common purposes
It will be beautiful state of things
in the opinion Of Mr.. George, when al
unemployed labor can go to the country
and occupy land as it will, multiplying
indefinitely agricultural products and
decreasing in proportion their value il
the market.
Not that every unemployed mechanic, O
operative or clerk. could or would get himse
farm; but that from all the various occupa
lions enough would bet axe themselves to tn
land to relieve any pressure for employment
Study this idea, farmers of the North
west, and see how the prospect invite
you, which is offered by Mr.. George il