The herald., 1894-02-10

tax exemptions. We are living under
conditions productive of gigantic for
tunes on the one hand and hundreds OF
thousands of tramps and unemployed
on the other. We are told, therefore,
that we must attack these millions and
confiscate at least portions of it. under
the name of taxation, for the public
treasury.
The plan is very captivating to many.
1t is implicitly based upon one or all OF
these propositions: That their millions
were unjustly obtained; that the mill
lionaire is public enemy, who must be
punished, or that all machinery and
other personal property used in the
course of production is by right, or
should be, common property.
The speaker then went on in answer
to say that single tax men were neither
communists or socialists; that IN so far
as the miliionsire's millions are engaged
in production they are public benefit
and not public curse that the products
OF labor belong not to the public but to
the producer or to him who pays that
producer for it; that thus the right Of
property in labor products is based upon
mans right to himself and to his own
faculties, and that there is, theoret-
ically, no limit to the amount
of such property which a
man might honestly acquire and should
rightfully hold. Should he pay taxes
on it? Not so long as the public had
any common fund to draw from. And
the public has common fund that is
all its own-raised by tax on natural
resources which no man created, but to
which ell are in equity entitled.
But as to the many cases, the speaker
continued, in which these millions were
.unjuetly obtained, here especially was
where the single tax would reach the
millionaire. Not, indeed, by taking his
property and redistributing it or Selling
it for the public. The single tax is a
practical measure. Human ingenuity
cannot unravel the complicated history
OF any one of such fortunes, nor dis
cover the individuals who have been
robbed. We cannot redress past rob-
berries. We shall not punish the guilty,
because we are all alike to blame. We
are responsible for the millionaire and
the tramp, because we enact the laws
and create the conditions under which
they breed. The single tax has no per-
sonal fight with the rich; no demagog-
ical and transient charities to offer to
the poor. The single tax will abolish
unjust conditions, unlock natural OPP
portunities and resources now unJustly
withheld, force land into use by taxing
it according to the use that should be
made of it, make labor independent by
putting nature herself into the market
to bid for that labor against the en-
ployer, encourage capital and labor, and
destroy monopoly. The single tax will
raise wages. 1t will prevent the
future accumulation of unjust millions
by forcing and setting to work
the natural laws of trade and
production. and in that way will reach
the millionaire. 1t will abolish monop-
oily and, in that way, reach the mil
lionaire. 1t will free labor from the
necessity of accep ting the exacting terms
of the grasping rich, and in that way
reach the millionaire. But the million
aire who uses his wealth in honest pro-
duction, who uses it to improve and
open the boundless resources of our
land, who believes in good wages and in
the independence and manhood of labor.
who believes in equal opportunity for
all and monopoly for none, he need have
no fear. The single tax will not reach
him except to help him.
In the lowest and highest senses, the
single tax attempts to reach" no one
to his injury, but ALL. rich. aud poor
alike, to their welfare.