Middletown transcript., 1895-08-24
HOW TO ARGUE WITH SINGLE
TAKERS.

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EDITOR TRANsCRIPT:-Ia am pleas
ed see that in your issue of Angus
18th, you patriotically appeal to tn
press Of Delaware to "meet and var
quish the Single Tax" say patriot
cally, because Single Tax is but step
ping-stone to full fledged socialism
and socialism is ditto to anarchy. Th'
proof of the former is found in the th'
fact that socialists are continually
ridiculing the puerile and inconsistent
performances of the Single Takers ani
proving to them, as they well do, thai
their only nesting place is on the fond
old bosom of socialism. Single Tax il
nothing more nor less than a stras
chaM of the old woman. Whether in.
dustrious men want to work all their
lives for the lazy men; whether ''no
man can have aught which he can call
his own" are questions now before
the people of Delaware to consider.
Their grandfathers would have speedily
settled the confederation by throwing
into the Delaware Bay any body OF
men preaching such doctrines; but we
have educated people up to that point
in which they are now polite enough to
ask for what we have under the guise
of law instead of at the pistols mouth.
There is difference between phil
osopher and a robber; the first can be
duly argued with, the other must be
handled rough and ready. Philosophers
are men who have principles that they
respect and convert into philosophy by
practice. That which goes under the
name of PHILOSOPHY" and is not a con-
tlnuation of principles and practice, is
merely vagary, an air-castle. Such
is Single Tax. 1t says ''No man made
the land, no man can own the land, "
and insultingly faunts this in our very
faces, while its preachers are not only
owners of land, but monopolists of it
as well; making it seem, by such in
consistency, that their only aim is to
trap the unwary for their own continued
aggrandizement. Such is the fact, Sin
gle Tax will ever make the rich sharper
richer, and the honest poor man poorer.
Robbers as they seek to make them
selves, they should be handled as such,
and not receive additional inflations to
their vanity by having their vagary
dignified as PHILOSOPHY" and corres-
pondingly honored with philosophric
debate and argument.
People who argue are said to be op-
ponents, and, as such, can be called
fighters, like soldiers. How does the
Single Takers fight? Good people all,
let me show you. He holds out his
bayonet at a ''charge;" he calls to you
from afar off (they have sent me
challenge to meet them in Wilmington
to "come on" If you shoot him from
a distance, he will charge you with
cowardice in not coming to close
quarters; if you knock his bayonet
from his hand, he will say you are
rough and ungentlemanly Gust as if
war calls for gentleness); If you swipe
him over the head, he will say it was a
"foul;" if you take him by flank
he will say you are unfair.
so what do you think he wants He
merely wants you to run straight up
on the point of his bayonet and allow
yourself to be disemboweled that he
may dangle you in mid-air victim to
his powers. That's what he calls
fighting and victory. Anything less
than that he calls evasion. That is
exactly what it is to argue with Sim
gle Taxer the world over. All the way
from the Jesuits down to my humble
self-that's the result.
Of course, any body who attempts to
argue with a Single Taxer without
first getting him to show that he owns
no land whatever, does so more in a
weakness and kindness than in "the
fitness of things" By rights, as Sin
~ IN To voro dopoa.,d of nc fret m oho,u
justice for our owning land, so also
can we demand of them first to show
that they consider it unjust to own it
If they are piled as full
of it as the average land-grabber, that
settles it, unless as an amusement,
and incidentally, there is Lo demand
upon US to go further into their beauti-
full beyond. If man proves himself
a fraud in his first dealing with US, We
want to give him wide berth after
ward. But the Single Taxer don't
like you to talk this way about him
it's indulging in personalities, gentle
men, says he, want to talk about prin-
ciples, just as if anything is principle
that has no foundation in practice.
Yes, sir, Mr.. Editor, ''all things are
fair in love and war;" and if you want
TO prevent your little State from being
made the laughing-st of the country
and from being swindled by the oily
;ongued takers, just handle them will
,ut ceremony, as BELTS their trickery
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