The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1898-08-22
WILL TAX iiOf1asrEADs OUT or
EXISTENCE.

dDIGSL anu mOSt SCuoIdilJ AACA
in the South. Recently he de-
Iivered an address to the state
university Of Texas, in which
he touched upon the Henry
George single tax theory. stat
ing that such a tax would tax
the homestead out of existence.
This elected some severe cr.tl-
cisms from the advocates of the
single land tax theory. In re-
plying to these critics, Mr..
Terrell says:
The following was my only ref
erence to Mr.. George: Equally
disastrous would be the scheme
of Henry George, who would
tax the homestead out of exis
tence by compelling the owner
10 pay rent Oh it foi the benefit
Of the good and the bad, the
industrious and the indolent
alike. Such scheme would re-
verse the order Of a progress
sive civilization, and make
a tenant at will in his own
home. This would equalize
conditions, but would Danish
civilization.
My critics are charitable
enough to believe that | do not
understand M. George Let
us see. Mr.. George, in his
Progress and Poverty"
and also in his essay on the
Irish Land Question, distinct
ly announced that all land,
like air and water, was created
by God for the use of all
men and that all men had an
equal right to it; that. there
fore, the Individual ownership
of land was wrong, and should
uot be tolerated. His remedy
for poverty. announced in his
pamphlet on the Irish Land
Question" (p. 4O) was to sweep
away all private ownership Of
land by appropriating to the
state its full rental value. /"
He said: When this is done,
men may continue to call them
selves landlords If they wish to,
but as what, under this system,
was paid by the tenant would
be taken by the state. it is pret
~ clear that middlemen would
not long survive, and that very
soon the occupiers of land
would come to be nominally
the owners, though in reality
they would be the tenants of the
whole people. -
This, in a nutshell, was the
remedy of Mr.. George for pow
erty.
To illustrate: A man who
has invested the earnings of a
lifetime to buy a farm finds
him elf, either from age or dis
ease, unable to work it and
rents it to tenants. Mr.. George
would appropriate for the use
of the state by taxation the full
rental value of that farm.
Thus the landlord could collect
rent from his tenants, and the
state would then collect by tax
alton all the rent from him.
This extreme case illustrates
the doctrine-for according to
Mr.. George, all men must pay
the rental value Of the lands
they CLAIM and occupy to the
state.
Most men who live on their
farms will regard this remedy
as rather drastic. Mr.. George
said: The only true and just
solution of the problem (pover-
ty) the only end worth aiming
at, is to make all the land the
common property of all the peo-
pie. ("Irish Land Question"
p 36.) That was the sort of
title the Comanche Indians once
asserted as they roamea over
the pralries. No doubt. it re-
suited IN a free and easy condi-
ton of affairs. but they failed
to progress much in civiliza-
ton.
That Mr.. George was II man
of noble impulses all will con-
cede; that good men adopt his
ideas and are found in the land
leagues now established over
our state is equ lily true; but l
really cannot find time to dis
cuss with them whether the
land that a citizen of Texas has
paid for belongs equally to
h. RI IL