The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-12-10

| To the Editor of the Journal and Courier
In your editorial of December Z or
the Single Tax, you quoted Mr.. Charles
Francis Adams correctly as saying, at
would reduce taxation to q basis of alb
solute certainty and fairness, rendering
evasion impossible" You also refer to
what Mr.. Adams said as to the moral
side of the Single Tax proposition and
with your leave I will quote his words
81 might say a good deal in regard to
one strong point in its favor | refer to
the moral side of the question. #
On this moral side, which to my mind
is the most important side of all, there
can, so far as I see, be but one way of
looking at the thing. The single tax
would be an enormous Improvement on
any other system which / think could
be devised. A complete stop would be
put to the whole system of cheating
and consequent transfer of a burden
from those who have no conscience to
those who have a conscience-from
those who can escape law to those who
cannot escape law-which is an I'M
answerable argument against the con-
tinuance of the present system-a sys-
tenn which puts confessed because
quite undenable premium upon per-
jury; and no system which puts pre-
MUM upon perjury admits of justifica-
ton
After making the above unequivocal
statement, Mr.. Adams relapses little
when he comes to the farmer and
shows that he does not understand
fully the whole proposition. He gets
confused between "a tax on land and on
Land Values, and concludes that the
farmers property would be practically
confiscated" because his occupation
forces him to use a large amount of
land, an error most people fall into be-
fore they realize that farm of thous-
ands of acres can be bought for far less
than a small city lot in certain loca-
tons and that the single tax is tax
on land values and not upon land.
The most important thing about this
declaration of Mr.. Adams is that he
shows conclusively that any law which
does not carry moral force cannot be
justified. No reputable citizen ever
tells a lie in his business or social re-
ing done wrong, yet these same men go
up into the assessors office and lie like
troopers without any compunction at
all. The most ardent advocates of a
protective tariff on returning from
Europe fill their trunks with all they
can bring, and are not above buying a
few extra ones to fill If circumstances
favor and on arrival in New York har-
Dor the atmosphere is literally blue as
the ship sails up past the Statue of
with the false oaths taken in
regard to the contents of these same
trunks, nor is this confined to the lower
classes for in this case they have moth
ing to lie about, but it is the bishops
governors of States, fashion
able dressmakers and a lot of lesser
fry of the same ilk that perjure Them
selves in this way and laugh at it af-
forwards as huge joke II they escape
1t would be impossible to
nut this phase Of the waiter any palmer
than Mr.. Adams has done and the state
IF mind of the man who comes TO any
other conclusion is well worth rollect-
ng on.
1t is inexpicable how any one start !
ing out as Mr.. Adams did asserting
that the single tax is absolutely right !
n morals should then come to the con-
1lusion that it would work injustice. If |
he single tax is what Mr.. Adams says
t is, and what we claim for it, V. T., the |
of justice, and if its prac-
ical application should bring apparent /
oss to some individual it would merely |
prove that he was enjoying a privilege
hat he was not justly entitled to. and |
hat the single tax had come in and |
abolished special privilege for select