The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907, 1903-01-01
Money and the Taxing Power
BY W. III. ASHBY.
BY w. III. ASHBY.

from day to day.
Each individual life-center here
struggles for space and means to de-
velop the form appropriate to its own
species. But life also manifests itself
everywhere around us under the form
of animals in great profusion. Here,
too, each individual form of animal
life battles to obtain room and the
means for it's own development. We
cannot free ourselves, while looking
at all these forms, from the idea that
each one of these individual life-cen
ters, obeying native impulse, is act
ually seeking by every means within
it's power to take possession of space
and to obtain dominion over forces
and materials which it may compel to
serve it in accomplishing it's seeming
purpose to create and maintain the
form appropriate to it's species.
In this struggle between the individ-
ual life-centers, remorseless battle is
necessarily waged between them.
Here are the perfect Ishmaelites.
Observe now that this struggle
among these individuals is just as bit
ter and relentless between individuals
of the same species, as between those
of different genera. These are the
low forms of life When we ascend
to the higher forms of animal life we
find the deer and even the parrots and
monkeys have ceased from cannibal-
ism. They even put forth some por-
ton of their efforts to aid other indl-
uil oIc <f
All this turmoil and battle between
individual life-centers Is struggle on
the part Of each to extend its dcmin-
ion over and to obtain exclusive indi-
vidual possession of certain things cap
able of serving it by supplying the
needs of it's nature. 1t is those things
endowed with this capacity to be made
to serve beneficially, which among
men have become what We call
wealth"
Because the supply of those things is
insufficient to meet the demand created
by this struggle, the battle becomes
fierce and destructive There is No
arm of power outstretched among the
loWly forms of life to protect the
weak individual from aggression by
the strong, and in the hurly burly the
mightiest deyour the less mighty, and
so the 'fttest" individuals survive.
1t is this NATURALIZATION of life,
this effort of each separate life-center
to acquire exclusive possession of GER
tain things for it's individual behoof,
and thereby to deprive all other indi-
| viduals of dominion over these things.
which generates this deadly struggla
The sum total of all the life that is
manifested in that tropical forest, if
united in one, would be the same and
the needful elements there found
would support and maintain the same
quantity of life thus united, and the
battle between the individuals would
be eliminated.
Upward progress is along the line
of eliminating this fierce battle.
The plants perform those acts from
which the propagation OF their spe-
cies result, and take no further care
or supervision of the germ of a new
life thus thrust out into the world AS
we ascend the scale all this is changed.
Among the higher forms of life "the
mothers nurse and the sires defend"
their young.
In our own species not only does par
entail love guard and preserve the
young, but brother and sister protect
each other, and children provide for
helpless parents. And the higher man
has attained in the scale of real civ
ilization, the less exclusive does the
individual life-center become; the
wider is the circle Of its sympathy. and
the more does it tend toward the rec
ognition of right OF common possess
sion, not by denial of the right of
exclusive individual possession, but
By a voluntary relaxation of each in
dividual in the enforcement of
that right.
ITO be continued next week.