The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1911-04-21
LESSON OF
HOLOCAUST
Present system of land tax
alton encourages erec-
ton of just such fire traps

City wherein $50 girl employees, caught
in the upper floors of a high building,
lost their lives, has had its usual effect
of such calamities. There are outcries
that some individual should be held re-
sponsible and punished, that existing
factory laws should be more stringent
ly enforced and that stricter laws
should be passed. As time goes by these
demands will become less urgent and
finally die away altogether until the
next calamity Even if some one should
be punished, even if factory inspectors
should begin to impartially exercise
their authority and even if new batch
of laws should be placed on the already
overburdened statute books the result
will be the same.
As long as human beings must choose
between starvation and taking employ
ment under circumstances that involve
great risk, the latter alternative will
certainly be chosen.
AS long as some business men are un-
able to secure quarters suitable for their
business at a rental low enough to en-
able them to do business except in the
upper floors of unsafe buildings that is
the kind of quarters they will continue
to select.
As long as system of taxation ex-
lists which fines property owners who
make improvements and deals lightly
with those who hold land out of use,
thousands. of employers and their en-
ployes will have no better choice open to
them. than locations in old and danger
Gus buildings in which to carry on their
avocations.
While factory laws continue to de-
mand requirements of laborers, EN-
ployers and building owners waicn othei
laws make difficult or impossible OF
fulfillment, the blame for non enforce
ment should be placed on the shoulders
of our incompetent or venal legislators
rather than upon factory inspectors or
on owners and renters of inspected
property.
| There is room enough, even in New
York City, for buildings of a reasonable
heighth to accommodate all manufac-
turers. Skyscrapers would not be in
such demand if all the land were prop
erlv improved. But because many land
owners do not put their land to its best
use skyscrapers are necessary to accom-.
modate the business that is forced to
crowd onto the land that is allowed to
be put to all the use of which lt Is
capable. The remedy for this state OF
affairs is to force unused land into use
That does not mean that laws must be
passed arbitrarily limiting the heighth
of buildings, suggestion sometimes
made by we'll meaning but unthinking
nersons. To do that would only be to
force tenants and other land users to
pay higher prices than now to specuia
five holders of idle lands. A regula-
| t;on of that kind would not force
single owner of idle land who did not
want to build to do so while it would
prevent some who did want to build
from building as much as they would
like. The real remedy is to penaiize
the Withholding of land from use and
abolish the penalties we now infllct IN
the form of taxes on land users. That
means a complete reversal OF our pres
ent taxation policy. BY abolishing all
taxes on buildings and other products
of industry and by raising all public
revenue through a single tax on land
values the Withholding of valuable land
from use can be made so expensive
that the owner will find it to his inter
est to make all improvements possible
under such conditions it will be pos
sible for all manufacturers to secure
| ouarters at reasonable rentales where
they can carry on business without SUD
iecting employees to unnecessary risks
In fact employees will be better pro-
tected than they can be under existing
conditions with the strictest enforce
mont of the most drastic kind OF rae
tory laws for the forcing of unused
land into use must create such an in
creased demand for labor that an IN
voluntarily unemployed able-bodied man
or woman will be thing of the past.
Laborers in position to make their
own terms of employment can be their
own factory inspectors and can enforce
all necessary precautions for their
safety without the help of possibly wei
meant but unintelligent and meddle-
some legislation.