The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-05-03
WOMAN'S PART
Miss Grace COlbrOn'S Lecture
on Economies.
Urges Single Tax-SuperVi-
sion of Dance Halls.

Miss Grace Colbron of New York
spoke the other night at the Y. W. Z.
A on Economics. She said in part:
The work of government is nothing
In the world but public housekeeping,
and any factor in municipal govern
ment that is not an expanded system
OF management of a well regulated
household. has its root in some moral
evil, and men are realizing that fact
and bringing in the women to help in
the larger field in which they are most
efficient.
I'm the kindergarten and in the
public school, the underlying principle
that is taught to every child is equal
opportunity for ALL" but So soon as he
goes out into the world he finds that
this fact which has been drilled into
nlm for years. is not used in practice
Land and labor are the fundamentals
of Industrial life, and capital, mistak-
emily at war with labor, is only the
child of land and labor, and where
labor is cheap, capital brings low re-
turns.
1T is necessary to conduct private
and public charities for immediate
relief of individual cases, but it is
more Imperative to go to the root of
the trouble. Minimu UNI wage legisla-
ton has its benefits, but in some places
where it has been tried it has been
found that it results in the overwork
or the girls who are retained at higher
wages, the discharge of others, and the
gradual increase in the cost of the
things produced. The same results
follow successful strikes and any
arbitrary fixing of wages. The natural
adjustment of wages is the demand |
set of persons may make that he be |
paid for his labor much as he !
could make by working for himself |
But this normal adjustment is pre- |
vented in many cases now, because the |
land and the natural resources is taken
away from the public and has passed
Tv1%@ l.. lsr-S.1 a1e Tho .nf
the wages at a bare living income"
Single Tax the Remedy.
Miss Colbron suggested as one great
remedy, the single tax, which means a
tax, not on improvements, and not on
land, but on land values. The COM
munity makes a piece of land valua-
BILE, by making it accessible to large
numbers of people, and therefore a
desirable location for business or resi-
dence, and since 1t is the comm unity
that makes it valuable, the comm unity
should receive an income from it. I'm
der the present system tracts of land
are held for fabulous prices, in crowd
ed districts, because buildings on the
land would be taxed, whereas the I'M
used land has very little assessment
against it. Laws are made for COM
polling owners to improve their tene-
ments, and then the improved build
ings are SO highly taxed that the own
er puts up the rent and then tenant
moves to worse building. Thus, the
|
a premium on shiftlessness and taxing
thrift.
The land values of farms are low,
and should be taxed, not according to
the improvements on them, but ac-
cording to the economic advantage of
their proximity to the markets. !
Miss Colbron is the only woman lee
turer sent out over the country by the
Henry George Single Tax league. She
will go from here to Denver, and will
speak in most of the large cities of
the west and middle west. She has
been abroad studying economics in
foreign countries, particularly in Ger
many. 1t is probable that she will re-
turn to Topeka to lecture in a larger
hall on her return trip.
Dance Hall Question.
1.-The dance hall question is not so
remote from the interests of social
workers in Topeka as many people of
our town Think said Miss Mary Vose
of the Provident association in a
short address preceding the lecture of
Miss Margaret Baylor, at the Y. w. c.
a. There are dance halls in Topeka
that need inspection and regulation.
asked the county and the city Off
GERS for a list of dance halls and !
learned that there was no record kept
of them, and then, with some other
Topeka people, 1 started out to hunt
them up. Some of them have few if |
one in which liquor was sold in the
building, and another where the men
could get liquor between dances at a |
neighboring place, and one with a
back entrance opening into an alley
which urgently needed watching"
Miss Baylor who made the principal
address of the afternoon, has charge
of the dance halls of Santa Barbara,
Calf, and she spoke before a mass
meeting of women here yesterday |
urging the need of a municipal dance
hall, even in the small towns. With
in the past five years." she said |
dancing has become the most popu- !
lar of amuSementS. Girls who are
without homes and without means to |
provide themselves with other re-
creation, find the dance hall their
chief means of relaxation. The dance