Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-06-04
SINGLE TAX AN ISSUE
Star Bureau,
Metropolitan National Bank Bldg.


Metropolitan National Bank Bldg.
WASHINGTON, June 4.
Single tax and municipal owner
ship of utilities for the District of.
Columbia are likely to become issues
in Congress in the next session.
These radical reforms will be urged
as remedies for the bad conditions in
the alleys and slums of the national
capital, to encourage small home
building in the suburbs, reduce the
cost of living, and discourage the
evils of land speculation. Advocates
of the measures will charge that the
growth of the city has been retarded
and unnaturally cramped into rows
of fnsanitary houses, and that i'm
proyements have been checked and
the outlying sections of the district
held in a state of unimprovement
and out of use. mainly for the bene-
fit of a small group of men who
have become very wealthy through
the favoritism shown them in the
present system of taxation.
Four Single Takers.
Four of the Democratic members
of the new House committee on
the government of the District of
Columbia are avowed single takers
and advocates of municipal owner
ship of utilities. These men are
Representatives L'Engle. of Florida;
Bremner, of New Jersey; Crosser, of
Ohio, and George, of New York. The
latter, Henry George, jr., is the son
of the author of the single tax doc
trine. s4
Crosser has for years been a
prominent member of the little group
of radical reformers who. supported
the late Tom johnson in his fights
in Cleveland, and Bremner and
L'Engle are newspaper editors who
have a reputation in their own States
as aggressive fighters for radical re-
forms and against special privilege.
When the House committee gets
down to business, these single tax
members will urge the forcing of the
tax issue in Congress in the form of
bill to graduallys exempt buildings
and personal property from taxation
in the District of Columbia. Such
exemption, it is urged, would ma
turally increase taxes on unimproved
property and force it into the market
at lower prices. With the discour-
aging of speculation in unimproved
property, and the exemption of build
ings from taxation, the single tax
group asserts, the effect would be to
encourage BODYBUILDING, reduce
rents and improve conditions.
Progressives May Aid.
| What attitude other members OF
| the committee than these four may
| take on the tax question is unknown
In view, however, of the fact that
leaders of the Progressive party in
New Jersey have announced their In
| tention of making the exemption OF
| buildings from taxation one of the
! issues in the gubernatorial fight there
this year, and that prominent New
York Progressives have seriously con-
sidered raising the same issue in the
mayoralty fight in New York city this
| fall, it is not improbable that Pro
gressive support will be given thi.
program here when it is reached.
! Requirement of the present trolley
lines, gas and electric properties IL
| Washing tol anu lheii opcldeioA W
| the district government, with exten'
sions of the service and cheapening
of fares and charges, will be another
! part of the propaganda urged fol
lettering conditions here and making
Washington a model in city govern.
ment.
The announcement by Representa-.
tive Ben Johnson, chairman of the
House committee, that he favors suf.