The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-09-02
SINGLE TAKERS HONOR MEMORY OF HENRY
 GEORGE ON BIRTHDAY

Disciples of the single tax school of political economy will today honor the memory of Henry George, the father the principle which they be- was born in Philadelphia seventy six years ago today, and died in 1897.
 The idea which he elaborated in his famous book, Progress and Poverty
 now has a, multitude of adherents, not only in the United States and Canada, but in Europe. Modified forms of the single tax have been put into operation in many places and there are in America number of single tax colonies where the second of Sep tember is annually observed in mem ory of Henry George.
 Henry George was a printer in his youn ger days, and in 1859 went to California, where he worked as a newspaper compositor for several years, and then became an editor. He settled in New York in 1880 and six years later was nominated by the
 Labor party for mayor of New York. In 1897 he was again nominated for mayor, and began the campaign with great enthusiasm After making four addresses one night he retired about midnight, but soon had stroke of apoplexy and died before morning. Henry Georges solution of the age old land problem involves the raising of all public revenues, of all kinds, by a single tax upon land values, 1r- respective of improvements, The single taxers demand the abolition of all other forms of taxation, whether direct or indirect.
 The single, tax, according to Henry George, 'is not a, tax on land, but on the value of land" He further ex- plains: ssThus it would not fall on all l land, but only on valuable land, and on that not in proportion to the use made of t, but in proportion to it's value-the premium which the user 1 of the land must pay to the owner,
 either in purchase money or rent, for permission to use valuable land. It would thus be a. tax not on the use 1 and improvement of land, but on the ownership of land, taking what would l otherwise go to the owner as owner, and not as user.
 In making assessments under the
 single tax, "the only value taken into consid iteration would be the value at 1 taching to the bare land by reason of
 neighborhood. etc" Thus tho farmer would have no more taxes to pay than 1 the speculator who held similar l piece of land idle, and the man who on a city lot erected valuable build 1 ing would be taxed no more than the man who held a similar lot va can't
 i Summing up his theory of taxation, Henry George explained that it I 1 to the public revenues not in propor- I ton to what they produce or accu- l mulate, but in proportion to the na- tural opportunities they hold, and
 this would compel them TO pay just as much for holding land idle as for 1 putting it to it's fullest use"
 The effect of the single tax, ac-
 cor ding to George, would be, first, to take the burden of taxation off the shoulders of farmers and put it on | the towns and cities It would sim plify government by doing away with ! a multiplicity of taxes. It would pre-
 vent the wealthy from escaping their | just share of the burden of taxation
 and make tax-dodging impossible Ii I would make the holding of land un- | profitable to the mere owner and and profitable only to the user,'' and thus make it impossible for .tspecu- 1 lators and monopolists to hold natural opportunities unused or only half us- ed.'' It is also claimed for the sin gle tax that it would give the world IPerfect freedom of trade, and hence tSlelp to do away with war; solve the
 labor problem, do away with involun- 1 tRry poverty, and, in short, that its 1 universal adoption would usher in 8
 new and prosperous era for the wholc ] world