The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-04-12
FEDERAL LAND TAX.


federal farm loan board and other
authorities on taxation and food pro-
duction, a nationwide movement for
the levying by congress of a federal
tax on land values has been started
by The Joseph Fels International Com
mission founded for carrying on the
single tax propaganda.
In a letter to Secretary McAdoo
and to members of the ways and
means and finance committees of con-
gress, Mrs. FeIs urges that a tax on
enues for the federal government and
at the same time greatly increase food
production by encouraging a fuller and
more intensive use of agricultural land.
To urge the blowing up of lawns and
tennis courts for vegetable gardens
and to stop there is like urging all the
old ladies to knit sweaters while per-
hitting scores of textile mills to re-
main idle, said Mrs. Fels.
COMMISSIONS Dillon of the foods
and markets department of New York
says that farm lands in the state are
producing not more than one-third of
their capacity. Within a few hours
haul of the large eastern centers lie
great tracts of idle land, held out of
use because today they are practi-
cally exempt from taxation and the
owners can afford to wait while the
enterprise and the needs of others
send up their value.
In a letter to the Fels commission.
Commissioner Quick of the federal
farm loan board. recently appointed
by President Wilson, said:
The time is always opportune for
urging federal tax on land values.
and especially now when war revenues
are to be raised
Commissioner Quick is also author
ity for the statement that food pro-
duction in this country is being held
back and wise cultivation prohibited
because of the enormous increase in
land values due to the buying and
holding OF farm land as a speculation.
In Illinois, according to Commission
er Quick, SO per cent of the farms are
cultivated by tenants, and conditions
in other states are little better. He
says:
These tenant farmers are prosper
GUS some of them, but, in the main,
II you will talk with anybody who
understands anything about a rational,
9SioHIiIS anu humane system of farm
tenantry, he will laugh at the idea
of man making money on a farm,
or making anything else except mere
existence on the farm which he holds
merely from year to year.
Considered from the standpoint of
the conservation of our fundamental
resources, the American firm leases
constitute criminal conspiracy be-
tween the owners and the tenant to
rob the farm of everything which can
make it useful to posterity.
Inc system OF taxation is at the
basis OF this These enormous land
values are the creation of community
activities. They ought to be taken in
the form of taxation before we call
upon people to pay out anything
which they have individually produced
for the support of the government.
The scheme OF the taxation of land
values should be adopted
A federal tax on land values could
be levied with ease and simplicity,
the Fels commission will point out
by apportioning the lump sum which
congress decides to raise by this meth
cd among the states on the basis of
assessed valuation of land values. On
this point the commission quotes
Prof. Edwin r. A. Seligman of Col
umbia university, a member of Mayor
Mitchefs committee on taxation. In
his report to the mayor he said:
The land value tax is perhaps, of all
taxes, the simplest to assess and the
easiest to collect. The land value tax,
again, is perhaps. OF all taxes. the one
| to which a community can most readi-
| ly adjust itself. The land value tax,
| finally, will tend to cause the least
interference with economic and So
cial conditions.
Congress will be asked to adopt a
resolution urging this form of tax
alton by state governments, and to
initiate a constitutional amendment
giving Congress the power to levy a
| federal tax y