The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1918-06-29
HOW WORKERS
ARE HIT BYLAND
SPECULATE
An Illustration Emphasizing
Need Of Adequate Tax on 1,
Unused Land,

Il1leS HOitn OIL new I Ofk City on the
Hudson river is the station of Har-
mon, where trains on the four-track
main line of the New York Central
change their motive-poWer from elec-
tricity to steam or vice versa, accord
ing to whether or not they are leav-
ing or approaching the metropolis.
Heavy electric locomotives and
great steam passenger engines are
housed here, and hundreds of skilled
mechanics and their helpers are en-
ployed in the electrical shops where
all the equipment for operating 80
miles of main line and the many miles
of trackage within the Grand Central
terminal is repaired. Every passenger
train leaving New York stops at Har-
mon, where it's electric LOGON olive
is uncoupled and replaced by steam
engine, and every train into New York
stops to change from steam to elec-
trio power.
Harmon itself consists of several
thousand acres of land, rising gently
from the river to the Westchester
hills. Beautiful and healthful resi-
dence sites overlooking the Hudson
begin just at the edge Of the tracks.
On the river side of the shops there
is long point of land, comprising 800
acres fairly high and wooded, extend
ing out into the Hudson. Not a soul
lives on this point, and on the oppo-
site side, toward the east, there are
hardly 25 houses in the whole great
tract. Nor are these few scattered
dwellings farm houses, requiring ex-
civy1 i01I
homes for New York business men,
occupying building lots of limited ST. :
and surrounded by empty, unculti-
waited fields.
Live Miles From Work.
Instead of living near their work.
in houses that might be erected on
some of the many beautiful spots in
the immediate neighborhood, en-
ployes Of the shops come by train
every morning and evening from
Peekskill or Ossining or Croton, from
three to 10 miles away, and return
the same way. Not one among all
the hundreds employed at Harmon
lives there.
Inquiry at Harmon disclosed the
reason.
1.-The land here is owned by Mr..
Harmon" said the station agent
land he doesn't want the working
men here. And that point yonder
is owned by a syndicate. The men
employed here couldn't rent or buy a
foot of it,
Inspection of the townsite of Har-
mon explained it's owners aversion to
working men. Streets had been laid
out, some rectangularly and others
winding along the sides of the hills.
A small square building served as
headquarters for the owners agents.
There were building restrictions re-
quiring that no house might be put
up under certain cost.
Withheld for Speculation.
In other words, all the land in Har-
mon, where hundreds of men are en-
ployed to do the essential work of the
world, is held out of use as a real
estate specula ton at, a price that puts
it out of the. working mans reach and
deprives him of the comfort and
pleasure of home near the job. Be-
cause some day well-to-do-New York
commuters can be persuaded to pay
who are doing their bit in public serv-
ice as genuinely as soldiers in the
trenches must make a long train jour-
ney to and from their work.
For this idle land at Harmon is
beautifully situated, with many pic
turesque features in the landscape.
This instance is only one illustra-
ton of how the workers and produce
ers suffer from a system that per-
mits the owner of land to hold it out
of use as speculation-to monopol-
ize natural resources and deprive
working men of the comforts and
beauties which they most of all de-
serve under any just conception of
things. 1t is an instance of the same
principle that invariably shoves the
homes of working-men into the least
attractive quarters of our cities, so
that often their children must be
brought up with the fumes of gas
plants and factories in their nostrils,
while in other parts of town there
lie great tracts of land held out of
use as a speculation, waiting for the
rich to buy at high prices. 1t is the
same principle that gives us over
crowding in small cities of the anthra-
cite coal region, with all the sur
rounding land monopolized by a few
mining companies.
The Only Remedy.
The way to end this injustice is to
establish by law the principle of bene-
fetal use. It has already been estab-
l1shed in some of the western states
with respect to water courses: No
man can lay claim to more water for
lrrlgating purposes than he can put
to beneficial use. There is no reason
in justice or common sense why the
same principle should not be applied
to land. And the way to do it is to
tax unused land at the same rate as
land that is used so that the owner
OF Stacker acres must either use them
or put them on the market at rea-
sonable price. This is the simple pro-
posal to remove taxes from improve
ments and place them on the land it.
self. And it is known as the single
tax, eor the taxation of land values.