New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1918-01-02
Land Conscrs;p tion

Single Takers have made up their
minds that there is just one way to win
the war. Conscript the Idle Acres is
their slogan, and the more praise is due
them because they have been advocating
some such program in season and out
for years, in peace and now IN war.
There may be economic faults to be.
found with their single tax plans but they
are right when they say that the idle
acres and the idle hands should be
brought into contact. Norman or woman
has any earthly right to grab off
big piece Of the earth S producing surface
and keep it from fulfilling it's mission Of
bringing forth bountifully to relieve the
wants of human beings. There's got to
be a shake-up some day on this land
question and right now, when one jolt
more or less doesn't count for much,
would be good time to shake the greedy
fingers of land grabbers loose from those
portions of the earth they have stolen
from the man who is willing to work.
There is enough Idle Land and re-
sources on the Pacific Slope alone to
feed and house and clothe the whole
world, and to commissary generously
all the warning armies, and timber and
metal enough to build all the ships re-
quired to transport the goods-and Idle
brokers and real estate agents enough
in Los Angeles alone (well, nearly to
cultivate the land and build the ships.
They are not farmers and mechanics,
you say? That is no answer. Let
them go to work in the stores and
factories, and release from their I'M
natural occupations the thousands OF
farmers driven off the land by specula-
ton and the thousands Of clerks and
statesmen who would rather be cultivators.
5or mechanics but were forced from their
natural bents by the stupidity unnatural
system of land speculation.
. There are millions of men and women
working themselves to death at perfectly
useless and unproductive occupations.
In every office building in the nation are
hundreds of groups of men and women
scheming how to take away the fruits
of labor and industry, how to get their
living without producing anything. There
is vast army of non producers in this
country, people whose work is entirely
unnecessary either in producing supplies
or in contributing to their distribution
and the larger part of them are neither
bartenders nor artists. Most of them
are people who buy, sell, and dicker In
natural opportunities, making them ever
harder and dearer for the people to
reach.
These people are as blameless as any
of us; very few have any choice in the
matter; economically they try to find the
line of least resistance. On an open
earth under free conditions this would be
in harmony with the individuals natural
capacities. Under the artificial neces-
sites of land monopoly it is usually the
case of square pegs in round holes.
The real estate gambler is not to blame,
nor would it better him or anyone to
undertake to reform" him. He is a
hard worker as rule, exhausts great
energy and talents and, like all the rest
of the monopoly-ridden world, is doomed
to failure ninety percent of the time.
Only the big spectators finally win out.
The unused land and resources are rapid
ly passing into, the hands of few big
syndicates. -s= +.
These are the Single Takers arguments.
What answer have you for them?