Omaha daily bee., 1919-09-01
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Rent "Inyestigatinns."


Omaha, Aug. ITO the Editor of
The Bee: If the councilmanic inves-
tigation Of high rents is not to degen-
crate into a farce, more attention
must be paid to the real causes of
high rents and less to details Of
decorations in flats, garbage heaps
and the like, as we'll as This tenants
wife is troublesome" and the re-
tort "My wife amt that kind Of
woman"
1t must be conceded that the law
of supply and demand will hold,
whatever people may think Of it, or
whatever action a council may take.
1t must also be conceded that any
owner of a house or piece of land,
under all law and custom, has a per-
feet right to rent it to whom he
pleases and at whatever price he can
secure.
The unthinking howl against pub
: lie service corporations. but l am
willing to assert that all the public
service corporations in Omaha COM
| bfned do not receive from this COM
munity one-tenth of the unearned in
come that the landholders Of Omaha
| exact every year. When / say "un-
earned" l mean values which the re-
| cipients do nothing to produce.
A merchant told me this: I'VE
! have about $4,000 buried in land
values in this property The people
think it perfectly right for us to take
per cent on this unearned value,
but complain if we get per cent on
merchandise for which we must
struggle hard to secure"
High land values come because
h MT
| taxes on land values mean high
rents. High taxes on buildings and
other products of individual effort
landholder or realtor in this city
who will dispute this statement, par
adoXical as it may seem to the aver
age mind. Tax goods and you in
crease their cost to the consumer
Tax land values and you decrease
the cost of ground rent. The rea-
son for this paradox is in the fact
that tax upon goods, by increasing
their cost, reduces their output, while
tax upon the value of land cannot
reduce the amount of land, but will
compel owners to seek tenants in
order to earn back the tax paid.
When landlords seek tenants they
will have to supply Letter accommo-
dations and lower rents. When ten
ants seek homes, they must take
what they can get and at whatever
figure the owner demands.
1t can safely be asked, as matter
Of fairness, whether landlord ought
to demand increased rent on account
of increased land values, for the rea-
son that his increase in land values
is great enough return to him. But
no business can be successfully con-
Quoted merely on the proposal to be
fair. 1t is a matter of economic law.
If a landlord wishes to give his ten
ant this advantage, it might be
wise policy in some instances, but he
would be doing it as charity and not
as a legal or customary obligation.
The same thing can be said about his
demand for high rents on account of
the depreciation of his improvements,
while he seems unwilling to recog-
nize that the appreciation of land
values more than offsets his depre-
citation in value of mprovements.
No, the real complaint is not
against the landlords, but AGAINST the
people themselves, for their unwill-
ingness to see or correct system of
taxation that burdens enterprise and
favors land monopoly. Also assess
ing authorities who have neither the
intelligence nor courage to carry out
the spirit and letter Of what laws
we do have to reach these condi-
tons. JACK SHEPARD.