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About The independent. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907 | View Entire Issue (April 2, 1903)
!4 THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT APRIL 2, 1905. RESCUED A COLLEGE And Then l'd That a Lever for Prying . ' Loose alt Kind f Kranehltee - E&for Independent: . In the New York American of the 27th ultimo, on the editorial page, i3 given the his tory of a man who "bought a coal mine." I want to give you a 'part 'of the history of a man who found a col lege in a financial strait and came to its rescue. It was located in a town of about 2,000 people; he paid off the debts, put up with the help of others yery extensive buildings, he putting In nearly as much as all others put together did. His college was soon named after him. Soon he asked the city council to give him the franchises of the streets for railroad purposes for ninety-nine years. This was done. It was not long until he had a mo-' nopoly in the electric lighting of the city and the price was put very high. Soon after he got a monopoly of the ice business and the price of ice wa3 put two or three times higher than in other cities. .Then he got a monopoly In the furnishing of milk for the col lege. Soon he must have been get ting eight or nino thousand dollars per annum from these sources. I have not the exact figures at hand. Well sometimes the. college failed to pay running expenses, and he generously camo to its assistance. One year I re member he put up nearly three thou sand dollars besides giviDg a hou33 - and lot and some other things, and in the meantime the city had put up a system of water works, owned and operated by the city, of which all its . citizens were very proud; but thi3 public benefactor, having a monop oly; in everything else, soon cast a ., covetous eye towards the city water works. Finally he ihought his chance had come; he found a board of alder men, a majority of whom were cor rupt br else he corrupted them with his' Immense wealth, and he proceed ed to lay his proposition before them. Soon they had the contract signed, sealed and delivered, and, Mr. Editor, right here I want to ask you to vouch for my veracity, for I have to give ' facts. The records of the city clerk's ' office will show which - no man with an honest impulse !n his heart can be lieve unless he is assured of the hon esty of the man who tells them. What are these- facts? Iid he propose to sccept .the, city's system of water . works as a gift? Not he. Did h3 of fer to take them as a gift with the - addition of 100 thousand dollars add cd? Never! Now . bear, in mind the . city was pumping its water . from an artesian well, and he had a system of water works about one mile from the well. ; ' Ilia offer was to put in a pipe from his water tank to connect with city water works and to pump the water for-them for 20 carts per thousaul gallons for a period of fifty years. Now, do not forget thatthe city was then pumping its water at an average tost of about 5 c ents per thousand gal lons. The city was to keep up 1U pipes and extend them and renew them when necessary, collect the wa ter rents and pay him this price at the end of every month. Now, I am somewhat of an expert in figures, - and as I figure it, if he had put his income from this contra.! at interest at 8 per cent as he took it in from the city he would have had at the, end, of the fifty years tmore than 6?0' thousand dollars, a sum far in excess of double the amount of the assessed value of all the property, personal and real, in the city as shown typT, tax assessors' books. Now, for what the taxpayers did at 'a heavy ex pense: they went into the courts and obtained an injunction Estopping them in this villainous affair because the mayor, of the c ity did not sign it. Did the old man stop there? No, he makes a new contract with the cor rupt majority of the board of alder men worse in some respects than the first one. The mayor, to his everlast ing honor be it said, vetoed the thing. Then the philanthropist got a "one horse" lawyer to try and get the coun cil to pass It over the mayor's veto, ' but it. was no go. At the next two city elections a desperate effort was made to defeat this honest mayor by the "one-horse" lawyer, but he won .out both times. This philanthropist poses as a Christian. God save the mark. So do the Rockefellers, pnd perhaps the Morgans; of this last, however, I am not sure, as I see he is reported to fcave gone to sleep at the funeral ser vices "of Dr. Curry; and again I see he gives a man 230 thousand dollars a year, the reason for which is being severely criticised. Bear this in mind, Mr. Editor, all millionaires will bear watching. Now, Mr. Editor, I want to troubla you with this article because all over this broad land millionaires are' playing dirty tricks upon the peo ple. .... It Is not often it is done through a college, but in some way or other al most every city and even, too. little towns are in the courts fighting these thieves for their rights. In a Texas city some years ago an effort was made to sell the city a system of wa ter works at double the cost of the system, no money to be asked for in 50 years, but Interest at the end of 50 years would be three times what the principal was; " but the people sat down upon the scheme; they have a good law there. The people must be consulted. Could the people had a say-so in Philadelphia when John Wannamaker offered 26 million dol lars for franchises that a thieving board of aldermen gave a few days after to a band of looters, they, the people, would have accepted Wanna maker's money and thereby lightened the burden of the taxpayers. And this brings to mind the fact, that college builder was from the Quaker City, so we want to make allowance for him In view of his associates at home. VOX POPULI. De Land, Fla. Single Tax ' Editor Independent: Your Issue of December 18 contains a letter from Irl Dean of Marion, la , in which the fnllnwine la found: "Land mononolv mieht be restrained. by Henry George's piaiof single tax ation by the government buying the land with greenbacks to be issued by the government. The land to be re sold to actual settlers for payments of these greenbacks and a quit claim deed given in exchange." This passage shown an erroneous view of the single tax. No single taxer advocates the government buy ing the land with greenbacks or any other kind of money. If Mr. Dean will look into tne law hp will find that there exists no nec essity of doing anything of thre kind in most if not all the states or me union. In Iowa. Nebraska and all states except Louisiana, the common law of England is tho rule ot action envernine all matters relating to land Now the common law of England does not recognize anything like private property in land. Most people tninK land is owned like other property, but tnis Is not so. When a man is said to own land the legal phrase is that he is a tenant in fee simple, wow tne word tenant means, simply a noicter a person who has temporary posses sion of the land as long as he pays tne fee or tax exacted by the real owner th state or the neonle as a wnoie. The single taxers do not propose that the Deonle should buy what they al ready by right own. Such a proposi tion is on its face an absurdity. -All indications now point to a re vival of an energetic non-partisan cru sade in behalf of the single taxes, pure and simple. It is therefore important hat at this juncture all persons in clined to single tax should have cor rect view? of' what it is and what is irtended to be done. The single tax involves the total abolition of the tariff end internal revenue systems of taxation by which the national gov ernment is now maintained. Instead of these indirect taxes over which, the people have practically no control it is the single tax idea to substitute a direct tax to be collected by the local governments and paid to the national government. In the states it is pro posed to abolish all taxes on personal property and improvements to land. This leaves only land value to be taxed. The proposition is a gigantic, one and will not be carried into ef fect for years. It is questionable whether it will be ever accomplished under our present form of representa tive government The plutocratic in terests are too much in control of all branches of our present government to let the single tax have much chance of success. Direct legislation through the in itiative and referendum by placing the political power in the hands of 1 he masses off the people may bring about this great reform. As a single taxer I am willing to submit the mat ter to the people as a mass as soon as they get a government which they really control. I am quite confident that I could prove that single tax would be to the best interests of 99 per cent of (or even more) of the popula tion. WM. N. HILL, M. D. Baltimore, Md. God-Ordained Revenues. Editor Independent: Some wise and witty person has remarked that truth lies at the bottom of a well; that most people are willing to let her stay there, while still others would rap her knuckles if she attempted to climb out. . I am inclined to think that the edi tor, in his attempt to break the force of my argument that the single tax is a God-oT-dained law, has been guilty The Silent Salesman I'. . ...BO;. ill Xiaiilw ' J. i OUR 1903 SPRING CATALOGUE lb NOW READY FOR DISTRIBU TION. IT WILL BE MAILED YOU UPON RECEIPTOF YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS. SEND FOR IT 1 - TODAY. MENTION . THE INDEPEN DENT 6 this time of rapping truth's knuckles. In his reply, "Freaks of the Mind," issue of March 12, he confounds men with society. These are two wholly distinct and different things. Let this distinction be made, then let any one inclined to dispute the existence of a natural revenue for society, con sider again the analogy I used, name ly, that after the same manner in which the Creator has provided suste nance for the child in the breast of the mother He has likewise provided rev enues for society (not for men, who are the individual units of which so ciety is composed). This natural rev enue is the rent of land which single taxers propose to take in the form of a. tax. Further, for society to refuse to take this revenue, and instead per mit individuals to misappropriate it, i3 the primary . cause of most of the ills which afflict society, even as with holding the milk in her breast injures the mother and robs the child of the nourishment which the Creator in tended for it. Now the only valid objections to these assertions that I know of are, first, to deny God or the existence of a Creator; second, to deny that God or the Creator was wise enough, or "ben eficent enough, or had enough pres ence to foresee the needs of society and provide for those needs; third, to admit that there is t God, that He had enough wisdom to do this; but to refuse to believe that he designed so ciety should derive its revenues from a single tax on land values. Take your choice, but have a care. If the last mentioned position is taken, then it's up to you to discover and reveal what revenue the Creator did design, for the uses of society. C. F. SHANDREW. Germantown, Pa. (If it is really true that it is up to the editor of The Independent to dis cover and reveal what revenue the Creator did design for the uses of so ciety, then he Is in the worst fix that he ever got yet He never claimed that he had the power to discover, or the authority to declare what the de signs of the Almighty were. He has even held that no man ever held a commission from God authorizing him to declare the "designs" of the Al mighty. If Mr. Shandrew has such a commission will he please forward It to The Independent so that the sig nature can be examined and its gen uineness proved. Ed. Ind.) Indiana, etc. We propose to help promote imi gration to this state. Within a few weeks we shall commence the prepar ation of the most extensive list of property,. for sale ever seen in Ne braska. This will contain a complete catalogue of all lands listed with us for sale, both farm and ranch. Many thousand copies will be printed and judiciously circulated throughout the above mentioned states. A large and systematic campaign of . advertising will be inaugurated, and we propose to place our catalogue of Nebraska lands in the hands of everv nrosDec- tive buyer, This will enable us to dis pose of a very large amount of land within the next year. If you have anything to sell it will pay you to write for blank and list your property'with us, and thereby get the benefit of this extensive advertis ing. We desire to put the copy for this catalogue in the hands of the printer as soon as possible, so if you will allow us to help you sell your property, please act promptly. WEBER & FARRIS, Lincoln, Neb. The Prussian Stock Food and Rem edy Company have a reputation for manufacturing as good, if not the best, articles in the way of stock remedies, and are certainly worthv of the reputation they have gained. The proprietors being practical pharma cists of over 25 years' experience should be sufficient guarantee as to teir goods being all they claim for them. We call attention to thejLr spe cial offer and anyone in need of any thing in the way of stock food, poultry , food, etc., we would suggest that they write the Prussian Rpmiviv rv if v... V.J W., Ai UiJ ..J cannot secure them from local agents. Sell Your Land While Prices are High Land values are higher today than ever before in the history of the state. It is an unpleasant fact, but our real estate values fluctuate very materially. However, extremely high prices or extremely low prices never prevail for a long period of time. Now is the op portune time to sell property. Several thousand men have taken advantage of these high prices and sold their property during the past year; many more will do so during the toming year. It looks like we will have an exceptionally good crop in Nebraska this coming year, and if that is true there will be a very heavy imigration of home-seekers to this state during the coming summer and fall. These men will come from the great farming districts of Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Good Harlan County Farm No. G31. 160 acres 3 miles north and one mile east of Huntley! 60 acres in wheat that eoes with'tho for, -ma u - V A. 14. A 111 y X JLJ acres in cultivation; 2 acres in alfal fa, yitmy oi iimner tor posts and fire t.UUu, guuu pasture; 4-room house, barn 24x40, with granary and loft; four , and a half miles from Ragan thus giving choice of two trading points. Can give possession this year if taken at once. Price $4,000. Weber & Farris, Lincoln, Neb. W. B. Weekes, of Scotia, Neb., had a car of 1300-lb. steers on last Thurs day's market at South Omaha that brought the top price of the day, $4. They should have baen on . Wednes day's market, but arrived several hours late. Cattle held over are usually called "stale" and sell at a disadvant age, but owing to the excellent wav this car was handled by the commis sion house, Nye & Buchanan Co., Mr Weekes says they held their place at the top. The Independent knows a good opening for the right man to publish a reform paper. One of the Old Guard, who has grown gray in the service desires to retire. He will sell at right figures. Location, Nebraska. Mentioa paragraph Y,