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About The independent. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907 | View Entire Issue (June 11, 1903)
THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT JUNE 11, 1903. The Philosophy of Freedom An Open Forum for Single Taxers With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as ho pleases with himself and the product of hia labor, while with others ! he same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men and the product of other men's la bor. Abraham Lincoln. : OHIO SINGLE TAXERS. The , following Resolutions were passed at the annual conference of the Ohio Single Tax league, held at Co lumbus, May 31: -i Whereas, The single taxers of Ohio have in the past given liberal support to the reform movements In other states. : ' r Whereas, Public Interest in th abases and .discrimination in taxa tion laws has developed in Ohio to high degree, therefore, be it, i itesolved, That the single taxers it Ohio be urged to concentrate their ef t forts on the work of taxation retorn. in this state and call upon our friends throughout the country for their co operation. : " Whereas, The laws of . Ohio bearing most heavily as they do upon personal property and Improvements, which are the product of labor, and exempt" ing as they almost entirely -do, mo nopoly and' special privilege, which are created by the-state are a direct means of promoting fraud and cor ruption, and a constant discourage ment to industry and thrift, and are therefore, unscientific and unjust; an 3 Whereas, They promote fraud a.id corruption not only by taxing prop erty that nature has made It impos sible to reaqh, but by permitting such public values as street and steam railway franchises to remain hi pri vate hands, thus tempting and even compelling individuals and corpora tions in order to get possession o' them to bribe city councils and cor? rupt legislation; therefore, resolved, That tnftil the repeal of these laws can be brought, these spe cial privileges should be taxed on the same basis as the farms, stores, houses, factories and other property within the state, and not be permit ted to escape as they now do at about one-third of their taxable value, and further, Kesolved, That we commend and in dorse, 'and pledge ourselves to aid In every honorable way the efforts' "of Mayor Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland to bring about these reforms in coun ty, state and nation. Resolved, ' That we appeal to tht people of Ohio to lend their aid to all candidates for office regardless of par ty who by their words and acts aim to institute thesy reforms. Channing says: "The spirit of lib erty Is not merely, as some people Imagine, a jealousy of our own partic ular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low. should be wronged or trampled under loot." Copies of "The Bugs and the Bees" can be had from A. C. Thompson, Sin gle Tax association, room 22, YonT. st. Arcade, Toronto, Ontario. 3 cents per 100. At Zion Church, College st, co?. Elizabeth st, Toronto. The Rev. S. S. Craig preaches every Sunday even ing on the "Social Applications of Christianity." DO YOU SEE THE CAT? Chapter I. The Journeymen, imbued with the spirit of the times, had organized. So had the Masters. Chapter II. At a meeting of the Journeymen's organization, they had decided i : make certain demands: higher wages, less hours, and certain other matters of detail. The Masters refused these demands, and the result was a strike. Chapter III. (Scene: Horseshoeing Shop.) The employes of that particular shop were discussing the strike, anl its successful issue: - First Journeyman "WTe won all our points, boys. One dollar a wee. extra pay, and one hour a day less work." Second Journeyman "How much did it cost us?" Third Journeyman "It cost me $60 four week's pay besides my share of expense to support the union." Fourth Journeyman "It cost mo more than that for my wages are $1S a week, but I would rather lose t ie money than lose what we were out for. Our work is deserving of more pa v. even more than we will now re ceive." Enter Master, with a letter in his hand and a very blue look on his face. Reads:) y , Jan. 1, 1903. Mr. J. Smith. Dear Sir: As I intend improving my land on which you are doing business, I hereby notify you to va cate said premises on February J. landowner, john a. Mclaughlin. " Providence, R. I. P. S. Do you see the cat? Captain Ashby's Visw ,.4 In a letter to The Independent Cap tain Ashby. says he has changed his mind about writing a criticism of the single tax for this issue of the pape. but prefers to wait until after the Karl Marx Edition comes out, when Li wishes to take up' both theories and attempt to show "these skimmers who dart so swiftly over the surface of things how utterly Inadequate the'r theories are, and upon what a com plete misconception of things these doctrines have been founded." realiz ing, of course, that he has a life-sized job on hand. Anent the single tax, however, h drops this hint: "You may, if you feel disposed, point out that I have already, in 'Money and the Taxing Power,' indicated enough to show, what will in later chapters be made clear, that it is entirely immaterial whether the tax levy be made upo l my property,' or upon my eye brow, so long as government refuses to permit that tax to be paid-in anything I have or can produce, anl eojnpels me to obtain, at no mas ter what sacrifice, the coin it gives free of cost to the man who can bring a piece of gold to carry it away on, as the only thing it will accept in pay ment of that levy." This the associate editor has a' ready touched upon elsewhere in this issue. . POST'S IDEA Mr. Elllngston Criticiiea Mr. Post' Defi nition of Value la th Cooper Union DebaU (Written" for The Independent in answer to the Henry George Edition i Editor Independent: The single tax 1 sue is at hand.' Its single tax is goot ; but I hope that Louis F. Post's idea of value, as he expounded it at the Cooper Union, will not be re garded as its basis; for that would bs to assert the single tax as baseless, value, he said, is not a concrete thing; true, if by this is meant not visible; but if force may be regarded as concrete, value is concrete. He said it was not an entity. That is, not to be considered by itself; (and if not to 1 3 considered by itself, if at all it must be as a fragment of something else or it should not b3 considered at all). He said that value was nothing but H device for comparison a mode of measurement; as, he says, we com pare differences of quantity in terms of inches, ounces and quarts; so we compare differences in exchangeable ity--in terms of value. A very remarkable set of state ments those, upon which to found an entire economic system. Without values there can be no economics. Wa may adopt some other term to ex press the conception, but the concep tion remains the same; and that con ception must be true or it must be false. Mr. Post contends that it is false, when o says that value is but a device for comparison. And strange, very strange, that neither he nor h.s opponent could understand that if value was not an entity, there could be no need of a device for comparing; that that does not exist!" And his mode of measurement de velops under Investigation into a sim ilar result for there can be no quan tities of nonexistent to compare. But it is quite as rational as his next statement How can there be differ ences in exchangeabilities? The dif ference, if any there is, must be in ths things exchanged or in the mental ity in some form of the parties to the Mr. Post in The Public is a clear headed thinker, far above the average editorial writer. Mr. Post at the Coop er Union discussion is mentally mui-dle-heuded or he has turned a merg ing hypnotizer. Which is it? He says that to say a thing is valuable is '.o say that a thing is tradeable. There is here an . admission that there ar-.? things not tradable or there is no sense in the qualification. What, then, is it that makes a thing tradable? Will. Mr. Post enlighten us? . It is a waste of words to tell peo ple that the human race does not This Beautiful Colonial Davenport FREIGHT PREPAID $21.00. iy A piece of furniture that would beautify any room. Richly carved, roll ends and claw feet. Guaranteed patent steel spring work. Special values in Oil Stoves, Refrigerators, Ham mocks. Send for our free catalogues. We pay freight. Guarantee safe delivery. RUDGE & GUENZEL CO. 1118-1126 N St., Lincoln, Nebraska. live imon values they all understand that they live upon food commodi ties and he asserts that all Dusme-is rests upon what will be here summed up as commodities. He might as truthfully assert that it is not the tub that contains the wa ter, but the water that contains the tub. As an abstraction only to rest upon, business could better rest up;.i the abstractions of arithmetic, than linon those commodities with all con ception of value obliterated among humanity. But value is no abstrac tion, though invisible, any more than is the power that runs machinery which is also L. yisible. The force that humanity expends in the form of de sire is quite invisible; its effects are not. That, and that alone, is the pri mary force that girdles continent with railroads and navigates the ocean" with loads of commodities to be ex changed. It is a mighty-pull force that can do all this, but it 13 no more visi ble than that other always admitted human force expended in labor. Strange, Mr. Post snould not have denied that entity for if he ever sawed a cord of wood he never saw the force he expended. To be con sistent, he must deny its existence. Fortunately for the single tax, it-j strcng points do not rest upon Mr Post's Cooper Union definition ci value. H. ELLINGSTON. Minnehaha, Minn. HORSE COLLARS fOURDEALERTOSHOW' BEFORE. YOU BUY. MANUFACTURED NA5?PHA& BR0S.C& Lincoi.m.Mpr. Some Objections (Written for 8he Independent in an swer td the Henry George Edition.) Editor Independent: With thanks I accept your proposal to publish short articles in answer to arguments used in the Henry George Edition of your progressiva ; '.per. No socialist of intelligence will object to the pub lic ownership land. The writer, for 40 years a socialist, has opposed and fought the idea of private owner ship in land. From 1866 to 1876 I, In common with Henry George, fought the land grabbers of the Pue blo of San Francisco, Cal., but it was all labor lost. The people were hyp notized by the land grabbing spirit of the day. The chief objection to the single tax is, it will not produce but a modicum of the results claimed for it All the means of transportation would remain in the hands of the united 'corporations; they could charge whatever, price they pleased for transportation and leave to the farmer only a living, the same as now. The steel trust with its mo nopoly of iron mines, plants and fleet of steamships, and control of rail roads could do the same. Rockefeller, with ownership and leases and con tracts for the total output of oil wells, would do the same and derisively smile at the sink's tax. The flour trust, the beef trust, the liquor trust, the tobacco trust, the meat trust, the bankers' trust, and all others, would do the same. The single tax in fact does them more good than harm; they would hold billions of dollars worth of personal property free of tax: an 1 charge the peop what they pleased for their products same as now. The owner o $100,000 worth of realty could sell enough in exchange for untaxable property so that his taxes would be the same as before tho change in the mode cf taxation. The workingman, w:;a a single homestead lot, could not do this. The big farmwr with 5,000 acres can raise wheat or corn 40 per cent cheaper than the man with 50 acres; so we see plainiy the system favors the rich the same as now. The man who had capital to put a fifteen-story building on a val uable city lot would have an immense advantage over the man who could only build two stories. If land is considered, and rightly it is so, the inheritance of the pec!e, it would b: a plain injustice and a strange anomaly that plutocrats who have made hundreds of millions from this property of the people, and investe l it in industrial pro'uctve enterprises, should be let ou frea of tax with their legal stealings; espacially when they would use it to enslave the producer of the wealth, the same as now. No doubt the single .tax would in some localities make land cheaper, while in places where population was congested it would be much dearer, for no matter what price or value wr.s put upon land in favored parts of a seaport or commercial metropolis, tha rents would be made large enough to correspond with the tax. The single tax in no way decreases the oppor tunity for bribery and unjust valua tions. The tingle taxers greatly un derestimate the power of combined wealth and the force of gold as a temptation to men whose bread and butter depends upon the ever-changing conditions of political life under our crushing competitive pvpfm. There are other objections to the sin gle tax which I may note on some future occasion. B. F. FRENCH. Bisbee, Ariz. .