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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (May 11, 1899)
'Cbe Conservative. 9 take a possessory title under the single tax at the rate of four per cent now , and subject to the chances and changes of the election of assessors , a fixed ground rent or single tax being wholly inconsist ent with the purpose of the advocates of that policy. I have never yet seen any computation of this kind to show how a single tax would work , and when I put this problem many years ago to Henry George he could not answer my ques tion. At that time he had never traced his hypothesis to its conclusion. Figures never lie unless liars make the figures. Most of these figures are from the books of the assessors , while the computation of the contribution of Bos ton to national taxes may be varied a little according to the judgment of the reader. I think I have put it rather low. The delusion by which I think the advocates of the single tax are misled in their conception that it will solve the problem of progress from poverty is the abstract idea that a rent in the economic sense cannot be distributed throughout the community , but that if in some way the tax-gatherer can get hold of what is now known as rent the rent receiver will lose it and the public will gain it. Time will not permit dealing with this old eco nomic delusion , duo to the abstract treatment which makes three-qimrters of the treatises on what is called politi cal economy nothing but rubbish. Taxation is a part of the distribution of products. The object of all govern ments in assessing taxes is to secure money with which to buy that part of the animal products of food material , shelter and clothing which must be consumed by persons in the employ of the government. By so much as there is consumed in that way on armies , navies , civil service , public buildings , the improvements of guzzles , creeks , rivers and harbors , by so much less will the quantity of materials for food , fuel , clothing and shelter consumed by other people be lessoned. According to the best of my study and belief , all taxes tend in the long run to diffusion , ultimately falling like the dew on rich and poor alike in proportion to their consumption not in proportion to their ability to advance the money. Hence it follows that the only way to save the poor from a heavy burden of taxation is to keep the taxes down , not to waste money on expansion , ' 'criminal aggression , " or to add to the poor white man's burden by slaughtering brown men at a heavy cost to tax-payers. If this ground bo well taken the na tional taxes now collected from whiskey , tobacco , sugar , tea and spices , yielding only $4 per head out of a requisite $7 per head may be much less of a burden than a tax on the rental value of the house occupied by the poor man. He can avoid or evade the taxes on whiskey and tobacco if he will without impair ing his productive energy. He cannot avoid a heavy single tax on the land on which his house stands , but must pay it or bo deprived of shelter. All of which is respectfully submitted to the advocates of the single tax. It will bo remarked that I have com puted the cost of criminal aggression at $2 per head ; that is a very low estimate. It is more likely that the present policy , or atrocity , of imperialism will add $ ! 3 per head to the taxes of the United States. The share of Boston on 550,000 at $2 per head will bo $1,100,000 ; at $ ! J per head , $1,050,000 , even if we pay only an average. I suggest to inquirers to keep a table of the number of our troops sacrificed by the present administration and of the number of Filipinos slaugh tered in defence of their homes. Wo are all paying our share of the cost of this carnage. We are spending at least $2 per head , or $156,000,000 per year , in the criminal aggression now being conducted by the president. Wo have in one year , since the war on Spain was declared in order to remove oppression , killed about six thousand Filipinos in an effort to com pel them to surrender their rights. Each dead Filipino has therefore cost the United States $26,000. Boston's proportion of the total cost is about three-quarters of one per cent , probably one per cent. Boston has therefore paid from $200 to $250 toward the cost of kil ling each Filipino thus far slaughtered. When we kill more it will cost less for each one. EDWARD ATKINSON. Boston , April , 1899. THIS KACE PKO1JLEM AT ITS WOKST The horrible occurrence in Georgia , in volving the murder of a farmer while sitting at the supper table in the pres ence of his family , the outraging of his wife , the lynch-law trial of the mur derer and the burning of him at the stake by a mob which indulged in the barbaric exultation of Dahomeyan sav ages , hns just this meaning that the most serious race problem the United States has to meet is not found in Cuba , Porto Rico or the Philippines , but in one-third the states of the Union , includ ing some of the old original thirteen. Occasionally it is said the negro problem was settled by the thirteenth , fourteenth and fifteenth constitutional amendments , but the truth is the problem has not been settled ; we have hardly scratched the surface of the difficulties. Such crimes as murder and outrage may occur any where , and everywhere they provoke a just wrath and death is considered the proper punishment. But where exc'ept in a community in which an unsettled race problem has turned topsy-turvy all notions of law could such uncivilized acts be committed in a civilized country as those which took place in Georgia yes terday and today ? The murderer was not hanged or shot ; he was put to deatfc by the horrible means of burning at the stake , and before he was committed tc the flames ho was tortured by cutting off his ears and his fingers. A crowd of two thousand people yelled and danced with joy the joy of fiends. Before the dead body was cold it was hacked to pieces and divided amongst the howling savages , and so highly valued were the disgusting relics that those who wore not near enough to reach the victim bought pieces of bone from those who had seized them. The savage madness has infected the whole state , insomuch that popular excursions are run from Atlanta and the excursionists return with bones , scraps of flesh and splinters of the wood which built the fir at the feet of the miserable negro. In the presence of such rage as this , law , relig- .011 and reason are stricken dumb , and > no gets a terrible glimpse at what may et be in store in the South , unless some > vay can be discovered to change for the better the conditions under which two aces now confront one another with mouldering hate , liable at any time to be blown into the flame of civil war at ts worst. A. B. Nye. A recent visit to KEAKNEY. Kearney , whither THE CONSERVATIVE first journeyed in 860 , was a revelation. The buffalo had scaped into annihilation and the Indian who contracted his uucanned beef from that commissary had followed him into the everlasting nowhere. The old Cali fornia trail had given way to railroad Bracks innumerable and the switch yards had usurped the corral. Where mules brayed and cattle lowed , the locomotive now puffs and steam whistles shriek. The overland tourist in palace cars glides across the plains in gorgeous luxuriousness - ness and the popping of champagne corks in dining cars is substituted for the pop ping of the bull-whacker's whip. Old Fort Kearney has vanished. Only the tall cottouwoods about its parade ground mark the place of its former glory and their voluble leaves are whis pering among the bows and twigs of heroes , men and officers who forty-five years ago held there an out-picket of American civilization. Instead of the fort we have a young and prosperous mid-continental city. It contains six thousand intelligent , self- reliant , active and hopeful citizens. It has beautiful homes. They are standing upon cleanly kept and attractive lawns. They contain all that ennobles and em bellishes civilized life. It has a great cotton manufactory. The baled cotton comes up from the South and Kearney converts it into splendid and useful fabrics. Two to three hundred people are thus remuner atively employed and the West and South together are weaving prosperity where only the plains , the Indian , the Buffalo and the bull-whacker prevailed when in 1860 THE CONSERVATIVE first called at Kearney.