Confiscations; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
There should certainly be enough money issued for the smooth carrying on
of the country's business, and when they determine the amount necessary,
it should be put in circulation at once. But stopping money from
fluctuating value is another thing.
The man who buys a barrel of flour one day for $4.00 may find that it is
worth only $3.50 the day after. The man who borrows money at 7 per cent.
one day may find it worth only 6 1/2 the day after.
To prevent these fluctuations in the value of either money or
commodities is a legislative feat beyond the power of mortal man. And
when we see our Legislator trying to regulate the value of anything that
one man has to sell to another, are no longer surprised at his trying to
regulate the weather by exploding powder in the air. Our Mark Twains and
Bill Nyes are flat indeed, when compared to that straight-faced clown,
the American legislator, who would give an unchangable value to either
the shoes we wear or the money we use.
This whole question of currency has as little to do with the prevailing
misery as the missing button off your vest would have to do with your
being frozen to death. England not only has enough money to carry on her
own business, but also has $15,000,000,000 to lend to outsiders. It is
not the wealth of a country, but how it is distributed that tells the
story.
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The single taxers of whom Henry George is the great apostle, are also
claiming the floor, but a patient hearing finds the distressed turning
away for relief that the single taxer can not give. They are cultivating
a century plant, and while we are waiting for it to bloom three
generations of human beings will have met their millionaire masters and
taken their place in the line that leads to the soup house and the
pauper's grave.
The masterly logic of these reformers is the work of serene-tempered and
well-fed men, whose cosy library with windows facing to the south, and
the open fire-place with its soothing and cheerful glow, is conducive to
the developing of a red-tape reform that must be an inspiring subject
for discussion at an afternoon tea. Because they are well fed is the
reason why they can play a waiting game, but the despairing and maddened
people, for whose benefit this single tax contract, with its long
deferred payment, is being drawn up, will have as little use for it as
they will have for the plate-glass window when their bread riots begin.
The land owner alone is the one these one-horse-chaise reformers would
start their Dobbin after. The large landowner should be cut down in his
holdings, and their plan is just the one to fix him and make him let go.
They will tax him in such a way that he cannot pay, and then they have
got him, they tell us, as they leisurely jog along over their pleasant
highway.
Now, why this dilly-dallying with the large land-owner, or any one else,
that has something that he should surrender for the general good?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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