He would simply throw them on his tenants." It is difficult, therefore, to see why the tenants of New York City or Bridgeport should favor lower taxes, so long as they and their children are in need of further public advantages that increased taxes would enable the municipalities to supply. To favor reduced taxes, while private ownership of land prevails, is not Socialism, or even progressive capitalism. It is, as I have said, _reaction_. The _New York Volkszeitung_ expresses in a few words the correct Socialist attitude on municipal expenditures. After showing the need of more money for schools, hygienic measures, etc., it concludes:-- "These increased expenditures of municipalities are thus absolutely necessary if a Socialist city government is to fulfill its tasks. Since the municipal expenditures must be raised through taxation, it is evident that a good Socialist city government must raise the taxes if it is up to the level of its duties. Provided that--as just remarked--the raising of the taxes is so managed that the possessing classes are hit by it and not the poor and the workingmen. "Most of the Socialist municipal administrations have been shattered hitherto by the tax question; that has been especially evident in France, where the Socialists lost the towns captured by them because their administration appeared to be more costly than those of their capitalist predecessors. That has happened especially wherever the small capitalist element played a role in the Socialist movement. "We shall undoubtedly have this experience in America, also, if we do not make it clear to the masses of workingmen that good city government for them means a more expensive city government, and that they are interested in this increase of the cost of the city administration."[158] If the Socialists promise much and perform comparatively little, they have as a valid reason the fact that the city does not have the authority. But opponents can also say, as does the Milwaukee _Journal_, that "the administration would not dare to carry out its promises to engage in municipal Socialism if it had the authority." For while municipal "Socialism" or public ownership is perfectly good capitalism, it is not always good politics in a community where the small taxpayers dominate.