The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
Sit down and think it over, doctor; you are really too bright a
man to be led astray by the razzle-dazzle of Single Tax
sophistry. You do your enviable reputation for intelligence a
rank injustice by mistaking poor old George for an economic
Messiah, and if you are not careful somebody will try to sell you
a gold-brick or stock in a Klondike company. Suppose that you and
Hon. Walter Gresham occupy residence lots worth $1,000 each, but
that you inhabit a $1,500 cottage and he a $150,000 mansion; and
suppose that your income is $2,000 a year while his is $20,000:
Do you think there is any necessity for tearing your balbriggan
undershirt because not compelled to put up as much for the
maintenance of government as your wealthy neighbor? Is it at all
probable that Gresham will become discouraged, refuse to longer
serve the corporations and sit in the woodshed and sulk, even
jump off the bridge, because taxed in proportion to the property
in his possession rather than according to the land he occupies?
If Col. Moody builds a million dollar cotton mill on suburban
land worth but $500 why should you refuse to sleep o' nights
because not required to pay double the taxes of that old duffer?
As a worthy disciple of Aesculapius you should know that too
heavy a burden on your own back is liable to make you bow-legged.
I suspected all along that the Single Tax would require several
able-bodied "corollaries" to enable it to effect much of a
reformation, to usher in the Golden Age. It were very nice to
throw unused coal and oil lands "open to all on equal terms,"
have the government pipe off all their products for equal pay,
then compel operators by piling on taxes to maintain high prices
to consumers "till other companies got well on their feet"--and a
combination was effected. If Rockefeller, Hanna, Carnegie, et id
genes omnes tried any of their old tricks "we might get after
them"--just as we HAVE long been doing. These plutocrats are so
afraid of our politicians that there is danger of their dying of
neuropathy. If the coal, iron and oil operators advance prices
we'll advance their taxes--for the people to pay. And I suppose
that when the whiskey trust get gay, the doctor will raise the
rent of corn land, when the cotton-seed oil trust becomes too
smooth, he'll knock it on the head by adding a dollar an acre to
cotton land, and so on until we get the cormorant fairly by the
goozle. It's all dead easy when you understand it--works as
smoothly as an "iridescent dream" on a toboggan slide! We are
continually discovering new coal, iron and oil districts, and
these are "open to all on equal terms"--I can acquire them just
as cheaply as can Rockefeller or Carnegie. Then what's the
matter? I lack the capital to properly develop them, to produce
so cheaply as my wealthy competitors. Or if able to become a
thorn in the side of the great corporations they either lower
prices and freeze me out or make it to my advantage to enter the
syndicate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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