I  52

THE  A  B  C  OF  TAXATION

cannot  remain  a  burden  upon  the  owner  beyond  a
generation  at  most.  Land  value,  otherwise  perishable,
is  made  imperishable  by  public  conservation;  hence  the
plea  that  the  whole  tax,  whether  inheritance  or  income,
be  gradually  transferred  to  this  one  basis.  Whether
it  shall  be  imposed  lightly,  as  a  life  rate,  or  heavily,
as  a  death  rate,  is  merely  a  question  of  method.  In
either  case  it  will  soon  cease  to  be  a  burden  upon  any
one.
Unjust  fortunes  are  made  out  of  ground  rent  accumulated ­
  and  compounded.  They  can  be  perpetuated  only
by  the  private  appropriation  of  ground  rent;  cut  off
from  ground  rent  the  public  nutriment  and  they  will
quickly  crumble  and  perish  from  the  face  of  the  earth.
Mr.  Carnegie  says:  “Who  made  the  ‘wealth’  of  the
Manhattan  Island  farm?  The  community,  the  population, ­
  the  people.  Then  you  tell  me  that  wealth  is
sacred.  I  say  that  the  community  was  the  leading
partner  that  made  that  wealth.  It  was  hundreds  of
people  settling  up  there,  thousands  of  people  settling
around  there,  and  here  are  these  millionaires.  They
have  toiled  not,  neither  have  they  spun.”  Is  it  not
sensible  to  make  such  cumulative  fortunes  as  these  the
basis  of  live  taxation?
President  Roosevelt  cannot  eliminate  “intricacy,
delicacy,  and  troublesomeness”  from  his  income  tax
until  he  learns  to  distinguish  sharply  between  capital
and  privilege,  between  incomes  that  are  earned  and
those  that  are  unearned