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 accumu 
lated 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 popu 
lation, 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