SECOND BOSTON OBJECT LESSON 75
Why should the Boylston Building and the old
Masonic Temple and the old Public Library have come
down in their youth and beauty while these Washing
ton Street buildings are allowed to remain standing
in their decrepitude? There must, we say, be some
sufficient reason. If the reason here suggested is not
the real one, we ask the? reader what it is.
Question. How, then, are we to know just when old
buildings should give place to new ones?
Answer. When the single tax shoe begins to pinch,
that is, when, under the single tax, the old buildings
cease to be profitable: in other words, when, upon
land with buildings unsuited to the situation, a tax
seems heavy which, upon the same land with proper
buildings, would seem light.
The Honourable Henry Winn, a well-known advocate
of the multiple tax, says: “Why does a man owe a
tax? First, because society protects his person;
second, it supplies and keeps in order streets for his
Passage; third, it lights his way by night; fourth, it
furnishes parks and libraries; fifth, it schools him
a ud his children; sixth, it protects his property;
seventh, it keeps courts open to redress his grievances;
eighth, it provides a government to make and enforce
iaws; ninth, it supports him if he falls into poverty;
and tenth, chiefly because he has been placed here by
God to serve and improve, not himself alone, but
urankind in general, and as that can only be done by
uaaintaining government, order, and civilisation, he
owes his tax as he owes his life, to support that
government.”
“Amen,” says the single taxer; and these are
exactly the things for which every man is paying when