Chapter V 
SECOND BOSTON OBJECT LESSON 
WASHINGTON STREET AND THE SINGLE TAX* 
I N VIEW of the nature of ground rent as already 
considered there is one way that promises to 
simplify and equalise taxation, viz., by beginning at 
once the gradual transfer of the burden to shoulders 
by which eventually it will not be felt, thus tending 
to correct the distribution of wealth, abolish strikes, 
silence the clamour against monopoly and special 
privilege, and sweep from before the halting wheels 
of social and moral progress much of the degradation, 
distress, and vice precipitated to-day upon society 
by want on the one hand and surfeit on the other. 
Men who have large selfish interests often prove 
themselves just as open to conviction of fairness and 
soundness as those who have small selfish interests. 
So far as the case is made plain to them their judgment 
generally will be impartial. No business interest, for 
instance, is more keenly sensitive to crooked taxation 
than is the real estate business; none quicker to take 
alarm at the sound of hostile legislation. No one 
would claim, and few would allow, that to justify a 
reform it should be shown to be to the pecuniary 
* This chapter is adapted from an address at a banquet given by the Massa 
chusetts Single Tax League to Representative Real Estate Men in the Hotel 
Brunswick, Boston, October 8, 1900. 
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