SINGLE TAX ON LAND
Land socialism—"single tax"—Mr. Scott treated in ways similar to other doctrines of communism, as a scheme of its advocates to prey upon propertied neighbors through authority of government. His writings on this subject extended over twenty-four years. They contain the full argument against the theories of Henry George and his later followers. A characteristic excerpt of his criticism is the following (July 20, 1909):
"Our Henry George aspostles or disciples, the single-taxers, who call themselves the landless poor, will not rush off into any of the new districts, where land is offered practically free and settle down and work in solitude and contentment, as others did aforetime to establish themselves and their families. No, indeed! They wish to seize the fruits of the labor and privation and waiting and life-long effort and industry of others—by throwing all taxes on land values and making the land obtained by the pioneers, through their early efforts and life-long constancy—valueless to them. Here, in the new aspect are the modern Huns and Vandals. * * * These people don't wish to work, are unwilling to work, as others have done aforetime. They think it easier and therefore preferable to prey on society and rob others covering their operations with assertions of justice and forms of law."
XVEVILS OF LARGE WEALTH
Evils of excessive wealth, glaring as they were and intolerable, were not to be remedied, said Mr. Scott, by the socialistic regime. He considered the propaganda formidable chiefly as "part of the attack on vast evils that must be cured or abated" (November 12, 1906). Not forever would the people allow themselves to be plundered by trust combinations. "Such transactions in themselves and in their results, are all immoral. They are on a level with the transactions of the slave trade; and their fortunes have the same basis (April 7, 1905)." It was a lazy complacency which assumed that the masses of the
