If rent belongs to the community, then it follows that the appropriation of ground rents by an individual, as now recognized by law, is unjust, and that the wrong should at once be righted by the taking every year by the public of all ground rental values in the form of a tax-the rate to about five per centum upon the present selling price of land.

The legislation needed to put the Single-Tax into practical operation is very simple. It is only necessary to pass national and state laws substantially as follows:

All taxes shall be levied upon land values, but in no year shall the total assessment of any piece of land be in excess of its annual rental value.

The necessary corollary of such laws will be the exemption from taxation of all the products of labor. This means the refusal to tax incomes and inheritances; the abolition of tariffs, customhouses and internal revenue; as well as the exemption of improvements and personalty of every kind. In practice it would necessitate an understanding between the nation and the state as to what proportion of rent each should take. Perhaps two-thirds to the state (including municipalities) and one-third to the nation would be an equitable division.

No doubt the first application of the Single-Tax will be in some state, in consequence of a law law or constitutional amendment permitting it by local option. So long as the national government chooses to derive its revenue as heretofore, it will remain within the province of any state, under the Single-Tax theory, to take the whole rental value of land, thus greatly increasing (about doubling) the total revenue it now collects. It is, therefore, within the power of any legislature at its next session, unless prohibited by the state constitution, to introduce the Single-Tax by the passage of a law of one or two short sections, exempting from taxation personal estates and improvements. This would necessitate of course a heavier tax than now upon

land values, in order to raise present revenues. Probably, very shortly after permission was given and accepted, cities and towns generally would increase their revenues up to the limit prescribed. Every step in that direction would lessen the price of land, making it cheaper and cheaper, until finally none could be found commanding more than a nominal price in the market, and for all practical purposes land would be free. It would then be unprofitable for any one to own land who did not put it to a good use, nor need any one who desired to own land, either for a homestead or for business purposes, go without. The candid philosopher who makes a full investigation of the Single-Tax will be forced to the conclusions: It is equitable; it is practicable; it is speedily attainable, and it will prove effective.

CARRYING OUT THE PLAN.

For the sake of argument, let it now be assumed that among the number of philanthropists who desire to expend their millions for the benefit of their fellowmen, one of them accepts the conclusion stated above, and decides to risk a small fraction of the sum he is giving away to bring about as speedily as possible the consummation of the SingleTax. What steps should he take?

No better illustration of the best method of procedure can be given than that followed by Mr. John D. Rockefeller, when, upon the death of his grand-child in the summer of 1900, he sought to discover the germ which gives rise to "summer complaint" in young children. He placed the sum of $200,000 at the disposal of Dr. William H. Welch of Baltimore, one of the most noted pathologists in the world, giving him carte blanche in its expenditure.

Although Mr. Rockefeller could not by his own research discover the fatal germ, he could and did discover a scientist who was most capable of conducting the work successfully. Dr. Welch was pointed out as the right man by the

consensus of the competent, which means by the agreement of persons engaged in the same pursuit.

In like manner the wealthy philanthropist bent upon solving the labor problem through the application of the Single-Tax, would find that every real reform has within its ranks expert agitators, men who, although for lack of funds compelled to make bricks without straw, yet have been surprisingly successful in what they have undertaken. He could get at the consensus of the competent among Single-Taxers by consultation with such men as William Lloyd Garrison and C. B. Fillibrown of Boston; Lawson Purdy and Bolton Hall of New York; Louis F. Post and John Z. White of Chicago, and Judge James McGuire of San Francisco.

It is not within the scope of this article to indicate the steps which should be taken by the expert who may be entrusted with so momentous a task. Yet it is a pretty safe assertion that the major part of the sum contributed would be devoted to educating and arousing public sentiment in a single locality, either a

state or a city, under local option law. It has been said that Paris is France. With even greater truth the epigram would apply to the metropolitan city in several of our states. In such a case the thorough conversion of the chief city, whose press reaches every section of the state, would mean the conversion of so wide an electorate as to lead to the enactment of the requisite law.

No proposal for benefiting mankind can compare with the one here pointed out. The founding of libraries and the endowment of educational institutions are commendable; but it should be borne in mind that these fields already are well cultivated, while the direct amelioration of society as a unit has most wofully been neglected. Two hundred thousand dollars dedicated to the establishment of the Single-Tax in the manner suggested would do more for the human race than $200,000,000 directed to the education of individual members of the community, in whatever way the larger sum were expended.

Lucius F. C. GARVIN.

Lonsdale, R. I.

subordinated altruism. They have permitted the lust for gold and the lust for power to choke out the love of justice, reverence for the rights of others, and the fragrant flower of sympathy. Hence while they may be considered successful from the superficial view-point, having achieved vast fortunes or gained places of power and honor, their influence is the reverse of helpful to the world. Indeed, it is frequently blighting in its direct effect and insidiously poisoning in its less obvious influence on the ideals and conduct of others.

But there are other self-made men who rise in life without sacrificing the higher things that make up a noble charactermen and women who succeed while holding fast to the eternal moral verities that are the soul of civilization. Such

a man is Judge Pollard. His father was a southerner of means at the time of the Civil war. He had extensive lands and owned large numbers of slaves. He threw his fortunes in with the Confederacy, and at the close of the war found himself practically ruined. His little son was thus deprived of the broad culture that otherwise would have enriched his early years; but the child was nobly ambitious and determined to win success and to rise to an honorable position in society if such a thing should be possible by hard work, patient study and the holding fast to true ideals. The exigencies of the family made it necessary for the boy to help earn a livelihood, and for some time he was a messenger boy in a telegraph office. Later he became for eight years the proprietor of a grocery store. But all this time he was storing his mind with knowledge, not only striving to broaden and develop his intellectual powers in a general way, but also to master the science of law, as he had determined to become an attorney. After successfully passing the examinations and being admitted to the bar, he held several important positions of a public and semi-public character.

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In 1888 Hon. David R. Francis, at that time Mayor of St. Louis, was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor. He selected Judge Pollard his personal representative in North Missouri and the brilliant campaign the judge made secured for him the declaration from the newspapers of that section of the state that his work was the entering wedge of Governor Francis' success. Three years ago he was appointed by Mayor Wells of St. Louis Judge of the Second District Police Court. In this position he has made innovations and set precedents that are destined to exert a far-reach

ing and helpful influence on legal methods for dealing with the victims of drink.

At the beginning of his judicial career Judge Pollard sought inspiration from the noble-minded southern thinker, Albert Pike, and he tells us that he took as his guiding rule the following admonitions of this high-minded man:

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'We shall be just in judging of other men only when we are charitable. See, therefore, that you exercise your office cautiously and charitably, lest in passing judgment upon the criminal you commit condemn him and the consequences of a greater wrong than that for which you which must be eternal.

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'Orphanage in childhood, or base, dissolute and abandoned parents; an unfriended youth; evil companions; ignorance and want or moral cultivation; the temptations of sinful pleasures or grinding poverty; familiarity with vice; a scorned and blighted name and desperate fortunes, these are the causes that might have led anyone among us to unfurl the bloody flag of universal defiance."

II. A JUDICIAL INNOVATION IN THE
TREATMENT OF DRUNKARDS.

Like Judge Lindsey of Denver, whose faith in humanity and sympathy for the young led to the inauguration of the treatment of youthful offenders that has already saved to the nation numbers of children who would otherwise have become a curse to themselves and a burden to society, Judge Pollard has introduced a new method for the treatment of drunkards by which hundreds of men have been reformed instead of brutalized by judicial procedure. When he took his office the Judge found himself confronted by scores upon scores of men brought to the bar for drunkenness. Among this number were some confirmed topers whose characters had been so weakened that they no longer had the moral strength to resist temptation. Judge Pollard recognized the fact that to liberate such men on the pledge to abstain from drink and permit them to go free would in

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effect be like leading them into temptation. Only by taking from them the power to gratify their appetites and by environing them with an atmosphere of ethical enthusiasm and stimulation that would favor the strengthening of the moral fiber and the calling into action of the dormant will-power, or by skilful scientific medical and psychological treatment, could permanent cures be hoped for in their cases.

But there was another class of prisoners brought to the bar by drink, far more numerous than the confirmed drunkards, who, he believed, might be redeemed to the state and to their families by a double restraint: one an appeal to their manhood and all the better elements of their nature; the other the threat of the consequences of the violation of the pledge given to the state.

He knew that the old way, the easy way for the judge who did not feel the tremendous responsibility resting on judicial official who holds the fate of human lives in his hand, was to fine every offender five, ten or twenty dollars, and in default to send him to the workhouse to break stone with many men more degraded, brutal and criminal than himself, until the fine was worked out. But

he also knew that the result of such sentence was in most cases to further brutalize the victim of drink. After such a sentence the man, if he had not become a criminal by association and the sense of degradation, would still have less power and incentive to resist temptation than he had before he entered the workhouse, and thus the effect of the sentence would have been to force the victim farther on the downward road. The Judge believed that the majority of these men might be saved to society and to their families if they could be enjoined against drinking; if they could be made to feel that the law and the courts were desirous that they be saved, and though society had to protect itself, still, if the offender would do his best the court would help him to make a fresh start. Such was Judge Pollard's belief, and he proposed to test its practicality by giving those who had not become confirmed drunkards a trial. There was no precedent to justify him in his innovation, and the members of the bench and bar shook their heads incredulously; but his faith in humanity and his realization of the worth of a human soul, the value of a sober citizen to the state and the need of the victims' families for support all urged