ELIMINATE TOLL TAKING MONOPOLIES

...It would seem that nothing can be clearer than the interdependence of the farmer and the city producer...

...The farmer should be happy when he finds that hired help for the farm is scarce and dear, for that means that his biggest customer, the city laborer, is well paid and prosperous, and will purchase from him in large quantities and at good prices...

...There will be minor temporary and local differences due to the character and location of industry and the skill and experience required...

...It proposes a license fee of one per cent upon the ownership of land exclusive of improvements, with an exemption of $10,000...

...Some of the most progressive countries have done this with uniformly good results...

...Eliminate the Toll Takers NOW, it must be remembered, of course, that there are a very large number of people Who are not producers of goods in the usual sense, but who are equally necessary to society...

...It is fortunate for the farmers that the laborer spends all he earns, and in doing so consumes all the farmer's surplus produce...

...Progress must be slow and experimental, and built upon constructive but perhaps drastic legislation...

...Our population is made up largely of farmers and city workers...

...The land...

...In this connection I want to warn the farmers of Wisconsin against the so-called Federal Sales Tax which is being urged by eastern bankers and monopolists...

...The secret of the unfavorable position which the farmers occupy in respect to the business men with whom they deal is that they are not sufficiently organized...

...The farmers of this state should see that their congressmen vote right on this question...

...We may as well look the facts in the face...

...Consequently if they only knew it, the farmer and the workman are bound together in prosperity and adversity...

...but for our purposes these differences may be overlooked...

...If he saves anything it can be only at the expense of his family, limiting or denying them some of these necessaries...

...The city worker spends in his living substantially all he earns...

...Our state tax commission has advised its removal for several years...

...In truth, with the present unjust distribution of wealth he cannot do otherwise...

...This is strictly a tax on production, and paid by the consumer...

...The hired men of the city constitute the great market for the farmer's product...

...If 10 or 15 per cent of the workmen of the country are without jobs, they cannot buy in any appreciable amounts...

...It is our instrument for relief...

...And there are many thousand such lots of greater or less value...

...Both together constitute the great market of the country...

...It must be involved in the question of how much each is allowed to retain for his own use out of what he produces...

...Remove Monopoly's Advantage THE second line of attack upon the problem which will be simpler and more effective, but less obvious, is to remove the advantages that come from the monopolization of natural resources...

...No bank account based on penurious saving can compensate for underfed and meagerly educated children...

...Eliminate Toll Taking Monopolies Fair Prices and Good Wages Are Upset by Demands of Those Who Perform No Service to Society By EDWARD NORDMAN (Director, Wisconsin Division of Markets) THE situation before the people and the country today is unsatisfactory and is evidently getting worse...

...They are nearly always low-price markets...

...Those two constitute more than 90 per cent of the population...

...Now, this is all good for both workman and farmer, provided it is earned and paid for without encumbering the future or neglecting the essentials...

...It is bad for the worker, worse for the children, and worse still for the nation...

...Strike at Monopoly ON THE other hand, the farmer reduced to meager profit or none at all on his product becomes a poor buyer of the industrial products of the cities, thus tending to accentuate still further the condition of low wages and unemployment...

...This will strike vigorously at the roots of the great monopolies of natural resources...

...When the farmer pays two dollars a yard for cloth for which the producers receive only one dollar, when the workman pays 30 cents a pound for meat for which the producers receive only 16 cents...

...This does not mean that one should be extravagant or foolish...

...But this $100,000 a year becomes an overhead charge of the business which the public must pay...

...The so-called "Nolan Bill" now pending in Congress, is a step in the right direction...

...This plan of exempting thrift and enterprise from taxation should be gradually extended ¦until no one is taxed for having made improvements or rendered useful service...

...Each supplies both himself and the other with his product...

...it means that the men out of work are competing for the jobs, and displacing the men without jobs, at lower wages, resulting in still lower purchasing power...

...and goods shipped out must be paid for by goods shipped in...

...And the 3,000,000 farmers who are left without corresponding consumers are compelled to force their product on the market even at a loss, driving down the market for all farm products to a sacrifice price...

...industry and low in another...

...Keep Business Healthy HOARDING money does not increase the volume of money, nor does it help the business of the country...

...and therefore, society should share more largely in this increase of value...

...If 3,000,000 are out of work, it may mean that 3,000,000 farmers cannot market their products except at a loss...

...He is wise in doing so, for he never earns more than enough to support himself and his family comfortably and decently and as an American family should be supported, including food, shelter, clothing and education...

...But it means more than that...

...His daughter wants up-to-date shoos, hats, and gowns...

...And it is fortunate for the city laborer that the farmer is demanding better clothing, more books and pictures, good furniture, carpets and rugs, au-tos, labor-saving machinery and devices for himself and his wife...

...If our foreign markets appear to have considerable influence upon our domestic conditions of supply and demand, it is primarily due to the fact that the buying power of the consumers is too low to absorb all of our production...

...His son wants good clothes...

...However, even with the exemption, it is the best proposition so far put forward for federal revenue...

...These give social services which are necessary or desirable, and for which people are willing to pay...

...On the other hand, if the four bushels of wheat or its equivalent represents the farmer's product for a day's work, and if through our economic system he is allowed to retain only three bushels, he can purchase from the workman only three fourths of his product...

...This is wholly a tax on business that must be shifted to thd consumer, especially reducing the city workman's ability to purchase from the farmer...

...Wages cannot be high in one...

...This should be the first line of attack...

...for the small own-ers must pay more than their share of the cost of government under anv form of consumption tax as they always have done...

...We all thoroughly believe in wise and careful spending, and in extending a fat income of one day over a lean income of another day, as well as providing new capital or the replacement of old capital as it wears out...

...But our state legislature is nearer to us, and can be reached more readily...

...It means that there are toll-takers in between who take part of the day's wages out of each day's productive work of both farmer and city workman...

...This is the vital question...

...It is because of this that they are unable to keep watch and thus prevent the passage of laws unfair to them and it is because of a lack of concentrated organized effort that they are unable to exercise the necessary pressure to have favorable laws and decisions enforced...

...and the laborer is out of work, and therefore out of money, when the farmer cannot buy...

...But the farmer must suffer when the laborer cannot buy his product...

...There are teachers and preachers, doctors, and lawyers, bankers, merchants, public officers, clerks, stenographers, accountants, insurance agents, barbers, actors, singers, and many others who strictly belong to the working class...

...The real problem, then, is to discover the toll-takers, and to eliminate them...

...It is a question whether it would not be better without any exemption, especially for the farmers...

...The most fundamental and far-reaching remedy in this phase of the work of the Division of Markets will come through organization...

...It is this unnecessary toll-taking that explains why the farmer and the city worker must each labor four days to obtain three days' product of the other...

...The mere ownership of these permits the taking of toll to the extent of thousands of millions of dollars yearly, for which nothing is returned either in product or service...

...This may be illustrated by the case of a corner lot in a city for which $100,000 a year ground rent is paid, the tenant owning the building, and paying the tax on both land and building...

...This requires no radical change in our laws or in our procedure...

...for as water maintains its level, so the shifting of labor to the best paying industries will always maintain a substantial level...

...and I may now and here warn the farmers that they are the first who will be appealed to by the big monopolists to save their great toll-taking monopolies, for the reason that many a farmer can be made to believe that he is a little monopolist himself, and therefore, ha must stand with the toll-takers...

...timber, waterpowers, dockage and wharfage facilities...

...It is money earned and spent, money in circulation, indicating large production and consumption, that keeps business healthy and prosperous...

...choice business locations, and so on...

...while under this system they pay precisely their just proportion...

...One of the most interesting questions, therefore, to the farmer is: How can the workman obtain the full product of his labor so as to have an abundance of the means to buy from the farmer what he produces, and at a profitable price to the farmer...

...But above and beyond all of these as a successful toll-taker is the monopolization of natural resources...

...Now, what is the remedy...

...Here is a case of pure toll-taking, for which neither service nor goods are returned to society...

...Full employment, full wages, prosperity of each is necessary to a like condition of the other...

...The $10,000 exemption will let out nine-tenths of the farmers and home owners...

...And this is not far from the true situation...

...The Marketing Division of Wisconsin is attempting to eliminate unnecessary middlemen by reducing the number of transfers, of changing hands, between the producer and the consumer...

...We should rearrange our economic life so as to make our domestic markets the determining factor in our production...

...This is a complex problem, involving packing, handling, grading, standardization, guarantees of quality and quantity, transportation, commissions and fees, reliability of dealers, storage, hoarding, forestalling the market, dealing in futures, and many other factors...

...So much for federal legislation as a remedy...

...Here the answer to the problem is the same, to reduce the profits of monopoly, llie effective method of doing this is to remove the burden of governmental expense more and more from the products of enterprise and industry, and to place this burden on privilege and monopoly...

...The first step should be to eliminate the taxes on personal property...

...Let me illustrate: If the workman's product for a day is the equivalent of four pair of shoes, and if, through our economic system, he is allowed to retain only three pairs or their equivalent, he can purchase from the farmer only three-fourths of what the farmer produces...

...the coal, iron, copper, lead and oil deposits...

...What is the remedy...

...They constitute the great body of consumers...

...It may involve a measure of public control, and supervision by public officials...

...The advancing value of these resources is not due to the owner, but to the growth and activity of society...

...when this condition prevails generally in the market in greater or less degree for different products, it means, of course, that each is doing a full day's work, and living upon the scale of three-fourths day's pay or less...

...Foreign markets are of relatively small consequence...