Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/522

 502 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

selling value of realty is the only true and honest measure of its proper share of public taxation. To assess any class of realty more than another, on any speculative theory, is to wrong some- one. To assess vacant or unimproved farm property more, rela- tively, than the improved is to lay specially onerous burdens on the poor, to cripple the man with limited resources, and to destroy some of the motives on the part of the poor for saving, and some of the opportunities for this saving which exists when all classes of property bear each its proportional share of public expenditure.

It is possible that in a later number of this Journal attention will be called to some of the other inequalities of taxation dis- covered in Minnesota by the investigation of its labor bureau, and also to the lessons to be deduced therefrom.

L. G. Powers,

St. Paul Minn. Commissioner of Labor.