 SCI LIBRARY |
 |
 |
 |
SCI LIBRARY |
|
|
|
| AN
INQUIRY Into Your Beliefs · ASKHENRY Search Engine · BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY of the Georgist Movement · DISCUSSION · ENCYCLOPEDIA on Political Economy · ENCYCLOPEDIA on Political Economy - INDEX · HENRY GEORGE Page · LAND QUESTION - Quoted Authors · LINKS to Other Websites |
Jackson H. Ralston[Reprinted from the Publisher's Note to Ralston's book Confronting the Land Question, published by Scientific Taxation, Bayside, New York, 1945] |
IT IS NOW more than sixty years since, as a young man just turning twenty-five, Jackson H. Ralston became attracted by the doctrines of Progress and Poverty. His own prior career as a member of the International Typographical Union had drawn his attention to matters of social improvement. The work of Henry George supplied answers to many questions which had been brought home to him and as to which the answers furnished by trade unionism and co-operation failed to meet all the requirements, useful as both seemed to be. He accepted George's contention that unless the right of all men to the use of the earth was fully recognized all steps toward reform were vitiated in the very beginning. [continued below...] |
NEWS and OBSERVATIONS |
Acceptance of this doctrine without efforts to put it into effect seemed to Ralston futile. He therefore determined to bring about such changes as George had urged, as far as lay in his power. But the question was how best to proceed. Progress and Poverty suggested taxing into the public treasury the values men gave the land through the community. The idea that such values should rightfully belong to their creator -- mankind as a whole -- appeared so obvious that it should be accepted generally and easily. He did not anticipate the long, difficult struggle necessary to make the slightest progress, and did not fully understand that taxation was not the sole means available to insure to all men fully the equal right to the use of the earth. However, he felt that as far as it could go, and that was and is a long distance, it was something worth working for. With this thought in mind Ralston at once looked about to find a field for action. In a small way it appeared to be immediately before him. While practicing law in Washington, D. C., his political home was in the little village of Hyattsville, Maryland. There was agitation to bond the town for certain public improvements. He urged that, if they were to be made, the necessary taxation should rest upon the land values of the place but in no wise upon improvements, the value of which could only be increased by changing the tangible property itself. Rather than accept such a principle the advocates of bonding dropped the matter. Not a great while later Ralston became President of the Board of Commissioners for the town, and with two others, Charles H. Long and George S. Britt forming a majority, accordingly abolished town taxation except upon land values. Then he was made to realize the power of the opposition. Its representatives went into court to stop the proceedings. In the lower court the Commissioners prevailed, but on appeal the Maryland Court of Appeals declared their action to be unconstitutional, utopian and contrary to what the court considered sound economics. Of course with the latter points the court had properly nothing to do. Nevertheless, having delivered itself of its opinion, the judges held that the action was improperly brought and gave judgment for the defendants. The whole opinion, therefore, except as to the closing sentences, was obiter dicta. However, it was useless to pursue the matter any further in face of the statement of unconstitutionality, hence the fight was abandoned. The contest aroused the sympathy of hundreds of people all over the United States and at the time was fully reported by Henry George, Jr., in the old Standard. Maryland Single Taxers were not content to drop the idea at this point. Before several sessions of the legislature a few, under the leadership of Judge Alfred S. Niles of Baltimore, sought through the State General Assembly to obtain submission to the people of a constitutional amendment which would have meant home-rule in taxation. It finally became manifest that the legislature would never submit the proposition and for some years matters drifted along without any steps being taken. Then the plan occurred to Ralston to draft an amendment providing for the classification of all taxable property in the state, which should include land and be uniform within the classes of other property the legislature or the several counties should direct to be taxed, leaving the field as to towns untouched. This, after some delays, the legislature submitted to the people and in 1915 it became and still is part of the Constitution of the State. As to the towns, Ralston later drafted an act (which the legislature accepted) permitting them to exempt improvements and to increase their tax rate accordingly upon the |
remaining property. Under this law a suburb of Washington, Capitol Heights, exempted improvements and personal property, while other towns made partial exemptions. A few years ago a general act compelled the acceptance of property assessments as made by the counties. Thus all labors of the Single Taxers came to naught for the immediate present, although whenever Maryland voters through the state legislature or any county government decide to adopt the Single Tax plan they have an open road. Shortly after the definite defeat before the Maryland Court of Appeals, thinking over the possibility of a new field for action, it occurred to Ralston that because of the great number of neighboring Single Taxers in Philadelphia and absence there of any constitutional inhibitions it might be possible to accomplish something of real value in the State of Delaware. Accordingly he wrote an article appearing in the Single Tax Courier advocating a campaign in this State. As it happened the Single Taxers were ripe for the work and at once organized to make Delaware the first Single Tax State of the Union. To aid this the officers of the National League named Arthur H. Stephenson of Philadelphia, Harold Sudell, of New Castle, Delaware, and Ralston as committee in charge. This committee was at all times devotedly assisted by Frank Stephens of Philadelphia, who took the active charge. This campaign made a deep impression upon the people of the State and was filled with incidents we cannot take the time to recall. However, as the movement seemed to grow in strength and election day approached, local men outside the committee, over its protest, apparently moved by a great political desire to obtain office, put a Single Tax ticket in the field for every state office. It was at a most unfortunate time because 1896 marked a fierce and not always scrupulous fight over the gold-and-silver issue. Few voted the Single Tax ticket and the general let-down destroyed a most promising effort. From about 1907 to 1915, and while a citizen of the State, Ralston was President of the Maryland Direct Legislation League, devoted to advancing the Initiative and Referendum. While this organization was unable to bring about the submission of a statewide initiative constitutional amendment, its efforts contributed materially to secure local charter initiative for the city of Baltimore and succeeded in securing adoption by the citizens of the State of a statewide and county referendum plan which, at least in the counties, has been repeatedly used. A hope attaching to the initiative was that it might be employed to advance taxation reform in the State. In 1915 Ralston was appointed by Governor Harrington member of a committee to frame legislation making county home rule Operative in Maryland. His draft, accepted with slight changes by the committee, was enacted by the legislature. The next step of note with which Ralston was connected was that taken by the Fels Fund Commission, formed in 1907. This derived its creation from the action of Joseph Fels, who proposed to contribute $25,000 a year for the advancement of what had become known as the Single Tax, with the proviso that others should contribute a like amount. This continued in full force for five years. The five originally named to constitute what became known as the Fels Commission were Daniel Kiefer of Cincinnati, Frederick C. Howe, formerly of Cleveland, George A. Briggs, then of Elkhart, Indiana and now of Los Angeles, California, Lincoln Steffens, then of New York, and at the time of his death a resident of California, an4 Jackson H. Ralston, then of Washington, D. C., and now of California. |
Later Ralston gave special attention to the possibility of framing an act of Congress designed to give effect to the ideas of the Single Tax. This was introduced into Congress by Congressman Nolan of San Francisco, attracted the vigorous opposition of the National Association of Real Estate Boards and received active support from the Merchants and Manufacturers Association of Chicago, of which Otto Cull-man was president. Later with a few changes it was reintroduced in the House of Representatives by Keller of Minnesota and still later by Moritz of Pennsylvania. The central idea of the bill was to levy a tax, not expressly upon land values, but upon the privilege of landholding (exclusive of improvements) valued in excess of $10,000. It relied upon the "general welfare" idea of the preamble to the Constitution. In a practical way nothing came of this, but it served useful propaganda purposes. In 1930-1932 Frederick F. Ingram, who had been a prominent business man of Detroit, Michigan, established himself in San Diego, California, and organized and conducted what was known as the Ingram Institute. At his request Ralston wrote a little book entitled What's Wrong with Taxation? Many thousands of copies of this little book have been circulated. In 1933 the State of California adopted a sales tax for the first time in its history. To Ralston this seemed an opportunity to open up the whole subject of taxation. Accordingly in 1934 he prepared an amendment to the State Constitution designed to repeal the sales tax and to substitute taxation upon land values. Because of a slight deficiency in the number of signatures required to submit an initiative proposal it failed to come before the electorate that year but the deficiency was supplied in time for its insertion on the ballot in 1936. However, the submission was challenged because of an alleged lack of full description of the proposal which headed each sheet of signatures after the first, and the Supreme Court of the State, by a divided vote, kept it off the ballot. Two years later a revised amendment was submitted to the people and defeated, although it received some 383,000 affirmative votes. A full discussion of the causes leading to this defeat appears in the columns of Land and Freedom for the latter months of 1942. Aside from his association with the matters heretofore spoken of, Ralston was in 1902 the American agent having in charge the case of the Pious Fund of the Californias, United States vs. Mexico, the first dispute to come before the Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration, gaining a very substantial award. In 1903 he was at Caracas, named by the United States umpire of the Italian-Venezuelan Mixed Claims Commission, passing upon several hundred international cases, and in 1922 was American counsel in the Landreau matter, United States vs. Peru, before a commission sitting in London. Growing out of these and other international matters, he was author or editor of a number of reports and works on international law, of which the most important was Law and Procedure of International Tribunals published by the Stanford University Press in 1926. To this may be added Democracy's International Law (1922, and the same year translated into French and published in Paris) and A Quest for International Order (1941). |
|
|
 |
|
|