This report is deemed important in view of the following comment made by Frank A. Seitz, Manager of Radio Station WFAS at White Plains. Seitz arranged this meeting and serviced it with not only the speaker's microphone, but shifted another receiver to each diner as he asked questions, thus getting the whole proceeding.

"I can only repeat what I told you after the meeting that I have never yet seen the members of the Lions Club give up the greater part of their afternoon for a speaker! Since a great many of them are interested in real estate hi Westchester County, your subject was particularly appropriate."

This report is important as an example of radio technique which should be extended, and as indicating a well-balanced talk to business men, as evidenced by the fact that practically everyone of these sixty Lions members asked one or more questions, and stayed away from their business three hours to get the answers.

The high points of Mr. Ingersoll's talk were as follows (his subject being "Single Tax the only remedy for depression," suggested by the club President): He explained that while the Single Tax was descriptive, it tended to narrow a great moral and business philosophy The first democracy, and greatest producer of wealth, should not be "at the cross-roads." Our troubles are economic though involving morals, spirituality, and philosophy. Business men should stick to the tangible, financial and temporal.

There are two schools only, approaching the breakdown from the economic viewpoint the individualist democrat of the Jefferson am George type, and the Marxian collectivist philosophy (or fallacy) These two opposite schools very significantly agree: (1) that our prime trouble is poverty itself; (2) that it is caused by exploitation (3) that it is curable; and by stopping the exploitation; (4) that the approach is economic; and (5) that socialization is the remedy. This takes them together to the half-way point, because the individual would socialize all social values which comprise about half of our "national wealth."

This is very important because these two schools and the follower of them, make up the vast majority of all the people; and if they can come together on the only point of difference, we will be practically out of our trouble. This point is: "who or what is the exploiter?' As you know, collectivists would destroy our private system of business capital and wealth by socializing it. The individualist would correct the errors of that system and insist on absolute integrity of it So, instead of the absolute agreement of the two schools, as up to the 50-50 point, they are as absolute in their disagreement from thence on, because this difference involves not only our business and profit system, but our democracy, and civilization as we now understand it.

Now, we come to the answer: the Single Tax is the only alternative to (a) this Marxian, leading to chaos, or (b) our present system, which call monopolism, and which we know has broken down. The Single Tax, therefore, aims to draw a clear-cut line between business, big and little, which you represent, and monopoly, which is now in control of at least half our wealth, but only favors as their major interest perhaps 3 per cent of the population.

This monopoly, while having limitless ramifications, such as the administration at Washington is tangled up in, has only three principle divisions in its basic element, comprising the 200 billion of value as estimated. Most familiar to us are utilities; the next are natural sources; these combined make probably half the total; the rest is site values in cities.

Monopoly, therefore, should be first considered as basic monopoly; in a sense, monopoly of the earth itself. It yields what is commonly known as "unearned increment" and in the form of economic rent. As such, this is a purely social creation, meaning that it is a creation of the whole people and their activities, especially their governmental activities.

This rent amounts to something like fifteen billions; and you may think it a coincidence that our tax budgets, local, state and federal, are about the same amount. But your business sense should make it clear that in a general way, our expenditures for government reflect these increments or rents in fact, one creates the other.

Now, is there anything more obvious to a business man than that this great stream of social "profits" should be used to liquidate the really great costs of government, that go directly to create these huge surplus earnings of our collective estate? Is there anything more obvious to every business common or horse sense, than that no individual should be permitted to touch any of this social revenue?

Do any of you business men allow the earnings of your business to stray away from it, and then go and beg, borrow, or steal (our government does all of these) to pay the expenses and obligations of your business? Do any of you, having partnership interests or owning stock in corporations outside your own, give any less care to collecting and conserving these profits, then to your individual activity?

The analogy is perfect; consider yourself as one of 130,000,000 people; for every dollar you make individually in wages, salaries, profits, there is another dollar made by you, but as a citizen of your immunity, state, and nation; and without any of your interference, at dollar is "deposited" in the form of these social or land values rents. The only way of "withdrawal" of this deposit so far found, through this device called the "Single Tax," but which really is collection of rent."

Through this process, everyone of the 130,000,000 would get his are of the 200,000,000,000 of social value which actually earns millions of income called rent. So this is the answer: merge these 1001 taxes that now rest on the consumer, doubling his living costs, and thereby cutting in half his purchasing power, slowing down factories and creating millions of unemployed; merge these taxes that destroy industry into a Single Tax which will destroy monopoly. I don't think I need to say any more.