Single Taxers are Truth-Seekers

Marien Tideman

[An address at Henry George Congress, 12 September, 1928.
Reprinted from Land and Freedom, September-October, 1928]

Last evening Dr. Bradley spoke of the young people and of how they asked, "How do you know?" instead of answering just "yes" to everything that is told them. This sentence is the symbol of a definite turn, an immense step in the growth of the human race. It is the turning from a seeking after the unknowable to a seeking after the knowable. It is the symbol of an achievement in growth. In a measure it is a doubting of everything, yes, but still, it is in a far greater measure, the assurance of the capacity of self. Young people are not afraid of anything not even truth.

Especially not young Single Taxers. Because an understanding of the Single Tax postulates a first conception of human relationship that is a just one; one that carries with it no sentimental sobbings, nothing that wastes time. Young Single Taxers give no mercy, ask none. All they want is justice. To each man, a chance to produce and keep for his own disposal that which he produces. And this same truth applies when young Single Taxers say that the value created by the community belongs to the community. Before this there is no justice. Is not this a truth around which all economic justice revolves?

Religious, artistic or cultural, political, all social tangles will unfold themselves, when each man is given an equal opportunity with all other men to make a living, and not only that, to do with what he produces as he sees fit. This is the first justice, and before it comes nothing.

This is what young Single Taxers want. This is that for which they work and talk. To declare this truth which has been discovered to them is the most vital thing in the lives of all us youngsters; it is the purpose of the Chicago Single Taxer, the little journal which we hope some day will be something to be proud of. And we will retain this truth as a working principle until something more basic, more just crosses our path.