It has been assumed, and is still assumed generally, that poverty is a natural evil, and under present circumstances I am willing to accept it as such; but I think in one who accepts the doctrine of the single tax, it must be a logical conclusion that when that doctrine comes to be applied, that poverty will become an unnecessary evil. (Applause.) For although I accept the great democratic ideal which involves that of absolute justice I see, being an idealist, that the proposed ideal can never be absolutely attained. But without that ideal no progress can be.

The ideal is ever the precursor of all that is done, and could we reach any condition which we assumed to be the ideal, the ideal would cease to exist. The evil of poverty will become unnecessary under the adoption of the single tax, because then we can trace the poverty to the individual as the author of his own difficulty. At present we can not help seeing it arises out of false social conditions. Under such a condition of things as we believe will come about with the adoption and practice of the single tax, the laborer will no longer be obliged to give the whole of his labor to the one who employs him. Again, he will not be obliged to beg of another work that he needs and bread to live upon.

Now I am a believer in spiritual trust because I believe that spiritual trust lies at the bottom of all voices of truth. I do not, necessarily, believe in any story that may be presented to me; it may be true and it may not be true; it may be like the story of the cock and the bull, but the substance involved in many that appear untrue frequently contains truths more profound than the political or financial prophets are capable of perceiving.

We hear a great deal of talk now about the goodness of the human heart; I deny it in toto. I do not believe a bit of it. I believe the heart is positively and distressingly weak. It is against sound logic, and a man who begins business or would commence to do anything on that theory is pretty sure to fail.

Some think there will be a great struggle in the single tax. Single tax is a straightforward, rational truth, and it will appear little by little to every individual mind until the majority will grow so large that the other side will be as nothing. It grows as the tree grows; it will develop to the ideal as I desire to have my picture developed, naturally, by attending not to my own desire, but in approaching an ideal.

There is much of statesmanship, there is much of false policy in the world at present; false thinking, false education, all this will disappear as soon as the man is free from that necessary want that exists under our present political condition. And your science, your literature will increase and the general intelligence of the whole community will increase the freer you make the individual, and if the individual is wrong society will be wrong.

At present there is one principle, a commercial principle, I mean a financial principle, that is universally accepted, that is that a thing that will not pay for itself must be discontinued. Society at this present day is not self-supporting; instead of being self-supporting it is supported by the individual. The individual has certain rights to that which he pays for. That which he does not create belongs to the community, and that is land.