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We are trying to bury war. The world is beginning a new epoch. More conclusively than ever before ''Old things have passed away - all things have become new.'' Not even the great Reformation changed the thought of the world so profoundly as have the past few years. Czars, kaisers, kings have faded away and their places will not be filled. "The future belongs to the people."

Britain has shown the world how a king may linger in the drawing rooms and yet in no way affect the democratic political life" of tie people. With her king and all her traditional conservatism Britain is more democratic in polities and industry than we are with our President, and that fact should bring home to every thoughtful American citizen that it is only the substance which matters and not the form. We, Americans, have mistaken opportunity for democracy and have been satisfied with the husks of form instead of going after the kernel of democracy. Political democracy becomes valuable only as it is used to produce industrial and economic democracy.

The new faith - industrial democracy - now looked upon with such hope is also of little value in itself and can only be expected to serve as it brings capital and labor to a realization of their utter dependence on economic democracy. Industrial democracy - desirable and necessary as it is - will still leave the source of all wealth in the hands of the world junkers, who will continue the levy of an increasing toll on the wages of capital and labor alike. Just so long as land ownership is un-democratized we will not realize economic democracy and the employed and employer alike will be in the power of the land owner, the real junker of America as well as of Prussia, who absorbs most of the profit of industry without contributing either the labor or the tools.

Blackstone teaches as a fundamental of the common law that the holding of title to land (including minerals, forests and waters) and the appropriation of the increase in value due to the community is not a right inherent in the individual, but a privilege granted by the state or nation and true economic democracy demands that no such privilege be granted to any citizen without proper payment to the nation. It must be remembered that title deeds are nothing more than perpetual leases from the state, subject to an annual charge (tax) changing each year at the will of the representatives of the people and the only reason title deeds for land have any value is because the state has never made a sufficient charge for the privilege granted.

The value as a site for use and improvements is, practically speaking, the only value which any land can have separate from the improvements which have been added by the labor of man. This site value can be given only by the community and is represented by the actual rental value or the rental value the land is thought to have by the owner. In other words, a lot worth $100,000 on a city avenue, a farm worth $100 an acre (exclusive of improvements) or a water power worth $1,000,000, have only such values because they will produce a net return of approximately five per cent on such amounts. If the site of the lot or the farm or the water power was more favorable the value would be more, if not so favorable, the value would be less, and if located in the remote districts of the earth their value would entirely disappear.

With these facts before us, who will deny that all the value of land, exclusive of improvements, is given by the community! Once granting this truth, who can deny the equitable right and duty of a truly democratic State to call on the land owner to pay the State the entire rental value of land, exclusive of improvements, in order to defray the expense of the State and to provide for the proper extension of public activities. Under such conditions the ordinary and normal expense of government, national, state and local, would be covered without any other form of taxation.

The average man will say, however, "That is all very nice, but why should it interest met I have a living to make and have nothing to pay taxes on," or "I am a merchant and I include my taxes in the price of the goods I sell. Let the other fellows worry about it." Eight there is where the junker wants the "average" man to remain, and so long as he remains .there the "average" man - employee or employer - will continue to be the "goat" and at the same time he will be paying the greatest portion of the taxes and continue to make it impossible for even industrial democracy to materially or permanently better his social or living conditions.

Wages are always highest for the employee and, speaking generally, profits are always highest for the employer when jobs are plentiful for the worker and workers are scarce for the employer. Few make any money when jobs are scarce and Workers over abundant. High wages mean enhanced buying power for all the people, which always results in greatly increased demand for goods of all kinds, and as every employer knows, increased demand always means increased profits, even if higher wages are paid at the same time. There is always more profit to the manufacturer or dealer with prices on a high level than when prices are on a low level, even if wages are lower.

The whole question of permanent high wages for the employee and permanent large profits for the employer therefore resolves itself into the question of permanently making jobs v plentiful and this can only be done by proper taxation. Labor, despite, all high sounding words and fine theories, will always be bought and sold on the basis of supply and demand.

Wages - the price of labor - must fluctuate exactly as labor is plentiful or scarce, but we do not always see the comparatively small percentage that makes surplus or shortage. If a certain city requires one hundred carloads of potatoes a day to supply the normal demand and if for a period of ten days only ninety-five ears arrive daily, potatoes are scarce and prices very high, while if for the same period one hundred and five cars should arrive daily potatoes would be plentiful and prices very low. This accounts in part for the curiously sudden fluctuations of prices.

There would be a difference, however, of only ten cars of potatoes daily, or about ten per cent, between the periods of high and low prices. A difference of ten per cent in the available labor supply is all the difference between high and low wages for the worker, high and low' buying power for the people and between high and low profits for the employer.

The many schemes to drain the swamps and irrigate the deserts are so futile, such poor business and so utterly inadequate that the wonder is why so many people are deceived by them. Thousands of acres might be reclaimed but what would be the use when millions of acres, much of which is immediately adjacent to our great centers of population, are ready for immediate occupancy, furnishing abundant labor for all possible demands now and for years to come.

When we become democratic enough to demand that the State take all the community created rental value of land, to pay the expenses of the State, no one will desire, or could be compelled, to own more land than he can use productively any more than one would DOW rent an office or a dwelling or a factory and permit it to remain vacant or unused. Not a third of the available area of America and not half the area of our cities is in any adequate use. When all the rental value of land is demanded by the State, the great portion of unused land will pass from private to public ownership and therefore immediately become a national asset instead of a national liability, as it now is. Such land in the public hands would be held for the private possession of the individual who desired to put it to use, paying to the State therefor only the annual rental value but no purchase price. Vacant unused land therefore would be available to homesteaders for residence and business purposes even in our cities, while thousands of acres adjacent to our large centers of population, would be accessible for agricultural purposes. All taxes on business enterprise will be unnecessary, taxes on homes and farms will be greatly reduced and all business activity permanently stimulated. The State can take the rental value of land by taxing it seven per cent or eight per cent, instead of about two per cent as at present. This would take all capital value out of land and later tax rates would be on a per acre or per square foot basis. It is not so difficult to assess land oil a rental value basis an on a selling value basis as at present.

America then could support in plenty, and entirely beyond the shadow of involuntary poverty, a population of a billion people, without any fear of losing the great stabilizer -free land. Thousands of men in industry would go on the laud with their women and children, many of whom are now doing industrial work; this would lessen the labor pressure and give better wages to those who remain in industry. At the same time it would form a great reservoir of reserve labor for seasonal occupation, or to fill in during periods of tremendous industrial activity when wages sufficiently attractive could be offered to draw people away temporarily from the work on their own land. Jobs would be permanently plentiful, and workers, as long as free land remained, would be permanently scarce with resulting high wages and steady employment for workers and good business with good profits for employers in supplying the increased demands of a people with a much greater per capita buying power than at present.

Under such conditions the union wage (now a very real necessity to insure an approach to fair payment to the worker notwithstanding its restricting effect on production) would largely fall on its own weight. The hustling efficient worker would be able to earn more than the union wage if working on the land for himself and could therefore demand a higher wage from industry, while the slacker inefficient worker could not make so much on the land and would not be in position to demand an unfair wage from industry. All, however, would be able to demand wages in proportion to what they produced, which would be perfect equity and on the whole a great stimulation to production. With all vacant land free to homestead without purchase price and all taxes abolished oil improvements, the success of the "own your home" campaign would be assured, while at present it is largely nothing but a dream for the great mass of Americans, sixty per cent of whom are now tenants facing a steadily increasing rent, which will continue with increasing land values. Cheaper homes and lower rents are but idle fancies under present conditions.

Such are the very real and practical ends which may be attained by a free people using political democracy as a means to secure industrial and economic democracy and to democratize the land - which, together with human labor, is the basis of all wealth. This is single tax. Private ownership of laud will not be abolished and titles will not be disturbed. This is not Socialism. It is not Bolshevism. It is not Anarchy. It is not confiscation. It requires no new government machinery. It will take nothing from anyone which he now earns. The honest income of no one will be reduced. Wages and legitimate profits will be increased. Profit for the few at the expense of the many will be practically abolished. No man will eat bread by the sweat of another man's face. It will be possible for everyone to have a home who really wants one. There will be fewer millionaires and fewer poor. Fewer limousines and more Fords. It will abolish the I. W. W. and tramps will become as rare as the "Dodo." It will benefit 100 per cent of us. A great tax burden will be lifted from the many and the few can live honest productive lives without preying on the many. We can have it any time enough of us want it. A constitutional amendment of only about ten lines is necessary - making all taxes unlawful until after the full rental value of all land (including minerals, forests and waters) has been taken for the needs of government (national, state, county and local.) This change may be spread out over a few years - not more than five - in order that there may be time to adjust loans, mortgages and other obligations which are based on land as security, but the time must be made short because the industrial and social pressure is so great that hasty and thoughtless action will result if early relief is not brought into view.

You will get behind this movement to democratize the land if you have Christian instincts, if you are a good citizen, if you love men, if you desire justice, if you believe in fair play, if you want to awing wide open the door of opportunity to all men. If on the other hand, you are a bad citizen, if you hate men, if you fear justice, if you want to retain part of your unearned gains, but would nevertheless like to have the door of opportunity remain open for you when it opens for others, you had better get behind it and "save your bacon" while the saving "is good." The storm can break in America just as it broke in Russia, and if it once breaks all property of every kind may be swept away. All land values are largely site values created by the community, private property in laud is mostly stolen goods at best and if America and the world do not "drop it" they may not be allowed to retain that property which they have more or lees honestly earned. It is no time to try to "get in out of the wet" after the storm breaks.

Prudent and far-sighted citizens will tell every man in office that they want all site value taxed out of land, they will only vote for national, state, county and local candidates who stand for and will push this principle, they will vote for all constitutional amendments looking toward this end and they will organize and agitate until land is democratized and democracy really becomes safe for America.

The America of our fathers was a country of free land.