mand, not penalties against landlordism,
but the community appropriation of rent--whether it is in the hands
of the actual farmer or landlord. Why, moreover, seek to
discriminate against those who are in possession _now_, and then
favor those who will be in possession after the new dispensation,
by giving the latter an almost permanent title? May there not be as
many landless agricultural workers forty years hence as there are
now? Why should those who happen to be landless in one generation
instead of the next receive superior rights?

Not only Henry George, but Herbert Spencer and the present
governments of Great Britain (for all but agricultural land) and
Germany (in the case of cities), recognize that the element of land
values due to the community effort should go to the community. The
political principle that gives the community no permanent claim to
ground rent and is ready to give a "right of occupancy" for two _or
more_ lifetimes (for nothing is said in the Oklahoma program about
the land returning to the government) without any provisions for
increased rentals and with no rents at all after forty years, is
_reactionary_ as compared with recent land reform programs
elsewhere (as that of New Zealand).

Even Mr. Roosevelt's Commission on Country Life goes nearly as far
as the Oklahoma Socialists when it condemns speculation in farm
lands and tenancy; while Mr. Roosevelt himself has suggested as a
remedy in certain instances the leasing of parts of the national
domain. Indeed, the "progressive" capitalists everywhere favor
either small self-employing farmers or national ownership and
leases for long terms and in small allotments, and as "State
Socialism" advances it will unquestionably lean towards the latter
system. There is nothing Socialistic either in government
encouragement either of one-family farms or in a national leasing
system with long-term leases as long as the new revenue received
goes for the usual "State Socialistic" purposes.

The American Party, moreover, has failed so far to come out definitely
in favor of the capitalist-collectivist principle of the State
appropriation of ground rent, already indorsed by Marx in 1847 and again
in 1883 (see his letter about Henry George, Part I, Chapter VIII). In
preparing model constitutions for New Mexic