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Show . . . : THE MAN AND THE HOG. The man who owns but a million dollars in cash or other values is no longer "some pumpkins" in the esteem of Americans;, That old-time designation designa-tion of the person rich enough to change his shirt and shave every day in the year, expresses only the homely opinion of the contented past. The wealth that darc to pitily crush competition, drives its victims to lunatic asylums, buys up state legislatures, legisla-tures, plunders innocent investors, sits back and laughs oyer the wrecks it made in Wall street such wealth as this is represented by nine figures. Here are a few picked from among the Avealthy great: John D. Rockefeller, oil, Xew York, $250,000,-000; $250,000,-000; W. W. Astor, London (self-expatriated American), Amer-ican), $200,000,000; Andrew Carnegie, steel, Xcw York, $125,000,000; W. K. Yanderbilt, railways, Xew York, $125,000,000; William Rockefeller, oil, Xcw York, $100,000,000; J. J. Astor, land, Xew York, $100,000,000; J. Pierpont Morgan, banking, Xew York, $75,000,000; George J. Gould, railways, Xew York, $70,000,000; Mrs. Hetty Green, banking, Xcw 'York, $55,000,000; James H. Smith, banking, Xew York, $50,000,000; Henry O. Ha vemeyer, sugar, Xew York, $50,000,000; Claus Snreckels, sugar, San Francisco, $40,000,000; Russell' .age, money lending, Xew York, $25,000,000. Senator Clark of Montana is not enumerated, because nobody knows what he is worth in the aggregate,,not even, himself. him-self. Some say Clark is the richest man in the world. ' Xow, in France a man is called a millionaire if he is the possessor of 1,000,000 francs, or, in other words, has property worth $193,000. According Accord-ing to a recent computation by Le Rentier, the French financial newspaper, there are not 20,000 persons in France who have that amount of property, prop-erty, though there are possibly ten persons in the country who have fortunes of $19,000,000 or more. All the holders of great fortunes may easily be mentioned by name; only about 100 persons are J worth between $2,000,000 and $10,000,000, and 14,000 have accumulated' or inherited property valued val-ued at from $193,000 to $386,000. That is, France has very few rich citizens. The French republic has vast wealth, but it is divided into a vast number num-ber of little savings. - This distribution of wealth in France is indicated indi-cated by the facts that in 1902 there was left by persons dying property of the value of $921,000,000; but of the' 363,612 inheritances distributed in that - year more than 300,000 consisted of sums ranging from 20 cents to $1,930.. About two-thirds of the property to be distributed was in sums of $200 to $400. The large inheritances, from about .$50,000 to $100,000, represented only 0.04 per cent of the total amount; and the property to be divided,, amounting to more than $100,000, represented less than 0.01 per cent of the total value. If we go through the entire field of French industry in-dustry wc shall sec that in the shop, the factory, and on the farm the man of small means in the aggregate is the moving impulse in French enterprises. enter-prises. France occupies only one-eighteenth of the surface ef Europe, and its area is only a little over one-fifteenth that of this country, but there fere as many farm properties in little France as there are in our wide domain, i , ,i There is a. lesson in this for the American people, peo-ple, lW.wliere.will they begin to pick it up? A-,tax A-,tax oat ipcihpcs and inheritances was declared un-constitutional, un-constitutional, by the supreme court. A proposi- I tion to tax the land alone and not fine the owner for i improving or building upon it would be declared revolutionary and socialistic. Public opinion is opposed to the latter because public opinion is uneducated. un-educated. Public opinion favors the former, but the court rejects it, and ihc initiative is thereby stifled. The income tax is the only restraint to the piling up of immense wealth. The single tax on laud is the only restraint to the land grabber. If we are to have fewer millionaires, like France; if we are to have more farms, like France, taxation provides the only prospect. Xo man should have more land than he can cultivate. If man is a hog, then let him pay for being a hog. -A- |