The Maccabaean

same. From time to time a boy passes carrying a gun or a girl humming a tune; a plaintive melody is borne on the breeze, a whispered conversation, a suppressed laugh. And above her head the high heavens are shining with ten thousand stars. The crickets are chirping, the dew is falline softly. ....

Yehudah the young workman, sturdy of limb and strong of heart, ruddy of face and blue-eyed, has thrown his arms around Achsah and swears to love her.

"May the Great Bear in the sky be my witness!" ". . . Until the morning comes and the stars pale," says Achsah.

“The heaps of grain on the threshing-floor are my witnesses!” pleads Yehudah.

“The forest on the summit of the mountain!”

“It is far away and cannot hear you.”

“The silent waters of Kinneret!”

“Every light breeze causes them to break into ripples.”

“What other oath do you require of me, cruel one?”

“The only right one.”

And he presses her more closely to him and whispers:“I love you, Achsah, may the earth beneath us be my witness!”

“ . . . I love you, Yehudah!”

(Translated from the Hebrew.)

My desire is to interest you in what is to me the fundamental ethical and religious movement of modern times. Its object is to restore the earth to its people, thereby securing for each child born on the earth an opportunity to work for himself directly, if he so will. This free opportunity to use the earth must lead to the development of individual life, and it will establish the foundation of justice among men.

I believe that the way to release the earth from the monopolies that.now hold large parts of it out of use is to take for the community needs all values socially created. In a word, we must release all improvements from_ taxation, thus placing a premium on initiative and activity, and we must raise all revenue needed for social uses by taxes on the earth, thus forcing its present possessors to use it themselves or else let others use it.

Many people have the impression that the Single Tax movement is confined to a few dreamers here and there. Instead, it is already a world movement, involving hundreds of thousands of people from all classes of society. Beyond this, it is being applied in varying forms of practice from New York to San Francisco, from British Columbia to Argentina and from London to Cape Colony, Adelaide and New Zealand,

It 18 also an all-time movement. Every tribe has lived by the principles of the Single Tax before individual greed began to undermine its communal concerns. Moses was a Single Taxer in his zeal to carry out in the interests of his people the will of God. “The earth is mine, saith the Lord, and ye are only my tenants.” To carry this into actual enactment means no more nor less than the Single Tax.

Thus, if we are to have a land of our own, not a land owned and dominated by a few greedy grabbing ones, the Single Tax principles must underlie the Zionist State. I cannot but think that it will come to this.

I place my faith in the true-heartedness and right-mindedness of my Zionist brethren. I want to tell, however, of the part the Single Tax movement is now playing in the world.

For some years past I have been associated with the leaders of this movement both here and abroad. My husband dedicated the best years of his life to the work, and with him I have repeatedly crossed the Atlantic in its interest, have made long journeys to Spain, to Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and have traveled over France, Germany and almost every part of America. Last summer I spent three months in a survey of existing conditions from New York to Winnipeg and then across the western provinces of Canada and the states} of Washington, Oregon and California, returning slowly through Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Missouri.

Our association with the movement has brought to our home both in the United States and in England distinguished Single Taxers from Mexico and the various countries of South America, from Canada, from Australia and New Zealand, from Russia, Bohemia, South Africa, China and even Liberia. In the International Congresses we have met groups of people devoted to the movement from all parts of the civilized world.

I have had the freedom and the incentive to inform myself in every possible way concerning the Single Tax as a propagandist measure, and knowing that many of you have not had the same opportunity, I want to give you a sense of the extent and present significance of this movement to restore the land to the people.

The Single Tax movement gives treedom to the individual and emphasizes the value of the individual life; hence it does not lend itself to organization as freely as collective movements do. It expresses itself rather in persons drawn from every walk of life and in personal groups which seek to carry their ideas into effect through

political action. Its leaders are such representative mem as Bishop Charles Williams of Michigan, one of the most learned ecclesiastics of the present day; Oliver Erickson, President of the City Council of Seattle, whose hand and brain you will find working in every effort to improve the condition of the people in his city; Baron von Eckenstam,. City Manager of Lund in Sweden; Dr. William Shrameier, of Berlin, whose governorship of Kiau Chau in China, which he administrated under ‘Single Tax principles, made it a defensive and aggressive center for which the nations of the earth are contending. Among Dr. Shrameier’s. co-workers in Germany are Baron and Baroness von Schwerin, of a family long: devoted to radical measures by the people.

In our own country again Judge Sea- bury of the Court of Appeals in New York and Judge Pitman of Memphis are among the many leaders we have in high judicial positions. Among statesmen we number the present Secretary of War, Newton Baker, the United States Commissioner of Immigration, Frederick C. Howe, the United States Commissioner of Education, Philander Claxton, Assistant Secretary of Labor, Louis F. Post, and the sanitarian of the Canal Zone, William C. Gorgas.

Many men and women best known in connection with other radical movements are also declared supporters of the Single Tax movement. Such are Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Stone Blackwell and Mrs. Roessing of the Suffrage movement, Mr. Stitt Wilson and other leaders of the Socialist movement and Samuel Gompers of the Labor movement.

These are named because they are con- spicuous persons well known over the world, but the movement also includes thousands upon thousands of people from every rank and walk of life, and it draws its force and quality from the devotion of the many who are unselfishly giving their time, their money and their unsparing effort to help shape a world of freedom