“The taxes were paid by such of the farmers as had still too valuable improvements to justify their abandonment, and by the mechanics and merchants whose business and whose residences were packed in tall buildings on small areas of ground in the cities.
“The great stimulation of the growth of the Minnesota cities, and their apparently great prosperity, attracted the attention of the whole world and aroused the spirit of emulation in the cities of the United States and of the northern states in particular. In most of the northern states, the city populations controlled the politics of the states, and there developed a violent mania for following the example of Minnesota. There was much opposition from the conservative classes, and the people were warned that a policy that might benefit a small section of the nation, was not necessarily good for all. But it was held by many to be simply a measure of self defense for cities to compel their states to adopt the single tax, since those where this was done, not merely flourished, but flourished at the expense of those who remained under the old method. For they attracted from them, their manufacturing establishments and this was naturally followed by their wholesale trade. The result was that in a few years, all the northern states and several of the southern states adopted the single tax. The effect was not so marked in those that came into the plan among the last; but the first experienced much the same stimulation and rapid growth that distinguished the Minnesota towns, so that in a few years the majority of the population had crowded into the cities. This effect was brought about by the action of two causes. The first cause was the superior attractions of the cities as places for profitable employment and as places for the enjoyment of life. The cities rapidly became socialistic in their policy, and constantly extended the scope of the functions of the government. The municipality soon acquired the ownership of the lighting plants, the water works and street car lines. These were run at first as speculative enterprises, the cities selling light and water to private individuals, but the people soon demanded that these things should be free as the public libraries, schools, university and parks, were in your day. And this was gradually brought about, the cities furnishing at first so much water and so much light and so many street car rides free to each person, and at last taking off all limits, only making the citizen responsible for unreasonable waste. Then the populace demanded free amusements and entertainments and these were provided in the form of the concert, lecture, theater, circus etc. All these things cost money and the tax rates kept getting higher and higher. These were paid in the form of rents on the land, the buildings stood on and of course at once transferred to the rents paid by tenants for rooms, flats, shops, stores etc. Rents soon became higher than they had ever been known before the adoption of the single tax. To lighten these rents in the cities, it was now proposed to increase the rents of lands in the country.”