Individual Liberty - Evernote

The man who builds a cage over a sleeper prevents the sleeper from exercising his
unquestionable right to step off of premises that belong to another, and therefore is an
invader. The man who becomes by occupancy and use the owner of a previously
unoccupied, unimproved, and unused passage, and in the exercise of his ownership
blocks the passage, simply prevents other men from doing what they have no right to
do, - that is, step on to premises that belong to another, and therefore is not an invader.
Mr. Byington's answer to my contention that there may be circumstances under which
it is advisable to do violence to equal freedom amounts in its conclusion to a
statement that no evil can be as disastrous as an act of invasion; that justice should be
done though the heavens fall, for a precedent of injustice would lead to a worse
disaster than the falling of the heavens; and that, if he were the guardian of a city most
of whose inhabitants found themselves under the necessity of a choice between death
by fire on the one hand and death by drowning on the other, he would not relieve
them from this choice if he could do so only by violating the property rights of a
portion of his fellow-citizens. Discussion is hopeless here.
In May, 1895, Mr. Louis F. Post delivered a lecture at Cincinnati on the Single Tax, in
which he made the statement that occupancy and use was really the only true title to
land. After the lecture, in reply to a question from one of his auditors, he explained
that his advocacy of the Single Tax was as the best method of reaching the occupancyand-use
title. When Mr. Tucker's attention was called to Mr. Post's statement, be
hailed it as very significant, since the other prominent champions of the Single Tax
denied that the land belongs to the occupant and user and affirmed that all land
belongs equally to all the people; and he stated that, if Mr. Post had not been
misunderstood, the latter had taken a position which involved the rejection of the
Single-Tax theory and pledged him to the Single Tax only as a measure of expediency
and as a stepping-stone. Mr. Post replied that he did not mean to imply that he
advocated the Single Tax as a stepping-stone in the sense of a temporary expedient,
but as the only way of obtaining and maintaining the title of occupancy and use. That
explanation called for the following from the editor of Liberty:
Mr Post admits the utterances attributed to him, and then proceeds to emasculate
them. It appears that the phrase occupancy and use is used by Mr. Post simply as an
equivalent to the right of possession. In that case it is nonsense to talk about the
Single Tax or any other measure as the best method of reaching the occupancy-anduse
title, for in Mr. Post's sense that title already exists. Today the occupant of land is
its possessor, in right and in fact. The aim of the occupancy-and-use agitation is not to
secure for the occupant a possession which is already his, but an ownership and
control which in most cases is not his, but his landlord's, - an ownership and control
which shall end when occupancy and use end, but which shall be absolute while
occupancy and use continue.
In another part of his letter Mr. Post virtually denies the equivalence of occupancy
with possession by declaring that landlords, even those who rent land and buildings in
their entirety, are occupants and users. If this be true, then the Astor estate is
occupying and using a very large portion of the city of New York. But to assert that
the Astors are either occupants or possessors is an utter misuse of language. Besides,
if the Astors are occupants and users, and if the Single Tax will virtually compel the
Astors to relinquish their lands, then the Single Tax, instead of being a means of