228 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



ready worked out by the Federal Reserve Banking 

 act, the farm loan board, and the many constructive 

 measures of Congress for the promotion of industry 

 and shipping. 



The solution should make it as easy as possible 

 for any one to go to the land who desires to do so. 

 We should recognize that it is natural that some 

 men who find the farm uncongenial will want to 

 go to the city and that men in the city will want 

 to live in the country. And it should be easy for 

 such a shift to be made. It should be easy to be- 

 come a farmer, almost as easy as to become an 

 artisan. That should be the aim of legislation. 

 There should be the greatest possible freedom of 

 movement, of choice. It ought to be possible for 

 one generation to live in the country and the next 

 generation to try the city. It ought to be possible 

 for the misfit worker to become a farmer and the 

 misfit farmer to become an artisan. We cannot 

 organize the American people into industrial castes 

 as is the case in Europe. And we ought not to 

 try to do so. Rather there should be opportunity 

 for change. Men should have as wide a choice as 

 possible. Not the choice of becoming a tenant or 

 a farm-laborer but a farm-owner. 



Of all the measures proposed for the solution of 

 these problems the taxation of land values is the 

 simplest and most effective. It will do more than all 

 other measures combined to create that fluidity of 



