476 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and of universal acceptance. But what is their relevancy to the 

 case in hand ? They relate to grants taking effect in future to 

 grants taking effect from the date or delivery of the deed, or from 

 the probate of the devise, and carrying all after- accruing rents 

 as a matter of course. But what this case is concerned with is 

 rents that have not only become due, but have actually been 

 received by the landlord. Does any one pretend that rents thus 

 received would pass by a grant of the estate that has yielded 

 them ? Of course not, and why ? Because, by falling due and 

 being collected, they have become severed from the realty, and 

 have become personal property money in the landlord's pocket, 

 like any other money. Nothing is gained, however, by belittling 

 or evading an argument, and I have no intention of doing either. 

 The strength of the plaintiff's claim is in the proposition that 

 the value of land is in its use ; that rents are the pecuniary equiva- 

 lent of the use, and that, therefore, to tax rents is in substance and 

 effect to tax the land itself. This is what may be called a fetch- 

 ing proposition. How much truth is there in it, and how much 

 of applicability to the present case ? There is this much of truth 

 in it: that a tax upon rents to become due to accrue in the 

 future may well be deemed a tax on the estate itself. Such 

 accruing rents are like growing crops, an inseparable part of the 

 land, and whatever is a charge upon them is necessarily a charge 

 upon the land. But the proposition stated has no application 

 whatever to the present case, because the tax it has to do with 

 is a tax in respect to rents already due and collected, and in all 

 probability either spent or transformed into other tangible prop- 

 erty. How can a tax in respect to such rents be said to be a tax 

 upon the real estate producing them ? When they become due 

 and are paid, just as when crops are harvested ; when either pro- 

 cess is complete, a new and distinct item of property comes into 

 existence, and the landlord's property realizes a corresponding 

 accretion." 



In rejoinder the counsel for the appellants maintained that 

 under the income-tax enactment in question (i. e., of August 28, 

 1894) a tax was imposed upon income " derived not merely from 

 business, but also expressly upon that derived from property, and 

 therefore directly upon the property producing the income, 

 whether real or personal." Notably is this the case with a tax 

 upon " rents " and the " growth and produce of land." It taxes 

 every element of value of the land which the owner can realize 

 from third parties. It must be clear that a tax upon what gives 

 the land value is a tax upon the land itself. In the words of 

 Hamilton, " What in fact is property but a fiction without the 

 beneficial use of it?" In many cases, indeed, the income or 

 annuity is the property itself. As one of the justices said in the 



