Why The Carpenter Is Poor

The article in another column on " Struggle for a Home," taken from the Detroit Evening Journal of Aug. 2, illustrates how the poor man is oftentime6 taxed to death in this country of the free,- taxed, not only by the government, city, county and state, but by an individual. The Morans, - one of whose descendanU is now the democratie candidate for lieutenant governor, - reached Detroit early and acquired the title to a large tract of land, over which the city has since spread. Over 30 years ago, this land was yet nearly a wilderness ; but a poor carpenter wanted a portion of it on which to build a home. The taxes were light and the ground rent light, so he consented to a ten-year lease of a lut at $6 a year. At the end of ten years the lease was renewed at $8 per year, and then $12 per year for five years. In these 25 years the carpenter paid his ground rent, amounting to $400, paid all the taxes amounting to about $360, and he put on fences, sewer, water, drainage and grading, mak ing his total outlay for the place over $1300, to say nothing of the house. At the end of the 25 years the carpenter thought that he was in a position to own the lot. In all this time the lot had not cost the Moran estáte a farthing, and in his eimplicity the carpenter thought that all the improvements he had made belonged to him. That is so in Ireland, but not in this country of the free. He went to the agent of the Moran estáte to buy the lot. The agent looked the lot over and remarked that the improvements that had been made increased the value of the lot, and he thought $1000 would be the figure at which he would sell. The carpenter was amazed, and protested in vain that the improvements were the result of his 25 years' savings and toil, and that justly he ought not to be required to pay for his ownimprovemenls a seconil time. The agent was inexorable, well knowing that the courts would sustain him regardless of the morality of the thing. The carpenter refused to buy, but he soon found that he would have to pay $40 a year if he renewed the lease. All his toil had only eerved to increase his ground tax, for it was nothing but a private taxing franchise which the Moran estáte had on him. Well, the lease expires again next month, and the carpenter has concluded to buy, for the ground rent would probably jump up to$60or $80. He finds that now he must pay $1600 for the lot if he gets a title to it. Well, this explains why the carpenter, in spite of his industry, is poor and always will be poor, for he is an old man now, and why the Morans are rich. There are many other similar cases on the Moran property in Detroit, and doubtless on other properties, for a few men divided the land of Detroit among themselves and thus secnred the power to tax the citizens of that city. The Journal of the same date tells another tale about the Moran estáte, and this time the identical Moran is involved who hopee to preside oter the Michigan senate. A family had erected a house on a lot owned by Mr. Moran, and had paid their ground rent regularly to Mr. Moran's agent till they were taken sick and other misfortunes befell them. The Moran lease is an iron-bound instrument, containing a chattel mortgage clause, and is as relentless as the agent was. The family were turned out of the house they themselves had made, and it was done under circumstances of some cruelty. Mrs. Conrad was put out on the street, children, furniture and all, in spite of the fact that her brother pulled a revolver on the officer. We are not disposed to make political capital out of this against Mr. Moran ; for as the world goes he is undoubtedly a very good man. We blame the system under which a few grow rich without doing productivo work. The Argus, last week, stooped to partisanship in dragging up the old DeGolyer scandal against that cplendid statesman, James A. Garfield. It is a charge that was thoroughly exploded years ago. Wnen a progressive newspaper, as the Argus claims tobe.slanders.without reason, such a man as Garfield was, a man who was recognized asoné of the brightest Btatesmen of his time, it certainly drops to the lowest level of partisan journalism. The Argus doesn't really know the history of those events. Blaine was never implicated, in any manner, with the Credit Mobilier atfai r, as the Argus states. Garfield and Kelley were connected with it but Blaine was not. Their connection with it was explained so that the public exonerated them from any blame.