about $17,000,000 in taxes every year. As for New York City, we have seen how the Astors, the Schermerhorns, the Goelets—the whole aggregate of the propertied class—systematically defrauded in taxes for many decades. It is estimated that in New York City, at present, not less than five billion dollars of property, real and personal, entirely escapes taxation. This estimate is a conservative one.
Spahr, after an exhaustive investigation in the United States concluded more than a decade ago that, "the wealthy class pay less than one-tenth of the indirect taxes, the well-to-do less than one-quarter, and the relatively poorer classes more than two-thirds."7 What Spahr omitted was this highly important qualification: When the rich do pay. Tenants of the property owners must pay their rent on time or suffer eviction, but the capitalists are allowed to take their own leisurely time in paying such portion of their taxes as remains after the bulk of the tax list has been perjured away. Thus in a report he made public on February 28, 1908, Controller Metz, of New York City, pointed out that the huge amount of $102,834,227, was due the city in uncollected taxes, much of which amount ran several decades back. Of this sum $29,816,513 was owed on real estate, on which the taxes were a direct lien.
The beauties of law as made and enforced by the property interests, are herein illustriously exemplified. A poor tenant can be instantly dispossessed, whether sick or in destitution, for non-payment of rent; the landowner is allowed by officials who represent, and defer to him and his class, to owe large amounts in taxes for long periods, and not a move is taken to dispossess him.
And now by the most natural gradation, we come to those much bepraised acts of our multimillionaires—the seignorial donating of millions to "charitable" or "public-spirited" purposes.
Like the Astors, the Schermerhorns, the Rhinelanders and a galaxy of others, Field diffused large sums; he, like them, was overwhelmed with