The foregoing chapters having demonstrated the iniquity and
indefensibility of the exemption of church property from taxation,
the sole remaining point of interest concerns the amount of the wrong
inflicted on the community by legalized church graft. That it is very
considerable, a bare inspection of the wealth of the more favored
churches makes abundantly plain. The enormous holdings, for example,
of Trinity Church corporation in New York city prove the immense
possibilities in this direction. Incidentally, it is an interesting
fact, pointed out in detail some years ago by John E. Remsburg, that
exemption is not only unfair to the general public, but a means
of favoring the city churches, already rich and well-supported, as
contrasted with the relatively poor and weak country churches. The
latter have certainly good ground to complain that they do not get their
fair share of the swag. In the country, land is cheap and abundant, and
under normal conditions does not change much in value over a long period
of years, while general taxes are comparatively low. It is the cities
that pay the mass of the taxes; and it is in the cities that the rapidly
growing population causes frightful congestion, and allows the most
unscrupulous land speculation to return the largest profits. In the
general scramble for "unearned increments," property holders who are
exempt from the payment of taxes are given an overwhelming advantage.
They take no risk, can wait as long as they please for the expected
rise, and pocket the entire amount of the increase in land values,
to which they have made no important contribution. The state actually
encourages and urges the churches to become land gamblers, and to enrich
themselves at the expense of the people. As the city grows, the churches
gradually find excuses to move away from their earlier locations,
selling out their sites at huge profits, not one dollar of which is
restored to the community as conscience money, and to buy less costly
land with part of the proceeds, investing the balance where it will
bring substantial returns. No wonder they grow rich while the poverty of
the tenement dwellers proportionately increases! And no wonder the city
churches, luxuriating in their bloated prosperity, are able to lord it
over their country associates, and to rule the affairs of their sect
with an iron hand, despite their gross numerical inferiority. No
wonder that the general assemblies, synods and the like of the various
denominations are so frequently characterized by peanut politics which
would disgrace a ward caucus, and by bitter wrangling and exhibitions
of ill-will which contrast strikingly with the professions of Christian
love.