PERJURY AND CHEATING COMMON.
As a matter of fact, the evasion of taxes by the Pullman Company had been a public scandal for many years. John P. Altgeld, Governor of Illinois in 1893-95, frequently referred to it in his speeches and public papers. Field, then, not only personally cheated the public treasury out of millions, but also the corporations which he controlled did likewise. The propertied class everywhere did the same. The unusually thorough report of the Illinois Labor Bureau of 1894 demonstrated how the most valuable land and buildings in Chicago were assessed at the merest fraction of their true value—the costliest commercial buildings at about one-tenth, and the richest residences at about one-fourteenth, of their actual value. As for personal property it contributed a negligible amount in taxes.[184]
The reports of the tax committee of the Boston Executive Business Association in 1891 estimated that two billion dollars of property in Boston escaped taxation, and that the public treasury was cheated out of 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."[185] 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 panegyrics. Millions Field gave toward the founding and sustaining of the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago, and to the University of Chicago. It may be parenthetically added that, (to repeat), he owned, adjacent to this latter institution, many blocks of land the increased value of which, after the establishment of the University, more than recouped him for his gifts. This might have been either accidental or it might have been cold calculation; judging from Field's consistent methods, it was probably not chance.
So composite, however, is the human character, so crossed and seamed by conflicting influences, that at no time is it easy to draw any absolute line between motives. Merely because he exploited his employees mercilessly, and cheated the public treasury out of millions of dollars, it does not necessarily follow that Field was utterly deficient in redeeming traits. As business is conducted, it is well known that many successful men (financially), who practice the most cruel and oppressive methods, are, outside the realm of strict business transactions, expansively generous and kind. In business they are beasts of prey, because under the private property system, competition, whether between small or large concerns, is reduced to a cutthroat struggle, and those who are in the contest must abide by its desperate rules. They must let no sympathy or tenderness interpose in their business dealings, else they are lost.
But without entering into a further philosophical disquisition, this fact must be noted: The amounts that Field gave for "philanthropy" were about identical with the sums out of which he defrauded Chicago in the one item of taxes alone. Probed into, it is seen that a great part of the sums that multimillionaires have given, represent but a tithe of the sums cheated by them in taxes. William C. Schermerhorn donates $300,000 to Columbia University; the aggregate amount that he defrauded in taxes was much more. Thus do our magnates supply themselves with present and posthumous fame gratuitously. Not to consider the far greater and incalculably more comprehensive question of their appropriating the resources of the country and the labor of hundreds of millions of people,[186] and centering attention upon this one concrete instance of frauds in taxes, the situation presented is an incongruous one. Money belonging to the public treasury they retain by fraud; this money, apparently a part of their "honestly acquired" fortune, is given in some form of philanthropy; and then by some curious oversetting of even conventional standards, they reap blessings and glory for giving what are really stolen funds.