Talent has the four seasons: spring, that is to say, the sowing of the seeds; summer, growth; autumn, the harvest; winter, intellectual death. But there is now and then a genius who has no winter, and, no matter how many years he may live, on the blossom of his thought no snow falls. Genius has the climate of perpetual growth.
THE MOIETY SYSTEM.—The Secretary of the Treasury recommends a revival of the moiety system. Against this infamous step every honest citizen ought to protest.
In this country, taxes cannot be collected through such instrumentalities. An informer is not indigenous to our soil. He always has been and always will be held in merited contempt.
Every inducement, by this system, is held out to the informer to become a liar. The spy becomes an officer of the Government. He soon becomes the terror of his superior. He is a sword without a hilt and without a scabbard. Every taxpayer becomes the lawful prey of a detective whose property depends upon the destruction of his prey.
These informers and spies are corrupters of public morals. They resort to all known dishonest means for the accomplishment of what they pretend to be an honest object. With them perjury becomes a fine art. Their words are a commodity bought and sold in courts of justice.
This is the first phase. In a little while juries will refuse to believe them, and every suit in which they are introduced will be lost by the Government. Of this the real thieves will be quick to take advantage. So many honest men will have been falsely charged by perjured informers and moiety miscreants, that to convict the guilty will become impossible. If the Government wishes to collect the taxes it must set an honorable example. It must deal kindly and honestly with the people. It must not inaugurate a vampire system of espionage. It must not take it for granted that every manufacturer and importer is a thief, and that all spies and informers are honest men.
The revenues of this country are as honestly paid as they are expended. There has been as much fair dealing outside as inside of the Treasury Department.
But, however that may be, the informer system will not make them honest men, but will in all probability produce exactly the opposite result. If our system of taxation is so unpopular that the revenues cannot be collected without bribing men to tell the truth; if our officers must be offered rewards beyond their salaries to state the facts; if it is impossible to employ men to discharge their duties honestly, then let us change the system. The moiety system makes the Treasury Department a vast vampire sucking the blood of the people upon shares. Americans detest informers, spies, detectives, turners of State's evidence, eavesdroppers, paid listeners, hypocrites, public smellers, trackers, human hounds and ferrets. They despise men who "suspect" for a living; they hate legal lyers-in-wait and the highwaymen of the law. They abhor the betrayers of friends and those who lead and tempt others to commit a crime in order that they may detect it. In a monarchy, the detective system is a necessity. The great thief has to be sustained by smaller ones.—December 4,1877.