President Baker—Mr J. B. White, Chairman of our Executive Committee, will discuss the question of taxation, especially in relation to woodlands. (Applause)
Chairman White—Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen: We have listened to a great paper upon this subject of taxation. It is a subject difficult to analyze and very difficult to apply, because each section of the country requires a different form of taxation; each State has different views, and each should apply the remedy according to the local conditions.
I speak as a representative lumberman, and as Chairman of the Conservation Committee of the Lumber Manufacturers of the United States. Now, the lumbermen have asked for nothing in regard to taxation excepting what they have incorporated in a resolution, part of the preamble to which I read:
Whereas, there is a great and growing need for uniform laws among the States in the interest of forest growth, conservation, and protection from forest fires, and for an equitable and helpful system of taxation which will make possible the conservative handling of standing timber.
That is the declaration of the preamble. It asks simply a uniform system of taxation.
I want to say a word for our fathers and grandfathers who have been called the ruthless destroyers of the forests, and I want to say in their behalf that they committed no sin which shall be visited upon their children or their children's children (applause). They cut the forests to make homes for the people; they cut the forests to build our cities and our towns; they sold all they could, they saved all they could, they committed no waste; and it should not be imputed to them that there is a penalty to be paid by their children or their children's children upon the forests that now stand. (Applause)
Taxation is regarded everywhere as a part of the cost of a commodity. Every person that buys a foot of lumber, every person that buys a yard of cloth, every person that buys a suit of clothes, or groceries, or anything that is manufactured, is the one who pays the taxes (applause). We are all consumers. We pay each other's taxes, and there is no way of avoiding taxation. It is said that death and taxation are sure. There is no way of avoiding either. The consumer must pay the tax because it is part of the cost.
Now, in regard to the system of taxation; every Nation has its own form. When it is necessary to encourage the growth or manufacture of a product, the States of the world have some way of encouraging it by relief from taxation. Germany has a law putting a duty on American wheat in order that every nook and corner of the waste land of Germany may be made to grow wheat. Now, that is a tax. The people of Germany pay that tax, but it encourages the farmer to grow wheat. And in our own country, when it is necessary to encourage the farmer in the beet-sugar, or any related industry, the Government gives a bounty, and people pay it, and the money is kept at home instead of going abroad for the product. So in timber taxation, it would seem to me that the reasonable way is to tax it as it is cut—let the tax follow the saw. Of course every State will apply the remedy according to local conditions. Louisiana has applied the remedy. She has passed some very good laws, and we are going to hear from the representatives of that State, before this Congress adjourns. We want to consider these things.
There are now so many substitutes for lumber that there will be inducements to let trees stand if they are not overtaxed. A tree must have a hundred years' growth before it can be utilized in the shape of clear lumber in the upper grades. If you tax the tree every year, you are putting one hundred years' taxes upon the timber. We must be reasonable about these things if we would encourage the growing of trees. Any other commodity in the United States pays a tax annually upon the crop, but here, in growing timber, we are paying for a hundred years where we should only pay for one. (Applause)