I heard a story told the other day that was ridiculous, but it is worth repeating, because it contains the germ of truth. An Indian was enlisted in the army. He returned to the reservation on a furlough. He was asked what he thought of it. He said: "No much good; too much salute; not much shoot." Then he was asked: "Are you going back?" "Yes." "Well, do you know what you are fighting for?" "Yes, me know; fight to make whole damn world Democratic Party." He had evidently misunderstood some innocent sentence of my own.
But, after all, although there is no party purpose in it, he got it right as far as the word "party"—to make the whole world democratic in the sense of community of interest and of purpose; and if you ladies and gentlemen could read some of the touching dispatches which come through official channels, for even through those channels there come voices of humanity that are infinitely pathetic; if you could catch some of those voices that speak the utter longing of oppressed and helpless peoples all over the world, to hear something like the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," to hear the feet of the great hosts of liberty going to set them free, to set their minds free, set their lives free, set their children free, you would know what comes into the heart of those who are trying to contribute all the brains and power they have to this great enterprise of liberty.
I summon you to the comradeship. I summon you in this next week to say how much and how sincerely and how unanimously you sustain the heart of the world.
Address on Revenue Legislation
[Delivered Before Congress May 27, 1918, by President Wilson]
It is with unaffected reluctance that I come to ask you to prolong your session long enough to provide more adequate resources for the Treasury for the conduct of the war. I have reason to appreciate as fully as you do how arduous the session has been. Your labors have been severe and protracted. You have passed a long series of measures which required the debate of many doubtful questions of judgment and many exceedingly difficult questions of principle, as well as of practice. The Summer is upon us, in which labor and counsel are twice arduous and are constantly apt to be impaired by lassitude and fatigue. The elections are at hand, and we ought as soon as possible to go and render an intimate account of our trusteeship to the people who delegated us to act for them in the weighty and anxious matters that crowd upon us in these days of critical choice and action. But we dare not go to the elections until we have done our duty to the full. These are days when duty stands stark and naked, and even with closed eyes we know it is there. Excuses are unavailing. We have either done our duty or we have not. The fact will be as gross and plain as the duty itself. In such a case lassitude and fatigue seem negligible enough. The facts are tonic and suffice to freshen the labor.
And the facts are these: Additional revenues must manifestly be provided for. It would be a most unsound policy to raise too large a proportion of them by loan, and it is evident that the $4,000,000,000 now provided for by taxation will not of themselves sustain the greatly enlarged budget to which we must immediately look forward. We cannot in fairness wait until the end of the fiscal year is at hand to apprise our people of the taxes they must pay on their earnings of the present calendar year, whose accountings and expenditures will then be closed. We cannot get increased taxes unless the country knows what they are to be and practices the necessary economy to make them available. Definiteness, early definiteness, as to what its tasks are to be is absolutely necessary for the successful administration of the Treasury. It cannot frame fair and workable regulations in haste; and it must frame its regulations in haste if it is not to know its exact task until the very eve of its performance. The present tax laws are marred, moreover, by inequities which ought to be remedied. Indisputable facts, every one; and we cannot alter or blink them. To state them is argument enough.
WAR PROFITS AND LUXURIES
And yet, perhaps, you will permit me to dwell for a moment upon the situation they disclose. Enormous loans freely spent in the stimulation of industry of almost every sort produce inflations and extravagances which presently make the whole economic structure questionable and insecure, and the very basis of credit is cut away. Only fair, equitably distributed taxation of the widest incidents and drawing chiefly from the sources which would be likely to demoralize credit by their very abundance can prevent inflation and keep our industrial system free of speculation and waste. We shall naturally turn, therefore, I suppose, to war profits and incomes and luxuries for the additional taxes. But the war profits and incomes upon which the increased taxes will be levied will be the profits and incomes of the calendar year 1918. It would be manifestly unfair to wait until the early months of 1919 to say what they are to be. It might be difficult, I should imagine, to run the mill with water that had already gone over the wheel.