Newspaper Writing and Editing

by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

I am not going to discuss at this time the decision further than to say I am one of those who believe that the income tax decision is as indefensible as a matter of law as the Dred Scott decision, and fraught with far more danger in its ultimate effect, if it is to become the settled law of the land, to the Republic.

The income tax is the fairest and most equitable of all the taxes. It is the one tax which approaches us in the hour of prosperity and departs in the hour of adversity. The farmer though he may have lost his entire crop must meet the taxes levied upon his property. The merchant though on the verge of bankruptcy must respond to the taxes imposed. The laborer who goes to the store to buy his food, though it be his last, must buy with whatever extra cost there may be imposed by reason of customs duties.

But the income tax is to be met only after you have realized your income. After you have met your expenses, provided for your family, paid for the education of your children for the year, then, provided you have an income left, you turn to meet the obligations you owe to the government. For instance, according to amendments recently pending relative to the income tax, a man with an income of ten thousand dollars would pay the modest sum of one hundred dollars. “Man as a human being owes services to his fellows, and one of the first of these is to support the government which makes civilization possible.”

It seems incomprehensible that anyone would seriously contend that property and wealth should not bear their fair share of the burdens of the general government. Adam Smith says, “The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities, that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Notwithstanding our large standing army, our large navy, our all but criminal extravagance as a government, men are found who still unblushingly argue that this burden must all be laid upon consumption and nothing upon wealth, that is, that the man of most ordinary means must pay practically as much to the general government as the man with his uncounted millions. It is strange indeed that men can bring themselves to believe in so unfair and unjust a position.

They soothe their consciences to some extent by saying that it is a just tax, a fair tax, and that the property should indeed bear[Pg 158] its proportion of the expenses of the general government but an income tax causes men to commit perjury! Of course the man who says this would resent the idea that he would commit perjury, but his evangelical spirit leads him to look with particular care to the salvation of his neighbor’s soul. There is not a state in the Union today but has laws just as exacting with reference to accounting with personal property, just as onerous as an income tax law would be, and just as liable to encourage perjury. Yet the tax gatherer does not stop gathering taxes.

They say it is inquisitorial. Do you know of any kind of taxes which are not inquisitorial? For instance, under the internal revenue system now in existence, the whiskey of the citizen is taken possession of by the government, placed in a warehouse, locked up, and a key given to a United States official. In the collection of our customs duties, packages and the baggage of the citizen are taken, opened and inspected, and, male or female though the citizens may be, they are sometimes taken into a room and searched. Nothing could be more inquisitorial than this.

All these arguments are put forth in the hope of leading us away from the great and fundamental principle of equity in taxation, and that is that every man should respond to the burdens of the government in accordance with his ability. It is nothing less than a crime to put all the burdens of this government on consumption.

I think those who advocate the income tax merely as a revenue producing proposition rob the proposition of its moral foundation. We should contend for an income tax not simply for the purpose of raising revenue but for the purpose of framing a revenue system which will distribute the burdens of government between consumption and accumulated wealth, which will enable us to call upon property and wealth not in an unfair and burdensome way but in a just and equitable way to meet their proportionate expenses of the government, for certainly it will be conceded by all that the great expense of government is in the protection of property and of wealth.

A tax placed upon consumption is based upon what men want and must have. A tax placed upon wealth falls upon those who have enough and to spare and therefore have more which it is necessary for the government to protect. “All the enjoyments which a man can receive from his property come from his connection with society. Cut off from all social relations, a man would find wealth useless to him. In fact, there could be no such thing as wealth without society. Wealth is what may be exchanged and requires for its existence a community of persons with reciprocal wants.”