Carolina Watchman

HOW THE PEOPLE ARE SWINDLED.

Poor Man is made to Bear the Burdens of the Government.

BY CLYDE H. TAVENNER.

Staff Washington correspondent of this newspaper.

Washington, July 11.—One of the crowning sins of the Congress which recently passed into history was its failure to pass income or inheritance tax legislation. All of the first class nations of the world have either an income tax or an inheritance tax, and many have both.

We now raise practically all national revenues by placing a tariff tax on things eaten, worn or used by the people. This system is unjust because it requires the workingman to pay not less than one thousand per cent. more taxes in proportion to his income than a millionaire.

Our protective system of course requires the millionaire to pay a tax on that which he eats, wears or uses, but it does not tax him to the extent of one penny on his wealth.

Thus it might, and no doubt frequently does, happen, that a section hand on the railroad with a family of six or seven children pays more toward running the national government, toward keeping our standing army, than the millionaire bachelor who is too proud to marry and raise children.

President Taft, and President Taft alone, must bear the brunt of responsibility for the failure of Congress to tack an income tax provision on the Payne-Aldrich bill. A majority of both houses were in favor of an income tax. Aldrich saw that an income tax amendment would be passed. and, as usual, appealed to President Taft for aid.

The President knuckled absolutely to the will of Boss Aldrich, urging Congress to pass a corporation tax instead of an income tax. To fool and console the people the treacherous Aldrich then smilingly consented to a ratification of a constitutional amendment legalizing an income tax, well knowing that ways could be worked out to thwart such ratification, at least within the life of the present generation.

But there remains still another chapter of this legislative swindle that the American people ought to know about. As an excuse for having killed an income tax, President Taft stated that the corporation tax should contain a publicity clause which would enable the government and the people to secure information about the working methods of the corporations. He held out the hope this publicity clause would make it possible for the government to hold the law-breaking trusts responsible in court for their acts.

So Congress passed the corporation tax, but jinxed the people by purposely failing to provide funds for the handling of data which would come in under the publicity clause. Even this was not enough. Congress, in the session just closed, completed the swindle on the public by striking out the publicity feature altogether! And Mr. Taft himself had declared the publicity clause was the most valuable feature in the bill. How long are the people going to stand for such treachery as this?

SENATOR CLAPP'S ILLUSTRATION.

Senator Clapp of Minnesota, Republican insurgent, was recently giving an interview on the justice of a tax on incomes. Finally he stopped abruptly and pointed out of his window. He said, "Notice that marble wall yonder. Which stone bears the greatest weight? The stone at the bottom or the one at the top? Before you answer I will add that is just the way it is without an income tax. Until the present tariff schedules are revised along lines of justice, and until we have an income tax to take some of the burden of taxation from the man at the bottom, that stone wall will stand as a deadly parallel to existing conditions."

THE ISSUE.

Two big state conventions were held recently. Pennsylvania Republicans declared as follows on the tariff:

We believe that the tariff bill recently enacted is in accord with the Republican policy expressed in its last national platform.

We agree with President Taft that it is the best tariff the Republican party ever passed.

Said the Ohio Democrats:

"We demand a revision of the present unjust and oppressive tariff, reducing the rates so as to lower the prices imposed on the consumers."

Consumers, it is up to you.