The Evening Statesman

BAILEY AND THE INCOME TAX.

The Kansas City Star takes this fling:

"Senator Bailey of Texas displayed characteristic and almost Spartan valor in demanding an income tax, which he feels tolerably confident will not pass at this session of congress."

Mr. Bailey's speech is one of the most important and illuminating of the contributions to the present tariff discussion. His handling of the income tax question, both from the constitutional and the economic point of view, has led to much reflection. Those who agree with him have been strengthened in their views, while those who differ with him have been advised of what is before them in a controversy which is growing all the time, and, soon or late, must be submitted to the people for a vote on the merits of the proposition taken singly.

As has been recently suggested sentiment on this subject has undergone a great change in the past fifteen years. In the summer of 1894, David B. Hill, then a senator from New York, thundered in his place against an income tax, and based a two-day argument on the assertion that the tax was both unconstitutional and undemocratic. He spoke both as a lawyer and as a politician. As a lawyer he spoke with effect, for subsequently the supreme court sustained his contention. As a politician he was overruled by his party friends in the senate, who, despite his speech and his vote, put the tax into their tariff bill. They brushed aside his characterization of the tax as populistic, as also his prediction that if they yielded to it they would have to swallow a good deal more of populism.

Whether, therefore, anything is done on the subject, by this congress or not, Mr. Bailey has performed a valuable public service. In an elaborate, and upon the whole a good-tempered, presentation of the question, he has given it a prominence commensurate with its importance at this time, and he cannot be disposed of by an intimation that he is playing to the galleries.

Doubtless he looks aloft as often as the next politician; but when he lowers his eyes, as in this case, he talks on the level to those of his intellectual level, and the only proper reply is a counter argument from the opponents of the tax. Maybe we shall get it before the session closes. The theme is tempting in every way.