, 1866-11-09
NUMBER ~.
Should the Government Tax the Necessities a,
the WeaIth of the Citizen 4

I
the Wealth of the Citizen
One Of the heaviest burdens thatis nov pres,,
ing upon the laboring classes Of this country,
and particularly of the Pacific States, is the Oh
| pressive, and as it seems to u.s. most criminally
unjust system OF taxation under which they are
| labOring.
To our mind, nothing is clearer than that IN.
capital ola country and not its labor should pay
its taxes. We are utterly incapable of comprc.
hending either the business or fairness of tag.
alton system, which compels the man of toll
who labors assiduously for twelve or fifteen
hours day, in order to support wife and half
dozen children, whose food is Of the coarsesk
quality, while his garments and those of his
wife and little ones scarcely respond to the merest
demands of decency, should absolutely pay more
of the Government debt than the lordly million.
aire, who cuunts his treasures by hundreds Of
thousands of dollars.
Take for example, on the one hand, the Door
mechanic of San Francisco, who, penniless as q
pauper, by his unaided strong arm has to
support family consisting of himself, his wife
and six children; and on the other hand let us
take the capitalist who has a million dollars in
bank, owes not n cent and has neither wife,
children nor ward depending on him for sup,
port. Now which of these individuals, we ask
under our present indirect system of taxation
pays the most toward supporting the Federal
Government?
The man of money may place at interest .
sufiicency of his capital to bring him 5000 per
dnnnm, keep the remainder on deposit in bank.
watching and waiting bis chances for some
grand speculation, and pay not one cent to the
government, more than if he owned not dollar
in the world.
The only revenue which the Federal tax gath.
ererderives from the millionaire is summed up
in the duties which he pays on the victuals and.
clothes necessary for one man. Even these he
.,Efa 1.I.. Al
value, owing to the fact that the laboring pro.
duuer is forced to sell them at ruinously reduced
prices, in order to enable him to meet. the i'm.
perious demands of creditors. On the other hand,
our poor mecbanic-or what is the same thing
our poor farmer-has eight mouths to feed, eight
backs to clothe, and sixteen feet to be supplied
with shoe leather, and every time he undertakes
to meet any of these wants be must pay q trib.
ute to the Government.
A glance at our large table of prices current,
with accompanying list of duties will show that
out of every three dollars, which this mechanic
expend5 for boots and shoes, he pays at least
from seventy.ive cents to one dollar to the Gen
eral Government-the duty on leather being
from 25 to 3j per cent upon its value. On eve,
ry pound Of sugar tea, coffee, rice, starch, soap,
salt, nails, pulu, mating; on every. box Of
matches, every can of fruit and every gallon Of
molasses, he pays about the same rate, namely,
two dollars to the merchant and enc 10 the Gov
ernment.
Now in as much, as it costs this laboring me-
chanic from four to five times as much money,
TO feed nnd cioihc his family of eight persons,
Al it does the man of dollars to feed and clothe
himself is it not clear that the former pays at
least from four to five times as much as the lat-
ter towards deiraying the expenses of the Gov,
ernment? pc
All this, too, be must do by the unAided pow
or Of his muscle. in addition to supporting his
ftmily Nor do tue governmental burdens which
the l"w heaps up the toilng mechanic, stop
even here for if ut the end OF the year if it is
found that he has anything left out of his
twelve months earnings, our benign tax man
relieves him of five dollars out ofeyery hundred
of what remains. In the meantime, our lordly
millionaire has Jared srmptuously, lived at his
ease added not a cent 70 the cOuntrys wealth
and kept safe and sound in an iron chest his
boarded thousands, untouched by taxation,
ready to buy at one fifth of its real value, the
very Homestead which pinching poverty is per-
hapS driving the same laborng mechanic to
place in the market in order to buy bread with
which to feed his hungry babes. .e
We maintain that this whole system of indi-
rect taxation should be swept from our Federal
statutes, and every tax payer be burdened ac
cordiug to the.yalue of his property and his con-
sequent ability to pay. Suchis our present State
system of taxation, and nobody denies its JUS
tice. If then it is fair that each citizen should
contribute in proportion to his wealth, where 10
the JUS ice ofa different rule in the case of the
Geueral Government? In other words, If it is
right that the State should tax only the wealth
of its citizens, is it not wrong for the United
States to tax only their necessities ?-OeeidentdI
and Vanguard, Oct. 22d.
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