The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-15
HOW THE WEST r. TAXED.


Tie action OF the Senate and the House is
conclusive as to what the income sax thail he.
But in spite of the fact that the rate per cent.
is low, and that the exemptions are too large,
the organs of the bondhoders are loud 10
their expression of disgust and dissatisfaction.
Their growing will change nothing. The in
come tax is as Just and righteous tax as was
ever imposed; and in the case of our own
country it affords, as we have again and again
explained, the only method of reaching thou
sands of men of large wealth who otherwise
would pay nothing whatever to the Govern
ment to which they owe everything
If one thousand millions of Federal bonds
are held abroad, the remainder are held here:
and except the five to six hundred millions
used by banks, insurance, and trust compa-
nies, all are in the hands mainly of rich
men, many of whom bought them at figure
, less than half their nominal value. Nearly
all the bonds of the country have passed out
of the hands of the original subscribers, many
of whom in buying them were animated by
truly patriotic motives. Not less than eight
hundred to a thousand millions are owned
by Croesus, NTammon & Co., and the cause of
the outcry of this great firm is the simple
fact that the Government wants a small por-
ton of what they ought to yield for it's sup
port; and their owners squeal as if it were
really craftsmanship and good political eco
nomy to throw all the cost of maintaining
peace and order upon the day laborer, the
miner. and the farmer, to the complete ex-
emption of the bondholders who can be
reached in no way except that which Congress
has adopted We deny the justice of their
complaint, and we demand that the tax shall
be maintained
Gentlemen of the manufacturing and COM
mercial States in which nearly all the Federal
bonds are held The West is not content to be
cassed, for its opposition to the repeal of this
tax, with the pet-baggers of the South.
Upon the agriculture and the gold and silver
mining of the country the great burden of
taxation falls Agriculture is the bedrock in
our economy; and everything in the way of
taxation goes down to it, The f1ippant scrib-
blers in the East who write editorials for pro-
tected manufacturers, for monopolists in paper
money, for railroad plunderers, for the hordes
of salaried men, for city and village land
lords, and especially for bondholders, do not
seem to know that, in the present ordering
of things by Congress, their readers have
the power to shove their burdens off upon
somebody else; and that they invariably do
| so-the load falling upon one, and another
and another as it descends, until it rests at
last upon the labor of the men who work
mines and till the soil The miners whose
gold and silver are fixed by an unvarying
standard of value which no legislation, not
ooncurred in by the rest of the world, can
materially change; and the other men whose
wheat, corn, meats, cotton, tobacco, and
! petroleum have their prices regulated in the
supply and demand therefor at Liverpool.
have nobody upon whom their load can be
! showed off. Manufacturers who have pro-
lection averaging nearly fifty per cent,
bankers who have the monopoly of drawing
interest on what they owe, railroad consoli-
dationists and plunderers-all these have the
great producing classes beneath them to
! which classes the taxes are nearly all con-
signed by the skilfully regulated machinery
of trade. In all commercial and financial
| pursuits, the taxes are charged to expense
account, and the profits are to that extent
increased. Railroads replace their taxes by
larger rates of freight and fare.
Among salaried men and all others down to
the miner and the tiller of the soil this pro-
cess goes on; and on these last the heavy
! load rests-they are the substratum, and there
is nobody beneath them. The gold and
silver miners products are affected in price
by nothing whatever. The prices of farm
products are fixed at Liverpool, and no mat
ter what the state of affairs here, rates are
Interchangeable until Liverpool consents But
the prices of whatever they buy are fixed by
causes operating here at home; and thus, as they
are the great consumers of manufactures as
they are the great producers of raw material
their candle is burned by taxes at each end
Selling in one market, and buying in another
they are the victims of plunderers who use
their power without mercy. Is it any Won
der, such being the case, that the West
should stand for an income tax Will it be a
wonder, by and by, when it can safely do so
in justice to existing interests that bad law
has built up if it demands as an act of JUS
tice an amendment of the Constitution and a
direct tax?