Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1876-09-01

turn which Mr.. Tilden made Dec.
26th, 1868, for the year 1862, was
sworn to by him and after the detail
ed statement of his income, conclud.
ed as follows:
Thereby certify that the following is
true and faithful statement of the gains,
profits, or income of Samuel J. 'Tilden, of
the City of New York and County of
New York, State of New York, whether
derived from any kind of property, rents,
interest, dividends, salary, or from any
profession, trade, employment, or voca,
ton, or from any other source whatever,
from 1st day OF January to 31st day of
December, 1862, both days inclusive, and
subject to an income tax under the Excise
laws of the United States. Income from
all sources, $7,11S."
The sum named as the total of Mr..
Tllden's income for 1862, was the net
amount after the exemptions allowed
by law, figured by Mr.. Tilden at
$6,552, had been subtracted, and he
actually paid tax on the small sum of
s7,lls. In his answer to the suit
brought against him by the St. Louis,
Allen & Terre Hautc Railroad Com
pany, filed a few weeks ago and also
sworn to by Mr.. Tilden, he makes
the following statement:
"That for such services the defendant
Tilden made a charge of $4,000 against
said second mortgage bondholders, and
the said charge was paid, by and on behalf
of said second mortgage bondholders, on
the 18th of October, 1862; that
the defendant Tilden, for a part of his
services aforesaid, also made charge of
the like sum of $4,000 on account of
professional services rendered to the first
mortgage bondholders and the Receivers,
which was paid to him by the said Azari-
all C. Flagg, and which pay
ment appears under date of Nov. Z, 1862;
in statement annexed to the first report
aforesaid, as having been receipted for by
the said Tilden, ION account OF PROBES
sional services"
Here we find that having sworn in
1868 that his entire income III 1862
from all sources, counsel fees, divi-
dends, rents and profits, was only
$7,lls, Mr.. Tilden again swears, in
1876, that he received that identical
year of 1862, $4,000 from one
source, as attorneys fees. Allowing
this to be his only income for that
year, and deductlng the items allow
ed by law, fixed by himself at s6,552
Mr.. Tilden was still liable for the tax
on over $4,000 or nearly double what
he actually returned under OATH
These facts speak for themselves.
Mr.. Tilden is convicted of swindling
the government, by false swearing,
thus evading his obligations as tax
payer, at time when all patriotic
men regarded those obligations as es-
pecially sacred, and when poorer
men were contributing cheerfully in
aid of the mighty effort to suppress
a rebellion started by Mr.. Tilden's
political friends. The charge is def
mite and circumstantial. 1t admits
of no plausible explanation or de-
tense, unless such defense is in the
shape of proof that in one or the
other of the statements above given,
purporting to have been sworn to by
Mr.. Tilden, the record is falsified.-
This defense has not been offered,
and we are left to the conclusion that
the facts are as stated.
But because good and sufficient
defense cannot be made to the charge
of swindling and perjury preferred
against Mr.. Tilden, it Is not to be
supposed that some kind of justlfi-
cation will not be attempted by his
political friends. Accordingly we
find his private secretary endeavor-
ing to explain it as follows:
"a lawyer might work for long time
before he got his fee, and a conscientious
man would of course consider the work
he had done from year to year as a case
progressed, and that the fee, though re-
ceived in one year, was not his income for
that year; it had been, in fact, earned
each year during the progress OF the case.
That was all there was about the matter"
This will strike the average reader
as rather thin. Men who are inter-
ested in placing power in the hands
of an honest man instead of sham
reformer, will hardly accept it as sat
isfactory. Unfortunately for the the
DRY of the private secretary, the law
required Mr.. Tilden to return his &C
tual income, that is, revenue from all
sources, less the exemptions, received
within the year for which the return
is made. Besides, this $4,000 re-
ceived by Mr.. Tilden was not income
until it came into his hands, and as
there is no evidence that he returned
any part of it in previous years
while, as his private secretary says,
he was earning 1.-THE was obligated
to return it when he received it. The
theory brought forward to defend
Tilden would enable the richest man
in the country to white his income
down to point where it would be
exempt from government taxation,
OF this patched-up defence the New
! York Tribune, which has all along