Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-10-12

luded to, an ''option" on the part of taxpayers
as to making or refusing TO make a yearly
sworn return of income. To make such re-
turn was made the imperative duty of every
citizen liable to tax, without one exception,
and refusal or willful neglect to make it was
punished with a penalty which was supposed
to be adequate to suppress or prevent the Of
fense, except common rascals not likely to
have considerable incomes. The law gave Mr..
Tilden precisely the same sort of ''option'' to
make false or fraudulent return, and attach
ed to this ''option" penalty similar in kind
but greater in degree. In case the Governors
sworn return of 1862 proves, in the crucible
of the courts, to have been spurious, will be
plead an "option" as a defense against the
charge of perjury?
The difficulties environing an honest man
who desired to make a fair return of income
under the law were not what Mr.. Tilden
paints them. He had only to set down the
items about which there was no question, and
refer doubtful points, with frank statement
of facts, to the department for a ruling.
Against an unjust ruling every citizen had his
remedy in the courts. Several million plain
people readily performed a duty which ''the
ablest lawyer of New York" found too intri-
cate and dangerous to attempt. The industry
and legal acumen which were equal to the
task of Strengthening the tangled web of the
Fort Wayne company's myriad mortgages,
should have enabled their possess0r to enumer-
ate inteliigibly his annual gains. Bouvier de-
fines penalty" when the word occurs in
statute, as ''the punishment inflicted by law
for its violation" and Mr.. Tilden, the lawyer,
is aware that the word has no other statutory
meaning. To make the argument of an sop
ton" more conclusively impossible, the Uni
ted States Circuit Court in Rhode Island has,
within the last three days, decided UNITED
States against Rowland G. Hazard, that o
taxpayer who refused to make a return under
the income act, and paid his assessed tax with
penalty added, has not discharged his legal
obligation to nor closed his account with the
Government; but is bound in law to make his
total payment equal to the legal tax on his
actual taxable income, whenever the Govern
ment can procure proof of what that actual
income was. In other words, no man shall
successfully plead his own violation of law as
a bar to the collection of what he owes the
Government Where does this decision leave
Mr.. Tilden's ''option?"
Mr. Tilden's sins are thus far his own. Is
it your purpose, Mr.. Hewitt, to make them
the sins of the party, by asking
Democratic editors and orators, in
the campaign you are directing, to
attempt defense and justification of what
you know cannot be defended? What do
you think of the moral effect on the young
men of the country of thousand newspapers
and as many speakers, in "a reform canvass"
loudly approving the deliberate violation of
law, under circumstances of virtual fraud, by
Presidential candidate. Several
recently prominent Americans for merely
accepting the option" of not presenting cor
rect exhibits of certain distiling operations,
are now behind prison CRATES. Mr.. Tilden is
as likely to escape this law of political and So
cial retribution, and become President of a
self-respecting nation, as he is to evade the
grip of gravitation. This Is as good time as
can ever occur for the American people to
teach American politicians of all parties that
he who aspires to the highest post in this Re
public must carry the white shield of an hon
est life. Sincerely yours,
A. B. NETTLEToN,
No. 22s South Seventh street, Philadelphia,
September 81, 1876.
The Hon, Abram S. Hewitt, New York.