Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1878-02-21
Income Tax.


whether it will cause much agitation.
The question of reviying tax on in
comes will certainly become an ex.
citing one. The leading papers OF the
country have already set themselves
in array against the tax. They give
weighty reasons. One is that wealthy
rogues go easily avoid the tax by false
swearing while conscientious men
pay their shares in full, thus making
1t very unequal tax. This difficulty
is a vexatious one, but there should
be some way of overcoming it. Put
men into office who are not afraid to
do their duty and the probability is
that the incomes of the constituencies
men can be ascertained as correctly
as that of the most conscientious.
This done the inquisitorial character
OF the law will not be SO much of a
scarecrow as it was We were on
posed to the abolition of the income
tax. The rich ought to pay the taxes.
10 that extent we are communist and
to that extent all America will become
communlstic unless like other coun.
tries it comes to that condition in
which the rich will have to pay a
standing army TO quell or prevent
mobs by communists, trade-unions or
co operatives. Taxes are to pay for
the privilege of making money. If
the result of our society and laws is
such that some people in some cali
ings are enabled to make more money
than others who make use of equal
care and labor, it is right that those
who have the better advantages should
distribute the profits OF his advantages
for the benefit of all. If a community
OF hundred men all start alike, work
alike and care alike, they should all
remain alike. Ii under these circum
stances their laws permit some to be-
come weather. than others, il would
be right that their surplus wealth be
equally distributed. This is out and
out communism some will say. Such
will please not lose sight of our pre-
misses. Ii one mans wealth, accumu-
lated under the protection of society,
enables him to hold bank full of
greenbacks or gold and to buy silver
to pay liabilities with at the rate of
90 cents on the dollar, that man so
protected is probably making money
faster than his neighbors who are as
industrious as he is. II so it is right
that he pay back that protection in
enough taxes on his income to make
him in no way superior to his equally
worthy neighbors. If in a nation
there is one man so protected that he
is laying away annually million dol
lars more than are required to make
him comfortable, and all the other
members OF the nation have done their
duty as faithfully as be has, but are
going unclad and hungered, it is evi
dent they have given him more pro.
lection than belonged to him, and
right that they Gax him enough to
make all equal. In this country our
Vanderbilts, Stewards, Belmonts,
SCOTS, Astors, Joneses, Tildens and
other mlllionaires should pay the taxes
The farmers, tradesmen, mechanics
and other laborers who work the year
round and have nothing gained should
pay none. 1t will never be lawful,
never can be right, that a govern
ment can give bond and then tax it,
but it will always be a natural right
and when our system of government
is perfected, will be law and practical
right, to tax away from every man,
for the benefit of all, any iacome he
may have above an average, were the
whole equally distributed among the
industrious, whether that income
comes from stacks of bonds or what
ever the source. Under such a sys
tenn not two hundred men in the state
of Wisconsin would have any taxes to
pay next year.
We are in favor of the income tax.
The ideas above presented are i'm
practicable this year. They are In
advance of the times, but we are CON-
ing to them. The year succeeding
| another Presidential election they will
be the rage of State parties. Before
that time the income tax will be res
vived. Not the income tax but bet
ter one; one that will tax the million.
aires enough TO make the burden of
the poor man feel lighter. What right
has one man to lay away annually S.
900, or three, two or one million,
when men of better worked brains
and muscle can't pick up thousand
The people must quit being made
fools of by being led into discussion
of questions of Resumption or of the
kinds of money Congress shall give
them. We may as well be plain The
people are right in demanding that
the bloatod bondholders and the kings
of Wall street shall help bear their
burdens. We are tired of seeing them,
through the cunning of these impious
bloa,s and kings, made the instru-
ments of their own destruction. Let
them at once take tho hard times bull
by the horns. Let them take the
enormous wealth, nine.tenths of which
IS robbery and murder, of those bloats
and kings and distribute it among the
people where it belongs. The way
to do this-the legal way, the sure
way-is by an income tax.
l Silver