New-York tribune., 1878-04-12
lie INCOME TAX.

When the tax upon incomes was imposed,
i'm the trying times of the war, the country
submitted to it because every one perceived
that extraordinary measures were necessary to
meet the extraordinary wants of the Govern
ment. 1t is true that it was felt to be an
odious and exasperating burden; that it re-
duired methods of collection unsuited to the
dispositions and habits of free people that
it was fruitful source of fraud, corruption,
lying, mcanness, perjury that II Disseminated
against honesty and thrift that it let loose
upon the community swarm OF Government
induisitOrs whose hateful Office was often ex-
ercised in Il hateful and oppressive way ; nay,
whose duties had natural tendency to make
them tyrannical and insOlent. But the people
submitted 20 il. In the patriotic ferv0r of the
war time they were ready to submit TO any
thing for the sake Of the Union. They bore
cheerfully with the draft, and prOyOst-mar-
shas. and arbitrary arrests, and the suppress
sion of newspapers, and the interference of
the military with the civil power i'll cities far
removed from the theatre OF war. All these
things, and the income tax with them, were
war measures" necessary for time, in
order to save the Nation. But no one dreamed
of permitting their continuance after the re-
turn of peace
Besides it was often urged in palliaton of
the income tax-nOt i'll its defence; nobody
defended it--that il was after all the most
equal impOst that could be devised for raising
an exceptional revenue. 1t bore upon all
classes with about the same severity. The
poor man who paid his five dollars felt il as
much as the rich man who paid his five
thousand and 50 each sustained a proportion
ate share in the cost of the armies which were
fighting for the defence of the whole Nation.
Such were the arguments which were made
for the income tax when it was first imposed.
But when the time came for repeating it, long
after the close of the war, there was signiii-
cant change Of tone on one side of Congress.
II had been discovered that instead of being
an equal tax, the charge on incomes was one
of the most unequal imaginable A very small
number, some few tens of thousands
of people. in the large cities paid
nearly the whole of it. score or
so of merchants were taxed more under
this head than all the other 40,000,00O
in the United States put together. Then sud-
denly the advocates of the tax changed their
ground. They recommended it at first, be-
cause they said it was an equal tax. They
objected now to its repeal, because they found
that it was not an equal tax. We have rarely
heard more frank avOwals of deliberate and
high handed injustice than were made in Con-
gress, when the repeal was under discussion
seven years ago. Senator Howell, of Iowa, OBJ
iected to the repeal because he said the tax
"did not fall upon the people :" it was " no
burden whatever to the masses of the peO-
pile of this country y it was confined to some
fifty thousand persOns;n and if it was posi-
BILE TO squeeze the whole amount out of weak
minority like that, it would be popular
policy to continue squeezing them. Senator
Upton, of Nebraska, opposed the repeal be-
cause he said in his State there were Every
"few persons who would ever hear of the
"income taxi and they all preferred that some
body else should bear their burdens for them.
Senator Warner, of Alabama, was unwilling
to give his political opponents an opportunity
to say that he voted for the repeal of a tax
which pressed only on the rich. One and an
| other took the familiar false ground that gov
ernment was organized chiefly for the benefit
of capitalists, and, therefore, that capitalists
alone ought to pay for it.
Thus as early as 1871 we had demOnstra-
| ton by the communlstic spirit which has since
asserted itself so violently in the United
States. But Congress and the people were
| not prepared then for the schemes which now
| find favor; and the income tax was allowed
| TO expire, 10 the inexpressible qualification oi