Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-06-21
ABOLISH THE INTERNAL REVENUE
Brief bat Powerful Speech by Hon. >. 5.
Cox.

A Brief bat Powerful speeci, by Hon. ). :.
Cox.
Congressional Record, June Is.
Ibeg the attention of members to say
that enough has been developed, owing
to the unfortunate collOquy that has taken
place, to show honest people who are
watching our proceedings with more care
for our own honor than We seem to be
doing. l say the revelations which have
been made in connection with the internal
revenue system have begOtten much sus
piciOn. Whether we'll or ill-founded, do
not say but it calls for very careful in
vestigatiOn. The result will be, and not
very remote either, that the whole intern
al revenue system will be blotted out. 1t
ought to be.
l believe If the tariff were properly ar
ranged, if the number of articles upon
which duties are levied was cut down
from more than 1000 to some smaller
number and with revenue qualities. it
would not require a commission to frame
tariff that would yield revenue enough
to pay all the expenditures of frugal
government. would hail the day when
this Internal revenue system shall DO
abolished and our revenues be collected
with revenue purposes. neither political
partisan, nor protective.
We have had it now twenty years. 1t
was war measure. It has done its work.
1t is past it's usefulness. know tho effect
of it in my own state. You gentlemen
who favor free ballot and an honest
count perhaps do not know how the in
ternal revenue officers, the stOrekeepers,
the gaugers, and all of tho employees of
that bureau, force by their espionage and
terrorism the free ballot. 1t is power
which could, had time, display here in
it's enOrmity, and from published and
notorious facts.
1t is an expensive systom. 1t is costly
in country and city. Go to North Caro-
lima. l defy any man of common sense to
tell me that the system in North Carolina
pays either morally or economically. Take
the several districts of North Carolina as
you find them in the report Of the CON-
missioner of internal revenue. Take its
sixth district. You will find that it costs
to collect $50, 944 of revenue over S274, )
415. 1t is over 81 per cent. for the cost Of
collection. Yet in the same state, quiet
and orderly as it is, they collect their state
taxes for five per cent, or $26, ,513 as the
cost of collecting $3.50, 2G3.
This expensive system does invade the
towns and the cities. AS said it forces
the ballots 1t uses spies and informers,
persons of bad fame throughout all his
tory. OF all those which history hands
down rs most execrable are tho spy in
formers. They are the voluntary witnesses
for a consideration, which the amendment
of the gentleman from Kentucky Mr..
White would cut up by the roots.
With permission quote the description
of the dctested informer given by the Irish
orator Curran. 1t was familiar to our
school boys. 1t out to direct us on this
amendment
In q case of life-of honor and Of ill.,
famy-to credit vile informer, tho per-
jurer of an hundred oaths, a wretch whom
pride, honor, or religion could hot bind ?
The fOrsaken prostitute of every vice calls
| upon you with one breath to blast the
memory of the dead and to blight the
character of the living. He measures bis
value by the coffins of his victims and in
the field of evidence appreciates his fame
as the Indian warrior docs in fight, by the
number of scaips with which he can swell
his triumphs. He calls on you by the
solemn league of eternal justice to audit
the purity of a conscience washed in his
own atrocities. He las promised and be-
trayed he has sworn and forsworn and
whether his soul shall go to heaven or to
hell, he seems altogether Indifferent, for
he tells you he has established an interest
in each.
Imake this speech now not for the pur.
pose or with the expectation that any
special reform will be made in this bill.
But we cannot fail to SEQ that a reform
must commence some time and somc
where. This whisky stencil, which has
been ventilated in this House, may be the
means, under Providence, of so arranging
parties in the next election that we will
tear up this internal revenue system by
the roots.