Arizona weekly citizen., 1884-01-05
TROUBLED INCONSISTENCIES.
A Southern View Of the Working Of the
 Internal Revenue system.

The Virginia legislature leads off in
 the southern galaxy of states with de-
 mand for the total abolition of the in-
 ternal revenue system. This is directly autagonIstic to the Kentucky Idea of Senator Beck, and will undoubtedly receive the indorsement of every soulh- ern state, If We may except the one just named, upon fair presentation of the evils embraced IT the system.
 The internal revenue tax Is inlquitous, first of ali, because IL imposes upon one section and one class of producers an enormous and unjust tax for the benefit of the general government. It has established in the southern states vast army of agents not amenable to the laws of those states, who have since the inauguration of the system used theIr offices to advance the republican ad- minlstrations and their own personal interests, regardless of law or justice Responsible only to the general govern ment, with convenient courts at hand in which to take refuge, they have mur- dered and robbed producers of tobacco and whisky almost at will, and wherc armed resistance has greeted these on slaughts, men have been dragged from their homes. jailed. and imprisoned upon the fiimsiest charges of barest suspicious.
 It will be a great day for the poor farmer of the south when the last vestige of this governmental machinery shall have Ieen banished from the states Aside from the arbitrary seizure of persons and property the tax itself is oppressive. Recently 6 gentleman thoroughly ac- quRipted with the mountain region of Georgia stated Tn this office that in those rCck-encompassed valleys there was no market for the ordinary farm products by reason of tho fact that lt was impossible generally to haul the grain there produced to within reach of railroads and cities; that the violation Of the internal revenue laws, iU many instances he knew of, arose from the sale of whisky for the purpose of raising money to pay the taxes, a default of which would cost them the humble roofs beneath which they dwelt. Dwelling, as they did, Tn those far val leys, hemmed Tn by mountains, they lived from year to year between the Scylla of state tax and the Chary bdis or revenue demand.
 Not only does such a state of affairs exist in Georgia, but throughout all the mountainous country of the south. where remoteness from market and, want of railroads cut off the people from any possibility of converting their crude supplies into cash. These poor creatures crouchIng among their rocks, under the operation of an internal revenue law, suffer as producers, to flush an already over-fed treasury, while the great whisky manipulaters and warehousemeu of the west, shielded by rings and dead laws, grow fat in the open sunlight.
 We are told that whisky IS a luxury, and in accordance with economic prin- cIples, that the taxes should be raised from such. But while 1t is true that the consumer may pay the tax, under the peculiar and discriminating operation of the bonded ware house, the tax may and does fall with crushing effect upon the smtAi-rfodnct rs of the south, for where the large producers of he west soIone, its ..eoarred by this tax Dd'en- sDd tI nat!o1 ,i'son t sngendered by the d;HoLhe .u the vbicb from rom realizing on bis 'c[i cnrb m narke. iu' he should haul to .,fF.s Fns obacco farmer is not now sucb is Ss ;s as formerly. Under recent TT Iars a van !. a i SO much hampsred bv iI tha hs Tffn Tha laws, but the tax remains '"e , f dires taTat;o,, 'erhai revenue IS one Ii ressivt as . hohstrous and op- c Ice, intSat ;t o-,,oi' .nipie' cruel as prac- a ne peos "a banansL one section and V ,rjan I ear greatly disproportionate er ! nboi; the government. It shouId qr td.-Macon Telegraph. vi,