The examiner., 1886-07-10

income of five hundred dollars These are
| extreme cases. No mans tax would ever
be one-half of his income. Even if it was
the rich man would be in no real distress.
His wife and daughters might perhaps have
to go without some of their luxuries-a
dress or two from Paris, a thousand dollar
shawl, diamond earrings or a necklace of
pearls. They no longer might be able to
ride proudly along in their carriage and
regard with perfect Indifference if not
scorn and contempt their poorer and
humber sisters The rich man might no
/ longer. be able to live in magnificent
| house, give sumptuous parties, drive ex-
pensive horses, dress his white slaves up in
gorgeous livery, and try to convert himself
from a simple republican citizen, into a
menkey-like imitator of the so-called noble
men of England. 1t may be very distress
| ing for him not to be able to indulge in his
pride and vanity, his luxury and vice, but
! If tears have to be shed ON his account,
| somebody besides ourselves will have to do
| the CRYING No We can regard unmoved
the rich mans money troubles, but when
we see q hard working man, earning q dol
lar or so q day, struggling along under a
burden almost too great for him to bear,
| and when we see the government, slyly
and insidiously, by concealed taxation on
the necessaries of life, robbing him of a
great portion of his scanty earnings, we do
and can sympathize with him, and propose
to do what we can to relieve him of part
of his heavy load.
Provided the poor man is not ground
down by heavy taxation, it is really mat
ter of very little Importance what sort of
no better use to which he can put his
superfuous money than in paying the ex-
penses of the government This, then, is
the leading idea which we would like to get
into the heads of poor men and wage
workers. Let us combine together, and
work in harmony and unison with each
other, and by fair, honest, peaceable repub-
ican means, by our ballots, compel the rich
to pay all the expenses of the government,
and then get the government to do as much
as possible for all of our citizens.
It may be objected that this plan of taxa
tion is unjust to rich men. We deny it.
No plan of raising taxes is unjust which
treats all men alike. We propose to make
no distinction whatever among different
men. Besides fortunes are continually
fuctuating. Now one set of men are rich
and another set are poor. In the course of
years the first set will be poor, and the
second set will be rich By our plan of
taxation the cost of government will be
continually transferred from the shoulders
of those who become poor to the shoulders
of those who become rich. If there is any
injustice then in this plan of taxation, we
are so mentally blind that we cannot per-
ceive it.
Our third argument is founded upon the
fact that rich men really, that is practically
rule the government and manage public af-
fairs When a few poor men want Con-
gress or the Legislature of their State to
have certain laws enacted, what chance
have they to get their wishes COM
piled with ? They have not the ghost of a
chance. They would have much better
chance to be struck by tightening. But
when one or two rich men want certain
laws enacted we all know what they do.
They hang around the halls of legislation
and become the boon companions of the
legislators. They invite the noble senators
and honorable representatives to dinners
and suppers, at which the richest food is
served up and costly wines flow like water.
They are all jolly fellows together. Sooner
or later, by this direct and barely concealed
r-bery, they accomplish their object. Of
late years they have grown bolder and
often shamelessly resort to open direct bri-
berry. Everyone knows what influence
railroads exert over the different Legisla-
lures. Go to any Legislature and you will
find that nearly all the members have rail
road passes in their pockets. Rich men
have more money, more leisure, more edu-
cation, and, as a rule, more brains in their
heads, than poor men, and, as a matter of
course, will manage public affairs. As
long as they can take the bulk of the ex-
penses of government from the pockets of
poor people, they will have no inducement
to spend the public money economically
On the contrary, they will have every in
ducement to be extravagant, for the more
money they spend, the better chance they
have to fill their own pockets. and the
pockets of their friends and followers.
Government at present is to considerable
extent political contrivance by which
rich scoundrels swindle us poor men out of
our money. By indirect taxation of the
necessaries of life they take more or less
money from every poor man in the land,
and then in a hundred sly ways they steal
the money from the public treasury
Our plan of taxation would have some
little tendency to promote equality of
wealth among our citizens. Solon, one of
the seven wise men of Greece and the law
giver of Athens, said, equality breeds no
dissensions'' Solomon himself never con-
densed more wisdom into fewer words
Government, as some philosophers teach,
was instituted to protect the weak from
the strong Among wild rude savages the
strong man beat the weak men and women.
took from them whatever he wanted, and
had everything his own way. Finally the
weak men combined together to protect
bLeIdSe1N0S 1TOil neH, ana this
combination, according to the philoso-
piers, was the beginning of government.
As society is now constituted, the poor
man is week and the rich man is strong.
Rich men can always take care of them
selves. How the poor man is to be pro-
tected from the rich man is the great social
problem of the day. In some parts of
Europe the poor man is the mere slave of
the rich man. We do not want such
state of affairs in our republic. We want
every citizen to be proudly independent
Every year, however, we are becoming
more and more like Europe in this respect
Every year the rich man is becoming more
and more aristocratic. Some manufac-
turers speak as harshly to their employees
as ever a Southern planter spoke to his
slaves, and his employees submissively en-
dure this treatment. Alas they feel
obliged to submit to it. They are the
slaves of their necessities. They are the
slaves of their wives and children The
man who marries the woman that he loves
and has children by her will submit to
much arrogance from his employer rather
than bring want and misery upon his
household Hence he is the slave of his
poverty, and consequently the slave of the
capitalist Our plan of taxation would
have some slight tendency to protect the
moor man from this slavery He would he