The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-07-31

'The system thus referred to is generally
called indirect taxation. When taxes are laid
upon any article that is produced by man,
that tax is not paid finally by the person who
pays 1t in the first instance,
by the manufacturer the importer or other
person from whom the government collects it.
That person sets out as a tax collector, and
whatever he pays to the government he col
lects from his customer with a profit From
this it follows that every tax of this kind every
tax LAID by the tarin, every tax laid by the in
ternal revenue law, and every species of tax
which is laid upon personal property, such as
chairs, tables, clothing or food. is paid by the
consumer, by the person who finally and in the
last instance uses that property and does not
attempt 10 sell it to another. So long as one
sells such property he does not pay the tax;
he collects 1t from the person who buys from
him.
You farmers of Greene county therefore
stood an average increase of taxation on all
you bought and consumed of over 100 per
cent during the war, and you paid it without
murnur or complaint while armies were in the
field. Your sons were at the front equally
representing the households of both political
parties. and YOU did not then stop to consider
the cost, nor do you now. when money is needed
for those who faced death to uphold the flag
and preserve the Union. IL is true that those
who were engaged in establishing plutocracy,
as Thaddeus Stevens even then styled it, who
were shaving the securities of the government
government bonds in two in the middle and
paying only half their face into the treasury,
and who were laying the foundations of that
colossal fraud and robbery, now known as the
high protective tariff; it is true that some of
these people, their heirs or assigns never saw
tented field. They worsh1ped mammOn and
had no room in their sordid hearts for love of
country. yet you and the millions like you all
over the land not only filed up the
armies and the navy. but you likewise
4bar, doll how
did not stop to cry out on the injustice you
suffered as long as the dire emergency was on
the government. but what shall be said of
man or party who now, after twenty-four years
of peace opposes a single dollars reduction of
taxes laid on the absolute and supreme neces-
stiles of life as an extreme war measure, and
described as such at the time TO its advocates?
"But republican leaders claim that their
party has already made large reductions of tax
alton. Not dollar for the relief of the farmer,
the mechanic, or the wage-worker, but enor-
nous reductions have taken place in behalf of
the rich and powerful. On former occasion.
IN speaking of the record of the leaders of the
republican party on the subject of tariff-tax
duction, made the following statement:
Their hearts were with the rich; their con-
Germ was for the lords of millions; they were
distressed that the amassed capital of the coun-
try should be called on to meet any part of the
expenses of the government, and they rushed
to the rescue OF the monopOlist, the Insurer, the
the temple by our blessed Savior nearly 1000
years ago. On such as these their love was
lavished. In 1869, as | have already shown,
they swept away the tax on the manu-
facturer and still left him his COM
pensatory tariff duties. During the years
1872 and 1873 that just and righteous
tax, the tax on incomes, was wiped
out, and | am glad TO remember that | voted in
the house against its repeal. From this source
of revenue, better able than any other in the
tl,o Is
ten years, over 1916. 100000, and to that extent
the burdens of labor were lightened.
Such a spectacle, however, was CALLING to
the instincts of the republican party and at
war with its purpose to establish a moneyed
oigarchy devouring the taxes of the people
and paying none itself The income tax was
therefore thrown overheard and all the holders
OF cOrpulent incomes from the dividends of
banks and other powerful corporations were
that much richer and you were that much
poorer. Bonds and coupons, bank stocks,
and railroad profits, insurance companies,
and express companies, together with
every other great mOney-gathering corpor-
alton in the United States were made exempt
from the tax. gatherers' demands while the tax
on your shirt and on your wife's calico dress
and flannel peIticOat remained the same or
were increased. Salaried government officials,
receiving from 5000 TO $4,000 year, including
the president, were released from the income
tax, while you were released from nothing at
IL,
The heavy bank accounts OF spectators, bTOk-
ers, incorporated manufactures, and of greedy,
grasping syndicates, were made sacred from
any contribution to the payment of govern
ment expenses, while there was no remission
of tariff taxation on the farmers horse shoes
his trace trains mis- wagon tires his farming
implements, nor on his wearing apparel and
outfit for housekeeping. But the reduction of
taxes for the benefit of the wealthy and favored
classes did not stop even at this point. Every
vestige OF the once widespread process OF in
ternal revenue taxation specified articles
and occupations has long since disappeared,
and nothing now remains of that system ex-
cept the levy on distilled spirits, fermented
liquors, tobacco and oleOmargarine.
"'No longer a government tax falls on
brokers, billiard rooms, steamboats,, banks and
bankers, ships, railroads, telegraph companies
theaters, operas, circuses and museums, lot
teries and lottery dealers, bank checks, bank
deposits, gilt enterprises, diamonds and plate
of solid gold and silver on tables OF luxury and
self-indulgence The trickling streams of ma
tional revenue once flowing from these and
other numerous similar sources are now all
dried up, and the farmer, the mechanic and
the wage-wOTker must meet the demands of the
government without their aid. In the recent
great tariff debate in the house of representa-
tives the leaders of the republican party
boosted that since the war they had abolished
taxes to- the amount OF 1850 600 900; but not one
dollar did they show had been removed from
the necessaries of life. They simply boosted of
their crime against labor, and gloried in their
shame
a reduction of taxation, however, on the
prime necessities of life need never be ex-
pected at the hands Of the republican party.
Its leaders are compelled to obey the robber
barOns who plumber the homes. the farms and
the workshops OF the people, and are thus en-
abled to contribute literally of their ill-gotten
wealth to the corruption of the ballot-box and
the success Of the republican party. During
the last session OF congress a bill for the re-
vision Of the tariff was urged upon the country
by the leaders OF that party. and the duties
were increased in every schedule il contained
and especially all wooden goods iron and
steel.
THE dispatches from England tell us that a
bill introduced in parliament to give the prince
of Wales about two hundred thousand dollars
to enable him to properly dover his daughter
about to be married has created marked oppo-
sition. That is a mere trifie compared to the
largesses, the subsidies, the donations, and the
stupendous tributes now paid by you, and the
other laboring people Of the United States, to
the huge, bloated parasites (which our vicious
system of tariff has fastened on you, on your
wives, on your children, on your man servant,
and your maid servant, on your OK, on your ass,
There is man by the name of
haps a thousand others, who are each draw
ing from oveT-taxed, poorly fed and scantily-
clothed labor every year five times as much as
1t is proposed to give to the prince of Wales
and every dollar of it a naked gratuity some