The Colfax chronicle., 1890-05-24
FARMERS AND THE SINGLE TAX
By THOMAS G. sHEARMAN.

FARMERS AND THE SINGLE TAX
by THOMAS G. sHEARHAN.
Paper read before the Joint Committee ON
Taxation of Ohio Legislature. Jan. Q. 1887
If anything in human experience, as
applied to methods Of taxation. is set
tied, it certainly is the fact that taxa
tior apon personal property never can
be made success. Taxes can be raised
from personal property, no doubt, for
large sums are thus raised, but that
they cannot be levied with any reason
able approach to accuracy or equality is
demonstrated, not only by conclusive
reasoning, but by the more conclusive
fact that they never have been thus
levied. It is not for want of earnest
and long sustained effort that the
failure of this system of taxation has
come to pass. For centuries the effort
has been made, and for at least six
centuries it was backed by all the
power of a government which COM
manded the whole civilized world and
which armed its taxgatherers, not with
the paltry weapons Of oaths and PEN
alties, but with the more substantial
powers of indiscriminate search, the
lash, the rack, the thumbscrew, the
gridiron and the cross. The Roman
empire fell to pieces under the pressure
Of this vain effort to reach personal
property by taxation. The same thing
was attempted, at later period, in
dealing with the Jews. 1t failed with
them. They could be robbed and MUIR
dered, but they could not be regularly
taxed.
That which all the tremendous power
of Rome, in its grandest days, failed to
accomplish, that which the internal tor
lures of Spain could not accomplish,
when it beheaded hundreds, burned
thousands, and massacred tens of thou
sands, letting loose a brutal soldiery
in the vain struggle to tax the Meth
erlands, the American people are still
convinced that they can
accomplish by distributing blank forms,
administering long oaths and threat
ening penalties of fifty per cent.
How far they have succeeded the
present Governor OF Ohio has set forth
in repeated messages, as the Governors
Of New York have for many years set
forth in theirs. Their complaints have
become monotonous in their uniformity.
Nothing, indeed, has been added to the
sum of knowledge on this point, since
the calm and detailed report Of David |
A. Wells to the New York Legislature in |
1871, in which the experience Of that |
State and many other States was lumin- !
ously set forth, and it was made clear |
that taxes on personal property were
nowhere equally assessed or efficiently |
collected.
TAXATION BIZ OATH.
The result of the widespread main
;enance of these taxes is to fill the land |
With liars and perjurers. In some States
he business of perjury is mostly con-
ined to the assessors, who regularly
make returns which they know to be
alse, but cannot make true. In others,
uch as Ohio, Vermont and Connecticut.
'erjury is the business Of the taxpayers
Their scrupulous consciences, In many
ases, find way Of escape by omitting,
n fact, to take the oath which they
ign, and they are innocent of every
hing except lying. The delicately con-
cientious get some one to sign for
hem, and where an oath is absolutely
equired, considerate notary certifies
o the oath before it is taken; after
7hich, Of course, it is not taken at all.
IN surveying the whole field, however.
ne's faith in American truthfulness IA
heered, and we entertain larger hopes
Or the future of humanity. For it ap-
ears that, where the blanks are dill
emily circulated and the oath insisted
pom, the average man will return ten,
not fifteen per cent. of his invisible
roperty; whereas, in the absence of this
ppeal to piety, he will return nothing
tall. This touching proof of American !
sverence for the sacredness of the oath I
sminds one Of the famous Yankee who. I
caring his father accused of having
llsely warranted the quality Of trifie I
I'D Tor twelve and half cents, replied: I
No; the old man would never tell lie
II ninepence; though he would tell Z
ght of 'em for dollar"
TAXATION ON PERSONALITY UNEQUAL.
OF course there are some forms Of per- I
nal property which can be seen and G
'praised by the assessors, almost As I
adily as real estate, though not with
correct an estimate of value. The U
'jection to taxation of chattels is not '
at none of them can be taxed; it is Q
at SO many Of them can be and are G
ached, while SO many are not, that the ?
4 is necessarily unequal and unjust. c
be important question, therefore, is,
ION what class does this tax bear most G
pressively? If taxes were levied only b
ION land values, or upon the values Of G
II