Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-11-11

ent condition Is one or the mastery os
monopoly; that this mastery is dis.
played by the authors thereof in the
fixing of the rates of all wages and the
prices of all products, both bought and
sold, and that the common people ara
absolutely voiceless in the matter Of
deciding what they shall receive or
what they shall pay for what they wish
to dispose of or to acquire 1t is to be
noted, further. that the ranks of the
masses have been filled to overcrowd-
ing by the victims of monopolistic ex-
action and exclusion, and that the in
dividuals of the masses are powerless
to get relief from this source of disaster
by migrations from their poorer paw.
ing pursuits to the better paying
pursuits the monopolists have cor
nered, because the latter will
brook no competition calculated to
deprive them of the opportunity to
plunder and enslave. Extra taxation
of the masses under this condition Of
things then, works with extraordinary
hardship upon them because it amounts
to lessening of their already inadequate
incomes to the precise amount of the
tax
1t is to be observed, on the other
hand, however, that the conditions to
be produced would be exempted from
the overwhelming dictation and inter.
ference of the masters. The cumu-
lative tax would work the dissolution
of the monopolies and with that disso.
luton the power to exercise mastery.
Nothing would be left then to prevent
all classes of people from so adjusting
themselves by migrations from the poor
er paying to the better paying pursuits
as to bring all vocations to an average
rate of profitableness Under this con.
dition, whether it be the high taxpayer
or the low taxpayer, he would, when
he had become properly established,
be earning wealth equally rapidly, in
proportion to energy and capital ex-
pended, with all others. When this
was the case, the extra taxation of
some would not be working a hardship
to them.
Another fact that is we'll enough to
notice, on account of tax equalization
being much talked of in some Quarters.
is that tax regulation is not compati.
BILE with tax equalization, and the two
S~-A-OS ~ HA 6O0 his Q66Q
give no concern to the friends of tax
regulation, however. as there is very
little in tax equalization to commend
1t to retormers Just what would be
tax equalization is a query. 1t is sup
posed to mean the same rate per oent.
Of taxation upon all property values.
but under the mastery of MONOPOLY
there can be no tax equalization in tho
true sense of the terpa, for there car
be no equality in the rate of profitable.
ness of industries under a system in
which few rob the many, and it is
a travesty upon the truth to
claim that tax equalization con.
sists In making a poor paving
property pay the same tax that a good
paying property of the same value does.
Equalization may not be destitute of
merits, however, by long ways, vet
II we are to forego the regulation we
are to invite and encourage all the abb
normities of industrial development
and all the oppression and financial
and social inequalities that grow out of
the mastery Of monopolies Are we
prepared to do this? If not, we must
not allow tax regulation to be side-
tracked for something so wanting In
comparison as tax equalization.
Though tax regulation is incompati.
BILE with tax equalization, its employ
ment would give us something far SUI
perior, which is equalization of tho
opportunities to earn wealth and to
profit alike, which Is the genuine de-
sideratum. With such equalization we
would be a happy people. Untram-
meled by ringsters and spectators we
would prosper. Where we sowed we
would reap and the results thereof
would be seen in the increased con,
sumption OF the people, the starting
up OF idle mines and manufactures. the
engagement of the unemployed and an
enormous gain in the annual increase
OF wealth These and q myriad of other
benefits Of widespread and deeplv-
felt nature would be the outprowth of
q provision that pierced the trusts and
monopolies to the death Barring a
desire to oppress the people instead of
conferring upon them a wholesale and
wide-reaching benefit, we cannot fore
go tax regulation.
A word more to my reform brothers.
Are you ready to embody this with the
other reforms many of us are earnestly
1aboring to carry to a successful issuep
II the adoption of the income plank
means anything, it means that YOU
are.-W. V. Marshall, In Greensboro
(Pa) independent