The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-05-20


from the people are concerned, surpassed
all that the old federalists in the heyday of
their power ever dreamed of. (Applause)
L refer to that scheme which barely
escaped being placed on the statute books,
TO take from the people of this country
everywhere the right to elect the only men
you do elect connected with the federal
government-members of Congress and
electors for President-and to put their
election in the hands of the federal Judges.
4ou are free people to-day because you
have free elections, because you hold your
own elections, and because you count your
own votes; because you commission with
your own commission those you send to
Washington to represent you in the House
of Representative, and those whom you
send to the electoral college to choose
President for YOU
but under the pretext that somewhere
in this country there might be an occasional
false election or a corrupt election the at
tempt was made persistently, and almost
successfully, to take from the people of the
country their fundamental rights, and to
put in the hands of the federal judges the
right to appoint men to hold your elections,
TO supervise them and to commission your
representatives.
There is another danger to free govern
ment that Is always encroaching and al
ways necessary to be watched and warded
oH-that is the danger of taxation. 1t is
through the gateway of taxation that
freedom or slavery comes to every people.
We are free people because generations
and centuries ago we learned that truth
which seemed to be hidden from all the
other people in the world. Human history
may be summed up almost in a single SEN
tence-that in every country sooner or
later some small portion Of the people have
got control of the great power of taxation
q 70 nr,ri oh oly-ao
and lmpoverish the great masses of the
people.
THE POWER OF TAXATION.
81 have found that the chief difficulty in
getting the people to deal intelligently with
the question of federal taxation has been
that federal taxes are hidden from them.
You know how much taxes you pay to the
territory, and your county, and
your municipality, but there is no man in
this audience, intelligent as it is, that can
get down tonight and figure out how
s sse. ases me- pays The the c0 URss
which died on the 4th day of last
March appropriated during its existence a
little more than 1000, 00O, 900. There are
In circulation in this country-gold. silver
and paper money OF every kind-about
s., 500, 100000. Here, then, you have a
single Congress that takes up 81 out of
every So of the circulating medium of this
country and expends it by its appropria-
tons. A billion Of dollars expended in
single Congress
where does the United States treasury
get that money! The United States gov
eminent is nothing but the servant of the
people. tits as much pauper as that of
California or that Of your city. Like them
1t has not dollar to eXpend or appropriate
except that it gets that dollar in some form
OF taxation from the people of the United
States. The United States is obliged to re-
| sort to system of taxation, which is in
hniteiy more grievous in its burdens and
more oppressive in its results than that to
which the state of California resorts.
take it for granted that here with you, as
with US in the east, you send round first
an agent of the government to ascertain
how much property a man has before you
propose to tax him. If he has much prop
you tax him lightly.
WHERE THE BURDEN FALLS.
"You impose your taxes as q rule upon
that property which man has accumu-
lated, stored up and put behind him, so to
speak, and you mercifully spare that battle
which every man has to fight every
day with hunger and cold for the
necessaries of life. Into that fight the
state mercifully declines to enter. 1t is ex-
actly in that fight on the necessaries of life
and labor and on the tools with which you
labor that the United States filings the chief
burden of taxation, while it exempts all the
| accumulated property which man has
stored up and put behind him.
when you come to examine the details
OF our tariff system you will find that the
United States throws its lightest burdens
where they should be heaviest. More than
one-tenth part of this billion of dollars ap-
propriated by Mr.. Reeds congress came
into the treasury as the tax imposed by the
United States on the single article of wool
and the fabrics of clothing made from wool.
This necessary article of life necessary to
| you who live in the equable climate of
Utah, necessary more to US who live in a
colder climate-supplies to the treasury of
the United States more than one tenth of
| its ordinary expenditures.
''That is not the worst of it. When you
come to tax this particular article of con-
sumption you place a tax heaviest where
it should be ightest, and you make your
taxes lightest where they ought to be the
heaviest Before the Mckinley bill went
into operation-and it is worse since-the
amount which the government of the
| United States eXacted IN taxes on $40
worth of broadcloth was something over
S.. The amount which it exacted on $40
worth of common blue, or wool, cheviot
cloth was 5000. The amount which it
exacts in tariff taxes upon the commonest
and cheapest of all fabrics made from wool,
a cotton warp, reversible stuff, that the
poor man was obliged to be content with,
was over SIS on SO worth of it. The men
that come to Washington and dictate the
taxes that are to be imposed upon the peo-
pie of this country upon the things they
make, understand that, taking your terri
| tory through, one man in thousand wears
broadcloth and the other 999 wear the chev.
lot or the cotton warp. Not more than one
man in ten thousand in West Virginia
wears it. Laughter. They are pursuing
the 999, and they care not for the thou
sandth man. Wherever you levy taxes
with the idea of protecting some people
and not under the idea of getting money
for the government, you are always forced
to levy them in such way as to catch the
great mass Of the people and let the
weather. escape.
| ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
There was a proposition made In the
First Congress, 102 years ago, to impose q
! tax Of cents on gallon of molasses
Three arguments were made against that,
and chiefly from the New England states
There were those who said, and said truly
"Why. molasses is an article of common
consumption. With very large part of the
people who labor for their living it is an ar.
ticle of daily diet. Impose tax Of cents
a gallon on molasses and you throw on these
people more than their share OF the bur-
dens of government. 1t is too heavy as q
! tax"
'There were others who said: 'tWhy
molasses is the raw material of an import.
ant New England industry, in which CAPT
tai finds profitable investment and labor
finds constant employment. If you lay this
heavy tax on that raw material you dimin.
ish the opportunities of capital and you
diminish the opportunities of labor at the
same time.''
"There was another set from New En-
gland who said, we trade the fish thai