The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-12-28
Taxation.

consensus of opinion of the Club
favored a new deal, that is new
assessment OH more drastic lines than
at present. Taking the views express
ed by the members who took prominent
part in the discussion and trying to
square them with provisions recommended
to be incorporated i'll a new assessment
law, we were forcibly reminded of one of
Addison's allegories in the Spectator. The
people complained of their burthens and
Affections and petitioned Jupiter to per-
NIT them to exchange. The day was
appointed and all brought their mfr
mites and troubles and threw them in a
pile, when Jupiter gave the order for each
person to select some other persons
affection and bear it. The exchange was
made but it wasn't long till they all raised
complaint against their new troubles and
cried out to be released from them and
have back their old infrinities
If new assessment is had on the lines
foreshadowed by the Club we are strongly
of the opinion there will be realization
of Addison's dream, especially among
farmers. A drag net assessment law that
wouldn't allow so much as a tooth pick
to escape. And 'if' such law was
executed to the letter justice would be
done and taxes lowered was the belief of
the Club. The little If which intrudes
here has always been present to keep
theory and practice separated. This plan
of taxation has been attempted with minor
variations in this country for more than a
hundred years without there being a
single instance on record where it was
wholly successful. Theory is creation
of the mind. Practical demonstration is
the application of hand and brain to
matter. In this application of attempting
to tax personal property equitably and
justly there has been one dismal repetition
of failures reaching back to the dawn of
the history of taxation, without single
instance where success was achieved
This being true, and there is no voice to
deny it, injustice turks in every personal
property tax law. If injustice is harbored
in law it should be repealed and aban-
doned. Does any one deny this ethical
position? All the members of the Club
as we'll as everybody else not only admit
that injustice, but rank injustice, testers
in every assessment or attempted assess
ment of personal property. We go further
and maintain that no one believes there
will ever be made all equitable and just
assessment of personal property. All the
citations made by members proved this.
These truths being patent is it not the
part of wisdom to abandon a fruitless,
hopeless effort and seek for methods of
taxation that promise more nearly an
approach to justice? The whole inachin.
cry of production of wealth and society
itself has changed since these old tax laws
were adjusted to simple, primitive state
Is it at all surprising or rather should it
be surprising, that they prove such glaring
misits when the effort is made to adapt
them to our higher and far more complex
civilization?
This constant putting new wine into old
bottles and patching old garments with
new cloth is at the root of most of our
troubles. A poll tax is a deadly blow at
the genius of our system of government
which owes its very existence to the ex-
preston of the popular will at the ballot
box. In place of fning (taxing) a man,
which tends to drive him away from the
polls, he should be fined for not voting.
To prove beyond the possibility of con-
tradiction you have but to follow up
the principle little way. If you can
charge by law man one or two dollars
for exercising the right-and it is a right
of voting, he can be charged five or ten,
or grade the fine up with the ability to
pay as the other abominable tax laws,
caricatures of justice, are graded In
place of taxing the poor OH every mite
they CAN call their own and pushing them
down still further in the night of poverty
where hope already is almost obscured,
every impulse towards better civilization
and higher plane for humanity calls for
their lifting up, which is humanity's only
hope of escape from the fate of dead
nations.
Those who would reform taxation must
turn their faces from the past towards the
future and observe the amazing changes
that have taken place in this last half of
the century and. those crowding on the
heels of each other. The old system of
taxation which has its root in half civ
lllzed era, must be abandoned and sys-
tenn founded on equal use and equal OPP
portunity, system that is automatic and
self regulating fitting the time, the age,
and the era in which we live, must be
adopted or society will continue what it
is, seething mass of corruption, false
hood, selfishness and all manner of
uncharitableness like unto the turmoil
among the spirits of the damned.
Republican PIuraIities.