People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1895-07-18

from their own shoulders to the backs
of the poor acknowledgements News.
The supreme court over a hundred
years ago decided a federal tax on
carriages to be constitutional, and it
has been held by the court that not
only tax on income from all property
was valid without apIOrtiOnment &C
cOrding to population, but a direct
tax upon personal property was valid.
Boston Transcript.
1t is indeed a pity that the court
should have needed a hundred years
to find out what the true interpreta-
tiOn of the constitution is upon such
a point as that Of the taxing power.
The Overturning Of decision which
has held for that number Of years is
not calculated to impress laymen
with the wisdom Of the tribunal
Buffalo Express.
Now will any one deny that the ac-
cumulated constitutional wisdom of
those that drafted the income tax bill
and afterwards discussed it was not
fully equal to that of the few almost
superannuated gentlemen who con-
demned tito hadeS? Even they them
selves could not agree upon its merits.
and, stranger still, one Of them with
in the short interval of a few weeks
took a constitutional somersault.-I
Reading Review.
Aside from the narrow majority by
whicn the income tax law was NULL
lied, the most surprising feature of
the decision is the change of front of
Justice ShiraS. Had he maintained
the position he took when the case
was originally argued the law would !
have been sustained. How many Su.
preme court court decisions would be
reversed if re-argumentS were allowed |
in every case? This question is an in-
tereSting one and suggests vast posi- |
Observation-Disclosures Call.
The spectacle of the supreme court
reversing its decision in regard to the !
cOnStitutiOnality Of certain provisions
Of the law, especially when this reyer-
sal comes in so short a period as six
weeks, and comes. too, through a |
change of mind on the part of one Of !
the judges, is hardly calculated to in
crease the respect which the people !
have, and which it is most essential |
that they should maintain in full !
measure, for the august tribunal that /
is intruSted with the tremendously
important duty of deciding upon the |
cOnstitutiOnality of acts of Congress. |
Boston Herald.
In the face Of the fact that court |
fully as able and patriotic as the
present court sustained the cOnStitu-
tionality Of the law some thirty years
ago, and that the adverse decision is
carried in the present court by ma
jOrity of only one, we do not think the
American people will change their
minds on the subject with the judici-
ciary. Fifty decisions cannot alter
the fact that an income tax is one of |
the most equitable that can believed,
and that the denial of the power to
the government takes from it one OF
the most essential and important pre-
negatives of national sOvereignty.-l
Pittsburg Post.
But what the folly OF congress did
in taxing those with large incomes
was far less serious in the way of pro-
V0klng social antagOniSm than what
the supreme court has done in exempt
ing them from taxation. 1t has ap-
parently thrown the protection Of the
constitution over them as a class, dis
eliminating in their favor as congress
disseminated against them. We
might hesitate to put forward such a
statement were it not for the fact
that the four dissenting justices have
made the issue. The obvious result
will be to strengthen the POpulist
party greatly, and with wise leader
ship it may carry the next presiden.
tial election.-Rocheste Post Express.
1t will be we'll to preserve the opin-
ions OF the justices and the views of
American editors on this momentous
decision. | know Of nothing which
could have happened which is at once
so gratifying to plutOcracy and yet so
potentially ominous to the accquirers
OF wealth as this decision. BOZ.