Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1895-07-10
CALAMITY HOWLERS
ARE BECOMING MORE NUMER-
Gus EVERY DAY.
Even the Supreme Court of the United
States Has a Quartette of Them
Income Tax Decision Gross
Iniquity.

If Populists had given utterance to
the expressions that fell from the lips
of the four dissenting justices of the
supreme court in the income tax case,
they would have been hooted at from
Dan to Beersheba as calamity howl
ers." Listen to them. Justice Harlan
says: "The practical, if not direct eff
feet, of the decision today is to give
certain kinds of property a position of
favoritism and advantage that is in
consistent with the fundamental prin-
ciples of our social organization, and
to invest them with power and influ-
ence that is perilous to that portion OF
the people upon whom rests the larger
part of the burdens of government, and
who ought not to be subjected to the
domination of aggregated wealth any
more than the property of the country
should be at the mercy of the lawleSs."
Justice Jackson is reported as follows:
The decision, in his opinion, practically
destroyed the power of the govern
ment to reach incomes. 1t takes from
congress its rightfui power to fix the
rate of taxation and substitutes there
fore rule incapable of application
without imposing the most monstrous
inequality on the citizens of the COM
mon country. The decision reverses
the common rule of taxation by exempt
Ing those who were best able to pay
and forcing the burden upon the shoul-
ders of the least able to pay. In con-
clusion, Justice Jackson said, in his
opinion, the decision was the most dis
astrous blow ever struck at the consti-
tutional power of congress. 1t struck
down an important, vital and essential
| power of the government. 1t left the
| government, in case of necessity, with
out power to reach by taxation in any
form the vast incomes derived from the
real and personal property of the coun-
try. Justice Brown, in conclusion, said:
"The decision involves nothing less
than the surrender of the taxing power
to the moneyed class. While I have no
doubt that congress will find some
means Of surmounting the present
| crisis, my fear is that in some mo-
ment of national peril this decision will
rise up to Illustrate it's will and par
alyze its arm. l hope it may not be
the first step towards the submergence
of the liberties of the people in sordid
despotism of wealth." Justice White
in concluding, said: "The injustice oi
the conclusion points to the error oil
adopting it. 1t takes the invested
wealth and reads it into the constitu-
ton as a favored and protected class
of property, while it leaves the occu-
patton of the minister, the doctor, the
professor, the lawyer, the inventor. the
author, the merchant and all the vari
Gus forms of human activity upor
which the prosperity of the people mus
depend, subject to taxation without ap
portionment. The absolute inequality
and Injustice of taxation by reference
to population and without regard to the
J amount of wealth taxed, are so manifes
that to admit the power to tax and limi
it to this mode, substantially denie:
the power to tax and limit it to thi.
mode substantially denies the power it
self, since 1t imposes restriction which
renders its exercise impossible" A few
eXtemporaneous remarks were made by
Justice White after the reading of hi
written opinion. He spoke of the deci
sion as blow at the American peopl
and said that the power of levying al
income tax now left could only be ex
ercised with such injustice that no leg
: islative body would dare attempt t,
exercise it, for such an attempt woult
bring forward bloody revolution
Coming Nation.