People's party paper. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1891-1898, 1896-10-09
have a voice in government. That IS
whatyour reformer does.

WnaU your reIOrmer uOes'
Our System of Taxation Wrong.
We say the taxing system is wrong.
The taxes ought to be levied with JUS
tice. Our taxes ought to be pro rated.
There should he no extravaganza, no
waste of money that is taken out of the
pockets of the people. That is trust
fund, and ought to be administered as
guardian and trustee. We say first;
| that our taxes are unreasonable. Why?
| They are too high. 1t used to be sew
enty-fve cents head during the time
of Jefferson, it crawled up to a dollar
during the time of Jackson. During
the time of Grover Cleveland, it reach
ed seven or eight dollars. We say that
is unreasonable. 1t is too big. One
reason why taxes are so high, and we
say it is wrong, we waste millions of
the peoples money in building custom
houses when there is no custom; in
building government buildings when
the little buildings that the government
could rent would be cheaper. We say
the River and Harbor bill is wrong. 1t
jumped from ten millions to fifty mil
lions, no one knows how far it will
jump next time. We say it Is wrong
to squander the money of the people in
such things as congressional funerals
where you take twenty thousand dol
lars of the country's money for flowers
and such things, 1t is wrong to pay
| ten dollars for the preachers that come
to read the burial services. You tell me
that is small thing, too small to no.
tice. l ask you, are there any small
things in this universe? l tell you that
the details make up the aggregate, 1t
ought to be remedied and every cent
spent according to law. No Republi-
can or Democrat or Populist ought to
object to that principle. (Applause.)
We say that they are not only too high,
but unjust.
Per Capita Taxation Wrong.
How are taxes to be laid? They
ought to be laid equally on everybody.
Each man ought to carry that portion
of the burden which his strength ena.
bles him to carry. Ought not the man
who is rich, the man of property, pay
more than the fellow who has no goods?
Our taxes are so laid that every indi-
vidual pays taxes as an individual al
most equal to every other individual.
The laborer should not pay as much as
Rockefeller, as much as Carnegie, as
much as Mark Hanna. We say it is be-
cause the taxes are so laid that the in
dividual pays them on consumption.
They are not laid on wealth at all; they
ought to be laid on wealth, not on con-
sumption. | am talking about federal
taxes now. Bow do you raise your ma
tional taxes? l shall not dwell on that
long. You know how the tobacco
taxes are laid. A man who deals in
tobacco pays the taxes to the internal
revenue department and adds that to
/ tiIo p1iIe OF 10 6acco GdN 8, hen you chs Y
or smoke the tobacco, therefore one
man who smokes q five cent cigar pays
| the same as any other man. If Mr.
| Carnegie smokes five-cent cigar he
pays the same as the laboring man has
to pay, and the laboring man pays just
as much as Mr.. Carnegie, and more. 1t
is the same way with whiskey; you pay
the tax when you buy the whiskey.
The man who buys the same grade
| pays just as much as any other man
who buys the same grade and the same
quantity of whiskey. The balance of the
nations taxes are raised on the three
| thousand articles that enter into the
! ordinary mau's household We charge
| person a certain fine, certain duty,
a certain license fee for the privilege
of bringing his goods in here, He pays
! that duty at the custom house and
adds the duty to them, and we pay the
taxes when we buy the articles. The
home manufacturer brings up the price
of his own goods until he gets the
same amount of profit. The difference
Being that what the person pays goes
into the pockets of the government, but
what the manufacturer gets goes into
his own little pockets. (Applause.)
Under this system the manufacturer
gets five dollars where the government
gets one. Now you see you can escape
the tobacco tax and the whiskey tax
by not using the tobacco or whiskey,
but you cannot escape the tariff tax
unless you go back to state of nature
and clothe yourself in the skin of beasts
and live in a cave and diet upon locusts
and wild honey. If you dress in the
simplest dresses, eat the simplest food,
live in the simplest houses, there is no
manner known to man by which you
can escape the tariff tax, The man
who buys ten-dollar suit of clothes
pays just as much as the richest man
in America who buys ten-dollar suit
of clothes. Therefore we see that
wealth escapes taxation. think it is
important to you. If the tax amounts
to about seven dollars per head, which
it does, there would be IA tax of S35 for
every family of five, and that is the
average family.
Wealth Escapes Taxation.
You ought to begin to reflect about
how much grain it takes to pay federal
taxes, how much wheat; how much
! div moods bDur ,,,,ob. .at+on onJ how