Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1896-09-17
ABERDEEN, Wash. Sept. II, 1896.


EDITOR HERALD
At this time, when the leaders of the
Republican and gold-Democratic parties,
the parties dominated and controlled by
the millionaires and corporation trusts,
are trying to induce the producers OF this
country to forge more heavily upon
themselves the letters of gold and the
chains OF unjust taxation, desire to call
attention to the following language,
quoted from the dissenting opinion OF
Justice Wilson, OF the supreme court OF
the United States, filed in the famous
income tax case, in which bare major
ity OF the court decided against the con-
sttutionallty OF the law:
THE decision now made may provoke
a contest in this country from which the
American people would have been spared
il the court had not overturned its former
adjudications and had adhered to the
principles Of taxation under which our
government, following the repeated adj
Indications OF this court, has always been
administered.
"Thoughtful, conservative men have
uniformly held that the government
could not be safely administered except
upon principles OF right, justice and
equity-without discrimination against
any part OF the people because OF their
owning visible property, or because OF
their having or not having incomes from
bonds and stocks. But by its present
construction of constitution, the court,
for the first time in all its history, de-
clares that our government has been so
framed that in matters OF taxation for it's
support and maintenance. those who
have incomes derived from the renting Of
real estate or from the leasing or using
of tangible personal property, bonds,
stocks and Investments, OF whatever
kind, have privileges that cannot be
accorded to those having incones de-
rived from the labor OF their hands, or
the exercise of their skill, or the use OF
their brains. Let me illustrate this In
the large cities or financial centcrs Of the
country are persons deriving enormous
incomes from renting of houses that have
been erected, not to be occupied by the
owner, but for the sole purpose OF being
rented. Near by are other persons, COM
binations, trusts, corporations, possessing
vast quantities of personal property, in
Guiding bonds and stocks of railroads,
telegraph, mining, telephone, banking,
coal, oil, gas, and sugar refining corpora
tons, from which millions upon millions
are regularly derived. In the same neigh
borhood are others who own neither real
estate nor invested personal property,
nor bonds, nor stocks of any kind, and
whose entire income arises from skill and
industry displayed by them in particular
callings, trades or professions, or from
the labor of their hands, or the use OF
their brains. And it is now the law, as
this day declared, that under the consti-
tuition, how ever urgent may be the needs
of the government, how ever sorely the
administration in power may be pressed
to meet the monied obligations of the
nation, congress cannot tax the personal
property of the country, nor the incomes
arising either from real estate or from in
vested personal property, except by a
tax apporioned among the states, on the
basis OF their population, while it may
compel the merchant, the artisan, the
workman, the artist, the author, the
LAWYER. the physician, even the minister
of the Gospel. no one Of whom happens
to own real estate, invested personal
property, stocks or bonds, to contribute
directly from their respective earnings,
gains and profits, and under the rule oil
uniformity or equality, Tor the support OF
the government"
The dissenting opinion OF Justice Will
son is much the ablest opinion filed in
that celebrated income tax case, and Is
very exhaustive OF the whole subject, go.
ing back as it does to the time OF the
adoption OF the constitution, and taking
up and discussing each case as it arose
under that constitutional provision, re-
curing direct taxes to be apportioned
among the states, from the famous Car.
riage tax down to the case under consld'
Grafton, and shows conclusively that the
present decision of the court is reversal