Mexico weekly ledger., 1896-07-23
Mr.. Clark and the Supreme Court.

was very much grfeVed triday night
after Hon. Champ CIark's speech be-
cause the speaker criticised the SUI
preme Court of the United States for
reversing. itself on the income tax law.
Said the critic: "It comes in poor
grace from Champ Clark to attack the
Supreme Court, which is the safe
guard of this country, and without
which our very liberty would be in
peril"
1t is true that Mr.. CLARK very severe
Iy criticised the justice who pro-
nounced the income tax law constitu-
tional and then three weeks later re-
versed himself and by SO doing killed
the law and saved the rich people of
this country from paying their just
proportion of taxes on their accumu-
lated wealth.
Maybe it was presumptuous in Mr..
Clark to criticise SO high a tribunal.
But fortunately Mr.. Clark is not
alone in calling attention to the short
comings of the court.
The Journal desires to introduce a
gentleman whose right to criticise
will not be questioned. He is a mem
Der of the court. Justice Harlin, re-
ferring to the income tax decision,
said:
"In my judgment this decision
strikes at the very foundation of ma
tional authority, in that it denies to
the general government a power
which is, or may be at some time, i'm
p~eratively needed, in a great emer-
gencey cas- of a The
practical if not the direct effect of the
decision to-day is to give to certain
kinds of property a position of favor
itism and advantage that is i%nconsist-
emit with the fundamental principles
of our social organization, and to in
vest them with power and influence
that is perilous to that portion of the
people upon which rests the larger
part of the burdens of the 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."
And then another member of the
court, Justice Brown, said:
"The decision involves nothing less
than the surrender of the taxing pow
er to the moneyed class. While l
have no doubt that Congress will find
some means of surmounting the pres
emit crisis, my fear is that in some
moment of national peril this decision
will rise up to Illustrate its will and
~paralyze its arm I hope it may not
prove the first step toward the sub
mergence of the liberties of the peo-
pie in a sordid despotism of wealth."
Justice White, also a member of the
court, discussing the decision, said:
"The injustice of the conclusion
points to the error of adopting it. 1t
takes the invested wealth and reads it
into the constitution as a favored and
protected class of property, whilst it
leaves the occupation of the minister,
the doctor, the professor, the lawyer,
the inventor, the author, the merchant
and all the various forms of human
activity upon which the prosperity of
a people must depend, subject to tax
alton without apportionment."
Justice Jackson said that he con-
CURED fully in the opinion expressed
by Justice White, and declared that
'sthe decision reverses the common
rule of taxation, by exempting those
who are best able to pay, and forcing
the burden upon the shoulders of
those who are less able to pay" In
concluding, Justice Jackson said that,
in his opinion, the decision was a most
disastrous blow ever struck at the
constitutional power of Congress. II
stuck down an important, vital and
essential power of the government. 1t
left the government, in case of neces-
sity, without power to reach by taxa
ton in any form the vast incomes
derived from the real and personal
property of the country"
After reading and weighing these
criticisms from members of the court
who dissented from the decision of the
less realize that Mr.. Clark had good
ground for using the language he did
in his speech Friday night.