The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1896-05-18
THE oD1oUs OCCUPATION TAX

The city attorney will today present
to the city council the draft of an or
dinance providing for the taxation OF
several occupations. The ordinance
proposed will really be in the nature Of
an amendment to an existing ordinance
taxing professions. trades. callings and
occupations carried on within the cor
porate limits OF this city, and will en-
brace some occupations not mentioned
in the present ordinance and raise the
tax on some of those that are.
Instead Of charging the scope of the
present ordinance taxing people for
prosecuting lawful occupations and ag-
gravating the outrages it inflicts by
increasing the sum of its exactions, the
city council should repealit.
Next to the poll tax, the tax on &C.
equations Is the most ubiquitous levied.
1t places a fine on industry and pre-
MUM on idleness. The idea of making
the payment of a tribute called Ii
cense tax, the condition precedent to
the carrying on of a legitimate and use
full calling, should be abhorent to all
intelligent and fair minded people. 1t
is in violation of economic sense and
an infringement on natural rights. En-
ertion in legitimate and useful fields of
human action should be encouraged,
not discouraged. Society is benefited
by producers, not idlers. and every per-
son who engages in a calling that salts
fies the wants or ministers to the COM
forts or proper pleasures of humanity
is producer A suggestion that the
prosecution Of the occupations covered
by the license tax ordinances present
and proposed, be prohibited. would be
received with derisive disapprobation,
yet to the degree that people are fined
through the medium of license tax
for carrying on these callings they are
prohibited. 1t is like charging people
for contributing in their way to the
wealth of the world. 1t is economic
idiocy, and the fact that it is common
to fine people for working aptly illus
trates the profound ignorance that eX-
lists in the minds of the masses regard
ing some fundamental society prin-
ciples.
The right to labor is natural right.
1t Is not the product of any govern
mental action. Governments do not
create rights. they create privileges,
termed rights. A government can justly
tax the exercise of a privilege which it
has created, but it cannot justly tax the
exercise of a right for the existence of
which II can claim no responsibility.
Governments of all kinds only equita-
bly, exist when they protect people in
the exercise of their rights, not when
they restrict or prohibit or burden peo-
pie in such exercise. A mans labor is
his own, and he has an inalienable
right to sell it in the most available form.
unhampered and untaXed. The right to
labor should never be put on the plane
of a privilege. Privileges should al
ways be taxed, rights never.
If there is really need for additional
funds to pay the expenses of the NUM-
cipal government. the council, of course.
should take steps to satisfy the need.
But to do so it is not necessary to tax
people for being employed. There are
plenty of valuable real estate holdings
and other privileges in this city that are
not experiencing the most equitable as
sessments that can be made.