Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1897-02-25
THE PIVOTAL JUDGE.

One of the most interesting speeches
made in the House of Representatives at
the present Congressional session was that
on the income tax decision delivered the
other day by Mr.. DeArmond, of Missouri.
The question involved will not down. Re-
publicans as we'll as Democrats are free in
condemnation of the United States Supreme
Courts action. 1t is an established fact
that bat for this decision the Wilson tariff
would have afforded ample revenues and
avoided the existing Treasury deficiency.
No one dreamed when the law was passed
by Congress that it would be declared un-
constitutional, as the income tax had been
sustained for a hundred years as a legiti-
mate exercise of the legislative power. Mr..
DeArmond said in vindication of the law:-
"No more Just tax ever was devised by
the ingenuity of man than tax levied
upon incomes. What mole reasonable way,
what more sensible, what more just way, OF
raising tax money than by taking it in
reasonable amount from the full hand of
the man who has an income? 1t is adjusted
year after year, according to the ebb and the
flow of his affairs. When be is prosperous
he is taxed in a reasonable amount-justly,
not burdensomely-fo the support of the
Government. When harder times visit
him, and the taxable income does not add
to his stores, the tax gatherer passes him
by and goes to his more fortunate neighbor.
Yes the great thing in that tariff law, the
hoo sv,s hof 0nD ms and cd
it to many who would have been 10th to
support it otherwise, was the income tax
provision.
The Mr.. DeArmond took up the strange
method by which the law as declared un-
constitutional and made this statement
Eight Judges were present when the
matter first came before the Supreme
Court of the United States. They divided
equally upon the main question of consti-
! nationality. The ninth Justice was absent.
Those who took the one side and those who
took the other were we'll known. They
identified themselves. There was another
hearing when the ninth Judge was present,
so that the full bench then heard the case.
The ninth Judge Joined in with the four
who held the law to be constitutional and
10 and behold one of the four, without
ever vouchsafng an explanation, without
ever giving any reason, changed his mind
in such way as to lift from wealth tax
of from forty to sixty millions of dollars
annually and cast it as an additional burden
upon poverty and toll !"
Mr.. DeArmond ridiculed the notion that
there should be no criticism of the decision
He carefully gave judicial decision the re-
spect which lawyers are taught to yield
but there was nothing in this country SO
sacred as to be above and beyond the reach
of just criticism. Yet menacing danger
to our institutions, he said lies in the subtle
power and usurpations of the Judiciary.
And then he took up the point urged about
the right to change opinions which no one
denies, saying
Men have a right to change their opin-
ions great as well as little men often do so.
But when fifty or sixty million dollars of
annual revenue are in the scale-when a
trained lawyer and Judge, after full argu-
ment deliberately reaches conclusion and
then when, so far as we know, without
additional light, without additional good
reason to carry him the other way, he sud-
denly, when it becomes necessary, finds
himself upon the side of aggregated wealth
and power and monopoly and against the
mass of the producers of the land, with the
result that there is deficit in the Treasury
and that heavier burdens must be heaped
upon the peOple-why should there not be
some comment? What is there wrong in
| Al VJL- 81 he 81
l said in this house about one year ago, and
repeat, that when the history of that
Judge shall be made up, aud when all else
in his life shall have been forgotten. his
name will be kept from oblivion, not for
praise, but as that OF one by whose marvel
lous conversion great principle of taxation
was, for the time, overthrow, in land Of
free people under free institutions.