The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-02-23
LHX METHODS OF TAXATION
THAT IMPOSE UNEQUAL BURDENS ON
THE POOR OF THE LAND,
And Enable the Rich 10 Escape Pay
Expenses of Government.

| represented. Among the distinguished
| guests of the Union League Club present
| at the meeting were DR.. John II. Finley,
! president of Knox Colleges Gen. John NJ.
! Palmer, Major General John r. Brooke,
former Governor Richard ]. Oglesby and
Charles Emory Smith. of Philadelphia. The
! Apollo Club. of four hundred voices fur
nished the music for the programme. Ex-
President Harrison took for his subject
obligations of Wealth., He said:
! Monuments and birthday anniversaries
should be commemorative of virtues that
| are stu imitable Scientists have repro
| duced some of the gigantic animals and rep
| tiles of the worlds early history. We look
! at them With fear and wonder and con-
| graduate ourselves that they are extinct
| types We have no needs that they could
| supply, and they no shapes habits that
IN our environments nor we in theirs So
there nave been among men monsters of
them, but we are glad they lived in another
! epoch The almanac maker notes their
| birthdays, but there are no assemblages of
| the people If monuments have been bulded
| to them they are liable to be overturned
/ When the dynasty changes, or the commune
| supplants the state.
hearts that we would recall them if we
could. We feel the need of them No
chdnge or dynastles, no outbreak of the
mon; threatens their monuments One can
hardly conceive of any civil revolution or
| any r1otous outbreak in our country that
| would not respect the monuments of Wash
| 1ngton and of Lincoln. While they lived
| they were at times hated by men and by
communities; but when the full stories of
| thelf lives We're unfOlded, when motives and
| purposes were explored, when the unsefish
| natures OF the men were understood, when
| the universal benef1cence of their public
| services was seen, all their countrymen rem
| dered them homage
We assemble on this anniversary of the
| birth of Washington, not so much il at all
! 10 bring tribute to him as to learn at his
! teet the lessons of a conscientious citizen
snip The imitable qualities of Washing
tons character and life; those that did not
exhaust themselves on a locality a
period; that are instructive not only TO
military commanders and chief magistrates
! put to the unofficial citizen; the lessons that
| he taught for quiet days when no drum beat
calls to duty-these are the qualities and
lessons that should engage our thoughts
| to-day. Washington was a man who ac-
knowledged his debt to his country and
| overpaid 1t. His thought was how much
not how little, he could give and do.
If we are not hypocrites we will endeavor
| to initiate the qualities that we profess to
! generations than his own. His sagacous
| vision and his anxious thought searched the
| lCng Nistas of the future. He realized that
unless a strong ana enduring union of the
! States was established, based upon prin-
! ciples Of justice and an equality of right
his arduous campaigns and his solicttous
| ana iaborious civil administrations would
! nave no adequate results. He realized that
| love or country might grow cold, and sell
1 I'tSliHeSS SupDldDJ SdCfl0c6, when commerce
ana wealth and personal and local interests
| should, In the unheroic days of peace and
aff1uence, become dominant influences in our
/ national life.
In choosing for my theme 'gThe Obliga-
| tons of Wealth | am not wrestling this an
| niversary from its legitimate use We do
/ not need to forget-indeed we cannot forget
| washington when we reflect upon our obli-
| cations to the State. His life teaches no
lesson more strongly than that the citizen is
/ under obligations to serve the State; never
| to shirk his full share of burden and sac
| ritlce. but rather to do more.
| Wealth is comparative therm; and my
| address is not for that very limited body
| OF multimillionaires called by the Populist
| orators plutocrats.' smaller audience
| chamber would have sufficed for them
and perhaps the orator should have been
| of the guild. j want to speak of the obli-
cations of the ''well-to-do" people, the fore
handed, prosperous men and women of our
communities whether their estates are
reckoned by thousands or by millions
A TIME OF AGITATION.
We live In time of great agitation. of
war of clashing thoughts and interests
| There is a feeling that some men are hand
| icapped; that the race is sold; that the old
and much Wanted equality of opportunity
and of right has been submerged More
/ bitter and threatening things are
| being said and written against accumulated
property and corporate power than ever
| before. 1t is said that, more and more
| small men, small stores and small factories
are being thrown upon the shore as finan-
! cal drift; that the pursuit. of cheapness
| has reached a stage where only enormous
| combinations of capital, doing an enormous
| business, are sure of returns. The demand
| Tor cneapneSS has eOmpacted capital and
| consolidated small enterprises 1t has been
/ found that many items of expense do not
! Increase prQpOrtiOnately with an increased
| output; that the economies of a vast bus
| mess are themselves a basis for dividend !;
| that the fugitive lint reclaimed from the
10 hxv-n nfI fhg Of 1.l@,
| tlme-make a showing on the ledger. The
| pay roll is so long that the manager and
| the mill worker are further apart than ever
| before. There is no personal touch. The
| workmen pour through the mill gate in the
| morning much as the water pours through
| the lifted head gates. Contact is lost be-
| tween the owner the president, the board
! of directors and the men who work. Cues
! tions of economies and of dividends are dis
cussed in the board of directors meeting
! the question of wages in the labor assem-
! bly,. There is little comparison The men
! do not come together. The one side does
| not hear the other.
! The competition between well-paid labor
/ and cheap labor, thai so long ragged between
! this country and Europe has taken on a
| new phase. Massachusetts is complaining
of the long hours and cheap labor of North
Carolina and Georgia. The solicitous legis-
| lation of Massachusetts for the health and
| welfare of her laboring population. mani
| Testing itself in limited hours of labor, in
| the prohibition of child labor and such
things, seem to have put the Massachusetts
4 mill owner al a disadvantage III the compe-
| tition with mills in States that do not i'm
| pose such restrictions. The great steel mill
| with its own railroad to the lakes. its great
| steamers and barges. its mines of ore and
! of coal with the NEST improved and costly
/ labor-saVing machinery, is rendering the
| survival Of the smaller and less perfectly
| equipped mills doubtful. if not impossible.
! The profits of the mine owner. of the trans
| portation- company, and of the mill have
| been consolidated.
The seams which mar the face Of the So
! cal landscape seem to be widening into
chasms, and if these CULTS are TO be filled
! We must establish dumps on both sides of
| them. 1t will aid the work If those on eth
| er side use the bridges to get a view OF ii
frcm the other side. Wealth should neither
be the object of enmty nor the basis
| of our consideration. The indiscriminate
denunciation of the rich is mschievous. 1t
| perverts the mind. pOisons the heart and
| furnishes an excuse to crime. No poor man
| was ever made richer or happier by ii. 1t
| is quite as illogical to despise Il man be-
cause he is rich as because he is poor. Not
what IL man has. but what he is, settles
his class We cannot right matters by TAX
ing from one what he has honestly ac-
| CURED to beStOw upon another what he
| has not earned. You do not injure any
| man il. in the competition of life, by fair
| methods. by greater skill or thrift. YOU 60
to the front There Is nothing more whole
some more helpful TO the striving than the
| jlustra ton which every community affords
Cf the triumph of pluck and thrift over
hard and discouraging conditions me