The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-04-14
QUAKERS STRIKE BACK
NOW CHARGE DE PAW WITH
CHEATING IN INCOME TAX DEBATE.
Few HETEROGENEOUS for the Meth
odist Students--Major DOxey Re-
turns Home ON Clutches.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.

Special to the indianapolis Journal.
RICHMOND, Ind, April 13-The dispatch
from Greencaste in this mornings Journal
created surprise and indignation at Earl
ham College, as welt as in the city where
much pride is taken III the victory won by
the Earlham debating team over De PAW.
The Journal correspondent to-day secured
the following statement from the Earlham
debating team in reply to the charges made
by De PAW:
THE statement in this mornings Indian
apoiis Journal concerning the late debate
with De PAW came with surprise, consider
ing the circumstances surrounding the case.
The quotation assigned by the article to our
third speaker, Mr.. Widup is correct, and it
was quoted by him i'll the debate as coming
from Prof. Ely After the debate, the
article states. the De PAW debaters chal-
was on our typewriter notes as quoted,
and we hardly thought il could be mis-
take. We however. promised to investigate
on our return home. acknowledging the
possibility of a mistake. and not ''reiter-
ating, as the article states, that we had
made no mistake in our citation On our
were on the point of replying when this
mornings paper reached us. De PauW
should have awaited the answer which We
promised to send them before their uncalled
Tor ana untrue statement in the dis
patch under discussion. We found on in
yestigation that Prof. Ely did not make
statement is not as the De PAW article
states, false in every respect The state
ment Is taken verbatim from Lalors en-
cyclopedia Of political science and political
economy, 1893, Page 1856, of Vol. II, in an
article on the income tax by Worthington
g. Ford Mr.. Ford is chief of the United
States Bureau of Statistics, Treasury De-
partment, and we hope this is sufficient au-
thority to prove that our citation is not
false in every respect as De Paw would
endeavor to make out.
The mistake in crediting the quotation
10 Prof; Ely instead of Mr.. Ford is one that
concerning the truth in the matter, which
he can hardly obtain from De Pauws rep
resentation. All of our notes were tran
scr1bed Just before the De PAW debate, and
we find that in transcribing these notes the
typewriter made a mistake in the creditng.
IL IS our mistake only in not reading the
proof carefully This explains the entire
molehill of which our opponents have in the
hour of defeat sought to make a mountain.
we wish however, to emphatcally deny that
lhis question was the pivotal point of the
debate, and would have turned the tide had
this mistake not occurred. By their own
statements after the contest the debate was
lost to them before our third speaker APP
peared. Again this point was not advanced
as any part of our own argument, but mere
ly as a rebuttal to their assertion that there
is no political economist who denies the
practcability of the income tax. Our argu-
ment would not have been weaker if we
had cited Ford instead of Ely, and the de-
cision would have remained unchanged.
Since De Paw has taken such particular
pains 10 unJuStly crltlclSe q mistake Wnlch
we promised, before leaving them, to rec
tify, if found to exist. we shall ask few
questions concerning their authority. First,
they cannot substantiate their assertion that
there is no political economist who denies
the practicability of the income tax. Sec
ond they cannot produce any authoritative
statement made by Secretary Gage in which
he announced that there will be a deficit in
our treasury for the remainder of this year
and for the year 1899. Third, they cannot
cite any page table in the census of 1890
containing the contents of the chart which
they produced purporting to prove the bur-
den of taxation at present rests upon the
poorer classes: which chart was labeled
Census of $780,
I'VE should have overlooked these asser-
lions they advanced in their own argument
had not this controversy come up, but we
would like to have them practice what they
preach. We submit that if we had been
unscrupulous enough to misrepresent Prof
Ely Intentionally that would have also
been shrewd enough not to have allowed DE
PAW to obtain our manuscript with which
to directly condemn us. We do not intend to
continue any further than this in any news
paper column controversy We have simply
stated the truth, and shall here rest our
case. EARLHAM DEBATING TEAM"