The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1898-07-02
TWAS EYER THUS.

From the earliest history OF taxation
to the present. the burden OF main
tanning government has fallen heavi-
est upon those least able to pay and
having the fewest favors to ask from
the state, and it will probably ever be
so,especially when revenues are created
by indirect taxation. The first revenue
bill passed by the United States was
tax on the poor while to great ex-
tent avoided the rich, and the last one,
just passed by congress few days
since, known as the ''war revenue
law" contains this objectionable
feature of indirect taxation. Louis f.
Post, in recent comment on the bill,
gives the following clear criticism of
it's workings:
The war revenue bill, which has
now become law, is what we expect
ed it would be-a bill to pay for the
war by borrowing from the rich and
confiscating from the poor.
The details of the hill marshal them.
selves III IWO Srdhu oiEioioho, "hiSh
may be briefly entitled "taxes" and
ssbonds." The bonds are for the rich
TO invest in; the taxes are for the poor
to pay. True, the bonds are offered in
small amounts as popular" loan,
which is supposed to redeem them
from the charge of being altogether
for the Ibenefit of the rich. But it is
we'll known that the masses OF the
poor-the working class which lives
by daily labor-cannot investin bonds.
They cannot invest in anything, be-
ing already so plundered through
monopoly laws that they have little or
no surplus. And the middle class are
not much better off. After-awhile,
therefore, we are likely to be told that
popular loans" are unpopular, and to
see the bulk of the bonds turned over
to banks and mill1onaires in accord
ance with the original and unadulter-
ated intention. AS regards the tax
feature of the bill, the true purpose OF
that, too, is thinly yelled, there is
pretense that the taxes are to be paid
by the rich.
But all these taxes that amount to
anything worth consideration are in
direct. They are imposed, for ex-
ample, ,on cigar manufacturers,to to be col
lected of smokers in higher price or
poorer quality-the cheaper the cigar
the higher the tax in proportion to its
price. They are imposed upon the
manufacturers and importers OF stim-
ulants, to be collected of the users-at
high rate dyalorem upon the poor
man. beverage, and low one upon
the rich mans. Thus the great bulk
of the taxation imposed is to come
from the poor.
AS the bill was framed originally in
the lower house, the proportion of the
tax burdens imposed upon the con-
sumption of the class that lives by
daily labor was, according to the esti-
mate of Thomas G. Shearman, the
we'll known lawyer and statistician, as
high as go per cent. Thirty per cent
was apportioned to the laboring class
of small means, and only 10 per cent
to the rich. 1t is not likely that this
distribution has been changed for the
benefit of the poor. The probability
is that if there has been any material
change in that respect, it will be found
to have increased rather than dimin-
ished the share which the poor are to
be assessed for supporting the war.
We know that those classes who love
money above all things in the heavens
above or the earth beneath or the
waters under the earth, do not like to
have it said especially in the hearing
of the slower classes" who might be
excited thereby, that tax laws are SO
adjusted as to make the poor pay the
taxes while appearing not to, and to
enable the rich while appearing to
pay them in reality to escape; but of
this war revenue bill that is incon-
testably true. 1t is bill, we repeat,
to pay for the war by borrowing from
the rich and confiscating from the |