The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-06-16
PLANKS FOR POLITICAL PLAT
FORMS.
CONTINUED from the Journal and Cour

| Art ~, Inc capital Tor the mantle
nance of government should be OBJ
tanned from custom house taxes on luxu-
ries and from direct taxes.
Explanation: The present system of
maintaining the general government is,
for the most part, by custom house tax
es on the necessaries Of life, under the
so-called protective tariff.
By this system, for every dollar that
goes into the government treasury
about nine go into private pockets. The
American people are willing to pay $1.00
to the government and 5000 for the
privilege Of not seeing it paid, or 100 for
| taxes and $500 for Self-deception. The
quality of the psychic fact involved is on
a par with that of the ostrich who
sticks it's head into the sand and there
fore concludes its whole body is con-
cealed-for is it not night in the sand?
1t is a commentary upon the intelli-
gence of the American people that they
cannot see through this scheme called
protection, that they are willing to pour
untold wealth into government favorits't
pockets If only the scheme will guaran
tee them against seeing the tythe that
leaks into governments till. The advo-
Gates of this indirect method declair that
| thereby foreigners are compelled, at the
custom houses, to pay the expenses Incl
dent to the support of American govern
| ment. If they are, then foreigners pos
| sess patient lot of pauper industries,
| for our Jeffersonian simplicity is costing
| them more and more each year and has
| now gotten to a billion dollars per con-
| gress and the paupers have not yet been
heard to complain. Whence the wealth
of foreign paupers that they can stand
such a strain? Why don't they appear
to care whether our government costs
ten dollars or billion dollars? If these
rich poor folks don't care which sum
they annually give to US, if it is practi-
cally nothing to them, why do we call
them paupers?
The simple truth of the matter is that
every dollar that the American govern
ment costs comes out of the American
people, and it would be of comparative
unimportance if the matter stopped
here, but it does not; on the contrary,
under the indirect system. government
costs the people ten times what it would
under any direct system of taxation, the
difference being made UP of nine parts
which are switched into private tills.
A sounder system, economically, would
be custom house tax on wines, liquors,
tobacco, silks, diamonds, jewelry, etc,
and direct taxes.
BY direct taxation, all men would see
the dollar go and know who paid it,
The people who pay the taxes and foot
the bills would jealousy watch and call
to strict account those who make the
appropriations and spend the money.
Great statesmen, who had schemes for
saving the country, would be asked by
their constituents how much will it
cost us and what do we get out of it?"
Such questions would be embarrassing
for a Pitt from the back country dis
trcts who proposed to vote for some
river and harbor bill and dredge out for |
ocean liners some harbor not in his dis
trict on river with couple of mill |
dams between the proposed Job and |
the sea.
Under a system of direct taxation, |
imagine statesman bringing forward |
and fathering bill that would increase |
the tax rate of his constituency, for en-
larging the existing pension list so as to |
include the sisters, cousins and aunts of |
not only the real old soldiers, who got |
badly hurt in the war forty years ago,
but the sisters, cousins and aunts of de-
serters, bushwhackers, camp-followers,
drafted men, and gentlemen who enlisted
in 1866 and never left their native towns.
Such a measure would be patriotic, low
ing and grateful, but, unless the states
men had very large soldier constituent
cy, 1t would be poor politics under
system of direct taxation and secret bal
lot. In the last year and half, four
hundred and twenty-five thousand men
have applied for pensions or for the en-
largement of existing pensions. The
soldiers saved the country and are enti-
tied to it.
Support of government by direct taxa
ton would make wholly toward econo-
my, would remove entirely the enormous
private tax burden, and would place a
reduced government tax burden where it
could be most easily borne.
Besides the existing and proposed
method of supporting government there
is third possibility known as the Sin
gle tax"
1t is interesting, more or less fascina-
ting, though not yet hoisted into practi-
cal politics.
There was a time when international
arbitra ton was in the hands of peace
societies, some of them engineered by
short haired women and long-haired
men. Mr.. Cleveland, the writer thinks
it was, who raised the subject into the
realm of practical politics. So the single
tax is yet in the academic, the class
room and lecture stage. Taxation, the
world over, is in the experimental stage;
and, outside of the single tax, absolutely
no theory, no all embracing generaliza- |
ton from the experimentation, occupies
the field. Anterior to COpernican as
tronomy one might well be a Ptolemaic,
rather than nothing. although the Pto-
lemaic system was wrong. The same
might be said Of the especial creation
hypothesis before evolution appeared
Men are often put to the choice between
4 possibly wrong theory or no theory at
all, and possibly wrong hypothesis if
oft times more endurable, professionally, |
than an idealess mix up like the worlds
AK systems.
Said an old professor, ''He who solves
the tax problem will do for society a
service beside which the solution of the | {
tariff question sinks into insignificance." /
The single takers profess to have done ,
this. They claim to offer a working !
theory not only for supporting general !