The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-12

the public evil will disappear Therefore. the remedy by taxation will be effectual for the protection of the people if it Is limited to corporations.
 Such combinations among natural per- sons are treated as partnerships by the courts. under the principles of the com mon law. and they are too risky for the personal ventures of large capitalists.
 A monopoly in any branch of trade or industry is a tax upon business that con sumers and laborers must pay, and it is imposed without just right and often In direct contempt of law. So that the gem eral welfare is protected by any laws that can reach the monopoles, and espe- cially by tax laws. which are designed to support and protect the general well fare under the constitution.
 The general welfare demands the tax alton of corporations rather than to add to their special privileges by exempting them from just share in the burdens of government. and this principle Is ac- knowledged in many state and federal laws.
 Outside the limits of express restric- tions there is no power of government that is so supreme and far-reaching as the power to levy taxes.
 There is a rightful discretion in the ex- ercise of fthe power of taxation under the constitution that is a necessary ele- ment of such power, and it relates to the general welfare, as special function of the laws of taxation, confined to their protection.
 This Is especially exempiifled in the tax atlon of opium and intoxicating liquors, which are taxed for the purpore of re. precision. as articles of commerce, and also for the preservation of peace and public morals.
 It is, also, a wholesale exercise of re- tributive justice, that corporations creat- ed by law, should be taxed to the full ex- tent that they tax the people by the abuse of the powers given them through the creation of monopolies and trusts of which they are the principal incuba- tors.
 The plan I would suggest in addition to the Sherman law, is 8 graduated tax on all business corporations, with an ex- emption, in whole or in part, as to such as can establish to the satisfaction of the government that they are not engaged in any agreements or combinations that are intended to control the prices or the cost of transportation, of commodities that are of the description that enter into do- nestle or foreign commerce.
 The power thus exercised is simply the taxing power and is not necessarily con nected with the power of congress to reg ulate commerce between the states or with foreign countries.
 It is the application of the principles of taxation that are well settled to corpora tions that have made agreements that violate the purposes for which they were created, to the injury of competitive trade and the general welfare.
 The formulation of such tax law can- not be a difficult task to those who are qualified for such work and 1t Is not necessary for me to submit a draft of such an act to illustrate the simple propo- sitions on which I rest the power of con- gress or of the states, to protect the country against the usurpation of power by combined capital and credit that now threatens to engulf all industries. domes- tic and foreign. in one enormous concen- tration in few hands of the alleged powers of corporations.
 They cannot be supreme over the sov- ereign authority from which they derive their existence, and the governments of the states and that of the United States will become the vain mimicry of civil rule if they cannot put "a hook in the nose of Behemoth" and subdue it's destructive energies.