The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907, 1903-10-22
Money and the Taxing Power
By W. II. ASHBY.

tain one fosm of coin" inscribed
therein; and when desired would be
changed to portable "coin" stamped
upon slips of paper for use at some
other place, and vice versa. Every
certificate of either kind would cer-
tify truly the quantity of value re-
ceived for it by the government, in
stead of certifying the lie stamped
upon every gold coin, for which gov
eminent receives nothing.
All the surplus OF taxable products,
received thus by the government, afs
ter supplying its own and the peoples
needs, would be exported and ex-
changed by the government itself for
foreign products, required to supply
the needs of the government or the
people. Government would thus be
occupied in securing the welfare of
the people instead of depressing them;
and administering to their comfort in
stead of sending them to die in for
eign wars.
All the gold in the country would
be gathered into the treasury and ex-
changed for the usury-bearing obliga-
lions Of the government, so that US
ury might cease in the land. No more
receipts, certifying the receipt of adj
vance payment of future taxes, would
be stamped upon the gold owners
gold, for nothing in return, as now.
The disheartening spectacle, now
witnessed in this country, where the
producers and distributors of all the
useful commodities bear the burden
of paying all taxes for maintaining the
government, while that government
deprives all their products of power
tc pay the taxes imposed, in order
that the gold owners gold may be
given profitable employment, by
means of statutory monopoly of that
service, would no longer offend the
eye and sicken the heart.
1t seems incredible that people APP
Tarently intelligent, would submit
through long periods Of time to such
manifest injustice and wrong. Moth
ing but rooted superstition concern
ing gold, that paralyzes completely
the reasoning faculty can account for
It.
The government of this country
gathers it's revenues in gold coin, or
some equivalent substitute, and re-
fuses to permit payment of taxes in
anything else, not because it can make
any use of the gold in the operations
it carries on, but because it is able to
exchange it, like any other commod-
ity, for the services and materials its
needs require. Why not receive at
first hands from the people who pro-
duce them, those useful and needful
things in payment of taxes, instead of
giving by statute a monopoly of the
power to pay taxes to gold, commod-
ity otherwise nearly useless?
Could the people, whose industry
deal as they should, directly with the
government, and pay their share of
the burden in the things they produce
and possess, and which the govern
ment needs, and not in q. thing they
cannot produce, but must buy, and
which government does not need, the
people would no longer be driven, as
at present, to the feet of the gold
trust and compelled to sacrifice there,
upon the altar of greed, the useful
PRODUCTS of their toll for miserable,
useless piece of metal, which by bar
barous and Ubiquitous statutes has
been made the needless go-between in
the payment of tax levies and judg
ments.
When followed out in detail, the
government needs nothing for its
operations but men, skilled in various
kinds of service, and suitable mater
ials upon which to exercise that skill.
These are the possession of the peo-
ple and the government may reach
them by direct action of the taxing
power, without the ruinons interven-
| ton of useless gold, by which the ppo-
| pie are robbed for the profit of the
gold owners. for whose benefit the
present inhuman system was devised.
| Continued Next Weekly
The sanity minister who officiates