Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1905-07-15

| Is getting. 1t has poisoned the blood |
that courses through the veins of the
nation until we are compelled to ad- |
NIT the painful fact that take us all as |
whole, by and large. as Mark Twain |
would say, we are about as rotten an |
outht as ever came down the turnpike. |
Can we wonder, after seeing the "le-
climate" ways of making money and
Keeping it, that highwaymen hold peo-
pie up; that burglars break through
and steal; that men rob trains; that
pickpockets ply their trade; that shop
filters steal goods?
What is the remedy? All, but that
is hard to determine, but in the hum
bic judgment of the writer we who
haven't any money to speak of; those
of us who are charged with the duty
of correcting the morals of our fellows,
and in that class are included newspa-
per and magazine writer's, clergymen
of all denominations and the teachers
of the youth of the land should start a
crusade that would be so searching in
it's character that the liars, the per-
ljurers, the tax-dodgers would be COM
PEELED to stand under the limelight of
the most searching criticism. While
there is the utmost freedom of public
ity right now, the press does not take
advantage of it. The names of men
known to have money in bank ought
to be published together with their
lsworn statements of valuation, and if
it is ascertained that they have lied,
prosecute them to the extent of the
law. The ban of ostracism ought to
be imposed by decent people, and the
guilty ones forever barred from min
Cling with the decent element that
makes up society; not the society that
gets it's name in the Sunday papers,
but the great mass of God-fearing
God-loving men and women who con-
stitute the leaven that will one day
make us better as a whole.
~ ~
The great powers of government
should be invoked to aid in the purifi-
cation. The writer has always believed
that it was a grave mistake that for
babe the imposition of a graduated in
come tax. That measure ought to be
adopted yet, and as the Supreme court
! of the United States decided by a mar
row margin it was unconstitutional to
levy it, the constitution should be so
amended as to permit it. That would
mean the exact and equal taxation of
men who should pay and with one kind
of income tax the prohibition of a!c-
emulation of such vast fortunes as
have been collected by such men as
Rockefeller, Rogers, Clark and others.
Because to levy an income tax right
fully means 10 connscate everything
above a certain figure for the benefit
of the common good Nor would it be
so awfully hard as some might think.
A certain railroad was granted char
ter by the great state of Pennsylvania
at one time, one provision of which
was that when the net income reached
certain figure, all over and above
: should go into the treasury of the
state. That railroad has never paid
the state a cent, although its stock is
today quoted higher than any railroad
stock in America, with possibly one
exception. 1t utilized the excess in
. betterments. 1t first replaced its
, wooden bridges with iron and those in
turn with stone. 1t took up its ordi-
| nary heavy steel and relaid a special
rail manufactured for its exclusive use.
1t improved it's service and its equip
, ment in every line. 1t always paid
wages a little better than its competi-
tors and hired more men. The money
, II oarnad pOt hack into the hands OF