The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1906-04-19
Tax the Big Fortunes.


grapple with the problems connected
with the amassing of enormous for
tunes, and the use of those fortunes,
both corporate and individual, in
business. We should discriminate in
the sharpest way between fortunes
we'll won and fortunes i'll won; be-
tween those gained as an incident to
performing great services to the CON-
munity as a whole, and those gained
insevil fashion by keeping just within
the limits of mere law honesty. OF
course no amount of charity in spend
ing such fortunes in any way compen-
safes for misconduct in making them.
AS a matter of personal conviction,
and without pretending to discuss the
details or formulate the system, I feel
that we shall ultimately have to con-
slider the adoption of some such
scheme as that of a progressive tax
on all fortunes, beyond certain
amount, either given in life or devised
or bequeathed upon death to any in
dividual-a tax SO framed as to put it
out of the power of the owner of one of
these enormous fortunes to hand on
more than a certain amount to any
one individual; the tax, of course, to
be imposed by the national and not
the state government. Such taxation
should, of course, be aimed merely
at the Inheritance or transmission in
their entirety Of those fortunes swollen
beyond all healthy limits.
"Thou Shalt Not stealv'
The eight commandment reads,
''Thou shalt not steal' It does not
read, Thou shalt not steal from the
rich man." 1t does not read, ''Thou
shalt not steal from the poor man"
1t reads simply and plainly, "Thou
shalt not steal" No good whatever
will come from that warped and mock
morality which denounces the mis-
deeds of men of wealth and forgets
the misdeeds practiced at their ex-
pense; which denounces bribery, but
blinds itself to blackmail; which
foams with rage if a corporation Sc
cures favors by improper methods,
and merely leers with hideous mirth
if the corporation is itself wronged.
The only public servant who can be
trusted honestly to protect the rights
of the public against the misdeed of a
corporation is that public man who
will just as surely protect the corpor-
alton itself from wronged aggression.
Ii public man is willing to yield to
popular clamor and do wrong to the
men of wealth or to rich corporations,
it may be set down as certain that if
the opportunity comes he will secretly
and furtively do wrong to the public
in the interest of corporation.
But, in addition to honesty, we want
sanity. No honesty will make a pub
lie man useful if that man is timid or
foolish, if he is hot-headed zealot
or an impracticable visionary. AS
we strive for reform we find that it is
not at all merely the case of a long
uphill pull. On the contrary, there is
almost as much of breeching work as
OF collar work; to depend only on
traces means that there will soon be a
runaway and an upset. The men of
wealth who today are trying to pre-
vent the regulation and control of
their business in the interest of the
public by the proper government
authorities will not succeed, in NV
judgment, in checking the progress of
the movement But if they did sue
coed they would find that they had
sown the wind and would surely reap
the whirlwind, for they would ulti-
mately provoke the violent excuses
which accompany reform coming by
convulsion instead of by steady and
natural growth.