Daily Arizona silver belt., 1907-12-04

sition of tax. Laws imposing such taxes have repeatedly been placed upon the National statute books and as re- Yeatedly declared constitutional by the courts; and these laws contained the prog .cssive principle, that is, after a certain amount is reached the bequest or gift, in life or death, is increasingly f burdened and the rate of taxation is increased in proportion to the remote | ness of blood of the man receiving the bequest. These principles are recog | nized already in the leading civilized nations of the world In Great Britain | all the estates worth 5000 or less are practically exempt from death duties, while the increase is such that when | an estate exceeds five millions of dol | lars in value and passes to a distant | kinsman Or stranger in blood the Gov ernment receives all told an amount | equivalent to nearly fifth of the whole 1 estate. In France so much of an in- heritanee as exceeds $10,000,000 pays over a fifth to the State if it passes to distant relative. The German law is especially interesting to us because it makes the inheritance tax an imperial measure while alloting to the individual States of the Empire portion of the proceeds and permitting them to inn pose taxes in addition to those i'm posed by the Imperial Government. Small inheritances are exempt, but the tax is so sharply progressive that when the inheritance is still not very large, provided it is not an agricultural or a forest land, it is taxed at the rate of 25 per cent if it goes to distant rel atives. There is no reason why in the United States the National Government should not impose inheritance taxes in addition to those imposed by the States, and when we last had an in | heritanee tax about one-half of the States levied such taxes concurrently with the National Government, making combined maximum rate, in some cases as high as 25 per cent. The French law has one feature which is to be | highly commended. The progressive principle is so applied that each higher rate is imposed only on the excess above the ambount subject to the next lower rate so that each increase of rate will apply only to certain amount above a certain maximum. The tax should if possible be made to bear more heavily upon those residing without the | gressive tax upon very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or | industry as like tax would be upon a small fortune. No advantage comes either to the country as whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax; and l raising, such a tax would help to pre- serve a measurable equality of oppor- tunity for the people of the generations growing to manhood. We have not the slightest sympathy with that social istie idea which would try to put lag mess, thriftlessness and inefiiciency on par with industry, thrift and efiieien- cy, which would strive to break up not merely private property, but what is far more important, the home, the chief prop upon which our whole civil ization stands. Such theory, if ever adopted, would mean the ruin of the | entire country-a ruin which would bear heaviest upon the weakest, upon those least able to shift for themselves
 But proposals for the legislation such as this herein advocated are directly opposed to this class of soeialistie the ories. Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: The fact that there are some respects in which men are obviously not equal; but also to insist that there should be an equality of self respect and of mutual respect, an equality of rights before the law, and at least an approximate equality in the conditions under which each man obtains the chance to show the stuff that is in him when compared to his fellows.
 Enforcement of the Law
 A few years ago there was loud com plaint that the law could not be i'm voked against wealthy offenders. There is no such complaint now. The course of the Department of Justice during the last few years has been such as to make it evident that no man stands above the law, that no corporation is so wealthy that it can not be held to account. The Department of Justice has been as prompt to proceed against the wealthiest malefactor whose crime was one of greed and cunning as to proceed against the agitator who incites to brutal violence. Everything that | tdH Ot uOut Lnt tAlStlUG ldM. and with the existing state of public opinion, which so profoundly influences both the courts and luries, has been done. But the laws themselves need strengthening in more than one impor
 tant point; they should be made more definite, so that no honest man can be led unwittingly to break them, and so that the real wrongdoer can be readily punished
 Moreover, there must be the public opinion back of the laws or the laws themselves will be of no avail. At present, while the average juryman un- doubtedly wishes to see trusts broken up, and is quite ready to fine the cor poration itself, he is very reluctant to find the facts proven beyond reason able doubt when it comes to sending to jail member of the business commun- ity for indulging in practices which are profoundly unhealthy, but which, unfortunately, the business community has grown to recognize as well-nigh normal. Both the present condition of the law and the present temper of iuries render it task of extreme diff ficulty to get at the real wrongdoer in any such case, especially by imprison- ment. Yet it IS from every standpoint far preferable to punish the prime of fender by imprisonment rather than to fine the corporation, with the attendant damage to stockholders.
 The two great evils in the exc cution of our criminal laws to-day are sentimentality and technicality. For the latter the remedy must come from the hands of the legislatures, the courts, and the lawyers. The other must de- pend for its cure upon the gradual