The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1907-06-18

stirs the heart Of the native of india
is that England is sacriicing the PEG
pie of Indian to England. 1t has al
ways been true that the mother coun-
try sacrifices the colonies to the moth
er country, and we are not entirely
free from it ourselves, for we have sac
rificed the industries of the Philip
pines to the industries of the United
States. We have deprived them of
their markets, we have made them
subjects of this country, and we have
compelled them to depend upon our
laws, and then we have refused to
ests in our own country demanded first
consideration. In that phrase Patrick
Henry put his finger upon the evil
that runs through every colonial poll
cy. The people who make the laws
do not live under them.
l have sometimes in the north had
occasion to remind our republican
brethren that they were very inconsis
tent when they objected to the stuff
rage qualifications in the south and
yet would not allow the Filipinos to
be citizens, at ALL, and l have empha-
sized this very point. The black man
when he can not vote has this protec-
ton. that he ives under the law that
and that that is a protection, but we
make the Filipino live under a law
that we make for him, and that we
would not live under ourselves.
to emphasize today are expressed in
his Observation-Disclosures and repre-
~sentation. Taxation is the most per-
ma1ent question hat we have to deal
with. Other questions may come and
other questions may go, but taxation
like Tennyson's Book goes on and
on forever. We may dispute about the
amount we may discuss the method,
but there will always be taxation.
The owe to tax is the power to de-
stroy, I those who can exercise the
taxing power can exercise it to the
destruction of those whom they tax.
Now, we AVE two kinds of taxation,
direct taxation and indirect taxation.
taXation-why? Because a thing that
you can watch is moi as dangerous as
a thing which you can not watch. The
best definition of indirect taxation l
have ever read was given by a French
man. He aid that it's chief merit
was that by can of it you could
get the most feathers off a goose with
least squaking, n I have some times
thought that man had to nave some
of the qualities of the goose to be fond
is most liable to abuse because eX-
cesses are not so easily observed and
therefore, not so quickly corrected.
People bear much heavier burdens
when they are collected indirectly
than they would be willing to bear
if they were collected directly. Now
most of our taxes, nearly all for h
support of the federal government, are
collected on consumption and taxes
on consumption are the most inequita-
on consumption taxes the people ac-
cordi1g to what they need and not
according to what they have. Our
needs are more uniform than our pos
sessions, for God was the creator of
our needs and he was quite democra-
g - Ii~ - 49,.
We all need about the same of
food and we need about the same
amount of clothing. 1t takes the same
amount of fire to protect US from the
cold, we need the same shelter. When
you tax people according to con-
sumption you make the poor man pay
more than his share and the rich man
less than his share.
There are two forms of taxation
that are more equitable than taxes on
consumption. One is taxation in pro
portion to the property. If one man
has a home worth one thousand dol
lars, and another man has a business
block worth half a million, why should
they not pay in proportion to the pro-
perty they own? 1t is property that
needs the protection of the govern
Go into your courts, talk to
policeman, n you will find that
it is property not human life that
most needs protection. Human life
needs protection far less than proper
ty-then why not tax property, if pro-
perty is the chief object of the govern
care.
But there is a better form of tax
alton even than property taxation, it
is income taxation-which makes peo-
pie pay according to the income they
If a man has a farm and you
tax him according to the value of his
land he has to pay it, even if he has
no crop that rear to pay it with, but