The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-12-02
PENSACOLA wEDNEs DAY DECEMBER 1908
The Cry for
Low Taxes.

Low Taxes.
Low taxes are not conducive to pub
Tic prosperity. People high taxed are
generally well and profitably employ
Tallahassee True Democrat.
Now some people might take Issue
with the above proposition, and some
might even take it as a personal
grievance and say that the editor had
no business to be expressing such
sentiments and encouraging the de-
spotic powers above us 20 give the
screw one more twist TO squeeze fur
her tribute out of us.
AS the aforesaid despotic powers
ire creatures of our own creating ald
Geir earnest and constant desire Is
10 recommend themselves for contin-
sed lease OF Office at the hands of their
It once dismiss this latter view of the
Ease and be very glad that no taxes
Except those just and necessary viii
be imposed upon us.
But is it not a fact that low taxes
90 not conduce to public pros
1A4t- anu thoN A161 taACa pCVPAC a. 2
generally we'll and profitably employ
ed? II you VIII so through the vari-
pus states of the union, gentle reader,
and note the communities lin which
there is the highest degree of pros
pegity and tie greatest Industrial
Variably the case that high taxes are
IN indispensable condition precedent
10 that state of affairs. And the peo-
pie are willing in such instances, be-
cause they understand that without
such taxation the causes which pro-
duce the high level of their pros
perity would not be operative.
High taxation legitimately imposed,
with the graft and Doodle element
eliminated. is both the result and the
cause of conditions which imply q
busy, intelligent and progressive peo-
pie in towns and country alike. wnere
all are hopeful and where improve
ment and development are the char
acteristics along every line of activity.
We cannot have a good article OF
goods without paying a good price,
but we can get the shoddy article any
time for half price or less. Just so
In government, which is a complex
and costly machine, whose influence
Is entering more and more into our
daily activities as population grows
more dense and our human necessi-
ties are correspondingly increased.
We may talk about Jeffersonian
simplicity as much as we please, but
until some cataclysm destroys about
three-fourths of our people and the
pressure of living has been diminish
ed in like ratio. we will see no more
of that kind of simplicity. And the
community or state which seeks to
restore the Jeffersonian age of the re-
public by insisting on the tax rate of
that day to pay the price of govern
ment many times more costly (and
necessarily sol, simply condemns itself
to stagnation. sloth and ignorance.
We can hold our public servants to
rigid accountability in imposing, col.
aecting and disbursing our taxes, but
We can no more grow great and rich
and prosperous as a people by eter-
nslly chanting our poverty and rails
ng the spiritless pauper cry of low
axes than the little fellow of short
vision in the marts OF trade can double
sis wealth and compete with the
broader minds around him by pursu-
ing the picayune methods of his an
.estors who exchanged goods for pelts
md had scant competition to meet.
The breech-cloufei Indian in the
primeval forest paid no taxes at all,
and that is the ideal condition which
some of the tax-kickers would have
now. but we can't have modern civil
ization without paying the price and
we can't feed all these scores of mil.
lions of mouths. and clothe all these
scores of millions of bodies and edu- |
cate all these scores of millions OF |
minds and find work for all these |
scores of millions of hands IL highly |
organized state of society without sub |
hitting to taxes corresponding to the |
necessities of sucn a state while we
also reap the advantages resulting |
from it,.
Low taxes means a cheap people and |
cheap people are always poor and |
getting poorer. ---,s