Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1909-07-16
The Happy Medium.

In an editorial in this weeks Out
look Theodore Roosevelt prays that he
may, have neither poverty nor riches,
and he also strongly urges an inheri-
tance tax which should bear heavier on
non-producing descendants and eXpa-
triates. although how this scale may
be legally maintained he does not say.
His article is as follows:
In one of Lowell's biting satires he
holds up TO special scorn the SNUG,
constituencies creature who refuses to
consider the morality of any question
of social ethics by remarking that
they didn't know everything down i'll
JUDGE 1t is to be wished that some
of those who preach and practice a
gospel of mere materialism and greed, ).
and who speak as if the heaping up of
wealth by the community or by the
individual was in itself the be-all and
end-all of life. would learn from the
most widely read and oldest of books
that true wisdom which teaches that il
is well to have neither great poverty
nor great riches. Worst of all is it to
have great poverty and great riches
side by side in constant contrast. New
ertheless, even this contrast can be ac.
cepted if men are convinced that the
riches are accumulated as the result
of great service rendered to the people
as a whole. and if their use is regula-
in % w
munity.
The movement which has become
so strong during the past few years
TO secure on behalf of the nation both
an adequate supervision of and an eff
fective taxation of vast fortunes. so
is healthy movement. 1t aims to re-
place sullen discomfort. restless pes
| simism, and evil preparation for revo-
| luton. by an aggressive, healthy de.
termination TO get to the bottom of our
| troubles and remedy them. To halt in
the movement, as those blinded men
wish who care only for the immediate
relief from all obstacles which would
| thwart their getting what is not theirs.
would work widereaching damage.
Such halt would turn away the en-
ergies of the energetic and forceful
men who desire to reform matters,
| from legitimate object, into the chan
mel of bitter and destructive agitation.
| The reader of Prince Kropotkin' s
| Memoirs must be struck by the dam
age wrought to Russia by the unwise
| opponents of all reform who, by OPP
posing every sensible movement for
betterment, turned the energies of the
young men, who, under happier condi-
! lions. would have worked for rational
betterment, into the channels of a use
less and destructive revolutionary
movement
'The multi-millionaire is not per-se a
healthy development in this country.
/ II his fortune rests on a basis OF
wrong-doing, he is far more danger
Gus criminal than any of the ordinary
| types of criminals can possibly be. II
| his fortune is the result of great serv-
ice rendered. well and good; he de-
serves respect and reward for such
service although we must remember
to pay our homage to the service itself
and not to the fortune which is the
mere reward of the service; but when
his fortune is passed on TO some one
else, who has not rendered the service,
then the nation should impose a
heavily graded, progressive inheritance
tax, singularly wise and unobjec-
tionable kind of tax. 1t would be a
particularly good thing if the tax bore
heaviest on absentees.'