The Nome daily nugget., 1911-08-05

jax on the income from real estate un- constitutional unless it was appor- toned among the states according to population. while four voted it Consti- tutional. A majority held a tax upon the income of personal property con stitutional
 on the second hearing the majority declared tax upon the income of per sonal property unconstitutional unless apportioned among the states. as di- rect tax Is required to be
 The country learned several astonish- ing things from these two hearings First. that a power to tax which had never been doubted did not exist at all, unless exercised in a manner that would he oppressive and intolerable An apportioned income tax would re- qure the taxpayers of the state to pay several times as much per capita as taxpayers of another state The coun- try learned, in the second place. that the great tribunal. which twenty years earlier had by unanimous vote held an income tax perfectly constitutiouai-a court of giant judges like Clifford. Swayue, nrnfv., D.~ss'oy- ~..i Harlan really did not know anything about political economy. taxation or the con stitution
 The country soon discovered. in the third place, that the majority of the judges who decided the income tax cases of 1895 had not looked into the constitutional history of the tax These judges according to recent book by Professor Seligman. accepted the in credibly stupid things stated by the lawyers who opposed the tax-for example. that Turgot. French states man and economist. had published in 1764 treatise which never appeared in print until fifty years later, The present Chief Justice White was one of the four dissenting judges who upheld the income tax Justice Harlan was another
 The income tax decision of 1895, com plctefN- uuIIiTNina tJ,o cic~f-iou uphold ing the tax twenty years earlier, liter ally created a sensation. The country was notified by half of The Supreme Court that il had no such power to tax. as for more than a century had been assumed to exist Even if in imminent peril. even if in struggle for self preservation. it could not. according to. five judges. levy any income tax what suevcr, save according to populations tax SD negotiable that no Congress would dare to propose it
 If the law was as the five judges said the country. though a giant, was fet- tered and paralyzed No more em- phatic denunciation of this reasoning has ever been uttered than appears in the dissenting opinions. Justice White said that The decision of the majority was fraught with danger tu. the court. to each and every citizen and to the republic"
 This revolutionary decision led to an
 immediate movement to amend the Constitution. The movemut was mdc- pendent Of party IL aimed to regain for the government a power to tax in- hcrent in every other sovereignty of ChriStrudom. The democratic party was pioneer in the agitation. In 1908 its platform urged Congress to submit to the states d constitutional amend ment Specifically authorizing Congress to levy and collect tax upon indi- yidual and corporate incomes, to the end that wealth might bear it's propor- tiona,e burdens Of federal government"
 President Taft, in a special meSsag, in the summer of 1909. said he had be- come convinced that "a great majority of the people of the country were in favor of vesting the national govern ment with power To levy an income tax"
 An amendment was drafted and ear ried in both houses of Congress I, has been approved by thirty-o e states The ratification of thirty five states is essential to make it part of the organic law: