The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-30

The supreme court has vindicated the legal acumen of President Taft by de- ciding that the corporation tax is con- stitutional. The clause was inserted in the law of 1909 to prevent tn advocates of an income tax from pressing their plan and in addition they were given the resolution submitting the income tax amendment to the states, a bantling that has been murdered in the house of it's supposed friends.
 The corporation tax is both good and bad When it reaches him who has inn mense holdings it is sound policy; but when 1t strikes the struggling small in- vestor with score of shares or less It is vicious, and more mschievous than it seems. The wide distribution of se7 curities into small holdings is the only satisfactory solution of the corporation problem, and this corporation tax un- fortunately tends to consolidate corpor- ate securities in a few hands. Indeed it is a mighty poor and d mighty lame substitute for the income tax.
 What makes the railroad question so pestiferous is the fact that a single in dividual, or a single family, ofttimes nas enormous holdings of railroad stocks The true policy is to have 1000 holders of such securities where now is one. Safety demands such distribution and the law should encourage it rather than retar1 it. Every great corporation should adopt the policy of urging it's operatives to
 invest their savings in it's stock and means should be taken to make 1t to the interest of the operative and many other of small means to do so.
 Take the Louisville and Nashville rail- road. Suppose 40 per cent of it's stock was in the hands of the men who run it, from the president to section hand and another 40 per cent held by the merchants, mechanics, farmers, hucl- sters, live stock traders and others in the territory through which it passed. There would be no strikes on the part of the operatives, and no quarrels be- tween shipper and carrier. No dema- gogue could make votes denouncing the railroad, for the road would be the prop erty of the people it serves.
 When the railroad question is finally settled, it will be on lines I have tried to suggest, or we shall have government ownership and operation. My plan is beneficient socialism. The other is vic ious socialism, Under my plan the rail- roads could be consolidated into one gi- gantic corporation and the laws of ev- cry state might provide that fiduciaries of small estates invest their trust funds in it's securities which would be as sound as government bonds. Then encourage every individual especially the farmer and the laborer, to put his small savings into the stocks and bonds of the con- cern, and in time the people would run ths concern. And other great corpora tions should be treated the same way banks industrials, and so on.
 As for the very rich, they should be treated as their class is in England their. wealth should be taxed for the government. There is the republic of the United States, the biggest governmental concern in the world, and the costlest. supported by taxes on consumption. l make no doubt that many fellow with a salary of $40 a week in Wall street pays as much taxes on the clothes he wears as J. Pierpont Morgan or John D.. Rockefeller whose gigantic incomes are immune from taxation by the federal government. If either of those two plu- tocrats was a subject of George ".