Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1914-10-23

rAihO.
Senator Borah said in his speech OF
the war tax:
No better or filter illustration of the
power through taxes to destroy OF
the bungling use of the power could
be found than is now before US. At a
time when we are boasting that we are
at peace with all the world, including
both our friends Carranza and Villa,
and at a time when the people of our
country are, many of them, cut of en-
ployment, when business is depressed,
salaries being reduced, and worry and
anxiety are accompanying many-a man
to his home at night we are stealing
about here and there trying, like the
fomenters of the French revolution,
to find something to tax. At time
when the business world and the citi-
zens are curtailing all expenditures
possible and looking wearily for re-
lief, our government is reveling in riot
of extravaganza. I am reminded of
some lines from one of the historians
recounting conditions just before the
French revolution:
Taxes ran into everything. The
minister who could invent a new
tax was lauded as a man of gen.
ius. The imposition of the tax
was entirely arbitrary. No man
could tell when or what his tax
would be next. There was no prin-
ciple in the assessment except to ex-
tort as much as possible. The
taXgatherers would be sent into a
district to collect one year one
n!llion francs and perhaps the
next year it would be two millions.
We are not nearing a French revo-
luton, but we have already approach
ed the time when those who can invent
a new tax are looked upon as men of
genius. We have approached a time
when the imposition of the tax is en-
tirely uncertain and arbitrary when the
citizen does not know anything about
month to another. We have reached
the time WREN there is no principle al
the assessment, except to extort money
and pay for our extravaganza.
Indefensible and IntoerabIe.
1 look upon the whole scheme of
this special tax as indefensible and in
tolerable and as the elimination of a
series of months of unwarranted and
indefensible extravaganza in govern
mental expenditure, and if the people
of this country had any means or
method by which to reject it or pro-
tect themselves they would employ it at
once.
I am going, in the first place. to
call attention to the standard, which |
was given us at the time when we
were about to pass into the hands
entirely of a new party, or rather a |
new administration under a party |
which had long been out of power. ,
1t was believed that if there could be
check in this extravaganza it would
occur Immediately afterwards and at
least for a time after the new broom
was invoked But how powerful and
how strong this tendency is can be
shown in no better way than by call
ing attention to the situation as ii
was at the time the party went into
power, the standard which it set up
for itself, and the record which it has
made since. shall take its own stan
dard, it's own record, and the facts fur
nished by its own standard. its own
record, and the facts furnished by its
own people in order to present the
view of it which proporse to present.
The record is its own, unehallenged and
unimpeaehable.
When they announced their plat
form at Baltimore our friends used
this language: Il
We denounce the profligate
waste of the money wrung from
the people by oppressive taxa
tlon through the lavish appro-
priations Of recent Republican
congresses. which have kept taxes I
high and reduced the purchasing
power Of the peoples toll We
demand a return to that simplic-
ity and economy which BELTS a
Democratic government and a re-
duction in the number Of useless