Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-05-08

IL.
| uniform. the most easily and accurately
ascertained. and the most readily col
! lected of any that could be imposed
| why should not Congress, the constitu-
| tionally chosen local legislature of Wash
! ington. act as faithful and synopathetic
representatives of these people. whose
interests are intrusted exclusively TO thei,
legislative protection, and devise and nut
In operation or preserve and keep in oper-
alton means of raising the needed local
tax revenue which Will pinch the least
which will be the most popular or the
least unpopular. and which will create the
minimum OF friction and discomfort? Why
on the contrary, should Congress be
tempted to play the oriental mot the
american role of alien. despotfc tax
gatherer. searching for in order to Apply
TO this defenseless community every con-
ceivable form of general or special tax
that has ever been devised anywhere to
extort money from helpless taxpayers
whose taxation is without representa-
tiono
VIII Congress decide that it Is its func-
| uon, unnecessarily. SO far as the raising
OF revenues for legitimate public pur-
poses is concerned, to see that the Wash
lngtonian is blistered with every form
OF tax exaction from which any unfor-
tunate taxpayer suffers in all the world
Because this or that municipal taxpayer
here or in Europe. under his own pecul-
lar local conditions Involving perhaps
extravaganza. corruption, tine reign of the
gratterl. pays "A poll tax. road tax. an
! inheritance tax. an income tax. or a
tax on everything he produces and on
he takes in and every cent he pays out
must all these taxes be levied upon and
collected from the Washington taxpayer
under entirely different conditions and
with no compelling necessity in evil
dence?
II has hean sn0rastad that oil ,oaaihle
taxes should be imposed by representa-
tives of the states upon residents in the
District In order to prevent any one
from coming to live in tho District to
escape some especially Objectionable form
! of taxation in any of the states. The
contention is that Congress, acting as
the local legislature representing In
theory the Washingtonians in deciding
for themselves on American principles ,e
their own forms of taxation, should dis
regard the wishes and welfare Of Its
Washington constituents and as local
legislature should decide questions af-
fecting these constituents solely from the
selfish viewpoint of other constituents in
the home districts in the states.
If all congressman performed their con-
stitutional duties as exclusive local 1egis-
lators for Washington. on the suggested
low plane ignoring or repudiating any
obligation to consider the interests of the
local community confided to their pro-
| lection and management as trustees, and
basing every vote in respect to local con-
Germs solely on the supposed selfish or
ignorant wishes of their home constitu-
ents. a thousand or two thousand or
three thousand miles away, the logical
effect of this combined cooperative hos
tility would evidently be to depopulate
the District of permanent residents by
depriving it of every attraction to tempt
the resident OF a state and by imposing
upon it such unbearable restrictions as
would tend to render it uninhabitable.
Too much of past local legislation has
been in effect, if not in intent hostile
and hurtful. If Congress had wished. in
the interest of the states. to drive out
and keep out from Washington all desir-
able permanent residents 1t could hardly
have acted differently on certain lines OF
legislation. In the interest of Baltimore,
Richmond Philadelphia and other neigh
boring commercial cities 1t has. histori-
cally, discouraged Washngton's COM
mercial and industrial growth. 1t has
deprived the Washingtonian of the means
of self-support found in the local indus
tries that develop in the ordinary Ameri-
can city. 1t has concentrated the great
local industries. corresponding to the fac
tories, mills and manufacturing plants OF
other cities, in the hands of tho govern
ment. and then. by the apportionment-of-
officers law. shuts out from the classified
service In these great national-local in
uuStIleS hi -" NJ tidIiAi W GO a
residence. including the growing youth
of the city. Thus Congress denies the
capital great industries of its own, It
shuts out Neutrality-suspicious. from the ma
tional-local industries; it drives out from
the city the growing youth that they may
find elsewhere the means of self-support.
Having taken these steps to exile labor,
it is now invited to proceed to drive out
capital by enacting an inquisitorial, IN
equal and periury-promoting form Of per-
sonal taxation at a time when the need
ed local tax revenues are collected with
a minimum OF friction and offense under
a system to which the taxpayers have be-
come accustomed. 1t discourages perma-
rent residence in the District by either
the poor or the rich man by retaining the
District resident in the status of an alien
so far as representation in the national
legislature and electoral college is con-
cerned, and in a status lower than tina,
of an alien according to the Supreme
Court of the United States in his rela-
ton to the national judiciary. With des-
potic and exclusive power in Its hands II
taxes the District resident heavily, ir
view of the limitations placed by it upon
his money-earning capacity: and some OF
its members then abuse him as a mendi.
cant. Having done SO much to make II
undesirable to live here. it is now pro.
posed that Congress. through the impo.
sition of an unnecessary and drastic in.
heritance tax. shall render 1t undesirable
even to die here