The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1915-09-07
WOULD CONFISCATE
THE Big FORTUNES
WOULD LIMIT THE PROPERTY
ANY MAN MAY LEAVE HIS
HEIRS TO 500 1000.
CAUSE OF INDUSTRIAL UNREST
Walsh Report of Federal Commission
On Industrial Relations Makes In
teresting Reading. FOrty-FOur
Families Have Million Income.

Families Have Million Income.
The limit of 100000 on the
fortune that any man may leave to
his heirs is the remedy for the social
and industrial unrest in the United
States suggested by Chairman Frank
P. Walsh and the three labor repre-
sentatives in the federal commission
on industrial relations.
The commission, now at the end of
it's labors, was composed of three
representatives each of the employ
ers, the employed and the general
public The commissioners were I'M
able to agree on a single report and
three have been issued
Causes of Industrial Unrest.
The Walsh report finds that the
causes of industrial unrest group
themselves almost without exception
under four main sources:
l. Unjust distribution of wealth
and income.
2. Unemployment and denial of
opportunity to earn living.
3. Denial of justice in the crea-
ton, in the adjudication and in the
administration of law.
A. Denial of the right and oppor-
tunity to form effective organizations.
Mountains of Gold.
The report summarizes evidence
showing that a families possess ag-
gregate incomes totalling at the least
$50, 100000 a year, while between
one-fourth and one-third of male
workers in factories and mines IS
years of age and over earn less than
$40 per week and only about one
tenth earn more than $40 per week.
''Massed in millions at the other
end of the social SCALE" continues the
report, are fortunes of a size never
before dreamed of, whose very own
ers do not know the extent nor with
out the aid of an intelligent clerk
even the sources of their incomes
Incapable of being spent in legitimate
manner these fortunes are burdens,
which can only be squandered, hoard
ed, put into sO-called benefactions,
which for the most part constitute a
menace to the state, or put back into
the Industrial machine to pile up ever
! increasing mountains of gold.
The American law of inheritance
is as efficient for the establishment
and maintenance of families as the
English law, which has bulwarked
the British aristocracy through the
centuries.
Swollen Fortunes.
According to the income tax re-
turns for ten months of 1914 there
are in the United States 1893 fort
unes yielding an income of 100000
per year or over. Practically all of
these fortunes are so invested and
hedged about with restrictions upon
expenditure that they are, to all in
tents and purposes, perpetuities.
I'VE have, according to the income
tax returns, 4 4 families with incomes
of 81 900, 900 or more, whose men,
bers perform little or no useful ser
vice but whose aggregate incomes to-
falling at the least $50, 100000 per
year, are equivalent to the earnings
of 100, 600 wage earners at the aver
age rate of $500"
| AS a remedy for this unequal dis
| tribution of wealth and income the
report urges the enactment of an
inheritance tax so graded that while
making generous provision for the
support of dependents and the edu-
cation of minor children it shall leave
no large accumulation of wealth to
pass into hands which had no share
in its Production" The report sug-
gests that a limit of 100000 be
fixed as the amount that shall pass
to the heir. 1t recommends that the
revenue from this tax be reserved by
| the federal government for three
principal purposes.