New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-09-05
By HiS Weed.

ONGRESS gave itself a succession Of
surprise parties when it created the
~ Commission on Industrial Relations.
...a ri6dle-a9ed people never do like surprise
..,.i.s they're too sudden. The routine of
rf. ;s al broken up. Frank Walsh has been
.:,s,q srr-risc parties in the different cities OF
y, United States for two years and has con-
.lr5sd with exploding a giant hrecracker in
y. ears OF the rich by proposing one million
dollars as the limit on the worldly goods they
can beoueath to treir heirs.
# does seem as though people ought to be
able 70 worry along on that amount, but the
question IS How are they going to be brought
% this simplicity II everything in excess Of
~. million is to revert to the state upon their
a.,.b shall we not have our wealthy septuage-
r,rians making glad the young Of their fani-
lies BY birthday s..ts Of million in gilt-edged
securities. little Easter eggs of a railroad sys-
TEN and as a wedding gift the notes on the
lstest Chinese loan?
OF course. we might try to hamper these last
moments Of amia5iLty by passing law in
validating all such gifts three years prior to
death. On the conviction that, human nature
being what it IS, few would be equal to such
surrender Of their possessions until death &C
,ulny had mortgage on their days. But prob
ablv me spectacle Of the suff erings wrought in
few families by the daliance Of their too op-
timistc parents would hasten the gift giving.
Somehow Wall Street hasn't taken this FIRE
cracker seriously. And that must have been
disappointing, io- when we set oh anything
with bang we enjoy seeing people start and
their eyes 60 shut
Val Street does take far more seriously the
Recommendation in the Commons Report that
advocates the enactment Of a federal inheri-
lance tax law graduated from per cent on the
t1-ess Of $4,000 fortunes left to direct heirs,
10 Is ger cent on fortunes over 100000"
linking men know that it is only matter OF
re uni, We have an inheritance tax for it
exists in England and in many Of our states,
which yearly take q toll of something like
s2500O0O0 IRON inheritances. THE New Re-
pusEc" estimates shat progressive inheritance
tax al the same rates which now prevail in
Great Britain would yield revenue of $780,
100000, OF almost ten times the yield Of the
present state Inheritance tax.
WHAT GROWS IN THE WALSH GAR
DEN?
Part Of the Inheritance tax the Commons Re
port proposes 70 use for the support of per-
nsnent commission for the adjustment Of in
dasuiai difficulties and for such projects as
establishing sickness and unemployment insur-
ance, old age pensions employment Offices,
iurtherng industrial education and helping
tenant farmers, all Of them projects which are
IN England accomplished facts.
These two proposals, to conhscate all inner
itances in excess Of 81 100000 and to create a
permanent industrial commission, have rent the
Commission, if one may speak of rending a
body already so filed with dissension. l sup
pose the internal struggles of this body, that
seem to have characterized it from the first,
are, in sense a reflection of the prejudices
wilh which people to-day discuss industrial