New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1917-06-06

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them now It IS our duty to stand by them
more steadfastly than we ever did before.
But it requires something more than
repeating these ideals in tabloid form
over and over gain. It requires some
thing more than lip worship, something
moret hanfag waving, something grander
than dying for our country, something
more than standing by our President. It
requires that we give these glorious
ideals realization to our people and to
the world. When we put these ideals
into practice will we have peace, and not
till then.
We are loyal people. We are a
patriotic people. We are a practical
people. And yet we love our ideals, and
the problem for us to solve is to find why
it is that realization of these ideals IS
denied to the great mass of our people.
Chief Justice Marshall disclosed the
key to the problem when he said, "The
power to tax is the power to destroy"
And we have unfortunately adopted the
same system of taxation that has de-
stroyed the liberties of every people who
have tried to obtain liberty. We have
used tax to destroy industry instead of
encouraging industry. We have used a
tax to curb thrift rather than to de-
velop thrift. We have used a tax to
stimulate speculation rather than to dis3
courage gambling. We have used tax
to restrain trade rather than to stimulate
it. We have used tax to close oppor-
tunities rather than to free them. And
whenever we were in search of new
methods of taxation we have invariably
sent commissions to Germany, Austria,
Italy, England, OF some other monarchy
and if it worked in crushing monarchy
it was grated onto our republic too.
And when our people suffered from the
same evils that result from corrupt
taxation we have sent commission after
commission to the same monarchies SO
as to obtain knowledge of the palliatiyes
and anesthetics that they usein monarch
les to Supply their people and these false
remedies have been grated upon our
people in such way that one is accused
of lack of patriotism if he protest. In
stead of showing the monarchies of
Europe how successful we have been in
copying their corrupting methods it is
our duty to break away from those
methods and again return to those ideals
that have been so precious to our hearts
and for which our fathers who loved
liberty fought and died. The auto
cracies of the world have always been
imposed upon their people as burden
and their taxing methods have been
operated to conform to that fact. It
is our duty to make our government SER
vice to it's members and we should make
our taxingsystem conform to that ideal.
The saying that ''all men>have the
natural right to life, liberty, <and ethe
pursuit Of happiness" is but Nor -
50 long as a few possess the.
can fence all the rest out of it
taxing system, borrowed from Eur
and violating the principles of the DecIa-
ration of Independence, crept into our
constitution and has been heavy burden
upon the energy and thrift of those who
would use the earth to good advantage,
while it lightly touches those WAC hold
land out of use and who will neither use
it nor permit others to labor. This
stimulates a high speculative price on
land and our natural resources and places
them out of the reach of the great mass
of our people and cessfully produces
that strange paradox in Republic, idle.
men and idle land. Our people are in
the same predicam ent as the shipwrecked
sailor on raft, with water, water everv-
where but not a drop to drink. We
have land, land everywhere but not a
foot to use. We have made it more
profitable to hold land out of use and
crush the worker than it is to use land
and permit him to labor. This is not
because the owner is selfish or unpatriotic
but because the governm ent will penalize
him if he gives another Job.
The same is true of the expression
freedom of the high seas" This is
absolute hypocrisy so long we have a
customhouse at the dock. For what
does it avail a shipper if he can sail, and
sail and have nowhere to land? If we
are DESTROYS of the same peace between
ourselves and other peoples as we have
had between the people of our various
states we must have the same measure
of freedom oftrade.