The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-09-05
ColOneTs Big Stick Comes in
Handy on Current Issue.
Make 1t as Heavy as EngIand's
Up to so Per Cent.
SLAMS INTERNAL ENEMIES
Nation Dilly-Dallying on War
Preparation, He Asserts.
Denounces German Warfare as
"HideOus Beyond Belief"

Chatham, N. Y, Sept. 5.-Conscrip-
ton of war profits to meet war ex-
penses was demanded today by Colo
mel Roosevelt. Speaking at the Col
umbia county fair here, he declared
himself in favor of "a very heavily
graduated tax on the excess profits
due to war conditions; tax as heavy
as Great Britain has now imposed.
The highest British war profits tax
is eighty per cent.
Heavily graduated inhe, :tance and
income taxes are also necessary,
Roosevelt asserted. He said that they
should follow the English and Ger
man models.
In the purchases made by the gov
ernment,' Roosevelt declared sit
ought to pay prices high enough to
enable not merely the big manufac-
turers. but their smaller ard less ad-
vantageously situated rivals to secure
a generous living profit This means
that the big manufacturers would
have excess profits and the proper
way to reach these is by taxing them
heavily. If the government fails to
follow such action, if t follows a
course of indecision and delay, the re-
suit will be as bad as it has already
proved in the matter of building ships.
Classifies Enemies at Home"
"At present what is most needed is
a heavily very heavily-graduated
tax on the excess profits due to war
conditions; a tax as heayy as Great
Britain has now imposed"
Protect Wages of Labor.
Roosevelt advised against "any such
| restriction of profits as would reduce
production or lower wages" and said:
1.-The taxes should be 1aii progress
| lively on those able to pay. up to. but
not beyond the point where payment
becomes unjust or oppr essive or in
terferes with production"
The government, he said should be
careful about fixing prices that are
too low, but should certainly prevent
excessively high prices"
Roosevelt attacked as "enemies of
the United States the wa proffteers,
working men who refuse first class
work for a first class wage, pro-Ger-
mans, professional pacifists = those
| advocating peace withoue victory
the I. w. W. and the Socialist party
machine.
Demanders of a peace except ''the
peace of a complete victory over the
brutalized and Prussianized Gesmany
of the Hohenzollerns'' were de-
nounced by Roosevelt as "enemies to
this country and to mankind
The colonel verbally lashed 'tshilly
shallying'' in war preparations and
American unpreparedneess. ut took
Germany less than seven months to
conquer France in 1870" he de-
clared, land now after these seven
months of war preparation we are still
nothing like as formidable as Bel
GUM or Rumania."
Ban on 'War Dragging"
He advised against war raging
| and recited the following to emphasizes
his point:
What's the use of all this
Dragging up and down,
When three women and one goose
Make market in your town."
After denouncing Germany's war
fare as "hideous beyond belief OBJ
scene, cruel, brutal and unspeakably
foul" he branded German language
passions as ''scandalously disloyal" to
the United States and declared that
any man-in congress or out-who
| tried to have those of German de-
scent exempt from army duty against
! Germany were traitors. pure and
| simple" Attackers of England are
also traitors. he said