Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-05-28
MONEY POWER TO THE UTMOST
Preparing TO Tax the Rich and the Poor
According to Their Ability


THE reasons the President advances
= for the immediate consideration by
Congress of new war-revenue bill are
convincing. In sentence or two he
sweeps aside the petty political con-
siderations which the party leaders had
been urging against immediate action.
They wanted to go home to work for
their reelection. But, says Mr.. Wilson,
politics is adjourned. The elections will
go to those who think least of it, to those
who go to the constituencies without ex-
PLANTATION or excuses, with a plain record
of duty faithfully and disinterestedly
performed"
The duty to be performed by Congress
is to provide money for carrying on the
war. There can be no doubt Of this. It
obtrudes itself in every phase of war
activity. Neither ordnance nor ships nor
munitions nor man-power can be pro
vided without money. Money is mobile
military power. 1t is the ways on which
armies travel. 1t is the motive force
which constructs and explodes every shell
and fires every rifle and machine gun
and sinks every submarine. 1t is the
master key which throws the holt in the
lock on the door in the wall of steel that
Germany has built about Central Europe.
The duty is so evident that, as the
President says in his fine phrase, we
know it is there, and even though our
eyes are closed we cannot help feeling its
presence stark and naked before us.
How it is to be performed is matter
of detail Four billions more must be
raised by taxation and a bond issue
larger than any that has previously been
offered for subscription must be foated.
The country cannot adjust its financial
muscles for bearing this enormous
burden, says the President, unless it
knows in advance where it is to be placed.
There is sound sense in this view. The
taxes are to be levied on the business of
the current year beginning on the lst
of last January. And the bonds are to
be foated in the autumn. 1t has been
suggested that $4,000 100000 is to be the
amount of the loan.
ration of the new revenue bill we shall
know in a general way what taxes are to
be increased. The President has already
intimated that incomes, war profits and
luxuries are to he most heavily taxed.
This means that the Government intends
to take back from the men with war con-
tracts part of the money which they have
received from the Federal Treasury, that
the incomes of those men whose bust
ness has been made prosperous indi
rectly through the war are to be mulcted
for the general good and that those who
have the money to buy luxures must pay
to the Government a fee in the shape of
an increased cost for the privilege of
spending their money for things that are
not necessary.
There will be an undoubted disposition
to force the rich to pay to the utmost,
but Congress will make mistake if it
neglects to make the new taxes demo
cratic in the broadest possible meaning
of the term. A lowering of the limit of
incOme-taX exemption is desirable in the
interest of fair play as we'll as in the
interest of increasing the revenues. Au-
thority to levy an income tax was con-
ferred on Congress for just such an
emergency as now confronts us. The
rich must be taxed according TO their
ability to pay and the poor according
to their means, for only thus can the
money be raised.
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