Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-05-28
NVTASHINGTON, May 27-The
w presidents address in full
follows:


follows:
with unaffected reluctance that 1
come to ask you to prolong your
session long enough to provide
more adequate resources for the
treasury for the conduct of the
war. l have reason to appreciate
as fully as you do how arduous the
session has been. Your labors have
been severe and protracted. You
have passed a long series of meas
ures which required the debate Of
many doubtful questions of judg-
ment and many exceedingly difficult
questions of principle, as we'll as
of practice. The summer is upon
us in which labor and counsel are
twice ardous and are constantly apt
to be impaired by lassitude and ia
tigue The elections are at hand
and we ought as soon as possible
TO go and render an intimate &C
count of our trusteeship to the peo-
pie who delegated us to act for
them in the weighty and anxious
matters that crowded upon US In
these days of critical choice and
action. But we dare not go to the
elections until we have done our
duty to the full. These are days
when duty stands stark and naked
and even with closed eyes we know
it is there. Excuses are HnaVall-
ing. We have either done our duty
or we have not. The fact will be
as gross and plain as the duty it
self. In such a case lassitude and
fatigue seem negligible enough. The
nd fFPGhRn
the labor.
And the facts are these: Add
tional revenues must manifestly be
provided for. 1t would be most
unsound policy to raise too large a
proportion of them by loan, and it
is evident that the four billions now
providcd for by taxation will not OF
themselves sustain the greatly en-
larged budget, to which we must
Immediately look forward
We cannot in fairness wait until
the end of the fiscal year is at hand
to apprise our people of the taxes
they must. pay on their earnings or
the present calendar year, whose r
accountings and expenditures will
then be closed. We cannot get IN
creased taxes unless the country
knows what they are to be ana
practices the necessary economy TO
make them available. Defnlteness'
early defniteness as to what Its
tasks are to be, is absolutely neces-
sary for the successful administra-
ton of the treasury; it cannot
frame fair and workable regulations
in haste; and it must frame It's
regulations in haste If 1t is not 10
know it's exact task until the very
eve of it's performance. The pres
ent tax laws are married, moreover,
by ineuuities which ought to be
remedied. Indisputable facts, every
one; and we cannot alter or blink
them. To state them is argument
enough.
And yet perhaps you will permit
me to dwell for a moment upon the
situation they disclose. Enormous
loans freely spent in the stimulation
Of industry of almost every sort
produce mutations and extrava-
gances which presently make the
whole economic structure question
able and insecure and the very basis
of credit is cut away. Only fair,
euuitably distributed taxation, of
the widest incidence and drawing
chiefly from the sources which
would be likely to demoralize credit
by their very abundance, can pre-
vent initiation and keep our indus
trial SYSTEM free of speculation and
waste We shall naturally turn,
therefore, l suppose, TO war profits
and incomes and luxuries for the
additional taxes. By the war profits
and incomes upon which the in
creased taxes will be levied will
be the profits and incomes of the
calendar year 1918. 1t would be
manifestly unfair to wait until the
early months of 1919 to say what
they are to be. 1t might be diff
cult, l should imagine, to run the
mill with water that had already
gone over the wheel.
Moreover, taxes of that sort will
not be paid until the June of next
year and the treasury must antici-
pate them. II must use the money
they are to produce before it is due.
1t must sell short-time certificates
Of Indebtedness. In the autumn a
Il much larger sale of longtime
bonds must be effected than has
vet been attem pied. What are the
bankers to think of the certificates
if they DO not certainly know where
the money is to come from which is
TO take them up? And how are in
vesto-s to approach the purchase of
bonds with any sort Of confidence
or knowledge of their own affairs if
they do not know what taxes they
are to pay and what economies and
adjustments of their business they
must effect? / cannot assure the
country Of a successful administra-
ton of the treasury in 1918 if the
question of further taxation is to be
left undecided until 1919.
The consideration that dominates
every other now and makes every
other seerh trivial and negligible,
is the winning of the war. We are
not only in the midst OF the war,
we are at the very peak and crisis
of it. Hundreds OF thousands of
our men. carrying our hearts with
them and our fortunes. are in the
field. and ships are crowding faster
and faster to the ports of France
and England with regiment after
regim thousand after thousand,
to Join them until the enemy shall
he beaten and brought to a reckon
ing with mankind. There can be no
pause or intermission. The great
enterprise must. on the contrary. be
pushed with greater and greater
energy. The volume of our might
must steadily and rapidly be aug
mented until there can be no ques-
ton of resisting 1t. If that is 70 be